Our family just returned from another mini-trip to look at prospective colleges with our younger child, Valerie, pic here taken years ago.
The relevance to renewable energy and sustainability may appear dubious at first, though I have to say that I was amused by this afternoon’s tour leader who went on at length about her school’s leadership in recycling. “We had won the intercollegiate championship several years in a row, though we just got nipped last year and finished a disappointing second. So, if this is the school of your choice, make sure you bring as much plastic, paper, and aluminum cans as you possibly can.”
This is bound to come across as lacking in the ol’ school spirit, but we’re missing this point here. If we care about the environment, we don’t want to recycle more stuff; we want to use less stuff. Ironically, the colleges that finish last in this competition could have the best record vis-à-vis the environment; the idea of a contest to see how much tonnage we can cart off to recycling centers misses the point in a huge way.
In any case, I know many readers’ families are making their ways through their college tours, dealing with the many thrills as well as the not-insignificant moments of stress, ultimately coming to terms with the fact that their babies will soon be out of the nest, flying on their own wings. My very best wishes to you all.
If I had to live on exactly three foodstuffs for the rest of my life, I’d choose oysters, mangoes and beer. Perhaps I could do better nutritionally if I were to study the subject seriously, but it would be hard to beat the culinary enjoyment.
The article linked above explains, in a very readable presentation, how the rising levels of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere is causing a steady lowering of the oceans’ pH, and that the increasingly corrosive seawater is making it hard for young oysters to build shells. Author Brendon Bosworth writes:
Like the atmosphere, the world’s seas are burdened by our fossil fuel use and deforestation. The ocean has sponged up a quarter of the carbon dioxide humans have produced since the Industrial Revolution, steadily lowering its pH. Today’s seas are 30 percent more acidic than their pre-industrial ancestors. By the turn of the century, scientists anticipate they will be 150 percent more so…. Even if man-made carbon emissions ceased tomorrow, the West Coast would face decades of increasingly corrosive water because the ocean is laden with CO2 from decades past and will continue to absorb the CO2 already in the air, slowly changing its chemistry. “The train has already left the station,” says Richard Feely, a senior fellow at NOAA’s Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. “If we don’t reduce carbon dioxide emissions, we’ll (see) conditions that will be corrosive to more species.”
I just finished editing the last interview transcript for my current book project, “Renewable Energy – Following the Money,” which I conducted with Jerry Taylor of the Cato Institute. Jerry is brilliant, and he’s perfected his ability to articulate his core, heartfelt beliefs, i.e., that Libertarianism is the only fair and practical way to address social conflicts — in this case, differing approaches to energy policy. As a former Libertarian myself, I can’t think of too many 90 minute segments of my life from which I’ve learned more.
But, while the process here was edifying, it was frustrating as well. Insofar as this was an interview and not a debate, I didn’t think it proper to challenge Jerry’s assertions to the effect that the threat of climate change is both modest and distant. I’m sure my guest was not deliberately misquoting the numbers, nor the people from whom those numbers came. Nonetheless, our time together was riddled with quotes like:
We are talking about significant damages from climate change that don’t begin for about 100 years. If you look at the IPCC median estimates, the damage seems relatively modest but after about 100 years you get some serious damage functions if you accept median IPCC estimates.
Significant damage from climate change won’t begin for 100 years? Another interview guest for the project, Dr. Rajendra Pachauri, Director of the IPCC, certainly wouldn’t agree.
Not everyone can be right here. Personally, I’m swayed by those without an obvious agenda. The Cato Institute is funded largely by the fossil fuel industry. But the U.S. Navy? If you believe there is some sort of political agenda for the Navy’s suggesting that climate change represents a pressing, short-term threat, I’ll be interested to hear how you might substantiate that claim.
Btw, the photo above shows the retreat of the glacier on Mount Kilimanjaro between February 1993 and the same time in 2000. If the melting of the large masses of the Earth’s ice doesn’t give one pause, I’m not sure what will.
The pressure is on for better strategies to combat climate change. President Obama’s second term is decidedly greener than the first, and it reflects in the people he chose to focus on the energy and environmental policy. Ernest Moniz, a scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of technology and Gina McCarthy, a staunch environmentalist, have been selected as U.S. Energy Secretary and Head of the Environmental Protection Agency respectively.
On March 4, 2013, at a White House ceremony, Obama said,
They’re going to be making sure that we’re investing in American energy, that we’re doing everything that we can to combat the threat of climate change.
The emphasis on preserving the environment could turn the spotlight on natural gas, which is just one of the options that people have when it comes to dealing with climate change. Natural gas is less expensive and a cleaner alternative than gasoline. It has helped America become less reliant on power plants fired by coal, thereby reducing emissions that contribute to global warming. It is expected that once McCarthy takes the helm, new rules will be implemented that will further put the pressure on coal-powered plants. Stricter Clean Air Act rules are sure to follow.
One of the problems that natural gas is facing is that there is low demand for it. The recent cold weather and cheap energy rates in New York, however, has helped boost the demand for natural gas, as people burned gas to chase the chills away. In fact, foxbusiness.com has reported that the future of natural gas is set high, saying,
The chilly conditions have pushed natural-gas futures up 7% since the start of the year. Natural-gas demand has also been climbing from other sources, such as power generation.
Natural gas has also been hitting other headlines with New York Times recently publishing an article on natural gas, which quotes,
“Natural gas is primarily a source for electrical generation that has become increasingly popular because it burns cleaner than oil and coal and produces less greenhouse gases. Many environmentalists and energy analysts view natural gas as a natural bridge fuel between the dominant fossil fuels of today and the renewable fuels of tomorrow.”
If you take a look around the world, natural gas is gaining recognition around the world. During Spain’s recent droughts, it turned to natural gas as backup for the people’s source of electricity. Do you remember the killer earthquake that hit Japan in March of 2011? The Asian nation suffered a nuclear crisis when the quake triggered a tsunami that hit Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Plant hard. The damages it sustained caused its nuclear reactors to shut down and initiate a melt down. Since the plant generated electricity for Tokyo, but was unable to operate, Japan had to turn to other sources–natural gas.
Although cars that run on natural gas have yet to become a trend, expect its popularity to rise as demand for natural gas also rises. And at the rate it is rising, this international commodity could very well usher in a new era of natural gas.
About the Author
Based in San Diego California, Tiffany Matthews is a professional writer who supports green strategies that help preserve the environment. She also blogs about travel, fashion, and anything under the sun at wordbaristas.com. In her free time, she likes to travel and watch movies with friends. You can find her on Twitter as @TiffyCat87.
More and more people across the UK are becoming eco-conscious and deciding to turn their house into a bastion of renewable energy – and they are reaping the rewards for it. With energy prices only seeming to get more expensive, read on to find out how you can escape the rise and fall of oil and gas prices and start making money from green energy.
If you live in an applicable area then you can harness the power of the sun to start making your own energy. Solar photovoltaic (PV) panels cost anything between £5,000 and £10,000 and, contrary to popular belief, do still produce energy on cloudy days. The panels work by electric fields being created when light shines through the PV cell’s semi-conducting silicon material.
Wind
Currently 40% of Europe’s wind energy blows across Britain, making it an ideal force to harness from your home. Turbines vary in price depending on how much energy you are looking to generate, but can range from £2,000 to over £20,000. The stronger the wind in the area, the more energy you will produce and be able to sell, with most turbines only costing around a hundred pounds a year in maintenance.
Hydro
It goes without saying that this type of energy generation is only applicable to those who live next to a suitable water source. But if your river or stream has the right combination of flow and head you could start producing and selling your own green energy. Every site is different but a typical 5kw producing site might cost £25,000 with negligible annual upkeep costs.
Selling excess energy
Once your green energy technology is up and running in your home you’ll be able to start making money.
Introduced in April 2010, the government’s Feed-in Tariff (FIT) scheme rewards producers for not only selling excess energy to the grid but also the renewable resources they use in their own home. Major energy suppliers, like npower, are required by law to buy your excess green electricity at 3.2p per unit.
To start making money you will need to be registered to the government’s central database by your green energy installer and then fill out an application form – it really is that simple.
How much water are you really using? Many of us have low flow shower heads and our toilets are using less water, but how does that compare to the water that goes into the things we use and consume every day?
We created this infographic to help better understand what our daily impact really is. Some of the information might surprise you…
In certain parts of the U.S., and I presume the rest of the world as well, electric utility customers are beginning to express their concerns about the modes by which their providers generate the power they will sell. Apparently, most of the angst here centers around climate change, as more people every day are starting to see the truth: our devotion to fossil fuels as our primary source of energy is causing the Earth’s temperature to warm, in turn resulting in numerous environmental maladies.
In the “Green Grid” conference I attended last week in the California Bay Area, the presenter from Google described the way his company pressures its providers for more renewable energy. He told the audience, and I’m sure it’s true, that when a company with the stature of Google asks for something, the answer is usually yes.
But what happens when a community, made of up millions of private citizens and small businesses (i.e., “nobodys”) rises up and makes a similar demand on the utility? The answer is more complicated – and it’s addressed in this SmartGridNews article: More Utilities Are Seeing Municipalization Nipping at Their Heels.
The UK government is moving, some would say stumbling, towards its legal obligation to have 15% of the UK’s energy produced by renewables by 2020. Every year more sources of renewable energy come on stream, but there are setbacks on the way. This turbulence is not just in the wind that affects wind turbines, but political turbulence that has made the investment, skills acquisition, and long-term planning for this young industry more problematical.
As the government works on a five-year cycle, and energy planning needs a framework of decades, there is a disjunction. For example, planning and implementing large conventional power stations takes around five years from decision through planning to when it comes on line. Nuclear power stations can take much longer when cost overruns and construction delays are taken in to account. Wind farms and solar arrays can be constructed significantly quicker, but of course there is also opposition at the planning stage which can result in delay.
The good news is that, according to government statistics, the UK is at an all time low for fossil fuel dependency, at 84.5% and that has been declining continuously as we add more renewables to the energy production matrix. There has been a steady upward growth in all forms of renewable power, between 2006 and 2011 the percentage of UK electricity generated from renewables nearly doubled, from 4.5% to 8.7%.
The UK has legal obligations, in both the 2008 Climate Change Act and the 2009 EU Renewable Energy Directive to have 15% of its end-use energy provided by renewables by 2020. Currently the UK is at 3.8% – good progress has been made but we are some way short of the target. In 2011 Solar Photovoltaics increased by about seven-fold but the sudden change in the Feed-in-Tariff late last year has meant that many planned projects were cancelled, thus giving the UK renewables industry a serious setback.
It should be obvious to anyone with an interest in their energy bills that prices have been rising steeply, and will continue to rise as long as the country is dependent on coal, oil and natural gas for the major part of its energy requirements. There needs to be a continuous move to phasing these out and replacing them with renewable power, as well as full electrification of the railways and moving to electric vehicles (EVs) where possible. It might be better to prioritise EVs for the fleet sector rather than family vehicles – short range delivery vans, forklift trucks, council utility vehicles, which would mean that the cost per unit would be reduced, as EVs are currently too expensive compared to petrol and diesel vehicles.
Although energy efficiency has been increasing in most sectors of the economy, there are still large areas which are not energy-efficient. For example, of the 25 million homes in the UK today, 62% (with lofts) have insulation, which means that 38% don’t have this simple and cost effective measure. Similarly only 60% of homes with cavity walls are insulated.
There is good news on the horizon. Early this year Spain generated more electricity from wind than any other power source. This should be a wake-up call for the UK, which has a considerably better wind resource than Spain. With the start of an EU single market in energy planned for next year, and the beginning construction of a European electricity super-grid – to ensure that energy can be efficiently shifted around Europe – from generation source to where it is needed, there is a bright future for renewable energy generation of all types, as long as there is sufficient investment which will necessarily include both public and private sector finance and the political will to push forward on the transition to a low-carbon future, which the government seems conflicted about: both promoting renewables, in areas such as the Green Deal but backing away, for example in the Green Investment Bank. A more cohesive approach would benefit the country better.
As I’ve written a few times in the recent past, I believe that we have the proverbial cart before the horse when it comes to smart grid. We tend to think of this concept as “futuristic,” like flying cars, when, in fact, it’s what underpins the transition the world is making right now in the direction of energy efficiency, conservation, and renewables.
Here’s Pike Research’s article on virtual power plants, which they define as: “a system that relies upon software systems to remotely and automatically dispatch and optimize generation, demand-side, or storage resources (including plug-in electric vehicles and bi-directional inverters) in a single, secure web-connected system.”
With all the work going into this subject from the world’s most respected IT companies, e.g., Google and Cisco, does it really seem likely that the world of energy generation and distribution will continue to trudge along, essentially unchanged from the days of Edison? Not to me.
The world began to see the value of information a few decades ago. Very quickly, we had an Internet that delivers the information we want, instantaneously, to billions of users with their devices around the globe. Now the world is realizing that the dispatching of energy in real-time is also a big deal. Will the IT world rise to the occasion and make this happen? You can bet the ranch on it.
Being a vegetarian is a huge commitment, but a lot of people want to do it. What are some of the reasons that keeping a vegetarian diet is good for the environment?Saving Animals’ Lives The most obvious reason why being a vegetarian really helps the environment out is that you are saving the lives of animals. Instead of animals being slaughtered so that you are able to eat meat, they are being allowed to live. Therefore, you are truly having a direct effect on the environment. Furthermore, when you decide to live a vegetarian lifestyle, you might wind up inspiring other people around you to do the same, and you are, therefore, making a huge impact on the environment.
Grow Your Own A huge difference exists between having the ability to raise your own pigs and cows and keeping your own farm of vegetables and herbs in your backyard. Even if you are living in a city apartment, you might have a little balcony where you can make some foods. When you are able to grow you own vegetables, you are also helping out the environment. Instead of having foods shipped from across the country or maybe even other parts of the world, locally grown food is just a few feet away from your kitchen, and you can truly have it all.
Organic Foods Indeed, you can find organic foods that are both meat and non-meat products. Still, and this is especially true if you are having your own garden, it can often be easier to find organic fruits and vegetables than organic meats. Even when you do find the organic meats, the price can be so high that you simply are unable to afford them. When you choose organic, you are making the decision to be friendlier to the environment. Of course, you absolutely need to make sure that these labels say 100 percent organic on them. If they do not, you are not necessarily protecting the environment.
Walking Around Something else you need to think about is your overall state of health. Yes, going vegetarian is, in some ways, like a diet. Many people realize that they lose weight when they stop eating meat because of all the fat that some meats contain. As a result of your new figure and lower number on the scale, you might actually wind up having more energy. Instead of driving to the store that’s just a few blocks away, you will feel motivated to walk on over there. Therefore, you will not be wasting gas in the car, and, obviously, this action is also excellent for the environment as a whole!
Clearly, becoming a vegetarian can really help the environment in so many different ways. You are allowing animals to live full lives instead of being raised only to be slaughtered later on, and you can even reduce the amount of gas that you use in your car. Truly, this lifestyle change is one that can be useful in so many ways.
Author Jason Harter is a healthcare administrator in the sustainability department of his hospital. Not only does Jason’s hospital make it a priority to run the hospital sustainably, but also promote green lifestyles to patients as a way to increase their health. Jason obtained his degree from one of the Top 10 Best Online Healthcare MBA Degree Programs
