Go Green

By Micah Gamino 

One key element of the Edmond Electric Energy Efficient Home, or E4 Home, is the geothermal heat pump.

(For those of you who need a refresher: The E4 is a demo home being constructed by Edmond Electric and their partner, Edmond-based Red Rock Builders Inc., as part of their bid to convince home buyers to demand more energy efficient homes from builders. For more explination, visit http://newsok.com/article/3295312/)

So, what’s a geothermal heat pump? Well, you’re not alone. I had never heard of such a contraption before officials with Edmond’s electric utility told me of their plans to put one in the E4 Home.  A geothermal heat pump, or ground source heat pump, uses a system of pipes containing water or a water and antifreeze mixture to circulate the Earth’s constant temperature from the ground into your home. The system is said to heat and cool a home much more efficiently — using less electricity — than a conventional heat pump. A conventional heat pump works very hard to heat or cool outside air before injecting it into your home to provide a desired temperature.

But does geothermal really work better? The federal government may be able to shed some light. http://www1.eere.energy.gov/geothermal/heatpumps.html

One interesting note exclusive to Go Green blog readers: Edmond Electric’s Energy Service Manager Bob Corff, who is the brainchild behind the E4 Home, long ago installed a geothermal system at his home in Edmond.

By John Sutter

Oklahoma Secretary of the Environment Miles Tolbert resigned today to work as an environmental attorney at an Oklahoma City law firm.

The announcement came in the morning, and Tolbert spoke about the global energy crisis and climate change over lunch at the Downtown Rotary Club in Oklahoma City.

Listen to most of that speech here. (sorry, the very end is cut off, but there are more than 20 minutes of it). Also watch a video, below, of Tolbert listing the top environmental issues that he sees facing Oklahoma, and check out this week’s environment podcast, which recaps the resignation and talks about some of the environment issues in the state.

[video: Outgoing Oklahoma Secretary of the Environment Miles Tolbert on the most pressing environmental issues in Oklahoma.]

At the noon speech, Tolbert said environmental issues can be touchy in Oklahoma.

“Oklahomans care a lot about the environment, but they are suspicious about the traditional ways of protecting it,” he said. He said the country and the state are having a serious conversations about environmental issues “for the first time in a generation.”

A Rotarian introduced Tolbert, saying he’s been close to both presidential candidates: he sat behind Obama at Harvard Law School and behind McCain on a recent flight to Washington, D.C.

Tolbert said both candidates have “scurried around” to do something about high energy prices, and he’s disappointed that they are posturing as if they could bring back cheap energy in a snap.

“The days of cheap, secure and plentiful energy are over,” he said.

Oil production has declined in Oklahoma since World War II, and Oklahoma oil production in 2007 equaled the state’s production in 1910, he said. The world has exhausted its supply of easy-to-get oil, he said, and therefore needs to be looking towards long-term solutions, not quick fixes.

The answer isn’t to look for one miracle fuel, Tolbert said before proceeding to list flaws with all available forms of energy. Here’s a summary of his thoughts:

Coal: cheap but “profoundly dirty.”

Solar: seems perfect, but panels are made with toxics like mercury and cadmium, which makes large-scale production dangerous.

Nuclear: clean, but we don’t have a way to safely dispose of the radioactive waste.

Wind: clean and available in Oklahoma, but the wind doesn’t always blow, and engineers haven’t figured out how to store the power or transport it over long distances.

Hydro: clean, but all resources are tapped.

Biofuel: land used for fuel can’t be used for food; plus water, fertilizer and insecticides go into the production, which takes resources and levies risks on the environment.

“So are we doomed? Are we going to freeze to death in the dark?” Tolbert asked.

No, he said, we just need to work with all of these energy sources and improve upon them.

That work is a major industry, he said, since the United States spends $1 billion per day importing oil.

Oklahoma is hard at work chasing that money, he said, but he said the federal government has been slow to develop the “green jobs” behind alternative energy sources. Many of those jobs are going to Europe, where countries mandated renewable energy use.

Among the projects he listed in Oklahoma: a hog processing plant in Guymon that’s turning pig fat into fuel; wind farms in northwest Oklahoma; company in northeast Oklahoma trying to turn chicken waste into fuel; and state-funded research on switchgrass, a native plant, that can be turned into fuel.

Everyone”from backyard thinkers … to sophisticated academic researchers” is working to find better alternative energy solutions, he said.

Tolbert also plugged an idea that he said is not as sexy as wind turbines or switchgrass, but is as important: using less energy.

Without much fanfare, the U.S. is poised to use 4 percent less gas this year than last, he said. That may not seem like a big deal, but it’s the equivalent of putting 10 million electric cars out on the roads in a year, he said.

The “quiet simple steps” are sometimes the most effective, he said. The state Corporation Commission may soon consider a push for energy efficiency, he said.

All of these measures combat the U.S.’s dependency on foreign oil, create jobs and fight climate change, he said. Oklahomans tend to get caught up on climate change as controversial, he said, but many of the methods for addressing the problem have other benefits to public health or for energy independence.

He said America is up to these daunting challenges.

“American ingenuity and industry solved these problems once, and it can do so again — if we let it,” he said.

[What do you all think of his comments? Feel free to post below. On the newsok story, some of you joked about the resignation: “He has done a good job. The Briar Patch will miss him,” one Oklahoma City reader wrote. “Fighting the Poultry Pluckers must be more profitable than going green, huh?” wrote Candace from Lakeland. Russell, from Oklahoma City, wrote that resigning “wasn’t a very green thing to do.”]

By John Sutter

Chesapeake Energy Corp., based in Oklahoma City, hired on a former TV man from Oklahoma City to run a “news” channel on the internet. As the Wall Street Journal points out, the energy company faces growing opposition to drilling in populated areas:

This fall, it will launch Shale.TV, a Web site devoted exclusively to creating new content about the massive natural-gas field known as the Barnett Shale, located in and around Fort Worth, Texas, and one of Chesapeake’s most important assets. Chesapeake has signed up well-known local journalists, including a longtime local television anchor, to run the site and produce three hours of new programming every day.

The station will feature nightly news. It’s being produced by a subsidiary of an Oklahoma ad firm, Ackerman McQueen. The agency runs similar sites for the NRA, the WSJ story points out.

By John Sutter

Some Oklahoma farmers are getting paid to fight global warming by sinking carbon into their fields. It’s a concept that’s based on simple science: plants are made of carbon, and they pull some of it out of the air and store it underground. If, instead of plowing up the land or using it for crops, farmers plant native grasses or trees, they’re essentially cleaning up some greenhouse gases that are emitted by power plants and cars.

In this week’s environment podcast, I talk with two conservationists who are interested in hooking Oklahoma farmers up with people or groups who will pay them for these efforts. Some countries — like Canada and the European Union — regulate carbon dioxide emissions in a way that allows polluters to pay other people (maybe farmers in Oklahoma) to remove carbon dioxide from the air.

The market here is small. But a group called the Oklahoma Carbon Initiative is going to put a Web site (address is yet to be decided) up next month to help educate Oklahomans about so-called “carbon credit” payments. The group will even buy carbon from individual farmers and then sell it in packages to markets.

Here’s some background from the EPA.

And a diagram of the carbon cycle. Basically, people are looking for ways to put carbon back in the ground, since we’ve burned so many carbon-based fossil fuels, thus putting an excess of carbon in the atmosphere.

By John Sutter

On Monday, President Bush lifted an executive ban on offshore drilling for oil. Bush said the act puts pressure on Congress to reciprocate by voting to end its moratorium on offshore drilling, which has been in place since 1981.

Both the congressional and executive bans would have to be lifted in order for the drilling to occur.

Bush said the move would help Americans who are hurting because of high gas prices at the pump. Environmentalists quickly pointed out that offshore drilling will have no impact on gas prices in the short term, and could cause devastating consequences for the environment.

Jim Presswood, an energy advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Council, issued this statement:

“In 2006, President Bush declared that the United States is addicted to oil. Today, he suggested we get a bigger needle.

“The disastrous pro-big oil policies of President Bush and his allies in Congress have left us more addicted to oil than ever. Americans deserve policies that free us from fossil fuels and give us better choices that will bring down our energy costs, make our air cleaner, and help solve global warming.

For more background on the issue read stories from the San Fran Chronicle, The Oklahoman, Tulsa World and Washington Post.

I’ve pulled quotes from Oklahoma-relevant officials below:

U.S. Rep. Mary Fallin, an Oklahoma City Republican:

“It is obvious that one immediate solution to rising energy prices is to find and develop more domestic oil and gas reserves. Modern technologies have made offshore drilling safer and cleaner than ever before.”

U.S. Sen. Jim Inhofe, a Tulsa Republican:

“Currently, 85 percent of the Outer Continental Shelf — an estimated 19 billion barrels of recoverable oil — is off limits. At today’s import levels, this is the equivalent of 35 years of imports from Saudi Arabia.”

Larry Nichols, chief executive of Devon Energy Corp.:

“For a long time, our political leaders could do what environmentalists wanted and still deliver cheap energy. But those days are over. They are over forever. And when they are asked about how they justify these bans and other restrictions on the development of all forms of energy, those are going to be difficult questions for some people to answer.”

Barack Obama, presumptive Dem. nominee for president

“This is not something that’s going to give consumers short-term relief and it is not a long-term solution to our problems with fossil fuels generally and oil in particular.”

John McCain, presumptive Rep. nominee for president

On Monday, McCain made lifting the federal ban on offshore oil and gas development a key part of his energy plan. McCain said states should be allowed to pursue energy exploration in waters near their coasts and get some of the royalty revenue. (AP reporting)

Mozambique is set to expand its natural gas industry so the African country can reduce its dependence on petroleum. The country wants to power cars using its natural gas reserves, which the BBC says are estimated at 3.6 trillion cubit feet in one province.

Sounds a LITTLE bit like the “Pickens Plan”: the billionaire is calling for increased wind energy for electricity and a transfer of natural gas assets to cars.

Facebook IS international these days …

–John

By John Sutter

Billionaire oil tycoon turned alt. energy advocate T. Boone Pickens took his wind power advocacy to a whole new level this week with a public relations campaign he’s calling the “Pickens Plan.”

Check out the video above. You’ll see Pickens go into teacher mode as he draws on a marker board and talks over graphs about our nation’s energy usage. His plan would involved a $1 trillion government investment in wind energy. That would enable the country to produce 22 percent its electricity from wind, freeing up natural gas for use in automobiles. Bada bing! Less dependence on foreign oil, he says.

Of course, Pickens stands to benefit from such a proposition. As The Guardian points out, he’s invested $12 billion on a wind farm in the Texas Panhandle. Compared to that number, the price of his “Pickens Plan” campaign seems small: $58 million, reportedly.

The PR blitz is all over the internet. Pickens has set up a Facebook page, a YouTube channel and there’s an entire Web site devoted to his plan.

In interviews with other news media, Pickens has said his advocacy for wind power is not motivated purely by profit. Environmental groups seem to be loving his stances.

What do you all think?

(Here’s a good analysis of how other media are covering this story, from the Knight Science Journalism Tracker)

By John Sutter

Couple of interesting articles on T. Boone Pickens. He’s got more on his plate than predicting oil prices and writing fat checks to Oklahoma State.

First, from Business Week, a story about his water rights purchases in Texas:

If water is the new oil, T. Boone Pickens is a modern-day John D. Rockefeller. Pickens owns more water than any other individual in the U.S. and is looking to control even more. He hopes to sell the water he already has, some 65 billion gallons a year, to Dallas, transporting it over 250 miles, 11 counties, and about 650 tracts of private property.

Then, from a WSJ blog, more on wind power debates in Congress. The “choicest remarks” in the debate came from Pickens, the blog reports. Pickens owns the world’s largest wind farm, located in the Texas Panhandle:

If we take the natural gas we’re using for electrical generation and move it to transportation, we can replace 38 percent of our foreign oil imports. And that, sports fans, is a real number. (Pickens)

By John Sutter

Here’s a bit of what I’m following this week, or found interesting in recent environment news:

Energy: The Economist’s cover story this week is about the need for innovation in the energy sector. As their charts show, changes in the energy sector have been slow, but major economic booms have occurred when new types of energy are discovered and used. Oil has been cheap, so there’s been little incentive for change until recently, the magazine writes. But those times are over. Wind and solar can compete with coal, and, in California, groups like google.org are searching for further alternatives. Oklahoma is situated to be a top-10 wind producer, but most of that potential hasn’t been realized.

Climate: James E. Hansen spoke on Capitol Hill yesterday, 20 years after the scientist testified before Congress that global warming is real and caused by humans. As The New York Times notes on its “Dot Earth” blog, Monday’s talk and Hansen’s previous comments have stirred discussion on this question: Are the leaders of big oil companies committing crimes by knowingly emitting pollutants known to alter the climate and cause extinctions? What do you think?

Sewers: The News-Leader, in Missouri, found that municipal sewers are leaking and fouling up rivers, despite fines from the government. Oklahoma sewer systems paid some of the biggest fines, according to the story:

- States where sewer systems paid the largest amounts in fines, both federal and state, were: California ($7.8 million), Tennessee ($3.4 million), New York ($3 million), Kentucky ($2.9 million), Maryland ($2 million), Florida ($1.5 million), Pennsylvania ($1.4 million), Indiana ($1.4 million), North Carolina ($1.2 million), and Oklahoma ($1.1 million).

Buses: As John A. Williams reports in The Oklahoman, some Edmond residents think riding the local bus sounds nice, but they won’t actually do it.

Climate: If you missed it last week, the U.S. government came out with its broadest report yet detailing the effects of climate change on extreme weather patterns. The report, issued by the Climate Change Science Program, says extreme weather “could seriously effect” agriculture, health and water, according to Reuters. Tying specific weather events to climate change is tricky, but in the long term, trends become more clear, according to scientists. In a center for severe weather like Oklahoma, I wonder what you all think of this report.

Drilling: George W. Bush and Sen. John McCain favor lifting a ban on offshore drilling to cut gas prices. Some have called that proposition disingenuous since the oil could take 10 years to actually hit the market. The Chicago Tribune looks at what offshore drilling could mean for Lake Michigan, and includes this bit from Oklahoma’s Jim Inhofe:

America’s outer continental shelf holds some 14 billion barrels of oil and 55 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, which according to Sen. James Inhofe, an Oklahoma Republican and ranking member of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, is more than 25 years of Saudi Arabian imports. That’s in addition to the uncounted billions of barrels in North American oil shale, which, of course, is being extracted by Canada, but not by the United States.

Corn: NYT: Floods in the Midwest are leading the government to consider reducing ethanol mandates and planting conservation land with corn. That would off-set the crops that have drowned in floods. About a quarter of U.S. corn goes into ethanol, which has gained criticism from environmentalists.

Frogs: British scientists examine how Costa Rican tree frogs stave off a deadly fungus by sunbathing. Their skin absorbs and reflects the suns heat, so they don’t dry out. This video is cool, too.

Dish soap: Grist tests four green kitchen soaps. Most still contain potential carcinogens, the environment magazine writes, but read more to decide for yourself what’s safe, and what will tackle the grease on your pots and pans.