Tag: clean energy

By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Corporate Social Responsibility, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Innovation, Mindset, Social and Economic Justice, Socially Responsible Investing, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,
Earth Lightning, by Stephanie Hofschlaeger
Photo by Stephanie Hofschlaeger

While it sounds deeply pessimistic, I was actually extremely encouraged to read this quote by ecopreneur Paul Hawken in Sierra Magazine (part of a long excerpt from his new book, Regeneration):

Most of the energy we use, whether it be coal, gas, or oil, is wasted, meaning the energy does no useful work. Energy, in its thermal or electrical form, powers systems that are badly designed and poorly engineered, including our buildings, cars, and factories. According to the National Academy of Engineering, the United States is approximately 2 percent efficient, which means that for every 100 units of energy employed, we accomplish two units of work.

Why? Because if we are wasting 98 percent of our energy that means all we have to do engage in a drastic campaign to increase efficiency and conservation. I’d guess that if we can get our efficiency up to 50 percent, we’d never have to drill for more oil and gas or mine for coal and uranium. If we can reach 80 percent, we’d be actively reversing catastrophic global heating. While the technological challenges are steep, they’re not insurmountable—and even if we can go from 2 to 10 percent efficient (and THAT I think we can do easily and relatively quickly, since other parts of the world, including Northern Europe, use far less energy per capita than we do in the US), the changes will be enormous. A lot of this can be done just by thinking different. For example, most of the fuel a car consumes is to move the car itself, not the passengers. If we can cut the weight of a car in half, or carry more people at a time, more of the fuel goes to moving the people and less to moving the vehicle.

Hawken says 82 percent of our carbon output is from burning coal, oil, and gas. So, since we’re wasting 98 percent of the energy those combustion reactions produce,  being more efficient will lead directly to less carbon going into the air and sea.

He concludes with a clarion call to address social justice here and now, as a necessary step to cleaning up our energy act:

To reverse global warming, we need to address current human needs, not an imagined dystopian future.

If we want to get the attention of humanity, humanity needs to feel it is getting attention. If we are going to save the world from the threat of global warming, we need to create a world worth saving. If we are not serving our children, the poor, and the excluded, we are not addressing the climate crisis. If fundamental human rights and material needs are not met, efforts to stem the crisis will fail. If there are not timely and cumulative benefits for an individual or family, they will focus elsewhere. The needs of people and living systems are often presented as conflicting priorities—biodiversity versus poverty, or forests versus hunger—when in fact the destinies of human society and the natural world are inseparably intertwined, if not identical.

Social justice is not a sideshow to the emergency. Injustice is the cause. Giving every young child an education; providing renewable energy to all; erasing food waste and hunger; ensuring gender equity, economic justice, and shared opportunity; recognizing our responsibility and making amends to myriad communities of the world for past injustices—these and more are at the very heart of what can turn the tide for all of humanity, rich and poor, and everyone between. Reversing the climate crisis is an outcome. Regenerating human health, security and well-being, the living world, and justice is the purpose.

As Rebecca Harrington has pointed out, “In a single hour, the amount of power from the sun that strikes the Earth is more than the entire world consumes in an year.” Multiplying that hour by 24 hours in a day, 365 days in a year, we learn that just from the sun, we have 8760 times as much energy coming in as we use. This doesn’t even count wind, hydro, geothermal, and many other promising, truly green technologies that can be designed and deployed in ways that minimize harmful impact (that’s another area where we need to work; not all alternative energy deployments are well-thought-out).  I personally favor small-scale, decentralized installations that are designed with the particular site in mind and are easy and clean to install, service, and eventually disassemble–along with solar and wind on non-forest locations that have already been built upon. Building and vehicular rooftops, parking lots, and highway median strips are all very promising places for green energy deployment, to name a few possibilities.

In short, once we make the transition–and we absolutely need to–we can live perfectly well without the dirty and destabilizing fossil and nuclear technologies we currently rely on–and the first step is getting more work out of the energy we’re already using.

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By Posted on Posted in Activism, Business Ethics, Business-general, Consumer Issues, Corporate Social Responsibility, Democracy, Eco-friendly, Energy & Sustainability, Environment, Green Business, Green Living/Green Lifestyles, Green Marketing, Greenwashing, Innovation, localism/locavore, Marketing Techniques and Philosophies, People Helping People, Politics, Protests and Crackdowns, Talking to the Other Side, Technology Tagged with , , , , ,

While searching “electric lawn service near me,” I found this CNN story from 2000 miles away that describes an eco-village sold down the river by the new owner of the land.

It is very unfortunate that the original developer didn’t get any guarantees that a buyer would maintain the fossil-free commitment written into the sale documents. Nonetheless, I think a creative and skilled attorney could make a number of different legal arguments that could force the developer to honor the agreement. Could the Environmental Defense Fund? perhaps take this on? It would be a great precedent to say that a community developed specifically as an eco-community could not then be put at the mercy of eco-hostile development.

As a non-lawyer, all I can do is speculate about the arguments a lawyer might use to block the conversion of the acquired parcels to fossil fuels (I have no idea if any of these would hold up in court and I am not presenting this as legal advice). Arguments could be made about such harms as

  • Introducing new health risks (especially to children)
  • Negative progress on climate that goes against International, US,Colorado, and neighborhood climate goals
  • Adverse possession (a doctrine that gives rights to squatters in certain circumstances)
  • The deliberate destruction of a cohesive intentional community
  • And of course, about consumers’ rights: this could clearly be seen as bait-and-switch: buying into a community with a stated purpose, and having that purpose violated, even shredded.

After all, a group of children have sued for climate justice, and the US Supreme Court recognized that their suit had validity (there have been many conflicting decisions on this case, however).

But the courts aren’t the only recourse. I do know something about organizing movements, and these neighbors should be organizing a movement. To list a few among many possibilities, they could be:

  • Organizing mass protests outside the developer’s office
  • Saturating the local paper with letters to the editor and op-eds
  • Enlisting allies in powerful environmental organizations, of which Colorado has no shortage
  • Protesting at the capital in Denver that their rights are being taken away
  • Contacting the press ahead of and after all of these events
  • Physically but nonviolently blocking attempts to connect the pipelines (note: this is illegal civil disobedience and participants might be subject to arrest)
  • Researching obscure laws that might provide tools that can successfully block the connection
  • Organizing boycotts and other public shamings of the developer

Plus, I really have to wonder what the developer is thinking. Eco-friendly homes are in high demand, can often sell for more than the price of comparable fossil-powered homes, and prove a skill set that many homeowners want. After all, people moved from other states just to participate in this community. And forcing eco-hostile housing development into an eco-friendly community is a recipe for public relations disaster and a bad, bad reputation.

Why not simply stop, think about the benefits of keeping this community identity, and use it as a marketing tool? That would make so much more sense than risking ongoing hostility, a ruined reputation and possibly much worse.

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By Posted on Posted in Uncategorized Tagged with , , , ,
Artist sketch of the proposed energy wall along the border, published in Big Think

Wow, I found this fascinating idea on the Big Think website: a string of alternate energy facilities all along the US-Mexico border.

From the article on Big Think

Potentially, this could be a win-win for Democrats (clean energy, good jobs) and Republicans (border security).

However, it’s very rough and needs a lot of refining. Just on a quick glance, I had several questions:

  • How will it affect animal habitat as well as cross-border human friendship and commerce relationships (both put at severe risk by DT’s proposed wall)?
  • Who determines which side of the border gets all this new clean energy?
  • Can we do it WITHOUT the natural gas part–which has plenty of problems of its own?

What other issues come up, and how to we address them? Let’s start TALKING! I’d love to see some serious discussion of the merits or issues. And it would be great if some politicians join the discussion.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Business-general, Energy & Sustainability, Green Business, Peace and War, Politics, Social and Economic Justice Tagged with , , , , ,

All through the Vietnam era, we used to hear that war was terrible in so many other ways, but good for the economy. It put people to work, it allowed companies facing hardship to find customers, etc. etc.

This was always a misleading argument, as war spending created far fewer jobs than many other categories.

It seems today’s market is much more aware of the potential economic devastation of war. Consider this bit of news:

With the possibility of military action against Syria easing, investors sent the markets soaring to a sharply higher close with the Dow leaping 127 points to 15,191. Nasdaq climbed 22 points to 3729.

Incidentally, money spent on energy efficiency and going green has a much higher rate of return for the economy. Green energy spending creates more jobs, consumer spending, and long-term consumer savings that frees up cash for more spending, while war drives us deeper into debt.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Energy & Sustainability, Greenwashing, propaganda, Technology Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Some exciting news from north of the border (and driving distance from me): Quebec shut down its only nuclear power plant, the 675-megawatt Gentilly 2, yesterday. Quebec now joins Germany and Italy, among other places that have abandoned nuclear power.

I’m not familiar with this particular plant, but according to the article, it’s had a history of troubles.

What’s especially interesting is that this plant’s license was very recently renewed.

As someone who’s been using what influence I have to help shut down Vermont Yankee, whose license was renewed by the federal government in violation of both Vermont state law and the earlier promises of plant owner Entergy, this gives me hope. Vermont Yankee has been operating illegally since March 2012, and immorally and unsafely since Vermont Yankee first opened in the 1970s.

Sooner or later, as a society, we will figure out that not only don’t we need nuclear, but relying on nuclear power poses huge risks—not just the catastrophic failures like Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, and Fukushima, but in routine operation. There are risks to our health, from radiation releases…risks to our freedom, because of the security apparatus necessary to protect not just the plants themselves but the entire infrastructure at every step along the very complex path to splitting atoms—starting with mining the uranium and continuing through the milling, processing into fuel rods, transportation across great distances, use in the reactor, and then storing the waste for tens of thousands of years—and risks of putting so much trust in a few large generating stations and being unprepared to cover their absence when they suddenly go off-line. And don’t even get me started on the economic consequences of nuclear power.

Oh, and if you believe the nuclear power industry’s propaganda that nuclear is a “green” technology because the actual moment of splitting atoms doesn’t produce greenhouse gases—think about the carbon footprint AND the energy cost of all those other steps in the process.

The good news: we already have all the know-how to get rid of nuclear and phase out fossil fuels. Clean and renewable energy alternatives exist, and their technology is improving all the time. By designing intelligently to lower demand, and switching to sources like solar, wind, hydro, geothermal, even magnetic and tidal energy, we could maintain and improve our quality of life, reduce greenhouse gases, have more money in our pockets, etc., etc. A good place to start exploring is the Rocky Mountain Institute’s Reinventing Fire page, which shows how countries like Denmark have boldly embraced a safe energy future, and how we could too. Yeah it’s a bit technical—if you want something easier, try this infographic about the potential for renewable energy in the US (note that this chart includes biofuels, some of which are not necessarily clean).

My own view:

  • The greatest potential for energy is in designing and retrofitting for conservation and in changing our use paterns; in the US, we could easily slash energy consumption 50 percent, and with a deeper effort, 80 percent or more. After all, northern European countries like Germany and Denmark use half the US’s per capita energy and achieve comparable lifestyle quality.
  • The clean renewables like solar, wind, and geothermal supply far more energy than we use; we just have to capture it efficiently.
  • It makes the most sense to capture that energy in small systems close to where the power will be used, rather than building huge centralized, environmentally risky solar and wind farms and then wasting a huge percentage of the energy in transmission losses.
  • We have the technology. We just need the will. Let’s do it.

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By Posted on Posted in Abundance and Prosperity, Energy & Sustainability Tagged with , , , , , , ,

Two astounding pieces of news related to the nuclear industry crossed my desk this week.

First, a rundown by Harvey Wasserman, who’s been fighting nukes all the way back to the 1970s (at least two of his many books are on energy issues), on the current very sorry state of the nuclear power industry, worldwide. And only China and Russia have an aggressive construction program at the moment.

Wasserman notes that this is an industry on its knees.

The three most nuclear-embracing societies in the world are the US, France, and Japan, which together have built 217 of the world’s 441 nukes (104), 58, and 55, respectively).

In Wasserman’s article, he notes that:

  • None of Japan’s reactors are currently operating
  • France just elected President Francois Hollande, who campaigned as a pro-safe-energy, anti-nuclear candidate
  • In the US, the few nukes currently under construction are saddled with costs that make them completely uncompetitive, even without all the other negative factors, and with a loan guarantee program (a/k/a “bailout”) that looks increasingly tenuous—and meanwhile, the safe energy/no nukes movement, largely quiet since our victories 30+ years ago, is waking up (I even went to a safe energy demonstration recently whose speakers included Vermont’s governor, one of its senators, and its attorney general)
  • Even China, a country not known to pay much attention to the safety and well-being of its citizens—and one that has been expanding its energy capacity through every technology it can harness—is reevaluating its nuclear program, and may halt construction or shut down some or all of its reactors

And Wasserman didn’t even discuss the several countries (among them Germany and Italy) that have pledged to phase out or shut down their nukes.

The second story is a reminder of one more reason why we should never have harnessed this technology: it’s a genie that won’t stay in the bottle. Every nuclear power generation or fuel processing plant increases the chances of global terrorism, and of rogue governments getting their hands on nuclear weapons.

It turns out that Kodak had its own mini-nuclear reactor and a store of weapons-grade uranium, according to the Los Angeles Times.

As the reporter, Matt Pearce, wryly noted, “Good thing Kodak isn’t in Iran; that’s the kind of thing Israel’s been threatening to go to war over.”

But rest assured that we are out of danger from Kodak’s uranium, he notes:

Lest this story conjure up memories of the anxiety over “loose nukes” after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Kodak ditched the uranium in 2007 with the coordination of the U.S. government, according to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Safety, cost, and atomic proliferation are just three of many reasons to oppose nuclear power. Here’s a PDF you can download (from Germany) called “100 Good Reasons Against Nuclear Power.”

The good news: we totally don’t need it. Amory Lovins and others have shown how the most energy-hogging of societies, such as the US (which uses about twice as much energy per capita as Germany, with about the same standard of living) can cut energy use by 60 or 80 percent, and even the more conservation-minded societies still can find plenty of savings. Combine that with the rapid advances in clean energy technology (solar, wind, small hydro, tidal, magnetic, etc.) and you have a recipe for safe, clean living, high quality of life, and reduced threat of catastrophic climate change.

You might want to send a link to this post to your elected representatives, with a letter about why you favor clean-energy alternatives to nukes and fossil fuels.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmail

By Posted on Posted in Democracy, Energy & Sustainability, poverty Tagged with , , ,

You’d think, by 2010, with some 50 years of bad experience, that the question of nuclear power’s suitability would have been settled long ago. You’d think that anyone with a lick of sense would have figured out that nuclear power brings with it enormous risks to…

  • Health
  • Safety
  • Environmental contamination
  • Vulnerability to terrorism (and in order to protect against that, major threats to our civil liberties
  • Unreliability
  • Economic disaster (including significant danger of default by utilities on our US government investment)
  • Vast power losses in the course of mining, milling, fuel rod production, transmission, and waste processing (including transportation)–turning the industry, by some accounts, into a net consumer of energy

    Yet President Barack Obama announced $8.33 billion in loan guarantees to build two new nuclear power plants in Georgia, and projects another $36 billion in the 2011 budget, or enough for seven to 10 reactors.

    Nuclear power is something I know something about. I did a major research project on it in college, and several years later, wrote first a monthly column, and then my first book on it. Yes, the new plants would be a new and better design—but not better enough!

    You cannot convince me that the waste products can be safely isolated from the environment for a quarter of a million years (think—pretty much the oldest human artifacts in existence are only 1/10 as old)…that centralizing so much energy, and the powerful, highly toxic fuels that power these plants, does not present unacceptable risk at the hands of our enemies, who could create a disaster that made 9/11 look like a fender bender…that driving these toxic stews around the country doesn’t present grave risks just from normal everyday road behavior…that these plants with their terrible reliability record, frequent outages, gross safety violations, and multiple complexities of power generation, plumbing, electricity, and computer systems can be expected to solve our energy problem…that the nuclear power system as a whole, with its dirty mining and milling, its very imperfect waste processing, its reliance on transportation of dangerous substances over very long distances is going to significantly lower either our carbon footprint, our emissions, or our power needs.

    Nuclear power is not necessary. It is not sensible. It opens great risks for small returns that can be much more easily achieved in other ways. It is a gift to the terrorists, a robbery from the taxpayers, a diversion of resources away from better and far more proven technologies that could meet all of our energy needs safely, and a serious threat to the well-being of future generations.

    This “plan” must be stopped.

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