Tag: audit

Renewal for Davis-Besse & Drive-By Energy Audits

  • Matt Grocoff says icicles are pretty, but they're also a bad sign that your roof could be suffering water damage, drip by drip. (Photo by Matt Grocoff)

A 34-year-old nuclear power plant wants to live longer…


This is the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.


A coalition of environmental groups wants to stop a nuclear power plant in Ohio from renewing its license. Jennifer Guerra has the details:


The operating license for the Davis Besse Nuclear Power Plant in Ohio runs out in 2017. By that point, the plant will be 40 years old. And now First Energy – the company that owns the plant – wants to renew the license for another twenty years.


That’s the last thing Michael Keegan wants. He’s with the environmental group, Don’t Waste Michigan. Keegan and others went before a panel to challenge the license renewal:


“We have solar, wind and in combination, we have replacement power available now and which can be put in place prior to 2017.”


The panel now has to decide whether the environmental groups can move forward with their petition to intervene.


To date, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has yet to deny a license renewal, though several applications are still pending.


In Michigan, the license for the Fermi II Nuclear Plant is good through 2025.


For the Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.


(MUSIC STING)


This is the Environment Report.


In the winter… there’s a quick and easy way to find out where your house is leaking energy… just by looking at your roof a day or two after a good snow. Greenovation.tv’s Matt Grocoff invited me along on what he calls a drive-by energy audit:

More about ice dams from Greenovation.tv

Tips for making your home more energy efficient from Michigan Saves

More about drive-by energy audits

Transcript

(car starting up)


MG: “Hello Rebecca!”


RW: “So what are we doing today?”


MG: “I’m going to drive you around, and you can see from the top of your roof after a snow like this, when you’re getting the snow melt, you can see how much people’s houses are insulated in the neighborhood. It’s about 15 degrees outside, we just had a snowfall, and yet so many of these roofs have almost no snow on some of the roofs. And the only reason that is, is because they’re being heated up from underneath. Which means the house is losing heat. So you know what I should do? I should go and show you my house first, because we’ve got all of the snow on the roof and we’ll show you.”


(Driving sound)


RW: “Are we getting out?”


MG: “Yup.”


MG: “On our roof over here, 100% of the roof is covered with snow. That’s because it’s really well insulated underneath, so the roof surface is cold and keeping the snow frozen. The warm part should be inside keeping us warm and not the roof.


RW: “So let’s go find some bad examples.”


MG: “Yeah, there’s a ton of bad examples.”


(car starting up again)


MG: “And I know icicles are really, really romantic, but that is the one thing you should look for. If you’ve got icicles hanging off the roof, that is a bad thing. Like here, this house right here, they’ve got like three inches of ice sitting in the gutters and icicles coming off. And what’s going to happen eventually is ice is going to get up underneath those roof shingles and start melting and causing water damage underneath very, very slowly. So over time, that is going to cause some severe damage to the roof if they don’t take care of that problem.”


MG: “Look, one after another, there’s icicles, icicles, icicles.”


MG: “Now this guy owns an insulation company, so he better have good snow on his roof.”


RW: “You know an awful lot about your neighbors!” (laughs)


MG: “Yes, he does have good insulation on his roof.”


RW: “So I should probably admit that my house looks a lot like some of these houses we’re seeing that are the bad examples. So, what should I do to fix it?”


MG: “You can go to michigansaves.org and you can find a qualified contractor that can come in and do an energy analysis of your house. They’re going to come in with all the fancy equipment, let you know exactly what you need and where you can get the biggest bang for the buck.”


RW: “All right, thank you, Matt!”


MG: “And thank you, Rebecca.”


“That’s Matt Grocoff with Greenovation.tv and I’m Rebecca Williams with The Environment Report.”

Fixing the Organic Label

  • Mark Kastel, director of an industry watchdog group, says some so-called organic cows were being raised on factory farms instead of on pastures. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

They cost more, but sales of organic foods are rising. Even in this down economy, organic food sales are going up 3-times faster than other foods. Julie Grant reports… that’s happening as the government is working to make sure everything that’s labeled organic actually is organic:

Transcript

They cost more, but sales of organic foods are rising. Even in this down economy, organic food sales are going up 3-times faster than other foods. Julie Grant reports… that’s happening as the government is working to make sure everything that’s labeled organic actually is organic.

Near where I live in Ohio, it costs more to buy a half-gallon of organic milk than it does to buy a whole gallon of regular milk. So, that circular green and white seal that says “USDA Organic” better mean something.

Mark Kastel is director of the Cornucopia Institute. It’s an organic industry watchdog group. He says over the past decade, more and more people are buying organic – and the market share has grown. So, big business has moved in to get a piece of the action.

Kastel says some so-called organic cows were being raised on factory farms instead of on pastures.

“You really can’t milk 2-thousand or 5-thousand or 7-thousand cows and move them back and forth every day to pasture to graze them every day as the organic law requires.”

Kastel says part of the problem with milk production was that the rules didn’t specifically state how long cows had to be out on pasture. So, some weren’t getting any time eating grass – and were still being certified organic.

Kastel was among those who complained to the folks at the USDA’s national organic program about this.

“Corporate investments in large factory farms that are gaming the system and creating the illusion of practicing organics.”

That’s one reason why the Cornucopia Institute requested an audit of the National Organic Program.

“We need the force of law to come down and make sure that the organic label still means something.”

The USDA has responded. It started an audit of the organic program last year. At the same time, the program got more money… and hired a new director.

Miles McAvoy has inspected hundreds of organic farms and is now in charge of the national organic program. His first order of business was to help with that audit of the program. It found a lot of problems. But McAvoy is glad it was done.

“Basically, the report to me is a roadmap. It really outlines a lot of the fundamental problems that the national organic program has had and so it enables us to focus on those areas that really need to be addressed right away.”

The audit found that the organic program wasn’t cracking down on producers that labeled their foods organic, even if they violated organic rules. It found that the program wasn’t processing complaints in a timely way, and it wasn’t doing a good job inspecting farms in foreign countries. That meant that products imported from China and elsewhere might have the organic label, but not have been inspected properly.

McAvoy says the program just didn’t have enough money before to do everything it was supposed to do.

“Given the resources that the program had at the time, they did the best job that they could…”

Until recently, the national organic program had only eight people on staff.

McAvoy plans to hire more than 20 this year. And his office has already addressed most of the issues from the audit.

Organic watchdog Mark Kastel is pleased with the direction of the program. He says even the issue of cow pasture has been resolved. Milk labeled organic must now come from cows that are allowed to graze at least 120 days each year.

Kastel says the problems have come from a few bad actors. He says people are willing to pay more for organics because they want to support certain types of farms:

“I think we’re in a position with the current administration in Washington where we’ll be able to make sure those promises are kept.”

So the USDA Certified Organic label does mean something when you’re handing over more money to make sure animals and the land are treated better.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Red Tape Behind Green Living

  • For simple weatherizing - insulation, weather stripping, windows - the tax credits apply to 30% of the cost of materials, not the labor. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:

Transcript

Tax credits for making your home
more energy efficient got a lot
of early buzz. The promise of up
to 1500-dollars back for insulation
and windows or efficient furnaces
led to a flurry of advertising.
Tamara Keith looks
into what might be stopping people
from taking advantage of the tax
credits:

My husband and I recently bought an older house that could no doubt use
some weatherizing. So, I called up Reuven Walder at EcoBeco.

(sound of door opening, people saying hello)

He’s a home energy auditor. He identifies ways to make a home more
efficient.

“I joke around, I consider myself an energy efficiency social worker.”

And he’s been getting a lot of calls lately from people like me – looking
to take advantage of the tax credits.

“Let’s look around the house and you can point out some things that are
of concern to you.”

Walder has all these cool tools, like an infrared camera that can see where
the insulation isn’t doing its job. He finds plenty of trouble spots,
including one in the attic.

“And if you put your hand in this little pocket here you can feel nice
cool air.”

That’s not supposed to happen.

“I’ll be honest with you. When I find these kinds of things, it makes my
day, because we get to fix them.”

Well, not all the time. Walder says only about a third of the homeowners he
works with actually follow through on his recommendations.

“I have talked to numerous homeowners and their primary reason for not
doing it is money.”

He says the tax credits are a great shot in the arm, but, for many people,
it’s just not enough. Part of the problem is, for simple weatherizing –
insulation, weather stripping, windows – the tax credits apply to 30% of
the cost of materials, not the labor. And labor is actually the most
expensive part.

“Our economy is just so slow right now that people are just hesitant to
spend any amount of money because, regardless of the incentive, they’re
still going to have to spend a lot of money to make the improvement. It’s
not going to cover a significant portion of the cost.”

At this point, federal officials don’t know how many people have been
inspired by the stimulus package to do work on their homes. They won’t know
until everyone files their taxes in April.

“It’s definitely driving additional business.”

Matt Golden is president of Efficiency First – the national association for
the home performance retrofitting industry. But he isn’t totally sold on
the way the stimulus package is distributing the tax credits.

“The biggest incentives are for the most expensive fanciest equipment and
as you move towards the most cost effective stuff, you get much smaller,
incremental incentives.”

So, there’s big money for solar panels and geothermal heating systems. And
if you want to put in a tank-less hot water heater or a super efficient
furnace, here labor costs can be counted towards tax credits. Golden says
the smallest credits go to insulation and other simple steps.

“It’s actually kind of an impediment to the type of retrofitting projects
that have the biggest return on investment, bang for the buck and create
the most jobs.”

In my house, Walder estimates we need almost $6,000 worth of work. But,
because not all of it qualifies, I’ll only get $600 of it back from the
government – but we won’t see the money until tax season.

I’ll admit – it’s a lot more money with a lot less of a tax benefit than I
was expecting, and that’s probably what’s giving some homeowners pause.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Energy Audits on the Rise

  • Before paying big bucks for a geothermal heat pump, try a little insulation first. (Photo by Jennifer Dickert)

Architecture firms, engineering firms and other energy
auditors are getting a lot more business these days.
Lester Graham reports… it’s part of a plan to save
energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions:

Transcript

Architecture firms, engineering firms and other energy auditors are getting a lot more business these days. Lester Graham reports… it’s part of a plan to save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

One of the goals of all that federal stimulus money is to make a lot of buildings more energy efficient. First step… get an energy audit. Finding out how much energy a building is wasting has meant a lot of business for people trained to do that kind of work.

Dan Jacobs is with the architecture firm A-THREE-C in Ann Arbor Michigan.

“It’s easily doubled for us in the last year and we’re looking for it to double again as we go into 2010.”

Dan Jacobs says there’s a lot of excitement about renewable energy such as solar panels and rooftop wind turbines … but most buildings waste a lot of energy… so he recommends:

“First thing they want to do is conservation.”

Insulating, replacing windows, and efficient lighting cut energy use. Energy that would still be wasted no matter what fancy renewable energy gadget is put on the rooftop.

For the Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links