Clean Energy Stimulus

Time magazine published an article, "How the Stimulus Is Changing America," about the positive effects of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and noted the success of its "green" components.

Here the article mentions an entrepreneur who benefited from the $787 billion stimulus package:

The green industrial revolution begins with gee-whiz companies like A123 Systems of Watertown, Mass. Founded in 2001 by MIT nanotechnology geeks who landed a $100,000 federal grant, A123 grew into a global player in the lithium-ion battery market, with 1,800 employees and five factories in China. It has won $249 million to build two plants in Michigan, where it will help supply the first generation of mass-market electric cars. At least four of A123's suppliers received stimulus money too. The Administration is also financing three of the world's first electric-car plants, including a $529 million loan to help Fisker Automotive reopen a shuttered General Motors factory in Delaware (Biden's home state) to build sedans powered by A123 batteries. Another A123 customer, Navistar, got cash to build electric trucks in Indiana. And since electric vehicles need juice, the stimulus will also boost the number of U.S. battery-charging stations by 3,200%.
"Without government, there's no way we would've done this in the U.S.," A123 chief technology officer Bart Riley told TIME. "But now you're going to see the industry reach critical mass here."

Note, Mr. Riley points out that his business depended on government assistance. Fine, but let's keep that in mind when Republicans tell us that all we need is an "free market," unfettered by the government.

The article goes on:

That's why the Recovery Act is funding dozens of smart-grid approaches. For instance, A123 is providing truckloads of batteries for a grid-storage project in California and recycled electric-car batteries for a similar effort in Detroit. "If we can show the utilities this stuff works," says Riley, "it will take off on its own."

Stimulus money is being used for other worthwhile purposes as well:

The Recovery Act is weatherizing 250,000 homes this year. It gave homeowners rebates for energy-efficient appliances, much as the Cash for Clunkers program subsidized fuel-efficient cars. It's retrofitting juice-sucking server farms, factories and power plants; financing research into superefficient lighting, windows and machinery; and funneling billions into state and local efficiency efforts. (See TIME's special report "Obama's Agenda: Get America Back on Track.")
It will also retrofit 3 in 4 federal buildings. The U.S. government is the nation's largest energy consumer, so this will save big money while boosting demand for geothermal heat pumps, LED lighting and other energy-saving products. "We're so huge, we make markets," says Bob Peck, the General Services Administration's public-buildings commissioner. GSA's 93-year-old headquarters, now featuring clunky window air conditioners and wires duct-taped to ceilings, will get energy optimized heating, cooling and lighting systems, glass facades with solar membranes and a green roof; the makeover should cut its energy use 55%. It might even beta-test stimulus-funded windows that harvest sunlight. "We'll be the proving ground for innovation in the building industry," Peck says. "It all starts with renovating the government."

With an open mind, and a little courage, we could transform this country into a place that offers broad prosperity, and a healthy future for the planet. But, it's the open mind and courage part that I worry about.

Read the whole article, maybe it'll inspire you. Or, maybe you're already too poisoned by toxic rhetoric from the frightened right...

How CO2 and Other Greenhouse Gases Trap Heat

Below is a really simple, elegant, brief explanation of the Greenhouse Effect:

It is true that there are several important greenhouse gasses. CO2 is one of them, but methane (CH4) and water vapor are also important. CO2 is the one that human activity may influence the most and therefore gets a lot of attention in the climate debate, while water vapor changes due to natural phenomena - and as a consequence of possible manmade heating.

The thing that makes these molecules important for the greenhouse effect is their ability to absorb infrared light. When sunlight enters the atmosphere it is turned into heat in the surfaces it strikes and these surfaces re-radiate the energy as infrared light. Therefore, if the atmsophere becomes less transparent to infrared light, the heat cannot get out into space as easily as before and temperatures will rise in order to reestablish the temperature gradient needed to drive the infrared heat out past the obstacles.

You may think of a mountain stream where water flows downhill. If you push a boulder into the stream you will cause the water to rise behind the boulder, but after a while the same amount of water will flow past the boulder and downstream. Same thing with more IR absorbtion in the atmosphere. It will get hotter behind the obstacle (the IR-absorbing molecules in the air) but eventually a balance will be found where the same amount of energy flows into space as comes down from there.

In terms of the molecules themselves, it is the electronic structure that causes IR light to be absorbed. Atoms and molecules absorb light at specific wavelengths. Most molecules absorb light in broad bands or wavelength ranges, while atoms tend to absorb light in narrow regions or lines. The molecules therefore absorb over a wider range of frequencies and block more light this way. The details as to why the light is absorbed at infrared wavelengths and not in the X-ray range or vissible light, is complex to explain. It has to do with the structure of the molecules - the strengths of the bonds inside the molecule and the masses of the atoms in the molecule.

Masses on springs tend to oscillate with frequencies that are determined by how stiff the spring is and by how large a mass is attached. The same goes for the bonds (or springs) inside molecules - the vibrational frequency of molecules is determined by the spring strengths and the masses attached to the springs. Because of the many electrons interacting in complex molecules you get many possible modes of vibration and therefore many possible wavelengths at which light can be absorbed. This gives you the light-absorbing bands typical for molecular spectra.

By the way, the phrase 'greenhouse' effect is missused for molecules, because the effect of the glass on a greenhouse is not chiefly to stop infrared light getting out, but to stop warm air from blowing away from the inside of the house.

Peter Thejll, Staff, Solar-Terrestrial Physics, Danish Meteorological Institute

This isn't wildly difficult to understand. It's like a two-way mirror: you can see through it in one direction, but not in the other. Sunlight (visible and ultraviolet) travels into the atmosphere in the direction you can see through, but once in, its on the mirror side and can't get back out (infrared). So, it hangs around as heat. Done.

If you can honestly say that you think global warming science is a hoax, then the next time you think about traveling, you should walk, because airplanes are part of the same hoax. So is all of modern medicine: lab tests, pharmaceuticals, diagnostics (x-rays!, MRI's, CAT scans) -- all a hoax, of course. Get in touch with a witch doctor if you get sick, or injured (by one of those hoax-ey cars or airplanes).

join the fight...

350.org

Tell Your Senators To Do Something

The Union of Concerned Scientists wants you to personalize and then send a letter to your Senators asking them not to interfere with the EPA's efforts to regulate greenhouse gasses, and to pass a real energy bill.

Here's my personalized section of the letter:

I am disgusted and dismayed that the Senate failed, once again, to create and pass useful legislation to mitigate global warming, and promote renewable energy.

I guess we could all just pray for divine intervention, because scientific reason and logic seem to have no bearing on the Congressional agenda. It's a good thing Galileo is not around these days. We'd probably cry havoc, and burn him at the stake.

Sadly, I don't think much good will come of praying for a solution when the the folks we elect are actively working to undermine real efforts to prevent the catastrophic effects of global warming, not to mention the long list of other environmental catastrophes that have resulted from our dim-witted reliance on coal and oil.

So, barring any hope for real lawmaking going on these days, it's more important than ever that the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) can at least try to limit global warming emissions under the Clean Air Act.

The EPA and the National Academy of Sciences confirm that global warming poses a significant threat to public health. Yet senators delay or block the EPA's authority under the Clean Air Act to regulate global warming emissions. That is gross malfeasance.

 Go ahead, click here to write to your Senators.

Keep Doing What We've Been Doing, Destroy the World...

Replace toxic coal and oil with renewable (non-nuclear) sources, and then dramatically increase energy efficiency (which dramatically decreases energy costs), and we end up with energy that: costs consumers little more than it does now, but it's less toxic to them; we get to keep the planet healthy; and we see 37 million new, well-paid jobs that can't be off-shored by 2030. Take into account fossil fuel jobs lost, we still see a net gain of 4.5 million jobs. And we generate $4.3 trillion in domestic revenue. That's domestic revenue not money sent to Canada and Saudia Arabia to buy oil (about 80% of imported oil comes from Canada), and we don't have to pay billions to clean up coal ash spills, and oil spills, and ruined mountains and streams in Appalachia, and dozens of other "externalities" that the fossil fuel industry let's tax payers pay for.

Which option do you think Congress will choose? That's easy, they choose business as usual, and destroy the planet. And that's because fossil fuel energy producers finance their elections. How about not re-electing these lobbyist-puppets if they don't get their act together and do something real to stop global warming? Nah, global warming's a hoax, right?

Read the press-release from ASES, and then read the report: Tackling climate change nets 4.5 million jobs

Another letter...

...this time to my good senators:

I urge you to support, even strengthen, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act.

If we hope for future prosperity even remotely resembling what most Americans have come to expect, then we need a progressive and aggressive energy policy. Despite prevailing mythology, a policy that embraces renewable energy and rejects fossil fuel need not be expensive or untimely. The technology exists now to transition smoothly -- via the creation of myriad jobs implementing the transition -- from a dirty, archaic, inefficient carbon-based economy to a clean, modern, efficient renewable-based economy. It's easy, effective, and profitable. The only thing that stands in the way are intransigent corporate interests.

Please find the courage to lead this nation into the future. Thanks!

You really think population growth is a bigger problem than global warming?

Overpopulation may indeed become a problem, but in terms of global warming, "overpopulated" nations are not the ones responsible for most pollution and environmental degradation, it's industrialized nations who get the credit for that -- poor nations just can't afford to pollute the way rich Americans can (or even poor Americans, and other industrialized nations besides the U.S. pollute a good bit, too, compared to truly developing nations).

Thomas Malthus got the population thing wrong a long time ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Malthus

It's Good For You -- Incidental Reasons to Support Global Warming Mitigation

I think there are a few points worth amplifying:

1) There is no doubt in the minds of any reputable climate scientist that CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat, and that methane traps about 20 times as much heat as CO2, and other pollutants trap heat up to 1000 times as effectively as CO2. There is doubt about how much the global average temperature will change, and how fast. But those disagreements are insignificant. Most, if not all, reputable climate scientists agree that the planet will warm significantly as an effect of pollutants released by humans.(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/01/090119210532.htm)

2) Based on historical records (ice sheet core samples, etc.) climate change can occur very suddenly -- too suddenly for humans and other species to adapt. Many estimates are that 50% of species could be extinct by the next century. It's happened before: "in the Earth's history several mass extinctions of 50–90% of species have accompanied global temperature changes of ≈5°C." (http://www.pnas.org/content/103/39/14288.full) Do you really want to stand by and watch as half the planet's plants and animals disappear forever? (Probably to be replaced by new ones...in a few tens of millions of years.)

3) The pollutants that cause climate change are toxic and expensive in many other ways: CO2 makes oceans more acidic, which leads to large-scale die-offs of coral reefs and other organisms; burning coal releases arsenic, mercury, selenium, radioactive isotopes, and a raft of other toxins into the air (http://www.ucsusa.org/clean_energy/coalvswind/c02c.html), and ash piles leach them into groundwater and soil(http://www.earthjustice.org/news/press/007/coal-ash-pollution-contaminates-groundwater-increases-cancer-risks.html). Mining coal destroys vast landscapes and releases the same toxins into groundwater(http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080326201751.htm). Mining uranium for nuclear power destroys landscapes and poisons groundwater, too(http://www.environmentcolorado.org/news-releases/colorado-forest-project/colorado-forest-project--news/senate-passes-bill-to-protect-land-and-water-from-uranium-pollution); and nuclear reactors leave behind difficult and costly to manage toxic waste, waste that is a huge security risk. Oil and gas exploration and drilling destroy landscapes and groundwater, too, and drilling releases methane into the atmosphere, a heat-trapping gas 21 times more severe than CO2.(http://blog.cleanenergy.org/2009/12/10/false-solution-offshore-oil-drilling/) The cost for cleaning up all this pollution and treating the illnesses caused by it are paid by citizens, not the corporations who profit. And we are still left with diminished and declining ecosystems after energy companies move on.

besides, there are lots of cheaper, cleaner, sustainable ways to get energy: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/pid257
read more: http://cyclopsvuethinks.blogspot.com/search/label/Energy

Copenhagen: Comments on NY Times

Here's some comments I left on the NY Times Climate Change Conversations page:

People in the U.S. or other industrialized countries who oppose action to mitigate global warming because it will cost them jobs or money are either dupes or shills for big coal, big oil, or big nukes, and the glad-handing-get-rich-quick-at-the-expense-of-working-people wing of the Republican party, or their European counterparts (yes, there are some). These folks have been had; they've been done to; they've been led down the garden path, and they don't know it. Yet.

The rest of us do know that if we act now we will create good, long-term jobs to replace those lost in industries that are dying anyway, and spend little -- less than 50 cents a day for most Americans (or much less, less than zero, if we're smart). And, we'll prevent billions of tons of unnecessary, toxic pollution from contaminating our land and oceans, killing our children, and decimating multitudes of species. For no good reason. We have cheaper methods now of providing electricity, heating and cooling, and transportation that pollute far less, and leave behind no toxic legacy to our descendants. That's right, CHEAPER; with more, better paid, secure jobs. And cheaper from a national security perspective: no nuclear waste to proliferate, no energy rich dictators to deal with. We just need the courage to get out in front, get educated, and tell the blowhards who say it can't be done to buzz off. Let's, for once, do what's good for working people, the environment and the economy at large, instead of buying into a bunch of phony negativism from corporate profiteers who are interested in nothing but concentrating wealth in their own pockets.

The Rocky Mountain Institute has an extensive, and reputable library of documents to prove we can do this, and save money in the process: http://www.rmi.org/rmi/pid257

and more here: http://cyclopsvuethinks.blogspot.com/search/label/Energy

and the NY Times has an outstanding timeline here: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/12/07/science/20091207_CLIMATE_TIMELINE.html

Cheers Copenhagen!

An Elegant Refutation of Global Warming Deniers

You might give this a read if you have doubts about global warming...it won't convince you, but it might make you feel silly for a bit: "Johann Hari: How I wish that the global warming deniers were right / Are you prepared to take a 50-50 gamble on the habitability of the planet?"

On second thought, don't even bother. Ignorance is bliss: better to be blissed out as you "go gentle into that good night".

Nukes will do nothing to prevent climate change...

Here's a note that I sent, via the Nuclear Information and Resource Service (NIRS), to my Senators today:

Nuclear power is not a least-cost, or least-delay source of energy. For every dollar spent on nuclear energy, we lose the equivalent of $10 that we could have gained in efficiency, or up to about $2 gained from rapidly deployed clean, safe renewable sources (E05-15_MightyMice.pdf [page 5]), and we loose precious time -- no nuclear plant, if construction started today, would have any meaningful impact on mitigating the climate crisis we face. Nukes are too slow to build to do any good. So, be reasonable. Rule out nukes now, before we waste precious money and time.

Please, please, please make informed, rational decisions on this issue.

read more:
Rocky Mountain Institute Library
my blog -- energy
Thanks!

I hope they read it. I hope anyone reads it. Have a look at the Rocky Mountain Institute link above.

And then visit NIRS to send a letter of your own.

As Miami Slips Under the Waves...

Sometimes, when people deny the effects of climate change, it reminds me of the Black Knight in "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" who, as his limbs are lopped off by King Arthur, says, "Just a scratch," "Just a flesh wound" ...



How bad does it have to get before some people will accept the evidence that we're in a little trouble here?

Catastrophic global warming wouldn't be that hard to prevent (or at this point, mitigate), either: Energy

(I was prompted to make this comparison on the Huffington Post when some doubters of climate change posted skeptical comments: "Hundreds Of Icebergs Breaking Off Of Antarctica, Headed For New Zealand.")

I just read another comment that reminded me of this, a concise little evaluation of the risk of doing nothing to combat global warming:

Really Bad Ideas for Saving the Planet

Blue Marble from Apollo 17 (Image courtesy NASA Johnson Space Center)

Arun Gupta, at The Indypendent (which seems very eager for life support donations at the moment), in his article, "Hacking the Planet," rounds up the most widely circulated ideas for "geoengineering" our way out of greenhouse gas induced climate change. Of course, all of these solutions would be unmitigated disasters (see article), but they will get traction because they avoid upsetting the corporate-energy balance of power, and the concepts are easy to relate (if you leave out the ugly, complicating details).

If you want real, simple, least-cost solutions, read some stuff from the Rocky Mountain Institute's library, such as: "Four Nuclear Myths: A Commentary on Stewart Brand's Whole Earth Discipline and on Similar Writings"

RMI's credentials are unimpeachable, and they actually use evidence-based science, complete with footnoted references, to arrive at their conclusions. Very refreshing. Especially, after hearing the blather that issues from the halls of Congress, Fox News, and the Heritage Foundation. (You don't get links to those places, you know where to find that noise if you must.)

The point is, we could prevent (have prevented? past-tense now required?) catastrophic global warming, without detrimentally changing our industrialized life styles (do you care where the electricity comes from if it's cheaper, and the lights stay on?), but we need to take the advice of disinterested parties who offer real solutions derived from proven technology, and ignore big energy industry representatives and snake-oil traders. The best solutions are simple, elegant, cheap, proven, and already profitably used elsewhere. So what's the problem? Maybe it's just too easy, and we're just too cynical. Fatally cynical.

Support S.1733...

A letter to my Senators:

The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act (S.1733) is a nice start. It's a bonus that it preserves the EPA's authority to regulate greenhouse
gas emissions.

Still, it just won't be enough, and the repercussions of not doing enough are myriad: stagnating economy with few green jobs, crippling effects of global warming (desertification, water shortages, crop failures, crushing coastal storms and floods, mass extinctions, etc.), and further diminished national prestige.

The U.S.A. is a bull-headed laggard on global warming. Let's not be.
Please persuade Senators Kerry and Boxer to make deep cuts in greenhouse gas pollution (40% below 1990 levels!) so that the United States will contribute its share to reducing global atmospheric CO2 below 350 parts per million.

You know what to do. Now lets find the courage of our convictions and take this country to a prosperous, proud future.

Thanks.