BusinessWeek

Book review – Hot, Flat, and Crowded By Thomas L. Friedman | BusinessWeek

Enlisting Father Profit to Save Mother Nature — Tom Friedman makes a gripping political, environmental, and economic case for green innovation

Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution— and How It Can Renew America. By Thomas L. Friedman. Farrar, Straus & Giroux; 438 pp; $27.95

When the U.S. Marines, General Electric (GE), and even China—an energy-poor, environmentally challenged industrial giant—are betting on green innovation to gain a competitive edge, you’d think U.S. policymakers would pay attention. Not yet, though, says Thomas L. Friedman in Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution—And How It Can Renew America. It is urgent, he says in this cri de coeur, that we unleash U.S. creativity—and capitalism—on the challenges of energy and climate change. “There is only one thing bigger than Mother Nature and that is Father Profit, and we have not even begun to enlist him in this struggle,” he writes.

Expanding his horizons beyond globalization, the subject of The World Is Flat (2005), the three-time Pulitzer Prize winner argues that a trio of powerful dynamics is shaping our future. The “hot” of the title refers to global warming, or “global weirding,” as he calls it, referring to the bizarre climate effects we are encountering. “Flat” refers to globalization, enhanced here with a look at how trade growth fuels energy use and hurts the environment. “Crowded” refers to humanity’s relentless expansion and its perilous effects on biodiversity and the planet’s finite resources. The only solution to these ills, he forcefully asserts: innovation in the form of a green revolution.

Of course, these topics have been addressed by others: If Fareed Zakaria and Al Gore met and co-authored a long-winded book, this would be it. Many sections were first explored in Friedman’s New York Times column, and with over 400 anecdote-chocked pages, Friedman asks a lot of the reader.

Stay with him, though. Surprising material is scattered throughout, and the final sections may be the book’s most rewarding. Its very sprawl emphasizes the scale of these problems and allows the author to make a strong case for the possibility and necessity of addressing them. With a tone of urgent hopefulness—or “sober optimism,” as he says—he beseeches voters, executives, and politicians to get on with it.

SUCCESS STORIES

Friedman hops across the globe to document the intimate interplay of the three trends. In the jungles of Sumatra, he visits a conservation activist who worked with an energy developer and with villagers to create an economy that fosters rather than destroys the rainforest. Then Friedman is on to Iraq, where a U.S. general on the front lines installs solar panels to reduce the need to transport diesel to fuel electric generators. Cut to Connecticut, where CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt (a recurring character) talks up how tougher environmental standards have made GE’s high-efficiency locomotives best-sellers and a leading export to China.

Innovation, whether the result of policy or entrepreneurialism, is the key to these success stories. Unfortunately, America remains caught up in what Friedman calls a “dumb as we wanna be” mindset, where “drill, baby, drill” is an easier sell than long-term, comprehensive energy policy.

This has security implications. There’s a simple, negative correlation, says the author, between oil and democracy: As oil prices rise, petrodictators grow rich and democracies weaken. Conversely, as oil prices fall, petro-dictators grow weaker and democracies flourish. Think of the reforms of Russia and Iran in the 1990s, when oil prices were low, compared with the countries’ troublemaking in the era of $100-per-barrel oil.

What’s more, he notes, petro-states tend to undereducate their youth, fueling unemployment and creating a breeding ground for terrorism. How to reverse this pattern? Radically cut energy demand and invent fantastic substitutes.

Which brings us to China’s green ambitions—and the U.S.’s failure. If you read only part of this book, let it be the final chapters, in which Friedman explores how China could emerge as a green prodigy. Sure, Chinese leaders unleashed two decades of environmental turmoil by replacing communism with “GDPism.” But increasingly, Friedman says, those leaders are recognizing that environmental harm threatens not only the land, water, and air but also their political future.

So they’re acting. China’s voluntary goal of decreasing carbon emissions, for example, would result in five times more greenhouse-gas savings than the targets set by Europe under the Kyoto Protocol. China also has higher national targets for renewable energy than the U.S. (where there are none) and tougher mileage rules for its burgeoning fleet of vehicles.

If China’s leaders see the necessity of this approach, Friedman wonders, why can’t ours? Despite the scale of the challenge, he is optimistic that the political, technical, and economic means are at hand to spark a U.S. economic revolution. From windmills to advanced batteries, the results could mean new exports and jobs.

When Friedman completed this book in July, he may have been encouraged by the green leanings of the men who eventually became Presidential contenders. If so, he has good reason to worry now. John McCain, the author of some of the Senate’s most progressive climate proposals, is now promoting offshore drilling as a fix. And Barack Obama, having argued the potential of green innovation to jump-start economic growth, has become less vocal.

Yet, Friedman is certain the public can tackle the challenge. He criticizes articles that offer “205 easy ways to save the earth.” Such pandering implies that the revolution will be painless. It will not be: It will demand ugly political battles, the fall of dirty industries, and the rise of new, clean ones. “I am convinced,” he writes, “that the public is ready; they’re ahead of the politicians.” For now, though, the petro-dictators are surely the only ones smiling.

URL for original story: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_38/b4100099481532.htm

 

BusinessWeek

Cape Wind: The War Over Offshore Wind Is Almost Over | BusinessWeek


Cape Wind’s Gordon may soon get the O.K. to build turbines Stephan Savoia/AP photo

It’s no longer if, but when, where, and how many wind farms will go up along the U.S. coast

Wind farms are springing up in Midwestern fields, along Appalachian ridgelines, and even in Texas backyards. They’re everywhere, it seems, except in the windy coastal waters that lap at some of America’s largest, most power-hungry cities. That’s partly because the first large-scale effort to harness sea breezes in the U.S. hit resistance from an army led by the rich and famous, waging a not-on-my-beach campaign. For almost eight years the critics have stalled the project, called Cape Wind, which aims to place 130 turbines in Nantucket Sound about five miles south of Cape Cod. Yet surprisingly, Cape Wind has largely defeated the big guns. In a few months it may get authorization to begin construction. Meanwhile, a string of other offshore wind projects is starting up on the Eastern Seaboard, in the Gulf of Mexico, and in the Great Lakes.

Much of the credit—or blame—for this activity goes to Jim Gordon, the man who launched Cape Wind in 2000. His goal is to provide up to 75% of the electric power on Cape Cod, Nantucket, and Martha’s Vineyard by tapping the region’s primary renewable resource: strong and steady offshore breezes. He has methodically responded to every objection from Cape Cod property owners and sometime-vacationers, ranging from heiress Bunny Mellon and billionaire Bill Koch to former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney and Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “This is like trying to put a wind farm in Yellowstone National Park, as far as we’re concerned,” says Glenn Wattley, CEO of the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, the opposition’s lobbying arm.

Click here for a full size map: http://goo.gl/DPyMH

Since 2000, Cape Wind’s Gordon has burned through $30million of his own wealth, much of it to pay for studies of the site. The result is a four-foot-high stack of environmental reports, including three federal applications looking at the wind farm’s potential impact on birds, sea mammals, local fishermen, tourism, and more. “We’ve gone through a more rigorous evaluation process than any prior energy project in New England,” says Gordon, who built natural-gas-fired power plants before starting Cape Wind.

Victory is by no means certain. Cape Wind could yet bog down in litigation or be nixed by the feds, Gordon concedes. Even if Washington O.K.’s the project, he must find a way to finance it. Expected costs have more than doubled in the last eight years, to over $1.5billion, by some estimates. And assuming the funding comes through, engineering and construction could drag on for three or more years.

Regardless of how this all plays out, Gordon has secured his spot as one of U.S. wind power’s pioneers. When it comes to building natural gas and oil rigs in federal waters, energy companies must follow clear government rules. But until Cape Wind floated its first proposal, Washington had never spelled out how to develop an offshore wind farm. Gordon’s plan prodded the Minerals Management Service, the federal agency that oversees energy extraction from public lands, to take action. The regulators hope to release detailed rules for utilizing wind, wave, and tidal power by yearend, at which point the path will be cleared for applications from a dozen or so wind projects in federal waters, with nearly as many under way in state areas. “We’ll see an incredible flurry of proposals to tap ocean resources for clean and renewable energy,” says Maureen A. Bornholdt, program manager at the MMS’s Office of Alternative Energy Programs.

It’s easy to understand why entrepreneurs are rushing in. Winds at sea blow stronger and more steadily than on land, where they are slowed by forests, hills, and tall buildings. Unlike terrestrial winds, sea breezes also tend to keep blowing during the hottest times of the day, when the most power is needed. Within a few miles of much of the U.S. coastline, in almost any direction, wind resources are more abundant and dependable than anywhere outside the Great Plains. Exploiting this resource could supply about 5% of all U.S. electricity by 2030, says the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

Putting turbines in open water is not a cheap proposition. It costs up to twice as much as in rural expanses. But the economics still work well in the Northeast, where open land is scarce, electricity is pricey, and demand for power keeps surging as populations swell. The Northeast is heavily dependent on electricity from natural gas, which has doubled in price in the past year. What’s more, most state governments in this region have passed laws dictating that a growing share of power must come from renewable resources. These states “have to build offshore,” says Bruce Bailey, president and CEO of AWS Truewind, which assesses wind resources. “They won’t be able to meet their [renewables goals] if not.”

In Hull, Mass., a faded Victorian-era beach town just across the bay from Boston, there’s already a windmill spinning above the local high school and another over the dump. Four more turbines are planned for the waters just a mile and a half from one of Greater Boston’s busiest public beaches. Thanks to the two functioning windmills, power rates in the town haven’t risen in seven years, although they’ve doubled statewide. With four more, Hull could meet all of its needs with homegrown energy, says town manager Phil Lemnios.

Throughout New England, shrunken shipbuilding and fishing towns have begun to view offshore wind power as a source of investment and jobs. In Rhode Island, a consortium of fishermen is vying with Bluewater Wind, a unit of wind-farm developers Babcock & Brown (BNB), to put turbines in state waters near Block Island. Across the region, planners hope to reanimate shipyards by building not just turbines and foundations but also the specialized ships needed to transport and erect supersized towers and blades. In Delaware, Bluewater Wind has a project in development that could produce as much as 600 megawatts 12 miles from Rehoboth Beach; it scored an industry first in late June, when it inked a long-term contract to supply electricity to Delmarva Power. Bluewater’s project may well become the first functioning offshore wind farm in North America.

The shores of the Great Lakes, with their strong winds and shallow waters, are also luring developers. Cleveland is among a handful of cities planning wind farms. With offshore wind as a driver, the Rust Belt city wants to remake its waning industrial base into a launchpad for green energy projects.

Down in the Gulf of Mexico, a consortium of oil-and-gas-industry veterans has leased tracts stretching from Galveston, Tex., to the Mississippi Delta to develop offshore wind. Their startup, Wind Energy Systems Technology, plans to adapt retired oil rigs to cut the cost of building offshore plants to a fraction of current prices, says CEO Herman J. Schellstede. The rigs also let them site the turbines farther out at sea. Today’s offshore windmills are built on gigantic steel tubes bored into the seabed. It’s a proven approach, but it demands a lot of costly steel and can’t go too deep. Moving farther offshore on rigs allows developers to tap stronger winds—and the turbines are out of sight.

Europe is some 15 years ahead of the U.S. in exploiting offshore wind. Hundreds of giant windmills already dot the North Sea, with more than 1,000 megawatts of generating capacity. This head start provides an edge to equipment suppliers such as Denmark’s Vestas Wind Systems and Germany’s Siemens, the only two companies building offshore turbines in large volumes today. By 2020, Europe hopes to generate a quarter of all its electricity offshore.

As wind farms are moved into deeper water, they can take advantage of the oil sector’s offshore drilling knowhow, says John Westwood, CEO of Douglas-Westwood, a London-based market analyst that focuses on offshore energy. The U.S. has decades of expertise in this area, he adds. Schellstede’s company, for example, is looking at a new design that adapts multilegged platforms from the oil business. These rigs could be stable enough to withstand a hurricane and would use less steel than the current generation of coastal wind farms.

Back in Cape Cod, the talk is all about deep water, too. In June, real estate agents, marina managers, and property owners met at a Chamber of Commerce breakfast to discuss the latest proposal. BlueH Technologies of the Netherlands has dreamed up a project roughly the size of Cape Wind but over 30 miles out to sea, in depths of 160 feet. BlueH is testing a design with novel two-bladed turbines that uses floating windmills chained to huge anchors. The company faces years of costly development. Still, the region’s die-hard opponents of Cape Wind have embraced the plan as a better solution for Cape Cod. In a decade or so, those foes may find themselves enjoying ample supplies of green power from not one, but four or more offshore farms.

Aston is Energy & Environment editor for BusinessWeek in New York .

BusinessWeek

How Chicago’s Merchandise Mart transformed itself from a relic into an energy-efficient marvel | BusinessWeek

With today’s focus on “green” buildings, it’s no wonder that so many of the new towers scraping the Chicago sky are heralded for their benign impact on the environment. But what about the thousands of other high-rises and humbler structures already here?
 
Improving the energy profile of older buildings is a much harder feat. Before virtuous materials and systems can be installed, the old stuff has to be ripped out and hauled off. Managers of existing buildings also have to keep operations humming so as not to disrupt rent-paying tenants.
 
“It can be like performing surgery while the patient is still awake,” says Mark Bettin. Bettin has never performed in an operating room. But as engineering vice-president at Merchandise Mart Properties, he has just finished a three-year, multimillion-dollar odyssey to cut the massive structure’s consumption of energy, water, and materials.
 
The effort required overhauling decades-old practices and technology, from replacing most of the Mart’s 4,000-plus windows and upgrading rusty motors deep in its sub-basements to taking better care of dust mops.
 
The reward: At 78 years of age, the Merchandise Mart is now the biggest green building in the world.
 
It’s hard to overstate the scale of this undertaking. Straddling two full blocks and reaching up 24 stories, the complex contains 4.2 million square feet—about 400,000 more rentable space than the Sears Tower—and enough to qualify for its own Zip Code (60654).
 
Behind its limestone exterior are 380 miles of electrical wiring and 40 miles of piping and ductwork. The Mart requires 400 employees just to keep the place functioning. With more than 700 tenants, the building’s daytime population numbers 15,000 to 20,000. Every year, 3 million visitors stop in for trade shows and conferences.
 
The new and improved Mart may inspire other building owners to retrofit their properties, in Chicago and elsewhere. Fast-multiplying local and national goals to lower greenhouse gas emissions and energy use are putting existing buildings under greater scrutiny. Commercial buildings consume about 40% of the nation’s energy and generate about the same share of the gases blamed for global warming.
 
Yet new structures, where almost all green construction is happening today, add less than 2% to the total building stock each year. Thus, the only way to hurry along savings is to update the nation’s 4.9 million older commercial structures.
 
The rush to go green isn’t only due to government mandates. If owners of pre-21st century structures want to draw tenants who’ll pay top dollar, their properties must be as inviting as new places. That means installing not only the latest technology, but also green features, such as healthier workspaces stocked with nontoxic furnishings, carpets, and cleaning agents, plus plenty of natural light and ready access to public transportation.
 
Still, upfront expenses — and inertia — often hold landlords back. “Big existing buildings are a great opportunity, but they’re harder to get to,” notes Sadhu A. Johnston, the City of Chicago’s chief environmental officer. “They rarely go through major retrofits, and they’re not coming in for permits, so there just aren’t as many openings for us to point out how to do things differently. They have to go out of their way to go green.”
 
To remake the Mart, Bettin turned to the U.S. Green Building Council in 2005. A nonprofit standards-setting body, the council provides the imprimatur for green real estate, thanks to its Leadership in Engineering & Environmental Design (LEED) designation for new structures and LEED-EB certificate for existing buildings.
 
Think of an application for approval as a multiyear beauty pageant — but instead of points for swimsuits and talent, building managers get points for operational excellence, ranging from how much water they save to how clean they keep the air…  
 
Originally published at businessweek.com

BusinessWeek

Book review – “The World Without Us” By Alan Weisman | BusinessWeek

Save The Planet: Disappear — Weisman presents a curiously refreshing vision of the apocalypse

THE WORLD WITHOUT US By Alan Weisman. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press — 324pp — $24.95

The extinction of humankind is a grim topic. Yet in The World Without Us, journalist Alan Weisman invokes this ancient specter as the jumping-off point for a refreshing, and oddly hopeful, look at the fate of the environment. His central question: What would earth be like if humanity just vanished? Weisman’s answer is as fascinating as it is surprising. It turns out, from towering bridges to sprawling cities–not to mention delicate books or masterly artworks–precious few of man’s creations would last long. The author richly documents the damage done by industrial civilization, providing further momentum for business to go green. But his explanation of just how all of our methodically built cities, factories, and temples would implode under the slow assault of rot, rain, plants, and critters is the most compelling aspect of the book. The winners in Weisman’s tour de décomposition are the very flora and fauna that today are under pitiless assault from humanity…

More here: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/07_31/b4044089.htm

 

 

BusinessWeek

Who Will Run The Plants? The nuclear industry faces a graying workforce | BusinessWeek

If you walk the halls of Westinghouse or GE Nuclear, the top U.S. builders of atomic power plants, you’ll notice a buzz in the air–the first stirring of excitement since the 1970s. With many experts endorsing nuclear power as a clean replacement for coal-burning plants linked with climate change, nuclear players are gearing up to build more than 20 reactors, the first new facilities on U.S. soil in decade.

But roaming the same hallways, something else seems odd: There are practically no young people. After years lying dormant, the industry faces a dire labor shortage, and it will get worse during the next 5 to 10 years as thousands of aging workers drift off to golf courses and retirement homes. So plant builders and utilities are frantically searching for fresh talent. If the industry is to have any future, “young workers are the key,” says Howard J. Bruschi, a retired chief technology officer at Westinghouse Electric Co. who helped design the company’s newest reactor, a model that has been selected for 10 projects in the U.S.

The dilemma dates from the late 1970s, when skyrocketing costs began to chill investor enthusiasm for new plants. In 1979 a partial meltdown at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island doomed the industry’s optimistic vision of 1,000 atomic plants. Hiring stalled, and nuclear engineering programs at universities stopped churning out graduates. In short, a whole generation of nuclear workers went missing.

Today, the average age in the nuclear power sector is 48–one of the oldest of any U.S. industry. By 2010 about 27% of these workers will be eligible to retire–some 15,600 men and women. A further 7,600 or so are expected to exit the industry through turnover. That entire head count will need to be replaced to keep today’s fleet of 104 reactors humming.

Factor in projected growth, and the situation is even more serious. A substantially larger workforce will be needed by 2010, when the first of two dozen proposed reactors enters the long design and construction process. Overseas, 27 plants are under way, 62 are on order or planned, and an additional 130 have been proposed.

Even if only a fraction of those plants are built, the industry faces a “severe shortage of qualified workers,” according to the American Nuclear Society. “We’re probably getting 80% to 90% of what we need,” says Andy White, president and CEO of GE Nuclear Energy Inc. (GE ), whose reactors have already been selected for seven new U.S. projects.

NO EMISSIONS

It’s easy to see why some industry executives have started to fret. It can take years for new hires to master the industry’s complex procedures and absorb its safety-obsessed culture. “Five years ago, we didn’t dream we’d be building on this scale again,” says Amir Shahkarami, senior vice-president for engineering and technical services at Exelon Corp. (EXC ), the nation’s largest nuclear utility. Exelon operates 17 reactors today and is considering one new facility. “The aging workforce will result in a substantial loss of experience,” Shahkarami says.

Just how quickly colleges can crank out such highly specialized engineers remains a question. Some 34 nuclear engineering departments have closed since 1980, leaving just 29 today. By the late 1990s, the number of undergraduate students enrolled in such programs had fallen to fewer than 500 a year. Yet in the past several years, enrollment has again begun to rise. In 2007, total nuclear engineering majors in the U.S. will approach 2,000, predicts John Gutteridge, director of university programs at the Energy Dept.

Several factors account for renewed interest on campuses. Starting salaries in nuclear power jumped 6.6% last year, to about $54,600. In addition, today’s students are far more worried about global warming than the risks of a nuclear meltdown or the problems of waste disposal. Coming of age long after the disasters at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl, new hires in the power sector tend to regard atomic energy as a plausible solution to America’s energy woes–as did the engineers who built the first generation of nukes. The fact that plants emit no greenhouse gases is a huge plus. “I want to be sure my kids can plug in their iPods someday, too,” says Michelle Yun, a recent grad who joined Exelon as a licensing engineer last year.

DeLeah Lockridge, a senior engineer in Westinghouse’s services unit, is thrilled by the prospect of new plant construction. When she entered the company in 1999–one of the first new hires following a long freeze–Lockridge worried that nuclear energy might be a dying industry. “I didn’t expect to have the opportunity my instructors had,” she says. “Now, I want to build a plant.”


Media, panels & talks

Radio – The Leonard Lopate Show: Underreported: The Economics of Nuclear Energy | WNYC 7/06

Audio

via wnyc.org

No nuclear power plants have been built in the US since the Three Mile Island accident in 1979. But interest in nuclear energy has been growing in the past year, as the country looks for alternatives to coal and natural gas. In this week’s Underreported, Adam Aston of Business Week and Scott Cullen, the Nuclear Security Project Director for the GRACE Policy Institute, discuss the pros and cons of investing in new nuclear power plants.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2006/jul/06/underreported-the-economics-of-n…

BusinessWeek

Cleaning Up an Effluent Society: New EPA rules have spawned a wave of spending aimed at stemming the flow of stormwater-borne contaminants into local waterways | BusinessWeek

What’s driving Chicago to pour $3 billion into a 109-mile network of tunnels and reservoirs hacked out of the limestone underlying the Windy City? It’s the same fetid force that spurred Los Angeles voters to O.K. a $500 million bond last November. Construction titans and big-box retailers are getting more serious about it, too. It’s causing thousands of other U.S. cities and companies to yank up manhole covers and storm grates and take a closer look at the witches’ brew of garbage, hydrocarbons, and bacteria that flows down curbside drains and eventually into local waters. Under foot and out of sight, those conduits are a growing problem. They empty untreated stormwater into rivers and lakes. This water can, at its worse, “kill fish and wildlife, close beaches, and threaten human health,” explains Steve Fleischli, executive director of Waterkeeper Alliance, a nonprofit watchdog group based in Irvington, N.Y.

2008 DEADLINE. That’s why the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has made cleaning up stormwater a must-do for the nation’s municipalities. The EPA Web site describes storm runoff as “one of the most significant sources of water pollution in the nation, comparable to contamination from industrial and sewage sources.”By the end of 2008, EPA rules say that cities with population of more than 10,000 must have a plan in place to stem the flow of debris and contaminants from curbside into local waterways. The rule has unleashed a wave of spending on everything from megascale engineering projects like Chicago’s Deep Tunnel to innovative drain drop-ins that cleanse the water that passes through it.

Stormwater can pollute, sicken, and even kill. First, it’s highly polluted from the get-go. While rain water may fall from the sky clean, it becomes foul the instant it hits the street. The contaminants include an estimated 1 million gallons of dissolved hydrocarbons — oil and gas dripping from the nation’s 200 million-plus vehicles — per year, as a toxic stew of animal and human fecal bacteria, rubbish, and traces of heavy metals, pesticides, and herbicides, particularly in suburban and rural areas.

What’s more, many storm systems flow directly to waterways and lakes. Tom Leary, stormwater program officer at the City of Long Beach’s Public Works Dept., explains that when it rains in the Los Angeles/Long Beach area, anything within the 875-square-mile Los Angeles River drainage area “is flushed into the sewers and eventually into the river.” Last year that included some 12,000 tons of rubbish that washed up on city beaches.

BAD BEACH DAYS. Sewage spills pose a related, more complicated problem. Many cities linked their storm drains to sewage pipes — in part or in whole — because of the hazard posed by untreated stormwater. The idea: By passing storm runoff through sewage treatment plants, rainwater can be cleared of garbage and toxins. And this works when the pipes can handle the flow.

Yet in cases when a heavy rain fills up both pipe networks, they can back up and flood city streets with sewage-tainted water, as used to happen in Chicago. The contaminated water is then forced into nearby rivers or lakes. Sewage spills can spike bacterial (fecal coliform) counts for days, exposing bathers to cholera and other diseases. Along California’s coast, for example, “Closed Beach” days have been common in recent years because of health risks posed by sewage plumes.

Big companies are in the firing line, too. Construction projects and multi-acre parking lots are particularly serious sources of what the EPA describes as “non-point pollution” flowing into sewers. The agency has lately been turning up the heat on big-box retailers and large property developers, says Fleischli. Together with the U.S. Justice Dept. and a number of states, the EPA reached a settlement with Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ) in 2004 for violating the Clean Water Act during store construction. The retailer agreed to pay a $3.1 million civil penalty and to reduce tainted runoff from its sites.

RESURRECTED RIVER. Chicago’s approach has been to build what amounts to a very big holding tank for its sewage and rain water. Formally known as the Tunnel and Reservoir Project, the EPA-funded network was begun in 1974 and is made up of subterranean tunnels, many the width of a locomotive, connected to a series of concrete caverns. By storing wastewater until it can be processed by sewage treatment plants, the largely completed system is already helping to make Chicago area waters cleaner.

Once infamous for its lifeless, inky, and occasionally even flammable water quality, the Chicago River has been resurrected with the return of some 50 species of fish, along with canoeists and riverside cafés, if not swimmers quite yet. You can see the progress at this slide show.

Compared to Chicago’s big dig, Norwalk (Conn.) has taken a micro approach. Rather than tear up its streets, the city turned to privately-held AbTech Industries Inc. to buy a high-tech filter that can be dropped into the existing stormwater drains. AbTech’s Ultra Urban Filter (UUF) liners are made of a patented polymer that lets water pass through, but bonds permanently with oil, PCBs, and other toxins, while also catching more common trash. When treated with a proprietary anti-bacterial, nontoxic coating, the sponges can also zap harmful bacteria as water passes through the popcorn-like material. In addition to routing debris removal, typically done with storm sewers, the UUF’s anti-bacterial and oil-trapping capacity lasts about two years.

LIGHT TREATMENT. Other cities and companies are following suit. Long Beach, for example, is using a “treatment train” combining UUFs, garbage nets, and a handful of mechanical separators that spin wastewater to separate debris. Alternatives include more costly chlorination, ozonation, and/or power-hungry devices that use ultraviolet light to sanitize water as it passes through.

Yet, none combine antibacterial properties with the ability to drop them into existing storm drains, with a minimum of costly construction, explains Glenn Rink, president and chief executive of AbTech. At about $1,000 per drain, UUFs can help a city clean up its waterways, for thousands or millions of dollars, rather than billions. With over 275 UUFs in key areas around Norwalk paid for by a $500,000 EPA grant, the filters are proving to remove, on average, 75% of harmful bacteria, and up to 99.9%.

With the EPA’s deadline drawing nigh, pressure to clean up stormwater runoff is just beginning to rise. Nationwide, the number of roadside catch basins — in cities and rural areas — is estimated to be over 5 million. Cleaning them all is a Olympian task, but you can do your own small part: Rather than toss that cigarette butt or dog poop down a sewer grate, look for a trash can instead.

~

See the original story here: http://www.businessweek.com/investor/content/mar2006/pi20060322_393443.htm

Media, panels & talks

Radio – The Leonard Lopate Show: Underreported: Climate Change | WNYC 3/06

Audio

via wnyc.org

2005 was the warmest year on record in the Northern Hemisphere. On today’s Underreported, we’ll focus our attention on climate change, and whether or not the effects of global warming are already being felt. We’ll look at some of the lesser-known issues currently being debated—from exploding beetle populations in the West, to the financial risks associated with global warming. Dr. Paul Epstein from the Center for Health and the Global Environment, Dr. Gavin Schmidt from NASA/Goddard Institute for Space Studies, and Adam Aston of BusinessWeek join us.

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/2006/mar/16/underreported-climate-change/

BusinessWeek

Here comes lunar power | BusinessWeek

Think windmill, but underwater. In 2006, six of Verdant Power's 10-foot-tall turbines will spin in New York’s East River, supplying a supermarket.

Moon-driven tides, ocean currents and waves generate more oomph than wind, are more consistent that solar

A drama is unfolding in New York City’s East River. This summer the Popsicles at a Gristedes supermarket on Roosevelt Island, midstream between Manhattan and Queens, will be kept icy by power generated just a stone’s throw from the riverbank. Anchored 30 feet down, six underwater turbines will turn day and night, driven by the tidal flows in the channel. At a fish-friendly 35 rpm, the propellers will crank out up to 200 kilowatts of clean power, or roughly half the peak needs of the supermarket.

Projects like this one are still small fry. But hydropower, the granddaddy of green energy, is making a comeback. Think Hoover Dam, but less visible and a whole lot easier on the environment. This born-again breed of clean energy isn’t yet on the agenda for George W. Bush, who is out barnstorming the nation on behalf of renewable power. The President is pointing to the earth for plant-based ethanol, to the sky for wind power, and to the sun for photovoltaics. But he should also be pointing to the moon, say fans of the new hydropower, and to the seas that lie below it. Tugged by lunar gravity and stirred by wind and currents, the oceans’ tides and waves offer vast reserves of untapped power, promising more oomph than wind and greater dependability than solar power.

The appeal of next-generation hydropower is hard to miss. “It’s local, reliable, renewable, and clean. Plus, it’s out of sight,” says Trey Taylor, president of Verdant Power LLC, the Arlington (Va.) startup developing the East River site. Adds Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader at the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), the industry’s research-and- development arm: “Offshore wave and tidal power are where wind was 20 years ago, but they’ll come of age faster.” By 2010, Bedard predicts, the U.S. will tap about 120 megawatts of offshore wave energy — enough to power a small city — up from virtually zero today.

GROWING DEMAND

The planets are certainly in alignment for hydro. Prices for natural gas and coal are high, making renewables more cost-competitive. And in an effort to halt climate change and cut energy imports, 19 states have mandated that a share of their power come from green sources. Demand for alternatives is soaring: U.S. wind capacity surged by nearly 2,500 megawatts last year, up 35%, and solar is sizzling.

Wind and solar won’t be able to satisfy all the green-power mandates. So more than two dozen companies worldwide are developing systems to unlock the power of waves and currents. The first to sell devices to a commercial project is Edinburgh’s Ocean Power Delivery Ltd. Its Pelamis system is a snake-like steel tube that floats, semi-submerged, in the ocean.

In its Scottish factory, OPD is putting the finishing touches on three of these 400-foot-long machines. This summer they’ll be towed to a site three miles off Portugal’s northwest coast and hooked into the power grid. Lying low in the water, the snakes are invisible from a distance, unlike offshore wind farms that are causing “not in my backyard” complaints across the Atlantic, in Cape Cod. Initially the project will supply 2,500 kilowatts of juice, enough to run 1,500 Portuguese homes. OPD hopes to have 30 units at the site by 2008, pumping out enough current to power a town of 15,000 homes.

With its vast stretches of shoreline, the U.S. has some 2,300 terawatt-hours of potential near-shore wave power, estimates EPRI. That’s more than eight times the yearly output of the nation’s existing fleet of hydroelectric dams — “a very significant resource,” says Bedard. What’s more, since water is heavier than air, marine systems pack a bigger punch than wind power. Because they work not by impounding rivers behind costly bulwarks but by tapping water’s energy as it ebbs, flows, rises, or falls, upfront costs are lower than for dams. Maintenance to keep away barnacles and similar “biofouling” generally runs higher than for wind. Still, on balance, wave energy will evolve to be cheaper than wind was at similar levels of development, Bedard believes.

The power is more predictable, too. Unlike dam-based hydroelectric generators, which depend on rain or snowpack to keep current flowing and which shut down during droughts, newer “hydro- kinetic” systems exploit less capricious natural forces. “Lunar power” is the term offered by experts such as George Hagerman, a senior research associate at Virginia Tech and co-author of a recent EPRI marine-energy study. “You can’t know if the wind will be up in an hour,” he says, “but you can predict the tide 1,000 years from now.”

Hydropower already propelled one revolution in the U.S. Starting in the Great Depression, the government erected thousands of dams, spreading cheap power across many states. Today they supply 7% of U.S. demand, some three times the combined share of wind, solar, and other renewables. Yet even as existing dams are being upgraded, environmental concerns thwart new building.

EUROPEAN EMBRACE

Before the U.S. fully taps tidal power, it will have to play catch-up. Marine-energy R&D was born in the energy programs of the Carter and Reagan eras, but these experiments lost their funding in the 1980s. “We were the leaders when I started out. Now Britain is entreating us to set up there,” says Verdant’s technology director, Dean Corren. He dreamed up the East River project in the mid-1980s while investigating alternative power at New York University. But then “power got cheaper, and research stopped,” he says.

Across the Atlantic there is a long history of subsidies for renewable energy. For example, the EU-backed European Marine Energy Center Ltd. in Orkney, Scotland, is a one-stop shop for lunar startups. Entrepreneurs can get a test rig in the water and get hooked up to the grid quickly, says EMEC managing director Neil Kermode.

Ocean Power Technologies Inc. in Pennington, N.J., opted for a London stock listing because of stronger interest from European backers, says CEO George W. Taylor. Both the U.S. Navy and Iberdrola, a utility in Spain, have signed contracts to test OPT’s PowerBuoy, which generates energy by bobbing up and down.

In the U.S., last year’s energy bill raised hopes in the hydropower community. By unifying the licensing of offshore wind- and marine-energy projects under the jurisdiction of the Interior Dept.’s Minerals Management Service, “it sets the stage for faster approvals,” says Carolyn Elefant, co-founder of the Ocean Renewable Energy Coalition. But the bill failed to recognize ocean energy as eligible for the sorts of production tax credits that jump-started wind power investment in the ’90s.

At the East River, Verdant is confident its compact submarine turbines are ready for the long haul. Once an 18-month trial is completed, Verdant hopes to get the O.K. to install up to 300 turbines. That would generate enough power to supply some 8,000 New York homes. “It’s our flight at Kitty Hawk,” says Taylor.

Click here to see the original story at BusinessWeek.com: http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_10/b3974056.htm

BusinessWeek

The Race Against Climate Change — How top companies are reducing emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases | BusinessWeek

On Nov. 21 power company executives from all over the country gathered in the Pit, a spacious General Electric () auditorium in Crotonville, N.Y., to meet with GE CEO Jeffrey R. Immelt and his team. The day was overcast and cold, but the discussion was about the warming climate. At one point in the meeting, David J. Slump, GE Energy’s chief marketing executive, asked for an informal vote. How many of the 30 or so utility and GE business executives thought that, once President George W. Bush was no longer in office, the U.S. would impose mandatory curbs on the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases linked to global warming? Four out of five of them agreed. “Forget the science debate,” says Cinergy Corp. CEO James E. Rogers, who was at the meeting. “The regulations will change someday. And if we’re not ready, we’re in trouble.”

The world is changing faster than anyone expected. Not only is the earth warming, bringing more intense storms and causing Arctic ice to vanish, but the political and policy landscape is being transformed even more dramatically. Already, certain industries are facing mandatory limits on emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases in some of the 129 countries that have signed the Kyoto Protocol. This month representatives of those nations are gathering in Montreal to develop post-Kyoto plans. Meanwhile, U.S. cities and states are rushing to impose their own regulations.

A surprising number of companies in old industries such as oil and materials as well as high tech are preparing for this profoundly altered world. They are moving swiftly to measure and slash their greenhouse gas emissions. And they are doing it despite the Bush Administration’s opposition to mandatory curbs.

This change isn’t being driven by any sudden boardroom conversion to environmentalism. It’s all about hard-nosed business calculations. “If we stonewall this thing to five years out, all of a sudden the cost to us and ultimately to our consumers can be gigantic,” warns Rogers, who will manage 20 coal-fired power plants if Cinergy’s pending merger with Duke Energy is completed next year.

One new twist in the whole discussion of global warming is the arrival of a corps of sharp-penciled financiers. Bankers, insurers, and institutional investors have begun to tally the trillions of dollars in financial risks that climate change poses. They are now demanding that companies in which they hold stakes (or insure) add up risks related to climate change and alter their business plans accordingly. For utilities like Cinergy that could mean switching billions in planned investments from the usual coal-fired power plants to new, cleaner facilities.

The pressure is forcing more players to wrestle with environmental risks, even if the coming regulations aren’t right around the corner. As the debate over climate change shifts from scientific data to business-speak such as “efficiency investment” and “material risk,” CEOs are suddenly understanding why climate change is important. “It doesn’t matter whether carbon emission reductions are mandated or not,” explains David Struhs, vice-president of environmental affairs at International Paper Co. () “Everything we’re doing makes sense to our shareholders and to our board, regardless of what direction the government takes.” The nation’s biggest paper company, with $25.5 billion in sales, IP has upped its use of wood waste to 20% of its fuel mix, from 13% in 2002. That’s cut both net CO2 output and energy costs.

REALITY DAWNS
Adding to the pressure on CEOs, the public has largely accepted global warming as reality. And as in the case of IP, the economic logic can be compelling. Far from breaking the bank, cutting energy use and greenhouse emissions can actually fatten the bottom line and create new business opportunities, while simultaneously greening up companies’ reputations. One company that has hiked its visibility on this changed landscape is GE. It formed a new Ecomagination division last May to offer everything from more efficient locomotives to advanced, low-emitting coal power plants.

Scores of companies have already taken action to fight climate change. Who are the leaders? In this special report, BusinessWeek has teamed up with the Climate Group, a British organization that serves as a clearing house for information on carbon reduction, and Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, a leading Wall Street green investment research firm. Together with a panel of expert judges drawn from academic institutions, we have identified and ranked the companies that have shown the greatest initiative in cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. We have also identified best practices, effective policies, and what kinds of results to expect.

Details about how the judges made their selections and a wealth of material on the companies and individuals in the rankings can be found at businessweek.com/go/carbon. The lists feature some gold-plated names: Citigroup () is working with Fannie Mae () to encourage sales of energy-efficient homes. IBM () saved hundreds of millions of dollars by cutting energy use, while Unilever managed to slash its greenhouse gas output by more than 10% in a single year.

Topping the company ranking is an experienced hand at making the most out of changing regulations, DuPont (). Back in the mid-1980s, DuPont created a profitable business selling substitutes for chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) refrigerants that were destroying the earth’s protective ozone layer. Tackling climate change was a natural extension of that experience. After studying the data, “we came to the conclusion that the science was compelling and that action should be taken,” says DuPont Chairman and CEO Charles O. “Chad” Holliday Jr.

BEATING GOALS
In 1994, DuPont committed to cutting its gas emissions by 40% by the year 2000 from its 1990 levels. By 2000 the company had met its original target and set an even more ambitious one — a 65% reduction by 2010. But the gains have been so dramatic that DuPont has already hit that goal too. It also uses 7% less energy than it did in 1990, despite producing 30% more goods. That has saved $2 billion.

Saving money and reducing risks are both powerful incentives, and they help explain why investors and insurers are pressuring CEOs to tackle climate change.

Insurers in particular are staggered by their mounting bills for hurricanes, floods, fires, hailstorms, disease, heat waves, and crop loss. Many scientists agree that higher temperatures are causing more powerful storms and perhaps intensifying extreme weather events, ranging from drought and wild fires to ice storms.

Even tiny weather changes bring awesome costs. A slight uptick in intense storm activity could boost annual wind-related insured losses, to as much as $150 billion a year — an increase equivalent to two or three Hurricane Andrews in an average season, according to a 2005 study by the Association of British Insurers. Indeed, insured losses from catastrophic weather events have already increased fifteenfold in the past 30 years. “Risk of climate change is real. It’s here. It’s affecting our business today,” says John Coomber, CEO of insurer Swiss Re.

Rising temperatures aren’t the only factor in the increasing toll from weather-related disasters, of course. Development along coastlines and other high-vulnerability areas is surging, concedes Evan Mills, an energy scientist at the U.S. Energy Dept.’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. But overall, “weather-related losses are becoming more erratic and growing much faster than such shifts can explain,” he says.

The insurance exposure extends beyond weather events to management decisions. Corporate directors and officers are protected from personal liability for mismanagement by so-called D&O policies. If executives at companies that hold the policies don’t take stock of their environmental risk exposure, they could be on the firing line for mismanagement — with insurers picking up the tab. Says Chris Walker, managing director of Swiss Re’s Greenhouse Gas Risk Solutions: “Property. Life. Health. Crops. D&O — you name it. It’s the perfect storm for insurers.”

That’s why climate change is causing insurance companies to ally with institutional investors, banks, and rating agencies. Together they are pushing companies to start thinking about greenhouse emissions as a material risk, just like other forms of financial risk that can impair future earnings. JPMorgan Chase & Co. (), for instance, is helping analysts and bankers model the impact of carbon on the banks’ clients. “Global warming is on the radar screen of a lot of financial institutions,” said Denise Furey, senior director of Fitch Ratings Ltd., at a recent climate conference.

The specter of new regulations on carbon emissions has already galvanized executives at Alcoa Inc. (), another company on the BusinessWeek/Climate Group list. To reduce its greenhouse emissions and save energy, too, Alcoa improved a key step in the aluminum production process, helping to cut total greenhouse gas output by 25%.

A handful of big coal burners have also leaped to the forefront. American Electric Power (), Cinergy, and TXU () all did detailed studies of the risks posed by climate change — and by expected new rules. Their biggest challenge: planning new power plants for an uncertain future. At some point in the next 40 years — the operating life of a plant — the U.S. is certain to join in a round of international greenhouse discussions, says Michael G. Morris, CEO of AEP, the nation’s biggest coal consumer: “That’s clear in my mind, and in our board’s mind.” If the U.S. rules are similar to Europe’s, where it already costs a company more than $20 to release a ton of CO2, utilities and rate payers could face billions in expenses.

That would force utilities to invest more in lower-carbon alternatives such as wind power, “clean” coal, or natural gas, which emits one-third as much carbon per kilowatt as coal. But executives need to know soon what rules they will have to meet. That’s why many are in favor of mandatory limits — though they hesitate to say it publicly because of the opposition in Washington.

ISOLATED
The President remains opposed to any policy that would require carbon cutbacks. Instead, the White House asserts that climate change can be tackled with voluntary action and with major investments in alternatives to fossil fuels, such as hydrogen.

Yet the White House is growing increasingly isolated. U.S. public opinion is shifting. In October, a Fox News poll found that 77% of Americans believe global warming is happening, and of those, 76% say it’s at least partly due to human activity. That’s making greenhouse gas reductions trendy: The 2006 Super Bowl in Detroit, for one, aims to offset all of the new CO2 the championship generates by planting thousands of trees in the hills and towns near Ford Field.

More substantively, states are stepping into the breach with their own regulations. Nine Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic states have formed the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). By 2009 the initiative aims to set up a “cap-and-trade program” covering carbon dioxide emissions by nearly 200 power plants operating in Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. Companies would be given an upper limit on greenhouse gases they may release. If they can cut their emissions below that level, they can sell the unused allowances to companies that are emitting above their cap level.

This initiative could bring a major change in the politics of global warming. First, state action will compel more companies to seek nationwide regulation from Congress, explains Eileen Claussen, president of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change. “Companies don’t want to see a patchwork of state regulations. As more states get involved, it ups the ante.”

Plus, two likely candidates for the 2008 Republican Presidential nomination are on board. New York Governor George E. Pataki launched the regional initiative in 2003, and Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney backs it in principle.

Meanwhile in Washington, the Republican-led Congress is opposing the Administration’s hard line. On June 22, over the objections of the White House, the Senate voted 54-43 for a resolution calling on Congress to “enact a comprehensive and effective national program of mandatory market-based limits and incentives on emissions of greenhouse gases.”

Some evangelical Christian groups, traditional allies of the Bush White House, have joined the call for action. “This used to be seen as just the passion of a few environmentalists on the left,” says Jim Jewell of the National Association of Evangelicals, which includes 52 denominations serving 30 million parishioners. “But support on the issue has broadened. God’s call on his people is to care for his creation.”

In the battle in the nation’s capital, it will help that some people believe God is on the side of greenhouse gas reductions. For most business executives, though, the real driver is the bottom line. Often, the best way to slash emissions is simply to reduce energy consumption. Because carbon is basically a proxy for fossil energy, cutting carbon equals cutting costs, argues energy guru Amory B. Lovins, head of the Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI), a nonprofit energy and environment policy think tank: “Efficiency is cheaper than fuel.”

That approach is what landed Geneva’s STMicroelectronics, the world’s No. 6 chipmaker, on the BusinessWeek/Climate Group ranking. Lovins and the RMI helped cut the company’s energy use by 5% per year. Many changes were surprisingly low-tech, such as putting in larger air-conditioner ducts. That enabled air-circulating fans to do their job at half speed, using just a seventh of the energy. Last year, with $40 million in improvements, the company saved $173 million.

When mandatory regulations are issued they essentially put a price tag on carbon emissions. That obviously makes cleaner, more efficient projects more financially attractive, spurring new business opportunities. GE, for one, is seizing the moment with its new Ecomagination division. And scores of small companies are bringing new clean-technology innovations to market. Massachusetts Institute of Technology chemical engineer Isaac Berzin started GreenFuel Technologies Corp. to harness the power of algae to grab CO2 from the exhaust of a gas-fired power plant. At a pilot site atop MIT’s on-campus power station, the GreenFuel device cuts CO2 by 82% on sunny days and by 50% on overcast days.

How far can this effort go? Some economists say cutting emissions and boosting efficiency will spur economic growth this century. The engineering challenges are immense and will require research and development investment in fields that have been relatively neglected until now: alternative energies, carbon sequestration, higher efficiency engineering, new lightweight materials for buildings and vehicles, and rebuilding old industrial and energy infrastructure with clean gear.

Yet despite the claims of the global-warming skeptics, the cost can be affordable. As the examples of companies in the BusinessWeek/Climate Group ranking show, there often is a boost to the bottom line. Far more substantial cuts are needed to make a real dent in the global-warming problem. And clearly, the developing nations need to be on board with cleaner technologies as well. But the news is that many companies are energetically tackling this growing environmental challenge.

By Adam Aston and Burt Helm, with Michael Arndt in Chicago, Amy Barrett in Philadelphia, and John Carey in Washington

Writer, editor, content advisor, creative leader – energy, climate | Chief storyteller at RMI | Co-founder of T Brand at The New York Times