Cap and Trade is coming

http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=carbon-dioxide-auction

Carbon Dioxide Auction Launches U.S. Effort to Combat Climate Change

First steps

Contacted Charcoalab to see if kits were available.

As normal as it gets

It must be over since the top energy story is the utility paying of business to drop opposition to a rate hike.

http://news.cincinnati.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080924/NEWS01/309240010

Ike - Day 8

Can you imagine 8 days without power?

So considering that generators are on the minds of many.

Wouldn't it be great if a hybrid or fully electric vehicle was capable of plugging a major appliance into?

Ike - Day 5

Most kids are back in school.

Something I forgot to mention. On day 1 while the power was out on a place I was visiting the cable company rolled in with a generator. They kept it going night and day until the power was restored there on Day 3. What was the generator for? To keep the cable phone service up so that 911 could be used. 1 point for keeping things together. Minus 10 points for "paying someone for sitting on top of a generator for three days" being your disaster plan to ensure 911 service.

Again we have to remember that our experience is like having an 18 wheeler blow by and knock your hat off where what happened where the real Ike actually hit is like being hit by said 18 wheeler.

yIKEs it's Ike!

The remnants of Hurricane IKE have certainly reminded us how fragile our energy infrastructure is and how much we depend upon it.

It is now day three and still over half a million customers are without power. This is the point where food in freezers that were closed the entire time start to thaw. The few hours it takes for a refrigerator to rot passed days ago. People who use electric water heating instead of natural gas were on cold showers after the first day (Don't you wish you has a solar water heater about now). Early on the few restaurants with power had very long lines and waits. Most schools have been closed for two days now (the first day being a weekend).

The gasoline prices seem uniformly set at $4.15. Six of the Eight gasoline stations that I happened by were without power. Gasoline stations with no power cannot pump gas unless they are using a power generator (I've never seen a gasoline station with a generator). A local shell station sold out of it's regular unleaded then reduced it's price of super and premium to $4.15 and then ran out everything by the afternoon. Even with people running generators, in general there is still gasoline available.

As the power start to come on things are getting back to normal. Hopefully people will not forget the experience.

While the damage where the true hurricane hit is more severe and deserves more attention this small challenge shows what a hours of simple stiff winds can do the things you depend on.

Pickens Update

View my page on PickensPlan

Comments on the plan

Natural Gas

The plan is short term in nature, using wind and natural gas to solve the problem isn't ideal but it should help. Pickens stands to make some profit on it.

http://www.energypublisher.com/article.asp?id=11918"U.S. natural gas proved reserves increased 3 percent in 2006, rising to over 211 trillion cubic feet, the highest level since 1976 according the Energy Information Administration. ""This was the eighth year in a row that U.S. natural gas proved reserves have increased."I assume we import because natural gas usage spikes in winter. Driving spikes in summer. The hope is that having year round demand would encourage domestic development and stabilized prices.

There is no doubt that a shift to natural gas is just trading one fossil fuel for another and won't last forever. But it switches it from foreign to domestic and buys a little time to do better. We have to start somewhere.

CNG vehicles

Here is a source that claims that a comparable CNG vechicle should produce 89% of the CO2 that gasoline would have.http://www.triplepundit.com/pages/askpablo-clean-natural-gas-002330.phpThis source claims you can improve mileage by 15% of a gasoline car by following good maintenance.http://www.greencarcongress.com/2008/08/automakers-intr.htmlSo a CNG vehicle in general will produce "a little" less CO2 but not more than gasoline. The amount of CO2 produced by both is still quite a bit. There are other emission benefits to CNG mentioned in the first article.

Many of these places have plans for alternatives some of them include CNG.UPS: http://www.sustainability.ups.com/environmental/fuel/ground.html#fleet_overviewFed Ex: http://about.fedex.designcdt.com/corporate_responsibility/the_environment/alternative_energy/cleaner_vehiclesUSPS: http://www.usps.com/green/innovation.htmMilitary: http://www.military.com/news/article/us-military-launches-alternate-fuel-push.html?col=1186032310810

Wind

Wind is highlighted because it is cheaper at the present time. The focus of the plan is easiest to scale up immediately. It should not be considered a dig at other alternatives. At some point the best wind resources will be tapped (as the best hydro have been for a long time). Then it is time to really push for the next alternative for mass deployment. In the mean time the remaining alternatives still need to be supported with research and pilot support.

Wind turbines can cause bird kills, bat kills, and decreased rainfall for miles downwind behind a wind farm. The bird kill and rainfall are old issues which have been mitigated by later wind installations. Since those are two solvable issues, anyone putting up a wind turbine has to take that in consideration or face legal issues. I haven't seen field application on the bat issue which does not mean someone isn't working on that.

Related to the plan

Road Taxes

There is two main categories of road taxes ... big trucks and carsBig trucks tend to hurt the road more which is why diesel is taxed more heavily than gasoline.Big trucks also have their odometers read often both at the cab and the trailer. Tacking on a mileage based fee may not be so complicated there.For cars a flat yearly fee is probably the best way to go."But he drives more than me!"If you drive 12,000 a year in a 12/mpg vehicle you pay about $400 in taxes currently.If you drive 3,600 a year in a 36/mpg vehicle you pay about $40.If you drive 36,000 a year in a 12/mpg vehicle you pay about $1200.So if the tax was a flat $400 (assuming that is enough for the roads), you would be losing $360. $360 is a lot for some and not a big deal for others. So have the amount paid recorded on state and federal tax. Fairness or unfairness can be worked out with credits and exemptions.I still believe there should be a use tax on gasoline and diesel to discourage it's use.

Gasoline Taxes

Taxes on average currently run about 40 cents. The federal part of that is about 18.4 cents.At about $4 a gallon "summer gas tax breaks" were discussed.A tight keep it at $5.00 would provide no incentive for prices to decrease.You have to assume that the tax is based on an average cost over a year or so and is adjusted only a set amount of times a year automatically.With recent prices the scale would be something like:$5 - zero tax$4 - normal tax$3 - double tax ( 40 - 80 cents depending if all adopt that scale)$2 - triple tax ( .60 - 1.20 )$1 - quad tax ( .80 - 1.60 )(the actual scale would have to be a formula of some sort)This pushes prices to around $3 - $4 which is uncomfortable enough for people to think twice about gasoline. It would have to be adjusted from time to time for inflation and to not bankrupt the federal highway system which is why there is any tax at all on gas.Where would the extra taxes go? Alternative energy? - Possibly ... 9,668,844,788,980.66 national debt? - heh .. ya right .... Pork? - Most likelyBut it is not a point of where the tax goes as to what it does. It makes gasoline use hurt a little to remind us that we need to go on a gas diet.

Oil Tax

(The gasoline tax above would have a more targeted effect)

Some kind of tax for oil in general should be linked to the average price of oil over a year period and then possibly increasing over time. Using similar numbers to yours...... in the first year:if the average is $125+ the tax should be $0 (We need relief)if the average is $100+ the tax should be $1.25if the average is $75+ the tax should be $2.50if the average is $50+ the tax should be $5 (we have paid much more)Then in the following years the amounts increase by some fashion. The law should not expire but may need to be adjusted now and again.The average of the prior year should be recalculated each month. The commodities markets will be able to adjust. It would have to be implemented with some lead time.In this way it adjusts to the situation month to month without debate. Expensive oil is painful but cheap oil is bad like heroine.

Unrelated / local

Geothermal Heat Pump

A county of a reasonable size could buy and operate the equipment (or bid out the work) to build standard vertical trenches. (The standard part would have to be given some thought). Citizens would pay for the standard piping (again that would have to be worked out) but not the install of the piping.If the list grew too large then bidding could begin but even if it was all done for free it doesn't seem that big of a hit to a city budget to keep one set of equipment in operation near year round weather permitting.People could get this work done and declare their property "geo-ready". That would allow more HVAC shops to participate without having to deal with the digging part.

Nuclear

Due to bad local experience with non-energy nuclear by the government it just simply won't happen here.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernald_Feed_Materials_Production_CenterIt was a rather large and secret mess that went public in a bad way a long time ago. It is now a scary a legend. It is also a public park ... one that took millions to build. Again ... it had nothing to do with a nuclear energy plant.The closest we got to nuclear energy washttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_H._Zimmer_Power_StationAnother bad memory for people. The most expensive coal plant every built.

CNG Buses

I was going to suggest that locally we look into switching. However we switched to biodiesel years ago. ( http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2002/10/18/loc_kybuses18.html )I hope they have some provision for the many districts that have already converted to natural gas or alternate fuel.

New Adminstration Building

Asked my county for some details on the new administration building. There is a bit of a rush to get it open. Just want to make sure that we gave a thought to energy use.

Build here. Build now.

Suggested to the local economic development group that the next few years would be a good time to focus on alternative energy.

Where does my yard waste go?

Looking at the local waste management plan I can't tell where yard waste goes around here.

On page 14 item 4 it lists that yardwaste is diverted.

On page 16 item 6 it mentions there is no composting.

I had just assumed it was being composted.

Biochar may be a larger improvement than I thought.

Is anyone already working on Biochar?

Asked the local convervation district for information on biochar use.