Category Archives: energy

Using bikes for serious emissions reduction

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Bicycles in a square

According to the European Cycling Federation, if the whole of the EU cycled like the Danes, they could achieve significant emissions cuts.

If the EU cycling rate was the same as it is in Denmark, where the average person cycles almost 600 miles (965km) each year, then the bloc would attain anything from 12% to 26% of its targeted transport emissions reduction, depending on what forms of transport the cycling replaced, according to the report by the Brussels-based European Cycling Federation (ECF).

This figure is likely to be a significant underestimate as it deliberately excludes the environmental impact of building road infrastructure and parking, or maintaining and disposing of cars.

These figures are for the EU’s 2050 emissions reduction target.  The figures are even greater for 2020 targets.

Bikes are not a new technology that would require long adoption periods and high initial capital costs.  Almost everyone knows how to use them, and they are cheap.  They also have myriad co-benefits, not least of which is increased physical activity.  To get serious about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, we should take a close look at the bike as a potential solution.

Using ECF’s study as a model and making some estimates, the Twin Cities metro could see some significant emissions reductions if we biked like the Danes, but getting there would be tough.  I’ll get to that, but first some initial thoughts on the Europeans. Continue reading →

Taking local action

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Minneapolis Skyline

Over at Grist, David Roberts lays down the brutal logic of climate change:

With immediate, concerted action at global scale, we have a slim chance to halt climate change at the extremely dangerous level of 2 degrees C. If we delay even a decade — waiting for better technology or a more amenable political situation or whatever — we will have no chance.

And what’s so special about 2 degrees C?  Well, that may be something like a point of no return.

The thing is, if 2 degrees C is extremely dangerous, 4 degrees C is absolutely catastrophic. In fact, according to the latest science, says Anderson, “a 4 degrees C future is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable.”

Roberts is citing the work of Kevin Anderson, former head of the UK’s leading climate research institution.  Other scientists are making similar predictions.  James Hanson, director of Nasa’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, says, ”The target of 2C… is a prescription for long-term disaster“.  Increasingly, you don’t have to look far to find words like “apocalyptic” being used to describe the path we’re on.

So we need to reverse course on emissions by 2015, and in dramatic fashion.  But the latest round of international talks seem to be on shaky ground.  All US climate bills have so far failed.  So what’s a local planner or public official to do?  Decry the problem as global in scope and thus unsolvable? Shrug shoulders and pour a stiff drink?  While I have a healthy amount of skepticism about the ability of one jurisdiction or even one state to have a measurable impact on the global trendline, I think we absolutely must be making our best efforts now, for a number of reasons:

Continue reading →

World on track for 11-degree temperature rise

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The chief economist for the International Energy Agency, the group first formed to respond to the oil crisis in the 1970′s, talks climate change.

According to the IEA’s most recent analysis, heat-trapping emissions from the world’s energy infrastructure will lead to a 2-degree Celsius increase in the Earth’s temperature that, as more capacity is added to the system, will climb to 6 degrees Celsius of warming by 2100.

Unless there is a shift away from some of the fossil fuel energy now used for electricity generation and transportation, Birol said, “the world is perfectly on track for a six-degree Celsius increase in temperature.

“Everybody, even the schoolchildren, knows this is a catastrophe for all of us,” he said at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Happy Tuesday!

Super energy efficiency for existing homes

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 The Star Tribune has a story about the MinnePHit House in South Minneapolis.

Sometime in the next few weeks, Paul Brazelton will move his family into a 1935 Tudor in south Minneapolis that has no furnace. He’s just finished a massive renovation of the family home and even though winter’s bearing down, he removed the boiler and plans to use that basement space for his daughters’ home-school classroom.

He also took out the fireplace.

If this sounds like the most uninviting house (and classroom) in Minneapolis, there’s something else to know: Brazelton, a software engineer and passionate environmentalist, has nearly finished a retrofit of his house to the stringent engineering standards of the Passivhaus model, a German system of homebuilding that uses insulation and highly efficient doors and windows to save energy.

The finished 2,000-square-foot home could be warmed even in the dead of winter with a pair of small space heaters, Brazelton said, though the family plans to piggyback on their hot water heater and use an in-floor heating system in the basement.

The project is the renovation of an existing home to meet EnerPHit standard for energy performance. EnerPHit is a subset of the Passive House standard (hence the PH), which is an energy performance standard that requires very high levels of energy efficiency.  The Passive House Institute has a summary:

A Passive House is a very well-insulated, virtually air-tight building that is primarily heated by passive solar gain and by internal gains from people, electrical equipment, etc. Energy losses are minimized. Any remaining heat demand is provided by an extremely small source. Avoidance of heat gain through shading and window orientation also helps to limit any cooling load, which is similarly minimized. An energy recovery ventilator provides a constant, balanced fresh air supply. The result is an impressive system that not only saves up to 90% of space heating costs, but also provides a uniquely terrific indoor air quality.

Passive House is a performance standard, meaning it doesn’t specify design features like LEED, but has performance characteristics that the building must meet after construction is complete.  Namely an airtight building shell at  ≤ 0.6 ACH @ 50 pascal pressure measured by a blower door test and a total heating & cooling demand of <4.7 kBtu/sq ft/yr.  Total energy use needs to be ≤ 38.1 kBtu/ft2/yr.

In layman’s terms, this means Passive House designs are 11 times more airtight than a conventionally designed and built modern home.  As for energy use, a typical single family detached home uses 76 kBtu/sq ft/yr.  My own house was built in the 1920′s and currently has no wall insulation.  In 2010, we used 89 kBtu/sq ft/yr in total, and I think we’re fairly frugal with our electricity.  That means when the Brazelton family finishes their home, it will use less than half the total energy of my house and be 15% larger.

The Passive House standard doesn’t require or depend on renewable energy to achieve this high energy performance.  It’s focused on minimizing, to the greatest extent possible, the loss of heat and capitalizing on natural heat sources like sunlight and even body heat.  The MinnePHit house will be renewable-ready, but it won’t have renewables to start with.  Paul, the owner, puts it eloquently:

 …we decided to use our limited resources in building a house with the highest level of efficiency and durability.  If maintained correctly, solar panels can last decades.  On the other hand, insulation can last centuries.  Looking again at the long term, the best investment is using less energy, not alternate energy.

Last but not least, this home is energy efficient because it is location efficient, located in South Minneapolis with nearby access to jobs, recreation and services.  The Brazelton’s definitely don’t have to use an automobile for every trip, and they likely won’t be traveling far to their destination.  The other local example of Passive House design can’t make that claim.

Strong Towns on climate change

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Duluth Minnesota

Strong Towns, which has up until now, primarily focused on efficient use of infrastructure and fiscal sustainability of our cities, is laying out their platform on climate change.

As we all know, however, local innovation continues (accelerates?) even when national leadership is incomplete. Here are three issues that Strong Towns will address as they pursue their own strategies to deal with climate change:

Pressure on credit will continue to increase in communities viewed as particularly vulnerable to natural disaster associated with climate change. Federal and state resources in the future look to be flat, diminishing or encumbered. The costs to insure housing or commercial property deemed vulnerable to disaster are higher, and claims resulting from natural disasters can increase the premiums of all policy holders. The key finding here is that investable public and private capital – able to educate and train Americans and finance new businesses, for example – will be under greatest stress in areas hit hardest by climate events. Strong Towns need to orient toward more density and less infrastructure costs per capita, as one way of managing this stress.

Even presuming that some of the increase is due to improved measurement, the rising incidence of natural disasters means that Strong Towns must anticipate continued volatility in our weather. Public infrastructure planning needs to anticipate the likelihood of damage by natural disasters. Clustering residential and commercial development will reduce risk; it may also allow us to reduce the costs of mitigating ongoing threats. Beyond the fiscal merits of a more compact development pattern, denser places are more protectable places.

The relationship of climate change and public health is an emerging field. While much health policy is formulated at the federal and state levels, counties and cities are the main implementers of place-specific plans and care. While we don’t yet understand the prospective health effects of climate change, it’s apparent that local communities have an opportunity to play a key role. Work on that micro scale may distinguish those cities and towns that invest in addressing climate change.

This first point has been resonating strongly with me lately.  The world’s largest investors (many of the people who hold your retirement funds) and insurance companies are already seeing their businesses to be impacted by climate change.  Physically and economically resilient cities require a different approach in a changing climate, and I’m glad Strong Towns is lending their voice to this message.

Piecemeal cuts won’t get us to 80 percent reduction

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Jane C.S. Long has an interesting, and sobering, review of the work of the California Council on Science and Technology on what it will really take to get to 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.  This is the target that California has adopted, and what many scientists have said we need to aim for to avoid the worst impacts of climate change.  Minnesota has actually adopted this target in state law as well (remember the old Tim Pawlenty?), but hasn’t done much about it since.

So how can we get to an 80 percent reduction? Not easily.

Having done the maths, what did we discover? If California could very quickly replace cars, appliances, boilers, buildings and power plants with today’s state-of-the art technology, replace and expand current electricity generation with non-emitting sources and produce as much biofuel as possible by 2050, the state could reduce emissions a lot — by perhaps 60% below 1990 levels. But it would have to replace or retrofit every building to very high efficiency standards. Electricity would have to replace natural gas for home and commercial heating. All buses and trains, virtually all cars, and some trucks would be electric or hybrid. And the state’s entire electricity-generation capacity would have to be doubled, while simultaneously being replaced with emissions-free generation. Low-emissions fuels would have to be made from California’s waste biomass plus some fuel crops grown on marginal lands without irrigation or fertilizer.

To reach an 80% cut will take new technology.

That new technology includes “major advances in near-zero-emissions fuel”.  According to Long, “California can’t just spend or deploy its way to an 80% reduction or beyond — and neither can anywhere else.”

St. Paul’s electric vehicle charging stations

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St. Paul has a nice video introducing their electric vehicle charging infrastructure.  According to a presentation I saw at MNAPA, the City hopes to have 150 public stations available by 2015.  They also estimated that the cost for installation was anywhere between $850 in parking ramps to $6,000 in on-street spaces.

Australian carbon tax set to pass

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Lake Hume at 4% - 6531

Australia will soon pass a nation-wide carbon tax.

Under the legislation, about 500 of the biggest carbon-emitting companies in Australia will pay a price for each tonne of carbon. Most of the biggest emitters are electricity generating firms, mining companies and heavy industry manufacturers.

To compensate households, the government is cutting income taxes and boosting payments such as pensions and other benefits, as well as offering various lump sum payments.

The average household is expected to pay about $9.90 a week in extra living costs, including $3.30 on electricity.

However this will be offset by an estimated $10.10 in extra benefits and tax breaks. The Australian scheme will cover about 60 per cent of Australia’s emissions, making it the most broad-based in the world.

John Quiggin, via Matt Yglesias, has some analysis.

While the proposal is far from perfect, there’s a lot to like about it. The price of $A23/tonne is comparable to that in the EU, and should be enough to promote a wide range of reductions inCO2 emissions. Importantly in the Australian context, it should (with the support of some addition funds to allow the closure of existing power stations) end the use of brown coal (lignite) as a fuel. Brown coal produces about 50 per cent more emissions per unit of energy than anthracite (black coal), and Australia has lots of it. There will also be an incentive to continue the shift away from black coal in electricity generation and towards a combination of gas and renewables. Equally important, in the long run, will be improvements in energy efficiency. This is where price-based measures really shine, as compared to purely regulatory interventions – there are all kinds of ways to save energy and it is hard to predict, in general, which will be best.[3]

The other side of the proposal is what to do with the revenue, and in this respect the current measure is a big improvement on the emissions trading scheme that failed to get through in 2009. That scheme gave greatly excessive compensation to large emitters in a way that encouraged them to stay in operation. While the business compensation in the current scheme is still excessive in economic terms, it’s a sensible compromise politically. More important is the use of the bulk of the proceeds to raise the income tax threshold from (around) $6000 to $20000, thereby taking a million or so people out of the income tax system[4]. That’s a measure that will be hard to reverse, given that the Opposition has pledged “in blood” to repeal the tax if it win the next election.

This proposal seems, in basic terms, similar to the CLEAR act in the US.  No complex trading scheme, but a tax on polluters with a portion of the proceeds going back to the public to offset increased costs.  For a number of reasons, Australia is more vulnerable than other countries to the changing climate.  This Rolling Stone piece is an eye-opener.

With nine degrees of warming, computer models project that Australia will look like a disaster movie. Habitats for most vertebrates will vanish. Water supply to the Murray-Darling Basin will fall by half, severely curtailing food production. Rising sea levels will wipe out large parts of major cities and cause hundreds of billions of dollars worth of damage to coastal homes and roads. The Great Barrier Reef will be reduced to a pile of purple bacterial slime. Thousands of people will die from heat waves and other extreme weather events, as well as mosquito-borne infections like dengue fever. Depression and suicide will become even more common among displaced farmers and Aborigines. Dr. James Ross, medical director for Australia’s Remote Area Health Corps, calls climate change “the number-one challenge for human health in the 21st century.”

Will insurance companies do what planners can’t?

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A major long-term trend that planners should care about is adaptation to climate change.  There are some examples of plans being made, but as with any climate change-related topic, US planners and politicians are slow on the uptake.  Adaptation could mean changing how we build storm sewers to handle more frequent extreme rainfall, or it could mean something as drastic as abandoning large areas of coastline.  Fast Company asks whether insurance companies (and the premiums they set) might just do that for us.

The prospect of billions upon billions of dollars in physical and economic damages from a single storm is enough to make one wonder whether we should stop building on the coasts altogether.

That’s the scenario hedge fund manager and catastrophe bond pioneer John Seo had in mind when he predicted in the current issue of Foreign Policy that “a decade and a half from now, a single hurricane or earthquake will come with a potential price tag of $1 trillion or more. Imagine a world in which economic damage equivalent to that caused by a major war or the detonation of a midsized nuclear weapon in a major city could materialize with a warning of only a few days.”

The numbers back him up. According to a 2008 study of the world’s largest port cities by the OECD, 40 million people are at risk of flooding, and total economic exposure is $3 trillion, about 5% of global GDP. By 2070 those numbers are expected to rise to 150 million people and $35 trillion, or 9% of GDP. Most of that growth will occur in Asia, where a major typhoon rolled through the Philippines and shut down Hong Kong’s financial markets this week before making landfall on China’s Hainan Island.

The prospect of a single storm practically bankrupting their industry has not been lost on insurers or their odds-makers. In June, Risk Management Solutions received permission from Florida regulators to update the risk models insurers use to set policy prices. The new models increased Florida’s potential hurricane losses by 6.5%, with damages in inland areas soaring as high as 90%. As Reuters dryly noted, “analysts say that the U.S. model changes could give insurers a strong incentive to raise prices.”

But raise them to what? Because not only is the potential for destruction increasing, but so are the frequency and intensity of storms as well. A study released earlier this month by Ceres, a consortium of public interest groups, found that by and large insurers believe in climate change–and believe it will increase their losses. Allstate CEO Thomas J. Wilson recently told analysts the company is saying goodbye to the “good old days” and is now “running our business as if this change [in extreme weather] is permanent.”

I wonder whether having insurance companies speak up about climate change will change the debate.  I kind of doubt it.  It might be better to think ahead about vulnerable areas and start planning ahead, but I can only imagine the backlash that would create.  Of course, insurance companies slowing price people out is also a form of central planning, but one that doesn’t need to take into account equity or other public goods.

Going green but getting nowhere

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A sobering Op-Ed by Gernot Wagner in the NYT.  This link deserves it’s own post.

Leading scientific groups and most climate scientists say we need to decrease global annual greenhouse gas emissions by at least half of current levels by 2050 and much further by the end of the century. And that will still mean rising temperatures and sea levels for generations.

So why bother recycling or riding your bike to the store? Because we all want to do something, anything. Call it “action bias.” But, sadly, individual action does not work. It distracts us from the need for collective action, and it doesn’t add up to enough. Self-interest, not self-sacrifice, is what induces noticeable change. Only the right economic policies will enable us as individuals to be guided by self-interest and still do the right thing for the planet.

Every ton of carbon dioxide pollution causes around $20 of damage to economies, ecosystems and human health. That sum times 20 implies $400 worth of damage per American per year. That’s not damage you’re going to do in the distant future; that’s damage each of us is doing right now. Who pays for it?

We pay as a society. My cross-country flight adds fractions of a penny to everyone else’s cost. That knowledge leads some of us to voluntarily chip in a few bucks to “offset” our emissions. But none of these payments motivate anyone to fly less. It doesn’t lead airlines to switch to more fuel-efficient planes or routes. If anything, airlines by now use voluntary offsets as a marketing ploy to make green-conscious passengers feel better. The result is planetary socialism at its worst: we all pay the price because individuals don’t.

It won’t change until a regulatory system compels us to pay our fair share to limit pollution accordingly. Limit, of course, is code for “cap and trade,” the system that helped phase out lead in gasoline in the 1980s, slashed acid rain pollution in the 1990s and is now bringing entire fisheries back from the brink. “Cap and trade” for carbon is beginning to decrease carbon pollution in Europe, and similar models are slated to do the same from California to China.

Alas, this approach has been declared dead in Washington, ironically by self-styled free-marketers. Another solution, a carbon tax, is also off the table because, well, it’s a tax.

Never mind that markets are truly free only when everyone pays the full price for his or her actions. Anything else is socialism. The reality is that we cannot overcome the global threats posed by greenhouse gases without speaking the ultimate inconvenient truth: getting people excited about making individual environmental sacrifices is doomed to fail.