Top Ten "Green" Brands

Ten “green” brands, and the rest of the story....

By: Marc Gunther
June 9, 2010

You probably would not think of corporate giants Clorox and Colgate-Palmolive as “green” companies. But they own two of top 10 “green” brands, at least in the eyes of consumers, according to new global survey of consumer perceptions by WPP, the giant marketing and communications firm.

Topping the list of U.S. brands is Burt’s Bees, which is a unit of Clorox–a fact that isn’t exactly trumpeted on Burt Bee’s extensive website. Instead, the company tells the story of how Roxanne Quinby started the company in rural Maine by making candles out of Burt Shavitz’s beeswax, after which they fell in love and moved into an abandoned schoolhouse to make more. Her folksy little essay concludes: “The honey and candles are gone, the kids are grown, our friend sold the schoolhouse and now it’s a tattoo parlor, and Burt bought a classic motorcycle with his earnings, but otherwise everything’s pretty much the same here at Burt’s Bees.” Well, yes, everything’s pretty much the same except that Burt and Roxanne split, she sold 80% of the company to a private equity firm, which then sold it to Clorox, best known for its bleach, for $913 million in 2007.

Tom’s of Maine is No. 3 on the list. (Maine is obviously a green state, in the eyes of consumers.) Its marketing, too, features homey images from the company’s early years and talks about “putting the good of community and planet first.” Its toothpastes, mouthwashes, soaps and deodorants are all natural (no aluminum in the deodorant) and use environmentally-friendly packaging. Meriting only the briefest mention is the fact that the family-owned firm was sold in 2006 to Colgate-Palmolive, which makes Ajax and Speed Stick, a deodorants whose active ingredient is aluminum ziconoium tetrachlorhydex. (So is aluminum in deodorant a good or bad thing? Who knows?) Tom’s co-founders Tom and Kate Chappell, meanwhile, have moved on to a new company called Rambler’s Way which makes “superfine, sustainable, American worsted wool apparel.”

And then there’s Aveeno (“That’s the beauty of nature + science”), No. 6 on the list, whose founders were driven by their “belief that centuries-old remedies hold the promise for human wellness” when they invented a natural bath additive made from oatmeal that they sold to the Mayo Clinic. Today, Aveeno makes a vast array of body care, facial care, hair care, skin care, sun care, baby care products–nice to know they are so caring, isn’t it? They’re also owned by Johnson & Johnson, which in recent months has been embarrassed by a series of recalls of more than 40 different products, including children’s pain and allergy remedies, because of manufacturing problems at its plants. Apparently some of the products contained tiny metallic particles that shouldn’t have been there. J&J’s Tylenol showed up on shelves with a “moldy odor.”

This business of green sure is complicated, isn’t it? So is the business of listing and ranking green brands and green companies. This list, like all of them, has its flaws. Notably, it’s far from comprehensive–in the U.S., the survey including only about 50 brands–and it inevitably mixes and matches products and companies. If those of us who pay attention to business and sustainability have trouble sorting out all this out, pity the consumer in a hurry with a limited budget who is trying to do so.

With those caveats, here’s the Top 10 list, which makes up only a small part of the global survey:

1. Burt’s Bees

2. Whole Foods Market

3. Tom’s of Maine

4. Trader Joe’s

5. Google

6. Aveeno

7. SC Johnson

8. Public

9. Microsoft

10. Ikea

So what’s the significance of the list?

Once you understand that lots of environmentally-progressive consumer goods companies were not included in the survey; Seventh Generation, Method, Stonyfield Farm and a host of other food companies come to mind, my first reaction is, "Consumers are pretty smart!" I could quibble with a name of two, but it’s interesting, as an example, that consumers recognize the work being done S.C. Johnson, particularly since that isn’t a brand at all (unless you count Johnson’s Floor wax.) It’s encouraging to see that Wisconsin-based SCJ is getting credit for its path-breaking work around green chemistry and transparency.

Second, as noted above, is the blurry line between brands and companies. Can a not-so-green company make a green product? It’s an interesting question but smart companies that want to do any green marketing at all should probably make sure they clean up their whole act before doing any boasting. “From a green strategy point-of-view, you need to be working to get all the pieces of your green house in order,” says Annie Longsworth, global sustainability practice leader for Cohn & Wolfe, one of the WPP companies that conducted the survey. (The others are Landor Associates and Penn Schoen Berland, along with Esty Environmental Partners, the consulting firm run by author and Yale prof Dan Esty.)

Third, as Annie pointed out to me, the list is dominated by “In me", "On me", "Around me” companies that make or sell things we eat or slather on our bodies or use to clean ourselves, clothes or homes. But they are joined by what she calls “helper brands” that provide guidance to consumers who want to be more sustainable. Google and Microsoft fall into this category.

Companies that didn’t make the top 10, by the way, including, in no particular order, Starbucks, Wal-Mart, Apple, Marriott, Disney, HP, Dell. None of the auto companies or oil companies (surprise!) make the top 10 either. WPP didn’t release the full list–that’s not very transparent of them, but then again, they’re trying to market this data to their clients, so that’s business.

Happily, smart people are working to bring clarity to this hazy world of  "green" brands. Among them are the people at 'The Sustainability Consortium' organized by Wal-Mart, my colleagues at Greenbiz.com who are working with Underwriters Laboratories, Good Guide and others.

The day when consumers can get reliable, third-party rankings of products and companies can’t come soon enough!

An Inconvenient Truth

'Greener Skies' Test Flight

Alaska Airlines 'Greener Skies' Test Flight Lowers Emissions by 35 Percent

Seattle, WA July 23, 2010

Alaska Airlines demonstrated next-generation flight procedures this week during a test flight over Puget Sound that burned less fuel and reduced emissions by 35 percent compared to a conventional landing.

The flight was part of Alaska Air Group's "Greener Skies" project at Seattle-Tacoma International Airport (Sea-Tac) focused on using satellite-based guidance technology pioneered by Alaska Airlines to fly more efficient landing procedures that will reduce environmental impacts in the Puget Sound region. The airline, in cooperation with the Port of Seattle, Boeing and other airlines serving Sea-Tac, is seeking Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for the procedures, which could ultimately be used by all properly equipped carriers at Sea-Tac.

Testing for the project began last summer and, since then, Alaska Airlines has flown two other demonstration flights and submitted more than half of the proposed procedures for FAA review. Representatives from Alaska, Boeing, the FAA and the Port of Seattle participated in the most recent demonstration to observe the level of flight path precision and fuel consumption on eight landing approaches in a Boeing 737-700. With a landing weight similar to a typical passenger flight, the shorter and more efficient approaches reduced carbon emissions and saved 400 pounds of fuel per approach.

The test flight used satellite guidance technology called Required Navigation Performance (RNP) to fly more direct, continuous descent approaches. Alaska Airlines estimates the new procedures at Sea-Tac will cut fuel consumption by 2.1 million gallons annually and reduce carbon emissions by 22,000 metric tons, the equivalent of taking 4,100 cars off the road every year. They will also reduce overflight noise for an estimated 750,000 people living below the affected flight corridor.

"Sea-Tac is the ideal location to pursue this cutting-edge project," said Ben Minicucci, Alaska's chief operating officer. "Seattle has the highest percentage of advanced RNP-equipped planes in the nation, and -- working with the FAA -- Alaska Airlines, Boeing and the Port of Seattle are committed to making 'Greener Skies' a reality as soon as possible. Ultimately this project could serve as a blueprint for next-generation aviation technology throughout the country."

Typically, commercial aircraft follow a lengthy approach pattern and series of stair-step descents before landing. Using RNP technology and a continuous descent, also called an optimized profile descent (OPD), aircraft can descend from cruise altitude to an airport runway along a shorter, more direct flight path at low power.

Planning and testing of the procedures will continue through the remainder of the year and will be integrated into Alaska Airlines and sister carrier Horizon Air's commercial operations at Sea-Tac pending FAA approval.

Alaska Airlines pioneered RNP precision flight-guidance technology during the mid-1990s to help its planes land at some of the world's most remote and geographically challenging airports in the state of Alaska. RNP provides computer-plotted landing paths by using a combination of onboard navigation technology and the global positioning system (GPS) satellite network. It improves safety and reliability in all weather, and reduces reliance on ground-based navigation aids. Alaska Airlines currently uses FAA-approved RNP procedures at 23 U.S. airports.

Alaska Airlines is the only major U.S. air carrier with a completely RNP-equipped fleet and fully trained crews. Alaska is also the first airline approved by the FAA to conduct its own RNP flight validation. Horizon Air's fleet will be fully RNP-equipped by the end of 2011.

RNP and OPD are part of the Next Generation Air Transportation System, the FAA's plan to modernize the National Airspace System through 2025. This initiative will increase airspace capacity and efficiency while improving safety and reducing environmental impacts through the replacement of legacy ground-based equipment with new satellite-based technology and aircraft navigation capabilities.

As part of the initial Alaska Airlines RNP operational approval team, Boeing began installing RNP guidance technology on its aircraft in 1994. Currently, all Boeing production airplanes are RNP-capable, and solutions are available to upgrade the in-service fleet. The Boeing Company is continuing this pioneering tradition by working with Alaska Airlines, the FAA and the Port of Seattle in implementing RNP solutions and the Greener Skies program for Sea-Tac

Joint Venture For Russia

Siemens makes a bid for Russia’s wind power through joint venture

July 16 2010 

By: Honey Garcia

Because Russia is situated in different climactic zones, the country boasts of vast wind energy potential, providing roughly 32.6 terrawatt-hours to 71.7 TWh annually. Siemens entered into a strategic partnership with two Russian companies to establish a joint venture that will put the German engineering conglomerate in the forefront of Russia’s wind energy industry. Pictured here is the city of Moscow.

The joint venture between Siemens, Rostechnologii and RusHydro will set up production facilities for wind turbine components, as well as be in charge of the sales and services of wind turbines in Russia and other countries. Siemens will also put up three more wind turbine component factories in the United States and China this year, while manufacturing facilities in India and Britain are also planned.

“In the coming five years we intend to install wind turbines with a total capacity of 250 MW to 500 MW per year,” said René Umlauft, chief executive of Siemens’ renewable energy division. Siemens (FWB:SIE, NYSE:SI), who will retain a majority stake in the joint venture, plans to install at least 1,250 MW of capacity in Russia by 2015, which will help the country achieve its targeted 5,000 MW of installed wind capacity by 2020.

In 2008, the Russian government set a target of 4.5 percent, or 22 gigawatts, renewable energy usage by 2020. If the country achieves this goal, Russia would have installed 7 GW of wind capacity, the Russian Wind Energy Association predicted.

Because Russia is situated in different climactic zones, the country boasts of vast wind energy potential, providing roughly 32.6 terrawatt-hours to 71.7 TWh annually. This is mostly concentrated along seacoasts, in the vast territories of steppes, and in the mountains.

The northern and eastern regions of Russia are also believed to be among the regions with the most favorable conditions for wind energy generation. The European Bank for Reconstruction and Development’s renewable energy initiative even estimated that exploiting just 25 percent of Russia’s total wind potential will produce about 175,000 MW of power.

While there is more than 1,700 MW of wind projects under development and another 3,000 MW to 3,500 MW in the pipeline, this is apparently not enough to sustain the country’s energy use. “Russia is not yet showing significant signs of growth in wind energy. Its installed capacity hasn’t increased over the past few years and remains at 11 MW, which considering the size of the country, is practically insignificant,” said Chistian Kjær, executive director of the European Wind Energy Association.

The lack of legislative mandates such as renewable portfolio standard or feed-in tariffs can be a hindrance to the progress of renewable energy development in the country. According to Anatoli Kopylov, vice president of the Russian Wind Energy Association, the current legislation does not provide any financial incentives to improve renewable generation capacity in the country, and there are still no subsidized connection costs for projects smaller than 25 MW.

The country’s economic instability also poses a problem as it discourages capital investment for renewable energy projects.

The World is Blue

The World is Blue: How Our Fate and The Ocean's are One

By: Umbra Fisk
June 23, 2010



As you all know, I am a bookworm of the highest order. In fact, I’m such a bookworm that my compost worms have their own library. I think it’s important to surround them with good literature, but they just keep eating the pages. And so must we all surround ourselves with good matter to fertilize our minds. It is high time the Umbra Book Club has another book to read!

And so it is with great pleasure that I announce this month's book. Drum roll please ... Our book to kick off the summer is Sylvia Earle's The World Is Blue: How Our Fate and the Ocean's Are One.

Why did I choose this book, dear readers? No one says it better than Sylvia Earle, the Oceanographer, Aquanaut, National Geographic "Explorer-in-Residence", herself:

About the Author

Known worldwide as the Ambassador for the Ocean, Sylvia Earle is also TIME magazine's first "Hero for the Planet" and National Geographic's first "Explorer-in-Residence". She is former NOAA Chief Scientist, and the first person to walk untethered at the lowest depth ever 1,250 feet. She is a major force in the establishment and growth of the world's marine sanctuaries and was personally responsible for convincing former President Bush that the recently named sanctuary in Hawaii should be protected. She is founder and director of  'Deep Ocean Research and Exploration', which designs instruments for deep-sea exploration. She is author of 15 books on the ocean.

This book tie-in to National Geographic's ambitious 5-year ocean initiative focusing on overfishing is written in National Geographic "Explorer-in-Residence", Sylvia Earle's accessible yet hard-hitting voice. Through compelling personal stories she puts the current and future peril of the ocean and the life it supports in perspective for a wide public audience.

"Even if you never have the chance to see or touch the ocean, the ocean touches you with every breath you take, every drop of water you drink, every bite you consume. Everyone, everywhere is inextricably connected to and utterly dependent upon the existence of the sea."


This book is a reminder of the beautiful blue part of our planet that sustains us. We're seeing so much damage with the ongoing oil spill in the Gulf it's time we pay attention to the beauty of the ocean and how we can protect and save our "life-support system."

It's a fact-filled, inspiring ode to the oceans. A page-turner. It's also a very fine read at the beach!

Ethanol Gets Skewered

Ethanol Gets Skewered 


By: Tom Philpott
Jul 16 2010



In its calm and measured way, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) just delivered a blistering assessment of the environmental value of corn-based ethanol. The CBO had been charged by Congress to calculate just what the public is getting for its investment in ethanol production: specifically, the $0.45/gallon tax credit that gasoline blenders get for mixing ethanol into the fuel supply. In 2009, 10.8 billion gallons of corn ethanol got used in such a manner, costing the federal Treasury $5.16 billion in reduced tax revenue.

What did we get for that fat wad of cash, in environmental terms? The question is critical, because that long-entrenched tax break is set to expire later this year -- and the ethanol industry is scrambling to extend it, with the full support of the Obama administration, Associated Press reports.

As the CBO report [PDF] makes clear, the environmental case for the tax break is bankrupt. The reports runs 28 pages, but I can boil it down to two points.

1) Subsidizing corn-based ethanol is an mind-numbingly expensive way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Using the friendliest assumptions possible (note that some prominent researchers argue that ethanol actually generates more GHG emissions than gasoline), CBO reckons that by supporting ethanol through the tax break, taxpayers are shelling out about $750 for every metric ton (2,205 pounds) of carbon kept out of the atmosphere by ethanol. To put that number in perspective, note that the carbon-offset company Terrapass values 1,000 pounds of emissions reductions at $5.95. Converting that to metric tons, Terrapass charges about $13 to do what the ethanol industry is charging $750.

If greenhouse gas reductions are the goal, merely handing $5.16 billion to Terrapass to buy offsets would be about 57 times more effective than subsidizing ethanol production. Of course, from my perspective, a far more effective use of that money would be to invest in technologies and infrastructure that reduce energy consumption altogether, like mass transit. But using it to encourage people to convert corn into car fuel is surely madness.


2) Corn-based ethanol is really just a clever way to convert natural gas and coal into car fuel.

The CBO report states the case bluntly: "Because the production of ethanol draws so much energy from coal and natural gas, it can be thought of as a method for converting natural gas or coal to a liquid fuel that can be used for transportation."

The CBO is referring to the fact that it requires lots of energy to convert a bushel of corn into engine fuel, and most ethanol plants are powered by natural gas; the rest by coal. And that doesn't account for the vast amount of synthetic nitrogen fertilizer needed to grow the corn in the first place. Synthesizing nitrogen, too, requires huge amounts of natural gas.

The environmental devastation associated with coal use is well-known. As for natural gas, it's often hailed as a "clean" alternative to other fossil fuels; but that reputation is crumbling as the the natural gas industry comes to rely more on the highly polluting process of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking," which has its own nasty baggage. Overall, the CBO's assessments could be summarized like so: The environmental benefits of propping up corn-based ethanol production are scant at best -- and extremely expensive.

Now, ironically, even if the $0.45 per gallon tax break ends on schedule later this year, we'll still see increased ethanol production over the next several years. That's because the 2007 Energy Act established a "renewable fuels mandate" that requires steadily increasing corn-based ethanol production until 2015, when it's due to top off at 15 billion gallons (up from last year's 10.8 billion gallons).

The corn ethanol juggernaut, no matter how absurd, will not be denied. But lavishing it with billions in tax breaks on top of the mandate can not be justified.

Time Lapse Video: Coal Fired Powered Plant

View this time lapse video of a coal-fired power plant:

http://vimeo.com/8756755

Solar Energy is Rising Star in Ohio

Solar energy is rising star in Ohio

July 18, 2010
By: Dan Gearino
The Columbus Dispatch

John Witte, president of Advanced Distributed Generation, checks an Ohio Air National Guard array holding more than 8,000 solar panels near Toledo Express Airport.

A 2008 bill says that by 2025, 0.5percent of electricity must be solar. From the ground, the 80 acres of solar panels seem to go on forever, arranged in rows like the cornfield that used to be here. The project was completed last month in Wyandot County. At 12 megawatts, it is by far the largest of its kind in Ohio history. Now imagine an even bigger plan - 25 times bigger. That is what American Municipal Power of Columbus announced last month.

Observers greeted the proposal with a mix of wonder and skepticism. The AMP project would be one of the largest in the country. But the company has no experience with utility-scale solar projects, and few details have been released since the initial announcement. One thing is certain, regardless of whether the plan happens: Solar power is on the rise in Ohio, as utilities work to meet the benchmarks of a 2008 state energy law. "We're starting to hit a growth spurt," said Eric Zimmer, CEO of Tipping Point Renewable Energy in Dublin, an energy consultancy involved with solar projects. "I think we're all figuring it out day to day."


Long-term perspective

AMP's plan is the wild card. The nonprofit utility said it will build capacity of 300 megawatts in a series of projects across several states and over several years, with plans to break ground on the first segment this year. Marc Gerken, AMP's chief executive, argues that the plan makes sense for the municipal utilities that his company serves. "We're under a different business model," he said last week. "We look at things from a long-term perspective for a long-term return." He sees solar power as "peak" capacity, which means it would be relied upon for the hottest months of summer, when power demand is at its highest and the sun is shining brightest. That would cover electricity needs that otherwise would be met by peaking plants, which are typically gas-fired power plants that are used for only brief periods each year.

"We looked at this and said, 'How can we drive the cost down and provide peaking resources?'" he said. Another consideration is the possibility of federal environmental rules that would increase the costs of traditional power sources such as coal. If the older sources become more expensive, renewable sources become more attractive, he said.

A Maryland company, Standard Energy, would oversee the construction and own the solar assets. The financing would be made possible by AMP's commitment to buy the electricity for its customers. At some point, AMP's customers will need to sign on to the plan. The clients are 128 municipal utilities in six states, 87 of them in Ohio. The largest central Ohio customer is Westerville's city-owned utility. Solar arrays would be built near the member communities. That would provide several types of cost savings: First, many of the solar modules would be manufactured in the state, so there would be little freight cost to get them to the project sites. Second, the short distance between the projects and the end users would save on the cost of transmitting the power.

An impressive number

For some perspective, the country had 429 megawatts of solar power installed last year, according to preliminary figures from the Solar Energy Industries Association, a trade group. Of that total, 85percent was from small systems installed on homes and businesses. Only 15 percent, or 66 megawatts, was from utility companies. In that context, some observers wondered whether AMP's plans for a 300-megawatt project was a misprint. It wasn't. "I've seen an announcement with a very impressive number, but I don't know the details," said Mark Shanahan, Gov. Ted Strickland's top adviser on energy issues. "So it's very hard to assess what the timing is going to be. And obviously, we don't know how much of that is going to be in Ohio." One solar-energy expert noted that a project's plan, on its own, has little meaning. "A lot of announcements don't actually turn out," said Ken Zweibel, director of the George Washington University Solar Institute. He estimates that 300 megawatts of solar power would cost more than $1 billion to build. Gerken, who declined to give a cost estimate, isn't shying away from the 300 figure. In response to skeptics, he pointed to AMP's track record on renewable energy, including several major hydroelectric projects and a wind farm. Norm Johnston is not one of the skeptics. The Toledo-area businessman is chairman of Ohio Advanced Energy, a coalition of renewable-energy businesses. Based on his experience developing solar projects, he thinks 300 megawatts is feasible. "I wish them good luck," he said. "If they would build even a part of that in Ohio, I would love to see our Ohio supply chain supply it."

The industry has had a series of big projects announced, scheduled to be built in the next five years. The largest is a 550-megawatt project being developed in California for use by Pacific Gas and Electric Co. Known as the Topaz Solar Farm, the array will cover about 10 square miles in a part of the country that has some of the country's most- abundant sunlight. The developers hope to be done by 2014.

Three other projects would be 300megawatts each: two in California and one in New Mexico. Each is scheduled to be complete by 2015, according to the Solar Electric Power Association, another trade group.
They are all photovoltaic projects, meaning they use solar panels to generate electricity. There are other kinds of solar power, including using solar plates to generate heat, that are not included in this list. One of the most important variables is the cost of solar panels. Lately, those costs have dropped because of an oversupply. Prices might rise in the short term, but developers of solar projects expect costs to fall in the long term as the components become more common.

While Ohio is just beginning to develop solar power, the state is already a leader in manufacturing the components. Companies such as First Solar and Xunlight, both in the Toledo area, produce thin-film photovoltaic panels, a light and flexible material that is helping drive down the cost. The presence of component manufacturers is what inspired a state law that led to the Wyandot County project. Two years ago, Strickland signed Senate Bill 221, a measure that requires utilities to produce 25 percent of their electricity from so-called advanced sources by 2025. At the time of passage, Ohio had virtually no utility-scale solar installations. "Ohio had this core industry growing in northwest Ohio around solar, and it was important to specifically create a requirement for local deployment," Shanahan said. Solar power was the only energy source that got its own piece of the pie in the law. Solar must compose 0.5percent of overall electricity by 2025, which translates to roughly 400 megawatts.

Greg Alexander of Dovetail Solar & Wind installed panels in July in Westerville.


Notably, the law applies only to investor-owned utilities, a group that includes American Electric Power, FirstEnergy, Duke Energy and Dayton Power and Light. Rural electric cooperatives and municipal utilities, such as AMP's clients, are exempt.

So far, AEP has made the largest investment in meeting the requirement. The Columbus-based utility helped develop the Wyandot project and has a contract to buy all the power produced there. AEP now has enough solar capacity to meet the benchmarks for 2010 through 2012. (AEP and AMP are not affiliated, despite their similar names and the fact that both are based in Columbus.)

To meet subsequent goals, AEP plans to commission a series of solar arrays that would produce about 12megawatts each. The next one likely will be announced next year. As a rate-regulated utility, AEP passes its costs directly to its 1.5million Ohio customers. But the law is unclear about whether the company can charge customers for the full cost of developing solar projects. Without clarity on that point, the company will do just enough to meet the solar requirement and little more. "It's prudent to piecemeal this," said Mark Gundelfinger, who oversees renewable energy programs for AEP in Ohio.

That's more than other utilities are doing. The other three investor-owned power companies have yet to break ground on anything approaching the size of the Wyandot array. Instead, they have asked for, and received, exemptions from state regulators. If that process continues for several years, advocates for solar energy are worried that the benchmarks will be essentially meaningless.

Advocates for solar energy were disappointed last year when none of the companies met the first-year benchmark, which was 0.004percent of overall electricity produced. Shanahan, Strickland's adviser, urges patience. The failure to meet the first-year goal was a matter of scheduling, he said, because the law had just gone into effect, and major utility projects require years of lead time. "It's a speed bump," he said.


Ohio sunshine

The top reason for the inaction is cost. On a per-megawatt basis, a solar array costs up to six times as much as a coal-fired power plant to develop, according to AEP. And then, once the plants are built, solar-power output varies based on season and weather, while coal is constant.

There is also an issue of scale. AEP's smallest coal-fired plant, located in Pickaway County, has more than 10 times the capacity of the Wyandot solar array. And the largest coal plants have more than a hundred times the capacity. Ohio's weather is not an asset for solar power. According to the government's National Renewable Energy Lab, the sun shines more than 50 percent brighter in the southwestern United States than in the Great Lakes region and the Northeast. Solar advocates like to rebut that with one word: Germany. That country has the most solar development in the world, even though it gets less sunlight than Ohio. "We get over 130 percent of the amount of solar that you get in Germany," said Johnston, the Toledo-area businessman. "Anywhere in Ohio. Even in Cleveland."

Solar's Long and Winding Road

Solar’s long and winding road
July 8th, 2010


In 1969, the Nixon White House asked a young assistant professor of engineering at the University of Maryland whether solar energy made sense for America. "Absolutely", he replied.

Four decades later, Fred Morse is still trying to persuade the government to put its muscle behind solar. Last week, he scored a big victory. In his weekly radio address on July 3, President Obama announced that the Department of Energy had awarded a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar, a Spanish company where Morse is senior advisor for U.S. operations, to build one of the largest solar power plants in the world near Gila Bend, Arizona.

President Obama said:

"Once completed, this plant will be the first large-scale solar plant in the U.S. to actually store the energy it generates for later use, even at night. And it will generate enough clean, renewable energy to power 70,000 homes."

What he didn’t say is that the plant, called Solana, has been in the works since 2007, when Abengoa bought an old alfalfa farm on which to site the plant. If all goes well, it will begin to make electricity in 2013. That’s right–six years, at least, to build a power plant with mostly proven technology.

'You’re a patient man', I told Fred Morse when we spoke the other day by phone. “I have to be,” he replied. Forty years waiting for an industry to be born will do that to you.

Fred is a neighbor of mine in Bethesda, Md., and we belong to the same (green) synagogue, Adat Shalom Reconstructionist Congregation, so we’ve chatted occasionally about solar. I’ve been struck by the time that’s required to bring big solar plants that require public subsidies to market, so when the news broke that Abengoa’s plant had cleared a big hurdle, we arranged to talk again.

One reason why the government agencies involved are taking such a long look at the Solana plant is its size, Fred explained. The plant is expected to cost as much as $2 billion, it will create about 1,600 jobs during construction and generate up to 280 megawatts of power (30 of which will be needed to run the plant itself.) Solana will need about 900,000 mirrors, which will be made near Phoenix, and about 97,000 receivers, which will be made by a German firm called Schott Solar in Albuquerque.

“The amount of steel in the structure, to hold the mirrors, is enough to build a second Golden Gate bridge. It’s big. It’s very very big,” Fred said.

The plant uses a technology known as Concentrating Solar Power (CSP) or solar thermal technology, which uses parabolic mirrors to focus the sun’s heat on a fluid which then heats up 700 degrees, heating water to create steam to run turbines. Here’s an artist’s rendering:

Size tends to be a good thing when building power plants; economies of scale keep costs down. But the regulatory agencies whose approval is needed–they range from the Arizona Department of Transportation to the White House Office of Management Budget–tend to take a closer look when people start talking about billions of dollars.

For example, Arizona Public Service, the utility company that has agreed to buy the electricity generated by Solana, had to get approval from the Arizona Corporation Commission to build the plant. Even after federal subsidies are factored in, the power will cost about 19% more, according to this 2008 blog. (Natural gas prices have dropped since then, so the differential is probably even greater.) APS has agreed to buy $4 billion worth of electricity from the plant over the next 30 years, in part because to comply with a state law requiring utilities to generate at least 15% of their electricity from renewable sources.

You’d think that with a 30-year $4-billion revenue stream that Abengoa, a well-established company with more than $4 billion euros in revenue last year, could obtain financing for the project on the private market … but no. By the fall of 2008, when state regulators okayed the project, the credit markets had frozen. “It was clear that it was going to be very difficult to finance Solana without a federal loan guarantee,” Fred said.

The DOE and OMB analyzed the application for more than a year before giving last week’s conditional okay. Under the provisions of the Energy Act of 2005, the source of the financing, Abengoa had to demonstrate that the plant was innovative, which it is, because it will include new technology enabling energy to be stored for up to six years. But they also had to assure DOE and especially OMB, which tends to be risk-averse, that the storage technology would work because the government is wary of putting its money behind risky schemes. This is the kind of fine line that companies have to negotiate to obtain tax money.

Fred, who worked for DOE for 13 years, understands the dynamic well.

“As a taxpayer, I don’t want to see a big project die in the field and waste a lot of money,” he said. “On the other hand, you want to encourage projects that are innovative and new, and Congress appropriated money to cover some of that risk.”

Another two dozen or so Concentrating Solar Power projects are in various stages of development, most requiring loan guarantees. Morse is rooting for them to succeed, and fast. “We have to build more because you cannot get your supply chain all cranked up, and then have to stop,” he said.

Abengoa wants to build a second large U.S. plant in the Mojave Desert, for which it has a signed power purchase agreement with PG&E Corp. It’s also building plants in Spain, Algeria, Morocco and Abu Dhabi.

This is all encouraging news, but none of it is happening fast enough. We don’t have another 40 years to wait around for this industry to get going.

Solar-Powered Plane Takes 24-Hour Flight

Solar-powered plane takes 24-hour flight
July 7, 2010
London, England (CNN)

Solar Impulse took to the skies on Wednesday on a 24-hour test flight. A solar-powered aircraft which one day hopes to circle the globe has started a 24-hour test flight in Switzerland. Solar Impulse took off shortly before 5 am GMT, Wednesday from an airfield in Payerne, 80 miles northeast of Geneva. The plane is being piloted by Andre Borschberg who will fly the plane to a height of nearly 28,000 feet (8,500 meters) throughout the day.

During the evening the plane will slowly descend to an altitude of 5,000 feet (1,500 meters) where it will remain for the rest of the night, before Borschberg attempts a dawn landing.

Solar Impulse has a wingspan of over 63 meters, the same as an Airbus A340 and is nearly 22 meters long. It weighs 1,600 kilograms and has nearly 12,000 solar cells attached to its wings and horizontal stabilizers.
The plane is also equipped with four electric engines and has a top speed of 70 kilometers per hour.

"The goal of the project is to have a solar-powered plane flying day and night without fuel," co-founder of the project, Bertrand Piccard said. The Swiss adventurer, who piloted the first non-stop balloon flight around the world in 1999 in the Breitling Orbiter III said the test flight was "crucial for the credibility of the project." The challenge to fly a solar plane around the world was officially announced in 2003. If the 24-hour flight is successful, a second airplane will be designed to fly much further next year, with the aim of flying across continents and the Atlantic Ocean.

In 2012, the team hope to fly Solar Impulse around the world in five stages.

Honeybees Test Air Quality at Airports

Honeybees Deployed to Test Air Quality at German Airports

July 5th, 2010  Yale Environment 360

German officials are trying a novel approach to monitor air quality at airports; so-called “biomonitoring” by honeybees. In an effort to gauge air pollution levels from jet exhaust and ground transportation vehicles at Düsseldorf International Airport and several other airports nationwide, officials test honey from honeybees kept at the airports. In a recent test of honey collected from some 200,000 honeybees, officials confirmed that levels of some hydrocarbons and heavy metals were well below national safety standards. The honey, called Düsseldorf Natural, is then given away as gifts.

While some community groups in the U.S. and elsewhere have expressed concerns about air pollution levels at airports, industry groups insist that tighter oversight and improved energy efficiency in recent decades have significantly lowered air pollution from jet exhaust. Although officials in Germany say the use of bees to monitor air quality will not replace traditional methods, Martin Bunkowski, an environmental engineer for the Association of German Airports, told the New York Times that the practice sends “a very clear message for the public because it is easy to understand.”

Toxin Threatens Ohio Wheat Crops

Toxin Threatens Ohio Wheat Crops


By Associated Press July 03, 2010

Troy, Ohio 

A toxin found at high levels this season in wheat has meant lower income for some Ohio farmers.

Levels of vomitoxin are the worst in seven to 10 years in some areas, said Pierce Paul, a plant pathologist and small-grains specialist with the Ohio State University Extension Service. He says the toxin has thrived in parts of the state due to a cool, wet May that allowed fungus to grow.

The pathogen limits use of the wheat for humans, and Paul said producers should be wary of feeding the infected wheat to livestock, particularly swine.

Roland Sink, who raises wheat in Newberry Township in southwest Ohio, said this year's crop is the worst he's harvested in 40 years. He says he's lost about $9,000 on this year's 125-acre crop.

Sink, 60, said he lost an average of $1.25 per bushel because of vomitoxin and the wheat's low weight. The current bushel price is $4 and his worst load of wheat was docked by almost $3 per bushel, he said.

Vomitoxin can decrease the appetite of animals and long-term exposure can lead to gastrointestinal and immune system problems in people.

Bullish on Biofuels

Woolsey, Khosla: Bullish on Biofuels


What should we do with corn?

Shove it into cows that become fatty, high-cholesterol meat that contributes to heart disease? Turn it into cheap sugars that make people fat or sick?

Or use it to produce biofuels that will help reduce the U.S.’s dependence on Middle East oil, improve our balance of payments and create jobs instead of funding terrorists?

That’s a loaded question, of course, but that’s the way that James Woolsey, the former head of the CIA who is now a venture capitalist, put it to a friendly audience of biotech executives.

The biofuels industry has been subject to “propaganda” and “false narratives,” he said

Putting a new twist on the food-vs.-fuel debate, Woolsey argued that there’s plenty of acreage to grow corn and, in any event, that corn is better used as a biofuel to replace oil than it is to make “cheap junk food” so that the “grocery manufacturers association can make more money making our children obese.”

“We need to go on the attack,” he declared.

No wonder he’s been called a “green hawk.”

Woolsey, a partner at VantagePoint Venture Partners, and Vinod Khosla, the venture capitalist and relentless advocate of biofuels, spoke today to BIO’s World Congress on Industrial Biotechnology and Bioprocessing at the National Harbor convention center, just across the Potomac from Washington, D.C.

Woolsey’s a lawyer and a Washington veteran who has worked for Republican and Democratic presidents, so he focused on the politics and economics of biofuels and bioplastics. Silicon Valley-based Khosla, who was trained as an engineer, presented slides packed with dense chemical diagrams and formulas.

Both argued that the biotech industry can find ways to use agricultural products and advanced chemistry to create new fuels and feedstocks that will compete with and gradually replace petroleum-based products.

Woolsey, who drives an electric car, talked briefly about electricity, arguing on behalf of distributed rather than centralized power generation. He described today’s transmission grid as “very, very troubling structure” because it is vulnerable to blackouts, hackers and terrorism.

“If we could gravitate—not jump, but move over time—to a much more distributed electric grid, towards micro and mini-grids, we would have a much more secure and much more resilient electrical structure,” he said. That would also create opportunities for small-scale biomass generation.

Mostly, though, he focused on the economic and security risks of the U.S. dependence on OPEC oil. “We’re borrowing about $1 billion a day just to import oil,” he said.

We can’t drill our way out of the problem, he said, and nor can we expect the energy and climate bills pending in Congress, which will put a price on carbon emissions, to take care of the problem. “A $25 a ton price for CO2 in a cap and trade system adds about 25 cents a gallon to the price of gasoline,” he said, not enough to have a big impact.

Instead, he called for open standards that will require new vehicles to operate not just on gasoline but on ethanol or methanol. In Brazil, he noted, most cars on the road can use gasoline or ethanol, which allows competition to flourish. (Lowering tariff barriers to Brazilian sugar cane would help, too.) “If we were close to being as decisive and focused as the Brazilians, we would have done this some time ago,” he said.

For his part, Khosla identified a range of private startup companies that are exploring different technologies to produce biofuels. Khosla Ventures has backed, among others, Amyris (which has filed to go public), Kior, New Zealand-based Lanza Tech, Coskata (whose investors include General Motors, TOTAL and the Blackstone Group), Range Fuels, HCL Clean Tech, Mascoma, bio-butanol maker Gevo and LS9. Here’s a great diagram of all of Khosla’s expansive clean tech portfolio.

Any one of them, or others, could generate a breakthrough, he said.

“You will not see incremental improvements, as most people assume,” Khosla said. “There will be a few black swans—rare, extreme impact and retrospectively predictable events.”

Segetis, Draths and Reluceo, meanwhile, are all so-called green chemistry companies, developing bio-based materials.

As Khosla acknowledge, all these startups face challenges as they try to develop supply chains with ample feedstocks, bring down their production costs and raise the money they need to get to scale. “These technologies have moved along fairly well, but the financial world has gone backward,” he said.

But Khosla, who made a fortune investing in software and Internet startups, sounded optimistic. Clean tech startups like First Solar and Soraa already have leapfrogged bigger companies like Shell, BP and Phillips in such technologies as solar PV and LED lights.

“Almost all innovation comes out of small companies,” Khosla said.

True enough, but they will have to get big fast to play a major role in dealing with the climate and energy crisis.

Renewable Energy Plane Prepares For 24 Hour Flight

Solar Impulse Prepares to Launch a 24 Hour Flight in a Plane Run on Renewable Energy

Posted On: Today

Using renewable energy from sunlight as a means of creating solar powered aircraft has been around since the late 1970s. However, what few manned aircraft that were successfully run on solar power had extraordinarily limited potential. The Gossamer Penguin, for example, was so small that the team behind the aircraft had to use a 100 pound pilot to ensure the Penguin could stay off the ground. Most projects in the solar aviation field that are capable of long term flights tend to be unmanned, like NASA's Pathfinder and Pathfinder Plus which have flown to altitudes of 75,000-85,000 feet on separate occasions. For the first time, however, a team of Swiss aviation experts are preparing themselves to fly a solar powered aircraft around the globe.

The Solar Impulse project, which has been underway since 2003, hopes to revolutionize the use of renewable energy from solar power in aviation and other fields. By creating a solar cell that is capable of holding a long lasting charge and staying light enough to allow an aircraft to fly with ease, the Impulse group thinks they can find a variety of applications should the project eventually prove successful. The Solar Impulse aircraft achieved its first test flight as a prototype last year in Germany where the design showed promise as an easily controlled and maneuverable aircraft. Yesterday, the team had hoped to reach the next step in the project by flying for 24 straight hours before a technical malfunction forced them to delay the flight.

Designated the HB-SIA, the planned test flight for the craft would have launched in the early morning and flown throughout the day to allow the solar power cells onboard to continue collecting that renewable energy and maintain a full charge. Ideally, as the sun set the HB-SIA would have been able to fly throughout the night on the charge and been able to safetly land back at the Swiss airport they left from previously the next morning. The malfunction that kept the team grounded, however, was a key component that would have allowed the ground control to monitor the progress of the craft at all times for safety reasons. Without that device functioning, the team felt the safety of the flight could be compromised and were forced to delay. Though a date has not been set the team hopes to get underway before it becomes to late in the year and the days become in winter. Shorter days would obviously mean less sunlight, and the crew does not believe it would be sufficient to allow a full charge for night flight.

Once the flight is rescheduled and successful, the Solar Impulse team will be prepared to achieve their ultimate goal in flying a renewable energy powered plane. The team hopes, that by 2011 or 2012 they will be able to fly the final version of the HB-SIA on a month long trip around the globe entirely on solar power. The final craft will have a wingspan in excess of 220 feet and will include a pressurized cabin allowing the crew to maintain the higher altitudes needed for such a flight. Hopefully the Solar Impulse project will be able to get far enough to accomplish just that, allowing the rest of the world to see one of the most exciting circumnavigations of the globe in years on a plan entirely powered by renewable energy.

The Plastiki Expedition 2010: "Message In A Bottle"

The Plastiki Expedition

April 8, 2010

The Plastiki began her adventure nearly four years ago after taking inspiration from a report issued by UNEP called ‘Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Deep Waters and High Seas’ and Thor Heyerdahl’s epic 1947 expedition, The Kon-Tiki. True to Adventure Ecology’s values, a compelling and pioneering expedition was needed that would not only inform, but would also captivate, activate and educate the world that waste is fundamentally inefficient design.

The Plastiki Expedition is a bold adventure that aims to capture the world’s imagination and draw our attention to the state of our oceans. The proposal is to build a boat from plastic bottles and recycled materials, which will then be sailed across the Pacific Ocean from North America to Australia.

Their philosophy is about recognizing that waste is fundamentally a design flaw (it does not appear in nature) It’s about re-thinking waste as a resource. It’s about cyclical ‘cradle-to-cradle’ philosophies rather than linear thinking when it comes to how we design our world. It’s about a better understanding of the lifecycle’s and materials used in our everyday lives. It’s about being curious and open, being prepared to let go of assumptions in order to undertake a new ‘Planet 2.0’ way of thinking and acting. It’s about acknowledging that we don’t have all the answers and that nobody is as smart as everybody.

It’s about being collaborative and curious so to engage multiple perspectives, skills, opinions and organizations. It’s about constantly learning, unlearning and re-learning. It’s about re-integrating back into the web of life by recognizing and reducing our human fingerprints on the natural world. It’s about moving on from just articulating the problems and inspiring action of the solutions. It’s about encouraging the world to reduce, reuse, recycle and rethink more of the planets natural resources. It’s about delivering a spectacular global “Message in a Bottle”.

We can understand the project better by taking a look at their inspirations, in which they mention the book Cradle to Cradle by William McDonough & Michael Braungart, where they argue that the conflict between industry and the environment is not an indictment of commerce but an outgrowth of purely opportunistic design. The design of products and manufacturing systems growing out of the Industrial Revolution reflected the spirit of the day-and yielded a host of unintended yet tragic consequences.

The early design sketches show us the initial construction ideas for the boat:

The ship is equipped with advanced recycling practices including; bouyancy from bottles, two wind turbines, solar panels, pedal power, rigging and sails made from recycled PET bottles, recycled aluminum mainstay, structure from PET fabric and foam attached with a sugar and cashew-based epoxy as well as a geodesic, reusable cabin, recycled waste water protocol, hydroponic garden and rain water reclamation practices.

The four month voyage is carrying The Plastiki through a number of environmentally sensitive regions. The most notable of which has been ominously named the ‘Eastern Garbage Patch‘, a region six times the size of the United Kingdom where vast quantities of plastic pollution have accumulated because of the currents. It is a gyre of marine litter in the central North Pacific Ocean located roughly between 135° to 155°W and 35° to 42°N. Although many scientists suggest that the patch extends over a very wide area, with estimates ranging from an area the size of the state of Texas to one larger than the continental United States, the exact size is unknown.

The Scientific Flash Behind The Fireworks

By: Doug Kanter

How
pyrotechs use physics and chemistry with flair

It takes some precise chemistry and physics to pull off multicolored displays like this Fourth of July fireworks show over the Manhattan skyline.

As you ooh and aah at the dazzling explosions of a fireworks display, there are three things going on that you probably wouldn’t guess: The chemists who made those pyrotechnics designed most of them so they wouldn’t explode, you’re actually seeing nature conserving energy, and most peculiar of all, when things are at their flashiest, you’re actually seeing the fireworks as they’re cooling down.

The rockets' red glare, and all those bombs bursting in air, are the product of pyrotechnic chemistry that’s been refined ever since the Chinese first started using black powder for noisy fireworks to scare away evil spirits.

The basic ingredients in black powder, and all fireworks, are the same as they’ve always been: a fuel source and an oxidizer. The fuel’s job, like the wax in a candle, is to provide heat. The oxidizer is there to provide more oxygen that the ambient air can supply, to accelerate the reaction - to speed up the burning.

Slower is better

But there’s more to making a basic firework than putting the ingredients together. Good visual effects come from a slower reaction. Pyrotechnic chemists, who are trying to create bedazzle instead of bang, don’t want their work to explode.They want it to burn for a bit so it gives a good visual show. To achieve the desired effect, the size of the particles of each ingredient have to be just right, and the ingredients have to be blended together just right.

To slow down the burning, chemists use big grains of chemicals, in the range of 250 to 300 microns (the size of a small grain of sand), and they don’t blend the ingredients together very well. That makes it harder for the fuel and oxidizer to combine and burn, and produces a longer and brighter effect.

For the really sparkly parts of fireworks, they use even bigger grains, roughly 1,000 microns in size, which are ignited by the black powder fire around them and combine with the air to burn with a spark effect.

A good example of the fuel/oxidizer/sparkle combination is - duh - the sparkler. It’s made of medium-sized grains of fuel and oxidizer to get the fire going, mixed with even bigger grains of aluminum.

When ignited, those grains burn in combination with the oxygen in the air, giving off the sparks. Aluminum burning at 2,700 degrees Fahrenheit (1,500 degrees Celsius) produces golden sparklers. At hotter temperatures, up to 5,400 degrees F (3,000 degrees C), the aluminum produces white sparks.

Beyond the basics

Well, so much for the basics. Now what about color? There are other chemicals used to produce colors, but they all only do their dazzling thanks to the first law of thermodynamics: Nature conserves energy. Energy from the fire in the basic fuel is transferred to the atoms of the colorant chemicals. That excites the electrons in those chemicals into a higher energy state. The electrons literally orbit further away from the atom’s nucleus.

Then, as they cool down, they move back to a lower state of energy. But remember, nature conserves energy. Energy is never lost, it’s just transferred somewhere else. As the electrons “calm down,” the energy they give up is converted into radiation. Light. That’s where the light of fireworks comes from. You actually see the colors in fireworks as they’re cooling down.

The signature chemicals in fireworks each emit light at a specific wavelength, producing a specific color: strontium equals red ... copper equals blue ... barium equals green ... sodium equals yellow/orange. Just as you could combine crayon colors when you were a kid, combining the colorant chemicals can give you additional colors. Strontium (red) plus copper (blue) equals purple.

The chemists produce little pellets of colorant chemicals, the size of sugar cubes, with a mixture of colorant and basic fuel blended to the right degree, and with the right-size particles so the pellet will burn at the desired rate. Then technicians can calculate how high they have to shoot their shells so they’ll be done burning before the pieces get back down to the ground.

Magic tricks with light and sound

Design artists then figure out how to get the fireworks to explode in shapes, and with sounds. The familiar whistling sound is easy. They pack some basic fuel into a cardboard tube, open on one end. As the fuel burns down inside the tube, the carbon dioxide it gives off rushes out the open end, making a whistling sound. It’s like when you whistle by blowing air out between your pursed lips.

Employees of Alonzo Fireworks set up tubes for a fireworks display in Amsterdam, N.Y. The tubes serve as launch pads for cardboard-covered shells that contain an artfully blended mix of explosives and other chemicals.The shapes of the exploding lights depend on how the basic fuel and colorant pellets have been packed. If the explosive charge in the shell is in the middle, surrounded by a ring of pellets of sodium, when the timer fuse sets off the explosion, it ignites the sodium pellets and shoots them out into that familiar nice round yellow/orange circle. Two rows of colorant pellets around a central “bomb” gives you a double ring.

If the inside of the shell is a mix of basic fuel and colorant all interspersed, the explosion ignites the colorant pellets that then spread out and fall down in a shower, producing a glowing willow tree pattern.

To get the really tricky shapes, like stars or hearts, the colorant pellets are pasted on a piece of paper in the desired pattern. That paper is put in the middle of the shell with explosive charges above it, and below. When those charges go off, they burn up the paper, and send the ignited colorant pellets out in the same pattern they were in on the sheet of paper, spreading wider apart as they fly.

Consumer-level fireworks, which are legal in most states, are made of the same chemicals the commercial shows use. The fireworks industry says that U.S. consumption of commercial fireworks (the big outdoor shows) plus consumer fireworks is up 400 percent since 1976, and that injuries are down 44 percent over the past four years.

But then there was the guy who stuck a lit firecracker up his nose! Honest. Or the folks who burned their house down using fireworks indoors. So if you’re going to use “home” fireworks, remember: Knowing the science behind how they work doesn’t mean they’re risk-free!

Be careful while you enjoy the show!

How Can A Bag Of Chips Cost Less Than An Apple?

How Can a Bag of Chips Cost Less Than an Apple?


By Daphne Oz
April 14, 2010

Why does eating healthy food usually mean shelling out more money? How can raw fruits and vegetables that come right out of the ground or off the vine cost more than processed junk food that's spent a few days in a factory? Daphne Oz goes looking for answers.

Over the past couple months, I've found it hard to ignore how difficult it has become to eat healthily. Since graduating college and moving out on my own, I've had to learn how to navigate the treacherous terrain of managing a budget. Of all the new expenditures that come along with life outside the nest—utilities, cable, gym—I was most shocked by how expensive the food I wanted to buy was. And I wasn't looking to buy beluga caviar—I'm talking about organic cottage cheese versus conventional; fresh-squeezed orange juice versus from concentrate.

As I began to look over my receipts and peruse the aisles of my local grocery and health food stores, I noticed an obvious (and disturbing) trend. The more heavily processed and artificial a food, the less expensive it was. How is it that something that you eat exactly the way it looks when it comes out of the ground or off a tree can cost more than something that went through a day and a half of mechanical digestion by heavy machinery? Doesn't it strike you as a bit odd that our supermarkets are crammed with 99-cent bags of chips, but apples can cost $1.25 or more? Or that a hamburger at a fast food restaurant might run just less than $4 compared to a large salad, which can cost twice that.

Look at the example of a hamburger. First you have the beef (which involves raising livestock, slaughtering them, processing the meat, potentially freezing it and shipping it to the point of sale). Then you have the bun (which is processed flour, meaning all the wheat had to be grown, harvested, ground, mixed, baked and then shipped). Now add whatever other vegetables and spreads might be included. You get all this for $4. But what if you want to eat a head of lettuce and some dressing? It's going to cost you twice the amount? How can this be?

Back in the early 1900s, the U.S. government invested in an agriculture policy that aimed to promote production of those foods that could be easily stored or shipped to soldiers fighting in World War I, like corn and wheat. To make sure we had plenty of these grains, we decided to pay farmers to grow more of the crops we needed most—and consequently stop growing most other grains, vegetables or fruits. This practice is what we now know as subsidizing.

Because government money could be used to cover some of the costs of production, the price the consumer had to pay for these items fell. Of course, with this lower price came higher consumption. As demand grew, so did our production levels.

Today, 30 percent of our land base is being planted with corn. Even out of wartime, we have continued to subsidize corn and wheat production, adding canola and soybeans to the list, largely because beef, pork and chicken growers demand these crops be constantly available at the lowest possible price—which means meat producers can also be counted as recipients of subsidies.

As we produced more and more grain, our supplies eventually surpassed the demand. To help get rid of some of this overstock, we commissioned farmers and scientists to find new things to do with these stores. While farmers began feeding corn and wheat to animals that had never eaten these plants before—like cows and fish—scientists ingeniously found ways to convert these crops into a variety of different forms. Some experts estimate that corn derivative products exist in nearly 90 percent of all processed foods.

It might not look like corn on the outside, but many of the processed food items available to you, whether we're talking crackers, candy bars or soda, are made from corn in the form of high fructose corn syrup. In addition, many of those obscure terms you might not recognize on the ingredient label—maltodextrin, xanthan gum, saccharin, di-glycerides—are corn derivatives. Corn is also the main feed for most meat and poultry animals, so there's corn in that grilled chicken sandwich too. One striking example: Farmed fish are now being taught to eat corn for the first time ever! So not even your sushi is corn-free.

Today, we spend nearly $25 billion in subsidies to fund farmers of corn, wheat, soybean, canola, beef, pork, chicken and dairy. The result is that farmers can charge the consumer much less than the price it costs to produce these foods and make up the difference through government funding. This might sound like a good deal for us at first—we get something for cheaper than we should—but the reality is that it has completely distorted the position and predominance of these foods in our eating hierarchy because they are so much cheaper.

In fact, you actually do pay more for these foods than what the grocery store receipt says. Those subsidies are your tax dollars, after all. And the true cost of industrial agriculture is almost impossible to calculate because we have no enforceable way of quantifying how much producers should pay to offset the pollution their operations create or the long-term damage to human health from overconsumption of certain foods and exposure to chemicals, hormones and antibiotics used in some cases.

Since we aren't being made to bear the full cost burden of our eating habits, of course we eat more than we would normally. It's hard to say exactly how much a pound of beef would cost if we took into account all the factors involved in getting it nice and neatly packed into a patty on your plate (feeding, housing and medicating the cattle, slaughtering and processing the meat, treating the meat for bacteria, pressing it into patties, shipping and storing it, plus the costs in environmental pollution from animal refuse and processing fuel, just to a name a few). If it were $20, how often would you indulge? I've heard figures as high as $90! Imagine how different your eating habits would be if you had to pay this every time you wanted a steak.

The point is, subsidized foods cost way less than they should and have a much larger presence in our lives as a result, and not because they're any easier to produce than regular old carrots. In fact, farmers of subsidized crops are charged with producing such a huge amount of food that their operations generally become much more complex, involving lots of machinery, medicines and chemical compounds to compensate for that fact that there is no possible way for them to manage their operations simply through human labor.

The worst of it is that American consumers are deliberately being kept in the dark when it comes to where, and how, and by whom their food is produced. Agricultural giants own the seeds, the fertilizer and pesticides, even the farms in some cases, and are well-equipped to limit how much can be said and how much can be done about their business practices. They spend money to divert your attention away from their operations—to make it difficult for you as a conscious consumer to discover what is going on, or to say anything about it if you do—because they're worried that, once you find out the truth, you might not want to buy their products anymore. And you know what? They're probably right.

Subsidies lay the groundwork for what's happening in our food system. What can you do about it? As a consumer, vote with your pocketbook. Create a market for affordable, accessible, healthy food by making sure that you opt for organic, local and humanely produced items whenever possible.

If you demand it and are willing to pay more for it, producers will supply it. Moreover, it may influence our government to actually start supporting family farmers who can produce the diverse array of food we need to be healthy, rather than funneling all of our collective tax dollar food subsidies into a few industrial producers.

While the pie-in-the-sky vision of a country teeming with a vast network of family-owned farms is still years away, there are ways to work within the current system to make foods healthier and safer for us all. A March 2010 Wall Street Journal article documented how some of the biggest players in the food business—such as Kraft Foods, ConAgra and PepsiCo.—are now taking high fructose corn syrup out of many of their products—such as Wheat Thins, Hunt's Ketchup and Gatorade, respectively. Why? Because their consumers asked them to put sugar back.

It's more expensive for producers to use sugar because corn subsidies make corn syrup a cheaper sweetener, but they're switching over anyway.

This just goes to show: In America, the consumer is king, and what we want is what we'll get. So how are you going to wield your power?