"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:
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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.
Eric Lindstrom, Vice President of Cannon Design, stands next to the building's 140 new solar panels (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
Joan Bozer at the American Solar Energy Society Conference, next to pictures of her home's solar system (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
Neal Lurie, with the Solar Society, says tax incentives are creating demand and that's driving down the cost of solar systems (Photo by Joyce Kryszak)
Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:
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Buying a solar system for your home still is not as simple or inexpensive as say picking up a new water heater. But solar energy advocates argue that the systems are affordable and obtainable for just about everyone – right now. Joyce Kryszak checked out that claim:
You might say that sunlight is a trade mark for Cannon Design. The Western New York based firm designs some of the most solar friendly buildings in the world. But only now is Cannon using the sun for its own building.
Eric Lindstrom is Vice President of the company. He says it’s what their environmentally savvy clients expect.
“You know there’s a huge P.R. factor here that we can bring our clients in and say, you know, this is what we’re recommending to you, but we’ve done it ourselves and it works. That we didn’t just read it in a magazine somewhere and say this is what you should be doing.”
Lindstrom takes us up on the roof of the company’s building to have a look at the new system.
Up here we find solar panels. 140 of them. They’re stretched out from edge to edge, soaking up the rays.
Lindstrom says they generate about 5% of the energy the building needs. But he says even at that small percentage the company will recoup the roughly $17,000 investment in about three years.
The system’s total price tag is actually about $170,000. But Cannon Design got corporate tax credits and incentives that covered roughly 90%. After the pay-back period, Linstrom says the company will actually pocket money.
Back in the building they can watch the savings add up on the inverter meters inside. That got Lindstrom thinking. He got a bid on a system for his home. He’s decided against it for now because the payback would take about eight years. You see, businesses get more tax breaks than homeowners.
But some people say the payback time can be less. And sometimes it just doesn’t’ matter to them.
Joan Bozer was at the American Solar Energy Society Conference held in Buffalo, New York. Bozer was showing off pictures of her home’s $30,000 solar system. It cost her half that after incentives. The payback will take a while—about eight years. But Bozer says that’s okay.
“Because it doesn’t make any difference to me if it’s five years or ten years what the payback period is. I want the solar panels, like people in their house they put on the roof they want, or they put on what they want and this is what we want – solar panels on the roof. That’s how we want to do it.”
But as green-minded as she is, Bozer admits that federal and state incentives gave her the final push.
While everybody can take advantage of recent federal tax credits, state incentives vary. Some are generous, and some offer homeowners nothing. Some local governments are offering low-interest loans on top of the federal and state incentives.
Neal Lurie is with the Solar Society. Lurie says incentives are creating demand and that’s driving down the cost of solar systems.
He says systems cost about 30% less than last year.
Lurie says with lower prices and tax incentives, some homeowners can have solar without much – or no – money out of pocket.
But how soon will solar catch on with the masses? Lurie predicts in less than six years.
“We’ll see solar technology a low-cost provider of electricity, even lower priced than fossil fuels without incentives. I think that when that happens we’re going to see it go from being something that people are looking at and starting to do to something that is truly common-place, much more than people may actually expect today.”
Others think solar will really take off in just three years. Solar installers are already gearing up. Some say they’ll double their workforce by the end of this year.
It is hoped that the "Cash for Clunkers" bill will stimulate fledgling car sales (Photo by Samara Freemark)
The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
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The so-called “Cash for Clunkers” bill has passed the US House. Automakers say it could help boost sluggish sales if it passes the Senate and gets signed into law. But as Rebecca Williams reports some people think the bill isn’t very green:
If you have a car or truck that gets 18 miles per gallon or less, under this bill, you’d get to trade it in for a more fuel efficient car or truck. The old car would get scrapped.
You’d get a voucher for several thousand dollars. Old gas guzzlers would get taken off the road.
But Ann Mesnikoff points out: in the House bill you could trade in an old SUV that gets, say, 14 miles per gallon… for a new SUV that gets just two miles per gallon more.
She directs Sierra Club’s Green Transportation Campaign.
“The key things to change in the cash for clunkers program are to ensure that taxpayer dollars are going to buy vehicles that have at least better than average fuel economy. Not those that can’t even meet today’s fuel economy standards.”
Congress is also going to have to figure out how to pay for the bill. It’s expected to cost about 4 billion dollars.
Colorado Springs pumps water through the Rocky Mountains into town (Photo courtesy of the Colorado Springs Convention and Visitors Bureau)
Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:
Transcript
Out West, a lot of cities figure many more people will be moving in over the next few
decades. Water engineers wish those people would bring along all the water they’ll
need, but of course they won’t. Shawn Allee reports these cities want to pipe more
water from far away, and some people think that’s a bad idea:
The air in Colorado Springs is usually so dry it quickly chaps your lips.
What gives? Colorado Springs sounds wet enough.
“There’re really no springs in Colorado Springs, so when you start talking
about water, it’s a divergence between our name and reality. Sounds like we
had a lot, and in reality we didn’t.”
This is Matt Mayberry, Colorado Spring’s historian.
I’ve heard about this massive water pipeline project the town’s cooking up, and I was
curious just how long the city’s worked to quench its thirst.
Mayberry’s got an exhaustive book on that with an exhaustive title.
“Blah, blah, blah … the emergence and appropriation of rights in Colorado
Springs.”
The crib notes version?
Early on, buffalo manure poisoned Colorado Spring’s creek, so people dug wells.
Then, the wells got infested with grasshoppers.
And the town grew, and grew, and grew again.
“Very soon you had to bring water from further away, and ultimately to the
Western Slope which is a couple hours drive of here.”
Today, Colorado Springs pipes water through the Rocky Mountain range.
Doing the extraordinary for water is kinda ordinary for Colorado Springs.
Its latest pipeline project is called the Southern Delivery System, and it’ll pump nearly
80 million gallons into town each year – and it’ll pump that water forty five miles –
completely uphill.
Impressive, but some people are asking tough questions about it.
“Our concern with this project is the greenhouse gas emissions that it would
contribute to.”
Stacy Tellinghuisen is with Western Resource Advocates, a Colorado environmental
group.
She says there’s a connection between pumping water uphill and a large carbon
footprint.
“Water is heavy. Pumping it over a great distance takes a lot of energy, and
in the process it would require something along the lines of 60 MW of power,
which is about a tenth of a power plant.”
And, for the most part, the utility burns natural gas and coal to generate power. Both
emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
Tellinghuisen says Western cities are considering at least five other water pipeline
projects, some with even larger carbon footprints.
She wants Colorado Springs to set an example by using dedicated low-carbon sources
like wind power for its water pumps.
I ask the Colorado Springs Utilities about that.
Keith Riley helped plan the Southern Delivery System.
“We think there are some ways we can minimize the carbon footprint by
looking at some new technologies.”
Riley says there were lots of environmental regulations to wade through before the
Southern Delivery System got approved.
But a large carbon footprint doesn’t disqualify utility projects.
Riley says, even if carbon were considered, the project might have gone forward
anyway because the city’s expected to grow over the next few decades.
“Water is the essential element for all of us, so when it comes to that level of
sustaining our own lives, then you get to some trade-offs on what we’re
willing to do to keep ourselves alive where we we live, where our cities are.
No matter what happens, we’ve got to move water to Colorado Springs, and
we’re uphill from the river, so we’ve got to get the water uphill one way or
another.”
Riley says Colorado Springs Utilities is considering low-carbon renewable power for its
new pipeline.
But it’ll be expensive, and no one’s stepped forward with all the money.
Other Western cities are engineering clever ways of moving loads of water around,
too. And it’ll be a political and financial challenge for them to pay for the carbon
footprint.
Large Burmese pythons are now regularly encountered along trails and visitor areas in the park (Photo courtesy of the National Park Service)
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
Transcript
A python native to Asia is popping up in one national park. Kyle Norris reports:
The Burmese Python is showing up in Everglades National Park in Florida.
That’s because people who no longer want their pet pythons are releasing them there.
Now these babies are big — usually they between 6 to 12 feet long. And there could be as many as 150,000 pythons in the Everglades.
The snakes are not so much a threat to humans. But they are a threat to animals – especially to endangered ones.
Scott Hardin is an exotic species coordinator. He’s with the Florida Fish & Wildlife Conservation Commission.
“You just got a great big snake, nothing like it, nothing analogous in the native snake fauna in Florida. So it opens up a whole new range of prey that was not susceptible before.”
He says officials are brainstorming ways to deal with the problem.
They’re trying to rig up some really big traps. And they’ve also thrown out the idea of a bounty — basically a cash reward for catching the snakes.
The island of Bonaire is somewhat of an anomaly in the Caribbean due to its remarkably preserved coral reefs (Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
(Photo by Ann Dornfeld)
Scientists say nearly half of the coral reefs in the US are in bad shape.
Many are dead. The situation is similar in much of the world. But not
everywhere, as Ann Dornfeld found on the Caribbean island of Bonaire:
Transcript
Scientists say nearly half of the coral reefs in the US are in bad shape.
Many are dead. The situation is similar in much of the world. But not
everywhere, as Ann Dornfeld found on the Caribbean island of Bonaire:
(sound of waves on shore)
Jerry Ligon was working as the on-board naturalist on a small Caribbean
cruise ship when he first saw Bonaire.
“And I saw how clear the water was. And I’d been able to compare, during
my stint on the cruise ship, other islands in the Caribbean, and I realized
how special Bonaire was. So that was at the end of my contract, so I
decided to stay here. And I’ve been here for 15 years!”
It’s wasn’t just the clarity of Bonaire’s water that made Ligon stick around. It
was the remarkably healthy coral reefs that lay beneath the waves.
“I can even talk to divers who come to Bonaire and they say, ‘What
fantastic diving!’ and they remember, ‘This is how the way it was in Cayman
Islands 25 years ago!'”
Ligon says the Cayman Islands might have even had more impressive
reefs than Bonaire’s back in the day. But coral throughout the US and
Caribbean has been in sharp decline for decades.
So how do Bonaire’s reefs remain intact?
Ramón de León is the manager of the Bonaire National Marine Park. He
says the island has an advantage in that it has no industries to pollute the
water.
The island is mostly undeveloped, which means relatively little farm and
lawn fertilizer run-off that can create marine algae blooms. And cool
upwellings in the region help balance the rising ocean temperatures. Warm
oceans can cause coral bleaching, which often kills the coral animal.
But de León says Bonaire really owes its healthy reefs to its history of
conservation laws. They date back to an era when such policies were rare.
“Bonaire start to protect sea turtles and turtle nests in 1961, back when
everybody was promoting sea turtle soups and nailing shells in the walls.”
By the end of the 1970s, Bonaire had banned spear fishing and made it
illegal to damage coral. For years, divers have been required to pay a
sizeable fee and take an orientation course before they’re allowed to dive
on the island. That helps them avoid touching the coral, which can kill it.
De León says the island still allows too much fishing. So several years ago,
he told the island’s fishermen they needed to choose a no-take zone to let
the reefs recover.
“I refuse to decide myself. I give the fishermen some prerequisites that they
have to have to close, and they chose which area. Is not my number-one
option, but is their number-one option. So I have to respect that.”
De León says because the fishermen chose the no-take zone, something
important happened. Compliance is high.
For all of Bonaire’s success in coral conservation, there are still some
problems. De León says its reefs suffer from leaky septic tanks and boat
pollution. And there are few of the large predator fish that used to maintain
population balance on the reefs.
But the island is a haven for researchers like Mark Patterson. He designs
underwater robots at Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.
Last year he led a NOAA expedition to use robots to map Bonaire’s reefs.
He says the island’s reefs are valuable as a baseline by which other reefs
can be judged.
“If you’re an up-and-coming marine scientist and you go to a lot of the coral
reefs on the planet now, you might think that all coral reefs have always
look like this. And they haven’t! So the fact that we’ve got some pristine
reefs left is very important, and we’ve got to work very hard to protect them
because it shows us how the ecosystem should look and used to look
around the planet before things started to go downhill.”
Scientists have been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water (Source: Roger McLassus at Wikimedia Commons)
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
Transcript
You might be surprised to hear that a lot of drinking water has arsenic in it. It’s a problem all over the globe, especially when drinking water comes from deep under the ground. Julie Grant reports that some researchers are using tiny particles – at the nano-scale – and plain old rust, to remove arsenic from the water:
You can’t see, smell, or taste arsenic – but prolonged exposure to it can lead to skin discoloration and even cancer.
Vicki Colvin studies chemistry and nanotechnology at Rice University in Houston.
She says arsenic has a chemical bond with rust – and sticks to it. So they’ve been using tiny particles of rust to draw arsenic out of water in the lab.
Now Colvin says they’re working with a city in Mexico. They’re trying to make what they call nano-rust in the field, so the city can cheaply remove arsenic from its water.
“So, we’ve developed procedures and processes that help people make nano-rust not at a major university with a nanotechnology facilty. But you know literally in a restaurant setting, more maybe in a ceramics factory.”
Colvin says they will be experimenting in Mexico over the next two years.
The richest oil shale deposits lie in
the Piceance Basin, which runs northwest of the town of Rifle,
Colorado. The bands of dark grey along the edge of this snow-
capped ridge are oil shale. (Photo by Shawn Allee)
In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:
Transcript
In the future, keeping your gas tank full could make disputes over water in the American
West a lot worse. It’s because energy companies hope to develop the oil shale industry.
Getting oil from shale requires lots of water, and the richest oil shale deposits happen to be
in the dry state of Colorado. Shawn Allee headed there to see why a fight over water and
oil could be in the works:
Oil companies have their eyes on vast oil shale deposits in western Colorado, Utah and
Wyoming.
The federal government says companies could pull 800 billion barrels of oil out of that shale.
That’s about three times the proven oil reserves in Saudi Arabia.
Oil shale’s an impressive resource but it depends on water and there’s not much available
there.
How much would an oil shale industry need?
Shell Oil PR guy Tracy Boyd says the simple answer is that it will likely take his company
three barrels of water to extract one barrel of oil.
It’s because oil shale doesn’t really have oil in it – it’s got something called kerogen.
“You can heat this kerogen up. If you do it really slow, which we do for about 3.5 –
4 years, by putting heaters down in the rock formation, (you) produce a crude-oil
like material but with a little processing this is the first product we get out of it
which basically transportation fuels.”
Heating the ground require loads of electricity from new power plants and generators, and
they’d be cooled by water.
Oil companies are just experimenting with shale right now, but they’re securing rights to
water just in case.
Shell’s latest water claim is on Colorado’s Yampa River.
When Shell filed its court papers – some town governments warned they might fight the
claim.
One of these towns was Parker – a Denver suburb hundreds of miles east of the oil shale
region.
Frank Jaeger runs Parker’s water district.
Jaeger says, like other Colorado cities, Parker plans to expand.
“We know approximately what our numbers are and it will be somewhere in the
neighborhood of 150,000 people. In order to assure 150,000 people for another
150 years from now, I have to be proactive, I have to be at the front of the line for
the next drop of water available in the State of Colorado.”
Oil shale developers and cities across Colorado are set to fight over the water they might
need for the future, but some feel oil companies already have an edge.
“They’re actually one step ahead of the game.”
David Ableson is with Western Resource Advocates, an environmental group.
Ableson says energy companies tried developing oil shale several times in the last century.
They failed, but each time, they bought more water rights – just in case.
Now, they’ve got loads of water rights – and if the industry takes off, they’ll use them.
That could stop cities like Denver and its suburbs from getting water they hoped to have for
new homes and businesses.
Ableson says this isn’t just a Colorado fight, though.
He says some congressmen sell the idea of oil shale as an energy source the whole country
can depend on – even though its future could get tied up in Colorado water courts.
“And so, folks who are looking at this issue who do not live in CO, UT, or WY, need
to understand that when an elected official says, “this can solve our energy woes,”
that it’s actually a far more complicated situation than that and if there are severe
water impacts, that makes it much less likely that you could develop that
resource.”
The energy industry claims the concern over water is overblown – they say they just might
not need all that much water.
Ableson says that’s only true if oil shale fails. But if it succeeds, and we fill up on oil shale
gasoline – he predicts some towns or industries in the West will be left dry.
Plug Power does sell these dishwasher-sized fuel cells for your home, but in places like India (Photo courtesy of Plug Power)
Researchers and start-up companies are looking for new ways to power the country. There’s been a lot of hope for hydrogen. But as Mark Brush reports there have been some bumps for companies on the road to the new hydrogen economy:
Transcript
Researchers and start-up companies are looking for new ways to power the country. There’s been a lot of hope for hydrogen. But as Mark Brush reports there have been some bumps for companies on the road to the new hydrogen economy:
There has been a lot of excitement about hydrogen fuel cells for awhile now.
Ten years ago we talked to a rep at a company called Plug Power. He was excited about selling a dishwasher-sized fuel cells that could power and heat your home.
“The only barrier to fuel cells is that people don’t know about them.”
Turns out, that wasn’t the only barrier.
It’s expensive to make these things, and the units weren’t as efficient at heating as they hoped they would be.
But the company is still around, and they are still hopeful about fuel cells for your home.
Andy Marsh is the president of Plug Power.
“So the industry hasn’t moved ahead as rapidly as we would like. It sometimes takes many more years to makes some progress than you had originally hoped.”
Marsh says his company is selling fuel cells in places like India, but he says fuel cells for our homes in the US are probably still three to five years away.
President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.
(Source: Kmadison at Wikimedia Commons)
At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:
Transcript
At the heart of President Obama’s economic recovery plan is the promise of new green collar jobs. Workers concerned about being laid off from their blue collar jobs are starting to wonder what those new jobs will look like. Julie Grant reports:
Michelle Forte has been a dye maker at the General Motors plant in Parma, Ohio for 15 years. She says everyone at work is worried about the future of the plant, and the prospects of the whole company.
“It’s a scary industry to be in right now. They keep on sending our work to China. And my job could be next, you just don’t know. It’s scary to live in that environment every day. You go into work and it’s negative all the time.”
Forte hasn’t gotten a raise in 6 years. And in the future, if she stays as autoworker, she’s going to be making a lot less.
“I will tell you what I made last year, and that was $80,000. And this year, with the concessions that we’ve took and the overtime that we’ve lost, I will be lucky to make $60,000. So, yeah, it’s a drastic cut.”
Forte decided to take advantage of job training money available at GM. She gets up a five in the morning to start work, then after her shift she heads to school.
She and two co-workers have started taking courses at the new Green Academy at Cuyahoga Community College. They’re learning what it takes to install solar panels, wind turbines, and to make buildings energy efficient. It’s tough getting home after 10 at night. But Forte says learning to work in the clean energy field is a positive step for their future.
“Because we wanted to get in on the ground floor. If it breaks open like we think it is, we want to have the education under our belt already.”
But most autoworkers aren’t betting on an explosion of green jobs. At least, they aren’t spending their time in training classes – even if they’ve already been laid off.
Joe Rugola is president of the AFL-CIO of Ohio. The union represents everyone from musicians to office workers to electricians.
Rugola says people who’ve been laid off have to make impossible choices if they decide to start training in a new industry – do they continue looking for jobs to keep the unemployment check coming in – or do they go to school for retraining?
“Am I going to go for training, if I’m already laid off, am I going to risk my unemployment benefits, and go for training in an industry that may or may not produce real work down the road? A person in that situation should not have to make that choice.”
And that’s the big gamble. Do they invest time and effort to retrain for jobs that might never materialize?
President Obama has said that a move toward clean energy production has enormous job creation potential. But some researchers say that’s overblown.
Andrew Dorchak is a researcher with the Case Western Reserve University law library. He coauthored a study titled Green Job Myths.
The first myth: that there is a common understanding of what makes something a green job.
“We’ve figured out that there wasn’t a really good definition of green jobs. Especially if there are political subsidies involved that might be problematic.”
Problematic because many of the jobs classified as green today aren’t making wind turbines and solar panels in the Midwest. They’re lobbyists, administrative assistants, and janitors working for environmental organizations in New York and Washington.
And he’s concerned the definition of green jobs will get even wider as government pockets get deeper.
“It’s subject to maneuvering. To people fighting to classify their jobs as green.”
Dorchak says companies will chase the subsidies. That could take away from government money to create productive jobs.
Jobs that could help people like Michelle Forte find work – and improve the environment at the same time.
"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)
