Entries by Jennifer Zerwer

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• 61 is the magic number. This week NPR reported on an Evergreen State ecology professor who was able to approximate the ratio of trees to humans using NASA satellite images. Although it's ostensibly good news to know the world supports 61 trees per human, it remains to be determined how many trees a human consumes in a lifetime.
• Beantown's skyline just got a bit greener. Boston's first official skyscraper, the Marriott Custom House Tower, recently had an LED makeover. The fully-illuminated tower now consumes just one-third the energy of the previous incandescent fixtures. Is the CITGO sign next in line?
• A new report from the International Energy Agency indicates that renewable energy will overtake natural gas to become the second largest source of electricity behind coal by 2015. Get the full scoop from Reuters here.
• Treehugger reported this week on artificial islands that drill in the ocean for renewable energy. The man made islands rely on ocean thermal energy conversion to create up to 250 megawatts of clean power and also happen to yield 300,000 gallons of fresh water in the process.
• According to the New York Times' Green Inc. blog, drivers in the E.U. will soon know how efficient their tires are, thanks to a new regulation requiring manufacturers to provide labels that rate efficiency, grip and noise level. Regulators estimate CO2 emissions savings of 4 million tons with the new program, which would be akin to taking 1.3 million passenger vehicles off the road each year.

One of the latest victims of the economic downturn is commodity recycling, according to an article that appeared over the weekend in the Contra Costa Times. Over the past six weeks, the price for recycled cardboard has plummeted from $200 a ton to $30 to $40 a ton.

Adding insult to injury, buyers are scarce. Recyclers in California's Contra Costa County are looking to lease warehouse space to store their recycled goods that would normally be gobbled up by China. China, which is the top consumer of recycled fiber worldwide, uses the recycled material to prepare packaging for all its exported products. October through December is usually the busy period for this industry due to the holidays. But now, not only has the demand for these goods dropped precipitously, many ships are being sent back or remain anchored off China's coast with no buyers.

Recycling plays a critical role in diverting the amount of waste we put into landfills. It also helps to save energy:

• Recycled paper saves 60% energy vs. virgin paper
• Recycled glass saves 50% energy vs. virgin glass
• Recycled aluminum saves 95% energy vs. virgin aluminum
  

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• Incandescent light bulbs be gone! Bright Green Blog reports on the EU's ban of filament bulbs beginning 2010. This switch will help reduce domestic energy consumption for lighting by 60 percent, saving about 30 million tons of CO2 annually. The 27 EU member states are in good company: Australia, Cuba and the Philippines are other countries phasing out incandescents.
• Project Better Place announces it will silently roll electric vehicles into Australia.  
• The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, in partnership with Cisco, is encouraging Canadians to commit One Million Acts of Green over the next nine months. According to Conscious Consuming blog, acts can include recycling a cell phone and biking to work. What's more, participants can log their acts online and see an immediate impact via an extensive green calculator.
• Treehugger features the Consumer Electronics Association's new report titled Environmental Sustainability and Innovation in the Consumer Electronics Industry. The report discusses the shrinking environmental footprint of the CE industry, including such highlights as an 80 percent waste diversion rate from at least half of the companies interviewed.

 

 

Economic turmoil aside, one of the recent silver green linings is the passage of tax incentives for renewable energy development. Clearly the solar industry has much to celebrate, including the flurry of exciting announcements issued today:

• Gonzales Winery in Monterey County will soon be home to the world's largest winery solar power energy system. Sized at one megawatt, the system will be installed by Constellation Wines U.S. and will meet 50 percent of the winery's total energy requirements.
• The San Francisco Chronicle's David Baker reports on a California-based solar company that's shaking up the solar industry. Solyndra exited stealth mode today with a radically different approach to solar (think tubes), $600 million in funding and $1.2 billion in customer contracts.
• New thin-film manufacturer Konarka opened a new manufacturing plant today in Massachusetts that will have a production capacity of one gigawatt per year. Click here for the New York Times' report on the effort that is repurposing equipment from an old Polaroid printing facility.

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week:

• Think it doesn't really matter if you pass on using [insert eco-friendly item here]? Think again. As reported this week in the Wall Street Journal, new statistics tallied by consultant McKinsey & Co indicate that U.S. consumers have direct or indirect control over 65% of the country's greenhouse-gas emissions. Green power to the people!
• Véhicules plus vert à Paris. The Paris Auto Show kicked off this week displaying a variety of alternative fuel vehicles, many of which are scheduled to be sold across the pond very  soon. Check out the New York Times' slideshow here.
• Following on the heels of Al Gore and T. Boone Pickens, Google launched a $4 trillion clean-energy plan this week to wean the U.S. off coal and oil for electricity production by 2030. The Wall Street Journal's Environmental Capital blog examines the feasibility of their green vision.
• A new study led by the University of Colorado at Boulder uncovers a large source of fine, organic particle pollutants that contribute to hazy skies and poor air quality. Get the scoop from Science Daily here.

Tomorrow, San Francisco's new Academy of Sciences, one of the greenest museums in the world, will open its doors for the first time. After more than a decade of planning, the new building stands as an embodiment of the Academy's mission to explore, explain and protect the natural world. Expected to earn a LEED Platinum certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the new Academy is topped with a 2.5-acre living roof and employs a wide range of energy-saving materials and technologies, as NEXT100 has reported.

In addition to the environmentally-responsible building, the Academy will unveil its climate change and sustainability exhibits, which take California as a case study to demonstrate the effects of global warming.

As part of PG&E's sponsorship with the Academy, all are welcome to visit tomorrow on us. They expect folks to begin lining up very early in the morning, so take public transportation and bring blankets and something to keep you entertained until the opening ceremony begins at 8:30 a.m.

Here's a sneak peak of the building and exhibits to hold you over until then:

 

With the development of renewable energy ramping up worldwide to meet increasing demand, it's easy to be dazzled by

the steady introduction of record-setting renewable projects. But as the saying goes, good things do come in small packages. As utilities look to supplant fossil fuel generation more and more with renewable energy resources, small projects have the potential to play a big role for those keen on developing balanced and diversified renewable energy portfolios like PG&E.

In fact, Calfiornia's first small renewable energy project recently began delivering emission-free power to PG&E customers. Sized at 1.5 megawatts (MW), Buckeye Hydro is the first of ten small projects to add to our qualifying renewable energy portfolio. Although we've only received interest from businesses to date, any of our customers can sign up if they'd like to sell excess renewable energy to the grid. Renewable energy projects that are elgible for the Feed-in Tariff program can be up to 1.5 MW in size and come from such resources as solar PV or thermal, biomass, wind, geothermal, fuel cells (using renewable fuels), small hydroelectric, digester or landfill gas and municipal solid waste, among others.

If you want to learn more, check out this interview with Etopia News and David Rubin, director of service analysis, pricing and payment products for PG&E.

Think plug-ins are the next big thing? Think again.

A company called Moller International took plug-ins a huge step forward this week when it announced the completed design of a vehicle which functions like a plug-in hybrid when on the road and gets vertical lift. Moller's Autovolantor can get you out of any traffic jam quickly, by lifting off vertically and flying up to 150 mph for a short distance. While the prototype cost around $5 million, Moller thinks it can deliver a commercial product at $250,000. No word yet on when one of these roadable aircrafts would be available or even the regulatory implications. But if you'd like to get into the nitty gritty, check out this preso from Moller on the autovolantor.

 

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• Plug-in hybrid transit buses start hitting the road.
• The BBC looks at how Denmark, which gets 20% of its energy from wind power, keeps the juice flowing even when the wind isn't.
• Treehugger discusses how global warming will not cause sea levels to rise as much as first anticipated.
• Chrysler reveals its plug-in...to dealers.
• The Bright Green Blog shows us non-cheesy environmentally-themed songs are possible.

 

• While commercial plug-ins are at least a good two years away, the Palo Alto Toyota dealership began accepting deposits on a plug-in version of the Prius this month.
• Green Wombat reports that Silicon Valley thin-film solar startup Nanosolar netted another $300 million infusion, bringing the company's funding to half a billion.
• South Korean firms team up to develop batteris for plug-ins. 
• An elementary school tricycle gets 17 mph with help from a solar-powered motor.

As my colleague Len noted, the Democratic National Convention is going all out this week to put on the greenest convention ever. No stranger to being environmentally friendly, the City of Denver is also supporting a number of environmental events this week in association with the Convention, further illustrating why it ranked among the top 20 on Popular Science's list of the Top 50 Greenest American cities.

Some of the highlights this week include:

• Green Frontier Fest
• SEIA's SunFest
• City Tour of Solar, which will educate municipal leaders, communities and schools on ways to incorporate more solar in Denver

There have been reports of some bumps in the yellow green brick road, but that's inevitable when your blazing new trails.

The UK's Guardian today reported on the carbon footprint associated with big music festivals and highlighted the Greener Festival Award winners (all UK specific).

With summer quickly coming to a close, Next100 wonders what are the U.S.'s greenest music fetes?

• Michigan's Rothbury Festival featured panel sessions with such environmental luminaries as Dr. Stephen H. Schneider to educate attendees on being green while getting down with the tunes.
• And San Francisco's Outside Lands is getting a dose of green from yours truly with our solar-powered stage and energy efficiency educational materials, among other highlights.

What other U.S. festivals are out there that showcase great music and great ways to be green?

Proving you can find renewable energy resources anywhere, Spiegel International reports that a new technology developed by Enviu, an environmental innovation lab, creates renewable energy by utilizing the tremendous energy expended by club goers.

" 'When you dance, you generate energy by the shaking of the ground,' Stef van Dongen, director of environmental innovation lab Enviu, told SPIEGEL ONLINE. 'What we do, very simply, is to capture the movement of dancing people and transform it into energy.'

The club will be among the first in the world to give back some of what dancers leave on the floor -- and it is part of a larger effort by Enviu subsidiary Sustainable Dance Club (SDC) to introduce environmental technology to an industry that has traditionally been a voracious consumer of electricity. Your average nightclub swallows up 150 times the amount of power normal households do. Club Watt plans to use 30 percent less."

Now I wonder if that means they'll lower the cover charge...

Following on the heels of the Plug-in 2008 conference, which had a number of exciting announcements, a stream of electric vehicle news continues to roll in  . Here's a quick rundown of the top highlights:

•  The San Francisco Chronicle reports that electric vehicle maker Zap received a healthy $10 million dollar vote of confidence from a Dubai entrepreneur. Although the cash infusion will be used to boost production, don't get your hopes up too high. Demand for Zap's silent, light EVs is so high that the money is already allocated to fill past orders.
  


• Associated Press covered the unveiling of Nissan's electric vehicle test model. It will be available in Japan and the U.S. in 2010 and globally in 2012.
  


• Mitsubishi Motors today announced its all-electric vehicles are coming to California - utilities, that is. PG&E and Southern California Edison will take delivery of the i MiEVs for fleet testing. Through daily operation, we'll gauge the viability of using these all-electric vehicles in our fleet and better understand the charging impacts on the grid. Mitsubishi's i MiEV, which can get up to 100 miles on a single charge and speed along at a zippy 85 mph, has already been extensively tested and well-received by Japanese utilities.
  


• Think you'll miss the familiar rumble of a combustion engine in your eco-friendly electric vehicle? No worries. Lotus has developed technology to simulate the noise of a real engine to make vehicles more audible. This is especially helpful for pedestrian and bicycle safety.

Adding to the list of breweries going green, Anheuser-Busch today announced that one in seven of its beers made in the U.S. will be brewed using renewable fuel by the end of 2009. The nation's largest brewer is turning to a combination of clean technologies to brew renewably, including biogas from a local landfill, solar and BERS, a technology that turns brewing wastewater into fuel. Once these projects are complete, 10 of Anheuser's Busch's 12 U.S. breweries will be producing renewable fuel.

If craft beer is more your style, you needn't look any further than the über-green brewery Sierra Nevada. This company has it goin' on full-circle style and is aggressively working to achieve 100% energy self generation. Their impressive efforts include incorporating a one megawatt fuel cell system, recycling, heat recovery, CO2 recovery, energy efficiency, water conservation and byproduct recycling. What's more, they're cataloguing their carbon footprint with the California Climate Action Registry and offsetting the emissions associated with their purchased energy through PG&E's stringent ClimateSmart program.

I'll toast to that!

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• San Francisco Chronicle covers how the global-warming West will continue to worsen as a hot bed for wildfires.
• Leaping off of Al Gore's suggestion, the Christian Science Monitor's bright green blog looks at where America's renewable energy would come from.
• Reuters reports on China's claim that its efforts to clear Beijing's skies are having an effect.
• The Baltimore Sun shines the light on renewable energy that's out of space.
• Like to walk? Treehugger shows you where not to live.

The Plug-in 2008 conference officially opened today and hit the road running with a flood of electrifying announcements. A unifying focus was building the ecosystem necessary to ensure that when PHEVs begin to hit the market in the 2010 timeframe, they do so seamlessly and in a way that benefits consumers, the environment and the grid.

• GM was the belle of the ball with its joint EPRI announcement to work with 34 utilities, including yours truly, to accelerate the introduction of PHEVs. Click here for the Wall Street Journal's report.
• The City of San Jose is partnering with Coulomb Technologies to install electric charging stations in garages and on street lights. The Mercury News' Matt Nauman gives the download on the effort.
• eTec, a battery manufacturer, launched a program with the U.S. Department of Energy to research bi-directional fast-charging operations for PHEVs.
• Raser Technologies announced their plans to develop a 100 mpg plug-in hybrid light truck. PG&E will take delivery of one of the first vehicles for testing and demonstration within our fleet.

It's exciting to see these companies firing on all cylinders as the electricity and transportation sectors converge before our eyes. If you want to learn about how PG&E is prepping its grid for the future, check out Dow Jones' MarketWatch piece on creating a smarter, faster grid.

 

With medium- and heavy-duty cars representing the second-largest consumer of energy in the U.S. transportation sector (just behind light-duty vehicles but ahead of every other transportation mode), you can imagine NEXT100's delight in taking a tour of PG&E's clean fleet efforts in the East Bay. To our surprise, NEXT100 learned these medium-and heavy-duty alternative fuel vehicles do not just roll off the line; some assembly, which can take up to a year, is required.

First, a little background (and horn tootin')
PG&E has been exploring alternative fuel technologies for over 20 years for use in our 12,000 vehicle fleet. We own and operate the largest utility natural gas fleet in the country and have 39 natural gas stations throughout our service area, 27 of which are open to the public. In fact, we started our tour in Concord where we filled up our natural gas vehicle (NGV) at the first natural gas fueling station that opened west of the Mississippi in the early '90s.

While much of our day focused on our NGV efforts, PG&E's approach to alternative fuel is holistic and we look to explore a variety of clean transportation technologies, including hydrogen, hydrogen bridging technologies, PHEVs, natural gas and dedicated electric vehicles, among others. As we continue to green our fleet, we're looking at a blended technology portfolio where each application is matched with the appropriate technology.

Tracy, CA: Where PG&E CNG gas crew trucks are born.
It was hot and dusty out at the American Truck & Trailer Body Co. where they have been custom building PG&E's gas crew trucks for the past 35 years. We toured the production areas where the chassis, body, and NGV tanks that all arrive separately are integrated. Working with such companies provides us the control necessary to incorporate clean fuel technologies into vehicles that would be impossible to get otherwise.

Another highlight of this stop was seeing some of the innovative trucks in the works for other customers, including the incorporation of solar panels to power on-board tools.

Liquid Natural Gas Fueling 101
It may just be in another state, but fueling with liquid natural gas (LNG) is not the same as fueling with compressed natural gas (CNG). This NEXT100 blogger was quite impressed when we hit PG&E's LNG fueling station in Fremont. PG&E has five Class 8 heavy-duty LNG trucks in our fleet which fuel there. By using LNG, we're able to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 15-20% over equivalent diesel engines and reduce fuel costs by 50%.

To begin with, LNG is kept at a frosty -260ºF in a thermos-like container. This means it's necessary to be clad in safety gear and pre-cool the fueling hose before you connect it to the truck. Once this is done and you've grounded the vehicle, you can pump away at a speedy rate of 80 gallons a minute. If LNG vehicles aren't used as frequently and the fuel is sitting in the tank, it's necessary to release the tank's pressure prior to fueling as that could drive up the temperature of the fuel and change its state.

As my colleague Len Anderson noted, the focus on alternative fuel options for medium- and heavy- duty applications is gaining speed. In fact, Terex Utilities will show its new plug-in hybrid bucket truck at next week's Plug-in 2008 conference in San Jose.

A roundup of green headlines that caught our eye this week.

• Treehugger tells us what Baja California is going to add itself to the list of worldwide solar production hotspots.
• Thin film gains speed.
• Rich, offshore wind resource areas are revealed.
• Conscious Consuming celebrates National Downshifting Week, an effort to get us Americans to slow down and green up.
• A big rubber snake made waves in the renewable energy industry.

 

Chalk this up to the "only in California" file - the concepts of traditional renewables and emerging renewables. Thanks to California's natural heritage, PG&E has a long history of utilizing hydroelectric, geothermal and wind resources to meet energy demand.

Well, as a sign of things to come, enter PG&E's newest renewable energy project with San Joaquin Solar LLC, a subsidiary of Martifer Renewables Electricity LLC. 

Through our agreements with San Joaquin Solar, we're adding 106.8 megawatts (MW) of solar thermal-biofuel hybrid power to our energy mix. What's cool about this project is the combination of two renewable resources abundant in California - solar energy and biofuel from the Central Valley - to produce renewable energy around-the-clock, even at night.

Here's how it works: Martifer's hybrid projects combine Luz solar thermal trough technology and steam turbines powered by biomass to produce hybrid solar-biofuel renewable electricity 24/7. Each hybrid project will require 250,000 tons of biofuel annually, which will come from a combination of locally-produced agricultural wastes, green wastes and livestock manure.

These projects will be located near Coalinga, CA. And for anyone who's driven the I-5 to L.A., you'll have experienced first-hand the abundance of biomass material.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I got to play tour guide for my cousin visiting from New Orleans. I always enjoy those opportunities because, despite having lived in the Bay Area for five years now, I still have not experienced many of the routine tourist attractions SF has to offer. So, cut to our day roaming around the de Young museum and their coolest exhibit - the observation tower which provides an amazing view of the new California Academy of Sciences' undulating, living roof.

Opening this September, the Academy's new building is a model of environmental sustainability. It will consume 30-35% less energy by employing the latest in energy-saving materials and technologies, including jean insulation, natural ventilation and a solar canopy for which PG&E will award a rebate.

Adding to their theme of environmental sustainability, the new Academy will feature some cool exhibits aimed at educating Californians about how they can take action on climate change. The building is even an exhibit in and of itself. How's that for walking the talk?

PG&E is granting the Academy $1.5 million over the next four years to participate in this climate change education campaign. We'll provide energy-related content for their "Science in Action" exhibit and PG&E subject experts will be incorporated into ongoing Academy programming. There will also be volunteer opportunities for our employees year-round.

My cousin's visit to California was his first trip out west and although he was blown away by pretty much everything he saw, his one disappointment was that the Academy was not yet open for "learning."

Yesterday, I woke with excitement for the planned, daring rescue of endangered, baby peregrine falcons off the Bay Bridge by biologists with the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG). Unlike last year where biologists scaled underneath the Bay Bridge to rescue the peregrine eggs, this time they waited until the eyases were a few weeks old. As an animal lover, I was really looking forward to seeing these little guys before they were whisked off to Santa Barbara to meet their surrogate mom and eventually be released into the wild.

It was critical that this rescue take place because, at the age of six weeks, the falcon eyases fledge, or take their first flights from the nest. The Bay Bridge nesting location, while protected, is lethal for fledging falcons because they drown beneath the bridge or land on the roadbed where they are run over.

Unfortunately, when the biologists reached the nest they discovered two dead baby falcons with no parents in sight. It appeared that they had died a few days after being hatched. We don't know for sure why they didn't make it, but speculations were swirling that morning, including potential environmental pollutants that my colleague Len wrote about the other week.

The most likely explanation was that one of the parents died. Raising falcons require two parents: one to keep the young warm and the other to hunt. What is certain is that it's a very rare occurrence. Peregrine falcons are very good at raising their young and once hatched, their chances for survival are great.

This news certainly deflated the mood among the bird lovers and SCPBRG folks that had gathered for the happy occasion. Peregrine falcons are a part of the PG&E family - our adopted pair, named George and Gracie, have nested on the PG&E headquarter building for a number of years. And we've been a supporter of the SCPBRG's work since the eighties.

The peregrine population declined to zero known nesting pairs east of the Mississippi, and just two known nesting pairs in California by 1970.  Thanks the good work of organizations like SCPBRG, today there are an estimated 250 peregrine falcon nesting pairs in California.

Now this takes recycling and renewable energy to a new level - a beer bottle solar heater. Are you listening co-eds?

According to UK site Ananova, a Chinese carpenter created the environmentally-friendly, energy-saving contraption by lying beer bottles on a board in rows and connected them with hoses. Cold water flows through the bottles where it's heated by the sun. He's helped more than 20 families in his village to make and install their own beer bottle solar water-heaters. Cin cin!

For PG&E's part, we're working to bring affordable, renewable energy to all the communities we serve. One way we're doing this is through our Solar Habitat program, a partnership with Habitat for Humanity International where we install solar electric systems on every Habitat-built home throughout our service area. This year, 64 homeswill be outfitted with solar arrays that will save families $500 a year on energy costs. Each panel will also help avoid the release of more than 132,000 pounds of CO2 over the 30 year life of the system.

But our work with Habitat is more than money we donate. PG&E employees have volunteered more than 3,500 hours a year. In fact, four PG&E employees are spending this week on the Gulf Coast as part of the Jimmy Carter Work Project to assist in the ongoing recovery taking place in the communities hit by Hurricane Katrina. You can check out their daily blog here.

It seems that whenever I open a newspaper, magazine or turn on the TV, there's always something about "green." Don't get me wrong - climate change is an urgent issue that must be addressed and I'm proud to be doing my part at PG&E to show how we're thinking and preparing for a carbon-constrained future. But sometimes I wonder (and fear) if the media, and the public for that matter, have reached a saturation point on green issues?

 

Well, I got some comforting insight today attending the Low Carbon Fuel Expo's media panel which explored how media influences the public's perception of climate change. The panel featured leading reporters that cover aspects of climate change regularly: David Baker, energy reporter for the San Francisco Chronicle; Mark Glover, auto editor for the Sacramento Bee; Janis Mara, business reporter for the Contra Costa Times; and Todd Woody, senior editor of Fortune Magazine and blogger for the Fortune Green Wombat blog.

 

All reporters were in agreement that barring any extreme reversals in weather trends, like a really cold decade, coverage of climate change will continue. According to Todd Woody, Fortune Magazine has devoted two reporters to covering the issue full time and will continue to devote resources to it because, while the hype may go away, climate change will spur long-term changes to U.S. business policy.

 

But don't take their word for it. One needs only to check out a newspaper to see that despite the continued downsizing this industry faces, coverage of green issues has increased; it's a topic that is covered by reporters of all beats. Moreover, newspapers, newswires, news radio, etc. are tapping their reporters and editors to also blog around the clock on the environment and anything else you can think of. The New York Times is up to 54 blogs and my colleague Len Anderson's old stand at Reuters has a bunch including an environmental blog with posts from their reporters all over the world.