The Time for the Renewable Energy Economy is Now!

The burning of fossil fuels over the course of the industrial revolution has accelerated climate change, causing the ice caps to melt, sea levels to rise, super-droughts, and super-storms.  But, the scariest impact discovered so far, in my humble opinion, is the increasing acidity of the oceans.  The CO2 that we've spewed into the atmosphere turns into carbonic acid in seawater which threatens small shelled organisms called pteropods that are important to the oceanic food web, not to mention oysters and coral reefs! Can you imagine a world without coral reefs? or oysters?

By threatening our natural world, our food, and our coasts, climate change also threatens our national security, says the CIA.

With a world population of 7 billion and growing, that is dependent on fossil fuels, we have the unprecedented opportunity to make a change for the better.  The option to make the switch to wind, water and solar (WWS) is now achievable and even inevitable.  The upfront costs may appear high for this energy revolution, but the cost of in-action is higher.
So how did I come to this conclusion?
Last fall, on NPR’s Science Friday, Ira Flatow interviewed Mark Z. Jacobson from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, at Stanford University about the feasibility of deriving half of our world energy from wind. The other half would be from solar and water. From subsequent reading of Jacobson’s work and others, I am convinced that we have the ability, the resources, and the moral imperative to begin our quest in earnest to switch our power generation from the burning of fossil fuels completely to these renewables. Experts, Mark A. Delucchi and Jacobson report in the journal of Energy Policy in 2011 (here-1 and here-2) that “the barriers to the complete conversion to WWS power worldwide are primarily social and political, not technological or even economic.”  
They calculated that we have more than enough wind and sun to provide power for all of our needs, including transportation.  They estimate that we have more than enough concrete, steel, copper and other raw materials to construct the required number of turbines. They also determined that we have plenty of silica and other materials to construct the photovoltaic (PV) panels required. 
Limitations
They did cite a few caveats to the plan. One is that we could be limited in the amount of silver available for electrical connections.  We may also have a challenge mining enough platinum for hydrogen fuel cells and lithium for lithium ion batteries but, they concluded, these are problems can be overcome with innovation of materials, mining and recycling.
The hardware needed
To be WWS energy reliant by 2030 Jacobson and Delucchi reported in their Energy Policy journal article that the overall equipment needed for the U.S. will be 590,000 wind turbines, 110,000 wave devices, 830 geothermal plants, 140 hydroelectric plants (we’re already 70% there), 7600 tidal turbines, 6200 solar PV plants, 7600 CSP plants, and here’s the whopper, 265 million roof PV systems.  This would be enough power for everything, including our transportation needs. Electric cars are about 5 times more efficient than gasoline. There's potentially a lot of business opportunity here.
Jacobson - the renewables myth buster
The benefits would far outweigh the costs, especially in time.  We would have clean energy that would be more reliable and dependable than oil and gas.   The notion that oil and gas are more reliable is a myth that is explained along with many other myths such as that wind turbines kill more birds than coal mining.  
Me personally
Using the solar calculator I discovered that I would need to spend about $30k to power up my home with solar here in Virginia and that’s after the $15k tax break that I would get on the year of installation.  So the price is high to get your house outfitted with solar panels but there is a break-even time point that varies from 15 to 20 years.  After that you’d be saving money on power indefinitely.  And if properly configured, technically and economically, one could even make money selling power back to the grid.  $30k is a lot of dough but it’s no more than a luxury automobile many people don’t mind paying for.  How about a luxury power system? It's also something that could probably be rolled into a home equity. Hopefully one of these days, I'll get there. I still have a lot of research in this area.  In fact, as I am up here on my soap box, I concede that I AM part of the problem. I'm hooked to the grid (coal) and I operate internal combustion engines daily.
My Dream Car
Speaking of the transportation sector, have you seen the Tesla, Model S? It will set you back $60 to $100000, but it’s a sweet American made ride that gets about 300 miles on one charge, has a super low center of gravity (providing superb handling), double the trunk space and it goes from 0-60 in 5.6 seconds! It's my dream car. For about a third of that price you can pick up a Chevy Volt or a Nissan, Leaf, although they’re not quite as nice as the Model S.  

Bring on the Jobs!
There is the potential to create many good jobs for our nation and stimulate the economy with WWS development. According to a study by Robert Pollin at University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for every million dollars spent in oil and gas we create about 4 jobs whereas for each million spent on wind and solar we create about 16.7 jobs.   

The new WWS energy economy is coming, the question is; how soon do we want to benefit from it?  According to Wikipedia, the U.S. is already producing about 3.3% of our electrical energy with wind, with Texas leading the charge followed by California.  

But we have much work to do to improve access to WWS. In the U.S. we pay a much higher price for rooftop PV solar installation than they pay in Germany ($6.21 vs. $3.42) thanks to taxes, paperwork, general bureaucracy and marketing.

In my home state of Virginia recently, large sections offshore have recently been opened to wind development, but it will be several years before we see the wind farms.

With our resources, we need to get going. I’d like to see local companies installing PV systems on homes. I’d like to see more industry re-allocated to turbine manufacture, installation and maintenance. Wouldn't this be a great roll for our local ship builders?

Let's git-r-done!
The question is not, can we afford to make this switch to renewables? It’s more like; can we afford not to make the switch? Since global climate change is a security threat to our nation, why not divert some of our huge military budget to fix it?   I don’t even care if the vastly wealthy military industry complex and the oil companies make the huge profits from WWS investments.   I’d just like to see the process begin.

We have the ability. We have the resources. We have the moral imperative.  We owe it to our children and grandchildren and to the planet. Let's grow our renewable energy economy today.

Independence Weekend and a little Freedom...for my native critters

I took an extra day off for the Independence Day weekend and it was a glorious break! We steered clear of the crowds and still managed to see some fireworks. But mostly we kayaked, fished, crabbed, snorkeled, swam, and had refreshing water fights. It was a wet, hot relaxing 4 days off.
Speaking of water, one critter that I've noticed patrolling the creek behind the house lately is a Northern Water Snake (Nerodia sipedon). I'm lucky that my neighbor's kid has an insatiable curiosity that compels him to check my minnow trap every five minutes. Otherwise I may have lost my serpent friend. Now, I also check my minnow trap every five minutes! I mistakenly refer to it as the Eastern watersnake in the video.

Native plants planted - Camera gone

I went to Jim's on Saturday and got a few nice plants from his property. They're a little wind burned from the long ride in the pickup, but they seem to be hanging in there. I gave them alpaca poop and plenty of water.
Here's the list:
Highbush blueberry Vaccinium corymbassum
Lowbush blueberry
Black Eye Susan Rudbeckia sp.
Fringe Tree Cheanothas virginica
Mountain laurel Kalmia latifolia
Wild Iris Iris virginica

On another subject, the reason there are no pictures in this post is that my camera went missing at work. The last time I remember seeing it was on Friday. It's a Panasonic Lumix waterproof wonder and I miss it badly. I'm pretty sure it was either on my desk in my office or in our lab on a lab bench. I don't set it down any where else at work. Pretty sad. I don't know if I just had a severe brain fart of if it walked. I did report that it's missing and I gave them the serial number. I also discovered that other items have gone missing on campus lately. I'm still holding on to the possibility that I just did something really stupid with the camera but this hope fades with each passing day...

a little Windsurfing action!

I can't remember the last time I went windsurfing. I think it was like...way back in 2008, or some damn thing. With renovating the house, coaching little league, working like dog, fishing, etc. etc. it just got away from me. Well, enough is enough! on June 6, I grabbed my gear and went to a friend's house who has access to the Chesapeake Bay in York. I didn't check the wind data but it was windy, very windy. Anyhow, it was a blast and I want to do it again soon!

I also realized how out of shape I'm in. I'm pretty sure that every major muscle group in my body had some degree of soreness the next day. Beats the hell out of the gym!

Finding native plants is not easy!

I've got to make it to the fall Virginia native plant sale at the Virginia Living Museum on September 18th and 25th this year! I'm finding it difficult and expensive to obtain true native plants for my project.
A couple of weekends ago, I found a page with sources of native plants for Virginia, Kentucky, Maryland, New Jersey, N. Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and W. Virginia. The one closest to us, Pinelands Nursery in Toano, VA has a number that is no longer in service.
So with the limited time that we had on that particular Saturday, we trekked on down the the local Ken Mathews nursery. I told them that we are looking for native plants only and they did have a few.
After going through the native plant guide, we decided on the following for the bed in front of our house: Rudbeckia hirta (black eyed susans), Gaultheria procumbens (wintergreen chokeberry) Ilex glabra (inkberry), and some Vaccinium corymbosum (highbush blueberry).
At the Ken Mathews they did have the Ilex glabra, but they go for $29.99 each in a three gallon pot. We want three, but we also want to eat and maybe someday send our kid to college.

So, I think I've hatched a plan. I want to propogate my own plants. Jim Perry said that all I need to do is get some cuttings, especially in winter, and place them in root tone. Or maybe this is the way to go?? I'll ask Jim what he thinks... Does anyone know about this? I welcome any suggestions. Thanks in advance!

Great Native Plant Resources for the Chesapeake Watershed

Recently we had the big due date for library books at work. So, I went there to drop/renew my books and I noticed a cool display about native plants, called BayScapes. On this page there is a 5.31MB pdf that can be downloaded. This is so nice because it shows plants native to the area and how they enhance the natural landscape. The pdf is loaded with cool info such as what is the optimum amount of sunlight, or rainfall, or soil type, or soil pH, or what kind of wildlife is attracted to a specific plant, i.e. which plants attract humming birds, or song birds, or other wildlife, etc.

There's also this cool link that talks about why native plants are so wonderful.

Why Use Native Plants?

Going Native!

My family and I were honored this past weekend at the William & Mary Do One Thing (DOT) Sustainable campaign thanks to the DOT Facebook pledge that I made to get my free water bottle.

My Facebook Pledge is this: "To identify every plant on my small 1/2 acre property. Remove it if it's invasive or non-native, and plant all native plants. I will also advertise and preach this to all of my privet loving neighbors! Native plants attract native bugs and native birds."

It all started when Lorri Sutter, a grad student at VIMS, dangled a fancy, free aluminum drinking water bottle in front of me! Then, she showed me the DOT pledge deal where you make a pledge on the DOT facebook page to get one.

Apparently, out of 1000 DOTs, mine was in the top 10! This surprised me since there were so many great pledges, like a guy who installed solar panels and calculated that he is producing 40% of the energy his family uses, etc.

Anyhow, I took my family to the DOT/Earth Day festival at William & Mary where we were honored on stage and given a sweet T-shirt and Frisbees!

Rowan Lockwood is the very dedicated W&M geology professor who was the first to contact me and give me the great news. She also invited me to the event. I invited my family since we would be coming directly from a T-ball game, which was actually canceled due to the threat of rain.

Erin Ryan (not shown in the picture) is the law professor who actually handed me the gifts!





Also, before the whole thing W. Taylor Reveley III the William & Mary president read the Lorax, with the real Lorax present! It was very entertaining.



Oh and when I spoke with Rowan before the ceremony, she said that Cathy Lewis, on NPR's Hearsay recognized my facebook post. So, this is pretty cool stuff, which means that now I need to produce!

I chose my pledge because I felt like I needed to pledge something new. I've been reducing, reusing, and recycling. I used cloth grocery bags, take navy showers, turn off lights constantly, weather proofed the house, etc. Plus, we moved into our new place in Seaford in the fall of 08. Since then, we've been fixing up house stuff and until this spring not doing anything in the yard. Oh, btw, we moved to York County mainly so that we can both be closer to work. We commute 220 less miles per week as a result!

All I can say right now is that I used my lawn tractor to pull a huge privet piece by piece by the roots. It was a lot of fun because every time the strap that I had tied from my little tractor to the privit tightened at 4 miles per hour, one of three things would happen. 1. I would come to a dead stop, 2. the strap would snap and break, 3. the privet would come up (most likely).

Here's a picture of where the privet was. The bush next to the water that is much relieved is a wax myrtle. According to Jim Perry the privet is also allelopathic. In other words they emit biochemicals that influence the growth of nearby plants, not for the better.


Also, complements of Jim Perry, I've planted 28 black choke cherries along the fence on the south side of the property and two native hibiscus plants (Hibiscus palustris) near the mailbox.



Exceptions for food:
Finally, I will admit that I've made an exception for food plants for the following reasons: 1. Growing your food on your own property is a great, sustainable way to reduce the fossil fuel needed to transport food to the table. 2. I don't think any food plants will take off and be invasive like kudzu, even if they're not native. 3. Michael Pollan said that we should all have vegetable gardens! In my garden I've planted tomatoes(S. America), zucchini (native), eggplant(India), cucumber(western N. America), tomatillos(Central and South America), cayenne peppers(native, I think) and basil (Asia). Gosh, I guess I should have planted some corn!