LIVE BLOG: Grand Vision Energy Forum
Welcome to the Live Blog of the Grand Vision Energy Forum at the NMC Hagerty Center in Traverse City, Michigan.
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6:06pm – Good crowd has turned out tonight. Nice to see the clouds breaking and the water of Grand Traverse Bay through these big windows. Tonight's forum will be led by David Konkle, who is the municipal training director for the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives (ICLEI).
6:09pm – Mike Powers has opened the program. Mike is with SEEDS, who is the convener of the Grand Vision Energy Working Group. Tonight's forum is about saving energy and reducing greenhouse gases. Mike said, transportation and buildings are the biggest contributers to greenhouse gases in our region.
6:13pm - Grand Traverse County Community Climate Action Plan is already at work in the Grand Traverse Region that has a broad coalition of citizens, utilities, politicians, and organizations.
It has Greenhouse Gas (GHG) reduction strategies for key sectors:
Residential, Commercial, Industrial Buildings
Energy Utilities
Transportation and Land-Use
Waste & Wastewater
Agriculture and Forestry
6:16pm – First draft of the community action plan will be released in May. Surveys for community members on how to improve it, suggestions, and general input will go out this spring.
6:21pm – David Konkle has taken the stage. He was hired on as energy coordinator in 1988 for Ann Arbor. He is speaking now about what is a local energy office or regional energy office? It is a full time professional who is focused on local energy programs and issues, coordinates energy efforts for government and community; lead efforts to create energy strategy, produce a baseline inventory of all energy use by facility, assess potential value of energy improvements, secure resources to implement energy strategy.
6:27pm – How can local gov'ts save energy and fight climate change? Konkle is pointing out three main areas: solid waste, energy use, and transportation. He was energy coordinator for 20 years in Ann Arbor. Under his leadership they broke down their total electric and natural gas costs. He points out that Conservation comes first. It saves money, reduces emissions, creates jobs, reduces need to build more power plants.
6:33pm – How do you pay for projects? Ann Arbor was the first to create a revolving energy fund. It starts with seed funding (could be grants, donations, etc.) Then use that funding to identify an energy reduction project, which when implemented saves money. Take that saved money and use it to replenish the seed funding.
6:36pm – Konkle said conservation is the start, But the next step is Green Energy. Using clean energy. Landfills, capture the gases and burn them for energy. Landfills are a huge contributor to GHG.
6:40pm – Konkle is explaining bio-digesters which are used at Wastewater Treatment Plants. He said they are used more so in Europe than in the United States.
6:41pm – The Clean Cities program, Konkle said "It's one of the most reasonable federal programs I have ever seen."
6:43pm – 150,000 gallons of biodiesel sold at Ann Arbor Meijers in first year of a program to provide biodiesel fuels for the Ann Arbor area. Konkle said that if people wrote into Meijer about using this alternative fuel they may be receptive to bringing to Northern Michigan. In 2008, Ann Arbor displaced 1.4 million gallons of fuel with alternative fuels.
6:48pm – Ann Arbor started the getDowntown program. They provided bus passes for downtown employees at a drastically reduced price that caused significant reductions in drivers in the downtown area.
6:52m – The biggest hurdle to solar energy is that consumers did not know what they were doing. People did not know where to start, what to do. Konkle said that part of his offices work was to educate so that people could know how to use solar and what to buy.
6:56m – Fire stations are good places to consider putting in solar heaters because fire stations are homes away from home for fire fighters.
7:00pm – Konkle is going over example projects that Ann Arbor undertook. He has interesting, funny observations about his photo slideshows. Lots of nodding and laughter from the audience.
7:02pm – Without the Ann Arbor energy office from 1988-2008 Konkle said Ann Arbor would have lost out on $7million in energy savings, and $2 million in grants and rebates.
7:12pm – Problems Konkle sees with energy: global warming, national security, air quality, and the fossil fuel supply.
7:16pm – Earth is like a big battery being charged for millions of years. The idea that we can use that energy forever is wrong.
7:24pm – Konkle is talking about climate change. He is addressing the fact that there are several misconceptions about the science of global climate change. He is pointing out that climate needs to be considered in terms of long periods of time, decades, hundreds of years, not this year versus another year. Konkle got his degree in atmospheric climate in the 1970s. He did his internship measuring melting glaciers. He said the science has been around since the 1970s.
7:29pm – Konkle just put a comic on the screen of a public forum where an audience participant is asking the question: "What if it's [climate change] a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
7:37pm – AUDIENCE QUESTION: is there a link between progressive energy use and increased economic growth?
Konkle said the mayor of ann arbor "strongly, strongly believes that." Existing businesses are becoming more efficient and lowering their bottom lines and through energy efficiency they can become a healthier business. However, Michigan is getting its "butt kicked" in terms of competition with other states in moving towards alternative energy contracts.
7:42pm – AUDIENCE QUESTION: What are your thoughts on new renewable energy batteries?
Konkle said, "Don't throw anything out, these ideas for energy, and energy storage is a huge one. If we could have energy storage at the base of those wind generators that would solve a lot of our problems. Keep on studying and thinking and learning about what is out there. Compact fluorescents will need to be replaced by LEDS in four years. I can guarantee you that."
7:48pm – AUDIENCE QUESTION: We are looking to create a regional energy office here. But we have a lot of rural counties who would benefit from these energy savings, how do we go back and ask for the savings to continue the revolving energy funding?
Konkle said that you work that out on a facility by facility basis how much the regional office will take and how much the facility will keep of those savings. He recounted that the amount changed based on who the Ann Arbor energy office was working with.
7:53pm – AUDIENCE QUESTION: In terms of green energy, what part of it do you sell more? Do you sell the bottom line that it's going to save me $200,000? Or do you sell it from the benefit from being green?
Konkle said, "What sells more at the moment is the being green, because the money right now isn't there." The savings come over time, and he said that in Ann Arbor they would look eight years out to see what the savings would be, to determine a project's worth in terms of energy savings.
8:15pm – Hearty round of applause of David Konkle. Taking the stage is Andy Knott, of the Watershed Center, who is the convener of the Natural Resources working group. The Natural Resources WG has had six meetings in the past seven months and is close to finishing their goal statements. Andy said "Our goal with air quality is energy production or transportation. At our meeting yesterday we decided to add in transportation into our goal statements."
8:17pm – Andy said education and stewardship is a major component of the work of the Natural Resources group.
8:20pm – Kim Pontius of TAAR is onstage now from the Housing Working Group which has reps from over 40 gov't agencies and organizations. Kim said that our strategies seem to come back to energy. Decreases in the housing market have increased over time and transportation costs going up ($4.50/gallon gas) meant that people cannot afford to live in rural areas and drive into town to work.
8:23pm – Kim said, energy, at its core, if we can't get our heads around that, heating and cooling a home, and transportation to and from work and school…we understand that it is an important part of the Housing Working Group.
8:25pm – Jim Lively from the Transportation Working Group talked about how the Transportation working group has a subcommittee on transit which promotes bus ridership and coordinate a regional transportation plan that focuses on bus routes, ride-share programs, and be an advocacy organization that brings resources to transit. He also talked about promoting the idea complete streets with bike lanes, sidewalks, etc.
Do you have any scientific information on "the truth" about Wind Turbine Noise, that's not wind industry funded? I serve on the Monterey Township Planning Commission and we have a histerical fanic group fighting us all the way.
Thank you.
Karon Knobloch
2807 30th St.
Allegan, MI 49010
269-673-4683
I keep hearing about using wood for biomass electricity generation, it scares me! I understand that these types of plants can use many forms of fuel. They have burned tires in some without properly "cleaning" the smoke, and coated peoples property with nasty soot. So before we leap into these, maybe we should look more into other forms, such as using our trash for fuel, creating methane for one.
Has anyone looked into if biomass(wood burning) is why I have seen thinning of large forests in and around the Cadillac area since the biomass plant there?
I have relatives near that plant and it seems that it "dumps" the excess steam not used to create power regularly.(what a waste) They tell me that it "blows off" frequently.
Why the big rush into that form of generation? Why pull out dams that for years have generated power silently and consistantly. I have question after question about the so called green solutions to power generation. I am no expert but in the Grand Traverse region, it seems that the old tried and true ways to generate power are being shut down prematurely. We must enhance the old with the new, not dump the old and spend for new tech ways, that may be just as "dirty".Only at the time that we have found efficient,clean, cost effective, reliable ways to generate green power, should we abandon the old tried and true.
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