Energy efficiency: Where to begin?
Like most homeowners, I want to lower my energy bills. And I don’t suspect I’m atypical in not knowing exactly where to begin.
When we bought our house just outside St. Paul, a smallish place built in 1922, the first place I looked was the windows – the original, drafty, clunky old wooden windows. I gathered estimates – as high as $14,000 – to outfit the entire home with new, vinyl high-efficiency windows.
The high cost, not surprisingly, relegated that project to the back burner, and, as is the custom in these parts, I simply seal the windows shut with removable caulk and plastic film every winter.
So now what. Insulate the walls? Replace the doors? Commission Christo to wrap the whole place in fabric?
Come to think of it, how do I really know whether the house is inefficient at all?
A few weeks ago, I decided to eliminate the guesswork and have an energy audit performed. My utility, Xcel Energy, has a program that splits the cost, so a full analysis, including infrared scans, can be done at a cost of only $100 to the homeowner (there are lower-frills options available for less money). The auditor provides a report with specific recommendations, as well as information on additional rebates from Xcel to complete the repairs. Many utilities in other areas have similar programs.
For starters, we learned that our house is pretty average in terms of energy use. But we still have some work to do.
The audit helped pinpont a few specifics – for instance, the infrared scans revealed that some of the loose-fill insulation had migrated partway down the angled ceiling on the second floor. The picture below shows a section of ceiling in an upstairs bedroom (the dark areas are colder, the temperature reading is the surface temperature where the bullseye is pointing).
Also, part of the wall on the first floor was insulated during a kitchen remodel, and odder still was this strange section of wall that seemed partially filled with something – we’re guessing vermiculite, which contains asbestos. That’s a handy thing for a contractor to know before they start punching holes in the place.
As an experiment, I had the auditor point the infrared gun at three different windows in the house – two of the original wood windows, one with plastic on it and one without; and a newer vinyl window in the kitchen. Interestingly, all three windows showed the exact same temperature, showing little difference in their insulating qualities (although, the vinyl window deserves a handicap since it’s on the north side of the house). What really matters is how tightly sealed they are, and it seems the caulking gun is the most effective weapon in that fight.
So now, we’ve got a good sense of where to deploy our money. For around $3,500, we can add insulation to the roof and walls, along with caulking and insulating around the foundation, with a payback period of around 5 years. Xcel even maintains a list of recommended contractors to do the work.
Knowledge, they say, is power. And it’ll make it a lot easier to learn to love regard fondly put up with those old wooden windows for a few more years.
Want to save PACE financing? Here’s your chance
Photo by Cayusa via Creative Commons
This is the kind of wonky stuff you could ignore, but shouldn’t, if you’d prefer to power your home with cleaner sources of energy.
PACE, which stands for Property Assessed Clean Energy, allowed local and state governments to loan funds to homeowners for renewable energy and efficiency improvements, and pay the loans back over time via an assessment on their property taxes.
That means the cost of the investment stays with the property, rather than the owner, making improvements with long payback periods more financially attractive.
Twenty-seven states adopted the program, including Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Illinois and Wisconsin. But following the Fannie and Freddie sub-prime mortgage crisis and a related federal order not to underwrite mortgages for homes with PACE loans, many residential PACE programs were put on hold. So much for that.
But a federal court ruling in California has revived the discussion, according to Forbes.com.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency, the same folks who issued the order in 2010, have been told by a court to initiate a rulemaking process on PACE financing.
Public input needed
An advocacy group called PACE NOW is encouraging people to voice support for the program.
The bottom line, says the group: “PACE programs can drive energy projects that result in significant economic activity, federal, state and local tax revenue and jobs.” They point to examples like a PACE program in Boulder County, Colorado, which created more than 120 jobs, generated $20 million in overall economic activity and cut consumer energy use by more than $125,000 in its first year.
A national study commissioned by PACE NOW also concluded that $1 million spent on PACE improvements in four U.S. cities would generate $10 million in gross economic activity, a total of $1 million in federal, state and local tax revenue, and 60 jobs.
The four cities used in the study (by ECONorthwest) included Columbus, Ohio; along with Long Island, N.Y.; Santa Barbara, Calif.; and San Antonio, Texas.
People who want to see PACE resurrected can submit comments through March 26.
Coal’s changing economics trigger new view of future
The Laskin Energy Center in Hoyt Lakes, Minnesota (Photo by Joel Dinda via Creative Commons)
We’ve long known about the hidden health and environmental costs associated with burning coal, but until very recently, no one questioned that it was a cheap source of electricity for utility customers.
Today, the economics of coal are changing.
The nation’s aging coal-burning power plant fleet faces rising repair and maintenance costs, looming environmental regulations, and increasing competition from cleaner energy sources. For the first time in history, scenarios are emerging in which coal can no longer be assumed the most cost-effective option for utility ratepayers.
In Minnesota, that shift has recently prompted a new reporting requirement for the state’s investor-owned utilities.
Every couple of years, those utilities are required to file something called an integrated resource plan. It’s a document that describes the utility’s forecast for how much electricity it expects to have to generate during the next 15 years, as well as its plan for how it intends to reliably and affordably provide that power to customers. The state’s Public Utility Commission needs to approve the plans.
Minnesota Power, a public utility with 144,000 customers in central and northeastern Minnesota, filed its most recent resource plan in 2009. The company continues to decrease its reliance on coal, which accounted for 95 percent of generation in 2005 and will be reduced to 75 percent in 2013 thanks to recent wind farm investments.
However, during the resource plan’s public comment period, two separate interveners submitted modeling studies showing that Minnesota Power could potentially reduce costs to its ratepayers by shutting down two of its older and smaller coal-burning power plants, the 75-megawatt Taconite Harbor and 110-megawatt Laskin Energy Center.
The studies were filed by the Minnesota Department of Commerce and the Minnesota Center for Environmental Advocacy (MCEA), a member of RE-AMP, which also publishes Midwest Energy News.
“If you took [the small coal-fired power plants] out of the Minnesota Power system and allowed them to disappear, to be retired, the cost to their customers of providing energy over the next 15 years would be lower without these power plants,” said Beth Goodpaster, an attorney who directs MCEA’s clean energy program.
However, the coal-shutdown scenario wasn’t considered in Minnesota Power’s most recent resource plan. The utilities commission asked the utility to follow up with its own analysis of what would happen to rates and reliability if it were to close the power plants. That report, called a baseload diversification study, was completed earlier this month. Its conclusion doesn’t contradict the concerns raised by the state and environmentalists.
Minnesota Power’s report says that under “stringent” environmental regulation scenarios, the added capital investment required to keep its small coal-fired units in compliance would be great enough that replacing them with natural gas generation would be lower cost for customers. Even under a less stringent regulatory scenario, Taconite Harbor may not be cost-effective after 2020.
Among the new and pending rules that are expected to add costs for older coal plants are the Cross State Air Pollution Rule (CSAPR), the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), and the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) Rule.
Not a ‘snap decision’
The question now is, what happens next?
A public comment period is open on the baseload diversification study until May, after which the state’s utility commission will decide the next step.
MCEA wants the utilities commission to take action sooner than later to begin phasing out the plants. Minnesota Power, though, says it’s focused on incorporating the information into its next resource plan, due in summer 2013.
“There are certain groups or certain stakeholders that may have expected different things out of this study,” said Minnesota Power spokeswoman Amy Rutledge. “It was never intended that the study would come out and that we would make some kind of snap decision whether or not to keep a coal plant open. There is a lot of information here that we are going to have to look deeper at.”
The key uncertainties lie in how stringent pending pollution regulations will be written, as well as the timing and scope of federal carbon legislation. As those policies and regulations take form, the details will determine whether these smaller, older coal plants can compete economically with newer, cleaner energy sources.
Meanwhile, Minnesota’s utility commission has requested similar baseload diversification studies from Otter Tail Power and Interstate Power & Light.
The studies mark a shift in the way the way regulators and others evaluate utility portfolios. Even a decade ago, no one would have argued coal wasn’t in ratepayers’ best economic interest.
“What we would argue in a case at the public utilities commission in the ’90s or even early ’00s is that you ought to take opportunities to reduce carbon dioxide emissions because it’s better for the planet, but we didn’t try to say that it’s also cheaper if you do this,” Goodpaster said.
Minnesota Power says its study doesn’t consider the socioeconomic impact of shutting down its smaller coal plants, which are located in Schroeder, Minn., and Hoyt Lakes, Minn.
“These decisions are decisions that have great impact,” Rutledge said, “and it’s not a decision that we would make lightly.”
Streetcar revival: Coming soon to a city near you?
The streetcar system in Portland, Oregon, has been credited with sparking more than $3.5 billion in new residential and commercial development. (Photo by TriMet via Creative Commons)
Forget the bus and the skip the train, the future of American urban transit could be the old-fashioned streetcar.
Signs of what U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood has called a “streetcar revival” are popping up all over the country.
In St. Paul, officials are embarking on a yearlong, $250,000 study of potential streetcar routes, following the lead of neighboring Minneapolis, which has spent over $1 million studying two possible streetcar corridors.
The Twin Cities are among more than 80 U.S. cities – including Detroit and St. Louis – that are looking into street cars, according to the American Public Transportation Association.
And several cities have been building or expanding their systems over the last decade, including Atlanta, Portland, Ore., Seattle, Washington D.C. and New Orleans – a city that boasts the oldest continuously operating streetcar in the world.
The turn to streetcars is being led not just by nostalgia and the needs of an increasingly urban populous, but by a broader desire to spark economic activity, Governing reports.
“When Portland built its line in 2001, the city hoped it would encourage transit-oriented development,” Governing reported. “The line has done just that. Today, it is credited with leading to $3.5 billion in new construction, 10,000 residential units, and more than 5 million square feet of office and hotel space.”
A recent study of the Washington D.C. system also suggested that streetcars induced development, boosted property values and brought people closer to mass transit – factors that created as much as $291 million in new tax revenue for the city.
Such economic considerations are a relatively new factor in deciding how federal transportation dollars are spent.
In 2010, the Obama administration opted to add economic development potential and social benefits to the list of factors to be considered when deciding which transportation projects to support.
Since then, the DOT has provided nearly $350 million in funding for 11 streetcar and urban circulator projects across the country.
The resurgence in activity comes 50 years after streetcars nearly disappeared from the American landscape as automobiles crowded the streets and mass transportation gave way to buses.
But proponents tout them as more than just history-evoking tourism gimmicks. Besides the potential economic ripple effect, proponents say streetcars offer more universal accessibility and suggest their ability to attract urban dwellers reduces the need for car travel, cutting carbon emissions.
A 2010 study of a proposed $128 million system with seven streetcars and five miles of tracks in Cincinnati suggested the project could reduce vehicle miles traveled by over 1.2 million in its first year, saving more than 74,000 gallons of gasoline. The study also suggested the streetcar could eliminate nearly 14,000 tons of carbon emissions over 20 years
Not every streetcar project has been a boon, however. Tampa, Fla. officials received a report this week suggesting their streetcar system – supported through special assessments, ridership fees and an endowment – was plagued by financial mismanagement and hefty insurance costs.
Randal O’Toole, a senior fellow with the Cato Institute and the author of Gridlock: Why We’re Stuck in Traffic and What to Do About It, also panned the promise of streetcars in a recent commentary in the Atlanta Journal Constitution.
O’Toole, a proponent of buses, described streetcars as an “obsolete technology” that require more energy than cars and have a specious economic development record supported primarily by public subsidies.
“There is a good reason why all but six of the more than 800 American cities that once had streetcars replaced them with buses: Streetcar infrastructure is expensive to build, expensive to maintain and must be rehabilitated at high cost about every 30 years,” he wrote.
LaHood, though, doesn’t seem to be backing down. After attending a streetcar conference in Portland earlier this month, he continued to promote the promise of streetcars on his blog, writing that their revival “means greater mobility and more American jobs.”
Study: Minnesotans willing to pay premium for E85
(Photo via USDA)
Minnesota drivers like their E85, and they’re willing to pay a premium for it.
A new study by a Michigan State University economist shows that even when the higher ethanol blend is a more expensive option than regular gasoline, some flex-fuel vehicle owners in Minnesota continue buying the higher-blend ethanol.
E85, which contains a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, is almost always less expensive per gallon than regular gasoline, which in Minnesota typically contains 10 percent ethanol. But because of E85′s lower energy content, the relative cost per mile of using it can vary.
Soren Anderson, an assistant professor of economics, examined sales and price data from 200 Minnesota fueling stations between 1997 and 2006.
“When the price of E85 rose relative to gasoline, the market didn’t disappear,” Anderson said. “There were still people buying E85 even when its price was quite a bit higher [relative to] gasoline.”
Anderson argues that researchers should take this consumer preference into consideration when calculating the cost of policies such as the federal renewable fuels standard.
Several studies have examined how drivers respond to changes in gasoline prices, but little was known about how ethanol blend prices affect consumer decisions. Anderson concluded that a 10-cent-per-gallon increase in E85 prices caused demand to fall off between 12 percent and 16 percent. That’s significant, but smaller he would have guessed knowing that drivers could have easily switched to conventional gasoline.
“They value something about that fuel when they’re willing to buy it even when the per-fuel-mile price is high,” Anderson said.
The study didn’t survey drivers about their motivations, but it says possible explanations include perceived social and environmental advantages, or misunderstanding about how the fuels compare.
Sales of E85 ethanol have continued to grow in Minnesota, according to statistics publicized this week by the American Lung Association in Minnesota.
Minnesotans bought an estimated 19.8 million gallons of E85 in 2011, making it the third best year for E85 and best since the pre-recession record of 22.5 million gallons in 2008. Gasoline sales, meanwhile, fell to 2.4 billion gallons in 2011 from 2.5 billion gallons in 2010.
“I think it’s a sign that E85 has really become well established in Minnesota,” said Bob Moffitt, spokesman for the American Lung Association of the Upper Midwest. “It’s got a really solid base of customers. The number of stations is not growing quite so fast as it was in the earlier years, but we’re steadily adding numbers.”
Moffitt takes issue with the second part of Anderson’s study, which concludes that even accounting for the “sizable” premium some drivers are willing to pay for ethanol, the federal renewable fuel standard is an expensive way to reduce greenhouse emissions — about $70 per metric ton of carbon dioxide emissions avoided, Anderson calculated.
Anderson acknowledges in his report that the carbon cost is based on current assumptions about the price of ethanol and gasoline, either of which could change due to political, economic or technology factors, such as a game-changing breakthrough in cellulosic ethanol production. If greenhouse emission reductions is the goal, Anderson said in an interview that a more direct policy such as a carbon tax would be less costly to consumers.
The federal renewable fuel standard will require 36 billion gallons of annual production by 2022, with no more than 15 billion gallons coming from corn-based ethanol. Many of the assumptions Anderson makes about its cost come directly from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory impact statement for the policy.
Moffitt said one of Anderson’s assumptions — that E85 ethanol nets 36 percent fewer miles per gallon than conventional gasoline — is not what they’ve observed and heard from drivers. In real life it’s closer to a 15 percent or 20 percent decrease, Moffitt said.
Ethanol offers benefits beyond reducing greenhouse gases, too, Moffitt said. Anderson’s study focuses solely on greenhouse gases and consumer impacts. The EPA’s policy impact report counts $2.6 billion worth of energy security benefits, up to $2.2 billion in health benefits, and $13 billion in new farm income. (Also: millions of pounds of new nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the Mississippi River.)
“Gasoline powered vehicles produce a lot more than just greenhouse gas. They’re the single largest source of air pollution in Minnesota,” Moffitt said. “Any steps we can take toward cleaner, more renewable fuels is a step in the right direction.”
On that point, it would seem many Minnesota drivers agree.
Fuel-efficiency impact goes beyond Detroit
Alcoa's rolled aluminum plant in Davenport, Iowa, is in the midst of a $300 million expansion to meet rising demand from automakers for lightweight materials. (Photo courtesy Alcoa)
As a public comment period closed Monday for new proposed federal fuel-economy standards, a major expansion project was underway in Davenport, Iowa.
Alcoa Davenport Works, which rolls aluminum sheets and plates for the aerospace, defense and automotive industries, is spending $300 million to expand its facility.
The reason: rising demand from automakers for lightweight vehicle materials.
Alcoa announced the expansion in September. The project is expected to create 150 construction jobs, followed by an additional 150 permanent, full-time jobs at the plant.
The aluminum factory’s investment is an example of how the economic benefits of rising fuel-economy expectations spread across the Midwest and well beyond Detroit.
“People tend to think of these standards and advanced vehicles affecting the big automakers,” says Zoe Lipman, senior manager for transportation solutions at the National Wildlife Federation’s Climate and Energy Program.
“What people tend to forget is that the auto industry is a huge industry that includes hundreds of companies across the country and many dozens, probably hundreds, in the Midwest that make a wide range of components, materials, and electronics, and really are at the heart of rebuilding innovation and competitiveness in the American economy.”
The proposed rules would require makers of cars and light-duty trucks to have an average fleet efficiency of 54.5 mpg by 2025. Automakers are hiring engineers to help meet the challenge, but the push to greater fuel-efficiency also stands to benefit suppliers that make materials and technologies that can help meet the targets.
“Practically every [automaker] in the world has come to us to discuss how our leading technology solutions can help them make their cars stronger, lighter and more fuel efficient,” Alcoa executive vice president Helmut Wieser said in a press release.
Automakers are expected to increase their use of aluminum from 327 pounds per vehicle in 2009 to 550 pounds in 2025, according to a study by Ducker Worldwide.
The new fuel-economy targets wouldn’t kick in until 2017. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, in its draft regulatory impact analysis, estimates the policy’s impact on employment at automakers and parts suppliers “to be positive and on the order of a few thousand in the initial years of the program.”
Phyllis Cuttino, director of Pew’s Clean Energy Program, says the Midwest should be the first and biggest beneficiary of those jobs. When companies are innovating new products, they generally want suppliers and manufacturing nearby so that they can more easily make adjustments.
“You’ve got to have innovation and advanced manufacturing together,” Cuttino says.
That innovation is already on display auto shows. Lipman recently attended the Detroit and Washington, D.C. auto shows, where she observed that “40 is the new 25.” Automakers that just a few years ago touted 25 mpg cars now have 40 mpg models.
“When you walk through the auto shows this year, there really is a renaissance happening in the auto sector,” says Lipman. “We’re seeing a whole host of innovation across all kinds of vehicles.”
The National Resources Defense Council recently inventoried some of the numerous suppliers that are playing a role. They range from 3M, which makes insulation materials in the Twin Cities used in plug-in electric vehicles, to BorgWarner, which makes makes fuel-saving transmission components at a factory outside Chicago.
In Cleveland, GrafTech International is conducting fuel cell research. In Mount Vernon, Illinois, Continental Tire is manufacturing low-rolling resistance tires, which minimize energy waste.
General Motors announced last summer that it would invest $20 million in its Kansas City assembly plant for equipment that would let it build a Buick LaCrosse that’s 25 percent more fuel-efficient than the current model.
President Obama highlighted the connection between fuel efficiency and jobs in a visit to Alcoa Davenport Works last July:
“[W]e brought people together and set the first new fuel-mileage standards in more than 30 years. And that means fewer trips to the pump and less harmful pollution. And this plant has something to do with it, because I was just seeing some doors and some hoods made right here — more lightweight, more efficient, saves on fuel economy. And that means your business is improved as well. Everybody wins.”
The National Wildlife Federation is a member of RE-AMP, which publishes Midwest Energy News
You don’t say!
At the neighborhood gas station the other day, I spotted a black Lincoln Town Car with a sticker in the back window featuring three wind turbines. That alone was an interesting enough juxtaposition, but the sticker also included an accompanying crude reference to a sexual practice that was even more baffling.
Warning – if you’re the type of person who’s easily offended, you may want to stop reading at this point. Here’s a link to some Family Circus cartoons you might find more enjoyable.
Still with me? OK.
(OK, then)
As I was positioning my cell phone to snap a picture, the car’s owner emerged – a big, brawny guy, the type that looked like he could snap a finger or two if he shook your hand a little too hard. Knowing that wind power can be a delicate subject with some folks, I explained who I was and simply asked whether the sticker was pro- or anti-wind power.
He told me he was a union iron worker who had been building Vestas wind turbines in Iowa. While he didn’t really answer the question directly, I’m going to assume that means he’s got a favorable view of wind power. Although, come to think of it, I’m also not entirely sure who the message is directed at.
He was in a bit of a rush, so I didn’t get a chance to ask where he got it. But, it turns out, online retailers like Zazzle and CafePress have a wide variety of “Blow me” wind turbine merchandise for sale. Including underwear.
For those who prefer something a bit less profane, there is the “Wind is my Homeboy” line, which is available not only on adult apparel but also on dog t-shirts and infant onesies.
And if wind is NOT your homeboy, there are plenty of designs featuring wind turbines with a circle and big red line through them.
Consider your Valentine’s Day gift conundrum solved.
Industry says payroll bill ‘last chance’ for wind tax credit
Wind industry representatives said yesterday that an upcoming payroll tax cut extension bill is “effectively the last chance” to extend the federal production tax credit for wind power without disrupting operations.
E&E Daily (subscription required) reports manufacturers and suppliers are already facing a drop in orders in 2013 due to uncertainty over the tax credit. A bipartisan House bill, HR 3307, to extend the credit currently has 68 cosponsors.
The panel discussion was organized by the American Wind Energy Association, which has said failure to renew the credit could result in the loss of as many as 37,000 jobs. [PDF]
Analysis: $1B in subsidies for Keystone XL refiners
Refineries in Port Arthur, Texas, the southern terminus of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline.
While the Keystone XL pipeline may not receive direct payments from the U.S. government, an analysis by two environmental groups finds that taxpayers could be on the hook for more than $1 billion in tax breaks for the refiners that will process the oil.
The report by Oil Change International and Earth Track looks at capacity upgrades made to three Gulf Coast refineries that will process the crude shipped via Keystone XL. Under Title 179C of the U.S. tax code, oil refineries can deduct depreciation from such investments at an accelerated rate. The tax break, the groups say, is unique to the refining industry and an amendment last year extend the rule specifically to equipment used to process crude from the oil sands.
All told, the analysis [PDF] finds taxpayers will spend $1 billion to $1.8 billion subsidizing these upgrades. The report’s authors characterize their estimate as “conservative.”
And the upgrades to one of these refineries, Valero Port Arthur, is being described to investors as enabling the processing of Canadian crude into diesel and jet fuel for export.
From Oil Change International’s blog post on the report:
The public has the right to both know how our money supports Big Oil and see a thorough evaluation of any proposal the oil industry has for expanding its infrastructure. Such an examination would throw light on the true costs of expanding fossil fuel infrastructure at a time when we need to reduce our dependence on oil, rather than simply trumpeting the short term benefits to companies involved.
Photo by jczart via Creative Commons
Iowa State professor puts electric motors on a diet
By Steve Duda, EarthTechling.com (reposted with permission)
Dionysios Aliprantis has a few problems with the current state of electric motors. First off, the assistant professor of electrical and computer engineering at Iowa State University thinks they’re just too big. Secondly, it’s his contention that they simply don’t work hard enough. Too fat. Too lazy.
To make them leaner and meaner, Aliprantis recently scored a five-year, $400,000 grant from the National Science Foundation’s Faculty Early Career Development Program. The grants support junior faculty identified as teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research. With the money in hand, Aliprantis and a doctoral student will investigate ways to develop computer modeling technology that will show engineers how to chip away at the surfaces of electric motors to create new designs and shapes that can increase power generation.
Image via Iowa State University
“The goal is to get more power out of the same size motor,” he said. “Or, that could mean getting the same power with a smaller motor.”
Aliprantis is not looking for huge increases in power or dramatic reduction in size. “I’m looking for a little bit of increase, maybe 5 percent or 1 percent,” he said. “But multiply that number by the number of hybrid cars, let’s say, and you could get savings in the billions of dollars. The potential here could be huge.”
At the core of Aliprantis’s work is the notion that most electric motors and generators operate in just one direction—in most applications there’s no real need for them to go into reverse. The motors, however, have long been designed to offer equal performance no matter which way they’re rotating. The engineers are exploring how electric motors can be improved by optimizing performance in a preferred direction of rotation. To do that, they’ve written a computer modeling program that incrementally changes the design of the motors and calculates when the surface shape is just right.
“We are trying to develop a systematic way of getting to the right shape,” Aliprantis said. “This idea is very simple, but motors are still being designed using techniques that are essentially 100 years old.”
It’s the fact that electric motors are all around us—in vehicles, wind turbines, power plants and all kinds of machinery—that makes Aliprantis’s work so intriguing. Through his small, incremental improvements there could be substantial improvements in the development of sustainable energy resources.
