Author Archives: amandawegner

The Myth of “Baseload” Power

Posted on by
2
By Tyson Cook, Staff Scientist

For those of us looking forward to a day when we’re less reliant on dirty, fossil fuel-based power plants, it’s important to know the role they serve in the electricity system, and just what we have to do to replace them. One argument that is starting to be used against renewable energy revolves around that very idea: The claim that renewables may not be able to provide the “baseload” power like large fossil-fuel plants.

Which begs the question, what is this “baseload” power, and why does it matter?

The first thing to realize is that so-called “baseload” is not actually a different kind of power; it’s simply part of an engineering concept to visualize electrical demand. Imagine a line graph of the amount of total electricity used in a region over time. The plot would look like a series of waves, with peaks in the afternoon and early evening when everything is running on high, and dips at night and on the weekends when people are sleeping and offices are closed.

You could divide the line graph a lot of ways, but the idea of “baseload” comes from drawing a horizontal line to represent the minimum amount of electricity that is being used, no matter what time or day. The areas above that line are then labeled “intermediate” and “peak” loads. Kind of like this:

Graph explaining baseload power

From Understanding Base Load Power, October 2008, New York Affordable Reliable Electricity Alliance

In this way of thinking, the “baseload” power demand is met with big generators like old coal and nuclear plants that don’t turn on and off very well. To accommodate electrical needs above the “baseload,” smaller, more responsive plants are used that can more easily follow the demand. Makes sense, right?

The problem with this idea is that it’s not how the electrical grid actually works. In reality, the grid isn’t one uniform pool of power demand, but a huge, sprawling, interconnected web of transmission lines of various sizes and capacities, dotted with producers and users of power. More like this:

From Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The whole thing is controlled by an “independent system operator,” whose job is to make sure the system works right and everyone gets the power they need as cheaply and reliably as possible. This means constantly turning production up and down at various plants and using various mechanisms to manage flow.

So the idea of “baseload” power? Yes, there is always some minimum level of power being used in a particular region of the grid, but it’s certainly not as simple as that old line graph would indicate. And when trying to meet electrical demand, the power can come from any number of facilities at any time of day. For the system operator, the solution to which plants should be running when (and how much) is clear: Whatever makes electricity cheapest at any given time, considering the constraints of the grid. If that happens to be a large coal plant, so be it. If it’s a wind farm or small solar installation, that’s just as good. Even better.

The Tragedy of the Commons

Posted on by
Reply

The following blog post is by Elizabeth Wheeler, Clean Wisconsin’s Staff Attorney. Look for her monthly posts on legal matters.

Due process is a slippery creature. It is difficult to define precisely, because it is premised on the notion of fairness. But still, due process is a fundamental tenet of our legal system, our government and our constitution. And, it’s an incredibly important component of environmental law.

More than once during law school, my environmental law professors handed me the 1968 article from Science titled “The Tragedy of the Commons.” I have to say, I didn’t find it a particularly riveting read in school, or even now, but I always return to it when thinking about why due process is so critical to environmental law.

The tragedy of the commons is this: If each person uses our common resources independently and rationally to advance our own self-interest, our resources will be depleted at an unsustainable rate – which is, ultimately, in no one’s self-interest. This is the reason why environmental law is based on the participation of and due process for the general public. Under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), we are owed a full disclosure of all the environmental impacts of a project so that we – an applicant, state regulators, the general public – can make an informed, rational decision about whether a project is in our best interest. We are afforded notice and comment periods, public hearings and a right to appeal. Why do we go to these great lengths to include the general public in every major environmental decision? Because the air and water belong to all of us.

Unfortunately, in the past week, our due process has not been respected. And the tragedy of the commons? It’s playing out right here in our own backyard.

On Tuesday, a wetlands bill that makes it easier for developers to destroy Wisconsin’s wetlands – an important part of our natural heritage – was rammed through a Senate floor vote just after midnight, without the amendments that were needed to provide a minimum protection for our wetlands.

Yesterday, the Senate Select Committee on Mining Jobs was dissolved shortly after a Senate mining bill was released. Instead, the Assembly mining bill (AB 426) – the worst piece of environmental legislation in decades – was introduced as is, without consideration for the concerns of the tribes, environmental groups, or the citizens of Northern Wisconsin who now face a serious threat to their environment. The bill is a corporate giveaway, plain and clear. It gives one company, Gogebic Taconite, the right to operate outside the law, with little public input and no due process for the public.

Due process is slippery, but we’ve got to hold on to it. Without due process, we will all fall victim to the tragedy of the commons. And the only winners will be one out-of-state mining corporation.

Mercury Rising: Make wise choices for health

Posted on by
1

A new report by the Minnesota Department of Health underscores the importance of making wise choices at the dinner table.

In a recent study of mercury contamination in newborns in the Lake Superior region, fewer Wisconsin newborns are exposed to mercury pollution than Minnesota newborns. A whopping 10 percent of newborns in Minnesota have unsafe levels of mercury in their blood — one in 10 babies are at risk of lower IQs and reduced memory loss. Wisconsin’s Lake Superior region has a much lower exposure, with 3 percent of newborns showing mercury at dangerous levels.

But even that is too many, and this study serves as a good reminder to everyone, especially for women of childbearing age, to limit consumption of fish that are likely to contain mercury.

Mercury is a neurotoxin that is dangerous for the developing brains of children, babies and fetuses, and it only takes small amounts of this chemical to cause big harm.  It is estimated that 5,000 and 9,000 children born in Wisconsin each year are at risk of having lower IQs and reduced memory as a result mercury exposure. Humans are exposed to mercury a number of ways; it’s found in many everyday objects, such as electronic waste and old thermostats, and is byproduct of burning coal for electricity. When mercury gets into water it changes to methylmercury, which has unique properties that allow it to build up in the bodies of fish. When larger fish eat smaller fish, mercury can build up to high levels in the tissues of the bigger fish. Because mercury binds to meat of the fish, it cannot be removed by cooking or cleaning and gets into humans when they eat the fish.

This year, the EPA introduced the first-ever national rules that limit mercury pollution from coal-fired power plants, which are the largest source of mercury pollution. Wisconsin has been in leader in mercury reduction with a mercury pollution law on the books since 2008.  Go Badgers!

Here are some helpful guidelines; also check out the state of Wisconsin’s “Choose Wisely” guide for fish consumption:

  • Choose smaller fish.
  • For local fishing, smaller game fish, panfish, stream trout and salmon are good choices. Avoid large walleyes or northerns from northern lakes.
  • From the ocean, avoid yellowfin tuna, shark, mackerel or orange roughy.

Contributed by Katy Walter, Organizer & Clean Energy Specialist

Vent Smart

Posted on by
Reply

Now that we’re in the prime heating season, homeowners are looking for ways to maximize their energy use and money in their pockets. In this edition of Under the Lens, we examine one common practice and how it may not be as effective as you think: closing vents in unused rooms.

Back in the day when homes were heated by wood or — gasp! — coal, closing off rooms was almost always a smart move. The heat for the house came from one centrally-located stove, and the goal was to keep as much of the heat as possible concentrated in specific areas. Today’s modern systems are different; while the heat is still generated in one spot (your furnace), it’s piped directly through your ducts to each room. Since there is usually only one system, or “zone,” in the house, blocking vents in one room impacts how the entire system works.

So what’s the problem with closing off vents? Since your heating system is designed to operate at a certain level, shutting down some pathways increases the air pressure in the ducts. This leads to more hot air being wasted, as it escapes through leaks in the system. As more vents are closed, the pressure gets higher and even more heat is wasted. (It’s also worth noting that if you close off a large number of vents and the pressure gets too high, your furnace can start to overheat – causing a safety concern, and potentially damaging your equipment.)

What that means is that instead of saving on your heating bills, you could actually be using the same – if not more – energy than before. This may seem counterintuitive, even false, but research out of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory backs it up.

Here are energy-saving best practices for winter:

  • Install (and use) a programmable thermostat. When asleep or away from home, turning back your thermostat 10°–15° for eight hours can save up to 10% a year on heating and cooling bills.
  • Replace your furnace’s air filter. A dirty filter restricts air flow, which forces your furnace to work harder and use more energy.
  • Have a professional fix leaks and insulate your duct system. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, typical systems lose 25-40% of the energy put out by a central furnace, heat pump, or air conditioner.
  • Open curtains on south-facing windows during the day to allow sunlight to heat your home, and close them at night to keep the heat in.
  • Turn down your water heater’s temperatue. Water heating can account for 14%-25% of the energy consumed in your home.
  • Speaking of hot water, insulate accessible hot water pipes, especially those close to your water heater. For tips, visit energysavers.gov and search “insulate hot water pipes.”

By Tyson Cook, Staff Scientist

(Energy-efficient) Home for the Holidays

Posted on by
Reply

This holiday season, take the load off your home and the planet with these tips.

What a crock!

Many oft-forgotten kitchen appliances can make your holiday season more energy efficient. Let’s start with the crockpot. This compact electrically appliance doesn’t generate more heat than needed; throw together a stew, dip or meat dish in the morning and have a low-energy meal or appetizer by dinnertime.

Don’t underestimate the power of a toaster oven; this appliance is far more versatile than your average two-or four-slot contraption and saves big energy. Instead of heating up a full-size oven for one pie, roast or pan of cookies, you could have that special holiday delicacy in a shorter amount of time and forgo a whole lot of wasted fuel.

When cooking enough to merit use of the oven, look for ways to adapt. If using a glass pan, set the temperature 25 degrees cooler than what the recipe calls for. If the dish will be in the oven for an hour or more, skip the preheating step to save time and energy. Oh, and don’t peek. Frequently opening the oven causes heat to escape, forcing the appliance to work harder.

Crank the tunes up, the heat down

Anyone who’s been to a rock concert knows that a large quantity of people in a small space can get pretty hot. This winter, let’s apply that concept to our homes to conserve energy resources while celebrating. Turning down the heat is a sustainable approach to hosting a gathering, and if it’s an ugly sweater party, your heating usage can go down even further.

Sense-ible lighting solutions

Turning off twinkling holiday lights late at night and during the day has always been a sensible and sustainable option for saving energy during the holidays. Now, you can automatically trip the lights fantastic with low-cost sensors that detect dawn and dusk and turn on and off according to your preference settings. This innovation spreads holiday cheer while expending a minimum amount of energy.

Homes with either a gas-run or traditional fireplace are the envy of many in winter. But keep the green in that envy by regularly cleaning chimney and vents will keep them running efficiently for years to come. Also, natural gas costs more than electricity, so light your gas fireplace sparingly to maximize energy efficiency.

Reuseable, repurposed and recycled wrappings

Use holiday leisure time to get caught up on news, then use the newsprint and glossy magazine photos as simple, artistic wrapping paper. Colorful pictures from last year’s holiday cards can be cut out and glued onto plain wrappings to give them a textured but polished look; even better if it’s on recycled or biodegradable paper. While paper ripped up in the frenzy of gift opening may be difficult to salvage, pretty bows and ribbons can be re-used again and again.

A one-stop shop for recycling and donating

Protect the planet and help neighbors in need by recycling unwanted electronics at no charge when you bring food bank donations to Waste Management’s recycling centers in Janesville and Madison from December 26-30.

Waste Management will waive electronics recycling fees in exchange for your donation of five non-perishable food items for each device you drop off for recycling Dec. 26-30 at the company’s recycling centers at 2200 Fish Hatchery Road in Madison and 340 Black Bridge Road in Janesville. Donations are taken from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Madison and 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. in Janesville.

Food donations will benefit Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin in Madison, and ECHO’s Food Pantry in Janesville. The most helpful non-perishable food donations include cans, jars and boxes of soup, peanut butter and jelly, beans, meat and tuna, fruit and vegetables, and crackers and cereal. Eligible electronics for this event are televisions, computer monitors, computers and computer accessories, printers, fax machines and video and DVD players and recorders. No appliances, please.

 

 

Second Time, Same As the First…

Posted on by
Reply

Photo: Bad River, Joshua Mayer/Flickr

There’s a little ditty that goes “Second verse, same as the first…”

It’s been stuck in my head since I first glanced at the new draft of the mining bill Assembly Republicans put out today. This draft is as bad as the first in terms of its implications for the environment and public input. Here’s our initial take on it. Rest assured that our legal staff and government relations director are combing through the 180-page draft.

Assembly Republicans’ Mining Bill Bad for the Environment

New draft much like the first, cutting environmental protections and slashing public input

December 8, 2011

MADISON  — Despite public outcry earlier in the year, Assembly Republicans released their draft of a new mining bill today that is very similar to the draft mining bill shelved earlier this spring. The bill introduced today still slashes public input and exempts iron mining from existing environmental laws.

“They obviously haven’t listened to the people and didn’t learn from the last fiasco, the draft mining bill leaked last spring,” says Amber Meyer Smith, director of government relations for Clean Wisconsin. “I don’t know how anyone could say with a straight face that this bill doesn’t contain huge rollbacks to environmental laws and gut the public input process.”The Legislature is rewriting Wisconsin’s mining laws as Gogebic Taconite, a subsidiary of a West Virginia-based mining corporation called the Cline Group, proposes to build a massive strip mine near Ashland, Wisconsin. The corporation has leased the mineral rights to 22,000 acres in the Penokee Range, at the headwaters of the pristine Bad River. A draft mining bill released this spring contained language that would have fast-tracked mining proposals, limited public input and provided for an unprecedented elimination of environmental protections. That bill was shelved after immense public outcry.Written in secret, the bill introduced today, LRB 3520, has many of the same egregious provisions the original contained. The new bill still takes away citizens’ legal rights and eliminates other avenues of public input during the permitting process. The bill eliminates any meaningful DNR review of a mining permit, and at the same time denies the public the chance to hold mining companies accountable for their actions.The bill takes aim at current laws that protect high-quality wetlands, drinking water sources, trout streams, and clean air and water. The language of the bill actually states that the destruction of natural resources “is presumed to be necessary” for a mine.

Assembly Republicans will hold a public hearing on the bill next Wednesday, Dec. 14 at 10 a.m. at Wisconsin State Fair Park. Leadership has indicated this is the only hearing they will have on the bill.“This bill clearly puts the profits of wealthy out-of-state strip mining executives ahead of public health and environmental protections in our state,” says Smith. “A majority of Wisconsinites have already said they don’t support changes to mining law that are detrimental to the environment, but today’s bill ignores that.”

Fall’s Collection Call: 3 ways to responsibly dispose of leaves

Posted on by
2

Autumn is in full swing in Wisconsin. As you rake and collect leaves in the coming weeks, you may be tempted to sneak them in the trash, pile them on the curb or set them ablaze. However, burning leaves emits toxins into the air and can have serious health effects. Throwing them in the trash is illegal in Wisconsin. And piling loose leaves at the curb creates problems for Wisconsin’s wonderful waterways; when rain falls on decomposing leaf piles, phosphorus leaches out and travels into area lakes via storm sewers, leading to stinky, unsightly algae blooms in the summer.

Luckily, there are numerous ways to dispose of your leaves that are beneficial to the environment and your back yard.

  1. “Leaf” them on your lawn Use your mower to mulch leaves into your lawn. The mower cuts the leaves into small pieces, which then fall beneath the grass canopy, returning nutrients to the soil and providing food for beneficial insects and microbes.
  2. Compost Composting requires a delicate balance of nutrients from yard and food waste. When composting leaves, add nitrogen-rich material such as grass clippings and fruit and vegetable scraps to the pile to help it break down. Chop up the leaves for faster composting, or save some to add to your compost pile throughout the year.
  3. Make a mulch Leaves provide a great, free mulch and winter groundcover. Shred your leaves (that’s important!) and pile them atop your annual garden or around perennial plants and shrubs for insulation and protection. Then, in spring, simply till the leaves into the garden.

If these options aren’t available, be wise. Take your leaves directly to a local yard waste collection site. Check the leaf pick-up regulations in your community, but best practices include putting leaves out shortly before pick up to minimize leaching. Place the leaves in a loose pile on the curb, or use compostable lawn bags or cover with a tarp to keep them from blowing around the neighborhood. By responsibly disposing of leaves, we can all help ensure future generations enjoy Wisconsin’s four seasons and wondrous environment.

’80s Throwback: Acid rain law made Wisconsin a leader

Posted on by
Reply

Bavaria, Germany, high-altitude forest damaged by acid rain. Photo by Spitzbergler. From AccuWeather.

Wisconsin passed one of the first and strongest state acid rain control laws in the nation in 1986, making the state a leader in acid rain policy; Clean Wisconsin had an active role in getting that law passed.

Acid rain results from sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides entering the atmosphere. These two pollutants are mainly produced by human activities; sulfur dioxide is a common emission from coal-fired power plants and factories, while nitrogen oxides come from vehicles, engines, coal-fired power plants, factories, even home furnaces.

The Acid Rain Law required Wisconsin’s major electric utility companies to reduce their sulfur dioxide emissions by 50 percent from 1980 emission levels by 1993. It was a great success: By 1990, three years earlier than specified in the law, overall annual sulfur dioxide emissions from Wisconsin electric utility companies had fallen 46 percent, and in 1992, all were in compliance.

The law also sought to raise the pH of Wisconsin’s rain; the pH scale is a measure of a material’s acidity or alkalinity and the lower the number, the more acidic something is on a scale of 0 to 14. Battery acid, for instance, has a relative pH of 1, while milk of magnesia, which helps quell an upset stomach, has a pH factor of 10 to 11. Rain uncontaminated by any pollutants has a pH of 5.0 to 6.0; rain with pH less than 5.0 to be “acid rain.

The higher level of acidity in acid rain makes it a threat to plants, fish and to some manmade materials and structures. Acid rain (or snow or fog or smog) can overwhelm the neutralizing capacity of some soils and lake water, leaving the environment unable to defend itself against the effects of these acids. Look at photos of Germany’s Black Forest and New York’s Adirondack Mountains to see the devastating effects acid rain can have on the natural landscape.

In addition to state law, Congress passed the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990, which contained strong acid rain control measures. This federal law required electric utility companies nationwide to reduce their collective sulfur dioxide emissions by 10 million tons per year (which is a 40-percent reduction) from 1980 emission levels by the year 2000, as well as a reduction in nitrogen oxide emissions of about two million tons per year.

Moving to cleaner, renewable energy sources and increasing energy-efficiency measures would have massive impacts on acid rain in Wisconsin, and Clean Wisconsin continues to work for these policies in the state. You can play a role as well. In addition to supporting our work, reduce your energy consumption with easy actions such as switching to CFLs, turning back your thermostat and purchasing energy-efficient appliances when you need to upgrade to reduce your reliance of coal-powered energy.

7 Boo-illion and Counting

Posted on by
Reply

Our Tuesday Trivia this week asked about a forthcoming milestone: The world is predicted to hit a population of 7 billion on Halloween.

Scary, huh?

A growing population affects the environment as every new body to feed, water, clothe and shelter requires natural resources. And those of us in the United States and other rich, First World countries consume double the resources used by the rest of the world. In fact, the UN estimates that if current population and consumption trends continue, we’ll need the equivalent of two Earths to support us by the 2030s. That’s only 20 years away.

As food for thought, here are three quotes from an article that was published in The Guardian earlier this year:

“It is precisely because our population is so large and growing so fast that we must care, ever more with each generation, how much we as individuals are out of sync with environmental sustainability. Our diets, our modes of moving, and our urge to keep interior temperatures close to 70 degrees Fahrenheit no matter what is happening outside — none of these make us awful people. It’s just that collectively, these behaviors are moving basic planetary systems into danger zones.”

“Simultaneously, we need a swift transformation of energy, water, and materials consumption through conservation, efficiency, and green technologies. We shouldn’t think of these as a sequence of efforts — dealing with consumption first, because population dynamics take time to turn around — but as simultaneous work on multiple fronts. It would be naïve to believe we will arrive at sustainability by wrestling shifting technologies and lifestyles while human population grows indefinitely and most people strive to live as comfortably as Americans do…”

“So should we be afraid on the day we gain a 7 billionth living human being, especially considering UN demographers are now projecting anywhere between 6.2 billion and 15.8 billion people at the end of the century? Fear is not a particularly productive response — courage and a determination to act in the face of risk are the answer. And in this case, there is so much to be done to heal and make sustainable a world of 7 billion breathing human beings that cowering would be not just fatalistic but stupid.”

A discussion on population can certainly take many paths, but we’ll keep this one strictly focused on the environment. Clean Wisconsin is working hard on transforming energy and water policies and issues in the state, but shifting our behaviors, individually and collectively, begins at home. We can still be comfortable turning back the thermostat a few degrees. The taste of a tomato picked fresh from a backyard vine is far superior to that of a tomato shipped thousands of miles from warmer climes … and a little fresh air and dirt does a body good. We can’t sit back idly, simply worrying about food shortages, nuclear winter or insert your other favorite apocalyptic event.

That begins today. What’s one behavior you can change in support of a healthy environment that supports clean air, drinkable water and enough natural resources for us all to enjoy?

On a side note, here’s a fun online tool from BBC to determine, roughly, how you fit in the grand scheme of 7 billion people.