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Category: Renewable Energy

Rethinking How We Get From Home to the Grocery Store

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab. Click on the Index Topic Name at the beginning of each post to see more posts on that topic on PC or Laptop.)

Photo: texastribune.org

In a recent seminar by Climate One, an environmental conversation group, sponsored in San Francisco, one participant pointed out “the greenhouse gas reduction potential is huge.  Greenhouse gases from transportation are about 28% of all greenhouse gases in this country. “  Certainly changing how we get from home to the grocery store and everywhere will have a significant impact on climate change and greenhouse gas diffusion into the atmosphere.

While a few of us walk to the market bringing home our groceries in a cart with a basket, 99 % of all grocery trips are made by one person in a two-ton car, spewing out carbon gases.  Of course, most Americans still live in suburbs, sprawled out with single family homes connected by streets and freeways to shopping centers where the grocery store is located.  We buy a house in the suburb, buy a car to get around and that’s about all the thought we put into it.

We need to start thinking beyond the present urban map and transportation model centered on the single passenger car.  How about electric scooters?  They are shareable, we setup a logon on our smartphone, pick up a scooter left by a previous user and head on our way. Just leave the scooter there on the sidewalk when we arrive for the next person to use it.  In a minute or two, they are riding and are off on their trip.  Bikes are being shared in cities all over the U.S. with some bikes motorized to handle longer trips.

A short trip in a car on average costs about $8 one way, while an electric assisted bike costs just $2 per trip. There are cargo bikes available as well that can handle larger loads.  Of course, weather is an issue as these sharable scooter and bike solutions are growing popular in the Southwest and West.  Public transit, a bus or subway maybe the answer for rainy or snowy days.

Uber and Lyft are rethinking their business models to include electric scooters, and bikes. A customer logs on to their app for all personal transportation needs is their vision. They already offer shareable rides at a discount. Instead of buying a car, people are living closer to work and shopping in densely populated cities where owning a car is actually a costly liability.

New sharable transportation models combined with driverless cars would not only change transportation but our city maps as well.  Urban planners are already building denser housing near transportation hubs, providing bike lanes off away from parked cars and more bike pathways used exclusively by bikers.  The economic consequences are significant, the new car and used car markets would begin to shrink,  financing and insurance businesses for auto loans would decline.  New businesses using sharable transportation system would spring up for delivery, assisted transportation for doctor appoints or dropping off kids a practice.

Most importantly, using sharable transportation vehicles, bikes and scooters would make a significant impact to reduce carbon gases across the planet.  We may be able to finally, get ahead of the climate change curve and return our planet to more livable temperatures

Thinking creatively to solve our major problems like Climate One does in conversation mode with all points of view represented is refreshing.  The dialog during this seminar was focused on ‘can do’  and ‘make it happen’ while being sensitive to safety issues, city regulators and other businesses.  If we could have more of this civil solution oriented tone in our national dialog we could solve the big problems in front of us, as we always have the past two hundred and forty years.

Zinc Air Battery Is Renewables “Game Changer”

(Editor Note: Insight Bytes focus on key economic issues and solutions for all of us, on Thursdays we spotlight in more depth Solutions to issues we have identified. Fridays we focus on how to build the Common Good. Please right click on images to see them larger in a separate tab. Click on the Index Topic Name at the beginning of each post to see more posts on that topic on PC or Laptop.)

Photo: public.wmo.int

One of the major problems with solar and wind energy is how to store the energy they create for use when it is actually needed.  Patrick Soon-Shiong, a California billionaire, announced a new zinc air battery which is cheaper than lithium-ion batteries, less likely to catch fire and store more electricity for its size. Forecasts for renewable energy demand are soaring.

Source: EIA – 2017

Renewable energy will continue to grow from the present rate of about 7 % to about 14 % of total energy sources by 2050.  Thus, technologies like the zinc air battery could make a significant impact on how quickly  development and availability of electricity from renewables can be realized.   The zinc air batteries have been deployed at villages in Africa and Asia and cell towers in the U.S. without backup from the electric grid.

“It could change and create completely new economies using purely the power of the sun, wind and air,” Dr. Soon-Shiong told the New York Times last week. Dr. Soon-Shiong’s company, NantEnergy has deployed micro grids in Africa and Asia in arrays of zinc air batteries and solar arrays to 110 villages not connected to an electrical grid system.  The technology can bring down the cost of electricity below $100 per kilowatt hour.  At this level the zinc air batteries become cost effective to deploy in a fully electric grid that is carbon free.  Nant Energy plans to expand the product line into telecommunications, and home storage use in California and New York soon.

We are excited to see this technology come on board, just as California sets a goal for a carbon free energy system by 2045.  The key now is to get our politics aligned with what we need to do to mitigate the climate change crisis.  We need to give complete and full support to the Paris Climate accord, take leadership with other countries in developing renewable energy sources and wind down our use of fossil fuels.

EPA Relaxes Coal Burning Regulations Endangering People and Economies

 

Image: agriland.ie

The day after that EPA announces relaxation of coal burning regulations scientists announced the first time in all recorded history the ‘last ice sea’ north of Greenland has thawed twice!  ­This assumption that ‘last ice sea’ would not thaw due to climate warming is no longer proving to be true. One scientist described the iconic ice thawing discovery as ‘scary’.

Sources: The Polar Science Center, The Guardian – 8/21/18

At the same time, global warming is causing the seas to rise by 8 inches since 1900 of which 3 inches was since 1993.  Scientists predict the sea level will rise another 3 to 7 inches by 2030. Today, rising sea levels are sending property values in low tidal areas spiraling down. University of Colorado and Penn State University researchers found that homes within just one foot of being flooded from a sea level rise were selling at a 14.7 % discount compared to homes on higher ground. Analysts have totaled property price losses since 2005 for Charleston at $265 million and Miami- Dade County at $465 million. Of course this is just the tip of the iceberg when considering all the coastal properties in the U.S. – losses are in the billions of dollars.

California has experienced the highest number and most acreage of wildfires in its history. Japan sweltered under hot July summer temperatures making new records. During the summer large areas of heat pressure or heat domes scattered around the hemisphere led to the sweltering temperatures. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation notes the heat is to blame for at least 54 deaths in southern Quebec, near Montreal, which sweated under record high temperatures. The worldwide list of new high temperatures goes on and on.  The chart below shows extremely hot temperatures worldwide in a model at 2 meters above ground.

Sources: University of Maine, The Washington Post – 7/5/18

The relaxation of Obama administration clean air restrictions would possibly kill from 470 to 1,400 people per year the EPA admits.  The policy shift would move enforcement responsibility to the states, and allow them to relax regulations on coal burning plants even when installing new equipment.  Utilities would be allowed to use old standards when installing new equipment without having to meet higher air quality regulations.  The Obama era policies were never enforced because the Supreme Court found in favor of the states who sued to overturn the tighter regulations.

Next Steps: 

Enough is enough, the federal government is here to protect American lives not kill more people as a result of policy.  The government’s position makes no sense, it’s time we as citizens take a stand.

As we have said in a previous post:

“we may need to look to how to make duty more of a core value in our culture and in particular business culture.  As we have observed our country is essentially run by Corporate Nation States, they must change their attitude, behavior and operating practices focused on their duty to all the people not just their executives and customers. Everything a corporation does in some way impacts the Common Good. We are the people these corporations serve, and we should expect nothing less than socially responsible behavior from the executives running these huge Corporate Nation States.”

We would like the executives of these coal companies to think about the people that will get ill or die because they wanted to make more money and be ‘efficient and affordable’.  What if their daughter died?  How would they feel.  It seems that we are back to the point we made in last week’s Common Good post we ‘use people, and love things (money)’. This policy is dead wrong, and should never be implemented.  Instead, these corporations should be coming to us with proposals on how to save people’s lives and speed up the process of reducing climate warming. Maybe, these executives need to look themselves in the mirror and ask ‘who am I serving?’.  Time is running out, people are being killed in the heat, economies are being destroyed.  All these forces will cause civil conflict unless we act now to reverse the course of climate warming, before it is too late. 

EDF Announces Satellite To Monitor Climate Change

 

Image: EDF

One of the major problems facing environmental government and non-government groups is monitoring emissions from locations all over the planet.  Many locations maybe quite remote while others are easily identifiable using land based monitoring systems.  So, having a satellite to monitor emissions world wide is a way to accurately monitor emissions.

Methane emissions are a major component of climate change gases.Here are EPA projections for all climate change gases:

Chart: EPA – 2016

Environment Defense Fund President, Fred Krugg recently announced in a TedTalk, in Vancover, British Columbia that EDF was developing a fourth wave environmental monitoring system. The first wave was the conservation movement led by President Teddy Roosevelt, second came the anti-pollution laws of the 1960s and 1970s. Third, was the use of market based solutions and corporate partnerships in the 1990s.

The MethaneSAT is a Fourth Wave environmental monitoring system, using satellite technology to identify methane sources planet wide.  Readings would be sent to government and non-government groups to identify sources, work out solutions and weigh alternative measures. Methane is a potent gas responsible for 25 % of all global warming. Targeting methane gas emissions is the fastest, cheapest way to attack global warming while other programs continue to focus on carbon dioxide emissions as well, according to EDF.

The launch target for MethaneSAT is 2021, with a focus on specific monitoring areas including 80 % of all oil and gas fields across the planet. Feedlots, agriculture and other methane sources will be monitored as well. EDF has set a high goal of 45 % reduction in oil and gas methane emissions by 2025.  Achievement of this goal would deliver the same 20 year climate benefit as closing one third of all coal fired power plants worldwide.

We are pleased to see EDF take a proactive approach to monitoring methane worldwide, we hope that the U.S. and other countries will work hard to support this effort. The U.S. should not be waiting for an NGO to take the lead, the EPA needs to take the lead and focus on how to gather accurate data to effectively manage climate change initiatives as well as water.

Lyft Takes Responsibility for the Environment

 

Image: lyft.com

Lyft recently announced that it will be purchasing carbon offset credits to be used to make riding in Lyft cars carbon neutral. John Zimmer, Lyft, co-founder noted in a Medium post that in 2017 when President Trump announced the US was leaving the Paris Climate Agreement that Lyft was joining many other companies in We Are Still In, to declare as an alliance their commitment  to protecting the environment.  The group started by Michael Bloomberg brings state and local governments, businesses, universities and colleges representing 120 million Americans and $6.2 trillion of the economy affirming their commitment to the Paris agreement.

Zimmer outlines a bold effort with multi-million dollar investments in carbon control or emissions projects near major markets in Ohio, Michigan, and Oklahoma. The $11 billion ride sharing company declares, “your decision to ride with Lyft will support the fight against climate change.” The ride hailing company sees a future where all their vehicles are electric and carbon emission free – as the race is on toward electric cars and possible autonomous rides.

We applaud the move by Lyft, taking on corporate social responsibility for the millions of tons of emissions that Lyft cars are spewing into the air every year.  Some studies show that ride sharing rather than reducing the number of car rides people take, they actually are increasing because using the app is so easy and the cost relatively inexpensive. So, the move and commitment by Lyft to take responsibility for our environment is a key move we expect to see from every company that adds carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

Here are examples of the carbon footprint of various types of cars and transportation systems:

Sources: DEFRA, EIA, EPA, GREET, Shrinkthatfootprint.com – 6/7/18

Clearly the combination of solar with electric cars is promising along with public transit like the school bus or Eurostar rail.  We need to make carbon emissions emitted by all businesses a priority in government policy transparency to show consumers and investors how businesses are contributing to carbon emissions and what they are doing about the problem. The Lyft Green Cities Initiative demonstrates the commitment by Lyft to take responsibility for our environment that we expect to see from every business as they all contribute carbon emissions to the atmosphere.

California Leads with Solar New Home Requirement

Photo: npr.org

The State of California is the first state in the country to require all new homes being built beginning in 2020 have solar panels.  The requirement applies to all single family and condo units up to three stories high.  The additional cost is estimated to be about $9, 500 added onto one of the highest median prices in the country at $565,000.

Some observers would have preferred that the State focus on building large solar farms rather than residences since the residence approach means that utilities have to deal with power coming up line that may be difficult for them to handle.  Yet, residence based solar panel electricity provides for a more distributed system, rather than a centralized one offering more redundancy, options for homeowners and great self-reliance.

The residence based electricity option basically poses an alternative to central line based power utilities.  Essentially with competition from residences it will spur utilities to cut costs and see how to move into renewable energy quicker to take advantage of lower costs for solar power.

Sources: California Energy Commission, The Wall Street Journal – 5/9/18

The shift to renewable energy sources is crucial to meet objects for climate change as endorsed by 175 countries in the Paris Climate Accord. When we think about the consequences of not meeting the challenge of climate change it is unthinkable how hostile our planet will be to live on – eventually making it uninhabitable.

We call for a national initiative to make renewables the standard for all new homes. As we have noted almost 60 % of the people want to set the environment as a priority even if there is an economic cost.  if the federal government won’t do it then the top 20  new housing states should implement the plan and make renewables as the de facto approach toward home building.

To assist first time buyers, we recommend the State of California offer for homes under $400k an energy credit to be used as a credit on families’ state taxes to help out with the added solar expense added onto the price of a new home.

Let’s get the country moving toward renewable energy as our standard way of building communities and enjoy a climate that we all can live in.

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