At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package are for green investments (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)
The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:
Transcript
The stimulus package before Congress spends an unprecedented amount of money on issues important to environmentalists. Lester Graham reports it looks like the interests of the environment and the economy are aligning:
The stimulus package is packed with things that make environmentalists smile.
There are billions for renewable energy and research for alternative energy sources. There are billions for making federal buildings and homes more energy efficient. There are billions for mass transit and Amtrak, and a half-a-billion to training workers for green collar jobs.
Melinda Pierce is with the Sierra Club.
“Well, I tell you, what has struck me is the ‘billion’ word instead of ‘million’. So many of these projects – in terms of weatherization, energy efficiency, high-speed rail – have suffered from a lack of funding for the last eight years. This package will funnel literally billions of dollars into the programs that we think are America’s clean energy future.”
So, how many billions total in green investments? At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package.
And many environmentalists, some economists and business leaders, and, apparently, a good number of the Members of Congress think the growth sector of the economy is going to be the green sector.
Argonne researchers and technicians are
tracking how well poplar trees are containing and removing
toxic solvents (such as Trichloroethane, 1,1-Dichloroethane,
and 1,1,1-Trichloroethane, Trichloroethylene) from underground
water. Pictured here are Cristina Negri, Lawrence Moss, John Quinn,
Rob Piorkowski.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
rgonne National Laboratory planted
800 poplar trees to remediate land that had been
contaminated with toxic solvents. To ensure the tree
roots suck up polluted groundwater, Argonne researchers
manipulate the trees into sending roots far deeper
than they normally do.
(Photo by Shawn Allee)
When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:
Transcript
When you think of cleaning up toxic waste, you might think of technicians digging huge holes
and carting off contaminated soil. It’s expensive, and they’re often just putting the soil and the
problem, somewhere else – say, to a hazardous waste landfill. Shawn Allee met researchers
who hope trees can clean some toxic waste, and leave the landscape in place:
Argonne National Laboratory is a Big Science kinda place.
It’s a federal lab southwest of Chicago where they study particle physics, nuclear energy, and
advanced environmental clean-up.
The irony is, the place has been around so long, it’s now cleaning up its own environmental
messes.
In fact, it’s Larry Moss’s job. He takes me to a toxic waste site where trees help clean the soil.
More on those trees in a sec – first, here’s why Larry Moss needs them.
“This site was a very busy site back in the 50s and 60s. We had a large manufacturing process
for reactor components – did a lot of testing of reactor assemblies and different fuel mixtures. And to
do that you had to clean all that equipment and a lot of that solvent came down here.
There was a unit that was called a French drain, which basically was a trench filled with gravel. They would come down here and dump chemicals into this trench, and their theory was it would dissolve into the ground. They
thought it would just go away.”
Those solvents did not go away. They leeched into underground water.
The solvents potentially cause cancer and other problems, so the government said Argonne
needed to do something about the mess.
Researcher Christina Negri lays out what the options were.
“Put a parking lot on top of the pollution area
and basically leave it there forever. The other extreme, it would have been: dig out the soil, take it
somewhere – where you haven’t changed much. You’ve moved it from here to a landfill. That’s not the solution as
well.”
Those options – covering it up or carting it off – are also expensive.
So, Argonne researchers figured they’d try something new.
Negri says they hope to eliminate pollution on site – with the help of poplar trees.
Negri: “We’re taking advantage of a trait that these trees have to
go about finding water.”
Allee: “Let me get a closer look at a tree, here.”
Negri: “What you have to picture in your mind – See the height of the tree?”
Allee: “I’m looking at one that’s as tall as a three story walk-up building I live in.”
Negri: “You have to flip it 180 degrees and imagine the roots are going down that deep.”
Negri says they coaxed the roots into going straight down instead of spreading out. It seems to
work; the poplar trees are sucking water out of the ground and taking up solvent.
“Part of it is degraded within the plant. Part of it goes out into the air, which sounds like an
ominous thing to say, right? But if you do your calculations right, there’s much less risk when
these compounds are in the air than there is when they’re down 30 feet below.”
Negri’s team hopes the poplar trees will be more sustainable and cheaper than alternatives, but
they’re likely to be slower.
After all, it took years for the trees to grow. That’s fine for Argonne, because no one’s at risk – but that’s
not the case everywhere.
“Arguably, this is not the remedy you would adopt if you had, like, a tank spill or something that
you really need to go in right away, clean up and be done very quickly. It’s not a remedy if there’s
anybody’s at risk.”
This isn’t the only attempt to use plants to clean up toxic waste. The science behind it is called
‘phytoremediation.’
In other examples, scientists tried alpine pennycress to clean up zinc, and pigweed to suck up
radioactive cesium.
Negri says the trick is to use the right plant for the right toxin and know whether the plants stays
toxic, too.
Still, she says, toxic waste is such a big problem, it’s good to have lots of tools in your clean-up
toolbox.
Former US Vice President Al Gore will deliver a special address to the thousands of scientists gathered at the American Association for the Advancement of Science's meeting this week. (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)
Thousands of scientists from around the world will be hob-knobbing in Chicago, starting today. They’re going to be celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and how he changed science forever. But they won’t be just celebrating – they’ll be thinking through one of the biggest environmental problems we all face:
Transcript
Thousands of scientists from around the world will be hob-knobbing in Chicago starting today. They’re going to be celebrating the 200th birthday of Charles Darwin and how he changed science forever. But they won’t be just celebrating –- they’ll be thinking through one of the biggest environmental problems we all face:
The group’s called the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and they’re putting on their annual meeting – one of the biggest science meet-ups in the world.
This time around there’s plenty of attention on the science of climate change.
The group doesn’t mince words on the issue.
Here’s CEO – Dr. Alan Leschner.
“The last five or more years has been a period of, frankly, denial by the US government about the need to address the problem of global change and its consequences for the world. Now , we think there’s a big opportunity, particularly with the new science appointments made by President Obama to be able to address these kinds of issues in a focused and coherent way.
Scientists there will present work on whether biofuels really help cut carbon emissions, what kind of food crops are best for the climate, and whether we’re losing fish species because global warming.”
And to headline the whole thing – former Vice President Al Gore’s dropping in later this week.
European consumers have been quicker to adopt new technologies, like hybrids and efficient diesel cars. Energy Discovery -Innovation Institutes might change that. (Photo by Michael Pereckas, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
Making the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be a long-term, expensive effort. But, there is the opportunity for jobs, energy independence and reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. This week a report from the Brookings Institution proposes a way to help get us there: Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes. These institutes would take a big picture view of the change and help researchers and businesses avoid pitfalls and false starts along the way. Lester Graham spoke with a supporter of the idea, Gary Was. He’s the Director the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan:
Transcript
Making the shift from fossil fuels to cleaner energy will be a long-term, expensive effort. But, there is the opportunity for jobs, energy independence and reducing the greenhouse gases that cause climate change. This week a report from the Brookings Institution proposes a way to help get us there: Energy Discovery-Innovation Institutes. These institutes would take a big picture view of the change and help researchers and businesses avoid pitfalls and false starts along the way. Lester Graham spoke with a supporter of the idea, Gary Was. He’s the Director the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University of Michigan:
Gary Was: Energy is a very complex topic. It’s a social issue as much as it is a
technological issue. In addition to the technological challenges of coming up with
new energy sources and proving energy efficiency, we also have a lot of social issues
involved as well. The business sector is heavily involved. Economics is a big issue.
Social behavior and social preferences are big factors in our energy use patterns and
our habits.
Lester Graham: Give me an example of that.
Was: Well, one example is plug-in hybrid electrics. There’s a lot of questions to
how these plug-in hybrids are going to function, and whether they’ll be successful. A
lot of that depends upon people’s preferences. The idea of plugging in, when you
can plug in, how long you have to plug in, how complicated or how difficult it is –
can make a big difference. We’ve seen examples of that with diesel. In Europe, half
the cars are diesel powered. We have the same technology here. There are no diesel
powered cars here. It’s a social issue, not a technological issue.
Graham: Steven Chu, the new Energy Secretary, has spent a good deal of his career
in research. What do you expect his reaction will be to your suggestion of tying
together this energy research?
Was: I think it will be quite positive. Dr. Chu has a background both in the
academic setting as well as in the National Laboratories, and I think he appreciates
well the capabilities of each institution. The meat of this whole proposal, and of this
whole concept, is that the National Laboratories alone, or universities alone, or
industry alone – the three principal research institutions in the US – really aren’t
prepared to handle a challenge of this breadth, and depth, and complexity. And that
we need a new paradigm. We need a new way to be able to take basic science,
accelerate it into development, and push it through technology, transfer it to the
private sector. None of these institutions alone can do that really highly successfully.
Graham: What is this going to do require? Is this government money to get this
launched? Is this going to be another scientific layer of bureaucracy when we get
finished? How do you handle this to make sure it’s effective?
Was: One of the problems we have with energy in the country is that, overall,
regardless of these institutes, this institute concept, its terribly underfunded – in terms
of its comparison to the impact on the economy. The energy business is a 1.5 trillion
dollar business in the US. It’s comparable to healthcare. In healthcare, there is
approximately ten times the amount of federal funds going into research than there is
in energy. So in comparison to the impacts on our lives, it’s underfunded by almost
a factor of ten.
Graham: If we’re to invest in these kinds of institutes, and invest in more research
into energy and how we use it, what kind of return might we see on our tax dollars
that we shovel over to you guys?
Was: Well, that’s a very good question. These discovery institutes, these will be
regionally situated, and each one might be on the order of 200 million dollars a year
funding, and so the entire price tag would be maybe 5 billion dollars. So what do
you get for 5 billion dollars? We expect that the transformation will be much more
rapid, it will be with fewer false starts, and left turns, or dead ends, and it will be
much more efficient than we’re able to do right now. Right now, the system is such
that technology advancements tend to sort of diffuse through society in an uncharted
and undirected way. The objective here is to sharpen that diffusion so that we can
pull these technologies out, translate them into useful products much more quickly.
Graham: Gary Was is the director of the Phoenix Energy Institute at the University
of Michigan. Thanks for coming in.
Some American bison are contaminated with cow genes. The genes are left over from the early days of cross-breeding. (Photo by Paul Frederickson, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
In iconic images of the Great Plains, you always see the land dotted with bison. Those bison helped make the prairies what they were. But the bison that you see on prairie preserves today are not exactly the same as the ones that once roamed the plains. The Environment Report’s Charity Nebbe has more:
Transcript
We have a handful of ranchers to thank for the fact that we have any bison today. At one point there were only about a thousand and now there are half a million. Bob Hamilton is the Director of the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve in Oklahoma. He says the ranchers who saved the bison also put them at risk.
“Part of their motivation was also to see if they could cross breed bison with domestic livestock to see if they could produce a hardier winter resistant ‘beefalo’.”
The beefalo were not hardy and the ranchers abandoned their project, but the cattle genes remain. Bob Hamilton’s herd consists of 2,700 bison. Thanks to genetic testing, Hamilton has been able to weed out all of the bison carrying the most damaging kind of cattle DNA. But, there is some genetic material he just can’t get rid of. Chances are, there will always be a little bit of beef in the buffalo.
Eric Fernandez of Oregon Wild says wild areas still allow for a lot of activity - "just leave your chainsaws and bulldozers at home." (Photo by Sadie Babits)
A view of Bonnie Butte in Oregon. This area is one of the proposed places to be designated as wilderness. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
Another view of Oregon's Mount Hood. (Photo by Sadie Babits)
More than two million acres in nine states could soon become permanent wilderness. Congress is expected to vote on the plan today. Sadie Babits recently visited one of the sites, Mount Hood in Oregon:
Transcript
More than two million acres in nine states could soon become permanent wilderness. Congress is expected to vote on the plan today. Sadie Babits recently visited one of the sites, Mount Hood in Oregon:
A steady stream of traffic runs through the small town of Sandy, Oregon every day.
It’s known as the “Gateway to Mount Hood.”
This used to be a town of lumberjacks. The timber industry was king here.
And a wilderness designation means no logging.
“It wasn’t that long ago that this was a mill town so for the city council unanimously support wilderness is an interesting thing.”
That’s Scott Lazenby. He’s the town’s city manager. He says in the past a wilderness proposal would end up in a Paul Bunyan sized tussle.
But Lazenby says the city council saw real benefits to having wilderness in Sandy’s backyard.
“We do have a watershed that our city water comes from. It’s important to protect that and part of that watershed would be protected by the wilderness bill.”
Not only that. Lazenby says these days, it’s not timber – it’s tourism that brings money to Sandy.
“Even though the number of people who can go into wilderness is relatively limited, the presence of wilderness is a very positive thing.”
Under a massive bundle of bills now before Congress, 127,000 acres surrounding Mount Hood would become wilderness along with other sites across the nation.
“Right now we’re standing in White River Canyon and in the winter this is a really popular place for cross country skiing, snow showing.”
That’s Eric Fernandez. He’s the wilderness coordinator for Oregon Wild – a conservation group out of Portland.
He says a wilderness designation still leaves a place open to all kinds of activities hunting fishing camping.
“You just have to leave your chainsaw and bulldozer at home.”
Fernandez says, yes, this entire area will mean clean drinking water, and wildlife protection.
“But in this instance, the reason I’m so excited about protecting this area of White River Canyon as wilderness is because it has the world’s best sledding habitat.”
Yep, he said sledding – like tobogganing. There’s nobody sledding today.
But, we did bump into Jeff McKnown, who’s out skiing.
“It’s great to come here on the weekday when no one is here.”
McKnown says he loves the trees and the snow so bright it hurts your eyes.
He’s been escaping to White River canyon when he can for the last fifteen years.
“You know when you have a wife and five kids these moments are pretty precious.”
The law that makes wilderness designations possible has been around since 1964. There are more than 700 wilderness areas in 44 states.
But Oregon has lagged behind. Even conservative Idaho has more wilderness than the more progressive Oregon.
Mike Matz thinks that could change. He leads the ‘Campaign for America’s Wilderness’. It’s been pushing for the new wilderness designations before Congress.
“It’s really become amazingly so a motherhood and apple pie issue. This is something that Republicans and Democrats alike have gotten strongly behind.”
And from Oregon’s Mount Hood, to rolling hills in West Virginia, from red rock country in southern Utah, to sand dunes along the Great Lakes – it looks like Congress will preserve two million acres more as wilderness.
Despite the decline in new car sales, Sales Manager Joe Marken expects more business on the
repair and maintenance side of of the dealership.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
The Don Joseph Toyota Dealer in Kent, Ohio is spending about 12-million dollars to
renovate its repair and maintenance facility.
(Photo by Julie Grant)
Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:
Transcript
Not too many people are buying new cars these days. But that’s not all bad news for auto dealers. Julie Grant reports that more car owners are starting to spend money on repair and maintenance:
(sound of construction)
Now there’s a sound you don’t hear every day anymore. Especially at a car dealership. It’s construction.
This Toyota Dealer in Kent, Ohio is in the midst of a 12-million dollar expansion.
Sales manager Joe Marken says they’re renovating the repair and maintenance garage. That’s where he’s starting to see the most growth.
“People are looking at, ‘do I want to encumber myself with a 60 month payment of some sort, or do I want to spend X and know that I can get a year or two more years out of whatever I’m doing?'”
Marken says lots of people don’t know if they’ll have a job in the next year or two.
The National Automobile Dealers Association expects more people to spend money on parts and service nationwide this year.
They say there’s an upside – maintenance improves gas mileage and resale value of the vehicle.
Both studies agree that we need more efficient cars (Photo by Karen Kelly)
Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Recently two reports on the future of automobiles came out. They looked at cars and trucks from very different perspectives, but came to some similar conclusions. Lester Graham reports:
The first report was published in the journal, Environmental Science and Technology. It looked at what it would take to get U.S. automobiles to reduce the greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, enough to lower it to 1990 levels.
Why cars? Because cars and trucks produce a third of U.S. CO2 emissions.
Greg Keoleian is one of the authors at the University of Michigan. He says there are three things that need work.
We need to drive less, burn cleaner fuels, and, within about 40 years, increase the average fuel mileage way beyond the 20-miles per gallon we’re getting now.
“That would need to increase to 136 miles per gallon to meet the carbon targets. Alternatively, if we just focused on fuels, basically we’d need about 80% cellulosic ethanol by 2050. And the third scenario is a reduction in driving. It would mean we’d have to cut our driving in half by 2050.”
It’s unlikely we can accomplish any one of them, and the study’s authors suggest it’ll probably be a combination of more efficient cars, better fuels, and driving less if we’re to reduce greenhouse gases enough to make a difference.
The second report entitled ‘Envisioning an Uncertain Future’ comes from the Boston Consulting Group. It looks at the future of the automobile from a business perspective.
One of the authors, Xavier Mosquet, says the study assumes rising oil prices will force some changes.
“And that the pressure from the consumer on the governments will be so high that the governments will have to take energy actions to develop green products and green cars.”
But the report notes green cars will cost more – as much as 15,000 dollars more for hybrids or plug-in hybrids compared to standard cars.
“The consumer will look at these cars and say, ‘well, these are more expensive than I can pay.’ And therefore they’re not going to buy them. So, what I think the government has to do if they want to go that way is to look at the cost of putting those technologies on the market and either subsidizing the car’s manufacturers and suppliers or helping the consumer with much more tax incentives. Otherwise it will not happen.”
So, from a business perspective, the Boston Consulting Group report suggests without government help, manufacturers won’t build more efficient cars at a price we can afford. But we’ll need them because of high fuel prices.
The University of Michigan report on cars and climate change agrees the government will have a major role.
Author Greg Keoleian says if we take climate change seriously and are committed to doing something about it, we’ll have to change driving habits, encourage innovative manufacturers and invest government money.
“We are capable of doing this and the cost of climate change to society is tremendous. And each sector needs to play a major role in addressing the needs to reduce.”
The studies look at the future of the automobile from very different perspectives, but both agree we need more efficient cars and that won’t happen without the government pushing a little and helping a lot.
A sign on the Tittabawassee River, downriver from Dow Chemical Plant, stating to avoid contact with the soil and not eat the fish due to dioxin contamination (Photo by Vincent Duffy)
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A group of one-hundred organizations is calling on the government to
release a twenty-year-old report on a toxic group of chemicals called
dioxins. Kyle Norris reports:
Dioxins are everywhere – they’re created through manufacturing, burning
garbage, even burning gasoline.
The US Environmental Protection Agency did this big assessment of
dioxins, 20 years ago. But the report’s release has been stalled all that time
by industry lobbyists.
Michael Schade is with the Center for Health, Environment, and Justice. He
says not releasing this report is a health-risk to all of us.
“Every time you go to the grocery store and you buy milk or cheese or you eat beef or
pork or fish, you’re being exposed to this chemical in the food that you eat. And until the
EPA releases this report we’ll continue to be exposed to potentially dangerous levels of
this chemical which has been linked to cancer and endometriosis and other serious health
problems.”
The one-hundred groups have sent a letter to President Obama saying the
government has a responsibility to tell us exactly how dangerous dioxins are.
The Akron multi-modal transportation center. It was built by the train tracks, but before it was completed, Amtrak pulled out
of Akron. Now the only mode of transportation is the bus. (Photo by Julie Grant)
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
People who like the idea of passenger trains have been waiting for decades for the
federal government to get on board. Now, some think Congress might be ready to
get funding on track for Amtrak. Julie Grant reports:
A few years ago, I took the train from Akron, Ohio to visit my sister in Washington,
D.C. She still teases me about it. What would have taken less than 2 hours by
plane or 6 hours by car took 14 hours by train.
We got side-tracked a lot, waiting for freight trains to go by.
(sound of a train)
That passenger route I took has since been canceled. The trains that come through
now are only for freight.
Moving freight was the real reason most railroad companies started laying down
tracks in the 1800s.
Passenger trains were just a way of getting name recognition and brand loyalty with
the fat cats that owned the factories that needed to move freight. They were treated
well on the passenger trains, and everybody benefited from that great service.
By the 1920s, the government started investing a lot of money in highways.
The age of the auto moved ahead. Passenger trains became quaint.
Companies running trains started going bankrupt. By 1970, Congress voted to
create a national passenger rail line – Amtrak.
Ross Capon is president of the National Association of Rail Passengers. He was
already a leader in the passenger rail movement when the gas crisis in 1979 hit. He
thought gasoline shortages and high prices were going to give Amtrak the jump it
needed.
“When we had prominent cartoonists ridiculing the Carter administration for
discontinuing Amtrak trains, at the same time as gasoline was unavailable to many
people, I thought we were going to be in clover from then on. I was wrong.”
But when gas prices spiked last year, so did Amtrak ridership. Capon thinks, maybe
this time passenger rail will come into its own. Even though gas prices have
dropped, lots of people still want to ride the rails.
I’m visiting the brand new multi-modal transportation center in Akron. But so far, the
only mode of transportation is the bus.
Kirt Conrad is director of planning for the Metro Regional Transit Authority. He says
the center was built along the train tracks. But before it was even finished, Amtrak
pulled out of Akron.
Now if you want to go somewhere, you’ve got to take the bus. But over the past
year, Conrad says, the buses can barely keep up with all the new demand.
It’s like this in many cities across the country. People want to ride the rails – but
there’s no train.
In cities like Dallas and Phoenix, Conrad says trains have been successful.
“The ridership projections are surpassing what they had forecast. So i think the
experience is, you do build it and nationally they have come.”
Many states have been working with Amtrak to improve tracks. And, in some places,
trains go as fast as 120 miles an hour. Passenger rail supporters say for shorter
trips, say a couple of hundred miles or so, trains make a lot more sense than going
to the airport.
But analysts say if passenger rail is going to get on track it needs government
investment.
Conrad says passenger trains need better access to tracks – and better tracks – so
they can move past the slower freight trains.
But Ross Capon at the Rail Passenger Association says Congress is spending
almost all its transportation money on highways and airports.
“The federal government has, to put it crassly, bribed the states for years not to
spend money on rail. Look, we’ll give you 90% dollars on your highway projects,
80% dollars on your airport projects. But if you dare spend money on passenger
trains, youíre on your own buddy.”
But Capon thinks, maybe now, since Amtrak is more popular, Congress might be
ready to increase the amount of federal money it spends on passenger rail service.
Getting rail projects across the nation on the fast track.
At least 62-billion of the 789-billion dollar package are for green investments (Source: Man-ucommons at Wikimedia Commons)
