New Energy Watch

Limits to Growth and an old ARCO Ad

In 1972, the Club of Rome published Limits to Growth, a book that gave a tremendous boost to the environmental movement that had taken root in the '60s. It also shocked the business and political worlds, and caused an uproar in the scientific community with its computer modeling, its discussion of exponential versus geometric trends, and its positive and negative “feedback loops.”

Some of the assumptions of the computer modeling were mushy, some of the conclusions of the scientists were wrong (or at least not properly hedged), and some of the notions in the book have been either misunderstood or misstated by critics. But the basic structure of the computer model (called World3) and the premises of the book are as valuable today as they were 35 years ago: If we don’t curb our population, our industrial growth, our pollution, our demand for food production, and our assault on natural resources, we will reach a point where Earth can no longer support us. Well before then, the planet will cease to be a decent place to live.

This is all by way of posting an ad from  the January 1978 issue of National Geographic. The ad is from ARCO (Atlantic Richfield) which is now owned by BP. The text says this:

Last night we got the bad news. I had this class assignment to monitor my family’s use of energy at home for a week. We got an F.

Tuesday night my brother watched the same two-hour movie on his TV set that we were watching in the living room. Not too smart. Thursday Mom ran an entire dishwashing cycle for three cups, two plates, a knife, and three little spoons. That’s a lot of electricity and hot water down the drain.

Dad drives twenty eight miles back and forth to work. Alone. When two men he works with live right nearby. They could carpool and save about a thousand gallons of gas a year. And me. I’m guilty too. I went out and left the radio blaring in my room all Saturday morning. Dummy. So last night at the dinner table we all agreed to do everything we could to conserve energy. Faster showers. Lower thermostats. Fuller cars. It’s a fact that this country’s using up energy faster than we produce it. I read where we may run out of oil – forever – in 30 years. Pretty scary. Unless every person in every house on every block does his part, the future looks pretty dim.

I’m getting more and more concerned about the future. Because that’s where I’m going to be.

What have we learned in 30 years, now with the putridly huge SUVs on the road, the MacMansions, the frantic habits of consumption, the corporate sleaze to cook the books to fake the worth to feed the greed, the mugging of the land, the straining of the sea, and the perfect plastic packaging?

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Wind Power Where the Deer and the Antelope Play

In 2006, Texas became the leading wind power state in the country, just edging out California. According to the American Wind Energy Association, at the end of 2006 there was enough wind energy coming out of the Lone Star state (2370 megawatts) to power 600,000 American homes.

Ironic, isn't  it, that the state synonymous with Big Oil is leading the charge into the future, while the hand-wringers of Nantucket talk a big enviro-game but won't countenance wind turbines in their own back yard?

Of course it's more complicated than that. But no matter which way you cut it, it's ironic. And the questions remain: Are we at war with terrorists who depend on oil money, or not? Is global warming urgent, or not? If we are indeed locked in a battle on these two connected flanks, then we need to get serious. Not interested in having a wind turbine in your back yard? Could we interest you in the 55-mph speed limit? No? How about gas rationing and a return of the draft?

The people who ranch and farm and live in the plains of Texas north of Amarillo and south of the Oklahoma panhandle are serious about these things. They want wind turbines on their land so as to thwart the terrorists, do right by the environment, and make money -- all valid reasons in whatever order they come on a given day.

Last summer (2007) we had a chance to help the folks at Lorax Energy and Higher Power Energy LLC set up two meteorological towers in Texas. Here are a few photos. One shows a 60-meter (200') tower in the early stages of assembly; the next shows the tower rigged and almost ready for hoisting; the last shows the tower upright, before the guy wires are fully tuned.

These towers are tall but skinny. With the use of gin poles (a 50-foot one to lever the main tower, and a shorter one to raise the main gin pole) they can be hoisted with a farm tractor.

Meteorological (MET) towers gather and log wind data at several levels, and are typically left in place for months, or even years, so that wind-power companies and investors can determine whether an area or a specific site will be good for wind energy. If our experience was an indicator, the Higher Power Energy sites will be great. As someone on the crew said, working on these plains at the height of summer is like standing in front of a giant blow dryer.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

In Dwellings, Gore Talks, Bush Walks

Further to that last post is a case in point, painful to jerkers of the left knee, pleasant to jerkers of the right, and just plain instructive to Stoics everywhere: the disparity between the homes of Al Gore and George W. Bush. Everyone knows about Al Gore's hypocritical digs, but few may know about the energy-efficient and water-conservative house in Crawford, shown here. Sure, the clever house is an exception to the Bush environmental record, and may be more to the credit of the commissioned architect, David Heymann, than to his clients. Nevertheless, they liked it and built it. The right thing is done in Crawford, the wrong thing in Nashville.

Here's the story, courtesy of Snopes.com.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Conservation: You Can't Buy It. You Have to Do It.

A friend is a development officer for an East Coast college. "I find myself immersed in green issues here on campus," he says. "Surprisingly, there's minimal appetite among the student body for sustainability issues, and apparently even less among the administration. I aim to rectify that, but I'm definitely cutting against the grain in my efforts."

It's a bit surprising that an academic institution is yawning about sustainability issues these days, but it does seem to reflect the general population. There's a lot of talk and froth and bloviation on green topics; there are people starting companies left and right to capitalize on the froth; and there are myriad non-profit groups sustaining themselves nicely on earnest donations -- but when you get right down to it, there's little more than a thin fringe of people who are actively doing things to reduce their own energy use and impact. Only when the economics become absolutely obvious and compelling will people budge. Few budge because it's the right thing to do.

Also, there's a tendency to think it's enough to buy one's way to green-ness, for instance by getting a hybrid car. That's a wonderful thing, and it does help, but it doesn't help nearly as much as not driving it. Conservation trumps technology every time, but it's not sexy and it smacks of self-sacrifice. Sure, conservation can involve some minor privations and discomfort, but really -- why not turn the lights off in an uninhabited room? Why not adjust the temperature in the house to save energy when you're not home? Why let tons of water flow down the drain without using it? This kind of laziness and waste is really baffling and disappointing. How can we have gotten so oblivious so fast?

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

The Case for Rechargeable Batteries

Here's a resolution gradually adopted: No more buying battery-driven personal electronics -- digital cameras, tape recorders, Bluetooth headsets, radios, MP3 players, GPS receivers, whatever -- that won't run on rechargeable NiMH batteries, preferably AA, AAA, or 9-volt.

We made an initial commitment to rechargeable batteries about 15 years ago, but that phase only lasted a couple of years. They were lousy. Now they're improved enough to commit again. The good ones will run just as long as their alkaline cousins, and last for hundreds of charges. Unlike alkalines, which gradually fade to black, NiMH rechargeables seem to provide a steady current for a long time before falling into a hole. On the downside, they still lose their charge faster than disposable alkalines or lithiums, and you do have to top them up them every couple of months to make sure they're ready for action. Also, the quality of both batteries and chargers is inconsistent. We've had good and bad luck even with the same brand. We still keep some alkaline disposables around because it's good to be able to stick them into a camera for an important event without wondering about their state of charge, and also because there are still devices around that absolutely need the 1.5 volts of power that is the alkaline standard. NiMH batteries run at about 1.25 volts, but this is well within the operating range of most electronics.

There are two good reasons for making the switch to to rechargeables and putting up with the slight amount of bother it takes to keep track of their charge state. First, it will help eliminate a vast amount of heavy, relatively nasty waste. Second, it'll save you a ton of money. Here's the math:

1. Buy a 4-pack of Energizer e2 rechargeable NiMH batteries and their accompanying charger for, say $30. These batteries are rated at 2500 mAh (that's 2.5 Ah -- for a discussion of these things, see 12-Volt DC Basics). Without the charger, four of them cost about $13. Figure on being able to discharge and recharge those batteries about 500 times. So that's 1250 amp-hours for about $40 -- $30 for the charger and batteries, plus maybe $10 for the electricity used to recharge them.

2. We're not sure there are disposable alkaline batteries rated at 2500 mAh, but for current purposes let's say you went to batterymart.com and ordered 1250 amp-hours' worth of UltraLast disposable alkalines at 2000 mAh each. You'd have to buy 16 packs of 40 batteries at the extremely good price of $9.95 each to get those amp-hours. That's $160, not including shipping -- four times the cost of rechargeables.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch