Natural Disasters are on the Rise

By Karen Shilo

 

This past decade, natural disasters have become more frequent and devastating, and they are setting new records.  In 2002, natural disasters caused $85 billion in economic losses worldwide, an increase of 36 per cent from 2001.  During the summer of 2002, Western Canada suffered its worst drought ever recorded.  In 2003, earthquakes, volcanoes, floods, droughts, storms, fires and landslides killed about 83,000 people, 30,000 more than the number of deaths 13 years earlier.  There were 337 natural disasters in 2003, 76 more than in 1990, according to the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction. In 2003, I stood on the picturesque shoreline of Phi-Phi Island off the coast of Thailand. In 2004, the Indian Ocean Tsunami completed decimated the region with the longest reported undersea faulting ever observed.

Global warming, or the average increase in temperature in the atmosphere near the earth’s surface, involves severe disruption of the complex global climate system. We now know that this is because human activity has led to dramatically increased concentrations of CO₂ in our atmosphere.  According to Scientific American, seven billion tons of carbon are released into the atmosphere each year.  By 2056, unless we make some dramatic changes, population growth and corresponding consumption of energy will double the emission of carbon into the atmosphere, placing it at 14 billion tons each year.  There is almost unanimous agreement in the scientific community of the direct relationship between the growth of greenhouse gas emissions and the dramatic rise in average temperature that has occurred over the past several decades.  Al Gore recently presented data that “2005 was the hottest year ever measured, and the 12 months ending this past summer, June of 2006, was the hottest 12-month period ever measured in the United States of America.”

The exponential increase in the average temperature of the earth’s surface is having devastating effects.  The retreat of glaciers, thinning of Arctic ice, and in turn, rise in sea levels, is increasing the threat of damaging floods to humans and wildlife.  Skiers and others are at increasing risk of avalanches, as rising temperatures release giant blocks of snow and ice in mountainous regions.  Rising temperatures are increasing the rate of droughts and causing famines, the most recent being the 2005 famine in southern Niger.  Wildfires are increasing in hot and dry regions across North America, Australia, and southern Europe.

Global warming will very likely lead to a rise in the number of hurricanes, which are formed in warm waters.  Although land heats up more quickly, water requires longer periods to cool down.  The combination of warm water and water vapor can create a grouping of thunderclouds that are set spinning by the rotation of the earth and polar winds.  2005 saw record average sea temperatures in the tropical Atlantic. The 140 mph winds of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 grew in strength over warmer waters, creating a storm surge that was the most destructive and expensive natural disaster in U.S. history.

Of course, understanding the workings of the climate system is only the prelude to finding solutions to global warming and addressing the rise in natural disasters. Some problems must be addressed quickly, such as the lack of efficient communications and disaster warning systems in undeveloped and other areas of the world.  When the Indian Ocean Tsunami struck in 2004, no warning system in the Indian Ocean was in place. Thousands of deaths could have been prevented if people had had even a few minutes of advance warning.  Much work still needs to be done to develop better emergency response systems, community disaster relief programs, government risk reduction programs, and a global tsunami warning system.

We cannot prevent the occurrence of natural disasters that are due to changes that have already been set in motion. But we can begin to alter the adverse imprint that the human population has on nature. In the meantime, we will be coping with more and more severe floods, droughts, and storms.  Even as the number of humans on the planet continues to increase, we can modify coastal development projects, reduce energy consumption and pollution, and make our coastal areas less vulnerable.  After all, we humans have only one life-sustaining planet.

 

Karen Shilo, a recent graduate of Brandeis University, is a Newton resident. 

The US will still need energy tomorrow!

By Gilbert Woolley

 

On October 1, a report by a task force of the “Council on Foreign Relations” added its voice to those who advocate that domestic resources of oil and Natural Gas should be exploited to the maximum now, in order to reduce dependence on imports. At first glance this seems reasonable, but it is really short sighted.

As the Report recognizes, dependence on imported oil is not going to go away.  Domestic production peaked in the seventies and has been in decline since then.  However hard we pump, our resources are finite and when they are used up we will be totally dependent on imports. It is surely prudent to leave some reserves in the ground for emergencies.

The Report states that the US, with 4.6% of the world’s population uses 25% of world’s oil.  A comparison with other industrial countries with similar lifestyles is revealing. To allow easy comparison of energy usage in different economies it is helpful to convert the various forms of energy into a common basis.  Since oil is still the predominant source of energy, “equivalent gallons of oil” provides a convenient basis for comparison.

Tons/capita/year oil equivalent
Average for the world	1.69
OECD *	4.63
US	8.1
UK	3.86
*OECD (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development) includes the US and other major industrial nations.

It is a widely held opinion that world oil production has “peaked”, or is about to peak, while world oil demand is rapidly increasing. If this is so, the US will be competing with the rapidly growing economies in Asia for a decreasing supply of oil.  This will result in a price increase that may well make $80.00 a barrel look like a bargain.  It makes more sense, therefore, to begin to bring demand into line with supply by reducing demand, and the table above shows that the US has the greatest potential to do so without any real hardship.  Sooner or later the US will have to learn to live with less oil and gas.  This learning will not be easy and will take many years, so the sooner we begin, the less of a shock it will be to the economy.  The Report realistically states that, as a first step, increasing the tax on gasoline would result in less driving, encourage purchase of more fuel efficient vehicles, stimulate the development of alternate fuels and make these fuels more competitive with oil.

Importing less oil will reduce the large US foreign trade deficit and also the pressure on the supply and price of oil.  It will also be a significant a contribution by the US towards reducing carbon emissions and limiting Global Warming. Attacking the energy problem requires strong leadership from the federal government. Citizens must convince our legislators to supply this leadership.

Gilbert Woolley is a retired engineer and longtime member of the Sierra Club.

Energy Efficiency Makes Cents

By Jill Hahn

 

Here in Newton, we take pride in being a “green” city, mainly due to our concerns about global warming and the long-term health of our citizens. But improving the energy efficiency of buildings is also a great way to save money. Corporations are beginning to realize this. Bank of America’s new headquarters in New York City, which will be the most environmentally friendly skyscraper ever built when it opens in 2008, has been designed with resource-saving measures from basement to the 54th floor roof. Even so, the building’s eco-friendly features add up to less than one percent of the project’s total price, and since water and energy usage is decreased by 40%, tenants will reap savings for years to come. (from Wright L. The world’s coolest skyscraper. OnEarth 2005; Winter: 12-13.)

State governments, including our own, have begun to come to the same realization. In February 2006, Massachusetts passed “An Act Relative to Contracts for Energy Management,” making it easier for municipalities to contract for work that will improve their buildings while saving them money at the same time. The new procurement rules encourage municipalities to invest in energy conservation measures by entering into performance contracts with an Energy Services Company (ESCO). Using conventional procurement, a city has to hire service providers (auditors, engineers, architects, general and subcontractors) and separately procure equipment. An ESCO is a one-stop shopping alternative. It first performs an energy audit of the public buildings. It then recommends energy conservation measures – such as automatic light switches, new boilers, new windows or roofs, improved plumbing – and estimates how much energy the city would save if such measures were put in place. It finally acts as the general contractor for the city, purchasing and installing the energy conserving measures selected by the city. And here’s the hook: the ESCO guarantees a certain amount of energy use reduction. If it fails to meet its guarantee, the ESCO pays the city for the extra energy usage.

Financing is usually done through a tax-exempt lease provided by a bank, rather than through the bonding municipalities usually use to pay for such work. Passing a bond is  a political act, with the long approval process that implies, and it adds to a city’s debt burden.

Tax-exempt leases do not. Monthly lease payments are made by the city to the bank, with energy cost savings providing the cash needed to pay the leases. Because of the way the performance contract is structured, the only way savings would not equal or exceed the monthly payments would be if utility costs skyrocketed or if energy usage increased unpredictably and dramatically.

In 2005, Belmont became the first town in Massachusetts to contract with an ESCO for a project that involved both school and government buildings. The contract cost the city $1.7 million, and guaranteed the town at least $200,000 in cost savings over each of the next 10 years. ESCOs are able to make such guarantees because they couple measures that bring quick savings, such as energy-efficient lighting, with projects that slowly pay for themselves, such as replacing boilers. The guaranteed savings enabled Belmont to fund improvements to six schools and five government buildings out of its operating budget rather than as capital expenses. “I felt that I probably couldn’t have sold this solely on the basis that it was environmentally friendly,” Selectman Paul Solomon said. “But I did think that I could sell it on the basis that it would save money.”

And that’s the beauty of this approach. Energy costs in Newton’s aging public buildings are currently rising at a rate of 40% per year. One only needs to compare the energy cost per square foot of newly renovated Newton South High School ($1.61) to that of, say, Zervas Elementary School ($4.34) to get a hint of the sort of savings the city could realize if it entered into its own performance contract with an ESCO. And a wonderful side effect of all this fiscal responsibility would be the savings we realized in greenhouse gas emissions and pollution, savings that will benefit all of us long after the tax-exempt lease is paid for and forgotten.

 Jill Hahn,  jkkhahn@comcast.net, a Newton Highlands resident, is a biologist, a writer, and a mom. All three roles contribute to her interest in environmental issues. She is co-chairing a local effort to educate the city of Newton on the benefits of performance contracting as a means of improving our public buildings.

Zoning and Energy

By Gil Woolley / Special To The Tab

 

The single most important obstacle in the US to reducing dependence on imported oil and our disproportionate generation of CO2 is the settlement pattern that has grown up over the years.  Apart from few older cities, most Americans are almost totally dependent on their personal automobiles for essential journeys to work, to stores, to church, to public offices and to entertainment.

In 1900 most jobs were in Boston and residents of suburbs like Newton and Wellesley commuted by rail or subway. Thousands still do.  But today, residents have jobs all over the region.  Living in Newton, for years I commuted to Marlboro, Northboro, Littleton and Shrewsbury, none of which were conveniently accessible by public transportation.  And when my company relocated our workplaces, it was assumed that we all had automobiles.  There was some effort to set up car pools, but I never found one that met my needs. 

The US will soon be competing for oil supplies with the rapidly growing demand from mushrooming Asian economies.   The price of oil will continue to rise and so will the US foreign trade deficit.  There are many good reasons to guide development towards less energy intensive patterns.  Massachusetts has officially adopted a “Smart Growth” policy, but most land use decisions in the Commonwealth are made at the town level, and many towns and cities have zoning regulations that do not encourage “Smart Growth”.

The most glaring example is large single lot zoning, two or even four acres in some outer suburbs.  This pattern of sprawl requires virtually every adult family member to have use of a car to get to work, to school, to stores and everyplace else.  It also adds to the demand on utilities, school buses and snow plowing.  Newton’s villages with public transportation are very appealing to single people and childless couples.  Those villages would benefit culturally, socially and economically from having more clustered housing units to accommodate them. 

“Single Use Zoning,” another obstacle to more energy efficient residential patterns, has the effect of discouraging residential building in central business districts.  In contrast, “Mixed Use Zoning” allows multi-story residential building above retail and offices.

When housing is within easy walking distance of subway or light rail service, it allows many people to become less car-dependent.  With a larger base of customers within walking distance, local grocery, hardware and clothing stores are more likely to thrive, further reducing automobile dependence.

Living closer together in suburbs has many compensations.  When shopping, going to the library, to a local restaurant or to church you have many opportunities to encounter people.  Children and teenagers tend to be better behaved when they know that neighbors and family friends may be around.  And wouldn’t it be easier for them to be less auto dependent!  In short, anonymous suburbs can become communities. 

Then there is health.  When many activities involve walking, rather than driving, this provides more continuous moderate exercise without the need to schedule time at the gym.  Walking burns calories, and people who walk are less prone to the obesity and its many related health problems.  And don’t forget the personal economic benefits.  Not needing a second car saves finance charges, taxes and insurance as well as gasoline. 

I grew up in a medium density suburb of Nottingham, England where almost all the homes were single family with a garden and few people owned cars.  Industries, schools and colleges, major stores and entertainment were all accessible by public transportation.  It was many times more energy efficient as similar suburbs in the US and frankly, just as nice a place to live.  Affordable gasoline will soon be a thing of the past, so let’s start preparing for a future where we are much less dependent on it. 

Gil Woolley is a retired engineer, and an active member of the Sierra Club. 

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

Yes, we’ll have no bananas?

By Nick Kelley / Special To The Tab

 

Are we going to live in a world without bananas? Australia is facing that question right now.

In March 2006, Cyclone Larry destroyed 80 percent of Australia’s banana plants, and it will take several years for the plants to be able to produce bananas again. Unfortunately, damaged plants are also more susceptible to disease. The price of bananas has skyrocketed, and a previously inexpensive fruit has become a luxury. Bananas that sold for $2/pound earlier this year now cost more than $7/pound. Thieves are breaking into banana plantations and running off with bushels of them. When a friend from Sydney came to visit me recently, he was desperate for a banana.

Currently Australia is considering importing bananas while their own plantations recover. Farmers fear that the entire Australian banana crop could be wiped out by the Panama disease (found in SE Asia), to which native plants have not yet been exposed. Farmers also fear that Australians will switch their eating preferences away from bananas and will not switch back when the local crop recovers. Although Australian bananas’ are expected to re-grow, there is concern that increased cyclone activity could further damage the industry and make it unprofitable.

Technically, Australia allows importation of bananas. But because the government enforces a lengthy quarantine, this effectively prevents their importation. While some are pushing to shorten the quarantine period, to allow the importation of Philippine bananas, the banana growers of Australia are resisting. Australia will remain in a banana shortage for some time and Australian’s are braced for the potential of life without bananas.

Bananas have long been a dietary staple in many countries, including the US. It is the most popular fruit in the world and the fourth largest agricultural crop, behind rice, wheat and maize. Besides great taste, bananas have outstanding nutritional value. An excellent natural source of potassium, bananas are also an ideal fruit for athletes, combining three natural sugars, providing both instant and sustained energy.

Wild Bananas, which are much smaller than the bananas we usually see in grocery stores, originated in SE Asia and have been domesticated for thousands of years (perhaps as far back as 8,000 BCE). The Portuguese established banana plantations in the Caribbean and imported the fruit back to Europe.

Cultivated bananas are sterile, which means they have no viable seeds, so old plants must be spliced to create new ones. That means taking one plant and creating a clone of it by placing a shoot in the ground and allowing it to grow. This creates a monoculture of genetically-identical bananas. Today banana production occurs in most tropical countries and the banana is perhaps the world’s largest monoculture crop. The lack of genetic variability makes them vulnerable to being wiped out abruptly; an entire crop is at risk of crashing when a pathogen is introduced.

The Cavendish, found all over the world, is the species everyone has come to know and love. If Cavendish bananas are wiped out by a pathogen, it will not be the first time an entire species of banana has been obliterated. The Gros Michel accounted for virtually all sales of bananas until the 1920s and 1930s, when a major outbreak of Panama disease decimated the world banana crop. Growers were able to meet demand by drastically increasing the amount of land under cultivation, so even with enormous losses to disease, banana export continued. When growers went bankrupt, they shifted to a banana species with natural resistance to Panama disease. However, those Cavendish bananas remained genetically unchanged, while the Panama fungus mutated, thus ending the Cavendish’s immunity to the disease.

How can the future of bananas be secured? Growers are willing to switch to another species, but they want the taste and appearance of the new strain to be similar to the Cavendish, so that it will be readily accepted on the world market. A rare banana seed has been found in Honduras and growers are attempting to breed a strain of bananas resistant to disease. This species has not done well in the marketplace because it has an apple-like after taste. Industry is taking a different approach. Large chemical companies are seeking ways to make banana plants more resistant to the Panama disease by genetically altering the banana plants directly, using gene- splicing. It remains to be seen which approach, conventional breeding or genetic engineering, will be more successful at resolving the banana crisis.

Given the recent near demise of the banana in Australia, we should be asking if other crops are vulnerable to a similar fate. Droughts, floods and other natural disasters will continue to devastate the land. This summer, heat waves destroyed crops and livestock on a wide scale here in the US. The banana scare could be a preview of things to come..

Nick Kelley, a senior at Colorado College Majoring in Environmental Science, was the Green Decade Coalition intern this summer.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/environmentpage

Green revolution in big biz

By Nick Kelley / Special To The Tab

 

Multi-billion dollar companies can have a huge impact, both positively and negatively, on the environment. Even minor changes in business models and practices can dramatically effect how a company interacts with the larger world.

There is a common misconception that it is too expensive in a highly competitive world market for large corporations to focus on reducing their impact on the environment.

Concern about the environment is not usually viewed by businesses as in the best interests of shareholders, because it is assumed not to be profitable. However, it is possible to make huge profits while having an environmental conscience. In fact, it is more profitable over the long term and therefore in the shareholders best interests, to act “environmentally friendly”. Our economic system often rewards innovation in this way.

DuPont de Nemours is one company that has changed from being one of the worst polluters to being a leader in progressive environmental thinking. DuPont started up over 200 years ago and has been one of the largest chemical developers ever since. It has created many products which most people use in their everyday lives. Some of its most famous creations are nylon, Teflon, Kevlar and Chlorofluorocarbons. CFC’s, which were revolutionary when they were developed in the 1930’s, were used in air conditioners and refrigerators, but they turned out to be extremely destructive to the ozone layer, with long-lasting and persistent effects on the entire planet.

DuPont is taking a radical approach compared to its competitors. One of its business goals is to create sustainable growth, that is, economic growth that attempts to balance both the future and present needs of a company. DuPont is reviving its tarnished image by reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 65 percent of their 1990 levels by the year 2010. The company has already exceeded that goal by reducing emissions by 68 percent. Also, DuPont intends to hold its energy use flat at the 1990 baseline level.

DuPont has displayed progressive thinking in part to amend for past misdeeds. It reached many of its environmental goals rapidly because, having polluted so horrendously for so many years, it was forced to pay enormous legal fees and heavy fines for environmental cleanup efforts. The company realized that it would be much cheaper over time to spend money to reduce pollution than to pay for the resulting lawsuits, inevitable penalties and cleanup projects. Chad Holiday, Chairman and CEO of DuPont, estimates that “In working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we achieved more than $2 billion in avoided costs due to energy conservation activities”. Obviously it makes business sense to be environmentally responsible.

DuPont is not alone in its efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. General Electric, the second biggest company in the world, has also pledged to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. BP, Boeing, Lockheed Martin, IBM and many other major corporations have pledged to reduce greenhouse emissions. However, compared to DuPont, other companies’ efforts, while vital, are less impressive.

With a net income of $1.89 billion in 2005, DuPont has proven that large profits and environmental responsibility are not mutually exclusive, and that ‘top down’ change is possible in our capitalistic economy.

Improving the environmental practices of one large, multi-billion dollar corporation has direct benefits worldwide. And when DuPont adopts sustainable growth principles that encourages other companies to follow its example.

All large corporations will need to change their business policies and practices in order to solve many of serious environmental problems facing our country and the world, but they are not going to do this without outside pressure. The efforts of individuals and grassroots campaigns to reform corporations should never be underestimated. If it were not for the work of watchdog groups, DuPont would never have cleaned up its act, because no one would be demanding that they do it. Citizens, through their governments and non-profit organizations, have to take the initiative to make sure this happens.

The example set by DuPont may be hard for smaller companies to follow. DuPont is well-established and has the luxury of thinking long term, because it knows that it will be around to reap the benefits from making the many changes involved in transitioning to being a sustainable company. Their dramatic turnaround in a short time span makes them a tough act to follow.

Currently no enforcement or regulatory body requires businesses to meet most environmental goals. Until we have such regulation, companies could just espouse lofty goals with little intention of meeting them. We not only need carrots, we also need sticks.

Nick Kelley, a senior at Colorado College Majoring in Environmental Science, is the Green Decade Coalition intern this summer, while he is also working for MWRA. He lives in Brookline.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Rising from the ashes

By Asa Swain/ Special To The Tab

 

When I think about clean energy, I think about wind turbines and solar power. Coal power is certainly not the first thing that comes to mind. But coal power plants provide over a quarter of our energy in Massachusetts (and over half of our energy nationwide). So while researching alternative energy sources is important, cleaning up our existing plants will have a much bigger and more immediate effect on the environment. The Clean Air Act has greatly reduced the amount of aerial pollutants released by coal power plants, but much of it is instead just sent to landfills. So I was intrigued when I learned about a new industry that has sprung up, an industry that uses a waste product from coal power plants to help mix better cement.

Now for most of us, making cement isn’t very complicated. When I do backyard cement work, I mix two buckets of sand, one bucket of portland cement, and enough water to hold it all together. And that works just fine for home construction projects. But big industrial projects, like bridges, skyscrapers, and dams, need really high quality cement. There are a wide variety of mixes out there, depending on the kind of concrete required, but most formulas include fly ash: the fine residue created in the combustion of coal.

This is not a new discovery: the Romans made cement with a similar kind of ash, and Americans have been using fly ash for more than half a century. Today fly ash is used to supplement portland cement, as is slag cement, which is ground granulated slag (the byproduct of metal smelting). When portland cement, fly ash and slag cement are combined, the result is cheaper than pure portland cement, more malleable when poured, slower to set, and stronger in its hardened form. Using less portland cement also has an environmental benefit; it reduces the energy use and gas emissions of the mixing process.

Before the passage of the 1990 update to the Clean Air Act, some fly ash was separated for cement production, but most of the ash was just released into the air. This changed in 1990 due to the Clean Air Act’s nitrogen oxide restrictions, which mandated that fly ash be filtered out of coal power plant emissions. So instead of releasing it into the air, power plants dispose of their ash in landfills. While this is an improvement, it still has economic and environmental costs.

The good news is that this excess fly ash is a great new supply for cement companies, and power plants would rather sell it than truck it to landfills. But you can’t use fly ash straight from power plants, because it is often contaminated with carbon from the burning coal (the carbon interferes with the chemical bonding process of the cement). Some plants use air scrubbers or baghouses to remove the carbon. More recently, several companies have developed a more efficient technique for purifying fly ash, a process called electrostatic separation.

As the fly ash is fed between two oppositely charged electrode plates, the unburned carbon particles take on a positive charge, while the fly ash particles become negatively charged. Particles are attracted to the oppositely charged plates, and mesh conveyer belts carry each type to different destinations. The electrostatic separator can process 40 tons of fly ash an hour and only uses 1-2 KWh of electricity per ton of ash. Besides selling the purified fly ash, coal power plants can also re-burn the leftover carbon, creating additional energy and resulting in almost no waste.

A whole new recycling industry, including one company here in Needham, has developed in the past decade, by installing technology like electrostatic separators in coal power plants and helping to market fly ash to cement companies. Though critics often assert that cleaning up power plants would be too costly and would result in higher electricity prices, this unlikely union between coal power plants and cement companies demonstrates that you can turn a waste product into a useful commodity, and make both economic and environmental sense in the process.

Asa Swain is a native of Newton Highlands who graduated from NNHS and more recently from Carleton College.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

‘Blood and Oil’ author speaks

By John Bliss/ Special To The Tab

 

 

The first of the Green Decade’s 2006 Environmental Speakers, Michael Klare, Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, gave a talk entitled, “Global Petro-Politics: The US, China and the Struggle Over the World’s Oil,” on Monday, January 23. His main message was that the world is entering a permanent energy crisis that dwarfs the temporary shortages of the 1970’s caused by the Middle Eastern oil embargoes.

Speaking to a large audience at the Newton Library, Klare pointed out that all nations are affected by high oil prices, currently approaching $70/barrel, and that no sufficiently large new oil sources are available to relieve the crisis over the next twenty-five years. He was similarly pessimistic about the prospects for new gas supplies. He noted that the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency (EIA) had raised last year’s estimate of baseline oil prices out to 2025 from $35/barrel to $60/barrel.

Massive new demands for energy are coming from China, India, and many other developing countries. Klare predicted intensified competition among nations to secure the existing fossil fuel sources for themselves, which will greatly increase the chances for armed conflicts. He said that war with Iran is now more likely than not.

Klare stated that in order to satisfy the EIA’s fifty-seven percent projected increase in world demand for oil and gas over the next twenty-five years, Middle Eastern output would have to triple, the Gulf of Mexico would have to remain free of large hurricanes, and nations such as Russia, Kazakhstan and Nigeria would need to remain politically stable. He noted that the problem of supply is exacerbated by the decline in oil production in Alaska and the North Sea.

Klare described the “securitization” of oil supplies by the United States over the past twenty-five years and by China more recently. He noted that the U.S. military is our nation’s largest single oil consumer and the primary reason that the U.S. is involved in protecting diverse sources of supply around the world. The U.S. has intervened in Latin America and the Middle East numerous times to protect the world oil markets. China is now seeking to form alliances with Nigeria, Sudan and countries around the Caspian Sea to secure new oil sources, and this, too, raises the risk of armed conflict.

In a positive observation, Klare characterized the high baseline price of oil as “revolutionary” and believes it will stimulate investment in alternative sources of energy in ways not seen before. Although he is concerned about the environmental consequences of increased use of traditional fossil fuels, he sees only a limited role for certain alternative sources, such as the Canadian “tar sands,” and coal gasification, or “clean coal.” He noted that extracting such fuels often has negative environmental impact or requires too much energy.

Following the talk, Klare answered many questions about energy supply, international competition and conflict, and alternative energy sources and then he signed copies of his latest book, “Blood and Oil,” which were available for sale.

John Bliss is a member of the Green Decade Coalition/Newton and serves on the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy.

This article is archived at www.greendecade.org/tabarchive.asp.

Insulation: A wise investment

By Paul Eldenkramp/ Special To The Tab

 

The Kyoto Committee of the Green Decade Coalition/Newton has been investigating insulation quality in Newton houses and has been finding lots of missed opportunities.

A well-insulated house is comfortable and treads more lightly on the environment – and it is a good investment. Let’s say you spend $4,000 on an insulation upgrade and anticipate saving $500 in fuel costs per year. If you expect to live in your house for 15 more years, and assuming a 5 percent annual rate of increase in fuel costs, the rate of return on your weatherization investment will be 13.7 percent. That’s an excellent investment from a financial perspective, aside from the benefits of increased comfort and decreased carbon emissions. (For a simple on-line tool to calculate investment return for energy improvements, see www.energytools.com/calc/EnerEcon.html).

We found three basic types of insulation problems – let’s call them investment opportunities – in our initial studies of older Newton homes: no insulation, old insulation in need of an upgrade, and new insulation done badly.

Many older Newton homes have no insulation at all. Some homeowners believe that adding insulation puts an older house at risk of moisture problems, but if you have no moisture problems now, adding insulation willnot create them. If you have existing moisture issues – roof or window leaks, relative indoor humidity above 60 percent in the winter, or standing water in the basement after a rain – then adding insulation may complicate the problem, so address those issues prior to insulating.

Some homeowners are not aware that they have no insulation. If you are one of them, check the attic first. If you have no insulation there, you probably have none in the walls, because the attic is the easiest place to insulate. To check if the walls have insulation, drill a 1-inch hole in an out-of-the-way place (like the back of a closet) through the plaster and lathe (no deeper) and shine a flashlight in. If you’re looking into an empty cavity, you probably have no wall insulation.

In one of our “Kyoto case studies” we looked at a house that had no insulation, but which had new cooling and heating equipment that was roughly twice the capacity that would have been required had the house been insulated. That extra heating and cooling capacity cost several thousand dollars – money that would have been invested more wisely in insulation, which would have significantly reduced operating costs.

Many homeowners insulated their houses during the spikes in energy costs in the mid-1970s or early 1980s. Since then, we have learned more effective insulation methods and new products and technologies have been developed. An area of your house that may not have been cost-effective to insulate in 1980 may offer good payback now.

Air-sealing is as essential to insulating a house as insulation itself. There are two good methods for achieving this. Dense pack cellulose involves blowing cellulose insulation into walls to a density of about 3.5 pounds per foot, a density at which the material is packed solidly enough to inhibit air leakage but not so solid as to promote heat loss through conduction. To achieve the proper density, the installer’s equipment needs to be well tuned and he or she needs to know where to drill holes for maximum coverage and precisely how to insert the hose into the holes. Don’t take these prerequisites for granted – ask questions.

Spray-foam insulations, such as two-part polyurethane foams and Icynene, have established track records for safety and performance. They’re best used in open bays – as in walls prior to the application of the drywall and in attic rafters. Some contractors will spray foam into closed cavities such as finished walls but in that application cellulose is usually safer, cheaper, and equally effective.

Accomplishing a good insulation job in an old home can be difficult and counter-intuitive. Insulation crews tend to target easy spaces that maximize the amount of material they can install in the least amount of time. Sometimes this works, but sometimes it misses the mark.

One home we audited had had major insulation work done under a utility-company rebate program in 2001 at a cost of several thousand dollars, but the house was one of the worst performers we documented. The job had been done with a poorly tuned blower that did not generate sufficient nozzle pressure to force enough cellulose into the walls, resulting in settling of material and insulation voids. No attention had been paid to air-sealing, so there were major cold spotson interior walls because of cold air leakage into the basement, up interior chases and out through attic eaves.

To prevent such missed opportunities, the Kyoto Committee has concluded that it’s worth spending $250-350 for an energy audit that includes a blower door test and an infrared scan of your house. Audits can be arranged through Keyspan if you have gas heat and NSTAR if you have oil or electric heat. If your house has little or no insulation, do the audit as you are nearing completion of the insulation job. Prior to then, the audit will mainly document that you have a leaky house – something you knew already. After most of the work has been done, however, the audit will tell you exactly where to focus the final efforts – the infrared camera will reveal specific insulation voids in walls, and the blower door test will pinpoint areas of leakage that should be sealed, usually with spray foam insulation. If the house has been insulated with cellulose, you can use a few cans of lumberyard spray foam to provide enough air-sealing to make a big difference. However, given some of the tricky roof configurations of these older homes, you may need to hire a spray foam crew to finish the job.

In conclusion, we can say with confidence, based on our audits, that for older homes where insulation work was done in the 1970s, it’s time for an upgrade from an energy savings perspective. We have equal confidence that homeowners will reap financial benefits from these improvements.

Paul Eldrenkamp is a Newton-based remodeling contractor and chair of the Green Decade Coalition’s Kyoto Committee.