Carbonated Conversations

Just back from a somewhat steamy Columbus, Ohio, and the McCormick Energy Solutions Conference.

It was a jam-packed three days on the future of energy with a constant background glow thanks to global warming. The panelists were by and large true believers and basically activists for the kill-carbon-before-it-kills-us point of view. Most were more temperate than Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress and blog author, but who isn't?

Anyway, it was thought provoking, even with a grain of salt or two. The shift in scientific thinking puts all the blame for excess carbon on human activity, and that makes more and more sense as the data comes in. But one word of caution from former astronaut, and role model for skyward-looking kids of a certain graying age, John Glenn. He said he still has scientist friends passing on the idea that the jury isn't totally out on whether global warming is part of nature's cycles. And that raises the questions of who or what's spewing the carbon dioxide many blame as the leader of the Greenhouse Gas Gang.

But then he came back with this: "If we screw it up, there's no going back...No matter what's happening in the cycles, we have to clean up the environment."

He described Earth's atmosphere as a "thin film" rather than the chunk of air in school textbooks, painting an image of something fragile and at risk.

What a guy. He and his wife since 1943 are still vital and involved and were then off to a national climate something or other.

I'll be writing here and in the Globe-News in a hopefully more coherent way about what's happening here on the High Plains in relation to the topics the experts discussed at the conference. The common thread was the quickest, easiest ways to reduce carbon are conservation and efficiency.

On that topic, a smarter grid is one way experts propose to burn less fuels that release carbon. I'm working on an update on efforts to make our stupid grid smarter here at home for my first story. The next one may be a look at how school districts are faring on the 2007 mandate to reduce energy consumption 5 percent per year.

By the way, the hospitality on the Ohio State University campus was fantastic, although I was dragging a bit from the pace by the time I got home at midnight last night. The organizers of the McCormick Energy Solutions Conference and especially the staff of the Kiplinger Program in Public Affairs Journalism and the John Glenn School of Public Affairs know their stuff.

And it was a little eerie looking out my hotel window on the Woody Hayes Boulevard towards the solid, gray memorial to his legacy, the holy stadium where he did his thing that is even lit at night.

Some utilities have all the fun

Well, sorry for my absence. I’ve been distracted by family issues with my father failing despite his hospice care and my mother-in-law trying to find her way after the July 4 death of her husband.

I’m going to do better

Here’ something happy about our region’s power supplier. It would be more happy if they were doing these experiments here, but it’s way happier than getting their bills.

Xcel Energy recently announced the first phase of its SmartGridCity in Boulder, Colo., is up and running. It’s a combination of infrastructure and software engineered to increase reliability, provide energy usage info to customers, allow remote reading of electricity meters and the installation of devices the utility or customer can control remotely to manage usage.

One immediate benefit was the system detected four transformers about to croak, allowing Xcel to replace them before customers were left in the dark for hours. It’s an experiment, but the utility says it’s looking good so far on the way to refining a truly smart grid for the future.

An Xcel partner, Spanish energy company Abengoa Solar, just announced another Colorado test, this time in Grand Junction. Abengoa will install a parabolic trough concentrating solar power plant at Xcel’s coal-powered Cameo plant.

That’s the confusing way of saying a trough of mirrors that move to follow the sun and they focus the light that hits them to heat synthetic oil in a pipe, according to Abengoa. The hot oil moves to the power plant and turns water into steam that spins or helps spin the turbines that generate electricity. That and makes plant run more efficiently, using less coal to make the same amount of electricity. More efficient, less carbon emitted. Don’t ask me the details. I’m still working on finding that out.

But why don’t they try that stuff around here? Not that any emissions stay around long with our gentle breezes – except Hereford’s, Borger’s and Pampa’s, I guess.

This is going to hurt just a little

GE announced yesterday it is working on home plans for building or retrofitting homes to be net users of zero electricity. The company hopes to debut the plans by 2015.

The keys to making this work are more efficient energy-using products, management of how much energy the home uses, generation of electricity and storage of that energy. Makes sense – light bulbs and appliances that use stingy amounts of power, solar and wind generation on site and making decisions to not use power.

Wait. GE, and others promoting some smart-grid proposals, think an informed consumer will make a conscious decision to cut back on energy use if they just understand how much they are currently using. Are we talking about American consumers?

According to GE, residential housing uses 37 percent of the electricity generated in the U.S. Of that usage, appliances, lighting and heating and cooling account for 82 percent.

We already know turning off the blow dryer will cut energy consumption and so will keeping the thermostat set higher during the summer and lower in winter. Has that really changed a lot of lifestyles?

The nifty highly efficient water heaters GE is dreaming up and residential solar and wind sound good, except for the neighbors who will complain about the looks. But it will be really hard for a lot of people to quit being energy hogs.