Jon Warren Lentz, Inc

“You never change things by fighting the existing reality.
To change something, build a new model that
makes the existing model obsolete.”
- Richard Buckminster Fuller

Q: What’s the Idea?
A: Greening the Ethernet

A few years back, Green IT was concerned with the relative environmental friendliness of the components inside computers, the processes used to make those components, and the energy efficiency of the units themselves.

More recently, Green IT is concerned with power usage in data centers. That’s because the aggregate carbon footprint of Data Centers in the US is greater than the airlines, accounting for over 2% of our Green House Gas (GHG) emissions. Plus, the collective Data Center footprint continues to grow as more people go online, and more companies institute policies to reduce travel and utilize sophisticated video conferencing instead.

The power consumption of Data Centers and their related carbon footprint is huge because the servers, routers, and switches suck up a tremendous amount of electricity and generate an enormous amount of waste heat which, in turn, requires even more electricity to run the cooling units to dissipate that heat.

So far, greening this data infrastructure, or IT, has been concerned with efficiencies that can be obtained within the existing mind-set of servers, routers, copper wires, and air conditioners. Typical initiatives have included raised floors, the placement of fans, reduction of the number of underutilized servers, cogeneration, insulation, and even the placement of server farms in modular trailers in close proximity to hydroelectric facilities in the cold north (where air conditioning is free). Lately, the urban-located industry has also been revolutionized with a breath of fresh air; IT leaders cite the innovative use of cold air. Now, when it’s colder outside than in, they turn off the air conditioning and import and filter that free cold air.

Some of these ideas are basic, albeit expensive to implement. A recent article in Environmental Leader cited “major savings” by reconfiguring the Data Center with overhead air-conditioning inputs and a concrete floor, which provides cold mass that draws chilled air down through the server racks, cooling the equipment as it falls, in accordance with the laws of physics, thereby reducing the electric load required to drive cold air with fans.

Yet all of these solutions are rather like polishing a big fin ‘59 Cadillac, with the intention that a smoother surface will deliver better gas mileage. Perhaps what’s needed is “a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.” One new model is to reduce the number of circuits by aggregating them onto fewer (and different) data lines; a smart solution that will reduce or eliminate as much equipment (heat) as possible, while introducing a technology that requires less space, less electricity, and deploys new equipment that generates substantially less heat. Beyond Green IT^TM does just that. It accomplishes savings on multiple levels by Greening the Ethernet, or network portion, of enterprise computing.

Benefits:

1) Installation: This idea, Beyond Green IT^TM, is important because it can reduce the cost of installation by as much as 40%. What does that mean in dollars and sense? Well, if a legacy installation of switches, routers, and cabling for a new data center were to cost $10 million, the cost to install this new idea, Beyond Green IT^TM, could be, depending upon the specifics of the installation, as low as $6 million.

2) Manpower Efficiencies: Due to the reduction of equipment (through the elimination of switches and repeaters in multiple riser closets distributed across the campus of a typical LAN), Beyond Green IT^TM can dramatically reduce the manpower needed to maintain an active legacy Ethernet system. With Passive Optical Networking (PON), Beyond Green IT^TM can deliver manpower savings of as much as 80%.

2) Reduced Power Consumption: Once installed, Beyond Green IT^TM can (again, depending upon the specifics of the installation) dramatically cut electric power consumption and hence operational costs by as much as 80%. Thus, if the power bill for a legacy installation had previously been $10,000 per month, it could be reduced to as little as $2,000.

3) Additional Benefits. Beyond Green IT^TM offers speeds up to 2.4 Gigabits downstream with no jitter and with latency near instantaneous. 9 Gigabit speed is projected in the near future. With Beyond Green IT^TM, “local” network is redefined in terms of miles, meaning that it distributes data as much as 40 miles (or more, depending upon the specific configuration) without additional data closets, switches or repeaters. Plus, this technology converges voice, video and data on a network that is not only far more secure, but also more reliable.

4) Carbon Footprint, Carbon Credits: Reduced power consumption equals reduced carbon footprint. Regardless of one’s personal opinion of carbon legislation, the smart companies are preparing for this inevitability. It may be 2009, it may be 2010, but it is coming. The Obama Administration has implemented a brilliant “pincer” strategy whereby the EPA will promulgate regulations if Congress fails to produce legislation. Few Congressional Leaders and Senators will choose to abdicate their legislative imperative to EPA regulation. Why? Because failure to participate in such pivotal economic and environmental legislation is the shortest path to un-election. Riffing off the Gentrys’ 60’s hit, they are all literally, “dancing in a frying pan.”

But I digress… Once the inevitable carbon legislation is enacted, all companies will be looking for ways to cut carbon. And the smart ones are done looking, they’re already implementing!

In most cases, cutting carbon will be regarded as an outright capital expense to be earned back, or as the least expensive alternative between action and the punishing cost of inaction. For example, a dirty industry might need to invest in scrubbers to pull carbon from their smokestacks. But there’s another way, an opportunity path where two ways diverge in a carbon world. One way is the expense path, while the other is the profit path. The expense path, which really is the bumpy road of begrudging compliance, differs substantially from the profit path for which the first step is early implementation of Beyond Green IT^TM.

All industries and companies have a substantial IT department. So let’s look at a dirty industry, since they are typically regarded as the most difficult to bring into profitable compliance. What if a coal-fired electric generator’s first carbon cutting action were to go after the IT sector? Well, doing this would deliver immediate substantial infrastructure efficiencies, plus savings in the installation, while routine operational costs will be reduced across the board. So instead of an added expense, they can implement an investment with a near-term ROI.

But remember, the initial driver was to obtain a compliance-driven reduction of their carbon footprint, thereby earning carbon credits. So here is where Beyond Green IT^TM gets sweet: the operational savings, plus any applicable energy efficiency rebates, coupled with the capital value of reduced carbon emissions, will deliver a positive return that can be applied to other carbon reducing initiatives - which means that, by first implementing Beyond Green IT^TM, a company’s first play in the carbon market can be regarded as the down payment on a new business unit, which will deliver the first trickle of an income stream that can be allocated to defray the cost of other, otherwise more costly, carbon reduction measures. It just makes sense.

5) Why is Beyond Green IT^TM Important? The critical point of the previous section (4 above) is that under cap and trade legislation, or any other carbon regulation, carbon reductions can have a substantial income component; it is simply a matter of strategy. Because of the substantial manpower efficiencies, electrical power savings, and carbon reductions, Beyond Green IT^TM couples this strategic income component with an almost immediate ROI. Thus, the initial investement in carbon reduction pays for itself and provides an income stream for further, lucrative, carbon reductions. Carbon reduction can become a business unit for nearly every intelligent entity. Wake up and smell the carbon!

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 Green Careers & Recovery

This paper was largely developed from talks given during Earth Week 2009 at Green Career Events at San Diego State University, at the University of California at San Diego, and at San Diego Loves Green; my thanks to all for these opportunities to hone my thoughts in your presence and to those who offered personal insights and encouragement.

Recovery with Renewables

In late March, President Obama announced the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate saying, “We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc or we can create jobs preventing its worse effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can create those jobs right here in America.”

We now have an opportunity in America to turn the adverse tides of climate, energy, national security, and the troubled economy by turning our attention to the opportunities implicit in those problems. Americans use nearly twice as much energy per capita than Europeans. We’ve entered an era where we fight wars for the tacit lure of oil. We allow our carbon-centric energy companies to promulgate falsehoods in order to protect their record profits, while they simultaneously reap the subsidies borne of slippery lobbyists who glide through Congress unimpeded by truth, science, or regard for their own future - much less the future of their children.

America’s energy appetite and the destabilizing political ills borne of the energy power nexus call for a sustainable resource that does not create more greenhouse gases, pollution, or waste for future generations. In order to ensure our prosperity deep into the millennium, we must prepare now to use sustainable forms of energy. In order to restore, maintain, and then secure America’s leadership position in the emerging world order, we must lead the charge in all areas of renewable energy; industrial scale wind, solar (both industrial and ubiquitous distributed rooftop generation), geothermal, tide, biomass, and biofuels.

Wind is an Answer

The answer to our near-term energy challenges could well be, blowin’ in the wind. Of all the renewables, wind power is considered the most viable, mature, scalable, and ready-to-go alternative source of power. Wind is both predictable and clean. Substantial capacity can be built up quickly, offering energy independence almost immediately to the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), approximately 6% of the continental US is prime territory for wind generated electricity. If these wind-rich areas were fully utilized, we could generate between one-and-half-to-double the total amount of electricity now generated from all sources in the U.S.

An issue often favored by naysayers, is the supposed issue of wind ‘intermittency.’ Yet there are many areas where it is perpetually windy. (One thinks of Congress!) Still there are solutions for wind intermittency. We have viable energy storage schemes, such as compressed underground air, kinetic water schemes, and batteries - all of which hold promise, with the right fit determined for each unique location. Other ideas include the use of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which would usually be plugged in at night, as a fleet of mobile night-time energy sinks. Another potential energy holding tank, or place to divert excess wind energy, could be the development of wind driven facilities for the production of hydrogen fuel.

A major plus for wind is that it is relatively inexpensive. Currently, the price of wind generation is about 4 cents per kW, which compares to 3.5-4 cents per kW from coal. But since the price of coal fired electricity doesn’t include the externalized costs to respiratory health, or the toxic pollution of the environment with mercury and soot, or climate-changing carbon, wind is not only financially competitive, but it’s a better deal on all points. Plus, there are moral, environmental, and aesthetic issues associated with mountain top removal and other extractive methods, as well as massive government subsidies extracted from taxpayers for fantasy research into the neverland of clean coal.

In as much as we are all concerned about jobs and the economy, how does wind energy look as an employment sector? Wind energy is more productive for the economy in creating jobs, and at much a lower total cost. From an investment perspective, a dollar invested in wind will generate three times as many jobs as that same dollar invested in coal.

Wind has the potential to provide a substantial portion of our energy needs with clean, inexpensive electrons that won’t burden future generations with our mistakes. Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) have researched and promulgated the idea that the U.S. has the capacity and therefore should derive 20% of its electricity from wind by the year 2020. This insight is reinforced by the National RES (Renewable Energy Standard) which will require all utilities to obtain 25% of their electricity from renewables by 2025. Consequently, continued growth of the wind power sector is a crucial component of this renewable energy mix.

So if our nation intends to obtain 20% of its power from wind by the year 2020, and is mandated to obtain 25% of its power from the aggregate portfolio of alternative sources by 2025, then how are we doing now, as we approach the mid-year mark of 2009? Well, “currently,” wind power provides less than 1% of our electricity.

In regards to the work force required to deliver that scant 1% of electrons to our sockets, the wind industry employs about 85,000 wind technicians - or windsmiths - who are the workers that climb up those towers 300 feet to monitor and service the equipment in work are of the turbine, which is called the nacel.

In addition to the windsmiths, there are countless other workers employed in all other areas of the industry, including development and design, parts supply, manufacture and assembly, software, accounting, and finance - essentially, the wind industry, like all businesses, employs a cadre of support professionals, whose broad range of skills and expertise are necessary to support the business and logistical aspects of any industry.

But the critical sector of the future wind industry work force will be windsmiths. In order to meet the a goal of 20% wind energy by 2020, an additional 425,000 to 500,000 windsmiths will need to be thoroughly trained and brought into the work force. And when the U.S. becomes deadly serious about climate change and begins curtailing carbon emissions by moving aggressively to end dirty coal and to maximize clean wind energy, then the work force of windsmiths will swell by at least another million - or possibly more, for a total of at least 1.5 million.

That number of 1.5 million new green jobs for windsmiths doesn’t include all of the other professionals who will be hired to support the more mundane facets of the wind industry.

How Does Wind Make Electricity?

It may not be apparent from a distance, but wind turbines are larger than a semi-truck and they weigh 30 or more tons. When a worker pokes his head out of the hatch of the nacel, the scale of the turbine dwarfs the windsmith.

In a typical wind turbine, wind energy is converted to rotational motion by a rotor, or propeller, which turns a shaft that passes into a gearbox, or transmission. The transmission increases the rotational speed and is attached to a high-speed output shaft, which in turn drives an electrical generator. There are a number of variations on the familiar three blade tower, including horizontal cages, helix, and others.

Wind turbines come in a variety of sizes depending on the planned use for the electricity. Some wind turbines are used to charge batteries for buildings not connected to the utility grid. Some turbines can supply all or part of the electricity used by a business or farm. Large-scale wind farms with multiple turbines are used to harvest the wind above acres of land, usually to feed power into the electrical grid. (Theoretically, these wind farms are so immense that they diminish the power of the wind substantially enough to make some storms pause.)

Today, the world’s largest wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which has a rotor diameter of 126 meters (413 feet). Officially rated at 6 megawatts, it can produce over 7 megawatts, or 20 million kilowatt hours per year. That’s enough power to run about 5,000 households of four in Europe. Or, here in the U.S., where energy use is much higher, it would power about 1700 households.

Wind Advantages

The advantages of wind power are that electricity derived from wind will eliminate the need to build more polluting legacy power plants, while generating no pollution of air, water or soil. Wind power is renewable (non-depletable) and, as stated above, there’s enough potential wind energy in the U.S. to power the entire country.

Additionally, because of its modular nature, it’s easy to add wind generation capacity as needed. That’s because, compared to the construction time for a legacy fossil fuel or nuclear power plant, the installation of wind turbines is relatively quick. Plus, the price of wind power isn’t affected by increases in fuel price or supply disruptions. And, because the towers are high in the air, and because they are broadly spaced, wind farms allow multiple uses of land; crops, livestock, recreation, and (offshore) slalom courses are often found between wind towers. In fact, on any wind farm only 5% of the land is “occupied” by turbines and support structures, the remainder is still available for other uses.

Now the Bad News

The wind sector has already experienced tremendous growth. This growth has continued with a series of dips due to inconsistent government policy and the whipsaw effects of the ups and downs of the price of gasoline upon wind development.

So if, as appears to be the case, wind truly is a key component of our clean and independent energy future, then we are not preparing.

This is troubling because this is an important energy source upon which our nation will long be reliant for dependable, clean electricity. As such, there is a conspicuous lack of planning to provide educational opportunities to ensure that the required cadre of qualified windsmiths will be ready to meet the expansion of wind.

In order for the U.S. to get serious about clean energy and energy independence, there should be clear paths for kids graduating from high school this spring, but there aren’t.

There should be information on wind careers available to our soldiers returning from Iraq, who have arguably served in a war for oil that might have been unnecessary had our nation paid attention to the ramification of the first oil crises back in the glam rock 70’s.

There should be grants and scholarships for inner city people, and there should be programs for those who are reentering society after serving time for a nickel bag of weed! But, disappointingly, there are few opportunities and even less information available for any prospective windsmiths. Even the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is remiss for failing to providing substantial information to students, vets, parolees, and the disenfranchised - all of whom are entitled to participate in the new green economy.

Trapped on Blind Island

Imagine an island nation, busily building boats to navigate towards a green horizon, yet neglecting to shape the oars or to select and train the paddlers. Are they going anywhere soon?

Yet there are jobs! Recently, GE announced that they would guarantee a job to every qualified graduate of the Mesalands wind program in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Students graduating from the Iowa Lakes wind training program report that they receive offers for two to three jobs.

According to research among windsmith recruiters, the most common source of new employees for a wind farm is… to lure experienced windsmiths away from another farm, by offering better pay and benefits.

Although there’s plenty of demand for windsmiths, there are too few opportunities to prepare for the work. There are only a handful of classes and even fewer programs that offer full training beyond an initial entry-level certificate. The only institution that offers a fully-developed curriculum with an option to pursue wind education to the PhD level is Texas Tech. Yet to implement a full-scale energy renaissance, won’t we need highly trained and deeply specialized wind scholars, engineers, and inventors?

The classes that are available fill up as soon as they are announced. For example, Cerro Coso Community College, near Tehachapi, California, recently reported that upon opening their 28 week wind program for enrollment, all 15 of the slots were filled within an hour. The next session was filled immediately as well.

This is a curious problem, because a windsmith’s job is probably the most demanding of all jobs in the alternative energy and green jobs sector. Consequently, the more training prospective windsmiths receive, the better able they are to work well and work safe.

Although a competent contractor or electrician can be quickly trained within a few weeks to work install solar, and while a regular guy off the street can do energy efficiency (all it requires is a desire to work and relatively good hands), by comparison windsmiths are the special ops crew of the renewable energy sector.

The best windsmiths will combine the athletic agility and endurance of an alpine mountaineer, with the acumen of an engineer and will include a broad competence in many disciplines, including mechanics, hydraulics, aerodynamics, hydraulics, utility lineman, electrical engineering, structural engineering.. In addition to these skills and traits these windsmiths will have advanced first aid and safety training. In regards to safety, the training involves both safety procedures and preemptive thinking. That’s because most accidents in this sector don’t provide a second chance. Windsmiths must be hyper-vigilant; the occupation combines dizzying heights, tight spaces, high-voltage electricity, and merciless spinning metal. Although fatalities are rare, they are unquestionably gruesome: death plunges, flaming electrocutions, and being sucked into the turbine and ground to a pulp are among the more obvious risks.

The Solution

Our near-term need for clean renewable energy is most likely to be solved by industrial scale wind farm developments. If, in the next five to seven years we build our wind capacity to satisfy just 20% of America’s electricity needs, over half a million jobs will be created for windsmiths. More jobs will follow as the promise of wind energy is fulfilled until wind generation supplies as much as twice the electricity that is now generated by all sources. In order to realize the pending boom in wind energy it is imperative to expedite the graduation of a steady stream of highly trained technicians.

In this epoch of converging economic implosion, peak oil, climate change, and innumerable social issues exacerbated by limited budgets and broadening educational needs it is imperative, indeed crucial, to bridge the gaps between separate entities with obvious common interests and potential common goals.

In order to meet the need for that many windsmiths, a war-time approach is probably required. The most efficient path towards full deployment of windsmith curricula will be to coordinate between educational institutions within each state and to form alliances between the states themselves.

A key strategy for funding and supporting these windsmith training programs will be the development of industry liaisons to promote and support a spectrum of educational programs, that will run the gamut of educational levels, from certificate to PhD.

In this time of urgency and crises, the economy and enhanced power of enlightened synergies becomes more crucial. Yet individual states lack inter-state collaboration in their educational programs to train renewable energy technicians while the states themselves show little or no intra-state coordination between their own institutions which may, or may not, have programs to train renewable energy technicians. At the time of this writing, access to windsmith training is woefully inadequate and piecemeal.

It’s time to bring the universities, colleges, junior colleges, and technical schools to the table in order to develop a best practices forum for the training of windsmiths and to ensure the dissemination of a rapid, fully formed core curriculum that can be implemented wherever it is needed. In order for this to happen, it would make sense to bring other concerns to the party.

At least at the educational level, turbine manufacturers and other key players of the industry are not allied - neither amongst themselves nor with the array of educational facilities that offer turbine technician training - to promote either general or turbine-specific technical training. In addition to the turbine manufacturers, the power companies can be shown that they have a vested interest in the development of the wind sector in order to meet federal and state mandated Renewable Energy Portfolio (REP) standards and to hasten the maturity of alternative energy so that the power companies can progress from transition to profit.

Similarly, grid operators have a vested interest in hastening the development of this sector in order to make their pending investment in the smart grid deliver the greatest possible benefit for the least cost. Mindful that transition time is expensive, efficiencies of scale can be achieved by the coordination of both centralized and distributed renewable energy installations will pay huge dividends.

Who then should these training opportunities benefit? Training for the professional technical green arena should, of course, be open to high school graduates of merit. But at the most egalitarian level, consistent with Obama’s stimulus plan (as originally envisioned by Van Jones and promulgated in Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy), these jobs should - through grants and scholarships and neighborhood workforce programs - be broadly inclusive of inner city citizens who have, until now, been excluded from the American dream. Yes, I mean people of all race and color, as well as those rebounding from life challenges, such as parolees for non-violent petty crimes, and who demonstrate a desire to improve the prospects for themselves and their families.

To those who would balk at such liberality, saying, “Why give these people a chance?” The simple answer is, “Because it’s in your best interest.”

As America moves forward in this new millennium of unprecedented challenges, there can be no green revolution, and no lasting economic stability if it is not universal; energy apartheid would fail the dream of rebuilding and renewing America.

Conclusions: The Sooner the Better

The promise of clean, renewable energy security is at hand. While it is imperative to develop a broad portfolio of new energy sources, the most immediate, mature, and scalable source of renewable industrial scale energy is wind.

The war-time initiative would ensure that we seize this opportunity rather than “blowing it.” If we are fighting to stabilize our way of life, to secure our borders and to ensure an equitable future for all of our children, then we should be serious about it. In the bargain, we will attain a new level of camaraderie and move our nation back to the forefront of technology and industry.

To accomplish this level of cooperation, unprecedented since our country pulled together with unified purpose and resolve in World War II, we need a top-down imperative. At the national level, there should be a Wind Officer - either at the White House or at the Department of Energy. (Yes, Mr. President, Sir, my hand is in the air.)

Collaboration is Latin for, “work together.” The Wind Officer’s job would be to bring all of the players together, from across the now irrelevant borders of state lines, educational institutions, and industry. These players would be given a war-time edict to work together, to synergize and share, with the intention that we use wind to build a new model of collaboration.

We need to learn how to collaborate to obtain the highest and best use of existing curricula and facilities by recognizing the best plans and best practices and then duplicating them at as many campuses as possible all across America; then, and only then, will the promise of clean renewable wind energy be met. Collaboration in this manner to harness wind will provide the seeds for collaboration upon innumerable other challenges facing our nation and our world. Collaboration for wind energy is our highest and best hope to sail to a green horizon. The sooner we set sail, the better.

Will we do it? I don’t know. I certainly hope that answer is in our hearts and not, as the song says, just “blowin’ in the wind.”

______________________________________________________________________________________________

This paper is available in downloadable format at: www.jonwarrenlentz.com/downloads/Blowin_in_the_Wind.pdf

Green Jobs Can Turn Our Economy Around, Slow Climate Change, & Heal the Environment Too.

Tell Your Elected Officials, Talk With Your Friends, Neighbors, & Co-workers. Let Everyone Know That YOU Support Obama’s Initiatives In This Pivotal Arena.

Emblematic 123-mile Line from Imperial Valley to San Diego

SDG&E’s Power Link is to slated to stretch 123 miles from solar farms of Imperial County to San Diego, where it will deliver power for 685,000 homes. It’s been called the most rigorously reviewed infrastructure project in the state’s history*. It’s certainly been a lightning rod for environmental opposition.

Personally, I don’t get it.

My understanding of the processes involved in the planning and obtaining of approval for the addition of any new transmission lines to the grid is that they are exorbitantly onerous.

Citing the history of the transmission lines that connected the Tehachapi Pass wind farms to Los Angeles, as reported by Thomas L. Friedman in “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” it appears that the power companies choose their best route according to geography. Then they go to battle for as much as a dozen years. The battle involves environmental reviews and jurisdictional hurdles between stake holders, including state and federal land agencies and also the national forests. Much of the battle has to do with the fact that utilities are intent upon routing new transmission lines through pristine landscapes. So it really takes a dozen years? Isn’t there something to be said for avoiding conflict?

Conflict is expensive in a number of ways.

Costs almost always go up. If the original projected cost of a transmission line is two billion dollars, how much more will the project cost a dozen years later? Surely there would be savings to be had if the project encounters less (or no) opposition and could be implemented more quickly. Not only would the cost of construction pencil out much nearer to original projections, but that would also put the transmission lines into service many years sooner - which probably has an even greater monetary value.

So you ask, how could we reduce opposition and lower regulatory hurdles?

How about the obvious: whenever and wherever possible, new transmission lines should be sited along existing power corridors. Where there are no existing power corridors, the lines should follow highways.

The advantages are many:

• There’s little rationale for environmental opposition to a project that runs down a corridor already marred by an existing phalanx of transmission towers, or an existing highway, or a combination of both.
• Environmental review and permitting could and “should” be simplified and streamlined for transmission projects that follow existing corridors.
• Existing corridors include ready road access, both for construction and maintenance which also reduces cost.
• Recently, some of Southern California’s most devastating wildfires were caused by transmission lines that sparked into overgrown brush. To avoid future liabilities, power companies will need to clear the undergrowth at or near transmission lines. It would be far less expensive for them to maintain brush abatement along fewer, but more intensely utilized corridors.
• Simplified approval means reduced litigation and permitting costs which result in reduced project costs.
• Expedited permitting means that construction costs are kept closer to original estimates.
• Fast track permitting that leads to quicker construction would also translate into earlier utilization, which also has a monetary value.
• The cost savings outlined above would, in all but the most extreme cases, outweigh the potential for additional expense of longer transmission lines necessitated to follow existing corridors.
• The smart grid would be here sooner, instead of later.

So why don’t we get smarter about planning and mapping? Smarter utility planners would get their smart grid quicker and at less total cost - benefiting not only the utilities but also both to the rate payers and the environment.

–
*I wonder if that’s utility co. hyperbole or if it really has attained more attention and closer examination than projects like the Diablo Canyon of the 1970’s.

Massive Gas Fired Power Plant Planned for Carlsbad Coast

The NRG plant planned for Carlsbad is unsustainable legacy infrastructure and must be stopped. While many local citizens’ concerns may be centered on the location near the beach, in my opinion, the biggest reason to oppose this plant is that it represents a continuation of the old gray economy precisely when we must usher in a new green economy. Legacy power generation is also terribly inefficient; over 50% of the fuel burned goes to heat waste.

Investment in legacy infrastructure is bad investment. Now’s the time for investment in distributed or centralized sustainable alternative energy; to invest in the world we want our children to inherit – and there is no time left to waste on ill conceived legacy infrastructure.

Yes, gas fired electricity is cleaner than coal and is both safer and faster to implement than nuclear but it’s not clean, not sustainable, and it has a substantial carbon footprint. Gas fired electricity contributes to global climate change and spews air-borne pollution that will cause to health problems for many of our neighbors.

To those who would say, “But we need the power.” If opponents of the NRG plant were to agree, saying, “Yes we need more power.” I’m quite sure that they’d complete that thought with, “But we need to be smarter about where we get our power.” The best source of power is conservation. Since we all waste power, that’s the first, easiest step to meeting power needs. After conservation, local distributed solar – on rooftops and fresh ideas like solar groves in parking lots (www.envisionsolar.com) make sense. Concentrated solar and wind farms would be yet another step.

But we don’t need the power. In the old gray economy, operating off the dumb grid, power companies must have standing generation capacity to meet peak demand — at late afternoon on about five of the hottest days of summer. “If” there were a need, the immediate, easy method to meet that need would be conservation; the least expensive of electricity is efficiency and conservation.

Provided our state and nation move forward to smarten the grid and develop reliable, sustainable, non-polluting energy, this plant will soon be an artifact of bad planning. That spells ratepayer boondoggle. Whether sited at the beach or in an invisible remote canyon it’s bad for everyone, including those who would build it.

To those who say, “Look at the jobs that will be lost if we don’t build this plant.” Opponents respond, “E-x-a-c-t-l-y! We agree. Jobs are important here. That’s also why we oppose the NRG plant: economists indicate that a renewable power facility would generate more than twice as many jobs, both construction and permanent. In a time when jobs are precious, that’s not a trivial concern.

This is more than just a local issue. It’s an international issue crucial to the survival of our species. As Nobu Tanaka, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency (IEA), stated recently at the November 2008 London World Energy Outlook, “Current trends in energy supply and consumption are patently unsustainable — environmentally, economically, and socially. They can and must be altered.”

The gas fired NRG power plant proposed for Carlsbad is a wrong-headed continuation of the unsustainable legacy power infrastructure and must be stopped. From 2009 forward, we should only allow clean, renewable power generation to be built. Anything else is a nail in each of our children’s coffins.

This isn’t a Roadrunner Cartoon. There won’t be a moment of recognition, mid-air, when we can claw our way back to the cliff. In the real world, the gray economy is like this: we’re all in the same gray vehicle, in a fog, hurtling towards a cliff. Most of us know the cliff is there, and we also know that we need to apply the brakes, so why can’t we agree that now is the time to stop and not merely change, but… find direction?

The Time Is NOW!

Now that we’ve stepped into a new era of imagination, it’s time for the possible to be given its due. In that world, there’s at least one more step that can be contemplated, one that would take us beyond the goal of sustainability. And that is restoration.

Imagining a future where sustainability becomes the norm, then and there (but also here and now) the project of restoration becomes ever more pertinent, plausible and even possible. Because it is necessary.

Imagine a time when mankind, in a global action, begins to carefully, meticulously, lovingly restore the lands, the forests, the waters and seas to their aboriginal, vibrant, life-supporting thriving beauty. Brown fields burst into vegetable gardens. Crumbling corals, no longer choked in agricultural effluent, begin to re-grow, teeming with fish and invertebrates. Strip mines start to slowly heal as incipient forests sprout from those wounds. Imagine when the air blown west across the Pacific is no longer laden with toxic pollution that comes tandem with mountains of consumer “goods” that no one really needs, which – disposed too soon — have too short a useful life when measured against their true and total cost.

Imagine a future where man has learned to begin living in sustainable harmony with each other and with the planet, and we then turn our attention to healing our own pasts and to restoring our planet, which we sometimes used to call, “god’s green earth.”

Only Sustainability is Sustainable.

Perhaps you had crayons or colored pencils when you were a child. If you were fortunate, then you had a lot more colors than just the basic red, green, yellow and blue. If so, then you’ll recall that there were many shades of green. The same is true with the gathering effort to green our homes, our workplaces, our cities, and our economy; there are many shades - or degrees - of green.

Already in two areas of this site, I’ve referenced the “Hierarchy of Green™,” which is my concept of the five basic shades of green. Admittedly, I’d thought the concept so simple that it needed no explanation. But, subject to a comment I received from one of my more ardent supporters, I’m going to develop this idea more fully.

To begin with, this hierarchy is about progress and is therefore a cumulative progression. Thus, the higher an enterprise or activity sits in the “Hierarchy of Green™,” the greater the accomplishment while also including all the achievements that were attained at the lower levels:

     5. Sustainable
     4. Renewable
     3. Carbon neutral
     2. Clean technology
     1. Environmentally responsible

So, beginning at the bottom, let’s talk about what it means to be “environmentally conscious or responsible.”

Environmentally Responsible:

In a perfect world, everyone would have brought the nascent awareness of the 1970’s ecology movement into the present and would be conscious of their impact on the environment. They would recycle their soda cans, eat a sensible diet that lessens their personal burden upon the planet, and they would probably want to have a livelihood that reflects the notion of preserving this planet for future generations. So both at home and at work, we would choose products with minimal packaging and reduced toxic impacts. At work, company collateral would be printed on recycled paper while the offices themselves would - to the greatest extent possible - operate with electronic documents. Plus, both at home and at work, the furnishings, carpets and architecture would be LEED certified or closely equivalent.

By extension, then, a company that is environmentally responsible would establish best practices for environmental responsibility throughout all aspects of the business as well as all phases of production. This would include the implementation of a program of “Extended Producer Responsibility.”

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is a strategy designed to integrate environmental costs associated with products throughout their life cycles into the market price of the products. For example, we can no longer exclude the costs of airborne pollution from the total cost of coal-fired production of electricity since there are health costs that must be paid, eventually. Similarly, the price of a gallon of gasoline is artificially low because it does not include the costs incurred by humanity as we begin to experience the adverse effects of global climate change.

Specifically applied to a single manufacturing process as, for example, a tire factory, extended producer responsibility imposes accountability over the entire life cycle of the tires and may even include the packaging. This means that the tire manufacturer would be required to be either financially or physically responsible for the tires after their useful life. This would mean that they must either take back the worn tires and manage them through reuse or recycling, or else delegate the responsibility to a third party, or producer responsibility organization (PRO).

EPR moves the responsibility for waste associated with a manufacturer’s activities from government and back to private industry, thus obliging producers, importers and/or sellers to internalize waste management costs into their product prices. EPR is a method for arriving at the total cost of production and including that total cost into the price of the product at the time of sale, rather than deferring that cost to be paid indirectly through adverse consequences felt by others – whether near or far, or by current or future generations.

Clean Tech:

Clean Tech, or Clean Technology, is as the term implies, a technology that’s clean and has no toxic byproducts or effluents. Ideally, in the clean tech sector, all the sub-process and activities of the humans employed within a clean tech operation would be performed with utmost environmental consciousness and responsibility. Whenever applicable, EPR would be part of the full cycle of a clean tech operation.

For the most part, the aim of clean tech is to create energy – whether electricity or fuels – with a smaller environmental footprint. It can be broadened to include the construction of green buildings that are both more energy efficient and environmentally benign.

Typically, clean technologies include renewable energy such as wind and solar power, biomass power, hydropower, biofuels, and related fields. It may also include information technology, green transportation, high efficiency electric motors, LED lighting, and energy efficient appliances.

The operative limitation to clean tech is that it is merely cleaner and more efficient. While greater and cleaner efficiency is better it’s not necessarily carbon neutral, nor renewable or sustainable.

Carbon Neutral:

Carbon Neutral was the New Oxford American Dictionary’s Word of the Year for 2006.

CO2 is carbon dioxide gas, which is produced in many human induced processes, most notably the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil. CO2 gas is the primary greenhouse gas and the leading culprit in climate change.

Being carbon neutral, or having a zero carbon footprint, means that a process obtains net zero carbon emission by balancing the amount of carbon released with an equivalent amount that is either sequestered or offset. The concept of carbon neutrality can be extended to include other greenhouse gases. The term climate neutral is somewhat interchangeable.

The best practice for organizations and individuals seeking carbon neutral status entails reducing and/or avoiding carbon emissions first so that emission are reduce to the extent that only unavoidable emissions need to be offset in order to arrive at a carbon neutral position.

Carbon neutral can be achieved in two ways: (1a) by balancing carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere from the burning fossil fuels with renewable energy that creates a similar amount of useful energy, thereby compensating for the carbon emissions, or (1b) in a post-carbon economy, by using only renewable energies that don’t produce carbon dioxide, or (2) by “carbon offsetting,” which involves paying others to remove or sequester an equivalent of 100% of the carbon dioxide emitted. Examples include planting trees, funding ‘carbon projects’ that are intended to prevent future greenhouse gas emissions, or buying carbon credits. Offsets are commonly used together with energy conservation measures.

But carbon neutrality only addresses the issues associated with greenhouse gasses, primarily climate change. Plus, offsets and balancing are not necessarily clean tech or renewable. Some may argue that clean tech is superior to carbon neutral, but with climate change looming over the planet, it seems clear that the near term priority is carbon neutrality.

Renewable:

Renewable is a notch above carbon-neutral. (Obviously gasoline, coal, natural gas, diesel, and other commodities derived from fossil fuels are non-renewable.) Unlike fossil fuels, if properly managed, a renewable resource can have a sustainable yield. There are at least two connotations to the idea of renewability, the most prominent being renewable resources and renewable processes.

Natural resources that are replenished by natural processes at a rate comparable to or faster than their rate of consumption are considered renewable. These renewable resources are often commodities - such as fresh water, wood and paper, or leather - yet are replenished through careful stewardship of the resource. Other natural renewable resources such as geothermal power and biomass may also require careful management to avoid exceeding the environment’s capacity to replenish them.

A renewable process is one that relies upon perpetual resources such as solar radiation, ocean tides, winds and hydroelectricity. In this context the term may have a connotation of sustainability of the natural environment. However, human attempts to harness such resources (as for example deriving hydroelectricity from dams) can have adverse impacts.

While renewability is good, it is not necessarily sustainable because it does not (as in the example of hydroelectric power) take a holistic approach. At its best, renewability coupled with a life cycle assessment provides a systematic means of evaluating and providing for the long term use of a resource. But that is probably not enough. If we want our species and planet to thrive, the level of attainment to which all human activity should aspire is sustainability.

Sustainable:

In 1983, the United Nations Commission on Environment and Development defined sustainability as, “A way of living that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

Now there is irrefutable scientific evidence that humanity is living unsustainably, and that we need to make an effort to bring our use of the environment back to within sustainable limits. Unsustainability is most clearly expressed in the human engendered phenomenon of climate change, or global warming.

Worldwide sustainability is only going to be achieved by innumerable separate efforts in nearly every spot across the globe. Spot sustainability is achieved when a process or industry is clean, has no carbon footprint, and is infinitely repeatable without resource depletion, toxicity, or other damage to the environment. Dire threats of global warming aside, the problem most of us have with the concept of living sustainably is the perception that this is not easily achieved. Yet it is achievable if we view the project as a puzzle and work diligently to get each and every piece into place. The synergy between spots, or pieces of the puzzle, can be completely realized in the concept of Cradle to Cradle (C2C) Design.

By modeling human industry on nature’s processes, Cradle to Cradle Design is a biomimetic approach to the design of systems where materials are viewed as nutrients circulating in healthy, safe metabolisms. The premise of C2C is that industry can protect and enrich ecosystems and nature’s biological metabolism while also maintaining a safe, productive technical metabolism for the high-quality use and circulation of both organic and synthetic materials.

By articulating an achievable holistic economic, industrial, and social framework, the objective of C2C is to create systems that are not just efficient but essentially waste free. As such, C2C isn’t limited to industrial design and manufacturing. It has broad promise for application to most aspects of human civilization, including urban environments, buildings, economics, and social systems. “Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things,” published in 2002 by Braungart & McDonough, is a manifesto for this model of biomimetic production.

In recent years, sustainability has been complicated by its application to nearly every facet of life on Earth, including biological organization (wetlands, prairies and forests), human organization (ecovillages, eco-municipalities, sustainable cities), and human activities and disciplines (sustainable agriculture, sustainable architecture and renewable energy). Yet, as evinced in the concept of C2C, sustainability might well be regarded as the natural evolution of human civilization when we need new ways of thinking and doing to sustain our species’ existence on Earth.

So when we talk about green, we should be mindful that while any shade of green is good, sustainability is the only shade that is sustainable; all other levels of green serve merely as steps toward the accomplishment of sustainability. In the “Hierarchy of Green™” sustainability sets the bar properly high. Only sustainability is sustainable.

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(Note: Although much of the thought is orginal, specific definitions within this explanation were developed from a number of sources, including Wikipedia.)

What is Sustainability Consulting?

The acme of green is sustainability. Sustainability is achieved when a process or industry is clean, has no carbon footprint, and is infinitely repeatable without resource depletion, toxicity, or other damage to the environment.

That said, it is better to be environmentally responsible than irresponsible, just as it’s better to be operating a clean technology rather than a technology that’s simply environmentally responsible. And carbon-neutral is preferable to clean tech, while renewable is a notch above carbon neutral. But, if we want our species and planet to thrive, then the level of attainment to which all human activity should aspire is sustainability.

So when we talk about green, we should be mindful that while green is good, only sustainability is sustainable; all other levels of green lead to eventual collapse. In the “Hierarchy of Green™” sustainability sets the bar properly high. Only sustainability is sustainable.

If we don’t set the bar high, it becomes a stumbling block. Now, at the close of 2008, after decades of inaction due to lies and misinformation it is critically important that we green our economies, our cities and our homes. Humanity doesn’t have any more time to be stumbling towards green.

So today I want to talk about the business of greening business. If we agree that it is imperative for large scale business activity to go green, then it should be obvious that a change from the old gray to the new green economy can’t be limited to businesses that operate in the green sector or are either environmentally focused or already working responsibly.

Businesses change for many reasons. External factors, such as the recent economic downturn, often change businesses without their willing participation. But there are other changes which, even when chosen, can be difficult to achieve. This may often be the case with the project of changing a business to become green. Since most executives have built their careers on issues of market share and business development, they are not prepared to ride the green wave; rather, they are likely to wipe out. As such moving from gray to green is not going to be easy.

Many businesses will want to hire an outside consultant to guide them through the transition. If a business is large enough, it may make sense to create a high level position within the company such as a Chief Sustainability Officer. Even so, the services of a qualified consultant may provide valuable knowledge about green issues. The consultant must understand the risks, challenges, and opportunities inherent in transitioning from gray to green and will motivate the business to commitment and action. The consultant will serve as a guide to competing and succeeding according to new, green rules and will be alert to act on opportunities while avoiding the risks of emerging environmental issues. Additionally, a strong consultant will ensure compliance with regulations: both existing regulations to reduce pollution, as well as proactively addressing future legislation, such as pending Federal & State RES (renewable energy standards)

Increasingly, publicly-traded businesses will have an incentive to exceed the letter of the law in reporting their environmental footprint. That’s because prudent investors want to be informed of risks that may jeopardize their investment; responsibility for a company’s contributions to climate change, environmental degradation and related issues may constitute exposure to lawsuits for a range of consequences, such as failing to mitigate activities that contribute to climate change. In order to qualify at any level in the “hierarchy of green™,” businesses need to limit their exposure and engage these issues by proactively remediating past environmental transgressions while also publishing and initiating plans to reduce, resolve and abate their contribution to climate and environmental problems. Soon, under the current rules of financial disclosure, annual reports are likely to address these issues and will describe the company’s current climate footprint as well as the programs either in effect or in planning to either offset or reduce their environmental footprint. Businesses that aren’t already moving in this direction run the risk of losing investors. A top-notch sustainability consultant will lead the change in this area as well.

As regards proactive change, while it is still true that far too many businesses have adopted a wait-and-see attitude, both consumer-driven change and legislative directives are inevitable. Businesses that adapt early and substantively (without merely greenwashing their image) will have a competitive advantage. As such, the value of a consultant will be best measured in terms of the long-range results that will be delivered as a result of their intervention.

It’s also true that smart entrepreneurs and business leaders have always found tremendous opportunity in a change. Change is the fulcrum of good business. Good business always translates into a strong bottom line.

Furthermore, enlightened business leaders understand that reducing their company’s carbon footprint is not only essential to remain competitive, but that it’s also the right thing to do. As Glenn Croston states in his book, 75 Green Businesses You Can Start to Make Money and Make a Difference, “Business leaders are realizing that being green is something they want and need to do to build a better world and a better business.” Besides, he continues, “Businesses without a good handle on their environmental footprints may lose customers.”

Increasingly, over this coming century, at the end of each day, when the receipts are counted, green will matter in two ways: for our species to survive, we must green our economies. For our businesses to survive and thrive, we must make money. Both are green, both are good, both are compatible.

We must act now to quickly limit and eventually reverse climate change by enacting an intelligent energy policy that will simultaneously enhance national security and boost this dire economy.