Two Encouraging Stories About Alternative Energy

The State of California just adopted a renewable energy program that will increase solar energy production in a big way, as reported here. The program calls for installing 3,000 megawatts over the next 11 years, to be accomplished through rebates funded by a surcharge on utility bills. This initiative will draw upon $3.2 billion from the surcharge fund to pay for the solar panels.

An even more exciting development is taking place in Portugal, as reported here. The Portugese government is aiming to increase the share of electricity produced from renewable sources to 39 percent, and they are going to spend 2.5 billion Euros (approx $3 billion USD) to do it. Most of the expanded renewable production will come from wind, but they are also installing wave-powered turbines manufactured by the Scottish firm Ocean Power Delivery. Some estimates put the potential for wave power at 20% of Portugal's annual needs. On a per-capita basis, this investment by the Portugese is much larger than California's, considering the entire nation of Portugal has less than 1/3 the population of the state of California (just over 10 million and around 34 million, respectively).

Nevertheless, these are both extremely encouraging stories and it would be great if more states/provinces/countries would get with the program.

The Times Discovers Peak Oil

I was pleased to see that Peak Oil is finally (perhaps even inexorably) making its way into the "mainstream media." The Seattle Times has an editorial by Kate Riley in today's paper about the coming changes to the oil economy. It's a pretty good read, on balance, with some nice suggestions for how to go about addressing the problem (in particular Congressman Inslee's New Apollo Project. Unfortunately I don't think she did an adequate job conveying the potential catastrophic effects of ignoring this problem, because I don't think most people will perceive the enormity of this issue until they're a bit freaked out. If you want to get freaked out right now, I would recommend James Howard Kunstler's book The Long Emergency or Kenneth Deffeyes book Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert's Peak. Both of these books do an excellent job explaining why it's going to be challenging to provide a smooth transition from petroleum to other sources of energy. Kunstler's book is focused more upon the socio-economic effects of our collective lack of preparedness, and Deffeyes explains why we are at the peak right now and why the viable alternatives will most likely take 10-15 years to bring on-line. Basically, we have a lot of work to do.

Year-Round Cycling

I rode my bike to work for the first day this month. Last year I rode almost the entire winter; however, I had one fairly serious crash on black ice that put my bike out of commission for over a week so I've been a bit hesitant to really tough it out this year. My new goal is to ride at least 25% of each month through the winter. The first part of December has been somewhat challenging, however, mostly due to snow but also to generally low temperatures. This morning it warmed up to a comparatively balmy 42 degrees so I hit the road. It was nice to be back in the saddle.

CommEn Space People

This is a photograph of (most of) the people I work with. Tim was visiting from our Montana office last week and I thought it would be a good idea to photographically memorialize this rare and wonderful event. Unfortunately Jessemine is not in this shot (she was--and is still--on a surfing trip in Mexico) but I'm planning on Photoshopping her in later.

The people in this shot are, from left to right: Sheila, Tim, Karsten, Yours Truly, Fly (the border collie), Chris, Christopher, and Alex.

Thanksgiving

We spent Thanksgiving with Andy and Lynna in Packwood. We always love visiting those two, and it is nice to get out of the city and enjoy the woods and mountains. There were no salmon in the backyard stream this year, but plenty of elk in the front yard. We made it up to White Pass for some sledding (Liam was ready to go to the summit after the first run) and did a nice hike in some old growth lower down in the valley. And one evening, to Liam's extreme delight, Andy got a little Scottish on us.

Liam's Halloween Costume

I know I'm REALLY late on this, but here is the costume that Amy and I made for Liam. For the record, this was 100% Liam's idea--when we asked him what he wanted to be for Halloween, he said "green backhoe!!"