Unwarming Winter
April 28th, 2009Posted in Skiing Everywhere
A couple of days ago I posted the latest NASA map showing all the areas on the Earth’s surface that were either warmer than normal or cooler than normal in March 09 and it was a depressing map for skiers to look at with warming areas covering far more of the Earth than cooling areas.
We skiers who ride ski lifts some of the time are contributing to the warming of winter. It takes a lot of juice to run a big high speed ski lift and if we ski somewhere that uses snowmaking to supplement natural snowfall, those compressors and pumps burn a lot of electricity too and in this day and age most electricity is generated by burning fossil fuels- putting a lot of carbon into the atmosphere and speeding up the warming of our winters. And yes, inefficient skier use of personal vehicles and a lack of more efficient public transport to skiing locations adds to the problem.
Luckily, ski lifts and snowmaking equipment are electrically powered, and soon cars and buses may be too. Apologists for the fossil fuel and nuclear industries keep saying that for a variety of reasons the good intentions of greener, non-carbon energy are great, but they argue the reality is that cheap coal and portable liguid fuels are not going to be replaceable for a very long time. As a wise person once said, “It is hard for someone to understand something if their salary depends upon them not understanding it.” Their perspective is one of the huge industrial energy company model, requiring major investments in mines, oil rigs, powerplants and long paybacks to investors from sales of energy to consumers. Hopefully we live in a fast changing world where that doesn’t have to be the model going forward. Doing a green version of that model, building massive wind farms or installing thousands of acres of solar arrays in dessert areas will certainly help on the carbon output end, but it is still 20th century thinking which critics say will lead to a new form of natural wildlands abuse displacing wildlife and destroying fragile ecosystems, new vunerabilities to terrorist disruptions, a compounding of the already troublesome and out-dated electrical grid’s problems, large losses of power due to the inefficiencies of power transmission and, of course, the energy produced will not be very cheap because all the massive costs must be paid back, plus investor profits must be high to reward those who finanaced these projects.
Skiing and living in the West where the sun shines brightly a lot and where the winds blow strong and frequently, I’ve been looking forward to the day when these free and unlimited power sources would power our lives. Until recently I’ve been looking forward to seeing more wind farms and have been hoping for a rapid deployment of such things as the newer “solar-thermal powerplants” as new sources of electricty. I still think if placed in the right locations these are good things and far better than adding new coal power plants, but this “industrial” model of energy creation doesn’t have to be the only route, and may not be the best way to speed the change over to a world powered by alternative energy.
There are growing numbers of alternative routes to an alternative energy world and the current issue of the Washington Monthly has a good article describing one of the more interesting ways greener energy can be jump started by largely short circuiting the massive industrial model and going local by going existing building to existing building to create energy that is profitable, cheap and doesn’t have to be transmitted long distances. It would take too much space to summarize what is happening successfully in Europe and now in Gainesville, FL., so please read the article.
My concern on this blog is primarily the future of skiing, so halting the threat of global warming is a major concern. For those of us who admit to feeling guilty as we profligately cause more carbon to enter the atmosphere because of our addiction to our silly sport, it seems we need to be the aggressive ones in fighting global warming and in supporting changes that can reverse it. We need to get all levels of government off of big carbon’s payroll and into the 21st century. A good step forward would be the adoption of “feed-in tariffs” at all appropriate governmental levels so communities everywhere- especially in ski country- can afford to get aggressive in going solar or wind r geothermal. Just like in Europe and now in Gainesville, people will jump at the chance to switch over if they are guaranteed a good return on their investment. With the desire of the ski industry these days to either become green, or appear to do so, they should lobby hard any government that can put a “fee-in tariff” policy in effect where they operate so they can soon get all the power they need from non-carbon sources. If ski resorts are really smart, they could even diversify and become the entrepenuers who are buying up or leasing exisiting rooftops to install the solar panels so they can get power even cheaper and even sell the surplus and make some money off it.
I’m thinking of Vail. Vail is not a ski village anymore, it’s a city. There are hundreds if not thousands of acres of roofs in the Vail Valley. Vail could generate a lot of electricity off those roofs. And Sun Valley! Duh. As the article points out, even in rainy, cloudy parts of Germany where the sun shines only as much as it does in Juneau, AK, people are making electrcity and money off solar installations, so virtually all of ski country can too.
How cool would it be to ride a ski lift that has no carbon footprint, or drive to skiing in an electric car powered by totally green electricity and enjoy old fashion winters where a cooling earth keeps the snow lighter and drier and it snows from October through April!
Evan commented:
Good find on that “Rooftop Revolution” article! “Feed-in tariffs”. Gives me a little hope.