Tag: oberlin college

David Orr Speaks Out About Oil Consumption

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Transcript

Many Americans don’t see a connection between the war in Iraq and the price of gas at the pump, but a leading environmentalist says they should. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Julie Grant reports:

Soon after George W. Bush took office, David Orr was asked to join a presidential committee aimed at improving environmental policies. They wanted the Oberlin environmental studies professor because he was considered a quote “sane environmentalist.” The group’s recommendations were supposed to be presented to Administration officials in September 2001, but after the 9-11 terrorist attacks, committee members felt their report was shelved.

“And the essential message of it was that this really is one world and what goes around comes around. And things are connected in pretty strange, ironic, and paradoxical ways and the long-term future isn’t that far off. So you really cannot make separations of things that you take to be climate, from economy, ecology, fairness, equity, justice, and ultimately security.”

But Orr says the Bush Administration and much of the nation weren’t ready for that message. People felt the need to retaliate against Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. Many political analysts also agreed with President Bush, that the United States had an important role to play in ousting Saddam Hussein in Iraq. But Orr believes the U.S. invasion of Iraq was less about terrorism than it was about America’s need for Middle East oil.

“If you remove the fact that Iraq has 10-percent of the oil reserves in the world and Saudi Arabia has about 25-percent, that’s about a third of the recoverable oil resource on the planet, take the oil out, would we be there? And that’s a major issue. We’re there, in large part, because we have not pursued energy efficiency.”

Orr says reducing U.S. dependence on foreign oil would make the nation more secure than spending billions of dollars in military costs to fight for those oil reserves.

Some lawmakers say reducing dependence on Middle East oil is one reason to drill for oil at home, in places such as the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. But Orr says political leaders and citizens should instead find ways to use less oil and reduce the need for it. He says the federal energy bill should force automakers to build cars that get better gas mileage.

“If we bumped our energy efficiency up from 22 miles per gallon to 35 or 40, which is easily achievable, that’s not difficult. The technology already exists to do that. We wouldn’t have to fight wars for oil, we wouldn’t be tied to the politics of an unstable region.”

“But the car makers aren’t being forced to…”

“No – the CAFEs? no. If we had a decent energy policy, it would be a strategy not of fighting oil wars, but using in America what is our long suit: our ability with technology to begin to move us toward fuel efficiency, and that process is actually well under way. It just doesn’t get the support of the federal government.”

Instead of trying to encourage fuel efficiency, Orr says Congress is thinking about short-term answers. With the price of gas at the pump more than two dollars a gallon, the Senate recently approved a tax break package to encourage further domestic oil and gas production.

Orr wants consumers to push for energy alternatives, rather than finding more places to drill, but Americans like their big SUVs, and Orr says few politicians would risk asking them to forgo the comfort, luxury, and perceived safety of big trucks as a way to preserve energy for future generations.

“Everybody knows gas prices have to go up, everybody knows that. The question is whether we have somebody who is say a combination of Ross Perot and Franklin Roosevelt who would sit down and level with the American public. We have got to pay more.”

Orr says even if you don’t mind paying the price at the gas station, there are higher costs we’re paying for oil consumption.

“You pay for energy whatever form you get it, but you pay for efficiency whether you get it or not. You pay by fighting oil wars. You pay with dirty air and you pay at the doctor’s office or the hospital or the morgue, but you’re gonna pay one way or the other, and the lie is that somehow you don’t have to pay. And sometimes you don’t have to if you’re willing to offload the costs on your grandchildren or on other people’s lives, but somebody is gonna pay.”

And Orr says that payment is going to be either in blood, money, or public health. He outlines his thoughts on the motivations for the war in Iraq in his new book “The Last Refuge: Patriotism, Politics, and the Environment in an Age of Terror.”


For the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Design Flaws Revealed in “Green Building”

Two years ago, Oberlin College opened a new building that’s a radical departure from typical classroom architecture. Designed as a living laboratory of energy-efficiency and sustainable building techniques, the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies has been turning heads ever since. The building has won two national awards for its innovative design, which features a rooftop solar array and a biological wastewater treatment system. But one man – himself an Oberlin College professor – says the Lewis Center’s design is seriously flawed. He says the building can’t deliver on its promise of high performance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer reports:

Transcript

Two years ago, Oberlin College opened a new building that’s a radical departure from typical classroom architecture. Designed as a living laboratory of energy-efficiency and sustainable building techniques, the Adam Joseph Lewis Center for Environmental Studies has been turning heads ever since. The building has won two national awards for its innovative design, which features a rooftop solar array and a biological wastewater
treatment system. But one man – himself an Oberlin College professor – says
the Lewis Center’s design is seriously flawed. He says the building can’t deliver on its promise of high performance. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Schaefer reports:


The Lewis Environmental Studies Center at Oberlin College is not your average college building. The curved roof of the building – designed by architect William McDonough – holds a massive array of solar panels that soak up the sun’s energy and convert it to electricity for heat and light. Instead of sending wastewater to the local sewage plant, the building has its own on-site treatment facility that uses biological components – called
a “living machine” – for final cleansing. Outside, a small wetland recreates the natural ecosystem on which Oberlin was built. Even the building’s materials were made from sustainable resources designed to have little or no impact on the environment or human health. None of it is cutting-edge technology. But the Lewis Center does integrate multiple ecological-design concepts that work together to make it environmentally-friendly. It’s one of just a handful of so-called high-performance buildings now beginning to dot the American landscape. In addition, it’s a building that was designed to evolve as new technologies came along. It’s no wonder Professor David Orr, the building’s originator, claimed bragging rights even before the Center opened.


“This is a building that purifies its own wastewater, powers itself by
sunlight, has eliminated toxic chemicals and compounds.”


But one man takes issue with the high-performance claims the building’s
creators have made. John Scofield is also an Oberlin professor. He teaches
in the physics department and focuses his research on solar energy.
Scofield says even before the Center was built, it was clear the building’s
basic design was flawed.


“The architect has said on several occasions that the building is designed to generate more energy than it uses and I don’t believe that’s correct.”


Scofield’s primary critique is of the building’s energy systems, particularly those devoted to heating and cooling. He says there’s a real disconnect between what the designers claim the building can accomplish and the way it’s actually performing.


“Well, I think first of all, that the building springs out of some wonderful ideas and I very much support the design intent for the building. No, my concern has been, I think, false hopes. The promises for the building and the way that it was sold were I think not really in line with the reality of the building for a long time.”


(Peterson) “I think one thing you have to consider is the difference between a long-term goal and short-term performance.”


John Peterson is a professor in the environmental studies program. He
oversees the Center’s day-to-day functions.


“I mean, I think where we are right now is in a good spot right now. I think we can take a lot of pride in how the building is performing right now. This last year, for instance, we exported a fair amount of energy onto the grid. We also imported a lot of energy onto the grid, but on balance, we produced 53-percent of the energy that was consumed in the
building.”


Peterson admits there were some design flaws in the Lewis Center’s heating system when it was first put on line. The college has just replaced a high-energy consumption electric boiler with a more energy-efficient heat pump, which is the building’s primary source of heat. Last year, slightly more than half the building’s energy consumption went to heating during what proved to be a relatively mild winter. Even though the net energy use was 37-percent better than other Oberlin campus buildings, the college has
called on the National Renewable Energy Laboratory for help in improving the
system. Paul Torsellini is a senior engineer with the Lab’s High-Performance Building Group in Golden, Colorado. He says, considering it’s a building designed to push the outside of the envelope, the Lewis Center is performing well.


“There are certainly issues with that building, as well as any other building that we build today. You know, one of the things with building engineering, which is, you know, a little different than, say, building a car. You build a car and you build lots of them. As opposed to buildings where, every time you build a building, it’s basically a custom
application.”


And so each building comes with unique problems. The High-Performance Group team is expert in innovative building design. Torsellini says over the next few months, he’ll be evaluating exactly how well the energy components of the Lewis Center perform, monitoring both the energy that’s being created and the energy that’s being used by the building’s different systems. Along with Torsellini, critic John Scofield believes the building can eventually make good on its promise to produce more energy than it uses.


“There’s a great case now for net energy exporters called the space station. So if cost is no object, it’s not a problem making a net energy exporter.”


Torsellini says it all comes down to how you measure success.


“You know, somewhere on the order of 40, 50-percent of the energy comes off the roof of that building. What other building in Oberlin or in the state of Ohio even comes close to thinking about that?”


More hard data will be needed to calculate the Lewis Center’s overall performance. Everyone is looking forward to a scientific peer review process that should help clarify the building’s performance achievements. But even if it’s not exactly perfect, both supporters and critics of the Lewis Environmental Studies Center hope the building will prove to be a good investment in scientific and educational research.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Schaefer in Oberlin.