2nd Green Revolution

The following article is by Alison Hopcroft,a sustainability and carbon management consultant who works for Fluid Market Strategies in Portland, Oregon. Alison is leading a free webinar on carbon management this Tuesday, March 2nd at 12pm EST.

Despite the fact that hope for meaningful climate legislation has all but completely disappeared for this session of Congress, climate regulation will be arriving at some point in the near future. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is the avenue for this regulation, and although many industry groups and a group of senators are challenging the EPA’s Endangerment Finding released last December advocating for a slower phase-in of regulations with higher reporting thresholds, the EPA’s Final Mandatory Reporting of Greenhouse Gases Rule is still in effect (Read more about these challenges in the New York Times and the Washington Post)

Regulation means that there will be an increased need for professionals who can quantify and verify greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Quantification is the accounting of all of an organization’s emissions, otherwise known as developing a GHG inventory. Verification is essentially an audit (the act of verifying that the quantification was performed accurately) and follows the reporting protocols and meets reporting standards. Read the rest of this entry »

Green energy start-ups often promise revolutionary technology in going after the Holy Grail of clean, cheap, efficient, and abundant energy only to disappoint in the end. What makes Bloom Energy and the claims that they make any different? Well, perhaps nothing. But perhaps they will back up their talk when a mysterious countdown on their homepage is explained on Wednesday. Featured recently on 60 Minutes, the company is the product of a foray into business by former NASA engineer KR Sridhar. The origin of the technology goes back to a project to produce oxygen for astronauts on Mars. Once that program was scrapped by NASA, Sridhar reversed his design to make a fuel cell that uses oxygen and fuel to produce electricity. Read the rest of this entry »

• American household emissions come primarily from driving, electricity and home heating. Outside of America’s low-car outlier, New York, emissions from driving range from an average of 22,500 pounds of carbon dioxide per year in places like Providence and Boston (reflecting about 1,000 gallons of gas bought each year) to an average of 32,000 pounds of carbon dioxide per year in places like Greenville, S.C.

• Carbon emissions from San Diego, San Francisco and San Jose, California were the lowest among American metropolitan areas, but “are still more than four times the emissions in the brownest Chinese city (Daqing) and 10 times as high as the household emissions in the average Chinese city.”
• The average household in San Francisco uses about seven megawatt hours of electricity per year, which is associated with about 7,000 pounds of carbon dioxide. The average household in Orlando, Fla., or Memphis, Tenn., uses about 18.5 megawatt hours of electricity per year and that creates about 26,400 pounds of carbon dioxide.

• Average July temperatures are the best predictor of electricity usage.
• Home heating is the third major source of household emissions. Carbon dioxide emissions from that source range from less than 1,000 pounds per year in Florida cities, to more than 16,000 pounds per year in Detroit.

Source: New York Times

Late last year Thomas Friedman was interviewed by Anne Strainchamps on Wisconsin Public Radio’s To The Best of Our Knowledge. The focus of the interview was the current green revolution, what we have taken to calling the second green revolution. He argues that everyone must participate if this is to be considered a true revolution.

In the interview, which can be heard here, Friedman claims that today’s measures fail to qualify as a revolution. He cites the general greenwashing of goods and services and argues that the day when every product achieves the highest energy efficiency will mark the next green revolution. What Friedman fails to acknowledge is that a revolution starts with a small force. However, his observation that “people actually have to change” is an important one. Behavioral changes represent the most daunting hurdle. Read the rest of this entry »

In a site visit to IdleAire’s Denver facility last year, we were impressed with the “provider of comprehensive in-cab idle reduction and driver lifestyle services to the long-haul trucking industry.” But the company couldn’t make it through the recession and, as of January 29th, went bankrupt. The company provided a place where truck drivers could park, shut off the engine (along with its noise, fumes and vibration) and still stay warm or cool while having access to the comforts of home. Providing a comfortable place for drivers to rest while reducing pollution from idling trucks, we praised the company for taking a triple bottom line approach to business. But, as they say on their website, the challenges of the recession were too great to overcome: Read the rest of this entry »

In his holiday letter to members, Rick Fedrizzi, President, CEO and Founding Chair of the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC) mentioned some statistics that speak to the boom in green building:

• 27,373 people joined Greenbuild 2009 in Phoenix
• 14 million people are employed by a USGBC member company
• Of the 4,328 LEED-certified projects in existence, some 2,090 – more than 48%! – achieved certification in 2009
• Nearly half of all certifications in LEED’s eight-year history occurred during one of the toughest economic years in memory
• Some 33% of LEED-certified homes are affordable homes, and USGBC has worked to bring LEED Platinum affordable homes to the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans
• With the financial support of USGBC’s individual and organizational donors, five recipients of the USGBC Young Leader Awards and 39 other deserving students and professionals attended Greenbuild 2009 on full-conference scholarships.

- Rick Fedrizzi
President, CEO and Founding Chair
U.S. Green Building Council

Last month’s lengthy post titled “Inefficient Devices and the Laws of Thermodynamics” failed to relate the abstract laws of thermodynamics to everyday life. This post aims to tie the two together in a more easily digestible package.

Devices that consume excessive amounts of energy, convert energy inefficiently, or perform tasks that can be accomplished with less energy are wasteful and need to be replaced. This latter option, achieving a goal with less energy (i.e. carpooling instead of driving individually or cooking indoors on a cold day and leaving the oven ajar to release heat throughout your home) represents a version of low-hanging fruit.
Read the rest of this entry »

U.S. National Debt

The $3.8 trillion budget that President Obama proposed today to Congress for fiscal year 2011 (starting October 1, 2010) is a record. With two on-going wars, money to spur an economic recovery, enormous costs for entitlement programs, and ballooning net interest payments on an estimated $1.3 trillion deficit ($12 trillion national debt) it seemed almost a forgone conclusion that this year would see the largest budget numbers ever. To be fair, this was not Obama’s making but it’s now his problem. Spending beyond our means has finally caught up to us and foreshadows an erosion of U.S. influence that will change international politics and the global balance of power. The new budget also shows the reality of how low clean energy and green technology rank in terms of priorities. Read the rest of this entry »

As a science teacher I can tell you that people find science scary. Perhaps you already knew that. They think it is something they “can’t do” or “don’t get.” They may say they do not have a scientific brain. I can also tell you that these are entirely untrue. Real world, personally accessible examples, instead of theoretical situations, help make the connection to the here and now. For instance, the title of this post “Inefficient Devices and the Laws of Thermodynamics” would probably be enough to scare off most readers. However, by thinking about your own home, this scientific concept comes to life. Read the rest of this entry »

Last weekend’s post “Global Freezing” brought up a couple of important points about why society needs to change its collective behavior. In fact, behavior (along with technology) was posited as the main pathway to achieve energy independence.

One tool currently on the market that encompasses both the technological and behavioral changes needed is the smart meter. Several posts on 2nd Green Revolution have dealt with this topic. Earlier this month on NPR, reporter David Kestenbaum interviewed Dan Reicher, software developer at Google. Host Steve Inskeep provided the following introduction: Read the rest of this entry »