green | rising

A Cleaner, Greener Missouri

September 23rd, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Activism, Climate Change, Environment, Government, Technology | 2 Comments »

I (still) work for a bank. Needless to say, the past few weeks have been tumultuous. Onward and upward. 

With only 47 days left until this country elects its first black president or two people who will further marginalize America on a global scale, we must not forget the other candidates up for election and the issues that will be on the ballot. One issue in particular is the focus of this piece, and that is bringing a Renewable Energy Standard (RES) to Missouri.

I won’t say too much besides that if passed, the standard would require Missouri utilities to gradually increase their use of renewable energy over the next 12 years, ramping up to 15% of Missouri’s electricity by the year 2020. And, if passed, would make Missouri the 27th state to implement some type of RES.

Three organizations are involved in the effort to see this standard implemented:

• Missouri Coalition for the Environment, a group that works to preserve, protect, and enhance an environment that is livable, healthful, and sustainable through a comprehensive program of education, citizen action, and legal defense;
• Renew Missouri, a nonprofit corporation with the overarching goal of creating highly effective renewable energy policy in Missouri; and
• Clean Energy Works for Missouri, a 501c(3) education campaign sponsored by the Missouri Coalition for the Environment and Renew Missouri to help bring clean, renewable energy to Missouri.

There’s the team, and a darn good one at that. Remember that this will NOT COST CONSUMERS MORE MONEY. A summary of the Consumer Cost Savings Analysis can be found here (.pdf), and the full report can be found here(.pdf).

Vote or die!

Building Offshore Platforms, But Not For Drilling

August 19th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Energy, Government, Responsibility | 1 Comment »

I have a dream that one day a politician will get on TV and tell people gas prices are supposed to be high, and that there’s a cost to living 50 miles from an urban center. She’ll say that cost is $4 a gallon, and it should be higher. Suck it up she’ll demand.

But, in my dream she also includes an equally sized reduction in health care costs, saying Americans should be able to get preventive care on the cheap so that future health care expenditures are greatly reduced. The dream includes other points as well, but I’d like to focus on the above: $2 antibiotics, $20 gas.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, in another flash of brilliantly bright  (I’m blind!) idiocy, said she is open to offshore drilling. The NY Times piece to which I linked includes includes classic posturing from both sides of the aisle, and demonstrates again that Republicans plain just don’t care about other people, and that Democrats plain just can’t help but bend over in times of conflict.

Perhaps my frustration is born from the fact that the answer to our energy problems is so simple in design that it’s hard to see. I’ve written beforethat the America needs not more locally sourced oil, but less oil in general. This isn’t a new concept, but one that’s not easily grasped by people, especially that smart-decision-challenged group of individuals we call our elected officials. I feel a terribly tangential rant coming on about term limits so I must take a deep breath and focus.

Announcements like this one, for the construction of the nation’s largest solar plant, keep me from stroking out, but they are few and far between. Conservation, and the development of new renewable energy technologies (that don’t use food as fuel), are the only right strategies to a better tomorrow. Plain and simple. What happened to the days of reaching for the stars and actually touching them?

That being said, I have mixed feelings about what the next decade will bring. If we put our minds to it, we could develop good enough solar, wind, biomass and efficiency technologies to replace fossil fuels entirely. If we roll over, new platforms will be built because that’s what government of late does - suck pipeline. Most likely both will happen, but if we’re lucky, the last boat of supplies to the shiny, new platforms won’t be carrying drills. It’ll be filled with some rope, our worthless leaders, and a nice, sturdy plank.

The Future of Cities and Housing

August 11th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Economy, Government, Housing, Society | 2 Comments »

Thursday and Friday of last week I attended a conference called “Green Homes and Sustainable Communities”. ’twas very good. My mind was boggled by the great information presented, and while there’s no way to recap both days in their entirety, I will provide a few highlights.

The keynote speaker was a gentleman named Richard Register, who has a company called Ecocity Builders. I haven’t spent much time on the site but if even a fraction of the information he presented at the conference is available online, it will be well worth your while to visit. Plus, his book sounds fascinating. This was the dream part of the conference, but also something attainable within 50 to 100 years if we get our damn heads screwed on properly.

Most of the rest of the conference was filled with case studies of the development of green affordable housing and the current status and future potential of policy in this area. Practical, though both inspiring and frustrating. There are some extremely creative people out there.

One of the most memorable highlights came in the form of a controlled rant by a professor from MIT. The gist of his speech was that there’s a large disconnect between the people who need and could take on new jobs in the “green” economy and the expectations of how the “green” economy is expected to include these people. Basically, he said the skill level of the people who many pundits hope will fill the new jobs in the energy and construction industries is far from adequate. Further, if no education or social assistance is provided the “green” economy will never materialize.

Well, that was just a short look. I’ll right to summarize some other features when I get a chance. At worst, I’ll try to put up pictures from my tour of the Schiff Residences in the coming days.

Pick Your Cancer

August 6th, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Energy, Ideas, Politics, Sustainability, Technology | 1 Comment »

Ohhhh ‘bama, what have you done? Offshore drilling? Really?

Our cancer isn’t the dependency on foreign oil, it’s the dependency on oil period, and other fossil fuels, from wherever they hail. Oil taken from our backyards, or coal from our stripped lands, is still a cancer. If we’re choosing to die, just by our own hands, then let’s drill the hell out of our coastlines and natural preserves. The oil won’t be here for 10 years, and by that time we may be on an irreversible path toward a little town called self-destruction.

But, if want to free ourselves of the cancer itself, we must abandon fossil fuels as a source of energy and turn to technology that already exists. Wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass are the future, and the future is now.

My wife and I were recently watching an episode of Eco-Tech on The Science Channel. The show was mind-blowing.

• Did you know that all the energy every used by mankind in the history of existence is delivered to the earth by the sun in only 30 days?
• Did you know that solar technology that already exists and is used to make Seville, Spain almost entirely powered by the sun could be used to power the entire planet? According to some scientists, covering just 1% of the Saharan desert with solar reflectors, which would be used to heat water into steam, could supply the entire earth’s energy needs?
• Did you know that wave technology nearly perfected could power all of Florida’s energy needs?
• Did you know a guy in Chicago has developed an urban wind turbine (looks like a big drill bit) that captures wind energy from all directions (I’m going to see this on Friday!)
• Did you know that scientists have almost perfected a solar technology that allows photovoltaic solar cells to be printed in the form of ink onto thin, bendable film? These can be produced 10 to 20 times cheaper than solar panels currently available on any market and can be shaped to contour any surface.

That’s not even the half of it. In ten years we can be free of our dependence on all oil, not just foreign oil. Our skies and rivers will be clean, the needless wars will be over, and we can all start focusing on other problems that have been left untreated or exacerbated by our addiction.

Personal Mobility Appliances

August 1st, 2008 by Vihar Sheth | Posted in Technology, Uncategorized | No Comments »

Bradley Berman, editor of hybridCARS, published an interesting commentary on Reuters yesterday called, “In 2018, expect personal mobility appliances“. The article is as much about technology as it is about perception. It’s short too, so please go read it, but here are some notable quotes:

• By 2018, the American love affair with the car will become platonic.
• Sure, you might still adore your car, but with the lusty “need for speed” tied up in gigahertz instead of get-up-and-go. Your car, reborn as a personal mobility appliance, will be more about what it can do, and less about stimulating your senses.
• The marketplace itself will go digital.
• The personal mobility appliance will zip along an increasingly networked roadway.
• John DeCicco, an automotive strategist at Environmental Defense, expects that some auto companies will cling to “traditional measures of mobility” — horsepower, size, and 4-wheel drive — while others will embrace the attributes of what he calls a “post-mobility” age: connectivity, entertainment, information, navigation, safety, and mobile workplace features.

I’ve imagined the future and it is beautiful. I hope to have a personal mobility appliance but also a jet pack, or an Iron Man suit if the price is right.

“Now on display at the Museum of Transportation: The last SUV ever built!”

Let’s make it happen. Here’s a start - Land Rover go boom!