November 2009 Archives
Nov 30 2009
In an intriguing departure from partisan political trends on this side of the Atlantic, the British Conservative Party--which leads in the polls--is taking an aggressively pro-environmental stance.
Last week, one of the party's top leaders, George Osborne, promised to slash carbon emissions from government agencies by 10 percent within a year, create a new investment bank to fund "green" initiatives, and pay households to recycle waste.
Saying that the British Treasury has long been "at best indifferent, at worst obstructive" toward environmental policy," he vowed to change that attitude if the Conservatives take power in the next election.
"I want a Conservative Treasury to be in the lead of developing the low carbon economy and financing the green recovery," he said in a speech at Imperial College London, a university known for its strong science curriculum.
While some commentators called into question the Conservatives' sincerity--claiming their words to date have spoken louder than their actions--James Murray of BusinessGreen called Osborne's speech "not far short of a master class in political positioning, responding to the legitimate complaints made by those within the environmental movement and proposing policies that, on the face of it, offer appealing solutions."
Noting that Osborne was making a "shameless play for traditional Labour voters," Murray added, "the government has no one but itself to blame. . . . It is an open secret that the Treasury has put the kibosh on any number of innovative green policy proposals over the past 13 years - all it took was for Osborne to point out the uncomfortable truths."
Nov 27 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
After weeks of speculation, White House representatives announced that President Obama will head to the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen on December 9. It's expected that while in Copenhagen, the President will propose reducing emissions 83 percent by 2050 and will urge a 30 percent reduction in 2005 levels by 2025. He'd like to reach 42 percent below 2005 levels by 2030. About six or seven cabinet members will join the President when he visits Copenhagen. The announcement comes on the heels of many groups urging the president to attend, including the American Medical Association, which claims global warming is contributing to health problems.
White House energy and environment czar Carol Browner says emails that were stolen last week by Russian hackers suggesting collusion on the part of climate scientists have not changed the White House's position on global warming. "There has been for a very long time a very small group of people who continue to say this isn't a real problem, that we don't need to do anything," Browner said. "On the other hand, we have 2,500 of the word's foremost scientists who are in absolute agreement that this is a real problem and that we need to do something and we need to do something as soon as possible. What am I going to do, side with the couple of naysayers out there or the 2,500 scientists? I'm sticking with the 2,500 scientists."
Members of the "clean plate club" may be helping in the fight against global warming. Scientists claim Americans are wasting 1,400 calories of food per person per day. Decomposing food waste emits the greenhouse gases methane and carbon dioxide and producing and cooking food that doesn't get eaten burns excess fossil fuels, as well. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health believe methane from food rotting in landfills is more than 20 times as powerful in contributing to global warming as an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide and that the rate of food waste in the U.S. is has increased by 50 percent since 1974.
Nov 27 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Norway has launched the world's first osmotic power plant to generate electricity by blending salt water and fresh water through a polymer membrane. Operated by Norwegian renewable energy company Statkraft, the pilot plant will generate 2-4 kilowatts of emissions-free electricity, enough to power a coffee maker, Reuters reports. The plant is driven by osmosis, drawing fresh water across the membrane toward the sea water. This increases pressure on the sea water, driving a turbine and producing electricity. Statkraft aims to begin building commercial plants by 2015.
The Maryland NightHawks, a minor-league basketball franchise, may be the first pro team in any sport to go green. The franchise has changed its name to the GreenHawks and attracted green sponsors like Honest Tea, Sweet Green and CarbonFund.org. "I've never been at a press conference talking about recycling," said Coach Rob Spon. There was also talk of a bamboo court, hemp nets and uniforms made from recycled materials. Go GreenHawks!
The Mother Nature Network web site is honoring chefs who practice sustainable cooking. This follows a list of top young farmers who provide locally-sourced, sustainable food. The new chef list recognizes some celebrities, including White House assistant chef Sam Kass, but Mother Nature Network's aim is to include cooks from around the country -- not just restaurant chefs but caterers and food-cart operators as well. Brittany Baldwin, who runs Portland Home Chef, a personal chef and catering service in Oregon, was recognized for using local ingredients as well as composting and recycling.
Nov 24 2009
Good news for California clean energy: the U.S. Department of Energy today awarded PG&E $25 million to fund initial work on a significant energy storage project to support the utility's increased use of renewable wind and solar power.
The grant to PG&E was one of 16 awards, totaling $185 million, to "help fund utility-scale energy storage projects that will enhance the reliability and efficiency of the grid, while reducing the need for new electricity plants," according to DOE.
"Improved energy storage technologies will allow for expanded integration of renewable energy resources like wind and photovoltaic systems," it added.
Energy storage is a critical part of next-generation utility "smart grids" that the Obama administration is strongly backing with R&D and infrastructure grants.
Storage will contribute to grid efficiency, reliability and sustainability by smoothing out the fluctuations in power output from wind and solar plants. It will also reduce the need to build costly new fossil-fueled generation by absorbing excess wind generation during periods of low demand and releasing that energy at times of peak demand.
By one estimate, California will need four gigawatts of storage to meet its goal of achieving 33 percent renewable power by 2020.
The funded projects include advanced battery systems, flywheels and--PG&E's current focus--compressed air energy storage (CAES). Experts at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto say that CAES is the most cost-effective form of mass energy storage.
PG&E's $356 million compressed air energy storage project in Kern County will use night-time energy, when wind power is most abundant, to pump air into a porous rock formation deep underground. The compressed air will then be released to drive turbine generators as needed. The project will be big enough to deliver 300 megawatts of power--about as much as a mid-sized power plants--for up to 10 hours.
PG&E hopes to win approval before the end of the year from the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission for additional funds to match the DOE grant. The total should be enough to cover site planning, technology selection and project design. The utility will then put the project up for bid, with the expectation of it going operational by the end of 2014.
Supporters of the project include the Independent Energy Producers Association (IEPA), a California trade association representing many renewable energy developers, and the manager of the state's electric grid, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).
"Energy storage promises to be a game changer for integrating renewable energy into California's resource mix," said Jan Smutney-Jones, executive director of IEPA. "This project will commercially prove-out compressed air storage leading the way for future projects."
"Large-scale energy storage technologies with multiple hour charge and discharge capabilities, such as compressed air storage, offer the potential to significantly help manage high penetration levels of variable renewable resources," said CAISO's director of system operations, Debi Le Vine.
PG&E is also considering a major expansion of its pumped hydro storage capacity, but that is expected to be a 10-year process, said Hal La Flash, PG&E's director of emerging clean technologies. Meanwhile, "We have thousands of megawatts of renewables coming on line so we also need storage technologies like CAES that can go into operation sooner."
Nov 24 2009
PG&E's request for a 20-year extension on its license extension to operate its Diablo Canyon Power Plant puts the utility in good company: More than 50 U.S. nuclear reactors have received license extensions from their original 40 years out to 60 years, acording to the World Nuclear Assocation.
The result has been a largely unheralded but dramatic contribution to this country's clean generation facilities. While utilities, politicians, investors and activists debate the merits of new nuclear construction, the old plants keep chugging away, producing greenhouse-gas-free power around the clock and generally at very attractive prices.
A recent story by Paul Voosen of Greenwire raises the remarkable possibility that America's nuclear plants may run another 50 or more years before being decommissioned.
Thanks to new research on how to detect and repair flaws associated with aging, one expert said that if nuclear plants are properly maintained, "technically, there is no age limit."
Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America's electric power, exceeded only by carbon-polluting fossil fuels. Without the license extensions made possible by improved maintenance, power shortages would have been "nothing short of catastrophic" and would have prompted massive construction of new coal- and gas-fired power plants, said Gary Was, the director of the University of Michigan's Phoenix Energy Institute.
Besides extending their plants' life, nuclear operators have also increased their efficiency and output, a process called "uprating." According to Power magazine, "Power uprates alone have added more than 5,600 MW since 1998 -- the equivalent of five new nuclear plants." Exelon's chairman, John Rowe, recently testified that future uprates could add an additional 8 gigawatts of capacity to the U.S. nuclear fleet.
Nov 23 2009
It's a dubious honor, but Chrysler can now boast of being number one--in average CO2 emissions per vehicle.
Based on preliminary data, the EPA reports that the average Chrysler vehicle for model year 2009 pumped out 476 grams of this greenhouse pollutant for every mile traveled, topping General Motors (447 g/mi) and Ford (434 g/mi).
Chrysler, which had the biggest improvement in emissions from 2007 to 2008, gave up nearly all those gains in this model year.
Mileage and CO2 emissions per mile are inversely related. Thus Chrysler's cars averaged only 18.7 mpg, compared to 20.5 for Ford.
Evidently the Big Three, or at least the majority of their customers, have only recently heard of global warming. In contrast, Honda, Hyundai-Kya, Toyota and Volkswagen all managed to build cars averaging less than 400 g/mi.
In fairness, Ford now has an impressive lineup of hybrid vehicles, like the highly rated Fusion, and plans to electrify at least 10 pecent of its fleet by 2020.
GM is preparing to unleash its highly anticipated hybrid electric Volt, which earned plaudits ("extremely refined vehicle") from a New York Times reporter who test drove it.
As for Chrysler, its new owner, Fiat, recently killed prospects of the automaker launching a new line of hybrid or all-electric vehicles. That should keep Chrysler on top of the list for some time to come.
Overall, thanks to Americans' love affair with big, heavy and fast vehicles, the cars and light trucks they buy have become more carbon polluting in recent years, not less, the EPA reports.
In 1987, the average light duty vehicle sold in the United States got 22 mpg and emitted 405 grams of CO2 per mile. By 2009, average fuel economy had declined to 21.1 mpg and CO2 emissions had risen to 422 g/mi.
On the brighter side, the average vehicle today can accelerate from 0 to 60 in only 9.5 seconds, down from 13.1 seconds in 1987, despite being 900 pounds heavier.
Nov 20 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The world's two largest polluters have agreed to work together to lessen their greenhouse gas emissions. A joint statement released this week claims that U.S. and Chinese scientists and engineers will join forces to speed the widespread use of electric cars, energy efficient buildings, and "coal-fired plants that don't pump out gases that cause global warming." The agreement left out how much each country will contribute to emissions cuts.
A recent University of Saskatchewan study asserts that roughly 12,800 years ago, it only took six months to turn Europe's climate from warm and sunny into an ice age. Researchers previously believed the freeze took place over a much longer period. Lead researcher William Patterson put the new findings into perspective by saying the temperature change would equate to "taking Britain and moving it to the Arctic over the space of a few months."
Can you imagine an Italy without pasta? A report released by the British Meteorological Office can. The five-year study on the impact of global warming on eating habits in Europe predicts that increasing temperatures and decreasing rain will cause Italy's durum wheat crop to disappear in the second half of this century. The same report warns that Polish wheat and potato crops, French champagne and Spanish fruits and vegetables could also be at risk.
The Forest Service claims our nation's forests can be used as a "carbon sink" where trees absorb carbon dioxide to help slow global warming. Currently, forests store enough carbon to offset about 16 percent of the nation's fossil fuel emissions. But Forest Service Chief Tom Tidwell told the Senate Public Lands and Forestry Subcommittee that the number could change. "Disturbances such as fire and insects could dramatically change the role of forests, thereby emitting more carbon than currently sequestered by tree stands across the country," Tidwell said.
Nov 20 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Time magazine's list of the "50 Best Inventions of 2009" is out with 10 green selections making the list. The top green invention at #3 is the Philips L Prize LED, a light-emitting diode bulb from Philips Electronics producing as much light as a 60-watt incandescent bulb using less than 10 watts and lasting 25 times as long. Other green innovations include an energy dashboard to measure home energy consumption and a Formula 3 race car running on a blend of chocolate and vegetable oil. The #1 invention? NASA's Ares 1 rocket to launch astronauts to the Moon and beyond.
Some online tips can help green your Thanksgiving next week: If turkey is your choice, pick out a USDA-certified organic free-range bird and also visit a local farmer's market for pumpkin, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, green beans and more. Buying locally grown produce reduces carbon emissions from long-haul delivery trucks. Guests should also bring reusable containers to share leftovers and scraps can go to the compost container. They can also make Thanksgiving a potluck with different side dishes. Happy Thanksgiving!
Death is going green, too. A "Green Funeral Fair" at a Berkeley church showed off eco-friendly exits such as burial shrouds and biodegradable wooden and cardboard coffins, straw crosses, and radio frequency tags to locate loved ones buried without tombstones. Some funeral homes in Canada are offering plant-based embalming fluids and urns made from 100 percent recycled materials. Promessa Organic, a company in Sweden, is working on a process to transform human remains into organic waste to support new life such as plants and insects.
Nov 19 2009
For years now, critics have warned that the nascent electric car industry could run into a brick wall if world supplies of lithium, the third element in the periodic table, prove inadequate to supply tens of millions of new car batteries.
Lithium is the 33rd most common element, rarer in the earth's crust than yttrium, lanthanum, neodymium, rubidium and cerium. Reserves are concentrated mainly a few countries, most notably Chile, Bolivia and China, compounding concerns over future supplies.
Scientists haven't cracked the lithium shortage, but at least they know who's to blame for it: we are.
More precisely, the mysterious absence of lithium in the Sun is caused by the fact that it has planets, including our own. A new study of 500 stars shows that sun-like stars with planets burned up their lithium far more completely than those without planets.
Most lithium was created almost 14 billion years ago in the primordial Big Bang, not by fusion reactions within stars. The level of lithium in a star, therefore, is mainly a function of how quickly the star destroys it.
Unfortunately, the international team of scientists who took 10 years to make this discovery were unable to decide why planets make such a difference.
"There are several ways in which a planet can disturb the internal motions of matter in its host star, thereby rearrange the distribution of the various chemical elements and possibly cause the destruction of lithium. It is now up to the theoreticians to figure out which one is the most likely to happen," said Michel Mayor of the Swiss Observatoire de Genève.
Worse yet, the good scientists said nothing about how to make lithium more plentiful. Fortunately, optimists claim that if we just look a little more energetically, there will be plenty of the element available to meet foreseeable needs.
In fact, one mine under development in Kings Valley, Nevada has the potential to become one of the world's greatest producers of lithium. So our original planetary sin may not be so detrimental after all.
Nov 18 2009
Why do so many Americans stubbornly resist scientific evidence that carbon pollution is causing global warming? Perhaps because they believe their lying eyes.
The powerful scientific case for global warming continues to mount: The latest global temperature data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirm that the world just experienced the hottest June-to-September period on record and the second hottest October on record.
But look more closely at the regional data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and you'll see one part of the world got a lot cooler this October: the continental United States. (Alaska, along with most far-northern latitudes, was sharply warmer.)
"For the contiguous U.S., the national temperature average during October 2009 was much-below average, ranking in the top five coolest such month," NOAA reported. For the first ten months of the year, most of the globe experience "warmer-than-average conditions . . . with the exception of cooler-than-average conditions across parts of Canada, the northern contiguous United States, the southern oceans, and along the northeastern Pacific Ocean."
Within the United States, nearly all of the Midwest and Eastern seabord have experienced cooler-then-normal temperatures this year, though most of the Southwest (including Southern California) experienced above normal temperatures.
Such regional cooling is almost certainly temporary, a random local deviation from the rising global average.
Still, it's no wonder much of the public is no longer clamoring for action. They can't see or feel what all the fuss is about. Talk of climate models and greenhouse gas effects is simply too abstract when the thermometer outside registers below normal.
As one blogger commented, "If you look back at 1937, during the middle of the dust bowl, the only thing that finally made Congress act to form the Civilian Conservation Corps was when soil from the plains blew straight into the Senate during a debate about Dust Bowl policy. If only a hurricane or a heat wave would hit D.C during the clean energy Senate hearings, then Congress might finally get some much needed fear in their hearts."
Nov 17 2009
In the everything-you-believed-is-wrong category, one of the most surprising was the recent claim by a National Research Council report that electric cars will bring no particular benefits to the environment--and in some respects could be even worse than gasoline-powered vehicles.
The report, entitled Hidden Costs of Energy, looked at the full lifecycle costs of grid-powered vehicles, including environmental damage caused by coal-fired plants that power them and the extra resources required to manufacture electric vehicles and their batteries.
The surprising conclusion appeared to gain support this month from a study in England by the Environmental Transport Association that prompted this headline in the Daily Telegraph of London: "Electric cars could lead an increase in carbon emissions."
Fortunately, there's plenty of evidence that electrification of transportation is still a sensible--indeed, probably an essential--step for curbing carbon pollution and urban smog.
In the case of the British study, it was complaining not about electric vehicles, but about European Union policies that give carmakers incentives to build more gas-guzzling SUVs in return for producing some clean EVs. Duh.
Meanwhile, let's not forget that a comprehensive study conducted two years ago by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) could "reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by more than 450 million metric tons annually in 2050 -- equivalent to removing 82.5 million passenger cars from the road."
Old news, you say? Well a study issued just this month by the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc., on "Meeting California's Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals" reports that doing so will require wholesale electrification of passenger transportation, nearly eliminating gasoline consumption.
"To achieve the state's GHG reduction targets, by 2020 the state will need approximately 2.6 million electric vehicles and PHEVs (out of 29 million total cars), and by 2050 90 percent of all new light duty vehicles must be nearly fully electric," it states.
Of course, California's electric generation is much cleaner than the rest of the country--PG&E produces only about 40 percent as much CO2 as the average utility, per kilowatt--and is getting cleaner as the state's utilities transition to more renewable energy.
But a major study by McKinsey last year concluded that even China--with its coal-heavy power mix--could reduce carbon pollution significantly by promoting electric vehicles.
Bottom line: grid-connected vehicles are good for the air and good for the planet. Whether they'll be good for your pocketbook when they start hitting the market next year is still an open question.
Nov 16 2009
The United States should aim to make electric vehicles account for 25 percent of all new car sales by 2020 and to use electric power for 75 percent of all miles traveled by cars and light trucks by 2040, a new industry group declared today.
This call for a transportation revolution was sounded by the non-partisan Electrification Coalition, which includes representatives of the full electric vehicle value chain: energy suppliers (including PG&E), battery makers, automakers, charging infrastructure providers, major transportation users and venture capitalists.
At an event in Washington, D. C., the coalition unveiled its "Electrification Roadmap," a call to accelerate the adoption of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles through focused public policy at the national, state and local levels.
Weaning this country off its addiction to oil will be a much greater challenge than sending astronauts to the moon. The coalition's report notes that
our cars, trucks, planes and ships rely on oil for 94 percent of their fuel, and there are no meaningful substitutes currently available at anything remotely approaching scale. In 2008 alone, the United States spent more than $900 billion dollars on gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.
At the same time, the status quo is unsustainable. Dependence on a single fuel source, found largely in an unstable part of the world, whose price fluctuates wildly, is both an economic and a security risk.
And as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere rises to levels that may trigger catastrophic global warming, dependence on burning oil is also a threat to global environmental security.
While biofuels or natural gas could provide alternative fuels, the coalition argues that dramatically increasing the use of grid-enabled vehicles--those propelled in whole or in part by energy stored in batteries charged by the electric grid--will best safeguard our economy, national security and environment.
Among the advantages of vehicle electrification are the diversity of domestic power sources, the relative stability of electricity prices, the availability of substantial spare generation capacity (especially at night) and the existence of a ubiquitous delivery infrastructure--the electric grid.
Thanks to the high efficiency of electric vehicles and the relatively low cost of electricity, the operating cost of electric vehicles typically runs only a third that of gasoline-powered vehicles, the report notes. Further improvements in battery technology should make grid-enabled vehicles fully price competitive within a few years.
Until that time, the report calls for substantial public incentives to accelerate the industry's growth: tax credits and loan guarantees to grow the battery market; modified building codes to promote installation of chargers in homes and public places; reimbursement of utilities for large-scale investment in upgraded distribution systems; and regulatory support for price plans that induce customers to charge at night, when demand is otherwise low.
Refreshingly, the group also calls for reduced tax credits and other financial support for the indstry starting in 2014. When the electric vehicle industry can stand on its own feet and outcompete traditional fuels and vehicles, the revolution will truly have arrived.
Nov 13 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Former Vice President Al Gore stumped for sustainable construction practices at the annual U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) annual convention in Phoenix. Gore said "building green" would stimulate job growth and cut the nation's dependency on foreign oil. He also noted that environmental endeavors could land the U.S. roughly 2.5 million jobs in the next few years and urged Americans to lean on their lawmakers in order to make a difference when it comes to energy efficiency and the fight against global warming. "It's important to change the lights and the windows, but it's also important to change the laws and policies," he said.
A British television commercial continues to come under fire for what some are calling global warming scare tactics. Entitled "Bedtime Stories," the commercial shows a father reading his daughter a book about a "land where the weather was very strange." The story features a "CO2 monster" and animals drowning due to widespread flooding. Opponents feel the commercial is too scary for children and question whether the appeal to parental instincts will even work. Supporters say research shows 74 percent of people surveyed would change their behaviors and conserve energy if they believed climate change would have an adverse affect on their children.
A new report published by Environment and Energy Daily claims that global warming could have a negative impact on the water supply of the American West, with Las Vegas and Southern California being hit extremely hard should the water level in the Lake Mead reservoir continue to drop. Currently, the Hoover Dam supplies power and water to 17 U.S. states and Mexico but the water level behind the dam is at its lowest point since 1965, when officials diverted Colorado River flows into the newly constructed Lake Powell. One suggested cause is that a warming climate is more quickly evaporating the snow that feeds the Colorado River. If the water supply continues to drop, the impact could be huge. As Patricia Mulroy, general manager of the Southern Nevada Water Authority noted, "When you put it in perspective, the Colorado River soon will be servicing 30 million people. It also serves one of the most productive agricultural areas in the country in terms of winter fruits and vegetables, an integral part of the country's food supply."
Nov 13 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is celebrating the one millionth home to receive the blue Energy Star label for energy efficiency since the program was launched in 1995. Energy Star homes are at least 15 percent more efficient than conventional homes, saving residents energy costs and reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The homes have thick insulation, energy-saving heating and cooling systems, and other efficiency features. The top five markets for Energy Star homes are Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, Las Vegas, Phoenix and Los Angeles.
The brown pelican has been taken off the federal endangered species list after its population along the West Coast plunged in the 1960s due to DDT poisoning before the chemical was banned in 1972. About 8,500 breeding pairs are believed now to be living in the Channel Islands National Park in California. "The brown pelican is a treasure of the California Coast, and the announcement that the species has been able to rebound is exciting, not only for me but for all who enjoy our coastal wildlife," Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said.
Spain's large wind farms supplied more than half of the nation's electricity last weekend as strong winds battered the country. Early last Sunday morning when power loads were low, the wind turbines generated a record 53 percent of Spain's total electricity demand. For the entire day, wind power covered 39 percent of demand. Spain, with 18 gigawatts of wind turbines, is the third largest wind power generator after the U.S. and Germany.
Nov 12 2009
While kitepower is still only an exciting concept as a source of renewable energy on land, it has already become a viable commercial product over water.
A kite flown over the ocean is just a sail by another name. SkySails, a company based in Hamburg, Germany, has reinvented the sailing ship by designing towing kites that dramatically cut the reliance of cargo vessels on polluting fuels.
Ocean-going ships are an enormous source of air pollution. They contribute nearly 3 percent of all the world's CO2 emissions. In addition, they emit about 9 percent of global sulphur oxides and at least a fifth of all nitrogen oxide pollution.
U.S. researchers estimated in 2007 that high-sulfur marine fuels caused the premature death of 60,000 people in 2002. The U.S. EPA has proposed tough new engine and fuel standards that could prevent 13,000 to 33,000 premature deaths by 2030 and produce health benefits of $110 billion to $280 billion annually.
One way to cut down on pollution is kitepower. Like a giant spinnaker, the 160-square-meter SkySail can tug ships forward with the equivalent force of a thousand horespower engine, reducing fuel consumption 10-to-30 percent, the company claims. That can save big money as well as reducing pollution.
Flying at an altitude of more than 100 meters, the sail picks up high-velocity winds, giving it several times more propulsion power than traditional sails. It doesn't require extensive rigging, and because it causes little or no heeling of the vessel, it is said to be far better suited to modern shipping than other sailing rigs.
When not in use, the kite can be folded into a space the size of a telephone booth.
Last year, Beluga Skysails became the first commercial cargo ship to cross the Atlantic--from Venezuela to Norway--with assistance from a towing kite, which provided 20 percent of the vessel's power.
Wessels Shipping Company is now equipping some of its new cargo ships with SkySails, and plans to retrofit the Beluga SkySails with a monster new 300 sq. meter towing kite. It should be fun to watch, but don't try hooking one of these babies up to your kiteboard unless you want to become an astronaut.
Nov 10 2009
In the short list of the world's best jobs, designing kites to produce renewable energy has to be right up there--the perfect combination of excitement, imagination and do-goodism.
So it was an enviable group of inventors, entrepreneurs and university researchers who gathered last week at Chico State University and Oroville from at least six countries for the world's first conference on high-altitude wind energy.
Their common focus was on finding ways to tap the vast energy potential of winds high in the atmosphere, including the mighty jet stream. And their common question, in the words of one speaker, was "how do we put together the industry?"
Kite power, as some call it, is one of those far-out but potentially game-changing sources of renewable energy. But in the judgment of Scientific American, "By the standards of revolutionary technologies, . . . high-altitude wind looks relatively straightforward and benign."
In a major study published in 2005, Cristina Archer (organizer of the Chico State conference) and her Stanford University thesis adviser, engineering professor Mark Jacobson, calculated that the amount of wind energy available just 80 meters above the earth's surface is 35 times the world's total power consumption.
"It's free energy, continuously guaranteed aslong as the Earth is what it is," Archer says.
At about six miles up, the jet stream produces even more energy--as much as 100 times the world's current consumption. But it will take more than a little engineering wizardry to tap.
Accordingly, a lot of playful wizards have put on their serious thinking caps.
Google-financed Makani Power, with an amazing engineering and creative team based in Alameda, is pursuing large kite designs that could produce megawatts of power. "This is the dawn of the new age of kites," said former CEO Saul Griffith.
The Italian company Kite Gen aims to deploy giant kites at an altitude of about 3,000 feet to exploit the faster wind speeds available at higher altitudes. As winds carry them aloft, the kites' unspooling tethers spin an alternator, generating power. Each kite may be able to produce about 3 megawatts of power.
But where would a developer put these kites to avoid bringing down an unwary 747? In otherwise off-limits airspace.
"To help visualizing the existing unexploited potential," the company notes, "just consider that the flight-prohibited area over a nuclear power plant can easily get to contain 1 GW of wind power, equal to the power of the plant itself."
An even more ambitious concept under development at Delft University in the Netherlands is an enormous loop of kits that turns like a ferris wheel in the sky. It could rise up to 30,000 feet and generate 100 MW of power.
In addition to all the obvious engineering challenges of operating generators so high in the sky, kite power has at least one other drawback: its energy source isn't completely reliable. Apparently even high-altitude winds die out about five percent of the time, something of a nuisance if you are running a hospital, operating a semiconductor fabrication line or watching the Superbowl.
"While there is enough power in these high altitude winds to power all of modern civilization, at any specific location there are still times when the winds do not blow," said Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford. "This means that you either need back-up power, massive amounts of energy storage, or a continental or even global scale electricity grid to assure power availability. So, while high-altitude wind may ultimately prove to be a major energy source, it requires substantial infrastructure."
Nov 09 2009
Benjamin, the young man played by Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, should have listened to the advice he got from Mr. McGuire: "There's a great future in plastics."
If he had, young Benjamin might have found a way to perfect production of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), a light and superbly strong but expensive composite material that enables a growing share of today's clean technology. In many applications it can replace heavier metal parts and reduce energy consumption.
Consumers already appreciate CFRP in niche products like high-end bicycle frames, tennis raquets, fishing rods and golf clubs. Formula One race car enthusiasts know that CFRP makes the lightest crash-resistant auto bodies, offering the highest performance where cost is no object.
The good news is that CFRP is now penetrating more markets as manufacturers find ways to automate its production.
Mainstream car buyers may soon be able to enjoy race car quality thanks to a new joint venture of BMW and SGL Group to mass produce carbon fiber auto bodies at a competitive price. BMW plans to make them integral to its lightweight hybrid Megacity vehicle.
Robert Koehler, CEO of the SGL Group, stated: "This joint venture with the BMW Group is a milestone for the use of carbon fibres on an industrial scale in the automobile industry. . . . This . . . shows that carbon fibre technology is becoming increasingly important in the materials substitution process to lighter material. This material will help to reduce CO2 emissions and save our natural resources."
The Aptera hypercar, nearing commercial production, will also use a composite body to lower weight and achieve the equivalent of more than 200 miles per gallon, while allowing occupants to survive high-speed crashes.
In a completely unrelated application, General Electric reportedly plans to introduce a radical wind turbine blade design based on carbon fiber composites. The key innovation is a new process that will permit mass production at affordable prices, in place of traditional labor-intensive methods.
The new carbon-fiber blades will weigh as much as one-third less than traditional blades, reducing installation costs and wear on gears and drive shafts. GE hopes to bring the technology to market by 2012, according to the manager of GE Global Research, interviewed in BusinessGreen.com.
Nov 06 2009
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Smart grids. Smart meters. Now come smart thermostats. Silicon Valley startup EcoFactor will collect weather data to fine tune home air conditioning and heating systems to keep the occupants comfortable and energy efficient. The company has a three-year deal with Texas utility Oncor to test the program. EcoFactor plans to market the product on a subscription basis offered by utilities and companies selling energy management services.
Auto executives told the Reuters Autos Summit in Detroit this week that raising the gas tax will put more American drivers behind the wheel of fuel-efficient cars. Gradually raising gas taxes to where fuel costs at least $4 to $5 a gallon would do more to stimulate demand for next-generation cars like the Chevy Volt plug-in hybrid than other policy initiatives like raising national fuel efficiency standards, auto execs said. Steep gas prices in the current fragile economy, however, would likely be extremely unpopular.
BusinessWeek has published a slide show of the "Fifty Ugliest Cars of the Past 50 Years," with the Toyota Prius showing up on the list along with some other good lookers like Ferrari Enzo and the Chevy El Camino, a combo car and truck that earns "one of the greatest cars of all time" honors from The Big Money.com. Among the ugliest: Pontiac Aztek, the Yugo and Cadillac Cimarron.
Nov 06 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce said it supports most of the principles outlined in a bipartisan climate change bill sponsored by Senators John Kerry (D., Mass.) and Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.). In a letter sent to senators in the Environment and Public Works Committee earlier this week, the Chamber stated it is open to considering a federal cap on emissions. Surprised by the letter, committee chair Senator Barbara Boxer (D., Calif.) called the Chamber's position "a game-changer," especially after big companies such as PG&E Corp (PCG), Exelon Corp. (EXC), Apple Inc. (AAPL) and Levi Strauss & Co. recently resigned from the organization citing a fundamental disagreement with the Chamber's position on global warming.
An article detailing a new study published by Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports glaciers atop the African peak Mount Kilimanjaro are rapidly shrinking and could disappear within the next 20 years. The study suggests global warming is the culprit, as scientists used historic aerial photos, satellite data and ice cores to determine the melting has taken place during recent years.
Some of the nation's top penny-pinchers are starting to see global warming as a risk to the health of the economy, according to a New York University survey that collected data from 144 economists. About 75 percent of the economists support greenhouse gas controls. And more than 90 percent support a tax on emissions or a "cap and trade system." To read the entire study, click here.
Nov 05 2009
Since 1976, when PG&E became one of the first utilities in the country to offer energy efficiency programs, it has helped save more than 155 million megawatt-hours of electricity and 155 million tons of carbon pollution. But, to make the further savings needed to help curb global warming, our energy efficiency experts have to go the extra mile.
For these efforts, PG&E was recently recognized by Edison Electric Institute (EEI) for its outstanding service in providing energy efficiency programs to national chains -- an area that the chains believe to be critical to their operations.
In a press release, EEI President Thomas R. Kuhn said, "The winning utilities and individuals understand that the health of their business is dependent upon the health of their customer's business. With today's volatile energy prices and uncertain economic conditions, the winners know that they must continually work to make their customers more energy efficient, more productive, and ultimately, more profitable."
PG&E's strategic roadmap of energy efficiency over the next three years, the 2010-2012 energy efficiency portfolio, is specifically designed around customer segments and individual customer needs. PG&E will outline how it plans to meet the aggressive savings goals set forth in the portfolio in a compliance advice letter to be filed with the California Public Utilities Commission in December. Here's a sneak preview:
Business and Consumer Electronics: Electronics make up eight percent of PG&E's total electric load, and that number is growing. By contracting directly with major manufacturers and retailers, PG&E is today delivering mid-/upstream incentives for energy-efficient consumer electronics.
LED Streetlights: LED streetlights are still expensive, but with the combined assistance of grants from the federal stimulus and incentives provided from PG&E, more cities are able to afford them. Most recently, the Town of Danville converted its streetlights to LEDs, realizing the benefits of a longer life span, reduced maintenance costs/energy use and better color rendition.
Behavior Change: Finally, some experts believe there are great energy savings opportunities to be mined through behavior change. In fact, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE) estimates an energy savings opportunity of 20-30 percent through behavior change. The challenges of implementing behavior change are twofold: ensuring persistence in realizing that energy savings and mitigating the adverse effects that can come with time differentiated rates and behaviors.
As long as the success of PG&E and our business customers depend upon the company's success in delivering energy efficiency programs, we will continue to identify unique and growing opoprtunities for energy savings.
Nov 04 2009
They say all politics are local. So are many of the issues driving PG&E to invest in smarter grids, according to PG&E Senior Director Andrew Tang, who delivered a keynote address at today's GreenTechMedia conference on "The Networked Grid."
One of the major drivers behind PG&E's smart grid program is systemic: the need to manage and balance the large fluctuations in output from increasing amounts of solar and wind energy, as PG&E increases its reliance on renewable power.
But at least two other issues, which get much less attention, are intensely local.
One is the rapid but uneven rise in rooftop solar installations connected to PG&E's grid. Today PG&E has about 300 megawatts of customer solar capacity in its service area--almost 40 percent of the nation's total--and that figure is expected to hit about 1,000 MW by 2014.
But the distribution of customer solar installations within PG&E's network is "very lumpy and concentrated," Tang said. San Francisco has 1,520 connected to PG&E's grid; San Jose has 1,430 and Fresno has about 1,250. The median city in PG&E's service area has only 12.
Where rooftop solar is concentrated, grid management issues can arise. The passage of clouds overhead can lead to rapid changes in power output and voltage fluctuations. PG&E will need smart sensing devices to monitor such changes so they can be corrected--with flexible conventional generation, energy storage devices or demand response programs. The latter two are prime smart grid applications.
Another emerging issue is charging of electric vehicles. Tang said PG&E's service area could easily host half a million such vehicles by 2020.
An electric car that charges in four hours at 240 volts represents the same load as a full-sized house in San Ramon--or nearly three homes in San Francisco, where average residential power demand is much lower.
If large numbers of EV customers decide to plug in their cars when they get home from work, the result could be an unwelcome spike in system load in the late afternoon, requiring expensive new generation and distribution facilities.
That won't be a problem for some time in many parts of PG&E's service area. But in green-minded cities like Berkeley, where 18 percent of new vehicle registrations are already hybrids, electric vehicles could soon put a big strain on the local electric grid.
The answer, Tang said, will be a combination of smart meters and "smart charging" capabilities to deliver power to thirsty batteries only at night when other loads taper off.
"People have talked about home automation for two decades," Tang said. "We think some aspects of home automation are finally becoming feasible at reasonable price points. [PG&E's] role needs to be the enabler. Our SmartMeter(tm) has a home area network chip so you can know how much energy you are using right now and what the energy is costing you.
"We are also working on smart charging for EVs," he continued. "If we give people the technology to plug their car into the wall, knowing it will be charged by morning, it will be customer friendly." The key, he emphasized, will be educating customers about the benefits they soon will be able to enjoy from these smart grid programs.
Nov 04 2009
With billions of dollars now flowing into the "smart grid" market--from utilities, venture capitalist and now the Department of Energy--it's no wonder more than 400 people showed up today for a conference at PG&E on "The Networked Grid."
Organized by GreenTechMedia, noted for its reporting and market research on clean technology, the conference is covering current and planned utility deployments of smart grid technology, communications infrastructure, home area networks and the challenges of integrating renewable and distributed energy on a mass scale.
Rick Thompson, co-founder and COO of GreenTechMedia, kicked off the conference with preliminary findings of a new survey of North American utilities, which confirm the high level of ferment in the smart grid market.
Over half of utilities surveyed are now in the preliminary stages of planning or running pilots for smart grid applications; about half expect to deploy smart meters to a majority of their customers in the next three years; half plan to run pilot tests of charging electric vehicles over the next couple of years; and half plan to deploy utility-scale energy storage on their grids within five years.
The biggest benefit they see from smart grid is reduction in peak demand, which will limit the need for new power generation investments. Other leading benefits include energy efficiency (good for the environment and the pocketbook) and reduced outages.
The biggest challenges they see are regulatory barriers and the lack of technology standards, which are needed to ensure that equipment from various manufacturers will work together on the same grid.
Another major challenge is ensuring the security of utility communications networks that relay customer data or control grid operations. "We need intelligent security," said Erfan Ibrahim, a senior technologist at the Electric Power Research Institute. "Just building a big wall won't keep (intruders) out."
GreenTechMedia's Thompson said the single biggest concern of utilities is the challenge of managing, storing, protecting and effectively using the vast amount of data that smart grids will generate. Utilities, including PG&E, may need to dedicate entire datacenters just to andling and processing the hourly meter reads from smart meters, which replace the monthly reads of old.
Andrew Campbell, advisor to CPUC commissioner Rachelle Chong, noted that the regulatory body adopted a policy in 2003 that all electric customers should have smart meters. The commission's goal--well on its way to implementation--was to permit the introduction of time-varying pricing to induce customers to shift demand away from peak periods.
But as PG&E's Kevin Dasso noted, the many new capabilities of smart meters will require changing the traditional relationship between utilities and their customers. "We need to work with customers to help them take advantage of the meters' capabilities. . . . We have to make sure we are communicating with our customers . . . to help them make the transition to what smart grid can offer them."
Nov 02 2009
When we think of "harvest" we think of the fall season, the holidays, farmers gathering vegetables and men and women in rows of grape vines picking fruit. What about rain water harvesting?
"Capturing rain water off of roof tops during winter months to supply landscape irrigation during the summer months when water is most scarce is just one use," says J.M. Baeli, General Manager of Baelin Inc., a Sonoma-based family business that focuses on green renovations of homes and lands.
Water can be collected in a number of ways from a simple decorative rain chain to a more complex underground cistern. If filtered and treated correctly the water can be used for more than just irrigation.
Baeli says, "Harvesting the water from seasonal rains has its rewards, it lower water bills, reduces energy use due to embedded energy in pumping water, and conserves our highly valuable potable water supply."
In the last few years many parts of the state have been faced with significantly lower rain fall totals during the wet weather months. If more of us harvested the drops that do fall, maybe water shortages will be a thing of the past?
