Energy
Be Careful With Growth Process
June 9, 2007 
Guest Opinion by Timothy Kempf, PhD
Growth and economic development are inextricably linked to a variety of environmental and public health problems.
Here in the Treasure Valley we have experienced significant growth in the past decade as evidenced by population, new businesses, jobs, incomes and housing. We have also experienced an increase in the number of poor air quality days and pollution in our air.
Last summer was particularly disturbing with 63 days during June through September when the air quality was poor enough to have a significant affect on public health. Already this year we have had a record number of poor air quality alert days with indexes rivaling our nation’s most polluted city, Los Angeles.
As we have been growing it takes longer for me to get across town, particularly down Eagle Road. All these large SUVs and the construction equipment surely must be adding a fraction of a degree to the rise in our average global temperature. I question if Boise is such a desirable city in which to live, and with the price of gasoline these days if I can afford to sit in traffic breathing exhaust and feeling guilty about killing Polar Bears.
Considering our growth potential and low population we have the unique opportunity to grow and at the same time develop and utilize renewable energy, cleaner industrial processes and bring in more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Growing cleaner and healthier is a thoughtful process that requires us to abandon unfitting solutions like using compact fluorescent light bulbs and ethanol, both of which are a serious pollution problem in and of themselves and will never be utilized to their full potential anyway.
Instead, we must invest now in cleaner alternatives like wind, solar and geothermal energy and provide incentives to individuals to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles. The higher cost of these solutions could be subsidized by a tax on households and businesses that exceed a certain power usage and on individuals who drive vehicles that are below a certain fuel economy standard.
Our growth process may be cautiously likened to China’s as they try to achieve industrialization and modernization the same way we did in the United States a century ago with coal and oil. The result of that process will only get them to the same point we are now as a nation—entrenched in a fossil-fuel burning infrastructure that we most definitely will not be walking away from anytime soon.
To solve growth related problems we must choose a path not taken for our own health and prosperity.
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Comments & Discussion
Comments are closed for this post.
Jun 9, 2007, 10:56 am
It would be interesting to know the academic background of the author. I normally wouldn’t ask, but “PhD” was used.
EDITOR NOTE–Fair enough. The GUARDIAN wanted to know as well. Here is what “Tim” provided prior to posting. We–not he–made note of the PhD. because we figured folks would want to know.
“Ph.D. in Kinesiology from Purdue University: I taught at the university level for about 10 years and conducted original research in the
Neurophysiology Lab at the University of Illinois in Chicago.
M.S. in Exercise Physiology from The University of Pittsburgh: I worked as a
cardiac rehabilitation specialist for about four years.
Right now I am an advocate for the responsible use of energy, a clean and healthy environment and personal health and safety.”
Jun 9, 2007, 12:45 pm
Growth will be cured in the very near term by the effects of “peak oil”.
Go to http://www.energybulletin.net/primer.php
to find out what peak oil means and why it may be ‘the single most significant event in human history’.
Scientific consensus says that peak world oil production will probably be only slightly less destructive than global warming. Taken together with population overshoot and the peaking of other energy resources, metals and minerals, these events will cure economic and human growth forever.
The cheap energy fiesta is over. Experts know there is no combination of ‘renewables’ that will allow us to consume even a small fraction of our current energy useage.
Alan Durning ( author of many books and the director of the NW Environmental Watch Group ) recently said that he believes the Snake river dams need to stay. He thinks the energy produced will help millions of people survive the coming energy crisis and that he believes the price of Salmon extinction will be worth it. Heavy words for a person of his background.
Jun 9, 2007, 10:39 pm
Dave (and Dr Tim),
I am a native, a fourth generation native, it is over…seriously, IT IS OVER. This was once a very nice place to live, it is no longer, and it will never again be a nice place. Yes, I am looking to move away from the valley, we have had enough. It is difficult to admit, but even Marsing looks good these days.
Jun 9, 2007, 10:42 pm
I like to be green, but I like my efforts to do some good. I share Tim’s view of ethanol and compact fluorescents as unfitting, but am bothered by an emphasis on improved fuel economy without addressing the larger problem of commute distances. There seems to be no voice to speak out for policies that encourage people to live close to their work.
How big an effect is commute distance on fuel consumption? Try this, the next time you are with a group. Ask who commutes the shortest and the furthest. I typically get answers of 2 and 30 miles. That is a factor of 15. The highest fuel economy car is the Prius with 45 mpg. A Hummer gets 18 mpg highway. That is only a factor of 2.7. If everone bought a Prius, it wouldn’t make up for lengthening commutes.
The most potential for reducing fuel consumption is to shorten driving distances. To do this we need to enourage business growth to go to suburbs and not city centers. That is the opposite of the current plan in Boise.
Lets add commute distances to the discussion of fuel economy.
Jun 10, 2007, 7:32 am
Not only should the Snake River dams remain, we should also be building new ones, now. Salmon will not go extinct. They didn’t go extinct on the Pend Oreille/Clark Fork systems when the ice dams blocked the Cabinet Gorge.
Jun 10, 2007, 1:33 pm
Dear Guardian,
I just read with great interest, your current issue. I am pleased to see a publicaton dedicated to informing the local public about the news behind current events.
Best of luck with your worthy cause. I hope that your pages motivate residents into becoming involved. They screamed in Denver. They organized in Phoenix. On the Western slope of Colorado they even protested in the streets.
But nothing slowed the juggernaut of develop money. Liveable cities continue to be turned into sprawling, traffic choked zones sprouting developments where you can almost walk across the roof tops. Commercial malls stretch on down the highways
unchecked, as far as a tank of gas will take you.
To save Boise from this fate will require strong public involvement and pressure to enact development caps, thoughtfully enforced planning regulations and quality standards.
The higher the home values soar, the more attractive the area becomes to hit and run developers squeezing so many homes into a development that in some places there is not even enough space to hang a hammock between them. Routinely, houses have less yard space than main living space.
You still have something special here Boise. Don’t let the big money and influence take it away. “Open for Business” doesn’t have to mean “Getting the Business”
A visitor.
Jun 12, 2007, 9:13 am
I think most everyone admits that there is a problem. We seem to disagree on how to define that problem. Here’s my take on the energy, fuel, growth, and quality of life issues, which are all inter-related: There is not a shortage of energy (or fossil fuels), food, land, or water. There is a surplus of people to consume all these things, and until we address this, the situation will continue to deteriorate.
Jun 12, 2007, 9:46 am
Taxing people based on fuel economy is not the answer, neither is Congress trying to pass the stricter fuel economy bill. The best option is to push alternative fuels: hydrogen, electricity, etc…
And as Whidit mentioned, commute distance is also important. We need to have more infill commercial developments that can provide more of the services that we need everyday. We also need to have more housing closer to where people work, ie… downtown, so that the need to get into the car is minimized.
But that is only part of the solution, one must also re-look at all parts of the economy. “Natural Capitalism” by Paul Hawkins, talks about how different industries can change how they are doing business to help the environment and still make money. Many of these changes also have positive side effects.
Jun 12, 2007, 2:12 pm
I agree with whidit. I am another fourth generation native. I ride my bike to work daily, walk to the grocery store when I need to, we grow a lot of our food, and only drive once every two weeks or so. We live in a very small home near downtown (720 sq ft). If people stopped demanding huge homes out in the burbs and settled for a smaller home or condo with less space to heat and cool and a much shorter commute that would make way more of a difference than can be made using using a florescent light bulb or buying green energy (although we do those things too). Let’s keep encouraging those “evil” developers to focus their attention on building condos downtown.
Jun 12, 2007, 2:24 pm
My husband and I got up the nerve to shop at Costco yesterday. That might be our last trip, unless we go to the one in Canyon County. Every east-west and north-south major road has some construction going on – 5 mile, Maple Grove, Chinden, State, you name it. You get the opportunity to breathe in exhaust vapors to the point of major headache since you are waiting with your vehicle on, along with hundreds of others. I was exhausted (pun intended) when I got home and I wasn’t even the driver. It was obvious that ITD and ACHD didn’t coordinate on these projects.
We revisited Hidden Springs on Sunday – it has grown a lot but there still was no sign of a “mercantile” store – I think it is just a soda fountain and coffee shop. There is a grade school. As best as we could tell, to come and go there you have to put a lot of miles on your car. I think you could call this “planned” community a plan for lots of homes and poor ingress/egress. The narrow two lane road doesn’t seem to have any place even to pull over, and before you get to Hill Road you would have the garbage guys crawling up your tail pipe, since they are always in a hurry. Perhaps people use Dry Creek Road and connect at Bogus Basin Road? Is it open?
Do our commissioners even revisit these earlier decisions regarding “planned communities” aka “sprawl” before they approve the next one?
Jun 12, 2007, 4:06 pm
If you fail to include the cost of destroying the fish you can’t really say these dams are low cost. Monetarily we have relatively inexpensive power but for me the cost is way too high.
Its ludicrous to say that the eight lower dams on the Columbia system are not destroying Idaho’s runs of anadromous fish. Tell me what else explains the precipitous decline of those runs within years of the construction of those dams? Commercial, sport and Indian treaty fishing does not explain the sharp decline in returns.
The ice dams on Cabinet Gorge were at least 600 miles upstream and occurred more than ten thousand years ago. Even if the representation is accurate its hardly a relevant comparison.
The lower Snake dams were constructed primarily to create slackwater not for power production, which was done as an afterthought. Now silt (another cost not internalized in your power bill) is filling the reservoirs leaving an environmental disaster for your kids and making the dams’ main purpose, barges, unusable.
I agree that hydro is one of the cleanest energy providers in terms of air pollution but that ignores the other consequences. Its not too late to correct our mistakes. We need to replace the power production of those ill conceived dams in favor of fish freindly in-flow turbines or we’ll lose a great Idaho asset, forever. And when the relatively short life of those dams has run the true cost of that power will become apparent, filthy rivers and no fish. Not a legacy I want to leave.
Jun 12, 2007, 6:23 pm
Dr. Tim, pretty sharp for a gym teacher 😉
Rod, by your logic the Apollo 13 Command Module didn’t suffer from an explosion that robbed the astronauts of their mission-critical oxygen supply – NASA just put too many astronauts in the capsule. I’m sure if you had been aboard, you would have jettisoned the other two crewmembers while they slept (confident that you were the most important of the three on board).
There’s just too much hubris in your comments – “we” don’t need to cut back on our exorbitant patterns of consumption, “you” just need to stop having so many babies. That way, “I” can continue to drive my SUV from the suburbs to the grocery store so I can buy my 10,000-mile Caesar salad.
And FYI, per the US Census (I know, I know – a bastion of liberal left wing nuts) the average commute time in the Boise MSA grew from 19-minutes in 2000 to 20-minutes in 2005. The Boise MSA covers all of Boise, Garden City, Meridian, a part of Eagle, and Nampa. Although this isn’t a really huge leap in commute times, given the demonstrably poorer air quality this past year, it does show how sensitive the Treasure Valley air shed is to minor increases in emissions. And what do our elected leader do to solve the problem – widen the freeway!!! It’s like prescribing Viagra to cure priapism. (ED NOTE–For you non-library types it is something most women think most men have and most men would love to have it)
The very geography that made the Boise Valley so attractive to farming (temperate low lands, sheltered from the high desert wind & chill) make it the worst place to drive so many cars. An inversion is the orchard farmer’s best friend in the cold months, but the bane of the modern car-driving valley resident. LA at least has the Santa Ana winds – no such “luck” here.
Jun 13, 2007, 11:45 am
Dr. Tim, pretty sharp for a gym teacher 😉
Rod, by your logic the Apollo 13 Command Module didn’t suffer from an explosion that robbed the crew of their mission-critical oxygen supply – NASA just put too many astronauts in the capsule. I’m sure if you had been aboard, you would have jettisoned the other two crewmembers while they slept (confident that you were the most important of the three on board).
There’s just too much hubris in such comments – e.g. “we” don’t need to cut back on our exorbitant patterns of consumption, “you” just need to stop having so many babies. That way, “I” can continue to drive my SUV from the suburbs to the grocery store so I can buy my 10,000-mile Caesar salad.
And FYI, per the US Census (I know, I know – a bastion of liberal left wing nuts) the average commute time in the Boise MSA grew from 19-minutes in 2000 to 20-minutes in 2005. The Boise MSA covers all of Boise, Garden City, Meridian, a part of Eagle, and Nampa. Although this isn’t a really huge leap in commute times, given the demonstrably poorer air quality this past year, it does show how sensitive the Treasure Valley air shed is to minor increases in emissions. And what do our elected leader do to solve the problem – widen the freeway!!!
It’s like prescribing Viagra to cure priapism.
The very geography that made the Boise Valley so attractive to farming (temperate low lands, sheltered from the high desert wind & chill) make it the worst place to drive so many cars. An inversion is the orchard farmer’s best friend in the cold months, but the bane of the modern car-driving valley resident. LA at least has the Santa Ana winds – no such “luck” here.
Jun 13, 2007, 4:29 pm
Dr. Kempf hits the nail on the head when he mentions ” Reliance on fossill fuel.” Fossil fuel a product of dead bio-mass produces even more death when it is burnt as energy. It s like Death producing more death! We have so many alternative fuel sources available to us that are already developed -1-Hydrogen fuel cells to light and heat cities, homes and run cars.
We have highly developed solar ray panels that can supply all energy needs of the one building. In the west we have geo-thermal,water power and entreprenuers using various USED ( FOR COOKING) OILS INTO fueels for their cars. Lets stay away from the destructive,money making fuels,-methane,nuclear fission etc and concentrate on the former.
Meanwhile if we spent 1% of the money we have spent on our last few genocidal wars investigating the scientific use of nuclear fusion we would probably come up with a way to turn that into a useful energy source in 15 years. Remember the russians have already contained a nuclear fusion reaction in “Tokomak” that put out more energy than it spent!
Jun 14, 2007, 3:01 pm
Joe, you’re a great guy and a heck of an activist, but the leading experts in the field of energy say you are dead wrong.
I have read every major book on energy over the past 4 years and have studied renewables extensively.
-hydrogen is a energy storage medium that is a big net energy loser. You end up recovering only about 25% of the original inputs. This is a rediculous solution for a world of spiraling energy problems.
Try reading “The Long Emergency” by James Kunstler, or “The Party’s Over” by Richard Heinburg as a primer for what our dire energy situation portends.
Bob
Jun 16, 2007, 5:19 pm
Sisyphus, have you thought what would happen to the rivers when those dams are compromised? The BILLIONS of tons of silt released would turn the entire river ecosystem to a moonscape. Everything except moss would cease to exist. Is that what you really want?
Jun 27, 2007, 1:40 pm
Curious George, funny thing. You actually do treat priapism with viagra – look it up. You may not get rid of all of the cars by widening the roads, but you clear the congestion. This eliminates the time cars are sitting in traffic creating more smog.
It is hard to stop business growth, and it would be a shame to halt such a good thing for Boise. Sometimes, the best way to treat a problem is not to stop but to work through it. With growth comes diversity, of which Boise and Idaho need a little. So, why not embrace the inevitable and work on solving the problems that come with it? Boise needs better public transportation, and maybe people shouldn’t be so attached to their SUV’s.