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Deconstructing the status quo

There’s more to that than we think we know.

Passing observations from NYC Climate Week,  but from the Natural Resources Defense Council power panel I attended at NRDC on Thursday, Reimagining Science for All of Us: From Vision to Design

Luminaries on the panel featured leadership of the Environmental Defense Fund, Working Group Vice Chair of the IPCC, and the Founder/CEO of Stand Up For Science. Serious people who say things such as, “The climate movement is deeply unserious about a serious subject.” Shared in the context of ignoring indigenous expertise on climate threats. Accomplished, committed people who have thought long about climate issues, unabashed about equity and justice. Enough? No. But they speak frankly about blowing past 1.5º C of warming. That’s more than something. The subject of the panel opened up criticism of scientists, the careful language, fidelity to being experts not activists though knowledge is not inherently neutral. Scientists need to get political. Many won’t like this; none of their universities will.

But back to the status quo. It needs to be unpacked. En bref, after WWII, the U.S. was full throttle. You saw Oppenheimer (You did see Oppenheimer. C’mon. at least pretend. To keep up.) After that, we could do anything. It was the pre-advent of big budget Hollywood filmmaking in the shape of scientific discovery. Research on a massive scale, Cecil B could only dream. An army of extras, except PhDs. Just throwing money at a lot of things. And we did. We went to space. Silly. But okay.

But it was so successful, no one ever had to think much about it. We celebrated Ted Williams, not Jonas Salk. Batting 400 vs. polio? What. Poli-what? Look at how he rounded the bases, hopping like that. Did Jonas Salk round the bases? Did Polio? Yikes – we have measles again. Polio on line 2. No Don Draper, no “It’s Toasted.” No one knew. Multiple diseases fell in the woods and… don’t say it.

Without a need, science never developed a political machinery. Sounds cynical but it needed one, from the outset [remember, we’re de-constructing]. It’s a form of hubris, yes. But it’s hubris of all of ours. Did we just expect to defeat disease and move on to golf courses? Don’t answer that.

There is a need to talk about science to people who never think about science. The pHarmA (whatever) nonsense brand names aren’t helping either. Stop it. Start it.

 

 

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Back At The Front, The Next Generation

NRG freedomI think if I was setting a new story in Florida, inventing a needlessly fictional version of Florida Man, he would work in a [solar-powered] cabinet pull plant in Even, Florida:

So did the legislators underestimate the popularity of Amendment 4? Did they think they’d assuage public opinion by putting it on the ballot, getting points, and then it wouldn’t pass? Or have the green energy entrepreneurs begun out-lobbying the utilities and Big Oil? Whatever it is, something big has changed. That Amendment 4 was put before the public at all, and that the public trounced the lobbyists, announces a sea change in which sordid deals in back rooms by the Carbon Moguls with fresh-facced and clueless state senators are no longer determinative. The people are getting a say, and they want to make it easier and cheaper to go solar.
The next big item on which voters will get a say is Amendment 1, this fall. It seeks to punish those who opt for solar power on the specious argument that non-solar customers shouldn’t have to bear the burden of upgrading the electricity grid or other infrastructural changes that will come with the extra solar energy.

Who knows? Maybe it’s a bit different with that rising tide gently lapping at your chamber door.

Image: I can’t believe that image actually exists.

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Solar Power Projects vs. Casinos

As public investments go, there’s one and then there’s the other. Let’s compare this:

Minnesota soon could see at least a sevenfold expansion of solar power.

In an unprecedented ruling, a judge reviewing whether Xcel Energy should invest in new natural gas generators vs. large solar power arrays concluded Tuesday that solar is a better deal.

If the finding by Administrative Law Judge Eric Lipman is upheld by the state Public Utilities Commission (PUC), Edina-based Geronimo Energy plans to build about 20 large solar power arrays on sites across Xcel’s service area at a cost of $250 million.

“It says solar is coming in a big way to the country and to Minnesota,” Geronimo Vice President Betsy Engelking said of the ruling.

Geronimo’s Aurora Solar Project would receive no state or utility subsidies, but would qualify for a federal investment tax credit. Engleking said it is the first time in the United States that solar energy without a state subsidy has beaten natural gas in an official, head-to-head price comparison.

“The cost of solar has come down much faster than anyone had anticipated,” she said in an interview. “This is one of the reasons solar is going to explode.”

to this:

Revel has been, to put it lightly, a disaster. Originally imagined as more of a resort than a casino, Revel cost $2.4 billion to open. Even before Revel opened it was considered a high risk investment in a city already on the decline due to gambling competition from Delaware and Pennsylvania. Progressives opposed state investments in the project which came during the same time Governor Christie was cutting education and healthcare services for women. Christie invested $261 million of New Jersey tax money via credits as Morgan Stanley backed out of Revel fearing it was a loser.

Not soon after Revel opened it became clear the resort idea was as dumb as many thought it was and “Revel Atlantic City” went into bankruptcy. The bankruptcy put the State of New Jersey on the hook as Revel announced that the casino’s value had dropped from $2.4 billion to $450 million. Ouch.

So these arguments about public infrastructure and investment as economic development are all just gas baggery if actually beneficial projects aren’t part of the calculus. And even that argument aside, solar’s ascendancy seems clear. But we shouldn’t leave it to the side at all – that’s the point. Hydrocarbon energy production will begin to loses its privileged place regarding public support (and hopefully casinos as well) and the howling will be intense. But make no mistake about how we’ve been explicitly supporting senseless gambling/retail fiascos for so long. A turn toward making sense might someday actually feel like it does.

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Some sun, some dough

Mrs. Green snapped this on a drive through the southern part of the state yesterday. This is what may happen when people figure out they can profit from captured non-fossil energy.

Georgia_solar

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Building (-v.t.)

RSF1.14-199x300

Nice piece in the NYT about the NREL research center in Colorado, especially on the architectural consequences of energy efficiency:

The $64 million Research Support building opened last year as a kind of physical assertion by the Energy Department, the lab’s parent agency, that office space can be driven down to zero net energy use through a combination of on-site energy production (rooftop solar) and fanatical attention to detail everywhere else in how the building saves and sips energy as a workplace for 800 engineers, managers and support staff members.

The resulting mix is meant to inspire builders and architects around the idea that net zero energy use is not only attainable but also affordable and even elegant. And that presents a new palette for architectural criticism.

How, for example, should one assess what seems at first to be an interesting sculpture in the building’s courtyard that in fact turns out to be a cleverly disguised fresh-air intake device for natural cooling of the basement data center? Extra points for form, or for function?

It’s getting to be a really weird thing to see vast new buildings, with square footage north of 100K, that leave these efficiencies on the table. They might use passive solar or have a giant cistern buried on site, but still have enormous shingled roofs that just sit there for decades without doing anything. It’s this expectation that needs ramping up. Instead the fossil dead-enders are looking to let the carrots rot and burn the sticks so as to finance for tax relief for the prosperous. We need to be asking more of architecture than just being structural remedies for various activities; double- and triple-purposing is the order of 2001… so you can, see we’re behind. And I would wager that architects generally would be willing and able… especially if hyper-efficiency came with built-in permission for the ugly buildings many seem to adore. Could be a decent trade (that we’re already making in exchange for bupkis).

But asking architects and engineers to fight clean energy battles against the folks who get elected is, well… probably too innovative.

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The Pot Calling the Kettle… Green?

This is rich.

HONG KONG — The United Steelworkers union filed a legal case with the Obama administration Thursday morning, accusing China of violating World Trade Organization rules by subsidizing exports of clean energy equipment to the United States.

…

The filing asks the Office of the United States Trade Representative to begin formal consultations with China, which would lead to proceedings at the W.T.O. in Geneva if Beijing did not agree to repeal the subsidies.

“Unless China’s policies are urgently addressed, the U.S. may never get a fair shot at making the green technologies of the future,” the filing said.

You can’t see me but I’m shaking my head. We’re filing a petition with the WTO against China for unfair export subsidies for clean energy. Put another way, China is pursuing its own unfair competitive advantage against us for stuff we’re not doing.

China’s manufacture of solar panels, wind power turbines and other clean energy products — with the strong support of its government, through land grants and low-interest loans — has turned that nation into the global leader in those markets. China has more than one million jobs in all clean energy industries combined.

Meanwhile, American and other Western manufacturers of solar and wind power equipment have struggled to compete. Some American clean energy companies have scaled back production and laid off workers, while moving operations to China.

Exasperation mine. I think this whole ‘American’ and “Chinese” set of distinctions is really old hat. Business moves at the speed of business… don’t these countries watch commercials? A communist country is out-capitalisming us. Remember: rules… Ha!

And, speaking of “Hey – you can’t do that!” How about all the wingnut kvetching on Operation burn-the-Koran? As little as a few days ago they were all-hate all-the-time, but now it’s, “we’re weren’t saying you should actually burn the holy book, No way!” Hate speech is hate speech and anti-Muslim (or anti-black, or anti-latino, or anti-Obama, or anti-tax or anti-whatever) rhetoric can escalate, so you should damn well think about that before you engage in stirring it up. Especially if you want to stake out some high ground later. If there is any.

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Get your War Green (On)

I bring this up just to note that we know this is happening and we are doing it.

If the Zephyr can safely return to Earth at that point, it will have smashed the official world record for continuous unmanned flight, now held by Northrop Grumman’s Global Hawk drone. The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale, a governing body for aeronautic world records, is observing the flight.

The goal for the project has been to establish the Zephyr as the “world’s first truly eternal plane,” with future designs of the drone expected to provide “low-cost, persistent surveillance capability over months rather than days,” a company statement said. Both the British Defense Ministry and the Pentagon are involved with the development of the drone.

mmm… let’s all say it together: renewable eternal surveillance.