Jon Warren Lentz Inc

Butch Cassidy & the Sundance Kid, Bonnie & Clyde, 21st Century Humans

Regulation is Nothing More Than License to Poison.

When we regulate, we are mediating for folks who do not understand the biosphere. We are saying to them, “Hey, this will kill us all, but since you are so powerful and since we can’t change your thinking, we’ll only allow you to poison us this much.”

IF we want our progeny to have a home, we need to Rethink what we are doing. We need to evolve beyond regulation until we have zero negative impacts (from humans’ presence and activity on the planet). The way to do this, the way forward, is to REthink our processes - redesigning industry & material flows so that exhausts, effluents, and trash are translated into nutrients, meaning that they become regarded as valuable raw materials for other industries in a dynamic web of life.

Yes, We CAN … But Are We Able?

IF we can accomplish this transition from the industrial revolution to the green evolution there will be more transactions, more commerce, and more money will be exchanged than has ever changed hands in the history of man. The scale of these changes is almost beyond normal comprehension. And yet, if we fail to make these changes, there will be nothing to comprehend; no more money certainly, nor any civilization.

BP just bought the Gulf of Mexico. But who will pay? The US, after the banks and the Valdez, shouldn’t let BP walk. But will immediate damages be assessed and paid? Immediately? I doubt it, even though both the economy and environment of huge swaths of coastline have been compromised in the US, Mexico, and the entire Caribbean including PR and Cuba. Ok, maybe not compromised. More likely, destroyed. Lands and people suffer while the goofers get rich. What about the guy who hung onto his house and his fishing boat through Katrina and the recession only now to lose it to … a leaky valve with no backup?

Is that what we want in California? More risk?

At this moment in time, as the Gulf of Mexico fills with an unplanned, unstoppable oil slick, we have a choice here in California. We can chose to intentionally modulate our economy towards cleaner, safer, and more dependable energy and infrastructure – thereby ensuring that the greatest number of Californians will have reliable, clean, conscionable jobs. Or we can choose to drill into the past and risk the regrettable waves of unplanned, disempowering job loss that flows – like an oil slick – into every corner of communities that are exposed to the dirty, incautious operations of fossil fools.

The choice of clear intention, the choice for a clean secure energy future is implicit in AB 32, while choosing to scuttle AB 32 isn’t really a choice; it’s a willingness to be manipulated by the slick machinations of big oil.

As I’ve said on previous occasions, AB 32 is an investment in our children’s future that protects our own present. Those who would stall AB 32 choose dirty skies and dwindling opportunities for our children’s future.

Climate Change Is NOT A Belief System

No matter how you parse it, Climate Change is not a belief system. If it were, then your car, which must “logically” operate under those same beliefs, would not and could not work absent belief in the same fundamental science.

If one insists that they can pick and choose in which arena they believe – alternately believing in the infernal combustion engine™ and disbelieving in climate science, then that is called “magical thinking,” which is the province of children and the obstinately in-educable.

For good reason, children are not allowed to vote. Lamentably, the obstinate are.

 Green Careers & Recovery

This paper was largely developed from talks given during Earth Week 2009 at Green Career Events at San Diego State University, at the University of California at San Diego, and at San Diego Loves Green; my thanks to all for these opportunities to hone my thoughts in your presence and to those who offered personal insights and encouragement.

Recovery with Renewables

In late March, President Obama announced the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate saying, “We can allow climate change to wreak unnatural havoc or we can create jobs preventing its worse effects. We can hand over the jobs of the 21st century to our competitors, or we can create those jobs right here in America.”

We now have an opportunity in America to turn the adverse tides of climate, energy, national security, and the troubled economy by turning our attention to the opportunities implicit in those problems. Americans use nearly twice as much energy per capita than Europeans. We’ve entered an era where we fight wars for the tacit lure of oil. We allow our carbon-centric energy companies to promulgate falsehoods in order to protect their record profits, while they simultaneously reap the subsidies borne of slippery lobbyists who glide through Congress unimpeded by truth, science, or regard for their own future - much less the future of their children.

America’s energy appetite and the destabilizing political ills borne of the energy power nexus call for a sustainable resource that does not create more greenhouse gases, pollution, or waste for future generations. In order to ensure our prosperity deep into the millennium, we must prepare now to use sustainable forms of energy. In order to restore, maintain, and then secure America’s leadership position in the emerging world order, we must lead the charge in all areas of renewable energy; industrial scale wind, solar (both industrial and ubiquitous distributed rooftop generation), geothermal, tide, biomass, and biofuels.

Wind is an Answer

The answer to our near-term energy challenges could well be, blowin’ in the wind. Of all the renewables, wind power is considered the most viable, mature, scalable, and ready-to-go alternative source of power. Wind is both predictable and clean. Substantial capacity can be built up quickly, offering energy independence almost immediately to the world’s largest and fastest-growing economies.

According to the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), approximately 6% of the continental US is prime territory for wind generated electricity. If these wind-rich areas were fully utilized, we could generate between one-and-half-to-double the total amount of electricity now generated from all sources in the U.S.

An issue often favored by naysayers, is the supposed issue of wind ‘intermittency.’ Yet there are many areas where it is perpetually windy. (One thinks of Congress!) Still there are solutions for wind intermittency. We have viable energy storage schemes, such as compressed underground air, kinetic water schemes, and batteries - all of which hold promise, with the right fit determined for each unique location. Other ideas include the use of electric cars and plug-in hybrids, which would usually be plugged in at night, as a fleet of mobile night-time energy sinks. Another potential energy holding tank, or place to divert excess wind energy, could be the development of wind driven facilities for the production of hydrogen fuel.

A major plus for wind is that it is relatively inexpensive. Currently, the price of wind generation is about 4 cents per kW, which compares to 3.5-4 cents per kW from coal. But since the price of coal fired electricity doesn’t include the externalized costs to respiratory health, or the toxic pollution of the environment with mercury and soot, or climate-changing carbon, wind is not only financially competitive, but it’s a better deal on all points. Plus, there are moral, environmental, and aesthetic issues associated with mountain top removal and other extractive methods, as well as massive government subsidies extracted from taxpayers for fantasy research into the neverland of clean coal.

In as much as we are all concerned about jobs and the economy, how does wind energy look as an employment sector? Wind energy is more productive for the economy in creating jobs, and at much a lower total cost. From an investment perspective, a dollar invested in wind will generate three times as many jobs as that same dollar invested in coal.

Wind has the potential to provide a substantial portion of our energy needs with clean, inexpensive electrons that won’t burden future generations with our mistakes. Both the Department of Energy (DOE) and the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) have researched and promulgated the idea that the U.S. has the capacity and therefore should derive 20% of its electricity from wind by the year 2020. This insight is reinforced by the National RES (Renewable Energy Standard) which will require all utilities to obtain 25% of their electricity from renewables by 2025. Consequently, continued growth of the wind power sector is a crucial component of this renewable energy mix.

So if our nation intends to obtain 20% of its power from wind by the year 2020, and is mandated to obtain 25% of its power from the aggregate portfolio of alternative sources by 2025, then how are we doing now, as we approach the mid-year mark of 2009? Well, “currently,” wind power provides less than 1% of our electricity.

In regards to the work force required to deliver that scant 1% of electrons to our sockets, the wind industry employs about 85,000 wind technicians - or windsmiths - who are the workers that climb up those towers 300 feet to monitor and service the equipment in work are of the turbine, which is called the nacel.

In addition to the windsmiths, there are countless other workers employed in all other areas of the industry, including development and design, parts supply, manufacture and assembly, software, accounting, and finance - essentially, the wind industry, like all businesses, employs a cadre of support professionals, whose broad range of skills and expertise are necessary to support the business and logistical aspects of any industry.

But the critical sector of the future wind industry work force will be windsmiths. In order to meet the a goal of 20% wind energy by 2020, an additional 425,000 to 500,000 windsmiths will need to be thoroughly trained and brought into the work force. And when the U.S. becomes deadly serious about climate change and begins curtailing carbon emissions by moving aggressively to end dirty coal and to maximize clean wind energy, then the work force of windsmiths will swell by at least another million - or possibly more, for a total of at least 1.5 million.

That number of 1.5 million new green jobs for windsmiths doesn’t include all of the other professionals who will be hired to support the more mundane facets of the wind industry.

How Does Wind Make Electricity?

It may not be apparent from a distance, but wind turbines are larger than a semi-truck and they weigh 30 or more tons. When a worker pokes his head out of the hatch of the nacel, the scale of the turbine dwarfs the windsmith.

In a typical wind turbine, wind energy is converted to rotational motion by a rotor, or propeller, which turns a shaft that passes into a gearbox, or transmission. The transmission increases the rotational speed and is attached to a high-speed output shaft, which in turn drives an electrical generator. There are a number of variations on the familiar three blade tower, including horizontal cages, helix, and others.

Wind turbines come in a variety of sizes depending on the planned use for the electricity. Some wind turbines are used to charge batteries for buildings not connected to the utility grid. Some turbines can supply all or part of the electricity used by a business or farm. Large-scale wind farms with multiple turbines are used to harvest the wind above acres of land, usually to feed power into the electrical grid. (Theoretically, these wind farms are so immense that they diminish the power of the wind substantially enough to make some storms pause.)

Today, the world’s largest wind turbine is the Enercon E-126, which has a rotor diameter of 126 meters (413 feet). Officially rated at 6 megawatts, it can produce over 7 megawatts, or 20 million kilowatt hours per year. That’s enough power to run about 5,000 households of four in Europe. Or, here in the U.S., where energy use is much higher, it would power about 1700 households.

Wind Advantages

The advantages of wind power are that electricity derived from wind will eliminate the need to build more polluting legacy power plants, while generating no pollution of air, water or soil. Wind power is renewable (non-depletable) and, as stated above, there’s enough potential wind energy in the U.S. to power the entire country.

Additionally, because of its modular nature, it’s easy to add wind generation capacity as needed. That’s because, compared to the construction time for a legacy fossil fuel or nuclear power plant, the installation of wind turbines is relatively quick. Plus, the price of wind power isn’t affected by increases in fuel price or supply disruptions. And, because the towers are high in the air, and because they are broadly spaced, wind farms allow multiple uses of land; crops, livestock, recreation, and (offshore) slalom courses are often found between wind towers. In fact, on any wind farm only 5% of the land is “occupied” by turbines and support structures, the remainder is still available for other uses.

Now the Bad News

The wind sector has already experienced tremendous growth. This growth has continued with a series of dips due to inconsistent government policy and the whipsaw effects of the ups and downs of the price of gasoline upon wind development.

So if, as appears to be the case, wind truly is a key component of our clean and independent energy future, then we are not preparing.

This is troubling because this is an important energy source upon which our nation will long be reliant for dependable, clean electricity. As such, there is a conspicuous lack of planning to provide educational opportunities to ensure that the required cadre of qualified windsmiths will be ready to meet the expansion of wind.

In order for the U.S. to get serious about clean energy and energy independence, there should be clear paths for kids graduating from high school this spring, but there aren’t.

There should be information on wind careers available to our soldiers returning from Iraq, who have arguably served in a war for oil that might have been unnecessary had our nation paid attention to the ramification of the first oil crises back in the glam rock 70’s.

There should be grants and scholarships for inner city people, and there should be programs for those who are reentering society after serving time for a nickel bag of weed! But, disappointingly, there are few opportunities and even less information available for any prospective windsmiths. Even the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) is remiss for failing to providing substantial information to students, vets, parolees, and the disenfranchised - all of whom are entitled to participate in the new green economy.

Trapped on Blind Island

Imagine an island nation, busily building boats to navigate towards a green horizon, yet neglecting to shape the oars or to select and train the paddlers. Are they going anywhere soon?

Yet there are jobs! Recently, GE announced that they would guarantee a job to every qualified graduate of the Mesalands wind program in Tucumcari, New Mexico. Students graduating from the Iowa Lakes wind training program report that they receive offers for two to three jobs.

According to research among windsmith recruiters, the most common source of new employees for a wind farm is… to lure experienced windsmiths away from another farm, by offering better pay and benefits.

Although there’s plenty of demand for windsmiths, there are too few opportunities to prepare for the work. There are only a handful of classes and even fewer programs that offer full training beyond an initial entry-level certificate. The only institution that offers a fully-developed curriculum with an option to pursue wind education to the PhD level is Texas Tech. Yet to implement a full-scale energy renaissance, won’t we need highly trained and deeply specialized wind scholars, engineers, and inventors?

The classes that are available fill up as soon as they are announced. For example, Cerro Coso Community College, near Tehachapi, California, recently reported that upon opening their 28 week wind program for enrollment, all 15 of the slots were filled within an hour. The next session was filled immediately as well.

This is a curious problem, because a windsmith’s job is probably the most demanding of all jobs in the alternative energy and green jobs sector. Consequently, the more training prospective windsmiths receive, the better able they are to work well and work safe.

Although a competent contractor or electrician can be quickly trained within a few weeks to work install solar, and while a regular guy off the street can do energy efficiency (all it requires is a desire to work and relatively good hands), by comparison windsmiths are the special ops crew of the renewable energy sector.

The best windsmiths will combine the athletic agility and endurance of an alpine mountaineer, with the acumen of an engineer and will include a broad competence in many disciplines, including mechanics, hydraulics, aerodynamics, hydraulics, utility lineman, electrical engineering, structural engineering.. In addition to these skills and traits these windsmiths will have advanced first aid and safety training. In regards to safety, the training involves both safety procedures and preemptive thinking. That’s because most accidents in this sector don’t provide a second chance. Windsmiths must be hyper-vigilant; the occupation combines dizzying heights, tight spaces, high-voltage electricity, and merciless spinning metal. Although fatalities are rare, they are unquestionably gruesome: death plunges, flaming electrocutions, and being sucked into the turbine and ground to a pulp are among the more obvious risks.

The Solution

Our near-term need for clean renewable energy is most likely to be solved by industrial scale wind farm developments. If, in the next five to seven years we build our wind capacity to satisfy just 20% of America’s electricity needs, over half a million jobs will be created for windsmiths. More jobs will follow as the promise of wind energy is fulfilled until wind generation supplies as much as twice the electricity that is now generated by all sources. In order to realize the pending boom in wind energy it is imperative to expedite the graduation of a steady stream of highly trained technicians.

In this epoch of converging economic implosion, peak oil, climate change, and innumerable social issues exacerbated by limited budgets and broadening educational needs it is imperative, indeed crucial, to bridge the gaps between separate entities with obvious common interests and potential common goals.

In order to meet the need for that many windsmiths, a war-time approach is probably required. The most efficient path towards full deployment of windsmith curricula will be to coordinate between educational institutions within each state and to form alliances between the states themselves.

A key strategy for funding and supporting these windsmith training programs will be the development of industry liaisons to promote and support a spectrum of educational programs, that will run the gamut of educational levels, from certificate to PhD.

In this time of urgency and crises, the economy and enhanced power of enlightened synergies becomes more crucial. Yet individual states lack inter-state collaboration in their educational programs to train renewable energy technicians while the states themselves show little or no intra-state coordination between their own institutions which may, or may not, have programs to train renewable energy technicians. At the time of this writing, access to windsmith training is woefully inadequate and piecemeal.

It’s time to bring the universities, colleges, junior colleges, and technical schools to the table in order to develop a best practices forum for the training of windsmiths and to ensure the dissemination of a rapid, fully formed core curriculum that can be implemented wherever it is needed. In order for this to happen, it would make sense to bring other concerns to the party.

At least at the educational level, turbine manufacturers and other key players of the industry are not allied - neither amongst themselves nor with the array of educational facilities that offer turbine technician training - to promote either general or turbine-specific technical training. In addition to the turbine manufacturers, the power companies can be shown that they have a vested interest in the development of the wind sector in order to meet federal and state mandated Renewable Energy Portfolio (REP) standards and to hasten the maturity of alternative energy so that the power companies can progress from transition to profit.

Similarly, grid operators have a vested interest in hastening the development of this sector in order to make their pending investment in the smart grid deliver the greatest possible benefit for the least cost. Mindful that transition time is expensive, efficiencies of scale can be achieved by the coordination of both centralized and distributed renewable energy installations will pay huge dividends.

Who then should these training opportunities benefit? Training for the professional technical green arena should, of course, be open to high school graduates of merit. But at the most egalitarian level, consistent with Obama’s stimulus plan (as originally envisioned by Van Jones and promulgated in Jones’ book, The Green Collar Economy), these jobs should - through grants and scholarships and neighborhood workforce programs - be broadly inclusive of inner city citizens who have, until now, been excluded from the American dream. Yes, I mean people of all race and color, as well as those rebounding from life challenges, such as parolees for non-violent petty crimes, and who demonstrate a desire to improve the prospects for themselves and their families.

To those who would balk at such liberality, saying, “Why give these people a chance?” The simple answer is, “Because it’s in your best interest.”

As America moves forward in this new millennium of unprecedented challenges, there can be no green revolution, and no lasting economic stability if it is not universal; energy apartheid would fail the dream of rebuilding and renewing America.

Conclusions: The Sooner the Better

The promise of clean, renewable energy security is at hand. While it is imperative to develop a broad portfolio of new energy sources, the most immediate, mature, and scalable source of renewable industrial scale energy is wind.

The war-time initiative would ensure that we seize this opportunity rather than “blowing it.” If we are fighting to stabilize our way of life, to secure our borders and to ensure an equitable future for all of our children, then we should be serious about it. In the bargain, we will attain a new level of camaraderie and move our nation back to the forefront of technology and industry.

To accomplish this level of cooperation, unprecedented since our country pulled together with unified purpose and resolve in World War II, we need a top-down imperative. At the national level, there should be a Wind Officer - either at the White House or at the Department of Energy. (Yes, Mr. President, Sir, my hand is in the air.)

Collaboration is Latin for, “work together.” The Wind Officer’s job would be to bring all of the players together, from across the now irrelevant borders of state lines, educational institutions, and industry. These players would be given a war-time edict to work together, to synergize and share, with the intention that we use wind to build a new model of collaboration.

We need to learn how to collaborate to obtain the highest and best use of existing curricula and facilities by recognizing the best plans and best practices and then duplicating them at as many campuses as possible all across America; then, and only then, will the promise of clean renewable wind energy be met. Collaboration in this manner to harness wind will provide the seeds for collaboration upon innumerable other challenges facing our nation and our world. Collaboration for wind energy is our highest and best hope to sail to a green horizon. The sooner we set sail, the better.

Will we do it? I don’t know. I certainly hope that answer is in our hearts and not, as the song says, just “blowin’ in the wind.”

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This paper is available in downloadable format at: www.jonwarrenlentz.com/downloads/Blowin_in_the_Wind.pdf

We All Need A U.S. Carbon Cap Today!

Avoiding the most disastrous effects of climate change will require a drastic reduction in the billions of tons of carbon we dump into the atmosphere. Otherwise, civilization - and the future of our children - is in jeopardy.

What can you do? For many, the most ambitious thing might be to tell your Senators and Congressional Representative, either via email or letter, that you support climate legislation that will put a cap on carbon emissions and will also phase out subsidies for legacy fossil energy. An easier path would be to talk to your friends, telling them of your concerns about the dangers of climate change, and the necessity for a cap on carbon emissions, NOW.

Personally, I’ve been working on a number of initiatives to promote a sustainable future and to ensure that carbon legislation is enacted this year. I’ve met with Congressmen, Senators, Mayors, and I also serve on a number of committees and boards. But hey, I’m a sustainability consultant.

Still, I’d been thinking that some folks might need something a little lighter; a simple way to promote their concerns about climate change. A few weeks ago I came up with this idea. Hoping to inject a little levity into this 11th hour situation, I lit upon “Carbon Cap” apparel; a hat that’s not only a pun, and fun, but also a hat that, when worn, would serve to spark a dialog with the people we meet.

For example, standing in line at the grocery store, a person might ask, “Hey there, why does it say ‘CARBON’ on your hat?”

In this context, if you were wearing the hat, then that inquiry would be your opportunity to, quite literally, speak truth to power - fossil power. If enough of us do that, we can support the changes that are needed in energy structure and policy.

In subsequent posts I’ll talk about the various arguments, pending legislation, and executive moves that are in play right now; initiatives from the Obama Administration and their concerned allies in Congress. In order for them to get sufficient traction to turn this climate problem around, they’re going to need our support. So, sport a cap and help cap carbon emissions with Carbon Cap Legislation this year.

We all need a carbon cap. Get yours here, today.

Green Jobs Can Turn Our Economy Around, Slow Climate Change, & Heal the Environment Too.

Tell Your Elected Officials, Talk With Your Friends, Neighbors, & Co-workers. Let Everyone Know That YOU Support Obama’s Initiatives In This Pivotal Arena.

Emblematic 123-mile Line from Imperial Valley to San Diego

SDG&E’s Power Link is to slated to stretch 123 miles from solar farms of Imperial County to San Diego, where it will deliver power for 685,000 homes. It’s been called the most rigorously reviewed infrastructure project in the state’s history*. It’s certainly been a lightning rod for environmental opposition.

Personally, I don’t get it.

My understanding of the processes involved in the planning and obtaining of approval for the addition of any new transmission lines to the grid is that they are exorbitantly onerous.

Citing the history of the transmission lines that connected the Tehachapi Pass wind farms to Los Angeles, as reported by Thomas L. Friedman in “Hot, Flat, and Crowded,” it appears that the power companies choose their best route according to geography. Then they go to battle for as much as a dozen years. The battle involves environmental reviews and jurisdictional hurdles between stake holders, including state and federal land agencies and also the national forests. Much of the battle has to do with the fact that utilities are intent upon routing new transmission lines through pristine landscapes. So it really takes a dozen years? Isn’t there something to be said for avoiding conflict?

Conflict is expensive in a number of ways.

Costs almost always go up. If the original projected cost of a transmission line is two billion dollars, how much more will the project cost a dozen years later? Surely there would be savings to be had if the project encounters less (or no) opposition and could be implemented more quickly. Not only would the cost of construction pencil out much nearer to original projections, but that would also put the transmission lines into service many years sooner - which probably has an even greater monetary value.

So you ask, how could we reduce opposition and lower regulatory hurdles?

How about the obvious: whenever and wherever possible, new transmission lines should be sited along existing power corridors. Where there are no existing power corridors, the lines should follow highways.

The advantages are many:

• There’s little rationale for environmental opposition to a project that runs down a corridor already marred by an existing phalanx of transmission towers, or an existing highway, or a combination of both.
• Environmental review and permitting could and “should” be simplified and streamlined for transmission projects that follow existing corridors.
• Existing corridors include ready road access, both for construction and maintenance which also reduces cost.
• Recently, some of Southern California’s most devastating wildfires were caused by transmission lines that sparked into overgrown brush. To avoid future liabilities, power companies will need to clear the undergrowth at or near transmission lines. It would be far less expensive for them to maintain brush abatement along fewer, but more intensely utilized corridors.
• Simplified approval means reduced litigation and permitting costs which result in reduced project costs.
• Expedited permitting means that construction costs are kept closer to original estimates.
• Fast track permitting that leads to quicker construction would also translate into earlier utilization, which also has a monetary value.
• The cost savings outlined above would, in all but the most extreme cases, outweigh the potential for additional expense of longer transmission lines necessitated to follow existing corridors.
• The smart grid would be here sooner, instead of later.

So why don’t we get smarter about planning and mapping? Smarter utility planners would get their smart grid quicker and at less total cost - benefiting not only the utilities but also both to the rate payers and the environment.

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*I wonder if that’s utility co. hyperbole or if it really has attained more attention and closer examination than projects like the Diablo Canyon of the 1970’s.