February 2009 Archives

Electrical power has become of those necessities that are nasty and expensive to provide. We are now dependent on it, are uncomfortable and cannot perform tasks when it isn't there.

Yet we do not like the sight of power lines, substations, and generating facilities (including green ones like solar farms and wind turbines)--certainly not in our back yards, and we are worried about the emissions from fossil fuel plants, environmental damage from hydroelectric dams, and radiation from nuclear stations. The building, upgrading, and maintaining of these facilities are reasons behind the seemingly climbing electric bills.

Therefore it is exciting to see governments like the U.S. government and the province of Ontario to consider, promote and bring in measures to enable green electric energy conservation, development and management, the latter in the form of smart grids. The more efficient and greener the electricity supply the fewer the consequences of providing it.

Yet has any organization taking a look at telework: touted as a means to reduce traffic demand and resulting high energy consumption and emissions, in a method known as transportation demand management or TDM, to do the same for electric power?

Here's why telework could be part of the power solution:

1. Peak demand shaving, especially in summer

Electricity demand spikes when people return home from workplaces because they switch on the lights, and more importantly, kick on and crank up the ACs, or in winter, electric heat if they have it. The added draw pulls more output especially from backup fossil fuel-generating plants.

Too often though the demand overloads electrical circuits leading to brownouts and blackouts, both of which can fry computers and other sensitive equipment. There is also a smaller, but still occurring spike in the morning as people arrive at their workplaces, and kick on the HVACs, switch on the lights, and boot up the equipment.

In contrast, teleworkers keep their lights and AC and heating systems on a steady and low rate. Consumption does not change as much as compared to their commuter counterparts. They also do not use electric rail and bus transit systems for work trips in those metro areas that have them.

2.  Less facility-led consumption

Homes and offices require heating/AC, lighting, and power for equipment. There is electrical energy being consumed 24/7 in varying amounts regardless of occupancy. By shifting more workers home the lights can be extinguished and computer power draws diminished at no-longer-needed offices.

Also there are more alternative direct energy sources available at home, like oil and natural gas heat and modern efficient woodstoves. Temperatures can also be turned down to suit individual comfort and personal finances.

3. Business continuity

Teleworking can minimize the impacts of blackouts and brownouts and deliver business continuity by enabling organizations to spreading out their workforces. If the lights are out in Boston, Massachusetts chances are they will still be on in Boston Bar, British Columbia, Long Island.

If anyone has solid data and research on this we at TMC would be happy to see this.

 

A wirestory about the potential of green technology growth to revive California's sagging famed Silicon Valley--as desirable as green innovations and resulting employment and increased prosperity may be--contains a literal and equally toxic whiff of the proverbial 'jogger going to a convenience store to buy a pack of cigarettes.'

The story cites a report by the Silicon Valley Community Foundation and Joint Venture: Silicon Valley Network that shows that employment in the region slipped 1.3 per cent in November and per capita income eroded, decreasing nearly one per cent. 

Overall venture capital investments in Silicon Valley dropped 7.7 per cent in 2008, breaking an upward trend started in 2005.

Yet at the same time green tech investments has climbed 94 per cent since 2005 and employment in the sector has risen 23 per cent during the same years. Some of this has been heading to the Valley already. 

The issue is that the Silicon Valley is not producing the skilled workers needed to fill green technology jobs as the industry grows.

"'We need a strong system of workforce development to support adult worker retraining and transition,'" said Silicon Valley Community Foundation president Emmett Carson.

Now here's where the smoke comes in. More employment locally at jobsites means more traffic, and more pollutants that offset the green benefits from what is being created. 

While Silicon Valley has long had a light rail, bus, and commuter rail system that has been slowly growing, work travel there, like in most metro areas, mostly means cars and roads, the building, operation, accommodation, and maintenance of which damages the environment.

So here's a solution: why not encourage green tech firms--along with every other employer--to institute aggressive telework programs? And not just in Silicon Valley but elsewhere too. That way the skilled people can be found without adding to the 'brown air' emanating from clogged freeways and roads. 

Telework can and does also bring in highly skilled people who would not have otherwise applied for such employment. Those ranks includes the mobility-impaired, like the sadly growing legion of disabled military veterans and individuals who are home-bound such as those who have childcare and eldercare responsibilities. And then there the boomer wave of highly skilled people who are retired/semi-retired who would enjoy working but can't be bothered anymore with the costly stressful hassle of commuting

With telework the green tech companies can save money--$10,000 to $20,000 per person per year--that can go into R&D and manufacturing to get their products to customers--rather than on subsidizing space for warm bodies. 

Walking the walk on green tech therefore puts green back in their pockets, and into the economy. It also saves tax dollars on transportation costs.

Much tech work--except where you need to get hands-on--can be done at home. Some of the physical tasks could be handled there too. After all, that's where much of the famed innovations from Silicon Valley came from: basements and garages.

Yes, this means that some of the people hired will not be from the Silicon Valley, or from other areas seeking such benefits, hence diminishing the local economic benefits.

So what? Who cares where the person is living and working from as long as they are working, which means that they will have money that they will be spending, which in turn creates benefits like employment and more income, and taxes to subsidize road and transit systems?

After all, cleaner air in the Silicon Valley--and elsewhere--helps everyone.
 

It is great to see that jurisdictions like the Canadian province of Ontario taking steps to encourage green practices and technology.

As reported on TMCnet, the province's government will be introducing a sure-to-pass (Premier Dalton McGuinty's Liberal party holds a majority in the legislature) Green Energy Act, which will:

* Encourage conservation side by creating an Expert Advisory Council that will offer advice to the government on any future energy efficiency changes to Ontario's building code

*  Modernize the province's electrical transmission system by employing 'smart grid' technology--two way communications, advanced sensors, and distributed computing--that enable power distributors to anticipate and address problems before they lead to outages

* Make it easier to get new wind turbines, solar panels and biofuels plants online and on to the grid while protecting the environment by addressing local bylaws and regulations that are used to delay or stop proposed renewable energy projects. Ontario has brought almost 1,000 megawatts of new renewable energy on-line since 2003

The measures are on top of efforts to end burning coal at four power plants by 2014 and plans to invest in new and upgraded mass transit systems in Toronto, Ottawa, Hamilton, and Kitchener-Waterloo.

Ontario has other another good reason for these green measures: business continuity. Most of the province lost power during the infamous blackout of August 2003 and it was hit with the same ice storm that also paralyzed Quebec and New Brunswick in 1998.

As great as these steps and others are--and Premier McGuinty is to be commended for his leadership despite tough economic times that are facing his province, home to Canada's beleaguered automotive industry and facing plummeting real estate values--they are not exactly dramatic, ones that would truly put Ontario on the map.

The Telework Coalition (TelCoa) has suggested just that in its submission to Ontario's 2009 budget. Among its recommendations:

* A 'Comprehensive Trip Reduction' program aimed at incentivizing employers, both for-profit and non-profit, and post-secondary educational institutions to reduce employee and student commuting by car. The measures include and involve:

--Tax credits, or to nonprofits, institutions, and other governments grants-in-lieu of taxes for each employee or student who switches from driving to work to transit, walking, cycling, and telework. The credits/grants would be based on the direct and indirect costs of automobile commuting per person/km multiplied by the average commuting distance where the employer or college is located, as measured by Statistics Canada, minus the costs of the alternatives used

--The money granted would be used to pay for transit passes, accommodations for bikes, telework program setup, satellite locations, and relocating to areas with better transit access. A small portion could go as breaks and offsets to higher costs and reduced incomes. Compliance would be ensured by employers and schools asking and tabulating employee and student mode choice, through enrollment in formal telework and distance learning programs, and through monitoring of residents' complaints about employee/school parking

*  'The Ontario Government Telework Initiative', a new program that establishes working from home as standard practice for office-based civil service tasks, and that interpersonal contacts would be made through conferencing rather than travel for face-to-face meetings. Allocating formal offices and requiring staff to work from them, and face-to-face business travel would be the exception, rather than the rule. Here are several measures that could be contained in the Initiative

--Deploy an 'is this office necessary?' policy. The provincial government would examine employee functions to see which ones can be teleworked and create a telework policy with a dedicated manager and team. The acting assumption is that the positions can be teleworked full-time until demonstrated otherwise. The Government would open employment for teleworkable positions to all residents, regardless of where they live. The Ontario Realty Corporation, which manages the government's real estate would be charged with selling or subleasing office space either for offices or for conversions to other purposes, such as commercial, educational, medical/institutional, or residential

--Locate in "green" but not greenfield, sites. For non-teleworkable functions the government would be required to house them in facilities in downtowns and in other locations highly accessible by transit, cycling and walking. Leasing renting in greenfield developments and sites would be prohibited unless the government provides offsets such as buying development-threatened greenspace. Buildings would be chosen or retrofitted to minimize energy use

--Limit work travel. Policies should be set up to favor conferencing over travel and require staff to prove that conferencing is not feasible. Only if they are not, would employees be permitted to travel, but the rules would be set up to make driving the mode of last resort for short trips. Staff would be strongly encouraged to take trains and buses, and carpool. This policy can be applied in the same way as telework either by making travel including vehicles available only on an application-by-application basis or as part of departmental budgets that they reduce or use more cost-effectively

--Provide a service to other governments, institutions, and the private sector. The Ontario Government Telework Initiative, with a model telework policy, could be made as a model and resource for other organizations on a free or at-cost consultative basis

One of the challenges with formal telework programs as applied in government is that there has been no incentive at the managerial level to make them successful. That has proven to be the case of the U.S. federal government where savings from telework programs go to the Interior Department as opposed to the departments that achieved them. 

The Telework Coalition put forward two options to ensure departmental compliance with the Telework Initiative:

--Allocate to the Ontario Realty Corp less money (10-20 percent) less than it needs to cover Government facilities expenses. The ORC makes up the difference by requiring departments to demonstrate why they need offices and who then pay for them out of their program budgets

--Incorporate facilities costs as part of departmental program budgets, and giving managers the authority to cut them and use the savings for other purposes i.e. service delivery

The benefits of both recommendations are substantial. The Comprehensive Trip Reduction plan would deliver net savings to the Ontario Government. It achieves this by reducing commuting-purpose vehicular traffic, resulting in less need for highway spending and on related emergency services and healthcare costs.  The program would boost Ontario's economy by encouraging more spending in transit and in voice/data networks.

The Ontario Government Telework Initiative would enable the government to deliver the same, if not more services for less money by reducing facilities and travel costs, and employment expenses. The Initiative would boost productivity, cut illness-related healthcare costs, and improve work-life balance. The government could offer telework as an option to or as part of overall smaller employee compensation packages, thereby reducing labor costs. Specifically it would: 

* Permit the government to offer civil service employment to more Ontarians regardless of where they live, and at the same time widening the applicant pools to obtain the best, most productive workers available. This avoids relocation costs for employees 

* Shrink the government's environmental footprint through telework, locating needed facilities on transit routes, conferencing, and use of lower-impact transportation means

* Deliver a major boost to Ontario's economy by creating demand for voice/data network technology and services, home office furniture, and more functional and powerful home office computers, the latter three categories often supplied by local retailers 

"Encourage teleworking will help the Ontario Government achieve traffic congestion relief and reduced pollution in a far shorter timeframe than relying on mass transit improvements and HOV lanes alone, " says TelCoa." Telework strategies can achieve results in as less as six months as compared to 5 or more years for transportation projects."

TelCoa did acknowledge in its submission that there will be some need for transportation investments even with teleworking, if only to accommodate occasional travel to offices. It also accepted that teleworking could encourage sprawl with the expanded freedom to live outside of commuting distances.

In response TelCoa's presentation included measures to 'fix it first' on existing highways rather than to build new ones, modestly expand commuter rail and bus from Toronto and Ottawa into outlying areas, and to curb sprawl such as through fees tacked onto developers who build on or to the purchasers who buy commercial or residential property on greenfield (open space) sites.

The province is keeping its budget deliberation under tight wraps. With it being the home to and offices of leading comm/tech firms like Bell, Corel, Mitel, Nortel, Research in Motion, Rogers, and Telus, to name a few, one hopes that Premier McGuinty and his government would use the powerful tools of telework to step out of the box to build a greener, more productive, and prosperous future.

 

It will be possible, depending on how quickly and urgently the aviation industry acts to develop and roll out the technology, to fly and work on your laptop without worrying about the emissions-related harm being incurred and the life-enabling open space ruined by massive runways. 

The key environmental issue with flying is not so much the CO2 from the engines but from the water vapor emitted at higher altitudes, where jet aircraft operate, which turns into clouds.  Canadian journalist and historian Gwynne Dyer reports that these clouds reflect heat back to the surface "and contribute to global warming".

There is a solution, which he discussed in a recent column carried in a rural Ontario paper ,distributed free in communities located below what are arguably Canada's busiest commercial and military airways, and that is known as 'circulation control'. 

This is a technology whose function is, he quoted Dennis Bushnell, the chief scientist at NASA's Langley Research Center, "'to bleed the engines and inject air backwards at the upper trailing edge of the wing, you can produce lift coefficients which are easily three or four times what we can get out of conventional wings.'"

With circulation control, aircraft can fly more comfortably and with less harm at lower altitudes, reports Dyer. Water vapor turns to rain and bumps i.e. turbulence is minimized.  

"That [also] means very short takeoffs and landings, so short that existing runways could accommodate several aircraft at once. And the same circulation control system, used in flight, has "such tremendous control authority" that it can counter the bumps that are normally part of flying down in the weather and produce a smooth ride."

Circulation control or circulation control wings according to Wikipedia can for the archetypical Boeing 737 airliner cut approach speeds by 35 percent to 45 percent and landing distances by 55 percent to 75 percent, adding that such advances in wing design "could allow for dramatic wing size reduction in large, wide body jets." It can also significantly reduce noise pollution, making aircraft and airports nicer neighbors.

The technology still needs to be perfected. "The main problem with the circulation control wing is the need for high energy air to be blown over the wing's surface," explains the Wikipedia entry. "Such air is often taken from the engine however this drastically reduces engine power production and consequently defies the purpose of the wing. Other options are taking the exhaust gases (which must first be cooled) or using multiple, lightweight gas generators, which are separate from the main aircraft engines."

Aircraft design and technology have taken amazing leaps in performance. Isn't it time for engineers, manufacturers, and airliner customers to aim for the sky in reducing emissions?

It is gratifying to see many countries, such as Australia, Canada, the U.S., and the U.K. plan to spend money on expanding their broadband networks.
 
The Canadian Parliament passed that country's 2009 budget on Tuesday with C$225 million to be spent over three years to develop and implement a strategy on extending broadband coverage to unserved rural and remote communities. 

Public assistance is needed, says the government, which is controlled by the Conservative party led by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, because companies cannot turn a profit on the investments needed to reach out to these individuals and businesses owing to density and distance from major hubs.

Only with broadband can consumers and businesses effectively access information, goods and services, and yes work i.e. telework via the information highway by riding on the equivalent of paved roads to and from their homes, storefronts, and factories as compared with the dirt tracks of dial-up and plank roads of satellite.

Yet it would be nice for governments also to offer tax incentives, either tax deductions to corporations or grants-in-lieu of taxes to nonprofits, to nudge these organizations to provide teleworking i.e. 'GreenWorking'. The Telework Coalition has called for just that, pointing that there are parking and transit deductions but none for telework.

One of the factors holding telework back has been less-than-competent managers who are unable to supervise others without seeing them Victorian-style. Tax deductions/grants may be just what the C-suite needs to finally crack the whip on theses individuals: go home or go home, for good.

In fairness to office building landlords there should also be grants or deductions available to them to compensate for their losses. These can go to conversions to other uses, like apartments for the swelling numbers of people who can no longer afford owning single family homes, for schools, or to plowsharing: tearing down buildings and restoring the land to productive greenspace.

The money would be well-spent from a public policy perspective. It costs far less to transport a worker over broadband than over an expressway or in an express train, bus, or ferry from the direct i.e. infrastructure and indirect i.e. healthcare through accidents and illnesses perspectives. Telework also makes infrastructure investments last longer through reducing demand and congestion, which also avoids emissions incurred in maintenance and upgrades. 

Compared with the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars being poured into what is becoming obsolete modes of getting around, the actual amounts to be allocated in these incentives would be a clear, clean, drop in the bucket.