Switch

I really enjoyed Dr. Scott Tinker's journey through energy portrayed in Switch. If I had known he was that thorough in two hours, I could have skipped the entire term of Geology 306. Just kidding! That would have been a shame. Dr. Tinker did a great job of breaking down energy use into how many people per year each source can support. I thought that was a great visual for those of us who like things broken down beyond numbers and units that we have interest in, but little understanding. 

The great debate on coal is one that we are still facing. It's unfortunate that our economics prevent us from moving away from coal. The number of people still supported per year by coal is just stunning. I always find it fascinating that we built our country's backbone on coal, yet we keep trying to keep other countries from developing the same way due to climate change, when we can't even quit coal ourselves. 

I didn't realize that it took fourteen years to get to the point of making oil offshore. With that kind of timeline, it's no wonder that politics play heck on oil production in the US. I wanted to know more about the switchgrass used to create biofuel in marginal land. I know the struggle of balancing feeding people vs. creating energy is something that many people disagree on. Even with biofuel alternatives, it still appears that scale is our biggest issue in our energy needs. 

We moved on from there to the oil sands. There he was talking about the challenges facing electric cars. While they have no noise, no transmission, they still require expensive batteries and extra electricity. So, while they may have no emissions, they are still drawing on the grid. 

In Iceland, they have the unique opportunity to use geothermal. There are a couple of locations in the United States where this is possible, however, it is expensive to get started. Due to the requirement of geothermal activity, it's not a viable option for all.

Solar is a constantly changing relatively new option. It takes a few years to get a return on investment, but there are options that are coming out of it that are beneficial to all. He uses the example of a college campus where the bank owns the asset and sells power to campus for twenty years in a public/private partnership. Unfortunately, direct sunlight is required and it doesn't power many people per year. 

In Denmark, they have been able to use the wind. Wind proves to be intermittent and it's difficult to store the energy. It still only powers 340,000 people per year. For economically and ag depressed areas in Texas, it's been a great economic stimulation, but in order to make 20% of the electricity, it would require the installation of 200,000 more turbines. It's expensive to transmit into urban areas and there is still the question of who pays for it. 

Natural gas is a clean energy source, however the waste water makes it a topic of conflict. Fracking has been done for years. The process is now more improved, except in those rare extreme circumstances that create issues for the greater good of all. There is great concern that the waste water will contaminate entire water supplies. Our water supplies are limited. 

Nuclear is the last energy source covered. France has been using their trash to burn for nuclear power. Unfortunately, nuclear really scares people. Nuclear waste, nuclear war, nuclear weapons. It IS scary. But it is also incredibly efficient. 

In order to decrease our impact on the energy supply that we have, we would need to combine renewables with hydro. Nuclear and natural gas are up and coming and when combined with renewables, would be efficient. However, natural gas would have to double and nuclear would have be three times as many. 

The most straightforward response to the energy crisis is to reduce our personal usage. Dr. Tinker states that energy we don't use is key. Changing our behavior is the most important part of our energy future. By changing the way we think about energy can decrease energy use by forty percent!!! 

Kids Inc Presentation

Our group will be presenting on Feeding the Wildlife. Our plan is to educate kids on why not to feed wildlife and if you insist on doing so, to feed them something other than empty calories. Feeding birds bread creates a nutritional deficiency, creating an issue called angel wing that keeps them from flying. Feeding wildlife can also cause crowding, competition, disease, and reliance on humans for food. We also plan on helping the kids make a craft, but are undecided on what that will look like at this point.

Freshwater Ecosystem

Freshwater biomes are made up of lakes and ponds as well as rivers and streams. These freshwater biomes provide ecosystem services such as water for drinking water, crop irrigation, sanitation, and industry. In the study, “Global estimates of the value of ecosystems and their services in monetary units”, conducted by de Groot et al, the monetary value for each service per biome is broken down into values in international money per hectacre per year at 2007 price levels. The study evaluates provisioning services, regulating services, habitat services, and cultural services to create the total economic value of each biome. The freshwaters ecosystems primary value lies in providing water (1808 int$/ha/year)  and some food (106 int$/ha/year) as a provisioning service (1914 int$/ha/year total) and then recreation in cultural services (2166) for a total of 4267 per hectacre per year at 2007.

I was kind of surprised at how low the monetary value was for freshwater in comparison to other biomes such as Coral Reefs (total 352, 249), Coastal Systems (28,917), Coastal (193, 845) and Inland wetlands (25, 682). Then I remembered that it is based on PER hectacre PER year. Back on track… there’s obviously many more hectacres of other biomes. But I think this is a good example of the disconnect the general public has towards natural resources that we aren’t directly in contact with. Lakes, ponds, rivers and streams are built into the fabric of our lives here in Bend, so of course we would put great value on them, perhaps moreso than the ocean that we don’t see.

I would be interested in seeing how many hectacres of lakes we have in just the Cascade Lakes to get a more direct picture of what they are trying to say with numbers. I understand water as a precious resource, I really enjoyed the Intro to Water Policy class here at OSU-C. I grew up in an agricultural area and value irrigation, as well as being outside and recreating on our freshwater sources. Again, it’s interesting to see how the mind fragments water resources. Most are removed from the issues surrounding irrigation, water comes from a tap, flushes the toilet, I don’t think we connect it very well with our weekends up at the lake or our walk by the river. Our appreciation comes in pieces that don’t always connect with our actions. We may understand the value of water more in terms of real estate around it. The closer to the water, the more valuable it is. And, spending much of our summers out camping, I do understand the cultural services being a large amount of the value of this biome.

I’m actually also quite fascinated by the Great Lakes region due to the industrial usage. Their lakes are used quite differently than our lakes are. Also very fascinating to me is the Mississippi River. Our education in the Pacific Northwest is great for building a sense of pride in our beautiful region, we sing songs about the Columbia River as we grow up and learn about our area. There are other areas who face water crisis’ and conflicts that we need to learn about, so we can learn from them. I think that in order to understand the importance of the dollar value of water, there has to be a greater awareness of the connection between water and it’s services to not only our lives, but of those around us as well.

Introduction

My name is Tori, I have lived in Bend since 1997. Previously from both Western and Eastern Washington. 

I would say that the top three natural resource issues today would be:

• Climate change
• Deforestation
• Pollution

Climate change is a controversial subject. Our glaciers are melting. The ocean is warming up. Greenhouse gases from travel are trapping heat and pollution. Some people believe and others don't. 

Deforestation happens as we clear areas to produce more money making crops such as coffee or palm oil. Taking away wide swaths of trees takes away our natural air filters and contributes to climate change. 

Pollution: just because we have the EPA and have improved our practices, decreasing the amount our country produces, doesn't mean that we haven't moved or sold those operations to other countries who are now in the business of taking care of our waste. There are swirls of trash that are larger than France out in the ocean. Out of sight, out of mind. Mining is an operation that creates waste water and nasty pollution, as well. That's a game changer and leveler for poorer countries, but they are having to make the same sacrifice of their poor people to mine and deal with the health issues related to mining.