Transform to Sustainability

Nicely done!

2012-05-21T10:04:42.068-04:00

Nicely done!

+1. Thanks for championing this issue for us DC-ar...

2012-05-21T09:54:00.231-04:00

+1. Thanks for championing this issue for us DC-area cyclists!

The problem with embracing the idea of a shrinking...

2012-04-16T12:28:50.876-04:00

The problem with embracing the idea of a shrinking population is that the idea carries with it a horrific toll of human suffering. We humans were designed to have babies. The only sensible way forward is to reverse the current trend of population decline in rich, industrialized countries. But it may be too late.

Another Mississippi River concern with wetlands re...

2012-03-30T19:45:55.490-04:00

Another Mississippi River concern with wetlands restoration. The levee will be undermined at peak meander points and send a tidal wave south. My solution will prevent this and also remove the dead zone. Please see below link.
Ken
http://wetlands1.webs.com/index.htm

Brian Shipman Steve, thanks for doing the...

2012-03-22T14:47:29.086-04:00

Brian Shipman

Steve, thanks for doing the math and for calling out Verizon on what could be another corporate sustainability announcement in the form of smoke and mirrors. I’m currently a grad student at Drury University where we’re studying motives behind corporate social responsibility. We’ve run across many companies genuinely operating sincere thoughtful CSR programs with the best of intentions. By this I mean they have a genuine concern for the community or environmental issues their targeting through their CSR initiative. But as you know there is also a mountain of information out there about companies who do one things and then say another when it comes to sustainability and being socially responsible.
One of the more enlightening articles we’ve run across comes from a 2009 study regarding corporate hypocrisy and how firms can overcome the perception of inconsistent messages (Wagner, Lutz and Weitz). These authors noted what you’ve pointed out here that, “deviations between public CSR statements and business practices disclosed by other sources can have dramatic effects on a firms image and sales” (p.78). In this case, you are the other source. Like you I’ll give Verizon the benefit of the doubt that they are simply oblivious to the energy saving alternatives. Maybe they’ll read your post and do the math too.
Brian Shipman
Drury University

Great article Steve. There is also a concept to ma...

2012-02-02T19:40:56.564-05:00

Great article Steve. There is also a concept to make the oil products distributors to make much more money swapping battery packs than selling gasoline and diesel.

Happy to hear someone speak about this issue intel...

2011-12-13T16:33:19.389-05:00

Happy to hear someone speak about this issue intelligently. I would hope, Steve, that you send this opinion to the Montgomery County Council who will be deciding on the issue in January.

While the Earth has always endured natural climate...

2011-12-01T11:53:50.473-05:00

While the Earth has always endured natural climate change variability, we are now facing the possibility of irreversible climate change in the near future. The increase of greenhouse gases in the Earth?s atmosphere from industrial processes has enhanced the natural greenhouse effect. This in turn has accentuated the greenhouse ?trap? effect, causing greenhouse gases to form a blanket around the Earth, inhibiting the sun?s heat from leaving the outer atmosphere. This increase of greenhouse gases is causing an additional warming of the Earth?s surface and atmosphere. A direct consequence of this is sea-level rise expansion, which is primarily due to the thermal expansion of oceans (water expands when heated), inducing the melting of ice sheets as global surface temperature increases.
Forecasts for climate change by the 2,000 scientists on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) project a rise in the global average surface temperature by 1.4 to 5.8°C from 1990 to 2100. This will result in a global mean sea level rise by an average of 5 mm per year over the next 100 years. Consequently, human-induced climate change will have ?deleterious effects? on ecosystems, socio-economic systems and human welfare.At the moment, especially high risks associated with the rise of the oceans are having a particular impact on the two archipelagic states of Western Polynesia: Tuvalu and Kiribati. According to UN forecasts, they may be completely inundated by the rising waters of the Pacific by 2050.According to the vast majority of scientific investigations, warming waters and the melting of polar and high-elevation ice worldwide will steadily raise sea levels. This will likely drive people off islands first by spoiling the fresh groundwater, which will kill most land plants and leave no potable water for humans and their livestock. Low-lying island states like Kiribati, Tuvalu, the Marshall Islands and the Maldives are the most prominent nations threatened in this way.“The biggest challenge is to preserve their nationality without a territory,” said Bogumil Terminski from Geneva. The best solution is continue to recognize deterritorialized states as a normal states in public international law. The case of Tuvalu, Kiribati and other small island states is a particularly clear call to action for more secure countries to respond to the situations facing these ‘most vulnerable nations’, as climate change increasingly impacts upon their lives.

I guess Metro gets credit here(?) too for finally ...

2011-10-31T14:23:15.094-04:00

I guess Metro gets credit here(?) too for finally thinking, or rather borrowing and implementing others thinking(?) on how to actually make Metro rail better for folks.

So many people in these organizations/institutions are brain dead.

In my opinion, if everyone start to ride on bike w...

2011-10-05T00:08:59.250-04:00

In my opinion, if everyone start to ride on bike when they go anywhere is the best way of reducing energy consumption. If we use bike, we will reduce our fuel consumption which will lessen the air pollution we produce in riding our automobile.

Seems like the most sensible thing would be to tre...

2011-10-01T12:52:36.504-04:00

Seems like the most sensible thing would be to treat Shirlington like a metro station. Have a single point to point bus line running directly to the Pentagon on 5 to 15 minute intervals dependent upon the time of day.

This is not my area of expertise, but offhand I wo...

2011-08-30T12:21:03.591-04:00

This is not my area of expertise, but offhand I would expect that anything upstream of the first lock north of the diversion would be unaffected.

What would be the effect upstream if the Mississip...

2011-08-26T15:22:02.397-04:00

What would be the effect upstream if the Mississippi jumped into the Atchafalaya? Elementary observation of water suggests that upstream shipping would be devastated, too, and a lot of riverfront property in St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, would be suddenly mudflat-front property, and the river would be able to accommodate smaller amounts of shipping.

Or am I underestimating how big the river is upstream?

Thanks for whatever information you can give. It's for a SF novel.

Small edit: 1 TWh is 1,000,000,000 kWh or 1e12 Wh....

2011-06-22T13:32:37.300-04:00

Small edit: 1 TWh is 1,000,000,000 kWh or 1e12 Wh.

I used the 3 miles per kWh from information I got ...

2011-06-22T00:31:53.949-04:00

I used the 3 miles per kWh from information I got on the web. Do you expect it to be different? That would change things somewhat, but not tremendously.
For you, 15,000 miles at 3 miles per kWh = 3000 kWh, or about $330/year at 11 cents. You estimate $480 per year, which is well within the same order of magnitude. Perhaps some conversion losses and worse mileage during summers and winters would push down your mileage to 2 miles per kWh. That would make the national number closer to, say, 7,000,000 vehicles for 1% of the electricity.

Still makes the electric utility execs look silly, IMO

Also, keep in mind that most electricity is not used to power households--and even with 11 million cars, that's only 5-6% of all the cars. So your last equation is flawed on numerator and denominator. Use $400 instead of $150 and divide the $40 by 20 to account for all the non-EVs and we're back within that order of magnitude again.

So let's reverse engineer using your car. $480 at 11 cents is 4363 kWh per year. Times 10 million cars = 44 TWh, which is 1% of national electricity generation. Hey, that's almost exactly what I said to start. Whaddya know?

Interesting... However, if you use your math, I se...

2011-06-21T16:39:57.353-04:00

Interesting... However, if you use your math, I see something more interesting (to me). Do you mean that EVs today (Volt and Leaf) are so efficient that we can get 11,000,000 vehicles running on electricity and only use 1.09% of our electricity output? This seems very far fetched.

If that is true fact, then our government should "triple down" on this technology and give 100s of billions to GM, Nissan and others to subsidize these cars to make them priced less than Internal Combustion Engine vehicles.

Seems like the best way to spend our money to rid our ourselves our addiction to foreign oil... 10,000,000 Electric vehicles (keep in mind typical new vehicle sales in US are 11-16MM per year) using only 1/100 of our electricity!

However.. this seems way to good to be true... or as some would say "Crazy" ;)

To give some perspective at a "customer level", I expect to pay about $40/month to charge my Volt (detail of my financial analysis for Volt v. 2008 Impala: http://bobbleheadguru.com ), and pay maybe an average of $150/month for my electric bill (Summers are higher, Winters are lower).

$40 / ($150+$40) = 21% or 1931% higher than your estimate.

Should I argue that my bill should be 1.09% of my total bill or $1.63/month? Funny, the things you can do with math!

Nice Blog i love to know about transportation and ...

2011-06-18T02:26:11.688-04:00

Nice Blog i love to know about transportation and travels.

Hey Steve - thanks for the shout-out. I created th...

2011-02-14T17:31:43.552-05:00

Hey Steve - thanks for the shout-out. I created the blog name "Extraordinary Observations" a long time ago, when I started blogging back in high school. I guess I never really got around to changing it, since it's typically easier just to keep things the way they are.

It may not seem like a lot in terms of $$ to us, b...

2010-06-30T20:12:07.460-04:00

It may not seem like a lot in terms of $$ to us, but there are so many places in the world that don't have access to water. There, the value of that 130,000 gallons would be priceless.

But saying it creates jobs means it has a better c...

2010-03-29T08:15:19.795-04:00

But saying it creates jobs means it has a better chance of getting funded right? You are also assuming the trucks currently on the road stop and all shift to rail, which is unlikely since not all routes will be efficiently served by this shift. Anyways - I say do it no matter how it gets done!

Whats with the goofy expression, Steve?

2010-03-12T20:45:09.843-05:00

Whats with the goofy expression, Steve?

YES -- I am often agape at my neighbor's recyc...

2010-03-05T10:43:08.943-05:00

YES -- I am often agape at my neighbor's recycling bins overflowing with water bottles...sure, once you've bought it, recycle it, but clearly if you're buying cases of bottled water at a time you could be doing more to examine your consumption. Let alone other aspects of your footprint on the earth.

Arlington does not. Both Alexandria and Falls Chu...

2010-02-23T14:38:00.135-05:00

Arlington does not. Both Alexandria and Falls Church can levy fines for not clearing. I don't know if they ever enforce, however.

There also needs to be accountability for property...

2010-02-23T08:46:12.898-05:00

There also needs to be accountability for property owners who don't clear adjacent sidewalks. I saw children walking by themselves in a traffic lane on Columbia Pike because sidewalks weren't cleared. I had to walk in the street to get to the bus because many of my neighbors didn't clear their sidewalks (although they managed to find the time to clear their driveways for their own benefit). Does Arlington issue a fine if sidewalks aren't cleared?

All that is done, and there is no indication they ...

2010-02-19T19:00:44.127-05:00

All that is done, and there is no indication they will get to the bike/ped trails.