Posts Tagged ‘fossil fuels’
Did you know that for a family of four to fly from New York to Honolulu and back produces more carbon dioxide emissions than the average American family car does in one year. Many scientists agree that carbon offsets do not work and that they can cause more harm to the environment than any potential benefits they may have. Wouter Buytaert, a scientist at Imperial College in London specializing in environmental studies said, “Planting fast growing pine trees on grassland will help to lock up carbon in the tree, but it may also disrupt the soil and release carbon already stored in the grassland. And in some cases there can be severe negative side effects too. Extensive areas of grassland in the upper tropical Andes, South America, have already been planted with pine trees, paid for by carbon credit schemes. The pine trees guzzle water much faster than the native grass, reducing stream-flow by around 70 percent and drying up the water supply for towns and cities downstream such as Cuenca and Quito in Ecuador. “It is just a case of substituting one problem for another,” he said.
If we are ever to become a carbon nuetral world we will have to come up with some better ideas and fast to help our planet. We need to have our goal be sustainability and conservation, otherwise we will never succeed in our mission.
For more information and to take the Green Guide’s Smart Travel quiz follow http://www.thegreenguide.com/travel-transportation/green-travel-quiz
(Quotes found on National Geographic website article by Kate Ravilious)
Mary Taffe, "Space Photo - Not"
“We haven’t used the lake for four full summers, but last summer, the smell became nearly intolerable and lasted for two and a half months because the prevailing winds blew the goop to our side of the lake. It sat there and cooked.”
Mary Taffe, "Mash
Taffe made “countless calls” and sent emails with links to images she’d taken documenting the changes in the lake to the South Dakota Department of Environment and Natural Resources, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency. Her entreaties, she says, have netted little to no response.
Mary Taffe, "Where Have All the Snails Gone?"
“Many of the laws for farmers are from the homesteading days in the 1800s when a farm was one man, his family, and a small amount of livestock,” Taffe says. Today’s corporate-owned “farms” can have thousands of cows in a small area — along with massive, not always well-secured “lagoons” of their excrement.
This image taken near Taffe’s home depicts the algae bloom and the diminishing water levels (shown by the previous high-water marks on the rock).
Mary Taffe, "Pretty Rainbow
“There are two main South Dakota rivers coming into the lake. At the north end is the Little Minnesota River, which is close to a factory dairy farm and has tested positive for E. coli,” Taffe says. “At the south end of the lake, the Whetstone River goes down to the Minnesota River, which flows across the state and connects to the Mississippi.”
Mary Taffe, "Afreaka!"
“If nothing else, shouldn’t we be able to breathe the air in our homes without retching?” Taffe says. “None of these investors live with this next to their homes. If they knew, would they admit to the havoc they’re helping create for others? Would they stop?”
Changing the colors of this image to earth tones brought out what Taffe envisioned as an entire continent’s worth of algae blooms and seaweed.
Source: Treehugger By Jennifer Hattam
I came across the following article while doing some research online at www.GreenLivingIdeas.com and wanted to share it with everyone:
The Federal government is asking the fuel industry to incrementally raise the levels of ethanol in the country’s gas. California has state legislation called the California Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 calling for car fuels to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The California Air Resources Board counts indirect GHG’s created in the production of ethanol, meaning it will not be part of California’s solution when the plan starts in 2011. The Air Resources Board believes it is doing its duty, as “the Legislature declared that global warming poses a serious threat to the economic well-being, public health, natural resources, and the environment of California.” The ethanol industry isn’t about to say aw, shucks.
In 2007 the California Air Resources Board adopted nine discrete early action measures to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, one of which was the “Low Carbon Fuel Standard.” An Executive Order from Governor Schwarzenegger instructs that these measures “reduce the carbon intensity of transportation fuels used in California by at least 10 percent by the year 2020 [based on 1990 levels].” The regulation places the burden of compliance on regulated parties that are “upstream entities,” meaning producers and importers, as opposed to fueling stations.
“Carbon intensity” is determined by 1) the “direct emissions associated with producing, transporting, and using the fuel” and 2) the “other effects, including those caused by changes in land use. For some crop-based biofuels, staff has identified land use changes as a significant source of additional GHG emissions. Aye, here’s the rub: the ARB “is proposing that emissions associated with land use changes be included in the carbon intensity values assigned to those fuels in the regulation.”
So, GHG emissions created by the entire process of growing the corn for ethanol count for ethanol’s carbon intensity calculation in the state of California. Which means that ethanol won’t be part of California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard early action measure- it will be part of the problem.
In response, Growth Energy, the American Coalition for Ethanol, the Renewable Fuels Association, the Rocky Mountain Farmers union, Minnesota Corn and Soybean Growers, and Penny Newman Grain, Inc., along a variety of other state and local farm groups and ethanol trade groups, collectively calling themselves the American Coalition for Ethanol, filed a federal lawsuit on December 24 in Fresno, California against the California Air Resources Board. The lawsuit challenges California’s low carbon fuel standard, claiming that it “unfairly discriminates against corn-based ethanol made primarily in the Midwest, in violation of the Commerce and Supremacy clauses of the U.S. Constitution.”
Further, that the fuel standard “is unconstitutional because (i) it conflicts with and is preempted by federal law, including the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007; (ii) it interferes with the regulation of interstate commerce; and (iii) it discriminates against out-of-state corn ethanol producers and importers and improperly regulates their extraterritorial conduct.”
The consortium of groups filing the lawsuit is notable because it brings together the Rocky Mountain Farmers Association and Growth Energy, two groups that have long been at odds over how ethanol is represented in Washington and the national media. The corn growers and the producers of ethanol are uniting to battle California’s Air Resources Board.
Essentially, the Air Resources Board doesn’t think ethanol really reduces greenhouse gas emissions and they don’t want it as part of the California state program. The ethanol industry is circling the wagons. Will the Court say that California’s ARB is full of hot air? Or will the ethanol industry be cut down before it’s even knee high? Get yourself a bowl of popcorn and watch the show.
By Scott James
It’s an age old question, when it comes time to check out when grocery shopping: paper bag or plastic bag? It seems like it should be an easy choice, but there’s an incredible number of details and inputs hidden in each bag. From durability and reusability to life cycle costs, there’s a lot more to each bag than meet the eye. Let’s take a look behind the bags.
Where do brown paper bags come from?
Paper comes from trees — lots and lots of trees. The logging industry, influenced by companies like Weyerhaeuser and Kimberly-Clark, is huge, and the process to get that paper bag to the grocery store is long, sordid and exacts a heavy toll on the planet. First, the trees are found, marked and felled in a process that all too often involves clear-cutting, resulting in massive habitat destruction and long-term ecological damage.
Part way between trees and paper bags. Photo credit: Sally A. Morgan—Ecoscene/Corbis
Once the trees are collected, they must dry at least three years before they can be used. More machinery is used to strip the bark, which is then chipped into one-inch squares and cooked under tremendous heat and pressure. This wood stew is then “digested,” with a chemical mixture of limestone and acid, and after several hours of cooking, what was once wood becomes pulp. It takes approximately three tons of wood chips to make one ton of pulp.
The pulp is then washed and bleached; both stages require thousands of gallons of clean water. Coloring is added to more water, and is then combined in a ratio of 1 part pulp to 400 parts water, to make paper. The pulp/water mixture is dumped into a web of bronze wires, and the water showers through, leaving the pulp, which, in turn, is rolled into paper.
Whew! And that’s just to make the paper; don’t forget about the energy inputs — chemical, electrical, and fossil fuel-based — used to transport the raw material, turn the paper into a bag and then transport the finished paper bag all over the world.
By Collin Dunn from www.treehugger.com
Spain’s Answer to Unemployment: Go Greener
Leader in Renewable Energy Considers Subsidies, Mandates to Build Industry
Washington Post Foreign Service
MADRID — As world leaders converge in Pittsburgh for a major economic summit this week, one of the biggest questions they face is this: How do you begin to replace the millions of jobs destroyed by the Great Recession, now that the worst of the crisis has potentially passed?
Green jobs have become a mantra for many governments, including that of the United States. But few nations are better positioned — or motivated — to fuse the fight against recession and global warming than Spain. The country is already a leader in renewable fuels through $30 billion in public support and has been cited by the Obama administration as a model for the creation of a green economy. Spain generates about 24.5 percent of its electricity through renewable sources, compared with about 7 percent in the United States.
But with unemployment at 18.5 percent, the government here is preparing to take a dramatic next step. Through a combination of new laws and public and private investment, officials estimate that they can generate a million green jobs over the next decade. The plan would increase domestic demand for alternative energy by having the government help pay the bill — but also by compelling millions of Spaniards to go green, whether they like it or not.
In the long term, the government envisions a new army of engineers and technicians nurturing windmills and solar farms amid the orange orchards and carnation fields of Andalusia and Galicia. In the short term, officials say, the renewable-energy projects and refurbishing of buildings and homes for energy efficiency could redeploy up to 80 percent of the million construction workers here who lost their jobs in 2008.
Spain’s ambitious effort is being closely watched by the Obama administration and other governments forming their own green-job plans. The U.S. stimulus bill is dedicating billions in grants and loans to renewable-energy projects, marking a shift away from Washington’s more passive approach to green growth, which relied largely on tax incentives.
But the bid for governments to take an ever larger role in creating jobs in the private sector — which many leaders gathering in Pittsburgh see as their mission — is also fraught with risks.
Though the Spanish government estimates that the alternative-energy sector generates about 200,000 jobs here, about double the number in 2000, critics contend they have cost taxpayers too much money.
In some instances, the government’s good intentions have distorted the energy market.
Take, for example, the recent Spanish solar bubble.
Though wind power remains the dominant alternative energy here, the government introduced even more generous inducements in recent years to help develop photovoltaic solar power — a technology that uses sun-heated cells to generate energy. Lured by the promise of vast new subsidies, energy companies erected the silvery silicone panels in record numbers. As a result, government subsides to the sector jumped from $321 million in 2007 to $1.6 billion in 2008.
When the government moved to curb excess production and scale back subsidies late last year, the solar bubble burst, sending panel prices dropping and sparking the loss of thousands of jobs, at least temporarily.
“What they’re talking about now — creating a new sustainable economic model through alternative energy — is going to be exactly the opposite of sustainable,” said Gabriel Calzada, a Spanish economist and critic of the government’s alternative-energy policy. “You’re only going to create more distortion, more bubbles. It isn’t going to work.”
Like Building the Internet
In 2007, only one in 20 working-age residents of advanced economies was without a job. By next year — when the International Monetary Fund expects global unemployment to peak — that number will have jumped to one in 10.
The job market is often the last to recover after a recession. But some economists predict a years-long stagnation in job creation and wages in developed countries, including the United States, Britain, Ireland and Spain.
At the same time, governments are trying to hash out a deal by December that would establish new cuts in emissions by 2020 in an effort to stem global warming. One of the most obvious ways for nations to meet their goals, experts say, is through alternative-energy projects.
“This is going to be like the building of the Internet,” said Carlos Mulas-Granados, director general of the Ideas Foundation, a Spanish think tank associated with Prime Minister Zapatero’s ruling Socialist Party. “We’re going to use this crisis as an opportunity to rebuild the economy with clean, green growth.”
The multibillion-dollar investment is a gamble Spain is willing to take because, more than any other nation hit by the crisis, it is desperate for jobs. The unemployment rate here is now one of the highest in the developed world.
The streets of Madrid and other cities are being dug up and repaved in a short-term government effort to offer temporary work to the unemployed. For most, the work will last only a few months.
“And what do we do when the roadwork runs out?” Luis Salazar Garcia, 32, said as he installed terra-cotta tiles on a Madrid sidewalk in a government-funded job. “There are no other jobs in Spain.”
The country’s answer is to go greener.
Spain now exports more windmills and solar panels than wine. An armada of Spanish companies has invested heavily in the United States, with one buying up an old steel mill a few dozen miles from Pittsburgh and turning it into a wind turbine plant.
Though still undergoing final touches before being presented to parliament next month, Spain’s new Economic Sustainability Law would effectively create more demand for renewable fuels. All new homes and commercial buildings would require higher levels of energy efficiency, including solar power sources, leaving their owners no choice but to adopt green habits.
Government-backed loans to green companies would allow them to offer generous terms to homeowners and corporations for the installation of solar and other alternative energies.
A Jump in Energy Costs?
A new $300 million thermo-solar plant in the arid mining town of Puertollano, about 100 miles south of Madrid in the Don Quixote country of Castile-La Mancha, offers a glimpse into Spanish hopes. The partnership between the large corporate utility Iberdrola and a national energy agency employed as many 650 workers to build the plant over the past two years. The huge plant was like manna from heaven for a host of companies stung by the recession. A maker of car mirrors retrofitted its assembly lines to produce the plant’s massive reflective panels, for example.
But Calzada’s recent study — which has come under fire by green advocates here and abroad — suggests that the government’s cost to create one job in leading alternative-energy sectors has averaged $855,000. It notes that although hundreds may be temporarily employed to build plants, a far smaller number gain permanent positions.
Because alternative-energy plants are more expensive than traditional power plants that burn fossil fuels, the government here has made green generation profitable by promising big subsidies for years to come. Though most Spaniards have so far seen only modest increases in their electricity bills, even government officials are warning that prices might suddenly jump in the coming years as more of the real costs are passed on to consumers.
In the meantime, some power distributors in Spain have converted their government guarantees for higher-than-market energy prices into complex financial instruments, then sold them off to the highest bidders in a manner similar to the repackaging of subprime mortgages in the United States. If the government doesn’t make good on those guarantees, critics fear, the securities could suddenly devalue, soaking the investors who hold them.
“There are going to be people who say we’re doing this wrong or that wrong,” said Angel Torres, Spain’s secretary general of economic policy. “But the reality is that government needs to help create a critical mass in alternative energy to make it sustainable in the long run, and that’s what Spain is doing.”
Myth: The science of global warming is too uncertain to act on.
Fact: There is no debate among scientists about the basic facts of global warming.
The most respected scientific bodies have stated unequivocally that global warming is occurring, and people are causing it by burning fossil fuels (like coal, oil and natural gas) and cutting down forests.
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences, which in 2005 the White House called “the gold standard of objective scientific assessment,” issued a joint statement with 10 other National Academies of Science saying:
“the scientific understanding of climate change is now sufficiently clear to justify nations taking prompt action. It is vital that all nations identify cost-effective steps that they can take now, to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions.” (Joint Statement of Science Academies, 2005)
The only debate in the science community about global warming is about how much and how fast warming will continue as a result of heat-trapping emissions. Scientists have given a clear warning about global warming, and we have more than enough facts — about causes and fixes — to implement solutions right now.
Myth: Even if global warming is a problem, addressing it will hurt American industry and workers.
Fact: A well designed trading program will harness American ingenuity to decrease heat-trapping pollution cost-effectively, jumpstarting a new carbon economy.
Claims that fighting global warming will cripple the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs are unfounded. In fact, companies that are already reducing their heat-trapping emissions have discovered that cutting pollution can save money.
The cost of a comprehensive national greenhouse gas reduction program will depend on the precise emissions targets, the timing for the reductions and the means of implementation. An independent MIT study found that a modest cap-and-trade system would cost less than $20 per household annually and have no negative impact on employment.
Experience has shown that properly designed emissions trading programs can reduce compliance costs significantly compared with other regulatory approaches. For example, the U.S. acid rain program reduced sulfur dioxide emissions by more than 30 percent from 1990 levels and cost industry a fraction of what the government originally estimated, according to EPA. Furthermore, a mandatory cap on emissions could spur technological innovation that could create jobs and wealth.
Letting global warming continue until we are forced to address it on an emergency basis could disrupt and severely damage our economy. It is far wiser and more cost-effective to act now.
Myth: Water vapor is the most important, abundant greenhouse gas. So if we’re going to control a greenhouse gas, why don’t we control it instead of carbon dioxide (CO2)?
Fact: Although water vapor traps more heat than CO2, because of the relationships among CO2, water vapor and climate, to fight global warming nations must focus on controlling CO2.
Atmospheric levels of CO2 are determined by how much coal, natural gas and oil we burn and how many trees we cut down, as well as by natural processes like plant growth.
Atmospheric levels of water vapor, on the other hand, cannot be directly controlled by people; rather, they are determined by temperatures. The warmer the atmosphere, the more water vapor it can hold. As a result, water vapor is part of an amplifying effect.
Greenhouse gases like CO2 warm the air, which in turn adds to the stock of water vapor, which in turn traps more heat and accelerates warming. Scientists know this because of satellite measurements documenting a rise in water vapor concentrations as the globe has warmed.
The best way to lower temperature and thus reduce water vapor levels is to reduce CO2 emissions.
Myth: Global warming and extra CO2 will actually be beneficial — they reduce cold-related deaths and stimulate crop growth.
Fact: Any beneficial effects will be far outweighed by damage and disruption.
Even a warming in just the middle range of scientific projections would have devastating impacts on many sectors of the economy. Rising seas would inundate coastal communities, contaminate water supplies with salt and increase the risk of flooding by storm surge, affecting tens of millions of people globally.
Moreover, extreme weather events, including heat waves, droughts and floods, are predicted to increase in frequency and intensity, causing loss of lives and property and throwing agriculture into turmoil.
Even though higher levels of CO2 can act as a plant fertilizer under some conditions, scientists now think that the “CO2 fertilization” effect on crops has been overstated; in natural ecosystems, the fertilization effect can diminish after a few years as plants acclimate. Furthermore, increased CO2 may benefit undesirable, weedy species more than desirable species.
Higher levels of CO2 have already caused ocean acidification, and scientists are warning of potentially devastating effects on marine life and fisheries. Moreover, higher levels of regional ozone (smog), a result of warmer temperatures, could worsen respiratory illnesses. Less developed countries and natural ecosystems may not have the capacity to adapt.
The notion that there will be regional “winners” and “losers” in global warming is based on a world-view from the 1950’s. We live in a global community. Never mind the moral implications — when an environmental catastrophe creates millions of refugees half-way around the world, Americans are affected.
Myth: Global warming is just part of a natural cycle. The Arctic has warmed up in the past.
Fact: The global warming we are experiencing is not natural. People are causing it.
People are causing global warming by burning fossil fuels (like oil, coal and natural gas) and cutting down forests. Scientists have shown that these activities are pumping far more CO2 into the atmosphere than was ever released in hundreds of thousands of years. This buildup of CO2 is the biggest cause of global warming.
Since 1895, scientists have known that CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap heat and warm the earth. As the warming has intensified over the past three decades, scientific scrutiny has increased along with it. Scientists have considered and ruled out other, natural explanations such as sunlight, volcanic eruptions and cosmic rays. (IPCC 2001)
Though natural amounts of CO2 have varied from 180 to 300 parts per million (ppm), today’s CO2 levels are around 380 ppm. That’s 25% more than the highest natural levels over the past 650,000 years. Increased CO2 levels have contributed to periods of higher average temperatures throughout that long record. (Boden, Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center)
As for previous Arctic warming, it is true that there were stretches of warm periods over the Arctic earlier in the 20th century. The limited records available for that time period indicate that the warmth did not affect as many areas or persist from year to year as much as the current warmth. But that episode, however warm it was, is not relevant to the issue at hand. Why? For one, a brief regional trend does not discount a longer global phenomenon.
We know that the planet has been warming over the past several decades and Arctic ice has been melting persistently. And unlike the earlier periods of Arctic warmth, there is no expectation that the current upward trend in Arctic temperatures will reverse; the rising concentrations of greenhouse gases will prevent that from happening.
Source: Yahoo Green
Not many automotive companies brag about how many vehicles they’ve managed to retire. But that’s one of the ways Zipcar, the country’s largest car-sharing service, measures success. Based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the car rental service has a fleet of 2,000 vehicles, 10 percent of them hybrids, available to drivers from Toronto to Minneapolis to Boston and Washington, D.C. Some 40 percent of Zipcar’s 70,000 members say that by participating they’ve avoided buying a new vehicle or gotten rid of an old one. Each and every Zipcar takes 15-20 personally-owned vehicles off the road. Multiply that by the more than 6,500 cars in their fleet and you’ve got a really big number. It seems that Zipcar has stumbled onto something really big because 10% of the population is expected to adopt car sharing as their primary mode of transportation. Break it down and you have millions of people saving billions of gallons of gas and oil. Factor in the savings and you’ve got an economic revolution.
Since it was founded in 1999, the company estimates it has taken 25,000 cars off the road. Members pay a $25 application fee to join and as little as $7.50 an hour, or $51 a day, for a car, picking up the vehicles from parking spaces in their neighborhoods without ever interacting with a clerk. According to company surveys, the average Zipcar member drove 5,295 miles per year before joining the service and now drives just 369 miles annually. “If you bought 500 pounds of candy you would be more likely to eat more of it than if you had to buy one pound, 500 times,” says president and CEO Scott Griffith. “The same sort of effect happens with car sharing.”
And car sharers are lining up to drive less. For the past two years, membership has grown 100 percent annually, and revenue, $15 million in 2005, is expected to double this year.
How Zipcar works |
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 Our Mission: Fossil Free
Fossil Free by ’33In 2004, after more than three decades of environmental leadership, CEC drastically restructured to focus on a single mission: to move Santa Barbara County and our surrounding region away from fossil fuels in one generation. Given the urgent concerns of climate change, peak oil, and dependence on foreign oil, we strongly believe that this transition should be the top environmental and economic priorities for the region and nation. Fossil fuels have played a pivotal role in the evolution of modern society; without them, we would likely still be living in an agricultural economy, with none of the benefits that we enjoy today in terms of transportation, medical advancements, sanitation, and entertainment. But a century of burning fossil fuels has taken its toll, and the time has come to find alternatives. CEC’s mission is to make today’s generation the last to rely on gasoline for fueling its cars, and coal- and natural-gas-created electricity for heating and lighting its buildings. Why we need to replace fossil fuelsThere are a number of serious, complex problems that arise from relying on non-renewable energy sources. Here are three:
How we can do itThe two biggest energy-using sectors in our region are buildings, which account for about 37 percent of our energy needs, and transportation, which accounts for about 48 percent. In our energy plan for Santa Barbara County – A New Energy Direction – CEC focuses on solutions in which there are available, cost-effective technologies, and where we have the potential for local influence. For example, in the building sector, our communities can set stringent local building codes and educate and inspire designers and builders. However, in the transportation sector, fuel efficiency standards are set in Washington, D.C. and cars are designed and built in Detroit, Berlin or For details on how our region can move away from fossil fuels, see Our plan for getting there . How the Santa Barbara region can lead the wayCalifornia is in a unique position of influence, having recently passed the most comprehensive global warming solutions bill in the nation (AB 32). As with recycling 20 years ago, many states are now waiting to see what type of mandates and voluntary programs California will propose before they take action of their own. As the 6th largest economy in the world and one of the most influential states in the nation, what happens here matters. Santa Barbara, too, is in a unique position. Our region has access to an array of renewable energy resources – particularly the sun, wind and ocean – and our communities are defined by a level of deep environmental concern. While we may not be the largest or most influential region in the state, we are perfectly positioned to serve as a testing ground. When it comes to making political and societal changes, Santa Barbara is small enough to be able to change course with relative speed, and yet large enough to matter when those changes are made. |
In tackling the ambitious goal of weaning our county from fossil fuels, we first need to recognize the magnitude of the task. The main sources of energy we use are gasoline and diesel to run our vehicles, natural gas for heating and cooking, and electricity — which in California is generated largely by fossil fuels like natural gas and other non-renewable sources like nuclear.
In 2005 in Santa Barbara County, we consumed about 184 million gallons of gasoline, 28 million gallons of diesel, 8.4 million gallons of jet fuel, 525,000 gallons of aviation gasoline, 155 million therms of natural gas, and 2,700 gigawatt hours (GWh) of electricity. When we combine all of these energy sources and convert them to GWh as a common unit of energy, we find that our region used about 15,500 GWh in 2005. If our region continues with business as usual, CEC projects that regional energy demand will rise to about 21,500 GWh by 2030.With that target in mind – 21,500 GWh needed by 2030 — CEC evaluated the most sustainable and cost-effective alternatives to fossil fuels for our county. They are:
Reduce energy use in buildings
A significant portion of energy in our region is used to heat, light and cool residential and commercial buildings. Fortunately, our region has a few things going for it. First, Santa Barbara is fairly temperate, and buildings do not require a lot of heating and cooling to be comfortable. Second, when it comes to electricity and natural gas, California is already relatively energy efficient, due in large part to successful state policies. Since the early 1970s, California’s per capita electricity and natural gas use have leveled off or dropped – while U.S. per capita energy use in these areas has grown significantly.
Third – and perhaps most importantly – buildings in our region are designed and constructed almost entirely by local architects and builders, with design and energy standards set by local agencies and elected officials. With support and guidance from a CEC-led coalition, for example, the City of Santa Barbara now requires all buildings within city limits to exceed California’s Title 24 – which is already the most aggressive state energy standard in the country. As a result, Santa Barbara is now one of the most forward-thinking cities in the nation when it comes to requiring that buildings be energy efficient – although we still have some work to do to improve the efficiency of our older buildings.
Read more about this section of our regional energy blueprint.
Improve transportation
Another significant portion of energy in our region is used to fuel our cars. This sector is a little more challenging, as vehicles are not built locally, and fuel-efficiency standards are set by national and state policy. But once again, our region has a few things going for it. Being a relatively small community with a temperate climate, it is possible to design neighborhoods and transportation systems that promote walking, biking, busing and taking the train.
Second, there are progressive, creative people in our region who are exploring new ideas and business models – such as “on demand” ride sharing using internet and cell phones, and car sharing programs in which drivers rent a car by the hour from convenient locations around town.
And third, car owners in this region are willing to invest in new types of vehicles – in fact, Santa Barbara boasts the fourth highest per capita ownership of hybrid cars in the country. This enthusiasm will be important as new types of cars come on the market in the next few years, such as all-electric and plug-in electric vehicles. Plug-in hybrids – which are like today’s gas/electric hybrids but with larger batteries — can be recharged at night through a standard electrical outlet, extending the fuel efficiency up to 100 mpg.
Read more about this section of our regional energy blueprint.
Meet our needs with renewable energy
As we begin transitioning away from liquid fuels and toward electricity to power our vehicles, our region will need access to a great deal more electricity. Currently, only about 14 percent of the electricity used by Californians is generated by renewable energy such as wind or solar power. The remainder is generated by natural gas (46 percent), nuclear (15 percent), large hydro (10 percent), and some coal-fired plants in other states (15 percent).
While electrical grids are complex – electricity generated in one region may be used by another – the south and central coasts of California can play important role in the future. If properly harnessed, our abundance of wind, sun, and ocean power could generate enough electricity to offset our region’s electrical needs.
Fortunately, energy developers are starting to see the potential for building wind and solar farms in our region. CEC is working with many of them to ensure that their proposals are environmentally sound and located in appropriate areas.
Read more about this section of our regional energy blueprint .
