Sustainable Cities

Paradigms for the Anthropocene: An Example

            The Social Good Summit included concern that silos of traditional institutional mechanisms might hinder needed progress toward sustainability. Sustainable cities will pose new puzzles to solve for the water-energy-food nexus. Are solutions resilient, moving toward zero waste, renewable?

            A wastewater treatment plant produces residuals from primary treatment of suspended solids and secondary treatment of dissolved solids. Suspended solids settle out and dissolved solids become food for microorganisms aided by oxygen pumped into the secondary treatment basins. Clumps of such well-fed microorganisms then settle out as residuals. In the old days, residuals might be loaded onto a barge at the riverside where the plant was located and hauled out into the ocean for disposal. Now residuals may be fed into a digester which produces biogas. This biogas can then become electricity  or compressed natural gas as fuel for truck fleets.

            For the United States nationally, our over 3,000 wastewater treatment plants use about 3% of electricity generated in the US, mostly for the motors that pump oxygen into secondary treatment basins. Food waste is the largest segment of the solid waste stream still going to landfill where it generates fugitive emissions of methane, a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Adding food waste to the digesters increases biogas generation which could then generate about 6% of the electricity needed in the US. This would be an increase of 50% in electricity generation from renewable fuels which is now at 12%. Huge.

            Existing institutional arrangements include solid waste management, wastewater treatment, and electric power generation. This example combines these well established activities into one operation which produces renewable, off-grid, resilient energy while reducing methane emissions from landfills. If the grid goes down, the microorganisms keep on eating! Resilient, sustainable solutions!             Sustainable Cities

Social Good Summit

Social Good Summit 2015

            The Social Good Summit was part of a 109 nation Social Good Community which engaged social networks to tell the story of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals adopted by the United Nations General Assembly to guide global efforts through 2030. Progress under the 8 Millennium Development Goals from 2000 to 2015 was celebrated and a broadened agenda to include governance, economic and social justice, and action to harmonize human impact with planetary boundaries was acknowledged to need full participation from all levels of government, the private sector, and civil society. Goal 16 to promote peaceful and inclusive societies was named a key to success by several speakers.

            The Doughnut Economics concept of Kate Raworth has been made more specific by adoption by the global community of 169 indicators to clarify the 17 sustainable development goals. Population increase of 2 billion and greater economic justice will greatly increase human activity which will be carried out with a greatly reduced carbon intensity. By 2050, carbon intensity may be reduced by a factor of six in a global economy three times bigger than today.

            Technological innovation promises much. Wikipedia’s Jimmy Wales noted that a phone with capabilities similar to the first I-phone which cost $600 can now be had for about $40. He foresaw that a billion more would have access to the internet over the next several years as a result. Progress such as widespread availability mobile phones in the absence of traditional landlines may be in store. The billion people currently using open defecation may get direct deposit inexpensive toilets that produce fuel for meeting cooking needs from anaerobic digestion and fertilizer for agriculture through composting. Sustainable cities may benefit from a breakdown of silos for treating wastewater, managing solid waste, and generating electrical power as anaerobic digestion is fully used. Examples of this latter phenomenon are already emerging in metropolitan Washington DC and New York City.

             

FT energy news

FT energy news

Energy from microbes

            Lanza Tech, a small New Zealand company, has discovered microbes capable of turning carbon monoxide from steel making into biofuel. This process is already in use  by Baosteel near Shanghai. Accelor Mittal will invest $87 million at its steel plant at Ghent, Belgium to use Lanza Tech’s microbial process to make 47,000 tons of ethanol a year. If the system at Ghent proves commercially viable and Accelor Mittal installed the process across its steel operations, it could produce 10 percent of Europe’s bioethanol per year. (Financial Times  July 13, 2015)

US electricity generation for the first time ever is from gas (31%) more than from coal (30%). Greenhouse gas emissions from gas are half those of coal yet are 100 times more than emissions from renewables. Electricity generation capacity from wind is expected to increase by 9.3 gigawatts in 2015 while coal capacity shrinks by 12.9 gigawatts. Capacity to generate electricity from gas is expected to increase by 4.3 gigawatts in 2015. (FT July 13, 2015)

            FT energy news

Acceleration

Acceleration

            The Great Acceleration provides a planetary dashboard of twelve socio-economic and 12 earth system trends that help explain why we the future of the global community is now up to us. (http://www.futureearth.org/blog/2015-jan-16/great-acceleration) Yesterday I blogged Clean Power Win. So how can we accelerate progress toward that win?

            Success stories What did they do, how did they do it, what did it cost, what are the payoffs? The 3,000 plus wastewater treatment plants have a basic mission to clean water. Managing the residuals from that basic mission to generate energy, save other residuals from landfills, and reduce costs for the ratepayers is extra. Success stories which make clear the means and benefits from taking on that extra risk will ease the path for stakeholders in wastewater treatment plants to play a vital role in promoting energy efficiency and production of renewable energy.

            Peer matching Decision makers trust other decision makers in similar positions to answer questions on concerns about things that can go right or wrong and appreciate local challenges. Public works directors trust public works directors. Mayors trust mayors. City managers trust city managers. Peer matching facilitates access to officials responsible for successful projects for those considering change.

            Information exchange Governors, State legislators, mayors, city managers, public works directors, and various professionals have annual meeting with break out sessions on topics of interest. Support break out sessions on moving waterwater treatment plants from using 3% of electricity produced in the US to producing 6% of the electricity used in the US at these annual meetings. How is Massachusetts program to encourage anaerobic digestion working? California? Which of the 47 States which USEPA found to have energy efficiency programs are happy with their results?

            Dashboard What would a dashboard tracking success stories in achieving energy efficiency and capacity to produce renewable energy look like?

 

 

 

Clean Power Win

Clean Power Win I leaned at the Biocycle East Coast Conference that wastewater treatment plants use about 3% of US electricity. With the addition of anaerobic digesters and other organic sources such as food processing wastes, 6% of US electricity can be generated. Food waste is the largest part of the US solid waste stream still going to landfills where it generates methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide. This goes beyond efficiency to production of renewable energy. To put it in perspective, the share of US electricity from renewables was 13% in 2013 and is projected by the US Energy Information Agency to be 18% in 2040. The lions share of this increased renewable capacity projected for 2040 is from solar and wind so an increase in electric power generation from anaerobic digestion is an additional win for renewables.

            Biocycle conferences bring together experts in working with the microbial universe. Microbes preferring oxygen are largely represented by the US Composting Council while microbes preferring no oxygen are represented by the American Biogas Council. The American Biogas Council had a presentation by a representative from the US Department of Agriculture who, together with the US Energy Agency and the US Environmental Protection Agency, have devised a Biogas Roadmap and are encouraging production of biogas.  

            The Blue Plains wastewater treatment plant serving the greater Washington, DC area is the largest user of electricity in that area. A speaker from DC Water which runs the Blue Plains plant (dcwater.com) explained that anaerobic digesters had been added at Blue Plains and as food processing waste was also added, the plane would go from being the bidggest user of electricity in the DC area to being an electricity producer. Rates for those served by Blue Plains were expected to fall as a result.

            Quasar Energy Group discussed public private partnerships with wastewater treatment plants. Quasar (quasareg.com) successfully adds anaerobic digesters which produce electricity as well as compressed natural gas for use by vehicles, replacing diesel.

            Biocycle’s West Coast Conference included presentations on integrated anaerobic digestion and composting. First the anaerobic digestion process produces energy and then a composting process produces soil amendment. No microbial discrimination!

Full participation from our planetary friends in the microbial universe.

            The Second Annual United Nations Sustainable Energy for All Forum in June 2015 added an example at the Bronx waste water treatment plant near the Hunts Point Produce Market. New York City is renovating this wastewater treatment plant and adding anaerobic digesters which will also take waste from the Hunt’s Point Produce Market. Electricity generated will more than meet the needs of the treatment plant for electric power. A second example from New York City was efficiencies at high rise buildings having more than 50,000 square feet. These buildings were adopting energy efficiencies on their own. Smaller buildings do not have the necessary expertise so technical assistance is being offered to encourage adoption of energy efficiencies.

Clean Power Win

Up to Us

Up to Us

Thomas Kuhn’s book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions has been a must read for many like me who express the madness gene ( see The Sixth Extinction) by undertaking a doctoral dissertation. Kuhn characterizes a field of inquiry as collections of puzzles solved (paradigms). January of 2015 brought Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet in Science magazine and  The Trajectory of the Anthropocene: The Great Acceleration in The Anthropocene Review.

            Planetary Boundaries describes nine dimensions in which our species has a chance to bring about unpredictable, irreversible change. The two most pressing are climate change and ocean acidification. Climate change includes concentration of carbon dioxide which has a range of 350 parts per million (ppm) to 500 ppm where sudden irreversible change is possible. We are now at about 400 ppm and climbing. For the past 10,000 years, essentially since the Ice Age, temperatures have stayed in a band of plus or minus 2 degrees centigrade which has allowed life to flourish. 

            The Great Acceleration includes 12 graphs for socio-economic dimensions and12 graphs for physical dimensions which show major accelerations since the mid- 20^th century. Increasing use of fossil fuels and economic activity through 2010 help to explain why we have moved from the Holocene (our gift of 10,000 benevolent years) to the Anthropocene where we can bring about dramatic challenges to life on earth.

            Jeffrey Sachs new book, The Age of Sustainable Development, describes the Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) which addresses the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (and 169 targets) which will be presented to the United Nations General Assembly this September. SDSN also addresses “a new era of intensive problem solving in …challenges that include health, education, agriculture, cities, energy systems, conservation of biological diversity, and more.”

            I eventually get around to the point. For puzzle addicts like me, the Anthropocene provides enormous opportunity to think about new paradigms in economics, political science, and theology. Kate Raworth’s depiction of doughnut economics in Oxfam’s article for Rio plus 20, A safe and just space for humanity: CAN WE LIVE WITHIN THE DOUGHNUT? sums it up nicely. Inside the doughnut hole we have needs for good governance, poverty eradication, health sustainable environment, and economic and social justice which are currently not met for some of us. Outside the doughnut we have exceeded the planetary boundries. In the doughnut itself is the safe and just space for humanity.

            Can we live within the doughnut? What a great puzzle to solve! Up to us. 

 

 

Up to Us

Sustainable Energy for All

Sustainable Energy for All The Second Annual Sustainable Energy for All Forum (se4allforum.org) had 2500 registrants for meetings on four days in May 2015. Simultaneous tracks included Financing Sustainable Energy for All, Driving Country Action,  Universal Energy Access, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Global Policy Agenda, and Growing the Movement. SE4ALL commits the global community to provide access to all, double energy efficiency, and double the share of energy coming from renewables by 2030.

            Kandeh Yumkella, Special Representative of the Secretary General , Sustainable energy for All, noted that energy access had been extended to an additional 200 million people leaving 1.1 billion yet to be served. Anita Marangoly George, Senior Director, Global Practice on Energy and Extractive Industries, World Bank, and John Podesta, former Chief of Staff to President Bill Clinton and Counselor to President Barack Obama, USA both called for integration of the Sustainable Development Goals, which now include energy targets, with Sustainable Energy For All.

The Sustainable Development Goals will be presented to the September 2015 General Assembly for adoption. In July 2015, Financing for Development will meet in Addis Ababa to address funding for the Sustainable Development Goals and commitments to address climate change from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change meeting in Paris in December 2015. Citing needed investment at over a trillion dollars per year, Anita George estimated needed funding from public private partnerships at $46 billion per year to achieve universal access to energy, $360 billion per year to double the renewable energy share, and $390 billion per year to double energy efficiency by 2030. She noted that, without the $46 billion in additional investments for universal energy access, by 2030 the number without access to electricity will increase above 1.1 billion.

Financing Sustainable Energy for All

            Payback period for many projects less than two years. Larger buildings in New York City (over 50,000 square feet) have already taken steps. NYC offering technical assistance to smaller buildings to facilitate action. Many small projects may be aggregated to make them attractive to financial institutions. Branding similar efficiency actions may help to make energy efficiency loans as easy as car loans. European Bank for Reconstruction and Development aggregates by industrial sector (eg steel industry). Losses in energy transmission a financing target. Inter-American Development Bank does workshops to familiarize private sector engineers and chief financial officers with energy efficiency opportunities. World Bank sets up energy efficiency revolving funds; uses utilities as marketing intermediaries; partial credit guarantees; ESCO’s.  

Universal Energy Access

            High impact on lives of women and children with investments in clean cooking as about 4 million deaths per year from 3 billion using dirty stoves—more deaths than from HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and malaria combined. Hospital electricity to assist in births and cold chain for drugs needing refrigeration also high impact. Solar for African schools (half no electricity) and pumping water also high impact.

Renewable Energy

            Cost of solar and wind down. Renewables use much less water

Global Energy Policy

            Emphasis on bankable projects, private sector initiative. . IMF report on subsidies noted.

 

Growing the Movement

            High Impact Opportunities and High Impact Implementation projects were identified for Clean Energy Mini-Grids, the Water-Energy-Food Nexus, and Bioenergy.

Ending routine gas flaring a global priority. Involving youth a priority.

Sustainable Energy for All