Megacities and Environmental Catastrophes: An Update

All over the developing world, ultra-modern megacities are being built. In Egypt, two new megacities are rising from the desert about 20 miles outside Cairo because city planners have deemed the existing city center to be "overtaxed beyond repair." In the Philippines, a new "Global City" with modern high rises, shopping centers, and hospitals has sprung up on the high ground of a former military base near the existing business center.

These new, modern cities are essential. As reported in an earlier post, more than 5 billion people, or 60% of the world's population, will live in cities by 2030 -- and many of those cities will have populations in excess of 25 million people. Unless we build new infrastructure and even new cities, the pollution and waste generated by megacities will literally kill millions of people.

The problem is what we are leaving behind. Critics of the new cities say they are only for small populations of the rich, while tens of millions of poor people will be left behind in the old cities. Without investments in the old cities, they will turn into massive shantytowns as the existing infrastructure decays. Critics see a future not all that different than the animated movie Wall-E, where all the humans left earth to live on a space ship because cities had become massive garbage dumps surrounded by decaying infrastructure. It turns out in real life that we have enough vacant space outside existing cities so we need not move to outer space. We are just moving 20 miles outside the existing city instead.

The impacts of cities, however, have never been contained within their geographic boundaries. Throughout history, cities have influenced the culture, politics, and commerce of entire nations. That is as true today in the internet age as it was at the dawn of civilization. (My recent-college-graduate son, for example, is considering employment opportunities in the web-based video game industry. All the job offers are in either New York City or Irvine, California, and none allow telecommuting. It appears that even those who spend most of their waking hours in virtual worlds on the internet want to physically live and work in the same city as everyone else working on their virtual worlds.)

Cities also have tremendous impacts on a nation's ecology. Highly efficient housing, energy, waste disposal, and mass transportation systems can dramatically reduce pollution not only within a city, but also throughout a region and across national boundaries. On the other hand, inadequate housing, energy, waste disposal, and transportation systems result in increased pollution that create health risks to everyone who shares the air, groundwater, rivers, streams, lakes and oceans. Even if they live 20 miles or more away.

These new, ultra-modern cities are a step in the right direction. They will provide more efficiency in energy, housing, waste disposal, and transportation. It just makes no sense to build them if we are going to ignore the environmental catastrophes that will develop in forgotten urban wastelands 20 miles down the road.

John Howley
Orlando, Florida
www.HowleyGreenEnergy.com

The Power of Green Thinking (and Small Green Acts)

A friend invited me to join a Facebook group called the Carbon Conscious Consumer (C3) Campaign. The group has a simple agenda: To promote "6 easy steps that anyone can take to reduce our carbon emissions."

Many people scoff at such lists of "easy" ways to save the planet. Thomas Friedman, for example, worries in his book "Hot, Flat, and Crowded," that the "amount of time, energy, and verbiage being spent on making people 'aware' of the energy-climate problem, and asking people to make symbolic gestures to call attention to it, is out of proportion to the time, energy, and effort going into designing a systemic solution." He points out that the energy problems we face are huge -- if you convert global energy consumption into oil equivalents, we are consuming 420 million gallons per hour. We need game-changing technologies and policies, not just six easy ways to go Green.

I agree. So why did I join the C3 group and invite my friends to join too?

Because our daily thoughts and actions drive our national policies and investments.

Think about the 1980's and 90's. Does it surprise you that a nation of people who drove SUVs and built McMansions elected politicians in both parties who did not think about climate change or how our oil consumption was subsidizing despotic regimes? This is not an ideological issue. Very few people in either political party thought much about energy efficiency when buying cars and homes in the 80's and 90's. That thoughtlessness was an important driver of our national energy policies during those decades.

Since then, we have become more aware of energy and the environment as a result of a few extraordinary events. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, and the realization that the terrorists came from countries subsidized by our oil purchases. The escalation of oil prices a couple of years ago. The current Great Recession. The debate over global warming.

Those of us who lived through gasoline and home heating fuel shortages during the oil embargo of the 1970's know too well how transitory these trends can be. How do we sustain our interest in sustainability?

By changing the way we act. People who act every day in small Green ways will enter the polling booths with a completely different mindset than people who drove their gas guzzling SUVs to the polls.

Besides, we must do something while we wait for the game-changing technologies. The six simple steps will have a meaningful impact.

Let's take just one of the six simple steps: Breaking the bottled water habit.

World consumption of bottled water has increased by 70% since 2001 to more than 200 Billion litres. Of that amount, Americans bought more than 33 Billion litres. That's a lot of plastic bottles that need to be manufactured, filled with water, shipped to warehouses and stores, cooled in stores or home refrigerators, and recycled or thrown into landfills where they will take up to 1,000 years to decompose. Each stage of this process uses much more energy than running tap water through a filter.

Will reducing or eliminating all this waste solve our energy and environmental challenges? No. But it's a start. And an American public that thinks about how much energy and other resources are consumed to produce a bottle of water is one that will think about energy and environmental issues when choosing its leaders.

That's why I joined the Carbon Conscious Consumer (C3) Campaign and am promoting the group to my friends. Because thinking and acting Green in our daily lives will make a difference today, and it is the only way we will build a public consensus to invest in the game-changing policies and technologies we need for the long term.

John Howley
Orlando, Florida

New Jersey Getting 12 More Megawatts of Grid-Connected Solar Power

New Jersey’s largest regulated gas and electric utility is adding 12 megawatts of grid-connected solar energy. PSE&G hopes to start construction at its sites in Edison, Hamilton, Linden and Trenton this spring, with projects completed this summer and fall.

The four ground-mounted solar farms will be among the largest to be developed in New Jersey, with the Hamilton project being the largest in the state and the project in Linden the second largest. All four sites will utilize crystalline solar panel technology and have monitoring and communications functionality.

Together, the four projects will add 48,000 solar panels on 38.2 acres of property. They will produce enough energy to power about 1,300 homes and eliminate some 6,700 tons of CO2 emissions, the equivalent of removing nearly 1,200 cars from the road for one year.

The State of New Jersey has become a leader in solar energy installations in the last few years, installing more than 100 MW of solar energy, making it second only to California in terms of the amount of solar capacity installed.

"We're moving ahead with clean energy projects that will put people to work, installing tens of thousands of solar panels that will help the environment and stimulate the economy," said Ralph LaRossa, president and COO of PSE&G.

The latest projects are part of PSE&G's Solar 4 All program, which was approved by state regulators in July. The program involves a total of $515 million investment in 80 megawatts of solar, creating green jobs and nearly doubling the size of New Jersey's installed solar capacity.

When Big Oil Buys the Gas Company

Earlier this week ExxonMobil, the world’s largest publicly traded oil and gas producer, announced that it had agreed to buy XTO Energy, the second-largest producer of natural gas in the US. ExxonMobil will acquire XTO for stock valued at $31 billion, making this the biggest oil and gas deal in four years.

This acquisition (and more like it) will have very significant impacts in at least three areas: energy prices; advances in natural gas innovation; and climate change legislation.

1. The Impact on Energy Prices

By acquiring the second-largest natural gas producer in the US, ExxonMobil will increase its ability to influence natural gas prices.

Prices for natural gas under long-term contracts are currently fairly close to prices for oil when measured on a cost per BTU basis. But prices for natural gas on the spot market are much lower -- often as much as 400% lower -- than prices for oil. The more natural gas that remains available on the spot market, the more likely it is that prices for natural gas under long-term contracts will come down.

When independent natural gas companies like XTO selling gas on the spot market, there is pressure on prices for natural gas to go down. Which makes gas a nice alternative to oil and coal. Which ultimately puts pressure on oil and coal prices.

ExxonMobil and other major oil companies that buy natural gas companies could influence prices by simply selling less natural gas on the spot market. The major oil companies have plenty of cash, so they could hold onto their natural gas inventories until the gap between gas and oil narrows. That is not good for consumers . . . or for the country.

2. The Impact on Natural Gas Innovation

Over the last decade, a handful of the nation’s small energy companies discovered huge amounts of natural gas in new fields stretching from Texas to Pennsylvania. XTO was one of these companies. It grew almost unnoticed into the nation’s second-largest gas producer by amassing a substantial portfolio of gas fields and developing expertise in the complex technology needed to extract the gas from shale beds.

If the major oil companies buy up these smaller, innovative companies that are making all the new natural gas discoveries, then who will pursue new natural gas technologies in the future?

Good question.

3. The Impact on Climate Change Legislation

Oil is one of the major contributors to carbon emissions worldwide. Gas is a much cleaner fuel.

The oil industry and its trade organization, the American Petroleum Institute, have vehemently opposed any aspect of climate change legislation that would raise the price of petroleum-based products. In contrast, the natural gas industry has supported many aspects of climate change legislation. Because natural gas has relatively low carbon emissions, any restriction on carbon emissions will give it a competitive advantage over oil and coal.

If the major oil companies buy up all the significant natural gas companies, then who will advocate for climate change legislation?

Another good question.

John Howley

Orlando, Florida

More Important Than Copenhagen

I told you so.

Four months ago, I predicted that, "Those looking for simple solutions to climate change will be very disappointed by the absence of firm emission reduction targets in Copenhagen later this year. . . . But at the same time, [the US and China] will pursue a second path of cooperation towards achievable solutions with or without an agreement on targets." See US and China Forge a New Path on Climate Change.

That is exactly what the US and China did in Copenhagen yesterday.

Why? Because nothing this important and this complicated ever gets resolved by a committee.

Consider for a moment the race to put a man on the moon. Thomas Friedman and others have said that this should be our model for the Green energy revolution.

I agree. But we did not get to the moon by holding international conventions and listening to dictators and despots like Iran's Ahmadinejad, Zimbabwe's Mugabe, and Venezuela's Chavez lecture us on the evil nature of our plans to be the first to put a man on the moon. Nor did we wait until we could reach the lowest common denominator consensus with Russia, China and 180 other nations on how and when to put a man on the moon.

If we had followed the path of seeking international consensus before we went to the moon, then we probably never would have achieved the goal.

So, now that we have gotten Copenhagen out of our system, let's get down to the serious work of pursuing the Green energy revolution the old fashioned way. With vigorous competition among nations to be the most energy efficient and energy independent economies in the world.

Walmart has given us a good first step. The company has sent out a Sustainability Index survey to 100,000 of its suppliers. The survey asks each supplier to provide information about their carbon footprint, energy and water usage, plans and goals to reduce their carbon footprint, energy consumption and water usage, and other factors that affect the sustainability of their operations. For now, Walmart will review this data internally. But it plans in later stages to release the data to consumers and possibly even disclose a ranking of individual products based on a Sustainability Index for the product and the company that manufactured it.

If you were a factory owner in China, what would provide a better incentive for you to reduce your carbon footprint and use of energy and water? (a) An international treaty that committed China to nation-wide carbon reduction targets over a 20 or 30 year period? Or (b) a Walmart Sustainability Index that made your products unsellable to the world's largest retailer unless you reduced your own company's carbon footprint and use of energy and water?

Forget Copenhagen. We need barriers to entry that will make it difficult for producers around the world to sell their products unless they are made using non-polluting energy sources and sustainable manufacturing practices.

We also need to alter the economics of energy at home. Yes, solar and wind are more expensive than most carbon-emitting alternatives right now. But only because those carbon-emitting alternatives do not pay the full cost of their pollution. If we make coal and oil companies include in their pricing the cost of eliminating their products' emissions (either with cap and trade or a carbon tax), then solar, wind and other non-emitting alternatives would seem very inexpensive by comparison.

Lastly, we need to use government funding and regulations to promote sustainable energy based on the long-term benefits -- just as we did when we used government funds to finance space exploration.

Imagine, for example, if all new construction and renovations in the US had to be "net zero" in terms of direct and indirect carbon emissions. By "net zero" I mean that the amount of energy used by a facility from non-carbon-emitting sources like solar and wind is equal to or exceeds the amount of energy from carbon-emitting sources. This could be accomplished by a combination of building codes requiring higher levels of efficiency in buildings (which many local governments are already imposing) and subsidies for investments in solar, wind and other non-carbon-emitting energy sources.

Yes, this would cost us in the short term. But think for a moment about the competitive advantage this would give us in the longer term. What if five or ten years from now our factories used highly efficient buildings that required less energy, and that energy was supplied by solar and wind plants that had ZERO fuel costs. Our factories would have a tremendous competitive advantage over factories in China and elsewhere that continued to use power generated by coal and petroleum fuels.

I hear all those out there who say that climate issues are different because they transcend borders. But space travel transcended borders too. And we did not succeed with space travel by waiting for everyone to agree. We went out and did it.

John Howley
Woodbridge, New Jersey

Lessons From the History and Economics of Oil

My first assignment as a young lawyer -- and my introduction to the history and economics of the oil industry -- was on a behemoth antitrust case against the major oil companies.  In re Petroleum Products Antitrust Litigation involved allegations that the major oil companies conspired to fix prices by "signaling" price changes to one another and by manipulating supplies and refinery operations during the 1970's.

In between days of reviewing thousands of documents, my fellow young lawyers and I had the pleasure of working with Daniel Yergin, who was retained as one of our expert witnesses and who had just written The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money and Power, for which he would win the Pulitzer Prize.  His book is a comprehensive and fascinating account of the history and economics of the oil industry.  It is still about the best book you can find on the subject, and anyone interested in any aspect of the green energy movement must read it.

Recently, I came across a short video of Daniel Yergin reflecting on lessons that can be learned from previous shifts in energy usage as we try to move towards a more sustainable energy future.  He describes the environmental concerns of the 1950's that forced a shift from coal to oil, followed by a shift back to coal as the principal fuel for electricity generation due to coal's cost advantages and emerging technologies that ameliorated some of the environmental harms.  He also talks about the sunk costs in our existing energy infrastructure and how that creates inertia and limits our willingness and ability to change.

Click here to view the video.  Short and to the point . . . . . and definitely worth watching.

Free Cooling?

A data center that requires no air-conditioning?

Google has figured out a way to do it. And it is so simple. Locate your data center in a place like Belgium where you can use outside air as “free cooling.”

The concept of “free cooling” – bringing in outside air to cool the inside of a building -- is not new. Building managers in the US and elsewhere have been doing it for decades. By controlling dampers to balance the mix of inside and outside air, building managers can use the “free” outside air to better control temperature, humidity, and air pressure inside buildings without spending money on electricity.

Actually, all of us have done this at one time or another. Like on a Fall day when the sun hitting our windows makes it a little too warm inside, even though the air outside is cool. Instead of turning on the air-conditioning, we just open the window a little. Same concept. “Free” cooling.

All Google has done is take this very basic principle of facility energy management and apply it to complex data centers by adding a dash of information technology and off-shoring. The equipment in data centers generate a lot of heat. By locating them in a cooler climate and carefully managing the amount of cool fresh air coming into the building, Google can control the temperature without needing electricity to generate air-conditioning.

Belgium does have a few days per year (maybe about 7) when the outside air temperature is not cold enough to cool a data center. Google will monitor the weather and outside temperatures. If it gets too warm in Belgium, Google will simply shut down some equipment there (which will reduce the amount of heat being generated inside the data center) and shift some of the work load to other data centers around the world until the weather in Belgium returns to normal.

Now, in complex buildings like data centers, the cooling is not entirely "free." First, you need a building management system to monitor operating conditions inside the building and external data such as weather. Then you need to use the brainpower of facilities engineers to manage the system. But that little bit of data analysis and brainpower leads to tremendous reductions in both energy costs and carbon emissions.

Pretty good results for essentially opening windows.

John Howley
Manila, Philippines

Energy Efficient Business Attire

One hot August day, I organized a luncheon in New York City where the President of the Philippines gave a speech to about 150 bankers and business leaders. When I say it was hot, it was a day that defined sweltering. You could see the heat waves rising from the asphalt.

Arriving early to make sure everything was ready, I found that the luncheon hall had been refrigerated (air-conditioned would be a gross understatement) to feel like a walk-in freezer. The manager explained that he had turned the air-conditioning on full blast two hours earlier to get the room so cold. He said this was his standard practice during the summer months because people are pretty hot after walking a few city blocks wearing wool suits. "Don't worry," he assured me. "They'll be so hot when they get here that the room will warm up to a reasonable temperature very quickly."

Sure enough, as 150 over-heated people in business suits started offsetting the deep freeze of air-conditioning, the room temperature reached a very comfortable equilibrium.

Precisely at the appointed hour, the President of the Philippines walked in wearing a Barong Tagalog, the official formal wear of the Philippines, over crisply pressed black pants and black dress shoes shined to military perfection. Made of pina cloth that had been hand loomed from fibers of pineapple plant leaves, the President's formal Barong Tagalog was suitable for a groom at his wedding or, more appropriately, a President's State of the Union address to the Philippine nation. At the same time, the garment's sheer, loosely fitting fabric made the President one of the most comfortably dressed people in New York City that day.

As the President gave his speech on economic policy in the Philippines, I noticed more than a few men in suits tugging at their collars or patting their brows with handkerchiefs. Apparently, they were still a bit warm despite the heavy refrigeration in the room. The President, however, looked cool and comfortable as he spoke for almost an hour and took questions from the audience.

Sometime during the speech, my thoughts turned to the role of the Barong Tagolog in energy conservation. Why do we still wear wool business suits and ties in August? Or July? Or any other time when the temperature exceeds 80 degrees? Frankly, the President looked much more formal than anyone else in the room. He was also by far the most comfortable person there. And if we had all dressed as appropriately for the weather as he did, the facility manager could have cut his air-conditioning bill at least in half that day.

Think about it. Would we turn up our thermostats so we could wear shorts and t-shirts when it is freezing outside? Then why do we continue to wear inappropriate clothing that requires us to over-cool our buildings when it is hot outside?

John Howley
Woodbridge, New Jersey