Category Archives: Sustainability

The Pickens Plan for Energy Sustainability

Courtesy of AJ Sweatt on the MFGX blog, I was alerted to this site which, in AJ’s words, has a great energy plan that is clearly enunciated, easy to understand, the right thing to do, and – what really caught my eye – a potential boon to manufacturing.

America is addicted to foreign oil. This wouldn’t be a bad thing, as every country these days relies on another for something, if it wasn’t for the fact that the addiction is becoming all encompassing. As noted in the plan, America’s dependence on foreign oil has increased from 24% to 70%+ in the last 38 years, with no end in site. It’s unsustainable — and there’s no excuse for it! As I’ve pointed out in many previous posts, there are affordable clean-energy alternatives — and with the exception of transportation (and air and sea travel in particular), there’s no excuse not to be consuming clean energy.

Not only is the current North American dependence on oil unsustainable, it’s scary. As the Pickens Plan notes, at current oil prices, we will send $700 billion dollars out of the country this year alone – that’s four times the annual cost of the Iraq war. Furthermore, projected over the next 10 years the cost will be $10 trillion – it will be the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind. Wealth that America needs if it is to maintain its standing in the global marketplace. And, moreover, it’s sufficient wealth to build wind facilities that would produce 20% of the annual electricity requirement of the US, with $9 trillion to spare! In other words, for what the US is spending on oil in one year, it could build facilities that would produce 20% of its power needs over the next half-century!

As the article notes, the United States is the Saudi Arabia of wind power. Studies from around the world show that the Great Plains States are home to the greatest wind energy potential in the world — by far. The Department of Energy reports that 20% of America’s electricity can come from wind. North Dakota alone has the potential to provide power for more than a quarter of the country. Imagine if the US capitalized on this power … and then capitalized on all the water power available off of both coasts (through tidal turbiness) … and then capitalized on all of the solar power available in the southwest semi-deserts. The US could easily meet two thirds, if not three quarters, of its non-transportation energy needs without breaking a sweat. And that’s with today’s technology. Solar and tidal power technologies are still improving, as well as getting more economical to deploy, and it stands to reason that future improvements will make the technology even more energy efficient and economical.

In addition, instead of touting bio-fuel as the alternative to oil for transportation needs, it’s proposing natural gas, with greenhouse gas emissions that are 23% lower than diesel and 30% lower than gasoline. Given that natural gas is a domestic energy source, and that bio-fuel, which decreases global food production (which is already at a record low), is not the answer, this is a very well thought out suggestion. It’s probably not a permanent solution, but it’s a long term solution, and by the time we reached a point where natural gas supply was a problem, fuel cell technology, or even more modern energy sources, should be ready to take its place.

So, as AJ recommends, take a minute and read The Pickens Plan. If only the politicians were so clear thinking.

Energy Efficiency is the First Step in Energy Conservation (and Budget Savings)

If you’re a buyer of computers, electronics, machinery, automobiles, buildings, or anything else that requires power, the first thing that should be on your mind these days, with petroleum and oil prices going through the roof, is energy. It now costs more to power an average desktop workstation for its expected life-span than it does to buy it, just as it does to power and cool your average server. Getting 40% off MSRP on a pick-up truck that only gets 15 mpg isn’t a great deal anymore if it’s going to be driven 30,000 miles per year, because, at current fuel costs, you’ll be spending 45,000+ in fuel costs over 5 years … over two times what you’ll be paying for the truck!

That’s why it was great to see a recent article in Industry Week on “Growing the Energy Efficiency Market” that re-iterated the fact that energy-efficiency technologies can reduce energy consumption by 25% or more, echoing the results of a recent McKinsey study that also found that improved energy efficiency can cut energy requirements by 25% in many developed countries, as I noted in my post on Cutting Carbon Footprints on the Country Level.

The Industry Week article focussed on a recently released ACEEE (American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy) report on “The Size of the U.S. Energy Efficiency Market: Generating a More Complete Picture”. The report, which was supported by the Civil Society Institute, the Kendall Foundation, and the North American Insulation Manufacturer’s Association, found that:

  • The U.S. has the potential to reduce energy consumption by an additional 25% to 30% through strategic use of energy efficient technologies
  • Energy-Efficiency has met about three-fourths of the demand of new energy related services since 1970, proving that it works
  • Investments in more energy-efficient technologies could result in an efficiency market worth more than 700 Billion by 2030

Furthermore, as Industry Week alone has pointed out over the last month or so, opportunities for energy efficiency improvements, as well as new sources of energy, are everywhere.

  • In “Let Motor Efficiency Drive Competitiveness, Too”, we find out that not only does energy account for 97%+ of the total life-cycle cost of an AC induction motor, but that adjustable speed drives can often reduce power consumption by as much as 50% in some implementations! Furthermore, high efficiency motors alone have the potential to reduce industrial power consumption by as much as 18% across the board!
  • In another article, Industry Week informs us that “a new material benefits fuel cells” and that MIT has developed direct methanol fuel cells (DMFCs) based on this material that improve power output by more than 50%. (Furthermore, this should also lead to the creation of even higher performance batteries for handheld electronics in the near future.)
  • And in “power from seaweed?”, they noted that the production of bioethanol from seaweed might soon be a possibility. If it was possible to produce this fuel in an energy efficient manner, it might make biofuel a viable alternative. Right now, as I’ve pointed out many times, the focus is on corn-based ethanol, which is extremely energy-inefficient to produce (over six barrels of oil are required to produce eight barrels of lower-efficiency ethanol) and reduces the global food supply. In contrast, seaweed is not a key food crop and certain species of seaweed have higher oil concentrations than most land-based crops. It would be fantastic if everything works out.

If you want to be more energy efficient, you might consider checking out the ninth edition of the Plant Engineers and Managers Guide to Energy Conservation. A review can also be found in Industry Week.

Ethanol != Gasoline

I have to applaud Industry Week for an article they ran a couple of months back on how “Raising Ethanol Levels Could Hurt Consumers, Manufacturers — If Not Done Right” and shedding even more light onto why ethanol, and corn-based ethanol in particular, is not the answer. Not only are we on the verge of a Global Food Crisis, with food supplies the lowest they’ve been in at least 50, if not 100, years, but, as the article so astutely points out, raising ethanol levels in blended gasoline can be harmful to many devices, as most devices in North America were designed to run on a 10% ethanol mix, if not a 0% ethanol mix.

Of course, this hasn’t stopped at least one state (namely, Minnesota) from ignoring this fact and passing ridiculous legislation that all gasoline sold in the state be E20 (the short name for 20% by volume ethanol blended gasoline). Now, it’s true that they have a study that concluded that E20 will not harm current automotive fuel systems, which I’m not sure I believe considering many vehicles on the road were designed for E0, and that E20 apparently provides similar power and performance to E10 (and if your factor of error is large enough, I might buy that), but they’re overlooking one very important fact – cars aren’t the only piece of technology that runs on gasoline! Americans love their ride-on lawnmowers and their gasoline powered chain-saws. Many people have back-up power generators that run on gasoline … and many hobby pilots have small planes that run on gasoline. Etc. Etc. Etc.

Did the study test every single product out there that runs on gasoline? All 400 Million of them? Not even close! North America is not Brazil. Flex-Flux Vehicles (FFVs) and other Flex-Flux Engine (FFEs) technologies might be common there, where a 20% blend is perfectly fine (and doubly fine when you can make highly-efficient ethanol from abundant and easily grown sugarcane and not inefficient to produce corn-based ethanol where the corn-for-ethanol production reduces food supplies when there are still a number of countries in Africa where people are still starving on a daily basis), but they are not common, if you can even get your hands on them at all (legally), in North America.

Furthermore, small engines react differently to ethanol mixes than large engines, and often do so in ways that are dangerous. As the article deftly points out boat engines may seize up and gas may leak, the RPM increases on chainsaws as the clutch and chain are constantly engaged, and rubber and other components in small engine products grow corroded and all of this can lead to engine and product failure, and potentially, safety hazards.

So next time someone starts preaching about how ethanol is our savior, make it clear to them that it’s not the answer.

What is the answer? In the short term, it’s actually a really simple one. Stop buying energy from power plants that burn oil and petroleum products. Remember – you’re purchasers and you have the power! Over 20% of energy production in the USA is from oil and petroleum burning plants. If we replaced these plants with solar, wind, and hydro plants, that would increase the oil available for transportation needs by 150%. In the short term, we’d be swimming in it! (The Transportation sector uses roughly 40% of the 7665+ million barrels of oil consumed by the US each year.)

There’s No Excuse for Food Shortages in the Developed World! II

In our last post, I pointed out that not only does the developed world import more than enough food, but that it has the potential to produce sufficient food for the global population for years to come. The solution that I presented, at least in the mid-term, is quite simple:

  1. Stop Wasting Food
    The US wastes over 20B in food each year.
  2. Stop Wasting Food
    Poor quality monitoring leads to extremely wasteful recalls.
  3. Stop Wasting Food
    Way too much food is diverted to energy inefficient bio-fuel.
  4. Stop Wasting Food
    Crop yields are lower than they need to be globally because the right knowledge and technology takes too long to be applied.

But before you think all of the problems are caused by big business, and that only they need to be part of the solution, I should note that you’re also part of the problem, and part of the solution. So, what can you do?

  1. Stop Wasting Food
    Restaurant single-servings don’t have to be large enough to serve a small family.
  2. Stop Wasting Food
    Leftovers aren’t just for compost.
  3. Stop Wasting Food
    “Prepared foods” generate large amounts of waste.

We all know the saying that “Everything’s Bigger in Texas” (and, in many ways it is), but what we don’t know is that no phrase has created more waste in the food industry than this one. Once restaurants started fighting on portion-size, offering up standard serving sizes that even a northern lumberjack would have trouble finishing, food waste skyrocketed. It’s estimated that as much as 50% of all waste dumped by a restaurant in a garbage bin is food. An average North American eats out 4 times a week, or 20% of the time. This says that the food service industry accounts for roughly 20% of food. If 50% of that is wasted, then the food industry wastes 10% of available food – or, as a whole, they are as bad as our retailers! If we as consumers stopped going to restaurants that served larger portions than we are going to eat, forcing them to either serve portions that were less likely to result in waste or go out of business, we could have a major impact.

I’m sure you’re saying “I put left-overs in the fridge”, and I’m sure you do, but do you eat them? Or do they sit there until they’re discovered growing a new species of mold a month later, and then hit the compost pile. As a fellow Haligonian points out (Food is Not too Expensive, HoserNews), if you properly label food, understand that even mushy fruits and vegetables are still edible (and good for soups), and don’t buy or prepare more food than you can eat before it hits its expiry date, you can minimize your waste. And as for compost, if you mulch when you mow, and re-use your yard waste, you don’t really need that much!

The hot new trend, as noted by Scott Feschuk in a recent opinion piece in MacLeans is buying prepared meals from the grocery store that are ready to eat in minutes (or seconds). Just open them, pop them in the microwave and a-way you go. Now, TV Dinners have been around for a while, but they’re not the problem. (They are a problem, just of a different sort.) The problem is stuff like pre-made peanut butter and jelly sandwiches with the crust cut off. (What happened to the crust?) And store made offerings that lead to food waste when it doesn’t sell by the accelerated best-before date. At least at major food processing plants, if things are set up and run properly, food deemed unsuitable for sale to humans can often be converted into animal feed, which prevents it from being wasted. But at smaller plants and local supermarkets, if you’re lucky it just goes into the compost. If you’re not, it goes into the dumpster. So make the PB&J yourself – the nineteen seconds you spend popping the tops, spreading the peanut butter and jam, and screwing the tops back on really does help the planet – and the people on it.

There’s No Excuse for Food Shortages in the Developed World!

I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of agflation – and the worst of it hasn’t even hit Canada yet as we’re able to grow a lot of the basic foodstuffs we need (given our relatively large abundance of land). However, some of the larger retailers have started rationing how much of certain products, like rice, that you are allowed to buy at any one time, for example, and I’m thinking it’s just the tip of the iceberg.

And it shouldn’t be. Not only do we import more than enough food, but we have the potential to continue to produce sufficient food for the global population for years to come. The solution, at least in the mid-term, is quite simple.

  1. Stop Wasting Food
    The US wastes over 20B in food each year.
  2. Stop Wasting Food
    Poor quality monitoring leads to extremely wasteful recalls.
  3. Stop Wasting Food
    Way too much food is diverted to energy inefficient bio-fuel.
  4. Stop Wasting Food
    Crop yields are lower than they need to be globally because the right knowledge and technology takes too long to be applied.

Lets start with (1). According to this recent article in the Economist, nearly 20B worth of food was dumped by retailers in the US alone because of their inefficiency – that’s somewhere between 8% and 10% of “perishable” goods being wasted in the US alone each year – a ratio that’s almost twice that of European retailers! Considering the investments made in inventory-management software, cold-storage, and other supply chain paraphernalia, this is ridiculous.

Why are things so bad? Too much food is imported, which means that food has to travel further, and this increases the risk that it will rot in transit. American grocers are poor at predicting demand, as most don’t even capture and analyze basic transaction data. And American grocers have an unhealthy enthusiasm for huge displays and a wide range of produce – which almost guarantees waste since the huge displays won’t sell and the customers will be overwhelmed with choice.

What they should do is take a lesson from Stop & Shop which reduced the size of boxes and the number of products on display by almost a fifth. Not only did this initiative reduce waste by a third, but, since the chain was able to focus on insure the produce it did carry was as fresh as possible, it improved customer satisfaction. And the initiative is only two years in … meaning that better results could be coming.

Let’s move on to (2). How many recalls for spinach and beef alone have we heard about in the past year alone? Too many! And how much food is wasted as a result of a single recall – when only an extremely small amount of the food is actually tainted? Tens to Hundreds of Millions of dollars worth of food – or, in some cases, enough food to feed a country the size of Canada for a week.

And let’s not forget (3). On average, it takes over 6 barrels of crude to produce 8 barrels of ethanol … for an energy gain of 20%, if we’re lucky. To put this in perspective, if the average North American stopped driving like a road warrior, we’d achieve the same gain. (Driving 15 over the limit with the gas pedal to the floor every time you hit a hill can easily decrease fuel efficiency by 20%.) The answer lies in better engines, better power plants, and more efficient use of fuel – not in wasting food.

And, finally, in reference to (4), there’s the fact that we have developed very efficient methods of farming, crops that grow faster while being more resistant to drought and insects, and better methods of harvest, storage, and distribution – but have done little to ensure that these methods reach the countries, and farms, where they are needed most. What’s the point of having a World Community Grid that IBM and the University of Washington are going to use to develop stronger and more nourishing strains of rice if the YouTube generation can’t get off of FaceBook long enough to realize it exists.