World Water Day 2021 in Review

 World Water Day 2021 (in the rear-view mirror): Valuing Water.

World Water Day (March 22, 2021) is past (www.WorldWaterDay.org)...   By now you should have taken the Water Day Quiz at SustainZine. It’s been about 10 years since I developed such a quiz. I had to work to improve and update the original quiz… It is still tricky to get good answers to some of these water-critical issues. Often the water usage is available to the homeowner, but gets confusing as the data is aggregated for the state and for the nation. The more abstract uses of water, like virtual water, are erratic and imprecise. Important concepts, but the answers are fuzzy.

Babcock Ranch aims to be first solar-powered town in US | USA News | Al Jazeera

Babcock Ranch aims to be first solar-powered town in US | USA News | Al Jazeera:

This is in partnership with FPL (Nextera) for the power. The powerplant is already up and running that will support an almost 200,000 home community.  FPL has extended the solar to include 10 megawatts of battery, thus allowing the solar power plant to offer more flexibility to the power grid and on-demand peaking power.

The 440 acres for the power plant (now with about 350,000 PV panels) were donated to FPL at the Babcock Ranch. The whole town is 100% electric with electric trolley and charging stations. They even have SolarTrees(tm) for you to charge your phone or laptop in the park and demonstrate how solar works.

This city is west of LaBelle on the way toward Ft Meyers. Very sustainable. Now has several developers building and each home has the "option" to have solar installed.

Here's another take with a human touch from FoxNews. Talking about the first people to move into the "city" and the first baby to be born in Babcock Ranch.

This is a very cool example of how a city can be built from the ground up as sustainable -- zero carbon footprint, as it pertains to electricity. There is the obvious question, however, of urban sprawl to suburbia, that has had suburban sprawl.

In a city, with lots and lots of impermeable surfaces (roofs and parking lots), it would be very possible to retrofit the sustainability solutions.

Way to go FPL. Within five years (2023), FPL plans to produce more from solar than from coal+NatGas combined. Additionally, FPL's sister company FPL Energy is the largest wind producer in the US, and 2nd largest in the world. !:-)  ... NextEra is the publicly ~$75B market cap holding company (NEE).

FPL does have some nuclear, with plans and approval for expansion. The Turkey Point plant has been problematic and has its own set of issues. Leaks in the cooling canals, and no real plan for ways to store nuclear waste, has the Sierra Club (a group that should generally be friendly to nuclear) up in arms.  They also don't like some of the sweet-heart deals for FPL that have been approved (rubber-stamped) by the Florida Public Service Commission (PSC). The sneaky and deceptive amendment on the Florida ballet last year -- a move designed to kill solar -- by the southern power companies (in which FPL donated $8m) is still fresh in the minds of Floridians.

Nuclear in general has issues in the future energy mix. Nuclear is wonderful for base load, but not great as a peaking power source. If/when we move seriously and definitively toward solar in Florida, there should be high renewable energy at various times throughout the day, and none during rain or at night, so nuclear continues to be less effective. See how California is planning the retirement of the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant and looking for other forms of peaking power as more and more power comes from renewables. Nuclear plants seem to have no plan, of any kind, as to what to do with nuclear wast; the only plan seems to be to hold on-site forever.

At some point the power monopolies need to deal with the reality that every home and every business can and will generate part or all of their electricity. This means that the future of the grid is connecting power creators with power consumers using a smart grid and dynamic pricing. Part of the day I may be a net producer, part of the night I may be a net consumer. One analogy of this type of Smart Grid is to think of it like the Internet. Sometimes I'm uploading content, sometimes I'm downloading. The Internet directs from where power is produced, to where it is needed. The Smart Grid power company will be more like the Internet Service Provider (ISP) of old by providing power as needed, where needed. The internet of things (IoT), but with power, is essentially what we're talking about. Maybe the Energy of Everything (EoE)?:-)

Power companies need a new business model (currently the model is based on ROE with the PSC assuring prices that justify a good return on investment). Producing and selling more and more electricity to make more and more money is a broken model. Building bigger and grander centralized power plants is horribly inefficient; about 60% of energy is lost in the production (steam) and distribution.

We are really glad to see FPL's effort into solar. Florida, and NextEra, could do more. Time for the power monopolies to make the change before they get overrun. The power model is changing... Trying to block this massive change is a little like stacking rocks in front of a glacier ...

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Solar and wind just passed another big turning point, Cheaper n Better

Solar and wind just passed another big turning point:

So solar and wind power generation is reaching a threshold where renewable energy is cheaper than fossil fuel-based power in Germany and UK. That is before counting the subsidies for renewables, and ignoring the massive externality costs of our historically favorite dirty black fuel.

Note the discussion of the virtuous cycle of renewable fuels. As base load power moves up from 5% renewables the costs of traditional power plants becomes more expensive, essentially they become more peak-power generators and less base-load power.

Solar has the added advantage of offing more distributed power generation, usually at the point of use. So solar starts to really cut down on the massive loss of power over distribution channels.

In the US, really cheap NatGas is a no-brainer decision for converting coal plants. It is so much cleaner in all respects. But new fossil fuel power plants will be harder and harder to justify to shareholders and to the PSC.

In the meanwhile, nuclear sits on the sidelines, leaving fission and fusion as a non option in the foreseeable future.

If momentum builds for homeowners and businesses to move to at-source power generation (say Solar City), the building momentum could be a real game-changer.

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FPL gets approval to charge customers for fracking investment... The Real Story.

FPL gets approval to charge customers for fracking investment | Tampa Bay Times:

I was astounded to here that FPL is getting into the Fracking business. There's this baloney about trying to save some money for their investors. FPL Customers pay, in advance, to drill Nat Gas wells in Alabama, and then reap some of the benefits of the wells, if any, in the form of low NatGas prices in the future.

It sounds too good to be true. And leaves you shaking your head as to why a publicly regulated power utility would wonder off the path into the woods looking for firewood and NatGas.

So the Fla PSC rubber stamped the deal. As they always do. (Although the PSC turned down a petition to pay for Federal Lobbying, an obvious red herring in the mix.)

Comes to find out that NextEra, the parent company of FPL, already has oil drilling interests... 

There are many reasons why a power company might want to get into the drilling business, but the one given seems like the very last on the list.

Water, maybe. Fracking takes huge amount of water, as does power generation.

Pipe lines. Power companies already have massive right-of-ways related to power lines. This seems like a perfect fit: run power through the line and gas through the ground.

The one I like best would be to capture the NatGas that is flared in oilfields, produce power and send the power off to the grid through wire. We currently flare half of all NatGas produced in the USA. Nobody really wants to talk about it, but probably more than half. (Better to flare it, then release the methane, but still a very ugly and wasteful business).

Here seems to be the answer: Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) through pipelines to markets, domestic and abroad. We in the US pay only bout 1/3 of what the rest of the world pays for NatGas. At about $3.50 per unit for us, and maybe $10-$12 for most other countries. Liquidification and shipping LNG is in the works on many fronts. Cheniere Energy, Inc.
(trading symbol LNG) is coming on board with export terminals with a vengeance. 

Imagine what it will look like when our mountains of NatGas start to look like mountains of dollars.

So what does this mean in the next era of power utilities? I don't really know. It should take some time to understand the maze and the interlinking parts. 

Here is discussion about Spectra Energy (drilling and such) and FPL and the pipeline in existence and/or planned. LAKE.org article. There's a pipeline through the Gulf...

So very interesting.

And, of course, it has to be mentioned: NatGas is far better than that other major fuel (not mentioning any names, like Coal), but it is still not a renewable resources. Non-sustainable, by any other name, is still a broken business model... It's just a mater of time.

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World Water Day 2014 -- March 22

Welcome to the World Water Day of 2014: This year’s theme is Water & Energy.

By the Way: Earth Day is coming in a month, April 22!!!
Look for Seminar information.

See the 2011 SustainZine post related to World Water Day. Some info is borrowed here.

World Water Day

The 44^th World Water Day (March 22, 2014): http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/

  World Water Day can easily flooded past us without most of us hearing a drop about it.!:-(  And why is that, you may be wondering? Or not… The problem with this, and most things sustainability related, is where to start.  And how do we put the critical sustainability issue of water onto our daily radar screen.

Water, Water, Everywhere…

  Water, so critical to life can be devastating in its absence. It can be devastating in abundance. Australia, plagued with decades of drought, finally got rain in 2011: it had an area flooded the size of Germany and France combined!  This was followed in February with Cyclone Yasi in the northeast. (A cyclone is the Pacific version of a hurricane… and, yes, they went through the alphabet to get to Y.) We know a lot about hurricanes for two years starting in 2004 giving us in Florida 3 or 4 per year including Katrina that also hit New Orleans.

  Then in the Winter of 2013-2014 we got snow, and more snow (let’s call that a polar vortex). In the meantime Europe (England) got drowned in rain.

But the quiet pain associated with water is very easily preventable with very little money. More than 1 billion of our world’s 6.9B population have inadequate drinking water with an additional 1B having inadequate sanitation. The result is that more than 3.5 million people die each year because of easily preventable water-related diseases (World Health Organization at www.WHO.int).  Approximately half of the world’s hospital beds are taken by water and hygiene-related diseases (http://water.org/learn-about-the-water-crisis/facts/).  [This should be updated, it has improved since 2011.]

The Nexus of Energy with Water, Paper, Plastic and Transportation.

  Few people realize how much water it takes to produce energy. How much water to power a light bulb, for example? To power a 60 watt bulb 12 hours per day for a year? How about 3,000 to 6,000, depending on the power source, it could be more or less. See here.

  The water doesn't go away, per se. Water might be taken in upstream, used to produce steam and power turbines and then released downstream.  Give a look at the Nexus sections in the outline on the last page of Climate Changes and Sustainability, a WikiBook: http://tinyurl.com/SustainYBook

Power and the Nexus of Energy, Water, Paper, Plastic, etc. are discussed in Wikipdedia:

Electricity generation

Water

Water-energy nexus

Plastic

World Water Day

  World Water Day was initiated to try to solve health and wellness problems around the world where people have poor water and sanitation. The UN has a 10 year program to attempt to overcome the pain and death associated with inadequate water by 2015. Progress has been made, but it is slow.

WATER STATS: Most of the earth’s surface (70%+) is water. Yet only about 2.5% is freshwater. (The salt in oceans and some lakes make it unusable for drinking, agriculture, etc. without expensive desalinization processing.) Of the world’s freshwater 68.7% is in ice caps and glaciers, 30.1% is underground, ~1% is other, and barely 0.3% is fresh surface water! That’s about 0.009% of our total is fresh surface water. Freshwater is lakes (87%), swamps (11%) and rivers (2%). So as we divert and consume the fresh water available to us – taking from rivers and aquifers – the impacts become ever greater as rivers dry and ancient aquifers are depleted.

This year the theme is Water & Energy. Most people don’t realize the Nexus of Water and Energy.

The Water Bubble and Water Wars

  The water bubble may be coming faster than we originally thought... Water sources, especially the invisible underwater aquifers are being depleted.  This will show in increased prices for water, water shortages and food shortages/prices (Marks, 2009). “We're fast draining the fresh water resources our farms rely on, warns Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute” (George, 2011). Our own Ogallala Aquifer in the high plans of the US (underground aquifer from Texas through Wyoming) will be depleted in about 25 years. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ogallala_Aquifer.).

  Water wars and water conflicts are expected to increase dramatically. Counties (and states) that are at the headwaters of rivers can take all the water and leave nothing for the cities, farmers and fishermen below. 

  Worst case, and a horrible example, is the Aral Sea. What used to be the world’s 4^th largest lake is now mostly dry, highly salty and toxically polluted. Russia has been consuming the water that would have run downstream (and through) the former USSR state of Kazakhstan. (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea and the following news video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e8b0svfuO_k at Russia Today.)

  The truth of the matter is... that water matters!  …

  Even in Florida where we are surrounded by H2O.

What can we do?

  Basically, we need to become more informed about the sustainability impact of all we say and do. We need to become more informed consumers of water. Maybe compute our water footprint. Please fill out the H2O Footprint calculator. We need to start conserving more water, more energy and more resource. (Recycling actually saves huge amounts of energy and water.)

 1)      Compute your water footprint (and take actions to reduce it):

a.       H2O Footprint: http://www.h2oconserve.org (Water footprint calculator.)

b.      At National Geographic: http://www.fooducate.com/blog/2010/03/22/eight-interesting-facts-on-world-water-day/

c.       Water footprint of food, products, etc.: http://www.waterfootprint.org

2)      The average American uses 2,000 gallons per day, more than twice the global average when all things are considered. (Most of the statistics will show only about 1,000 gpd, but they don’t include food, energy, etc.)

3)      For Florida-centric details & water-saving tips, please visit: www.WaterMatters.org and www.savewaterfl.com.

4)      References and links below.

Look for information about Earth Day 2014 coming up on Tuesday April 22.

Thanks for listening, reading, and thinking about sustainability.

Let’s be good stewards of our God-given resources: water and more.

Some References

George, L. (2011, Feb. 2) Earth economist: The food bubble is about to burst . New Scientist. Retrieved from:  http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20927986.400-earth-economist-the-food-bubble-is-about-to-burst.html

Marks, S. J. (2009). Aqua shock: The water crisis in America. NY, NY: Bloomberg Press.

Some Links:

·         Official site: http://www.unwater.org/worldwaterday/

·         http://www.UNWater.org

·         http://www.Water.org

·         http://worldwater.org/

EPA proposes strict emission limits on new power plants

EPA proposes strict emission limits on new power plants:

Coal power plants, especially new ones, are under fire.

As well they should be. Deaths in mining, deaths and health associated with smog and pollution, and the dirty secret of coal ash are enough to make a sane person push back from more coal power plants.

BUT, here's the kicker. What if we ship all of our coal over to China and have them burn it without any of the scrubbers and safety that we have in the Sates. ???

China now burns half of the world's coal. It's causing them some smog problems and social unrest, but ...

India, of course is increasing rapidly as well.

If we don't burn it hear, only to have it burned there, then what have we really gained? :-(

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