Department of Mechanical Engineering

University of Malaya
Semester 2 Session 2016/2017

KMEM4347 Energy and Environment

Title: Summary of Years of Living Dangerously
A Race against Time

NAME : CHIA YI MENG

MATRIC NO. : KEM130013

LECTURER : DR. MAHENDRA VARMAN A/L MUNUSAMY

1. INTRODUCTION

Years of Living Dangerously is one of the well-known American documentary

television series which stressing on global warming. It has two seasons where the first
season with nine weekly episodes was first premiered in the United States on 13 April
2014 on Showtime. This documentary television series have invited celebrity
investigators who were previously active in environmental salvage or similar activities
and environmental reportage. They travel around the world, specifically in U.S. to
interview experts and local citizens so as to have a discussion with them regarding on
the effect of global warming and the respective solutions to it. They would find out and
discover the truth of hidden stories behind in well-developed cities such as New York,
Nevada as well as those less developed cities like Uttar Pradesh. The final episode of
season would even feature an interview of previous U.S. president, Barack Obama.

Figure 1: Years of Living Dangerously season one in Showtime

While in the second season, the eight episodes inside are broadcasted through the
National Geographic Channel, starting on 30 October 2016. Season 2 has explored
deeper regarding on the effects of rising sea levels, significant droughts and high
extinction rate of flora and fauna. Besides that, it also concentrates on the roles of
individuals, communities, companies, corporates and governments in seeking solutions
to the worldwide climate change. For instance, seeking solutions through renewable

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resources such as solar and wind energy with high advancement in battery technology
and electric cars would be a good choice in reducing the global warming condition.
However, economic and financial situation of certain cities may cause the
administration to draw a serious setback to these clean and green solutions.

One of the executive producer as well as the correspondent, Arnold Schwarzenegger

has reflected on how this series could help in raising the awareness of the issue of
climate change. He hoped that through this project, people would start environmental
protection with a simple and clear mind. James Cameron added that those invited
celebrities in the series are not climate experts, but curious citizens and as journalist in
seeking the real answers of the story behind.

1.1 Summary of Years of Living Dangerously A Race Against Time

In this episode, it focuses on the renewables resources especially in terms of solar

energy. The economy of energy market is estimated to have around $6 trillion dollar.
Most of these energy resources are sourced from the burning of fossil fuels or coal
which could release a large amount of greenhouse gases especially carbon dioxide that
results in global warming. In order to address solution to the problem, renewable
resources such as wind, solar and geothermal resources are introduced to reduce the
consumption of coal. However, such a massive amount of energy market value would
be greatly affected if there is an increment in the adoption of renewable resources
especially solar. Former host of The Late Show, David Letterman has travelled to the
third largest consumer of coal, India after U.S. and China for the first time to find out
what this soon-to-be most populous country is going to do in an attempt to expand its
inadequate energy grid and power its booming economy. Letterman also travels to rural
villages to explore how the life there is without any basic electricity facilities and learns
how to light up the villages life there with the adoption of solar power in order to
prevent them from continuing burning kerosene which could threatened their health and
life. Letterman also interviews the prime minister of India, Narendra Modi regarding
on the environmental issues, climate change and future energy consumption and growth
of solar power as clean and green resources in India.

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On the other hand, Saturday Night Live star, Cecily Strong has travelled to Florida and
Nevada where there is sufficient of sunshine over there to investigate the real story
behind the stunned growth of solar power adoption there. She is able to interview some
of the industry insiders and former chairman of Florida Public Service Commission.
From them, she is able to uncover true story behind it in which how does the utilities
company with the local government in manipulating the economic growth of solar
companies such as Sunrun Inc.

1.2 Content of Years of Living Dangerously A Race Against Time

This episode discusses on the effect of global warming and the outcome of introducing
renewable sources especially solar power in several cities. In order to understand the
content of this episode in a clearer way, we will explain and elaborate the content of
this episode in terms of countries including India and United States where some of their
cities are explored to find out the truth behind.

1.3 India

The episode starts with the introduction to India which has the third highest
consumption rate of coal after U.S. and China. In New Delhi, Letterman is able to see
that most of the infrastructure has been modernized since their countrys independence.
However, the old power transmission lines have not been upgraded which then results
in loss of portion of power during transmission. As a result of this, the power outage
accident could occur frequently in India. The citizens then try to solve this problem by
adopting generator as a back up to them. And these generators are powered by coal
which is the main contributor to global warming due to carbon dioxide emission. Yet,
the amount of backup generators being used in India was surprisingly sufficient enough
to power all of Australia! Whats more on this is that India is going to burn twice as
much coal by 2030 if this situation continues.

While on the other hand Letterman has travelled to a less developed area, Uttar Pradesh
where there was no power and electricity supply to that area. The technology in this era
of globalization is always improving and yet there are approximately 300 million of

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people in India facing the difficulty of no electric supply. The villagers there obtain
their source of light and heat through burning of small kerosene lamp and coal. Through
the interaction with one of the family there, Letterman learns how worse the condition
is when they have to breathe in those black soot and toxic kerosene fume for a long
period of time which endangers their health including throat hurt or even abnormal
growth of children.

Letterman has visited one of the solar plant of OMC, a private company who plans to
bring power to those less developed villages. Mr. Anil Raj, CEO of OMC states that
the company generate electricity through collection of solar energy in India. So far, they
have around 70 similar plants in the state and planning to build such plant at a rate of
once a day. They collect solar power and convert them to electricity to be stored. And
this electricity power supply could light up those home without power supply at a
cheaper rate in which the villagers will need to pay for 2 dollars for 12 hours of power
each day for a month. Letterman has visited one of the family that benefit from it and
they are pleased and grateful to have electricity to light up their home instead of
continuing burning kerosene lamp. Besides supplying power to household area, Mr Anil
also cooperate with those telecommunication companies where he tries to power cell
towers with solar instead of diesel. The project is a great success when they could
sufficiently power those infrastructure with surplus electricity to be stored.

On top of that, in order to find out more information on how U.S. could play a part in
affecting energy future of India, Letterman pays another visit to a so-called coal plant
in New Delhi. To what has surprised him is that we is able to see not only a large scale
of a coal plant there, he also discovers that there was a big solar plant set up there as
well. From U.S. Ambassador to India, Richard Verma has explained that this is the
cooperation between U.S. and India in carrying out the clean energy project. However,
they have to meet the financing challenge which has been set by India which is a
hundred billion dollars. Such amount of money which is the private capital government
money of Indias resources has attracted the U.S. companies to invest in these business
project.

Near end of this episode is the most important part whereby Letterman has the chance
to interview the Prime Minister of India, Narendra Modi. Prime Minister Modi is a
nature lover and he states that improving and developing the courntry should not

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sacrifice the beauty of nature. Prime Minister also shows complete support to the solar
power development in India. However, when talking about other ways to provide
energy, Prime Minister is talking about burning twice as much coal by 2030 which is
quite a frigtening amount.

Figure 2: Prime Minister Narendra Modi was interview by David Letterman

1.4 United States

While in United States where a country with high advancement of technology and
communication, the growth of solar industry is supposed to be popular and well
developed there. However, certain cities has turned out not to be like what has been
predicted. There is a huge battle regarding of the issue of rooftop solar installed in
household in Nevada. Cecily Strong has interviewed David Crane, one of the former
CEO of NRG Energy Inc. to understand the reason behind this. David explained that
the worldwide energy industry is estimated for a value around six trillion dollar. Thus,
the people in this industry will ensure that this market value will still continue be six
trillion dollar. The adoption of solar power instead of normal energy source such as coal
could greatly affect the energy industry. This is why some states has started the solar
industry while some others do not bring in solar industry at all.

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 Figure 3: Rooftop solar installed on a house

David states that it is a huge setback for solar companies regarding on the shutdown of
growing rooftop solar market in Nevada as this would be the blueprint for other utilities
companies to follow and continue to fight with the solar industry to put this industry to
an end. He added that solar industry could give such a threatening effect towards the
utilities companies is due to the fact that installing rooftop solar on the house could
enhance the property value of the house.

Cecily has visited one of the solar company, Sunrun Inc. which is currently in the
process of shutting down most of their operations in Nevada. Bryan Miller, vice
president of Sunrun Inc. has showed to Cecily on their companys once top performing
warehouse which is left nearly empty with few solar components only. This sad incident
is closely related to the residential rooftop solar in Nevada. Nevada had been one of the
fastest growing market of solar industry since thousands of people are installing rooftop
solar on top of their roof in an attempt to save their cost on electric bill. However, the
utilities company, NV energy has claimed that rooftop solar customers has benefiting
from the non-solar customers and request to cancel the incentives to solar companies
as well as their respective customers. The approval of this request has caused the
rooftop solar to suddenly increase in its price incredibly. Solar companies becomes so
hard to survive due to decrease in business and thousands of workers has lost their jobs.

The main reason behind this incident is due to the action by Public Utilities
Commissioner that suddenly recall back the policy decision of making it economic for
anyone that purchase solar products. Nevada Governor Sandoval was once an attorney
for a utility shareholders group in Nevada, supporting NV Energys in raising the

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electricity rates. Two of the NV Energys top lobbyists, Pete Ernaut and Greg Ferraro
have made no secret about their close relationship with the governor. This is why
Governor Sandoval is suspected to have close relationship with Public Utilities
Commissioner to have an impact of the critical policy decisions, including the rooftop
solar debate. Bryan has added that this is a so called competition that utilities companies
have ever faced. Thus, the utilities companies strategy is to secretly get rid of solar
companies through legislation under the cover of darkness. Then, the team of lobbyists
would go and fan across the country to lobby against renewable energy policy
specifically rooftop solar policies.

Although the Exelon, the company that Bryan used to work before deny the things that
had been said by him and Governor Sandoval claims that lobbyists have no influence
on his political decisions, Cecily obtains the confirmation on Bryan story through a
woman who also worked at the same time with Bryan but in the sales division. She
added that the utilities companies would hire lobbyists so as to lock solar companies
out of entire Nevada. Cecily also even talked with one of the lobbyist who was working
there at the same time too to further confirm Bryan story.

As suggested by David, Cecily has gone to visit Florida, a state that is rich with sun
shine. Surprisingly, she finds out that the people in Florida are only allowed to buy their
power supply from utilities but not independence solar companies. She meets with
Alissa Jean Schafer, a young activist from Floridians for solar choice and she is actively
collecting signatures on a pro solar ballot initiative. Alissa has explained that she started
a pro-solar petition to collect signatures from Floridians while the utilities companies
also started an anti-solar petition but looks like pro solar petition to trick the people.
This content of the anti-solar petition seems like pro-solar but in fact, they actually do
nothing to open up the market to solar companies such as Sunrun Inc.

Cecily meets with Nancy Argenziano, former chairwoman of Florida Public Service
Commission to understand more about the ruling of utilities companies in Florida.
Argenziano and her colleagues previously stood up against the Florida Power & Light
that asked for approval of a vast electricity rate increment. As a result of that, the
utilities division was then orchestrating a smear campaign to defame Argenziano by
filing an ethic complaints against her. Moreover, government even discontinue
Argenziano and her colleagues appointment contract for their position in Public

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Service Commission. Argenziano states that all these evident show how powerful the
Florida government in deterring the solar companies from entering the Florida market.

Cecily goes back to New York City and discovers that the adoption of solar power is
viable. She has meet with Richard Kauffman, New York Energy & Finance Chairman
and Peter Claro, CEO of a solar powered restaurant supply store. Kauffman added that
solar industry is increasingly needed and solar power supply becomes increasingly
necessary to individuals, communities and businesses in New York. The Governor
Andrew Cuomo has made climate change a top priority in New York and thus, he
creates a lot of incentives and credits to utilities companies to work with the renewables
companies so that they can work in partnership with solar companies in order to result
in a win-win situation. Overall, although New York City might not be the sunniest state
in United States, the solar industry still works well and is given the chance to penetrate
into the market.

2. DISCUSSION

From this episode, I have found out that both the countries India and United States
have their own specific problem with each of the country is closely related to the solar
industry. In this section, I will be explaining my point of view with reference to each of
the problems and challenges found in both the countries.

2.1 India

Basically, there are two main challenges faced in India. First and foremost, India has to
decrease carbon dioxide emission from the combustion of coal during where the
generators are working. Carbon dioxide is the main contributor to global warming
which results in climate change. Secondly, India still have a total of 300 to 400 millions
of people who still unable to reach out for electricity. Most of the villages there do not
have any power supply in which this is the challenge that India have to face.

In my opinion, in order to solve the situation of carbon dioxide emission, I suggest that
the India government should firstly upgrade all the wiring system and cable connection
all over the country. From the episode, we finds out that the incident of blackout in

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India seems to be quite routine. Those old electric cable which was built long time ago
has lost its efficiency overtime. This means that the government should spend money
on upgrading the power transmission first. By doing this, it is believed that the loss of
power during transmission could be reduced and thus, stabilizing the power
transmission so that electricity would not be easily cut off. And when the frequency of
electricity cut off has been reduced, the frequency of usage of backup generators will
also be automatically reduced significantly. In this way, rate of carbon dioxide emission
could be cut down through the less use of generators.

Cutting down the usage of generator is not sufficient to preserve our environment yet.
And here comes the next challenges, transform this dirty coal-powered generator into a
cleaner and greener electricity generation source. Obviously, as a country where the sun
sun shine is ample enough, solar would be a very good choice to be the source of
electricity generation. Government should promote the solar power generation among
the household sector by giving credit and incentives to those that have installed rooftop
solar. With this, household could start generate their electricity through solar panel but
not those coal generators anymore during blackout. Besides, if there is surplus of
electricity from rooftop solar, this excess electricity could be stored up for night used
or even send back to the power grid for other consumers to use.

Besides that, the government should also open the solar industry market to foreigner
for investment of solar power plant in India. This measures could be seen through this
episode as well when there is collaboration between United States and India in setting
up solar power plant in New Delhi. U.S. which has high advancement in technology
has brought in those high tech. materials from Ohio and Colorado in order to be
assembled here. More solar power plant should be developed.

There is also even more inspirational when few days ago, India;s Cabinet Committee
on Economic Affairs (CCEA) has approved the second phase of Indias mega-scale
solar park which plans to bring the total electricity generation from 20GW to 40GW.
The new 20GW electricity generation plan will include an amount of 50 solar parks
where each of the park is planned to supply 500MW capacity or more. And when
totalling up the amount of electricity generation from these parks would seem to be
more than 20GW overall. However, smaller parks in the Himalayan and other hilly

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States, where land acquisition could be troublesome, will also be considered under the
scheme.

Figure 4: CCEA is chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. (Source: MNRE)

Eventually, when the power transmission is well organized and upgraded and the
transformation of electricity generation source from coal to solar is viable, India should
now be able to supply electricity to those less developed area including Uttar Pradesh
where there was no electricity supply there. With all these means, India is believed to
be also to efficiently reduce the carbon dioxide emission and thus plays an important
part in saving the earth from global warming.

2.2 United States

The problem of solar industry in United States is far more different from the India. It is
believed that U.S. has been the most developed country in the world with high
advancement of technology and well-educated people. Supposingly, the government
and citizens should have given full support to the solar industry which could save the
planet. But it turns out to show that how selfish to those utilities companies are in
protecting their business and maintaining their profit gain. And these becomes the
challenges faced by U.S. government where the penetration of solar industry into the
Nevada and Florida has to be focus on.

In my opinion, in order to solve the situation of solar industry in Nevada and Florida,
awareness in fighting for what they want among the citizens has to be instilled. Various
campaigns and petition on pro-solar ought to be organized and started. Citizens have to
know and understand how essential the solar power generation in playing a part of

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saving the environment with zero carbon dioxide emission. With this then only the
government know what actually citizens wants and how are they going to protect this.

On the other hand, in order to let solar industry to open up their markets while maintain
the economic condition of those utilities companies, it is encouraged that solar
companies could be able to work together with utilities companies to provide cleaner
electricity to the public. New York City is one of the good example that shows how the
partnership between utilities companies does and solar companies could be achieved.

In New York City, the utilities companies including Central Hudson gas & Electric
Corporation, Consolidated Edison Co. of New York Inc., New York State Electric &
Gas Corp, Niagara Mohawk Power Corp., National Grid, Orange and Rockland Utilities
Inc. and Rochester Gas and Electric with the solar companies including SolarCity Inc.,
SunEdison Inc. and SunPower Corp have agreed on a joint proposal on net energy
metering (NEM) issues. NEM is a billing system where the utilities companies would
reward back customers that are able to produce excess electricity they generated from
rooftop solar and sell back to them via the grid. From this, we are able to observe that
the utilities could benefit from the alternative energy sources such as solar by not having
to build more utility lines, generators or invest in infrastructure. What utilities
companies have to do is that they will need to focus more on power grid transmission
and net metering issues only while at the same time solar companies would benefit from
it as well through installation of rooftop solar in household area.

Therefore, it is suggested that Nevada and Florida should use New York City as a model
in bringing both utilities and solar companies to work together for the welfare of public
and plays a part in protecting our mother Earth from global warming and climatic
change.

3. CONCLUSION

In a nutshell, Years of Living Dangerously A Race against Time this episode has
greatly increase the awareness in public on the global warming due to carbon dioxide
emission. Besides, the importance and role of solar industry in the world has been
portrayed with challenges that need to be overcome. Taking a reflection to our country,
Malaysia, there is still less focus of solar industry here as compared to India and U.S.

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However, organization like Sustainable Energy Development Authority (SEDA)
Malaysia, has already been formed for a few years. Its key role is to administer and
manage the implementation of the feed-in tariff mechanism which is mandated under
the Renewable Energy Act 2011. We hope that organizations life SEDA could continue
to grow and promote the importance of renewable energy in future while saving the
environment and preserving on what we have now to our future generations.

4. REFERENCES

Most of the references are based on website resources as shown below:

i. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=273oHnoR4NI
ii. http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/years-of-living-dangerously/episodes/a-
race-against-time/
iii. http://yearsoflivingdangerously.com/story/david-letterman-india/
iv. https://www.sunrun.com/why-sunrun/about/news/press-releases/sunrun-end-
nevada-operations-response-anti-solar-ruling
v. http://www.civilbeat.org/2016/02/was-florida-power-light-part-of-a-secret-
campaign-that-targeted-regulators/
vi. http://www.theepochtimes.com/n3/2054773-utilities-partner-with-solar-
companies-to-bring-energy-to-the-grid/
vii. http://solarindustrymag.com/solar-companies-and-utilities-propose-nem-
compromise-in-n-y
viii. http://www.pv-tech.org/news/india-finally-approves-second-20gw-solar-
parks-plan
ix. http://www.seda.gov.my/

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