SRC Energy Report: Net Increase in Energy, Petroleum Consumption

You probably heard about Kendall-Jackson/Jackson Family Wines purchase of WillaKenzie Estate. In addition to wanting to add Oregon wines to their portfolio, California firms are hedging against climate change: In a generation or two our cool-climate vineyards will be grafted over to warmer-climate grapes, and it is likely that what we think of as Napa and Sonoma will have moved north to the Willamette Valley. Big Wine recognizes this and is executing on long-term moves to keep their businesses going for generations from now.

Climate change in wine: 2003 was really hot,
and was our hottest vintage until 2014 and 2015 eclipsed it.
via Linfield Wine History Archive

Hurricane Matthew promises a huge storm surge in Florida, and between rising sea levels and increased energy for the hurricane's winds and rains, its impact is exacerbated by climate change.

I don't know that there needs to be a whole lot of introduction to the Energy Technical Report Addendum on the Salem River Crossing. The report is clear that the Preferred Alternative does not lessen greenhouse gas emissions by reducing congestion and idling. On the contrary, it "would provide a net increase in energy consumption."

Our greenhouse gases are supposed to go down,
but the SRC causes a 16% increase in energy use
(Notional comment in red added*;
DLCD Greenhouse Gas Target Rule Presentation)

Those who say that the SRC would reduce greenhouse gas emissions because of improved traffic flow are wrong according to the SRC's own analysis.

Any greenhouse gas reduction on SRC-related travel would come from fuel shifts in the composition of the aggregate motor fleet, not from improved free-flowing auto traffic. Because of induced demand, "the increase in traffic volume," the SRC will make things worse.

If our goal is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we should seek to make driving trips shorter, and to make it easy not to make driving trips at all. The SRC does not contribute to either. In this, the SRC is inconsistent with HB3543, which calls for us to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 75% below 1990 levels by 2050.

It is also inconsistent with Statewide Planning Goal 13 "to conserve energy," OAR 660-015-0000(13):

Land and uses developed on the land shall be managed and controlled so as to maximize the conservation of all forms of energy, based upon sound economic principles.

This may be relevant in the approval criteria for the proposed UGB expansion.

From the Technical Addendum, Section 4.2.1 "Impact Analysis, Direct Impacts":

[V]ehicles traveling along the routes identified in the study area would consume approximately 475,132 MBtus of energy per year by 2040. This is the equivalent of approximately 3.91 million gallons of fuel. The preferred alternative would result in a 16.1 percent increase in operational energy consumption in 2040 compared to the No Build Alternative....

The preferred alternative is expected to have more vehicular demand compared to No Build Alternative because of expanded roadway capacity from the new north bridges and extension of Marine Drive to connect Riverbend Road to the north and OR 22 to the south. Despite the increase in traffic volume, the preferred alternative has slightly higher speeds (less delay) compared to the No Build Alternative. This results in higher fuel efficiency but does not offset the increase in traffic volume, so energy consumption will increase between scenarios. Also, the distance of all the segments for the preferred alternative are longer than the distances in No Build Alternative due to the extension of Marine Drive. Since the preferred alternative has more segments and more mileage than the No Build Alternative, it will result in higher energy consumption. [italics added]

From 4.2.2 "Indirect Impacts":

As shown in Table 4.2-2, the preferred alternative would use 2,271,130 MBtus of energy to construct, which is the equivalent of 20.0 million gallons of gasoline.

From 4.2.3 "Cumulative Impacts":

The preferred alternative would increase operational energy consumption by 3.9 percent in 2040 compared to the No Build Alternative, and would use the equivalent of approximately 4.8 years of operational energy consumption to construct the project.

From the Conclusion:

Project construction activities and the operation of vehicles within the study area would consume large amounts of energy resources, particularly petroleum....

Compared to the No Build Alternative, the preferred alternative would provide a net increase in energy consumption.

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* Just to be clear, the 16.1% increase is total energy, not CO2 grams/mile, so the mark on the chart is not measuring the same thing; it is notional, not exact. The idea to underscore is that the SRC is not consistent with our statewide greenhouse gas goals generally. The Energy Addendum does not provide for an apples-to-apples comparison, I think. But if CO2/mile stays constant, the fact that miles traveled increases with the SRC means the total CO2 will also increase.

Update, Noon, October 7th

This was third

They rearranged the links and added a tab system. I think they also deleted the Energy report. Something is fishy here.

- and more -

N3B has capture from yesterday or the day before, when it was posted and live.

This was second

Another update, 5pm

Ok, so this is a little tedious, but it's also possibly relevant for a note about Goal 1, Citizen Involvement - maybe for the weekend.

The report is back. But the lack of a stable set of documents, the back-n-forth deletion and posting, as well as their quantity posted on short notice certainly violates the spirit of "citizen involvement."

This is fourth

The captions start with "second." There was another round of documents posted 9/29, if I recall, which has since been deleted and replaced by versions from 10/5, 10/6, and 10/7.

Maybe there were others. Who knows. The process has not been transparent and it has not paid the citizenry the courtesy of reasonable lead times.