A roundup of items this week related to the impact of global warming:

• The shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers is leading to reduced runoff in major South Asian rivers and may cause severe water shortages in the region by 2030, according to findings reported in the November issue of Geophysical Research Letters. In addition to global warming, one major culprit appears to be vast brown clouds, caused by the burning of fossil fuels and vegetation, that deposit dark particulates that absorb solar radiation.
• The World Meteorological Organization reports that greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere have reached record highs, with "no sign of leveling off." The WMO tracks carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane gases. It said there is today 37 percent more CO2 in the atmosphere than in the mid-18th century, mainly due to burning of fossil fuels.
• The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean, famed for their pristine beaches, have announced plans to consider buying land on higher ground to resettle their population if sea levels continue to rise. More than four-fifths of the islands' land area of 300 square kilometers is less than one meter above sea level.
  

A roundup of items relating to clean energy that caught our attention this week:

• Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a proposal--still in the early planning stages--to meet 10 percent of the city's electricity demand from solar energy. Apparently he envisions a combination of residential and commercial rooftop panels and large-scale solar projects in the desert.
• The world's biggest solar tower is scheduled in January to begin generating 20 megawatts of electricity in southern Spain. With more than 1,200 mirrors, each half the size of a tennis court, it will create superheated steam to turn power generators serving about 11,000 homes. Spain reportedly plans to generate more than two gigawatts of power from concentrated solar plants by 2015.
• The UK government plans to institute new energy tariffs that will reward "micro-renewables," primarily residential solar and wind generation, in order to meet the country's target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent come 2050. The Energy Saving Trust, an independent body charged with promoting energy efficiency, predicts a quarter of the country's households could engage in clean energy production.
• Portugal plans to build 1,300 charging stations for electric vehicles over the next three years, in partnership with Renault and Nissan. The country also plans to provide tax incentives, financing subsidies, and reduced parking rates for buyers of electric vehicles, In return, the car companies will make Portugal the first European market for their new generation of electric cars.
  

If the San Francisco and Los Angeles Auto Shows are any indication, there still remains a strong drive to electrify vehicles despite the ongoing economic turmoil and recent reductions in gas prices.

Included in the fleet of alternative vehicles on display at the San Francisco show is PG&E's new all-electric vehicle from Mitsubishi Motors. As I've noted previously, we're leasing the vehicle for three years for research and demonstration purposes, which is part of our ongoing efforts to prepare for the integration of electric vehicles with the electric grid.

I had the opportunity to take a noiseless ride in Mitsubishi's iMiEV when we received it last Friday and was surprised at how roomy the four passenger vehicle is; there's ample leg room even in the back seat and trunk space to boot!

Although most electric vehicles won't begin hitting the marketplace until 2012, Palo Alto-based Better Place recently announced plans to help the San Francisco Bay Area prepare to switch to these low-carbon vehicles. Through a public-private partnership, Better Place hopes to spearhead a $1 billion investment to begin network planning in 2009 and deployment of charging infrastructure in 2010.

There are many reasons that make the Bay Area an ideal place for electric vehicles to enter the U.S. market, not the least of which is the region's energy provider (wink, wink), which delivers some of cleanest electricity in the nation, with 50 percent coming from non-carbon sources on average.

Organic Thanksgiving? Vegan Thanksgiving? Energy-efficient Thanksgiving? So many choices. What's a family to do to celebrate an environmentally friendly holiday? Here are some tips gleaned from newspapers, blogs, colleagues, and personal experience.

• Shop for locally grown food. Food trucked over long distances pumps more harmful carbon emissions into the air. There are many farmers' markets in cities and towns throughout the PG&E service area in northern and central California offering organic produce that hasn't been exposed to chemical pesticides and fertilizers. More information is available from the California Federation of Certified Farmers' Markets.
• If a farmers' market isn't available in your area, you can find organic food in stores such as Safeway, Berkeley Bowl, Whole Foods and other large markets and at smaller neighborhood groceries. My favorite in San Francisco is Golden Produce, a small grocery carrying a large offering of organic fruits and vegetables along with other foods on Church Street near Market Street opposite the Safeway. FoodRoutes.org has more information on local stores.
• Take along reusable bags for your Thanksgiving shopping. More stores large and small are providing reusable bags free or for a small charge. And look for goods packaged in recyclable materials.
• Turkeys have come a long way. When I was a boy, our neighborhood butcher sold a lot of fresh turkeys at Thanksgiving but I can't recall anyone asking if the bird was free range or antibiotic-free, or much less happy. Turkey was turkey. Today it's all about choices and that's a good thing. I usually get my turkey at Mollie Stone's Grand Central Market on California Street in San Francisco's upper Fillmore neighborhood. The store offers a number of turkey categories, among them organic (organic feed; access to the outdoors; no antibiotics or growth hormones) and free-range (growers must show the USDA the birds can go outside). Ask your butcher for more information on the differences. 
• An organic Thanksgiving may cost up to $100 more, according to SmartMoney.com, which did some shopping in New York City at a Whole Foods Market, an Associated Supermarket and a Food Emporium. Organic baked yams, for example, cost $9.95 (5 lbs.) for eight people, $6 more than non-organic. Nationwide, organic groceries can carry a 40 percent premium. If your wallet is a little light these days, take a pass on certified organics.  
• While the bird is roasting in the oven for a few hours, your home will be nice and warm so turn down the thermostat by 4 or 5 degrees to save energy. If you're using an electric stove, cook side dishes in off-peak hours to save energy and warm them up in the oven while the turkey is resting before carving. In a hurry? Try the easy 45-minute roast turkey recipe from Mark Bittman, who writes the Bitten blog for the New York Times. You can check out Bittman's in-the-kitchen video at New York Times.com.
• Pack leftovers for your guests in reusable containers and if you still have extras, consider a mini-Thanksgiving the next day. One year we had a lot of leftover turkey, so my wife found a recipe for Turkey Tetrazzini, and we had a wonderful picnic at Muir Beach in Marin County with friends who also shared their leftovers. And don't forget to put the scraps in the compost bin if your town offers this service or if you compost in a garden.
• If you decorate the Thanksgiving table, try creating a centerpiece in a cornucopia basket with colored leaves, gourds, dried ears of corn and other natural decorations. If you have young children in the house, ask them to arrange the centerpiece. Or give the children construction paper and crayons to draw placemats for the table.
• You may want to consider carbon-emission offset programs if you're travelling to your Thanksgiving destination, but you should only consider carbon credits that are rigorous and verified by third parties.

NEXT100 wishes you and yours a safe and happy Green Thanksgiving.

Last Thursday, two dozen environmental groups, energy developers, public utilities and other stakeholders wrote President-elect Barak Obama about a remarkable collaboration to promote renewable energy powered by waves, tides, and ocean currents.

This initiative, spearheaded by the Environmental Defense Fund in the same spirit of common national purpose that Obama championed during his campaign, took nine months of work aimed at building trust and finding an environmentally responsible path toward developing this promising new source of clean power.

The participants included Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which is studying the potential of wave energy off the coast of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties as part of its commitment to renewable energy. (Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission rejected a PG&E contract with Finavera Renewables for a separate project that would have produced 2 megawatts of ocean wave power off the coast of Humboldt County, as not having a mature enough technology.)

Ocean renewable energy could supply as much as 10 percent of the nation's current electricity demand, about the same as conventional hydropower. Although ocean energy projects today produce only about 10 megawatts of power worldwide, a recent report by Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute estimated that production could grow 100-fold by 2015.

Reaching that potential will take sustained cooperation between stakeholders at the local, state and national level. All too often, progress on renewable energy has been slowed by conflict between eager project developers and environmentalists who demand assurances that major new projects will not damage fragile habitats.

In the case of wave power, the Pacific Fishery Management Council's executive director, Donald McIsaac, raised questions in June about effects on marine fish, mammals, and commercial fishing. "A large number of projects could compromise healthy ecosystems, and should be evaluated at a regional ecosystem scale before projects are installed," McIsaac warned the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which issues wave power project leases.

To avoid legal and regulatory wrangling and facilitate the orderly development of ocean energy, the initiative backers call for systematic testing and deployment of demonstration projects to provide data that will help uncover and assess any environmental risks. They also call for federal funding and consolidated regulation to help accelerate those projects.

"Because this industry is new, we have an opportunity to do it right from the beginning," the participants wrote Obama. As their collaboration has demonstrated--and as Obama surely agrees--"people of good faith can work together to help create a sustainable energy future for America and the world."

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• A relatively clean-burning diesel Volkswagen Jetta TDI sedan won "Green Car of the Year" honors at the Los Angeles auto show, the first diesel-powered car to win the auto industry's highest environmental honor, Reuters reports.
• Retail king Wal-Mart will purchase electricity from a Duke Energy windpower project in Texas to light up 15 percent of its 360 stores in the Longhorn State, Wal-Mart's first direct purchase of windpower, says Green Tech Media.
• The Stata Center building at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology captures runoff waste water from storms in a giant cistern and reuses it in toilets in the building, the New York Times Green Inc. blog reports from the Greenbuild conference in Boston.
• Air Canada flight attendant Marcelo da Luz last month set a Guinness World Record for distance travelled in a sun-powered car of 9,320 miles throughout Canada and Alaska. Now he's pointing his flying-saucer-looking vehicle south to Argentina to extend the record, Canada's Globe and Mail reports.

Here's a roundup of some of the week's major news on climate change:

• In his first post-election speech on global warming, President-elect Barack Obama promised on Tuesday to "confront this challenge once and for all" with a combination of investments in clean energy technology and a cap-and-trade market to raise the cost of carbon emissions. 
• Obama's call to action won widespread praise. The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said his pledge was a "huge signal" of encouragement to countries that negotiating a new accord to replace the Kyoto protocol on climate change. 
• Members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which includes several leading environmental organizations and utilities, including Pacific Gas and Electric Co., also endorsed Obama's statement. PG&E's chairman and CEO, Peter Darbee, welcomed the president-elect's commitment as "an opportunity to spur a wave of new investment in the technology and infrastructure needed to create a low carbon economy while at the same time providing a badly needed shot of economic adrenaline."
• A new United Nations report indicates that emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialized countries leveled off in 2006 for the first time in six years. That's the good news. The bad news is the study didn't measure emissions from India and China, two of the world's largest and fastest growing sources of carbon dioxide.
• In the meantime, global warming continues to wreak devastation on some ecosystems.  According to the New York Times, prolonged droughts and mild winters have promoted widespread infestations of mountain pine beetles that are killing millions of acres of forests from New Mexico to British Columbia.
• Physical scientists who wonder why their findings have not spurred the world to more decisive action may find answers in the social sciences--including the fields of behavioral decision making, risk analysis, and evolutionary psychology. According to an interesting new analysis of human risk perception, "The way we're psychologically wired and socially conditioned to respond to crises makes us ill-suited to react to the abstract and seemingly remote threat posed by global warming." 
  

The Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) yesterday released a new report on California's readiness to deal with the impact of climate change.

Moving quickly from studies on how to address and help slow the effects of climate change, to actually preparing ourselves against those effects, it feels like we are now staring climate change square in the face -- a chilling thought.

The report examines California's readiness to face the challenges presented by climate change in six particularly vulnerable areas -- water resources, electricity, coastal resources, air quality, public health and ecosystem resources. According to the study, many aspects of the state's society, economy and natural environment are vulnerable to the impact of climate change.

The PPIC report finds that institutions such as power utilities have a significant role investing in and managing those resources that can help potentially vulnerable populations adapt (e.g. tools for staying cool and hydrated). Since the 2001 energy crisis, utilities have worked to improve reliability, reduce load during peak periods and add renewables. As California's population and sea level continue to rise, such measures will only become more important.

In order to face these challenges head on, the PPIC recommends that California policymakers implement policies that seek to both slow climate change and protect against its effects at the same time. PG&E will continue our work alongside these policymakers and others to help fight climate change -- and help the state mitigate its effects.

Gov. Schwarzenegger yesterday signed an historic executive order directing California's utility's to provide one-third of their power from qualifying renewable sources by 2020, an unprecedented mandate to meet an unprecedented global problem.

"Today is all about changing our goals and raising the bar," he said at a signing ceremony in Sacramento. ". . . This will be the most aggressive target in the nation."

PG&E's senior vice president for public affairs, Nancy McFadden, joined the ceremony to applaud the governor's leadership:

I stand here on behalf of PG&E committed to this process with all of these stakeholders, distinguished group of stakeholders, to move this ball forward . . . so we can meet your ambitious goal, Governor.

The state's investor-owned utilities have been working hard to meet an existing mandate to supply 20 percent of their power from renewable sources (other than large hydropower) by the 2010-2012 timeframe. Progress has been slowed by delays in passing federal tax credits, long lead times in approving and building new transmission lines, disputes over permitting projects sited on sensitive lands, and, in some cases, developer inexperience or financing problems.

The governor acknowledged these problems and pledged to help overcome them. He signed a separate agreement to create a one-stop process for the California Energy Commission and Department of Fish and Game to review permits by renewable energy developers. And he received promises from federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, to fast-track reviews of projects on federal land.

Still, the challenges will be enormous. Achieving the new goal will require a 225 percent increase in the amount of renewable power available today. As the California Public Utilities Commission stated in a report issued last month, "Serving 33% of California's energy needs with renewable sources will require an infrastructure build-out on a scale and timeline perhaps unparalleled anywhere in the world."

In a previous report, the Commission said that meeting the 33 percent goal could require as much as $60 billion in new investment in generation and transmission.

Data centers -- giant server warehouses that centralize the storage and distribution of bits and bytes -- are notorious power hogs, using up to one hundred times the energy per square foot of typical office space. In Northern California, they account for as much as 2.5 percent of all electricity consumption.

At the opening yesterday of its user event CA World 08 in Las Vegas, business software company CA announced plans to focus on ways to reduce power consumption and costs by letting data centers run at higher temperatures, thus reducing the need for cooling. 

"Every data center on average doubles its power consumption every five years, " said Chris Stakutis, vice president of emerging technologies at CA. ". . . You can save five per cent of your cooling costs for every degree warmer you run it. You just need to put in hundreds of wireless thermometers so you are confident you're not exceeding any limits."

IBM, HP and Sun Microsystems have already invaded this market with a vengeance. So have many startups. Santa Clara-based Power Assure won the $100,000 Smart Power category award at the Clean Tech Open in San Francisco on Nov. 6. It specializes in power management software that throttles back unused data center servers, networking equipment and cooling systems to save as much as 50 percent on data center energy bills.

Not to be outdone, Pacific Gas and Electric Company is leading utility industry efforts to promote more energy-efficient data centers, taking advantage of the fact that its revenues are decoupled from electricity sales.

PG&E offers extensive rebates for new data center construction and upgrades that save energy; it also offers rebates all the way down to the desktop, including power management software, premium efficiency PCs, LCD monitors and thin-client systems. The program is on track to save 7 megawatts of electricity this year, and more next.

Last year, PG&E led the formation of a utility IT energy efficiency coalition to focus on improving power management at data centers. It's proven to be a hit.

"We now have almost 40 utilities in the United States and Canada," says Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager in PG&E's Customer Energy Efficiency department. "We are sharing everything we know to get others to copy our programs."

The week brought plenty of news keeping climate change on the front burner of public discussion:

• As Congress ponders what steps to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, two UC Berkeley experts have issued a new report reminding us of the economic stakes to California. If no action is taken, report economist David Roland-Holst and his colleague Fredrich Kahrl, the combined cost to the state's energy, tourism, recreation, real estate, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and transportation sectors and to public health could range from $7 billion to $46 billion annually. In addition, trillions of dollars of assets are in jeopardy, mainly real estate at risk from fires or flooding.
• Japan, the country that hosted the Kyoto accords on greenhouse gas emissions, is at risk of missing its own emissions targets over the next four years, in part because an earthquake closed one of its biggest nuclear power plants last year. Japan must find ways of cutting CO2 emissions by 13.5 percent by 2012 to meet its target.
• More than 130 global investors, which collectively hold more than $6 trillion in assets, urged policymakers worldwide to implement measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 80 percent by 2050. "As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios," said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority.
• 10 scientists from the United States, England and France reported in a new study that the world should aim for even lower CO2 levels in order to avert climate disasters. According to lead author James Hansen of Columbia University, "Following a path that leads to a lower CO2 amount, we can alleviate a number of problems that had begun to seem inevitable, such as increased storm intensities, expanded desertification, loss of coral reefs, and loss of mountain glaciers that supply fresh water to hundreds of millions of people."
• US defense and intelligence officials increasingly view climate change as a national security threat, according to the Washington Times. Among the many threats to U.S. personnel, equipment and installations is the danger of storm surges flooding 63 coastal military facilities and several nuclear reactors.

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• 61 is the magic number. This week NPR reported on an Evergreen State ecology professor who was able to approximate the ratio of trees to humans using NASA satellite images. Although it's ostensibly good news to know the world supports 61 trees per human, it remains to be determined how many trees a human consumes in a lifetime.
• Beantown's skyline just got a bit greener. Boston's first official skyscraper, the Marriott Custom House Tower, recently had an LED makeover. The fully-illuminated tower now consumes just one-third the energy of the previous incandescent fixtures. Is the CITGO sign next in line?
• A new report from the International Energy Agency indicates that renewable energy will overtake natural gas to become the second largest source of electricity behind coal by 2015. Get the full scoop from Reuters here.
• Treehugger reported this week on artificial islands that drill in the ocean for renewable energy. The man made islands rely on ocean thermal energy conversion to create up to 250 megawatts of clean power and also happen to yield 300,000 gallons of fresh water in the process.
• According to the New York Times' Green Inc. blog, drivers in the E.U. will soon know how efficient their tires are, thanks to a new regulation requiring manufacturers to provide labels that rate efficiency, grip and noise level. Regulators estimate CO2 emissions savings of 4 million tons with the new program, which would be akin to taking 1.3 million passenger vehicles off the road each year.

On February 12, 1990, Fortune published an article that heralded "Environmentalism: The New Crusade," and said: "It may be the biggest business issue of the 1990s." The magazine photographed the CEO of a gas and electric company to grace its front cover, thereby focusing keen attention on the growing environmental movement and smart companies eyeing new business opportunities.

The CEO was Richard A. Clarke, the head of PG&E and the business leader cited for the annual Richard A. Clarke Environmental Leadership Award, announced last week. PG&E developed the award in 2002 to honor employees who demonstrate a commitment to, and accomplishment in, environmental leadership. The late Mr. Clarke, who served as chairman and CEO from 1986 until his retirement in 1995, championed a variety of environmental initiatives at PG&E -- from energy conservation, to clean air programs, to natural resources stewardship.

PG&E got a bumpy start on the path to environmental leadership in the mid-1970s, Fortune reported. The Environmental Defense Fund fought PG&E's plans to build several coal and nuclear power plants and proposed smaller windmill and cogeneration plants and energy conservation. The utility eventually scrapped the plans for the plants and launched conservation efforts. Said an EDF attorney: "We spoke to them in their own language. We used their type of computer models, their financial analysis sheets. We weren't saying, do what's good for the environment and it will cripple you. We were saying, it will save you economically."

Fortune listed some of Clarke's guiding principles for pursuing a greener future: "Make environmental considerations and concerns part of any decision you make, right from the beginning. Don't think of it as some extra you throw in the pot." -- "Develop an internal cadre of environmentalists. They have minds of their own and will advocate things. They may not get everything they want, but there certainly are occasions when they prevail." -- "Have a continuing dialogue with environmental groups." -- "Put someone on your board to help you factor in environmental issues." -- "Do these things because they are the right thing to do, not because somebody forces you to do them."

PG&E last week announced the winners of its 7th annual Richard A. Clarke environmental leadership award. The award recognizes employees for extraordinary commitment to the company's various environmental initiatives.

Perhaps the only thing more inspiring than the work of the Clarke Award winners is the breadth and depth of the finalist pool. Just to name a few:

Karalee Browne, Program Officer, was recognized for her leadership in advancing PG&E's Solar Schools Program. Karalee's leadership efforts demonstrate PG&E's continued support of renewable energy and environmental education.

Karen Guedmin, Building Superintendent, was recognized for her leadership in making the San Ramon Valley Conference Center one of PG&E's greenest facilities and a certified "green business" in Contra Costa County. The facility's advancements in waste reduction and water and energy conservation have demonstrated significant cost savings, while shrinking the center's carbon footprint.

The PG&E and Audubon Habitat Restoration Partnership Team was recognized for its leadership in the development of an innovative "restoration license agreement" to allow Audubon California to restore 30 acres of native habitat at PG&E's Pleasant Creek Underground Gas Storage Facility in Yolo County. The agreement is replicable and can serve as a model for future restoration projects on PG&E lands.

The Safe Harbor Tulare Team was recognized for creating PG&E's first Safe Harbor Agreement (SHA) with the United States Fish and Wildlife Service. The PG&E Tulare Safe Harbor Agreement is one of only five SHAs in California and thirty in the United States.

And, finally...(drum roll) ... this year's individual and team Clarke Awards go to:

Kadi Whiteside, Water Quality Supervisor, was recognized for her leadership in spearheading the development of new practices and techniques to protect water quality, plants and animals at construction sites. Her innovative designs and management practices have benefited both PG&E and the environment -- saving the company time and money on construction projects and reducing potential environrmental impacts.

The Change a Light Campaign Core Team was recognized for its leadership in implementing a campaign during October and November 2007 to encourage PG&E customers to buy and use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). The campaign helped save more than 400,000 megawatt-hours of electricity -- enough energy to power almost 60,000 homes for a year -- and avoid 200,000 tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the equivalent of taking 31,000 cars off the road for a year.

Full disclosure: I had the esteemed honor of being a member of the Change a Light team.

In a much-discussed op-ed column in Monday's New York Times, Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore declared his support for a crash program to modernize the nation's electrical system:

We should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with "smart" features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid -- $400 billion over 10 years -- pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.

Gore's vision sounds surprisingly similar to that expressed by the Bush administration's Department of Energy in its publication, Grid 2030:

The Nation's aging electro-mechanical electric grid cannot keep pace with innovations in the digital information and telecommunications network. Power outages and power quality disturbances cost the economy billions of dollars annually. America needs an electric superhighway to support our information superhighway.

Change of this magnitude requires unprecedented levels of cooperation among the electric power industry's many stakeholders. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment will be needed over the coming decades to accomplish modernization of the electric system. National leadership is needed to create a shared vision of the future and to build effective public-private partnerships for getting there. Imagine the possibilities: electricity and information flowing together in real time, near-zero economic losses from outages and power quality disturbances, a wider array of customized energy choices, suppliers competing in open markets to provide the world's best electric services, and all of this supported by a new energy infrastructure built on superconductivity, distributed intelligence and resources, clean power, and the hydrogen economy.

But as DOE itself noted, "national leadership is needed" to turn vision into reality. President-elect Barack Obama says he's ready to step up to the plate. Here's what Obama told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on October 30:

One of, I think, the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid. Because if we're going to be serious about renewable energy, I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago. And we're going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that's generated from those car batteries, back into the grid. That can create 5 million new jobs, just in new energy.

The media rush to highlight every major new renewable power project, but another clean energy resource gets far less attention, even though it's flexible, abundant, relatively inexpensive and valued overall at billions of dollars.

According to a recent report by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), this unheralded resource is equal to 29,000 megawatts of capacity during periods of peak summer demand--as much as all U.S. wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass power combined.

The report calls it "an effective and efficient capacity resource, on equal footing with generation" and says it "will become a critical resource for maintaining system reliability over the next ten years."

What's not to like? Only the name: "demand response." You've gotta love the way the utility industry chose such a dull term to hide one of its hottest products.

Simply put, according to Wikipedia, "demand response (DR) refers to mechanisms to manage the demand from customers in response to supply conditions, for example, having electricity customers reduce their consumption at critical times or in response to market prices."

In most markets, matching supply and demand is no big deal. If supply exceeds demand, sellers build up inventory and sooner or later cut their prices, prompting additional demand. Sellers also regularly adjust prices based on predictable changes in customer demand--think movie matinees or off-season travel discounts.

But until recently, electric utilities had no comparable way to change prices for most customers or to store inventory (excess electricity). Utilities could mainly affect the supply side, for example by ramping up or down infrequently used gas-fired "peaking" plants.

Demand response programs now give utilities a powerful new tool for balancing supply and demand. By encouraging customers to curb demand during periods of extreme peak loads, utilities--and ultimately customers themselves--can save the considerable cost of backup generation capacity that may be needed only a few dozen hours a year.

There are other benefits of demand response.  System reliability benefits because generation and transmission capacity aren't stretched to the limit.  The environment benefits from fewer power plant emissions.  And, last but not least, demand response programs can help utilities manage renewable resources like wind power. When the wind dies down, getting customers to reduce their load can rebalance supply and demand efficiently.

As NERC said of demand response programs in a report issued today, "their critical role in supporting the integration of variable renewable resources will only increase their importance as climate change initiatives progress."

The total value of giving utilities nationwide the ability to shave just five percent off peak demand comes to $66 billion, according to estimates by Brattle Group consultant Ahmad Faruqui.

At PG&E, about 119,000 customers now take part in one of a dozen demand response programs. Together they can reduce the utility's peak load by as much as 1,246 megawatts, equal in capacity to about three sizeable gas-fired power plants that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.

One successful program, which launched last year, is called SmartAC. In return for a $25 incentive payment, customers let PG&E install a radio-controlled switch on their air conditioner or thermostat. During supply emergencies, when customer demand pushes the limits of our electric supply, PG&E can cycle those air conditioners off for brief intervals, preventing any risk of rolling blackouts. More than 9 in 10 customers in the SmartAC program say they never feel the difference.

Another innovative program is SmartRate. It is available to residential and small commercial customers with automated SmartMeter(tm) electric meters, which measure customer usage at frequent intervals-hourly for residential customers, and every 15 minutes for commercial customers. Participants enjoy a discount of 3 cents per kilowatt hour between May 1 and October 31--except a few days a year, when afternoon rates jump by 60 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers, and by 75 cents per kilowatt hour for commercial customers. Simply by turning off appliances during those hours, no more than 15 days a year, customers and the utility both save money and spare the environment.

Smart entrepreneurs are finding ways to extend the reach of these programs. For example, Ice Energy, which just announced another successful funding round, sells air conditioning units that freeze water at night, when electric rates are low, and use the ice to cool buildings cheaply during the day. Its technology may let commercial buildings shift as much as 40 percent of peak energy demand to off-peak hours, when rates are cheaper.

Last year, Ice Energy and the City of Victorville won one of California's "Flex Your Power" awards. Ice Energy projected that the 31 cooling units it installed in municipal buildings would shift enough of Victorville's energy consumption to off-peak hours to reduce CO2 emissions by 335 tons and reduce NOX emissions by 985 pounds over the next five years.

NERC estimates that the growth of demand response programs through 2017 will slice about a year's worth of normal growth in summer demand. Combined with energy efficiency investments, peak demand growth will be slashed 80 percent over that period, it predicts.

Surely a high-achieving program like that deserves a name better than "demand response." Any nominations?

This week brought more alarming reports from scientists about climate change, and more calls to action by government officials from around the world:

• Cornell University researchers studying oceans in the northern hemisphere say "the rate of warming we are seeing is unprecedented in human history" and is causing a "major ecosystem reorganization" in the North Atlantic. Their findings appear in the November 2008 issue of the journal Ecology.
• Global warming is apparently responsible for the rapid disappearance of Norwegian lemmings. These hamster-sized rodents traditionally exploded in numbers every three to five years, often requiring snowplows to clear their squashed bodies from the roads. Changing snow patterns have apparently disrupted their habitats, slashing their population and forcing predators like foxes and owls to find other species to hunt.
• At a climate conference opening today in Beijing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declared that "Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle." China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
• At the same conference, the top United Nations climate official, Yvo de Boer, expressed hope that the incoming Obama administration will tackle the challenge of climate change: "Obama is committed to the issue, is committed to developing a strong domestic policy, is committed to engaging in the international negotiations,'' he said. "Leadership from the U.S. on this issue can have a huge impact on the dynamics of these negotiations.''

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• Environmentally-friendly shopping garnered attention at the Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco this week, with start-ups pitching their companies to the venture capital crowd. The New York Times' Bits blog reports that an Internet start-up named GoodGuide rates more than 60,000 products on environmental, health and social impacts. The company's founder created the site when he learned his daughter's sunscreen contained carcinogenic chemicals. Bits also reports on a solar panel installation company and a video broadcast start-up.
• Green Wombat visited California start-up Cool Earth Solar for a Fortune Magazine story on a novel solar power technology to generate electricity from balloons. A single balloon of thin-film reflective plastic with a photovoltaic cell will generate one kilowatt of power. Put together 10,000 balloons and you can light up a town. Cool Earth is building a prototype plant and says a 1.5-megawatt plant will be built next year near Tracy, Calif.
• The U.S. military is marching ahead on the green energy front. My NEXT100 colleague Jonathan Marshall recently posted on the U.S. Army's energy efficiency and sustainable energy projects. Now Earth2Tech notes that the U.S. Navy has awarded a $3 million contract to Ocean Power Technologies to test the company's PowerBuoy system to generate electricity from ocean waves to power oceanic data and communication systems.

Getting an extra hour of sleep in the fall, thanks to Daylight Saving Time (DST), is one of life's little pleasures. Sadly, according to two UC Santa Barbara scholars, it turns out to be a guilty pleasure--one that increases energy consumption and creates more pollution.

The United States first adopted DST--starting in World Wars I and II--as a means of saving energy, not as a policy to promote agriculture as sometimes assumed. It was expanded most recently in 2007, following the Energy Policy Act of 2005. More than 1.6 billion people in 76 countries now fumble with their clocks twice a year to practice DST.

But does it achieve its goal? Past research has been scant and inconclusive. Sorting out the specific effects of DST on energy use, separate from all other factors, is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.

But in a new paper for the UC Energy Institute, researchers Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant take advantage of the fact that for many years some counties in Indiana practiced DST while many others did not. In 2006, following federal law, all counties adopted DST. By comparing energy use over time between counties, with and without DST, they were able to detect the program's real impact.

It turns out that DST increases residential electricity demand, most notably in the fall. The extra bill comes to about $9 million a year for Indiana households. Pollution increases as well. Apparently, by changing the time when people are likely to be at home, any reduction in lighting is more than offset by increased demand for heating and cooling. This effect, the researchers conclude, is likely to be even worse in the southern United States due to widespread use of air conditioning.

Are solar cells really as "clean" as they're cracked up to be? Like most things, it all depends on whether you wash them or not.

Petaluma-based OCS Energy, Inc. has just introduced a product it calls SolarWash, touted as "the first commercially available automated photovoltaic (PV) panel cleaning system."

OCS Energy warns that the build-up of dirt over several months can cut power production from a solar cell array by as much as 25 percent. Taking its marketing cues from Proctor and Gamble, the company notes that in addition to dirt, PV system operators must also worry about "dust, tree debris, moss, sap, bugs, bird droppings, water spots, mold, and more."

Using microprocessor-controlled spray nozzles, the SolarWash system promises to maximize solar efficiency while saving on labor costs. It even comes with a web-based interface, something your garden watering system should no doubt incorporate as well.

Farther down the road, another technological breakthrough promises to shed even more light on solar cells. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute say they have discovered a new antireflective coating that allows solar panels to absorb 96 percent of all light that falls on them. Typical untreated silicon cells today absorb only 67 percent of available light, wasting the rest.

By absorbing radiation from a wide variety of angles and broad spectrum of frequencies (infrared through ultraviolet), the nanocoating promises to dramatically increase the efficiency of electricity generation from PV installations.

Rainforests have long been known as remarkable natural laboratories of life-saving and life-enhancing medicinal drugs (not to mention some mind-expanding illegal drugs as well). Now it turns out they may be natural laboratories for biodiesel fuels that could potentially power clean cars and trucks.

Montana State University's Gary Strobel says his team of researchers has discovered a fungus that breaks down plant cellulose directly into diesel compounds without any added enzymes or extra steps. The fungus lives in the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest.

Strobel said of their discovery, "The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end."

The team is now working on steps to make the biodiesel production process commercially viable. They'll have competition from another rainforest inhabitant, a freshwater species of green algae discovered in Thailand. One Thai scientist estimated that a commercial farm of this algae could produce as much as 136,900 liters of oil per hectare.

Researchers had better move fast to investigate the remaining riches of the rainforest. By some estimates, 80,000 acres of rainforest are burned, plowed or otherwise destroyed every single day.

With the holiday shopping season slowly creeping earlier and earlier each year, it is with excitement, disbelief and -- let's face it -- trepidation that I begin to consider my shopping list for friends and loved ones.

It was while cruising the latest toys in consumer electronics that I stumbled upon a new generation of energy-efficient television sets that also require ENERGY STAR-labeled accessories. The new TVs hit store shelves on November 1 and can be up to 30 percent more efficient than conventional counterparts. While this new release represents the third generation of energy-efficient TVs, it is the first generation that actually works to decrease the power used when the TV is turned on.

The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA) wasted no time in praising the new standard of television sets, citing a staggering claim from the U.S. EPA in their press release:

"If all televisions purchased by consumers in 2009 met the new ENERGY STAR standards, the savings in greenhouse gas emissions would be equal to removing one million cars from the road."

Also, David Katzmeyer of CNET.com had the opportunity to test drive a number of HDTVs that fall under the new standard and determined that the Sharp LC-52D65U is the most efficient. As far as price goes, the Sharp ranges from $1,517 to $2,099, which Katzmeyer calls relatively inexpensive. And, even though he cites lighter blacks than some LCDs, he calls the Sharp "a solid value among bigger-screen LCDs."

Offering both form and function, the new generation of energy-efficient televisions may just move the front lines in the fight against global warming to the couch.

One of the latest victims of the economic downturn is commodity recycling, according to an article that appeared over the weekend in the Contra Costa Times. Over the past six weeks, the price for recycled cardboard has plummeted from $200 a ton to $30 to $40 a ton.

Adding insult to injury, buyers are scarce. Recyclers in California's Contra Costa County are looking to lease warehouse space to store their recycled goods that would normally be gobbled up by China. China, which is the top consumer of recycled fiber worldwide, uses the recycled material to prepare packaging for all its exported products. October through December is usually the busy period for this industry due to the holidays. But now, not only has the demand for these goods dropped precipitously, many ships are being sent back or remain anchored off China's coast with no buyers.

Recycling plays a critical role in diverting the amount of waste we put into landfills. It also helps to save energy:

• Recycled paper saves 60% energy vs. virgin paper
• Recycled glass saves 50% energy vs. virgin glass
• Recycled aluminum saves 95% energy vs. virgin aluminum