Letter from the Manager
McCain + Obama = a valid energy plan
In Portland, Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels
Electricity From What Cows Leave Behind Dennis Curran for The New York Times
New Nissan will give you that extra little push to use less gas

Letter from the Manager

Welcome to the fall and more importantly the season of the US Presidential election. We will not suggest which candidate we think you should pick but we hope whomever wins will have the sense to realize that the world is changing and the protocol of the past 100 years ruled largely by petrochemicals cannot continue in the 21st century.

The future of energy supply must contain a mix of many alternatives including wind, solar photovoltaic, solar concentrated collection, solar water heating, hydro, nuclear, tidal, steam, bio-fuels, hydrogen, and others yet to be put into commercial use. Sadly coal, gas, and oil will certainly be a part of the future but should be an ever-decreasing percent of the total requirement.

We urge you to seriously consider in your preparation for voting, which candidate will realize that the future of power must be flexible and broad. This consideration should really reach down to the local level as well. You may want to ask your state and local candidates how they feel about the best ways to power our lives. We hope you make the correct choice for the benefit of us all. But please VOTE. This privilege is one thing that makes America great!

Green Topics is an attempt for us to offer you reprints of articles pertinent to our cause that you might not see in your normal reading. An archive of past Green Topics is available. Conserv-A-Store does not always endorse the opinions mentioned in these articles but we do find the subject matter interesting for discussion.

Thanks for reading and for your continued support of Conserv-A-store,
Porter
General Manager

McCain + Obama = a valid energy plan

For years, Washington has been so feckless in reacting to the energy crisis that it's sometimes hard to believe the nation's elected officials grasp the threat. By importing nearly 60% of the oil we use, we don't just leave ourselves vulnerable to higher prices and lower living standards, we prop up oil-rich nations that include some of our fiercest enemies.

In response, the nation has done almost nothing. Presidents have generally offered up warmed-over and incomplete solutions. Republicans say drill; Democrats say conserve. Congress hasn't done much more than hold hearings that sometimes look like show trials, hoping to score political points.

So it's reassuring that the two presidential candidates appear to take the energy crisis seriously and have ambitious ideas for attacking it. Sen. John McCain calls energy policy "one of (the) great questions" of this campaign, and Sen. Barack Obama says it's "one of the greatest challenges that this generation of Americans will ever face."

That's not exactly surprising since to say otherwise in an era of $4 gasoline seems foolish. Nor is either candidate above a little pandering. McCain backs a gasoline tax holiday that would save consumers virtually nothing, and Obama supports a windfall profits tax on Big Oil that is more an expression of pique than productive policy. And while both have worthwhile proposals, each rules out too many useful solutions. Getting the USA past its dependence on foreign oil will require many fixes.

If you roll McCain's and Obama's proposals together, though, they add up to a credible energy plan. Some examples:

Offshore drilling. McCain trumps Obama by calling for more offshore drilling to increase U.S. supplies. Obama complains that it wouldn't cut pump prices now and might eventually add only a small amount to world supplies, which is true but misses the point. Increasing U.S. supply and cutting imports while the nation shifts away from oil is a worthwhile goal.

Renewable electricity. Obama trumps McCain with a plan to require utilities to produce 25% of their electricity with solar, wind, biomass or other renewable energy sources by 2025. This is a smart approach that sets a necessary target but leaves it to the industry to figure out how to meet it.

Tax incentives for solar, wind, etc. Tax breaks have been a useful way to nurse alternative fuels into the marketplace. McCain opposed them until changing his position recently to join Obama in support. Imagine what might happen, for instance, if it made economic sense for people to install solar panels on their homes, as happens now in Germany, thanks to subsidies.

More nuclear power. McCain's call for 45 new nuclear plants by 2030 is a daunting, possibly unrealistic goal, and Obama doesn't want any more plants until there's an acceptable way to secure the waste. But both men acknowledge that nuclear power should be a growing part of the equation. They're right.

Government funding. If spending billions of dollars on energy research could solve the energy crisis, we wouldn't be having this conversation, since that's already been done. Obama would spend about $15 billion a year. McCain wants much less, chiefly for coal. There's a role for this kind of spending, especially for coal, where the challenge is using America's enormous supply without worsening global warming. The questions are how much to spend and where to focus. Setting mandates and providing tax incentives while pressuring industry to work out solutions seems like a more efficient approach.

$300 million battery prize. Obama derides this as a gimmick, but McCain's idea for developing a radically better battery for powering a new generation of cars strikes us as smarter than more bureaucratic approaches. Like the X-Prize that helped propel the first civilian aircraft into space, a reward can leverage huge private investment. The idea would be better, though, if it focused on building radically more fuel-efficient cars regardless of the technology.

It won't be hard to improve on the energy record of President Bush and his predecessors, but for the next president, standing still won't be an option. Whoever wins will benefit from stealing an idea or two from his opponent.
McCain vs. Obama

Sens. John McCain and Barack Obama on energy policies:

Windfall profits tax

McCain: no
Obama: yes

Expanded offshore drilling

McCain: yes
Obama: no

Alaska refuge drilling

McCain: no
Obama: no

Gas tax holiday

McCain: yes
Obama: no

More nuclear plants

McCain: yes
Obama: yes

Tax breaks for solar, etc.

McCain: yes
Obama: yes

Mandate electricity from wind, solar, etc.

McCain: no
Obama: yes

Subsidies for ethanol

McCain: no
Obama: yes

$300 million battery prize

McCain: yes
Obama: no

Funding for clean coal

McCain: yes
Obama: yes

Source: USA TODAY research

In Portland, Cultivating a Culture of Two Wheels

PORTLAND, Ore. — Susan Peithman did not have a job lined up when she moved here in September to pursue a career in "nonmotorized transportation." No worries, she figured; the market here is strong.

"In so many ways, it’s the center," Ms. Peithman, 26, explained. "Bike City, U.S.A."

Cyclists have long revered Portland for its bicycle-friendly culture and infrastructure, including the network of bike lanes that the city began planning in the early 1970s. Now, riders are helping the city build a cycling economy.

There are, of course, huge national companies like Nike and Columbia Sportswear that have headquarters here and sell some cycling-related products, and there are well-known brands like Team Estrogen, which sells cycling clothing for women online from a Portland suburb.

Yet in a city often uncomfortable with corporate gloss, what is most distinctive about the emerging cycling industry here is the growing number of smaller businesses, whether bike frame builders or clothing makers, that often extol recycling as much as cycling, sustainability as much as success.

Like the local indie rock bands that insist they are apathetic about fame, many of the smaller local companies say craft, not money, is what drives them.

"All the frame builders I know got into this because they love bikes," said Tony Pereira, a bike builder whose one-man operation has a 10-month waiting list, "not because they wanted to start a business."

Mia Birk, a former city employee who helped lead Portland’s efforts to expand cycling in the 1990s, said the original goals were rooted in environmental and public health, not the economy.

"That wasn’t our driving force," Ms. Birk said. "But it has been a result, and we’re comfortable saying it is a positive result."

Ms. Birk now helps run a consulting firm, Alta Planning and Design, which advises other cities on how to become more bicycle-friendly. In a report for the City of Portland last year, the firm estimated that 600 to 800 people worked in the cycling industry in some form. A decade earlier, Ms. Birk said in an interview, the number would have been more like 200 and made up almost entirely of employees at retail bike stores.

Now, Ms. Birk said, the city is nurturing the cycling industry, and there are about 125 bike-related businesses in Portland, including companies that make bike racks, high-end components for racing bikes and aluminum for bikes mass-produced elsewhere. There are small operations that make cycling hats out of recycled fabric. Track, road and cyclo-cross races are held year-round, and state tourism groups promote cycling packages. There is Ms. Birk’s firm, which had two employees in Portland in 1999 and now has 14. There are nonprofit advocacy groups and Web sites, including www.bikeportland.org, that are devoted to cycling issues and events in Portland.

And then there is the growing, high-end handmade bike industry, which was made up of just one or two businesses a decade ago but now has more than 10. The Portland Development Commission is working with a handful of the bike builders to improve their business and accounting skills and help them network with one another.

This month, the city will be the host of a trade show featuring bike builders from Oregon, which locals say has more makers than any other state. And early next year, the North American Handmade Bicycle Show will bring its fourth annual event to Portland for the first time. It is expected to be the largest national show so far.

Sam Adams, a city commissioner in charge of transportation, joined development officials to help lure the show to Portland. It seemed a natural fit. The city regularly ranks at the top of Bicycling Magazine’s list of the best cycling cities and has the nation’s highest percentage of workers who commute by bike, about 3.5 percent, according to the Census Bureau. Drivers here are largely respectful of riders, and some businesses give up parking spaces to make way for bike racks.

"Our intentions are to be as sustainable a city as possible," Mr. Adams said. "That means socially, that means environmentally and that means economically. The bike is great on all three of those factors. You just can’t get a better transportation return on your investment than you get with promoting bicycling."

Although the city has worked to help drivers and riders share roadways, two cyclists were killed in October when they were hit by trucks, and questions persist over whether enough is being done to protect cyclists.

Mr. Adams said he was preparing a budget proposal that would spend $24 million to add 110 miles to the city’s existing 20-mile network of bike boulevards, which are meant to get cyclists away from streets busy with cars. Doing so could "double or triple ridership," he said.

The streets were not always so crowded with cyclists. Andy Newlands, by most accounts the first person in Portland to start making bikes by hand, got into the business in the 1970s. Back then, he said, young men would come to him for help piecing together racing bikes. Now, he said, "More and more it’s some guy with a wife and kids and a BMW and all that, and he wants a handmade bike."

Thirty years ago Mr. Newlands sold frames for under $300. Now a new bike might cost the buyer well over $5,000.

"There’s so much mass-produced stuff out there that there’s just kind of a little bit of a backlash," he said. "People like a handmade product."

Sacha White, who was a bike messenger before he started Vanilla Bicycles, one of the most prominent bike makers in Portland, said city officials embraced not only cycling but also the niche industry that has grown out of it, something he considered striking given the size of most operations. His company, among the largest of its kind, has six employees including himself.

"I think the biggest thing that's come from the effort the city has put into this is the vote of confidence," Mr. White said, speaking of bike riders and bike makers. "They want us here."

Ms. Peithman, the recent Portland arrival, had lived in Chicago until September, where she worked for the Chicagoland Bicycle Federation, a nonprofit advocacy group. She decided to move here on her own without any job prospects based "90 percent on the bike thing," she said.

'I’m a long-term-thinking, spreadsheet kind of girl," Ms. Peithman said. "This is the most rash thing I’ve ever done."

Electricity From What Cows Leave Behind
Dennis Curran for The New York Times

COW POWER Cows at Green Mountain Dairy Farm, right, one of four Vermont farms producing electricity for the power company; and Bill Rowell (far left), one of the owners of the farm, with David Dunn of Central Vermont Public Service and an engine-generator fueled by bio-gas.

FOR years, the cows at Green Mountain Dairy here produced only milk and manure. But recently they have generated something else: electricity.

The farm is part of a growing alternative energy program that converts the methane gas from cow manure into electricity that is sold to the power utility’s grid.

Central Vermont Public Service, which supplies electricity to 158,000 customers around the state, was among the first utilities in the country to draw electricity from cow manure on dairy farms. About 4,000 utility customers participate by agreeing to pay a premium for the electricity.

"We realized we could help meet a customer demand for renewables, help solve a manure management problem and make these farmers more financially secure," said Steve Costello, a spokesman for Central Vermont Public Service.

Four Vermont dairy farms are producing electricity for the utility, and two more are expected to be online by year’s end, Mr. Costello said. The utility hopes to add six more farms by 2010.

Residents and businesses that get their electricity from the program pay a premium of 4 cents a kilowatt hour above the typical rate of 12.5 cents. Most of that money goes to the farmers, who must purchase their own equipment, which can run up to $2 million per farm. Most farmers expect to make back their investment in 7 to 10 years.

The brothers who own Green Mountain Dairy, Bill and Brian Rowell, were looking to squeeze more profit from their farm, where they have 1,050 cows and have begun acquiring 600 heifers. Milk prices had dipped and they wanted another source of income.

They also thought that the huge amount of waste their cows produced could be used for something other than fertilizer. So they decided to give electricity a try, armed with about $750,000 in federal, state and utility company grants.

"We saw this as an economic and environmental management tool," Bill Rowell said. "It’s helped to diversify our farm," which was named the 2008 Vermont Dairy Farm of the Year.

The Rowells’ cows live in a barn where a mechanical scraper sweeps the animals’ waste into a large drain. The waste is then pumped into a huge sealed concrete tank known as a digester, which holds 21 days’ worth of waste and is kept at a temperature of 101 degrees Fahrenheit. Anaerobic bacteria break down the organic matter in the waste, producing a mix of methane and other gases, known as bio-gas. The gas is burned in an engine that runs an electrical generator.

The cow waste produces 250 to 300 kilowatts of electricity daily, enough to power 300 to 350 homes, according to the utility.

"We’re making a resource out of a waste stream," said Bill Rowell, who is running for the State Senate.

In return, the Rowells receive a payment based on the wholesale cost of power, which averages about 7 cents per kilowatt hour, plus the 4-cent premium. Mr. Rowell said they earned about $200,000 from electricity annually, and with the additional cows should receive $235,000 to $240,000 in revenue from electricity.

The Rowells are also transforming commercial waste. The farm processes about 500,000 gallons of waste and outdated ice cream from Ben & Jerry’s each year and puts it in the digester. The free ice cream, which the company drops off, helps the Rowells generate more electricity and saves Ben & Jerry’s the cost of disposing of it. "We’re improving our processes, and they’re improving theirs," Mr. Rowell said.

The digester produces more than electricity. After 21 days, the waste is pumped through a separator, which siphons off the liquid into a silo and drops the solids into a barn.

The liquid manure is used as fertilizer, while the solids are used for cow bedding. The bedding saves the Rowells thousands of dollars a month on sawdust, and they sell the excess to garden stores.

Other utilities across the country are purchasing power from farms as part of their renewable energy portfolios. Some, like Central Vermont Public Service, charge their customers a premium, while others do not.

Alliant Energy, which supplies electricity to rural customers in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota, draws power from four digesters and is working to add more. About 20 independent farms in Wisconsin have digesters and sell electricity to various utilities, said William A. Johnson, manager of biofuels development at the utility.

"Our economy is agriculture, and people recognize that supporting the industry is a positive," Mr. Johnson said. The utility charges 2 cents a kilowatt hour more for cow power.

"Rural customers, in particular, are very excited that something that is considered by some to be a liability, manure, has become, in essence, a resource," Mr. Johnson said.

In Ohio, Buckeye Power went online with a digester at the end of August and plans to turn waste from a chicken farm into electricity next year.

"We were interested in finding a type of green power that was, No. 1, not intermittent, like wind or solar," said Steve Oden, a spokesman for Buckeye, which will not charge extra for the power.

Marie Audet’s family farm in Bridport, Vt., was the first in the Central Vermont system and went online in 2005. The family invested $1.3 million and expects to make that back in four years.

"We’re saving money by not using sawdust, reducing original waste by recycling and generating revenue by selling electricity into the grid," Ms. Audet said.

And many customers here have chosen to pay more for power that is both renewable and supports local farmers.

Maggie Hatch, who owns the Newbury Village Store in Newbury, Vt., operates half of the business with cow power. The renewable power adds $200 to $400 a month to the store’s electric bill, but Ms. Hatch and her husband, Gary, say it is worth it.

"It’s worth it to us to spend that money to help the producers and use power that helps sustain the environment," Ms. Hatch said. "When you live in a place like we do, which is a beautiful part of the country, you’re really aware of the environment and want to keep it that way."

New Nissan will give you that extra little push to use less gas

By Steven Cole Smith

Orlando Sentinel

Not so fast.

A car being developed by Nissan will soon sell cars "that push back when drivers try to put the pedal to the metal," according to a story from The Associated Press. Nissan’s invention is called the "eco pedal," and it makes the gas pedal press upward, countering the driver’s right foot, when the system senses the vehicle is speeding up more rapidly than its ecologically programmed software thinks is necessary.

Nissan said in a news release that the system, which could be available in 2009, could improve fuel efficiency 5 percent to 10 percent. It calculcates the most efficient rae of acceleration in a vehicle based on how fast fuel is being burned and other factors, and causes the gas pedal to push back to alert overzealous drivers. A special meter on the dashboard flasahes and changes colors to help drive the message home. The system can be turned off when drivers don’t want to be reminded that they are wasting fuel.