About two years ago I was asked by my local city councilman Larry Wahl to serve on the city of Chico “sustainability task force”. I was initially enthusiastic, but the talk soon turned away from alternative energy solutions that I embrace, to getting a city wide inventory of carbon emissions. The task force, chaired by Vice Mayor Ann Schwab didn’t seem the least bit interested in solutions, but focused on tallying carbon emissions in town. That effort didn’t make a lot of sense to me then, since it gained the city nothing.
Now I know why, it was a prelude to taxation followed by wanton spending. They had to inventory to know how to tax. The “greenhouse gas” report they issued on September 2nd of this year had a number of oddball fees, taxes, giveaways, and edicts, such as a city wide gasoline tax, and even free electricity handouts to city employees for sustainable commuting. All of this while we are in an economic downturn and city financial crisis. This is why I can no longer support Ann Schwab, even though I worked with her.
There is a backstory to my involvement with this, but first things first, here is a copy of the sustainability task force “work plan” from September 2nd.
Link: cic-sustainability-090208
The local newspaper also did a story on the preliminary report, but not on the work plan from the link above.
Most important to note is that while my name is on this report, I had no hand in it whatsoever, as I was unceremoniously booted off the task force on December 20th, 2007 by vice mayor Schwab who sent me a letter advising of my termination. The reason? Attendance. But this goes to show how messed up things are with this task force, as they could not even get my termination straight and had me listed as a member 9 months afterwards.
For the record, there is little in this report I agree with and my name should not be on it. Two weeks ago I sent an email to Vice Mayor Schwab and the City Clerk Debbie Presson asking that my name be removed. No response.
When I was on the task force I had the distinction of being one of the few people that actually walked the talk, as I had put solar on my home and a local school, plus I drive an electric car (though I’ve since upgraded to a newer model electric).
No matter, I wasn’t well liked because I really didn’t want to play the carbon emissions tally game, preferring solutions instead. So I’m not surprised that Schwab booted me off when she had the chance.
The task force was made up of a few people like myself, that ran businesses in town, but the vast majority were city employees, university employees, and other publicly paid people. The meetings were on Mondays in the middle of the afternoon. People like me that run businesses found it hard to attend, because with us lost time at work means lost revenue, City and university employees don’t have those problems. Prior to my dismissal, another local businessman, Lon Glazner, voluntarily left because he had the same issues.
OK, enough about why my name is on the report, and why it tends to be public employee centric rather than more representative of our community makeup.
First there is the cost: $30,000 which went to a university employee (already on the public payroll) to produce this report. Another consultant fee in the same cozy city-university sustainability circle of friends. They did no outside bid advertisements that I’m aware of, they just picked the university “sustainability guru” to do the job.
Let’s look at some of the suggested “community reduction” actions in this report presented by Schwab and her task force:
- A suggestion to pay city employees to give up their parking spot.
- Require energy audits on residential units at the time of sale.
- Increased fees on waste disposal.
- A local gasoline tax to generate local revenue.
- Forcing a lights out policy on local businesses after hours
- Free electricity and free parking for city employees that drive electric vehicles
- Free or reduced cost electricity and parking for citizens that drive electric vehicles
You can find these items in Appendix C of the report, near the end under “Community Reduction Measures” which are designed to meet a carbon emissions target.
Here’s an interesting graph from the consultant’s report:
I don’t know about you, but spending 30 grand for information telling us that cars are the biggest source of CO2 in or city of Chico?. Shocker. No worries, we’ll attack that problem. On page 39 of the September 2 Greenhouse Gas Report there is this gem: “By implementing a local gas tax, the City could generate revenue to put toward sustainability projects”.
Yep, tax and spend. Darn those evil cars driven by irresponsible citizens.
The task force also favors doling out taxpayer money for “sustainability”, page 42: “For employees who own electric vehicles, the City could provide prime parking locations that offer free electric filling stations.” and for the public, page 39: “Electric fueling station-provide free or low-cost electric fueling stations for EVs.”
I drive an electric car. I’d gladly pay $1-3 per hour for park n’ charge. Vice mayor Schwab not only misses this dirt simple revenue opportunity, she wants to give away free electricity during a city budget crisis.
Just yesterday the state of California announced it was already 10 billion in the hole this year, and our county government announced it was 10 million in the red. Chico’s own sales tax revenue has been falling, and the city budget has been in the red for at least two years now, and there has been little substantial movement by city leaders to really solve the problem.
Image: The city General Fund and Parks deficit in red without transfers away from road and transportation improvements. Money from a gas tax we all pay has been transferred away from roads to cover the costs of other spending. If you wonder why bike routes are planned but not built, or why roads and traffic issues take so long to address, here is the culprit.
Source: Commision Impossible 10/22/08
For those reading that don’t live here, the business climate of our town is getting grim. Departments stores, restaurants, and other local businesses are closing almost daily due to the economic climate. The trickle down effect from state budget cuts will also affect the city’s largest state funded employers soon, such as Chico State University, and the Chico Unified School District.
So with the city budget headed for a certain train wreck, and the state economy in a shambles, I am absolutely gobsmacked that Schwab and her sustainability task force are suggesting gasoline taxes and free electricity giveaways at the same time. Then there’s the idea that businesses should be forced to turn out their lights at night. Saving energy is a fine idea, but at the expense of inviting crime into an unlit business?
This shows a level of disconnect that only a bureaucrat could muster. And, it’s why I strongly recommend that people reading this don’t vote for Schwab, but choose a city council candidate that has some business sense.
I’m all for efficiency and alternate energy ideas that are cost neutral or revenue generators, but the reality is those things aren’t being considered.
Public giveaways, new taxes, and visions of a sustainable future won’t solve the budget problems, sensible management combined with spending cuts and plans that will enhance the local business environment will.
@Richard Dupuis Werme: I question what you say about LED traffic lights. While it is true that small LEDs are more efficient than incandescent sources of light, the AMOUNT of light output by those LEDs is much less than an incandescent. Unfortunately, super bright LEDs are very expensive and do not have the same lifetime characteristics of the small LEDs you find in computers and consumer electronics.
LEDs are driven by the amount of electric current going through them, and as the current increases, the light output increases. But as the current increases, the lifetime DECREASES. I would posit that the city would have to replace the LED traffic lights at the same rate as non-LEDs.
As for energy use, the super bright LEDs are less efficient than their smaller versions in lumens/watt. Maybe there is energy savings, maybe not. Maybe on the red versions (red is a much easier color to produce than green or yellow) there are real energy savings.
But there are other reasons for using LEDs for traffic signals: Since there must be many LEDs to make on light, if one fails completely, the other’s will still work – failsafe is built-in. LEDs generally don’t “fail” like an incandescent fails. The lifetime of an LED is considered to be the time it will take to reach half the light output of a new LED (over time, the current through the LED will cause the light to become less efficient, producing less lumens/watt).
Anyway, I’m an electrical engineer who has spent significant time looking at LED specs so I hope I have some idea about what I am saying. But I haven’t looked at specs for new gen LEDs for a couple years, so hopefully things have changed significantly. If you have any links to some technical specs for the LEDs used in traffic lights, they would be welcome.
I propose the following energy program:
A.) Lift stupid restrictions on exploration.
B.) Jump back real fast before we drown in oil.
@Ron de Haan: HA! supercapacitors! Don’t make me laugh. Supercapacitors won’t show up in cars until the middle of the century, at the earliest! The storage capacity/$ for supercapacitors puts them in the stratosphere for price. We can’t even get them into our CELLPHONES! And trust me, I would LOVE a supercapacitor based cell phone. Sure, I might have to charge it twice a day, but it would only take about 10 seconds for a full charge! But the technology just isn’t there. One of the leading supercapacitor companies took their capacitors off the market because they couldn’t sell them.
Carbon nanotubes look promising for supercapacitor applications…if you’re the military or NASA. Carbon nanotubes are basically diamonds (both pure carbon, different atomic structures). They definitely aren’t commercially cheap. Again, maybe in 40 years. Plus, we have to make sure that they aren’t carcinogenic, poisonous, flammable, etc. We don’t know if they will act like DDT and conglomerate in fatty tissues. It will be a long road to carbon nanotube commercial supercapacitors.
As for supercapacitors for cars? Not likely in this or the next decade. On a safety note, remember that capacitors RELEASE their energy just as fast as they store it. The potential for electrocuting yourself is HUGE! The safety issues can be overcome, but that will put an even higher premium on them.
I’d like to know why so much stupid time/energy/money is being spent on CO2 when one of the biggest issues facing our planet today is minerals!
in the 26 May 2007 New Scientist, there is a list of minerals we are using and how fast we are exhausting the supply.
http://environment.newscientist.com/data/images/archive/2605/26051202.jpg
I think maybe the numbers might be stretched, but there is an obvious marketplace opportunity for being able to take jumbled garbage and separating out the minerals for reuse. Besides, I would like to see that just to reduce landfill space and reduce strip-mining. Plus the toxic runoffs from concentrating pollution in landfills. I live in Oregon, and I love clean rivers to swim and fish in. I want my children and my grandchildren, and great great great grandchildren to be able to swim and fish in the same rivers.
Also, I am very passionate about clean surface water. I currently live in Tanzania and hate seeing people bathing and washing clothes directly in the river (come on, it isn’t that difficult to haul a bucket 20 feet from the river and bathe there, let the soil filter some of that anti-bacterial soap they push in developing countries). I will be returning to university to study ecological engineering with a focus on clean surface water.
Dear Anthony, Mark, and all,
The Chico analysis is missing a few pie charts. By far the largest CO2 emission source impacting Chico and the region are the million-plus acres of forest fires that burned this summer across NorCal. Not only were 100’s of teragrams (10^12 grams) of CO2 emitted, but a variety of nasty pyrolysis products and particulates choked Chico and NorCal communities for months.
Chico does not exist in a vacuum. You are part and parcel of a larger set of communities. You must come to the realization that the greatest threat to livability and sustainability of yours and your neighbor communities is the gross mismanagement of Federal forests in your region. Carbon emissions are the least of it. Catastrophic megafires damage watersheds, airsheds, vegetation, wildlife habitat, public health and safety, recreation, scenery, and the regional economy in a Big Way. Those impacts are long-lasting, too.
The Sierra Club has promoted the current Federal Let It Burn policies. They are damaging everything that Chico hopes to achieve in sustainability and economic well-being. The wolf pack is not only at your door, you have invited them inside.
Please try to see the Big Picture and realize that Chico is not an island. All NorCal residents, and indeed all Western US residents, must get involved in the fight to bring sanity, responsibility, and scientific stewardship back into our Federal land management agencies. The Feds “own” more than half the territory. Our watersheds and landscapes are at enormous risk from Fed policies that are hugely destructive and FAIL to involve the affected residents.
Electric cars and urban gas taxes will do NOTHING to avert the environmental crisis we all are facing. Please catch a clue and join with Western communities and counties to address the real problem.
Hi KD,
Of course I would look at it.
Part of my day job is analysis of the cost/benefits of various IT/Engineering solutions.
Unfortunately – in my part of the world – objective analysis does not happen – the government departments are politicised. Witnessed by what is said by department heads once they retire!
Cheers G
Mark,
For a professor, I am truly surprised by your lack of critical thinking.
1. You define sustainability as “maintaining our quality of life over the long haul.”
– You imply that our current free market system, which has brought us to our current level prosperity, will not be able to do so in the future, and even imply it will actually reverse and bring us to doom and death. What data is this based on? Have you looked at the temperature and sea level records? Or is a fictitious consensus good enough reason for you to waste taxpayer funds?
2. “A majority of the committee does believe in AGW, and thus wanted to get a baseline inventory of GHG production in the city of Chico.”
– Again what do you base AGW belief on? Partial consensus? The data show it’s cooling and sea levels have stagnated – in contradiction to the CO2 AGW theory. Or rather could it be that it’s fun for bored bureaucrats to play “Let’s save the planet and look important!”? I really think it’s high time for people like you to grow up, accept real responsibility, and tackle problems that are based on real data and need to be addressed. People don’t want a paranoid control-state snooping into their private lives.
3. “I worked on this project on my personal time. City staff were on the clock. City staff sought other estimates, and they came in at between $60,000 and $90,000. Our $30,000 project came in early and under budget.”
– Like I say, how about focussing on problems that are REAL? In my view you wasted another $30K, and lots of hours playing a childish fantasy game.
Obviously there’s a difference of opinion. How can we reconcile it?
Why don’t you invite two experts to Chico and have them debate the AGW topic – in public? Is AGW a problem or not? Is there a scientific basis to warrant more government intrusion in and control of private lives? To warrant central planning type “sustainability” programs? Are you afraid of the answer.
Lastly I can only say that any private person basing a decision to spend so much money and time and resources on a science that is so dubious would be fired, or go bankrupt in short order.
Either put forth some science in this forum, or shut this wasteful do-gooder “sustainability” project down.
Thank you for your attention,
Pierre Gosselin
evanjones (23:41:45) : “B.) Jump back real fast before we drown in oil.
So peeking is dangerous?
PG tells it like it is!
Forthright!
Hey – if your spending the tax payers money – don’t forget were human too.
We want an explanation of how our hard earned is actually going to benefit us.
Government is not a job shop.
This type of story makes me very concerned about our political future. Politicizing science in an effort to tax and spend more. Especially concerning to me is the refusal to remove Anthony’s good name from the report.
Like Anthony, I walk the walk, and while I could always do more, I’m proud of what I’ve done so far. My house is built out of SIPs, my car is a hybrid, etc..
I think about all the things Chico the enterprise could internally to lead the way without impacting the citizens, business and tax base and yet from this study you get almost nothing.
When it comes to external recommendations and major impacts to the citizens and businesses you get a lengthy list.
“Create Jobs. The transition to a low emissions society will require innovation and effort. As homes and businesses are retrofitted, new jobs will be created. The transition to a “climate-friendly economy” will also require new educational programs, new technologies, and new businesses, which will create new jobs in our community.”
That is hilarious! How about: “Instead of paying outrageous fees and retrofitting costs, homes and businesses will move to places where it is much cheaper to do business, unless they happen to be involved in recreational drugs.”.
I’m sorry, Anthony, that you have to endure this.
Gore and Hansen have created a CO2 bogeyman which allows them to control all three branches of government in many countries, including seizing the White House.
The age of reason is dead.
Basically the study was all about creating a new tax list. THAT is what the money was spent for. Now we need to hire more people to administer this new taxing authority. Of course, we’ll have to build a new building (lots of marble, please, and remember no cheap furniture), and install those connections for the free electricity for city workers. Now, we’re going to need someone we can trust as the administrator. Surely someone has a relative that is ready to take the reins. The salary is 180,000, anyone know someone qualified? Oh yeah, That’s alot of paperwork, your will start with a staff of seven, but we will hire whoever you need. Don’t worry, the government is here to help you.
Kum Dollison said:
“I understand, Smokey. It’s just that there really is no such thing as a “bottomless milkshake.” It might behoove us to husband our resources a bit till we get an absolute number on where we’re at. ”
I see you’ve been drinking the “limits to growth” cool aid…
There is no energy shortage, and there never will be. There is only a shortage of dirt cheap liquid motor fuels.
A smart Japanese scientist developed AND TESTED a polymer mat that collects uranium from the ocean at a cost of about $100/lb in circa 1980 dollars. If the entire planet were run on Uranium, the quantity that erodes into the ocean each year would be less than we would pull out to use. We run out of energy when we run out of planet.
We can run the entire US on a solar farm a couple of hundred miles on a side. It would disappear into any one of several of our deserts. We can run the entire country on the wind we have. We can run California off of a wave farm that would occupy about 100 miles x 1 mile of our coastal waters using exiting commercially available known technologies.
Want liquid fuels? Algae work best, but you can get 50 tons / acre of wood from Eucalyptus in warm area or a bit less for Poplars in colder areas. Cellulose can easily be turned into liquid fuels by several methods (just not cheaply). Synthesis gas. Pyrolysis. Fermentation with Tricodermata, Novozyme (and others) synthetic enzymes, etc.
These are not hypotheticals or research, they are real. Synthesis Energy Company, Syntroleum and Rentech companies all have solids to liquids facilities. One of them is building a plant near Los Angeles to turn trash into liquid fuels. Marathon Oil has a process using Bromine (rather than the FT /gasification route). These can use any carbon source. Our several hundred years worth of coal, or the thousands of lbs/acre/year we can grow. (Or even the tons of yard waste hauled from my neighborhood each year). China is buying synthetic fuels factories at a very fast clip.
So why don’t we?
The problem all of these share is that oil is dirt cheap. Until we use MORE of it, enough to keep the price above $50 to $80/bbl, we will stay addicted to oil. As soon as we get above that price point AND STAY THERE, we can kiss OPEC good-by. Personally, I’d like to see a tariff on non-NAFTA oil to put a price floor on imports of 80+/bbl so we could get started… but don’t hold your breath.
BTW, the notion that we can, through improved efficiency, reduce our oil consumption is seriously broken. Google “Jevons paradox”. Jevons showed that increased coal efficiency resulted in more coal consumption, not less. Each use becomes less, but the lower cost per use results in many more uses. Basically, I’m willing to drive my 50 mpg compact on a 50 mile commute to work, so I buy a home further from work than if I had a Hummer.
The bottom line is that we need to get over the notion that we can outsmart economics via fiat. The fact that we may be on Hubberts Peak is a good thing, in that as gas prices rise we will finally start using alternatives. But Hubberts Peak assumes that we continue to find and produce all we can just to have a parabolic decay of oil availability. If we fail to continue to produce all we can, we will fall off of an oil cliff so fast that we risk the destruction of our economy before we can build the alternatives fuels factories. We MUST drill drill drill or face a cliff, not a parabolic decay.
The “correct” answer is to let folks use whatever fuel is most cost effective and get out of the way. If you want to fool with it, limit your fooling to a tariff on OPEC oil only to stabilize the price at a level high enough to encourage alternatives.
Also, all the alternative car / fuel solutions tend to ignore the fleet turn over problem. We can not all go buy new funny fuel cars next year. Physically not possible. ALL solutions that pass through fleet change are 10 to 20 year solutions even if we were already buying new funny fuel cars now. That goes double for electric cars since we need grid and generation to go with them.
So, expect that we MUST use gasoline and diesel for the foreseeable future (at least a decade+) and that Hubbert’s Peak is going to force the conversion of basic energy source used for those fuels for us. Then expect that if we just leave folks alone they will build the (other carbon to gasoline / diesel) fuel factories of the future.
FWIW: I drive a diesel car and seek out biodiesel whenever I can find it. But I don’t fool myself into believing that we could produce billions of gallons of biodiesel in the next 5 years no matter how hard we tried; even given that we could easily do it in 20 years. (See Origin Oil, Global Green Solutions, and Pacific Sun? who all have algae systems. OOIL, GGRN, and PSUD stock tickers, I think. You could not grow them to the size of an Exxon in 5 years no matter how hard you tried.) We might be able to do it with coal, since we already mine a lot of it and Sasol (SSL South African Synthetic Oil Co.) has already worked out how to do it on a national scale.
So yes, we do have a “bottomless milkshake”. In fact we have several of them. We just happen to have a 1/2 price giant milkshake in oil sitting in front of the others.
Oh, BTW, my home town was about 1/2 hour drive from Chico. I’ve attended the old Pioneer Days. I’m very familiar with the area.
It’s a sad day to see Chico this screwed up. It was “sustainable” for at least 100 years until this nonsense came along. I’m now pretty sure it will start shrinking instead. The rice hulls and stems from the hundreds of square miles of rice land around Chico would produce more energy than the whole place could use. A real “sustainability” program would have installed a synthetic fuels system, created jobs, cut taxes, and made a bunch of gasoline and diesel fuels.
Pierre,
I have found it is easy to infer things from a blog. A couple of more comments to help clear things up.
The Task Force requires a quorum of members to even hold a meeting. Absent members caused the task force to cancel a couple of meetings. City code allows a chair to remove a member who misses more than three meetings a year. Committee members asked the chair to enforce the rules so the task force could at least meet and deliberate. City staff informed all members of the rule. Two members were unable to make the next meeting. They were replaced by fellow citizens of similar view points. This was not an issue of censure.
One of my university colleagues is on the IPCC. He gave expert testimony to the City Council at the request of the council member who nominated Anthony to the task force (and nominated Anthony’s replacement). The ongoing discussion has been spirited, and VERY public. This has not been a backroom affair.
Again, I understand that if you do not believe in AGW, this is all “stupid” and a waste of money. I respect your right to hold that opinion.
Rest assured, Anthony is a respected (beloved by some) member of our community and the most popular blogger on our local network (Norcalblogs) where I picked up this post.
As for Mike D.’s comment on the fires. You are correct. This study was limited to the city’s sphere of influence, at the direction of the task force.
Lastly, Anthony’s name was included because he was a member of the original committee. It is not meant to imply endorsement. This is the first that I have heard about wanting his name removed. Now that I know, I will see that new cover sheet is produced. Sorry for that Anthony.
REPLY: Thanks Mark, no harm no foul. I just wish Schwab or Presson would have responded teo weeks ago. Glazner was also an original member but his name isn’t on it. – Anthony
For those of you interested in Chico’s sustainability efforts. Our fourth annual conference opens this Thursday. For more information on This Way to Sustainability IV, point your browser to
http://www.csuchico.edu/sustainablefuture/events/2008conference/conference_info.shtml
For those of you interested in Chico’s sustainability efforts. Our fourth annual conference, This Way to Sustainability IV, opens this Thursday. For more information on topics and speakers (including the task force) visit
http://www.csuchico.edu/sustainablefuture/events/2008conference/conference_info.shtml
It’s obvious you don’t work with the environmental agencies. This is par for the course.
90% or more of the time and money industries spend with the environmental agencies is emissions tallying. Very little is spent actually reducing emissions. Much of the rest includes answering to or complying with unreasonable demands (such as demanding a routine inspection of all bolts in a plant after one failed. A full inspection plan for >5 million bolts? (~40-60 man-years per inspection) but not an unusual request). The majority of funds are spent on analyzers and emissions testing with accounting required down below the part per million range of concentration and fractions of an ounce for flowrate.
Suprised, I am not.
Whether you bekieve in AGW or not I believe it is still stupid to drive people and businesses from your community. The city gas tax is laughable.
mr watts,
i applaud your efforts to take the political establishment of your hometown to task…as mr bryant has tried to point out above, decisions based on unscientific reasoning is a recipe for eventual bankruptcy…this great country has been down this road before during the carter administration and the green solutions of wind, solar, biofuels, and oilshale proved they are economically “unsustainable”…those that ignore history are bound to repeat it and if your city leaders are allowed to continue there tax subsidization of uneconomic policies, chico too will bankrupt itself…fossil fuels are not the bogeyman its made out to be…in fact, it is the reason for the quality of life here in the U.S. so envied across the globe…in order to “sustain” life, liberty and the pusuit of happiness, we need to produce more of it…NATURAL GAS and COAL is in great abundance in our own backyard…kalifornia needs to continue to build upon its fledgling CNG powered vehicular system as does the rest of the U.S…it is part of an economic viable homegrown fossil fuel solution to energy independence…pandering to co2 (a life “sustaining gas”) tax and trade indoctrination is a recipe for a change towards “unsustainabilty”…once again, your willingness to stand up to those lies is commendable…please carryon on your good work!
Again, I understand that if you do not believe in AGW, this is all “stupid” and a waste of money.
I don’t understand that statement. There are many things (those that I listed above, plus some others) that you can do that are not only good for the environment, but will provide “Savings” to the City.
For example, you folks need to look into the hundreds of school systems that have been running their buses on biodiesel. The savings have been Very large (and, they’re growing.) Many of these districts are sourcing their biodiesel from donated frier (yellow) grease. It’s just a matter of having the students “pick it up.” In other cases you can buy the grease cheaply from the local rendering/hauling firm.
Anthony,
I am a fellow Chicoan who daily reads your blog & listens to your KPAY broadcasts. I understand your reluctance to branch into the political arena too much, but this kind of information is invaluable to voters trying to make decisions about local candidates. Perhaps you can collaborate with a more local blogger to ensure info like this gets a wider Chico audience?
Keep up the good work–it is much appreciated!
If the town is really serious about “sustainability”, it should require that every home cover its land with as many trees as it can hold. And require wood-powered homes and vehicles. And require insurance against damage caused by falling (or felling) trees. And do the same with all city properties and vehicles. Think the residents would be happy with being told what to do with their land, and all parkland being forest? And they’ll be saving money by no longer having Little League baseball teams!