The Last Frost

TXU, a Texas utility, is planning on building 11 new coal fired power plants that together will release the equivalent pollution of 10 million Cadillac SUV's. Read up my old post if you want more info.

Act For Change, a division of the socially responsible phone company Working Assets, is calling for your help to help stop these coal fired power plants from being built. It's as simple as clicking the link below, and filling out a short form letter which will be sent to the CEO of TXU, John Wilder, as well as a CC to Texas Governor Rick Perry.

It is incredibly important that these plants are not built and it's incredibly irresponsible on the part of TXU to even suggest building them in the face of such overwhelming evidence of global climate change. It's a big corporate slap in the face of science and a slap in the face of humanity as a whole.

Stop Texas Utility from Barbequing The Earth - [Act For Change]

Back in June, I mentioned that the Supreme Court would be hearing a case that could have far reaching implications for global warming. Today the big court will begin hearing arguments on the case.

The argument stems from a disagreement between the EPA and several states. The EPA says the Clean Air Act does not mention tail pipe emissions as a pollutant therefore it does not need to regulate them. The states that have brought this case this far disagree. 

If the EPA loses, the auto industry will be pissed. It will mean the whole industry will have to adhere to strict emissions standards. Not only will it affect the auto industry, it will require the EPA to regulate C02 and other greenhouse gases as pollutants which will have far reaching effects. This will be an important case to follow. 

Does anyone find it ridiculous that the US Environmental Protection Agency is fighting against it's responsibility to Protect the Environment? Perhaps the EPA should be dismantled and replaced with an agency that actually does it's job.

Supreme Court Addresses Tailpipe Emissions - [CNSNews.com]

The folks at Slate Magazine are doing an 8 week long "carbon diet" tutorial on their site. It's already week 6 so there are plenty of ideas already in place.  They cover the basics such as saving energy while traveling by car or plane as well as how to save on home heating costs.

They also have some good suggestions such as eating less meat. They're right about it too because of the old rule of 10. Anyway, it's a good read and you just might learn something unexpected.

Bright ideas for trimming CO2 emissions. - [Slate Magazine]

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday and if you're one of the brave souls to have deep fried your turkey this year, you should check this out. In Plano, TX a suburb of Dallas, the used fryer oil is collected and donated to a company called Biodiesel Industries and you guessed it, made into environmentally friendly fuel. 

If you live in Plano and still have that oil laying around, give the Environmental Waste Service's a call at 972-769-4150 for a free pickup.

Leftover turkey fat fuels biodiesel cars - [Scotsman.com]

Here's part II of my previous article on why vegetarianism can help save the world. I ended the last article just as I was about to explain what the power of 10 rule has to do with global warming. So here it is:

Large amounts of greenhouse gas emissions are produced by our food industry. I've heard estimates that up to 17% of our fossil fuel use goes towards food production in the US. Vegetable production is no exception, you need all sorts of mostly gas powered vehicles to plow, sow, harvest, and distribute much of the plants we eat.

CO2 is released during the production of crops, although some if not all of it is offset by the plants themselves which remove CO2 from the atmosphere during their growth. Though we still need to transport the fresh plant matter to processing plants or distribution facilities which then create greenhouse gas emissions themselves. Then we can either transport the plants to supermarkets, or we can feed the stuff to animals which will go on to produce our meat in addition to Methane gas among other things which contribute to global warming. Then the animals need to be processed and the food transported yet again to our supermarkets, which we probably drove to in a gas guzzling car. Finally we need to cook the meat which will take even more energy and most likely result in even more greenhouse gas emissions. 

Although it's not perfectly accurate, there's a concept out there that helps to illustrate how a vegetarian diet can help save the world.  I'm not talking about health issues here because that's not the point of this blog. I'll also mention that I'm not a vegetarian myself, although I would love to be. My girlfriend on the other hand is, and maybe one day I'll join her among the ranks of the ultra efficient energy eaters. That being said, if I start to sound preachy I'm not trying to be, I'm just passing the hard truth onto you.

So here's my attempt at an explanation of the power of 10 rule:

Basically, the rule roughly estimates that as you climb the food chain, you only preserve 1/10th of the original energy input. The main energy source on our planet is the sun and some of the sun's energy goes towards growing plants. Some animals eat the plants and some animals eat other animals. The most efficient use of the solar energy, or energy in general, is to eat the sunlight, but hey that's what the plants do. The second most efficient option for us as walking talking creatures is to eat the plants.

Though when we eat the plants, we are unable to make use of 100% of the energy the plant absorbed itself. Some of that energy went towards the plant growing, reproducing, other biological processes, as well as heat emission. Plus our digestive systems are not 100% efficient, thus some of the energy is lost there as well. In the first stage, it is estimated that the plants only make use of 10% of the energy they absorb. Then when we eat the plants, we only make use of 1% of the original energy. Now let's say you get eaten by a crazed carnivorous animal, sucks for you. The creature who was so lucky to have had such a tasty vegetarian for dinner will only make use of .1% of the original energy input from the sun. The energy transfer starts at 100%, plants get 10%, vegetarians get 1%, and carnivores get a measly .1%. 

On and on it goes up the food chain of energy loss. So, let's now put it into a context that's really easy to understand. You can either eat 10 pounds of grain yourself, or you can feed that 10 pounds of grain to a vegetarian creature and net yourself about 1 pound of meat. Which do you think would feed the most people?

It's a grossly simplified analogy and again the math isn't 100% accurate, but the loss is real and significant, and it's good to be conscious of the energy footprint your next meal will have on the world. I won't even go into how many more people our planet could feed if we stopped feeding perfectly edible people food to animals just so we can harvest their meat.

What does this have to do with global warming? Check out part II of this article and I'll explain, I promise.

The California energy commission has released a report stating that greenhouse gas emissions in CA have increased by 14% between 1990 and 2004. The good news is that that's about 50% the national average of growth. California has promised to drop their emissions down to 1990 levels by the year 2020, so in less that 14 years, they need to stop the growth, and then reduce it by a considerable amount to reach that goal.

If any state in the Union can pull it off, California can. Imagine how difficult it will be for the rest of the US to match that though. Especially without the progressive policies that CA has been putting in place for years.

CA Greenhouse Gas Emissions up 14% 1990 - 2004 > [Reuters.com]

Boulder Colorado, a smallish city just north of Denver, will soon start collecting a carbon tax on all electricity sold in the city. The money will be used to fund several initiatives to make buildings more efficient and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The tax is estimated to cost the average household just $16 a year, and by 2012 should net the city a cool 6.7 million dollars. Which in my opinion isn't really that much money to achieve real change, but it's a great precedent and will hopefully become a country-wide trend.

I wouldn't mind paying a small premium on my electricity if the taxes really went towards solving problems. I prefer paying a small premium for 100% green power though. The money would go directly to the power generation facilities rather than government. Not that I don't trust the government to handle my tax dollars responsibly… um, yeah right. 

Boulder Colorado USA Enacts Carbon Tax > [New York Times via TreeHugger]

Who knew that a little bit of software code could be so effective at reducing greenhouse gas emissions. It certainly provides a new way to look at an activity that you, me, and millions of others are doing every day; using our computers. Or more importantly, leaving them on when we're not using them.

This article breaks down the potential energy savings that Microsoft alone could ensure by simply releasing a software update to their ubiquitous Windows platform. The update could set the default energy savings options to their most efficient settings. 

Why stop with Microsoft though? Imagine what could be possible if electronic manufacturer's eliminated standby modes from appliances. The article estimates that dozens of power plants could be rendered obsolete by Microsoft's hypothetical software update, imagine what the whole global electronic and software industries could accomplish if they placed a higher priority on the energy consumption of their devices. I think Apple Computer has the right idea, it's not sheer processing power that's important in a computer chip, it's processing power per watt.

Efficiency, it's always been green.

Microsoft could save 45 million tons of CO2 emissions with a few lines of computer code » [FP Passport]

More and more scientists are considering radical options dubbed geo engineering, to curb global warming. This is freaky scientific territory because we all know how good we as a species are at controlling our globe. It's like a drunk driver taking over the wheel for another drunk driver, you might get lucky and survive, but it's not a good idea… the new driver is still drunk.

Some of the strange ideas include: Building Huge mirrors in space to reflect sunlight away from the Earth. Or even better, injecting huge quantities of Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere to turn the skies yellowish-gray also with the goal of reflecting more light away. It doesn't sound too cool to me, I like our blue skies.

Another idea on the drawing board is to send boats throughout the oceans dumping iron particles into the water. This would result in a bloom of plankton which would then absorb CO2 from the atmosphere. The article mentions the potential problems that could arise when the plankton die. Their rotting mass leaching the oceans of oxygen; killing other sea life, which is not good.

This idea particularly irks me because all you have to do to see the flaw in the plan is to study water surrounding golf courses that treat their grass with fertilizers (see image). The fertilizer, which is basically grass food, washes off the course into surrounding water. The algae in that water then goes on a feeding and reproduction frenzy which is great for a while. Then huge amounts of the algae dies and begins to rot, effectively suffocating all life in the pond. It's not an experiment you would want to run on the world's oceans. 

It's good to know that we're trying to think on our feet at least, but the only way to control nature on a large scale is to let it control itself. Hopefully mankind will learn this lesson before nature decides she doesn't like us anymore.  

Read the ABC News article for more info on these and more ideas. 

Weird Science Getting New Respect, Just in Case » [ABC News]