Ridgeline wind continues to be controversial, and offshore wind comes with its own set of siting issues, including a much higher installation cost. If we are ever going to replace fossil fuels with clean alternatives, wind has to be part of the mix.

Some innovative designers and engineers have come up with a solution worthy of Jules Verne: floating turbines.  

Nanuq netted this one off the web, and you just gotta love the whimsy as well as the practicality of the idea.  

An enormous helium-filled wind turbine will soon float over the city of Fairbanks, Alaska to produce enough electricity for more than a dozen families living off the grid. Designed and built by MIT startup Altaeros Energies, the turbine known as BAT-Buoyant Airborne Turbine will hover at an altitude of 1,000 feet for 18 months, catching air currents that are five to eight times more powerful than winds on the ground.

The tethered turbines are capable of generating exponentially greater volumes of  energy than their earthbound cousins due to the greater wind velocity at the high altitudes where they would be deployed.

There are a lot of questions to be answered about durability and maintenance, sky congestion etc., but the concept has a lot of advantages.  

Portability and low installation cost are two great pluses, making it more doable to relocate the turbines if it is discovered that they have been located where they pose a hazard either to aviation or wildlife.  The turbines seem ideal for deployment to emergency situations.

Will we one day see private turbines hovering over electric car dealerships and advertising big sales while keeping the lights on down below?  Perhaps not my favorite scenario, but it’s almost inevitable.

Meanwhile,Deep Water Wind has just introduced a different kind of floating wind farm.  In the first ever off-shore wind project to locate in the Pacific Ocean, Deep Water Wind plans to deploy five floating platforms, each supporting a single operating turbine, fifteen miles off the coast at Coos Bay, Oregon.

It is hoped that this solution will make it practical to locate wind farms far offshore in the Pacific Ocean where ocean depths make it impossible to anchor stationary turbines as is possible along the much shallower Atlantic coastline.  Similar technology is apparently already in use in experiments off the coast of Portugal.

Despite all the effort to keep the U.S. dependent on dirty and dangerous energy sources, it’s nice to be reminded from time to time that those industries are fighting a losing battle against advancing clean technologies.

Whether or not the U.S. is on the losing end of that battle depends very much on whether or not we, as a nation, continue to reward ignorance and graft with Congressional privileges. ‘Not much sign that that’s going to change in this election.

The U.S. seems on a trajectory to reinforce its footprint as an energy “bad boy” with new pipelines, expanded drilling and fracking.

You can add to that ill-advised mix the relicensing of Limerick Nuclear Generating Station Units 1 and 2 in Pennsylvania, which the NRC has just delivered to Exelon.

This, despite the fact that there were still ten more years of service on the plant’s previous licenses.

… Lewis Cuthbert from the Alliance for a Clean Environment, which has steadfastly fought Limerick’s licensing renewal… said he still does not understand why its necessary to renew the license when there is still 10 more years of wear and tear from operations on the plant to analyze, before tacking on another 20 years, a decision based on 10-year-old data.”It’s as if you bought a car in 1980 and expecting it to run without problems until 2049,” he said. “It’s regulatory malpractice by the NRC.”

A lot can happen in ten years.  I would hazard a guess  that Exelon is certain that they wouldn’t get that renewal ten years from now.

Renewal of the Limerick licenses brings to 75 the number of commercial nuclear power reactors with renewed licenses. Applications for an additional 17 renewals are currently under review.

With the Limerick decision the NRC continues its record of never having refused to renew any license it has been asked to consider.  

As efforts in the U.S. continue to add twenty more years of operation to nuclear power plants designed more than half a century ago,  the most nuclear dependent nation, France is committing to a 25% reduction in its use of nuclear over the next eleven years.  The goal is to eventually rely entirely on clean renewables.

Vive la difference?

I’ll close with a recent clip of Fairewinds Energy Education’s Arnie Gundersen offering the definitive answer to the question,

” Is nuclear power a sustainable or safe solution to ongoing energy demands around the world?”

At the WAVE Conference – Arnie Gundersen’s Presentation from Fairewinds Energy Education on Vimeo.

Note: As regular readers of GMD know, I am a non-technical member of the Fairewinds Energy Education team.

Crossposted at The Vermont Political Observer, and written late Monday morning.

On November 12, 2012, I wrote a piece on this very blog entitled:

And today comes the news that IBM is “selling” its semiconductor business, including its plant in Essex Junction, for negative $1.5 billion. Yep, it’s paying GlobalFoundries to take the business off its hands.

Allow me a little tiny bit of gloating here. Mmmmm, ahhhh.

Okay, get on with it.

That GMD post was inspired by the work of technology journalist Robert X. Cringely, who’d reported that IBM was in an all-out blitz to shed domestic workforce and basically cut itself into profitability. My point was that if IBM left Vermont, it’d be because of global corporate strategy. Not because we didn’t build the Circ Highway or our electric rates are too high or then-Senate leader Peter Shumlin once called an IBM lobbyist a “liar.” (Which, Republicans, just stop. It happened years ago. And if a lobbyist and his employer takes lasting umbrage at an offhand comment during the heat of legislative debate, well, they’re just way too damn sensitive.)  

So here we are, less than two years later, and IBM is on its way out.

My prediction was right on the facts — but wrong on the implication that IBM’s Essex plant was a goner. Fortunately, GlobalFoundries sees potential in the plant and/or its skilled workforce. In the short run, this is very good news, because the way things were going at IBM, it’s a relief not to have thousands of good jobs and the Chittenden County economy dependent on Big Blue.

However…  

While GlobalFoundries is saying all the right things  — it plans “to provide jobs for ‘substantially all’ IBM employees at both Essex Junction and East Fishkill who are part of the transferred business,” it assured Governor Shumlin that it “plans to continue employment, investment, and operations in Vermont,” and it told the Burlington Free Press that it is committed to Essex for the “foreseeable future” — this deal should not significantly reduce the concerns over the Essex plant’s future.

After all, it’s not like GlobalFoundries has a lot invested in Essex. It agreed to accept a boatload of money and the IBM chip business. And when you combine the GF and IBM chip capabilities, you’ve got two manufacturing plants in the Hudson River Valley — one of which is a brand-new $8 billion facility — and one up here in Essex. If there’s any consolidation in GF’s future, I’d have to guess it’ll lean to the south.

Aside from the fact that reassurances like this are worth approximately the toilet paper they’re written on, there are some obvious caveats in today’s crop.

GlobalFoundries says it “plans” to provide jobs for “substantially all” IBM employees at Essex “whoa re part of the transferred business.” That’s a lot of weasel words in a single sentence. “Plans” can change. “Substantially all” is a matter of definition. And how many in the Essex workforce are NOT “part of the transferred business”? Will they be cut by IBM? If given the opportunity to remain at IBM, will they have to relocate? After all, IBM won’t have a presence in Vermont anymore.

Governor Shumlin is meeting with GlobalFoundries officials later today. Color me cynical, but I’d expect GF to put the screws to the Governor. The corporation will provide generic promises and make very specific demands. And the Governor is in a weak bargaining position: he knows that the Essex plant means a lot more to Vermont than it does to its new owner. He might even come out of the meeting with a piece of paper in hand, proclaiming a new deal that’s good for Vermont and for GlobalFoundries.

Not that I could blame him. We’re over a barrel with the Essex plant. Its closure would be a huge blow to our economy. In the short term, the IBM/GF deal is good for the state — if only because I’d hate to continue depending on the good graces of IBM. But there’s a whole lot of worms in this apple, and the moral of the story continues to be “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.”

I grew up in Michigan, a state that grew and prospered with the domestic auto industry. The Big Three had its roots in Detroit. It did a lot of good for Detroit. But when the global winds shifted, they had to shift with the times, and Detroit was left to hang. The takeaway: it’s not healthy to be too dependent on one business or market sector. Sooner or later, it’s gonna bit you in the butt.

IBM’s departure should be a reminder, or a wake-up call: Vermont’s economy should be as diversified as possible. Eventually, the winds are going to shift again, and we need to be ready.  

Farewell compact fluorescent light bulbs. You served us well. Rest in peace. I remember 25 years ago I was working for a solar company and we sold some of the first compact fluorescent light (CFL) bulbs that were ever made. They had a big wide base that made them hard to fit in most fixtures. They flickered. They took a while to come on. And they cost $25 each. Still, they used 75% less power than a regular light bulb and since we were one of the only places to obtain these energy efficient bulbs, people called us regularly to have them shipped by mail to their residence. Even at $25 a pop, they paid for themselves.

My how things have changed! CFLs fill the shelves of Walmart and the grocery stores and they’re about a buck a piece. It’s getting hard to even find the old type of energy-hog bulbs. It’s great to see CFLs take over, and a lot less energy is being wasted as a result. But CFLs are not perfect. They contain mercury and are supposed to be disposed of properly but many of them end up in the landfill. Along with the lower price, the quality has suffered on some of the cheaper units and they don’t always last as long as predicted. They still have issues coming on to full brightness. They don’t work great in cold temperatures.

All along, many of us have been waiting for the next type of light bulb to emerge – LEDs. A few years ago they started to show up in stores but they were $20 a piece. More than I was willing to fork out, even to try a test.

Now, finally, LEDs have arrived. The price has come down enough for me and I’ve purchased a few and tested them out over long term and i’m 100% convinced. I’ll never buy another CFL light bulb. LEDs are twice as efficient as CFLs. That means they use half the energy to make the same amount of light, so they save even more energy and money. They last more than twice as long as CFLs, and the indicators are that they really do live up to their lifetime ratings. It’s hard to tell yet because the lifetime is 25,000 hours and you’d have to use a bulb for 22 years at 3 hours per day before that time comes up. They come on instantly, even in cold temperatures. The brightness and light quality is superb. Most of them work with dimmer switches. And, they contain no mercury. They beat CFLs in every category.

I shop at Costco and they now have a large selection of LED lights at only $5 each (with instant rebate). They even have a display case so you can see the quality of the light. Every time I go there I pick up a few and I’ve been replacing my CFLs as they burn out (often prematurely) and now my house has about half LEDs. I find they are far superior to CFLs for all the reasons I’ve listed. I encourage you to join me and try out an LED light bulb if you haven’t already. You may very well agree, and never buy another CFL again. Here in Vermont you can find LED lights for $5 or less in Home Depot, Costco, online and other many local hardware stores. There’s a state rebate, so your state hopefully has some discounts as well. Try one out and see what you think!

Gary Beckwith is driver of the Solar Bus and an advocate for renewable energy.  He can be reached at gary(at)solarbus.org.

The Vermont Worker’s Center hosted a  public forum on Human Rights and the Economy at the Franklin County Senior Center last Thursday.  All candidates for the house and senate were invited to participate.

It was disappointing, if not particularly surprising, that no Republican candidates made it to the event, but the Democratic and Progressive representation was impressive.  

For the House, sitting reps, Kathy Keenan, Cindy Weed and Mike McCarthy were joined by Franklin 5 candidate Bob Irish.  Even the two Democratic senate candidates, Sara Kittell and Bill Roberts were there for the first part of the forum, though they had to leave early to fulfill another commitment.

This was not a setting for stump speeches, but rather an opportunity for the candidates to hear the issues and concerns of veterans, seniors, the disabled and the economically disenfranchised.

Someone asked me if, in the complete void of Republican candidates, the forum had resolved itself into a “love feast.”  I assured them that it had not.

Members of the audience represented the folks in our county with the greatest challenges, and they asked tough questions that reflected the difficulty of their individual situations.

To their credit, all of the candidates listened with respect and provided thoughtful answers.

Most impressive was the engagement of sitting House members, Keenan, McCarthy and Weed.  

They clearly understood the special responsibility each holds for actions of the legislature as a whole.  Soberly and with humility, each rep owned the need for a proactive legislature and outlined not just what had been accomplished in the past, but where opportunities lie in the future.

The strength of their experience and common sense was clearly evident.

It was a mid-week evening, toward the end of a tiring campaign schedule, but these women and men cared enough to make themselves available to the least powerful of their constituents.

Either all of the Republican candidates had better things to do that night or they had no interest in hearing from constituents who have actual…you, know…needs.

I can understand that they might have little to say to these people.  The only answer the GOP ever has is to cut taxes and give big business another helping hand.  

How is that going to pay for a working class mother’s tooth extraction or insulate a working class family’s home?

I proudly serve on the board of the Vermont Conservation Voters which today announced its endorsement of Dean Corren for Lieutenant Governor.

“Dean Corren’s career-long commitment to creatively and aggressively tackling environmental challenges like climate change would bring a refreshing new focus to these issues from the Lieutenant Governor’s office,” said Lauren Hierl, political director for Vermont Conservation Voters.

If Vermont aims to be the vanguard of environmental initiative and innovation, doesn’t it make more sense to have a Lieutenant Governor who actually walks the walk?

“With Corren’s expertise on renewable energy – including his development of new technologies to capture clean energy from natural water flows – he understands that Vermont can position itself to lead on solutions to climate change. These solutions represent a `win-win’ for our planet and our economy,” she said, “and no-one knows that better than Dean Corren.”

Phil Scott may be a “nice guy,” but he’s built his popularity by burning gas (on the race track) rather than conserving it.  

If Corren is elected we may finally be able to answer the perennial question, “but what exactly does the Lieutenant Governor do?”

Today's good news is that the South Burlington Education Association has been able to reach an agreement with the school district to end their strike and return to the important work of educating South Burlington's students.

The bad news is that, as it happens pretty much every time workers stand up for themselves, we are hearing attacks on workers' right to withhold their services and take action to protect their rights and their livelihoods. Ronald Reagan was wrong when he busted the air traffic controllers' union and hired scabs, and Peter Shumlin is wrong when he says teachers should not be allowed to strike.

Some facts might be in order to get past the cries that a five-day strike in one school district shows that the sky is falling. Vermont has two hundred fifty public schools, sixty-two supervisory unions, and three hundred sixty-two school districts. Out of all those schools and districts, in the last forty years or so we've had about twenty-seven teachers' strikes, most lasting just a few days, although some have been longer.

In all the rest, teachers and management have been able to reach agreement without a strike, and experience has shown that a strike is the last resort. In South Burlington, negotiations started last November, the contract expired on June 30, and yet the teachers went back to school and worked without a contract until last week. In Bennington and Rutland Southwest the teachers worked for 500 days without a contract to try to avoid a strike.

So why do teachers need the right to strike? It's pretty simple, really: without the ability to strike management has no incentive to negotiate in good faith. Again, take the South Burlington strike as an example. The strike ended after the parties agreed to mediation, and the work of the negotiators and the mediator Friday and Saturday produced an agreement. You probably knew that already, but did you know that the teachers have been calling for mediation for weeks, including their request for mediation on October 6, a week before the strike deadline?

There is nothing to prevent school districts from agreeing to mediation before forcing the teachers out, but for some reason the management in South Burlington wasn't interested until the teachers were out on the street. Somehow, though, anti-labor forces want to blame the teachers, and not the administration, for the stoppage.

Governor Shumlin has proposed binding arbitration as an alternative to teachers' strikes, but here's something else you probably didn't know: when binding arbitration has been proposed in the legislature, the Vermont NEA has supported it and the school boards have blocked it. As VPR reported Thursday, quoting NEA spokesman Darren Allen:

 Despite support from teachers and the governor, the Legislature hasn’t taken up the issue. When it comes up, Allen said, “every single time, every single time, the school boards and the school boards association have adamantly opposed it.”

There is no doubt that on those rare occasions when Vermont teachers are forced to strike, it produces disruption to the schools and the communities they serve. Eventually, though, the schools reopen, the teachers return to the important work that they do, and the instructional days are made up, The lasting harm, when it does come, is caused not by the school days missed or vacations shortened, it comes when management splits the community by attacking the very idea that teachers have a legitimate right to join together and negotiate for their wages, hours, and working conditions, as happened in Hinesburg in 1985.

We don't know the terms of the new South Burlington contract yet, but we do know that it is a contract that the school board calculated the town could afford. South Burlington is recognized for the high quality of its public schools, and it's the teachers who are producing results in those schools. They deserve a fair contract, and they deserve the right to fight for their interests. 

( – promoted by BP)

Apparently, the Vermont gubernatorial debate on Vermont Public Television is somewhat of a national joke. vtdigger has a collection of national media clips http://vtdigger.org/2014/10/17…

There were certainly funny moments in the debate and I howled with laughter. That said, I am proud that Vermont has an inclusive election process which allows any citizen concerned about the future of our society to run for our highest office and more importantly, a chance to be heard.

More …

By carefully listening to the candidates, some pearls of wisdom emerge, valid concerns are expressed which may otherwise be overlooked. The candidates spotlight problems they are concerned with in the best way they know, in the hope that they can move the needle, make a difference and perhaps one of their ideas will be considered despite the odds they will be shunned, ignored, or even laughed at.

Make no mistake, it is a hard thing to stand up before peers and strangers and ask for support for your ideas. It is intimidating to face questions from the press, take criticism for your ideas from voters, and stand to debate other candidates. It is no easy task to have ideas you hold dear be questioned or even ridiculed, and it is very difficult to explain them while under pressure.

I salute Vermont Public Television for including all the candidates in their debate. Stewart Ledbetter was the picture of grace as he treated all the candidates with respect. Vermont has again out-done the rest of the country by allowing candidates with little support and resources to have a moment to be heard in a statewide forum.

Many other states and “debates” are open only to those with support in the polls, which often equates to contributions, which these days comes mostly from entrenched the interests of corporations, PACs, lobbyists and wealthy donors. Great numbers of citizens have turned away from the political process in part because it has become too predictable. A variety of candidates with views outside the mainstream is vital to democracy.

It is important that we, in the great state of Vermont, maintain our open democracy. We must encourage our people to stand up in the town square, at Town Hall meetings and in campaigns for public office. Our democracy is increasingly rare; let’s hold it close and nurture it.

That is no reason to take ourselves too seriously. Democracy without laughter or joy is boring. Once they stop laughing, some Americans may realize that Vermont’s democracy is alive and well.

Thank you to every candidate who chooses to run for office. It is unimportant if I agree, disagree, or find your position foolish. You have my gratitude for participating, for seeking solutions, and for being willing to sacrifice for the good of the community of Vermont.

Finally I would ask, who should be more embarrassed, Vermont or Florida? http://thinkprogress.org/elect…

Here’s a chart from Bloomberg News via TPM showing US media coverage of Ebola. It is quite a spike when seen in perspective to other regions. coverage.                                              More here

The Vermont Environmental Consortium and Vermont Technical College (VTC) are excited to announce registration is open for a joint fall conference: “Designing a Closed Loop Community.”

The conference will be held Thursday, November 13, 2014 at VTC’s Judd Hall on its Randolph Center campus. The conference will focus the strides VTC has made to close the carbon cycle on the Randolph campus and how others might incorporate those practices in their own community. It will include discussion of “Big Bertha”, VTC's biodigester; the campus's carbon foot print; local food systems, and renewable and sustainable practices conducted on the campus. The day's events will include four panels; related exhibitors; tours of the campus; keynote speaker; and a discussion of VTC's future vision for building more carbon conscious communities.

The event runs from 8:45AM – 4:15PM. Registration includes all sessions and lunch. The panels will be focused on the following topics: Carbon in Transportation and Logistics: Moving People, Food and Waste; Recycling Energy and Nutrients by Anaerobic Digestion; Composting — Capturing Carbon and Energy through Local Agriculture; and Creating a Carbon Conscious Community — Initiatives in the City of Montpelier.

Confirmed speakers currently include Daniel Smith, Interim President of VTC; Karen Glitman, Director of Transportation Efficiency at Vermont Energy Investment Corporation; Shaun Fielder, Executive Director of the Vermont Rural Water Association; Tim Shea, Committee Chair for Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee (MEAC); Johanna Miller, Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee (MEAC) and VT Energy and Climate Action Network (VECAN); Barbara Conrey, Professor at VTC College & Montpelier Energy Advisory Committee (MEAC); Joan Richmond- Hall, PhD, Associate Professor (SCI), Program Director (SDT) at VTC; Christopher Dutton, VMD; Richard Hall, owner, Fairmont Farm; Brent Beidler, owner, Beidler Farm; Sosten Lungu, PhD, Agronomist and Associate Professor of Agriculture at VTC.

There are opportunities to attend, exhibit, and sponsor this event. Learn more about the event, see a full agenda, and register online by visiting the event webpage found under “Featured Event” on http://www.vectogether.org or visit VEC’s Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Vermont-Environmental-Consortium/277911338887994. Please register by November 10, 2014.