From interest in energy policy to activism - and then a job

In 2001, when Dick Cheney’s Energy Task Force began its work, my interest in energy policy turned to activism.

At that time I was working as a R&D engineer at a small high-tech firm in the Seattle area, using my astrophysics education (MIT PhD, 1992) to develop a machine vision inspection system. But my interest in energy policy and technology began earlier, in high school, when I’d devour the articles in Omni magazine on nuclear fusion.

I’d also been following climate change science with increasing concern. In 1994, when I was a postdoc at the University of Washington, I created my first webpage. Hand coded with the Emacs editor, the site included links to good articles on climate science.

Then, as now, if anyone asked me about my interest in energy policy, I explained that physicists follow energy the way accountants follow money: It’s conserved in your equations or you know that something odd has happened and it explains what transactions or reactions occur.

Given my interests and concerns, I followed Cheney’s task force closely. Although I didn’t expect the task force to be very good, it soon became clear that it was much worse than I expected. I knew that by myself I could create a better national energy policy. That isn’t bragging; a random number generator linked to a set of possible policies could do better.

Living in Seattle, I knew it would be difficult to drive policy in the “other” Washington, but I felt I could make a difference at the state level. I’d been a passive member of the Sierra Club for many years, but that changed after I saw a mention in the club newsletter about an event about energy policy. I contacted the club; within a month I found myself the chair of a new committee formed to work on energy policy alongside the club’s more traditional sphere of forests and streams.

One of the first issues I dealt with was a request for help from opponents of a wind farm. But when I toured the proposed site and its surroundings, I found a rural area well suited to wind development. The winds there are strong and steady; high-voltage lines heading toward Seattle pass right through.

The wind farm was supported by local farmers and ranchers, who saw the benefit it would bring to their county in jobs and tax revenue. The opponents were a small number of landowners who felt the wind turbines would disturb the views from their exurban ranchettes. I testified before the state permitting commission in favor of the project. Eight years after it was first purposed, the Kittitas Valley Wind Power Project is finally under construction.

More renewables, less coal

The biggest issue my committee tackled was creating a renewable energy portfolio standard. Working with other groups, we lobbied our state legislature to create a requirement that utilities get a certain percentage of their electricity from renewable energy. Although the Northwest derives much of its power from hydro, 20% comes from coal plants. Since the amount of hydro is fixed and the region’s population is growing, coal’s share would grow unless strong public policy steered the utilities in a different direction.

After several years of trying the lobbying route, we invoked the western tradition of using a ballot initiative to let the voters decide. I found myself spending Saturday mornings collecting signatures at the dog park with my two pooches and my son in his BabyBjorn. We got our initiative on the ballot and the voters approved it by a wide margin.

Last year I was laid off from my high-tech job and found myself looking for work in a recession. Someone I knew at Seattle City Light, our public electric utility, knew of my interest in energy conservation and my experience as a project manager, so now I’m managing a large energy conservation project funded in part by the federal stimulus package. My coworkers and I go into homes and install simple energy-efficiency devices such as compact florescent lights and faucet aerators. We also install smoke detectors, look for toilet leaks, and teach residents about energy efficiency.

What makes the program especially valuable is that we’re targeting non-English-speaking households. I’m involved with everything: deciding what measures we will perform, training the installers, reaching out to community groups, developing marketing materials, performing quality assurance, and more. The installers know of my background and often ask me about the physics of their job, from how insulation works to how heat is wasted by the IR emissions from incandescent light bulbs.

Whether it is teaching sailing, designing medical devices or running a program screwing in light bulbs I’ve found my physics training is always there for me.

Andy Silber