Op-ed Series - Scott Sklar: What is all this "Green" stuff, and does it matter to me?

Comment: Everyone should reduce the amount of electricity we use every day, therefore, we will not have to hear the Power Companies crying for new Coal and Nuclear Plants! If you want, a big house and you can afford the McMansion put in solar and wind power! We all need to go off the grind! If we all go off the grind, No more Blowing up Mountains and open pit uranium mining or we will know the real facts about our government, they are just ruining our world for greed!

July 2, 12:02 PM · Matt Roberts - DC Green Business Examiner

Scott Sklar, President, The Stella Group, Ltd.This article is next in the continuing summer op-ed series which asks leaders in the renewable energy and sustainability industries to speak about where we are today, and where we will be going tomorrow.

By: Scott Sklar, President, The Stella Group, Ltd.

In August of 1993, without anyone’s knowledge, a tree limb fell in Ohio which knocked out the electric power in 12 States and parts of Canada. Electricity outages ranged from days to weeks for millions of people. In August 2005, Hurricane Katrina hit the southeast and knocked the electric grid and natural gas pipelines down in six states from Florida to Texas. Intense weather patterns tied to an aging electric and natural gas utility network and the result is outages, higher costs, and loss of reliability.

While American’s fixate on the upward and downward trends of gasoline, the same is true for natural gas. Uranium and coal costs have also increased significantly, and State electricity regulators have been slowly allowing electricity rates to reflect the ‘real’ price of fuels. Maryland and Virginia have seen electricity prices spiral upward and no one thinks it will abate. In fact, if the region’s electrical utilities have their way – upgrading transmission and distribution lines along with substations – and then adding new electric generation plants – whose billions of dollars of new costs will have to be embedded in the electric rates by all customers for decades to come.

Not only do we face increasing power costs for our homes and businesses but we must pay for the lack of reliability and electric power quality ourselves. According to an Environmental Defense Fund report, stationary diesel engines are used in many applications including: compressors, back-up electricity generators, and to power pumps. There are more than 900,000 of these engines in-use nationwide and at the same time, the exhaust they emit is among the most dangerous and pervasive sources of air pollution. The US market for UPS and other backup power systems has grown over seven percent annually through 2005 with a $6.5 billion US uninterruptible power supply industry in 2007 in the US alone.

I am here to tell you what you know already, and I will be willing to proclaim it on a stack of bibles – “electricity and natural gas costs will go up, not down, in your lifetime”.

Energy efficiency is the fastest, most cost-effective and quickest payback set of applications, you as a business owner or homeowner or renter, can do. For quality lighting, aside from compact flourescents, lighting timers, you can also move to LED lighting and solar light tubes and daylighting. Nearly a third of your energy is for lighting and it is the easiest to address. Make a visit to area specialty stores AmicusGreen in Kensington or EcoBeco in Silver Spring, or jump on the web to area vendors www.betterbulb.com or www.huvco.com or www.newtech.com.

Maybe you don’t know what to do, call in an energy audit for a low cost review. You can reach them at the stores above or contact TerraLogos in Maryland. They’ll also recommend water saving shower heads, programmable thermostats, and caulking.

Cut your energy loads and vampire losses – insulate your walls. your water heater tank and your attic. Replacement windows should be triple pane with lowE coatings and thermal barrier paints should be added in unimproved attics. Photovoltaic attic vent fans should be used in summer and ceiling fans in both summer and winter to improve comfort but seriously lower heating and cooling bills. Did you ever ponder that we heat the top third of the rooms in buildings while we spend most of our time in the bottom third? Ceiling fans at slow speeds drive the warmth downward in winter and at higher speeds move and cool the air in summer. Put chargers for power tools, cell phones, PDAs, toys, and appliances with remotes on power strips with switches. Vampire losses use ten percent of our nation’s electricity while drawing electric power for NO reason. So turn them off when you don’t need them – from the TV in your guest room to the chargers for your cell phone in the kitchen – they draw power when not in use.

And finally, reacquaint yourself with EnergyStar appliances – washers and dryers, refrigerators, and air-conditioners use mucho power. My new high efficiency washing machine not only uses 67% less electricity than a standard washer, but 40 percent of the water of a regular washer at its lowest setting. I save electricity and water – and here in Arlington County, that’s big money.

Once you’ve shrunk your energy appetite – you can think energy production. The easiest is solar water heating when your existing water heater dies. My solar water heater added $8 per month to my second mortgage and saved me $25 per month in energy costs, Now it’s paid for and I have a 15 year old daughter, so my savings have doubled !!! Contact the local Solar Energy Industries Association for referrals www.mdv-seia.org. Make sure you buy an SRCC-certified solar system. By the way, solar for pool heating is also cost-effective with an 18-month payback whether you use electricity, propane or natural gas for extending your swimming season.

For space heating and cooling I am a big fan of ductless heat pumps which not only use less energy to heat or cool, but being ductless lowers respitory diseases. I have the Sanyo system in my VA office building for the last 10 years. The most efficient way to heat and cool a building is ground-coupled heat pumps, also known as geoexchange or geothermal heat pumps. For new construction, a loop of water tubing circles the building or yard 10-feet underground. For existing buildings, small bore holes are drilled slanting down from 100 – 400 feet underground. The static underground temperature of 55 degrees requires so much less energy to heat or cool, you wonder why the US only has it in 900,000 buildings. Note the water never the leaves the tube and can be integrated into radiant floor systems or radiators. And the newer direct-exchange heat pumps use greenhouse gas friendly refrigerant in special air handlers on the walls, which is what I use in my home. There are three great GCHP companies that I have met in the Washington, DC region: SKS of Bethesda, Geothermal Options of Fairfax, and Harvey Hottel in Washington, DC., among others. Geothermal is cost effective, but be very selective of your drilling or ditching companies, which can the biggest cost of any geoexchange system. Get multiple bids from drillers and contractors and references – and call the references and possibly meet them in person.

Now for renewable energy electric systems, I wish to point out that I have photovoltaics on my DC and VA office buildings and also on my home. I have a small wind turbine on my VA office building with a smart, web-enabled batttery bank by GridPoint. My home photovoltaics (solar electric) system also has a larger battery bank and is web-enabled by Locus Energy. If you have a building off-the-grid, photovoltaics or small wind make sense. If you live in the Caribbean or have high electric rates for your business (expressed as demand charges, peak or seasonal charges, or ratchet rates), an appropriately-sized photovoltaics system can surely be cost-effective -- especially if you you do not need surge protection (for power sags, surges and transients) for digital equipment such as computers or back-up power UPS or generator systems. In fact, a small-wind or photovoltaics/battery system could be the most reliable, least expensive option for you now.

For most of us homeowners though, PV will cost more than standardized electricity from the electric grid. Now my $15,000 PV/battery home system (installed in 1985) now would be eligible for a 30% tax credit ($4,500) and the remainder on a 15 year second mortgage at 8.5% interest would cost my $98.47 per month, which due to the energy efficiency measures I described above, meets most of my electrical needs. So while a solar PV system is capital intensive, it does not have to be seen as a giant black hole. The electricity price does not increase, maintenance is minimal (especially if you web-enable), and of course you add no pollution or greenhouse gases to the planet.. If you are able to zone for small wind, wind energy is half the cost (if you have wind). My wind turbine spins reliably at night. Could it be the hot air generated on Capitol Hill? (there seems to be some disagreement by some of the experts on this issue). I have used almost every model by SW Windpower which has over 100,000 turbines worldwide including one at the base of the US Capitol at the US Botanic Gardens (www.wind-energy.com).

But the question I posited at the beginning is “Why does it matter?”

The extraction, conversion and use of energy is the single largest contributor to emissions causing changes in our global climate. And Boone Pikens is right, that importing energy (petroleum, natural gas and uranium) is causing the single largest transfer of wealth in history (and in many cases, from those who wish to harm us). Energy costs will rise, and energy efficiency and renewables are stable, reliable, long term investments. Emissions from energy not only emit greenhouse gases and level mountain tops and ruin streams and farmland, but emit regulated emissions (sulfur oxide, NOx and particulates) but also mercury and carcinogens.

Whether your concerns are national security, economic stability, environmental survivability or just good ole common sense – it’s time to put your money not only into being green, but in being smart.

For more info: You can leave your questions in the comment section, or forward them to me at DCGreenExaminer@gmail.com.
About the Author:
Scott Sklar is President for the last 10 years of The Stella Group, Ltd..a strategic marketing and policy firm for clean distributed energy users and companies, and Scott Sklar, the Group's founder and president, lives in a solar home in Arlington, Virginia and his coauthored book, A Consumer Guide to Solar Energy, was re-released for its third printing. Scott Sklar is Chair of the Steering Committee of the Sustainable Energy Coalition and serves on the Boards of Directors of the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, and the Renewable Energy Policy Project, and CoChairs the Policy Committee of the Sustainable Buildings Industry Council, Sklar was also appointed in April 2007 onto National Advisory Council for Environmental Policy & Technology (NACEPT) of USEPA.

For 15 years he was simultaneously the Executive Director of the Solar Energy Industries Association and the National BioEnergy Industries Association. For two years prior, he was Political Director of the Solar Lobby formed by the national environmental groups, after 3 years at the National Center for Appropriate Technology as alternatively RD&D and Washington Directors. Scott served for nine years as an energy and military aide to Senator Jacob K Javits (NY) and was cofounder of the Congressional Solar Coalition - the group that drove the early 1970's legislation for renewables.

http://www.examiner.com/x-4230-DC-Green-Business-Examiner~y2009m7d2-Oped-Series--Scott-Sklar-What-is-all-this-Green-stuff-and-does-it-matter-to-me

Uranium mines 'flood prone'

Comment: Will the Virginia Uranium SubComm. consider flooding at Coles Hill when we have hurricanes or floods during some our wild rain storms!!!????

Tony Moore
May 22, 2009 - 3:07PM

Uranium mining does not produce jobs and is increasingly flood-prone, meaning toxic waste could run from flooded tailings dams, Queensland's Conservation Council said this morning.

QCC co-ordinator Toby Hutcheon said he acknowledged the job losses predicted by Australia's peak mining organisation in Queensland's mining industry as a result of an emission trading scheme.

However Mr Hutcheon said he did not accept this meant a shift to nuclear energy as a green source of producing electricity, saying Queensland had just two per cent of Australia's uranium reserves.

He said Queensland Premier Anna Bligh should instead build on her plans - announced in the State Budget - to produce local and regional jobs through a grass-roots solar hot water installation program.

"Uranium mining is not a big earner and it is not a big job creator for a start," Mr Hutcheon said.

"And the key issue is that now almost all of Queensland's uranium deposits were under water at the beginning of this year.

"And with floods set to become more regular we have a resource that is essentially in an inappropriate location.

"And it would be inappropriate to develop it.

"You could have old tailings dams running into the rivers and creeks."

Mr Hutcheon said the impact of an emission trading scheme on Queensland's carbon-intensive mining industry should be replaced by a bigger investment in industries linked to solar power.

"You have hundreds of thousands of roofs in every major city in Queensland that don't have a solar hot water system on them," Mr Hutcheon said.

"How many jobs could be created by a program of putting solar panels and solar hot water on all those roofs?" he asked.

"It creates local regional jobs and it has the effect of reducing energy costs for all those households."

The Premier promised 200,000 solar-powered hot water systems for Queensland during the March State Election.

The ACTU and the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF) in October 2008 published a "Green Gold Rush" policy statement predicting the number of green jobs in Australia could increase from 112,000 to 500,000 by 2030.

This would include jobs in renewable energy, sustainable water, biomaterials, green buildings, waste and recycling.

Mr Hutcheon said it was clear Queensland's economy was vulnerable as prices for mineral exports fell.

"And it is likely that we will see a decline in demand as countries look to find alternatives other than using coal," he said.

http://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/qld-news/uranium-mines-flood-prone-20090522-bhzo.html

7 reasons why nuclear power sucks:

by Tim McDonald

Nuclear power has always been seen as a “safe” alternative energy to burning fossil fuels.

So much so they today is accounts for about twenty-five percent of worldwide power generation.

But here are 7 reasons why nuclear power sucks:

1 - It costs a lot of money to setup:

Nuclear power plants are definitely not a cheap investment. At around six to twelve billion dollars each - just for installation - taxpayers have subsidized billions of dollars to keep the utilities afloat. This money could have been invested in cleaner renewable energies instead.

2 - It causes global warming:

Once seen as the solution to global climate change, nuclear power is far from it. Everywhere along the nuclear chain - from the mining of uranium to its transportation to the construction of the power plant - greenhouse gases are emitted.

Another thing is the installation of a nuclear reactor takes far too long to have any positive impact on global warming. Why not use that money and time instead in the technological advancement of cleaner renewable energies, like solar power?

3 - What happens to all that radioactive waste?

Each reactor creates a lot (twenty to thirty tonnes) of highly toxic radioactive waste per year. Not to mention the so-called “low” level radiation emitted in the rest of the supply chain - such as during the mining and milling process.

4 - A damaged reactor could lead to a catastrophe:

A nuclear reactor is so vulnerable to damage or attack it could be considered a nuclear bomb just waiting to be detonated. And if an accident were to happen the precautions in place are ridiculous. Not to mention that the utilities are liable for less than 2% of the actually cost of damage that could be caused. Guess who pays for the remaining 98%? We, the taxpayers, of course.

5 - Increased risk of cancer:

The levels of radiation released in the air, water and soil are considered “safe”. However, this standard is based on how it impacts healthy, white males and does not take consideration for children that are sensitive to cancer-causing radiation.

The way utilities currently “store” nuclear waste is irresponsible. The have made assumptions instead of finding scientifically safe places to dispose of the waste. Just imagine how much worse the problem would get if more reactor were built. Additional waste would soon have to be incinerated or buried in landfills. Who knows how much water, soil and air pollution that would cause!

6 - Where there’s nuclear power, there’s war and terrorism:

A country’s national security always feels at threat when extremist countries start harnessing nuclear power. Just think about Israel attacking Syria’s so-called nuclear site back in 2007, and how uneasy America was when Iran was developing its own nuclear program. Nuclear power sets the stage for the production of atomic bombs, so as long the number of reactors increases, the likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons increases.

7 - There are greener energy solutions:

What bothers us most is we already have better, cleaner, safer and cheaper alternatives available and ready to implement. Perhaps with the recent election of our new US government, nuclear energy will be put to rest and renewable energy will be harnessed on a larger scale.

But while we wait, it is possible to start harnessing renewable energy at home. What’s more is, it does not cost very much and is rather simple to implement. Various solar and wind power guides have already become available, which you can see in our reviews section.

http://onlinecreditprofessor.com/7-drawbacks-to-using-nuclear-power/