Author Archives: Marc Karell

90% Of World’s Population Breathe Polluted Air

Data from the World Health Organization shows that in 2016 over 3 billion people were exposed to air containing dangerous levels of pollutants. An estimated 7 million people die every year from ailments related to outdoor or indoor air pollution. See: http://www.who.int/phe/health_topics/outdoorair/databases/cities/en/

The air pollutant with the greatest impact is fine particulates that penetrate our defenses and settle deep into the lungs and can enter the cardiovascular system, causing stroke, heart disease, lung cancer, asthma, and respiratory infections, including pneumonia. The WHO estimates that nearly one-quarter of adult deaths from non-communicable diseases (heart disease, stroke, lung cancer, etc.) comes from exposure to air pollutants.

The biggest cause of this exposure to dangerous concentrations of fine particles is from combustion from inadequate stoves inside the home or uncontrolled combustion of solid waste outdoors. More than 40% of the world’s population must cook with dirty cooking fuels and/or uses cooking devices that do not shephard away the byproducts of combusting those fuels. While several programs have brought cleaner burning fuels and devices to many people, population growth has not reduced the level of exposure.

While natural elements can contribute to air emissions, such as desert sand and dust, other major sources of fine particulates include industrial emissions, agriculture, dirty burning cars, trucks and buses, and coal-fired power plants.

Air pollution does not recognize borders. Countries implementing and enforcing new programs and rules to reduce air emissions within their borders are often inundated by air pollution coming from other nations. Wind can take fine particulates and gaseous pollutants long distances from their sources.

CCES has the expertise and experience to help your firm assess what your air pollution emissions inventory is and (from a technical point of view) how your facility stands in terms of compliance with applicable federal, state, and local air quality regulations. We can develop economic options for you to consider to reduce emissions to improve the health of your employees and neighbors and comply with regulations. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or karell@CCESworld.com.

Will The USEPA Change Its Mission To Protect Public Health?

When writing virtually any environmental rule, the USEPA performs and publishes its calculations of the financial cost of implementing the rule vs. the gains in terms of extending human life, improving public health, and prevention of environmental degradation. While one can quibble about the approach or formulas, the USEPA is transparent about why it believes a proposed rule or rule change is beneficial to society.

This article is not intended to be political in any way, but a warning that the USEPA is in the process of changing this approach and this will affect future rulesmaking. The current USEPA is looking to de-emphasize the life and health benefits of a proposed rule and emphasize compliance costs instead. The recent proposed change in the Clean Power Plan (CPP) (discussed in another article in this newsletter) openly states that it will decrease the number of prolonged lives compared to CPP and that the increase in greenhouse gases it will cause will have adverse economic effects. But the agency is pushing for this replacement because it will reduce the upfront costs of affected facilities to comply.

It was thought initially that the new approach of the USEPA is to de-emphasize protection of public health benefits to favor an overall evaluation of monetary benefits. But even this does not seem to be the case in the CPP replacement bill, as it would reduce some of the monetary benefits to the nation.

Another irony is that a number of affected industries of Obama-era environmental rules have come out against revising them. Duke Energy, for example, came out against revising CPP because of money already invested in required controls. Since money has already been spent to comply, the rule might as well stay in effect and benefits acrue.

In addition, research into environmental rule effectiveness shows that many rules are achieving public health goals at reasonable costs. The 2011 Clean Air Mercury rule cost utilities – by their estimation – about $18 billion to install compliant technology. Mercury emissions dropped by nearly 70%, resulting in direct health benefits of $4 to $6 billion. The USEPA went on to state that savings of an additional $80 billion per year was achieved due to the indirect benefits of reducing mercury emissions, such as reduction in lung and heart disease, resulting in 11,000 premature deaths delayed per year.

USEPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler stated that the agency is looking into an overhaul of how to calculate the cost and benefits of environmental regulations. His predecessor, Scott Pruitt, stated that he felt that the agency did not properly perform cost-benefit analyses, artificially inflating benefits and underestimating costs. They stated that the agency has been guilty of picking winners and losers and tainting their analyses to encourage the changes it wishes. The formulas in USEPA cost-benefit calculations must be modified, they and their supporters say.

Others complain that the formulas used by the USEPA do not go far enough to show the benefits of a healthier population by not taking into consideration the cost to the US economy of job loss due to layoffs and sick time.

CCES can help your firm keep up with changing environmental rules at the federal, state, and local level and provide you with the information to make the best determination of compliance options. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Benefits of Trees for Sustainable Cities

More than half the population of the world now lives in areas defined as urban. There is growing pressure to convert more open space into residences and commercial buildings to serve the growing urban population than ever before. More people means more customers for entrepreneurs and more businesses means more revenue (taxes) for municipalities. But is this growing dense, urban development costly for urban living?

While this seems trite and inefficient, trees have been shown to be effective in preserving urban ecosystems. Of course, the trend is commonly to chop down trees to build another development. But keeping and increasing the number of trees have been shown to have many benefits for urban residents and businesses. Trees clean the air and water, reduce health costs, improve stormwater management, optimize building energy use, mitigate climate change, and provide many cultureal treats.

According to the US Forest Service, for every dollar invested in planting, cities get a $2.25 return on their investment each year. https://www.fs.fed.us/ucf/supporting_docs/UCF-Brief-Feb2018.pdf

A recent aerial survey of 35 megacities showed that 20% of the average city’s urban core is covered by trees, ranging from just 1% in Lima, Peru to 36% in New York City.

A study published last year aimed to determine how much trees contribute to human well-being in urban locations showed a correlation between the number of trees planted and human well-being. https://linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S0304380017300960

The study focused on 10 very large cities worldwide. The study estimated that each square kilometer of tree cover saved a city significantly in air pollution health care costs, water runoff, building energy heating and cooling costs, and in the value of CO2 removed. Total savings was estimated to be about $1.2 million per square kilometer of trees, on average in these 10 very large cities.

Despite the feeling that large cities have no room to plant trees, the study indicated that, on average, about 18% of a metropolitan area is available to plant additional trees. Potential locations included sidewalks, parking lots and plazas. Tree trunks can be located in narrow bands, yet the tree’s canopy could shade these areas and allow pedestrians or cars to move freely.

CCES has the experts to help your company or municipality (any size) design a sustainability plan involving trees (as well as other strategies) to maximize benefits, such as the ones above (energy savings, healthier employees, etc.). We can use the latest science to develop a plan that is specific and will benefit you. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

The Positive and Negative Impacts of Solar Energy

by Arthur Smith, LEDwatcher  http://www.LEDwatcher.com

Solar energy can be a vast source of power that can provide clean, sustainable electricity. We are now able to use solar panels in all types of weather. It used to be that if it was cloudy the panels would quit charging. But now, with newer technology, solar power can be generated even on snowy and cloudy days. And as we focus more on cleaner power, solar energy is making its way further into our daily lives. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10701064/British-scientists-develop-solar-panels-which-work-better-on-a-cloudy-day.html

Of course, solar energy isn’t perfect. Just like everything else in life it has its positives and negatives. And one of the biggest downfalls of solar energy is its negative effect on the environment. So in this article we will look at both the negative and the positive impacts of solar energy, so you can judge for yourself whether solar energy could be beneficial for your home or business how environmentally-friendly and good solar power actually is.

The Negatives

• Taking Up Space. The more electricity that needs to be produced, the more solar panels you will need. And the more panels are needed, the more space they will take up. Because of this, large solar farms will need to be set up to meet solar energy demands. Rendering this land useless. How to counteract this? By setting up the solar power plants on land that otherwise can’t or isn’t used. This would make the acreage beneficial again, and would mean that no farmland needs to be sacrificed to generate more solar energy.

• Pollution. Although solar panels have the reputation of being pollution-free, pollution is produced while the panels are being manufactured and installed. Hazardous products are used in the manufacturing process of solar panels. The transportation and installation of the panels also emit greenhouse gasses. How to make solar panels a completely pollution-free technology? By creating greener ways of producing the panels, as well as employing electric cars to transport them to the place of installation.

The Positives

• Electricity Savings. Harnessing solar energy and using it to power your home will lower your energy bills. By how much? That will depend on the size of your solar system and your electricity usage. But the good news is that in some countries if you produce more electricity than you consume, you can sell the surplus to your electricity supplier letting you not only save but actually earn money from your solar panels.

• Reduced Greenhouse Gas Emissions. The more energy that we can create with solar power the less fossil fuels we will be burning and the smaller amount of greenhouse gasses we will release into the atmosphere. Solar energy is an amazing way to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and live greener lives.

• Sustainability and Resilience. Solar energy is also a renewable resource,whereas fossil fuels are not. As long as the sun is shining in the sky we will always have access to solar energy. So solar power is an unlimited energy source, which will be there to meet the energy needs of generations to come.

• Low Maintenance. After installation, solar technology is low-maintenance. Therefore, they are great for rural areas that are off the grid and can’t be accessed easily, and don’t require as much man-power to maintain.

• Cost Advantages. The source of solar energy is free and is in great abundance. Which means that as long as there are discount schemes to help with the solar panel costs, they can also be a great help to people in more remote areas that might not have access to electricity, due to the lack of infrastructure to bring in electricity or fuel or a power plant.

• Energy Independence and National Security.  Finally, relying on fossil fuels can exacerbate many technical, political, and financial issues. We can better safeguard ourselves by collecting our own energy and not being dependent on others. Wars and natural disasters can also put a heavy strain on the existing fuel supplies leading to very high prices. This makes solar power that much more a cost-efficient solution.

For many locations, buildings, and regions, the benefits of solar energy far outweigh its negative effects. Solar should be seriously considered by businesses as not only a cost-effective energy management strategy, but part of the way to a greener, more sustainable future.

Arthur Smith is the lead editor of LEDwatcher, a blog that focuses on solar and LED lighting. With years of experience working in both solar and lighting industries, Arthur has turned to blogging and writing guest articles for different websites to help others learn more about these technologies as well.  See    http://LEDwatchter.com.

USEPA Proposes To Replace The Clean Power Plan

On August 21, 2018, the Trump Administration released its proposed replacement for the Clean Power Plan (CPP), called the Affordable Clean Energy (ACE) Rule. https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-08/documents/frn-ace-proposal_8.20.2018.pdf

What’s interesting is that the USEPA’s own analysis open demonstrates that the ACE will result in fewer benefits than the rule it replaces, such as GHG and criteria pollutant emission reductions. So this is a “step backward” in terms of environmental impact. See the ACE Fact Sheet: https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2018-08/documents/ace_overview_0.pdf. ACE is projected to reduce GHG emissions by one-tenth that the CPP is projected to: up to 30 million short tons of CO2e by 2025, compared to 300 million short tons under CPP. Interestingly, the Fact Sheet states that ACE will result in a “monetized domestic climate benefit” of $1.6 billion, compared to no rule at all. This is an interesting admission by this Administration that climate change is real and tangible and also that reducing GHG emissions will result in financial benefits. In addition, if these numbers are true, then reducing GHG emissions by 300 million tons should result in a greater economic benefit to the U.S. Why would the Administration go against such economic logic?

In addition, the Regulatory Impact Analysis prepared for the proposed ACE states that replacement will result in hundreds of additional premature deaths per year due to higher particulate emissions rates allowed by ACE. Most of these deaths will occur in U.S. regions downwind of coal-powered power plants. Proposing a rule change that will reduce reductions of GHG emissions (at a cost to our economy) and raise the number of premature deaths goes against USEPA’s stated priority of protecting public health.

Other changes in the proposed rule include:

• Reducing the USEPA’s authority to regulate and letting more GHG regulation in the hands of states, going against the recent recognition that impacts of air emissions do cross state lines and is, therefore, a federal responsibility.

• ACE applies only to coal-fired power plants, while CPP applies to both coal and gas-fired plants.

• ACE encourages improved efficiecy, rejects carbon capture and sequestration.

• Removal of cumulative GHG emission reduction targets or limits for power plants.

• Trading of GHG credits will not be allowed, although averaging among units in a single facility will be allowed. It is unclear how that may affect an existing trading program, like RGGI.

• While ACE contains USEPA-approved guidelines for reducing GHG emissions, a state’s standards may be less stringent than the USEPA guidelines. The state must explain why meeting USEPA guidelines for GHG emissions is a hardship.

The proposal to implement ACE was published in the Federal Register on August 31, 2018, beginning a public comment period. Comments are due by October 30.

CCES has the experts to help you develop an energy and a GHG emission reduction program to provide you maximum financial benefits and operating flexibility. Contact us today and we can help. karell@CCESworld.com or 914-584-6720.

Time to Plan for Your Energy Resiliency

It’s all over the news. Worldwide we have seen many news stories about extreme events: historic fires in California, 127℉ recorded in Death Valley, record heat and fires in Scandanavia, record heat and draughts from Japan to Europe. This impacts our lives. See the terrifying natural conditions in Africa where many farmers can no longer subsist, resulting in the worldwide immigration crisis we see. So these have great impacts on our lives and economics. And we’re not done yet. It’s only summertime and hurricane season is starting – the prime time when the risk of grid-disrupting events where you live and work is greatest. Why this is happening (climate change?) is not important. You are concerned with keeping your facilities operating and being energy resilient.

First, think about how important energy resiliency is for you. What if a major storm were to come through your city and damage the grid so that electricity is no longer delivered? What are the potential practical and financial impacts to your company?

  • You cannot make or deliver product. You cannot do what you do (and charge for it). Yet you still pay staff. Speaking of which: the very safety of your staff!
  • Uncertainty. You don’t know if your power will come back to resume normal services in one hour, a day, a week, or much, much longer (like in Puerto Rico).
  • Lost data. Your business is your data, and losing it because of a power loss can be existential. A number of firms went “under” directly due to Hurricane Sandy.
  • Efforts to get back in operation. Once a system is down – even if only for a few minutes – it may take a long time to get it operating normally again. And the cost. One study estimated that companies generally spend 20-30% of annual revenue to recover from even a brief power loss, in some cases requiring new equipment.

And a storm is not needed to knock out power. Many parts of the country are growing in population and electric demand, and utilities cannot keep up with the additional needed infrastructure to meet this growing demand. Several utilities have openly admitted they may be unable to reliably deliver electricity to people and businesses during peak need.

Energy resiliency means being less or non-dependent on the grid to deliver needed electricity – to develop your own reliable, secure source of electricity. What can your facility do to lower peak need and/or produce power independently? Being energy independent is not cheap, but could be worth it to avoid or lessen the risks above.
An energy resiliency strategy consists of:

  • Understanding your systems, equipment and peak electric needs;
  • Understanding the effects of a power outage and what redundancies exist to minimize its chances of happening;
  • Estimating when/how you are most vulnerable to a potential interruption;
  • Designing of absolute needs should there be a loss of power. Which systems must be maintained and which are less critical?

Options:

  • Sufficient emergency back-up power or combined heat & power (CHP);
  • Monitors to detect when grid power is interrupted – even in neighboring areas – so you are prepared and can automatically have backup systems supply power;
  • Batteries to store excess power in case of an interruption.

Proper strategies and implementation can greatly reduce the chance of your facility being impacted by a power interruption. Such long-term thinking is often a low priority. But in this summer of extremes, it is more important than ever to begin to plan and implement smart strategies to reduce the risk and impacts of electricity outages. Make sure you put money in your budget to begin such planning soon.

CCES can help your firm develop an energy resiliency strategy and plan to assess and lessen the risk of power interruptions and improve your bottom line. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or karell@CCESworld.com.

1st Commercial Ferry Using Fuel Cells Will Launch in 2019

One of the most problematic segments of the economy when it comes to the environment is the shipping industry. Since most ships travel outside of countries’ boundaries, it is hard to enforce environmental rules. In addition, the culture of shipping is overwhelmingly avoiding rules and regulations and having the “freedom” to do what one wants. Countries, NGOs, and other organizations have tried to educate shipping companies about the values and benefits of climate change and environmental responsibility, but nobody wants to spend resources to address problems that their competitors are not addressing.

Thus, it was a bit of a surprise when Water-Go-Round announced the first commercial fuel-cell-operated ferry in the world beginning in 2019. The hydrogen fuel cell-powered ferry will be monitored by Sandia National Laboratories. The project received a $3 million grant from California Air Resources Board (CARB).

According to passengership.info, the aluminium catamaran will have a capacity of 84 passengers. The vessel has a top speed of 22 knots and will be powered by 360 kW-worth of Hydrogenics fuel cells, alongside lithium-ion battery packs. It will carry a 264 kg tank array of 250-bar compressed hydrogen, which should permit up to two full days of operation. Propulsion will come from two 300 kW shaft motors.

Following its launch, Water-Go-Round will undergo a three-month study period in San Francisco Bay, during which time Sandia National Laboratories will gather and assess performance data. CARB will use this data to assess the suitability of the technology for wider marine use. A hydrogen-battery hybrid system was chosen over a purely electric system because of its perceived greater flexibility, their lack of moving parts, near-silent operation, and scalability, as fuel cells can be combined into larger systems.

CCES has the experts to help your firm assess whether new technologies or applications can save you costs, boost productivity, and put your business in a more competitive position. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Energy Efficiency Saves Money In Unexpected Ways

In real estate circles, energy efficiency often gets short shrift. Conventional thinking gives costs a 100/10/1 relationship. For every $100 a company spends on employees (salaries, health benefits, etc.), it “should” spend $10 on rent and operating expenses, and $1 on utilities (not just energy, but water, too). So, what would motivate a company to be more energy efficient and save only a fraction of the $1, when it can profit more by even a small gain in worker productivity; better return on the $100 spent on workers?

An owner recently published an article that estimated the costs of a building in their city as $300/sf for human resources, $30/sf for rent and O&M, and $3/sf for energy. They were initially pleased when upgrading lights and controls reduced energy costs by about 20%. However, that only saved about $0.60/sf out of $333, nothing to get excited about.

However, it turned out that the new lights were much longer lasting than the old ones, reducing operating costs (time/effort to regularly replace burned out lights) by 10%, savings of $3/sf. The new lights were designed to be of the right color temperature and location to coordinate with specific needs and reduced glare, reducing employee absenteeism and improving productivity. How much can well-designed lights save? It is hard to be accurate. But if new lights reduces absenteeism by only 1%, that’s 20 more hours work annually per employee. What if the lights also improve productivity by 1%? That’s equivalent of each worker being productive 20 more hours per year without having to pay more salary. Fewer coffee and other breaks can easily save this amount. A 1% reduction in absenteeism and 1% gain in productivity is a savings of $6/sf. There’s a good chance that savings would be more than 1% per person. The lighting upgrade, perceived to save the firm only $0.60/sf, has really saved it at least 16 times more.

Therefore, don’t look at an energy upgrade as only saving money on utility bills. Look at it as saving operating costs and making employees healthier and more productive. Leverage the value of energy upgrades to get CFOs and CEOs interested in energy!

CCES has the technical experts to help you get the greatest benefits from an energy upgrade, including O&M savings and productivity improvements, not to mention save much on your energy bills and get incentives to have others pay for them! See how we can make $ for you. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Paving Roads With – Eh, Solar Panels?

French and Chinese companies are experimenting with new technologies that would revolutionize the solar industry, producing solar panels that can be placed on our roads to make electricity. The appeal of “solar roads”, solar panels installed in place of asphalt, is clear. Generating electricity from already developed areas, like highways and streets, rather than from fields could conserve a lot of land.

By producing electricity on roads in and around cities, the electricity can be transmitted relatively shorter distances with less lost in transmission, as opposed to electricity from solar panels in rural fields. And procuring the land is essentially free because roads are needed anyway. Durable solar panels could reduce the cost of road maintenance, too.

Generating electricity on roads themselves could have other advantages, such as melting snow that falls on them or embedding them with lights for better illumination. There has been experimentation of using solar roads to re-charge electric vehicles.

The surface of experimental solar panels is composed of a complex polymer that has slightly more friction than a conventional road surface. Developers are trying to modify manufacturing procedures to ensure a tire’s grip on it is equivalent to asphalt.

A number of challenges exist for this technology before it is widely used. For example, a solar road is currently about 3 to 4 times the cost of a conventional asphalt road, although solar roads produce a sellable commodity, electricity. Based on current costs of electricity, the payback for the increased cost of a solar road is about 15 years. This payback can decrease if the solar panels can be made more efficient in producing electricity, as they lie flat and are occasionally blocked by vehicles.

One critical question left unanswered is how well solar panels can take the pounding of huge numbers of tires daily for many years. Most U.S. roads are made primarily with asphalt, which can buckle or shift under the weight of many cars, potentially damaging the solar chips that produce the electricity. European and Chinese roads have more concrete to absorb the flow, compared to U.S. roads. In addition, solar panels on roads might be stolen, leaving large potholes in the road and reducing productivity.

CCES can use our technical and economic experience to help your company or building assess a wide array of renewable energy options and which make the most sense for your specific building and circumstance. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.

Recent Decisions On Major Gas Expansion Projects

Decisions made by state utility commissions and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) have much influence on both our energy future and that of responding to climate change. Two contrary decisions in June are described here.

FERC denied the rehearing of its order authorizing construction and operation of the Mountain Valley Pipeline Project in West Virginia and Virginia and a related project that would connect to Pennsylvania. Among the arguments rejected by the majority of FERC commissioners were that FERC should have evaluated whether energy demands could be met with “non-transportation alternatives” such as energy conservation or renewable energy resources, that FERC failed to adequately analyze climate change impacts of the end use of natural gas transported by the project, and that FERC’s consideration of climate change in the context of evaluating the public interest under Section 7 of the Natural Gas Act (NGA) was inadequate. The FERC majority said greenhouse gas emissions from the downstream use of natural gas did not fall within the definition of indirect or cumulative impacts, and also concluded that the Social Cost of Carbon tool could not meaningfully inform decisions on natural gas transportation projects under NGA. FERC said it continued to believe the Social Cost of Carbon tool was “more appropriately used by regulators whose responsibilities are tied more directly to fossil fuel production or consumption.” Two commissioners wrote dissents. In re Mountain Valley Pipeline, LLC, No. CP 16-10-001 (FERC June 15, 2018).

On June 26, 2018, the California Public Utilities Commission issued its final decision denying a certificate of public convenience and necessity for a new 47-mile natural gas pipeline to replace an existing pipeline. The proposed decision found that the applicants had failed to demonstrate a need for the project and had not shown “why it is necessary to build a very costly pipeline to substantially increase gas pipeline capacity in an era of declining demand and at a time when the state of California is moving away from fossil fuels.” The decision indicated that based on Commission precedent, the Commission could deny a proposed gas pipeline or transmission project based on insufficient need without completed CEQA analysis. The Commission directed that the preparation of a draft environmental impact report be halted. In re San Diego Gas & Electric Co., No. A1509013 (Cal. PUC June 26, 2018).

CCES is a technical firm and the information provided here should not be used in any way to make any decision on the fuel usage of your facility. Information from legal, business and other professionals should be used in making such final decisions. CCES does have the engineering knowhow to help you assess energy source options and technologies that can save your facility significant energy costs. Contact us today at 914-584-6720 or at karell@CCESworld.com.