PerpetualPlanet

What are you doing on Triple-Seven? Our family will be in Canada. Perhaps you’ll be on vacation too. On this particular day we’ll be checking out the LiveEarth music and activities in Quebec City and talking about what we’re doing about climate change.

If you haven’t checked out LiveEarth, get the details here at http://www.liveearth.org/event.php. The gist is a 24-hour concert series around the globe that many hope will be the tipping point for winning hearts and minds in the war on warming. Three hours of prime-time TV and round-the-clock radio and web broadcasts are planned along with live attendance at the 100 concerts.

If the estimates of 2 billion viewers prove accurate, I wonder if the concert might be the largest common experience in the history of humanity. I know it’s hype and Hollywood but I’m for anything that unites the planet on this issue.

I remember 7/20/69, at the McKenzie River with my family, listening to the radio — the day Armstrong set foot on the moon. Do you remember that day? It seemed that focused as we were then there was nothing we could not accomplish. I want my kid to have a memory like that as the challenges to come unfold.

The refrigerator in the house we will remodel is starting to whine and make other noises. It seems like a possible opportunity to get a head start on appliances for the new place, assuming we can predict the proper size and color we will want.

I found a good buyer’s guide in Home Power.

It seems you can save a big chunk of kwh/day with a well-made unit. Sun Frost leads the brands in efficiency. Super insulation and putting the compressor and coils on the top are the big reasons. The RF-16 looks like the best fit for our needs. But ouch, the cost delivered is about $3000! The most efficient conventional models are about $1000 for similar capacity. The Sun Frost uses about .48 kwh/day and the conventional uses about 1.25 kwh/day.

Sun Frost needs some competition!

Maybe hoping for the transcendence of reason is not blindly optimistic…

http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/dn/opinion/viewpoints/stories/020506dnedibryce.bee3e.html

Robert Bryce writes on Feb 5, 2005:

President Bush has a simple policy regarding energy: Produce more of it.

The former oilman has packed his administration with veterans of the oil and coal industries. And for most of the first Bush term, his energy policy and his foreign policy were joined at the hip. Since the administration believed that controlling the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf was critically important to the U.S. economy, the invasion of Iraq seemed to serve both the president’s energy goals and his foreign policy ones.

But a curious transformation is occurring in Washington: a split of foreign policy and energy policy. Many of the leading neoconservatives who pushed hard for the Iraq war are going green.

James Woolsey, the former director of the Central Intelligence Agency and a staunch backer of the Iraq war, now drives a 58-miles-per-gallon Toyota Prius and has two more hybrid vehicles on order. Frank Gaffney, the president of the Center for Security Policy and another neocon who championed the war, has been speaking regularly in Washington about fuel efficiency and plant-based fuels.

The alliance of hawks and environmentalists is new but not entirely surprising. The environmentalists are worried about global warming and air pollution. But Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Gaffney – both members of the Project for the New American Century, which began advocating military action against Saddam Hussein back in 1998 – are going green for geopolitical reasons, not environmental ones. They seek to reduce the flow of American dollars to oil-rich Islamic theocracies, Saudi Arabia in particular.

They say oil dollars have made Saudi Arabia too rich a source of terrorist funding and Islamic radicals. Mr. Gaffney recently pointed out that America has become dependent on oil imported from countries that “by and large are hostile to us.” This fact, he said, makes reducing oil imports “a national security imperative.”

Neocons and greens first hitched up in the fall, when they jointly backed a proposal by the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a Washington-based think tank that tracks energy and security issues. The plan proposes that the federal government invest $12 billion to encourage automakers to build more efficient cars and consumers to buy them; develop industrial facilities to produce plant-based fuels such as ethanol; and promote fuel cells for commercial use.

The plan is keen on “plug-in hybrid vehicles,” which use internal combustion engines along with electric motors charged by standard electric outlets.

Environmental groups, who have been in the weeds ever since George W. Bush moved in to 1600 Pennsylvania, are happy for any help they can get. “It’s a wonderful confluence. We agree on the same goals, even if it’s for different reasons,” says Deron Lovaas, the National Resources Defense Council’s point man on auto issues.

For Mr. Woolsey and Mr. Gaffney, the fact that energy efficiency and conservation might help the environment is an unintended side benefit. They want to weaken the Saudis, the Iranians and the Syrians while also strengthening the Israelis. Whether these ends are achieved with M-16s or hybrid automobiles doesn’t seem to matter to them.

They aren’t the only Iraq hawks who have joined the cause. Among others, the Committee on the Present Danger is about to join the Prius-and-ethanol crowd. A driving force for America’s military buildup since the ’50s now reconstituted as an anti-terror group, the committee will issue a paper in the next few months endorsing much of the IAGS plan.

Despite the setbacks in Iraq, the green neocons believe they can persuade Congress and the White House to adopt their program. If they can persuade Congress and the White House

We took an excellent class in Ecological Architecture at Portland Community College this spring which proved very instructive and introduced us to a talented local green building evangelist and architect. Candace Gossen, the instructor, is working on her PhD dissertation while practicing architecture and teaching new designers like ourselves. On her web site, www.solar783.com, you’ll find a collection of work she admires as well as the syllabus for our course.

The main topics covered were:

• Introduction to alternative materials
• Solar profiles and site analysis
• Solar water heating and hydronic space heating
• Photovoltaics and renewable energy design
• Biological wastewater systems (compost toilets, vermiculture, and living machines)
• Rainwater catchment

During the classes, students worked on their own designs for these components with an eye towards use in their own projects.

A cost-effective pilot program which uses aquatic plants and creatures to clean wastewater is now the operational sewage treatment plant for the Marine and Environmental Research and Training Station (MERTS) in Astoria, OR.

This facility, a modified greenhouse, is a valuable component of the MERTS campus and its vision, providing a regional demonstration site. Many representatives from small communities and businesses visited this unique installation to learn how to adapt the technology to their own needs.

Such systems can be found in a number of locations around the world. A company based in Taos, New Mexico, provided the final engineering for installation of the aptly-named “Living Machine®” at the MERTS site. Living Machines Inc., estimates that the Living Machine® costs 50% less than a conventional municipal wastewater system.

The MERTS campus Living Machine® system is split into two treatment trains to facilitate operational flexibility and the support of research initiatives. A series of ecological habitats housed in small fiberglass tanks will serve as the main treatment components in the system. The final polishing of the wastewater takes place in constructed wetlands followed by an ultraviolet disinfection unit. All of these processes take place within greenhouse enclosure. Click the picture below for a condensed look at the step-by-step process.

Next time you hear that the Kyoto accord would decimate the US economy, you can cite this factoid for the sake of discussion.

The United States last paid attention to oil during 1977–85, spurred by the 1979 “second oil shock,” which raised prices even more than the 1973 Arab embargo had done. In those eight years, the United States proved it could boost its oil efficiency faster than OPEC could cut its oil sales: the U.S. had more flexibility on the demand side than OPEC had on the supply side. While U.S. GDP rose by 27%, oil consumption fell by 17%, net oil imports fell by 50%, and net oil imports from the Persian Gulf fell by 87%.

If that sounds interesting, read more about the book it came from, by Amory Lovins, Winning the Oil Endgame: Innovations for Profits, Jobs, and Security.

The Economist says in its review:

Amory Lovins has some sharp and sensible ideas. In “Winning the Oil Endgame”, a new book funded partly by America’s Defence Department, this sparky guru sketches out the mix of market-based policies that he thinks will lead to a good life after oil.

First, he argues, America must double the efficiency of its use of oil, through such advances as lighter vehicles. Then, he argues for a big increase in the use of advanced “biofuels”, made from home-grown crops, that can replace petrol. Finally, he shows how the country can greatly increase efficiency in its use of natural gas, so freeing up a lot of gas to make hydrogen. That matters, for hydrogen fuel can be used to power cars that have clean “fuel cells” instead of dirty petrol engines. It would end the century-long reign of the internal-combustion engine fuelled by petrol, ushering in the hydrogen age.

That should catch the interest of conservative skeptics suspecting a treehugger plot. But then they go and save a bunch of trees! The electronic version of the book is free! Download here.

The Christian Science Monitor gave the Portland Chamber of Commerce a lesson in boosterism with this article. The metro area contains most of Oregon’s population and has earned a reputation for its progressive and ecologically sound mindset. The perception from outside has led to immigration by young adults seeking a place that matches their outlook.

As a resident in the countryside nearby, I can attest to the article’s accuracy. However, more can always be done. The water quality of Willamette river which bisects the city has seriously declined in recent years. The urban growth boundary is under constant pressure from developers seeking to make a quick buck on open spaces near the core. Yet, the outside attention forces us to continue to walk the talk and work on those issues.

I remain skeptical about the possibility of replacing much crude oil with biodiesel. As a way to use existing waste material it seems eco-effective. Anyone trying to dispose of the turkey-fry oil after Thanksgiving can see this makes sense. I still need to comprehend if the energy inputs for creating biological oils get an acceptable return in solar rays stored for future burning. In any case this company is making money on the reuse angle.

Renewable Environmental Solutions LLC is selling an equivalent of crude oil No. 4, produced from agricultural waste products. They are making producing 100-200 barrels of oil per day from the by-products from nearby, you guessed it, turkey processing facility. They claim their process is the first commercially viable method of reforming organic waste into a high-value energy resource. The oil being produced by RES is being sold to a local oil blender and to direct customers who use it as a heat source for their operations. At peak capacity, expected to be achieved by the end of 2004, the first-out plant will produce 500 barrels of oil per day, as well as natural gas, liquid and solid fertilizer, and solid carbon.

The key technology is Thermal Conversion Process, or TCP, which copies the geological and geothermal processes of nature. By-products are natural gas, fertizers and water. The plant has zero waste. Process thermal efficiency is 80%.

The company’s web site is circumspect about the profitability of the plant, saying that projections are being met and future plants of larger scale are planned. Giant corporation ConAgra is a partner in the venture.

Using above-ground organic waste streams to produce a new energy source reduces global warming by reducing the use of fossil fuels. It also contributes to energy independence.

China’s president Hu Jintau outlined his country’s economic goals for the coming 25-50 years in an exemplary speech before the APEC CEO Summit this past November in Santiago, Chile.  He noted that his country has a sustained annual growth rate of 9.5%, a result of the strategies defined 25 years ago and executed with continuous discipline.  That a country so successful at implementation of a far-sighted plan is now laying out its next set of goals ought make Europeans and Americans take notice.  The U.S. rate of growth is 3.5%.  China, now fully capable of feeding, clothing and sheltering its own, seems on a course to become the leading economic power on the planet by appropriate means.

“In a word, mankind is faced with both grave challenges and rare opportunities for development. Given the circumstances, the only right option for us to take is cooperation geared to a win-win result, and the only goal for us to endeavor towards is sustainable development. Our own experience with development tells us that every country must go through an evolving process that today’s development is the continuation of that of yesterday and the groundwork of that of tomorrow. When a country lays down its plans, chooses its strategies, decides on its approaches and implements its measures towards its long-term goals of development, it should take into account both its present and future needs of development and address both the current concerns of the people and the interests for their long-term development.”

It’s heartening to hear that sustainability is at the core of the plan, even if it is a disappointing reminder that our leaders in the U.S. are still planning for faster consumption of finite resources and the war machine required to secure them.

These days, when purchasing vehicles for your company fleet or for your family, fuel economy and environmental costs probably gaining weight in your decision process. The folks at GreenerCars.com are making it easy to select what is friendliest to the planet and economical.

Based on official emissions and fuel-economy tests, and other specifications reported by auto manufacturers, they calculate a Green Score for each car, minivan, pickup, and SUV on the market. The Green Score falls on a scale of zero to 100. A higher score implies a greener car, meaning a vehicle having a lower environmental impact. The top performers in 2004 appear here (you need to register to see far enough down the list to find an American or European model).

For a typical commuter, buying a car that gets 40 mpg instead of 25 will result in gas savings of 300 gallons in a 20k mile year or about $700. That’s almost like getting your car insurance for free!

GreenerCars.com charges about nine dollars for a month’s subscription, but that gets you the impartiality that comes with not relying on advertising. You will also learn as much as you want to know about emissions standards and maybe more.