!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Strict//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-strict.dtd"> NewEnergyNews: ART CENTER SUMMIT 2008, DAY 2: THE POSSIBILITIES OF A WELL-DESIGNED FUTURE

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Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

WALL STREET JOURNAL'S Environmental Capital selected NewEnergyNews as one of the "Blogs We Are Reading" in March, April and May of 2007 and quoted NewEnergyNews on June 5, 2007

MOTHER EARTH NEWS' Energy Matters selected NewEnergyNews for its "What We're Reading" list in September 2008

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Anne B. Butterfield of DAILY CAMERA, a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

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  • Selfishly seeking clean energy
  • Anne B. Butterfield
  • July 12, 2009 (Daily Camera)

    It's the cocktail banter of Boulder: We're so selfish in Boulder, because we're seeking to convert or retire the Valmont coal-fired power plant so it will no longer burn coal. Other communities, like the city of Commerce are more deserving of relief from the emissions of their local coal plants, and those other plants are older. So the banter goes.

    On the City Council's hotline Web site, Ken Wilson has written up how other coal plants around Xcel's service territory would have to produce more power if Boulder succeeds at knocking out the coal-fired power from Valmont. He adds, with fine ethics if not complete analysis: "Reducing carbon emissions is not something we in Boulder can feel good about 'winning' if it means pushing our problems to other communities."

    If Xcel's generating capacity weren't overbuilt in the next few years due to the addition of 750 megawatts of new coal starting this fall in Pueblo, Wilson's view would have more merit, mathematically and ethically. But facts are stubborn things -- and a new coal plant changes everything: it means that every coal plant in Xcel's system is now on the chopping block for parents fighting night and day for their children's world.

    Many also lean on the notion that Valmont is one of Xcel's most efficient coal plants. This is a little like referring to thin Sumo wrestlers, or gentle Mafia men. Coal plants just are not efficient enough to warrant the adjective, especially for a plant such as the Valmont coal unit that provides under 5 percent of base load generation for the area.

    The reason Valmont is on the hit-list is that our town has an informed, active populace, which has imposed a carbon tax on itself and whose utility franchise is coming up for renewal. This is a rare moment of leverage that combines with a moment in history when utilities everywhere are committing to coal plant conversions.

    In Ohio, First Energy decided this year to convert 312 MW of coal power to burn fuel crops grown for the purpose. Three years ago, the Public Service Commission of New Hampshire decided to convert 50 MW of coal capacity to burn biomass. DTE Energy of Wisconsin agreed to buy a 50 MW coal unit with plans to convert it to burning wood waste. A 24 MW coal plant in Pepeekeo, Hawaii, is being converted to burn biomass, and Georgia Power has announced a plan to covert a 96 MW coal unit to run on wood fuel.

    Here in the West, we have wood. Lots of beetle-killed timber that can be brought into plants on the trains that typically carry coal from Wyoming, returning there with our hard-earned dollars. In the past few months. Valmont itself is burning lower-grade, dirtier Wyoming coal. Instead, we could make power and carbon-sinking bio-char with beetle-kill trees.

    Also, here in the West we have sun. Matching our solar sensibilities, Xcel Energy itself has committed to a pilot project of augmenting the 39 MW of coal power of the Cameo plant near Grand Junction with the steam of a new concentrating solar assembly. Even more bravely, the Electric Power Research Institute is partnering with Tri State Power and Transmission to integrate concentrating solar power into the 245 MW Escalante coal plant in Prewitt, N.M., and with the legendarily pro-coal Southern Company to do likewise for the 742 MW Mayo plant in Roxboro N.C.

    According to EPRI, these hybrid power plants will demonstrate a near-term, reliable, cost-effective way to use solar energy at commercial scale for power that is greatly cleansed of the emissions that threaten public health and climate.

    In Boulder, ironically, we often have worse air quality than Denver due to the bowl effect of our valley, in which our air is tainted with heavy metals and ozone. The American Lung Association has given Boulder a grade of "F" for ozone, which contributes so much to asthma and other chronic ailments. This Tuesday evening at the Boulder County Courthouse there is a hearing for Valmont's air permit, which is an important chance to speak to regulators about these toxins impacting our community unnecessarily as cleaner options exist.

    There is nothing exotic about converting coal plants now. It's a matter of political will and we have a chance with Valmont. The plant is a great candidate, Boulder is the right town, and Xcel is the right utility.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • Selfishly seeking clean energy (July 12, 2009)
  • The big ka-ching in our health care wallet (June 19, 2009)
  • It takes a Governor (May 24, 2009)
  • Want a job? Think Wind. (May 10, 2009)
  • Just Say No to Xcess Energy (April 28, 2009)
  • NREL’s history of fickle funding (April 12, 2009)
  • Wagons firmly circled: Governance at REA’s and Tri-State (March 26, 2009)
  • A new migratory pattern: Colorado youth go to Washington (March 12, 2009)
  • Even coal is in for a revolution (February 22, 2009)
  • High Flyers and the Commons (February 11, 2009)
  • Come on Baby, Sit by Me (January 25, 2009)
  • A return on investment (January 3, 2009)
  • Mr. Secretary, we're watching you (December 28, 2008)
  • Canary in the Coal Mine (December 13, 2008)
  • Crash test dummies (November 16, 2008)
  • Needless markup (November 2, 2008)
  • The flap about 58 (October 19, 2008)
  • Hip towns and a clever measure (October 7, 2008)
  • Are we afraid of change? Still? (September 21, 2008)
  • Cheney in a chignon (September 7, 2008)
  • Don't tick off the blonde (August 10, 2008)
  • Buying us time on global warming (July 27, 2008)
  • Hint from Heloise - It's the pH, Stupid! (July 13, 2008)
  • Nukes: the position ridiculous and the expense damnable (June 29, 2008)

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    NOTEWORTHY IN THE MEDIA:

  • Young, Green Entrepreneurs Flock to Carbon Market, from NPR's Morning Edition: "...climate change and a billion-dollar carbon market that trades in carbon credits — as if they were pork bellies — have created a new career niche."

  • Ethical Markets TV: A remarkable TV series showcasing people who “…illustrate the triple bottom line, respecting people and the environment while earning a profit…” Part of Ethical Markets: “Your gateway to cleaner, greener 21st century economies.”

  • Energy Security and Global Warming, from Warren Olney's TO THE POINT at KCRW in Santa Monica: "US energy demands are rising as the price of oil goes through the roof...Canadian tar sands and domestic coal would provide energy security, but at the risk of increased global warming. Can renewables be developed in time?"

  • Designer Biofuels, from KQED Radio in San Francisco: "...making a gasoline alternative to run our cars has great promise but there are huge problems...The next answer [may come]...from a UC Berkeley lab, a Silicon Valley start up or...the jungles of Costa Rica."

  • HELEN’S WAR: Portrait of a Dissident, showing periodically on the Sundance Channel (click title for listings), profiles the medical doctor turned anti-nuclear activist as she continues her nearly 4-decade-old campaign to educate the public on the serious drawbacks to the development of nuclear energy.

  • A CRUDE AWAKENING: The Oil Crash, showing periodically on the Sundance Channel (click title for listings), studies the implications of world dependence on oil and declining availability of it.

  • Lee Iococa predicts the Plug-In Hybrid will be the next big thing in cars NPR’s Morning Edition: Thursday, April 26, 2007.

  • Robert Redford Presents "the GREEN": A weekly block of New Energy and Environmentally-Friendly programming. Check local listings.

  • John Rabe's OFFRAMP, Saturdays at noon (and podcasts) via NPR-affiliate KPCC-FM. A radio magazine show about Los Angeles, sometimes covering energy issues but frequently featuring John telling anybody he can about his vegetable oil-burning, converted Mercedes.

  • NOW: PBS's David Brancaccio talks with Laurie David, a producer of the Oscar-nominated documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" and a major environmental activist.
    • Stream it at your convenience here.

  • Living with Ed, an HGTV tons-of-fun reality/comedy show about the trials, tribulations, hilarity and rewards in the marriage of environmentalist Ed Begley, Jr., and his appearance-oriented actress-wife Rachelle Carson. Click here for listings

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  • My Novels: OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades & OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades by Mark S. Friedman
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The American Decades, the second volume of Herman K. Trabish’s retelling of oil’s history in fiction, picks up where the first book in the series, OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction, left off. The new book is an engrossing, informative and entertaining tale of the Roaring 20s, World War II and the Cold War. You don’t have to know anything about the first historical fiction’s adventures set between the Civil War, when oil became a major commodity, and World War I, when it became a vital commodity, to enjoy this new chronicle of the U.S. emergence as a world superpower and a world oil power.
  • As the new book opens, Lefash, a minor character in the first book, witnesses the role Big Oil played in designing the post-Great War world at the Paris Peace Conference of 1919. Unjustly implicated in a murder perpetrated by Big Oil agents, LeFash takes the name Livingstone and flees to the U.S. to clear himself. Livingstone’s quest leads him through Babe Ruth’s New York City and Al Capone’s Chicago into oil boom Oklahoma. Stymied by oil and circumstance, Livingstone marries, has a son and eventually, surprisingly, resolves his grievances with the murderer and with oil.
  • In the new novel’s second episode the oil-and-auto-industry dynasty from the first book re-emerges in the charismatic person of Victoria Wade Bridger, “the woman everybody loved.” Victoria meets Saudi dynasty founder Ibn Saud, spies for the State Department in the Vichy embassy in Washington, D.C., and – for profound and moving personal reasons – accepts a mission into the heart of Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe. Underlying all Victoria’s travels is the struggle between the allies and axis for control of the crucial oil resources that drove World War II.
  • As the Cold War begins, the novel’s third episode recounts the historic 1951 moment when Britain’s MI-6 handed off its operations in Iran to the CIA, marking the end to Britain’s dark manipulations and the beginning of the same work by the CIA. But in Trabish’s telling, the covert overthrow of Mossadeq in favor of the ill-fated Shah becomes a compelling romance and a melodramatic homage to the iconic “Casablanca” of Bogart and Bergman.
  • Monty Livingstone, veteran of an oil field youth, European WWII combat and a star-crossed post-war Berlin affair with a Russian female soldier, comes to 1951 Iran working for a U.S. oil company. He re-encounters his lost Russian love, now a Soviet agent helping prop up Mossadeq and extend Mother Russia’s Iranian oil ambitions. The reunited lovers are caught in a web of political, religious and Cold War forces until oil and power merge to restore the Shah to his future fate. The romance ends satisfyingly, America and the Soviet Union are the only forces left on the world stage and ambiguity is resolved with the answer so many of Trabish’s characters ultimately turn to: Oil.
  • Commenting on a recent National Petroleum Council report calling for government subsidies of the fossil fuels industries, a distinguished scholar said, “It appears that the whole report buys these dubious arguments that the consumer of energy is somehow stupid about energy…” Trabish’s great and important accomplishment is that you cannot read his emotionally engaging and informative tall tales and remain that stupid energy consumer. With our world rushing headlong toward Peak Oil and epic climate change, the OIL IN THEIR BLOOD series is a timely service as well as a consummate literary performance.
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories
  • Review of OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, The Story of Our Addiction by Mark S. Friedman
  • "...ours is a culture of energy illiterates." (Paul Roberts, THE END OF OIL)
  • OIL IN THEIR BLOOD, a superb new historical fiction by Herman K. Trabish, addresses our energy illiteracy by putting the development of our addiction into a story about real people, giving readers a chance to think about how our addiction happened. Trabish's style is fine, straightforward storytelling and he tells his stories through his characters.
  • The book is the answer an oil family's matriarch gives to an interviewer who asks her to pass judgment on the industry. Like history itself, it is easier to tell stories about the oil industry than to judge it. She and Trabish let readers come to their own conclusions.
  • She begins by telling the story of her parents in post-Civil War western Pennsylvania, when oil became big business. This part of the story is like a John Ford western and its characters are classic American melodramatic heroes, heroines and villains.
  • In Part II, the matriarch tells the tragic story of the second generation and reveals how she came to be part of the tales. We see oil become an international commodity, traded on Wall Street and sought from London to Baku to Mesopotamia to Borneo. A baseball subplot compares the growth of the oil business to the growth of baseball, a fascinating reflection of our current president's personal career.
  • There is an unforgettable image near the center of the story: International oil entrepreneurs talk on a Baku street. This is Trabish at his best, portraying good men doing bad and bad men doing good, all laying plans for wealth and power in the muddy, oily alley of a tiny ancient town in the middle of everywhere. Because Part I was about triumphant American heroes, the tragedy here is entirely unexpected, despite Trabish's repeated allusions to other stories (Casey At The Bat, Hamlet) that do not end well.
  • In the final section, World War I looms. Baseball takes a back seat to early auto racing and oil-fueled modernity explodes. Love struggles with lust. A cavalry troop collides with an army truck. Here, Trabish has more than tragedy in mind. His lonely, confused young protagonist moves through the horrible destruction of the Romanian oilfields only to suffer worse and worse horrors, until--unexpectedly--he finds something, something a reviewer cannot reveal. Finally, the question of oil must be settled, so the oil industry comes back into the story in a way that is beyond good and bad, beyond melodrama and tragedy.
  • Along the way, Trabish gives readers a greater awareness of oil and how we became addicted to it. Awareness, Paul Roberts said in THE END OF OIL, "...may be the first tentative step toward building a more sustainable energy economy. Or it may simply mean that when our energy system does begin to fail, and we begin to lose everything that energy once supplied, we won't be so surprised."
  • Oil history journal articles by Dr. Trabish: Oil Stories and Histories

    • About Me

    Name: Herman K. Trabish
    Location: La Crescenta, CA

    *Doctor with my hands *Author of the "OIL IN THEIR BLOOD" series with my head *Student of New Energy with my heart

    View my complete profile

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    CONTACT: herman@newenergynews.net

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

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    • Friday, February 08, 2008

    ART CENTER SUMMIT 2008, DAY 2: THE POSSIBILITIES OF A WELL-DESIGNED FUTURE

    Two things are uniquely true of the current crop of young adults. For one thing, as Art Center instructor Geoff Wardle pointed out in remarks closing The Art Center Summit 2008: Systems, Cities & Sustainable Mobility, this baby boom generation born of the post-World War II baby boom generation is uniquely passionate about the idea of sustainability and about their desire to live green. The second uniquely true thing about them was perfectly demonstrated by the last panel of the Summit, “21st Century Strategies”: Despite the passion, despite the widely recognized importance of being green and living sustainably, nobody knows exactly what “sustainability” is, what “green” is or how to get there from here.

    Without romanticizing or oversimplifying the past, it is probably pretty accurate to say that the similarly passionate post-War baby boomers had a relatively simpler set of challenges in their youth. Not better, just simpler. The threat of nuclear midnight hung over the mid-20th century like the nightmare that it could have been but it left little choice other than commitment to engagement. From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, it was – as John Kennedy admonished – negotiate from strength but negotiate. All those boomers could do was protest nukes until the leaders finally listened. On the environmental front, the first baby boom generation had to invent the movement, but its fights were usually local and were always about cleaning up the mess.

    The current generation has an entirely different kind of geopolitical challenge and, though Kennedy’s words might very well still be a guiding light, it is rarely entirely clear who to negotiate with. Meanwhile, diplomacy might be unremittingly successful even as a disgruntled fanatic strikes a shard of nuclear nightmare into the brightest dreams.

    As to environmental issues, when these young folks look wise men to ask what the problem is and how to fix it, they might do a lot worse than University of Houston Future Studies Professor Peter Bishop, Designer/optimistic-entrepreneurs-advocate Freeman Thomas and Axel Friedrich, Director of the Environment, Transport and Noise Divison, Umwelt Bundes Amt (the German environmental protection agency). But when these 3 elders were asked in the Summit's closing panel to succinctly summarize their ideas about how to get to a solution on sustainability, Friedrich said more government, Thomas said more entrepreneurial spirit and Bishop said it was an undelineated combination of the two.

    Glad they settled that.

    An easier to understand description of problems and solutions came from Futurist and Author Hazel Henderson. She made her presentation via satellite so she didn’t have to travel to appear. That made her carbon footprint near zero by anybody’s calculation. She didn’t have to talk about how new technology offers solutions because she was living it. She urged her audience to design the future and described how even economic statistics can be shaped to tell the truth. She pointed out to the car design crowd that Gross National Product (GNP) goes up when there is a car accident because it doesn't subtract the harm. She showed her “wedding cake” slide and pointed out that GNP only accounts for half of society’s layer cake while the “Love Economy” goes uncounted.

    The message was simple. Not easy, but simple. Live the future you believe in, even as you seek to understand it better and design it.

    Henderson's layer cake. (click to enlarge)

    The
    Art Center Summit 2008: System's Cities & Sustainable Mobility
    February 6 & 7, 2008 (Art Center College of Design)

    WHO
    “21st Century Strategies” panel: Peter Bishop, Freeman Thomas, Axel Friedrich and Jane Poynter (moderator); Hazel Henderson

    WHAT
    A discussion of “21st Century Strategies” moderated by Biosphere 2 crewmember, author and Paragon Space Development Corporation President Jane Poynter.

    Friedrich created an auto world uproar when he told German automakers these efficiency measures are more important to the next 20 years than the hydrogen fuel cell. (click to enlarge)

    WHEN
    - Bishop began by talking about society is currently shaped by its place at the end of the oil era and the end of the fossil fuels era.
    - Friedrich made the point that throughout the Summit he had heard no satisfactory definition of “sustainable” but it is not hard to see what “unsustainable” is.
    - Thomas talked about what the horse meant to people a hundred years ago, said the car was that symbol of freedom today and suggested the digital communicationwill provide that freedom in the future.

    WHERE
    - Bishop described society as now needing to cross a chasm to the next energy era and said the only question is how deep into the chasm society must go.
    - Friedrich described how to design a “city of short trips” by including regulations requiring regional production and efficient transportation systems.
    - Thomas described seeing a new development being built on the old El Toro Naval Station land and expressed disdain and dismay at the lack of design.

    Henderson showed how economic statistics need fixing. (click to enlarge)

    WHY
    - Bishop insisted government’s role is to do one thing: Internalize the externalities so that citizens can see the true cost of their choices and respond.
    - Friedrich insisted, as he always has, that efficiency measures are the only improvements needed to make cars sustainable. He talked about his super-efficient 2-seat VW that actually got 250 mpg and described the theoretical 4-seater capable of 150 mpg.
    - Thomas said that the problem with government leaders is that they lack vision so change can come only from the marketplace. He asserted that cars aren’t likely to change until gas is $10 per gallon.

    The visual theme of the Summit. One last takeaway: Keynote speaker Paul Hawken recalled Model T inventor Henry Ford's observation about the marketplace - "If I'd asked my customers what they wanted, they'd have told me they wanted a faster horse."

    QUOTES
    - Friedrich: “Government must lead…Female mayors run cities differently…”
    - Thomas: “When gas is so cheap nobody is valuing what we have.”
    - Bishop: “We’re involved in a very slow moving train wreck.”
    - Geoff Wardle, Art Center instructor/Summit principle: “The word ‘sustainable’ may go out of fashion in a few months or a few years but theissue will not. The issue is here to stay…”

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 6:34 AM

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