Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Science magazine's new list of the 10 most significant scientific breakthroughs of 2009 is a good reminder of how far we've come as a species in the blink of a geologic eye.

The journal's Breakthrough of the Year was the discovery of fossils of Ardipithecus ramidus, a four-million-year old primate species that sheds new light on the common origins of humans and chimpanzees.

Fast forward to this year, and Ardipithecus's offspring were being recognized by the journal for new kinds of gene therapy, discovering water on the moon and detecting rapidly rotating neutron stars known as pulsars.

One of the journal's ten breakthroughs has direct relevance for the future of clean energy: graphene. As discussed before in NEXT100 here and here, graphene is a miraculous crystalline form of carbon first discovered in 2004. A mere one atom thick, it is up to 50 times stronger than steel, a superfast electrical conductor, and the best conductor of heat ever discovered.

Today it is being studied for use in solar cells, lithium batteries and ultracapacitors (energy storage devices), high-speed semiconductors, light amplifiers, jet fuels and a host of other applications.

The University of California at Riverside this month reported that its Materials Science and Engineering department is looking ways to take advantage of graphene's remarkable thermal conductivity to dissipate heat from nanoscale electronic circuits, allowing them to be produced in higher densities.

At the University of Manchester, where graphene was discovered, researchers have announced that small chemical modifications--such as adding hydrogen atoms--can dramatically alter the material's characteristics. As one physicist there commented in August, "Being able to control the resistivity, optical transmittance and a material's work function would all be important for photonic devices like solar cells and liquid-crystal displays . . . Chemical modification of graphene . . . uncovers a whole new dimension of research. The capabilities are practically endless."

Graphene has already made its way out of the lab and into production. The Maryland-based company Vorbeck Materials is using graphene to create conductive inks, which it says will replace metal coatings and enable "cheaper, easier, greener printed [circuits]."

Over in Michigan, XG Sciences is making "graphene nanoplatelets" that it says are useful as "nano-additives for . . . strong, lightweight composites suitable for aerospace, automotive, or electronic applications" and in advanced batteries and ultracapacitors, among other applications.

Ohio-based Ansgtron Materials is now operating a 22,000-square-foot facility to produce the notoriously tricky substance. This month it won a grant from the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop its production process.

Many other companies will surely join them. A report this year from Lux Research on graphene's "Near-term Opportunities and Long-term Ambitions" projects that the super material has the "potential to impact $53 billion of intermediate products," from automobiles to displays, by 2015.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In ancient times, slaves provided the power to grind corn between millstones (Job 31:10). Today, human power is having a comeback--at college gyms, where sweaty student generate electricity on specially equipped elliptical machines.

With financial help from the local electric utility, the University of Oregon installed 20 such machines at the Student Recreation Center and connected their generators to the grid. If the students keep them busy, the machines collectively can deliver 6,000 kilowatt hours a year, enough to meet the needs of one reasonably efficient house in the region.

The machine's maker, Florida-based ReRev, claims that a 30-minute workout provides enough power to light up a compact fluorescent bulb for two and a half hours, or to run a laptop computer for an hour.

"We're not going to get off Middle Eastern oil by connecting up all the ellipticals all over the country," said U of O's sustainability director, Steve Mital. "We bought it and installed it mostly because it's an educational opportunity. People will be on those things sweating away and it gets them thinking."

The attraction of sweat power is apparently catching on. The University of Nebraska now has seven ReRev machines in the campus rec center. A special monitor shows students how much power they are generating--giving them an extra incentive to work out and stay in shape.

Cal State San Bernardino hooked up 20 of the machines this August, in time for the start of fall classes.

Conceding that the output of the machines is only a tiny fraction of the power used in the building that houses them, and that the cost of generation is uneconomic, the university's director of recreational sports said, "What we are doing is generating clean electricity and educating our students about how they can be green."

Hopefully, it will also get them to think about how much progress humanity has made since the days when all power came from people or animals. There's a lot to be said for being able to flip a switch when we want to power up our computers, rather than having to head for the gym.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

We've all heard the litany of complaints from opponents of nuclear power: it creates long-lived radioactive waste; the fuel cycle produces plutonium that could be diverted to nuclear weapons; and runaway nuclear reactions might cause reactor meltdowns, endangering the public.

The nuclear industry has good answers to each of these claims, but the best answer may someday be to reinvent nuclear power altogether.

Thorium-based reactors, like those using uranium or plutonium, work on the principle of nuclear fission. Thorium absorbs neutrons to create uranium 233, whose nuclei are then split to release energy that can be harnessed by steam generators to produce electric power.

Experiments at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in the 1960s and 1970s proved that thorium could work as a fuel, but industry saw no need to introduce new designs when uranium reactors worked well enough.

In principle, say boosters of the rival element,

thorium could solve the nuclear power industry's most intractable problems. After it has been used as fuel for power plants, the element leaves behind minuscule amounts of waste. And that waste needs to be stored for only a few hundred years, not a few hundred thousand like other nuclear byproducts. Because it's so plentiful in nature, it's virtually inexhaustible. It's also one of only a few substances that acts as a thermal breeder, in theory creating enough new fuel as it breaks down to sustain a high-temperature chain reaction indefinitely. And it would be virtually impossible for the byproducts of a thorium reactor to be used by terrorists or anyone else to make nuclear weapons.

In addition, proponents say thorium-based reactors can be designed to regulate their output to eliminate the risk of a meltdown.

Interest in thorium is growing worldwide. India is working on a thorium-based reactor design that may be ready within a couple of years. China also hopes to exploit domestic reserves of thorium to reduce its nuclear industry's dependence on imported uranium. An expert panel formed by the China National Nuclear Corporation has reportedly selected a Canadian reactor design as the most promising way to shift to a thorium fuel cycle. 

A public U.S. company called Lightbridge Corp. is working with nuclear designers in France and Russia to produce thorium-based fuel rods that could replace uranium in some commercial reactors by 2017.

Finally, further research on the prospects of thorium has been championed--so far unsuccessfully--by an unusual pair of bipartisan sponsors in the Senate: Orrin Hatch of Utah and Harry Reid of Nevada.

"With the growing interest in thorium nuclear power in the world and in the U.S.," Hatch said when introducing the Thorium Energy Independence and Security Act of 2008 last fall, "it's time we made sure our government has a regulatory infrastructure in place to accommodate this new generation of nuclear power."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

When it comes to the next generation of Smart Grid technology, smart meters and customer-oriented devices like Home Area Networks and electric vehicle charging units have all the sex appeal. Energy storage technology attracts its share of geeks as well.

But according to a new report from Pike Research, smart meters "are really just the tip of the iceberg," in the words of Clint Wheelock, the market research firm's managing director. ""Our analysis shows that utilities will . . . devote the majority of their capital budgets to grid infrastructure projects including transmission upgrades, substation automation, and distribution automation."

The new study forecasts that global spending on Smart Grid technologies will total a hefty $200 billion from 2008 to 2015. Investments in advanced metering infrastructure, however, will amount to just 14 percent of that sum. Management of electric vehicles will capture a mere 2 percent over the same period.

In contrast, unglamorous grid automation initiatives will account for 84 percent of Smart Grid investments worldwide through 2015.

While PG&E hasn't announced projected Smart Grid spending plans over that period, it believes in laying the foundation for a smarter grid through transmission and distribution system automation. This fall, the utility won funding from the Department of Energy for a major Smart Grid project to monitor its transmission grid in conjunction with the Western Electricity Coordinating Council.

And in 2008, the utility proposed a multi-year program to upgrade the reliability of its electrical system. Called the Cornerstone Improvement Program, the proposal included significant investments in PG&E's distribution system to help "fully achieve the benefits of a Smart Grid."

If the program is approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, the utility hopes to install automated systems for "Fault Location, Isolation and Service Restoration" (FLISR), which can slash the duration of customer outages from an hour or more to a matter of only a few minutes.

By automating about 1,200 circuits in urban and suburban areas, PG&E projects that the average annual duration of customer outages systemwide could be cut 19 percent, and the frequency by 23 percent. (The full Cornerstone program aims to reduce those statistics by 25 and 33 percent, respectively.)

That may not be as sexy as programming your dishwasher to run only when electricity prices fall below a certain level. But it's a great example of how a smarter grid may keep electricity flowing reliably to your dishwasher, and all your other appliances, around the clock.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Albert Einstein famously dismissed the emerging physics of quantum mechanics as "very impressive" but "not yet the real thing."  He just couldn't bring himself to believe its wierd implications, which continue to spark scientific and philosophical debate.

Good thing the young turks of quantum physics pushed on, for it became an essential tool for understanding semiconductors, the basis of the electronics revolution of the late 20th century. Today, scientists are exploiting its strange implications to study quantum dots, quantum computers, and now "digital quantum batteries."

Two scientists at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have drafted a largely incomprehensible new paper claiming that a miniaturized array of "nano vacuum tubes," using quantum principles, could create energy storage devices with several times the capacity of lithium batteries or standard capacitors. Or to put it another way, for any given energy capacity, they could be shrunk into a much smaller and lighter package.

Just as important for many applications, their rate of charging and discharging is claimed to be orders of magnitude greater than current batteries. That would be a boon in electric cars, where the ability to deliver power on demand would guarantee high acceleration.

The paper claims further that "cheap environmentally friendly materials can be used to fabricate" the devices using standard techniques for making integrated circuits, and that the devices "can hold electric energy without any losses for many years."

In a normal capacitor, electrical energy is stored in a field between two conducting plates separated by an insulator. The closer the plates and the thinner the insulator, the more energy it can store--but thinner insulators are more prone to breakdown under high voltages, making it tough to design small, high-capacity devices.

The key to the new quantum batteries--which exist only as concepts so far--is exploiting quantum mechanical effects that prevent short-circuits between the two electrodes, which are spaced only 10 nanometers (about 100 atoms) apart.

The scientists have applied for funding to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency to develop a prototype. The concept has generated a lot of skepticism, but at least one MIT engineer, who is working on competing devices, declared himself "cautiously intrigued."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Solar energy is great--clean, renewable and reliable--except when the sun goes down. Too bad that happens every day, for hours at a time.

Now a handful of companies in the solar industry are using a high-tech version of thermal storage to stabilize the output of their power plants when clouds pass overhead or the sun goes down.

PG&E today disclosed that it has contracted with a subsidiary of Santa Monica-based SolarReserve, LLC for 150 megawatts of clean solar power, augmented by a proven energy storage system based on molten salt. The proposed Rice Solar Energy project is sized to produce as much renewable energy as consumed by more than 60,000 average homes, starting in 2013.

If approved by state regulators, SolarReserve's project will be located at the site of the World War II-era Rice Airfield, near the unincorporated community of Rice in San Bernardino County, Calif.

The project will use thousands of large, movable mirrors to focus the sun's rays onto a receiver in a central tower to heat four million gallons of molten salt to more than 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit. The hot, liquid salt will flow into a storage tank and used to heat water for a steam generator to produce electricity. The stored molten salt can also provide energy during periods when sunlight dims or is not available.

The ability to store heat and tap it at any time for power generation is thus like having a huge battery or backup generator on hand to smooth out peaks and valleys of solar generation.

The storage technology was demonstrated successfully over several years in the 1990s at the Department of Energy-sponsored Solar Two power plant in Southern California.The owner of some of the patents, United Technologies, licensed the process to SolarReserve.

Molten salt--28,500 tons of it--is currently being used for thermal storage at the 50 MW Andasol 1 solar thermal power plant in Spain, the first of three sister plants designed by Solar Millennium. Abengoa Solar has a molten salt demonstration project and plans to use the technology in a 280 MW solar thermal power project in Arizona. Other companies that have expressed an interest in molten salt thermal storage include the Spanish company Sener and SkyFuel, based in Albuquerque.

Sandia National Laboratory in Albuquerque, home of the National Solar Thermal Test Facility, says molten salt is ideal for capturing solar energy in power towers "because it is liquid at atmosphere pressure, it provides an efficient, low-cost medium in which to store thermal energy, its operating temperatures are compatible with todays high-pressure and high-temperature steam turbines, and it is non-flammable and nontoxic."

Best of all, a well-insulated storage tank for molten salt can be 99 percent efficient, so it loses heat only very gradually.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

When "Miracle on 34th Street" hit the silver screen in 1947, 8-year-old Susan Walker, played by Natalie Wood, got her holiday wish when Kris Kringle gave her directions to the new home she asked Santa Claus to deliver. If the movie were written today, Susan would probably ask for an energy efficient home with ENERGY STAR appliances and solar panels.

Like Kris Kringle, Habitat for Humanity has been making children's dreams come true since 1976. But unlike Santa, Habitat delivers presents to families year round. To date, the organization has built over 350,000 houses around the world, providing close to 2 million people with safe, affordable and now energy efficient housing.

To make these homes even more environmentally friendly, PG&E created the Solar Habitat Program in 2005. So far, as part of the partnership with Habitat for Humanity, PG&E has funded solar installations on 260 homes for hard-working families. The average solar system produces 300 kWh of clean, renewable energy each month, saving participants about $500 a year. In addition, PG&E employees have donated more than 7,000 hours of their time working on Habitat for Humanity job sites.

Just last week, PG&E volunteers, including corporate officers and CEO Peter Darbee, spent the day at a Hunters Point construction site, working on one of seven four-bedroom homes. In addition to other duties, the crews worked to install and hook up eight solar panels on one of the homes. 
 
"It's impressive to see first hand how Habitat for Humanity constructs these quality homes with the help of volunteers from the community," said Darbee. "This is an extremely organized operation that allows those of us who are volunteering to make a real contribution to the construction of these homes."

Thanks to Habitat for Humanity and its many contributors, the spirit of 34th Street lives on as families get their 21st century, energy-efficient miracles year round.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

In a fitting sign of the times, the town of Santa Claus, Ind. this year switched to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) to light up its holiday tree. That's something many Northern California cities--and PG&E--have been doing now for several years.

And no wonder. LEDs consume as little as one-tenth as much power as incandescent bulbs for the same output--saving money and sparing the environment. A new study shows that even counting the energy used to manufacture and dispose of LEDs, they are far more efficient than traditional bulbs.

LEDs also last 20 times longer than incandescents and several times longer than compact fluorescents--and offer a much more pleasing color than CFLs. Said one expert for Consumer Reports, "They run cooler, so there's less of a chance of a fire hazard. They're much more durable and they did last longer."

Researchers predict that the world market for LEDs will triple by 2012. PG&E is doing its bit to expand the market forward by offering incentives for deployment of LEDs in municipal street light fixtures and commercial refrigerated case lighting. PG&E also provides advice on the best LED products to buy to ensure maximum energy savings.

This fall, PG&E installed 262 LED streetlights in Danville and 126 in Walnut Creek on main thoroughfares. The program was supported by federal stimulus funds to promote energy efficiency.

Based on data from a study of LED street lights in San Francisco, an analysis by PG&E concluded that if all the nation's high-pressure sodium street lights were replaced by high-performance LEDs, the energy savings would avoid 5.7 million pounds of CO2 emissions.

Still, not everyone's sold. LEDs still cost a lot more than traditional bulbs, of course. And for some die-hards, Christmas just isn't Christmas without the crunch of breaking glass bulbs.

"When you're finding shards of purple glass in the summer when you mow the grass, you can remember the fun you had at Christmas," said Gary Barksdale of Norman, Okla. "There's a certain nostalgia to having those big glass bulbs that we put up as a kid."

Posted by: Kory Raftery

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

With all eyes focused on Copenhagen, world leaders left the long awaited and much anticipated United Nations Climate Change Conference with what President Obama called "a foundation for global action." The agreement sets a target of two degrees Celsius for the increase in global temperatures with countries supposed to provide information on cutting carbon dioxide emissions through national communications, with provisions for international consultations and analysis under clearly defined guidelines. After reading the agreement, one Greenpeace official noted, "It seems there are too few politicians in this world capable of looking beyond the horizon of their own narrow self-interest, let alone caring much for the millions of people who are facing down the threat of climate change."

Stanford researchers claim global warming could have a devastating effect on U.S. crops, including corn and wine grapes. And it is not just the temperature increase that we should be worried about. According to the researchers, global warming triggers the spring cycles of the birds and the bees to arrive early. "In recent years, there has been quite a bit of work in phenology, which is the study of the timing of lifecycles - when do birds migrate, trees drop their leaves, crops mature, etc.," said Noah Diffenbaugh, a center fellow at Stanford's Woods Institute for the Environment. "Many of these natural events are tied to the climate."

A new study suggests the seas may be rising faster than scientists previously thought. Using the past to examine the future, scientists studied sea level rise during the most previous interglacial stage, roughly 125,000 years ago. Geologist Peter Clark believes we are headed down a similar path, stating that if the warming trend continues "we can expect a large fraction of the Greenland ice sheet and some part of the Antarctic ice sheet, mostly likely West Antarctica, to melt."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Smart grid company Silver Spring Networks Inc. scores $100 million in a new round of financing to expand in the U.S. and abroad, raising total funds to about $250 million. Silver Spring, based in Redwood City, Calif., installs networking infrastructure for smart grid applications and has contracts with utilities PG&E, Florida Power & Light, Pepco Holdings and American Electric Power.

The outlook for LED lights is brightening, according to semiconductor research company iSuppli. Global LED revenue is projected to grow by 10.9 percent in 2009 to $7.4 billion, up from $6.7 billion in 2008, and to jump up to $14.3 billion by 2013. LEDs are increasingly used in everything from street lights to flat-screen TVs and are beginning to penetrate the residential market as a replacement for incandescent or compact fluorescent bulbs, the company said. LED manufacturers are releasing 40-watt replacement bulbs with the traditional Edison shape.

U.S. and Canadian wind energy associations say a literature review found no medical basis for health complaints that come up near large wind farms. There is no evidence that audible or "subaudible" turbine sounds and vibrations have physiological effects, the industry-financed study says. It concedes that some people are irritated by swishing noise from wind mills. A Canadian surgeon who belongs to a group fighting wind farms in Ontario says the study's authors were "picked and paid for by the wind industry."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

First there was Cash for Clunkers, followed by President Obama's proposed $23 billion Cash for Caulkers program.

Less well publicized, and less alliterative, is another government green subsidy program that some analysts are calling a great success. Its less-than-jazzy name is section 1603 of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

Section 1603 is pumping life-saving dollars into the veins of finance-starved renewable energy companies, creating jobs as well as a cleaner environment. It provides direct cash reimbursement of up to 30 percent of a developer's total costs. In contrast, longstanding federal investment and production tax credits don't do the trick in today's economy, since many developers don't have any tax liability to offset.

So far, more than 150 projects across the country have received more than $1.7 billion in payments, ranging from $3,000 for a small solar installation in Pennsvylania to $122 million for a big Texas wind farm.

"If I had to give a grade, the 1603 would be an A+," said Greg Burkart, a managing director at financial advisory and investment banking firm Duff & Phelps.

California is still behind the curve on winning Section 1603 payments. The biggest win so far is $6.6 million for a project at a landfill in Half Moon Bay that captures methane gas (a potent greenhouse pollutant) and uses it to generate enough electricity to serve almost 12,000 homes. 

The project developer, Ameresco, called it "one of the largest landfill gas-to-energy projects that's been developed in the past five years -- certainly it's the biggest project in California in the last five years."

To qualify for funds, construction on new projects must begin by 2010 and put in service sometime between January 1, 2013 and January 1, 2017, depending on the type of project.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Driving the transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy will require a lot more than gee-whiz technology. As two of PG&E's clean energy suppliers can testify, it takes a rigorous focus on execution and operational excellence to cut costs and stay competitive.

The latest issue of Power magazine honors six "top plants" in the North American renewable power industry that exemplify those attributes. Two of the six are under contract to PG&E, which must say something about our energy procurement team. One is Sempra Generation's El Dorado Energy solar photovoltaic (PV) plant in Boulder, City, Nev.; the other is the Rio Bravo Rocklin Power Station, a biomass-fired facility in Lincoln, Calif.

The 10 MW El Dorado plant, said to be the largest thin-film PV plant in the United States, was built in only six months, an astonishingly short time. One reason is that Sempra wisely chose to locate the project on the site of an existing gas-fired plant, slashing the cost of land, permits, transmission and operations.

But Power magazine also praises Sempra (working with supplier First Solar) for coming up with a "finely tuned and standardized" design for 1 MW increments of PV that can be combined as needed to reach almost any power level (land and sun permitting). "Sempra has quickly established perhaps the most rational development program for PV technology development in the U.S.," the magazine enthuses.

Sempra plans to replicate that model in its next proposed plant--a 48 MW expansion at the same site. In July, PG&E announced that it will buy the entire output of this Copper Mountain Solar facility when built. (The contract is subject to approval by the California Public Utilities Commission.)

The magazine also offered kudos to a decidely older and less sexy power plant: the Rio Bravo Rocklin plant, which has been burning waste wood products to generate 25 MW of power since 1989. It's owned by Constellation Energy and North American Power Group, Ltd.

California has plenty of waste wood, which is better burned in power generators than in forest fires. Currently, agricultural or forest waste provides fuel to biomass-fired plants in the state totaling about 400 MW of capacity.

The challenge for operators of these plants is preventing wear and corrosion of major components, including the combustor and heat transfer tubes. Fuel ash and contaminants like sand shorten plant life and can lead to expensive outages for maintenance.

At Rocklin, according to the magazine, these problem pushed the plant to the brink of closure until plant management took a discipline approach to upgrading fuel supplies, improving maintenance practices and motivating workers. As a result, the forced outage rate fell to less than 1 percent and employee turnover dropped from 30 percent annually to "almost zero."

"For keeping the plant in California's renewable resource mix for many years to come," the magazine concludes, "all Californians should send their congratulations for a job well done."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

There's good news and there's bad news today for fans of plug-in hybrid cars.

The good news first: Toyota, the undisputed champion of traditional hybrids, has belatedly announced plans to introduce a plug-in version of its best-selling Prius. It's a little early to get in line--only 150 will ship to the United States next year for a demonstration program--but the company aims "to begin sales in the tens of thousands of units to the general public in two years."

Earlier this month, General Motors announced that it would begin producing its long-awaited Volt--with an electric range four times greater than the plug-in Prius--late next year. GM said it is "working with key utilities across North America to prepare each regional market in advance of the retail market deployment." One of those utilities is Pacific Gas and Electric Company.

Now the bad news: the National Research Council claims in a new study that plug-in hybrid cars like the Volt will cost at least $10,000 more than manufacture than conventional vehicles, more than offsetting any savings on fuel costs. As a result,

Subsidies in the tens to hundreds of billions of dollars over that period will be needed if plug-ins are to achieve rapid penetration of the U.S. automotive market. Even with these efforts, plug-in hybrid electric vehicles are not expected to significantly impact oil consumption or carbon emissions before 2030.

Hopefully that assessment will prove pessimistic. One way to make it so would be to give consumers a stronger incentive to buy plug-in hybrids (and other fuel-efficient vehicles). That's why many automakers--including the heads of General Motors and Ford, along with most economists--now call for a higher federal gasoline tax, a position they would never have embraced a few years ago.

As Bill Ford Jr. said earlier this year, "We have to have some predictability on fuel pricing and that price signal has to be strong enough so customers will continue buying smaller, fuel-efficient cars."

Thomas Cooley, dean of the NYU-Stern School of Business, noted last year in a column for Forbes that gas taxes in Europe typically run $3.50 per U.S. gallon, seven times the average combined federal and state gas tax in the United States. "Put bluntly, we are not on the same planet where this issue is concerned," he observed.

Maybe with a higher gas tax in the United States, Ford would consider selling here its new version of the gasoline-powered Focus--available in Europe next spring--which gets a whopping 62 mpg. That's efficient enough to give any hybrid a run for its money.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

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

Stolen emails have fueled the fire for global warming cynics who claim scientists staged a cover-up but those who study climate data feel the numbers on the thermometer over the past ten years cannot be masked. This week at the Copenhagen climate change summit, Britain's Meteorological Office and the United Nations World Meteorological Organization testified that the last decade has been the warmest since records began 160 years ago.

A bipartisan group of senators has agreed on the framework for climate change legislation and sent it to President Obama ahead of his trip to Denmark. The lawmakers assert that the bill will create millions of jobs while simultaneously cutting greenhouse gas emissions and making America more energy independent.

Google announced it has developed a non-profit product that will allow us to see the effects of deforestation in real time. The company is combining satellite images from Google Earth with heavy computational analysis in the cloud. Google plans to give scientists access to it for free as it is classified as not-for-profit. Last week, the company unveiled a tool that has the ability to forecast the damaging effects of global warming on the state of California.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Nine European nations plan to build a wind power "supergrid" in the North Sea west of the Jutland Peninsula in Denmark. The plan, announced as the United Nations climate meetings began in Copenhagen, includes Denmark, Germany, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Sweden, Britain and Ireland. The move did not allocate any funds but a plan for moving forward should be crafted next year.

Ocean Power Technologies will build the first of 10 wave power buoys to place off the Oregon coast beginning next year. If the project succeeds, it would be the first U.S. commercial-scale wave energy farm. Ocean Power has contracted with Oregon Iron Works to build the first buoy, which will be tethered to the ocean floor 2.5 miles off the coast. Ten buoys would have capacity of 1.5 megawatts and generate power through a Bonneville Power Administration substation for 750 homes.

Atlantis Resources Corp. will test the world's biggest tidal energy turbine at the European Marine Energy Center test site off the Orkney Islands in the North Sea near Scotland. The 1-megawatt turbine is the height of a 5-story building and has rotors 18 meters in diameter. The test is in preparation for Scotland's plan to tap the ocean's energy to power about 500,000 homes by 2020.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

If Jimmy Buffett were writing a theme song for PG&E's renewable energy department, his lyrics might read, "Mother, Mother Ocean: I have heard you call. I wanted to pull the power from your waters since I was three feet tall."

Looking to add to its diverse power mix, Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has just signed an agreement with the U.S. Air Force that will let the utility investigate the feasibility of a wave energy project off the coast of northern Santa Barbara County near Vandenberg Air Force Base. The project is part of the PG&E WaveConnect™ program, which includes a pilot study underway in Humboldt County.

PG&E has filed a preliminary permit application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to study the southern site for three years. If findings are favorable, the utility could seek a license to install wave energy conversion devices capable of producing as much as 100 megawatts of electricity. The clean power would feed into the existing electrical grid at Vandenberg Air Force Base, which in turn is connected to the PG&E grid.

Experts believe that wave energy off the 745 mile California coastline could produce more than a fifth of the state's energy needs. The Santa Barbara County Community Environmental Council's renewable energy blueprint calls for more than eight percent of the county's future energy mix to come from the ocean. But there are many hurdles to jump before arriving at those targets, including environmental and land use concerns,  grid connections and design evolution.

"You can't develop a technology unless you can test it," said Roger Bedard, ocean energy leader with Electric Power Research Institute. "In this country, we are challenged with inferior infrastructure in testing ocean energy devices. PG&E's WaveConnect™ projects will provide the infrastructure needed to test and refine emerging technologies."

Throughout the process, PG&E will continue to work closely with local communities and elected officials to understand and address their interests and concerns. The project is expected to have no significant impact on existing coastal activities such as surfing, hiking or whale watching. Development will only move forward if technical studies support its feasibility and if environmental studies show that the project will not have significant negative environmental and economical effects.

Currently, the Earth's oceans produce roughly 300 megawatts of electricity from various devices that convert energy from water movement or the natural temperature and salinity changes into usable power. Next year that number is expected to skyrocket when a 250 megawatt seawall dam comes online in South Korea. But wave power will continue to lag other renewable technologies without development assistance.

Ultimately, PG&E's WaveConnect™ projects will help emerging technology companies develop reliable and cost-effective wave energy devices, find funding and help PG&E and other utilities bring this innovative new source of clean energy to customers.

"If a utility is going to make it happen in this country, it's going to be PG&E," Bedard said.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Two years ago, the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that water shortages and crop failures caused by global warming could afflict between 75 million and 250 million people in Africa this century.

The report didn't tell inhabitants of the continent anything they don't already know. According to the London Economist, in a story titled "A Catastrophe is Looming:"

This year's drought is the worst in east Africa since 2000, and possibly since 1991. Famine stalks the land. The failure of rains in parts of Ethiopia may increase the number needing food handouts by 5m, in addition to the 8m already getting them . . . The International Committee of the Red Cross says famine in Somalia is going to be worse than ever. . . . In fractious northern Uganda cereal output is likely to fall by half. Parts of South Sudan, Eritrea, the Central African Republic and Tanzania are suffering too.

In addition to drought, war and government mismanagement, African farmers also must make do with severely depleted soil, lean in organic matter and nutrients, that forms a tough crust.   No one's thumb seemed green enough to make plants grow under such conditions, until recently.

Now there's some remarkable cause for hope. Spearheaded by the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), with the endorsement of the World Bank, farmers are using an innovative technique to restore production in eroded, denuded and abandoned farmlands in many arid parts of the continent.

In major stretches of the West Africa, ICRISAT is teaching farmers to dig compost-filled planting pits called zai holes, which hold water for long periods after sporadic rains fall. They prevent soil from blowing away and foster growth of deep-rooted vegetables and fruit trees like the Moringa.

Moringa leaves, said to be Niger's most popular vegetable, have "seven times as much Vitamin C as oranges, four times as much Vitamin A as carrots, four times as much calcium as milk, thrice as much potassium as is found in bananas and twice as much protein as is found in milk," according to ICRISAT.

One farmer in Burkina Faso, Yacouba Savadogo, has become world famous for his successful experiments growing sorghum and millet in zai pits. The manure in his pits attracted termites, which built tunnels that broke up the soil. Soon trees began sprouting from seeds in the manure; he nurtured them, and in return, they provided shade, cooled his land and prevented erosion, increasing yields.

"This is probably the largest environmental transformation in the Sahel, if not in Africa," said Chris Reij, a Dutch geographer who's been working in the region for decades. In Niger alone, he says, farmers have grown some 200 million trees. "There are fifteen to twenty times more trees than there were in 1975, which is completely opposite of what most people tend to believe."

The return of this ancient farming practice is transforming social relationships as well. ICRISAT notes that women, who have been allocated the most degraded lands, have been able to transform their holdings into productive farms and earn a living for the first time.

"By working with women to grow indigenous vegetable and fruit trees, we have not only restored the self-worth of women but also enabled them to better care for their children and families as well as make some money on top of it all," said Prof. Dov Pasternak, a scientist at ICRISAT.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The great Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter once described the process of growth in capitalist economies as "creative destruction." No one knows that better than the clean-tech industry. Even with generous government incentives, investor support and public interest, a lot of smart people with good ideas are inevitably going to fail in the Darwinian struggle for survival.

That harsh reality was brought home this week on the anniversary of the Pearl Harbor attack. On December 7, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced plans to provide $100 million in R&D funding to accelerate innovation in clean technology, including "a new generation of ultra-high energy density, low-cost battery technologies" to promote widespread adoption of electrified vehicles.

On the same day, reflecting the creative side of the process, Stanford University said that its scientists have discovered a miracle ink composed of carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires that can coat paper to make ultralight, flexible storage devices, including batteries and supercapacitors. The scientists claim that storage devices made with the ink can last ten times longer than lithium batteries, and experts say the technology "has potential to be commercialized within a short time."

The same day also brought destruction, however, when the much-acclaimed battery startup Imara Corp., based in Menlo Park, closed shop.

Three months ago, the company announced its first high-power lithium-ion battery, touting its "unique combination of power, energy, cycle life and safety compared to today's commercially available high-power cells."

And just last month, Fast Company magazine called Imara one of "10 Green Startups to Watch," noting that its new product delivered "20% more power and 60% more energy density (range between charges)" than the competition.

But in a blog on December 7, titled "A Day that will live in Infamy," Imara's business development chief wrote, "After 4 years at taking a run at the battery industry with a most promising technology, Imara is out of funds and out of time. We never could get the Operations scaled up and after a year delay, investors needed to cut their losses. In the end, in this exec's opinion, the battery industry is not about producing compelling PowerPoints, it is about the nuts and bolts of equipment design, process control and repeatability and producing a quality product at high run rates."

Fortunately, even with the demise of promising technology companies like Imara, innovation in the battery sector remains strong, thanks in part to the lure of multi-billion dollar markets.

A new report from Pike Research estimates that emerging market for electrified vehicles will boost sales of lithium-ion batteries from just under $900 million in 2010 to nearly $8 billion by 2015.

To achieve sales like that, battery makers must slash the cost of their products at least in half, reduce their size and weight and extend their lifespan. That's no small task.

To enhance their chances of success, and help put one million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015, the Obama administration in August awarded $1.5 billion to advanced battery manufacturing projects.

No one knows who will come up with the "fittest" technology to survive the competition for this market. Will it be lithium-sulfur batteries, championed by Sion Power Corp.? Or long-lasting lithium-air batteries favored by IBM? Or Nissan's lithium nickel manganese cobalt oxide battery? Or Fluidic Energy's metal-air ionic liquid battery technology?

Go ahead and place your bets--but count on losing some along the way before you score.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

2009 was a good year for bankruptcy lawyers but not for the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry. Dragged down by the world economy, and by sharp cuts in Spain's lavish solar incentives, the PV industry suffered its first decline as demand shrunk 14 percent year-over-year.

At the same time, according to a new report from the market research firm DisplaySearch, solar cell manufacturing capacity grew 56 percent to more than 16 gigawatts (GW) worldwide. That's just as well, because demand is likely to surge 38 percent next year, the firm predicts.

Looking farther out, GTM Research estimates that demand for PV installations in the United States will soar 50 percent a year, reaching 2 GW by 2012. Along with enough new clean energy for 1.5 million homes, this growing  industry will produce 50,000 new jobs and more than $6 billion in annual investment, it predicts.

California will continue to lead the way in solar installations, but Arizona, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Nevada and Massachusetts will contribute significantly to expanding the market.

GTM predicts that the utility market will become the fastest growing segment of the industry, a view shared by a new study from Emerging Energy Research. EER notes that U.S. utilities already have an announced pipeline of PV projects totaling more than 4.8 GW. State regulatory mandates for renewable energy and federal tax incentives are helping to drive the market.

PG&E and other California utilities account for three-quarters of the solar PV pipeline in the United States, according to EER. PG&E has signed hundreds of megawatts of PV deals with developers such as Sempra Generation, SunPower and Topaz Solar Farms (now owned by First Solar). In February, PG&E announced a plan to develop up to 250 MW of utility-owned PV projects in the 1-20 MW size range.

Although PV is still a relatively expensive technology, it holds many attractions for utilities. "Unlike other larger, centralized power generation technologies such as natural gas, wind, concentrated solar power, and geothermal, PV offers scale and unique siting versatility," explained EER Solar Research Director Reese Tisdale. "These key differentiators allow PV to be deployed in a wide range of geographies."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Here's another reason to hope that electric-powered vehicles make a big splash next year: advanced biofuels that could replace gasoline or diesel won't be ready for prime time until 2020, according to the CEO of Royal Dutch Shell.

Although Shell is a big investor in alternative fuel technologies--hedging its bet for the day when oil starts running out or new laws restrict carbon pollution--its chief executive, Peter Voser, now predicts that it will take "quite a number of years" before the next generation of biofuels starts significant commercial production.

Ethanol made from corn is widely used today as an additive to gasoline, but many critics claim it raises the price of food without helping the environment, taking into account the energy and water required to grow the crops and the carbon released by tilling the soil.

That's why everyone is eagerly awaiting (or investing in) the next generation of biofuels. These include "cellulosic ethanol" produced from hardy plants such as switchgrass, which require little tending, and fuels produced by ponds of genetically engineered algae. Dozens of companies have issued breathless press releases, but none is yet producing commercial quantities of fuel from such technologies.

Shell's warning about the slow progress of second-generation biofuels was foreshadowed by a report from the International Energy Agency, which concluded that "given the complexity of the technical and economic challenges involved, in reality, the first commercial plants are unlikely to be widely deployed before 2020." 

The IEA guessed that with another decade or more of technology development and commercialization, ethanol could become competitive with gasoline if oil climbs above $70 a barrel. The report emphasized that significant government support would be needed in the interim.

The farm lobby and the clean tech lobby together are likely to ensure that such support is forthcoming. The House of Representatives is scheduled this week to vote on a one-year extension of production tax credits ($1 per gallon) for biodiesel.

And more dramatically, the Department of Energy on Friday announced $564 million in grants for 19 biomass projects aimed largely at achieving the government's goal to produce 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022.

Bay Area grant winners included Solazyme of South San Francisco, a leader in algae-based technology, and Amyris Biotechnologies in Emeryville, which hopes to convert sorghum into renewable fuels and chemical products.

But in light of the cautionary comments from Shell and the IEA, this comment from Katie Fehrenbacher of Earth2Tech seems apt: "A big question to consider is how far this funding can take some of these firms -- given that commercialized advanced biofuel plants can cost hundreds of millions to a billion dollars to build, a $25 million grant for a pilot project will only help move that plant partway to the next stage."

Posted by: Katie Romans

Yesterday, the issue of job creation took the national stage at the White House Jobs Summit, as President Obama pledged to bring down the nation's 10 percent unemployment rate through a host of ideas, including green energy jobs and investments in the nation's infrastructure.

President Obama's message was directed to approximately 130 attendees, including small business owners, experts from green jobs sector, business leaders, academics, mayors and representatives from nonprofits. Attendees discussed the issue of job creation and expanding the economy in six breakout sessions, tackling such topics as: creating jobs through the rebuilding of America's infrastructure, expanding job opportunities for America's workers through exports and encouraging business investment, competitiveness and job creation.

PG&E CEO Peter Darbee participated in the White House Jobs Summit to speak of rebuilding America's workforce through investments in infrastructure and energy efficiency. 

Darbee identified several broad areas of opportunity to spur utility investment in infrastructure and accelerate job creation:

o        Passing a national climate change policy that puts a price on carbon emissions;

o        Improving processes around siting and permitting for key infrastructure projects, such as renewable energy projects;

o        Setting stable, long-range investment incentive policies in areas like distribution infrastructure, the smart grid and renewable energy; and

o        Developing the next generation of the utility workforce, including those skilled in low-carbon energy.

For a utility like PG&E, energy efficiency is also a tried and true source of jobs -- PG&E implements its approximately 85 energy efficiency programs both through our own employees and through a network of contractors and vendors that employ thousands of people.

Yesterday, Mr. Darbee shared with attendees a significant opportunity to stimulate the sale of energy-efficient products. It's something that PG&E has been doing for years and that is scalable to the national level: work directly with large retailers and manufacturers to buy down the cost of energy-efficient products. PG&E has applied this model to energy-efficient appliances, compact fluorescent lamps and business and consumer electronics most recently. Such midstream/upstream incentive programs have successfully driven market adoption of the next generation of energy-efficient products.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

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

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and Google CEO Eric Schmidt came together at Treasure Island in the middle of the San Francisco Bay to unveil a tool that they claim visually illustrates the impacts of global warming on the state of California. CalAdapt uses Google Earth to predict that global warming will reduce the snowpack in the Sierra Mountains, increase the likelihood of wildfires and put much of the San Francisco Giants energy conscious AT&T Park under five feet of water.

Developing countries may get a windfall of cash.  The Asian Development Bank (ADB) plans to channel around $700 million for expandable programs that mitigate global warming to its developing member countries. The money will be earmarked for climate investment and clean technology. The ADB recently announced Australia, France, Germany, Japan, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom and the United States have already donated more than $6.1 billion to the bank for social and economic programs.

An Australian study links rising seawater temperature to aggressiveness in the feeding habits of fish leading one scientist to theorize about a surfer's greatest fear - that global warming could make sharks more hostile. Research conducted by the University of New South Wales found that just an uptick of two to three degrees caused some fish to be 30 times more aggressive than normal. One researcher said "he would be surprised" if it didn't crossover to sharks. "I would imagine it ought to affect sharks," said Dr. Peter Biro. "We think it is linked to the metabolism of the fishes and increases their need to feed."

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

General Motors will launch the Chevrolet Volt "extended range" electric car in California next year with some of the vehicles going to utility fleets in two-year demonstration projects at PG&E, Southern California Edison, Sacramento Municipal Utility District and also the Electric Power Research Institute. The demonstration project also aims to set up 500 charging stations. The Volt is designed to drive 40 miles on electricity; when the lithium-ion battery runs low an engine/generator extends driving range to more than 300 miles.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa will set up an electric vehicle infrastructure to lure battery and charging station manufacturers, create green jobs and become "the capital of the electric car." The city and partners plan to update 400 existing charging stations and add 100 more around the region to be ready by fall 2010. Partners include Southern California Edison, Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, Southern California Power Authority, automakers and other cities.

Hybrid garbage trucks soon may be lumbering down your street. New York and a few other cities are testing diesel-electric hybrids, with companies like Freightliner, Navistar, Mack, Crane Carrier and Peterbilt joining with electric motor developers Azure Dynamics and Eaton. New York is testing a 36-ton garbage collector built by Mack Trucks and three other hybrids from Crane Carrier. After a year of testing, the city's sanitation department will pick a winner and begin buying 300 trucks a year with fuel consumption cut by about 30 percent.