Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

On December 22, as my colleague Jennifer Zerwer previously noted, Sempra Generation announced completion of its first 10 megawatt photovoltaic power plant near Boulder City, Nevada, the largest of its kind in North America. PG&E has contracted to buy its power for 20 years.

Built in less than six months by Arizona-based First Solar, the project is certainly the fastest utility-scale solar project ever to come online for PG&E. (I can say that with some assurance, since to date it's the only large solar project in our portfolio to start generating power.)

But fast is all relative. If you really want FAST, check out this video clip showing all manner of ground and aerial views of the plant. At the end, you'll see the entire six months of construction compressed into about 25 seconds, thanks to the magic of time-lapse photography. Now if we could just get every project to move this quickly . . . 

Posted by: Katie Romans

As reported by William Brent, on his Search for Cleantech blog, the term 'green' finally made Lake Superior State University's list of four-letter words for 2008 -- officially, the 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

But, this isn't the first time 'green' has suffered a black eye from overuse.

According to Wikipedia, initial backlash came more than 20 years ago, when suburban New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined the term 'greenwashing' in an essay about hotel green placards, promoting reuse of guest towels to "save the environment." In hindsight, this infraction seems relatively mild compared to some of the cases of greenwashing we have seen since then.

From my cube here at PG&E, located squarely at the intersection of communications and energy, I have unique insight into this issue. It is truly embedded into our day-to-day work -- ensuring there is substance in the promotion of our environmental efforts and transparency in communications about potential environmental issues. For example, we try to make sure customers know the energy efficiency benefits of CFLs, but also about their mercury content and the need to dispose of them properly to mitigate potential environmental impacts. PG&E's Corporate Responsibility Report has more on our environmental efforts.

Now, back to the list...

Other environmental buzzwords on the naughty list for 2008 are 'carbon footprint' and 'carbon offsetting.' Not surprisingly, 'maverick' topped the list for campaign-speak. But, perhaps more amusing than the list itself are the quotes testifying to the unctuousness of each word.

My personal favorite comes from Ed Hardiman of Bristow, Va.:

"If I see one more corporation declare itself 'green,' I'm going to start burning tires in my backyard."

Yikes. Here's hoping for no tire fires in 2009.

(Note: William Brent and I worked together at PR/IR firm Weber Shandwick, where he started the firm's cleantech practice.)

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

With 745 miles of coastline, California could potentially meet more than a fifth of its electricity needs from renewable ocean wave power, according to the California Energy Commission.

But while the state does little to develop that immense resource, Scotland took a great leap forward this month with the announcement of the Saltire Prize--worth 10 million British pounds--for the best innovation in marine energy technology. Already, the prize has reportedly attracted 33 entries from five continents.

The huge award will go to the team that best delivers, off the Scottish coast, "a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology that achieves a minimum electrical output of 100 GWh over a continuous two-year period using only the power of the sea."

Scotland isn't placing all its wave power bets on the prize, however. A Scottish firm, Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., installed the world's first commercial ocean electricity generators off the coast of Portugal in September and plans similar installations in Scotland and England. It is already considered a world leader in the technology.

Also in September, Scottish Power said it was considering three coastal sites to install the world's biggest tidal power project by 2011.

Scotland first minister Alex Salmond said he hoped the latter announcement was a harbinger of things to come. "Scotland has a marine energy resource which is unrivalled in Europe," he said. "We have an estimated 25 per cent of Europe's tidal resource and 10 per cent of its wave potential."

Scotland's Saltire prize is reminiscent of the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which went to Burt Rutan and Paul Allen for launching the first reusable private spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.

It has since spawned numerous imitators that seek to benefit society by rewarding breakthrough innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, the Automotive X PRIZE will award multi-million dollar cash prizes to the best design of a marketable vehicle capable of achieving 100 miles per gallon.

So, while California makes millionaires through the lottery, Scotland will make some through  the Saltire Prize. Is a moral to be found somewhere?

 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The United States has yet to see its first mass production electric vehicle, but already critics are warning that the world may run short of lithium, the metallic element at the heart of the next generation of automotive batteries.

If you believe them, the looming crisis of "peak oil" will soon have a counterpart in "peak lithium," as demand from the consumer electronics sector and plug-in vehicles converges to overwhelm limited supplies of the Periodic Table's third element. (The nuclear industry faces similar skeptics who claim that uranium supplies have peaked.) 

Lithium battery technology is prized because it stores tremendous amounts of energy relative to its light weight--unlike, say, traditional lead acid batteries. The Chevy Volt is expected to sport a 400-pound lithium-ion battery capable of giving the car a 40 mile range without any assist from its gasoline engine.

Lithium is typically found in granitic minerals, hectorite clay, and in desert brine deposits. The world's biggest producer is Chile, whose brine-fed, high desert Salar de Atacama region holds more than a quarter of the world's lithium reserves. Bolivia holds what may be the largest untapped reserve of lithium at the Uyuni salt flats. Other major producers include China, the United States and Russia.

Concerns over the adequacy of world lithium reserves first surfaced in the mid-1970s, when advocates of fusion power wondered if their miracle cure for the energy crisis would be foiled by shortages of the element. (Lithium deuteride was a key to the ignition of the first hydrogen fusion bomb.)  A panel subsequently convened by the National Research Council estimated world reserves of lithium at less than 11 million tonnes--but the potential crisis fizzled along with fusion power. 

The latest alarm was sounded by William Tahil, research director of Meridian International Research, His December 2006 paper, "The Trouble with Lithium," concluded, "there is insufficient lithium available in the Earth's crust to sustain electric vehicle manufacture in the volumes required, based solely on LiIon batteries. Depletion rates would exceed current oil depletion rates and switch dependency from one diminishing resource to another. Concentration of supply would create new geopolitical tensions, not reduce them."

In a followup paper this year, Tahil stressed the disastrous environmental impact of ramping up lithium production. Bolivia's Uyuni salt flat, he noted, "is the brightest object on the Earth's surface visible from space," a popular tourist destination and a major flamingo breeding ground, making it an unlikely savior of the lithium battery industry.

Lithium optimists have a champion in Keith Evans, a geologist who has specialized in the element for forty years. He maintains that world reserves of elemental lithium are today more than twice the estimate in 1976, despite growing production.

The electric vehicle market might double demand by 2015, Evans notes, but modest price increases would make huge untapped reserves economic, ending any threat of shortages. "A rise (in price) from the current levels is probably necessary but the cost of (lithium) carbonate in batteries is a very small percentage of the battery cost," he declared in a reply to Tahil.

So who's right? One way for non-experts to decide is to watch the money. GM, as noted, is banking on lithium batteries. So is Nissan, which reportedly plans to invest a billion dollars with NEC to produce lithium-ion batteries for the vehicle market. Honda reportedly plans to produce as many as 500,000 lithium-ion batteries a year. They must know something.

But then there's Toyota, the world's most experienced manufacturer of hybrid vehicles. Toyota uses nickel-metal hydride batteries in the Prius and doesn't see much future in lithium. "The future supply of lithium will not be able to sustain both the exponential growth in batteries for consumer electronics and a large automotive battery demand," said Jaycie Chitwood, environmental strategy manager for Toyota's advanced technology group.

So which camp are you in--peak lithium, or peak optimism?

 

 

 

 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:

• United Parcel Service is adding bicycles during the holiday season to deliver packages to customers in six states, saving fuel and maintenance costs. UPS ran a pilot bicycle-delivery program in Maine and New Hampshire in 2007 and expanded this year to California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. A bike and trailer can deliver only 15 to 20 packages on a single run, but UPS estimates that for every three bikes on the road during the peak season it will save 17 gallons of fuel per day and $38,000 in vehicle maintenance costs. The UPS fleet, which experimented with electric trucks in New York City in the 1930s, also includes alternative fuel vehicles and seven new hydraulic hybrid trucks for more fuel economy and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
• In other transportation developments, Japan has launched the first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power. The 60,213-tonne freighter -- the Auriga Leader -- is equipped with 328 solar panels to generate 40 kilowatts of electricity to support lighting and the crew quarters. This is a tiny fraction of the energy the ship needs, but the developers -- Nippon Yusen K.K. and Nippon Oil Corp. -- hope to increase seagoing solar power. The vessel will carry Toyota vehicles to customers overseas.
• The "smart grid" has arrived, sort of. During a recent power outage in an ice storm in Massachusetts, a man converted his Toyota Prius car into an emergency generator to power his home for three days. John Sweeney wired a DC to AC inverter into his Prius to run his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights on five gallons of gas. "The device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power," according to the local newspaper.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Thousands of people have finally solved an important puzzle: How to be red, white, blue and green all over? With energy-saving Light Emitting Diode (LED) holiday lights.

At my local Walgreen's, the store manager told me they sold out of all their LED holiday lights this year. In Sacramento, an Ace Hardware store manager told the Sacramento Bee, "They fly off the hook."

At Amazon.com, 21 of its 25 top-selling holiday lights are reportedly LED products.

In the nation's capital, the National Christmas Tree is adorned with 37,000 LED lights. Not to be outdone, MillerCoors brewing company has strung 15 miles of holiday LED lights--a total of 200,000--synchronized to music. I don't know if that counts as "green," but the company says it has cut its holiday lighting costs by 60 percent.

Those of the Jewish faith are going green as well, with strings of blue LED lights to decorate their Hanukkah Bush.

There's an obvious reason for their rapidly growing popularity: LED lights use far less electricity than incandescent bulbs, last up to ten times longer, and produce almost no heat, thus reducing fire hazards.

PG&E estimates that the cost to power a string of 300 LED lights over the holidays will run only about $3, compared to $30 for a similar string of mini incandescent lights. At that rate, it will only take a year or two to recoup the higher purchase cost of the LEDs.

Fortunately, LED lights have applications that extend far beyond the holidays. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy recently reported that LED lights saved 8.7 trillion watt hours of electricity in 2007, about 11 percent of all power consumed in lighting. Wider use of LED lights in other applications, including indoor lighting, could eliminate the need for 27 giant (1 gigawatt) coal-fired power plants, the report concluded.

LEDs are already widely used in outdoor applications like traffic signals, roadside signs and street lights PG&E and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have partnered to test energy-efficient LED street lights, which are 40 percent more efficient than high pressure sodium vapor lights and produce a whiter, brighter light. (You can check them out in front of PG&E headquarters on Beale Street.)  

Many other cities are following suit. Anchorage, Alaska is retrofitting all municipal roadway lights with LED fixtures. The Big Apple is studying the possibility of replacing all 300,000 of its street lamps with the super efficient semiconductor lights. 

Though the lights themselves run cool, the LED lighting industry is becoming a hot market for venture capital and corporate acquisitions--no surprise given that the global lighting market is worth some $75 billion a year.

Luminus Devices in Massachusetts raised $72 million earlier this year, said to be the biggest funding round ever received by an LED company. Local Redwood City startup Superbulbs, though still in stealth mode, reportedly plans to introduce LED bulbs that look like standard incandescents but use 30 percent less energy even than compact fluorescent bulbs--and without any mercury.  Its main backer, VantagePoint Venture Partners, is also a funder of such cleantech startups as Tesla, Better Place, and BrightSource Energy. 

Industry giants are getting into the act, too. In the last three years, Philips has acquired no fewer than four LED companies. The bulb kings at GE have also seen the light. They recently said they have suspended development of a next-generation incandescent bulb "to place greater focus and investment on what we believe will be the ultimate in energy efficient lighting -- light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)."

The big problem, of course, is still cost. Recently announced LED replacements for standard 60- and 100-watt incandescent bulbs cost $100 and $150 respectively, enough to make any customer think twice. But just as LED televisions have plummeted in price, so too will the bulbs. Next year, expect to see a lot more LED lights under the tree, not just on it.

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

If you're a proud procrastinator it's likely you haven't even begun to think about your holiday shopping. Well, at least you're not alone. According to a new National Retail Federation survey, as of late last week about 44.5 million people, or 20 percent of holiday shoppers, hadn't started yet. So in honor of all you laggards Next100 presents this list of environmentally friendly gift resources:

• Treehugger Holiday Gift Guide 2008
• The Huffington Post's Green Gift Guide: Low-Impact, Eco-Friendly Ideas for the Holidays
• Natural Resources Defense Council's Great Green Gift Guide
• CNET Reviews' Green Gift Guide
• Grist's Lean, Green Giving
• Co-op America's Holiday Green Gift Catalog
• U.S. News' Green Gift Guide: For Friends and Coworkers
• Inhabitat's Green Gift Guide: Cheap Gifts Under $20
• CNBC's Green Gift Guide
• Earth 911's Gift Guide 2008
• Clean Technica's Holiday Gift Guide: The 8 Best Green Gadget Gifts

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

The amount of solar energy PG&E will deliver to its customer in 2009 just increased today with our purchase of 10 megawatts of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar energy from Sempra Generation. Sempra Generation's El Dorado Energy Solar facility is located in Nevada on 80 acres of desert property designated as a renewable energy zone and adjacent to the company's existing gas-fired power plant. Completed today, this solar facility is expected to begin renewable power deliveries to PG&E by January 1, 2009.

In addition to being PG&E's first contracted solar project to come online, Sempra Generation can now boast of having the largest thin-film solar power installation in North America. The facility features more than 167,000 of First Solar's PV modules. A Pacific Crest equity analyst claims that First Solar has achieved the elusive goal of grid-parity with conventional power when measuring cost on a kilowatt-hour basis.

Although there are some reports that the solar industry will be shaky in 2009, Fast Company's comprehensive look at the industry's leap into the mainstream shows there are many bright spots as well.  

For those interested in solar on the home, TIME reported today that engineering company CH2M Hill is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Internet solar maps of 25 American cities, using Google Earth technology. The maps will allow homeowners to plug in their address to pull up detailed information on their estimated solar energy potential, utility bill savings and all available incentives, among other things. San Francisco is the first city to be completed and you can check out its solar map here.

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:

• Now that GM and Chrysler will receive a shot in the arm, it will be interesting to see if GM is able to get the production of the Volt back on track. In related news, a new consortium of U.S. chemical and electrical companies have banded together to seek $1 billion in federal funding to speed the development of advanced batteries for cars.
• A tidal turbine in Northern Ireland began generating 1.2 megawatts of energy, the most power produced to date by a tidal stream system anywhere in the world. According to the BBC, the SeaGen system functions similar to a windmill, using tidal currents rather than the wind to drive rotors. By reaching full power, this tidal turbine underscores the tremendous, untapped potential to meet growing energy needs with ocean power.  
• A new report from Forrester discusses how green IT initiatives will continue to fair well, despite the economic downturn. As we've recently reported, implementing energy efficient technology not only helps the environment, but also significantly contributes to a company's bottom line. Check out Business Green's scoop on the report here. 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several stories on the science and politics of climate change caught our attention this week:

• Climate change and pollution may be possible causes for the giant swarms of jellyfish showing up recently in Hawaii, Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. East Coast, Australia and other regions around the globe, says a report from the National Science Foundation. The gelatinous creatures can damage fisheries, fish farms, ships and even nuclear power plants. Jellyfish visited PG&E's Diablo Canyon nuclear plant on the central California coast in October, clogging the cooling water intake systems. The plant was forced to curtail power production briefly to clear the jellyfish from the intakes. The NSF report also suggests the introduction of non-native species, overfishing and structures such as oil and gas drilling rigs may have something to do with the jellyfish outbreaks.
• Efforts by President-elect Obama's administration to cut greenhouse gas emissions and seek federal climate change regulations are likely to spur new opportunities in the legal profession and at the nation's law schools. Columbia University's law school says it has hired environmental lawyer Michael Gerrard to establish and direct a new center for climate law. "Very complicated legal regulations are going to be established and the center will provide a framework in which these regulations can be examined and future leaders in climate change law can be trained," Gerrard said. Gerrard is the former head of Arnold & Porter's New York office and author of a textbook on climate change law.
• Emissions of carbon dioxide from U.S. energy sources by 2030 are forecast to be 9.4 percent less than projected last year, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, citing increases in renewable energy and higher prices for fossil fuels. "Efficiency policies and higher energy prices ... slow the rise in the U.S. energy use," the EIA says. "When combined with the increased use of renewables and a reduction in the projected additions of new coal-fired conventional power plants, this slows the growth in energy-related (greenhouse gas) emissions." Carbon emissions are forecast at 6.410 billion tonnes in 2030, compared with last year's forecast of 6.851 billion tonnes by 2030 last year, the EIA says. Consumption of renewable fuels are foreast to grow by 3.3 percent a year through 2030.
• Finally, there is some concern among politicians and tree farmers in North Carolina that global warming may affect growing conditions for the state's Christmas tree industry. The Tarheel state is the nation's second largest producer of the holiday trees and takes in $100 million a year mainly for Fraser Firs which grow at higher elevations in cool temperatures. The Asheville Citizen-Times reports that a rise in global temperatures could push the Fraser Fir climate zone to states in the north.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

After a long brown spell, California ski resorts are once again covered in white and looking forward to earning some real green over the holidays. For PG&E and its customers, recent precipitation--and the promise of more to come--bodes well for supplies of clean, inexpensive hydropower next year.

Though it didn't last long, recent cold storms dumped piles of hail on San Francisco and snow on Berkeley's Tilden Park, both memorable events. Up in the Sierra, major resorts now report two-to-three feet of snow.

"What a phenomenal change one storm has made for the mountain," said a spokeswoman for Alpine Meadows and Homewood Mountain ski resorts. "It is wonderful and humbling how quickly Mother Nature can move in and create something amazing. We couldn't have received this kind of snow at a better time."

Even so, the snow that provides so much of California's water is still running only 35 percent of normal--and only 19 percent of normal in Northern California. That leaves a lot of catching up to do.

At PG&E, principal hydrologist Gary Freeman watches snow and rainfall forecasts closely, since one of his jobs is to help the utility plan its use of clean hydroelectric resources. He says the watersheds that feed PG&E's hydro system stand a good chance of beating the drought after two years of sub-par precipitation.

"Next week we could get hit by some very wet storms tapping into subtropical moisture--what we used to call the Pineapple Express," Freeman said. "We should see lots of snow and rain right around Christmas, which will fill some of our lower-elevation reservoirs and build some snowpack. We could have another subtropical storm after that, so California could be back to normal or even wet by mid-January."

Full reservoirs will allow the utility to substitute hydropower for natural gas-fired generation, helping the environment and lowering costs. The only downside is likely to be the landslides and mud flows in watersheds laid bare by this summer's widespread and intense fires.

Freeman notes that PG&E's service territory is seeing relatively less snow and more rain than it did 30 years ago as a result of California's warming climate. The snowpack is also melting two-to-three weeks earlier. So far, that's not a problem. But if warming continues apace, heavy runoff from fast-melting snows could create potential operational challenges.

President-elect Obama's appointee as secretary of energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Steven Chu, commented last year on the longrun impact of climate change on California's snowpack: "I think that's a much more serious problem than the gradually rising sea level, unless Greenland just completely melts," Chu said. "This is a huge water supply concern for California and the Southwest."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

If you're thinking of trading in your Hummer for a plug-in hybrid, you may soon have a chance to Build Your Dream. The Chinese company BYD, freshly funded with a $231 million investment from Omaha billionaire Warren Buffet, this week began selling China's first plug-in hybrid vehicle. 

The F3DM (for Dual Mode) runs up to 60 miles on battery power alone, then recharges from its gasoline-powered motor. It can also recharge from any electrical outlet. With the introduction of the new plug-in hybrid model, BYD has beaten such auto giants as Toyota and GM to market. And it has a price they'll find hard to beat: about $22,000.

BBC correspondent Peter Day, who took one out for a spin, said it looks like "a rather ordinary compact saloon car," but showed "exceptional acceleration when I put my foot down."

Founded in 1995 with a loan of $300,000, Shenzen-based BYD today has 130,000 employees. It is one of those does-it-all Asian technology manufacturers, with products ranging from computer keyboards to mobile phone displays. It has also become China's largest producer of rechargeable batteries.

In 2003, it began selling a gasoline-powered car, the F3. This September, it signed a deal to export electric cars to Israel, and said it hopes to begin selling hybrid plug-ins in the United States in a year or two. First it needs to meet rigorous U.S. safety standards.

BYD, which aims to become China's largest automaker, will benefit from government plans to acquire at least 30,000 clean-energy vehicles by 2012 for public transportation and postal services in major Chinese cities. 

BYD may also benefit from a new agreement signed by China's Ministry of Science and Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy to collaborate on improving battery performance and testing.

 

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

Green efforts are feeling the squeeze these days as budgets continue to get leaner, according to a new report by Reuters. Thankfully, when it comes to energy efficiency, being budget and environmentally friendly aren't mutually exclusive.

Juniper Networks, a provider of high performance networking solutions, is the latest example of how PG&E is partnering with its customers to save money and the environment. As a global company, Juniper conducts vital stages of its product development at labs scattered Engineers test new products and product upgrades at these facilities that typically run around the clock.

As part of the company's commitment to reduce its environmental impact, Juniper is implementing innovative new approaches to how their labs are built and maintained, to better conserve energy, lower power bills and reduce their carbon footprint, all while improving their bottom line. Here are a few things Juniper is doing to reduce their utility costs:

Keeping it Cool
At one large lab at its Sunnyvale headquarters, Juniper recently installed an energy-efficient cooling system to help keep the lab cool all day long, a critical step to ensure the equipment runs effectively. The new lab uses "chillers" - a cold-water loop system which is significantly more energy efficient than air cooling.

The lab also uses "airside economizers." In the Silicon Valley, summer daytime temperatures can soar into the 90s, but year-round nighttime temperatures typically average 50 degrees. So at night, to save even more power, the energy-efficient chillers are turned off and "free" air from outside is drawn in to cool the lab.

Of course, it doesn't hurt that Juniper received a hefty $327,000 rebate from PG&E for installing this energy-sipping equipment that will save the company more than $262,000 in energy costs annually.

Kickin' it up a Notch
To utilize a more efficient power source, Juniper is switching its plugs to a higher voltage. So plugs in Juniper's labs are being upgraded from 120- to 208- and 480-volt circuits for maximum power savings.

Virtual Reality
Juniper is swapping out its six-to-seven year-old servers that used only 20-30 percent of their capacity in favor of new, energy-efficient servers capable of server virtualization. Virtualization allows multiple applications to run concurrently on computing equipment, enabling companies to consolidate their data centers and remove many of their existing servers. Juniper's new servers ensure full utilization, so instead of running eight servers in a lab, they can run one.

PG&E provides rebate incentives for customers who take advantage of this technology through our High Tech Energy Efficiency Program, and we expect to deliver approximately 15-20 megawatts or more of load reduction over 2007-2008.

Remote Access
Another way in which Juniper is saving money and reducing its environmental impact is through the development of remote access labs. Engineers actually work out of their regular cube or office space, but can "start and reset" the equipment that is physically located in the remote lab via their desktop or laptop computer. This approach allows Juniper to build lab facilities in locations where energy and other services are less expensive. These remote labs also include the ability to start up and turn down servers or other equipments remotely, so unused equipment does not eat energy unnecessarily.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:

• Time magazine has published its "Top Ten Everything" lists for 2008, from Albums to Worst Business Deals, and has made a space for the Top Ten Green Stories of the year. The election of Barack Obama tops the Green list. Time says: "As President-elect, he's pledged to put energy at the forefront of his agenda -- and says he won't back down on cap-and-trade even in the face of the recession. If Obama can pull that off, he'll be America's first truly green President." No. 2 was Congress passing renewable energy credits, and the debate over offshore drilling came in at No. 3.
• The ski industry is taking steps to improve its environmental performance while environmental organizations keep a close eye on its efforts. Plenty magazine reports that ski resorts in North America have made some progress on the green front. Resorts are getting rid of high-polluting two-stroke snowmobiles, adopting recycling programs, and encouraging ride-sharing to the slopes among other measures. "I think most ski areas are getting more green, as they know the public likes that, and that going easier on the environment is the right thing to do," says Rocky Smith, who works to protect National Forests in Colorado. "But they always want to get bigger." Many ski centers want to expand and develop adjacent real estate at an almost relentless pace, the magazine says.
• The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is urging the public and law enforcement agencies to be on the lookout for environmental crime fugitives. A new EPA Web tool will post photos of the criminals and information about their violations and last known whereabouts. There are 23 current fugitives. EPA violations include illegally disposing of hazardous waste, discharging pollutants into the air and water, laundering money and making criminally false statements. Information on the EPA Web site "will increase the number of 'eyes' looking for environmental fugitives," said Granta Nakayma of the agency's Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.  A "Report a Fugitive" form on the site can be sent directly to the EPA's criminal investigation office in Washington, DC.

 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several stories on the science and politics of climate change caught our attention this week:

• California's Air Resources Board on Thursday unanimously approved the nation's most sweeping and ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, a cut of about 30 percent. The plan includes tougher fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles, higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, a requirement that electric utilities acquire 33 percent of their energy from renewable sources, and a huge cap-and-trade market covering industries that emit 85 percent of greenhouse gases. California currently accounts for about 1.5 percent of the world's emissions.
• President-elect Obama has chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics and an outspoken advocate of action to curb global warming, as his new energy secretary. Chu directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a nationally recognized center of research on energy efficiency, solar energy and biofuels. Some utility industry officials applauded the appointment along with environmentalists. Chu's "experience seems to dovetail perfectly with the president-elect's commitment to bringing new energy technology to market in a timely fashion," Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, told the New York Times. "An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy."
• The New York Times reports that the European Union has allowed industry lobbyists to undercut the effectiveness of its carbon trading market. Four years after the market was launched, the paper claims, "it is becoming clear that system has so far produced little noticeable benefit to the climate -- but generated a multibillion-dollar windfall for some of the Continent's biggest polluters."
• Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who once had herself photographed on a block of ice in Greenland to highlight the perils of climate change, said this week that she would block any EU climate rules "that endanger jobs or investments in Germany." Her top climate adviser complained the next day, "Germany campaigned massively last year for climate protection; now we're claiming more opt outs than other countries. That tarnishes our credibility."
• Finally, here's a story from Salon that only masochists should read: "Global boiling: Some geologists say rising temperatures will uncork vast deposits of undersea methane. If they're right, we're cooked."  It begins: "By now we all know what's in store for us if we continue on our emissions-happy path: increasingly hotter days, horrific droughts and floods, angrier storms, acidic ocean waters that will dissolve coral reefs, and a surging sea level that will swallow our coastal cities. Still, that scenario is a virtual sunny day by the pool compared to the cataclysmic climate picture being drawn by some scientists." That picture involves the evaporation of up to 10,000 gigatons of methane hydrates, unleashing on the globe a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Time to start buying beachfront property in the Antarctic?
  

Posted by: Katie Romans

PG&E has new digs in Stockton and boy, are they green! In fact, PG&E's new customer service center is the first building in Stockton to receive LEED® (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification by the U.S. Green Building Council.

Yesterday, the City of Stockton, community leaders and customers welcomed the company's state-of-the-art new customer service office with a celebratory ribbon cutting and dedication. Among those in attendance were San Joaquin County Office of Education Deputy Superintendent Mick Founts, Stockton Mayor-Elect Ann Johnston, Greater Stockton Chamber CEO Doug Wilhoit, various local student artists and local PG&E employees.

Now, customers can pay bills, find information on PG&E's suite of environmental products and services, and even take advantage of a QuickPay kiosk for cash or electronic check bill paying options -- all in one convenient and environmentally friendly location.

Among its LEED-worthy accoutrements, the customer service center boasts recycled carpet, tiles, wood framing and insulation. It also utilizes natural light to help decrease energy use and offers bike racks for its two-wheeled commuters.

While the PG&E customer service center is Stockton's first foray into LEED certification, it certainly isn't PG&E's. PG&E announced earlier this year that its historic General Office Building and Annex, located at 245 Market Street, San Francisco, was awarded Gold-level LEED certification for existing buildings (LEED-EB). This makes PG&E's General Office Building and Annex the largest building in San Francisco and one of two within the city to be LEED-EB Gold certified.

More recently, during West Coast Green, I also posted about two initiatives that will help northern and central California communities achieve LEED certification. PG&E will help build LEED-certified Habitat homes through a partnership with Global Green USA and Habitat for Humanity International. In addition, PG&E's business customers can now receive LEED credit by enrolling their natural gas accounts in its ClimateSmart program.

With LEED-ership like this, Stockton is sure to continue its green building momentum.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The demise of Detroit's Big Three auto producers would lead to an unprecedented hollowing out of America's industrial capacity, say supporters of a federal bailout package. But experts warn that American industry has already lost nearly all its capacity to build the most critical component of next-generation vehicles: the battery.

Writing for EV World, Bill Moore comments:

With all the talk on Capitol Hill this week about Big 3's plans to introduce advanced, plug-in electric cars, with the CEO's dramatically arriving to testify in conventional hybrids and advanced prototype plug-in models, little if any attention was paid to the fact that America has next to no advanced automotive lithium ion battery production capacity. With the exception of a currently shrinking handful of US-based firms, virtually all advanced nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion (Li-ion) production is done overseas, mainly in China, Japan and Korea.

A recent story in Newsweek makes the same point:

While U.S. battery makers play catch-up, the Japanese battery industry is consolidating: Panasonic, Toyota's battery supplier, is in talks to acquire Sanyo, Honda's battery maker. South Korea has also demonstrated battery savvy, as does China, where the iPhone batteries are assembled. For some observers, this is a cause for concern. "Are we trading our dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on batteries built in foreign countries?" asks Chrysler vice chairman Jim Press.

You'll read plenty of stories about startups claiming to use nanotechnology to work miracles with new batteries. But the big automakers know that building a powerful battery that will keep an electric or hybrid vehicle on the road ten years or more, safely charging and recharging thousands of times, requires a level of engineering, testing and manufacturing that most startups just don't have.

America lost most of its battery manufacturing when commercial electronics production shifted to Asia, taking consumer battery production with it. That gave Asian manufacturers a head start on scaling up their technology to the electric vehicle market. "If you want to make big batteries, it's good to at least make small batteries," observes Nitash Balsara, a chemical engineer and battery investigator at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Balsara also believes that basic investment in battery technology in the United States "has been starved for several decades. If you count the electrochemical groups in various universities, you will find a general decline starting in the 1970s." 

Although the federal government provided hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding under President Clinton's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, a collaboration between Washington and Detroit to develop cars capable of 80 miles per gallon, batteries were only a small part of the project and there was no push to commercialize the proprietary demonstration technology that the automakers unveiled to the public. It sat in the shelf and gathered dust while the automakers, responding to consumer demand, sold millions of conventional SUVs in an era of cheap gasoline.

Since 2001, the Bush administration has spent only about $25 million a year on battery R&D, a small fraction of spending in Asia. The Department of Energy recently announced that it was awarding grants to three companies to increase the performance of batteries for plug-in hybrids. The award total? About $7 million.

Concludes Moore,

Until investors and banks are willing to underwrite the growth of U.S.-based battery production capacity, encouraged by federal policy, the lion's share of plug-in vehicle battery production will remain offshore. While it can be argued that $50 billion in foreign battery imports is better than $500 billion in foreign oil imports, the nurturing of an America advanced battery production infrastructure seems critically important to the economic security of the nation.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

A roundup of major climate-change news this week:

• U.S. greenhouse gas emissions climbed 1.4 percent last year, as Americans used more fossil-fueled energy to deal with winter and summer temperature extremes, the Department of Energy reported. Of the nearly 7.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, 81 percent were CO2, almost 10 percent were methane, and about 5 percent were nitrous oxide.
• Chinese and Indian delegates to the United Nations climate talks in Poland welcomed President-elect Obama's commitment to dealing with climate change but warned that his goals for 2020--rolling back US emissions to 1990 levels--are inadequate to fight global warming. The 187-nation meeting is reviewing progress for a UN global-warming treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
• Forty-three small island states attending the United Nations climate meeting in Poland pressed for tougher measures to fight global warming because they fear they could be submerged by rising seas. The group of island states wants to limit global warming to a maximum 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, below a 2 degrees warming goal by the European Union. "We are not prepared to sign a suicide agreemeent that causes small island states to disappear," Selwin Hart of Barbados told Reuters.
• Italy said it may veto European Union plans to tackle climate change unless they are scaled back to become less costly to industry and consumers, a minister warned Monday. At issue is the "20-20-20" proposal, which calls for a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a 20 percent cut in energy consumed and 20 percent use of renewable energy.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• The windpower industry appears to be holding its own in spite of fears that the economic recession, tight credit and weak oil and gas prices would stall clean energy investments. Wind turbine majors such as Denmark's Vestas, Spain's Gamesa and General Electric are booking new orders for next year. Vestas recently landed 500 megawatts of new turbines to boost its order book to more than 4,000 MW. Analysts say Vestas' success is a sign that bigger power companies with stronger balance sheets may shove aside smaller windpower developers.
•  Hawaii plans to set up the nation's first statewide electric car battery recharging stations as part of a wider clean-energy program to reduce the islands' dependence on oil imports for almost all of their energy needs. The goal is to cut fossil fuel consumption by 70 percent by 2030. Hawaii is joining with Better Place, a Palo Alto, Calif.-based company that will build the charging infrastructure to open in 2011. Better Place also plans a charging infrastructure in the San Francisco Bay Area. Nissan Motor Co.-Renault SA has agreed to make electric cars to be recharged at the stations in Hawaii. Hawaii's Blue Planet Foundation also is working on clean-energy programs including solar, wind, tides and waves to slash oil use.
• The first solar-powered car to travel around the world completed its 32,000-mile journey in Poznan, Poland, where a United Nations meeting was underway to explore a new treaty to combat global warming. Pulling a trailer of solar cells, the two-seater car departed Lucerne, Switzerland, 17 months ago and traveled through 38 countries. Louis Palmer, a Swiss schoolteacher and adventurer who made the trip, said: "It's ecological, it's economical, it is absolutely reliable. We can stop global warming." Palmer added: "This car runs like a Swiss clock." The vehicle was developed by scientists at Swiss universities.

Posted by: Katie Romans

What's this? Did you know that the typical northern California home's annual energy use emits the same amount of greenhouse gas as an SUV?

PG&E is hoping more people will realize this with the recent launch of the ClimateSmart program's new ad campaign, which seeks to educate people about their homes' carbon footprint and how they can reduce, then offset that footprint.

Keep an eye out for the ads online and on local TV stations throughout northern and central California. As you can see here, the ads literally portray a home as an SUV, illustrating the cumulative emissions that result from normal, everyday activities. The ads also encourage customers to take advantage of PG&E's new online carbon calculator to calculate their own homes' carbon footprint, enroll in ClimateSmart and join the fight against climate change.

PG&E's ClimateSmart program is not alone in its efforts to educate the public about the benefits of third-party verified carbon offsets. As GreenBiz reports, Brighter Planet kicks off its One Day campaign today, where people are invited to go carbon neutral for a day. For each person who signs up, Brighter Planet will donate 136 pounds of carbon offsets (the emissions Brigheter Planet claims is for the average person for one day).

The Brighter Planet blog outlines 12 conservation tips for the holiday season. Like PG&E's ClimateSmart program, these tips outline many other opportunities for reducing your carbon footprint before offsetting it.

December could be your month to make a difference in the fight against climate change by putting your own home's emissions into neutral through PG&E's ClimateSmart program.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

A broad coalition of utilities and energy producers (including PG&E Corporation), energy consumers (American Honda, 3M) and Environmental Defense Fund today issued a broad set of suggested principles to guide the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.

Under the Bush administration, EPA has staunchly resisted issuing any such regulations. The incoming Obama administration will surely adopt a new approach, taking advantage of the Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which opened the door to the agency acting if it finds that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.

The coalition's proposed principles at first glance seem commonplace. They call for EPA to root its decisions in science, consult closely with Congress, work with state and local governments, emphasize measures that are cost-effective, and give firms credit for taking early voluntary action to reduce emissions.

What's remarkable on second take is how little some of these principles appear to have governed EPA's decision making over the past eight years. The Obama administration and Congress will have their hands full reviewing EPA's rules and rulemaking procedures--if this recent story from the Washington Post is any indication:

The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - in life as well as in physics.

The widespread hoopla over the promised reappearance of electric vehicles after the demise of General Motors' EV-1 is now inevitably being countered by skeptics who question their cost and suitability. Even proponents of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)--including we at NEXT100--should take note of their arguments.

One significant skeptic is Michael Kanellos at GreenTechMedia. In recent posts he's noted that Tesla Motors, designer of a high-performance electric sports car, is seeking $400 million in federal loans having "already burned through massive amounts of capital and delayed its sedan."

BMW, he points out, plans to lease prototypes of its Electric Mini for $850 a month--as much as some of its most expensive cars, even though it "only goes about 150 miles before conking out and has a reduced backseat."

The Norwegian manufacturer Think plans to sell a compact urban EV, The City, which has a range of just over 100 miles and a top speed of just over 60 mph. Base price is a little under $30,000--but that doesn't include the battery. When you factor in the battery's lease cost, Kanellos reports, the total cost over seven years comes to more than $40,000: "At those prices, you could almost buy two new Honda Accords for the price of a single City."

Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that GM plans very small runs of its much-anticipated Volt for the first couple of years due to high production costs:

"People ask us when will we produce not just 10,000 but 50,000," said Frank Weber, GM's global vehicle line executive and chief engineer for E-flex systems. "I say when the battery and power train costs have come down significantly."

The high cost and limited storage of vehicle batteries remains the Achilles heel of electric vehicles. A recent survey in Newsweek reports that battery capacity is increasing only about 8 percent a year, far below the rapid doubling of computer power.

A lot of smart people are nonetheless banking on EVs and PHEVs. Their combination of high performance, low emissions, and low fuel costs is hard to beat. Hopefully, well-heeled early adopters will pay inflated prices for the first production models, allowing manufacturers to gain scale economies and begin serving the mass market with reasonably priced vehicles before the earth overheats.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Now that election season is over, notes The New York Times' Green Inc. blog, politicians in Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and now New Hampshire are beginning to talk about the unthinkable: raising gas taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs and trim budget deficits. (The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't risen since 1993 and is much lower than in most other developed countries.)

Don't be surprised if more politicians begin joining them in the name of national security or combating global warming.

A new report by the Institute for 21st Century Energy, sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and led by General James L. Jones (Rtd.), President-elect Barack Obama's designee as the new national security adviser, calls for "bold and comprehensive" action to reduce demand for energy, including imported oil:

The volatility of the gas and oil markets of 2008 is proof positive that a call to action is necessary and justified. With the recent sharp drop in oil prices, we should not be lulled into believing that this reflects a fundamental change in our energy fortunes. . . . Indeed, the fact that such boom and bust cycles have been all too common in energy markets over the past four decades is indicative of the lack of a national energy policy that keeps pace with the rapidly changing dynamics of energy markets and systems.

Most politicians still regard gas tax increases as the "third rail" of American politics--to be avoided at all costs. Back in the early 1990s, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts made an off-hand comment in favor of raising federal gas taxes by 50 cents a gallon, only to face a Bush-Cheney '04 campaign ad a decade later blasting the idea as "wacky." Kerry had to backpeddle furiously. Learning from Kerry's misstep, Sen. John McCain in 2008 called for a summer-long suspension of the federal gas tax to help revive the economy.

Most economists across the political spectrum support higher gas taxes (sometimes paired with a reduction in other taxes). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they enjoy academic tenure. President Bush's own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Greg Mankiw, endorsed a 50-cent-per-gallon tax increase in a 1999 Fortune magazine article:

Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would lead to more rapid economic growth, less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming--all without jeopardizing long-term fiscal solvency. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.

Now the director of the University of California Energy Institute, economist Severin Borenstein, has issued an interesting new variant on the idea: a variable tax surcharge that would rise or fall inversely with oil prices in order to keep gas prices at the pump roughly constant:

Such a surcharge could stabilize gasoline prices at levels that a few months ago would have been celebrated by consumers and still significantly reduce California's budget deficit. It would also slow the return of gas-guzzling vehicles that will otherwise result if oil prices remain at current levels.

Even anti-tax politicians might support the plan if other sales or vehicle license taxes were cut equivalently. Why? Because higher gas prices would reduce traffic congestion and delays and, more important, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Borenstein estimates that a tax surcharge that raised fuel-pump prices 50 cents a gallon to $3.00 would cut greenhouse emissions from transportation fuels by 9 percent in the long run, a substantial amount.

Of course, such a tax might be redundant if other policies, like cap-and-trade markets, raise the price of carbon fuels more generally. And gas taxes always raise difficult questions about equity, especially during a painful recession. But Borenstein's plan has the advantage of offering consumers more price stability, helping them make more thoughtful longterm plans about their choice of vehicles and driving habits.