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January 14, 2010
New York City and Rising Seas
As a complement to my post on The Vine asking if we're doing enough to prepare for the climate change-induced -- and inevitable -- rise in sea level, here's something from the NYT that takes a slightly different tack on the issue (thanks to TNR's Brad Plumer for pointing it out to me): This weekend, the public was given its first glimpse of a project a year in the making: a collaboration between the Museum of Modern Art and its affiliate P.S.1, an art exhibition house. The museums have asked five separate architectural teams to come up with plans for transforming the metropolitan area's coastlines after warmer oceans and melting Antarctic ice have raised global sea levels, something many scientists predict is inevitable. A full exhibit opens at MoMA on March 24, but what the teams are already coming up with has people talking. They envision a city lined with marshes, permeable coastlines, and oyster farms used as wave breaks. To adapt to climate change, the teams are asking New Yorkers to look at things in a more positive light -- namely, as a chance to bring a city famous for blocking out the ocean back to dealing with it.
Oyster farms, eh? That's certainly seeing opportunity in the face of disaster. Of course, it's not just coastal development that kicked out the oysters -- it was water pollution. And New York Harbor, though far cleaner that it was a few decades ago, still "harbors" enough heavy metals, pollutants and bacteria that I don't think anyone will be slurping "ersters" from its waters anytime soon. Still, power of positive thinking and all that. And I do like one team's idea of letting parts of Manhattan go all Venice and just accept streets full of water at high tide.
Anyway, it's worth noting that the architects' plans only account for about a 2 foot increase in sea level. As I highlight in my TNR post, we should plan for a 7 feet rise and very likely will get even more. An increase like that would swamp any city's most ambitious adaptation plans.
Labels: climate, food, infrastructure, smart_growth
November 30, 2009
Will Whole Foods New Initiative Squeeze Small Farmers?
 Jennifer Hashley processes a chicken on her Massachusetts farm. Massachusetts poultry farmer Jennifer Hashley has a problem. From the moment she started raising pastured chickens outside Concord, Mass. in 2002, there was, as she put it "nowhere to go to get them processed." While she had the option of slaughtering her chickens in her own backyard, Hashley knew that selling her chickens would be easier if she used a licensed slaughterhouse. Nor is she alone in her troubles. Despite growing demand for local, pasture-raised chickens, small poultry producers throughout Massachusetts, Connecticut, and even New York can't or won't expand for lack of processing capacity.
It isn't only small producers who are feeling the pinch -- a widespread lack of processing infrastructure appropriate for small farmers has caused supply chain problems for the big retailers as well. Whole Foods -- the world's largest natural-foods supermarket -- wants to aggressively expand its local meat sourcing, according to its head meat buyer, Theo Weening. But it faces the same limitation as Hashley. Most regions of the country have "lots of agriculture but nowhere to process," Weening told me, adding that the phenomenon is most acute in the northeast. Whole Foods wants to change all that. In a move that has national implications, the retail giant has confirmed to Grist that it is working with the USDA as well as state authorities to establish a fleet of top-of-the-line "mobile slaughterhouses" for chicken. Starting with a single unit serving Massachusetts, Connecticut, and the Hudson Valley, N.Y. area, Whole Foods hopes to offer small farmers an affordable way to process chickens as well as to vastly increase the amount of locally-sourced chicken it sells. If successful, this program could be expanded to any region of the country with similar infrastructure shortages. READ THE REST OF THIS POST ON GRIST.ORG
Labels: farming, food, health, infrastructure
November 23, 2009
Treat Energy Efficiency as a Utility
With David Leonhardt's piece on a new weatherization program/jobs bill nicknamed "Cash for Caulkers" generating some buzz, as well as questions, it seemed a good time to resurrect a post I wrote about a year ago on the general subject of energy efficiency improvement. I had been inspired by a lengthy post at Grist on a post-carbon economy which observed that the way to jumpstart efficiency and incentivize improvements is to copy the British and set per square foot emissions levels for building (unlikely, I know). But more practically, we should also make energy efficiency a "utility" like electricity, gas or water. Here's what I wrote: [N]ew entities called "efficiency utilities" ... would pay for efficiency upgrades in order to bring an existing building in compliance with the limits. Owners/tenants would pay for these improvements via a monthly bill and, though they would be part of the building, the improvements' cost wouldn't require "recouping" by the owner in the form of rent hikes or higher a sales price. A particular unit would simply have a particular monthly cost for "efficiency" like it has a monthly cost for heating.
And like electric service, the "efficiency" bill can be stopped - if an apartment sits unrented, for example. Because both the utility as well as the bill itself could be subsidized in various ways it would, according to Lipow, remove a major stumbling block to making improvements in existing buildings. For the record, an efficiency utility could cover the costs associated with:
Of course an efficiency utility wouldn't just cover insulation, caulk and new windows -- it would cover heating systems, appliances, shower heads, etc. A further advantage to a utility model over the financing model that Leonhardt discusses -- the idea of adding weatherization costs to homeowner's property tax bills -- is that it addresses the fact that weatherization doesn't lend itself to one-size-fits-all solutions. As Leonhardt observes, the complexity of retrofitting old homes is enormous: What share, say, of Midwestern homes built before 1950 could use more attic insulation? How quickly would the insulation pay for itself on average? Every home is different, obviously. But without any reference point, many people won’t be confident enough to plunge into a project. Even if they don't ultimately perform the work themselves, a utility would have the scale to provide the expertise as well as the data for what particular homeowners should do. Obviously, this kind of program would go beyond what any stimulus bill is likely to enact. But if we want to make efficiency a goal unto itself, a utility model -- not to mention per square foot emissions limitations -- is the way to go. Labels: energy, infrastructure, politics, smart_growth
Sewer Improvements Can Be Radical, Too!
 Other than the gross-out factor involved with the NYT's piece on our nation's collapsing sewer systems, I was most struck by this: The only real solution, say many lawmakers and water advocates, is extensive new spending on sewer systems largely ignored for decades. As much as $400 billion in extra spending is needed over the next decade to fix the nation’s sewer infrastructure, according to estimates by the E.P.A. and the Government Accountability Office. This came after a nod to Philadelphia's new radical plan to address its severe rainwater runoff problem almost entirely through ecological means. The whole point of what Philadelphia is doing is that it will "only" cost $1.6 billion, doesn't involve huge infrastructure projects and will very likely solve the problem. It's true that Philly would be blazing a trail, but it's one that, if successful, other cities are ready to follow -- why was this development almost entirely downplayed? I'm aware that local officials aren't always the most creative infrastructure thinkers at the same time as progressives are looking for promising areas for infrastructure improvements (and thus stimulus) -- water treatment systems are surely one of those. But infrastructure in the Obama era is supposed to be about both kinds of green. Let's keep that in mind, shall we? Photo credit: Cynthia Greer, Philadelphia InquirerLabels: infrastructure, politics, smart_growth
September 29, 2009
It's Always Raining in Philadelphia
Or so it's seemed the last few months. And rain can be fun, except when it overloads your stormwater system and causes raw sewage to pour into your rivers. It took Grist to alert me to what's going on in my own backyard but now I know that Philly's got a plan: Philadelphia has announced a $1.6 billion plan to transform the city over the next 20 years by embracing its storm water - instead of hustling it down sewers and into rivers as fast as possible. The proposal, which several experts called the nation's most ambitious, reimagines the city as an oasis of rain gardens, green roofs, thousands of additional trees, porous pavement, and more. The plan is a radical departure from the highly engineered tunnels and sewage plant expansions cities have traditionally opted for. "This is the most significant use of green infrastructure I've seen in the country, the largest scale I've seen," said Jon Capacasa, regional director of water protection for the Environmental Protection Agency, which has the final say on whether the plan passes muster. "We commend Philadelphia for breaking the ice," he said.
Apparently, cities around the country are waiting to see if the EPA gives the plan the greenlight; if so, this could be the start of a nationwide trend. And all it took was a little shift in perspective: "Instead of figuring out how to manage this pollution, maybe we should be looking at how to prevent it in the first place," said Howard Neukrug, director of the Office of Watersheds in the Water Department. "Let's break down some of the barriers against nature and deal with rainwater where it lands." The idea now is to "peel back" the city's concrete and asphalt and replace them with plants - with rain gardens, green roofs, heavily planted curb extensions, vegetated "swales" in parking lots, and mini-wetlands.
One of the most radical departures for city planners is this shift from "management" to "prevention." Instead just accepting that the city has to vastly increase its built infrastructure to handle the huge amount of stormwater runoff that currently exists (the prospect of which was, among other things, prohibitively expensive), Philly decided that it would attack the problem at the source. It's funny how that subtle shift in mindset leads to such a radical shift in policy. If we can apply this kind of thinking to other things like car usage or, oh, I don't know, carbon emissions, maybe we can make some real progress. Photo credit: Cynthia GreerLabels: infrastructure, local, pollution, smart_growth
February 25, 2009
Train-hating B@stards
This drives me nuts. In an article by the AP on the House's omnibus budget bill comes a reference to: the money-losing Amtrak passenger rail system Come on! How about the money-losing Interstate Highway System? Or the money-losing national parks? Or our money-losing VA Hospitals? Or the Mother of All Money-losers: the US Military? I know this is a leftover from 30 years of effective Republican privatization messaging, but still. Just because a bunch of market-crazed freaks decided one day that our interstate rail system should make money doesn't mean we all have to drink the Kool-Aid. Just stop it, AP! Good thing Amtrak Joe has our backs.
Photo by reivax used under a CC licenseLabels: infrastructure, transport
February 3, 2009
SUPERTRAIN, Is That You?
Anyone else notice this line buried in the Senate stimulus bill summary? $3.1 billion for investments in rail transportation, including High Speed Rail I wonder what that's all about. Labels: infrastructure, transport
January 6, 2009
Tour de News
Strap in for a whirlwind tour of recent articles that caught my attention. They point to all the moving parts involved with addressing climate change, from cap-and-trade to climate treaties to investment to regulation. First we've got news via Joe Romm that cap-and-trade legislation may have to wait until 2010. According to Environment and Energy Daily (sub req'd): ...Pelosi said she has sufficient backing in the Democratic-controlled House to move a cap-and-trade bill, but will not force the issue. "I'm not sure this year, because I don’t know if we'll be ready," Pelosi said. "We won't go before we're ready." This somewhat complicates the latest round of negotiations for a new international climate treaty which requires countries to have domestic cap-and-trade deals in place in advance of a meeting in Copenhagen later this year. Of course, no one really expected the US to manage it and, given the last eight years, serious progress on the legislation will likely be enough to satisfy most negotiating partners. Next we move to Dot Earth, where Andy Revkin reports that China's power generation growth and associated carbon emissions fell off a cliff in 2008 due to the world financial and credit crisis. Romm observes that this may help the international situation since it presents Obama with an opportunity to get China on board the emissions-cutting bus. It's easier when a lousy economy does some of the work for you. Which brings us to the UK, where the Transportation Minister Lord Adonis (really. Lord Adonis. Could there have been a better nom de plume for me? Ah well.) announced plans for a British SUPERTRAIN. Via Business Green. The plans... would see new 200mph rail lines built linking the existing channel tunnel rail link with new high speed lines heading north to Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds and Scotland, and West to Bristol. The new lines would centre on a new 12 platform rail hub at Heathrow, allowing travellers to easily reach the airport by car and also cutting rail journey times to the continent. A trip from Birmingham to Paris for example would be almost three hours quicker than it is now.
Clearly, we need one of those here in the US. The bad news for the Brits is that their supertrain may be used as a carrot to cram a much-maligned Heathrow expansion down UK environmentalists' throats (or is that not how you use a carrot?). Anyway, it's an awfully big, sweet, tasty carrot. It's all part of the UK's stimulus package, which Prime Minister Gordon Brown is touting as a way "to take the next step towards building a far more environmentally sustainable economy." The opposition Tories, of course, think that's a load of hogwash because the ruling Labor Party's plans DON'T GO FAR ENOUGH. In a recent speech, opposition leader David Cameron, again via Business Green, denied: Brown's claims that the UK had established itself as a genuine leader in the emerging clean tech market, arguing that the government had not done enough to encourage investment in low carbon initiatives. You mean it's not normal to have the opposition be foot-dragging, anti-science climate deniers? Who knew? Finally, we see an example of how regulation can beat the pants off a tax. California is planning to limit power consumption of flat panel tvs, effectively banning power-hogging plasma tvs. From the LA Times: LCD -- liquid crystal display -- sets use 43% more electricity, on average, than conventional tube TVs; larger models use proportionately more. Plasma TVs, which command a relatively small share of the market, need more than three times as much power as bulky, old-style sets. If you just added some kind of powerhog tax on those tvs, they'd still sell like hotcakes - people who spend that much on a tv aren't sensitive to a tax. Sometimes the government needs to step in and just say no. What kind of difference would it make? Try this on for size: During a peak viewing time when most sets are on, such as the Super Bowl, TVs in the state collectively suck up the equivalent of 40% of the power generated by the San Onofre nuclear power station running at full capacity. Televisions account for about 10% of the average Californian's monthly household electricity bill. Second only to refrigerators as the single most power hungry daily-use item in most people's homes. So it's no coincidence that refrigerators are the regulatory model for the new tv plan. Interestingly, some California utilities like PG&E are getting behind the proposed regulations since it would take so much stress off the grid. There you have it. This disparate collection of news provides a good demonstration that, when presented with the various choices for addressing climate change, the answer is all of the above. Labels: carbon, climate, infrastructure, politics, transport
December 30, 2008
Spend, Baby, Spend
Dave Roberts at Grist flags this Bloomberg article on the Obama stimulus with some concern. Turns out that when you throw infrastructure money at states with a "use it or lose it" clause, they end up wanting to spend it on roads: Missouri's plan to spend $750 million in federal money on highways and nothing on mass transit in St. Louis doesn't square with President-elect Barack Obama's vision for a revolutionary re-engineering of the nation's infrastructure. Utah would pour 87 percent of the funds it may receive in a new economic stimulus bill into new road capacity. Arizona would spend $869 million of its $1.2 billion wish list on highways. There's a legitimate conflict here, of course. If the point is to get money into the economy, it needs to happen fast. Since many states have de-prioritized mass transit during the Lost Years (if it ever was a priority in places like Utah), there are far fewer such projects "ready to go." Keynes once opined that during a depression government funding for "digging holes in the ground" would be worthwhile even if they were to be filled right back up again. In fact, given our warming world, empty holes would likely be better in the long run than building more capacity into highway systems that don't need it or encouraging sprawl when smart development is the way to go. This will be hard nut to crack, though. Dave Roberts calls it a "missed opportunity" if we just end up building roads. But I don't think that properly acknowledges the sizable, ahem, roadblocks in the way of reorienting infrastructure spending. At the state and federal levels, there are powerful interests intent on keeping the road money flowing and, with the recession gaining speed, any worker getting an honest paycheck is looked on as a blessing. The fact is our current system is fundamentally designed to build roads and bridges at the expense of just about everything else. Which is why Obama during the campaign supported a National Infrastructure Bank that included a panel of experts to determine spending priorities.
It will thus be interesting to see how Obama squares his support for such an entity vs. the dambusting flood of road pork that his stimulus plan threatens to unleash. We haven't really heard anything yet on how the money might be structured - it's possible that Obama may yet use it as an opportunity to establish an infrastructure bank of some kind, even if some money is released upfront to allow states a head start on the projects that really are ready to go (as opposed to those that are on the wishlist). And we're not just whistling into the wind on this one. In Obama's Meet the Press appearance a few weeks ago, he acknowledged that states will want to get going on their "shovel-ready" projects but first: ...We're going to have to prioritize it and do it not in the old traditional "politics first" wave. What we need to do is examine what are the projects where we're going to get the most bang for the buck, how are we going to make sure taxpayers are protected. You know, the days of just pork coming out of Congress as a strategy, those days are over. At the end of the day, it's hard to believe that Obama will give states a blank check. The true missed opportunity, in my view, will not be over which transit projects go unbuilt but rather over the chance to remake the pork-barrel infrastructure spending system that got us in this crazy wishlist business in the first place. Photo by Beige Alert used under CC licenseLabels: infrastructure, politics
December 6, 2008
Mr. Fix It
I think it's worth taking a moment to let the impact of Obama's weekend announcement of the details of his stimulus package sink in by reviewing the NYT's writeup from Sunday. What stunned me was not so much the dollar figure (which is still up in the air anyway) but rather the breadth of what he's talking about. The favored comparison has been to Eisenhower's federal interstate highway program. But even on the low end of the dollar estimate - $400 billion - it would be about double what was spent (in today's dollars) to build the entire interstate highway system. So it should come as no surprise that the list of projects under consideration goes way beyond building roads: Although Mr. Obama put no price tag on his plan, he said he would invest record amounts of money in the vast infrastructure program, which also includes work on schools, sewer systems, mass transit, electrical grids, dams and other public utilities. The green jobs would include various categories, including jobs dedicated to creating alternative fuels, windmills and solar panels; building energy efficient appliances, or installing fuel-efficient heating or cooling systems. Those projects directly or indirectly impact every aspect of the economy. Part of this, of course, is the need to find ways to spend $400+ billion - not so easy to do as it turns out. But the scope of this plan is still staggering - we're talking about addressing in a single shot infrastructure shortcomings (if not outright crises) that have been festering for decades. We all knew that Obama represented change - but this is more like an outright transformation of the country. I'd also take issue with the NYT's "green jobs" category in the above list. Money spent on "mass transit, electrical grids, dams and other public utilities" (and probably investment in our broadband infrastructure, which is also being discussed) should certainly be considered green investments given the outlook of the incoming administration. It's fair to say that the country will be almost unrecognizably greener at the end of this buildout. In fact, along with funding for winterizing homes and making government buildings more energy efficient (whose importance you can read more about here and here), investing in the national grid may be, from a green perspective, the most significant aspect of the entire stimulus plan. Modernizing and expanding the grid to, among other things, bring it closer to the where our sun and wind resources are is the number two priority of Al Gore's climate plan. For a while, it seemed like the grid improvements would be something that flew under the radar, invisible to congressional appropriators in the competition for limited funding. Now it's just another tick mark on Obama's list. From a political perspective, that's the most notable thing to me about the stimulus plan. It literally cuts off debate on whole areas of investment that have represented fairly significant conflict over the last decade or so. And this doesn't just apply to new projects - fully funding chronically underfunded existing programs and likely allowing the government to properly staff its departments (hello, new food inspectors!) are some pretty nice fringe benefits to this plan. I guess it's a lot easier to find the money for things when you can just print more of it. And if he does indeed sign it on January 20th, I'd say it would represent a pretty good first day's work. Photo by jphilipg used under CC license.Labels: energy, infrastructure, politics, transport
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