"Power house mechanic working on steam pump" By Lewis Hine, 1920 (Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration)
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
Transcript
Steam plants haven’t been en vogue since Thomas Edison’s day. But now, they’re back in the spotlight thanks to the Obama administration. The Department of Energy just got 106-million dollars worth of stimulus money to fund steam-related projects. Jennifer Guerra takes us back to the future:
(sound of steam)
You hear that? That’s the sound of efficiency.
It’s what you get when you combine steam pipes with a giant jet engine.
These steam systems are called combined heat and power, or CHP, and the government wants to see more of them.
Getting energy from coal-burning power plants isn’t very efficient. Most CHP systems, on the other hand, use natural gas and are more than 80% efficient.
The DOE says that’s like taking 45 million cars off the road.
Neal Elliot is with the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy.
“So whether you’re concerned about local air quality or whether you’re talking about global climate change gasses, the more efficient the system, the lower the emissions.”
And if you’re worried about seeing a giant CHP plant pop up in your backyard – don’t worry, most CHP systems are underground.
Jack Brown is an Outreach Technician for Community Resource Project, helping to spread the word about weatherization services that families may be eligible for. In his 23 years at Community Resource, Brown says he’s assessed about 5,000 homes. (Photo by Amy Standen)
Utility bills at this Natomas, California house often hit $500 a month. Small changes, like door weather strips, will reduce utility bills by as much as 20% (Photo by Amy Standen)
From left to right, Natomas residents Aniya Randle, TinaMarie Dunn,Devyn Wiggins, Shyra Randle, and Ajay Cummins (Photo by Amy Standen)
Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:
Transcript
Solar panels and wind turbines get most of the buzz, but it’s far easier and cheaper to save
energy than it is to make more of it. Now, President Obama’s economic stimulus package
is pouring billions into energy-efficiency programs. As Amy Standen reports, it’s shining
a new spotlight on some of the simpler ways we can all reduce our energy use:
Sure, I’ve thought about buying solar panels to put on my roof. There’s a perfect spot on
the south-facing slope – maybe we could power the whole house. But there are some
easier things we could do first – like insulate the attic or weather strip the doors. And yet,
somehow I never quite get around to them.
Why is that? Well James Sweeney directs the Precourt Energy Efficiency Center at
Stanford, and he has a theory.
“Energy efficiency turns out to have low salience to people.”
Which is to say, it’s maybe… a little bit boring?
“It’s very boring.”
But if your eyes start to glaze over at the mere mention of the word “efficiency,” consider
the compact fluorescent light bulb.
“The easiest thing everyone can do is change their lighting.”
If everyone in the U.S. traded in their old incandescent light bulbs for compact
fluorescents, we’d cut electricity use by about 2%.
Which, maybe, doesn’t sound so impressive – until you consider the fact that all the solar
and all the wind power combined in the entire country amounts to point .4% of our total
energy use. That’s 0.4.
“The cleanest energy is the energy you don’t need in the first place.”
That fact has not been lost on the Obama White House. The American Recovery and
Reinvestment Act is pouring approximately 20 billion dollars into efficiency projects.
Five billion of that will fund what’s called the Weatherization Assistance Program, which
helps low-income families weatherproof their homes. To qualify, a family of four must
make less than $44 thousand dollars a year.
(sound of someone giving directions – “Take 25 and go to El Paso Road”)
That stimulus cash funds local non-profits like Community Resource Project, in
Sacramento, California. Since January, Community Resource’s budget has tripled, from
1.3 to 4.5 million dollars a year. They’re buying new trucks, hiring at all levels, and
going to more and more homes.
(sound of knocking at a door)
Like this one – a five-bedroom stucco ranch house in a newer suburban development
outside of Sacramento.
(sound of door opening)
“Hello, how are you doing?”
At the door is TinaMarie Dunn, a family friend who’s showing us around today. She
gives a squeeze to two-year old Anaya, one of ten children who live here.
“Look Anaya, say cheese!” (Anaya: Cheese!)
Dunn says utility bills here can hit $500 dollars a month. She says the house just doesn’t
work right.
“When the heat is on, downstairs is hot, downstairs is cold. When the air’s on, the
upstairs is cold, the downstairs is hot.”
Community Resource’s Dana Gonzalez walks into the kitchen, and pauses to take a look
around.
Standen: “So when you walked in, what was the first thing you saw?”
Gonzalez: “It’s funny. You see this door shoe and you see, actually the bottom rubber
is gone.”
He points to a two-inch gap under the front door.
“And if you put your hand here, you can actually feel the air. Anytime they kick on
their heat and cool, that’s definitely affecting their house, and in the long run, affects
their bill.”
Community Resource will spend about $1500 here, aiming to cut monthly utility bills by
as much as 20%.
They’ll weather strip the doors, patch up holes in the walls, install CFL bulbs. We’re not
talking solar panels or radiant heating – just small, mostly inexpensive adjustments that
cumulatively, have a huge impact.
The White House says these efficiency projects will create thousands of jobs, but there’s
also concern that the huge cash infusion is a recipe for fraud and mismanagement.
Department of Energy officials have called for extra vigilance in the disbursement of
weatherization cash. But, they say, the benefits, both environmental and economic, far
outweigh the risks.
Congress is trying to work out a bill that would mean bring in a clunker, get cash towards the purchase of a new high mileage car (Photo source: Flicka at Wikimedia Commons)
On Capitol Hill, there’s growing momentum for legislation called “Cash for Clunkers.” In fact, there are several bills circulating in Congress and the details are in flux. But the general idea is to use tax dollars to encourage people to trade their old gas guzzling clunker for a new fuel efficient car. The hope is to help the slumping auto industry and the environment at the same time. Tamara Keith gives the environmental claims a test drive:
Transcript
On Capitol Hill, there’s growing momentum for legislation called “Cash for Clunkers.” In fact, there are several bills circulating in Congress and the details are in flux. But the general idea is to use tax dollars to encourage people to trade their old gas guzzling clunker for a new fuel efficient car. The hope is to help the slumping auto industry and the environment at the same time. Tamara Keith gives the environmental claims a test drive:
At DarCars, a Toyota dealership in Silver Spring, Maryland people are shopping for cars.
But business is down.
Tammy Darvish is vice president of DarCars automotive group. Here’s how she describes “cash for clunkers.”
“It’s money from heaven.”
Well, from angels in Congress anyway. Bring in a clunker, get cash towards the purchase of a new high mileage car.
“I think they were talking about $4,000 or $5,000 or even $2,000. Whatever it is. Any incentive that you could add to the manufacturer incentives and the dealer incentives just make it all the better deal for the customer.”
And as we walk around the lot, Darvish points out plenty of cars she figures could qualify as fuel efficient replacements for clunkers. Like this one that gets 35 miles to the gallon on the highway.
“So here’s a Corolla and it’s not a hybrid technology vehicle and it’s still getting great gas mileage and all the manufacturers have vehicles, you know in those ranges.”
But not everyone is sold on the merits of a cash for clunkers program.
Dan Sperling heads the Institute for Transportation Studies at University of California Davis.
“What it mostly does, and we should be honest about it is it stimulates vehicle sales.”
He says this is more an economic policy with a green polish.
“It is supporting the use of more low carbon efficient vehicles, that’s good. It is supporting the automotive industry. That’s good. The problem is, it’s a very expensive way to do that.”
Whether a federal cash for clunkers program will be able to claim environmental success will largely come down to what counts as a clunker – and just how fuel efficient the car that replaces it needs to be.
For example, one version of the legislation would allow any car 8 years old or older to be junked in exchange for cash.
But an 8 year old car isn’t exactly a gelloppe. That’s younger than the average car on the road.
Bill Chameides is dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke University.
“I would say that cash for clunkers programs that only put a requirement on the age of a car, from an environmental point of view is a real clunker, if you pardon the pun.”
To really analyze the environmental impact of a program like this Chameides says you also have to consider what it takes to manufacture a new car. And it turns out a lot of greenhouse gas emissions come from building a car.
“When you drive that new car out of the showroom, you already have 1 year of carbon dioxide emissions already in the atmosphere.”
So, to make up for those emissions, he says cars getting junked have to be real gas guzzlers, and the new cars need to be gas sippers.
“If we want to sell this as an environmental program we need to make sure that it’s focusing on really making a difference in the amount of gasoline we use, the amount of CO2 we emit. And therefore we need to have a limit on the miles per gallon of the scrap car. It need to be way down at the bottom of the spectrum. And we need to have a limit on the new car. It needs to be up high on the spectrum.”
There’s disagreement in Congress about what the mileage requirements for the program should be.
It’s one of those details yet to be worked out, that will determine just how green cash for clunkers will really be.
Raser Technologies has been showing off its electric hummer that can get 100 miles per gallon. (Photo courtesy of Raser Technologies)
A technology company is showing off its 100 mile-per-gallon Hummer to Wall Street. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
A technology company is showing off its 100 mile-per-gallon Hummer to Wall Street. Lester Graham reports:
Today, the honor of ringing the opening bell at the New York Stock Exchange went to Raser Technologies – and the company brass parked a Hummer-H3 out front.
It’s powered by Raser’s completely electric drive-train. The system uses a gas-powered engine, but only for generating electricity to recharge the battery.
David West is the Vice President of Marketing at Raser Technologies. He says they modified a Hummer, but that’s just one example.
“It was designed appropriately not just for the Hummer H-3, but it’ll power a Ford F-150, a Chevy Silverado, a Dodge 1500. These are the top-selling vehicles in America.”
Raser Techonologies side-steps questions about price, saying if automakers used the system in a production model, a vehicle’s price would be in the range of a fully-equipped pick-up or SUV.
Some think that a gas tax is the only way to get consumers to buy fuel efficient cars (Photo courtesy of the US Department of State)
Some in the auto industry are proposing a hike in the gasoline tax. The idea is this: if you want people to buy small cars, make gasoline more expensive. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Some in the auto industry are proposing a hike in the gasoline tax. The idea is this: if you want people to buy small cars, make gasoline more expensive. Lester Graham reports:
Car dealers and manufacturers say a higher gas price is the only thing that gets people buying more fuel efficient cars. So, a tax hike makes sense.
But, a guy who has a lot of sway on the idea of a gas tax hike is not going there.
Congressman Ed Markey chairs a House subcommittee on Energy and the Environment.
At a forum at MIT he said the plan is to stick with CAFÉ — the Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards – to get better mileage cars.
“That’s the route that we’re taking rather and an increase in the gasoline tax. We’re moving towards a mandate and 35 miles per gallon is the minimum that we intend on reaching by 2020.”
And under the stimulus package, new tax credits amounting to thousands of dollars get kicked-back to anyone buying a fuel efficient car.
These Suzukis at Ken Butman's dealership, which were in high demand last year, are now sitting unsold (Photo by Samara Freemark)
Chances are, you haven’t bought a new car this year. Auto sales are down across the board – including in the small car and electric-gas hybrid markets. Now some dealers and automakers are proposing a way to move some of those cars: increase the gas tax. Samara Freemark explains why the same people who sell cars might want to make driving them more expensive:
Transcript
Chances are, you haven’t bought a new car this year. Auto sales are down across the board – including in the small car and electric-gas hybrid markets. Now some dealers and automakers are proposing a way to move some of those cars: increase the gas tax. Samara Freemark explains why the same people who sell cars might want to make driving them more expensive:
It was almost exactly this time last year that Ford dealer Ken Butman
traded in his pickup for a Suzuki hatchback.
His Ann Arbor, Michigan
dealership had been selling Suzukis for a couple of years. But they got
really popular last spring when gas prices jumped. Butman ordered a big
shipment to keep up with the demand.
“These are the Suzukis. These little cars get good gas mileage. And
they’re so cute. Look at them. Look at this one here. It’s got a little
rack for your skis. Look at
that.”
But those cars – the ones Butman ordered a year ago – most of them are
still here. They’re still sitting on his lot. Not moving.
“It was strange because they were so hot. For awhile there you couldn’t
give a big car away. And everybody was rushing to the small cars. And then
just as quickly, about when the price of gas came down again, we saw a
complete reversal. Like a light switch. That’s how fast it cut off.”
It’s been like that all over the country. Dealers who last year had
waiting lists for hybrids and small cars suddenly have a lot of extra
inventory. Sales of hybrids are way down from last April, mostly because
gas costs about half what it did last year.
Brett Smith is an auto analyst with the Center for Automotive Research. He
says consumers only really care about fuel economy when gas prices are
high. When gas hits about 4 dollars a gallon, consumers switch to fuel
efficient cars. When prices drop again, so do sales of efficient cars.
“Look at what’s happened every time we’ve had an energy crisis. We’ve
gone to smaller cars for a couple of years, and then the consumer has gone
back to larger cars. Why? Because at that fuel price they can get away with
it, they can justify it.”
It’s a real problem for dealers. It also worries auto manufacturers who
have poured money into developing hybrids and have a lot of new models due
to come out this year.
And that’s why some people who sell cars have begun to push for
increasing the gas tax.
Dealers and auto executives might not seem like the first bunch to line up
behind a tax hike. Traditionally they’ve lobbied hard against anything
that makes driving more expensive.
But a high tax – and therefore, higher gas prices – could get all those extra
hybrids moving again.
Michael Jackson is the CEO at AutoNation. That’s the
nation’s largest chain of dealership.
Jackson wants to see gas at four
dollars a gallon – the figure at which many analysts say consumer behavior
changes. And he thinks the government can keep prices at that magic number
with a floating tax.
Auto makers have been a little more cautious. But some top executives at
American companies have called Jackson’s ideas ‘smart’ and ‘worth
looking into’.
Smith says they believe that higher gas taxes could
stabilize the market for fuel efficient cars – making investment in new
technologies a safer bet.
“The car companies will rarely come out and loudly say, things like, ‘we
think there needs to be a gas tax.’ But almost all of them will say on the
side, if you want people to drive more fuel efficient cars, the best way to
do it is a gas tax.”
For now, though, it might not take a big tax to bring gas prices back up.
Oil trader Anthony Grisanti is the president of GRZ Energy. He says an
economic recovery would do pretty much the same thing.
“Shouldn’t be any doubt about it, once the economy picks up, say,
beginning of next year or year after that, you’re going to start to see oil
prices go higher.”
And that means prices at the pump would go up too.
Proposing higher gas taxes – especially of a couple of dollars a gallon – can
mean career suicide for politicians. So a big hike in the gas tax seems
iffy. But if gas prices rise as the economy recovers, dealers might see
those fuel efficient cars move off the lot again.
A study from the US Geological Survey shows drinking water from almost one quarter of private wells is contaminated. (Photo by Alex Anlicker, Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons)
A new report finds that almost one quarter of the private wells in the country are contaminated. Mark Brush reports on a new study that tested the quality of well water:
Transcript
A new report finds that almost one quarter of the private wells in the country are contaminated. Mark Brush reports on a new study that tested the quality of well water:
The government sampled wells across the country. And it found that twenty-three percent of the private wells tested had chemicals at levels that could cause health problems.
The United States Geological Survey published the report. Bob Gilliom is one of the authors.
He says most of the contaminants they found came from natural sources underground – such as arsenic – which is a poison:
“So certain parts of the country there was a relatively high incidence of arsenic concentrations that were greater than the maximum contaminant level identified in the Safe Water Drinking Act.”
Man-made chemicals were also found – especially near farms where nitrogen fertilizers are used. Around one quarter of all the wells tested in these areas had levels of nitrates considered to be unsafe. In the U-S – about 43 million people get their water from a well. And the government says it’s often up to the home owner to find out whether their water is safe.
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Transcript
Labor and energy groups say they want the federal government to create a Clean Energy Corps. The say the Corps would retro-fit and upgrade old buildings and, as Chuck Quirmbach reports, create a lot of jobs in the process:
Some cities and states have programs that work on making older buildings more energy efficient.
Now, progressive think tanks have joined unions and alternative energy groups to ask for a national program.
Bracken Hendricks is with the Center for American Progress. He says it’s critical for the federal government to help pay to make older structures more efficient.
“For a long time, we’ve made great inroads on improving the energy efficiency and the performance of new buildings with tools like green building standards. But we really haven’t had a way to go and systematically block by block retrofit and weatherize homes.”
Hendricks says the clean energy corps would help the umemployed find work in the building and construction trades.
The coalition backing the corps says the money for the program could come from the stimulus package or other upcoming legislation.
Servers at Expedient data center in Garfield Heights, near
Cleveland, Ohio (Photo by Julie Grant)
They use big piles of batteries for power supply (Photo by Julie Grant)
One industry that’s not suffering in the economic downturn is information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But that worries some people. Our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a lot of energy. Julie Grant reports on how some companies are making their IT more environmentally friendly – and saving money in the process:
Transcript
One industry that’s not suffering in the economic downturn is information technology. The demand for IT keeps growing. But that worries some people. Our growing number of internet searches and data storage is using a lot of energy. Julie Grant reports on how some companies are making their IT more environmentally friendly – and saving money in the process:
(sound of an internet search with a tea kettle)
By some estimates, two Google searches create the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling water for a cup of tea.
Most people don’t think about the greenhouse gas emissions caused by their internet use. But there are about 200-million
searches globally each day – and each search kicks a lot of servers into gear. It adds up.
Albert Esser is an IT expert with Dell Computers. He says
in just a few years internet use could use 3% of the nation’s energy supply. That’s a lot of carbon pollution.
“From a global greenhouse perspective, that’s about the same as the airline industry will cost.”
But Esser says computers don’t need to use that much energy. Most computer systems are so
in-efficient today – that they’re wasting more than 90% of the energy they use.
(sound of a data center)
This is a data center. It’s filled with racks and racks of servers.
A hundred different companies rent space here. Each company has its own set of servers – to coordinate its email systems, word processing, online credit card transactions – all kinds of programs its employees and customers use.
But data centers can be real energy hogs. They need electricity to run all those servers. That creates a lot of heat, so they also need air conditioning. One data center can use as much electricity as a good-sized town.
(sound of electricity in the data center)
“You can hear the electricity, in here. The piles of batteries you see are attached to the uninterruptable power supply.”
Bryan Smith is marketing director for Expedient, which runs this and other data centers around the country. His customers want their computers to be fast, and that takes a lot of power.
But Smith says the data center does everything it can to cut down on energy usage.
“It’s obviously in our best interest to be energy efficient, because we’re the ones paying the power bill.”
So, they’ve set up the server racks to make them easier to cool. They’re also building a system to pull in cool air from the outside, instead of using so much air conditioning.
Some companies that use the data center are also starting to use software to create what are called virtual servers.
“This rack here is a virtualization rack, so you’ve for one rack here that has 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 computers in it. Right? So each one of these servers is equal to 16 physical servers.”
And so for each of those ‘virtual servers’ they can turn off
15 actual servers.
But, even with all that saved space and energy, Expedient’s data centers are growing faster than they ever anticipated.
This one built in Cleveland only two years ago is just about sold out of space – so Expedient is building another data center next door.
Albert Esser at Dell says the most environmentally friendly way to build data center is not to build one at all.
He says making better use of old centers, with virtual computers and other energy efficiency measures, produces a lot less pollution. And it saves money.
“I think the economic downturn, as harsh as it sounds, is the best thing which could ever happen to green IT. Because the economic pressures will make people think much harder to just build a new data center without changing the way they operate it.”
So IT is learning what a lot of companies are learning – that going green can mean saving energy – and that’s better for the bottom line.
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.
"Power house mechanic working on steam pump" By Lewis Hine, 1920 (Photo courtesy of the National Archives and Records Administration, Records of the Work Projects Administration)
