Raise the price of carbon, then send everyone a check in the mail?

I recently attended a presentation from the Citizens Climate Lobby group. They are a group that helps citizens organize around climate change through politics. Marc Reynolds, Executive Director of Citizens Climate Lobby, gave a great speech about how citizens can get involved and make a difference.

He talked about the CCL's Carbon Fee and Dividend Proposal, which is actually very simple. If we increase (tax) carbon, that will make it easier for people to choose renewable or clean energy, or conserve what they use. He used smoking as a successful example of how increasing the tax on cigarettes has led to a reduction in smokers. Reducing carbon is no different. If we want to reduce the impact of climate change, we need to reduce our carbon usage. Therefore, we need to figure out a way to accurately price carbon, based upon its impact on the environment. Today, no one has to pay for the impact of carbon, so it gets treated equally in the open market as other sources of energy that are less damaging to the environment. All this would make it a fair playing field.

Here is an overview video:


But won't this increase the cost of electricity and gasoline for everyone? Yes it will. That is why they are proposing to take the taxed income, and send it back to the people to offset their increased utility and gas costs. Then over time, that amount would be less and less, as we replace carbon energy with better sources of energy.

The other good approach is that the tax will increase steadily over time, so that there is a clear path in the future that shows what the price will be, and it eases people into the additional cost. Businesses can invest in different energy with some confidence, and the price impact to all of us is more gradual. After 10 years, they feel it would be priced more appropriately.

The more I think about this, the more I like the idea. It actually appeals to both Republicans and Democrats, whereas other climate bills and legislation have been proposed by one side or the other. If I hear any updates, I'll post them here.

My life as a "vegetarian" - mid-year update

As a followup to the blog posted in February this year, called "2011 - Year of the Vegetarian," I thought people might be interested in how things have been going at the half-way point of 2011.

As of June 30th, I have recorded 40 times where I ate meat. Just for clarification, meat means seafood, chicken, pork, and red meat. Basically, if it came from a living animal, then I count it. I don't count eggs, since the chicken didn't sacrifice it's life for my meal.

Since I regularly eat three meals a day, that is 181 days x 3 meals per day = 543 opportunities to eat meat. 40/543 = 7.3% of the time I ate meat. Less than 10%, which is much better than I anticipated at the beginning of the year.

As I stated in my last blog about how I counted these meals, I actually ate more meat than the 40 meals, but I didn't count meals where I didn't have much of a choice in what was served.

That being said, in hindsight, I should probably keep track of those meals, and remove them from the denominator, to give a more accurate percentage of how often I avoid meat (when it is my choice). My guess would be closer to 10% of the time, if I took out those meals. Not bad, but I wouldn't call myself a vegetarian quite yet.


If you recall, I also penalized myself $5 for each meat "violation" so I've dished out $200 so far this year to organizations like EDF, CarbonFund, WWF, and Ocean Conservancy. I think next year I'm really consider picking organizations I DON'T like, so it really hurts to donate that money. Right now, I don't feel bad eating meat, because I know I'm helping these organizations. I go back and forth on this, so if anyone has some advice, let me know.

Overall, I am pleased with my progress so far. It has been difficult, and I have some reliable meals I usually fall back on, such as Cheba Hut's Majic Mushroom sub, cheese or spinach pizza or breadsticks, egg and cheese breakfast biscuit from McDonald's, lemon poppy seed or blueberry muffin, black bean burger and fries, spinach and mushroom enchilada from El Banditos, and macaroni and cheese with bread and veggies.

The most difficult item to give up has been Quiznos' toasted subs, partly because it's located near my work. Unfortunately, they are actually doing a really good job with their compostable cups and wrappers, but I'm not a big fan of just eating a veggie sub, so I've been avoiding them quite a bit. If they would make a portabella mushroom sub, I'd be there almost every day!

Look for my end of year update next January, along with my new plan for 2012!

Electricity metrics: Driving the wrong behavior!

I am working on some energy reduction projects at work. One potential project is to improve the efficiency of some of our equipment, so it uses less electricity.

The problem is that the savings don't actually reduce our electric bill, but it does reduce the electricity that our energy provider would have to supply to us. Let me explain...

First, I am not an electrical engineer, so if I state something wrong, please go easy on me, as I'm attempting to speak in layman's terms.

This has to do with something called "power factor". Basically, the electricity provider has to generate more power for its customers, if the power factor on equipment and machines are lower than ideal (less than 100%).

Poor power factors are typically caused by older equipment, or over-sized motors, or equipment with internal problems or poorly designed. You can learn more here: Wikipedia: Power Factor or a simpler explanation at Washington State EnergyIdeas

Most people at at their home pay for the amount of kilowatt hours consumed per month. Same with companies. However, the electricity provider has to provide enough power to cover the "apparent" power, which is usually more than the actual kilowatt hours (KWH) consumed.

For example, let's assume I have a refrigerator that consumes 10 KWH per day in my home. If the power factor is poor, then I might actually be consuming more like 11 KWH, which is what the electricity provider has to supply to my house. The extra 1 KWH is released as heat into my house and essentially wasted.

So I pay for 10 KWH, but I actually used 11 KWH. I don't actually directly pay for the extra 1 KWH that I needed, due to my poor power factor. So if I fixed my refrigerator so the power factor was improved, and I now consume exactly 10 KWH (instead of 11), my electricity bill doesn't go down. There's no motivation for me to save electricity by investing in some upgrades to improve the power factor.

For large companies, there are extra fees that are charged if the overall power factor is too low (say below 85%), so the utility companies attempt to cover their costs that way. However, usually the fees are charged depending on what range of power factors they fall within.

For our company, we fall within the middle of the range, so we would have to invest in significant improvements to power factor in order to see a benefit on the bill (the point where the extra fees would be removed). Since it is unlikely that we will make that large of an investment, we have decided not to pursue those opportunities. Usually this involves installing a capacitor bank, which stores the energy and reduces the loss of energy.

So here's the issue: Because our company is not charged by the utility company for the actual amount of electricity we require, there is no financial incentive for us to do the right thing by improving the efficiency of our equipment (other than reducing our carbon footprint). The solution would be to charge us for the apparent power (11 KWH in our home), instead of the actual power used by our equipment (10 KWH).

Just another example of metrics driving the wrong behavior!

Environmentalist McKibben drives home urgency of climate change to Iowans

Environmentalist and author Bill McKibben spoke to a captive and energetic audience in Iowa City last night, courtesy of the Office of Sustainability at the University of Iowa. His message was both pessimistic and optimistic, but was most importantly honest.

McKibben started out with the current (and depressing) state of the environment. The earth has risen only about 1 degree in temperature, but already we are seeing the major impacts of that increase in glacier melting, increased floods, increased high temperatures, and increase in disease spread (through warmer climates). We are above the 350 parts per million limit that scientists believe is sustainable for the planet (currently at 390, see image below).

After establishing the current state of affairs, he next showed us his efforts to date with the recent 10/10/10 events, which is a part of the overall 350.org movement. I was amazed at how global this initiative has become, especially since I have not heard that much about his organization. He has made an impact on nearly every country in the world, and it continues to grow each year. He even self-admits that he is not a motivational person and knows very little about how to drive a grass-roots effort like this, but it is clearly working. It reaffirms that anyone can make a difference.
Finally, his message was that people have to make political changes to make dramatic reduction in our emissions. The technology is already here to do that (solar, geothermal, wind), but the policies and investment isn't there yet. He mentioned that 70% of your time should be spent on local actions and 30% on political action.

Video clips are available on the Daily Iowan website
Here is McKibben's latest book, Eearth: Making of Life on a Tough New Planet...






And here is the first book he wrote, which was widely popular, called "The End of Nature"