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4.05.2013

Missouri-Stand. Act. Defend! Lobby Day April 17

Missouri Needs Your Help-MO Environmental Defense Alliance
 

Lobby Day

Wednesday, April 17th, 2013

One deeply meaningful action you can do for Missouri's energy future, for our air, our water and our state's children, is to attend Lobby Day.  
 
This is a call for those of you who can take the extra step to represent your family, your friends and your neighbors. Register now to be their voice to counter the swarms of paid lobbyists found in Jefferson City this time of year.


Missouri Needs Your Help
MO Environmental Defense Alliance  
Lobby Day
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
8 a.m.- 3 p.m., Jefferson City, Missouri


See You at 2013 Earth Day Events!

Webster University Sustainability Conference 
  

  





  

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"All that is necessary  
for evil to triumph  
is for good men  
to do nothing."
- Edmund Burke


One deeply meaningful action you can do for Missouri's energy future, for our air, our water and our state's children, is to attend Lobby Day.   
  
This is a call for those of you who can take the extra step to represent your family, your friends and your neighbors. Register now to be their voice to counter the swarms of paid lobbyists found in Jefferson City this time of year.

Missouri Needs Your Help
MO Environmental Defense Alliance  
Lobby Day
Wednesday, April 17th, 2013
8 a.m.- 3 p.m., Jefferson City, Missouri


Join us in Jefferson City at 8 a.m. for an early start on a day filled with meeting your legislators, sharing your key concerns on this year's top priorities and defending Missouri's environment. Together with volunteers and staff from MEDA organizations, you will take a stand for the environment, enjoy lunch, and make a difference. Lobby day will finish around 3 p.m. Cost for lobby day is $20, which includes a vegetarian lunch.  

Priorities this year include:
  • Defending Clean, Safe Energy
  • Investing in Missouri State Parks
  • Keeping Toxic Coal Ash Out of Our Rivers
To RSVP, complete the form here

Want to carpool? Check the box in the RSVP form and you will receive all the details.     
Share this invitation on Facebook.  Please join us to make a difference. 
  
  




Missouri Coalition for the Environment
| 6267 Delmar Blvd., Ste. 2E | St. Louis | MO | 63130

4.03.2013

Major Tar Sands Oil Spill in Arkansas-Photo

LCV logo header

Arkansas oil spill large
More than 500,000 gallons of tar sands oil and water just spilled in Arkansas. Don't let this dirty oil nightmare ooze across America.
Imagine coming home to this: Oil oozing down your driveway, pooling in your back yard, and filling up your local waterways. Sounds like a nightmare, right?
This is the reality that families in Mayflower, Arkansas, have had to deal with since more than 500,000 gallons of dirty tar sands oil and water spilled out of a ruptured Exxon Mobil pipeline this past Friday.
This spill is terrible and our hearts go out to the community in Mayflower affected by this disaster. This shouldn't have happened. That's why it's critical that President Obama and Secretary Kerry reject the construction of a much bigger pipeline, Keystone XL, which could cause even more devastating spills of tar sands crude in waterways and lands across America.
We need you to raise your voice now. Tell the State Department to keep us safe from more tar sands spills by rejecting the dangerous Keystone XL pipeline!
Unfortunately, the spill in Arkansas repeats a story we know too well. In 2010, an Enbridge Energy pipeline in Michigan broke and spilled more than 800,000 gallons of toxic tar sands crude into the Kalamazoo River -- and it still hasn't been fully cleaned up. That same year, TransCanada, the company that wants to build the Keystone XL pipeline now, built a pipeline that experienced 12 separate spills in a single year. In 2011, one of Exxon Mobil's pipelines in Montana ruptured and contaminated the Yellowstone River. And even just last week, a train derailed in Minnesota and spilled 30,000 gallons of tar sands crude.
If these stories make your stomach churn, I know how you feel. It's absolutely infuriating that we keep allowing Big Oil to put our lands, water, and wildlife at risk, when we have seen over and over how it ends.
The Keystone XL tar sands pipeline would be a monster -- carrying 20 times more oil than the Exxon pipeline that burst in the Yellowstone River two years ago.
Right now, the State Department is accepting comments on its review of the potential environmental impacts of the Keystone XL pipeline. The initial draft of this review was completely off-base, downplaying the risks of spills and the devastating impact that this dirty oil would have in fueling climate change. Luckily, we have the chance to weigh in on this draft and push them to change it to recommend what many scientists have attested to -- that this pipeline is too dangerous to build and the tar sands oil needs to stay in the ground.
So we're joining with groups across the environmental movement to gather one million comments opposing the dirty Keystone XL pipeline by the end of the comment period on April 22. With only 20 days to go, we need you to send a message now.
Thanks to contributions from more than 3,000 LCV members, we hit our goal in our fundraising drive for this campaign and now we've got all the resources we need to win this fight.
But we can't do it without your help. So thanks for taking a moment to make your voice heard today.
Let's do this,
Vanessa
Vanessa Kritzer
Online Campaigns Manager
League of Conservation Voters
1920 L Street, NW Suite 800
Washington, DC 20036
202-785-8683

4.02.2013

StLouis The Polls Are Open


Today Is Election Day
in St. Louis!
Polls are open from
6:00 AM to 7:00 PM.

To locate your polling place
or for a ride to the polls,
call 314.535.7529.
Vote for Mayor Francis Slay

Primary Election Day Is Tuesday, April 2nd

Remember that the General Election is today,

Tuesday, April 2nd. The polls will be open from

6:00 am until 7:00 pm. Click here to find your

polling place ahead of time.

Our Latest Video and Radio

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Already Voted?
Then Let Us Know!

Have you already cast your ballot for Mayor Francis Slay? Then, click here to let us know.
Mayor Slay: Keep St. Louis Moving Forward

Paid for by the Slay for Mayor Committee
Judy Murphy, Treasurer

Mailing Address: P.O. Box 23039
St. Louis, MO 63156
www.MayorSlay.com

Slay for Mayor | 4236 Lindell | Suite 106 | St. Louis | MO | 63156


3.30.2013

Design Build Update on Shady Jacks Saloon New Bar Design

Both the Owner and Myself were very satisfied with both the design and build of the New Bar Design for Shady Jacks Saloon and Deli in Downtown StLouis MO.


The first photo in this green blog post is the final CAD drawing of the project after the Waitress Station and Center Shelving was added to the project.

Previous CAD Photos and details:


Waitress Station and Center Shelving Added to the Design Build Project-Shady Jacks Saloon New Bar Design
Waitress Station and Center Shelving Added to the Design Build Project 

Before the Waitress Station was added to the New Bar Design-Scotts Contracting St Louis MO
Before the Waitress Station was added to the New Bar Design 

Shady Jacks Saloon-New Bar and Waitress Station-Stocked and Loaded and Ready to Serve
Shady Jacks Saloon-New Bar and Waitress Station-Stocked and Loaded and Ready to Serve 

Waitress Station for the New Bar Design at Shady Jacks Saloon-Designed and Built by Scotts Contracting, St Louis MO
Waitress Station for the New Bar Design at Shady Jacks Saloon 

Here's what people are saying about the New Bar Design:


  • Patrons:

    • Love the New Look- Natural Looking  
    • Makes the Bar Look Bigger
    • Design Blends with the Asthetics of the Bar
    • Faster Drink Orders from Staff

  • Bartenders:

    • New Bar Design is User Friendly 
    • Easier Access to Supplies  
    • Able to Fill Customer Orders Faster and Efficiently!

  • Waitress Staff:

    • Easier Access to Needed Supplies
    • User Friendly
    • Makes Filling Drink Orders Faster (which increases their TIPS!)

  • From the Owner-Shady Jack:

    • New Design Opens the Bar up and makes it look bigger
    • User Friendly Design helps bartenders to better handle the customers orders
    • Functionality was added to the project for access to the New Beverage Dispensors
    • Very Pleased with the: Natural Look, Functionality, and Form

Here are the main goals of the project that were accomplished from the New Bar Design:



  1. Added Spots for the New Beverage Dispensers and Coolers
  2. Functionality for the Bartenders to meet the the increased customer base
  3. Any Additions must Blend in with Current Surroundings!
Here's what made this a True Green Build Project-All the Lumber was either from waste leftover from a Lumber Mill in the St Louis Area or Up-cycled from previous buildings in the St Louis Area


Come View the Bars New Design for yourself at Shady Jacks Saloon and Deli-1432 NBROADWAY DOWNTOWN, STLOUIS MO 2 BLOCKS NORTH OF LUMIERE CASINO. THE ORIGINAL BIKER BAR! OVER 16 YEARS OF BUSINESS. see map


4/1/2013 Some of the Lumber was purchased from: Bruce at American Timber Salvage Inc-2100 N 2nd Street St Louis MO 63102

Thank you for stopping by St Louis Renewable Energy. Feel free to comment in the section below or contact Scotts Contracting- St Louis Home Improvement Projects and Energy Reducing Needs Get Your Green Building Tips and Resources at St Louis Renewable Energy Green Blog

Renewable Energy-Energy Conservation and MO Legislative Update-

We need more petition signers for the RES Complaint!

In case you missed it, our state's renewable energy standard is being ignored by the utilities. We filed a complaint last month, asking the government to make them comply and we'd like your voice in there with us. So far, we've got 500 out of our goal of 3,000 signers. Please help us create the renewable energy we voted for by signing our petition.
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Legislative Update

Seven weeks remain in the 2013 legislative session, and you might be curious what bills we're watching. If you haven't called up your legislator, there's some good bills and some bad ones to talk about now. So here are the proposed efficiency and renewables legislation that we've got our eyes on:

OPPOSED Bills:
  • HB 44 - Allows hydropower produced in any quantity to be used to satisfy the renewable energy standard
    • Sponsor: Bart Korman, House District 42
    • Last Action: 3/07/2013 - Second read and referred: Senate Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy, and the Environment
    • Why we oppose: Allowing old hydro damns to count toward the RES would gut the RES resulting in no new renewable generation. 
SUPPORTED Bills:
  • SB 398 - Extends the expiration of an income tax deduction for energy efficiency audits and projects to December 31, 2019
    • Sponsor: Jason Holsman, Senate District 7
    • Last Action - 4/4/2013 - Senate hearing scheduled
    • Why we support: This act encourages investment in the best and cheapest source of energy – efficiency.
  • SB 277 - Establishes the Missouri Energy Efficiency Performance Standard
    • Sponsor: Jason Holsman, Senate District 7
    • Last Action - 2/20/2013 - Second Read and Referred S Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment Committee
    • Why we support: This act would require mandatory energy efficiency measures by electrical corporations, gas corporations, municipals utilities, and rural electrical cooperatives to reach specified energy savings as dictated by the PSC, resulting in MO becoming a leading state in EE. 
  • SB 299 - Establishes the Capital Green Program to provide funding for energy efficiency improvements to certain state buildings
    • Sponsor: Jason Holsman, Senate District 7
    • Last Action - 2/26/2013 - Hearing Conducted Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment Committee
    • Why we support: This act would provide funding for energy efficiency improvements including geothermal, wind, and solar energy resources to certain state buildings.
  • SB 368 - Prohibits certain property associations from barring the installation of solar energy systems
    • Sponsor: Jason Holsman, Senate District 7
    • Last Action - 2/28/2013 - Second Read and Referred to Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment Committee
    • Why we support: Under this act, the adoption of a bylaw or exercise of any power by the governing entity of an association prohibiting the installation of a solar energy system is expressly prohibited.
  • SB 400 - Modifies provisions relating to the renewable energy standard
    • Sponsor: Jason Holsman, Senate District 7
    • Last Action - 3/13/2013 - Second Read and Referred Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment Committee
    • Why we support: This act reinstates the requirement that  renewable energy credits are generated from renewable energy sources and that has been sold as power to Missouri energy consumers.
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3.28.2013

Climate Change Series: The Future Of Fossil Fuels | Cognoscenti

Scotts Contracting, St Louis Renewable Energy strongly urges you the reader to read between the lines on this article.  Especially since the interview seems to be based on: Fossil Fuel Supporters

Here's some of the info that I found lacking in true clarity:

  1. Natural Gas: Methane Released into the Atmosphere from Fracking
  2. Natural Gas Exports are increasing thus creating more Demand for Natural Gas- which will translate into higher prices- Its cheaper now but will it remain cheaper in the Future?
  3. All three interviewees do not provide True Renewable Energy Stats in which their testimonies are based on.



Climate Change Series: The Future Of Fossil Fuels

  •  
  • by Mike Jesanis, Cutler Cleveland and N. Jonathan Peress
  •  
  • 1


Brayton Point Power Station in Somerset, Massachusetts (Mr. Ducke/flickr)
Introduction
Over the past 250 years, we have become increasingly reliant on fossil fuels. Coal, oil and natural gas powered the industrial and technological revolutions and to this day remain the world’s most dominant source of energy.
But when fossil fuels are burned to create energy, they release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere which contributes to global warming. Indeed, fossil fuels produce the majority of the world’s greenhouse gases and are a huge driver of climate change. Stocks are also far from infinite. Aside from the environmental concerns, we will eventually run out.
Our dependence is causing us problems — and it needs to be addressed immediately.
Utility executive Mike Jesanis, Boston University professor Cutler Cleveland and environmental attorney N. Jonathan Peress discuss the future of fossil fuels.
jesanis edit
The former president and CEO of National Grid USA, Mike Jesanis is an adviser to companies, governments, and non-profits in traditional and emerging energy fields.
After the oil embargoes of 1970s, New England Electric System (NEES) converted six of its eight large oil-fired plants to coal and bought a coal-fired ship to supply them. For this decision — along with energy efficiency investments — NEES won national acclaim for its bold, forward-thinking business strategy. When deregulation hit the oil and natural gas industries in the mid-1980s, prices for those fuels plummeted, and those of us at NEES saw our bold, forward-thinking investments lose half their value, virtually overnight.
That early experience taught me a valuable lesson: Disruptive change in the energy industry is primarily driven by economics. Political and environmental events such as the 2003 East Coast blackout, or hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy may temporarily garner headlines, but they tend not to result in major changes.
What we’ve seen in recent years is a confluence of factors — primarily, improved technology for horizontal drilling and for hydraulic fracking — that has led to a substantial increase in production and a decrease in the price of natural gas from shale.
Disruptive change in the energy industry is primarily driven by economics. Political and environmental events such as the 2003 East Coast blackout, or hurricanes like Katrina and Sandy may temporarily garner headlines, but they tend not to result in major changes.
From 1970 to 1990, natural gas reserves in the U.S. fell by half. In the last 5 to8 years, all of those reserves have been replenished thanks to new, improved technologies. Industry estimates now project that the U.S. has at least 100 years worth of natural gas reserves, and that within 20 years half of U.S. natural gas production will be from shale. Put simply, large quantities of cheap, available natural gas from shale is a game-changer for the U.S. energy industry.
The first loser in this new marketplace is nuclear power. Exelon, the nation’s premiere nuclear power plant operator, has lost about two-thirds of its market value since 2008. The second loser is coal. Coal plants simply can’t compete with natural gas, both in New England and across the country. PJM, the power grid system operator for the mid-Atlantic region, just announced that it is retiring the equivalent of 15,000 megawatts of coal-fired power plants. Environmentalists and the EPA tried for decades, and failed to shut down many of those plants. Natural gas got it done.
New energy technologies — whether nuclear, wind, biomass or solar — are also losers. Because those technologies are now competing against cheap, plentiful natural gas — which is both more economical and less of an environmental issue than coal — the premium paid to adopt those energy sources just got higher.
Low-cost natural gas produces winners, too. According to ISO New England, natural gas now effectively sets the price for electricity generation in the region. With the fall in natural gas prices, since 2008 that has resulted in savings of $7 billion for New England electricity consumers.
Residential customers aren’t the only beneficiaries. Low natural gas prices are now spurring petrochemical companies like the Dow Chemical Company to reinvest in the their domestic research, development and production operations. PwC estimates 1 million U.S. manufacturing jobs will be created in the next decade because of the impact of low natural gas prices.
Pipeline companies, like the company on whose board I sit, also benefit from the boom in natural gas. They are not only laying new pipe; they’re repairing and replacing older pipelines that are more prone to economically wasteful and environmentally damaging leaks.
I don’t think we can imagine all the ways our energy future will change in the coming decades. There’s going to be some development in technology or in markets that will be a game-changer for how we generate and use energy. But for now, increased use of natural gas is the dominant factor changing our energy markets.
cleveland_cutler edit
Editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia of Energy, Cutler Clevelandis a professor in the department of Earth and Environment at Boston University, and a senior fellow at the National Council for Science and the Environment in Washington D.C., where he serves on the executive board of the Council of Energy Research and Education Leaders (CEREL).
I’m not pro-fossil fuels or anti-fossil fuels, but the consequence of burning fossil fuels has enormous implications for future generations, and I think that has to be front and center in our discussion about what we do with these resources.
There’s a lot of fossil fuel left in the earth’s crust. My estimate, based on a variety of respected sources, is that at current global rates of use, there’s over 1,200 years worth of oil, natural gas and coal that is “technically recoverable” — meaning, we can extract and process it using currently or near-currently available technologies.
What would that mean for the Earth’s atmosphere?
No president since Jimmy Carter has dared talk with the American people about our use of energy. How, and how efficiently, we use energy has to be part of the discussion.
Well, the total carbon content of those fossil fuels is almost 15,000 petagrams (1 petagram equals 1 billion metric tons). Most of that is in coal, but a fair amount is in oil and natural gas, too. By way of comparison, we’ve produced a total of 346 petagrams of carbon emissions worldwide since 1751.  If we put anywhere near that amount of carbon into the atmosphere, we’ll fundamentally alter the planet’s climate system in ways that make the 1 or 2 degree rise of the last century seem almost laughably trivial.
What has to happen to prevent all this carbon from entering the atmosphere? We have to start using non-carbon fuels. And here there’s good news. According to the IPCC, renewable sources of energy — wind, biomass, hydro, geothermal, and especially solar — have the potential to meet and far exceed global electricity demand, both now and in the future.
We face significant barriers in building a low-carbon, renewable energy future. First, there are the enormous — and growing — sunk costs in fossil fuel infrastructure. Second, major energy transitions — from wood to coal, from coal to oil — historically take 30 or more years.
Another major problem is the market sends perverse signals about energy. The environmental and human health externalities — costs not reflected in the price — associated with fossil fuels are staggeringly large. In the case of coal, they exceed the market price. Market signals have to be altered if we want to change this.
The cost of renewables remains a significant barrier to their adoption.  Wind power’s cost is 50 percent higher than combined-cycle natural gas plants. Solar is twice as expensive right now, even though its costs have come way down in the last 20 years. The transition to a green energy future will not be cost free.
Fifteen of the 20 largest corporations in the world sell carbon. Just as tobacco companies spent decades denying the fact that smoking causes lung cancer, these companies have worked furiously to deny the reality of climate change.
Finally, there’s the third rail of American energy politics — the demand side. No president since Jimmy Carter has dared talk with the American people about our use of energy. How, and how efficiently, we use energy has to be part of the discussion.
This is the pre-eminent question we face as a species. And the skids are greased to keep pulling fossil fuels out of the earth’s crust. We have the infrastructure in place to continue burning it. If we’re really concerned about climate, then the changes we need to make will require a level of disruption that makes the shale gas revolution seem tame.
To get serious about climate change requires radical, disruptive change that fundamentally alters the trajectory of human civilization from its present course. That kind of change is possible. The eradication of smallpox, the Green Revolution, and theManhattan Project are just a few recent examples. But it requires a determined, sustained commitment to make it happen.
Peress_NJonathan edit
N. Jonathan Peress is vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation and director of CLF’s clean energy and climate change program.
According to power grid system operator ISO New England, natural gas produced 15 percent of the electricity in New England in 2000. In 2011, natural gas produced 51 percent of the region’s electricity. The rapid growth in market share for natural gas displaced coal and oil power plants. It also helps keep wind, solar and other renewables confined to a small share of the energy market.
This highlights the paradoxical role of natural gas: It’s helping to reduce current carbon emissions in our electric system, while simultaneously delaying our ability to deploy renewable energy sources to reduce future carbon emissions. Natural gas may be on the right side of the “carbon curve” today, but it will be on the wrong side very quickly.
Under existing law, Massachusetts greenhouse gas emissions in the energy system arescheduled to drop 80 percent by 2050. LINK There’s no way– or at least, no known way– to achieve that goal with natural gas as the primary fuel powering our electrical system.
Natural gas is helping to reduce current carbon emissions in our electric system, while simultaneously delaying our ability to deploy renewable energy sources to reduce future carbon emissions.
Traditional analysis shows that natural gas plants are cleaner than oil or coal plants. For example, a typical gas-fired plant releases approximately half as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as a coal-fired plant.
However, recent life-cycle analysis suggests that reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from natural gas
are minimal. A recent study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research concluded “substitution of gas for coal as an energy source results in increased rather than decreased global warming for many decades.”
One of the big issues in that regard is leakage. We actually don’t know how much gas we lose in the system. Cornell Professor Robert Howarth estimates that 3.6 to 7.9 percent of methane is lost through leaks and flaring at the production stage. At the local distribution level, gas companies are compensated for what’s called “lost and unaccounted-for gas,” which can amount to as much as 10 to 12 percent of the natural gas a company brings into the system.
The bottom line is this: Unless leakage rates for new methane can be kept below 2 percent on a life-cycle basis, substituting gas for coal is not an effective way to reduce the magnitude of future climate change.
In the near term, natural gas plays an important role in retiring the dirty, obsolete coal-fired power plants the country has relied on for the last 40 years. But at the Conservation Law Foundation, we think any new fossil fuel investment must be rigorously scrutinized to determine how it will fit in with climate mandates and market realities of the future. New power plants typically run for 30 to 40 years, and new pipelines can last for 80 to 100 years.
In our view, it doesn’t make sense — economically or environmentally — to invest in building new natural gas pipelines and power plants that will be shut down in 10-20 years as we complete the transition to a low-carbon energy future.
There is a more limited role for natural gas to play in future as we decarbonize the power system. The European Climate Foundation concluded that as more variable energy resources (i.e. wind and solar) come online, there needs to be some sort of “firming resource” — power sources that can quickly and reliably be turned on and off — in the system. That’s a role natural gas (and hydropower) can play when the wind stops blowing and the sun isn’t shining brightly.
New England should invest more heavily in energy efficiency, and in repairing leaks and inefficiencies in existing gas pipelines, while also structuring its energy markets, including the services offered in the gas markets, to help spur development of the low-carbon energy system we want and need for the mid-21st century.


Climate Change Series: The Future Of Fossil Fuels | Cognoscenti



Thank you for stopping by St Louis Renewable Energy. Feel free to comment in the section below or contact Scotts Contracting- St Louis Home Improvement Projects and Energy Reducing Needs Get Your Green Building Tips and Resources at St Louis Renewable Energy Green Blog

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