Portland Press Herald
This winter, many Mainers will use outdated stoves or heat underinsulated buildings, a study reports.
By TUX TURKEL, Staff Writer
October 3, 2008
Nearly half of Maine households plan to burn wood to help stay warm this winter, but many will be using outdated, less-efficient stoves or heating buildings that aren't insulated to modern standards, according to initial findings of a new statewide survey on energy use.
The state-funded study, done for the American Lung Association of Maine and the Maine Centers for Disease Control, will be used in part to study the degree to which air pollution from increased wood burning might be harmful to public health in Maine.
On a national level, the American Lung Association has been expressing concern about the potential impact of wood smoke – especially from fireplaces – on people with asthma and pulmonary disease.
Initially, researchers wanted to explore possible links between increased wood burning, air pollution and public health.
But the survey was expanded to gather other energy-related information and to act as a baseline to study fuel burning, weatherization efforts and public health impacts in different parts of the state.
"We wanted to get a sense of how behaviors were changing in response to high energy prices," said Norman Anderson, the association's environmental health adviser. The survey of more than 3,000 Maine households will be complete by the end of the month.
Initial results were scheduled to be presented today at the lung association's annual meeting by MaryEllen FitzGerald, president of Critical Insights, the Portland research firm that is conducting the survey.
Record oil prices earlier this year set off a stampede to buy stoves and boilers that burn wood and pellets.
Mainers who burned wood in past years also have reportedly been reinstalling older units.
That concerns health officials, who say they recall neighborhoods choked with wood smoke in the 1980s, when energy costs soared.
The survey, Anderson said, could help track health risk factors over time.
Among those risk factors is the amount of wood being burned, the equipment being used and the possible improper weatherization of homes, which can lead to mold, carbon monoxide buildup and poor ventilation.
The survey also asked about preventative measures. Most respondents said they did not plan to have a professional energy audit, in which a trained contractor uses special equipment to find air leaks and heat loss.
More than half of those surveyed said they didn't see the need for an audit.
That suggests that people think they've done enough to weatherize their homes, even if they've taken only small measures, or that those polled may not be familiar with energy audits.
"If you don't know what it is," said Kevin Fay, the research director at Critical Insights, "it's hard to see the value of it."
Despite concerns about air quality, the survey findings generally are consistent with what officials are seeing and represent a positive direction for Maine, according to John Kerry, the state's energy director.
The move toward greater wood burning is cutting the state's dependence on costly, imported oil and reducing emissions associated with climate change, Kerry said.
The responses to weatherization questions, however, suggest that many Mainers might not appreciate the difference between taking elementary steps to tighten their homes and the more subsantial savings that can be realized through comprehensive insulation and air sealing.
"There's a distinct difference between winterization and weatherization," he said.
Staff Writer Tux Turkel can be contacted at 791-6462 or at:
tturkel@pressherald.com
Copyright © 2008 Blethen Maine Newspapers
Friday, October 03, 2008
Thursday, September 25, 2008
Google and General Electric Team Up on Energy Initiatives
NY Times
September 17, 2008, 10:09 pm
By Miguel Helft
Google and General Electric said on Wednesday that they would work together on technology and policy initiatives to promote the development of additional capacity in the electricity grid and of “smart grid” technologies to enable plug-in hybrids and to manage energy more efficiently. The companies said their goal was to make renewable energy more accessible and useful.
Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, and G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, alluded briefly to the partnership in a joint appearance at Google’s Zeitgeist conference, which is taking place at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
The two executives gave few details of their planned collaboration. In an interview after their presentation, Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org, an operating unit of Google, said the effort was in its planning stages and did not have a set budget.
“All this talk about renewable energy will not be realized if we do not build substantial additional transmission capacity,” Mr. Reicher said.
Without additional capacity, Mr. Reicher said, it would not be possible, for example, to get power from a solar plant in the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles, or from a wind farm in the Dakotas to Chicago. Mr. Reicher said that environmental standards, overlapping state and federal regulations and other policy issues were among the biggest impediments to building additional transmission capacity.
Google and G.E. are also discussing how to combine their respective software and hardware expertise to enable technologies like plug-in hybrids on a large scale and to accelerate the development of geothermal energy.
For Google, the partnership with G.E. is part of larger set of energy initiatives, including direct investments in green technology to help develop renewable energy that is cheaper to produce than coal-generated power. For its part, G.E. has made a large bet on green energy technologies, an initiative the company calls Ecomagination.
September 17, 2008, 10:09 pm
By Miguel Helft
Google and General Electric said on Wednesday that they would work together on technology and policy initiatives to promote the development of additional capacity in the electricity grid and of “smart grid” technologies to enable plug-in hybrids and to manage energy more efficiently. The companies said their goal was to make renewable energy more accessible and useful.
Google’s chief executive, Eric E. Schmidt, and G.E.’s chief executive, Jeffrey R. Immelt, alluded briefly to the partnership in a joint appearance at Google’s Zeitgeist conference, which is taking place at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View, Calif.
The two executives gave few details of their planned collaboration. In an interview after their presentation, Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google.org, an operating unit of Google, said the effort was in its planning stages and did not have a set budget.
“All this talk about renewable energy will not be realized if we do not build substantial additional transmission capacity,” Mr. Reicher said.
Without additional capacity, Mr. Reicher said, it would not be possible, for example, to get power from a solar plant in the Mojave Desert to Los Angeles, or from a wind farm in the Dakotas to Chicago. Mr. Reicher said that environmental standards, overlapping state and federal regulations and other policy issues were among the biggest impediments to building additional transmission capacity.
Google and G.E. are also discussing how to combine their respective software and hardware expertise to enable technologies like plug-in hybrids on a large scale and to accelerate the development of geothermal energy.
For Google, the partnership with G.E. is part of larger set of energy initiatives, including direct investments in green technology to help develop renewable energy that is cheaper to produce than coal-generated power. For its part, G.E. has made a large bet on green energy technologies, an initiative the company calls Ecomagination.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
Work begins on Maine's largest wind farm
Portland Press Herald
The Kibby project's 44 turbines may be powering 50,000 homes by 2010.
The Associated Press
September 3, 2008
KIBBY TOWNSHIP — Land clearing is under way for Maine's third major wind farm, a 44-turbine project in the western mountains that is projected to generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes after its planned completion in 2010.
TransCanada's 132-megawatt project stands to become New England's largest.
The energy company, based in Calgary, Alberta, has received all permits to move forward with its project in Kibby and Skinner townships in northern Franklin County. Clearing for roughly 17 miles of roads has begun, as has other procurement and engineering work. Contractors are expected to start work on roads to the planned turbines this week.
Project Manager Wolfgang Neuhoff said plans call for having the first set of 22 turbines built and on line in December 2009, and the second set running in 2010.
A 28-unit wind farm in Mars Hill started producing power in 2007, and the 38-turbine Stetson Mountain project is well under way in eastern Maine. Mars Hill in northern Maine is by far New England's largest operating utility-grade wind farm.
An estimated 250 workers will be involved during construction of the $320 million Kibby project, and about a dozen will work during its operational phase.
Maine has adopted a friendly stance toward wind power, which is seen as a way to help wean the state from its heavy dependence on oil. Earlier this year, the Governor's Task Force on Wind Power recommended streamlined regulatory reviews for wind projects.
Its report envisioned at least 2,000 megawatts of wind power generated in the state by 2015, and 3,000 megawatts by 2020. It would take 1,000 to 2,000 turbines to create that much power.
Energy companies have come to Maine to test the terrain for large-scale projects.
Earlier this year, a scaled-down version of a wind farm proposed in western Maine was rejected by regulators, who cited concerns about its effect on scenery and its financial viability.
The Kibby project's 44 turbines may be powering 50,000 homes by 2010.
The Associated Press
September 3, 2008
KIBBY TOWNSHIP — Land clearing is under way for Maine's third major wind farm, a 44-turbine project in the western mountains that is projected to generate enough electricity to power 50,000 homes after its planned completion in 2010.
TransCanada's 132-megawatt project stands to become New England's largest.
The energy company, based in Calgary, Alberta, has received all permits to move forward with its project in Kibby and Skinner townships in northern Franklin County. Clearing for roughly 17 miles of roads has begun, as has other procurement and engineering work. Contractors are expected to start work on roads to the planned turbines this week.
Project Manager Wolfgang Neuhoff said plans call for having the first set of 22 turbines built and on line in December 2009, and the second set running in 2010.
A 28-unit wind farm in Mars Hill started producing power in 2007, and the 38-turbine Stetson Mountain project is well under way in eastern Maine. Mars Hill in northern Maine is by far New England's largest operating utility-grade wind farm.
An estimated 250 workers will be involved during construction of the $320 million Kibby project, and about a dozen will work during its operational phase.
Maine has adopted a friendly stance toward wind power, which is seen as a way to help wean the state from its heavy dependence on oil. Earlier this year, the Governor's Task Force on Wind Power recommended streamlined regulatory reviews for wind projects.
Its report envisioned at least 2,000 megawatts of wind power generated in the state by 2015, and 3,000 megawatts by 2020. It would take 1,000 to 2,000 turbines to create that much power.
Energy companies have come to Maine to test the terrain for large-scale projects.
Earlier this year, a scaled-down version of a wind farm proposed in western Maine was rejected by regulators, who cited concerns about its effect on scenery and its financial viability.
And Then There Was One
NY Times
September 3, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.
With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.
So please, students, when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few posters of wind turbines and solar panels, ask him why he has been AWOL when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies.
“Back in June, the Republican Party had a round-up,” said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. “One of the unbranded cattle — a wizened old maverick name John McCain — finally got roped. Then they branded him with a big ‘Lazy O’ — George Bush’s brand, where the O stands for oil. No more maverick.
“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury — and John McCain is going to let her.”
Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not how to end our addiction.
Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda, but at least he had the courage, in the heat of a Democratic primary, not to pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax. And while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling, he has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution to our energy problems.
I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.
Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power, strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.
Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”
So, college students, don’t let anyone tell you that on the issue of green, this election is not important. It is vitally important, and the alternatives could not be more black and white.
September 3, 2008
OP-ED COLUMNIST
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
As we emerge from Labor Day, college students are gathering back on campuses not only to start the fall semester, but also, in some cases, to vote for the first time in a presidential election. There is no bigger issue on campuses these days than environment/energy. Going into this election, I thought that — for the first time — we would have a choice between two “green” candidates. That view is no longer operative — and college students (and everyone else) need to understand that.
With his choice of Sarah Palin — the Alaska governor who has advocated drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and does not believe mankind is playing any role in climate change — for vice president, John McCain has completed his makeover from the greenest Republican to run for president to just another representative of big oil.
Given the fact that Senator McCain deliberately avoided voting on all eight attempts to pass a bill extending the vital tax credits and production subsidies to expand our wind and solar industries, and given his support for lowering the gasoline tax in a reckless giveaway that would only promote more gasoline consumption and intensify our addiction to oil, and given his desire to make more oil-drilling, not innovation around renewable energy, the centerpiece of his energy policy — in an effort to mislead voters that support for drilling today would translate into lower prices at the pump today — McCain has forfeited any claim to be a green candidate.
So please, students, when McCain comes to your campus and flashes a few posters of wind turbines and solar panels, ask him why he has been AWOL when it came to Congress supporting these new technologies.
“Back in June, the Republican Party had a round-up,” said Carl Pope, the executive director of the Sierra Club. “One of the unbranded cattle — a wizened old maverick name John McCain — finally got roped. Then they branded him with a big ‘Lazy O’ — George Bush’s brand, where the O stands for oil. No more maverick.
“One of McCain’s last independent policies putting him at odds with Bush was his opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge,” added Pope, “yet he has now picked a running mate who has opposed holding big oil accountable and been dismissive of alternative energy while focusing her work on more oil drilling in a wildlife refuge and off of our coasts. While the northern edge of her state literally falls into the rising Arctic Ocean, Sarah Palin says, ‘The jury is still out on global warming.’ She’s the one hanging the jury — and John McCain is going to let her.”
Indeed, Palin’s much ballyhooed confrontations with the oil industry have all been about who should get more of the windfall profits, not how to end our addiction.
Barack Obama should be doing more to promote his green agenda, but at least he had the courage, in the heat of a Democratic primary, not to pander to voters by calling for a lifting of the gasoline tax. And while he has come out for a limited expansion of offshore drilling, he has refrained from misleading voters that this is in any way a solution to our energy problems.
I am not against a limited expansion of off-shore drilling now. But it is a complete sideshow. By constantly pounding into voters that his energy focus is to “drill, drill, drill,” McCain is diverting attention from what should be one of the central issues in this election: who has the better plan to promote massive innovation around clean power technologies and energy efficiency.
Why? Because renewable energy technologies — what I call “E.T.” — are going to constitute the next great global industry. They will rival and probably surpass “I.T.” — information technology. The country that spawns the most E.T. companies will enjoy more economic power, strategic advantage and rising standards of living. We need to make sure that is America. Big oil and OPEC want to make sure it is not.
Palin’s nomination for vice president and her desire to allow drilling in the Alaskan wilderness “reminded me of a lunch I had three and half years ago with one of the Russian trade attachés,” global trade consultant Edward Goldberg said to me. “After much wine, this gentleman told me that his country was very pleased that the Bush administration wanted to drill in the Alaskan wilderness. In his opinion, the amount of product one could actually derive from there was negligible in terms of needs. However, it signified that the Bush administration was not planning to do anything to create alternative energy, which of course would threaten the economic growth of Russia.”
So, college students, don’t let anyone tell you that on the issue of green, this election is not important. It is vitally important, and the alternatives could not be more black and white.
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