Interview: Adapting to a Warmer Climate

  • Researcher Don Scavia says most climate models show further drops in water levels for the Great Lakes. (Photo provided by the SeaWiFS Project, NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, and ORBIMAGE)

When you think of climate change, maybe you’re thinking of something that’s 50 years away, or maybe 100 years away. But scientists are telling us that things are already changing in the Great Lakes region.

Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have just received $4.2 million in federal money for a new research center to help us understand how things might continue to change, and how we can get ready.

Don Scavia is an aquatic ecologist at the University of Michigan and he’s one of the leaders of
the new center.

Great Lakes water levels from 1918 to 2009

Learn more about the new center

More about Don Scavia

Transcript

Professor Scavia, how has climate change affected our region so far?

Scavia: Well, you know, it’s interesting. There is a lot of discussion about whether or not the climate is changing or will change in the future. But the climate in this region has already changed. We’re already seeing less ice cover on the lakes, we’re seeing our precipitation, rain and snow, coming in more intense storms than it has in the past, and it’s warming. People that try to run winter-oriented sports in the northern part of the states are certainly recognizing it. People that are seeing the lake levels dropping are recognizing it. And the farmers that are actually trying to deal with the intensification of the storms are feeling it as well.

RW: How are things expected to continue to change?


Scavia: Well, we’re expecting it to be warmer, we’re expecting the winters to be warmer, we’re expecting more of the rain to come in these very intense storms as opposed to the nice gentle rains we’re used to in the summer. A lot of the rain will come in late winter/early spring rather than during the middle part of the summer. Most of the models are suggesting the lake levels will continue to drop into the future.


RW: So what are you most concerned about?

Scavia: I’m concerned about a number of things. I’m concerned about agriculture. I think the warmer temperatures are going to force our farmers into different kinds of crops. Of course, farmers are used to adapting to changing weather but changing on this scale may not be something they’re used to.

RW: How might tourism be affected?

Scavia: Well, winter tourism for sure will be affected if we get less snow and if the lakes don’t freeze solid enough to have our tip-up towns up north. But summer tourism, much of that is around the lakeshores. And as the lake levels decline, marinas become stranded and we have to sort of work on ways to adjust to that.


RW: And you’re talking about adapting to climate change. Is it too late to stop what’s already in motion?


Scavia: Oh no. And there was a while five years ago when no one wanted to talk about adaptation because that they felt that was giving up on mitigation. We now realize that we have to do both. And mitigation is the absolute essential thing to do. We have to stop the increase in emissions, we have to stop the increase in CO2 and the increased effects of global warming overall. But there’s a lot of changes that are happening right now and even if we stopped all the emissions we’re just going to slow down the change in climate for a while.


RW: You know, a lot of people are pretty worried about their jobs right now, health care, maybe education for their kids. How do you make climate change a priority when there are so many other things that seem really pressing?


Scavia: Well, the way the climate is changing affects our daily lives and we need to address that. You know, not all the solutions, not all the adaption strategies are very costly. There are things we can build into our existing processes and existing decision making to prepare us for the future in ways that don’t necessarily cost us an awful lot of money.


Don Scavia is one of the leaders of a new research center on climate change and the Great Lakes. Thank you very much for coming in.

It was a pleasure.

Don Scavia says his center is going to be working with cities and businesses and farmers to try to get ready for a warmer climate in Michigan.

That’s the Environment Report. I’m Rebecca Williams.

Emotions Run High Over Dam Removal Questions

  • The Argo Dam was first built as a hydroelectric dam in 1914. Detroit Edison decided it wasn't worth the investment and sold it to Ann Arbor in 1963. (Photo by Mark Brush)

There are close to two hundred hydroelectric dams in Michigan, and almost half of those stopped making power a long time ago. Many of these dams are getting old and they need attention. The communities that own these dams are faced with a decision: pay to fix them, or pay to take them down. As Mark Brush reports it’s a decision that often stirs people’s emotions.

Map of Hydroelectric Dams in Michigan (pdf)

The Ann Arbor Chronicle on Argo Dam

The City of Ann Arbor on Argo Dam

More about Rowing on Argo Pond (pdf)

“Why remove Argo Dam?” from the HRWC

“The Ballad of Argo Dam” by Dave Barrett

Transcript

(Sound of Argo Dam)

The controversy around Argo Dam in Ann Arbor started when the State’s Dam Safety Program said there were problems were with the embankment next to the dam. The repair costs were estimated to be up to $300,000.

Laura Rubin is standing next to the dam on the Huron River. Rubin is the executive director of the Huron River Watershed Council, and she wants to take this dam out. She says taking the dam out would save the city money in the long run. She says it will also return the river to a more natural state, and would be better for fish and wildlife. Rubin says when she looks at the pond made by the dam, she doesn’t see good things.

“When I look at Argo Pond I see really a stinky, stagnant, non-oxygenated pond. It’s not really functioning. Other people look at it as, you know, this beautiful pond that they go down to. And it’s really, that’s just one of perspective, and sort of your background and your training.”

The people who like the dam accused Rubin and the Watershed Council of overhyping the problems with the dam, and with Argo Pond. The people most outspoken were the members of a local rowing club.

Rubin and others in favor of taking the dam out said the rowers could find better places to row on the Huron River, and the city could pay for the move.

Mike Taft is a coach for the Huron High School rowing team. He and many of the other rowers said the other places just wouldn’t work.

“You know my kids grew up here and this is where we spent our time. So, you can find what you want on various stretches of this river, and this is a one of a kind the way it is.”

Some environmentalists accused the rowers of digging their heels in – of not considering other options. Taft feels that accusation is unfair.

“I think this is not about the rowers. I think it’s about the Watershed Council pursuing their absolute aim here, which is to take out this dam.”

People with the Watershed Council say they do want the dam out, but they say they respect the rowers concerns.

The city of Ann Arbor put together a committee to help them with the decision. They held meetings and heard from some experts. They came to agreement on a lot of other issues about the river, but on the Argo Dam they just couldn’t agree.

Steve Yaffee is an expert on ways to manage environmental conflicts. He’s written extensively about the Spotted Owl case out west and he facilitated some of the Argo Dam meetings. He says in hindsight, he felt like the process could have been better informed. He thought it would have helped to have outside experts weigh in on the questions about science and about the alternatives for rowers.

“Because I think the rowing interests weren’t convinced that there were environmental benefits. And the environmentalists weren’t convinced that there weren’t options for the rowers. And if you’re not convinced of that, why work with that.”

Yaffee says for communities facing these big controversies it’s important for all the parties to first sit down and talk broadly about what they want for their community. He says it’s also important to have some creative thinkers at the table. People who can articulate a vision for the future and can come up with solutions.

For now, the city is planning to keep the dam. If it does, taxpayers will probably have to pay close to half a million dollars in repair and maintenance costs in the next several years, and for many cities with tight budgets money is often what ultimately drives their final decision of whether or not to keep a dam.

For the Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

Interview: Asian Carp

  • Asian Carp can weigh up to 100 pounds and are notorious for jumping out of the water and injuring boaters. (Photo courtesy of the US Fish and Wildlife Service)

The US Supreme Court has turned
down a request from Michigan and
other Great Lakes states. They
wanted the locks in a canal to
be closed immediately. That man-made
canal artificially connects the
Mississippi River system and the
Great Lakes. For now at least,
those locks will stay open to cargo
traffic. This fight is all about
a fish, a type of Asian Carp, that
many people don’t want to get into
the Great Lakes. Lester Graham
spoke with David Jude about the
threat of the fish. Jude is a
research scientist and fish biologist
at the University of Michigan:

Transcript

The US Supreme Court has turned
down a request from Michigan and
other Great Lakes states. They
wanted the locks in a canal to
be closed immediately. That man-made
canal artificially connects the
Mississippi River system and the
Great Lakes. For now at least,
those locks will stay open to cargo
traffic. This fight is all about
a fish, a type of Asian Carp, that
many people don’t want to get into
the Great Lakes. Lester Graham
spoke with David Jude about the
threat of the fish. Jude is a
research scientist and fish biologist
at the University of Michigan:

Lester: We keep hearing if this fish gets into the Great Lakes system, it will be devastating for the ecology of the lakes, ruin the commercial and recreational fishing. What is it that all these people think this Asian Carp fish will do to the Great Lakes?

David Jude: Well, I am sure they all watch the video where the fish are jumping out of the river, in the Illinois River, and harming some biologists and some people that are there.

Lester: Smacks them in the head!

David: Yes, so they are very concerned about that. And then biologists are concerned about the fact that they have taken over the river there, they are very voracious feeders, and so they have really crowded out a lot of other fish in the river. So there are a lot of things that are going on with regards to impacts on humans as well as impacts on fish communities that we certainly don’t like.

Lester: And these are big fish, they are up to 100 pounds.

David: Exactly.

Lester: There’s this electric barrier in place in the canal that is supposed to prevent these Asian Carp from swimming from the Mississippi River into the Great Lakes. Environmentalists say that there’s still too much of a risk, too many scenarios where the fish could get through because of flooding or some other scenario, and that canal should be closed. The Obama Administration is fighting that, the state of Illinois if fighting that, they say we need that open. There’s barge traffic carrying steel and rock and gravel and grain, all of this seems to be coming down to money. Is money the right measure when we’re looking at this situation?

David: No, it’s not. I mean traditionally, we’ve gone into the, a lot of these decisions are made and the environmental costs are not taken into consideration. The costs of having that canal open are going to be very very high and, uh, and you have to balance it against what the sport fishery and the commercial fishery is the Great Lakes is going to be because once they get in there it’s going to be a very detrimental impact on them.

Lester: This fish is knocking at the door, we’re not even sure it’s not already in, so, is there a certain inevitability that this fish is going to be in the Great Lakes and we should just start making plans to deal with it?

David: Well, I don’t think it’s inevitable and I think if we did stop them and somehow were able to shut down the Chicago Ship and Sanitary Canal and prevent that avenue, we’d go a long way toward preventing them from coming in. The other avenue for them getting in, of course, is people that like to eat them and they might bring them in and stock them. So, I think we should be doing everything we can right now to stop them, I mean this is our opportunity to do that. But, the other part of it is, because they’re so close, and because as you know there probably could be some in the Lakes already, you know, we should be prepared to have some plans on what we might want to do to try to, you know, focus on some of these optimal spawning sites and see what we can do to keep their populations down there.

Lester: David Jude is a research scientist and fish biologist at the University of Michigan. Thanks for coming in!

David: Oh, my pleasure.

Related Links

Part 5: The Science Behind Dioxin Delays

  • West Michigan Park lies along the Tittabawassee River. Large swaths of its soil was removed and re-sodded due to dioxin contamination. The removal was part of a US EPA effort to have Dow clean up several hot spots in the rivershed. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

Two rivers in central Michigan were
polluted with dioxin 30 years ago.
The dioxin came from a Dow chemical
plant. The toxin’s been found in fish,
animals, and dirt, but, of all those,
contaminated soil might be the touchiest
subject. A study done in the area suggests
dioxin in soil might not be getting into
people living there. In the final part
of a series on Dow Chemical and dioxin,
Shawn Allee looks at that study
and the government’s take on it:

Transcript

Two rivers in central Michigan were
polluted with dioxin 30 years ago.
The dioxin came from a Dow chemical
plant. The toxin’s been found in fish,
animals, and dirt, but, of all those,
contaminated soil might be the touchiest
subject. A study done in the area suggests
dioxin in soil might not be getting into
people living there. In the final part
of a series on Dow Chemical and dioxin,
Shawn Allee looks at that study
and the government’s take on it:

To understand what’s at stake over the science of dioxin and soil, I want to talk with Marcia Woodman.

So, Woodman and I talk in this big, three-season room with tons of windows. It’s like you’re outside in some woods.

“I love it, so it wasn’t hard to convince me to move here.”

From here, the trees look inviting, but Woodman says she only lets her kids enjoy them from a distance.

“They’re not allowed to play back in the woods anymore. They used to play and we used to take walks back there.”

You see, eight years ago, the state tested soil for dioxin. Her place was okay, but there were high levels in the neighborhood. So, Woodman worried dioxin might move from soil into her kids, and maybe they’d get cancer or some other disease. But, what if dioxin in soil is not getting into people nearby?

“We found virtually no relationship between soil contamination and blood dioxin levels. In other words, the amount of soil contamination on your property really didn’t relate to blood levels.”

This is Dr. David Garabrant. He researches public health at the University of Michigan. Now, we need to tell you, in the interest of full disclosure, The Environment Report is produced at the University of Michigan.

Dr. Garabrant looked at whether people in the contaminated region have higher dioxin levels in their blood. They do – but just slightly. And those higher dioxins levels? They’re probably from other factors, like living in that area when dioxin pollution was highest – decades ago. Again, for him, soil is less of an issue.

This conclusion bothers two groups of people that really matter. That would be the US Environmental Protection Agency, and the State of Michigan. The EPA would not provide an interview on this, but they have public documents about it. Michigan has the same reservations about the study. Here’s just one.

“He didn’t test children. And children, typically, have some of the highest exposures.”

This is Steve Chester. He heads Michigan’s Department of Environmental Quality.

“It’s probably even more of a concern for children who get down into the dirt and get it on their hands and shoes and so forth.”

Chester says the state needs to create regulations that take risk to kids into account. That makes Dr. Garabrant’s study a bit beside the point. Dr. Garabrant says he wanted to get kids into his study, but you have to draw lots of blood.

“You can’t ethically take enough blood from a child to find the dioxins. And that’s a real dilemma.”

Garabrant says his study went as far as it could.

For some people, there’s a different problem with the research.

“The study is funded by the Dow Chemical company through an unrestricted grant to the University of Michigan.”

That would be Dow Chemical – the company that polluted the Tittabawassee River and floodplain decades ago. Soon, Dow might have to spend tens or maybe hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up contaminated river silt and soil. Still, Garabrant insists Dow has no influence.

“The only thing we give Dow is when they sit in meetings like the rest of the public and they hear what we have to say.”

Garabrant’s study on dioxin exposure is getting attention right when the US EPA is taking another look at the risk dioxin poses to people. Critics of his study worry it will stir up a whole new debate that could delay dioxin clean ups in Michigan and other toxic waste sites across the country.

The EPA insists it won’t let that happen – and it’ll soon have more science to back up its position.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Who’s Monitoring Pollution?

  • The famous photo of the Cuyahoga River fire that appeared in Time Magazine. The photo is not of the 1969 blaze, but rather of another fire on the river in 1952. (Photo courtesy of NOAA)

Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:

Transcript

Federal and state governments have cut
back on monitoring some big sources of
pollution, and small sources are rarely
monitored. Lester Graham reports it’s a
problem that’s even tougher when state
budgets are cut:

Industry does not pollute like it did in the 1960s or 70s. Today, regulators monitor most of those big factories.

Tom Lyon is the Director of the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan.

“Big smokestack industries we have a fairly good eye on, but there are a lot of areas that we still don’t have a good handle on.”

Like small businesses which collectively can release a lot of toxins, and farms that use pesticides and fertilizers on millions acres.

Jennifer Sass is a Scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council. She says, under the Bush Administration, pollution monitoring of big industry was cut back. Sass says that monitoring needs to be restored and expanded to smaller sources.

“If we quit our monitoring programs, then we don’t really know. It’s a lot like putting our head in the sand.”

But many state agencies say they don’t have the resources to keep track of all those sources of pollution.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Slacker Activism: Slacktivism

  • The "Lil' Green Patch" application on Facebook (Image by Jessi Ziegler)

Getting involved in a social
or environmental cause these
days is as easy as clicking
your mouse. Some people think
grassroots activism is just
changing its face as technology
changes… but other people think
we’re becoming slackers. Rebecca
Williams explores whether we’re
a nation of slack-tivists:

Transcript

Getting involved in a social
or environmental cause these
days is as easy as clicking
your mouse. Some people think
grassroots activism is just
changing its face as technology
changes… but other people think
we’re becoming slackers. Rebecca
Williams explores whether we’re
a nation of slack-tivists:

The other day I met this guy, Patrick Diehl. And I was trying to get him to describe himself.

“Uh, I’m a Pisces and I enjoy long walks on the beach and horseback riding; good sense of humor; still gets pimples.”

Add to that: slack-tivist. That’s a slacker activist. But he was telling me he wasn’t always this way. For twenty years, he was one of those door knocking, envelope licking activists. He worked for a governor. He used to drag his little daughter to rallies. Now he’s just burned out.

“I could get on the phone and call someone about an issue but I choose to sit down on Facebook and hit three mouse clicks and a return and feel good about myself.”

And lately, his slacktivism has hit a brand new low.

(sound of mouse clicks)

“My little green patch is dry. That means I’ve been neglecting it.”

If you’re a Facebook virgin, the Lil’ Green Patch is this application that lets you send plants to your friends’ online gardens. The idea is, the more you play, the more money advertisers will give to save the rainforest.

“Rebecca: “So wait did you actually do this for a while?”

Patrick: “Yeah!”

Rebecca: “And you felt good about it.”

Patrick: “Yes! I thought my spending time on here is leading to something bigger than myself.” (laughs)

But then, Patrick got in trouble. His wife – Anita – said he was just spending way too much time online. Lil’ Green Patch died. He’d rather play another online game, like Mafia Wars.

But you know, at least at one time Patrick was very active. Some people think clicking on a little green patch is their contribution to a better world.

“That’s a trending topic, that’s a trending term, slacktivist.”

Apollo Gonzales works for one of those big environmental groups, the Natural Resources Defense Council. He’s what’s called a netroots manager. You might say it’s his job to get slacktivists off their butts.

“If you measure the one click activism, or slacktivism, against someone who’s visiting their representative on the Hill once a year, then yeah I think it’s on the low end of what can be done. But you’ve got to start somewhere with a lot of these people.”

So, Apollo blogs and tweets and uses online social media to get people talking. Because talking sometimes actually leads to doing something.

“We have a world where we are more connected than we ever have been, and a world where we can share our stories faster and more richly than we ever have been able to. And that’s great for people who are fighting for a cause.”

And there’s actually some research to back this up.

Scott Campbell studies new media at the University of Michigan.

“There have been some studies recently that show when people use text messaging as reminders to go out and vote, we do see significant increases in voter turnout.”

He says cell phones and the Internet are basically giving us more ways to communicate – and that’s good for us as a society. But he says we do have to be a little careful – because if all our online friends think like we do, we can become little isolated e-communities.

Basically, the more Facebook friends you have, and the more new ideas you can share, the better.

So if you want to be a better slacktivist, you might have to make some choices. You could sign a million online petitions. I mean there are 15,000 environment causes on Facebook. And then there’re all those other things, like Mafia Wars, and other distractions that people like Patrick have to deal with.

Patrick: “I’ve been kidnapped to Barcelona but I’m gonna ignore that.”

Anita: “See you just say ignore, ignore it!”

Patrick: “Someone just sent me a slap on the rear end. I’m gonna ignore that. I probably wouldn’t but my wife is right here so I’m going to ignore that.” (both laugh)

With distractions like these… even slacktivism’s getting to be hard work.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

Related Links

Where Nothing Can Survive

  • Shrimpers have seen their catches dwindle down from thousands of pounds of shrimp a day to very little due to the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. (Photo by Samara Freemark)

Every summer, thousands of
square miles of the Gulf of
Mexico die. The Dead Zone is
caused by pollution that flows
down the Mississippi River. It’s
runoff from factories, sewer
plants, and farms. And it causes
a lot of problems for fishermen
in the area. This year, the Dead
Zone is projected to be huge –
maybe the largest ever. Samara Freemark explains:

Transcript

Every summer, thousands of
square miles of the Gulf of
Mexico die. The Dead Zone is
caused by pollution that flows
down the Mississippi River. It’s
runoff from factories, sewer
plants, and farms. And it causes
a lot of problems for fishermen
in the area. This year, the Dead
Zone is projected to be huge –
maybe the largest ever. Samara Freemark explains:

Imagine for a moment you’re a shrimp fisherman. Every day you send out your fleet to the same waters you’ve fished for decades. And your boats pull in a lot of shrimp- thousands of pounds a day, millions a year. And then one day, a normal summer day, you send the boats out, and they come back empty.

“You go from about 5000 pounds to nothing. It’s dead. That’s why they call it the dead zone.”

That’s Dean Blanchard. He runs the largest shrimp company in America- Dean Blanchard Seafood. 


Blanchard started seeing the dead zone about five years ago, but it’s not a new phenomenon. For a long time, nutrient fertilizer from upstream has run into the Mississippi River and from there, into the Gulf. It fertilizes big algae blooms– and when the algae decays, it sucks oxygen out of the water, making it impossible for fish to live there.

What’s new is how much fertilizer there is now.

“It’s not natural.”

Nancy Rabalais is a marine biologist at LUMCON. That’s Louisiana’s center for marine research. She says that over the past several decades there’s been a surge in fertilizer use in the Corn Belt states. That eventually ends up in the Gulf.

“We’re having 300 times more than we did in the 1950s. And it’s just over loaded the system.”

Rabalais predicts this year’s dead zone will be almost three times as big as it was twenty years ago – more than 8000 square miles.

Of course, the bigger the zone, the further out shrimpers like Dean Blanchard have to send their boats. That means a lot of wasted time, fuel, and wages.

And the zones might mean even bigger problems. Don Scavia is a professor at the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan.

“There’s a half a billion dollar shrimp industry in the gulf. And the shrimp depend on that habitat. And what we’re concerned about is that if the dead zone continues or even grows, that fishery may collapse.”

Congress is taking some measures to address the problem. Conservation programs in the Farm Bill work to reduce how much fertilizer farmers use, and how they apply it.

But there’s something else in the Farm Bill too – a lot of subsidy programs. Those pay for ethanol production. Which means more corn. Which means a lot more fertilizer.

“And what is debated every 5 years is how much funding will go into those conservation programs, relative to funding going into subsidy programs. And, by far, the subsidies win.” (laughs)

Scavia says for every $1 spent on conservation programs in the Corn Belt, $500 go to subsidizing crops.


Shrimper Dean Blanchard says he’s not sure how long he can live with that balance, especially as he watches the dead zone grow.

“How big is this thing going to get? If we kill the oceans we have problems. We have serious problems.”

But Don Scavia is hopeful. He says we know exactly how to reduce nutrient runoff – in fact, the basic programs are already in place. It’s just a matter of Congress choosing the right funding priorities.

For The Environment Report, I’m Samara Freemark.

Related Links

Nuclear Careers to Heat Up?

  • Until recently, there hasn’t been an order for a new nuclear plant in 30 years. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

Some Senate Republicans want the climate
change bill to focus on building new nuclear
power plants. They’re calling for as many as
100 new plants in 20 years. But the industry
has been in decline for so many years now,
there’s concern there might not be enough
nuclear engineers to do the job. Julie Grant
reports:

Transcript

Some Senate Republicans want the climate
change bill to focus on building new nuclear
power plants. They’re calling for as many as
100 new plants in 20 years. But the industry
has been in decline for so many years now,
there’s concern there might not be enough
nuclear engineers to do the job. Julie Grant
reports:

There’s a lot of new interest in nuclear energy and technology these days. But there’s a problem.

The American Nuclear Society estimates they need 700 new nuclear engineers per year to keep up with growing the demand. It’s enough to give long-time nuclear supporters whip-lash. Until recently, things looked gloomy for the nuclear industry.

William Martin is chair of the nuclear engineering department at the University of Michigan. Ten years ago, he says no new plants were being designed or built. And he was having a tough time finding students.

“A student entering the field, what you could tell them was, ‘well, there’s a big focus on waste.’ That’s not hardly something that excites young students to enter the field.”

Martin remembers standing on the stage at graduation in the mid 1990s to call the names of his graduates. Other engineering departments had so many students, it took an hour to call them all. But Martin only had a few names to call.

“Our students trip across in about ten seconds.”

Lots of nuclear engineering programs didn’t make it through the down times. There are less than half the university programs today than there were 30 years ago.

Nuclear got a bad name starting in 1979 – with the meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. That was followed by the deadly nuclear accident at Chernobyl, Ukraine in the ‘80s.
By the early 1990s, President Clinton announced he would eliminate funding for nuclear power research and development.

Until recently, there hasn’t been an order for a new nuclear plant in 30 years.

Vaughn Gilbert is spokesman for Westinghouse Electric Company, which focuses on nuclear energy.


He says Westinghouse laid off a lot its engineers in the down years. A decade ago, those who were left were heading toward retirement. So, Gilbert says, the company started working with universities to train engineering students to run its aging nuclear plants.

“Simply because we knew we would need to attract new people to maintain the existing fleet and then also to work with our customers to decommission the plants as they came offline.”

Westinghouse and other nuclear companies started giving lots of money to maintain university programs.

And then, everyone started worrying about climate change – and looking for ways to make energy that wouldn’t create more greenhouse gases. Nuclear power has started making a comeback.

Gilbert says new plants are in the works again – and Westinghouse needs engineers. The company’s designs will be used in six new U.S. plants.

The timing is pretty good for 25 year old Nick Touran. He’s a PhD student in nuclear engineering at the University of Michigan. He knows there’s a negative stigma to nuclear power – because he’s asked people about it.

“I just say, ‘so what do you think about nuclear power?’ Just to passersby on the street. And one person said, ‘I only think one thing – no, no, no, no, no.’”

But Touran says the negative stuff mostly comes from older people. When Three Mile Island melted-down, Touran wasn’t even born yet. He says most people his age are much more accepting of nuclear power.

“It’s the people who remember Three Mile Island and remember Chernobyl and remember World War II, who have all these very negative associations with nuclear weapons and Soviet reactors that were built incredibly wrong. And stuff like that.”

Touran says much of his generation just sees a power source that doesn’t create greenhouse gases.

Of course, there are greenhouse gases created in the process of manufacturing nuclear fuel rods. And then there’s that pesky problem of that spent nuclear waste. There’s still no permanent place to dump it.

Touran says he started studying nuclear power because he was amazed by it. But as the number of students in his department grows, he says more are choosing nuclear because it’s a smart career choice.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Bumpy Road Ahead for Hydrogen Cars

  • Sysco - a major food distributor - is part of a year-long government funded project. They're running seventeen of their forklifts using hydrogen powered fuel cells. (Photo by Mark Brush)

Six years ago, President Bush proposed to end our addiction to oil by building a hydrogen
economy. At the time, driving a hydrogen powered car didn’t seem that far off. But today, the
reality of mass produced hydrogen powered cars has hit some bumps in the road. Mark Brush
looks at the challenges ahead:

Transcript

Six years ago, President Bush proposed to end our addiction to oil by building a hydrogen
economy. At the time, driving a hydrogen powered car didn’t seem that far off. But today, the
reality of mass produced hydrogen powered cars has hit some bumps in the road. Mark Brush
looks at the challenges ahead:

It’s all about the fuel cell. The cell converts hydrogen gas into electricity that can power up a
motor. And when that’s done – the only thing that comes out of the tail pipe is crystal, clean
water.

So there’s a lot of enthusiasm to build hydrogen powered cars. If you live in Southern California,
you can drive a hydrogen powered car right now.

(sound of a hydrogen car commercial)

But you can’t buy this car. You can only lease it. And you have to have a pretty good map.
There are only 2 places where you can fill the car up with hydrogen.

And that highlights just one of the challenges facing the hydrogen car right now. There’s no
infrastructure – no network of gas stations – to support it.

Steven Chu heads up the Obama Administration’s Department of Energy.

“It’s an infrastructure that is as extensive as the infrastructure for gasoline and diesel. And that
doesn’t come overnight.”

Chu wants to eliminate all the research money for hydrogen powered cars and trucks. He says
there are too many big problems to solve. There’s the infrastructure problem. Fuel cells are
expensive. The cheapest way to make hydrogen right now releases pollution. And there are
problems with storing the gas.

In an interview with MIT’s Technology Review, Energy Secretary Chu referred to these problems
as the four miracles. And that didn’t go over too well with some people.

“A miracle? Really? How many miracles have you seen? I’m not sure I’ve seen a real miracle in
my life.”

Levi Thompson directs the Hydrogen Energy Technology Laboratory at the University of
Michigan.

He says talking about these problems as miracles sends the wrong message. He admits, there
are some big puzzles to solve. But he’s convinced scientists can solve them.

“If you believe this is the savior, that this is going to transform the way we do things, I think you
have a responsibility to invest – even though that you see that it’s far behind.”

Thompson says the ultimate goal for a hydrogen economy is to get the hydrogen from water
using electricity from renewable resources like wind, solar, and hydro-power. So you get the
clean burning gas you’re looking for.

It can be done today, but it’s expensive. Thompson thinks it’ll get cheaper as alternative sources
of electricity become more widespread.

The Energy Department doesn’t want to give up on hydrogen research altogether. Secretary Chu
says fuel cells do make sense on a small scale – like to power fork lifts in a warehouse.

(sound of a warehouse and forklift)

Here at this Sysco warehouse in Grand Rapids, Michigan, a mini hydrogen experiment is
underway.

Sysco is a major food distributor. This warehouse is part of a year-long government funded
project. They’re running seventeen of their forklifts using hydrogen powered fuel cells made by a
company called Plug Power.

Darin VanDuyn is with Sysco. He says, mostly, they’ve had a good experience with these fuel
cells.

“We’ve had about 80 hours of lost time due to repair – minor failures, things like that – but nothing
major has disrupted their operation.”

VanDuyn says the company hasn’t decided yet whether they’ll move forward with the fuel cell
program. But policy makers say real-world experiments like these move us closer to mass
produced hydrogen vehicles.

Even though the Obama Administration wants to cut funding for hydrogen powered cars and
trucks, Congress holds the purse – and has the final say. So far, it looks like Congress will
continue to fully fund the research.

Automakers say the ups and downs of federal funding don’t affect their plans. Several
companies say they’ll start selling hydrogen powered cars in 6 to 8 years – and they’ll let the
market decide the fate of the hydrogen economy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Mark Brush.

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The Summer BBQ: Gas or Charcoal?

  • Neal Fisher only uses charcoal for his summer grilling (Photo by Jennifer Guerra)

Summertime and the grilling is easy… but how environmentally friendly is it? We sent reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which type of grill is greener: gas or charcoal:

Transcript

Summertime and the grilling is easy… but how environmentally friendly is it? We sent reporter Jennifer Guerra to find out which type of grill is greener: gas or charcoal:

Neal Fisher thinks he’s an environmentally friendly kind of guy. He and his wife recycle, they use compact fluorescent light bulbs in the house, they walk most places and hardly ever use their car.

But when it comes to outdoor grilling… it’s charcoal all the way.

“It may be a little decadent when you’re taking the environment into consideration, but I do it.”

(sound of grilling)

On tonight’s menu, it’s burgers, Jamaican jerk chicken, onions, and asparagus. Everything is grilled on basic, 22 ½ inch Weber kettle.

“Nothing fancy, no frills.”

To get the fire started, Fisher throws about 7 or 8 pounds of hardwood lump charcoal into a chimney starter.

“I don’t use the lighter fluid, I just use the charcoal chimney. I figure if I’m going to be cooking wood, I don’t want to cook a lot of chemicals too. So that’s something. I don’t kid myself that this is at all healthy for the world. I sometimes joke about it, too, well there goes my carbon footprint. Suddenly I’m carbon Sasquatch.”

To find out if Fisher really is a carbon Sasquatch, I called up Eric Johnson in Switzerland.

“Basically the footprint of using charcoal is about 3 times higher than the footprint of gas.”

Johnson just published a study in the journal Environmental Impact Assessment Review. In it, he compared the carbon dioxide emissions – or carbon footprint – of the two most popular types of grills: charcoal and propane gas.

When it comes to straight up carbon emissions – gas grills win hands down. Run your gas grill for an hour; emit 5.6 pounds of carbon dioxide into the air. Use charcoal briquettes for an hour of grilling; emit a whopping 11 pounds of CO2.

Fair enough.

But what if we look at the total carbon cycle of propane gas, a fossil fuel and charcoal, which is a bio fuel?

For that answer, we’ll turn to Bill Currie. He’s a professor in the School of Natural Resources at the University of Michigan.

“You have to think about, can we replace the carbon back in the pool that charcoal came from? Can we replace it biologically over a reasonable period of time? And with charcoal, the answer is yes, we can re-grow those trees.”

That’s because charcoal is made out of wood, which is a renewable energy source. So if charcoal is harvested locally in a sustainable way, the re-grown trees can absorb the CO2 – which makes charcoal essentially carbon neutral. So charcoal made out of wood which is renewable. Propane gas on the other hand is made from oil. Not renewable.

“Fuels that are based on coal, oil, petroleum based fuel, it’s not possible to put that CO2 back where it was biologically in a reasonable amount of time. And that’s the big difference.”

But does any of this really matter? I mean, how important is grilling in the overall environmental scheme of things. Well Currie says it’s definitely not a big-ticket item like, say, the size of your house or the number of cars you have.

“It’s probably a small factor in the whole analysis. But at the same time, we make dozens or hundreds of these choices a day. And if we know that one alternative is better than another, these little things do matter because they add up.”

Especially when you consider that Americans are expected to use more than 60 million grills – both charcoal and gas – on July 4th. That’s the carbon equivalent of 900,000 trees. Now that’s a Carbon Sasquatch.

For The Environment Report, I’m Jennifer Guerra.

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