Repower America

www.repoweramerica.org has two intesting features.

You can look to see what people near you are saying. For example

"Using 98% coal here we need to change more quickly than the rest of the nation in order to remain competitive. It's not just the right thing to do, it's survival"

They also have a way to send a letter to your editor of your local newpaper. For example:

"The election has passed and regardless of which canidate was put in place they both proposed cap and trade system for carbon.

Here in Northen Kentucky (and it equally applies to Greater Cincinati) we use over 90% of our electricy is dervied from coal we pay 33% for electricy than the nation on average. The nation is no longer going to allow us to function in this way so cheaply. We need to act and prepare to act quickly.

Duke, environmentalists, and business all agreee conservation is the best, cheapest, and fastest alternative. This does not mean we have to sacrifice. We have to do and think of ways to do things differently.

Duke Energy is considering several things to get us though. One of which is "smart meters" which allow for time of day charges like your mobile phone. In the summer some peak usage is driven by our air conditioners left on while we are at work. Time of day billing will make us more aware and possibly save us money personally by driving personal usage off peak.

Geo-HVAC is a way to save on heating and cooling. It involves putting piping into the ground to use the earth's tempature. There are not many companies that support it locally. What if a local county would cover the cost of the installing the ground oart of the work? This would stimulate more use of the technology. You could call your house Geo-ready. Face it. When do you replace a air conditioner or heater normally? When it breaks. It's much faster to put an regular unit on. Doing the ground work first gets you ready for when you have to switch. Some existing units can be switched over to geo and still be under warranty.

Our area is unique with unique challeges and opportunities including things like biochar.

Biochar

Some paraphrased comments made on the biochar yahoo group relaying our local situtation.

Even though biochar may produce less energy than turning all biomass to ash, it should be pursued since it may have long term benifit in our loam soils.

Details...


> We have to stop burning coal!
Our electricity is 98% coal here.

> We have to find another resource for the energy.

> hydrology power
The local source has been tapped. It provides 1%. While we are at the confluence of two rivers damming them for power would flood the region (which would take care of our energy problem). Also a series of locks was put in decades ago so the river is more a seris of lakes as it is that only rarely has large movement (while the rivers
are wide before the locks one could wade acrossed the river except in spring).

> wind
There is little harvestible wind. In fact locally I would be oppossed to wind. We live in one of those valleys that does not get much fresh air. While our modern activities cause pollution even before that time we had an issue with pollen. Mark Twain was quoted as something to the effect that people in Cincinnati were disgusting .. they spit all the time. An effect of the pollen. (He also said "When the end of the world comes, I want to be in Cincinnati because it's always twenty years behind the times.")

> Nuclear power
Bad memories.
I think we have the only nuclear plant that was converted to a coal
plant.

And then there was dear Fernald...

While it is unrelated we have low levels of radon also which is subconsciously attributed to the above two things.

However these nifty mini-generators might be acceptable locally.


> geothermal
The earth crust is extremely thick here and cool to a great depth.
The east coast of the USA will have Geothermal before we do and that is a long way off.

However geo heating of homes works well here. It just needs to be used more. But it more often replaces natural gas and not electric.

> solar electric (photovoltaic)
Also not a real great place for solar but out of all the non-waste alternatives that could be built widely this one would be the leader here. I have hope that some of the newer cheaper flexible solar design that our out will be a good match here. They aren't as efficient as the hard silicon light but they cut in in lower light.

> solar thermal
This works well here. We need to do more of it. Again it replaces more natural gas than coal.

> Conservation
Would you be surprised that this is on TOP of Duke Energy's list?

Also Carsharing may help here as well.

> biomass energy conversion
While we don't have alot of biomass available locally this is my interest in biochar here.


> We could set the price paid for carbon emissions so high that it
drives coal-fired power industry out of business, because it won't compete any longer against the other carbonless forms of energy.

You've hit upon the key as to why I felt the need to start this NKY Carbon thing and my interest in biochar and any solution. Change is coming. Both presidential canditates support cap-and-trade. We have some of the lowest electric rates and we import all of out energy (the coal comes by river, the natural gas and gasoline is
pipelined in)

> [8] As a temporary alternative to coal E&S, biochar from agricultural wastes can be used right now to achieve a net gain in carbon capture and storage, as compared with business as usual, in the course of which these wastes are usually burned. Also denuded forest areas can be replanted. And so on.

> So for existing coal-fired operations for the time being, I would require only a significant reduction in emissions and compensating activities off site for the balance, until we get the technological breakthroughs to make retrofits economically feasible.

Duke is current experimenting with:
- CO2 injection to the saline auqifer
- algea from flue gas
- they want to replace the oldest coal plant with a IGCC system
- their alliance to get biomass burning facilities desinged has been
mentioned in this group