Tag Archives: Sustainable Energy

Occupy Wall Street – Stay Awake – Save The Baby

Occupy Wall Street, OWS

| |Follow LJF97 on Twitter Tweet |  In ending the camp-out phase of Occupy Wall Street, Mayor Brookfield and Judge Stallman did the Occupy movement a favor.  The Occupiers can claim victory. Now they can focus on delivering the message –
  • Economic Democracy – We must build sustainable economic systems which recognize that Earth is a stakeholder, that economic activity must be in harmony with earth / the biosphere.
  • We May Occupy Wall Street – But No Sleeping and Banksters need Watchin’ – You can’t shut your eyes when the “Banksters” are in town – there must be strong regulations such as those both presidents Roosevelt put in place to regulate the railroads (Theodore) and the financial industry (Franklin).
  • Dismantle the Revolving Doors between Wall Street and Washington (And City Hall)!

And do so without worrying about the logistics problems of food, water, shelter, sanitation, medical care, all of which are important – they are, after all, why they are there.

Mayor Brookfield threw out the bath. Let’s save the baby!

See also –

NegaWatts Save MegaBucks

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The Newark Star Ledger reported (here and here) that Public Service Electric and Gas, PSE&G, a subsidiary of Public Service Enterprise Group, PSEG, is installing a  2,700-ton chiller the University of Medicine and Dentristy of New Jersey, UMDNJ. This an $11.4 million investment in negawatts. The Star Ledger reported that UMDNJ will save $1.3 million per year on energy costs.What’s the payback? An $11.4 million investment will save $1.3 million per year. That means the system will pay for itself within 9 years, assuming the price of energy remains constant.  I think it’s a much more reasonable to assume that the price of energy will go up, so the payback will be higher and the system will pay for itself sooner.

The system will work long after it is paid for. It will save $13 Million over the next 10 years and $26 Million over the next 20 years – assuming electricity costs are constant.  Assuming electricity costs increase an average of 5% per year, this will save $16.35 Million over the next 10 years, and $42.99 over the next 20 years.

  • Projected Savings of $11.4 Million investment.
  • After 1 Year: $1.3 Million, a return on investment of 11.4% in one year.
  • After 5 Years: Save $7.18 Million, for a total ROI of 63%, assuming a 5% annual increases in cost of energy.
  • After 10 Years:  Save $16.35 M; total ROI of 143.4%).
  • After 15 Years: Save $28.05 M; total ROI of (246%)
  • After 20 Years: Save $42.99 M; total ROI of 377%).

We have Governor Corzine to thank. as well as Governors Whitman, McGreevey, Codey, and Christie.

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Cats, Mice, and Sustainable Energy

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“Join me in setting a new goal:  By 2035, 80 percent of America’s electricity will come from clean energy sources.”  – President Barack Obama, State of the Union, January 25, 2011.

When a mouse makes noise, only other mice and local cats take notice. When a lion roars, however, everyone notices; other lions, elephants, zebras, gazelles, smaller cats, mice ….

New Jersey is one of 27 states, which, like the District of Columbia, have a Renewable Portfolio Standard, or RPS, mandating that by a certain date, a specific target of a renewable energy capacity will be deployed. An additional five states have non-binding goals. (This are listed by the U. S. Dept. of Energy at Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.)

In New Jersey the RPS is 22.5%, about 1.6 gigawatts (GW), by 2021. New Jersey today, in January, 2011, has about 300 megawatts of renewable energy capacity.  I am confident that New Jersey will meet, and possibly exceed its RPS goal. We started with 9.0 kilowatts (KW) of photovoltaic solar in 2001. We were up to 211 megawatts (MW), by the end of September, 2010, and we added an additional 24 MW in December, 2010. Even when you factor in 30 MW of biomass, 8 mw of wind power, and 1.5 mw of fuel cells, this is less than 20% of the goal of 1.6 gw. (This is shown at the NJ Clean Energy Program Renewable Energy Technologies page.) However paradigm shifts are systems phenomena. They occur at exponential rates.  We went from 9.0 kw in 2001 to 211 mw in mid-2010, to 360 mw  by the end of 2010.  In December, 2010, we added an additional 10% – moving from 236 mw to 260 mw.  We are hitting the handle of the hockey stick.

California’s RPS is 33% by 2030. In Texas, the RPS calls for 5,880 MW by 2015. California , New Jersey and Texas are the roaring mice in domestic US clean energy policy. And a cat – the lion in the Oval Office – the President of the United States – has listened to the mice in California, New Jersey, and Texas. Last night he roared.

President Obama, Courtesy of the White House.

Courtesy of the White House.

In his “State of the Union” address, January 25, 2011, President Obama set a lofty goal: “80% clean electric generation by 2035.” While I think we can do better – 100% clean renewable sustainable energy by 2025 – Obama’s goal is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound. It’s SMART. It’s also wise.

As a President should, Obama is thinking, and thinking long term.  We at Popular Logistics wish him success because success for a President means a better future for the nation.

Two observations.

  1. There is no such thing as “Clean Coal.” Even if we capture and sequester all the carbon dioxide produced from burning coal, which is expensive, there are still impurities, such as arsenic, lead, mercury, uranium, zinc in coal. And mining and processing coal is a very dirty business.
  2. Nuclear is heavily regulated. We exercise tighter control over the wastes. In practice, nuclear power is arguably cleaner than coal. But in reality, things happen.

One question is “Can we achieve Obama’s Clean Electricity Goal?” But a better question is “How can we achieve this goal? ” My back of the envelope response is:

  • 100 gigawatts offshore wind,
  • 100 gigawatts land based wind,
  • 50 gigagwatts solar,
  • 75 gigawatts stored micro-hydro or biofuel, for when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing.

And as Amory Lovins, of the Rocky Mountain Institute, says, “The cheapest unit of energy is the ‘Negawatt’ – the energy you don’t have to buy.”  How much can we reduce our energy requirements? How much can we gain by conservation?

Oyster Creek To Close in 2019

Oyster Creek

Oyster Creek, courtesy of Nukeworker.com

Chicago, Illinois based Exelon Corporation recently announced that it will close the Oyster Creek nuclear power plant in 2019. (NY Times, NJ.com AP). Oyster Creek, in Lacey, New Jersey, is the nation’s oldest operating nuclear power plant. It’s roughly 75 miles south of New York City and 60 miles east of Philadelphia. Exelon was recently granted a 20-year extension on its operating license by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission despite the wishes of local environmentalists, environmental groups, and people concerned about evacuations in the event of an emergency, and public concerns from the NJ Department of Environmental Protection.

The plant uses a single pass cooling system which sucks in 500 Billion gallons of cool water each year (click here) from Barnegat Bay, heats it 20 to 30 degrees, and returns the heated water to the bay. This kills billions of adult and juvenile fish, clams, crabs, and shrimp, and hundreds of billions, if not  trillions of hatchlings, less than a centimeter in length. This has had a negative effect – possibly a disastrous effect – on the fish and wildlife populations of Barnegat Bay during the 40 year operating life of the plant to date. The NJ DEP demanded that Exelon retrofit the plant with cooling towers.

Exelon claims the cooling towers would cost $600 million, roughly $1.00 per watt for the 610 megawatt reactor. Other estimates for the cooling towers range from $200 million to $800 million. Exelon decided to close the plant rather than spend the money on the cooling towers and other maintenance.  This is a gain for current Exelon shareholders as they defer a hundreds of millions on capital improvments, and corresponding hundreds of millions of liabilities, while they collect revenues and realize profits from the sale of electricity for the next nine years.

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The Deepwater Horizon After the Macondo Well Explosion

An Iceberg

First conclusion of a series that began after Earth Day and includes Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, Magnitude, Part 1, One Month After, The Chernobyl of Fossil Fuel?, and Magnitude, Part 2. )

As I wrote on Earth Day, “In 100 years our descendants will not be burning coal, oil, natural gas or using nuclear fission.  They might be using terrestrial nuclear fusion.  They will be using solar, wind, geothermal, marine current hydro, tidal energy systems – clean, renewable, sustainable energy systems. No fuel: No Waste. No mines, mills, wells, spills. No arsenic, lead, mercury, selenium, thorium – no carbon or fly ash to be contained, sequestered, or to leak.

“We have started.  California and New Jersey lead the U. S. Germany and Spain lead Europe. Boeing and Richard Branson’s Virgin Atlantic want to build aircraft that run on biodiesel.  We need to move forward in a big way – to 100% clean energy in 10 years, to retrain coal miners and oil rig operators to build and run solar arrays and wind turbines, and dig deep geothermal systems.”

Otherwise the Deepwater Horizon Explosion at the Macondo oil field, the oil spills in Ecuador and Nigeria, the coal ash floods like the TVA Kingston Steam Plant, coal mine disasters like at Upper Big Branch, spills like the Exxon Valdez, and events like Three Mile Island and Chernobyl will be ‘”Business as Usual.”

A friend of mine who works for BP, and who would like to work for BP Solar, tells me that most BP staff don’t go to work thinking “How can I destroy the earth today. They are, she says “focused on obtaining and selling oil.”  Few consider themselves environmentalists. Many see this as business as usual. “Oil spills happen,” they say. They are “focused on getting petrochemicals to market.”

The Macondo oil field that was tapped by the Deepwater Horizon could have contained 1 Billion Barrels of crude. It could have been one of the largest oil discoveries in the world .” (Click here for CBS and here for Times of London). The well could gush oil for YEARS and could have met US needs in 2007 – 21 Million Barrels per Day – for 47 days (here).

This volume of crude oil – 1 Billion Barrels – could explain the explosion. The equipment was built to operate at 20,000 PSI and withstand 60,000 PSI. It the pressures exceeded the limits, then the equipment could have failed. Simple. And Catastrophic. When you consider the pressures under 5000 feet of ocean, and the pressure of 1 Billion Barrels of oil, when you have engineers scratching their head saying “I don’t know, I never saw anything like this. What do You think we should do?”  One the thing to do is run like hell.

An Orca

An Orca

As was noted earlier in the series, like the iceberg pictured above and the Orca pictured at left, this is a singularity.  But it has precedents.

  • TVA Kingston: 1.2 Billion Gallons of toxic coal ash sludge, upstream of Kingston, Tennessee, 12/22/08.
  • Chevron Texaco: (alleged) 18 Billion Gallons (428.6 million barrels) of Oil Process Waste, Rainforests of Ecuador, 1964 to 1990.
  • Oil Fires of Kuwait: 6 Million Barrels per Day, up to 6 Months, 1991.
  • Exxon Valdez: 250,000 Barrels, Prince William Sound, 1989.
  • The Niger Delta, in Nigeria, 250,000 Barrels per year for the last 50 years (click here), “Big oil spills are no longer news in this vast, tropical land….has endured the equivalent of the Exxon Valdez spill every year for 50 years by some estimates…. Perhaps no place on earth has been as battered by oil, “
Flares in the Jungle

Flares in the Jungle

The TVA coal ash flood (here, here, here), the Upper Big Branch Mine accident (here, here), and the Deepwater Horizon at Macondo may be the “Trifecta” of American Fossil Fuel Disasters.  But, like the problems in Ecuador (here) and Nigeria (here), these are “Systems Problems” – built into the system. The only way to eliminate them is to change the system.

This is what precisely what some people are trying to do. Students and faculty in the Marlboro MBA in Managing for Sustainability at the Marlboro College Graduate Center in Brattleboro, Vermont. They think about “Changing the Climate of Business.” And they may be are on to something, as are like minded people at the Presidio, the Fowler Center for Sustainable Value, at Case Western, and Columbia University’s Earth Institute.

Here’s an idea that will enable BP to make things right, change their image, and even make money. Suppose BP Solar built new factories in Florida and Louisiana, and hire former petrochemical and seafood workers – and churned out 25,000 to 50,000 PhotoVoltaic solar modules and 1,250 to 2,500 inverters per day. This would be 5 to 10 megawatts per day, 160 to 300 mw per month, 600 mw to 1.2 gigawatts per year.

According to my back of the envelope calculations, we need about 50 gw of solar in this country, along with 200 gw of wind, and 50 to 100 gw of other CRS (Clean, Renewable, Sustainable) generating capacity, so this is a drop in the bucket. But this is real change. It’s defining moment, substantive, shake the cobwebs out of the attic, hurricane force, Dorothy we’re not in Kansas anymore, paradigm shifting change.

BP Solar, or Massey Energy, or Akeena, Evergreen, First Solar, Sunpower, could do the same thing in West Virginia – build factories to manufacture PV Solar Modules and Solar Hot Water Panels, and hire local people to work in the factories.

It is change we can wrap our arms around, change we can celebrate. As President Obama might say, “change we can believe in. ”

This was planned as the Final Post in this series on the Deepwater Horizon / Macondo oil well disaster which began after Earth Day. Other posts include:

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon,
  2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops,
  3. The Magnitude of the Spill,
  4. One Month After,
  5. The Chernobyl of Fossil Fuels?, and
  6. Magnitude, Part 2.

However, I will continue to offer my thoughts and analysis once or twice per month as the oil continues to gush forth into the Gulf of Mexico.

Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon

Ships trying to Extinguish the Flames

Ships trying to Extinguish the Flames at the Deepwater Horizon Rig

The unfolding disaster at the Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf of Mexico, which promises to be an environmental catastrophe, (click here) the recent disasters at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in West Virginia, and the Kingston, Tennessee fly ash retention pond demonstrate that fossil fuels are dirty and dangerous.  Safety and environmental protection are expensive and cannot be guaranteed. The oil will adversely effect fisheries in the Gulf for years. If the oil gets into the Gulf Stream, it will curl around Florida and flow up the coast hitting Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina, Virgina, Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and if it flows around the Long Island Sound, Connecticut – all the original 13 states, then Maine and the Atlantic Provinces of Canada.

Rather than harnessing the Gulf Stream to push pollution from the Gulf of Mexico up the Atlantic coast of the United States, we should harness the Gulf Stream for clean renewable energy. (Here’s how.)

Solar and wind, which harness natural processes rather than consume natural resources, provide power without fuels, and without waste: with no arsenic, carbon dioxide, lead, mercury, methane, and other toxins, greenhouse gases or radioactive waste. These systems enable us to meet our needs and allow future generations to meet their needs – and flourish.

Rather than clinging to the dirty and hazardous infrastructure of the past, we must build the clean, renewable, and sustainable infrastructure of the future.

Cape Wind and the Staten Island Ferry solar array and the thousands of other solar and wind projects here in the U. S. and elsewhere on the globe are, to paraphrase Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong, “small steps … yet giant leaps for mankind.”

This post is the First Installment of a series that will follow the unfolding catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico.

The index is below:

  1. Fossil Fuels and a Walk on the Moon, May 3, 2010.
  2. Drill Baby Drill or Drill Baby Oops, May 7, 2010.
  3. The Magnitude of the Spill, May 15, 2010.
  4. One Month After The Spill BP Siphoning 3,000 Barrels Per Day, May 20, 2010.
  5. Deep Water Horizon – The Chernobyl of Deepwater Drilling?, June 2, 2010.
  6. The Deepwater Horizon: 40,000 Barrels Per Day or 70,000, June 13, 2010.
  7. The Deepwater Horizon After the Macondo Well Explosion, June 19, 2010.
  8. Deepwater Horizon – Bombs and Hurricanes, July 1, 2010.
  9. Like a Bad High School Math Problem, July 14, 2010.
  10. Crisis Management and the Gulf Oil Spill, July 16, 2010.
  11. The Deepwater Horizon: The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, October 7, 2010.

HOW WE WILL READ IN 100 YEARS

Google asked “How will we read in 100 years?”

Here’s what I think.

If we reinvent our economy to run on solar, geothermal, and kinetic energy, we will get our news and technical information electronically. We will still read classics on paper and mount on our walls images of loved ones and special places. If we don’t those left will struggle for survival.

Stretching the Conventional Wisdom

I was invited to join a panel on Jumpstarting the Green Economy hosted by the Sustainable Business Incubator at Fairleigh Dickenson University on May 21, 2009.  Copies of the conference presentations are available from the organizers for about $50. Copies of my presentation in audio and powerpoint format are available for $15, including shipping and taxes. Call or E-Mail me here or at Furman Consulting Group.

It boils down to this: Wind, Solar, Geothermal, other sustainable energy and Negawatts vs. Coal, Oil, and Nuclear; to Sustainable Business or Bernie Madoff and the Mafia. Continue reading

Statement at Marlboro Green Awareness

In Monmouth County, NJ, the Marlboro Republican Club, and the Manalapan Republican Club, are hosting  a Green Awareness Event, “An Event to Educate and Benefit our Environment” Tuesday, December 9, 2008 @ 7:00 PM, Marlboro Recreation Building – 1996 Recreation Way, Marlboro Township.  This is the statement I planned on making. I did not get a chance to speak.

However, I did get a chance to Listen.

  • Freeholder Barbara McMorrow, Monmouth County Board of Chosen Freeholders, who told us what the Freeholders will be doing for Monmouth County.
  • Mayor Fred R. Profeta, Jr, Deputy Mayor for Environment, Maplewood, NJ, who told us what people are doing in Maplewood.
  • Madea Villere, NJ Sustainable State Institute, Rutgers University, who offered a clear, succinct definition of “Sustainability” – meeting the needs of the present without compromising the needs of the future – and told us what we can do in our communities.

I’d like to thank the Manalapan Republicans and the Marlboro Republicans for holding this event.

I’d am available to talk about Nuclear Power and Coal and then Solar and Wind.

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