Thomas Friedman Speaks! ...broad geopolitical what-nots of greening up.

In his New York Times Magazine article, The Power of Green, columnist Thomas Friedman outlines nicely a couple of important considerations of going green, and what it takes to get there.

The most prominent political issue is how the price of oil based on growing world demand has sprung up despotic governments and created political turbulence in areas such as Venezuela and Saudi Arabia. So, this is one way that the world could benefit from green not just tomorrow, but today.

But, that is only part of the picture. Friedman shows how green technology can be accessible and practical, such as in cases like Wal-Mart's supply chain revamp as well as GE's environmentally progressive technologies. However, both cases needed a catalyst to make them happen. In the case of Wal-Mart, the customer base raised their collective voice, and in the case of GE, European governments embraced their wind turbines to meet tough, but effective, government energy goals.

So what should the US do about it?
The climate crisis is really an opportunity to establish itself as a leader in the upcoming decades of the fight against climate change. Basically, what the United States needs to do is have the government spur development through incentives. So.. this means grants and loans to jumpstart R&D, and taxes in other places (such as a carbon tax based on CO2 emissions and fuel economy standards). In any event, it needs to be something that works in practice, not just political sweet talk.

The US is actually in a very strong position to tackle the complexities of green infrastructure. The nation has the funding, the manpower, and above all, the brainpower to pull it off. If the government could coordinate the combined efforts of the three, it would be a strong start. As Friedman mentioned, when the governor of Texas laid out green energy requirements for its power companies, they responded so quickly that the energy requirements had to be further tightened just to keep up with the progress.

Despite its positive potential, solar energy is no magic bullet to erase all energy woes. It would be big step in the right direction though.

In its current state, it is too expensive and doesn't provide enough power to serve electricity needs. However, the high cost is primarily associated with a lack of mass production of solar panels spurred by lack of soaring demand. This is a problem that is solvable in the long run. Remember, once upon a time it was once an ordeal for Thomas Edison to use light bulbs to illuminate just one single street in New York. Nowadays, any person who has a hand can change a lightbulb, a ubiquitous part of modern life.

Also, technology continually improves to increase efficiency and drive down cost. Again, there is currently a lack of incentive to really accelerate research and development compared to say, the unlimited US defense budget....

Rethinking the Root of the Problem

The United States really needs to embrace a policy of frugality and foresight and abandon its current blind opulence and extravagance regarding resource usage.

A graph from this page in Architecture2030 seems to reflect the United States' callous abuse of resources:
*edit* From a tip from a colleague, I realized I had not explained what the elements of the graph meant. So here goes..

The main graph body (bar graph) shows how much energy each nation uses annually. The blue bar is energy use as of year 2000, and the pink bar is projections for year 2020 based on current trends.

The smaller inset graph shows how much US energy usage has grown over the decades.

The real problem the United States has with sustainable living is that its attitude toward resources refuses to accomodate it. The United States' attitude toward money is "spend, don't save!" Of course this is an oversimplified economic view, but conventional wisdom seems to reflect it. America is truly blessed ... with unlimited resources. Just contrast a neighborhood grocery store with the food and water shortages many other regions face as the cold bleak reality of daily life...

However, energy and the planet are not some sort of unlimited assembly-line commodity sold to the highest bidder. The supply of fossil fuels could care less how many truckloads of cash oil companies dump into new oil wells. It will run out regardless. Some might argue that biofuels can dig us out of this grave, but even biofuels require tremendous amounts of land and water to quench the thirst for fuel. So yes, there is a balance to consider somewhere in all this.

Technology: The Not-so-Sci-Fi to the Rescue

A company called Octillion is trying to create commercially viable windows that generate electricity from the sun using new technology.

http://www.octillioncorp.com/index-2.html

If this succeeds, solar power can extend beyond just traditional rooftop panels onto the sides of buildings also. Just based on unbacked speculation, these types of windows would likely play a larger role in the morning and evening, when the sun is low and the rays shine more horizontally, as opposed to midday, when the sun shines down vertically from high in the sky.

Technology has always played a big role in the development of how humans harness energy. At first, there were just campfires and waterwheels. Then steam engines came along, then nuclear power ... and so forth. Technology will definitely guide future energy solutions.

Design smart.

Imagine if every office building had solar panels on the roof. After all, the roof serves no real purpose other than to keep the rain out, so why not put all that empty space to work? But wait, solar panels also probably require less maintenance than a refrigerator. Here is a real-world example of this: the new sustainable parking structure in Santa Monica:

Apparently, it generates $90,000 worth of electricity a year. Not too shabby.

Also, imagine if profit-minded developers designed buildings to maximize natural lighting? One such building is the Nederlandsche Middenstandsbank (NMB) headquarters in Amsterdam, Holland. This pdf provides a more detailed article for the curious reader.

The design team used special ceiling designs that let in sunlight and reflected and redirected to provide an entirely naturally-lit interior. This translates into burning far less lightbulbs, which means consuming far less power.

Part of the design is that amazingly, no desk is 23 ft (7 m) away from a window! This is a world away from the United States, where a window seat is a hard-fought privilege, and common practice is to divide up a warehouse into lots of teeny tiny fluorescent-lit cells...

All the technology in this building is from the early 80's. What new possiblities have technological advances opened up?

Musings on Electricity Usage

We use a ton of electricity. Period.

As the world population continues to grow explosively, we're going to have to get more out of our watts, or reduce how many watts we use. Energy sustainability will form one of the most daunting challenges for humanity in the future in an era where people (in developed world more so than the developing world) have to a degree overcome many challenges (epidemic disease, starvation, sanitation, etc.)*

Take this handy little pie chart from the Nebraska Public Power District:

Heating and cooling form the largest part of general home electric usage, while lighting and "things that plug in" form the rest. So... to tackle electricity, one must address these areas.

The sun is a nice free source of energy, especially here in Southern California, so it would be a good place to start.





*I am aware that these factors still exist, but not to the degree that they did in the past. For example, while AIDS is an emergent concern, it still doesn't have the same population-eradicating scope as the bubonic plague from the 1300s or the Spanish Flu outbreak in 1918.