Cosmic Cafe in Dallas

This is the back wall of my daughter's favorite restaurant Cosmic Cafe in Dallas. She's been raving about it for months, and now I get it. It serves good Indian vegetarian meals. The place is covered with funky paintings and all sort of interesting decorations, some hippie like I might add. It reminded me places I visited in Indonesia and Thailand long time ago.

It's on Oak Lawn, known for posh places. But this is definitely laid-back. They also offers meditation and yoga classes daily in the room above the restaurant. 

日本のミュージック、どうやってダウンロードする？

宮﨑駿の「風たちぬ」を見てから、ユーミンを無性に聞きたくなることがあります。Youtubeでこのビデオをたまに聞いているけれど、スマホに音楽だけ入れて、どこでも聞けるようにしたいなと思ってます。日本のミュージックってどんな方法でダウンロードできるのでしょうか？オススメあれば教えて下さい。有料でもちろん構いません。

アンドロイドのを使っているので、Google Playで探してみたけれど、ユーミンどころか日本のミュージックは何も出てこない。iTuneにはJ Popとかkayokyokuとかのジャンルはあるけれど、探している曲はないし。日本だけのシステムかアプか何かあるのだったら、教えてもらえれば嬉しいです。

Dallas Art Show

High-Tech arts were everywhere at Dallas Art Show last week.

There was a cool white LED art (not the one on right). From the distance, it looks like a massive and long light fixture. You wait a couple ten seconds, the lights start flickering and you see birds fly in and out of the screen. Neat surprise yet calming.

Scoop the poop :)

This sign gives me a grin whenever I walk by it on the trail.

Yeah, you know you have to scoop your doggie's poop on the public land. But, no one will be happy to be told that unless they point out that your "doodie".

Look at his eyes...you just have to smile and scoop that poop.

Electricity Transformation - part 6

Summary

Being efficient (= not wasteful) is smart. It means getting more for less. Everyone likes that except the ones benefit from wasteful behaviors. Strong political and public influence from those powerful who benefit have made it difficult for many to see the obvious until now. Well, the time has come. We can see the facts and don’t get fooled anymore.

To make building twice or more efficient, we need aggressive policies and tighter codes for all new build and major renovations. Much higher HVAC and lighting standards will be needed, as well. Industry professionals are ready to put their skills and knowledge to use in order to meet and exceed higher standards. For residential small projects, DIY easy low cost upgrades need to be encouraged with improved kits and materials.

We can overcome initial cost issues for larger upgrades with attractive and transparent financing program like PACE.

As we already have technologies needed for build environment energy efficiency to reduce 1 billion KWh, with right policies and financing, future we want to have will be in our hands.

June 7, 2013

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Electricity Transformation - part 5

Compiled List of New Renewable Energy Sources

In the report “The Long-Term Energy Efficiency Potential”, ACEEE projects three scenarios. Reference Case is business as usual, Advanced Scenario includes penetration of know advanced technologies, and Phenix Scenario includes greater infrastructure improvement and aggressive displacement of existing building stock.

Under Advanced Scenario, residential and commercial demand will reduce by 49% and 36% respectively. Under Phenix Scenario, 61% and 48% respectively. I used 3 billion MWh, 75% of total consumption, half residential and half commercial as base, applied % of reduction to each sector. Reduction appears to be lower, which might be because I have not included other possible reductions from industrial sector.

If we follow Advanced Scenario, we can eliminate coal, natural gas and reduce nuclear. If we follow Phenix scenario, we can eliminate coal, natural gas and nuclear, plus some surplus.

                                    Million MWh                      Advanced Scenario        Phenix Scenario

                                           2012                           2030-2035                       2030-2035

Coal                                      1,517        37%                        0                                      0

Natural Gas                          1,231        30%                        0                                      0

Nuclear                                    769        19%                    769                                      0

Hydropower                            276        7%                      276                                  276

Petroleum                                  23        1%                         0                                      0

Other Gases                              11        < 1%                      0                                      0

Other Renewable                     219        5%                   1191                               2628

       Biomass                              58        1.42%                 203                                     4

       Geothermal                         17        0.41%                   68                                 284

       Solar                                     4         0.11%                 120                                 390

       Wind                                  140        3.46%                 800                               1950

                               

Total Generated                      4046                                  2236                               2904

Demand Reduction                        0                                  1276                                1636

Total required                          4046                                  2770                               2410

                               

Difference                                                                           -534                                494

                                                                  need to come from nuclear?

                                                                                                                               surplus?

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Electricity Transformation - part 4

Problems, Barriers, and Policy Issues

According to McGrow Hill Construction, after 2007 federal law, the Energy Independence and Security Act, building industries have embraced green build. 44% of new commercial construction is green building in 2013. That is expected to increase to 55% in 2016. 22-25% of new residential is green build in 2013, which is expected to increase to 29-38% in 2016. Policy change was the main driver for this transformation. Policies do have huge impact.

The same applies to the other side. As described earlier, fossil fuel industry projects renewable energy stays flat in foreseeable future. That’s what they want for obvious reasons. And they try hard to influence policy makers, media and public to keep it that way. (Edit: As I was finishing up this report, the article came up in bloomberg like to prove the point. “Chemical companies are lobbying the U.S. Congress to limit government use of proposed, tougher green-building codes in the hope that alternative standards may be adopted.”)

Fortunately, more people started to question their tactics, seek facts, and make educated decisions. Although we are far behind compared to many countries, U.S. government and some states have enacted favorable policies for energy efficiency and renewables. New DOE Secretary Moniz emphasized energy efficiency as top priority at his initial speech. I would expect more policies will come in line for us to move forward to reduce energy consumption.

For implementation, initial costs have been a major barrier for green build or improvements. Building owners saw this money out of their pocket and no benefits to their investment. Good news is this perception is changing as well. Commercial PACE is making progress. According to PACE Now, to date, 30 states have PACE enabling legislation. Just recently as last month, even Texas legislature passed the commercial and industrial PACE program for energy and water conservation projects!

While residential PACE program had been stalled, once people see benefits in their offices, stores, schools and wherever they spend most of their daytime, they will start accepting and applying energy reduction behavior and retrofitting to their residences. I believe starting big in commercial sector would have compounding effect. With some incentives, improved technologies and reasonable cost, more would take steps to reduce their energy consumption.

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Electricity Transformation - part 3

Timeframe for Completion

I certainly hope ACEEE’s projection will be realized, and will work to be part of the effort. However, it may be too soon to declare that’s going to happen. Not everyone is on board and some fiercely oppose this movement.

The report titled “REN21 Renewables Global Futures Report” shows the stark difference in future renewable projections among different industries and viewpoints. Not surprisingly, large oil companies such as Exxon Mobile project renewable share in electricity production will be still 16% even in 2040. (In this report, DOE target in one of the figures shows similar number). Environmental organizations such as Greenpeace pictures it’s share reaches 61% in 2030 and 94% in 2050.

People and groups who are between those two extremes are increasingly shifting their positions. For example, IEA(International Energy Agency), who used to publish conservative lower projections, started to project higher figure. Their most aggressive projection shows 31-48% renewables by 2035 and 57-71% by 2050.

Building industry is another example. An article in Builder Magazine, “Energy Use Projections for U.S. Buildings are down sharply” explains:

Since 2005, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) has published its projections for energy consumption by buildings. Its 2011 projection for residential and commercial buildings, which it released recently, is nearly 70% less than its projection in 2005 (see chart).

Using its latest calculations, EIA estimates that consumers will spend $3.66 trillion less on energy between 2012 and 2030 than EIA projected in 2005 that they would spend over that period. And if the country’s architects and builders adopt the most efficient building technologies, those savings would exceed $6 trillion.

In its 2011 projection, EIA estimates that while building floor area would increase by nearly 39%, ... And if the building sector uniformly applied the best-available technology, energy consumption would actually decline by 9.2% and CO2 emissions would recede by 16.5% (see chart).

The article further states that 50% to 80% of a building’s energy consumption can be reduced through design. With all things considered, 25% reduction in 10 to 15 years appears reasonable. That’s enough to eliminate nuclear production. In order to eliminate coal and natural gas as well, we need substantial increase in production side of sustainable energy.

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Electricity Transformation - part ２

Description of Each Renewable Energy Source

I will explore energy efficiency as I believe it must be the first priority. Just like in nation's debt reduction or personal finance, if money is wasted foolishly and nobody pays attention to curve the spending, problem will continue and likely result in sudden bankruptcy. This is true even with some revenue increase. Building asset takes time while depleting it can happen quickly. Improving energy efficiency is like understanding your cash flow and balance sheet, setting up budget and paying off your debts.

Based on Rockfeller Foundation published paper titled “United States Building Energy Efficiency Retrofits”, over 3,033 Trillion Btu (roughly 900 million MWh) of energy can be saved by investing $279 billion to energy efficient retrofit for residential and commercial buildings in US, which would save $1 trillion over 10 years period in return. Commercial sector savings in this paper, published in March 2012, is 1,141 TBtu. DOE website currently states they strive to reduce commercial sector consumption by at least 1,600 TBtu, which is higher than one by projected in Rockfeller paper.

ACEEE(American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy), in it’s report titled “The Long-Term Energy Efficiency Potential”, suggests by improving building shells, residential and commercial sectors can reduce 40-60% of heating and cooling loads in existing buildings and 70-90% in new buildings. DOE states over 50% of energy in buildings are used for cooling and heating. This suggests, roughly speaking, more than 25% of energy used in build environments can be reduced by improving building shells alone. That equivalents to over 1 billion MWh we don’t need to produce every year.

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Electricity Transformation - part 1

I have been taking some interesting courses through Coursera. "Global Sustainable Energy" was one of them. I wrote following as one of the homework assignments last June. Energy climate is rapidly changing. Data I gathered here is already outdated - for better I may add. What I wrote seems widely accepted now.

Introduction

According to EIA data, the US generated roughly 4 billion KWh of electricity in 2012. Its breakdown by source indicates about 68% was from fossil fuel sources (coal, natural gas, and petroleum). Below is the total breakdown:

• Coal 37%
• Natural Gas 30%
• Nuclear 19%
• Hydropower 7%
• Other Renewable 5%
• Biomass 1.42%
• Geothermal 0.41%
• Solar 0.11%
• Wind 3.46%
• Petroleum 1%
• Other Gases < 1%

Coal use, although still the biggest single source, has declined from 48% of total electricity generated in 2008 to 37% in 2012. The same data shows the percentage of natural gas rose from 21% to 30% during the same period. Many argue that natural gas simply displaced the portion of coal because coal become too expensive while natural gas became cheap; I won’t disagree. But, what about the causes behind coal’s increased cost? Higher quality coal near the Earth’s surface had been mostly mined out. Evidence implicating coal’s role in pollution and environmental damage was piling up. Many voiced concerns that translated to tighter regulation, which led to expensive coal power. Coal was no longer cheap and abundant, and so lost its market appeal.

The fossil fuel industry’s solution was to select the easiest and quickest replacement: natural gas. As it produces less CO2 and other pollutants than coal, it was misleadingly tagged as “clean fuel.” Faced with taking lesser evil situation, most are accepting natural gas. However, there are many concerns remain. Industry and major media emphasize the benefit and pushing for transportation use and export while downplaying and possibly covering up the long term environmental and health risk.  

Coal and natural gas, both fossil fuel, will cease to supply our energy economically probably a lot sooner than most want to believe. Best solution forward is to stop wasting the energy we are paying dearly by improving efficiency, and develop renewable resources which pose far less environmental risk and very low operational cost for long term.

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春です。日本では桜前線が北上中とか。こちらではRedbudが満開です。

昨日まで出ていた雷雨の予報は外れたようで、雨が降った形跡なし。日照りが続いていて各地の貯水池は60〜70%のキャパのはず。すでに節水レベル3だから、頼みの春に雨がふらないと、夏をどうやって乗り越えるのか。いままで節電の対策はほぼできることはやってきたので、今年のフォーカスは節水、、、かな。

花粉舞い　雨ふらず　空を見上げて　ため息をつく