Impossible to See
Environmental Democrats like U.S. Rep. Jay Inslee embrace clean energy as a smart political issue. Businesses like Seattle Biodiesel want government to create incentives for the sector to grow.
(Jay Vidheecharoen) |
The state's largest industry for clean energy is invisible. That's because the energy- efficiency industry saves energy rather than generates it. In the 1970s, energy efficiency was known as conservation. Northwest Energy Coalition's Krasnowsky explains the reason for the name change: "Conservation creates an image of huddling under a blanket in the dark."
Judith Eve Lipton
Seattle Biodiesel President John Plaza, left, and CEO Martin Tobias at their warehouse refinery in South Seattle.
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Whatever it's called, saving energy is the first choice of private utilities, environmentalists, and public-policy experts when it comes to dealing with an energy crisis. The Northwest has been very successful at employing energy-efficiency strategies over the past 20 years. Tom Eckman, the Northwest Power Planning Council's manager of conservation resources, says that from 1982 through 2002 the region met 40 percent of the need for new electricity. That's 2,500 aMW of energy savings. "You don't see that built," says Eckman. "It's one lightbulb, one piece of insulation, and one showerhead at a time." The NWPPC estimates that the Northwest will find new energy savings equivalent to 2,500 more aMW over the next 20 years. The biggest saver? "Changing the lightbulb," says Eckman—replacing incandescent lightbulbs with compact fluorescent ones.
In industrial plants and office buildings, the latest technology for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), motor drives, conveyers, and pumps is providing precise computer control over everything from lighting to room temperature. "The direct digital control in commercial buildings is a real improvement in terms of creature comfort and energy efficiency," says Eckman. He notes that there is another technological revolution right around the corner as computer controls go wireless, reducing the cost of installing new systems by eliminating the need for stringing cables.
New digital controls are on display on the 37th floor of One Union Square, a 650,000-square-foot, 20-year-old office building in downtown Seattle. "I get so excited when I see this stuff," says Rick Mock, the director of facilities for Washington Real Estate Holdings, which manages One Union Square. As he shows me a computer screen displaying the "chiller system" with graphic and numeric elements, I can understand about one-tenth of what Mock is telling me. But there is no mistaking his enthusiasm. Mock's fascination with the latest gadgets and his zeal to improve the building's energy usage have translated into savings of $450,000 a year in electricity. Mock arrived at One Union Square in 1999 and noticed immediately that he received a lot of complaints from tenants about being too hot or too cold. He began to evaluate the building's HVAC and lighting systems and started to advocate for a major overhaul. "This building was a runaway train," he says. "We had to do something." After working with Seattle City Light and other managers at Washington Real Estate Holdings, the company undertook a $3.5 million renovation of HVAC and lighting. City Light kicked in $750,000 of the overall cost, reducing the time for the project to pay for itself to six years. "It's a neat initiative from a monetary standpoint and from the environmental standpoint," says Tim Holt, vice president at Washington Real Estate Holdings. As an added benefit, tenants are happier now. Mock fields far fewer complaints about temperature.
McKinstry, a 35-year-old, 650-person mechanical contracting company, did the work at One Union Square. Highly respected in the field, McKinstry is an example of a large energy-services firm that has a mature business in energy efficiency but does not rely on that sector alone. Stan Price, executive director of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Council, an 80-company trade group, says the industry includes Fortune 500 companies like Johnson Controls and Siemens as well as small specialty shops and midsized energy firms. Price has watched the industry expand and contract over the past 25 years as energy prices have risen and fallen. "We are in a marketplace more driven by energy prices than we would like," says Price. He predicts there will be no problem meeting the increased demand that the latest round of energy price spikes will engender. Price believes that the lion's share of employment and sales in the state's clean-energy sector are in energy efficiency. Yet he acknowledges that energy efficiency doesn't get the same kind of buzz that surrounds less-significant industries like biofuels. "It's a bit of a sleeper," he says.
Politicians are not clamoring with new proposals to encourage energy efficiency. Last year, the Legislature did pass the nation's first "green building" standards for new construction of public facilities. Mandating new energy efficiency for private construction would be a welcome innovation, but no legislative champion has emerged. Many utilities, though, both public and private, offer grant programs to encourage conservation. Washington state Apollo Alliance coordinator Rich Feldman would like to see Gov. Gregoire launch an ambitious $100 million, zero-interest loan program for retrofitting public buildings with the latest energy- efficiency equipment. The improvements would pay for themselves with the savings, he claims. So far, Gregoire has not adopted the proposal, but she hasn't rejected it, either.
The task facing clean-energy advocates is daunting. The industrial and political challenges ahead are huge. But if we need any flesh-and-blood reminder of how disastrous our nation's current energy policy is, just turn on the nightly news and be reminded of the cost of our reliance on Middle East oil. While a clean-energy future seems a challenge, it's unimaginable that a dirty, blood-soaked energy future will be possible to bear.
ghowland@seattleweekly.com
