Actions speak louder than words

If you’re concerned about climate change, here’s your chance to let the next Senator of California know. The Center for Biological Diversity is planning a “keep the heat on the Senate” event on Wednesday, September 1, at the site of a debate between senatorial candidates Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina in Moraga.

Gather with signs such as “Protect the Clean Air Act” or “350 is the limit” at 6:00 pm at Saint Mary’s College, Lefevre Theatre, 1928 Saint Mary’s Road. A carpool will run from Orinda BART at 5:30. If you want a ride, contact rbraz@biologicaldiversity.org. (Unless you have a ticket to the debate, you won’t be able to get in—the plan is simply to stand outside with signs as the candidates, audience and media file in). You can get a ride back to Orinda BART anytime after 7 pm.

We need strong climate legislation and we need it fast.  Putting up solar panels and cutting your carbon footprint is a great first step, but we need to enact national laws that will motivate the other  115 million households to do the same.

–Erica Etelson

Sungevity Does Solarthon!

Recently a Sungevity team participated in Solarthon 2010. Nine solar systems were installed in a low-income, affordable-housing development in West Oakland. Sungevity was a corporate sponsor along with First Solar, Google, PG&E, Sales Force, and a few others.

Driver’s ed 2.0

If you’re a driver, hopefully you know not to pass on the right, sail through red lights or talk/text on your cell phone.  But when it comes to driving for maximum fuel efficiency, it’s back to driving school for most of us.

At cleanmpg.com, you can pick up tips from a community of driving geek extraordinaires who have honed the art of “hypermiling”–techniques for squeezing the most out of every drop of fuel in any make of vehicle.  The savings are far from trivial–these guys (yeah, they’re all guys) have been able to double their gas mileage.

Beyond the obvious strategy of slowing the heck down, hypermiling involves new and improved methods of braking (including the controversial “no-brakes” method) and, for barrels of fun for the whole family, the “rabbit timing” approach to traffic lights.  There’s a good overview of many hypermiling techniques here.

So hang up that cell phone and start hypermiling your way toward fuel efficiency nirvana.  With the money you save on gas, you can get yourself a solar water heater or some LED lights.  And with the money you save from those items, maybe there’s a Tesla Roadster in your future after all.

–Erica Etelson

A paved paradise?

Joni Mitchell take heed…there’s a silver lining to parking lots after all.   Turns out they’re a great place to put solar panels.  Any carport or parking lot can be transformed into a solar paradise that generates power for nearby buildings, provides shade for the cars and mitigates the nasty “heat island’ effect that all that asphalt generates in urban areas.

The carport concept could be helpful for homeowners who want to go solar but have roofs with too much shade.  But the real impact will be in office parks and shopping centers with those giant lots that bake in the sun.  Next time you get into your 120 degree car/sauna, just imagine if all that heat were channeled into electricity.

And speaking of cars, tune in next week for a special driver’s ed crash course on how to drive for maximum fuel efficiency. Even if you’ve got a Prius, there are still a surprising number of techniques that can dramatically improve your gas mileage.

–Erica Etelson

Solar Chemistry 101

The sun is a useful star.  When it comes to powering our homes and creating the foundation for life on this planet, the sun can’t be beat.  Now, scientists are discovering another awesome little trick the sun can perform—simply throw a few million microbes into the mix and…presto, solar energy can be converted into chemicals. The process, called electrosynthesis, mimicks photosynthesis but, instead of changing sunlight into energy, the microbes feed on electrons and change sunlight into chemicals.

If you’re like me, it’s all pretty incomprehensible, but the point is this:  If chemicals can be made from electrosynthesis, we won’t have need for all the nasty petrochemcials that are poisoning everything from drinking water and farm produce to frogs and songbirds.  When chemical pesticides came into widespread use in the 1940s, the so-called “Green Revolution” was on.  Decades later, our planet’s life support systems are suffering the unintended consequences of “better living through chemistry.”  We’re now seeing the true “Green Revolution” gather steam with the birth of the green chemistry movement that strives to find less harmful alternatives to deadly petrochemicals.

It’s likely to be years until solar-powered chemicals are commercially available. In the meantime, minimize your petrochemical footprint by avoiding bottled water and other disposable plastic items, eating organic food, buying natural cleansers and cosmetics and using non-chemical pest control methods in your home and garden.  Your endocrine system, along with the planet, thank you in advance.

–Erica Etels0n

Addicted to coal

As Jon Stewart reminded us in a bitterly funny shtick a couple of months ago, every U.S. President since Nixon has bemoaned our addiction to oil and promised to wean the nation ASAP.  But what about our addiction to coal?

On the environmental scorecard, coal sets new lows for mountaintop removal, air and water pollution and climate change.  The pollution that pours out of the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants causes an estimated $62 billion in public health damage a year (mostly heart and respiratory illnesses).

What coal has going for it is its price–compared to oil, gas and renewables, coal is cheap.  Or is it?  A new report by the Union of Concerned Scientists shows that many states import coal from faraway states and foreign shores.  38 states are net importers of coal, spending $25 billion a year with nothing to show for it–these states burn money on coal which is then burned to generate electricity; in the end, they have nothing–no jobs, no revenue, no local energy infrastructure, just polluted air and soaring unemployment.

Most of the coal we import comes from Colombia, Venezuela and Indonesia, not exactly next-door neighbors.  Even our own domestic coal travels longs distances from mines to power plants.  Georgia, for example, buys $540 million worth of coal from Wyoming and Colorado (plus another $97 million from Colombia).

Coal-importing states have much to gain by shifting their expenditures from coal to energy efficiency and renewables.  Energy conservation and local energy production mean local jobs and revenue, better air quality and resilience in the face of an uncertain energy future.  I’m tempted to call such a shift a “no-brainer,” but it seems that “no-brainers” are usually “non-starters” politically (my favorite example being our refusal to lower the speed limit to 55 mph for optimal fuel efficiency and highway safety).

As a nation, we have a lot of unhealthy and supposedly cheap addictions (bad food, bad fuel, fast cars). But when we pause to factor in the hidden costs of these habits, they’re not so cheap after all.  And our economy, our waistlines and our planet cannot afford to indulge them any longer.

–Erica Etelson

Arizona gets tough on energy efficiency

Arizona  has made headlines recently over its attempt to crack down on undocumented immigrants.  But the Grand Canyon State is also cracking down on something far more worthy of its wrath–wasted electricity.

Under a ruling last month by the Arizona Corporation Commission, utilities are required to boost conservation measures so as to achieve 22% energy savings over the next decade.  The Southwest Energy Efficiency Project predicts that the new standard will save consumers $9 billion and create 12,000 new jobs.

The energy efficiency target will be met through tried-and-true tactics such as weatherization, home energy audits and more efficient appliances and lighting.  22% may seem like a lofty goal, but the fact that the state expects to achieve it simply by plucking the low-hanging fruit is cause for optimism.    If residents of a state with summer highs averaging over 100 degrees can do it, so can we all.

–Erica Etelson

Danny Kennedy: Adam Smith Would Roll in His Grave

The Texas Oil Companies behind the Dirty Energy Prop seem to be up to some new tricks, including using Adam Smith’s name in vain! The latest news on this front is that their fundraising campaign is raising the federal government’s eyebrows. As reported here before, the campaign is desperate to save big oil’s bottom line, and their legally questionable tactics are proving it.

Read more of Danny’s latest post on SF Gate’s City Brights.

Truth is not the Test for Prop 23 Proponents

This made me laugh.

As I have said I want to keep you up-to-date on the battle to stop the dirty energy prop, so here’s this week’s best bit yet: Yesterday the Texas oil companies behind Prop 23 won a minor victory in the courts on the language used in November’s ballot to explain their job-killing initiative.

They changed some language like “major polluters” to “major sources of emissions” and other weasel words to try to downgrade how voters will understand Prop 23. And their lawyer actually said to the judge “truth is not the test” in summing up their argument.

But as Jane Warner, the head of American Lung Association, the smogbusters par excellence, said: ” Prop. 23 will result in more air pollution and kill hundreds of thousands of jobs and billions in economic investments.” I am with her – these polluters can’t hoodwink us. The truth will be the test on election day.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/dkennedy/index?blogid=175#ixzz0vgIs9pfG

Big Guns in the Wild West

Wild Bill Hickok and Sheriff Bullock prepare to install solar on roof of Gem Saloon

With Copenhagen already a fading memory and federal climate legislation officially dead, I had to dig pretty deep to find grounds for optimism.  Here it is:  The Western Climate Initiative (WCI) is forging ahead with its plan to create a carbon trading program across seven states and four Canadian provinces.  The cap, which will take effect in 2012, aims for a 15% reduction in carbon emissions by 2020.  The WCI’s economic modeling predicts net savings of $100 billion between 2012 and 2020 for participating states.

WCI member states in the US include Arizona, California, Montana, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah and Washington.  Some of these states, especially Montana, are pretty major coal producers.  It’s encouraging (here comes the optimistic part) to see states like Montana take leadership while their counterparts in Appalachia remain beholden to the coal lobby.

Climate activists hope that a cap and trade system among northeastern states will materialize and that the two programs will link, creating a huge system that will dominate the US economy and, potentially, force Congress to take action.  In the meantime, WCI mandates certainly bode well for the solar industry–as sunny southwestern states look for ways to curb their emissions, we’ll be awaiting their call.

–Erica Etelson