I don’t see any mention on your web site of Pyrolysis or Agrichar . Do you have projects in the planning stage on the carbon sequestration front?

The more you learn about this ancient technique of soil restoration the more you’ll see how elegant this solution can be for carbon sequestration, for us all.
Imagine putting the carbon tax funds into the hands of millions of peasant farmers all around the world, building their soil and their net worth at the same time. Please search “AGRICHAR” “BIOCHAR” or
“TERRA PRETA”

Water flows into these pond from above. Snowmaking, which is below them, is then gravity fed.

Auden

You can stem christie on alpine or tele skis, but the fact that you stem christie does not mean you hike for your turns.

Yes, we do make decisions as if the price of energy were going to skyrocket. For example: in designing new buildings, we throw design time and money at to ensure they beat energy code substantially, by more than 30% at a minimum. Same for existing building that we retrofit. Snowmaking in particular is subject to this test, and that’s one reaons why there’s a push to develop more on mountain water storage. That’s also why we’re expanding solar photovoltiac installations, which aren’t that economical right now. One problem is that energy is a very, very small part of our annual operating expense. It’s dwarfed by labor. So it could go up substantially and still be a small part of our operating expense. This is true for most businesses, and that’s why we need the price to go up.

Does ASC make business decisions based upon the bargain basement prices we get to pay for energy these days? Or is your planning forward thinking enough to factor in the cost of being 100% wind powered even if you do not have to pay it now?

It’s not an academic question. You talk about a vision of a world with very little carbon emissions. This sounds kind of expensive, but OK. ASC (and Wal-Mart) are making decisions that must look into the future far enough to be affected by the new energy economy. Does the bigger price tag of figure in?

If it does, that is worth putting on savesnow.org. If not, you are being insincere. You either bet that the world is going to come to its senses and tax most of Xcel’s aging coal roasters out of service, or you figure skiing isn’t going to matter much in 20 years.

T.Bolt hikes for every turn and is much better going up than coming down. I think his use of an archaic skiing term was used to nostalgicly reference an era before before compressors and expansion nozzles set the agenda.

“Let’s ask Auden about ASC’s cost benefit analysis for the Snowmass heating system. (A condesing boiler was installed instead of a CHP that could have been integrated into an intelligent electrical supply system.) Were the decisions based upon the market prices of energy sources, or what we really should be paying if he wants to be doing stem christies in retirement?”

We did extensive analysis on the CHP option because like T. Bolt Lobber, I knew that this was the best possible option. The cost of bringing in a new gas line was astronomical, may not have even been possible, and probably didn’t make sense environmentally, anyway. Just beause an idea is good in one application doesn’t mean that it’s universally good. Not knowing the details of our project, I’m not sure that you can say that our 4 condensing boilers and other efficiency measures (like full commissioning for the whole village in design and ops phases) were the wrong decision. Meanwhile, if your knowledge of ski technique is any reflection of your competence in CHP and smart grids, we’re in trouble. If you using a stem christie to turn your skis, you are probably retired already.

A mandatory cap and trade will create a burgeoning industry of seminars fielded to educate the next generation of Enron/Arthur Anderson accountants. More fossil fuels will be oxidized to pamper the traders and cappers than any system will save. Crap and spade is a full employment measure for laywers, accountants and government beaureucrats. Not to mention policy wonks eager to parlay their intimate knowledge with impenetrable (and ineffective) regulations into invitations to headline at the above mentioned seminars.

Cap and trade will not provide any results unless it is everybit as harsh on the wasteful, the inefficient and Sutherland’s “unsatisfactory” as a direct taxation scheme. So why are your building a new shelf for mercilessly thick regulation manuals? (Unless, of course, you are a lawyer, accountant, beareucrat or policy wonk.)

Let’s ask Auden about ASC’s cost benefit analysis for the Snowmass heating system. (A condesing boiler was installed instead of a CHP that could have been integrated into an intelligent electrical supply system.) Were the decisions based upon the market prices of energy sources, or what we really should be paying if he wants to be doing stem christies in retirement?

This is where Amory Lovins fantasy novels fall apart. My local Wal-Mart would have to sell every CFL bulb on the shelf every 32 hours to create enough energy savings to power the enormous wall of TV sets that are left running constantly in the store. But better to have Rob Walton floating RMI in a straight cash for credibility, mututal backpatting arrangement than actually address climate change and resource depletion.

Wal-Mart is large enough, and they use such an un-godly amount of electric power, that even if they paid the ridiculously low premium that ASC ponied up for their PR buzz, the results might have actually moved the renewable energy market. Certainly, if electricity prices covered even a portion of the non-negotiated economic fall out, then Wal-Mart might be obliged to employ some other merchanidsing technique than to run 100 piggish TV’s 24/7.

But why bother, Walton can put in a plug for Lovins in Time magazine, take a few nominally effective measures and have green status lain at his feet by a media incapable of differentiating Schuck from Jive.