Author Archives: Molly Priesmeyer

Minnesota artists turn renewable energy into art

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If a tree falls in the forest and nobody hears it, does it still make a sound? What’s the sound of one hand clapping? What rhythm does solar energy make when it hits a giant megaphone powered by solar-powered robot percussionists?

These are life’s greatest aural riddles. And a group of artists in Minneapolis is taking inspiration from these big questions to create artworks that explore renewable energy, sound, engineering, human interaction, and possibilities this weekend through September 8th at the Bakken Museum‘s Green Energy Art Garden.

According to LiveGreenTwinCities:

The four sculptures for the Green Energy Art Garden were commissioned specifically for this event by local artists, some working solo, some as a team. Each piece of art has its own way of making the point that renewable resources like the sun, wind, and water can power an exhibit just as exciting as anything plugged into a socket inside the museum proper.

Three local artists have created a solar-powered acoustic sculpture, called the “Sonic Articulation of Sunbeams,” a large-scale megaphone that converts solar power into rhythms and allows visitors to “hear” solar energy. Another sculpture, called “Finite to Infinite,” is a glowing kaleidoscope utilizing bottles, wind power, the sun’s rays, and energy-efficient LEDs. “Make it Rain,” according to Bakken, is “a playful interactive sculpture that invites visitors to experiment with the physical manifestation of the sun’s energy”; and “Solar Spitters” uses solar pumps to spur the spitting of three goblins.

All of the pieces are as interactive and artful as they are educational and inspiring.

“I think an art-based interpretation of science can create curiosity in ways that a purely educational exhibit cannot,” Minneapolis artist and designer Emily Stover tells Highwire. Stover was one of three artists involved in the design and creation of “The Sonic Articulation of Sunbeams.” You can check out a video of the sun’s “sound” here.

“There are incredible scientific processes that happen all of the time,” Stover says of inspiration for the project, “and the first step to harnessing their power is to become aware of them in a fundamental way. Our hope is that our work can shift the way visitors understand the enormous capabilities of our environment, and the technological possibilities of utilizing these resources.”

The opening is tonight (Friday) from 5-8pm. But you can check out all of the pieces, all powered by renewable energy, now through September 8th.

 

Midwest holds 23 percent of “clean” jobs

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When President Obama promised green jobs, he probably had bigger ideas in mind; ideas that relied on regulations, new standards, and policy initiatives that would lead to innovation. Still, despite the serious political roadblocks to feeding a green economy, a new report by the Brookings Institution, in collaboration with development company Battelle, reveals that green jobs grew at an annual rate of 3.4 percent (or by half a million jobs) between 2003 and 2010.

According to the report, green job growth still lags slightly behind the nation’s overall job growth, which rose 4.2 percent annually during the same period. The report categorizes “green jobs” as those being in clean-tech; waste management; transportation; appliance and building manufacturing; food production; and more.

If that sounds like a large swath of the job farm to call “green,” it is. And that’s often the problem with any sort of green jobs report: The inability to clearly define what makes a job “green” and the additional problem of compiling data based on elusive terms.

But there is some good news in the convoluted numbers: Clean-tech jobs, specifically, grew 8.3 percent per year, compared with the rest of nationwide job growth at 4.2 percent, according to USA Today. What’s more, median wages for clean-tech jobs were $46,343, compared with $38,616 for all other occupations across the country.

The report spells good news for the Midwest, too, which holds 23 percent of the nation’s clean jobs, according to the report.

From the report:

Many Midwestern and Southern metros like Louisville; Cleveland; Greenville, SC; and Little Rock—but also San Jose in the West—host clean economies that are heavily manufacturing oriented… Roughly 26 percent of all clean economy jobs lie in manufacturing establishments, compared to just 9 percent in the broader economy. On a per job basis, establishments in the clean economy export roughly twice the value of a typical U.S. job ($20,000 versus $10,000). The electric vehicles (EV), green chemical products, and lighting segments are all especially manufacturing intensive while the biofuels, green chemicals, and EV industries are highly export intensive.

So what does green job growth look like for the Midwest overall? Here are the annual growth rates by state, from 2003-2010:

Illinois: 3.1

Iowa 3.3

Michigan 1.9

Minnesota: 4.9

Missouri: 2.6

Nebraska 5.8

North Dakota 6.7

Ohio 2.5

South Dakota 1.1

According to the report, Grand Rapids, Michigan,  lost clean economy jobs most quickly from 2003 to 2010. Even excluding potential job losses from closing establishments, it lost 9.1 percent of its clean economy workforce annually (a loss of nearly 50 percent over the entire period).

Toledo, Ohio, and Madison Wisconsin, represent in the Midwest in the Top 10 most-clean-oriented metros.

Dropping sunspots! Lunar eclipses! Oh, my!

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Today’s big news is all about the great big sky. Not that it’s falling, but for some alarmists and reactionaries, it might as well be.

That’s because the big science news on Wednesday was that there’s a serious halt to sunspot activity, which might potentially impact the world’s climate and climate-change initiatives, including renewable energy projects. On the flip side of that–or more like 93 million miles away (sort of)–there’s the total eclipse of the moon, a rarity that few will see, unless they count Google’s cool animation as viewing the eclipse.

Of course, the lunar eclipse isn’t Chicken Little-worthy, even though it will cause millions of people to crane their necks in search of the reddening sky. But what about those dulling sun spots? And what does the alleged slowdown mean for renewable energy, particularly solar?

The New York Times’ Dot Earth blog did a round-up of quotes from scientists who say the sun is about to go into a dormant period.

However, Douglas Biesecker, a scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, responded to the author’s questions with: “I consider the strength of evidence to be anemic and the reasoning to be highly suspect.” The response was worthy of its own Dot Earth post, and Biesecker sent along a detailed PowerPoint presentation outlining “Why there is no evidence of a maunder minimum.” It’s worth watching, if you’re a science geek.

What actually happens remains to be seen. Only the fireball in the sky knows the answers to these big questions. Or maybe it doesn’t. (That would assume that the sun has a giant brain.)

But one thing’s for certain: Those sleepy sunspots won’t slow down the revved-up solar industry or the Department of Energy’s initiatives.

In fact, just yesterday, the same day of the solar scare, the DOE announced $2 million in conditional loans for concentrated solar projects in California; Google announced a $280 million solar fund to help homeowners finance rooftop installations; and a new report revealed that utility companies, which once snubbed the sun and its power, are now driving solar initiatives across the country.

But perhaps the most telling info released as of yet about what will happen if there is indeed another Maunder Minimum is from Wired.com:

The answer can be seen in the image at the top of this post, which estimates the temperature difference between a solar minimum future under “middle-of-the-road” climate scenarios and the Maunder Minimum. In a nutshell: It’s going to be much, much hotter in the future, solar minimum or not.

In other words, all those new solar panels will have plenty of sun and heat to draw from, even if those sun spots stop spitting fire.

Ethanol subsidies: A uniter among Midwest rivals?

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Senate Democrats and Republicans agree on little these days, save for the fact that the sun rises and sets. (Although where it rises and sets still might be up for debate.) However, a group of Midwest senators agree on one thing: Subsidies for ethanol should be extended.

It’s no secret that the price of gas is skyrocketing. Today it hovers at $4 a gallon, and barrels are more than $100. Of course, all over the world people are paying more for gas than Americans. Europe, for example, pays twice as much. The problem is complex–environmentally, politically, and economically–and can’t be answered with a single resolution.

Still, biofuels, especially cellulosic ethanol, continue to be an emerging solution. E85, which is made from 85 percent ethanol, saw record sales in Minnesota in March of this year, just as gas prices began to rise. Yet as gas prices rise and ethanol use increases, Republicans in states other than the Midwest are calling for a moratorium on subsidies.

From HuffPo:

Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., is forcing a vote on a measure Tuesday that would repeal the credits. Coburn says they are wasteful subsidies for an industry that no longer needs them.

“The days of placing spending programs in the tax code and giving them holy status are over,” Coburn said. “Ethanol is bad economic policy, bad energy policy and bad environmental policy.”

The Sierra Club supports the repeal, mostly due to the fact that the majority of ethanol is still currently produced from corn/ And monoculture farming–and the government subsidies for corn that fuel monoculture farming and an increase in herbicide and pesticide use–has had a particularly destructive impact on the environment over the last few decades.

So who supports ethanol subsidies? A bipartisan group of senators. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) has co-sponsored a bill with John Thune (R-S.D.) that would extend certain ethanol subsidies. The bill, S.1185, would replace the current 45-cent a gallon tax credit with one that would fluctuate with the price of crude oil.

According to Sen. Richard Lugar (R-Ind.): “The proposal acts as a safety net to prevent OPEC from manipulating oil prices to kill-off their ethanol rival. When oil prices are high, as they are today, corn-based ethanol would not receive subsidy payments.”

Wait. What?

According to HuffPo, under the new proposal, ethanol blenders would receive a maximum of 30 cents per gallon if oil prices fall below $50 a barrel, and zero subsidy at all if crude prices are at $90 a barrel or more.

A cloture vote on Tuesday killed Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-Okla.) amendment to end ethanol subsidies—so any new proposals such as Klobuchar’s might be DOA. It’s hard to understand a proposal that would end subsidies as the price of oil actually increased. Wouldn’t that be the goal of OPEC? To increase its prices to kill the ethanol industry? Is there something I am not getting?

One caveat: The controversy could produce more discussion around cellulosic ethanol. And who knows? Maybe with new discussions around renewable energy in the Senate, an American company will take a nod from Canada and start turning trash into energy.

Signed, fracked over in the Midwest

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It’s not easy being sand these days–or a riverbed or prairie land or a forest. That’s because new oil-sand processing and natural-gas fracking facilities are popping up like weeds in Canada and the Midwest, resulting in destruction of the land and ongoing environmental issues.

Tar-sand processing has become such a controversial issue its placed Canada square in the face of serious international criticism for under-reporting its carbon emissions from tar sands facilities, which also happen to be the fastest-growing polluter in the country. And this Friday’s Minneapolis Star Tribune had an excellent introduction on the increase of hydro fracking, a process by which natural gas is extracted from silica sand.

Josephine Marcotty writes:

Energy and mining companies are buying and leasing large tracts of land from Black River Falls, Wis., to Red Wing, Minn., and south along the Mississippi. Sand pits, processing facilities and transportation hubs seem to be opening monthly.

It’s an economic boon for some small towns — a chance to share in the wealth generated by the domestic production of energy. But it is extracting a price from the land, and many people who live and work near the open sand pits fear for their drinking water, streams and health. Silica sand dust causes a number of lung diseases, including cancer.

She also notes that one executive looking to extract sand for gas production told investors that his company had access to more than 20 million tons of sand reserves in Minnesota. In other words, seven Metrodomes of sand would be removed from Minnesota’s natural prairies and forests, leaving behind swaths of barren land and environmental hazards, including contamination of water tables.

Locals in Wisconsin and Minnesota are crying foul over the increase in fracking. Citizens groups have formed, creating petitions and trying to halt new projects. But they have an uphill battle, as industry leaders become closely intertwined with government officials.

This evening, a Department of Energy hearing on fracking takes place in Pennsylvania, where fracking has increased at an alarming rate. However, pro-industry leaders are already coming out swinging, offering to pay transportation costs to supporters.

Still, despite industry best efforts to quell its detractors, public concern over fracking is growing. And for good reason. Earlier today Food and Water Watch released a report outlining the serious health and environmental issues that result from fracking. The findings include:

  • Toxic chemicals present in fracking fluid could cause cancer and other health problems.
  • Fracking wastewater contains high levels of radioactivity and other contaminants that wastewater treatment plants have had difficulty removing; this potentially contaminated wastewater can then be discharged into local rivers.
  • In Pennsylvania, more than 3,000 gas fracking wells and permitted well sites are located within two miles of 320 day care centers, 67 schools and nine hospitals.

The organization recommends banning shale gas fracking in the United States. And if it happens, New Jersey might lead the way. New Jersey legislators have joined forces with Food and Water Watch and the Sierra Club to call for a ban in that state. So far, only 55 municipalities have called for a ban on fracking. And so far, none of the those municipalities are in Wisconsin and Minnesota, where plans to increase fracking only continue.

Will ‘drill, baby, drill’ get killed?

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Yesterday I wrote about the politics of who’s to blame for high gas prices and noted that many unions are backing EPA regulations, despite political rhetoric to the contrary.

Today comes another interesting item in the contrast between political rhetoric and public perception. In recent weeks, Republicans have been resurrecting the 2008 podium maxim “Drill, baby, drill” as a pithy answer to lowering gas prices.

This week, Republicans are introducing three bills to the house that would increase offshore drilling. Most controversial is H.R. 1231, the Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act, which would mandate that at least half the unleased area off the East Coast, the Southern California coast, the Arctic Ocean, and Alaska’s Bristol Bay be put up for lease sales for oil drilling every five years.

The nonpartisan Energy Information Administration has said the Republican bills would have a negligible impact on gas prices for the next decade.

However, despite the Republican push for increased drilling, a recent poll reveals that a majority of voters don’t want it. The NRDC Action Fund polled 1,001 adults in late April, and found that 58 percent of voters said they’d chose a candidate who supports moving beyond oil and investing in cleaner technologies like renewable energy.

Seventy-seven percent of the voters polled described themselves as “middle of the road,” “somewhat conservative,” or “very conservative.” Thirty percent described themselves as Democrat; 25 percent as Republican; and 37 percent as independent.

In fact, when asked about positions between two candidates, one who supports more drilling and one who supports renewable energy and moving beyond oil, 44 percent of voters said they feel strongly about moving beyond oil, while only 29 percent felt strongly about more drilling.

Meanwhile, the House is expected to vote on three bills in the next week that would increase offshore drilling and make regulations weaker than before the Gulf disaster.

Gas prices, pointing fingers on the rise

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Stories and blogs about who to blame for the high price of gasoline have become like the game of who should take credit for the death of Osama bin Laden. Was it the Bush administration? Obama? The guy with the gun? Just who should take credit for the death of America’s most wanted?

But one thing’s for certain: While pundits will attempt to credit the OBL assassination to whatever suits their camp, whoever gets the finger pointed at them for the high price of gas is sure to become a political whipping post for the next two years.

This last week alone a number of stories and op-eds have emerged looking to place blame on a single entity or ideology for the rising prices, which are up $1.065 over this time last year.

Jim DiPeso over at the Daily Green blames the Republicans and the Democrats. So pretty much everyone.

William S. Becker, an energy and climate expert writing at HuffPo, says the answer to who or what is to blame for the prices is one of the most serious issues of the 2012 presidential campaign. He cites a Washington Post/ABC poll in which 60 percent of Independents said they “are concerned enough about gas prices to say that they definitely will not back Obama for reelection.” But he posits that this sort of political punditry is misleading and antithetical to solutions. He asks, How can the members of Congress who condemn federal budget deficits support subsidies the oil industry doesn’t need?

Of course, much of the drum beating from the right continues to place the blame on regulations and the Environmental Protection Agency. The argument is that it isn’t the federal subsidies being thrust on to the consumer, but the regulations on refineries that are causing rising prices at the pump.

But Brendan Smith, co-founder of the Labor Network for Sustainability, says that the right is ignoring its constituents and a shifting belief of union organizers by placing the blame on the EPA’s shoulders.

He writes on HuffPo:

At the start of 2011, as the energy corporations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Tea Party launched their assault on environmental protection and the EPA, it looked like public opinion and organized labor might just be swept along. Instead, much of the public and the labor movement have rallied in support of EPA and environmental regulation.

Smith notes that in March, the day after a Wall Street Journal article claimed unions were tangling with the EPA over regulations, the BlueGreen Alliance, a union-environmental coalition backed by 10 major unions, issued statement in support of the EPA’s regulations. What’s more, the UAW legislative director issued its own statement:

The members of the UAW are also citizens who are deeply affected by the environment in which they live and raise their families. They are concerned about the effects of human-induced climate change for themselves and for future generations. The benefits to human health and welfare flowing from the regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act are substantial and have decided positive economic effects.

Smith adds:

A survey of the presidential battleground states of Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Michigan conducted by Hart Research Associates and released March 28 found that almost two-thirds of voters there want the EPA to set greenhouse gas standards for industrial facilities. According to a memo accompanying the poll, “By large margins, voters of all political parties trust the EPA more than they trust Congress. Democrats trust the EPA over Congress by 77 percent to 11 percent, independent voters do so by 63 percent to 12 percent, and Republicans by 48 percent to 28 percent.” Voters oppose Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s proposal to block EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses for two years by exactly two-to-one.

So is the blame game, which seems to be the the current machinations for the upcoming elections, entirely missing the point and not connecting with voters?

Becker sums it up thusly:

If gasoline prices become a huge issue in the 2011 elections, we will see who favors the blame game over solutions and who represents the welfare of oil companies over the welfare of the American people. I can see the first bumper sticker now: John Boehner. R-Ohio or R-Oil?

Meanwhile, Exxon announced last week that its profits were up 69 percent from last year, while Shell reported its profits rose 30 percent.

Robert Rapier over at R-Squared Energy blog nicely breaks down where the profits come from: about 1.8 cents per gallon from subsidies. So who’s to blame? We are, he says.

But there is a way that every individual can stop feeding ExxonMobil’s enormous profits. Stop buying their product. The reason they are so profitable is simply that the public keeps buying their product even as the price has doubled over the past few years.

I understand that we are all dependent to one extent or another on oil, but most people use more of that product than we need to. Because of changes I have made in my own life, even though Big Oil is making record profits, they are profiting less from me than they were a decade ago…But if you won’t make any changes in your life, then you can expect to continue transferring an ever increasing portion of your budget to Big Oil’s coffers.

I wonder what candidate will step up to the plate and blame our over-dependency on oil for the rising prices and suggest we stop using it? Today, my money is on no one.

Minnesota, Illinois lead in wind power additions

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Last week the American Wind Energy Association released its first quarter market report for 2011, revealing that the wind power industry installed 1,118 MW during the first quarter of the year alone and that Minnesota and Illinois are leading the charge in new installations.

Minnesota had 293 MW capacity additions, while Illinois saw 240 MW. In 2010, Minnesota ranked fourth in wind power additions, behind California, while Illinois ranked sixth.

Total wind capacity by state still puts Texas well ahead of the rest of the country. According to the AWEA market report, the top 10 states for total wind power are:

1. Texas: 10,135 MW
2. Iowa: 3,675 MW
3. California: 3,179 MW
4. Minnesota: 2,432 MW
5. Washington, 2,356 MW
6. Illinois: 2,286 MW
7. Oregon: 2,104 MW
8. Oklahoma: 1,482 MW
9. North Dakota: 1,424 MW
10. Wyoming: 1,412 MW

Top 10 solar states: What are they doing right?

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Last week the New York Times published an interesting story about the rise in solar installations throughout New Jersey neighborhoods. What makes New Jersey so unique? Its increase in solar capacity has been solely propelled by its Clean Energy Program, which offers financial incentives, programs, and services to residents and businesses for clean-energy initiatives.

In mid-April, the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities announced that New Jersey’s solar capacity will surpass 300 MW. In fact, the amount of solar capacity installed in New Jersey in 2010 alone exceed the total amount of solar capacity installed in the state since 2001.

It’s an interesting study in the development and success of solar energy, from public support to Renewable Portfolio Standards (RPS) for utility companies. And New Jersey doesn’t show any sings of slowing down: The state plans to increase its capacity to 368 MW by next year.

Of course, New Jersey has a long way to catch up to California, which is number one in the country for solar energy. And states that make the top 10 list for solar capacity are a disparate bunch, with North Carolina ranking at No. 10, with only 42 MW of solar capacity.

The list, according to the Solar Energy Industries Association:

1. California: 47 percent with 971 megawatts

2. New Jersey: 14 percent with 293 MW

3. Colorado: 5 percent with 108 MW

4. Arizona: 5 percent with 101 MW

5. Nevada: 5 percent with 97 MW

6. Florida: 4 percent with 73 MW

7. New York: 3 percent with 54 MW

8. Pennsylvania: 3 percent with 54 MW

9. New Mexico: 2 percent with 45 MW

10. North Carolina: 2 percent with 42 MW

The states that are leading, however, all have government programs and incentives in place that are pushing renewable energy. Arizona, for example, offers numerous state incentives, such as property and sales tax exemptions and tax credits.

And North Carolina, which runs a distant 10th place to California, offers similar loans and incentives.

In states across the country, grassroots efforts continue to call for more solar investments. Today, 31 states offer state loans for solar projects, including Minnesota, Iowa, and Illinois, and 18 states have a Solar Electricity Standard. Pennsylvania, for example, has standard of .5 percent by 2020, while Nevada has a 5 percent standard by 2025.

However plenty of organizations throughout the Midwest say not enough is being done to increase solar capacity. In Minnesota, for example, only 3 MW come from solar energy, or enough to supply electricity to about 800 homes. Minnesota is far behind the rest of the country, but a new initiative called Solar Works for Minnesota would increase Minnesota’s solar capacity to 5,200 MW over the next 10 years.

Last week, state Sen. Scott Dibble introduced a bill that, if passed and signed by Governor Dayton, would increase Minnesota’s solar capacity by .1 percent by 2012, and 10 percent by 2030.

What happens with the bill remains to be seen, but one thing is certain: Governor Mark Dayton’s schedule has been filled with meetings over the last few weeks highlighting the need for solar energy and job creation in Minnesota.