Greenversations

About the author: Diana Bauer, Ph.D. is an environmental engineer in EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research where she serves as the Sustainability Team Leader.

I have been pleased in the past several months to see the “Green Economy” emerge as a priority for the nation. As an engineer who has been engaged in environmental research, I am particularly excited about new roles for engineering and new opportunities to avoid environmental problems through better design.

When I was in my first job as a mechanical engineer a couple of decades ago, I was dismayed when my colleagues and managers told me that I shouldn’t concern myself with where or how my work was used. My job as an engineer was to solve challenging technical problems. Others had the responsibility of worrying about the broader context, including what technology we should be investing in and how the technology would interact with people and the environment.

Later on, working at EPA and elsewhere, I have met many environmental professionals who were skeptical that engineers could have much impact for preventing or avoiding environmental problems, precisely because of engineers’ narrow focus.

In the years since that first job, I have enjoyed watching and contributing to fields such as Green Engineering, Green Chemistry, and Sustainable Engineering as they emerged and began to mature. These fields will be required as the nation addresses climate change through green energy and invests in transportation, and water infrastructure.

To contribute fully to the new green economy, engineers need to understand the environmental and social implications of their work.

National investments present an opportunity for EPA to collaborate with other departments and agencies across the government to ensure that holistic, multimedia environmental considerations are integrated into the development of green energy technologies, transportation, water infrastructure, and green building. Efforts such as these may reduce the future environmental issues that EPA will have to address with regulation.

One area where cross-government collaboration is already occurring is in Green Building. Commercial and residential buildings currently account for about 40% of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from electricity and heating. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) is coordinating across the federal government the Net-Zero Energy, High Performance Green Buildings Research and Development Plan to dramatically reduce energy consumption in buildings. The plan holistically addresses the challenge by focusing on water efficiency, storm water management, sustainable materials management, and indoor environmental quality.

Cross-cutting agendas such as this one can help engineers of my generation and those following to broaden our perspective and learn how to build a green economy while protecting the air, water, and land.

About the Author: Loreal Crumbley, a senior at George Mason University, is an intern with EPA’s Environmental Education Division through EPA’s Student Temporary Employment Program (STEP).

EPA works to increase public awareness on many issues. This year EPA is collaborating with a grassroots network called the Coalition on the Public Understanding of Science (COPUS) to initiate activism through science. The Year of Science 2009 is a year long nationwide initiative that encourages Americans to engage in activities that are related to science. For the past four months and the remainder of the year we will be celebrating the marvels of science as well as how we use science to protect ourselves and our environment.

Each month has a theme. EPA has a very informative site that highlights the theme for each month, and EPA environmental science events and activities. There are blog postings written by experts on the subject, along with podcasts, activities, and contests for people to join in and celebrate science.

These sites have helped me stay involved in celebrating this wonderful year of science!! May’s theme is Sustainability and the Environment. In order to celebrate sustainability we must celebrate the individuals and communities that have found ground-breaking ways to promote and live in balance with the environment. EPA’s website allows people from all over the country to post ideas on how to celebrate science.

You still have plenty of time left to get involved in the Year of Science. The remaining theme’s are:

• June: Ocean and Water
• July: Astronomy
• August: Weather and Climate
• September: Biodiversity and Conservation
• October: Geosciences and Planet Earth
• November: Chemistry
• December: Science and Health

If you haven’t started celebrating The Year of Science 2009, don’t worry there are still seven more months left to become informed and involved!! Let us know how you celebrate science.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Barbara Klieforth is the Acting Associate Center Director for Drinking Water in the National Center for Environmental Research at EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She is also a life-long committed cycling commuter.

While ‘being green’ is not the only reason I bike to work (it’s also fun and faster!), it is something I think about – especially since I do some of my best thinking on my commute into the office. As a scientist I was trained to be a critical thinker, but as an EPA scientist I have be more thorough than ever because we have to substantiate doing new research and our science directly impacts people’s lives. So, especially now during national ‘bike to work’ week, I find myself wondering how to quantify the environmental benefits of my 6.5 mile ride to the office. Economically, bike commuting is a no-brainer: I easily save thousands of dollars a year biking versus driving. But, in strictly environmental terms, is commuting by bike worth the risks it poses (including forgetting such things as dress shoes!)? There are lots of cool online tools that calculate the environmental benefits of biking (e.g., Go by Bike Challenge, EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Equivalencies Calculator), but one of my favorite sites simply compares the energy costs per kilometer of different forms of transportation.

In other words, the bicycle is an extremely efficient mode of transportation, and I am definitely saving plenty of energy per mile (good thing I have lots of personal calories to spare!). Less fossil energy burned = less polluting emissions. I know from some of my current focus at work on the geologic sequestration of carbon dioxide that technological solutions to environmental problems we could be helping prevent in the first place are incredibly daunting. So I’d say no further research is needed to confirm that there are substantial environmental benefits to bicycling as a means of transportation. I can do something today to decrease pollution, reduce usage of fossil fuels, and have some fun on the way!

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

For each month in 2009, the Year of Science—we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments, and feel free to respond to earlier comments, or post new ideas.

The Year of Science theme for May is Sustainability and the Environment.

One of the most widely-cited definitions of sustainability is “meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.”

What does sustainability mean to you, and what are you doing to achieve it?

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Alan D. Hecht is the Director for Sustainable Development in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. He has also served as the Associate Director for Sustainable Development, White House Council on Environmental Quality (2002-2003), and the Director of International Environmental Affairs for the National Security Council (2001-2002).

Charles Perrings, a professor of Environmental Economics at the Global Institute for Sustainability at Arizona State University, recently argued that the development of discipline-based science, while the source of nearly all the scientific advances of the past century, has limited the ability of science to address problems that span more than one discipline.

Sustainability science is a new discipline of a different kind: it draws upon many existing disciplines to forge a systems approach to environmental management. Its fundamental contribution is to solve problems.

Today, few of the world’s environmental problems can simply be addressed as an issue basically restricted to air, water, or chemicals. Sustainability science is the integration of all of these disciplines to better understand how humans and society interact as a system.

Sustainability science is asking the right questions:

• Why aim merely to reduce toxic waste when we can eliminate it with new chemicals and processes?
• Why handle and dispose of growing amounts of waste when we can more efficiently manage materials that eliminate, reduce, or recycle waste?

When EPA was created in 1970, its focus of attention was on reducing obvious sources of pollution to the environment. When the oil slick and debris in the Cuyahoga River near Cleveland, Ohio, caught fire in June 1969, it drew attention to other environmental problems across the country and helped to spur the environmental movement that led to the Clean Water Act of 1972.

Since its creation in 1970, EPA has been largely successful in addressing many of the most obvious and pressing environmental issues of that time, such as the quality of air and water. But new approaches are now needed to deal with emerging and newly recognized problems:

• the expanding population and economy and their demand for energy and materials;
• the changing rates of urban sprawl and loss of biodiversity;
• nonpoint, trans-boundary, and trans-media sources of pollutants such as storm water runoff;
• genetically modified organisms;
• the potentially harmful effects of these products as well as endocrine disruptors and nanoparticles; and
• the cumulative impacts of all these factors on the environment and public health.

Addressing these and other environmental issues in an integrated manner will demand a greater focus on sustainability and the vital need to develop sustainability science. We will need to apply what we learn to foster policies and best practices that can help people coexist with the planet.

The development and achievements of sustainability science deserve the increasing recognitions that it is receiving great deal of credit for this progress. Among this recognition is the May 2009 celebration of the month of Sustainability and the Environment as part of the Year of Science.

About the author: A winner of EPA’s 2007 P3 sustainable design competition, Danielle Willkens, Associate AIA, FRSA, is the Project Manager of the Learning Barge. She has been a member of the project team since 2007 and holds a Master of Architecture from the University of Virginia.

In 2007, I participated in the EPA’s P3 Design Competition as a student representative for the Learning Barge project, a design/build initiative within the Schools of Architecture and Engineering at the University of Virginia, to create a unique environmental classroom and field station.

Despite months of planning and building, we seemed to have the odds stacked against us as competitors: after spending a night loading a U-Haul with a portion of the Learning Barge’s prefabricated classroom our truck refused to start the morning we were to drive from Charlottesville, Virginia to Washington, D.C to display our project at the National Sustainable Design Expo.

When we finally, arrived rainclouds threatened to drench our exhibits outside of the tent area. Although we had a nerve-racking start to the competition, our P3 ‘ulcers’ were quickly mended a few days later when it was announced we were winners of a Phase II grant.

The Learning Barge will be located on the Elizabeth River, the most polluted tributary of the Chesapeake Bay, and will provide interactive kindergarten through high school, and adult education about how the river and human activities are inextricably linked.

Unlike environmental education centers located in pristine “nature,” the Learning Barge will traverse an important urban river linking Norfolk, Portsmouth, Chesapeake and Virginia Beach. Moving to a different river restoration site every few months, the Barge will teach participants about the tidal estuary ecosystem, wetland and oyster restoration, and sediment remediation efforts. It is estimated that more than 19,000 students and adults will visit the Barge annually.

The design of the vessel harnesses energy from the sun and wind, filters rainwater and gray water in a contained bed wetland, and utilizes recycled materials and “green” technologies.

Currently, we are just a few short months away from completion, when the non-profit Elizabeth River Project will take over operation of the barge. In anticipation of our launch this summer check us out at: http://www.arch.virginia.edu/learningbarge/.

The recognition we received from EPA’s P3 Competition helped secure several other key grants and awards: an American Institute of Architects Education Award, National Council of Architectural Registration Boards Prize, Waterfront Center Award, United States Green Building Council GoGreen Award, and National Endowment for the Arts Access to Artistic Excellence grant.

Editor’s Note: Winners of the 2009 P3 Design Competition were announced on April 21, 2009.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Cynthia Nolt-Helms is the Manager of EPA’s P3 - People, Prosperity and the Planet - Program

On vacation last week visiting my husband’s family in Florida, I had to answer a flood of work-related emails and phone calls. By the second day, everyone around me was puzzled and a bit annoyed about what was so important that I couldn’t take even a few days break from my job.

“I’m planning the National Sustainable Design Expo which is part of EPA’s P3 Award Competition,” I told them all proudly.

“That’s nice dear, but what’s that and why don’t they leave you alone,” my mother-in-law asked politely.

I explained to her that the Expo is the culmination of a year’s hard work. The program I manage, EPA’s People, Prosperity and the Planet Program (“P3” for short) gives me the opportunity to meet and interact with some of the movers and shakers of the next generation. EPA awards grants of $10,000 in the fall to universities for teams of students to design and research ideas for ways to live more sustainably on the planet.

The teams work on their projects and then come to Washington, DC in the spring to the National Sustainable Design Expo to exhibit and compete for an EPA P3 Award and additional funds. The students are bright and passionate about the environment, and their projects demonstrate great creativity and ingenuity. As a long-time federal employee who has worked most of her career for EPA in Washington, DC, I am exhilarated every year by the students’ optimism and idealism. They give me hope for the future.

At this year’s Expo — running this coming Saturday through Monday — we expect to see some amazing ideas: a solar powered water heater, wetlands for cleaning up dairy wastewater, solar panels to remove salt from water, even a method for using the sun to disinfect water.

Hmmm, now that I think about it, we need to plan for sunny weather!

But these are just a few of the 48 team projects and 35 exhibitors from nonprofit and government organizations that will be under the Expo tent on the National Mall between 3rd and 4th Streets, NW in DC. If you live in the area, or are visiting DC this coming weekend, I hope you can join us on the Mall to “See the future today!” I know you will be glad you did.

The 2009 National Sustainable Design Expo featuring EPA’s P3 Award is cosponsored by EPA and Beyond Benign, a nonprofit focused on sustainability and green chemistry.

Expo Hours: Saturday, April 18th – Noon – 5:00 pm; Sunday, April 19th – 9:00 am to 5:00 pm; Monday, April 20 – 9:00 am – 3:00 pm

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

About the author: Mary Ann Curran is a senior research chemical engineer in the Sustainable Technology Division at EPA’s National Risk Management Laboratory in Cincinnati, Ohio. She leads the Agency’s Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) Research program. She conducts research on LCA methodology and application, focusing on biofuels and nanotechnology.

Living and working in the heart of the corn belt, I am continually confronted with the promotion of corn ethanol as the green solution to gasoline. As a researcher in Life Cycle Assessment, however, I know there is a lot more to the story.

Although biofuel energy is renewable, there is some controversy that it is not sustainable due to the harvesting of biomass and the byproducts produced during combustion. With ever evolving technologies and choices in feedstock, biofuels can vary enormously in the type and intensity of environmental harm they may cause. Biofuels must be viewed in the proper perspective.

There is no single replacement to gasoline or diesel that will completely satisfy our need for transportation fuels or settle our concerns of global warming and dwindling oil supplies, but biofuels can make a significant contribution. It’s likely that solutions will be regional ones, depending on what biomass is locally available.

Research is needed to look for better biomass feedstocks and better ways to convert them to bioethanol and biodiesel. Efficiency and decreased demand through conservation must also be part of the solution. Whatever choices we make, they are sure to have far-reaching effects. The global discourse that will certainly continue should not lead us to a biofuel solution that in the end is more environmentally harmful than sucking crude oil out of the ground and cooking it.

I recently ventured far outside my native Ohio to attend the World Biofuels Markets Conference held in Brussels. The Conference started with a presentation by Sir Bob Geldof (most well-known for co-organizing the 1985 Live Aid concert). Sir Bob cautioned that in our enthusiasm surrounding the potential for expanding the world’s use of biofuels, we need to proceed in a smart way “with the competing criteria for sustainability brought into the mix.” I like that.

To learn more about biofuels, I recommend listening to a presentation by Dr. Steve A Kay, UCSD, recorded on November 3, 2008, entitled Biofuels: Hype or Hope.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

For each month in 2009, the Year of Science—we will pose a question related to science. Please let us know your thoughts as comments, and feel free to respond to earlier comments, or post new ideas.

The Year of Science theme for April is Energy Resources.

Do you know what energy resource you get your electricity from? Have you looked into switching to a “green” alternative?

About the Author: Aaron Ferster is the science writer-editor in EPA’s Office of Research and Development, and the Science Wednesday Editor.

Coming home on New Year’s Eve this year we noticed a “squishing” sensation underfoot as we walked across the carpet in the downstairs playroom. A big, soggy wet spot had mysteriously formed in a place well away from any obvious source of water. Yuck. I pulled up a big swath of carpet to reveal a considerable puddle on the concrete floor beneath.

New Year’s celebration over.

One week, and a hefty plumbing bill later, the mysterious source water was revealed: a steel pipe behind the kitchen wall upstairs had rotted out.

Since we had to take the walls down anyway, we decided it was time to update the 1970s-style kitchen. This week our contractor led me into the basement. “You’re out of space,” he explained, pointing to where a neat circle of clean, new wires coming from the kitchen met the old fuse boxes. He gently informed me it was time for me to make yet another decision.

I had two options: (1) replace the fuse boxes with a circuit breaker with more lines available, or (2) “heavy up,” in which the electrician would also essentially double the flow of electricity that could come into the house, from 100 amps to 200 amps.

Apparently, sometime between when my house was built and the time the kitchen pipe failed, the standard for electricity changed. Today’s homes are typically built with a minimum capacity of 200 amps, so they can easily handle modern loads from clothes dryers, central air conditioning, home offices full of computers and other electronics, various chargers for cell phone batteries and the like, and mega television screens.

It seems like a safe bet that my family and I will want more juice flowing into our home at some point. Doing the heavy up now would allow me to expand in the future, and I’d get a discount by doing the work now instead of essentially repeating some of it later.

Then I got to thinking about this month’s Year of Science Theme: energy resources. Will the current emphasis on conservation, efficiency, and the need to develop new, clean alternative sources of energy lead us in a new direction?

Perhaps by the time the kitchen needs its next overhaul, the future owner will have a good laugh about how the previous owner once thought they needed the capacity to have some 200 amps of electricity flow into the house.

Now that’s something to celebrate.