Entries by Jonathan Marshall
Aug 31 2010
The next time you fill your tank at the gas station, think about where the oil you’re consuming came from. Chances are it came from the oil tar sands of northeastern
In 2008, Toronto-based Environmental Defence published a report calling the vast tar sands development “the most destructive project on earth.”
That assessment is now getting some support from a new study in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It finds significant levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury—all toxic inorganic elements—polluting the Athabasca river system from the oil sands development.
Last fall, Schindler and several colleagues documented significant releases of potentially toxic “polycyclic aromatic compounds,” some of which cause cancer or reproductive harm. (See the Centers for Disease Control summary here.)
Oil field developments in Canada's tar sands are notorious among environmentalists for the damage they do. Extracting the thick tar requires strip mining the surface forest or peat bogs, creating slurries with tens of millions of cubic meters of water (more than twice the consumption of the city of Calgary), and using steam heat to extract various petroleum products.
Producing the steam requires burning huge amounts of natural gas, creating CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Canadian oil sands developers will consume an estimated 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2015. As a result, oil from this region has a carbon footprint up to 20 percent higher than other oil, not far below coal.
And what’s left over from the mining are tailing “ponds” filled with toxic chemicals. As Environmental Defence commented in its 2008 report, “To describe them as “ponds” however, is to be guilty of understatement. These masses of toxic soup have now grown so big that they can be seen by the naked eye from space. Indeed, they now include the largest dams on the planet . . .”
Royal Dutch Shell announced recently that it will begin testing new technology to reduce the size of its waste pools and will license the process to its competitors at no cost. The industry reportedly plans to spend a billion dollars next year on reducing its toxic runoff.
But the industry has a long way to go to clean up its act. The Canadian government’s environmental department reported earlier this month that the volume of arsenic and lead dumped into the tailings ponds has grown 26 percent over the past four years.
And according to one news summary of the data, “The companies also released huge amounts of pollutants into the air last year, including 70,658 tonnes of volatile organic compounds, which can damage the function of human organs and nervous systems, and 111,661 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, a key contributor to acid rain.”
Aug 30 2010
Nothing concentrates the mind like a clear numeric goal. Here’s my nomination for a national environmental goal: 99g/km.
Car enthusiasts will recognize this number instantly: It’s the unofficial target of many green automakers for carbon dioxide emissions – 99 grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled.
Expressing the goal that way makes more sense than the usual fuel economy standard in miles per gallon (though as we’ll see, they have much in common). After all, every other car pollutant is measured and regulated in grams per unit of distance. Current federal standards dictate exhaust emissions of no more than 0.25 grams per mile of smog-producing hydrocarbons, 0.4 g/mi of nitrogen oxides and 3.4 g/mi of carbon monoxide.
Why not hold CO2—a greenhouse gas pollutant--to the same kind of standard?
As we know, establishing those emissions standards worked wonders, achieving results that many automakers claimed were impossible. Back in the 1950s, when the sources of smog in
Setting a similarly tough but achievable standard for CO2 emissions could have the same beneficial effect, helping us combat the deadly effects of global warming.
At the current federal fuel economy standard, 27 miles per gallon, the average new car pumps out about 203 grams of CO2 per kilometer. It would take an average fuel economy of just over 55 mpg to cut emissions to 99 g/km. (My figures are based on federal guidelines indicating that one gallon of gasoline produces 8,788 grams of CO2 when burned.)
Crossing the magic threshhold of 100 g/km has become a powerful motivating factor for many competitive automakers—in fact, it’s a metric they now routinely boast about for their most efficient new and forthcoming models.
The Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4, the gasoline-powered Hyundai 110, the award-winning Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion diesel, the Toyota iQ, the Audi 1.6 TDI diesel, and the Ford Focus ECOnetic, among others all now tout a rating of 99 g/km.
Isn’t it time we made 99 g/km our new car standard?
Aug 26 2010
If you're on a diet and someone offers you a tasty, low-carb alternative to fattening snacks, what happens? You're liable to eat more of them, canceling out many of the intended benefits.
Offer consumers a more energy-efficient refrigerator, and what happens? Joe Sixpack buys one for the kitchen, but fills the old one with cases of Bud in the garage. (The nation's 30 million secondary refrigerators use an estimated 25 million megawatt hours of electricity annually.)
Give a driver anti-lock brakes for safety, and what happens? She’s likely to take just a few more risks. Now put that driver in a fuel-efficient hybrid to cut down on gas consumption, and what happens? She drives farther because the cost per mile has gone down. Result: lower fuel savings than expected.
Aug 25 2010
Aug 24 2010
Come November, 
While
The goal is to produce materials as strong as the glass composites used in today’s racing cars, but at much lower cost and with more benign materials.
“Natural materials such as hemp can offer a green and sustainable alternative to conventional fibers used in composites,” said Dr. John Wolodko at Alberta Innovates Technology Future, which makes the hemp mats that Motive is using as its raw material. (AITF grows the hemp legally under license from Health
Nathan Armstrong, president of Motive, said, “we saw a unique opportunity to make significant advancements in the automotive sector and support the Canadian Auto Sector by providing sustainable products and opportunities to create new green manufacturing jobs.”
Hemp has a wide range of productive uses, including textiles, paper, biodegradeable plastics and health foods (not just brownies). Hemp grown for such purposes typically has only trace amounts of psychoactive chemicals. But it’s nonetheless almost impossible to raise hemp commercially in the
Automakers have been drawn to hemp for over half a century. According to one source on the Internet (so it must be true), “Henry Ford used hemp-and-sisal cellulose plastic to build car doors and fenders in 1941. On video Henry Ford demonstrated that his hemp cars were more resistant to blows from a sledgehammer than steel-bodied cars were. . . . Carmakers such as Ford, GM, Chrysler, Saturn, BMW, Honda, and Mercedes are currently using hemp composite door panels, trunks, head liners, etc."
One
The attraction to carmakers is that hemp composites cost only 50 to 70 cents a pound, compared to several dollars a pound for many carbon or glass fiber composites.
A Canadian leader in hemp-fiber manufacturing, Stemergy, adds:
Beyond automotive the use of hemp fiber and other biofiber materials are expected to make large in-roads into home and commercial construction in the years to come. . . . Some of the products that are in the works include panel materials, utilizing hemp and earth-friendly binders as an alternative to wood-based panels such as ply-wood. New systems for blending hemp fiber with concrete or stucco are already in place and being refined as your read. Hemp fiber based insulation is available in Europe and detined to be implemented in
So rest assured that the Cannabis plant will play an ever greater role in your life—whatever the election results in November.
Aug 23 2010
An iPhone or Blackberry without a battery is just a dead lump of metal and silicon. In much the same way, many experts believe that an electrical grid without energy storage will forever be just a bunch of dumb wires.
That’s why PG&E on Friday filed a request with state regulators for funding to study the feasibility of building a major new “pumped hydro storage” facility in the
The wind can blow strongly for hours, only to die out for days at a time. Solar modules can gush electrons in full sun, then go dormant when clouds pass overhead. Since customers don't want their lights to flicker on and off as the weather changes, today’s utilities—lacking much of any stored energy to call upon—must ramp generators powered by fossil fuels up and down as needed to keep supply in balance with demand.
As utilities add more and more wind and solar to their mix, managing the grid the old way would require a big investment in new backup natural gas-fired power plants.
Using energy storage instead to tame the output of wind and solar power--one of the key goals of the emerging “Smart Grid”—offers “multiple economic and environmental benefits,” according to a recent staff report by the California Public Utilities Commission. By storing “intermittent renewable power, the state may reduce greenhouse gas emissions from carbon-based electricity production, avoid the need to build expensive new transmission lines and power plants to meet peak energy demand, increase system reliability and generate economic activity through the manufacture and operation of these . . . technologies.”
Energy storage has won many converts, including the California Independent System Operator, key technology advisers to the California Air Resources Board, a new report by KEMA for the California Energy Commission, and the U.S. Department of Energy, which has doled out millions of dollars in grants to support storage R&D.
Major technology options include batteries, flywheels, ultracapacitors, compressed air storage and pumped hydro. PG&E is actively investigating battery and compressed air storage and has operated a pumped storage facility in
Pumped hydro, which dates back to 1929 in the
One notable fan of pumped storage is Energy Secretary Steven Chu. In a speech last year, he called it a potentially “perfect system” for complementing the use of more renewable energy. In another speech mentioning its virtues,
PG&E isn’t the only
The facility PG&E hopes to study would range in size from 400 MW to 1,200 MW—at the high end, about the same short-term output as two medium-sized power plants.
Aug 19 2010
The next time you go shopping online or to a big-box store, consider this: the trucks that haul the TVs, vegetables, shoes or lumber for your buying pleasure consume more than one-eighth of all petroleum used in the
Or to put it another way, medium- and heavy-duty trucks make up only 4 percent of all vehicles on our highways, but burn more than 20 percent of all fuel used in U.S. road transportation. The reason: they average only 6 miles to the gallon, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.
That’s why, at President Obama’s direction, the U.S. Department of Transportation has just sent the White House historic new draft fuel efficiency standards for trucks, aimed at significantly reducing America’s greenhouse gas emissions and reliance on foreign oil.
The administration believes that existing technologies will permit manufacturers to boost truck fuel efficiency by as much as 25 percent.
If so, some of the credit should surely go to recycled nuclear arms experts at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, who are applying expertise gleaned from studying the turbulence from weapons explosions to understand and minimize the air turbulence and drag from moving trucks.
Scientists at the lab, funded by DOE and collaborating with truck manufacturer Navistar Inc. and others, used the world’s largest wind tunnel at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Sunnyvale to develop and test simple modifications of truck bodies to improve fuel efficiency up to 12 percent.
That translates into reduced diesel fuel consumption of 3.4 billion gallons annually, for a saving of $10.2 billion a year. It would also prevent emissions of 36 million tons of carbon dioxide each year, according to the lab.
The best thing is that the modifications--including an underbody panel and flaps at the back--don't require retooling the entire truck industry. “This is a technology that could easily be installed on the tractor trailer trucks that are out on the highway today,” said Kambiz Salari, LLNL’s lead scientist on the project. “And 12 percent is just the beginning. We expect to increase that savings even more during the current series of wind tunnel tests. It’s time to market is incredibly quick. In just three years, we could see these devices on the road and realize the real fuel savings.”
The LLNL research project cost only about $4 million, but the payoff to the trucking industry and to the
Improving the fuel economy of larger trucks by an average of 3.7 mpg would slash
Aug 18 2010
The highest global temperatures in recorded history—almost certainly a product of human-caused greenhouse gases—have triggered a series of terrifying calamities this year, including runaway forest fires in Russia, devastating mud slides in China and the ongoing floods in Pakistan.
Most of us can’t really grasp the scale of Pakistan’s tragedy, which ranks as one of the worst disasters in history. When the numbers get too big—20 million people affected, an area the size of England underwater, a quarter of Pakistan’s economy at risk—it’s easier to retreat into denial than to deal with it.
But Pakistan’s calamity is a wake-up call that what we used to call “natural” disasters aren’t so natural anymore, and they can happen anywhere. The deluge that swamped Pakistan was not a simple matter of natural variability in weather. "There's no doubt that clearly the climate change is . . . a major contributing factor," said Ghassem Asrar, director of the World Climate Research Programme and World Meteorological Organization in Geneva.
Since the globe is almost certain to continue warming, even if the world gets its act together and reduces carbon emissions, it’s imperative to find ways to adapt and make our communities and ecosystems more resilient. Pakistan offers a sad lesson in how not to do that.
As a small handful of commentators have noted, one reason for the devastating impact of Pakistan’s floods is decades of deforestation in the high country where monsoon rains fall. With reduced ground cover, the water spills off the land, sweeping away topsoil, causing landslides and swelling torrential rivers downstream.
A 2006 paper in the International Journal of Agriculture and Biology noted that “Studies based on remote sensing show that the rates of decline in forest cover in [the mountainous North West Frontier Province] will lead to a complete disappearance of the forest from most areas within 30 years.”
The causes of deforestation are many, including growing population pressure, the lack of alternative fuel and Pakisan's chaotic system of property rights. Many authorities also blame Pakistan’s forest department, which oversees timber sales, for colluding with timber contractors and permitting unsustainable harvests.
As Kamila Shamsie wrote recently in The Guardian, "One of the most powerful and ruthless organisations within Pakistan, the timber mafia engages in illegal logging, which is estimated to be worth billions of rupees each year. The group's connection to politicians at the local and federal level has been commented on in the media for years."
The lessons of all this have been neatly summed up by Adil Najam, a world-renowned environmental policy expert at Boston University:
The rains are clearly a natural phenomenon. But there is nothing natural about the death and destruction these rains have brought. That is all human-manufactured. Our arrogant policies that have disregarded the ecological integrity of the natural systems we depend upon have magnified the fury of the torrents that have been sweeping across Pakistan. . . . I hope we will learn from what we have been seeing and plan for a more sustainable development in the rebuilding process, and also realise that whether we ’cause’ climate change or not, it is we — and especially the poorest amongst us — who will suffer its gravest consequences.”
Aug 17 2010
When it comes to reducing greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change, most of us eagerly await cheaper, more efficient forms of renewable energy, batteries and electric vehicles, clean biofuels and smart grids. The federal government and venture capitalists are spending billions of dollars searching for such silver bullets.
But as a couple of behavioral scientists explained last year in Environment Magazine, looking to future technology breakthrough overlooks “a huge reservoir of potential for reducing carbon emissions and mitigating climate change that can be tapped much more quickly and directly. . . . By changing their selection and use of household and motor vehicle technologies, without waiting for new technologies to appear, making major economic sacrifices, or losing a sense of well-being, households can reduce energy consumption by almost 30 percent—about 11 percent of total
That’s a really big deal, since
The problem is that most Americans (and probably most people everywhere) are semi-clueless about how much energy they use and how best to cut back on consumption, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Researchers asked 505 people around the country about energy consumption and ways to curb it. First they asked how much energy various household devices and appliances use. People had a pretty good idea about compact fluorescent light bulbs and desktop computers, but were way low on estimates for air conditioners, clothes dryers, dishwashers and other energy hogs. On average, they underestimated energy use by a factor of almost 3.
Less surprisingly, they were even more ignorant about non-household technology. They thought trucks consume about as much energy as trains, even though trucks use up to 10 times as much per ton-mile, the authors report. Respondents assumed that aluminum cans require more energy than glass bottles, when in fact recycled bottles may use up to 20 times more energy than recycled cans.
Their biggest finding was that when asked the best ways to reduce energy use in their lives, people overwhelmingly cited curtailment measures like turning off lights, lowering the thermostat or unplugging appliances rather than much more effective measures that focus on increasing the efficiency of the products we use—lights, washing machines, cars and the like.
“Relative to experts’ recommendations, participants were overly focused on curtailment rather than efficiency, possibly because efficiency improvements almost always involve research, effort, and out-of-pocket costs (e.g. buying a new energy-efficient appliance), whereas curtailment may be easier to imagine and incorporate into one’s daily behaviors without any upfront costs,” they speculate.
The lesson isn’t that people are stupid—they know a lot about what’s most important to them. “Many people’s concerns about energy are simply not strong enough, relative to their other concerns, to warrant learning about energy conservation,” they conclude.
The authors advocate better marketing and education programs to make it easier for consumers to make smart decisions—for example, give them a short list of the most cost-effective things they can do to cut energy use rather than a laundry list of dozens.
Second, give them more incentive to learn about conservation strategies by putting a price on carbon to reflect its true environmental cost.
To those recommendations I would add, make it easier for people to see and appreciate how much energy they are using in near real time. That’s one of the great advantages of smart meters, which record energy usage hourly. Many studies show that customers cut their energy use on the order of five percent just by being more conscious of what they are using. In this case, knowledge is power--the power to use less energy.
Aug 16 2010
“Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love,” wrote the French philosopher and priest Teilhard de Chardin.
If he was right, then we can only hope—for the sake of love and other more mundane renewable energies—that Atlantis Resources Corp., a developer of tidal current turbines based in London and Singapore, makes good on its new announcement of the “largest and most powerful tidal power turbine ever built,” the AK1000.
Designed to harness power from the swift ebb and flow of tidal currents, the device looks like a squat wind turbine with two 18-foot-diameter rotors. That seems puny--only one-twentieth the size of some terrestrial turbines, but the company points out that a small tidal rotor goes a long way since water is 832 times denser than air.
Each turbine has a power rating of one megawatt and can generate enough electricity for 1,000 homes, the company says. Atlantis hopes to install one later this year off the coast of
Such relatively small devices, one hopes, should be cheaper to build and take up less room than giant wind turbines. And because the tides are driven by lunar and solar gravity, they should be much more stable sources of power than the wind. Last but not least, they won’t block anyone’s view or offend their esthetic sensibilities.
A recent report by Frost & Sullivan estimated the potential energy from tidal generation worldwide at 700 terrawatt-hours per year, or more than one-sixth of all U.S. electricity consumption. However, a survey by the Electric Power Research Institute found only a handful of potentially suitable sites in the United States.
Despite its promise in some parts of the world, tidal power is still very much an experimental technology. Operating reliably in a harsh, corrosive marine environment is an enormous challenge. A 1 MW turbine installed by OpenHydro in the Bay of Fundy in Nova Scotia—which has some of the highest tides in the world—broke earlier this year and will have to be removed at great expense.
Previously, a related technology project by Verdant Power, designed to harness the energy of
On the other hand, the Marine Current Turbines SeaGen project in
Aug 05 2010
Doing right by the environment during an economic recession shouldn’t be an agonizing moral choice. It should simply be a matter of common cents.
For example, retrofitting commercial buildings across the
Needless to say, it would also have a significant effect on overall energy use; as my colleague Katie Romans reported recently, commercial buildings account for about 37 percent of all electricity consumed in California (and a similar percentage nationally).
One good place to start would be by retrofitting older windows, which expose building occupants to outside heat and cold, forcing heating and air conditioning systems to work overtime. Inefficient windows are responsible for about a tenth of all energy consumed by buildings, or for you energy wonks, four quadrillion Btus a year.
Most of that wasted energy could be saved by the use of highly insulating “dynamic windows” that change color on demand to regulate building temperature and lighting, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, which has been conducting research on them for two decades. But until now, such windows have been far too expensive—up to $1,000 per square meter—for widespread use.
This June, in a sign that the technology may be ready for prime time, the Department of Energy awarded grants to three key commercial players in this market: Soladigm (
All three are involved in making so-called “electrochromic” glass for windows, which can turn from transparent to nearly black just by applying voltage to an extremely thin layer of lithium ions and other chemicals on their outside pane.
It takes only a few dozen watts to control 1,500 square feet of glass, saving far more energy on heating, cooling and lighting than the windows consume. Overall, according to studies by NREL, they can slash peak electric power use by up to 16 percent.
Applied Materials is a leading player because the technology used to deposit the electrochromic layer on glass is the same used in thin-film photovoltaic manufacturing.
Not much is known about Soladigm, which is still in stealth mode, other than its more than $21 million in funding by Khosla Ventures and Sigma Partners. The company just announced plans to build a major manufacturing plant in Mississippi.
Sage, on the other hand, has been shipping product for several years now and boasts that its dynamic, triple-pane windows are “the world’s most energy-efficient window glass.” It claims an energy efficiency improvement of more than 50 percent over single-pane windows.
Sage’s president, John Van Dine, notes that about “20 billion feet of window area is installed every year around the world.” The market for the new windows could thus be huge if costs can be kept reasonable.
Sage’s windows have been tested at both NREL and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which confirmed the substantial savings they offer both for energy consumption and for HVAC equipment, which can be significantly downsized.
In March, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced a $72 million conditional loan guarantee to help the company build a high-volume manufacturing plant.
“This investment will help cut utility bills, reduce carbon pollution, and create jobs our economy needs," Chu said. "It’s a perfect example of the power of American innovation to create a stronger economy and a healthier planet.”
Aug 04 2010
Solar energy may lead in sex appeal, but wind remains by far the biggest driver of new renewable energy in the United States. Last year, despite the ailing economy, the U.S. wind industry installed about 10,000 megawatts of new capacity, 40 percent more than in 2008 and a new national record.
By contrast, the U.S. solar industry installed only 481 MW of new capacity, or less than five percent as much as wind.
A report issued today by the U.S. Department of Energy on the wind technology market notes that wind accounted for 39 percent of all new U.S. generating capacity last year, ahead of new coal power, though just behind natural gas. That’s a phenomenal accomplishment, though China exceeded the
The wind industry certainly leads in its aspirations as well. About 300 GW of proposed new wind projects have been put in so-called transmission interconnection queues, used for expansion planning by grid operators and utilities. That figure represents 60 percent of all new generating capacity in those queues, and is nearly three times higher than the queue for natural gas projects. That’s all impressive, but as the DOE report cautions, some fraction of proposed wind projects will undoubtedly never materialize.
Unfortunately, all this investment in the wind industry isn’t translating into more green jobs, partly because of rising competition from foreign turbine manufacturers. Last year the wind industry employed about 85,000 people according to the American Wind Energy Assocation, unchanged from 2008.
Among other challenges, the cost of installing new wind power capacity rose in 2009, likely curbing new demand. Turbine prices are running more than twice as much as they did a decade ago, and finding transmission capacity to deliver energy from remote projects continues to be a headache.
As of the end of 2009, though, the United States still led the world in cumulative installed wind capacity, at just over 35,000 MW, compared to China and Germany at 28,000 MW. U.S.-based turbines now provide enough energy in an average year to meet about 2.5 percent of this country’s electricity consumption, according to the DOE report.
Aug 03 2010
Having caused the largest oil spill in history, BP recently said it would take a $32 billion write-off for cleanup costs--saving $10 billion on its tax bill and incurring the wrath of many members of Congress who are now moving to amend the tax laws.
"The tax code shouldn't protect, and certainly shouldn't reward, companies that do extensive damage to the American economy," said Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva.
The issue puts into stark relief a new report by Bloomberg New Energy Finance that global subsidies to the fossil fuel industry—many in the form of tax breaks—dwarf those offered by governments to the renewable energy sector.
Bloomberg estimates that wind, solar, biofuels and other forms of renewable energy received about $45 billion last year in tax credits and price supports, compared to the International Energy Agency’s estimate of $557 billion in subsidies for fossil fuels in 2008.
The comparison is somewhat misleading. Since the world uses vastly more fossil fuels, the subsidy per unit of energy is likely greater for many renewables. On the other hand, it’s hard to see any argument for subsidizing highly profitable, mature technologies like oil and gas extraction. (Supporting R&D on carbon capture and storage—a new technology—is another matter.)
The Group of 20 countries have pledged to phase out fossil subsidies but haven’t made much progress to that end. The IEA says simply ending those subsidies would cut global carbon emissions by 7 percent. It would also help bring deficit-plagued national budgets back into balance, a win-win.
In its comparison of government support to the fossil fuel and renewable industries, Bloomberg left out one critical fact. Subsidies to both energy sectors in effect represent a tax on the most environmentally friendly technology of all: energy efficiency. It’s time more governments put that resource at the top of their energy priorities.
Aug 02 2010
It might not help the company win any dates, but PG&E has just been ranked as one of the three most “intelligent” utilities in the
The magazine says it developed the ranking last year “to separate the smart grid hype from reality.” It defines an intelligent utility as one that “applies information to energy, maximizing its reliability, affordability and sustainability from generation to end users.”
The rankings are based on five metrics:
- Productivity (revenue per employee)
- Renewable energy (sales, customers, capacity)
- Smart Grid initiatives (smart meter deployments and smart grid projects)
- Demand response and energy efficiency programs
- IT investment (as a percent of revenue and per employee)
PG&E’s high ranking reflects its record as the North American leader in deploying smart meters, its strong performance in acquiring renewable energy (which accounted for more than 14 percent of electricity sales in 2009), and its long record of commitment to energy efficiency and demand response programs.
The ranking also gives extra credit for companies that report regularly on sustainability and corporate social responsibility—which PG&E just did.
PG&E’s score of 134 represents “very superior intelligence,” according to the UtiliQ ranking.
Kudos to Sempra Energy (San Diego Gas & Electric), which topped the charts with a UtiliQ of 142. That gives them bragging rights for demonstrating “near genius.”
Jul 29 2010
Scientists, government agencies and ski resorts have been “seeding” clouds over land for more than half a century with silver iodide or dry ice to produce more rain or snow. Now controversial moves are afoot in
The concept—described previously on NEXT100—is akin to Energy Secretary Chu’s favorite idea to paint roofs and pavement white so they reflect the sun’s rays and cool the earth. Only this scheme would effectively paint the skies white over the ocean.
As first proposed by British meteorologist John Latham, fleets of special oceangoing ships would spew fine drops of seawater into the atmosphere, creating nuclei around which white clouds would form.
According to Latham, if these clouds reflected just 1.7 percent of incoming sunlight, the greenhouse effect would be offset for many years, giving the world time to find a more permanent solution.
A renowned Stanford-based climate scientist, Ken Caldeira, told me he thinks enough of the idea to give it a serious research boost. Caldeira and a colleague, who administer a chunk of research money donated by Bill Gates for the study of climate risks and “geoengineering,” recently donated $300,000 to a team led by Armand Neukermans, a serial technology entrepreneur and “Silicon Valley Inventor of the Year” in 2001, to test a novel design for a nozzle that won’t get gummed up by impurities in the ocean.
Neukermans knows a thing or two about fine nozzles, having managed HP Labs, which helped develop the technology in the company’s ink-jet printers.
The grant has aroused great controversy among groups opposed to global climate engineering, who fear that reckless scientists, mad billionaires or rogue regimes will destabilize the earth’s environment with their experiments.
Warns another Stanford energy policy expert, David Victor, "A lone Greenfinger, self-appointed protector of the planet and working with a small fraction of the Gates bank account could force a lot of geoengineering on his own."
But Caldeira emphasizes that he's only funding lab experiments, and believes field tests should await the “development of appropriate governance structures.”
What he hopes to settle in the lab is the question of whether spray technology can work at all in a harsh ocean environment. If not, he says, “all the attention to climate issues might be irrelevant.”
Caldeira just published a paper with two colleagues in Climate Dynamics, which suggests that ocean cloud seeding, unlike some other geoengineering proposals, might have the beneficial effect of increasing rainfall over land rather than causing droughts.
In fact, Caldeira speculates that local cloud seeding off the coast of Southern and
Caldeira cautions that his computer model is subject to error and, in any case, cloud seeding is no magic bullet. For one thing, even if it counteracts global warming, it will still leave the oceans more acidic as CO2 levels continue to rise. And if the atmosphere is pumped full of greenhouse gases, any breakdown of in cloud seeding could lead to quick and catastrophic warming.
Still, he says carefully, the idea “merits further investigation.” Who knows, between white roofs and white clouds, maybe we'll buy enough time for cooler heads to prevail in the critical climate policy debate.
Jul 28 2010
As a kid, I used to love poring over world almanacs, with their rich collections of lists, tables and facts on every subject imaginable, from baseball statistics to life expectancy by country.
OK, call me a nerd, but it’s with the same sense of discovery that I greet the publication every year of PG&E’s Corporate Responsibility Report—this year with the words “and Sustainability” added before “Report.”
It’s packed with information on the utility’s renewable energy contracts and investments, energy efficiency achievements, diversity and training programs, corporate governance issues and a host of other details.
Unusually well written (full disclosure: I contributed a few paragraphs, equal to about 0.001% of the total), the report is an invaluable compendium for those like me inside the company who need to lay their hands quickly on verified facts. As anyone who’s worked in a big organization knows, that’s no easy task.
This year’s report breaks new ground by adding a section on sustainability, an important but sometimes tenuous concept that “is more than the sum of caring for our environment, doing right by our employees, serving our customers and communities and delivering for our shareholders,” the report says. “‘Sustainability’ reflects the reality that PG&E’s environmental challenges and business challenges are increasingly intertwined, and that we can optimize our success by developing integrated and balanced solutions to these challenges.”
PG&E enhanced its focus on this issue last year by creating a new position, Chief Sustainability Officer, which reports to the Chairman and CEO of PG&E Corporation. This officer develops, coordinates and helps measure the ultimate success of PG&E’s sustainability strategy and initiatives.
The other big innovation is the incorporation of videos and slideshows into the online report.
The report’s first video features a customer, Eileen Tutt, who has driven a clean, quiet electric vehicle for the past nine years. She takes full advantage of PG&E’s little-known E-9 electric rate, which gives a big price break to those who charge their vehicles at night, when demand is low.
The video also shows the state-of-the-art solar-powered charging station in Vacaville, which was the subject of a previous NEXT100 posting.
Other videos feature PG&E’s energy training center in Stockton, which teaches people the basics of home weatherization and energy efficiency techniques; a discussion of the need for collaboration to achieve California’s renewable energy goals without harming endangered species or sensitive habitat; and a profile of PG&E’s daredevil-looking, but safe, helicopter-assisted maintenance techniques.
The report is not just a PR puff-piece. For example, it reports that although the company caused fewer serious environmental violations resulting in penalties last year, the total number of violations cited jumped from 12 in 2008 to 21 in 2009. The report says the utility “completed a Lean Six Sigma process improvement project” to analyze the root causes and “and apply systematic corrective actions to prevent reoccurrence.” PG&E is shooting this year for a violation rate less than half that of 2009, as one of several ambitious environmental sustainability goals.
Jul 26 2010
Driven by the global warming clock, the promise of energy security and the lure of untold profits, investors are betting billions of dollars on the race to find the ideal alternative fuel for cars, buses and trucks.
The list of contestants is long and growing. Corn ethanol? Cellulosic ethanol? Biodiesel? Compressed natural gas? Liquefied natural gas? Octanol? Hydrogen? Electric?
Three researchers at Argonne National Laboratory suggest in a new report that the transporation fuel of the future might be propane, the same stuff used for heating and cooking in cabins and trailer homes.
To my surprise, they report that propane is already the biggest selling alternative fuel in the world, powering more than 13 million vehicles worldwide. In the
Propane has several virtues. It works well with only minor modifications to internal combustion engines. Although it has only 86 percent the energy content of gasoline, it has none of the range limitations of all-electric vehicles. It can be produced from ample supplies of domestic natural gas. And it’s nontoxic, noncarcinogenic and noncorrosive, according to the researchers.
The
Apparently ongoing research into applications of propane fuel is still being funded by the Propane Education and Research Act of 1996. Federal stimulus funds awarded by the Department of Energy last year will support a buildout of propane fueling infrastructure in 20 cities as part of a Clean Cities program. But the overall shortage of propane stations in the
The California Energy Commission calls propane “a low-emission, economic, and easily used fuel that can play an important role as an alternative, non-petroleum fuel for our state and the nation.” Everything hinges on whether the propane industry manages to change “can” to “will” in the near future. One thing’s for sure: the alternative fuels market can’t and won’t support more than one or two winners.
Jul 22 2010
It’s time again for “guess the country,” our quiz on energy developments around the world. See if you can match the news to the country (China, Germany, Kenya, Pakistan, South Korea):
A. This country’s renewable energy sector exports more than doubled in the first half of 2010, led by a doubling of foreign sales of solar products and a jump of 37 percent in sales of items for the wind power industry.
B. The U.S. Signature Energy Program in this country is financing two new hydropower projects to serve about 50,000 households and feasibility studies for a 50 MW wind farm, a biomass plant, an integrated Smart Grid in one of the nation’s leading cities, and solar photovoltaic installations at hundreds of schools.
C. Canadian Solar and Green City Energy have just completed a 1 MW solar installation in one of this country’s sunniest regions in record time—a mere two months of construction.
D. This country slashed power demand by 58 megawatts—the size of a major hydro plant—after replacing 1.1 million incandescent light bulbs with energy-saving lights at no cost to consumers.
E. Working with a leading foreign engineering company, this country installed the world’s first commercial ultrahigh voltage, direct current transmission line, a year ahead of schedule. The 800 kilovolt line can carry up to 7,200 megawatts of power from a giant hydroelectric plant to one of the country’s largest cities.
Answers: A - South Korea; B - Pakistan; C - Germany; D - Kenya; E - China.
Jul 21 2010
Graphene, a super-material discovered only six years ago at the
Consisting of a honeycomb of carbon atoms a mere one atom thick, it’s one of the strongest and stiffest substances known. Researchers are investigating its possible uses in an amazing variety of applications, including ultracompact integrated circuits, touchscreens, light-emitting diodes, ultra-high-capacity energy storage devices, and even the detection of microbes.
Within just the past few months, teams of scientists have published papers on the use of graphene in structural components for fuel-efficient, ultralight cars and aircraft, as super-small electrodes to measure electrical signals from single cells, to read the sequence of DNA molecules, to produce transistors with more than twice the switching speed of the fastest silicon devices, and to “dramatically improve the power and cycling stability” of lithium-ion batteries.
But here’s the rub: graphene won’t really qualify as a super-material until it becomes less super-hard to make.
The British and Russian researchers who first discovered graphene did so—I kid you not—by ripping layers of carbon atoms off blocks of graphite with Scotch tape. That doesn’t qualify as a high-volume production technique.
As late as 2008, according to Wikipedia, a sample the size of a human hair cost more than $1,000, making graphene one of the most expensive materials on the planet.
Since then, several companies have begun limited commercial production, but supplies are still hard to get. That’s why recent announcements of new production breakthroughs are as exciting as new discoveries about the material itself.
For example, a team at
Meanwhile, a dispersed group of researchers from
Finally, engineers at the Georgia Institute of Technology last month announced a “simple, robust and reproducible technique” for creating conducting nanowires in graphene, a great advance in its use in electronics.
And to think it all started with a piece of Scotch tape.
Jul 20 2010
One of the hottest issues on the
Opponents of AB 32 call it a job killer and say
Acknowledging the “daunting challenges” posed by the economic recession and the state’s high unemployment rate, the 118 signers declare that “Delaying action now and waiting for the future before initiating accelerated action to reduce global warming gases will be more costly than initiating action now. Acting now is more likely to limit further environmental degradation, lower the cost of mitigation, and spur innovation in renewable energy and conservation technologies.”
And by reducing the burning of dirty fossil fuels, they add, “policies that reduce global warming pollution are likely to provide immediate benefits to the health and welfare of residents by reducing local pollutants.”
Signers include Nobel laureate Kenneth Arrow at
Speaking to NEXT100, Borenstein said both sides of the AB 32 debate have overblown its impact on California jobs. The real importance of the law, he maintained, is to provide impetus for national action on climate change and ultimately for an international agreement to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
A spokesperson for the Prop. 23 campaign, Anita Mangels, took issue with the economists. “"There may be some of the benefits in the long run," she said. "But in the beginning and in the interim, there is going to be a lot of collateral damage along the way."
But some well-publicized studies warning of big job losses from AB 32 haven’t fared well under close academic review. If the California Air Resources Board—which has authority to implement AB 32—pays close attention to achieving the law’s goals most cost-effectively, the impact should be manageable and the state should be well positioned to for growth in clean-tech industries.
If governments here and across the globe do nothing, on the other hand, the economic losses to California alone will likely run tens of billions of dollars a year, according to one study at the University of California.
That’s why support for AB 32 is coming not only from economists, but from Gov. Schwarzenegger, former Secretary of Treasury (and State) George Shultz, many business groups across the state and, yes, PG&E.
Jul 20 2010
On June 24, the California Public Utilities Commission issued guidelines to structure planning and reporting by the state’s investor-owned utilities on their coming deployment of Smart Grid infrastructure.
At PG&E, the guy who gets to develop the utility’s Smart Grid roadmap—a task I for one would much rather talk about than manage—is 29-year PG&E veteran Kevin Dasso. As senior director of electric strategy and regulation, he’s been the company's lead representative with regulatory agencies and policymakers on important issues for the transmission and distribution business, including major new reliability programs. He’s also been quietly co-leading PG&E’s initial Smart Grid planning. Now, to accompany his daunting responsibilities to meet the CPUC’s planning timetables, he gets a formal new title—Senior Director, Smart Grid and Technology Integration, reporting to PG&E's lead Smart Grid officer, Senior Vice President Edward Salas.
As readers of NEXT100 know, Smart Grid encompasses a wide range of communications, computing, sensing and control technologies that will work together to improve service reliability, lower customer costs and minimize the environmental impact of generating, distributing and using electrical power.
Since Smart Grid spans so much of the utility’s electric operations, that means Kevin will have to coordinate with a host of other business lines to get everyone on the same page with respect to our vision, priorities and deployment plans. To say the least, that's no easy task at a huge utility.
He’ll have to work especially closely with the information technology group, which plays a critical role in capturing and processing the tidal wave of data gathered by smart meters, distribution grid sensors, power storage devices, smart charging stations for electric vehicles and other Smart Grid components.
A critical role for the IT group—and a requirement set by the CPUC—is to ensure the security and privacy of Smart Grid communications and computing networks. It goes without saying that Smart Grid will attract its share of smart villains who will try either to break it or break in. Fortunately, PG&E can draw on a number of robust industry security standards to keep them at bay.
Last but not least, Kevin will have to make his best stab at answering the $64 billion question: How much will Smart Grid benefit customers?
A lot of industry boosters, from the U.S. Department of Energy to various utility associations, have no doubt that the benefits will be enormous. “The societal business case for grid modernization is compelling,” declares a report by the National Energy Technology Laboratory. “The benefits to society will be $638 to $802 billion. . . . While not free, the collective value of these grid modernization benefits far exceeds their cost.”
But a lot of consumer and regulatory groups aren’t so sure. The Maryland Public Service Commission recently shocked the utility industry by rejecting a proposal by Baltimore Gas and Electric to install smart meters, saying the company hadn’t proven the benefits to customers. The decision put at risk a $200 million award from DOE under the Smart Grid stimulus funding program. (BG&E has filed an application for a rehearing of its proposal.) And earlier this year,
California's PUC has long been scrupulous about requiring careful business-case justifications for utility investments; PG&E and the CPUC used independent experts to analyze the costs and benefits of the SmartMeter™ program in great detail before moving ahead with deployment in 2006.
So it’s no surprise that the commission has asked the utilities it regulates to prepare high-level cost estimates of the Smart Grid technologies and investments they expect to undertake over the next five years, as well as the many benefits, which include lower electric bills, increased reliability and improved compliance with the state’s mandates for greater use of renewable energy. The commission recognizes how tough this request may be given that many critical technology standards are not even settled.
“Putting all these pieces together—our vision and strategy, deployment roadmaps, security programs and estimates of costs and benefits—will be like doing a jigsaw puzzle,” Kevin told me. “The challenge is that the Smart Grid will evolve over time so we don’t yet know exactly what the picture looks like or even the shape of the individual pieces. But if we do it right, we'll have a chance to significantly improve the lives of our customers and lead our industry into the 21st century.”
Jul 19 2010
At the end of the day, the color that saves the environment may not be green, but white.
Last year, at a brainstorming symposium of Nobel laureates in London, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recommended dealing with the world’s climate crisis by painting “white roofs everywhere.” (See update below.)
The idea—first explored by his colleagues at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory—would reflect enough of the sun’s energy back into space from white roofs and pavement to “be the equivalent of . . . reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world [for] 11 years,” he said.
Now a Peruvian inventor is taking the idea to the next level—he wants to save Peru’s shrinking Andean glaciers by painting them white, too.
The visionary Eduardo Gold was one of 26 winners of a World Bank competition to honor the best “Ideas to Save the Planet” with seed grants of up to $200,000.
Even before the money comes through, he’s enlisted men from the
Gold said his aim is to increase the mountains surface reflectivity to decrease microclimate temperatures and reverse glacial melting. His other goal is to have the project qualify for carbon credits in order to finance future initiatives.
The locals are happy to help paint their mountain, since their water supply and pasture for their livestock depend on restoring the glacier.
“When I was around 15-20 years old, Chalon Sombrero was a big glacier, all white, then little by little it started to melt," said one supporter. “Forty years on and the river's never been lower, the nights are very cold and the days are unbearably hot. It wasn't like this when I was growing up... it was always bearable. So we're happy to see this project to paint the mountain.”
The World Bank reported last year that more than a fifth of
Update: Energy Secretary Chu today announced a series of initiatives "to more broadly implement cool roof technologies on DOE facilities and buildings across the federal government. Cool roofs use lighter-colored roofing surfaces or special coatings to reflect more of the sun's heat, helping improve building efficiency by reducing cooling costs and offsetting carbon emissions."
Jul 14 2010
For the last week, temperatures in
But you’ve got to admit, the place is a natural for solar energy. In fact, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory,
More than a few big solar companies have already figured that out. In fact, the world’s largest producer of solar photovoltaic panels, First Solar, is based in
At today’s Intersolar conference in
As Barry Broome, president and CEO of the GPEC, ticked off the many subsidies (“incentives”) that Arizona offers solar, the strong university support for solar research, the state’s low costs, and the promise of speedy project permitting, I began to realize that
Broome boasted, “We will establish ourselves overwhelmingly as the national leader in this market.” That might prove to be hot air, but I don’t think government and industry officials in the
Besides more sun than it knows what to do with, Arizona has a long tradition of semiconductor manufacturing, dating back to Motorola’s operations in the 1950s. And
At least one solar developer, Tessera Solar North America, has said it plans to shift new jobs to Arizona because of the high cost of doing business in
But
A couple of weeks ago, one of Arizona’s two senators, Republican Jon Kyl, issued a report blasting the concentrating solar power industry—which focuses solar energy to run steam generators—for threatening to use too much of the state’s limited water supply. As one reporter noted, the report “stunned both the solar industry and policymakers” in the state.
Jul 14 2010
The good news first: Americans are paying less in gas taxes per 1,000 miles driven, and per $100 of income, than at anytime since 1929, according to USA Today. In fact, in inflation-adjusted dollars, gasoline taxes were more than twice as high in the early 1970s.
Now the bad news: There’s no free ride. Because gasoline taxes haven’t kept up, there’s not enough money to fix potholes and repave roads. And because gas taxes are so low, American drivers may be among the slowest in the world to adopt cleaner, more efficient electric vehicles as they begin hitting the market toward the end of this year.
The federal gas tax, only $18.4 cents a gallon, hasn’t increased since 1993. Inflation has whittled away its value. USA Today’s Dennis Cauchon notes that despite driving 7 percent more miles each year, Americans will be paying almost 20 percent less in federal, state and local gas taxes in 2010 than in 2000 (adjusting for inflation).
As those funds dwindle, don’t count on general taxes picking up the difference. Degraded roads and bridges will mean slower and bumpier rides, shorter lifespans for our vehicles, more risk of accidents and higher costs of doing business. Nonetheless, political support for an increase in gas taxes is slim.
Meanwhile, a new study by Pike Research shows that because U.S. fuel prices are among the lowest in the world—about half to a third those of other developed countries—the savings to drivers from switching to electric vehicles will be much lower here than in other markets. That’s true even accounting for the fact that gasoline and diesel cars in
Using a simple model for illustration, they calculated annual fuel savings of about $2,000 in
“Smaller annual savings means a longer time to pay back the premium that EV buyers are likely to pay,” a Pike analyst notes. “While many of the early EV owners will be thinking more about the environment (and showing off to their neighbors) than about their wallets when buying, a shorter payback period would help to convince consumers who are more price-sensitive to purchase an EV.”
Jul 13 2010
The average person takes for granted that the lights go on when he or she flips the switch. But during the record-breaking heat wave that hit the East Coast earlier this month, as millions of people cranked up their air conditioners, it took some unheralded heroics to prevent overloaded circuits and widespread brownouts.
One of the key factors that kept lights on and air conditioners running was the steller performance of the region’s 26 nuclear power plants. On July 4, for example, 25 of the plants ran at full capacity, with the 26th at 94 percent capacity, according to figures tallied by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Nuclear Energy Institute notes that 85 of the country’s 104 nuclear reactors ran at 100 percent of capacity that week and only two were offline altogether for refueling and maintenance work. Collectively, they generate more than 100,000 megawatts of electricity, enough to serve some 60 million Americans.
PG&E’s
Equally important to stabilizing the East Coast grid was the performance of demand side programs to moderate energy consumption. The wholesale grid operator PJM Interconnection called in its demand response contracts and at one point last Wednesday managed to lower electricity usage a total of 2,500 megawatts—the equivalent of more than two nuclear plants.
In addition to preventing grid overload, this demand reduction lowered the cost of electricity purchases, saving customers money throughout the entire region.
Jul 12 2010
Here’s another reason to support utility-scale solar energy, besides all the usual environment benefits: It will help balance the federal budget.
The best sites for capturing solar energy in the
BLM isn’t just giving away the public’s land to solar developers. It plans to charge them rent—high enough, in fact, to raise millions of dollars annually from larger projects.
The new rent schedule, which took effect last month, will charge developers anywhere from just under $16 an acre (
BLM also plans to charge annual capacity fees ranging from $5,256 to $7,884 per megawatt, depending on whether the project uses solar photovoltaic cells or solar-heated steam generators. (It takes roughly 10 acres to generate a megawatt of power.)
Compare that to the usual alternative—renting the land out to ranchers who graze cattle or sheep. BLM’s website says the agency charges ranchers all of $1.35 per cow per month for use of public lands. (The same money will buy you grazing rights to five sheep.)
The solar fees can add up to real money, much to the dismay of some developers. Energy Prospects estimates that Solar Millennium’s huge 484 MW solar thermal project in
BrightSource Energy's Ivanpah project in San Bernardino County, which will supply power to PG&E, will pay estimated fees of about $3 million a year.
BLM says it has about 23 million acres suitable for solar energy production and 200 project applications already in the hopper. If a significant number of those projects ever get built, the federal government could have a financial gusher on its hands.
Jul 08 2010
Market researchers are great synthesizers, but sometimes you have to take their claims with a few grains of salt. A perfect case in point is a recent report by Frost & Sullivan, which declares that “the market potential for the wave (power) industry is about $1 trillion worldwide.”
Given that the current size of the commercial wave industry is roughly zero dollars, that’s a bold estimate to say the least. It appears to be based not on commercial realities, but on an extrapolation of the physical energy potentially extractable from the world’s oceans, which the report summary estimates at up to 6 million gigawatt-hours per year. (That's about equal to the energy in all the oil consumed worldwide in 2006.)
Frost & Sullivan’s news release goes on to say, with breaktaking confidence, that “ocean (wave and tidal) technology is much more reliable and predictable than other kinds of renewable energies, such as wind or solar. Coupled with vast worldwide resources . . . ocean energy may be the key to answer the world's escalating energy needs.”
More reliable than wind or solar? Hardly. As the news release admits farther down, “The extremely harsh weather conditions of the ocean require the technology to be very robust. Pelamis Wave Power has halted its 2.5 MW wave farm in
Or consider this news item from GreenTechMedia last month:
The prospect of extracting nearly unlimited renewable energy from the tides suffered a blow this month when OpenHydro announced it would pull its experimental underwater turbine from the
When I queried the Frost & Sullivan analyst by email, it turned out that what he really meant was that ocean energy, not technology, is more reliably available than wind or solar energy. That’s a rather big difference.
Fortunately, the ocean power industry is making progress despite inevitable setbacks. As noted in NEXT100, PG&E is promoting pilot testing of new technology off the California coast through its WaveConnect™ program. And in
As the Frost & Sullivan study rightly notes, in contrast to its optimistic flights of rhetoric, “The future of wave and tidal energy depends heavily on financial funding from public, private, and government entities. Deployment of wave and tidal technology will not be easily achievable due to large initial installation cost.” And even once the technology is proven, challenges will remain of moving to the next phase of commercialization.
All that said, unlocking the power of ocean waves and tides is a goal well worth pursuing. The energy potential is staggering and the resource lies near population centers that need it. Above all, ocean power is clean and renewable. So let’s go for it—with determination, not hype.
Jul 07 2010
Unlike frogs in a pot of boiling water, humankind has no place to jump as the earth warms. We have no choice but to find a way to turn down the greenhouse thermostat until we can phase out fossil fuels in favor of clean, renewable energy sources.
One widely discussed option is to capture the CO2 from utility and industrial flues, pipe it to a remote location, and pump it deep underground for permanent storage. Pilot projects suggest the approach can work, at least in limited scale. But critics complain about the potentially high cost, danger of leakage and the possibility of insufficient underground storage capacity.
But what if CO2 could instead be converted chemically and stored in the form of cement, liquid fuels, or other valuable materials? That could be a win for the environment and a win for the economy—if the energy required for the recycling process doesn’t defeat the purpose.
The U.S. Department of Energy yesterday announced grants to support six promising projects for converting CO2 into marketable chemicals, including substitutes for Portland cement and even methane gas, using a variety of novel catalysts and chemical reactants.
But similar research is already underway in a wide variety of laboratories:
- Singapore’s Institute of Bioengineering and Nanotechnology announced a “breakthrough” method to convert CO2 into methanol—a valuable chemical feedstock and liquid fuel that can power relatively clean vehicles—at room temperature.
- A chemist at Newcastle University announced the discovery of an aluminum-based catalyst that slashes the energy needed to turn CO2 into organic compounds called cyclic carbonates, with many industrial applications, including gasoline additives. These applications could use up to 30 million tons of CO2 annually in the
- At the University of Illinois, an engineering project team is developing a novel membrane to separate CO2 from power plant flue gases, then take waste heat from the plant to convert CO2 cost-effectively into methane, methanol or carbon monoxide. “The energy produced from the fuel cell using any one of these three fuels could then be used to supply additional electricity to the power plant, thereby creating a near zero-loss power cycle,” the team notes.
- Many researchers are also exploring the use of bioenegineered algae to absorb carbon dioxide and produce molecules that can in turn be synthesized into biofuels. So far their success has been limited. Another promising biological process, pioneered by a UCLA engineer, is the use of genetically modified bacteria to produce liquid isobutanol fuel from CO2.
Exciting as these announcements appear to be, it’s worth heeding the words of John Sheehan, former head of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory’s (now defunct) algae research program.
“There aren’t any silver bullets,” he said. “The energy problem is the most fundamental, most difficult challenge we have faced for a long time. After 150 years of punching a hole in the ground and getting fuel to come out as a liquid, it is not going to be easy.”
Jul 06 2010
While legions of engineers and scientists pursue high-tech breakthroughs in clean energy, a small investment in low-tech stoves might buy the world precious years in the fight against global warming.
That’s one message that can be drawn from a new study by two
Their work lends powerful support to a study published in Nature Geoscience in 2008, which fingered black carbon as the second most potent source of global warming, behind only carbon dioxide. It blamed carbon soot for half the total increase in Arctic temperatures from 1890 to 2007.
One major source of black carbon is the burning of wood and cow dung for cooking by poor households in
Inefficient burning has a host of health and environmental consequences in addition to global warming. According to UC Berkeley energy expert Daniel Kammen,
Half the world's population of nearly six billion people prepare their food and heat their homes with coal and the traditional biomass fuels of dung, crop residues, wood and charcoal. . . . In rural areas, women and children may spend several hours a day collecting wood for cooking or making charcoal, tasks that contribute to deforestation and soil erosion. Worse, the choking smoke from indoor wood fires causes respiratory disease--mainly pneumonia--which is the leading health hazard in developing nations and annually kills four to five million children worldwide.
Fortunately, international development organizations and NGOs are working to promote widespread adoption of more efficient stove designs to cut down on the use of fuel and, as a byproduct, reduce soot output.
Kammen notes that traditional open fires, used by millions of rural homes, direct only 10 percent of their heat to cooking. A metal stove may be at most twice as efficient. In contrast, a high-efficiency stove like the Kenya Ceramic Jiko, which adds an insulating liner, is up to 40 percent efficient—dramatically reducing fuel use and household costs. In mass production, the stove costs a mere $2.
Many efficient stove designs now exist, but one size doesn't fit all. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, who developed the noted Berkeley-Darfur Stove, discovered when asked to create a stove for
Just as there’s no single solution for stove designs, so there’s no single solution for global warming. Attacking the problem will take high tech, low tech, marketing, sociology and even anthropology. But helping desperately poor people find healthier, cheaper and more environmentally benign ways to cook sounds like a great place to start.
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 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 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 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 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.
May 27 2010
The road to hellish global warming is paved with . . . asphalt.
Not only is asphalt the surface over which most CO2-belching land vehicles travel (or park)—America alone has more than two million miles of asphalt roadway—it’s a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions in its own right.
Typically cooked at 300-325 degrees F, the production of asphalt creates about 45.6 pounds of CO2 per ton, according to the EPA.
With about 18 billion tons of asphalt pavement on
Fortunately, there’s something we can do about it. Led by advances in
The European Asphalt Pavement Association reports that lowering the mixing temperature by 18 degrees F results in reducing greenhouse emissions by about 50 percent. And one American expert estimates that adoption of warm-mix asphalt could lower
Warm-mix asphalt has been used sporadically in a number of states, including along Highway 1 in
Three leading asphalt producers in the
You don’t have to be an avid reader of Rock & Dirt magazine, or proudly display an “I Love Asphalt” bumper sticker on your 4x4, to be excited by such innovations if they pave the way to a cleaner, cooler world.
May 26 2010
I just learned from Microsoft that I'm a failure at energy efficiency.
That wasn’t the answer I expected, or hoped to hear, when I logged onto the company’s newly upgraded Microsoft Hohm website to check up on my home energy use.
"Starting today,” the Redmond-based software giant declared, “more than 60 million homeowners will be able to answer one simple question: ‘Am I an energy hog or an energy miser?’”
I guess I know now what they really think of me. Oink, oink.
Here’s how it works. After logging into the site and giving it your home address, up pops an aerial photo of your dwelling and basic information about square footage, year built, number of bedrooms and bathrooms, and heating and cooling systems.
Microsoft Hohm then applies various algorithms, developed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Department of Energy, to estimate your total home energy usage, compare it to averages for similar homes in
At first the program gave me a score of 82. I felt pretty smug—that was higher than the average for
But then I told it in more detail about my heating system, windows, thermostat settings and the like, and my score dropped to a mere 63, just average for homes of similar size and vintage in
In my defense, our entire energy bill for the last 12 months was less than $750. (We’ve worn a lot of sweaters and heavy socks this spring.) That compares to an average of $1,866 for similar homes in
The website gave me several suggestions for saving energy, like lowering my hot water temperature from lukewarm to barely tepid, and replacing my two remaining incandescent bulbs with compact fluorescents.
But some of its proposals were off the charts, like installing triple-paned, argon gas wood frame windows at a cost of up to $9,000. That might save me $75 a year, according to the website.
Just for comparison, I tried PG&E’s home energy analyzer for the first time. To my surprise, because it hasn't gotten much publicity, it offered an even more customized analysis of potential home improvements. I liked the fact that it warns of potential options that are likely not cost effective, as well as those with reasonable payback periods. It also provides lots of free tips for minimizing energy waste.
Best of all, PG&E’s energy analyzer compared me very favorably to other customers. If I have to look in a mirror, this is the one I want.
Note to Microsoft: unless you change my grade in the next 30 days, I might just switch to Apple.
May 25 2010
My colleague Matt Nauman filed this dispatch from Vacaville, Calif.:
For those who still consider electric vehicles as a short-range technology unready for prime time, a trip to a fast-food restaurant in
Located next to a Sonic drive-in restaurant just off I-80 is what will soon be (once certified) the first publicly accessible Quick Charger in the
With it, certain EVs can go from a 20-percent charge to an 80-percent charge in less than a half hour—just enough time to grab a Bacon Cheeseburger Toaster and a Cherry Limeade for the road. In contrast, a regular 110-volt household charger takes 12 hours for a full charge.
That location isn’t by happenstance, as
Last week, Mitsubishi invited the motoring press to test Japanese production versions of its diminutive iMiEV in a drive from
In
This Quick Charger, which also serves the Nissan Leaf, was built in Japan, but Eaton and a few other companies have licensed the technology and plan to introduce them to the North American market.
Efraim Ornelas, senior program manager with PG&E’s Clean Air Transportation Department, said the Quick Charger will help the utility understand how EV drivers react to the interface and evaluate the charger’s impact on the grid.
PG&E, which sees great potential for electric vehicles, has been testing a pre-production version of the iMiEV for about a year now. Ornelas and his colleagues have put just over 10,000 kilometers on the iMieEV he has been driving. The utility will add 10 Chevy Volts to its fleet later this year as part of a DOE demonstration project with GM and the Electric Power Resarch Institute.
May 24 2010
Recycling newspapers and plastic bottles is all fine and good, but what the world really needs is more intensive recycling of rare specialty metals that have become critical to the electronics and clean tech industries, according to a new report sponsored by the United Nations.
As discussed in NEXT100, so-called "rare earth elements," and scarce platinum-group metals are vital to production of hybrid car motors and batteries, wind turbines, energy-efficient light bulbs, catalytic converters and many other "green" technologies. Yet all are expensive, available only in relatively tiny quantities, and often concentrated in only a handful of supply countries like
A new draft report by the International Panel for Sustainable Resource Management, sponsored by the UN Environment Programme, notes that “despite concern among the clean tech industry over scarcity and high prices, only around one per cent of these crucial high-tech metals are recycled, with the rest discarded and thrown away at the end of a product's life.”
Unless recycling rates are dramatically increased, the report warns, these vital raw materials could become "essentially unavailable for use in modern technology."
In addition to stretching supplies of important raw materials, better recycling of cell phones and other electronics gear would save millions of tons of greenhouse gas emissions, the report adds. (Today, less than 10 percent of cell phones worldwide are recycled properly.) Such recycling could also unlock new supplies of more common but important metals such as copper and steel.
As Thomas Graedel, professor of Industrial Ecology at
One of the phenomena of our modern, industrial age is that increasingly metal stocks are "above ground" in structures such as buildings and ships and products from cell phones to personal computers.
For example around 240 kg of copper per person in the
Yet these above ground supplies of both common and specialty metals represent an extraordinary resource for sustainable development not only in terms of supplies but also the opportunity for reducing energy demand while curbing pollution, including rising greenhouse gas emissions.
May 19 2010
Electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles, coming to showrooms soon, will be clean, cool, quiet and fuel-efficient. But will they sell? That’s the billion dollar question.
Sales projections are all over the map—ranging from two to 10 percent of all new cars by 2020. A lot depends on how far battery prices come down and whether customers can be convinced to make do with limited range (for pure electrics) and recharging options.
The president of Honda’s R&D unit told Bloomberg News that he doesn’t believe electric vehicles have much of a future. “It’s questionable whether consumers will accept the annoyances of limited driving range and having to spend time charging them,” he said this week.
On the other hand, Nissan says it’s already racked up 17,000 pre-orders from American and Japanese buyers for its all-electric Leaf —well above its projected production capacity. That’s a good sign that early adopters will help drive the market.
But a recent news release from Ford brought home to me just how great a challenge it will be to sell these pricey cars into a mass market. Ford announced that its 2011 Fiesta, with 6-speed Powershift gearing, has just been rated by EPA at 40 mpg on the highway and 29 mpg in the city.
And get this—the starting price is just under $14,000.
With electric vehicles likely to cost $30,000 and up, let’s do the math. Assuming the Fiesta averages 34 mpg, and you travel 10,000 miles per year with fuel costing $3.50 per gallon, you’ll end up spending about $1,000 a year on gasoline.
A hybrid vehicle averaging 50 mpg would still cost you $700 per year for fuel. After 10 years, you would have saved only $3,000 at the pump, maybe less than a fifth of the price difference between the vehicles.
Now assume you could buy a super-clean vehicle with my patent-pending PMM™ (perpetual motion machine) engine, which requires no fuel at all. You’d still save only $10,000 on fuel over a decade, not nearly enough to make up for the high sale price of the greener car.
Fact is, the best and most fuel efficient gasoline-powered vehicles are hard to beat when it comes to base price, fuel economy and convenience. When customers compare a Ford Fiesta at $14,000 even to a well-reviewed Ford Fusion Hybrid at $28,000, I doubt you’ll see a stampede to the hybrid.
On the brighter side, the existence of sporty, thrifty models like the Fiesta means there’s no reason to put off higher fuel economy standards. The technology exists today to radically reduce fuel consumption—and thus oil imports, smog and greenhouse gas emissions as well. Yet the average new car sold last month got only about 22 mpg, according to Ward’s Auto.
I’m still rooting for electric vehicles, but we don’t absolutely need them to make a big improvement in auto performance for the sake of our environment and national security.
May 18 2010
On April 5, a multi-million dollar communications satellite broadcasting television signals to
In a warning issued when the event was first detected, NASA reported that “The source of the storming is an Earth-directed Coronal Mass Ejection associated with a weak solar flare . . . Systems that can be affected include electric power systems, spacecraft operations, high-frequency communications, GPS, and other navigation systems.”
This event could be a harbinger of the sun awakening from its long and quiet slumber—with potentially dangerous implications.
From 2004 until recently, the sun has been mostly a blank ball, with as low a level of sunspot and magnetic activity as anytime in a century. But as Ian O’Neill remarked last year,
Although there is a possibility this solar minimum may continue, it is just as likely the sun is just being lazy, waiting to surprise us with a stealthy explosion of magnetic fury. The sun could erupt with a rash of sunspots as the internal magnetic field becomes so stressed it rises through the solar photosphere, tearing apart the uppermost layers of hot plasma, creating dark patches of sunspot swarms. If this is the case, we can expect violent knots of magnetism to funnel multi-million degree plasma from the inner sun, high into the corona (the sun's atmosphere), creating arcades of bright coronal loops. When this happens, the scene is set for the biggest explosions in our Solar System: flares and coronal mass ejections -- both of which can be very bad for planet Earth.
Just how bad? As previously discussed in NEXT100, a really big geomagnetic storm, the size of one that struck in 1921, could overload power transformers in much of
Prevention is the answer. With enough warning, grid operators can shut down sensitive circuits in time to proect them. But that's an extremely costly step, not to be taken lightly. In fact, grid operators failed to heed warnings of a solar storm in 1989 that took out most of
Fortunately, scientists just gained an important new tool for predicting solar weather. In February, NASA launced the Solar Dynamics Observatory, with four telescopes that permit unprecedented scrutiny of our neighboring star.
"SDO will change our understanding of the sun and its processes, which affect our lives and society," said Richard Fisher, director of the Heliophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in 
Lika Guhathakurta, NASA program scientist, told me that the instrument calibration on the satellite will be complete this week and the first true science based on its data will begin.
Guhathakurta said the data will help scientists understand the physics of the sun and thus the causes of coronal mass ejections and solar flares that cause such disruption on Earth.
"Space weather prediction today is where terrestrial weather prediction was 40 to 50 years ago," she said. "This mission’s [high-resolution] images are already showing us things we have never seen before. SDO is going to help us understand the sources of these blasts and help us predict them. If you can do good forecasting two to three days ahead of time, that gives you much better ability to take mitigating steps."
May 17 2010
Pulling weeds is never a glamorous task, but it’s always satisfying to make your garden clean and tidy. This weekend, a team of 15 PG&E volunteers who pulled weeds in Eastern Contra Costa Country enjoyed the far greater satisfaction of helping to rescue an endangered species of butterfly.
Lange’s metalmark butterfly, which is prettier than its name, is a very particular creature. It lives only in and very near the 55-acre Antioch Dunes National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1980 to save the butterfly and its critical habitat. It eats only naked stem buckwheat, a native grass that has been swamped by vetch and other invasive plants. And it hurries through life, setting aside a mere 10 days to mate and lay eggs while dodging hungry birds, lizards, mice and other heartless predators.
The reddish-orange insect is only barely hanging on, for reasons that aren’t entirely clear. A century ago, they numbered in the tens of thousands. By 1984 their census was down to just 154. They climbed back up to 2,343 in 2000, only to collapse to fewer than 50 last year.
Volunteers are coming to the rescue by pulling invasive plants and planting buckwheat. This summer, some 200 larvae raised by breeders at
The PG&E volunteers, along with a handful of other colleagues, worked last weekend to restore butterfly habitat on 12 sandy acres owned by the utility adjacent to the wildlife refuge. PG&E has two transmission towers on its site, near the south bank of the
To volunteer your services at the refuge, call (707) 769-4200, or go to www.fws.gov/sfbayrefuges/antioch.
May 13 2010
CalRENEW-1’s more than 50,000 solar panels occupy almost fifty acres of land in a mostly industrial sector of Mendota, a town in the Central Valley north and west of
CalRENEW-1 is currently the largest solar plant in California serving PG&E. Across the border, near
Cleantech
May 13 2010
For a mere $109,000 you can buy a snazzy Tesla Roadster—an all-electric sportscar that zooms from 0-60 mph in as little as 3.7 seconds, and hits a quarter mile in only 12.9 seconds.
Sporting a “custom microprocessor-controlled lithium-ion battery with 6,831 individual cells,” its powerful electric motor flattens your back to the seat while you accelerate to the finish line (assuming no cops are around to stop you).
Well, the funky Hungerford Volkswagen Club in the
The Black Current blew away the competition. With its souped-up electric power train, the mighty little car hits 60 mph in only 3.0 seconds, and reaches a quarter mile in 11.24 seconds (one and a half seconds faster than the Tesla) at a speed of 114 mph.
Hmm . . . maybe that’s the real reason Tesla co-founder Martin Eberhard is reportedly now working for the Volkswagon group on electric vehicle concepts. Could he be planning to create a new line of Beetle drag racers for the common man and woman?
May 11 2010
Fifteen months ago, NEXT100 revealed the secret to fuel efficiency: “the biggest secret to designing high-mileage, low-carbon vehicles is not breakthrough battery or hybrid-drive technology, but rather lowering vehicle weight and drag without compromising safety or comfort.”
More and more automakers are finally taking this insight to heart as they redesign their fleets to meet the next generation of federal fuel efficiency standards. The result will be a big win for consumers and the environment.
BMW said last month that it plans to become the first high-volume user of strong and crash-resistant but ultralight carbon fiber composites in new car bodies, starting with its Megacity electric car in 2013. The German automaker is planning with SGL group to build a $100 million carbon fiber plant in
"By using carbon fiber, which is a little more expensive but 30 percent lighter, you don't need as many batteries for the same range," explained Ian Robertson, the head of BMW global sales. “There's a trade-off that actually works.”
Almost immediately, Daimler reported that it has teamed up with Toray Industries to begin making car parts out of carbon fibers, starting with the SL class. Toray will expand a factory in
Bright Automotive, a spinoff of Amory Lovins’ Rocky Mountain Institute, explains the critical importance of “lightweighting” to fuel efficiency:
The majority of the gasoline's energy goes toward moving the mass of the vehicle. Less mass requires less fuel—in fact, a mere 10 percent weight reduction leads to at least a 7 percent increase in fuel economy. . . . This more efficient vehicle can move faster and farther with a smaller and lighter powertrain (e.g., fewer batteries, and smaller, lighter engines and motors). This effect is called mass decompounding and makes it possible for us to take the next step of incorporating PHEV technology, achieving up to a 10x improvement in fuel efficiency over other vehicles . . .
In late April, the International Council on Clean Transportation released a detailed design study by Lotus Engineering, which concluded that for a mere 3 percent increase in component costs, automakers could slash the weight of a typical crossover utility vehicle by 38 percent, resulting in at least 25 percent lower fuel consumption.
Other things being equal, that means 25 percent fewer greenhouse gas emissions. Sounds like a bargain to me.
May 10 2010
After all the rain and snow we’ve had this season, I was startled to read in a press release last week from the state Department of Water Resources: “
I can just imagine what the cautious water managers would have told Noah after the Great Flood: “Not so fast, Noah. One cupful per animal is all we can spare.”
All kidding aside, even one reasonably wet year doesn’t erase the deficit caused by three years of drought. The State Water Project’s premier Northern California reservoir, Lake Oroville, is still less than two-thirds full, so water contractors this year will receive only 40 percent of their requested deliveries.
Unfortunately, the same long-term deficit also affects the state’s hydroelectric resources. While the hydrology experts at PG&E are grateful for the wetter season, they point out that the type of precipitation we received as well as the long-term deficit in water stored in the sponge-like volcanic rocks in Northern California will keep customers from enjoying all the hoped-for benefits of cheap and clean hydropower.
Snow levels in the Northern Sierra were at 202 percent of normal on May 6, and 148 percent statewide. At Squaw Valley, snow levels reached 530 inches, deep enough to bury even an Abominable Snowman. Great news, right?
Well, it turns out that a major reason for the huge snowpack is that colder-than-usual weather turned drops of precipitation into flakes. Instead of running into the ground and into reservoirs, the water now sits above ground. As a result, hydropower generation during the winter was lower than I had imagined from all the stormy weather—only about 70 percent of average from January to March, according to PG&E hydrologist Jan Grygier.
If the weather turns hot all of a sudden, he warns, a fast snow melt could overwhelm reservoir capacity and have to be spilled. That would mean a short season for peak hydropower production followed by only average levels in the summer.
Worse yet,
“This is a bad situation that has just gotten worse,” said Steve Wright, administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration, on May 7. “We had hoped a wet spring would help snowpack across the Columbia River Basin, but that didn’t happen. We are now looking at the fifth lowest runoff since the hydro system has been in existence.”
So, get out your prayer books and ask for a continued cool spring and early summer to slow the snow melt. If your luck holds, pray for a wet winter next season to bring equal parts rain and snow, so the groundwater can recharge and our snowbanks bulge once again.
May 05 2010
Sandwiched between three enthusiastic electric car entrepreneurs at the Electric Car 2.0 conference today, PG&E’s EV guru Saul Zambrano emphasized that it will take a village—or rather, a myriad of stakeholders currently participating in a statewide regulatory proceeding—to figure out the right institutional arrangements to support the nascent market for plug-in vehicles in
Zambrano, whose wordy title is director, integrated demand side management core products, praised the state for being ahead of the curve in thinking about—if not yet answering—the tough questions of who should be able to sell power, under what circumstances and at what prices, to EV owners needing to “fill up” their batteries at home, on the road or at work.
“There are many different ways a utility can support the adoption of these vehicles,” Zambrano said. “At one extreme, we could ask regulators to let us be the only ones to own charging stations at homes or businesses. The least aggressive approach is for us to just keep doing education and awareness campaigns and set price incentives.”
Non-utility vendors such as Coulomb Technologies in Campbell and Better Place in Palo Alto are vying for big shares of the future charging market.
Whatever approach the state finally chooses must “protect the reliability and safety of the grid without stifling innovation,” Zambrano said.
A large electric vehicle can represent a load three times greater than a typical home in
Other panelists representing California-based electric vehicle makers all agreed that the this state’s market is poised for a big takeoff, making wise policy choices all the more important.
Battery prices, the single biggest contributor to the sticker price of EVs, are coming down 5 to 10 percent a year, noted Dan Mosher, CFO of CODA Automotive in
Marc Tarpenning, co-founder of Tesla Motors, said that the relatively long range of EVs with today’s lithium-ion batteries—well over 100 miles on a charge—means owners won't need to worry about running out of juice until they get home to recharge. Since most households have two cars, drivers can manage long-distance travel with a second gasoline- or hybrid-powered car.
And Marques McCammon, chief marketing officer at Aptera and an alumnus of Chrysler, said history shows that automotive trends start in
Electric Car 2.0, the fifth in the Berkeley Stanford Clean Tech Conference series, was supported by PG&E and was held today in PG&E's main auditorium in San Francisco. The keynote speaker was Diane Grueneich, a member of the California Public Utilities Commission.
May 04 2010
Nature played a dirty trick on us when it came to platinum. First it bestowed on this supremely durable, silvery metal many qualities of immense value both in jewelry and in industrial applications, especially as a chemical catalyst for vehicle emissions control devices and fuel cells.
Then it deposited this element in extremely scarce quantities and in only a few countries (especially
So a new discovery from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) of an effective replacement for platinum as a catalyst for the production of hydrogen from water could be a very big deal indeed. If hydrogen could be produced cheaply enough, it could be used for clean electric power generation or as a transportation fuel. The only byproduct would be water vapor.
A team at LBNL says it has identified a molybdenum compound that works about as well as platinum but costs only one-seventieth as much.
“In addition,” said Hemamala Karunadasa, one of the co-discoverers, “our catalyst does not require organic additives, and can operate in neutral water, even if it is dirty, and can operate in sea water, the most abundant source of hydrogen on earth and a natural electrolyte. These qualities make our catalyst ideal for renewable energy and sustainable chemistry.”
LBNL scientists aren’t the only ones seeking a breakthrough in cheaper catalysts. Other academic scientists have their eyes on cobalt compounds and on ceramic materials that could replace platinum in fuel cells.
Finding a workable and far cheaper catalyst for electroloysis would be a huge achievement but wouldn’t revolutionize the energy industry overnight. That’s because hydrogen is an energy carrier, like electricity, not an energy source, like the sun or fossil fuels. Even with a good catalyst, hydrogen takes more energy to produce than it delivers back as energy when burned or fed into a fuel cell. Thus the so-called "hydrogen economy" would require major new infrastructure for hydrogen production, gas storage and gas transportation, all of which make it an expensive proposition.
Still, cheap electrolysis could be an ideal companion to a big wind farm that produces lots of energy at times when it’s not otherwise needed. Divert that energy to splitting some water into hydrogen and oxygen and voila, you could have an excellent source of standby energy--just like a big battery--available when energy demands peak but the winds die down.
May 03 2010
My colleague Joe Molica provided this latest dispatch in the long-running family saga of Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil:
Shortly after noon today, the offspring of Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil, the media-savvy peregrine falcons that have been squatting on top of the PG&E headquarters building in downtown San Francisco, were banded, soon before their first flights. The aluminum bands, which note their 77 Beale St. home address, don’t interfere with the young birds’ lives but allow scientists to learn more about the amazing comeback story of these animals, the fastest on earth.
May 03 2010
In the contest of corporate green-upmanship, Walmart has just won some serious bragging rights. The popular but controversial mega-retailer is already a green purchasing pioneer. Now it’s a wind energy pioneer as well.
Last Thursday, the Sam’s Club in
The turbines will generate about 76,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity a year, enough to meet the needs of a dozen typical homes in PG&E’s service area.
If successful in Palmdale, Walmart plans to install microturbines at other sites, including a store in
Additionally, Walmart now buys enough commercial wind power in
Walmart isn’t the first company to pursue on-site wind generation. Adobe powers its
Sales of small wind turbines in the
But don’t run out and buy a turbine for your backyard or roof without a lot of careful research. You could be in for a big disappointment.
Most areas don’t have sufficient wind to make them economical—a typical home system can cost $5,000/kW--and even if they do, zoning regulations and neighborhood opposition may make it more trouble than it’s worth.
Still, happy owners abound. Check out the American Wind Energy Association’s web pages for local success stories from
Apr 29 2010
My colleague Joe Molica filed this report:
Once again, the time approaches to band the baby peregrine falcons who are the latest offspring of birds of prey that nest, rent-free, on top of the PG&E headquarters building in San Francisco.
Peregrines have been using the building as a perch since the 1980s, but in 2003 they began calling it home. The utility teamed up with the UC Santa Cruz Predatory Bird Research Group (SCPBRG) to look after the birds. The public can look at them as well, thanks to a Web cam on the nesting box.
Glenn Stewart, a senior biologist with SFPBRG, will do the banding on Monday, May 3 at noon. The bands allow scientists to learn more about the dynamics of population recovery for the endangered peregrines but don’t interfere with their lives or activities. The bands must be attached within six weeks of when they were hatched (April 8), before the falcon eyases fledge, or take their first flights from the nest.
Due to loss of habitat and DDT poisoning, the peregrine population declined by 1970 to zero known nesting pairs east of the Mississippi, and just two known nesting pairs in California. Thanks the good work of organizations like SCPBRG, today there are some 250 peregrine falcon nesting pairs in
Apr 28 2010
In an historic boost for the future of renewable energy in the United States, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar today approved the long-delayed Cape Wind project, which could well become the country’s first offshore wind generation plant.
According to the Interior Department, the project would meet three-quarters of the electricity demand of Cape Cod, Martha’s Vineyard and
The project has been in limbo for nearly a decade due to opposition from residents (including the late Senator Ted Kennedy), local environmentalists, Indian tribes and others. Scott Brown, the newly elected Republican senator from
But the project, if successful, could help unlock the vast potential for offshore wind energy on the East Coast of the
According to estimates by the Department of Energy, offshore wind resources could generate as much as 900 GW of power.
A recent study for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory concluded that the
While rival parties in the
Ironically, even
According to Renewable Energy World, “The Jones Act precludes any European based specialty vessel from taking part in commerce in
Don’t you love it?
Apr 27 2010
As
With its enormous population and double-digit economic growth,
The good news (unless you’re a business competitor) is that
In the field of transportation,
Further evidence that the center of gravity for green manufacturing may shift to China comes from a new survey by Ernst & Young. Six in ten Chinese respondents said they would consider buying an electric or hybrid vehicle—nearly five times more than those surveyed in the United States, Japan or Western Europe. (Fewer than one in four in the United States say they would consider buying an electric car anytime soon.) Chinese respondents were also much more likely to favor subsidizing local charging stations to make electric vehicles more practical.
Now for a reality check. From Bloomberg comes news today that “Toyota Motor Corp. and Honda Motor Co. dealers in Beijing say they don't have enough sport-utility vehicles in stock to meet demand, while hybrid models are selling at loss-making discounts.”
Honda sold only 193 hybrid Civics in
Bottom line: it’s easy to sound virtuous in a survey. What counts is where you put your money. The world is waiting to see which way
Apr 26 2010
On April 5, 29 coal miners died tragically at Massey’s Upper Big Branch mine. Although the accident was one of the worst in recent history, government figures show that about as many miners die in the
While government inspectors and mine owners investigate the lessons of this disaster, some experts are calling for leaving coal in the ground and tapping its energy by drilling instead of mining.
The technique they advocate is called underground coal gasification, or UGC. First suggested in 1868, and touted by Vladimir Lenin in 1913 as a way to free workers from deadly labor in the mines, UCG is now a widely proven, though sparsely deployed, technology.
The concept is to inject oxygen deep into a coal bed until it reacts, forming heat and various gases, including carbon monoxide and hydrogen. The gases can be burned directly for energy, turned chemically into liquid fuels, or used as petrochemical feestocks.
A new draft study issued last week by the National Energy Technology Laboratory on “domestic unconventional fossil energy resource opportunities” lists UCG as one of the most promising technologies.
The report estimates the amount of coal that UCG could tap in the United States at anywhere from 226 billion short tons to 3,600 billion short tons—a huge multiple of the 18 billion short tons of recoverable coal reserves at producing mines.
Plausible estimates for the amount of natural gas that could be created through UCG range from 1,500 trillion cubic feet—equal to all potentially recoverable natural gas in the
The technique has been tested at four sites in the
One of the major patent holders on UCG technology is Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL).
Studies by LLNL, Ergo Exergy Technologies and GasTech Inc. , which is developing projects in
Still, unless carbon capture methods are radically perfected, tapping all this fossil energy runs the risk of turning the earth’s climate back to something resembling what it was during the age of the dinosaurs. Unless you have a thick hide and big teeth, you'd better hope UCG becomes just a transitional measure on the way to a post-fossil-fuel world.
Apr 22 2010
They say there’s nothing new under the sun. Well, here’s proof.
In a press release yesterday, the University of Maryland boasted that a team of “students, faculty and mentors has earned one of 20 coveted spots in the international U.S. Department of Energy Solar Decathlon 2011 to be staged on the National Mall next year.”
The contest challenges university teams from around the world to design and build houses powered only by the sun.
The release goes on to tout the “beautiful, sustainable, cost-effective and durable” building materials and the reuse of “household ‘wastes’ that retain valuable energy and nutritional resources.”
But what really caught my eye was the claim that one of its unique features is “an edible wall.”
I thought this concept sounded familiar, and it was. A little checking confirmed that specifications for edible walls, indeed for entire edible residential structures, have been floating around Europe and
As oulined in the treatise Hänsel und Gretel by the Brothers Grimm, a woman of a certain age, known to her unfriendly neighbors as “witch,” lived in the forest in just such a house, made of edible and biodegradable gingerbread and confections made of renewable sucrose.
Unfortunately, her pioneering design came to a bad end when two unruly children, who had been abandoned by their evil mother, forced the old lady into the oven, locked the door and burned her to a crisp. They proceeded to eat many of the sweets upon which the house was constructed before stealing the woman’s gold coins and returning to their happy father.
The old lady’s breakthrough environment design never found a large market, probably because of bad pr. German and Russian storytellers, no doubt in the pay of some oil oligarchs, portrayed her as a cannibal who preyed on young children. However, mock-ups of her design can readily be found today on the Internet. (I got more than 1.3 million web pages when I Googled “gingerbread house.")
The
Apr 21 2010
Here at PG&E we measure energy in kilowatt-hours and therms. But there’s another kind of energy we can’t live without: calories. One big industry exists to make sure we get enough of them. Ironically, another big industry exists to make sure we don’t get too many.
Calories and kilowatt-hours might not appear to have much in common. But fascinating research on how best to minimize empty calories—and thus epidemic obesity—has great relevance for policies to minimize dirty kilowatt-hours that contribute to global warming.
A recent study published in Psychological Science by medical researchers at the University of Buffalo tracked how mothers of diverse backgrounds changed their food purchases and consumption as prices were increased (taxed) on unhealthy foods or discounted (subsidized) on healthy foods. (Healthy foods were defined as those with a low ratio of calories to nutrients—think low-fat milk as opposed to high-fructose soda.)
You might assume at first that there shouldn’t be much difference—either approach changes the relative price of healthy and unhealthy food. You would, of course, be wrong (or else why would I bother writing this post?)
In fact, when healthy foods were subsidized, the mothers increased their calorie count without significantly improving their nutrient intake. With the money they saved on healthy foods, they bought more unhealthy food, setting their families up for higher rates of obesity.
In contrast, taxing unhealthy foods reduced overall calories consumed, cutting the proportion of fat and increasing the protein content of their food. Raising the price of high-calorie-low-nutrient foods by 10 percent reduced total fats consumed by 12.8 percent and total calories by 6.5 percent.
Congress has yet to muster the votes to pass legislation that would price carbon (through taxes, fees or cap-and-trade markets). Instead, federal and state programs offer a host of subsidies—production tax credits, investment tax credits and the like—to renewable energy, from solar panels to biofuels.
While the subsidies make greener products more attractive, Borenstein notes, they also make energy as a whole more attractive relative to other sectors, and thus increase overall energy consumption. Ironically, subsidies for clean energy also penalize energy efficiency.
Subsidies make the most sense when society hopes to nurture a new industry along for a limited time until it can stand on its own feet. As we all know, however, it’s hard to turn off the spigot once the money starts flowing. We also know that taxes are never popular. Maybe that's why politicians rarely listen to economists.
Apr 20 2010
For those short of cash but hungry for a meal, now there's an alternative to washing dishes: riding a bicycle generator to pay for dinner.
At
The hotel prides itself on being one of the greenest accommodations in the world. It has the largest expanse of solar panels of any building in northern
The bicycle generators won’t exactly save the earth—10 watt hours is only enough to run one dim flourescent bulb for an hour—but the promotion is great PR and good for eco-consciousness.
"Realistically, this isn't a practical way of generating a useful amount of energy, but I certainly wouldn't criticise it," Alex Randall of the Centre for Alternative Technology told the London Guardian. “As a lesson, and a means of public engagement, it's excellent – if you sit someone on a bike, pedalling hard, and show them they are only generating enough to power one lightbulb or TV, it makes them appreciate how difficult energy is to produce, and therefore why we should be careful not to waste it.”
As to the hotel’s other amenities,
Apr 14 2010
Bicycles in
Well, oil-rich
"Kids should be able to walk or bike to school," said Todd Scott,
For those familiar with the city, the biggest focus of the program next year will be to connect Corktown with Mexicantown, hopefully to foster more communal love.
The newspaper notes that
Apr 14 2010
It’s amazing that climate deniers have succeeded in confusing more people than ever in the
The last 10 years were the warmest on record, and 2009 was tied with the second hottest year on record. The first quarter of 2010 was the hottest January-through-March since temperature records began.
But for people who distrust (or don’t understand) statistics, dramatic photographic evidence of climate change might be harder to deny. Yahoo! recently assembled an invaluable collection of before-and-after shots of famous glaciers—or former glaciers—that are in full-scale retreat due to hotter temperatures.
Pictured here is Grinnell Glacier in 2005, shrunk to a mere one-tenth its size in 1938. From 100 glaciers when
Apr 13 2010
At your local grocery or farmer’s market, certified organic fruits, vegetables and meats carry extravagant prices. Similarly, green building products and green energy command a premium. Saving the world apparently isn't cheap.
But according to a new study in Business and Society by two
On the other hand, organic wines that don't brandish the organic label command a 13 percent price premium over wines of the same year, appelation and grape variety, suggesting that consumer appreciate their intrinsic quality.
Organic wine-makers already know how fickle consumers are. Many have toned down their marketing accordingly. Said the founder of Frog’s Leap Winery in
Close followers of the industry weren’t surprised by the study's findings. Wrote Adam Morganstern, editor of Organic Wine Journal:
There are many fantastic certified organic and biodynamic wines out there, but you have to know the names yourself because you won’t find it anywhere on their labels. This leads to confusion not only among wine drinkers, but also with sommeliers, servers and the workers at your local wine store. Thankfully, the balance is shifting, and organic and biodynamic wines are being perceived as higher quality in general, but until the top winemakers come out of the cellar, so to speak, the findings of this study don’t surprise us.
Veronique Raskin, proprietor of the Organic Wine Company, lamented that the study’s results, while true, were “as ridiculous as anything can get. Especially these days when ANY other organic product starts off with an advantage over their conventional counterpart in the mind of the public.”
Organic wines start with grapes grown without the use of synthetic fertilizers, pesticides or week killers. However, to earn recognition from the USDA’s National Organic Program, they must also be made without sulfite preservatives. Such wines can spoil more quickly, Raskin points out, “giving the public a negative perception of organic wines in general.”
The bottom line for organic vintners seems to be to work on their marketing. And the bottom line for wine lovers may be to seek out eco-labels for a bargain.
"Wine made with organic grapes — especially if it has an eco-label — is a really good deal," said co-author Laura Grant, a Ph.D. candidate at UC Santa Barbara. "For the price of conventional wine, you get a significantly better quality wine."
For a list of organic wineries, see http://www.organicwinejournal.com/index.php/category/wineries/.
Apr 12 2010
Rising out of the sand and towering above the cactus of the Californa desert, exotic newcomers are planting deep roots. With ramrod-straight stalks rising more than 200 feet, and giant three-leaf extensions that rotate in the wind, they dwarf the native flora and fauna.
These are wind turbines, planted by developers to take advantage of some of the best wind resources remaining in
In fact, the federal Bureau of Land Management has 63 wind project applications pending in its huge Desert District, compared to 53 front-line solar proposals, according to Greg Miller, renewable energy program manager for BLM's California Desert District.
“This is where everything is happening,” he told NEXT100. “The
A report issued last week by the state’s Renewable Energy Transmission Initiative estimates a potential for about 11,000 megawatts of economically viable new wind capacity in
About seven desert wind projects greater than 100 MW are in advanced planning stages.The largest is the Alta-Oak Creek Mojave Project. Based in
PG&E has also proposed building a wind generating plant in
Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association, says that wind projects have much less environmental impact, and require much less mitigation, than solar projects because they leave most land undisturbed and don’t block wildlife corridors. Endangered desert tortoises can wander freely among the turbines, unlike fenced-off solar projects.
On the other hand, she concedes, “we do have avian impacts that are not easy to deal with,” especially given the expanded range of the endangered California condor.
In addition, tall turbines may interfere with military aircraft and radar operations. “Many desert wind projects may face military conflict issues,” Rader said. “There are a lot of bases down there.”
BLM’s Miller said processing all the wind and solar project applications also remains a big challenge, but his office is making progress.
“Today we have 12 employees,” he said. “A year ago we had three. And two years ago it was just me.”
Apr 08 2010
It must be a trend: on Monday, NEXT100 reported on U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood’s controversial endorsement of policies that support bicycling in order to promote “livable and sustainable communities.”
Two days later, British Conservative Party leader David Cameron, aiming to polish his green credentials as the country moves into election season, had himself photographed riding a bicycle to the House of Commons, accompanied by two police bodyguards (also on bicycles).
Now, just in time to support this biking renaissance, Bicycling magazine has published a list of
But before you get too enthusiastic about the two-wheeled commute, make sure your destination has a livable and sustainable climate.
The same goes for top-ranked
And
On the other hand, you won’t get any argument from me about the merits of
As for
Apr 07 2010
Bright, efficient, long-lasting LEDs are about as “green” as lights get. Ironically, the only thing they lack is a good source of green light itself.
That’s all about to change, according to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), which modestly claims that a new discovery there may “prove to be the biggest boost for illumination since Edison’s light bulb.”
The holy grail for all lighting technology is bright white light. As we all learn as kids, white is the combination of all the colors of the spectrum. At minimum, you need to mix red, blue and green together to make white out of color.
Mass-market LEDs first came out in red, as old-timers may remember from the early days of HP hand calculators. Pioneered by Monsanto, they were made of gallium arsenide phosphide. They were bright enough for indicator lights, not for illumination.
In the mid-1990s, Japanese scientists used indium gallium nitride to produce the first bright and blue LEDs. Combined with a yellow phosphor, they could emit a white light—but only with low efficiency.
Now a team of NREL scientists specializiing in high-efficiency solar photovoltaic cells—which convert light into electricity—has figured out a way to use some of the same principles to convert electricity into light, in particular, green light.
Solar cells, like LEDs, can be made of gallium indium nitride. NREL’s Angelo Mascarenhas and his colleagues had figured out how to fine-tune the manufacturing of solar cell lattices to better absorb light energy from the green part of the spectrum. Using the same tricks, they managed on their first try to trick an LED into emitting a deep green light.
Combined with blue and red, the technology “will give you one of the finest color-rendering white lights” available, Mascarenhas promises. And by varying the intensity of the underlying colors, the hue can be changed on command.
Note: contrary to NREL's breathless story, other scientists also claim to have cracked the green-light barrier, using zinc selenide. We'll let them fight it out for credit, as long as they hurry up to market.
Apr 06 2010
We who live in
The expert committee assigned by the NRC analyzed a host of technology and regulatory options and found some promising solutions: advanced diesel engines could potentially lower fuel consumption in tractor-trailers by 20 percent over the next decade, and hybrid power trains could improve fuel economy of transit buses and garbage trucks, which start and stop frequently, by up to a third.
The investments reviewed would break even at fuel prices ranging from $1.10 per gallon (a no-brainer) to $6.80 per gallon (a big loser).
Significantly, however, the committee concluded that “There may be more effective, less costly, and complementary approaches than vehicle fuel efficiency standards” and technology mandates." Two in particular caught my eye: higher fuel taxes, and mandatory driver training, both of which have been subjects of discussion at NEXT100.
“Fuel taxes operate to make fuel-saving technologies more attractive and provide incentives for saving fuel in operations, while involving fewer unintended consequences than standards,” the report concluded. In addition, “a tax affects the utilization of vehicles already on the road, while fuel consumption standards typically affect only new vehicles and can be implemented only slowly over time as the vehicle fleet transitions to the more fuel-efficient vehicles.”
As smart fleet operators have discovered, training drivers how to run their vehicles more efficiently—minimizing speed fluctuations, staying in the highest practical gear, keeping tires properly inflated and avoiding wasteful engine idling—can have a big payoff. “Indications are that this could be one of the most cost-effective and best ways to reduce fuel consumption and improve productivity of the trucking sector,” the report concludes, citing case studies that show fuel savings of up to 17 percent.
Apr 05 2010
Buses, trains and bike paths: you name the public transportation option, and Americans say they want it, according to a new national poll by Transportation for
More than four out of five surveyed voters agreed that “the
Today about 80 cents of every federal transportation dollar goes to highways, according to the organization. Nearly six in 10 respondents said they would spend a higher fraction on public transportation and less on roads.
This survey isn’t a fluke. The Washington Post today today reports a poll showing that people living in its metropolitan area favor refocusing government spending on public transportation over roads by a margin of 62 percent to 30 percent. A slight majority even supports raising taxes, if necessary, to increase funding for the metro rail system.
One of the champions of public transportation in the Obama administration is Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, a former Republican congressman from
LaHood really riled some critics—who called him “delusional”—when he called for supporting bicycling and walking as well as more traditional buses and trains.
In an interview with GreenInc., LaHood said Americans aren’t about to give up their cars, but they want affordable and healthy alternatives that support “livable and sustainable communities:”
What Americans want is to get out of their cars, and get out of congestion, and have opportunities for more transit, more light rail, more buses, and some communities are going to street cars. But many communities want the opportunity on the weekends and during the week to have the chance to bike to work, to bike to the store, to spend time with their family on a bike. So, this is not just Ray LaHood’s agenda, this is the American agenda that the American people want for alternatives to the automobile.
Apr 01 2010
Everywhere you go these days, retail stores are advertising discounts and sales. But one thing no one is offering bargain-basement prices on is renewable energy. The sun and wind may be free, but the electric power generated from them commands a premium, especially now that so many utilities around the world are clamoring for cleaner energy.
Replacing fossil fuels with renewables to combat climate change will thus be a costly, if necessary, proposition. For example,
Now a recent study by energy experts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory estimates that if other Western states aim to achieve the same goal by 2029, the required new capital investment in renewable generation and regional transmission lines could run as much as $350 billion.
According to co-author Andrew Mills, the average delivered cost of electricity would jump by about a third, from 10.3 cents per kilowatt-hour to 13.3 cents by 2029 to hit the goal of 33 percent renewables. Investing in the regional transmission grid and allowing free trade in renewable energy credits lowers the overall cost by about half a cent per kWh, by allowing the region to take advantage of the lowest cost resources, such as wind in the Rockies and northwest, and solar in the southwest.
Their analysis suggests that throughout the Western region, wind would account for roughly half of the renewables mix (38-65%), while solar would make up about a quarter to a third (14-41%). Biomass, geothermal and hydropower would make up the rest.
Their study is part of a multi-year analysis sponsored by the Western Governors’ Association and U.S. Department of Energy called the Western Renewable Energy Zones Initiative. Its goal is to bring together a wide variety of stakeholders—government agencies, environmental organizations, energy developers, tribal interests, utilities and others—to promote the construction of utility-scale renewable energy facilities and the transmission lines needed to bring their power to the people who need it.
Mar 31 2010
Engineers and planners at utilities across the country are laboring mightily to get a handle on the technical, operational and financial requirements of Smart Grid, a vision of leveraging the power of information to provide more affordable, reliable and environmentally sustainable service to electricity customers. Creating a smarter grid, the experts at PG&E tell me, is an evolutionary process that will take years to implement.
But they'll have to hurry to keep up with the all the visionaries who are creating future road maps for the industry. Smart Grid is already in danger of becoming passe, before anyone has even built one.
This week a group of international energy and climate experts, assembled by PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, unveiled a major study calling for creation of a "SuperSmart Grid" to power all of Europe and North Africa entirely by renewable energy by 2050.
Today only about 15 percent of Europe's power comes from renewable resources, mostly traditional hydropower. This plan would require decomissioning vast numbers of fossil-fuel power plants, starting around 2030, and tapping instead:
- the enormous solar potential of southern Europe and the deserts of North Africa
- the hydro capability of Scandinavia and the European alps
- onshore and offshore wind farms in the Baltic and North Sea
- the continent’s ocean tidal and wave power, and
- biomass generation across Europe
“Climate change requires an ambitious vision and collaboration across borders and boundaries we have not previously envisaged," said Antonella Battaglini of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, one of the contributors. "If we don’t examine the art of the possible, we will never inform critical policy decisions that need to be made sooner rather than later. This study represents a major milestone in the effort of unravelling the Gordian knot of policy, and finding workable solutions to the EU’s power supply, security and carbon challenges.”
The report is a bit vague about the price tag for all this, but says reassuringly that "the short-term costs of transforming the power system may not be very large." It assumes that expansion of renewable energy technologies (particularly wind and solar thermal) will dramatically reduce their costs to become competitive with fossil fuels--a debatable proposition (in the absence of large carbon taxes).
The report also notes that a "true SuperSmart Grid" will require high-capacity transmission lines to be built between North Africa and Europe--as well as a major upgrade of transmission capacity within each region. "There are not yet any estimates available as to the system requirements and the associated investment costs," it concedes.
It's easy to produce road maps like this if you don't have to take the steering wheel. It's also easy to take potshots at such armchair visionaries, but that would miss the point. Building a SuperSmart Grid may take a lot longer and cost a lot more than these promoters acknowledge, but I'm glad someone is starting to point us in the right direction, so we can at least get started.
Mar 30 2010
As any watcher of cop shows knows, it takes an exceptionally powerful and sturdy police vehicle to outrun all the robbers, dope dealers and terrorists who infest our cities. To insist that our squad cars be green as well might be asking a little much.
But consider the fact that the typical police vehicle gets only 8 to 14 miles per gallon while racking up as many as 90,000 miles a year. Multiply that by more than 425,000 law enforcement vehicles in the
The bottom line, according to Indiana-based startup Carbon Motors, is that “law enforcement in the
Fortunately, the hot market for next-generation police vehicles to replace the standard Ford Crown
Carbon Motors, for example aims to introduce a clean but powerful diesel-engine vehicle whose acceleration, durability, suspension, brakes and crash resistance all meet the special needs of the law enforcement market.
Last week, Carbon Motors announced a deal with BMW to buy almost a quarter million of the German automaker's high-performance diesel engines. They should provide enough torque to accelerate even a rugged, heavy squad car from 0 to 60 in six seconds. Best of all, they should help achieve Carbon Motors’ promise of “up to a 40 percent improvement in fuel economy.”
Now it looks like Carbon Motors might face some stiff competition in the green cop car market. General Motors is talking about rolling out the Vauxhall Ampera, an “electric extended range vehicle,” in the
Hollywood take note: the time may soon right for another remake of Bullitt, this time featuring a tough but environmentally correct detective flying over the hills of San Francisco as he chases dirty criminals in his clean electric car.
Mar 29 2010
Think of some of the perks that make the best employers so special: an onsite gym, first-class child care, the 10-minute afternoon massage and, if you’re at Google, the 11 gourmet restaurants.
Now three leading British companies have announced a great new benefit for employees: subsidized home insulation. It may not be quite as enticing as a three-star Michelin cafeteria, but it will save employees money as it helps to save the environment.
Accenture, Aviva and HSBC are teaming up with EDF Energy and Sainsbury’s—a supermarket chain that has diversified into energy efficiency services—to provide the benefit to a quarter million workers.
The companies launched the Insulate Now initiative today in support of the British government’s target of insulating all homes by 2015 and promoting 65,000 new jobs in the green home industry.
David Hall, who heads a non-profit that dreamed up the Insulate Now campaign, said,
Mobilising consumers to insulate their homes is a great opportunity to cut the nation's carbon footprint and cut our energy bills at the same time but it requires an innovative and creative delivery model. The collaborative approach of we will if you will brings together a coalition of some of the UK's biggest employers, helping us to target a massive audience through established and trusted channels of communication.
Poorly insulated British households reportedly waste about $750 million a year in lost energy. Proper retrofits could save about a third of that each year, offering an excellent investment return.
The US Department of Energy is also pursuing an ambitious home weatherization initiative. Last year, Congress authorized $5 billion in stimulus funds to support insulation, caulking and other retrofits for low-income families.
Worthy as the program is, to date it has only retrofitted about 30,000 homes, or 5 percent of the goal, and created a small fraction of the jobs originally intended.
Perhaps, as the Brits are suggesting, it’s time to find a new delivery model.
Mar 25 2010
Sometimes it takes an outsider to state the obvious.
The CEO of British Petroleum, Tony Hayward, this week told an audience at a Washington think-tank, "It's surprising the U.S. is still building coal-fired power plants," given their huge contribution to carbon pollution. "We've got to find a better way to create jobs than preserving coal jobs," he added.
The United Mine Workers the next day called for a boycott of BP’s gas stations.
The huge cost to coal miners, their communities and consumers of low-cost coal power from transitioning to cleaner energy must be acknowledged and addressed in any comprehensive energy and climate legislation. But unless there are radical breakthroughs in mining, combustion and carbon sequestration technologies, the need to shift away from coal cannot be doubted.
In addition to emitting deadly particulates and other pollutants, coal is a notorious source of toxic mercury, an insidious element that can cause brain damage and may increase the chance of learning disabilities in hundreds of thousands of children each year. Only last week, the non-partisan Environmental Integrity Project issued a report noting that toxic mercury emissions increased from 2007 to 2008 at 27 of the top 50 mercury-emitting power plants in the United States. Five of the 10 worst offenders were in Texas, according to EPA data. Hard to believe, but no national regulation exists to control mercury pollution.
Another study, published last month by the journal Environmental Science and Technology, reported that so-called mountaintop removal, the practice in
What scientists understand and what policy makers do about it are two different things. Bloomberg News reports that the country’s largest coal producer, Peabody Energy, is rated a “buy” by 79 percent of analysts. In contrast, one of the country’s top makers of solar panels, First Solar, is rated a “buy” by only 44 percent of analysts. That tells you all you need to know about the distance we still need to travel in search of cleaner energy.
Mar 23 2010
The report, “Assessment of Plug-in Electric Vehicle Integration with ISO/RTO Systems,” prepared by a group of 10 electric grid operators across the
Within
Looking ahead, the report estimates that private and government purchases of electric vehicles in the Bay Area will exceed 90,000 by 2019, behind
To service these new electric cars just in the
“There is huge momentum here,” PG&E’s Andrew Tang told the New York Times.
They key to making the transition run smoothly is finding ways to stagger vehicle charging and to concentrate it during off-peak hours at night.
The report proposes the adoption of dynamic pricing to give customers incentives to shift their charging time to off-peak hours, as well as emergency load curtailment – in effect, the ability to stop charging cars temporarily to prevent a system overload.
Managing a broadly distributed smart charging infrastructure will require increased communications capabilities along with traditional electric infrastructure—transformers, wires and the like. Or as PG&E’s Tang has emphasized, it will require a smart grid. That's one reason California utilities are leading the national push for smarter electric infrastructure.
Mar 22 2010
Cold fusion, once a subject avoided at all costs by serious scientists, has staged an amazing resurrection from the graveyard of discredited theories. At this week’s national meeting of the American Chemical Society in
Now the big question is whether cold fusion will become the source of limitless power as once hoped, or simply a source of limitless speculation.
Cold fusion rocked the scientific world in 1989 when two
The implications were staggering. Fusion, the source of the sun’s energy and the awesome destructive power of the hydrogen bomb, could meet most of the world’s energy needs if it could be tamed. As currently understood, however, it requires extremely high temperatures and pressures, making it as yet impractical for commercial use.
Within months, skeptical scientists pronounced cold fusion dead. Few mainstream researchers were able to reproduce their results or confirm their extraordinary claims. Reviews by the Department of Energy buried the corpse. Cold fusion was as cold as the grave.
No scientist who wanted to be taken seriously—or to get research funding—even uttered the words “cold” and “fusion” in the same breath. The few intrepid researchers who continued dabbling called their new field “low energy nuclear reaction” physics or “condensed matter nuclear science.”
Still, a growing number of papers on the topic have been presented since 2006 at the American Physical Society and American Chemical Society conferences. At last year’s ACS conference, researchers with the U.S. Navy's Space and Naval Warfare Systems Command in
And over at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, a memo obtained by 60 Minutes concluded of the ongoing research being conducted at labs around the world, there is "no doubt that anomalous excess heat is produced in these experiments."
One MIT professor, Peter Hagelstein, claims to have made great theoretical strides in understanding the inner workings of the cold fusion process.
The organizer of this week’s symposium at the American Chemical Society, Dr. Jan Marwan, summed up the changing attitude reflected by his event:
Years ago, many scientists were afraid to speak about ‘cold fusion’ to a mainstream audience. Now most of the scientists are no longer afraid and most of the cold fusion researchers are attracted to the ACS meeting. I’ve also noticed that the field is gaining new researchers from universities that had previously not pursued cold fusion research. More and more people are becoming interested in it. There’s still some resistance to this field. But we just have to keep on as we have done so far, exploring cold fusion step by step, and that will make it a successful alternative energy source. With time and patience, I’m really optimistic we can do this.
Mar 18 2010
When, more than two years ago, Oakland-based BrightSource Energy first submitted plans for some huge solar power projects that would help
The company has its solar thermal “power tower” technology in hand, with a demonstration project up and running in
It has generous financing from investors like Chevron, and Google.org., as well as nearly $1.4 billion on loan guarantees from the U.S. Department of Energy.
And it has commitments from one of the world’s leading engineering and construction companies, Bechtel, to build its first major facility, the Ivanpah Solar Electricity Generating System in the
But for the last two and a half years, BrightSource has been unable to get regulators to approve its Ivanpah plant, despite downsizing the plans from an initial 440 MW to 392 MW to minimize its local impact on desert tortoises and various plant species.
That may finally change, with a recommendation this week by the staff of the California Energy Commission to move ahead with the project.
The staff wisely balanced the inevitable local impact any project would have against the clear gains for the global environment from cleaner energy.
“[I]t will provide critical environmental benefits by helping the state reduce its greenhouse gas emissions, and these positive attributes must be weighed against the project’s adverse impacts,” Terry O’Brien, deputy director at the CEC, wrote in a memorandum on March 16. “It is because of these benefits and the concerns regarding the adverse impacts that global warming will have upon the state and our environment, including desert ecosystems, that staff believes it would be appropriate for the commission to approve the project . . .”
Many environmental groups still oppose the project in its current location, despite its proximity to a golf course, Interstate 15, casinos and existing power transmission lines. BrightSource reportedly plans to pay $25 million to buy land to relocate 25 desert tortoises that could be displaced by its project. Its project still faces further reviews by the Bureau of Land Management.
Mar 16 2010
In the 1974 TV show “The FBI versus Alvin Karpis, Public Enemy Number One,” the bank robber and kidnapper, known as “Creepy Karpis,” tells his sidekick, “I’m sick and tired of everybody goin’ green . . .”
Karpis, who held the record for longest attendance as a non-paying guest at
"There are about 1 million visitors to
Actually, it will be a showcase in concept only—and a good thing, too. In order to preserve the historic nature of the site, most of the panels will be carefully hidden from view by walls around the prison roof.
Thanks to smart contracting, the park service managed to stretch its original budget from last year, freeing up $129 million for new projects, of which the
Another of those new projects will be seven new solar installations at Point Reyes National Seashore to complement six existing photovoltaic systems at the park. Together they will “reduce its total annual electrical consumption from fossil fuels by more than 45 percent,” the facility estimates, “moving the park closer to Pacific West Region’s vision of carbon neutrality by 2016, the year the National Park Service celebrates its centennial.”
Mar 15 2010
With all the attention paid to carbon pollution and global warming these days, it’s easy to forget the importance of traditional air pollutants like ozone smog, lead and fine particulates. They don’t threaten to disrupt ecosystems worldwide, but they still cause sickness and even death, as well as billions of dollars in damage to crops and structures.
While carbon pollution continues its inexorable rise, regulation of other air pollutants is a major, and sometimes unheralded, success story.
A new EPA report, “Our Nation’s Air: Status and Trends Through 2008,” shows marked and sometimes dramatic improvements in nationwide air quality, thanks to laws that require cleaner cars, industries and consumer products.
Compared to 1990, air pollution in 2008 was lower in six major categories:
- Ozone (ground level): down 14 percent
- Particulates (<10 microns): down 31 percent
- Lead: down 78 percent.
- Nitrogen oxide: down 35 percent
- Carbon monoxide: down 68 percent.
- Sulfur dioxide: down 59 percent.
The decline in sulfur dioxide emissions, driven in part by the acid rain program and controls on coal-burning utilities, has improved water quality in lakes and streams and improved visibility in many scenic areas by reducing haze.
In addition, total emissions of toxic air pollutants such as benzene, xylenes and tuluene, some of which are suspected carcinogens, have fallen some 40 percent since 1990, thanks to controls on chemical plants, dry cleaners, incinerators and other sources.
There’s still plenty of room for improvement. In 2008, more than 119 million people lived in counties where ozone levels exceeded national standards, exposing their lungs and throats to irritation and inflammation. Nearly 37 million lived in areas that exceeded national standards for fine particulates, which can lodge in the lungs or bloodstream and kill people prematurely.
The EPA report also notes that annual
In 2007, the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that “future climate change may cause significant air quality degradation by changing the dispersion rate of pollutants; the chemical environment for ozone and particle pollution generation; and the strength of emissions from the biosphere, fires, and dust.”
Bottom line: Our nation’s success in reducing local air pollutants shows that intelligent and determined regulation can work. Now’s the time to adopt equally intelligent and determined regulations to control greenhouse gas pollutants.
Mar 11 2010
LNG in
Yes. You won’t see any drilling rigs out in the pastures, but at Altamont Landfill, whopping amounts of methane gas are belched out by bacteria that break down organic waste. Instead of venting into the atmosphere, however, the gas is now captured by dozens of black suction tubes spread across the facility.
Last November, Houston-based Waste Management Inc., which runs the 240-acre landfill, and Linde North America, a major engineering company, announced they had started production at the world’s largest facility to convert landfill gas to LNG.
In full production, the plant can produce up to 13,000 gallons of the super-cold methane each day. The liquid fuels 300 clean-air vehicles in Waste Management’s hauling and recyling fleet and will reduce CO2 emissions by nearly 30,000 tons a year.
The use of LNG cuts carbon emissions 85 percent compared to gasoline or diesel fuel, according to Waste Management. The company has nearly 500 vehicles powered by LNG or compressed natural gas in about 20
(PG&E also runs some of its heavy trucks on LNG, which fuel up at the
“It’s taking material that would otherwise go into the atmosphere and be a contributor to global warming and turning it into a useful product that is cutting emissions,” said Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board. “This is exactly the kind of win-win situation we are looking for in trying to transform our whole energy economy away from having to extract, process, and import fuels from other parts of the world.”
Waste Management is aggressively mining its landfills for more green energy. The company runs 115 gas-to-energy facilities at its landfills and 16 solid waste-to-energy combustion generators. In all, they produce enough power for 700,000 homes.
The company’s newest investment horizon is waste-to-biofuels production, including investments in Enerkem to make ethanol and a partnership with Terrabon and Valero Energy to make “green gasoline.”
EPA recently reported that 519 landfill gas-to-energy projects were operating across the country last year, up more than 25 percent since 2005. NEXT100 profiled one such project in Half Moon Bay in December.
Converting waste methane gas to biofuel isn’t just good business. It’s especially good for the environment since methane that escapes into the atmosphere is a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. If Congress ever gets around to putting a price on carbon emissions, we’ll surely see many more companies drilling for landfill gas.
Mar 10 2010
Menlo Park city officials were impressed last month when they learned from PG&E that switching nearly 500 street lights to light-emitting diodes (LEDs) could save $28,000 a year in energy bills and maintenance costs.
And across the Bay in Walnut Creek, the city slashed its energy use for 126 streetlights by more than half when it recently converted to bright LED lights. To sweeten the deal, PG&E provided the city a rebate of $17,950 to install the energy-efficient lights. Danville earned rebates as well for converting 262 of its streetlights to LEDs.
All three cities will be glad to know that experts agree they made a smart choice. Engineers at the University of Pittsburgh recently assessed four different streetlight technologies and concluded that LEDs "strike the best balance between brightness, affordability, and energy and environmental conservation when their life span--from production to disposal--is considered."
The study was commissioned by the City of Pittsburgh, which is considering replacing 40,000 of its streetlights with LEDs. The city estimates that such an investment could save $1 million annually in energy costs, $700,000 in maintenance and 6,800 tons of carbon emissions.
In addition to thrifty energy consumption, LEDs last three to five times longer than standard high-pressure sodium and metal halide lamps. And unlike its competitors, LEDs contain no mercury and fewer other toxins.
Check out PG&E's web pages for more on the utility's streetlight program and incentives.
Mar 09 2010
Americans spent more than $1.2 trillion dollars on insurance premiums in 2008, or about $4,000 for every man, woman and child. Evidently, they understood that it pays to hedge your bets against small but real chances of catastrophic losses.
But when it comes to climate change, deniers cite scientific uncertainty as an excuse to do nothing. They say we can’t be certain that global warming will cause rising oceans to drown coastal communities, droughts to wither crops, new diseases to cause epidemics and fires to consume our forests—so why bother to act?
They have it exactly backwards.
Although climate scientists concede they can't say for sure how bad things will get if humanity keeps emitting greenhouses gases into the atmosphere, that's not cause for comfort. On the contrary, their uncertainty means life could easily become a lot worse for homo sapiens and other species than we’ve been led to believe.
As Harvard's Martin Weitzman noted in a recent paper, "We seem headed for a unique planetary experiment of subjecting the Earth's system to an unprecedented shock by geologically instantaneously jolting atmospheric stocks of (greenhouse gases) far above their highest level over the last several million years. We simply do not know what will happen under such extreme circumstances."
No less an authority than Dr. Robert Watson, chair of the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change from 1997 to 2002, recently conceded that the IPCC’s last major report in 2007, which sounded a strong alarm over global warming, was in many cases too conservative, leading him to warn that the world could face "unthinkable impacts."
For example, the IPCC's projections of sea level rise did not take into account the melting of Greeland’s ice sheet, which is taking place much faster than previously believed. This December, scientists writing in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences forecast an increase in global sea levels of five feet by 2100 if greenhouse emissions are not strongly curbed, a finding supported by many other recent studies.
"The ramifications of a major sea level rise are massive," write ocean scientists Rob Young at Western Carolina University and Orrin Pilkey at Duke University:
Agriculture will be disrupted, water supplies will be salinized, storms and flood waters will reach ever further inland, and millions of environmental refugees will be created. . . .
What terrifies these and other scientists is the possibility that ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica will melt much faster even than current models predict. Indeed, the last time CO2 levels were as high in the Earth's atmosphere, about 15 million years ago, seas were 75 to 120 feet higher.
Ice cap melting is just one of nine potential "tipping elements" that scientists say could lead to abrupt and disastrous shifts in climate. Others include massive die-off of the Amazon rainforest, disruption of the monsoon system, and wholesale changes in Atlantic and Pacific ocean currents.
One of the biggest longterm "tipping" risks is that global warming will unlock vast amounts of carbon and methane currently frozen in Arctic permafrost. Methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times as potent as carbon dioxide, could accelerate the warming process with dire consequences. British and German researchers reported last August evidence that warming Arctic waters were melting methane hydrates stored in seabed sediments. High rates of Arctic methane seepage were reported this January by a researcher at the University of Alaska, and confirmed in a new paper published in the journal Science.
(If you want to get really masochistic, check out the 2003 paper in Geology, "Methane-Driven Oceanic Eruptions and Mass Extinctions," which makes the case that the worst mass extinction of all time, some 251 million years ago, was caused by an explosive upwelling of methane from the ocean, which may have unleashed 10,000 times as much energy as the world's entire stockpile of nuclear weapons.)
If the worst of these climate feedback loops prove real, average temperatures over the United States could jump an unimaginable 15°F to 18°F in 50 years, according to recent projections by the prestigious Met Office Hadley Centre in the UK. And a study led by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration last year suggests that the catastrophic consequences would be "largely irreversible for 1,000 years."
So the question isn't whether we should buy insurance against climate change, or even whether we can afford to pay a little more for energy in order to phase out fossil fuels. The real question is, what are we waiting for?
Mar 08 2010
If my math is correct, today marks the 100th celebration of International Women’s Day, a tradition first proposed by Clara Zetkin, leader of the “women’s office” in the German Social Democrat Party.
The theme this year is “equal rights, equal opportunities: progress for all.” While that’s entirely worthy, the United Nations, which began officially recognizing the day in 1975, ought to consider putting the focus on “women and energy” sometime before the next 100 years are up.
The United Nations Development Programme notes that two billion people around the world still live “off the grid,” depending on fuels such as wood and dung for heating, cooking and other basic household needs. In most societies, it falls mainly to women to collect and then use these fuels—dangerous, unhealthy and time-consuming activities that sap the ability of women to improve their education or earn a living.
Access to more efficient, cleaner, environmentally sustainable and reliable energy services is mandatory and needs to be addressed as part of the energy sector development plans in order to improve women’s status, provide them with more opportunities for income-generating work, and also improve their general health and living conditions as more effective members of their communities.
Energy, therefore, can be a key input and entry point toward achieving the third Millennium Development Goal: promote gender equality and empower women.
As previously discussed in NEXT100, a project in West Africa to introduce solar-powered irrigation allowed households to dramatically increase food yields, improving diets and netting $7 to $8 from surplus crop sales each week. The investment was a huge boon to women, who traditionally tend the gardens, by cutting the time they spend watering by 50 percent and freeing them up to earn additional money.
But just as clean energy can open doors for women, so women are essential to opening doors for new energy technology in many societies, noted Elizabeth Cecelski in a key report for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in 2000. If women’s needs are ignored or misunderstood, they may resist new technology that reduces drudgery in one target sector only to increase their required labor in another. As Cecelski noted,
Renewable energy manufacturers that do not pay attention to women's needs will be missing a huge potential market. Energy policymakers who ignore womenÂ’s needs will be failing to make use of a powerful force for renewable energy development. Energy researchers who leave women out of energy research and analysis will be failing to understand a large part of energy consumption and production.
And let's not forget the role of women in developed societies, where the problem isn't so often access to energy as using too much of it. A national survey of women and energy last year, commissioned by Women Impacting Public Policy and the Women's Council on Energy and the Environment found that 77 percent of women say they have equal or primary responsibility for paying electricity bills, and 91 percent say they have equal or primary responsibility for using less electricity at home. By a two-to-one margin, the women surveyed cited moving toward cleaner energy sources as a more important energy goal than reliability or keeping costs low.
Sounds to me like women could become a key force in helping our own country transition to a clean energy future. That would be something to celebrate soon on International Women's Day.
Mar 04 2010
Americans love a good competitive challenge, from the Olympcs and Survivor on down to kiddie soccer games. So what better way to promote energy efficiency than to turn it into a contest?
The EPA’s Energy Star program has been doing just that since 2008, promoting fun but fierce competition among building owners for recognition as the top energy saver in their city.
The San Francisco Earth Hour 24x7 Energy Challenge, co-sponsored by PG&E, promises to “identify—and shower kudos upon—the most energy efficient buildings in the city, as well as the properties that make the greatest gains in performance” over the period March 2008 to February 2010. (Contestants are using PG&E’s automated benchmarking service to track their monthy energy use data.) The Kilowatt Cup for “superior achievement in energy management” is scheduled to be awarded this April.
Such contests are being held around the country by EPA in partnership with the Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA), nonprofit organizations and utilities like PG&E.
And for good reason: building energy use is low-hanging fruit in the fight against climate change.
“Roughly 40 percent of all humanity's greenhouse gas emissions from energy come from the building sector," said Evan Mills of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "I would rank it one of the very first, if not the first thing to do."
In
The
In 2008, 150 school buildings entered
And not to be outdone,
Mar 03 2010
One of my colleagues – a guy -- the other day suggested that I write up the new
Something about the overly aggressive look of the car, and the even more aggressive price tag it’s likely to carry, put me off. Automakers are falling all over themselves to make ridiculous looking electrified sports cars--like this, this, and this--that only moguls can afford.
But now that I’ve seen
Apparently, this video can turn grown men into jello. Here’s what green car expert Nick Chambers had to say:
What is Porsche doing to me? I had just gotten over my teenage-like, eco-speed-lust with the 918 Spyder hybrid from yesterday’s announcement, and now Porsche has to go and release a video showing it actually driving? It’s not right. A man can only take so much.
Mar 03 2010
This article was adapted from a story by James Park in PG&E's communications department.
What're you going to do when your new high-tech electric vehicle goes on the blink? For PG&E, which is adding several hundred new hybrid and electric vehicles to its fleet, calling the Tappet brothers at Car Talk is not an option.
Instead, PG&E has gone into partnership with several community colleges to teach the utility's fleet mechanics how to safely repair and maintain the new trucks and cars. Starting this month, about 175 fleet mechanics will be trained on safety, diagnostics and routine maintenance for the new vehicles. Classes will be taught over the course of three days by 14 instructors from local community colleges.
PG&E is adding about 250 Chevrolet Silverado light-duty trucks and Ford Escape hybrid passenger vehicles to its fleet along with some 50 electric and hybrid passenger vans and heavy-duty trucks manufactured by Altec, Eaton and Peterbilt.
"The hybrid vehicles are entirely new technology platforms," said Mac Fernandez, PG&E master mechanic. "For example, there’s no such thing as doing just a simple brake job on these cars because they use regenerative braking technology."
Fleet mechanics will be taught about the unique aspects of the vehicles, including appropriate diagnostic technology and special safety procedures associated with using electric hybrid battery packs, which have voltages as high as 800 volts.
Citing PG&E's national leadership in alternate fuel technologies, Dave Meisel, PG&E's director of Transportation Services, said "this program will provide a mechanism to ensure that our professional technicians and our customers alike will have access to some of the most sophisticated technical training on some of the most technologically advanced vehicles in the world today. The clean vehicle training program will allow PG&E and its transportation team to maintain its commitment to environmental leadership, employee development and community involvement."
The partnership between PG&E and the community colleges is called the PowerPathway™ Clean Tech Vehicle Training Program. It's part of a broader skills development program aimed at creating a trained workforce for PG&E and the utility industry in California under the PowerPathway™ umbrella.
The partnership with community college instructors will also help take curriculum knowledge back to California communities. Instructors will use techniques gained from teaching the utility's fleet mechanics with their own students at local community colleges, developing technical skills and creating career paths.
Mar 02 2010
When it comes to corporate responsibility, the third time's a charm.
For the third time in three years, PG&E was named to Corporate Responsibility Magazine's annual list of 100 Best Corporate Citizens, chosen from among the Russell 1,000 largest companies based on performance on the environment, climate change, human rights, philanthropy, employee relations, financial performance and governance.
This year, PG&E was the top-ranked utility at number 25, improved from last year's ranking at 28th. And that was against tougher competition: the average composite score of the top 100 companies rose 19 percent, according to the magazine.
“The higher scores reveal a quantum leap in performance, which we attribute to the competitive dynamic of firms who understand the importance of stakeholder support from investors, customers, employees, regulators, and suppliers,” said Corporate Responsibility Magazine editor Dirk Olin.
Earning a spot on the list reflects PG&E’s long-standing commitment to corporate responsibility, including its efforts to deliver some of the nation’s cleanest electric power and its groundbreaking programs to help customers use energy more efficiently. The ranking also recognizes the many ways in which PG&E is giving back to local communities, respecting and celebrating diversity and contributing to the quality of life in the areas where its employees live and work.
Further evidence that PG&E is on to something came last month when RiskMetrics Group named PG&E to its sixth annual Global ESG 100 list of top-rated companies worldwide. The companies were selected based on their "effective management" of environmental, social and governance issues. The list was previously managed by Innovest Strategic Value Advisors, which RiskMetrics purchased in 2009.
As previously noted in NEXT100, Corporate Knights magazine recently ranked PG&E number two on its Global 100 list of sustainable large companies, behind only GE.
One of the great contributions of organizations that monitor corporate responsibility and sustainability is educating investors that doing good is often a precondition for doing well. In today's interdependent world, handling environmental and social issues to the satisfaction of customers, regulators and other stakeholders is a sign of attentive management. Corporate Responsibility points out that longstanding members of its 100 Best list outperformed other companies on the Russell 1000 by 26 percent over three years. And RiskMetrics notes that since its list was created in 2005, "the Global ESG 100 has outperformed the benchmark FTSE All World Developed (AWD) Index by 116 basis points per annum, as of the end of 2009."
Mar 01 2010
Suppose that for every dollar you invested in the stock market, you could reap an average return of $1.40. Most likely you'd be thrilled--especially after the last decade of losses in the S&P 500.
Yet few business magazines bothered to note the California Public Utilities Commission's estimate last summer that every dollar invested by utilities to promote energy efficiency should save customers at least $1.40--a 40 percent return on investment over just a few years.
Last year, McKinsey & Co. reported even more strikingly that economy-wide improvements in energy efficiency could save the United States $1.2 trillion--more than a thousand billion dollars--for an investment of less than half that sum. "The reduction in energy use would also result in the abatement of 1.1 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions annually – the equivalent of taking the entire
PG&E and other major California utilities have been investing in energy efficiency programs since the mid-1970s. PG&E's programs alone have saved customers more than $24 billion. Now their counterparts nationwide are getting the message, according to a new report from the non-profit Consortium for Energy Efficiency (CEE).
CEE says that U.S. gas and electric utilities spent $5.3 billion last year on efficiency programs, double the amount in 2006. And the number of states with energy efficiency programs jumped from 37 in 2008 to 46 last year.
CEE member utilities reported combined savings on electricity and natural gas of $8.6 billion in 2008. The savings prevented emissions of more than 55 million tonnes of CO2, equal to the output of about 12 coal-fired power plants.
Last fall, the CPUC approved a budget of $3 billion over three years for energy efficiency programs by PG&E, Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric. The utilities will promote more efficient lighting, air conditioning, consumer electronics and building materials, among other things. Those programs should save the state the cost of building 1,500 megawatts of new generation--and all the carbon pollution that would go with it.
Feb 25 2010
Skiers know Alpine County as home to Kirkwood and Bear Valley. But along with its Sierra beauty, the thinly populated county is also home to a contaminated Superfund site, the abandoned Leviathan Mine. The open pit sulfur mine leaches acidic water, arsenic and dissolved metals, devastating local streams near the California-Nevada border.
Cleaning up the toxic site will take years and a great deal of energy. Given the remoteness of the site, Atlantic Richfield--which inherited the property from Anaconda Copper--may have to haul in huge amounts of dirty diesel fuel to power its operations.
But EPA and the National Renewable Energy Laboratory are investigating the possibility of siting wind, solar or other forms of clean energy on the site. The old Leviathan Mine is one of 12 contaminated sites under review nationwide for renewable energy production, under a program called Re-Powering America's Land. In all, there may be about 4,000 such sites across America.
In addition, they are looking at the feasibility of siting solar generators--and infrastructure to support alternative fuel vehicles--at some of the tens of thousands of abandoned gas stations around the country. (EPA estimates there may be more than 200,000 "petroleum brownfield" sites nationwide.)
"We think of recycling materials all the time, so why not take a look at recycling land," said Brigid Lowery, acting director of EPA's center for program analysis. "It just makes sense to take a look at these sites before we turn to using greenfields."
It especially makes sense given how many large renewable energy projects are tied up in permit disputes over their local environmental impact.
Environment and Energy Daily reporter Scott Streater notes that there are many precedents for recycling brownfield sites into renewable energy projects--including the fact that "the largest operating solar power plant in North America sits atop a long-abandoned landfill at Nellis Air Force Base, northeast of
Feb 24 2010
Solar cells are so passe. The hot new area for research is thermocells, which convert waste heat into electric power.
Sorry, I couldn't resist that one.
Power plants, factories, cars, computers--everything that uses energy in turn creates waste heat. If even a small fraction of that heat could be converted back into usable energy--in particular, electricity--the result could be dramatic energy savings and benefits for the environment. In principle, converting waste heat to electricity could double the battery life of cells phones or laptop computers, according to MIT engineer Peter Hagelstein.
A bunch of startup companies are working on just that challenge. They include Alphabet Energy, based in the basement of the Bancroft Hotel in
Others include MTPV Corp. in Austin, TX, GMZ Energy, founded by scientists at MIT and
Thermocells operate on the principle of the Seebeck thermoelectric effect, discovered in 1821 by the physicist Thomas Johann Seebeck. He found that heating one end of a metal bar created an electric current proportional to the difference in temperature at the two ends. Unfortunately, most materials that exhibit this property convert heat to electricity with extremely low efficiency, making it tough to create commercial solutions.
The race is on to increase conversion efficiencies and lower the cost of materials. Scientists at
They make it sound so easy.
Another team of scientists just reported using carbon nanotubes to triple the usual efficiency of thermocells, without the cost of exotic metals such as platinum.
One of the co-authors of their new paper, Dr. Baratunde Cola at
Feb 23 2010
Tobacco killed an estimated 100 million people worldwide over the last century, according to the World Health Organization. Now researchers are turning cigarettes into plowshares, finding novel ways to turn the hardy plants into biochemical laboratories for making antibiotics, vaccines, plastics and now enzymes that can be used to produce clean energy.
Feb 22 2010
Finally, 67 years after it first opened, the hit musical Oklahoma has received official confirmation from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory that "the wind blows sweeping down the plains" with dramatic force.
According to a new report from NREL, the wind generation potential in Oklahoma is nearly 1.8 million gigawatt-hours annually, or more than a third of total U.S. electric generation in 2008 (4.1 million GWh).
And Oklahoma' s wind resources rank only 9th among states in the continental United States. Texas leads the pack with annual potential wind generation of 6.5 million GWh--50 percent more than total U.S. generation in 2008. Other Plains states also have immense potential, as shown in this map.
And what about California? It ranks a measley 19th, with potential generation of only 105,000 GWh. On the other hand, PG&E's total electricity sales in 2008 were 82,000 GWh, so that's hardly a trivial number.
These new estimates represent a huge increase since a 1991 asessment by the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, which found California's total potential to be about 59,000 GWh annually, Oklahoma's at 725,000 GWh, and Texas's at 1,190,000 GWh. (Mississippi still takes last place, at zero potential.)
Nationwide, NREL's new estimate of potential wind energy is more than three times the old estimate and more than nine times total U.S. electricity consumption.
The increased estimate reflects in part the enhanced ability to today's immense turbines to grab wind energy at heights of 80 meters or more, where it blows relatively unobstructed by surface effects and obstructions.
The gap between existing and potential resources is immense, even in California, which was one of the earliest adopters of wind power. Total installed wind capacity in California was 2,794 MW in 2009, less than a tenth of its estimated potential capacity of 34,000 MW. Texas had more than three times as much installed capacity, 9,410 MW, but a total potential more than two hundred times that, according to NREL.
The big unknown is what fraction of the potential can ever be realized, especially given intense local opposition to siting of huge (and to some eyes, ugly) turbines and transmission towers near populated communities, recreation areas and sensitive habitat.
Nearly everywhere you go, from Cape Cod to California's Mohave Desert, activists are seeking to block large wind energy projects. There's even one doctor who claims people living near such facilities may suffer from "Wind Turbine Syndrome," which allegedly brings on sleep disorders, headaches and panic attacks. These claims have been debunked by other scientists assembled by the wind industry, but good luck trying to stamp them out once they're all over the Internet.
Feb 18 2010
Anyone who still thinks all utilities are slow and stodgy should pick up a copy of the March issue of Fast Company, a magazine that chronicles the strategies and successes of cutting-edge businesses. On its annual list of the 50 Most Innovative Companies--at no. 7--is Pacific Gas and Electric Company.
Among companies in the energy industry, PG&E ranks second behind First Solar, the extremely successful maker of thin-film solar photovoltaic panels, including those used in at least one project now supplying clean, renewable energy onto PG&E's grid. The magazine notes that First Solar was the first renewable energy company to break into the S&P 500.
In fourth place among energy companies is another renewable power developer under contract to PG&E, NextEra Energy Resources. And in ninth place is Silver Spring Networks, a major partner of PG&E in the deployment of smart meters and future smart grid applications.
Fast Company cites PG&E's decision last September to resign from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, citing "fundamental differences" with the Chamber's approach to climate change legislation. Noting that PG&E produces only one percent of utility emissions while serving five percent of the total U.S. population, the magazine also praises PG&E's aggressive support of innovative renewable energy companies.
"If only all utilities attacked greenhouse gases with this much . . . energy," it concludes.
Feb 17 2010
According to the Book of Genesis, God said "Let there be light," and there was light upon the Earth.
Feb 16 2010
A typical "D" battery stores enough energy to deliver five watts of power for one hour. Now imagine more than five million such batteries strung together, and you get a sense of the storage capabilities of an advanced sodium-sulfur battery that PG&E plans to install later this year on its grid to support customer needs. It will be the largest battery storage system in California.
I guess that's what they mean by the term "utility scale."
The goal of PG&E's battery storage project isn't to operate five million flashlights or clock radios, but to provide backup power to customers in case of a power failure, improve power quality by smoothing out small variations in voltage and frequency, and help manage the ebb and flow of intermittent wind and solar power so the utility can handle more renewable energy.
PG&E's planned battery installation, which just won funding support from the California Energy Commission, will have a projected life of 15 years. It will also support a 36-month demonstration project to study the value of storage in the utility's distribution system.
"Energy storage will become critical as we migrate to California's future 'smart grid' and integrate renewable energy sources, manage peak demand, and relieve transmission line congestion," said James Boyd, vice chair of the Energy Commission. A 2008 report by the American Institute of Chemical Engineers said "massive energy storage . . . is a key to making the use of renewable energy possible on a broad scale."
Besides the Energy Commission, PG&E's partners in the project include the Electric Power Research Institute, which will help design and analyze results of the pilot project; NGK Insulators Ltd., which makes the batteries and promotes their use in a wide range of utility applications; and S&C Electric, which is handling design engineering and construction services.
Sodium-sulfur batteries run too hot to use at home or in your car. But they store a great deal of energy in a small space and have a long life, making them ideal for utility installations. In the United States, such batteries have been tested or used by American Electric Power, Long Island Power Authority and Xcel Energy.
PG&E is still working on the details, but plans to install the 4 megawatt battery at a site in Silicon Valley, where it will be easily accessible for study and where customers will appreciate its impact on service reliability. The goal is to have it operational by the fourth quarter of 2010.
Batteries are only one form of storage open to utilities. PG&E has long operated a pumped hydro facility, which generates power during the day by running water from a mountain reservoir through a turbine, then pumps the water back up into the reservoir at night when demand falls and power is cheap. PG&E is considering adding more such storage to its system.
PG&E also won funding last fall from the Department of Energy to pursue a project that will store energy during off-peak hours in the form of compressed air held in porous rock formations underground. As the air is released, it can be used to help spin turbines that will generate electricity. The project will be well-suited to storing excess wind energy generated at night.
Feb 11 2010
Yesterday we looked
at some of the simple--and for the most part, obvious--changes in driving habits and maintenance practices that can, at no cost, increase your vehicle mileage up to 15 percent, saving you money and sparing the environment.
It should be equally obvious that your choice of what car to drive--today, without waiting for the next generation of plug-in hybrids, fuel-cell vehicles or advanced diesels--can have an even bigger impact on your wallet and the environment.
That also happens to be a central finding of a recent Oxford University study titled "The Future of Mobility." Instead of waiting for manufacturers to perfect some brilliant new engine technology, it concludes, simply "downscaling . . . both size and weight" of conventional vehicles is the best way to reduce emissions in the near future.
Automakers already know how to do that--they did it during the energy crisis of the late 1970s. It just takes consumers to care enough about the environment (or their budget) to buy the smaller and lighter cars on the market.
Consumers are clearly of two minds. On Yahoo! Autos' list of most-searched-for cars in 2009, the Chevrolet Camaro ranks #1. The Ford Mustang, Jeep Wrangler and Dodge Charger and Challenger also made the top 10, showing that America's love affair with muscle cars lives on.
On the other hand, the Honda Civic, Mini Cooper and Smart for Two were in the top 5, so many people care about economy as well as a cleaner environment.
How much difference does your choice make? The 8-cylinder Camaro pumps out about 6.4 tons of CO2 for every 10,000 miles traveled, and will cost more than $1,500 for gasoline, according to the indispensible comparison web site, www.fueleconomy.gov.
Buying instead a peppy and trendy Mini Cooper will save you about $13K and about $400 in gasoline. It will also emit only 4.4 tons of CO2 each year, almost a third less than the Camaro.
Or you can save an additional $5,000 on the purchase price, and a couple hundred dollars on gas, by picking a Toyota Yaris, a no-frills car with what some reviewers call an "impressive safety package." It emits only 4 tons of CO2 per 10,000 miles. Added bonuses: it hasn't been recalled, and you probably won't be pulled over as often as the driver of a red Camaro.
Any one of these cars will reach the speed limit and get you to work and back. So why not save money and save the earth at the same time?
Feb 10 2010
Automakers the world over are spending billions of dollars on high-tech R&D to eke out a few percent gains in vehicle mileage. And before their efforts make any noticeable difference to the environment, consumers will have to shell out hundreds of billions of dollars on cleaner new vehicles over the course of many years.
Yet the same result could be achieved at no cost, with no new technology, almost overnight. Simply by changing their driving habits and properly maintaining their cars and trucks, vehicle operators can readily improve their mileage by up to 15 percent--saving themselves big money and sparing the environment.
The Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, composed of 11 major global carmakers, is promoting an EcoDriving movement to make exactly that point. It hasn't garnered nearly enough publicity, though it has been endorsed by many of the nation's governors, including California's Arnold Schwarzenegger.
- If just half of all drivers nationwide practiced moderate levels of EcoDriving, annual carbon dioxide(CO2) emissions could be reduced by about 100 million tons, or the equivalent of heating and powering 8.5 million households.
- If all Americans practiced EcoDriving, it would be equal to 450 billion miles traveled on our roadways without generating any CO2 emissions. That’s 1,500 CO2-free miles for every man, woman and child in the United States each year.
Many EcoDriving techniques (also called hypermiling) are obvious, others less so. You already know you want to avoid fast starts and stops by paying close attention to road conditions ahead. You probably know that mileage plummets as you drive faster than 55 mph because of aerodynamic drag. You may not know, however, that driving with your windows open above 40 mph generally wastes more fuel than relying instead on your air conditioner for cooling.
That said, be sure to have your air conditioning checked to make sure it's operating at maximum efficiency. And heed Barack Obama's much-lampooned advice during the presidential campaign about the wisdom of checking tire pressure monthly. More than a billion gallons of fuel may be wasted annually because of underinflated tires, according to the Department of Energy.
Driver education is especially important for improving the performance of corporate fleets--which is why the Environmental Defense Fund has a major initiative to promote fuel-smart driving practices. In Europe, the RECODRIVE project is promoting fuel-efficient fleet practices across the continent, with significant results.
Best of all, better driving promotes safety as well as fuel efficiency. Carrier, a division of United Technologies Corp., reports that it slashed at-fault accidents resulting from rear-end collisions by 45 percent in one year while cutting fleet emissions by 30 percent, and saving $1 million a year in fuel costs.
Feb 09 2010
A belated kudos to a couple of PG&E employees--CEO Peter Darbee and Senior Director Andrew Tang--for making GreenTechMedia's list of 100 Movers and Shakers of the Smart Grid.
The list comprises people the clean-tech blog believes are "influencing this market on a daily basis, be it through innovating, regulating, evangelizing, planning, deploying, benchmarking, architecting, standardizing, investing, developing, etc."
The list spans the alphabet from Shai Agassi, founder of the electric vehicle charging company Better Place, to Liu Zhenya, president of State Grid Corporation of China.
Darbee previously made Earth2Tech's list of the "top 15 most influential people in the smart grid space," so he's used to this sort of honor. On GreenTechMedia's irreverant list, he's sandwiched between Desh Despande, chairman of battery maker A123 Systems, and Rodney Dangerfield, who unlike others on the list, never got much respect.
Tang, who heads PG&E's Smart Energy Web program, makes the list for his ubiquity and congeniality as well as his vision. His expertise is widely sought on issues like energy information devices, home area networks and electric vehicle charging.
"When we say that Mr. Tang is everywhere, what we really mean is that he gets around the smart grid industry circles," the blog explains. "He's a true visionary for the market, not to mention a very nice gent."
Feb 08 2010
Like Rodney Dangerfield, electric power plants that burn biomass don't get much respect in this age of high-tech solar and wind energy. But the conditional approval last week by the California Public Utilities Commission of a deal between PG&E and the owners of a small cogeneration plant near Bakersfield bodes well for the future contribution of biomass to a cleaner environment.
The Mt. Poso Cogeneration Company has operated a coal-fired cogeneration facility (combined power plant and industrial heat source) since 1989. Now it plans to convert the facility to burn agricultural and urban wood waste--everything from orchard prunings to clean demolition wood--to generate 44 megawatts of power, enough to meet the needs of about 47,000 average homes. Unless engineering or economic obstacles emerge, the plant should begin feeding biomass power into PG&E's grid by 2012.
The plant will divert woody biomass, which would have been burned in the open, to a combustion facility with modern emissions control equipment. And it will reduce carbon pollution by substituting biomass--which might otherwise have decayed, releasing greenhouse gases--in place of coal.
The retrofitting of old coal plants to run with at least some biomass won a ringing endorsement in a new study published by the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. Substituting wood pellets for just 10 percent of the coal used in power plants in the United States and Canada would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 170 million metric tons each year, it concluded.
The idea is catching on. In December 2006, Public Service of New Hampshire began running a 50 MW former coal-fired plant entirely on wood chips. Portland General Electric is now seriously considering converting Oregon's only coal-fired plant to burning wood pellets. And several other cogeneration plants in PG&E's service area are considering similar conversions.
California likely could do even more. Currently, biomass accounts for only about two percent of the state's power (comparable to wind and small hydro). David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Association, has argued that dead trees, scrub brush and other wood waste are abundantly available as fuel for additional power generation.
Biomass generation isn't a cure-all, but it's an important part of the clean-energy solution, even for transportation. As noted previously in NEXT100, some scientists have determined that in most cases it's better for the environment to burn biomass to generate electricity for plug-in vehicles rather than converting it to biofuel to run in traditional engines.
Feb 04 2010
Maybe it's just his optimistic personality, but Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, made a strong case today that the glass is at least half full for the green economy going into 2010, even in the face of one of the deepest recessions in memory.
Makower presented the highlights of his organization's third annual State of Green Business Report today at PG&E's Gold LEED-certified auditorium before an audience of about 400 people. The report identifies 10 major trends in green business and 20 key indicators of its health, such as green power use, toxic emissions and energy efficiency.
"Something remarkable happened in 2009," Makower told the audience of business executives and green activists. "Green business didn't go away--it even thrived. You not only kept your jobs but in many cases became more critical to your companies' mission."
Last year saw significant progress on six indicators tracked by the report, including the number of clean-energy patents (an all-time high), energy efficiency, the number of green IT products, the development of green office space, and declining use of paper and water.
Makower said he's heartened by the "race to the top" in several industries such as computing, where Energy Star and EPEAT-rated equipment is rapidly gaining ground, and package delivery, where the US Postal Service, UPS and Fed Ex are all making great strides in acquiring cleaner fleets.
On the other hand, setbacks last year included the slow rate of improvement in greenhouse emissions per unit of GDP, shrinkage of telecommuting and inadequate recycling of electronic equipment.
Of the major business trends discussed in the report, one of the most interesting is the concept of "radical transparency," which refers to the "virtuous circle that develops when detailed information about companies, products and ingredients is instantly available, enabling consumers to make smarter choices, thereby moving markets toward less-harmful products."
This transparency starts at the grass roots, where the "tweet and text generation," as the report calls them, exploit social media to spread word instantly about good and bad business practices. It is also driven by the many web sites, like HealthyStuff.org, that provide sustainability information on a host of consumer products.
And, at the corporate level, it is being driven by ratings from groups like the Carbon Disclosure Project, Climate Counts and Dow Jones, with its Sustainability World Index. More and more corporations, including PG&E, are working with investor outfits like Ceres to produce annual corporate responsibility reports that detail impacts of their businesses on the environment, communities and employees.
Once transparency and disclosure start taking hold, they spread powerfully by example, and may eventually become required. A striking example was the ruling last month by the Securities and Exchange Commission that public companies must warn investors of significant risks that global warming might pose to their businesses.
Someday soon we'll all wonder why that decision was ever controversial. In the meantime, companies will either have to clean up their act, or informed investors will jump ship. That's the power of transparency.
Feb 03 2010
One of the biggest stories to come out of this week's announcement of the Department of Energy's new budget was its support for nuclear power plant--including $36 billion in new loan guarantees.
But one of the most overlooked stories was DOE's proposed support for small modular reactors in the $195 million "Reactor Concepts Research, Development and Demonstration" program. According to The Energy Daily, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu "appears to have won a tussle with the White House Office of Management and Budget," which "last year had sought to bar DOE work in that area."
In December, a senior DOE official told a Senate committee that small nuclear reactors--typically a tenth the size of most commercial reactors operating today--may prove more cost-effective for many applications and pose fewer proliferation risks. Their modular designs may be suitable for mass production, lowering costs and improving reliability. Some are even designed to be installed underground, reducing the threat of terrorist attack.
A fierce race to develop small commercial reactors is underway globally."Technical and manufacturing innovations make [small reactors] a potential game-changer for the global clean energy market," said Christofer Mowry, president and CEO of Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy, which is developing a 125 MW reactor of its own.
Like their big brethran, most small reactors under development today create heat through uranium fission, which is used to create steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.
But because of their small size, they should be easier to manufacture and more suitable for remote locations or industrial uses. Many designers claim they are inherently safe as well, incapable of runaway chain reactions and melt-downs. And many proponents project that they could generate clean power for as little as 6 to 9 cents per kilowatt hour, a fraction of the cost of solar power.
One of the centers of research on small reactors is Sandia National Laboratory. Its proposed design will generate between 100 MW and 300 MW of power, and has a relatively simple cooling system based on liquid sodium. It should operate for several decades without refueling, and cost only $250 million per unit.
Meanwhile, design concepts developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory are being commercialized by Santa Fe-based Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. In November, it unveiled its design for a power module, or "fission battery," that generates 25 MW of power, enough to serve about 20,000 typical homes. Hyperion calls it a "safe, self-contained, simple-to-operate" design that is "small enough to be manufactured en masse and transported in its entirety via ship, truck, or rail."
Corvallis-based NuScale Power, commercializing DOE-funded research at Oregon State University, also says it has developed a small nuclear power system that is "safe, modular and scalable." Its 45 MW water-cooled reactors could be combined in clusters to produce as much power as a conventional reactor but with much less construction time. The company hopes to submit a design to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for certification this year. The company is backed by CMEA Ventures, based in San Francisco.
Feb 02 2010
The space race is back. But this time, instead of landing a man on the moon, the goal is to unlock the commercial potential of clean and virtually limitless solar power from space.
Southern California-based Solaren Corporation is working on it for PG&E. Mitsubishi and more than a dozen other Japanese companies are working on it for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Now Europe's number one space company, EADS Astrium, says it, too, has begun developing key components to beam power collected by orbiting solar panels back to Earth, where it can be delivered to the electric grid.
While Solaren and JAXA envision beaming power via radio waves, Astrium is working instead on high-powered infrared lasers to carry the energy. It is also collaborating with scientists at the University of Surrey to develop devices that convert infrared energy to electricity. Their chief technology officer says a space mission to demonstrate the technology should be feasible within five years, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology.
Ralph Nansen, former program manager for solar power satellites at Boeing, president of Solar Space Industries and author of the new book Energy Crisis: Solution from Space, told me that infrared laser solutions appeal mainly to the military, because their tightly focused beams could in theory supply power to remote battlefield locations.
Unlike radio waves, however, high-power lasers raise both safety and political concerns, and they don't penetrate thick clouds. One of the great appeals of space solar power carried by radio waves is its ability to deliver energy around the clock and under nearly all weather conditions, unlike terrestrial solar.
As Nansen points out, however, "The whole key to the thing is developing a
Nansen said the United States lags in the development of space solar power, despite many years of studying its potential, because NASA says it's an energy program, and the Department of Energy says it's a space program. So unless private U.S. companies can deliver, expect Japan, Europe or even Russia to take the lead.
Nansen, like a growing number of experts believes space must become the next great source of clean energy here on Earth. Agree or not, you can believe him when he says, "I’ve worked on this long enough to know it’s not easy."
Feb 01 2010
Since the Obama administration didn't succeed at first, it's try, try, trying again this year to convince Congress to phase out fossil fuel subsidies to help fight global warming.
The administration's new budget proposes ending $36.5 billion in subsidies--mostly various kinds of tax credits--for oil and gas production over the next decade in order to "foster the clean energy economy of the future and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change."
And lest we forget, fewer subsidies will mean less budgetary red ink as well.
Obama is following through on a promise he made last year at the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh "to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge."
While the prospect of putting a price on carbon emissions is still controversial, calls to withdraw taxpayer subsidies from polluting sources of energy should be much easier to swallow. For years, economists of many stripes have suggested that it makes little sense to subsidize production of fossil fuels--mature and highly profitable forms of energy whose price generally does not reflect the harm they cause to human health and the environment.
Industry associations, on the other hand, argue that federal "incentives" for fossil-fuel production are merited in order to promote domestic energy security and to create jobs.
Last fall, The Environmental Law Institute, in partnership with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson International Center, published an analysis claiming that fossil fuels received a vastly disproportionate share of the $100 billion in federal subsidies for energy from 2002-2008.
Traditional oil, gas and coal interests received a bit more than $70 billion in tax breaks and direct subsidies, according to the study. Corn ethanol, a controversial fuel additive, received just shy of $17 billion. Traditional renewables received only $12 billion.
Those estimates, predictably, have fueled a lively academic debate. In the long run, however, the accuracy of specific estimates doesn't matter most. What counts more is whether Congress is willing to pay the political cost of upsetting traditional interests in order to fight global warming by tilting the energy market in a greener direction.
Jan 29 2010
Everyone knows that "sustainable" is good, but what exactly is it? Corporate Knights, a Canadian-based magazine for "clean capitalism," has come up with a comprehensive definition--and it announced yesterday that Pacific Gas and Electric Company ranks second on its Global 100 list of sustainable large companies, right behind GE.
Working with three strategic partners--Inflection Point Capital Management, Legg Mason's Global Currents Investment Management and Phoenix Global Advisors LLC--Corporate Knights came up with what they call the "international gold standard" for sutainability indexes. It summarizes 11 separate measures, including energy productivity (sales divided by energy consumption), water productivity, leadership diversity, R&D intensity and transparency.
Announcing the magazine's findings at Davos World Economic Forum, editor-in-chief Toby Heaps said that to be considered sustainable, companies must "squeeze four times more wealth out of every resource they use."
Heaps explained the significance of the new global ranking: “By using clear metrics to show investors which companies stand out from their peers, we hope to create a virtuous cycle where the most sustainable companies attract the most capital and earn the best returns.”
Although U.S. companies lead the list, they comprise only 12 of the 100. The United Kingdom dominated with 24; Canada and Australia took the bronze medal with 9 each.
Jan 29 2010
PG&E has become the first utility to join the American Wind Wildlife Institute (AWWI), a national organization committed to peaceful coexistence between wind energy and wildlife.
The organization was founded in late 2008 by 20 environmental groups, state wildlife agencies and wind energy companies to focus their collective expertise on protecting wildlife through research, mapping, mitigation and public education on best practices in wind farm siting and habitat protection.
Members include Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies, BP Wind Energy, Clipper Windpower Inc., Environmental Defense Fund, GE Energy, Horizon Wind Energy, Iberdrola Renewables, National Audubon Society, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others--but until now, no electric utilities.
PG&E's decision to become a member reflects the utility's longstanding use of wind power--dating back at least to the 1980s. Wind power is sure to represent a growing share of the utility's generation as PG&E continues taking aggressive steps to add to its portfolio of clean energy.
In addition, PG&E announced last month plans to buy and operate a major wind production facility in Kern County. The proposed Manzana Wind Project, if approved and built, would provide enough energy to meet the needs of about 100,000 average homes. The project will undergo careful environmental reviews that consider, among other things, its potential impact on birds and other wildlife.
PG&E's membership in AWWI also reflects the utility's heightened interest in environmental stewardship. Two decades ago, PG&E became a founding member of the Avian Power Line Interaction Committee with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The utility's Avian Protection Plan, which includes retrofitting thousands of power poles to make them safer for birds, is considered a national model.
Some studies suggest that wind farms cause a tiny percentage of bird deaths compared to vehicles, buildings, and even communications towers. But concerns over the high rate of bird kills in Altamont Pass and bat deaths in East Coast wind plants have prompted the wind industry and its allies to fund significant research on the siting and operation of turbines to minimize risks to wildlife. AWWI's exclusive attention to that issue should help advance this collaborative effort as the wind industry ramps up its installations.
AWWI Vice President Stu Webster said the organization is still in the "nurturing stages." Its early focus is on efforts to map wind and wildlife resources so developers can make more informed siting and mitigation decisions.
One of its biggest and most important initiatives will be to find ways to share proprietary data across the industry to help stakeholders better assess wildlife issues. "The legal and competitive issues need to be harmonized with the need for data to improve our scientific understanding," Webster said. "NGOs, academia, government agencies and industry all want this. It's critically necessary to answer the questions that have been raised."
Jan 27 2010
The U.S. wind industry hurtled forward at gail force last year, flying in the face of of the nation's deep recession. But California, once the leader in wind energy, seemed caught in the doldrums.
The American Wind Energy Association reported yesterday that the U.S. wind industry "broke all previous records by installing nearly 10,000 megawatts (MW) of new generating capacity in 2009," thanks in part to stimulus from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. In fact, wind was on par last year with natural gas as a source of new generation--a major feat for the renewable power industry.
But little of that growth took place in California. The Golden State added only 277 MW of wind capacity, compared to 2,292 MW in Texas and 879 MW in Iowa. California still ranks third in wind power, but its growth of just over 10 percent last year was dwarfed by national growth of 39 percent.
I'm not the only one who was struck by our state's sluggish performance. Bill Opalka, editor of Renewablesbiz.com, commented,
It's hard to miss that the former leader, California, the place that kept wind on the map for 20 years, is falling further and further behind. . . . If the state with the most aggressive mandates in the country has trouble matching sparsely populated states - and those happen to be ones without mandates - what chance does California have it making its deadlines? A question worth asking, even if it's one beyond the scope of a report like this one.
I asked Nancy Rader, executive director of the California Wind Energy Association (CalWEA), for some perspective on the industry's difficulties in our fair state. She noted that it was inevitable that other states, many of which have superior wind resources, would begin catching up to California.
Nonetheless, some of our wounds are self-inflicted. "It is very hard to build in California because we are waiting for transmission development and it takes years to slog through the permitting process, whether you are on private or federal land," Rader said.
Partly as a result, Rader said, demand for wind energy in California is spawning development in surrounding states like Oregon and Washington.
The good news is that a new Tehachapi transmission line being built in Southern California should enable a host of new wind projects by 2013--including one announced by PG&E.
"Hopefully within five years we will see California wind capacity more than double because of the Tehachapi transmission line," Rader said.
Jan 26 2010
Clean energy enjoys huge political support. Climate change legislation, by contrast, is on life support. What critics don't realize is that putting a price on carbon emissions is the surest way to drive investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy, smart grids and other clean tech innovations.
Concerned by fierce opposition to climate legislation from vocal critics, some members of Congress have called for sidelining the climate bill and focusing only on a new energy bill to promote "innovation and new technology."
That would make every politician's life easier. But as Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., has noted, innovation doesn't come from thin air--it needs the right market environment:
If you separate climate from energy reform, you slow your ability to create those clean jobs because every market expert tells you those energy reforms can't take hold unless you price carbon. Unless you do something comprehensive you're just going a more expensive, less effective route and you'll keep trailing other countries.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., gets it as well. As he told a recent gathering of the geothermal industry, "Most importantly, Congress needs to send the market a clear signal on the costs of global warming pollution to drive far greater investments into geothermal and every other form of renewable energy and energy efficiency."
Businesses have been saying the same message, loud and clear. In a recent ad signed by dozens of major companies, including PG&E, corporate leaders warned that "today's uncertainty surrounding energy and climate regulation is hindering the large-scale actions that American businesses are poised to make. We need strong policies and clear market signals that support the transition to a low-carbon economy and reward companies that innovate."
The same logic has also motivated major automakers to call for higher gas taxes, so consumers will buy smaller, more fuel-efficient cars, including hybrids.
Let's face facts. It will be many years, if ever, before renewable energy and clean nuclear power are as cheap as coal-fired power. Not until the price of coal reflects the environmental damage it inflicts will alternatives stand on their feet without massive government subsidies. That's why legislation to stabilize the Earth's climate is so critical to creating the right climate for new investments in clean energy.
Jan 25 2010
Here at PG&E, we (like most Californians) have a love-hate attitude toward the rain. Like bitter medicine, it's not enjoyable in the moment, but deep down we know it's good for us.
Wind-driven precipitation knocks trees into our power lines, topples power poles and floods our facilities, creating outages and public safety risks. In fact, last week's storms impacted service to 1.5 million customers and damaged more than 500 poles, 250 miles of electrical lines and 800 transformers.
About the only good thing we can say during a storm is it brings out the best in our heroic repair crews and our customers, who (mostly) suffer service disruptions with patience and understanding.
But come spring and summer, if we haven't had enough rain, we at PG&E start to miss the clean, efficient hydropower driven by all the water in our mountain rivers and reservoirs. We also miss the wet ground that keeps vegetation from drying out and becoming tinder for giant wildfires that threaten our facilities and our customers' homes and businesses.
Before the onslaught of storms last week, California was headed into another drought year--its third in a row.
Just before the storms hit the state, the Department of Water Resources painted a bleak picture of continuing drought conditions:
This year's precipitation as of mid-January 2009 is well below average, with 20-30" of additional rain and snow needed to produce average runoff. The previous two water years, October 1, 2006 thru September 30, 2008 left a deficit of nearly 28" of precipitation in the Northern and Central Sierra, source of much of our water supply. . . . Statewide average reservoir levels are 68% of average for this date. Last year at this time they were at 80% of average.
And the bottom line: "As of January 1, 2009, the statewide runoff is forecast to be dry to critically dry this year."
The result of the prolonged drought was to reduce PG&E's hydropower generation from 13,800 gigawatt-hours in 2006 to 7,700 GWh in 2007 and 7,900 GWh in 2008. (Preliminary data suggest that 2009 was a little better, but still far below normal.) This loss of about 7 percent of our total generation had to be offset by sharply higher power purchases, mostly from natural gas-fired generators, which increased costs to customers and greenhouse gas emissions as well.
Fortunately, this picture brightened last week even as the skies darkened. According to PG&E's hydro experts:
The recent wave of severe winter storms have produced significant amounts of snow and precipitation in PG&E service areas and hydro watersheds. As a result the cumulative precipitation picture has improved substantially: The California statewide average snow water content increased from 79 percent of normal on 1/7/2010 to 107 percent of normal on 1/21/2010; PG&E's hydro-weighted precipitation, from 15 representative stations, increased from 68 percent of normal to 91 percent of normal to date. If the wet trend continues, it could lead to better-than-average annual hydro generation year.
So as you struggle with your umbrella, or sit in the dark for a few hours, take heart in knowing that all this rain may end up saving you money and sparing the environment.
Jan 21 2010
When is the last time Corporate America, Big Labor and the environmental movement agreed on anything?
Try today.
An ad running in today's Wall Street Journal, and slated to run on the Politico web site as well, brings together leaders from all three groups, along with representatives from the faith-based community, in unprecedented support of "bi-partisan, national energy and climate legislation that increases our security and limits emissions, as it preserves and creates jobs."
The signers include a Who's Who of top corporations, including PG&E Corporation, BP, Campbell's, Con Edison, Dow, Duke Energy, Dupont, Ford, GE, GM, Honeywell, Shell, Siemens, Toyota and Weyerhauser.
Also signing are the cream of the labor movement, including the AFL-CIO, SEIU and United Steelworkers.
Major environmental NGOs endorsing the call to bipartisan action include Environmental Defense Fund, Nature Conservancy and NRDC.
Last but not least, the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference and Evangelical Environmental Network represent sectors of the faith-based community in support of national action on climate change.
As the signers note,"America faces a once-in-a-century opportunity to lower greenhouse gas emissions and become the world's leader in a burgeoning clean energy economy."
That's not an opportunity to be missed--but it's unfortunately also not an opportunity that can be taken for granted. In the wake of Senator-elect Scott Brown's upset victory in Massachusetts, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said "there's minimal enthusiasm" among members of his party for climate change legislation.
Jan 20 2010
If California solar developers think they have it bad, waiting endless months for permit reviews, consider the case of Cape Wind, the first offshore wind project proposed in the United States.
That $900 million project, sited off the coast of Cape Cod., Mass., has been in limbo for nine years while local residents, dismayed by the prospect of giant wind turbines spoiling their views of Nantucket Sound, have waged guerrilla warfare to kill it. Further delays were ensured when two Indian tribes this month persuaded the National Park Service that the project might interfere with their spiritual practices.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, the European Wind Energy Association reported Monday that developers last year connected to the European grid 199 offshore wind turbines with a combined capacity of 577 megawatts--a third more than the entire Cape Wind project. EWEA projects that another 1,000 MW of offshore wind capacity will be added this year, continuing the dizzy pace of growth in the market.
And that's not the half of it. Some 17 offshore wind farms are now under construction in European waters, totaling more than 3,500 MW of capacity, and 52 more have been approved with a combined capacity of more than 16,000 MW. (By way of comparison, peak demand in PG&E's service area runs about 21,000 MW.)
Much more is coming. Great Britain this month announced the winners of a third round of offshore licenses in the North Sea for up to 32,000 MW of wind power. The government expects construction to begin in 2014 and all projects to be completed by 2020. The projects could end up supplying a quarter of the country's entire electricity demand.
The United States does have a handful of small offshore wind projects under consideration off the Eastern seabord, but nothing remotely comparable to Europe. Unfortunately, the high prices that U.S. developers are seeking make some of these projects unappealing to utilities shopping for more renewable power.
If the United States could get its act together, it could potentially tap offshore wind resources totaling 900,000 megawatts, according to the Department of Energy. Polls show strong public support for projects in the Eastern seabord states with the best offshore wind potential. (California, with its deep coastal waters, is unsuited to traditional offshore turbines.) But until state and federal governments can set forth clear policies and streamline their reviews, the United States will remain an embarrassing laggard in the race to tap this enormous source of clean energy.
Jan 19 2010
Sometimes the biggest blow to a new technology isn't an engineering glitch but a seemingly authoritative report proving its time hasn't come. That's exactly what happened last month, when a team of experts from the National Research Council declared that sky-high battery costs will doom plug-in electric vehicles to irrelevance for years to come.
It doesn't happen often, but the NRC experts appear to be flat wrong, according to evidence of actual battery costs compiled by CalCars and the Electrification Coalition.
"Real-world information is already a step ahead of their assumptions," CalCars claims. "Battery and auto manufacturers would not be spending tens of billions of dollars on factories to support over a dozen new plug-in vehicle models unless they saw a long-term path to low-cost, competitive components."
At the heart of the NRC's critique was the claim that battery packs today cost more than $1,000/kilowatt-hour, and that it will take a decade of engineering and production innovation to slash costs to the $400/kWh needed to make plug-in vehicles affordable to the mass market.
The truth about battery costs is closely held by manufacturers, but CalCars cites a study prepared last year by experts from the Department of Energy and Argonne National Laboratory, estimating that batteries should cost only about $300/kWh in mass production, and less than double that in modest runs of about 10,000 per year.
General Motors officials have leaked data to the media suggesting that the cost of batteries for the new Volt hybrid will be in the range of $500/kWh to $600/kWh, and will likely fall to only $300 by 2015. A company spokesman specifically refuted the NRC's estimate of battery costs as "bloated." He added, 'Our starting point, which already costs much less than they estimate, is just the first step.'
Bottom line: as battery makers and electric vehicle manufacturers begin production, costs will indeed be high, as they were originally for personal computers, flat screen TVs, and most other new technologies. But as affluent early adopters and government subsidies create a growing market, prices should fall quickly to make these clean vehicles a strong contender in the marketplace.
Jan 15 2010
It's official: 2009 tied as the second hottest year on record, according to global temperature data posted today by NASA.
2005 was the hottest year and 2007 tied for second place in the NASA rankings. Overall, the last decade was the hottest ever recorded.
This year's El Nino, which promises to deliver wild and wet weather to California next week, could make 2010 even warmer. That's because El Nino events typically bring heat to the surface of the Pacific Ocean, raising the average global temperature.
As noted previously in NEXT100, the continental United States was one of the few places on earth that remained relatively cool last year--so it's no wonder skeptics about global warming abound here despite a strong scientific consensus. The same pattern repeated in December, bringing chilling cold to much of this country.
Note: not every authority agrees with NASA. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says 2009 tied with 2006 as the fifth warmest year on record. But NOAA agrees that the decade as a whole was the warmest.
Jan 14 2010
Green doesn't get much cuter than this.
As part of its ambitious program of energy conservation and environmental stewardship, the U.S. Postal Service is experimenting in several Southern California cities, as well as parts of Arizona and South Florida, with a nifty three-wheel electric vehicle for delivering mail.
With the world's largest civilian vehicle fleet, annual travel of 1.1 billion miles and fuel costs of more than $2 billion, the USPS can make a big difference to the environment by its leadership in clean transportation technology. It has experimented with advanced diesel, ethanol, hybrid electric and fuel cell vehicles, but I'm most taken by the T3 Series Electric Stand-up Vehicle, with optional solar-powered trailer, that the postal service has developed with T3 Motion, Inc. in Orange County.
T3 Motion claims the vehicles have a range of 40 miles, a maximum speed of 12 mph and a carrying capacity of 450 lbs. Its quiet operation and maneuverability make the vehicle a favorite of police forces as well. "Most importantly, it produces zero emissions and costs less than 4 cents a mile to operate," the company added in an announcement today.
The U.S. Postal Service aims to reduce its energy use 30 percent by 2015. Kudos to it for thinking outside the (four-wheel) box.
Jan 14 2010
Every year the world produces 2.5 billion tons of cement, enough for 9 billion cubic yards of concrete that could pave 16 highway lanes from the Earth to the moon.
The production of all that cement, which requires heating limestone and other materials to about 2,600F, contributes as much as five percent of all CO2 emissions, making it a major cause of global warming.
As previously described in NEXT100, traditional cement companies and a growing number of startups are exploring novel production methods to radically reduce or even eliminate their net output of carbon dioxide.
Now one of the most promising--and most controversial--of those companies says it has begun to make cement on a significant scale by drawing carbon dioxide from Dynegy's huge Moss Landing power plant.
Los Gatos-based Calera claims its process for making cement actually locks up more CO2 than it produces. The manager of the Moss Plant Power Plant calls it "probably one of the best carbon-capture processes out there that we know of today." And Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, said "It changes the nature of the fight against global warming."
Those are extravagent claims, but Calera's founder, Brent Constantz, has serious credentials. He is a consulting professor at Stanford University and founder of three previous companies. He convinced noted venture capitalist Vinod Khosla to fund his firm. And he can point to a patent issued in Australia to support some of his claims.
But a lot of people don't believe him, including cement industry rivals and, more disturbingly, fellow scientists. One of the most noted critics is Ken Caldeira, a distinguished geochemist and climate expert at the Carnegie Institution, located on Stanford's campus.
It doesn't help that Calera's web site is notably short on technical details or that the company has been operating at Moss Landing for over a year and a half without much in the way of public results.
So who's right, Calera or Caldeira? Here's hoping that Calera is for real and Caldeira is uncharacteristically wrong. The world needs a game changer. But it can't wait forever to see results.
Jan 13 2010
The Department of Energy today announced grants of up to $78 million to support advanced research and development of biofuels and fueling infrastructure to replace petroleum products. "By harnessing the power of science and technology, we can bring new biofuels to the market and develop a cleaner and more sustainable transportation sector," said Energy Secretary Steven Chu.
But only a few days ago, researchers at Rice University blasted U.S. biofuels policy, noting that despite generous subsidies--amounting to $4 billion in 2008--biofuels have replaced a mere two percent of gasoline production. The cost to consumers for biofuel was almost $2 a gallon on top of the retail price for gasoline.
Further, the report claimed, "it is uncertain whether existing biofuels production provides any beneficial improvement over traditional gasoline" in terms of greenhouse gas emissions. And the biofuels create potential hazards to human health by impeding the natural breakdown of other toxic chemicals, such as benzene, in the groundwater.
So is U.S. biofuels policy nothing more than a biofolly? Yes and no if you believe the Rice University report (which was funded by Chevron, but is consistent with many other studies). The problem isn't with biofuels in principle, but with corn-based ethanol, which accounts for nearly all current U.S. biofuel production. Growing corn to make ethanol is of debateable value because it requires extensive energy and produces greenhouse gases from soil clearing and tillage.
But if we can transition to a next generation of biofuels, based on hardy weeds, crop residues, waste wood products (such as beetle-killed trees) or even algae, the environmental benefits begin to look far brighter. Unfortunately, the economics so far look a lot dimmer--which is where the DOE's research grants may come to the rescue.
Intriguingly, one Bay Area company--Cobalt Biofuels--yesterday announced with great fanfare the launch of a facility in Mountain View to begin producing biobutenol, a versatile fuel that can be blended with gasoline or diesel and converted into jet fuel or even plastics. The company claims cost breakthroughs that will allow it to produce the fuel for only $1.40 a gallon by 2012. Biobutenol delivers more energy than ethanol and is less polluting. And, most important from an environmental standpoint, Cobalt's feedstock isn't food crops but forest waste and mill residues.
Cobalt's claims, like so many before from the biofuels industry, may prove more than a tad optimistic. But DOE and Cobalt are on the right track by moving beyond traditional corn-based ethanol to greener biofuels.
Jan 12 2010
If I were one of the army of auto marketing executives showing off new hybrid and electric vehicles at this week's Detroit auto show, I'd be smiling for the public but privately panicking.
Despite all the fawning media coverage of these fuel-efficient and climate-friendly vehicles, a chorus of naysayers are warning that few consumers will actually buy them--relegating all this fancy new technology to the scrap heap of failed investments.
Last month, a report from the National Research Council warned that the high cost of batteries will limit the number of plug-in hybrid vehicles on America's roads to only about 13 million by 2030, not enough to make more than a slight dent in the country's carbon emissions.
Last week, Boston Consulting Group piled on with a new report claiming that battery costs "are unlikely to drop enough to spark widespread adoption of fully electric vehicles without a major breakthrough in . . . technology."
Even the clean-tech blog Earth2Tech saw fit to depress its readers with "10 signs your next car won't be electric."
So for you die-hard enthusiasts who can't bear to cede the argument without a fight, I highly recommend reading "11 Practical Reasons to Buy an Electric Car," by Nick Chambers of Gas2Org. While he acknowledges that "the vast majority of people will still drive gas-powered cars into the foreseeable future," he ticks off the many good reasons your next car should be electric after all.
Start with the fact that you won't need to spend nearly as much time making friends with your mechanic: "By removing the engine, exhaust system, emissions controls, and the many other little bits that are traditionally associated with a combustion-powered car, then replacing them with a motor that has one moving part, some batteries, and associated fans and coolant, the chances that you'll end up in the service department are drastically reduced."
Nor will you need to crawl under your car to change the oil every few thousand miles. "Likely the only major things you'll need to get regularly serviced on an EV will be a coolant flush and battery change every 100,000 miles or so," Chambers points out.
You'll stand to save countless trips to the gas station as well. If you've got a garage, and install a suitable outlet, "you may never have to make a trip somewhere to 'fill' your car up again."
The cost per mile of electricity is liable to be far less than you pay now for gasoline--and far more stable as well. You won't depend on foreign imports of oil from insecure lands to power your car.
And as you glide down the road, with no rumble from the engine, you can take quiet satisfaction from knowing that you are doing your part for the environment.
Jan 12 2010
Stop the presses! Scientists report that pulverizing mountains to remove coal can damage environment!
All kidding aside, last week's publication in the prestigious journal Science of a "blockbuster" new study on the irreversible environmental impacts of mountaintop mining--a widespread practice in Appalachia--was a sobering and long overdue cry of alarm from an eminent group of hydrologists, ecologists and engineers, including several members of the National Academy of Sciences.
Obvious as their conclusions might seem, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers continue to permit mining companies to strip mountaintops of their forests and topsoil, blast them with explosives and then push rock and toxic materials into adjacent valleys and streams in order to expose coal deposits.
"We now know that surface mining has extraordinary consequences for both aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems," said Dr. Keith Eshleman of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, one of the co-authors. "Notwithstanding recent attempts to improve reclamation, the immense scale of mountaintop mining makes it unrealistic to think that true restoration or mitigation is possible with current techniques."
Lost in some of the reporting about habitat destruction was the team's finding that such mining practices seriously harm human health due to air and water pollution.
As the study noted, "Adult hospitalizations for chronic pulmonary disorders and hypertension are elevated as a function of county-level coal production, as are rates of mortality, lung cancer, and chronic heart, lung, and kidney disease."
Another careful study published last year, and cited in the Science article, estimated that coal mining in Appalachia results in somewhere between 1,700 and 2,900 "excess deaths" each year. The authors of that study noted that coal mining contributes about $8 billion annually to the region's economy--but exacts an economic cost to its inhabitants of over $40 billion a year.
And that's not counting the cost to human health from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, mercury, radioactive particles and other pollutants caused by burning the coal. (In fairness, cheap coal-fired power indirectly saves some lives, as well, by making possible more economic food refrigeration and other benefits.)
The National Mining Association dismissed the new study as "an advocacy piece, rather than independent science." The authors noted that the paper underwent rigorous peer review by other experts in the field.
Note: In 2006, California enacted a law that essentially prohibits utilities from purchasing any additional coal-fired power. Only a few percent of PG&E's power comes from legacy coal-fired sources.
Jan 11 2010
Last May, Newsweek editor Jon Meacham called Barack Obama "Spock with global sex appeal." Since then, the brainy president with abs has put his sex appeal to good use, championing energy efficiency investments to produce jobs, keep the environment clean and promote energy independence.
In June, as he announced new federal standards to making lighting more efficient, President Obama said, "Now, I know light bulbs may not seem sexy, but this simple action holds enormous promise because 7 percent of all the energy consumed in America is used to light our homes and our businesses." He estimated that new standards would save consumers up to $4 billion a year in energy costs.
Last month, reviving that theme, President Obama declared that home insulation is "sexy stuff" because it saves money. Appearing at a Home Depot store, Obama called on Congress to enact more building retrofit incentives, on top of the $5 billion allocated in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act to weatherize low-income homes and the $300 million to promote energy-efficient appliances.
It remains to be seen how titillated ordinary homeowners have become by R-values and Energy Star ratings--though I'll bet they seem sexier now with winter temperatures plunging to extreme lows across the country--but swooning venture capitalists have enthusiastically embraced Obama's message.
An annual survey of worldwide clean tech venture funding, issued last week by Deloitte and the Cleantech Group, reported that funding of companies focused on the business of energy efficiency hit a record billion dollars last year--a period that saw a one-third decline in overall clean-tech investing.
"I know it sounds odd that VCs are putting money into things like windows and drywall, but that's where the excitement's been for the last year," said Kevin Surace, chief executive officer of Serious Materials, a Sunnyvale company that makes efficient building materials.
"This past year is a reflection of why energy efficiency makes sense," added one of Serious Materials' funders. "Investments that have payback periods less than two years tend to be what gets invested in during a recession."
Jan 11 2010
The solar industry could get a welcome stimulus this year if the California Public Utilities Commission approves an application PG&E filed in February 2009 to develop a series of solar photovoltaic projects in the 1-20 megawatt range, totaling 250 MW over five years. In the interim, PG&E is building a 2 MW pilot plant at its Vaca-Dixon substation.
Total cost of the program, if approved, would run about $1.5 billion. That should create some serious jobs along with a lot of clean energy.
In anticipation of a ruling that could come as early as next month, PG&E plans later this month to request information from potential suppliers to qualify bidders for everything from providing PV modules to installing complete PV systems. Then, if the CPUC ruling is favorable, the utility will be able to move ahead quickly with getting bids and putting shovels in the ground.
Interested suppliers can obtain more information on PG&E's website.
Jan 07 2010
Last month, NEXT100 described a simple but remarkable agricultural technique taking root in arid and impoverished West Africa--the cultivation of crops in pits, called zai holes, that store water and prevent erosion.
Now a team of Stanford-led experts report on another promising innovation in the region: Solar-powered pumps in the West African country of Benin are dramatically increasing farm yields and incomes for desperately poor rural families who get by on just a dollar a day.
Malnutrition in the area is serious because water is scarce and the deep groundwater makes irrigation impractical without expensive and polluting diesel-powered pumps.
The Benin Solar Irrigation Project was made possible by assistance from an American NGO, the Solar Electric Light Fund, which promotes electrification of poor villages that are off the grid, mostly in Asia and Africa. In 2007, it began a program to electrify an entire district of northern Benin with photovoltaic panels to serve drip irrigation systems, schools, clinics and community centers.
To gauge the effectiveness of the investment, it worked with Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment to rigorously study the results of the irrigation program.
The researchers found that households with access to solar-powered irrigation were able to grow enough crops to consume several pounds of their own vegetables each week, a major upgrade of their diet, and earn another $7 to $8 from surplus crop sales each week. The payback time for the system was estimated at less than three years.
The program is also a huge boon to women, who traditionally tend the gardens, by cutting the time they spend watering by 50 percent, freeing them up to earn additional money.
"With the proper support," the researchers concluded, "successful widespread adoption of photovoltaic drip irrigation systems could be an important source of poverty alleviation and food security in the marginal environments common to sub-Saharan Africa."
Jan 06 2010
They say there's power in numbers. Well, PG&E has just proven that the cliche is literally true.
With the help of two thousand customers who participated in an experiment this summer, the utility has shown that voluntary reductions in electricity use, particularly for air conditioning, can reliably replace expensive and polluting peak power generators for balancing supply and demand on the electric grid.
As described previously in NEXT100, this pilot test of the utility's ability to work with customers to shape their demand in a timely and predictable fashion addressed what the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has called "the 'killer application' for the smart grid."
Programs to reduce peak loads can save money (by avoiding the need for generators that sit idle most of the year), reduce the risk of system overloads and cut down on air pollution, including greenhouse gas emissions.
Equally important, utilities could use such programs to support the integration of more renewable resources, by synchronizing demand with the fluctuations of wind and solar energy.
PG&E's voluntary 
SmartAC program provides customers with free radio-controlled thermostats or on-off switches that can be directed to turn down air conditioners during periods of peak energy demand, usually without sacrificing customers' comfort.
Until now, however, operators of the state grid could not be confident that the program would deliver load reductions quickly or reliably enough to replace traditional peak generation.
Working with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory this summer, PG&E recruited 2,000 SmartAC customers in Antioch, Fairfield and Fresno for a test.
PG&E also invested in sophisticated telemetry infrastructure to monitor, in near real-time, the impact of air conditioner controls on system loads. This was a critical addition to the SmartAC program, needed to prove its true value as a resource for balancing supply and demand.
Among the test customers, PG&E turned down their air conditioners for 15 minutes twice each weekday during the months of August and September--a total of 71 times.
The results were significant: "the average load reduction per device across all events was 0.65 [kilowatt] per device." That may not sound like much--but if extended across all 135,000 SmartAC-controlled devices, the program could replace as much as 80 MW of generation on most summer days, and up to 180 MW of generation during system peaks (equivalent to about two peak power plants).
Equally important, the pilot proved that the load reductions could be fast and reliable enough to meet the demanding requirements of state grid operators who must balance supply and demand.
Last but not least, despite the repeated curtailment of their air conditioning, almost nine in ten customers who took part in the pilot were satisfied with PG&E and only 17 percent even noticed that their air conditioning was affected.
The potential environmental and economic implications are huge.
As Reuters columnist John Kemp noted recently, if the California electric grid "could reduce demand on just the 2 percent of peak hours each year, it could avoid . . . the need to maintain more than 5,000 MW of idle [generating] capacity. [That] explains why demand response strategies designed to curb power use at peak periods have become one of the highest priorities for governments and system engineers on both sides of the Atlantic."
Jan 05 2010
Look around the clean-tech sector--at companies trying to produce renewable energy, design better batteries or replace petroleum with biofuels--and you won't find too many newly minted billionaires. Most the companies are run by people with a passion for the environment who are sacrificing in the hope of someday making a difference as well as a profit.
But a few entrepreneurs, with a passion only for money, are cashing in on the environment in an altogether different way: by scamming the public.
In an end-of-year alert to investors, the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) said, "It seems like everybody's going green these days--even fraudsters. However, the 'green' they are after is your money."
FINRA said it issued the alert "to warn investors about green energy investment scams that dangle the promise of large gains from investing in companies purportedly involved in developing or producing alternative, renewable or waste energy products."
Among other tips, FINRA warned investors never to "rely solely on information you receive in an unsolicited fax, email, text message or tweet--or in a blog post" (NEXT100 no doubt excepted). "It's easy for companies or their promoters to make glorified, unsubstantiated claims about new products, lucrative contracts, or the company's revenue, profits, or future stock price."
In a recent lawsuit, the Securities and Exchange Commission charged several defendants with raising $30 million from more than 300 investors in 12 fraudulent and unregistered securities relating to "green" investment opportunities, including a "carbon negative" housing development in Tennessee and what the promoters claimed was the largest biochar production operation in the world.
The really shameful thing about investor ripoffs, apart from the fleecing of individual victims, is the pall they cast over legitimate ventures seeking risk capital.
For example, many experts believe that production of biochar--a form of carbon created by heating organic material in an oxygen-deprived environment--could be a major contributor to the fight against global warming.
Endorsed by Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack at the North American Biochar Conference 2009 and in the U.S. Senate by a rare bipartisan group including Democrat Harry Reid of Nevada and Republican Orrin Hatch of Utah, biochar could, in the words of environmental activist Bill Hewitt,
• (potentially) store billions of tons of carbon in soil for centuries;
• dramatically reduce agricultural waste, forest debris and some municipal solid waste, thus eliminating the production of greenhouse gases that result from their decomposition;
• generate energy to both power itself and a surplus for use in surface transportation or electricity generation; and
• greatly increase the productivity of agricultural soil, thus reducing the need for expensive and polluting fertilizers.
Bottom line? Don't invest your life savings in the next biochar company promising 1000% returns and brought to your attention over Twitter. But, at the same time, don't let the frausters close your mind to exciting new technologies that could give us a cleaner and more liveable world.
Jan 04 2010
Happy cows are proof that ignorance is bliss. They burp up huge amounts of methane--a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide--without a trace of guilt over their carbon hoofprint.
As consumers of dairy products and beef, however, human beings can't claim ignorance. The cows we raise are the single biggest source of methane emissions in the United States, according to the EPA.
Fortunately, a few people are doing something about it. Researchers at James Cook University in Australia have determined that feeding nutritious dried algae to cows in place of traditional feed can slash bovine emissions of methane by 20 to 40 percent, according to a recent article in The Australian.
"These algae are about 20 per cent protein, and carry a lot of other vitamins and minerals, including salt," James Cook University nutritionist Tony Parker told Stock and Land magazine (recommended bedtime reading). "The cattle we've got came up and hooked straight into it, so it seems they like it."
Independent studies show that dairy cows fed with bio-algae concentrates produce 20 percent more milk than other cows, with higher protein and fat content.
In a win-win-win, the algae can be grown in aquaculture farms along with seaweed to clean effluent waters of nitrogen and phosphorous from agricultural runoff. Left untreated, such pollutants cause eutrophication, harming fisheries and ocean reefs. So-called "algal turf scrubbers" are now a mainstay of modern bio-remediation.
"I like to call it the reef and beef project because it has far reaching implications that come full circle: starting with seaweed, taking in the beef and aquaculture industries, and extending back out to the sea to help conserve the Great Barrier Reef," Parker added.
Jan 01 2010
As we all prepare to get the Next 10 underway, we thought we'd take a look back on the decade that has passed. Here are several items that caught our attention:
It appears that clean energy and the environment have been top of mind for most speakers of the English language for the last 10 years. The Global Language Monitor has announced the top word of the decade was "Global Warming," beating out "9/11," while the top phrase was "Climate Change." (You'll have to ask them why one counts as a word and the other as a phrase.)
Grist's look back on the top green stories of the '00s makes climate change the main focus of at least six. But its very top story of the decade is "Celebs and and movies and magazines and TV go green." Go figure. Evidently Cameron Diaz, Brad Pitt and Leonardo DiCaprio rate higher than Al Gore.
Time magazine covers the Top 10 Green Ideas of 2009 as one of 50 top 10 lists--guaranteed to kill your appetite for this genre for a long time. Besides the usual suspects--the climate-change summit, cap-and-trade and fuel-efficiency standards--the magazine offers "General Motors Goes Bankrupt." That sounds more red than green to me.
And finally for a look ahead, Fast Company chronicled the Ten Best Green Jobs for the Next Decade. From farmer to solar panel installer or even green-tech entrepreneur it covers career paths that will position you as part of the solution rather than part of the problem. Warning: the list is for idealists only--no pay information provided.
Dec 31 2009
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.
Dec 30 2009
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.
Dec 29 2009
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.
To wit: substitute a relatively abundant, silvery-white element called thorium for uranium and plutonium in commercial reactors.
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."
Dec 28 2009
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.
Dec 23 2009
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."
Dec 22 2009
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.
Dec 21 2009
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."
Dec 16 2009
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.
Dec 15 2009
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."
Dec 14 2009
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.
Dec 10 2009
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.
Dec 09 2009
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.
Dec 08 2009
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."
Dec 07 2009
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."
Nov 30 2009
In an intriguing departure from partisan political trends on this side of the Atlantic, the British Conservative Party--which leads in the polls--is taking an aggressively pro-environmental stance.
Last week, one of the party's top leaders, George Osborne, promised to slash carbon emissions from government agencies by 10 percent within a year, create a new investment bank to fund "green" initiatives, and pay households to recycle waste.
Saying that the British Treasury has long been "at best indifferent, at worst obstructive" toward environmental policy," he vowed to change that attitude if the Conservatives take power in the next election.
"I want a Conservative Treasury to be in the lead of developing the low carbon economy and financing the green recovery," he said in a speech at Imperial College London, a university known for its strong science curriculum.
While some commentators called into question the Conservatives' sincerity--claiming their words to date have spoken louder than their actions--James Murray of BusinessGreen called Osborne's speech "not far short of a master class in political positioning, responding to the legitimate complaints made by those within the environmental movement and proposing policies that, on the face of it, offer appealing solutions."
Noting that Osborne was making a "shameless play for traditional Labour voters," Murray added, "the government has no one but itself to blame. . . . It is an open secret that the Treasury has put the kibosh on any number of innovative green policy proposals over the past 13 years - all it took was for Osborne to point out the uncomfortable truths."
Nov 24 2009
Good news for California clean energy: the U.S. Department of Energy today awarded PG&E $25 million to fund initial work on a significant energy storage project to support the utility's increased use of renewable wind and solar power.
The grant to PG&E was one of 16 awards, totaling $185 million, to "help fund utility-scale energy storage projects that will enhance the reliability and efficiency of the grid, while reducing the need for new electricity plants," according to DOE.
"Improved energy storage technologies will allow for expanded integration of renewable energy resources like wind and photovoltaic systems," it added.
Energy storage is a critical part of next-generation utility "smart grids" that the Obama administration is strongly backing with R&D and infrastructure grants.
Storage will contribute to grid efficiency, reliability and sustainability by smoothing out the fluctuations in power output from wind and solar plants. It will also reduce the need to build costly new fossil-fueled generation by absorbing excess wind generation during periods of low demand and releasing that energy at times of peak demand.
By one estimate, California will need four gigawatts of storage to meet its goal of achieving 33 percent renewable power by 2020.
The funded projects include advanced battery systems, flywheels and--PG&E's current focus--compressed air energy storage (CAES). Experts at the Electric Power Research Institute in Palo Alto say that CAES is the most cost-effective form of mass energy storage.
PG&E's $356 million compressed air energy storage project in Kern County will use night-time energy, when wind power is most abundant, to pump air into a porous rock formation deep underground. The compressed air will then be released to drive turbine generators as needed. The project will be big enough to deliver 300 megawatts of power--about as much as a mid-sized power plants--for up to 10 hours.
PG&E hopes to win approval before the end of the year from the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission for additional funds to match the DOE grant. The total should be enough to cover site planning, technology selection and project design. The utility will then put the project up for bid, with the expectation of it going operational by the end of 2014.
Supporters of the project include the Independent Energy Producers Association (IEPA), a California trade association representing many renewable energy developers, and the manager of the state's electric grid, the California Independent System Operator (CAISO).
"Energy storage promises to be a game changer for integrating renewable energy into California's resource mix," said Jan Smutney-Jones, executive director of IEPA. "This project will commercially prove-out compressed air storage leading the way for future projects."
"Large-scale energy storage technologies with multiple hour charge and discharge capabilities, such as compressed air storage, offer the potential to significantly help manage high penetration levels of variable renewable resources," said CAISO's director of system operations, Debi Le Vine.
PG&E is also considering a major expansion of its pumped hydro storage capacity, but that is expected to be a 10-year process, said Hal La Flash, PG&E's director of emerging clean technologies. Meanwhile, "We have thousands of megawatts of renewables coming on line so we also need storage technologies like CAES that can go into operation sooner."
Nov 24 2009
PG&E's request for a 20-year extension on its license extension to operate its Diablo Canyon Power Plant puts the utility in good company: More than 50 U.S. nuclear reactors have received license extensions from their original 40 years out to 60 years, acording to the World Nuclear Assocation.
The result has been a largely unheralded but dramatic contribution to this country's clean generation facilities. While utilities, politicians, investors and activists debate the merits of new nuclear construction, the old plants keep chugging away, producing greenhouse-gas-free power around the clock and generally at very attractive prices.
A recent story by Paul Voosen of Greenwire raises the remarkable possibility that America's nuclear plants may run another 50 or more years before being decommissioned.
Thanks to new research on how to detect and repair flaws associated with aging, one expert said that if nuclear plants are properly maintained, "technically, there is no age limit."
Nuclear energy provides about 20 percent of America's electric power, exceeded only by carbon-polluting fossil fuels. Without the license extensions made possible by improved maintenance, power shortages would have been "nothing short of catastrophic" and would have prompted massive construction of new coal- and gas-fired power plants, said Gary Was, the director of the University of Michigan's Phoenix Energy Institute.
Besides extending their plants' life, nuclear operators have also increased their efficiency and output, a process called "uprating." According to Power magazine, "Power uprates alone have added more than 5,600 MW since 1998 -- the equivalent of five new nuclear plants." Exelon's chairman, John Rowe, recently testified that future uprates could add an additional 8 gigawatts of capacity to the U.S. nuclear fleet.
Nov 23 2009
It's a dubious honor, but Chrysler can now boast of being number one--in average CO2 emissions per vehicle.
Based on preliminary data, the EPA reports that the average Chrysler vehicle for model year 2009 pumped out 476 grams of this greenhouse pollutant for every mile traveled, topping General Motors (447 g/mi) and Ford (434 g/mi).
Chrysler, which had the biggest improvement in emissions from 2007 to 2008, gave up nearly all those gains in this model year.
Mileage and CO2 emissions per mile are inversely related. Thus Chrysler's cars averaged only 18.7 mpg, compared to 20.5 for Ford.
Evidently the Big Three, or at least the majority of their customers, have only recently heard of global warming. In contrast, Honda, Hyundai-Kya, Toyota and Volkswagen all managed to build cars averaging less than 400 g/mi.
In fairness, Ford now has an impressive lineup of hybrid vehicles, like the highly rated Fusion, and plans to electrify at least 10 pecent of its fleet by 2020.
GM is preparing to unleash its highly anticipated hybrid electric Volt, which earned plaudits ("extremely refined vehicle") from a New York Times reporter who test drove it.
As for Chrysler, its new owner, Fiat, recently killed prospects of the automaker launching a new line of hybrid or all-electric vehicles. That should keep Chrysler on top of the list for some time to come.
Overall, thanks to Americans' love affair with big, heavy and fast vehicles, the cars and light trucks they buy have become more carbon polluting in recent years, not less, the EPA reports.
In 1987, the average light duty vehicle sold in the United States got 22 mpg and emitted 405 grams of CO2 per mile. By 2009, average fuel economy had declined to 21.1 mpg and CO2 emissions had risen to 422 g/mi.
On the brighter side, the average vehicle today can accelerate from 0 to 60 in only 9.5 seconds, down from 13.1 seconds in 1987, despite being 900 pounds heavier.
Nov 19 2009
For years now, critics have warned that the nascent electric car industry could run into a brick wall if world supplies of lithium, the third element in the periodic table, prove inadequate to supply tens of millions of new car batteries.
Lithium is the 33rd most common element, rarer in the earth's crust than yttrium, lanthanum, neodymium, rubidium and cerium. Reserves are concentrated mainly a few countries, most notably Chile, Bolivia and China, compounding concerns over future supplies.
Scientists haven't cracked the lithium shortage, but at least they know who's to blame for it: we are.
More precisely, the mysterious absence of lithium in the Sun is caused by the fact that it has planets, including our own. A new study of 500 stars shows that sun-like stars with planets burned up their lithium far more completely than those without planets.
Most lithium was created almost 14 billion years ago in the primordial Big Bang, not by fusion reactions within stars. The level of lithium in a star, therefore, is mainly a function of how quickly the star destroys it.
Unfortunately, the international team of scientists who took 10 years to make this discovery were unable to decide why planets make such a difference.
"There are several ways in which a planet can disturb the internal motions of matter in its host star, thereby rearrange the distribution of the various chemical elements and possibly cause the destruction of lithium. It is now up to the theoreticians to figure out which one is the most likely to happen," said Michel Mayor of the Swiss Observatoire de Genève.
Worse yet, the good scientists said nothing about how to make lithium more plentiful. Fortunately, optimists claim that if we just look a little more energetically, there will be plenty of the element available to meet foreseeable needs.
In fact, one mine under development in Kings Valley, Nevada has the potential to become one of the world's greatest producers of lithium. So our original planetary sin may not be so detrimental after all.
Nov 18 2009
Why do so many Americans stubbornly resist scientific evidence that carbon pollution is causing global warming? Perhaps because they believe their lying eyes.
The powerful scientific case for global warming continues to mount: The latest global temperature data from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies confirm that the world just experienced the hottest June-to-September period on record and the second hottest October on record.
But look more closely at the regional data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and you'll see one part of the world got a lot cooler this October: the continental United States. (Alaska, along with most far-northern latitudes, was sharply warmer.)
"For the contiguous U.S., the national temperature average during October 2009 was much-below average, ranking in the top five coolest such month," NOAA reported. For the first ten months of the year, most of the globe experience "warmer-than-average conditions . . . with the exception of cooler-than-average conditions across parts of Canada, the northern contiguous United States, the southern oceans, and along the northeastern Pacific Ocean."
Within the United States, nearly all of the Midwest and Eastern seabord have experienced cooler-then-normal temperatures this year, though most of the Southwest (including Southern California) experienced above normal temperatures.
Such regional cooling is almost certainly temporary, a random local deviation from the rising global average.
Still, it's no wonder much of the public is no longer clamoring for action. They can't see or feel what all the fuss is about. Talk of climate models and greenhouse gas effects is simply too abstract when the thermometer outside registers below normal.
As one blogger commented, "If you look back at 1937, during the middle of the dust bowl, the only thing that finally made Congress act to form the Civilian Conservation Corps was when soil from the plains blew straight into the Senate during a debate about Dust Bowl policy. If only a hurricane or a heat wave would hit D.C during the clean energy Senate hearings, then Congress might finally get some much needed fear in their hearts."
Nov 17 2009
In the everything-you-believed-is-wrong category, one of the most surprising was the recent claim by a National Research Council report that electric cars will bring no particular benefits to the environment--and in some respects could be even worse than gasoline-powered vehicles.
The report, entitled Hidden Costs of Energy, looked at the full lifecycle costs of grid-powered vehicles, including environmental damage caused by coal-fired plants that power them and the extra resources required to manufacture electric vehicles and their batteries.
The surprising conclusion appeared to gain support this month from a study in England by the Environmental Transport Association that prompted this headline in the Daily Telegraph of London: "Electric cars could lead an increase in carbon emissions."
Fortunately, there's plenty of evidence that electrification of transportation is still a sensible--indeed, probably an essential--step for curbing carbon pollution and urban smog.
In the case of the British study, it was complaining not about electric vehicles, but about European Union policies that give carmakers incentives to build more gas-guzzling SUVs in return for producing some clean EVs. Duh.
Meanwhile, let's not forget that a comprehensive study conducted two years ago by the Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council, concluded that widespread adoption of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) could "reduce GHG emissions from vehicles by more than 450 million metric tons annually in 2050 -- equivalent to removing 82.5 million passenger cars from the road."
Old news, you say? Well a study issued just this month by the consulting firm Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc., on "Meeting California's Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Reduction Goals" reports that doing so will require wholesale electrification of passenger transportation, nearly eliminating gasoline consumption.
"To achieve the state's GHG reduction targets, by 2020 the state will need approximately 2.6 million electric vehicles and PHEVs (out of 29 million total cars), and by 2050 90 percent of all new light duty vehicles must be nearly fully electric," it states.
Of course, California's electric generation is much cleaner than the rest of the country--PG&E produces only about 40 percent as much CO2 as the average utility, per kilowatt--and is getting cleaner as the state's utilities transition to more renewable energy.
But a major study by McKinsey last year concluded that even China--with its coal-heavy power mix--could reduce carbon pollution significantly by promoting electric vehicles.
Bottom line: grid-connected vehicles are good for the air and good for the planet. Whether they'll be good for your pocketbook when they start hitting the market next year is still an open question.
Nov 16 2009
The United States should aim to make electric vehicles account for 25 percent of all new car sales by 2020 and to use electric power for 75 percent of all miles traveled by cars and light trucks by 2040, a new industry group declared today.
This call for a transportation revolution was sounded by the non-partisan Electrification Coalition, which includes representatives of the full electric vehicle value chain: energy suppliers (including PG&E), battery makers, automakers, charging infrastructure providers, major transportation users and venture capitalists.
At an event in Washington, D. C., the coalition unveiled its "Electrification Roadmap," a call to accelerate the adoption of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles through focused public policy at the national, state and local levels.
Weaning this country off its addiction to oil will be a much greater challenge than sending astronauts to the moon. The coalition's report notes that
our cars, trucks, planes and ships rely on oil for 94 percent of their fuel, and there are no meaningful substitutes currently available at anything remotely approaching scale. In 2008 alone, the United States spent more than $900 billion dollars on gasoline, diesel, and other petroleum products.
At the same time, the status quo is unsustainable. Dependence on a single fuel source, found largely in an unstable part of the world, whose price fluctuates wildly, is both an economic and a security risk.
And as the level of CO2 in the atmosphere rises to levels that may trigger catastrophic global warming, dependence on burning oil is also a threat to global environmental security.
While biofuels or natural gas could provide alternative fuels, the coalition argues that dramatically increasing the use of grid-enabled vehicles--those propelled in whole or in part by energy stored in batteries charged by the electric grid--will best safeguard our economy, national security and environment.
Among the advantages of vehicle electrification are the diversity of domestic power sources, the relative stability of electricity prices, the availability of substantial spare generation capacity (especially at night) and the existence of a ubiquitous delivery infrastructure--the electric grid.
Thanks to the high efficiency of electric vehicles and the relatively low cost of electricity, the operating cost of electric vehicles typically runs only a third that of gasoline-powered vehicles, the report notes. Further improvements in battery technology should make grid-enabled vehicles fully price competitive within a few years.
Until that time, the report calls for substantial public incentives to accelerate the industry's growth: tax credits and loan guarantees to grow the battery market; modified building codes to promote installation of chargers in homes and public places; reimbursement of utilities for large-scale investment in upgraded distribution systems; and regulatory support for price plans that induce customers to charge at night, when demand is otherwise low.
Refreshingly, the group also calls for reduced tax credits and other financial support for the indstry starting in 2014. When the electric vehicle industry can stand on its own feet and outcompete traditional fuels and vehicles, the revolution will truly have arrived.
Nov 12 2009
While kitepower is still only an exciting concept as a source of renewable energy on land, it has already become a viable commercial product over water.
A kite flown over the ocean is just a sail by another name. SkySails, a company based in Hamburg, Germany, has reinvented the sailing ship by designing towing kites that dramatically cut the reliance of cargo vessels on polluting fuels.
Ocean-going ships are an enormous source of air pollution. They contribute nearly 3 percent of all the world's CO2 emissions. In addition, they emit about 9 percent of global sulphur oxides and at least a fifth of all nitrogen oxide pollution.
U.S. researchers estimated in 2007 that high-sulfur marine fuels caused the premature death of 60,000 people in 2002. The U.S. EPA has proposed tough new engine and fuel standards that could prevent 13,000 to 33,000 premature deaths by 2030 and produce health benefits of $110 billion to $280 billion annually.
One way to cut down on pollution is kitepower. Like a giant spinnaker, the 160-square-meter SkySail can tug ships forward with the equivalent force of a thousand horespower engine, reducing fuel consumption 10-to-30 percent, the company claims. That can save big money as well as reducing pollution.
Flying at an altitude of more than 100 meters, the sail picks up high-velocity winds, giving it several times more propulsion power than traditional sails. It doesn't require extensive rigging, and because it causes little or no heeling of the vessel, it is said to be far better suited to modern shipping than other sailing rigs.
When not in use, the kite can be folded into a space the size of a telephone booth.
Last year, Beluga Skysails became the first commercial cargo ship to cross the Atlantic--from Venezuela to Norway--with assistance from a towing kite, which provided 20 percent of the vessel's power.
Wessels Shipping Company is now equipping some of its new cargo ships with SkySails, and plans to retrofit the Beluga SkySails with a monster new 300 sq. meter towing kite. It should be fun to watch, but don't try hooking one of these babies up to your kiteboard unless you want to become an astronaut.
Nov 10 2009
In the short list of the world's best jobs, designing kites to produce renewable energy has to be right up there--the perfect combination of excitement, imagination and do-goodism.
So it was an enviable group of inventors, entrepreneurs and university researchers who gathered last week at Chico State University and Oroville from at least six countries for the world's first conference on high-altitude wind energy.
Their common focus was on finding ways to tap the vast energy potential of winds high in the atmosphere, including the mighty jet stream. And their common question, in the words of one speaker, was "how do we put together the industry?"
Kite power, as some call it, is one of those far-out but potentially game-changing sources of renewable energy. But in the judgment of Scientific American, "By the standards of revolutionary technologies, . . . high-altitude wind looks relatively straightforward and benign."
In a major study published in 2005, Cristina Archer (organizer of the Chico State conference) and her Stanford University thesis adviser, engineering professor Mark Jacobson, calculated that the amount of wind energy available just 80 meters above the earth's surface is 35 times the world's total power consumption.
"It's free energy, continuously guaranteed aslong as the Earth is what it is," Archer says.
At about six miles up, the jet stream produces even more energy--as much as 100 times the world's current consumption. But it will take more than a little engineering wizardry to tap.
Accordingly, a lot of playful wizards have put on their serious thinking caps.
Google-financed Makani Power, with an amazing engineering and creative team based in Alameda, is pursuing large kite designs that could produce megawatts of power. "This is the dawn of the new age of kites," said former CEO Saul Griffith.
The Italian company Kite Gen aims to deploy giant kites at an altitude of about 3,000 feet to exploit the faster wind speeds available at higher altitudes. As winds carry them aloft, the kites' unspooling tethers spin an alternator, generating power. Each kite may be able to produce about 3 megawatts of power.
But where would a developer put these kites to avoid bringing down an unwary 747? In otherwise off-limits airspace.
"To help visualizing the existing unexploited potential," the company notes, "just consider that the flight-prohibited area over a nuclear power plant can easily get to contain 1 GW of wind power, equal to the power of the plant itself."
An even more ambitious concept under development at Delft University in the Netherlands is an enormous loop of kits that turns like a ferris wheel in the sky. It could rise up to 30,000 feet and generate 100 MW of power.
In addition to all the obvious engineering challenges of operating generators so high in the sky, kite power has at least one other drawback: its energy source isn't completely reliable. Apparently even high-altitude winds die out about five percent of the time, something of a nuisance if you are running a hospital, operating a semiconductor fabrication line or watching the Superbowl.
"While there is enough power in these high altitude winds to power all of modern civilization, at any specific location there are still times when the winds do not blow," said Ken Caldeira at the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford. "This means that you either need back-up power, massive amounts of energy storage, or a continental or even global scale electricity grid to assure power availability. So, while high-altitude wind may ultimately prove to be a major energy source, it requires substantial infrastructure."
Nov 09 2009
Benjamin, the young man played by Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate, should have listened to the advice he got from Mr. McGuire: "There's a great future in plastics."
If he had, young Benjamin might have found a way to perfect production of carbon fiber-reinforced plastic (CFRP), a light and superbly strong but expensive composite material that enables a growing share of today's clean technology. In many applications it can replace heavier metal parts and reduce energy consumption.
Consumers already appreciate CFRP in niche products like high-end bicycle frames, tennis raquets, fishing rods and golf clubs. Formula One race car enthusiasts know that CFRP makes the lightest crash-resistant auto bodies, offering the highest performance where cost is no object.
The good news is that CFRP is now penetrating more markets as manufacturers find ways to automate its production.
Mainstream car buyers may soon be able to enjoy race car quality thanks to a new joint venture of BMW and SGL Group to mass produce carbon fiber auto bodies at a competitive price. BMW plans to make them integral to its lightweight hybrid Megacity vehicle.
Robert Koehler, CEO of the SGL Group, stated: "This joint venture with the BMW Group is a milestone for the use of carbon fibres on an industrial scale in the automobile industry. . . . This . . . shows that carbon fibre technology is becoming increasingly important in the materials substitution process to lighter material. This material will help to reduce CO2 emissions and save our natural resources."
The Aptera hypercar, nearing commercial production, will also use a composite body to lower weight and achieve the equivalent of more than 200 miles per gallon, while allowing occupants to survive high-speed crashes.
In a completely unrelated application, General Electric reportedly plans to introduce a radical wind turbine blade design based on carbon fiber composites. The key innovation is a new process that will permit mass production at affordable prices, in place of traditional labor-intensive methods.
The new carbon-fiber blades will weigh as much as one-third less than traditional blades, reducing installation costs and wear on gears and drive shafts. GE hopes to bring the technology to market by 2012, according to the manager of GE Global Research, interviewed in BusinessGreen.com.
Nov 04 2009
They say all politics are local. So are many of the issues driving PG&E to invest in smarter grids, according to PG&E Senior Director Andrew Tang, who delivered a keynote address at today's GreenTechMedia conference on "The Networked Grid."
One of the major drivers behind PG&E's smart grid program is systemic: the need to manage and balance the large fluctuations in output from increasing amounts of solar and wind energy, as PG&E increases its reliance on renewable power.
But at least two other issues, which get much less attention, are intensely local.
One is the rapid but uneven rise in rooftop solar installations connected to PG&E's grid. Today PG&E has about 300 megawatts of customer solar capacity in its service area--almost 40 percent of the nation's total--and that figure is expected to hit about 1,000 MW by 2014.
But the distribution of customer solar installations within PG&E's network is "very lumpy and concentrated," Tang said. San Francisco has 1,520 connected to PG&E's grid; San Jose has 1,430 and Fresno has about 1,250. The median city in PG&E's service area has only 12.
Where rooftop solar is concentrated, grid management issues can arise. The passage of clouds overhead can lead to rapid changes in power output and voltage fluctuations. PG&E will need smart sensing devices to monitor such changes so they can be corrected--with flexible conventional generation, energy storage devices or demand response programs. The latter two are prime smart grid applications.
Another emerging issue is charging of electric vehicles. Tang said PG&E's service area could easily host half a million such vehicles by 2020.
An electric car that charges in four hours at 240 volts represents the same load as a full-sized house in San Ramon--or nearly three homes in San Francisco, where average residential power demand is much lower.
If large numbers of EV customers decide to plug in their cars when they get home from work, the result could be an unwelcome spike in system load in the late afternoon, requiring expensive new generation and distribution facilities.
That won't be a problem for some time in many parts of PG&E's service area. But in green-minded cities like Berkeley, where 18 percent of new vehicle registrations are already hybrids, electric vehicles could soon put a big strain on the local electric grid.
The answer, Tang said, will be a combination of smart meters and "smart charging" capabilities to deliver power to thirsty batteries only at night when other loads taper off.
"People have talked about home automation for two decades," Tang said. "We think some aspects of home automation are finally becoming feasible at reasonable price points. [PG&E's] role needs to be the enabler. Our SmartMeter(tm) has a home area network chip so you can know how much energy you are using right now and what the energy is costing you.
"We are also working on smart charging for EVs," he continued. "If we give people the technology to plug their car into the wall, knowing it will be charged by morning, it will be customer friendly." The key, he emphasized, will be educating customers about the benefits they soon will be able to enjoy from these smart grid programs.
Nov 04 2009
With billions of dollars now flowing into the "smart grid" market--from utilities, venture capitalist and now the Department of Energy--it's no wonder more than 400 people showed up today for a conference at PG&E on "The Networked Grid."
Organized by GreenTechMedia, noted for its reporting and market research on clean technology, the conference is covering current and planned utility deployments of smart grid technology, communications infrastructure, home area networks and the challenges of integrating renewable and distributed energy on a mass scale.
Rick Thompson, co-founder and COO of GreenTechMedia, kicked off the conference with preliminary findings of a new survey of North American utilities, which confirm the high level of ferment in the smart grid market.
Over half of utilities surveyed are now in the preliminary stages of planning or running pilots for smart grid applications; about half expect to deploy smart meters to a majority of their customers in the next three years; half plan to run pilot tests of charging electric vehicles over the next couple of years; and half plan to deploy utility-scale energy storage on their grids within five years.
The biggest benefit they see from smart grid is reduction in peak demand, which will limit the need for new power generation investments. Other leading benefits include energy efficiency (good for the environment and the pocketbook) and reduced outages.
The biggest challenges they see are regulatory barriers and the lack of technology standards, which are needed to ensure that equipment from various manufacturers will work together on the same grid.
Another major challenge is ensuring the security of utility communications networks that relay customer data or control grid operations. "We need intelligent security," said Erfan Ibrahim, a senior technologist at the Electric Power Research Institute. "Just building a big wall won't keep (intruders) out."
GreenTechMedia's Thompson said the single biggest concern of utilities is the challenge of managing, storing, protecting and effectively using the vast amount of data that smart grids will generate. Utilities, including PG&E, may need to dedicate entire datacenters just to andling and processing the hourly meter reads from smart meters, which replace the monthly reads of old.
Andrew Campbell, advisor to CPUC commissioner Rachelle Chong, noted that the regulatory body adopted a policy in 2003 that all electric customers should have smart meters. The commission's goal--well on its way to implementation--was to permit the introduction of time-varying pricing to induce customers to shift demand away from peak periods.
But as PG&E's Kevin Dasso noted, the many new capabilities of smart meters will require changing the traditional relationship between utilities and their customers. "We need to work with customers to help them take advantage of the meters' capabilities. . . . We have to make sure we are communicating with our customers . . . to help them make the transition to what smart grid can offer them."
Oct 29 2009
The geothermal power industry, which has suffered several well-publicized setbacks in recent months, today got a huge financial and morale boost in the form of up to $338 million in Recovery Act grants from the Department of Energy to support research, exploration and development of new production fields.
The matching grants will help fund 123 projects in 39 states. As much as $133 million will go to support the promising new field of "enhanced geothermal systems" (EGS), which involves drilling deep into hot rocks to develop power resources in locations that were never previously considered candidates for geothermal energy.
If EGS proves economically feasible, relatively clean, renewable geothermal energy could go from a niche resource to a major contributor to U.S. power needs. Total geothermal capacity in the United States today is about 3,100 megawatts, of which 2,600 MW are in California. The U.S. Geological Survey estimated that the nation's geothermal resources could in theory support 500,000 megawatts of generation, almost half of all electricity consumed in the United States.
And a report produced in 2006 at Massachusetts Institute of Technology concluded that with a few hundred million dollars in R&D to jumpstart the industry--on the order of what DOE is now providing--EGS could feasibly produce 100,000 MW of power by 2050, enough for about 85 million homes.
"Geothermal energy from EGS represents a large, indigenous resource that can provide base-load electric power and heat at a level that can have a major impact on the United States while incurring minimal environmental impacts," according to the MIT study. "Further, EGS provides a secure source of power for the long term that would help protect America against economic instabilities resulting from fuel price fluctuations or supply disruptions."
Four of the new DOE grants are for EGS projects at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a prime center of research on clean energy. They will help engineers better understand how hot fluids move through fractured rock deep underground.
One study will examine the potential for using carbon dioxide to absorb heat from underground rocks for use in electricity generation, an idea that's getting a lot of attention of late.
Last month, two companies--Enhanced Oil Resources Inc. and GreenFire Energy--announced a joint venture to evaluate the potential for CO2-based geothermal power in parts of Arizona and New Mexico. They hope to start building a 2 MW demonstration plant next year. If it works, one could imagine capturing CO2 from coal plants, injecting it underground and producing geothermal energy from the hot fluid.
Oct 29 2009
Last week we looked at the remarkable history of electric cars, which enjoyed a U.S. market share of nearly 40 percent a century ago.
But let's not forget the brief but glorious history of hybrid vehicles. AutoblogGreen reminds us that the sleek Woods Dual Power Coupe--1916 Model 44 shown here--was powered by both an electric motor and a 4-cylinder internal combustion engine.
According to Wikipedia, this hybrid model was produced in Chicago by Woods Motor Vehicle Company from 1915 to 1918 and reached a top speed of 35 mph.
They cost about $2,700 each--without tax breaks or subsidies. That's about $55,000 today.
Oct 28 2009
Nearly 34,000 PG&E customers had grid-connected solar power installations by the end of September--64 percent of the total for California's investor-owned utilities (IOUs), according to the latest progress report from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC).
Together, the three IOUs have now passed 50,000 customer solar installations and 500 megawatts of customer solar capacity, both impressive milestones. About half that capacity has been installed since 2007, when the utilities began offering special incentives under the California Solar Initiative.
The initiative, endorsed by the state legislature and overseen by the CPUC, aims to support creation of a strong solar market in California and to drive prices lower as the market grows and matures. Over the past five quarters, the report notes, the average cost per watt of installed photovoltaic systems has dropped between 9 and 13 percent, depending on size.
The number of new residential applications hit a record high of 2,123 in August--1,602 at PG&E alone--as customers sought to get their applications in before utility incentives were scheduled to decline.
The promotion of so much new clean power--and the jobs that come with it--speaks well of the state's program, the utilities that administer it and especially of the social consciousness of Californians who are doing their part for the environment.
But like many good things, it comes with a price. Rooftop solar is one of the most expensive sources of power. To date, California's IOUs have paid out $605 million in incentives for customer solar installations under the state program, with another $293 million in incentives pending.
Some critics question whether subsidies for residential solar are too high. Even accounting for the special benefits of rooftop solar--including the fact that it produces no carbon emissions, needs no transmission capacity and tends to peak in mid-day, when power is needed most--the social cost currently outweighs its benefits, according to University of California energy economist Severin Borenstein.
Needless to say, his view isn't particularly popular. But all should agree on the importance of driving down costs further--to make solar an even bigger win for customers and the environment we all cherish.
Oct 27 2009
The Obama administration today issued a huge vote of confidence in the utility industry's commitment to providing customers with more reliable, efficient and sustainable electric service: It announced $3.4 billion in grants to leverage more than $8 billion in total investments in "smart grid" technology and systems.
The programs funded include mass deployments of smart meters, in-home energy displays and distribution and transmission automation systems. The White House predicts they will create tens of thousands of jobs across the country, reduce the frequency of power outages that cost American consumers $150 billion a year, and help make possible energy savings of $20 billion a year by 2030.
California utilities will receive $203 million in funds from the Department of Energy. Other large state recipients were North Carolina ($404 million), Florida ($267 million), Texas ($258 million) and Pennsylvania ($233 million).
Ultimately, all utilities--and more important, their customers--should benefit from the lessons these projects will provide in how best to implement high-tech systems that help people manage energy more wisely and sustainably.
PG&E, which leads the nation in smart meter deployments, did not receive funding for its proposed customer energy management project, in collaboration with IBM, Cisco, Stanford University, the city of San Jose and other partners.
However, with funding previously approved by the California Public Utilities Commission, PG&E still plans a project to demonstrate Home Area Network technology. As PG&E's Chief Customer Officer Helen Burt wrote in Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle, such technology will allow smart meters to "communicate with in-home displays that show customers how much energy they are using and at what price, and with smart appliances, which can be programmed to operate during hours when there's less demand for power and lower prices."
PG&E is also part of a consortium led by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC), which won stimulus funds to improve monitoring and performance of the 14-state Western electric grid.
WECC's $108 million project--which will be supported by a $54 million grant from the Department of Energy--will install sophisticated sensors, called phasor measurement units, at key points around the grid and connect them with a new data communications infrastructure.
The sensors will help operators improve grid reliability, free up transmission capacity and facilitate greater integration of intermittent renewable generation, like wind and solar power, into Western electricity markets.
PG&E also has another proposal--to build a compressed air energy storage facility that will store off-peak wind energy and release it during peak afternoon hours--which is still being reviewed by the DOE as part of the smart grid stimulus funding program.
Oct 21 2009
It won't be long now before the wizards of clean automotive technology around the world finally begin selling a broad assortment of electric vehicles--at least to those who can afford price tags of $40,000 and up.
Enthusiastic as I am, part of me still can't help but wonder, what took them so long?
It turns out that successful electric car technology long predates the General Motors EV-1, a triumph of design that was rudely abandoned in 2002. In fact, the first crude electric carriages were first brought to market in the 1830s--nearly two centuries ago!
Inventors in Europe made rapid headway as battery technology improved. In 1899, a French-designed electric vehicle broke the world land speed record, reaching over 65 miles per hour.
Americans came late to the race, but Electric Carriage and Wagon Company in Philadelphia supplied the first fleet of electric taxis to New York in 1897. Soon established companies like Edison, Studebaker and Riker were producing and selling electric cars. The first car designed and built by Ferdinand Porsche was electric, with front-wheel drive and automatic transmission.
By the early 20th century, more than 33,000 electric cars were registered in the United States--a number not surpassed until 2003. A typical electric car sold in 1912 for $1,750, less than $40,000 in today's dollars.
Anderson Electric Car Company in Detroit began selling the popular Detroit Electric in 1907. Its range was advertised as 80 miles between charges--but it ran in one test for 211 miles! Buyers included Thomas Edison (of course) and John D. Rockefeller, Jr., who apparently didn't mind that the car used no petroleum. Women (including Henry Ford's wife Clara) reportedly appreciated the fact that it started quickly and smoothly without hand cranking and didn't backfire. In all, the company sold about 14,000 electric cars. (A 1916 Detroit Electric Touring Car is on display at the San Jose Historical Museum.)
So why didn't electric cars make it? One reason, certainly, was lack of range for long-distance touring. Another reason was aggressive price-cutting by Henry Ford on gas-powered vehicles like the Model T.
And at least one historian claims the big mistake automakers made was marketing the electric cars to women--complete with "poofy couches, lace curtains, and bud vases as standard equipment"--even though men made the buying decisions in most households.
Oct 20 2009
This year's bienniel Solar Decathlon competition, sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy, produced another remarkable outpouring of home design innovation from university-led teams around the world--including Team California, which combined the talents of Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts.
Although Team Germany ("Old Europe") won for the second time in a row, leaving California in third place, nearly every team excelled in some area.
For example, the University of Illinois, with its Midwest-style Gable Home, won the appliance competition, managing to run a refrigerator, freezer, washer, dryer and dishwasher entirely from solar power. They also won for producing the most solar-heated water for their shower.
The University of Louisiana at Lafayette's BeauSoleil home won for market viability, based on cost-effective construction and solar technology.
Team Germany, with its "Cube House," won for most comfort--based on indoor temperature and relative humidity--and for generating the most excess solar power for sale back to the utility grid. It managed to produce surplus power despite three days of rain.
And Team California? I'm proud to say, as a communications professional, that they won for best PR, with a score of 69.75 points out of a possible 75. Way to go, California!
All snarking aside, Team California's Refract House also won for best architecture, based on aesthetics, functionality, use of space, integration of design and design surprises.
Well done, all.
Oct 19 2009
Good news for a change from the scientists who study global warming: the Earth's thermostat can be held below dangerously high levels over the next few decades if we take collective action against highly potent but widely ignored agents of warming other than CO2.
Cutting harmful hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs) used in refrigeration, black carbon soot from dirty diesel engines and ovens, ozone smog and methane "can buy us about 40 years before we approach the dangerous threshold of 2°C (3.6°F) warming," said Veerabhadran Ramanathan, a leading expert on climate and atmospheric sciences at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego and co-author of a paper published last week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Reining in these pollutants shouldn't take a superhuman effort, the authors note. Substitutes already exist for HFCs--which are 350 times more potent than CO2--and could be promoted by expanded enforcement of the Montreal Protocol treaty that was adopted in the late 1980s to prevent destruction of the ozone layer. EPA today proposed phasing out HFCs in automobile air conditioners.
And black carbon soot, which absorbs sunlight and causes melting of glaciers and Arctic ice, could quickly be reduced by installing filters on diesel vehicles and replacing wood- or dung-burning stoves with solar cookstoves.
Meanwhile, more than three trillion cubic feet of methane escape into the atmosphere every year, mostly in Russia and the United States, from leaky natural gas wells, pipelines and tanks. Methane is about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide as a heat-trapping gas.
Reversing the Bush administration's hands-off policy, the Obama administration may require oil and gas companies to begin reporting their carbon emissions, the first step toward mandating steps to seal such leaks. The EPA estimates that ordinary methane leaks at gas wells trap as much heat as the CO2 emitted by 8 million cars.
Engineers at BP have discovered that investing in measures to catch methane emissions at their wells saves three times as much as it costs, reports The New York Times.
"This for me is an absolute no-brainer, even more so than putting in those compact fluorescent bulbs in your house," said Al Armendariz, an engineer at Southern Methodist University.
Oct 15 2009
I already know what I want for Christmas 2020: a nuclear-powered wristwatch. That would one-up Dick Tracy for sure.
What will make it possible is a miniature nuclear battery the size of a penny, developed by researchers at the University of Michigan. By the time they shrink it to the thickness of a human hair, it should be fit for all manner of portable applications, including my watch.
And with about a million times the power of a conventional chemical battery, it could render most other batteries obsolete.
Nuclear batteries use emissions of charged particles from radioactive materials to generate small currents--a concept dating back to 1913 when British physicist Henry Moseley developed the Beta Cell. They can also convert the heat from radioactive decay into power.
Nuclear batteries have actually been used in space satellites and remote scientific stations that require long-lived power sources.
In 2005, a multi-university research team announced a small nuclear battery that could be used for pacemakers or other low-power devices. It used a silicon wafer to capture electrons fired by radioactive materials, like the hydrogen isotope tritium. The scientists explained that the radioactive emissions were too weak to penetrate the skin, making the battery safe to wear or implant.
The innovation of the Missouri researchers is to use a liquid semiconductor to capture electrons rather than solid silicon, which extends the battery life. I'll just have to take it on faith for now that the battery won't shorten my life.
Oct 14 2009
"On a remote edge of Utah's dry and arid high desert," writes reporter James Bamford, "hard-hatted construction workers with top-secret clearances" are building one of the world's biggest data centers. "At a million square feet, the mammoth $2 billion structure will be one-third larger than the U.S. Capitol and will use the same amount of energy as every house in Salt Lake City combined."
The client isn't Google or Microsoft but the super-secret and scandal-plagued National Security Agency, responsible for codebreaking and "signals intelligence" (SIGINT) in times of peace and war. "SIGINT is critical to monitoring terrorist activities, arms control compliance, narcotics trafficking, and the development of chemical and biological weapons and weapons of mass destruction," explained CIA Director George Tenet in 2000.
The NSA usually keeps out of the spotlight--except when caught illegally wiretapping--but it dwarfs the better-known CIA. Intelligence historian Matthew Aid, author of a new book on the NSA, estimates its current budget at $8 billion. The NSA itself says it is "comparable in size and budget to the top 10% of Fortune 500 companies."
That kind of money comes in handy when trying to build a network of supercomputers big enough to store and analyze trillions of phone calls, emails, web sites, radio broadcasts, radar signals. Like the Air Force's legendary Area 51 in Nevada, the NSA's new classified data facility is too big to hide. The construction budget for the NSA's Camp Williams Data Center PH 1 in fiscal year 2010 alone is $800 million.
Much like its civilian counterparts, the NSA is finding that collecting enough computing power in one place is only the start of its problems. Next comes the challenge of feeding its massive new complex with enough electrical power.
Data center power usage was estimated in 2005 to cost $18.5 billion and is doubling every five years, according to researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Today they reportedly use more power than the state of Massachusetts. The exponential growth in power use at data centers has become the top infrastructure concern of IT executives--apparently including those at NSA.
By one estimate, a typical large data center today runs about 50,000 square feet and consumes five megawatts of power. The NSA's Utah data center will be 20 times larger and require more juice than some power plants generate.
The importance of this issue comes through in a report from the Salt Lake City Tribune: "[T]he initial phase of the project is expected to include more than $52 million in preparatory electrical work -- much of that is likely to be spent connecting two large power corridors that run through Camp Williams to the construction site near the base airstrip. The next phases of the project will include $340 million in electrical work . . ."
One reason the NSA is building the new complex in Utah (and a companion installation in Texas) is that its "city-sized" headquarters in Fort Meade, Maryland, has nearly reached the limits of its capacity to add more data processing equipment. Already it spends $70 million a year on electric power alone--and that's before it finishes building a power generation upgrade at a cost this fiscal year of $176 million.
Bamford, author of three authoritative books on the NSA, notes, "The issue is critical because at the NSA, electrical power is political power. In its top-secret world, the coin of the realm is the kilowatt. More electrical power ensures bigger data centers. Bigger data centers, in turn, generate a need for more access to phone calls and e-mail and, conversely, less privacy. The more data that comes in, the more reports flow out. And the more reports that flow out, the more political power for the agency."
Note to the NSA: PG&E runs one of the country's leading utility programs to promote energy efficiency in data centers. If you want to keep your power bills down, call Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager for high tech in PG&E's customer energy efficiency group.
Oct 13 2009
Whoever succeeds in framing the debate usually wins the argument. So it's no wonder that critics who decry what they call "cap and tax" have been gaining ground on those who maintain that "greenhouse gas emissions" must be curbed to prevent "climate change" and "global warming."
After all, no one likes taxes. As for global warming, it might sound welcome if you live in North Dakota or New Hampshire. And don't greenhouses grow pretty flowers?
Maybe that's why most people put global warming at or near the bottom of their list of concerns, despite urgent warnings from so many scientists.
Supporters of climate change legislation have finally realized that words matter. Whenever possible, they don't even talk about the climate anymore. The House bill is called the "American Clean Energy And Security Act of 2009." And the new Senate bill is called the "Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act."
People may not care much about the climate in the short run, but in a recession, everyone can relate to jobs. And in a world wracked by terrorism, everyone wants America to be powerful.
Similarly, the Senate bill talks about pollution reduction, not "cap and trade," a mysterious concept to most Americans. And it speaks of "carbon pollution" rather than "greenhouse gases," an innovation that President Obama adopted back in April, when he spoke to the National Academy of Sciences, and repeated in his speech to the U.N. Summit on Climate Change in New York last month.
Other officials now refer to "heat-trapping pollutants" to engage wider audiences who otherwise tune out when faced with technical scientific jargon.
Said Edward Maibach, director of the Center for Climate Change Communication at George Mason University, "The word 'pollution' is more concrete to people than the term 'greenhouse gases. There's a fair amount of research showing that people don't understand the phrase 'greenhouse gas' very well. 'Heat-trapping pollution' is a very good, concrete way to express what's going on with climate change."
On the opposite end of the spectrum, global-warming deniers at the Competitive Entprise Institute have run ads with the slogan: "Carbon dioxide. They call it pollution. We call it life."
The big question now is what will the American people, and their representatives in Congress, call it?
Oct 12 2009
Is the solution to global warming to burn more natural gas?
That's basically the claim of one of the world's leading oilmen--Royal Dutch Shell CEO Peter Voser. Implausible and self-serving though it appears at first, his assertion finds support from some serious environmentalists.
Voser's point--made last week in a speech in Washington at a Woodrow Wilson International Center forum--is that natural gas can replace coal as a transitional fossil fuel until wind, solar and other forms of renewable energy become more widely deployed.
"Renewable energy, while important and necessary, is not a silver bullet that is going to solve all of our problems, at least not for a long time yet," Voser said. In the meantime, "Coal-fired electricity is responsible for the fastest growth in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. It is urgent that we address that. Supplying more natural gas is one way of doing that."
Though natural gas does produce greenhouse gases and other pollutants when burned, it emits only half as much heat-trapping carbon dioxide as coal and far fewer toxic emissions like mercury. It drives modern combined cycle gas turbines and combined heat-and-power plants at very high efficiency.
And, no small matter, it now appears to be extremely abundant and inexpensive.
New techniques for producing gas from shale fields have led to soaring U.S. gas reserves and plunging prices. Extended worldwide, the new drilling techniques may double global gas reserves, enough to meet hundreds of years of demand, according to a recent study by HIS Cambridge Energy Research Associates.
This June, the noted climate expert Joseph Romm began publishing a series of long articles on his blog Climate Progress, arguing that by displacing coal in a large fraction of U.S. power plants, "natural gas alone could essentially meet the entire Waxman-Markey CO2 target for 2020 -- without requiring gobs of new power plants to be sited and built or thousands of miles of new transmission lines."
He added, "it is widely seen, even by groups as green as Greenpeace, as a plausible transition fuel for the next two to three decades as we aggressively ramp up wind, solar PV, concentrated solar thermal, biomass, geothermal, and other ultra-low-carbon energy sources."
Natural gas is also an excellent complement to renewable energy. A study prepared for the California Energy Commission this May noted that flexible natural gas-fired generation--which can ramp up or down quickly--is ideal for balancing the fluctuating output of wind and solar plants. Indeed, the report concluded, additional gas generation could actually lead to lower greenhouse gas emissions by allowing the electrical grid to take on more renewables than it could otherwise handle reliably.
However, some environmentalists warn that new gas extraction processes may cause groundwater contamination from benzene and other toxic compounds used to fracture shale rock. This summer, several members of Congress introduced the "Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act" to impose federal regulations on hydraulic fracturing.
Oct 09 2009
The cost of combatting carbon pollution could be slashed tens of billions of dollars by investing in forest protection programs in the developing world, according to a bipartisan report by the Commission on Climate and Tropical Forests. Spending $60 billion to preserving rain forests in Brazil, Indonesia and other countries from destruction by fire and conversion to cattle ranching or soybean farming could cut emissions as much as spending $110 billion on carbon-limiting measures in the United States.
The global recession has temporarily curbed heat-trapping emissions, buying the world a tiny bit of extra time as nations struggle to commit to fighting carbon pollution, according to the International Energy Agency. But the agency warned that every year of delay will cost the world $500 billion in additional investments needed to head off the consequences of global warming.
The American Farm Bureau Federation continues to oppose climate change legislation in Congress, but a new study by an environmental group suggests the farm lobby's concerns are misplaced. "A more careful examination of the facts shows that climate change itself, not climate legislation, is the real threat to American agriculture, and that climate-induced crop losses will cost US taxpayers and farmers far more than could ever be caused by the (House) bill," the Environmental Working Group said in its report.
In a useful reminder that global warming isn't the only cause of natural disasters, scientists at Columbia University have concluded that drought conditions ravaging states in the Southeast have mainly been caused by rising population and poor water management, not exceptionally dry conditions. Another scientist commenting on the study said, "This should be a wakeup call. If this [drought] is not the worst-case scenario, what are we going to do when the worst-case scenario arrives?"
Oct 07 2009
These may be the best of times and the worst of times for geothermal energy.
Of late, the worst has garnered the most publicity, as stories in the New York Times have probed the link between deep-rock drilling, water injection and seismic events (read: earthquakes).
A promising demonstration project by geothermal pioneer AltaRock Energy at The Geysers in Sonoma County was suspended at the beginning of September due to "geologic anomalies." Drilling problems also plagued Australia's Petratherm, Ltd. A well blowout set back another Australian geothermal leader, Geodynamics, Ltd.
And a much-touted new plant in Beaver, Utah isn't producing water hot enough to generate significant amounts of electricity--and will need millions of dollars in new investment to fix.
The good news, according to a new report from the Geothermal Energy Association, is that 144 new geothermal projects, totaling 7,000 megawatts of potential capacity, are being developed in 14 states.
If all come to fruition, admittedly unlikely, the total output would be enough to serve the needs of 7 million people.
Nevada leads with 64 projects with combined capacity of almost 3,500 MW. California is next with 37 projects that could supply as much as 2,400 MW.
Although the industry continues to make progress despite the recession, the high cost of drilling--and the uneven track record of companies pioneering deep geothermal wells--make financing these projects a challenge.
Companies also face long delays in getting drilling permits for federal sites from the Bureau of Land Management, which has been overwhelmed by demand from renewable energy developers, especially in the solar sector.
Industry veterans also complain on the long wait for stimulus funds from the Department of Energy's Geothermal Technologies Program.
"Investors are basically waiting to see who is going to get DOE funding," said the report's author, Dan Jennejohn. "They are more reluctant to invest in geothermal projects until the DOE funding comes out."
Oct 05 2009
To Princeton economist Alan Blinder, who was among the first to propose it, "Cash for Clunkers" seemed like a win-win. "If done successfully," he wrote last year, a program of government payments to scrap older, polluting cars "holds the promise of performing a remarkable public policy trifecta -- stimulating the economy, improving the environment and reducing income inequality all at the same time."
But critics now question whether the "Car Allowance Rebate System," as the government blandly called it, might have been a lose-lose proposition instead.
After a huge surge in August stimulated by government rebates of up to $4,500, car sales by U.S. manufacturers plunged in September after the program expired, according to new sales figures.
"The reports of monthly sales numbers confirmed predictions that some of the spectacular gains of August had merely been achieved by moving up sales that would have happened in September," according to the Washington Post.
Blinder himself--who criticized the program for being much too brief--conceded that the $3 billion spent was "mostly" a waste.
Just as disappointing, consumer surveys suggest that the replacement of older, more polluting cars with cleaner new models may not result in fewer harmful emissions after all.
The new cars purchased under the program average almost 25 miles per gallon, compared to the average 16 mpg of clunkers handed over to the government for scrapping.
Unfortunately, customers say they plan to drive their new cars much farther each year--an average of 10,900 miles versus 6,200 miles annually for their clunkers. The extra miles more than offset the improved fuel economy.
According to one calculation, "The approximately 700,000 total vehicles moved under the program will therefore use an additional 42 million gallons of fuel annually during the first years of ownership."
That's a paradox familiar to students of energy efficiency. Sometimes called the rebound effect--or the 'Khazzoom-Brookes Postulate'--it notes that any technology that saves energy in effect makes energy cheaper, thus encouraging more use that offsets some of the savings.
That's why many economists say if you really want to reduce vehicle carbon emissions, there's no better way than raising gas taxes. Higher gas taxes encourage people to drive less and switch to more fuel-efficient cars. And in principle, the revenue can be used to soften the blow on the poor by improving public transit or lowering other taxes.
Oct 02 2009
Global warming skeptics have long claimed that climate models are imperfect. Now many scientists says they are half right: "We've observing changes that are happening much faster than the climate models have predicted," said Nalân Koç, director of the Centre for Ice, Climate and Ecosystems at the Norwegian Polar Institute. The dramatic loss of ice in the Arctic is happening "30 years ahead of time," he added.
The U.S. Senate is poised to begin considering climate change legislation sponsored by Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and John Kerry, D-Mass. The bill aims to cut carbon emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels by 2020. Republicans complained that the bill is "more aggressive" than the House-passed alternative. Adding to the pressure for action is the EPA's proposal to begin regulating carbon pollution from coal-fired power plants, refineries and other major sources.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, stung by defections of several major utilities (PG&E, PNM Resources, Exelon) and dissent from other companies (Nike, Johnson & Johnson), insists that critics who claim the organization opposes climate legislation are "dead wrong." The critics, in turn, cite a long list of documented cases of the Chamber endorsing global warming deniers and warning that legislation would be "disruptive" to the economy.
Countries in the developing world will need as much as $100 billion per year to help them adapt to climate change, according to a new report by the World Bank. The estimate was based on a forecast of warming that many scientists say is already outdated and much too low.
Oct 01 2009
On the opening day of the 2009 West Coast Green conference at San Francisco's Fort Mason Center, it was clear that the recession has trimmed the number of attendees--who paid up to $895 to register--but not their enthusiasm.
The show, devoted to green innovation, expects about 10,000 attendees over its three days, down about a thousand from previous years. And this year people are walking on concrete, not carpet, to save money.
But with dozens of speakers, education and networking sessions, and more than 150 exhibitors, the conference is a veritable cornucopia of resources for the sustainable building and design community.
Perhaps the most eye-popping exhibit, and certainly the most popular, was a trailer equipped with enough food storage, water and electricity to last a week, without connection to any utilities. It can fit inside a shipping container for quick transport in case of emergency.
Of course, the maker, Green Horizon, doesn't call them trailers. Rather, they are The Next Generation of On-Demand, Self-Sustaining Housing Solutions.
The Medical Unit and the Communications Unit might appeal to disaster preparedness agencies, but I kind of like the Bunk House Unit, which could help parents cope with family emergencies, like out-of-control kids.
Another interesting item was the Stak Block from Oryzatech Inc. These high-insulation blocks, made of rice straw, can be fit together to build load-bearing walls while sequestering carbon.
The conference got its start about a decade ago at PG&E's Pacific Energy Center, and the utility has been a sponsor ever since. As Platinum Sponsor this year, PG&E representatives are talking in-depth to attendees about residential new construction, new efficiency options and incentives, energy savings tips and rebates and making energy use carbon neutral with ClimateSmart(tm) .
PG&E CEO Peter Darbee also presented the inaugural "West Coast Green Collaboration Award" to the California Academy of Sciences for its commitment to getting the entire community involved in combating climate change. In its first year since the new Academy opened, it has already touched the lives of millions as the greenest museum in the world. The Academy received the highest LEED rating from the U.S. Green Building Council and it consumes 30 to 35 percent less energy than current codes require. PG&E has worked closely with the Academy to develop creative exhibits on climate change.
Thanks to Jack Chang, Susie Martinez and Andrew Souvall for contributing to this item.
Sep 30 2009
While you're relaxing with a fine bottle of wine from Napa Valley, some microbes may be hard at work turning the winery's wastewater into hydrogen that can run vehicles and power supplies.
Bruce Logan, a professor of environmental engineering at Penn State, has enlisted Napa Wine Company in Oakville to test his refrigerator-sized hydrogen generator. Tiny bacteria break down the organic waste from the winemaking process--pulp, seeds, stems and cleaning water--in an electrolysis plant to create hydrogen gas. The process is called electrohydrogenesis.
His demonstration system processes about 1,000 liters of wastewater each day. "There is almost 10 times more energy in the wastewater than we use to currently treat it," Logan said.
Napa Wine Company, which offered its facilities for the test, grows grapes on more than 635 acres. It has produced more than 100 consecutive harvests and is now 100 percent organically certified.
In 2005, Popular Mechanics magazine gave Logan and two colleagues a Breakthrough Award for his early work using microbial electric generators to produce hydrogen. The National Science Foundation heralded their early device as being up to twice as efficient as other biological systems for creating hydrogen, and flexible enough to digest human or animal waste as well as plant material.
"Bruce Logan is a clear leader in this area of research on sustainable energy," said Bruce Hamilton, director of the environmental sustainability program at NSF, which funds his work.
To learn more--or build a microbial fuel cell yourself--check out Logan's helpful web site.
Sep 29 2009
The following dispatch, regarding disturbing new findings about the acidification of the ocean due to rising CO2 levels, comes from John Lindsey, a colleague of mine at PG&E based in San Luis Obispo County:
Since the industrial age, concentrations of CO2 in the atmosphere have increased by about 100 parts per million (ppm) to about 380 ppm. Ice core samples from the Arctic show it is now higher than it has been in the last 650,000 years.
Scientists surveying the near shore waters off the California coastline have discovered higher levels of dissolved carbon dioxide in the water column.
"The absorption of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into the ocean lowers the pH of the waters" said Burke Hales, an associate professor in the College of Oceanic and Atmospheric Sciences at Oregon State University. "This so-called ocean acidification could have important consequences for marine ecosystems," he noted.
Hale recently co-authored a paper called "Evidence for Upwelling of Corrosive Acidified Water onto the Continental Shelf."
As the world's oceans absorb growing levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, a greater amount of carbonic acid is formed. That has a corrosive effect on aragonite, the calcium carbonate mineral that forms the shells of many marine creatures.
This condition could have a profound effect on zooplankton, pteropods and other marine invertebrates that sustain many of our commercial fish, such as juvenile salmon. Other research indicates that abalone may also be adversely affected.
Over the last few years, the northwesterly winds have blown with greater strength and consistency, with fewer periods of relaxation. As surface waters are blown out to sea, this condition produces a greater amount of upwelling from the ocean depths and cooler near-shore seawater temperatures along the northern and central coast of California.
"The upwelling and the phytoplankton blooms have been larger along the West Coast," Hales said. "When the material produced by these blooms decomposes, it puts more CO2 into the system, decreases the levels of dissolve oxygen and increases the acidification."
"Even if we somehow got our atmospheric CO2 level to immediately quit increasing," Hales added, "we'd still have increasingly acidified ocean water to contend with over the next 50 years."
His study was funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and is part of a planned series of biennial observations of the carbon cycle along the West Coast of the continent.
Sep 25 2009
Climate researchers now say the global thermometer will rise an average of more than 6 degrees F over the rest of the century even if countries around the world follow through on their promises to slash emissions, according to a new forecast released by the United Nations Environment Program. Such warming is double what many scientists and policymakers say the world can sustain without catastrophic consequences.
Satellite observations show severe thinning of glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica--as much as 30 feet per year along parts of the coast of Antarctica. "It's the way that some ice sheets in the past--at the end of the last ice age--appear to have collapsed and caused very rapid sea level rise," said Hamish Pritchard, lead author of the study published in Nature.
The Environmental Protection Agency has ruled that large emitters of carbon pollution--about 10,000 facilities that emit the equivalent of more than 25,000 tons per year of carbon dioxide--must begin collecting and reporting their emissions data. The EPA has threatened to begin regulating carbon pollution if Congress fails to act on climate legislation.
The United Nations' climate chief, Yvo de Boer, this week praised China for surpassing the United States in plans for energy efficiency, renewable power, vehicle emissions standards and shutdowns of dirty plants. "China and India have announced very ambitious national climate change plans. In the case of China, so ambitious that it could well become the front-runner in the fight to address climate change," de Boer said. "The big question mark is the U.S."
European officials who gathered in New York this week for climate talks also expressed dismay at slow action by the United States to address global warming. However, Senator Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., says she hopes to kick off hearings on climate legislation next week before the Environment and Public Works Committee.
Sep 24 2009
If an environmentalist were to give just one word of advice to a young adult seeking a green career, it certainly wouldn't be "plastics." But it could well be "buildings."
While experts debate the relative merits of solar and nuclear power, CO2 sequestration technology and algae biofuels, one of the biggest untapped clean resources lies underfoot and over our heads: potential energy efficiency improvements in the buildings where we work and live.
Buildings globally consume more energy than any other sector of the economy or society--38 percent of all energy produced worldwide, versus 26 percent for transportation. Counting all the energy used in materials and construction, the total soars to more than 50 percent. In the United States, they consume three-quarters of all electricity produced.
Those facts make tackling energy efficiency in the building sector priority number one in the battle against global warming. At the same time, major progress would hold down energy bills for renters, homeowners and businesses.
Barack Obama gets it. The president-elect said in December,"First, we will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs."
A new study by Trevor Houser, visiting fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics and senior advisor to the U.S. Special Envoy on Climate Change, makes a key point: "aggressive, whole-building improvements in energy efficiency" can cut harmful emissions more cheaply than most other proposals for slashing carbon pollution.
Experts at McKinsey & Co. have popularized the notion that the building sector is rife with opportunities for money-making investments in better lighting, heating and cooling systems, insulation and other means of lowering energy costs.
Houser isn't convinced these improvements will come so cheaply, but he agrees that market failures are slowing progress--for example, the disconnect between building owners and renters often prevents energy-reducing investments that would save end-users big money.
In all, he concludes, the building sector could slash carbon emissions 8.2 billion tons by 2050 at a net cost (beyond energy savings) of about $180 billion worldwide. That's the target needed to reach an overall 50 percent reduction in global greenhouse gas emissions.
That works out to be cheaper, per ton of carbon, than emissions reductions from the power sector or from industry. But getting there will require tough new building standards to overcome market barriers. To that end, the Obama administration has announced significant new standards--for example, covering building lighting--and hundreds of millions of dollars in stimulus funding for building energy efficiency.
There's still a long way to go, but it's an important start.
Sep 22 2009
In the past several weeks, two high-profile companies - Duke Energy and Alstom - publicly gave up their membership in the American Coalition for Clean Coal Energy in protest over its opposition to federal climate change legislation.
Other companies that similarly favor climate change legislation faced uncomfortable questions this summer over their memberships in similar groups that have mounted aggressive campaigns to defeat pending climate bills.
Most responded to critics by pointing out that climate change is only one of many issues these organizations address.
Fair enough. But not every issue is created equal, and sometimes companies decide they have to take a more decisive stand on the really big ones.
Duke and Alstom made that decision. Now PG&E has as well.
In a letter to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, PG&E Chairman and CEO Peter Darbee cited "fundamental differences" over climate change to explain why the company is pulling out of the organization, despite the Chamber's "long history as a positive force for America's businesses and its economy."
The letter criticized the Chamber for taking an extreme position on climate change, which Darbee said does not represent the range of views among Chamber members. In particular, he took the Chamber to task for its recent demand that there be a "Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century" to challenge the science on climate change:
We find it dismaying that the Chamber neglects the indisputable fact that a decisive majority of experts have said the data on global warming are compelling and point to a threat that cannot be ignored. In our opinion, an intellectually honest argument over the best policy response to the challenges of climate change is one thing; disingenuous attempts to diminish or distort the reality of these challenges are quite another.
Darbee also drew a sharp contrast between the Chamber's approach and the constructive, consensus-driven positions forged by Edison Electric Institute and the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.
Instead, he said, "I fear it has forfeited an incredible chance to play a constructive leadership role on one of the most important issues our country may ever face."
Brian Hertzog assisted with this posting.
Sep 22 2009
PG&E has won many environmental awards for its commitment to climate action at the state and federal level, its innovative programs like ClimateSmart(tm), its leadership on energy efficiency and its relatively clean portfolio of electric power.
Still, it was a special honor to be named as the greenest utility in the United States in Newsweek magazine's green ranking of America's 500 largest publicly traded companies. The magazine cited in particular PG&E's "strong efforts" to promote energy efficiency and its growing use of renewable energy.
The rankings were based on several criteria, including emissions of greenhouse gases and toxic wastes, management of environmental issues and policies, regulatory compliance, policies concerning climate change and environmental reputation.
The magazine also assembled a panel to review its methodology and ranking list, including experts from Yale University, The Conference Board and Natural Resources Defense Council.
"This is the first time a media organization has ranked companies in this way," said Kathleen Deveny, Global Business Editor of Newsweek. "Most green lists are anecdotal -- ours is the result of a massive database research project conducted in collaboration with three of the leading players in environmental research: KLD, Trucost and Corporate Register."
Sep 21 2009
Vocal naysayers claim it's too expensive to combat climate change, but a new survey suggests that a majority of large corporations now think otherwise--indeed, that their self-interest requires taking action.
The Carbon Disclosure Project's Global 500 Report, produced by PricewaterhouseCoopers and released today, shows that 51 percent of Global 500 companies report emission reduction targets, up from 41 percent in 2008.
More and more large companies are becoming transparent in their disclosures of carbon emissions as well, with more than four out of five now reporting greenhouse gas emissions they generate through direct burning of fossil fuels or indirectly through purchases of electricity.
The organization praised several U.S. companies for leading efforts to deal with global warming, including Cisco Systems, Boeing and Pepco Holdings along with Consolidated Edison, EMC, E.I. du Pont de Nemours and Hewlett Packard.
Leaders in disclosure include Bayer, BASF, Wal-Mart Stores and Comerica. PG&E also ranked near the top of the list, along with Cisco Systems, Chevron and Public Service Enterprise Group.
When it comes to climate, corporations "are demonstrating they are willing, ready and able to engage with it," Carbon Disclosure Project chief executive Paul Dickinson told the Washington Post.
The goal of the Project's survey is to "help investors gain exposure to companies that actively manage their impact on the environment."
Companies that are still hiding their carbon footprints may soon have to come clean. The EPA plans to issue a final rule any day that would require large emitters--who release 25,000 tons or more of carbon dioxide annually--to declare their pollution levels.
The not-for-profit Carbon Disclosure Project was founded in 2000 "to collect and distribute high quality information that motivates investors, corporations and governments to take action to prevent dangerous climate change." With more than 2,200 organizations around the world now reporting on emissions and climate change strategies, the Project claims to have "assembled the largest corporate greenhouse gas emissions database in the world."
The organization represents about 475 global institutional investors, with more than US $55 trillion in assets under management.
Last week, a separate group of 181 institutional investors representing more than $13 trillion in assets released a major policy statement calling for a tough international treaty to impose binding constraints on greenhouse gas emissions and promote "massive global investments in low-carbon technologies."
Signers included the California and New York state employees' retirement funds, he California State Controller and Treasurer, and a host of private assets managers.
Sep 18 2009
"The world's ocean surface temperature was the warmest for any August on record," according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, "and the warmest on record averaged for any June-August (Northern Hemisphere summer/Southern Hemisphere winter) season." In addition, NOAA reported, "the global land surface temperature . . . was 1.33 degrees F above the 20th century average . . . and ranked as the fourth warmest August on record."
A sweeping new economic report from the World Bank says the world must overcome its inertia and commit to spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year by 2030 to promote clean energy and deal with natural disasters caused by global warming. "We are particularly good at acting on threats that can be linked to a human face, that present themselves as unexpected, dramatic or and immediate," the report states. "The slow pace of climate change as well as the delayed, intangible and statistical natures of its risks simply do not move us." 
A leading British economist and author of the British government's report on climate change, Lord Stern, says rich nations may need to think about foregoing future growth as the price of preventing runaway global warming. To give everyone in the world the same carbon footprint by 2050 would require cuts in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent, he said.
A dollar spent on family planning reduces carbon emissions more than four times as effectively as a dollar spent on low-carbon technologies, according to report from the London School of Economics. Giving access to contraception to all women who want it would reduce the world's population by half a billion people by 2050, saving 34 gigatons of greenhouse gas emissions, the study estimated.
Beer drinkers have a special reason to care about climate change: Higher global temperatures are damaging the quality of Saaz hops used in pilsner lager, according to a climatologist at the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute. The heat reduces the production of alpha acids that give the hops their prized taste.
Sep 17 2009
If you care about your carbon footprint, there's a new place you can go to shrink it down: a kiosk at San Francisco Airport.
San Francisco International Airport is launching a "Climate Passport" program to let travelers to offset the impact of their flights by purchasing carbon offsets before they take off. Kiosks are available in the International Terminal and Terminal 3, or you can buy your offsets online.
The offsets are arranged by the San Francisco firm 3Degrees, which "provides a range of renewable energy and climate mitigation products and consulting services." 3Degrees was one of five organizations around the country recognized by Secretary Steven Chu on Monday as "Green Power Network Leaders" for "exceptional achievements in supporting increased market deployment of renewable energy technologies through green power programs."
3Degrees is obtaining carbon offsets for SFO's new program from the Garcia River Forest, which absorbs carbon dioxide as it grows in a protected environment. That's also one of the primary sources of offsets for PG&E's ClimateSmart(tm) program, which offers customers a way to offset the emissions caused by their use of electric power. The typical cost is only about $5 a month per home.
To see what it will cost you to offset your next flight, go to the Climate Passport web site and give the calculator a try. My recent trip to Seattle, with my wife, would have cost an extra $12.33 to offset. That's a small price for peace of mind.
Note: I was tipped off to this story by an occasional blogger named Gavin Newsom. He describes himself as a Santa Clara University graduate (with partial baseball scholarship), a supporter of gay marriage and universal health care, and the "youngest San Francisco mayor in over a century."
Sep 16 2009
San Jose's City Hall almost reached critical mass today, as Mayor Chuck Reed was joined by representatives of PG&E, IBM, Cisco Systems, local civic organizations, congressional offices and, last but not least, major Bay Area print and broadcast media.
What brought them all together was an announcement of the details--and wider implications--of PG&E's recent application to the U.S. Department of Energy for a $42.5 million Smart Grid investment grant under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The grant would fund half of an $85 million Customer Energy Management Project that will allow PG&E to build the next stage of Smart Grid applications upon its existing SmartMeterâ„¢ program, already the largest and one of the most advanced in the nation. (The count is 3.5 million high-tech meters deployed to date, and growing one every two seconds.)
PG&E's Andrew Tang, who runs the utility's Smart Energy Web program, said the project would provide 75,000 business and residential customers with state-of-the-art energy use displays to help them better understand and control their energy usage in near-real time.
These devices are just a starting point for more sophisticated energy management appliances that will help customers take advantage of voluntary utility programs that let them save money by cutting back or shifting their energy use from peak to off-peak periods.
That lowers costs, improves grid reliability and spares the environment by reducing the need to build more peak generation, Tang said.
The Customer Energy Management project would also enhance electric reliability by helping PG&E manage wider adoption of clean customer solar. When large numbers of solar installations exist in a neighborhood, passing clouds and changing weather can cause voltage fluctuations. By installing high-tech sensors on distribution lines, Tang said, the utility will be able to detect and respond to those fluctuations before they create power quality issues.
This project represents just a few of the many ways smarter grids will help PG&E and other utilities integrate more intermittent renewable energy (read: wind and solar power) into their systems, improve reliability and lower costs.
By setting the stage for future Smart Grid investments and innovations, this project will reinforce California's technological leadership, provide valuable lessons for other utilities nationwide and stimulate clean tech jobs.
Among PG&E's major partners are the City of San Jose--the largest city in PG&E's service area --IBM, Cisco Systems, ABB and Stanford University. The project has been endorsed by Governor Schwarzenegger and many Bay Area business, labor and civic assocations.
Mayor Reed kicked off the announcement with comments about the tremendous importance of Smart Grid to the region and the nation, including its potential for creating new jobs.
"There is no better place than San Jose to demonstrate how new technology can be used to address our country's energy problems," he said. "An investment here will help set the foundation for using 'Smart Grids' across the country."
IBM and Cisco both emphasized how strategic the partnership promises to be.
"This project is leading edge and one of the most impressive that I've seen in the country," said Marianne Dickerson, Associate Partner in IBM's North American Energy & Utilities Practice.
Sep 15 2009
Americans love being number one. But sometimes, leading the pack isn't all it's cracked up to be--like being number one in medical spending as a percent of GDP.
Happily, the United States has finally slipped from its traditional number one ranking in another questionable area: carbon emissions per capita.
Out of 185 countries surveyed, Australia now holds that dubious distinction, according to Mapplecroft, which bills itself humbly as "the leading source of global risks intelligence."
According to its "CO2 Energy Emissions Index," Australia emits 20.6 tonnes (metric tons) of carbon dioxide per person per year, nearly a tonne more than the average American and almost two tonnes more than third-ranking Canadians.
While China as a whole has become the world's leading emitter of greenhouse gases by virtue of its huge population, the typical Chinese generates only 4.5 tonnes of carbon emissions. And the average Indian puts out a miserly 1.2 tonnes.
Australia is simultaneously a major exporter of coal, the most carbon-intensive of the major fossil fuels, and one of the countries deemed most at risk from climate change caused by the greenhouse effect. Recent heat waves, devastating fires, floods, spreading disease and other calamities have made those risks all too real.
But Australia is also a country that has come under the sway of influential climate change skeptics, so its swings in public opinion are being closely watched as a harbinger for the United States.
Sep 15 2009
For many construction projects, the biggest challenge is getting past all the reviews and winning all the approvals needed to actually put shovels in the ground.
PG&E's 2 megawatt solar photovoltaic pilot project--named the Vaca-Dixon Solar Station after the electrical substation it neighbors--has achieved that milestone and is moving quickly to become a reliable source of clean, renewable electric power later this year.
This photo, taken September 14, shows the first panels going up. They are polycrystalline modules from Solon Corporation, which PG&E selected after competitive bid as the turnkey supplier to build the facility.
Solon is building the facility with help from Silverwood Energy, Inc., a California disabled veteran business enterprise.
The pilot represents the utility's first step in implementing its plan to promote 500 MW of clean new PV power over five years--250 MW to be built by the utility and 250 MW by independent developers. (The plan, proposed in February, is under consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission.)
If the projects are approved and finished by 2015, they are expected to deliver more than 1,000 gigawatt hours of power each year, equal to the annual consumption of about 150,000 average homes. In all, this program would meet over 1.3 percent of PG&E's electric demand.
Sep 11 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A diverse group of leading U.S. corporations, including PG&E, DuPont, Hewlett-Packard, Nike, Dell and Johnson & Johnson, issued an open letter to the U.S. Senate urging swift action to fight climate change. "Passing legislation to cap greenhouse gas emissions will send a strong signal to the private sector unleashing new business opportunities, leveling the playing field for all U.S. businesses and ensuring that the U.S. economy can compete in growing global markets for clean energy," the letter said.
Bipartisan experts say that curbing global warming is an urgent matter of national security. A group of 32 former officials, including former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Senators Nancy Kassebaum Baker and John Warner, and former CIA Director James Woolsey, called on Congress to pass a "clear, comprehensive, realistic and broadly bipartisan plan." However, Senate Democrats say climate legislation is on hold while Congress debates health care reform.
Studies of the economic cost of climate change legislation are a dime a dozen. But what about the costs of inaction? As the globe continues to warm, those costs include flood damage, threats to public health, droughts, and impacts on transportation and recreational resources, among others. Read all about them in a new report from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Automobile Dealers Association have filed a motion with the US Court of Appeals seeking to overturn the EPA's approval of California's strict tailpipe standards to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
France may become one of the first countries to impose carbon taxes if French President Nicolas Sarkozy overcomes public opposition to his newly announced plans for a fee of $25 per ton of carbon dioxide. It would apply mainly to gasoline and natural gas. Sarkozy proposes offsetting tax cuts on small businesses.
Sep 10 2009
On Tuesday, NEXT100 reported that algae is hot--a prime target of venture funding for the next generation of biofuels.
Now it's getting even hotter.
South San Francisco-based Solazyme, Inc.--a microalgae biotechnology company named by BusinessWeek as one of "25 companies to watch in Energy Tech"--reports that it has been selected by the Pentagon to "research, develop, and demonstrate commercial scale production of algae-derived advanced biofuel that meets the United States Navy's rigorous specifications for military tactical platforms."
If successful, the transition to high-performance biofuels would reduce dependence on foreign oil, a national security issue, and reduce the U.S. military's enormous carbon footprint. (It burns more than 10 million gallons of fuel a day, according to Forbes.)
Just as the Department of Defense played a major role in promoting the early Internet, so it is pumping up advanced green tech. Last December, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency awarded $35 million in contracts to General Atomics and Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), both based in San Diego, to investigate biofuel alternatives to military jet fuel.
Given that the military fuel market alone is worth $12 billion a year, investors are taking notice.
Said Paul Bollinger, a vice president of SAIC, "The military has the potential of serving as a market initiator and the airlines as a market maker."
Sep 10 2009
How's this for the ultimate in renewable green energy: tree power.
A team of University of Washington researchers has tapped the minute electrical currents in trees to power an electronic circuit for what they say is the first time.
Last year, MIT scientists demonstrated the existence of very small voltages between trees and the ground. You can see for yourself a demonstration on YouTube (as well as this cautionary tale).
Using a power booster, the University of Washington team was able to amplify the few hundred millivolts of potential between the ground and bigleaf maples on the university campus to run low-power sensors at 1.1 volts.
In this case, low power really means nanopower: The circuits consumed only 10 billionths of a watt.
"It's not exactly established where these voltages come from," said co-author Babak Parviz, an associate professor of electrical engineering at the university. "But there seems to be some signaling in trees, similar to what happens in the human body but with slower speed."
"As new generations of technology come online," he added, "I think it's warranted to look back at what's doable or what's not doable in terms of a power source."
Hmmm . . . Maybe if PG&E customers keep saving forests through their contributions to the ClimateSmart(tm) program, we can wire all those trees with electrodes and hook them up to our grid. Should be enough for a few fluorescent bulbs at least. Who could object to such green power?
Sep 08 2009
Today, a modified Prius sets out from San Francisco on a 10-day, cross-country tour to promote green vehicles. What makes this car special isn't its plug-in hybrid technology, which gives it a claimed 150 miles per gallon, but that fact that its internal combustion engine runs on gasoline made from algae. Thus its name: Algaeus.
Eons before human beings began tinkering with renewable energy, algae was one of earth's first and most productive solar cells--based on carbon, not silicon. It captures solar energy to convert carbon dioxide--a greenhouse gas--into various organic materials. With the right genetic tinkering, it can produce biofuels and other substitutes for petroleum.
Startups developing algae-based fuels are one of the hottest sectors of venture capital these days. At least 57 firms are competing in this niche space for a market that could someday be worth hundreds of billions of dollars a year.
San Diego-based Sapphire Energy, which is supplying the fuel for the Algaeus, has raised more than $100 million from various venture investors, including Bill Gates' Cascade Investments.
The Department of Energy is also supporting algae, with promises to devote up to $85 million in stimulus funds to algae-based and other advanced biofuels. And the California Energy Commission has awarded six-figure grants to NASA Ames Research Center and South San Francisco-based Solazyme Inc. to develop algae technology.
More impressively, Big Oil is starting to place some bets on algae. Exxon recently signed an R&D deal worth more than $300 million with Synthetic Genomics; BP has partnered with Marktek; and Chevron has a development deal with Solazyme, one of the algae industry's leaders.
But not even Big Oil can make a success of algae unless these startups master their biggest challenges: scaling up production and lowering costs. So far "no one is close to competing with petroleum," Jeff Matais, a senior executive at A2BE Carbon Capture, LLC, told NEXT100.
Few algae companies have even demonstrated significant production, much less competitive costs. California-based Aurora Biofuels says it has developed a strain of algae that is twice as productive as other species. The company also projects that it can produce fuel for about $1.75 per gallon, but so far, according to the New York Times, "the new algae strains have been producing a gallon of biodiesel a day in an Olympic pool-sized pond."
Sapphire says that by 2011 it will be producing 1 million gallons of diesel and jet fuel per year. But Tim Zenk, its vice president for corporate relations, conceded to NEXT100, "that's really just an R&D level. The real thing to focus on is 2018 and beyond when we get to commercial quantities."
At levels of 100 million gallons annually and up, he says, the company's product should compete with oil at $60 to $80 per barrel. "It's all about scalability. What drew us to algae is we believe it can be turned into an industrial crop through biology, then grown at a world scale. That's what we are building and perfecting."
At last year's Algae Biomass Summit in Seattle, the prince of venture capital, Vinod Khosla, said he had not invested in any algae companies yet because none had demonstrated an ability to achieve reasonable production costs.
But he added, "I believe algae can be a solution. I'm convinced someone here (at the Summit) will break the code." Maybe that breakthrough will be heralded by a cross-country drive starting in San Francisco.
Sep 03 2009
Mother Nature has played a dirty trick on the clean-tech industry: she hid many of the essential raw materials in out-of-the-way places and mainly in China. And China is in no mood to share.
Just as the 20th century economy was dependent on the Middle East for oil, so the 21st century economy may be dependent on China for supplies of "rare earth elements" that are vital to production of hybrid car motors and batteries, wind turbines, energy-efficient light bulbs, catalytic converters and many other "green" technologies. Every Toyota Prius is said to use 25 pounds of rare earth elements.
A recent story in the London Daily Telegraph reported that China may restrict or completely ban foreign exports of many of these elements. According to Reuters, "That makes Toyota's market-leading gasoline-electric hybrid car and other similar vehicles vulnerable to a supply crunch predicted by experts as China, the world's dominant rare earths producer, limits exports while global demand swells."
Rare earth elements, 17 in all, are well named: they are found in commercial quantities only in a few locations around the world. The United States has a once prominent but now closed mine at Mountain Pass, Calif. in San Bernardino County. Australia also has a couple of significant mines, but China today controls 93 percent of all production.
These elements have hard-to-pronounce names like dysprosium, praseodymium, neodymium and ytterbium. Blame the fact that they were named after obscure geographic locations (the village of Ytterby in Sweden) or Greek roots ("dysprositos" means "hard to get").
They are still hard to get, usually from obscure locations. Half the world's production reportedly comes from a single mine in China's Inner Mongolia
Similar concerns over the concentration of world supplies of lithium in a few countries like Bolivia raise questions over the long term viability of clean electric vehicles powered by lithium batteries.
The issue has grabbed enough attention that one conference organizer has scheduled a summit in Washington, D.C. on "the growing risks to Rare Earth Elements, Minor Metals, Lithium and Platinum Group Metals."
U.S. mining interests argue that dependence on China can only be avoided by promoting domestic production, which they claim is being impeded by excessive regulation. "We'd be much better off mining those metals domestically and getting good jobs and doing it in an environmentally responsible way than relying on countries like the Congo and China that may not always be our friends," said Laura Skaer, executive director of the Northwest Mining Association.
In the long run, if the value of these materials continues to grow, and if production remains constrained, access may become a growing issue of national security.
Michael Klare, Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College, and author of Resource Wars: The New Landscape of Global Conflict, says "resource competition has been a decisive factor in driving conflict since the earliest recorded wars." Today, he adds, "we are becoming ever more dependent on a finite supply of critical materials at a time when the global demand for these resources--driven, in part, by the rise of China, India, and other newly-industrialized countries--is expected to soar. Under these circumstances, all of the conditions that might have prompted conflict over resources in the past are likely to become magnified."
As if to prove his point, an overheated report from the Industrial College of the Armed Forces at National Defense University in Washington, D.C. declared, "access to the world's material resources should become an overarching strategic imperative that shapes foreign policy decisions. . . In that light, the U.S. must be capable of applying all appropriate instruments of national power--including military power--to ensure access to currently unanticipated strategic materials markets."
Sep 02 2009
U.S. businesses, government agencies and educational institutions are wasting millions of dollars a year by failing to invest in proven ways of reducing IT energy costs, according to a new national survey of IT professionals by CDW Corp.
The implications are huge, not only for organization budgets, but for the environment, as needless greenhouse gas emissions accelerate global warming.
NEXT100 has already reported that U.S. organizations collectively waste an estimated $2.8 billion every year powering 108 million unused PCs at nights and on weekends--producing about 20 million tons of excess carbon dioxide emissions a year.
But mega data centers represent an even faster growing source of power demand. In PG&E's Northern California service area, they account for an astounding 2.5 percent of all electricity consumption, and nationally their energy use is expected to double by 2011. They thus represent a critical opportunity for energy-saving investments.
CDW's survey of 752 IT professionals offers good news and bad. Organizations are paying more attention to energy waste. 59 percent now train employees to shut down equipment after they leave the office for extended periods, up from 43 percent in 2008. 57 percent now buy ENERGY STAR-rated computers and other devices, compared to only 31 percent last year.
And 46 percent say they are now implementing server virtualization--a technique to reduce the number of physical computers in data centers by hosting several applications on the same device--compared to 35 percent in 2008.
Still, the average IT professional said their organization could save an additional 17 percent, or $1.5 million annually, in energy costs if they really got serious.
A majority said their IT department gets no higher-level directive or incentive to save energy. As a result, only 26 percent said energy efficiency is a very important consideration in purchasing new equipment, down from 34 percent last year.
These professionals did report that utility rebate programs to promote efficiency make a significant difference in their investment decisions. But Mark Bramfitt, who manages the data center efficiency program at PG&E, reports a slowdown in its accomplishments. Efficiency measures prompted by PG&E's rebates saved 7 megawatts of power last year, up from 4 MW in 2007. But results this year are running only about even with last year, in part because of a decline in the pace of construction of new data centers, where the program earns the most bang for the buck.
One especially promising souce of future energy savings in the technology sector could be in communications networks. A new report by Pike Research suggests that wireless networks could slash energy costs 42 percent--and save 100 million tons of CO2--by implementing greener technology. Start Twittering your friends about it today.
Sep 01 2009
The United States beat the USSR in the race to the moon. But in a space race with far bigger stakes--the race to deploy and harvest virtually unlimited space solar power--Japan is showing much greater commitment.
Bloomberg News reports today that Mitsubishi Electric Corp. and IHI Corp. are joining more than a dozen other companies in a $21 billion Japanese project "intending to build a giant solar-power generator in space within three decades and beam electricity to earth."
The project is being led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and the country's trade ministry.
Orbiting arrays of photovoltaic panels will gather solar energy, which will be beamed to earth as radio waves, then converted back to electrical energy for distribution over the grid. Unlike terrestrial solar power, the energy would be available almost continuously.
Kensuke Kanekiyo, managing director of the Institute of Energy Economics, a government research body, told Bloomberg, "It sounds like a science-fiction cartoon, but solar power generation in space may be a significant alternative energy source in the century ahead as fossil fuel disappears."
In the United States, government agencies have long studied and even endorsed the concept of space solar power, but have never funded serious R&D efforts. A report by the U.S. National Security Space Office in 2007 concluded that space solar power has "enormous potential for energy security, economic development [and] improved environmental stewardship," but said it "'falls through the cracks' of federal bureaucracies, and has lacked an organizational advocate within the US Government."
In Japan, on the other hand, the government is serious about making clean space solar power a significant contributor to the resource-poor country's energy mix.
JAXA plans first to launch a demonstration satellite to beam tens of kilowatts of power back to earth by 2015; then to demonstrate robotic assembly techniques; next to build a major prototype in geosynchronous orbit; and finally to deploy a commercial-scale system in space by 2030.
As one of their top scientists told EnergyBiz magazine last year, the goal is to start generating a gigawatt of power--roughly the output of a nuclear power plant--within two decades. "We expect space solar power panel systems will be competitive with the existing power plants in 20 to 30 years, if the space transportation cost is considerably reduced," he said.
PG&E and Solaren Corporation announced the first commercial space solar power deal in April. But Solaren, a startup based in Southern California led by aerospace veterans, must raise funds, complete the necessary R&D, and launch a working system into orbit by 2016 without the benefit of government support. "We are on track to meet the objectives we set with PG&E," said Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak.
India, too, is actively studying the potential of space solar power. It is developing an inexpensive reusable launch vehicle that could give "mankind the benefit of space solar-power stations in geostationary and other orbits," former President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam told an audience of international space experts in Boston two years ago.
Aug 31 2009
Many of us suffer from Chronic Information Overload Syndrome: books piling up on the night stand, magazines stacked in the bathroom and email overflowing our in-boxes. Still, that doesn't stop us from ever-optimistically creating lists of what we plan to read in the near future, just as soon as we finish the chores.
In that spirit, I was intrigued by news that the Humboldt County Library has more than 150 new books and other materials on the environment, "green" technology and energy efficiency, thanks to a grant from PG&E to the Humboldt Library Foundation.
I asked the library system for its list of new titles--they do, after all, serve one of the most environmentally conscious parts of the state, so their choices ought to give the rest of us excellent guidance on these popular, practical and important topics.
Here are some of the titles they thought well enough of to purchase at least two copies:
- Amann, Jennifer Thorne. Consumer guide to home energy savings.
- Bishop, Amanda. How to reduce your carbon footprint.
- David, Laurie. The down-to-earth guide to global warming.
- DeGunther, Rik. Energy efficient homes for dummies.
- Delano, Marfe Ferguson. Earth in the hot seat.
- Krigger, John. The homeowner's handbook to energy efficiency.
- Krupp, Fred. Earth, the sequel: The race to reinvent energy and stop global warming.
- McKay, Kim. True green kids: 100 things you can do to save the planet.
- Peppas, Lynn. Ocean, tidal, and wave energy.
- Reilly, Kathleen M. Planet Earth: 25 environmental projects you can build yourself.
- Rodger, Ellen. Building a green community.
- Sivertsen, Linda. Generation green: The ultimate teen guide to living an eco-friendly life.
- Thornhill, Jan. This is my planet: the kids' guide to global warming.
- Walker, Niki. Harnessing power from the sun.
If this list just whets your appetite for more, check out the lists on Amazon.com relating to the environment--all 1,956 of them!
Aug 28 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Rising temperatures over the next century could slash yields of three leading cash crops--corn, soybeans and cotton--by as much as 80 percent in the United states, according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Despite these implications, "Democratic leaders are finding that resistance in the [agricultural] heartland is one of the biggest hurdles to Senate passage of climate-change legislation," according to the Wall Street Journal.
Southern California is likely to get not only hotter but muggier, according to researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Warmer ocean currents off Mexico's Baja Peninsula are increasing humidity, a trend that contributed to the severe summer heat wave of 2006 that caused the deaths of 600 people and 25,000 cattle in the state.
One of the world's top climate scientists has called for drastic cutbacks of atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide. Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said he now endorsed a target of 350 parts per million, a goal endorsed by most of the world's poor and vulnerable nations. Current CO2 levels of nearly 390 ppm are already high enough to cause prolonged droughts, destructive storms and a measurable rise in sea levels.
Expert witnesses told a Senate subcommittee this week that global warming threatens to dramatically harm many U.S. national parks. Glacier National Park will lose its glaciers; Joshua Tree National Park may lose its Joshua trees; Rocky Mountain National Park will lose its tundra; and Ellis Island National Monument "could be lost to rising seas," the experts warned.
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which has long railed against the cost to business of unnecessary litigation, this week threatened to sue the EPA if it does not agree to hold a public hearing on the evidence for and against human-caused climate change. Likening it to the infamous Scopes monkey trial, William Kovacs, the chamber's senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, said, with unintended irony, "It would be evolution versus creationism. It would be the science of climate change on trial." The EPA termed the Chamber's demand "frivolous" and most climate scientists dispute the Chamber's skepticism about global warming.
Aug 27 2009
Just how far are you prepared to go to fight global warming? Would you cover your home with algae?
That, essentially, is the intriguing proposal advanced this week by the Institution of Mechanical Engineers, a 160-year-old professional organization, based in London, devoted to sustainable energy and cleaner and safer transportation.
In a major new report, Geo-Engineering - Giving us time to act?, the organization argues that in addition to the usual climate-change proposals, governments need to consider geoengineering schemes to cool the planet before we experience "dramatic changes to our climate . . . which could jeopardise modern civilisation."
Unlike some science-fiction-sounding proposals, like firing millions of solar reflectors into orbit, the group's three favorites include making building roofs more reflective (a favorite of Energy Secretary Steven Chu), building millions of "artificial trees" to chemically absorb CO2 out of the atmosphere (an idea championed by Columbia University physicist Klaus Lackner), and--most intriguingly--"algae-coated buildings."
This latter approach may seem a tad unappealing, but hear them out.
The idea is to install sealed containers of algae--photobioreactors--on the side of new or existing buildings. As the algae grows inside, it absorbs CO2 from the surrounding air, reducing greenhouse gases.
The carbon in the algae can then be "sequestered," or stored, by turning it into biofuel or into biochar, a soil additive used by farmers since prehistoric times, as discussed previously in NEXT100.
The algae-filled panels could use waste water or salt water, avoiding the need to tap scarce fresh water supplies. And by insulating buildings, they would reduce energy usage by occupants.
The institute concedes that the proposal is "very much at a conceptual stage," its technical feasibility remains unknown, and the cost of photobioreactors is at present "too expensive to be commercially viable." (And here's a question they don't answer: why would you install an algae photoreactor, with a photosynthetic efficiency of less than 5 percent, instead of photovoltaic building materials with twice that efficiency? ) But the group insists that many of the underlying processes are proven and the idea "is worthy of further research."
Any volunteers?
Aug 26 2009
Is he in your Rolodex? If so, says Earth2Tech, "you're probably in pretty good shape."
The noted energy and clean tech blog today named PG&E CEO Peter Darbee as one of the "top 15 most influential people in the smart grid space." This list, produced by Katie Fehrenbacher, calls PG&E "one of the most aggressive utilities, deploying smart meters and home area energy management tools."
Also today, IDC Energy Insights and Intelligent Utility magazine named PG&E one of the nation's five most "intelligent utilities," based on metrics quantifying productivity, renewable energy, smart initiatives, demand response/energy efficiency, and IT investment. The goal was to separate "smart grid hype" from reality.
"These metrics measure each company's efficiency, commitment to renewable energy, investments in developing smarter grids, enablement of their customers to manage their energy usage and costs, and their investment in information technology to enable business process improvement," according to the announcement.
The Earth2Tech story notes Darbee's extensive experience in the telecom industry, saying he "has a unique perspective on what the smart grid should provide for utilities in the U.S." It adds that he has "brought in and promoted executives with more of a Silicon Valley, think-outside-the-box mentality, compared to the traditional utility industry. His leadership shows, and PG&E has been partnering with tech-savvy startups like Silver Spring Networks and applied for smart grid stimulus funds to roll out home area network technologies."
Others on the list of leaders include Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, Cisco CEO John Chambers, Silver Spring Networks CEO Scott Lang and Guido Bartels, IBM's top exec for energy and utilities.
Fehrenbacher's timing was impeccable--she posted just hours before PG&E announced its application for Smart Grid stimulus funding for an innovative new energy storage project.
Aug 26 2009
When the wind stops blowing or the sun goes behind a cloud, where will we get the clean, renewable energy we need for a sustainable economy?
From storage--batteries, fuel cells, flywheels or other devices that convert surplus electricity to chemical or mechanical energy, then feed it back into the grid on demand.
Cheap energy storage is sometimes called the holy grail of renewable energy and a key component of future "smart grids" envisioned by utilities like Pacific Gas and Electric Company. It's also one of the hottest areas of clean-tech investing.
Now PG&E is taking steps to make it a reality, applying today to the Department of Energy for a $25 million Smart Grid stimulus funding grant, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, for a large compressed air energy storage (CAES) project.
The application follows a previous PG&E request this month for a $42.5 million Smart Grid grant for a Home Area Network deployment project, in collaboration with the city of San Jose, Stanford University and several leading technology companies. Building on the utility's advanced SmartMeter(tm) program, it will help customers lower their energy costs and usage by installing 75,000 in-premise energy displays and controllers at select mid-sized commercial and industrial customers.
PG&E also joined a Smart Grid grant application this month led by the Western Electricity Coordinating Council to install high-tech devices called synchrophasors to monitor and enhance the reliability and performance of the Western electric grid.
With its latest project, PG&E plans to pump compressed air into an underground reservoir, using mainly wind energy produced during non-peak hours, and then release it to generate electricity during periods of peak demand. The project has an output capacity of 300 megawatts--similar to a mid-sized power plant--for up to 10 hours. It will take an estimated five years to design, permit and build.
"Energy storage is a strategic complement to the generation resources that provide power to our customers," said Hal La Flash, director of emerging clean technologies at PG&E. "This project will help us maximize the efficiency and flexibility of our system while enabling the delivery of clean, renewable energy."
Large-scale energy storage holds tremendous promise for helping the environment, improving grid reliability and reducing energy costs:
- It will reduce greenhouse gas and other undesirable air emissions by enabling greater use of intermittent renewable resources and by reducing the need to use conventional fossil-fuel "peaking" plants to meet peak demand.
- It will improve asset utilization by absorbing excess generation during periods of low demand and reducing the need to add new generation for peak periods.
- And it stands to lower costs by storing energy produced when prices are low (off-peak) and returning it to the grid when prices are high, avoiding the need to buy costly on-peak electricity.
CAES has orders of magnitude more capacity than typical utility batteries and appears to be the most cost-effective form of storage, according to technical experts at the Electric Power Research Institute. The concept has been proven by projects in Alabama and Germany. Several utilities, backed by DOE and Sandia National Laboratory, are working on a major CAES facility in Iowa.
A massive study of CAES at Princeton University last year concluded that it is ideally suited to smoothing out the ups and downs of wind energy, which often peaks at night:
CAES appears to have many of the characteristics necessary to transform wind into a
mainstay of global electricity generation. The storage of energy through air compression
may enable wind to meet a large fraction of the world's electricity needs competitively in
a carbon constrained world.
This project isn't PG&E's first foray into energy storage. For many years it has operated a 1.2 gigawatt hydroelectric plant near Fresno, the Helms Pumped Storage Facility, that uses inexpensive power at night to pump water into a higher reservoir for release during the day, when power is more costly. PG&E received permits last year from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to explore two additional pumped hydro sites totaling up to 2 GW in capacity.
Other utilities are also beginning to incorporate storage into their operations. Ohio-based AEP is installing utility-scale batteries on its network and says it plans to install a total of 1,000 MW of storage in its system over the next decade. Beacon Power Corp. was awarded $43 million in loan guarantees from the DOE to complete a 20 MW storage project for National Grid in New York state using flywheels. Japanese utilities have installed sodium sulfur and vanadium flow batteries to integrate wind power into their networks. And Southern California Edison just requested a DOE grant to partner with A123 Systems to build the world's biggest lithium-ion battery assembly--32 megawatt-hours in capacity--to help balance out intermittent wind power in the Tehachapi Wind Resource Area.
Aug 25 2009
There's a reason home prices in San Francisco have held up so well during the current recession, while those in other California cities have fallen by as much as a third--and it goes beyond views, history and charm.
It's walkability--the ability to grab a latte, drop off your clothes at the cleaner and get your hair cut without once having to brave traffic to drive to a mall.
A new study sponsored by CEOs for Cities, a national organization dedicated to "sustaining the next generation of great American cities," documents the strong correlation between home values and the walkability of residential neighborhoods.
The report, Walking the Walk: How Walkability Raises Housing Values in U.S. Cities by Portland, Ore.-based economist Joseph Cortright, found that more walkable neighborhoods typically command premiums ranging from $4,000 to $34,000 per home, controlling for other factors such as size, age, access to jobs and distance from downtown.
Cortright analyzed real estate transactions in 15 urban markets, including Fresno, Sacramento, San Francisco and Stockton. He assigned a Walk Score to each neighborhood, ranging from 0 to 100, based on the proximity of restaurants, schools, parks, stores, libraries and other services. For a typical neighborhood, each one-point increase in the Walk Score increased home values $700 to $3,000.
"Even in a turbulent economy, we know that walkability adds value to residential property just as additional square footage, bedrooms, bathrooms and other amenities do," said Cortright. "It's clear that consumers assign a tangible value to the convenience factor of living in more walkable places with access to a variety of destinations."
Want to know your neighborhood's Walk Score--or the score of a home you're thinking of buying? Check out the Walk Score website (of course), plug in the address, and you'll not only get the score, but a list of walkable destinations, a Google map with icons and details of the property, included estimated market value and property taxes. (Good news: my home scored 92 out of 100--a "walkers' paradise.")
Said Walk Score founder Mike Mathieu of the new CEOs for Cities study, "Walking the Walk shows definitively what we've always believed - that homes in walkable neighborhoods continue to be a good investment, and are one of the simplest and most effective solutions to fight climate change, improve our health, and strengthen our communities. Our vision is for every property listing to include a Walk Score: Beds: 3 Baths: 2 Walk Score: 84." (Walk Scores are now also available on Zillow.com, ZipRealty.com, and Postlets.com.)
So if you're a city planner, you may not be able to match the Golden Gate Bridge or San Francisco's Victorians, but you can work to deliver what residents are voting for with dollars and their feet: walkability. As Carol Coletta, president of CEOs for Cities, put it, "if urban leaders are intentional about developing and redeveloping their cities to make them more walkable, it will not only enhance the local tax base but will also contribute to individual wealth by increasing the value of what is, for most people, their biggest asset."
Aug 24 2009
Forget the economy, health care and Afghanistan. I want to know what the government is going to do about the weather.
Not the local weather in San Francisco, where the summer chill seems impervious even to global warming, but space weather--solar geomagnetic storms that have the power to disable satellites, disrupt radio transmissions and even knock out electrical power to wide areas, as when most of Quebec province went dark for hours in 1989.
As noted previously on NEXT100, a study group convened by the National Research Council reported this year that a really bad geomagnetic storm could black out most of North America, costing trillions of dollars in losses and requiring a decade for full recovery--if our social institutions survived at all.
The cost and complexity of dealing with the problem have stymied solutions and left modern civilization highly vulnerable. When I asked for details of current action plans several weeks ago, a spokeswoman for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is tasked with preventing widespread blackouts, said only, "it's certainly an issue that NERC is looking into."
In a briefing paper released today on "Electromagnetic Pulse & Geomagnetic Storm Events," NERC concedes that geomagnetic storms "have the potential to physically damage electrical and electronic equipment throughout North America's critical infrastructure, notably including Extra High Voltage transformers and industrial control systems . . . The most significant electric reliability concern is the potential for simultaneous impact to large portions of the bulk power system, from which restoration and recovery may be challenging and prolonged."
NERC explains why the problem remains so great:
Essentially all of the system's critical conductive elements are exposed to this threat, as are many of its critical control elements. As a result, deploying controls and equipment that could prevent damage . . . may require considerable expertise, time, and financial resources.
NERC notes that a commission authorized by Congress to address the problem recommended several steps, including:
- Assure there are adequate communication assets dedicated or available to electrical system operators.
- Protect the use of emergency power supplies and fuel delivery, and importantly, provide for their sustained use as part of the protection of critical loads.
- Separate the present interconnected systems, particularly the Eastern Interconnection, into several nonsynchronous connected subregions or electrical islands.
- Install substantially more black start generation units coupled with specific transmission that can be readily isolated to balancing loads.
- Improve, extend, and exercise recovery capabilities.
In partnership with the U.S. Department of Energy and in collaboration with the Canadian government, NERC says it is convening a committee of government and industry experts to further assess the risks and--at a workshop later this year or next--will "consider potential preventative and planning measures to minimize their impacts on bulk power system reliability."
In addition, NERC says it will "work to coordinate various planning and mitigation actions with North American governmental authorities and other critical infrastructure sectors. A comprehensive, crosssector approach will be needed to ensure North America is adequately protected from these threats."
Bottom line, as I read it: expect more studies but not a lot of action anytime soon. We have a long way to go before we can sleep easier about the impact of solar storms or nuclear bomb explosions that create similar devastating electromagnetic pulses.
Aug 21 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Huge ice sheets in Antarctica are thinning four times faster than measured only a decade ago, and may last only another century, according to findings by British researchers who warn that sea levels could rise dramatically as a result. "By the end of the century, the accelerated melting could cause sea levels to climb by 3 to 5 feet -- levels substantially higher than predicted by a major scientific group just two years ago," said Colin Summerhayes, executive director of the Britain-based Scientific Committee on Antarctic Research.
Arctic warming is releasing significant quantities of methane trapped in seabed sediments, according to another group of British researchers. Methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas, may become an increasingly significant source of global warming if these releases continue, thus accelerating this dangerous feedback effect.
Hang on tight: global warming may cause the earth to tilt and wobble, according to a report in New Scientist. Melting of ice sheets in the Arctic is shifting the Earth's axis of rotation and moving the north pole at a rate of about 10 centimeters per year. And warming of the oceans is redistributing the Earth's mass enough to cause a new polar shift of about 1.5 centimeters per year toward Alaska and Hawaii.
A committee of the House of Representatives is investigating apparently forged letters sent by lobbyists opposed to climate change legislation, which appear to come from senior citizens concerned about rising electricity bills. The letters are similar to forgeries produced by a coal industry lobbying firm that were exposed two weeks ago.
A confidential memo from American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard, obtained and publicized by Greenpeace USA, calls on member companies to recruit employees, retirees and contractors to join "Energy Citizen" rallies to oppose climate change legislation. The first of the rallies was held Tuesday in Houston and was backed by Chevron.
Aug 20 2009
Yesterday we reported on a new study showing that music downloads are slashing the carbon footprint of traditional music distribution, considering the energy expended in producing and distributing CDs. Now researchers at Cleantech Group have documented how much digital book downloads can save in the way of trees, printing presses, truck trips and retail energy consumption.
As summarized by Katie Fehrenbacher at Earth2Tech, the study estimates that one e-book reader, like Amazon's Kindle, can save 168 kg of CO2 annually if the average user cuts back on the purchase of 22.5 physical books per year.
Said the report's author, Emma Ritch, "Multiplied by millions of units and increased sales of e-books, e-readers will have a staggering impact on improving the sustainability and environmental impact on one of the world's most polluting industries: the publishing of books, newspapers and magazines."
Based on the report's projections, e-book readers could save three million tonnes of CO2 annually by 2012, net of the emissions caused by production of the devices.
The savings will depend hugely on the pace of adoption, of course. Critics, such as The New Yorker's Nicholson Baker, have taken Amazon's Kindle to task for its high price, "sickly gray" screen, proprietary format and limited availability of titles.
Sony's competitive readers, which start at $199, lack wireless capability (for now), making them much less convenient. Other competitors, like the iRex iLiad, the Jinke Hanlin eReader, and CyBook by Bookeen, are largely unknown.
But the success of the Kindle has, ahem, kindled tremendous interest among electronics manufacturers (Samsung, Apple) and content providers (Barnes and Noble, Hearst Corp, Google), all but ensuring rapid growth of competition, price cuts and technological improvements to make this sector explode like the digital music industry. In fact, In-Stat projects that nearly 30 million e-book readers will ship by 2013, up from one million last year. That spells good news for the earth's environment, anyway you read it.
Aug 19 2009
Without any apparent public concern, the earth is quickly being taken over by a strange breed of iPod-people who look human except for the tell-tale wires hanging down from their ears as they walk to work or jog on treadmills at the local gym.
These strangely detached iPod-people have already wreaked havoc on the traditional music business, crushing sales of high-margin CDs in favor of cheaper digital music downloads, which now account for 35 percent of all music sold, up from 20 percent in 2007. By next year, predicts NPD Group, sales of CDs and digital downloads "will be a dead heat." (Dan Tynan at PC World calls the failure of the recording industry to get out in front of the digital music revolution one of the "10 stupidest tech company blunders.")
But now it turns out that iPod people may actually be saving the planet. A scholarly new study prepared for Microsoft and Intel (hmmm, I wonder who's side they're on?) asserts that "purchasing music digitally reduces the energy and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions associated with delivering music to customers by between 40 and 80% from the best-case physical CD delivery, depending on whether a customer then burns the files to CD or not. This reduction is due to the elimination of CDs, CD packaging, and the physical delivery of CDs to the household."
Buying a CD at a retail store produces more than 3,000 grams of CO2, counting production, distribution and customer transport. Downloading the same music to your digital player can produce less than 500 grams of CO2. (The gap will widen if digital music distributors follow tips from PG&E about making their data centers more energy efficient.)
However, there's good news for retro-types who still like CDs: you can dramatically cut the carbon footprint of your music if you walk or bicycle to the store rather than drive. Better yet, pick up some groceries on the way.
The study, titled "The Energy and Climate Change Impacts of Different Music Delivery Methods," was authored by Christopher Weber and H. Scott Matthews at Carnegie Mellon and Jonathan Koomey at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Aug 18 2009
Why is that when conservative industry groups sponsor economic analyses of environmental legislation, the results almost always turn out frightening (millions of jobs and hundreds of billions of dollars lost), while similar studies sponsored by environmental groups show the opposite?
You don't need a Ph.D. in economics--or political science--to figure that one out.
Fortunately, there are some simple rules of thumb to help anyone with even a modest understanding of economics evaluate the seemingly authoritative (but contradictory) claims these groups make every time a major legislative issue is in play.
Let's take as an example the highly publicized study of the costs of climate change legislation released last week by the National Association of Manufacturers and the American Council for Capital Formation, two conservative groups opposed to capping (or taxing) carbon emissions.
Their findings: Caps on carbon emissions, as called for in the Waxman-Markey bill, would raise electricity prices more than 30 percent by 2030, cut anywhere from 1.8 million to 2.4 million jobs, and shrink gross domestic product 1.8 to 2.4 percent by 2030.
Independent studies by the Energy Information Administration, Environmental Protection Agency and Congressional Budget Office show much more modest impacts. How can a non-expert know who to believe?
The first point is that you can discount the job loss numbers in NAM's study almost entirely. Various sectors of the economy (like coal mining) will surely lose jobs, but others will gain. The numbers cited in the NAM study--2 million jobs lost over two decades--pales compared to the fact that more than four millions jobs are lost in the US economy every month (offset, in normal times, by even more hires). Bottom line: full employment is a result of proper fiscal and monetary policy, not the cost of some new law.
A second point is to beware the optical illusion of magnifying costs by looking over a long period of time. Shrinking GDP by 2 percent by 2030 sounds like a lot until you remember that's how much the economy grows in a single year. In other words, if you believe the hostile assumptions of the NAM study, the U.S. economy would reach in 2031 the level of GDP that it would otherwise achieve by 2030 without climate change legislation.
To put it another way, the NAM study projects that even with climate change legislation, the U.S. economy would grow by about $9 trillion by 2030.
The biggest flaw of all is looking only at the costs and not the benefits--a rigged test if ever there was one. The whole point of the legislation is to buy relief from droughts and crop failures, crippling storms, flooded coastal cities, species extinction and many other threats. True, the benefits are uncertain and depend on how many other countries follow suit. But as one group of noted California economists put it, "The most expensive thing we can do is nothing."
That's a lesson we can all appreciate, even without a Ph.D.
Note: click here for one economist's critique of the NAM methodology.
Aug 17 2009
One result of global warming is the ever-more-heated debate between alarmists and skeptics over what (if anything) to do about it. The latest burst of controversy concerns a favorite topic of NEXT100, geoengineering.
Geoengineering is the name given to schemes for planetary-scale interventions to change the earth's environment, particularly its climate. They include proposals to combat global warming by reflecting sunlight--for example, by injecting aerosols into the atmosphere, seeding clouds over the oceans or sending reflective panels into orbit.
The latest contribution to the geoengineering debate comes from a source deeply distrusted by many environmentalists, the benign-sounding Copenhagen Consensus Centre, a Danish think-tank founded by Bjorn Lomborg, author of the controversial book, The Sceptical Environmentalist.
Lomborg's institute this month published a study claiming that "we might be able to cancel out this century's global warming by spending no more than $9 billion, and that climate engineering might be able to achieve as much for the planet as carbon cuts at a fraction of the cost."
The study supports an approach explored in detail in this blog: using unmanned ships to spray saltwater into the air to whiten marine clouds, reflecting just enough sunlight to stabilize the earth's temperature. They estimate the cost at a relatively trivial $9 billion, and the global benefits at a staggering $20 trillion.
Said Lomborg, who has criticized traditional policies for curbing carbon emissions as too expensive, "There's obviously more testing that needs to be done, but it is so cheap that it has to be worth looking at."
Predictably, the paper has provoked a firestorm of criticism, some related to the messanger and some to the message.
Lomborg's endorsement immediately made the thesis suspect in the eyes of many environmentalists. The fact that the paper was co-authored by an assistant professor in the Department of Petroleum at the University of Texas, and a fellow at the conservative American Enterprise Institute (a bastion of global warming deniers), didn't help its credibility.
Nor did the fact that geoengineering was endorsed as a "political ploy" by a spokesman for the British coal industry, who wrote, "The geo-engineering option provides the needed viable reason to do nothing about [human-caused global warming] now."
A more substantive critique is that geoengineering schemes that don't curb carbon dioxide emissions will permit rapid acidification of the oceans, devastating marine ecosystems.
Critics like Rutgers Prof. Alan Robock note many other problems. With an unchecked build-up of CO2, any lapse in geoengineering could cause rapid, catastrophic heating of the earth. Reductions in solar radiation would undercut solar energy. Attempts to impose geoengineering solutions might cause intense international conflict. And so on.
Out of all this debate comes one promising consensus view, however: while climate engineering is far too uncertain to be rushed into action, it deserves serious research support. It's time to turn down the heated rhetoric and turn up the science on geoengineering.
Aug 04 2009
Over the past decade, obesity-related health spending in America has doubled to about $150 billion a year, according to a new study. A similar epidemic has afflicted our vehicles for the past three decades, putting at risk efforts to achieve climate stability, cleaner air and energy security.
Daniel Sperling, director of the UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies, noted in a recent speech that average car weight has increased 29 percent since the 1980s. Thanks to much heftier engines, the average car today manages to accelerate from 0 to 60 in a speedy 9.5 seconds, down from a leisurely 14.5 seconds in the 1980s.
These trends help explain why auto and truck fuel economy, as measured by EPA, increased a mere 15 percent from 1980 to 2006.
According to Christopher Knittel at U. C. Davis, author of the new paper "Automobiles on Steroids," average mileage could have increased nearly 50 percent over that period if vehicle weight, horsepower and torque had stayed constant. In other words, the shift from light passenger vehicles to heavier and more powerful cars, SUVs and trucks almost completely masked some remarkable improvements in automotive efficiency.
This issue afflicts even cars that once exemplified thriftiness. For example, over the past 26 years, the venerable Honda Accord sold in the United States has increased in weight by more than 50 percent while tripling its horsepower.
This trend reflects in good measure the combination of low gasoline prices (cheaper than bottled water!) and Americans' love of power. The U.S. model 2009 Honda Accord gets at best a ho-hum 24 mpg, while British models, with smaller engines, get 31 mpg. The reason? Higher gasoline prices in the U.K. influence consumers to buy cars that economize on fuel.
With increasing weight, today's cars would be much more inefficient if automakers hadn't made great technological strides. Knittel estimates that a 3,000 pound car got about 10 mpg less in 1980 than in 2006. The problem isn't slow innovation but growing vehicle obesity.
Knittel concludes that the Obama administration's proposed new fuel economy standards are readily achievable if consumers would agree to put their cars on a diet. By merely shifting the mix of car and truck purchases back what they were in 1980 (fewer trucks, more cars), reducing vehicle weight and power gains since 1980 by just 25 percent, the average fuel economy of new vehicle fleets could meet 35.5 mpg with merely average rates of technological progress.
So the question is, will Americans rediscover the virtue of "small is beautiful?" The verdict is out--but the history of the late 1970s and last year's gasoline price spike suggests that Americans can see the beauty in more efficient cars when the price is right.
Aug 03 2009
What kind of magic would it take to convert millions of air conditioners into a cleaner, cheaper equivalent of gas-fired power plants? The magic envisioned in two automated "demand response" pilot projects that PG&E launched last week.
The basic idea is simple. Every electric utility must balance supply and demand on a minute-by-minute basis to prevent instability and power outages. Traditionally, power companies relied on fossil-fueled plants that could ramp generation up or down as needed to match the rise and fall of demand and the ups and downs of wind and solar power. These specialized plants are expensive (because they remain idle most of the time) and polluting (because they burn natural gas or coal).
In recent years, more and more utilities have experimented with "demand response" programs, which provide customers with incentives to curb usage during periods of peak demand, typically hot summer afternoons. While these programs help prevent grid overload, they generally aren't designed to replace combustion turbine plants for fine balancing of supply and demand.
That's about to change--and when it does, utilities and their customers stand to reap big rewards. "Demand response is clearly the 'killer application' for the smart grid," said FERC Commissioner Jon Wellinghoff last December. A report by the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) added, "Growing use of these (demand-side) resources to meet daily capacity requirements, as well as their critical role in supporting the integration of variable renewable resources, will only increase their importance as climate change initiatives progress."
On July 29, PG&E began a pilot program with large commercial and industrial customers to test the ability of automated demand response systems--which use high-speed communications networks to signal customer energy management devices to adjust air conditioning, lighting and other loads--to act reliably enough to help manage day-to-day grid operations. If so, customers could actually earn money for this valuable contribution to the state's electrical system.
In parallel, PG&E plans to test whether residential and small commercial customers can play in the same market by enrolling in the SmartAC program. This voluntary program provides customers with free radio-controlled thermostats or A/C switches that can be signalled to slightly reduce the amount of electricity air conditioners use during periods of peak energy demand, without sacrificing customers' comfort.
Currently, PG&E has amost 120,000 small business and residential customers actively participating in the program, translating into a total load of more than 87 MW.
PG&E has nearly finished recruiting two groups of 400 SmartAC customers in separate hot inland areas to test the feasibility of using the program as a kind of "spinning reserves," the capacity of traditional generation plants to step up output on a minute's notice.
The key question is whether PG&E's signals to customer thermostats can trigger a quick, reliable, and definable change in demand, or if the system is too sloppy for fine-tuned control. The pilot team also hopes to learn what kinds of communications networks work most reliably for such a task--for example, wireless paging networks or the Internet.
The success of these and other pilot projects will hasten the day, envisioned just last year by Rick Sergel, President & CEO of NERC, "when my home's electronics and appliances will automatically react to changes in price signals and wind forecasts on the grid, reducing my energy usage to help bring on more renewables and manage my bill. The innovation and technology to do this already exists. The challenge remains, then, for us to let it loose."
Jul 31 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
At the request of the National Academy of Sciences, the Obama administration released thousands of intelligence photos of Arctic ice that had been classified by the Bush administration. They show the rapid decline in sea ice off the northern coast of Alaska and the shrinkage of glaciers in Alaska and Washington. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the world's ocean surface temperatures rose to record levels in June.
Droughts aggravated by global warming are drying rivers in Mesopotamia, the "cradle of civilization," shrinking ancient marshes and forcing peasants in Iraq and Syria to abandon their farms. Climate experts say the encroachment of desert may be permanent.
Global warming may explain a 24 percent decline in the number of large trees found in Yosemite National Park over the past half century, according to scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and University of Washington. "Warmer conditions increase the length of the summer dry season and decrease the snowpack that provides much of the water for the growing season," said one researcher. "A longer summer dry season can also reduce tree growth and vigor, and can reduce trees' ability to resist insects and pathogens."
Curbing carbon emissions will become an ever greater challenge as the number of cars on the world's roads doubles to two billion over the next decade, according to Dan Sperling, a professor at the University of California, Davis, and member of the California Air Resources Board. One driver of this trend is the development of ultra-cheap car models like the $2,000 Tata Nano. Sperling favors higher gasoline prices and government support for electric and hybrid vehicles to minimize the environmental impact of bigger vehicle fleets.
Despite (or because of) their contribution to greenhouse gas emissions, Americans care less about government action to address climate change than people from 18 other nations, according to a new global survey conducted by the University of Maryland. Only Iraqis and Palestinians registered anywhere near the same lack of concern. In a separate Pew poll earlier this month, fewer than half of Americans (49%) said they believe the planet is warming because of human activity.
Californians remain more committed to action against climate change than the average American, but their support is slipping as the recession deepens, according to the Public Policy Institute of California. Although 66 percent of state residents support AB32, the 2006 law that requires greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced to 1990 levels by 2020, support has slipped 12 points since 2007. The partisan divide is strong: 76% of Democrats say warming is already happening, versus just 36% of Republicans. Almost as many Republicans (34%) say global warming will never happen. However, very strong majorities of state residents favor making automakers improve fuel efficiency and increasing federal funding for renewable energy technology.
San Francisco announced a coup this week: its Hunters Point Shipyard, a polluted Superfund site, will become home to the future United Nations Global Compact Center, a think tank, conference center and incubator for environmental start-ups. The 80,000-square-foot facility will cost $20 million, still to be raised from government, corporate and foundation donors.
Jul 30 2009
In my last two posts, I explored the potential for a severe geomagnetic solar storm to wreak havoc with electrical grids and modern life throughout much of the world.
If you think reading about such scenarios is depressing, consider this: merely being exposed to a moderate geomagnetic storm can increase your chances of depression and even suicide.
It might not surprise you to learn that homing pigeons lose their way when blasts of highly charged particles from the sun disrupt the earth's natural magnetic field. But humans are apparently also sensitive to magnetic fields, possibly through influences on the pineal gland (which regulates production of melatonin) or even through subtle changes in cell membrane chemistry.
A much-cited paper in the British Journal of Psychiatry reported "a statistically significant 36.2% increase in male hospital admissions with a diagnosis of depressed phase, manic-depressive illness in the second week following such storms compared with geomagnetically quiet control periods." And studies published in the South African Psychiatry Review and Bioelectromagnetics found significant correlations between geomagnetic storm activity and suicide rates in South Africa and Australia.
In 2003, economists at Boston College and the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta reported "strong empirical support" for the hypothesis that "people affected by geomagnetic storms may be more inclined to sell stocks on stormy days because they incorrectly attribute their bad mood to negative economic prospects rather than bad environmental conditions." High levels of geomagnetic activity appear to depress stock prices, while periods of quiet activity lead to "substantially higher returns around the world," they found.
None of this comes as any surprise to Russians, a people notoriously given to depression. According to a feature in Moscow News, Russians are obsessed with the notion that their mental and bodily ills stem from geomagnetic storms:
Millions of people keep track of its changes every morning, experts offer suggestions on minimizing its detrimental effects: rest, eat lots of bananas, don't make sudden movements. . . . Just like the weather, geomagnetic activity is often a suitable topic for chit-chat on the shuttle bus, or for a conversation between two babushkas on a park bench. Yet it's an issue of vital importance, with daily prognoses, recommendations, and warnings. Every now and then all the media outlets start screaming about giant explosions on the sun, about dangerous solar particles approaching Earth at fantastic speeds that cause "aching joints, migraines, plane crashes, epidemics, and grasshopper infestations," as Lenta.Ru recently reported in sensationalist fear.
One Russian scientist, Alexander Chizhevsky, claimed that political upheavals in his country tend to take place most often during periods of peak solar activity. As evidence, he cited the Russian revolutions of 1905 and 1917, the peak of Soviet political persecutions (1937), the Hungarian revolt (1956), the Soviet invasions of Czechoslovakia (1968) and Afghanistan (1979) and mass demonstrations and perestroika (1989).
If the CIA is on the ball, it's already working on a report--based on the timing of the next solar maximum--titled, "Political Turmoil in Russia Predicted for 2013."
Jul 29 2009
How likely are we to be hit by a geomagnetic storm big enough to take down major power grids across the Northern hemisphere? What kinds of preparations have been made to avoid such an event paralyzing modern industrial civilization?
Some of those questions arose just last week in hearings before the House Homeland Security Committee, whose members took turns blasting the utility industry and public agencies for taking insufficient precautions against natural and man-made threats to the grid.
"Some in government have taken the position that (electromagnetic pulse) attack and geomagnetic storm disruption are low-probability events," complained William Graham, chairman of the congressionally mandated Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse. "By ignoring large scale, catastrophic . . . vulnerability" the United States needlessly exposes itself to risk, he testified.
Expert opinions about the level of risk vary widely. A grid director at the California Independent System Operator told me that modern forecasting tools and protective equipment to prevent transformer failures mean "the chance of cascading blackouts caused by these solar events is highly unlikely."
On the other hand, an expert at the Edison Electric Institute admitted that "if several dozen large transformers overloaded and blew up, the full recovery time could be months or longer. I envision an event would be cascading, that is, beginning at a specific point in a northern latitude (say, Quebec) and moving uncontrolled across paths of least resistance."
A spokeswoman for the North American Electric Reliability Corporation, which is tasked with preventing widespread blackouts, said only, "it's certainly an issue that NERC is looking into."
Finally, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which monitors space weather, states unequivocally: "A single strong blast of solar wind can threaten national security, transportation, financial services and other essential functions."
Let's start with some good news: For now, at least, the sun is acting like a sleeping kitten. Last year, the Sun went 266 days without showing a single sunspot, the quietest year since 1913. Though the sun started breaking out in dark spots again this June, most scientists believe the 11-year sunspot cycle will peak in 2013 at the lowest level since 1928.
The not-so-good news is that the sun could awaken from its slumber at any time and turn into a vicious lion. "As with hurricanes, whether a cycle is active or weak refers to the number of storms, but everyone needs to remember it only takes one powerful storm to cause huge problems," said Doug Biesecker, a scientist at the NOAA's Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder. "The strongest solar storm on record occurred in 1859 during another below-average cycle."
As we saw yesterday, that 1859 storm, which electrocuted telegraph operators and lit the sky with pyrotechnics as far south as Panama, was stronger even than the 1921 event that a National Research Council study group said could shut down modern life across much of the Northern Hemisphere for a decade.
If the Sun were to get angry, several solar-observing satellites should detect the outbreak of a big geomagnetic storm and relay the information back to scientists on Earth. They include NASA's twin Solar Terrestrial Relations Observatory satellites, launched in 2006, which provide information on the speed, trajectory and shape of so-called coronal mass ejections, multi-billion ton blobs of superhot gas that the sun fires our way at a million miles per hour. These satellites can give up to 24 hours warning of severe solar space weather.
Now the bad news: these satellites serve only a temporary scientific mission, not a long-term early warning system.
NASA also has the aging Advanced Composition Explorer (ACE) satellite a million miles from Earth, which can measure the magnetic field of space weather and thus its likely impact on Earth.
"The problem is, we will only have 15 minutes of warning," NOAA's Biesecker told NEXT100. "That's not a lot of time to react." And if the ACE satellite were to fail, only one other satellite could be moved into place. "That's why NOAA is working hard to get a replacement up there," he said.
Then there's the problem of what to do with the warning. Several grid operators in North America (particularly in the Northeast and New England) have well-codified procedures for dealing with solar magnetic storms. But when the crunch comes, will they really bring down the grid, risking enormous cost and customer inconvenience, just because of an uncertain solar storm prediction? The Quebec power grid crashed in 1989 despite two-day-advance notice of major storming, Biesecker noted.
With so many doomsday scenarios circulating these days, from global flu epidemics to asteroid impacts, it's hard to focus on yet another. But the threat to our way of life from widespread grid failures would be immense. A relatively small investment in improved satellite monitoring and grid protection equipment would be insurance well worth buying.
Jul 28 2009
If you want to take your mind off the bad economy and global warming, try thinking instead about the possible collapse of advanced industrial civilization in the northern hemisphere.
Like Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, this disaster scenario involves a storm--but on the sun, not on earth. Katrina cost the country around $100 billion. A really bad geomagnetic storm, the solar equivalent of a hurricane, could wipe out major portions of North America's power grid, costing upward of $2 trillion in the first year alone, and requiring up to a decade for full recovery.
And that's not counting the effects on Europe, China and Russia.
That estimate was published earlier this year by the National Academy of Science in a sober but terrifying report, Severe Space Weather Events - Understanding Societal and Economic Impacts.
Most of us know that space weather can disrupt radio communications and, on rare occasions, even put satellites at risk. A solar storm in 1994 knocked a Canadian telecommunications satellite out of service for six months at a cost of more than $50 million; one in 2003 disrupted a Federal Aviation Administration GPS system for 30 hours; and another in 2005 forced the diversion of 26 United Airlines flights to avoid radio blackouts. Satellite disruptions caused by solar storms cost the government about $100 million a year, the Department of Defense estimates.
But the sun's fury occasionally hits much closer to home. On March 13, 1989, as horrified grid operators watched alarms go off, voltage surges extinguished power to all of Quebec province. Six million people lost service for nine hours--some for days.
The cause was a blob of plasma--superhot charged particles--blasted from the sun at a speed of several hundred miles per second. Weighing billions of tons, such eruptions cause havoc with orbiting electrical equipment, the Earth's ionosphere, and, in severe cases like 1989, electrical grids on the ground that act like giant receiving antennas.
Last year, the National Research Council convened a workshop to assess how vulnerable power grids remain to extreme space weather events since the 1989 outage.
The gathered scientists and policymakers noted that the 1989 storm was only one-tenth as strong as a megastorm that raged in May 1921. Both were dwarfed by an even mightier storm that struck in 1859. The latter superstorm produced bright red and green aurora lights over Cuba, wreaked havoc with the Earth's magnetic field and electrocuted telegraph operators.
A study presented by Metatech Corporation estimated that a storm like the one in 1921 could fry several hundred power transformers essential to grid operations and black out power to more than 130 million people in North America. (Northern latitudes--especially Canada, the upper Midwest and the East Coast--would be much more vulnerable than California.)
Here's how a report in New Scientist magazine describes what would happen next:
First to go - immediately for some people - is drinkable water. Anyone living in a high-rise apartment, where water has to be pumped to reach them, would be cut off straight away. For the rest, drinking water will still come through the taps for maybe half a day. With no electricity to pump water from reservoirs, there is no more after that.
There is simply no electrically powered transport: no trains, underground or overground. . . . supermarket shelves would empty very quickly - delivery trucks could only keep running until their tanks ran out of fuel, and there is no electricity to pump any more from the underground tanks at filling stations.
Back-up generators would run at pivotal sites - but only until their fuel ran out. For hospitals, that would mean about 72 hours of running a bare-bones, essential care only, service. After that, no more modern healthcare.
The truly shocking finding is that this whole situation would not improve for months, maybe years: melted transformer hubs cannot be repaired, only replaced. . . something that can take up to 12 months.
Even when some systems are capable of receiving power again, there is no guarantee there will be any to deliver. Almost all natural gas and fuel pipelines require electricity to operate. . . .
With no power for heating, cooling or refrigeration systems, people could begin to die within days. There is immediate danger for those who rely on medication. Lose power to New Jersey, for instance, and you have lost a major centre of production of pharmaceuticals for the entire US.
As the National Research Council committee concluded, "A quantitative and comprehensive assessment of the societal and economic impacts of severe space weather will be a truly daunting task."
Tomorrow: What is being done to prepare?
Jul 24 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The Colorado River, which supplies water to 27 million customers in the Southwestern United States and Mexico, is in its 10th year of drought. Unless population growth is controlled and water conservation practices are adopted, there's a 50-50 chance that the river's reservoirs may dry up by the middle of the century, according to researchers at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
The chemicals introduced to replace ozone-eating gases in air conditioners and refrigerators, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), are powerful greenhouse gases, up to 4,000 times as potent as carbon dioxide. "You have this moment when you could nip this problem in the bud and avoid this very large growth of a dangerous chemical," said David Doniger, policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. "Now, in the next couple of years, is when you have to do this."
Almost two-thirds of U.S. investors polled for Bloomberg News say global warming is a minor risk or "no real threat," unlike 61 percent in Asia and 56 percent in Europe who acknowledge its significance. "In the U.S., very few see that the opportunity to build new businesses and create new jobs in transforming to green manufacturing could pay off for those engaged in those markets," said pollster J. Ann Selzer of Des Moines, Iowa. "Asian respondents are three times as likely as their U.S. counterparts to forecast opportunities for profit."
Among those in the United States who worry more about climate change legislation than global warming are farm lobbyists. This week, Agriculture Secretary tom Vilsack, EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, and White House science adviser John Holdren finally responded to critics. "Our analysis demonstrates that the economic opportunities for farmers and ranchers can outpace -- and perhaps significantly outpace -- the costs," said Vilsack. Quite apart from the benefits of slowing global warming, a cap-and-trade market for carbon emissions would provide net income to the farm sector of up to $2 billion a year, according to an EPA analysis.
On a visit to India where she touted the benefits of energy efficiency, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was met with resistance from Indian officials over the cause of fighting climate change. India's environment and forests minister, Jairam Ramesh, said there was "no case" for the West to push India to reduce carbon dioxide emissions given that it has among the lowest levels of per capita emissions. "We are simply not in a position to take over legally binding emission reduction targets."
Jul 23 2009
We all know the saying, "light as a feather." So you can be sure that the two-to-four (depending on who's counting) billion pounds of feathers produced each year by the U.S. poultry industry would make a pretty big pile.
Fortunately, no one has to cram them all into a giant landfill. High in protein and nitrogen, they are ground up along with chicken innards and blood for use in animal feed and fertilizer. They are also used as raw material to make thin sheets of plastic for wrapping candy and sodas.
Now a team of scientists at University of Nevada-Reno has discovered a way to extract fat from chicken feather meal using boiling water, and then convert it into renewable biodiesel fuel. All those mountains of feathers and bloody innards are enough to create 153 million gallons of biodiesel annually in the United States alone. And after extracting the fat, the remaining feather meal produces better feed and fertilizer.
The same crew of clever scientists published a study last December showing that the world's 16 billion pounds of waste coffee grounds, which contain as much as 20 percent fat by weight, could potentially add 340 million gallons of biodiesel to the world's fuel supply. Best of all, the fuel would carry the aroma of coffee.
I can just imagine going to the filling station a few years from now and enjoying a freshly made latte out of the same machine that's pumping "Java Jolt" biodiesel into my car. Now that's what I call sustainable.
Jul 22 2009
Last month, NEXT100 profiled the miracle material graphene, a crystalline form of carbon only one atom thick yet that is the strongest material ever discovered. Its many astounding applications include ultrafast transistors, super-high capacity ultracapacitors, solar-cell electrodes and light-emitting diodes.
The cliche "the sky is the limit" applies literally to graphene. A group of Princeton engineers has just won a $3 million grant from the U.S. Air Force Office of Scientific Research to study the potential of nanoscale graphene additives to help aviation fuel burn faster so jets can fly more easily at supersonic speeds.
Tiny amounts of graphene help fuel ignite at lower temperatures, a property that could also help diesel engines run more efficiently and reduce their pollution.
Said Ilhan Aksay, a professor of chemical engineering at Princeton and lead investigator, "The idea of being able to put in a very small quantity and have such a dramatic effect is important....Right now we don't know what actual reactions enhance the combustion rates when the particles are added to fuels. If we understand it further, we can make it more effective."
Jul 22 2009
Geoengineering--the planned alteration of planetary-scale systems--is a highly controversial approach to solving an increasingly desperate problem: global warming. Critics have condemned it "somewhere between a dead end and a hoax," while White House science adviser John Holdren said, "It's got to be looked at." The credibility of this outsized concept got a big boost this week from a major policy pronouncement by the American Meteorological Society.
As covered extensively in NEXT100, geoengineering proposals run the gamut from fostering the growth of carbon-absorbing plankton by fertilizing the oceans, to reflecting more sunlight by seeding clouds, to locking up carbon in the form of biochar.
The AMS notes the wide range of possible risks, including adverse local climate changes that might disrupt some countries and peoples even if geoengineering stabilized the global temperature. And some measures that address symptoms--for example, by increasing solar reflection--"would not diminish the direct effects of elevated CO2 concentrations such as ocean acidification or changes to the structure and function of biological systems."
All that said, given that past greenhouse gas emissions are almost certain to cause "dangerous climate changes," the society recommended stepping up research on climate geoengineering, including the environmental ethical, legal and social implications.
While reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a top priority, geoengineering "could contribute to a comprehensive risk management strategy to slow climate change and alleviate some of its negative impacts," the society declared. "The potential to help society cope with climate change and the risks of adverse consequences imply a need for adequate research, appropriate regulation, and transparent deliberation."
Jul 21 2009
While solar power gets much of the good buzz these days, geothermal power holds the most promise as a clean and economical alternative to fossil fuels, according to a comparative technology study by two experts at NYU's Stern School of Business.
PG&E opened the first commercial geothermal plant in 1960, and today that technology supplies about five percent of the utility's power, more than any other form of renewable energy. But long as it's been around, the technology has never enjoyed significant funding to exploit its full potential.
From 1974 to 2005, nine major governments collectively spent almost $38 billion on fossil fuel technologies and about $11 billion on solar, compared to a mere $2.6 billion on geothermal energy. Yet more than any other sector of power generation, the geothermal industry "shows exponential growth" in the payoff (kWh per dollar) from R&D spending and shows "no indication of slowing performance improvement," the authors conclude in their new paper in the journal Energy Policy.
Geothermal is already one of the least expensive forms of renewable energy--less than a third the cost of concentrating solar power or utility-scale photovoltaic power, according to figures they supply. The authors estimate that with an R&D investment of only $7.5 billion--peanuts compared to the energy budgets of the nine governments--geothermal would likely become even less expensive than generation from fossil fuels today.
As previously discussed in NEXT100, enhanced geothermal recovery techniques, still in the testing phase, could radically increase the industry's potential. And just last week the DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory reported the breakthrough discovery of a new fluid--based on "nanostructured metal-organic heat carriers"--that could be heated by underground geothermal reservoirs and used to drive high-efficiency power turbines.
Total funding for the lab's research: just $1.2 million. At this rate, maybe geothermal won't even need the full $7.5 billion to prove its mettle.
Jul 21 2009
America's power sector may be shrinking along with the national economy, but the green lining is that it's becoming cleaner and more renewable.
With industrial production in free-fall over the past year, electric generation dropped 5 percent from April 2008 to April 2009, according to a report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration.
Of all the major fuels to take a hit, coal-fired generation suffered the worse, down almost 14 percent over the 12-month period. By contrast, natural gas-fired plants eased back only 1.5 percent.
Renewable energy emerged as the real winner over the past year, with generation from wind up 35 percent. Nuclear and hydro, which also emit no greenhouse gases, were up 3 percent and 18 percent, respectively.
Coal is still king for now. So far this year, it fueled 46 percent of electric power in the United States, followed by nuclear and natural gas at 21 percent each. Hydropower accounted for 7 percent and renewable energy still only 4 percent.
But the share for renewables has nowhere to go but up. More and more states--including, most recently, Kansas--are instituting renewables incentives and mandates. And coal is coming under pressure not only from the specter of national climate change legislation, but from closer scrutiny by EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers of controversial mining practices such as mountain-top removal in Appalachia.
Jul 20 2009
Along with more than 20 other Fairmont locations worldwide, San Francisco's famed Fairmont Hotel has begun recycling its kitchen oil--not to fry more potatoes, but to create renewable biodiesel fuel. This program will cut the hotel's disposal costs, unclog its drains and support the chain's strong environmental commitment, in particular its initiative to reduce its global carbon footprint in collaboration with WWF.
The Fairmont Sonoma Mission Inn & Spa is also collecting used kitchen grease--about 150 gallons each quarter--for processing by Yokayo Bio-Fuels in Ukiah.
At Fairmont's London hotel, The Savoy, the restaurant saves food scraps along with used cooking oils and turns them over to a biomass-to-energy renewable power plant. The hotel expects the energy generated from this collaboration will power about 10 percent of its lighting requirements.
Made from fat or vegetable oil, biodiesel is a safe, biodegradable fuel that can be used in almost any diesel engine. The main byproduct, glycerin, is used for making soap.
This January, Disneyland announced that all five of its railroad trains now run on biodiesel created from recycled cooking oil collected by its many eateries. In San Francisco, plans to produce biodiesel have run afoul of local environmental activists who claim the facility "will cause air pollution, wastewater discharges, hazardous waste and increased truck, rail and boat traffic."
Jul 17 2009
The United States was the fastest-growing market in the world for wind power in 2008 for the fourth year in a row, according to a new report from the Department of Energy, authored by experts at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The U.S. accounted for about 30 percent of the world market last year.
With about $16 billion in new investment, wind power also accounted for an impressive 42 percent of all new generating capacity in the United States last year. The capacity addition of 8,558 megawatts was 60 percent higher than the previous U.S. record set in 2007. California is now the third largest state market for wind power, behind Iowa and Texas.
The upside potential for wind power is staggering, according to a new Harvard University study. In the continental United States, there's enough wind energy to produce more than 16 times the country's electricity demand. Worldwide, wind could supply 40 times current power consumption. That's assuming, of course, people and governments let projects be built.
The soaring U.S. market is supporting a significant expansion of turbine manufacturing in this country. Today about half of all turbine components are made in the United States, up from 30 percent in 2005. The report cites estimates from the American Wind Energy Association that the wind sector added 8,400 new manufacturing jobs in 2008.
Remarkably, the United States is actually ahead of schedule to reach the Department of Energy's ambitious goal of 20 percent wind penetration by 2030.
Although the severe U.S. and global recession will brake the industry's growth this year, exceptionally favorable government policies--including the extension of federal production tax credits to 2012 and a proliferation of state renewable energy mandates--should give the industry a powerful lift in 2010. Further adding to that lift, the Department of Energy yesterday announced grants to promote 28 new wind power projects.
Jul 17 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A block of ice as big as Manhattan is poised to break off of a Greenland glacier due to warming air and ocean temperatures, according to a team of scientists who are recording its progress. The weight of this chunk is a staggering 5 billion tonnes.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin opined this week in the Washington Post that President Obama's cap-and-trade energy plan "is an enormous threat to our economy," one that "would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage." She called instead for responsible development of "the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil," including Alaskan oil. Critics quickly weighed in with detailed rebuttals. Others were content to quip that "Palin managed to write an entire piece about energy policy without mentioning the words 'global warming,' 'climate change,' 'carbon,' or 'emissions.'" Joseph Romm of Climate Progress noted that "in September, during the campaign, the Washington Post itself gave her its highest (which is to say lowest) rating of 'Four Pinocchios' for continuing to 'to peddle bogus [energy] statistics three days after the original error was pointed out by independent fact-checkers.'"
A group of military veterans and national security experts, including retired Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), is pressing Congress to enact climate change legislation as a matter of national security, according to Climate Wire. "Climate change can lead to failed states. When you have failed states, they can become havens for terrorists and spread instability in a region," said Lawrence Korb, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information.
The United States and China announced a joint research program to promote fuel-efficient vehicles and buildings this week. Although the financial commitment was a mere $15 million, the partnership marked a step forward in global collaboration to fight climate change.
Jul 16 2009
When temperatures head north of 100 degrees, it's time to run through the sprinkler, mix up some iced tea and invite yourself to a neighbor's pool party.
It's also a good time to look for ways to cut back on energy use, to spare the grid and save everyone money.
Three times this week (Monday, Tuesday and today), as sweltering heat drove customers to crank up their air conditioners, PG&E declared "SmartDay" events to promote voluntary cutbacks in electricity use. (The last time the utility called three SmartDay events in such close order was in September 2008.)
These SmartDay events are targeted at utility customers who participate in one of PG&E's several voluntary "demand response" programs that provide incentives for business and residential customers to temporarily curb electricity use. For example, residential SmartRateâ„¢ participants can save about 3 cents a kilowatt hour on their power as long as they slash energy use from 2 p.m. to 7 p.m. on SmartDay events, which are called up to 15 days a year.
PG&E also offers $25 incentive bonuses to customers who enroll in the SmartACâ„¢ program, which adjusts their air conditioners on days when load reduction is critically needed.
Temporary surges in demand, especially for air conditioning, force utilities to build or buy expensive peak power and transmission capacity that lies idle most of the year. In California, some 2,500 MW of capacity comes on line only 50 hours a year. But we pay for this capacity in our rates every month, year in and year out.
Worse yet, notes a recent report by the California Public Utilities Commission and California Energy Commission, "peaking units contribute disproportionately not only to greenhouse gas emissions but to local air pollution because they operate during hot summer afternoons when local air quality can be poor."
That's why state energy policy lists "demand response" programs as second in priority only to energy efficiency, and ahead even of renewable energy. Finding ways to curb customer demand is especially important because peak demand is growing even faster than overall energy use in the state.
A staff report released last month by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission concluded that all-out deployment of demand response programs could lower peak demand in the United States by 20 percent over the next decade. The benefits would be huge: "This would eliminate the need for roughly 2,000 peaking power plants, lowering electricity bills, improving system reliability, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions."
Making this scenario happen will require giving customers price incentives to shift demand to off-peak times of day, which in turn will require providing them with advanced meters. PG&E is a leader in this field, having deployed more advanced meters than any other North American utility, including more than a million SmartMeterâ„¢ electric meters. (By 2012, PG&E expects to deploy more than 10 million automated gas and electric meters.)
Economists at The Brattle Group, who are among the leading experts on demand response, say another key factor in motivating consumers is automated energy management technology and in-home displays that show when it's time to cut back on use. An example is PG&E's Energy Orb, which shifts from cold blue to hot red when the utility calls a demand response event by sending out a wireless signal.
The good news is that customers welcome the chance to do good while saving money. We just need to give them the tools.
Jul 15 2009
Natural and organic are good--except when they're not. Consider, for example, the latest finding from the EPA that wood-burning stoves and fireplaces constitute one of the major sources of cancer risks in Oregon's air.
Humans have been burning wood to cook and keep warm for tens or hundreds of thousands of years, but until recently, they didn't live long enough to worry about getting cancer from the emissions. Now they do. Incomplete combustion of wood produces chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which are known animal carcinogens and probable human carcinogens. Humans are also exposed to these compounds through the air from cigarette smoke and roofing tar emissions and through food from grilling meat.
Not to ruin anyone's romantic fireside date, but wood smoke also "contains harmful chemical substances such as carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), dioxin, and inhalable particulate matter (PM)," according to EPA. ". . . One of the biggest human health threats from smoke, indoors or outdoors, comes from PM. Wood smoke PM is composed of wood tars, gases, soot, and ashes."
(If you really want to ruin your day, check out Clean Air Revival's documented list of health effects from burning wood. You'll wonder how our species has lasted as long as it has.)
The good news is that there are alternatives. An EPA-certified wood stove emits less than a third as many particulates as an uncertified wood stove, and a twentieth as much as a fireplace, for the same amount of heat. But if you want to play it safe, a gas furnace is best of all; it produces less than a hundredth as many particulates as even an EPA-certified wood stove.
I've always thought my gas-burning fireplace at home looks a bit tacky. After reading up on EPA's web site, I now appreciate its virtues a little more.
Jul 10 2009
Several recent stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Science and politics are often at odds because scientists and the public have widely divergent views, a new survey suggests. A Pew Research Center survey finds that unlike scientists, who mostly agree that human activity contributes to climate change, only half of the public agrees. (And 11 percent don't believe any warming has even taken place.) Nearly every scientist agrees that humans evolved through natural processes, but nearly a third of Americans believe people existed from the beginning of time. Not surprisingly, 85 percent of scientists polled said they believe public ignorance is a major problem.
New data from NASA earth-orbiting satellites show dramatic thinning of winter Arctic ice from 2004 to 2008, according to results published in Journal of Geophysical Research-Oceans. Over just four years, the average thickness dropped 2.2 feet. Thinner winter ice in turn means more open ocean during summer months and more absorption of solar energy, creating feedback effects. New estimates suggest that the amount of carbon frozen in arctic tundras that could potentially be released as warming continues is double the amount contained in the atmosphere.
The timetable for Senate action on climate change legislation got pushed back this week. California's Barbara Boxer, who chairs the Senate environment and public works committee, said a draft bill won't be ready until September, and there are no guarantees that legislation will pass by December, when President Obama will attend an international summit in Copenhagen.
International cooperation on climate change will be a challenge. A group of developing nations attending a G-8 meeting in Italy, including China and India, made it clear that they would not take a leadership role in combatting global warming. Unfortunately, some analysts say the U.S. Senate will balk at tough action unless they see evidence that developing countries will act in concert.
Chances of Senate passage are jeopardized by doubts expressed by more than a dozen Senate Democrats who fear the impact of climate change legislation on farmers, coal producers, utilities and manufacturers. On the Republican side, Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, said at the first Senate hearing, "It is hard to believe that at a time when growing our economy is our No. 1 priority, Congress is considering a bill that would reduce economic growth."
Jul 09 2009
Sometimes I think you have to be rich to live green.
That's how I feel every time I check out the organic produce or the divinely virgin olive oil at the Ferry Building in San Francisco. That's how I felt when I admired a cute one-seat electric commuter car at the Marin County fair last week--only to discover that it cost $120,000. The maker assured me they sell as fast as he can produce them.
So I was happy to learn today that that many of the greenest cars on the market--high-mileage hybrids and clean diesels--actually save you money over time relative to their gasoline-powered cousins.
Intellichoice.com just released an analysis of 51 different 2009 model year clean cars and their five-year (or 70,000 mile) ownership costs, based on factors such as depreciation, maintenance, repair and fuel costs. The bottom line: "34 have a lower overall Cost of Ownership compared to traditional or gasoline-only vehicles" in the same class.
Even if you ignore the tax break for hybrid vehicles, which gives them an artificial advantage, 23 of the hybrids and clean diesels beat their traditional competition for value.
Lower fuel costs were part of the reason--and a factor that will grow as gasoline prices keep inching back up. If gasoline hits $4 a gallon again, 41 of the clean vehicles in the survey would look like winners.
Also significant is the superior ability of many green vehicles to hold their value. The Toyota Prius and diesel Volkswagon Jetta TDI are champions in this regard. Both retain more than 70 percent of their initial value over five years, well above their closest counterparts (Camry and Jetta SE).
If Intellichoice.com's numbers are correct, you want to think twice before buying a new Lexus LS 600h L, GMC Yukon Hybrid, Chrysler Aspen Hybrid 4WD or Cadillac Escalade Hybrid 2WD--they'll burn through your pocket.
On the other hand, you'll enjoy thousands of dollars of savings with the Prius, Jetta TDI, Saturn Aura Green, Ford Escape Hybrid FWD, Chevy Silverado 1500 Crew Cab Hybrid and Mercedes-Benz GL320 BlueTEC (a diesel).
But don't forget--you'll save even more, and live even greener, by walking, riding your bicycle or taking the bus. You might even save enough to afford an organic peach now and then.
Jul 08 2009
PG&E continues to make significant progress on its 2 megawatt solar photovoltaic (PV) pilot project, first announced here in March. PG&E has selected Solon Corporation, a subsidiary of Germany's Solon SE, as the turnkey supplier to build the facility--named Vaca-Dixon Solar Station--next to PG&E's Vaca-Dixon substation in Vacaville, CA. Solon was one of the six suppliers invited to bid out of 168 suppliers who responded to PG&E's request for information.
The pilot represents the utility's first step in implementing its plan to promote 500 MW of new PV power over five years--250 MW to be built by the utility and 250 MW by independent developers. (The plan, proposed in February, is under consideration by the California Public Utilities Commission.)
PG&E will use the pilot project to help develop its processes for building and operating PV facilities while it seeks regulatory approval for the full 500 MW proposal. If approved and completed, that mega-PV program could meet more than 1.3 percent of PG&E's electric demand and deliver as much power as consumed by 150,000 average homes.
The Vaca-Dixon Solar Station will use Solon's polycrystalline modules, on ground mounts with a fixed tilt. Solon will sub-contract with Silverwood Energy, Inc., a California disabled veteran business enterprise, to build and commission the facility by the end of December, 2009.
Solon, which has the interesting corporate tag line, "Don't leave the planet to the stupid,"
is one of the largest solar module manufacturers in Europe and a major supplier of photovoltaic systems for large-scale solar power plants. Since 2005, Solon has constructed solar power plants with a total solar power output of over 130 MW in Spain, Germany, Australia and the United States. Solon's PV module manufacturing facility is located in Tucson, AZ, with an annual production capacity of 120 MW.
Jul 07 2009
Global Warming meets Big Foot: sounds like one of those Japanese monster movies from the '60s.
A team of biologists, led by Jeff Lozier of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, has tried to guess the outcome of that thriller, using the technique of ecological niche modeling. The controversial technique combines environmental and species location data to extrapolate past and future habitation trends.
In the case of Big Foot, a/k/a sasquatch, the hairy creature said to inhabit forests of California and the Pacific Northwest, global warming will likely prompt the oft-sited but camera-shy ape to head for the hills in search of cooler climes.
The good news is that if Big Foots (Feet?) exist, they should find plenty of suitable habitat in the Rocky Mountains and Canada, the scientists report in the Journal of Biogeography.
Alternatively--and our theory hasn't yet been peer reviewed--if it gets hot enough, Big Foot might lose his hair and blend in with the rest of us homo sapiens. Next time you're camping in the Trinity Alps, keep your eyes out for some odd looking folks who might fit the bill.
Jul 07 2009
He (or she) who has the most money, wins.
In the race for bragging rights to the biggest wind farms, as I noted here recently, the Chinese have taken the lead with talk in Gansu Province of plans to develop a single project with 20 gigawatts of capacity by 2020. The project's total capacity, when the wind is blowing, could exceed that of the nearby Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower station.
The price tag for all that: nearly $20 billion.
In contrast, the closest American competitor, maverick Texas oilman T. Boone Pickens, is now reportedly scaling back plans, announced last year, to build a 1 GW wind farm in West Texas, which he said hoped to expand to 4 GW by 2014. Instead, he may try to build out three or four smaller sites.
Pickens blames falling natural gas prices (which make wind energy less competitive) and the unavailability of transmission for his decision. But the fact that the value of his hedge funds crashed from $4 billion last year to $1.5 billion today may have something to do with the relative modesty of his current ambitions.
Jul 06 2009
Vanished civilizations that cultivated the Amazon jungle long before the arrival of European explorers may hold a key to slowing or even reversing the onset of global warming.
Archeologists who once believed the Amazon basin, with its notoriously unproductive soil, was only thinly populated by Stone Age tribes now have abundant evidence that it was extensively inhabited and farmed many hundreds of years ago. Evidence of this pre-Columbian civilization was literally buried under jungle that encroached when European diseases wiped out the indigenous population.
The fertility secret that made these early urban cultures viable was a potent soil called terra preta, or dark earth. Recent scientific studies show the soil was man-made, not natural, formed by mixing earth with plant material that was allowed to smoulder without fully burning.
Today biochar is made by heating biomass in kilns without oxygen. Instead of burning, this process of pryolysis creates energy-rich syngas, liquid bio-oil and fine-grained, porous biochar.
Biochar doesn't directly provide nutrients, but it improves crop yields by reducing soil acidity, fostering the growth of favorable microorganisms and improving water quality, among other factors.
The relevance of terra preta today goes beyond its promise for helping farmers in the developing world. The very act of converting biomass into biochar and burying it in the earth may be one of the most effective ways to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and prevent it from contributing to runaway greenhouse warming.
Radio-carbon dating of Amazon soils shows that biochar can store carbon in the earth for hundreds or even thousands of years. Johannes Lehmann, a Cornell University biogeochemist and leading expert on biochar, said,
By sequestering huge amounts of carbon, this technique constitutes a much longer and significant sink for atmospheric carbon dioxide than most other sequestration options, making it a powerful tool for long-term mitigation of climate change. In fact we have calculated that up to 12 percent of the carbon emissions produced by human activity could be offset annually if slash-and-burn were replaced by slash-and-char.
Tim Lenton, a climate scientist at the University of East Anglia, compared all major geoengineering proposals for mitigating global warming and rated biochar production as one of the most promising. Other biochar enthusiasts include NASA earth scientist James Hansen, whose prescient warnings in 1988 launched much of the research and subsequent activism on global warming, and James Lovelock, famed originator of the Gaia hypothesis of Earth as a self-regulating environment.
Lovelock, who turns 90 this month, told New Scientist earlier this year that biochar could be humanity's salvation:
There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast. . . . This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.
Despite his pessimism, biochar enthusiasts have made headway with the United Nations and even with Congress: The 2008 Farm Bill established the first national policy in support of biochar production and utilization in the world. And several companies, including Carbonscape and Carbon Diversion, Inc. are attempting to bring the technology of biochar carbon sequestration to market.
Biochar may of course prove too good to be true. But if you like to garden and want to attempt a little geoengineering in your yard, check out this FAQ. The earth may thank you for it.
Jul 03 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention last week:
Big chunks of the state of Louisiana are destined to sink underwater as land subsides and sea levels rise, according to a new study co-authored by a scientist at Exxon. Human causes include not only global warming but thousands of dams and levees that block sediment deposits from the Mississippi that used to build up low-lying lands near the coast. "We conclude that significant drowning is inevitable," the authors write in a paper published in Nature Geoscience.
Meanwhile, ExxonMobile is drawing heat from the British and Australian media for apparently reneging on its promise last year to "discontinue contributions" to climate-change skeptics. The conservative Daily Telegraph reported that the world's largest oil company made several hundred thousand dollars in grants in 2008 to such groups, including the National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas, the Heritage Foundation in Washington, and the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. ExxonMobile also contributes to some environmental groups, the paper noted. "We are funding people on all sides of that debate," a company spokesman told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
Germany, UK and France are taking the most aggressive steps to fight global warming among G8 countries, according to a new report sponsored by WWF and the German insurer Allianz SE. Only Canada and Russia rank worse than the United States. However, President Obama plans to meet next week with Russian leaders to promote collective action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
After last Friday's close vote in the House of Representatives to pass the Waxman-Markey climate change bill--a tribute to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's "arm-twisting" in the words of Politico--attention now moves to the Senate. One of the biggest threats to passage comes from opposition by agricultural interests, despite major concessions they extracted in the House. The American Farm Bureau Federation opposes the bill partly because it may raise the cost of fertilizer and fuel.
It will be interesting to see whether supporters succeed in making farm-state Senators aware of how much their constituents have at stake as the earth warms. The recent report of the U.S. Global Change Research Program, commissioned by President Bush and based on the expert findings of 13 federal departments and agencies, has this to say about the projected impact of warming on the farm belt:
- Midwest: "While the longer growing season provides the potential for increased crop yields, increases in heat waves, floods, droughts, insects, and weeds will present increasing challenges to managing crops, livestock, and forests. Spring flooding is likely to delay planting. An increase in disease-causing pathogens, insect pests, and weeds cause additional challenges for agriculture. Livestock production is expected to become more costly as higher temperatures stress livestock, decreasing productivity and increasing costs associated with the needed ventilation and cooling equipment."
- Great Plains: "Agriculture, ranching, and natural lands, already under pressure due to an increasingly limited water supply, are very likely to also be stressed by rising temperatures. . . . Pests will spread northward and milder winters and earlier springs will encourage greater numbers and earlier emergence of insects."
- Southeast: "Effects of increased heat include more heat-related illness; declines in forest growth and agricultural crop production due to the combined effects of heat stress and declining soil moisture; declines in cattle production; increased buckling of pavement and railways; and reduced oxygen levels in streams and lakes, leading to fish kills and declines in aquatic species diversity. Decreased water availability is very likely to affect the region's economy as well as its natural systems. . . . Sea-level rise and the likely increase in hurricane intensity and associated storm surge will be among the most serious consequences of climate change. . . . a large portion of the Southeast coastal zone could be threatened. Ecological thresholds are likely to be crossed throughout the region, causing major disruptions to ecosystems and to the benefits they provide to people."
Jul 02 2009
China and Texas have at least one trait in common, besides the five-pointed star in their flags: a belief that bigger is better.
Latest case in point: After leading the United States in oil production, Texas is now home to the world's biggest wind farm. Meanwhile, after leading the world in new coal-plant construction, China is now boasting of wind-energy projects that will leave even Texas in the dust.
China last week announced plans to build seven giant new wind farms by 2020 at a cost of $140 billion. Their combined capacity will total 120 GW--gigawatts, not megawatts--representing about eight percent of China's power capacity by the time they come online a decade from now. (Sadly for GE and the U.S. balance of trade, China has no plans to tap foreign turbine manufacturers to meet its wind power needs; the central government has imposed a "buy Chinese" policy.)
The largest wind farm in the world today is Horse Hollow Wind Energy Center in Texas, spread over 47,000 acres near Abilene. Owned and operated by a subsidiary of FPL Energy, it consists of 421 giant GE and Siemens turbines with a total rated capacity of 735 megawatts, less than seven percent of the capacity of each of China's proposed new projects.
(By comparison, the Altamont Pass Wind Farm in PG&E's service area has a total capacity of about 576 MW.)
Two years ago, before the global financial crisis struck, Texas billionaire T. Boone Pickens floated plans to develop up to 4,000 MW of power from a giant wind farm in West Texas. A year ago, his Mesa Power LLP ordered 667 turbines from GE with a total rated capacity of 1,000 MW. More recently, in the wake of the economic downturn, the company laid off some employees and said it has significantly slowed its development schedule, while remaining committed to the project.
Meantime, just last month a Spanish group devoted to renewable energy, Guascor, announced plans to build what it believes will be the world's largest wind farm--a project of up to 900 MW in Argentina's wind-swept Patagonia. The estimated cost is $2.4 billion, and work could begin in as little as 12 months after environmental reviews.
Jul 01 2009
Just as I had finished glugging a glass of OJ this morning, a new report from the University of Rochester Medical Center caught my eye: orange juice decreases tooth enamel hardness by 84 percent. "The acid is so strong that the tooth is literally washed away," said the lead researcher.
After I overcame a brief bout of acid indigestion, I started wondering. If I and millions like me decide to get our daily vitamin C instead from rose hip pills, what will happen to all those California and Florida oranges piled high in our supermarkets?
Not to worry. Turns out orange peel oil makes a great additive to car tires, improving their performance and making them more environmentally friendly.
Japanese tire manufacturer Yokahama says its new Super E-spec tire, 80 percent composed of non-petroleum materials (including orange peel extracts), has 20 percent less rolling resistance than standard tires, increasing its fuel economy. It's also easier to recycle than synthetic products. Yokahama is targeting the new tires for use by the Toyota Prius and other high-mileage cars.
(As noted recently in NEXT100, a 10 percent improvement in the rolling resistance of older tires used in California could reduce the state's consumption of oil by more than 250 million gallons, save about $750 million and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7 million metric tons annually, according to the California Energy Commission.)
But Yokahama's orange-infused tires aren't just for sedate sedans. Porsche outfitted its racing cars on the Sebring International Speedway during the Patron GT3 Challenge with tires using the same technology.
Mark Chung, Yokahama's director of corporate strategy and planning, told Wired.com that Yokahama has been experimenting with orange oils since the 1980s, and was prompted to go commercial with the technology because of environmental imperatives.
"It is used to soften the natural rubber and increase grip on the tire," he said. "We've tested a lot of natural products including spider silk, and we found that orange oil works best because it has a molecular structure similar to natural rubber."
Now if they could just figure out how to turn the orange pips into biofuels, we could have the seeds of a real automotive revolution.
Jun 30 2009
More than a few venture investors would consider giving up their first born if they could identify for sure the Next Big Thing.
Last week, however, a senior energy technology guru gave them some free advice. His message: don't just look at obvious items like batteries and solar cells, but also at the "game-changing materials" that underly key advances in those technologies. (Shameless plug: see NEXT100's earlier take on some of the amazing developments in materials science.)
Speaking at the annual convention of the Edison Electric Institute in San Francisco, Mike Howard, senior vice president of R&D at the Electric Power Research Institute, emphasized that "materials are critically important to everything we do," from generation to lighting to storage.
As an example, he pointed to the current limits on steam generation efficiency set by steels that degrade at temperatures above 1000F. If operating temperatures of boilers and turbines could be raised to 1400F, their efficiency could be increased dramatically from 37 percent to 47 percent.
Finding new materials to work at such temperature extremes without cracking requires understanding what is happening at the atomic level. "Working with atomic probe microscopes, we are uncovering some fundamental properties of materials and why failures occur," he said.
Materials science is also having a revolutionary impact on lighting, which consumes about 17 percent of all electricity in the United States. Applying surface-mount technology to assemble LEDs with different spectra to produce the desired light output is opening up great room for potential further improvements in efficiency and usability. "LEDs are on a strong upward trajectory with regard to efficiency," Howard said. "It's a game changer."
Last but not least he addressed storage, where the Holy Grail is maximizing the amount of energy stored per kilogram (energy density). For electrochemical batteries, the critical factor is the amount of reactive surface area available.
By inserting nanowires into lithium ion batteries, their energy density can be increased four times, Howard said. That means a laptop computer could be powered for 16 hours instead of only four, with batteries of the same weight and size. Or it means a Chevy Volt could drive 160 miles instead of 40 on a single charge. "That's where we are headed," Howard promised.
Jun 29 2009
Slow, loud and smoky, brought to you by General Motors.
That was the how Americans came to perceive a variety of ill-designed diesel cars more than two decades ago, after giving the fuel-efficient technology a try in the wake of the two oil embargoes. Diesel was a bust here in the U.S. of A.
So what is it about diesel cars today that makes them account for about half of new car sales in Western Europe? It turns out that engineers have quietly made them clean enough to pass the tightest air regulations, while retaining their famed accelerating power (torque) and fuel efficiency.
Diesel fuel has more energy than gasoline and diesel engines tend to have higher intrinsic efficiency than spark-ignition gasoline engines. Diesel fuels can also be manufactured from vegetable oils or animal fats--even recycled restaurant grease--making biodiesel an especially attractive "green" fuel.
There's more good news: after a nasty spike last year, diesel prices are back below gasoline. According to figures from the U.S. Energy Information Administration, diesel prices in California last week averaged $2.79 a gallon versus $3.01 for gasoline, a 22 cent spread.
This confluence of improved technology and lower fuel prices is giving a big boost to Volkswagon, maker of the diesel Jetta TDI. Sales of the diesel-engined Jetta in the United States are running far ahead of the manufacturer's projections.
The $22,000 Jetta TDI was named Green Car of the Year last November by Green Car Journal, which said the vehicle "raises the bar significantly in environmental performance with its EPA estimated 41 mpg highway fuel economy, reduced greenhouse gas emissions, and extremely low tailpipe emissions. This is all the more impressive when you consider the Jetta TDI is a clean diesel, achieving the kind of fuel efficiency offered by gasoline electric hybrids but in a more affordable way."
Riding the diesel wave, Volkswagon recently unveiled its BlueSport roadster, with a top speed of 140 mph, 258 ft-lbs of torque, and 0-60 acceleration in less than 6 seconds. Its U.S. fuel economy is estimated at 42 mpg.
Like Volkswagon, Mazda is reportedly focusing on clean diesel engines ahead of more expensive hybrids. And Audi is launching a major marketing campaign for its new line of diesels.
The latest surveys suggest, however, that only a third of Americans would consider buying a diesel car. Maybe the Old Country still has something to teach us about new vehicle technology.
Jun 26 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
Global warming--and efforts to fight global warming--are both putting national wildlife refuges at risk, according to a new report from Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility. Not surprisingly, climate change and rising sea levels threaten to destroy marshes and other critical habitats. But the report also warns that wind and solar farms and electric transmission lines can slice up wildlife habitats. The report calls for incentives for landowners to protect sensitive land and for better siting of power infrastructure.
The Waxman-Markey climate bill comes to the House floor for a vote today, with strong backing from President Obama. Public opinion if divided on its central provision, cap-and-trade: 52 percent of those surveyed in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll support the approach, with 42 percent opposed. But three-quarters of Americans, including even a majority of Republicans, support federal regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
A group of 20 corporations, including PG&E, HP, Applied Materials, and Starbucks ran an ad supporting Waxman-Markey, declaring: "Putting a price on carbon will drive investment into cost-saving, energy-saving technologies, and will create the next wave of jobs in the new energy economy."
Opponents of the bill include the American Petroleum Institute, the National Pork Producers Council, Friends of the Earth and most Republican members of Congress. Said House Minority Leader John Boehner, "Americans know that this bill would have a disastrous impact on our economy and our constituents." However, studies by the Congressional Budget Office and EPA suggest the average cost per household would be somewhere between $80 per year and $175 per year to help prevent potentially grievous economic and environmental harm.
Even if the United States passes a climate change bill with teeth, getting other countries to go along will remain a challenge. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recently said Russia might cut greenhouse gas emissions by about 10 to 15 per cent based on the 1990 base year used under the Kyoto deal. But because Russian emissions were so high that year, such a target could still allow the country to increase emissions by a third by 2020.
Jun 24 2009
No one ever thought it possible, but an issue has finally emerged to unite the oddest of bedfellows: Senator Tom Coburn, the conservative Republican from Oklahoma who called global warming "just a lot of crap," and Greenpeace, one of the most zealous of environmental activist groups.
That issue is federal support for research on technology to capture carbon dioxide emissions, primarily from coal-fired power plants, and store them underground (even under the ocean floor) where they can't contribute to greenhouse warming of the earth.
Both right and left are slamming a decision this month by the Department of Energy to resurrect a Bush-era proposal to fund FutureGen, an R&D project to demonstrate carbon capture and storage (CCS) at a new coal-fired power plant in Mattoon, Ill. Tens of billions of dollars more could be made available for CCS projects through the Waxman-Markey bill on global warming.
The controversy has all the ingredients that make national action on global warming so difficult: the specter of huge federal expenditures, major scientific and engineering uncertainty, and the clash of powerful political lobbies (especially coal-related interests) against partisan and ideological opponents (Coburn and Greenpeace).
Sen. Coburn this month put FutureGen--slated to receive $1 billion in stimulus funds--at second place on his list of 100 federal projects that he denounced as "wasteful spending."
Meanwhile Michael Crocker, media director at Greenpeace USA, said, "The billions for CCS make a new fleet of helicopters for the president or Alaska's infamous 'Bridge to Nowhere' look like a rummage sale bargain. At least we know helicopters and bridges actually work."
Ouch.
Skepticism about CCS isn't confined to the two extremes. The Economist magazine charged in March that "For the moment, at least, CCS is mostly hot air":
[T]here is not a single big power plant using CCS anywhere in the world. Utilities refuse to build any, since the technology is expensive and unproven. Advocates insist that the price will come down with time and experience, but it is hard to say by how much, or who should bear the extra cost in the meantime. Green pressure groups worry that captured carbon will eventually leak. In short, the world's leaders are counting on a fix for climate change that is at best uncertain and at worst unworkable.
But the Department of Energy can make a good case for its subsidies. For one thing, several promising technologies already exist for grabbing CO2 out of the air (or, in this case, out of flue gases). And for years, oil companies have pumped compressed CO2 underground to displace and extract more crude. The challenge is to find cheaper ways to extract CO2 and safe underground storage caverns that won't leak for hundreds of years.
Hard, yes, but not impossible. Studies at MIT and elsewhere suggest it can be done for $50-$70 per ton of CO2, more expensive than many energy efficiency investments, natural gas-fired generation and some forms of renewable energy, but less than the cost of some policies now being adopted to fight global warming.
Many energy experts advocate funding a reasonable number of demonstration projects to help narrow the cost uncertainties and advance the technology before deciding the fate of coal and CCS. They are joined by mainstream national environmental organizations such as the Natural Resources Defense Council and Environmental Defense Fund.
Interestingly, Royal Dutch Shell has redirected its "clean energy" investments from solar and wind to place its bets instead on CCS demonstration projects. "We think carbon capture and storage is one of the few technologies which has the potential to become very big," said CEO Jeroen van der Veer in May. "And if it becomes very big, then you start to do something about greenhouse gases."
If nothing else, political realities suggest that with half of U.S. electric power coming from coal--and millions of jobs tied to it--coal will have to be part of the solution.
As Secretary of Energy Steven Chu said sagely, "Even if the United States turns its back on coal, China and India will not. Given the state of affairs, I would prefer to say let's try to develop technologies that can get large fractions of the carbon dioxide out of coal."
Jun 23 2009
Scene: It's 2025. The recent collapse of the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets has raised sea levels two meters. Major sections of San Francisco, Los Angeles and New York City are now underwater and the public is panicking.
On the Washington Mall, under the hot sun, a fiery orater from Greenpeace tells assembled demonstrators that America must change its way of life or lead the world to ruin. He calls on the Menendez administration to support a ban on popular wall-sized TVs and other power-hungry home electronics.
On the steps of the Capitol, a crowd of counterdemonstrators jeer him. Their leader walks to the podium and hoists aloft his iPhone (version 20.0, with its new Telepathic OSâ„¢).
"You can have my iPhone when you pry it from my cold, dead hands," he shouts, as the crowd roars its approval.
That nightmare crossed my mind today upon reading the results of a new national survey of consumers. When asked whether they would be willing to do without certain products that harmed the environment, most people said, in effect, fuggedaboudit.
More precisely, only 38 percent said they would give up their iPod if they learned that it harmed the environment. Just over a third could live without a dishwasher. Only a quarter would part with their microwave, and only a fifth with their cell phone.
Civil war would erupt if anyone tried to turn off their air conditioner--only 14 percent of consumers would consider that sacrifice. The same for televisions--13 percent.
Most addictive of all were computers (7 percent willing to forego) and cars (6 percent).
If American attitudes are any indication, trying to convince residents of China and India to do without cars may be a lost cause.
Said Suzanne Shelton, whose Knoxville advertising firm conducted the survey, "Consumers don`t want to give up the modern conveniences of life. We`re all basically saying, `I`ll be green as long it doesn`t make me uncomfortable or inconvenienced.'"
Will we be uncomfortable enough when our cities are two feet under water?
Jun 22 2009
Pundits point to computers, wireless, the Internet, the Web and now clean tech as the revolutionary technologies of our time. But a strong case can be made that the enabling innovations behind most of those revolutions have been in the field of materials science.
Like Rodney Dangerfield, materials science--the study of the relationship between the atomic or molecular structure of matter and its macroscopic properties--doesn't get much respect outside of narrow professional circles. But the accelerating discovery of new materials with extraordinary properties is what makes advances in solar cells, lithium batteries and terabyte-level computer storage possible. They will be critical to helping the world achieve higher standards of living while using or producing energy more efficiently.
You won't see many stories in your local newspaper, but one of the hottest research areas for materials scientists is a two-dimensional crystalline form of carbon called graphene. A mere one-atom thick, it nonetheless manages to be the strongest material ever discovered. Unlike buckyballs or carbon nanotubes, which are also one atom thick, graphene lies flat, in sheets.
"In physics today, graphene is, arguably, the most exciting topic," says Tomás Palacios, assistant professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science.
It usually behaves like a highly conductive metal, but scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered a reliable way to make it act like a semiconductor (the basis of transistors), by doping it with the right chemicals. The new results make graphene a promising candidate for nanoelectronics (microelectronics is so 20th century) and "could enable new kinds of optoelectronic devices for generating, amplifying, and detecting infrared light," according to the lab's announcement.
Meanwhile, scientists at the University of Manchester have used graphene to create the world's smallest transistors--a mere one atom thick and 10 atoms wide. And at MIT, scientists have shown the ability of graphene to process electrical signals at frequencies a hundred times faster than normal semiconductors, opening up new windows for communications.
An Austin, Texas startup, Graphene Energy, hopes to use the miracle substance to make super high capacity ultracapacitors, which story energy electrostatically between two charged plates, rather than chemically as in batteries. Unlike batteries, ultracapacitors can charge and discharge millions of times without failing. Graphene-based ultracapacitors could have application in electric vehicles, forklifts or even for stabilizing electrical grids.
Because ultrathin graphene films are both transparent and highly conductive, they also show great promise as electrodes in solid-state solar cells. Graphene can also be used for touchscreens, light-emitting diodes, sensing gas molecules and even detecting microbes.
Research in the field was opened up in 2004 when a team of physicists at the University of Manchester first announced their production of graphene. (Their paper almost didn't get published because its claims were so exotic.)
Highly impractical physicists love the stuff because it lets them explore theoretical questions of particle physics and even astrophysics in their labs without the need for multi-billion dollar particle colliders. The rest of us practical folks can look forward to a host of potentially life-changing applications.
Jun 19 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A major new federal climate report, commissioned by the Bush administration, warns that unchecked CO2 emissions could warm the United States by 10 degrees over the next 80 years. Its regional findings for the Southwest, including California, warn that
Continued temperature increases combined with river flow reductions and rapid population growth will increase competition for water supplies. Increasing temperature, drought, wildfire, and invasive species will accelerate transformation of the landscape. Impacts of climate change on the landscape of the Southwest are likely to be substantial, threatening biological diversity, protected areas, and ranching and agricultural lands. . . . Record-setting wildfires are resulting from the rising temperatures and related reductions in spring snowpack and soil moisture.
Scientists reporting on the findings of a major conference attended by 2,000 climate impact specialists this March in Copenhagen say that half measures to limit global warming won't prevent the earth from reaching a "tipping point" in which "change is abrupt, large, and potentially irreversible in time frames relevant for contemporary society." Said John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, "Either you make a decision like Churchill in the war and talk about blood, sweat and tears, or you say, 'Let's surrender.'"
Political battles in Congress continue to bog down climate change legislation. In addition to fierce opposition from the coal lobby, agricultural interests are seeking to water down key provisions even though global warming threatens to cause droughts, crippling heat and pest infestations. Backed by Agriculture Committee Chairman Collin Peterson (D-Minn.), farm state electric cooperatives are demanding free emissions allowances based on historic emission levels, which would reward the dirtiest polluters. Peterson is threatening to block climate change legislation unless he wins such concessions.
Farm interests also won a vote in the House Appropriations Committee for an amendment to the appropriations bill for EPA, which would block the agency from making factory farms report their greenhouse gas emissions and exempt livestock operations from emissions regulations. Cows and their manure are major sources of methane, a greenhouse gas much more potent than carbon dioxide.
The energy bill reported out of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee will save only about a third as much energy as its counterpart in the House, according to an analysis by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy. But the organization still sees a glass half full:
Consumers will realize approximately $20 billion in net savings by 2030. Moreover, such savings will avoid about 133 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions in 2020, the equivalent of taking 22 million cars off the road for a year. The 2030 energy efficiency savings account for about 4% of projected U.S. energy use that year.
Jun 18 2009
The world's biggest renewable energy project--at least on paper--may launch next month with an investment of half a trillion dollars, according to the daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung.
Promoted by the Desertec Foundation, the project would erect 100 gigawatts of concentrating solar thermal power generation in North Africa, enough to supply about 15 percent of Europe's electricity needs. That's about 80 times the size of PG&E's record solar deal with BrightSource Energy.
As NEXT100 reported last fall, European leaders including Gordon Brown and Nicholas Sarkozy have endorsed the concept of transmitting vast amounts of Saharan solar power to Europe over efficient, high-voltage DC lines. Visionary inventors have gone further and proposed desalination plants and coastal agricultural projects to accompany solar stations along Africa's Mediterranean shore.
The Desertec project brings together 20 major German companies, including Siemens, Deutsche Bank, RWE, E.on, and the insurance giant Munich Re. Munich Re has been vocal about the looming financial impact on the insurance industry (among others) of natural disasters aggravated by global warming. Companies from other countries may join as well.
According to some estimates, harnessing a mere 0.3 percent of the light falling on the deserts of North Africa and the Middle East could supply all of Europe's energy needs.
Desertec has won applause even from the harshest critics of big corporations. Said Andree Bohling of Greenpeace, "Businesses have finally recognised that renewable energies belong to the future, and in times of economic crisis this also sends out an important signal for economic growth."
Jun 18 2009
Last summer, a presidential candidate named Barack Obama drew hoots and hollers from opponents for claiming that properly inflating your tires is a simple but important step individuals can take to save energy.
For all the derision he endured, Obama was right, of course. Tire pressure and road friction significantly affect auto fuel economy. The Department of Energy reports that "a vehicle with a recommended pressure of 35 psi whose tires are at 28 psi will have increased its rolling resistance by 12.5%."
Ironically, Obama was echoing an advertising campaign mounted by the first Bush administration in 1990, called "Do Your Part, Drive Smart," which advised that drivers collectively could save millions of barrels of oil a year simply by increasing the air pressure in their tires.
California has long understood the importance of tire friction. In 2003, the state passed a law that required the development of reporting requirements from manufacturers to help consumers compare the fuel economy of different tires.
A 10 percent improvement in the rolling resistance of older tires used in California could reduce the state's consumption of oil by more than 250 million gallons (saving about $750 million) and reduce CO2 emissions by 2.7 million metric tons annually, according to the California Energy Commission.
California's Air Resources Board already requires service stations to check tire pressure whenever they do repairs. Last week, the California Energy Commission proposed a new rating system for tires sold in California based on their rolling resistance, according to my favorite bedtime periodical, Modern Tire Dealer.
The Commission proposes to award the label "fuel efficient tire" to all tires that fall within 15 percent of the lowest measured "rolling resistance force." It would be like an Energy Star label for tires.
The Commission believes such ratings will "ignite a competitive spirit" among tire manufacturers to win the coveted label. But the Rubber Manufacturers Association advocates less costly testing requirements and a "self-certification" system for ratings.
Until the new ratings are final and published, one good source of information is Consumer Reports, which claims to be "the only independent group that rates tires for both performance and rolling resistance." Wikipedia also has a good list of tires with low rolling resistance.
Consumer Reports, which was invited by the Commission to be part of its rating proposal process, has this caveat:
Rolling resistance should not be the primary reason for a tire purchase. The most important considerations are safety-related performance features including dry- and wet-braking, hydroplaning resistance, handling, winter traction if applicable in your region, and tread-life. Low rolling resistance should be a secondary consideration in your tire-buying decision.
Jun 17 2009
Rail buffs, gird your loins: travel by train can actually produce more greenhouse gas emissions than flying, according to a new study of lifecycle energy use and pollution by cars, buses, trains and airplanes.
The study, by U.C. Berkeley engineers Mikhail Chester and Arpad Horvath, takes into account the full range of environmental impacts from raw materials extraction, manufacturing, construction, operation, maintenance and decommissioning of vehicles, fuels and infrastructure (roads, rails, airports) needed to run them.
Perspectives change a lot when you look at the big picture. For example, aircraft have big fuel requirements for every passenger-mile traveled, but relatively low infrastructure costs. Building and operating railroad stations and rail lines, on the other hand, takes twice as much energy as operating rail cars.
Their analysis shows that some light rail systems, like San Francisco's Muni, may use more energy per passenger mile than large aircraft. What saves Muni from having a larger carbon footprint is the relatively clean source of electricity it uses. Boston's Green Line, powered mostly by dirty fossil fuels, emits more greenhouse gases per passenger mile than large or mid-sized aircraft with typical occupancy rates.
Lead author Mikhail Chester told me he's cautious about declaring any one mode of transportation the "best" or the "worst." A lot depends on actual ridership. For example, he notes, "the worst performer could easily be the midsize aircraft flight I took recently with 5 passengers." Most aircraft, however, are much more fully loaded.
Buses illustrate his point especially well. The worst energy hogs shown in the paper's charts--and the worst greenhouse gas emitters--are urban diesel buses running off peak, with only a few passengers. But the most energy-efficient and generally cleanest vehicles are also urban diesel buses, running full at peak periods. (All comparisons are per passenger-mile traveled.)
Conventional cars, SUVs and pickup trucks are the worst energy users and greenhouse gas offenders, apart from near-empty diesel buses. But adding one or two passengers can dramatically improve their relative performance. The same point goes for other forms of transportation: higher occupancy works magic.
Strange, isn't it, that we invest so much money and talent into engineering more fuel-efficient vehicles, but not into finding simple ways to make them more people-efficient.
Jun 16 2009
Even die-hard fans of bottled water know all that plastic filling up landfills can't be good for the environment. What they may not appreciate, however, is the staggering amount of energy embodied in all those liquid refreshments.
Taking something you can get free from the tap and charging more for it than the price of gasoline is one of the great marketing triumphs of all time. As of 2007, beverage companies sold more than 200 billion--billion, not million--liters of bottled water worldwide. Americans alone drank more than 30 gallons of bottled water per person that year, more than milk or beer.
Manufacturing, filling, transporting and cooling all those myriad bottles uses a good bit of energy, particularly when they are shipped from France or Fiji.
In fact, producing and distributing bottled water requires as much as 2,000 times the energy used in producing tap water.
Bottom line: "the annual consumption of bottled water in the US in 2007 required an energy input equivalent to between 32 and 54 million barrels of oil or a third of a percent of total US primary energy consumption," conclude Peter Glieck and H. S. Cooley of Oakland's Pacific Institute in a new article in Environmental Research Letters. "We estimate that roughly three times this amount was required to satisfy global bottled water demand."
Jun 15 2009
Our recent report on the status of fusion power research suggested that its promises of limitless power are destined to remain promises for a long time to come. Confirmation of that view comes from a recent report by Agence France Presse about delays in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), slated for construction in southern France.
The reactor will heat hydrogen atoms to a temperature of 270 million degrees F, energizing their nuclei enough to fuse into helium, a reaction that unleashes tremendous amounts of energy. Don't try this at home.
Confirming that the hugely ambitious project has "a new commissioning strategy," a spokeswoman for France's Atomic Energy Commission said, "discussions are underway about the best timetable."
What that means, apparently, is the backers still hope to begin experiments by 2018, but on a pared-back schedule that will put any hope of commercial power back a long, long way. Key experiments necessary to commercialize fusion power would not begin until 2026 at the earliest, five years later than previously projected.
Participants in the project include the European Union (EU), China, India, South Korea, Japan, Russia and the United States, with Kazakhstan likely to join soon. (More grist for Borat.)
If they don't bail, those countries may be on the hook for $25 billion in construction and startup costs, according recent estimates.
Jun 12 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Experts predict that environmental stress caused by global warming could displace at least 200 million people by 2050, creating the greatest migration in human history. A new report by the International Organization for Migration highlighted the likely impact on people living in vulnerable river deltas, deserts, and islands.
- In a rare joint statement, the science academies of the G8 countries and those of Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa appealed to political leaders to "seize all opportunities" to combat climate change, which they said "is happening even faster than previously estimated."
- Want to estimate your personal impact on climate change? A team of scientists has demonstrated for the first time a simple linear relationship between greenhouse gas emissions and global termperature changes. For every tonne of carbon dioxide emitted--which is about the carbon footprint of 5,000 miles of air travel--you'll raise global temperatures by 0.0000000000015 degrees.
- Japan announced this week that it plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 15 percent below 2005 levels by 2020. Japan's prime minister called the target "ambitious" but one environmental consultant termed it "the weakest target any country has pledged so far."
- In a cruelly ironic twist, global warming may be slowing down the very winds needed to generate renewable energy that could reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Though the findings are still controversial, one atmospheric scientist says average wind speeds in the Midwest have dropped 10 percent or more in a decade.
Jun 11 2009
Innovation sometimes involves little more than revisiting the past with a fresh look. Take, for example, the recent announcement that PG&E's ClimateSmart program will buy carbon offsets from California Bioenergy's methane capture project at a dairy near Bakersfield.
As the news release notes, "the project will process manure from the dairy through an anaerobic digester that traps the methane gas produced as the manure decomposes." Since methane is many times more potent than CO2 as a greenhouse gas, this project should be a winner for the environment--and will yield a useful fuel as well.
Using anaerobic digesters--devices that harness microorganisms to break down organic waste in an environment free of oxygen--to generate methane is not a new idea. The first such device was reportedly built and used by a leper colony in Bombay in 1859. A few decades later, the English city of Exeter used one to create gas for street lighting. Today, it's common for agencies like the East Bay Municipal Utility District to use anaerobic digestion to break down food waste in their sewage treatment plants.
Anaerobic digestion has been promoted by the United Nations as a particularly promising source of energy in the developing world. In China, an estimated five million rural households use anaerobic digesters to process organic wastes. As in high-tech California dairies, they create energy in the form of biogas as well as fertilizer for agriculture. The versatile effluent can also be used to feed pigs, grow mushrooms or rear worms for chickens.
As PG&E's announcement shows, the technology is equally suited to the developed world. The waste management firm Biffa recently announced that it will build a major anaerobic digestion facility in Staffordshire, England to process 80,000 tonnes of waste food per year, generating four megawatts of electricity and producing compost and fertilizer for farms.
And the North German town of Lunen plans by December to finish a similar plant, which will generate 6.8 MW and supply enough heat to meet a third of the town's energy needs.
Turning bugs and waste into methane and energy may not be quite as sexy as turning lead into gold, but it's a remarkable kind of alchemy that will enrich us more in the long run.
Jun 09 2009
If you're trying to live a more environmentally pure lifestyle, here's something new to feel guilty about: charging your mobile phone too long. Turns out that many people charge their phones overnight for at least eight hours, when a mere three would do.
The result, according to a new survey of mobile customers in the UK: 85,000 tonnes of CO2 are needlessly emitted, wasting about $60 million a year in electricity, just in that nation alone. Topping it all off, overcharging reduces battery life.
Young people tend to be the most wasteful; half concede that they leave their phones charging for an average of 7.3 hours.
Men are most wasteful than women; 15 percent of men charge for an average of 8.5 hours, compared to fewer than 7 hours for a similar fraction of women.
Bottom line: if you can't remember to unplug the charger, be sure to get a timer to remind you. Just make sure it doesn't consume more power than your phone!
Jun 08 2009
If worse comes to worse, and the world fails to curb greenhouse gas emissions in time to prevent runaway global warming, there's always Plan B--"geoengineering" our way out of disaster by limiting the amount of solar radiation striking the earth. As described here in April, one of the most promising proposals--technically and economically--is to seed bright clouds in the ocean to reflect more sunlight.
The good news is that oceanic cloud seeding likely could hold back global warming for a quarter century, according to a new analysis by scientists at the Met Office Hadley Center, the United Kingdom's top center for climate change research.
The bad news is the earth would still experience disruptive regional climate shifts. Worst of all, rainfall would decrease sharply over South America, depleting the rich Amazon rainforest.
Said Dr. Andy Jones, lead investigator, "While some areas do benefit from geoengineering of this sort there are other, very significant regions, where the response could be very detrimental, raising questions about the practicality of such a scheme."
In other words, there's no simple fix. The politicians had better get back to work and solve this problem.
Jun 05 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- A new evaluation of global companies that stand to be most affected by climate change shows that most are disclosing little or no information about the risks they face or their mitigation strategies, according to a new study by Ceres and Environmental Defense Fund. The report named ExxonMobil and Massey Coal as among the worst offenders, but cited AES, PG&E and Xcel Energy as some of the best performers. The report calls on the SEC to mandate increased disclosure.
- Mainstream institutional investors are significantly increasing their support for shareholder resolutions on climate change, according to a new study by Ceres and Fund Votes, two organizations that support sustainable business practices. Its report names TIAA-CREF as the institution most supportive of climate change resolutions in 2008, and also recognizes Credit Suisse and Charles Schwab as consistent supporters.
- Rising ocean levels in the Gulf of Mexico could doom 100,000 households and cause more than $10 billion in damage in the Galveston, Texas area, according to an analysis by researchers at Texas A&M University. Rising seas could also inundate various hazardous waste and Superfund sites, threatening public health unless they are moved or protected.
- A new exhibition that opened on Bonn this week, "The Himalaya--Changing Landscapes," shows photographs from mountaineering expeditions in the 1950s of vast glaciers that no longer exist. A major UN study warned last year that the Himalayan glaciers may shrink from 500,000 square kilometers to a mere 100,000 square kilometers in twenty years, posing huge risks of flooding and landslides.
Jun 04 2009
Last fall, NEXT100 revealed the secret of converting olive pits into ethanol. (We didn't take a stand on whether it should be consumed in person or in your car.)
Now there's another good reason to save your leftover pits: researchers at the University of Grenada report that olive pits, pulp and other waste are great for retaining heavy metals like lead that are found in sewage and industrial waste water.
Other materials with powerful "biosorbtion" properties for the cleanup of toxic heavy metals include various kinds of mold (Rhizopus), bacteria (Bacillus subtilis) and seaweeds (Sargassum, Ecklonia). They are useful for detoxifying effluent from mines, coal-fired power plants, battery manufacturing and other industrial operations.
But if you live in a place like Andalusia, which grows more olives than anyone knows what to do with, why use mold or seaweed when olive pits could do the job?
Jun 04 2009
Even with unemployment rates at levels not seen since the Great Depression, most workers in "green" industries feel relatively secure and are making good salaries, according to the first-ever Carbon Salary Survey by Reuters.
According to the survey, 68 percent of "green" workers say that increased government and business attention to global warming has improved their job security.
The average green collar worker earns $76,000 a year worldwide--and $100,000 annually in the United States. The worst paid sector, at $58,000 a year, was green marketing, PR and media--a category that includes bloggers.
On at least one score, green companies are still politically incorrect: they pay women an average of 18 percent less than men.
So how do you land a desirable green job in these hard times? Check out a new online map launched by Environmental Defense Fund. It lets you search for a wide variety of green California companies--2,200 in all--by city, county or congressional district. Clicking on any of the stick-pin icons will give you the name, address, url and description of each company.
The EDF database doesn't encompass all green companies; it focuses on those in the energy generation, energy efficiency, transportation and green building sectors.
Job seekers should also check out EDF's "Green Jobs Guidebook," which profiles dozens of jobs, suggests opportunities for high school graduates and provides information on job training and placement programs.
Jun 03 2009
If what's left of the US auto industry is looking for some bright young minds to help engineer the next generation of clean vehicles, we know where to look.
The 8th grade class at Novato Charter School in Marin County.
When the class decided to learn about alternative energy and transportation, it set an ambitious goal: "having a lot of fun" by designing a 4-person vehicle, called the Solar Human Hybrid.
They chose several design criteria: the vehicle had to have excellent peddling performance, an electric motor to push up hills, advanced battery technology with solar charger, and be street legal.
And, not least, it had to "look cool."
Rather than reinvent the wheel, the class decided to build their vehicle on an existing platform, the Swiss ZEM 4cycle, an aluminum-framed, four-wheel, four-passenger cycling machine. According to the school, one of these devices won third place at the human powered vehicle world championships held at Interlaken, Switzerland.
Then came all the electric hybrid modifications: a high efficiency, 24-volt motor and motor controller; an Italian-made transmission; batteries; two 20-watt solar panels; headlights; dog platform; global positioning system device; and much more.
The result was a road-legal motorized bicycle fit for four, able to squeeze into standard-width bike lanes, and limited to a maximum speed of 18 mph but with enough torque to climb hills.
Dealer inquiries, anyone?
Jun 02 2009
PG&E now boasts the nation's largest deployment of smart meters, which measure energy use at frequent intervals throughout the day and automatically communicate the data back to the utility. But what do those meters mean for customers, other than no longer having to tie up your dog when meter readers come by on their monthly rounds?
One big improvement, in addition to giving customers timely and detailed information on their energy use, will be expanded availability of voluntary pricing programs that can save them money and help the environment. Such pricing programs reward customers for cutting back on energy use a few hours each year during periods of "critical peak" demand, typically on scalding days when air conditioners are running flat out.
Timely reductions in load in turn reduce the need to operate expensive natural gas-fired "peaker" power plants, thus minimizing air pollution and greenhouse gas emissions.
Last year, 10,000 customers in Bakersfield signed up for a new program called SmartRate, one of the first critical peak pricing programs for residential and small-and-medium business customers in the United States, and the first to use data from advanced meters.
The award-winning program gives enrolled customers a discount of about 3 cents per kilowatt hour on electric bills from June 1 to September 30. In return, residential customers pay a rate surcharge of 60 cents for electricity used from 2 p.m to 7 p.m. on up to 15 days a year when soaring temperatures drive up demand on PG&E's grid.
The program is a win-win for customers and PG&E. On the nine peak "SmartDay" events called by PG&E last year, customers cut their average usage by about 17 percent. More than two-thirds of customers said they enjoyed savings. Nine in 10 customers said they intended to stick with the program.
Said one customer, insurance agent Randel Thompson, "This was one of the easiest tasks I have ever joined. . . . Makes for a nice reward at the end of the month and saves us all energy and money." Mary Noriega, another customer, commented that shifting power use to the morning or evening was "all it takes" to save money. "Also, get into the habit of turning off lights, fans, etc. when you leave the rooms. It is very easy to do and worth it!"
Impressive results like these help explain why "demand response and peak shaving have jumped to the top of the list as drivers of Smart Grid implementation at North American utilities," according to new research from Pacific Crest Securities.
Jun 01 2009
Some 3,500 people assembled on Friday at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, long associated with research on the hydrogen bomb, to celebrate a facility that could advance efforts to use the same physical principles to create vast amounts of electrical power for peaceful ends.
The lab's National Ignition Facility is by every account a stunning scientific and engineering achievement. But to what extent it will convert the promise of fusion power into affordable energy remains a huge question mark. The same is true of its French-based competitor, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER).
Nuclear fusion, the source of power for the Sun and other stars, is also the source of most power on Earth today in the "fossilized" form of oil and coal that derived from plants. It also drives renewable wind and solar power. But directly creating clean, concentrated and controllable fusion power on earth would be a stunning breakthrough and a giant step forward in fighting global warming.
Fusion proponents say, rightly, that they have made tremendous strides in understanding how to control a source of energy that, by its very nature, fiercely resists control. Critics say fusion power today remains where it has been for the past half century--about 20+ years from becoming a commercial reality. With every yard of progress, the goal posts seems to recede apace.
The $3.5 billion Livermore facility cost nearly triple the original estimate in 1994. It took 7,000 workers, 3,000 contractors and a dozen years to build, and won't be fully operational until 2010. When it gets up to full power, the stadium-sized structure will focus 192 lasers--emitting the same amount of energy consumed by 10 billion 100-watt light bulbs in one second--on a tiny hydrogen target. If all goes well, the hydrogen, heated it to 100 million degrees centigrade, will fuse into helium and release a great deal of energy.
It will require another huge feat of engineering, of course, to turn that energy into usable form at a reasonable cost.
Meanwhile, over in France, an international effort is underway to create a fusion reactor controlled by a magnetic doughnut that squeezes hydrogen until it fuses. The ultimate goal is to generate about 500 megawatts of thermal power, or about 10 times more than needed to run the machine.
Like Livermore's facility, the ITER reactor boasts some amazing statistics. Each of its giant magnetic coils weighs 360 tons, about the same as a fully loaded Boeing 747-300 jet. The reactor as a whole will weigh 23,000 tons, three times the Eifel Tower. It is being built on a platform the size of 60 soccer fields, will require the removal of 2.5 million meters of earth, and will rise 19 stories. It will create temperatures of 150 million degrees centigrade, ten times those at the core of the Sun.
But the ITER reactor, also like Livermore's facility, is running behind schedule and over budget. Its first major experiments likely won't take place until 2025 and the latest estimated cost of construction is about double the $7 billion promised in 2006.
As Scientific American noted, "If ITER succeeds, it will not add a single watt to the grid. . . . and some veterans in the field predict that 20 to 30 years of experiments with ITER will be needed to refine designs for a production plant."
May 29 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Bad news out of London: A new report released today estimates that 300,000 people a year are already dying from the effects of global warming. Annual economic losses may total more than $125 billion. Both of those figures are expected to more than double by 2030. The report, authored by international climate and development experts, was published by the Global Humanitarian Forum.
- Good news out of China: Senator John Kerry said some of the "most constructive and productive talks" ever held with China over climate change leave him "very optimistic at the possibility of producing a successful outcome in Copenhagen." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said of the talks with China, "I do see this opportunity for climate change to be . . . a game-changer."
- Lighten up: Secretary of Energy Steven Chu made a pitch for whitening the world's roofs and paved surfaces to reflect more sunlight as a strategy for combating global warming. Chu praised his friend Art Rosenfeld, a colleague at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and member of the California Energy Commission, for demonstrating the remarkable potential of this simple tactic. In a recent research note with Hashem Akbari, Rosenfeld calculates that white roofs could offset as much CO2 as taking all cars off the road around the world for 18 years. Check out NEXT100's detailed post on their research from last fall.
- Do the math: If you like the idea of cap-and-trade markets for carbon emissions but worry that the new Waxman-Markey bill is a giveaway to utilities, check out this detailed analysis by two eminent energy experts, Peter Fox-Penner and Marc Chupka, on Climate Progress. As they note, the bill basically ensures that free allowances will ease the transition for customers without creating windfall profits for shareholders. In another analysis of the bill, Harvard economist Robert Stavins explains why giving away emissions allowances rather than selling them at auction "affects neither the environmental performance of the cap-and-trade system nor its aggregate social cost."
May 28 2009
I doubt Michael Phelps got bored of ascending the medals podium eight times in the Beijing Olympics. For the same reason, I doubt anyone at PG&E ever gets tired of being recognized for its industry-leading efforts to foster the deployment of solar power--even by customers who then reduce their power purchases.
The Solar Electric Power Association today cited PG&E, along with several other utilities, for outstanding contributions to solar power in the face of serious economic challenges. The association has honored PG&E at least six times previously for solar business achievement, public awareness, industry leadership and portfolio leadership.
SEPA is a non-profit association of more than 500 utilities, manufacturers, installers and other solar industry participants, whose mission is "to facilitate solutions for the use and integration of solar electric power by utilities, electric service providers, and their customers."
In its new report on "2008 Top Ten Utility Solar Integration Rankings," SEPA called PG&E "the most solar integrated utility for the year 2008" based on its interconnection of 85 megawatts of new customer solar capacity--44 percent of the total recorded in its survey of participating utilities. Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric ranked second and third, representing a sweep for California utilities.
As I noted last month in NEXT100, PG&E now has about 300 MW of solar capacity installed in its service area. In February, PG&E asked the California Public Utilities Commission for permission to install 500 MW of mid-sized photovoltaic projects (half utility-owned, half developer-owned). In March, PG&E signed a record deal with BrightSource Energy for 1,310 MW of solar thermal power, enough to power more than half a million homes. In April, PG&E signed a first-of-a-kind space solar deal with Solaren. And PG&E continues to be a leader in its solar partnerships with California schools and Habitat for Humanity.
In releasing SEPA's report, Executive Director Julia Hamm had some kind things to say about PG&E:
In 2008, PG&E continued to strengthen its position as the most solar-integrated electric utility in the U.S. It is impressive to see a utility take a truly diversified approach to increasing the amount of solar electricity in its portfolio. PG&E is aggressively promoting and pursuing everything from providing incentives for small customer-owned rooftop systems to owning distributed and centralized systems to purchasing the power from third party owned and operated systems. It is also invigorating to see PG&E explore all available solar technology options, which will result in a solid internal understanding of the levelized cost of energy, performance and reliability, and other critical factors related to each technology - information that becomes more and more important as the utility increases the percentage of its power supply that comes from solar electricity.
May 27 2009
For energy consumers who want to go green and save money at the same time, there's no better way than investing in energy efficiency. But when you've squeezed out every kilowatt of savings, what then? The logical next step is to reduce your remaining carbon footprint by enrolling in PG&E's ClimateSmartâ„¢ program, which lets its customers support environmental projects that balance out the greenhouse gas emissions from their home or business energy consumption.
Fresh Choice, a restaurant chain based in the East Bay city of Newark, believes that promoting good health through fresh, wholesome food goes hand-in-hand with protecting the health of the planet. It recently enrolled in the ClimateSmart program to augment the environmental benefit of its many energy-saving investments.
With 28 restaurants and a central kitchen in Northern California, Fresh Choice lights, heats and cools nearly 140,000 square feet of restaurant space for up to 12 hours a day. Regional Director Elena Fortuna said, "Our continuous energy improvement plan includes implementing the most energy efficient lighting, heating, cooling and cooking equipment in our restaurants and evaluating our production systems to maximize our energy efficiency."
Having already taken advantage of many of PG&E's energy efficiency solutions, Fresh Choice was looking to do even more to minimize its impact on the environment. With the money it is saving in monthly natural gas and electricity bills, Fresh Choice decided to balance out its remaining monthly energy usage through PG&E's ClimateSmart program.
By enrolling in the ClimateSmart program, Fresh Choice now makes voluntary, charitable contributions that fund greenhouse gas capture and reduction projects, such as forest preservation programs, that make its Northern California restaurants' energy usage carbon neutral.
By joining the program, Fresh Choice will offset more than 8.8 million pounds of greenhouse gases every year, equivalent to taking 731 cars off the road each year. The company will donate approximately $43,000 annually to balance out the carbon emissions produced by its restaurants' energy use.
Fresh Choice CEO Sandy Boyd calls the program a simple, local solution to a global problem: "The ClimateSmart program is an easy solution to an ongoing problem. Our contributions not only balance out our restaurants' greenhouse gas emissions, but also help preserve the environment for future generations."
May 26 2009
Backed by the California Air Resources Board and several industry associations, the 2009 Hydrogen Road Tour begins today in San Diego, taking several hydrogen-powered vehicles to 28 cities along the West Coast over nine days.
The goal: to prevent the current wave of enthusiasm for battery electric vehicles from drowning interest in cars powered by fuel cells, which create electricity from hydrogen or hydrogen-rich compounds like methanol.
Hydrogen-power advocates were put on the defensive earlier this month when the Department of Energy cut funding for research programs using vehicle fuel-cell technology.
In response, Jeff Serfass, president of the National Hydrogen Association, pointed to the Hydrogen Road Tour as evidence that "hydrogen fuel cell vehicles are not a science experiment. These are real vehicles with real marketability and real benefits. So far, these facts have escaped the notice of the Secretary of Energy's attention, given the request to eliminate the federal hydrogen vehicle program."
Joining the tour will be cars from Daimler, General Motors, Honda, Hyundai-Kia, Nissan, Toyota and Volkswagen, as well as some transit buses.
One catch is that the vehicles will all need to be refueled by special mobile suppliers, since only a relative handful of hydrogen refueling stations exist around the country.
In an interview with Technology Review, Energy Secretary Steven Chu said the lack of refueling infrastructure is only one of several reasons why he is so skeptical about the promise of hydrogen as a vehicle fuel, despite the Bush administration's $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative:
[R]ight now, the way we get hydrogen primarily is from reforming [natural] gas. That's not an ideal source of hydrogen. You're giving away some of the energy content of natural gas, which is a very valuable fuel. So that's one problem. The other problem is, if it's for transportation, we don't have a good storage mechanism yet. . . . We haven't figured out how to store it with high density. What else? The fuel cells aren't there yet, and the distribution infrastructure isn't there yet. So you have four things that have to happen all at once. And so it always looked like it was going to be [a technology for] the distant future. In order to get significant deployment, you need four significant technological breakthroughs. That makes it unlikely.
Another critic, former Department of Energy official Joseph Romm, said:
Electric cars - and plug-in hybrid cars - have an enormous advantage over hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles in utilising low-carbon electricity. That is because of the inherent inefficiency of the entire hydrogen fuelling process, from generating the hydrogen with that electricity to transporting this diffuse gas long distances, getting the hydrogen in the car, and then running it through a fuel cell - all for the purpose of converting the hydrogen back into electricity to drive the same exact electric motor you'll find in an electric car.
Fuel cells have great promise in other applications, such as emergency backup power and in residential and commercial markets, where the heat they produce can be used along with their electric output. One key difference is that fuel cells can be competitive in stationary applications at a price 10 to 20 times higher than in vehicles.
Don't expect to find fuel-cell vehicles in auto showrooms anytime soon, even if you could find a way to refuel them. Last fall, General Motors unveiled its Equinox hydrogen fuel cell vehicle, but admitted it cost $1.5 million to produce and would take at least a decade to become commercially available.
Honda's FCX Clarity gets 280 miles on a tank and the equivalent of 74 miles to the gallon. But Honda's president said it costs several hundred thousand dollars to produce, and promised only that the cost would drop below $100,000 sometime in the next decade.
Questions about the commercial prospects of fuel-cell vehicles haven't dampened the enthusiasm of California officials. According to one recent report, vehicle license fees will pump $40 million into state support for hydrogen technology:
Shell Oil, for example, will receive nearly $2 million in state funds to help build a hydrogen pump at a gas station near a swank Newport Beach country club and high end shopping mall. The pump will service a few dozen cars. State officials and hydrogen backers say it is a small but key step forward in solving the nation's energy and environmental woes. An additional $5 million in tax dollars will help build hydrogen fueling pumps near UCLA's campus, San Francisco Airport, and at the foot of wealthy southern California coastal communities.
May 22 2009
Several news stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- The House Energy and Commerce Committee last night approved a landmark energy bill that would set the first national limit on greenhouse gas emissions. It targets a 17 reduction in emissions by 2020 and an 83 percent reduction by 2050. "I don't think it's too much of an exaggeration to say that this is a turning point in the history of the United States and [its] energy sources," said Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.), one of the bill's chief sponsors.
- Over in the Senate, Republican staffers for the Committee on Environment and Public Works proposed accusing Democrats of supporting various businesses in "corporate America" who are are "guilty of manipulating national climate policy to increase profits on the backs of consumers." Said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., who chairs the committee, "I find it extremely amusing that suddenly the Democrats are being attacked as being too friendly to business creation."
- In addition to congrssional Republicans, a major source of opposition to climate change legislation is the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A new study of the Chamber's board of directors shows surprisingly that 19 of the businesses represented there favor such legislation and only four oppose it. Three of the four are coal-mining companies. "The staff seem to be freelancing on the agenda of just a few of their members," said the study's author, Peter Altman of the the Natural Resources Defense Council.
- A recent national public opinion poll shows majority support among American adults for regulation of greenhouse gases, but only a slight majority in favor of a cap-and-trade policy. Nine out of ten of those polled favor more federal research on renewable energy, but two-thirds oppose higher gasoline taxes.
- An ambitious vehicle fuel economy plan announced by President Obama would raise average fuel economy to 35.5 miles per gallon by 2016, saving an estimated 1.8 billion barrels of oil. "Few actions could have a more profound impact in the fight against global warming," said Bill Becker, leader of the National Association of Clean Air Agencies. However, some experts predicted that the new standards would have a limited impact without higher gasoline taxes.
- Meanwhile, "The most comprehensive modeling yet carried out on the likelihood of how much hotter the Earth's climate will get in this century shows that without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago - and could be even worse than that," according to the news office at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where the giant computer simulation was conducted. The new median estimate of warming by 2100--5 degrees Celsius--would cause havoc to ecosystems and food supplies, massive coastal flooding, and many other severe consequences.
May 21 2009
While scientists and engineers spend billions of dollars seeking "clean tech" solutions to our environmental woes, experience shows that it's sometimes hard to improve on Mother Nature's own remedies. Example: shade trees that cut air conditioning bills in summer while letting the sun in to heat homes naturally during the winter.
The simple act of planting of a shade tree on the western or southern side of a house in one of the warmer areas of California can reduce its summertime electric bill about 5 percent, or $25 a year, according to a new study by researchers from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
The findings--based on the first large-scale study to use utility billing data (from Sacramento)--won't win anyone a Nobel Prize, the authors admit. But co-author Geoffrey Donovan of the U.S. Forest Service's Pacific Northwest Research Station, says "this study gets at the details: Where should a tree be placed to get the most benefits? And how exactly do shade trees impact our carbon footprint?"
A London plane tree, planted on the west side of a house, can reduce carbon emissions from summertime electricity use by an average of 31 percent over 100 years, the authors found. But trees planted on the east side had no effect and those on the north increased summertime electricity use.
PG&E has long studied tree planting as an energy efficiency measure. Back in 1991, PG&E launched a shade tree program in Fresno, offering a $10 rebate to each customer who planted approved trees to shade residential buildings.
A detailed computer model of the program concluded two years later that each mature yard tree would save a projected 346 kilowatt-hours per year (mainly from reduced air conditioning) and absorb significant emissions of polluting gases and particulates. Each tree was also estimated to lock up 103 pounds of carbon in tree biomass and reduce CO2 emissions from power plants by 153 pounds a year.
Unfortunately, under existing regulations, the utility could not cite all of these social benefits to justify the cost of the program and it was dropped.
Last year, PG&E revisted the idea by launching a pilot "Shade and Save" program in San Jose, with an emphasis on covering western exposures. PG&E also created pilot tree planting programs in Stockton and the Woodland-Winters-Davis area. Studies of cost effectiveness are now under way.
As we noted yesterday, protection of tropical rainforests is high on the list of tactics for slowing the pace of global warming. It's worth remembering that our less exotic urban trees are a powerful antidote as well.
May 20 2009
PG&E today joined a coalition of leading U.S. corporations and environmental organizations to endorse protecting the world's endangered tropical forests by dedicating five percent of future greenhouse gas reduction permits to effective and verifiable conservation programs.
The group's "Consensus Principles on International Forests for U.S. Climate Legislation" are aimed at influencing congressional deliberations on a massive new energy bill that likely will include "cap-and-trade" provisions to limit greenhouse gas emissions.
Besides PG&E Corporation, the coalition includes American Electric Power, Duke Energy, Marriott International, The Walt Disney Company, Environmental Defense Fund, National Wildlife Federation, Natural Resources Defense Council, Sierra Club, Union of Concerned Scientists and several other organizations.
They were convened by Avoided Deforestation Partners, a project of the Center for International Policy in Washington, D.C. that promotes "effective, transparent, and equitable market and non-market incentives to reduce tropical deforestation."
"Destruction of the world's forests produces about 20 percent of the climate-changing greenhouse gas emissions released into the atmosphere each year - more than from all the planes, trains and automobiles on Earth," said Mark Tercek, president and CEO of The Nature Conservancy, one of the signatories. "Additionally, millions of people around the world depend on forests for clean water, food, shelter and their livelihoods. These principles create a real chance to conserve tropical forests for people and nature."
Utilities are among the chief targets of proposed cap-and-trade legislation. Although PG&E is one of the nation's cleanest utilities, with greenhouse gas emissions that run only a third of the national average per megawatt-hour, its customers too would be affected by increases in the price of fossil fuels, which account for about half of its generation. Under the coalition's proposals, utilities and other entities would receive credits under a cap-and-trade system for any investments they make in "environmentally sound, measurable, reportable and verifiable" projects to protect tropical forests.
According to one expert, the five percent set-aside for tropical forest conservation programs would equal about $3.4 billion annually and would eliminate some 340 million tons of carbon dioxide a year, roughly equal to the emissions of France or Spain.
The signers also support explicit legislative provisions protecting the "rights and interests of indigenous peoples, other forest dependent communities and the rural poor" lest they be trampled in the name of protecting the environment.
May 19 2009
Imagine how frustrating life would be if every electric utility operated with a different voltage or frequency, so they couldn't share power when needed and you had to buy a separate converter for every city you visited.
That's the sort of scenario that electric utilities, technology vendors and government agencies are trying to head off as this country prepares for a tidal wave of new investment in a smarter, high-tech electrical grid.
The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act charged the National Institute of Standards with overseeing work on Smart Grid standards.Today and tomorrow, NIST is holding its second major workshop to put this exceedingly complex and ambitious assignment on a super fast track. NIST's goal--with $10 million in new stimulus funding--is to publish an interim Smart Grid standards roadmap by this September. On Monday, the Departments of Commerce and Energy released the first 16 proposed standards.
Open standards allow devices, networks and other technologies to interoperate, or talk the same language, so buyers and sellers can take advantage of scale economies. In addition, technology standards help assure buyers that they won't be saddled with proprietary solutions that becomes obsolete if new competitors eclipse their vendors.
Every electricity consumer should be glad there are technology experts willing to put up with the tedious and time-consuming discussions necessary to create these standards.
Those experts have to be willing to participate in groups like the "IEEE 802.15 Smart Utility Networks (SUN) Task Group 4g" knowing that their stimulating job will be to "create a PHY amendment to 802.15.4" to facilitate "large scale process control applications . . . capable of supporting large, geographically diverse networks with minimal infrastructure," among other things.
They also need to keep track of the work of ASHRAE, IEC, IETF, EPRI, NEMA, ANSI, IOS, ITU, SAE and an alphabet soup of other organizations.
PG&E's Chris Knudsen, director of the utility's Technology Innovation Center and a veteran of various wireless communications standards efforts, is one of those dedicated (I won't say masochistic) souls. He and his team are involved in standards work relating to smart meter infrastructure, home area networks and automated demand response, among other priorities. He chairs the Open Smart Grid subcommittee that oversees technical work in the Utility Communications Architecture (UCA) international users group.
Open SG includes 10 utilities representing about 27 percent of U.S. meters. "It's a technically deep and engaged group," Knudsen says. "We are highly involved in the NIST process."
What NIST brings to the table, Knudsen says, is an ability to "provide focus and minimize fragmentation by putting a common process around this effort. They have us all looking at the same picture in a structured governance process. That's how you accelerate standards."
Knudsen notes that integrating all the necessary standards--which could number in the thousands, depending on how you count them--"is only the first step. You also need an industry compliance program to make sure everyone is implementing standards in the same way. Without a defined set of tests, engineers will do things a little differently and you won't get plug-and-play interoperability."
"Plug-and-play interoperatibility" is engineering-speak for the ability of customers to go down to Best Buy or Radio Shack and buy (for example) a programmable home energy management device that will work with any utility's smart meter and with smart appliances to limit electricity use when prices are high and shift demand instead to off-peak periods.
Such interoperability will also let electric cars plug seamlessly into smart outlets and charge only at off-peak times to avoid overloading the grid.
"All of this technology, stitched together, will fundamentally change the way utilities operate, deploy and utilize technology," Knudsen says. But what excites him most are the implications for energy users.
Open standards, Knudsen says, will help utilities and their vendors deliver "all sorts of new and innovative energy services including efficiency, hybrid electric vehicles, renewable power and distributed resources. Everything we are doing here is to drive energy efficiency and value to the customer."
When you put it that way, Smart Grid standards don't sound boring at all. Still, I'm glad it's Knudsen who attends all those NIST-sponsored standards meetings and not me.
May 18 2009
The hottest two buzz words in the utility industry these days are "smart" and "grid." They became even hotter after Congress earmarked $4.5 billion in federal stimulus spending on smart grid. Utilities are scrambling to come up with eligible projects, venture capitalists are investing hundreds of millions of dollars in the sector, new conferences are being organized almost weekly and consultants seeking a piece of the action are clogging the Internet with PowerPoint presentations.
But just what is so smart about smart grid? After all, electricity grids--transmission and distribution lines connecting generators to customers--have been around for more than a century, and the creators of what the National Academy of Engineering termed the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century weren't exactly dumb.
The so-called smart grid is really a smarter grid, taking advantage of new technology to enhance efficiency, reliability and environmental sustainability. Here's how many at PG&E describe it:
The Smart Grid will leverage the power of information to transform the operation of our electric network--by integrating sensing, communications, computing and control technology from generation to the customer premise-- in order to give customers cleaner, more reliable and more flexible energy services.
So what does this mean in practice? A few examples might help:
- A fundamental building block of a smarter grid is the "smart meter," which keeps track of energy usage at frequent (say, hourly) intervals and communicates it back to the utility, eliminating the cost and hassle of monthly visits by meter readers. Customers can see their energy usage on the Web, helping them manage it better--for example, they might unplug that freezer in the garage after they realize just how much juice it draws.
- The same meter can be programmed to instruct a new generation of smart appliances in the home, like dishwashers and clothes dryers, to moderate their energy use when electricity prices are highest (on hot summer afternoons). Customers who sign up for voluntary programs like this can save money. For the utility, such control will be essential when millions of customers start charging plug-in electric vehicles.
- To improve service reliability, smart sensors on distribution lines, transformers and other parts of the grid will detect trouble spots, allowing system operators to prevent outages. When an outage does occur, intelligent switches will confine it to as few circuits as possible and identify the location so crews can repair it quickly.
- As utilities add more and more renewable power, they will face the challenge of balancing supply and demand when power availability fluctuates with the winds and available sunlight. A smarter grid will measure varying power output levels in real time and call upon storage devices, including utility-scale batteries, to even them out.
- A smarter grid will also perform that balancing act by adjusting demand automatically. If generation dips for a time, the smart grid can signal participating customers to cut back their usage until power levels are restored. That solution is likely to be much cheaper--and environmentally cleaner--than building new gas-fired "peaker" plants to back up wind farms and solar arrays.
PG&E's Andrew Tang, who heads the utility's "Smart Energy Web" program, recently presented his vision of the future of smart grid at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. Click on the short video clip above to see what all the excitement is about.
May 15 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- A major study of the health effects of climate change, drawing on a wide range of experts at University College London and the distinguished medical journal The Lancet, concludes that humanity faces more disease, food and water insecurity, catastrophic weather events and other risks as the globe warms. "The big message of this report is that climate change is a health issue affecting billions of people, not just an environmental issue about polar bears and deforestation," said lead author Anthony Costello, a professor at UCL.
- In more bad news out of the UK, the head of the polar ocean physics group at Cambridge University says that by 2020 only one patch of arctic ice will remain in the summer. "It's like the Arctic is covered with an egg shell and the egg shell has been thinning to the point where it is now just cracking completely," he said.
- Continuing our dismal Brits theme, the Guardian of London reports that "America's oil, gas and coal industry has increased its lobbying budget by 50%, with key players spending $44.5m in the first three months of this year in an intense effort to cut off support for Barack Obama's plan to build a clean energy economy." In all, the report claims, "The spoiler campaign runs to hundreds of millions of dollars and involves industry front groups, lobbying firms, television, print and radio advertising, and donations to pivotal members of Congress. Its intention is to water down or kill off plans by the Democratic leadership to pass 'cap and trade legislation this year, which would place limits on greenhouse gas emissions."
- A recent Rasmussen poll indicates that just one voter in four can identify "cap-and-trade" as having to do with the environment. More think it has to do with regulating Wall Street, while about one in eight think it relates to health care reform. A plurality of 30 percent admit they don't have a clue.
- According to the Wall Street Journal, a marketing expert has this advice for the White House: call cap-and-trade a "clean energy dividend" and the American people will respond much more favorably. That is, unless they think it has to do with Wall Street.
May 14 2009
Yesterday's announcement of the record solar deal between PG&E and BrightSource Energy was a major endorsement of the future of clean, renewable solar power in California. But it's important to remember that word "future." Solar is coming on so fast, we sometimes forget how small it still is.
The latest statistics from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) show solar contributing just 0.08 percent of all energy (electric, thermal and other) consumed in the United States in 2007.
For 2008, EIA estimates the total amount of solar electricity generation capacity at 1,200 megawatts (MW), compared to 25,000 MW for wind and just under 1,000,000 MW from all sources. In other words, solar represents just 0.12% of U.S. generation capacity.
Finally, the contribution of solar to actual power output--taking into account that solar facilities don't create power at night--was only 2 billion kilowatt hours (kWh), compared to 53 billion kWh for wind. Total retail electricity sales in the United States were about 3,800 billion kWh. By my calculation, solar represented only 0.05 percent of the total.
So think of solar as a small acorn that's just sprouted. The Solar Electric Industries Association reports that the United States added 292 MW of solar photovoltaic capacity to the electric grid last year. That represents an 81 percent increase over the capacity added in 2007, an accelerating growth rate relative to previous years.
And there's lots more capacity in the pipeline. PG&E alone has contracts for more than 2,000 MW of solar power, nearly double the entire installed capacity of grid-connected solar in the United States today.
The trade journal PHOTON International reported in March that a staggering total of about 83,000 MW of new solar capacity is in "various stages of product development in North America . . . roughly equal to the current summer peak demand for electricity in California, Arizona and Nevada."
However, one of the unsettling facts the journal also noted was that the land requirements for all that capacity could be "nearly as large as the US state of Rhode Island."
You can bet that the future of the solar power industry will depend as much on its skill and wisdom in negotiating land-use agreements as it will on continuing to improve the price-performance of its technology.
May 13 2009
PG&E and solar thermal developer BrightSource Energy today announced a record solar deal--a series of power purchase agreements totaling 1,310 megawatts, with power output equal to the consumption of 530,000 average homes.
To gain more perspective on the significance of the deal and background on BrightSource, we posed a number of questions to the company's CEO, John Woolard, a PG&E veteran. Here are his answers:
What's the significance of today's announcement with PG&E?
From an industry perspective, the agreements between PG&E and BrightSource Energy now represent the largest solar deal in the world. From BrightSource's perspective, the expansion of our PG&E contracts from 900 megawatts to 1,310 megawatts serves as another validation of our technology and team.
What makes your technology different?
The Luz Power Tower 550 represents an advancement in solar thermal technology design. Our decision to use a power tower design stems from our engineering team's experience designing and building the nine Solar Electric Generating Stations (SEGS) in California between 1984 and 1990.
What the team learned from the SEGS experience is that by moving to a power tower design we could greatly improve efficiencies, reach higher steam temperatures, and significantly reduce costs compared to traditional troughs.
We accomplish this by combining the same basic components found in 90 percent of the world's power generation facilities, namely boilers and turbines, with our proprietary solar technology.
Using optimization software, our proprietary heliostat systems track the sun on two axes, allowing for more efficient collection of the sun's energy. Thousands of mirrors called heliostats then reflect the sunlight directly onto a boiler atop a tower. The direct concentration of sunlight onto the boiler reduces energy loss endemic to the trough design and enables the system to reach the higher operating temperatures found in today's most efficient steam turbines.
And by using standard boilers, turbines, and flat glass commoditized mirrors, we greatly cut costs and can deliver performance warranties from major suppliers.
Why solar thermal rather than solar photovoltaic?
We cannot afford to look at solar thermal and solar photovoltaics (PV) as competing resources. We are going to need both resources to achieve our renewable energy and climate change goals.
Each resource has different power characteristics that make them attractive. For example, solar thermal can be coupled with storage technology or a small natural gas plant and provide dispatchable power beyond traditional solar hours. The ability to use small amounts of natural gas coupled with the application of conventional turbines also allows for reliable integration into today's grid.
PV is great for rooftop or utility-scale projects close to load centers. PV can also be good for areas with diffuse sunlight.
Do you have any commercial deployments or are you starting from scratch?
Our first facility is the Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC) in Israel's Negev Desert. The SEDC is a six megawatt thermal facility that demonstrates our technology and test equipment, materials, and construction and operating methods.
The facility opened in June 2008 and has been consistently producing superheated turbine-quality steam. At the end of last year, we had an independent engineering firm, RW Beck, evaluate and validate the system as commercially viable.
The next phase will be the implementation of the system on a larger scale at our first 100 megawatt plant in Ivanpah, California. Construction on this plant will start in about six months, following approval from the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management. PG&E has contracted to buy the power from this plant.
What do you say to critics who say your installations will endanger sensitive desert habitats?
We share the concerns of environmental groups. We recognize that ours will be the first solar thermal plants built in California in nearly three decades and we take this responsibility to heart. This company was founded on environmental principles and we are taking key steps to help minimize the impact of our solar plants on the environment. Starting with site selection, we tried to identify areas that have already had human impact, existing transmission, and that have not been classified as having critical habitat.
The technology design also helps to minimize our environmental footprint. By placing individual mirrors onto metal poles that are driven into the ground, we reduce the need for extensive land grading and use far fewer concrete pads than other technologies.
Will your plants require large amounts of scarce water?
Building power plants in desert ecosystems means that we must be conscious of our water use. Early in our design process, we decided to employ an air cooling system, which reduces water usage in our plants by more than 90 percent.This decision comes with an efficiency reduction to our system, but we know that it's the right thing to do. To put our water usage in perspective, our 400 megawatt Ivanpah site will use roughly 100 acre feet of water annually, or about the same amount of water used by 100 homes. In contrast, a similarly sized wet-cooled plant would use about 30 times more water.
Do you have financing lined up for these projects?
We've been very fortunate in that we did not have to finance a project over the past few quarters when the financial markets could best be described as dysfunctional. The credit markets now seem to be loosening in time for our project financing in the latter half of this year. When the time comes for us to finance these projects, we are confident in our ability to successfully develop these projects and secure the necessary project financing.
What are the greatest obstacles to getting your projects completed on time and on budget?
We're very fortunate to have a great set of contracts, sites and projects in the pipeline. We must now execute on these contracts to bring PG&E's customers clean energy.
Our key areas of focus will be on permitting, financing, and then constructing and operating these solar power plants. I have the utmost confidence in our experienced and time-tested team to make this happen.
Our development group, which has collectively built more than 20 gigawatts of power projects, will continue to work with the California Energy Commission and the Bureau of Land Management to gain the approval to begin construction on our first site at Ivanpah. Our finance team will also be working with the finance community to structure the project financing. And our engineering team, the only group in the world that has built consecutive large-scale solar plants, will be responsible for working with our contractors to engineer and operate our plants.
The Holy Grail for solar PV is reaching "grid parity" with traditional fossil-fueled generation. When, if ever, will you reach that?
The idea of grid parity is a convenient framework for understanding the cost of renewable resources, but understanding the true cost of electricity requires a deeper understanding of electricity markets.
Many groups today will provide a cost of electricity per watt, which means that they are not accounting for the cost of installation, the solar output of a given site, or the total cost of a system over its lifetime, including replacement of inputs. We call this the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE). When looking at the costs of competing resources, we should always be looking at the LCOE, not just the resource's manufacturing costs. Ignoring these costs is a disservice to our end customers and policymakers that are creating legislation to support clean energy.
Using the LCOE framework, many resources, like solar thermal energy, are very competitively priced today. However, the broader solar energy industry is more likely to reach grid parity over the longer term once we fully account for the carbon found in conventional generation sources.
What inspired you to join the founding team at BrightSource?
I started looking at the climate change challenge in the early 90's while studying environmental planning. What struck me was what a profound impact that energy could have on addressing this problem. I spent the past couple of decades as an investor and entrepreneur researching how to bring market-based solutions to transform the energy industry and I realized that we're never going to be able to address climate change unless we can bring renewable energy to scale. After looking at all of the available technologies, it was clear that solar thermal represented the quickest and most cost-effective way to increase our renewables supply. And after meeting Arnold Goldman, our founder and chairman, and the rest of his team, it became obvious that this group possessed the greatest understanding of the technologies and how to build large-scale power plants. I am honored to be a member of this truly remarkable team.
Where do you expect BrightSource to be 10 years from now?
In ten years, we will have completed construction on the 14 plants that we have currently committed to our customers, including PG&E. We will also continue to advance our technology, driving efficiency up and total cost down. In addition, we will likely expand our activity within the US and internationally.
What do you think the renewable energy sector in California will look like 10 years from now?
I am hopeful that in ten years we will have far surpassed 20 percent of our energy coming from renewable resources and will be quickly approaching the 33 percent mark. The energy mix will be much more focused on solar, both solar thermal and PV, as well as wind. We may even see some innovative renewable resources, such as wave or tidal, come online. Effectively bringing these resources to California's citizens will also require a thoughtful build-out of our current transmission system.
May 12 2009
What could be greener than clean, renewable wind power? Unfortunately, a lot of environmentalists instead see red when considering the deadly impact of wind turbines on birds and bats.
Bird kills have been a fact of life for many years at Altamont Pass; by one government biologist's estimate, more than 400,000 birds are killed each year across the country by wind turbines. On the East Coast, biologists began sounding the alarm several years ago over their discovery of thousands of bat carcasses, battered and bloodied by blows (or rapid pressure changes) from turbine blades. Peak mortality tends to be in autumn, during bat migration and mating season.
Instead of covering up the problem, the wind industry to its great credit is trying to better understand and solve it. Today, researchers sponsored by the wind industry reported a breakthrough in lowering bat mortality by turning off turbines during low-wind periods at night.
At least 70 percent fewer bats were killed at a Pennsylvania test site owned by Iberdrola Renewables, the world's largest wind energy company, simply by curtailing operations when bats are most active. Because wind speeds were low, the company suffered only small losses in generation.
The research, which will continue for another year, is being sponsored by Iberdrola and the Bats and Wind Energy Cooperative, a coalition of the American Wind Energy Association, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory and Bat Conservation International.
The U.S. Department of Energy is a major supporter of systematic research into minimizing the wildlife impacts of wind turbine siting. On May 6, Secretary Chu announced a dozen new grants in this field totalling nearly $2 million.
Researchers aren't quite sure why bats fly into harm's way. Some believe bats investigate the giant turbines for roosting places; others think they are foraging for insects that are attracted to the light-colored towers at night.
"Many of us don't believe they are randomly flying into the turbines," said Dr. Ed Arnett, lead researcher on the Pennsylvania study, in an interview with NEXT100. "From thermal images you can see bats investigating the turbines. They are curious, very different from birds."
The wind industry is making progress on reducing bird kills as well. At a huge wind farm in Texas, Iberdrola is using advanced radar systems to detect the flight path of migrating birds and automatically shut down the turbines to prevent feathers from flying.
The wind industry's efforts to reduce wildlife kills, it should be noted, are extending its already exemplary environmental record. A study released in March by the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority found that wind energy poses fewer wildlife risks in all respects than coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear or hydro power. (The study didn't encompass solar power.)
May 12 2009
Use by permission. Photo by Tobias Natt, ©2005 University of Delaware
Could the wave of the future for renewable energy be offshore wind power? That's the bet being placed by the British government, which has pledged major financial support for the world's biggest offshore wind farm--big enough, in fact, to power a quarter of Greater London's homes.
This gigawatt-sized project, known as London Array, will be undertaken by a consortium of E.ON, Dong Energy and Masdar. Together they will invest €2.2bn to build the first 630MW of capacity in the Thames Estuary. That first phase is only about 150 MW less than the entire amount of wind energy that PG&E has contracted to buy since 2002.
When doubts arose about the financial viability of the project, the British government apparently agreed to put up more than 500 million Pounds, in the form of Renewable Obligation Certificates, to support the investment.
The project was in limbo for months after Shell, one of the key development partners, pulled out. Dong Energy, a Danish utility, eventually bought its stake.
Offshore wind energy is hugely attractive because winds there blow strongly, unimpeded by obstacles, and because turbines can be located near coastal cities, avoiding the need for long transmission lines. The National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimated that wind turbines located in water less than 100 feet deep could supply a fifth or more of electricity used by coastal states.
The equally huge downside is the cost of installing turbines in ocean waters and the cost of maintaining them in a harsh, corrosive environment.
The British project may give further impetus to projects under consideration in the United States. "There are many states, especially along the Atlantic seaboard, that are ready to move fast forward with this," said Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. Last month the Interior Department announced new rules for offshore leases and royalty payments that should ease the way for offshore wind farms.
Unfortunately, wind energy off the coast of California only starts to get good at depths of several hundred feet, because the seabed drops off so fast. At such depths, most developers will find it uneconomic to anchor turbines. Floating turbines are a promising but unproven technology--though entrepreneurs are hard at work to commercial it.
May 11 2009
Corn should be:
A) Eaten off the cob
B) Ground into grits and served hot with butter
C) Fed to cows to fatten them up
D) Converted to ethanol to run American's cars and trucks
E) All of the above
If you answered E, you probably live in the Midwest or South, not in Berkeley. And you'll probably applaud the Obama administration's decision last week to provide $1.1 billion in loan guarantees and other new financing for conventional biofuel refineries. The administration's official goal is to support annual production and use of 36 billion gallons of biofuel by 2022, a target originally set by the Bush administration.
A host of critics have raised questions about the sustainability of biofuels production, including the impact on greenhouse gas emissions from planting and tilling new feedstock crops, the affect on food prices of diverting crops to fuel production, fresh water requirements, and many other issues. The economics remain dicey as well for now.
But one of the most intriguing challenges to the future of biofuels comes in a new study published in Science magazine. It finds that burning plants to generate electricity for use by electric vehicles, rather than converting them to ethanol for internal combustion engines, can increase the number of miles driven by 81 percent, even accounting for the steep cost of today's batteries.
And in terms of avoiding emissions of carbon dioxide, the conversion of biomass to electricity for transportation is twice as effective as converting it to ethanol, the authors conclude.
Their findings hold whether the source of biomass is corn or switchgrass, a fast-growing plant touted by advocates of second-generation cellulosic ethanol.
"The internal combustion engine just isn't very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles," said lead author Elliott Campbell of the University of California, Merced. "Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren't enough to overcome this."
Findings like these aren't stopping U.S. ethanol producers from requesting a waiver of the Clean Air Act to increase in the ethanol content of typical gasoline blends from 10 percent to 15 percent. Many automakers claim more testing is needed to be sure a higher ethanol content won't damage today's vehicles.
Still, ethanol supporters had a strong comeback to the Science article's apparent support for electric over ethanol-fueled cars. Said Matt Hartwig, a spokesman for the Renewable Fuels Association,
A great deal of innovation must happen in vehicle and power transmission technologies to make that a reality. In the meantime, Americans still need liquid transportation fuels. If the goal is to have more of those gallons come from renewable sources rather than imported oil, fuels like ethanol are the only technologies that are having an impact today.
May 08 2009
Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- President Obama and Vice President Biden urged House Democrats to push legislation to cap greenhouse-gas emissions. Obama reminded the group of 34 legislators of the pressing need to address global warming and declared that none of them "would want to look back in twenty to thirty years and think we had punted on something of a historic nature," in the words of attendee.
- Rep. Henry Waxman, a California Democrat and chair of the Energy and Commerce committee, fought this week to quell a rebellion by nervous moderates who want to table climate change legislation and turn their attention instead to health care. Pledging again to pass a bill out of committee before Memorial Day, Waxman said, "We're getting very, very close." But Rep. Artur Davis, D-Ala., co-chairman of the House New Democrat Coalition, said, "I think it's the wrong time for cap and trade."
- Many House Republicans think no time is right for cap and trade, according to a story in Platts. "There is no doubt that the Democrats' misguided bill will kill jobs, raise taxes and lead to more government intrusion," said Rep. Mike Pence, R-Indiana at meeting of Republican House members on energy policy. "The reality is the cap-and-tax legislation offered by the Democrats amounts to an economic declaration of war on the Midwest by liberals on Capitol Hill." Joining him in those sentiments were heads of the National Association of Manufacturers and Industrial Energy Consumers of America.
- Across the Pacific, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who came to office vowing to launch a "green revolution," decided to put off the start of his own country's cap-and-trade program by a year in view of the global economic crisis. Australia has been one of the countries hardest hit by global warming, but it is also heavily dependent on carbon-rich coal.
- A British member of Parliament, who chairs the all-party climate change group, suggested that car advertisements should contain health warnings, like those on cigarettes, to counter misleading environmental claims. A spokewoman for the Society of Motor Vehicle Manufacturers and Traders in the UK didn't think much of the idea.
May 07 2009
Hardly a month goes by without some new study telling us just how many millions of jobs or billions of dollars of GDP will be lost or gained by proposed policies on climate change. For every environmentalist who waves a report promising vast numbers of new "green jobs" down the road, some congressional Republican brandishes a new study warning of impending economic doom if anyone tries to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Without access to a supercomputer and Ph.D.-level knowledge of general equilibrium models, the average person doesn't stand a chance of evaluating these radically opposed--and usually self-serving--claims.
But a couple of recent columns in the Washington Post give useful insight into the underlying assumptions that drive these rival analyses.
Longtime economic columnist Robert Samuelson made a lot of green advocates see red when he echoed the late Milton Friedman's warning to distrust anyone who offers a free lunch. Samuelson took certain environmentalists to task for holding out the "tantalizing prospect" that "we can conquer global warming at virtually no cost."
Samuelson wasn't buying such rosy claims. "Re-engingeering the world energy system" to achieve an 83 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, he said, could be a "nearly impossible undertaking." Surely it will not be cheap to scrap and replace decades of investment in energy and transportation infrastructure built around fossil fuel technology.
Last September, however, California's Air Resources Board released an economic analysis suggesting that it would be painless to adopt the state's proposed measures to address global warming. The study's provocative conclusion--which garnered great publicity--was that ambitious mandates to roll back greenhouse gas emissions would actually create 100,000 new jobs and boost personal income by billions of dollars.
Less well publicized were the conclusions of six economists called upon to review the methodology and assumptions behind the study. Academics are usually restrained in their comments, but several reviewers said they found the findings unbelievable.
Robert Stavins, a leading environmental economist at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, was moved to declare, "I have come to the inescapable conclusion that the economic analysis is terribly deficient in critical ways and should not be used by the State government or the public for the purpose of assessing the likely costs of CARB's plans."
That brings us to a rebuttal to Samuelson in today's Washington Post by Kristen Sheeran, executive director of the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network, and Mindy Lubber, president of Ceres, a national group working with companies to address sustainability challenges.
Instead of defending the claim that climate policies are a free lunch, they make the crucial but often forgotten point that the cost of doing nothing is likely much greater than the cost of acting now to curb global warming.
Critics like Samuelson, they note, assume
that all costs involved in mitigating climate change -- and there will be costs -- represent new costs, without acknowledging the massive error in our market system that equates the price of carbon emissions to zero. . . .
The real cost of carbon emissions is far from zero. Each new scientific report brings proof of a changing climate that promises to disrupt agricultural patterns, set off a scramble for dwindling resources, raise sea levels, propel population shifts and require massive emergency spending as we try to react to the growing crises. These are the costs of inaction.
Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank, has estimated the costs of runaway global warming to be on a "scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th century."
Putting a realistic price on carbon--something a cap-and-trade market would accomplish--would not only discourage greenhouse gas emissions, thus reducing those staggering social costs, but "would produce an amazingly quick shift to new technologies and behaviors," Sheeran and Lubber allow. "We change habits when it makes economic sense to do so."
If anyone doubts whether prices matter, just recall the impact of $4 gasoline on SUV sales--and the subsequent loss of interest in hybrids when the price fell back to $2 a gallon.
Bottom line:
- It won't be cheap or easy to solve the world's climate problem.
- To minimize the cost, it's important to curb greenhouse gas emissions as efficiently as possible, such as market-oriented cap-and-trade programs.
- Doing nothing is not an option.
- If anyone waves a study at you claiming otherwise, don't take it on faith.
May 06 2009
Princeton economist Alan Blinder last year called it "the best stimulus idea you've never heard of." He was lauding "Cash for Clunkers"--the idea of having the government buy up and scrap older, more polluting vehicles. Such a program, he said, could achieve "a remarkable public policy trifecta--stimulating the economy, improving the environment and reducing income inequality all at the same time."
The idea is no longer unheralded. Yesterday, President Obama and House Democrats forged a compromise on legislation to make Cash for Clunkers a reality. The new bill will fund a million vouchers of up to $4,500 to encourage people to trade in their older cars and trucks--as long as they get less than 18 mpg--for more fuel-efficient vehicles.
Buyers of a car with a 4 mpg improvement in fuel economy would be eligible for a $3,500 voucher. An upgrade of 10 mpg would increase the incentive to $4,500.
The standards are more relaxed for trucks. For example, it would take only a 2 mpg improvement in one class of light trucks to be eligible for a $4,500 credit. A pickup truck that gets only 15 mpg could qualify for purchase.
There's no doubt this program would provide a temporary shot in the arm to the beleaguered auto industry--even if there are no guarantees that American-made cars will benefit disproportionately. A similar program in Germany boosted February car sales there an impressive 21.5 percent. The U.S. auto industry's biggest friend in Congress, Rep. John Dingell of Michigan, put his stamp of approval on the deal: "It's a good agreement. It means sales of autos."
But what does it really mean for the environment? Many environmentalists and economists are not yet convinced that it's a magic cure-all.
Let's do the math. Best case, if every owner of a huge Toyota Tundra (16 mpg) traded in their truck for a petite Prius (46 mpg), they would save themselves--and the environment--408 gallons of gasoline for every 10,000 miles driven. That's about 4 tons of carbon dioxide per year.
On the other hand, if the program merely induced owners of a Jeep Liberty (18 mpg) to trade out for a Jeep Patriot (22 mpg), the savings would amount to only 100 gallons for every 10,000 miles, or about one ton of carbon dioxide per year.
Saving only 10 tons of CO2 over a decade at a cost of $3,500 ($350/ton) is a really expensive way to reduce greenhouse gases. In contrast, a cap-and-trade market would likely set a price on carbon emissions of well under $100 a ton.
Critics say the program will almost certainly be even less effective than it seems, because it will take a lot of energy to make new cars to replace the ones the government scraps.
Daniel Sperling, director of the Institute of Transportation Studies at the University of California, Davis, also warns that drivers who replace older vehicles with more fuel efficient models may end up driving more miles each year--the so-called rebound effect. Raising fuel taxes would be a more effective policy, he argues, since it would encourage drivers to buy more efficient cars and drive them less.
Despite these drawbacks, many thoughtful analysts still support the concept of Cash for Clunkers as a step in the right direction. It may not be perfect, but politics is a messy business, especially when trying to reconcile the goals of a cleaner environment and more robust economy.
May 04 2009
Walking by PG&E's entrance today, my attention was grabbed by an adorably cute little car on display. Not even the hot Tesla Motors Roadster nearby could compete.
I had spied a Mitsubishi i-MiEV, an all-electric four-seater, which goes on sale in Japan this summer. One of only six in the United States, it joined PG&E's fleet for testing last month. Under an agreement announced last August, PG&E will evaluate the suitability of the zero-emissions vehicle in the California market. PG&E owns and operates a number of clean air vehicles, including hybrids and natural gas vehicles, and is eager to begin checking out the new generation of production-ready electric cars.
One look tells you the i-MiEV will maneuver expertly through crowded city streets and fit into all sorts of tight parking spots in San Francisco. But according to Jim Larson, senior program manager in PG&E's Clean Air Transportation group, the car does wonders on the highway as well.
"It gets right up to highway speeds, holds it own, and can maneuver in traffic under aggressive driving conditions," Larson said. "It is fully highway capable." Even better, it's eligible for HOV lanes, so you can cruise along at high speed with less hassle.
The car is rated at 0-60 acceleration in 9.0 seconds, with a top speed of 82 miles. Larson says its range exceeds 100 miles and it charges in three-to-five hours on a dedicated 240 volt circuit.
Like other electric cars, it feels even peppier than it's rated. "You get very good acceleration due to the instantaneous torque of electric motors," Larson said. "And you get steady, smooth acceleration because there's no transmission."
Having tested many concept cars and conversions, Larson said he is impressed by how market-ready the i-MiEV is. "This is a very sophisticated, finished product, clearly ready for mass production," he observed.
The auto blog HybridCars.com agrees. "Its clever design, attention to detail, and solid powertrain could make electric driving as routine as picking up the kids," its test driver concluded in January. "Right now, the i-MiEV is the world's most polished four-seat, zero-emissions production car. It may not hold that title for long, but after years of primitive, plastic EVs from under-funded startups and importers, it's nice to see a 'real EV' from a genuine automaker at last."
Unfortunately, Mitsibushi isn't quite as ready as these enthusiasts. Its top North American representative said last month only that the car would be ready for buyers here "within two years." By then it will face lots of competition. Apparently the big holdup is getting enough lithium-ion battery packs.
The biggest unknown is how much the car will cost, especially given its diminutive size and carrying capacity. As I explored in yesterday's posting on fuel economy, if it's too expensive, even the attraction of low operating costs (electricity is much cheaper than gasoline) won't overcome the initial sticker shock.
May 04 2009
It's only a matter of time before every reader of NEXT100 does his or her bit for the environment and buys a hybrid car, thus helping to drive the world economy out of recession.
But with dozens of new models due to hit the market over the next year, how should you choose?
Paradoxically, given that fuel economy is the prime reason to buy a hybrid, relative MPG ratings should probably be low on your list of priorities.
The reason is that today's better hybrids already get such good mileage that additional fuel savings are rarely worth the extra cost.
For example, compare the Honda Insight 2010, released on the market in March, with the Toyota Prius 2010, due out in late May. The Insight lists for $19,800, the Prius for $22,000 (and up).
For a price difference of $2,200, you get a seemingly big difference in fuel economy--50 MPG for the Toyota, 41 MPG for the Honda (combined city and highway). That's got to be worth it, right?
Actually, if gasoline costs $2.50 a gallon and you drive 10,000 miles a year, the Insight will use only about 40 more gallons and cost only $100 more for fuel. It would take 22 years to make up the difference in price through fuel savings (not counting interest).
You can check for yourself with a handy online GPM Calculator (sometimes called an MPG Illusion Calculator) created by Richard Larrick, Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at Duke University. It takes miles per gallon and converts them into gallons per mile so you can see how cars really compare in fuel use and costs. (Larrick co-authored a seminal article in Science magazine last year calling attention to the virtue of gallons per mile as a better measure of how much gas you will use while owning a car.)
The fundamental insight is that any given absolute difference in MPG ratings (in this case, 9 MPG) represents a much smaller percentage difference at high MPG levels.
Second, any given percentage change in fuel use matters a lot less when total fuel use is relatively low. If you could travel 10,000 miles on just 100 gallons of gasoline (100 MPG), saving 10 percent wouldn't matter much (10 gallons). On the other hand, if it took you 1,000 gallons to go the same distance (10 MPG), saving 10 percent would be a considerable amount (100 gallons).
If we could improve our mileage rating from 16 MPG to 25 MPG, the same 9 MPG difference we see between the Insight and the Prius, the savings in gasoline over 10,000 miles would be 225 gallons, worth about $562 at $2.50 a gallon. That kind of saving might start to make a difference over time.
Choosing a high-mileage car is only one way to save money on fuel. Another good way is "hypermiling"--driving more frugally by accelerating slowly, coasting instead of braking, keeping windows closed and minimizing wind resistance by avoiding excessive highway speeds.
Late last month, NASCAR driver Carl Edwards and a team of passengers hypermiled a Ford Fusion Hybrid 1,445.7 miles on a single tank of gas, for an average of 81.5 MPG, double the car's EPA rating. The whole trip cost them only $37 in gas and covered a distance of half the United States.
So the lessons are:
- Buy a fuel-efficient car (probably hybrid, electric or diesel).
- Pay extra for cool features and sex appeal, not modest improvements in mileage.
- Drive your sporty new car slowly and conservatively to save gas.
May 01 2009
Several stores on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Unless greenhouse gas emissions are quickly and sharply curbed, carbon dioxide may reach the level needed to warm the globe a dangerous 2 degrees Centigrade in only 20 years, according to a new study published in Nature. "We should not forget that a 2C global mean warming would take us far beyond the variations that Earth has experienced since we humans have been around," said Malte Meinshausen of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, who led the study.
- A New York City-sized chunk of the Antarctic ice shelf broke off in April and shattered into icebergs, according to a German scientist who reviewed recent satellite images. Temperature increases of up to 3 degrees Celsius on the Antarctic Peninsula have caused a massive shrinkage of ice in some areas, experts say.
- Fewer than half of utility executives in the United States and Canada in a new survey said they support the Obama administration's proposals to fight global warming, including a cap-and-trade program to limit greenhouse gas emissions (43 percent in favor), investing in clean energy to create green jobs (48 percent) and making the United States a leader on climate change (46 percent). Large majorities favored promoting nuclear energy, building efficiency standards, smart grid technology and clean coal technology.
- A study of the economic impact of capping greenhouse gas emissions, commissioned by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other critics of proposed national climate legislation, found that U.S. GDP would be reduced an almost unnoticeable 0.4 percent by 2020.
- Contrary to some critics of U.S. global warming legislation, who claim that China and other developing countries will not do their part to control greenhouse gas emissions, China is now the world's largest investor in clean energy technology, according to the United Nations' climate chief, Yvo de Boer. Almost 40 percent of China's stimulus spending is directed toward renewable energy, pollution control, electric grid upgrades and similar measures. "In some countries, the fact that the Chinese are acting on climate change is hugely underappreciated," de Boer said.
Apr 30 2009
The economy may be tanking, housing prices may be plummeting and the state's unemployment rate may be in double digits, but growing numbers of California residents continue to invest in the future of clean energy by installing solar panels on their homes and businesses.
Thanks to falling prices for solar panels and generous new federal tax credits, homeowners and businesses installed a record 78 megawatts of solar capacity in the first quarter of 2009, according to the California Public Utilities Commission. Customer-owned solar panels in the state now generate more than 500 megawatts of power, the CPUC said.
Within PG&E's service territory, customers in the first three months filed preliminary applications to install another 43 megawatts of solar panels--more additional capacity than many states have in their entire solar portfolio, according to Lisa Shell, senior project manager for PG&E's customer and solar generation group. In January alone, PG&E's customers installed about 1,200 solar systems, double the usual monthly average.
Some of the more noteworthy business customers who invested in clean solar energy include Sierra Nevada Brewing Co. (which dedicated its new 1.5 MW solar system and electric vehicle charging stations on April 26), Del Monte Foods (which dedicated a 1.9 MW solar system on April 17), and Silver Oaks Cellars, an Oakville winery powered by 1,464 solar panels.
PG&E predicted demand would surge based on last fall's change in the federal tax code, and increased staffing in the customer solar area to process additional rebate applications. So far, the utility has met the surge in demand with few problems.
Since the beginning of 2007, when the California Solar Initiative was launched, PG&E has received more than 10,000 rebate applications. PG&E's customers--amounting to about five percent of the U.S. population--now have about 300 MW of solar capacity installed, about half the residential national total, according to Shell.
Apr 29 2009
A little-reported "well incident" this week in a remote part of Australia is a sobering reminder of the challenges facing the geothermal industry's next generation of technology.
Geodynamics Ltd., the largest publicly traded company in Australia focused on recovering goethermal energy by injecting water into hot granite rocks deep underground to create steam, acknowledged a breach of its first commercial-scale production well in the Cooper Basin in the southern part of the country.
The company says the crew responsible for commissioning the 1 MW plant is being "progressively demobilised" while experts (reportedly flown in from the United States) assess damage to the Habanero 3 well, which is 13,800 feet deep. Geodynamics offered no estimate of when operations would resume.
Geodynamics is a leader in the field of enhanced geothermal technology, which holds tremendous promise as a source of renewable energy. A massive report issued by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2007 estimated that it could affordably supply 10 percent of U.S. power needs within 50 years, at about the same low price as today's coal-fired plants.
Today's conventional plants, such as those located at The Geysers in Sonoma County (the world's largest geothermal field, with 850 MW of power capacity), use existing reservoirs of underground hot water or steam to drive turbines. Promising locations for new production including California's Imperial Valley, northern Nevada and the Oregon and Washington Cascades.
But if water can be injected from the surface, the main resource a developer needs is hot rocks, which exist almost everywhere on earth if you dig deep enough. Plants in The Geysers pioneered this concept by injecting treated effluent from nearby cities to supplement natural steam. The trick is finding rocks with the right characteristics to allow water to filter through them and heat up reliably.
Experts say that once the geologic and engineering challenges are worked out, so-called "enhanced geothermal" energy could become one of the 21st century's most promising resources.
"It brings an absolutely gigantic amount of power into the realm of economic feasibility," said Susan Petty, a former MIT scientist and chief technology officer of Sausalito-based AltaRock Energy, an enhanced geothermal energy firm. AltaRock Energy, which is funded in part by Google.org and the Department of Energy, has a major demonstration project in The Geysers area.
Paul Brophy, past president of the Geothermal Resources Council and a consulting geologist to one of the industry's leading drilling companies, agreed. "It would not be unreasonable to say the broad potential for geothermal is almost limitless," he told NEXT100. "Oil and gas wells go down 30,000 feet or more. You could drill down that far almost anywhere in the earth's crust and attain the sort of heat" necessary for geothermal power.
As it happens, however, most of the test wells in this country are being drilled in the West, where hot rocks lie closer to the surface, minimizing drilling costs.
Geothermal isn't the sexiest of renewable energy sources--it certainly can't compete with space solar power in that respect--but it's a proven workhorse. Unlike wind and solar power, it provides power around the clock, every day. It also has a much smaller footprint, Brophy noted, thus creating fewer environmental obstacles.
Around the world, geothermal supplies more than 10,000 MW of power. The United States is the leading producer, and California the leading state. Across the country, 126 new projects are under development--27 of them in California--with the potential to produce as much as 5,500 MW of new power, according to the Geothermal Energy Association.
PG&E played a major part in developing the industry, opening the first commercial geothermal power plant at The Geysers in 1960. The utility was required to divest its plants there in the late 1990s, but PG&E still purchases about 5 percent of its power from them, making geothermal the single largest source of renewable power in its portfolio.
Thanks to significant injections of new R&D money from the Department of Energy in just the past couple of years, the geothermal industry is enjoying a rebirth, with a focus on enhanced recovery techniques. In addition, the Obama administration's new stimulus program set aside $400 million for new geothermal development, a landmark commitment of government resources. "Research is progressing very rapidly," Brophy said.
But Geodynamics' setback is a reminder that enhanced geothermal is still more promise than reality. Some estimates put the cost of their wells at $12 million each, so the company can't afford too many mistakes.
But Brophy takes the news in stride. "When you are trying to do things for the first time, things will go wrong," he said. "We are still in the early stages of research and demonstration."
Apr 27 2009
In the two weeks since NEXT100 announced PG&E's first-of-a-kind deal to purchase space solar power from Solaren Corporation starting in 2016, the news has been reported, analyzed, debated, praised and ridiculed on more than 26,000 Web sites and other media, according to Google.
I've had time to review only about 0.1 percent of those sites, but several offered significant information, insights or opinions worth sharing.
Scientific American provided one of the most thorough analyses of space solar power and its prospects, including an interview with a co-founder of Space Energy, a Switzerland-based company in the same emerging market. The article quoted Frederick Best, director of the Center for Space Power (CSP) at Texas A&M University in College Station, Tex., as saying that space solar power "is a disruptive technology" that "could change the whole energy equation."
The same article also shed light on Solaren's 2005 patent, which suggests how the company proposes to keep weight and launch costs down by doing away with structures to hold all the orbiting elements together. For other useful discussions of Solaren's design concept and patent, see Todd Woody's post at Grist, Michael Mecham's blog "On Space" hosted by Aviation Week and Space Technology, and the discussion on the HobbySpace site.
A number of serious energy authorities applauded the concept while reserving judgment on the practicality of Solaren's plans to use satellites to capture solar energy, then send it via radio waves to an earth receiving station for conversion into electricity.
Ralph Cavanagh, head of the energy program at the Natural Resources Defense Council, told the San Francisco Chronicle, "My prediction is this is going to be much more about economics than the environment." Utilities, he said, need to explore unconventional approaches to meet rising demand for energy while dealing with global warming. "You want to encourage them to try lots of different things," he said. "But the caution is that some of these things won't work."
Daniel Kammen, professor of energy and resources at the University of California, Berkeley, told the London Guardian: "The ground rules are looking kind of promising ... it is doable. Whether it is doable at a reasonable cost, we just don't know."
Solaren's CEO, Gary Spirnak, conceded his job won't be easy. Noting that the company would need "billions of dollars" in funding, he told Dow Jones News Wire, "We're under no illusions as to the difficulty of the task. . . . We understand how to work these things, but you have to put in the time, energy and engineering to make it work."
Green Wombat noted on the plus side that "there are no desert tortoises in space or other protected wildlife" that will stand in Solaren's way, though it will still have to "pass muster with a long list of state, federal and international government agencies."
Earth2Tech's Katie Fehrenbacher wondered briefly if the announcement wasn't a belated April Fools' Day joke, but grudgingly admitted "it's not as crazy as it sounds." Still, she wondered if Solaren can overcome the "clear technical and economic hurdles" that have kept anyone from deploying a space solar installation to date.
Blogger Chris Nelder has no such doubts; he confidently pronounced the whole deal a "pure fantasy" that got his "blood boiling."
A more generous Sacramento Bee editorial called April 10--the day PG&E filed its contract for review by the California Public Utilities Commission--"the date when imagination docked with the Earthbound economics model in our backyard." The paper concluded, "Who can say whether those technical challenges can be overcome, and at what cost? For now, it's enough to celebrate the progress toward a day when clean energy is no longer an out-of-this-world idea but a reality, thanks to boundless imagination."
And the Daily Breeze in Torrance editorialized, "We're glad that companies are thinking outside the biosphere in the search for alternative energy . . . Orbital solar power stations should be part of the solution to give the United States true energy independence. We hope the state's utilities, entrepreneurs and the scientists and engineers who have driven the South Bay's aerospace industry will make this imaginative idea a reality in the decade ahead."
Apr 24 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The number of victims of climate-related natural disasters could jump 50 percent by 2015 to 375 million a year, according to the British charity Oxfam. A representative of the agency told BBC that international aid agencies could be overwhelmed by the impact of floods, storms and droughts.
Global warming may dry up some of the world's greatest rivers, including China's Yellow River, the Niger, the Ganges and the Colorado, according to a study by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado. The result, especially in poorer countries, could be widespread shortages of fresh water and food.
Proposed legislation to discourage greenhouse gas emissions through a "cap-and-trade" market, derided by critics as an economy-busting measure, would cut the growth rate of the nation's gross domestic product only slightly, according to a new study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The EPA's analysis predicts that GDP would still grow from $16 trillion in 2015 to $22 trillion in 2030.
China, the world's largest emitter of greenhouse gases and most ravenous consumer of coal, plans to spend $220 billion over the next two years on "green" stimulus plans, including renewable energy, or twice the commitment by the U.S. government, according to the Center for American Progress.
Republican Rep. John Boehner of Ohio, House minority leader, explained to ABC's George Stephanopoulos why he opposes regulation of greenhouse gas emissions: "George, the idea that carbon dioxide is a carcinogen that is harmful to our environment is almost comical. Every time we exhale, we exhale carbon dioxide. Every cow in the world, you know, when they do what they do, you've got more carbon dioxide." Most scientists would inded laugh at the idea that CO2 is a carcinogen, but not at its contribution to global warming.
Is it any wonder that members of Congress can't always keep their facts straight? According to a new survey by Public Agenda, a non-partisan opinion research group, four in 10 Americans can't name a fossil fuel and half can't name a renewable energy source. Public Agenda's chief issue analyst wondered, "How can they understand something as complex as 'cap and trade,' which has very strong implications for how much they are going to pay and that their local utilities will use?"
Finally, the media had a field day with a report from the International Journal of Epidemiology blaming the rise in obesity for contributing to global warming. Overeating leads to more food production and leads people to drive more, both of which require energy. "Moving about in a heavy body is like driving a gas guzzler," said Dr. Phil Edwards of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Apr 23 2009
Is America in danger of falling behind the rest of the world in harnessing the piezoelectric effect, the property of certain materials, including quartz crystals and some ceramics, to produce an electrical charge when squeezed or stressed?
This effect, first demonstrated by French scientists in the 1880s, has been since been put to use in phonograph cartridges, ultrasonic submarine detectors, and even cigarette lighters.
In a passionate new essay, Kimberley Diamond, vice chair of the carbon and energy trading and finance committee of the American Bar Association, warns that "the U.S. is currently running at the back of the pack of global leaders in this space."
Insisting that "this needs to change," Diamond continues:
Revolutionary developments in piezoelectric technology now permit the kinetic energy generated from people walking and dancing, as well as from moving vehicles, to be converted into clean power. Innovative devices employing piezoelectricity offer vast public benefits and potential business opportunities in both the long and short terms. Increased piezoelectricity usage could be a trend that plays a significant role in shaping tomorrow's world in the alternative energy sector as well as in financial markets. Consequently, new scientific and technological advances in piezoelectric inventions merit endorsement and should be raised to the forefront of U.S. domestic public consciousness and discourse.
What are these revolutionary advances? NEXT100 covered one of them in January -- a proposal by an Israeli engineer to embed piezoelectric crystals in road beds to generate electricity from passing cars. His company, Innowattech, claims that electricity can be generated this way at less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour, but the company's web site is notably silent about the results of a pilot test that was supposed to take place in February.
Another application is in dance floors at two European nightclubs, Club Surya in London and Wvatt in Rotterdam, where as Diamond explains:
The clubs' "bouncing" dance floors are engineered with springs and series of crystal and ceramic blocks. When patrons at each club dance, the pressure they exert on these blocks causes the dance floor to depress slightly and the blocks to rub against each other. The result is the generation of a small electric current. This process effectively captures the dancers' kinetic energy, and feeds it into nearby batteries. In Club Surya, for instance, batteries power the club's lights and air conditioning, and supply up to approximately 60 percent of the club's energy needs. As long as clubbers dance, the floor's movement constantly recharges the batteries. The more dancing, the more power produced. Each person can produce between five and 20 watts, depending on their activity level.
(Here's a diagram of how it all works.)
A more pedestrian application in Ann Arbor uses piezoelectric sidewalk tiles to power colorful LED lights, an example of a concept the inventor calls "Project POWERLeap."
Diamond sees "mind-boggling" potential for expansion of the use of piezoelectricity, but offers no perspective on the cost. But in a suggestion that borders on parody, Diamond offers another alleged benefit:
From an investment banking perspective, if a certain threshold of increased demand is reached over the next decade or two for secured borrowing for large-scale piezoelectric projects, then there is the potential that a new esoteric asset class involving piezoelectric loans or bonds could be formed. The creation of such securities, backed by infrastructure-related or commercial real estate-related debt, could herald additional transaction structuring and trading opportunities in the capital markets. For instance, asset-backed securities in the form of piezoelectric infrastructure or commercial real estate loans could be used in the future as collateral for structured finance transactions such as collateralized loan obligations (CLOs), or other structured investment vehicles.
For myself, if we're looking for ways people can harness their own energy, I vote for turning every health club in America into a mini-power plant by adding dynamos to all of their treadmills. Said the president of California Fitness (a Hong Kong company, go figure):
One person has the ability of producing 50 watts of electricity per hour when exercising at a moderate pace....If a person spends one hour per day running on the machine, he/she could generate 18.2 kilowatts of electricity and prevent 4,380 liters of CO2 released per year.
Apr 22 2009
With California in its third year of drought, PG&E and its customers face not only the prospect of a significant decline in clean, inexpensive hydropower, but an increase in the risk of devastating wildfires.
U.S. Forest Service experts who gathered last week at the National Seasonal Assessment Workshop in Boulder, CO concluded that this year's fire season in Northern California could start in early May, roughly a month earlier than normal, because annual grasses are drying so quickly.
Worse yet, ample supply of dry, flammable vegetation, stressed by prolonged drought and insect kills, are setting the stage in the northern half of the state for another summer of wildfires that could compare in severity to those of 2008.
Last year's first large fire was the Summit Fire on the Central Coast, which began May 22, 2008. The next month, thousands of lightning strikes lit more than 2,000 fires across Northern and Central California, overwhelming firefighters. In early July, record temperatures--which hit 126 °F at Lake Berryessa--made the flames even more ravenous. By July 11, nearly 800,000 acres had burned, far exceeding the 500,000 acres lost to California wildfires in all of 2007.
Just as memorably, the fire season extended all the way to November, when 35,000 acres in the Los Angeles hills burned, destroying a thousand homes.
The summer fire storms in Northern and Central California, following the devastating winter storms in January, posed a major challenge to PG&E. From late June to early August, they damaged more than 100 miles of power lines, more than 500 power poles, five transmission towers and 121 transformers. More than 10,000 customers lost service.
With eight hydro facilities and thousands of miles of electrical lines at risk, the damage could have been much worse but for smart preparation and planning. That started with the $170 million a year that PG&E spends on vegetation management in order to protect public safety and the power grid. Clearing fast-growing trees and shrubs around power lines helps prevent summer fires due to sparks as well as winter outages due to short-circuits caused by falling trees.
Last summer, utility crews also pre-treated many poles with fire-retardent, saving 285 poles and almost five million dollars in replacement costs. (PG&E used the same fire-retardent to treat a hospital in the town of Paradise, near Chico, which could not be evacuated in time.)
PG&E emergency planners also used sophisticated geographic information systems to track the risk to utility assets, based on daily fire updates available on the web. PG&E passed the information through liaison officers to local agencies in charge of battling the fires to help them plan their strategy.
For this effort, PG&E was awarded a 2008 Emergency Recovery Award by the Edison Electric Institute, a major utility industry association.
You don't have to be a professional firefighter or utility crew member to start preparing for the long, hot summer ahead. The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) urges residents to create a 100 feet zone of defensible space around their homes. By removing all dead vegetation in that zone, and all flammable vegetation within 30 feet of your home, you greatly diminish the chances of being overrun by a wildfire.
Other smart tips include clearing all needles and leaves from roofs and gutters, landscaping with fire-resistant plants, keeping branches at least 10 feet away from chimneys, and not using power equipment during the heat of the day.
Apr 21 2009
When Washington insiders hear "Waxman-Markey," they instantly think of the proposal by two key Democratic legislators, Henry Waxman of California and Ed Markey of Massachusetts, to create America's first "cap-and-trade" market to limit greenhouse gas emissions, a step that would transform this country's energy industry.
But buried in their draft American Clean Energy and Security Act are a number of energy efficiency provisions that would also slow the march toward global warming significantly.
In fact, according to a new analysis by the independent, non-profit American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), these provisions could slash U.S. energy use 10 percent by 2020. The savings would exceed the annual energy use of 49 out of 50 states, including California's. ACEEE figures the measures would avoid emissions of about 660 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2020, equivalent to locking 110 million cars in the garage for a year.
"These energy efficiency savings are very substantial and will go a long way towards paying the cost of the cap-and-trade program in the bill," said Steven Nadel, ACEEE's Executive Director, in a prepared statement. "Our analyses indicate that energy efficiency policies are a key cost-control element for climate change legislation because the less energy we need, the fewer new power plants we need, and the fewer existing power plants that need to be upgraded."
Key provisions in the bill include:
- A federal Energy Efficiency Resource Standard, which would make utilities reduce electricity demand by 15 percent and natural gas demand by 10 percent by 2020;
- A Retrofit for Energy and Environmental Performance program to promote energy efficiency improvements in residential and commercial buildings; and
- A requirement that states improve transportation efficiency to cut greenhouse gas emissions.
ACEEE says that while the draft legislation is a great step in the right direction, even more can be done. Its studies indicate that 25 percent of more of U.S. energy use can be cut cost-effectively with today's technology.
For information on how you can save energy--and money--check out PG&E's many energy efficiency programs and incentive rebates for your home or business.
Apr 20 2009
Imagine this: my hometown movie theater has staked out a claim of being "America's first solar major motion picture theater," a worthy record indeed for the Guinness Book.
The Fairfax 5 Theatre in Marin County, a neighborhood institution dating back to 1952, has installed 170 rooftop solar panels that now generate 31.5 kilowatts of power, more than a third of the theater's total electricity demand. (Full disclosure: both of my daughters once had jobs at this theater.)
Dave Corkill, founder of the small Cinema West chain that owns the Fairfax Theater, said his latest monthly power bill for the theater was $919, down from the usual $2,500.
Cinema West recently claimed a second record, this one for the largest solar system on a movie theater in America. A monster system on Livermore Cinemas uses 805 tubular solar modules made by Solyndra to generate 132 kilowatts of power.
PG&E provided rebates for both installations under the California Solar Initiative, $40,000 for the Fairfax Theatre alone. Said Corkill, "It was a very smooth process. It amazes me that people who are taking money out of PG&E's pockets by being their competitor are received so warmly. PG&E is geared up to do this in a very user-friendly way."
What will all this clean power bring you besides cold soda and hot popcorn? According to the latest movie schedule, the Fairfax Theatre's offerings include "Hannah Montana: The Movie" and "Monsters vs. Aliens 3D," not exactly prime uses of solar power in my book. On the other hand, you can also catch "State of Play" (featuring Rachel McAdams as a blogger) and, appropriately, the Disney nature documentary "Earth" (starting Wednesday).
If you prefer drive-in movies, and you happen to find yourself in east-central Illinois, you may want to check out what claims to be the world's first wind-powered theater, the Harvest Moon Holiday Twin Drive-In in Gibson City, Illinois. Their two turbines can generate 100 percent of the theater's power needs when the wind is blowing 12-15 miles per hour.
What's next? A movie theater powered by a geothermal vent, featuring "Journey to the Center of the Earth"?
Apr 17 2009
The peregrine chicks are hatching atop PG&E's headquarters in San Francisco! See the offspring of Dapper Dan and Diamond Lil in real time on PG&E's webcam (requires QuickTime):
Apr 17 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Carbon dioxide may be the single biggest contributor to global warming, but scientists now believe a not-too-distant second is soot, or black carbon, released by dirty fires prevalent in the developing world. The tiny dark particles absorb solar radiation, accelerating the melting of glaciers. Soot particulates are also a major cause of premature human deaths. The good news is soot emissions can be dramatically reduced by replacing primitive stoves with more modern smokeless technology.
- Migrating birds will have to fly farther between breeding ranges and wintering areas in Africa due to global warming, according to a team of scientists at Durham University. Small birds like the garden warbler, who already fly thousands of miles on these annual journeys, will be pushed to their limit to extend their journeys, the scientists predict.
- Congressional legislation to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions "is absolutely essential" to the Obama administration's hopes of spurring global action on climate change this December in Copenhagen, according to Carol Browner, the White House adviser on energy and climate change issues.
Apr 13 2009
As part of PG&E's commitment to providing more renewable energy to its customers, the utility has supported a wide range of technologies, including wind, geothermal, biomass, wave and tidal, and at least a half dozen types of solar thermal and photovoltaic power.
Now PG&E is extending that approach to tap renewable energy at an entirely new level: solar power in space.
PG&E is seeking approval from state regulators for a power purchase agreement with Solaren Corp., a Southern California company that has contracted to deliver 200 megawatts of clean, renewable power over a 15 year period.
Solaren says it plans to generate the power using solar panels in earth orbit, then convert it to radio frequency energy for transmission to a receiving station in Fresno County. From there, the energy will be converted to electricity and fed into PG&E's power grid. (See interview with Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak.)
Why would anyone choose so challenging a locale to generate electricity? For one, the solar energy available in space is eight-to-ten times greater than on earth. There's no atmospheric or cloud interference, no loss of sun at night, and no seasons. That means space solar can be a baseload resource, not an intermittent source of power.
In addition, real estate in space is still free (if hard to reach). Solaren needs to acquire land only for an energy receiving station. It can locate the station near existing transmission lines, greatly reducing delays that face some renewable power projects sited far from existing facilities.
While the concept of space solar power makes sense, making it all work at an affordable cost is a major challenge, which Solaren says it can solve.
Solaren's team includes satellite engineers and scientists, primarily from the U.S. Air Force and Hughes Aircraft Company, with decades of experience in the space industry. Its CEO, Gary Spirnak, was a spacecraft project engineer in the U.S. Air Force and director of advanced digital applications at Boeing Satellite Systems, among other positions.
They also have a long history of research to draw upon. The U.S. Department of Energy and NASA began seriously studying the concept of solar power satellites in the 1970s, followed by a major "fresh look" in the Clinton administration.
In 1997, John C. Mankins, manager of NASA's Advanced Projects Office, wrote:
Based on the recently-completed "fresh look" study, space solar power concepts may be ready to reenter the discussion. Certainly, solar power satellites should no longer be envisioned as requiring unimaginably large initial investments in fixed infrastructure before the emplacement of productive power plants can begin. Moreover, space solar power systems appear to possess many significant environmental advantages when compared to alternative approaches to meeting increasing terrestrial demands for energy - including requiring considerably less land area than terrestrially-based solar power systems.
The economic viability of such systems depends, of course, on many factors and the successful development of various new technologies - not least of which is the availability of exceptionally low cost access to space. However, the same can be said of many other advanced power technologies options. Space solar power may well emerge as a serious candidate among the options for meeting the energy demands of the 21st century.
In 2007, a major study by the Defense Department's National Security Space Office gave the concept another boost, concluding that "there is enormous potential for energy security, economic development, improved environmental stewardship . . and overall national security for those nations who construct and possess a SBSP capability."
The study group further declared, "Space-Based Solar Power is more technically executable than ever before and current technological vectors promise to further improve its viability."
So much for the concept. Can Solaren really deliver electricity to PG&E customers by 2016, the year it has contracted to begin commercial operation?
If Solaren succeeds, PG&E's customers have a great opportunity to benefit from affordable clean energy. There is no risk to PG&E customers; PG&E has contracted only to pay for power that Solaren delivers.
Solaren will work with citizen groups and government agencies to support the project's development. Solaren is responsible for getting all the necessary permits and approvals from federal, state and local agencies. Among other things, Solaren will have to prove that its technology satisfies all applicable safety standards, an issue that space power enthusiasts have addressed in detail, but is nonetheless sure to be controversial.
From PG&E's perspective, as a supporter of new renewable energy technology, this project is a first-of-a-kind step worth taking. If Solaren succeeds, the world of clean energy will never be the same.
Apr 13 2009
NEXT100 asked Solaren CEO Gary Spirnak to offer his perspective on the business strategy and technological approach behind his company's contract to deliver 200 MW of baseload space solar power to PG&E's customers by 2016. Here are his answers:
Q: What is Solaren Corporation?
A: Solaren is a California C Corporation that formed in 2001 and is based in Manhattan Beach, CA. Solaren was formed by a team of satellite engineers and space scientists to build a space energy company to generate and distribute electricity at competitive prices from Space Solar Power (SSP) stations in geosynchronous orbit. Solaren currently consists of about ten engineers and scientists, but plans to grow to more than 100 over the next twelve months.
Q: What was the impetus for forming the company?
A: The impetus for forming Solaren was the convergence of improved high efficiency energy conversion devices, heavy launch vehicle developments, and a revolutionary Solaren-patented SSP plant design that is a significant departure from past efforts and makes SSP not only technically, but economically viable.
Q: What kind of experience does your team have?
A: Each Solaren team member each has 20 to 45 years experience in the aerospace industry, primarily with Hughes Aircraft Company and the US Air Force, and has successfully developed and managed many first-of-a-kind, innovative space projects.
Q: Has anything like this been built before?
A: This will be the world's first SSP plant. While a system of this scale and exact configuration has not been built, the underlying technology is very mature and is based on communications satellite technology. For over 45 years, satellites have collected solar energy in earth orbit via solar cells, and converted it to radio frequency (RF) energy for transmissions to earth receive stations. This is the same energy conversion process Solaren uses for its SSP plant.
Q: What gives you the confidence that you can design the system?
A: The SSP pilot plant system design will work hand and glove with an extensive Solaren engineering development program. Before the Solaren SSP plant is constructed, an engineering development program will be implemented to reduce the cost, schedule and engineering risk associated with the Solaren SSP pilot project. The engineering development program is a meticulous step-by-step process that will validate all SSP components, subsystems and systems. In addition to laboratory and ground tests, Solaren plans to test and evaluate critical SSP system deployments and functionality in space. The rigorous SSP pilot plant design will be created from the foundation of engineering data generated through the SSP development program's component, subsystem and system tests.
Q: What gives you confidence that you can launch this system into space?
A: The SSP pilot plant satellites are designed to use existing launch capabilities. No new space launch vehicle capabilities need to be developed to launch our satellites into space. The SSP pilot plant design for the power satellites and ground receive station will be built and validated and the power satellites prepared for shipment to the launch site during the construction phase. At the launch site, the power satellites are launched into space using existing launch vehicle capabilities and moved to their final orbital positions.
Q: Finally, what gives you the confidence that you can start generating power by 2016?
A: What gives us the confidence that we can start generating power in 2016 is the experience of Solaren's team and suppliers, and these five steps. First, our meticulous SSP engineering development program will reduce program risk. Second, our rigorous SSP Pilot plant design will ensure that we meet or exceed our SSP system performance requirements and that the design is buildable. Third, the construction of the SSP Pilot plant is built to exacting specifications, which are each verified and validated. Fourth, the SSP satellites undergo a final verification prior to launch, and use low risk, existing launch vehicle capabilities for delivery to space. Fifth, once in geosynchronous orbit, a series of SSP pilot plant system tests will validate the satellites and ground receive station functions and verify performance, safety and key parameters to ensure successful operations. When we complete these steps, we will then be ready to deliver power to PG&E in 2016.
Q: Does Solaren have the option to not deliver power? Is this a best-effort contract?
A: No. We are required under this PPA to deliver the contracted 200 MW of baseload power on the contracted start date to PG&E, and Solaren is committed to making that date.
Q: Why go this route instead of sticking with more familiar terrestrial solar technology?
A: Solaren's patented design and proprietary approaches result in a baseload power generation system that is competitive both in terms of performance and cost with other sources of baseload power generation. We believe terrestrial solar power will play an increasing role in satisfying peak electricity demand. Solaren SSP is fundamentally different from terrestrial solar in that we address baseload power not peaking power.
Q: How does your SSP pilot plant work?
A: Solaren's patented SSP plant design uses satellites in Earth orbit to collect solar energy in space and generate power, which is transmitted to the ground receive station for conversion to electricity for delivery to PG&E. Specifically Solaren's SSP satellites use solar cells in space to convert the sun's energy to electricity. This electricity powers high efficiency generator devices, known as solid state power amplifiers (SSPA). The SSPA devices on-board the satellite convert electricity into RF energy. Next the SSP satellite, using the RF energy and the satellite's antenna, directs and transmits the RF power to the California ground receive station. The ground receiver directly converts the RF energy to electricity, and uses the local power grid for transmission to the PG&E delivery point.
Q: What is the potential of Space Solar Power?
A: Collecting solar energy in space and transmitting it to earth offers a significant untapped energy resource. The sun's energy is almost continuously available to a satellite located in a GEO orbit about the earth. According to an October, 2007 US Department of Defense (DOD) National Space Security Office (NSSO) study which included representatives from DOE/NREL, DARPA, Boeing and Lockheed-Martin: "A single kilometer wide band of geosynchronous earth orbit experiences enough solar flux in one year (approximately 212 terawatt-years) to nearly equal the amount of energy contained within all known recoverable conventional oil reserves on Earth today (approximately 250 TW-yrs)."
Q: Is the renewable energy generated from this project completely carbon-free?
A: Yes. Solaren's SSP energy conversion process is completely carbon-free.
Q: How will this project impact the environment?
A: The construction and operations of Solaren's SSP plant will have minimal impacts to the environment. The construction of the SSP ground receive station will have no more environmental impact than the construction of a similarly sized terrestrial photovoltaic (PV) solar power plant. Space launch vehicles will place the SSP satellites into their proper orbit. These space launch vehicles primarily use natural fuels (H2, O2) and have an emissions profile similar to a fuel cell. When in operation, the Solaren SSP plant has a zero carbon, mercury or sulfur footprint. In addition, the high efficiency conversion of RF energy to electricity at the SSP Ground Receive Station does not require water for thermal cooling or power generation, unlike other sources of baseload power (nuclear, coal, hydro).
Q: How was the SSP ground receive station site selected?
A: We had three major requirements for the selection of the SSP ground receive station. First, was the selection of a site that is close to a large load center, second the site had to be a short distance from a PG&E substation, and third was not to use any long distance transmission lines.
Q: When will Solaren be able to provide more details about your SSP pilot plant project?
A: We are currently supporting the CPUC regulatory filing process, and plan to provide additional details about our SSP pilot plant project in early Summer 2009.
Apr 10 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- People in high places must be reading NEXT100. On April 8, a day after this blog completed a two-part series on geoengineering, President Obama's top science adviser, John Holdren said of this controversial approach to controlling global warming, "It's got to be looked at. We don't have the luxury of taking any approach off the table." Stephen Salter at Edinburgh University, a leading proponent of the cloud seeding measures described in Tuesday's post, said: "Everyone working in geo-engineering works with some reluctance: we hope it'll never be needed, but we fear it might be needed very, very urgently. Holden is echoing that exactly. It's very encouraging."
- People must be reading NEXT100, part two: Only a week after this blog commented on the surge of interest in carbon-free nuclear power, engineering giants The Shaw Group and Westinghouse Electric Company announced that they received full notice to proceed from Southern Company for an engineering, procurement and construction contract to build two new nuclear reactors. Can the timing be a coincidence? This project puts Southern Company on track to become the first utility to start construction of a nuclear power plant from scratch in more than three decades. If the utility receives final licensing and funding authority and construction goes as planned, the first unit will come online in 2016.
- Global warming may claim another set of victims: pets who aren't used to harsh climates. According to new scientific papers, ticks, fleas and mosquitoes are spreading more infectious diseases among household animals as milder winters allow these disease vectors to spread.
- As global warming progresses, the world may come to resemble Australia, according to scientists who link climate change to the deaths of 200 people from heat waves and 173 from wildfires earlier this year. Other calamities to strike the country include monsoon flooding, wildlife kills, mosquito-borne diseases, and the rapid decline of the Great Barrier Reef. However, the country is reluctant to kick its dependence on carbon-rich coal power, according to the Los Angeles Times.
- From the department of faint silver linings: the economic downturn contributed to a drop of 3 percent in carbon dioxide emissions from U.S. power plants between 2007 and 2008. Emissions from industrial facilities in Europe fell 6 percent.
- The latest carbon tax proposal comes from the world's poorest countries, who asked a UN climate forum for a surcharge of about $6 on every airline ticket to help fund measures to help them adapt to floods, droughts, crop failures and other disasters that may arise from global warming. Can you afford it?
Apr 07 2009
What would it take to manipulate the earth's environment to offset the impact of a doubling of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere? Finding some way to reflect just 1.7 percent of incoming sunlight would tame the greenhouse effect and keep the average global temperature roughly in check, scientists estimate.
As noted in yesterday's post on geoengineering, proposals to just that include launching trillions of sun shades into orbit or lacing the upper atmosphere with reflective sulfur aerosols. Critics claim that such schemes would either cost an exorbitant amount or cause major environmental hazards of their own.
But what if we could just make ordinary clouds a little brighter so they would reflect more sunlight? What if the main requirements were wind and seawater? What if the cost were just a few billion dollars? And what if the process could be turned on or off at will to minimize any unintended consequences?
That's the promise of a cloud seeding proposal by John Latham, senior research associate at the National Center for Atmospheric Research and former head of the Atmospheric Physics Research Group at the University of Manchester. His idea, first broached in 1990, has been gaining traction in peer-reviewed scientific articles, TV documentaries for BBC and the Discovery Channel, and two papers last year in the prestigious journal, The Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
In a nutshell, Latham and a couple of colleagues propose seeding ocean clouds with tiny droplets of saltwater. In theory, the clouds should reflect more sunlight, possibly offsetting greenhouse warming for up to 100 years. In effect, the scientists propose speeding up the natural process of cloud formation over water much as cloud seeders do over land.
(Latham told me he got the germ of the idea while standing on top of a mountain in Wales, explaining to his eight-year-old son why the clouds they saw were so white. His son called them "soggy mirrors" and the phrase stuck with Latham ever since.)
The team proposes ingeniously to do the job with a fleet of 1500 300-ton ships powered by vertical spinning wind turbines called Flettner rotors. The rotors would both propel the ships and spray seawater into the atmosphere to promote cloud formation around salt nuclei. (A ship powered by Anton Flettner's rotors actually crossed the Atlantic in 1926. A German wind turbine manufacturer, Enercon, has plans to finish building a state-of-the-art ship based on similar technology this year.)
They estimate that the ships would cost $2 million to $4 million each, and the research and design program could be financed for about $100 million--cheap insurance by almost any measure.
The best sites to operate the ships, according to their calculations, would be off the coasts of California, Peru and Namibia.
Since the salt nuclei last in the atmosphere at most about five days, the scheme could be tested with no lasting impact to the environment. If put into operation, the ships could be controlled remotely to fine-tune their effects.
Latham told me that computer climate models show very encouraging results for the scheme, but only field testing can prove the concept. He estimates that preliminary scientific work to lay the foundation would cost only a quarter million dollars.
I asked Ken Caldeira, a leading expert on climate change and geoengineering at Stanford University, for his opinion. While he prefers the idea of injecting dust into the stratosphere to cool the earth quickly in case of a climate emergency, he likes the fact that Latham's cloud-seeding scheme can be tested at small scale, uses benign mechanisms, appear to be affordable and could be stopped quickly if needed..
So what's the downside? Perhaps the biggest is shared by all schemes to offset global warming by reflecting sunlight: even if the average temperature of the globe did not change, regional changes caused by the greenhouse effect could still be significant and disruptive. In addition, Latham's scheme would do nothing to prevent continued emissions of carbon dioxide from making the oceans more acidic, threatening many species of sea life.
That's why Latham, and other students of geoengineering like Caldeira, strongly advocate curbs on greenhouse gas emissions as the best remedy for global warming. But while they wait for the world's governments to summon the political will to enforce emissions controls, they're busy working on Plan B.
Apr 06 2009
In 1988, NASA climate expert James Hansen riveted the country with his Senate testimony about the dangers of global warming. Two decades later, in a letter to President-elect Obama, Hansen reflected on how little progress has been made and warned of the "profound disconnect between actions that policy circles are considering and what the science demands for preservation of the planet."
As we document here almost every week in the feature Climate Changes, scientists now see frightening signs that climate feedback effects from the melting of polar ice and tundra appear much worse than predicted just a few years ago, and could accelerate the devastating effects of global warming on the environment and human society.
Even so, there's no guarantee that Congress will take the tough measures necessary to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The specter of political leaders seemingly fiddling while the Earth burns has prompted some otherwise sober scientists to propose a radical Plan B: geoengineering.
Geoengineering is the idea of intervening on a planetary scale to modify the earth's environment, in this case to prevent runaway global warming. Instead of (or in addition to) dealing with the cause--overproduction of greenhouse gases--typical geoengineering solutions would cool the earth one of two ways: either reducing incoming solar radiation or by capturing and storing greenhouse gases after they are produced.
Hardly anyone admits to being a cheerleader for geoengineering; it smacks too much of the kind of hubris that got our planet into this mess in the first place. But more and more experts are quietly concluding that humankind had better keep the option open lest a worse evil overtake us.
As the futurist Jamais Cascio put in in a guest essay on Gristmill, "Geoengineering is risky, likely to provoke international tension, certain to have unanticipated consequences, and pretty much inevitable."
Creative minds have proposed an astonishing array of proposals for planetary-scale environmental engineering, some hairbrained and some remarkably clever.
One idea is to launch trillions of sunshades into orbit to offset greenhouse warming. Unfortunately, this "solution" would require 135,000 rocket launches a year to put 31,000 square kilometers of sunshades into space. It will probably be cheaper just to relocate Disney World to Fairbanks, Alaska.
Then there's a proposal from Ohio State University climate scientist Jason Box to cover Greenland's ice sheets with giant rolls of white plastic to reflect the sun and slow the rate of melting. He's testing his idea over a 10,000 square meter patch of ice. No word yet from the plastics industry's lobbyists about federal support for this idea.
Another idea that's won much wider currency and ongoing testing is fertilizing the oceans with iron to promote the growth of tiny algae to increase their uptake of carbon dioxide. As they die, they will drift to the seabed, locking that carbon away for millennia. With one apparent exception, however, recent ocean tests have thrown cold water on the prospects for this solution. The results from one German-Indian test found that iron did promote algae growth, but animals came along and ate the blooms, preventing them from falling to the ocean floor. The amount of carbon locked up was "a small amount, almost negigible," according to one scientist.
Perhaps the most widely analyzed proposal--advanced by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen--is to mimic nature by injecting sulfate particles into the upper atmosphere to reflect just enough sunlight to keep the earth from overheating. Without any political consultation, Mount Pinatubo did just that in 1991, releasing 15 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide clouds that cut average global temperatures more than half a degree Celsius over a period of about 15 months. A recent study published in Atmospheric Chemisty and Physics found that this method would have the greatest potential of any proposed to date to cool the globe.
Unfortunately, sulfur dioxide reacts to create sulfuric acid, falling as acid rain to harm terrestrial ecosystems. Worse yet, sulfates might eat a much bigger hole in the earth's ozone layer, exposing us all to dangerous UV radiation and aggravating global warming in the southern hemisphere. Oh, well, back to the drawing board.
Tomorrow: A novel scheme to cool the planet by seeding clouds.
Apr 03 2009
Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- A draft report on California's future climate, compling 37 research papers on how global warming will affect the state's resources, concludes that by the latter half of this century, forest fires could claim more than double their usual acreage, water shortages will force a 20 percent shrinkage of Central Valley farms, and statewide electricity demand will soar by more than 50 percent, increasing ozone pollution from the burning of fossil fuels.
- Ice may disappear altogether from the Arctic during the summer in as little as 30 years, according to a new analysis published today in Geophysical Research Letters. Oceanographer James Overland, one of the co-authors, said the faster-than-expected transformation of the polar climate is due in part to "warmer air and sea conditions caused by increased greenhouse gases."
- Two senior House Democrats, Henry Waxman and Edward Markey, this week produced draft legislation to cap greenhouse gases at 20 percent below 2005 levels by 2020, using a market in tradeable permits to minimize the cost.
- The U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a diverse coalition of 25 major businesses (including PG&E) and five national environmental organizations, hailed the draft legislation as a "thoughtful" and "strong" basis for creating a "climate strategy that both protects our economy and achieves the nation's environmental goals."
- PG&E Corporation Chairman, CEO and President Peter Darbee said the company was "pleased to see that the draft recognizes the need for both aggressive emissions reduction goals and measures to protect consumers and the economy against electric and natural gas price shocks, along with the need to invest in technology and advance energy efficiency, among other initiatives."
- House Republicans generally deried the cap-and-trade proposal as a national energy sales tax, but said they might find ways to work with the majority party on other aspects of the draft bill, which includes a federal renewable energy standard, energy efficiency programs and a low-carbon motor fuels program.
- MIT researchers, among others, pounced on House Republican leader John Boehner for misrepresenting their findings by claiming that curbs on greenhouse gas would raise electric utility bills an average of $3,100 per household. The real impact would be far lower, and would be mitigated by programs to recycle revenue to customers, proponents say.
Apr 02 2009
Imagine finding an oily mess under the hood of your shiny new car. That's a bit how I felt about a new MIT study's conclusion that the solar panel industry, among other new manufacturing industries, engages in "seemingly extravagant use of materials and energy resources."
Summarizing the study, which appeared in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, MIT's news office noted that "the inherent inefficiency of current solar panel manufacturing methods could drastically reduce the technology's lifecycle energy balance -- that is, the ratio of the energy the panel would produce over its useful lifetime to the energy required to manufacture it."
This isn't the first time the solar photovoltaic (PV) industry, which represents one of the great hopes for the earth's environment, has taken hits for its environmental record. Production of solar panels often involves the use of toxic materials such as lead, mercury, cadmium and silicon tetrachloride. Some plants in China have reportedly disposed of wastes on nearby farmland and even school playgrounds to cut costs, causing havoc to the local environment.
The Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition warned in January that as solar panels proliferate, millions of them could someday end up in landfills, polluting the earth with toxic chemicals. To its credit, the Solar Energy Industries Association, a leading trade group, supports take-back programs to reclaim and recycle old panels.
Last but not least, a gas widely used in the production of solar panels (as well as flat-screen TVs and computer displays), nitrogen trifluoride, turns about to be a greenhouse gas 17,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide, and four times more prevalent in the atmosphere than scientists once thought, according to researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
In fairness, most of these issues aren't unique to the solar PV industry, and as PV technology evolves to use more thin-film and other materials-saving techniques, its environmental footprint will shrink along with costs. The industry is working hard on solutions. But reports like the one from MIT are a healthy reminder that few environmental issues are ever simple, and there's usually a little brown mixed in with any green.
Apr 01 2009
The long-awaited "nuclear renaissance" is here at last--at least in the media. I can't remember when I've seen so much coverage of nuclear power as a promising option for meeting the nation's growing electricity demand while reducing our reliance on fossil fuels.
USA Today's Paul Davidson reported on March 29 that the nuclear power industry is coming out of its "decades-long deep freeze" with momentum "driven by growing public acceptance of relatively clean nuclear energy to combat global warming." Though he addressed a host of challenges, Davidson wrote of "enhanced safety features" and relatively low operating costs, as well as freedom from greenhouse gas emissions as major points in nuclear's favor.
A day earlier, the Philadelphia Inquirer weighed in with a story on the nuclear power industry being "poised for a rebirth" after a long hiatus in new plant construction. "The impetus is climate change," the story explained. "Nuclear power is touted as the one major electricity source that's emission-free and reliable, able to generate massive amounts of power night and day, in wind and calm."
Thanks in part to such coverage, as well as the industry's relatively good operating record, a new Gallup poll shows that 59 percent of respondents now favor the use of nuclear power, up from 50 percent in recent years. More than one in four Americans (27 percent) say they strongly favor nuclear energy.
Energy Secretary Steven Chu recently said nuclear power "has to be" part of our energy future, although he nixed the use of Yucca Mountain as a central repository for used nuclear fuel. And abroad, even traditional opponents of nuclear power like Sweden are now overturning longstanding bans on its use.
Furious debates over safety, used fuel storage and licensing will of course continue to dog the industry. Perhaps the biggest obstacle will come not from environmentalists but from Wall Street. It's hard to get any project financed these days, but multibillion dollar nuclear plants, based on new designs and subject to regulatory uncertainty, will be an especially tough sell. Big construction snafus at a reactor project in Finland--which is three years behind schedule and $2 billion over budget--won't help the industry's case.
If critics are right that the true cost of nuclear power is more than 20 cents per kilowatt hour, more than many renewables and most energy efficiency investments, then nuclear's rebirth may be a long time coming.
On the other hand, global power contractor Black & Veatch pegs the cost of new nuclear power at only half that amount, making it highly competitive with both fossil and wind energy. If even a handful of new reactors can get built on time and on budget, with the benefit of federal loan guarantees and streamlined regulation, the clouds of doubt may lift and nuclear may indeed enjoy its long-awaited renaissance.
Mar 27 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Seasonal ice coverage is steadily decreasing on the Great Lakes, which could lead to greater evaporation and depletion of the world's largest system of freshwater lakes, according to the Great Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The loss of ice is also affecting spawning fish and winter recreation.
- Congressional opposition may force the Obama administration to delay signing the international agreement on climate change in Copenhagen at the end of 2009, according to a report in the London Guardian.
- President Obama called for a cap-and-trade market to help move the U.S. economy toward cleaner energy sources. At his press conference on March 24, Obama said, "I think cap-and-trade is the best way, from my perspective, to achieve some of those gains, because what it does is it starts pricing the pollution that's being sent into the atmosphere. The way it's structured, it has to take into account regional differences. It has to protect consumers from huge spikes in electricity prices."
- The Environmental Protection Agency this week concluded that greenhouse gas pollutants endanger the public's health and welfare by warming the planet. That finding could be the first step toward subjecting those emissions to control under the Clean Air Act, a move lauded by some environmentalists but attacked as too costly by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
- A new report finds that city dwellers emit much less greenhouse gases than those in the suburbs or rural areas. The report, issued by the International Institute for Environment and Development, noted that New York City residents had average emissions of just over 7 tons per person in 2005, less than a third of the U.S. national average.
Mar 26 2009
Northern California is a world leader in at least two markets: growing marijuana and high tech. But just as PG&E doesn't know how many marijuana farms grow under lamps inside innocent-looking homes, neither does it know for sure how many IT data centers draw power in its market. PG&E reads the meters but doesn't peek inside customers' premises.
Nonetheless, it's possible to make some informed estimates. The big commercial colocation centers and Internet "hotels," like 365 Main in San Francisco, are no secret; together they draw about 200 megawatts of power within PG&E's service area. The utility's best guess is that private data centers in high-rise office buildings and campuses probably consume an equal amount of power. Then there are the smaller server closets in law firms, boutique financial companies and the like, which might add another 100 megawatts to PG&E's load.
The average large data center consumes as much power as 25,000 households, according to McKinsey. Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager for high tech in PG&E's customer energy efficiency group, says the combined data center market now represents about 2.5 percent of PG&E's total demand, and is growing 15% to 20% per year.
"Last year we hooked up 75 MW of new data centers," Bramfitt told a gathering of the Business Council on Climate Change at PG&E's Pacific Energy Center in San Francisco today. "That's a big challenge for any utility to serve."
To make it easier--and to spare the environment--PG&E has become a leader among the nation's utilities in educating the market and providing incentives to promote more efficient use of energy in data centers.
The waste of energy in most data centers is staggering--on the order of 25% to 50% of total consumption. For one thing, power-hungry servers typically operate at less than 10 percent of their capacity. For another, they receive air conditioning around the clock, even when outside temperatures drop to freezing. Such practices aren't surprising when the IT experts who run the data centers don't pay the power bills.
Computer servers tend to be vastly underutilized because they are assigned specific tasks, like handling email, that may run only occasionally. With so-called virtualization software, servers can share multiple applications. Servers can then be consolidated, freeing up space in overcrowded centers and dramatically lowering overall power consumption.
Energy efficiency champion Autodesk managed to squeeze 296 servers down to only 7. "The energy savings are phenomenal, and now they have room to grow," Bramfitt said.
PG&E offers rebates for businesses that virtualize their servers. The utility currently has more than 200 applications for this incentive program, according to Bramfitt.
PG&E also offers incentives for companies to install software that turns off spinning storage disks when they aren't needed to access data--a measure that can save 75 percent of normal energy consumption. "A certain social networking site, which will remain faceless, bought this application," Bramfitt said. "If you are popular, your page gets moved to the spinning disk where people can access it quickly. But if you are not so popular, they move you onto another disk and turn it off. People can still access your page, it just takes slightly longer."
The next big wave of energy savings may come from turning off around-the-clock cooling systems. "Free cooling is this simple: When it's 50 degrees outside, open a window and turn on the fan," Bramfitt quipped. (Don't forget the dust filter, of course.) NetApp recently scored a $1.4 million incentive check from PG&E for moving to free cooling at its Sunnyvale datacenter. Even without the utility's incentive, a payback time of 6 months is typical when the technology is deployed in a new data center, Bramfitt said.
Last year, PG&E paid out about $7 million in energy efficiency incentives to data centers, reducing overall loads by about 7 MW. "Out of an overall load of 500 MW, that doesn't make me happy at all," Bramfitt said. "We need to drive at least 25 MW a year out of our load." To that end, he's got $50 million to spend over the next three years.
Much as Bramfitt likes his clients, he reminds them that they'll never really be "green." "IT is a big honking energy user," he concluded. "But it can be more sustainable by squeezing the most efficiency out of that energy."
Mar 25 2009
San Francisco's gritty Tenderloin district will shine a little brighter thanks to a new streetlighting program announced today by Mayor Gavin Newsom, the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission and PG&E.
At a press conference this morning on Turk St., joined by PG&E's senior vice president for public affairs, Nancy McFadden, Newsom said the city is installing 50 ultra-efficient, energy-saving LED streetlights in the depressed neighborhood, a smart move to enhance public safety while demonstrating environmental leadership and saving money.
In addition, city authorities are working with PG&E to evaluate "smart controller" technology that will monitor the performance of individual streetlights, adjust their intensity, and signal when they are about to fail. Flexible controls will give officials to ability to turn selected lights on or off, dim them, or flash them to alert emergency personnel.
As NEXT100 reported in February, a pilot test of LED streetlights outside PG&E's headquarters on Beale St. in San Francisco helped pave the way for this announcement by demonstrating that remote management of LED streetlights can potentially save money by providing real-time billing information and automatic alerts to field repair teams. (Test lights are also in operation near City Hall on Fulton, between Larkin and Hyde.)
Cities also stand to save money simply by virtue of the fact that LEDs use only half the energy of traditional streetlights and last two- to three-times longer. Adding to their luster, PG&E is developing special energy rates and rebates to encourage cities to install LED streetlights.
Mar 25 2009
"Turn out the lights when you leave" is advice thrifty parents often give their heedless children who don't pay the bills. Yet half of U.S. office workers forget those words when they leave their PCs running all night and on weekends, according to a newly released survey by London-based software services company 1E and the Alliance to Save Energy.
The report's findings are striking, for both the economic and environmental implications of this simple act of neglect:
Collectively, US organizations waste $2.8 billion every year powering 108 million unused PCs. In 2009, these unused PCs are expected to emit approximately 20 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions - roughly equivalent to the impact of 4 million cars. As an example, for an organization with 1,000 PCs, this amounts to approximately $26,000 per year.
(The report's cost figures assume an average price of electricity of $0.10 per kilowatt hour--well below the average rate in California.)
The report adds, "If all of the world's 1 billion PCs were powered down for just one night, it would save enough energy to light up New York City's Empire State Building--inside and out--for more than 30 years."
Among U.S. employees who leave their PCs on overnight or on weekends, more than a quarter say turning it off takes too long or they simply forget. They clearly need a nudge in the right direction--or, better yet, an automatic command to put their computers in sleep mode or turn them off entirely when they are gone.
PG&E business customers are eligible for rebates of $15 per PC for installing power management software on network servers to control large numbers of PCs remotely. That's a hard deal to pass up, especially considering it makes economic sense even without the incentive.
As 1E's CEO remarked, "Employers today have a golden opportunity to demonstrate environmental and financially astute thought leadership by taking a few simple, energy-saving measures, such as setting up processes to power down PCs. Every day that passes is a lost opportunity to save money and reduce your carbon foot-print."
If you want to estimate how much money and power your organization is wasting by leaving computers on around the clock, check out 1E's convenient calculator. It might save you some bucks and help save the planet.
Mar 24 2009
The San Francisco Bay Area is Ground Zero of the local food movement. In 2005, a group calling itself Locavores challenged local residents to eat only food produced within a 100 mile radius of their home. Only two years later, their name was added to the Oxford American Dictionary as 2007 Word of the Year.
There are lots of reasons to eat locally produced food, including freshness and to preserve farm-based greenbelts, but the most widely cited reason is to cut down on "food miles," the environmentally costly transportation of meat, fruits and vegetables thousands of miles by truck, ship and plane to your local supermarket.
But even if you are a committed Locavore, how should you buy your food? Should you drive to local farms? Should you drive to a farmer's market, to which sellers converge by truck from throughout the region? Or should you subscribe to a service that drops off organic produce at your door?
A recent study from the University of Exeter in the UK finds that less fuel is generally burned when customers take home deliveries of vegetable boxes than when they travel to their local farm shops. Although delivery vans may travel a couple of hundred miles to service their routes, they can schedule travel much more efficiently than individual customers who travel four miles or more to market.
The Bay Area is served by numerous deliverers of organic produce, such as Planet Organics, Farm Fresh to You and Spud (these are listed as examples, not recommendations). Customers may suffer sticker shock when they see the prices, but a handy calculator may convince you that the time and fuel saved on shopping makes it all worthwhile.
Food delivery may become even more efficient if a new web-based tool called FarmsReach catches on. It's designed to help producers and buyers find each other, prepare optimal delivery schedules and arrange payments.
Said Melanie Cheng, founder of FarmsReach, "While we're not there yet, it's easy to see a day when a farmer uses an iPhone to track picklists, get driving directions, accept orders and so on. Ten years ago, this was proprietary technology for companies like Fedex--now, with a website and a phone, it's in the hands of a local farmer."
All that's well and good, but as earnest consumers learn more about the economics and environmental impact of the food business, they risk becoming hopelessly confused.
For example, the New York Times cited a research study that found that "lamb raised on New Zealand's clover-choked pastures and shipped 11,000 miles by boat to Britain produced 1,520 pounds of carbon dioxide emissions per ton while British lamb produced 6,280 pounds of carbon dioxide per ton, in part because poorer British pastures force farmers to use feed. In other words, it is four times more energy-efficient for Londoners to buy lamb imported from the other side of the world than to buy it from a producer in their backyard."
And an informal survey by Salon magazine last year of the farmers market at San Francisco's Ferry Plaza found that traditional wholesalers probably produce fewer carbon dioxide emissions per pound of apples, oranges, lettuce and greens than farm stall operators.
The author admitted that a full calculation--taking into account all lifecycle energy costs including fertilization, refrigeration and a host of other factors--might have changed the results, but it would take a massive study to know for sure.
All of which suggests, to me at least, that ethical consumers will be much better off when carbon emissions are finally priced correctly, either with a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade market. All the hidden costs of fossil fuels in the production of food (and every other product) will finally be incorporated in the final sales price. Then we can, in good conscience, go back to buying our food based on freshness, nutrition, and visual appeal rather than pulling out our environmental calculators every time we buy a strawberry.
Mar 23 2009
Whoever coined the term "clean energy" probably didn't have mounds of rotting food and squirming maggots in mind. But EcoSystem Corp. of New York--a place that really knows garbage--has requested $1.75 million in federal subsidies to harvest Black Soldier Fly larvae for biofuels.
Most cookbooks are silent on the topic, but according to an informative press release from EcoSystem, dried up Black Soldier Fly larvae consist of about 42 percent protein and 35 percent natural oils, suitable for biodiesel feedstock and other chemical applications.
Although most people view them as nasty pests, EcoSystem welcomes the flies as cooperative business partners. With no prompting, they will happily lay countless eggs in food scrap waste, which totals tens of billions of pounds a year in the United States.
Best of all, according to the company's web site, the flies are "clean, energy-efficient and voracious. They rapidly consume large quantities of feed during maturation, without regard for the chemicals, toxins, bacteria and pathogens that would cripple algae and other bioreactor technologies." (The company might also have mentioned a new British medical study, which found that flesh-eating maggots can clean wounds five times faster than conventional treatments.)
Converting the larvae to usable oil is "insanely simple," the company's president told GreenTechMedia's Jeff St. John.
Based on the volume of usable food waste available in the United States, the company estimates that it's maggots could produce up to 100 million gallons per year of natural oils as feedstock for biofuels production. However, as one skeptic noted, "100 million gallons is 2.4 million barrels, about what the U.S. consumes in nine hours."
Mar 20 2009
Several news items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Political and business leaders have just 20 years to prepare for a "perfect storm" of crises related to shortages of food, water and energy due to population growth and global warming, warns John Beddington, "a specialist in the economics and biology of sustainable management of renewable resources" and the chief scientific adviser to the UK government. Failure to act now could lead to public unrest, social conflict and mass migration, he said.
- The National Association of Insurance Commissioners now requires large insurance companies in the United States to disclose risks they face from global warming. "Climate change will have huge impacts on the insurance industry and we need better information on how insurers are responding to the challenge," said Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Joel Ario. "As regulators, we are concerned about how climate change will impact the financial health of the insurance sector and the availability and affordability of insurance for consumers."
- One of the hottest growth industries these days is lobbying to influence federal policy on climate change. As of the end of 2008, some 2,340 lobbyists representing more than 770 companies and interest groups were pressing their case on Capitol Hill, according to an analysis by the Center for Public Integrity. That works out to more than four climate lobbyists for every member of Congress.
- Even as the Obama administration calls for more action against global warming, public skepticism is on the rise. A Gallup poll shows a six percent drop in the number of people who worry "a great deal" or a "fair amount" about global warming and a record-high 16 percent who are convinced global warming is a myth. A Pew survey in January found that global warming ranked 19th out of 19 issues in public priorities. Experts say public concern over the environment drops off in times of economic hardship.
Mar 19 2009
The renewable energy industry saw records broken and dreams dashed this week:
- Installations of solar photovoltaic (PV) cells worldwide reached a record high of 5.95 gigawatts (GW) in 2008, a jump of 110% over the previous year, according to a market analysis by Solarbuzz LLC. Spain installed the most capacity (2.46 GW), followed by Germany (1.86 GW), with the United States a distant third (0.36 GW). China and Taiwan increased their market share of cell production to 44 percent from 35 percent in 2007. The United States, notes Joseph Romm, cannot claim even one of the world's 10 biggest PV factories.
- Spain set a world record by generating fully 40 percent of its electricity from wind power last week. Taking advantage of powerful and sustained winds, its wind farms managed to operate at 69 percent of their potential rated power--roughly three times normal. The United States produces more wind power, but here it accounts for only about 1 percent of total electric power generation.
- The world's first commercial wave power project, sited off the coast of Portugal, has been dismantled by developer Pelamis Wave Power due to technical and financing issues. The company set no date for fixing the problems and getting the pioneering 2.25 megawatt project back on track. Only about 20 sites around the world now have test devices operating in the ocean. PG&E hopes to add to that number with its WaveConnect project off the coast of Northern California. Meanwhile, Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden says he is pushing the federal government "to elevate the role of wave energy."
Mar 18 2009
A year ago it was tough to get your hands on one. Today, even with hefty rebates and tax credits, sales of hybrid cars have hit a brick wall. Dealers sold a mere 15,144 last month, a drop of nearly two-thirds from the peak last April, and much worse than traditional vehicles have suffered.
The reason isn't hard to guess: consumers lost interest in fuel efficiency when gasoline prices plummetted from over $4 to less than $2 a gallon.
If you were an auto executive, with half a dozen new hybrid models in the pipeline and a balance sheet in the red, you might be a little panicked right now.
You could launch a new green marketing campaign and hope for the best. Or you could go to the heart of the problem and try to give customers another kind of "green" reason to rekindle their love affair with hybrids.
That's exactly what General Motors CEO Rick Wagoner did yesterday, when he signalled Congress that raising the price of gasoline to $4 a gallon by boosting federal gas taxes was "worthy of consideration."
You heard that right. A GM spokesman told the Washington Times, "Until gas prices hit $4, nobody saw any shift in consumer behavior. Only then did people put fuel efficiency front and center."
Wagoner's counterpart at Ford Motor Co., Alan Mulally, tacitly endorsed higher gas taxes this month at the Wall Street Journal's ECO:nomics conference, where he said low gas prices translate into consumer demand for bigger, less efficient cars. "Until the consumer is involved, we are not going to make progress" toward reducing fuel use," he said.
More direct was Michael Jackson, CEO of AutoNation Inc., the largest auto dealer in the United States, who called four-dollars-a-gallon gasoline "a good start." He declared, "We need more expensive gasoline to change consumer behavior."
AutoNation went from having a mere two-day supply of Honda Civic hybrids last summer to 148 days' stock by the end of the year. "The price of gasoline dictates what people buy," Jackson said. "Gas fell to $2, and now my lots are filled up with fuel-efficient cars that aren't moving."
Calls for increased gas taxes--or taxes on vehicle miles traveled--are also coming from fiscal analysts who warn that existing revenues fall far short of meeting the nation's transportation needs.
According to a new report by the National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission, the shortfall amounts to about $10 billion per year:
We will face increasingly deteriorating roadways, bridges and transit systems. We will suffer from more accidents and fatalities... We will endure even greater spans of our lives stuck in traffic, wasting our time and robbing our businesses of vital economic activity and productivity. We will waste non-renewable petroleum and harm our environment unnecessarily. And, finally but importantly, every day of delay is a day when inflation, neglect, and inefficient use waste scarce taxpayer and system-user dollars.
Needless to say, politicians aren't rushing to raise gas taxes. But unless and until they do, a little sympathy may be in order for beleaguered automakers who are expected to help save the world by producing green hybrids that hardly anyone wants to buy.
Mar 17 2009
At President Obama's direction, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu recently called for "more aggressive" energy efficiency standards on home appliances--including a "superstar" category of the 5-to-10 percent of top performers among Energy Star labeled products.
His idea is great, because it's not easy for consumers to find out what products use the least energy. One way is to visit the official Energy Star products web site, followed by some spreadsheet manipulations or eye-fatiguing scanning of columns in the site's many appliance databases.
Another good source of information is the Consortium for Energy Efficiency, which lists some of the most efficient products in a few categories. And PG&E, along with national environmental and energy efficiency organizations, is backing a new consumer information service called Top Ten USA, whose mission is to "help residential and commercial users find and purchase the most energy efficient products in the U.S. marketplace" in order to "accelerate world-wide competition among manufacturers to save energy and stabilize the climate."
In the meantime, the energy it takes to scrutinize the numbers on the Energy Star web site can be repaid many times if you are in the market for a new appliance. Today's products span an enormous range in terms of energy use--even among those with Energy Star ratings--so careful selection can help you save significantly on utility bills and do your bit to stave off global warming.
For example, the two most efficient air conditioners I could find are respectively 36 percent and 33 percent more efficient than the federal standard, according to the Energy Star database. If you live or own a business in Bakersfield, such performance could add up to big summer savings.
Clothes washers represent another big load. Two models from Samsung appear to boast efficiency 127 percent better than the federal standard. Both use very little water as well, increasingly important in this drought-prone state.
Among refrigerators with freezers, the Energy Star database indicates that two of the most efficient mid-sized models are made by Frigidaire, with performance 58 percent and 36 percent better than federal energy standards, respectively.
Finally, I checked out 42 inch LCD TVs and discovered two models from JVC that consume only about 112 watts when turned on. You could buy another Energy Star-rated model that would cost you almost 50 percent more to power each year.
Several big caveats apply. First, I haven't tried or inspected any of the models cited here. The most efficient models may lack features that are important to you.
Second, the Energy Star program doesn't guarantee that the models in its database are still available, so unless you find them on Craig's List, you might be out of luck.
Finally, high-performing models are often more expensive, so whether you save money will depend on the rates you pay and how long you keep the appliance. If you trade in your TV every year, chasing after energy savings may not pay off. But you'd never be so environmentally wasteful, would you?
Mar 16 2009
One month ago, on Feb. 17, President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, the $787 billion spending bill to stimulate millions of new jobs in America's ailing economy.
One sector that will be deservedly blessed by new funding is energy efficiency, an area Californians have invested in successfully over several decades for an estimated saving of $56 billion in energy costs. It's one of the cheapest and most reliable ways to deliver energy services, and a powerful weapon against greenhouse gas emissions and global warming.
In addition to providing billions of dollars for retrofits of federal buildings and new research, the new law offers $3.2 billion in energy efficiency and conservation block grants. According to a March 13 presentation by the California Department of Community Services and Development (CSD), local governments in California can expect to receive hundreds of millions of dollars in such grants. An additional $56 million should flow to the California Energy Commission (CEC), mostly for distribution to small municipalities.
The law also directs $5 billion nationwide to home weatherization programs for low-income residents (those within 200 percent of the federal poverty level), up from the $227 million authorized last year. This program lowers energy bills for those who need it most by hundreds of dollars a year. CSD is expected to receive $185 million for California's share.
Energy Star appliances will become eligible for $300 million in new rebates, of which about $30 million will be administered by the CEC in California.
Under a separate $3.1 billion pot of money for state energy programs, which include building, industrial and transportation energy efficiency and renewable energy, the CEC should reap an additional $226 million, according to recently published Department of Energy guidelines.
In addition to helping Californians lower their energy bills and reduce greenhouse gas emissions, these investments will help put some of the state's two million unemployed back to work. The Department of Energy projects that its energy efficiency program funds will create nearly 90,000 jobs across the country.
Although California has great experience with energy efficiency, administering the surge in funds won't be easy. For example, thousands of workers will need to be trained in proper construction retrofit techniques.
"The stimulus bill puts a premium on spending a lot of money in a timely way, which will be a challenge," said Bill Miller, manager of customer energy efficiency strategic issues at PG&E. "Time will tell how well we do."
Miller said PG&E hopes to help local governments use the money to best advantage. "The role we are interested in, since we've been doing this kind of activity for a long time, is to partner with those who will get the money," Miller explained. "For example, if a city gets a grant to upgrade its facilities, we could engage them in our new construction program and give them design assistance to help meet and exceed the state's Title 24 requirements on energy usage."
Miller concluded, "It's a wonderful opportunity that will allow government buildings to become state of the art while reducing their energy usage and carbon footprints."
Mar 13 2009
A couple of weeks ago, PG&E made a splash with its proposal to help develop 500 MW of solar photovoltaic (PV) power over five years--250 MW to be built by the utility and 250 MW by independent developers.
Now PG&E is taking its first public step to move the project forward since filing its request with the California Public Utilities Commission on Feb. 24: It has set up a Web link to seek potential suppliers for a 2 MW pilot PV plant to be completed late this year.
The suppliers it recruits (by competitive bid) may also be tapped to build many more such projects in the 1-to-20 MW range if the CPUC approves PG&E's proposal.
The pilot facility will be ground mounted and adjacent to a PG&E substation. PG&E will provide the site (not yet specified), permitting and grid interconnection.
According to PG&E's contract opportunity announcement, the chosen supplier will be required to provide a complete solar generating system, including engineering and procurement of all equipment. The supplier may also choose to build, start-up and commission the pilot facility.
The utility plans to use the pilot project to help develop its processes for building and operating PV facilities while it seeks regulatory approval for the full 500 MW proposal. If approved and completed, that mega-PV program could meet over 1.3 percent of PG&E's electric demand and deliver as much power as consumed by 150,000 average homes.
Mar 11 2009
If visionary scientists have their way, California may someday build one of the world's biggest prisons--to incarcerate not scofflaws but greenhouse gases.
It turns out that California is one of the country's richest sources of "ultramafic" rocks (like serpentine), whose minerals react with carbon dioxide by sucking it out of the atmosphere to form harmless, even useful, magnesium and calcium carbonates.
In theory, carbon dioxide could be pumped into the appropriate mineral formations, where it would form new rocks like limestone and chalk. Or the ultramafic rock could be ground up and exposed to concentrations of CO2 to speed the process. As a side benefit, the chemical reaction would destroy waste asbestos that was once mined from such rocks.
"The technology offers a large capacity to permanently store CO2 in an environmentally benign form via a process that takes little effort to verify or monitor after disposal," according to a new study from the U.S. Geological Service and Columbia University's Earth Institute. "These characteristics of the technology are unique among its peers in greenhouse gas disposal technologies."
The technology was extensively studied in the mid-1990s at Los Alamos National Laboratory and was discussed by the 2005 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Carbon Dioxide Capture and Storage. At the time, however, no one knew for sure where the best mineral deposits were located.
The new report, titled "Mapping the Mineral Resource Base for Mineral Carbon-Dioxide Sequestration in the Conterminous United States," says three of the country's best sources of CO2-absorbing rocks are the Klamath-Trinity region of the western California-Oregon border, the western foothills of the Sierra Nevada, and the Coast Ranges of California, running from the southern end of the Klamath Mountains to Monterey County.
The downside is that many proposals require large amounts of energy and water--scarce resources we can't afford to squander. And somehow I can't imagine many environmentalists taking kindly to building industrial-scale CO2 processing facilities in some of the state's most pristine mountains.
Mar 09 2009
Why would reputable entrepreneurs try to mimic the Mafia by entombing their enemies in cement?
Because their enemies--and ours--are not business rivals but greenhouse gases that produce global warming.
Production of cement, which typically requires heating ingredients to 2,640 degrees F, is the third largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the United States, ahead even of aviation. By some estimates, cement makers globally emit about 2.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide per year, amplifying global warming.
If the amount of energy required to produce cement could be radically reduced--or better yet, if production methods could be reengineered to absorb rather than emit carbon dioxide--the world would stand a much better chance of preventing runaway warming and environmental disaster.
Traditional cement makers complain that environmental standards are already too tight and put their business at risk. For example, CalPortland, already hurt by the recession, says retrofitting just its Colton, Calif. Plant to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by only 12 percent would cost well over $200 million.
But some entrepreneurs instead see a huge green opportunity--in both senses of the word. Vinod Khosla, Silicon Valley's green venture capitalist extraordinaire, is banking on a startup called Calera, founded by a Stanford University scientist, to turn carbon dioxide into cement, in effect sequestering the greenhouse gas in the ubiquitous building material.
Although the company has said little about its progress, it aims to turn CO2 into carbonic acid and then into carbonates suitable for making cement. The CO2 could come from flue gases emitted by fossil-fueled power plants.
Said founder Brent Constatntz, "All we need is water and pollution."
While Calera has grabbed most of the limelight thanks to Khosla's PR prowess, many other firms are also playing with their chemistry sets to achieve breakthroughs in converting CO2 into cement and other industrial products:
- London-based Novacem says it has devised a process for making recyclable cement at much lower temperatures using magnesium silicates, which absorb large quantities of CO2 as they harden--therefore offering "the unique potential to develop a range of 'carbon negative' construction products." With a pilot plant under construction, the company hopes to bring products to market within five years.
- Canada's Carbon Sense Solutions is commercializing a process to lock carbon dioxide into concrete while dramatically reducing the time to produce the building material.
- Santa Barbara-based Carbon Sciences claims "a breakthrough technology to transform CO2 emissions into a high value chemical compound, calcium carbonate," which could be used in drywall, paper, pharmaceuticals, and plastics.
- Carbon8 Systems, an award-winning UK startup, has a process to turn waste CO2 into carbonate salts, which "can be used as a secondary aggregate, engineering fill or specialist construction materials."
Figuring out the science and ironing out the new manufacturing processes for CO2-aborbing cement and other materials is only the first of many steps needed to succeed in these markets, however.
As one spokesman for the Portland Cement Association noted, "The construction industry is very conservative. It took PCA about 25 years to get the standards changed to allow 5 percent limestone [in the Portland cement mix]. So things move kind of slowly."
Mar 06 2009
Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- The world's largest rainforest--the Amazon--is slowly dying from drought, threatening to reduce its effectiveness as a global carbon reservoir and accelerate global warming, according to a 30-year study published in the journal Science.
- New research by Australian scientists indicates that rainforests worldwide may die off substantially if global temperatures rise an average of only two degrees Celsius. The increase in tree mortality could release nearly 50 billion tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
- We've all heard the warnings that glaciers may disappear in Montana's Glacier National Park by 2030. Now a U.S. Geological Survey ecologist says the glaciers are retreating even faster than predicted and may vanish by 2020, putting the park's ecosystem at risk.
- The nominations of two of President Obama's top science advisers have been blocked in the U.S. Senate by a "hold" placed by Sen. Robert Menendez, D-N.J., who objects to the new administration's Cuba policy. The two nominees, Harvard physicist John Holdren and Oregon State marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, are considered leading experts on energy and the environment.
- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has decided to package controversial legislation on cap-and-trade with a national renewable energy standard and other energy provisions into one large bill, raising concerns whether he can find 60 votes to overcome an inevitable Republican filibuster.
Mar 03 2009
Solar power is, if you'll pardon the pun, easily the hottest sector of the electric generation market today in terms of public interest. But if California is going to achieve the widely proposed goal of acquring a third of its electrical energy from renewable sources by 2020, wind energy will almost certainly be the flagship carrier of the renewable power industry.
Forecasts indicate that achieving the 33% renewable goal would require ramping up wind energy from 2,100 megawatts in 2006 to at least 12,500 MW by 2020. Solar, by contrast, would likely grow from 330 MW in 2006 to 6,000 MW in 2020.
Wind energy has the advantage of relative technological maturity, but that's also a handicap. Because developers have been installing wind turbines in Californa for three decades, many of the best sites--with high average wind speeds--are already taken. So how will the industry achieve major growth in the state?
In a talk yesterday to the Asia Pacific Partnership, at a wind energy conference sponsored by PG&E, Dora Yen-Nakafuji of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory shed light on ways in which the wind industry is reinventing itself.
One remarkable advance is in our understanding of where, at what heights and at what speeds the wind blows in California. Major refinements in wind maps since the 1980s have significantly shifted target areas for new wind turbines. "We now have much more confidence" in the location of wind resources, Yen-Nakafuji said.
The average size of wind turbines has also increased dramatically--from 10 meters in the early days of Altamont Pass to 100 meters (almost twice the wingspan of a 747) today, boosting power output hugely and allowing them to take advantage of slower wind speeds. The newer turbines also have much more sophisticated power electronics and more aerodynamic blades. Older turbines at excellent wind sites can be replaced over time with newer, more efficient models to increase output.
Wind forecasting methods have also improved. As an example, she cited the increased use of Sodar (sonic detection and ranging) technology to measure wind speeds and detect wind shear that could put turbines at risk.
As with most renewables, efforts to accelerate the development of wind power will bring a host of challenges. Environmentalists are concerned by the potential that turbines may kill more bats and birds. Other critics complain of esthetic drawbacks. Energy planners worry about how to build enough transmission lines to new wind farms and how to manage their fluctuating, intermittent power.
But as Yen-Nakafuji demonstrated, these are challenges, not insuperable obstacles. California's winds are a resource that will pay energy dividends for centuries to come.
Mar 02 2009
Wind power today costs California utilities about twice what it did in 2003, due to rising prices for turbines, concrete and labor, but it's still a good value for clean energy, PG&E's top buyer of renewable power told a group of visiting experts from the Asia-Pacific region today.
Fong Wan, the utility's senior vice president for energy procurement, kicked off a five-day meeting of the Asia-Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate, which is focusing on wind energy generation. The event is being hosted by PG&E.
The partnership, supported by the U.S. Departments of Energy and State, promotes technical collaboration among utilities and other private-sector energy partners in Australia, Canada, China, India, Japan, South Korea and the United States to improve energy efficiency, reduce pollution and address the threat of climate change.
The member countries together have more than half the world's population and consume over half the world's energy--so finding common ground among them will go a long way toward enabling true global cooperation on energy issues and climate change.
Wan, who has been with PG&E for 21 years, said he could remember some of the early days of the wind industry, when the utility helped give it a major foothold in California. From the 1970s through the 1990s, long before the state mandated specific targets for renewable energy, PG&E contracted for about 580 megawatts of wind power.
Since 2002, PG&E has contracted for another 778 MW of wind generation as the technology has matured and the urgency of global warming has become more apparent.
"We've made tremendous progress from the small eggbeater-style turbines to today's huge towers," Wan said. Having personally climbed one mid-sized (170-foot) tower, he observed, "It's truly amazing how big they are. The blades are huge and move very fast."
With today's efficient turbines, wind is a great producer of energy and displacer of fossil-fueled power, Wan said. But it tends to peak in the evening--when cool coastal air is sucked into the warm Central Valley--well after most customers have turned off their air conditioners and other appliances.
That's why PG&E seeks to diversify its portfolio of power sources. Solar energy peaks around mid-day, closer to the peak in system demand. Geothermal, biomass and clean nuclear power can run continuously, meeting baseload demand. Hydro power can be called upon when needed to serve peaks in demand. In all, PG&E gets about half its power from such sources, which produce no greenhouse gas emissions.
Wan said PG&E now has more than 20 percent of its electric power under contract from renewable energy suppliers, but continually looks for more. The utility last week announced a proposal to invest directly in developing 250 MW of solar photovoltaic power over five years.
Wan said PG&E is also studying the feasibility of building new transmission capacity to British Columbia, which has enough hydro, wind and biomass potential to serve 10 percent of northern and central California's energy needs.
Matching those supply-side programs, PG&E also has a number of initiatives to help customers manage their energy demand, ranging from longstanding energy efficiency incentives to new SmarMeterâ„¢ meters that convey price signals to encourage customers to shift demand away from peak periods.
"Our future lies with clean renewable energy and technology to help customers see the energy they use and respond to prices," Wan concluded.
Feb 27 2009
Several items on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Icecaps on both poles are melting faster than expected and Arctic sea ice is now at the lowest level recorded by satellite tracking, according to the International Polar Year survey. Greenland's glaciers are also thinning at an accelerating rate, resulting in rising sea levels.
- A NASA satellite designed to monitor greenhouse gas emissions--at a cost of $280 million--failed to reach orbit after launch and crashed near Antarctica, a blow to research on global warming.
- Google has produced an interactive map of carbon emissions, combining Google Earth with emissions data from the NASA-backed Vulcan project at Purdue University, to let businesses track pollution from their facilities, including factories, power plants, distribution centers and roads.
- President Barack Obama used his address to a joint session of Congress this week to urge passage of legislation that "places a market-based cap on carbon pollution and drives the production of more renewable energy in America." He reaffirmed that commitment in his proposed new budget, which envisions revenues from auctioning carbon pollution permits starting at $15 billion a year in 2012. The budget document cites a goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions 83 percent by 2050.
Feb 26 2009
While members of Congress begin the huge debate over what to do about global warming, grass roots activists are vowing to ensure that they hear, starting tomorrow, directly from the generation of Americans who will inherit the results of their action--or inaction.
An organization called Power Shift '09 vows that it "will bring 10,000 young people to Washington to hold our elected officials accountable for rebuilding our economy and reclaiming our future through bold climate and clean energy policy." The event begins Friday, Feb. 27.
One of the featured speakers is the celebrated green jobs advocate Van Jones, founder of the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights in Oakland and founding president of the national organization Green for All.
Jones testified yesterday before the House Education and Labor Committee, which held its first full committee hearing on "reinvigorating civic engagement across all levels of society, expanding opportunities for young people to participate in service, and how national and community service can help 'green' America."
Jones called for creation of a Clean Energy Corps (reminiscent of the Depression-era Civilian Conservation Corps), focused on disadvantaged and disconnected youth and emphasizing energy and conservation-related service.
Jones said he looks to state and local partnerships to "create well-defined career pathways for CEC participants, moving them from the entry point of service, to specific skills training, to placement, job retention and careers in energy efficiency, energy service, and other industries of the green economy."
Feb 20 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- A leading climate scientist, Stanford University's Christopher Field, told the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science that global warming is likely to proceed much faster than predicted due to feedback effects. One of the many factors he cited is melting of the artic permafrost, which could release vast amounts of methane, a much more potentent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.
Feb 18 2009
Last fall, the solar and other renewable energy industries won a major victory when Congress gave them handsome investment tax credits. But once the applause died down, investors realized the credits were good only if developers (or their financial partners) earned a taxable profit. In today's economy, that's become a rarity. The industry sank back into doom and gloom.
So the economic stimulus package that President Obama signed into law Tuesday comes as welcome relief to those beleaguered industries: now they can receive cash grants from the Department of Energy in place of traditional tax credits.
The Solar Energy Industries Association estimated that the bill's tax provisions will stimulate 60,000 jobs in the solar industry just in 2009 and 110,000 jobs over the next two years.
Blake Jones, CEO of Namaste Solar Electric in Boulder, Colo., who introduced President Obama at the stimulus bill's signing ceremony, said that as a result of the new law "we have plans to increase the workforce by 20 percent this year and 40 percent through 2010."
Closer to home, the CEO of SolarCity in Foster City, told a reporter, "We should be adding 16 or so crews over the next few months. This is a great step toward resolving our challenges."
Solar installers are betting on homeowners doing the math and figuring today's deals are too good to refuse. David Baker of the San Francisco Chronicle surveyed a number of installers and estimated that the base price of a typical 3-kilowatt home system is just over $24,000. But with state rebates administered by PG&E, and the federal tax credit, the net cost to typical homeowners comes down to less than $13,800. Think of the money you'll save--and the jobs you'll create--by making the investment.
Feb 18 2009
Who says "green" industries are always clean?
First came news that crooks were stealing solar panels from rooftops and selling them on eBay. Then thieves started stealing leftover kitchen grease to convert it into biodiesel.
Next we heard that Paris' successful bicycle-sharing program has been hit by no fewer than 15,000 thefts as well as vandalism.
Now comes disturbing news that clean, green wind farms in Sicily are being taken over by mobsters and corrupt businessmen. Police wiretaps uncovered evidence that a mafia-backed company won a major wind farm contract after giving local politicians luxury cars and thousands of euros in bribes.
"All activities were controlled by these businessmen tied to Cosa Nostra," said one police official. "Not only the construction of the plant, but also all the subcontracts for building materials: concrete, carpentry, electric systems and metal."
Feb 11 2009
Impressive as the Toyota Prius is in achieving fuel economy of over 45 mpg, automakers can do much better--without the high cost of exotic engines or carbon fiber composite bodies.
Tomorrow's Hypercar--exploiting lightweight, aerodynamic designs to radically increase fuel economy--can be built even with gasoline engines and steel bodies. Surprisingly, some of the pioneering breakthroughs that make it possible were made not by venture-funded startups or government labs, but by the steel industry, frightened of losing one of its largest core markets.
In 1994, the U.S. Department of Energy established the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles to promote technological breakthroughs including fuel sources (fuel cells or hybrid electric powertrains) and ultralight car bodies using non-traditional materials like carbon fiber composites. These materials are renowned for their great strength and low weight but are much costlier than steel.
Much of the work was shelved when the Bush administration lost interest and the automakers discovered the SUV bonanza.
But in the meantime, the steel industry began running scared. Over the course of about a decade, it invested $44 million in its own parallel R&D program to develop advanced high strength steels capable of radically reducing vehicle weights and increasing mileage.
Working with Porsche Engineering Services, the steel industry's Ultra Light Steel Auto Body (ULSAB) program created designs for compact and mid-sized sedans capable of achieving Five Star crash safety ratings.
The mid-sized sedan was capable of 52 mpg with a gasoline engine and 68 mpg with a diesel engine, enviable performance by almost any measure. Such mileage cut their CO2 emissions and annual fuel costs to half the level of typical vehicles meeting the CAFÉ standard of 27.5 mpg.
Just as important, the manufacturing cost of the designs ran around $10,000 in 2002, about half the selling price of the Prius. Although high-strength steels cost more, manufacturing innovations kept the total cost of body assemblies almost identical to traditional vehicles.
The industry is working today with the German engineering firm EDAG on a Future Steel Vehicle initiative to create even higher strength steels and new body designs optimized for hybrid and all-electric engines, which offer even better mileage and could radically reduce the country's dependence on imported oil.
According to Ron Krupitzer, vice president automotive applications for the American Iron and Steel Institute, next-generation steels now under development will allow automakers to slash the mass of their vehicles by up to 35 percent, allowing improved mileage and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
Meanwhile, the makers of carbon fiber reinforced plastic bodies aren't standing still. Tesla Motors, maker of the acclaimed Roadster sportscar, claims significant manufacturing breakthroughs in creating its high-performance body using carbon fiber/epoxy composites. Several Japanese companies, including Toray Industries and Mitsubishi Rayon, reportedly launched a major initiative last year to promote wider use of such materials in the auto industry, aiming to increase fuel economy by 30 percent.
Consumers--and the environment--can only win as makers of composites compete fiercely with the steel and aluminum industries.
We recognize that battlefield for materials will sharpen in next 10 years," says Krupitzer. "There will be a big dividend for materials that can achieve mass reduction, safety and performance and still be affordable."
This is the last of a three-part series on Hypercar concepts and designs.
Feb 10 2009
In the early 1990s, Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute created the concept of Hypercar, "designed to capture the synergies of ultralight construction; low-drag design; hybrid-electric drive; and, efficient accessories to achieve 3- to 5-fold improvement in fuel economy, equal or better performance, safety, amenity and affordability, compared to today's vehicles."
Today, at long last, innovative car makers are beginning to realize that ambitious vision, just in time to address the twin specters of peak oil and global warming.
No vehicle startup better exemplifies the Hypercar vision than Aptera, based in San Diego County. Its radical 2e model, featured on Star Trek, is a three-wheeler that weighs only 1,700 pounds, yet has a wheel-base almost as wide as a Hummer and a highly crash-resistant body made from advanced composite materials.
With so little weight to push around, the all-electric two-seater will achieve the equivalent of more than 200 mpg and have a range of more than 100 miles per charge, the company claims.
Aptera says the commuter vehicle will go into full production this fall, for sale in California at a price somewhere between $25,000 and $45,000. Full U.S. sales will follow in 2010.
There's a reason the Aptera looks like a small airplane without the wings. With its teardrop shape, Aptera's 2e has an aerodynamic drag coefficient of only 0.15, less than half of typical vehicles on the road today and, according to the company, even "less drag than Lance Armstrong on a 10-speed." That means it slips through the air rather than using brute force to push air aside at highway speeds.
The blogosphere is full of chatter about the eye-catching design and specs of the 2e. For every critic who complains the design "struck me as a movie set prop and not a real vehicle," others call it an "aesthetically revolutionary body" that represents "the pinnacle of function over form."
To learn more about the concepts behind Aptera's design, we talked with Aptera's chief marketing officer, auto industry veteran Marques McCammon. Here are his comments, edited for space:
How important were the lessons of Hypercar to Aptera's design?
They were critical. Let's start with aerodynamics and drag. The average vehicle uses half of its energy moving wind out of its way at high speeds. Most vehicles have a profile more akin to a brick than an airfoil. A fundamental thesis behind Aptera's design was that if we could find the perfect body form that would slice through instead of pushing wind, we could use that much less energy to travel the same distance.
Weight is also one of the critical enemies of vehicle performance and fuel efficiency. It goes back to basic physics. The greater the mass, the more effort or energy need to move it from point A to point B. The unfortunate truth is, for many good reasons, the mass of vehicles has continued to increase. There is higher demand on power trains and engines to move that mass the same distance. Our weight is about half that of most vehicles in this space.
So those are two of the most critical issues in getting fuel efficiency. More important than type of engine, they govern the sizing of the engine. The heavier you are and the more drag you have, the bigger the engine you need. That's the reason the engine under a Hummer is as big as it is.
What was the genesis of the car?
It started with [co-founder and Chief Technical Officer] Steve [Fambro] being stuck in a traffic jam, wishing he could be over in the diamond lane, and trying to figure out how to create a vehicle efficient enough to allow him to take advantage of the commuter lane. He bought a Honda Insight and started thinking, "if I could make a perfectly efficient vehicle, how much energy could I save?"
When the idea first struck him, he was working in the biotech industry, designing systems to get the highest level of production efficiency. They were so successful that they gained market leadership and lower cost than anyone else. He's an electrical engineer by training and has been an auto enthusiast for many years.
Steve is a consummate student, so he pulled textbooks and whitepapers from anyone he could find, pertaining to autos, aircraft, and boats. He did lots of research into composites. The work of the Rocky Mountain Institute absolutely factored into his thinking.
What about safety?
Most people assume lighter vehicles are less safe. Under conventional design theory, mass is never a bad thing from a safety standpoint. But the design of Aptera takes more from the aircraft and indy car industries, where people have to make vehicles that are very light and very safe, that can endure impacts at very high speeds or very high altitudes and protect the occupants. A Formula One vehicle is as light as ours and allows occupants to survive at speeds in excess of 200 mph.
We know safety is first and foremost in everyone's mind. Ours vehicles have front and rear impact zones, driver and passenger air bags, three-point seat belts, and proprietary safety technology. On top, we have unique composite body structure that is three to four times as strong as steel for same weight. We give people a sledge hammer and offer them $10 if they can make a dent. We've had weight lifters slamming on it and they barely scuffed it.
Our vehicle has a very low center of gravity and a very wide stance. Our track width is more comparable to a high performance sports car, like a Viper or Corvette, than a Honda Civic. We are capable of lateral acceleration approaching that of a Mustang. I've been in many a high performance vehicle, and our vehicle at high rates of speed is just as stable as some of best sports cars in the world.
What is market for such a radical-looking vehicle?
The two-seat market is definitely smaller than four in the United States, but they can realize sales volumes in the 10,000-30,000 range. That's what we are expecting out of this vehicle. We've hired research teams to test our market assumptions, and we can absolutely sell it in Kansas. We will have three waves of buyers. The first are early adopters: they see it, understand it, and are not afraid to move into new things. Then come fast followers; they want to see it on the road, and get some validation from a friend. The last is the core market; they tend to move a bit later, and wait to see that the technology is established. That's much the way the Prius was introduced into the market. Our vehicle is polarizing at first, but many people are absolutely enthralled with it.
Next: How the steel industry stays in the game.
Feb 09 2009
As automakers around the world announce plans for next-generation vehicles, enthusiasts are salivating over the latest high-tech drive trains (series hybrid, parallel hybrid, all-electric, etc.) and exotic energy storage technologies (lithium batteries, zinc batteries, fuel cells, ultracapacitors, etc).
Yet what matters most to fuel efficiency and environmental sustainability is arguably not what kind of engine pushes the car, but what kind of car the engine has to push.
More specifically, the biggest secret to designing high-mileage, low-carbon vehicles is not breakthrough battery or hybrid-drive technology, but rather lowering vehicle weight and drag without compromising safety or comfort.
Put another way, the world will not be saved from global warming by converting SUVs to hybrid engines, as GM did with the 5,800 pound Cadillac Escalade Hybrid (20/21 mpg). Rather, automakers must learn to design sleeker, ultralight cars that roll 80 miles or more with the amount of energy in a single gallon of gasoline.
With less weight to push, designers can build smaller, cheaper and lighter engines with smaller, less expensive batteries--a virtuous cycle that will benefit both consumers and the environment.
Amory Lovins' Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI) made that point loud and clear in its 2004 treatise, Winning the Oil Endgame:
Contrary to folklore, it's more important to make a car light and low-drag than to make its engine more efficient or change its fuel. Yet this platform-physics emphasis has had less systematic attention than it deserves: weight reductions especially have been incremental, not yet radical.
RMI formed a spin-off, Hypercar, Inc., to test that theory several years ago. It developed plans for a mid-sized SUV, the Revolution, with a body made of ultralight but crash-worthy composite materials. The Revolution got an estimated 66 miles per gallon, saving 72 percent of the fuel used by a comparably sized Audi Allroad 2.7T model.
RMI's analysis showed that fully two-thirds of the fuel savings were attributable to the Revolution's lighter weight. The hybrid engine contributed another 16 percent of the savings. The rest came from lower drag, tire rolling resistance, and other factors.
Hypercar never brought the Revolution to market because customers lost interest in fuel economy when gas prices plunged. But a new RMI spinoff, Bright Automotive, aims to begin mass producing an affordable plug-in hybrid car capable of achieving the magic 100 mpg number. The company won't unveil its prototype until May but explains that its central design goal was to downsize weight and drag:
This revolutionary product is a ground-up vehicle designed with optimized platform physics, including light-weighting, best-in-class aerodynamics, low rolling resistance tires, and sustainable materials. . . .
Lightweighting leads to remarkable operating efficiency. . . . Lower vehicle mass directly reduces cost and mass of the hybrid powertrain and light weight battery system. We combine mass-decompounding with aerodynamics and low rolling resistance for even greater efficiencies.
The lessons of Revolution has also been taken to heart by high-performance sportscar makers like Tesla Motors, whose all-electric Roadster claims a range of over 200 miles, 0-60 mph acceleration in 3.9 seconds, and fuel efficiency equivalent to 120 mpg.
As Tesla's director of body engineering explained in 2007, a key design goal was "to keep our mass down in order to maintain a high power-to-weight ratio and achieve maximum acceleration." To that end, the company spent two years perfecting a cost-effective process for manufacturing strong but ultralight carbon fiber/epoxy composite car bodies previously used mainly in Formula One racing cars.
As more and more car companies catch on to the benefits of low-weight designs, expect to see many new vehicles introduced even with miserly diesel or gasoline engines that exceed the mileage of today's hybrids. Here are a few recent examples:
- The VW 1-liter concept car, using a diesel engine and ultralight body (640 lbs.) made of carbon fiber and magnesium, claims to go 100 miles on only a liter of fuel--equal to 235 mpg! VW's more mainstream Golf Mark IV BlueMotion concept car may become available this year in Europe with a rating of 74 mpg (combined).
- The German company Loremo (for Low Resistance Mobile) has turned a lot of heads with a turbo-diesel sports car weighing only 1,300 pounds--even with integrated roll cage and three air bags--and capable of around 120 mpg. The base model could sell in Europe for as little as 15,000 Euros ($22,500).
- The diminutive Toyota iQ, now selling in Europe in gas or diesel engines for about $15,000, gets a U.S. equivalent of 59 mpg. It claims to seat 3 adults and one child (or 4 hobbits?) "comfortably." Motor Trend reports that it will come to the U.S. market as the "Scion." Read the reviews.
- Ford's new ECOnetic Fiesta, launched in Europe, reportedly gets about 65 mpg, seats five and sells for the equivalent of about US$26,000--but the automaker apparently doesn't think it would be viable in the United States.
- BMW this January launched its least polluting model ever, the 116d, a four-cylinder diesel rated at 54 mpg.
- The Volkswagon Jetta TDI 2009, selected by Green Car Journal as Car of the Year, uses a special clean diesel technology and achieves 41 mpg on the highway and 30 mpg in the city, better than all but four models sold in the United States. It goes 0-60 in 8.2 seconds. Prices will reportedly start around $22,000.
Next: Aptera's hypercar.
Feb 06 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
- Melting ice in Antarctica could increase sea levels as much as 25 percent more than previously estimated, putting major coastal cities in California and the Eastern seabord at risk, according to a new report in the journal Science. Washington, D.C. in particular may someday become inundated. The culprit: gravitational changes that affect bulges in the ocean, Antarctic bedrock and even the Earth's rotation.
- California's farms and vineyards could shut down by the end of the century from lack of water, warned Secretary of Energy Steven Chu, former director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. "I don't actually see how they can keep their cities going," either, he added.
- Worried about California's drought? That's nothing. Population growth is outstripping the availability of fresh water supplies around the world, according to a report at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Rising energy production is also putting unsustainable demand on water supplies. Meanwhile, thanks to global warming, glaciers in the Himalayas that supply water to two billion people will be gone by 2100.
- Rising seas are also intruding into the Ganges River, threatening to turn vast farmlands in the Eastern portion of India into wastelands, according to a new study from Jadavpur University.
- California Sen. Barbara Boxer, chair of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, vowed that the Senate will take up climate change legislation no later than "by the end of the year."
Feb 05 2009
Plants in the genus Verbena have been used over the millennia to ward off vampires, to staunch Jesus' wounds after his crucifixion (according to early Christian folk legend), and as sacrificial herbs in ancient Rome. Today they are popular ingredients in herbal teas and remedies, including cough suppressants.
Now a team of U.S. Forest Service scientists reports another use for the aromatic oil of Spanish verbena, called verbenone: as a natural deterrent to devastating infestations of mountain pine beetles, a scourge of forests in the western United States and Canada.
Researchers dropped flakes of verbenone from helicopters over forests near Mt. Shasta in California and in Idaho's Bitterroot Mountains and found that beetle attack rates dropped dramatically in treated stands. Apparently beetles react to the smell of verbenone by trying to keep away from each other. (Scientists call verbenone an "antiaggregation pheromone.")
The researchers say the technique "could provide a way to treat infestations on a large scale and limit further spread into millions of acres of trees made vulnerable because of climate change, overcrowding and fires."
Feb 02 2009
The good news about business and the environment is that 86 percent of U.S. companies in a recent survey said they plan to invest as much this year in green products and programs as they did last year, despite the turmoil in world markets.
The bad news is that most indicators show environmental performance in the United States "making a little progress here and there, losing ground in a few places, but mostly just hanging in there," according to Joel Makower, executive editor of Greener World Media, Inc., which runs GreenBiz.com and four other specialized industry web sites on green business.
Makower today delivered his company's second annual report on the State of Green Business to nearly 500 participants at the aptly named State of Green Business Forum, held at PG&E's auditorium in San Francisco (a LEED Gold-certified historic building). PG&E co-sponsored the forum.
The GreenBiz Index consists of 20 indicators, ranging from carbon intensity (greenhouse gas emissions per unit of GDP) to paper use and recycling per unit of GDP, to assess business and social progress on environmental goals. Based on the level of performance, each indicator gets a "swim," "tread water," or "sink" rating.
In five areas, business is swimming. Clean-tech investments in 2008 were double the level a year earlier; clean-energy patents continue to grow strongly; energy efficiency shows continued progress; paper use continues a downward trend while recycling is up; and the amount of water used per unit of GDP is falling. (Regarding the latter indicator, Makower noted that the full lifecyle of a hamburger requires 634 gallons of water; a double cheeseburger with bacon, he speculated, might require "a small tsunami.")
On the negative side, greenhouse gas emissions continue to climb, and despite continued efficiency gains, emissions per unit of GDP showed their slowest rate of improvement since 2002. "Emissions in 2007 were 16.7 percent higher than in 1990, the level to which President Obama wants to reduce emissions by 2020," the report notes.
Our society continues to be buried under mountains of electronic waste--at least 1.3 million tons per year of computers, printers, monitors and other items, of which only 18 percent ever gets recycled. Also "sinking" is the long-awaited promise of employee telecommuting as a strategy to minimize transportation, which remains just that--a promise, not much of a reality.
Makower noted a decision to downgrade progress on "green jobs" from "swimming" to "treading water," even through one source showed them increaseing from 8.5 million in 2006 to 9.1 million in 2007.
"We don't know what a green job is," he admitted. "We don't know how to measure them, even though everyone is talking about them. We [can agree about] about solar and wind installers, but what about truck drivers who deliver parts to the project? What about the CPA who keeps the books? Are these green jobs?"
One of the most hopeful signs Makower noted was recent news of major companies increasing their commitment to green programs, despite economic hard times. Within just the last three months, Dell announced plans to cut the amount of packaging it uses by 20 million pounds, Procter & Gamble said it was on track to sell $20 billion in "green" products, and Cisco announced a suite of energy management tools.
Probably everyone at the forum agreed with Makower's concluding assessment: "The coming year will be a critical one for the future of green busienss and, by extension, for the planet."
Jan 30 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our eye this week:
- The world could face "irreversible" drought and sea level increases in the next century even if greenhouse gas emissions are controlled, warns a new study led by Susan Solomon at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The negative effects of global warming already underway will be felt for centuries to come, the team of scientists concluded in a paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
- A heat wave is scorching southern Australia, with temperatures reaching a record 111 degrees Fahrenheit in Melbourne. Thousands of commuters were stranded when rail lines buckled and trains were canceled.
- The Washington Post and Los Angeles Times this week both endorsed higher gas taxes as an important policy tool to encourage motorists to buy more fuel-efficient and alternative-fuel vehicles. Revenues could also pay for overdue infrastructure repairs and improvements to public transit and rail networks.
- Calling President Obama's commitment to curbing global warming "tremendously encouraging," the European Union's environment commissioner, Stavros Dimas, suggested that the United States join Europe in a vast carbon trading scheme, similar to the system that has operated in the EU since 2005. "America has the diplomatic and financial resources that, when added to the efforts of the EU, can help bring the rest of the world on board," he said.
- Senator James Imhofe, R-Oklahoma, denounced as "environmental thuggery" President Obama's decision to reconsider requests by California and other states to impose tougher fuel economy standards. In 2003, Imhofe derided warnings about global warming as "the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people."
Jan 29 2009
California's renewable energy outlook caught a rising tide today as the California Public Utilities Commission approved $4.8 million in funding for a major program to develop and demonstrate emerging wave power technology.
The study, called WaveConnect, will be led by PG&E off the coast of Mendocino and Humboldt counties. The program will receive an additional $1.2 million from the Department of Energy.
PG&E's first step will be to conduct meetings with local stakeholders and agencies to learn about their issues and concerns. After completing appropriate environmental reviews and permit applications, which could take a couple of years, PG&E then plans to build an undersea infrastructure, including power transmission cables, to support wave energy demonstration projects. The utility will then invite manufacturers of wave energy devices to install them offshore for testing and comparison.
Ultimately, the demonstration will help promising technology companies find funding and guide PG&E (and other utilities) in choosing which wave power developers to partner with.
Finavera AquaBuoy
There are many different approaches to choose from. Some systems take their power from surface waves, others from pressure changes below the surface. Some bob up and down with the waves, others let waves wash over them. Some even rest on the sea floor. WaveConnect will help sort out the technology whales from the minnows.
"The anticipated cost of wave power compares favorably to the early days of solar and wind," says William Toman, a renewable energy project manager at PG&E. "It will take several stages of design evolution to lower costs and increase reliability."
Last October, the CPUC rejected a 15-year contract signed by PG&E to purchase 2 megawatts of wave power from Finavera Renewables. The commission said the power was too expensive and the technology too experimental for prime time. (Finavera has since refocused on the development of wind energy in Canada and Ireland.)
But many experts believe wave power remains a highly promising new source of energy for California. Our 745-mile coastline could produce more than a fifth of the state's energy needs if--admittedly a big if--economic, environmental, land use and grid connection issues don't stand in the way, according to the California Energy Commission.
Making ocean power technology work reliably and at a competitive price will be the first big challenge. Serving offshore installations with power transmission lines will be another economic and engineering hurdle. Finally, ocean power developers must also convince local communities and government regulators that their installations will not destroy marine life, cause boating collisions or navigational hazards, or degrade ocean views.
Jan 27 2009
Many environmentalists would give the Bush administration an "F" for inaction on the single greatest challenge facing humanity: global climate change. Now a celebrated reporter and editor, Eric Pooley, has given his profession only slightly better marks for its handling of the single biggest story of our time.
In a new essay on "The American Press and the Economics of Climate Change," Pooley, an award-winning former editor at Fortune, Time, and New York magazines, claims that too many reporters have muddled their coverage of the debate over what to do about climate change.
Just as the media once gave equal time to global warming deniers, Pooley complains, now they give unjustified attention to critics who make thinly supported claims that programs to address greenhouse gas emissions would cost millions of jobs and cripple the economy.
"Reporters tend to assign equal weight to two sides of an argument even if the two sides aren't equivalent," Pooley observes. "To give their stories drama and a feeling of balance, they seek opposing views even if the majority of experts agree and the dissenters lack credibility."
Pooley makes the same point about coverage of global warming that many media critics made about coverage of Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction": most journalists prefer to play it safe as stenographers, dutifully reporting official claims, rather than investigating for themselves and drawing informed conclusions. As Pooley puts it:
Being a referee is harder than being a stenographer because it requires grappling with the substance of an issue in a way that many time-pressed journalists aren't willing or able to do. By stating conclusions rather than merely hinting at them, referees can make themselves targets, open to attack from aggrieved combatants; some reporters and news organizations aren't comfortable with that. . . . . But in an era when journalism is in danger of being marginalized by the commodification of news . . . survival requires taking risks and adding real value. Doubling down on serious work--by making complex issues understandable and even compelling, by offering honest judgment along with clear supporting evidence--is the best recipe for continued relevance.
Pooley singles out for praise Deirdre Shesgreen of the St. Louis Post Dispatch, who reported both sides of last year's Senate debate over the impact of a cap-and-trade market for greenhouse gas emissions, but then sought an expert independent assessment from Professor Robert N. Stavins, director of Harvard's Environmental Economics Program:
The cost of enacting a cap-and-trade system..."is not going to be free, it's not going to be a job-creation strategy," Stavins said. At the same time, "it's not going to bankrupt the economy or send the economy into a recession." The effect on gas prices, for example, will be "very small" compared to the recent run-up caused by changes in global supply and demand, Stavins said. Then there's the cost of not doing anything about global warming, which proponents of the Senate bill argued could be much higher than the cost of any new regulations. And perhaps more unpredictable, too.
Interestingly, Stavins' assessment finds strong suport from a new report by McKinsey & Co., the noted management consulting firm. It concludes that the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions to limit global warming could cost as little as one percent of global GDP by 2030.
Jan 23 2009
Several stories on the science and policy of climate change caught our attention this week:
- Higher temperatures and scarcer water supplies linked to global warming have doubled the death rate of trees in Western U.S. forests over the past three decades, according to a study by 11 scientists published in Science magazine.
- Contrary to previous belief, Antarctica is warming along with the rest of the planet, according to new findings published in the journal Nature. West Antarctica is warming twice as fast as the eastern portion of the continent, but nude sunbathing has not yet caught on.
- Scientific consensus around the reality and causes of global warming appears to be be strong. A survey of more than 3,000 earth scientists, undertaken by a professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago and published by the American Geophysical Union, found 82 percent in agreement with the proposition that human activity has been a significant factor in changing average global temperatures.
- However, the scientific consensus around global warming seems not to impress the American public. According to one recent survey, 44 percent of U.S. voters believe warming is caused by longterm planetary trends, compared to 41 percent who blame human activity. That marks a reversal from July 2006, when 46 percent of voters pointed to human activity as the cause, versus 35 percent who cited planetary trends. Only a fifth of Republican voters acknowledge human activity as the primary cause.
Jan 22 2009
If you're lucky enough to own a home and have some savings, now may be a good time to talk to a solar installer about putting solar panels on your roof. Recently extended federal tax credits and falling prices for solar modules make the economics very attractive for those who can afford the investment. (PG&E's website provides resources and information on the solar process and state incentives.)
Homeowners who install solar systems are now eligible for a federal tax credit of up to 30 percent of the total system price. State incentives, including rebates administered by PG&E in its service territory, further sweeten the deal. And prices for rooftop solar systems have fallen about 10 percent since October, according to USA Today, making the investment even more attractive.
"The financial return from a solar installation can be up to 15 percent after tax," says Bob Winn, owner of Sky Power Systems in San Ramon, which has installed several hundred rooftop solar generators around the Bay Area. "Today you are lucky to get two or three percent pretax with traditional investments."
In these troubled times, not surprisingly, many interested homeowners and businesses are still sitting on the sidelines.
"I see one foot on the gas and one on the brake," Winn says. "Tax credits have caused a lot of people who were on the fence to pull the trigger. But uncertainty around the economy means a lot of people who should be doing it for financial reasons are holding off."
Data from PG&E's interconnection team show that many customers still see value in making the investment. Despite the weakening economy, the number of customer solar interconnections rose from 6,532 in 2007 to a record 6,574 in 2008.
And following passage of the extended federal tax credits, PG&E received more than 1,300 solar interconnection requests in December alone--a sign of significant pent-up demand.
To date, PG&E has interconnected more than 27,200 solar customers and paid out more than $446 million in incentives. Another 3,700 residential and 450 commercial projects are in the pipeline. PG&E ranks number one among all utilities in the United States for solar electric capacity on the customer side of the meter.
Jan 22 2009
Yesterday's post on the prospects for a third dry year in California only addressed one aspect of the state's water problem. Another issue is the longterm impact of global warming, which is causing mountain snowpacks to melt earlier, leaving soils with less moisture in the early summer and putting more demands on the state's reservoirs to manage water supplies.
Now it turns out that the primary cause of global warming--the burning of fossil fuels--also shortens the snow season by producing fine particles of soot. The dirtier snow becomes from these particles, the more solar radiation it absorbs and the faster it melts.
According to a new study by scientists at the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, soot deposits increase surface air temperatures over snowfields in the western United States an average of 0.1 and 1.0°C. Reduced carbon emissions, they conclude, would help snowpacks hold their water longer and reduce the need for complex and expensive water engineering.
Jan 21 2009
The view from my window is not pretty today: cloudy, gray and damp. It would actually be a lot prettier, to my eye, if it were pouring rain.
That's because the state desperately needs more precipitation to break two years of drought, going on three. Unless we see a dramatic change in the weather, we'll likely suffer another rash of early season fires that scorch forests, grasslands and homes.
Residential and agricultural water users will feel the pinch of tighter rationing. Already, 21 water agencies across the state have imposed water rationing, and more will surely follow.
We'll also have less water for hydro generation, forcing PG&E and other utilities to rely more on fossil fuels for power. That will mean more greenhouse gas emissions and (other things being equal) higher rates. (Last year the utility's hydropower output was only about three-quarters of normal.)
One drought year is manageable. But water runoff has been low in California the previous two years--only 53 percent of average in 2006-7 and 60 percent of average in 2007-8. At the end of December, Oroville Reservoir was at the lowest level in history, and other major reservoirs are desperately low as well.
With the dry start to 2008-9, simply working our way back to an average runoff year would take another 10 feet to 20 feet of snow in the Sierra Nevada, according to the state Department of Water Resources.
The good news, says Gary Freeman, PG&E's principal hydrologist, is that weather fronts should bring some precipitation to northern and central California almost every day from now to the end of January.
The bad news is that "the amount of wetness will probably be small," Freeman says. "These storm fronts won't amount to much."
With half of our precipitation season yet to run, there's still a chance of turning the current dry spell into a normal or even wet year. But the probability of that happening is receding every day.
"Even if precipitation is normal going forward, we'll only end up at 80 percent of normal for the year," Freeman says. "That's pretty dry."
Jan 20 2009
The U.S. wind energy industry employs about 80,000 people and created an estimated 9,000 manufacturing jobs last year, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). But the financial downdraft from the worldwide economic recession has slowed progress and prompted layoffs in the wind energy industry along with nearly every other sector.
Earlier this month, wind tower manufacturer DMI Industries announced a 20 percent reduction in its workforce at plants in North Dakota, Oklahoma and Ontario. Two days later, Danish wind turbine manufacturer LM Glasfiber said it would lay off more than 150 workers at its facility in Little Rock, Arkansas. Only last fall, the company was hiring 60 to 70 workers a month for projects that have since been scaled back for canceled.
On the heels of those and similar announcements, AWEA and the Solar Energy Industries Association warned that their industries' record-breaking performance last year will become a distant memory without legislation to make federal tax credits refundable to companies that are losing money and thus have no tax liability.
"We can continue to grow through this difficult period only if the new Administration and the 111th Congress act immediately to make renewable tax incentives refundable so they can work as they are intended to - even in the current financial context," said AWEA CEO Denise Bode. "This is a critical first step to building the new, clean energy economy."
Fortunately, crystal-ball gazers see a bright future for the industry, which has enormous room to expand in new markets like China.
Speaking yesterday at the World Future Energy Summit om Abu Dhabi, Steve Sawyer, secretary general of the Global Wind Energy Council, said the industry today employs 400,000 people worldwide and continues to grow even in the face of economic hard times.
"We would expect it to reach one million by the end of the decade at least," he predicted.
Jan 16 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of climate change caught our attention this week:
- The urgency of addressing climate change was a hot topic in Washington, D. C., with the Obama administration poised to take office. Hillary Clinton, the nominee for secretary of state, agreed with Sen. John Kerry, chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, that climate change represents a "national security threat." And Steven Chu, nominated as secretary of energy, told senators during his confirmation hearing, "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren."
- The Edison Electric Institute, representing the nation's major investor-owned utilities, this week endorsed an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, through programs such as cap-and-trade markets, energy efficiency investments, and greater reliance on renewables. EEI's proposal had many points in common with the blueprint for action put forward by the U.S. Climate Action Partnership.
- The House Appropriations Committee this week called for an $825 billion economic stimulus package, including $54 billion to transform the nation's energy transmission, distribution, and production systems by promoting a smarter grid, new investment in energy efficiency and renewable power, and cleaner coal technology.
- Food shortages caused by climate change could afflict half of the world's population by the end of this century, a team of scientists warned. "The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.
Jan 15 2009
As the nation awaits a critical transition of power in Washington, a heavyweight coalition of major U.S. corporations and national environmental organizations today seized the moment to unveil a comprehensive set of policy recommendations addressing the peril of global climate change in an effective and economically sustainable way.
The document released by U.S. Climate Action Partnership (USCAP)--A Blueprint for Legislative Action--is notable not only for its substance, but perhaps even more for its demonstration that stakeholders with widely different interests and priorities can build a meaningful consensus.
The organization's 26 corporate and five environmental members include PG&E, Alcoa, ConocoPhillips, Dow, DuPont, GE, Shell, Environmental Defense Fund, Natural Resources Defense Council, and others of similar stature.
USCAP's new report, two years in the making, builds on its 2007 Call for Action, which urged "prompt enactment of national legislation in the United states to slow, stop and reverse the growth of greenhouse gas emissions over the shortest time reasonably achievable."
USCAP's latest white paper endorses the national goal of slashing greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050, set by President-elect Barack Obama in a speech on November 18. The principal tool it recommends is an economy-wide cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions, which would effectively set a price on carbon.
To minimize the hit to consumer pocketbooks and business balance sheets, the organization favors initially freely allocating a substantial portions of emissions allowances to affected industries, phasing out the free distribution of allowances over time.
To protect utility customers specifically, USCAP calls for the value of emissions allowances to go to local distribution companies. There, regulators can ensure it is used to help lower bills by flowing funds directly back to customers or to efforts that enable residents and businesses to lower their energy usage, such as utility energy efficiency programs.
USCAP also recommends allowing companies to lower the cost of compliance by purchasing emissions offsets, so long as they are "environmentally additional, verifiable, permanent, measurable, and enforceable."
At a press conference held by USCAP today, PG&E's CEO, Peter Darbee, emphasized promotion of energy efficiency as a critical weapon against global warming.
"From virtually every angle--be it cost, or technology readiness, or the size and value of the benefits--one of the best strategies to attack the climate problems is improving energy efficiency," he said in prepared remarks.
Based in part on PG&E's 30 years of experience with some of the world's most effective energy efficiency initiatives, Darbee added, tax, regulatory and educational policies to promote efficiency will not only lower emissions, but increase economic investment, jobs, and consumer savings.
USCAP pointedly noted that delaying enactment of a national program to control greenhouse gas emissions will simply increase the economic costs and social disruption caused by climate change, as well as the cost of programs to address them.
Congressman Henry Waxman, whose House Energy and Commerce Committee heard testimony from USCAP today, vowed to move legislation before Memorial Day. "That is an ambitious agenda, but it is an achievable one," he said. "We cannot afford another year of delay."
Opposition will likely come from the dwindling band of climate-change skeptics, proponents of a carbon tax instead of cap-and-trade, and various interest groups that may dispute whatever emissions allocation formula is proposed in draft legislation.
Still, if giant oil companies, major utilities, large industrial energy customers, and some of the nation's most credible environmental organizations can agree on a detailed framework for legislation, surely there's hope for early action by the new Congress.
Jan 12 2009
If you really want to be environmenally pure, stop reading this item and turn off your computer.
The fact that computers use energy apparently came as a new revelation to some this weekend, when Harvard University physicist Alex Wissner-Gross seized his fifteen minutes of fame by claiming that two Google searches on a desktop computer produce 14 grams of carbon dioxide, roughly as much as boiling water in an electric tea kettle.
The culprit, he claimed, is Google's intense use of mega-data centers to return the fastest possible search results.
"Google isn't any worse than any other data center operator," he said. "If you want to supply really great and fast result, then that's going to take extra energy to do so."
Google fired back, insisting that a typical search consumes only 0.0003 kilowatt hours of energy, equal to a mere 0.2 grams of CO2. Your body consumes the same amount of energy in about 10 seconds, according to CNET.
Another Google defender, Jason Kincaid of TechCrunch.com, argued for a little perspective before assigning guilt. Think of all the energy saved by doing a Web search instead of driving to the library to look up a fact in some book, he observed, not to mention that producing a book creates around 2,500 grams of CO2, hundreds of times more than a Google search.
Looked at this way, Google--and computer technology more generally--may actually be helping the environment.
That said, more efficient use of computers is clearly a high priority. Google co-founded the Climate Savers Computing Initiative, a non-profit consortium that aims to slash energy consumption in computers enough to reduce global CO2 emissions by 54 million tons per year. "That's a lot of kettles," the company declared. (Full disclosure: PG&E supports the group as an Associate member.)
Jan 06 2009
Watching the Super Bowl on a super big screen TV can be super fun but a super waste of energy.
With big LCD sets using 43 percent more power than conventional sets, and plasma TVs hogging three times as much, "TVs in the state collectively suck up the equivalent of 40% of the power generated by the San Onofre nuclear power station running at full capacity," according to a recent story in the Los Angeles Times.
The paper reports that the California Energy Commission, for many years a champion of energy efficiency, may soon require TV manufacturers to sell more miserly models starting in 2011. The story quotes PG&E's Duane Larson, director of customer energy efficiency, as noting that tighter energy standards for televisions will lower customer bills and help the state meet its ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
The Consumer Electronic Association is highly displeased by the prospect of higher production costs discouraging sales, particularly in the current economic environment. But Noah Horowitz, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, told The New York Times' Green Inc. blog that industry concerns are overblown. "There are over 100 models today that would meet the proposed California standard," he said.
Michael Kanellos of GreenTechMedia comments that regulation of other consumer appliances to increase overall energy efficiency has proven effective time and again, contrary to industry warnings. And he quotes energy commission estimates that the average utility customer will save $18 to $30 a year on their power bills if new TV standards are enacted. With that kind of money in your pocket, you'll be able to afford an extra case of your favorite beverage during the Super Bowl.
Jan 05 2009
Driving your car may become a guilt-free pasttime once again if an Israeli inventor manages to turn roads into generators that can recharge clean electric vehicles.
How's that? Haim Abramovich, an engineer at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa, came up with the novel idea of embedding road surfaces with special piezoelectric crystals that convert pressure from the weight and vibration of passing cars into electricity. The crystals could be applied during normal road maintenance, eliminating the need for special construction.
If all goes according to theory, a one-kilometer stretch of four-lane highway could produce up to 400 kilowatts, reportedly enough energy to run eight Ford Fiestas. One unknown is whether the new road surface will slow down cars in some way, reducing net energy production.
Abramovich's Haifa-based spin-off firm, Innowattech, plans to test the system on a short stretch of road in Northern Israel this month. The firm also hopes to apply the same technology to railroads and airport runways.
Jan 02 2009
Several stories on the science and politics of climate change caught our attention this week:
- Canada's enormous forests, covering 1.2 million square miles, are one of the world's major storage reservoirs of carbon. Unfortunately, scientists are concluding that, instead of slowing global warming by trapping CO2, the forests have become net emitters of greenhouse gases due to fires and lethal beetle invasions. Ironically, global warming is blamed both for drying out the forests, making them more susceptible to fires, and for making winters milder, allowing pine beetles to proliferate.
- The huge German reinsurer Munich Re AG said in its annual review that total economic losses last year jumped to $200 billion from $82 billion in 2007. One reason cited was the impact of weather-related natural disasters, including a series of deadly hurricanes in the Caribbean. "Climate change has already started and is very probably contributing to increasingly frequent weather extremes and ensuing natural catastrophes," board member Torsten Jeworrek said in a statement. "These, in turn, generate greater and greater losses because the concentration of values in exposed areas, like regions on the coast, is also increasing further throughout the world."
- The National Commission on Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing, a 15-member panel created by Congress, is expected to call this month for a 50 percent increase in federal gas and diesel fuel taxes to pay for underfunded highway construction and repairs. The proposal, which would have the side benefit of encouraging motorists to favor more fuel-efficient vehicles, won surprising endorsement from Adrian Moore, vice president of the anti-tax Reason Foundation in Los Angeles. "I'm not excited about a gas tax increase, but the reality is our current gas tax doesn't pay for upkeep of the system we have now," he said. "We can either let the roads go to hell or we can pay more."
Dec 31 2008
On December 22, as my colleague Jennifer Zerwer previously noted, Sempra Generation announced completion of its first 10 megawatt photovoltaic power plant near Boulder City, Nevada, the largest of its kind in North America. PG&E has contracted to buy its power for 20 years.
Built in less than six months by Arizona-based First Solar, the project is certainly the fastest utility-scale solar project ever to come online for PG&E. (I can say that with some assurance, since to date it's the only large solar project in our portfolio to start generating power.)
But fast is all relative. If you really want FAST, check out this video clip showing all manner of ground and aerial views of the plant. At the end, you'll see the entire six months of construction compressed into about 25 seconds, thanks to the magic of time-lapse photography. Now if we could just get every project to move this quickly . . .
Dec 30 2008
With 745 miles of coastline, California could potentially meet more than a fifth of its electricity needs from renewable ocean wave power, according to the California Energy Commission.
But while the state does little to develop that immense resource, Scotland took a great leap forward this month with the announcement of the Saltire Prize--worth 10 million British pounds--for the best innovation in marine energy technology. Already, the prize has reportedly attracted 33 entries from five continents.
The huge award will go to the team that best delivers, off the Scottish coast, "a commercially viable wave or tidal energy technology that achieves a minimum electrical output of 100 GWh over a continuous two-year period using only the power of the sea."
Scotland isn't placing all its wave power bets on the prize, however. A Scottish firm, Pelamis Wave Power Ltd., installed the world's first commercial ocean electricity generators off the coast of Portugal in September and plans similar installations in Scotland and England. It is already considered a world leader in the technology.
Also in September, Scottish Power said it was considering three coastal sites to install the world's biggest tidal power project by 2011.
Scotland first minister Alex Salmond said he hoped the latter announcement was a harbinger of things to come. "Scotland has a marine energy resource which is unrivalled in Europe," he said. "We have an estimated 25 per cent of Europe's tidal resource and 10 per cent of its wave potential."
Scotland's Saltire prize is reminiscent of the $10 million Ansari X Prize, which went to Burt Rutan and Paul Allen for launching the first reusable private spacecraft into space twice within two weeks.
It has since spawned numerous imitators that seek to benefit society by rewarding breakthrough innovation and entrepreneurship. For example, the Automotive X PRIZE will award multi-million dollar cash prizes to the best design of a marketable vehicle capable of achieving 100 miles per gallon.
So, while California makes millionaires through the lottery, Scotland will make some through the Saltire Prize. Is a moral to be found somewhere?
Dec 29 2008
The United States has yet to see its first mass production electric vehicle, but already critics are warning that the world may run short of lithium, the metallic element at the heart of the next generation of automotive batteries.
If you believe them, the looming crisis of "peak oil" will soon have a counterpart in "peak lithium," as demand from the consumer electronics sector and plug-in vehicles converges to overwhelm limited supplies of the Periodic Table's third element. (The nuclear industry faces similar skeptics who claim that uranium supplies have peaked.)
Lithium battery technology is prized because it stores tremendous amounts of energy relative to its light weight--unlike, say, traditional lead acid batteries. The Chevy Volt is expected to sport a 400-pound lithium-ion battery capable of giving the car a 40 mile range without any assist from its gasoline engine.
Lithium is typically found in granitic minerals, hectorite clay, and in desert brine deposits. The world's biggest producer is Chile, whose brine-fed, high desert Salar de Atacama region holds more than a quarter of the world's lithium reserves. Bolivia holds what may be the largest untapped reserve of lithium at the Uyuni salt flats. Other major producers include China, the United States and Russia.
Concerns over the adequacy of world lithium reserves first surfaced in the mid-1970s, when advocates of fusion power wondered if their miracle cure for the energy crisis would be foiled by shortages of the element. (Lithium deuteride was a key to the ignition of the first hydrogen fusion bomb.) A panel subsequently convened by the National Research Council estimated world reserves of lithium at less than 11 million tonnes--but the potential crisis fizzled along with fusion power.
The latest alarm was sounded by William Tahil, research director of Meridian International Research, His December 2006 paper, "The Trouble with Lithium," concluded, "there is insufficient lithium available in the Earth's crust to sustain electric vehicle manufacture in the volumes required, based solely on LiIon batteries. Depletion rates would exceed current oil depletion rates and switch dependency from one diminishing resource to another. Concentration of supply would create new geopolitical tensions, not reduce them."
In a followup paper this year, Tahil stressed the disastrous environmental impact of ramping up lithium production. Bolivia's Uyuni salt flat, he noted, "is the brightest object on the Earth's surface visible from space," a popular tourist destination and a major flamingo breeding ground, making it an unlikely savior of the lithium battery industry.
Lithium optimists have a champion in Keith Evans, a geologist who has specialized in the element for forty years. He maintains that world reserves of elemental lithium are today more than twice the estimate in 1976, despite growing production.
The electric vehicle market might double demand by 2015, Evans notes, but modest price increases would make huge untapped reserves economic, ending any threat of shortages. "A rise (in price) from the current levels is probably necessary but the cost of (lithium) carbonate in batteries is a very small percentage of the battery cost," he declared in a reply to Tahil.
So who's right? One way for non-experts to decide is to watch the money. GM, as noted, is banking on lithium batteries. So is Nissan, which reportedly plans to invest a billion dollars with NEC to produce lithium-ion batteries for the vehicle market. Honda reportedly plans to produce as many as 500,000 lithium-ion batteries a year. They must know something.
But then there's Toyota, the world's most experienced manufacturer of hybrid vehicles. Toyota uses nickel-metal hydride batteries in the Prius and doesn't see much future in lithium. "The future supply of lithium will not be able to sustain both the exponential growth in batteries for consumer electronics and a large automotive battery demand," said Jaycie Chitwood, environmental strategy manager for Toyota's advanced technology group.
So which camp are you in--peak lithium, or peak optimism?
Dec 24 2008
Thousands of people have finally solved an important puzzle: How to be red, white, blue and green all over? With energy-saving Light Emitting Diode (LED) holiday lights.
At my local Walgreen's, the store manager told me they sold out of all their LED holiday lights this year. In Sacramento, an Ace Hardware store manager told the Sacramento Bee, "They fly off the hook."
At Amazon.com, 21 of its 25 top-selling holiday lights are reportedly LED products.
In the nation's capital, the National Christmas Tree is adorned with 37,000 LED lights. Not to be outdone, MillerCoors brewing company has strung 15 miles of holiday LED lights--a total of 200,000--synchronized to music. I don't know if that counts as "green," but the company says it has cut its holiday lighting costs by 60 percent.
Those of the Jewish faith are going green as well, with strings of blue LED lights to decorate their Hanukkah Bush.
There's an obvious reason for their rapidly growing popularity: LED lights use far less electricity than incandescent bulbs, last up to ten times longer, and produce almost no heat, thus reducing fire hazards.
PG&E estimates that the cost to power a string of 300 LED lights over the holidays will run only about $3, compared to $30 for a similar string of mini incandescent lights. At that rate, it will only take a year or two to recoup the higher purchase cost of the LEDs.
Fortunately, LED lights have applications that extend far beyond the holidays. In fact, the U.S. Department of Energy recently reported that LED lights saved 8.7 trillion watt hours of electricity in 2007, about 11 percent of all power consumed in lighting. Wider use of LED lights in other applications, including indoor lighting, could eliminate the need for 27 giant (1 gigawatt) coal-fired power plants, the report concluded.
LEDs are already widely used in outdoor applications like traffic signals, roadside signs and street lights PG&E and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission have partnered to test energy-efficient LED street lights, which are 40 percent more efficient than high pressure sodium vapor lights and produce a whiter, brighter light. (You can check them out in front of PG&E headquarters on Beale Street.)
Many other cities are following suit. Anchorage, Alaska is retrofitting all municipal roadway lights with LED fixtures. The Big Apple is studying the possibility of replacing all 300,000 of its street lamps with the super efficient semiconductor lights.
Though the lights themselves run cool, the LED lighting industry is becoming a hot market for venture capital and corporate acquisitions--no surprise given that the global lighting market is worth some $75 billion a year.
Luminus Devices in Massachusetts raised $72 million earlier this year, said to be the biggest funding round ever received by an LED company. Local Redwood City startup Superbulbs, though still in stealth mode, reportedly plans to introduce LED bulbs that look like standard incandescents but use 30 percent less energy even than compact fluorescent bulbs--and without any mercury. Its main backer, VantagePoint Venture Partners, is also a funder of such cleantech startups as Tesla, Better Place, and BrightSource Energy.
Industry giants are getting into the act, too. In the last three years, Philips has acquired no fewer than four LED companies. The bulb kings at GE have also seen the light. They recently said they have suspended development of a next-generation incandescent bulb "to place greater focus and investment on what we believe will be the ultimate in energy efficient lighting -- light-emitting diodes (LEDs) and organic light-emitting diodes (OLEDs)."
The big problem, of course, is still cost. Recently announced LED replacements for standard 60- and 100-watt incandescent bulbs cost $100 and $150 respectively, enough to make any customer think twice. But just as LED televisions have plummeted in price, so too will the bulbs. Next year, expect to see a lot more LED lights under the tree, not just on it.
Dec 18 2008
After a long brown spell, California ski resorts are once again covered in white and looking forward to earning some real green over the holidays. For PG&E and its customers, recent precipitation--and the promise of more to come--bodes well for supplies of clean, inexpensive hydropower next year.
Though it didn't last long, recent cold storms dumped piles of hail on San Francisco and snow on Berkeley's Tilden Park, both memorable events. Up in the Sierra, major resorts now report two-to-three feet of snow.
"What a phenomenal change one storm has made for the mountain," said a spokeswoman for Alpine Meadows and Homewood Mountain ski resorts. "It is wonderful and humbling how quickly Mother Nature can move in and create something amazing. We couldn't have received this kind of snow at a better time."
Even so, the snow that provides so much of California's water is still running only 35 percent of normal--and only 19 percent of normal in Northern California. That leaves a lot of catching up to do.
At PG&E, principal hydrologist Gary Freeman watches snow and rainfall forecasts closely, since one of his jobs is to help the utility plan its use of clean hydroelectric resources. He says the watersheds that feed PG&E's hydro system stand a good chance of beating the drought after two years of sub-par precipitation.
"Next week we could get hit by some very wet storms tapping into subtropical moisture--what we used to call the Pineapple Express," Freeman said. "We should see lots of snow and rain right around Christmas, which will fill some of our lower-elevation reservoirs and build some snowpack. We could have another subtropical storm after that, so California could be back to normal or even wet by mid-January."
Full reservoirs will allow the utility to substitute hydropower for natural gas-fired generation, helping the environment and lowering costs. The only downside is likely to be the landslides and mud flows in watersheds laid bare by this summer's widespread and intense fires.
Freeman notes that PG&E's service territory is seeing relatively less snow and more rain than it did 30 years ago as a result of California's warming climate. The snowpack is also melting two-to-three weeks earlier. So far, that's not a problem. But if warming continues apace, heavy runoff from fast-melting snows could create potential operational challenges.
President-elect Obama's appointee as secretary of energy, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Director Steven Chu, commented last year on the longrun impact of climate change on California's snowpack: "I think that's a much more serious problem than the gradually rising sea level, unless Greenland just completely melts," Chu said. "This is a huge water supply concern for California and the Southwest."
Dec 16 2008
If you're thinking of trading in your Hummer for a plug-in hybrid, you may soon have a chance to Build Your Dream. The Chinese company BYD, freshly funded with a $231 million investment from Omaha billionaire Warren Buffet, this week began selling China's first plug-in hybrid vehicle.
The F3DM (for Dual Mode) runs up to 60 miles on battery power alone, then recharges from its gasoline-powered motor. It can also recharge from any electrical outlet. With the introduction of the new plug-in hybrid model, BYD has beaten such auto giants as Toyota and GM to market. And it has a price they'll find hard to beat: about $22,000.
BBC correspondent Peter Day, who took one out for a spin, said it looks like "a rather ordinary compact saloon car," but showed "exceptional acceleration when I put my foot down."
Founded in 1995 with a loan of $300,000, Shenzen-based BYD today has 130,000 employees. It is one of those does-it-all Asian technology manufacturers, with products ranging from computer keyboards to mobile phone displays. It has also become China's largest producer of rechargeable batteries.
In 2003, it began selling a gasoline-powered car, the F3. This September, it signed a deal to export electric cars to Israel, and said it hopes to begin selling hybrid plug-ins in the United States in a year or two. First it needs to meet rigorous U.S. safety standards.
BYD, which aims to become China's largest automaker, will benefit from government plans to acquire at least 30,000 clean-energy vehicles by 2012 for public transportation and postal services in major Chinese cities.
BYD may also benefit from a new agreement signed by China's Ministry of Science and Technology and the U.S. Department of Energy to collaborate on improving battery performance and testing.
Dec 12 2008
Several stories on the science and politics of climate change caught our attention this week:
- California's Air Resources Board on Thursday unanimously approved the nation's most sweeping and ambitious plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by the year 2020, a cut of about 30 percent. The plan includes tougher fuel efficiency standards for new vehicles, higher energy efficiency standards for buildings, a requirement that electric utilities acquire 33 percent of their energy from renewable sources, and a huge cap-and-trade market covering industries that emit 85 percent of greenhouse gases. California currently accounts for about 1.5 percent of the world's emissions.
- President-elect Obama has chosen Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate in physics and an outspoken advocate of action to curb global warming, as his new energy secretary. Chu directs the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, a nationally recognized center of research on energy efficiency, solar energy and biofuels. Some utility industry officials applauded the appointment along with environmentalists. Chu's "experience seems to dovetail perfectly with the president-elect's commitment to bringing new energy technology to market in a timely fashion," Scott Segal, director of the Electric Reliability Coordinating Council, told the New York Times. "An understanding of the art of the possible in energy technology will be critical to the development of a cost-effective climate change policy."
- The New York Times reports that the European Union has allowed industry lobbyists to undercut the effectiveness of its carbon trading market. Four years after the market was launched, the paper claims, "it is becoming clear that system has so far produced little noticeable benefit to the climate -- but generated a multibillion-dollar windfall for some of the Continent's biggest polluters."
- Meanwhile, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who once had herself photographed on a block of ice in Greenland to highlight the perils of climate change, said this week that she would block any EU climate rules "that endanger jobs or investments in Germany." Her top climate adviser complained the next day, "Germany campaigned massively last year for climate protection; now we're claiming more opt outs than other countries. That tarnishes our credibility."
- Finally, here's a story from Salon that only masochists should read: "Global boiling: Some geologists say rising temperatures will uncork vast deposits of undersea methane. If they're right, we're cooked." It begins: "By now we all know what's in store for us if we continue on our emissions-happy path: increasingly hotter days, horrific droughts and floods, angrier storms, acidic ocean waters that will dissolve coral reefs, and a surging sea level that will swallow our coastal cities. Still, that scenario is a virtual sunny day by the pool compared to the cataclysmic climate picture being drawn by some scientists." That picture involves the evaporation of up to 10,000 gigatons of methane hydrates, unleashing on the globe a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide. Time to start buying beachfront property in the Antarctic?
Dec 08 2008
The demise of Detroit's Big Three auto producers would lead to an unprecedented hollowing out of America's industrial capacity, say supporters of a federal bailout package. But experts warn that American industry has already lost nearly all its capacity to build the most critical component of next-generation vehicles: the battery.
Writing for EV World, Bill Moore comments:
With all the talk on Capitol Hill this week about Big 3's plans to introduce advanced, plug-in electric cars, with the CEO's dramatically arriving to testify in conventional hybrids and advanced prototype plug-in models, little if any attention was paid to the fact that America has next to no advanced automotive lithium ion battery production capacity. With the exception of a currently shrinking handful of US-based firms, virtually all advanced nickel metal hydride (NiMH) and lithium ion (Li-ion) production is done overseas, mainly in China, Japan and Korea.
A recent story in Newsweek makes the same point:
While U.S. battery makers play catch-up, the Japanese battery industry is consolidating: Panasonic, Toyota's battery supplier, is in talks to acquire Sanyo, Honda's battery maker. South Korea has also demonstrated battery savvy, as does China, where the iPhone batteries are assembled. For some observers, this is a cause for concern. "Are we trading our dependence on foreign oil for a dependence on batteries built in foreign countries?" asks Chrysler vice chairman Jim Press.
You'll read plenty of stories about startups claiming to use nanotechnology to work miracles with new batteries. But the big automakers know that building a powerful battery that will keep an electric or hybrid vehicle on the road ten years or more, safely charging and recharging thousands of times, requires a level of engineering, testing and manufacturing that most startups just don't have.
America lost most of its battery manufacturing when commercial electronics production shifted to Asia, taking consumer battery production with it. That gave Asian manufacturers a head start on scaling up their technology to the electric vehicle market. "If you want to make big batteries, it's good to at least make small batteries," observes Nitash Balsara, a chemical engineer and battery investigator at the University of California and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
Balsara also believes that basic investment in battery technology in the United States "has been starved for several decades. If you count the electrochemical groups in various universities, you will find a general decline starting in the 1970s."
Although the federal government provided hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding under President Clinton's Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, a collaboration between Washington and Detroit to develop cars capable of 80 miles per gallon, batteries were only a small part of the project and there was no push to commercialize the proprietary demonstration technology that the automakers unveiled to the public. It sat in the shelf and gathered dust while the automakers, responding to consumer demand, sold millions of conventional SUVs in an era of cheap gasoline.
Since 2001, the Bush administration has spent only about $25 million a year on battery R&D, a small fraction of spending in Asia. The Department of Energy recently announced that it was awarding grants to three companies to increase the performance of batteries for plug-in hybrids. The award total? About $7 million.
Until investors and banks are willing to underwrite the growth of U.S.-based battery production capacity, encouraged by federal policy, the lion's share of plug-in vehicle battery production will remain offshore. While it can be argued that $50 billion in foreign battery imports is better than $500 billion in foreign oil imports, the nurturing of an America advanced battery production infrastructure seems critically important to the economic security of the nation.
Dec 05 2008
A roundup of major climate-change news this week:
- U.S. greenhouse gas emissions climbed 1.4 percent last year, as Americans used more fossil-fueled energy to deal with winter and summer temperature extremes, the Department of Energy reported. Of the nearly 7.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions, 81 percent were CO2, almost 10 percent were methane, and about 5 percent were nitrous oxide.
- Chinese and Indian delegates to the United Nations climate talks in Poland welcomed President-elect Obama's commitment to dealing with climate change but warned that his goals for 2020--rolling back US emissions to 1990 levels--are inadequate to fight global warming. The 187-nation meeting is reviewing progress for a UN global-warming treaty to succeed the Kyoto Protocol.
- Forty-three small island states attending the United Nations climate meeting in Poland pressed for tougher measures to fight global warming because they fear they could be submerged by rising seas. The group of island states wants to limit global warming to a maximum 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, below a 2 degrees warming goal by the European Union. "We are not prepared to sign a suicide agreemeent that causes small island states to disappear," Selwin Hart of Barbados told Reuters.
- Italy said it may veto European Union plans to tackle climate change unless they are scaled back to become less costly to industry and consumers, a minister warned Monday. At issue is the "20-20-20" proposal, which calls for a 20 percent cut in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, a 20 percent cut in energy consumed and 20 percent use of renewable energy.
Dec 02 2008
A broad coalition of utilities and energy producers (including PG&E Corporation), energy consumers (American Honda, 3M) and Environmental Defense Fund today issued a broad set of suggested principles to guide the Environmental Protection Agency's regulation of greenhouse gas emissions.
Under the Bush administration, EPA has staunchly resisted issuing any such regulations. The incoming Obama administration will surely adopt a new approach, taking advantage of the Supreme Court's ruling in Massachusetts v. EPA, which opened the door to the agency acting if it finds that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare.
The coalition's proposed principles at first glance seem commonplace. They call for EPA to root its decisions in science, consult closely with Congress, work with state and local governments, emphasize measures that are cost-effective, and give firms credit for taking early voluntary action to reduce emissions.
What's remarkable on second take is how little some of these principles appear to have governed EPA's decision making over the past eight years. The Obama administration and Congress will have their hands full reviewing EPA's rules and rulemaking procedures--if this recent story from the Washington Post is any indication:
The Environmental Protection Agency is finalizing new air-quality rules that would make it easier to build coal-fired power plants, oil refineries and other major polluters near national parks and wilderness areas, even though half of the EPA's 10 regional administrators formally dissented from the decision and four others criticized the move in writing.
Dec 02 2008
For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction - in life as well as in physics.
The widespread hoopla over the promised reappearance of electric vehicles after the demise of General Motors' EV-1 is now inevitably being countered by skeptics who question their cost and suitability. Even proponents of electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs)--including we at NEXT100--should take note of their arguments.
One significant skeptic is Michael Kanellos at GreenTechMedia. In recent posts he's noted that Tesla Motors, designer of a high-performance electric sports car, is seeking $400 million in federal loans having "already burned through massive amounts of capital and delayed its sedan."
BMW, he points out, plans to lease prototypes of its Electric Mini for $850 a month--as much as some of its most expensive cars, even though it "only goes about 150 miles before conking out and has a reduced backseat."
The Norwegian manufacturer Think plans to sell a compact urban EV, The City, which has a range of just over 100 miles and a top speed of just over 60 mph. Base price is a little under $30,000--but that doesn't include the battery. When you factor in the battery's lease cost, Kanellos reports, the total cost over seven years comes to more than $40,000: "At those prices, you could almost buy two new Honda Accords for the price of a single City."
Meanwhile, the Washington Post reports that GM plans very small runs of its much-anticipated Volt for the first couple of years due to high production costs:
"People ask us when will we produce not just 10,000 but 50,000," said Frank Weber, GM's global vehicle line executive and chief engineer for E-flex systems. "I say when the battery and power train costs have come down significantly."
The high cost and limited storage of vehicle batteries remains the Achilles heel of electric vehicles. A recent survey in Newsweek reports that battery capacity is increasing only about 8 percent a year, far below the rapid doubling of computer power.
A lot of smart people are nonetheless banking on EVs and PHEVs. Their combination of high performance, low emissions, and low fuel costs is hard to beat. Hopefully, well-heeled early adopters will pay inflated prices for the first production models, allowing manufacturers to gain scale economies and begin serving the mass market with reasonably priced vehicles before the earth overheats.
Dec 01 2008
Now that election season is over, notes The New York Times' Green Inc. blog, politicians in Massachusetts, Oregon, Vermont and now New Hampshire are beginning to talk about the unthinkable: raising gas taxes to pay for infrastructure repairs and trim budget deficits. (The federal gas tax of 18.4 cents per gallon hasn't risen since 1993 and is much lower than in most other developed countries.)
Don't be surprised if more politicians begin joining them in the name of national security or combating global warming.
A new report by the Institute for 21st Century Energy, sponsored by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and led by General James L. Jones (Rtd.), President-elect Barack Obama's designee as the new national security adviser, calls for "bold and comprehensive" action to reduce demand for energy, including imported oil:
The volatility of the gas and oil markets of 2008 is proof positive that a call to action is necessary and justified. With the recent sharp drop in oil prices, we should not be lulled into believing that this reflects a fundamental change in our energy fortunes. . . . Indeed, the fact that such boom and bust cycles have been all too common in energy markets over the past four decades is indicative of the lack of a national energy policy that keeps pace with the rapidly changing dynamics of energy markets and systems.
Most politicians still regard gas tax increases as the "third rail" of American politics--to be avoided at all costs. Back in the early 1990s, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts made an off-hand comment in favor of raising federal gas taxes by 50 cents a gallon, only to face a Bush-Cheney '04 campaign ad a decade later blasting the idea as "wacky." Kerry had to backpeddle furiously. Learning from Kerry's misstep, Sen. John McCain in 2008 called for a summer-long suspension of the federal gas tax to help revive the economy.
Most economists across the political spectrum support higher gas taxes (sometimes paired with a reduction in other taxes). Maybe it has something to do with the fact that they enjoy academic tenure. President Bush's own chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, Greg Mankiw, endorsed a 50-cent-per-gallon tax increase in a 1999 Fortune magazine article:
Cutting income taxes while increasing gasoline taxes would lead to more rapid economic growth, less traffic congestion, safer roads, and reduced risk of global warming--all without jeopardizing long-term fiscal solvency. This may be the closest thing to a free lunch that economics has to offer.
Now the director of the University of California Energy Institute, economist Severin Borenstein, has issued an interesting new variant on the idea: a variable tax surcharge that would rise or fall inversely with oil prices in order to keep gas prices at the pump roughly constant:
Such a surcharge could stabilize gasoline prices at levels that a few months ago would have been celebrated by consumers and still significantly reduce California's budget deficit. It would also slow the return of gas-guzzling vehicles that will otherwise result if oil prices remain at current levels.
Even anti-tax politicians might support the plan if other sales or vehicle license taxes were cut equivalently. Why? Because higher gas prices would reduce traffic congestion and delays and, more important, reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Borenstein estimates that a tax surcharge that raised fuel-pump prices 50 cents a gallon to $3.00 would cut greenhouse emissions from transportation fuels by 9 percent in the long run, a substantial amount.
Of course, such a tax might be redundant if other policies, like cap-and-trade markets, raise the price of carbon fuels more generally. And gas taxes always raise difficult questions about equity, especially during a painful recession. But Borenstein's plan has the advantage of offering consumers more price stability, helping them make more thoughtful longterm plans about their choice of vehicles and driving habits.
Nov 28 2008
A roundup of items this week related to the impact of global warming:
- The shrinkage of Himalayan glaciers is leading to reduced runoff in major South Asian rivers and may cause severe water shortages in the region by 2030, according to findings reported in the November issue of Geophysical Research Letters. In addition to global warming, one major culprit appears to be vast brown clouds, caused by the burning of fossil fuels and vegetation, that deposit dark particulates that absorb solar radiation.
- The World Meteorological Organization reports that greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere have reached record highs, with "no sign of leveling off." The WMO tracks carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, and methane gases. It said there is today 37 percent more CO2 in the atmosphere than in the mid-18th century, mainly due to burning of fossil fuels.
- The Maldive Islands in the Indian Ocean, famed for their pristine beaches, have announced plans to consider buying land on higher ground to resettle their population if sea levels continue to rise. More than four-fifths of the islands' land area of 300 square kilometers is less than one meter above sea level.
Nov 28 2008
A roundup of items relating to clean energy that caught our attention this week:
- Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa announced a proposal--still in the early planning stages--to meet 10 percent of the city's electricity demand from solar energy. Apparently he envisions a combination of residential and commercial rooftop panels and large-scale solar projects in the desert.
- The world's biggest solar tower is scheduled in January to begin generating 20 megawatts of electricity in southern Spain. With more than 1,200 mirrors, each half the size of a tennis court, it will create superheated steam to turn power generators serving about 11,000 homes. Spain reportedly plans to generate more than two gigawatts of power from concentrated solar plants by 2015.
- The UK government plans to institute new energy tariffs that will reward "micro-renewables," primarily residential solar and wind generation, in order to meet the country's target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent come 2050. The Energy Saving Trust, an independent body charged with promoting energy efficiency, predicts a quarter of the country's households could engage in clean energy production.
- Portugal plans to build 1,300 charging stations for electric vehicles over the next three years, in partnership with Renault and Nissan. The country also plans to provide tax incentives, financing subsidies, and reduced parking rates for buyers of electric vehicles, In return, the car companies will make Portugal the first European market for their new generation of electric cars.
Nov 24 2008
Last Thursday, two dozen environmental groups, energy developers, public utilities and other stakeholders wrote President-elect Barak Obama about a remarkable collaboration to promote renewable energy powered by waves, tides, and ocean currents.
This initiative, spearheaded by the Environmental Defense Fund in the same spirit of common national purpose that Obama championed during his campaign, took nine months of work aimed at building trust and finding an environmentally responsible path toward developing this promising new source of clean power.
The participants included Pacific Gas and Electric Co., which is studying the potential of wave energy off the coast of Humboldt and Mendocino Counties as part of its commitment to renewable energy. (Last month, the California Public Utilities Commission rejected a PG&E contract with Finavera Renewables for a separate project that would have produced 2 megawatts of ocean wave power off the coast of Humboldt County, as not having a mature enough technology.)
Ocean renewable energy could supply as much as 10 percent of the nation's current electricity demand, about the same as conventional hydropower. Although ocean energy projects today produce only about 10 megawatts of power worldwide, a recent report by Greentech Media and the Prometheus Institute estimated that production could grow 100-fold by 2015.
Reaching that potential will take sustained cooperation between stakeholders at the local, state and national level. All too often, progress on renewable energy has been slowed by conflict between eager project developers and environmentalists who demand assurances that major new projects will not damage fragile habitats.
In the case of wave power, the Pacific Fishery Management Council's executive director, Donald McIsaac, raised questions in June about effects on marine fish, mammals, and commercial fishing. "A large number of projects could compromise healthy ecosystems, and should be evaluated at a regional ecosystem scale before projects are installed," McIsaac warned the U.S. Minerals Management Service, which issues wave power project leases.
To avoid legal and regulatory wrangling and facilitate the orderly development of ocean energy, the initiative backers call for systematic testing and deployment of demonstration projects to provide data that will help uncover and assess any environmental risks. They also call for federal funding and consolidated regulation to help accelerate those projects.
"Because this industry is new, we have an opportunity to do it right from the beginning," the participants wrote Obama. As their collaboration has demonstrated--and as Obama surely agrees--"people of good faith can work together to help create a sustainable energy future for America and the world."
Nov 21 2008
Here's a roundup of some of the week's major news on climate change:
- In his first post-election speech on global warming, President-elect Barack Obama promised on Tuesday to "confront this challenge once and for all" with a combination of investments in clean energy technology and a cap-and-trade market to raise the cost of carbon emissions.
- Obama's call to action won widespread praise. The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat said his pledge was a "huge signal" of encouragement to countries that negotiating a new accord to replace the Kyoto protocol on climate change.
- Members of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, which includes several leading environmental organizations and utilities, including Pacific Gas and Electric Co., also endorsed Obama's statement. PG&E's chairman and CEO, Peter Darbee, welcomed the president-elect's commitment as "an opportunity to spur a wave of new investment in the technology and infrastructure needed to create a low carbon economy while at the same time providing a badly needed shot of economic adrenaline."
- A new United Nations report indicates that emissions of greenhouse gases by industrialized countries leveled off in 2006 for the first time in six years. That's the good news. The bad news is the study didn't measure emissions from India and China, two of the world's largest and fastest growing sources of carbon dioxide.
- In the meantime, global warming continues to wreak devastation on some ecosystems. According to the New York Times, prolonged droughts and mild winters have promoted widespread infestations of mountain pine beetles that are killing millions of acres of forests from New Mexico to British Columbia.
- Physical scientists who wonder why their findings have not spurred the world to more decisive action may find answers in the social sciences--including the fields of behavioral decision making, risk analysis, and evolutionary psychology. According to an interesting new analysis of human risk perception, "The way we're psychologically wired and socially conditioned to respond to crises makes us ill-suited to react to the abstract and seemingly remote threat posed by global warming."
Nov 18 2008
Gov. Schwarzenegger yesterday signed an historic executive order directing California's utility's to provide one-third of their power from qualifying renewable sources by 2020, an unprecedented mandate to meet an unprecedented global problem.
"Today is all about changing our goals and raising the bar," he said at a signing ceremony in Sacramento. ". . . This will be the most aggressive target in the nation."
PG&E's senior vice president for public affairs, Nancy McFadden, joined the ceremony to applaud the governor's leadership:
I stand here on behalf of PG&E committed to this process with all of these stakeholders, distinguished group of stakeholders, to move this ball forward . . . so we can meet your ambitious goal, Governor.
The state's investor-owned utilities have been working hard to meet an existing mandate to supply 20 percent of their power from renewable sources (other than large hydropower) by the 2010-2012 timeframe. Progress has been slowed by delays in passing federal tax credits, long lead times in approving and building new transmission lines, disputes over permitting projects sited on sensitive lands, and, in some cases, developer inexperience or financing problems.
The governor acknowledged these problems and pledged to help overcome them. He signed a separate agreement to create a one-stop process for the California Energy Commission and Department of Fish and Game to review permits by renewable energy developers. And he received promises from federal agencies, including the Bureau of Land Management and Fish and Wildlife Service, to fast-track reviews of projects on federal land.
Still, the challenges will be enormous. Achieving the new goal will require a 225 percent increase in the amount of renewable power available today. As the California Public Utilities Commission stated in a report issued last month, "Serving 33% of California's energy needs with renewable sources will require an infrastructure build-out on a scale and timeline perhaps unparalleled anywhere in the world."
In a previous report, the Commission said that meeting the 33 percent goal could require as much as $60 billion in new investment in generation and transmission.
Nov 17 2008
Data centers -- giant server warehouses that centralize the storage and distribution of bits and bytes -- are notorious power hogs, using up to one hundred times the energy per square foot of typical office space. In Northern California, they account for as much as 2.5 percent of all electricity consumption.
At the opening yesterday of its user event CA World 08 in Las Vegas, business software company CA announced plans to focus on ways to reduce power consumption and costs by letting data centers run at higher temperatures, thus reducing the need for cooling.
"Every data center on average doubles its power consumption every five years, " said Chris Stakutis, vice president of emerging technologies at CA. ". . . You can save five per cent of your cooling costs for every degree warmer you run it. You just need to put in hundreds of wireless thermometers so you are confident you're not exceeding any limits."
IBM, HP and Sun Microsystems have already invaded this market with a vengeance. So have many startups. Santa Clara-based Power Assure won the $100,000 Smart Power category award at the Clean Tech Open in San Francisco on Nov. 6. It specializes in power management software that throttles back unused data center servers, networking equipment and cooling systems to save as much as 50 percent on data center energy bills.
Not to be outdone, Pacific Gas and Electric Company is leading utility industry efforts to promote more energy-efficient data centers, taking advantage of the fact that its revenues are decoupled from electricity sales.
PG&E offers extensive rebates for new data center construction and upgrades that save energy; it also offers rebates all the way down to the desktop, including power management software, premium efficiency PCs, LCD monitors and thin-client systems. The program is on track to save 7 megawatts of electricity this year, and more next.
Last year, PG&E led the formation of a utility IT energy efficiency coalition to focus on improving power management at data centers. It's proven to be a hit.
"We now have almost 40 utilities in the United States and Canada," says Mark Bramfitt, principal program manager in PG&E's Customer Energy Efficiency department. "We are sharing everything we know to get others to copy our programs."
Nov 14 2008
The week brought plenty of news keeping climate change on the front burner of public discussion:
- As Congress ponders what steps to take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, two UC Berkeley experts have issued a new report reminding us of the economic stakes to California. If no action is taken, report economist David Roland-Holst and his colleague Fredrich Kahrl, the combined cost to the state's energy, tourism, recreation, real estate, agriculture, forestry, fisheries and transportation sectors and to public health could range from $7 billion to $46 billion annually. In addition, trillions of dollars of assets are in jeopardy, mainly real estate at risk from fires or flooding.
- Japan, the country that hosted the Kyoto accords on greenhouse gas emissions, is at risk of missing its own emissions targets over the next four years, in part because an earthquake closed one of its biggest nuclear power plants last year. Japan must find ways of cutting CO2 emissions by 13.5 percent by 2012 to meet its target.
- More than 130 global investors, which collectively hold more than $6 trillion in assets, urged policymakers worldwide to implement measures that will reduce greenhouse gas emissions 50 to 80 percent by 2050. "As institutional investors, we are concerned with the risks presented by climate change to the global economy and to our diversified portfolios," said Mike Taylor, chief executive of London Pensions Fund Authority.
- 10 scientists from the United States, England and France reported in a new study that the world should aim for even lower CO2 levels in order to avert climate disasters. According to lead author James Hansen of Columbia University, "Following a path that leads to a lower CO2 amount, we can alleviate a number of problems that had begun to seem inevitable, such as increased storm intensities, expanded desertification, loss of coral reefs, and loss of mountain glaciers that supply fresh water to hundreds of millions of people."
- US defense and intelligence officials increasingly view climate change as a national security threat, according to the Washington Times. Among the many threats to U.S. personnel, equipment and installations is the danger of storm surges flooding 63 coastal military facilities and several nuclear reactors.
Nov 11 2008
In a much-discussed op-ed column in Monday's New York Times, Nobel laureate and former Vice President Al Gore declared his support for a crash program to modernize the nation's electrical system:
We should begin the planning and construction of a unified national smart grid for the transport of renewable electricity from the rural places where it is mostly generated to the cities where it is mostly used. New high-voltage, low-loss underground lines can be designed with "smart" features that provide consumers with sophisticated information and easy-to-use tools for conserving electricity, eliminating inefficiency and reducing their energy bills. The cost of this modern grid -- $400 billion over 10 years -- pales in comparison with the annual loss to American business of $120 billion due to the cascading failures that are endemic to our current balkanized and antiquated electricity lines.
Gore's vision sounds surprisingly similar to that expressed by the Bush administration's Department of Energy in its publication, Grid 2030:
The Nation's aging electro-mechanical electric grid cannot keep pace with innovations in the digital information and telecommunications network. Power outages and power quality disturbances cost the economy billions of dollars annually. America needs an electric superhighway to support our information superhighway.
Change of this magnitude requires unprecedented levels of cooperation among the electric power industry's many stakeholders. Hundreds of billions of dollars of investment will be needed over the coming decades to accomplish modernization of the electric system. National leadership is needed to create a shared vision of the future and to build effective public-private partnerships for getting there. Imagine the possibilities: electricity and information flowing together in real time, near-zero economic losses from outages and power quality disturbances, a wider array of customized energy choices, suppliers competing in open markets to provide the world's best electric services, and all of this supported by a new energy infrastructure built on superconductivity, distributed intelligence and resources, clean power, and the hydrogen economy.
But as DOE itself noted, "national leadership is needed" to turn vision into reality. President-elect Barack Obama says he's ready to step up to the plate. Here's what Obama told MSNBC host Rachel Maddow on October 30:
One of, I think, the most important infrastructure projects that we need is a whole new electricity grid. Because if we're going to be serious about renewable energy, I want to be able to get wind power from North Dakota to population centers, like Chicago. And we're going to have to have a smart grid if we want to use plug-in hybrids then we want to be able to have ordinary consumers sell back the electricity that's generated from those car batteries, back into the grid. That can create 5 million new jobs, just in new energy.
Nov 10 2008
The media rush to highlight every major new renewable power project, but another clean energy resource gets far less attention, even though it's flexible, abundant, relatively inexpensive and valued overall at billions of dollars.
According to a recent report by the North American Electric Reliability Council (NERC), this unheralded resource is equal to 29,000 megawatts of capacity during periods of peak summer demand--as much as all U.S. wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass power combined.
The report calls it "an effective and efficient capacity resource, on equal footing with generation" and says it "will become a critical resource for maintaining system reliability over the next ten years."
What's not to like? Only the name: "demand response." You've gotta love the way the utility industry chose such a dull term to hide one of its hottest products.
Simply put, according to Wikipedia, "demand response (DR) refers to mechanisms to manage the demand from customers in response to supply conditions, for example, having electricity customers reduce their consumption at critical times or in response to market prices."
In most markets, matching supply and demand is no big deal. If supply exceeds demand, sellers build up inventory and sooner or later cut their prices, prompting additional demand. Sellers also regularly adjust prices based on predictable changes in customer demand--think movie matinees or off-season travel discounts.
But until recently, electric utilities had no comparable way to change prices for most customers or to store inventory (excess electricity). Utilities could mainly affect the supply side, for example by ramping up or down infrequently used gas-fired "peaking" plants.
Demand response programs now give utilities a powerful new tool for balancing supply and demand. By encouraging customers to curb demand during periods of extreme peak loads, utilities--and ultimately customers themselves--can save the considerable cost of backup generation capacity that may be needed only a few dozen hours a year.
There are other benefits of demand response. System reliability benefits because generation and transmission capacity aren't stretched to the limit. The environment benefits from fewer power plant emissions. And, last but not least, demand response programs can help utilities manage renewable resources like wind power. When the wind dies down, getting customers to reduce their load can rebalance supply and demand efficiently.
As NERC said of demand response programs in a report issued today, "their critical role in supporting the integration of variable renewable resources will only increase their importance as climate change initiatives progress."
The total value of giving utilities nationwide the ability to shave just five percent off peak demand comes to $66 billion, according to estimates by Brattle Group consultant Ahmad Faruqui.
At PG&E, about 119,000 customers now take part in one of a dozen demand response programs. Together they can reduce the utility's peak load by as much as 1,246 megawatts, equal in capacity to about three sizeable gas-fired power plants that cost hundreds of millions of dollars to build.
One successful program, which launched last year, is called SmartAC. In return for a $25 incentive payment, customers let PG&E install a radio-controlled switch on their air conditioner or thermostat. During supply emergencies, when customer demand pushes the limits of our electric supply, PG&E can cycle those air conditioners off for brief intervals, preventing any risk of rolling blackouts. More than 9 in 10 customers in the SmartAC program say they never feel the difference.
Another innovative program is SmartRate. It is available to residential and small commercial customers with automated SmartMeter(tm) electric meters, which measure customer usage at frequent intervals-hourly for residential customers, and every 15 minutes for commercial customers. Participants enjoy a discount of 3 cents per kilowatt hour between May 1 and October 31--except a few days a year, when afternoon rates jump by 60 cents per kilowatt hour for residential customers, and by 75 cents per kilowatt hour for commercial customers. Simply by turning off appliances during those hours, no more than 15 days a year, customers and the utility both save money and spare the environment.
Smart entrepreneurs are finding ways to extend the reach of these programs. For example, Ice Energy, which just announced another successful funding round, sells air conditioning units that freeze water at night, when electric rates are low, and use the ice to cool buildings cheaply during the day. Its technology may let commercial buildings shift as much as 40 percent of peak energy demand to off-peak hours, when rates are cheaper.
Last year, Ice Energy and the City of Victorville won one of California's "Flex Your Power" awards. Ice Energy projected that the 31 cooling units it installed in municipal buildings would shift enough of Victorville's energy consumption to off-peak hours to reduce CO2 emissions by 335 tons and reduce NOX emissions by 985 pounds over the next five years.
NERC estimates that the growth of demand response programs through 2017 will slice about a year's worth of normal growth in summer demand. Combined with energy efficiency investments, peak demand growth will be slashed 80 percent over that period, it predicts.
Surely a high-achieving program like that deserves a name better than "demand response." Any nominations?
Nov 07 2008
This week brought more alarming reports from scientists about climate change, and more calls to action by government officials from around the world:
- Cornell University researchers studying oceans in the northern hemisphere say "the rate of warming we are seeing is unprecedented in human history" and is causing a "major ecosystem reorganization" in the North Atlantic. Their findings appear in the November 2008 issue of the journal Ecology.
- Global warming is apparently responsible for the rapid disappearance of Norwegian lemmings. These hamster-sized rodents traditionally exploded in numbers every three to five years, often requiring snowplows to clear their squashed bodies from the roads. Changing snow patterns have apparently disrupted their habitats, slashing their population and forcing predators like foxes and owls to find other species to hunt.
- At a climate conference opening today in Beijing, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao declared that "Developed countries shoulder the duty and responsibility to tackle climate change and should alter their unsustainable lifestyle." China is the world's largest emitter of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas.
- At the same conference, the top United Nations climate official, Yvo de Boer, expressed hope that the incoming Obama administration will tackle the challenge of climate change: "Obama is committed to the issue, is committed to developing a strong domestic policy, is committed to engaging in the international negotiations,'' he said. "Leadership from the U.S. on this issue can have a huge impact on the dynamics of these negotiations.''
Nov 06 2008
Getting an extra hour of sleep in the fall, thanks to Daylight Saving Time (DST), is one of life's little pleasures. Sadly, according to two UC Santa Barbara scholars, it turns out to be a guilty pleasure--one that increases energy consumption and creates more pollution.
The United States first adopted DST--starting in World Wars I and II--as a means of saving energy, not as a policy to promote agriculture as sometimes assumed. It was expanded most recently in 2007, following the Energy Policy Act of 2005. More than 1.6 billion people in 76 countries now fumble with their clocks twice a year to practice DST.
But does it achieve its goal? Past research has been scant and inconclusive. Sorting out the specific effects of DST on energy use, separate from all other factors, is like finding the proverbial needle in a haystack.
But in a new paper for the UC Energy Institute, researchers Matthew Kotchen and Laura Grant take advantage of the fact that for many years some counties in Indiana practiced DST while many others did not. In 2006, following federal law, all counties adopted DST. By comparing energy use over time between counties, with and without DST, they were able to detect the program's real impact.
It turns out that DST increases residential electricity demand, most notably in the fall. The extra bill comes to about $9 million a year for Indiana households. Pollution increases as well. Apparently, by changing the time when people are likely to be at home, any reduction in lighting is more than offset by increased demand for heating and cooling. This effect, the researchers conclude, is likely to be even worse in the southern United States due to widespread use of air conditioning.
Nov 05 2008
Are solar cells really as "clean" as they're cracked up to be? Like most things, it all depends on whether you wash them or not.
Petaluma-based OCS Energy, Inc. has just introduced a product it calls SolarWash, touted as "the first commercially available automated photovoltaic (PV) panel cleaning system."
OCS Energy warns that the build-up of dirt over several months can cut power production from a solar cell array by as much as 25 percent. Taking its marketing cues from Proctor and Gamble, the company notes that in addition to dirt, PV system operators must also worry about "dust, tree debris, moss, sap, bugs, bird droppings, water spots, mold, and more."
Using microprocessor-controlled spray nozzles, the SolarWash system promises to maximize solar efficiency while saving on labor costs. It even comes with a web-based interface, something your garden watering system should no doubt incorporate as well.
Farther down the road, another technological breakthrough promises to shed even more light on solar cells. Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute say they have discovered a new antireflective coating that allows solar panels to absorb 96 percent of all light that falls on them. Typical untreated silicon cells today absorb only 67 percent of available light, wasting the rest.
By absorbing radiation from a wide variety of angles and broad spectrum of frequencies (infrared through ultraviolet), the nanocoating promises to dramatically increase the efficiency of electricity generation from PV installations.
Nov 04 2008
Rainforests have long been known as remarkable natural laboratories of life-saving and life-enhancing medicinal drugs (not to mention some mind-expanding illegal drugs as well). Now it turns out they may be natural laboratories for biodiesel fuels that could potentially power clean cars and trucks.
Montana State University's Gary Strobel says his team of researchers has discovered a fungus that breaks down plant cellulose directly into diesel compounds without any added enzymes or extra steps. The fungus lives in the Ulmo tree in the Patagonian rainforest.
Strobel said of their discovery, "The results were totally unexpected and very exciting and almost every hair on my arms stood on end."
The team is now working on steps to make the biodiesel production process commercially viable. They'll have competition from another rainforest inhabitant, a freshwater species of green algae discovered in Thailand. One Thai scientist estimated that a commercial farm of this algae could produce as much as 136,900 liters of oil per hectare.
Researchers had better move fast to investigate the remaining riches of the rainforest. By some estimates, 80,000 acres of rainforest are burned, plowed or otherwise destroyed every single day.
Oct 31 2008
Scientists this week issued a number of disturbing new reports about climate change, but the news brought glimmers of hope as well:
- Millions of tons of methane, an extremely potent greenhouse gas, entered the Earth's atmosphere in 2007 for reasons yet unknown, MIT scientists reported. Methane, which traps about 25 times much heat as carbon dioxide, today accounts for about a fifth of human-caused global warming. Sources of methane include rice paddies and wetlands, the oil and gas industries, and cattle.
- Frogs and salamanders are dying out in Yellowstone National Park at a frightening pace due to global warming, according to Stanford researchers. High temperatures and droughts are drying up the ponds they need for reproduction.
- Walden Pond, made famous by writer and philosopher Henry David Thoreau as a natural haven, has in the past century and a half lost more than a quarter of the species documented by Thoreau, according to a report in the latest Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. Another 36 percent of species that existed in his time are in danger of disappearing. The culprit appears to be temperatures that have warmed an average of more than 4 degrees Fahrenheit over the past century.
- Within four decades, Sydney's famous beaches, coastal homes and other infrastructure may be eroded or inundated by rising sea levels triggered by global warming, according to an Australian government-sponsored study.
- Can you spare a dollar a day to save the planet? Another Australian government study--this time by the Treasury--concludes that greenhouse gas emissions can be rolled back through carbon trading schemes at a cost to households of only $7 a week more for electricity and gas. Real disposable income would continue growing about 1 percent per year. "What this modelling absolutely shows is there is a way ahead which is both pro-growth and pro-jobs," the Treasurer said. "The Australian economy will continue strong growth while reducing emissions. The earlier Australia acts, the cheaper the cost of action, and many of Australia's industries will become more, not less, competitive."
- More and more American businesses are beginning to acknowledge the material significance of climate change risks. After a deal brokered by former US Vice President Al Gore and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo, Houston-based Dynegy announced it would provide information on its carbon footprint and related risks in its annual reports. Dynegy, which operates power plants in 13 states, is reportedly one of the largest consumers of coal in the United States.
Oct 30 2008
If you're an olive lover, don't throw out those pesky pits: in the right hands, they could be a valuable new source of energy (or moonshine), according to Spanish researchers.
According to a study published in the Journal of Chemical Technology & Biotechnology, olive stones are rich in natural chemicals that can be converted to sugar and then to ethanol. The process uses high-pressure hot water to produce the sugar and yeast fermentation to produce ethanol.
For every 100 kilograms of olive stones you save, count on being able to produce 5.7 kilograms of ethanol with the right equipment. Just be sure to check with your spouse before making any plans.
Oct 27 2008
Despite its preference for the color green, the U.S. Army isn't the first organization that usually comes to mind when you think of environmental sustainability. But with annual spending of at least $3 billion on energy, the army says it's getting serious about energy efficiency and more sustainable energy production.
In addition to appointing a Senior Energy Council to advise the Army on energy policy, programs and funding, the secretary of the Army recently announced several new projects, including:
- the purchase of 4,000 small Neighborhood Electric Vehicles to replace gasoline-powered vehicles traditionally used by maintenance and operations staff for use on its posts;
- a major geothermal project at Hawthorne Army Depot, Nev., capable of producing 30 megawatts of clean power;
- biomass fuel demonstrations at six Army posts;
- a pilot energy savings performance contract with the private sector to serve as a model for monitoring and reducing energy consumption;
- and perhaps most exciting, a plan to partner with the private sector to construct a 500 megawatt solar thermal plant at Fort Irwin, Calif., in the Mojave Desert, to provide renewable power on the grid and provide the Army post with added energy security against disruption of power supply.
The Army's planned solar power installation enjoys a unique advantage: the Army owns its site and can thus streamline the permit process. Many solar pioneers are reportedly facing long and costly permit delays for projects on parcels controlled by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. Oakland-based BrightSource Energy has warned that if the review process isn't speeded up, delays could send "a chilling signal to large-scale solar developers and their investors."
Oct 24 2008
Bakersfield, California, sometimes called "the city that oil built," yesterday celebrated its commitment to what may well become the 21st century's leading rival to fossil-fuel energy: solar power.
At a Bakersfield ceremony attended by California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and PG&E Chairman, CEO and President Peter Darbee, Palo Alto-based Ausra, Inc. unveiled the first solar thermal energy plant built in California in nearly 20 years.
The 5-megawatt (MW) Kimberlina demonstration plant, with its thousand-foot long mirrors, uses the same core technology that Ausra plans to install a couple of years from now in a 177-MW plant east of San Luis Obispo that will serve tens of thousands of PG&E customers.
Ausra's Compact Linear Fresnel Reflector (CLFR) solar technology focuses heat from the sun's rays to create steam to power steam turbine generators, much like traditional power plants, but without use of fossil fuels or harmful emissions.
PG&E's Darbee called the opening of the Kimberlina plant "an important step on the path to commercialization of this new technology."
He also underscored the importance of making continued investments in clean energy projects, despite the nation's difficult economic straits, in order to fight the enormous challenge of climate change.
"I want to restate our commitment as PG&E . . . that we will not take our eye off the ball, that we will continue to pursue energy efficiency, we will continue to pursue demand management, we will continue to pursue renewables," Darbee said.
Commenting on the financial risks that could delay new investments in clean energy projects, Darbee added, "PG&E stands ready, as we were before, to take on the challenge of financing renewables, to work with people c