The 2012 operating budget for our 16- story master-metered condo with 230 units is $1,448,226. The budget anticipates an estimated savings of $27,400 in utility costs for the coming and future years as a result of various energy saving measures being made in the building’s HVAC and electrical systems.
The savings enable the board to pass a budget with no increase in the condo fee.
→ 2 CommentsTags: economics · Energy · energy efficiency · master metering
This guest post from scientist Fish Out Of Water highlights how the relatively conservative International Energy Agency (IEA) has come to some rather serious and dealy concerning conclusions.
We have reached a fork in the road on climate warns the International Energy Agency (IEA). In the next 5 years we can decarbonize new energy production and increase energy efficiency or the earth will face irreversible destructive climate change. Time has run out. Every new power plant and activity that emits greenhouse gases will lock in emissions for the life of the unit, raising CO2 levels to the point that there will be no turning back from devastating global warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius.
“The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency (IEA), told the Guardian. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”Every month now counts: if the world is to stay below 2C of warming, which scientists regard as the limit of safety, then emissions (Fish’s Ed. this is an error by the journalist. 450 ppm is concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere) must be held to no more than 450 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere; the level is currently around 390ppm. But the world’s existing infrastructure is already producing 80% of that “carbon budget”, according to a new analysis by the IEA, published on Wednesday. This gives an ever-narrowing gap in which to reform the global economy on to a low-carbon footing.
Dr James Hansen has pressed for a target of 350 parts per million (ppm) CO2 in the atmosphere because his research shows that the climate is even more sensitive to greenhouse gases than the IPCC estimates from the last IPCC report. The real scientific debate on climate change is how sensitive the climate is to increasing levels of greenhouse gases, not that climate change is driven by human activities.
Comments Off on International Energy Agency Warns: Last Chance to Protect Humanity’s FutureTags: carbon dioxide · catastrophic climate change · climate change · Energy
This guest post from RL Miller provides an insightful way to look at decisions across America that are giving the Federal Government’s blessing to expanded and enhanced fossil fuel production.
The Keystone XL pipeline symbolizes our national debate: a governmental policy to be made that will set policy, for good or bad, for years to come: claimed energy security (access to friendly North American oil) and jobs vs environmental ruin and carbon bomb continuing our addiction to cheap-ish fossil fuels.
Keystone XL is a huge decision to be made at a Presidential level. However, all across America, similar decisions are being made: fossil fuel production is being expanded with the blessing of the federal government.
Consider Alton Coal.
But first, consider Bryce Canyon National Park.
→ 1 CommentTags: coal · Energy · Obama Administration
An editorial note: As will be seen, the title words are in quotations for a reason and were not the author’s in origin.
One of my personal great regrets at the moment is that I’m not out on my bike. Rather than bike commuting, bike shopping, and otherwise (at least when the weather isn’t too bad), I’m far too often in a car and very (VERY) rarely on a bike. And, well, this is something that I’m truly not happy about even though there is a pretty good excuse: a little more than five months ago, I took a reasonably serious fall bike commuting and am still in physical therapy dealing with the injuries. (FYI, while there are far better experiences in life, I consider myself lucky. I could have fallen in front of a car, hit my head on a curb, had an employer ready to fire me for not being able to go into the office for weeks, etc …) So, rather than 100+ miles bike commuting, I’m doing perhaps 50 miles a week of driving (a lot of telecommuting and a little public transit but, honestly, standing in the Metro for a rush hour trip can be rather painful and my injuries aren’t visible, making ‘begging’ for a seat an uncomfortable experience) and doing perhaps 25 miles a week of driving that otherwise would have been bike traveling. Simply put, therefore, I’m stuck sitting in traffic at times when I would much (for so many reasons) prefer churning out miles on my bike and getting to watch/interact with the pseudo-community that is bike commuters who are, writ large, pretty good to each other..
This non-biking routine isn’t, however, the reason for questioning “a “pussy” about biking”.
Perhaps because of the frustration of not being able to bike commute, my eyes seem to be more open to bikers/bike-commuters. Amid a larger trend for increased cycling (pdf), the DC area certainly seems to have more and more bikers on the road during commuting hours. This is a great trend even as the numbers and percentages are far below what they could (and should) be. As I watch this trend, sadly sitting behind a windshield, the wide variance of biker choices and behaviors is notable. Some are equipped as if for war, with helmet, rear-view mirrors, padded-clothing, poles with flags, lights and reflective material all over the bike, who exhibit extreme caution about any movement in traffic, etc. Considering some drivers and road-rage amid the DC area’s lousy traffic, “as if for war” might be the appropriate expression. On the other extreme, are bikers wearing zero protective gear, have no lights, weave in and out of traffic (and ride at speed against traffic), act as if everyone else has the total responsibility to adjust to their actions, and generally seem determined to assure a steady flow of business for DC-area emergency rooms.
Last evening, after a very long work day, I headed home in the dark. I was, honestly, surprised at the number of bikers on the streets that late. And, for whatever reason, I started to informally count them. I hit 23 before the events below … 23 in perhaps two miles of driving. Impressive number but, sadly, just four of those 23 had any meaningful amount of reflective gear or lights. (Reminder, this was the first work day after the clocks were set back … next week, probably more will have such gear at the same time of night.) And, only three of the 23 were wearing helmets. Not a good indicator as to traffic safety.
However, two bikers truly set me off. Biking together, they weren’t wearing any reflective material nor helmets and were clothed entirely in dark materials. They were, well, simply hard to see even being aware that they were on the road with me. They were also extremely aggressive and, truthfully, sloppy riders. In less than a mile stretch, they moved from one side of the multi-lane street to the other six times, without any signaling, and with minimal looking (if any) to see what traffic was doing around them. They also were chatting and, in terms of that sloppiness, that led them to fail to maintain any semblance of a straight light at times as they would weave in and out of lanes.
One of those weavings happened just by me, forcing me to brake suddenly to avoid one of them. That earned me a honk and cursing from the driver behind me, who hit his brakes hard rather than hitting me. As I then passed them, my frustration led me to (rather politely in my mind) call out: “It’s dark out and you need to be letting drivers know you’re there.” At a light, this led to an exchange of ‘we’re bicyclists and you need to give us the right of way’ and, on my stating (truthfully) that I’m a bicyclist who prefers bike commuting, the response: “You’re a pussy.” As I drove home, with frustration rather than road rage the dominate emotion, I contemplated this encounter. My conclusion: they were all too likely to end up in (or causing) an accident and that they wouldn’t merit the attention given to them afterwards as we should sorry for the person who ended up hitting them because of their high-risk behaviors.
There are very real issues with bike safety and there is the simple reality that automobiles win the collision every time to the biker’s detriment. And, the reality is that most of the real problems lie with the drivers and large vehicles, who should be driving in ways that enables safe biking. And, there is the reality that there are many laws that inhibit more sensible biking (with, for example, the value of making stop signs yields for bicyclists). Biking merits promotion, enhancement, and protection including, for example, the creation and expansion of bike paths and greenways. Reckless and idiotic bikers, like those I encountered last evening, make it harder to achieve an enhanced biking environment.
Related posts
DC Biking Resources
→ 2 CommentsTags: Energy
Today, the day after 
some 13,000 people surrounded the White House to call on President Obama to apply leadership in denying the Keystone XL pipeline application (excellent Inside Climate News article), Politico broke the news that the State Department’s Inspector General will conduct an investigation into State’s handling of the Keystone XL pipeline application. Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN-9), who has been a real leader on this issue, issued a press release along with State’s memo to him.
“Given the significant economic, environmental, and public health implications of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the American people deserve an accurate, unbiased review,” said Congressman Cohen, who was the only member of Congress to attend yesterday’s anti-Keystone rally outside the White House. “The recent allegations of corruption and conflicts of interest are disconcerting, and I appreciate that the Office of Inspector General is investigating the State Department’s review process. As stated in a previous letter to the President, I ask that he withhold any final decision on the pipeline until the investigation is complete.”
Comments Off on A screeching halt to Keystone XL plans?Tags: Energy
Today is one year before the 2012 Presidential election. An important date. Considering the Anti-Science Syndrome suffering Hatred Of a Liveable Economic System dominating the Republican Party, it not hard to see this as an election that could seal the nation’s fate when it comes to any hope for navigating the Perfect Storm of Peak Oil and Climate Chaos without massive damage to the Union. And, even while recognizing the importance of next year’s election, I did not go to any of today’s BarackObama.COM celebration (fundraising, activism building) events for which I’d received invitations.
Instead, I joined 10,000 or so others at (or, well, I should say around) the White House. I, along with these 10,000 others were there to send a message.
Mr President
We support Change and Hope that we could believe in. We said, strongly, YES, WE CAN and were there to support you because we believe that YES, YOU COULD and, more importantly, YES, YOU WOULD.
Mr. President, you stated:
Let’s be the generation that finally frees American from the tyranny of oil.
Mr. President, I recognize that under your leadership, your Administration achieved deals for significant improvements in the CAFE standards that will dramatically reduce America’s oil use. For that, I applaud you. Mr. President, I recognize that the Department of Energy, under Secretary Steve Chu, is pursuing many paths that create real potential for even more dramatic declines in oil use and other paths to reduce carbon 
emissions. Yes, Mr. President, I recognized that you have done many things but these ‘many things’ are barely enough to slow America’s emissions profile as opposed to turning us around toward the dramatic reductions required to give any hope to avoiding the worst Climate Chaos scenarios.
Mr. President, you should be well aware that the nation’s leading climate scientist is on the record that it is “game over” if we fully exploit Canadian tar sands.
Mr. President, you should be aware that the industry-generated statistics about job creation are an impressive example of ‘lies, damned lies, and statistics’ that do not stand up to serious scrutiny giving lie to the argument that this is a situation of economy vs the environment.
Mr. President, you mst be aware that there are serious questions as to the quality of State Department oversight of the Keystone XL process and, even,
its legality and ethics.
The photo to the right represents over $500 in contributions to the Obama-Biden 2008 campaign. It represents many hours of volunteering, 100s of phone calls, and other activities in support of the campaign in 2008. And, right now, for the 2012 election which I (and the 10,000+ others who I joined around the White House this afternoon for several hours this afternoon) know is so critically important on so many fronts, this photo represents zero dollars, zero phone calls, zero door-to-door activity, zero strategy sessions, zero phone calls, zero …
A question for President Obama, BarackObama.COM, and the 2012 election committee: Who is your base? Those who are fighting to create a more prosperous and climate-friendly future or the fossil-foolish interests seeking to bury us with the perpetuation of and grown in polluting energy systems? The Keystone XL pipeline decision matters for the nation’s future and, well, it matters not just to this one contributor and voter …
→ 2 CommentsTags: 2012 Presidential Election · barack obama · Energy
Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, the only Nobel Prize winner in the Obama Administration’s cabinet, has developed a strong optimism about solar energy’s potential to be a major player in the U.S. and global electrical system. The “Sun Shot” is one of the core innovation efforts aiming to accelerate solar power’s cost curves so that, by the end of the decade, solar will be comparable to grid electricity prices such that it truly, even without accounting for pollution’s external costs, becomes the ‘preferred’ electricity option for even the most penny-pinching American.
When questioned, today, at the Washington Post’s Smart Energy conference about his coming to Washington with a passion about the need for action to mitigate Climate Change, Chu commented
[Our progress and action] could be faster … .but we are moving …
It is only a matter of time until solar hits parity. The only question is whether it is this decade or a decade and a half in this country.
The basic target of SunShot: drive the equation so that solar is cost-advantaged to other new power option before the end of this decade. And, with that occurring, will foster not just reduced carbon emissions but also create vibrant economic activity in the nation with solar installations and in the export of solar products (if the Chinese subsidies of its solar industries doesn’t drive out all U.S. manufacturing.
NOTE: Credit to the moderator for asking serious and tough questions. Chu was pushed, hard, re Keystone XL. The moderator asked, in a series of three ever more probbing questions, to get Chu’s opinion of the pipeline. His responses were, after emphasizing mileage standards as way to reduce US dependence on foreign oil:
Comments Off on Secretary of Energy’s optimism around Solar Power truly evidentTags: department of energy · Energy
We know that the regulation leads to a safer society and that regulatory paths toward reducing pollution loads leads to a healthier society. These are simply facts. Those facts, however, can be difficult to translate from larger statistics to our personal lives. A new research paper from Nicholas J. Sanders and Charles F. Stoecker provides something that any American young man might wish to consider.
Where Have All the Young Men Gone? Using Gender Ratios to Measure Fetal Death Rates examines how pollution loads impact fetal health and concludes that the 1970 Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) had a rapid and rather direct impact on any legitimate ‘pro-life’ agenda:
calculations suggest the pollution reductions from the CAAA prevented approximately 21,000-134,000 fetal deaths in 1972.
Within just two years, the CAAA’s positive impacts included 10,000 of babies born rather than fetus dying in their mothers’ wombs.
This is, however, not a gender-neutral issue.
Males are more vulnerable to side effects of maternal stress in utero, and thus are more likely to suffer fetal death due to pollution exposure
After examining changes in “ambient total suspended particulate matter (TSPs)”, Sanders and Stoecker were able to calculate just how much the CAAA’s reductions in TSPs impacted not just total live births, but the likelihood that a male fetus would survive to birth.
We find a statistically and economically significant association between ambient TSP levels and the fraction of live births that are male: a one unit increase in annual ambient TSP levels is associated with approximately a 0.088 percentage point change in the probability of a live birth being male, and a standard deviation increase in the annual average TSPs (approximately 35 micrograms per cubic meter) is associated with a 3.1 percentage point change. These effects are larger when considering particularly vulnerable subgroups, such as less educated mothers, single mothers, and black children.
We have long know that the Clean Air Act has led to a healthier society and that this has included decreasing the chance of a fetus dying in the womb. (As a related aside, while there have been about $500 billion in CAA costs, there have been over $20 trillion in benefits … a 40-1 ROI is pretty good, no?) At least for this reader, Sanders and Stoecker have added something new to the agenda: the CAAA had a direct impact on improving the chance for a male to be born. Thus, if you’re male and under 40 years old, perhaps you should take a moment to look in the mirror and take a moment to thank the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for its implementation of the Clean Air Act … that just might be the reason you’re around to look in the mirror.
Hat tip to Freakonomics, who end their post with this searingly on-target question:
That’s a pretty big range, but even the lower-bound is pretty striking: a minimum of 21,000 avoided fetal deaths as a result of the CAAA? It certainly makes you wonder how many fetal deaths are currently being caused by ongoing air pollution — in the U.S. and elsewhere.
→ 1 CommentTags: Energy · environmental · pollution
Trade show spaces often have interesting surprises and value at conferences.
In 2011, the White House’s “GreenGov” conference is structured as a private conference – with sponsors and many companies showing things on the trade show. While discomfited by this structure (as opposed to a government event something truly open to the interested public), the conference’s trade show has some interesting surprises. One of those came highlighted in a give-away in the registration package: Image Microsystems. The give-away looked like something that simply contributed to my likely waste stream: a stop sign. Sometimes, however, giveaways work to catch attention.
From the sticker on the back of the stop sign:
MicroStrateTM is made from 100% e-waste plastic from spent inkjet and toner cartridges, and plastics from idled electronic assets.
Okay, they’ve started to get my interest.
[Read more →]
Comments Off on Energy COOL: From old VCR to new roadsignTags: Energy · energy cool · plastic
Spinmeisters like to be well paid and the fossil fuel (especially) extraction industries have more cash to throw around than Bill Gates. Thus, it shouldn’t surprise anyone that some of the best ‘astroturfing’ and oxymoronic terminology comes in efforts to extend our recklessly destructive addiction to oil.
Amid the Canadian Tar Sands polluters’ campaign to promote the Keystone XL pipeline, a relatively new entry has been the “Ethical Oil” effort which Americans have seen in television advertising and other press. The basic argument:
America imports oil from Saudi Arabia.
Saudi Arabia denies women’s rights.
America thus funds Saudi denial of women’s rights.
America also imports oil from Canada.
Canadian women have equal rights.
America thus funds Canadian women’s equal rights.
Support polluting tar sands because that will move money from Saudi Arabia to Canada and thus mean more support for women’s rights.
Like so many twisted logic streams (Jane is a woman. Jane doesn’t want to have a child. Therefore, women don’t want to have children.), Ethical Oil’s logic has a certain shallow logic to it. However, as Emma Pullman eloquently lays out, Ethical Oil’s illogic doesn’t stand up to scrutiny. She lays out three fundamental reasons that Ethical Oil’s argument is deceptive:
As for that last and specifically wihin the tar sands industry, Pullman highlights that
In Alberta’s tar sands region in particular, rates of sexual violence towards women have increased and women working in the industry have reported sexual harassment and gender discrimination. With expansion of the tar sands industry, instances of domestic violence in Fort McMurray have spiralled upwards, and few women have safe places to go, forcing many to return home to their abusers.
“Ethical Oil”‘s illogic is designed to the turn the conversation away from simple truths:
“Ethical Oil”‘s logic is not just illogical it is, of course, fundamentally deceptive with the intent to change the conversation and confuse people as to the issues at hand.
→ 2 CommentsTags: Energy
