First in a series about climate change in the San Juans
||| FROM ISARA GRAECEN for LOPEZ COMMUNITY LAND TRUST |||
Transportation is a unique and multifaceted system that both shapes and is shaped by our environment. In the San Juan Islands, our choices in transportation play a significant role in contributing to climate change. According to the 2023 San Juan County Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Baseline Report, transportation is the single largest contributor to GHG emissions in our county, producing an estimated 113,602 metric tons of CO2 or 36% of our total GHG emissions, in large part due to diesel operated ferries. As San Juan County Policy & Regional Initiatives Manager, Grant Carlton explains “Climate and transportation are inextricably linked, they are a two-way street. You can’t think about transportation in this day and age without thinking about the impacts of climate.”
County councilmember Jane Fuller explains that significant emissions in our county comes from “the diesel-powered Washington State Ferries and gas-powered modes oftransportation, including motorboats.”
Climate educator and Madrona Institute board member, Nikyta Palmisani emphasizes,“Aviation is another large emitter but is not currently captured in our county’s Greenhouse Gas(GHG) Inventory as most fuel is purchased off island.”
In turn, climate change threatens our transportation infrastructure, particularly with sea-level rise and increased storm activity affecting shoreline roads and ferry operations. Fuller notes, “The county’s public works department estimates that approximately 13 miles of countyroads are at risk because of increased sea levels which is worsening year by year.”
Jay Kimball, climate and sustainability consultant, wrote in the Orcasonian, “No Uber/Lyft service is currently available in San Juan County, but we have Island Rides, an excellent free EV-based transportation service primarily serving vulnerable locals.” There are also plans to introduce hybrid-electric ferries by 2028, which would be a significant step towards reducing maritime transportation emissions.
One example of what has been done at a community level is the Lopez Community Land Trust (LCLT)’s neighborhood car-share electric vehicle (EV) initiative. Funded by a Washington State Department of Transportation grant covering the majority of the vehicle and start-up costs. The project’s goals include increasing transportation accessibility and reducing carbon emissions.
On a policy level, San Juan County is set to complete updating the comprehensive plan in mid-2025. The Plan will integrate climate as a new element required by recent state law changes.
Carlton says, “There are climate components in the transportation plan now, but I think we need to really bridge the gap between transportation and climate as we revamp that comprehensive plan.” The county does “a really good job keeping our roads functional. Our public works department does a great job at making sure the potholes are filled in and that the culverts don’t wash out, but transportation is so much more than just that,” Carlton notes. His hope and vision for the future of transportation in the county “is that we can really look at transportation holistically and have a comprehensive system that utilizes new technologies and more progressive tools for transportation.”
One important step is a movement towards electrifying modes of transport that currently rely on burning fossil fuels.
San Juan County is one of the only counties in the state without a road-based public transportation service. Kimball highlights that “substantial funds and grants are available from state and federal sources to help our county transition to cleaner transportation solutions.” He advocates for the testing of a free electric shuttle bus service on one of the islands which operates on a regular, predictable schedule.
Public works director Colin Huntemer thinks, “Often one of the biggest challenges we face is getting constructive agreement on the problems we are facing as a community.” He calls for depoliticizing the issue, saying, “Fundamentally, transportation is about moving people and goods safely. When the challenge is reduced to its engineering principles, we have the greatest chance of success.”
Grant Carlton notes another challenge: community inertia. “With being a very tight-knit community and being very comfortable with what we have, I think that comfort comes with at times a bit of lack of looking forward.” He acknowledges that while resistance to change is part of what makes the San Juans unique, it also hinders the adoption of new technologies and solutions to reduce our climate footprint and improve transportation.
Palmisani shares her hopeful vision, “I can imagine a resilient transportation future where everyone has a safe, clean, and quiet ride home, the skies are blue, the air continues to be fresh and clean, and our human and wildlife communities are healthy and thriving.”
Isara Greacen is a Climate Communications Intern for the Lopez Community Land Trust. She grew up on Lopez Island and now attends Scripps College.
All well and good with this concept until you ask yourself, where is the electricity going to come from?
OPALCO is running very close to the BPA transmission line capacity from the mainland to Lopez NOW during winter peaks. That is a time when solar is producing far less than the rated capacity that it gets during the summer. Your electric heat pumps and mini-splits are at the lowest efficiency. Charging ferries (when ever they arrive here, 2038???) at any of our docks will suck vast amounts of energy from OPALCO’s system. During the winter, this may be more than our grid can provide and still keep the lights on and our EV’s charging.
Getting energy from the mainland (when we are not near our 85MW transmission capacity) is going to get more difficult as the mainland loads grow sharply. During the night, this energy will not come from solar. The hydro system is often maxed out, supplying BPA loads. And the BPA contract expires in 2028. Renegotiation will be difficult and uncertain. Some folks think it is a great idea to take out the Lower Snake River Dams, that’s an average 1100MW that would have provided night time energy.
So there is another dimension to moving transportation to electric energy. Where is the electricity going to come from? This is going to be a huge problem for OPALCO and all us co-op members. We can not even get the small Bailer Hill Community Solar Project permitted!!!
Please confirm the statement “transportation is the single largest contributor to GHG emissions in our county, producing an estimated 113,602 million tons of CO2”. As written that would be 113 billion tons of CO2, which (without fact checking) seems extraordinarily high. My guess is that the word “millon” should be extracted from the statement. Even 113,602 tons seems like a lot for the county.
Former utility executive Tom Owens strikes a note of realism into the discussions of electrifying almost everything on these islands. The rapid recent growth of data centers and AI on the mainland is already creating electricity demands that BPA cannot meet without new generation, and solar energy cannot hope to provide that in the winter. This will inevitably drive up our electric rates, according to the law of supply and demand. The only solution I can see is better energy efficiency.
Thank you Isara for your reporting, and to our county council, the county staff, the county Sustainability Avisory Committee Members, all Partners, and the 3rd party consultant teams for doing the necessary work that it took to come up with SJC’s first greenhouse gas inventory.
Below are relevant excerpts from the 2023 San Juan County Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Emissions Baseline Report. Note that 2019 is the (pre-pandemic) base-line used in the report–
GREENHOUSE GAS INVENTORIES
Community wide Greenhouse Gas Inventory
In 2019, San Juan County’s residents, businesses, and visitors produced an estimated 177,830 metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent (MTCO2e), equivalent to approximately 10 MTCO2e per capita.
The following per capita emissions are based on the county’s resident population, this does not include those who work in or visit the county.
County Emissions per Capita (MTCO2e/capita)
San Juan County 10.1
Our largest community wide emissions sources were:
• Transportation, producing an estimated 113,602 MTCO2e.
The county’s largest sources of community wide emissions in 2019 were maritime
transport (39%), on-road transport (18%), and tree loss (13%).
• Land Use, producing an estimated 28,919 MTCO2e.
• Building Energy, producing an estimated 16,403 MTCO2e.
https://www.sanjuancountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/28867/San-Juan-County-GHG-Report-2019
I agree that the challenges are enormous.
Efficiency will always important.
And we will need larger capacity underwater cables.
Geothermal is making advances that employ the directional drilling developed by the fracking industry:
https://www.canarymedia.com/articles/geothermal/next-generation-geothermal-will-soon-power-southern-californias-grid
Startup Fervo Energy will supply 320 MW of clean, firm power to Southern California Edison from an enhanced geothermal plant under construction in Utah.
“Unlike existing geothermal plants — which harness naturally available resources — enhanced geothermal systems draw from artificial reservoirs created thousands of feet under the ground. In Fervo’s case, that means using horizontal drilling techniques and fiber-optic sensing tools to make fractures in hot impermeable rocks. Technicians pump those pockets full of water and working fluids at high pressures. The rocks then heat those fluids to produce steam that drives electric turbines.”
Private boats are significant contributors to our carbon emissions.
There is a low-carbon-footprint/circularly resourced private boat:
https://newatlas.com/marine/huchu55-iyacht-solar-electric-sailing-catamaran/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=ebad74abd7-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_07_12_04_51&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-ebad74abd7-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
We cannot assume that one or more larger capacity mainland cables will solve the coming challenge. That assumption posits that the power will be there when current prognoses indicate that it won’t. Weather variation (this phrase for those to whom “climate change” is anathema), AI and other massed computer power demands, and of course the gradual change from a fossil fueled transportation and industrial economy to one that relies on electric energy may require time-of-use rates to avoid outright rationing.
But new responses will appear, as home and EV batteries become part of the system, and with well-chosen solar installations, the worst (rationing, rolling blackouts) may be avoided. Some solutions may not only be technologically feasible, but profitable, provided that the playing field is not tilted against the lower income portion of our community.
I’m having trouble envisioning that the average tourist coming to the San Juans, stays 2 days and only puts 9.6 miles per day on their vehicle during their stay… as the report indicates. That’s a figure that gives one the impression that they didn’t come here to see the place. I mean, it’s 10 miles or so from the ferry landing to town.
San Juan County GHG Emissions Inventory Report
P-21 Visitation and Seasonality Analysis
“We estimate that residents travel on average 10.5 miles per day (based on local traffic count data) and visitors travel on average 9.6 miles per day (based on 2022 Visitors Bureau data). One distinction between resident and visitor driving habits is that visitors are more likely to be carpooling than residents, lessening their impact on VMT.”
https://www.sanjuancountywa.gov/DocumentCenter/View/28867/San-Juan-County-GHG-Report-2019
Re: Tom Owen’s comment about where the electricity will come from, a May 2, 2024 article in the Seattle Times states “Demand for electricity is spiking across the Pacific Northwest and its potential to outpace our supply in the years ahead is growing, according to a new energy forecast, detailing the tricky path ahead for utilities across the region.”
According to a July 15, 2024 article in KATU (ABC), “Heatwave electricity demand nearly breaks EWEB’s all-time summer record” and “‘This is just an indication that people are using air-conditioning more,” says Aaron Orlowski, Senior Communications Specialist at EWEB. “That we’re seeing more people using charging stations for electric vehicles, [and] using more electricity than they have in years past.'”
Another article in the Seattle Times from July 10, 2024 states “PNW data center boom could imperil power supply within 5 years” and “The International Energy Agency predicts data center power demand worldwide will double by 2026, in large part due to AI” and “The data center industry has particularly boomed in Washington and Oregon.”
A recent report by the Civilization Research Institute states that “A rough estimate based on the Garrett relation between global cumulative economic production and energy consumption suggests that current projected economic growth from AI would require by 2030 an additional 739TWh per year, which is approximately the entire nuclear energy generation of the US.”
At the same time oil production in the US has never been higher, and likewise for global fossil fuel use. More energy begets more growth which demands more energy.
It seems highly likely we should expect and adapt to frequent blackouts in coming years as demand soars and supplies become more limited. Will the “growth at all costs” people continue to cover their ears and eyes so they don’t have to recognize this? Or will we finally understand that perhaps “conservation”, “de-growth”, and “living within our biocapacity” aren’t dirty words?
Re: the last paragraph in the article:
“Palmisani shares her hopeful vision, “I can imagine a resilient transportation future where everyone has a safe, clean, and quiet ride home, the skies are blue, the air continues to be fresh and clean, and our human and wildlife communities are healthy and thriving.””
EV transportation here in SJC might seem fantastic and “clean”. But recognize that “clean air” and “blue skies” here come at a huge cost for elsewhere in the world. Not just the rivers destroyed by the PNW dams, but also the land, ecosystems, water, and air polluted and destroyed for the materials to make EVs. Whether it’s child slaves pulling cobalt from underground in the Congo, or some of the last best sage-grouse habitat destroyed for lithium in Nevada, or the old growth forest home of one of the last remaining uncontacted tribes in Indonesia being destroyed for nickel, or the slave laborers in China working to make EV, solar, and wind turbine parts, or sulfur trucked into sulfuric acid refineries (used to refine copper and lithium) from the tar sands that has destroyed vast swathes or boreal forest and entire rivers, spreading mercury poisoning far and wide, the “clean air and blue skies” here in SJC hides mountains of cruelty, pollution, and destruction. It is astonishing to me that so many are so willing to ignore what is out of immediate sight and therefore out of mind.
July 24 article from KGW8: “‘On the edge of an energy crisis’: Forecasting the future of electricity in the Pacific Northwest”
More energy => more growth => more demand => more energy. No clean air or blue skies in sight; just more ecological destruction as far as the eye can see.
And of course, no one, not a single person, has the word “no” in their vocabulary. Much less the words “degrowth” or “maybe we should start conserving energy”. Why not? Because economic growth is the religion of this state, this country, this world, and $$$ is our god.
Few think about the fact that infinite growth on a finite planet is a recipe for ecocide and, ultimately, suicide.
A quote from the article:
““What we have seen in the last two years is remarkable,” said PNUCC’s Crystal Ball. “We are seeing a surge in demand for electricity that exceeds PNUCC’s previous forecast. And this year’s — the 2024 update to the Northwest Regional Forecast Project’s demand could increase by 30% in the next 10 years. That’s an increase of 7,000 average megawatts of enough electricity to power seven cities the size of the city we’re in today: Seattle.”
In other words, there is big demand, and it’s growing fast, as Ball forecasts.
Ball said there are three main reasons why they’re expecting the increase: First, the trend toward electrification in homes and cars as we try to reduce fossil fuel usage. Second, the growing development of data centers throughout the Northwest; those are physical buildings that hold tech infrastructure for companies; they also power artificial intelligence. Lastly, more high-tech manufacturing — things like semiconductor manufacturing, which lawmakers are trying to move back to the U.S.”
It would behoove the people of this county to start planning for regular blackouts.
The first thing the county needs to do is develop usable bicycle transportation infrastructure. I am noticing that most commenters here don’t even ride bikes! Second, there needs to be a law about using a 200 hp car motor to charge a cell phone! I’m tired of asking tourists to turn off their motor when they are parked. Third, more subsidies for home solar to charge EV‘s. All of these things can and should be implemented as soon as possible.
OPALCO, while it says it supports residential solar, pursues a revenue model that undercuts residential solar.
OPALCO does provide access to federal funds to build a residential solar systems and that is a good thing.
OPALCO also makes residential solar unappealing to a homeowner by tilting the ROI calculation away from residential solar.. In a recent email to me, OPALCO wrote, …For solar generators, OPALCO has set their solar tariff buy at $0.0868 per kWh. For kWh you get from OPALCO (what OPALCO sells power for) the cost is $0.1274 per kWh to everyone…”
This makes solar less appealing because the difference between the tariff to sell power to OPALCO and the tariff to buy power from OPALCO negatively impacts the wallets of residential solar producers by extending the payback time by years.
Regarding this, in a declaration dripping with hypocrisy, OPALCO also stated to me in an email: ” …OPALCO wants the price paid to local solar power providers to move closer to the price we pay BPA for power over time. As those costs equalize, it becomes more an equitable energy source for all members of the co-op – not just those who are solar producers.”
When I tried to arrange a meeting with OPALCO to discuss their flawed logic, their guru declined to set a meeting.
Residential solar producers are contributing to the grid by paying for their solar installations, from their own pocket, after tax credits, to the tune of about $40,000 (or so). Residential solar adds stability to the grid. It also helps the community address the climate crisis by implementing a LOCAL distributed model for power generation.
Next, regarding an earlier comment, regarding the 85 MW limit, residential solar can help us deal with that problem without adding an undue burden on power consumers. Lastly, someone questioned where all that required electricity for EVs and electrified WSF ferries will come from in the future. The answer is your neighbors–assuming OPALCO helps rather than hinder the transition to residential solar.
Those who can afford to help the community by adding solar must not be penalized by OPALCO.
Big respect for Elizabeth Robson who said all that needs to be said in terms of reality checks. I share her astonishment that little to no acknowledgement is given to the monster in the living room – overconsumption, tied to some kind of naive anthropocentric optimism without thought to the ripple effect on the whole that we impact by this way of thinking and operating. It feels like some sort of desperate pollyanna grasping at straws, and still the words consumption, conservation, and equity (not just for humans) don’t even enter the picture when it comes to potential solutions. She covers it all; technocracy and its effects and drain on the load. All-electrification is a disaster. These solutions will be on the backs of the working class and poor. We in Eastsound UGA feel it especially, for we were once a forested riparian wetland watershed here. What she says about how we impact the Unseen is even more important to grasp.
As Michael Johnson points out when he gives details from the 2023 community emissions report, 2019 is the base-line (pre-covid and now 5 years old baseline data.) Tree loss made it into the top 3 causes of greenhouse gas emissions. Does this concern anyone else? There has been far more tree loss since then, with much more to come as backlogged permits are pushed through. We need a current baseline to reflect these changes, and to show how many riparian forested wetlands have been lost.
How is it that we are still doing nothing to slow tree loss or even teach people that trees prefer to grow in small groups rather than like good matchstick soldiers, or what they do to sink carbon and all that they provide? It’s appalling. We see and feel this especially acutely in Eastsound Urban Growth Area, which has been built atop a contiguous riparian wetland watershed and impacts nearshore ecosystems on both sides of the 1 mile wide land bridge that is our watershed. And that doesn’t even begin to address impacts of marine travel and the big uptick in private boats and how that ripples out in the Salish Sea and lands that share it. I don’t see how we can base a report and what to do on information that’s so old it’s obsolete.
This isn’t going to get better, now that the County has laid off 4 employees from the DCD, can’t find a director, and has decided to outsource all permits to a company that isn’t even in Washington! Too bad people didn’t know that before candidates’ night! I would have loved to hear their answers on this question of what they intend to do about outsourcing our permits to people who will never know our lands and waters by setting foot on them – not that the FH people did either, but it was better than what we’ll have now and I expect this will also exacerbate tree loss. There is a saying: “Deforestation leads to desertification.” It’s not just a saying.
There are more trees on the island now than there have ever been in history.
Dan Christopherson, might you have a source we could check for that? After all, we had a really huge storm in 1990 that wiped out, like, 70,000 trees (and I don’t have a source for that other than memory).
You mean after the county was settled with farmers and homesteaders, right? Because it seems likely that before then (i.e. before people started taking photos and writing stuff down) the entire San Juans archipelago was much more heavily forested than now. Now we have more trees than we did when the county was heavily logged in the first half of the 20th century. And far fewer than before settlement. And with roads, housing developments, and industries, the little habitat that is left is extremely fragmented and degraded. In addition, like everywhere else on Earth, SJC is heavily polluted with toxic chemicals, microplastics, etc. that affect all flora and fauna who live here, including humans.
I didn’t want to touch the subject of directional-drilling by corporations who’d be profiting from making big Tidal projects. If you have ever seen the impact and results of directional drilling, it doesn’t seem a good idea in terms of deforestation.
My sister has a directionally drilled export pipeline 75 feet from her front door. All kinds of toxic things go through it to the Delaware River, where it’s shipped off to Asia – fracked gas and oil, primarily. Force-‘bought’ easements on lands they wanted to use and if you didn’t sell they just took it by eminent domain. Most people opted for the money. You had to also relinquish any rights to sue if things go wrong. There is a pretty creek downslope; I shudder to think of that. All ‘monitoring’ is done… how? by Bots? I’m not sure they even CAN monitor it and if so, only at certain points. What happens between those points is anyone’s guess, but leaks and spills are likely. No human eyes are on it… it’s buried deep underground. How would that work for tidal? Would more forests be destroyed in Western Wa so that heavy equipment can get in to dig? Salt infiltration inland? What would that do to existing ground waters?
So, it’s back to the topic of Conservation, sharing the load, not making it someone’s downstream or downslope problem. Who will speak for the wildlife and trees? What can we do individually and collectively – and how/when can we understand that what impacts us locally, ripples out far and wide? That’s where the conversations need to be.
Francis Thompson (1850s to early 1900s – English Poet) understood. Here is one of his quotes:
‘All things by immortal power. Near of far, to each other linked are, that thou canst not stir a flower without troubling of a star.’
(coopted and modernized by Loren Eiseley). This is something many First Nations people have lived by all along.
@Dan Christopherson; another one of those ‘truths’ that doesn’t take into account what kinds of trees, where, what are slated to be cut down with each road widening and parcel development in a UGA what was/is a contiguous wetland getting deforested here and all the way up-slope on both hills that flank it. It doesn’t deal with how there are no protection of wetlands and watersheds.
So if you are talking about monocropping of doug firs grown as ‘board feet’ crops – an invasive planted by the lumber industry, I agree – there are more of those.
But there is not much diversity in kind in most places on the island. Riparian wetlands and shorelines are where that diversity happens.
I don’t agree that 20 mph roads need to be widened for bike lanes, curbs, gutters, and sidewalks. When they are, all the street trees – and shade for the walking pedestrian – will be gone. that is a really short sighted solution that only benefits a small population when we could have bike trails in those places and thus preserve the street trees. That’s one example only.
Dan– even though more subsidies for home solar would be a good thing, as can be seen from some of the comments here, the argument over a national, (or worldwide) transition from a fossil fuel to an EV future certainly has its pros and cons. Like the advent of nuclear power generation and the problems resulting from its resultant waste… it doesn’t appear, at this time, to be too well thought out.
“I am noticing that most commenters here don’t even ride bikes!”
Good observation Dan… you don’t either. I see the gas-guzzlin SUV with the bike racks, and your other car parked in back of your shop on a daily basis. Of the commenters that I know personally on this posting, 2 of them (myself included) put less than 2 miles per day on their car, and three of them have EVs. But, your point is well taken… we could all do better.
“The first thing the county needs to do is develop usable bicycle transportation infrastructure.”
As soon as the county puts a limit on annual tourism events, (including your annual bike-a-thon), I’ll be all over that.
“There are more trees on the island now than there have ever been in history.”
This is an interesting remark Dan. Giving you the benefit of the doubt my guess is that you’re intending “in recent history?” That is, since the advent of the white man and his massive deforestation of the islands back-in-the-day? If so, you could be correct. But, there were also fewer people, fewer cars, fewer motorcycles, fewer boats, even fewer bicycles back then. What’s your point?