Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

A lot of wind news this week: Wind developer Clipper Windpower is mulling building a turbine manufacturing plant adjacent to a proposed 5,000-megawatt wind farm in South Dakota because transporting 2,000 turbines to the site could be an expensive headache. Peter Stricker, a vice president at Clipper, said a "gypsy plant" to make turbine parts could be set up at an  "industrial tent structure" or on a flat-bed. "The industry is paying too much of its overall margin to just getting pieces delivered," Stricker said. 

The controversial Cape Wind project to erect 130 wind power towers five miles offshore the Cape Cod resort area needs one last regulatory approval from the Department of the Interior to become the first U.S. offshore wind farm. Supporters see the 420-megawatt project making Massachusetts a leader in clean energy. Opponents, including Sen. Edward Kennedy who has a home on Cape Cod, say the project would be a risk to navigation and hurt tourism. Wind developers are also eyeing wind farms off Rhode Island, Delaware and New Jersey.

The American Wind Energy Association reports new wind farm additions in the first six months of 2009 installed more than 4,000 megawatts, an increase from more than 2,900 MW added in the same period in 2008. But the industry group cautioned that new orders for turbines and manufacturing activity are slowing down. "The numbers are in, and while they show the industry has been swimming upstream, adding some 4,000 MW over the past six months, the fact is that we should be achieving so much more," says AWEA CEO Denise Bode.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

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

At the request of the National Academy of Sciences, the Obama administration released thousands of intelligence photos of Arctic ice that had been classified by the Bush administration. They show the rapid decline in sea ice off the northern coast of Alaska and the shrinkage of glaciers in Alaska and Washington. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the world's ocean surface temperatures rose to record levels in June.

Droughts aggravated by global warming are drying rivers in Mesopotamia, the "cradle of civilization," shrinking ancient marshes and forcing peasants in Iraq and Syria to abandon their farms. Climate experts say the encroachment of desert may be permanent.

Global warming may explain a 24 percent decline in the number of large trees found in Yosemite National Park over the past half century, according to scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Washington. "Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season," said one researcher. "A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees' ability to resist insects and pathogens."

Curbing carbon emissions will become an ever greater challenge as the number of cars on the world's roads doubles to two billion over the next decade, according to Dan Sperling, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and member of the California Air Resources Board. One driver of this trend is the development of ultra-cheap car models like the $2,000 Tata Nano. Sperling favors higher gasoline prices and government support for electric and hybrid vehicles to minimize the environmental impact of bigger vehicle fleets.

Despite (or because of) their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, Americans care less about government action to address climate change than people from 18 other nations, according to a new global survey conducted by the University of Maryland. Only Iraqis and Palestinians registered anywhere near the same lack of concern. In a separate Pew poll earlier this month, fewer than half of Americans (49%) said they believe the planet is warming because of human activity.

Californians remain more committed to action against climate change than the average American, but their support is slipping as the recession deepens, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Although 66 percent of state residents support AB32, the 2006 law that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, support has slipped 12 points since 2007. The partisan divide is strong: 76% of Democrats say warming is already happening, versus just 36% of Republicans. Almost as many Republicans (34%) say global warming will never happen. However, very strong majorities of state residents favor making automakers improve fuel efficiency and increasing federal funding for renewable energy technology.

San Francisco announced a coup this week: its Hunters Point Shipyard, a polluted Superfund site, will become home to the future United Nations Global Compact Center, a think tank, conference center and incubator for environmental start-ups. The 80,000-square-foot facility will cost $20 million, still to be raised from government, corporate and foundation donors. 

Posted by: Katie Romans

McKinsey & Company this week released a report on energy efficiency opportunities in the United States -- not solutions, which the report authors say will be up to policy makers, businesses and academia.

The report outlines widespread barriers to energy efficiency potential over the last several decades, including:

• substantial upfront investment in exchange for long-term savings
• fragmented potential -- across millions of locations and billions of devices in varied sectors
• inherent challenge of measuring and verifying energy not used

There are also opportunity-specific barriers relating to structural barriers, behavioral barriers and barriers of simple availability.

If we can overcome some of these barriers, how much energy efficiency potential are we talking?

At the press briefing, McKinsey Director Ken Ostrowski said, "The United States is the Saudi Arabia of energy effiicency." You get the idea.

More specifically, the full energy efficiency potential of the United States is greater than Canada's current non-transporation energy consumption, than either Mexico or South Korea's entire energy consumption and equal to "shutting down the world for two weeks." Wow.

Wondering how McKinsey came to such grand conclusions?

The team modeled more than 650 technologies and analyzed more than 20,000 micro-segments of energy consumption. They also benefited from the expertise and participation of PG&E, along with other government, non-government and private entities.

In fact, PG&E is already working hard to meet the challenges presented in McKinsey's report:

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In my last two posts, I explored the potential for a severe geomagnetic solar storm to wreak havoc with electrical grids and modern life throughout much of the world.

If you think reading about such scenarios is depressing, consider this: merely being exposed to a moderate geomagnetic storm can increase your chances of depression and even suicide.

It might not surprise you to learn that homing pigeons lose their way when blasts of highly charged particles from the sun disrupt the earth's natural magnetic field. But humans are apparently also sensitive to magnetic fields, possibly through influences on the pineal gland (which regulates production of melatonin) or even through subtle changes in cell membrane chemistry.

A much-cited paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported "a statistically significant 36.2% increase in male hospital admissions with a diagnosis of depressed phase, manic-depressive illness in the second week following such storms compared with geomagnetically quiet control periods." And studies published in the South African Psychiatry Review and Bioelectromagnetics found significant correlations between geomagnetic storm activity and suicide rates in South Africa and Australia. 

In 2003, economists at Boston College and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta reported "strong empirical support" for the hypothesis that "people affected by geomagnetic storms may be more inclined to sell stocks on stormy days because they incorrectly attribute their bad mood to negative economic prospects rather than bad environmental conditions." High levels of geomagnetic activity appear to depress stock prices, while periods of quiet activity lead to "substantially higher returns around the world," they found.

None of this comes as any surprise to Russians, a people notoriously given to depression. According to a feature in Moscow News, Russians are obsessed with the notion that their mental and bodily ills stem from geomagnetic storms: 

Millions of people keep track of its changes every morning, experts offer suggestions on minimizing its detrimental effects: rest, eat lots of bananas, don't make sudden movements. . . . Just like the weather, geomagnetic activity is often a suitable topic for chit-chat on the shuttle bus, or for a conversation between two babushkas on a park bench. Yet it's an issue of vital importance, with daily prognoses, recommendations, and warnings. Every now and then all the media outlets start screaming about giant explosions on the sun, about dangerous solar particles approaching Earth at fantastic speeds that cause "aching joints, migraines, plane crashes, epidemics, and grasshopper infestations," as Lenta.Ru recently reported in sensationalist fear.

One Russian scientist, Alexander Chizhevsky, claimed that political upheavals in his country tend to take place most often during periods of peak solar activity. As evidence, he cited the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the peak of Soviet political persecutions (1937), the Hungarian revolt (1956), the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979) and mass demonstrations and perestroika (1989).

If the CIA is on the ball, it's already working on a report--based on the timing of the next solar maximum--titled, "Political Turmoil in Russia Predicted for 2013."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

How likely are we to be hit by a geomagnetic storm big enough to take down major power grids across the Northern hemisphere? What kinds of preparations have been made to avoid such an event paralyzing modern industrial civilization?

Some of those questions arose just last week in hearings before the House Homeland Security Committee, whose members took turns blasting the utility industry and public agencies for taking insufficient precautions against natural and man-made threats to the grid.

"Some in government have taken the position that (electromagnetic pulse) attack and  geomagnetic storm disruption are low-probability events," complained William Graham, chairman of the congressionally mandated Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse. "By ignoring large scale, catastrophic . . . vulnerability" the United States needlessly exposes itself to risk, he testified.

Expert opinions about the level of risk vary widely. A grid director at the California Independent System Operator told me that modern forecasting tools and protective equipment to prevent transformer failures mean "the chance of cascading blackouts caused by these solar events is highly unlikely."

On the other hand, an expert at the Edison Electric Institute admitted that "if several dozen large transformers overloaded and blew up, the full recovery time could be months or longer.  I envision an event would be cascading, that is, beginning at a specific point in a northern latitude (say, Quebec) and moving uncontrolled across paths of least resistance."

A spokeswoman for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is tasked with preventing widespread blackouts, said only, "it's certainly an issue that NERC is looking into."

Finally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which monitors space weather, states unequivocally: "A single strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions."

Let's start with some good news: For now, at least, the sun is acting like a sleeping kitten. Last year, the Sun went 266 days without showing a single sunspot, the quietest year since 1913. Though the sun started breaking out in dark spots again this June, most scientists believe the 11-year sunspot cycle will peak in 2013 at the lowest level since 1928.

The not-so-good news is that the sun could awaken from its slumber at any time and turn into a vicious lion. "As with hurricanes, whether a cycle is active or weak refers to the number of storms, but everyone needs to remember it only takes one powerful storm to cause huge problems," said Doug Biesecker, a scientist at the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder. "The strongest solar storm on record occurred in 1859 during another below-average cycle."

As we saw yesterday, that 1859 storm, which electrocuted telegraph operators and lit the sky with pyrotechnics as far south as Panama, was stronger even than the 1921 event that a National Research Council study group said could shut down modern life across much of the Northern Hemisphere for a decade.

If the Sun were to get angry, several solar-observing satellites should detect the outbreak of a big geomagnetic storm and relay the information back to scientists on Earth. They include NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, launched in 2006, which provide information on the speed, trajectory and shape of so-called coronal mass ejections, multi-billion ton blobs of superhot gas that the sun fires our way at a million miles per hour. These satellites can give up to 24 hours warning of severe solar space weather.

Now the bad news: these satellites serve only a temporary scientific mission, not a long-term early warning system.

NASA also has the aging Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite a million miles from Earth, which can measure the magnetic field of space weather and thus its likely impact on Earth.

"The problem is, we will only have 15 minutes of warning," NOAA's Biesecker told NEXT100. "That's not a lot of time to react." And if the ACE satellite were to fail, only one other satellite could be moved into place. "That's why NOAA is working hard to get a replacement up there," he said.

Then there's the problem of what to do with the warning. Several grid operators in North America (particularly in the Northeast and New England) have well-codified procedures for dealing with solar magnetic storms. But when the crunch comes, will they really bring down the grid, risking enormous cost and customer inconvenience, just because of an uncertain solar storm prediction? The Quebec power grid crashed in 1989 despite two-day-advance notice of major storming, Biesecker noted.

With so many doomsday scenarios circulating these days, from global flu epidemics to asteroid impacts, it's hard to focus on yet another. But the threat to our way of life from widespread grid failures would be immense. A relatively small investment in improved satellite monitoring and grid protection equipment would be insurance well worth buying.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

If you want to take your mind off the bad economy and global warming, try thinking instead about the possible collapse of advanced industrial civilization in the northern hemisphere.

Like Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, this disaster scenario involves a storm--but on the sun, not on earth. Katrina cost the country around $100 billion. A really bad geomagnetic storm, the solar equivalent of a hurricane, could wipe out major portions of North America's power grid, costing upward of $2 trillion in the first year alone, and requiring up to a decade for full recovery.

And that's not counting the effects on Europe, China and Russia.

That estimate was published earlier this year by the National Academy of Science in a sober but terrifying report, Severe Space Weather Events - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts.

Most of us know that space weather can disrupt radio communications and, on rare occasions, even put satellites at risk. A solar storm in 1994 knocked a Canadian telecommunications satellite out of service for six months at a cost of more than $50 million; one in 2003 disrupted a Federal Aviation Administration GPS system for 30 hours; and another in 2005 forced the diversion of 26 United Airlines flights to avoid radio blackouts. Satellite disruptions caused by solar storms cost the government about $100 million a year, the Department of Defense estimates.

But the sun's fury occasionally hits much closer to home. On March 13, 1989, as horrified grid operators watched alarms go off, voltage surges extinguished power to all of Quebec province. Six million people lost service for nine hours--some for days.

The cause was a blob of plasma--superhot charged particles--blasted from the sun at a speed of several hundred miles per second. Weighing billions of tons, such eruptions cause havoc with orbiting electrical equipment, the Earth's ionosphere, and, in severe cases like 1989, electrical grids on the ground that act like giant receiving antennas.

Last year, the National Research Council convened a workshop to assess how vulnerable power grids remain to extreme space weather events since the 1989 outage.

The gathered scientists and policymakers noted that the 1989 storm was only one-tenth as strong as a megastorm that raged in May 1921. Both were dwarfed by an even mightier storm that struck in 1859. The latter superstorm produced bright red and green aurora lights over Cuba, wreaked havoc with the Earth's magnetic field and electrocuted telegraph operators.

A study presented by Metatech Corporation estimated that a storm like the one in 1921 could fry several hundred power transformers essential to grid operations and black out power to more than 130 million people in North America. (Northern latitudes--especially Canada, the upper Midwest and the East Coast--would be much more vulnerable than California.)

Here's how a report in New Scientist magazine describes what would happen next:

First to go - immediately for some people - is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.

There is simply no electrically powered transport: no trains, underground or overground. . . . supermarket shelves would empty very quickly - delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.

Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites - but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare.

The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. . . something that can take up to 12 months.

Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. . . . 

With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US.

As the National Research Council committee concluded, "A quantitative and comprehensive assessment of the societal and economic impacts of severe space weather will be a truly daunting task."

Tomorrow: What is being done to prepare?

Posted by: Kory Raftery

It happens all the time in music, fashion and life: What once was old again is new. 

In the case of surfing, some people are dropping into the wave of environmental consciousness on their "retro" wooden boards.

Historians say the earliest surfers were riding wooden logs as far back as the sixth century.  Before wetsuits, rash guards, stickers and surf wax, there was the surfer, the ocean and the board - a trifecta of harmony.  Heavy wooden sleds were a mainstay until the foam revolution of the 1950's and 60's when surfers began to eat the forbidden fruit in the name of performance.  Foam and glass boards were our original eco-sin.  The environment has paid ever since.  

When wooden boards were virtually scrapped from the surf-scene, they were most commonly replaced by lighter, polyurethane foam. That foam is first shaped and then covered with fiberglass cloth and polyester resin. These petrochemicals emit harmful volatile organic compounds (VOCs) into the atmosphere.  Even worse, there is no sufficient recycling program for old or broken foam surfboards.  Sure, you may find some in the dorms of UC Santa Barbara or UC Santa Cruz as makeshift tiki-bars.  A few serve as lawn chairs in front of surf shops  But our landfills act as graveyard for the vast majority of foam boards that have no rides left to give.      

In the last few years, many in the surf industry have decided to repent by looking for more sustainable materials. You can now ask your local shop about biofoam, carbon fiber, and eco-friendly epoxy. Environmentally conscious finishers are turning to oil-based resins for use in the glassing process.  But a few board architects are looking back to surfing's history for the key to building a more sustainable future. 

Maine based, all-wood Grain Surfboards are now being ridden from the east coast of the lower 48 to the north shore of Oahu. The boards still must be glued and glassed but are constructed of nothing but wood.  Foam purists question their responsiveness, but owners of the company say the boards are more than just rideable.

"It's a mistake to think wooden boards can't be performance boards," Brad Anderson told me from his shop in Maine.  "But comparing them to competitive foam boards is like comparing stock car racing to Formula One."    

In California, shapers like Ryan Lovelace and Danny Hess are seen as visionaries, or possibly re-visionaries when it comes to shaping wood surfboards that rival the performance of traditional foam and glass. Both are watermen in the best sense of the word.  Both use recycled surfboard foam in the innards of the board to keep the flex up and the weight down. 

Lovelace and his partner at Timberline Surfboards, Raphael Wolfe, do their shaping and woodworking in and around Santa Barbara. Hess hones his craft in his hometown of San Francisco.  But you can find his boards in shops from Cannon Beach, Oregon to Brooklyn, New York.  While they each have their own opinion on what types of wood to use and the optimum wood-to-foam ratio, their visions align when it comes to the robust strength, stability and lessened environmental impact of wood.

Hess' website states, "Each surfboard has a lifespan far longer than a conventional surfboard because the wood does not fatigue and break down the way foam can."
 
Lovelace agrees.  "If you take care of it, you can surf every day on a wood board for 25 - 30 years and never ding the rails or break it in half," he told me.  "So while they are a bit more expensive (to make and buy), you get a far better return on your investment."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• Yet another hybrid vehicle is in the offing, this time a test car in a Toyota Prius shell equipped with a super capacity battery and a micro-jet turbine engine by ETV Motors, an Israeli company. The turbine engine serves as a charger for the high-density battery to run the car 35-50 miles on a single charge. The turbine can operate on gasoline, diesel and biofuel, says ETV, and the battery is based on lithium manganese nickel oxide. Tests may be held next year.
• Toyota is launching a nationwide promotion -  "Harmony Between Man, Nature and Machine" -  for its new 2010 Prius hybrid and calling attention to a solar power angle for the car. Toyota is putting up 18-foot-high plastic flowers in a plaza in Manhattan with solar cells in the petals and stems to power cell phones, computers and a Wi-Fi network for Internet connections. The new Prius features rooftop solar panels to power the ventilation system. The promo will also move to Chicago, Seattle, San Francisco and Los Angeles.
• The Pacific island state of Tuvalu halfway between Hawaii and Australia aims to generate all of its power from renewable energy sources by 2020. The government has installed Tuvalu's first solar power system and wants to inspire major nations at the global climate change negotiations in Copenhagen later this year. Tuvalu, with a peak elevation of just more than 14 feet, and other island nations are worried about flooding from rising seas. "We look forward to the day when our nation offers an example to all - powered entirely by natural resources such as the sun and the wind," a government official said.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

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

The Colorado River, which supplies water to 27 million customers in the Southwestern United States and Mexico, is in its 10th year of drought. Unless population growth is controlled and water conservation practices are adopted, there's a 50-50 chance that the river's reservoirs may dry up by the middle of the century, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder.

The chemicals introduced to replace ozone-eating gases in air conditioners and refrigerators, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are powerful greenhouse gases, up to 4,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide. "You have this moment when you could nip this problem in the bud and avoid this very large growth of a dangerous chemical," said David Doniger, policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Now, in the next couple of years, is when you have to do this." 

Almost two-thirds of U.S. investors polled for Bloomberg News say global warming is a minor risk or "no real threat," unlike 61 percent in Asia and 56 percent in Europe who acknowledge its significance. "In the U.S., very few see that the opportunity to build new businesses and create new jobs in transforming to green manufacturing could pay off for those engaged in those markets," said pollster J. Ann Selzer of Des Moines, Iowa. "Asian respondents are three times as likely as their U.S. counterparts to forecast opportunities for profit." 

Among those in the United States who worry more about climate change legislation than global warming are farm lobbyists. This week, Agriculture Secretary tom Vilsack, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and White House science adviser John Holdren finally responded to critics. "Our analysis demonstrates that the economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers can outpace -- and perhaps significantly outpace -- the costs," said Vilsack. Quite apart from the benefits of slowing global warming, a cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions would provide net income to the farm sector of up to $2 billion a year, according to an EPA analysis.

On a visit to India where she touted the benefits of energy efficiency, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was met with resistance from Indian officials over the cause of fighting climate change. India's environment and forests minister, Jairam Ramesh, said there was "no case" for the West to push India to reduce carbon dioxide emissions given that it has among the lowest levels of per capita emissions. "We are simply not in a position to take over legally binding emission reduction targets." 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

We all know the saying, "light as a feather." So you can be sure that the two-to-four (depending on who's counting) billion pounds of feathers produced each year by the U.S. poultry industry would make a pretty big pile.

Fortunately, no one has to cram them all into a giant landfill. High in protein and nitrogen, they are ground up along with chicken innards and blood for use in animal feed and fertilizer. They are also used as raw material to make thin sheets of plastic for wrapping candy and sodas.

Now a team of scientists at University of Nevada-Reno has discovered a way to extract fat from chicken feather meal using boiling water, and then convert it into renewable biodiesel fuel. All those mountains of feathers and bloody innards are enough to create 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the United States alone. And after extracting the fat, the remaining feather meal produces better feed and fertilizer.

The same crew of clever scientists published a study last December showing that the world's 16 billion pounds of waste coffee grounds, which contain as much as 20 percent fat by weight, could potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply. Best of all, the fuel would carry the aroma of coffee.

I can just imagine going to the filling station a few years from now and enjoying a freshly made latte out of the same machine that's pumping "Java Jolt" biodiesel into my car. Now that's what I call sustainable.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Last month, NEXT100 profiled the miracle material graphene, a crystalline form of carbon only one atom thick yet that is the strongest material ever discovered. Its many astounding applications include ultrafast transistors, super-high capacity ultracapacitors, solar-cell electrodes and light-emitting diodes.

The cliche "the sky is the limit" applies literally to graphene. A group of Princeton engineers has just won a $3 million grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study the potential of nanoscale graphene additives to help aviation fuel burn faster so jets can fly more easily at supersonic speeds. 

Tiny amounts of graphene help fuel ignite at lower temperatures, a property that could also help diesel engines run more efficiently and reduce their pollution.

Said Ilhan Aksay, a professor of chemical engineering at Princeton and lead investigator, "The idea of being able to put in a very small quantity and have such a dramatic effect is important....Right now we don't know what actual reactions enhance the combustion rates when the particles are added to fuels. If we understand it further, we can make it more effective."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Geoengineering--the planned alteration of planetary-scale systems--is a highly controversial approach to solving an increasingly desperate problem: global warming. Critics have condemned it "somewhere between a dead end and a hoax," while White House science adviser John Holdren said, "It's got to be looked at." The credibility of this outsized concept got a big boost this week from a major policy pronouncement by the American Meteorological Society.

As covered extensively in NEXT100, geoengineering proposals run the gamut from fostering the growth of carbon-absorbing plankton by fertilizing the oceans, to reflecting more sunlight by seeding clouds, to locking up carbon in the form of biochar.

The AMS notes the wide range of possible risks, including adverse local climate changes that might disrupt some countries and peoples even if geoengineering stabilized the global temperature. And some measures that address symptoms--for example, by increasing solar reflection--"would not diminish the direct effects of elevated CO2 concentrations such as ocean acidification or changes to the structure and function of biological systems."

All that said, given that past greenhouse gas emissions are almost certain to cause "dangerous climate changes," the society recommended stepping up research on climate geoengineering, including the environmental ethical, legal and social implications.

While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority, geoengineering "could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change and alleviate some of its negative impacts," the society declared. "The potential to help society cope with climate change and the risks of adverse consequences imply a need for adequate research, appropriate regulation, and transparent deliberation."                                  

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

While solar power gets much of the good buzz these days, geothermal power holds the most promise as a clean and economical alternative to fossil fuels, according to a comparative technology study by two experts at NYU's Stern School of Business.

PG&E opened the first commercial geothermal plant in 1960, and today that technology supplies about five percent of the utility's power, more than any other form of renewable energy. But long as it's been around, the technology has never enjoyed significant funding to exploit its full potential.

From 1974 to 2005, nine major governments collectively spent almost $38 billion on fossil fuel technologies and about $11 billion on solar, compared to a mere $2.6 billion on geothermal energy. Yet more than any other sector of power generation, the geothermal industry "shows exponential growth" in the payoff (kWh per dollar) from R&D spending and shows "no indication of slowing performance improvement," the authors conclude in their new paper in the journal Energy Policy.

Geothermal is already one of the least expensive forms of renewable energy--less than a third the cost of concentrating solar power or utility-scale photovoltaic power, according to figures they supply. The authors estimate that with an R&D investment of only $7.5 billion--peanuts compared to the energy budgets of the nine governments--geothermal would likely become even less expensive than generation from fossil fuels today.

As previously discussed in NEXT100, enhanced geothermal recovery techniques, still in the testing phase, could radically increase the industry's potential. And just last week the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reported the breakthrough discovery of a new fluid--based on "nanostructured metal-organic heat carriers"--that could be heated by underground geothermal reservoirs and used to drive high-efficiency power turbines.

Total funding for the lab's research: just $1.2 million.  At this rate, maybe geothermal won't even need the full $7.5 billion to prove its mettle.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

America's power sector may be shrinking along with the national economy, but the green lining is that it's becoming cleaner and more renewable.

With industrial production in free-fall over the past year, electric generation dropped 5 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, according to a report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

Of all the major fuels to take a hit, coal-fired generation suffered the worse, down almost 14 percent over the 12-month period. By contrast, natural gas-fired plants eased back only 1.5 percent.

Renewable energy emerged as the real winner over the past year, with generation from wind up 35 percent. Nuclear and hydro, which also emit no greenhouse gases, were up 3 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

Coal is still king for now. So far this year, it fueled 46 percent of electric power in the United States, followed by nuclear and natural gas at 21 percent each. Hydropower accounted for 7 percent and renewable energy still only 4 percent.

But the share for renewables has nowhere to go but up. More and more states--including, most recently, Kansas--are instituting renewables incentives and mandates. And coal is coming under pressure not only from the specter of national climate change legislation, but from closer scrutiny by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers of controversial mining practices such as mountain-top removal in Appalachia.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Along with more than 20 other Fairmont locations worldwide, San Francisco's famed Fairmont Hotel has begun recycling its kitchen oil--not to fry more potatoes, but to create renewable biodiesel fuel. This program will cut the hotel's disposal costs, unclog its drains and support the chain's strong environmental commitment, in particular its initiative to reduce its global carbon footprint in collaboration with WWF.

The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa is also collecting used kitchen grease--about 150 gallons each quarter--for processing by Yokayo Bio-Fuels in Ukiah.

At Fairmont's London hotel, The Savoy, the restaurant saves food scraps along with used cooking oils and turns them over to a biomass-to-energy renewable power plant. The hotel expects the energy generated from this collaboration will power about 10 percent of its lighting requirements.

Made from fat or vegetable oil, biodiesel is a safe, biodegradable fuel that can be used in almost any diesel engine. The main byproduct, glycerin, is used for making soap.

This January, Disneyland announced that all five of its railroad trains now run on biodiesel created from recycled cooking oil collected by its many eateries. In San Francisco, plans to produce biodiesel have run afoul of local environmental activists who claim the facility "will cause air pollution, wastewater discharges, hazardous waste and increased truck, rail and boat traffic."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• San Francisco is hosting an international design competition this week for ways to protect flooding of the region's coastal areas from rising seas due to global warming. There are projections of an increase of up to 55 inches above high tide in San Francisco Bay in the next 100 years. The competition, organized by the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, attracted 131 entries from 18 countries; they included giant levees, a carbon fiber curtain under the Golden Gate Bridge to limit tidal flows, restoring marshes to offset flooding, tall buildings on high ground, and much much more. You can see the entries at the Ferry Building through Sunday, July 19, and the winners also are available at risingtidescompetition.com
• London is introducing Volvo hybrid double deck buses capable of going up to 12 miles per hour on city streets without using their diesel engines. Data on fuel economy or emissions reductions aren't available yet but Volvo's hybrid single deck buses in Gothenburg, Sweden, have posted a 30 percent improvement in fuel economy. Chicago and New York also are rolling out hybrid buses, and closer to our San Francisco headquarters the City of Santa Rosa and the Santa Clara Transportation Authority in Silicon Valley are adding hybrid buses with the help of federal Recovery Act funds.
• Hawaii and other Pacific islands are turning to the sun to power hot water heaters. Hawaiian Electric Co. offers rebates to consumers converting from diesel-fueled electric heaters to solar, and the state government requires that all new homes built beginning in 2010 must have solar-powered heaters. Elsewhere, a growing number of businesses on Saipan in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands is moving to solar-powered water heaters and lighting systems and wind turbines to generate electricity.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The United States was the fastest-growing market in the world for wind power in 2008 for the fourth year in a row, according to a new report from the Department of Energy, authored by experts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The U.S. accounted for about 30 percent of the world market last year.

With about $16 billion in new investment, wind power also accounted for an impressive 42 percent of all new generating capacity in the United States last year. The capacity addition of 8,558 megawatts was 60 percent higher than the previous U.S. record set in 2007. California is now the third largest state market for wind power, behind Iowa and Texas.

The upside potential for wind power is staggering, according to a new Harvard University study. In the continental United States, there's enough wind energy to produce more than 16 times the country's electricity demand. Worldwide, wind could supply 40 times current power consumption. That's assuming, of course, people and governments let projects be built.

The soaring U.S. market is supporting a significant expansion of turbine manufacturing in this country. Today about half of all turbine components are made in the United States, up from 30 percent in 2005. The report cites estimates from the American Wind Energy Association that the wind sector added 8,400 new manufacturing jobs in 2008.

Remarkably, the United States is actually ahead of schedule to reach the Department of Energy's ambitious goal of 20 percent wind penetration by 2030.

Although the severe U.S. and global recession will brake the industry's growth this year, exceptionally favorable government policies--including the extension of federal production tax credits to 2012 and a proliferation of state renewable energy mandates--should give the industry a powerful lift in 2010. Further adding to that lift, the Department of Energy yesterday announced grants to promote 28 new wind power projects.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

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

A block of ice as big as Manhattan is poised to break off of a Greenland glacier due to warming air and ocean temperatures, according to a team of scientists who are recording its progress. The weight of this chunk is a staggering 5 billion tonnes. 

Alaska Governor Sarah Palin opined this week in the Washington Post that President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan "is an enormous threat to our economy," one that "would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage." She called instead for responsible development of "the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil," including Alaskan oil. Critics quickly weighed in with detailed rebuttals.  Others were content to quip that "Palin managed to write an entire piece about energy policy without mentioning the words 'global warming,' 'climate change,' 'carbon,' or 'emissions.'" Joseph Romm of Climate Progress noted that "in September, during the campaign, the Washington Post itself gave her its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of 'Four Pinocchios' for continuing to 'to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.'"

A group of military veterans and national security experts, including retired Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), is pressing Congress to enact climate change legislation as a matter of national security, according to Climate Wire. "Climate change can lead to failed states. When you have failed states, they can become havens for terrorists and spread instability in a region," said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information.

The United States and China announced a joint research program to promote fuel-efficient vehicles and buildings this week. Although the financial commitment was a mere $15 million, the partnership marked a step forward in global collaboration to fight climate change. 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

When temperatures head north of 100 degrees, it's time to run through the sprinkler, mix up some iced tea and invite yourself to a neighbor's pool party.

It's also a good time to look for ways to cut back on energy use, to spare the grid and save everyone money.

Three times this week (Monday, Tuesday and today), as sweltering heat drove customers to crank up their air conditioners, PG&E declared "SmartDay" events to promote voluntary cutbacks in electricity use. (The last time the utility called three SmartDay events in such close order was in September 2008.)

These SmartDay events are targeted at utility customers who participate in one of PG&E's several voluntary "demand response" programs that provide incentives for business and residential customers to temporarily curb electricity use. For example, residential SmartRate™ participants can save about 3 cents a kilowatt hour on their power as long as they slash energy use from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on SmartDay events, which are called up to 15 days a year.

PG&E also offers $25 incentive bonuses to customers who enroll in the SmartAC™ program, which adjusts their air conditioners on days when load reduction is critically needed.

Temporary surges in demand, especially for air conditioning, force utilities to build or buy expensive peak power and transmission capacity that lies idle most of the year. In California, some 2,500 MW of capacity comes on line only 50 hours a year. But we pay for this capacity in our rates every month, year in and year out.

Worse yet, notes a recent report by the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission, "peaking units contribute disproportionately not only to greenhouse gas emissions but to local air pollution because they operate during hot summer afternoons when local air quality can be poor."

That's why state energy policy lists "demand response" programs as second in priority only to energy efficiency, and ahead even of renewable energy. Finding ways to curb customer demand is especially important because peak demand is growing even faster than overall energy use in the state.

A staff report released last month by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that all-out deployment of demand response programs could lower peak demand in the United States by 20 percent over the next decade. The benefits would be huge: "This would eliminate the need for roughly 2,000 peaking power plants, lowering electricity bills, improving system reliability, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."

Making this scenario happen will require giving customers price incentives to shift demand to off-peak times of day, which in turn will require providing them with advanced meters. PG&E is a leader in this field, having deployed more advanced meters than any other North American utility, including more than a million SmartMeter™ electric meters. (By 2012, PG&E expects to deploy more than 10 million automated gas and electric meters.)

Economists at The Brattle Group, who are among the leading experts on demand response, say another key factor in motivating consumers is automated energy management technology and in-home displays that show when it's time to cut back on use. An example is PG&E's Energy Orb, which shifts from cold blue to hot red when the utility calls a demand response event by sending out a wireless signal.

The good news is that customers welcome the chance to do good while saving money. We just need to give them the tools.

Posted by: Jennifer Zerwer

Each year, PG&E produces a Corporate Responsibility Report to share with our stakeholders the progress we're making and steps we are taking to make positive contributions to the quality of life in the areas where we live and work - as well as to share where our efforts have fallen short. The company began producing an environmental report in the 1990s and broadened the scope to its first Corporate Responsibility Report for calendar year 2003.

In the report, you'll find informative Q&As with California Academy of Sciences' Executive Director Dr. Gregory Farrington, Ph.D. on the importance of climate change education and managers at IKEA West Sacramento on how they maintain their standing as one of IKEA's least energy-intensive locations by participating in PG&E's energy efficiency and demand response programs.

A few environmental highlights from the 2008 report include:

• Enabling our customers to achieve record energy savings through our energy efficiency programs--bringing total cumulative customer savings to $24 billion and avoided emissions of carbon dioxide to more than 155 million tons since the mid-1970s.
• Signing new contracts for almost 1,800 MW of additional renewable energy supplies. PG&E now holds commitments that will enable us to provide more than 20 percent of our future power deliveries from renewables.
• Working with the U.S. Climate Action Partnership and others to advocate a national, economy-wide cap-and-trade program to address climate change.
• Purchasing 214,000 metric tonnes of forest carbon from coastal redwood forests for customers enrolled in our voluntary ClimateSmartTM program.
• Earning a spot on the Dow Jones Sustainability North America Index and receiving the highest possible rating from Innovest Strategic Value Advisors

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Natural and organic are good--except when they're not. Consider, for example, the latest finding from the EPA that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces constitute one of the major sources of cancer risks in Oregon's air.

Humans have been burning wood to cook and keep warm for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but until recently, they didn't live long enough to worry about getting cancer from the emissions. Now they do. Incomplete combustion of wood produces chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known animal carcinogens and probable human carcinogens. Humans are also exposed to these compounds through the air from cigarette smoke and roofing tar emissions and through food from grilling meat.

Not to ruin anyone's romantic fireside date, but wood smoke also "contains harmful chemical substances such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxin, and inhalable particulate matter (PM)," according to EPA. ". . . One of the biggest human health threats from smoke, indoors or outdoors, comes from PM. Wood smoke PM is composed of wood tars, gases, soot, and ashes."

(If you really want to ruin your day, check out Clean Air Revival's documented list of health effects from burning wood. You'll wonder how our species has lasted as long as it has.)

The good news is that there are alternatives. An EPA-certified wood stove emits less than a third as many particulates as an uncertified wood stove, and a twentieth as much as a fireplace, for the same amount of heat. But if you want to play it safe, a gas furnace is best of all; it produces less than a hundredth as many particulates as even an EPA-certified wood stove.

I've always thought my gas-burning fireplace at home looks a bit tacky. After reading up on EPA's web site, I now appreciate its virtues a little more.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

Sales of electric cars could capture 64 percent of light vehicle sales and make up 24 percent of the U.S. light vehicle fleet by 2030 if consumers could lease the batteries, according to a University of California-Berkeley study released on Monday.

UC economist Thomas Becker, who authored the study, said electric vehicles will increase under pay-per-mile service contracts similar to cell-phone minutes. Electric car companies such as Better Place would own the batteries and operate charging stations where owners could get a boost or swap out batteries. The total cost of ownership of these vehicles is expected to be 10 cents to 13 cents per mile below gasoline-powered cars, depending on the price of oil, according to the study.

Overall, the study found that electric cars with separate battery ownership are not only more affordable than gasoline-powered cars, but that incorporating their financing into a service contract will overcome the range limitations of fixed-battery electric vehicles.

"These vehicles make eliminating the U.S. dependence on foreign oil an achievable goal. Transitioning to electric cars will also create jobs, lower health care costs, and significantly lower greenhouse gas emissions," Becker said.

Better Place is aiming to set up an electric-car infrastructure network in the San Francisco Bay Area, other U.S. cities and overseas. The company is also working with Renault-Nissan to launch electric cars with switchable batteries.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

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

Science and politics are often at odds because scientists and the public have widely divergent views, a new survey suggests. A Pew Research Center survey finds that unlike scientists, who mostly agree that human activity contributes to climate change, only half of the public agrees. (And 11 percent don't believe any warming has even taken place.) Nearly every scientist agrees that humans evolved through natural processes, but nearly a third of Americans believe people existed from the beginning of time. Not surprisingly, 85 percent of scientists polled said they believe public ignorance is a major problem.

New data from NASA earth-orbiting satellites show dramatic thinning of winter Arctic ice from 2004 to 2008, according to results published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. Over just four years, the average thickness dropped 2.2 feet. Thinner winter ice in turn means more open ocean during summer months and more absorption of solar energy, creating feedback effects. New estimates suggest that the amount of carbon frozen in arctic tundras  that could potentially be released as warming continues is double the amount contained in the atmosphere.

The timetable for Senate action on climate change legislation got pushed back this week. California's Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate environment and public works committee, said a draft bill won't be ready until September, and there are no guarantees that legislation will pass by December, when President Obama will attend an international summit in Copenhagen.

International cooperation on climate change will be a challenge. A group of developing nations attending a G-8 meeting in Italy, including China and India, made it clear that they would not take a leadership role in combatting global warming. Unfortunately, some analysts say the U.S. Senate will balk at tough action unless they see evidence that developing countries will act in concert.

Chances of Senate passage are jeopardized by doubts expressed by more than a dozen Senate Democrats who fear the impact of climate change legislation on farmers, coal producers, utilities and manufacturers. On the Republican side, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said at the first Senate hearing, "It is hard to believe that at a time when growing our economy is our No. 1 priority, Congress is considering a bill that would reduce economic growth." 

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• San Francisco, the city that outlawed plastic bags in supermarkets and ordered composting and recycling, now is preparing nutrition guidelines for its 809,000 residents to eat more healthy food.  Mayor Gavin Newsom wants the city to grow fruits and vegetables on unused city-owned land and direct food vendors under city contracts to supply healthy and sustainable food. "We have an eating and drinking problem in the United States of America," Newsom said. "It's impacting our health, and it's impacting our economy."
• Santa Monica is moving toward hiding solar panels on condominiums. A pending city ordinance says "aesthetic aspects" should be considered when designing solar systems and solar panels should be put in a location "least visible from the street" providing energy performance isn't weakened too much or system costs don't increase sharply. The ordinance won't affect single-family homes.
• Bundanoon, a small Australian town 93 miles southwest of Sydney, has voted to ban bottled water to reduce its carbon footprint from bottling and transporting it. Bundanoon shops will replace single-use bottles with reusable bottles that can be filled from fountains and taps. Bundanoon's  voluntary ban on bottled water, believed to be the first in Australia, has prompted the government of New South Wales, the nation's most populous state, to consider ways to cut down on bottled water. The state's premier this week banned government departments and agencies from buying bottled water.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Sometimes I think you have to be rich to live green.

That's how I feel every time I check out the organic produce or the divinely virgin olive oil at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. That's how I felt when I admired a cute one-seat electric commuter car at the Marin County fair last week--only to discover that it cost $120,000. The maker assured me they sell as fast as he can produce them.

So I was happy to learn today that that many of the greenest cars on the market--high-mileage hybrids and clean diesels--actually save you money over time relative to their gasoline-powered cousins.

Intellichoice.com just released an analysis of 51 different 2009 model year clean cars and their five-year (or 70,000 mile) ownership costs, based on factors such as depreciation, maintenance, repair and fuel costs. The bottom line: "34 have a lower overall Cost of Ownership compared to traditional or gasoline-only vehicles" in the same class.

Even if you ignore the tax break for hybrid vehicles, which gives them an artificial advantage, 23 of the hybrids and clean diesels beat their traditional competition for value.

Lower fuel costs were part of the reason--and a factor that will grow as gasoline prices keep inching back up. If gasoline hits $4 a gallon again, 41 of the clean vehicles in the survey would look like winners.

Also significant is the superior ability of many green vehicles to hold their value. The Toyota Prius and diesel Volkswagon Jetta TDI are champions in this regard. Both retain more than 70 percent of their initial value over five years, well above their closest counterparts (Camry and Jetta SE).

If Intellichoice.com's numbers are correct, you want to think twice before buying a new Lexus LS 600h L, GMC Yukon Hybrid, Chrysler Aspen Hybrid 4WD or Cadillac Escalade Hybrid 2WD--they'll burn through your pocket.

On the other hand, you'll enjoy thousands of dollars of savings with the Prius, Jetta TDI, Saturn Aura Green, Ford Escape Hybrid FWD, Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew Cab Hybrid and Mercedes-Benz GL320 BlueTEC (a diesel).

But don't forget--you'll save even more, and live even greener, by walking, riding your bicycle or taking the bus. You might even save enough to afford an organic peach now and then.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

PG&E continues to make significant progress on its 2 megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) pilot  project, first announced here in March. PG&E has selected Solon Corporation, a subsidiary of Germany's Solon SE, as the turnkey supplier to build the facility--named Vaca-Dixon Solar Station--next to PG&E's Vaca-Dixon substation in Vacaville, CA. Solon was one of the six suppliers invited to bid out of 168 suppliers who responded to PG&E's request for information.

The pilot represents the utility's first step in implementing its plan to promote 500 MW of new PV power over five years--250 MW to be built by the utility and 250 MW by independent developers. (The plan, proposed in February, is under consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission.) 

PG&E will use the pilot project to help develop its processes for building and operating PV facilities while it seeks regulatory approval for the full 500 MW proposal. If approved and completed, that mega-PV program could meet more than 1.3 percent of PG&E's electric demand and deliver as much power as consumed by 150,000 average homes.
 
The Vaca-Dixon Solar Station will use Solon's polycrystalline modules, on ground mounts with a fixed tilt. Solon will sub-contract with Silverwood Energy, Inc., a California disabled veteran business enterprise, to build and commission the facility by the end of December, 2009. 

Solon, which has the interesting corporate tag line, "Don't leave the planet to the stupid,"
is one of the largest solar module manufacturers in Europe and a major supplier of photovoltaic systems for large-scale solar power plants. Since 2005, Solon has constructed solar power plants with a total solar power output of over 130 MW in Spain, Germany, Australia and the United States. Solon's PV module manufacturing facility is located in Tucson, AZ, with an annual production capacity of 120 MW.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Global Warming meets Big Foot: sounds like one of those Japanese monster movies from the '60s.

A team of biologists, led by Jeff Lozier of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has tried to guess the outcome of that thriller, using the technique of ecological niche modeling. The controversial technique combines environmental and species location data to extrapolate past and future habitation trends.

In the case of Big Foot, a/k/a sasquatch, the hairy creature said to inhabit forests of California and the Pacific Northwest, global warming will likely prompt the oft-sited but camera-shy ape to head for the hills in search of cooler climes.

The good news is that if Big Foots (Feet?) exist, they should find plenty of suitable habitat in the Rocky Mountains and Canada, the scientists report in the Journal of Biogeography.

Alternatively--and our theory hasn't yet been peer reviewed--if it gets hot enough, Big Foot might lose his hair and blend in with the rest of us homo sapiens. Next time you're camping in the Trinity Alps, keep your eyes out for some odd looking folks who might fit the bill.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

He (or she) who has the most money, wins.

In the race for bragging rights to the biggest wind farms, as I noted here recently, the Chinese have taken the lead with talk in Gansu Province of plans to develop a single project with 20 gigawatts of capacity by 2020. The project's total capacity, when the wind is blowing, could exceed that of the nearby Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower station.

The price tag for all that: nearly $20 billion.

In contrast, the closest American competitor, maverick Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, is now reportedly scaling back plans, announced last year, to build a 1 GW wind farm in West Texas, which he said hoped to expand to 4 GW by 2014. Instead, he may try to build out three or four smaller sites.

Pickens blames falling natural gas prices (which make wind energy less competitive) and the unavailability of transmission for his decision. But the fact that the value of his hedge funds crashed from $4 billion last year to $1.5 billion today may have something to do with the relative modesty of his current ambitions.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Vanished civilizations that cultivated the Amazon jungle long before the arrival of European explorers may hold a key to slowing or even reversing the onset of global warming.

Archeologists who once believed the Amazon basin, with its notoriously unproductive soil, was only thinly populated by Stone Age tribes now have abundant evidence that it was extensively inhabited and farmed many hundreds of years ago. Evidence of this pre-Columbian civilization was literally buried under jungle that encroached when European diseases wiped out the indigenous population.

The fertility secret that made these early urban cultures viable was a potent soil called terra preta, or dark earth. Recent scientific studies show the soil was man-made, not natural, formed by mixing earth with plant material that was allowed to smoulder without fully burning.

Today biochar is made by heating biomass in kilns without oxygen. Instead of burning, this process of pryolysis creates energy-rich syngas, liquid bio-oil and fine-grained, porous biochar.

Biochar doesn't directly provide nutrients, but it improves crop yields by reducing soil acidity, fostering the growth of favorable microorganisms and improving water quality, among other factors.

The relevance of terra preta today goes beyond its promise for helping farmers in the developing world. The very act of converting biomass into biochar and burying it in the earth may be one of the most effective ways to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and prevent it from contributing to runaway greenhouse warming.

Radio-carbon dating of Amazon soils shows that biochar can store carbon in the earth for hundreds or even thousands of years. Johannes Lehmann, a Cornell University biogeochemist and leading expert on biochar, said,

By sequestering huge amounts of carbon, this technique constitutes a much longer and significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide than most other sequestration options, making it a powerful tool for long-term mitigation of climate change. In fact we have calculated that up to 12 percent of the carbon emissions produced by human activity could be offset annually if slash-and-burn were replaced by slash-and-char.

Tim Lenton, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, compared all major geoengineering proposals for mitigating global warming and rated biochar production as one of the most promising. Other biochar enthusiasts include NASA earth scientist James Hansen,  whose prescient warnings in 1988 launched much of the research and subsequent activism on global warming, and James Lovelock, famed originator of the Gaia hypothesis of Earth as a self-regulating environment.

Lovelock, who turns 90 this month, told New Scientist earlier this year that biochar could be humanity's salvation:

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast. . . . This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.

Despite his pessimism, biochar enthusiasts have made headway with the United Nations and even with Congress: The 2008 Farm Bill established the first national policy in support of biochar production and utilization in the world. And several companies, including Carbonscape and Carbon Diversion, Inc. are attempting to bring the technology of biochar carbon sequestration to market.

Biochar may of course prove too good to be true. But if you like to garden and want to attempt a little geoengineering in your yard, check out this FAQ. The earth may thank you for it. 

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

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

Big chunks of the state of Louisiana are destined to sink underwater as land subsides and sea levels rise, according to a new study co-authored by a scientist at Exxon. Human causes include not only global warming but thousands of dams and levees that block sediment deposits from the Mississippi that used to build up low-lying lands near the coast. "We conclude that significant drowning is inevitable," the authors write in a paper published in Nature Geoscience.

Meanwhile, ExxonMobile is drawing heat from the British and Australian media for apparently reneging on its promise last year to "discontinue contributions" to climate-change skeptics. The conservative Daily Telegraph reported that the world's largest oil company made several hundred thousand dollars in grants in 2008 to such groups, including the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ExxonMobile also contributes to some environmental groups, the paper noted. "We are funding people on all sides of that debate," a company spokesman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Germany, UK and France are taking the most aggressive steps to fight global warming among G8 countries, according to a new report sponsored by WWF and the German insurer Allianz SE. Only Canada and Russia rank worse than the United States. However, President Obama plans to meet next week with Russian leaders to promote collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

After last Friday's close vote in the House of Representatives to pass the Waxman-Markey climate change bill--a tribute to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "arm-twisting" in the words of Politico--attention now moves to the Senate. One of the biggest threats to passage comes from opposition by agricultural interests, despite major concessions they extracted in the House. The American Farm Bureau Federation opposes the bill partly because it may raise the cost of fertilizer and fuel.

It will be interesting to see whether supporters succeed in making farm-state Senators aware of how much their constituents have at stake as the earth warms. The recent report of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, commissioned by President Bush and based on the expert findings of 13 federal departments and agencies, has this to say about the projected impact of warming on the farm belt:

• Midwest:  "While the longer growing season provides the potential for increased crop yields, increases in heat waves, floods, droughts, insects, and weeds will present increasing challenges to managing crops, livestock, and forests. Spring flooding is likely to delay planting. An increase in disease-causing pathogens, insect pests, and weeds cause additional challenges for agriculture. Livestock production is expected to become more costly as higher temperatures stress livestock, decreasing productivity and increasing costs associated with the needed ventilation and cooling equipment."
• Great Plains: "Agriculture, ranching, and natural lands, already under pressure due to an increasingly limited water supply, are very likely to also be stressed by rising temperatures. . . . Pests will spread northward and milder winters and earlier springs will encourage greater numbers and earlier emergence of insects."
• Southeast:  "Effects of increased heat include more heat-related illness; declines in forest growth and agricultural crop production due to the combined effects of heat stress and declining soil moisture; declines in cattle production; increased buckling of pavement and railways; and reduced oxygen levels in streams and lakes, leading to fish kills and declines in aquatic species diversity. Decreased water availability is very likely to affect the region's economy as well as its natural systems. . . . Sea-level rise and the likely increase in hurricane intensity and associated storm surge will be among the most serious consequences of climate change. . . . a large portion of the Southeast coastal zone could be threatened. Ecological thresholds are likely to be crossed throughout the region, causing major disruptions to ecosystems and to the benefits they provide to people."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

• Alaska is considering building small nuclear reactors to power some of its cities and reduce energy prices. A Fairbanks developer is proposing a 25-megawatt reactor designed by Hyperion Power Generation Inc. of New Mexico. The village of Galena has been working with Toshiba Corp. to build a 10-MW reactor. Both reactors would be buried underground. Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin supports the concept.
• Canada's Ontario province has dropped a $22.4 billion plan to build a nuclear power plant that would have been the first nuclear reactor constructed in North America in three decades. The province cited rising costs and uncertainty over the financial health of government-owned Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Ontario gets more than half of its electricity from nuclear power.
• SunPower Corp. and Wells Fargo Bank will partner to fund $100 million of solar electricity in businesses and public buildings, beginning with projects at the University of California-Merced and a waste water agency in Riverside County. Wells Fargo will finance and own the systems and SunPower will build, operate and maintain them. Customers will buy the electricity from SunPower.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

China and Texas have at least one trait in common, besides the five-pointed star in their flags: a belief that bigger is better.

Latest case in point: After leading the United States in oil production, Texas is now home to the world's biggest wind farm. Meanwhile, after leading the world in new coal-plant construction, China is now boasting of wind-energy projects that will leave even Texas in the dust.

China last week announced plans to build seven giant new wind farms by 2020 at a cost of $140 billion. Their combined capacity will total 120 GW--gigawatts, not megawatts--representing about eight percent of China's power capacity by the time they come online a decade from now. (Sadly for GE and the U.S. balance of trade, China has no plans to tap foreign turbine manufacturers to meet its wind power needs; the central government has imposed a "buy Chinese" policy.)

The largest wind farm in the world today is Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas, spread over 47,000 acres near Abilene. Owned and operated by a subsidiary of FPL Energy, it consists of 421 giant GE and Siemens turbines with a total rated capacity of 735 megawatts,  less than seven percent of the capacity of each of China's proposed new projects.

(By comparison, the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in PG&E's service area has a total capacity of about 576 MW.)

Two years ago, before the global financial crisis struck, Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens floated plans to develop up to 4,000 MW of power from a giant wind farm in West Texas.  A year ago, his Mesa Power LLP ordered 667 turbines from GE with a total rated capacity of 1,000 MW. More recently, in the wake of the economic downturn, the company laid off some employees and said it has significantly slowed its development schedule, while remaining committed to the project.

Meantime, just last month a Spanish group devoted to renewable energy, Guascor,  announced plans to build what it believes will be the world's largest wind farm--a project of up to 900 MW in Argentina's wind-swept Patagonia. The estimated cost is $2.4 billion, and work could begin in as little as 12 months after environmental reviews.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Just as I had finished glugging a glass of OJ this morning, a new report from the University of Rochester Medical Center caught my eye: orange juice decreases tooth enamel hardness by 84 percent. "The acid is so strong that the tooth is literally washed away," said the lead researcher.

After I overcame a brief bout of acid indigestion, I started wondering. If I and millions like me decide to get our daily vitamin C instead from rose hip pills, what will happen to all those California and Florida oranges piled high in our supermarkets?

Not to worry. Turns out orange peel oil makes a great additive to car tires, improving their performance and making them more environmentally friendly.

Japanese tire manufacturer Yokahama says its new Super E-spec tire, 80 percent composed of non-petroleum materials (including orange peel extracts), has 20 percent less rolling resistance than standard tires, increasing its fuel economy. It's also easier to recycle than synthetic products. Yokahama is targeting the new tires for use by the Toyota Prius and other high-mileage cars.

(As noted recently in NEXT100, a 10 percent improvement in the rolling resistance of older tires used in California could reduce the state's consumption of oil by more than 250 million gallons, save about $750 million and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7 million metric tons annually, according to the California Energy Commission.)

But Yokahama's orange-infused tires aren't just for sedate sedans. Porsche outfitted its racing cars on the Sebring International Speedway during the Patron GT3 Challenge with tires using the same technology.

Mark Chung, Yokahama's director of corporate strategy and planning, told Wired.com that Yokahama has been experimenting with orange oils since the 1980s, and was prompted to go commercial with the technology because of environmental imperatives.

"It is used to soften the natural rubber and increase grip on the tire," he said. "We've tested a lot of natural products including spider silk, and we found that orange oil works best because it has a molecular structure similar to natural rubber."

Now if they could just figure out how to turn the orange pips into biofuels, we could have the seeds of a real automotive revolution.