Leslie Field Tells PV about ambitious plans to slow ice thaw

On Monday June 1st, 2009 Dr Leslie Field  of a new foundation, ice911.org, spoke in Portola Valley about her geoengineering experiments to mitigate the effects of global warming.  The effects of climate change not only cause droughts and population migration, but a 5 degree centigrade rise in temperature could lead to extinction of 40% of the world's known species.  Slides from IPCC presentations and other research organizations were shown.

With hula hoop,  muslin and small spheres of porous silica she conducted experiments in a flooded Sierra meadow that froze, melted and refroze.  The idea was to cover the water with silica beads that would reflect sunlight and thereby increase the albedo effect causing less ice to melt. The muslin contained the beads in the hoop. An alternative to silica beads would be to use cenospheres of fly ash, a by product of coal production.

Leslie's idea is to explore how the ocean can be covered near melting ice with cenospheres.  She wanted materials that would allow for evaporation, were inexpensive and non-threatening to wildlife.  Also implementation of geoengineering solutions must be reversible in case they make the climate too cold or there are harmful, unanticipated environmental effects. Her work is still exploratory, but initial tests look promising.

An engaged audience had ideas and questions.  What would happen if there were strong waves? Would oil booms to contain cenospheres be a good idea?  What about the salinity of the ocean?

See Jim Fruchterman's blog on Leslie Field.  

Now Dr Field wants to get funding to try larger scale experiments in cooler climes in Canada and the Arctic.  If you would like to help  you can contact leslie at ice911 dot org.

Dr James Hansen Explains CO2 Risks In Portola Valley

On Tuesday December 16th, 2008 Portola Valley hosted world leader in Climate Science and Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, Dr James Hansen.

Hansen began his talk by stating that the challenge is to narrow the gap between what scientists understand and what policy makers and the public know. He is hopeful. In answering a question at the end he said he could not think of a better person than Stephen Chu to head the Department of Energy, a real scientist who can analyze trade-offs that the nation needs to make.

Dangerous changes that could occur because of excessive carbon dioxide in the atmosphere are extinction of species, particularly in polar and alpine zones, ice sheet disintegration and regional climate disruptions. For example, Lake Mead near Las Vegas is much lower than it used to be. Wildfires in the western US have increased 4-fold in 30 years. He claims mountain glaciers will be gone in fifty years if CO2 emissions continue to increase.

The big fear is that we will hit a tipping point and by then it will be too late to do anything about it. When a large melting ice cap cracks up and falls into the sea it is too late to stop it.

How do we know that man affects the climate?

We know that man increases the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by looking at when it increases - for example when people drive cars and burn fossil fuels.

Ice cores can show the gases, such as carbon dioxide, present in the atmosphere in ancient times. From this we can deduce trends. Pre-industrial CO2 was 280 parts per million, now it is about 385 ppm and we need to get to 350 ppm. The most effective way to do this is to tax fossil fuels when they are extracted, rather than use a Cap and Trade system. If a tax could be given immediately back to the voters then it could work.

Despite green initiatives in Germany they are building 20 new coal-fired power plants. The US has plans for even more. These are potentially dangerous sources of CO2 if it is not captured and stored.

Some of the slide from the presentation are in this earlier talk.

Global Warming: Update from the Frontline of Science - Sign Up Now

Don't forget to sign up for the next Portola Valley Green Speaker Series Event - Global Warming: Update from the Frontline of Science by Dr. James E. Hansen.

Dr. Hansen is considered one of the world's foremost scientists focused on climate change and is well known for his testimony to Congress starting in the 1980s.

Date: Tuesday, December 16th, 7:00 p.m.

Place: Portola Valley Town Center Community Hall, 765 Portola Road.

Carpooling encouraged as parking is limited. For more information or to RSVP, please visit www.pvgreenspeakerseries.eventbrite.com or contact Brandi de Garmeaux directly on 650.851.1700 ext. 222.

Pictures from Amory Lovins Talk

Here are some pictures from last night's talk by Amory Lovins at the Portola Valley Town Community Hall.

In the first picture Amory Lovins is speaking. Notice the recycled wood lining the ceiling. Also notice the local eucalyptus floor.

Source: Ted Driscoll

The room was packed, with over 70 people standing. In the front of this picture is the Honorable Bill Lane, a founder of Portola Valley, and his wife Jean. Next to them is council member Steve Toben.

Source: Ted Driscoll

Other views showing an enthusiastic audience.


Source: Angela Hey




Source: Ted Driscoll

Critical Thinking for Sustainable Communities - Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute

Portola Valley was honored to have Dr. Amory B. Lovins, cofounder, chairman and chief scientist of the Rocky Mountain Institute as the first speaker for its Green Speaker Series: Pioneers of Sustainability.

After being introduced by Paul Holland, Dr Lovins spoke on Critical Thinking for Sustainable Communities, distilling 40 years of wisdom into a one hour lecture.

He started by listing reasons why it is good for a community to "Go Green". A high quality, resourceful community will attract new businesses, offer attractive living spaces and give people a sense of well being. By keeping jobs in town, doing environmental justice and reducing energy dependence, communities can prosper and nations can be more secure. Dr Lovins has briefed 19 heads of state.

One example is

Highlights of the talk:

• The industrial revolution leveraged people as they were scarce, 200 Lancashire weavers could be replaced by a powered loom. Now people are plentiful and scarce resources that need to be leveraged include energy, water, the natural environment and fresh air.
• Energy deployment is incredibly wasteful. Much is lost in energy processing, transmission and use. Six months after an item is used, only 1% of the resources required to make it are in the product - waste in mining, waste in gathering crops, waste in processing, wasteful packaging, etc.
  
• Consider the whole system, rather than separate parts. The return on investment can be orders of magnitude less if a new building is optimized for energy efficiency at the outset.
• Conservation has a very quick payback. Low cost solutions like wooden shades to reflect sunlight can improve natural lighting for very little. Solar panels start to generate electricity much faster than an investment in a new power station. By the time it is built, the solar panels may be sufficient for some needs.
• Shift the economy from production of goods to creating flows of value and services.
• Buildings use about 70% of electricity in the US, so focus on conserving in buildings. Then energy associated with mobility can be reduced - shorter commutes, electric vehicles, hybrid cars, bicycle paths. Don't subsidize sprawl.

Examples of cool buildings:

• Carnegie Institution for Science, Department of Global Ecology at Stanford - uses Persian draft tower to give the building damp air
• Curitiba Classroom had lightshelf. See it on slide 52 in this RMI buildings presentation.
• Santa Rita Jail, Alameda County - Case Study. More California buildings here.

Examples of cool towns and developments:

• Curitiba, Brazil - made parks so homeless had a place to go, thinks of people first
• Village Homes, Davis CA - separated bike paths and roads, used natural drainage
• Samso, Denmark - a 5000-person, windy carbon negative island that generates its own power and has offshore windmills, as well as onshore ones.
  

Here are just a few of the references that Dr Lovins, who has written 29 books and published 100s of papers, mentioned:

• Economic Costs and Benefits of Green Buildings - Greg Katz- PPT
  
• Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution (Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins) - see also www.natcap.org
  
• Winning the Oil Endgame (Amory Lovins et al)
• Check out more at RMI's bookstore

Dr Lovins advice. Don't be too clever. Do some simple things. The danger in a well-educated community like Portola Valley is the curse of knowledge.

Portola Valley's Recycled Community Hall

The first Green Speaker Series talk on October 13th, 2008 opened with council member Ted Driscoll describing construction materials for the new Community Hall.

Maryann Derwin, Town Mayor, introduced Ted, after telling us that Portola Valley was the first US community to aim for the US Green Building Council's LEED platinum certification for its Town Center. She also said the town was the first in San Mateo county to daylight (i.e. restore to an open stream) a culverted creek.

The Community Hall, shown in the picture, has a large hall that can be divided into two smaller rooms. It has a couple of smaller rooms and restrooms accessible from the central plaza.

The floor is made from eucalyptus trees that were cut down in Woodside where they were a fire hazard. The wood is harder than oak.

The interior walls are lined with wood from the old community center's beams. A close look reveals nail holes and water stains incurred when they were part of the old building.

The ceiling lattice work comes from two by fours and two by sixes that held up ceiling tiles in the old school building on the town center site. The wood had been cut into strips.

Ceiling fans circulate the air and, as Amory Lovins was to later note, no incandescent bulbs were to be seen.

I counted over 350 people in the room, with over 70 standing. It's a good job the room capacity is over 400.

New CoolPV.com website

Check out the new CoolPV.com website.