2015 Teacher of The Year Ross McCurdy

Wonderful to see this extraordinary teacher and innovator recognized for his many achievements which we've profiled a few times here on Renewable Now.  We consider Ross an important part of the Renewable Now family.

What makes Ross McCurdy different and worthy of awards?  How can we aspire to the same level of success?

Our experience with Ross is that he has amazing energy--teaching, building our labs with the help of Dept of Energy, powering his band and trucks with fuel cells, flying planes on biodiesel and leading the charge in RI on pushing aviation to use biodiesel as the standard. Of course he spends much of his time cultivating great kids.

One person, in this case, Ross McCurdy, can make a dramatic difference in life.  Passion, intelligence, a willingness to share, a bent towards pushing the limits bring great leadership and inspiration to us from people like Ross.  We hope it is infectious and we all catch the wave of change and the spirit of building a better world.

Ross McCurdy & EPA Adm., Gina McCarthy

2015 Teacher of The Year

Ross McCurdy

Rhode island Science Professor

On Saturday, September 5th, ReNewable Now will be awarding their 2015 Teacher of The Year Award. This annual award recognizes the achievements and the dedication made by all teachers and once a year selects one that has stood out in advancing the awareness of sustainability in both the classroom and the community.

This year’s recipient is Rhode Island Science Professor Ross McCurdy of Ponaganset High School. McCurdy has numerous achievements when it comes to inspiring others with the potential of alternative energy. In the classroom he excites students by combining hydrogen fuel cells and recycled cooking oil with Rock & Roll music. In the community, McCurdy takes personal initiatives by showcasing that alternative fuels work just as effectively as traditional fossil fuels. In March 2013, he flew a Cessna 182 from Rhode Island to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on a blend of 50/50 biofuel.

Most recently, McCurdy was recognized by  the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the White House Council on Environmental Quality with the 2014-2015 Presidential Innovation Award for Environmental Educators.

Ross McCurdy’s achievements, along with many others have not gone unrecognized by ReNewable Now. RN sees education as the cornerstone to moving our society towards a more sustainable future and teachers are paramount in getting all of us there. Presenting the award that day will be Rhode Island College Sustainability Coordinator, Jim Murphy, and ReNewable Now’s Peter Arpin. Jim had this to say about Ross, “Rhode Island College alumnus Ross McCurdy exemplifies the best qualities of the graduates from our Feinstein School of Education and Human Development. He is passionate about his area of expertise — environmental science — and finds innovative ways to instill that same passion in the next generation of Rhode Islanders.

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Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef

For today's radio show we'll be talking to their Ex-Director live at 1p, ET, on WRNP 1320, our full time radio network on the business side of green, and WARA our flagship station.Think about the implications of "a world in which all aspects of the beef value chain are environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable".

Our food supply, right now, is burdened by too few local providers, heavy dependence on chemicals for large-scale production and far too many miles the average meal travels to our tables.  Organizations like the Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef will change the supply chain.  It will help us make better consumer choices.  It will bring together diverse parts of the supply chain to find common ground for improvements.

You can help bring sustainable changes to the world by listening to this show and supporting environmental improvements for the beef industry and the food suppliers in general. 

The Global Roundtable for Sustainable Beef (GRSB) is a global, multi-stakeholder initiative developed to advance continuous improvement in sustainability of the global beef value chain through leadership, science and multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration.  The GRSB envisions a world in which all aspects of the beef value chain are environmentally sound, socially responsible and economically viable.

GRSB is the strategic platform where leading organizations from within the beef industry, environmental branch, retailers and others with a close interest in the industry partner to advance continuous improvement in sustainability of the global beef value chain through sharing their knowledge of leadership, science and through multi-stakeholder engagement and collaboration.

The GRSB aims to facilitate a global 

dialogue to advance continuous improvement 

in the sustainability of the global beef value 

chain by:

• identifying, evaluating and enabling 

increased adoption of current leading 

production and supply chain practices, policy 

and technology;

• supporting action-oriented, regional and 

local multi-stakeholder initiatives focused on

producing measurable outcomes, ensuring 

local adaptation;

• addressing high-priority issues related to sustainability by sharing locally relevant and

science-based information and support pilot 

projects to demonstrate those;

• providing a forum and opportunities for 

constructive engagement, information 

exchange and technical problem solving.

• GRSB is the only global forum dedicated to

connecting a network of local, regional and 

global leaders in the beef industry with

a common vision and mission and gives 

stakeholders an equal opportunity through

member ownership of the roundtable; and

• promoting the adoption of leading 

employment and economic development 

practices.

Washington DC is sinking

This story gives birth to lots of jokes (watching all of the politicians wading around in quick sand would be kind of fun) but gives rise to a thought:  How solid is our foundation that we live on?   Are we, too, sinking into the abyss?  

Washington DC is sinking into the sea through a process of “forebulge collapse”

by  Kevin Sanders

Geologists say Washington DC is gradually sinking into the sea through a process known as “forebulge collapse.” This means the government of the United States is sitting on a waterbed that is heaving and could gradually collapse over the next century unless active preparations are put in place.

  

Geologists say this has nothing to do with unchecked climate change or excessive underwater flows, but it has all to do with forebulge collapse which refers to the geological ups and downs that have been occurring unnoticed since the last ice age. Scientists further noted that before the last 20,000 years, a mile-high ice sheet stretched very far south and extended up to Long Island, and its sheer weight remains under the ground of Washington DC today.

“It’s a bit like sitting on one side of a water bed filled with very thick honey,” Ben DeJong, the lead author on the new study, said. “The other side goes up. But when you stand, the bulge comes down again.”

This study was conducted by geologists from the University of Vermont, the US Geological Survey, and other research organizations; and their findings were published in GSA Today – a journal of the Geological Society of America.

DeJong and his colleagues drilled holes in the Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge, close to Washington, and then analyzed the layers of sediments – comparing these with computer models and satellite scans of the region. They project that Washington will drop by six or more inches over a century to this time, and this will not only threaten sea level rise, but it will also compromise national monuments and military installations in the state.

“Right now is the time to start making preparations,” DeJong said. “Six extra inches of water really matters in this part of the world.”

The Intergovenmental Panel on Climate Change had already predicted that global sea levels would rise by at least a foot by 2100, and even added that this has even occurred by 1.8 millimeters per year worldwide within the last century.

“It’s ironic that the nation’s capital–the place least responsive to the dangers of climate change–is sitting in one of the worst spots it could be in terms of this land subsidence,” Paul Bierman, a UVM geologist told Science Daily. “Will the Congress just sit there with their feet getting ever wetter? What’s next, forebulge denial?”

Green business initiatives could save five hundred megatons of CO2e by 2020

Wow, that is a big number on the potential emission reductions companies could achieve by 2020.  That would be a nice way to enter the new decade.

Based on our experience here at Arpin and Renewable Now, we think that number is conservative.  In ten years we've cut energy consumption by more than 40% and now produce another 20% with renewables.  We expect that number to double by next year, and we feel confident that by that same year, 2020, Arpin can offset completely its global carbon footprint (and we are a 250MM international moving company with a large fleet). 

So, other companies can equally cut consumption and invest in clean energy.  Once they get going and see the ROI, the pace will, no doubt, accelerate.

The private sector could cut more than five hundred megatons of greenhouse gas emissions in the next five years, simply by scaling up existing green initiatives, according to a new report.

Researchers from the University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership (CISL) and energy consultancy Ecofys, analysed five current initiatives, such as the Tropical Forest Alliance 2020 and En.lighten.

The report found that expanding these schemes could save emissions equivalent to one years’ worth activity from 130 coal power stations.

The report focuses in particular on so-called ‘cooperative initiatives’ between businesses, Governments and NGO’s.

One of the programmes looked at is WWF’s Climate Savers, which aims to help companies develop zero-carbon business models.

Progressive leadership

Ecofys managing consultant Ann Gardiner said: “Private sector engagement in addressing climate change is growing and if scaled up this new class of collaboration and leadership would undoubtedly help us to reach global emissions targets, which is critical given that there are projections which currently put us on a pathway to reach 3.5–4.0°C (according to the IPCC), 1.5 –2°C above agreed global ‘safe’ levels.

“Undoubtedly, we need to see more progressive leadership if we are going to avoid dangerous levels of climate change.”

The report recommends a 9-step plan to help scale the five initiatives up, including more collaboration, sharing of best practice and better data collection to monitor results.

Mind the gap

Nicolette Bartlett, the senior programme manager at CISL added: “We are seeing a growing interest in pre-competitive collaboration within the private sector to help manage the complexity of global supply chains and increasing resource constraints.

“There are often sound business reasons for companies to want to do this, including brand and reputation building, getting ahead of or shaping regulation, costs savings and creating new markets for their products and services. 

“Most significantly, the fact that these initiatives are international in scope means they are helping to close this emissions gap.”

Brad Allen

Obama’s claim that Keystone XL

Keystone continues to be hotly debated on both sides.  Is there a true overview of the economic benefits versus environmental risks.  Have we played out all the alternatives--similar investments in efficiency, new tech, clean energy and compared gains in jobs, economic growth and ecological protection?

It is scary right now to see the precipitous drop in fuel prices.  Yes, it brings great financial value to us, but offers the wrong incentives in trying to convince everyone to help bring emissions down.  It deflates our momentum towards a cleaner future.

You wonder sometimes who controls and manipulates the energy market, and what are their future plans if they take competing technologies down to a screeching halt? 

Obama’s claim that Keystone XL oil ‘bypasses the U.S.’ earns Four Pinocchios

By Glenn Kessler

In this March 22, 2012 file photo, President Obama speaks at the TransCanada Pipe Yard in Cushing, Okla. AP Photo/LM Otero)

“I’ve already said I’m happy to look at how we can increase pipeline production for U.S. oil, but Keystone is for Canadian oil to send that down to the Gulf. It bypasses the United States and is estimated to create a little over 250, maybe 300 permanent jobs. We should be focusing more broadly on American infrastructure for American jobs and American producers, and that’s something that we very much support.”

President Obama, interview with WDAY of Fargo, N.D., Feb. 26, 2015

President Obama, seeking to explain his veto of a bill that would have leapfrogged the approval process for the Keystone XL pipeline, in an interview with a North Dakota station repeated some false claims that had previously earned him Pinocchios. Yet he managed to make his statement even more misleading than before, suggesting the pipeline would have no benefit for American producers at all.

The Fact Checker obviously takes no position on the pipeline, and has repeatedly skewered both sides for overinflated rhetoric. Yet the president’s latest comments especially stand out. Let’s review the facts again.

The Facts

As we have noted before, when the president says “it bypasses the United States,” he leaves out a very important step. The crude oil would travel to the Gulf Coast, where it would be refined into products such as motor gasoline and diesel fuel (known as a distillate fuel in the trade). Current trends suggest that only about half of that refined product would be exported, and it could easily be lower.

A report released in February by IHS Energy, which consults for energy companies, concluded that “Canadian crude making its way to the USGC [Gulf Coast] will likely be refined there, and most of the refined products are likely to be consumed in the United States.” It added that “for Gulf refineries, heavy bitumen blends from the oil sands are an attractive substitute for declining offshore heavy crude supply from Latin America.” It concluded that 70 percent of the refined product would be consumed in the United States.

Enviromentalists dismiss IHS as a biased source, but the analysis mirrors the conclusions of the State Department’s final environmental impact statement on the Keystone XL project. This is what is especially strange about Obama’s remarks, as he appears to be purposely ignoring the findings of the lead Cabinet agency on the issue.

“Comments were received throughout the review process speculating that WCSB heavy crude oil supplies carried on the proposed Project would pass through the United States and be loaded onto vessels for ultimate sale in markets such as Asia,” the State Department said. “As crude of foreign origin, Canadian crude is eligible for crude export license as long as it is not commingled with domestic crude. However, such an option appears unlikely to be economically justified for any significant durable trade given transport costs and market conditions.”
The report added:

“Once WCSB [Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin] crude oil arrives at the Gulf Coast, Gulf Coast refiners have a significant competitive advantage in processing it compared to foreign refiners because the foreign refiners would have to incur additional transportation charges to have the crude oil delivered from the Gulf Coast to their location….Gulf Coast refineries have the potential to absorb volumes of WCSB crude that go well beyond those that would be delivered via the proposed Project. On this basis, the likelihood that WCSB crudes will be exported in volume from the Gulf Coast is considered low.”

Finally, note that Obama said Keystone was just for Canadian oil, and “we should be focusing on American infrastructure for American jobs and American producers.” But actually, Keystone would help U.S. oil producers in North Dakota and Montana. TransCanada, the builder of the pipeline, has signed contracts to move 65,000 barrels a day from the Bakken area –and hopes to build that to 100,000. That’s nearly 10 percent of the region’s production.

The Congressional Research Service in 2013 estimated that about 12 percent of the pipeline’s capacity had been set aside for crude from the Bakken region. Of course, delays in the Keystone project have sent oil producers in search of other methods of transport, potentially making this link less relevant, but the president can’t argue the project was not proposed without U.S. producers in mind.

Moreover, as we have noted before, U.S. companies control about 30 percent of the production in Canada’s oil sands region. Thus, contrary to Obama’s suggestion, it is not strictly Canadian.

We have poked fun at TransCanada for suggesting the pipeline would reduce reliance on foreign energy — when in fact Canada is a foreign country — but that does not give Obama license to suggest there is no possible American benefit from the pipeline.

(Incidentally, while the president spoke of 250 to 300 permanent jobs, the State Department report actually says 35. But this is a construction project. How many construction projects result in very many permanent jobs?)

The White House declined to provide an on-the-record defense of the president’s statement. That certainly suggests officials are unwilling to make a public case contradicting the State Department findings.

The Pinocchio Test

When Obama first started making the claim that the crude oil in the Keystone pipeline would bypass the United States, we wavered between Three and Four Pinocchios — and strongly suggested he take the time to review the State Department report.
Clearly, the report remains unread.
The president’s latest remarks pushes this assertion into the Four Pinocchios column. If he disagrees with the State Department’s findings, he should begin to make the case why it is wrong, rather than assert the opposite, without any factual basis. Moreover, by telling North Dakota listeners that the pipeline has no benefit for Americans, he is again being misleading, given that producers in the region have signed contracts to transport some of their production through the pipeline.

 

Study: Tiny plankton

One more step towards understanding the science of plants, trees cooling on the Earth and how we can use natural vegetation, and the engineering around it, to expand our canopy.

Always, there is opportunity to license this knowledge into the commercial realm. 

Study: Tiny plankton play a big role in keeping the earth cool

Katherine Ellen Foley



Phytoplankton: out to save the planet?

In the middle of the world’s southern ocean, there’s a mighty force that’s helping keep the sun’s rays at bay. The force is so small that it can’t been seen with the naked eye: phytoplankton.

That force, phytoplankton, consists of teeny, tiny little plants that live in the shallow depths of the ocean around the world. Recently, scientists from the University of Washington and the Pacific Northwest National Lab found that phytoplankton help reflect (paywall) some of the sun’s rays back into space by changing the composition of certain clouds.

“If you were to turn off clouds altogether in the southern ocean in January, you can estimate…that clouds change the reflected shortwave by about 125 Watts per square meter,” Daniel McCoy, a graduate student at the University of Washington and co-author of the paper, told Quartz. This research showed that aerosols produced by plankton account for 10 Watts per square meter. “Just having biogenic aerosols there change it by [a factor of] 10.”

In other words, microscopic plants are helping to keep temperatures around the southern ocean a lot cooler.

In the ocean, phytoplankton produce organic chemicals that make their way up into the atmosphere through sea spray. Susannah Burrows, an atmospheric scientist at the Pacific Northwest National Lab and co-author of the study, explained that it’s a similar phenomenon to the way salt gets all over our bodies at the beach.

The researchers explained that in order for clouds to form, individual cloud droplets need to have a particle to surround. The organic aerosols from plankton are the perfect size. Assuming the cloud size and the amount of water vapor in them are the same, clouds formed with aerosols from plankton will have many more droplets, which explains their additional reflective properties.

Humans and other plants in forests emit aerosols all the time, but the resulting clouds aren’t as reflective as the ones formed with plankton aerosols. The more reflective clouds are, the less the sun’s energy reaches our planet to warm temperatures.

Burrows explained that although this research doesn’t definitively indicate that phytoplankton are fighting global warming, it does give scientists clues about how humans are affecting cloud formation. “We need a good representation of the good natural background aerosol,” she tells Quartz.

Burrows thinks this research will help scientists understand how human activity has been changing the atmosphere.

College Unveils Massive Solar Parking Canopy

We love projects like this.  Too often solar canopy solutions are lost or forgotten in the mix of renewable energy projects.  Here, on a college campus, it is a perfect solution.  Schools of all kinds have lots of parking.  A solar canopy does so much more than just produce energy--it keeps cars out of the sun, rain, snow, offers shading to immediate areas around the building and could easily feed car-charging stations on location.  They are great for educational purposes as well.

This is one of our lead stories this week on Renewable Now. biz.  Make sure you listen to a wonderful interview with Scott Morrissey, Sustainability Director at Denver International Airport and think about solar canopies complimenting their amazing work around efficiency and transformation of flight.

Bristol Community College and the Governor of Massachusetts have unveiled a 3.2 megawatt solar parking canopy at  the College’s Fall River Campus.

Constructed in partnership with PowerOptions and SunEdison, Inc. (NYSE: SUNE), the solar array will supply power for the entire Fall River Campus, plus the requirements for the John J. Sbrega Health and Science Building; currently under construction. The solar panel system combined with other energy efficiency features will enable the college to achieve a Zero Net Energy goal for the new building.

The PV array will generate more than 34 million kilowatt hours of clean electricity annually and avoid the production of more than 1,500 tons of carbon dioxide each year.

A solar parking canopy system of this size and scale is the perfect fit for Bristol Community College’s renewable energy needs,” said Steve Raeder, SunEdison managing director of commercial and industrial for the Eastern U.S. “Colleges, municipalities and other facilities with large parking areas can also benefit from the innovative SunEdison solar parking canopy system, which provides shade and shelter in addition to generating cost-effective, clean solar energy."

Governor Charlie Baker praised solar’s potential in his state.

“Initiatives like the solar canopy at Bristol Community College leverage opportunities at state facilities, and position the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, while protecting the environment and moving towards our administration’s solar goal of generating 1,600 megawatts at homes, businesses, municipalities, and state agencies by 2020.”

Earlier this month, Governor Baker filed legislation to establish a long term, sustainable framework for further solar development in Massachusetts; which he said would be necessary to achieve the Commonwealth’s goal.

As for Bristol Community College, in addition to shading for hundreds of vehicles; it will benefit from substantial savings over the next 20 years, estimated at more than USD $1.75 million. Electricity from the nearly 10,000 solar panels is being supplied under a power purchase agreement (solar PPA) with SunEdison; which is also providing ongoing operation and maintenance of the solar canopy.

Other solar power systems at the campus include in a 10-kilowatt installation on the Engineering Building (B) constructed in 2008 and in 2010 an 86-kilowatt system was installed onto buildings C, D, and F.

The latest project was made possible with the assistance of PowerOptions, which helps organizations consolidate their energy buying influence. The PowerOptions Solar Program assists nonprofits, government institutions, and municipalities enjoy the clean, cost-effective, and sustainable energy benefits of solar power.

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