Sustainability - - A Focus On Carbon

I f your home or apartment has an electric stove, or an electric water heater, or an electric furnace, or and electric clothes dryer you're helping Portland with such a goal.  If you also own an electric vehicle and only use it, or walk, or bike that’s a help too. If any of your appliances operate on natural gas, or propane, or fuel oil, you'd need to replace them with ones that operate on electricity.  That means using an electric water heater or a heat pump water heater.  Your oil or propane or natural gas furnace would need to be replaced most likely with a ducted heat pump or perhaps one or more thru-the-wall heat pumps.  Your gas range would need to be switched out for an electric one.  Same with the clothes dryer. As for your vehicle, you’d need to retire your gas-powered (or diesel, or biofuel) car, even if it's a hybrid, for an EV.  However, keep in mind that your new EV still results in fossil fuel use. As is reported at...

Recently, I happened to come across a reference to book titled, Where The the Air Stands Still.  I came across it while reading an article in The Nation    written with a focus on climate change and India.  That article is worth a read.  I say that even though it's substance was way out of for me considering that the "the climate change movement" looks a lot like the environmental and anti-war movements of past decades - mostly white and relatively affluent.  It's striking to me that in the United States social justice groups have joined forces with environmental groups on this set of issues.  That's striking because it's likely the case that those lower down the economic strata will be the last to reap any of the fruits of cultural and social changes required to get a handle on the problem of climate change. Here are several examples. 1.The Citizens Utility Board (CUB), a legislatively mandated group advocating for residential consumers of ut...

My post on how EVs will be taking over our roads in the not too distant future raises a question.  Where will they be produced and under what conditions? While working on Smart Grid and electricity to EV charging stations regulations, a theme that I heard at every conference was how the regulatory regime under which utilities operate was stifling innovation.   What I was witnessing was the integration of communications with an industry that placed a high value on stability.   In fact, as we rely more and more on digital technology and integration of all parts of life via the Internet, the need for quality power increases.   Yet, what I’ll call the “Young Turks” from communications companies wanted regulators to unleash the electric utilities so that innovation could flower.   That, at the time when concerns about security of utility operations were morphing beyond security of the physical plant to now include communications networks with hundreds, if ...

A Story in Business Insider claims that the everywhere in the world, all new vehicles will be propelled by electricity.  Not just Portland.  Not just North America.  In every country on the planet every new vehicle will be propelled by electricity.  They report that's the conclusion of a think tank that analyzes disruptive technologies.  Now, the article's title claims that every fossil fueled vehicle will vanish within the next eight years. While the Preface to the report begins with "The analysis in this report is based on detailed evaluation of data on the market, consumer and regulatory dynamics that work together to drive disruption," there follows a lengthily disclaimer that begins with the following, "Any findings, predictions, inferences, implications, judgments, beliefs, opinions, recommendations, suggestions and similar matters in this Report are statements of opinion by the authors, and are not statements of fact. You should treat them as...

Image courtesy of dnrec.deleware.gov No.  To be sure, its of great concern but there are other gasses that cause the earth's temperature to rise and they're referred to as greenhouse gasses.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has a nifty list , which is reproduced below.  To be sure, CO2 is the leading culprit, by far. Carbon dioxide (CO2): Carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere through burning fossil fuels (coal, natural gas, and oil), solid waste, trees and wood products, and also as a result of certain chemical reactions (e.g., manufacture of cement). Carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere (or "sequestered") when it is absorbed by plants as part of the biological carbon cycle. Methane (CH4): Methane is emitted during the production and transport of coal, natural gas, and oil. Methane emissions also result from livestock and other agricultural practices and by the decay of organic waste in municipal solid waste landfills. Nitrous oxide (N2O)...

One paper that recently crossed my desk helps immensely with keeping track of all the numerous studies conducted on deep de-carbonization of the electric grid.  It's well written, concise, and provides an even-handed review of the challenges shifting to a high level of renewables use.  In the process, it discusses in a very readable and straightforward way various stages in shifting the electric sector from where it is today to different levels of future renewable electricity generating sources. Click this link to read the study. image courtesy of c|net

As   this   paper explains, RECs - bundled with the electricity or unbundled from it - transfers ownership of the   attributes  (not electricity if unbundled)  of the renewable to the REC purchaser.  Earlier in the same paper, the authors note that the Superior Court of New Jersey has ruled, " One Renewable Energy Certificate represents the   environmental benefits   or attributes   of one megawatt-hour of generated renewable energy."[Emphasis added] One cheap way to achieve that goal is for Portland to buy RECs.   Let's figure out how many REC's Portland needs to purchase to reduce its carbon footprint 100%.  Keep in mind that all the vehicles, industrial processes, commercial processes, how electricity is generated, and other uses for fossil fuels from lawn mowers, Vespas, gas grills, and on and on would still be in use.   We need four pieces of information: (1) where the renable project assocaited with one REC i...