Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• Bad news out of London: A new report released today estimates that 300,000 people a year are already dying from the effects of global warming. Annual economic losses may total more than $125 billion. Both of those figures are expected to more than double by 2030. The report, authored by international climate and development experts, was published by the Global Humanitarian Forum.
• Good news out of China: Senator John Kerry said some of the "most constructive and productive talks" ever held with China over climate change leave him "very optimistic at the possibility of producing a successful outcome in Copenhagen." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the talks with China, "I do see this opportunity for climate change to be . . . a game-changer."
• Lighten up: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made a pitch for whitening the world's roofs and paved surfaces to reflect more sunlight as a strategy for combating global warming. Chu praised his friend Art Rosenfeld, a colleague at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and member of the California Energy Commission, for demonstrating the remarkable potential of this simple tactic. In a recent research note with Hashem Akbari, Rosenfeld calculates that white roofs could offset as much CO2 as taking all cars off the road around the world for 18 years. Check out NEXT100's detailed post on their research from last fall.
• Do the math: If you like the idea of cap-and-trade markets for carbon emissions but worry that the new Waxman-Markey bill is a giveaway to utilities, check out this detailed analysis by two eminent energy experts, Peter Fox-Penner and Marc Chupka, on Climate Progress. As they note, the bill basically ensures that free allowances will ease the transition for customers without creating windfall profits for shareholders. In another analysis of the bill, Harvard economist Robert Stavins explains why giving away emissions allowances rather than selling them at auction "affects neither the environmental performance of the cap-and-trade system nor its aggregate social cost."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• Wind farm opponents in Europe are calling for a moratorium on wind power projects to examine their impacts on the environment. The European Platform Against Windfarms told the European Union that it's "unacceptable that European institutions should promote the despoiling of the European landscape...with thousands of wind farms stretching from Lapland to Gibraltar." Wind industry supporters say the group doesn't recognize the dangers of climate change and slow growth of renewable alternative energies to fossil fuels.
• Amsterdam is setting up Europe's largest battery-charging network for electric vehicles, a free two-year demonstration project. The Dutch city joins pilot charging projects previously announced by San Francisco and Chicago. Drivers will subscribe to the service through a website and get a "smart card" to charge up at any of 45 stations. The charging technology comes from Silicon Valley company Coulomb Technologies.
• Ford Motor Co. is converting plastic soda bottles into a faux suede fabric for vehicle interiors and is also working on soy-based rubber fillers and plastics that are biodegradable in 90 to 120 days, compared with 1,000 years for oil-based plastic. Ford is also applying nanotechnology to strengthen metal and plastic composites while reducing vehicle weight, improving fuel efficiency.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

I doubt Michael Phelps got bored of ascending the medals podium eight times in the Beijing Olympics. For the same reason, I doubt anyone at PG&E ever gets tired of being recognized for its industry-leading efforts to foster the deployment of solar power--even by customers who then reduce their power purchases.

The Solar Electric Power Association today cited PG&E, along with several other utilities, for outstanding contributions to solar power in the face of serious economic challenges. The association has honored PG&E at least six times previously for solar business achievement, public awareness, industry leadership and portfolio leadership.

SEPA is a non-profit association of more than 500 utilities, manufacturers, installers and other solar industry participants, whose mission is "to facilitate solutions for the use and integration of solar electric power by utilities, electric service providers, and their customers." 

In its new report on "2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings," SEPA called PG&E "the most solar integrated utility for the year 2008" based on its interconnection of 85 megawatts of new customer solar capacity--44 percent of the total recorded in its survey of participating utilities. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric ranked second and third, representing a sweep for California utilities.

As I noted last month in NEXT100, PG&E now has about 300 MW of solar capacity installed in its service area. In February, PG&E asked the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to install 500 MW of mid-sized photovoltaic projects (half utility-owned, half developer-owned). In March, PG&E signed a record deal with BrightSource Energy for 1,310 MW of solar thermal power, enough to power more than half a million homes. In April, PG&E signed a first-of-a-kind space solar deal with Solaren. And PG&E continues to be a leader in its solar partnerships with California schools and Habitat for Humanity.

In releasing SEPA's report, Executive Director Julia Hamm had some kind things to say about PG&E:

In 2008, PG&E continued to strengthen its position as the most solar-integrated electric utility in the U.S. It is impressive to see a utility take a truly diversified approach to increasing the amount of solar electricity in its portfolio. PG&E is aggressively promoting and pursuing everything from providing incentives for small customer-owned rooftop systems to owning distributed and centralized systems to purchasing the power from third party owned and operated systems. It is also invigorating to see PG&E explore all available solar technology options, which will result in a solid internal understanding of the levelized cost of energy, performance and reliability, and other critical factors related to each technology - information that becomes more and more important as the utility increases the percentage of its power supply that comes from solar electricity.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

For energy consumers who want to go green and save money at the same time, there's no better way than investing in energy efficiency. But when you've squeezed out every kilowatt of savings, what then? The logical next step is to reduce your remaining carbon footprint by enrolling in PG&E's ClimateSmart™ program, which lets its customers support environmental projects that balance out the greenhouse gas emissions from their home or business energy consumption.

Fresh Choice, a restaurant chain based in the East Bay city of Newark, believes that promoting good health through fresh, wholesome food goes hand-in-hand with protecting the health of the planet. It recently enrolled in the ClimateSmart program to augment the environmental benefit of its many energy-saving investments.

With 28 restaurants and a central kitchen in Northern California, Fresh Choice lights, heats and cools nearly 140,000 square feet of restaurant space for up to 12 hours a day. Regional Director Elena Fortuna said, "Our continuous energy improvement plan includes implementing the most energy efficient lighting, heating, cooling and cooking equipment in our restaurants and evaluating our production systems to maximize our energy efficiency."

Having already taken advantage of many of PG&E's energy efficiency solutions, Fresh Choice was looking to do even more to minimize its impact on the environment. With the money it is saving in monthly natural gas and electricity bills, Fresh Choice decided to balance out its remaining monthly energy usage through PG&E's ClimateSmart program.

By enrolling in the ClimateSmart program, Fresh Choice now makes voluntary, charitable contributions that fund greenhouse gas capture and reduction projects, such as forest preservation programs, that make its Northern California restaurants' energy usage carbon neutral.

By joining the program, Fresh Choice will offset more than 8.8 million pounds of greenhouse gases every year, equivalent to taking 731 cars off the road each year. The company will donate approximately $43,000 annually to balance out the carbon emissions produced by its restaurants' energy use.

Fresh Choice CEO Sandy Boyd calls the program a simple, local solution to a global problem: "The ClimateSmart program is an easy solution to an ongoing problem. Our contributions not only balance out our restaurants' greenhouse gas emissions, but also help preserve the environment for future generations."

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

The Ohio State Highway Patrol has installed five-watt solar panels on its fleet of 1,150 cruisers in effort to reduce fuel consumption and extend the vehicles' battery life. The new solar arrays will allow officers to turn vehicles off during stationary patrols and continue to operate their radios without draining the vehicle battery. To help mount the panels, the agency created custom brackets from recycled, mis-printed license plates.

 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Backed by the California Air Resources Board and several industry associations, the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour begins today in San Diego, taking several hydrogen-powered vehicles to 28 cities along the West Coast over nine days.

The goal: to prevent the current wave of enthusiasm for battery electric vehicles from drowning interest in cars powered by fuel cells, which create electricity from hydrogen or hydrogen-rich compounds like methanol.

Hydrogen-power advocates were put on the defensive earlier this month when the Department of Energy cut funding for research programs using vehicle fuel-cell technology.

In response, Jeff Serfass, president of the National Hydrogen Association, pointed to the Hydrogen Road Tour as evidence that "hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not a science experiment. These are real vehicles with real marketability and real benefits. So far, these facts have escaped the notice of the Secretary of Energy's attention, given the request to eliminate the federal hydrogen vehicle program."  

Joining the tour will be cars from Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen, as well as some transit buses.

One catch is that the vehicles will all need to be refueled by special mobile suppliers, since only a relative handful of hydrogen refueling stations exist around the country.

In an interview with Technology Review, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the lack of refueling infrastructure is only one of several reasons why he is so skeptical about the promise of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, despite the Bush administration's $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative:

[R]ight now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming [natural] gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen. You're giving away some of the energy content of natural gas, which is a very valuable fuel. So that's one problem. The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. . . . We haven't figured out how to store it with high density. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. So you have four things that have to happen all at once. And so it always looked like it was going to be [a technology for] the distant future. In order to get significant deployment, you need four significant technological breakthroughs. That makes it unlikely.

Another critic, former Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, said:

Electric cars - and plug-in hybrid cars - have an enormous advantage over hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in utilising low-carbon electricity. That is because of the inherent inefficiency of the entire hydrogen fuelling process, from generating the hydrogen with that electricity to transporting this diffuse gas long distances, getting the hydrogen in the car, and then running it through a fuel cell - all for the purpose of converting the hydrogen back into electricity to drive the same exact electric motor you'll find in an electric car.

Fuel cells have great promise in other applications, such as emergency backup power and in residential and commercial markets, where the heat they produce can be used along with their electric output. One key difference is that fuel cells can be competitive in stationary applications at a price 10 to 20 times higher than in vehicles.

Don't expect to find fuel-cell vehicles in auto showrooms anytime soon, even if you could find a way to refuel them. Last fall, General Motors unveiled its Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, but admitted it cost $1.5 million to produce and would take at least a decade to become commercially available.

Honda's FCX Clarity gets 280 miles on a tank and the equivalent of 74 miles to the gallon. But Honda's president said it costs several hundred thousand dollars to produce, and promised only that the cost would drop below $100,000 sometime in the next decade.

Questions about the commercial prospects of fuel-cell vehicles haven't dampened the enthusiasm of California officials. According to one recent report, vehicle license fees will pump $40 million into state support for hydrogen technology:

Shell Oil, for example, will receive nearly $2 million in state funds to help build a hydrogen pump at a gas station near a swank Newport Beach country club and high end shopping mall. The pump will service a few dozen cars. State officials and hydrogen backers say it is a small but key step forward in solving the nation's energy and environmental woes. An additional $5 million in tax dollars will help build hydrogen fueling pumps near UCLA's campus, San Francisco Airport, and at the foot of wealthy southern California coastal communities.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• The House Energy and Commerce Committee last night approved a landmark energy bill that would set the first national limit on greenhouse gas emissions. It targets a 17 reduction in emissions by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050. "I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that this is a turning point in the history of the United States and [its] energy sources," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), one of the bill's chief sponsors. 
• Over in the Senate, Republican staffers for the Committee on Environment and Public Works proposed accusing Democrats of supporting various businesses in "corporate America" who are are "guilty of manipulating national climate policy to increase profits on the backs of consumers." Said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the committee, "I find it extremely amusing that suddenly the Democrats are being attacked as being too friendly to business creation." 
• In addition to congrssional Republicans, a major source of opposition to climate change legislation is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A new study of the Chamber's board of directors shows surprisingly that 19 of the businesses represented there favor such legislation and only four oppose it. Three of the four are coal-mining companies. "The staff seem to be freelancing on the agenda of just a few of their members," said the study's author, Peter Altman of the the Natural Resources Defense Council.
• A recent national public opinion poll shows majority support among American adults for regulation of greenhouse gases, but only a slight majority in favor of a cap-and-trade policy. Nine out of ten of those polled favor more federal research on renewable energy, but two-thirds oppose higher gasoline taxes.
• An ambitious vehicle fuel economy plan announced by President Obama would raise average fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, saving an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil. "Few actions could have a more profound impact in the fight against global warming," said Bill Becker, leader of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. However, some experts predicted that the new standards would have a limited impact without higher gasoline taxes.
• Meanwhile, "The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that," according to the news office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the giant computer simulation was conducted. The new median estimate of warming by 2100--5 degrees Celsius--would cause havoc to ecosystems and food supplies, massive coastal flooding, and many other severe consequences.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• The recent commencement ceremony at Arizona State University celebrated the first class of graduates from ASU's School of Sustainability as well as the featured address by President Obama. Thirteen students received degrees from the new school, which was founded in 2006. It currently has 55 graduate students and more than 300 undergrads.The school is the first in the U.S. to offer degrees in a multidisciplinary field blending environmental, economic and social advancement.
• Google has joined partnerships with eight electric utilities in the U.S. and abroad to use Google's "Power Meter" software to link up with smart meter devices to track energy information in the home. The utilities include six in the U.S., one in Canada and one in India. The lone California utility in the program is San Diego Gas & Electric.  The utility expects its smart meter customers should be able to track their energy on Google's Web site by the end of the year.
• France plans to quadruple its solar power capacity in the next two years, targeting 300 megawatts by 2011 at an investment of $2.04 billion. France currently generates nearly 88 percent of its electricity from nuclear power. Meanwhile, neighboring Italy expects to slow down solar expansion this year after adding about 450 MW of photovoltaic plants since 2007. Growth has been stalled by delays in bank financing.
• Luxury automaker Daimler AG has invested $50 million to acquire a 9 percent stake in electric car-startup Tesla Motors. That values Tesla at $550 million, or about half the value of troubled General Motors Corp. based on GM's closing stock price on Thursday. "It's sort of amusing to see the valuation being half of General Motors," says Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

While scientists and engineers spend billions of dollars seeking "clean tech" solutions to our environmental woes, experience shows that it's sometimes hard to improve on Mother Nature's own remedies. Example: shade trees that cut air conditioning bills in summer while letting the sun in to heat homes naturally during the winter.

The simple act of planting of a shade tree on the western or southern side of a house in one of the warmer areas of California can reduce its summertime electric bill about 5 percent, or $25 a year, according to a new study by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

The findings--based on the first large-scale study to use utility billing data (from Sacramento)--won't win anyone a Nobel Prize, the authors admit. But co-author Geoffrey Donovan of the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, says "this study gets at the details: Where should a tree be placed to get the most benefits? And how exactly do shade trees impact our carbon footprint?"

A London plane tree, planted on the west side of a house, can reduce carbon emissions from summertime electricity use by an average of 31 percent over 100 years, the authors found. But trees planted on the east side had no effect and those on the north increased summertime electricity use.

PG&E has long studied tree planting as an energy efficiency measure. Back in 1991, PG&E launched a shade tree program in Fresno, offering a $10 rebate to each customer who planted approved trees to shade residential buildings.

A detailed computer model of the program concluded two years later that each mature yard tree would save a projected 346 kilowatt-hours per year (mainly from reduced air conditioning) and absorb significant emissions of polluting gases and particulates. Each tree was also estimated to lock up 103 pounds of carbon in tree biomass and reduce CO2 emissions from power plants by 153 pounds a year.

Unfortunately, under existing regulations, the utility could not cite all of these social benefits to justify the cost of the program and it was dropped.

Last year, PG&E revisted the idea by launching a pilot "Shade and Save" program in San Jose, with an emphasis on covering western exposures. PG&E also created pilot tree planting programs in Stockton and the Woodland-Winters-Davis area. Studies of cost effectiveness are now under way. 

As we noted yesterday, protection of tropical rainforests is high on the list of tactics for slowing the pace of global warming. It's worth remembering that our less exotic urban trees are a powerful antidote as well.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

PG&E today joined a coalition of leading U.S. corporations and environmental organizations to endorse protecting the world's endangered tropical forests by dedicating five percent of future greenhouse gas reduction permits to effective and verifiable conservation programs.

The group's "Consensus Principles on International Forests for U.S. Climate Legislation" are aimed at influencing congressional deliberations on a massive new energy bill that likely will include "cap-and-trade" provisions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.

Besides PG&E Corporation, the coalition includes American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Marriott International, The Walt Disney Company, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and several other organizations.

They were convened by Avoided Deforestation Partners, a project of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. that promotes "effective, transparent, and equitable market and non-market incentives to reduce tropical deforestation."

"Destruction of the world's forests produces about 20 percent of the climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere each year - more than from all the planes, trains and automobiles on Earth," said Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, one of the signatories. "Additionally, millions of people around the world depend on forests for clean water, food, shelter and their livelihoods. These principles create a real chance to conserve tropical forests for people and nature." 

Utilities are among the chief targets of proposed cap-and-trade legislation. Although PG&E is one of the nation's cleanest utilities, with greenhouse gas emissions that run only a third of the national average per megawatt-hour, its customers too would be affected by increases in the price of fossil fuels, which account for about half of its generation. Under the coalition's proposals, utilities and other entities would receive credits under a cap-and-trade system for any investments they make in "environmentally sound, measurable, reportable and verifiable" projects to protect tropical forests.

According to one expert, the five percent set-aside for tropical forest conservation programs would equal about $3.4 billion annually and would eliminate some 340 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly equal to the emissions of France or Spain. 

The signers also support explicit legislative provisions protecting the "rights and interests of indigenous peoples, other forest dependent communities and the rural poor" lest they be trampled in the name of protecting the environment.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Imagine how frustrating life would be if every electric utility operated with a different voltage or frequency, so they couldn't share power when needed and you had to buy a separate converter for every city you visited.

That's the sort of scenario that electric utilities, technology vendors and government agencies are trying to head off as this country prepares for a tidal wave of new investment in a smarter, high-tech electrical grid.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act charged the National Institute of Standards with overseeing work on Smart Grid standards.Today and tomorrow, NIST is holding its second major workshop to put this exceedingly complex and ambitious assignment on a super fast track. NIST's goal--with $10 million in new stimulus funding--is to publish an interim Smart Grid standards roadmap by this September. On Monday, the Departments of Commerce and Energy released the first 16 proposed standards.

Open standards allow devices, networks and other technologies to interoperate, or talk the same language, so buyers and sellers can take advantage of scale economies. In addition, technology standards help assure buyers that they won't be saddled with proprietary solutions that becomes obsolete if new competitors eclipse their vendors.

Every electricity consumer should be glad there are technology experts willing to put up with the tedious and time-consuming discussions necessary to create these standards.

Those experts have to be willing to participate in groups like the "IEEE 802.15 Smart Utility Networks (SUN) Task Group 4g" knowing that their stimulating job will be to "create a PHY amendment to 802.15.4" to facilitate "large scale process control applications . . . capable of supporting large, geographically diverse networks with minimal infrastructure," among other things.

They also need to keep track of the work of ASHRAE, IEC, IETF, EPRI, NEMA, ANSI, IOS, ITU, SAE and an alphabet soup of other organizations.

PG&E's Chris Knudsen, director of the utility's Technology Innovation Center and a veteran of various wireless communications standards efforts, is one of those dedicated (I won't say masochistic) souls. He and his team are involved in standards work relating to smart meter infrastructure, home area networks and automated demand response, among other priorities. He chairs the Open Smart Grid subcommittee that oversees technical work in the Utility Communications Architecture (UCA) international users group.

Open SG includes 10 utilities representing about 27 percent of U.S. meters. "It's a technically deep and engaged group," Knudsen says. "We are highly involved in the NIST process."

What NIST brings to the table, Knudsen says, is an ability to "provide focus and minimize fragmentation by putting a common process around this effort. They have us all looking at the same picture in a structured governance process. That's how you accelerate standards."

Knudsen notes that integrating all the necessary standards--which could number in the thousands, depending on how you count them--"is only the first step. You also need an industry compliance program to make sure everyone is implementing standards in the same way. Without a defined set of tests, engineers will do things a little differently and you won't get plug-and-play interoperability."

"Plug-and-play interoperatibility" is engineering-speak for the ability of customers to go down to Best Buy or Radio Shack and buy (for example) a programmable home energy management device that will work with any utility's smart meter and with smart appliances to limit electricity use when prices are high and shift demand instead to off-peak periods.

Such interoperability will also let electric cars plug seamlessly into smart outlets and charge only at off-peak times to avoid overloading the grid.

"All of this technology, stitched together, will fundamentally change the way utilities operate, deploy and utilize technology," Knudsen says. But what excites him most are the implications for energy users.

Open standards, Knudsen says, will help utilities and their vendors deliver "all sorts of new and innovative energy services including efficiency, hybrid electric vehicles, renewable power and distributed resources. Everything we are doing here is to drive energy efficiency and value to the customer."

When you put it that way, Smart Grid standards don't sound boring at all. Still, I'm glad it's Knudsen who attends all those NIST-sponsored standards meetings and not me.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The hottest two buzz words in the utility industry these days are "smart" and "grid." They became even hotter after Congress earmarked $4.5 billion in federal stimulus spending on smart grid. Utilities are scrambling to come up with eligible projects, venture capitalists are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the sector, new conferences are being organized almost weekly and consultants seeking a piece of the action are clogging the Internet with PowerPoint presentations.

But just what is so smart about smart grid? After all, electricity grids--transmission and distribution lines connecting generators to customers--have been around for more than a century, and the creators of what the National Academy of Engineering termed the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century weren't exactly dumb.

The so-called smart grid is really a smarter grid, taking advantage of new technology to enhance efficiency, reliability and environmental sustainability. Here's how many at PG&E describe it:

The Smart Grid will leverage the power of information to transform the operation of our electric network--by integrating sensing, communications, computing and control technology from generation to the customer premise-- in order to give customers cleaner, more reliable and more flexible energy services.

So what does this mean in practice? A few examples might help:

• A fundamental building block of a smarter grid is the "smart meter," which keeps track of energy usage at frequent (say, hourly) intervals and communicates it back to the utility, eliminating the cost and hassle of monthly visits by meter readers. Customers can see their energy usage on the Web, helping them manage it better--for example, they might unplug that freezer in the garage after they realize just how much juice it draws.
• The same meter can be programmed to instruct a new generation of smart appliances in the home, like dishwashers and clothes dryers, to moderate their energy use when electricity prices are highest (on hot summer afternoons). Customers who sign up for voluntary programs like this can save money. For the utility, such control will be essential when millions of customers start charging plug-in electric vehicles.
• To improve service reliability, smart sensors on distribution lines, transformers and other parts of the grid will detect trouble spots, allowing system operators to prevent outages. When an outage does occur, intelligent switches will confine it to as few circuits as possible and identify the location so crews can repair it quickly.
• As utilities add more and more renewable power, they will face the challenge of balancing supply and demand when power availability fluctuates with the winds and available sunlight. A smarter grid will measure varying power output levels in real time and call upon storage devices, including utility-scale batteries, to even them out.
• A smarter grid will also perform that balancing act by adjusting demand automatically. If generation dips for a time, the smart grid can signal participating customers to cut back their usage until power levels are restored. That solution is likely to be much cheaper--and environmentally cleaner--than building new gas-fired "peaker" plants to back up wind farms and solar arrays.

PG&E's Andrew Tang, who heads the utility's "Smart Energy Web" program, recently presented his vision of the future of smart grid at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Click on the short video clip above to see what all the excitement is about.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• A major study of the health effects of climate change, drawing on a wide range of experts at University College London and the distinguished medical journal The Lancet, concludes that humanity faces more disease, food and water insecurity, catastrophic weather events and other risks as the globe warms. "The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation," said lead author Anthony Costello, a professor at UCL.
• In more bad news out of the UK, the head of the polar ocean physics group at Cambridge University says that by 2020 only one patch of arctic ice will remain in the summer. "It's like the Arctic is covered with an egg shell and the egg shell has been thinning to the point where it is now just cracking completely," he said.
• Continuing our dismal Brits theme, the Guardian of London reports that "America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy." In all, the report claims, "The spoiler campaign runs to hundreds of millions of dollars and involves industry front groups, lobbying firms, television, print and radio advertising, and donations to pivotal members of Congress. Its intention is to water down or kill off plans by the Democratic leadership to pass 'cap and trade legislation this year, which would place limits on greenhouse gas emissions."
• A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that just one voter in four can identify "cap-and-trade" as having to do with the environment. More think it has to do with regulating Wall Street, while about one in eight think it relates to health care reform. A plurality of 30 percent admit they don't have a clue. 
• According to the Wall Street Journal, a marketing expert has this advice for the White House: call cap-and-trade a "clean energy dividend" and the American people will respond much more favorably. That is, unless they think it has to do with Wall Street.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• The British government plans to hook up 50 million gas and electric smart meters in England, Scotland and Wales by the end of 2020, which would make it the world's largest smart meter rollout. The $12.3 billion program aims to connect most of the homes and small businesses in Great Britain. Utilities British Gas, Npower and EDF Energy are running trials with meters from BGlobal, PRI and other companies. Here in the U.S., smart meters now account for about 5 percent of all meters, according to a report by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. Florida shows the biggest market growth at 10.4 percent in 2008 versus less than 1 percent in 2006.
• Automaker BMW is launching an electric-car test with a lease program for its Mini E vehicle. BMW will lease battery-powered Mini coupes in the next few weeks to 450 drivers in California, New York and New Jersey for $850 a month plus taxes and insurance. They will use the cars for daily commutes and charge the batteries at home. BMW will use data from the test to produce a new  electric vehicle to sell in the U.S. in 2012. General Motors plans to roll out its plug-in electric Volt in 2010, Ford says it will introduce an electric Focus compact in 2011, Mitsubishi Motors is to sell an electric car in Japan in 2010, and Nissan Motor Co. has an EV expected in 2012.
• Montreal has launched the first large-scale bicycle-sharing system in North America, beginning with 3,000 bicycles and 300 bike stations in the city's downtown core. The city will run the system itself and fund it with fees from riders. Montreal spent about $13 million U.S. to develop and launch the system, which is supposed to become financially self-sufficient.
• General Electric Co. is seeking federal stimulus money to help build a factory in upstate New York to manufacture batteries for a hybrid railroad locomotive and other industrial equipment. The batteries will use a sodium-metal halide technology to store large amounts of energy, and they could also be used in a smaller scale for hybrid and plug-in electric cars.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Yesterday's announcement of the record solar deal between PG&E and BrightSource Energy was a major endorsement of the future of clean, renewable solar power in California. But it's important to remember that word "future." Solar is coming on so fast, we sometimes forget how small it still is.

The latest statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show solar contributing just 0.08 percent of all energy (electric, thermal and other) consumed in the United States in 2007. 

For 2008, EIA estimates the total amount of solar electricity generation capacity at 1,200 megawatts (MW), compared to 25,000 MW for wind and just under 1,000,000 MW from all sources. In other words, solar represents just 0.12% of U.S. generation capacity.

Finally, the contribution of solar to actual power output--taking into account that solar facilities don't create power at night--was only 2 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), compared to 53 billion kWh for wind. Total retail electricity sales in the United States were about 3,800 billion kWh. By my calculation, solar represented only 0.05 percent of the total.

So think of solar as a small acorn that's just sprouted. The Solar Electric Industries Association reports that the United States added 292 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity to the electric grid last year. That represents an 81 percent increase over the capacity added in 2007, an accelerating growth rate relative to previous years.

And there's lots more capacity in the pipeline. PG&E alone has contracts for more than 2,000 MW of solar power, nearly double the entire installed capacity of grid-connected solar in the United States today.

The trade journal PHOTON International reported in March that a staggering total of about 83,000 MW of new solar capacity is in "various stages of product development in North America . . . roughly equal to the current summer peak demand for electricity in California, Arizona and Nevada."

However, one of the unsettling facts the journal also noted was that the land requirements for all that capacity could be "nearly as large as the US state of Rhode Island."

You can bet that the future of the solar power industry will depend as much on its skill and wisdom in negotiating land-use agreements as it will on continuing to improve the price-performance of its technology.

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

Yesterday, scientists and volunteers from the University of California Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG) banded the three baby peregrines that nest on the ledge of the 33rd floor of PG&E's high rise in downtown San Francisco. While peregrine fans were able to enjoy the event via live webcam, it was a special experience to witness the banding of these endangered species in person.

The Eyases - It's a girl, girl and boy!
Upon seeing the falcons up close, SCPBRG's Program Manager Glenn Stewart was able to determine their sex - two females and a male. According to Glenn Stewart, female falcons are always larger than males, so it's easy to determine the sex in person. He estimated their weight to be around two pounds each.

Thanks to the Yahoo! Discussion group dedicated to Dapper Dan, Diamond Lil and their offspring, the young falcons now have names: Hi (pronounced "hee"), Liwa (pronounced "lee-wa") and Kiwel (pronounced "kee-well"). The names are derived from the coastal Miwok words for sun, water and wind, respectively. These young were named in honor of their PG&E birth site, after an advertising campaign PG&E had a couple of years ago that featured a "sun, water and wind" superhero.

The Bands
Glenn Stewart placed a band on each of the young falcon's legs. One band is the normal U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service bird band which contains a phone number to call in the event someone finds a peregrine. The second band is a visual identification band that can be read from a distance with binoculars. There's actually a small window of opportunity to band falcons; it needs to be done once the eyases reach their full size, but before they grow their flight feathers.

Hundreds and hundreds of falcons are wearing these bracelets in California today. The bands do not bother or interfere with the lives or activities of the falcons, and they allow scientists to learn more about the dynamics of population recovery for the endangered peregrines. For example, as a result of SCPBRG's banding and tracking efforts, they can expect Hi, Liwa and Kiwel to travel up to 700 miles when they are old enough to establish their own territory.

The Experience

Understandably alarmed to see humans visiting their young, Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil flew furiously around the building continuously shrieking. They did their best to intimidate the small group of scientists and bird aficionados that had assembled for the twenty minute invasion. For safety, all donned hard hats in the event of an attack. Fortunately, the parents kept their shock and awe campaign in the sky. The little ones also communicated their displeasure by shrieking in harmony with their parents and spreading their wings.

Check out the slideshow below

Check out more of nature photographer Glenn Neville's banding photos at: http://www.raptor-gallery.com/

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

PG&E and solar thermal developer BrightSource Energy today announced a record solar deal--a series of power purchase agreements totaling 1,310 megawatts, with power output equal to the consumption of 530,000 average homes.

To gain more perspective on the significance of the deal and background on BrightSource, we posed a number of questions to the company's CEO, John Woolard, a PG&E veteran. Here are his answers:

What's the significance of today's announcement with PG&E?
From an industry perspective, the agreements between PG&E and BrightSource Energy now represent the largest solar deal in the world. From BrightSource's perspective, the expansion of our PG&E contracts from 900 megawatts to 1,310 megawatts serves as another validation of our technology and team. 

What makes your technology different?
The Luz Power Tower 550 represents an advancement in solar thermal technology design.  Our decision to use a power tower design stems from our engineering team's experience designing and building the nine Solar Electric Generating Stations (SEGS) in California between 1984 and 1990. 

What the team learned from the SEGS experience is that by moving to a power tower design we could greatly improve efficiencies, reach higher steam temperatures, and significantly reduce costs compared to traditional troughs.

We accomplish this by combining the same basic components found in 90 percent of the world's power generation facilities, namely boilers and turbines, with our proprietary solar technology. 

Using optimization software, our proprietary heliostat systems track the sun on two axes, allowing for more efficient collection of the sun's energy. Thousands of mirrors called heliostats then reflect the sunlight directly onto a boiler atop a tower. The direct concentration of sunlight onto the boiler reduces energy loss endemic to the trough design and enables the system to reach the higher operating temperatures found in today's most efficient steam turbines.  

And by using standard boilers, turbines, and flat glass commoditized mirrors, we greatly cut costs and can deliver performance warranties from major suppliers. 

Why solar thermal rather than solar photovoltaic?
We cannot afford to look at solar thermal and solar photovoltaics (PV) as competing resources. We are going to need both resources to achieve our renewable energy and climate change goals. 

Each resource has different power characteristics that make them attractive. For example, solar thermal can be coupled with storage technology or a small natural gas plant and provide dispatchable power beyond traditional solar hours. The ability to use small amounts of natural gas coupled with the application of conventional turbines also allows for reliable integration into today's grid. 

PV is great for rooftop or utility-scale projects close to load centers. PV can also be good for areas with diffuse sunlight. 

Do you have any commercial deployments or are you starting from scratch?
Our first facility is the Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC) in Israel's Negev Desert.  The SEDC is a six megawatt thermal facility that demonstrates our technology and test equipment, materials, and construction and operating methods.

The facility opened in June 2008 and has been consistently producing superheated turbine-quality steam. At the end of last year, we had an independent engineering firm, RW Beck, evaluate and validate the system as commercially viable.

The next phase will be the implementation of the system on a larger scale at our first 100 megawatt plant in Ivanpah, California. Construction on this plant will start in about six months, following approval from the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management. PG&E has contracted to buy the power from this plant.  

What do you say to critics who say your installations will endanger sensitive desert habitats?
We share the concerns of environmental groups. We recognize that ours will be the first solar thermal plants built in California in nearly three decades and we take this responsibility to heart. This company was founded on environmental principles and we are taking key steps to help minimize the impact of our solar plants on the environment. Starting with site selection, we tried to identify areas that have already had human impact, existing transmission, and that have not been classified as having critical habitat.  

The technology design also helps to minimize our environmental footprint. By placing individual mirrors onto metal poles that are driven into the ground, we reduce the need for extensive land grading and use far fewer concrete pads than other technologies.

Will your plants require large amounts of scarce water?
Building power plants in desert ecosystems means that we must be conscious of our water use. Early in our design process, we decided to employ an air cooling system, which reduces water usage in our plants by more than 90 percent.This decision comes with an efficiency reduction to our system, but we know that it's the right thing to do. To put our water usage in perspective, our 400 megawatt Ivanpah site will use roughly 100 acre feet of water annually, or about the same amount of water used by 100 homes. In contrast, a similarly sized wet-cooled plant would use about 30 times more water. 

Do you have financing lined up for these projects?
We've been very fortunate in that we did not have to finance a project over the past few quarters when the financial markets could best be described as dysfunctional. The credit markets now seem to be loosening in time for our project financing in the latter half of this year.  When the time comes for us to finance these projects, we are confident in our ability to successfully develop these projects and secure the necessary project financing. 

What are the greatest obstacles to getting your projects completed on time and on budget?
We're very fortunate to have a great set of contracts, sites and projects in the pipeline. We must now execute on these contracts to bring PG&E's customers clean energy. 

Our key areas of focus will be on permitting, financing, and then constructing and operating these solar power plants. I have the utmost confidence in our experienced and time-tested team to make this happen.  

Our development group, which has collectively built more than 20 gigawatts of power projects, will continue to work with the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management to gain the approval to begin construction on our first site at Ivanpah. Our finance team will also be working with the finance community to structure the project financing. And our engineering team, the only group in the world that has built consecutive large-scale solar plants, will be responsible for working with our contractors to engineer and operate our plants. 

The Holy Grail for solar PV is reaching "grid parity" with traditional fossil-fueled generation. When, if ever, will you reach that?
The idea of grid parity is a convenient framework for understanding the cost of renewable resources, but understanding the true cost of electricity requires a deeper understanding of electricity markets.

Many groups today will provide a cost of electricity per watt, which means that they are not accounting for the cost of installation, the solar output of a given site, or the total cost of a system over its lifetime, including replacement of inputs. We call this the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). When looking at the costs of competing resources, we should always be looking at the LCOE, not just the resource's manufacturing costs. Ignoring these costs is a disservice to our end customers and policymakers that are creating legislation to support clean energy. 

Using the LCOE framework, many resources, like solar thermal energy, are very competitively priced today. However, the broader solar energy industry is more likely to reach grid parity over the longer term once we fully account for the carbon found in conventional generation sources. 

What inspired you to join the founding team at BrightSource?
I started looking at the climate change challenge in the early 90's while studying environmental planning. What struck me was what a profound impact that energy could have on addressing this problem. I spent the past couple of decades as an investor and entrepreneur researching how to bring market-based solutions to transform the energy industry and I realized that we're never going to be able to address climate change unless we can bring renewable energy to scale. After looking at all of the available technologies, it was clear that solar thermal represented the quickest and most cost-effective way to increase our renewables supply. And after meeting Arnold Goldman, our founder and chairman, and the rest of his team, it became obvious that this group possessed the greatest understanding of the technologies and how to build large-scale power plants. I am honored to be a member of this truly remarkable team. 

Where do you expect BrightSource to be 10 years from now?
In ten years, we will have completed construction on the 14 plants that we have currently committed to our customers, including PG&E. We will also continue to advance our technology, driving efficiency up and total cost down. In addition, we will likely expand our activity within the US and internationally.  

What do you think the renewable energy sector in California will look like 10 years from now?
I am hopeful that in ten years we will have far surpassed 20 percent of our energy coming from renewable resources and will be quickly approaching the 33 percent mark. The energy mix will be much more focused on solar, both solar thermal and PV, as well as wind. We may even see some innovative renewable resources, such as wave or tidal, come online.  Effectively bringing these resources to California's citizens will also require a thoughtful build-out of our current transmission system. 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

What could be greener than clean, renewable wind power? Unfortunately, a lot of environmentalists instead see red when considering the deadly impact of wind turbines on birds and bats.

Bird kills have been a fact of life for many years at Altamont Pass; by one government biologist's estimate, more than 400,000 birds are killed each year across the country by wind turbines. On the East Coast, biologists began sounding the alarm several years ago over their discovery of thousands of bat carcasses, battered and bloodied by blows (or rapid pressure changes) from turbine blades. Peak mortality tends to be in autumn, during bat migration and mating season.

Instead of covering up the problem, the wind industry to its great credit is trying to better understand and solve it. Today, researchers sponsored by the wind industry reported a breakthrough in lowering bat mortality by turning off turbines during low-wind periods at night.

At least 70 percent fewer bats were killed at a Pennsylvania test site owned by Iberdrola Renewables, the world's largest wind energy company, simply by curtailing operations when bats are most active. Because wind speeds were low, the company suffered only small losses in generation.

The research, which will continue for another year, is being sponsored by Iberdrola and the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, a coalition of the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Bat Conservation International.

The U.S. Department of Energy is a major supporter of systematic research into minimizing the wildlife impacts of wind turbine siting. On May 6, Secretary Chu announced a dozen new grants in this field totalling nearly $2 million.

Researchers aren't quite sure why bats fly into harm's way. Some believe bats investigate the giant turbines for roosting places; others think they are foraging for insects that are attracted to the light-colored towers at night.

"Many of us don't believe they are randomly flying into the turbines," said Dr. Ed Arnett, lead researcher on the Pennsylvania study, in an interview with NEXT100. "From thermal images you can see bats investigating the turbines. They are curious, very different from birds."

The wind industry is making progress on reducing bird kills as well. At a huge wind farm in Texas, Iberdrola is using advanced radar systems to detect the flight path of migrating birds and automatically shut down the turbines to prevent feathers from flying.

The wind industry's efforts to reduce wildlife kills, it should be noted, are extending its already exemplary environmental record. A study released in March by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority found that wind energy poses fewer wildlife risks in all respects than coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear or hydro power. (The study didn't encompass solar power.)

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Use by permission. Photo by Tobias Natt, ©2005 University of Delaware

Could the wave of the future for renewable energy be offshore wind power? That's the bet being placed by the British government, which has pledged major financial support for the world's biggest offshore wind farm--big enough, in fact, to power a quarter of Greater London's homes.

This gigawatt-sized project, known as London Array, will be undertaken by a consortium of E.ON, Dong Energy and Masdar. Together they will invest €2.2bn to build the first 630MW of capacity in the Thames Estuary. That first phase is only about 150 MW less than the entire amount of wind energy that PG&E has contracted to buy since 2002.

When doubts arose about the financial viability of the project, the British government apparently agreed to put up more than 500 million Pounds, in the form of Renewable Obligation Certificates, to support the investment.

The project was in limbo for months after Shell, one of the key development partners, pulled out. Dong Energy, a Danish utility, eventually bought its stake.

Offshore wind energy is hugely attractive because winds there blow strongly, unimpeded by obstacles, and because turbines can be located near coastal cities, avoiding the need for long transmission lines. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that wind turbines located in water less than 100 feet deep could supply a fifth or more of electricity used by coastal states.

The equally huge downside is the cost of installing turbines in ocean waters and the cost of maintaining them in a harsh, corrosive environment.

The British project may give further impetus to projects under consideration in the United States. "There are many states, especially along the Atlantic seaboard, that are ready to move fast forward with this," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Last month the Interior Department announced new rules for offshore leases and royalty payments that should ease the way for offshore wind farms.

Unfortunately, wind energy off the coast of California only starts to get good at depths of several hundred feet, because the seabed drops off so fast. At such depths, most developers will find it uneconomic to anchor turbines. Floating turbines are a promising but unproven technology--though entrepreneurs are hard at work to commercial it.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Corn should be:

A) Eaten off the cob
B) Ground into grits and served hot with butter
C) Fed to cows to fatten them up
D) Converted to ethanol to run American's cars and trucks
E) All of the above

If you answered E, you probably live in the Midwest or South, not in Berkeley. And you'll probably applaud the Obama administration's decision last week to provide $1.1 billion in loan guarantees and other new financing for conventional biofuel refineries. The administration's official goal is to support annual production and use of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a target originally set by the Bush administration.

A host of critics have raised questions about the sustainability of biofuels production, including the impact on greenhouse gas emissions from planting and tilling new feedstock crops, the affect on food prices of diverting crops to fuel production, fresh water requirements, and many other issues. The economics remain dicey as well for now.

But one of the most intriguing challenges to the future of biofuels comes in a new study published in Science magazine. It finds that burning plants to generate electricity for use by electric vehicles, rather than converting them to ethanol for internal combustion engines, can increase the number of miles driven by 81 percent, even accounting for the steep cost of today's batteries.

And in terms of avoiding emissions of carbon dioxide, the conversion of biomass to electricity for transportation is twice as effective as converting it to ethanol, the authors conclude.

Their findings hold whether the source of biomass is corn or switchgrass, a fast-growing plant touted by advocates of second-generation cellulosic ethanol.

"The internal combustion engine just isn't very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles," said lead author Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced. "Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren't enough to overcome this."

Findings like these aren't stopping U.S. ethanol producers from requesting a waiver of the Clean Air Act to increase in the ethanol content of typical gasoline blends from 10 percent to 15 percent. Many automakers claim more testing is needed to be sure a higher ethanol content won't damage today's vehicles.

Still, ethanol supporters had a strong comeback to the Science article's apparent support for electric over ethanol-fueled cars. Said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association,

A great deal of innovation must happen in vehicle and power transmission technologies to make that a reality. In the meantime, Americans still need liquid transportation fuels. If the goal is to have more of those gallons come from renewable sources rather than imported oil, fuels like ethanol are the only technologies that are having an impact today.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• President Obama and Vice President Biden urged House Democrats to push legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Obama reminded the group of 34 legislators of the pressing need to address global warming and declared that none of them "would want to look back in twenty to thirty years and think we had punted on something of a historic nature," in the words of attendee.
• Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and chair of the Energy and Commerce committee, fought this week to quell a rebellion by nervous moderates who want to table climate change legislation and turn their attention instead to health care. Pledging again to pass a bill out of committee before Memorial Day, Waxman said, "We're getting very, very close." But Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., co-chairman of the House New Democrat Coalition, said, "I think it's the wrong time for cap and trade." 
• Many House Republicans think no time is right for cap and trade, according to a story in Platts. "There is no doubt that the Democrats' misguided bill will kill jobs, raise taxes and lead to more government intrusion," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana at meeting of Republican House members on energy policy. "The reality is the cap-and-tax legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill." Joining him in those sentiments were heads of the National Association of Manufacturers and Industrial Energy Consumers of America.
• Across the Pacific, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who came to office vowing to launch a "green revolution," decided to put off the start of his own country's cap-and-trade program by a year in view of the global economic crisis. Australia has been one of the countries hardest hit by global warming, but it is also heavily dependent on carbon-rich coal.
• A British member of Parliament, who chairs the all-party climate change group, suggested that car advertisements should contain health warnings, like those on cigarettes, to counter misleading environmental claims. A spokewoman for the Society of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Traders in the UK didn't think much of the idea.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• Ford Motor Co. will convert a factory in Wayne, Michigan, that manufactured SUVs and trucks into a small-car plant to build an all-electric compact Focus in 2011, Ford's first electric car. Ford will spend $550 million on the plant, which will also produce a new Focus in 2010. Ford also plans retooling a factory in Mexico to build the subcompact Fiesta and a plant in Kentucky to assemble small cars on the Focus platform.
• Sales of organic products in the U.S. in 2008 jumped up by 17.1 percent from 2007 to $24.6 billion in spite of the harsh economic conditions in the second half of the year, according to a survey by the U.S.-based Organic Trade Association. Sales of organic foods and beverages rose by 15.8 percent to $22.9 billion, and sales of organic non-food goods such as fibers, personal care products and pet food soared by 39.4 percent to $1.6 billion. Organic foods now have about a 3.5 percent share of all food product sales.
• Only two more days to Mother's Day. Here's some gift ideas for an eco-Mom borrowed from The Huffington Post: present Mom organic flowers with VeriFlora certification; make origami flowers for Mom from recycled paper; serve Mom a delicious vegetarian breakfast-in-bed or other meal; and give Mom a membership in a local Community-Supported Agriculture (CSA) group. A CSA is an easy way to purchase local, seasonal food directly from  farmers. You can find a CSA near you by going online to the CSA Web site and typing in your Zip code. And here's to Moms everywhere!

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Hardly a month goes by without some new study telling us just how many millions of jobs or billions of dollars of GDP will be lost or gained by proposed policies on climate change. For every environmentalist who waves a report promising vast numbers of new "green jobs" down the road, some congressional Republican brandishes a new study warning of impending economic doom if anyone tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

Without access to a supercomputer and Ph.D.-level knowledge of general equilibrium models, the average person doesn't stand a chance of evaluating these radically opposed--and usually self-serving--claims.

But a couple of recent columns in the Washington Post give useful insight into the underlying assumptions that drive these rival analyses.

Longtime economic columnist Robert Samuelson made a lot of green advocates see red when he echoed the late Milton Friedman's warning to distrust anyone who offers a free lunch. Samuelson took certain environmentalists to task for holding out the "tantalizing prospect" that "we can conquer global warming at virtually no cost."

Samuelson wasn't buying such rosy claims. "Re-engingeering the world energy system" to achieve an 83 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, he said, could be a "nearly impossible undertaking." Surely it will not be cheap to scrap and replace decades of investment in energy and transportation infrastructure built around fossil fuel technology.

Last September, however, California's Air Resources Board released an economic analysis suggesting that it would be painless to adopt the state's proposed measures to address global warming. The study's provocative conclusion--which garnered great publicity--was that ambitious mandates to roll back greenhouse gas emissions would actually create 100,000 new jobs and boost personal income by billions of dollars. 

Less well publicized were the conclusions of six economists called upon to review the methodology and assumptions behind the study. Academics are usually restrained in their comments, but several reviewers said they found the findings unbelievable.

Robert Stavins, a leading environmental economist at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was moved to declare, "I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the economic analysis is terribly deficient in critical ways and should not be used by the State government or the public for the purpose of assessing the likely costs of CARB's plans." 

That brings us to a rebuttal to Samuelson in today's Washington Post by Kristen Sheeran, executive director of the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network, and Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a national group working with companies to address sustainability challenges.

Instead of defending the claim that climate policies are a free lunch, they make the crucial but often forgotten point that the cost of doing nothing is likely much greater than the cost of acting now to curb global warming.

Critics like Samuelson, they note, assume

that all costs involved in mitigating climate change -- and there will be costs -- represent new costs, without acknowledging the massive error in our market system that equates the price of carbon emissions to zero. . . .

The real cost of carbon emissions is far from zero. Each new scientific report brings proof of a changing climate that promises to disrupt agricultural patterns, set off a scramble for dwindling resources, raise sea levels, propel population shifts and require massive emergency spending as we try to react to the growing crises. These are the costs of inaction.

Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, has estimated the costs of runaway global warming to be on a "scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."

Putting a realistic price on carbon--something a cap-and-trade market would accomplish--would not only discourage greenhouse gas emissions, thus reducing those staggering social costs, but "would produce an amazingly quick shift to new technologies and behaviors," Sheeran and Lubber allow. "We change habits when it makes economic sense to do so."

If anyone doubts whether prices matter, just recall the impact of $4 gasoline on SUV sales--and the subsequent loss of interest in hybrids when the price fell back to $2 a gallon.

Bottom line:

• It won't be cheap or easy to solve the world's climate problem.
• To minimize the cost, it's important to curb greenhouse gas emissions as efficiently as possible, such as market-oriented cap-and-trade programs.
• Doing nothing is not an option.
• If anyone waves a study at you claiming otherwise, don't take it on faith.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Princeton economist Alan Blinder last year called it "the best stimulus idea you've never heard of." He was lauding "Cash for Clunkers"--the idea of having the government buy up and scrap older, more polluting vehicles. Such a program, he said, could achieve "a remarkable public policy trifecta--stimulating the economy, improving the environment and reducing income inequality all at the same time." 

The idea is no longer unheralded. Yesterday, President Obama and House Democrats forged a compromise on legislation to make Cash for Clunkers a reality. The new bill will fund a million vouchers of up to $4,500 to encourage people to trade in their older cars and trucks--as long as they get less than 18 mpg--for more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Buyers of a car with a 4 mpg improvement in fuel economy would be eligible for a $3,500 voucher. An upgrade of 10 mpg would increase the incentive to $4,500.

The standards are more relaxed for trucks. For example, it would take only a 2 mpg improvement in one class of light trucks to be eligible for a $4,500 credit. A pickup truck that gets only 15 mpg could qualify for purchase.

There's no doubt this program would provide a temporary shot in the arm to the beleaguered auto industry--even if there are no guarantees that American-made cars will benefit disproportionately. A similar program in Germany boosted February car sales there an impressive 21.5 percent. The U.S. auto industry's biggest friend in Congress, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, put his stamp of approval on the deal: "It's a good agreement. It means sales of autos."

But what does it really mean for the environment? Many environmentalists and economists  are not yet convinced that it's a magic cure-all.

Let's do the math. Best case, if every owner of a huge Toyota Tundra (16 mpg) traded in their truck for a petite Prius (46 mpg), they would save themselves--and the environment--408 gallons of gasoline for every 10,000 miles driven. That's about 4 tons of carbon dioxide per year.

On the other hand, if the program merely induced owners of a Jeep Liberty (18 mpg) to trade out for a Jeep Patriot (22 mpg), the savings would amount to only 100 gallons for every 10,000 miles, or about one ton of carbon dioxide per year.

Saving only 10 tons of CO2 over a decade at a cost of $3,500 ($350/ton) is a really expensive way to reduce greenhouse gases. In contrast, a cap-and-trade market would likely set a price on carbon emissions of well under $100 a ton.

Critics say the program will almost certainly be even less effective than it seems, because it will take a lot of energy to make new cars to replace the ones the government scraps. 

Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, also warns that drivers who replace older vehicles with more fuel efficient models may end up driving more miles each year--the so-called rebound effect. Raising fuel taxes would be a more effective policy, he argues, since it would encourage drivers to buy more efficient cars and drive them less.

Despite these drawbacks, many thoughtful analysts still support the concept of Cash for Clunkers as a step in the right direction. It may not be perfect, but politics is a messy business, especially when trying to reconcile the goals of a cleaner environment and more robust economy.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Walking by PG&E's entrance today, my attention was grabbed by an adorably cute little car on display. Not even the hot Tesla Motors Roadster nearby could compete.

I had spied a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, an all-electric four-seater, which goes on sale in Japan this summer. One of only six in the United States, it joined PG&E's fleet for testing last month. Under an agreement announced last August, PG&E will evaluate the suitability of the zero-emissions vehicle in the California market. PG&E owns and operates a number of clean air vehicles, including hybrids and natural gas vehicles, and is eager to begin checking out the new generation of production-ready electric cars.

 One look tells you the i-MiEV will maneuver expertly through crowded city streets and fit into all sorts of tight parking spots in San Francisco. But according to Jim Larson, senior program manager in PG&E's Clean Air Transportation group, the car does wonders on the highway as well.

"It gets right up to highway speeds, holds it own, and can maneuver in traffic under aggressive driving conditions," Larson said. "It is fully highway capable." Even better, it's eligible for HOV lanes, so you can cruise along at high speed with less hassle.

The car is rated at 0-60 acceleration in 9.0 seconds, with a top speed of 82 miles. Larson says its range exceeds 100 miles and it charges in three-to-five hours on a dedicated 240 volt circuit.

Like other electric cars, it feels even peppier than it's rated. "You get very good acceleration due to the instantaneous torque of electric motors," Larson said. "And you get steady, smooth acceleration because there's no transmission."

Having tested many concept cars and conversions, Larson said he is impressed by how market-ready the i-MiEV is. "This is a very sophisticated, finished product, clearly ready for mass production," he observed.

The auto blog HybridCars.com agrees. "Its clever design, attention to detail, and solid powertrain could make electric driving as routine as picking up the kids," its test driver concluded in January. "Right now, the i-MiEV is the world's most polished four-seat, zero-emissions production car. It may not hold that title for long, but after years of primitive, plastic EVs from under-funded startups and importers, it's nice to see a 'real EV' from a genuine automaker at last." 

Unfortunately, Mitsibushi isn't quite as ready as these enthusiasts. Its top North American representative said last month only that the car would be ready for buyers here "within two years." By then it will face lots of competition. Apparently the big holdup is getting enough lithium-ion battery packs.

The biggest unknown is how much the car will cost, especially given its diminutive size and carrying capacity. As I explored in yesterday's posting on fuel economy, if it's too expensive, even the attraction of low operating costs (electricity is much cheaper than gasoline) won't overcome the initial sticker shock.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

It's only a matter of time before every reader of NEXT100 does his or her bit for the environment and buys a hybrid car, thus helping to drive the world economy out of recession.

But with dozens of new models due to hit the market over the next year, how should you choose?

Paradoxically, given that fuel economy is the prime reason to buy a hybrid, relative MPG ratings should probably be low on your list of priorities.

The reason is that today's better hybrids already get such good mileage that additional fuel savings are rarely worth the extra cost.

For example, compare the Honda Insight 2010, released on the market in March, with the Toyota Prius 2010, due out in late May. The Insight lists for $19,800, the Prius for $22,000 (and up).

For a price difference of $2,200, you get a seemingly big difference in fuel economy--50 MPG for the Toyota, 41 MPG for the Honda (combined city and highway). That's got to be worth it, right?

Actually, if gasoline costs $2.50 a gallon and you drive 10,000 miles a year, the Insight will use only about 40 more gallons and cost only $100 more for fuel. It would take 22 years to make up the difference in price through fuel savings (not counting interest).

You can check for yourself with a handy online GPM Calculator (sometimes called an MPG Illusion Calculator) created by Richard Larrick, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Duke University. It takes miles per gallon and converts them into gallons per mile so you can see how cars really compare in fuel use and costs. (Larrick co-authored a seminal article in Science magazine last year calling attention to the virtue of gallons per mile as a better measure of how much gas you will use while owning a car.)

The fundamental insight is that any given absolute difference in MPG ratings (in this case, 9 MPG) represents a much smaller percentage difference at high MPG levels.

Second, any given percentage change in fuel use matters a lot less when total fuel use is relatively low. If you could travel 10,000 miles on just 100 gallons of gasoline (100 MPG), saving 10 percent wouldn't matter much (10 gallons). On the other hand, if it took you 1,000 gallons to go the same distance (10 MPG), saving 10 percent would be a considerable amount (100 gallons).

If we could improve our mileage rating from 16 MPG to 25 MPG, the same 9 MPG difference we see between the Insight and the Prius, the savings in gasoline over 10,000 miles would be 225 gallons, worth about $562 at $2.50 a gallon. That kind of saving might start to make a difference over time.

Choosing a high-mileage car is only one way to save money on fuel. Another good way is "hypermiling"--driving more frugally by accelerating slowly, coasting instead of braking, keeping windows closed and minimizing wind resistance by avoiding excessive highway speeds.

Late last month, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards and a team of passengers hypermiled a Ford Fusion Hybrid 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas, for an average of 81.5 MPG, double the car's EPA rating. The whole trip cost them only $37 in gas and covered a distance of half the United States.

So the lessons are:

• Buy a fuel-efficient car (probably hybrid, electric or diesel).
• Pay extra for cool features and sex appeal, not modest improvements in mileage.
• Drive your sporty new car slowly and conservatively to save gas.

 

 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Several stores on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

• Unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly and sharply curbed, carbon dioxide may reach the level needed to warm the globe a dangerous 2 degrees Centigrade in only 20 years, according to a new study published in Nature. "We should not forget that a 2C global mean warming would take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around," said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study.
• A New York City-sized chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf broke off in April and shattered into icebergs, according to a German scientist who reviewed recent satellite images. Temperature increases of up to 3 degrees Celsius on the Antarctic Peninsula have caused a massive shrinkage of ice in some areas, experts say.
• Fewer than half of utility executives in the United States and Canada in a new survey said they support the Obama administration's proposals to fight global warming, including a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions (43 percent in favor), investing in clean energy to create green jobs (48 percent) and making the United States a leader on climate change (46 percent). Large majorities favored promoting nuclear energy, building efficiency standards, smart grid technology and clean coal technology.
• A study of the economic impact of capping greenhouse gas emissions, commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other critics of proposed national climate legislation, found that U.S. GDP would be reduced an almost unnoticeable 0.4 percent by 2020.
• Contrary to some critics of U.S. global warming legislation, who claim that China and other developing countries will not do their part to control greenhouse gas emissions, China is now the world's largest investor in clean energy technology, according to the United Nations' climate chief, Yvo de Boer. Almost 40 percent of China's stimulus spending is directed toward renewable energy, pollution control, electric grid upgrades and similar measures. "In some countries, the fact that the Chinese are acting on climate change is hugely underappreciated," de Boer said. 

 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• Want to grow food on your roof? A novel roof on top of a residential building in downtown Los Angeles features a 3,000-square-foot garden growing more than 20 types of plants tended and used by residents and the building's ground-floor Blue Velvet restaurant. A galvanized sheet metal surface atop the roof forms platforms or "grow channels" filled with engineered soil that doesn't weigh the roof down. The garden's spring crop includes thyme, kale, artichokes, tomatoes, chard, Thai basil, four types of mint and Walla Walla onions.

• U.S. hospitals are introducing fresh fruits and vegetables and meats and dairy foods free of hormones and antibiotics to provide patients healthier meals. Some 250 of the nation's 7,500 hospitals have pledged to serve healthy foods in a program promoted by Health Care Without Harm, and interest is growing among more hospitals. Dominican Hospital in Santa Cruz, Calif., has its own vegetable garden; Swedish Covenant Hospital in Chicago is adding entirely organic meals; and Kaiser Permanente in northern California partners with small, local farms to obtain seasonal organic produce.

• Now that we've covered eco-friendly roofs and healthy hospital menus, let's swing the other way. The May edition of PG&E's Healthy Life newsletter asks: What is the worst food you can eat? Answer: A Baskin Robbins Large Chocolate Oreo Shake. "You can suck up through the straw more calories (2,600) than 49 Oreo cookies, more sugar (263 grams) than 20 bowls of Froot Loops cereal, and a staggering 3 days' worth of saturated fat (59 g), according to David Zinczenko and Matt Goulding, authors of the popular book Eat This, Not That!"