Green Business posts from the Daily Score blog - Sightline Daily

Big Wind, Small Town

Roger Valdez — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 12:03:47

There is a new project breaking ground in Grayland, Washington that vividly demonstrates how clean energy projects can directly benefit low income families in rural communities. Coastal Community Action Program (CCAP) is building a six megawatt, four turbine wind development that will go on line in June. And here is the important part: electricity generated by the windmills will be sold to Grays Harbor Public Utility District. The money it generates will support CCAP's ongoing services, like help with housing and food assistance for poor families.

Renewable energy projects, and even energy efficiencies, can sometimes get pegged in the media and by critics as fancy projects with no benefit to real working people. Take the discussion going on in Oregon about the Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) program. Critics say that the program benefits big business at the expense of poor families. We’ve already weighed in on ideas to improve BETC through a bill that’s now working its way through Oregon’s special legislative session (see our paper on BETC).

There is no question, as we point out, that BETC can be improved. But it has significantly helped Oregon take leadership in our region—and in the nation—on turning clean energy into jobs. Critics of BETC should consider what the Grays Harbor project means for Washington. Here’s what Craig Dublanko, CCAP’s Chief Finance Officer says about their wind project:

CCAP is excited about this project. Most people think of this as a renewable energy project but for us, it is social project, providing revenue to fund critical services for low income families in Pacific and Grays Harbor Counties.

Using a combination of state grant funding, New Market Tax Credits, and Renewable Energy Tax Credits, the Grays Harbor project will generate $500,000 in revenue every year for critical social services in a rural county. (The financing was put together by Shore Bank Enterprise Pacific Coast V, a partnership between Shore Bank Enterprise Cascadia, Wells Fargo Community Development Corporation, and the National Community Fund.) Remember, those tax credits mean that investors reduce their tax obligations to the federal government. The benefit for the investors is paying lower taxes. And that can be a very good thing when the public benefits as significant as they are with the project in Grays Harbor.

As I mentioned in an earlier post on BETC, I think tax credits are an important way to spur investment in clean energy at every level of the economy. It is a good idea.

On the other hand, some people worry that the system is being gamed, helping rich people avoid taxes while producing few public benefits. Sure, there are a few cases of tax credit projects having bad outcomes. But ending tax credit programs because a few projects aren’t perfect makes about as much sense as ending the food stamp program because there are a handful of instances of fraud by individuals. Instead, clean energy tax credits, like other policies, should be evaluated comprehensively on whether the benefits outweigh the costs.

The project in Grays Harbor – an area with an unemployment rate around 13 percent —is an excellent example of how investors can benefit by generating clean energy, creating green jobs, and mitigating the impact of a down economy for those struggling most. Critics of tax credit programs in general, and BETC specifically, should take a new approach. Rather than arguing to end or attenuate the program they should push for more projects like the one in Grays Harbor – projects that use clean energy to generate revenue for social services, new jobs, and shift local economies toward conservation rather than consumption.

If Only Hand Wringing Created Green Jobs

Roger Valdez — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 10:56:27

There have been a fair number of mainstream news articles expressing concern that the many promised green collar jobs created with stimulus funding are not appearing. These pieces often follow a certain hackneyed formula, citing a huge dollar figure from legislation passed earlier this year and then pointing to the fact that only a few workers have been hired. There are a number of problems with these reports that should cause readers to reserve their judgment on how the green jobs effort is going.

Let’s look at the latest worry fest over green-collar jobs at the New York Times (“Elusive Goal of Greening U.S. Energy”). The piece starts by questioning the very premise of green jobs, calling green jobs just a ‘mantra’ at one point but then, at the end, suggesting we’re not doing enough to create them. Using the Times piece as an example, I want to point out at least three things to keep in mind when reading any of these kinds of stories.

First, green collar jobs are going to come from more than just the renewable energy sector. This latest piece doesn’t define the clean energy jobs sector broadly enough, missing the potential from energy efficiencies (1.7 million potential jobs) entirely. As new approaches to providing efficiency develop, the prospect for workers is bright. In addition to being a more affordable way to create more green jobs, a recent study (Greener Pathways: Job and Workforce Development in the Clean Energy Economy) found that “energy efficiency not only offsets more greenhouse gas emissions than renewables and alternative fuels combined, it is a new energy strategy that generates significant numbers of domestic jobs.” So when reading critiques about the promise of green-collar jobs always consider whether the article accounts for the full scope of the potential of clean energy, from windmills to retrofits. The Greener Pathways report is full of useful data and charts like the one below on jobs in energy efficiency.

Second, nobody said that creating green-collar jobs would be easy or fast. As I wrote in a recent post, creating a clean-energy economy is perhaps one of the greatest challenges and opportunities the nation has faced in a generation. Creating jobs while reducing emissions, saving energy and preventing poverty in an economy with multiple split and perverse incentives is not going to take months, but years. But there are good projects getting started in our region and, as I suggested, it is better to get it right than get it right now.

Third, take a good look at our Green Jobs Messaging Guide and consider the storyline being taken by the article and the people being quoted. Is the story focused on a few jobs that didn’t get created in one sector in one town? Or does it focus on the broader data being collected? Critical stories are usually focused on things that haven’t happened rather than what has. That was my concern about the recent Oregonian article about the Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) program.

Finally, close scrutiny of projects and programs is really useful. I was reminded by someone from Alaska recently that although the Home Energy Rebate Program managed by the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation is a really good program, it may not be reaching many rural, off-road parts of the state that are in most need of retrofits. I loved the program model but it isn’t perfect. And learning from the weaknesses and shortcomings of a program is just as important as highlighting its strengths. We can learn from both failure and success as people work to advance the agenda of green jobs anchored in an economy that is focused on conserving energy, creating more sustainable sources of energy, and getting families and businesses off the fossil fuel roller coaster.

What is less helpful is looking at one or two programs that are struggling and calling green-collar jobs a ‘fad’ or a ‘mantra’ without careful analysis of the bigger picture. Furthermore, we know that the transition to better sources of energy is a long trip on sometimes unfamiliar pathways. The question we all should be asking is how do we get from here to there?

Blowing in the Wind

Roger Valdez — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 08:00:09

A recent article in The Oregonian (“Tax dollars blow away in wind projects”) tackles the Business Energy Tax Credit Program or BETC program in Oregon. The article by Ted Sickinger charges that the BETC program doesn’t influence where developers build wind farms. He also says those projects would have happened anyway because of the nature of regulation in the northwest pushing more renewable energy production. But this analysis doesn’t take into account green job growth in Oregon compared with other states, especially Oregon’s neighbor to the north, Washington.

Asking tough questions about whether BETC is really working is a good thing. But the article never really surfaces any strong evidence to support its headline. When judged on the green jobs it creates, BETC is a program that is worth keeping and improving.

Governments at every level face a conundrum when trying to intervene in a marketplace to stoke demand for more sustainable products. When a state, for example, creates a subsidy for wind power it forgoes actual tax revenue with the hope that the benefits—jobs, increased tax revenue and economic activity—exceeds the money not collected in taxes. Often these programs can be unfairly called “give aways.” The claim is that they only generate increased profits for a few at the expense of many people who face fewer services as state budgets shrink. The Oregonian article engages exactly this kind of criticism of BETC. But do the criticisms hold up?

It’s not perfect, but BETC isn’t simply a give-away. As I wrote earlierthis year, the BETC program could use some improvement by doing a better job of ensuring fairness. I suggested three improvements. One was attaching strings to the credits—like requiring that users of the credits create jobs with decent wages and provide health benefits for their workers—as a legitimate way of creating more public benefits from the program.

Unfortunately efforts to change BETC this year didn’t succeed because of disagreement between the Governor Kulongoski and the Oregon Legislature about how to address claims that the tax credits give too much away for not enough community benefit. So the program is still where it was a year ago.

But The Oregonian piece isn’t very persuasive as an indictment of the program. It relies largely on speculation that projects that happened (projects it doesn’t claim are bad projects) would have happened anyway—with our without state tax incentives. That is almost impossible to prove. Additionally, it argues that much of the benefit accrues to energy producers who sell their product on the grid to California. Why would that matter?

The implication is that all the energy created by BETC products should be used in Oregon. That argument doesn’t make sense. One big benefit to Oregon is certainly locally produced clean energy from winds blowing across the state. But so are the economic benefits from jobs and tax revenue created from a large thriving employer. Saying that exporting energy to California for a profit is a bad thing makes no more sense than saying exporting Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to California (or even Japan) is a bad thing; the benefits of the economic activity end up back in Oregon in both cases.

And what about jobs? According to the most recent update of its nationwide clean energy jobs study the Center for American Progress found that jobs in Oregon’s clean energy sector “grew by 50.7 percent between 1998 and 2007, while jobs overall grew by just 7.5 percent.” That’s compared with Washington, where growth in the sector was a meager 0.5 percent. Is that because Washington doesn’t have a BETC program? Again, that would be speculation—but it’s worth looking into.

A recent report by the Washington State University Extension Energy Program on jobs in the renewable sector called out

a concern expressed by several renewable employers [in Washington State] is that federal and some state policies regarding long-term incentives for renewables are not stable, which makes it difficult for new businesses to start up, and hard for existing companies to grow . . . businesses may be reluctant to add new employees, or invest in education and training needed to upgrade and expand the skills of incumbent workers.

Similar concerns are expressed in the Oregonian article by leaders in Washington; they wish they had a program like BETC.

Here is one final point. Governments subsidize all kinds of activities—roads, farming, manufacturing—for the same reason the BETC program tries to subsidize renewable energy: jobs. Jobs have been the calculus for big freeway projects in our region. Take the Columbia River Crossing project, for example, which would add more capacity for cars on Interstate 5. Anna Richter Taylor communications director for Governor Ted Kulongoski said about the River Crossing, "this is about a project that creates jobs -- it's key to a strong economy.” How many jobs? The claim is about 2500 jobs a year for ten years, all jobs that will go away when the project is completed.

A study by ECONorthwest found that in 2007 alone Oregon’s BETC program created 2084 new jobs, added more than $177 million to the economy, created more than $100 million in energy savings and reduced CO2 emissions in Oregon by 699,527 tons. All of this for about $60 million in tax credits and program expenditures compared to the more than $4 billion price tag attached to the bridge project.

So while the BETC program can be improved, the region’s political leadership needs to start shifting its priorities about what we support with tax dollars. Oregon has been a leader in clean energy because it has put policy and public dollars behind it in a way previously reserved for more unsustainable enterprises. That shouldn’t spare BETC from scrutiny, but the program deserves to be judged by the number and kinds of jobs created, not speculation about what might have happened if it didn’t exist.

How to Shop for a Green Baby

Anna Fahey — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 14:44:40

I guess I’ve known all along that introducing a baby into the family meant introducing a whole slew of stuff into our lives—much of it bulky, expensive, and—often—plastic.

But I'm fighting all the media and social cues to go on a shopping spree at Babies R Us. Instead, my husband and I decided to buy only one or two essential items new, like a state-of-the-art super-safe car seat. But, for the most part we’ve managed to “go green” as we’ve outfitted ourselves for pregnancy and parenthood—from used maternity clothes to garage sale furniture and non-material shower gifts. Our goal has been to reduce, reuse, and recycle—and to save money while we’re at it.

Here are three tricks that have worked for us:

Identify the real essentials. As a pregnant woman I’m constantly bombarded with advertisements about all the stuff I absolutely “must have” to welcome baby. (On a side note, how does every baby product retailer even know I’m pregnant? I guess it’s because I signed up for email updates about my pregnancy from popular websites, and because I write about being pregnant on Facebook and Gmail…Our “digital shadows” are bigger than our real selves sometimes.) It’s easy to get carried away buying all kinds of baby things you don’t really need. And frankly, babies don’t need much—especially at first. We have relied on Consumer Reports’ list of absolute newborn essentials to cut through all the clutter and determine a real list if essentials.

We’ve even scaled back from this list a bit by asking people we know with newborn babies exactly what they use and don’t use. But this is a great starting place—reassuring new parents that you don’t actually need 50 sleepers and 30 onesies, etc. Figure out what you really need and resist the urge to buy anything more (because you'll get more than you need at your shower anyway!)

Garage sales, EBay, Craigslist, thrift shops, and consignment. Babies don’t usually wear stuff out or even soil it irreparably—especially before they’re crawling or feeding themselves beets. (And pregnant women grow so fast they don't have time to wear stuff out either, for that matter) That’s why there’s a glut of perfectly good, gently-used baby stuff (and maternity wear) on the second-hand market. Along with hand-me-down stuff from friends, we scored most of the clothes we needed from thrift shops and consignment shops. Designer maternity jeans that would have cost nearly $100 were a steal for $15. An organic baby sling that had been recommended to us by close friends was easy to find—in perfect condition and for half the price—on Craigslist. And I felt like a good Samaritan buying it from a single mom who likely needed the money.

Some people love garage sales (I’m one of them); others loath sorting through piles of junk in hopes of finding one real treasure. To streamline your search, look for garage sale listings that help you pinpoint exactly what you’re seeking (sellers often list their major items or let you know they will be featuring lots of baby stuff, for example). That’s how we scored a nearly-new, perfectly safe, high-end crib for a fraction of the cost of a new one. In fact, we paid $100 for a crib that retails at nearly $700. I got to the sale early (yes, I was one of those people) and fended off the other pregnant women who were circling me and the crib like sharks until I could snap it up.

Many people sell entire lots of clothes on eBay—this may mean a little less choice, but buying in bulk cuts your shipping costs and gets you through a whole season of baby fashion needs without driving around town to multiple stores.

Finally, when you’re finished using this stuff, sell it. Consignment shops give you cash or credit. Craigslist works well for the big-ticket items. You rid yourself of excess stuff at the same time you recoup a little cash for the child’s next list of necessities—or for their college fund.

Alternative gift registry. The obligatory baby shower is a celebration of motherhood that, like Mother’s Day, has become more about buying stuff than anything else. Everybody will insist that you register for the gifts you want, but the standard registries lock you in to a consumerist trap. A great resource for expecting parents who want to direct their shower down a more sustainable path is New American Dream’s Alternative Gift Registry. This site makes it easy to ask for used gifts, hand-me-downs, gifts from local retailers, and non-material gifts like babysitting, a diaper service, and help when baby comes—like home cooking or grocery shopping for the new family.

After my shower, a dear family friend told me that shopping at the thrift store for baby clothes was the most fun she’s ever had looking for a shower present. She couldn’t believe the adorable items she found for dirt cheap. She ended up buying at least ten sweet little outfits for the same price she would have paid for one or two new ones. She was thrilled; I was thrilled.

All this takes a bit more time and effort, perhaps, than a few trips to a big box store. And of course buying used items means that you have to be even more vigilant about safety concerns and checking for toxins or synthetic materials you want to avoid. But it beats paying full price and starting your baby’s life off by adding to the consumer waste in the world he or she will inherit.

If you have ideas for green baby shopping (or avoiding shopping in the first place), send them our way.

Image courtesy: Joe Shlabotnik, Flickr.com.

The US Chamber's Achy Breaky Heart

Anna Fahey — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 14:27:10

There have been a couple new developments since I last wrote about the US Chamber of Commerce and its whacked out stance on climate change (basically, denial and roadblocking important legislation):

First, Nike stepped down from the Chamber board of directors while keeping its membership in the group.

Second, Apple split with the Chamber.

And as Grist points out, the Chamber has tried to do damage control, without changing its opposition to clean-energy legislation. And, the New York Times editorial page pronounced that “no organization in this country has done more to undermine [climate] legislation.”

Furthermore, hundreds of business executives descended on Washington this week in support of a clean energy economy, including Starbucks, HP, Ebay, Duke Energy, Levi Strauss, Cliff Bar, Avista, Exelon, PG&E and many others. Calling for investment in American jobs instead of global warming pollution, the CEOs participating in the Business Advocacy Day for Jobs & Competitiveness -- an effort organized by the new We Can Lead coalition -- are telling the Senate to take action with strong climate legislation like the Clean Energy Jobs Act introduced last week by Sens. John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA).

So, our question remains...Which Northwest company will be the next to step up and condemn the Chamber's heavy-duty lobbying against smart climate and energy policy? Lobbying being done in members' names?

Ahem, Microsoft...? Grist's Jonathan Hiskes met with Microsoft’s chief environmental strategist, Rob Bernard.

Microsoft has never been considered an environmental leader, but it’s got a decent climate policy on paper. It opened an energy-efficient data center this summer that could lead to significant energy savings, particularly if the company finds ways to use the innovations in larger server labs.

Given all this, why is Microsoft a Chamber member? Bernard told me Microsoft takes climate change very seriously and tried to distance the company from the Chamber’s climate shenanigans. “The views expressed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce do not reflect Microsoft’s position on climate change and we are not participating in their climate initiatives,” he said in a followup email.

Kudos to Hiskes for asking the tough questions. I would think Microsoft employees would be asking those too--or employees at Amazon, Boeing, or Costco for that matter.

Meanwhile, as part of SEIU’s ongoing campaign to shed light on the extreme positions of the US Chamber of Commerce, they put together this video highlighting the recent high-profile exodus for the Chamber’s "backwards position on climate change."

We'd like to see some Northwest business leaders willing to leave the Chamber with an achy breaky heart too.

Choke on This: CO2 is Green

Anna Fahey — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 14:58:50

Right! And toxic sludge is good for you. And coal is clean. And unicorns are real. And cigarettes don’t cause cancer. And pigs can fly.

We’ve heard it before. Denying climate science has been a tactic all along to stall action on climate and energy. But now there seems to be some muscle—or at least some money—behind a campaign called “CO2 is Green,” which has launched an advertising push attempting to undermine not only the US Environmental Protection Agency's recent ruling that CO2 should now be classified as a pollutant, but, also—and more immediately dangerous—to derail the forthcoming vote in the Senate on the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill.

According to Guardian.co.uk, a former oil industry executive has stumped up some of his cash to pay for television advertisements to be shown in Montana and New Mexico. Here’s the transcript of the ad (see it on YouTube):

Congress is considering a law that would classify carbon dioxide as pollution. This will cost us jobs. There is no scientific evidence that CO2 is a pollutant. In fact, higher CO2 levels than we have today would help the earth's ecosystems and would support more plant and animal life. Please take action. Contact your senator and congressman today and remind them CO2 is not pollution and more CO2 results in a greener earth. Go to CO2isgreen.com, because we all need CO2.

We all need CO2. It's true. It's the quantities that matter.

So, why Montana and New Mexico? The ads urge voters to contact Montana’s Senator Max Baucus, the Finance Committee chairman and the second-most-senior Democrat on the Environment and Public Works Committee. Baucus is in a uniquely powerful position on climate issues and in past has backed bills to cap emissions and allow companies to trade pollution allowances. New Mexico is home to Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee Chairman Jeff Bingaman (D). A half-page ad by CO2 is Green ran in Monday's Washington Post.

The group's founder, H. Leighton Steward, says that higher carbon dioxide levels would spur more growth of plants and trees. But he’s no biologist. He’s the former vice chairman of Burlington Resources, a Houston-based oil and gas company bought by ConocoPhillips in 2006, received more than $600,000 in fees, stock and options for being a director of another oil firm, EOG Resources. He received the American Petroleum Institute's Gold Medal for Distinguished Achievement in 2001 and remains an honorary director of the oil industry lobby group. “I'm not getting a penny for this,” said Steward, who has reported he owned oil company stocks but no coal stocks. “It's just something I thought people should know.”

Uh huh.

According to the Washington Post, Steward (the name itself is rife with irony) has joined forces with Corbin J. Robertson Jr., chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources that lets other companies mine in return for royalties. Its revenues were $291 million in 2008. They have formed two groups -- CO2 Is Green designated for advocacy and Plants Need CO2 for "education"—with about $1 million. (They are trying to establish legal charity status for Plants Need CO2.)

The Guardian’s Leo Hickman, points out that the ads are ripe for spoofing, but there’s a catch :

It's certainly tempting to laugh it off. (For extra merriment, visit the "CO2 is green" website and read the “Why do people believe these myths?” section: "They have been misinformed by people that benefit financially from propagating the myth." Oh, the irony.) But the advert is also a juddering reminder there are still powerful, influential forces straining every last sinew and dollar they possess to deny that rising CO2 levels are a problem. That such efforts should so easily be traced back to oil industry operatives is not wholly surprising, but sobering nonetheless.

It is funny -- in that depressing kind of way. So, if you laughed at first but now you’re choking on all this like I am, here’s some medicine to help you feel better…

Earlier this month, Duke Energy, Alcoa and Alstom all pulled out of the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, an industry group whose ads have asserted that the House climate bill would make energy unaffordable. "We thought [the bill] had evolved in ways to be affordable for our customers," said Duke spokesman Tom Williams.

And, as I wrote late last week, a group of large corporations -- including New Mexico utility PNM Resources, California utility PG&E, power generator Exelon and Nike -- have all denounced the US Chamber of Commerce's opposition to climate legislation.

So, there is true green out there in the corporate world. Bright green, in fact. The oil lobby ads just remind us that some “green” looks a lot like slime.

Let's just hope voters in New Mexico, Montana, and elsewhere can smell the difference.

Image courtesy of boardwalker, Flickr.com.

Is Breaking Up So Hard to Do?

Anna Fahey — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 10:42:58

I wrote recently about the US Chamber of Commerce and its troubling stance on global climate change--not to mention its lobbying efforts to thwart national energy policy. (You may recall they were asking for a national-level courtroom hearing in the style of the Scopes trial of 1925 to weigh the merits of climate science.) I also asked which Northwest companies would rise to the occasion and break off ties with the Chamber. After all, membership (and silence) in this context can be read--by the Chamber and by policymakers alike--as a sign of agreement with the organization's politics.

Oregon’s Nike already publicly broke with the Chamber for this very reason. Nothing from Microsoft or Amazon yet. But a few others are peeling away. Just this week, New Mexico's largest utility made the break:

The Public Service Company of New Mexico (PNM) is dropping its membership in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce over the business group's stance on climate change. Earlier this week, PNM criticized the Chamber of Commerce, saying, "We believe the science is compelling enough to act sooner rather than later, and we support comprehensive federal legislation to meaningfully reduce greenhouse gas emissions and protect customers against unreasonable cost increases."

See, that wasn't so hard!

And, closer to our neck of the woods, San Francisco-based PG&E recently broke away as well. From the Washington Post:

Pacific Gas and Electric, a large California utility, said Tuesday that it is pulling out of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce because it disagrees with the chamber's aggressive opposition to climate-change legislation...Chief executive Peter Darbee had written a letter criticizing the chamber's recent demands that the Environmental Protection Agency hold a "Scopes Monkey Trial" to prove the science behind climate change.
"We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored," Darbee wrote.

And they say breaking up is hard to do. Not if the relationship is an abusive one -- or if boorish politics can no longer be tolerated. Don't you already feel that sense of relief?

That's two big western utilities in a matter of days. Now, the question is, who's next?

Jury's Out on Climate Politics of Northwest Businesses

Anna Fahey — Tue, 08 Sep 2009 10:43:58

Just as Verizon takes some heat for sponsoring an anti-Waxman-Markey rally (and concert) in West Virginia, Sightline asks where Northwest businesses stand when it comes to public policy to curb climate change--on the sidelines or in the game.

Our op-ed appeared in the Puget Sound Business Journal last week. Here it is in a nutshell.

The nation’s largest business lobby, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has asked the Environmental Protection Agency to hold public hearings on climate science. Chamber officials say it would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century,” complete with witnesses, cross-examinations and a judge who, ostensibly, would rule on whether humans are contributing to dangerous climate changes.

The fact is, the scientific “trial” is long over.

But there is another trial worth conducting, over whether the chamber actually speaks for American business.

Will the chamber’s 3 million business members go along with this stale and politically motivated attack on science? In this national courtroom, will Northwest members of the chamber—Boeing, Microsoft, Amazon, and others — stand up to the public’s cross-examination?

The national chamber has long campaigned against President Barack Obama’s climate and clean-energy policies. For this reason, a few leading members, including Oregon’s Nike, have publicly broken with the association. Others remain silent. Despite strong corporate positions on the need to address climate change and efforts to green their business practices and products, most of our homegrown industry giants are keeping mum in the political arena—where it matters most.

Standing on the sidelines of the debate in state legislatures and in Congress—and in the court of public opinion—can be as damaging as standing in the way.

Click here to read the whole thing.

My Fridge Could Power the World

Jennifer Langston — Mon, 24 Aug 2009 10:30:05

According to two news stories today, the contents of my fridge -- a six-pack, open bottles of wine, dregs from last week's farmers' market and leftover stir-fry -- might help power my house some day.

As the Los Angeles Times reports, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur has invented a system that makes ethanol out of old beer, wine and other waste kitchen products. My favorite part: the still doubles as a fuel pump for your car!

Also in the Bay Area, a pilot program is using leftovers to make electricity. Food scraps from 2,300 restaurants and grocery stores are collected and pumped into tanks at a local wastewater treatment plant, where microbes do their stuff. The decomposing food releases methane, which is used to make electricity. (A catch: Forks, oysters, and plastic bags are big problems.)

But since I don't eat out that much, I was more interested in the beer-to-energy solution.

I can't personally vouch for this system, and the Times points out that there's only one of them in existence. But the E Fuel MicroFueler (invented by the same guy who developed part of the Nintendo Wii gaming system) apparently turns high-alcohol organic feedstock -- such as old wine and beer -- into ethanol.

It's being marketed to homeowners, but even all the booze in my fridge wouldn't get me very far. That's where the commercial brewers, soda and candy companies come in. In San Diego, the distributor of MicroFuelers is working with Karl Strauss Brewing Co., Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. and Sunny Delight Beverages Co. to convert 29,000 tons of their liquid waste. The idea is that a truck would pick up their dregs in volume and deliver them to home-based MicroFuelers, who would then generate ethanol at their homes.

The systems cost $10,000 but, implausibly, there's a $5,000 federal tax credit available to anyone who buys one. Along with a $2 per-gallon charge to pump out the ethanol, the company estimates the average payback time for the MicroFueler would be two years. And the end product could be used to power cars (albeit less efficiently than gasoline) or a home generator.

It does seem a little too good to be true, but it would be nice to find a higher calling for the bad bottles of wine I never remember to return.

Check out the rest of the Northwest's top 10 sustainability headlines at Sightline Daily, or get the news delivered via email each morning by clicking here. All of today's news can be found here.

Photo courtesy of flickr user add1sun via the Creative Commons license

Appliance Efficiencies Are Hot Hot Hot

Roger Valdez — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 15:04:43

The Northwest is currently undergoing another jag of “extreme weather” to complement the huge snowfalls of last winter. All of this has prompted many people to seek air conditioned relief or simply hide in their basements. Perhaps some desperate souls are huddled by their refrigerators. It’s definitely not an efficient use of the fridge, but 103 degrees is hot, hot, hot. Luckily, many of the appliances we use to keep ourselves or our food cold are regulated for energy efficiency.

And, this summer, the Department of Energy (DOE) is engaged in a new review of many appliance categories that will continue through 2011. It will likely result in higher efficiency standards for our big household appliances. This review process is partially in response to a lawsuit a few years back that charged that the Department of Energy had failed to do its duty under federal laws passed in 1975 and 2005 to review and update appliance energy standards.

These standards are an important part of reducing energy costs while cutting climate changing emissions. In fact, Earthjustice says that adopting the most stringent standards in this review “would cut emissions of more than 150 million metric tons of global warming gases each year, eliminate the need for 200 new power plants and save consumers $16 billion a year by 2030.” They are running a campaign this summer urging people to contact the DOE and insist these standards be adopted before the first deadline in August.

My interests in appliance efficiencies have to do with appliances in multi-unit housing. The problem of split incentives means that neither landlords nor property owners have much incentive to change out older appliances for newer more efficient ones because the owners, don’t pay the monthly energy bill and the renters don’t own the appliances.

So, I ran a little test here in the Sightline offices that gave me a chance to hang out by the refrigerator. We have a beautiful late 20th century Kelvinator, (I'm not the first to "test" the Kelvinator) model number MRT18CSCW. It’s a stunning piece of equipment and although its a decade old it gets the job done. But is it efficient?

Judging from a quick run through at the ENGERGY STAR website Sightline could save $150 dollars a year if we were to replace our refrigerator. Not much really. But still it would save some money and maybe the planet, right?

Well, I followed the links to products that were energy efficient. The cheapest fridge that meets the current efficiency standers runs about $600 plus tax. At our rate of savings, assuming the costs are constant, it would take us 5 years to make back the cost of the new fridge. Now if Waxman-Markey passes the Senate, our savings might increase as fossil fuel prices rise. But here in the Northwest our energy is so cheap it still wouldn’t save us much.

But a recent study by Mckinsey shows that savings from efficiencies could be big. The New York Times says that based on the report “an investment of $520 billion in improvements like sealing ducts and replacing inefficient appliances could produce $1.2 trillion in savings on energy bills through 2020.” So added all together these improvements will matter a lot nationwide.

And locally there are programs like Oregon’s efforts to encourage appliance replacement in multi-unit family homes by providing a tax credit for business owners under the Business Energy Tax Credit (BETC) program. Unfortunately the BETC faced significant cuts by the legislature this last session--a step in the wrong direction.

More incentives like BETC’s appliance program to start retiring older, less efficient appliances is the right way to go because, if the McKinsey study is right, many residents of multi-unit housing would reap a share of those $1.2 trillion in savings. These efficiencies and incentives are also an important complimentary policy to any cap and trade program, ensuring both reduced CO2 and a fair distribution of the costs and savings among well-off and struggling families alike. Individual action can matter but cap and trade legislation, which provides for massive changes in energy efficiency, and programs like BETC have the biggest positive impacts.

Now I am headed back to the refrigerator to do some more “research.”

Update 7/30/2009: Alan informed me that we don't pay our utilities directly, so we really wouldn't even save $150 per year. Let us know, in the comments section, about your appliance and efficiency stories. Have you audited your own appliances? Have you replaced them? Has it made a difference?

Riding the Bus...'Cause Julie's Cool

Lisa Stiffler — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 10:06:35

If you want to get folks to cut their energy use, you don't necessarily have to raise rates or hand out fluorescent light bulbs. Just let them know how much juice the Joneses are using. An article in the Atlantic Monthly reports that giving utility customers information on how much power they used compared to their neighbors drives down consumption.

The strategy was devised by Robert Cialdini, a social psychologist from Arizona State University and expert in tweaking human behavior through what he calls "peer information" (as opposed to peer pressure).

A company called Positive Energy, at which Cialdini is the chief scientist, has created software that measures energy usage by neighborhood. Here's how it's used:

Results are sent to consumers on behalf of their local utility, praising you with a row of smiley faces (you’ve used 58 percent less electricity than your neighbors this month!) or damning you with none (you used 39 percent more electricity than your neighbors in the past 12 months, and it cost you $741 extra).

In Positive Energy’s reports, a once-intangible bit of social information—how much energy you use relative to your neighbors—is made tangible. Now you can find out not just what people in the same city are doing, but what people in your neighborhood, living in the same-size houses, are doing...

The approach was tested in Sacramento. How'd it work?

... Positive Energy began its pilot program with the Sacramento Municipal Utility District in 2008, people who received personalized “compared with your neighbors” data on their statements reduced their energy use by more than 2 percent over the course of a year. In energyspeak, a 2 percent reduction is huge; with the pilot sample of 35,000 homes, it’s the equivalent of taking 700 homes off the grid.

The research made me think of my own experience with riding the bus. It's something I never really did growing up or when at college. I don't love driving, but it's what I've always done. Then a colleague named Julie at the Seattle P-I mentioned that she took the bus. I liked Julie. She lived not too far from my house, was a smart, cool girl, and was a reporter like me.

It made me rethink my no-to-buses policy, and after not too long I started taking the bus -- not every day, but when it fit with my reporting duties. I found that I liked the time to read, and that the bus was consistently on schedule. I made reference to bus riding to other colleagues when I got the chance, trying to spread the faith, Cialdini-style. I'm not sure if I got many converts, but I'm still working on it.

And some Washington residents will be getting a chance to get Positive Energy feedback; the Atlantic article said that their services are coming to the state. I've contacted the company for more information and will update this post when I get a response.

Light bulb photo courtesy of Flickr user Impala74 under the Creative Commons license.

OR's Green-Collar Jobs, Defined and Counted

Jennifer Langston — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 10:33:20

Oregon has released its study of the state’s green-collar jobs. The results are strikingly similar to Washington’s, and given how many different ways there are to define and count green-collar jobs, it’s nice to see multiple studies begin to confirm what appear to be regional trends.

The Oregon Employment Department found 51,402 green jobs in the state in 2008, based on a survey of both public and private employers. The construction industry accounted for 17 percent of the state’s green jobs, and the most common occupations were carpenters, farm workers, truck drivers, hazardous materials workers and landscapers. Overall, green jobs made up 3 percent of Oregon’s total employment, or about the same number of people working in the state’s private hospitals. (A study in Washington found 47,194 green jobs, with farm workers, electricians, construction laborers and carpenters topping the list.)

As in Washington, the greatest number of “green” jobs were actually what we’d traditionally think of as blue-collar, but with a sustainable edge. And many pay well, with at least 64 percent earning more than the state’s median wage.

So what sorts of jobs did industries self-report as "green"? Carpenters working on home weatherization, an herbsman at an organic dairy, truck drivers for compost and biomass companies, asbestos removal workers, a crew leader doing riparian restoration, an auto parts dismantler at a salvage yard, sorter at a recycling plant, people who sell solar panels, retail clerk at an organic nursery, technicians monitoring salmon and firefighters removing hazardous fuels.

This helps explain a question we had: How could Oregon, with its smaller population, have produced even more green jobs than Washington? Is the state really that much better at it?

(A recent national study with an entirely different methodology pegged Oregon as the country’s leader in creating green jobs.) In this case too, the numbers are likely explained by slight differences in the way the two studies were structured, according to Nick Beleiciks, an Oregon state economic analyst and author of the study. Though the approaches were similar, Oregon used a broader definition of a green job:

One that provides a service or product in any of the following categories: Increasing energy efficiency; producing renewable energy; preventing, reducing or mitigating environmental degradation; cleaning up and restoring the natural environment and providing education, consulting, policy promotion, acceleration, trading and offsets, or similar services.

Washington left out the last catch-all category and defined a green employee as someone who “worked in any of these core areas as their primary job function.”

Oregon also sent the survey to a broader group of industries, including government employers, not just the “green” ones that Washington’s study targeted. Some industries that reported having green jobs are a little surprising – the arts, food prep, protective service. It's fair to question, as some have done, what kind of green jobs should qualify to receive the benefit of federal stimulus money and other perks: a security guard in an energy-efficient building? Someone who drives a hybrid bus? In this case, though, Oregon decided to let individual companies make the call about how many of their employees fit the definition:

We realize our definition is broad, leaving room for interpretation from each respondent. However, we felt that part of measuring what is green is capturing public sentiment and counting jobs which the public views as green.

Oregon has also compiled good information about the educational and licensing requirements for its green jobs (nearly two-thirds require no education beyond high school), which is useful information for anyone trying to design community college curricula or apprenticeship and training programs.

Finally, most industries say they expect to add more green jobs in the coming years, with an estimated growth rate of 14 percent from 2008 to 2010. (Exceptions that any recent college graduate might want to avoid include sales, office support and arts/design/entertainment/sports/media.) In a state that’s experienced staggering job losses, the report ends in a bright spot: the pace of growth for green jobs in Oregon is expected to be much faster than overall employment.

Photo courtesy flickr user of greenforall.org via the Creative Commons license.

Gov. Gregoire Plugs Green Jobs, Climate Cap

Lisa Stiffler — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 16:24:53

Gov. Chris Gregoire touted Washington's increasing numbers of green jobs and expanding use of renewable energy before a Senate committee on Tuesday. She urged lawmakers to pass climate change legislation, taking pains to spell out the link between new jobs and clean energy.

In testimony before the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works plus the Subcommittee on Green Jobs and the New Economy she described the state's approach:

"Our energy strategy is a job creation strategy. In 2007, when we adopted a set of climate change goals related to reduced greenhouse gas emissions and reduced fuel use, we also set a goal to triple the number of green jobs we had in the state – to reach 25,000 green jobs by 2020. Less than two years later, we can point to 47,000 green jobs right now. Our green jobs are growing much faster than predicted."

And she said she's not alone.

Gregoire submitted to the committee a policy from the Western Governors, including state leaders from 19 western states and three western territories, that urges Congress and President Obama to:

"...act decisively to create a national policy to that reduces greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that is both consistent with the findings of scientific research and encourages job growth, innovation, and entrepreneurship."

She went on to describe in some detail the benefit of using apprenticeship programs to grow a workforce skilled in green-collar jobs related to energy efficiency. It's great to see sound, concrete strategies being promoted by the Gov as examples for others around the country to follow.

There are justifiable concerns that a lot of money is being thrown at projects to improve efficiency through residential weatherization and retrofits, with a shortage of workers ready to do the job. Apprentice programs, particularly those with unions representing electricians, pipe fitters, and sheet metal workers, offer a smart route to workers with the know-how to get the job done right.

Gov. Chris Gregoire photo courtesy of Flickr user Washington State Department of Transportation under the Creative Commons license.

Is China Winning the Clean Energy Race?

Anna Fahey — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 09:12:06

The days when emissions levels and energy policies in China and India were held up as excuses by the rest of the world's economic leaders for doing nothing about climate and energy seem to be over--almost. (Some reasons why the China argument doesn’t pan out, here, here, and here – and here are some compelling reasons why climate solutions can be a boon to the economy rather than a strain.)

Today, in global talks, in the Senate, on the street, you still hear a murmur here and there about "not doing anything until India and China sign on." And this previously pervasive attitude, however obsolete, may already be coming back to bite the long-industrialized nations of the West. Indeed, the big honchos in the West may find themselves borrowing and begging for new technologies that China has been busy perfecting all along.

Or maybe we'll just be sulking about the fact that China's economy is happily unhitched from the fossil fuel rollercoaster long before ours...

Could it be that China is winning the clean energy race? Here are some tidbits gathered by MicCheck Radio and Sightline that make the case:

Yes, it's true. "China recently passed the United States as the biggest emitter of greenhouse gas emissions and together the two countries account for 42 percent of the world's emissions." [Reuters]
Also: Coal accounts for almost 80 percent of electricity generation in China, compared to about 49 percent in the United States. [Reuters]
However, China may be pulling ahead in the global clean-energy race, thanks to "lagging US policies, which will leave the United States at a disadvantage in the next big industry." [Wall Street Journal]
AND...China invested $12 billion in renewable energy in 2007, placing second in the world in absolute dollars spent, just behind Germany. Indian government revealed that it would provide $100 billion in subsidies over 20 years to utilities for buying solar-generated power. President Obama made a campaign pledge to spend $15 billion promoting clean energy, "a promise that has been gutted by the horse-trading in the Congressional fight over the [energy and] climate bill." [Wall Street Journal] Canada’s Economic Action Plan establishes a $1 billion Clean Energy Fund -- there may be other Canadian clean-energy investments that I'm not aware of.
China is expected to unveil an extensive and unprecedented stimulus package (reported to be in the range of $440 billion to $660 billion) dedicated entirely to new energy development over the next decade. As part of the Recovery Act, the Obama administration is investing $80 billion to support clean-energy solutions.
Overall, China’s goal is to generate 10 percent of its electricity with renewable sources of energy by 2010, and 15 percent by 2020. [China Daily, Celsias]
China’s total wind energy capacity doubled in each of the past four years. This year it will surpass the US as the largest installer of new wind capacity. (Only one of the top five wind-turbine companies in the US is actually American--it’s GE).
Finally...China is expected to build the equivalent of the entire US building stock in the next 15 years, making it a tremendous "laboratory" for energy efficient building designs and technology. [Reuters]

Some promising news: China and the United States recently announced a joint project to develop a clean energy research center. With initial financing of $15 million and headquarters in both countries, the center will focus on coal, clean buildings, and efficient vehicles, US Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced yesterday. Still, the race is on!

As Washington's former governor, US Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, put it, "The Chinese are taking unprecedented action. They are a model for developing countries around the world." But maybe they're also a model for the developed countries.

Venture capitalist John Doerr, testifying before the US Senate, put it this way, referring to America’s place in the clean-energy race, “We barely got a dog in the fight, we’re barely in the game right now.”

Image courtesy: Elizabeth Thomsen, flicker.com.

Fine Tuning the Weatherization Machine

Roger Valdez — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 14:11:51

Federal stimulus funding has allocated more dollars to support the goals of low income weatherization programs and create green jobs. Agencies in the Northwest now have to figure out the most effective way to mobilize those resources to meet those goals.

To learn more about how the dollars are affecting the work of community action agencies in the region I spoke with Chuck Eberdt of the Opportunity Council in Bellingham and Rand Berke of the Community Action Program of Oregon, a community action agency in Salem. Neither Eberdt or Berke come across as pessimists about their programs or the stimulus money. Instead they both talk about these challenges like the professionals that they are; looking under the hood thinking about ways to make it run better.

Both Eberdt and Berke are looking for ways to fix the bottleneck created with the doubling of funds in their budgets and a short time to spend the money. As an article in today’s New York Times agencies are scrambling to ensure funds intended to support more production and more savings for low income families get where they are needed most.

The stimulus dollars have created one of the biggest challenges programs have ever faced. Demand for retrofits for low income families remains as high as ever but there’s a new wrinkle for decades-old weatherization programs to iron out: expectations for green job creation have introduced some new demands to an already full work load.

The Weatherization Assistance Program is a Department of Energy program that has focused for 32 years on creating permanent energy saving for low income families by making improvements to their homes that save energy—and money. Funds are allocated to the program by Congress to states which in turn allocate to local community action agencies that implement the retrofits themselves or through contractors.

Additional funding via the economic stimulus plan, while welcome, has created some unexpected challenges, according to Eberdt: “The excitement over these funds has led to a very high expectation on the part of the general public for the number of jobs that will be created.” Eberdt estimates that 300 jobs related to audits, inspections and installers will be created over the next 3 years.

But there’s another wrinkle. Who will train the new workers? Some training needs could be met in Washington State by provisions of Senate Bill 5649, legislation that funds training workers to retrofit commercial buildings and homes. Federal weatherization money can only be spent to train workers to do weatherization work. And there isn’t enough time or resources to fully train the number of workers to deal with existing demand for weatherization. Time and money taken to train workers means a slow-down on jobs that are already in the pipeline.

Also many sub-contractors are looking for longer term, big dollar projects. Weatherization projects tend to be smaller and short term.

Perhaps the biggest issue comes from the well-intentioned requirement to include all workers paid with stimulus funds to fall under the requirements of the Davis-Bacon Act. Davis-Bacon is a depression era law that was intended to ensure that workers on publicly funded projects get paid a wage commensurate with the kind of work they do and where they do it. The law was intended to prevent skilled workers being forced to take lower wages because they have no other choice. Davis-Bacon defines different types of work and sets the wages for that work.

“One of our biggest challenges is the Davis-Bacon requirements,” says Berke. “The additional wages are an issue but an even bigger problem is all the layers of reporting required by the new requirements.” And construction work and retrofitting work are similar but not the same. To an outsider, both workers might be wearing hard hats and steel toed boots, but the nature of the work is different enough that retrofitting work does not fit into the standard Davis-Bacon compliance requirements. Davis-Bacon’s construction-oriented classifications haven’t caught up with the nature of the work involved in weatherization.

Now, in spite of early “ramp up” funding from the Feds community action agencies are faced with the challenge of putting the new money in the field with fewer trained workers than they need and many new requirements created by Davis-Bacon.

The community action programs see their goal as an economic one, creating the opportunity for low income families to avoid a “heat or eat” dilemma in the winter time. But agencies also see their work as a social justice calling, entirely consistent with the spirit of Davis-Bacon.

Berke described the “larger benefit of social justice, creating a greater awareness of the benefits of energy efficiency.” For most in the field the focus is about being sure that what is happening with higher income households—cleaner energy, retrofits and lower bills—also happens in lower income households.

Unfortunately the well-intentioned inclusion of Davis-Bacon requirements seem to pit two economic and social justice policies against one another.

Next week many weatherization professionals will be convening in Indianapolis to discuss these issues and come up with some workable solutions.

Update July 28, 2009: An article in today's Missoulian confirms that Davis-Bacon issues are also affecting spending of stimulus dollars on retrofits in Montana. Nevertheless, like all Community Action agencies Montana's are pragmatic: “Our goal is to spend (the stimulus money) quickly and then see if other states aren't spending theirs,” he said. “Hopefully, we'll get money from states that aren't spending their money.”