Happiness for Atlanta Transportation

This November voters in the Atlanta region will decide on a referendum for a new one percent sales tax that would be used to dramatically accelerate spending on transportation projects in Cherokee, Clayton, Cobb, DeKalb, Douglas, Fayette, Fulton, Gwinnett, Henry and Rockdale counties.
Like many people I am hopeful that this effort leads to a more balanced transportation system that gives more metro residents a choice of walking, cycling, riding public transportation or driving.
But how and where should this change in thinking start?
Fifteen percent of the funds raised by this tax will go to local governments for any transportation projects they choose, and the remaining 85 percent will fund a list of projects voters can review before the November referendum.
Developing that list is the responsibility of a group of county commissioners and mayors called the Atlanta Regional Roundtable. Its executive committee is now drafting the project list which will be reviewed and approved by the full Roundtable before going to voters in the Fall.
To be sure, most of this money will be spent in service of Atlanta's roadway empire, based on the tired assumption that we need and want more pavement and more elaborate intersections. And as has history always shown us, the result will eventually take us back to where we started.
There are better ways of approaching this.
Each of those taking part in these decisions, including Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, should first read The Politics of Happiness, a delightful essay written in 2004 by Enrique Penalosa. He writes how, as mayor of Bogotá, Columbia, he cast aside this old way of thinking in favor of an approach that considers what really makes a city a great place to live.
Like all bustling world capitols, Bogotá struggles with traffic congestion and air pollution. They also face societal problems such as crime and poverty.
Perhaps, Penalosa assumed, transportation policy goes farther at influencing public well-being than simply providing mobility.
Instead of spending $600 million on a new freeway, he decided to spend $300 million on a modern bus system serving all parts of the region. They created hundreds of pedestrian-only streets, parks, plazas, and bike paths, planted trees, and got rid of cluttering commercial signs. They constructed the longest pedestrian-only street in the world, through some of the poorest neighborhoods in Bogotá.

All this pedestrian infrastructure shows respect for human dignity. We're telling people, “You are important—not because you're rich or because you have a Ph.D., but because you are human.” If people are treated as special, as sacred even, they behave that way. This creates a different kind of society.

This makes me think how our roadways and our parks share the same status in that they are both forms of public space: our space.
As you move about Atlanta's roads, ask yourself what you see in terms of the public realm. All of those elaborate turn lanes, traffic signals, billboards, parking lots, the dearth of trees, safe sidewalks and bike lanes...send the message "we are trying to get you there as quickly as possible, sorry if it isn't happening that way."
What if we instead thought of the journey itself as having an intrinsic value?
What if at least some of our public realm serves our needs for transportation and for recreation, social contact, and reconnecting with nature?

A city is successful not when it's rich but when its people are happy. Public space is one way to lead us to a society that is not only more equal but also much happier.

Let's not forget that we have our share of societal problems with crime and poverty. We, too, can make smarter transportation policy decisions that will make our communities more livable.

- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!

Biking to better commute options

In keeping with the spirit of last Tuesday's Georgia Rides to the Capitol event in Atlanta and also as a tribute to the start of my work at the Clean Air Campaign, I wish to reprise a wonderful opinion piece by Jim Durrett that the Atlanta Journal-Constitution printed in 2009. Durrett wrote about riding his bicycle as a daily commute to his job as executive Director of the Buckhead Community Improvement District (CID.) A CID is an organization of property owners and businesses who tax themselves to pay for transportation and other area-specific improvements.
Many have assumed for far too long that the most reasonable way for people to commute to their jobs and schools is via the solitary drive in a car. Our current struggles with traffic congestion, air pollution and rising gasoline costs tell a different story.
Durrett eloquently explains the need to give Atlanta-area commuters more transportation options such as mass transit and bicycling, and how this approach benefits all commuters: That’s the thing about not driving. Regardless of how one feels about it, the folks on bikes, walking or riding in buses and trains are not driving cars, not taking up precious capacity in our road system. They’re not in your way and they’re not adding to traffic congestion. In fact, they’re helping to reduce it. We have to get past this false idea that it’s cars vs. everything else, including public transportation. It is not an either/or situation; it is a both/and situation and opportunity.
My new job affords the luxury of choosing how I commute four miles from my home to the Clean Air Campaign's offices, either by bicycle or by bus. While riding my bike, some motorists traveling in the same direction as I will have to slow down until it is safe to pass me.
Some will not like this and let me know. They feel that bikes don't belong on the road especially when it slows them down.
How can I help them understand that they are merely racing past me to reach the next traffic bottleneck a little sooner, to wait with the other cars at that gridlocked intersection, that overflowing left turn lane, that cop holding up traffic for a school's "car pool" lane?
I am not their problem, and neither are the hundreds of thousands of other clean commuters in Atlanta. We need all these transportation options, and more.
The sixth-annual Georgia Rides to the Capitol event was held to rally political support for improved conditions for cycling, including the development of regional systems of both on-road bicycling facilities and multi-use-trails. I and one thousand other cyclists loudly demanded action on a proposed three-foot safe passing law now before the Senate.
More laws that protect cyclists and provide safer routes will give commuters more opportunities to ditch their solo commutes. For now, I'll do my part as best I can.
You can join the revolution, too.

- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!

The Biggest and Best Job Ever

So far as my career choices go, the third time is a charm.

I left IBM in 2008 feeling as if I had fought long enough in the world of information technology. For most of my 25 years there I developed and sold products tailored for use in very specific industry settings, products that were often on the leading, bleeding edge of electronics manufacturing, digital medical imaging, life sciences R&D, paper-making, and so on. Not only were we faced with competition from smaller, more nimble innovators, we often struggled to convince skeptical customers of the product's value based on a very limited history of practical use.

It was a privilege to work at IBM, and I learned just how hard it is to translate the tremendous potential of technological innovation into sustainable businesses.

In 2009 I joined the renewable energy industry, seeing how solar energy seemed poised to take off in Georgia. I loved working in this field and the sense of satisfaction I got knowing how this work will inevitably become an important part of Georgia's energy future.

Fueled by a wave of Federal stimulus funds, solar did take off. At Empower Energy Technology we completed three really excellent commercial projects in 2010. But without further action by Georgia regulators and legislators to create a level playing field for us renewable energy upstarts, the future of solar energy currently lies in the powerful hands of Georgia Power and the state's electric membership cooperatives.

I am thus starting a new career in transportation advocacy with the Georgia Clean Air Campaign. They want me to develop relationships with executives at private and public organizations who employ 100 or more people and to convince them to provide their employees with options for doing their work other than through the solitary daily commute in an automobile.

I'll be speaking the language of alternative commuting, such as employee teleworking, compressed work weeks, commuter shuttles, car pooling, mass transit, and (my favorite) transportation under one's own power. My new boss was worried that this wouldn't interest me as I have been immersed in all the technology of my past 27 years.

What alternative commuting may lack in glitz is more than compensated by its results. Already enough workers in metropolitan Atlanta telework in one week to eliminate an amount of traffic equivalent to what passes through Atlanta's bloated Downtown Connector in one day. And that only represents a small percentage of all the Atlanta workers who can potentially telework.

Talk about making an impact!

Besides, the case for commute options practically sells itself, transcending much of what culturally and politically divides us on other important issues. Who can argue with cleaner air, less traffic congestion, saving money and happier employees through the use of methods that have a long history of success?

Georgia workers need year-round alternatives to the solitary commute by automobile as urgently as they need air conditioning in August. This will become reality through more education and gradually changing people's perception of what constitutes "normal" commuting behavior.

Let me tell you how!

The Water-Electricity Nexus

Water and electricity represent two resources essential for maintaining our standard of living and economic growth. At last month's Clean Energy Speaker Series at Georgia Tech I learned how our use of both creates a very tight relationship that must not be overlooked.

The seminar started with comments from Judy Adler, a Senior Program Officer at the Turner Foundation who oversees their water, energy and air programs. She emphasized the importance of viewing water and energy issues holistically, especially as Georgia's governor is about to commit to a $300M plan for new reservoir constructions in efforts to strengthen the State's ability to meet its growing demand for water.

The important question of how the Governor's plan will be paid for has yet to be determined, but it hopefully will be directly linked to water usage in a way that rewards efficiency and penalizes those who waste it.

When it comes to all the ways that we use fresh water, I was surprised to learn how much goes to energy production. Water used for cooling purposes is an important resource for all thermoelectric power plants, and electric power generation accounts for one half of total freshwater use in Georgia.

Many power plants return most of this water to the local river or lake, albeit at a higher temperature, and the rest is lost or “consumed.” But the newer plants consume much more water, which creates added stress on water supplies and water ecology.

These are the power plants that we easily recognize by their distinctive cooling towers, which signify a process called mechanical draft cooling. Most of the water they use is lost to evaporation and not returned. For example Georgia Power and its partners are using $8.3B in Federal loan guarantees to double the size of its Plant Vogtle nuclear plant, which uses mechanical draft cooling.

When all four nuclear reactors are online, Plant Vogtle will consume more water from the Savannah River than is consumed by all residents of Atlanta, Augusta and Savannah combined. That's water removed from the river and not put back.

I am not going to argue here about the necessity of building the nuclear reactors at Plant Vogtle, but the fact that this and other power plants consume so much water prompts some important questions.

Faced with a serious long-term water supply problem, Georgians are being asked to pay more in their taxes and in their water usage fees.

How much should the power plant operators pay? Currently they pay nothing.

Another question: How would the introduction of accurate cost signals change Georgia's renewable energy industry?

Our utility companies strenuously oppose legislation and policies needed for Georgia to develop a healthy renewable energy industry. Specifically, most states now have a renewable portfolio standard that sets specific targets for the development of renewable energy sources. Many states also do not impose territoriality protections for the utility companies and thus allow private equity sources to spur the development of new energy sources and provide customers with more energy choices.

Without either of these conditions, Georgia's renewable energy industry remains in the shade. Utility industry lobbyists argue the renewable energy is "too expensive" relative to coal and nuclear power.

But what if the many externalized costs of coal and nuclear actually became part of a utility company's profit and loss? What if the value of the $8.3B in Federal loan guarantees for Plant Vogtle were shouldered by the Southern Company's shareholders?

Maybe, we should start by sending them a water bill. That's how the rest of us have to live.


- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!

Over Our Heads About Solar

Solar energy: mention it and people are likely to recall images of vast sun-drenched desert tracts covered with solar modules or mirrors. Searching the Web for "solar energy" is likely to produce news stories of big projects in the Mojave, Sahara and Negev (Israel,) places that reliably receive a potent daily dose of sunlight, measured in what industry professionals call sun hours.

Photo: A concentrated solar thermal project near Barstow, CA. Credit: U.S. Department of Energy

These projects attract hundreds of millions of dollars worth of public and private capital, each generating anywhere from 30 Megawatts to over 370 Megawatts of power, enough electrical generating capacity to meet the needs of a half million Americans.

To make this work, the U.S. government lavishes loan guarantees and expedites the review of projects on public land for multi-Megawatt and even Gigawatt solar power plants.

From an energy policy standpoint, how much should we rely on these utility-scale solar projects in our effort to secure a more sustainable system of electric power supply?

I think that the current zeal for projects like these should be tempered by more localized approaches to supplying renewable energy, with more control given to the states and cities in determining how much they achieve their own energy self-reliance. Renewable energy does not have to be harnessed in a few desert areas and shipped across country. In fact, public support for clean energy may hinge on the opposite.

These big power plants unarguably generate clean, renewable energy at an economic cost but also share some of the same drawbacks their coal- and nuclear-powered brethren do.

Developing large tracts of wild lands often raises concerns about the destruction of valuable wildlife habitat. Even if developers can successfully answer these concerns, it adds significant time and cost to the projects--and negative public opinion about solar energy.

Generating power at centralized locations far from our urban population centers creates additional challenges in terms of reliability, cost and economic value to consumers. The larger the facility, the greater the likelihood of its causing a major disruption in service due to an equipment malfunction, human error, or (heavens forbid) terrorist attack.

Despite the financial support and attention given to these large solar projects, the majority of our current solar power comes from thousands of systems as small as 3 Kilowatts in size installed on rooftops, in fields, over parking lots and even along highway rights-of-way.

2.4 MWp installation, Maryland. Photo courtesy of Kohl's

Since 2006 -- the first time a big concentrating solar thermal electricity power plant was built since the early 1990s -- solar photovoltaics (PV) has added 13 times more capacity to the U.S. electric grid than concentrating solar power plants, and with much less hub-bub.

This alternative approach to solar distributes our generating capacity over every locality from Alaska to Florida and California to Maine (and Hawaii and Puerto Rico,) closest to where the energy is needed. Recent studies show how distributed photovoltaic power could provide for much of what we need, including all of the projected growth in our electricity demand, both technically and commercially.

According to the report: Energy Self-Reliant States: Homegrown Renewable Power, more than 40 states plus the District of Columbia could generate 25 percent of their electricity just with rooftop solar photovoltaic systems.

Image courtesy of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance

Questions about cost and economics always must be first addressed. Solar electricity is not cost competitive with bulk, baseload power generated from coal and nuclear plants— but it does not have to be. Distributed solar provides electricity when and where power is most limited and most expensive, during those hot sunny afternoons when the demand for electricity can reach critical peaks. At these times local utility companies have to supplement their base generating capacity with more expensive electricity sourced from special-purpose “peaker” power plants, or from the spot market.

Solar electricity also mitigates the risk of fuel-price volatility, as ratepayers can understand when they find those pesky fuel surcharges in their power bills.

By the way, when a utility company like Georgia Power compares the cost of alternative energy with their costs, they frequently fail to mention this or any of the other surcharges and fees which appear on ratepayer bills. Consumer beware!

I'll continue this article next week, when we look further into the challenges of transmitting and distributing large amounts of electricity from remote plants, the economic benefits of localized renewable energy, and recent product developments that make rooftop solar more practical than ever.

Until then, thanks for reading!

Betting on Balderdash

John Tierney competently glosses-over the complexities of "proving" who is correct in the longstanding economics debate between the Malthusians and the Cornucopians about the behavior of commodity prices over time. (New York Times, Economic Optimism? Yes, I’ll Take That Bet)
Five years ago, Tierney and an oil markets expert named Matthew R. Simmons made a bet. Simmons, who sadly has passed earlier this year, strenuously warned about the pending effects of a peak in global oil production and accused the Saudi Arabian government of overstating the condition of their remaining oil reserves. Not that the Saudis would ever do such a thing to manipulate the markets, but I digress...
In 2005 Simmons bet Tierney $5,000 that oil prices, which hovered around $65 a barrel, would in 2010 rise past $200. With prices now at $91 and going up, Tierney claims victory and demands respect for his brand of cornucopian macroeconomics: an unbridled faith in the ability of the free markets to regulate our consumption of natural resources.
As many free-market zealots are apt to do, Tierney criticizes the renewable energy industry's need for subsidies while not mentioning how our Government coddles the producers of nonrenewables with a plethora of tax breaks, discounts, waivers, guarantees and other socialized business expenses.
Never once does he mention the environmental externalities which are excluded from the cheap prices that he claims in his bet with Simmons: not a peep about the Exxon Valdez, BP's Macondo well blowout, the poisoning of underground aquifers by natural gas drillers, the TVA's coal ash lagoon disaster, or many more less well-known cases of energy costs not reflected in market prices.
Tierney ought to ask the residents of the Prince William Sound and the Gulf who have lost their livelihoods, the people in Pennsylvania who have lost their drinking water, and those in Tennessee who lost their towns how accurately they think current energy prices reflect the true costs that are exacted.
He really needs to get out from behind his computer.
Even more astoundingly, Tierney touts the success of the Canadian tar sands project in the same paragraph that he mentions how current trends in the energy industry may lead to reduced climate-changing gas emissions. Back in the real world, the Canadian tar sands project is a disaster both in the way that it strip mines vast areas of Alberta's pristine forests and in the way that it creates more carbon dioxide pollution than any other form of energy production.
Matthew R. Simmons, rest his soul, deserves to eat crow over his bet with John Tierney, but only because he should have known better than to make specific predictions about a commodity as chaotic as oil. As for Mr. Tierney, winning a bet is not the same as winning the argument. He has only proven that forecasting is for suckers, and so is blind faith in the "free markets" that are anything but free.

- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!

Peak Oil Out of the Closet

"Conventional oil production has been flat for four years; in that sense, at least, peak oil has arrived."

Yesterday, the Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman unceremoniously gave Peak Oil theory a shout-out in his NY Times column and with it a badly-needed shot of cred.
Crude oil prices have recently marched north of $91 a barrel, and gas pumps in the United States of Happy Motoring currently run at an average $3.05 a gallon. We have not seen prices this high since October of 2008, and there is no relief in sight.
Peak Oil is the theory that oil, like most natural resources, can be cost-effectively extracted for human consumption so long as we continue to discover new sources apace of our rising appetites for it. If the pace of those new discoveries falls behind the growth of demand, then eventually its availability also will fall behind.
Industry experts and reporters are fond of the term "oil production" when referring to the amount of oil that is available for our use where it is needed, although this term misleads in that we can "produce" oil no more than we can "produce" eggs at the church Easter egg hunt.
As with any finite resource, there comes a day when the pace of our discoveries reaches a peak, when the fruits of our continued enterprise produce fewer and fewer Easter eggs no matter how hard we try and how deftly we improve upon our methods. In our geologically-bound world of oil, that in turn leads to diminished "production," and then to higher prices and to various forms of conflict depending on the severity of this gap between supply and demand.
Krugman writes that while prices for oil and other commodities are increasing rapidly, some commentators are trying to blame it on government economic policies, to make this a political issue.
Krugman argues how the facts fail to support this claim, and that we are now experiencing real limitations to economic growth that transcend culture, ideology and nationality. Finally, what is painfully obvious to so many has made it to the pages of the NY Times.
We have entered an age where, like it or not, we will (at long last) reckon with geology, physics and chemistry when formulating our economic and social policies. If you are like most economists, it's high time you re-learn your craft.

- As always, thank you for reading and stay in touch!