Monday, July 30, 2012

How to Discuss Climate Change

Hello Readers,

This is the level of discussion that we, the Warmest Generation, need to be having. If you don't understand climate change (or don't think that you do), please watch this:



It is time to understand that 'increased probability' means that climate change is happening! Anyone who tries to spin the message of 'increased probability' as anything other than climate change is happening, is misinformed (or trying to misinform).

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond

Friday, July 27, 2012

Proposal: Reducing the MBTA Debt (Part 3)

Hello Readers,

Earlier in this series, I provided some background on the MBTA debt crisis and offered some justification for introducing a Parking Space Tax (PST) as part of a comprehensive transportation policy for the greater Boston metro area. I also suggested that any possible solution to the MBTA debt crisis must meet three criteria: (1) effectively addressing the debt itself (rather than merely shuffling it around), (2) improving the overall commuter experience, and (3) increasing MBTA revenues without unfairly burdening individual riders through constantly increasing fares.

In this final post in the series, I will offer some specific stipulations and suggestions regarding the structure and scope of any PST introduced in Massachusetts. I offer each of these recommendations with the hope that they ensure that the financial burden of the PST is spread equitably and that the corollary transportation incentives of the PST are targeted effectively.

PST Considerations

First and foremost, I feel compelled to acknowledge that there are many legitimate uses of cars and that as a result there is some legitimate need for parking spaces. Growing up in suburban Pennsylvania, I experienced innumerable situations where attempting to use any other form of transportation would have been simply impractical. I can only assume that in Massachusetts there are analogous issues that must be considered. With this concession in mind, here are some principles worth considering:
  1. Handicap Access - No matter how many elevators, ramps, and kneeling buses a mass transit system may introduce, there will be instances where forcing handicapped individuals not to drive (or have access to parking) will put an unreasonable burden on those individuals and their families. Thus, I recommend any PST or similar program waive all fees, costs, and limitations related to handicap parking spaces.

  2. Population Density - That is to say that in areas with especially low population densities, a mass transit system may not be a viable option. In some situations, a rural population may only have enough people traveling to a shopping center each day to fill a bus three times per day. Of course, only having access to the shopping center three times per day or running a half-filled bus six times per day would not be helpful for the shopping center businesses, convenient for the local residents, or economical for a bus company or transit authority. In these areas, personal cars and parking spaces truly are the best option.

    At the same time, there are numerous suburban and urban areas where personal cars may seem like a necessity. However, this perceived necessity is typically much greater than the actual utility of personal cars. Specifically, by improving current transportation alternatives or introducing new alternatives, the local population could easily and effectively make (better) use of a mass transit system to the benefit of commuters as well as local residents and businesses.

    Thus, understanding the relationship between population density and the utility of personal car use, I strongly urge that any PST or similar program be directly correlated with population density, such that areas with higher population densities bare a larger burden than areas with lower population densities. In fact, areas with sufficiently low population densities should not bare any PST or mass transit burden.

  3. Free over Fare - While there may be no right to parking, I would contend that there is a right to free travel. That is, no matter how rich or poor someone is, they should never be trapped by the cost of transportation or overwhelmingly obstructed by the infrastructure of non-free transportation (i.e. no mode of transportation that costs money should prevent someone from using free modes of transportation).

    Despite how beneficial cars, subways, buses, or any other mode of transportation may be, it should not trump the needs of cyclists and pedestrians. On the contrary, improvements to fare-based transportation should only serve to augment the ability of people looking to walk or bike to their destination. Thus, bike racks, bike lanes, wider sidewalks, and benches should all be considered alternatives to parking spaces, and in related policies the introduction of new free-travel improvements should be an opportunity to reduce a community's PST burden.

  4. Validated Parking - Often urban shopping centers, entertainment venues, and groceries stores 'validate parking' to alleviate the burden of the cost of parking for their customers. I would like to reconsider this concept in two ways in order to address some potential criticisms of a PST.

    Rather than validating parking in densely populated neighborhoods and towns, why don't stores 'validate' mass transit costs? Stores with parking lots or garages might easily charge a dollar or more per hour for parking, because in these cases, the stores have spent (or are spending) money to build or maintain the parking spaces, a cost that could be passed on to customers directly. However, they realize that it is beneficial to their bottom-line to subsidize this parking cost for customers that may be spending hundreds of dollars during a shopping trip. Wouldn't it make as much sense (or more sense) for those stores to validate mass transit fares instead and fore-go the expense of maintaining a parking lot or garage? Just imagine if for every $20 you spent on groceries, you could have a quarter added to your Charlie Card!

    On the other hand, many people live in the city where mass transit exists but work in the suburbs and country side in massive office complexes, which are not accessible (or barely accessible) via public transportation and are well out of the range of an average cyclist. In these cases, someone's livelihood may depend on their ability to have access to a car for their daily commute, which may mean that a hefty PST at home needs to be paid solely so they can get to work. As such, it would be entirely feasible for employers (especially large corporate employers), who have decided to locate their operations in a suburban locations, to validate their employee's residential parking costs. This may seem outlandish at first, but consider that many urban employers already offer similar commuter benefits to encourage their employees to utilize mass transit services.

  5. Other Concerns - While I do not have a catchy name for this point, I would discourage any stipulations that taxed the use of private driveways at residences. Part of my justification for PST legitimacy is the over-use of public spaces, which admittedly has been stretched somewhat to include commercial spaces, as parking spaces. However, it seems inappropriate to try to assess parking taxes on farms or private residences. The purpose of the PST is not to make car ownership impossible, it is only to discourage excessive car use and encourage alternative forms of transportation whenever appropriate. Thus, I would also consider making provisions for car share programs, taxis, parking spaces at commuter rail stations, and even car dealerships and some long-term vehicle storage facilities.
One Possible PST Structure

One way to structure a PST would include calculating the rate of taxation at the municipal level on a per parking space basis, which is scaled to the local population density. For example, the tax could be designed such that the PST rate in each municipality is equal to $0.01 per day for each taxable parking space, multiplied by the local population density divided by 1000. In this calculation, a municipality's population density would be rounded down to the nearest thousand. The tax rates for the most densely populated municipalities in Massachusetts under such a scenario are listed in the box below.


MunicipalityPop. Density
Per Sq. Mi.
Daily PST Rate
Per Parking Space
Annual PST Cost
per Parking Space
Somerville18,448$0.18$65.70
Cambridge16,358$0.16$58.40
Chelsea16,081$0.16$58.40
Boston12,753$0.12$43.80
Everett12,314$0.12$43.80
Malden11,716$0.11$40.15
Lawrence10,974$0.10$36.50
Winthrop8,803$0.08$29.20
Revere8,750$0.08$29.20
Brookline8,649$0.08$29.20
Population density figures based on 2010 census data posted on the arlington-mass.com website.

Each of the municipalities listed in the table above are already served in some way by the MBTA and would most greatly benefit from improvements to T service. Of course, there are some densely populated areas that are not served by the MBTA, see the map below. However, each of these areas could probably make use of some mass transit funding in the future. Furthermore, as you may note in the map below, there are also large regions of the state with population densities below 1,000 residents per square mile, which would not be subject to any PST rate at all.


Of course, as every urban planner and policymaker knows, every location is different. With this in mind, I will suggest that a state-wide PST follow the guidelines listed in the above section and establish a rate structure similar to the one in this section. Then, as long as the related legislation clearly defines what is and is not considered a taxable parking space, the actual administration and collection of the PST may be left up to the municipal authorities (with some small percentage of the revenues being returned to the municipalities to cover their administrative costs).

This will offer municipalities and local residents the ability to determine how to divide up the financial burden of the PST and develop innovative ways of reducing the number of parking spaces in their own municipality - while still meeting the needs of citizens and businesses. For example one town may decide to collect the revenues through residential parking permit fees, whereas another may elect to put the burden on commercial properties by increasing real estate taxes or charging a parking lot fee. Likewise, some municipalities may decide to erect new no-parking signs on certain streets, replace parking spaces with bike racks, or allow restaurants to block off old parking spaces for use as outdoor seating.

In any event, implementing a Parking Space Tax will involve a little bit of creativity. However, if done right, it can meet the three criteria necessary to solve the MBTA debt crisis and offer a sustainable alternative to the current de facto transportation policy in Massachusetts.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond





Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Proposal: Reducing the MBTA Debt (Part 2)

Hello Readers,

In an earlier post, I introduced the issue of the overwhelming debt that is burdening Boston's mass transit system, the MBTA. In that post, I also suggested that a Parking Space Tax (PST) is a possible solution that will meet three criteria: (1) effectively addressing the debt itself (rather than merely shuffling it around), (2) improving the overall commuter experience, and (3) increasing MBTA revenues without unfairly burdening individual riders through constantly increasing fares.

In this post, I shall offer justification for taxing parking spaces as a means of meeting these three criteria. In the next post, I shall suggest some features and stipulations of a PST that ensure its equity and effectiveness as a part of a comprehensive transportation policy.

The Right to Parking

I recently watched the documentary Urbanized, a film directed by Gary Hustwit about urban planning. In the film, the former mayor of Bogota, Columbia (Enrique Peñalosa) drove home a point that stuck with me. He asked, essentially, where in the [Columbian] constitution is there a right to parking? Obviously, the answer is that there is no 'right to parking' in any constitution in the world, that a 'right to parking' does not exist. He also went on to suggest that in a democracy that it is the people who should be treated equally, not the cars. Thus, a bus that holds 50 people should have 50 times more priority and access to a roadway than a car that holds 1 person.

Building on the concept that there is no 'right to parking' (and preferring people's equity rather than cars' equity), I would like to suggest that parking is indeed a privilege and not a right. Furthermore, the existence of on-street parking spaces and public/commercial parking lots and garages (and the associated side effects of their existence) tend to put a significant burden on the public as a whole. Therefore, parking spaces should be subject to a tax.

Some Burdens of Parking Spaces on the Public
  1. Physical Space - The most obvious and direct impact of parking spaces and parking lots is that their physical presence prevents the allocation of that space for other uses. Just imagine if every building in Boston had an additional 9' wide patch of green space in front of it or if restaurants and cafes could provide ample outdoor seating without obstructing the sidewalk! Likewise, consider what might be possible if the neighborhood grocery store had half of its parking spaces replaced with parks that included community gardens, bike racks, or even a public pool or ice rink.

    Instead, massive parking lots and on-street parking take up a lot of space. If on-street spaces were privately owned, you can be sure that the landlords would be charging rent for that space. However, since many parking spaces are publicly owned, car owners can use them rent free or nearly rent free.

    Even metered parking spaces are 'rented' at rates that are low compared to the surrounding land. For example in the City of Boston, a metered parking space is charged at a rate of $1.25 per hour. For each space, this works out to a maximum of $4,692.85 per year or just over $390 per month (after considering there is no charge on Sundays and at night) for a 216 square foot space (or roughly the size of a modest studio apartment). In other words, these spaces have a maximum financial return to the public of <$22/sq. ft each year, even in areas that may have a land values of over $200/sq. ft, which pay a property tax of well over 10%!

  2. Increased Congestion - For decades, policymakers have been attempting to address congestion and traffic by adding lanes to highways and streets. During each of those same decades, congestion has continued to get worse (or at the very least not better) in most places. Why is this?

    The reasoning is that adding traffic lanes provides more opportunities for cars to pass one another. The counter-intuitive result is that more people are encouraged to drive more often rather than using other modes of transportation. In effect, adding lanes of traffic to roads makes other modes of transportation seem more dangerous (e.g. by increasing the curb-to-curb distance for pedestrians and forcing cyclists to cross multiple lanes of traffic to turn left from a bike lane) and more difficult (e.g. putting obstructions and vehicles between places that are physically close together), which encourages more people to drive - causing more congestion.

    However, it is not simply the additional traffic lanes (or increased danger for alternative transportation methods) that significantly affect congestion. Instead, it is the availability of parking spaces at the end of the journey.

    Consider, for a moment, if there were zero parking spaces available in Boston. How many people would drive into Boston? Basically none. Granted, there would still be some traffic through the city, and perhaps occasionally someone might drop off a friend and return without needing to park. Yet, this would certainly amount to very little congestion compared to the daily rush hour in Boston today.

    Now, consider a less extreme case, where there were simply fewer parking spaces and those that were available were a little more expensive or otherwise reserved for handicapped citizens, car share programs, and bike racks. While driving would still be an option, it would probably be reserved for special occasions. Theoretically, such a scenario would decrease congestion. Thus, conversely, allowing parking spaces to be relatively cheaper and more available (the current situation) encourages more driving and more congestion than is necessary.

  3. Environmental Impacts - In my mind, the environmental impacts associated with parking spaces are relatively obvious even if they are somewhat indirect, so I will not dedicate too much discussion to this burden. Most directly, paved parking spaces cause increased storm-water runoff, compared to an equal amount of green space. Additionally, the vehicles parked on the spaces leak and leach fluids and oils that are often swept away with the storm-water into the rivers and harbors in Boston. Finally, as a corollary, all of the increased congestion related to parking spaces (as described above) means that each vehicle is spewing more pollutants per mile traveled.
So far, I have only discussed the issues and problems related to parking spaces and commuting by car. In the next post, I shall make a few concessions regarding the benefits of cars and parking spaces, as I offer some recommendations about the structure and limitations of any Parking Space Tax that may be introduced in Massachusetts.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond




Monday, July 23, 2012

Proposal: Reducing the MBTA Debt (Part 1)

Hello Readers,

Earlier this summer I moved to the Boston area and began to search for local sustainably minded organizations and investigate the local sustainability issues. As I did so, I quickly ran into one issue in particular that seems to be on everyone's mind: the MBTA.

For anyone not living in Massachusetts, the MBTA stands for Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which is the entity responsible for operating all commuter and mass transit services in the greater Boston metropolitan area, including local buses, ferries, subway lines, and commuter rail lines. According to the MBTA website (and the 2010 US Census), the MBTA services a territory with a population of 4,817,014 in a state with a population of 6,547,629 (i.e. nearly 75% of the population of Massachusetts). Though most often used in reference specifically to the subway system, the MBTA is commonly known as simply as the T.

The Issue

Unfortunately, from what I can surmise based on my discussions with people and searching through recent news articles, the MBTA is deeply in debt. So far in debt in fact that according to a BostInno article by Denise Provost, "Payment of interest on its debt eats up over 30 percent of MBTA’s entire budget."

According to an online Boston Magazine article, the total debt (at least as of February 2012) is $5.2 billion, which is attributable to three sources:
  • $1.85 billion - debt from MBTA improvement projects since 2000
  • $1.65 billion - debt from MBTA improvement projects prior to 2000
  • $1.7 billion - debt from the 'Big Dig' project
To explain the reasoning behind this breakdown, a little bit of modern history is required.

In 2000, the state legislature restructured the MBTA, requiring it to annually balance its budget under a so-called "Forward Funding" scheme. As part of the scheme, the MBTA was required to payback debts that the state had previously incurred due to MBTA maintenance and improvement projects. The scheme also required the MBTA to take on debt related to the environmental mitigation projects related to the Big Dig.

The Big Dig is the unofficial name of a now infamous highway project in Boston that was designed to re-route I-90 and I-93 through underground tunnels as they passed through downtown Boston. As part of the environmental mitigation for the massive amount of environmental disturbance that the Big Dig would cause, the state legislature agreed to implement several upgrades to the T system. The highway construction of the Big Dig took nearly a decade longer than expected and the actual cost was billions of dollars over-budget.

For an extensive overview of how the MBTA got so far into debt, see the 2009 MBTA Advisory Board report (pdf).

The Proposed Solution

The default response to this issue by the MBTA has been to raise fares and/or cut back on services: the two aspects of its budget over which the Advisory Board has control. Of course, both of these responses discourage T ridership by making mass transit trips more expensive and less convenient. Simultaneously, this makes other forms of commuting such as driving relatively more attractive, and it puts an additional burden on those most reliant on the T as their only means of transportation.

I have found many other potential solutions floating around on the internet, including absurd suggestions like selling liquor on subway cars to more serious suggestions. For example, the 2009 MBTA Advisory Board report recommended that the state simply take back the debt from the MBTA and put it back on the state budget. Also, one proposal currently on the table would require selling the naming rights to the busiest stations, but it would only make $147 million dollars over 8 years (less than one fifth of the annual budget deficit - note not the whole annual budget, just the deficit).

However, I cannot find any suggestions (at least none with any significant description) that include: (1) effectively addressing the debt itself (rather than merely shuffling it around), (2) improving the overall commuter experience, and (3) increasing MBTA revenues without unfairly burdening individual riders through constantly increasing fares. Thus, I would like to propose a solution that may ruffle a lot of feathers but should fulfill all three of these criteria and be relatively straight forward to implement.

The proposed solution is this: a Parking Space Tax.

Now, Republicans and Libertarians please hear me out before stonewalling the very notion of a tax. I could have very easily tried to call it a 'service fee' or something else, but I shall call it what it is. The Parking Space Tax (or hereafter PST) will have some features and stipulations that I will describe in a later post. However, in the next post, I will explain my reasoning behind a policy connecting parking and mass transit.

Also, while you are waiting for the next post in the series, you can take a look at a related Boston Globe article that was published as I was editing this series. The article is actually based on a similar premise but has a limited focus: downtown parking garages.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond

Friday, July 20, 2012

Don't Frack My Mother - song

Hello Readers,

After my string of long, detailed, and serious posts, I thought that I would provide everyone with a little bit of humor this Friday. Below is a song "Don't Frack My Mother" as performed by Sean Lennon and Yoko Ono on Late Night with Jimmy Fallon.



(The posting is from Hulu, so if it stops working Hulu took down the clip.)

Have a good weekend. Next week, I have a series of posts prepared about Boston's mass transit system, the MBTA, so check back on Monday.

Cheers,

Sean Diamond

Wednesday, July 18, 2012

How much is a kWh?

Hello Readers,

As I was writing my series on Net Metering, it was pointed out to me that most people are not especially familiar with some of the units that I used in the article. Thus, in this post, I would like to offer a primer on units that are commonly used when talking about electricity (and how they relate to renewable energy and energy use). At the bottom of this post, I have also included a glossary of Energy Industry Terminology that you may encounter while reading about renewable energy and energy use.

What's a Watt?

A Watt (W) is a basic unit of power measurement. Watts are used to measure how quickly energy is consumed by or generated by a system.

But what about all of the prefixes?

Unit NameAbbr.MeaningAt This Scale
MicrowattsμW1/1,000,000th WattsWrist Watches
MilliwattsmW1/1,000th WattsLaser Pointers
WattsW1 WattLEDs
KilowattskW1,000 WattsAverage US Households
MegawattsMW1,000,000 WattsAircraft Carriers
GigawattsGW1 Billion WattsMedium Size Cities
TerawattsTW1 Trillion WattsLarge Countries
Note: whether a prefix is capitalized or not can alter its meaning in some cases.

How about a Watt-hour?

A Watt-hour (Wh) is a basic unit of energy measurement. Watt-hours are used to measure how much energy is consumed by or generated by a system.

1 Watt-hour is the amount of energy that would be consumed by or generated by a system if the system operated at power level of 1 Watt for a time period of 1 hour. Note that, all of the prefixes listed above apply to Watt-hours the same way that they apply to Watts (e.g. 1 kWh = 1,000 Wh).

Energy UsedAt This Scale
15 WhCompact Fluorescent Bulb for 1 hour
250 WhXbox 360 and LCD Television for 1 hour
1 kWhAverage US Household for 1 hour
23 kWhNominal Rating of Electric Vehicle Battery
12 MWhAverage US Household for 1 year
20 GWhSmall US Town for 1 year
57 TWhTotal Massachusetts Electricity Consumption (2010)
3,750 TWhTotal US Electricity Consumption (2010)

Watts or Watt-hours?

Despite the similarity in name a Watt-hour is very different from a Watt!

For example, If I asked you, "How much power are the appliances in your house using right now?" Your response should be something like, "They are consuming 800 W."

Likewise, If I asked you, "How much energy do the appliances in your house use in a year?" Your response should be something like, "They normally consume about 9,000 kWh."

If you used the two units interchangeably (such as answering the first question as "800 Wh" instead of "800 W), it would be the same as confusing any other two units.

For example, if I asked you, "How fast were you driving when the cop pulled you over?" and you answered, "About 30 miles." In this case, your answer simply does not make sense!

Appliance Power

The more Watts an appliance is rated at, the more energy it consumes. You can think of this as describing how 'hungry' an appliance is. That is, how much energy does the appliance need to consume in order to do its job? In many cases, a higher power rating means an appliance can work more effectively. Of course, a higher rating does not necessarily mean that an appliance is doing a better job, sometimes it can mean a lack of efficiency. To put this in perspective, let me offer two familiar examples.

Example 1: Microwaves
A 600 W microwave will typically take longer to cook your TV dinner than a 900 W microwave. In this case, the 900 W microwave is 50% more powerful than the 600 W microwave, which allows 50% more energy to be applied toward cooking your TV dinner each second that the microwave is running. In this example, the added power means the job is done more effectively.

Example 2: Light bulbs
A 100 W incandescent light bulb can often be replaced with a 25 W compact fluorescent light bulb and essentially the same amount of light will be provided. With each light bulb, enough light is provided to read a book each second that the light is turned on. In this example, the incandescent bulb is more powerful but less efficient, so a lot of energy is wasted by heating up the coils in the bulb.

Reading an appliance's power rating can also, sometimes, be a bit misleading. Some appliances - such as microwaves - have straight forward power ratings. (e.g. A 900 W microwave should be using 900 Watts of power when it is in use.) However, other appliances have power ratings listed that represent their maximum energy use.

Refrigerators, for example, are typically plugged in and 'turned on' all of the time, but a 720 W refrigerator is not constantly using 720 Watts of power. Instead, refrigerators may use their rated power for 5 minutes and then use no power for 25 minutes before switching back on again. In this case, a 720 W refrigerator would have a peak power consumption of 720 W and an average power consumption of 120 W (or 720 W x 5 minutes/30 minutes).

Generator Power

The more Watts a generation system is rated at, the more powerful it is. You can think of this as describing how 'strong' the generator is. That is, would energy being generated feel like a blast from a fire hose? Or, would it feel more like a squirt from a small water pistol?

Electric generator power ratings can also be a little tricky. For most types of generators (such as coal power plants, nuclear power plants, wind turbines, etc.), the so-called nameplate capacity indicates the maximum possible power generation under optimal conditions. However, solar photovoltaic (PV) generation systems can be especially confusing, because they have two nameplate capacities: an AC nameplate capacity and a DC nameplate capacity.

The AC nameplate capacity of a PV generator is relatively straightforward; it indicates the maximum AC power output that the system's inverter(s) can produce. On the other hand, the DC nameplate capacity of a PV generator indicates the expected cumulative DC power output for all of the solar PV modules under Standard Test Conditions (STC) without applying any derates, which in some cases compound to result in an actual output that is much higher than the DC nameplate capacity (see description below).

Solar PV Industry: Standard Test Conditions (STC)
In the PV industry Standard Test Conditions (STC) describe the production of a solar PV module at 25°C (77°F) at sea level with 1000 W/m² of incoming solar radiation (irradiance).

While changes in atmospheric pressure can contribute minor changes in the actual output, changes in temperature and irradiance significantly alter the actual output of a solar PV module at different locations and throughout the year (and even throughout a single day).

Depending on the location and time (and the amount of moisture and other particulates in the atmosphere) an array of solar PV modules may receive 100-1400 W/m² of solar irradiance during the daytime. This range includes irradiance both less than and greater than the STC irradiance. Greater irradiance will allows for a derate ratio that is greater than 1. Also, the cells in solar PV modules are better able to transfer electricity in cooler temperatures, which also allows for a derate ratio that is greater than 1.

As a result, on a hot (cloudy) summer day a solar PV module will probably have  much lower output than the DC nameplate capacity. Conversely, on a cold (sunny) winter day a solar PV module is likely to have an actual output that is much higher than the DC nameplate capacity.


In any case, it is important to remember that the nameplate capacity of a generator is a nominal power rating, so it alone will not tell you how much energy a generator produces in a year. To determine a generator's annual energy production, you will need to multiply the nameplate capacity by the capacity factor and the amount of time in a year (i.e. Nameplate Capacity [W]x Capacity Factor x 8,766 hours = Energy Production [Wh]).

Other Terminology

Well, unfortunately, it would take an entire book or a semester course to explain all of the nuances of power, energy, voltage, and current related to energy generation and consumption. However, to help you along, I have put together a brief glossary of terms that are commonly used in the energy industry. I decided to put them in a logical (rather than alphabetical) order, so that you can read the glossary a bit like a book.

Glossary of Energy Industry Terminology
Nameplate CapacityThe maximum* potential power output or consumption for which a generator or appliance is rated to operate under optimal conditions (so called because this is often the nominal value listed on the name plate of the system).
DerateA multiplier that describes what portion of a nominal system output remains intact after the effect of a non-optimal or non-standard condition is considered (often used to calculate the impact of changes in operating temperature or other environmental variables).
Capacity FactorThe Actual Power Output compared to the Nameplate Capacity over a period of time (typically as a %).
Availability FactorThe portion of time that a generator is physically able to operate (as opposed to being offline for maintenance; typically as a %).
Peak PowerThe maximum amount of power that is actually generated or consumed during a defined period of time.
Average PowerThe total amount of energy generated or consumed during a defined period of time divided by that amount of time.
Load FactorThe Average Power divided by the Peak Power for a defined amount of time (normally used to describe how well a utility grid is utilized; typically as a %).
Direct Current (DC)Refers to power that is generated, consumed, or transferred at a steady voltage during normal operation (commonly used in batteries and solar photovoltaic modules).
Alternating Current (AC)Refers to power that is generated, consumed, or transferred using a fluctuating voltage, which causes the current to alternate directions (commonly used in household appliances and long distance utility lines).
AC Voltage (VAC)The voltage range over which AC power fluctuates (in the US, household electrical outlets nominally operate at ~120VAC, which means the actual voltage fluctuates between +120V to -120V many times per second).
Grid VoltageRefers to the AC Voltage that must be maintained on a utility grid in order to ensure safe and reliable operation (neighborhood utility lines typically operate between a few hundred volts and several thousand volts).
Grid FrequencyRefers to frequency with which Grid Voltage fluctuates each second (in the US, household electrical outlets nominally operate at ~60Hz, which means that each second the Grid Voltage fluctuates through 60 cycles from +120V down to -120V and back up to +120V).
InverterA device that turns Direct Current (DC) power into Alternating Current (AC) power (a common component of solar photovoltaic generation systems).
ConverterA device that turns Alternating Current (AC) power into Direct Current (DC) power (often referred to as "AC Adapters" and are used in appliances and electronic devices that run DC power or rechargeable batteries).
TransformerA device used to increase or decrease voltage (higher voltages are used to transport power over long distances with minimal losses; lower voltages are needed to operate common appliances).
*For solar photovoltaic modules, the Nameplate Capacity typically indicates the DC power output during standard test conditions of the module during its first year of operation.

I hope that you found this post useful. In the future, I will try to link to this post whenever I have included one of the terms listed above.

Cheers,

Sean Diamond

Monday, July 16, 2012

Massachusetts Utility Net Metering Cap

Hello Readers,

Earlier in this series, I described how utility net metering caps conflict with renewable energy installation goals. In this post, I will build upon the context established in the previous post about the Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), and I will explore the purpose of and issues with the net metering cap in Massachusetts.

To begin, let us consider the question: What is the purpose of capping net metering rules in the first place? There are two possible reasons why a net metering cap would have been introduced into the regulations: (1) there are physical safety concerns related to allowing significant percentages of net metered systems to interconnect or (2) utility companies lobbied for its introduction.

Safety Concerns with Net Metering

As I described in my graduate dissertation, the addition of a large percentage of intermittent renewable generation, such as solar and wind DG systems, has the potential to cause power quality problems on a non-smart utility grid. In other words, without sufficient demand response and/or energy storage capacity incorporated into grid, the modern utility grid infrastructure may not be able to handle large swings in power output (such as those that may be associated with changing wind speeds or clouds passing over a photovoltaic system) especially if intermittent renewable systems account for roughly 20% or more of a utility company's annual peak demand.

Even so, it is important to note that both DG-scale and large-scale (non-DG) intermittent renewable systems have the potential to cause physical stress on the utility grid infrastructure. In fact, the spikes and falls in production that can be problematic for the grid as a whole have a tendency to average-out across an aggregate of many DG systems, and therefore provide more stable grid voltages compared to a single large-scale system. Again, renewable DG systems should theoretically be favorable for the grid and provide a reason to encourage as much net metering as possible.

So, again, why put a cap on net metering? Understandably, no one wants huge swings in grid voltages to cause rolling brown-outs and damage to appliances, so perhaps a cap at 15-20% of the annual peak demand may be warranted if the grid is too 'dumb' to handle the input of renewable DG systems. However, in Massachusetts the cap has been established at 1% of annual peak demand for homeowners and businesses and at 2% of annual peak demand for municipalities and other government entities (for at total cap of 3% of annual peak demand).

National Grid's Net Metering Cap
National Grid’s historical peak load of 5,131 MWs occurred on August 2, 2006 in Massachusetts Electric territory; making the 1% limit 51.31 MWs and the 2% limit 102.62 MWs.

As of July 5, 2012 in Massachusetts, there are 45,244 KWs with net-metering service under the 1% limit and 11,291 KWs with net-metering service under the 2% limit.

As of July 5, 2012, there are 443,588 KWs with applications in the process of being interconnected under the 1% limit and of those 64,211 KWs have returned the Schedule Z.
Excerpt from National Grid Net Metering Website

Keeping in mind that 1,000 kW equals 1 MW, it is clear that, utility companies such as National Grid, already have more applications to interconnect net metered DG systems than they have room under their 1% private cap. This begs two questions:
  • Why is there a larger set aside for public entities (i.e. a 2% cap for municipalities and other government entities) in Massachusetts?
  • What is going to happen to all of the private entities that are applying to interconnect DG systems in Massachusetts?
As it turns out, the Massachusetts DPU is already arranging for the creation of a waiting list for entities attempting to interconnect DG systems after the cap limit is reached (see pdf). However, what good will this do if the net metering cap does not increase? The answer is appears to be little-to-no good at all.

Lobbying for a Net Metering Cap

Ostensibly, it is plausible that utility companies would have lobbied the state legislature on the issue in order to protect their profit margins. That is, logically, offering more net metering credits to DG system owners results in a proportionate decrease in the revenue that a utility company is able to collect, and therefore a proportionate decrease in profit margins. Thus, it would be equally logical in most cases for utility companies to lobby the legislature in support of a cap on net metering credits, thereby protecting utility company profit margins.

As I said, in most cases this would be logical, and in many states this may very well be the case. However, in Massachusetts in particular this makes very little sense due to a provision known as decoupling, which connects utility company profits with the number of customers served rather than the amount of electricity consumed.

Decoupling
The Department of Public Utilities (DPU) [...] issued an Order that will begin the process of "decoupling" rates from sales volume for all of the state's electric [...] distribution utilities, in order to encourage utilities to help their customers reduce their energy consumption and take advantage of on-site renewable energy, as required by the Green Communities Act, the comprehensive energy reform law [...] signed by Governor Deval Patrick.

[E]lectric utilities will file rate plans that separate, or decouple, their sales of electricity [...] from the revenues they need to collect in order to maintain the electricity [...] distribution system they are responsible for. [...] Utilities are expected to file decoupled rate plans with the [DPU] as existing rate plans expire - for most companies, by 2012 - though companies can file sooner on a voluntary basis.
Excerpt from Mass DPU Press Release

Thanks to Massachusetts' implementation of decoupling, there is little-to-no direct financial incentive for utility companies to obstruct customers looking to take advantage of renewable DG systems. Under current regulations, utility company profits will remain the same regardless of how much electricity is consumed.

Unfortunately, I do not have the personal resources to thoroughly investigate the lobbying practices of the utility companies on this matter. However, given this understanding of decoupling, it is tough to imagine that utility companies would have invested much effort or money into lobbying in favor of a net metering cap.

Although, on a related note: in a personal, off-the-record discussion with an employee of a utility company, it was suggested that part of the reasoning behind the net metering cap may simply be a lack of qualified personnel. That is, in Massachusetts, which has only recently seen a significant private sector interest in renewable DG systems with the introduction of the Solar Carve-Out of the RPS, utility companies in Massachusetts do not have enough qualified staff to safely and responsibly handle the incoming interconnection requests in a timely manner.

A Possible Solution

To summarize, capping net metering may be providing utility companies some breathing room needed to retrain current staff and/or hire qualified staff. Likewise, it may also be providing the utility companies with an opportunity to figure out how to make the smart-grid smarter (i.e. better able to handle high percentages of intermittent renewable systems).

If either of the above justifications for a net metering cap are the case in Massachusetts, that ought to be made clear to the public and the policymakers. Also, instead of setting a single net metering cap, which provides homeowners and businesses no opportunity to make plans beyond the limits of the current cap, legislators should layout a growth schedule for the net metering cap.

This growth schedule should be clearly defined and - importantly - must lead the growth of the RPS goals by at least a year. If the net metering cap remains stagnant or does not out-pace the RPS in Massachusetts: DG installers, financiers, and potential DG system hosts will continue to be frustrated and delayed by an inability to plan ahead, which will be detrimental to everyone interested in meeting the RPS goals or holding a job in the green energy industry in Massachusetts.

Requiring the utility companies to increase the net metering cap at a pre-defined rate will offer everyone involved some project planning certainty. Also - if implemented correctly - a scheduled net metering cap increase will provide utility companies the incentive they need to safely and responsibly implement beneficial smart-grid technologies, which will improve grid efficiency and reliability regardless of the success of the RPS in Massachusetts.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond



Friday, July 13, 2012

Massachusetts Renewable Portfolio Standard

Hello Readers,

In an earlier post, I described how, in general, the low caps on utility net metering rules undermine the goals established in a state's Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS). Now, I will take a look at the specific case of Massachusetts, which has an aggressive RPS program and already has utility companies running into the net metering cap.

In this post, I shall provide some background on the Massachusetts RPS. Then, in the next post, I will delve deeper into some of the reasoning behind putting a cap on net metering rules in the first place before finally discussing a possible solution to the issue.

Class I Resources
In Massachusetts, eligible Class I resources include: photovoltaics (PV); solar thermal-electric energy; wind energy; ocean thermal, wave or tidal energy; fuel cells utilizing renewable fuels; landfill gas; energy generated by certain new hydroelectric facilities, or certain incremental new energy from increased capacity or efficiency improvements at existing hydroelectric facilities; low-emission advanced biomass power conversion technologies using fuels such as wood, by-products or waste from agricultural crops, food or vegetative material, energy crops, algae, biogas, liquid biofuels; marine or hydrokinetic energy; and geothermal energy.
As described by DSIREUSA.ORG

Since 2003 Massachusetts has had an RPS, which has been increasing by 1% per year since 2008 and shall continue to increase by 1% per year without a legislated limit. By the end of 2012, the Massachusetts RPS requires that utility companies ensure at least 7% of the electricity they sell is produced by Class I resources.

Also, since 2010, the Massachusetts RPS has included a Solar Carve-Out, which specifies that a certain portion of the RPS must be met using energy produced by in-state solar photovoltaic (PV) generation systems that are 6 MW or less. Under the current legislation, the Solar Carve-Out in Massachusetts is ultimately limited to 400 MW of total installed capacity.

However, the requirement that each system must be 6 MW or less means that at least 400 MW of solar distributed generation (DG) systems (officially defined as generation systems 20 MW or less) will need to be installed over the next several years. As we discussed in the previous post, the primary means of DG installation is through net metering interconnection with the local utility company, so it is likely that the 400 MW of solar DG systems will be net metered. Furthermore, even after the Solar Carve-Out is fulfilled, solar DG systems may still be used to meet the general Class I requirement of the RPS.

1% Per Year
The Massachusetts RPS quota is mandated to continue to grow at an overall rate of 1% per year. This breaks down to roughly 580,000 MWh of additional Class I electricity generated per year.1 If the entire Class I requirement were met only through solar PV systems, roughly 482 MW of new solar PV generation capacity would need to be installed each year.2 Likewise, if the entire Class I requirement were met only through wind turbine systems, roughly 265 MW of new wind generation capacity would need to be installed each year.3

It is unlikely that any single Class I technology will fulfill the entire annual RPS increase during any particular year. Instead, each year a combination of new Class I technologies will need to be installed on a massive scale. But what does that mean? Consider some examples of renewable energy installation projects at a scale comparable to the annual increase in the RPS:
In general, all renewable energy projects have the potential to provide a variety of benefits to system owners, those seeking domestic green energy jobs, and utility companies attempting to comply with the RPS. Of course, larger individual projects (such as the Cape Wind project and the Sihwa Tidal Power Plant) involve especially complex installation and pre-installation processes, which may involve a multitude of stakeholders and may require years of studies and permitting.

As a result, such mega-scale renewable projects can take years before they begin and can cause massive, localized environmental disruptions. On the other hand, hundreds of micro-scale DG projects (such as those mandated by the Solar Carve-Out) can be installed with relative ease, provided that they make financial sense and the regulatory hurdles do not turn into stone walls.

Unfortunately, even before the Solar Carve-Out requirement has been met, utility companies - such as National Grid - have already received enough DG interconnection applications to cause concern about their net metering cap. In this case, the net metering cap regulatory hurdle may simultaneously stonewall projects and make them less financially viable. In the next post, I will take a look at the net metering cap in Massachusetts.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond



-----

Notes from the "1% Per Year" Box:
1) Estimate based on available data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) Electricity Data website - spreadsheet: Retail Sales of Electricity by State by Sector by Provider (EIA-861).
2) Estimate based on the PV Watts generation calculator, which suggests that 1 MW of solar PV capacity aligned south at a 20 degree inclination can produce about 1,202 MWh/MW per year in Boston, Massachusetts.
3) Estimate based on information provided on the National Wind Watch website, which suggests a generation rate of 2,190 MWh/MW per year is not unreasonable given a 25% capacity factor.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Utility Net Metering Caps Undermine Renewable Energy Installation Goals

Hello Readers,

As you may know, many states have set up aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standards (abbreviated RPS, and defined below) in an effort to promote clean energy job creation, foster the development of fledgling domestic energy industries, and address pollution and climate change issues. Even though policies vary widely (see map), only 12 states do not have any RPS.  Furthermore, in almost every state that has an RPS, the end-goal of the policy is to ensure that 10-33% of electricity is being generated by renewable sources within the next 5 to 15 years.

Renewables Portfolio Standards (RPS)
Renewable portfolio standards (RPSs) require utilities to use renewable energy or renewable energy credits (RECs) to account for a certain percentage of their retail electricity sales -- or a certain amount of generating capacity -- according to a specified schedule.
As defined by DSIREUSA.ORG

That is to say that: 38 states (and Washington DC) have laws mandating that by the year 2025 at the latest, 10% or more of the electricity consumed in the state must be generated from renewable energy sources (commonly solar, wind, and/or biomass). However, in many cases there are very low caps put on the state regulations that require utility companies to offer net metering to customers.

Net Metering Rules
The definition of 'net metering' varies from state to state, but in the narrowest definitions it at least allows for the owner of a distributed generation (DG) system to be credited or compensated on a 1:1 basis for electricity sent back to the utility grid (as opposed being used on-site). The credits or compensation are then applied to a customer's account to negate other electricity usage. In most definitions, credits may be saved and applied over the course of a 12 month period. In broader definitions, net metering can involve crediting multiple billing accounts for one customer and/or multiple billing accounts for multiple customers, which may or may not be limited to a specific geographic area.

In a very real sense, when electricity is generated, it is used up by the nearest possible consumer. That is to say that, the energized electrons do not care who is paying for the electricity, they just want to get rid of their energy as soon as possible. To understand the impact of this physical reality, let us consider an example, wherein your neighbor has a solar distributed generation (DG) system on their roof and they are not using up all of the energy it is producing during any particular second.

In this example, it is likely that the appliances in your house are running off of your neighbor’s solar DG system rather than the coal power plant on the other side of town. Furthermore, the utility company is benefitting from your neighbor’s solar DG system, because the coal plant does not have to run as hard (using less fuel) and because the power lines running across town are under less stress (requiring less maintenance in the long term). However, during the times when your neighbor’s system is producing less than they are using, your neighbor is drawing electricity from the other sources on the grid just like everyone else.

To ensure that utility companies are fairly compensating DG system owners for the benefits they provide, basic net metering regulations typically require that a kWh of electricity sent back onto the grid from a DG owner negate the financial burden of a kWh equivalently being consumed by the same DG owner.

Unfortunately, not every property is ideally suited for installing solar and wind DG systems, so for many businesses and homeowners it is less financially viable to install a DG system to cover their own energy needs on-site. However, many other properties are perfectly capable of supporting a renewable DG system that can produce more energy than is used on-site. As a result, property owners (and/or electricity users) often prefer to come together to co-finance larger projects on more suitable properties and share the resulting electricity, allowing for a quicker return on investment (i.e. lower electricity costs for participants). Also banks and other financial institutions are often more willing to provide up-front financing when the financial payback (and the related risk of default) is spread over many participants. But how can electricity be shared?

Because of the nature of electricity (as described above), it is often impractical for multiple businesses or homeowners to physically transfer the electricity produced by a shared DG system over long distances. Even in cases where it is feasible to physically transfer the electricity, running the necessary wires would typically create a redundant set of equipment in parallel with the existing utility lines. Instead, arrangements can easily be made to virtually connect the utility billing accounts of the physical host of the DG system and the other participants or co-owners. This is a common form of net metering.

Unfortunately, the net metering rules are often capped at a threshold equal to a very small percentage of the utility's annual peak energy demand. This means that once the total installed capacity of distributed generation systems reaches the cap, no more DG system owners are able to take advantage of the financial benefit of net metering rules (or in some cases even legally interconnect DG systems), which fundamentally limits the ability of businesses and homeowners to afford or finance the installation of new DG systems. But why is net metering important with regard to utility companies meeting their RPS targets?

Superficially, the cap on DG systems does not directly interfere with the ability of utility companies to meet their RPS targets. In fact in most cases, it is entirely possible for utility companies to finance and maintain their own commercial-scale (non-DG) renewable generation systems; however, this would require utility companies to purchase or lease large tracts of land and roof-space and hire workers to develop, construct, and maintain the equipment.

Thus, as a general practice, most utility companies have not been installing and maintaining their own renewable energy generation facilities. Instead, they rely on the purchase of RECs and SRECs from businesses, homeowners, and independent developers who finance, construct, and maintain renewable DG systems on their own property. In turn, the wide of adoption of renewable DG systems, which is hindered by restrictive net metering caps, is the de facto means of meeting RPS targets.

Rather than considering the restrictiveness of these caps on net metering in the abstract only, in the rest of this Net Metering series, I shall consider the specific example of Massachusetts, a state that has recently been gaining a lot of attention from the solar and wind industries.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond

Monday, July 9, 2012

The Internet and Institutionality, an Afterword on Global Sustainability

Hello Readers,

In the middle of June, I started to put together the series that I entitled Global Sustainability, which has been auto-posting over the past couple of weeks. As the series continued to post, I continued to think about the ideas that I put down on paper (and then on screen).

I especially began to consider the parameters of my thesis, particularly the role of the internet and the definition of society. Briefly, I would like to mention that I intentionally left the definition of society open-ended; however, I would like to note that I meant for the survival of society to include the existence of the human species (and/or whatever permutations may evolve therefrom) and also the continued development of a vibrant culture (the stuff that makes life worth living), which is what I occasionally referred to vaguely as 'succeeding' rather than just merely surviving.

In a physical sense, society now covers virtually all of the globe, which I considered an important indication of the need for a new Institution (or at least a re-thinking of our older Institutions). With regard to the Warmest Generation, this means not only stepping outside of the Cold War Era paradigm of our parents and grandparents, but perhaps even stepping outside of the paradigm of the era of recorded history thus far.

In the Global Sustainability series I mentioned, but did not fully explore, the role of the internet in relation to society and Institutionality. While some aspect or function of the internet may very well serve as the basis for a new Institution, as I suggested, I did not consider the internet as a new space in its own right. Rather than looking to the internet in its Institutional capacity, I want to consider it as a new continent.

In much the same way that Europeans (however wrong they were) considered the Americas an open space upon which they could find resources and spread their culture, let us conceptualize the internet as an open space. However, unlike colonial Europeans, we do not need to displace previous inhabitants to utilize the resources of the internet continent. Also, unlike the Americas as a static physical space, the internet is a flexible space, which can be continually stretched and remolded by its inhabitants, overlaying the physical space of the globe - decreasing the relative density of our global society and thereby alleviating the societal pressure on our current Institutions.

Indeed, in this sense internet is more than a metaphorical continent, the internet is more of an artificial dimension. Just like navigating a hedge maze in three dimensions rather than two dimensions (e.g. jumping over a bush when you reach a dead-end), society may be able to use the internet as an extra dimension through which issues may be viewed and addressed.

In a manner of speaking, the internet has opened up a mental dimension coiled within the fabric of the physical dimensions in which we live. Or rather, the mental dimension has always been coiled within the physical world; that is, a person's own consciousness is a single point within the mental dimension. However, now the internet has lifted some of the constraints on our ability to navigate the mental dimension, allowing each of us to share the thoughts of others as we address issues. In a way, books and other means of sharing information are other ways to lift these constraints by allowing us to access past thoughts while attempting to solve current problems. Of course, the internet allows us as a society to utilize this same process in nearly real-time, and it further allows us to provide feedback in the mental dimension rather than just passively digesting information in the way reading a book does.


As I am sure that there are many others have already contemplated the internet as instrument of human murmuration (see the TED talk above), let me  expand upon this idea as it relates to Institutionality and the sustainability of our global society.

In particular, it is important to note the implications of the mental dimension being coiled within the physical dimensions. The internet is based in the real world and not the other way around. While the internet may be used to decrease the relative population density of society, it does not affect the absolute population density of our global society. Therefore, escaping into the mental dimension via the internet is not a viable means of promoting societal survival - despite any sci-fi ambitions of downloadable consciousness and the like. At some point, internet or no internet, society will need to confront the limits of the physical world and its resources.

That being said, the expanded access to the mental dimension via the internet may be the key to addressing the Economic Disconnect: taking the Institutional role beyond the Governmental approach of addressing purposeful, direct ways of killing each other and beginning to address the indirect, unintentional ways of killing each other (e.g. pollution, waste, and climate change). While as individuals an important part of living life involves accepting our own mortality at some point, this need not necessarily be the case for society as a whole, and the 'culture' that makes society great. It may very well be that we can allow culture and society to continue to grow and thrive ad infinitum in the mental dimension, so long as we can avoid killing ourselves off unintentionally in the physical dimensions.

Thus, even as the internet infrastructure continues to change and adapt, or is even abandoned in the far off future, I believe that any new Institution needs to make use of - or at least acknowledge the utility of - the mental dimension in real-time. To go back to relying primarily upon uni-directional exchanges of information and problem solving (e.g. top-down (Governmental), bottom-up (Economic), or past-to-present (books)) would severely limit our society's ability to thrive in the face of global challenges.

Sincerely,

Sean Diamond

P.S. If you have been confused by my capitalization of words like Institution (or my lack of capitalization of the word (i)nternet to avoid confusion), I encourage you to review the post Institutionality.

For you convenience, here is the Table of Contents to the full Global Sustainability series:
  1. Introduction                 <---Posted 6/25/2012
  2. Societal Survival         <---Posted 6/27/2012
  3. Institutionality             <---Posted 6/29/2012
  4. Democratic Necessity  <---Posted 7/2/2012
  5. Economic Disconnect  <---Posted 7/4/2012
  6. (In)Conclusion             <---Posted 7/6/2012

Friday, July 6, 2012

Global Sustainability - (In)Conclusion

Hello Readers,

In this final post of the series, I will draw some (In)Conclusions about the need for an Institution of Global Sustainability based on the discussions and explanations from earlier in the series. (If you are starting with this post, I recommend that you scroll to the bottom and click the link to go back to the beginning.)

If (as we have discussed) the answer to more people in an increasingly denser modern society was to build Economy upon Government upon Religion upon Family, what is the answer to the problems caused by all of these compound disconnections that allow our global society to not-fail and even succeed? How do we deal with all of the complications from these disconnections that are engineered to prevent us from killing each other (without losing our basic democratic freedoms)? How do we take it a step further to avoid the indirect, unintentional ways of killing each other (e.g. pollution, waste, and climate change)?

Will it be sufficient to modify our current Institutions, such as early society did by encouraging inter-marriage as a means of extending the Family? Or do we instead need one or more additional Institutions to evolve or be created?

For example, many attempts have already been made to utilize bodies such as the United Nations (an extended form of Government) and concepts such as Renewable Energy Credits (an extended form of Economy) to address pressing issues of Global Sustainability. However, in most of these cases the impacts seem to be smaller and the response times seem to be slower than what may actually be required to allow society to survive with an acceptable level of comfort and quality of life.

Thus, it may be necessary, or at least advantageous, to create an entirely new Institution and/or develop an Institution out of a current institution (e.g. one based on some aspect of the internet). Along this line of thought, it has already been suggested that crowd-sourced Video Games may even be an excellent tool for solving critical survival issues.

Consider the example of: Fold It, an online video game that allows players to help medical researchers determine possible amino-acid configurations in order to develop cures and study diseases. Conceivably, Video Games could also be used to develop solutions to issues of global sustainability. Admittedly, it is tough to conceive of a way in which online, crowd-sourced video games could meet the full definition of an Institution (let alone become more dominant than our current Institutions). It just helps to illustrate the type of innovation or creativity that may be required in order to develop an entirely new Institution.

On the other hand, it may also be advantageous to look to older institutions that have simply never been predominant in society. While I was thinking about what to include in my (In)Conclusion post, I got into a discussion about the validity of whether some version of the internet could really ever stand alone as a global Institution.

During the discussion, it was pointed out to me that one of the major impediments to the internet as an Institution (at least today) is the limits of internet access. In particular, that many poorer nations (and indeed many poorer citizens in wealthy nations) have limited access to the internet, which made its utility as an Institution potentially a source of class division. That is not to say that other Institutions are not; however, insofar as I am trying to develop an effective Institution, let us try to conceive of an ideal one.

After thinking about the limits of internet access, I decided that perhaps the internet alone would not be sufficient (or would encourage a sci-fi horror scenario where everyone is trying to become evermore connected to the internet as a means of becoming more powerful). Instead, I thought about what the internet really accomplishes. It allows everyone that has access to share information (both as learners and teachers), and it allows for that same information to be collected and saved for later. What else has done this through history? Books were my first thought. Libraries were my second.

Of course, the modern day public library is perhaps not the perfect model, but let us expand the concept a bit beyond just 'that place that stores books for free.' Let us think about what it could be - and to a certain extent what it may have been at certain times in the past. As you may have noticed, many modern libraries are already making an effort (as funding permits) to offer internet and computer access, but what could they also offer? A place to meet and discuss ideas? This does already happen in some university library study rooms. Why not make it a primary function of the library? Replace the classic "shhh... this is a library" mentality with a "speak up!" mentality.

Additionally, what would happen if libraries started storing more than just books and information? It seems very conceivable that public libraries could become repositories of tools as well.
There is a fairly ubiquitous example in sustainability academic circles about the life cycle of an electric drill. Many (if not most) households at one point or another require the use of an electric drill, so at some point someone in the house goes out to buy one. The electric drill gets used to put the bed frame together or fix the door hinge or whatever, but then it sits idly by in a closet or tool box for years. In fact, most such domestic power tools only get used for less than an hour before being thrown away or replaced. (Someone please remind me of the source of this.)
What would happen if libraries started checking out power tools or offering commercial-grade kitchen space for home bakers? Could a library designed to share stuff as well as information become a model Institution - a Library?

Despite all of my musings, there is another possibility, other than adding a new Institution. It is entirely possible that (now that society is 'all grown up' and reaching a global scale) we need to reconsider the purpose and utility of Institutions. To a certain extent, Institutions function largely in a Darwinian capacity, i.e. societies that did not develop sufficient Institutions were gobbled up or overrun by those that did. However, as individual societies now merge and clash with truly global impacts, it may be necessary to put aside this survival of the fittest mentality - to realize that pure competition may be more detrimental than useful. Should we instead try to reconnect some of the society-saving disconnections? Or would that in itself precipitate the collapse of society?

I will give one final example, the concept raised by the Transition Town movement. The transition ideal is to make towns and local communities more self-reliant and resilient. It is not to ignore the fact that the rest of the world exists (not to encourage the town to act as a hermit), but to be prepared to function as if it did not. In transition towns, the local population ideally would be able to grow enough food to support itself and maintain a local infrastructure and economy that would allow the town to survive without global inputs. In this way, the ideal transition town would not need to compete per se with surrounding towns in order to exist or prosper - hence reducing the likelihood and severity of conflicts and thereby lessening the Institutional burden of society. Thus, the Transition Town movement is perhaps best represented by the mantra, "Think globally, act locally."

As I suggested in the Introduction, I do not have a single, correct solution to offer. However, I hope that, in this series on Global Sustainability, I have been able to re-pose or re-frame questions of sustainability in a way that allows myself and others to re-conceive not only the issues but also the potential solutions.

Cheers,

Sean

Table of Contents for the Global Sustainability series:
  1. Introduction
  2. Societal Survival
  3. Institutionality
  4. Democratic Necessity
  5. Economic Disconnect
  6. (In)Conclusion             <-- you are here

Wednesday, July 4, 2012

Global Sustainability - Economic Disconnect

Hello Readers,

If Government, as described in the previous post Democratic Necessity, is the most obvious and concerted effort by human society to fulfill its Institutional needs, perhaps the Economy is the most subtle and accidental Institution. In this post in the Global Sustainability series, I will discuss the Economic Disconnect. That is, the way in which the Economy disconnects the intentions and consequences of human actions.

In some views, capitalism or economics may be seen as the most ideal manner in which to settle conflicts, and in many cases it works extremely well as an Institution to address issues of societal survival at a global scale. The Economy - through the use of money - allows people to join together to support a common cause or goal without necessarily having a common ancestry, religion, country, or even language. However, while eliminating the need for a common background (a potential sources of conflict), the Economy can also decouple (or at least appear to decouple) actions from results or consequences. But how?

Money (the typical end-goal of labor, employment, or an investment) can be spent on a good or service completely unrelated to the manner in which it was earned. Thus, instead of the end-goal of any particular labor being the result or benefit of that work, the completion of work has relatively little bearing on the worker's goals.

To illustrate this, let us consider a worker in a smaller, less-complex society, which does not rely on money as a means of unification and conflict resolution. In this non-monetary (pre-Economy) society, if a person (or small group of people) decide to build a canoe, it is very likely that the intention of the person is to use the canoe and receive the secondary benefits of canoe ownership such as easier transportation or fishing in the center of a lake. This means that when the worker's need for a canoe is satisfied, the worker will probably stop the canoe-building endeavor to take up other pursuits.

In contrast, let us now consider a person in an Economic society who works in a modern day canoe factory. The worker's goal is not the use of the resulting canoe, nor the secondary benefits of canoe ownership... even if the worker happens to use one of the canoes built in the factory or really enjoys canoeing. In this case, the worker has an end-goal unrelated to the use of the canoe. The end-goal is to earn a paycheck and make use of the resulting money to receive the benefit of other goods and services. Thus, so long as the worker continues to receive a paycheck for canoe-building, the worker is likely to continue building canoes regardless of the actual need for canoes.

Of course, when this principle is applied to people building canoes, the effect does not appear to have significant consequences for societal survival or global sustainability. However, the way the Economy works to support canoe building could be similarly applied to objects that are obviously linked to violence such as guns, bombs, or biological weapons. Furthermore, thanks to the modern scheme of investment practices in our corporate version of the Economy, the concept that is applied to a worker can easily be extrapolated to include corporations.

Yet, in the extrapolation from an ancient person that builds a canoe to a modern corporation that manufactures biological weapons, it is fairly easy to shake your head and say, "Well, no, I don't like that!" and "War is bad, and biological weapons are not a 'good' thing to manufacture just to earn a profit." (Even if you agree with the Cold War era notions that an arms race to build up of WMDs to a level that assures mutual destruction in the event of a conflict is an effective deterrent, you must admit that the potential results of the use of biological weapons or other so-called WMDs would have a detrimental impact on society as a whole.)

However, I am not here to examine the obvious 'bad things'. What about all of the cases where the cause for concern is not even the product itself - when it is instead the waste or side effects of the good or service that is problematic? What happens when the negative effects are just as real as malevolent products like biological weapons, but the connection between the worker's work and the negative impact is especially obscure or even contrary to the purpose of the work being performed?

Just to name a couple examples, the intention of commercial agriculture is to feed a growing population, but some of the side effects include massive soil erosion, depletion of aquifers, and the polluting of waterways with pesticides and animal excrement. The intention of coal mining is to provide power (in the form of electricity and heat) to allow society to work and enjoy modern technological comforts; however, the resulting side effects include everything from acid mine drainage in rivers to runaway climate change.

Clearly, these are cases where the goals of the worker (to earn a paycheck) and the corporations (to earn a profit) have been disconnected from not only the purpose of the labor (e.g. providing food and power) but also from all of the negative consequences and side effects. For a wide range of examples where this is the case, I recommend reading Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough & Michael Braungart, which discusses ways in which the design of products could be re-imagined to be good for society and the environment rather than just less bad for it.

In the next (and final) post, I will draw some (in)conclusions about the role that our hodgepodge of Institutions have to play in society as its population continues to merge into a global society that requires an Institution of Global Sustainability in order to survive and succeed.

Cheers,

Sean


Table of Contents for the Global Sustainability series:
  1. Introduction
  2. Societal Survival
  3. Institutionality
  4. Democratic Necessity
  5. Economic Disconnect  <-- you are here
  6. (In)Conclusion

Monday, July 2, 2012

Global Sustainability - Democratic Necessity

Hello Readers,

In the previous post, I defined what I mean by an 'Institution' (with capital "I"). In this post in the Global Sustainability series, I will discuss Government as an Institution and explain why it seems to be important for sustainable forms of government to include democratic principles, i.e. the Democratic Necessity.

Government is perhaps the most obvious - the most logical - response to a need for institutions of societal survival. In the past, most governmental authority was derived directly from the Institutional concepts developed by Religion (e.g. theocracies), Family (e.g. monarchies), or some combination of the two. In fact, to this day, many governments remain modified forms of Religion and Family such as the government of Saudi Arabia (or retain superficial forms of the related traditions, titles, or positions such as the royal family in United Kingdom).

However, over the past several centuries many societies began to recognize a need for Government as a separate Institution in order to deal with the complexities of growing, diverse populations. As a result, many modern governments were formed solely for the purpose of acting as an Institution. For example, modern Western democratic governments, such as the US government, were specifically engineered as a means to ensure societal survival (or domestic tranquility), by allowing for open debates in legislative bodies about the best means of improving society and setting forth obvious negative consequences in a structured court system for those that use violence as a means of conflict resolution. Importantly, these modern Governments were designed to (or later fine-tuned to) work with, disregard, or override the legacies left behind by earlier predominant Institutions.

Similarly, communist and fascist governments were formed with at least the superficial intention of acting as an Institution. Indeed, many forms of government can exist (and have existed) that do not successfully act as Governments in the Institutional context. For example, many oligarchies, dictatorships, and monarchies function mainly in order to support a small group of beneficiaries rather than to the benefit of the society as a whole (i.e. rather than acting as an Institution to ensure that the society survives and succeeds).

In these cases, the government (notice the small "g") could provide the same result if the society that it ruled over did not exist, as long as the rulers (or beneficiaries) still were able to take advantage of the geographical resources and technological comforts in the country.  As a rule of thumb, if simply replacing all or nearly all members of society with a force of robots would not change the dynamic of a government, then it is not a Government.

But why does it matter if a government acts as a Government in terms of global sustainability? Does a government need to be fashioned as a Western-style democratic government in order to be a Government?

To help answer these questions, I am going to borrow some words from a lecture by Richard Feynman (recorded in the book The Meaning of It All):
"No government has the right to decide on the truth of scientific principles, nor to prescribe in any way the character of the questions investigated. Neither may a government determine the aesthetic value of artistic creations, nor limit the forms of literary or artistic expression. Nor should it pronounce on the validity of economic, historic, religious, or philosophical doctrines. Instead it has a duty to its citizens to maintain the freedom, to let those citizens contribute to the further adventure and the development of the human race."
In other words, a government does not necessarily need to involve all of the intricacies and specifics of contemporary North American or European democracies to function well as a Government. It is more important that the government functions as a catalyst for societal progress and survival. Because there is no absolute certainty with regard to the results of decisions made with societal improvement and global sustainability in mind, it is important that governments incorporate trial and error and allow for debate.

To do otherwise will result in a government that stifles society and conflicts with human nature. Without meaningful input from its body politic a government will have a tendency to get inexorably locked into singular train of decisions (or try to avoid that its approach has limitations) and therefore be more likely to lose its relevance as an Institution or run into friction with other Institutions. Furthermore, any government that for example dictates or actively suppresses artistic freedom of expression is limiting the ability of its body politic to experience life and develop its own culture - arguably the very point of having a society in the first place.

Thus, a government, which does not uphold the fundamental democratic principles of debate and freedom of expression, is likely to fall short in its Institutional role as a Government and thereby disrupt attempts to address sustainability issues even if members of the society recognize the issues at hand.

Coming up, I will discuss the Economy, which is perhaps both the oldest and most modern Institution in human history.

Cheers,

Sean

Table of Contents for the Global Sustainability series:
  1. Introduction
  2. Societal Survival
  3. Institutionality
  4. Democratic Necessity  <-- you are here
  5. Economic Disconnect
  6. (In)Conclusion