June 2010 Archives
Jun 30 2010
The nation’s utility industry has something to boast about, according to a new report: the top 100 power producers managed to cut total CO2 emissions by 2.1 percent from 2007 to 2008, a good start on the long term path to curbing greenhouse gases that cause climate change.
Th
e report, “Benchmarking Air Emissions,” commissioned by the Natural Resources Defense Council, Ceres, and three major utilities, also gives PG&E something to boast about.
The San Francisco-based utility, which serves more than 5 million electric customers, had by far the lowest rate of CO2 emissions of any major utility in the country, outside of three much smaller hydro-based public power operations in the
PG&E emitted only 32 pounds of CO2 for every megawatt-hour of electricity generated. The next lowest was Exelon, a leading producer of nuclear power, at 123 pounds.
In contrast, nineteen of the 100 top power producers pumped out more than 2,000 pounds of CO2 per megawatt-hour.Counting the emissions from all power delivered to customers, purchased as well as generated, PG&E's emissions rate in 2008 was 641 pounds of CO2 per MWh, still only about half the national average.
What’s PG&E’s secret? We get just about half of our power from clean sources that emit little or nothing in the way of greenhouse gases. Last year about 20 percent came from nuclear, 14.4 percent from renewable sources and 13 percent from large hydropower dams. In a wet year, the contribution from hydro goes up and our power becomes even cleaner.
Jun 29 2010
Shrinking your carbon footprint isn’t as simple as cutting your direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions—whether from your car or your fireplace. It’s also a matter of watching what you buy, so you don’t embed hidden emissions in your purchases.
The same principle holds for companies. As the largest
In an effort to reduce the company’s environmental footprint, PG&E is teaming up with researchers at University of California, Berkeley and Climate Earth Inc., an environmental accounting company in San Francisco, to research the carbon footprint of products and services the utility buys.
The project will use a technique called life cycle assessment to better understand supply-chain GHG impacts and to identify promising opportunities for GHG reductions. The results of this study will help PG&E and its suppliers cooperate to develop targeted climate action plans to reduce emissions throughout the supply chain.
"This innovative effort, linking academia, the utility and the private sector, is an important learning opportunity that can build the sort of green accounting business model we need for the 21st Century," said Dan Kammen, lead researcher on the project and professor with UC Berkeley's Energy and Resources Group.
The Climate Earth carbon accounting software will enable PG&E to track its complete supply-chain carbon footprint over time by dynamically integrating carbon metrics with data on company expenditures.
“We’re proud to help PG&E enter a new frontier in environmental leadership,” said Chris Erickson, CEO of Climate Earth Inc, “Climate Earth’s system will be used to quantify all of the company’s supply chain carbon emissions, something that has never been done for a utility. It will be exciting to discover ways in which PG&E’s procurement can be a powerful force for minimizing environmental impacts.”
UC Berkeley and Climate Earth researchers will customize the results based on detailed product information gleaned throughout the project. The lifecycle methodology used will be consistent with global protocols for measuring supply-chain GHG emissions, as developed by the World Resources Institute and the World Business Council for Sustainable Development.
“The project holds substantial potential to encourage clean technology development in California,” said Steve Kline, vice president of corporate environmental and federal affairs and chief sustainability officer for PG&E. “In addition to helping to reduce the GHG footprint of our suppliers, we hope this effort will provide an example to other companies interested in taking voluntary action to reduce their climate impact.”
Special thanks to my colleague Fiona Chan for her help with this post.
Jun 28 2010
Clean technology is taking off worldwide—a good thing, since global warming doesn’t stop at national boundaries. The following recent news stories come from
With financing from the World Bank, Country A is moving ahead with its first commercial wind power project. The country is also considering financing options for a proposed 100-megawatt concentrated solar power project to take advantage of its favorable solar conditions. Its goal is to acquire enough renewable energy—1,200 MW of wind and 600 MW of solar—to meet 10 percent of its energy needs by 2020 in order to reduce dependence on imported fuel.
San Jose-based Cisco is working with Country B to provide advanced technology for a brand-new city that will emit almost no greenhouse gases. Building sensors and Smart Grid systems to support widespread deployment of solar panels and energy storage systems will help make this the “world’s greenest city,” proponents claim.
Country C is building what it says is the largest concentrated solar power plant in the world. It also plans to invest $23 billion in a 5,000-MW nuclear power program to begin diversifying away from its near-total reliance on fossil fuels. These moves begin to address concerns that the country has one of the worst environmental records in the world.
While the U.S. Congress continues to resist climate change legislation, Country D is creating a national carbon emissions market, scheduled to begin operating in 2014, to help curb its greenhouse gas emissions and boost incentives to invest in green technology. The national goal is to reduce the amount of CO2 emitted per unit of output by at least 40 percent in 2020 compared to 2005.
Since passing the Renewable Energy Act in 2008, Country E has approved more than 200 contracts for renewable power, with a total capacity of 4,400 MW. As many as 50 more proposals await approval by the overworked Department of Energy, including solar, wind, hydro, biomass and geothermal projects.
A leading pig farmer in Country F has installed 500 square meters of solar collectors and water heaters to place electric lamps to keep their newborn piglets warm, saving money and energy. The system was installed with help from the Energy Ministry’s Alternative Energy Development and Efficiency Department. The farm raises 25,000 pigs a month, 13 percent of all those raised in the country. It also generates 1.6 megawatts of power from biogas produced from pig manure.
Answers: A=Jordan; B=
Jun 25 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Sweltering heat waves like the one that has hit the Washington D.C. area are spanning the globe and climate scientists are starting to sound like an old Carpenters’ record, singing “We’ve Only Just Begun.” The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that global temperatures for January through May were the hottest on record. American ice cream cones are melting faster as well. The National Center for Atmospheric Research released a study claiming daily record high temperatures occurred twice as often as record lows over the last decade across the continental U.S. Scientists predict the ratio of record highs to lows is likely to increase dramatically in coming decades if emissions of greenhouse gases continue to climb.
The wave of public support for setting clean energy and global warming policies is gaining momentum as it rolls to Capitol Hill. A new study shows that this summer, most Americans are calling for lawmakers to get off the beach, wax up their hypothetical surfboards and take a ride on the wave of action. The latest Wall Street Journal-NBC poll found overwhelming support for comprehensive clean energy legislation that includes carbon pollution reductions. It also found that cleaning up the BP oil disaster and energy reform is currently the number two priority of Americans. Finally, it registered another drop in support for the expansion of offshore oil drilling.
The gavel dropped on nine climate protesters in Scotland as a jury in Aberdeen found them guilty of disrupting a busy airport. The nine people participated in what they named the “Plane Stupid” protest in March of 2009, campaigning against airport expansion and future carbon emissions that would be produced by a larger facility. Their demonstration delayed 350 flights, including an emergency ambulance flight. “We fully accept people's right to object to issues such as climate change, and to make their voices heard,” said an Aberdeen Airport spokesperson. But “this sends out a strong message that the action of these individuals was not acceptable.”
Jun 24 2010
The future of the much-heralded “Smart Grid”—which will leverage advanced communications, computing and control technology to provide more affordable, reliable and cleaner electrical service—looks brighter today thanks to two decisions by the California Public Utilities Commission.
The more obvious of the two decisions sets forth Smart Grid deployment guidelines for the state’s investor-owned utilities, which are subject to CPUC regulation.
The other decision approved $357 million in capital spending through 2013 for PG&E’s Cornerstone Improvement Program, which aims to significantly improve service reliability for many of the utility’s more than 5 million electric customers in Northern and
Cornerstone isn’t a traditional program to improve reliability by trimming vegetation or replacing old poles. Rather, the concept is to create more capacity and interconnectedness on the power grid, so outages can be isolated and power flows redirected onto neighoring circuits to restore service to customers as quickly as possible.
Contained within this scheme are the seeds of what I call “smart grid lite”—a program to automate selected distribution network operations to radically improve the speed of service restoration from hours to minutes, without the need for human intervention. It would be a first step toward what some visionaries call a “self-healing grid.”
While PG&E engineers are still evaluating how to invest the CPUC-approved funding to maximize benefits to customers, one promising approach under consideration is to build on the success of a pilot program launched in
From 2006 to 2009, PG&E installed dozens of “intelligent switches” in selected circuits in the city. They automatically detect a short-circuit, shut down to protect the system, then communicate among each other to locate the segment of line where the fault occurred. The switches then reopen on other line segments, isolating the problem to as few customers as possible.
Many if not most customers on these circuits see service restored in less than five minutes. In one event two years ago, which affected 2,500 customers, 1,900 came back on within less than two minutes. The system has worked successfully several times this year as well.
Utility industry engineers call this Fault Location, Isolation, and Service Restoration, or FLISR. A report prepared in 2007 for the California Energy Commission on the “Value of Distribution System Automation” confirmed that automated switching can “significantly” limit customer outages.
As Oracle Corp.’s Kevin Costin observed, “from the customer perspective, FLISR is appropriately viewed as a first step toward a self-healing grid -- a grid in which coordinated automatic controls minimize outage durations and the number of affected customers.”
In today’s ruling on Smart Grid, the CPUC cited among the many “substantial benefits for consumers” from Smart Grid the fact that “Greater monitoring and automated controls can . . . reduce the frequency and duration of outages.”
That sounds exactly like what PG&E hopes to undertake as part of the Cornerstone program. It will be years before PG&E or other utilities achieve a truly “self-healing grid.” But Cornerstone may well begin the process of helping customers realize the benefits of that vision.
Jun 23 2010
In its brand new quarterly report on the status of renewable energy in our fair state, the California Public Utilities Commission cites as one of the highlights of Q2 its authorization of a five-year plan by PG&E to foster the development of up to 500 megawatts of medium-sized solar photovoltaic projects in its service area.
The timing of the report was good, because PG&E today celebrated completion of a 2-MW pilot project near
Under appropriately bright, sunny skies, senior PG&E executives, the president of the CPUC, a renewable energy adviser to Gov. Schwarzenegger and project contractors spoke to a group of about 100 attendees, who included labor groups, suppliers, local residents and media.
A key focus for many speakers was praise for the project’s diverse suppliers and for the labor unions that helped build the facility in only four months from the time shovels hit the ground. (The entire project took about 10 months from start to finish.)
Besides helping
Said Governor Schwarzenegger in a prepared statement, “This project will help us meet our long-term energy goals while creating jobs and keeping
Though the pilot plant is small in comparison to some of the multi-hundred-megawatt solar plants proposed by some renewable developers, it’s one of only a tiny handful of utility-scale PV projects actually delivering power in
More important, it proved the concept of PG&E’s larger program, namely that modest-sized projects, under 20 MW in size, can be sited, approved and built much faster than some of the mega-projects now on the drawing boards. And it paves the way for successful realization of that program.
Said PG&E President Chris Johns, “The success of the Vaca-Dixon Solar Station pilot project has provided PG&E with the tools and know-how to develop similar facilities in our service area and the ability to turn our clean energy vision into reality.”
Interested developers and suppliers can check out PG&E's website for more information.
Jun 22 2010
PG&E today took possession of its second all-electric eStar truck at a media event in
State environmental leaders gave thumbs up. “The eStar is a perfect fit for our efforts to implement AB32 through the Air Quality Improvement Program,” said James Goldstene, executive officer of the California Air Resources Board, referring to the Global Warming Solutions Act passed in 2006.
The clean-air eStar truck, using lithium-ion batteries, has a range of up to 80 miles, a top speed of 50 mph, and a payload of 4,000 pounds. It also runs quietly, making it a good neighbor in the urban communities PG&E serves.
PG&E, the utility launch partner for the truck, has long been committed to running clean vehicles in its fleet, starting with low-emissions natural gas-powered cars and trucks. Given that half of the electric power PG&E sells comes from sources free of greenhouse gas emissions, it makes sense for the utility to begin acquiring electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles built to handle tough jobs in its Northern and
Last year, as noted in NEXT100, PG&E road tested the first all-electric utility truck in the
PG&E’s fleet includes more than 1,000 compressed natural gas passenger cars, pickups, vans and trucks. Last year, we added the nation’s first all-electric bucket truck to our fleet, joining our PHEV and hybrid diesel-electric bucket trucks. We also continued to evaluate and test numerous electric passenger vehicles, including the Mitsubishi i-Miev and AC Propulsion’s eBox, and have incorporated a Ford Escape PHEV and two Toyota Prius PHEVs into PG&E’s fleet. To support these new vehicles, PG&E is installing electric vehicle charging stations at targeted company fleet locations, with plans to add more as new vehicles join our fleet.
Jun 22 2010
Those who follow smart grid developments knew it was quite an honor recently when PG&E and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory won Connectivity Week’s prestigious SmartGrid Buildy Award, presented to “leaders, visionaries and implementers of smart devices and smart systems in the context of commercial buildings, residential, energy management and other applications.”
The two winners were recognized for their joint pilot project last year to make automated management of customer electrical demand as valuable a resource as new generation on California’s electrical grid. The project demonstrated the ability to take a signal from the the state’s electrical grid operator, transmit it to the energy management systems of three large PG&E customers (an industrial bakery, a retailer and a local government office), and cut their line process, heating, ventilation and air conditioning load within minutes. All that happened without manual controls or human intervention.
Why was that demonstration such a big deal? The key operational challenge facing any electric utility is to match supply and demand, second by second. As demand fluctuates up and down, utilities must ramp generators up and down accordingly. They must also buy more reserve power on the wholesale market ahead of demand peaks, typically on hot summer days when customers crank up their air conditioners.
Building new generators to serve spikes in demand that may last only a few hours a year is extremely expensive—and none too good for the environment, either, since such generators typically burn fossil fuels.
If customers would instead reduce or shift their demand, utilities could avoid buying expensive power during peak periods. If coordinated with wholesale energy markets, such customer “demand response” would be valuable enough to merit rewarding them handsomely for saving everyone money.
As an added bonus, customers who take part don’t need to sacrifice in order to enjoy the rewards. Most of us never notice if a building’s energy management system turns down the air conditioning for a few minutes or dims the lights a bit.
Demand response is a top priority of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In parts of the country that encourage it, demand response has "aided in providing greater grid reliability, mitigation of generation market power, and an overall decline in fuel-adjusted power prices in organized wholesale markets,” FERC notes in its National Action Plan on Demand Response, published this month.
What was new and significant about PG&E’s award-winning pilot with LBNL was the demonstration of sophisticated smart grid technology, using open standards, to automate the response by large commercial and industrial customers, so their demand could be adjusted within minutes to changing grid conditions. (The figure at left shows results from a previous, less exacting demonstration of automated demand response.)
The next step for PG&E this year will be to explore the potential of using demand response help integrate wind and solar power—which fluctuate with the weather—onto the power grid by matching supply and demand in real time. If it works, PG&E and other utilities should be able to significantly reduce their reliance on fossil fuels for generation.
Note: PG&E’s Steve McCarty will be discussing last year’s pilot at the National Town Hall Meeting on Demand Response and Smart Grid this Thursday in Washington D.C.
Jun 21 2010
Wouldn’t it be great if you could lower your electric bill, enjoy more reliable service and spare the environment? That’s why many in the utility industry are so excited about the potential for leveraging smart meters in homes and businesses to help customers make better use of energy—often without even having to think.
Smart meters measure energy use on a periodic basis (typically hourly) and report back to the utility over a digital communications network, doing away with the need for monthly manual meter reads. They allow utilities to offer price plans that let customers save money and reduce pollution by shifting energy use from peak to off-peak periods, such as nighttime or early morning.
Newer smart meters, such as those PG&E is installing throughout its service area, can also communicate with in-home displays that show customers how much energy they are using and at what price. The meters also communicate with smart thermostats and appliances, which can be programmed to operate during hours when there's less demand for power and lower prices.
It’s easy to rhapsodize about this vision but very hard to pull it off. It’s an enormous challenge just to test and install millions of new meters, build out a huge communications network to support them and then manage the tidal wave of data they transmit.
It will be another huge challenge to make the new meters communicate seamlessly with consumer energy displays from dozens of manufacturers, and appliances like smart washing machines that start their loads only when electricity prices drop to a programmed level.
And it will likely be an even more immense challenge to integrate all this infrastructure with “smart chargers” that “refuel” electric vehicles when the utility signals that power is available cheaply.
If PG&E and other utilities overcome these challenges, some of the credit will surely be due to PG&E’s
I toured the lab today with its manager, Arthur Anderson. Pointing to a large array of meters, energy displays and communications modules lining the wall, he explained, "The idea is for us to identify emerging technologies early and to analyze the risks here, rather than in a production setting. Here they can fail with no risk to PG&E or our customers."
The lab includes a shielded RF room, which tests radio transmitters and receivers under a wide range of temperatures, interference and other conditions to measure power, sensitivity, signal clarity and reliability.
The lab also tests whether devices communicate according to accepted standards—which a surprising number don’t. A lot of small companies evidently don’t have the resources to master the new “smart energy” standards, and some bigger ones haven’t shown the focused commitment necessary to make their gear work.
Until they do,
In fact, the lab has helped even the best vendors in the field discover and work out bugs that could jeopardize performance. “Every device we've worked with, we've found issues in intensive testing,”
The lab will be supporting small field trials later this year, using selected PG&E employees to test the functionality of so-called “home area networks” that integrate smart meters, energy displays and energy controllers. The trials will test the ability to introduce new devices (like off-the-shelf energy monitors) to the network, receive pricing signals from the utility and help customers understand and manage energy use to lower their bills.
While I was visiting, another group from PG&E was using the lab to test the ability to register customer energy display devices with the utility so they could receive information from the smart meter. I must have brought good luck, because they actually got it to work.
Customers are going to be asking a lot of good questions once they get their hands on these displays and finally have a chance to analyze what's sucking up their electrons--and their dollars. Hopefully, by turning every customer into a detective, we will all use energy more efficiently, lower bills and spare the environment
Jun 18 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Nuclear energy startup TerraPower, backed by Bill Gates and venture capital firms, raised $35 million in new funding to continue early-stage development of a reactor fueled by nuclear waste, Reuters reports. The company is developing a "traveling wave" reactor that would run for up to 100 years without refueling. TerraPower won't build a reactor but will seek partners for development. Original investors Gates and venture capital firm Charles River Ventures and new investor Khosla Ventures joined in the latest round of financing.
Switzerland's Migros supermarket chain will offer a new product this summer -- the Norwegian-made Think City electric car. The 600-store chain will sell the Think car through a division that has already sold 60 Think vehicles to a company that will provide them to guests at a resort in the Swiss Alps, the Grist blog reports. The Think company leased a previous version of the car to San Francisco residents in a pilot program in the 1990s, and the city may be the first to begin selling the electric car in the U.S. later this year.
Europe is building new wind farms this year at a pace to nearly match development of new gas-fired power generation, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) says. The industry group forecast 10 gigawatts of new wind generating capacity for 2010. "It is clear that wind energy will be competing for the top spot with new power plants," says Christian Kjaer, chief executive of the EWEA. Germany and Britain are forecast to install the most new wind capacity.
Jun 17 2010
Here’s a record we could do without: The United States ranks number one in automobile CO2 emissions among major world markets, according to JATO Dynamics, a market research firm based in the
And not just by a hair, either. The average light vehicle in the
JATO reports the good news that greenhouse gas emissions from tailpipes fell in all major markets last year—by 0.4 g/km in
Strikingly, one-third of vehicles sold in
"It is still clear that American consumers need to undergo a fundamental re-think of their vehicle buying preferences, but the past period of economic upheaval is likely to have meant that other domestic issues have taken consumer's priority," says David Mitchell, President of JATO Americas. "The blame can't just lie with consumers though, the OEM product offering in the
JATO also cites as factors the relatively low price of gasoline in the
One thing’s for sure: if consumers and manufacturers in
Jun 16 2010
Item: On June 7, the International Energy Agency reports that worldwide subsidies for the consumption of fossil fuels soared to $557 billion in 2008, an increase of nearly two-thirds over 2007. Phasing out those subsidies would promote more efficient use of energy and slash CO2 greenhouse gas emissions by 7 percent—equal to the current emissions of
As IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol tells the Financial Times, “I see fossil fuel subsidies as the appendicitis of the global energy system which needs to be removed for a healthy, sustainable development future.”
Item: On June 15, President Obama, addressing the nation on the BP oil spill, says:
Item: On June 15, the U.S. Senate overwhelming rejects an amendment proposed by Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., to end $35 billion in tax breaks for oil and gas producers over the next decade. The amendment, defeated by a vote of 35 to 61, would have earmarked $25 billion for deficit reduction and $10 billion for state energy and conservation programs.
Jun 15 2010
It’s called “small hydro,” but U.S. Department of Energy and industry experts say there's big potential to create more renewable energy from hydroelectric projects of 30 megawatts or less.
A 2006 study by DOE’s Idaho National Laboratory identified more than 5,000 potential small hydro sites, mostly in the Pacific Northwest and
A recent study commissioned by the National Hydropower Association (NHA) offered a much bigger estimate of 60,000 MW from potential small hydro projects at existing dams or
By contrast, total installed solar capacity in the
Hydropower has many ideal attributes. It creates no greenhouse or toxic air emissions. Unlike wind, solar or nuclear power, it can be turned on or off as needed. And it takes up less “footprint” than utility-scale wind farms or solar installations. In 2008, small hydro made up about one-fifth of PG&E's renewable energy mix.
The biggest impact to the environment comes not from the power turbines but from dams. Where dams already exist, the damage (pun intended) is mostly done, so adding small hydro would have minimal net impact. “Only 3 percent of the nation's 80,000 dams currently generate electricity – so the potential for adding electric generation to non-powered dams is enormous,” notes NHA.
Interest in small hydro is soaring thanks to new financial incentives. In 2009, Congress extended a generous investment tax credit to hydro projects at existing dams. DOE is also handing out grants to support small hydro development.
NHA complains, however, that it takes an average of five years to win a license from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission even to add power generation capacity at existing dams—a deadly obstacle to smaller projects.
Tapping the country’s potential for more clean hydropower “will not occur without a series of changes to the status quo, including improvements in certain aspects of the regulatory process for hydropower development,” NHA says. Hopefully, FERC will continuing taking steps to streamline applications in the interests of clean and sustainable energy.
Jun 14 2010
In old science fiction plots, it took an extraterrestrial threat—usually aliens in space ships—to unite the quarreling peoples of Earth and make them appreciate the virtues of cooperation.
That’s exactly what it took last week to silence the usual sniping of Democrats and Republicans and bring about a rare show of bipartisanship in the House of Representatives. Only instead of UFOs, what brought legislators together was the threat of solar storms and other disruptions to the nation’s electric power grid.
As reported in NEXT100, the National Research Council, Department of Energy and other authorities have issued dire warnings about the potentially devastating effects of solar storms—or, more technically, “coronal mass ejections”—to the electric grid. Power surges caused by these solar eruptions can melt down critical transformers over enormous areas, shutting down power needed to pump water and fuel, and to run essential public safety, health and business services. In short, to use a non-scientific term, armageddon.
Remarkably, legislators who can’t decide whether to pass an extension of unemployment insurance, much less climate legislation, had no problem understanding the magnitude of this threat and taking action. After a rare unanimous committee endorsement, the House passed the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act on June 9 by a voice vote. It now goes to the Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources.
The bill directs the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to come up with “reliability standards adequate to protect the bulk-power system from any reasonably foreseeable geomagnetic storm event.” It requires measures to ensure the availability of critical grid transformers and authorizes cost recovery for investments to safeguard the nation’s bulk-power system. It also addresses threats of terrorist attacks against the grid.
In floor speeches, several legislators commented on the powerful impact of a classified briefing last fall about the threat to U.S. national security and our basic way of life from grid vulnerability.
“ I think every Member in that top secret briefing left, having experienced a sobering moment in their lives, realizing the great responsibility we have to pass legislation that can deal with this problem,” said Rep. Ed Markey, D.-Mass.
Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, R-Maryland, summed up the need for the bill:
According to the National Academy of Sciences, this bill is necessary because there is one event that we will not avoid, and that is solar geomagnetic interference--a solar storm. If--really, when--we have a big one. . . this will shut down our whole grid. It would cost us only about $100 million to protect the grid . . . The consequences of inaction are dire. If our grid is destroyed, the National Academies warn it will cost us between $1 trillion and $2 trillion in damages, and it will take 4 to 10 years to recover. With the grid's being down, more or less, for 4 to 10 years, one can only imagine the consequences to our society. This is a really important bipartisan bill, and I rise in very strong support.
Footnote: I could find only one significant news story about the bill. Apparently this rare show of bipartisan unity to prevent societal collapse wasn’t sexy enough to interest today’s media. However, the National Geographic channel plans a major show tomorrow night on "Electronic Armageddon." It posits the question: "What could happen if an electromagnetic pulse surged to earth, crippling every aspect of modern society's infrastructure?"
Jun 14 2010
Last week, in a NEXT100 feature on electric vehicles and “range anxiety,” I noted lingering uncertainty over the claimed 100-mile range of the much-anticipated Nissan LEAF all-electric five-passenger car. The official website notes vaguely that “Range will vary with driving habits, conditions, weather and battery age.”
As if to answer my question, Nissan has now released much more detailed numbers, summarized in autoblogreen.
It turns out that they weren’t kidding about the range varying. Under ideal conditions—constant cruising speed of 38 mph, with no heater or air conditioner running, the car maxes out at 138 miles on a charge.
On the highway, at 55 mph but with the air conditioner on high, the range falls almost in half, to 70 miles.
And worst case, in 6 mph stop-and-go rush hour traffic with the air conditioner on, the car ekes out only 47 miles before needing more juice. That’s just enough to get you from downtown
Bottom line, this probably isn’t the ideal car for long-distance commuting from the suburbs to
Jun 11 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A sizable majority of Americans continue to believe global warming is a man-made problem, according to two separate and recently released polls. A Stanford study shows three out of four Americans believe that the Earth has been gradually warming as the result of human activity and want the government to institute regulations to stop it. The other poll, taken by researchers at Yale and George Mason Universities, reported that 63 percent of Americans said the issue is personally important to them. The poll also found that 77 percent of respondents support regulating carbon dioxide emissions.
Trends of warmer weather may be linked to the spread of disease in Europe, according to a report by the European Academies Science Advisory Council. The report claims temperature rise may be one reason disease-spreading insects are maturing faster and producing more offspring, resulting in an increase in cases of dengue fever, yellow fever, malaria and even human plague. The report is cautious about making a definitive causal link between global warming and the spread of disease, with the authors calling for further research on the issue.
Senate Republicans failed to block a plan that would allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to impose new global warming regulations aimed at reducing carbon dioxide emissions. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) launched a measure seeking to undo the EPA's scientific findings that carbon emissions endanger human health. It fell four votes shy of reaching the 51 needed to proceed. Republicans and several Democrats who voted in favor of the measure, argued the EPA's plan will give too much power to "unelected bureaucrats” and cause American municipalities to shoulder new costs from cutting carbon. Pundits now predict the vote may cloud the effort to consider energy and climate legislation later this summer.
Jun 11 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
BP has been pulled from the global Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI) in the wake of the giant oil spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. Dow Jones and Sustainable Asset Management Group said the spill's effects on the environment, local communities, economic effects and damage to BP's reputation led to its removal. The indexes track the financial performance of companies applying sustainable business policies. Before the gulf well blow-out, fund managers were already worried about BP's troubles with accidents and safety fines dating to 2005, Reuters reports.
Attention cyclists. Navigational systems are showing up on smartphones such as Apple's iPhone and Google Android phones. Smartphone navigation programs OpenMaps and Google Maps are valuable to cyclists, even in their current, imperfect states, reports bicycle commuter Mike Swift at the San Jose Mercury News. The products are certain to get better as they collect feedback from users, he says. Meanwhile, Nokia has introduced a bicycle charger kit and cell phone holder clamped onto the handlebars. The charger plugs into the phone and the charging kicks in when a pedaling cyclist hits about 4 mph.
Father's Day is coming up -- June 20 -- and The Green Seen has come across a one-stop solution for a gift for Dad. Treehugger has put together an online green guide to some novel gift solutions, including: organic cotton and hemp ties; a reclaimed French wine rack, or pupitre; vegetarian grill cookbook with 250 recipes for vegetables, fruit, lentils and other alternatives to beef and chicken; a hammock made from seat belts; and an energy-saving Black and Decker Power Monitor. You can also toast Dad with a glass of beer from local breweries to reduce your shipping footprint. Happy Father's Day!
Jun 10 2010
One of the most promising sources of clean, renewable energy in
Some of the larger companies in this space are relatively well established, including BrightSource, NextEra and Abengoa Solar. Many smaller developers, however, face a frustrating chicken-and-egg problem: they need lots of money to build their projects, but they can’t get contracts or financing until they prove their technology is cost-effective.
Unlike photovoltaic cells, which can be tested in a laboratory, CSP technology needs relatively large and costly installations out in the desert to prove its merit. Many good ideas may be languishing because developers don’t have the resources to cross the treacherous threshhold from design to commercialization.
The Department of Energy hopes to break that vicious circle by announcing a new “funding opportunity” this month that will give promising solar developers critical help in mounting pilot projects that will accelerate their progress toward commercialization.
The DOE’s Solar Demonstration Zone Project aims to identify a suitable sunny site, somewhere in the Southwest, with help from the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management. DOE will then make it ready for developers by doing basic environmental assessments and building basic infrastructure: roads, fences, water supplies and power grid connections.
If Congress approves funding, which is still uncertain, DOE would also share 50 percent of the project costs with each approved developer.
While DOE won’t prescribe any particular technologies, its original announcement suggests that promising candidates might include high-temperature troughs, thermal storage, low-water applications suitable for the desert, and low-cost reflectors, concentrators or solar-tracking devices. (DOE may also consider specialized kinds of photovoltaic applications, which uses lenses to focus light on high-efficiency solar cells.)
A DOE source tells me that the whole review process could take 6 to 12 months. I imagine it could take longer still for developers to do final environmental reviews and install their pilot facilities, so don’t expect any immediate breakthroughs. But since DOE has operated a similar program for several years on behalf of biofuels developers, I’m hopeful that lessons learned there should help this program work relatively smoothly.
Jun 09 2010
When plug-in vehicles finally start hitting showrooms toward the end of the year, the questions on most potential buyers’ minds will be, in addition to charging requirements, “how far will it go?” and “how far do I need to go?”
With a modest psychological adjustment, most people will find the range on most of the new models to be more than adequate. A national survey of consumers by Pike Research last year found that more than four in five respondents drove 40 miles or less each day, with an average daily driving distance of 27 miles. (On a more pessimistic note, 43 percent of respondents in a Cars.com survey said a 100-mile range would be insufficient.)
I suspect that many of the worriers are thinking of the occasional long trips they like to take, not their daily routine. With a little planning, you can make that trip by using your second family car, if you have one, or by renting one when you need it (saving on insurance and parking).
A recent feature in the blog Earth2Tech summarizes the range of a baker’s dozen of the most promising electric and hybrid vehicles, including the BMW Mini E, Chevy Volt, Coda Sedan, Fisker Karma, Ford Focus EV, Mitsubshi iMiev, Nissan LEAF, Smart Fortwo ED, Tesla Model S, Tesla Roadser,
Even though their real-world range is typically shorter than manufacturers’ claims, the good news is that most of the vehicles go far enough on a charge to handle most urban or suburban trips.
Hybrids like the Chevy Volt and Prius Plug-in don’t pose any problem at all—they can go hundreds of miles on their gasoline engine, though you'll save money when you keep your trips within the car’s all-electric range.
Driver tests of the BMW Mini E show that its claimed maximum range of 156 miles is highly optimistic. But the more typical range of 100 miles—dropping as low as 55 miles in sub-zero weather—should still be more than adequate if you aren’t planning a visit to Fargo. In fact, a survey of 150 Mini E drivers last year by the U.C. Davis Plug-In Hybrid Electric Center found that the car met their needs without special charging.
The cute Mitsubishi iMiev is rated at about 80 miles, but may get as little as 55 in the worst driving conditions (fast highway speeds, or with heater on full). Then again, remember those survey results: if you’re one of the 82 percent who drive less than 40 miles a day, it could be a fine commute vehicle, clean and economical to operate.
The Nissan LEAF is being awaited with great interest by thousands of buyers. Its claimed 100-mile range hasn’t been independently verified, but unless the company’s claims are wildly exaggerated, the LEAF should handle most trips, say, within the Bay Area.
Check out Earth2Tech’s run-down on range, then play around with a mapping web site to get a realistic sense of your daily driving needs. Only you can decide if the trade-off of shorter range for a cleaner environment (and conscience) is worth it.
Jun 08 2010
Maybe what the world needs to combat global warming is a team of really good firefighters.
The Earth is being warmed by thousands of underground coal fires burning unchecked around the world, which release vast amounts of CO2, methane and other potent greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
In
"Coal fires are a disaster for all of humanity. And it's only due to global warming that people are finally beginning to pay attention," said Guan Haiyan, a coal fire expert at Shenhua Remote Sensing and Geo-engineering Co.
Officials in
Coal fields are also burning in
Coal combusts naturally if heat released by slowly oxidizing carbon builds up enough. Spontaneous combustion is much more common at mine sites, where small coal chunks and dust are highly flammable. Coal fires are also set off by wildfires or when mine machinery throws off sparks.
"This problem is going to get worse, because mining is on the increase. The projections for the future are scary," said Dr. Anupma Prakash, a leading international authority.
Putting out coal fires is incredibly difficult. The burning layers are usually inaccessible and unstable. Temperatures frequently reach 1000 F. Drainage often makes flooding a fire impractical. Sometimes when official believe fires have been extinguished, they reemerge months or years later. Still, the Chinese have developed methods, including injecting water or mud into old burning mines and covering them with impemeable soil, that appear to work with enough time and effort.
Unfortunately, the Chinese government and most others lack the will to invest in fighting these difficult fires. Before the science of global warming became solid, these fires were local irritants and a regrettable waste of resources. Today they should be seen as a major contributor to one of humanity’s greatest threats and stamped out. The time for excuses is over.
Jun 07 2010
We can’t feel guilty about all of our environmental impacts, or we’d never get through life. But how long can we afford continued denial about the effect of our meat consumption on global warming?
A report last week by the UN’s International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management on the “Environmental Impacts of Consumption and Production” served up a useful reminder that “Agricultural production accounts for a staggering 70% of the global freshwater consumption, 38% of the total land use, and 14% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.”
But not all food is created equal, the report noted: “Animal products, both meat and dairy, in general require more resources and cause higher emissions than plant-based alternatives. . . . As total food consumption and the share of animal calories increase with wealth, nutrition for rich countries tends to cause higher environmental impacts than for poor countries.”
Said the report’s lead author, Professor Edgar Hertwich of the
Environmentalists have tiptoed around that fact for years, knowing that many American would rather deny the existence of climate change rather than deny themselves a juicy steak or burger. Americans rank behind only
In an interview last year, Al Gore said that although he’s cut back sharply on the amount of meat that he eats, he’s been reluctant to address the issue in print.
“It’s absolutely correct that the growing meat intensity of diets around the world is one of the issues connected to this global crisis – not only because of the CO2 involved, but also because of the water consumed in the process,” Gore said. But he added, “I don’t go . . . saying everybody should become vegetarian—partly because it’s difficult enough to get agreement without adding that on top of it.”
Still, it’s an issue that won’t go away. An international team of scientists reported in March that worldwide meat production has tripled over the past 30 years and could double in the next 20. Counting feed production and transport, they concluded, livestock are responsible for more than one-sixth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Animals vary widely in their impact. Chickens, for example, use four times as much energy as an equivalent amount of plant protein, but beef cattle require 54 times as much, calculated David Pimentel, a Cornell University agricultural scientist.
But grass-fed cows have a much smaller carbon footprint than factory-raised beef. A recent study by USDA scientists concluded that grazing lands absorb large amounts of greenhouse gases.
And not all experts agree that meat is the enemy. "We certainly can reduce our greenhouse-gas production, but not by consuming less meat and milk," said Frank Mitloehner of UC Davis, who presented a paper at the American Chemical Society meeting this March in San Francisco. "Producing less meat and milk will only mean more hunger in poor countries."
A number of countries, including
Labeling is a great way, in theory, to appeal to voluntary consumer action to save the environment. Still, if you knew that your cheeseburger contributed the equivalent of 8 to 13 pounds of CO2 emissions, would you opt for a salad instead?
Jun 04 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Oil is still leaking in the Gulf of Mexico, and British Petroleum officials say they will not be able to stop it until August - prompting President Obama to vow to fight for climate change legislation to pass in the Senate. In a speech made in Pittsburgh this week, the president said the private sector should pay some kind of price for its carbon emissions. He also said he will be pushing to make American homes, businesses and vehicles more energy efficient. “It means tapping into our natural gas reserves, and moving ahead with our plan to expand our nation's fleet of nuclear power plants,” said Obama. “And it means rolling back billions of dollars in tax breaks to oil companies so we can prioritize investments in clean energy research and development."
Global warming is being linked to hundreds of deaths in India as scientists claim the northern part of the country is in the midst of the hottest summer since record keeping began in the late 1800s. Forecasters predict temperatures will continue to rise to close to 122 degrees Fahrenheit and they expect the number of deaths to go up right along side the mercury levels. Hospitals are taking in roughly 300 people a day suffering from heat stroke and officials say the figures are only a fraction of the total as most of the casualties are found in remote rural villages. In addition, wildlife is suffering, with bats, crows and peacocks dying from the heat. Even India's northern hill stations – historically a refuge from the sweltering summers – are reporting temperatures far above the seasonal average.
A report released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration suggests global warming is a severe threat to Northern California's two great marine sanctuaries and nearby coastal regions. The report states that as the sea level continues to rise and the ocean water continues to warm, the migratory patterns of marine mammals will be disrupted and coastal storms and erosion will be more severe. The report mentions that sea level at the mouth of San Francisco Bay has already risen nearly 8 inches in the past century and noted that scientists estimate a sea level rise off the coast of California of 29 inches in the next 40 years and 75 inches by the end of the century. It also claims some ocean species are moving northward. Gray whales have been observed giving birth as far north as the waters off Monterey County, the report states.
Jun 04 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
The California state Assembly narrowly approved a bill that would make the state the first in the nation to ban plastic and paper bags in grocery, convenience and other stores. Shoppers without their own bags would have to buy paper bags with at least 40 percent recycled material for at least 5 cents a bag or buy reusable totes. The bill, endorsed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and approved with a minimum 41 votes, now goes to the Senate. Plastic bags are banned in five California cities, including San Francisco; Oregon has introduced a bag law; and Washington, Florida, New Jersey and North Carolina are looking at the California bill. The California Grocers Association supports the measure, while the American Chemistry Council, a plastics industry group, is opposed.
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg signed a bill calling for a review of synthetic turf used in future athletic fields and playgrounds in the city. The review will include parks and health departments and an advisory committee. Environmentalists and park advocates say the artificial surfaces have potential hazards from lead and other toxins and generate extreme heat. Many park officials find replacing grass or asphalt with artificial turf including material from shredded tires allows for year-round use and cheaper maintenance and saves millions of gallons of water. Here in San Francisco, the Recreation and Park Department is installing synthetic athletic fields at a number of neighborhood parks.
The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico could extend up the Atlantic coast early this summer,according to computer modeling at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Researchers said their study was not a forecast and had not undergone scientific peer review, the New York Times Green blog reports. But they said a clockwise loop current in the gulf could propel the oil to Florida's Atlantic coast, with the spill spreading to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina.
Jun 03 2010
Next time you try to settle a bet about recent weather, try checking out the
Its daily charts on renewable energy production, including small hydro, biogas, biomass and geothermal, offer a valuable reminder of just how variable some of the state’s clean power resources are, based on the whims of Mother Nature.
Looking back a couple of weeks, I found that wind generation peaked at 38,341 megawatt-hours (MWh) on June 1, but hit a low of 9,989 MWh just three days earlier, on May 29.
Wind power also fluctuates minute by minute, as gusts give way to doldrums. Check out the jagged graph of today’s wind generation here.
Solar generation reached a high of 4,010 MWh on May 29 after slumping to a miserable low of 698 MWh on May 17. That’s nearly a sixfold difference. No wonder utilities have to keep on their toes to accommodate the varying amounts of generation available to them.
The good news is that solar tends to peak when the wind take a a siesta, so the combination is a lot more even than either one on its own.
To compound the challenges facing utility operators, demand varies a lot from hour to hour and day to day as well. It ranged from a low of 550 gigawatt hours (GWh) on May 16 to a high of 642 GWh on June 2, no doubt reflecting an increase in air conditioning with the onset of warm weather.
Depending on the weather and demand, the share of renewable energy in the overall electric pie fluctuated from a low of 10.1 percent on May 15 to a robust 14.1 percent on June 1. The state’s investor-owned utilities, including PG&E, are working toward a goal of 20 percent renewable power in the 2010-2013 period.
If your appetite has just been whetted, the CAISO website is also a great place to learn about Congestion Revenue Rights, Small Generator Interconnection Procedures, Convergence Bidding and Real Time Imbalance Energy Offsets.
Check it out. You’ll be the life of the party once you do. Or maybe not.
Jun 02 2010
The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico wasn’t supposed to happen—no rig had ever failed so catastrophically in the
Nassim Nicholas Taleb—best-selling author, hedge-fund trader and former professor of risk engineering—calls such unpredictable outliers “black swan events” (black swans were deemed mythical until discovered in
An important report released today by the Department of Energy (DOE) and North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) takes a much-needed look at three potential “black swan” scenarios that could have a devastating effect on the North American power grid: terrorist attacks (including cyber attacks) aimed at disrupting grid operations; pandemics that cripple the industry’s skilled workforce; and natural or man-made electromagnetic pulses that fry critical equipment, leading to widespread blackouts.
The electric power
So why bother now? Because failing to take precautions could have much graver consequences to this country, and the world, than were caused by failure to heed the warnings about hijackings in the August 6, 2001 CIA memo, “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in US.” As the new report notes:
The North American bulk power system is the backbone for modern society. It only takes a few moments of reflection on how reliant society-at-large has become on electricity-dependent technology to recognize the potential impacts a prolonged loss of power could have on North
DOE and NERC assembled a wide range of government, industry and academic experts for a workshop in December to assess thes mega-risks to the grid. Of particular importance is the section on solar storms—a subject covered at length in NEXT100 (here, here, here and here). The danger is that giant blasts of plasma ejected from the sun can induce electrical overloads on the grid, melting big transformers that would take months or years to replace—and leaving society paralyzed in the meantime.
The report cites recent analyses suggesting that “the potential extremes of the geomagnetic threat environment may be much greater than previously anticipated.” For one thing, it’s now apparent that solar storms are capable of delivering 10 times the energy of one in 1989 that blacked out nearly all of
The report disappoints when it comes to conclusions: instead of concrete steps, it calls for the creation of task forces and more attention by government authorities. Still every cure starts with a diagnosis. By highlighting these risks, DOE and NERC at least increase the odds of preventing a future disaster.
Jun 01 2010
Here’s an environmental program that could have wide appeal: It’s market-based, uses incentives rather than command-and-control, is revenue-neutral, and would do as much to help
It’s called a “feebate,’’ and it would apply to sales of new cars. High-emissions vehicles like Land Rovers would have a fee of several hundred dollars added to their sticker price to reflect their true social cost and discourage (but not prevent) sales. On the other hand, thrifty, low-polluting vehicles would come with an attractive rebate to encourage purchases.
Feebate programs exist in
One attractive feature is that it would shift new car sales in a cleaner direction by changing consumer behavior. The current fuel-efficiency standard, on the other hand, applies to manufacturers, who are required to sell higher-mileage cars over time without any obvious way to make customers buy them.
An interim study of feebates by researchers at UC Davis, submitted last month to the California Air Resources Board, projects that a “moderate” feebate system, with average rebates of $600 per vehicle and average fees of $700, would reduce annual CO2 emissions in California by 3 million tons by 2020.
Taking into account all the social benefits, including the fuel savings, the study concludes that “feebate programs reduce emissions at a net negative social cost.” The projected benefits would be much greater if a feebate program were adopted nationally. Then you’d see manufacturers redesign their vehicles to lower average emissions, giving consumers even better choices at the dealership.
The Auto Alliance recently issued a broadside against the
Many experts say one of the most effective ways to reduce vehicle emissions would be to simply raise gasoline taxes, perhaps using the proceeds to pave potholes and improve transit. That would encourage people not only to buy thriftier cars but also to drive fewer miles.
Some auto industry leaders endorse higher gas taxes to spur sales of clean hybrid and electric vehicles. But as long as "gas taxes" are synonymous with "political suicide," I'm not betting we'll see an increase anytime soon.
