Financing Energy Efficiency

  • More than half the houses in the U.S. were built before 1970. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laborator)

Reducing your carbon footprint
by using less energy can cost
money. Efficient cars, energy
efficient homes, and energy-saving
appliances all take money. That’s
why some states are testing whether
homeowners would be willing
to borrow money to upgrade their
homes and, in turn, save a few
bucks in energy costs. In one
state, the plan is to get private
banks and credit unions to finance
energy efficiency. Peter Payette reports:

Transcript

Reducing your carbon footprint
by using less energy can cost
money. Efficient cars, energy
efficient homes, and energy-saving
appliances all take money. That’s
why some states are testing whether
homeowners would be willing
to borrow money to upgrade their
homes and, in turn, save a few
bucks in energy costs. In one
state, the plan is to get private
banks and credit unions to finance
energy efficiency. Peter Payette reports:

When you hear green building, you might think of a fancy new house with solar panels. But most homes are not new, so reducing the amount of energy communities use means doing something about old houses.

Max Strickland owns a business in Michigan that certifies green homes and buildings. He says more than half the houses in the U.S. were built before 1970.

“We had very little energy code requirements previous to that.”

But upgrades cost money that many homes owners don’t always have. And a lot of people saw whatever equity they had in their house disappear during the past couple of years.

Now, the State of Michigan is trying to help people find the money to make their homes more energy efficient. The program is called Michigan Saves. The state launched the pilot project in a rural area of the state. The pilot is a collaboration of a local credit union, an electric cooperative and a building supply company.
Borrowers will have their new payment tacked onto their monthly utility bill.

Trevor Williams is with Brown Lumber, the building supply company involved in the pilot. Williams says it’s likely most of the improvements will be in heating costs. He says to begin with, home owners will be encouraged to have an energy audit.

“The audit it would say things that need to be done, the top three things that are recommended. Furnace replacement, ceiling ducts and weatherizing the house those going to be the three most common items.”

But homeowners can also borrow money for new energy efficient appliances like refrigerators and hot water heaters. Sometimes loans like this are promoted as immediately paying for themselves. That is, it’s suggested the money you save on your utility bills will fully cover your new payment. That’s not necessarily the case.

Marc McKeller is with Members Credit Union which is financing the project. He says after a few years, people will be able to break even on the costs. Government tax incentives and other rebates will help that happen. But McKellar says people shouldn’t expect to take out a loan, retrofit their house and not have more to pay each month.

“The only way it could be was if a government was to give zero percent loans out and that they received tremendous rebates from the utilities and that they received a tremendous government credit.”


But, McKellar says it’s still a good deal. The interest rate for project’s loans will be a little bit better because the state is backing the loans.

And tight credit means not many banks are loaning people money to make their house energy efficient and not many people are putting money into a home that’s lost value because of the housing market bust. That’s one of the reasons they need to run a pilot project.

“They’re trying to determine through this study, how do you get a consumer to actually do this and what are the benefits?”

The directors of Michigan Saves hope to roll out a statewide program later this year. So far no banks have agreed to participate but there are other credit unions interested in the concept.

For The Environment Report, I’m Peter Payette.

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Chicken Surprise at Stores

  • Consumer Reports bought whole chickens from 100 different stores to test for their study. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

A Consumer Reports study finds
most of the chickens bought at
the grocery store are contaminated
with bacteria that can cause you
to get sick. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

A Consumer Reports study finds
most of the chickens bought at
the grocery store are contaminated
with bacteria that can cause you
to get sick. Lester Graham reports:

Consumer Reports bought whole chickens from 100 different stores.

Dr. Urvashi Rangan says they tested them for two different strains of bacteria.

“Salmonella and campylobacter infections can give people serious diarhea, abdominal cramping for sometimes days, even weeks at a time.”

Two-thirds of the chickens they tested were tainted.

Rangan says the U.S. government’s guidelines are pretty loose for the chicken processors.

“Each company is basically allowed to script their own hygeine plan. And, clearly, there aren’t enough standards or standardidization among them that has allowed them to achieve a decent rate of cleanliness.”

The chickens that were cleanest were organic air-chilled chickens. The Consumer Report’s study is available online and will be published in the January issue of the magazine.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Twenty-Tens Hit the Streets

  • The 2010 Ford Fusion Hybrid. (Photo courtesy of Ford)

New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:

Transcript

New car models are hitting the
dealers’ showroom floors. Lester
Graham reports not as many fuel
efficient cars are selling in the
wake of the government’s Cash-
for-Clunkers program:

It’s hard to miss the ads for new models.

(montage of car advertisements)

But in September, fuel-efficient cars didn’t sell that well.

Mark Gillies is the Executive Editor for Car and Driver magazine. He says vehicles that get good gas mileage probably won’t start selling until gasoline prices go up – just like last year.


“That’s when you saw a big move to buying more fuel efficient vehicles. And I think the obvious thing about oil prices is that long term the trend is that they’re going to go up and they’re going to stay that way.”

Fuel-efficient models did sell in August because of Cash-for Clunkers, but Gillies says people bought low-end models this time because they were cheap – not necessarily because they were fuel-efficient.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Solar Panel Prices Drop

  • Experts say one of the main reasons solar is cheaper is because of Spain. (Photo courtesy of National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

There’s a big push to find alternative sources of energy. Problem is, a lot of alternative energy is just too darn expensive. The cost of solar energy, however, is on the decline. Jennifer Guerra reports:

Transcript

There’s a big push to find alternative sources of energy. Problem is, a lot of alternative energy is just too darn expensive. The cost of solar energy, however, is on the decline. Jennifer Guerra reports:

The price of solar panels took a huge drop this year.

Experts say one of the main reasons solar is cheaper is because of Spain.

The country is a big buyer of solar panels, or what are called PV modules, largely because Spain offers generous incentives for people who buy them.

Galen Barbose is with a federal research lab in Berkley, California. He says, because of the economic crisis, Spain had to slash those incentives.

“And so demand in Spain dropped fairly significantly. And so what we’ve seen over the past year is a glut in the global supply of PV modules. And that has led to a fairly significant drop of the wholesale price of PV modules.”

The cost of solar still isn’t on par with conventional energy, but Barbose says things are headed in that direction.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

Related Links

Green Crime: Stealing Solar Panels

  • Solar panels were recently stolen off the community rec center in Carbondale, Colorado. The building is one of the greenest building in the state. (Photo courtesy of Lynn Burton)

Solar panels are expensive and
increasingly in demand. And now,
many communities are learning of
their solar array’s value the hard
way – they’re being stolen. Conrad
Wilson tells up about this new type
of “green crime:”

Transcript

Solar panels are expensive and
increasingly in demand. And now,
many communities are learning of
their solar array’s value the hard
way – they’re being stolen. Conrad
Wilson tells up about this new type
of “green crime:”

Solar panels are expensive and they’re increasingly in demand throughout the
world, so it sands to reason solar panels have become an attractive target for
criminals.

Recently, 30 panels were stolen from one of the “greenest” buildings in Colorado.
Ninety solar panels valued at $135,000 were swiped off a waste water treatment
plant outside San Francisco.

Monique Hannis is a spokesperson for the Solar Energy Industries Association.
She says, over the last year, solar theft has become a greater concern.

“It’s really just emerged as an issue we need to be watching, really, in the last
year. And the reason is, as solar becomes more prevalent and people
understand the value of the solar panels, it’s just like any other target for theft.”

Currently the group doesn’t track the crimes, but since more panels are
disappearing Hannis says they’ll likely start.

This type of “green crime” is nothing new in developing countries. Lori Stone is
international program manager for Solar Energy International. It’s a Colorado-
based nonprofit that trains students world-wide for careers in the solar industry.
Stone says in some cases the solar panels are gone just days after they’re
installed.

“If somebody really wants to steal solar panels, it’s pretty hard to keep them from
doing it. You know, there’s some new things that are coming out now with ways
to lock them and stuff, but they’re costly and so a lot of these developing country
systems, solar home systems, are pretty easy to take.”

In Kenya, last September, thieves unsuccessfully tried to swipe solar panels on
the house belonging to President Obama’s 86 year-old step-grandmother.

As the solar industry becomes more established, security is gearing up. It’s
becoming part of installing a solar array.

The Solar Industry’s Hannis says manufactures are making things harder for
thieves by adding tracking numbers as part of a recycling program.

“This same system could be used to at least track the location of panels, the
rightful owner of panels going forward, similar to a VIN number of a car.”

Hannis says consumers should be wary of purchasing panels from online sites
such as eBay or Craigslist because they could be buying stolen panels.

To ward off thefts, some go so far as to post night watchmen. Other larger arrays
are equipped with cameras and fences. But there’re also more affordable
options.

Bryce Campbell is president of Bryce Fastener Company, an Arizona based
business that specializes in a unique type of security bolt that acts like a key. The
bolts cost about two dollars per panel.

“The solar industry is starting to say, ‘Hey, what do we do?’ Ha ha. Are we going
to up security systems up here, cameras? Not really effective in places where
most of these solar arrays are laid out.”

Campbell says solar companies began contacting him about a year and a half
ago. Now he gets orders daily.

For Campbell, it makes sense considering people are parking thousands of
dollars on roof-tops and in fields.

For The Environment Report, I’m Conrad Wilson.

Related Links

The Price of Recyclables

  • Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste, says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. (Photo by Erin Kelly)

If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:

Transcript

If you want to get a sense of how the overall economy is doing, look outside your window the night before garbage and recycling day. Last fall, you’d have seen trucks full of cardboard circling the neighborhood. By winter, the cardboard poachers had disappeared. That’s because wastepaper – like other recyclables – feeds into a multi-billion dollar global commodities market that rises and falls just like housing prices and stocks. Amy Standen has more:

Last winter, Carolyn Almquist had a problem. Carolyn’s in charge of exports for APL transportation in Oakland, California. It’s her job to move shipping containers full of American exports, like wastepaper, to factories over in Asia. The problem was, the factories in Asia didn’t want them.

“There was no buyer. It would arrive at our terminal, say, in Jakarta, and no one would pick it up.”

Asian paper mills were canceling deals with the ships halfway across the Pacific. And Carolyn – who’s in charge of APL’s exports – was the first to hear about it.

“I’m getting an email saying, ‘what are you people doing? Don’t send stuff without a buyer.’”

Waste paper is the country’s number one export, by volume, so when prices fall, it’s not just Carolyn who’s in trouble.

“Hey, Alex, good morning! Steve Moore calling.”

Steve runs a company called Pacific Rim Recycling, 40 miles north of San Francisco.

“Got any updates for me on the marketplace?”

Every day, he calls around to see how much people are paying for things like newspaper, water bottles, old envelopes.

“What about corrugated?”

Most of our recycled cardboard, and a lot of our plastic ends up at Asian factories where it’s turned into iPhone boxes, polyester shirts, that are then shipped right back to the US market.

Until, that is, we stop shopping.

“When people stop buying those goods and products – the VCRS and the TVs from China – there’s no need for the boxes to go around them.”

That’s Mark Murray, with the nonprofit Californians Against Waste. He says that in the space of one month, October 2008, the price for mixed paper on the global market plunged from $100 a ton to less than $30. In two months, plastic water bottles dropped from $500 a ton, to less than $100.

“What recycling experienced in the last six months is really the same thing the entire global economy has been experiencing.”

So, when the economy falters, recyclers suffer. Some shut down entirely. Others were forced to simply dump unsellable paper into local landfills.

Steve Moore hunkered down to wait it out.

“We couldn’t sell anything for six weeks. All this material was backing up, I had to rent space next door. I had to sell it at $10 a ton, just to get rid of it.”

By February, prices had started to recover, as demand for consumer goods began picking up a bit – but they’re no where near the highs of a year ago.

“And a ton of paper today is worth $100 a ton. Last year, it was worth $200 a ton. It’s a very volatile market, so the economics of that are pretty severe.”

One reason the market’s so volatile is that with recyclables, the supply never stops. No matter how much or how little those Asian factories want our cardboard and our plastic water bottles, we are going to keep putting them out on the sidewalk.

Oil manufacturers can turn down the spigot when demand drops, to control supply so it keeps pace with demand. But bales of paper and plastic just take up too much space. And here at Pacific Rim recycling, the trucks keep rolling in.

(sound of bottles and cans at Pacific Rim)

“The volume of this material is huge!”

But at least it’s moving. Prices for our recyclables might be lower than their peak a year ago, but Steve Moore can relax again.

And, over at the Port of Oakland, Carolyn’s no longer getting angry emails.

“Things are picking up again. Financing has freed up. The banks are a little less nervous, If we had a ship here today, she’s be sailing Oakland full. Life is a little bit easier.”

And Carolyn Almquist knows as well as anyone in this industry to enjoy it while it lasts.

For The Environment Report, I’m Amy Standen.

Related Links

Interview: The Price of Cheap Goods

  • Ellen Ruppel Shell writes that we spend about 80% more in a discount environment. (Source: Urban at Wikimedia Commons)

In this recession, we are looking at money
differently. A bargain – getting things cheap –
has been the all-consuming goal. Ellen Ruppel Shell has written a new book entitled
‘Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.’ The
Environment Report’s Lester Graham talked with
her:

Transcript

[Please note: the following transcript is for a shorter version of the interview. If you would like a complete transcript, please contact us.]

In this recession, we are looking at money
differently. A bargain – getting things cheap –
has been the all-consuming goal. Ellen Ruppel Shell has written a new book entitled
‘Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.’ The
Environment Report’s Lester Graham talked with
her:

Lester Graham: Your book tells the story of how we came to value cheap, but, you know, my dad used to say, ‘cheap things aren’t good and good things aren’t cheap.’

Ellen Ruppel Shell: I think that retailers and multinationals have gone really far to make us not think like that. Your father insisted on value. You know, there’s an old Russian saying, ‘I’m too poor to be cheap.’ You know, this is something that people used to take for granted – we used to know that we got what we paid for. Now, how did this common wisdom get forgotten?

Graham: Most of the products we get, we throw away – because they are so cheap.
We don’t have to worry about the cost of repairing them, because we can simply replace them with something brand-new.

Shell: Absolutely, and, of course, that disposability has been marketed to us as a big advantage. And I’ve also gotten that comment from folks, ‘Well, you know, who cares? I’ll just throw it away. I don’t want something that lasts a long time. I want something new all the time.’ Our relationship with objects has really become distorted – I mean, the very idea that you would buy shoes knowing, almost as you leave the store, that they’re not going to last. And, studies show, that if you believe that, you don’t take care of them. It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. You assume they’re going to fall apart.

Graham: Your book makes it sound as though we’re in a spiral, downward, in pursuit of cheap goods. Why do you make that argument?

Shell: Well, I think it’s a spiral we might, now, have the opportunity to pull ourselves out of. But, yes, I do think it’s a spiral – the idea that prices have to go lower and lower. And the reason for this, of course, is that since the 1970s, incomes in the United States have been essentially flat, controlling for inflation. And even going down somewhat, for most Americans. At the same time, three-quarters of our income goes to pay for fixed costs – those things we can’t live without – healthcare, education. So, what have these low priced goods done for us? Well, I argue, not a lot. It’s made tee-shirts, and shorts, and other things, maybe cheaper than ever before, but we have sacrificed – in terms of our wages, our job security, and our stability as an economy – as a consequence of these increasingly low prices, this incredible – what we used to call ‘predatory’ – pricing.

Graham: Many of us feel we can only afford ‘cheap.’ What are you suggesting we do?

Shell: My goal in writing this book was to get consumers to re-think why they shop in the first place. We spend about 80% more in a discount environment. And, then, we’re getting what we think are these amazing deals. And this triggers in our brain this kind of game-playing behavior – we want to make all these, you know, we want to win. Do we go to buy things that are going enhance our life and add value to our life? Or, is it a game-playing exercise? And I think most of us would say, rationally, well you know, look, ‘I go to purchase things that are going to enhance my life.’ And, if that’s the case, I think that you will actually spend less money, you will buy fewer things, and you’ll think harder about why you’re buying those things, and you’ll get precisely what you want at the price that’s going to work for you.

Graham: Ellen Ruppel Shell is the author of the book ‘Cheap: The High Cost of Discount Culture.’ Thanks very much for your time.

Shell: Thank you. It’s been fun.

Related Links

No Cars Left for Cash for Clunkers

  • Dealers across the country are running out of new cars to sell that qualify for the program. (Photo source: IFCAR at Wikimedia Commons)

Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:

Transcript

Two billion dollars is being added to
the very popular Cash for Clunkers
program. The original one billion dollars
is almost gone. But, Lester Graham
reports, there’s a shortage of new cars
that qualify for the program:

The National Automobile Dealers Association says they’ve been hearing from dealers across the country who’ve been running out of new cars that qualify for the program.

Steve Demers is the General Manager of Cueter Chrysler Jeep Dodge in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a state where Cash for clunkers has been especially popular.

“There’s virtually no vehicles available, so there are other areas in the country that may not be as – the program has not been as popular – so we’re able to pluck some of that inventory out of their states, but it’s a nation-wide problem. I mean, we’re out many, many states away, thousands of miles before we can find a vehicle that can be brought in for one of our custormers.”

Factories are shipping more cars to the dealers but can’t keep up with demand.

185,000 gas-guzzling clunkers have been turned in to be scrapped in exchange for the government incentives.

Car buyers get up to 4,500 dollars toward buying a new fuel-efficient model.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

A Clunker’s Fate Once It’s Cashed In

  • Cars stacked up and waiting to be shredded at United Iron and Metal in Baltimore, MD. (Photo by Tamara Keith)

The federal Cash for Clunkers
program kicked off this weekend,
and dealerships were pushing it
hard to sell new cars. The program
was created by Congress last month
to give a boost to the struggling
auto industry while helping the
environment. The idea is to get
older polluting cars off the road
for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report
on what will happen to all the
clunkers:

Transcript

The federal Cash for Clunkers program kicked off this weekend, and dealerships
were pushing it hard to sell new cars. The program was created by Congress last
month to give a boost to the struggling auto industry while helping the environment.
The idea is to get older polluting cars off the road for good and replace them with
new more-efficient ones. Tamara Keith has this report on what will happen to all the
clunkers:

Car dealers suddenly have a whole bunch of cars on their lots they have absolutely
no use for. The clunkers cannot be re-sold. That would defeat the whole green goal
of the program.

So all those old trucks and sagging sedans, they’re headed to places like M and M
Auto Parts in Stafford, Virginia. Most of us would call it a junk yard. But don’t tell
that to owner Rick Morrow.

“Long before green was popular, this kind of operation, even though a lot of people
said, ‘Oh junk yard.’ But they were actually recycling cars. They were making use of
what the component was built for in the first place.”

His company’s logo prominently features a large green recycling symbol.

“This is the dismantling area where after the cars come are inventoried and then take
them apart.”

Morrow’s business is all about re-use. A fender, or a tail light, or maybe an alternator
from this car will live to see another day in a car that needs a replacement part.

You’d think Morrow would be totally excited about Cash for Clunkers. But he’s not.
Because the one component from the clunkers that absolutely cannot be re-sold is
the engine – pretty much the most valuable thing in the car.

“If we do a few dozen cars and it looks like it’s costing us more money than it’s worth,
we’ll say, ‘sorry.’”

From an environmental perspective, it absolutely makes sense to prevent those
engines from ever polluting again. But, from a business perspective it’s a real
problem for the nation’s auto recyclers.

“It will make it extremely hard to make money on a car.”

Scotty Davis is the vice president of All Foreign Auto Parts in Fredericksburg
Virginia. He says it costs him $1800 in labor to take apart a car.

“It’s going to cost me money to do this. It’s one of these things. I have to bring the
car in. I have to get rid of the tires. I have to get rid of all the fluids, the freon,
process it – just to crush the vehicle.”

Davis specializes in newer foreign vehicles. Parts from a clunker won’t help stock
his shelves. But he feels like he has to take the cars to stay in the good graces of
the auto dealers he sells parts to.

“And I’ll be very honest with you. A couple of them I do a lot of business with, I said,
‘I will take your cars.’ And they said, ‘what are you going to do with them?’ I’m going
to crush ‘em. I mean they’re not of any value.”

(sound of a shredder yard)

Once all the usable parts are removed, and the toxic chemicals cleaned out, most
cars will end up at a scrap yard like United Iron and Metal in Baltimore.

“Right now you can see the tail end of a car coming on the conveyor belt down into
the shredder.”

“A tremendous amount of friction is going on as these hammers are pulverizing that
car into small pieces.”

Bruce Savage is with the Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries – a trade group. It
only takes 15 seconds, and when the shredder is done with a car, it isn’t even
recognizable.

“That big pile over there is the end result. It’s just a big pile of metal pieces.”

Savage says the metal is then sold. Whether scrap recyclers will cash in on Cash
for Clunkers all depends on the commodities prices for metal in the coming months.

“What was an old car can become a new car or can become a dishwasher or siding
for a home. It depends on the materials. But everything is being reused,
reprocessed and renewed.”

So maybe a 1989 suburban can be reborn as a 2010 Ford Focus Hybrid.

For The Environment Report, I’m Tamara Keith.

Related Links

Dealerships Prepare for Clunkers

  • ‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Today is the first official day of the cash for clunkers program. The government program offers you up to $4500 to trade in your gas guzzling car for a more fuel efficient new car. Lester Graham reports:

The goal is to clean up the environment and give sagging new car sales a boost.

‘Cash for clunkers’ became popular before all the rules were final. For the past few weeks there’s been a growing backlog of orders at dealerships.

At Varsity Ford in Ann Arbor, Michigan, people have been seeing if their clunkers qualify, and picking out a new car that they’ll finally be able to drive off the lot today.

Matt Stanford sells cars there. He says as far as he’s concerned, ‘cash for clunkers’ is already a success.

“We’re going to sell new cars. We’re going to get cars that don’t really need to be on the road off the road.”

The National Autobmobile Dealers Association says some dealerships have been holding off until they learned more about the rules of ‘cash for clunkers’ which were just cleared up last Friday.

The clunkers will be scrapped. The cash ends when the one-billion dollars in government money runs out.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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