male narrator: americansused to rely on animal power for transportation and to carrygoods from place to place. and oil from whalesto light our evenings. today it's gasoline and motorvehicles, and vast amounts of electricity to light ourcities and power our economy. but one study claimsthat americans spend just six minutes a yearfocusing on energy. the americanpublic does not like to thinkabout its energy use.
the one place americans do thinkabout energy use is when they're standingat the pump. narrator: global demand makesoil prices rise and fall in response to eventsbeyond our borders and out of our control. we worry about howour economy gets buffeted. and the only waywe do something about that is to take intoour own hands our destiny. narrator: in this program,we look at
how america uses energy. and we'll meet people like you who are helpingtheir communities find new sustainable resourcesand save energy. conservation,energy efficiency, has already been somethingthat the u.s. has had tremendousachievement in. and it is something,as the fifth fuel, that can be very,very important for our future.
narrator: tappingthat fifth fuel can be as challenging as drillingfor oil or gas. but powering communitiesin these new ways also empowers people. we can control the thingsthat go on in our home. we can control the things thatgo on in our communities. i'm a republican. what is more conservative thanharnessing what is available and around us in a long-termsustainable way?
narrator: our program's host,earth scientist richard alley, knows the dangersof climate change. but he also teachesabout energy at penn state. and he's optimisticthat americans can builda sustainable future. some states and cities arerolling up their sleeves and moving ahead. these citizens are heroesof america's new energy story and show the wayto a sustainable energy future.
the good news iswe don't have to wait for the national policies. narrator: helping ourselveswith clean energy is also helpingearth's climate. the atmosphere doesn't careone whit what people think. the atmosphere careswhat people do. narrator: we visit five verydifferent communities, from alaska to texas, portlandto baltimore plus kansas, in america's heartland, to findout how they're developing
new sources of energy,or cutting waste, and why strategies like thosemake sense for all of us. female narrator:energy quest usa - earth: the operators' manualis made possible by nsf, the national sciencefoundation, where discoveries begin. narrator: sometimes whenamericans hear energy, the next word that comesto mind is crisis. it really doesn't haveto be that way.
shirley jackson, former head of the nuclear regulatorycommission, and now presidentof one of america's leading technical universities, thinks the united states isactually well-placed. well, the u.s.is lucky because we have sucha diversity of climates and diversity of geologiesand in the end, diversity of actualenergy sources.
and that, in fact,makes us very fortunate compared to other partsof the world. they may have a given sourceof energy, but they don't havethe multiple sources. narrator: alaska,like the rest of america, has been addicted to oil. now, can abundantsustainable options make it america'srenewable state? kodiak island, alaskaat 3,600 square miles
is about half the sizeof new jersey. getting around almost alwaysinvolves a boat, or a plane, or a float-planethat's a bit of both. kodiak's populationis less than 14,000, leaving most of the islandundeveloped and natural. that beauty is one of kodiak'seconomic assets, bringing touriststo watch bears raising cubs and catching fish. kodiak's human populationalso catches salmon,
with fish exports providing another key sourceof jobs and income. the island wantsto limit imports of dirty and expensivefossil fuels, and tap natural resourcesto supply as much clean and locally generatedenergy as possible. fuel prices, becausewe live on an island, are very expensive. you know, you learnpretty quickly
that you need an alternative. narrator: kodiak was the firstplace in alaska to make wind power a substantialpart of the energy mix, with its three 1.5 megawattturbines on pillar mountain. so getting good quality,low-cost sustainable power is really necessaryfor the long-term viability of the economy of alaska. narrator:upgrades at the terror lake hydro-electric plant, plusplans for three more turbines
leave the kea co-opconfident they can hit 95% renewables by 2020. though kodiak uses dieselas a backup and during repairs, the wind turbines savethe island 800,000 gallons of expensive,imported fuel each year. and this matters to the localbusiness community. this morning, we'reoffloading pink salmon and red salmon,chum salmon and coho that came from the west sideof kodiak--
it keeps us busy, the plantswork 24 hours a day, and it's a very, very bigindustry for kodiak. narrator:this processing plant runs 100% on renewable energy,so kodiak's wind power provides a clean,green marketing hook. the package says,sustainable seafood, produced in kodiak, alaska, with wind-generatedrenewable energy. you got some folksin the community
that are really concernedabout price. you know, they just wantthe lowest cost power at their houseor at their business. the wind does that. it's less than 50% of the costof power versus diesel. then you got folks in the townthat are very just, environmentally concerned. and they are incredibly excited, because it's a whole lot cleanerthan diesel is.
and then you've got the majorityof folks who want both, which is great as well. narrator: kodiak is a genuineisland, surrounded by ocean, but vast areasof interior alaska are also islands of habitation,small communities surrounded by open countryand dense forests. many have no road access,and the only way to transport heavy fuel is via riverslike the yukon. bear ketzler is city managerof tanana,
a remote and mainly nativealaskan village at the confluence of the yukonand tanana rivers. 90% of our bulk freight that comes in,comes by the barge. narrator: that includes dieselfor the power plant and heating oil for homes. diesel prices increased 83%between 2000 and 2005, and utility costscan sometimes be more than 1/3 of a household's income.
the increase of energy costs, it jeopardizes everything. it jeopardizes our school,it really jeopardizes the ability for the cityto function effectively. narrator:communities like tanana rely on the riverfor the fish protein that's a large partof a subsistence diet. and the river also provides a cheap and local sourceof energy.
we have abundant resourcesof wood, biomass. wood that floats down the river,in the spring and the fall time. narrator: timber isincreasingly replacing oil and diesel in tanana'scommunal buildings, like the washeteria,a combination laundromat, public showersand water treatment plant. right now,we don't even need oil, we're just runningthe whole place off this one wood boiler,which is just amazing.
narrator: using biomassand solar, the washeteria now uses only one quarteras much heating oil. instead, the city paysresidents to gather sustainable timber, keepingdollars in the local community. and using biomassat the washeteria has proven so cost effectivethat the city is planning to install boilersin other public buildings. bear: we're going to be oneof the first communities on yukon riverthat is installing
a biomass systems on the school. in october of this year we'rehoping to have that wood system on line,so instead of burning 15,000 gallons of oilthroughout this winter, we're hoping to burnabout 60 cords of wood. and keep that money localand create a little bit of an economy here. narrator: the bottom line fortanana-- savings for the city. biomass is cheaper, local,cleaner and more sustainable.
bear: even though we area very rich state, very blessed to have the oil developmentthat we do have, those days are diminishing. if we're going to make itin rural alaska, we have to move towardsrenewable resources. i think we have, you know,less than 10 years to move in that area. narrator: winter in alaskapresents extreme challenges. on this january dayit was close to minus 50.
gwen holdmann is an engineerwith the university of alaska's center for energy and power. she and her husband alsoraise sled dogs and both are mushers who haveraced in the iditarod. today's run takes her pastthe alaska pipeline, which has transportedmore than 16 billion barrels of oilsince it opened in 1977. despite the fact that alaskais rich in fossil fuels, gwen knows they're limitedand expensive.
she wants to take advantageof every opportunity to tap renewable energy. gwen: we are an isolated partof the world, and we are still dependent very much on imports,and so becoming more self-reliant on energyis still a real goal here. narrator:gwen was part of the team that built the first geothermalpower plant in alaska at chena hot springs. bernie karlruns the chena resort
and came up with the ideaof creating an ice museum from the heat energyof the springs. bernie: now you've heardof the great wall of china. this is the great wall of chena. there's 800 tons of ice here. narrator: bernie isa real american pioneer-- a showman, an entrepreneur,a tinkerer and enthusiast for recycling old machinery,because it's cheaper. he and gwen successfullytransformed the hot springs
into a geothermal resourcethat now generates power from lower temperature waterthan anywhere else on earth. what you're looking at issomething that's impossible. i went to the world'sbest manufacturer of geothermal equipmentand they said, "can't be done, the word can't is notin my vocabulary." it wasn't obvious at firstthat it could be done, because these are low,really moderate temperatures for geothermal.
the water that we'retalking about here is about the same asa good hot cup of coffee and generating power from thatisn't a trivial thing. narrator: normal conditionsfor mid-winter chena are 3-4 feet of snow,subzero temperatures, and only a few hoursof daylight. heating and lighting costswere staggeringly high. but now the resort runsyear-round with over 90% of its electricity comingfrom the hot springs.
bernie's latest impossible ideais to use geothermal power to make the resortself-sufficient in food even when it'sminus 50 outside. bernie: we have 85kwof lights in here, high pressure sodium. we're changing itto 8.5 kw of l.e.d.s. now, this takes 1/10ththe electricity. narrator: for the past 6 yearschena has hosted a renewable energy fair.
one keynote speaker wasu.s. senator lisa murkowski. lisa murkowski:i'm a republican. republicans by definition areseemingly more conservative. what is more conservative than harnessing what isavailable we have more renewableopportunities here in alaska than any other placein the world. we've got incredibleriver systems. we have 33,000 milesof coastline, the power
of the tides, the powerof the currents. we have biomass potentialthat is just beyond belief. as diverse and as big and remoteand as costly as things are in alaska, if we can demonstratethat it can be done here, think about the hopethat it provides. they'll look at us and say, "wow, if alaska can do it,we can do this. we can take controlof our energy future." narrator: but to havea sustainable energy future,
we have to do thingsdifferently than in the past. richard alley explains-- we've been burningwhatever was at hand for a long, long time. but as we see repeatedlywith energy, you can burn too muchof a good thing. and there are patternsin the human use of energy and if we're stupid enoughto repeat them, burn all the fossil fuelremaining on the planet
and put the co2 into the air,we will cook our future. take what we did to treesin north america, for example. when the first settlers arrivedon america's east coast, the forests were so thick,you could barely see the sky. that soon changed. and the forests almostcompletely disappeared as more and more trees were cutdown to meet the heating, cooking and building needsof a growing population. making iron needed lotsof furnaces
and the furnaces ran on charcoalmade from trees. you can trace that historyin tell-tale place names from my home stateof pennsylvania. so farewell virgin forests,hello pennsylvania furnace, lucy furnace, harmony forge, and valley forgeof revolutionary war fame. large areas of forestwere soon depleted, and charcoal makingand iron production moved on, to repeat the process elsewhere.
peak wood, meaning the timeof maximum production, came as early as the firstdecades of the 19th century or even before that for someparts of the east coast. the pattern of using upan energy resource until it was nearly gonewas repeated at sea. as america's population grew,so did their need for a better wayto light the night. so whaling crews went to sea,on the hunt for the very best sourceof illumination...
whale oil. at first, large numbersof whales were found nearby. they could justbe towed to shore. but by the 1870s,we'd burned so many whales to light our evenings, thatall the easy whales were gone. whale-oil pricesroughly doubled. now ships had to travelclose to the poles in search of bowhead whales. their oil wasn't as good.
and conditionswere really dangerous. in 1871, up in the arctic, 33 ships were trappedin the ice and crushed. just as happenedwith america's forests, we'd exploited the most easilyaccessible resources and hadn't stopped until we'dalmost used them up. lucky for us, in 1859a cheaper and more abundant source of energyhad been discovered with edwin drake'ssuccessful oil well,
drilled in titusville,pennsylvania. and for 150 years, america ranand grew on oil and coal. narrator: today, in some ways, we're in dangerof repeating the past. as the easy oil wasall used up, we're drilling in challengingconditions up in the arctic. we're considering an increasingreliance on tar sands, which are plentifulin our northern neighbor, canada, but which are dirtierto process.
but once more,america has been fortunate to find a new,abundant, domestic and potentially cleanersource of energy. several regions from northdakota to the mid-atlantic and northeastern stateshave large amounts of natural gas deep undergroundin shale rock formations. and the city of fort worthsits literally on top of the barnett shale. for the first time,a new source of energy
is emerging whenthere's an awareness of the urgent needfor sustainability. can fort worth and americafigure out how to make shale gas a significant partof our energy future, without repeating the mistakesof our energy past? folks used to callthis cowtown. today, there aremore than 2,000 gas wells right under the cityof fort worth. this city's grownby 200,000 people in 10 years
and estimate itwill gain another 200,000... narrator: rapid growth hasbrought congestion on the roads and pressure on freshwater resources at a time of record droughtall across texas. that has motivated the cityto be part of the sustainabilityroundtable, bringing together developersand planners, energy executives,university researchers and even the commanderof the local naval air station.
mayor price: we have to beginto develop a master vision for how do we be sustainable? it has to be a concentratedeffort on every department's part to think about their wateruse, their electric use. narrator: roundtable membersrealize their push for sustainability is happeningagainst the backdrop of the natural gas boom. it's quite remarkable howrapidly shale gas has developed from being basicallyzero percent of our production
to being more than a thirdof our total natural gas productionand going up. narrator: depending on howquickly we use it, experts say america could have enough gasfor several decades. to some, this isa huge bonanza. larry broaden: we've foundso much gas here and in other areas, thatthe price has been driven down. narrator: to others, shale gas is an environmental disasterwaiting to happen.
there has to bea more robust discussion with the public about riskand risk benefit. very few discussionsstart that way. most of them start with,"here's a source we must use." or "here's a source of energywe must not use." the real issue is, what is ourdesired end state? narrator: geologists have knownabout shale gas for more than 20 years. but that didn't mean the gas
was easy or economicalto extract. in this industry video, you cansee that hydraulic fracturing or fracking uses a mixtureof water, sand and chemicals. this is injected deepunderground to break up the rockand let the gas flow up to the surface more easily. mayor price:we say we've been punching holes in the ground in texasfor 100 years. narrator: what was new wasdrilling down and then out
horizontally, and the locationsof the pad sites. mayor price: we've beenfracking wells for 50, but we've not done itin your backyard. narrator: larry brogdon is anoil and gas man who made money by acquiring and sellingdrilling rights. now he teaches a course thattouches on energy, economics, and environment at texaschristian university. the economic benefitto this area in the last 10 years has beenabout over $65 billion.
narrator: and when natural gas is used to generateelectricity, some estimates are thatit's 50% cleaner than coal. the advantage thatnatural gas has is that it's much lower carbon in termsof its footprint. narrator: industry insiders sayamericans need to recognize that the power we all usehas to come from somewhere. somebody goes over thereand they flip on that light switch and they thinkthey're just using electricity,
well, natural gas is generatinga whole lot of that electricity. narrator: however, publicconcern, here in fort worth and nationally,has focused on worries that the entire cycle ofdrilling, fracking, production and fluid disposal cancontaminate drinking water, trigger earthquakes,and leak methane. it is an industrial activity, and that meansthe management of water. that means air quality.
and the third thing is justthe community impact, that suddenly areas that werenot being developed for natural gas, now havethis development coming in. narrator: daniel yergin wasa member of a special committee tasked by the u.s.secretary of energy to study the potentialenvironmental impacts of natural gas drilling. the committee came upwith 20 recommendations of best practices,with number one being
better sharing of informationwith the public. number 14, disclosureof fracking fluids, and number 11,studies about possible methane contaminationof water supplies. one has to do the fulllife cycle analysis, kind of cradle to gravekind of thing, to really understand wherethe points of vulnerability areincluding full environmental costs and to then weighthe risks and the benefits.
and that will help uslay out what the panoply of sourceswould look like. narrator: only if safeguardsare in place can this fossil fuel reallyserve as a bridge to a more sustainable future. right now best practiceswould focus on things like how do you handle the water thatis produced out of the well as the result of hydraulicfracturing and making sure that it's disposed of in a veryenvironmentally sound way.
narrator: as the name,hydraulic fracturing, implies, massive amounts of waterare required for fracking and in texas where wateris a precious resource, this is a major concern. water is huge, facing the city. and i think that wateris one of those things that most people don't thinklong term about. narrator: although mayor pricesays local breweries use more water than the drillers,with sustainability in mind,
there's no reason why frackinghas to use potable water. so now we're able to usereclaimed water to frack these wellsand thereby use less of our potable waterand it can take 3 million gallons of waterto frack one well. narrator: once thought ofas a sewage treatment plant, village creek is nowthe water reclamation facility. until recently,50% of fort worth's potable water was usedfor irrigation.
now the city's distributingtreated grey water in distinctive purple pipesto irrigate golf courses and playing fieldsand for industrial uses at the giantdallas-fort worth airport. every day in the cityof fort worth, about a million peopleput water down the drain. this is where it ends up. narrator: the water treatmentprocess itself is becoming more sustainableand less energy intensive.
and in a twist,this new approach relies on a truly natural gas. methane is the primarycomponent of natural gas but it's also a by-productof our daily lives, found in human waste. one of the firststeps in the process is to remove solidsfrom the waste and put it into digesters wheremethane gas is generated. under normal circumstancesyou may consider
methane to be a greenhouse gaswhich would be bad for the environment, but herewe're using it as a renewable resource to powerour engines, possibly getting up to as much as 90-95%,of the energy required for the operationof this facility. narrator: fort worth is aimingfor sustainable growth and an energy boomwithout a following bust. but the energy we all surelyneed will more easily be found by tapping another resourcethat's found in fort worth,
and every community. when we talk about energy, we talk about the variousmajor energy sources. you talk about oil,natural gas, coal, nuclear. increasingly also, of course,the renewables, wind and solar. but there's one fuel that getsleft out of the discussion and yet it's one that hasenormous impact on the future. that's the fifth fuel, energyefficiency, conservation. narrator: kansas, a land ofwheat, and corn, and cattle.
in the heart of the country,it's number 48 out of all 50 statesin energy efficiency. so this is a placewhere energy conservation can really make a difference. come on, girls. our region isa region of farmers. we are famously conservativeand we have talked from the beginningabout putting the conserve back in conservative.
narrator: according to a studyby the natural resources defense council, improvementsin energy efficiency have the potential to delivermore than $700 billion in cost savingsin the u.s. alone. but, they say motivatingconsumers to take action is the key to unlockingthis potential and that was the aimof nancy jackson's climate and energy project, with its take charge!challenge.
kansans are patriotic,kansans are hardworking, kansans are humble. narrator: and kansans arecompetitive. you all are competingagainst ottawa, baldwin city, and paola,so really, you gotta beatthose guys, yes? do you want to help usbeat manhattan? narrator:2011 was the second year for the take charge! challenge,a friendly competition
among 16 communities arrangedin four regional groups aiming to reducetheir local energy use. some of the lowest cost,most effective ways that you can take ownership ofyour energy future is taking ownershipof the efficiency and the conservationof your house or your business. narrator:ray hammarlund's office used federal stimulus dollarsto fund four prizes of $100,000 for each of the four regionsin the competition.
just as important asthe grand prize, $25,000 went to each community to fund local coordinatorswho took the lead in galvanizinggrassroots efforts. here's how the challengeworked in iola. the challenge startedin january of this year and ends october 1st. you're required to have threecommunity events. we're going to havea lot more than that.
today, we are at the fightthe energy hog festival. becky nilges: i love the hog. he was just so uglythat he is cute. he represents energy hogsin your home. you would probably let him inbut you don't know the damage he's going to do. narrator: competing townsscored points by counting how many cfl bulbs and programmablethermostats were installed and how many professional homeenergy audits were done.
our job as energy auditors,both for commercial buildings as wellas residential buildings is, we're essentially detectives. what's happening here? is there a great dealof air leakage? and we're finding thatthe majority of the houses that we're dealing withactually use a lot more energy than they need to. narrator: in lawrence,a house of worship
did an energy audit,made changes, and got a pretty nice donationin its collection plate. david owen: one partof the audit was to contact the power company. well, during that processwe discovered they had been overcharging us. and so we got a check, a rebatecheck from them for $4,456. narrator: other changes startsmall, but add up. we were a little bit worriedat one point
that the congregationwould not accept the very bright,white type lights. so as an experiment, we tookone of these chandeliers and changed all the bulbsin it to the cfls. and then we took the priestover here and we said, "which one did we do?"and he could not tell us. so that told us it was okto do them all. narrator: changing lights,adding insulation, and upgradingwindows paid off.
even thoughit's an old building, we saved 64% on the consumptionof energy in this room. narrator:lighting makes up about 15% of a typical home'selectricity bill, and lighting all of ourresidential and commercial buildingsuses about 13% of the nation's totalelectricity. but changing out old bulbs isa lot easier than paying for audits and the energyenhancements they recommend.
here's where the 2011take charge! challenge promised material assistanceusing stimulus funds. ken wagner: it's a $500 auditthat costs you $100. the rest of that $500 is coveredunder the take charge challenge program throughthe kansas energy office. we really love the competitivespirit of the program and i think it's really raiseda whole awareness of energy efficiencyand the importance of energy efficiency to a lot of segmentsin our community here.
narrator: even baldwin citybankers were grateful for financial assistance fromstate and federal governments. dave hill:nine months ago, we installed a 14 kw solar power system. i believe the initial costof the system was basically $65,000 and then we got a substantial grant from usda,i believe it was $20,000. we have about $18,000 of our ownmoney invested in the system, after all the deductions.
we think it will pay outin about 7-8 years. narrator:david crane of nrg energy thinks that kind of approachmakes good business sense. crane: what i say to everybusinessman who has a customer-facing business,think of a solar panel not only as a source of electricity,think of it as a billboard. you don't even have to writeyour name on it. just put it on the top of yourstore and it will be sending a message to your customersthat you're doing
the right thing when it comesto sustainable energy. narrator: surveys of whyconservation is hard to achieve have found that people wantone-stop shopping, a place where they canfind out what to do and get practicalrecommendations about who to hireand what it all might cost, just what this newfacility was to offer. now it's mid-october,time for the results of the 2011take charge! challenge.
mc: fort scott. mc: and the winner isbaldwin city. nancy jackson: over 100 billionbtus were saved as a result of this challenge,and millions and millions of dollars in each community. those savings come from measuresthat have been installed that will guarantee thosesavings for years to come. so the savingsare enormous over time. $100,000 hasa nice ring to it
and it's a nice cash awardfor a community of our size. our challenge now is to continueon with energy efficiency and encourageour community to save. nancy: one of our real goals wasto help people to stop thinking about energy efficiencyas the things they shouldn't do, as what not to do,and think about it instead as a tremendousopportunity to both save money in the near term,and to make our electric system moreresilient in the long term.
so it's about what we can do,both individually and together, and for us that feels likethe real win. the united states todayis twice as energy efficientas it was in the 1970s. and i think we havethe capability in the decades ahead to become twiceas energy efficient again. we believe this is somethingthat can be done really anywherewith great success. narrator:baltimore, maryland.
according to one study,the air in maryland is the 5th dirtiestin the nation. are there ways for america's21st largest city to cut emissionsand save energy and money? baltimore is uniquein that it has over 225 neighborhoodswithin the city limits. narrator: like kansas,it's been using competition to jump start the processof sustainability. narrator: bnec, the baltimoreneighborhood energy challenge
used existing eventslike this anti-crime rally in the park heightsneighborhood to let city residents knowabout opportunities to save energy and to sharethe top ten things to do. you signing people up? we are willing to goand talk to anybody, anywhere, where we can get someface time with people to talk about energy savingsand conservation. and if it means going toan event talking about crime,
we will go to an eventtalking about crime. if it's abouta neighborhood block party, we will go toa neighborhood block party. we find peoplewhere we can get them. and the toilet tank bank and draft stopper gasketsas well. you're welcome. narrator: in additionto sharing information, the baltimore challengeenlisted energy captains
to canvass their ownneighborhoods taking the conservation messagedirectly to homeowners. ok, on this sideas well, right? narrator: that's somethingthe challenge's utility partners knewthey couldn't do. i'm on the bnecchallenge pledge. ruth kiselewich: if somebodyjust comes to your door and asks you to sign a petitionto help the environment, to reduce your energy use,or if you see a message
even from the local utilityabout all these great things you can do,it's not enough. my sister tracy,alice kennedy from the baltimore citysustainability commission. thomas stosur: unique thingabout bnec is the fact that it builds on thisneighbor-to-neighbor advocacy and communicationfor energy conservation. it goes right down to thehousehold level, you know, neighbors talking to each otheracross the yard.
what do you guys doto save energy at home? leave the lights off. during the daywe turn the lights off. when we're not looking at tv,we turn the tv off. so the tv cannot watch itself. that's basically what we do. narrator: to jump start energysavings, the challenge has a bag of free stuffincluding indoor/outdoor cfls, just rightfor the porch lights
so characteristicof baltimore. would you be interestedin trying that? you can get up there-- he will! everyone's household budgets are shrinking right now too,so i think that if we all just can be wiseabout what were doing, we're all going savea little bit of money. robbyn: so, you'reall signed up?
i think i have to giveyou my account number. narrator: the challenge foundthat neighbor-to-neighbor sharing could beeven more effective when the energy captainswent inside homes to demonstrate quickand effective steps in a simplified peer-to-peerenergy audit. then when you're not hereor you're not using it, turn the power strip off. narrator: for baltimoreresidents, saving water
also saves substantial dollarsand this simple bladder reduces the amount usedin each and every flush. what impressed the organizersof the first year's challenge was that park heights,home to the pimlico racetrack and one of the mostunderserved neighborhoods saved the most energy,nearly 13%. the organizers said the mainreason was the energy and enthusiasm of the parkheights energy captains. they actually saw, thoseresidents who participated
there, the largest benefitof any of the neighborhoods. to see thisvery grassroots effort take off and outperform any other neighborhood wasreally impressive. narrator: the park heightscaptains were also successful in applyingfor follow-on funding to continuetheir conservation efforts. the announcement of the 2011community energy saving grants brought outu.s. senator ben cardin
and baltimore mayor,stephanie rawlings-blake. mayor blake: saving energy meanslower utility costs and after the heat wavewe've had, i'm sure everyone is interested in lowerutility costs and the knowledge about energysavings is contagious. narrator: baltimore cityitself took lessons from the challenge and startedpitting city departments against each otherin a competition to catch energy vampiresaround city buildings.
using their new grant,the park heights captains started planninga new outreach campaign, using juniorenergy ambassadors to reach out to schoolsand others. with homeowners' permission,challenge staff could access utility billsand so track energy savings, neighborhood by neighborhood. so, we actually areable to show that we have proven savings by lookingat utility usage data
and showing that someof these little actions in the home can help save moneyand save energy. narrator: bottom line, thanksin part to the challenge, baltimore is on trackto meet its goal of reducing carbon emissions and energy use 15% by 2015 and the utilities cancut back too. as we reduce energy useand energy demand what we're doing iswe're eliminating the need
for a new medium-sizepower plant. particularly in hardeconomic times, this challenge helpsbuild a sense of, "i can accomplishsomething individually. i can impact my lifein a very positive way." saving energy meansa reduced strain on our power grid,lower utility costs as well as reduced greenhousegas emissions, which means, for generationsto come, we will have better
air quality and a cleanerand more sustainable baltimore. narrator: can what citiesdo locally really move the dial toward nationalsustainability? portland, oregon,shows what's possible. 70% of all the oil consumedin america is used for transportation. but congestion wastesa huge amount, perhaps 16% of all the oilimported from the persian gulf. despite our best efforts,we are still
taking 10% of the world'spetroleum supply just to get back and forthto work every day. narrator:congressman earl blumenauer represents oregon's thirddistrict, including portland. he heads up the congressionalbike caucus. and his city started findingsolutions some 30 years back. you know, one of the thingswe did was, we have an urban growthboundary, and what that is, is a ring aroundthe city of portland
and its surrounding suburbs,so that we cannot kind of sprawl out and we can'tbecome los angeles. narrator:between 1950 and 1990, america's urban populationgrew by 90%. but cities' land areagrew more than 250%. remarkably, portland buckedthat trend of urban sprawl. key decisions made includea move from investment in freeways into transitand also to integrate transit planningwith land use planning.
narrator: alongwith region-wide thinking, portland now hasan infrastructure that emphasizes mass transit,along with something this city pioneeredin the 19th century... bicycles. it may be easy to parodyportland's love affair with all things green includingthe cycling community. but putting bikes to workhas practical advantages if they can be madeinto something used
for more than pure recreation. that's the purpose of what'scalled the oregon manifest, a design challenge to come upwith clever and practical ways to transport packagesas well as people. a decade agoit was hard to find a bike that was nota racing bike or a mountain bikeor a touring bike. now any bike shopthat you walk into, in the city of portland anyway,you'll find city bikes,
bikes that are really madefor commuting to and from work, from riding to the parkto the grocery store. narrator:half of u.s. car trips cover less than 10 miles,and short trips where engines makea cold start are the most gasolineintensive and polluting. so if city bikes like thesebecame mass-produced and popular and if every oneof the nation's more than100,000,000 households
substituted one 5-mile tripeach day, the nation would save$36.5 billion on gasoline. already one young entrepreneurhas put portland's non-polluting pedal powerto work and made a business of it. we use these largetricycle trucks to deliver products into a two mile radiusof the urban core for portland. we deliver everythingfrom bread and produce to office products to waterto cycle parts.
each trike can carryabout 800 pounds. they're all electric-assisted. so it's a hybrid humanand electric power. the less congestion we have, our goods and servicesmove faster. we're an internationalglobal city. we have to be scrappy,so bicyclists are about reducing congestion. over the past 2 1/2 yearswe've helped
displace over 25,000 truckor van-based deliveries. and when you start to lookat the overall greenhouse gas reduction and avoidance,day by day it's not very much, but cumulatively it reallystarts to stack up. narrator: cycling may be anoutward and very visible sign of a transition away from cars,but the region's mass transit network also hasserious numbers. we have been electrifying our transportationfor 30 years here.
and today there's literallyabout 150,000 boardings per day. and that means that people whootherwise might be traveling around in cars are travelingaround in electrons. as a result of howwe put the pieces together in portland over the last1/3 of a century, portlanders voluntarily drive 20% lessthan the national average. this translatesinto a dollar savings for the typical household of more than $2,500 a year.
and that's money that staysin our community. it is not going to houston orsaudi arabia, japan or germany. narrator: portland's leaderstalk about the trip not taken as something that saves moneyand benefits the environment. currently more than a quarter of portland's workforce commutes by bike, carpoolor mass transit. but planners are workingon the next giant step in low carbon transportation,electric vehicles. i think we get to the pointwhere electric
vehicles will be able to do,you know, 98% of the personal transportation needs,and of course that's mainly in the cities and the suburbs. narrator: an averageportlander's daily commute of 20 milescould easily be powered by a single battery charge. so electric avenue is a testsite to get ground truth on how people might usee-vehicles. we think the next10 to 30 years is going to be
focusing on individual passengervehicles like the ones behind me and also on urban freightand service vehicles, those parcel delivery trucks,the post office. narrator: those vehicles alsomake lots of short trips with starts and stops,producing emissions and using up a lot of fuel. nationally, companieslike frito lay are competing with others likefederal express to see who can deploy the most lowemission delivery vehicles.
tailpipe emissionsare the single greatest source of emissionsin our major cities. so i think probably every mayor, everywhere, supports the idea of getting more vehicleson their local roads that don't have tailpipes. narrator: portland's originalplans concentrated on land useand transportation. the focus for the futureis the neighborhood.
the goal is what's calleda 20 minute neighborhood with most everythinga family needs in easy walkingor biking distance, where kids can learn how toride safely to and from school. earl: this effort of integratingthe pedestrian, streetcar, bike, alongwith mixed use development, it is enrichingthe experience of going to the store, going to visita neighbor and makes us a more sustainable,cost-effective community.
narrator: portland'stransportation innovations have direct economic benefits. by actually doingthe right things here, we've built this baseof great export. we've got solar firms,wind firms. we have firms focused on energyefficiency with hundreds and hundredsof employees. and they're locating hereor they grew up here because we were trying to do somethingand we built demand here.
we're oneof the cheapest cities on the west coast, because weoffer options other than having to own a car to liveand work and have a good life. i think just like anythingyou're trying to do, whether it's a businessor a government or a city, good things don't happenby accident. you need to havesome good plans. we can reduce that carbonfootprint while we provide economic opportunitiesfor our citizens and others.
narrator:richard alley agrees-- science and sustainabilityboth come together in an operators' manualfor america. like thousands of portlanders,i commute by bike. like many in fort worth, i'veworked for an energy company. my university runsa herd of cows, so i connect with kansans. i've spent timein some pretty cold places, so i know some of the challengesalaska faces
and i appreciate the importanceof affordable energy to everyone includingthe citizens of baltimore. so as we look around our planetwith eyes informed by climate science and with anappreciation of the vast potential for clean,low-carbon sources of energy, i think we can be optimisticabout our prospects while being realisticabout how humans are affecting the planet. our world is complex,like a giant jigsaw puzzle.
but earth science gives usan operators' manual to help us see where mostof the pieces go. some things we knowwith really high confidence. carbon dioxide levels areincreasing in earth's atmosphere and basic physicsand objective research show that co2 warms things up. analyzing the chemistryof the co2, shows that most of the carbon is comingfrom our use of fossil fuel. satellites looking downfrom space show
that the atmosphereis warming down here, but cooling up here,high in the stratosphere, showing the warmth isn'tfrom the sun. and we've got lots moresolid knowledge that just about every climatescientist agrees on. of course, there are some thingswe still don't know. we'd like to know moreabout clouds. on balance, do they workto make climate changes bigger, or smaller?
and we'd like to know howweather extremes will change and how fast. some things we simplycan't know. when will the next big volcaniceruption spread cooling clouds of ash around the planetfor a year or two? but even with theseuncertainties, the big pictureis pretty clear. but in a very real sense,the most important questions aren't about scienceand engineering,
but society and policies. what do we want to do? and on that, surprisingly,there's a growing consensus, across political parties,businesses and community groups who are listening to the scienceand looking to the future. obviously in some ways, there is a diversity of opinionabout the degree to which man-made activitiesaffect the climate. now i happen to be on the sideof those who believe
there is an effect. but suppose one were not. whether one's focusis on national security, geopolitical effector the environment-- in the end all of these thingstrack in the same direction. everyone's always talking about the exceptionalismof the united states and global leadershipand clear thought leadership culturally, socially,and i believe in all that.
but if you believe in all that,you then can't turn around and say, "well, we're helplessand we're just a little bit of the problemand no matter what we do, china and india will gotheir own way." there's just no evidencethat that's the case. if the united states leadsin this way, others will follow. i mean, that's whatleadership is about. at the end of the daythe atmosphere doesn't care one whit what people think.
we can reduce emissionsin real time. why people do it? as long as they do it,doesn't matter to us. richard alley: for all we knowabout the climate, for all the promiseof renewables, perhaps even more importantis figuring out how to unleash people powerto energize our nation. that's what an operators' manualis all about. it tells us how something worksand how to get
the very best performanceout of it. and i also have faith in howamerica's democracy works. we can make positive changesif we think clearly, and move forward together. that's my hope. that's my faith. for earth: the operators'manual, i'm richard alley. for the annotated script with links to informationon climate change
and sustainability,online tools to help you save money and energy,educator resources and much more,visit pbs.org/etom. energy quest usa is available on dvd and blu-ray disc. the companion book isalso available. to order visit shop pbs.orgor call us at 1800 play pbs narrator: part of portland's20 minute neighborhood plan is supporting communities wherepeople can bike to stores,
instead of driving, and kidscan ride to school, in safety. instructor: left turn-- narrator: that's the missionof the community cycling center and itswe all can ride program. we all can ride is a bicyclingand active living organization rooted in the communityof north portland to encourage and educate lowincome communities of color that riding bicycles are not onlyfor hobby, but is also a mode
of transportationand also exercising, you know preventchildhood obesity and just to support the healthof the community. great bike ride--thank you so much. we'll do this next time. any kind of behavior change is about finding a few champions,getting a few people out there, and having them basicallyspread the story. it's not a top-down thing.
narrator: village creek, fortworth's water treatment plant and brit, the botanicalresearch institute of texas look very different,but both are working to cut back on energyand conserve water. in texas and in mostof the southwest, we've gotten both heatand drought. what we wanted this buildingto demonstrate was our mission. and our mission is conservationand sustainability. and it's green from the bottomto the top.
this summer with the swelteringheat that we had here in texas, all of the air conditioningwas basically supplied by geothermal power. narrator: one roof is coveredin solar collectors and anotherwith native vegetation. all the rain, if we everget any, eventually winds up in a retention pond we havein the back of the property. and all of our irrigation comesout of that retention pond. we are not on the grid for citywater for our irrigation.
narrator: sy sohmer hopes britserves as an inspiration and that many moreleed-certified buildings will follow. narrator:fairbanks, alaska. it's so cold here in winterthat car exhaust makes ice fog at intersectionsand the city's air is often dirty with wood smokeand fumes from heating oil. enter a pellet factory nearthe town of north pole, alaska. what comes in is sawdustand wood waste.
we take the lowestgrade materials available in the forest. narrator: intense heat drivesout moisture. chad: this burner isa 24 million btu burner. it operates on 97% wood fueland we can dry between 14 and 16 tons of raw material every hour. the pellets come out lookingvery similar to rabbit food. narrator: but these pelletsburn cleaner
and cost 40% less,than other heating fuels. and this is a perfectopportunity for alaska to utilize a locallymanufactured product that really makes a differencein the air quality around here.
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