I’m working on a story---as is a writer’s annoying habit. This one’s for the Sept. issue of the magazine, and I’ve decided to title it “Will Smart Grids Take Over the World?” I might even have a big Godzilla toy stomping on the North Pole of a shiny globe as the artwork for it. There’s a fantasy quality to smart grids that lends itself to over-the-top visuals.
In working on this story, I needed leads. I mean, really, no one is gonna listen to me blather on about smart grids without some support. So, I’ve lined up some responses, some stats, a nice interview with Duke Energy. I’m making progress.
Perhaps I’m making too much progress.
These days, I think I should illustrate the story with the Blob instead of Godzilla---the smart grid as amorphous and out of control. It’s taking over my work life, this story. Contacts and leads forward my story idea to other contacts and other leads and now I have no idea how many responses I’m going to get or where they might all come from. It’s a whole lot of input that’s coming at me from all sides. Why? Cuz saying “smart grid” in this industry is like screaming “kegger” on a college campus. We’ll elbow each other out of the way to get a hit.
That’s all well and good. It’s awesome to have lots of people taking lots of different points of view. Yet, they won’t. There won’t be differing points of view, I’ll bet you. I doubt I hear a single . . . well, doubt.
You see, at the center of this story is a single premise. Riddle me this: Is the smart grid brilliant or just hype?
Whether I get 5 responses, in the end, or 500, I guarantee you no one will tell me it’s just hype. After all, it’s the great industry hope. We’re tying our dreams to the smart grid---and our investment money, and our advertising dollars and our roadmaps to the future.
But, just last week FERC issued a statement that was intended to light a fire under the movement to work on smart grid standards. IEEE is working on something, but, we, as an industry, are a bit “slow-pokey” about these things.
So, here we are packaging and dolling up the smart grid, but no one has standards. So far, this roadmap has no key, I guess.
Reminds me of the Christmas my grandfather put together my Barbie Dream House without instructions. He got it done, but it took him all night. And more pots of coffee than he’d care to remember. He finished in time to catch about an hour of sleep. I was impressed. It was put together sturdy enough, even without directions. My grandfather’s always been handy at things. I played with that Barbie Dream House for years. But, then again, it was just a toy.
The smart grid, however, is not just a toy. And, we’re tying an awful lot of ourselves to something that still defies definition. And lacks instructions.
May we be as good at winging it today as my grandfather was back in 1979.
Thursday, July 23, 2009
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Customer Service is Key
The biggest splash in the Internet world this week here in the U.S. of A. is Canadian band Sons of Maxwell. Apparently, a year ago, the band flew United Airlines and United managed to break the lead singer’s prize Taylor guitar, and those aren’t cheap. After a year of phone calls and getting the wild-goose runaround from call centers and service agents, the band wrote a song and filmed a video about their experience rather directly titled “United Breaks Guitars.” (Pop that title into You Tube, and you’ll get the video. But, I warn you: That song will be stuck in your head all day.)
Now, this amusing little tidbit on bad customer service and how it can come back to bite a company in the tokhes, reminded me of a local problem here in Oklahoma from a few years ago.
You see, airlines aren’t the only people with bad customer service and problematic call centers and service agents. Utilities often have similar issue.
Here in Tulsa, around 2003, an irate customer got so angry with the local gas utility Oklahoma Natural Gas---commonly referred to as just ONG---that he started a website titled ONGSucks.com. Not only did he start a website, he started a campaign. There were billboards all over the city that advertised the website and encouraged visitors to the site. He spent money from his own pocket (as Sons of Maxwell did with United) to “fight the Man,” as it were.
There were local news stories about the onslaught. There were barbs back and forth. The website was taken down only to be replaced with an ONGStillSucks.com website and new round of billboards. Now, both of those sites are defunct in 2009, but it plagued ONG for years, and it’s an incident that is still remembered, fondly, by Tulsans. Seriously, it was funny. And, we’d all felt his pain because we’d all been in a position where we felt belittled and without options trying to fix or complain about a service we can’t go without.
A lot of times people in necessary service industries---hospitals, airlines, utilities---have a rough and tumble mindset. Since those services are necessary, and they’re usually a form of local monopoly without serious competition, they adopt a surly, bully ‘tude, a “We’re Necessary, So You’ll Just Take What We Dish Out” response. But customer service is key, whether you’re selling eggs or electrons.
In the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Electric Light & Power magazine, author Cynthia White noted that “until recently, consumers did not hold utilities to the same customer service standards they held other businesses.” But, she also noted that those old attitudes are changing, and it’s time for utilities to be more focused on the consumer as a customer. In the same issue, Jerry Duvall, CEO of CS Week, noted the “strategic importance of improving the customer experience.”
Granted, with electric and gas service---and sometimes airlines---you don’t really have a lot of (or any) options to change your service provider. But, as our ONG Sucks guy and our United Breaks Guitars band prove: Where there’s a will---and passionate, pent-up annoyance--- there’s a way. A happy consumer doesn’t post You Tube videos or plaster hate speech on billboards. And, to quote Martha Stewart, that’s a good thing.
Now, this amusing little tidbit on bad customer service and how it can come back to bite a company in the tokhes, reminded me of a local problem here in Oklahoma from a few years ago.
You see, airlines aren’t the only people with bad customer service and problematic call centers and service agents. Utilities often have similar issue.
Here in Tulsa, around 2003, an irate customer got so angry with the local gas utility Oklahoma Natural Gas---commonly referred to as just ONG---that he started a website titled ONGSucks.com. Not only did he start a website, he started a campaign. There were billboards all over the city that advertised the website and encouraged visitors to the site. He spent money from his own pocket (as Sons of Maxwell did with United) to “fight the Man,” as it were.
There were local news stories about the onslaught. There were barbs back and forth. The website was taken down only to be replaced with an ONGStillSucks.com website and new round of billboards. Now, both of those sites are defunct in 2009, but it plagued ONG for years, and it’s an incident that is still remembered, fondly, by Tulsans. Seriously, it was funny. And, we’d all felt his pain because we’d all been in a position where we felt belittled and without options trying to fix or complain about a service we can’t go without.
A lot of times people in necessary service industries---hospitals, airlines, utilities---have a rough and tumble mindset. Since those services are necessary, and they’re usually a form of local monopoly without serious competition, they adopt a surly, bully ‘tude, a “We’re Necessary, So You’ll Just Take What We Dish Out” response. But customer service is key, whether you’re selling eggs or electrons.
In the Jan/Feb 2009 issue of Electric Light & Power magazine, author Cynthia White noted that “until recently, consumers did not hold utilities to the same customer service standards they held other businesses.” But, she also noted that those old attitudes are changing, and it’s time for utilities to be more focused on the consumer as a customer. In the same issue, Jerry Duvall, CEO of CS Week, noted the “strategic importance of improving the customer experience.”
Granted, with electric and gas service---and sometimes airlines---you don’t really have a lot of (or any) options to change your service provider. But, as our ONG Sucks guy and our United Breaks Guitars band prove: Where there’s a will---and passionate, pent-up annoyance--- there’s a way. A happy consumer doesn’t post You Tube videos or plaster hate speech on billboards. And, to quote Martha Stewart, that’s a good thing.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Will Wind Bring Oklahoma Out of the Recession?
The wind industry is hot. It’s popular---perhaps more popular than positively polled President Obama or the newly elected American Idol. It’s the buzz of both energy-related and mainstream media; it’s the source of great press about mandates, tax credits and other goodies that the government might bring to the table. It’s the subject of bestselling books and well-attended conferences.
One of those well-attended conferences occurred in the heat of the summer in the middle of the windy plains this week. According to planners, nearly 500 people gathered in Norman, Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Wind Commerce conference June 23-24. That’s way more than they expected.
The Oklahoma Department of Commerce sponsored the conference, having decided that wind is one of the industries that Oklahoma is built for. Given that the state is in the midst of tornado alley, the idea that the fuel for this industry is readily available locally is certainly a given. If the wind isn’t blowing, you aren’t in Oklahoma. (I always picture Will Rogers saying something along those lines, anyway.)
So, the conference focused on other areas that can sweeten the pot beyond an available fuel source: pushing for tax incentives, creating a smoothly operating supply chain and offering well-trained employees for the picking.
Opportunities abound in areas of education and fuel source for the wind industry in Oklahoma with a lot of the local colleges specializing in wind turbine programs, but will the industry answer that call for action? If they build the perfect “home” for wind energy, will they come?
One company that at least answered a call for the conference was Acciona Energy. Tom Hiester, vice president with the company, was the keynote speaker for the conference luncheon. Joking that the attendance for this conference was “larger than the first AWEA event,” Hiester had a simple premise for his speech: that wind is a huge business opportunity but that, like all opportunities, there are hurdles.
First and foremost with these hurdles is transmission.
“We need long-distance transmission. We need lots of it .... Wind is a fuel that must be used in place, unlike gas or coal,” Hiester noted. This requires transmission lines. The building of transmission lines requires money. The bottom-line question is: Can Oklahoma bring in enough wind to offset the cost of the lines?
Hiester believes so. He quoted a DOE estimate that the state had the potential to harvest 725 billion kWh from wind. Hiester even noted that, perhaps, the DOE numbers were too high and that, for sake of argument, he’d give those numbers “a haircut” and shave it down by a factor of four. That’s about 180billion kWh a year, or approximately 30 percent of the current oil and gas business in the state.
“At $2 million per megawatt, Oklahoma is a $100 billion opportunity,” Hiester added. “Clearly, wind is worth the fuss.”
In the end, Hiester called not just for more transmission, but for more government help in getting Oklahoma on track for more wind energy investments. Citing issues like Eisenhower’s interstate highway system (the largest public works project in history), Hiester noted that when big government and big thinkers unite, the country gets society-changing projects.
One of those well-attended conferences occurred in the heat of the summer in the middle of the windy plains this week. According to planners, nearly 500 people gathered in Norman, Oklahoma for the Oklahoma Wind Commerce conference June 23-24. That’s way more than they expected.
The Oklahoma Department of Commerce sponsored the conference, having decided that wind is one of the industries that Oklahoma is built for. Given that the state is in the midst of tornado alley, the idea that the fuel for this industry is readily available locally is certainly a given. If the wind isn’t blowing, you aren’t in Oklahoma. (I always picture Will Rogers saying something along those lines, anyway.)
So, the conference focused on other areas that can sweeten the pot beyond an available fuel source: pushing for tax incentives, creating a smoothly operating supply chain and offering well-trained employees for the picking.
Opportunities abound in areas of education and fuel source for the wind industry in Oklahoma with a lot of the local colleges specializing in wind turbine programs, but will the industry answer that call for action? If they build the perfect “home” for wind energy, will they come?
One company that at least answered a call for the conference was Acciona Energy. Tom Hiester, vice president with the company, was the keynote speaker for the conference luncheon. Joking that the attendance for this conference was “larger than the first AWEA event,” Hiester had a simple premise for his speech: that wind is a huge business opportunity but that, like all opportunities, there are hurdles.
First and foremost with these hurdles is transmission.
“We need long-distance transmission. We need lots of it .... Wind is a fuel that must be used in place, unlike gas or coal,” Hiester noted. This requires transmission lines. The building of transmission lines requires money. The bottom-line question is: Can Oklahoma bring in enough wind to offset the cost of the lines?
Hiester believes so. He quoted a DOE estimate that the state had the potential to harvest 725 billion kWh from wind. Hiester even noted that, perhaps, the DOE numbers were too high and that, for sake of argument, he’d give those numbers “a haircut” and shave it down by a factor of four. That’s about 180billion kWh a year, or approximately 30 percent of the current oil and gas business in the state.
“At $2 million per megawatt, Oklahoma is a $100 billion opportunity,” Hiester added. “Clearly, wind is worth the fuss.”
In the end, Hiester called not just for more transmission, but for more government help in getting Oklahoma on track for more wind energy investments. Citing issues like Eisenhower’s interstate highway system (the largest public works project in history), Hiester noted that when big government and big thinkers unite, the country gets society-changing projects.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: Is Yucca Mountain Dead?
American news agencies from the Las Vegas Sun to the New York Times are reporting the demise of the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste repository project. And, honestly, I’m not sure how I feel about that.
I know how I’m supposed to feel---at least, in parts. The Democrat in me wants to follow Harry Reid and say “good riddance to bad rubbish that never actually worked.” But, the industry insider in me thinks, “Well, OK. Yucca was super flawed, but where’s the waste going to go now?”
All this fuss centers around page 65 of President Obama’s budget, which proposes the Yucca Mountain elimination and allocates lots o’ millions, instead, for the Department of Energy (DOE) to explore alternatives to the Nevada site. In fact, the 2009 United States Federal Budget, “A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise,” proposes to eliminate funding for the repository almost entirely.
The report states, “The Budget focuses on improved performance and accountability for the environmental legacy of the Nation’s nuclear weapons program by addressing health and safety risks across the country. The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while the Administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.”
So, they’re killing it by not funding it. It’s a pretty common political play. And, again, the divide seems to fall a lot along party lines with this. Dems are celebrating; repubs are annoyed. The donkey dances; the elephant harrumphs.“For more than two decades, some have persistently tried to turn a piece of the magnificent Nevada desert just outside of Las Vegas into a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste. I am proud to say that today, with the release of President Obama’s budget, that idea is dead,” stated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) about the developments in his home state. It’s been pretty common knowledge that he hated the Yucca project for years. He hasn’t exactly made it a secret.Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) added, “President Obama is making good on the promise he made to end Yucca Mountain, and this budget takes us closer than ever before to permanently burying this $100 billion dinosaur in the Nevada desert. Support for Yucca Mountain has collapsed.”
The Republicans aren’t quiet, either. In late April, when news of this funding cutoff filtered through political channels, seventeen GOP senators wrote to Energy Secretary Chu asking for a rationale of the decision. The letter was penned by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Former presidential candidate John McCain was among the 16 senators who signed Inhofe’s letter. The DOE stated that Inhofe will receive an answer to his letter, but no response has yet been made public by the DOE.And, just this morning, Chicago writer Dennis Bryne, penned an editorial on the Chicago Tribune’s Web site claiming that the demise of Yucca Mountain’s repository “would leave Illinois with the shaft” while the state holds onto nearly 7,000 tons of nuclear waste.“Now, the question becomes whether Illinois' Democratic senators---Dick Durbin and Roland Burris---will adequately represent the state's and nation's interests by fighting to keep the Yucca Mountain project alive,” Bryne wrote. “Ah, but you know they won't.”
Yucca Mountain was selected in 1987 as a potential repository for nuclear waste created from the process of electricity production, including spent nuclear fuel rods and solidified high-level radioactive waste. It has been a contentious subject for over 20 years and the project itself has never been completed. And that’s why I don’t know exactly how to feel. As a proponent of nuclear, I’m a little sad. But, as someone who has been in the business almost a decade---long enough to follow only half of the Yucca debate---I can’t help but think of what my grandfather would say after 20 years of wrangling and wrestling with an issue: Girl, it’s time to fish or cut bait.The Obama Administration chose to cut bait. And while I may not agree with it, while I may be wondering what that all means for nuclear energy’s future, I can’t help but agree that it was past time for a decision of some kind to be made.
I know how I’m supposed to feel---at least, in parts. The Democrat in me wants to follow Harry Reid and say “good riddance to bad rubbish that never actually worked.” But, the industry insider in me thinks, “Well, OK. Yucca was super flawed, but where’s the waste going to go now?”
All this fuss centers around page 65 of President Obama’s budget, which proposes the Yucca Mountain elimination and allocates lots o’ millions, instead, for the Department of Energy (DOE) to explore alternatives to the Nevada site. In fact, the 2009 United States Federal Budget, “A New Era of Responsibility: Renewing America’s Promise,” proposes to eliminate funding for the repository almost entirely.
The report states, “The Budget focuses on improved performance and accountability for the environmental legacy of the Nation’s nuclear weapons program by addressing health and safety risks across the country. The Yucca Mountain program will be scaled back to those costs necessary to answer inquiries from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, while the Administration devises a new strategy toward nuclear waste disposal.”
So, they’re killing it by not funding it. It’s a pretty common political play. And, again, the divide seems to fall a lot along party lines with this. Dems are celebrating; repubs are annoyed. The donkey dances; the elephant harrumphs.“For more than two decades, some have persistently tried to turn a piece of the magnificent Nevada desert just outside of Las Vegas into a dumping ground for dangerous nuclear waste. I am proud to say that today, with the release of President Obama’s budget, that idea is dead,” stated Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) about the developments in his home state. It’s been pretty common knowledge that he hated the Yucca project for years. He hasn’t exactly made it a secret.Democratic Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.) added, “President Obama is making good on the promise he made to end Yucca Mountain, and this budget takes us closer than ever before to permanently burying this $100 billion dinosaur in the Nevada desert. Support for Yucca Mountain has collapsed.”
The Republicans aren’t quiet, either. In late April, when news of this funding cutoff filtered through political channels, seventeen GOP senators wrote to Energy Secretary Chu asking for a rationale of the decision. The letter was penned by Sen. Jim Inhofe (R-Okla.). Former presidential candidate John McCain was among the 16 senators who signed Inhofe’s letter. The DOE stated that Inhofe will receive an answer to his letter, but no response has yet been made public by the DOE.And, just this morning, Chicago writer Dennis Bryne, penned an editorial on the Chicago Tribune’s Web site claiming that the demise of Yucca Mountain’s repository “would leave Illinois with the shaft” while the state holds onto nearly 7,000 tons of nuclear waste.“Now, the question becomes whether Illinois' Democratic senators---Dick Durbin and Roland Burris---will adequately represent the state's and nation's interests by fighting to keep the Yucca Mountain project alive,” Bryne wrote. “Ah, but you know they won't.”
Yucca Mountain was selected in 1987 as a potential repository for nuclear waste created from the process of electricity production, including spent nuclear fuel rods and solidified high-level radioactive waste. It has been a contentious subject for over 20 years and the project itself has never been completed. And that’s why I don’t know exactly how to feel. As a proponent of nuclear, I’m a little sad. But, as someone who has been in the business almost a decade---long enough to follow only half of the Yucca debate---I can’t help but think of what my grandfather would say after 20 years of wrangling and wrestling with an issue: Girl, it’s time to fish or cut bait.The Obama Administration chose to cut bait. And while I may not agree with it, while I may be wondering what that all means for nuclear energy’s future, I can’t help but agree that it was past time for a decision of some kind to be made.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: History for Sale
There’s a bit of a tussle going on in New York’s real estate market. And, no, it has nothing to do with the global economic downturn or the collapse of the real estate bubble here in the U.S.---at least, not directly.
There’s a fight over a dilapidated 16-acre Long Island commercial complex that’s been empty for over a decade. It has changed hands a lot over the years, but its original owner and builder was Nikola Tesla.
Between 1901 and 1917, Tesla was engrossed---as only Tesla could be, given his obsession-compulsive disorder---in building a giant tower. He wanted to broadcast to the world---not just words, radio and sound . . . but also, electricity.
Indeed, Wardenclyffe Tower was Tesla’s attempt to create a giant wireless electric tower. And, although it was never completed before Tesla’s quirks and rather deep debt caught up with him, remnants of the tower (its base) and the lab (the building) remain.
That’s where the fight comes in.
Agfa Corp. owns the complex, and they have since well before this blogger was born. They built parts and parcels for their well-known imaging systems on site for two decades before the doors closed in 1992. (Since then, the corporation, with a push from the state of New York, has been cleaning up the contamination from the chemicals used in the process.) Now, Agfa has put the entire complex up for sale.
For decades, a series of science associations and “friends of Tesla” groups have been trying to get the site declared a national monument, registered as a part of history. But, it’s been a slow and laborious process aggravated by any number of issues: cost, red tape, rotating association memberships, lack of interest by the state representatives, the site’s problems with contamination. Now, there’s a sense of real urgency, given that the real estate notice offers to level the property for potential buyers, effectively erasing Tesla’s “million-dollar folly,” as newspapers in 1917 called it.
Now, here’s where the economy does play in: Agfra has said they are open to legitimate offers from groups wanting to save the complex and convert it into a Tesla museum, but it has made quite clear that it cannot afford to donate the property for such a purpose.
The battle is ongoing, and no one can predict its outcome. Will Tesla finally get a museum from Wardenclyffe, or will it be flattened for “progress”? Will nostalgia win, or will the bottom line?
Tesla was an odd character, perhaps the classic view of a “mad scientist,” only made more potent by the various disorders he exhibited that were never accurately diagnosed, by his tendency to experiment on a big level and send bolts of electricity through the sky, and by his extreme focus on scientific ideas that seemed magical and supernatural to the average citizen. But, he was brilliant. He won the radio battle with Marconi---though it took a Supreme Court ruling after his death to confirm that. He designed the first hydro electric plant, and, oh yes, one other small little factor: He electrified the world, since his alternating current won out over Edison’s direct current.
This round, though, might go to Edison. Wardenclyffe, which is basically “down the street” from the Edison Museum remains a ghost of a dream, while Edison already has his architectural place in American history.
There’s a fight over a dilapidated 16-acre Long Island commercial complex that’s been empty for over a decade. It has changed hands a lot over the years, but its original owner and builder was Nikola Tesla.
Between 1901 and 1917, Tesla was engrossed---as only Tesla could be, given his obsession-compulsive disorder---in building a giant tower. He wanted to broadcast to the world---not just words, radio and sound . . . but also, electricity.
Indeed, Wardenclyffe Tower was Tesla’s attempt to create a giant wireless electric tower. And, although it was never completed before Tesla’s quirks and rather deep debt caught up with him, remnants of the tower (its base) and the lab (the building) remain.
That’s where the fight comes in.
Agfa Corp. owns the complex, and they have since well before this blogger was born. They built parts and parcels for their well-known imaging systems on site for two decades before the doors closed in 1992. (Since then, the corporation, with a push from the state of New York, has been cleaning up the contamination from the chemicals used in the process.) Now, Agfa has put the entire complex up for sale.
For decades, a series of science associations and “friends of Tesla” groups have been trying to get the site declared a national monument, registered as a part of history. But, it’s been a slow and laborious process aggravated by any number of issues: cost, red tape, rotating association memberships, lack of interest by the state representatives, the site’s problems with contamination. Now, there’s a sense of real urgency, given that the real estate notice offers to level the property for potential buyers, effectively erasing Tesla’s “million-dollar folly,” as newspapers in 1917 called it.
Now, here’s where the economy does play in: Agfra has said they are open to legitimate offers from groups wanting to save the complex and convert it into a Tesla museum, but it has made quite clear that it cannot afford to donate the property for such a purpose.
The battle is ongoing, and no one can predict its outcome. Will Tesla finally get a museum from Wardenclyffe, or will it be flattened for “progress”? Will nostalgia win, or will the bottom line?
Tesla was an odd character, perhaps the classic view of a “mad scientist,” only made more potent by the various disorders he exhibited that were never accurately diagnosed, by his tendency to experiment on a big level and send bolts of electricity through the sky, and by his extreme focus on scientific ideas that seemed magical and supernatural to the average citizen. But, he was brilliant. He won the radio battle with Marconi---though it took a Supreme Court ruling after his death to confirm that. He designed the first hydro electric plant, and, oh yes, one other small little factor: He electrified the world, since his alternating current won out over Edison’s direct current.
This round, though, might go to Edison. Wardenclyffe, which is basically “down the street” from the Edison Museum remains a ghost of a dream, while Edison already has his architectural place in American history.
FROM THE ARCHIVES: An Anniversary to Remember
I grew up in Kansas, land of the waving wheat. In all my years as a farm kid, I got used to a lot of oddities: how the fields around my house in the summer time used to make my cousins from the South seasick watching the breezes blow through the bendable stalks, how the old farmer down the street---meaning about five miles away---would move hay bales the size of our house completely by himself with his equally old tractor, and how the sky turned just a certain shade of gray-green when a tornado was headed your way.
Tornados are, in fact, something you get rather used to in Kansas. Sirens and battery-powered radios and discussions about how to cover yourself with a twin mattress while cowering in a bathtub are rather common things in Kansas in the springtime. And, while we all got used to being prepared and being vigilant, we never got used to one thing---the incredible destruction.
I was thinking about all of this today because it’s a particular anniversary: two years since a tornado took out the small Kansas town of Greensburg. The whole town. Completely and utterly flattened; 90% of it destroyed.
Before the tornado, I doubt anyone really knew much about Greensburg, Kansas. A small community in the flat flow of the Western plains, its major claim to fame before the tornado was the world’s largest hand-dug well.
These days, its major claim to fame is new and thoroughly modern: the city of Greensburg is rebuilding itself “green.” The long-term community recovery plan established a sustainable development resource office with building programs that awarded “Greensburg Green” certifications. The city set about finding energy alternatives, including renewables. And they started a grant and loan program for both residences and businesses.
You can check out all that Greensburg is doing at their “Greensburg GreenTown” website. (Just click here.) Greensburg GreenTown is a Kansas-based nonprofit organization established to be “a model of sustainable living for the world.” Their projects include solar panels, silo eco-homes, wind farms and energy efficiency. But, the city is making no sacrifices to do so. In fact, they feel these changes bring a lot of positives to their old town. (Last Thursday, as part of the anniversary festivities and to have a bit of educational fun, the residents dropped a car on top of the silo eco-home. Dropped from a crane with 180,000 pounds of force, the car didn’t make a dent in the structure. The company that built the home wanted to show how much force it can stand up to---even tornado-level force, which has been known to toss a car or two.)
Assisted by FEMA and the State of Kansas, Greensburg notes in the opening pages of the community recovery plan that they have been “blessed with a unique opportunity to create a strong community devoted to family, fostering businesses,working together for future growth.” Rather than seeing the tornado’s destruction as completely negative, the town has grown to see starting over as a chance to make a town that’s smarter, greener, more efficient and healthier for its populous.
As a Kansas farm kid, I have to say, I am impressed that this small, rural community is taking on this unique opportunity to become a shining example of sustainable energy and construction.
Tornados are, in fact, something you get rather used to in Kansas. Sirens and battery-powered radios and discussions about how to cover yourself with a twin mattress while cowering in a bathtub are rather common things in Kansas in the springtime. And, while we all got used to being prepared and being vigilant, we never got used to one thing---the incredible destruction.
I was thinking about all of this today because it’s a particular anniversary: two years since a tornado took out the small Kansas town of Greensburg. The whole town. Completely and utterly flattened; 90% of it destroyed.
Before the tornado, I doubt anyone really knew much about Greensburg, Kansas. A small community in the flat flow of the Western plains, its major claim to fame before the tornado was the world’s largest hand-dug well.
These days, its major claim to fame is new and thoroughly modern: the city of Greensburg is rebuilding itself “green.” The long-term community recovery plan established a sustainable development resource office with building programs that awarded “Greensburg Green” certifications. The city set about finding energy alternatives, including renewables. And they started a grant and loan program for both residences and businesses.
You can check out all that Greensburg is doing at their “Greensburg GreenTown” website. (Just click here.) Greensburg GreenTown is a Kansas-based nonprofit organization established to be “a model of sustainable living for the world.” Their projects include solar panels, silo eco-homes, wind farms and energy efficiency. But, the city is making no sacrifices to do so. In fact, they feel these changes bring a lot of positives to their old town. (Last Thursday, as part of the anniversary festivities and to have a bit of educational fun, the residents dropped a car on top of the silo eco-home. Dropped from a crane with 180,000 pounds of force, the car didn’t make a dent in the structure. The company that built the home wanted to show how much force it can stand up to---even tornado-level force, which has been known to toss a car or two.)
Assisted by FEMA and the State of Kansas, Greensburg notes in the opening pages of the community recovery plan that they have been “blessed with a unique opportunity to create a strong community devoted to family, fostering businesses,working together for future growth.” Rather than seeing the tornado’s destruction as completely negative, the town has grown to see starting over as a chance to make a town that’s smarter, greener, more efficient and healthier for its populous.
As a Kansas farm kid, I have to say, I am impressed that this small, rural community is taking on this unique opportunity to become a shining example of sustainable energy and construction.
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