Ted Cruz's Shoes
Published in the Sun March 27, 2013

“You know, in West Texas the EPA is trying to use a lizard to shut down oil and gas production.  You know my view of lizards?  They make dern fine boots.”

 

So stated Senator Ted Cruz in his keynote speech at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington DC on March 16.  That statement set me wondering what kind of lizard made such fine boots.  A quick Google search revealed that the senator was referring to the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard, also known as Sceloporus arenicolus.  Mr. Cruz must have little bitty feet, because this lizard is just three inches long.

 

The Dunes Sagebrush Lizard lives only in New Mexico and a few counties in West Texas.  Unfortunately, his habitat requires a certain miniature oak tree and a certain type of sand, both of which sit right on top of the Permian Basin Oil Field, a location which could explain why Mr. Cruz is so eager to have the tiny lizard decorate his footwear.

 

Actually the lizard is not currently on the Endangered Species list because of voluntary conservation agreements with many of the landowners in the area, but the real question persists:  Why should we care about tiny lizards in West Texas, or salamanders in Williamson County, or migrating songbirds, or Houston toads, or any other obscure species that very few people have ever seen?  Would it matter if they all disappeared forever?  Do we miss the passenger pigeon or the dodo bird?

 

The problem, as I see it, is that every species exists in a delicate balance with all the other creatures in its ecosystem.  When that balance is upset, consequences always result.  If you take away the mountain lions, the deer will multiply until they have nothing to eat except the flowers in your yard.  If you scare away the hawks, legions of grackles swarm the trees and poop on your head.  When the fire ants invade, children can no longer catch horned toads and put them in shoeboxes.

 

There probably aren’t many people of either political persuasion who are overly attached to the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard in particular, but the world is losing thousands of species to extinction every year, many of which we have never even studied.  We don’t know what miracles of biology might be lost.  We could lose half of all wild plants, animals, and birds on the planet by 2100.  The United Nations estimates that the population of wild vertebrate species (those with backbones like birds, mammals, and reptiles) fell by 31% between 1970 and 2006.  Bird populations in North American grasslands decreased 40% from 1968 to 2003.  Wild fisheries are declining.

 

If we keep going this direction we could end up with billions of people growing acres and acres of genetically modified crops to feed ourselves and our factory farms crowded with cows eating chicken waste.  Oh wait, we already have that.  I meant we could end up with nine billion people and no other living creatures except the ones we raise to eat and the species that live off our detritus, like rats and cockroaches.  Fire ants would probably survive too.

 

It’s not just oil versus lizards; jobs versus environmentalists.  Not every choice is about profit.  We make uneconomical decisions all the time.  When you buy shoes, you don’t always get the cheapest pair off the bargain rack.  Usually you pay more for comfort or style.  When you buy piano lessons for your child, do you really expect to get your money back when your prodigy plays at Carnegie Hall?  Of course not.  You are investing in a quality future, in values beyond dollars and cents.

 

The same principle holds for the Dunes Sagebrush Lizard.  The price of Permian Basin oil goes up and down, but what is the worth of a world we can share with wild creatures?  Priceless.

Chimney Swifts Welcome at Southwestern University
Published in the Sun March 16, 2013

Erin Johnson and Bob Mathis

Erin Johnson began her college life in musical theater but was soon disillusioned by the world of artifice.  Drawn instead to the natural world, she took a job at a wildlife rehabilitation center in Birmingham, Alabama.  Every summer, hundreds of orphaned baby birds were brought to the center, many of them chimney swifts.  Swifts make fragile nests on the inside of uncapped chimneys.  When the babies hatch they make a lot of noise begging for food.  Hearing a racket in the chimney, many homeowners would use a broomstick to flush out the noisemakers, breaking the nest, and causing baby swifts to tumble into the fireplace.

 

The tiniest chimney swifts were the hardest ones to save.  Barely hatched before falling from the nest, the baby birds were hairless and their eyes were not yet open.  Erin not only had to hand feed them every fifteen minutes, but, prior to feeding, she had to swab the food through the mouth of an adult chimney swift in order to soak up some of the salivary enzymes essential for the babies to develop a normal immune system.

 

The rehabilitation center was amazingly successful at raising these chicks, and when they were old enough to fend for themselves, the swifts were released into the wild.  Swifts are a vital part of the ecosystem, keeping flying insects such as mosquitoes under control.

 

Chimney swifts spend most of the day in the air catching bugs.  They are unable to sit on a branch or wire and can only perch on vertical surfaces.  They attach their nests to the rough inner surfaces of hollow trees or old-fashioned brick and mortar chimneys.  As old chimneys are replaced by modern ones, the swifts are having difficulty finding proper nesting sites.  New chimneys are capped so birds cannot enter, and are often lined with metal to prevent fires.  The slick metal prevents the birds from perching or attaching nests.  The scarcity of nesting sites has caused a serious decline in population.

 

When Erin came to Southwestern University to study animal behavior, she did not lose her interest in chimney swifts.  She knew that conservationists are replacing lost habitat with towers built especially for nesting swifts, and she noticed that the vegetable garden on the edge of campus was a nice location for a chimney swift tower.  Erin applied for a SEED grant (Student Environmental Engagement and Development) to pay for materials, and then enlisted Bob Mathis, associate vice president for Facilities and Campus Services, as her general contractor.  Erin had already acquired a plan for an ideal swift habitat from an Austin conservation group, the Driftwood Wildlife Association.  Erin gathered a few of her friends from the animal behavior society, and Mr. Mathis cajoled some associates who liked to build things, and the group put together a combination chimney swift tower/information kiosk.

 

Chimney swifts winter in South America, and then come north to breed in the spring.  The migration is increasingly difficult because many of the Central American forests that used to provide sustenance during the trip have been cut down.  Swifts that successfully complete the trip arrive in our area by the middle of March, so the tower project was on a strict deadline.  Now that Southwestern University’s first chimney swift tower is complete, Erin will be watching every day to see if her guests arrive.

Prius Problem
Published in the Sun March 9, 2013

It wouldn’t be fair to write about the advantages of alternative energy and never mention the disadvantages.  Last week my 2006 Prius was heading to the airport when the “Red Triangle of Death” popped up on the dashboard.  Stopping and restarting the car didn’t make it go away.  The manual warned that the “Red Triangle of Death” required immediate professional help.  The airport trip was aborted and we headed to Classic Toyota in Round Rock, where the service department confirmed our worst fears.  The hybrid battery pack, the nickel-metal-hydride miracle that lets a Prius get 50 miles per gallon, had gone on the fritz and needed to be replaced.

 

Replacing the battery pack is no small matter.  Scott Backus, my service representative, was sympathetic.  “You’re not going to like this,” he said.  “How bad is it?”  “With labor, about $4000.”

 

Holy moly!  My first thought was that this car barely had 100,000 miles on it.  My second thought was, “There goes all the money I saved on gasoline.”

 

Later at home when some of the despair had worn off I got out the calculator and did some figures.  If you assume the Prius gets 48 miles per gallon and gas averaged $3 per gallon since 2006, I spent $6249 on gasoline over the lifetime of the car.  If I had been driving a Honda Civic that got 30 mpg, the gasoline would have cost $10,000, a difference of $3751.  So yes, a new battery pack would eat up all my gas savings.  Of course my carbon dioxide emissions are still less than they would have been in the Honda, but nobody pays me for that.

 

On the other hand, over the course of 100,000 miles a Ford F-150 pickup truck would use about $20,000 worth of gasoline, so it’s all relative.

 

I got interested in finding some data on how long these battery packs usually last.  Paul Alberson, the Master Diagnostic Technician at Classic, told me stories about taxis in Montreal and San Francisco that have logged more than 300,000 miles on their original batteries.  The Toyota warranty covers the battery for 8 years or 100,000 miles, whichever comes first.  Paul himself has owned several Priuses and thinks they are generally a pretty low maintenance vehicle.  He feels like a Prius that is driven hard, like a taxi, gets more life out of the battery than one that is driven less.  In other words, the passage of time is more detrimental to the battery than the actual mileage driven.

 

I still wanted some hard data on the battery lifetime, so I called the Toyota customer service hotline to ask the statistics on the 4 million Priuses that have been sold worldwide.  They told me “that is proprietary information,” which is not a very good sales pitch.

 

Anyway, I forked over $3903 for a new hybrid battery pack and Classic gave me a complementary carwash.  The old battery is on its way to California for recycling.  Driving away from the dealer I was musing about how nice it would have been to get the new battery under warranty.  I glanced at the odometer to see how narrowly I missed the 100,000 limit.  Oh my gosh, the odometer is at 99,369!  Because the battery had been out, the odometer wasn’t working when we took the car in, and they had written down my guess that the car had 110,000 miles.  A quick U-turn on IH-35 rushed me back to Classic, where Mr. Backus took a picture of my odometer and confirmed that I was indeed still under warranty.  Oh happy day, all my money was refunded, my gasoline savings are intact, and the Prius has a brand new battery pack.  Thank you so much, Toyota!  Maybe this one will last 200,000 miles.

Sun City Democrats Discuss Moving America Beyond Coal
Published in the Sun (with some editorial changes) March 6, 2013

Dr. Al Armendariz displays heat waves in Texas and the Southwest

photo by George Flynn

“We need to be very careful about monkeying with nature.”  Dr. Al Armendariz, senior representative of the Sierra Club’s Beyond Coal campaign, warned 133 Sun City Democrats that continued use of coal for electricity generation will worsen climate change and contribute to the devastating droughts, heat waves, and fires that are already occurring right here in Texas and the rest of the Southwest.

 

Dr. Armendariz went on to explain that carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in the atmosphere will soon reach 400 parts per million (ppm), after 600,000 years of fluctuating between 180 and 280 ppm.  Increasing CO2 levels trap heat from the sun and prevent it from radiating back into space, just as a greenhouse remains warmer than the outside air.  The increased CO2 comes from burning fossil fuels such as coal and petroleum, a practice which has accelerated since 1800.

 

Texas is number one in CO2 emissions of all the states; emitting more than twice as much CO2 as any other state.  About one third of all greenhouse gases emitted in the United States originate from power plants generating electricity, and 81% of that amount is from coal-fired power plants.  In addition to greenhouse gases, burning coal also releases disease-producing particulate matter and mercury into the air.  Whereas coal used to be mined from underground tunnels, these days entire pristine mountaintops, euphemistically call “overburden”, are dynamited away to expose the coal seams.  Mountaintop removal destroys whole landscapes, including the streams that flow into the valleys.

 

The Sierra Club considers coal “an outdated, backward, and dirty 19^th century technology.”  The Beyond Coal grassroots campaign would like to see one third of the nation’s more than 500 coal plants retired by 2020 and replaced by clean energy sources such as wind and solar.  A member of the audience at Sun City asked about the current trend toward using natural gas to generate electricity.  Dr. Armendariz explained that although natural gas releases fewer greenhouse gases and pollutants than coal when burned at the power plant, the mining process for natural gas leaks methane into the atmosphere, and methane itself is a very potent greenhouse gas.  The benefit of reduced CO2 emissions at a gas-fired power plant is negated if as little as 4% of the natural gas leaks from the wells.

 

Dr. Armendariz, a native Texan, was a professor of Environmental Engineering at SMU before becoming chief of the south central region of the Environmental Protection Agency in 2009.  His passion for clean air regulation led to some well publicized conflict with the business community.  In illustrating how strict punishment of environmental violators could act as a deterrent for other companies, Dr. Armendariz unfortunately chose the example of ancient Romans crucifying a certain number of Turks to keep the Turkish population compliant.  Since the word crucify is most commonly used in reference to a particular innocent victim of the Roman judicial system, Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma concluded that the statement proved the EPA was eager to prosecute innocent energy corporations just to restrict oil and gas development.  Although Dr. Armendariz regretted his choice of metaphor, he resigned his position at the EPA amid the furor.  He quickly found a home at Sierra Club, where his zeal for controlling air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions were in line with the philosophy of the organization.

Leander School Buses Running on Propane
Published in the Williamson County Sun March 2, 2013

When gasoline prices hit a peak in 2008, most of us just wearily pulled out our credit cards.  Kirby Campbell, the very forward-thinking director of transportation at Leander Independent School District, was tired of grumbling.  LISD had a half million dollars budgeted for fuel in 2008, and when diesel prices doubled, that money was gone after six months.  Mr. Campbell decided to fight back and strike a personal blow for energy independence.

 

He knew he had to look at alternative fuels.  He discovered that running just one bus on propane instead of diesel could save $2140 every year in fuel costs.  Not only could he save on fuel, but because propane is considered clean energy, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Railroad Commission would offer grants to defray some of the costs of new propane buses.  He promptly bought eleven brand new yellow school buses and soon added 26 more.  LISD now saves $80,000 a year on fuel, and they plan to gradually add more propane buses to the fleet.

Kirby Campbell shows off one of his propane-fueled school buses

If you took high school chemistry you might remember that propane is a three carbon chain that is liquid under pressure.  Even if you slept through chemistry you are familiar with propane.  It can be hooked up to your barbecue grill for a tasty supper, and is available in just about every small town in America.

 

You might not know that propane is the hottest thing going as an alternative fuel for cars and trucks.  Worldwide over 17 million vehicles run on propane, also called autogas.  In Japan, 90% of taxis run on autogas.  South Korea has 1.7 million autogas cars on the road, and in Turkey autogas has surpassed gasoline as a transportation fuel.  Propane is not only cheaper than gasoline, but engines that run on propane also require less maintenance and last longer than diesel engines, another plus for the Leander school district.

 

In addition to the financial advantages of propane school buses, there are some tremendous environmental benefits.  Children can now ride to school without being gassed by diesel exhaust.  A diesel exhaust particle is a microscopic grain of carbon wrapped in some toxic organic compounds and heavy metals.  On conventional school buses, diesel particles routinely seep into the cabin, exposing the unsuspecting children.  Waiting in the bus line is even worse.  When inhaled on a regular basis, diesel particles can contribute to asthma, chronic bronchitis, and even lung cancer.

 

Compared to an old diesel bus belching black smoke, propane buses emit almost no asthma-producing particles, less carbon monoxide, and fewer smog-producing chemicals and greenhouse gases.  Mr. Campbell started up one of his new buses and we stood by the tailpipe to check it out.  I could detect no visible exhaust and no odor.  I had to put my nose 6 inches from the tailpipe before catching the slight whiff of a camp stove.  (Please don’t try this at home.  It’s low emission, not zero emission.)

 

Since propane is a byproduct of drilling for natural gas, the gas boom is creating an abundance of propane right here in Texas.  Propane is refined right on our home territory, and we have enough left over to export.  Since automotive transportation will remain dependent on fossil fuels for a while yet, we might as well burn our own fossil fuels, rather than importing petroleum from countries that may not have our best interests at heart.

 

A final factor influenced Kirby Campbell’s decision to try propane.  It turns out that Georgetown is home to an entrepreneur who has been successfully promoting the use of propane for the last 20 years.  Curtis Donaldson got his energy bona fides at Conoco where he was Coordinator of Alternative Fuel Marketing.  In 1993 he took off on his own and started Clean Fueling Technologies (now CleanFUEL USA) right here in Georgetown.  Mr. Donaldson’s company perfected a liquid phase injection system for trucks and buses which allowed increased engine power and lower emissions.  CleanFUEL USA is certified to do after-market conversions on a variety of trucks and SUVs at the company’s offices on Halmar Cove.  The company is also building and installing propane fueling stations all over the country, so Mr. Campbell could easily get his own propane fueling station and have it maintained locally.  Mr. Campbell says for LISD propane was a win-win-win situation:  environmentally friendly, economical, and made in America.  He looks proudly at his yellow bus, “I just don’t know why every school district doesn’t get involved in this.”

Curtis Donaldson and Crystelle Markley of CleanFUEL USA

are installing propane dispensers all over the country

Light Emitting Diodes
Published in the Sun February 23, 2013

Kelly and Pam Kimbrel displaying some of their LEDs at Texas Bright Ideas

Thomas Edison did not really invent the light bulb.  Scientists had been tinkering with incandescent electric light for 70 years before Edison devised a proper filament.  But Edison made the light bulb practical for regular people to use and, here’s the real genius that revolutionized the world, he figured out how to sell electricity so his customers could use their new light bulbs.

 

In 1882 the Pearl Street Station of the Edison Illuminating Company in lower Manhattan fired up for the first time.  Edison had 85 customers with a total of 400 light bulbs.  When the power plant turned on at dusk each evening, it might have cranked out enough to power the gadgets and air conditioner of one good-sized house.

 

Edison is reported to have said that “after the electric light goes into general use, none but the extravagant will burn tallow candles.”  At that time, of course, a person had to be extravagant to use the new-fangled light bulbs.  Edison was charging 24 cents per kilowatt-hour.  Adjusted for inflation over 130 years, that is about 50 times more expensive than electricity today.  Even so within two years the Pearl Street Station had over 500 customers lighting their homes with electricity and generating stations began springing up across the nation.

 

Other than a few updates to the filament, the incandescent light bulbs available today are virtually identical to the ones Thomas Edison sold 120 years ago.  Modernization has been slow in the lighting industry.  The biggest problem with incandescent bulbs is that they are not really very efficient at making light.  Ninety percent of the energy they consume is wasted in the form of heat.  In a Texas home why would anybody want to generate heat off the light bulbs?  That just requires more air conditioning to combat the heat, wasting even more electricity.

 

You may have heard that the federal government is trying to ban incandescent light bulbs.  Not exactly.  New efficiency standards for light bulbs require more light to be produced per watt of energy consumed, and some of the old-timey bulbs are not able to meet those requirements.  A few people are upset about losing the inefficient bulbs because they prefer the “warm” quality of incandescent light.  I imagine that in Edison’s time there were people who preferred to stick with romantic candlelight.  Can’t you just hear them: “Turn that danged contraption off, Mabel.  It’s nighttime; it’s supposed to be dark!”

 

I went over to Texas Bright Ideas, a lighting store in Wolf Ranch, to ask owner Kelly Kimbrel about LED lights.  LED stands for light-emitting diode, and they generate light by the movement of electrons in a semi-conductor.  An LED has more in common with your computer than it does with Edison’s bulbs.  Not only can a 10.5 watt LED produce as much light as a 60 watt incandescent bulb, but it will last about 25 times longer, so it is a great choice in a location where it is difficult to change a bulb, like a high ceiling or a streetlight.  When an LED finally does wear out, disposal is not a problem because, unlike compact fluorescent bulbs, LEDs do not contain mercury.  Also in contrast with compact fluorescents, LEDs come on instantly with full brightness, and can be turned off and on frequently without shortening the lifespan of the bulb.

 

At present, LED fixtures make up less than 5% of Mr. Kimbrel’s business, but he believes they are the wave of the future.  When he and his wife built their own home, they installed a wide variety of lights, including both compact fluorescent and LED fixtures to compare for themselves.  They have since replaced all the compact fluorescents with LEDs.

 

One feature of the Kimbrel’s new lights is especially appealing.  LEDs emit very little ultraviolet light so insects are not attracted.  The Kimbrel’s outdoor kitchen has an LED over the barbecue grill and a ceiling fan with an incandescent light over the sitting area.  The bugs swarm around the incandescent and ignore the LED completely.

 

After visiting with Mr. Kimbrel I headed over to Home Depot to see what kind of LEDs are available to a person who just wants to change a light bulb.  Since an LED is shaped like a computer chip, it can be put into almost any size or shape of device.  It doesn’t have to look like a light bulb, but many of them are made to look bulb-ish so we consumers will recognize them and put them into our lamps.  I found a 60 watt equivalent bulb-shaped LED for $15.  That sounds like a lot, but burning 3 hours a day it will last 18 years, compared to 11 months for an incandescent.  And while the incandescent uses over $7 of electricity a year, the LED gets by on $1.26.  Within two and a half years the LED will have paid for itself.  If it lasts the entire 18 years I will have saved over a hundred dollars in energy costs, which is a pretty bright investment.

Emergency Preparedness Fair
Published in the Sun February 6, 2013

In the event of disaster, do you know how to live without running water or electricity?  If lost in the woods, how long could you live without food or shelter?  What if you called 911, but nobody answered?

Mick Thurber and Emma Winners making arrowheads

We like to imagine that we are completely self-reliant, but modern Americans have become perilously dependent on our wonderful infrastructure of utilities, grocery stores, and emergency personnel.  Without sounding too apocalyptic, it is worth remembering that the infrastructure could fail.  Just ask the people in Haiti, or closer to home, the people affected by hurricane Katrina and superstorm Sandy.

Rudy Bischof with the most important tools in his survival kit, a sturdy knife and a fire starter

On Saturday, the Georgetown Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (Mormons) hosted an Emergency Preparedness Fair.  In a grove of trees outside the church, members demonstrated techniques that would help a person survive an unspecified disaster for 72 hours.  Rudy Bischof, an experienced survivalist, explained to me that it is simply common sense to develop the skills needed to take care of yourself in the event that you have to evacuate your home.  Shelter would be the first priority, especially in cold weather, because hypothermia can kill in as little as three hours.  The most important tool in Mr. Bischof’s survival kit is a sturdy knife, used to build a rough shelter out of branches.  The second most important tool is a fire starter and he shows me how easily it sparks to ignite dry tinder.  There is no food in the 72 hour kit because a person can live for 3 weeks without food.

A cardboard cutout of a .22 caliber revolver represents the third critical tool in the kit.  No actual guns are present at this fair but Mr. Bischof quite reasonably argues that in an actual life and death emergency a gun would be handy if not essential.

Randy Brinley has dug a solar still to produce drinking water

 A person can die in three days without water.  Randy Brinley reminds people that if the tap water quits running, about 80 gallons of water remain in your water heater.  Another six gallons of pure water is stored in the toilet tank, so don’t be foolish and flush it away.  If all else fails a solar still can be built from a hole in the ground, a sheet of plastic, and a tin can.

Michael Winners and an oven made from a cardboard box and aluminum foil

 A troop of Boy Scouts are building ovens with cardboard boxes and aluminum foil.  A few glowing charcoal briquets in the bottom of the box can bake a pan of biscuits to perfection.  If charcoal and biscuits are not available, Maria Nicholls explains how to make nopalitos from prickly pear cactus, after removing the spines of course.  She likes them boiled with garlic and salt, but in a disaster plain prickly pear would be better than nothing, and there is plenty of it around here.

Maria Nicholls and daughter Danielle Peralta with edible prickly pear

Carl Robertson, a professor of Chinese at Southwestern, is showing his Chrysler minivan tricked out with tarps and cardboard to make an insulated shelter if he were to become lost or stranded in the wilderness while driving.  He has a sleeping bag made from a space blanket.  Too many people abandon their cars and end up dying of exposure in the woods.  Dr. Robertson recommends staying with your car and building some smoky fires to summon help.  Get that fire starter and keep it in the glove box.

Inside the church building the focus is less on disaster preparedness and more on long term self-sufficiency.  Bob and Janine Hall are giving a tutorial on aquaponics, the symbiotic relationship between fish farming and hydroponics.  Bob raises bluegill and catfish, and their waste fertilizes his plants.  I get to taste a delicious cherry tomato picked from Bob’s garden that morning.

Jeannette Cox and her homegrown eggs

Jeannette Cox, a city girl from Chicago, proudly displays a basket full of multicolored eggs from her hens.  Pat Dekay is letting people taste the variety of foods that she preserves herself.  Today she has dried pears, strawberry fruit leather, jerky, and tomato sauce.  She keeps at least 6 months of food in storage at all time, in accordance with her church’s advice to “prepare every needful thing” in case of adversity.

Nobody at the fair appears particularly worried about a specific disaster or a breakdown of society.  Nobody even mentions a “zombie apocalypse.”  This group is just enjoying learning new skills, taking care of themselves, and being prepared for any surprises the future might bring.

Carl Robertson knows the dangers of hypothermia