As you may have heard, this year China powered past (cheesy pun warning) the United States in total energy consumption. Apparently, back in 2007, they surpassed the US in carbon emissions. This makes sense as almost 70% of China’s electricity is derived from coal as compared to just under 50% in the United States. In the U.S., nuclear and natural gas make up most of the other 50%, roughly split evenly with renewable energy rounding out the 100%. In recent years, or especially since President Obama moved into the White House, there have been multiple verbose incomprehensible cap and trade…
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A couple weeks ago I beat up electric automobiles for being overpriced and unpractical due to their short driving ranges and cripplingly long charge times. This week I present a saner approach to substantial energy and emissions reductions. The electric car is the equivalent of installing renewable energy sources before making conventional systems and technologies as efficient as possible in buildings. Like buildings, we can cost effectively cut personal transportation energy consumption substantially, without sacrificing anything with readily available technologies - rather than pouring gobs of money into technologies that are just five years away from prime time; like they…
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I was going to talk about sane solutions for ground transportation this week and I was going to lead with a tidbit, but that snowballed into the entire rant of its own. Last week I was reading The Wall Street Journal on my 1994 organic cotton-stuffed futon when I had a “Ha! You scheming, scamming, shysters!” moment. In Law of Gravity Repealed, I accused for-profit corporations who are in favor of carbon caps of essentially getting in bed with the political hacks in Washington to form the rules of the game such that they come out ahead of their competitors. …
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For this week’s publication, I was trying to think of an expensive, short-lived, duplicative, inconvenient, limited use, frivolous novelty. Did I mention expensive? After a half-hour of wonderment, the best I could do is a Homer Simpson bottle opener. But really the Homer Simpson bottle opener will last longer and at least be useful (note, I didn’t say serve it’s purpose, which is to make people laugh) probably for a far longer period than the electric car. Twenty years ago “they” were talking about developing electric cars, I guess to save us from carbon dioxide, but I don’t recall the…
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“Green jobs” have been all the buzz for quite some time, probably before Barack Obama was elected president, but I don’t know for sure. What the heck is a green job anyway? Some real answers include those like we have at Michaels Engineering with 20+ engineers working full time on real energy-saving projects. Another example is the guy who operates the humongous crane that helps erect humongous wind turbines. But politicians and academic eggheads aren’t talking about jobs like we have at Michaels, although they probably do agree the crane driver has a green job, but it goes far beyond…
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I was recently reading a letter to the editor in The Wall Street Journal where the reader blasted ag biotech companies like Dow Chemical and Monsanto for creating “superweeds”. Monsanto transformed crop farming with the development of Roundup herbicide, which kills practically anything with roots but is otherwise quite benign (oxymoron alert). They later developed genetically modified seeds for plants that are immune to the weed killer. But weeds, like bacteria, have morphed to become immune to Roundup. The letter goes on to compare the superweeds to antibiotic–resistant organisms. Except, nobody is going to be killed by a superweed. So…
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It’s been about a month since I prognosticated and reflected on the BP disaster in the golf. Let’s see how things have unfolded. My predictions: Political food fight Underestimated disaster Lack of “what if” on BPs part Where is the outrage? First, I said politicians would engage in a political food fight while Rome burns. Sure enough, less than a week after that post, the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee assembled a dog and pony show to poke executives of BP, Transocean, and Halliburton with a stick in the eye. Actually, it was like a dog show alright –…
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Yay! I’m outside working on my computer for the first time this year. Alright, who cares? Every week I plow through news-clipping services to see what is going on, to build my topic list, which is piling up faster than the weeks pass. This week I had to shelve 4-5 great topics to again take on the recently arisen climate bill. Many huge utilities and other giant energy users and associations are lauding the Kerry-Lieberman-Graham bill. These institutions include the American Wind Association, Duke Energy, Dow Chemical, Florida Power and Light, T. Boone Pickens, National Resources Defense Council, Steelworkers Union,…
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A few years ago I was on a marketing visit to a hospital for non-energy related services and of course I had to work energy efficiency into the conversation. “So, have you done any energy efficiency upgrades in recent years?” “Yes we replaced windows in the old section of the facility and installed new boilers. We’re all set with energy efficiency.” Palm, meet forehead. I could be a lousy salesman but that conversation ended with a pregnant pause. This was a hospital, probably the most energy intensive type of commercial facility there is, and replacing windows might reduce consumption by…
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Like millions of people around the world, I have been following the slow nightmare that is unfolding in the gulf. Many topics and thoughts come to mind. First, our company mission is “make every project a positive experience for our clients”. It’s simple but guides everything we do. When there is a potential mistake or an angry client calling or emailing us complaining about something we are involved with, it’s a code red in our office. Engineers and managers meet immediately to plot the course of events leading to where we are and we clearly define the problem and plot…
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