Current Savers Blog

For anyone who thinks (like I did) that Antarctica is a bone-chilling freezer lashed by constant blizzards, a visit to the Antarctic Peninsula is a surprise.

As you can see from the picture, you can even play soccer at the British Rothera research station — Stuart Mc Dill of Reuters TV (a skilled left winger) and I (unskilled) joined in a game last night and I have the grazes to prove it. Our team managed to win, 4-2, on the gravel pitch outside the plane hangar — meteorologist Ali Price brilliantly knocked in three, even though he was wearing a pair of clunking hiking boots.

And last weekend, staff had an outdoor barbecue with steaks and a cooler for drinks made from snow scooped up by a bulldozer.

At Rothera, summer temperatures now are comparable to the winter in England, where the British Antarctic Survey has its headquarters in Cambridge. On “warm” days, when temperatures climb to about 7 Celsius, some in Antarctica staff wander around outside in tee-shirts and even shorts.

Temperatures today are 0.5 Celsius (32.9 Fahrenheit), not much cooler than 4.4 Celsius (39.9 F) at BAS headquarters.

In recent days, it has rained at least as often as it has snowed at Rothera.

Of course there has been rain here long  before anyone ever thought about global warming. But BAS glaciologist David Vaughan (who took the picture above) says that temperatures on the peninsula have risen by up to 3 Celsius (5.4 F) in the past 50 years – making rains more likely.

And all of Antarctica is getting warmer, according to a report in this week’s edition of the journal Nature. Until now, scientists have reckoned that the warming is limited to the Antarctic Peninsula but the U.S. study (for a story, click here) says that warming extends far wider across the frozen continent.

Staff at research bases, who relax by playing soccer, are trying to work out the risks of warming — a melt of ice sheets would add to sea level rise and have unknown impacts on wildlife from penguins to tiny mosses that have adapted to freezing temperatures.

California wasted no time asking incoming U.S. Environmental Protection Agency chief Lisa Jackson to reconsider a request to let the state impose stiff targets to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from cars.

 The state’s top air quality regulator sent a letter to Jackson on Wednesday, the Obama administration’s first full day at work. Jackson hasn’t even been confirmed as the new EPA administrator yet, but California isn’t beating around the bush.

Stephen Johnson, the EPA administrator under former President Bush, drew the ire of California and more than a dozen other states in 2007 when he denied the state’s request for federal permission to impose tough new standards on auto emissions. 

With a new president in office, California is trying again. Even Gov. Schwarzenegger got involved, sending his own letter to Obama on Wednesday asking for his help in directing the EPA. To check out both Nichols and Schwarzenegger’s letters, click here.

Odds appear to be on California’s side, as Jackson said during her confirmation hearing that she would reconsider California’s request for a waiver on auto emissions — and would let science guide her on policy decisions.

A green contracting outfit based in a former Brooklyn brewery says it’s the first business in a major U.S. city that can sell power back to the grid that it generates from the sun.

New York state gave Big Sue, LLC, which has about 3,500 square feet of solar panels on its roof, the OK to sell any extra power it generates from the panels back to the grid.

For years, homeowners who have put solar panels on their roofs have been able to sell a bit of solar power back to the grid, which has helped them deal with the big costs of buying and installing the panels. For homeowners it can take 8 to 12 years to break even on the initial investment.

New York businesses, which have shorter break-even times on their solar investments due to greater availability of  tax breaks and incentives,  have had to wait until now to get net-metering rights.

But eventually commercial net-metering could help New York deal with growing power demand. Gov. David Paterson said in a press release about Big Sue that businesses with solar net-metering will “relieve stress on New York City’s overburdened” power grid.

David Buckner, the president of Solar Energy Systems, who installed Big Sue’s solar panels, said he has 15 other commercial projects lined up for net-metering, including a bicycle manufacturer and a perfume bottle top maker. (Full disclosure: Solar Energy Systems’ COO is the husband of a colleague of mine.)

Small manufacturers stand to gain the most from net-metering because of the way the law is written, he said.  At least 35 other businesses in the region are lining up for net-metering with other solar installers.

Commercial net-metering by itself is probably not enough to boost shares in solar companies that fell after oil prices plummeted and amid surplus panel supplies.  But with optimism that the Obama administration will move quickly on legislation to boost renewable energy demand, it certainly can’t hurt.

Susan Boyle, the co-owner of Big Sue, said it’s fun to check her solar panel system on Mondays to see how many electrons her panels pushed to the grid over the weekend, when power demand is low from her business and the 24 studios in the building that lease space there.

If the panels have generated more power than her business used at the end of the year she’ll get a credit from the power company toward future bills.  She installed compact florescent lighting and took other efficiency steps in the late 19th century brewery to help the chances.

Oh, and she cleared the snow off her panels after a recent storm so they will work better.

On a British Antarctic research station, engineer Andy Binney (pictured above at work) and plumber Adam Gerrard have what must be one of the shortest commutes in the world – 10 cm.

Here is a picture of Andy at work — installing boilers that will be partly powered by solar energy at the Rothera research station in Antarctica — and pointing to the wall behind which he sleeps. For a story about Antarctica shifting to renewable energies, click here.

Andy and Adam share the bedroom behind the 10 cm thick wall. If the boilers play up in the middle of the night, they will even be woken up by the noise.

At Rothera, run by the British Antarctic Survey, up to 100 base staff double up and share rooms with one other person in summertime. In winter, the base staff of about 20 get their own rooms. The base has a large canteen with great meals, Internet access, a weight training room, a library and a large room to relax in with beers in a fridge (maximum two drinks a day).

Andy and Adam joke that they might knock a hole in the wall to make it easier to get to work.

The project they are working on is part of a shift towards renewable energy in Antarctica — the United States, Australia, Japan, New Zealand and especially Belgium (with a base completely driven by wind and solar energy) — are doing the same. 

On the right is a picture of Andy inspecting a new batch of solar panels. 

Should all energy in Antarctica be renewable to help protect the environment — as well as cutting vast fuel bills? Or is that impractical because of the harsh climate?

Please tell us what you think.

Electric car organization Plug In America revved up the inaugural festivities this past weekend with a parade of 74 plug-in vehicles in Santa Monica, California, dubbing it the “greenest procession of its kind.”

The non-profit group first applied to ride in the Presidential inaugural parade in Washington, but was not chosen. Undeterred, it took the parade west, said spokeswoman Zan Dubin Scott.

“Today we congratulate President Barack Obama, who has called for one million plug-in cars by 2015,” Paul Scott, one of the group’s co-founders, said at the parade on Saturday, taking the moment to make a “plug” for more plug-ins by 2016. “With the audacity of hope and the confidence born of years driving these cars, we’re asking Obama to accelerate his plan and make it happen three years sooner, then to boost that number to ten million plug-ins by 2016.”

The procession featured a colorful array of electric vehicles including Toyota RAV4 EVs, Tesla Roadsters, Zero Motorcycles, Chevy 2-10s, a Solectria, a school bus, and even a converted battery-powered Hummer bearing an Obama poster on its side.

“This is an R&D test mule, we’re not really making Hummers,” said Michael Biron, R&D shop foreman for Malibu-based Vision Motor Corp, which outfitted the Hummer and manufactures electric big rig trucks.

For the parade, Biron said the Hummer H2 was powered on batteries alone, fueling the vehicle with up to 30 miles per charge. It can also be fitted with a hydrogen fuel cell that could provide it with another 250 miles of range.

“We’re giving people a chance to see there are alternatives for different electric vehicle platforms. If we can do this with a gas-guzzling Hummer, it shows there are many possibilities and opportunities out there,” Biron said.

California state Senator Fran Pavley, the author of California’s landmark legislation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from automobiles, said the number of drivers who signed up for the parade exceeded expectations.

“It sends a clear signal that Americans are serious about combating climate change and will vote with their dollars by purchasing clean, efficient cars,” Pavley said.

For of Reuters’ recent coverage of electric cars, click here.

A Chinese campaigner has urged U.S. President-elect Barack Obama to prove his green credentials, asking him to offset the emissions generated by his inauguration by funding a forest in China.

A carbon fund named “Obama, future” could invest in increased forest coverage in another country and Obama himself could plant a tree there, Lin Hui said in an open letter, published on www.ditan360.com. Lin hopes that country will be China.

Lin’s appeal is based on estimates by conservative U.S. think-tank, the Institute for Liberty, that people travelling to attend Tuesday’s inauguration would generate 220,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide.

“Obama’s presidency is a big opportunity. The whole world is pinning their hopes on him, even the greens, believing he’ll be different than Bush,” Lin told Reuters.

The website, run by a team of volunteers, contains news articles and information designed to educate Chinese about a low-carbon lifestyle.

The Chinese government, which has been active in encouraging Western firms to invest in carbon-offset projects in China, approved the website in April, Lin said.

Lin’s posting in Chinese is illustrated with photos of Obama’s “whistle-stop tour”, his itinerary for Tuesday, and pictures from the inauguration of predecessor George W. Bush. He tried sending a copy of the open letter, which is in English, through Obama’s public email address, “but I doubt he’ll receive it.”

Lin signed his congratulatory letter as “A Chinese citizen, also your friend in green career”.

You have to feel sorry for Australian aviator George Hubert Wilkins, one of the pioneers of flying in Antarctica who lived from 1888 to 1958 – and whose name is commemorated in an Antarctic Ice Shelf that is about to vanish into the ocean.

We landed near the narrowest point of the Wilkins Ice Shelf in a plane with a group of scientists from the British Antarctic Survey – who reckoned it was the first time anyone had visited within tens of kilometres (miles).

And it will probably be the last visit since the shelf is poised to collapse into the sea (for a story, click here).

Canadian pilot Steve King skimmed the Twin Otter plane in low over the ice and let the skis on the undercarriage slide over to test the surface for crevasses without committing to landing. We then swooped around and landed on the slushy ice — it’s scary enough landing on a runway in a small plane; here there was nothing but trackless white.

Glaciologist David Vaughan (pictured above) reckons the breakup could be days, weeks or months away – it is connected to Antarctica by a strip of ice that is just 500 metres wide at the narrowest point – in 1950 it was almost 100 kms wide. We landed a few km away from the narrowest point (shown in the picture on the right — the ice cliff at the front is about 20 metres high).

My colleague Stuart Mc Dill from Reuters TV and I then watched with alarm as Vaughan forced a long metal pole deep into the ice to set up a GPS monitoring device. ‘Um, David, are you sure that’s a good idea?’

Steve expertly got us off safely.

Wilkins is one of 10 ice shelves around the Antarctic Peninsula that have been retreating because of global warming — sediments beneath the glaciers show that the region has not been ice free for 10,000 years.

So goodbye Wilkins Ice Shelf — hello Wilkins Bay?

This disc on a look-out point by a British Antarctic research station shows places more than 200 km (125 miles) away — and on a clear day you can see them.

The air in Antarctica is so clear, dry, cold and dust- and pollution-free that you can see mind-boggling distances. 

Jenny Island on the disc — part of a memorial for Kirsty Brown, a diver who died in a leopard seal attack in 2003 — is 21 km away and is in the centre-right on the picture below:

Cape Brown Alexander, just to the left of Jenny Island, is 203 km distant. You can’t see it with the resolution of the photo on the right and it’s hard to tell sometimes if that lump in the distance is an iceberg or land.

Mountains here look deceptively close — there are no roads, no buildings, no trees to give a sense of perspective.

“It’s like slicing the top off the Alps and putting them in the sea,” said Pete Convey, a biologist at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS), at the Rothera base.

Below is Athena Dinar, BAS spokeswoman, at the memorial, on a hillside about 50 metres above sea level just above Rothera:

It was a disarmingly simple question but, embarrassingly, I didn’t have a clue when first asked that 18 months ago. Even though I’d have to describe myself as a genuine tightwad when it comes to expenditures, I simply had no idea, strangely enough, about how much money my four-person household was spending on electricity — nor how much carbon dioxide was being produced.

Now, after a year of carefully tracking the daily use of electricity, I’ve discovered a bit about when and where power is being used and, in theory, saved — without much pain. It seemed like a no-brainer and it honestly was not hard to cut our consumption by 1,000 kilowatt hours in 2008 to 5,000 kWh — saving about 200 euros and 500 kg of CO2 in the process. There were only minor sacrifices: rigidly turning off “standby” switches and unused lights, pulling plugs on little-used appliances, putting in energy-efficient lightbulbs, using the washing machine sparingly and the dryer only rarely, and replacing an inefficient dishwasher with a low-energy model.

In the past year, we used as little as 4 kWh on some days (in the summer) and as much as 30 on others (in the winter) — although most days were in the 10-to-17 range. Annoyingly, the house “wasted” about 3 kWh per day when we were away on holiday — largely due to the refrigerator, which I’ll be emptying and turning off next time. The 2008 total of 5,000 kWh (which amounted to an electricity bill of about 1,000 euros) isn’t bad for four people (one rule of thumb I’ve seen is 1,500 kWh per person/year) but I’m convinced that usage could be even less (the benchmark of 1,000 kWh per person/year is considered “thrifty”).

So the goal at home for 2009 is to cut electricity consumption by another 1,000 kWh (saving another 200 euros and 500 kg of CO2) to 4,000 kWh. Having a photovoltaic system on the roof (it produced 3,800 kWh that went into the grid) has helped wake me up to the mathematics and economics of power consumption and the goal of producing 100 percent of the electricity we need is now tantalisingly within reach. (The utility has to pay me 49 cents per kWh for the solar power I “export” into their grid while I have to pay 20 cents per kWh for the electricity I “import”.)

My wife was not exactly thrilled at first at my turning-the-lights-off crusade, which she saw as an unhealthy obsession rather than a good habit. But I was eventually able to win her to the cause. It didn’t hurt to promise her the “windfall” profits from the power savings. Saving another 1,000 kWh in 2009 won’t be as easy, I fear. A new A++ fridge (refrigerators are the real power guzzlers in most households) is at the planning stage and perhaps a new energy-saving washing machine, too. They aren’t cheap but they should pay for themselves through energy savings in the long run — and save a lot of CO2 in the process. Closely tracking the amount of gas for heating and diesel fuel used for the car in 2008 proved to be insightful as well: we cut both by roughly a third in 2008 by simply turning down the thermostat and driving less.

The electricity-saving habit (or obsession) might not be the magic solution to climate change. It also might not be as glamorous as high-tech solutions. Having seen myself how much electricity (and CO2) can be saved with relatively minimal disruption, it’s opened my eyes to how large the savings could be on a more global scale.

So, let me ask you: How much electricity do you use each year? And how much do you think you could save this year?

Environmental Protection Agency chief-to-be Lisa Jackson said science would be her guide on policy – and that may mean California is in the driver’s seat on setting new global-warming-style regulations on cars. (Not to mention the nearly 20 other states ready to follow in its footsteps.)

Jackson said she would reconsider whether California should get a waiver from the EPA that would allow it to regulate carbon pollution from cars, the San Francisco Chronicle said. The Bush administration has said no to such a waiver - but Jackson said she would focus on the science.

“She said today ‘I’m going to do it’. I mean, she didn’t say that — but I don’t think the auto industry has any doubt,” Sierra Club chief Carl Pope said shortly after a Senate confirmation hearing for Jackson. “She didn’t have to signal that strongly.”

Environmentalists see the waiver as one of the biggest issues facing incoming President Barack Obama.

Pope also interpreted her answers as meaning she would move to regulate carbon pollution from stationary power sources. The U.S. Supreme Court said EPA could treat greenhouse gases which contribute to global warming as pollution — but the agency has not under President Bush.

PHOTO: REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst