Carbon Assesment Survey

From the ACC Student Carbon Assessment Sub-Committee which we work with:

Do you work or take classes at South Austin Campus? If so, please take a moment to fill out the following survey or cut and paste the following address into your browser:

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=ybn0GSczLF2Os3uK936otQ_3d_3d

As many of you know, this last year, sustainability has become a hot topic at ACC. Students, faculty and staff are all getting involved in reducing ACC’s ecological footprint. During the Fall 2008 and Spring 2009 semester, The ACC Student Carbon Assessment Sub-Committee is compiling a greenhouse gas emissions inventory of South Austin Campus. The SAC campus will be the first campus to be inventoried. It is our hope that after reviewing the SAC report the Board of Trustees and Dr. Kinslow will support the inventory of all remaining campuses.

It is essential that we obtain as much transportation data as possible regarding your commute to and from the South Austin Campus. Please respond to the following questions about your commuting practices. We appreciate your time and thank you.

Sincerely,
ACC Student Carbon Assessment Sub-Committee

The Carbon Assessment meet Fridays at 5pm at the South Austin Campus, come join us if you can.

Google’s Clean Energy 2030 Plan

For those of you who have not heard Google has released a very extensive Energy Plan first released here, then updated a month later. The summery is listed below from Knol where you can find the most detailed and up to date information. But first check out the “summery.”

Summary

“Right now we have a real opportunity to transform our economy from one running on fossil fuels to one largely based on clean energy. Technologies and know-how to accomplish this are either available today or are under development. We can build whole new industries and create millions of new jobs. We can cut energy costs, both at the gas pump and at home. We can improve our national security. And we can put a big dent in climate change. With strong leadership we could be moving forward on an aggressive but realistic time-line and an approach that offsets costs with real economic gains.

The energy team at Google has been analyzing how we could greatly reduce fossil fuel use by 2030. Our proposal – “Clean Energy 2030″ – provides a potential path to weaning the U.S. off of coal and oil for electricity generation by 2030 (with some remaining use of natural gas as well as nuclear), and cutting oil use for cars by 44%.

President-elect Obama announced his New Energy for America plan this past summer that is similar to ours in several ways, including a strong emphasis on efficiency, renewable electricity and plug-in vehicles. Similarly, the Natural Resources Defense Council, McKinsey and Company, and the Electric Power Research Institute have issued proposals that share all of these same elements. Al Gore has issued a challenge that is even more ambitious – getting us to carbon-free electricity by 2020 – and we hope the American public pushes our leaders to embrace it. T. Boone Pickens has weighed in with an interesting plan of his own to massively deploy wind energy, among other things. Other plans have also been developed in recent years that merit attention.

Google’s proposal will benefit the US by increasing energy security, protecting the environment, creating new jobs, and helping to create the conditions for long-term prosperity. Some of the necessary funds will be public, but much of it will come from the private sector — a typical approach for infrastructure and high technology investments.

Our goal in presenting this first iteration of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is to stimulate debate and we invite you to take a look and comment – or offer an alternative approach if you disagree. With a new Administration and Congress – and multiple energy-related imperatives – this is an opportune, perhaps unprecedented, moment to move from plan to action.

This revised proposal was released on November 20, 2008. Check out Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s energy speech at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on October 1, and his energy speech at the Natural Resources Defense Council headquarters in New York on November 20.

Summary: What’s New in Version 2.0

Since Clean Energy 2030 was first published on October 1, 2008, we have made several changes based on comments from readers and internal feedback, most notably:

• an analysis of job creation in the electricity sector
• an improved vehicle model which results in higher average fleet fuel efficiency (and significantly increased savings)
• a decrease in the price of gasoline from $4 to $3 per gallon (doubling by 2030), in light of recent economic changes

Also included:

• a comment on why nuclear power was not expanded beyond the level in the baseline, and why coal with carbon capture and sequestration technology was not included
• an analysis of the precedent for rapid capacity build-outs in the natural gas and nuclear industries
• estimates of the required land area for wind and concentrating solar installations, and roof area for solar photovoltaics
• an analysis of the age of US coal and natural gas plants when retired under our proposal
• a more thorough analysis of the impact of accelerating the retirement of older vehicles
• a summary of the major activities Google is pursuing in the clean energy arena

Overall, we find a slight increase in vehicle fuel and economy-wide CO2 savings, and despite the decrease in fuel prices, a net economic savings almost as large as previously calculated, $820 billion over 22 years.

Summary: Reductions in Energy Use and Emissions

Our proposal will allow us to reduce from the Energy Information Administration’s (EIA) current baseline for energy use:

• Fossil fuel-based electricity generation by 88%
• Vehicle oil consumption by 44%
• Dependence on imported oil (currently 10 million barrels per day) by 37%
• Electricity-sector CO₂ emissions by 95%
• Personal vehicle sector CO₂ emissions by 44%
• US CO₂ emissions overall by 49% (41% from today’s CO₂ emission level)

We can achieve these results in 2030 by:

• Deploying aggressive end-use electrical energy efficiency measures to reduce demand 33%.
  • Baseline EIA demand is projected to increase 25% by 2030.  In addition, the increase in plug-in vehicles (see below) increases electricity demand another 8%. Thus, our efficiency reductions keep demand flat at the 2008 level.
• Replacing all coal and oil electricity generation, and about half of that from natural gas, with renewable electricity:
  • 380 gigawatts (GW) wind: 300 GW onshore + 80 GW offshore
  • 250 GW solar: 170 GW photovoltaic (PV) + 80 GW concentrating solar power (CSP)
  • 80 GW geothermal: 15 GW conventional + 65 GW enhanced geothermal systems (EGS)
• Increasing plug-in vehicles (hybrids & pure electrics) to 90% of new car sales in 2030, reaching 41% of the total US fleet that year
• Increasing new conventional vehicle fuel efficiency from 31 to 45 mpg in 2030

Optionally,

• Accelerating the turnover of the vehicle fleet, resulting in maximum new vehicle sales of 21.5 million per year in 2020, a 30% increase over the baseline, and boosting fleet average fuel efficiency by 7.5 mpg.

Summary: Financial Bottom Line

The financial bottom line: Although the cost of the Clean Energy 2030 proposal is significant (about $3.86 trillion in undiscounted 2008 dollars), savings are even greater ($4.68 trillion), returning a net savings of $820 billion over the 22-year life of the plan.

Summary: Actions Required

A number of actions will be required to realize the Clean Energy 2030 proposal.

• Renewable electricity
  • A long-term national commitment to renewable electricity (e.g. national renewable portfolio standard, carbon price, long-term tax credits and incentives, etc.)
  • Adequate transmission capacity (to support about 450 GW targeting mostly Great Plains and coasts for wind, and desert southwest for concentrating solar power)
  • Adequate grid resources to manage large-scale intermittent generation
  • Public and private renewable energy R&D and investment to achieve cost parity with fossil generation in next several years
• Energy efficiency
  • Long-term commitment to energy efficiency by the federal government and states (e.g, national efficiency standard, aggressive appliance standards and building codes, “decoupling” of utility profits from sales, incentives for energy efficiency investments)
  • Deployment of a “smart” electricity grid that empowers consumers and businesses to manage their electricity use more effectively
• Personal vehicles
  • Public policies supporting the deployment of fuel-efficient vehicles, e.g. higher fuel efficiency standards for conventional vehicles, financial incentives to encourage efficient (especially plug-in) vehicle purchases, special electricity rates for “smart charging”, and greater R&D
  • Investment in infrastructure necessary to support massive deployment of plug-ins including charging stations and development of new power management hardware and software

All of the above will require a sufficient and well-trained work force and manufacturing capacity to meet projected growth.”

I don’t know about you but I find this exciting!

Who We Are

The Renewable Energy Student Association (RESA) is a student organization at Austin Community College that connects students, organizations, educators and business in the Renewable Energy field. We also provide information about meetings, jobs, organizations, and other programs related to Renewable Energy.

RESA membership is open to any student at ACC and industry professionals and organizations in the Renewable Energy sector.  RESA has monthly meetings which will be posted or you can get on the email list by emailing me at twocrowseeing@gmail.com or by following the link below

Subscribe to RESA-ACC

Visit this group

We join us on Facebook or My Space. We are also on Twitter if you would like to follow us there too.

28th Amendment: Seperation of Corporations and Government

This amendment will help forward the renewable and environmental movements which is why I have it posted here please read:

“Every so often an idea comes along that rings with such clarity and purpose that it ignites the imaginations of millions of people. That spark of excitement becomes hope, hope becomes action, action becomes community, and that community grows to become a movement. Marine biologist, author, fisherma’am, and Exxon Valdez survivor, Dr. Riki Ott has such an idea.

Exxon’s recently reported record profits marks a new height of American corporate corruption and influence over our federal government — corporations find more protection under the law than American citizens, health and safety regulations are stripped away to serve profits ahead of people, politicians serve only their corporate backers, and our environment is falling victim to the lustful greed of this disaster capitalism.

How did it come to this?

Dr. Riki Ott is launching the movement for the 28th Amendment to the Constitution: Separation of Corporation and State. In the video below, she explains what a 28th Amendment will accomplish, how it is possible, why it is necessary for our democracy.

In Riki’s own words:

In my book, Not One Drop, I answer the question I frequently heard on the streets in Cordova. (It’s a small town where people often visit in groups on Main Street or at the post office.) How did corporations get so big where they could manipulate our legal system?

As survivors of the Exxon Valdez spill and 20-year lawsuit, practically everyone in town has first-hand experience with a legal system that failed to deliver justice and Exxon’s promise to make us whole.

In researching our nation’s legal history, I found the answer. In this 4-minute video, I explain the solution — passing the 28th amendment to the U.S. Constitution: separation of corporation and state.

Please listen. Then ask others to listen. In Not One Drop, I explain this idea more fully. Together we can build a movement to restore government of, for, and by the people.

“