Threats to World Water Supplies

Today’s edition of Nature includes a report worth the attention of anyone engaged in risk strategy.  According to the authors,

Our study found that vast areas across both the developed and developing world arrive at similarly acute levels of imposed threat to their freshwater resources. Sources of degradation in many of the developing world’s most threatened rivers bear striking similarities to those of rivers in similar condition in wealthy countries. However, the highly engineered solutions practiced traditionally by industrialized nations, which emphasize treatment of the symptoms rather than protection of resources, often prove too costly for poorer nations.

Reliance of wealthy nations on costly technological remedies to overcome their water problems and deliver water services does little to abate the underlying threats, producing a false sense of security in industrialized nations and perilous water insecurity in the developing world. In addition, lack of comparable investments to conserve biodiversity, regardless of national wealth, help to explain accelerating declines in freshwater species.

More at the Guardian

More at http://riverthreat.net/

More at Nature (subscription required)

Why Green has Such a Tough Time in America

We’ve invented a lot of green technologies, but we’ve also failed to embrace them. Is it a cultural thing?

PERSPECTIVES |  CORPORATE SUSTAINABILITY

MICHAEL KANELLOS: JULY 13, 2010

The U.S. has long been a leader in green technologies.

It has also long been a leader in fumbling that lead. Look at the historical record:

--Charles Brush built what is considered the first automatic wind turbine for generating electricity. The turbine, built in 1888 in Ohio, had a 50-foot diameter and 144 blades. The industry has since trimmed turbines down to three blades. It has also gone overseas. While the U.S. has more installed wind capacity than anyone else, the only top U.S. wind manufacturer remains General Electric: they got into the business by buying the wind division of disgraced, defunct Enron.

One of the most promising U.S. startups is Nordic Windpower, located in Berkeley by way of Sweden.

--Calvin Fuller, Daryl Chapin and Gerald Pearson created the first silicon photovoltaic cell at Bell Labs in 1954. It was only four-percent efficient, but Bell raised the figure to 11 percent soon after. First Solar and SunPower hail from the U.S. -- and we mint a lot of startups -- but the U.S. is a far smaller market than Europe, and Suntech and Yingli have begun to demonstrate that we don't have a monopoly on quality.

--A chemistry professor at the State University of New York Binghamton, M. Stanley Whittinghamled a research team at Exxon that resulted in the first lithium ion battery. Whittingham's titanium sulfide battery, however, was not a hit -- Sony's lithium cobalt battery became the standard in the early 1990s. The battery industry is now based in Asia.

--In 1991, the Department of Energy kicked off the $90 million U.S. Advanced Battery Consortium to develop nickel metal hybrid batteries for hybrid cars, a car design championed a century earlier by Ferdinand Porsche. The effort scared Japan so much that Honda and Toyota began to develop hybrids. Before tangible results came in, the DOE shifted funding to hydrogen.

--In 1976, General Electric Ed Hammer invented something that many thought impossible: the compact fluorescent bulb. Although GE liked the idea, CFLs would require entirely new manufacturing facilities, which would cost $25 million. "So they decided to shelve it," Hammer told me in 2007. CFLs only came to market because the design leaked out -- others copied it before GE had a licensing program.  

"That's how it became widespread," he said.

So why do we suck so much at green commercialization, while excelling at transforming science projects like search engines, microprocessors and microbes into Google, Intel and Genentech? The reasons are:

1. Conservation = Being a Loser. Scrimping and saving has, for some reason, been enshrined as the national shame. Immigrants flooded here in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries tantalized by pictures of homes with running water and fridges that could hold an entire elk. Back in the '60s, what did kids know about the rest of the world? That someone halfway around the globe wanted to eat your leftovers. If you can't waste, you haven't made it.

And don't just blame it on conservatives: how many green advocates have tossed out perfectly serviceable handsets to get the latest iPhone?

Granted, during some historical eras, conservation has been a virtue. Popular oral histories abound about the Depression or rationing in World War II. (I still have my grandmother's food coupon book -- she needed it even though they owned a grocery store.)

But frugality is only fashionable in times of serious deprivation. Casual conservation just looks inept. Case in point: the '70s. You didn't see Dorothea Lange taking pictures of mom cooking Hamburger Helper or  buying knock-off Adidas. Jimmy Carter was a great ideas person, but the sweater just made him look like Mr. Rogers after an argument with King Friday.

2. Abundance. As the fourth largest nation in terms of land mass, the U.S. has enjoyed an abundance of natural resources and people have exploited them for their convenience. In the 1920s, solar hot water heaters blanketed Miami and southern California. The advent of natural gas piping and cheap natural gas, which could heat hot water any hour of the day, led to their demise.

The same happened with autos and public transportation. Cars are more convenient than street cars, gas historically has been cheap in the U.S. and so has farmland. Oil companies didn't kill public transportation in L.A. -- the desire for three-bedroom houses did.

It will take a bit of time to get used to the era of resource scarcity.

3. It's Not New. This is one of the principal dilemmas of the greentech market worldwide. Handheld calculators radically reduced the time needed to solve math problems. Word processing made a 5,000-year-old profession -- the secretary -- obsolete almost overnight. The internet put the world at your fingertips. Antibiotics saved your life.

Solar panels give you electrons that pretty much function like those from the power plant. To date, only electric cars and green homes seem to have an abundant "Wow!" factor for consumers. This will change, but it partly explains the slow ramp.  

4. Lobbying. The fossil fuel industry knows how to work Washington and the state capitols. They can discuss jobs and raise fears about the economic cataclysm that will surely ensue if people can't afford to drive Chevy Suburbans on a daily basis. The solar industry has improved on this score, but it's still got a long way to go to catch up. Remember: back in 2008, the investment tax credit was stalled in D.C. -- it was only after Washington showered the financial industry with cash via the TARP program that they agreed to alternative energy credits.

 4. Environmentalists as Scolds. The first Earth Day in 1970s drew millions into the streets. Just as important, it drew middle-class protesters in droves. It wasn't dominated by dirty, smelly, strident hippies.

Fast forward to 2010. Smelly is gone, but strident remains. Much of the opposition to Al Gore comes because he's Al Gore. I support his ideas, but let's face it -- he comes across as smug. Bill Clinton or Rachel Carson he's not. Environmental objections have forced BrightSource Energy to shrink its solar thermal plant, an uncompromising stance that really just encourages natural gas consumption.

Food advocates are getting better at public relations. In the past, most of the arguments revolved around making Twinkies the Great Satan. It was condescending but also absurd: even stoners don't really like Twinkies. Swapping out snooty gastronome Alice Waters for genial Jamie Oliver has made a big difference.

Still, like it or not, the posture of some green advocates has made it easier for the opposition.

---

How do we get around these problems. Alan Salzman at VantagePoint Venture Partners, among others, has suggested framing the issues in new ways. One of our principal forms of energy is coal. It is a rock men risk their lives to dig out of the ground using pneumatic hammers. It then gets cooked and most of the energy produced gets wasted.

 "It is a short distance away from gathering firewood," he said. "Do you think we could figure out a better way to boil water that doesn't kill people? There is no solution other than that that anyone can envision?"

Naturally, he's Canadian.

CA SmartGrid News Update

SustainableBusiness.com News

The Silicon Valley Leadership Group, City of San Jose and Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) (NYSE: PCG) have created the Silicon Valley Smart Grid Task Force. The group brings leaders from industry, the public sector, non-profits and academia together to make recommendations on California's energy efficiency efforts and the rollout of Smart Grid technology.

The task force will aim to better educate the public about smart grid technology and its importance in aiding California's long-term environmental sustainability and energy efficiency goals.

As first steps, the Smart Grid Task Force will commission a study to investigate the economic impacts of smart grid technology.

The task force consists of member companies Oracle (Nasdaq: ORCL), Cisco (Nasdaq: CSCO), Nanosolar, Control4, Coulomb Technologies, Silver Spring Networks and OPower, among other leaders in energy and renewable energy.

According to the Department of Energy, an integrated Smart Grid would save an estimated $36 billion annually by 2025 in terms of energy-efficiency gains, greater use of renewable energy and distributed generation.

"As an organization that promotes cutting-edge industries, we feel Smart Grid is critical in establishing California as a leader in the nation's transition to more efficient technologies," said Carl Guardino, Silicon Valley Leadership Group President and CEO.

 CPUC Roadmap

The California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) has published a "roadmap" to help utilities deploy mandated smart grid initiatives and monitor those initiatives' progress.

The document focuses primarily on issues such as utility communications infrastructure, physical grid security, smart grid cybersecurity and project-deployment cost structures.

It also include a focus on "metrics that permit the assessment of progress," according to a release.

The CPUC said the roadmap is the culmination of more than two years of work with utilities, consumer advocates, technology companies and other parties to modernize the electric grid.

Spill as a POC for SCADA Terrorism

I have written here several times about the security concerns and vulnerabilities of Smart Grids.  As a technology platform for improved efficiency and remote management, they are rapidly gaining acceptance.  Despite the utility companies' claims of security, many respected researchers and other security experts point to a variety of vulnerabilities.  There are also major gaps in planning for governance issues concerning privacy, and consumer rights.  Without active and effective governance the opportunity for misuse and compromise grows sharply.

SCADA systems are indeed connected to the Internet and other data networks.  The consequential vulnerabilites of these process control systems for major utilities and public works, offer a very scary image of potential disasters.

Risk assessments are most often reactive, following the exposure of risks.  They are frequently driven by events that draw widespread attention and the "CNN Moment" has not yet come for compromises of SCADA systems. Additionally risk-assessments won't identity pivotal long-term developments in the threat fabric.  A paradigm shift to offensive, proactive security is vital to effective protection of these systems and the processes and natural resources they control.

Industrial control systems are designed for reliability and safety, not security.  Detective controls (instrumentation) is aimed at failure conditions, but rarely take into account intentional destruction or sabotage.

In the case of spectacular failure of BP's Deepwater Horizon platform, clearly all existing and contemplated countermeasures for uncontrolled release, failed.  This will not go unnoticed by those who would intentionally cause a similar catastrophy.  This event has provided a kind of proof-of-concept for the deliberate and high-impact destruction of both natural and economic resources.  Exactly the type of attack certain terrorist organizations seek. 

As leaders of technology, business and industry, we must begin to view our responsibilities toward responsible practices and management through the lens of potential compromise and misuse.  As with BP, the very survival of our organizations and regional economies depend on it.

We Can't Un-Ring a Bell

36 Days after the explosion and demise of BP's Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, oil and natural gas are flowing into one of the most significant marine and esturine environments in the world.  This may end up as the biggest "wake-up call" in human history, to change our energy production and consumption patterns.  While there may well be negligence on the part of a big petroleum company involved, the real cause is our human and indeed American greed for fossil fuels.  To date we have been unwilling to make the investments necessary to replace fossil fuels with cleaner and renewable sources of energy.  The resulting devastation, to both our environment and economies, should be unconcionable to us all. 

The costs associated with cleanup efforts and resolutions for this, the Exxon Valdez and similar events, would fund major implementations of solar, wind and geothermal energy production as well as provide research and development funding for hydrogen fuel-cell and other "battery" technologies.

We are running on borrowed energy. Oil is just one part of the problem—and oil spills just one of the risks. The trouble is our whole fossil fuel driven way of life. There is not a big enough store of fossil fuels on earth to sustain it, and if there were, it would only make matters worse. Prices would go down and use would go up. The environmental costs of extraction would rise and the climate would be wrecked that much sooner and more completely, perhaps irretrievably so.

What is it going to take to facilitate the transformational change needed?  Perhaps the most influential is a grass-roots demand.  Changes in consumption and conservation practices are occuring slowly.  Combined with a massive, global outcry for change can jump-start the shift.  Energy company executives should also be help criminally accountable for legal transgressions which result in incidents like BP and Exxon spills, similar to the laws holding public company executives responsible for fraud.  We need to follow Gandhi's dictum and "be the change we wish to see in the world." Other practical steps that can be taken include the following from Sheryl Eisenberg.

Step 1: Drive less. Do you hop in the car whenever you need something? Zigzag across the landscape to perform errands in opposite directions? Drive where you could easily walk? Join the club.

Americans burn up gas so freely because it hardly seems to cost them anything. The price at the pump is deceptively low and the true price—environmental destruction—is hard to recognize.

But for this brief moment in time, thanks to the oil spill, we can connect the dots. Use the opportunity to change the way—and amount—you drive. Plan your trips. Carpool. Walk. Bike. Give public transportation a chance.

Step 2: Care and repair. Cars and appliances, along with virtually everything else in our consumer culture, are considered more or less disposable nowadays. Since we expect to replace them, we don't keep them in good working order. Thus, they continue to operate, but grow less and less efficient, eating up energy unnecessarily when they run.

So take your car for regular tune-ups, keep the tires inflated, change your air conditioner filters, lubricate the moving parts of motors and do all those other pesky maintenance tasks recommended in the manuals.

Step 3: Get energy-efficient equipment. The difference between conventional products and energy-efficient ones can be quite staggering. For instance, an incandescent bulb uses four times as much energy to produce a given quantity of light as a compact fluorescent bulb—and 10 times as much as an LED. Yes, the energy-efficient alternatives cost more to buy, but they also cost less to operate. Besides, becoming the change you want to see in the world includes paying more for a cleaner, safer future. So, shop for Energy Star appliances and factor fuel economy into your choice of car.

Step 4: Go local—and not just with food. It's simple: goods need to be transported to market. The shorter the distance, the less energy required. Therefore, look for products made close to home.

Step 5: Change your habits. Today's norm is to live wastefully, but you don' t have to go along. To save energy:

• Turn off lights when not in use.
• Wash full loads of dishes and laundry.
• Air dry both.
• Change your clothes before the thermostat.
• Unplug chargers and always-on appliances.
• Reuse and recycle.
• Eat less meat.

Step 6: Buy less stuff. It takes energy to produce goods. Think twice before you throw it away on things you do not need.

Whatever you do, don't let this moment pass without some step toward change.