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." 
  

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

• California is beginning the new year with a requirement for new 2009 cars sold in the state to display a sticker that shows information on the vehicle's environmental impact. The sticker will provide a global warming score and a smog score on a 1-to-10 scale, with 10 the best score and 5 the average. The California Air Resources Board has set up a consumer Website with more information on the cleanest and most efficient cars.
• Toyota Motor Corp. is said to be secretly developing a solar-powered car. Toyota is working on an electric vehicle that will get some of its power from solar cells equipped on the vehicle, and that can be recharged with electricity generated from solar panels on the roofs of homes, Japan's Nikkei newspaper says. Toyota also plans a car powered totally by solar cells on the vehicle.
• Two electric utilities in Europe are offering their customers plans to purchase carbon-free electricity generated at nuclear power plants. Germany's R.W.E. utility is marketing a purchase plan that promises customers 70 percent of their power will come from nuclear generation with the remainder from hydroelectricity and renewable energies. Finland's Fortum power company offers two plans for business customers in Finland and Sweden -- Fortum Carbon Free, a mix of nuclear and hydropower, and Fortum Renewable, a blend of renewable resources.

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 . . . 

As reported by William Brent, on his Search for Cleantech blog, the term 'green' finally made Lake Superior State University's list of four-letter words for 2008 -- officially, the 34th annual List of Words to Be Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-use, Over-use and General Uselessness.

But, this isn't the first time 'green' has suffered a black eye from overuse.

According to Wikipedia, initial backlash came more than 20 years ago, when suburban New York environmentalist Jay Westerveld coined the term 'greenwashing' in an essay about hotel green placards, promoting reuse of guest towels to "save the environment." In hindsight, this infraction seems relatively mild compared to some of the cases of greenwashing we have seen since then.

From my cube here at PG&E, located squarely at the intersection of communications and energy, I have unique insight into this issue. It is truly embedded into our day-to-day work -- ensuring there is substance in the promotion of our environmental efforts and transparency in communications about potential environmental issues. For example, we try to make sure customers know the energy efficiency benefits of CFLs, but also about their mercury content and the need to dispose of them properly to mitigate potential environmental impacts. PG&E's Corporate Responsibility Report has more on our environmental efforts.

Now, back to the list...

Other environmental buzzwords on the naughty list for 2008 are 'carbon footprint' and 'carbon offsetting.' Not surprisingly, 'maverick' topped the list for campaign-speak. But, perhaps more amusing than the list itself are the quotes testifying to the unctuousness of each word.

My personal favorite comes from Ed Hardiman of Bristow, Va.:

"If I see one more corporation declare itself 'green,' I'm going to start burning tires in my backyard."

Yikes. Here's hoping for no tire fires in 2009.

(Note: William Brent and I worked together at PR/IR firm Weber Shandwick, where he started the firm's cleantech practice.)

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?

 

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?

 

 

 

 

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

• United Parcel Service is adding bicycles during the holiday season to deliver packages to customers in six states, saving fuel and maintenance costs. UPS ran a pilot bicycle-delivery program in Maine and New Hampshire in 2007 and expanded this year to California, Oregon, Washington and Tennessee. A bike and trailer can deliver only 15 to 20 packages on a single run, but UPS estimates that for every three bikes on the road during the peak season it will save 17 gallons of fuel per day and $38,000 in vehicle maintenance costs. The UPS fleet, which experimented with electric trucks in New York City in the 1930s, also includes alternative fuel vehicles and seven new hydraulic hybrid trucks for more fuel economy and fewer greenhouse gas emissions.
• In other transportation developments, Japan has launched the first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power. The 60,213-tonne freighter -- the Auriga Leader -- is equipped with 328 solar panels to generate 40 kilowatts of electricity to support lighting and the crew quarters. This is a tiny fraction of the energy the ship needs, but the developers -- Nippon Yusen K.K. and Nippon Oil Corp. -- hope to increase seagoing solar power. The vessel will carry Toyota vehicles to customers overseas.
• The "smart grid" has arrived, sort of. During a recent power outage in an ice storm in Massachusetts, a man converted his Toyota Prius car into an emergency generator to power his home for three days. John Sweeney wired a DC to AC inverter into his Prius to run his refrigerator, freezer, TV, woodstove fan and several lights on five gallons of gas. "The device allowed the engine to run every half hour, automatically charging the car battery and indirectly supplying the required power," according to the local newspaper.

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.

If you're a proud procrastinator it's likely you haven't even begun to think about your holiday shopping. Well, at least you're not alone. According to a new National Retail Federation survey, as of late last week about 44.5 million people, or 20 percent of holiday shoppers, hadn't started yet. So in honor of all you laggards Next100 presents this list of environmentally friendly gift resources:

• Treehugger Holiday Gift Guide 2008
• The Huffington Post's Green Gift Guide: Low-Impact, Eco-Friendly Ideas for the Holidays
• Natural Resources Defense Council's Great Green Gift Guide
• CNET Reviews' Green Gift Guide
• Grist's Lean, Green Giving
• Co-op America's Holiday Green Gift Catalog
• U.S. News' Green Gift Guide: For Friends and Coworkers
• Inhabitat's Green Gift Guide: Cheap Gifts Under $20
• CNBC's Green Gift Guide
• Earth 911's Gift Guide 2008
• Clean Technica's Holiday Gift Guide: The 8 Best Green Gadget Gifts

The amount of solar energy PG&E will deliver to its customer in 2009 just increased today with our purchase of 10 megawatts of thin-film photovoltaic (PV) solar energy from Sempra Generation. Sempra Generation's El Dorado Energy Solar facility is located in Nevada on 80 acres of desert property designated as a renewable energy zone and adjacent to the company's existing gas-fired power plant. Completed today, this solar facility is expected to begin renewable power deliveries to PG&E by January 1, 2009.

In addition to being PG&E's first contracted solar project to come online, Sempra Generation can now boast of having the largest thin-film solar power installation in North America. The facility features more than 167,000 of First Solar's PV modules. A Pacific Crest equity analyst claims that First Solar has achieved the elusive goal of grid-parity with conventional power when measuring cost on a kilowatt-hour basis.

Although there are some reports that the solar industry will be shaky in 2009, Fast Company's comprehensive look at the industry's leap into the mainstream shows there are many bright spots as well.  

For those interested in solar on the home, TIME reported today that engineering company CH2M Hill is partnering with the U.S. Department of Energy to provide Internet solar maps of 25 American cities, using Google Earth technology. The maps will allow homeowners to plug in their address to pull up detailed information on their estimated solar energy potential, utility bill savings and all available incentives, among other things. San Francisco is the first city to be completed and you can check out its solar map here.