LH Town Center to seek LEED certification

The Lake Highlands Town Center will be pursusing sustainable development practices, including LEED certification for the whole development. This is awesome news, courtesy of the Advocate blog. Props to Prescott Realty!

Going Green: Sustainable Development
Underscoring a commitment to environmental conservation, Prescott Realty Group President Vance Detwiler announced several “green” initiatives that are being implemented with development of the Lake Highlands Town Center, including:

Creation of tree farms to preserve current trees for future use in the development
Rainwater collection system for irrigation
Building planning and orientation to reduce solar effects
Recycling of bricks, appliances and grinding of materials from demolished apartments
Crushing and recycling of concrete slabs for fill material and road base on off-site projects
Prescott plans to seek a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Neighborhood Development certification, currently being piloted by the U.S. Green Building Council.

“The very nature of the transit-oriented and pedestrian-friendly Town Center will encourage conservation and allow the entire community to take part in preserving and promoting a healthy, walkable environment,” explained Detwiler. “The Town Center’s unique integration of outdoor amenities and urban conveniences will really set it apart from other urban mixed-use developments.”

The peak oil scenario

Check out this fascinating article by Mimi Swartz in the new Texas Monthly. It’s about investment banker Matthew Simmons and his contention that a diminishing supply of oil will clash with soaring demand (especially form China and India) to paint a bleak future. The idea is called “peak oil” and it has several adherents, including oilman T. Boone Pickens. In typical magazine style, Swartz describes their meal and the fancy Houston Coronado Club, just to let you know that she dined in style for this assignment. Here’s a quick description of peak oil:

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Slashing through his entrée, barely stopping for breath, he describes a bleak future, in which demand for oil will always surpass supply, the price will continue to rise—“so fast your head will spin”—and all sorts of problems in our carbon-dependent world will ensue. As fuel shortfalls complicate global delivery routes and leave farmers unable to run their tractors, we will face massive food shortages. Products made with petroleum, from asphalt and plastic to fabrics and computer chips, will also become scarcer and scarcer. Standards of living will fall, and people will not be able to pay their debts. Lending will tighten, and eventually there will be major defaults. Growth will cease, and hoarding will set in as oil becomes increasingly rare. Then, according to Simmons, the wars will begin. That is the peak oil scenario.
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Sounds like fun, no? Just reading that makes one realize just how dependent we are on oil. So what kind of timeline are we on for reaching peak oil?

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Simmons believes that the worldwide peak was reached in 2005. He estimates the rate of decline for all oil production at somewhere north of 5 percent a year. At the same time, the global need for oil is expanding exponentially, particularly as China and India claim their places on the world stage. In India energy needs are expected to grow 72 percent by 2025; China’s are expected to roughly double during the same time frame. In seventeen years the world’s demand for oil may well be more than 50 percent greater than it is today, while production capacity may well sink to 1985 levels.
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Of course there are lots of industry experts who disagree with Simmons. He dismisses them as wishful thinkers. He claims their optimism that we will find new oil fields or that technology will curb our need for so much oil or the idea that high prices will tamp down demand as “faith-based.”

Just this week we’ve learned that Saudi Arabia and OPEC won’t be turning up the oil spigot to help ease a recession in the U.S. Is it because they won’t or because they can’t? I suppose we’ll see.

A few modest proposals from Simmons and others interviewed for the article: invest in education to prepare for a knowledge-based economy rather than one dependent on natural resources. Stop the 9 to 5 grind – office workers should work remotely rather than commute. Cut out the ridiculous food distribution system whereby we get out of season foods from distant lands.

I would argue that we also need to consider the costs of transporting goods every which way in order to get the lowest labor costs. That would suggest that manufacturing may experience resurgence in the U.S.

One thing about it, if we think 9/11 changed everything, a peak oil scenario will show us what happens when everything really changes.

Can we get a lockbox for those carbon offsets?

Al Gore, who is doing yeoman's work on calling attention to global warming, overheard on NPR this morning: "The earth has a fever..." and I really wanted him to finish the sentence this way: "...and the only prescription is more cowbell."

Clean Air for North Texas: what went wrong?

There is an important article in the Dallas Observer by Matt Pulle this week. It is the cover story (“Choke On It”), and it chronicles the efforts of environmentalists, elected officials, and business people in the North Texas region to clean up our terribly polluted air. The premise of the article is that these folks were well intentioned, but were not prepared to fight “the Austin way” during this year’s legislative session, and that they did not have a high profile champion for their cause (like the polluters did with former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk).

There’s actually some encouraging stuff in here, in that people in the region are relatively united and have solid plans that will significantly reduce air pollution in the region. Proposals range from getting dirty cars off the roads to adopting California exhaust standards to cleaning up our power plants and cement kilns to encouraging more mass transit. And much of it can be done with minimal economic impact (long term I think it would be easy to argue that the economic impact is positive).

The problem is that it is not up to the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee to present a plan to the EPA on how the region will come into compliance with federal clean air standards. It is up to the state. And the state legislature and governor are in the pockets of the polluters. So the state ignored the recommendations of the steering committee and presented a toothless plan to the EPA. From the article:

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The members of the North Texas Clean Air Steering Committee spent all those hours devouring graphs of chemical emissions to help the state draft the clean air plan for their region. Its members are in the best position to do just that. The committee has to live with the health and economic consequences of their clean air proposals. So what group has more credibility in making long-term decisions for the future of North Texas?

Well, for the state environmental commission, it wasn't the locals. When the state agency unveiled a draft of its clean air plan in December, it ignored the committee's main recommendations, particularly its calls for tighter regulations on cement kilns and power plants. It also ignored the steering committee's proposal to adopt California's emissions standards. Environmentalists lambasted the state's plan, saying that it had no chance of bringing North Texas in compliance with the 2010 federal deadline.

"The steering committee met for a year and a half before giving their recommendations, and as far as the state is concerned they simply weren't a factor," says Schermbeck with the environmental group Downwinders at Risk. "They raised their middle finger to what the locals here recommended."

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In reference to the state’s plan, SMU professor Al Armendariz states: “They truly don't care. It's as if their clean air plan was farmed to a consultant in Taiwan. That's the level of care they are giving to the citizens of Dallas and Fort Worth."

Many of these folks on the steering committee are now lobbying the EPA to reject the state’s plan. Let’s hope they succeed. EPA officials have already stated that the plan will not bring the region into compliance.

And let’s also hope that we can get the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to start working for the people of Texas and not the polluters. It would also be nice to have someone from North Texas on the commission.

Ultracapacitor wave of the future?

Isn’t that what Doc Brown used in Back to the Future?! I know, I know, it was a flux capacitor and it required plutonium to achieve 1.21 gigawatts of power – so this is even better than Back to the Future (except for the time travel part…)

This Associated Press article was buried in the business section yesterday about a new patent filing for “technologies for replacement of electrochemical batteries,” which apparently could power an electric car for 500 miles on a five minute charge. It looks like some scientists are pretty skeptical, but if this technology were to pan out it would change the way we think about energy. We’re talking about the demise of the combustion engine, the replacement of the battery, and the efficient storage of solar power. Great Scott! And all without that pesky plutonium black market. Can it clean up after my cat too?

For the benefit of my Canadian readers (and I know you’re out there), here is the Canadianized version of the AP story, complete with kilometers.

Did a real journalist read my blog?

I couldn't let this go without commenting. Jeff Siegel over at the Lake Highlands Advocate blog has also linked to the toilet voucher, which he "found...by accident." I would like to think that yours truly was that accident. If so, cheers Mr. Siegel, and many happy flushes.

Save Dallas Water

I am proud of Dallas Water Utilities for offering this: a $90 voucher to replace your high flow toilets! Insert your own potty humor here. OK, now get your mind out of the sewer.