Behind The Green

People want to go green. All over the country people are taking steps to go green,and that's reflected in actions in statehouses across the country.

•    In Indianapolis, the House of Representatives approved legislation to allow Hoosiers who produce electricity through alternative sources to earn credits from utility companies for the kilowatts they pump into the electrical grid;
•    In New Jersey recently enacted the Solar Energy Advancement and Fair Competition Act, which establishes a 16-year solar renewable energy portfolio standard. The renewable energy standard requires New Jersey to obtain a portion of its electricity from solar power generating facilities.
•    In Pennsylvania, where the first oil well in America was drilled, the legislature is considering Clean Energy and Green Jobs legislation which increases our clean energy requirements.

While federal action is still needed, the movement at the state level is a strong indicator that people all over the country want to get off the carbon train. Lawmakers across the country understand that going green not only will lower energy costs, but will make the world a better place to live.

All of this effort will come to naught, without information and communications technology. A solar cell is really a silicone chip, and it takes ICT to hook it up to the grid. And, of course, that grid has to get smarter and that takes ICT too.

There's a lot of green going on in the budget request President Obama sent to congress this week. The White House is determined to keep rolling out efforts to cool the world and reduce our dependence on energy that too often comes from unstable areas of the world.

"That's why we build on the largest investment in clean energy in history, as well as increase investment in scientific research, so that we are fostering the industries and jobs of the future right here in America," Obama said when he released the document.

In it there is:

•    An additional $500 million in credit subsidy to support $3 to $5 billion in loan guarantees for innovative energy efficiency and renewable energy projects;
•    A 4.6%,n, increase in funding at the Office of Science for basic research and world-leading laboratories to support transformational scientific discoveries and accelerate solutions to our Nation’s most pressing challenges;
•    And there's $2.3 billion recommendation for applied energy research and development aimed at positioning the United States as the world leader in energy technology that will address climate change, develop new industries, and create new jobs;
•    The budget includes a $31 million boost to the DOE’s Building Technologies Program, which develops building codes, equipment standards and energy efficient commercial buildings.

“The administration’s FY 2011 budget request evidences that President Obama remains steadfast in his march to quickly and widely deploy energy efficiency, even as he has proposed to scale back or end many other programs across the federal government to address mounting deficits,” said Alliance to Save Energy President Kateri Callahan. “We are encouraged that the president and his team recognize that significant and sustained federal funding for energy efficiency is particularly important in today’s economy, because such investments have a proven track record of strong returns for the nation in the form of new jobs, increased private sector investment and lower monthly energy costs for consumers and businesses alike.”

All of that seems like a good thing, but amid all the sexy, big-ticket items, it would have been nice to see a little more attention paid to how things measure up. Everyone recognizes that the amount of energy that we waste is equivalent to a vast, new energy find, but no one seems to have decent ruler to figure out how much.

Information and communications technologies make us more efficient, but it's hard to say how much more energy is saved when someone telecommutes instead of driving to the office. ITC can make buildings and factories more efficient, but that efficiency often doesn't get counted.

American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy analyst Skip Laitner likes to say: "How do you make visible the invisible."

It's difficult to measure a potential change in behavior, it's something that needs to get done so government officials, industry executives and average Joes can make informed decisions.  Conservation just feels like the right policy, but "feel" is a tough sell.

The White House does include $2.6 billion to "deepen our understanding of cli- mate change and its impact," and by doing that we may be able to measure what we save. It may not be sexy to measure, but it can tell us how big our ticket is.

The White House isn't giving up legislation designed to bolster both our energy independence and make the world a greener place. In President Obama’s State of the Union speech he told the nation: that "no area is more ripe for such innovation than energy. You can see the results of last year's investments in clean energy in the North Carolina company that will create 1,200 jobs nationwide, helping to make advanced batteries, or in the California business that will put 1,000 people to work making solar panels.”But to create more of these clean energy jobs, we need more production, more efficiency, more incentives.  And that means building a new generation of safe, clean nuclear power plants in this country.  It means making tough decisions about opening new offshore areas for oil and gas development.  It means continued investment in advanced biofuels and clean coal technologies.  And, yes, it means passing a comprehensive energy and climate bill with incentives that will finally make clean energy the profitable kind of energy in America..

Whether or not you support cap-and-trade, or another alternative. It's important to remember that there are a lot of different ways to make our economy less dependent on carbon. Energy efficiencies can be gained  our homes, factories and transportation systems that will yield significant savings. Innovation is rife in this area, in part, because it is  information and communications technology dependent.

Innovation is in the ICT DNA. It's how the information age came to life, and it can breath life into a greener economy.

There's a mighty wind blowing across the land as the wind-power industry grew nearly 40% last year. According to the American Wind Energy Association's annual report the U.S. last year added a record 9,900 megawatts of power-generation capacity.

That means the country's share of electricity generated out of thin air is about 2%. That doesn't sound so mighty, but considering that the country generated about 0% from wind just a few years ago it's a virtual tsunami.

Interest in renewable power in the United States has spurred the creation of a domestic manufacturing industry that now employs 85,000 people. About half the components used in wind farms are made in the United States, compared with 25 percent in 2004, the trade group said.

While the uptick in wind-power production is welcome, many hurdles remain in getting to 10 or 20 percent wind power nationally.

There is a need for long-distance transmission lines between the nation’s wind-intensive regions, which lie in the middle of the country, and its biggest population centers, which sit on the edges. Alternative energy sources like wind power also rely on an information and communications technology-enabled smart grid to work.

“It is not a question of lack of resources,” Tim Stephure, an analyst at Emerging Energy Research consulting firm told The New York Times. “Unlike the federal highway system or the national gas system, there is a huge lack of federal oversight for electricity. This is something that will take time, while the need for the industry is now.”

We need to get behind the smart grid effort if we expect alternative energy to become more than just an idea that blowing in the wind.

While there seems to be general agreement that building a smart grid is a good idea, figuring out how to do that has been a boon to the aspirin makers. There are a  lot of moving parts that make up a smart grid. Fortunately for people trying to make sense of the smart grid, and maybe less for the aspirin makers, the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has assembled information about smart electric grids from it various societies into pen portal.

The next-generation, managed electrical power system that leverages information communications technology for the generation, delivery and consumption of electrical energy is one of the keys to putting the nation and the world on a more energy-efficient path.

"Contributions from across the global power and energy, communications and IT industries, as well as government and academia, are needed to ensure successful implementation of smart grid throughout the world," said Wanda Reder, 2008-09 president of the IEEE Power & Energy Society and chair of the IEEE Smart Grid Task Force.The IEEE Smart Grid Web Portal is designed to be an essential resource for anyone involved in Smart Grid, whatever their industry or technical discipline."

The IEEE hopes their new initiative takes a little bit of the pain out of understanding the smart grid.

Smog is a funny word, and it's been fodder for comedians around the world since  1905 when the folks at London's Coal Smoke Abatement Society mashed smoke and fog together. That, said it really isn't a laughing matter, and the federal government decided to get serious about the problem of ground-level ozone this month when the EPA issued new tougher standards for smog-causing pollutants.

“E.P.A. is stepping up to protect Americans from one of the most persistent and widespread pollutants we face,” Lisa P. Jackson, the agency’s administrator, said in a statement. “Smog in the air we breathe poses a very serious health threat, especially to children and individuals suffering from asthma and lung disease. It dirties our air, clouds our cities and drives up our health care costs across the country.”

The EPA estimates that the tougher standards will prevent 12,000 premature deaths per year from heart or lung diseases, along with thousands of cases of bronchitis, a

sthma and nonfatal heart attacks. It contends that those health benefits will save the nation between $13 billion and $100 billion a year. At the same time, the agency isn't pretending that the tough new standards will come without costs, as it estimates that implementing them will cost $19 billion to $90 billion a year by 2020, to be largely borne by manufacturers, oil refiners and utilities.

It might not be evident at first glance, but this is one of those areas where the information and communications technologies can help ease both the burden on industry and help protect the public health. Smog is formed by a reaction of nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, carbon monoxide and methane in the presence of sunlight. Power plants, factories, fumes from volatile solvents, vehicle emissions and gasoline vapors cause smog. Reducing the amount of pollutants in any of these areas reduces smog, and that's where ICT comes in.

If we drive less because we use ICT to telecommute, we cut down of vehicle emissions and gasoline vapors. If our factories use ICT-enabled smart technologies to become more efficient, then we pump fewer industrial pollutants into the air. If we make our electricity transmissions more efficient with the ICT-enabled smart grid, then we don't have to have as many power plants huffing away.

ICT isn't a magic wand, Energy conservation and efficiency aren't the whole solution, but they aren't smoke a mirrors either.

The Founding Fathers weren't thinking of federalism as a "green" policy. The entire interior of the continent looked like a wall of green to them. Funny how things work out, because it seems that more than a dozen of the states are making all those guys who hung out in Philly in the 18th Century  look like a bunch of 21st Century activists.

It seems that about two-dozen states have taken it upon themselves to reduce greenhouse gases, according to  America On the Move: State Leadership in the Fight Against Global Warming and What it Means to the World. The report prepared by Environment America contends that state action may reduce carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 536 million metric tons per year by 2020. An amount that counts for more global warming pollution than is currently emitted annually by all but eight of the world’s nations, and represents approximately 7 percent of U.S. global warming pollution in 2007.

"Over the last decade, America’s state governments – where the bulk of on-the- ground energy policy decision-making is made in America’s federal system of government – have taken the nation on a different course, one of innovative and increasingly aggressive action to reduce global warming pollution," the report states.

According to the report 29 states have adopted minimum standards requiring that a percentage of their electricity must come from renewable energy sources. These efforts are expected to reduce global warming pollution by 79 million metric tons nationwide, according to the report. At the same time 22 states have adopted policies that require a share of their energy needs to be met through energy efficiency improvements. These energy efficiency standards will deliver additional reductions of approximately 67 million metric tons of carbon dioxide by 2020.

The states may be in the driver's seat, but information and communications technologies are helping them put the rubber to the road. ICT are a leading component in both developing the supply of renewable energy and getting to to factories, offices and homes. ICT are also a key component that drives energy efficiencies. ICT makes factories and offices use less power and can make state governments more efficient through information-sharing technologies.

Federal action is still the preferable course as it sets a uniform policy and gets the biggest bang for the greenback, but until the federal government makes up its collective mind the states will have a role to play.

Before the New Year starts, the Energy Department is revving up it's new Energy Innovation Hubs. The hubs are focused on accelerating research and development in three key energy areas.  Each Hub, will bring together a multidisciplinary team of researchers in an effort to speed research and shorten the path from scientific discovery to technological development and commercial deployment of highly promising energy-related technologies.   “Given the urgency of our challenges in both energy and climate, we need to do everything we can to mobilize our Nation’s scientific and technological talent to accelerate the pace of innovation,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.  “The DOE Energy Innovation Hubs represent a new, more proactive approach to managing and conducting research.  We are taking a page from America’s great industrial laboratories in their heyday.  Their achievements—from the transistor to the information theory that makes modern telecommunications possible—are evidence that we can build creative, highly-integrated research teams that can accomplish more, faster, than researchers working separately.”
The Hubs are part of a broad-based clean energy research strategy by the Obama Administration aimed at harnessing America’s innovation machine to achieve the breakthroughs we need. The three DOE Energy Innovation Hubs  focus on: producing producing fuels directly from sunlight; improving energy-efficient building systems design; and computer modeling and simulation for the development of advanced nuclear reactors.
In all the (ahem) hubbub, it's  easy to forget most of these new technologies will depend on advanced uses of information and communications technologies. ITC not only enables these "fancier" technologies to work, it enables the people who can make the breakthroughs. In effect,  ITC makes up the spokes that link the hubs.

As I spent the first part of my weekend watching the snow build up around my house just outside Washington, then spent the rest of it digging out, I wondered if global warming was really such a bad thing. Would a warmer world save my aching back? I mean just what the heck is a Southern boy like me doing shoveling snow? Mud and other less savory substances, sure, but snow?

My friends who have lived in the D.C. area  longer than I have talk about how they used to ice skate on the C&0 Canal. I wouldn't try that today. Long ago the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool froze solid. I went ice skating on the it then, but it hasn't frozen that way in quite some time.

Copenhagen may not ha ve been the end-all, be-all that some people wanted, but the treaty at least refocuses attention on the issue. No matter what it says, the hard work starts now.

I know I sound like a broken record (For those of us that remember records. Can I sound like a broken MP3?), but there are more reasons than global warming to embrace reducing greenhouse gasses. Energy efficiency not only reduces greenhouse gas emissions, but also increases American independence.

As Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told The New York Times: "I think it's a mixed bag with Copenhagen. My approach to this is really not that much Copenhagen dependent. Energy independence, there's a lot of votes for."

As President Obama admitted: "We're going to need technological breakthroughs to get to the goals that we're looking for.”

Information and communications technologies can satisfy both Sen. Graham and President Obama. It's from ITC that those technological breakthroughs will come, and it's ICT that drives energy independence throughout the economy. ICT-driven technology saves energy in our factories, offices, the power grid, or our homes. ITC can and will increase our independence and reduce our production of greenhouse gases.

There's a lot of unsavory substances being shoveled in the debate over global warming, but energy efficiency isn't one of them. Embracing sustainability may cause me to shovel more snow, but that beats the alternative.

One of the most vexing problems with energy conservation is the difficulty of measuring something that's conserved. How can you account for something that isn't being used up?. As the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy analyst Skip Laitner likes to say: "How do you make visible the invisible."

While it's difficult to measure a potential change in behavior, it's something that needs to get done so government officials, industry executives and average Joes can make informed decisions.  Conservation just feels like the right policy, but "feel" is a tough sell.

Vijay Perincherry, president, Ironbridge Systems attempts to do that with regard to telecommuting in his paper “Broadband: A Framework for Quantitative Evaluation of Impacts.” (It's in the Hot Docs section. Check out the video at NextGenweb.org.)

“If you could measure consumption of a household, and compare activities and efficiencies, you can see what works and find a baseline trend,"Dr. Perincherry explained. "The data is not easily available. You can get it, but you have to pull it from one place or another."

Perincherry presented his paper at an ACEE working group last week. In it he estimates that "proper implementation of telecommuting can prevent 15 million tons of greenhouse-gas emissions a year in the U.S. alone.

That reduction in emissions doesn't count other benefits that could accrue from telecommuting. Increased productivity gains, greater worker satisfaction and a reduction in energy use by businesses aren't directly included in Dr. Perincherry's findings.

Dr. Perincherry is still perfecting his measurements, but his study shows how information and communications technologies like broadband can help us reduce pollution. If we can get government, private enterprise and Average Joe to buy into the policies like telecommuting, they would go a long way toward creating a greener future. To do that we're going to have to figure out a way to measure for a suit of cloths the invisible man that is conservation.