Oregon Public Broadcasting

With climate change triggering a major switch in how the Northwest produces electricity, the array of options can sound dizzying and expensive.

But the most painless way to cut the carbon dioxide greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change is energy conservation.

And as Rob Manning reports, energy efficiency is the one part of The Switch that businesses tend to get the most excited about.

After Oregon lawmakers approved a tall stack of energy-related bills, Governor Ted Kulongoski said fighting climate change starts with your house, your business, and the factory down the street.

When you flip the switch, where does your power come from? And what will power Northwest homes and businesses in the future? We're asking these questions and more for our special series The Switch.

Ted Kulongoski: “We must make energy efficiency and conservation the centerpiece of our climate change agenda in 2009. That is the only way we will succeed in reversing the damage done by global warming.”

In February, the question of energy efficiency again took center stage, this time at a meeting of industry leaders in Portland.

These major energy consumers aren't exactly looking to volunteer for a war on climate change.

Don Sturtivant: “So here’s the question: do you believe in global warming? Show of hands, how many of you guys believe in global warming?”

Don Sturtivant is the corporate energy manager at the Idaho-based food company, JR Simplot. 

Don Sturtivant: “Truth is, it doesn’t really matter, does it? We’re all here today because whether you believe it or not, whether you believe the science or not, it’s here and it’s here to stay.”

The “it” Sturtivant is warning about is Oregon's two-year old plan to combat climate change.

Don Sturtivant: “Right now, renewable portfolio standards, in Washington, Oregon, and California - I would not build another facility in Oregon or Washington.”

Whether they like it or not, people like Simplot's boss see the carbon-cutting handwriting on the wall.

IBM executive Rick Warren says efficiency and conservation made financial and environmental sense.

Warren's company began by cutting more than three million tons of carbon.

Rick Warren: “That was roughly forty five percent of IBM’s 1990 emissions. And saving from a business perspective, making good business sense, IBM saved $310 million.”

Of course, the more electricity you use, the more carbon - and money - you can save by being more efficient.

IBM’s servers use lots of electricity. So do food processing operations like JR Simplot. But Oregon’s biggest energy users are in the pulp and paper industry - places like the West Linn Paper Company.

West Linn’s paper mill has sat literally in the middle of the Willamette River for 120 years.

It’s on an island.

Company environmental manager, Penny Machinski points to a suspended pipe which sends pulp from the mainland to the mill.

Penny Machinski: “Our primary raw material is pulp which actually comes in at a facility up at the top of the hill, and slurry it down, you add water and slurry it down and drop it down into the mill across that pipe bridge you see over there. The paper-making process takes place on the island.”

Once the slurry slides over to the island and into the mill, engineer Bob Hart, says it enters the first in a series of power-hungry machines. 

Bob Hart: “It gets pumped down to different storage tanks, depending on if it’s hardwood or softwood. We have refiners that are also very energy-intensive. I have 1200 horsepower motors on them that treat the fibers to get different strength qualities. Then, that blend is sent down to the paper machines.”

The job of the paper machines is to take the slurry - and pull, suck, squeeze, and blow-dry the water out of it, to get paper. This is one of three machines here - and it’s the length of a football field.

Bob Hart: “You can see the slurry coming out onto, we call this the wire, it’s moving about 2000 feet a minute.”

Bob Hart: “The farther down we go, the harder it is to get the water out.”

The moist mixture travels along belts. Felt rollers act like sponges and sop the water out of the slurry. Then, vacuum power sucks the water out of the rollers.

All that sucking takes a lot of power from vacuum pumps in the basement. Some of them are old workhorses.

Bob Hart: “These are what some of the old vacuum pumps looked like - much smaller, this is 1940’s technology.”

The 60-year-old pumps are still doing the job. It just takes more of them - and more electricity - to do it, than newer ones. That’s why West Linn paper is phasing them out.

This new vacuum pump costs $1.5 million dollars.

West Linn counts roughly $15 million worth of efficiency improvements in the last ten years.

All this adds up to why the West Linn mill needs 16 megawatts of electricity. That’s enough power to light up one-fifth of the city of West Linn. The mill uses enough natural gas to heat those homes, too.

That's why West Linn has a new project on the drawing board - a big one: using natural gas to create electricity at the mill. It’s called co-generation. It would cost at least as much as all the little projects combined, but could save more electricity.

Bob Hart:  "It’s a much more efficient way of producing power than is available off the grid. The problem is those are very expensive projects to do.”

West Linn has a gorgeous view of Willamette Falls.

Below the mill sea lions play in the waterfalls.

The mill's Bob Hart says the company wants to be sensitive about the environment, especially if it’s going to translate to their bottom line.

But he says that there’s a limit to how much, and how fast, big factories can switch gears - without taxpayer help.

West Linn Paper has talked about co-generation for years - but like other efficiency steps - company leaders only got interested if they could pay them off quickly.

Energy tax credits and utility rebates covered nearly three million dollars of their efficiency projects to date. The company hopes to cover another ten million through a special business tax credit.

Bob Hart: “A lot of those projects would have been really hard to do with a four or five year payback, but with those incentives, it gets it down to a one or two year, or three year payback, something that from a business sense, it helps make sense to do, as well.”

Thanks to companies like West Linn Paper, and the incentives that spurred them to act, Oregon ranks second nationally in energy conservation, according to the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy.

But Oregon leaders say a lot more needs to be done before the state reaches its climate change goals.