February 2009 Archives
Feb 27 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:
- Toyota aims to build a small car with a bioplastic body made of seaweed. The vehicle would be based on the Japanese automaker's 926-pound 1/X plug-in hybrid concept car which has a carbon-fiber reinforced plastic body made from oil. A Toyota manager sees a future for new car materials manufactured from plants, saying he wants to create such a car from seaweed because Japan is surrounded by the sea.
- Portugal's Energias de Portugal and Seattle-based Principle Power Inc. plan a utility-scale, deepwater floating wind farm offshore Portugal but details for now are slim. Principle Power would first install a single "WindFloat" platform for a technology demonstration. The company also plans to build a 150-megawatt deepwater wind farm off the Oregon coast.
- Closer to home, the popular Muir Woods National Monument across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco will revamp its cafe in the redwoods park to a sustainable menu and toss out bottled water, soda, refined sugar and high-fructose corn syrup. All the provisions will come from within 50 miles, mostly from Marin Organic, an association of organic producers in Marin County. Local farmers will also meet with park visitors. We'll be on alert for similar steps at other state and national parks.
Feb 27 2009
Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Icecaps on both poles are melting faster than expected and Arctic sea ice is now at the lowest level recorded by satellite tracking, according to the International Polar Year survey. Greenland's glaciers are also thinning at an accelerating rate, resulting in rising sea levels.
- A NASA satellite designed to monitor greenhouse gas emissions--at a cost of $280 million--failed to reach orbit after launch and crashed near Antarctica, a blow to research on global warming.
- Google has produced an interactive map of carbon emissions, combining Google Earth with emissions data from the NASA-backed Vulcan project at Purdue University, to let businesses track pollution from their facilities, including factories, power plants, distribution centers and roads.
- President Barack Obama used his address to a joint session of Congress this week to urge passage of legislation that "places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America." He reaffirmed that commitment in his proposed new budget, which envisions revenues from auctioning carbon pollution permits starting at $15 billion a year in 2012. The budget document cites a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 83 percent by 2050.
Feb 26 2009
While members of Congress begin the huge debate over what to do about global warming, grass roots activists are vowing to ensure that they hear, starting tomorrow, directly from the generation of Americans who will inherit the results of their action--or inaction.
An organization called Power Shift '09 vows that it "will bring 10,000 young people to Washington to hold our elected officials accountable for rebuilding our economy and reclaiming our future through bold climate and clean energy policy." The event begins Friday, Feb. 27.
One of the featured speakers is the celebrated green jobs advocate Van Jones, founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland and founding president of the national organization Green for All.
Jones testified yesterday before the House Education and Labor Committee, which held its first full committee hearing on "reinvigorating civic engagement across all levels of society, expanding opportunities for young people to participate in service, and how national and community service can help 'green' America."
Jones called for creation of a Clean Energy Corps (reminiscent of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps), focused on disadvantaged and disconnected youth and emphasizing energy and conservation-related service.
Jones said he looks to state and local partnerships to "create well-defined career pathways for CEC participants, moving them from the entry point of service, to specific skills training, to placement, job retention and careers in energy efficiency, energy service, and other industries of the green economy."
Feb 26 2009
A report issued today by Ceres and the Pacific Institute warns that water scarcity, made worse by climate change and growing demand, will increasingly threaten the global economy. Water is crucial for the economy, driving such industry sectors as electric power, high-tech, beverage, agriculture, apparel, biotechnology/pharmaceutical, forest products and metals/mining firms. In fact, the power industry is responsible for 39 percent of all freshwater withdrawals in the U.S. alone.
As PG&E adds conventional sources of power generation to back up its growing renewable energy portfolio and energy efficiency efforts, the company is doing its part to reduce the environmental impact of these plants. PG&E's new Gateway Generating Station incorporates the latest fuel-efficient and environmentally sensitive technologies. Situated along a river in Antioch, Calif., the 530 megawatt natural gas plant features "dry cooling" technology and combined cycle technology.
The results? Gateway requires 97 percent less water and produces 96 percent less discharge than a plant with a conventional water cooling system, all of which helps to protect the Delta Smelt. Compared to older plants, Gateway also yields 35 percent less carbon dioxide for every megawatt hour of power produced.
Feb 20 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- A leading climate scientist, Stanford University's Christopher Field, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that global warming is likely to proceed much faster than predicted due to feedback effects. One of the many factors he cited is melting of the artic permafrost, which could release vast amounts of methane, a much more potentent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Feb 20 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:
- McDonald's of Sweden may install hybrid-electric car charging posts at its highway restaurants beginning with a 230-volt, 16-amp pilot post in Stockholm. Sweden's Elforsk, a research and development company for utilities, is working on how long it would take to recharge a car after a stop for burgers. The company developing the charging posts says 30 to 45 minutes for a battery boost. Sweden has only a few hundred all-electric cars but an estimated 600,000 could be on Sweden's roads by 2020.
- More electric car news, closer to home: The City of San Francisco has set up three recharging stations for plug-in electric vehicles in the plaza in front of City Hall. The city's municipal fleet and plug-in hybrids from City CarShare and Zipcar will charge up in a two-year demonstration project by Coulomb Technologies. San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums and San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed have outlined a plan to make the Bay Area the "EV Capital of the US."
- And still more car news: Volkswagen AG and Toshiba Corp. will jointly develop an electric version of its Up! subcompact concept car. "The objective is a cooperation for the development of electric drive units and the accompanying power electronics for Volkswagen's planned new small (car) family," the automaker said. The two companies also plan to develop advanced battery systems with a "high specific energy density."
Feb 18 2009
Last fall, the solar and other renewable energy industries won a major victory when Congress gave them handsome investment tax credits. But once the applause died down, investors realized the credits were good only if developers (or their financial partners) earned a taxable profit. In today's economy, that's become a rarity. The industry sank back into doom and gloom.
So the economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday comes as welcome relief to those beleaguered industries: now they can receive cash grants from the Department of Energy in place of traditional tax credits.
The Solar Energy Industries Association estimated that the bill's tax provisions will stimulate 60,000 jobs in the solar industry just in 2009 and 110,000 jobs over the next two years.
Blake Jones, CEO of Namaste Solar Electric in Boulder, Colo., who introduced President Obama at the stimulus bill's signing ceremony, said that as a result of the new law "we have plans to increase the workforce by 20 percent this year and 40 percent through 2010."
Closer to home, the CEO of SolarCity in Foster City, told a reporter, "We should be adding 16 or so crews over the next few months. This is a great step toward resolving our challenges."
Solar installers are betting on homeowners doing the math and figuring today's deals are too good to refuse. David Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle surveyed a number of installers and estimated that the base price of a typical 3-kilowatt home system is just over $24,000. But with state rebates administered by PG&E, and the federal tax credit, the net cost to typical homeowners comes down to less than $13,800. Think of the money you'll save--and the jobs you'll create--by making the investment.
Feb 18 2009
Who says "green" industries are always clean?
First came news that crooks were stealing solar panels from rooftops and selling them on eBay. Then thieves started stealing leftover kitchen grease to convert it into biodiesel.
Next we heard that Paris' successful bicycle-sharing program has been hit by no fewer than 15,000 thefts as well as vandalism.
Now comes disturbing news that clean, green wind farms in Sicily are being taken over by mobsters and corrupt businessmen. Police wiretaps uncovered evidence that a mafia-backed company won a major wind farm contract after giving local politicians luxury cars and thousands of euros in bribes.
"All activities were controlled by these businessmen tied to Cosa Nostra," said one police official. "Not only the construction of the plant, but also all the subcontracts for building materials: concrete, carpentry, electric systems and metal."
Feb 17 2009
As PG&E employees walk down Beale Street in San Francisco and past PG&E's General Office complex on a chilly winter evening, they may notice some changes in the streetlights above. Maybe the color or the shape--something just a little different from the lights on other streets. Then again, they may not notice, which is a testament to the effectiveness of the newly installed LED street lights.
The LED additions were made possible through a collaboration of PG&E and the city of San Francisco to pilot this promising new technology in San Francisco. A recently completed assessment in Oakland shows that LED street lights can reduce energy use by approximately 50 percent against traditional street lights while maintaining the high quality of light resident enjoy.
Mary Matteson-Bryan, portfolio manager in PG&E's Customer Energy Efficiency Emerging Technologies group, is excited about the prospect of saving energy. "The outlook for LED street lighting is very promising, with our evaluations showing significant efficiency improvements in the past year. At the same time prices are falling. Now is a great time to introduce these technologies to our customers."
LED street lighting offers advantages beyond energy and cost savings. For instance, LED street lights are predicted to last 50,000 to 80,000 hours--much longer than traditional lights--reducing maintenance costs significantly. And because LED light sources are directional in nature, street lights can be developed to help eliminate light trespass and reduce sky glow.
PG&E is also working collaboratively with groups including ENERGY STAR® and the California Lighting Technology Center at U.C. Davis to advocate for quality statewide and national standards for LED street lighting.
The LED street lights installed on Beale Street have also been outfitted with network controls that will allow remote operation from a designated central computer or a cell phone. John Sofranac, who manages street and outdoor lighting programs at PG&E, said, "This pilot program has the potential to show that customers can manage their own energy use and maintenance costs by making it easier to control the lights--remotely, by turning them on and off or even dimming them."
LED street lights with automatic controls have the capability to provide real-time billing and faster, cost-effective maintenance through automatic alerts to field repair teams. Sofranac added, "This collaborative effort will leverage green indoor technology so that it can be utilized outdoors on these very important and valued assets."
PG&E expects to roll out this technology on a wider scale during the second quarter of 2009. The utility plans to develop LED incentives and rebates for customers who purchase and install technologies that meet qualifying standards.
Feb 13 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:
- Google is moving into the "smart grid" business with a free Web tool for consumers to control energy consumption in homes and businesses. The Google PowerMeter will tap into data on high-tech electric meters and other devices to manage energy use. Google, however, will need some help from other companies to build data equipment. "We depend on a whole ecosystem of utilities, device makers and policies that would allow consumers to have detailed access to their home energy use and make smarter energy decisions," said Kirsten Olsen Cahill, a Google program manager.
- The British government proposed a "Heat and Energy Saving" strategy calling for all homes in the UK to have near-zero carbon emissions by 2050. Beginning in 2012, households could apply for loans and cash to retrofit homes to make them more energy efficient and reduce power and gas bills. The government, however, did not provide details on program costs and who would provide the loans. Britain recently passed a law requiring an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 from 1990 levels.
- Paris' successful bicycle-sharing program has been hit by theft and vandalism with more than half of the 15,000 bikes stolen. Advertising company JCDecaux, which runs the share program, says it can't afford to keep it going. The French city Lyon has a bike share program but it hasn't had the same problems. San Francisco, London, Singapore and Montreal are considering bike shares.
Feb 11 2009
Impressive as the Toyota Prius is in achieving fuel economy of over 45 mpg, automakers can do much better--without the high cost of exotic engines or carbon fiber composite bodies.
Tomorrow's Hypercar--exploiting lightweight, aerodynamic designs to radically increase fuel economy--can be built even with gasoline engines and steel bodies. Surprisingly, some of the pioneering breakthroughs that make it possible were made not by venture-funded startups or government labs, but by the steel industry, frightened of losing one of its largest core markets.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Energy established the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles to promote technological breakthroughs including fuel sources (fuel cells or hybrid electric powertrains) and ultralight car bodies using non-traditional materials like carbon fiber composites. These materials are renowned for their great strength and low weight but are much costlier than steel.
Much of the work was shelved when the Bush administration lost interest and the automakers discovered the SUV bonanza.
But in the meantime, the steel industry began running scared. Over the course of about a decade, it invested $44 million in its own parallel R&D program to develop advanced high strength steels capable of radically reducing vehicle weights and increasing mileage.
Working with Porsche Engineering Services, the steel industry's Ultra Light Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) program created designs for compact and mid-sized sedans capable of achieving Five Star crash safety ratings.
The mid-sized sedan was capable of 52 mpg with a gasoline engine and 68 mpg with a diesel engine, enviable performance by almost any measure. Such mileage cut their CO2 emissions and annual fuel costs to half the level of typical vehicles meeting the CAFÉ standard of 27.5 mpg.
Just as important, the manufacturing cost of the designs ran around $10,000 in 2002, about half the selling price of the Prius. Although high-strength steels cost more, manufacturing innovations kept the total cost of body assemblies almost identical to traditional vehicles.
The industry is working today with the German engineering firm EDAG on a Future Steel Vehicle initiative to create even higher strength steels and new body designs optimized for hybrid and all-electric engines, which offer even better mileage and could radically reduce the country's dependence on imported oil.
According to Ron Krupitzer, vice president automotive applications for the American Iron and Steel Institute, next-generation steels now under development will allow automakers to slash the mass of their vehicles by up to 35 percent, allowing improved mileage and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, the makers of carbon fiber reinforced plastic bodies aren't standing still. Tesla Motors, maker of the acclaimed Roadster sportscar, claims significant manufacturing breakthroughs in creating its high-performance body using carbon fiber/epoxy composites. Several Japanese companies, including Toray Industries and Mitsubishi Rayon, reportedly launched a major initiative last year to promote wider use of such materials in the auto industry, aiming to increase fuel economy by 30 percent.
Consumers--and the environment--can only win as makers of composites compete fiercely with the steel and aluminum industries.
We recognize that battlefield for materials will sharpen in next 10 years," says Krupitzer. "There will be a big dividend for materials that can achieve mass reduction, safety and performance and still be affordable."
This is the last of a three-part series on Hypercar concepts and designs.
Feb 10 2009
In the early 1990s, Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute created the concept of Hypercar, "designed to capture the synergies of ultralight construction; low-drag design; hybrid-electric drive; and, efficient accessories to achieve 3- to 5-fold improvement in fuel economy, equal or better performance, safety, amenity and affordability, compared to today's vehicles."
Today, at long last, innovative car makers are beginning to realize that ambitious vision, just in time to address the twin specters of peak oil and global warming.
No vehicle startup better exemplifies the Hypercar vision than Aptera, based in San Diego County. Its radical 2e model, featured on Star Trek, is a three-wheeler that weighs only 1,700 pounds, yet has a wheel-base almost as wide as a Hummer and a highly crash-resistant body made from advanced composite materials.
With so little weight to push around, the all-electric two-seater will achieve the equivalent of more than 200 mpg and have a range of more than 100 miles per charge, the company claims.
Aptera says the commuter vehicle will go into full production this fall, for sale in California at a price somewhere between $25,000 and $45,000. Full U.S. sales will follow in 2010.
There's a reason the Aptera looks like a small airplane without the wings. With its teardrop shape, Aptera's 2e has an aerodynamic drag coefficient of only 0.15, less than half of typical vehicles on the road today and, according to the company, even "less drag than Lance Armstrong on a 10-speed." That means it slips through the air rather than using brute force to push air aside at highway speeds.
The blogosphere is full of chatter about the eye-catching design and specs of the 2e. For every critic who complains the design "struck me as a movie set prop and not a real vehicle," others call it an "aesthetically revolutionary body" that represents "the pinnacle of function over form."
To learn more about the concepts behind Aptera's design, we talked with Aptera's chief marketing officer, auto industry veteran Marques McCammon. Here are his comments, edited for space:
How important were the lessons of Hypercar to Aptera's design?
They were critical. Let's start with aerodynamics and drag. The average vehicle uses half of its energy moving wind out of its way at high speeds. Most vehicles have a profile more akin to a brick than an airfoil. A fundamental thesis behind Aptera's design was that if we could find the perfect body form that would slice through instead of pushing wind, we could use that much less energy to travel the same distance.
Weight is also one of the critical enemies of vehicle performance and fuel efficiency. It goes back to basic physics. The greater the mass, the more effort or energy need to move it from point A to point B. The unfortunate truth is, for many good reasons, the mass of vehicles has continued to increase. There is higher demand on power trains and engines to move that mass the same distance. Our weight is about half that of most vehicles in this space.
So those are two of the most critical issues in getting fuel efficiency. More important than type of engine, they govern the sizing of the engine. The heavier you are and the more drag you have, the bigger the engine you need. That's the reason the engine under a Hummer is as big as it is.
What was the genesis of the car?
It started with [co-founder and Chief Technical Officer] Steve [Fambro] being stuck in a traffic jam, wishing he could be over in the diamond lane, and trying to figure out how to create a vehicle efficient enough to allow him to take advantage of the commuter lane. He bought a Honda Insight and started thinking, "if I could make a perfectly efficient vehicle, how much energy could I save?"
When the idea first struck him, he was working in the biotech industry, designing systems to get the highest level of production efficiency. They were so successful that they gained market leadership and lower cost than anyone else. He's an electrical engineer by training and has been an auto enthusiast for many years.
Steve is a consummate student, so he pulled textbooks and whitepapers from anyone he could find, pertaining to autos, aircraft, and boats. He did lots of research into composites. The work of the Rocky Mountain Institute absolutely factored into his thinking.
What about safety?
Most people assume lighter vehicles are less safe. Under conventional design theory, mass is never a bad thing from a safety standpoint. But the design of Aptera takes more from the aircraft and indy car industries, where people have to make vehicles that are very light and very safe, that can endure impacts at very high speeds or very high altitudes and protect the occupants. A Formula One vehicle is as light as ours and allows occupants to survive at speeds in excess of 200 mph.
We know safety is first and foremost in everyone's mind. Ours vehicles have front and rear impact zones, driver and passenger air bags, three-point seat belts, and proprietary safety technology. On top, we have unique composite body structure that is three to four times as strong as steel for same weight. We give people a sledge hammer and offer them $10 if they can make a dent. We've had weight lifters slamming on it and they barely scuffed it.
Our vehicle has a very low center of gravity and a very wide stance. Our track width is more comparable to a high performance sports car, like a Viper or Corvette, than a Honda Civic. We are capable of lateral acceleration approaching that of a Mustang. I've been in many a high performance vehicle, and our vehicle at high rates of speed is just as stable as some of best sports cars in the world.
What is market for such a radical-looking vehicle?
The two-seat market is definitely smaller than four in the United States, but they can realize sales volumes in the 10,000-30,000 range. That's what we are expecting out of this vehicle. We've hired research teams to test our market assumptions, and we can absolutely sell it in Kansas. We will have three waves of buyers. The first are early adopters: they see it, understand it, and are not afraid to move into new things. Then come fast followers; they want to see it on the road, and get some validation from a friend. The last is the core market; they tend to move a bit later, and wait to see that the technology is established. That's much the way the Prius was introduced into the market. Our vehicle is polarizing at first, but many people are absolutely enthralled with it.
Next: How the steel industry stays in the game.
Feb 09 2009
As automakers around the world announce plans for next-generation vehicles, enthusiasts are salivating over the latest high-tech drive trains (series hybrid, parallel hybrid, all-electric, etc.) and exotic energy storage technologies (lithium batteries, zinc batteries, fuel cells, ultracapacitors, etc).
Yet what matters most to fuel efficiency and environmental sustainability is arguably not what kind of engine pushes the car, but what kind of car the engine has to push.
More specifically, the biggest secret to designing high-mileage, low-carbon vehicles is not breakthrough battery or hybrid-drive technology, but rather lowering vehicle weight and drag without compromising safety or comfort.
Put another way, the world will not be saved from global warming by converting SUVs to hybrid engines, as GM did with the 5,800 pound Cadillac Escalade Hybrid (20/21 mpg). Rather, automakers must learn to design sleeker, ultralight cars that roll 80 miles or more with the amount of energy in a single gallon of gasoline.
With less weight to push, designers can build smaller, cheaper and lighter engines with smaller, less expensive batteries--a virtuous cycle that will benefit both consumers and the environment.
Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) made that point loud and clear in its 2004 treatise, Winning the Oil Endgame:
Contrary to folklore, it's more important to make a car light and low-drag than to make its engine more efficient or change its fuel. Yet this platform-physics emphasis has had less systematic attention than it deserves: weight reductions especially have been incremental, not yet radical.
RMI formed a spin-off, Hypercar, Inc., to test that theory several years ago. It developed plans for a mid-sized SUV, the Revolution, with a body made of ultralight but crash-worthy composite materials. The Revolution got an estimated 66 miles per gallon, saving 72 percent of the fuel used by a comparably sized Audi Allroad 2.7T model.
RMI's analysis showed that fully two-thirds of the fuel savings were attributable to the Revolution's lighter weight. The hybrid engine contributed another 16 percent of the savings. The rest came from lower drag, tire rolling resistance, and other factors.
Hypercar never brought the Revolution to market because customers lost interest in fuel economy when gas prices plunged. But a new RMI spinoff, Bright Automotive, aims to begin mass producing an affordable plug-in hybrid car capable of achieving the magic 100 mpg number. The company won't unveil its prototype until May but explains that its central design goal was to downsize weight and drag:
This revolutionary product is a ground-up vehicle designed with optimized platform physics, including light-weighting, best-in-class aerodynamics, low rolling resistance tires, and sustainable materials. . . .
Lightweighting leads to remarkable operating efficiency. . . . Lower vehicle mass directly reduces cost and mass of the hybrid powertrain and light weight battery system. We combine mass-decompounding with aerodynamics and low rolling resistance for even greater efficiencies.
The lessons of Revolution has also been taken to heart by high-performance sportscar makers like Tesla Motors, whose all-electric Roadster claims a range of over 200 miles, 0-60 mph acceleration in 3.9 seconds, and fuel efficiency equivalent to 120 mpg.
As Tesla's director of body engineering explained in 2007, a key design goal was "to keep our mass down in order to maintain a high power-to-weight ratio and achieve maximum acceleration." To that end, the company spent two years perfecting a cost-effective process for manufacturing strong but ultralight carbon fiber/epoxy composite car bodies previously used mainly in Formula One racing cars.
As more and more car companies catch on to the benefits of low-weight designs, expect to see many new vehicles introduced even with miserly diesel or gasoline engines that exceed the mileage of today's hybrids. Here are a few recent examples:
- The VW 1-liter concept car, using a diesel engine and ultralight body (640 lbs.) made of carbon fiber and magnesium, claims to go 100 miles on only a liter of fuel--equal to 235 mpg! VW's more mainstream Golf Mark IV BlueMotion concept car may become available this year in Europe with a rating of 74 mpg (combined).
- The German company Loremo (for Low Resistance Mobile) has turned a lot of heads with a turbo-diesel sports car weighing only 1,300 pounds--even with integrated roll cage and three air bags--and capable of around 120 mpg. The base model could sell in Europe for as little as 15,000 Euros ($22,500).
- The diminutive Toyota iQ, now selling in Europe in gas or diesel engines for about $15,000, gets a U.S. equivalent of 59 mpg. It claims to seat 3 adults and one child (or 4 hobbits?) "comfortably." Motor Trend reports that it will come to the U.S. market as the "Scion." Read the reviews.
- Ford's new ECOnetic Fiesta, launched in Europe, reportedly gets about 65 mpg, seats five and sells for the equivalent of about US$26,000--but the automaker apparently doesn't think it would be viable in the United States.
- BMW this January launched its least polluting model ever, the 116d, a four-cylinder diesel rated at 54 mpg.
- The Volkswagon Jetta TDI 2009, selected by Green Car Journal as Car of the Year, uses a special clean diesel technology and achieves 41 mpg on the highway and 30 mpg in the city, better than all but four models sold in the United States. It goes 0-60 in 8.2 seconds. Prices will reportedly start around $22,000.
Next: Aptera's hypercar.
Feb 06 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy caught our attention this week:
- It's tough times for makers of wind and solar power equipment. The credit crisis and deep recession are a double whammy forcing manufacturers to lay off workers as prices for turbines and solar panels fall, while industry groups forecast 30 to 50 percent declines in installation of new equipment. Wind and solar companies hope that President Obama's stimulus bill will help but it will take time.
- The National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will supply Xcel Energy with wind forecasts to help the utility maximize power production from Xcel wind farms in Colorado, Minnesota, New Mexico, Texas and Wyoming. "One of the major obstacles that has prevented more widespread use of wind energy is the difficulty in predicting when and how strongly the wind will blow," William Mahoney, program director for the research center, tells Reuters. NCAR will develop the wind forecast system over the next 18 months; forecasts will be provided every three hours.
- More wind news: A company called WePOWER plans to place advertisements on its PacWind turbine blades. Each of the turbine's air foil blades will reflect an image and as the blades spin on a vertical axis the images will appear to move, creating an animated ad. "If the estimated 500,000 billboards that are currently found along U.S. highways were to adopt the Windvertising branded media platform, these billboards, at an average speed of 10 miles per hour, would generate roughly 16.8 billion kWh of electricity. At this level they could power approximately 1.5 million homes and would reduce about 5.3 million tons of CO2 from being emitted into the air per year," WePOWER says, adding it will erect its fist Windvertiser in Times Square in the coming weeks.
Feb 06 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Melting ice in Antarctica could increase sea levels as much as 25 percent more than previously estimated, putting major coastal cities in California and the Eastern seabord at risk, according to a new report in the journal Science. Washington, D.C. in particular may someday become inundated. The culprit: gravitational changes that affect bulges in the ocean, Antarctic bedrock and even the Earth's rotation.
- California's farms and vineyards could shut down by the end of the century from lack of water, warned Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going," either, he added.
- Worried about California's drought? That's nothing. Population growth is outstripping the availability of fresh water supplies around the world, according to a report at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Rising energy production is also putting unsustainable demand on water supplies. Meanwhile, thanks to global warming, glaciers in the Himalayas that supply water to two billion people will be gone by 2100.
- Rising seas are also intruding into the Ganges River, threatening to turn vast farmlands in the Eastern portion of India into wastelands, according to a new study from Jadavpur University.
- California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, vowed that the Senate will take up climate change legislation no later than "by the end of the year."
Feb 05 2009
Plants in the genus Verbena have been used over the millennia to ward off vampires, to staunch Jesus' wounds after his crucifixion (according to early Christian folk legend), and as sacrificial herbs in ancient Rome. Today they are popular ingredients in herbal teas and remedies, including cough suppressants.
Now a team of U.S. Forest Service scientists reports another use for the aromatic oil of Spanish verbena, called verbenone: as a natural deterrent to devastating infestations of mountain pine beetles, a scourge of forests in the western United States and Canada.
Researchers dropped flakes of verbenone from helicopters over forests near Mt. Shasta in California and in Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains and found that beetle attack rates dropped dramatically in treated stands. Apparently beetles react to the smell of verbenone by trying to keep away from each other. (Scientists call verbenone an "antiaggregation pheromone.")
The researchers say the technique "could provide a way to treat infestations on a large scale and limit further spread into millions of acres of trees made vulnerable because of climate change, overcrowding and fires."
Feb 04 2009
National homebuilder KB Home announced yesterday that all homes it builds in the coming year will meet Energy Star specifications. The initiative was originally proposed in KB Home's Sustainability Report, released in July 2008, which includes a host of the company's additional sustainability efforts.
Many homebuilders are beefing up their green offerings in an attempt to woo back cautious homebuyers. But, now there's a green standard for those that want to bloom where they're planted.
The National Association of Home Builders now has a new certification standard for remodeling projects. Part of the National Green Building Standard (NGBS), the new certification standard includes residential remodeling projects for single and multifamily homes and site development projects.
The certification takes into account such factors as energy efficiency, water efficiency and indoor environmental quality. These measures could drastically increase the value of your home, as green homes become the standard by which all other homes are judged.
In fact, McGraw-Hill Construction claims that green building has grown in spite of the market downturn, projecting that green building will continue to grow over the next five years despite negative market conditions to be a $96 billion-$140 billion market.
Hang on to your low-flow showerheads, and try to keep up with the Joneses.
Feb 03 2009
Many experts say the only hope to prevent the Great Pacific Garbage Patch from growing larger - the swirling mass of plastic and other waste is now 30 meters deep and twice the size of Texas - is to stem the flow of trash from land to sea. However, one plucky non-profit is bucking the gyre. Beginning this year, the Environmental Cleanup Coalition (ECC) is rolling out the largest marine cleanup effort ever. By removing plastic debris from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, the ECC hopes to improve the health of the North Pacific Ocean.
The first step to cleaning up the world's largest floating dump? Raise a lot of money. Although the ECC doesn't cite the amount it's looking to raise in 2009, the money will go toward the purchase of a fleet of 20-30 ships between 300 and 600 feet in length. According the ECC,
"...the modified ships will create a cleanup and restoration laboratory called Gyre Island. By 2010 Gyre Island will be fully managed and staffed with mechanical engineers and technicians, ocean scientists and food system engineers and the community to support their cleanup and restoration work. The ships will be specially designed to drift net or otherwise pull trash out of the ocean, to filter ocean water of impurities and to process the salvaged plastic into useable products."
The ECC will surely face its fair share of obstacles fundraising for and creating Gyre Island, especially in this economic climate. But seeing as pieces of plastic in this gyre absorb such pollutants as DDT and accumulate in the tissue of marine organisms all the way up the food chain, it's a noble effort we all stand to benefit from.
Feb 02 2009
The good news about business and the environment is that 86 percent of U.S. companies in a recent survey said they plan to invest as much this year in green products and programs as they did last year, despite the turmoil in world markets.
The bad news is that most indicators show environmental performance in the United States "making a little progress here and there, losing ground in a few places, but mostly just hanging in there," according to Joel Makower, executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which runs GreenBiz.com and four other specialized industry web sites on green business.
Makower today delivered his company's second annual report on the State of Green Business to nearly 500 participants at the aptly named State of Green Business Forum, held at PG&E's auditorium in San Francisco (a LEED Gold-certified historic building). PG&E co-sponsored the forum.
The GreenBiz Index consists of 20 indicators, ranging from carbon intensity (greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP) to paper use and recycling per unit of GDP, to assess business and social progress on environmental goals. Based on the level of performance, each indicator gets a "swim," "tread water," or "sink" rating.
In five areas, business is swimming. Clean-tech investments in 2008 were double the level a year earlier; clean-energy patents continue to grow strongly; energy efficiency shows continued progress; paper use continues a downward trend while recycling is up; and the amount of water used per unit of GDP is falling. (Regarding the latter indicator, Makower noted that the full lifecyle of a hamburger requires 634 gallons of water; a double cheeseburger with bacon, he speculated, might require "a small tsunami.")
On the negative side, greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb, and despite continued efficiency gains, emissions per unit of GDP showed their slowest rate of improvement since 2002. "Emissions in 2007 were 16.7 percent higher than in 1990, the level to which President Obama wants to reduce emissions by 2020," the report notes.
Our society continues to be buried under mountains of electronic waste--at least 1.3 million tons per year of computers, printers, monitors and other items, of which only 18 percent ever gets recycled. Also "sinking" is the long-awaited promise of employee telecommuting as a strategy to minimize transportation, which remains just that--a promise, not much of a reality.
Makower noted a decision to downgrade progress on "green jobs" from "swimming" to "treading water," even through one source showed them increaseing from 8.5 million in 2006 to 9.1 million in 2007.
"We don't know what a green job is," he admitted. "We don't know how to measure them, even though everyone is talking about them. We [can agree about] about solar and wind installers, but what about truck drivers who deliver parts to the project? What about the CPA who keeps the books? Are these green jobs?"
One of the most hopeful signs Makower noted was recent news of major companies increasing their commitment to green programs, despite economic hard times. Within just the last three months, Dell announced plans to cut the amount of packaging it uses by 20 million pounds, Procter & Gamble said it was on track to sell $20 billion in "green" products, and Cisco announced a suite of energy management tools.
Probably everyone at the forum agreed with Makower's concluding assessment: "The coming year will be a critical one for the future of green busienss and, by extension, for the planet."
