Green A City

Carbon Reduction? How About Community Enrichment?

With all this talk and action around cutting carbon emissions by cities and states, there is a rare opportunity to impact the other side of the ledger: economic and community enrichment coming from healthier, more vibrant planning and living.

Portland, Oregon, featured in today's New York Times, for instance, was the first U.S. city to develop carbon-reduction goals in 1993. Today, the city has walkable neighborhoods, free public transportation, a booming economy, and one of the hottest local foods scenes outside pricey San Francisco Bay Area.

These strategies were based on the consideration, planning and execution of much more than just carbon reduction. Portland has preserved its open space, so farmland and vineyards are available nearby to supply all those farmers markets (thirteen in a town of 500,000, a significant amount) and trendy restaurants. As the Times article headlined: "Chefs flock to a City Where Food Is The Star, Produce is Stellar and Real Estate is Cheap".

Portland's carefull planning, neighborhood redevelopment and green building strategies are also reaping epic rewards in real estate valuation. The enigmatic Brewery Blocks of the city's Pearl District, only recently a dingy post-industrial  neighborhood, is now the most desired location in the Great Northwest for residents, local businesses owners and anyone who sets foot or rides a rail in town. A developer bought the Brewery Blocks in 1999 for $19.5 million and just sold three of the buildings in the blocks for $291.6 million to JP Morgan Asset Management.

Take a look at Denver, which spearheaded the nation's largest public transit ballot measure a few years back, before cutting carbon was de rigueur.

Now Denver is on the cusp of a jolt from its transit oriented development economic strategy. In the first year of light rail expansion, 2005, public transit ridership rates increased more than 10 percent. Businesses are thrilled to have opportunities to locate in high foot traffic areas with bikeways, walkways and events. Besides creating a more compelling destination for people or businesses that want to relocate, people get healthier walking more.

The city hopes to maintain such excitement over its ten year build out.

During this period, Denver is designing infill mixed-use housing to accompany the business, shopping and entertainment along transit lines. The end result is that the city's non-automotive access will make life more convenient and engaging for residents, businesses and tourists, while reducing local air pollution.

Oh, and the carbon outputs decrease.

Other cities of all sizes are chasing cleantech industry development. In this red-hot business sector, reduction means a very nice gain for regional economies. Unlike old industrial centers, cleantech has smaller scale nimble production; cleantech is built around intellectual capital more than massive production lines. It will also be more distributed to meet the needs of exploding demand in local markets for solar, green building, alternative fuels and advanced transportation.

Cleantech and carbon busting are creating economic development options that must be weighed and capitalized upon as local carbon reduction plans go into effect.

For instance in cleantech industry incubation, Austin and San Jose may have the early-mover advantage for massive scale, but other locales including Troy-Albany, New York (fuel cells); Seattle and Portland (biodiesel) ; Atlanta (green building technologies) are forging vital innovation centers. Other hubs and minihubs serving these massive potential markets will surely emerge. 

Finally, there is the tree planting part of carbon-reduction plans. Should this be part of an international or local program? International efforts will be critical, of course. But even more important to local community development will be deciding strategies for regional wildlife diversity and preservation, including parks and urban canopies. Trees can even be used to reduce heat gain in buildings. Properly placed shade trees can reduce building energy cooling costs by up to 50 percent a year.

As carbon-reduction plans get into the nitty gritty of fleets, energy sources, landfills, and buildings, communities must carefully consider how the very fabric of their lives can be improved through integrated sustainable planning, land use, and economic development. If your eyes glaze at the mention of those words, think instead eating, drinking, enjoying family and friends, recreating, shopping, working, preserving nature and enriching local culture--which of course is defined by local knowledge and ways of life.

Sounds like more a more tangible and interesting future than one guided solely by a carbon-reduction action plan model, doesn't it?   

Water on the brain: 4th Annual CA Climate Change Conference

By Ken Ott, Research Associate, SustainLane
Sustainability research, Government Division

I rode Amtrak to the 4th Annual California Climate Change Conference in the state capitol on Tuesday, September 11th. By doing so, I enjoyed nice views of the San Francisco Bay and farmland in between the two cities. I also read more about the event before arriving.

This was my first California Climate Change Conference and it was a nice refresher course, in addition to a source for reams of new information which I still haven't finished reading. The California Energy Commission and California Resources Agency put on this conference and are the state's primary policy and planning agencies for energy and natural resources, respectively.

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I'd like to share what I learned at the morning session on water in this post. Instead of merely reading about climate change issues, in contrast, it was great to speak with panelists and other attendees in person. Although magazines or online articles can be important resources, there is no substitute for conversation and one-to-one dialogue.

The morning panels focused on probable climate change impacts such as: water (flood risk and mitigation) and air quality (soot effects on snow melt rates). I was able to listen to and speak with a great number of people who are experts in their fields.

Some of them included Michael Dettinger, Scripps Institution of Oceanography who works on observing increased flood vulnerability, and Sam Earson, Desert Research Institute, who studies groundwater supply issues, using gas tracers. All of the panelists do good work and contribute to a greater  understanding of climate change issues as they affect the Western US as well as the global community. All of them are supported by state agencies or deparments and in turn report back to these bodies.

Below are synopses of most speakers' presentations with their respective conclusions as well as mine. If you are already knowledgeable in general you can skip my commentary and just read the indented text boxes. These contain much of my verbatim notes. You can also attend the sessions virtually. Sessions are archived in PDF and streaming audio/video for your convenience: Conference Home.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND WATER RESOURCES IN CALIFORNIA
Session Chair: Jamie Anderson (California Department of Water Resources)

The early morning sessions were well attended and very clear in assigning further certainty to likely extreme weather events in the future. The main culprit in all cases was a human induced warmer biosphere. 

“California Flood Risks in a Changing Climate”
Michael Dettinger of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography presented a model in which a global climate +3 degrees Celsius warmer leads to “flood friendly” conditions in California and along the entire West Coast. These conditions include increased winter snow melting and a stronger phenomenon of “Atmospheric Rivers.”

West coast more likely to get more rain
More rain than snow
Double area of rain --> double flooding
Additional winter melting: much wetter soils in northwest, slightly drier soils in CA --> but doesn't reduce flood risk
"atmospheric rivers" -- the storms to worry about. warm pacific storms.
"pineapple express" -- source of big storms/floods
More flood risk: rain rather than snow; wet snows & soils; more large storms; need to have better flood management through increase observation of snow, weather patterns...

Michael Dettinger gives his presentation. Click for larger photo.

Rocky Mountain Institute Turns 25: or The Distributed Generation of Amory Lovins' Brainpower

We repost Warren's August 15th article from WorldChanging this week. -Editor

One of the world's leading energy and environment think (and do) tanks celebrated its 25^th anniversary in characteristic style this past week. With numerous references to the looming risks of global climate change, peak oil and energy disruption, combined with developing nation social-political and national security challenges, the event took on the air of urgent practicality.

 

Besides the Rocky Mountain Institute'€™s stellar staff and its fearless founder/leader, Amory Lovins, the Aspen-based event attracted a jaw-dropping line-up. On stage were former President Bill Clinton, past CIA director R. James Woolsey, former New York Governor George Pataki, Sustainable South Bronx'€™s Majora Carter, Wal-Mart Chairman Rob Walton, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, technology luminary Bill Joy, Patagonia Founder Yvon Chouinard, and British Sky Broadcasting CEO James Murdoch.

 

Off stage things were no less dull, with a brain-pummeling cast of physicists, business leaders, authors and technologists mixing it up in perpetual reminiscing, scheming and celebrating. "€œYou can bet I will be so on your ass,"€ said a longtime corporate dematerialization expert to a clean tech incubation strategist he had just met, after they plotted how the United States can capture various sectors of global innovation markets.

 

What was extraordinary at the two-day session of panels and parties was how much RMI'€™s iconic founder has altered the consciousness of those present. It was as if little bits of his brain were implanted into the words, plans and outlook of those at the dias and congregating in the beaux arts hallways of the venerable Hotel Jerome.

 

Lovins has developed many world-changing concepts over his 35-year career including "negawatts"--€”reducing the need to produce energy through conservation--and its economic cousin, "the soft path."€ An Oxford-educated physicist, Lovins uses hard data as the basis for making the world'€™s economy radically more energy efficient through better planning, design and day-to-day use in both buildings and industry. More recently RMI has presented ideas on leapfrogging comatose American automotive innovation with superlight materials and hyper-efficient engine and drive train functionality.

"The demand side of energy efficiency is not as sexy as solar or wind energy, but it is much more effective,"€ said Joy. Working with venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caulfield & Byers, Joy is working on "€œlooking for something in green technology advances to make a factor-twenty change on a long-term basis."€

Minneapolis Responds Quickly to Bridge Tragedy

Our hearts go out to Minnesotans in wake of the I-35W bridge collapse that occurred yesterday in the city center of Minneapolis.

We received an email this morning from the city describing how it is encouraging people to bike and walk in the downtown area, as many of the major roads in and around the accident site are closed today.

Minneapolis had the second-highest bike-to-work rate in the 2006 SustainLane US city rankings, with 2.3 percent of city residents biking to work. In last night's news coverage of the tragedy, it was apparent how many people used bikes as a way of navigating around the gridlock that seized area roads. 

The city also announced in today's email that "Stone Arch Bridge and Bridge #9 are also closed until further notice.  Bicyclists and pedestrians who need to cross the river must do so at either the Washington Avenue bridge at the University of Minnesota campus or at the 3rd Ave Bridge in Downtown.  Downtown bicycle commuters who regularly use West River Parkway are encouraged to use the LRT trail to and from Downtown."

May Minneapolis, neighboring St. Paul and all those injured have a speedy recovery.

World’s Largest Solar Energy Farm to be Built in California to Meet Community Choice Aggregation Demand

As reposted 7/13/07 on WorldChanging -Editor

 

Fresno, California sits at the south end of one of the sunniest and hottest valleys in North America, the San Joaquin. The San Joaquin Air District is also one of the most polluted in the nation, with asthma rates many times higher than the rest of the nation and numerous air quality action days every summer causing significant health and business impacts.

Upon this tableau, the city of about a half million residents along with 11 surrounding communities and two counties announced last week they would together be developing the largest solar facility in the world. It will be more than seven times the size of the earth’s largest solar energy farm, now in Germany.

Map sources: geology.com, WIPP.Energy.gov

The planned 80 PV solar plant, eventually covering one square mile, will be developed by San Francisco-based Cleantech America and managed by the Kings River Conservation District (KRCD), one of the state’s new community choice aggregation districts.

“We’re so excited about what community choice can do for us,” said Dave Orth, Manager of KRCD.

Community choice allows a city, county or group of communities such as the KRCD to band together to build and produce their own energy and then transmit that over lines owned by public or investor-owned utilities. In the case of the KRCD and other California communities following in its path, the goal is to control development of new energy sources, particularly renewables, which can be solar, wind, biomass or other non-polluting technologies. 

San Francisco Moves Toward Renewable Power Majority

A significant step toward having the nation’s first renewable-powered city was taken yesterday by the city and county of San Francisco. Its board of supervisors went forward with a request for the public utility commission to study a plan’s feasibility that would develop more than half the city's total electric power from renewables.

“It’s high time for San Francisco to chart its own energy future,” Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi told the board.

The city’s power currently comes investor-owned utility, Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E), which also owns the transmission lines along with the power-generating facilities. About 12 percent of the city’s PG&E power now comes from renewable sources, with the remainder coming from large-scale hydroelectric dams, natural gas-fired power plants and nuclear facilities.

California requires 20 percent of all its power to come from renewable sources by 2010 and 33 percent by 2020, but San Francisco is attempting to shoot for the moon with its new approach.

The plan, called “community choice aggregation,” would have San Francisco developing and owning its own power-generating facilities, which it proposes consist of 51 percent renewables such as solar, wind, biomass and small-scale hydroelectric by 2017.

San Franciscan residents or businesses then would be able to “opt-out” of the program if they chose to continue to receive power generated by PG&E, otherwise they would automatically receive the new greener energy from the PG&E lines and would be billed by PG&E, just as always.

Community choice was legislated as an option by the state’s General Assembly (AB 117) in 2002 after rolling power blackouts of 2000-2001 and skyrocketing energy prices--now proven to be influenced by Enron and other out-of-state power companies--spooked the state into action for more energy independence. San Francisco voters also approved a $100 million solar bond in 2001 to back development of renewables, though most of that funding has remained untapped.

Aggregating purchases of energy by a city differs from publicly owned utilities that can be found in cities such as Austin, Texas’ Austin Energy. Fresno and a consortium of other adjacent California Central Valley cities are the furthest along in developing consumer choice aggregation.

PG&E, in apparent opposition to the community choice campaign, has been running an aggressive marketing campaign in San Francisco across buses, billboards and media called “Let’s Green This City,” touting the city’s green potential.

One board supervisor, Michela Alioto, cautioned the board that the city would have a big challenge in developing energy generation sources separate from PG&E—renewable or otherwise—on such a massive scale: “I have not had one conversation with anyone from PG&E...(but) I want you to tell me how this will provide better service at a better price.”

Currently San Francisco is the national leader in city-generated solar power, with about 1 megawatt of solar capacity out of the city’s current 900 daily megawatts of total consumption. The new plan scopes out the need for 360 megawatts of renewable energy to replace a big chunk of the non-renewable portion of PG&E's supply.

Water, Water Everywhere, but...

After hitting this weekend's BALLE conference (Business Alliance for Local living Economies) at UC Berkeley,  there was a question that came up during the Sustainable Cities panel I was on regarding how to implement graywater systems. Graywater is the leftover "dirty water" from clothes washers, sinks and showers. It is not used toilet water, otherwise known as "blackwater."

Image courtesy HomeEnergy.org

 

I answered how I've installed one at our home using water from the washer that flows through a plastic tube out to our lawn and fruit trees via gravity.

Mayor Tom Bates of Berkeley responded that people should "shower with a friend" to conserve water and use a bucket under their shower. 

 

These were not the right answers. The best response would have been to point out innovative cities such as Santa Monica, California that are issuing advice and permits for graywater systems.

Water scarcity is going to be one of the largest bugaboos facing local government as global climate change causes more frequent droughts. Water use will also will be major a contributor to global climate change until we can better figure out how to conserve it. In California, for instance, water pumping is the largest single use of energy in the state, accounting for significant carbon emissions.

 

So any way in which graywater can be used more commonly through city codes in simple systems not requiring lots of fancy pipes, pumps and materials, will be significant advance over the current practices.

Mayor Bates also reported on a more than 8 percent in carbon emissions reduction in Berkeley from 2000-2005, most of which came from increased walking and cycling: the city has one of the highest non-carbon transportation rates in the nation for any city, with about 18 percent riding or walking to work. The only US community I know of with more than that is Burlington, Vermont, with a non-carbon commute transit rate of between 19-20 percent.

All in all the BALLE event, with appearances by Paul Hawken, co-founder Judy Wicks, and organizational muse David Korten, was an amazing web of networking, presentations, workshops and local tours.  Last year the event was held in Burlington--it was inspiring to get a taste of 600 North American small and green business representatives from all over the US and Canada in the Bay Area, and to visit with old friends and mentors.

New City Need: Chief Risk Officer

Now that we've entered the verified era of global climate change, cities need to get ready for the greater likelihood of the unexpected, which may include according to the Fourth Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stronger-than-average hurricanes, coastal storm surge flooding, catastrophic heat waves, and urban forest or brush fires.

Adaptation to climate change is a strategy that is coming into prominence alongside the mitigation efforts of climate change now occurring in most major North American cities.  Cities such as Chicago have recently fared well in reducing the impacts of potential catastrophic heat waves through the its Office of Emergency Management's deployment of cooling centers and outreach to the elderly and disabled when such events are forecast.

But what about the larger-scale events like Hurricane Katrina, or the 2003 heat wave that killed more than 14,000 in Paris and other parts of France? How do cities better prepare financially and organizationally for such levels of devastation?

Roger Ferguson, Chairman of Swiss Re America Holding Corporation, advised the world's largest city mayors that they consider developing a Chief Risk Officer role in their city to, "identify and assess emerging risks, to communicate risks, to help mitigate mega-risks that can't be covered by insurance companies alone."

"There is a need for a holistic approach to mitigate and adapt to climate change," said Ferguson as he addressed mayors from 32 of the world's largest cities at the C40 climate summit earlier this month in New York City.

SustainLane ranked the largest 50 US cities according to their risk for natural disasters in its US City Rankings. The top five in order of being most at risk: Miami (hurricanes, flooding); New Orleans (hurricanes, flooding); Oakland (earthquakes, wildfires); San Francisco (earthquakes, tsunamis, flooding); Honolulu (tsunami, flooding, earthquakes).

None of these cities have a Chief Risk Officer, though some smaller cities such as Johannesburg, South Africa do have such a position, and many corporations now staff a similar executive-level position.

Design Like You Give A Damn: Architectural Responses to Humanitarian Crises

Announcing... SustainLane Government book reviews! Whip out a pen and start your summer reading list. Today, Research Associate Ramsay Millie reviews a book which should be considered by city planners, architecture consultants, and anyone interested in sustainable development. Over the next few days we will post more reviews.   -Editor

Edited by: Architecture for Humanity

Everyone who touches this book on my coffee table is instantly immersed. Design Like You Give A Damn showcases low-cost sustainable solutions that solve some of the most troubling issues of the developing world.  Colorful pages display more than 80 innovative and contemporary solutions to such urgent needs as basic shelter, health care, education, and access to clean water, energy, and sanitation.  Alice Waters states, “This book brings forth the values of sustainability and diversity in a beautiful way—values which are as essential to our housing as they are to food we eat.”  A very powerful and thought provoking read.

-- Ramsay Millie, Research Associate, SustainLane Government

Commonwealth Club Panel: How Green is Your City?

Tomorrow, Wednesday, May 2, I will be leading a panel from noon to 1 p.m. at the venerable Commonwealth Club in San Francisco ("The nation's oldest and largest public affairs forum") on our new book How Green is Your City? The SustainLane U.S. City Rankings.

Appearing with me will be the ever-entertaining Director of the Department of the Environment for San Francisco, Jared Blumenfeld--abandon your notions of a staid city bureaucrat--and Ian Kim from the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland, which is leading up a "green collar" jobs program for the city.

It should be an enlightening discussion about the future of green cities, local jobs, economic development and clean tech in the 21st century, with representatives from the #2 city (San Francisco) and #5 city (Oakland) out of the largest 50 US cities profiled in How Green is Your City?

I'll be signing copies of the book and all three of us will field your questions. For those who can't make it because you're on the other side of the world, if you have any questions you want to post on this blog I'll try to ask them during tomorrow's panel.