2006-7 AEE-NY Advance Planning Calendar (Third Tuesdays)

SEPTEMBER 2006 NEWSLETTER

Topic: Building Performance:

Emerging Tools for Enhanced Operations

Speakers: Leonard Pisano, Maximum Performance Group

Robert Sauchelli, US EPA Energy Star

Kimberley Lenihan, NYSERDA

Where: Cornell Cooperative Extension,

16 East 34th Street, 8th floor

When: Tuesday, September 19th, 5:30 p.m. - 8:00 p.m.

Reminders: Sandwiches, soda, networking 5:30-6:00. $15 for chapter members, $20 for non-members

Chapter sessions generally carry Continuing Education Units. Certification at the meeting.

RECENT RESEARCH strongly suggests that operational practices can have a major impact on building energy performance, along with comfort and tenant satisfaction. Systematic diagnostics, web-based technology, and benchmarking for upper management are tools that differentiate today’s emerging approach from the lists of “low-cost/no-cost O&M measures” familiar from old- time energy audits. The new methods fit together as part of a strategic process that encompasses remote monitoring and control, third-party collaborations, new skills training, organizational commitment, and continuous process improvement. Enhance your toolkit with awareness of these emergent elements of energy-efficiency practice, how they work, individually and together.

About Our Speakers

Len Pisano is the chief executive and a founder of the Maximum Performance Group which has developed and supports a web-based technology for intelligent control of mechanical and electrical systems, applying “continuous commissioning” concepts. He has over thirty years experience in the energy and controls industries.

Robert Sauchelli, is one of the originators of US EPA’s Energy Star Buildings program. A performance- based public recognition program, the Energy Star Buildings program offers a suite of tools for benchmarking energy performance that can be used for tracking performance improvement.

Kimberley Lenihan, is NYSERDA’s project manager for Building Performance programs. A chemical engineer with industrial background, Kim leads several initiatives in this area, including retro-commissioning activities, a new operations-based performance contract program, and transfer of prototype diagnostic tools through the State Technology Acceleration Collaboration (STAC).

2006-7 AEE-NY Advance Planning Calendar (Third Tuesdays) Oct 17 Bio-engineering of fuels and products Nov 21 Energy purchasing Jan 16 New Governor’s Energy Policy Feb 20 Chilled Water System Optimization March 20 Residential Demand Response (results of student competition) April 17 Con Edison Steam System May 15 Grid of the Future

AEE-NY is pleased to present this program in cooperation with the

Environmental Business Association of New York and the EBA Energy Task Force

Current NY Chapter AEE Sponsors:

Association for Energy Affordability Con Ed Solutions EME Group

Con Edison PB Power Syska Hennessy Group Trystate Mechanical Inc.

Just Like Others Considering a Presidential Bid, Pataki Unveils a National Energy Plan

By Matthew L. Wald, The New York Times, August 8, 2006

WASHINGTON, Aug. 7 — Gov. George E. Pataki, stopping here Monday between trips to New Hampshire and Iowa, laid out an energy plan that called for cutting American consumption of oil by one-fourth of current levels over the next 10 years.

Emphasizing policies that set him apart from many of his fellow Republicans, Mr. Pataki proposed incentives for companies to produce alternatives to gasoline and diesel, to market the substitute fuels, and to build cars capable of burning them. In a half-hour speech, he called for a national campaign to reduce dependence on foreign oil, an effort that he compared to World War II and the American Revolution. “One of America’s defining characteristics, as a people and as a nation, is our knack for accepting and overcoming great challenges,” he said.

The challenge now, he said, is that much of the imported oil comes from hostile regimes. He cited Iran and said that each time the price went up $5 a barrel, that provided “$85 million more a day, that they can use to advance their nuclear program or buy more Katyusha rockets for Hezbollah.” (In fact, Mr. Pataki’s office later acknowledged that the number is closer to $85 million a week.)

Mr. Pataki has not publicly discussed any presidential ambitions, and said he was looking forward to a trip to Iowa in the near future to help campaign for Republicans there. But proposing an energy policy is becoming as much a rite of a presidential candidacy as stumping in Iowa, which traditionally holds the first caucus to choose delegates to the national nominating conventions, and his call for relying on corn-based fuels like ethanol is likely to resonate in that state.

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, who also has not said if she wants to run in 2008, made an energy speech in May in the same place, the National Press Club. She called for cutting imports in half by 2025.

Mr. Pataki proposed relying more on ethanol from corn, which is already in the marketplace, and ethanol from cellulose, which is not, and biodiesel, which is made from vegetable oil. He said the government should not pick the technology, but only offer companies financial incentives to work on the problem. For example, he said, companies constructing plants that make fuel from vegetable matter should be able to expense their capital investments.

He said governments should lead the way, as New York has done, by cutting their consumption, especially of petroleum. And he noted that last week he signed a bill that prohibits oil companies from preventing gas stations they supply from selling alternative fuels.

New cars could be built with the ability to burn gasoline or ethanol at a cost that was “about the same price they would pay to buy floor mats,” he said. Building such cars and running them on biofuels whenever possible would wean the country from “the petroleum that is enriching our enemies and polluting our air,” he said.

The nation is spending $1 billion a day on oil imports, money that should be spent domestically, he said. “How much longer must we, the world’s greatest nation, be made to hold our breath whenever oil ministers meet in some exotic foreign locale?” he asked. Asked why President Bush had not set up so ambitious a policy, Mr. Pataki said that the Bush administration had made major progress. In fact, Mr. Pataki’s plan shares many elements with a variety of proposals made by elected officials since gasoline hit $3 a gallon. On a particularly contentious oil issue, whether drilling should be allowed in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, he said that drilling in American territory should be expanded but that he could not rule anything in or out. He also said he did not favor increasing the federal gasoline tax, a step that economists say would encourage people to use less gasoline.

Mr. Pataki said he was studying whether carbon dioxide, a global warming gas emitted by power plants, could be captured and permanently stored underground, perhaps in old oil fields where it would force more oil to the surface. He added that New York, with his support, was one of seven Northeastern states that signed an agreement last December that seeks to limit carbon dioxide output from power plants.

Chicago Expedites Permits for Green Buildings;

Program Exceeds Expectations

By Amanda Webb, Architectural Record, July 20, 2006

WHEN it is completed in early 2009, 60-story 300 North LaSalle will be one of Chicago’s taller structures. But local real estate players may take closer note that developer Hines Interests snatched a building permit faster than average, too, in a speedy 30 days.

The 1.3-million-square-foot office tower is one of a growing number of buildings participating in Chicago’s year-old Green Permit Program, which expedites permitting for sustainable buildings. Designed by architecture firm Pickard Chilton, the building will have a 50-percent green roof and will use condenser water supplied by the Chicago River, thus eliminating cooling towers. Hines’ Vice President of Construction Scott Pimcoe says the company decided to apply to the program because “there is a huge construction boom in Chicago—sometimes getting a permit can be really laborious.”

With the support of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, the city’s Department of Construction and Permits initiated the program in April 2005 to “encourage the use of green incentives, especially in private development, and to make sure that they’re doing it well,” says Erik Olsen, who has been the program’s chief administrator since its launch.

Projects fall into one of three tiers, and greener projects gain greater benefits. The owners of Tier I commercial and other non-residential projects, including 300 North LaSalle, promise that they will be LEED-certified. These buildings also feature one item from a “menu” of sustainable building strategies that include, among others, a green roof, extra affordability, and transit-oriented development. Owners who accomplish LEED Silver building with one menu item advance to Tier II, which waives the consultant review fee in addition to 30-day permitting. Tier III projects must earn LEED Gold and feature two menu items, for which the consultant fee is waived and a permit issued within 15 days. Olsen explains that LEED status verifies an application (residential projects must conform to the Chicago Green Homes rating system), while the menu items act as billboards for sustainability.

Olsen first sits down with project teams several months before they make permit submittals. Applicants view this extra attention as an added benefit: “We received good advice from Erik and his department, which found its way into the design of the building,” says Roark Frankel, senior vice president of U.S. Equities, project managers for the Spurdis Institute for Jewish Studies, a Tier II building currently under construction.

Granting incentives at such an early stage in a building’s development can be problematic. Besides submitting a LEED project registration number as part of a permit review, developers must file a proof of submission for LEED certification within 180 days of completion. They are also required to sign contracts binding them to their sustainability plans, and there are considerable consequences—fee reimbursement or permit revocation, for example—for not following through.

And yet, by the end of the 2005 calendar year, 19 green permits were issued for projects, and 36 permits have been issued so far this year, which puts the program well on track to meet its goal of 40. Olsen says that nonprofit and university owners took to the program the quickest, but that it now spans a fuller range of building types.

Although there are no other cities with a program as comprehensive as Chicago’s, Olsen has received inquiries from cities as far as Seattle and Toronto. In Washington, D.C., the organization GreenHome is pushing for local legislation for a green permitting system because, as Executive Director Patty Rose says, “Erik is running a program that is moving green building faster through permits, and I'm convinced that he's actually helping make better green buildings.”

California to Shrink Greenhouse-Gas Emissions

Under Groundbreaking Plan

In arguably the biggest step ever taken in the U.S. to fight global warming, California's political leaders reached a deal to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the state 25 percent by 2020.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger (R) pledged to sign Assembly Bill 32, under which the California Air Resources Board will set emissions limits for various industries beginning in 2012, and will have the authority to choose whether to institute an emissions-trading system. The bill will give the governor power to lift emissions caps for up to one year under "extraordinary circumstances. "The deal emerged after intense negotiations, and reactions were as expected: greens were satisfied but wished controls had been more stringent; business leaders were ticked off. Schwarzenegger, who's loudly touting his green credentials in his reelection campaign this year, proclaimed, "The success of our system will be an example for other states and nations to follow as the fight against climate change continues."

(Summary from Grist magazine)

Weather Report

Here is all the weather data you could use: http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2006/s2663.htm.

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Letter to the Editor

Dick, I know you like feedback. So here's a positive and a negative comment.

First the negative: I found the Village Voice article “Behind the Blackout “ both confused and confusing, most definitely not a useful contribution to public understanding and discussion of the failure.

The confusion comes from trying to force the most recent blackout to be a result of deregulation. Not that I am any great fan of dereg, but the distribution system remains regulated and so most directly, the failure of wires in the street represents a failure of the regulatory system. To try to blame it on dereg in fact lets the regulators off the hook!

If competitive pressure on the commodity side of the business (which, awkwardly, Con Ed still maintains) was forcing them to skimp on the regulated side, this is a secondary affect and one to which the regulators should have been alert. But such a secondary affect was not demonstrated and cannot be assumed.

So, since I found the article garbled and conceptually confusing, I was disappointed that you chose it as your lead. Maybe as a follow-up you might be able to find something more satisfying?

On the other hand, I had not seen Andy Revkin's piece in The New York Times about change to the NASA mission statement. So very appreciative of your picking up on this article and passing it around -- most important that you help us in understanding the highly political context in which we labor. These guys in power are so sneaky and not unsubtle. It is so upsetting! Jim Hansen is surely going to have more battles to fight.

Michael Bobker

In Heated Hearing, House Panel Debates Research Behind Global-Warming Theory

By Richard Monastersky, The Chronicle of Higher Education, July 20, 2006

WASHINGTON - In an unusual hearing on Wednesday, Congress spent six hours discussing the work of a prominent climate researcher, picking apart one particular graph that shows the world is warmer now than in any other period over the past millennium. Republicans and Democrats sparred over whether the graph was incorrect and what impact that would have in discussions about global warming.

Over the course of the hearing, before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, members tried to score political and rhetorical points by invoking Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, quantum mechanics, and the finer points of atmospheric science.

The hearing focused on the work of Michael E. Mann, an associate professor of meteorology at Pennsylvania State University at University Park. In 1998 Mr. Mann and two colleagues published the first of several studies that used climate information taken from tree rings, glaciers, and ice cores to reconstruct temperatures in the distant past. The following year, Mr. Mann's group reported that the 1990s were likely to have been the warmest decade of the millennium and 1998 the warmest year. Their graph of Northern Hemisphere temperatures over the past 1,000 years was featured in a 2001 report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a United Nations body. The graph has been dubbed the "hockey stick" because temperatures for most of the millennium are relatively flat, until the late 20th century, when they shoot up like the blade of the stick.

Other researchers have since conducted similar studies and reached largely the same conclusion: that temperatures in the past few decades have been anomalously warm. But questions have emerged about Mr. Mann's work, and his graph has served as a lightning rod for criticism of global-warming studies. Last year, Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican of Texas and chairman of the energy committee, sent a letter to Mr. Mann and his co- authors demanding information about how they had conducted their work, a move that many scientists took to be a form of harassment. That investigation was denounced by the chairman of the House Science Committee, Rep. Sherwood L. Boehlert, a Republican of New York, who called it "misguided and illegitimate" (The Chronicle, July 18, 2005).

Mr. Boehlert asked the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences to investigate the issue, and an academy panel issued its report last month. The panel said there was a high level of confidence that the climate is warmer now than at any other time in the past four centuries. It also concluded that there was an array of evidence suggesting the late-20th-century warmth in the Northern Hemisphere was unprecedented in the past millennium. It found that conclusion "plausible" but said the uncertainties were greater going back in time, and so the panel did not have as high a level of confidence in that statement (The Chronicle, June 23).

While the academy panel was conducting its well-publicized assessment, Mr. Barton and Rep. Edward Whitfield of Kentucky, chairman of the energy committee's Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations, which held Wednesday's hearing, commissioned a more-secret assessment by three academic statisticians. Edward J. Wegman, a professor of information technology and applied statistics at George Mason University, led that panel, which produced a report that was released last week by the subcommittee. It is called the "Ad Hoc Committee Report on the 'Hockey Stick' Global-Climate Reconstruction."

In explaining the reasons for the investigation, Mr. Whitfield said at the hearing that "everyone has latched onto this hockey stick and almost created a panic." He added, "it's important that we understand how the hockey stick came about."

Mr. Wegman testified at the hearing that Mr. Mann had made a methodological error in his statistics. Instead of calibrating his data set over the full thousand years, he centered the data relative to conditions in the past 100 years, Mr. Wegman said.

Mr. Mann's graph "is incorrect because the mathematics that underpins it is incorrect," Mr. Wegman said in an interview. His study suggests that Mr. Mann's analytical method will artificially produce a hockey-stick shape when it is used on many forms of data. At the hearing, however, Hans von Storch, a professor of meteorology at the University of Hamburg, disputed that point, saying the method artificially produces the hockey-stick shape only in rare cases when there are no other patterns in the data -- something that is unlikely to happen with data from the real world. Mr. von Storch concurred that there is a "glitch" in Mr. Mann's work, but he said it turned out to have had no effect when he tested the method.

Mr. Wegman also argued that the group of scientists who study past climate is too insular and is incapable of adequately reviewing papers by its members.

Rep. Henry A. Waxman, a Democrat from California, echoed many of his Democratic colleagues on the subcommittee when he denounced the day's discussions. "I don't find this hearing about the truth," he said. "It's about sowing doubt."

The man at the center of the debate was not even at the hearing. Mr. Mann was in Vermont, taking care of his baby daughter while his wife attended a conference. He said he had asked the subcommittee to reschedule the hearing but had been rebuffed.

At the hearing, several congressmen speculated about why Mr. Mann was not there, with some condescendingly remarking that he couldn't cut short his vacation.

In an interview, Mr. Mann said the Wegman report "is simply a regurgitation of various specious claims and criticisms that have been put forward."

Western States Face Mold Danger Despite Dry Climate

Insurance Journal, July 10, 2006

CONTRARY TO POPULAR BELIEF, climate is not a good gauge for mold risk, according to a ranking of states at risk for mold contamination on commercial and residential property. Areas with dry climates like Nevada and Arizona made it American Risk Management Resources' top 10 listing of mold risk areas, while some Gulf States did not come close.

Because mold damage is now excluded or severely limited on standard property insurance, concerns about the financial impact of a mold outbreak in a home or business continue to rise.

In the relative hazard ranking model developed by ARMR, and now being used by Greenguard Environmental Institute (GEI), "dry states" (Oklahoma, Kansas) intermingle with predictably high-risk mold zones (Florida, South Carolina), but Texas beat them all: The GEI/ARMR relative hazard ranking model was developed by comparing mold losses on insurance claims with premiums paid on property and liability coverage in the 50 states. The hazard ranking model does not yet reflect claims associated with 2005 hurricanes that struck the Southeastern US. Wisconsin has the lowest relative mold loss rate, which is one-50th the loss rate in Texas, based on the relative frequency of insurance claims.

"Mention mold right now, and the Gulf Coast comes to mind first, but the contamination on real estate hit by hurricanes was generally less significant overall than mold growth caused by inferior building materials or poor construction," said Carl Smith, CEO/Executive Director of GEI, a non-profit organization working with lenders and developers on mold risk mitigation techniques. "It's counterintuitive to think of shopping centers in Phoenix or casinos in Las Vegas as being at risk for mold, but it makes sense when you examine the causes of mold and problems often caused by modern building practices and materials."

According to Smith, many buildings and houses in dry climates develop mold issues when moisture is nurtured within walls and windows that are tightly sealed off from consistently hot conditions outside.

"Think of a glass of ice water sitting on your porch in 95-degree heat," said Smith. "Condensation quickly forms on the outside of the glass, but unlike your drink, condensation in a home or business has nowhere to run off so it builds up in the cavities of the structure, creating an ideal climate for mold contamination."

As mold decreases property values, it could force many owners into default, forcing mortgages into a "non-performing loan" category, the worst- case scenario for lenders. That classification causes a negative chain reaction from ratings agencies, regulatory authorities, and shareholders.

"In the age of universal mold exclusions on insurance policies, everyone involved in real estate needs to diligently manage the mold risk," said David J. Dybdahl, head of ARMR, an insurance brokerage and consulting firm specializing in environmental insurance covering mold.

The top 10 states and their Relative Hazard Mold Ranking are: Texas 2.95, Florida 2.50, Oklahoma 2.45, South Carolina 1.91, Nevada 1.90, Arizona 1.90,

California 1.73, South Dakota 1.47, Tennessee 1.33, Kansas 1.25,

The bottom five states and their Relative Hazard Mold Ranking are: Wisconsin .06, West Virginia .07, Alabama .13, Massachusetts .18, Minnesota . 19

For more information, call 800-789-0419 or e-mail [email protected].

Source: Greenguard Environmental Institute

Climate Linked to Plague Increase

Climatic changes could lead to more outbreaks of bubonic plague among human populations, a study suggests.

BBC NEWS, August 22, 2006

RESEARCHERS found that the bacterium that caused the deadly disease became more widespread following warmer springs and wetter summers. The disease occurs naturally in many parts of the world, and the team hopes its findings will help officials limit the risk of future outbreaks. The study appears in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The bacterium Yersinia pestis is believed to have triggered the Black Death that killed more than 20 million people in the Middle Ages.

Rodent Hosts

The international team of scientists, who focused their research on Kazakhstan, said the disease was widespread among rodent populations. Writing in the paper, co-author Nils Stenseth from the University of Oslo said: "The desert regions of Central Asia are known to contain natural foci of plague where the great gerbil (Rhombomys opimus) is the primary host.

"Plague spread requires both a high abundance of hosts and a sufficient number of active fleas as vectors transmitting plague bacteria between hosts," the Norwegian scientist added.

Fleas became active when the temperature exceeded 10C (50F), so a warm, frost-free spring led to an early start to breeding. The flea population continued to grow when the spring was followed by a wet, humid summer, the researcher wrote. The combination of the two seasons' climatic conditions led to an increase in the number of the insects feeding off the great gerbils, resulting in a greater transmission of plague.

The study showed that just a 1C (1.8F) rise in the springtime temperature led to a 59% increase in the prevalence of the disease. The greater prevalence of plague in the region's wildlife increased the risk of local people becoming infected. Each year, up to 3,000 cases of humans contracting bubonic plague are reported in Asia, parts of Africa, the US and South America.

The researchers studied data on infected gerbils, flea counts and climate patterns from 1949 to 1995. Professor Stenseth added that their findings also helped shed light on two of the world's worst plague outbreaks: the medieval Black Death and the Asian pandemic in the 19th Century, which claimed the lives of tens of millions of people.

"Analyses of tree-ring proxy climate data shows that conditions during the period of the Black Death (1280-1350) were both warmer and increasingly wet. "The same was true during the origin of the Third Pandemic (1855-1870) when the climate was wetter and underwent an increasingly warm trend," he added.

The researchers hope their findings will help health officials put measures in place to limit the impact of future outbreaks. But Professor Stenseth warned that recent changes to the region's climate suggested that warmer springs were becoming more frequent, increasing the risk of human infections.

Executive Warns of Energy Disaster

Dominion CEO Says More Emphasis Must Be Put on Conservation, Domestic Supplies

Charleston Daily Mail, Sept. 2. 2006 -- The president and chief executive officer of one of the nation's largest energy companies warned that the United States is heading toward "an energy train wreck" unless it immediately begins work on projects that will take years to finance and complete.

Thomas Farrell, president and chief executive officer of Dominion, issued the warning Thursday to business leaders attending the 2006 Business Summit at The Greenbrier. Dominion has 1,500 employees and an annual payroll of more than $100 million in West Virginia. The company has invested more than $3 billion in the state and has operations in 41 of the state's 55 counties.

"As anyone who suffered through Economics 101 can tell you, bad things - such as shortages and high prices - happen when demand outstrips supply," Farrell said. "That is precisely what is happening now in the nation's energy markets as homes, factories and businesses crave more electricity, gas and oil."

The nation's policymakers and politicians have not led the nation toward a comprehensive energy policy and the public has not been given enough incentive to conserve or care about the energy they use, Farrell said. "They have been living under the illusion that energy is an entitlement; that abundant, cheap gasoline and electricity are a birthright," he said. "They have done what consumers do: They have consumed, often with abandon."

"I recognize that it is difficult to focus only on energy with all the other urgent national issues," he said. "Nevertheless, we must concentrate on the right agenda - promoting conservation and additional domestic supplies of oil, natural gas, electric power and the infrastructure that carries energy where it is needed. "In short, the job remains undone," he said. Farrell offered six suggestions:

* Recognize that renewable energy, combined with conservation and greater energy efficiency, will play a growing role in the future. "But we frankly should not expect too m0uch from either renewable power or conservation," he said.

* Open up more offshore waters to energy exploration and production. "Federal estimates pr0oject that more than 630 cubic feet of gas reserves could be recovered from the outer continental shelf," he said. "That is enough to support the United States' natural gas needs for more than 30 years."

* "Government and industry also should do everything in their power to promote the continued growth of onshore gas resources, such as those here in West Virginia," he said.

* Liquified natural gas should be given an increasingly important role in supplying energy.

* "Nuclear power is another important part of the fix," he said. "There is no reason the U.S. should not streamline and simplify the process for building new nuclear power stations."

* "Better use of coal is another obvious solution. It is an abundant, domestic fuel supply. We have 250 years of reserves. Its price is less volatile than many other commodities. Its role in electric generation is indispensable. Steps have to be taken to sustain and increase its use." One way to do that is to utilize clean-coal technologies, Farrell said.

Dominion, along with several other utilities, is currently exploring construction of a new fluidized bed coal power plant in southwestern Virginia, he said. "Clean coal technologies are the prime reason why investors in this decade have built or proposed more than 150 coal-fired power stations, potentially worth over $100 billion," he said. "This includes five proposals in West Virginia worth $3 billion." Farrell said several things need to happen to sustain the renewed interest in coal, including government and industry joining forces to proclaim that coal projects can be made environmentally sound and investing more money in advanced clean-coal technologies research.

"Change does not happen overnight in the capital-intensive, heavily regulated energy business," Farrell said. "If we could wave a magic wand and adopt every policy I have discussed by unanimous consent, there would still be years - decades - between the go- ahead vote and online operations."

Dominion owns Dominion Hope, a natural gas distribution utility headquartered in Clarksburg that serves 116,500 homes and businesses in 32 north-central West Virginia counties. The Richmond, Va.-based company also owns and operates the Mount Storm Power Station and North Branch Power Station in Grant County and is 50 percent owner of the Beechurst Avenue power plant in downtown Morgantown. The company also owns Dominion Transmission, formerly CNG Transmission, Clarksburg; and Dominion Exploration and Production, Jane Lew.

I Saw the Sign How to tell future generations about nuclear waste

By John Stang, Grist Magazine, August 8, 2006

THINK OF A MUMMY MOVIE -- any mummy movie. Treasure hunters enter a pyramid. The explorers either ignore or can't read the hieroglyphics warning of the curse that awaits those who open the 3,000-year-old sarcophagus before them. The mummy awakens and kills most of the cast. Rough translation:

Seriously dude, do not open this door.

Photo: iStockphoto

If only those ancient Egyptians had done a better job warning future treasure- hunters not to mess with their sarcophagi. Today, the U.S. government faces a similar task: figuring out how to warn descendants hundreds to thousands of years in the future about buried nuclear waste -- material that can remain deadly for millennia. As cleanups proceed at shuttered sites and talk brews about building new plants, the question is more pressing than ever. How do you tell someone centuries from now not to dig up radioactive waste from a burial site that may be long-forgotten, or from a place that's attractive to the curious? A thousand years from now, will the United States still exist? Will an earthquake or volcano have wrecked the burial site? Will the people understand English? Who will show up at an ancient, possibly forgotten burial mound in the year 3000 A.D. -- Mad Max, or the Jetsons, or someone we can't even imagine? While the Department of Energy has held preliminary discussions about some scattered nuclear waste and uranium tailing sites, there has been no coordination between the sites so far. "We're very concerned about it," says Ray Plieness, acting director for land and site management for DOE's fledgling Office of Legacy Management, established in late 2003 to clean up the nation's messes. "We're in the infancy stages in discussing it."

Dear Future People: Oops!

Richland, Wash., home of the Hanford nuclear site, is often cited as the most radioactively and chemically contaminated spot in the Western Hemisphere. This is where the world's first industrial-sized nuclear reactor was built, where the plutonium for the first atomic bombs originated. Today, Hanford has hundreds of contaminated buildings, including nine long-shutdown reactors and five closed chemical-processing plants, each slightly bigger than an average World War II battleship. Hanford is one of a few dozen former nuclear production sites scattered across the nation, relics of the Cold War that include sprawling facilities at Idaho Falls, Idaho, and Savannah River, S.C. Across the country, the government is undertaking more than 100 cleanup projects at such sites. All the projects have a common thread: they'll end up burying wastes with half-lives of up to thousands of years.

Inside the storage facility at Carlsbad, N.M.

Photo: Sandia National Laboratories

The best-known burial sites are a half-mile deep artificial cavern near Carlsbad, N.M., and the controversial proposed site at Yucca Mountain, Nev. More waste will be or already is buried at Hanford, Savannah River, Idaho Falls, and elsewhere. Much of the waste is supposed to be kept isolated for 10,000 years -- more than twice the age of the beat-up and cryptic pyramids and Stonehenge. Right now, these DOE sites are usually protected with "keep out" signs, chain-link fences, and guards. However, there's no guarantee that any of those measures will be feasible more than a few decades from now. The problem of how to produce more permanent warnings is coming up quickly for Hanford, where a battleship-sized plutonium extraction factory -- a place dubbed "U Plant" -- is supposed to be buried under a huge on-site mound by 2012. That and similar sites may prove tempting places to dig centuries from now. "You've got to think of reverse psychology," says Kevin Leary, DOE's technical leader for the U Plant project. "What if you tweaked someone's curiosity [to dig instead of avoid digging]?" At Hanford, a rough rule of thumb for planners is to look ahead 1,000 years. That's like a Viking trying to conceive of an astronaut, then trying to pass a note to him. Experts inside and outside of DOE have pondered this communication conundrum. The agency has assembled panels of scientists, historians, artists, and others to tackle from all angles the question of how a 21st century sign should look to a 31st century person. From symbols to colors to materials to size, everything's up for grabs -- and nothing's been decided. The leading plans for the major sites in New Mexico and Nevada involve enormous berms, monuments, time capsules, and more. Meanwhile, detractors say that will only draw unnecessary attention, and suggest that the best notification is no notification at all. Amidst the uncertainty, Jim Wise, an associate professor of psychology and adjunct professor of environmental science at Washington State University, led a course last year on developing nuclear warning systems. Wise says the ultimate solution doesn't have to be a shot in the dark: "There is enough evidence to make some responsible decisions."

Color Me Radioactive

Pointing out that many of the potential warning designs suggested to date stress creativity and beauty rather than rigorously analyzing the psychology of what someone in 3000 A.D. might understand, Wise paints a picture of the challenges ahead. Look at manuscripts from England that survived from 1000 A.D., Wise says. First of all, very few of those documents made the 1,000-year journey entirely intact. And the written English is indecipherable to most people today. Although we understand some aspects of what life was like then, most of that era is a mystery to us. Given our track record of understanding 1000 A.D.'s communications, Wise speculates that a nuclear-waste burial site would need at least seven different types of warnings in order for at least one to survive 1,000 years and be interpreted correctly. Now take into consideration that language, science, and technology have evolved much faster in the past 200 years than in the previous 800. And future changes will likely accelerate over the next millennium. After all, videotapes were state of the art in the 1980s, and are antiquated today. Computers become obsolete in less than five years -- so what are the chances of a warning sign lasting 1,000 years at a nuclear burial site? The bottom line is, no one knows what to expect. In 2005, along with undergraduate student Stuart Davis, Wise met with DOE officials at Hanford to discuss the findings of his class. Many of the group's ideas, says Plieness, have come up in discussions at other DOE sites as well. As far as materials go, Wise and Leary think ceramics -- perhaps buried at varying depths above the waste -- might do the job. Others suggest concrete or stone. Wise fears that steel and most metals would likely corrode or be salvaged for some other purpose during the next several hundred years. One anti-theft device might be to use the burial mound itself as a warning, Wise says, noting that furrows and ridges could be incorporated in the design so the wind blowing across would make a sinister sound -- or that long-lived, prickly vegetation could be planted on or around the sites.

Whatever the size of the warning, Wise suggests following nature's lead by using bright colors, long an indicator from one creature to another to back off. These include a bee's black and yellow stripes, a coral snake's red and yellow stripes, a monarch butterfly's wings -- even the exaggerated contrast between the pupils and whites of human eyes, which allow others to read fear. Wise contends that any warnings should be based on universal symbols of danger: things like sharp teeth, claws, lightning bolts, even today's biohazard symbol. "As forms get sharper and get more edges, people dislike them, even in abstract images," he says. Circles and other symmetrical images, on the other hand, are comfortable at a gut level. And that immediately raises red flags. Today's universal sign for prohibited items -- a red circle with a diagonal slash -- could easily be knocked askew over the next few hundred years, ending up looking more like a pictograph of a hamburger, Davis says. And the well-known skull-and-crossbones symbol, also symmetrical, won't necessarily retain its meaning. "Someone might find a copy of Pirates of the Caribbean, and say there's buried treasure there [where a skull-and-crossbones marker is found]," Davis adds.

Photo: iStockphoto

And what about today's radiation warning sign? "It's unfortunate that the radiation symbol looks the way it does, because it doesn't look very threatening," Wise says. "Someone might look at it and ask: 'Why did someone bury all these propellers?'"

Go Tell it on the Mountain

Wise's group suggested sending a warning to future generations through "memory stewardship" -- essentially ingraining the dangers of radiation into folklore that's passed from generation to generation. The need for awareness is underscored by DOE's Plieness, who says it could also be achieved by teaching about the waste sites in local schools. Plieness also says it will be necessary to plan for technology evolving into unforeseen forms, by setting up administrative rules that would require pertinent nuclear-waste information to be added to and stored in whatever state-of-the-art information system exists at that time. Sounds straightforward, but there are almost too many unknowns to analyze. For his part, Wise hopes that a survey similar to one Davis conducted -- which asked 75 southeastern Washington residents what symbols, shapes, and colors inspired the most fear, with lightning, triangles, and red and black the top vote- getters -- will be conducted across other nations and cultures. This, he says, could help gauge what will truly speak to every culture's gut, now and down the unknown road. John Stang is a reporter for the Daily Inter Lake in Kalispell, Montana. He has worked in newspapers for 23 years, including 13 years at the Tri-City Herald in south-eastern Washinton, where he covered the Hanford nuclear reservation for 11 years.

Water Shortage “Global Problem”

By Imogen Foulkes, BBC News, Geneva, August 16 2006

RICH COUNTRIES face increasing water shortages, a report by conservation organization World Wildlife Fund (WWF) warns. A combination of climate change and poor resource management is leading to water shortages in even the most developed countries, it says. It urges water conservation on a global scale and asks rich states to set an example by repairing ageing water infrastructure and tackling pollution. The report was released in Geneva just ahead of World Water Week.

The WWF says economic wealth does not automatically mean plenty of water. Its report reveals that some of the world's wealthiest cities - such as Houston or Sydney - are using more water than can be replenished. In London leaks from ageing water mains are wasting 300 Olympic swimming pools' worth of water every single day, the WWF says. Meanwhile southern Europe is becoming drier as a result of climate change and further north Alpine glaciers - a significant source of water - are shrinking

What is more, the report argues, wealthy countries continue to use up the water of the developing world. The production of clothing, fruit, vegetables and even jewelry all need water. And the demand for cheap produce often encourages wasteful use of scarce water resources.

The WWF is also calling on wealthy countries to encourage more international co-operation over water because this is the one element no-one can do without. And while money may be no protection against climate change, it can at least be invested in preserving the existing fresh water supplies.

Enough for now! Part 2 of the September issue will follow soon. Editor NY Chapter AEE Board Members David Ahrens [email protected] 718- 677-9077x110 Michael Bobker [email protected] 212- 868-6828 Timothy Daniels [email protected] 212- 312-3770 Jack Davidoff [email protected] 718- 763-2556 Fredric Goldner [email protected] 516- 481-1455 Placido Impollonia [email protected] NYC Energy Office (Sept.) Dick Koral [email protected] 718- 552-1161 John Leffler [email protected] 212-868-4660x218 Robert Meier [email protected] 914-734-7800x208 Jeremy Metz [email protected] 212-338-6405 John Nettleton [email protected] 212-340-2937 Chris Young [email protected] 914-442- 4387 Asit Patel [email protected] 718- 292-6733x205 Paul Rivet [email protected] 914- 422-4387 Board Members Emeritus George Kritzler [email protected] Alfred Greenberg [email protected] George Birman [email protected]

Past Presidents

Mike Bobker (2003-05), Asit Patel (2000-03), Thomas Matonti (1998-99), Jack Davidoff (1997-98), Fred Goldner (1993-96), Peter Kraljic (1991-92), George Kritzler (1989-90), Alfred Greenberg (1982-89), Murray Gross (1981-82), Herbert Kunstadt (1980-81), Sheldon Liebowitz (1978-80)

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