Grist: Todd Hettenbach

Fly the Friendly Skies?

Todd Hettenbach — Wed, 29 Aug 2001 20:00:09 +0000

350 million — number of pounds of smog-producing chemicals (nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds) released by planes landing and taking off from U.S. airports in 1993
200 million to 600 million — number of gallons of wastewater created each year from airplane deicing
219 — number of volatile organic chemicals found in the air around Chicago’s O’Hare Airport
5.6 — number of miles a passenger could travel in an intercity bus using the same amount of energy it would take to move her one mile in a commercial jet
1.5 — number of miles a passenger could travel in a commercial jet using the same amount of energy it would take to move her one mile in a single-occupancy car
30,000 — number of flights completed in the U.S. each day
149 — percentage increase in U.S. air travel (paying passenger miles) on major commercial airlines from 1979 to 1999
85 — percentage expected increase in U.S. air travel from 1999 to 2020
10 — approximate number of gallons of crude oil required to make one gallon of jet fuel
77 — number of gallons of jet fuel needed for a person to travel from New York to Los Angeles on a commercial jet plane
13 — percentage of total global, transportation-related carbon dioxide emissions released by airplanes
$40 billion — amount of money appropriated by the U.S. Congress to construct and expand airports under the Air Expansion Act of 2000 (AIR-21)
71 — percentage of members of the U.S. House of Representatives who received PAC money from the airline industry in 2000
6 million — number of pounds of peanuts sold by Southern farmers to the airline industry each year, before nuts were banned on many flights

Sources:
1 — Natural Resources Defense Council, “Flying Off Course: Environmental Impacts of America’s Airports,” Oct 1996.
2 — U.S. EPA, Office of Research and Development, “On-Site Recovery of Glycols from Airport Deicing Fluid Using Polymeric/Ceramic Composite Membranes,” 15 Jul 1999.
3 — City of Park Ridge, Ill., “Preliminary Study and Analysis of Toxic Air Pollutant Emissions from O’Hare International Airport and the Resulting Health Risks Created by These Toxic Emissions in Surrounding Residential Communities” (pdf), Aug 2000.
4, 5 — Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Transportation Analysis, Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 20 (pdf), Nov 2000.
6 — Kristin L. Falzone, “Airport Noise Pollution: Is There a Solution in Sight?” (pdf), Boston College Environmental Affairs Law Review, 1999.
7 — U.S. Department of Transportation, Bureau of Transportation Statistics, Historical Air Traffic Statistics 1979 and 1999.
8 — U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Agency, “2001 Annual Energy Outlook Supplementary Tables,” Dec 2000.
9 — American Petroleum Institute, “What A Barrel Of Crude Oil Makes.”
10 — New York is 2,462 miles from Los Angeles. There are 128,100 Btus of energy in one gallon of kerosene-type jet fuel, and it requires 3,999 Btus of energy to move one passenger one mile in a commercial jet. (Calculated from: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Center for Transportation Analysis, Transportation Energy Data Book: Edition 20, Nov 2000.)
11 — U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, “Aviation and the Global Atmosphere,” Apr 1999.
12 — Sharon Skolnick, “Airports’ Poison Circles,” Earth Island Journal, Winter 2000.
13 — Center for Responsive Politics, Airlines: Top Recipients.
14 — American Cynic, 07 Sep 1998.

Electric Boogie

Todd Hettenbach — Fri, 16 Mar 2001 20:00:23 +0000

12,133 — per capita annual electricity consumption (kilowatt-hours) in the U.S. in 1997
1,381 — per capita annual electricity consumption (kilowatt-hours) in the rest of the world in 1997
21.5 — percentage increase in U.S. electricity consumption from 1990 to 1999
43 — percentage decrease in utility funding for energy efficiency from 1993 to 1998
90 — percentage of total U.S. coal consumption used to generate electricity in 1998
33 — percentage of all mercury emissions in the U.S. that came from coal power plants in 1999
30,000 — number of lives cut short in the U.S. each year due to pollution from electric utilities
37 million — number of cars necessary to produce the amount of smog-forming pollution that comes from U.S. coal power plants each year
7.5 — percentage of total U.S. energy consumption from renewable sources in 1998
94 — percentage of total U.S. renewable energy consumption from hydropower and bio-mass (trash and wood incinerators)
$216.7 billion — revenue of the U.S. electric utility industry in 1999
$124 billion — approximate combined revenues of all the governments in Africa
90 — percentage of total electricity used by a standard incandescent lightbulb that is wasted as heat
1,000 — reduction in pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere by replacing one incandescent lightbulb with a compact fluorescent bulb, over the bulb’s lifetime

Sources:
1 — Calculated by dividing U.S. consumption in 1997 by the 1997 U.S. population estimate from the U.S. Census Bureau.
2 — Calculated by dividing world consumption (minus U.S.) in 1997 by the 1997 world population (minus U.S.) at the U.S. Census Bureau.
3 — U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, Electric Power Annual Report, Volume 1.
4 — American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy, State Scorecard on Utility Energy Efficiency Programs 2000.
5 — U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “U.S. Coal Supply and Demand: 1998 Review.”
6 — Clean Air Network, “Mercury Sources Factsheet (pdf),” Aug 1999.
7 — ABT Associates, “The Particulate-Related Health Benefits of Reducing Power Plant Emissions (pdf),” Oct 1999.
8 — Environmental Working Group, “Up In Smoke“, Jul 1999.
9, 10 — U.S. Department of Energy, Energy Information Administration, “ U.S. Renewable Energy Consumption,” Mar 2000.
11 — Edison Electric Institute, “1999 Year in Review (pdf).”
12 — Central Intelligence Agency, “World Factbook 2000.”
13 — U.S. EPA and U.S. Department of Energy: Energy Star: Compact Fluorescent Lights.
14 — U.S. EPA, How you can prevent pollution prevention in your home, Aug 1998.

Recount!

Todd Hettenbach — Thu, 08 Feb 2001 20:00:06 +0000

1.2 billion — number of dollars raised by Democratic and Republican candidates for federal office in the 2000 election cycle
110:1 — ratio of anti-environmental (construction, chemical, and energy/natural resource) PAC contributions to environmental PAC contributions
9 — estimated number of dollars spent by candidates for federal office per registered voter in the United States
6 — estimated number of dollars spent on national parks per person in the United States
77 — percentage of voters who want tougher environmental laws and stricter enforcement of existing laws
124 million — number of private dollars raised by George W. Bush’s presidential campaign
130 million — number of dollars that Governor Bush cut from Texas’s environmental fund in 1997 to pay for a lawsuit stemming from his cancellation of the state’s tailpipe emission testing program
104 — number of years that passed between the time that scientists first advanced the theory of global warming and George W. Bush’s announcement that more study was needed before the government could take action on the issue
0.0027 — number of years that passed between Election Day 2000 and the day that George W. Bush was confident that he had won the presidential election
63.5 million — number of PAC and soft money dollars donated to federal candidates by members of the Global Climate Coalition (an industry coalition opposed to action on global warming), Jan. 1998 through June 1999

Sources:
1 — Federal Election Commission, “Party Fundraising Escalates,” 12 Jan 2001.
2 — Center for Responsive Politics, Industry Profiles.
3 — Calculated by dividing federal campaign fundraising totals (see 1) by the number of registered voters in the United States in 1998 (most recent available data from the Federal Election Commission).
4 — Calculated by dividing the U.S. Department of the Interior’s 1999 National Park Service budget by the U.S. Census Bureau‘s estimate of the U.S. population as of 9:35 p.m. EST on 06 Feb 2001 (283,576,838).
5 — League of Conservation Voters Education Fund, “Clean Air and Water are Among Top Concerns for American Voters,” 09 March 2000.
6 — Center For Responsive Politics, 2000 Presidential Race: Total Raised and Spent (calculated by subtracting federal funds from total dollars raised).
7 — Austin Chronicle, Louis Dubose, 08 Sep 2000.
8 — Natural Resources Defense Council, “Stopping the Hot Air,” April 2000; and USA Today, “Gore deals with Nader; Powell joins Bush,” 26 Oct 2000.
9 — USA Today, Judy Keen, 09 Nov 2000.
10 — Common Cause, “Some Like It Hot: Chart I,” 1999.

Burning Rubber

Todd Hettenbach — Fri, 13 Oct 2000 20:00:39 +0000

6.5 million — number of tires recalled this year by Bridgestone/Firestone
270 million — number of scrap tires generated in the U.S. in 1998
500 million — number of scrap tires currently in U.S. stockpiles
35 — number of U.S. states that ban whole tires from landfills
59 — number of tire fires in the U.S. between 1996 and 1998
14 million — number of tires consumed in a 1990 tire fire in Hagersville, Ontario, the largest tire fire in history, which burned for 17 days and drove some 4,000 people from their homes
8 million — estimated number of pounds of pollutants released into the air during a 1999 tire fire near Westley, Calif., which burned for 30 days
7 — number of gallons of crude oil needed to produce one car tire
3.6 billion — number of gallons of crude oil needed to produce tires for all of the cars in the U.S.
75 — percentage of recycled rubber in a retreaded tire
27.7 million — estimated number of retreaded tires sold in the U.S. and Canada in 1999
100,000 — number of barrels of oil that could be saved each day if Americans properly inflated their automobile tires

Sources:
1 — Associated Press, H. Josef Hebert, 08.09.00.
2-3 — Scrap Tire Management Council, Scrap Tire Facts & Figures.
4 — U.S. EPA, Commodities: Rubber, 09.08.00.
5 — Scrap Tire Management Council, Scrap Tire Use/Disposal Study, 1998/1999 Update, Executive Summary, 09.15.99.
6 — Hamilton Spectator, Dan Nolan, 02.12.00.
7 — Modesto Bee, Steve Elliot, 09.26.99; and Merced Sun-Star, Bill Hatch, 03.01.00.
8 — Institute of Scrap Recycling Industries, Inc., “Rubber Recycling Rolls Along,” 05.00.
9 — Calculated considering there were 129,749,000 passenger cars registered in the U.S. in 1997, as cited in the Federal Highway Administration’s National Transportation Statistics ’99 Report, 4 tires per car, and 7 gallons of crude oil per tire, as cited above.
10 — Waste Age, Chaz Miller, 08.00.
11 –Tire Retread Information Bureau, 2000 Fact Sheet.
12 — U.S. EPA, Your Car or Truck — and the Environment, 09.93.

Pounding the Pavement

Todd Hettenbach — Tue, 26 Sep 2000 20:00:44 +0000

3 million — number of acres of open space developed each year in the U.S.
40 — percentage increase in acreage of developed land in the U.S. between 1982 and 1997
1891 — year in which the first road was paved in the U.S.
2.4 million — number of miles of paved public roads in the U.S. in 1997
23 — percentage increase in miles of paved public roads in the U.S. from 1977 to 1997
83.9 million — number of metric tons of cement produced in the U.S. in 1998
10.7 million — metric tons of greenhouse gases (carbon equivalent) released in 1998 as a by-product of cement production in the U.S., an increase of 18 percent since 1990
132,197 — acres of mature forest needed to sequester that carbon
6-8 million — metric ton increase in concrete demand expected due to funding in the 1997 transportation bill (TEA-21)
1.4 million — number of dollars in hard money campaign contributions given by “building materials and equipment” PACs in the 1997-98 election cycle
1,900 — percentage increase in storm water flow caused by replacing forest land with commercial development
100 (virtually) — percentage of the length of the Los Angeles River paved with concrete
12 million — number of cubic yards of concrete in the Grand Coulee Dam, the largest concrete structure in the world

Sources:
1 — U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 1997 National Resources Inventory: Highlights.
2 — Calculated from U.S. Department of Agriculture, Natural Resources Conservation Service, 1997 National Resources Inventory: Highlights.
3 — American Concrete Pavement Association, History — Concrete in Highway Transportation.
4 — U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics 1997 (PDF).
5 — Calculated from U.S. Department of Transportation, Federal Highway Administration, Highway Statistics Summary to 1995 (PDF).
6 — U.S. Geological Survey, Minerals Yearbook: Cement (PDF), 1998.
7 — U.S. EPA, Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-1998 (PDF).
8 — Calculated assuming that 200 tons of carbon are sequestered in one hectare of forest, as cited in: Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Revised 1996 IPCC Guidelines for National Greenhouse Gas Inventories: Reference Manual (Volume 3) (PDF).
9 — U.S. Geological Survey, Minerals Yearbook: Cement (PDF), 1998.
10 — Center for Responsive Politics, Building Materials & Equipment PAC Contributions to Federal Candidates, 1997-1998.
11 — John Irvin, The Importance of Being Pervious.
12 — Blake Gumprecht, The Los Angeles River: Its Life, Death and Possible Rebirth (introduction), Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999.
13 — U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation, Grand Coulee Powerplant, Sept. 2000.