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Obama Stops Bush’s Last-Minute Rollbacks January 25, 2009 Reporting by Roddy Scheer Rahm Emanuel, Obama’s new Chief of Staff, says the White House will review any last-minute Bush regulations. The day after Barack Obama’s inauguration, the new administration ordered a stop to all pending regulations pushed through in the waning days of the Bush administration. In a publicly released memo, Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel said that the White House will carry out its own legal and policy reviews on the specific rules before making a final decision on them. Some of the new Bush rules that will likely never see the light of day include proposals to eliminate protection for threatened gray wolves in the northern Rockies, to weaken the Endangered Species Act, to allow mining companies to dump their waste within sensitive riparian zones and to exempt large-scale factory farms from notifying government officials when they release unsafe levels of toxic emissions into surrounding communities. Despite Obama’s success in stopping these rules from going into effect, many other so-called “midnight regulations” have already become law. “While we are pleased that the new administration has put a stop to these hasty actions, there are some rules we continue to monitor,” said Patti Goldman of the nonprofit Earthjustice. The group is working with a diverse coalition of environmental groups in launching challenges in federal court to other eleventh-hour rule changes beyond the reach of the new administration. Source: Earth Justice

Better Air, Longer Lives January 25, 2009 Reporting by Roddy Scheer Cleaner air has increased American life expectancy by nearly five months. © www.lcv.org A new federally funded study shows that cleaner air in the U.S. over the past two decades has led to an overall increase in life expectancy of nearly five months for Americans on average. Researchers from Brigham Young University and the Harvard School of Public Health found that between 1978 and 2001, Americans’ average life span increased almost three years to 77. They attribute as much as 4.8 months of that increase to better air quality thanks to compliance with and enforcement of strong environmental laws—especially the landmark Clean Air Act—enacted in the early and mid-1970s. “This finding provides direct confirmation of the population health benefits of mitigating air pollution,” said Daniel Krewski, a pollution researcher at the University of Ottawa in Canada who helped with the study, which appeared in last week’s issue of the peer-reviewed New England Journal of Medicine. Sources: The New England Journal of Medicine; MSNBC

COMMENTARY: Footballs Grow on Trees This Year’s Superbowl will be the Greenest Yet By Brita Belli Volunteers plant trees donated by the NFL at the Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa, Florida. © Museum of Science and Industry Thoughts of Superbowl showdowns rarely involve carbon footprints, but the National Football League takes its green impact seriously. In fact, the league has its own Environmental Program that’s dedicated to planting trees, offsetting emissions and reducing the food, packaging and decoration waste from game-day itself. This year’s Superbowl XLIII is Sunday, February 1, at 6 p.m., between the Pittsburgh Steelers and the Arizona Cardinals at the Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida. It will mark the first time the Cardinals have ever made it to the Superbowl, but the fifth year that the NFL has undertaken “urban forestry” as part of its green initiative. That means they launched a dozen different tree-planting projects in the Tampa Bay area leading up to the big game, from individual trees planted along downtown streets to more than 400 native trees planted along the grounds of the Pinellas County Extension. The Museum of Science and Industry in Tampa keeps a blog called The Longleaf tracking the campus’ urban forest restoration, and over 80 volunteers at the school celebrated Florida Arbor Day on January 13 by planting 120 trees donated, in part, by the NFL. On January 17, the NFL spread more Florida Arbor Day cheer when it chose the Florida city of Dunedin as the site to plant 86 more trees in its efforts to offset the Superbowl’s greenhouse gas emissions. What’s particularly noteworthy about this year’s NFL tree planting is that for the first time they are using a monitoring program developed by the U.S. Forest Service, with support from the Florida Division of Forestry, to track the actual greenhouse gas impact of the trees they’re planting each year. Watching the Waste Of course, tree-planting alone is not enough. The actual game-day comes with a lot of requisite waste—much of it in the form of food and food packaging, but also in all the decorations and related fan memorabilia, much of which would traditionally be torn down and tossed aside. So the NFL Environmental Program includes food recovery at the stadium, donating decorations and building materials to local nonprofits, using renewable energy on game day, collecting books and sports equipment for local kids and buying carbon offsets for players and officials travelling to the game. And you thought it was all about the commercials… BRITA BELLI is the editor of E.

Drill, Baby, Drill Cutting Bills and Emissions with Geothermal By Pete Hildebrandt W hile politicians have been arguing over drilling in the Arctic and along the coasts, an “underground” energy movement has been quietly taking shape. Last August, Google’s philanthropic group Google.org announced it was investing over 10 million dollars in an energy technology called Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS). Google’s initiative, called RE Geothermal’s selling point is that it can deliver vast quantities of power at all times: There’s no waiting for the wind to blow or sun to shine. And, it can be captured almost anywhere on the planet. EGS involves drilling a well miles into the earth’s hot crust and circulating a fluid through pipes back to the surface where the hot water and steam then power a turbine that creates electricity. The world’s first commercial EGS plant is underway in Australia. The Home Version While we’re waiting for enhanced geothermal to show up in large-scale energy production in America, the home version is well underway. About six million people in the U.S. get energy from geothermal applications—nearly half from geothermal plants in the West, and the other half from direct-use and geothermal heat pumps. Also known as ground-source heat pumps (GSHPs), geothermal heat pumps use a similar concept as an EGS plant, only on a much smaller scale. Because the upper 10 feet of the earth maintains an almost constant temperature between 50° and 60°F (10°-16°C), the pumps exchange air with the ground to heat and cool buildings. During installation, 200-300-foot holes are drilled into the yard and pipes are inserted vertically, or pipe is laid out horizontally about six feet under the ground. Water is circulated through the pipes, and is exchanged in a heat pump about the size of a medium refrigerator inside the house. A horizontal geothermal ground loop. © Brian Henderson Though the initial cost of installation is sometimes two to three times greater than that of an electric heat pump, the savings in electricity brings a payback of three to eight years (two to three years for commercial buildings). Thereafter, homeowners will enjoy a 25%-65% reduction in heating and cooling electricity costs for the life of the system—about 25 years for the unit and 50 years for the ground loop. There is a positive cash flow, since the energy savings usually exceed payment on the system, according to the International Ground Source Heat Pump Association (IGSHP). Demand Is Growing Ground-source heat pumps only use electricity to move heat, not produce it, so a GSHP typically supplies four to five kilowatts of heat for every kilowatt of electricity used. Three to four of these kilowatts of heat come directly from the earth itself, and are clean, free and renewable. According to the IGSHP, these heat pumps also minimize ozone layer destruction by using factory-sealed refrigeration systems, which will seldom if ever have to be recharged. And because the system doesn’t rely on outside air, it keeps a home’s inside air cleaner and free from pollens, outdoor pollutants, mold spores and other allergens. Demand for GSHPs is increasing at a rate of about 20% per year, according to the Geo-Heat Center at the Oregon Institute of Technology. That kind of growth is about all the industry can handle for now: A recent New York Times article brought to light the struggle the industry is having in keeping up with demand for the machinery, contractors, drillers and other trained workers. For Houses Old and New A GSHP makes sense for a new home, since the cost of the heat pump is figured into the mortgage. Homeowners who are planning to retrofit their homes with renewable energy often first think of solar, but a GSHP may be a better first choice, says Brian Henderson of Envinity, Inc., a green design and construction company in State College, Pennsylvania. GSHPs can take care of about half of the hot water needs of a household, as well as dehumidifying the home, so once the GSHP is up and running (which it does very quietly), it’s easier to get an idea of how much solar would be needed to take care of the rest of the electric load. According to the U.S. Department of Energy, about 64% of a home’s energy consumption is for heating, cooling and hot water. A GSHP might just be the answer to the vital need to conserve that energy, and give new meaning to the cry of “Drill, baby, drill.” PETER HILDEBRANDT writes extensively on energy and science issues.   Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to E/The Environmental Magazine! CONTACTS International GroundSource Heat Pump Association Google RE<C initiative Geothermal Heat Pump Consortium The Geo-Heat Center at the Oregon Institute of Technology Envinity, Inc.

INNOVATION: Purifying the Business of Selling Water By Astrid M. Krogstad © Element Four In 2004, Jonathan Ritchey and Rick Howard joined forces to address the loss of one of the world’s most precious resources: water. The majority of the planet is covered with water (326 million cubic miles), yet only 3% is fresh water and even less is accessible to humans. Element Four is Ritchey and Howard’s answer—a company devoted to easing the global fresh-water shortage. Their product, the WaterMill, converts air into potable water through condensation followed by antimicrobial processes. The water then travels to various “points-of-use systems” such as home faucets and refrigerators. Ideally, the WaterMill will produce 3.2 gallons of water per day—enough to meet the needs of a family of six. And at an average operating cost of 35 cents per day, it far surpasses in cost-effectiveness the price of bottled water. The point is to alleviate the environmental burden of bottled water, while placing control of fresh water sources into the hands of consumers. The WaterMill is at the intersection of technology, environmentalism and philanthropy. Though the company’s target demographic will initially consist of suburbanites, Howard and Ritchey envision adapting the product for worldwide use. “With a minimum relative humidity, the WaterMill can be of benefit to any consumer in almost any environment, and this is where Element Four can have a global impact on the water crisis,” says Howard. Available in February, it is the first in an upcoming line of products that will include a solar-powered version of the WaterMill as well as the WaterWall, a large-scale adaptation for use on an industrial scale.   Did you enjoy this article? Subscribe to E/The Environmental Magazine! CONTACTS Element Four