Eco-Currents: Spring Roundup

O. Henry Middle School's outdoor classroom (Photo courtesy of Christopher Martell)

Go Outside and Learn

We've entered that ephemeral time of year when mild temperatures make it especially hard to stay inside – and just in time, students at O. Henry Middle School have figured out a way to take advantage of the season. With funding from the National Wildlife Federation and help from faculty, volunteers, and Keep Austin Beautiful, the students are building an outdoor classroom with native habitats for birds, lizards, and other atypical classmates. With an ambitious vision in mind – complete with a composting system and a butterfly garden – the kids have a ways to go, but already they're learning their way around a wheelbarrow, and as of April 2, they've completed a hummingbird habitat. Follow their progress at www.wix.com/ohenryms/outdoor.

The Book on Max's Pot

If you've never been out to visit the Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems, there's no time like the present. On Thursday, the center celebrates a new book chronicling its 35 years of work in sustainable architecture and planning with founders Pliny Fisk and Gail Vittori at the helm. The festivities include a panel discussion with four CMPBS alums who are themselves living, breathing examples of the center's influence and achievements: Lucia Athens, chief sustainability officer for the city of Austin; Michael Gatto, co-founder and executive director of the Austin Community Design and Develop­ment Center; Richard MacMath, sustainable design project manager at HDR Architecture; and Jim Walker, director of sustainability at UT-Austin. Copies of the book, Center for Maximum Potential Building Systems: 35 Years of Serious Commotion, will be available. The hefty $100 price tag is no joke, but neither is the chance to get it signed by the pioneers of green building. (Panel/booksigning: 6:30-9pm; CMPBS, 8604 FM 969; $15 suggested donation. RSVP to center@cmpbs.org.)

Getting Help Going Green

While sustainability may be a simple concept, achieving it in practice can be rather complicated. That's why the city of Austin has so many programs geared toward helping local businesses access available rebates and cut overhead costs while minimizing their impact on the environment. Now, the launch of the Austin Green Business Leaders program – announced last week at the Go Green Con­ference by the aforementioned Athens – further simplifies participation by combining those opportunities into one program. To take part, companies make a pledge to move toward greater sustainability over the next year by taking at least five actions chosen from the following program areas: energy and water conservation, water quality protection, waste reduction, alternative transportation, and employee health improvement. Signing up is the simplest part of all; see www.cityofaustin.org/acpp.

Businesses aren't the only ones getting greener with help from the city. This week Austin Ener­gy was once again recognized for its residential energy efficiency programs, receiving for the seventh year in a row the Energy Star Sustained Excellence Award. The honor recognizes AE's Home Perform­ance With Energy Star program, through which residential customers follow-up on home audits with improvements to air-conditioning systems, insulation, duct sealing, and such. According to AE, the program helped more than 3,050 homes access efficiency-related rebates and low-interest loans last year.

Gesundheit

Whether they know it or not, Central Tex­ans are breathing a little easier this month – despite allergy season – thanks to the completion of a five-year project installing "flue-gas desulfurization equipment" (also known as "scrubbers") to units one and two of the coal-powered Fayette Power Project in La Grange, about 60 miles southeast of Austin. Austin Energy jointly owns those units with the Lower Colorado River Authority, and the plant currently provides about 30% of AE customers' electricity. The scrubbers – one of which became operational in January, the other in March – are now removing 95% of the units' sulfur dioxide emissions, good news for hearts and lungs, which are particularly vulnerable to the airborne compound. The scrubbers are also expected to remove 20% of the units' mercury emissions. The generation plan approved by City Council in March envisions reducing AE's dependence on coal over the next nine years, moving instead toward greater use of renewables. During the plan's development, critics of Fayette argued that the hidden costs associated with coal – including adverse health effects and, conversely, the price tag for avoiding them, $400 million in the case of the scrubbers – make renewables a relatively more affordable long-term energy option.

Ready, Set, Charge

It's been little more than a month since AE installed its first public charging station for electric cars (in the AE parking garage, 721 Barton Springs Rd.), but Dallas has already one-upped Austin with Texas' first "fast-charging" station, reportedly capable of giving a car 30 miles' worth of power in just 10 minutes (Austin's station provides two to three hours of power in six to eight hours of charging). The new station belongs to NRG Ener­gy, which plans to install another 70 in the Dallas area, as well as 50 in Houston.

STP On Hold

Here in town, of course, NRG is better known for its plans to build two new nuclear reactors at the South Texas Project, from which AE customers currently get about a quarter of their electricity. NRG had proposed in January that AE enter into a purchase power agreement for electricity drawn from the new units. NRG had hoped to nail down a deal by the summer, and offered to buy AE's share of the Fayette coal plant to sweeten the deal, but the events unfolding in Japan since April 7 have set the deal back considerably. "We currently are not having discussions with NRG about the South Texas Proj­ect," AE spokesman Carlos Cordova told the Chronicle. NRG representative David Knox confirmed, saying, "While we are in this period of regulatory uncertainty following Fukushima, we have put all conversations on power purchases on hold."