Eco-Friendly at Lower Cost
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Conventional wisdom says environmental improvements cost money, that we can’t do anything about climate change without sending prices skyward. The most exciting thing I ever heard from Al Gore was that protecting the environment would provide economic benefits as well, but I was never clear on how that would work. Industry has begun to understand that our response to climate change will force them to think in new ways. There’s good news that may help manufacturers move faster.
Must See: The Story of Stuff
Posted by Sonja Ebron
I’ve always felt that power and natural gas utilities provide more than kilowatts and therms. They provide light, heat, hot water and data transmission (electronics). Likewise, energy is larger than utilities and gasoline. It’s the basis of our whole consumption society, driving everything from fast food to home construction. If you really want to understand how your use of everyday “stuff” affects the energy and environmental chain, take a peek at The Story of Stuff with Annie Leonard. It’s 20 minutes long, the most entertaining and informative discussion of these issues I’ve seen, and well worth the time!
Disconnected By Deregulation
Posted by Sonja Ebron
No wonder it’s gotten more difficult to keep your lights on in deregulated areas. Residential natural gas customers in Georgia, electric customers in Texas, power and natural gas customers in New York and elsewhere have all paid much more for utilities after deregulation than before. We can now add Maryland to this sorry list.
According to The Capital, the local paper in Annapolis, Anne Arundel county officials are dealing with “a staggering increase” in the number of people needing help with electric bills. Supplier competition began two years ago in the territory of the former monopoly, Baltimore Gas & Electric, forcing household electric bills to jump 72 percent. The governor negotiated a one-time $170 credit with BGE’s parent company, Constellation Energy, which is slated to appear on September bills. Nevertheless, BGE has disconnected 12,000 people through the first five months of 2008, with 5,000 disconnections just in May (before it started getting hot in Baltimore). Despite the upcoming rebate, the company expects to disconnect 30,000 ratepayers this year, an increase of 30 percent over last year.
Worrying Too Much, Or Not Enough, About Natural Gas?
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Unlike oil, whose production follows a bell curve, natural gas production tends to peak and drop off a cliff. Oil is liquid and therefore easy to import, while natural gas is mostly restricted to pipelines because it’s a gas. You don’t want to carry large volumes of gas over the shipping lanes unless you like fireworks a lot.
Five or ten years ago, something like 90% of all new power plants were being built to use natural gas as a fuel. Lots of industrial processes also switched to use natural gas directly. Over time, those changes lifted demand for natural gas while supply stayed flat, and now it’s expensive. Natural gas production in the lower 48 U.S. states has nearly peaked, so we get a lot from Canada and Mexico. But exporting countries increasingly need more of their own stuff, so we’ve either got to find a way to import from others or to dramatically decrease consumption soon.
Why Blacks Pay More For Utilities
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Blacks do pay more for utilities, but not because we get different rates or a special energy tax. It’s because, since the 1980s, we use more. A 1975 Ford Foundation study (The American Energy Consumer) found that Blacks spent less on energy than others, mostly because of our limited housing choices. At that time, the typical Black home had no running hot water, few windows and doors, natural gas heat (gas was a lot cheaper then), and few appliances.
Then as now, most of us paid rent each month instead of a mortgage. But now, even renters are living large. We have all the amenities — washers and dryers, frost-free fridges, central air and heat, and all the electronics we can stand. But don’t ask us about the level of insulation in the walls or attic, the amount of weatherstripping or caulk on our doors and windows, or the number of Energy Stars on our appliances.
Expensive Heat This Winter
Posted by Sonja Ebron
By all accounts, heating our homes will be very expensive this winter. The National Energy Assistance Directors Association (NEADA) projects large increases in heating costs for all fuels this coming season, which runs from October through March. NEADA is the group of state agencies that handles LIHEAP funding for low-income residents nationwide. A recent NEADA study (PDF) shows an average 15% increase in heating costs this winter, capping a 42% increase over the last four years. Those using heating oil fare the worst: they will pay 32% more this winter than last, capping a 116% increase over the last four years. As you might expect, all-electric homes fare best in winter, with only a 4% increase this year and a 22% increase over the last four years.
Wholesale natural gas prices have been crazy this year, as high as they were after Katrina and Rita knocked out gas production in the Gulf three years ago. After peaking around $14 per million BTU, they’ve settled at just under $12 as of this writing. That’s about a 25% rise in price over the last year. Residential natural gas rates have risen accordingly, ranging from $1.59 to $1.82 per therm for a 12-month contract in Georgia. blackEnergy has offered only variable rates for the last three months. We’re betting — guessing, really — that prices will settle before the winter sets in, and we can recommend a good 12-month lock-in rate for our customers. Either way, it’s going to be a tough winter for those using oil, propane or natural gas.
What In The World Is A Backdraft Damper?
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Product selection is not my strong suit. We offer nearly 1000 energy efficiency products at blackEnergy, but I’m better at selling them than deciding what to sell. It’s often a challenge to explain just exactly what an item is supposed to do to help save energy, so I spend a fair amount of time trying to figure it out. I’ve just learned about the backdraft damper.
Slavery and the Value of a Barrel of Oil
Posted by Sonja Ebron
Edwin Drake drilled the first major U.S. oil well in 1859 outside Titusville, Pennsylvania. U.S. oil production that year was 2000 barrels but rose to over 4 million barrels per year within a decade, driven by the growth in internal combustion engines. That decade also saw the U.S. Civil War and the emancipation of slaves. Coincidence? Hardly.
Energy is the ability to do work. Oil represents a form of energy so dense and liquid that there is no adequate replacement. According to Rep. Roscoe Bartlett (R-MD), longterm member of the House Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment, one barrel of oil does the work of 12 grown men doing physical labor for a year. [Four men by my calculations, but that's a distinction without a difference.] What is the market value of that work? $100,000 if they’re prisoners, $250,000 if they’re free. That’s the value of a barrel of oil.
And we’re squealing at $150 per barrel? In less than 150 years, humans have grown a global economy based on a very limited supply of extremely cheap energy. We’ve used up half the available supply, and we’ll use up the rest in far fewer than 150 years. I’m a pessimist today, so I don’t think those of us in the most developed countries have time to unwind and ramp down without a very difficult adjustment. Our fluorescent lighting and electric cars and rooftop gardens will help, but they are not enough.
There are neither substitutes nor good ideas for substitutes that will get us anywhere near the economic benefits of oil, not even a return to slavery. At least I hope that’s off the table…
Nuclear Power for Environmental Justice? Uh… No!
Posted by Sonja Ebron
The Howard University School of Law hosted the second annual State of Environmental Justice in America Conference in May. Topics on the program included efforts at state and federal agencies, tribal perspectives, potential traps of Community Benefits Agreements (CBAs), technical advances in monitoring hazards, case studies of remediation, and other thought-provoking subjects. The discussion on nuclear options caught my eye.
Organized by my good friends at the African American Environmentalists Association, the workshop highlighted the lack of minority ownership of firms working in the nuclear industry and a number of ways for Blacks to get in. Many industry analysts expect a renaissance in nuclear power because of the focus on climate change and the fact that nukes have no emissions. But I found it strange that this discussion would take place at a conference on environmental justice. Where’s the tie-in? Would a more diverse industry really change the calculations that decide the siting of power plants?
People Make blackEnergy Go Round
Posted by Sonja Ebron
I like to take all the credit for blackEnergy’s success, but the truth is there is a fantastic staff doing the company’s work. Dave Benfield, our VP for sales and marketing, is retired from the same position at one of Georgia’s natural gas suppliers. Besides mentoring me (read: keeping my head on straight most days), he uses a thick Rolodex to introduce me to lots of helpful contacts. He’s also made it much easier than we thought to transition from exclusive relationships with utility suppliers to a tenable independent status. Gwen Sheppard, an old and dear college friend, is a retired military officer and software genius. As director of operations, she keeps the trains running on time and just gets the job done right every day. Crystal Grant (pictured below discussing energy conservation with an Atlanta resident) is a recent graduate of Spelman’s innovative