Green Career - Technology and Renewable Energy

My choice to study mechanical engineering largely came down to my love of cars. I have loved cars my whole life and, when it came down to choosing a career path, it seemed obvious that mechanical engineering would be a perfect fit for me. Well, since leaving high school, my interests have changed and once this class got into the swing of things, working in the renewable energy field started to seem more enticing. But I don't really want to work for a traditional energy company, they're too, well, boring. Nothing really seems that exciting about working for consumers energy. Plus, I would feel like I was just actively participating in green washing and I'm not about that. 

Essentially big utility companies work to dominate all of the energy production and grid infrastructure in an area, making it almost entirely impossible for competition. Areas where competition occurs generally are dominated by these massive utility companies that have overlapped in certain spots. The beauty of renewables is that it puts the ball back in the consumer's court. Why do I need to spend a ton of money every month on power when my home can simply make its own? Some people produce enough electricity that they actually make money on their home's as the unused excess energy is sold back to the grid. 

So, what I want to do is to empower the homeowner to sell their energy to their neighbors, and empower their neighbors to sell some of that to their neighbors. Imagine a neighborhood that produces its own electricity. "Oh, the Joneses have a cloud over their house? Here, I'll divert some of my excess energy to them for a few bucks." This all assumes that everybody's home produces enough electricity to operate all day and all night while also being able to send excess energy to the people living around them - something that isn't entirely viable, yet. So, say this neighborhood has also got a geothermal well, and the neighbors have pooled their money to build a few windmills throughout the neighborhood. Let's scale down this grid from one centralized hub controlled by a company that doesn't give a rip about you and your energy needs. Let's bring energy back to the community and take the power away from these monopolized utilities. 

Call it Uber for your home. You get online, buy a little electricity from next door and your neighbor's home battery diverts some electricity via a transmission line buried beneath the ground to your home. This will all be perfectly viable in the coming years and the best part is that the small scale offers more advantages than just knowing where your power is coming from. Storms knock out electrical grids all the time. One tree hanging on a power line and half the of town is without electricity, including the hospital. And the worst part is your utility company doesn't know that the power is out until someone calls them up angered by the blackout. Our grids are old and outdated and the people in charge of them don't really care. 

So, in short, buy a house. Make your own electricity. Sell it to others. That's my idea, at least. 

More on distributive power and the downfall of traditional utilities: 

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/your-solar-panels-are-killing-utilities

http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/it-s-time-to-hurricane-proof-the-grid

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-morgan-stanley-is-betting-that-tesla-will-kill-your-power-company

Union of Concerned Scientists

The Union of Concerned Scientists was started by a group of individuals who were looking to challenge the scientific climate of their time. This organization was started in 1969 during a time when scientific resources were being poured into making war instead of focusing on progressing human development. This is the mission statement drafted 50 faculty members at MIT in 1969,

Misuse of scientific and technical knowledge presents a major threat to the existence of mankind. Through its actions in Vietnam our government has shaken our confidence in its ability to make wise and humane decisions. There is also disquieting evidence of an intention to enlarge further our immense destructive capability. The response of the scientific community to these developments has been hopelessly fragmented. There is a small group that helps to conceive these policies, and a handful of eminent men who have tried but largely failed to stem the tide from within the government. The concerned majority has been on the sidelines and ineffective. We feel that it is no longer possible to remain uninvolved. We therefore call on scientists and engineers at MIT, and throughout the country, to unite for concerted action and leadership: Action against dangers already unleashed and leadership toward a more responsible exploitation of scientific knowledge. 

The mission statement goes on to outline the five main tenants of the formation of such an organization, but the preceding statement largely sums up their intentions in creating the group. Unlike many other scientific organizations, the Union of Concerned Scientists is privately funded to ensure that its research isn't tainted by those that back it financially. The Union of Concerned Scientists has a variety of interests including: clean energy, clean vehicles, food and agriculture, global warming, nuclear power, nuclear weapons.

There are a number of ways in which students can interact with the UCS. The UCS has various projects that it is working on that require the help of many many participants to succeed. At their website, the UCS has a "take action" tab that outlines a number of projects that people can get involved with. One such project is a letter writing campaign to Exxon Mobil which asks writers to request that Exxon stop funding climate research that is misleading the public.

The majority of work that the group opens up to the public comes in the form of participating in various forms of raising a strong public voice. Projects that students could adapt to their classrooms could work to promote this work. Letter writing campaigns, public protests, social media projects, and many other projects like these all would help to promote this message. As far as directly working with the UCS, it seems that would be rather difficult. Since the organization spends most of its time producing peer-reviewed scientific research, it would be difficult for students to partake in that. This does not mean that its members are not accessible and I think it would be beneficial to reach out to one of the many thousands of engineers and scientists working for the UCS.

The UCS and its work is exemplary of what good scientific work looks like. The UCS is the culmination of the best and brightest scientific minds working in the United States and its work is free from the corrupt corporate and political worlds in which it actively works to distance itself from. Only once its work has been thoroughly vetted and scrutinized will the UCS publish findings and use that work for political means. The United States would be smart to follow this model and invest in the STEM fields that are growing so quickly in order to remain the preeminent scientific incubator in the world.

Forest fire proliferation

Are forest fires getting worse with climate change? In a word, yes. But, it's not all that simple. First of all, forest fires actually do a lot of good for our forests. In fact, small forest fires are good means of preventing larger ones, as the brush and dead trees on the forest floor help fires to spread very quickly. When the stuff on the bottom of the forest burns up, it cleans it up in a sense and leaves behind the taller, more resilient species. Scientists have discovered tree rings with scars in them that indicate damage from 30 (!) separate fires. Ponderosa pine trees have a very thick, fire resistant bark that helps them to weather the storm. So nature not only needs a good fire every now and then, but also has adapted to the effects of larger fires.    

As climate change advances, and it has greatly advanced, these fires are evolving from the beneficial types of fires to the dangerous sort. As forests dry up during extended droughts, and tree-killing beetles reproduce twice a year (instead of once like they used to when the winters would kill them off), and snow pack depletes due to sporadic precipitation patters, and rains become torrential and damaging, and temperatures continue to rise, and lightning strikes increase, these fires are becoming hellish. Imagine a fire burning 3.8 acres a second like the Carlton Complex fire in Washington did in 2014. At 250,000 acres this fire was the largest in state history, that is until a fire in 2015 burned more acreage yet. Out of all of the symptoms of climate change, forest fires might be the most glaring in the United States. And as global temperatures to rise, fire season is only going to continue to get longer.

The issue with forest fires is that as climate change gets worse, the fires get worse. And, as the fires get worse, climate change worsens -- it's a vicious cycle. Each tree in a forest is essentially a stick of trapped carbon, and when that tree burns, the carbon is released. The incredible natural processes that occur in our forests have a purifying effect on the air which supplies good ole oxygen to the atmosphere. With our vast forests being burned to a crisp, climate change is being accelerated and will only make the issue of forest fires worse.

Update April 12, 2016:

An article published in the New York Times today (http://www.nytimes.com/) points toward the ever lengthening fire season that climate change is causing. New Mexico has had twice as many fires this year as they did at this time last year. The first wildfire in Alaska started in February. This is highly unusual compared to typical fire seasons of years past and is indicative of the influence of the warm, dry winters that have been occurring. It appears that, sadly, McKibben was very right, climate change is going to continue to make forest fires a massive and expensive problem.




                                                                             

Plan it Green

I have spent this weekend messing around on Plan it Green: The Big Switch! It is a game created in collaboration with entities like GE and National Geographic and is a simulation based game. Plan it Green is essentially a watered down version of Sim City in which you build and upgrade buildings while thinking about environmental impact. The game forces you, the city planner, to make tough decisions as you have to power your city while balancing emissions. The game is entertaining enough
to play and certainly would be a useful learning tool for a teacher to use in the classroom. It is more geared towards students in grade school or junior high as it doesn't really have any complex moving parts. The game features informational videos about green technology being developed and gives players the chance to learn how such technology works on its most basic level (unfortunately, I haven't figured out how to take screen shots of the game yet).

Some issues I have encountered in playing this game is that it moves frustratingly slow. You would have to put in some serious hours to get your town to city size and I am afraid that students would not have enough time in the classroom to explore the game (maybe assign it as homework?). Also, I wish the developers would include better upgrades for the buildings that you construct. I spend so many resources repairing the buildings that I have already dumped plenty of money into for upgrades that I do not have enough money to grow and expand (maybe i'm not cut out for city planning).

Overall, this game would be a decent resource for students to get them to start thinking about what options are available to make their homes, and their city, more efficient and sustainable. I wish I could restart my city because honestly I did a pretty poor job of setting up my residential districts and I put a park right next to a coal power facility so now all of the kids have the black lung, I assume.


A link to the game:
http://www.planitgreenlive.com/en/play

My Discussion Leading Experieince

Meeting with local people who were so willing to share their interest in climate change was a fantastic experience. Heading into the discussion, I felt well prepared to bring what we learned in class to a discussion with people who may or may not have the breadth of knowledge that students in this class might have. We have learned a lot over the course of this semester and it was refreshing to be able to apply that knowledge to a thoughtful discussion about climate change. My table was quite diverse. We had a woman form Japan, a student from Vietnam, three current or retired professors from Kalamazoo College, and a master gardener. Each person brought their own unique take on climate change and they were all very much willing to participate fully. One of the key points that was brought up was that none of us really talked about climate change in our own social groups. This discussion lead to questioning why that might be and possible ways to work talk of climate change into conversations in a way that wasn't abrasive or standoffish. In reflection, this experience was something that I never thought I would be doing and I am glad that I participated for that reason. Even if it was in a small way, it feels as if we were able to make a difference.

Oryx and Crake

Oryx and crake is the story of a man trying to find meaning in his life. Snowman, the novel's decrepit main character, spends the majority of his days pondering the situation he now finds himself in as the last man on Earth. Well, sort of. Snowman is kept company by genetically modified people, the children of Crake as he calls them, that are quite peculiar in their ways. Snowman spends a lot of his time thinking about his childhood, the days when he was called Jimmy. His upbringing was tumultuous at best with his mother abandoning he and his father without a trace of where she had gone. His father quickly remarried to a woman that Jimmy described as "whorish" in demeanor. Jimmy was raised in a walled compound owned by a massive company that dealt with genetically modified organisms. As the world was ravaged by the ugly effects of climate change, these corporations rose to power as the ruling entities of the time. Jimmy does not fit into the analytical world confined within the walls of the compound and often debates the merits of human nature with his highly analytical friend, Crake.

Throughout this book I get the sense that Margaret Atwood wrote Oryx and Crake as a means to rectify her own inner debates about the existential direction of humanity. Crake, Jimmy's close friend, is nearly a polar opposite of Jimmy in the way he sees the world. Crake sees humans, animals, plants; basically any living thing for the complex biological systems that they are composed of. In his view, these systems are imperfect and can be improved upon by the scientific advancements of the times. If he had his way, and he eventually does, people would act according to a strict framework laid out by the laws of nature. Jimmy, on the other hand, serves as Atwood's answer to the analytical thinking of Jimmy's time and, I suspect, of our time. Jimmy sees the world for its artistic beauty - its perfection in its imperfections. If this book were to qualify as a climate change novel, and I firmly believe it does not, it wold rely on its philosophical discussions of human nature. In that regard, there is a clear link to climate change as human nature is what got us in this mess in the first place. I believe Atwood is providing her take on the age old discussion of man's place in nature. Where do we fit as co-inhabitants of this planet? How does science, technology, art, religion (to some extent), etc., fit in our lives and how does that shape the direction of human civilization? I fear I will not be able to answer such questions in a brief blog post, but have found reading this book to be rewarding as it has forced me to open my mind to such questions.

But, yeah, this is definitely not a climate change book.

Arctic Rising

Arctic Rising by Tobias Buckell is the story of an Earth where the arctic ice sheet has melted and the Northeast passage has opened - permanently. Massive oil companies are vying for the last few drops of oil left on Earth in the arctic waters, and people have colonized Thule, the name for the remaining mass of ice still remaining in the arctic. Smugglers routinely travel the passage and intentionally sink their ships full of radioactive waste made at the many nuclear power reactors that have been constructed across the world. Anika Duncan is in charge of an air ship that patrols the passage for these dirty boats to ensure that no more toxic waste can be dumped into the ocean (there are already exponentially high rates of cancer near bodies of water due to dumping). In the first quarter of the book, Anika and her copilot, Tom, are shot down by a smuggling crew and left to die in the icy waters they are eventually saved, but Tom later dies due to exposure. The smuggling crew is tracked down by the United States Navy (which is jockeying for dominance in the northern waters with none other than Canada) and taken into custody. Apart from being shot down, this all seems to be rather routine which is indicative of the new conditions that define this Earth.

This book presents and interesting take on the issue of climate change. Earth is certainly a different place, but it isn't necessarily uninhabitable or hellish. Turmoil is everywhere, no doubt, but, then again, that's true of Earth today. So far, this book has been quite enjoyable to read. It has dialogue that is honestly cheesy as hell, but the story has kept me interested.

Arctic Rising is a book about a climate changed Earth, but it doesn't go deeply into detail about the effects of climate change that have destroyed the planet. Instead, this book looks at the geopolitical and economic struggles that this new Earth has been enduring as a result of global warming. Thule, the lone remaining ice sheet that is being artificially held together by human intervention, is a colony of people from all over the world. It is experiencing many of the same issues that the original 13 colonies of the United States faced. Many many countries see this land as valuable due to the resources that remain there as well as the strategic benefits that come with dominating the top of the globe. The United States seems to have taken a back seat to Canada as a world superpower due to Canada's newfound economic activity in its once stagnant north. Many ports have been opened or expanded to accommodate for shipping traffic, making Canada the economic hub of the world.

Dust in the wind

For those of you who may have seen Christopher Nolan's recent sci-fi epic, Interstellar, you might remember seeing interviews of people who survived the actual dust bowl of the 1930's. In fact, drought and dust storms play a role in the early scenes of the film, which helps the audience to gain a grasp of what a climate changed world might look like. Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck would then be the predecessor to Nolan's film. In the early pages of the novel, Steinbeck focuses on shaping the hellish alien landscape that the dust bowl transformed fertile farming ground into. Steinbeck meticulously details the land and yet his descriptions all revert to intricate means of describing different patterns of dust. Dust in the fields, dust in the air, dust in the kitchen, dust everywhere. Steinbeck's words bring to mind images of volcanic ash covering everything after a major eruption (like the recent eruption in Iceland).

Now, dust covering everything turned out to be a massive problem for people who lived in the dust bowl as it absolutely devastated crop yields and virtually hung farmers out to dry. Steinbeck describes fields of dust covered corn blown over by gusts of wind that persisted throughout the drought.  Sunlight was dimmed by the dust lingering in the air and plants were suffocated as a result. In reading Grapes of Wrath, one can see the potential for disaster that prolonged droughts will have on our planet. One of the details that stood out to me in reading this novel was Steinbeck's description of the exhaust fumes emitted by a truck that the character, Tom Joad, hitches a ride on early in the book. Of the truck Steinbeck writes, "The vertical exhaust pipe muttered softly, and an almost invisible haze of steel-blue smoke hovered over its end." If only he knew how important the "almost invisible haze of steel-blue smoke" would have on the planet in which he so painstakingly describes. Overall, Steinbeck's dust bowl ridden world is bleak, and its people are nearly hopeless.

Clean Energy For All!

The Future of Energy: Lateral Power to the People is documentary surrounding the budding green energy movement occurring across the United States. Its creators searched high and low for grassroots clean energy movements in a town near you, and what they found was rather exciting. Entire cities were going green, and it was happening at a local level -- exciting stuff.


How long have we been told that solar power was going to cut it, that wind turbines were never going to power our future? Consider this report from OPEC which predicts, "...renewable energy grows fast. But as it starts from a low base, its share will be only 3% by 2035." Are these confident words the death blow to the environment as we know it? Maybe not. This film would argue that members of OPEC should be very, very concerned about their liquid black gold. Same goes for big coal.

Take, for example, Lancaster, California, a town that mandated that all new buildings be fitted with solar technology. This city has been able to reach nearly net zero emissions in doing so and, as mayor R. Rex Parris puts it,"we now have the ability to save the planet, increase the standard of living and the well being of everyone." This film certainly argues that green energy isn't environmentally responsible, but also socially and economically viable. In fact, one woman in the film calls the green energy movement, "the largest social movement in human history." It seems, according to this film, that green energy will help stave off our environmental woes and help lift people out of the darkness of poverty.

This film seems to crescendo, building on all of the ideas that have emerged in the green energy movement. People are:

• building net zero emissions homes 
• crowd funding solar projects
• purchasing electric cars  
• Rallying for policy changes 

These and many more are what make up the green energy movement across the globe. This multifaceted effort to save the planet is happening all around us and it is being led by people very much like you and I. This film proves that the green energy movement is happening, it's gaining momentum, and it is going to happen whether government policies and the fossil fuel industry like it or not. 

Oil and Honey: A Call to Action

Somehow, after reading the first half of Oil and Honey, Bill McKibben makes jail seem not so bad. In the first half of his book, he describes how his involvement with climate change came to be on a more intimate level. The doom that defines the pages of Eaarth is still there, but there is more at work in his words. McKibben has come to be a leader of change and while reading this book it is quite apparent that he is fit for the job. He knows his audience and utilizes his resources better than nearly anybody else in the climate change movement. All of his skills helped to lead two weeks of consecutive protests on the White House, resulting in 1,253 arrests and a couple nights stay in jail. Throughout, he admits his concern about the methods they are choosing to get their point across and doubts the ability of small grassroots movements to excite any change. Despite his doubt, his organized protests sparked a wave of protests all across the United States and even overseas. His personal climate change organization, www.350.org, has reached out to people in countries all over the world and has been wildly successful in getting its message across: we want our atmosphere back! His concern about grassroots movements is no longer necessary, as this has now become a global effort. McKibben himself constantly remarks at his surprise at how effective his work has been. 

So why is this story personal for McKibben? Throughout his travels across the globe, he reflects on his desire to return to his home in Vermont. Working with a local beekeeper, Kirk, he discovers a new connection to the Earth which helps him to find meaning in his work. Though he misses Vermont, he realizes why his work is absolutely essential -- he has to fight for this cause to save the land he calls home. He talks about his decision to purchase a plot of land as an investment to leave for his daughter: "Given what I knew about climate change, the gift of productive land seemed like the best thing I could hope to pass on to her, an insurance policy worth more than money in some account." McKibben cares for nature and wants to do what is right for its survival, and, in the pages of Oil and Honey, he argues that we should too. 

Chapter 2 -- Mosquitoes Are Scary

Mosquitoes are scary. What freaks me out the most about climate change isn't the violent storms and drought (well, that's sort of scary too), it's the spread of disease. We as humans have made incredible advancements towards eradicating horrible diseases like ebola and malaria and the prospect of these types of diseases making a comeback in a big way is frightening. We can pretty well predict when and where a massive storm is going to hit, but we don't have this type of capability for each individual mosquito that might be flying around our kitchens. This is what McKibben has to say about the spread of disease and its link to climate change:

"The link to climate change couldn't be clearer: not only do warmer temperatures extend the geographic range of the mosquito (up to half the world's population is now at risk), but Science Daily reports that global warming 'also reduces the size of Ae. aegypti's larva, and ultimately adult size. Since smaller adults must feed more frequently to develop their eggs, warmer temperatures would boost the incidence of double feeding and increase the chance of transmission.'"

 I don't know about you, but more mosquitos doesn't sound appealing. Toss in the chance of contracting a potentially lethal illness and this seems like it could become a massive problem. The first world isn't exempt from the spread of disease either as mosquitoes bite indiscriminately. This, mixed in with the decreasing effectiveness of antibiotics, certainly explains the white houses's public health approach to spreading climate change awareness. Below is a map prediciting the spread of west nile virus in The United States due to climate change (This is just one of many examples):

It seems clear that the health issues that almost exclusively plagued (no pun intended) the third world are becoming rather inclusive. We will see our national healthcare system put to the test as this issue is realized in the safe oasis that is the first world. Scientists believe that lethal viruses may be trapped in the permafrost of the north, and, as the permafrost melts, these illnesses will be reintroduced into society. This may be one of the most dangerous of all of the "positive feedback loops" that climate change will pose in the coming years.

 Maybe this is just karma as the first world is largely to blame for climate change, yet sadly the third world is who will be the recipients of the worst of its effects as this map from the Huffington post shows: 

Alas, climate change is not fair. 

Chapter One - Doom, Gloom, and More Doom

In the approximately 50 pages that constitute chapter 1 of Bill McKibben's eaarth we are presented with a situation that can only be described as bleak. Wait, no; bleak would be putting it lightly. There could not be more impending doom, apocalypse-on-the-horizon-we-are-all-screwed rhetoric packed into this first chapter. Having some contextual background knowledge of the climate change situation, I can't help but attempt to fill in this black hole with some hopeful thought (alas, unfortunately not even light can escape a black hole).

I mean, after all, as an engineering student, I feel that technology is coming along and new ideas on how to manage carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are all reason for some hope, right? And with this climate summit in Paris taking place we are seeing a real concerted effort by the international community to step up to the plate, finally.

This first chapter serves as a reminder that this threat is very real and is now to be expected to become a daily (seasonally maybe?) aspect of our lives. It's as if McKibben took every negative news headline, academic journal entry, legislative shortcoming, and condemned them into one chapter. I guess this is what we get for kicking the can down the road. McKibben's argument is clear, this is not an issue that will affect his grandchildren (our children), it is something facing us today.

Hello! I am Blair LaCross, a third year mechanical engineering major at Western Michigan University. Coming out of high school, I chose to study engineering because I loved the way in which technology rapidly shapes our world. I am from Alpena, Michigan, a small touristy town in the North-Eastern corner of the state. Thunder Bay, the shoreline that Alpena sits on, is home to the highest concentration of freshwater shipwrecks in the world!

I grew up in a family that loves all things outdoors. Hiking, camping, skiing, bird watching (this one is not my favorite), are all pastimes I grew up with. Along with these, I have spent a great deal of time playing sports like basketball and soccer.

Since I have started college, I have discovered that I am really passionate about astronomy, particularly astro physics and the extremes that our universe is home to (Bill Nye and Neil deGrasse Tyson are personal heroes of mine).

Along with this I am also interested in the environment and climate change which is mostly why I chose to take this course. I hope to spend a great semester with you guys as we learn more about the effects that climate change will present for us and generations to follow!