The LookOut is a monthly
review of climate issues and recent developments in our neighborhood.
Miranda
Dairy, a third generation family farm of 730 acres near Ferndale,
transitioned to organic in 2000. It is the mainstay of a group of
local dairies called Western Organic Family. Local dairies struggle
to stay in business as they are buffeted by market forces favoring
much larger dairies. Setting up an anaerobic co-digester–as Miranda
Dairy and the other six dairies of WOF plan to do–converts manure, a
waste product, into a profitable product, biogas. This plan makes the
kind of financial sense that could help these dairies stay afloat,
thanks to generous state subsidies. Whether or not making biogas will
actually help the climate, however, is difficult to calculate, all
things considered.
Right
now most Humboldt dairies let their cows graze during at least half
of the year and house them in freestall barns when pasture conditions
are too inhospitable. In contrast, most large dairies down south
dispense with pastures. Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations take
place in huge enclosures on concrete. The manure is sluiced through a
system of canals to huge lagoons. Covering these toxic lagoons
captures most of the methane and converts it to biogas, reducing
emissions of the super climate pollutant.
Miranda
Dairy and the other six dairies of WOF propose to pool their manure
by trucking it in EVs to an anaerobic digester. It
will also digest food waste from various sources, possibly
including, in 2024, Humboldt county’s new organic waste stream
mandated by SB 1383.
It’s
highly dubious that
the business model of making biogas can accommodate cows grazing on
pastures
where their manure decomposes and fertilizes the grass. This
old-fashioned,
bucolic
method may well produce less methane than concentrating the stuff in
lagoons, according to this study [at file:///C:/Users/Owner/Downloads/atmosphere-14-00120-v2.pdf].
.Also, the dairies plan to expand their herds and produce more manure
once the digester is set up. adding food waste to manure
also increases methane beyond a simple sum of the two. All of this
flies in the face of the whole idea of reducing methane to begin
with.
This
complicated, real-life picture includes other impacts
but also benefits that must be considered and weighed. The net result
as compared to the status quo is very difficult to calculate.
I plan to explore this issue in more excruciating detail in a future
issue of Eco-News.
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For more than five years
people have traveled
along Humboldt Bay Trail North from Arcata to a few yards short of
Bracut Industrial Park . . . and then turned around and gone back to
Arcata. Fortunately, the days are numbered for that anti-climactic
journey. With any luck, construction on the Humboldt Bay Trail South
will begin this May and be completed sometime during the summer of
2024. Bicyclists, skaters, skateboarders, and others will then be
able to traverse fourteen miles between Eureka and central Arcata
without competing with motorized traffic.
The Board of Supervisors
reviewed the county staff report for the
Humboldt Bay Trail South project at its January 24th
meeting, and voted to put the job out for bid on the 31st.
The estimated cost of the trail has been covered by the
$16,396,000 raised from several entities, with the lion’s share
coming from the California Transportation Commission.
At its south end the new trail
will cross the Eureka Slough railroad bridge to connect with the
Eureka Waterfront trail. That will call for replacing at least 25% of
the timber crossties. The northernmost stretch of eucalyptus trees
alongside Hwy. 101 will be cut down much to the dismay of many of us
tree lovers. The stark choice of trees or trail was conclusively
reinforced by an independent arborist report.
simulation courtesy of Lost Coast Outpost
More
than thirty bus enthusiasts surprised
the Social Services Transportation Advisory Council [SSTAC] at its
February 1 meeting. SSTAC is a committee of Humboldt County Association of Governments,
the major county agency for all transportation issues. The attendees
expressed support for big changes to Humboldt’s bus service. A
majority of them were climate activists who supported more frequent
and faster bus service in order to increase ridership and decrease
transportation emissions.
How
to accomplish that? One way would be to introduce a modified express
run from McKinleyville to College of the Redwoods that would run
every fifteen minutes. Other routes every 30 minutes would bring
riders to the main corridor and supplement service. Obviously, local
leaders will need to commit to the funding.
For
updates on all transportation issues, check the website for The Coalition for Responsible Transportation Priorities. CRTP
advocates for reducing vehicle miles traveled and transportation
emissions, plus making transportation healthier and safer.
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While we’re on the
subject of buses,
consider yourself invited to join our third bus expedition on
Thursday, March 2. If you hop on a bus that will
take you to downtown Eureka, you may see other 350 Humboldt members
headed that way. The destination is Old Town Gazebo—four blocks
from the nearest bus stop–at 12:15. The objective is lunch. Some
travelers may eat at a nearby restaurant (probably Ramones), but
those who prefer to eat outdoors should bring a picnic lunch.
Please contact Cathy at
[email protected]
to
let her know you’re coming.
Entitle your email “bus adventure.” She’d like to know who is
coming so she can make sure we’re all on the same page. Also she’ll
need to contact you if the event is canceled due to bad weather (and
to tell the truth, the forecast isn’t looking so good right now).
Interested in a free bus pass?
Let Cathy know. Are you interested in helping to organize the next
bus adventure? Let her know that too!
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Pitting rooftop solar
against utility-scale solar
seems like a game to be played far in the future when fossil fuels
have been vanquished. Nevertheless, that is what the CPUC has done when it
cut back on NEM for rooftop solar producers. Yes, utility-scale
electricity is cheaper than rooftop solar. But surely it’s way too
soon to stop encouraging people to foot the hefty upfront costs of
solar panels. Rooftop solar avoids the siting impacts and battles of
utility-scale solar, plus people often learn a sense of
responsibility for their energy usage when they’re producing their
own.
Add storage, and we’re
talking about energy independence—something pretty important if you
live in Humboldt where power outages are frequent. Storage also helps
people get the biggest price for their solar energy by releasing it
during the time of the day when it’s needed the most. As more and
more people take that route, I’m hoping iron-air batteries can be
scaled for home storage.
Starting in April the new
net-metering rate (NEM 3.0) will reduce incentives for rooftop solar quite a bit. However, new solar interconnection applications filed by
April 14th,
2023 will get the benefit of the old NEM 2.0 rate for twenty years.
That is something to consider now if you have solar ambitions for
your rooftop. Also, check out the federal Investment Tax Credit
for rooftop solar. You can deduct 30% of the cost of new PV systems
installed between 2022 and 2032.
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Bill Mead, Unsplashed Photos
Do
not despair, fans of distributed solar energy. California may have
just seriously diluted the rooftop solar revolution, but it has also
provided distributed solar with a boon. Congressman Chris Ward
introduced AB 2316 in the nick of time, and the legislature passed it
with record speed.
Named
the Community Renewable Energy Act, it combines wholesale economy of
costs with the benefits of distributed solar energy. You may not be
able to afford solar panels on your roof, or perhaps your roof is
shaded by all those darn trees. Don’t cut down the trees! Subscribe
to a big solar installation on a big sunny roof somewhere else, and
in return you will receive energy credits that reduce your bill.
California
is way ahead of the rest of the nation for rooftop solar. But it has
never managed to create a community solar market for people who
aren’t able to clap some panels on their own roofs. It tried twice
before to do exactly this, but poor structuring doomed these attempts. Part
of the problem for both community solar programs and rooftop solar is
the way non-participants end up subsidizing to some degree solar
energy that doesn’t directly benefit them. This cost shift—especially
to low-income ratepayers–was cited as a reason for PG&E to
reduce its support for rooftop solar. Community Solar has structured
an Avoided Cost Calculator that is supposed to avoid this cost shift
while also maximizing compensation rates.
AB
1236 goes further to prevent cost shift. Each new project is required
make sure that 51% of its subscribers
are
low-income households. (That makes constructing projects eligible for
a 10% tax credit under the Inflation Reduction Act.)
Due
to an excess of solar energy during the sunny hours, battery storage
for community solar projects will greatly increase the value of their
electricity. A huge new
solar market
could be created, greatly curtailing the use of expensive, dirty,
natural gas peaker plants.
The
distributed energy of community solar projects equipped with battery
storage will also mean less power outages because of fire or
earthquake.
Here’s
a great article about designing community solar in California.
Good
News Bonus Section
Eat your crops and have your energy too – Cool Solutions
explores surprising new symbiosis between solar panels and farming.
Get Uncle Sam to help you make big energy improvements to your
house. Eco-News Reportgets the details from the folks at
RCEA.
Newfangled floating wind turbines
are producing even more energy than expected.
Biden
administration pays the Forest Service
to cap methane-leaking orphan oil and gas wells
Do you have doubts about heat pumps? Read this article.