Oil and Prices at the Pump

  • Right now, we’re paying anywhere from 70 cents to a dollar more per gallon than this time a year ago. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Energy analysts say a glut of
oil means gas prices probably
won’t spike too much this year.
Rebecca Williams has more:

Transcript

Energy analysts say a glut of
oil means gas prices probably
won’t spike too much this year.
Rebecca Williams has more:

We’re paying anywhere from 70 cents to a dollar more per gallon than this time a year ago. The good news is, we’re not likely to see four dollar-a-gallon gas anytime soon.

“We’re not in a world with runaway oil prices.”

That’s Ruchir Kadakia. He’s a global oil market expert with IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. He says weak global demand is keeping oil prices in check for now. At the same time, supply is relatively high. He predicts oil won’t average much higher than 80 dollars a barrel for the next year or so.

“And so what that really means for the gasoline point is through probably 2011, we shouldn’t expect to see gasoline prices much above three dollars unless it’s for a short period of time maybe in the summertime for a few months.”


Kadakia says oil speculators can drive prices higher or lower in the short term. But he doesn’t think we’ll see any major price spikes over the long term.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Testing the Smart Grid

  • A smart grid diagram from the US Department of Energy. (Photo courtesy of the US Departmen of Energy)

Some electric companies are working
to put smart meters on our homes.
They want to change how we use
electricity hour by hour. Eventually,
power companies will charge more
when demand for electricity is highest.
Mark Brush reports on a new study
that looks at how people are responding:

Transcript

Some electric companies are working
to put smart meters on our homes.
They want to change how we use
electricity hour by hour. Eventually,
power companies will charge more
when demand for electricity is highest.
Mark Brush reports on a new study
that looks at how people are responding:

Connecticut Light and Power tested the smart grid on about 3,000 of it’s customers. Half of them residential and half of them business customers.

They found that people did respond to high rates during high periods of demand – such as from noon to eight pm.

Jessica Cain is with Connecticut Light & Power. She says there seems to be a limit to how much they’ll change. For example, doing laundry late at night seemed to be a non-starter.

“Doing your laundry after 8pm would be a barrier. And we heard that from customers, both from a residential customer side and then from a business customer side. We heard that changing their business hours outside of that twelve to eight window would be very difficult.”

The power company found the most energy was saved when the utility itself used the smart meter to shutdown things like air conditioners during periods of high demand.

The customers said they liked the “set it and forget it” approach – so long as they could override the system if they needed to.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Related Links

Paper Demand Drops as Newspapers Close

  • In a difficult market, more newspapers are choosing an online-only format. This means demand for pulp and paper products has gone down. (Photo by Erin Kelly)

Newspapers across the nation are either closing, shifting to a web-only presence or reducing the number of print editions they put out each week. Lester Graham reports that means a lot less newsprint is needed:

Transcript

Newspapers across the nation are either closing, shifting to a web-only presence or reducing the number of print editions they put out each week. Lester Graham reports that means a lot less newsprint is needed:

It takes a whole lot of trees to make newspapers. According to the National Geographic’s documentary “Human Footprint”, it takes 191-million trees to make all of the U.S. newspapers each year. Well, you can cut that back– a lot. Martine Hamel is with the Pulp and Paper Products Council. She says daily newspapers closing or cutting back has meant a lot less demand for newsprint.

“We’re just getting worse and worse month after month. We just released the February figures earlier this week and demand in North America was down 33-percent for the month. So it’s really, absolutely huge.”

And more newspapers are on the brink. Newsprint usually contains a fair amount of recycled paper. With less demand, markets for recycled paper will suffer further.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Paying for Peak Power

  • Advanced, individual meters that calibrate energy prices for each apartment. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Energy prices are rising, and people are looking
for ways to conserve power. But some rate payers are
saving money without actually cutting their energy use.
Instead they’re changing when they use power. Samara
Freemark reports:

Transcript

Energy prices are rising, and people are looking
for ways to conserve power. But some rate payers are
saving money without actually cutting their energy use.
Instead they’re changing when they use power. Samara
Freemark reports:

It’s Saturday morning, and Ellen and Peter Funk are doing laundry.

The Funks used to do chores when most people do – they would get home from work and
switch on their dishwasher, dryer, and computer. They never really paid attention to
what that meant for their electricity bill.

“I never thought about electricity before. Never, never, never. Except when I got the bill.
But, you didn’t have any control. Because you paid the same price whether you used it at 2 in
the morning or 2 in the afternoon.”

But a couple of years ago the Funks started paying for their electricity differently than the
rest of us. They live in one of only a handful of buildings in New York City that
participate in a Real Time Pricing program.

Real Time Pricing charges consumers a different rate depending on when they use power.

The Funks know that running their dishwasher or turning on a light will cost more at 5
pm than at 10 pm. That’s because they get a color-coded chart every month that breaks
down their energy prices by time block.

“The green here is low. And the green starts at 10 o’clock at night and goes through 1
o’clock the following afternoon. The yellow is medium from 2 to 5 every day. And then
Monday to Friday there’s a high period from 5 to 9. That means stop. I think that’s why
they used red.”

It’s the same concept that makes cell phone minutes cost more during the day. Power
costs more when more people want to use it.

Real Time Pricing can save consumers a lot of money. Peter Funk says his family saves
hundreds of dollars a year by just shifting when they use energy.

“It’s an ongoing savings. We do these things because they make sense economically. We
don’t do it because we’re virtuous, we don’t do it because we’re better than our neighbor.
We just, this is the way we buy electricity because it makes sense.”

Real Time Pricing programs shift around power demand, so fewer people use energy
during peak hours. A Department of Energy study earlier this year estimated that Real
Time Pricing programs could cut peak energy use by about 15%.

That could actually help regions improve air quality and conserve resources by
decommissioning old, polluting power plants. Here’s how.

Most areas have a network of power plants. Usually only a few of those plants – the
newest, cleanest ones – are in use. But when energy demand peaks, the older, less
efficient plants kick in. And those plants spew a lot of carbon dioxide and other
pollutants into the air.

“It’s really not the number of power of power plants, but the ones you have to turn on at
critical times.”

Jim Genarro is a New York City councilman. He also chairs the council’s Committee on
Environmental Protection.

He says the plants that kick in when demand peaks are the worst in the system.

“We have a lot of reserve capacity in the city, but these are the older, dirtier plants, and
when you run those at peak capacity, it really means a lot of pollution.”

And Genarro says those plants cost even when they’re not producing energy. The city
has to maintain them all the time so they can switch on when needed. That wastes energy
and resources. It also means there are power plants that are only used a few weeks, or
even days, a year.

If power companies could cut peak energy demand, rarely-used, polluting plants could
become totally unnecessary. And many could be shut down.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Food Prices on the Rise

  • Produce section of a supermarket in VA. (Photo by Ken Hammond, courtesy of the USDA)

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Transcript

Food prices are going up worldwide. A new survey
by the American Farm Bureau Federation finds supermarket
checkout costs have risen nearly 8% this year.
Julie Grant has more:

Retail food prices usually increase 3% per year. But over the last year the
cost of flour, cheese, bread, meat, oil, and produce is up – by more than
double the average.

The United Nations has predicted prices will stabilize in the long term. But
that consumers worldwide will face at least 10 more years of rapidly rising
food prices.

Commodity prices for corn, wheat, soybeans and other staples have been
skyrocketing over the past year – to more than double 2006 prices.
The higher costs are due in part to weather affecting crops, and growing
demand in China and India.

Economists also point toward the increased use of grains for ethanol and
other biofuels, putting pressure on food prices.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Food to Fuel Drives Wheat Prices

  • Mary Morran at Avalon International Breads in Detroit (Photo by Sarah Hulett)

Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:

Transcript

Short supply and high demand for wheat means
prices are at record levels, and rising. But the high
cost of wheat is bad news for people who buy it. And
in North America, where most people’s diets are based
on wheat, that means just about everyone. Sarah Hulett
has this look at what’s behind the run-up in prices:

Jackie Victor is sitting on a stack of 50-pound bags of organic wheat flour inside the
bakery she co-owns. And these days, it’s a pretty expensive seat.

Victor says in the last year, what she pays for those bags of flour has doubled.

“So it’s a very scary time, and I don’t think just – really for the industry, although it is
scary for us – it should be a warning sign for the country that something here is amiss.”

In the fall, Victor raised her retail prices at Avalon International Breads in Detroit.

So a loaf of bread that comes out of this batch getting mixed by baker Kevin Boyer will
cost you 50 to 75 cents more today.

“This is the multigrain bread. This is our Motown Multigrain.”

Soon, one of those loaves will probably cost even more, because the price of flour keeps going up.

(forklift sound)

Avalon Bakery buys its flour from Dawn Food Products. Inside one of its central
warehouses, forklift operators move pallets of baking ingredients into tractor-trailors. It smells like a kitchen pantry. And that’s basically what this is: a gigantic
pantry full of baking ingredients that will be shipped all over the world.

Miles Jones points out a pallet full of wheat gluten, which is used in most commercially-produced baked goods.

“That’s vital wheat gluten there. The price of that vital wheat gluten, just as an example,
has about tripled here in the last six months.”

Jones is co-chairman of the board at Dawn Foods. He’s been in the baking industry for close to four decades, and he says he’s never seen prices so high.

There are several reasons for the spike in wheat prices. Drought and other bad weather
wiped out a lot of the global wheat crop over the past two years. And fast-developing countries like China
and India are consuming more food made from wheat.

And then there’s the ethanol factor. More farmers are planting corn to sell to ethanol
refineries. Jones says that’s gobbling up land that used to be planted with wheat and other
crops. And he says it’s put us on a dangerous path.

“The end results are in the paper every day. You can see the skyrocketing food prices. And when you start trading food for energy, that’s not a good trade long-term.”

With wheat prices at record levels, more farmers might decide to plant it this year. That would boost supply and bring prices down.

Bruce Babcock is an economist, and he heads the center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State University. He says the test for that theory will be the amount of spring wheat that gets planted in April and May.

“The problem of course, for farmers, it’s not really a problem, it’s a great thing for farmers, is that they can pick wheat or soybeans or canola or any crop and the price is out of this world. So because the price of everything else is up so high, I don’t think we’ll see wheat increase as much as we would hope.”

Babcock says there is some good news on the global supply front. Australia and Argentina are expected to harvest a normal amount of wheat this year. Those are two major wheat producers that had a couple of years of terrible crops.

A big question will be whether farmers in the US and Canada will get the kind of weather they need and a bumper wheat crop this year.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sarah Hulett.

Related Links

Warming Trends to Increase Energy Demands

Researchers say as average temperatures rise in the US, the demand for energy will go up as well. The GLRC’s Matt Shafer Powell explains:

Transcript

Researchers say as average temperatures rise in the US, the demand for energy will go up
as well. The GLRC’s Matt Shafer Powell explains:


Researchers at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee say they loaded all kinds
of climate, pollution and population data into one of the lab’s supercomputers. As
expected, they found that demand for heating in the winter will drop as the earth warms,
but not enough to compensate for the higher demand for air conditioning in the summer.


David Erickson led the project. He says that could make the problem of global warming
even worse:


“You’re going to end up having to create electricity by burning of coal, which feeds back
and adds more CO2 into the atmosphere that causes warming.”


Erickson says the computer models they’ve created can be adjusted to adapt to any
changes in energy technology or policy.


For the GLRC, I’m Matt Shafer Powell.

Related Links

Cooling Concerns About Air Conditioning

  • For some, a ceiling fan just isn't enough to cool down. (Photo by Tarrer Pace)

As the hot weather settles in, air conditioners are being wedged into windows everywhere. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly usually tries not to use one. But she finds as the temperatures rise, her concerns for the environment evaporate:

Transcript

As the hot weather settles in, air conditioners are
being wedged into windows everywhere. The Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Karen Kelly usually tries not to use one. But
she finds as the temperatures rise, her concerns for the
environment evaporate.


Every year – late spring – I start my annual denial of the fact that I need air conditioning.
The problem is, I really relate to the people who wave it away and say, all you need is a ceiling fan and nice cold glass of water.


Like my friend Ross, who has no air conditioning on the job as a home renovator, and no air conditioner at home, either.


“Well, it’s not really anything ethical. I just find that recycled air, it sort of smells bad. And I would prefer breathing steamy but clean air to cooled but stale air.”


Ross is one of those people who thinks it’s silly to use air conditioning where we live, which is in Ottawa, Canada. I mean, come on, we might only have a couple of weeks of hot weather. And in the beginning, I try to do without.


I have fans. I drink iced lattes. I take cool baths.


But the truth is, I can’t take it. My brain just stops functioning properly. Like the time my husband came home to find me trying to work at the computer in tears, because I was so hot. Meanwhile, the air conditioner is in the window, but I was refusing to turn it on.


Part of it is that I’m worried about the impact on the environment. I talked to Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation in Toronto and asked him how bad is air conditioning really?
He agreed it uses a lot of electricity, but even worse, he says we’re all using it at the same time.


“Everybody sort of comes home at five o’clock, turns on their air conditioning, and we get to a point where the electricity grid is at the peak demand that it can access. What ends up happening is when people are demanding more power, they have to use as much coal as they can to meet that demand.”


And that means more pollution, which leads to smog, health problems and maybe even climate change.
Despite that, I recently decided I had to have air conditioning in my car – both for my own comfort and the safety of other drivers.


I tend to get disoriented in the heat. I usually relied on a bottle of ice water between my knees and the windows wide open. About an hour later, I’d be taking the wrong exit off the highway.


So, I recently took my 1990 Honda Accord into the shop to find out if they could fix it. I was prepared to spend a few hundred dollars, maybe more. Then they call back with a quote of one thousand eight hundred dollars.


That’s probably more than my car is worth. The guy on the phone says at that price, he won’t let me get it fixed, even if I want to. So the car is out of the question. But at home, the heat creeps into my living room, and the temptation becomes too great.


Third day of plus 85 temperatures… What more do I have to say?


(Sound of air conditioning)


My 18 month old daughter stands in front of the air conditioner. She reaches her arms towards it. She basks in its coolness.


“How does that feel? Good… good…good!”


I’ve given in to my weaker self. But I’m still determined to use the air conditioner sparingly.
Corey Diamond at the Clean Air Foundation gave me a bunch of ideas on how to do that.


“Keep the blinds drawn during the day. You want to install some ceiling fans if you have some. And lastly, you can add a timer to your air conditioner. You sort of set it to come on at four o’clock and if you get home at five o’clock from work, your house is cool, but it hasn’t been cooled all day.”


At first, Diamond’s group tried to get people to stop using air conditioning. That didn’t work. So they switched gears. They started a program in Toronto where you can trade in your old, inefficient air conditioner for a rebate on a new one. Diamond says the newer ones use as much as 70 percent less electricity.


So as I sit here, telling you this story, I have a new air conditioner with an Energy Star sticker on it.
Which means either the Canadian or American government deemed it more efficient. I do kind of feel like I’m working in a wind tunnel. And I miss the sounds of the birds and squirrels outside my window. But yet, I feel comfortable.


Now I’m reluctant to turn the air conditioner off.


For the GLRC, I’m Karen Kelly.

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Building for Disasters

  • People rarely build a house with tornadoes in mind. Some think that developers and homeowners should be more aware of potential natural disasters. (Photo courtesy of the NOAA)

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses
in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s
Melissa Ingells reports:

Transcript

There’s a whole category of disasters people think will probably never happen to them. Major floods, landslides, and earthquakes happen sometimes decades or centuries apart. So, people don’t think about them or they ignore the risks. And, some experts say, that’s why we build or buy houses in places that really aren’t safe. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Melissa Ingells reports:


Disasters happen. It’s only a matter of when. The problem is, we prepare for things like tornadoes that happen every year, but we aren’t prepared for a major flood that might only happen once a century. Donald Hyndman is with the Department of Geology at the University of Montana. He’s an expert on disasters.


“People just do not understand the scale of events, they also don’t understand that if in their lifetime there hasn’t been a really major event, that there won’t be a really major event.”


So Hyndman has co-written a new textbook on disasters. He says there’s a lot of pressure to build houses in places that are hazardous. Maybe it’s just a great view, so people build there despite warnings. Or, they think they can stop the ground from moving with retaining walls, or think they can stop floods using levees. Donald Hyndman says that even well built projects just can’t stand the power of nature.


“There is increasing pressure to build in the same lowlands, the same flood plain areas, and the developers say, well, the Army Corps of Engineers has built a major levee or dyke here, that protects people on these floodplains. The problem is, levees break and they always break.”


Donald Hyndman’s co-author is his son, David Hyndman, a geologist from Michigan State University. David Hyndman, says even when a place is a known area for disasters, demand for housing means buildings go up all over again in the same spot.


“There’s always development pressure, and the developers even fairly soon after large floods like some that occurred in California, they keep pushing and the public has forgotten what has occurred and then often the development will be allowed, which causes a disaster afterwards.”


Donald and David Hyndman both say developers don’t help the situation when they build in dangerous areas.


But folks in the housing business say there are plenty of laws to warn potential homeowners, before a house is even built. Lynn Egbert is the CEO of the Michigan Association of Homebuilders. He says that people often ignore the regulations because they want to live where they want to live.


“Consumer desire – consumer interest and desire is the primary reason, even though there are state regulations and federal regulations to put people on notice and protect against the risk for insurance, to locate where they want to locate, which is a property right.”


Egbert says that real estate people and lenders are supposed to let property owners know of the risks. Sometimes that happens. Sometimes people don’t know to ask. And sometimes people think that despite the risks, a disaster just won’t happen to them. Donald Hyndman says we don’t respect how powerful the earth really is.


“Basically, some people feel that they can control nature, or improve on nature, and I’ve actually heard some politicians say we can improve on nature. We can not only not affect the results, those results are typically – they typically backfire. So we really cannot control nature.”


The Hyndmans are hoping their new textbook will help build awareness of all kinds of disasters—but especially the ones that could happen right in our own backyard.


For the GLRC, I’m Melissa Ingells.

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New Energy Billing Program to Save Money?

  • The new energy billing program has members monitoring not only how much energy they use, but when they use it as well. (Photo by Aaron McMahon)

Most power companies charge customers a single, flat rate for electricity. But one group of volunteers is experimenting with a new system. They say people might save money by changing how they’re charged for power. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report:

Transcript

Most power companies charge customers a single, flat rate for electricity. But one group of volunteers is experimenting with a new system. They say people might save money by changing how they’re charged for power. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee has this report;


Two years ago, the Illinois-based Community Energy Cooperative, struck a
deal with Com-Ed, the local power company. Instead of getting charged a single rate, members pay more when the energy supply is tight, like on a hot summer’s day.


In exchange, they get a break when there’s less demand. Co-op manager Kathryn Thowlin says a website warns members when power prices rise.


“They can see when it’s the most expensive, when its least expensive.
So somebody who really wants to fine-tune their energy use based on price has
some really easy-to-use tools to do that.”


Thowlin says it’s paid off: consumers have saved about 11 percent on their
power bills.


The experiment is the most comprehensive of its kind offered to residential
customers. Environmentalists say the program works best when consumers cut their
overall demand, not just shift when they use power.


For the GLRC, I’m Shawn Allee.

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