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Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Another Cynic Out There?
After writing the Happy Earth Day rant below, I came across a similar cynic on the Blog for Clean Air - a blog I highly recommend visiting.
Read the comment on the Department of Agriculture at the bottom of the above-linked blog.
It makes me believe that we are not winning this battle, nor are we winning the war.
The Department of Agriculture supporting the use of dirty burning biomass fuels is understandable, being that they want to support their constituents.
However, the most Orwellian name for a U.S. government department has to be the "Environmental Protection Agency." Reminds me of 1984's "Department of Peace."
PLEASE leave a comment disagreeing with that statement and I'll get back up on the soap box! Any takers?
For someone involved in a "green" business, I have become pretty jaded with Earth Day. When major corporation jump on the bandwagon, I become cynical. Is Exxon putting green dye in their unleaded premium? Even President Bush has an offering, albeit an extremely lousy one.
This is Easter for the Green Church, when all the missing flock puts on their best suits and tries to beat their neighbors to the altar for Communion. Yes, the guy with the Hummer parked diagonally across two parking spaces right next to the door. I guess I'll park my Prius in the far lot and walk the rest of the way. Don't mind if I'm late - it's just that I heard this sermon before.
Some of you might be upset that I criticized President Bush, right? Maybe I shouldn't criticize him because doing something is better than doing nothing after all! Well, I don't agree that he is "doing something."
When you tell someone that the United States will cease INCREASING emissions of greenhouse gases by such and such a date, if they are not paying attention, they might interpret that to mean that the United States is DECREASING emissions of carbon dioxide, which, according to the current administration, is not a pollutant anyway (I couldn't find the appropriate symbol to insert here to express cynical laughter.) If you really look at what President Bush is implying here, the United States is giving a big green light to power plants to actually spew even more pollutants into the atmosphere well into the future - He is not even trying to hold the current levels of emissions at their status quo. Most scientists warn that if we hold to the status quo, we will be on the road to climate disaster, but that's not good enough for this travesty of an administration.
How can we be so ambivalent about this as a nation? Are we waiting for the final results of the experiment to be announced? (Watch this video explaining how we are in the test tube waiting for the results.) To paraphrase the video, if during World War II we had waited to see if Hitler was really trying to develop an atomic bomb of his own before throwing a huge investment into the Manhattan Project, we wouldn't be having this debate in English right now. Why are we so passive now when the stakes MIGHT be just as high? (They might not, but does anybody want to take that gamble? What is there to win if you are right? What is there to lose if you are wrong? Read about Pascal's Wager to get a better feel of that line of reasoning.)
That's enough now - it's 12:02 AM and therefore no longer Earth Day on the East Coast of the United States.
If anybody feels guilty of their ecological sins, they can buy some indulgences in the form of Renewable Fuel Credits from the many online sellers of this ethereal product.
As for myself, I'll go peddle some electric scooters I am offering on my online store and make a toast to commercialism. Hey, at least they're easy on gas...
I was prepared to write a warning letter about energy savers using power factor correcting capacitors because in theory, they really should not save that much energy. I could get into a long engineering discussion about why they should not work, but I'll spare you the boring details.
Suffice it to say that when I started smugly calling existing customers of the product, ready to offer them an alternative solution, I was surprised to hear that customers were measuring actual savings of around 11%, and sometimes significantly more, using energy dataloggers to document the savings! This reminded me of the saying that according to aerodynamic theory, a bumble bee should not be able to fly.
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April 15th, 2008 - Oil just broke another record at $ 113 a barrel! Prior to this, oil only flirted with these levels after a disaster like Hurricane Katrina. Just imagine what would happen to oil if another major hurricane hit the oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, or if terrorists interrupted Middle East oil supplies? (For an interesting analysis of a similar possible scenario, read Richard Clarke's The Scorpion's Gate".)
On the contrary, economists will tell you that these high oil prices are caused by the weak dollar and investors looking for a shelter in commodities. We hear less commentary about Peak Oil than we do about oil speculators.
However, the Wall Street Journal carried a piece about Siberian oil supplies slowing down due to "age." In other words, Russia's oil wells are drying up, and they have poor infrastructure in place to tap the promising regions of Eastern Siberia.
Add to that the melting permafrost(global warming?) making it difficult for large vehicles to navigate those areas, and we should not be seeing Eastern Siberian oil flooding the market any time soon. To me, this effect has an eery resemblance to the Gaia theory of Earth protecting itself in ironic ways and bringing about its own equilibrium. In other words, carbon dioxide emissions from burning petroleum fuels are knocking Earth's climate out of balance, so Earth takes measures to counteract that effect. I'm not agreeing with the Gaia theory in saying that the Earth is consciously acting this way, but, thankfully, it is that very tendency towards equilibrium which makes Earth hospitable to life in the first place.
For some frightening reading about tipping points, Google the following:
Methane Gas release from permafrost; Arctic Ice Albedo; Antarctic Ice Carbon Sink Weakening.
I'll give you a hint about why I'm wrong in the above paragraph where I posit that Earth is defending herself my melting the permafrost and thus slowing down oil extraction: This would be a poison pill defense. Melting permafrost releases huge amounts of methane gas from the wet, rotting swamps which are created. Methane is 20 times more powerful a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. It has been estimated that the greenhouse effect caused by the methane gas release from Alaska, Siberia, Greenland, Norway and Canada is so powerful that it exceeds the warming that the United States causes from its total carbon dioxide output. In other words, now that we have reached this tipping point, even if the United States became carbon neutral (slim chance!), the methane gas release from those areas would guarantee that the Earth still continued its course toward global climate destabilization.
World Food Crisis, Peak Oil, Stagflation and Other Disasters
While reading the headlines about violence around the world caused by food shortages, I started to think that my blog about America's obsession with bio-fuels was a little too tame. After all, besides the shifting of the Chinese diet higher up the food chain (it requires 8 calories of grain to create 1 calorie of beef, and the Chinese are consuming larger amounts of beef now that they can afford it, thus producing an eight-fold displacement of dietary grain for each unit of meat consumed), the other major contributor to world food shortages is the larger allocation of agricultural land designated for bio-fuel feedstock production in lieu of food production.
Further aggravating this situation is the view by some that the world is already past peak oil, or Hubbard's Peak, and we are headed towards an imminent economic crash triggered by fuel shortages. How can we solve that? Well, in the United States we will produce more ethanol from corn.
Of course, our second favorite bio-fuel is biodiesel, which for the most part is produced from virgin oils, also know as good, edible foods. The irony is that the U.S. government subsidizes biodiesel derived from virgin oil feedstocks at the rate of $ 1.00 per gallon at the time this blog was written.
"So what" you say? I'll answer with another question: Why does our government subsidize biodiesel made from virgin oil at $ 1.00 per gallon while it subsidizes biodiesel made from used vegetable oil, aka fryer grease at only $ 0.50 per gallon? What's the difference? The former is valuable as a food for humans while the latter is a toxic goop which clogs up sewer systems and is otherwise difficult to dispose of. Don't you think it makes sense to prioritize the creation of fuel from garbage rather than from food?
If you haven't guessed it yet, the answer is that our agricultural lobbies are to blame. Why should you care? Because your tax money is being used to subsidize the creation of a fuel which causes food shortages and thus higher food prices for you. Get it now? Yes, you are paying twice for this travesty! Once in your taxes, and once at the grocery store.
Now what happens when high fuel prices cause a domino-effect of price increases throughout the economy? Inflation!
What happens when high fuel prices cause an economic slowdown? Recession!
Put it together and you get stagflation, that ugly beast last seen during President Carter's administration when the country was also experiencing high fuel prices. So then why is the government trying to solve stagflation by tweaking the interest rates which will only aggravate once side or other of the equation, but not solve the problem? Because it does not want to deal with the real issue: Energy policy. This time another lobby holds the keys.
So, it looks like we are stuck in this mess unless we take responsibility ourselves and stop waiting for the government to do something.
We have seen that government meddling has not created a viable solution, so let's start with one good solution we can implement ourselves, at a grass-roots level:
How many times have you heard that the secret to weight loss is diet and exercise together? How many people actually take that advice? Or, do we Americans tend to look for the quick-fix, the fad diet?
Welcome to America's latest fad-diet: Bio-fuels. The main entree these days seems to be Ethanol, which we are producing in ever increasing quantities each year at the expense of our own food supply, and ironically, the environment itself. This heavily government-subsidized fuel requires a large amount of energy to produce: Its feedstock, corn requires fertilizers derived from hydrocarbons (fuels) to grow, then more fuel to harvest and process, and finally to deliver it to the point of consumption. The most pessimistic estimates of how much fuel is required to produce 1 gallon of ethanol exceed 1 gallon of fossil fuels. That means we are actually losing energy by switching to ethanol, resulting in larger imports of oil and natural gas from our close friends in the Middle East, not to mention the inflationary pressure this puts on food products, especially on our ubiquitous corn staple (refer to The Carnivore's Dilemma which claims that close to 90% of America's diet is in some way connected to corn and soy.) So why does this process continue? Think of some of the most powerful lobbies in America: Agriculture and Energy. They benefit tremendously from this situation at our, the taxpayer's expense.
So how do we find balance? Americans keep on tweaking the supply side of the equation: Produce more fuel! Let's look at the dieting aspect of this now: If we are still far away from producing bio-fuels or hydrogen economically and ecologically, then let's try saving some energy instead! To paraphrase Ben Franklin: “A Kilowatt Saved is Truly a Kill-a-Watt Generated!” It is said that more efficient use of our current resources could make America self-sufficient in energy without forcing the alchemists to magically concoct a viable renewable fuel. This is one reason Maryland Green Power Co. scrapped its plans to build a biodiesel production facility in Baltimore last year.
Ouch – that means we have to go on a starvation diet, right? Hopefully not. The goal of my newsletter is to examine techniques for reducing our energy usage and still maintaining a comfortable way of life. My current topic concentrates on air conditioning, which is for most of us the largest summertime energy hog in our homes and offices. Yet, with the heat waves we have been experiencing every summer, who wants to turn up the thermostat by a few degrees? You might not have to.
Hence, our goal is to save money and to save energy without sacrificing comfort, or breaking the bank in the process. With fuel and electricity prices increasing at their current rates, we are being financially squeezed into a recession. However, investments in energy should be viewed as an investment much like stocks and bonds. For instance, if you were presented with a piece of equipment which would save enough in electricity costs to pay for itself in one year, would you consider it a good investment? You should – it's returning 100% ROI annually, which is hard to find in the stock market. Consider that after it pays for itself, it is generating profit at the rate of 100% annually! The exciting part is that these types of opportunities are plentiful in the green energy industry.
For example, using a company's existing emergency power generators to shave peak demand surcharges off your energy bill, or contracting with your local energy supplier to be “on-call” on an interruptible electricity plan frequently pays for itself in months, not years! However, most of us do not own emergency generators, nor do we consume enough power for the utility company to be interested in giving us generous monetary incentives to disconnect from the power grid temporarily. We residential and small business customers have to content ourselves with small investments in energy efficiency such as the MGPC ACES unit, which can pay for itself in about a year of operation on an average size central air conditioner.
Specifically, a device such as ACES is an intelligent version of what the utility company already wants you to do. Some of us have contracted with BG&E for installation of their air conditioner cut-off switch, which cycles your AC compressor on and off to reduce energy usage during hot days, typically periods of extreme peak power consumption, in order to prevent power shortages which contribute to rolling brown or black-outs. BG&E offers a small incentive for this operation, but I removed the device because I felt it decreased the cooling ability of my air conditioner unit and I was uncomfortable. However, MGPC ACES is a microprocessor controlled device, which learns the operational profile of your air conditioner over time, reducing over-cooling of the coils, leaving your air optimally cooled. It's operation can be compared to a person riding his bike uphill. When the rider reaches the top, it is desirable to coast on the plateau as long as speed is maintained. An air conditioner without this kind of control will keep on pumping out the same power even on the plateau. The ACES Air Conditioner Efficiency System lets your air conditioner's compressor enjoy its free ride.
In summary, opinions on green energy are separated into two extreme poles: Those who believe government should subsidize any environmental project or technology even if it loses money, and those who, in reaction to the first group, claim that the energy crisis and global warming were thought up by some mysterious group seeking to profit from scare-mongering and we should maintain our status quo. These two groups confuse the rest of us into inaction.
Although we specialize in commercial and industrial applications, there are nevertheless plenty of other home and small business energy projects left to discuss, and I feel it is important to also warn about the ineffective products, the high-tech snake-oil that's out there preying on the energy-conscious. In the future, I will be opening my website as a forum for discussion of such topics in the hope that the budding green energy industry does not lose momentum due to adoption of inappropriate or inefficient technologies.
I'm hoping that our new generation of small green-energy companies will be the evangelists who tell you to relax, enjoy the ride, and take a deep breath of CLEAN, fresh air, because you can make a difference without making a sacrifice!
