New Energy Watch

Greenbird Sets Wind-Powered Land Speed Record

The point of this amazing run is that it was engineering skill, carefully and progressively applied, that accomplished the goal. As GM and Chrysler dissolve today, it's hard not to feel a pang for what might have been, had Detroit understood the cool in smart, instead of clinging to the bravado of brawny.

http://blog.greenbird.co.uk/2009/03/27/greenbird-smashes-world-record/

Voting for Green Leaders

The single most important thing we can do to mitigate global warming and thwart terrorism is to elect officials who have the vision and commitment to promote – aggressively – conservation, energy independence, alternative energy solutions, green business incentives, and green industry employment. Both John McCain and Barack Obama understand how important this issue is. They have different approaches and timetables for success, but there's also a fair amount of overlap. The screeching fringes on right and left should have no say here. The decisions whether and how much to drill offshore, whether and how far we should go down the nuclear road, what we should require of Detroit, and what we should require of ourselves, need to be matters of negotiation and compromise. But let's get to that part right away, and git 'er done.

Here's John McCain's plan for energy reform and independence, called The Lexington Project.

And here's Obama's plan, New Energy for America.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Google's Pedal-Power Contest

Google and Specialized Bicycle Components are teaming up with a great contest called Innovate or Die. The idea is to promote and reward clever pedal-powered machines, both to spur technical innovation and to help take a bit of pressure off the fossil energy load. They're looking for "zero-emission inventions that transform human energy into unprecedented results and can help save our planet, one pedal stroke at a time."

The results will be shown on YouTube. Good on 'em.

We did a 12-volt pedal-power project a few years ago. The picture above shows the contraption we made, and here's an article from Practical Sailor called Seat of Power (PDF) that describes the whole deal. It worked just fine, but we can tell you that the most valuable thing this Google/Specialized contest can do will be to show people just how much energy it takes to get serious work done.

Humans are basically "geared low." At hard levels of exertion we can produce enough energy to light one or two light bulbs, but not for long. Even when we exert moderate energy for hours, we don't get much done compared to fossil fuel. If you're not pulling energy out of a wall socket or out of a combustion chamber, but pedaling your legs off to generate 100 watts or so for half an hour, you really begin to understand how valuable fossil fuels are, and suspect that maybe we shouldn't waste them. Even better, you can marvel at a wind turbine that produces 2.5 megawatts.

So, while this contest is entirely cool and worthy, it should be noted that the best thing you can use a bicycle for is transportation. Here it can make a really tremendous difference, because it amplifies the results of your caloric expenditure. Think of it this way: If you ride your bike 5 miles to work and 5 miles home, you burn maybe 400 calories on your commute, and get great exercise. If you take your 30-mpg Subaru, you do save some time, but you burn at least a third of a gallon of gasoline, which equals 41,334 Btu, or 10,416 calories --  a 26-fold increase in energy expended to get you to work and back.

To figure out  useful energy conversions like this, see NEW's Gasoline Energy Equivalents and Conversion Calculator.

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Preachers Preaching, Choirs Screeching, and Lions Lying Down With Lambs

This is a re-post of an essay put online here over two years ago, when the Bush administration was lame-duck and the Obama administration was a long-shot. Nothing much has changed.

A lot of the environmental "movement" is froth -- without form, and void. Information abounds, but individual activity does not. Preachers exhort the choir, and every day there are more non-profits, more media outlets, more bureaucracies spreading more information to those who already know enough to take action themselves, but would prefer to donate money to those who would take action for them. People who are inclined to lift a finger are already doing it.

Some education is always needed, but really, we've been inundated in recent years with greening and conservation tips. They're everywhere. Taking action doesn't require much deep understanding. It just takes getting up and doing something, whether it's changing a lightbulb, caulking a window, or correcting tire pressure. After initial action comes momentum. With momentum comes change.

It seems as if there are a fair number of people who get the picture and are active, and a somewhat larger number of people who just don't get it, or who actively thumb their noses at environmental responsibility. Then there's a really big middle group who sort of care, but don't get around to doing anything.

This big group in the middle is not going to move without a push. The time will never come when they'll get off their collective couch of ease merely to do the right thing, no matter how much education you throw at them. If they are to budge, it will take one or more of three things:

1. Harsh economic realities set  by outside forces -- natural disasters like hurricanes, or geopolitical disasters like oil embargoes or widespread war in the Middle East.
2. A "stick" disincentive to guzzle energy, in the form of punitive laws and taxes set by federal, state, and local governments.
3. A "carrot" incentive to conserve energy, in the form of compensatory laws and rebates.

While it's impossible to be exact in predictions of hurricanes and wars, it's easy enough to predict the progress of politicians hammering out big, decisive laws at the risk of losing their jobs. It's rare, and it's slow. That's why the only real progress is being made through individual effort and private interest. There's no point in waiting for this government -- or, probably, the next --  to lead in the way FDR did with the New Deal, or Eisenhower with the interstate highways, or Kennedy with the space program. This bunch in Washington isn't up to the task.

Is there irony in the fact that some of the strongest leadership in conservation and alternative energy today is coming from big American corporations like Pepsico and Conoco Philips?  Sure, but the people who run these companies can read the economic writing on the wall. There's profit to be made by an alignment with the environmental movement, and it's corporations that have the money, the technology, and the expertise to get things done on a large scale. Here's a huge list of the EPA's Green Power partners.

The environmental track record of big business is sketchy at best. When a big company turns around and does the right thing, it makes long-time, knee-jerk environmentalists cynical and skeptical. But, with  exceptions, this is old-fashioned thinking. While some of the big corporate moves may be disingenuous, many are obviously not. Sheer altruism is hardly possible when money must be made, Wall Street convinced, and shareholders satisfied. But if the prospect of new technologies, new partnerships, new facilities, new jobs, and rapid growth are incentives for business to climb into a bed of green, the covers should be thrown back and the pillows fluffed.

~ Doug Logan, newenergywatch.com

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

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

On "The Great Global Warming Swindle"

"The Great Global Warming Swindle," a British documentary by Martin Durkin, released this past March, is a disturbing film and well worth watching, no matter which side of the aisle you're on. It is unabashedly a one-sided polemic, somewhat like a Michael Moore film but a bit more restrained, better edited, and with no Michael Moore making us squirm in our seats.

The opening statement from Professor Tim Ball of the University of Winnipeg sets the stage: "When people say, 'We don't believe in global warming,' I say, 'No, I believe in global warming -- I don't believe that human CO2 is causing that warming.'"

Durkin interviews a cadre of well-respected climate scientists who refute the notion that carbon dioxide resulting from mankind's industrial and automotive development is responsible for the warming. Instead, they say, in essence, that variations in the sun's forces are much better correlated to warming trends, and that mankind's contribution to the present warming cycle is not very significant. They go on to say that the environmental movement is now in fact primarily a political and moneymaking movement, dependent on grants, ignorant of science, vicious to intellectual opposition, and oblivious to the harmful effects of blind environmentalism on progress and quality of life in developing countries. (The scientists interviewed, by the way, denied having accepted any money from oil companies or other industries interesting in seeing the notion of human-made warming debunked.)

Only a small percentage of us who have put our shoulders behind the environmental movement have the scientific credentials to speak intelligently about these matters, and it's easy enough to agree with the obvious: There are a lot of unqualified people trying to make a buck on this bandwagon. Still, when you witness the debate between so many scientists who do have the credentials, you begin to think of a variation on a theme: "There are lies, damned lies, and scientific models."

No matter what the cause of global warming, and no matter how far toward climate change this warming trend takes us, we humans should be doing as much as we can to reduce pollution, reduce waste, reduce litter and trash, conserve energy, control population, live more simply, and be less attached to growth and consumption for their own sakes.

More immediately, no matter where you stand on the causes of global warming (or which sources of expertise you choose to believe -- and really, for most of us non-scientists it's just a choice) -- here's one of those rare moments where people from all across the political spectrum in the US can get together. If you scoff at global warming, fine -- you  can still go green to help undermine the terrorists who would do us harm. Deny the bad guys money from OPEC oil revenues, and you'll help strangle them where they sit.

Farmers' Markets -- Down Home Downtown

According to a New York Times article, there are about 90 farmers' markets across Connecticut, and a burgeoning of these markets all over the region and the country. In case you haven't been to one, the idea is simple: Farmers from around the locale or the region gather in pre-arranged places like fields or parking lots or town squares to sell their produce directly to the consumer. In Connecticut, quite a few of the farmers' markets are organized by a great outfit called CitySeed.

These photos were taken this summer at the market off Wooster Street in New Haven, where we usually shop for local produce and bread on Saturday mornings. We go for the food, and because we like the people. A case in point: The day these pictures were taken, someone dropped a glass bottle of farm-made chocolate milk on the sidewalk. Big bang. Within a few seconds there were a half-dozen passers-by stooped over to pick up the shards.

It's a great move to buy as much food as you can from a farmers' market. Here are four top reasons:

• The food is fresh and, more often than not, organically grown. It tastes better that the stuff that's wrapped in plastic at the supermarket.
• It hasn't been transported hundreds of miles by trucks burning fossil fuel.
• It supports local farmers.
• It supports the wise use of land and open spaces.

People who live in four-season climates often think that farmers' markets disappear after the pumpkins of Halloween are carved. Not so. You can still buy local apples, potatoes, turnips, winter squash, and other foods well into late fall. See this Crop Calendar from the Connecticut Department of Agriculture for a quick guide to what's growing when.

To find a farmers' market near you, check the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Farmers' Market Map.

Other good links to visit:

• www.localharvest.org
• www.sustainabletable.org
• www.truecostoffood.org
• www.foodsecurity.org

~ Doug Logan, New Energy Watch

Big Balloon Catch

We spied this wicked "Welcome Home" bundle about eight miles offshore, headed down Long Island Sound on the ebbing tide. Sent Queequeg to the starboard rail, where he boathooked the ribbon and brought the mess aboard. Then we took out the lance and gave 'em the coup de grace.

We can only hope that these balloons were used to welcome home a soldier.