Image source: Michael PatrickMany Bay Area cities are trying to clean up their acts by putting in place new green initiatives. But from San Jose to Berkeley, some city leaders are finding out it’s not always so easy to turn over a new leaf. QUEST looks at the challenges municipalities face with budget constraints, legal restrictions and reluctance, on the part of some residents, to change. Marjorie Sun reports.


You may listen to the “It’s Not Easy Going Green” Radio report online, as well as find additional links and resources.

Andrea Kissack is Senior Editor for QUEST at KQED Public Radio.

Don’t Sweat the Switch from Analog to Digital TV Broadcasting. The Government Will Rescue Your Old TV. Mostly.

What does this have to do with energy conservation? Read on.

Every old TV will be new again–for about $10.
Photo credit: Human Productivity Lab,
licensed through Creative Commons.When I was still new to the Bay Area, I lived in a one-room apartment near the Gourmet Ghetto in Berkeley. I was working at Black Oak Books and spent many a late night after work winding down by watching reruns of NewsRadio, about the best TV comedy series to come along in the 1990s. I miss Bill McNeal, the character played by the late comedian Phil Hartman. And I had a big crush on the Lisa Miller character, played by ER’s Maura Tierney. Now that I have cable, I can watch 3 PBS stations and the Discovery Channel, but back in the day, if I nailed my rabbit ear antenna high up on the wall and turned it just right, I could get NewsRadio, a lifesaver.

If you still have one of those old rabbit ear antennas, or have one on your roof, hold on to it.

As of February 17, 2009, when all the major TV broadcasters will begin to transmit using a digital signal, no one with an analog, rabbit-eared television set will be able to get anything without a digital-to-analog converter box. If you have a digital TV, or pay for cable or satellite TV service, you’re good– you don’t have to do anything. But if you have an old analog set, you’ll need to buy a converter box costing about $50.

But don’t fret, because your government has come to the rescue-with coupons worth $40.

Between January 1, 2008, and March 31, 2009, all U.S. households will be able to request up to two coupons, worth $40 each, for the purchase of eligible digital-to-analog converter boxes. The National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) is administering the coupon program, and has a list of eligible converter boxes as well as information about getting coupons.

The entry of perhaps millions of digital-to-analog TV converters could add yet another widely used electronic device to strain the U.S. power grid, add to carbon emissions, increase our dependence on foreign sources of fossil fuels, and so on-you know the drill. But thanks to the efforts of folks at the Natural Resources Defense Council, the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, and other energy efficiency advocates, those converter boxes will run on as little energy as possible, especially during the 20 or so hours a day when no one is watching TV. The Department of Commerce has issued a ruling that eligible devices can use no more than two watts while in “sleep” mode, and that the devices will automatically go into sleep mode after four hours of inactivity. The four-hour delay will be set as the default mode at the factory, but users can adjust the delay time at home or disable the automatic switching to sleep mode.

So don’t throw away your old TV sets. You’ll be able to use them after February 17, 2009, but it will cost you about $10, plus the free coupon from the feds. And you’ll probably be burning a lot less electricity with your old TV and converter box than with one of those new monster plasma screen TVs.

Jim Gunshinan is Managing Editor of Home Energy Magazine. He holds an M.S. in Bioengineering from Pennsylvania State University, State College, Pennsylvania, and a Master of Divinity (MDiv) degree from University of Notre Dame.

Cosmic microwave background and the infant universe.
From the WMAP science team.It was on the UC Berkeley astronomy website this morning that I was reminded of something I had wanted to post for QUEST. About a month ago, Cal publicly announced the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics. This was quite a big deal for the Physics and Astronomy departments at Berkeley.

The center was founded by George Smoot, who won the Nobel Prize in 2006 and was the focus of a QUEST TV segment. As described in our press release, George donated the bulk of his prize money to the founding of this new center. His donation seeded the center which now has an endowment exceeding $8 million in little more than a year of fund-raising. After watching my girlfriend raise funds for non-profits around SF, I can say that is quite impressive.

The center and endowment ensure that Berkeley remains competitive for years to come in the field of cosmology research. It helps Cal recruit excellent researchers by providing funds for postdoctoral researchers and students. The people supported by the Center can choose any project in the department, projects that I have covered in several of my QUEST articles. It also gives new post-docs the freedom to explore the department before starting on a specific project. This differs from the usual postdoctoral researcher who is recruited by a specific faculty member for a specific project.

The center will also sponsor researchers’ visits to Berkeley from other institutions, educational outreach to K-12 science teachers and several collaborative international workshops on cosmology each year.

Berkeley is actually both one of the first and one of the latest institutions to establish a center for cosmology research. In the ’90s, we had the Center for Particle Astrophysics, which was funded for 10 years by NSF. I think this was one of the first of its kind.

In the last few years, a philanthropist named Fred Kavli has funded quite a few cosmology centers all around the world. I just learned that the Kavli foundation also funds centers in other fields, like nanoscience research at my alma mater. The foundation funds 15 centers in all, including ones at Caltech, UC San Diego, Stanford, and UC Santa Barbara in California.

If you’re a big fan of MASH or Alan Alda, you’ll be a big fan of Kavli foundation. I just looked at their web page and see that they have made him the narrator for their astrophysics, neuroscience, and nanoscience initiatives. Maybe we can recruit Donald Sutherland to promote the movie version of the Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics.

Kyle S. Dawson is engaged in post-doctorate studies of distant supernovae and development of a proposed space-based telescope at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

latitude: 37.8768, longitude: -122.251