Can Green Technology Save Us?

Now that the economic stimulus bill has been signed into law, it's time to examine some of the assumptions contained within the legislation and campaign rhetoric about green technologies (which the development of those technologies is a key element in the jobs creation).

It goes without saying that green technologies are not particularly environmentally friendly, in other words, often the most "green" thing you can do is if your appliance, car, house, or whatever is working, don't replace it.  Replacing with "green" items is as bad or worse than doing nothing.  

However, now the emphasis is on clean energy.  While commentators from other regions of the country drool over clean power, the Pacific Northwest, semi-abundant with large and powerful rivers, knows full well the impacts of hydroelectric power, considered clean by so-called energy gurus (as in it sure beats coal).  As with everything, there are pluses and minuses to hydroelectric power, just as there are with coal, nuclear, wind, and harnessing the tides or waves.  In my opinion it will take a mix of all potential power sources, not relying on one or two, to create a relatively green source of power.

Hydro power not only increases the temperatures of the rivers, but it also creates an impassible barricade to anadromous fish such as salmon and steelhead.  And these barriers are extremely difficult to "fix" in order to assist salmon in their return to spawning grounds.  In the Pacific Northwest we have fish hatched, barged, trucked, fish laddered, and airlifted salmon up and down the Columbia and it's tributaries, and still find ourselves listing salmon spawns on the federal Endangered Species lists.  Not only is the spawn an issue, but once you create an impassible barricade, predators become an impediment to the fish, such that the predators such as Sea lions or Caspian terns become prey of humans trying to prevent lower numbers of salmon spawn and yes, the cycle continues.

Then, there are the issues of displacement that we witnessed with China's massive construction of the Three Gorges Dam or the potential irrevocable damage to First Peoples with the proposed Hydro-Quebec's dams on James Bay.  

And, of course, when any technology is seen as a panacea for perceived problems, we overlook or neglect the problems with the technology itself.  For instance, the actual mileage per charge for electric cars is almost 50% less than originally touted.  Plus, there are the issues of battery disposal, much less the amount of electrical energy the cars require.

Ah, then there is the issue of increasing our power capacities.  If we're going to be finding and developing "green" power, the major problem is apparently the current power grids in this country can not handle new sources of power (wind, solar, geothermal) and are vastly  over capacity as it is.  Recently, Senator Harry Reid from Nevada, the current leader of the majority in the Senate, introduced a bill to have the federal government essentially take control of siting of the the high voltage power lines.  In other words, removing all the regulatory red-tape from 231 different state agencies across the country, so that the feds can determine where to put power lines.  Which on it's face seems like a good idea, except who really wants a high tension power line running through a national forest (the bill asks that federal lands be opened up for these kinds of lines) or even, gasp, in your back yard?

Today, I had an appliance repair man come over to fix my oven.  I have this old stove, my guess is it's at least 25 or 30 years old.  The bottom heating element died on the oven.  It cost about $175 to fix.  I've thought for years about replacing it, getting a swanky stainless stove (in fact, I had a free one that was gas a few years ago, but that is a whole other story about my city's bureaucratic nightmare on digging a hole to access the gas main).  But the repair man said to me: "listen, this is the best stove GE every made.  It will last you a long time.  Hold onto it. "  And so I will.  And to me, that is the greenest thing I can do.

As an aside, he also told me that appliances are being made, now, that will generate an error code which will be transmitted to the manufacturer's service division, who will then email or call you to set up a time to repair...he said, that will put him out of business.

As we look to these new and amazing technologies we need to remember we are beginning to emerge from a decade, if not longer, of jumping feet first without looking, thinking, pausing.  It's time for us to  pause, to pencil out all the ramifications of our love affair with more and more technological solutions to our environmental problems.  If the noodling says these technology is worth it, given all the consequences, then let's go for it.  If not, there will be other answers over time.  Remember, the root of conservation is conserve, to be conservative.  Sometimes that is a good thing!

Smart Grids and Big Brothers

Today, in the New York Times was a small article that Google is getting involved in metering power.  All the rage among energy conservation folks is the idea of "smart grids."  Quite simplistically, a smart grid is one that is centrally controlled and in a sense pulses energy when needed.  For instance, it would increase energy over, say, high power tension wires, when all the lights are on in Las Vegas (wait, bad example, those lights are on day or night), ok, when the lights are on in Portland, Oregon.  But the smart grid would reduce power when the lights are off.  

A smart grid is also on a micro level.  Apparently, appliance manufacturers have been installing chips in the gorgeous stainless steel dishwasher you bought two years ago that sends a signal to your utility when you're washing the dishes.  How the smart grid would work is the utility would control when your dishwasher was running, not you.  So, essentially, all the power sucking dishwashers would not be running at the same time in a certain grid sector.  

First, there is a little bit of irony in Google's entry into this large scale power conservation.  Of course, they see a way to monetize the monitoring of power usage, your electrical meter perhaps being connected to the Internet...anyway, here is a company whose products are all web based, thus requiring enormous use of power in their servers.  Google, along with Microsoft and Yahoo are scouring the Pacific Northwest (think cheap federally subsidized power) for real estate near dams along the Columbia River to locate their huge server farms.  So, perhaps the deal is that if we all conserve energy there will be more for the server farms?

Ok, that said, here is my other concern: there is a chip in my appliances?  Now, I haven't bought a new appliance in years (imagine my surprise when I finally bought a refrigerator and a light went on as I opened the door!) so no one in the world knows when I run my dishwasher.  But for an old-school girl like me, the idea that there are chips installed in appliances that could communicate with my utility company is more than disconcerting.  Imagine the kinds of mischief law enforcement can get into once it gets its hands on the data, among other concerns.

However, having said that, our "new new economy" will rely on power generated by hydroelectricity, coal, and indeed, nuclear power (yes, everyone take a big gulp,but the reality is there are only so many rivers in North America that we can ruin by constructing dams).  The big surge to produce electric cars, which use enormous amounts of electricity as well as the server farms (for all those devotees of cloud computing), will require some trafficking of the power grids that we have now and will construct over the next few years (watch for many many lawsuits over the eminent domain of large swathes of land for transmission corridors).  Perhaps allowing utilities to make choices when to surge and conserve power is in the long run, wise.

Nonetheless, I do believe we need to have a discussion about those chips inside our dishwashers.  They seem like an uninvited guest to the dinner party.