Oregon Strategist

Reinventing the Oregon Dream

Floating Solar: Smoothing the Energy Cycle

by

Exciting new floating solar installations around the world, a ray of sunshine in the cloudy Pacific Northwest, and reservoir woes in Southern Oregon.

Yes—this is a wide range of topics. One of the most fascinating and challenging aspects of understanding the floating solar market is the technology’s unique positioning at the nexus of energy, water, and land management.

It means that all sorts of factors can drive floating solar adoption, whether that’s a mine or quarry being decommissioned, new restrictions on installing ground-mounted solar on farmland, rollout of new community solar rules in a territory, or even the pursuit of more knowledge about…floating solar.

South Africa

It’s official—commercial floating solar has arrived on the African continent.

South African renewable energy developer New Southern Energy recently completed a 60 kW floating solar system at the Marlenique Estate, a fruit farm and wedding venue near Franschhoek in South Africa. The floats came from Ciel & Terre, a leading global provider of floating solar hardware, and the system complements a much larger 534 kW ground-mounted system on land adjacent to the farm’s irrigation reservoir.

The project is a near-perfect case study for floating solar. Owner Carl van der Merwe originally looked into solar power due to frustrations with unreliable power supply from Eskom, one of Africa’s largest utilities. The farm plans to install a battery system in a second project phase to build a true microgrid, providing them with 100% energy independence. A stable power supply was crucial to the successful operation of the farm’s cold storage, irrigation, and wedding venue facilities.

Outside of securing a stable power supply, Marlenique Estate checked practically every box for potential floating solar benefits, confirming research conducted years prior in the region. They reduced evaporation on their reservoir while South Africa is still reeling from last year’s drought. They achieved higher photovoltaic panel productivity due to the cooling effect of the water. They slowed their growing operational expenses. They even created a space for fish to congregate.

Albania

Norwegian floating solar developer Ocean Sun recently sold a 2 MW floating solar system to Norwegian utility giant Statkraft for installation at the Banja reservoir in Albania, with help from a feed-in tariff authorized by the Albanian government.

The project boasts several of the typical benefits of floating solar systems—ease of installation, scalability, increased panel efficiency, reduced evaporation, algal bloom mitigation—but it’s a new type of floating solar in its own right.

While most floating solar arrays are mounted on hard high-quality plastic floats, connected together to form a semi-rigid unit, Ocean Sun’s technology installs dual-glass modules on a durable, thin, flexible membrane. This is Ocean Sun’s first sale, so the project will amount to somewhat of a pilot, but the added benefits are compelling.

According to Ocean Sun, direct panel contact with the water can boost efficiency by up to 15%, where more traditional floating solar arrays tend to claim 10% or less. The thin polymer membrane minimizes materials on the system, helping to lower cost and reduce the burden of plastic waste 20-30 years from now. Finally, the membrane structure is claimed to flex with ocean swells, making the system more durable, and their models show the system withstanding hurricane-force winds of 170 mph.

Floating solar is still an emerging technology, representing about 1% of installed solar capacity worldwide, and healthy competition among hardware manufacturers can only benefit offtakers.

Thailand

The state-run Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand (EGAT) just upped the ante in a serious way, committing to build a series of floating solar projects across its reservoirs totaling 2.7 GW in capacity. The project is nearly three times larger than total installed floating solar capacity today, globally. The largest project is slated to be a 325 MW array on the 100 square mile reservoir held up by the Sirikit Dam in Uttaradit Province, more than twice the size of the already-gargantuan, current-world’s-largest 150 MW array in Anhui Province, China.

The first project looks to be a 45 MW array at the Sirinhorn Dam, which will notably be comprised of proprietary floating solar hardware developed by Siam Cement Group, one of Southeast Asia’s leading manufacturers of construction materials. The project shows that despite the rapid success of global hardware leaders like Ciel & Terre and Sungrow, floating solar is still anybody’s market.

If the project goes as planned, it will bring Thailand’s energy portfolio from today’s 12% renewable to 37% renewable by 2036.

It Works

Technology moves quickly, and solar power is becoming increasingly viable even in cloudy regions like the Pacific Northwest.

Washington State just announced its first lease of public lands for a solar farm of any size, and they’ve eschewed pilot projects in favor of a full-blown utility-scale project. The farm, led by renewable energy titan Avangrid, will be good for 150 MW in Klickitat County.

It’s a major vote of confidence in the efficiency and cost-effectiveness of today’s photovoltaic technology, and spells opportunity for the region. Klickitat County isn’t as cloudy as coastal areas in the PNW, but it’s still cloudy about half the year, and is already served by ample hydropower and wind power resources. These factors have typically turned solar developers toward more favorable regions. Now, proximity to existing transmission infrastructure, and the proliferation of energy-intensive data centers in the area, helped the project pencil. It’s a new day for solar in the Northwest.

Where Does Floating Solar Come In?

Despite a host of renewable energy incentives sunsetting in the state in 2017, two major forces are converging that—with the viability demonstrated by Avangrid’s project in Washington—make Oregon a promising place to explore floating solar development.

The first was the passage of SB 1547, Oregon’s aggressive move to ditch coal-fired power plants, with its commencement of planning to roll out a statewide community solar program. The program will allow residents within the same utility territory to subscribe to local solar projects that don’t sit on their property, which overcomes a large barrier for residents with limited yard space and lots of tree cover. There are still key questions outstanding in the rules, most importantly the PUC’s determination of the Resource Value of Solar (RVOS) and the associated bill credit for community solar subscribers, but if the numbers land where we hope they will, the program will unleash rapid deployment of 160 MW of solar power across the state.

The other major development is a growing opposition to repurposing heritage vineyards and farmland for ground-mounted solar installations. Already Clackamas, Jackson, Marion, and Yamhill counties have taken decisive action to hinder ground-mounted solar development in their jurisdictions, helped by land use advocacy groups like 1000 Friends of Oregon. Most recently, there appear to be severe limitations to ground-mounted solar on farmland on a statewide basis coming down the pipe.

It’s hard to blame them, as repurposing large swaths of land can have plenty of negative environmental consequences, not to mention economic impacts to neighboring rural residents who aren’t cashing in on these solar projects, but we still hate to see different factions of environmentalism at odds with one another. It’s also a shame to see any hindrance to renewable energy development for any reason, given the UN IPCC’s horrifying recent report on climate change, and the proximity of Oregonian farmlands to power transmission lines.

This is where floating solar can offer a solution. Oregon has ample surface water in its rural areas, close to both potential offtakers and transmission lines, helping ease the costs of any floating solar installations. With a strong community solar program in place, pond owners could deploy systems of <3 MW, roughly enough to power 600 homes each, offering cost savings to people who really need it, and helping the Beaver State transition away from coal power once and for all.

Pumped Hydro in Oregon and Washington

In other parts of the region, tensions are brewing around six separate pumped hydroelectric storage projects in various stages of feasibility analysis and Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) approval. Pumped hydroelectric storage, or “pumped hydro,” is an innovative approach to solving the “duck curve” problem with renewable energy. The duck curve is a phenomenon wherein solar energy is at maximum production during midday, then drops sharply upon sundown, forcing other power sources to rapidly ramp up to meet demand. Managing against the duck curve is often expensive and challenging for power providers. You can read more in this factsheet from the California Independent System Operation Corporation.

Pumped hydro offers an elegant solution to the problem. Pumped hydro systems involve two reservoirs—one at a significantly higher altitude than the other—connected by a pipe containing one or more reversible pump-turbine/motor-generator assemblies. The system pumps water into the uphill reservoir during low demand periods when energy prices are lower, then allows the water to flow back downhill during peak demand periods when energy is most expensive, playing a form of energy arbitrage. They address the duck curve problem by rapidly ramping up energy production at a significant scale as the sun sets, replacing the power that solar panels provided during the day. The Energy Storage Association offers further reading, including alternate configurations of pumped hydro systems.

Pumped hydro technology is crucially important to American energy infrastructure, with projects built from the 1960s through the 1980s representing over 90% of energy storage capacity in the United States. Their purpose was to boost the profitability of nuclear power plants, that—like solar power—cannot easily adjust production to shifting demand (nuclear plants are most efficient when they run at a steady rate, so unlike solar, the plants use pumped hydro to bank power overnight instead of during the middle of the day). We stopped building pumped hydro systems as our focus on nuclear power development waned a few decades ago, but the rise of solar and wind power has fueled renewed interest in the technology.

Developing massive infrastructure like pumped hydro, however, poses significant challenges. Navigating regulatory frameworks across jurisdictions can take a decade or more, as experienced by the developers of six pumped hydro projects pending in the Pacific Northwest. Perhaps the largest challenge is managing negative impact to local stakeholders, who care less that pumped hydro is a well-established and cost-effective way to store energy, and care more about having their land and water impacted by massive construction projects nearby.

Rye Development, a firm that is front-and-center about “low impact” pumped hydro projects and their commitment to environment and local community interests, is developing one such project in Southern Oregon. At 393.3 MW, the project is an utter behemoth, with capacity to meet the demand of 290,000 to 390,000 homes when the water is flowing downhill. It’s not nearly the largest of the six projects proposed in the Pacific Northwest either, and will likely only represent about 5% of projected energy storage needs in Oregon and Washington by 2035. As critically necessary as these types of projects are, this one has been deeply polarizing to the local community.

On the one hand, the project is likely to bring revenue and jobs to Klamath County, which operates at a $2 million annual deficit and is in sore need of the support. On the other hand, constructing two brand-new 60-acre reservoirs and many miles of transmission lines is deeply disruptive to homeowners and tribal lands in the area. Homeowners will see their bucolic views (and associated tourism revenue) impacted, potentially deal with irritating noise, see bird populations impacted, see a massive draw on local groundwater, and have to reroute crops and irrigation lines to adjust. They’re also worried about wildfires, which is understandable given the unimaginable recent fires that clobbered Malibu and Santa Rosa in California, wiped the town of Paradise, CA off the map, and desecrated the Columbia River Gorge, one of Oregon’s most beloved recreational gems.

Burying the power lines would address many of these issues, but it would drive up the cost of transmission by about 1500%. It’s also not going to happen. The U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission awarded a 50-year license for the project earlier this month, meaning that homeowners who don’t agree to settlement terms will be forced to endure the eminent domain process.

Sustainable development, done right, seeks to make use of existing resources wherever possible. The relative benefits of floating solar power depend heavily on this principle (i.e. not repurposing valuable land). We would be happy to see new pumped hydro projects sited at existing reservoirs, which already have many of the hardest questions answered—abundant water, uphill, connected to the grid via existing high-voltage transmission lines. Constructing a lower-elevation reservoir to complete the picture would be far less impactful than the project underway in Klamath County. The approach would help locals feel much better about their contribution to our collective interests as residents of this planet, and would likely make for a much easier permitting process.

So what does all of this have to do with floating solar? Beyond the obvious benefits of siting solar panels on the massive quantity of surface area found in our reservoirs, there is a powerful synergy between floating solar and pumped hydroelectric. The Lapeenranta University of Technology in Finland published a study last year (free download) analyzing the impact that floating solar could have on pumped hydro systems, which represent 141 GW of pumped hydro capacity globally. That’s good for about a hundred million homes’ worth of power.

The numbers are staggering. Covering 25% of the surface of those pumped hydro reservoirs is likely to result in a 5.22x increase in their power production capacity, which is huge—pumped hydro systems are efficient storage systems but still experience losses, and floating solar would turn them from net energy consumers into net energy producers. Here in the United States, which boasts a relatively small 2.58 GW of pumped hydro capacity, covering 25% of the 312 square miles’ worth of associated surface water would produce 13.4 GW of floating solar production (enough to power the entirety of New York City’s five boroughs) and prevent 183,000 acre-feet of evaporation annually (enough water to serve a third of the City of Los Angeles), which in turn provides more water for traditional hydropower and storage capacity. Taken globally, the impact would be more than 50 times larger.

That’s just for pumped hydro storage reservoirs, and doesn’t even consider other types of man-made reservoirs, of which our country boasts nearly 25,000. The implications are clear—every pumped hydro system should install floating solar power.

Groups are already starting to put this exciting theory into practice. Leading global floating solar developer and hardware manufacturer Ciel et Terre partnered with Portugal-based global energy developer EDP to build a 220 kW floating solar pilot project on Portugal’s Alto Rabagão Dam. The pilot went live in 2016. The floating solar panels represent less than 1% of the dam’s nameplate capacity, but importantly, it demonstrated that these systems can work in practice, even when facing a constant water level variation of nearly 100 feet. Thanks to the massive potential for the synergy between floating solar and pumped hydro, the success of this pilot is likely to catalyze many more projects in Portugal and beyond. It’s not a moment too soon.

Originally Published: https://splash.solar/floating-solar-news-spring-2019/

FERC Denies Jordan Cove, For Now.

by

Jordan CoveOn a scale of 1 to 10 for the complexity and divisiveness of issues, Jordan Cove is off the charts. The project, a proposed pipeline between Malin in Klamath County eastern Oregon and Coos Bay on the coast, would pump liquefied natural gas (LNG) to be exported at the International Port of Coos Bay. The pipeline would be a continuation of the Ruby pipeline that stretches from Malin out to Opal, Wyoming which currently serves the natural gas needs of California, Nevada and the Pacific Northwest.

On March 11, 2016, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) denied Pacific Connector’s and Jordan Cove’s proposal for the pipeline extension. One could reasonably infer that such a decision was a disappointment to those who stood to benefit from construction contracts and other employment associated with its building and operation. Private landowners who faced eminent domain and environmental activists stood in opposition.Coos.bay.gas_map

To make matters more complicated, the Coquille, Coos, Lower Umpqua and Siuslaw tribes had taken a firm position against the pipeline, despite their standing for monetary gain in the form of increased business at their Coos Bay casinos. The tribes reported confusion with government agency oversight and the need to take into consideration the cultural integrity of the lands as well as native soils and burial grounds.

Did the public interest of having a natural gas export terminal and pipeline outweigh the adverse impacts on local landowners and the community? FERC apparently did not think so and Jordan Cove LNG backers will seek a rehearing on the issue. In the meantime, environmental opponents have an opportunity to reinforce their positions as the project was rejected principally because Jordan Cove LNG backers did not substantiate demand for the product abroad – the environmental claims were dismissed as moot.

Initially, proponents of LNG pipelines in Oregon supported LNG imports to increase demand and drive down prices. However, since the United States has proved to be a producer, these proponents have flipped to pursue exporting the product.

Many factors are at play as to whether a pipeline will be built between Malin and Coos Bay. A different federal administration tied to different billionaire interests may seek to reverse the policies disfavoring the building of such pipelines to export gas and oil. Nevertheless, Oregonians have a moment to think, for themselves, about what an export terminal would mean to them and to the future of their state.

Is this a project worth the jobs, investment and manufacturing opportunities that could arise, or is natural gas a doomed product whose potential will dry up? Is eminent domain and individual liberty of the utmost concern in this matter? Or perhaps our looking at Oregon’s environmental future is most crucial. Whatever, the question, every Oregonian has an opportunity to engage, weigh in, and be heard.

ODA’s Beetles Take a Bite Out of Portland

by

Galerucella BeetleThe Oregon Department of Agriculture’s (ODA) latest efforts to quell an invasive species has led to a massive beetle infestation in the Sellwood and Westmoreland neighborhood of Portland. The ODA first introduced the Galerucella beetle to Oregon in 1992 and released them into the Oaks Bottom wetland ten years ago to control the growth of Purple Loosestrife.

Residents of Sellwood and Westmoreland are now experiencing a drastic infestation of the beetle in their yards. The beetle has reportedly expanded its eating habits to residents’ crepe myrtle, roses, and tomatoes.

Instead of offering an apology to residents, the ODA decided to issue a press release blaming the infestation on a “perfect storm” of factors including hotter and drier weather conditions and favorable water conditions that have led to surge in the beetle’s population. Furthermore, the ODA, in the release, redirects the public attention to the dire need for this method of “biocontrol”, claiming the Purple Loosestrife, a wetland plant with a purple flower enjoyed by bees and butterflies alike and utilized against diarrhea and dysentery for its medicinal properties, is overly abundant and that the plant would cause $28 million in economic damage if it were to spread throughout Oregon.

Tinkering with the environment has long been a pastime of state and federal regulators. They have attempted to get the proper levels of all the ingredients so that it can cement in permanency its function as an environmental arbiter. And citizens are beginning to pay attention. Environmental organizations such as Friends of the Animals are speaking out against the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife’s (USDFW) killing of the barred owl to help promote the Spotted Owl’s habitat. The Center for Biological Diversity recently issued a press release against similar actions the USDFW was taking in the slaughter of Cormorants in the Columbia River Basin in an effort to encourage salmon and steelhead.

Few could argue that government has, at times, played an important role in reducing the human footprint. But like Mr. McGoo, state and federal regulators can also be, at times, the source of enormous disaster as we saw with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) toxic spill into the Animus River this past week that release lead, arsenic and cadmium into the flowing waters. The United States Department of Energy (USDOE) is in charge of the cleanup at the government-created Hanford Nuclear Reservation, wastes of which still gravely threatens Oregon and Washington.

A footprint is still a footprint. Environmental tinkering has an impact on all our lives. Our efforts to reduce this footprint might be a difficult pill to swallow for government and many organizations that base their efforts on reduction of invasive species for biodiversity. But reducing our footprint is simply a way of saying, we are not greater than nature but are a part of it and we accept its principles in the balance of our ecosystems, recognizing that our own tinkering can often be disruptive.

We should be focusing on how to reduce our footprint as a method for promoting environmental diversity rather than to reduce by method of death squad, the population of any over abundant plant or animal. Indeed, we would certainly not employ such methods in handling those immigrating to our state and towns, despite how many would view them as “invasive.”

For now, the ODA is literally in Portland residents’ backyards. There is no sure determination that the infestation is going to dissipate and not return next year when weather conditions could possibly be just as favorable to the little bugs.

Chemical Forestry: A Clear Cut Challenge

by

Oregon Clear CutWhether you subscribe to Chemtrail Conspiracy or not, no one can deny the absolute veracity in the private logging industry’s chemical stains on our countryside. The largest offender, quite possibly, is Weyerhaeuser (a foreign – not from Oregon – corporation).

The industry cites regulations requiring the replanting of douglas fir following a company’s clearcutting as the primary reason for the widespread application of herbicides such as 2,4-D, Velossa, and Atrazine. The industry is required to harvest new trees so that after six years they are in a “free to grow” state unencumbered by weeds and brush. The herbicides kill everything but the trees. Their aerial application is simply cheaper than hand weeding.

Meanwhile, folks are getting sick.  Many are testing positive for Atrazine. And yet this practice was banned twenty years ago from public forest lands. The practice survives on private logging lands.

There is certainly an argument to be made for one’s right to exercise control over one’s property, but when that control begins to negatively impact the surrounding community and its common resources such as water, air and animals, the public has always had a right to intervene (i.e. the United States has a long history of “nuisance” law). Protection of the commons is of increasing concern as the effects of resource shortages become more real. And individuals have an increasing responsibility to protect themselves, their health, and their property from the irresponsible actions of adjacent property owners.

The state and federal government are, in part, to blame for adopting policies that, while perhaps well-intentioned, do not address the source of the problem. Instead of overlooking an ecosystem, political parties and leaders attach themselves to a single species and gauge an ecosystem’s health based upon the health of this species. As a result, the state and federal government imposes itself as an arbiter between the species, deciding to eliminate any threats to their “special” species.

With regard to the logging industry’s herbicide application on forestland, the source of the problem, if we follow the trail backwards, leads us to the practice of clear-cutting, which spurned the regulations requiring “free to grow” forest replanting, which, in turn, spurned the industry’s cheap solution.

Responsible stewardship is the answer. For those in the industry looking to improve their bottom line, people have demonstrated that they are willing to pay for products that are made with a greater eye towards responsible stewardship. A “not from clear-cut” brand would certainly raise an opportunity for a would-be purchaser of wood products.

On the government’s side, responsible stewardship arises when the effects of regulation on private industry are analyzed and changes are made to address the source. Being in a logging state, legislative leaders from Oregon, particularly those paid by the logging industry, would have a difficult time challenging the status quo for logging practices that may be harmful to the general public. Yet this kind of bold inquiry is precisely what we need to make our state more healthy, safe and prosperous.

The Bureau of Land Mismanagement

by

Sage GrouseDuring the 1870s, the federal government adopted policies encouraging the killing of the North American buffalo in order to deplete the food source of the Native Americans, a tactic used to expand the government’s authority across the West.
Today, in a continued effort to promote and secure its relevance, the federal government, in breach of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act, has authorized the U.S. Department of Fish and Wildlife to spend $3.5 million massacring 3600 barred owls in Oregon under the auspices of spotted owl protection – an animal listed under the Endangered Species Act.
The news of this federal action and the government’s “above the law” response to control natural fluctuations does not come as a surprise to many of us Oregonians who everyday perform the balancing act of providing for our families, sustaining our businesses and ranches, and acting as stewards for sustainable future use of our land. Over the years and centuries, federal responses to local issues have resulted in wasteful spending, irresponsible action, and the decimation of people and animals alike. Yet a concentrated majority in this state has decided that Washington D.C. is best suited to handling our business, ranching and local environmental affairs.
Oregon’s counties and communities face a new federal intervention: an effort to protect the sage grouse. An environmental impact statement is currently being pushed through federal court to determine whether the Bureau of Land Management (“BLM”) should cordon off hundreds of thousands of acres of land usually reserved for ranching activities.
There is clear consensus among the experts and the BLM that sage grouse numbers are not a problem in Oregon. The disappearance of the bird has predominantly occurred in Idaho and Utah. Many ranchers in Oregon are aware of the bird’s habitat and steer their herds clear of areas where their dwelling is probable.
Yet the federal government has advertised that it is the most effective source for balancing interests – that somehow the sage grouse’s viability must be protected at the federal level from cattle-ranching activities (which actually have a positive impact on sage grouse habitat as well through soil regeneration that aids habitat growth, much like the buffalo herds’ contribution to the fertility of the Great Plains).
Eastern Oregon, prior to the pioneers, was a large swathe of grassland. With the covered wagons clung the sage seeds that spread their roots across the land. Our ever-changing ecosystem has seen the rise and fall of species across the span of earth’s history. Yet our government is attempting to play God and legislate control over a single element to an incomprehensible equation – a futile and wasteful task that does more harm than good, as we saw from the carcasses of buffalo, and see from the slaughter of an owl.

Youth and the Republican Party: An American Recovery

by

Republican Elephant and Democratic DonkeyParty warfare and polarization of ideologies may be significantly to blame for the finger-pointing and squabbling in Washington D.C. Open primaries, term limits, and policies that suspend Congressional pay if shutdowns occur are just some of the answers to questions of how we must reform the internal mechanisms of our government in order to get back on track for being a proud and confident nation.

Yet, these policies may be some time away from now until young leaders are put in power that are willing to limit their own power for long-term objectives. Until that time, we must ask serious questions about how all of us – Republicans, Democrats and Independents – can come together to help shape the new Republican Party and bring back a balance of power to the system to check the unprecedented spending and waste in our federal government.

Every dollar our government spends today is a dollar that young people will have to pay back in their future. This is inherently unfair and unjust. Entrenched leaders in Washington D.C. continue to waste the money of future generations for their own political short-term gain. Our interests, the interests of those in their thirties, twenties and younger – are not being represented.

Young people have an opportunity to take over the Republican Party here in Oregon – be you Democrat, Republican or Independent. We have the opportunity to shape the party for ourselves and take back what is our future to spend – not theirs.

And conservative and progressive values, the real kind that is (as opposed to the kind promoted by the media), may be the kind we younger generations can embrace. We know what it is like to be under the weight of massive educational debt, not to have the employment opportunities we were told would be waiting for us on the other side, and to find ourselves unable to fulfill our American Dreams.

Our current leaders have failed us. We must now take up the torch and lead with real principles. That is, with self-sacrifice, courage, and pride in a future America we can own and love.

Entitlements are wasting our money. Military ventures are wasting our money. Centralized corporate-sponsored federal programs are wasting our money. Congress is wasting our money. This is our future. We want this future to be green, healthy, productive, and local.

To get back in the game we must go to work. We must find work in any sector. If it means working in an area we perceive to be below our educational level, we must work. We must reject anything handed to us. Only then can we hold our heads high. And we must hold our heads high in order to lead.

We will bring jobs back from overseas. We will go to the ports, find out what China is shipping to us, and make those products here. We will make them better and less expensive. We will encourage entrepreneurs. We will educate. We will stockpile. Our future will be one of great influence.

We will put our money into credit unions and keep our organizations nimble, flexible and local – like Privateers. We will execute a trade surplus and pay down our deficit. And we will not be reckless with the future of our next wave of youth.

We will reform Congress. We will take only one term in any given political office and will condemn political entrenchment and the establishment. We will limit our salaries because what we do is a service to our Great Nation, not a pillage of our Great Nation. We will give back, we will pay the way forward, we will unite, we will overcome and we will live mightily on our principles, work and love.

Timothy Crawley, a native son of Oregon, is a candidate for the 2014 United States Senate seat for Oregon.

A New Feudal America

by

Statue of LibertyThe top 10 percent of earners took more than half of the country’s total income in 2012, the highest level recorded since the government began collecting the relevant data a century ago, according to an updated study….The top 1 percent took more than one-fifth of the income earned by Americans, one of the highest levels on record since 1913, when the government instituted an income tax. –As reported in the on-line New York Times, September 11, 2013

I’m a Matt Damon fan, so I’m looking forward to seeing his latest film, Elysium. The movie takes place in a future time when the entire Earth has become a slum so that the very wealthy have taken up residence in an exclusive retreat in space, visible from Earth, but inaccessible and forbidden to the mass of humanity.

The irony of Elysium is that it is not really a film about the future: it is a metaphor for the present economic situation in the United States of America, a situation that should shame us. (And bravo to Matt Damon and the Elysium writers for their political sensibility and boldness!)

The idea of an America of economic democracy—not Socialism, mind you—in which middle class prosperity is virtually guaranteed to anyone willing to labor with earnest ingenuity for the fruits of modest wealth has died.  The reigning economic culture is a throwback to the late 19th century and the era of the robber barons. The rich deserve to get richer and those in the underclass must learn to accept their suffering if they have not been lucky enough to design (and patent) a jackpot computer app or a chance to buy a loaded security with adequate insurance for its failure.

Wealth is accumulating in the pockets of the corporate magnates, money taken out of the pockets of the former middle class. The very rich now do live in a separate society prohibited to the ordinary masses. Traditional means for righting the inequities between the very wealthy and the working class—such as strengthening organized labor—have fallen into disrepute. The 1990’s taught the young they have a right to aspire to great wealth before they turn 30 and if they don’t achieve that, well, they’ll have to accept that they’re just losers.

There is no longer any community sensibility advocating a continued American aspiration for the wider distribution of wealth.  Moreover, with the help of our advanced technology, the corporations have acquired and are employing the means to make its customers—us—their servants.  By reducing personal services and compelling us to accept more efficient automated alternatives to increase the corporate bottom-line, they substitute our labors for services we used to take for granted. (Consider, for example, the nightmarish recorded message option menus that now often prevent access to real human beings when we try to do business or file a complaint with a corporation or, for another example, the growing self-checkout lines in supermarkets.)

America has apparently become a new kind of feudal state: a plutocratic regime run by and for the benefit of the already rich.  What can we do about it?

Harrison Sheppard, San Francisco, CA

Surplus, Transparency and International Trade

by

TPPAccording to the U.S. Census Bureau and the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis the United States is running a trade deficit of $34.2 billion. This is a decrease from the previous annual period; however, it is still enormously unhealthy for an economy attempting to recover from the blow of 2008.

A country’s trade surplus or deficit speaks mightily about where that country stands in its growth and development. Like a college kid with a credit card, we ran up our deficits at the bar, one of those $300 nights, and expected Mother and Father to foot the bill in the end. Only now, we realize Europe has problems of its own. Yes, we have started to offload some of our debt to Asia. This is why Japan maintains an interest in Montana mines and why our Navy controls their harbors from bases in Yokosuka and Okinawa. This is why China, our much younger sibling, is racing to the top to secure its stake in our debt. And this is why we are attempting to join trade associations like the Trans-Pacific Strategic Economic Partnership (“TPP”) that has been the source of much criticism from Congress and the public in Washington D.C.

Understanding our goals for international trade are equally important as understanding our role and status. As Europe’s glory faded into ours, their economies relied upon specialty market goods that now find tremendous appeal in burgeoning regions like eastern and southeastern Asia. We, as a nation, have protected our resources well by relying upon others’ gases, textiles, metals and wood. But as our reliance has grown, so has our deficit, and so has our expectancy that a variety of choices will be laid at the Prince’s feet. Growth comes from acceptance to atonement to demand for greater responsibility.

Part of this acceptance results from raising public awareness about our proposed trade agreements like the TPP. Mega corporations have veiled the negotiations and are inhibiting our acceptance, growth and democracy. Their power over governmental processes is such that they can now bargain away our most important choice: the choice in how we will live and carry on. Yet the reason they are so large and have ultimately consumed our government itself is because we allowed our federal government run what our local government should have been dealing with. We centralized authority over the minute details of our lives.

Trade is, undoubtedly a federal issue that requires broad base, uniform dealings. However, when those dealings are skewed to the perspective of the highest orders, the interests protected tend to be those of the highest orders. Increasing exports by lowering tariffs through trade agreements, reducing imports through restricting the processing of our natural resources overseas, and ultimately working towards a trade surplus is one route to restore our “war” chest, that, next time around, will hopefully be used to advance our internal economic mechanisms and sustain our prosperity.

Such an effort requires the highest order of checks and balances. These checks and balances must span not merely between the three branches of our government, but between those three branches’ relationship to the fourth branch: the lobbies that have hijacked our government and are now controlling negotiations overseas. We must impose checks and balances between the public sector and the private sector in the form of simple, straightforward laws, that reveal where our politicians have been bought and paid for, in order, thus, to bring them down from their supposed role as stewards of our society.

Oregon Wheat Threatened by GMOs

by

Photo credit: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.

Photo credit: M. DeFreese/CIMMYT.

The discovery of an eastern Oregon wheat farm contaminated with genetically-modified wheat of the same variety produced and field tested from 1998 until 2005 by the world’s largest seed company, Monsanto, generated a flurry of international response. Japan halted white winter wheat imports  from the Pacific Northwest while the European Union has encouraged its 27-member body to continue to monitor and test certain wheat shipments from the United States.

These import restrictions may be particularly harmful to Oregonians as wheat accounts for the state’s second largest export commodity with a market value of $500 million on last year’s harvest. Most of Oregon’s wheat is destined for Japan’s markets. The discovery of the genetically modified wheat variety sent overall prices for wheat tumbling.

While there is no evidence the genetically modified wheat has entered commercial supplies, lawsuits have been filed against Monsanto.

Japan, Australia, the European Union, and the United Kingdom are just a few of the regions where genetically modified organisms (“GMO”) are banned because of the lack of long-term studies. Indeed, even when trans-fats were first introduced into the food supply, their health effects were generally unknown. Years later, studies were produced showing the harmful effects of these fats on human health. Trans fats have now been restricted in certain states.

Besides the fact that GMOs encourage the use of pesticides and herbicides for their production, GMOs are furthermore imposing themselves upon natural plant varieties. The Willamette Valley’s seed producers  have used the genetically modified wheat incident to harness attention for their fight against the production of genetically modified canola in the Valley. GMOs have been known to breed with other plants to pass on their genetic makeup. This could have complex and dire effects on exports of these products to countries that ban GMOs. Oregon House Bill 2427 proposes to ban the production of canola in the Willamette Valley. Oregon has long been home to conscious and progressive organizations like Friends of Family Farmers who seek to maintain a respect for the land and the local community.

Legislation curbing the widespread production of GMOs should be pursued at the federal level. While long-term health effects of GMOs are relatively unknown, the overall negative effects of GMOs are well-established. Currently, sixty (60) to seventy (70) percent of all processed foods in U.S. grocery stores contain at least one GMO ingredient, the result of a strong agribusiness lobby led by powerful corporate entities like Monsanto.

Our U.S. House of Representatives and Senate should be pushing to mandate labeling on food products containing GMO ingredients. Consumers should have the right to know the foods they eat are not contributing to the destruction of our lands through harmful pesticides and herbicides, that such foods are not peripherally contributing to the genetic uniformity that GMOs encourage, and that our export markets and relationships remain intact. Labeling is a simple solution for a product that has caused widespread problems beyond the unknown future health consequences of its consumption.

Josephine County: The Governing Conundrum

by

Josephine County Sheriff's officer -- Photo courtesy Josephine County

Josephine County Sheriff’s officer — Photo courtesy Josephine County

Last week residents of Josephine County, Oregon rejected a levy that would increase property taxes in order to provide more funding for an increasingly resource-starved Sheriff’s Department. The voting results sparked conversation nationwide  regarding local, state and federal governing entities and their role in administering the duties of the state. The issue took a particularly emotional turn as news organizations focused in on a sexual assault committed against a woman who had called 911 last August but was unable to reach any authority

for lack of funding. Politicians at all levels offered their responses.

Josephine County, a mountainous and wildly beautiful swathe of land located in Southwestern Oregon is seventy (70) percent owned by the federal government as Oregon and California Revested Grantlands (O&C Lands). Cuts in federal subsidies (such as those provided under the Secure Rural Schools Act) resulting from the sequester is one reason for the County’s under-resourced Sheriff’s Department. United States Senator Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) has proposed that sequestered funds be payed immediately through an amendment to the Farm Bill. At the state level, Governor John Kitzhaber is considering legislation to declare a public safety emergency in counties similarly affected by these federal cuts.

Should issues such as public safety be left to the local population when their self-determination results in choosing not to fund such services? On a different but connected issue, should the federal government be managing the lands of the county at all or, for that matter, providing subsidies to the local population to support the local bureaucracy? While these questions are difficult to answer, an even tougher issue for those such as Commissioner Simon Hare who advocate solely for local control is voter turnout in the county. Only fifty (50) percent of registered voters took action in the special election on May 21st that included the proposed levy – hardly a showing of democratic support against the tax. The levy itself lost by less than 600 votes.

Oregon residents should not be left to fund Josephine County’s policing practices. Josephine citizens’ voice, however unrepresentative, must be recognized and local politicians like Simon Hare should practice their preaching by rejecting such federal and state funding (something easier said than done but within their prerogative) and, rather, focusing on increasing voter awareness and turnout. Dependence on subsidies and emergency measures hurts everyone.

As for the federal government exercising control over much of the county, Reps. Peter DeFazio (D-Ore.), Kurt Schrader (D-Ore.) and Greg Walden (R-Ore.) are gathering support for a bill that would alleviate some of the gridlock on logging in the area by putting certain previously logged areas in trust to the state for harvesting. The federal government, however, is uniquely situated to help mediate the use and protection of environmental resources given the cross-border effects of logging runoff, erosion, air quality and habitat destruction. We have witnessed how local practices of an industry (i.e. logging) can operate at the expense of other industries (i.e. salmon) where eco-systems are more organically inter-connected than the bright-line boundaries of local, state and federal territories. Managing the resources, businesses, and environmental organizations requires a neutral practitioner. So, while DeFazio, Schrader, and Walden are well-intentioned in their efforts to confer control over land-management to state authorities, they should not relinquish their position of being able to provide appropriate protections for more vulnerable parties.