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One doctor’s quest to sound the alarm on ‘wind turbine syndrome’

By the time the pediatrician Nina Pierpont settled in upstate New York, she had already built a rather diverse and full career. As the Connecticut native tells it, she studied birds in the Amazon jungle on her way to earning a Ph.D. in behavioral ecology, then enrolled in medical school, completing a degree and practicing among Navajo Indians and Yup’ik Eskimos. Then she and her husband moved to Malone, N.Y., a small town just 11 miles from the Quebec border, where she opened a pediatric practice.

Over the last several years she has reinvented herself again. Upon hearing about a proposal for a nearby wind farm, Pierpont began looking into effects of wind turbines related to her expertise—medicine. She tracked down others who lived near wind projects—two families in England, five in Canada, one in the U.K., one in Italy, another in the U.S. All 38 people had previously complained about health effects they blamed on wind farms. Several had since moved away. When Pierpont interviewed them by phone, they reported symptoms that included headaches, nausea, insomnia, visual blurring, vertigo, and panic attacks.

Pierpont came to believe that the cause was infrasound, a type of low-frequency sound inaudible to humans except at very loud levels (think the opposite of a high-pitched dog whistle). Residents weren’t merely hearing the thrum of turbines, she concluded, they were feeling it as an imperceptible vibration in their bodies. This was disrupting the inner-ear vestibular system—the body’s chief tool for balance and spatial orientation.

“These feed back neurologically onto a person’s sense of position and motion in space, which is in turn connected in multiple ways to brain functions as disparate as spatial memory and anxiety,” Pierpont, 54, writes in a forthcoming book.

Pierpont with her new book (and navigation added by her website).Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFor this collection of symptoms Pierpont coined the term “wind turbine syndrome.” Then she set to work publicizing it. Her website, windturbinesyndrome.com, documents her writing and collects testimonies from others who say they are afflicted by the condition. Her book of the same name is set for publication this month, available only through the website. A series of news articles have repeated her claims, in the Portland Oregonian, USA Today, and as a Sunday feature in the UK Independent.

Through it all, Pierpont does not claim to have definitive proof the syndrome exists. Rather, she says her findings make further research necessary before wind farms can be safely built within two kilometers of homes and schools. Yet out of all the obstacles wind energy faces—the up-front costs, the competition from subsidized fossil fuels, the aesthetic objections--Pierpont’s claim has become one of the least likely and most annoying problems for the industry.

It is unlikely because it is easily debunked and annoying because it keeps spreading anyway. Pierpont’s work has provided ammunition to those opposing wind farms across the country, from New York to Minnesota to Washington state. Wind advocates could not name a project that had failed because of her claims, but they say opponents of projects have latched onto her claims, bringing stacks of her work to local planning officials, who must do the time-consuming work of sorting through the claims.

“The reason it’s a hassle is that opponents--who frankly don’t like looking at wind turbines--grasp on to a lot of things to oppose projects. This happens to be one of them,” said Tim McMahan, a Portland land-use lawyer who focuses on wind-energy developments in the Northwest.

Pierpont did not respond to multiple interview requests and states on her website that she rarely grants media interviews. Her comments to the Independent suggest she’s willing to play the role of persecuted truth-teller: “The wind industry will try to discredit me and disparage me, but I can cope with that. This is not unlike the tobacco industry dismissing health issues from smoking.”

So here’s what’s wrong with wind-turbine syndrome. First, there’s Pierpont’s method. Her study consisted of 38 people from ten families—by most standards too small to yield conclusive results. All of them self-identified as people who were already experiencing health effects; there was no control group.

Further, acousticians who study the issue say Pierpont fundamentally misunderstands the nature of low-frequency sound. Geoff Leventhall, an English acoustician who retired from the University of London and chairs the European Institute of Noise Control Engineering, agrees that turbines create infrasound that cannot be heard. So do driving with an open window, swinging on a swing set, and even jogging--the slight rise and fall of the head create the effect. Leventhall describes infrasound as a common phenomenon that isn’t dangerous except at extremely high levels, such as those produced by spacecraft. Infrasound from wind turbines does not approach that level, said Leventhall, who recently flew to Wisconsin to testify at a hearing for the proposed Glacier Hills Wind Park.

His critique of “wind turbine syndrome” becomes more technical from there. Essentially, he picks apart Pierpont's claim that bodies absorb infrasound without actually hearing it. At the frequency of infrasound (generally less than 20 Hz), the human body makes plenty of its own noise—the heart pumps, the ribcage expands and contracts. These noises mask whatever turbines might add, Leventhall said. (A very small number of people experience extreme responses to all sorts of sounds, both low and high-frequency, though Leventhall and other experts say this is an unrelated issue.)

“Pierpont has clearly misunderstood much of the acoustic material which she refers to,” he writes in an appraisal of her work he submitted to the Wisconsin project.

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) says it doesn't know how many people live within two kilometers of a turbines--the setback Pierpont recommends. With the growth of wind energy worldwide, the number surely reaches the thousands. Yet it has not led to significant health complaints outside Pierpont's research.

Courtesy windturbinesyndrome.comFinally, there’s the peer review issue. Pierpont’s work has not been accepted by any peer reviewed scientific journals, the standard first step in publishing original research. (See a brief post on why peer review matters in science and medicine.) She describes her book as peer-reviewed, a claim the Independent repeats. But the four-person editorial board consists of Pierpont, her husband (the ecumenically named Calvin Luther Martin), and two others--a professor emeritus of literature and an ecologist and psychologist. “This is obviously a self-published book,” notes Grist contributor Gar Lipow.

Given all this, why has the claim stuck around? As books such as Denialism and Climate Cover-Up attest, it’s far easier to raise and spread rumors than to refute them for good. The inaudible nature of infrasound makes it especially difficult to understand.

“[By] describing a condition that you can’t hear, you can’t feel, and you don’t know it exists, but you tell people it can hurt them, you create this sense of a problem that can’t even be detected,” the land-use lawyer McMahan said of wind-turbine syndrome. “You can get people really worried about it because they have no ability to judge for themselves.”

For any development project, running the gauntlet of local-government approval is rarely simple. There is suspicion of projects that are funded by outside investors—the not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) effect. And wind farms bring their own challenges, with towers clearing 250 feet, highly visible locations offshore or on ridge tops, and their connection to the politically charged issue of climate change.

And then there are legitimate questions about wind-turbine noise—turbines do create sound after all, from both the gearbox (though this has grown much quieter in newer turbines) and from moving blades. It's no more harmful than the noise from new highways or airports, but residents of quiet areas don't react favorably to those things either. Some residents living near turbines find the sound annoying, and this annoyance becomes a health effect when it causes stress.

But annoyance is maddeningly difficult to study--it must be self-reported (it can’t be measured by a machine) and is inherently subjective—one person’s noise is another’s music. A Swedish study in 1967 [PDF] confirmed something we know by experience: your feelings about the source of noise shape whether you find the noise annoying. I react differently to the stereo in my own house than to the music blaring from my neighbor’s party, even if it’s the same song. Those who invest in wind turbines and stand to profit from them are likely to find their sound less disturbing than a neighbor would.

It’s a different issue than the “hidden” sound that concerns Pierpont and her followers. As three University of Massachusetts engineers stress in “Wind Turbine Acoustic Noise” [PDF], the audible swish-swish of turbine blades is not infrasound.

There are good reasons to make this message clear.

“Wind energy generates electricity without air pollution, water pollution, or the carbon emissions that come from traditional sources of energy,” said Jen Banks, a siting specialist at AWEA. “For the sake of human and environmental health, it’s essential that any decisions about wind-energy use are based on sound scientific knowledge.”

The sound issue remains a growing pain for the industry, something it will need to resolve—and communicate effectively—for it to thrive.

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A stone marker in Rugby, N.D. identifies the town as the "Geographic Center of the North American Continent." No marker identifies the state as one of America's top two or three in wind-power potential. Yet North Dakota's vast expanses and steady winds endow it with the capacity to generate more than half as much electricity as all 50 states currently produce from all sources combined, according to a recent Harvard study of U.S. wind energy potential.

Indeed, that potential, equivalent to 2.6 trillion kilowatt-hours annually, is almost 100 times greater than the current output of the state's coal- and lignite-fired generators. And while tapping a goodly share of that capability would require a great many giant turbines -- as many as one per several square miles across the state -- each tower would only occupy a small footprint, leaving the land largely intact for agriculture and other complementary uses. Jobs erecting the towers and servicing the turbines would be another plus.

So how come wind power accounts for just 2 percent (XLS) of North Dakota's electricity generation -- barely matching wind's national share? One obvious reason is lack of transmission capability to reach load centers. But another is the extraordinary cheapness of coal.

In 2007 (the last year for which we have data), the coal and lignite burned in North Dakota power plants cost just under a dollar per million Btu, on average. Picture 12 cent a gallon gasoline, and you get a sense of just how inexpensive that coal is, in equivalent-energy terms.

That's why coal accounts for 93 percent of the state's power production, and why North Dakota is able to export almost two kilowatt-hours of electricity for every one it consumes -- mining, delivering, and burning the stuff is dirt cheap.

Transitioning from coal to wind-powered electricity is probably the biggest single step we can take to dial back our CO2 emissions, and North Dakota and other High Plains states are well-positioned to lead the charge. The best way forward is not to further subsidize wind farms -- Washington already does this through the 2.1 cent/kWh production tax credit -- but to level the playing field with coal by adding an emissions charge to fossil fuel prices.

You have to marvel, then, at the passivity of the state's senators in the ongoing debate over climate legislation. As Bill Chameides of Duke's Nicholas Center on the Environment reported recently, Sen. Kent Conrad has been far more focused on preserving jobs in the state's oil, gas, and agricultural sectors than in helping wind energy compete with dirty coal. His fellow Democrat, Sen. Bryan Dorgan, has inveighed against the cap-and-trade architecture in the Kerry-Boxer bill, warning that "the Wall Street crowd can't wait to sink their teeth into a new trillion-dollar trading market in which hedge funds and investment banks would trade and speculate on carbon credits and securities." Yet Dorgan has offered no alternative means of putting a price on carbon emissions, without which development of wind farms and other clean energy will remain at a snail's pace.

There is a path to a carbon price without Wall Street speculation, of course, and that's a carbon tax that's raised steadily and predictably over time. Distributing the revenues raised by the carbon tax to households on an equal, per capita basis, as Alaska has done for decades with its North Slope oil revenues, would protect families against the rise in energy prices and also ensure that "big government" gets no bigger -- both major concerns in the Plains States as elsewhere.

A revenue-neutral carbon tax, or carbon fee-and-dividend as some prefer to call it, would seem to be just the ticket for Senators from wind-rich states who rightly fear climate change and market speculation. North and South Dakota both celebrated their 120th anniversary last week as members of the union. What better way to harken back to that independent pioneer spirit than to spit in the face of the special interests and help a revenue-neutral carbon tax win a place in the national climate policy debate?

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In some hopeful news for sustainable energy advocates, the latest production numbers from the federal government are out -- and they show that the growth rate of renewable sources continues to outpace nuclear and fossil fuels.

The data come as Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) and John Kerry (D-Mass.) are expected to introduce legislation today designed to curb man-made climate change, with hearings on their bill  -- a counterpart to the one that narrowly passed the House in June -- expected to begin early next month.

While the politics of the climate bill are likely to be even more contentious than health reform, some note with optimism that a shift toward renewables is already underway.

"As Congress debates energy funding priorities and climate legislation, it would do well to take note of the clear trends in the nation's changing energy mix," says Ken Bossong, executive director of the SUN DAY Campaign, a Maryland-based nonprofit research organization that promotes sustainable energy technologies. "Renewable energy has become a major player -- growing rapidly and nipping at the heels of nuclear power -- while fossil fuel use continues to drop."

According to the latest issue of the Monthly Energy Review published by the U.S. Energy Information Administration, renewable energy sources -- biofuels, biomass, geothermal, hydroelectric, solar and wind -- provided 11.37% of domestic U.S. energy production in June 2009, the most recent month for which data is available. That represents a gain since the first half of 2007, when renewable sources accounted for 9.89% of domestic energy production, and from the same period last year, when they represented 10.2% of production.

At the same time, EIA's latest Electric Power Monthly reports that renewable energy sources provided 11.18% of net U.S. electrical generation for the first six months of 2009 -- a significant gain over renewables' 9.9% share for the first half of 2008.

Renewable energy sources grew by 4.62% during the first half of this year compared to the same period last year. Most of that growth came from wind and hydropower, which expanded by 24.54% and 7.14% respectively in the first half of 2009 compared to the first half of 2008.

In comparison, nuclear power increased by only 1.38%, while domestic fossil fuel production actually dropped by 0.7%. Meanwhile, overall consumption of fossil fuels -- including imports -- declined 7.67%.

The numbers for renewable energy are likely to grow even more in the coming months as planned projects get underway.

Those include a new North Carolina effort to develop offshore wind power. Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke Energy and UNC-Chapel Hill are finalizing a contract that would have the company build one to three wind towers in Pamlico Sound while UNC researchers would study environmental impacts, maintenance and other related issues.

At the same time, though, Duke Energy is still investing heavily in new generation from polluting sources, constructing a new $2.4 billion coal-fired power plant at its Cliffside facility in western North Carolina. The Cliffside plant is expected to release to the air annually 6 million tons of carbon dioxide as well as large quantities of chemicals toxic to human health.

Meanwhile, the rate hike the company requested to help pay for the plant has met opposition at public hearings across the state this month, with one local newspaper describing the scene at this week's public hearing in Macon County, N.C. as "a seeming never-ending procession of citizens stating their considered opposition" to the increase, which is also opposed by a grassroots coalition of 25 environmental and public-health advocacy groups.

(This story originally appeared at Facing South.)

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Alexander unveiled his nuclear plan in July.One of the few Congressional Republicans who talks about the need to address climate change, Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, made an interesting argument against wind and solar energy this week. He’s concerned about the amount of land required to produce energy from wind and solar, writing in the Wall Street Journal, “I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment.”

He draws on a recent study by Nature Conservancy scientists who detail how much land is required to produce energy from different sources, an issue they dub “energy sprawl.” Alexander focuses on a small part of their findings—that wind and solar plants require a good deal more physical space than nuclear plants:

It’s a disingenuous argument, because the problem with nuclear power has never been land use. (See Radioactive Waste Disposal, Cost, and Security for more on the very difficult nuclear question.) I’m not arguing here that Alexander’s dead wrong in his long-standing love for nuclear energy, just that this is a thin argument for nuclear.

Oh, and Alexander says he won't support a cap-and-trade climate bill unless it includes his personal wish for 100 new nuke plants.

Bonus second point: If you’re an environmentalist who cares about endangered species and wild places, you shouldn’t be concerned about wind farms or solar plants. You should worry about biofuels.

At least, I’m having a hard time avoiding that conclusion after looking at a key graphic from the energy sprawl report:

Courtesy PLoS ONE

The chart measures the land required per unit (terawatt-hour) of electricity from different sources. Note that the top five sources are all for biofuels, derived from different crops. Note how much less land wind, solar voltaic and solar thermal energy require in comparison.

I won’t rehash the economic and ecological problems with biofuels here, but this should cool off the notion that wind and solar won’t fly for land-use reasons. Of course some places are more sensitive than others, but if there’s room for mountaintop removal coal mining, we have room for wind and solar plants.

There’s a certain man-bites-dog appeal in stories about environmentalists who oppose clean energy projects because they disrupt wild places and endangered species. Take the conflict over solar panels and transmission lines in the Mojave Desert. Or the quarrel over the Cape Wind project at Nantucket Sound. Or the fight over wind turbines in the Flint Hills of Kansas.

These conflicts are intriguing, sure. But the sprawl study, which appeared in PLoS ONE, the online journal of the Public Library of Science, suggests that biofuels such as ethanol pose a far greater threat to open lands.

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Even as China overtakes the U.S. in the dubious category of “world’s leading greenhouse gas producer,” it is also well ahead of the U.S. in developing the technologies and policies to solve the problem -- and selling those solutions to us at massive profits which could have been ours.

On a recent trip, I saw entire Chinese towns powered by farm waste and enough windmills for jousts with ten thousand Don Quixotes. As you read this, China will have just surpassed the U.S. as the leading producer of wind turbines, many of which are exported at very high margins. And to get a sense of just how fast China is leaving us in their rearview mirror, consider this: the Golden Dragon has doubled its wind capacity every year since 2004.

Solar too. I wrote a speech for California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2005 when he visited China on a trade mission. He spoke at Tsinghua University in Beijing, "China’s MIT,” and held up the world’s most efficient solar cell, designed by Silicon Valley’s SunPower Corporation. The cells were being manufactured in China for export back to the states, but SunPower had to double capacity because of Chinese domestic demand. Schwarzenegger noted that a student in the audience might design the next/better solar cell someday -- and every head nodded with knowing smiles. So while we have already lost the battle for low-cost, high-tech manufacturing, we may soon lose bragging rights and IP royalties when our designs are surpassed by China.

One reason China is leaving us in the dust is a shrewd government that has invested 40% of its stimulus funding in green companies, compared to just 12% by U.S. taxpayers, ensuring the rapid growth of the economic gift that keeps on giving. They also get the money out the door -- compare our Department of Energy, which is still mired in communist-era bureaucracy and can’t ever seem to pull the trigger on loan guarantees/grants for projects that actually work. The secret is that the Chinese government fast-tracks projects that create economies of scale, recently approving a 25 square mile solar farm. That helps Chinese companies get costs down and become even more competitive globally.

The final ingredient in the fast-rising Chinese cleantech soufflé is finance. When I spoke in Hong Kong to investors, pension funds, and shoe shine boys with coins to invest, they are all putting money into these clean technology companies and looking for more. That includes real estate investors, who are looking for green development projects with LEED or other certified efficiencies. My firm, Pegasus Sustainable Century Merchant Bank, recently partnered with Ross Perot’s Hillwood Realty to host a US tour for the China Real Estate Chamber of Commerce and 30 of their investors. They’re looking at green projects, but also figuring out which energy efficiency and green building products they can take back to China for use in their own developments.

But never fear: everyone I spoke to in China’s government and private sector was very polite. They are willing to share all of this with the rest of the world -- at the right price, of course. See you at the race track!

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As the world meets this December to set plans to halt global warming, it is expected America and other industrial nations will commit to a daunting task: reduce CO2 emissions 80% by 2050. In just 40 years, a complete revolution in how we use and supply our power must happen, or the world will face catastrophic effects of runaway climate changes.

As a new power plant typically lasts 40-50 years, many scientists are now arguing we must simply stop building new power systems that use significant amounts of fossil fuels. They argue we must move to a high reliance on the wind and the sun for our electricity.

Abundant Power. The U.S. has enormous wind resources, capable of generating over 20% of U.S. electricity from wind by 2030 (PDF), according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The sunlight falling on our deserts, parking lots, and rooftops has even more power -- enough to supply 69% of U.S. electricity by 2050 according to published studies.

Other renewable power sources -- such as geothermal energy, municipal waste-to-energy, and biomass -- will also play a role, but they pale in size compared to the gargantuan resources of wind and sunlight.

How We Use Energy vs. How Nature Provides. Though nature provides all the energy we may need, there is a problem. We demand power literally "at the flick of a switch", not just when the wind is blowing or the sun is shining.

This basic fact about how we use power versus how nature supplies clean energy has caused many to discount the idea that wind or solar power can ever supply more than a small fraction of our electricity. Critics of renewable electricity call it "intermittent" and "unreliable". They say we can't "catch the wind", nor can we command the sun to always shine.

These critics see two possible choices for the future. We can develop more stable supplies of renewable energy by coupling wind and solar projects with storage. Failing that, they argue we should give up on renewables as a primary source of electricity, and instead build more nuclear power.

The flaw in the nuclear path, beyond its tremendous cost, long lead times, and imported fuel, is that nuclear is not actually "dispatchable" power. Nuclear plants are designed to run all the time at fairly steady output -- meaning nuclear power cannot provide the "peaking power" now provided by gas turbines. Thus, a nuclear path would still rely heavily on fossil fuel power plants to "ramp up" on a daily basis to provide the power needed during these daily swings.

A truly dispatchable system providing over 80% reductions in carbon emissions, therefore, must rely on some form of energy storage. The energy storage can allow us to fully utilize wind and sunlight as our main power sources -- supplying both "base load" power and dispatchable daily peaking power with energy from these inexhaustible supplies.

Energy Storage and Today's Grid. Despite critics, wind farms and solar photovoltaics are already feeding zero-fuel-cost power into today's electric grid with little or no energy storage. At current levels, the fluctuations in wind and solar output are backed up by the same "load-following" and "peaker" natural gas power plants that already must handle wild fluctuations in customers' demands for electricity. Indeed, the DOE's "20% Wind by 2030" scenario modeled how wind could supply this very significant portion of U.S. electricity needs even with no storage of the wind power.

As long as natural gas remains cheap and acceptable to use, many argue that developing ways to store wind or solar energy may be a case of "a solution in search of a problem". They note natural gas peaking plants are cheap to build and don't need to operate much more than they already do, to provide firming power to renewables.

"Different sectors like to associate with wind power,' the NY Times quoted Robert E. Gramlich, policy director at the American Wind Energy Association. "But we don't want to give anyone the impression that storage is needed to integrate wind. Even growing 20-fold, storage isn't needed."

A Better Way. Though wind and solar can be integrated without storage for a long time to come, energy storage proponents argue that coupling wind or solar power with utility scale energy storage is a "Better Way". If stored wind or solar energy instead of natural gas plants can be used to generate power when the wind is not blowing or the sun is not shining, less natural gas will be burned to provide dispatchable power.

Though storage will cost money, burning less natural gas will save money on fuel costs. Also, there are now times when excess wind farm kWh's have been sold onto the grid at extremely low prices or even given away, because they occurred in the middle of the night when there was very low demand for power. Storing that wind energy, for sale of kWh's the next day when prices are higher, would generate more revenue. While less dramatic, solar power production can also be shifted to higher-demand periods, from solar noon to late afternoon/early evening when utilities typically experience maximum summer peak demands.

The most important motivator, however, to find a "Better Way" is the need to achieve phenomenal reductions in CO2 emissions. While it may take until 2030 to reach a 20% contribution to the grid, what then? Going beyond this level will require dispatchable renewable power. Twenty years is within the lifetime of any new power plant built today, so storage proponents argue we should already be building to achieve minimum levels of fossil fuel use.

Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES). A proven technology, ready to use now, for economical storage of massive amounts of renewable power is to compress air at very high pressures, and store this compressed air in large underground caverns, depleted wells, or aquifers. When the wind turbines and solar plants reduce output, and power is needed, the compressed air is released and run through turbines to generate power:

Source: Scientific American

Because the caverns or aquifers are so large, hundreds of hours of output can be stored, providing the ability to cover very long "doldrum" wind periods or stretches of cloudy days. Most CAES turbines can also run in natural gas-only mode in the extreme event the cavern becomes fully depleted. A reliable, fully dispatchable electricity generation system is provided.

CAES has a well established track record at scale. A 280 MW plant in Hunthorf, Germany has run since 1978, and a 110 MW plant at McIntosh, Alabama has been in continuous operation since 1991.

CAES systems use gas turbines almost identical to normal natural gas peaking turbines. However, they only use about 1/3 the natural gas, because 2/3 of the natural gas energy in a regular turbine is used to compress air before it enters the turbines, and this compressed air would now be supplied by the stored air. Natural gas would still be needed to heat the air before it enters the turbines.

CO2 Reductions. While not a 100% carbon free power system, a wind or solar coupled CAES power plant system can achieve >80% reductions in fossil fuel use. A baseload CAES/wind system (designed to provide at least 85% Capacity Factor power to the grid) would typically provide half of its total power directly from the wind farm to the grid, without cycling through the CAES plant. The other half of kWh's supplied to the grid would come from stored energy in the CAES, at about 1/3 normal fossil fuel use. Total fossil fuel use per delivered kWh would thus drop to roughly 1/6 of a normal fossil fuel plant, an over 80% reduction in CO2 output.

A carbon-free electric system is also possible, with CAES plants fitted with thermal storage. The thermal storage would store heat from compressing the air, for later use to heat the air going to the turbines. Known as "adiabatic" CAES plants, the stored thermal energy replaces the need for natural gas, causing the entire system to run on renewable power alone. Because thermal storage is costly, it is not expected CAES plants installed in the next decade will include it. However, a regular CAES plant can later be retrofitted with thermal storage, when it becomes more economical or society demands zero-carbon power.

Geological Formations Suitable for CAES. A nationwide network of CAES plants could use the same types of geological formations, and depleted gas wells, as are currently used to store most of the nation's natural gas supplies. Wide areas of the U.S. -- most notably the wind-rich central states -- have these formations and depleted wells:

Source: Coha and Louks (1991)

Cost of Renewable/CAES Power Systems. Because the caverns, aquifers, and wells are already there, CAES offers very economical energy storage.

Estimates for CAES plants range from $750/kW of generating capacity up to about $1,200/kW, with the difference being primarily the number of hours of energy storage. A wind farm/CAES system (taken as a whole) capable of providing baseload capacity factors of 85% could be built for around $5,900/kW of equivalent baseload capacity, including the wind farm itself and the CAES facility. While this is far more than a natural gas plant, it is comparable to a new coal fired power plant and at least 1/3 less costly than the same capacity if added through nuclear power.

Unlike a nuclear or coal plant, the CAES plant would be fully dispatchable power, able to increase and decrease its output along with fluctuating customer demand. This flexibility is a major advantage for usefulness to the electric grid.

Total costs/kWh from this system would also be competitive. Estimates indicate that if the wind farm is built with the 30% Federal Tax Credit (still available through 2012), a total wind/CAES system could deliver baseload power to the grid at about 10.5 cents/kWh. This cost would rise to about 13.0 cents/kWh without the wind Tax Credit. (Effectively, the Tax Credit if used wisely could pay for the CAES plant to convert an intermittent wind farm into firm, dispatchable power.)

Though more expensive than kWh's from a new baseload natural gas power plant (which would probably be about 9 cents/kWh), a wind/CAES system would be well protected from future fuel cost increases. Also, at 10.5-13.0 cents/kWh, the baseload wind/CAES system would only be about half the cost/kWh from a new nuclear power plant.

Pump Water Up and Let it Fall Back Down. Pumped hydro-electric storage is just that simple -- when you want to store energy, use electricity to pump water to a high level. Then, whenever power is needed, let the water fall through hydroelectric turbines to generate power. You don't get all your electricity back (about 22% is lost), but you get it when you need it. This enables you to accept power from renewable sources when not needed, and store it for use later.

Pumped hydro storage is the largest utility energy storage method in the world, with 20,800 MW already in use in the U.S. However, its use has slowed because of limited sites for hydroelectric power dams.

Enter Riverbank Power Corporation, with its simple idea: combine two well-established technologies into one. First, use standard deep mining techniques to create a large cavern 2,000 feet deep, under a body of water such as a river or abandoned quarry. Then, install 4 gigantic 250 MW hydroelectric turbines at the bottom of shafts, for a massive 1,000 MW power supply available on demand. When power is needed, let water fall down the shafts and generate power. When renewable power is available, pump the water back up.

Source: Riverbank Power

Riverbank Power is now actively exploring 15 sites in the U.S. and Canada, for selection of its first five 1,000 MW pumped hydro (AquabankTM) facilities. Wiscasset, ME is high on the list, where Riverbank has already performed successful bore hole tests of the underlying rock. The Wiscasset site is very symbolic, as it is the home of the former Maine Yankee nuclear power plant, decommissioned more than a decade ago. A boon to Riverbank Power is the site is still set up to connect directly to the transmission grid.

Costs. Because Riverbank Power has to dig out its own cavern, its cost to construct is significantly higher than a CAES plant -- estimated at $2 Billion for the 1,000 MW facilities, or roughly $2,000/kW. Also, instead of dozens or hundreds of hours of storage, Riverbank plants are designed to run for 6 continuous hours before the water would need to be pumped back up. The timetable is good for hour-to-hour or minute-to-minute fluctuations but not long stretches with no wind or sun.

Riverbank is confident of its business plan, and is not asking for taxpayer or utility dollars. Its turbines use no fossil fuels, and the facility should last 100 years. The company plans to buy power at cheap prices, and sell power when it is needed more, at a higher price.

If it does that for 100 years, the Company feels it should pay for the initial $2 Billion investment many times over, while creating jobs and giving green energy developers a solid market for their power.

Batteries to Store Power When and Where Needed. While both CAES and pumped hydro storage plants hold the promise of very large scale economical storage, they both require special siting. CAES requires an available underground cavern, well, or aquifer, while pumped hydro requires a water resource. Batteries, however, can go virtually anywhere, and take almost no lead time compared to the larger projects.

Xtreme Power is a company out there today, already selling product, by identifying customers who have needs and who are willing to pay for solutions. The company has a systems approach employing modular battery packs that can be scaled to provide Mwh of power storage, together with power electronics control systems.

Xtreme Power can shift 4 hours of power to a later time, for roughly 5-10 cents/kWh. In many electricity markets, the difference in value between different times of the day can more than pay for this cost.

The company has some large scale systems going in before the end of this year, and plans to deliver at least 75 - 100 Mwh of power storage in 2010, with more that can be delivered. Most of its customers are large solar and wind developers, who are eager for a solution and ready to pay for it now.

NGK Insulators

Sodium Sulfur (NaS) Batteries. Another battery solution which is also already commercially available is sodium sulfur. Xcel Energy has a 1 MW NaS battery installation underway from NGK Insulators to store up to 7.2 Mwh (in other words, over 7 hours of power), of wind energy for use when most needed. The system will be adjacent to an 11-MW wind farm owned by Minwind Energy LLC, in Luverne, Minnesota.

Let's Not Store These Ideas For Later. When renewable energy was still a long way off, the solution to energy storage seemed to be the unattainable "Holy Grail". It was always to be found, yet never found.

Now, however, the answers are actually here, and they are simpler and plainer than we expected, Store air. Pump water. Use advanced batteries. Like Indiana Jones in his Last Crusade, we need to know when the true Grail is right in front of us.

As Michael Breen from Xtreme Power told me, "Let's stop jabbering about it ... We just need more demonstration units so the industry can talk about this more intelligently."

This is now happening. Is the Holy Grail finally found?

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Sen. Tim JohnsonSouth Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson (D), listed as one of our fence-sitters on climate legislation, seems to be taking more of a strident stance in favor of passing a bill this year.

In a column he recently penned and posted on his Senate website, Johnson argues that the climate change bill "could bring jobs, prosperity and clean air" to the country and his wind-swept state of South Dakota.

"Soon the Senate will consider climate change legislation that could finally help South Dakota to live up to its wind generating potential and capture the benefits of a cash crop that is just blowing across our landscape," wrote Johnson. "In fact, the wind energy potential in South Dakota can put us in a leading position to reduce our nation’s dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels and get America running on clean energy."

"This is a chance to invest in American ingenuity and help our country become a global leader on clean energy that can jumpstart our economy," he continued.

Here's the full column:

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Far from their sometimes musty, dusty reputations, many museums in the U.S. stand on the cutting edge of eco-innovation. Whether it’s behind the scenes (using recycled materials to build exhibits, renovating to LEED standards) or inescapably out front (a whole museum dedicated to wind power), museums are showing visitors the green light. Take our tour—admission is free!

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Nina Pierpont is a long-time, self-published advocate of the view that living within a kilometer or two of industrial scale wind farms can cause migraines, sleep deprivation, and other serious symptoms and long term damage. Now she's gained mainstream attention by claiming that her new (self-published) book Wind Turbine Syndrome: A Natural Experiment is peer-reviewed.

Note, however, that the imprint publishing this work, K-Selected Books, has a four-person editorial board consisting of Pierpont, her husband Calvin Luther Martin, and two other members. Pierpont's husband is also the book's editor. Her book only can be ordered only from her website. The "publisher" website is a page on Pierpont's site. This is obviously a self-published book.

Valid peer-review is, by nature, independent. While authors are encouraged (and sometimes required) to suggest possible peer reviewers, the final selection of reviewers in valid refereeing is never made by people closely related to the author, or hired by the author. Pierpont being on the editorial board of a company that she claims oversaw a peer review process is itself a scandal. I would be curious to know who the actual editor was who made the final selection of referees. Was it someone other than her husband?

Here is the sad thing: People make non-peer-reviewed arguments every day. Non-fiction that is not peer reviewed has been known to end up on the best-seller list and influence public debate. In falsely claiming valid peer review, Pierpont has undermined the credibility of her arguments far more than non-peer reviewed publication would have. Valid arguments do not need to be shored up by carefully planned deceit.

Pierpont's work has been widely disputed in peer-reviewed publications. This dishonesty does not encourage me to believe her over her opponents.

Shame on Pierpont for using such deceit to prop up her case. Shame on the Independent for not even bothering to read the Pierpont website carefully enough to detect this poorly concealed deception.

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The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah

"Convoys of turbine parts for windmills slow traffic and attract attention in coastal towns like Searsport, Me., on their way to western Maine" - the caption from the absurd NYT piece, "Slow, Costly and Often Dangerous Road to Wind Power."

So here's the news.

The NYT, however, manages to find nothing but lemons in clean energy, while making the tastiest lemonade out of the dirtiest of fossil fuels:

Finally we have Kate Galbraith's piece, which basically contradicts Krauss's story and which in any other newspaper would be the lamest story they ever wrote on clean energy.

If the NYT's coverage of energy hadn't been so atrociously one-sided, this story of the travails of getting huge wind turbines trucked through small towns would be an interesting sidebar to the real story of the explosive growth in domestic manufacturing of wind turbine parts.

So let me ignore most of her story and excerpt the real news:

As demand for clean energy grows....

Last year 24 states opened, expanded or announced turbine manufacturing plants, according to the American Wind Energy Association. By value, about half of turbine parts are now manufactured in the United States, said Mr. Dunlop of the wind association....

The vast majority of turbine parts travel by truck, but in Texas and elsewhere, some wind companies are looking to move more turbine parts by train to save money. General Electric, a big turbine maker, says rail transport can be up to 50 percent cheaper over long distances, and the rail company Union Pacific saw its wind-related shipments more than double last year.

So as we ship less coal by train, we can ship more turbine blades.  How is that for a win-win?

As the NYT desperately searches for any bad news it can publish about clean energy, perhaps it's time for them to change their motto from "all the news that's fit to print" to "every silver lining has a cloud."

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The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah

Back in 2008, Christina Archer and Mark Z Jacobson published data (PDF)[1] showing worldwide commercial wind potential exceeded world energy use by many times. A new peer reviewed study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences now confirms (PDF)[2] this, and further shows that this potential is not limited to a lucky few. Most of the world's continents and nations could provide all their energy from wind, including China, the UK, Russia and India. Nations (such as Korea) which lack wind resources have neighbors with spare potential. While wind is only one source of clean energy, this helps emphasize that we have the technical capacity to replace dirty power. The obstacles are political; we have the means if we choose to use them.

-----

[1] Cristina L. Archer and Mark Z. Jacobson, "Evaluation of Global Wind Power,". Journal of Geophysical Research - Atmospheres 110, no. D12 30-Jun 2005, American Geophysical Union, 20-Jan-2008

[2] Xi Lua, Michael B. McElroy, and Juha Kiviluomac; "Global potential for wind-generated electricity"; Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America; June 22, 2009

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The oil, gas, and electricity sectors spent tens of millions more to lobby Congress in the first quarter of 2009 than their renewable-energy counterparts. Big whoop, right? You could have guessed that.

But the disparity between their spending -- at a time when Congress is seriously considering far-reaching climate and energy legislation -- is striking.

According to the latest lobbying data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics, the oil and gas industry spent nearly $44.6 million lobbying Congress in just the first three months of this year, and ranked second only to the health care and pharmaceutical industries in total spending. Electric utilities spent $34.4 million, and businesses in the energy and natural resources sector as a whole spent $102.7 million.

To find out how much clean-energy businesses spent, you have to search down into the "miscellaneous energy" category, which includes wind, solar, biofuels, hydro, and other industries -- and even then their combined spending only totaled $14.4 million. The American Wind Energy Association was the biggest renewable spender in that category, at $1.2 million. No other organization or company in the category topped $1 million.

Environmental groups have spent even less -- just $4.7 million so far in 2009. The biggest spender among green groups was the Environmental Defense Action Fund, which laid out $300,000.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a staunch opponent of climate action, tops the list of individual spenders on all issues, at $15.5 million. Also on that list: ExxonMobil at $9.3 million, Chevron at $6.8 million, ConocoPhillips at $6 million, and General Electric at $4.8 million.

Of course, it would be wrong to assume that all of these big-energy spenders are lobbying against a climate bill. ConocoPhillips and GE, for example, are both members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, and ConocoPhillips' senior vice president testified in support of the House climate and energy bill last month. But it does give you a sense of just how much renewable-energy groups and enviros are being outspent on the Hill.

Energy and environment both ranked among the 10 issues that have generated the most lobbying so far this year. And as the climate debate drags on this Congress, energy is likely to remain a top focus for big spenders.

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Obama headed to Copenhagen, sets the bar for success

Obama going to Copenhagen

Fortune Magazine's annual Brainstorm Green confab in sybaritic Southern California locales brings together Fortune 500 types (naturally), green tech entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, and environmentalists. As such it's a barometer of sorts for the state of green in the Green State.

At last year's conference, the chatter was all about tech and the latest cool green innovations. But at the event that concluded this week on Earth Day, the suits, scientists, and activists sounded more like a bunch of Washington wonks than Silicon Valley geeks. In the Obama era, innovative public policy will drive green tech as much as the latest high-tech solar breakthrough. (Disclosure: I'm a Fortune contributing editor and helped organize Brainstorm Green.)

When Ford Executive Chairman Bill Ford took the stage, the auto industry scion and early electric-car enthusiast wanted to talk taxes. Gas taxes. He's in favor of 'em. "When gasoline went to $3.50, we saw a sea change in customer behavior," he said. "Now people are turning away from more fuel-efficient vehicles and taking the bigger vehicles."

In other words, Ford doesn't want customers ditching his latest alt-energy car for a monster SUV because the Saudis send gasoline prices plummeting. "I've been talking about the need for a gas tax," said Ford. "We need a much more stable planning horizon. That's not just true for gasoline but for any fuel we use."

"We can't go on with fossil-fuel burning the way we are now," he added. "We can't go on with cheap gas forever."

If the prospect of a Detroit auto chieftain calling on the government to send to the scrap heap its most profitable products might have caused conference-goers to fall out of their Aeron chairs a year to two ago, it was par for the course this week.

Listen to Peter Darbee, CEO of San Francisco-based PG&E -- one of the United States' largest utilities -- on the bottlenecks to building a green energy transmission grid. "If you look at what happened in World War II, we transformed an economy in two years from a civilian peacetime economy to a wartime," he said. "We need to do that in California and across the nation ... So government needs to stop getting in the way and start getting in there constructively and making these projects work if we are going to meet the challenge of climate change."

(Which is not to say that PG&E is not putting itself on the outer limits green tech – last week it signed a deal for the world's first space-based solar power plant.)

At last year's Brainstorm Green, Wilber James, a VC with Rockport Capital Partners, extolled the technological virtues of the Think Global, the Norwegian electric carmaker in whose North American operation his firm had taken a large stake. When I ran into him this week, he was ranting about Norwegian industrial policy, or the lack thereof. The global financial crisis has idled Think's auto factory outside Oslo, and Norway's government has refused to give the company a loan guarantee to restart production of its City electric car.

"The Norwegian government has made trillions from North Sea oil and they can't give Think $10 million!" James fumed, noting approvingly that three U.S. states are putting tax breaks and cash on the table in a bid to become the site of Think North America's first U.S. factory.

Van Jones, the newly appointed special green jobs advisor to President Obama, spoke of a decidedly low-tech approach to generating environmentally friendly employment. "We're not talking about sexy, Buck Rogers, space-age stuff most of the time," he told the audience. "We're talking about caulking guns most of the time."

The three words that were on everyone's lips this week were "cap and trade," and throughout the conference you could overhear solar startup founders, wind farmers, and utility executives debating the intricacies of auctioning carbon permits.

Still, technological innovation didn't entirely take a backseat to policy pronouncements. Bob Gates, an executive with California wind-turbine maker Clipper Windpower, said the next frontier in wind won't just be massive offshore wind farms but a new generation of highly efficient smaller turbines that can be placed near cities as to avoid having to build massive new transmission projects.

And Shai Agassi, CEO of Silicon Valley electric-vehicle infrastructure company Better Place, unveiled the first electric version of the corner gas station (it'll be demo'd next month in Japan). Drive your EV into the $500,000 battery-swapping station and in 40 seconds a robot positioned under the car unlatches the battery compartment door, removes the drained battery, and installs a fresh one, soothing drivers' "range anxiety" that they'll be stuck in the boonies with a dead battery.

The confab ended with a speech by former President Bill Clinton -- looking tan, rested, and ready -- who spent most of an hour talking policy, but ended with a plea to just do it when it comes to fighting climate change.

"If you prove the economics, you can completely swamp the skeptics."

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President Barack Obama made an Earth Day visit to Newton, Iowa, on Wednesday, where he toured a manufacturing facility that produces towers for wind turbines and touted his climate and energy agenda.

Trinity Structural Towers, housed in a former Maytag appliance factory, employs dozens of former Maytag workers.

“The choice we face is not between saving our environment and saving our economy -- it’s a choice between prosperity and decline,” said Obama. “The nation that leads the world in creating new sources of clean energy will be the nation that leads the 21st century global economy.”

Obama also announced that his administration is taking steps to begin leasing tracts of offshore federal land for the development of wind, wave, and ocean-current energy sources. He said the move will "open the door to major investments" in projects on the Outer Continental Shelf.

He reiterated his call for comprehensive climate and energy legislation from Congress. "The fact is, we place limits on pollutants like sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, and other harmful emissions. But we haven’t placed any limits on carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases," said Obama. "This is called the carbon loophole."

Putting a price on carbon and creating green industries should be the legacy of this generation, he said.  "A legacy of vehicles powered by clean, renewable energy traveling past newly opened factories; of burgeoning industries employing millions of Americans in the work of protecting our planet; of an economy exporting the energy of the future instead of importing the energy of the past; of a nation once again leading the world to meet the challenges of our time."

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This is part two of my chapter, "Green jobs in a sustainable economy", published recently in the book "Mandate for Change".  You can also read part one, in which I discuss the first three ways in which to create an environmentally sustainable economy.

Fourth, in the United States today, about two-thirds of our electricity and one-third of our natural gas is used within residential and commercial buildings. Heating and cooling accounts for almost all of the natural gas use in commercial and residential buildings, and accounts for 30 percent of all electrical use in the country. And those natural gas and electric bills are going up, threatening to make life miserable for tens of millions of households in winters or summers.

Decreasing the heating and cooling needs of buildings would therefore lead to significant reductions in carbon emissions and lower energy bills. Thus, retrofitting old buildings, making them more energy-efficient, and constructing sustainable buildings will be essential occupations in a green society.

If buildings were able to heat and cool themselves, enough electric generation could be eliminated, and enough natural gas could be diverted into electricity generation, that all coal plants could be shut down. This could be achieved in a number of ways: first, by installing geothermal heat pumps under buildings in order to take care of heating and cooling needs; second, by installing solar photovoltaic systems, for direct electrical heating and cooling, or in order to power the geothermal heat pumps; third, by installing solar thermal units for heating needs; or some combination of the three, which would probably involve battery storage in the building. In other words, to a significant extent, buildings can become energy self-reliant.

Millions of green-collar jobs would be needed for these programs. Within metropolitan areas, low-income neighborhoods can provide much of the labor for turning urban buildings into carbon-neutral structures, as has been mandated in the Green Collar Jobs Bill, which will create a Pathways out of Poverty program. For too long, people from outside low-income areas have been the beneficiaries of construction there, so it is imperative that labor pools hired to create sustainable buildings in low-income areas be filled by the residents of those neighborhoods.

The two roadblocks to self-reliant buildings are financing and skilled labor. An Infrastructure Bank could help overcome both problems. It could follow the lead of the City of Berkeley, which offers loans to homeowners to install solar photovoltaic panels, paying back the loan with the savings from lower electricity bills. The Bank could overcome the second problem by overseeing training institutes for green-collar jobs. Eventually, as in transportation, all building construction jobs could be green-collar jobs.

Fifth, while buildings could provide much of the energy for their own needs, in order to green the energy sector we would need wind- and solar-based electricity generated at the metropolitan level in order to help minimize the use of coal and natural gas. Local electric authorities could establish region-based, medium-sized renewable electrical systems.

Many metropolitan areas have been creating a ,community choice aggregation, or CCA. In a CCA, the metropolitan government uses its power to control the electrical distribution in its territory to contract out the generation of electricity to an energy-service provider (ESP), who is usually required to provide a certain percentage of electricity from solar and wind energy, as well as from conservation. For example, San Francisco is requiring its ESP to provide 103 MW (megawatts) from distributed renewables, mostly PV (solar voltaics) on buildings; 150 MW from a wind farm; and 107 MW from conservation and efficiency. That should constitute 51 percent of San Francisco’s electricity needs.

If CCAs or other kinds of urban electric authorities (such as municipal utilities) spread throughout the country, it would create a perfect opportunity to use labor trained in the metropolitan area to install and maintain the energy systems.

Note that conservation and efficiency can be considered a part of the energy mix, creating a great potential for local employment. A local government could hire thousands of energy auditors to help building owners maximize the energy potential of their buildings. In addition, a “smart grid” can be installed in each region, allowing the local ESP to rationally run or shut down appliances within a building depending on the price of electricity at particular points in time; this will require more service personnel to make sure that the system lives up to its potential.

Sixth, even with building- and metropolitan-based energy systems, the needs of an electrified transportation system would require a national system of solar and wind facilities; in addition, the capability to access electricity from anywhere in the country helps insure that everybody will always have electricity, even if the local sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing. A National Electric Authority could be established with two main responsibilities: rebuild the national electric grid, and help create large, long-distance concentrated solar power (CSP) and wind farms.

The current national electric grid, which moves electricity from power plants to the industrial, commercial and residential buildings were the electricity is used, is in desperate need of repair. Each piece is owned by a different utility, and the regulatory environment is such that there is little incentive to maintain it, much less upgrade it to the level that will be required to add rich sources of wind and solar energy. In addition, an authority would need to build a system of high-voltage direct current (HVDC) lines, which would be a more efficient way to move electricity from large-scale renewable energy sources to the rest of the country.

The American Southwest contains enough solar energy potential to supply all of the electricity for the entire country. The Great Plains, such as North Dakota or parts of Texas, likewise contains enough wind power potential to fill all of our current electrical needs, and then some.9 A National Electric Authority could oversee the construction of large-scale CSP, wind farms and the upgrading of the national grid.

The labor trained by the Institutes could help to install and maintain these large-scale systems. The creation of a continent-wide, high-tech electric grid, fed by carbon-free energy sources, would create millions of high-skilled green jobs. In combination with the building and metropolitan energy systems, the energy sector could be transformed from an environmentally damaging industry into a completely green-collar one.

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Washington state’s Initiative 937, the renewable energy bill voters approved in 2006, looks to be safe from meddling state legislators. From Josh Feit at Publicola:

Lawmakers have been considering loosening restrictions in the measure, which was meant to ramp up wind and solar energy production in the state. Feit suggests the original plan is safe for now.

Some background on the bill from Publicola:

A March 24 AP story recounts some of the legislative tussle. It also dips into the debate over old renewables (hydropower) versus new renewables, an interesting question in the dam-dependent Northwest.

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The Wind Kids: How high school students helped bring a wind farm to Milford, Utah

Fortunately for your humble correspondent, Van Jones was so busy when the editors of the new book, Mandate for Change: Policies and leadership for 2009 and beyond, were looking for an author for their chapter about green jobs, that they turned to me instead.  This is part one of three posts that will serialize my chapter.  There are over 40 great contributors besides me, your humble ... well, anyway, buy the book!

We face several simultaneous crises—global warming, high oil prices, a brittle agricultural system and a major economic slowdown—all of which can be addressed at the same time by embarking on a program of creating millions of high-quality green collar jobs.

A green-collar jobs program can help create an environmentally and economically sustainable society that: drastically reduces its greenhouse gas emissions; encourages energy independence from oil; eliminates the worry of heating and cooling one’s home; and increases food security, all while providing millions of high-quality, well-paying, long-term jobs, thus bringing millions of people into a stable middle class.

The following eight initiatives could result in transportation, energy, building construction, agricultural and manufacturing sectors that would have very low carbon emissions, would be economically and ecologically sustainable for the foreseeable future, and whose workers and employees would all be green-collar.

First, the infrastructure of the United States is crumbling, which means that there is plenty of work to do even without worries about global warming, oil and food. We should build a sustainable infrastructure, not just maintain the one that we have.

Senators Chris Dodd and Chuck Hagel introduced a bill in 2007, the National Infrastructure Bank Act [PDF], which is a good starting point for a discussion about how to rebuild the country’s infrastructure. Infrastructure funding has been inadequate for decades, and we need an institution that can provide long-term stability of funding.

However, the federal government should go even further and create a bank that also develops human capital. The bank could be called an Infrastructure Capital Development Bank, one that would, in addition to providing funding for infrastructure construction, run a network of Training Institutes that would train the millions of people we need in order to build a sustainable economy. Green-collar jobs need green-collar job classes.

In addition, the Bank could help businesses start up or expand their green-collar activities, with financial help and/or by providing technical assistance. If desired, the Bank could help these firms become employee-owned-and-operated, thus increasing efficiency and insuring that jobs stay in the United States.

Second, our transportation industries are in trouble because the era of cheap oil is over, and at the same time we need to drastically cut our carbon emissions. For inter-city travel, our infrastructure has been built around airplanes, cars and trucks. In much of the world, however, trains of various kinds fulfill the roles of intercity passenger and freight transportation. In the United States, the incoming Administration has a chance to jump-start the construction of a national network of electrified high-speed passenger and freight trains.

At least initially, foreign companies will be the only ones with the expertise to produce high-speed trains. If domestic content legislation was passed, these companies and the hundreds of subcontractors that would be needed for such systems could employ a whole new generation of high-skill blue-collar, or blue-green-collar workers.

High-speed rail is the cutting edge of transportation technology, having been developed even more recently than air travel, much less the 100-year-plus old technology of the internal combustion engine. There are already several federally recognized high-speed rail networks “in waiting,” around Chicago, Ohio, Texas, Florida and California, in addition to the one between Boston and Washington, D.C., which could certainly be expanded.

A national system of high-speed rail could do in the twenty-first century what the Interstate Highway System did for the United States after World War II: create the infrastructure for a period of high-speed economic growth. In addition, if the rail system was powered by solar and wind-generated electricity, the United States would have the first carbon-free inter-city transportation system in the world.

Third, as oil prices increase, so does the demand for public transportation. Subways and light rail can be run on renewable electricity, and commuter rail systems can be expanded and electrified. In addition, many cities are contemplating bus rapid transit, pioneered in Curitaba, Colombia, which allow buses to move much faster and more comfortably.

Currently, as in the case of high-speed rail, there are no domestic primary contractors for subway construction, but in the case of New York State, domestic content laws have led to the establishment of many subway construction factories, and the same could be mandated across the country. Again, these are blue-green-collar jobs, jobs in industry that will help us move toward a zero carbon emission economy, while making us energy independent and more secure.

Another advantage to public transit is that it will encourage the development of dense, “mixed-use” city and town areas, that is, areas that are composed of apartment buildings, stores, offices and other kinds of buildings. Christopher Leinberger of the Brookings Institution calls for the construction of “walkable urbanism” that is, “the development approach that creates pedestrian-oriented, mixed-use and mixed-income places.” When there are fixed subway or light rail stops, then developers, prospective residents and store owners can be confident that there will be fast and easy transportation to any residence or store.

The construction of dense, mixed use buildings near transit stops will bring about a construction boom for decades to come. Building construction or reconstruction, not normally considered “green,” should be so categorized if new construction takes place near transit stops. There are two ways to make buildings “green”—make them energy efficient, and place them in dense areas next to transit stops.

Thus, public transit decreases carbon emissions, helps us achieve energy independence, and lays the groundwork for walkable communities. In addition, staffing, maintaining and building public transit will provide millions of high-quality jobs all across the country. Since the transit and construction jobs will be in urban areas, low-income neighborhoods can be targeted for recruitment into training and apprenticeship programs.

    While government can directly create networks of rail and transit, it can also indirectly encourage the replacement of gasoline-only automobiles and trucks with plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. The first step in this process would be to mandate that all federal cars and trucks be plug-ins or all-electric by 2020. Eventually, if the entire transportation sector can run on renewable electricity, then all jobs in the transportation sector will be green-collar.

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Looks like blue is the new green around here -- blue as in sad, that is. In the last week or so, Washington state legislature failed to pass the Transit Oriented Communities bill, "mortally wounded" the cap-and-trade bill, and is seriously considering altering the voter-approved Initiative 937 that would require utilities to seek out more renewable energy sources. Thanks, sucky economy! But before you drown your sorrows in PBR, consider the potential of a "B.C.-to-Baja green highway" or an army of residential rooftop wind turbines. If those proposals can weasel their way through Olympia, that is ...

Save it: Read more about Initiative 937, then contact your Senator to share your thoughts.
Vote it: Cast your ballot for a Seattle inventor's rooftop wind turbine design in Google's "Project 10 to the 100th" contest.

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