One of the Obama administrations top priorities is energy.  Beyond the priority of energy is the administration’s focus on conservation and green energy.  When you are able to conserve energy in a less costly and polluting way than doing nothing, simple logic and thriftyness would cry out to do so.  Fortunately the US governement offers tax credits and as part of the recent recovery act, federal grants to retrofit schools, goverment building and homes of the poorest to do just that. 

In Allegheny county PA, home to Pittsburgh, the county expects to spend an $8.1 million federal grant on energy effienciency and getting that information out to the citizenry.  A recent project at the Allegheny county jail spent $950,000 to replace 805 lights with new LED fixtures.  LEDs, which can last over 20 years use as little as of 1/10 the power of incandescent bulbs.  The county expects to save about $180,000 on electric fees each year, paying the project back in 6 years, roughly a 12% return on investment.

How many county jails, hospitals, offices, etc. can make these switches, eventually every single one.  Until pricing comes down, by about 75%, homeowners and landlords won’t be able to afford to make the move.

As we head toward Earth Hour here in the Americas, i’m asking why?  Why bother with an earth hour, why set it up for saturday night, local time, when most people are out socializing and enjoying their weekend.  The idea, is to “vote” for a fight against global warming by shutting off your lights for the hour .  While i’m all for consciousness raising and spreading the word, but these cute little events also tend to make people feel that they’ve done something hard, when they’re really done very little.

While i’m good with helping people take the first step, i think having a billion people sign petition/oath to strengthen the fight against global warming would be an incredible feat and would send a much louder message.  This earth hour gets “support” by abandoned buildings around the world not using power, while the lights that aren’t extinguished, most likely because they are controlled by timers or the available light will be judged as protests.   So whether you’re city is too bright or nice and dark, it’s won’t be easy to measure “the vote”.  30+ years ago, April 22nd was established as Earth Day as a way to raise conciousness and advocate for the environment.  Instead of finding more ways to make statements, how about something that focuses on making real, long term changes in the way we live.

Some of the best arguments against the US capping CO2 can be summed in a single word.  These words are: India, China, Brazil and Indonesia.  The long winded version of these arguments go something like this:

Even if the US and Europe cut emissions by 100% there are still 3+ billion people, half the world living in the in those countries and they are increasing their CO2 at a stagering pace.  The cost of “green energy” is so much higher than carbon based energy that these and other developing countries will chose the cheaper carbon choice.

So, what can be done about this?  Should we subsidize these developing countries so they go with green power? Should we give up?  The short answer is that we (North America, Europe, Japan, Korea) need to push for deployment and development of wind, sun and hydropower solutions at home, now.  We need to help reduce the cost of these technologies, by supporting this young industry. 

Yes, the old rules of the marketplace work here, the more solar and wind generation is deployed, the faster the cost of these power sources decline.  The early affect of Germany’s efforts to encourage solar and wind power has helped to both reduce the cost of solar panels and wind turbines with increased the demand for these technologies. Much in the way that VCRs, PCs, microchips and Flat Panels have dropped in pricing as a result of increased demand and sales, economies of scale and competition, solar and wind technologies have followed that model.  When the cost of these new technologies create power for less than the cost of fossil fuels, we’ll see developing countries choose green.

So if you want to keep the developing world from building 1000s of fossil fuel power plants, tens of millions of gas powered vehicles and 100s of millions of carbon burning homes, it’s best to encourage the developed world to increase the speed of green energy deployments here.  Let’s hope the US either leads the way, or follows germany’s lead.  Fortunately with the exit of the Bush administration, the US has gotten out of the way.

Yes that’s the claim of a study by BC Hydro in Canada reported to their utility commission that in some cases compact fluorescents (CFLs) can actually increase greenhouse gas emissions.  The report explains that because of the great inefficiency of incandescent light bulbs, they generate a great deal of heat in the average home.  In a cold climate the extra heat is appreciated, but when these old, inefficient bulbs are replaced with CFL, the more efficient bulbs don’t give off as much heat.  It turns out that this is enough of a heat loss that people turn up their heat and if it’s gas heat, it’s increasing the emission of CO2.

Unfortunately this headline and the way i’ve seen and heard in the media makes it sound as if the fluorescents will increase global warming, but in fact the study assumes that all BC electricity will be “green” said this:

By 2017, Hydro said, it anticipates efficient lighting could annually save 480 gigawatt hours of electricity.

However, Hydro also states that lighting regulations “will increase GHG emissions in Hydro’s service territory by 45,000 tonnes due to cross effects” of a switch to cool-burning bulbs.

well 480 gigawatts of coal fired power emits about 480,000 tons of CO2, from natural gas about 325,000 tons. The idea that this somehow is an overall negative is ridiculous, until all power is generated without CO2 emissions.  Even if BC was 100% green energy, do all the materials to build the dams, wind farms, nuclear reactors not count? Is having to build an extra nuclear plant really more greenhouse friendly than reducing inefficient lighting?

While it’s interesing to know that there is some emissions that will result from the loss of heat in cold weather, it’s just another factor in calculating overall greenhouse emissions.  Don’t stop changing those bulbs!