Groundsource Geothermal

Geothermal in Politics

2010-06-11T01:14:00.000-07:00

How's that Offshore Drilling Working for You?

2010-05-03T12:13:00.001-07:00

ASHRAE Report Confirms Funk in Cooling Towers

2010-04-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

ATLANTA –New research supported by ASHRAE indicates that non-chemical devices (NCD) marketed to control the growth of biological agents, such as Legionella in cooling towers, may not materially reduce biological growth.

Research project No. 1361, Biological Control in Cooling Towers Using Non-Chemical Water Treatment Devices, a two-year project recently completed by Dr. Radisav Vidic at the University of Pittsburgh, evaluated five non-chemical devices using different technologies to control biological activity in a model cooling-tower system. The devices studied included a hydrodynamic cavitation device, pulsed and static electric field devices, an ultra-sonic device and a magnetic device.

In Dr. Vidic’s research, none of the non-chemical devices measurably reduced planktonic or sessile microbial populations in comparison to no-treatment tests and to a conventional chemical microbial control treatment protocol. The findings appear to be inconsistent with previous research by non-chemical device manufacturers and some independent researchers on some of the same devices tested in the ASHRAE study. Those other studies reported measurable degrees of biological control within the parameters of testing conducted.

“These results suggest that equipment operators, building owners and engineers should consider taking more frequent water sample tests for their systems that rely on NCDs for biological control. If the testing shows an issue, one possible measure is to add chemical treatment capability to their system to prevent a potential health hazard from developing until additional research and field testing can resolve this question,” according to Dr. Vidic .

The study results are still subject to final approval by the sponsoring technical committee, TC 3.6 – Water Treatment. ASHRAE anticipates formal approval and the release of the final report for this project at its 2010 Annual Meeting Conference in June. Original link here.

Full iPad Coverage: Nobel Prize, Blenderizing, Fake Steve Jobs Letter

2010-04-05T14:05:00.000-07:00

iPad™ Wins Nobel Peace Prize,
First Electronic Device to Win, Experts Say

OSLO, NORWAY (The Borowitz Report) – In a remarkable break with tradition, the committee that awards the Nobel Peace Prize chose today to bestow that coveted honor on the Apple iPad™.

It was believed to be the first time an electronic device has won the Peace Prize, which is usually awarded to a human being, experts say.

“We didn’t want to fall prey to all of the hype surrounding the iPad™,” said Nobel committee chairperson Gustav Traavik, who waited at the Apple store in Oslo for over two hours to buy the device. “But it is sweet.”

In the twenty-four hours since it was released, the iPad™ has been credited with an impressive list of accomplishments, including saving the newspaper industry, the publishing business, and Tiger Woods’ marriage.

In other news...

And finally, an open letter to the people of the world from Fake Steve Jobs.

The Green Bank for Green Jobs

2010-03-25T22:31:00.000-07:00

The Green Bank and Green Jobs

Happy World Water Day

2010-03-23T10:34:00.000-07:00

More info here.

ZERO Charger a Stake Through the Heart of Vampire Power

2010-03-19T10:11:00.000-07:00

By BC Upham | Triple Pundit

No, it’s not an euphemism for a two-year-old cellphone battery. The new ZERO Charger from AT&T, in stores in May, automatically cuts off the electrical circuit when not charging, eliminating wasted electricity, also known as “vampire power.”

The US Department of Energy estimates internal and external adapters burn through about 120 billion kilowatt hours (kWh) per year of electricity wasted as heat, costing consumers more than $12 billion in electric bills.

Why don’t we have these already?

The ZERO charger, which AT&T calls a “global first,” incorporates a circuit which senses when the charged device is disconnected and breaks the electrical circuit. The “block and cable” design gives it universal compatibility, and AT&T said the ZERO will cost the same as existing replacement chargers.
The ZERO will come in recycled paper packaging, part of AT&T efforts to reduce the amount of waste in its product packaging.

More good news on the charger front

In February, the GSMA announced a deal with major cellphone manufacturers to introduce a single standard for power adapters by 2012, eliminating the need to have a different adapter for each brand of handset. The new standard could have a huge positive environmental impact, reducing the amount of plastic wasted on those little black boxes worldwide.

Corporations Can Now Run for Congress

2010-03-16T20:24:00.000-07:00

Earthquake in Chile Knocks Earth Rotation, May Have Shortened Days

2010-03-01T18:58:00.000-08:00

From NASA.gov:
The Feb. 27 magnitude 8.8 earthquake in Chile may have shortened the length of each Earth day.
JPL research scientist Richard Gross computed how Earth's rotation should have changed as a result of the Feb. 27 quake. Using a complex model, he and fellow scientists came up with a preliminary calculation that the quake should have shortened the length of an Earth day by about 1.26 microseconds (a microsecond is one millionth of a second).
Perhaps more impressive is how much the quake shifted Earth's axis. Gross calculates the quake should have moved Earth's figure axis (the axis about which Earth's mass is balanced) by 2.7 milliarcseconds (about 8 centimeters, or 3 inches). Earth’s figure axis is not the same as its north-south axis; they are offset by about 10 meters (about 33 feet).
By comparison, Gross said the same model estimated the 2004 magnitude 9.1 Sumatran earthquake should have shortened the length of day by 6.8 microseconds and shifted Earth's axis by 2.32 milliarcseconds (about 7 centimeters, or 2.76 inches).
Gross said that even though the Chilean earthquake is much smaller than the Sumatran quake, it is predicted to have changed the position of the figure axis by a bit more for two reasons. First, unlike the 2004 Sumatran earthquake, which was located near the equator, the 2010 Chilean earthquake was located in Earth's mid-latitudes, which makes it more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis. Second, the fault responsible for the 2010 Chiliean earthquake dips into Earth at a slightly steeper angle than does the fault responsible for the 2004 Sumatran earthquake. This makes the Chile fault more effective in moving Earth's mass vertically and hence more effective in shifting Earth's figure axis.
Gross said the Chile predictions will likely change as data on the quake are further refined.

Alan Buis

818-354-0880

Andromeda Galaxy...now in blue

2010-02-18T08:49:00.000-08:00

NASA has just released the first images from its Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). WISE's primary mission is to survey the entire sky in infrared, though it's also tasked with tracking asteroids, comets, and other objects.
Here the shortest-wavelength camera on WISE highlights the Andromeda galaxy's older stellar population in blue.

Snowpocalypse or Snowmaggedon?

2010-02-16T09:32:00.000-08:00

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this true-color image on February 7, 2010, showing part of the region affected by heavy snowfall. Snow blankets the area hundreds of kilometers inland from the Atlantic coastline. Along the latitude of New York City, however, snow cover thins considerably. More here.

Spot the Trend?

2010-02-12T19:42:00.000-08:00

Geothermal Heat Pump Shipments by Tons, 2004-2008

From the DOE's EIA Report

Who Dat?

2010-02-08T15:57:00.000-08:00

-Taylor Davidson

Ramping Up for Clean Energy

2010-02-05T15:04:00.000-08:00

OK, on a commercial roll here, but at least this one's about the upcoming energy policy cage match. You never know, we might win one sometime...

Best Commercial Ever?

2010-01-29T11:37:00.000-08:00

This is Super Bowl week, which means commercials are front and center. This one will not be airing, but should.

Dollars and No Sense: Money = Free Speech, Zombies Rule

2010-01-21T23:42:00.001-08:00

“A corporation is an artificial being, invisible, intangible, and existing only in contemplation of law. Being the mere creature of law, it possesses only those properties which the charter of its creation confers upon it.”
--Chief Justice John Marshall in in Dartmouth College v. Woodward

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company was a United States Supreme Court case dealing with taxation of railroad properties. The case is most notable for the obiter dictum statement that corporations are entitled to protection under the Fourteenth Amendment.

At the California Constitutional Convention of 1878-79, the state legislature drew up a new constitution that denied railroads "the right to deduct the amount of their debts [i.e., mortgages] from the taxable value of their property, a right which was given to individuals." Southern Pacific Railroad Company refused to pay taxes under these new changes. The taxpaying railroads challenged this law, based on a conflicting federal statute of 1866 which gave them privileges inconsistent with state taxation.

San Mateo County, along with neighboring counties, filed suit against the railroads to recoup the massive losses in tax revenue stemming from Southern Pacific's refusal to pay. After hearing arguments in San Mateo County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company, the California Supreme Court sided with the county. Using the Jurisdiction and Removal Act of 1875, a law created so black litigants could bypass hostile southern state courts if they were denied justice, Southern Pacific was able to appeal all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The decisions reached by the Supreme Court are promulgated to the legal community by way of books called United States Reports. Preceding every case entry is a headnote, a short summary in which a court reporter summarizes the opinion as well as outlining the main facts and arguments. For example, in U.S. v. Detroit Timber and Lumber (1905), headnotes are defined as "not the work of the Court, but are simply the work of the Reporter, giving his understanding of the decision, prepared for the convenience of the profession."

Bancroft Davis, the Court Reporter and former president of Newburgh and New York Railway, wrote the following as part of the headnote for the case:

"The court does not wish to hear argument on the question whether the provision in the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which forbids a State to deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws, applies to these corporations. We are all of the opinion that it does."

In other words, corporations enjoyed the same rights under the Fourteenth Amendment as did natural persons. However, this issue is absent from the court's opinion itself and in fact is not at all representative of the court's opinion.

The rest is history.

A Day to Remember

2010-01-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

"Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever affects one directly affects all indirectly."

-- Martin Luther King in "Letter from a Birmingham Jail"

Help Haiti Through Partners in Health

2010-01-15T09:59:00.000-08:00

Tracy Kidder is a journalist I greatly admire. His book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, chronicles Paul Farmer and his Partners in Health organization, which has twenty years of service experience in Haiti. There is an old Haitian proverb of “Beyond mountains there are mountains”—as you solve one problem, another problem presents itself, and so you go on and try to solve that one too.

Haiti has no shortage of mountainous problems. Please support Partners in Health's efforts by clicking through to their Stand with Haiti link and donating what you can.

Doomsday Clock Setback

2010-01-14T22:47:00.000-08:00

Doomsday Clock Moves 1 Minute Back

By Larry Greenemeier Scientific American

The human race can breathe a tiny bit easier (but not too much) now that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has moved the hand of its Doomsday Clock one minute farther away from midnight, the time which symbolizes catastrophic destruction and the apocalyptic end of civilization. The clock now reads six minutes from that end-of-days witching hour after it was changed during a press conference Thursday in New York City, citing an increased awareness and interest in stopping key threats to humanity (in particular nuclear conflict and global warming) since U.S. President Barack Obama took office about a year ago.

But the Bulletin, a group established shortly after World War II by the likes of Albert Einstein and J. Robert Oppenheimer, tempered its actions with the major caveat that humankind could slip closer to oblivion again if the world's governments do not follow through on promises made to curb the creation of more nuclear weapons and greenhouse gases. Although the Bulletin was originally formed out of concern for global nuclear annihilation, the group has since broadened its purview to include the world's vulnerability to climate change.
MORE

East Coast Blizzard Seen From Space

2009-12-22T09:51:00.000-08:00

From Betsy Mason, Wired Science blog

NASA’s Aqua satellite took this image centered on Washington, D.C., on Sunday with its MODIS instrument.

The image covers 300 miles lengthwise. The two big rivers near the center are the Susquehanna (to the north) and Potomac rivers, which run into Chesapeake Bay. Washington, D.C., sits alongside the Potomac, just north of the river’s hook-shaped curve. The inlet to the north is Delaware Bay.
Higher-resolution image from NASA

Nopenhagen Protesters Stage Mass Rally

2009-12-17T23:49:00.000-08:00

Special thanks to Bridgit Koller

NPR on Ball State

2009-12-10T10:47:00.000-08:00

All Things Considered feature on Ball State's campus-wide, 50 building, $80 million effort to displace their daily 130-tons of coal habit.
Link here.

An Affordable Truth

2009-12-07T12:11:00.000-08:00

Good Krugman column today (may require sign in) on optimism at start of COP15. Some notable excerpts:

The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential. Serious studies say that we can achieve sharp reductions in emissions with only a small impact on the economy’s growth. And the depressed economy is no reason to wait — on the contrary, an agreement in Copenhagen would probably help the economy recover.

and...

Still, should we be starting a project like this when the economy is depressed? Yes, we should — in fact, this is an especially good time to act, because the prospect of climate-change legislation could spur more investment spending.
Consider, for example, the case of investment in office buildings. Right now, with vacancy rates soaring and rents plunging, there’s not much reason to start new buildings. But suppose that a corporation that already owns buildings learns that over the next few years there will be growing incentives to make those buildings more energy-efficient. Then it might well decide to start the retrofitting now, when construction workers are easy to find and material prices are low.

Periodic Table Cupcakes

2009-11-29T16:04:00.000-08:00

An idea whose time has come. From neatorama.com.

Clean Tech Open Gala

2009-11-15T13:54:00.000-08:00

The Cleantech Open is the world's largest Cleantech Business Competition. They're running an amazing Expo and Awards Gala at the Masonic Center in San Francisco this coming Tuesday, November 17th. You need to be there!

The details:
* Expo from 10am to 2pm - showcasing cleantech from innovators throughout the US and ideas from around the world
* Awards Gala from 2pm to 6pm - technology demonstrations and speakers
* Networking Reception from 6pm to 8pm.

There will be networking all day, and speeches from Bill Weihl - Green Czar at Google, Lesa Mitchell - VP of Innovation at Kauffman Foundation, Gil Friend - CEO of Natural Logic, Steve Westly - CEO of Westly Group and Marc Stanley - Deputy Director of the National Institutes of Standards and Technology. Outstanding speakers, all.

The Cleantech Open is a nonprofit and the Awards Gala is intended as a fundraiser. Tickets normally go for $129 and up – but I have some discounted tickets which will give you a 40% reduction – just click this link: www.cleantechopen.com/gala

Greenbuild Phoenix

2009-11-15T13:38:00.000-08:00

Great, big (30k?), inspiring event. Real nice to meet people on the other side of the conference call, but real nice to be back home.

Long time, no talk...

2009-11-03T11:59:00.000-08:00

A few pictures to put things in perspective: A Hubble mosaic of the Crab Nebula, the remains of a "tremendous" stellar explosion. According to NASA, observers in China and Japan recorded the supernova nearly 1,000 years ago, in 1054.

More here.

Energy Star Not in Alignment?

2009-10-19T08:35:00.000-07:00

Energy Star Appliances May Not All Be Efficient, Audit Finds

By MATTHEW L. WALD

Published: October 18, 2009
New York Times

WASHINGTON — The Energy Department has concluded in an internal audit that it does not properly track whether manufacturers that give their appliances an Energy Star label have met the required specifications for energy efficiency.

Some manufacturers could therefore be putting the stickers on unqualified products, according to the audit, by the Energy Department’s inspector general, Gregory H. Friedman.

The Energy Star program, jointly managed by the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency, has benefited from a renewed emphasis by the Obama administration, as a mechanism for reducing the waste of energy and curbing resulting greenhouse gas emissions. Under the federal stimulus bill, $300 million will go to rebates for consumers who buy Energy Star products.

Some consumers choose energy-efficient appliances for the same reason they might choose a car with good fuel economy: to save money or reduce the environmental impact.

Teams from the Energy Department and the E.P.A. oversee different categories of products. Last December, the environmental agency’s inspector general said the Energy Star ratings for products it oversees, like computers and television sets, were “not accurate or verifiable” because of weak oversight by the agency.

The Energy Department vowed then to scrutinize its performance in evaluating the products that it oversees, like windows, dishwashers, washing machines and refrigerators.

The new audit, a copy of which was obtained by The New York Times, indicates that the Energy Department has also fallen far short. Those shortcomings “could reduce consumer confidence in the integrity of the Energy Star label,” according to the department’s inspector general. The audit is to be submitted to Energy Secretary Steven Chu this week. While the Energy Department requires manufacturers of windows and L.E.D. and fluorescent lighting to have independent laboratories evaluate their products, the report said, companies that make refrigerators, washing machines, dishwashers, water heaters and room air-conditioners, which consume far more energy, can certify those appliances themselves.

The Industrial Revolution, Carbon and Warming

2009-09-05T14:30:00.000-07:00

Abrupt reversal detected in Arctic cooling trend

David Perlman, SF Chronicle Science Editor

The Arctic climate has been warmer over the past decade than during any 10-year period in 2,000 years, according to a study by an international research team that adds powerful new evidence that human-generated greenhouse gases have speeded the pace of the planet's recent warming.

The report from an international team of climate scientists concludes that climate change in the Arctic has accelerated since the Industrial Revolution, abruptly reversing a long-term worldwide cooling trend.

"The study provides a clear example of how increased greenhouse gases are now changing our climate," said Caspar Ammann of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo., a co-author of the report published Thursday in the journal Science.

To deduce the Arctic's decade-by-decade climate trend over the centuries, the leading scientists in the international study analyzed sediment cores in 14 Arctic lakes that revealed the varied growth rates of long-buried plants. They also studied Arctic tree rings to determine their growth rates and ages as well as ice cores from glaciers across the Arctic that showed patterns of relative warm and cold.

Read more.

A late 19th century postcard shows the Muir glacier in Alaska's Glacier Bay.

But a 2005 photo of the area shows water.

Al Franken Explains It All For You

2009-09-05T08:50:00.001-07:00

Single molecule, one million times smaller than a grain of sand, pictured for first time

2009-08-29T20:26:00.000-07:00

It may look like a piece of honeycomb, but this lattice-shaped image is the first ever close-up view of a single molecule.

Scientists from IBM used an atomic force microscope (AFM) to reveal the chemical bonds within a molecule.

'This is the first time that all the atoms in a molecule have been imaged,' lead researcher Leo Gross said.

The researchers focused on a single molecule of pentacene, which is commonly used in solar cells. The rectangular-shaped organic molecule is made up of 22 carbon atoms and 14 hydrogen atoms.

In the image above the hexagonal shapes of the five carbon rings are clear and even the positions of the hydrogen atoms around the carbon rings can be seen.

To give some perspective, the space between the carbon rings is only 0.14 nanometers across, which is roughly one million times smaller than the diameter of a grain of sand.

Potter Drilling Gets Wired

2009-08-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

GroundSource Geo spun off from noted deep drilling hotbed Potter Drilling and enjoys a special relationship with the crew there even though you cannot fit everyone in one car to go to lunch anymore. So it with certain pride that we see that the guys (and Tina) of Potter are now "cool" having been feted in Wired Magazine. Here's what they say in this month's issue:

The process of punching a well hasn't changed in a century. The search for oil, gas, or water may extend more than 7 miles, but it's still done with a tricone bit—three grinding cones angled inward and downward, with spinning teeth. This system is effective at crushing and shearing, but every time a bit wears out, engineers have to "trip" the drill: They bring the head to the surface, change it, and send it back down. A lot of drilling time is actually tripping time, which means a project's cost goes up exponentially with depth. So researchers are developing replacement technologies to reach superheated water for geothermal power or stretch down to previously inaccessible fossil fuel. Here are a few ideas for parts that will be greater than the hole.

The Next Drills

Hydrothermal Spallation
Potter Drilling of California uses jets of superheated fluid to break through granite five times faster than traditional techniques, which don't do well against hard rock types. The first field test of the technology is scheduled for next year in the Sierra Nevada.

First LEED PLatinum Geo-cooled Data Center

2009-08-16T10:23:00.000-07:00

August 13th, 2009 : Rich Miller, DataCenterKnowledge.com
Special thanks to Daniel Bernstein at Gaia Geo

Geothermal cooling systems haven’t been widely used in data centers. One of the first implementations we’ve come across is a new data center for American College Testing in Iowa City, Iowa that has been awarded Platinum certification in the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, a voluntary rating system for energy efficient buildings overseen by the US Green Building Council.The ACT facility becomes the first data center in the U.S. to complete LEED Platinum certification. A Citigroup data center in Germany has earned Platinum status, while Advanced Data Centers in Sacramento has been pre-certified for Platinum status.

The ACT data center opened in February 2008 and features 4,000 square feet of raised-floor data center space within an 8,000 square foot building. The facility is cooled by a geothermal “bore field” - a system of vertical holes drilled into the earth’s surface which house a closed-loop piping system filled with water and/or coolant. The cool earth allows the underground piping system serves as a heat exchanger. The ACT data center also has an exterior dry cooler as a backup to the geothermal system.

The building’s other environmentally-friendly attributes include a high performance HVAC system, 30% recycled content during construction, and numerous renewable materials used in the interior design.

“Sustainability was the name of the game for this project, both environmental sustainable design and the ability of the data center to sustain a disaster. The most gratifying aspect of the project is that none of the sustainable design strategies diminish the building’s ability to perform its primary functions,” said ACT Assistant Vice President of Central Services Tom Struve. “In fact, several of the sustainable traits actually aid in the building’s value and functionality.”

John Rath contributed to the preparation of this article.

Popular Science GreenDream House

2009-08-14T18:07:00.000-07:00

Special thanks to Brad Borgman from the TWT Group.
Putting the Earth to Work: John B. Carnett, PopSci’s staff photographer, is using the latest green technology to build his dream home in the appropriately-named town of Greenwich, N.Y. Lots of nice, innovative features besides the ground source heat pump, including a new kind of structural insulating panel from Kama Energy Efficient Building Systems of Las Vegas. They custom-make the rigid panels out of light-gauge metal studs and a special type of expanded polystyrene called Neopor that's non-toxic, fully recyclable and blended with graphite to lock out heat, moisture and mold. Carnett's home is the first in the U.S. to incorporate Kama's new panels. They cost about 5 percent less than a stick frame would have, but they're reportedly much more energy-efficient.

Why do we need health-care reform? Everything is just fine the way it is.

2009-08-02T13:09:00.001-07:00

Jonathan Alter explains it all for you.

An Advertisement for Myself

2009-07-29T19:19:00.000-07:00

"Groundsourcing" the Carbon Problem
HCSF Clean Tech Thought Leader Series

Ground, Ice & Water - a networking event and panel discussion on the positive power of "Negatherms" and the role that ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and allied thermal transfer techniques like ice storage and water-gridding can play to significantly reduce energy demand throughout the built environment.

Where: University Club, 800 Powell Street, San Francisco
When: Thursday, August 6th, 2009
6:30-7:00 pm - Dinner
7:00-8:30 pm - Talk and Q&A
Who: Energy innovators focused on new solutions to the age-old problem of providing heating, cooling and hot water.
What: a networking event and panel discussion on the positive power of "Negatherms" and the role that ground source heat pumps (GSHP) and allied thermal transfer techniques like ice storage and water-gridding can play to significantly reduce energy demand throughout the built environment.

I will kick off by doing a brief primer on energy efficiency, green building, heat pump mechanics and novel drilling techniques.

Dan Bernstein of Gaia Geothermal has a lot of macro and micro data about carbon, cost, energy and water savings from heat-pump based demand reduction plus some examples of larger pond loop projects.
David Kaneda of Integrated Design Associates will present "whole building" EE/RE concepts using his design lab as a starting point.
Ed Lohrenz, the "Ice Man" of GeoExergy will talk about his ice storage system projects. (*Ed is based in Manitoba and in Taiwan right now; he is a maybe on being in SF in person...Dan and I may cover some of his (n)ice presentation)
Finally, a report on groundbreaking water gridding concepts through the SCWA GeoExchange Energy Efficiency Project from Cordell Stillman.

Despite Global Economic Meltdown, Consumers Have Increased Appetite for Green

2009-07-22T19:55:00.000-07:00

2009 Cohn & Wolfe Green Brands Global Survey Reveals Consumers in Brazil, China, and India are Most Eager to Embrace Green Products and Corporate Actions

NEW YORK – July 21, 2009 – A newly released survey, conducted in seven countries -- the United States, the United Kingdom, China, Brazil, India, Germany and France -- indicates that while many environmental beliefs and behaviors are shared across different consumer cultures, others vary widely. Generally, consumers in the US, UK, Germany and France tend to align in their attitudes, while consumers in Brazil, India, and China have divergent views, and are particularly inclined to seek green products and to favor companies they consider green.

The research, conducted by WPP agencies (NASDAQ: WPPGY) Cohn & Wolfe, Landor Associates and Penn, Schoen & Berland Associates (PSB) as well as independent strategy consulting firm Esty Environmental Partners, also identifies some critical trends on which consumers are in global agreement.

Consumers from all seven countries believe that green products cost more than comparable non-green products, and also indicate they plan to spend more money on green products in the coming year. China, India and Brazil showed significant support for additional spend: 73 percent of Chinese consumers say they will spend more, 78 percent of Indians say they’ll spend more, and 73 percent of Brazilians plan to increase their green spend. The percentage of respondents who indicate willingness to spend 30 percent or more on green ranges from 8 percent (UK) to 38 percent (Brazil).

“With the global climate change discussion focused on what the major new economic powerhouses like China, India, and Brazil are willing to do to control their emissions, those three countries stood out in our polling as more interested in buying from environmentally friendly companies and more willing to spend more on green products,” said Scott Siff, executive vice president of PSB. “From a political perspective, this turns the assumptions about those countries on their heads, and from a business perspective it says the market for green branding and green products may be even bigger than generally thought.”

The study finds similar global agreement when consumers are asked about how important it is that companies be “green.” At least 77 percent of consumers in all countries say it’s somewhat or very important; in India and China the numbers are significantly higher: 87 and 98 percent, respectively, say that corporate reputation is an important purchase consideration. Consumers from all seven countries also agreed that the most important step a company can take to demonstrate its “green-ness” is to reduce the amount of toxic or other dangerous substances in its products and business processes.

Steven Chu on Daily Show

2009-07-22T09:23:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart

Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c

Steven Chu

www.thedailyshow.com

Daily Show
Full Episodes

Political Humor

Joke of the Day

Geothermal Most Efficient Renewable Energy Sources - Study

2009-07-22T09:05:00.000-07:00

SustainableBusiness.com News via Suzanne Nolan

As the U.S. Congress debates an energy and climate bill, government organizations and corporations are assessing renewable energy alternatives. Which are the most efficient and improving the fastest? According to a new study from NYU's Stern school of Business, geothermal and wind energy are more efficient, and are yielding greater returns on the R&D invested in them, than most other renewable energy alternatives.

NYU Stern Professor Melissa Schilling, an expert in strategic management and technology and innovation management, finds that the cost of generating electricity with geothermal or wind energy is a fraction of the cost of solar energy. More important, the performance of both is improving much more per dollar of R&D invested in them than solar technologies. This is the first study to explore the trajectory of performance improvement of renewable energy alternatives.

Schilling examined data on government R&D investment and technological improvement and found taht geothermal energy is the most efficient renewable energy alternative and is improving the fastest. Wind energy is second.

In addition, fossil fuel technologies are no longer improving (in terms of efficiency) much--if at all. These technologies have likely reached their performance limits, though the government still spends far more on them.

According to stern, geothermal energy could become cheaper than fossil fuels with R&D spending of as little as $3.3 billion.

Both geothermal and wind energy technologies have been underfunded by national governments relative to funding for solar technologies, and government funding of fossil fuel technologies might be excessive given their diminishing performance, the report concludes.

The full paper was recently published in Energy Policy and is available as a PDF at the link below.

Website: w4.stern.nyu.edu/news/docs/JEPO_Technology_S_Curves.pd

Inaugural CAC Advocacy Day a Big Success

2009-07-16T11:10:00.000-07:00

Katie Johnson, USGBC-NCC

The USGBC California Advocacy Coalition (CAC) conducted its first ever Advocacy Day in Sacramento on July 8th. Members of the newly-formed CAC gathered in the state’s capitol to introduce California’s eight USGBC Chapters to 38 state lawmakers and their staff. Nearly 40 USGBC volunteers from all corners of the state joined forces to highlight how green building legislation, education and regulation are integral for ensuring a healthy environment and economy in California. They were joined by USGBC National Advocacy staff. USGBC-NCC Director Elizabeth Echols affirmed that the day was an overall success. “We exceeded our expectations for the CAC’s first Advocacy Day and laid the groundwork to take our statewide advocacy efforts to the next level.”

Immediately following a day of lobbying, the CAC hosted a reception honoring Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg for his leadership on SB 375—Redesigning Communities to Reduce Greenhouse Gases. SB 375 lays out a smart growth strategy in order to reach California’s greenhouse gas reduction goals set forth in the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006 (AB 32). USGBC CAC members were joined by a dozen State policymakers and their staff including guest of honor, Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, Senator Fran Pavley (author of AB 32), Senator Loni Hancock, Senator Mark Leno, Assemblymember Nancy Skinner, Assemblymember Bonnie Lowenthal, Assemblymember Paul Fong and Assemblymember Norma Torres.

Dennis Murphy, NCC Advocacy Committee Chair and newly named California Advocacy Coalition Chair, was very encouraged. “During the last meeting of the day, the staffer we were meeting with commented that she couldn’t believe that this was our first time out. Today we introduced ourselves and let people know that the united chapters of the California USGBC will be a key policy resource moving forward. Elizabeth Echols, Justin Malan, Dan Geiger and NCC staff did a tremendous job putting this together. Now it will be incumbent on us to continue to build on this success.”

T. Boone Pickens to Sell Off 667 Wind Turbines

2009-07-15T20:18:00.000-07:00

From Triple Pundit

As part of the first phase to build a 4,000 MW wind farm in the Texas panhandle, Pickens ordered 667 turbines from GE. These turbines are to be ready in 2010 and 2011, but the wind farm was called off due to funding and transmission problems. Now that's a boondoggle.

The economy and the wind energy market were very different just over a year ago when this order was placed. The wind industry was booming and a massive 8,900 MW of wind energy capacity was installed in 2008 in North America—this represents 40% of all total new capacity. Steel prices were sky high and demand greatly exceeded turbine supply. Prices soared and it was difficult to buy small quantities of turbines.

Continued

The (Health) Cost Conundrum

2009-06-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Yes, this blog focuses on novel drilling technology for ground source heat pumps and may delve into energy efficiency issues and get into clean tech esoterica like the N. Young's diesel-battery '59 Lincoln...but, health care? Well, considering that health care takes up 1/6 of our collective spending and the share is rising, we have to fix this.

Just as we talk about the GSHP market comprising buildings, (residential/commercial, retrofit/new) on the ground, health care policy affects us all. No getting around it.

So that's why we want to mention Atul Gawande's excellent article in the recent New Yorker. He compares health costs in the otherwise similar areas of McAllen, Texas and El Paso and tries to determine why McAllen spends twice per patient as El Paso ($7,504) does. From there, it is on to review of the efficiencies found at the Mayo Clinic and Grand Junction, CO. "Americans like to believe that, with most things, more is better. But research suggests that where medicine is concerned it may actually be worse."

Gawande frames the choice ahead: "As America struggles to extend health-care coverage while curbing health-care costs, we face a decision that is more important than whether we have a public-insurance option, more important than whether we will have a single-payer system in the long run or a mixture of public and private insurance, as we do now. The decision is whether we are going to reward the leaders who are trying to build a new generation of Mayos and Grand Junctions. If we don’t, McAllen won’t be an outlier. It will be our future."

Potter Flame Jet Drill Video Surfaces

2009-06-15T19:26:00.000-07:00

National Geographic Channel excerpt, previously shown outside the US. Link here.

Land Conservation Wise Use..Who Knew?

2009-06-05T00:07:00.000-07:00

Study finds potential profits in conservation

By MICHAEL CASEY

BANGKOK (AP) — Selling credits for the billions of tons of carbon that are locked in Indonesia's tropical rain forests could be as profitable as converting these areas into palm oil plantations, a study released Friday found.

The study, in the current issue of the peer-reviewed journal Conservation Letters, also found that conserving the 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) that are slated to become plantations on Kalimantan, on the island of Borneo, would boost the region's biodiversity. The 800 proposed plantations that were studied contain 40 of the region's 46 threatened mammals including orangutans and pygmy elephants, the study found.

"Our study clearly demonstrates that payments made to reduce carbon emissions from forests could also be an efficient and effective way to protect biodiversity," said Oscar Venter, a conservation biologist at the University of Queensland in Australia and the study's lead author. "We now need to see policy discussions catch up with science because at the moment the potential co-benefits of linking forest protection to biodiversity are not getting the attention they deserve."

Under an international climate change agreement which would replace the Kyoto Protocol in 2012, governments are expected to create a framework allowing countries to get compensated for protecting their forests.

Among the scenarios being considered are providing countries with direct financial assistance for reducing their emissions from forests or allowing them to gain credits, which they could sell on an international carbon market to companies that have exceeded their allotted carbon cap.

Under the latter scenario, the study concluded that conserving forests would be more profitable than clearing them for palm oil if the credits could be sold for $10 to $33 per ton. Currently, the rate per ton is around $20, the study said.

A carbon trading market — or "cap-and-trade" system — works much like any commodities market except that traders make their fees selling a ton of carbon dioxide instead of corn or copper. At this point, the carbon dioxide traded for the most part comes from industrial sources.

Moving, ARPA-E and GSHP

2009-06-02T19:29:00.000-07:00

The crack team of GroundSource bloggers have been somewhat preoccupied of late moving offices and equipment around as well as dealing with the onslaught of opportunity generated by our federal friends at the Department of Energy. Talk about government in action. More posts after we catch our breaths.

GroundSource Cited as "Geothermal Upstart"

2009-05-15T10:37:00.001-07:00

Unique Applications of Building-Integrated Renewable Energy Systems
by Charles W. Thurston
[from RenewableEnergyWorld.com]

Thanks to outdated design, buildings consume close to 70 percent of all U.S. energy, so it's not surprising that President Barack Obama's stimulus package includes $65 billion in funding and tax credits for green energy and energy efficiency. But the technology choices for adopting building-integrated renewable energy (BIRE) can still be awe-inspiring: should architects focus on the U.S. subsidy of $5 billion for weatherization, $4.5 billion for transforming federal buildings into green buildings or the $3.6 billion for efficiency and other savings?

"The overall green building market (both non-residential and residential) is likely to more than double from today's $36-49 billion to $96-140 billion by 2013."

-- McGraw-Hill's Green Outlook 2009

Geothermal Upstart Targets Residential Installations

Beneath virtually every building in the country, ground source heat pumps (GHPs) hold out much promise for building integrated use, especially for new buildings where drilling access is presumably easier. Indeed, geothermal could provide a leading share of the renewable mix in a modern structure. According to Patrick J. Hughes, an analyst at the Energy and Transportation Science Division of Oak Ridge National Laboratory, "If the federal government set a goal for the U.S. buildings sector to use no more non-renewable primary energy in 2030 than it did in 2008, based on previous analyses, it is estimated that 35 to 40 percent of this goal, or a savings of 3.4 to 3.9 quads annually, could be achieved through aggressive deployment of GHPs. "

One company pushing the edge of drilling technology for ground source heat pumps is GroundSource Geothermal Inc., of Redwood City, CA, which is developing shallow dry-rock engineered geothermal systems or EGS, at depths ranging between 250 and 400 feet. A 2008 Clean Tech Open award winner, the company is "testing its GeoJetter drill system, comprised of four independently-operating units that use high-pressure and steel shot to yield a finished borehole," says Dennis Murphy, the president of the company.

Unlike standard drilling, their borehole is elliptically-shaped rather than circular, reducing cuttings by 40%. While building up its capital base, the company expects to launch a pilot residential business in Northern California next year, and subsequently to roll out franchise-detailed operations across the country, he said.

The LEED Platinum House includes GSHP

2009-05-06T16:07:00.000-07:00

A funny thing happens when I check out the articles about the Net Zero Energy and LEED Platinum houses featured on the very well-done Jetson Green blog...almost all seem to feature a ground source heat pump to take care of their heating, cooling and hot water. Just imagine that...

The RainShine House has received LEED Platinum certification, the first modernist residence in the Southeastern U.S. to achieve such a lofty award. Gound source heat pump? Check.

This home doesn't have a catchy name like "Tara," but it is the first LEED Platinum home in Vermont, although perhaps more importantly, it's a documented and legitimate zero net energy home. It was also a multiple award winner: GreenSource Best Green House of March 2009, 2008 AIA Vermont Honor Award for Sustainability and Design, Efficiency Vermont's Best of the Best Award in 2008, and NESEA $10,000 Prize for Zero Net Energy Residence. GSHP? Yah sure, you betcha.

Located on the beach of Cape Cod, this home features a jaw-dropping, west-facing view of the water that, although gorgeous, isn’t particularly energy efficient. Nevertheless, the narrow site and desire for an ocean view pretty much mandated large and expansive windows in that area of the home. The rest of the envelope, therefore, compensates for what is lost in energy performance on westerly facade and the heating, cooling and hot water is taken care of by the ground source heat pump. The combined effect of this and a solar array ensures that the Truro Residence produces as much energy as it uses over the course of a year. It’s a net-zero energy home. Plus, the site is landscaped with indigenous plants that require no irrigation, and the design prioritized materials (and GSHP) that maintain healthy indoor air quality.

Congress To Stop Using Coal In Power Plant

2009-05-02T22:04:00.000-07:00

Filed by Nick Sabloff, Huffington Post
WASHINGTON — The 99-year-old Capitol Power Plant, which provides steam for heat and hot water in congressional buildings, is ending its distinction of being the only coal-burning facility in the District of Columbia. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., said Friday that the switch to natural gas as the sole fuel source used at the plant was part of their efforts to reduce the carbon pollution impact of Congress on the nation's capital.

"The Congress of the United States should not only be a model for the nation, but also a good neighbor," Pelosi said.

The two Democratic leaders have for the past several years initiated steps to make the Capitol grounds more environmentally friendly. But moves to change light bulbs, use less paper and buy fuel-efficient vehicles have in some respects been overshadowed by the smoke that continues to rise from the power plant about four blocks south of the Capitol. The D.C. government has complained that the plant worsens air quality and has affected the respiratory health of residents and workers in the area, particularly children.
The plant last year operated on about 65 percent natural gas and 35 percent coal. Pelosi's office said the plant has not burned coal since March and would continue to go without coal barring problems.Acting Architect of the Capitol Stephen Ayers cautioned in a letter to Pelosi that work still needed to be done to upgrade the natural gas pipelines. He said coal might still have to be used as a backup in circumstances where heating needs exceed capacity of the natural gas pipelines, when abnormally cold conditions increase demand or when there are equipment outages.The Capitol complex would not totally end its dependence on coal. Electricity is supplied by a local utility company that uses coal as a power source.Ending the use of coal at the power plant has met some resistance from coal state lawmakers, who have said it sends the wrong message about the possibilities of But Hill Residents for Steam Plant Conversion, a neighborhood group, has urged Pelosi and Reid to move quickly to stop using coal at the plant, saying it was a major source of sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide and particulate air pollution.

The Green House of the Future Includes GSHP

2009-04-28T23:35:00.000-07:00

The Wall Street Journal asked architects to draw up plans for the most energy-efficient houses they could imagine. They imagined quite a bit.

By ALEX FRANGOS

What will the energy-efficient house of the future look like?

It could have gardens on its walls or a pond stocked with fish for dinner. It might mimic a tree, turning sunlight into energy and carbon dioxide into oxygen. Or perhaps it will be more like a lizard, changing its color to suit the weather and healing itself when it gets damaged.

Those are just a handful of the possibilities that emerged from an exercise in futurism. The Wall Street Journal asked four architects to design an energy-efficient, environmentally sustainable house without regard to cost, technology, aesthetics or the way we are used to living.

The idea was not to dream up anything impossible or unlikely -- in other words, no antigravity living rooms. Instead, we asked the architects to think of what technology might make possible in the next few decades. They in turn asked us to rethink the way we live.

"This is a time of re-examining values, re-examining what we need," says one of our architects, Rick Cook, of the New York firm Cook + Fox. "We are re-examining the idea of home."

A fresh look may be long overdue, given the amount of damage that homes can do to the environment. It's easy to envision a power plant spewing pollution or a highway full of cars burning billions of gallons of petroleum. But buildings -- silent and unmoving -- are the quiet users of much of our energy, through electricity, heating and water consumption. The U.S. Energy Department estimates buildings are responsible for 39% of our energy consumption and a similar percentage of greenhouse-gas emissions.

The growing awareness of that fact helps explain why green building is one of the most pervasive trends in the construction industry -- even as the economy struggles and home-building is at its lowest level in a generation.

So, how will the green homes of tomorrow help solve the energy puzzle? Here's a gander into the future.

"I'd love to build a house like a tree," says architect William McDonough of the Charlottesville, Va., firm William McDonough + Partners. And that's what he set out to do here.

The surface of his house, like a leaf, contains a photosynthetic layer that captures sunlight. Unlike today's solar panels, which are often pasted above a roofline, these are woven into the fabric of the exterior. They heat water and generate electricity for the home -- and create oxygen for the atmosphere, to offset carbon produced in other areas of the home.

Mr. McDonough envisions a sleek, curved roof with generous eaves to provide shade, which lowers the heat load in summer, thereby reducing the need for energy-hogging air conditioning. The roof also insulates and provides an outdoor garden. (Mr. McDonough designed a similar "green roof" for a Ford Motor Co. factory -- one of the first large U.S. buildings with that design.)

The "bark" of the treelike house would be thin, insulating films that would self-clean and self-heal, Mr. McDonough says, thus avoiding the need to replace them after years of exposure to the elements.

William McDonough + Partners envisions its house like a tree. The "bark" of the house is made up of thin, insulating films that would self-clean and self-heal if damaged. A curved roof with large eaves provides shade, which lowers the heat load in summer. The "trunk," or the frame of the home, consists of carbon tubes, while the "roots" are a heat-pump system buried in the yard.

It sounds far-fetched, but some of these technologies already exist. Self-cleaning glass, for instance, has a special coating that uses ultraviolet sunlight to break down organic dirt; rainwater then washes the filth away.

Self-healing paints that contain microscopic capsules of color are in use on some car paint, for instance. These vessels break open when the surface of the paint is scratched to repair the damage. Similar ideas could expand to repair other materials such as glass or cladding.

The "trunk" -- or the frame of the home -- would eschew wood or metals. Instead, lightweight, "resource efficient" carbon tubes would keep the structure standing upright.

Finally, the "roots" of the home would be a ground-source heat-pump exchange system buried in the yard. It would take advantage of the relatively constant temperature of the soil to control the home's climate -- bringing in heat in winter, when the ground is warmer than the surrounding air, and cool in the summer, when the ground's temperature is lower. Such systems exist today, but cost puts them out of the reach of most homeowners. (Until GroundSource Geo debuts next year...-ed.)

Going Back to School for Earth Day

2009-04-21T09:43:00.000-07:00

When it comes to promoting energy efficiency and our part to play, we value all aspects of the educational pipeline. Last week, Dennis Murphy was part of a provacative discussion entitled "Integrating the Clean Tech Value Chain." This MIT/Stanford VLAB Emerging Business Forum was produced by GroundSource mentor Ron Long, moderated by Dan Lankford of Wavepoint Ventures and hosted by Cooley, Godward. Quite a good time was had.

Not to be outdone, Palo Alto's trailblazing El Carmelo Elementary School will be the hub of Earth Day afternoon Expo activities. GroundSource was invited by Deloitte/CTO/PTA member Brian Goncher to explain heat pump mechanics to children and their parents. We look forward to many "aha" moments, despite the absence of a cute heat pump mascot.

Bob Potter's Deep Pursuit of Hot Dry Rocks

2009-04-16T12:05:00.000-07:00

"Drill, baby, Drill"
BY: Todd Woody @ grist

A veteran of the Manhattan Project is developing technology that could make it easier to tap geothermal energy locked deep underground.
[disclosure: GroundSource Geo is affiliated with Potter Drilling]

It’s the archetypal Silicon Valley story: Unknown entrepreneur toils away on a Big Idea in an anonymous office park until discovered by one of the Valley’s legendary deep-pocketed investors.

Another boy wonder CEO hatching the next Twitter or Facebook? Not quite. Meet Bob Potter, 88. He started his hardware company when he was just 83 with technology that grew out of his work on the Manhattan Project (yes, that Manhattan Project) back in the 1940s at Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico.

It’s all about bits, not bytes. Bits as in drill bits. Potter Drilling is developing a deep-drilling technology to tap geothermal heat miles below the earth’s surface—heat that could be used to generate carbon-free electricity.

Conventional geothermal power plants draw upon underground aquifers of hot water relatively close to the surface to create steam that drives electricity-generating turbines. The problem is that underground water currently tapped for geothermal is found mainly in the western United States. But the technology Potter is developing could drill much deeper, meaning geothermal energy could be generated nationwide.

According to a 2006 MIT study, so-called Enhanced Geothermal Systems could potentially supply 2,500 times the country’s current energy consumption. That grabbed Google’s attention, and last August the Internet giant’s philanthropic arm agreed to invest $4 million in Potter Drilling as part of its green energy initiative.

The tech twist: Potter drills not with hard-as-diamonds bits but with water—extremely hot water. (More on that in a bit.) The goal is to radically cut the cost of EGS to spread the technology to regions that rely too much on coal for generating electricity but are not suited for solar, wind and other renewable energy generation.

“It is fun to see some old dreams come true,” says Potter standing in the company’s Redwood City lab-slash-workshop in a light-industrial park wedged in between Interstate 101 and the railroad tracks. He has just pulled into the parking lot after making the 1,200-mile drive up from his home in New Mexico (with a side trip to Fresno to visit his 95-year-old brother).

Tall and lean and partial to bolo ties, Potter looks as much a western rancher as a rocket scientist. He is in fact one of the fathers of EGS. Starting in the 1950s, Potter and colleagues at Los Alamos began investigating the potential of fracturing pockets of super-heated rocks located deep beneath earth’s surface. Their idea: Inject water in the fractured rock and pump the hot water to the surface to create steam to drive a turbine. The water is then re-circulated back underground in a closed loop.

But Potter soon encountered a major obstacle to making geothermal as common as coal: Drilling as deep as six miles below the earth’s surface is incredibly expensive, presenting a host of obstacles to overcome. Even conventional geothermal developers spend millions of dollars to just drill test wells. But EGS rigs must penetrate miles of hard rock that slows drilling to a crawl. And a broken drill bit 30,000 feet underground can force the abandonment of a $10 million well.

“Getting into the drilling was forced on us in a way because that was thing that really prevented hot fractured rocks from being viable,” says Potter.

When government funding of geothermal research dried up with the crash of oil prices in the early 1980s, Potter moved on to other endeavors. But in the late 1990s he returned to geothermal, and with MIT chemical engineering expert Jefferson Tester patented a drilling technology called hydrothermal spallation. Potter then persuaded his son Jared to start a company in 2004 to commercialize the technology and serve as its CEO.

The younger Potter holds a Ph.D. in geology from Stanford University and had already started two Silicon Valley geological-related companies. Potter Drilling limped along for a few years, unable to interest the Valley’s venture capitalists to fund basic R&D on something that seemed so, well, industrial and old economy.

Then Google came calling on a recommendation from Tester. “If Google hadn’t come along, the company would have died,” says Jared Potter, 56.

What sealed the Google deal was a demo of Potter Drilling’s technology like the one I’m about to see. We’re standing in front of a contraption that looks like a prop from the original “Star Trek.” Salad plate-sized analog gauges line either side of the seven-foot-tall U-shaped device. Suspended in the center is a silver container about the size of small beer keg connected to various tubes and valves.

Are ultracapacitors the key to making hybrids king of the auto market?

2009-04-15T19:58:00.000-07:00

The Dark Horse in the Race to Power Hybrid Cars

By Larry Greenemeier Scientific American

MEAN GREEN MACHINE: An ultracapacitor-equipped Toyota Supra HV-R coupe was the only hybrid to win the 24-hour endurance race held at Japan's Tokachi International Speedway. Courtesy of Toyota Motor Sales, U.S.A., Inc.

The greatest victory so far for the cars, fueled by a combo of electricity and gas, came just weeks ago when an ultracapacitor-equipped Toyota Supra HV-R coupe became the first hybrid to win the 24-hour endurance car race held at Japan's Tokachi International Speedway. The hybrid Supra finished 616 laps of the 5.1-kilometer (roughly threemile) course—19 more laps than the second-place nonhybrid Nissan Fairlady Z. "The Toyota that won was able to deliver energy more quickly, accelerate faster, and use braking generation more efficiently," says Kevin Mak, an analyst with research and consulting firm Strategy Analytics and author of a recent study that explores the potential for ultracapacitors to complement and possibly even replace batteries in hybrid vehicles. "The days of the large hybrid vehicle battery pack may be numbered," he adds.

The reason, he says: capacitor technology that stores energy in the electric field between a pair of closely spaced conductors. An ultracapacitor, also called a supercapacitor, is an electrochemical capacitor with a higher energy density than normal capacitors, which potentially makes them a better fit for hybrid vehicles.

Ultracapacitors store electricity by physically separating positive and negative charges. Batteries store energy using toxic chemicals and their effectiveness fades over time. In addition, recycling the heavy metals in batteries is a difficult task. Capacitors, on the other hand, are constructed of much smaller fine carbon nanotubes, Mak says.

A major advantage of ultracapacitors is their ability to efficiently capture electricity from regenerative braking systems and provide that electricity to power a car's acceleration. Ultracapacitors not only charge more quickly than batteries, they also release energy more quickly, Mak says.

A drawback to their use is the technology's inability to store as much energy as a battery. But the Tokachi race proved that ultracapacitors could be more widely used in conjunction with smaller batteries to power hybrid cars. "Without the need for chemicals, capacitors can be lighter, thereby enabling the hybrid car maker to improve fuel economy further and reduce costs," Mak says. "The low weight would then make hybrid power trains more readily available to compact car segments as [has been] seen on Honda and Mazda concept cars since 1997."

Introducing iBone

2009-04-11T23:47:00.000-07:00

Congratulations to GroundSource Geo friend Tom Scharfeld for the unleashing of the iBone trombone app."Our aim is to produce something playable, practicable, and fun," said Tom."With iBone, we've brought the (trom)Bone and the band to the phone so users can make music, have fun, and even learn wherever they may be."

Visit http://ibone.spoonjack.com for video and images. iBone is available in the iTunes App Store now with an introductory price of $2.99.

Cap & Trade: Two Views, a Correction and a Modest Proposal

2009-04-09T09:21:00.000-07:00

Thomas Friedman: Show Us the Ball

Representative John B. Larson, chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, has circulated a draft bill that would impose “a per-unit tax on the carbon-dioxide content of fossil fuels, beginning at a rate of $15 per metric ton of CO2 and increasing by $10 each year.” The bill sets a goal, rather than a cap, on emissions at 80 percent below 2005 levels by 2050, and if the goal for the first five years is not met, the tax automatically increases by an additional $5 per metric ton. The bill implements a fee on carbon-intensive imports, as well, to press China to follow suit. Larson would use most of the income to reduce people’s payroll taxes: We tax your carbon sins and un-tax your payroll wins.

People get that — and simplicity matters. Americans will be willing to pay a tax for their children to be less threatened, breathe cleaner air and live in a more sustainable world with a stronger America. They are much less likely to support a firm in London trading offsets from an electric bill in Boston with a derivatives firm in New York in order to help fund an aluminum smelter in Beijing, which is what cap-and-trade is all about. People won’t support what they can’t explain.

Michele Bachmann: Lost jobs, big hikes in your bills -- that's cap-and-trade

President Obama has repeatedly said he will not raise taxes on low- and middle-income families, yet his policies do not match his rhetoric. Take for instance, a new tax he has proposed on the use of energy. It's called cap-and-trade or, more appropriately, cap-and-tax. The tax would require energy producers and businesses to pay to emit carbon emissions in the hope of reducing greenhouse gases.

The Democrats need the revenue this will generate to pay for their expensive agenda. But getting it this way would be shortsighted because it will cost far more in the long run than it will bring in. While the president originally estimated that implementing this plan would cost $646 billion over eight years, his deputy director for the National Economic Council, Jason Furman, recently stated that it could cost up to three times that -- bringing the cost closer to $2 trillion.

Any way you look at it, it's low- and middle-income Americans who will pay dearly for this. According to an analysis by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the average American household could expect its yearly energy bill to increase by $3,128 per year. Using an analysis by Peter Orszag, President Obama's budget director, that number would be closer to $4,000.

MIT Scientist: Republicans Misusing My Climate Change Paper

Apparently from this M.I.T. study, which found that a cap-and-trade plan along the lines of the one envisioned by the Obama administration would raise $366 billion a year at the outset. In reality, many of those costs will be passed on to consumers, but those costs will be offset by rebates and conservation and efficiency measures and the transition to other fuel sources and so on. In fact, the exact same study concluded that the actual costs to consumers would begin at $31 a year--or $79 per family.

Gilbert Metcalf in Technology Review

A leading economist explains why a carbon tax is the best strategy for cutting greenhouse gases and the use of fossil fuels.

The MIT Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change

Clean Tech Open Launch

2009-04-02T23:29:00.000-07:00

Clean Tech Open 2009 Launch from Natasha Chen on Vimeo.

Long May You Run: Electric Car Killer on Life Support

2009-03-31T15:58:00.000-07:00

From Nate Silver's excellent fivethirtyeight.com blog:

Let's take something of a 30,000-foot view on the condition of General Motors. The chart below details GM's operating margin -- its profits divided into its revenues -- over the past 50 years (below).

I haven't provided the dates on the chart because they aren't important. The auto business is highly cyclical because consumers are buying expensive assets that last for years at a time. Nobody ever really has to buy a new car (they can buy a used one if their car breaks down), and therefore consumers are willing to hold on to their existing vehicles and wait out economic slumps. You can't do that with, say, a loaf of bread, or even something like a cellphone, which has a much shorter lifespan.

But you knew all of that already. The remarkable thing is that, once you account for the economic cycles, the trend for GM is exceptionally steady -- an exceptionally steady trend downward. There were still bad times thirty years ago -- but they weren't bad enough to threaten GM's survival, and conversely, the good times were much better. These are General Motors' operating margins by decade:

Average Annual Operating Margin, General Motors
1960s: 8.7%
1970s: 5.5%
1980s: 3.0%
1990s: 1.3%*
2000s: -0.5%
* Excludes one-time $20 billion accounting charge for retiree health benefits in 1992.

If I were an alien beaming down from Rigel-3 looking at this pattern -- an alien with an MBA degree -- my first guess is that it would reflect some sort of systemic problem, some chronic imbalance that magnified over time. Something, in other words, like the costs of GM's retiree pension and health care programs. It's difficult to get a precise figure on these so-called legacy costs, but they averaged about $7 billion per year between 1993 and 2007 and are probably at least $10 billion per year now. Considering that GM has never made as much as $10 billion in profit in a year and that its entire operating lossses in 2008 were $13.8 billion, you can see why this is a significant problem.

From How To Save A Major Automobile Company by Neil Young of LincVolt in Huffington Post

Find a new ownership group. The culture must change. It is time to turn the page. In the high technology sector there are several candidates for ownership of a major car and truck manufacturer. We need forward looking people who are not restricted by the existing culture in Detroit. We need visionary people now with business sense to create automobiles that do not contribute to global warming.

It is time to change and our problems can facilitate our solutions. We can no longer afford to continue down Detroit's old road. The people have spoken. They do not want gas guzzlers (although they still like big cars and trucks). It is possible to build large long-range vehicles that are very efficient. People will buy those vehicles because they represent real change and a solution that we can live with.

The government must take advantage of the powerful position that exists today. The Big 3 are looking for a bailout. They should only get it if they agree to stop building autos that contribute to global warming now. The stress on the auto manufacturers today is gigantic. In order to keep people working in their jobs and keep factories open, this plan is suggested:

The big three must reduce models to basics. a truck, an SUV, a large family sedan, an economy sedan, and a sports car. Use existing tooling.

Keep building these models to keep the workforce employed but build them without engines and transmissions. These new vehicles, called Transition Rollers, are ready for a re-power. No new tooling is required at this stage. The adapters are part of the kits described next.

At the same time as the new Transition Rollers are being built, keeping the work force working, utilize existing technology now, create re-power kits to retrofit the Transition Rollers to SCEVs (self charging electric vehicles) for long range capability up to and over 100mpg. If you don't think this technology is realistic or available, check out the Progressive Insurance Automotive X prize. Alternatively, check out Lincvolt.com or other examples.

A bailed out Auto manufacturer must open or re-purpose one or more factories and dedicate them to do the re-power/retrofit assembly. These factories would focus on re-powering the Transition Rollers into SCEVs but could also retrofit and re-power many existing vehicles to SCEVs. These existing vehicles are currently sitting unsold at dealerships across America.

Auto manufacturers taking advantage of a government bailout must only sell clean and green vehicles that do not contribute to global warming. No more internal combustion engines that run exclusively on fossil fuels can be sold period.

No Big Three excuses like "new tooling takes time". New tooling is not a requirement for SCEV transition rollers.

Build only new vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming and enhancing National Security.

Government legislation going with the bailout should include tax breaks for purchasers of these cars with the new green SCEV technology. The legislation accompanying the bailout of major auto manufacturers must include directives to build only vehicles that attain the goal of reversing global warming while enhancing National security, and provide the financial assistance to make manufacturing these cars affordable in the short term while the industry re-stabilizes.

Eventually the SCEV technology could be built into every new car and truck as it is being assembled and the stop gap plan described above would have completed its job of keeping America building and working through this turbulent time.

Detroit has had a long time to adapt to the new world and now the failure of Detroit's actions is costing us all. We pay the bailout. Let's make a good deal for the future of America and the Planet. Companies like UQM (Colorado) and others build great electric motors right here in the USA. Use these domestic electric motors. Put these people to work now. This plan reverses the flow from negative to positive because people need and will buy clean and green cars to be part of World Change. Unique wheel covers will identify these cars on the road so that others can see the great example a new car owner is making. People want America to win!

This plan addresses the issue of Global warming from our automobiles while enhancing our National Security and keeping Detroit working.

Neil Young, activist (Bridge School, Farm Aid) rock legend, has assembled a team that is in the process of transforming his gargantuan 1959 Lincoln Continental from a gas guzzler into a showcase for green technology and sustainability. The car will be entered into the Automotive X Prize that offers a $10 million prize to develop a vehicle that can get 100 miles per gallon or better. The almost 50 year old Lincoln, one of the biggest, heaviest production cars of all time, has been re-named "Linc Volt" and is the subject of a feature documentary called "Repowering The American Dream" that is now in production under the aegis of Young's Shakey Pictures. New york times article link.

Jobs, Jobs, Jobs...City Hall in San Jose

2009-03-20T15:01:00.000-07:00

"Clean Tech Open Stretches its Reach, Adds More Prize Money"

From: Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal 3.20.09
By: Lisa Sibley

Clean Tech Open Executive Director Rex Northen on Thursday unveiled the nonprofit’s newest challenge — and it goes far beyond its initial endeavor of connecting entrepreneurs with a network of vendors and funding.

Northen said the Open’s goal is to create 100,000 jobs in 10 regions by 2015.

To accomplish this, Northen said, “We need to take the best of Silicon Valley and bring it to the rest of the nation. It’s about giving regional players access to venture capitalists and venture capitalists access to these businesses.”

San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, an early champion of clean techology, jumped right on board. “ I am signing up for 25 percent of this cleantech challenge,” he said.

Reed announced his commitment to add 25,000 jobs to the industry at the launch of the fourth annual Clean Tech Open competition at the City Hall Rotunda.

This year’s competition will also be the richest with $1 million in regional prizes -- including a grand prize of $250,000 -- and will add two more regions to the field, the Pacific Northwest and the Rocky Mountains. Already 120 competitors have signed up in the three regions, which Northen said is ahead of schedule.

Since it began four years ago, the Clean Tech Open has spawned 125 companies, raised $125 million in capital and added 500 jobs.

GroundSource Geo, a 2008 winner and San Jose Environmental Business Cluster member, developed non-impact drill technology for ground-source heat pumps. GroundSource aims to be a major provider of green collar jobs locally, through equipment manufacturing and HQ operations -- as well as nationally by spurring streamlined installations of ground-source heat pumps throughout residential, commercial and institutional buildings in North America.

The Hub of Green Inventions: Clean Tech Open

2009-03-17T23:32:00.000-07:00

By Natasha Chen, posted in Earthzine on March 17th, 2009

Dennis Murphy

“I heard someone say on the news this morning that entrepreneurs are to bring us out of this recession. And with the help of the utilities’ social capital, we hope to help you guys do that. No pressure.”

Laughter erupted in a conference room after that comment from Robyn Zander, program manager of the California Public Utilities’ Technology Resource Incubator Outreach, or TRIO. She and fellow commissioners responsible for bringing in new, energy efficient technologies to public utilities were invited as guest speakers at a Clean Tech Open breakfast in Palo Alto, Calif. on Wednesday. California Clean Tech Open, an organization sponsoring a business competition for entrepreneurs in clean technology inventions, launches their 2009 contest on March 19. The goal is to help innovators go from a green idea to full-fledged business by connecting these contestants with mentors, potential customers and potential investors. Semi-finalists from this competition will go up against those from the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains regions, and finalists compete for the nationwide prizes in October.

Rex Northen, the executive director of Clean Tech Open, said, “We are the organization that’s built the largest business competition in our space, and what we say by business competition or clean tech, is that we’re not just here to get their business plans written. We’re here to help them with creating an entire viable, fundable business out of what in most cases is a very small company. So we start with people who are in an embryonic stage…and we give them all the components of a real business.”

Clean Tech Open is expecting as many as 200 team applications for the California division, which will be whittled down to 45 semi-finalists. Those teams, along with the semi-finalists from the Pacific Northwest and Rocky Mountains competitions, will receive all the benefits of mentorship and guidance Then twelve finalists in six categories go to the national final competition, which will be held in San Francisco this fall. The six categories are in Air, Water & Waste, Green Building, Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Transportation, and Smart Power (including smart grid applications and battery storage). Winners will receive what Clean Tech Open calls a “startup-in-a-box,” $100,000 worth of cash and services donated by sponsors to help the entrepreneurs launch their businesses.

Previous winners have included Nila Lighting, now responsible for lighting many of Hollywood’s blockbuster scenes. “[Nila] is an LED based lighting system. If you consider what goes on in a Hollywood studio, these are high intensity, heavy duty lights in the major studios in Hollywood…well you see they’re very very hot,” said Northen. “So what they do is they have an LED array, a very bright LED array that takes all their problems away. You can actually put your hand on this thing. And if all the movie studios in Hollywood were to use the Nila Lighting system, that would remove an entire power plant in a grid.”

Winner of last year’s sustainability prize and runner-up for the green building category, Dennis Murphy is the president and founder of GroundSource Geothermal, a company that enables drilling technologies for ground source heat pumps. “What we’re working on is technology to simplify the adoption of ground source heat pumps, which have been long considered the most effective way to heat and cool buildings. That was a joint assessment by the EPA and DOE back in ‘93,” Murphy said, addressing the entrepreneurs in the audience. “The problem has been, how do you do that? It’s essentially creating heat sinks in the ground. That involves drilling; it’s kind of a mess. So we’re working on that part – we’re working on making better holes in the ground.”

GroundSource Geo officially launched in September 2008 as a spin-off of a different company called Potter Drilling, and Murphy won the sustainability prize from Clean Tech Open in November. His company anticipates a hybrid franchise model in which they serve Northern California residential clients and then offer that to regional partners around North America. Murphy said, “One thing I can say is that no matter how well versed you are in a certain technology or field of study, that no one really knows everything about everything, especially when it comes to starting a business.”

A crowd of green entrepreneurs competed in the
California Green Tech Open (Photos by Natasha Chen)

That’s why Murphy said he was extremely appreciative of the support Clean Tech Open gave him in starting his business. Clean Tech Open is on Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but Murphy calls it an “old-fashioned social network” of people sharing common interests and goals. He especially values the guidance he received from Ron Long, a business model strategist for emerging clean technologies and the mentor matched to this project.

Long said that this year’s political climate affects that of entrepreneurship: “The new stimulus program is a perfect match for bringing the funding and the expertise in the green tech environment to help emerging businesses.” In regard to his own GroundSource Geo, Murphy added, “The stimulus package recently includes a 30 percent tax credit for residential heat pump installations, because they recognize the power of the demand reduction involved. It’s even better in bigger buildings, in commercial institutions. It’s basically a replacement for furnace and air conditioning as usual.”

Northen recognized that this year’s competition occurs during a time of economic distress, and although none in attendance claimed to be investors, he has faith in the stimulus package in encouraging clean technology innovation.

In particular, Northen said he hopes to see leaps in development of smart power. “There’s a lot of money in the stimulus for smart grid applications,” he said. “Applications that plug into a smart grid will be very, very important. There is a saying that if you brought Alexander Graham Bell into today’s world, and showed him today’s telephone systems, he wouldn’t recognize them. But if you brought back Thomas Edison, who was one of the founding fathers of the grid, and get him to look at what we have today, he would recognize most of the components. So our grid has not moved on in a very long time. It’s very ancient technology.”

If necessity is the mother of invention, those at the Clean Tech Open breakfast made clear the great need for their products, currently in infancy but perhaps in full-fledged form by year’s end.

A proposal for government seed stage funding in cleantech

2009-03-12T15:39:00.000-07:00

From Rob Day's Cleantech Investing blog
March 9, 2009

A couple of weeks ago I wrote up a few thoughts on the chatter about government money being directed to cleantech venture capital firms (and then discovered I’d given fodder to the Globe, who knew?). At the end of the column, I mentioned that I wished to see more government support for cleantech startups at the early end, too early for many venture capital investors. It prompted some thoughtful replies from several readers.

One reader pointed me to Sustainable Development Technology Canada. This is a non-profit, quasi-governmental corporation that makes direct investments in Canadian cleantech companies to help them in later-stage growth or for initial project development purposes. It has taken in $1B from the government and has already made investments in 144 projects to date — they’re looking to issue their 15th round of funding later this year. So here’s a model for some to look at, but it doesn’t really address that seed-stage gap I pointed to.

Another reader reminded me about OnPoint and In-Q-Tel, two government-sponsored firms whose missions are to invest in startups that are developing technologies of interest to the Army and the CIA respectively. These groups are investing in some early stage opportunities, but also are coming in later stage in some cases as well. But it’s certainly a good model to draw upon for inspiration when it comes to government financing of cleantech.

Of course, a couple of people reminded me about the proposals for an “ARPA-E”, a counterpart to the Department of Defense’s DARPA research grant program. DARPA is another good tool to consider, and has certainly been the source of grants for a number of cleantech startups. It’s not an investment, however, and so it comes with a very specific set of requirements (and bureaucratic headaches) for the grantee. It’s useful, but no panacea.

Finally, Reem Yared wrote to bring up a DOE program that was in place to support seed-stage companies up until a couple of years ago:

In fact, the DOE used to run a program called Inventions and Innovations, where they funded promising clean technologies with grants of $50,000 and $250,000. The grants went to inventors who were still at the patent-filing stage, helping them go through the patent process and on to commercialization. There was a whole selection process which worked quite well.

I was one of the consultants hired by the DOE (working for Vista Ventures) to help seven of the start-ups develop their commercialization strategy. Another company was DOE-sponsored market research services. The DOE had enough experience with the program to know that simply funding the research would not be enough: the patents would just be filed and shelved. The inventors/entrepreneurs really did need the hand-holding through the commercialization process.

The start-ups I worked with were all over the country and in all different fields: wind, glass manufacturing, paper manufacturing, LP gas distribution, biofuels, car engines, AC pumps. The irony, of course, is that the year Pres. Bush mentioned a focus on cleanTech in his state of the Union address, the administration pulled the plug on the program (April 2007).

I don’t think it would take too much effort to restart it, rather than creating something from scratch.
See http://www1.eere.energy.gov/inventions/about.html

Government-run investment programs have historically been challenged for a) having unintended consequences like the patent-shelving Reem mentions, and b) not being able to bring on board top investment talent because the government salary structure and even profit-sharing aren’t possible. That latter objection also points to operational challenges — such simple questions as “are we looking for jobs growth” versus “are we looking for strong investment returns” become pretty fundamental to the exercise.

But merging a few of these ideas together, a quasi-governmental, independent corporation sponsored (and funded) by the DOE could be launched, to focus on seed stage companies commercializing technology out of the DOE labs and DOE-funded research. It wouldn’t have to be a huge amount of capital to have a major impact — a few tens of millions of dollars would be very significant in this context, but relatively small in comparison to the “billions” being discussed by Krugman et al. Then the questions to be answered around staffing and incentives and compensation would be very similar to those faced by OnPoint and In-Q-Tel, which have been able to bring in experienced, motivated investors. So no need to reinvent anything at all, we can borrow from what’s already working elsewhere.

I bet right now we could get some of the brightest investors in the cleantech venture capital world to support this and even join such an effort.

Catching the Omnibus

2009-03-11T16:45:00.000-07:00

"What's in the $410B Omnibus Spending Bill for Climate and Energy?"

by: Josie Garthwaite at earth2tech

The Senate passed a catch-all $410 billion spending bill Tuesday that’s packed with appropriations for 12 cabinet departments House Committee on Appropriations web site: and lower federal agencies. Several hefty investments for clean energy, climate science and energy efficiency made their way into the act, with multimillion-dollar increases on the way for the Department of Energy and EPA budgets if President Barack Obama signs the bill into law (as he’s expected to this week). Some of the highlights, based on information from the

Environmental Protection Agency: $7.6 billion ($174 million above 2008). This includes $224 million ($7.2 million increase) for grants to states to implement the Clean Air Act, $60 million ($11 million above 2008) for grants to reduce emissions from diesel engines, and $50 million for the Energy Star program. Congress also appropriated $10 million for new grants to encourage communities to find ways to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions.

Department of Energy: $27 billion ($2.5 billion increase) to build on stimulus-funded efforts to conserve and produce clean, efficient, domestic energy, and to improve nuclear security. Solar energy R&D and demo projects meant to make solar power more affordable get $175 million, while collaborative vehicle technology initiatives to help the auto industry improve efficiency with better batteries and clean-fuel engines get $273 million.

Weatherization grants and innovative technology loan guarantees figure large, with $200 million and $18.5 billion, respectively. The DOE’s Office of Science sees a $755 million increase to $4.8 billion in appropriations this year over 2008. That’s for “basic scientific research critical to addressing long-term energy needs,” and more than 2,500 more researchers.

Climate Change: $232 million ($39 million above 2008) for various programs to addressstudy it. This includes $10 million to meet the mandate that the U.S. produce 36 billion gallons of renewable fuels by 2022, and $3 million for carbon capture and sequestration research at the U.S. Geological Survey. Another $6.5 million is set to help fund development of a registry for greenhouse gas emissions. Congress appropriated $14.7 million for the Global Climate Change Mitigation Fund to encourage businesses to use green practices. global climate change, and nearly $2 billion to

National Institute of Standards and Technology Research: $819 million ($63.1 million above 2008) to “promote American innovation and economic competitiveness by improving scientific measurements, standards, and technology.” $110 million goes to a public-private partnership program designed to provide small and midsized manufacturers with technical advice and access to technology, and to leverage private funds for job creation. Crucially for cleantech companies, the Technology Innovation Program gets $65 million for “high-risk high-reward research into areas of critical national need” at businesses, colleges and national labs.

Research Pays for Itself

2009-03-10T15:20:00.000-07:00

Investments in clean energy will unleash innovations, create jobs.

USA Today 3/5/09

By Steven Chu

To lift our economy and put Americans back to work, President Obama is making a major investment in clean energy.

Clean energy is the best opportunity we have to create jobs today and launch the industries of tomorrow. It's also critical for our security — to reduce our dangerous dependence on foreign oil — and to save our planet from the potentially devastating effects of climate change.

We have begun the transformation to a clean energy economy through the president's economic recovery plan. And to truly rise to this challenge, President Obama has pledged to invest $15 billion a year to develop and deploy the next generation of renewable energy technology here in America.

As history has shown repeatedly with science funding, this investment will pay for itself many times over. Americans will save far more on their energy bills than we spend on research.

At a time of economic crisis, this bold action is absolutely necessary.

Meeting our energy challenge will require a partnership between government and private sector companies, but the government must lead.

With a network of 17 national laboratories and researchers at 300 colleges and universities, the federal government knows how to do this work. Public investment in research has been critical to developing everything from hybrid-vehicle batteries to lifesaving cancer treatments.

As we have in the past, we will work with the private sector to take breakthroughs on energy from the research lab to the manufacturing plant to the retail store.

We will move with the greatest speed, transparency and accountability because we cannot afford to fail. We will post our progress on www.recovery.gov so you can know how your tax dollars are being spent.

With these investments, we will unlock the true potential of solar and wind energy. We will develop advanced biofuels and learn to use coal in a clean way. We will make highly fuel-efficient cars and trucks. And those are just the technologies we already know about.

This strategic investment in clean energy will unleash the innovations that will power our economy for years to come.

Steven Chu is secretary of Energy and a co-winner of the Nobel Prize for physics.

Ye Reapeth What Ye Soweth

2009-03-10T10:36:00.000-07:00

Forces continue to conspire and coal-fired power generation is on the ropes. As Alexis Madrigal of wired.com highlights in his June 2008 blog post, the DOE released a report showing that in 2007, 225 Gigawatts of wind power were in the queue, far more than were for coal or natural gas.

In yesterday's Wall Street Journal interview, Google CEO Eric Schmidt discusses wind power's near price parity with coal, "Wind is, on a kilowatt-per-hour basis, roughly similar to the cost of coal after the subsidies it gets today, and without the subsidies it's a couple cents higher per kilowatt. So that's pretty good. It's the one that's closest now to being a free substitute for coal..."

Now, add a ton of stimulus dough for clean energy, a forthcoming national renewable portfolio standard, a carbon tax and/or cap and trade system, a 2007 landmark Supreme Court decision making CO2 a pollutant under the Clean Air Act, the difficulty of carbon sequestration, a good doctor named Stephen Chu, and a generous dose of economic calamity to the mix and you get, courtesy of the folks at earth2tech:

THE COAL DEATHWATCH MAP

Making Buildings Work 50% Less

2009-03-04T12:43:00.000-08:00

The Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPACT 2005) provides tax incentives--rebates of $1.80 / SF--for commercial buildings that are designed to use 50% (or less) energy than typical code buildings as measured against ASHRAE 90.1-2001. (This is but one of the many existing and forthcoming local, state and federal incentives.)

Since ECAPT '05 went on the books (and as awareness grows that the pesky problem of global warming may be feedback-spiraling beyond redress), several trade and industry organizations have hitched their wagons and brought in new horsepower to help designers, contractors and building developers achieve the laudable goal of cutting building energy consumption in 1/2.

In 2007, T he N ew Buildings Institute organized and hosted the Getting to Fifty Summit of 60 experts within the fields of design and construction in order to network, strategize and develop concepts all aimed at accelerating the efficiency of commercial buildings. The detailed report of their conclusions and recommendations can be found here. Below is a quick synopsis of key takeaways:

It's critical to build the business case for high-performance buildings
Early design process improvements can improve information, choices and adoption
Plug-and-play integrated technology packages can capture the next step in efficiency for lighting and HVAC
Climate-specific response design greatly increases efficiency
Case studies and post-occupancy evaluations are key to reducing real and perceived risks
Tax incentives and progressive codes / standards are essential

NBI also provides a cool database listing buildings that meet these higher standards. Noteworthy: while ground-source heat pumps (GSHP) only have a general market penetration of less than 1%, they are found in roughly 30% of these advanced buildings.

Luckily for the planet and her advocates, there are many organizations working to reduce building energy consumption by 50%. The American Institute of Architects developed a program known as 50>>50: 50 Strategies toward 50% reduction in fossil fuel reduction in buildings. The strategies, or tools as they are referred to "span a spectrum from broad-based site and planning objectives to specific, building-based concepts." Essentially, the strategies create a handy toolkit of how-to resources for architects and construction folks and their ilk. Featured prominently, of course, GSHP, or Geoexchange as it is referred to in the colloquial.

The 2030 Challenge, a program of Architecture 2030, is focused on reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and notes that 76% of all coal-fired juice is consumed by buildings. Thus, to turn the noxious smoke-belching titanic away from the (melting) iceberg, and to to slow and reverse GHG emission, the development industry must step it up and set its sights on these targets:

All new buildings, developments and major renovations shall be designed to meet a fossil fuel, GHG-emitting, energy consumption performance standard of 50% of the regional (or country) average for that building type.
At a minimum, an equal amount of existing building area shall be renovated annually to meet a fossil fuel, GHG-emitting, energy consumption performance standard of 50% of the regional (or country) average for that building type.
The fossil fuel reduction standard for all new buildings and major renovations shall be increased to:
60% in 2010
70% in 2015
80% in 2020
90% in 2025
Carbon-neutral in 2030 (using no fossil fuel GHG emitting energy to operate).

GSHP PLUG: Although smarter siting, controls, materials, and use of on-site and purchased renewable energy is integral to meeting the above goals, the most bang for the buck is right under our feet. If you haven't yet read the recent ode to GSHP by the Dept. of Energy, please do so: 3.9 Quadrillion BTUs a Year.

Efficiency is the new Green

2009-03-04T01:17:00.000-08:00

from The Shelton Group blog
February 26, 2009

“Green” may have been the buzzword of 2008, but “efficiency” will be the buzzword of 2009. Despite lots of press coverage to the contrary, Americans are willing to buy. And they’re willing to buy green. The difference is they’re now willing to buy green products that immediately put green back in their pockets.

In our Fall 2008 Energy Pulse® study we saw that propensity to purchase every energy efficient product we tested — from programmable thermostats to solar panels — was up. On March 20 we’ll be releasing a new study called Utility Pulse. We looked specifically at the impact monthly utility bill savings messages had on willingness to purchase, as well as the impact utility rebate messages had on willingness to purchase.

Though the propensity uptick varies by product, in general, 32-46% of the population expressed a likelihood to purchase various energy efficient products upon simply hearing likely monthly utility savings information (cited from the DOE). Another 17-31% expressed likelihood to purchase once specific utility rebate offers were thrown into the mix.

Now, before you run out and change all your ads to scream “save money!” remember this: like with any purchase, there are deeper emotional drivers at play. (Though many of us would like to make marketing a logical, predictable science, consumers are emotionally driven decision-makers.) Underneath the desire to earn a good ROI is the desire to feel smart and in control in this unpredictable, out of control economy. So, yes, you must be clear that if they invest X they’ll save Y immediately…but you must also appeal to their deeper desire to be in charge of what’s happening around them. The peace of mind generated by seeing one’s monthly utility bill go down $10-20 is a huge motivator.

The one other thing to keep in mind is this: conserving energy is, in fact, the greenest thing anybody can do. A third of our greenhouse gases come from electricity generation, but according to two years of tracking in Energy Pulse, only 4% of the population knows that. So consumers are NOT buying more efficient products because they want to save polar bears. It really boils down to ROI.

For my very green friends, that’s a bitter pill to swallow. Folks who devote their lives and careers to battling climate change often feel, “if we just educate people about the impact their actions have on the environment, they’ll see what they’re doing and they’ll change their ways.” Our countless focus groups and quantitative studies tell us differently. The best way to get Mainstream Americans to change their behavior is to tell them what’s in it for them. Right now it’s ROI and feeling smart and in control. In the end, we still get to a more sustainable world. It’s just a different path.

Capitol Power Plant: A Symbolic Clean Energy Hurdle GSHP Can Overcome

2009-03-02T12:25:00.000-08:00

Imagine a loop field under the White House Lawn and a massive Capital Mall project to provide a community heating and cooling network to Congress and all the Federal buildings in the surrounding area. We would just be keeping up with Canada once again, as the Prime Minister's residence at 24 Sussex Drive in Ottawa, gets retrofitted.

Yes We Can! When thinking people call energy issues into question, we have the answer. Let's start with the DOE buildings....

-D

WASHINGTON (AP) _ They are calling it one of the biggest U.S. protests on climate change _ hundreds of activists gathered around a tiny power plant in Southeast Washington that heats and cools the Capitol.

While small in size, the 99-year-old facility is a symbol of the challenges ahead for Congress on energy and the climate.That's because as lawmakers gear up to pass legislation to reduce the gases blamed for global warming and clean up the nation's energy sources, they have yet to succeed in their own backyard.

"We are holding it up as a symbol for how we can and must do better," said Mike Tidwell, director of the Chesapeake Climate Action Network, one of 40 environmental groups organizing the protest to call on Congress to pass a bill to curb greenhouse gases. Among those expected to attend are NASA scientist James Hansen, who first testified before Congress about the perils of global warming in 1988.

Hansen has called for a halt on building any new coal-fired power plants without technology to capture and store carbon dioxide, the most prevalent greenhouse gas and the chief one at the Capitol Power Plant.

In 2007, the facility released 118,851 tons of carbon dioxide, according to the Energy Department _ a fraction of what the nation's 600 coal-fired power plants produce.

But despite repeated attempts by Congress to clean it up _ including provisions in two 2007 laws _ the plant still burns coal and accounts for a third of the legislative branch's greenhouse gas emissions.

Further updates here.

An Anecdote from Mike Sidwell's "SeeYou in Jail" article on Grist:
I'm reminded of the labor leaders who visited Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s. After hours of talks they persuaded the President to support a pro-union proposition. But FDR then surprised them. "Okay you've convinced me," he said. "Now go out and pressure me." That's kind of the weird way politics works. Obama and Congress need this pressure to help them keep doing what, for the most part, they already want to do.

German Threesome Ponies Up For Geo Drilling

2009-03-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Sourced from CleanEdge via New Energy Finance
March 2, 2009

The German Federal Ministry for the Environment, development bank KfW and reinsurer Munich Re have launched a 60 million euros ($75.9 million) credit initiative for the expansion of geothermal power in Germany.

The investment will be used to finance drilling of geothermal projects, a Munich Re statement said, adding that this was launched specifically 'to minimise the productivity risk of the projects'.

Geothermal projects are high-risk projects due to the high drilling costs involved and do not guarantee availability of sufficient volumes of water at the required temperatures. This often leads to an investment risk of at least EUR 10m for each individual project, the statement said.

Up to 80% of the cost will be financed by KfW loans for deep geothermal wells by way of commercial banks. If no find is made and the project is declared a failure, the investor will not be required to repay the remaining loan amount.

"With more financial support being provided for geothermal plants in the market stimulation programme and the amendment to the Renewable Energy Sources Act that has been in force since 1 January, we have again improved the general conditions for this technology. The new credit scheme will ensure a further reduction in the risks encountered by operating companies," said Sigmar Gabriel, federal minister for the environment.

Germany has three regions primarily considered to be geothermal hotspots: the molasse basin south of Munich, the Upper Rhine Rift, and the North German Plain.

The country's largest geothermal power plant of a combined heat and power capacity of 38MW was the first to receive productivity risk insurance cover by Munich Re. It was erected in Unterhaching near Munich.

Act Now!

2009-02-26T16:29:00.000-08:00

The Reality Campaign strikes again with a Coen Brothers-produced infomercial. My only quibble with the Obama "Don't Call It State of the Nation" speech was the multiple mention of "Clean Coal Technology" and the lack of "Geothermal (and Ground Source Heat Pump)" punctuation to the oft-cited "Solar & Wind" citations.

3.9 Quadrillion BTUs a Year

2009-02-25T08:55:00.000-08:00

"Geothermal (Ground-Source) Heat Pumps: Market Status, Barriers to Adoption, and Actions to Overcome Barriers"

A new report written by

On behalf of

It isn’t (or wasn’t) everyday that that the US Government produces an in-depth and wide-ranging report that lends welcome credence to both the GroundSource Geo cause and business plan. But, as fortune would have it, in December, 2008, Patrick J. Hughes at OakRidge National Laboratory released a report sponsored by the US Department of Energy in which he very much does both.

Although Mr. Hughes acknowledges the many barriers to Ground-Source Heat Pump (GSHP) adoption, including its “identity-crisis”, he goes on to write, “I recommend that federal policymakers seriously consider aggressive nationwide deployment of ground-source heat pumps, with programs commencing as soon as possible." His reasons, empirically:

GSHPs may be among the most affordable renewable energy resources.
GSHPs can save the US 3.5 to 3.9 quadrillion BTU’s (quads) per year by 2030, and up to 8 quads with the incorporation of more efficient componentry. For context, the built environment in 2030 will consume some 50 quads per year.
Such a quad reduction translates to a $33B to $38B annual savings at 2006 utility rates
Between 2008 and 2030 quad usage will go from 40 quads to 50 quads / annum. With an annual savings rate of 3.5 to 3.9 quads, GSHP could reduce consumption growth by 30% to 40%
Such savings relate to the negation of 91 to 105 Gigawatts (GW) in summer peak utility demand, meaning that GSHP could potentially avoid 42% to 48% of the nation’s 218 GW net electricity generation capacity addition needed by 2030.

A case can be made that the above are conservative estimates for two reasons: I) Quad savings could double with advancements in GSHP system componentry and II) The studies populating Mr. Hughes' assessment often assume that a large portion of the built environment (i.e., dense urban) are off limits. With new drilling technology, many landscapes can become borehole-friendly.

Conservative as they may be, the results GSHPs can deliver are so compelling because the built environment accounts for a staggering 40% of U.S. energy consumption and greenhouse gas emission. A by now well-known McKinsey and Co. study concludes that cutting building-related energy consumption is the most effective and least costly way to reduce the nation’s energy and emissions’ footprints. Mr. Hughes couldn’t agree more.

The key question, then, is have policy makers overlooked this technology and if so, why? The report goes on to detail the history of GSHPs, and the current status of markets both foreign and domestic before analyzing the barriers to greater adoption and the author's suggested responses to overcoming said barriers. It is a fascinating report and well worth the read. Enjoy.

This Evolution Will Be Televised

2009-02-24T09:30:00.000-08:00

CHRISTOPHER LAWTON
Wall Street Journal
February 24, 2009

Amid mounting environmental concerns, TV manufacturers are racing to make energy-efficient sets, with some now launching "eco" branded TVs.

Vizio Inc., Funai Electric Co. and Sharp Corp., for instance, recently unveiled TVs that claim power savings that exceed the U.S. government's latest "Energy Star" standards for TVs by as much as 29%. Samsung Electronics Co., Sony Corp. and Panasonic Corp., are also launching energy-efficient TVs.

Some of the TVs, such as one model from Vizio's "EcoHD" models, use fewer or different lamps to illuminate the screen, thereby reducing power use. Funai Electric, which manufactures and distributes Philips-branded flat-panel TVs in the U.S., has two series of eco TVs that save power through a dimming technology that adjusts the brightness of the backlight on the LCD panel based on the ambient light in the room.

Most TVs still consume a small amount of power when they are turned off -- something Sony targeted when it came up with an energy-savings switch on some models that cuts off the TV's power consumption when the set is off without interfering with other devices, such as a DVR. The TV also comes with a motion sensor that turns off the device's backlight if no motion is detected in the room after a certain period of time.

The rush for eco-friendly TVs comes as many consumers are looking for ways to save money on their utility bills. According to the California Energy Commission, TVs rank third in the amount of power used in a home, behind heating-and-cooling systems and refrigerators. When associated devices -- cable boxes or game consoles -- are included, TV set-ups consume roughly 10% of the electricity in a home, the commission says.

TV makers may also be working to pre-empt new energy regulations. While the Energy Star standard is voluntary, the California Energy Commission is considering mandating specific energy standards for TVs sold in California by 2011. Under the proposed rules, a 42-inch TV sold in California must consume 183 watts or less, which translates to 183 watt-hours when it's on for an hour, dropping to 115.5 watts by 2013. Currently, a 40- to 42-inch LCD TV consumes 200 to 250 watts of electricity, according to the LCD TV Association.

Many TV makers aren't waiting for regulations to go into effect. Some 70% of world-wide flat-panel display shipments will have green features by 2012, up from 20% in 2008, predicts research firm DisplaySearch.

The new TVs are finding favor with some consumers. After getting a $186 electric bill in early December, Matt Walters, a Web developer in Richmond, Va., decided to look for ways to reduce his electricity use. He quickly targeted his 50-inch plasma TV, which has a digital video recorder, Blu-ray player and other devices connected to it.

"I started looking for devices that were more guilty than others," says Mr. Walters, 29. "The plasma TV was one of the first things" he identified.

Mr. Walters bought a few power strips to connect the TV and other devices together and got in the habit of turning it off when he wasn't using it. When his electric bill arrived the next month, he says to his surprise he saved $27. He plans to pay more attention to the power use of the electronics he buys, and adds that he would consider an energy-efficient TV for his next purchase.

Continued

Friedman: "Startups, Not Bailouts"

2009-02-23T12:59:00.000-08:00

Our best business/tech cheerleader reasons on making clean-tech lemonade out of toxic asset lemons. Points off for a solar-centric references, but you have to love the sentiments.
Thanks to Kevin McGee of TerraNova for his tireless prognosticating.

Start Up the Risk-Takers

By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
February 22, 2009

Reading the news that General Motors and Chrysler are now lining up for another $20 billion or so in government aid — on top of the billions they’ve already received or requested — leaves me with the sick feeling that we are subsidizing the losers and for only one reason: because they claim that their funerals would cost more than keeping them on life support. Sorry, friends, but this is not the American way. Bailing out the losers is not how we got rich as a country, and it is not how we’ll get out of this crisis.

G.M. has become a giant wealth- destruction machine — possibly the biggest in history — and it is time that it and Chrysler were put into bankruptcy so they can truly start over under new management with new labor agreements and new visions. When it comes to helping companies, precious public money should focus on start-ups, not bailouts.

You want to spend $20 billion of taxpayer money creating jobs? Fine. Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short of cash today because their partners — university endowments and pension funds — are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S. Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose. If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers will give you 20 percent of the investors’ upside and keep 80 percent for themselves.

If we are going to be spending billions of taxpayer dollars, it can’t only be on office-decorating bankers, over-leveraged home speculators and auto executives who year after year spent more energy resisting changes and lobbying Washington than leading change and beating Toyota.

I’ve been traveling all across the country on a book tour, and every evening I return to my hotel with my pockets full of business cards from inventors in clean energy. Our country is still bursting with innovators looking for capital. So, let’s make sure all the losers clamoring for help don’t drown out the potential winners who could lift us out of this. Some of our best companies, such as Intel, were started in recessions, when necessity makes innovators even more inventive and risk-takers even more daring.

Yes, we have to shore up the banking system, which underpins everything; and finding a fair way to prevent hardworking people, who played by the rules, from losing their homes to foreclosure is both right and essential for stability.

But beyond that, let’s think, talk and plan in more aspirational ways. We’re down, but we’re not out. As we invest taxpayer money, let’s do it with an eye to starting a new generation of biotech, info-tech, nanotech and clean-tech companies, with real innovators, real 21st-century jobs and potentially real profits for taxpayers. Our motto should be, “Start-ups, not bailouts: nurture the next Google, don’t nurse the old G.M.’s.”

To be fair, the stimulus package that the Obama team and the Democrats in Congress recently passed — with virtually no Republican help — goes some way toward doing just that. Hat’s off for that. Now let’s do more.

The renewable-energy business — wind, solar and solar thermal (geothermal?!-ed) — was almost dead in this country. Most new projects stopped last fall because they depended for their financing on selling their renewable energy tax credits to Wall Street firms. As those Wall Street firms went bust or suffered steep losses, they had no need for tax credits because they had no profits to offset. The stimulus package created a mechanism for renewable energy innovators to bypass Wall Street and monetize their tax credits directly through the U.S. Treasury, for any project that starts between now and the end of 2010.

The wind and solar industries in America “were dead in the fourth quarter,” said John Woolard, chief executive of BrightSource Energy, which builds and operates cutting-edge solar-thermal plants in the Mojave Desert. Almost five gigawatts of new solar-thermal projects — the equivalent of five big nuclear plants — at various stages of permitting were being held up because of a lack of financing.

“All of these projects will now go ahead,” said Woolard. “You are talking about thousands of jobs ... We really got something right in this legislation.”

These jobs will be in engineering, constructing and operating huge solar systems and wind farms and manufacturing new photovoltaics. Together they will drive innovation in all these areas — and move wind and solar technology down the cost-volume learning curve so they can compete against fossil fuels and become export industries at the “ChinIndia price,” that is the price at which they can scale in China and India.

That is how taxpayer money should be used to stimulate: limited financing, for a limited time, targeted on an industry bristling with new technology start-ups that, with a little push from Uncle Sam, won’t just survive this crisis but help us thrive when it is over. We need, and the world needs, an America that is thriving not just surviving.

Q: Where is GSHP suitable in the US?

2009-02-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

A: Pretty much anywhere there's ground and buildings.

The white area represents "Area Suitable for Geothermal Heat Pumps (entire US)."

Word is that the Joint Explanatory Statement Division - A, which is part of the official legislative history, specifies the full $400M for EERE R&D on geothermal (page 24). This should provide DOE with sufficient funding to pursue aggressive programs in EGS, Unidentified Hydrothermal, Co-Produced & Geo-Pressured, Resource Evaluation, Direct Use, and Ground Source Heat Pumps. There should be a new FOA for geothermal technologies - similar to last year's - hitting the street soon. There should be additional FOA's covering stimulus opportunities to appear within the next two months.

Also, there is an additional $400M specified to create an ARPA-E, as well as up to $350M for Department of Defense related renewables research.

The 30% Solution

2009-02-17T00:48:00.000-08:00

The Stimulus Bill to be signed by President Obama today eliminates the $2,000 limit on the 30% tax credit for homeowners who install geothermal heat pump systems in 2009 and later years.

The Stimulus Bill also establishes grants in lieu of tax credits for geothermal heat pumps installed in commercial buildings. H.R. 1424 previously established the new 10% investment tax credit for geothermal systems, extended these credits through 2016 and allowed them to be used to offset the alternative minimum tax (AMT). By including geothermal heat pumps within the definition of “energy property” in the Energy Credit language, geothermal heat pump systems placed in service after October 3, 2008 will now also be subject to a 5-year depreciation period.

The legislation also dramatically expands support for the Department of Energy’s geothermal research, development, demonstration and deployment efforts. The Bush Administration had sought to close down these efforts, but Congress authorized a broad, new advanced geothermal research program in 2007 as part of the energy bill and has now provided the funds to carry it out. The stimulus bill sets aside $400 million for geothermal technology research, development and deployment efforts at DOE.

“The DOE geothermal research program has been starved for years,” commented Karl Galwell of the Geothermal Energy Association. “The 2007 Advanced Geothermal Research and Development Act provides a framework for an exciting new DOE program, and the stimulus bill gives them resources needed to implement this initiative,” Gawell added.

While most of the research funds will be targeted towards "Big G" Geothermal R&D, there will be money for GSHP as well.

Renewable Heat Incentive & GSHP in UK

2009-02-13T19:05:00.000-08:00

UK Government Unveils Plan To Slash Household CO2 By 2050

| Sourced From Carbon Offset Daily & EasyBourse |

LONDON -(Dow Jones)- The U.K. government Thursday unveiled plans to reduce household emissions of carbon dioxide to almost zero by 2050 through energy efficiency measures and the use of renewable and low-carbon heating and power sources.

The plans, which are being put out to consultation for 12 weeks, include providing cavity wall and loft insulation for all suitable properties by 2015, extending the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target scheme to 2012 and rolling out low-cost home energy audits.

The government wants to reduce carbon emissions from the household and domestic sector, which accounts for 27% of the total, to achieve its targeted 80% cut in overall emissions by 2050. The U.K. also has a binding European Union target to boost renewable energy use to 15% by 2020 from around 2% now.

“Energy efficiency and low-carbon energy are the fairest routes to curbing emissions, saving money for families, improving our energy security and insulating us from volatile fossil fuel prices,” Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband told a news conference.

Householders would be encouraged to install energy efficiency measures and low-carbon heat and power sources such as solar panels, combined heat and power boilers and ground source heat pumps through the feed-in-tariff and the renewable heat incentive.

The feed-in-tariff for small scale electricity generation is due to start in April 2010 and the renewable heat incentive, which is to be partly funded by utilities, is due to begin in 2011, Miliband said.
The CERT scheme already has funding of an additional GBP350 million from utility companies and the government is looking to extend the scheme to 2012 and increase the current energy efficiency scheme by 20%.

It is hoped that communities will also get involved in projects such as district heating which could use more efficient CHP technology and renewable energy sources such as biomass, Miliband said.
The Renewable Energy Association welcomed the government’s heat and energy efficiency strategy but said the RHI and feed-in-tariff needed to be introduced together by 2010 at the latest.
“Heat is the biggest use of energy in the U.K. and renewable heat technologies are often cheap, allowing households to protect themselves from dramatic fluctuations in gas bills. In addition the renewable heat industry offers huge potential for immediate job creation,” the REA said.

The U.K.’s leading business organization, the Confederation of British Industry, said the plan for households needed to be extended across other sectors of the economy.

“Business has the potential to deliver massive savings as a provider of energy efficient solutions but we need to see clearer measures to kick-start the move towards a low-carbon recovery,” said Neil Bentley, CBI’s director of business environment.

Energy Efficiency Needs a Better Lobby

2009-02-09T20:33:00.000-08:00

Rob Day is a pretty darn amazing guy. He's read the more coherent parts of my mind and organized it into a how-to guide for government action. Rob's Cleantech Investing blog is one of the only sites that matter. Here's his latest, published in its entirety, entitled:

Energy Efficiency Needs a Better Lobby!

There are two critical roles for energy efficiency in upcoming 2009 federal legislation. But you almost never hear about them.

First of all, energy efficiency is shovel-ready. In other words, if you’re looking to have an immediate impact on both green-collar jobs creation and cost-effective carbon emissions reductions, you absolutely have to include energy efficiency retrofits into the equation. For example, look at commercial building energy efficiency retrofits: The technology is available already; The nature of the work is service-oriented and building controls and HVAC and lighting are readily “trainable” for new recruits; and the economics often make perfect sense, if only regulatory support would help address the upfront capital cost hurdle.

And yet what I hear from folks battling inside the Beltway right now is that energy efficiency support has been one of the items on the chopping block in all the Stimulus Package horsetrading. Apparently the CBO came out with a report saying that much of the energy efficiency incentives put into the bill wouldn’t have an effect until 5 years out? I haven’t had a chance to review the specifics, but I would find that hard to swallow if true.

And while I’m also a big supporter of renewables, it’s hard to make a case that regulatory support for solar panel manufacturing (for example) would be something that would have a 2009 jobs impact, and in fact much of that market will eventually go overseas. I’m not arguing against support for solar panel manufacturing, we have technology leadership reasons for wanting to pursue that as well, and good green manufacturing jobs should be encouraged in any case. But if your metric is jobs creation in 2009, it’s tough to make the argument that renewables should be prioritized over energy efficiency. And yet, apparently, that’s what the pencil-pushers are doing.

Secondly, energy efficiency could play a critical role in any climate change regulation that comes out.

To begin with, from a “wedges” perspective we cannot afford to ignore the role energy efficiency must play in any comprehensive climate change effort. It’s not sufficient, but it sure is necessary.

Also, from a timing perspective, once again energy efficiency shines versus alternatives like sequestration and renewables. It’s reductions we can do immediately, not after further waited-for innovations.

Finally, and most tactically, energy efficiency based carbon offsets may be very powerful in bringing key Senators “onsides” with carbon cap-and-trade regulation. As we all watch how critical it is to reach 60 votes in the Senate, it’s important to recognize that major regions of the country consider themselves to be at a severe disadvantage in a cap-and-trade scheme, because (rightly or wrongly) they feel they lack the renewable generation potential (solar, wind, geothermal, etc.) of other regions. Specifically, the US southeast feels disadvantaged versus the west or northeast. It would be very easy for regional blocks to stand in the way of effective cap-and-trade regulation.

But of course, one potential “resource” that the US southeast has is lots and lots of inefficient air conditioners. It’s an easily mined source of offsets to help them meet their requirements — if energy efficiency-based offsets are included as a key source.

Energy efficiency does face some technical challenges (for example, establishing accurate baselines and proving “additionality”) if it’s to be included effectively in any scheme. It gets complex quickly. We’ll talk another time about these complexities and possible ways to deal with them.

But it’s worth wrestling with these details, because otherwise it’s tough to see how we get to 60. And without that, the political efforts of a lot of people who are currently ignoring energy efficiency may be wasted anyway.

Now the Story Can Begin to be Told...

2009-01-22T00:02:00.000-08:00

From Joseph Romm in Grist:

On Friday January 16, the U.S. Climate Change Science Program actually released four major Synthesis and Assessment reports. You may remember the last report the CCSP released -- U.S. Geological Survey stunner: Sea-level rise in 2100 will likely "substantially exceed" IPCC projections, SW faces "permanent drying" by 2050. I was told by scientists knowledgeable about the CCSP process that all of the major impact reports were slowed down in the review process to make sure they came out after the election.

So what are the reports the Bushies have tried to bury? From the CCSP website:

Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.1 (Coastal Sensitivity to Sea-Level Rise: A Focus on the Mid-Atlantic Region) is posted online. See also press release from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and EPA web-page. (posted 16 Jan 2009)

Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 4.2 (Thresholds of Climate Change in Ecosystems) is posted. See also press release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). (posted 16 Jan 2009)

Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 2.3 (Aerosol properties and their impacts on climate) is posted online. See also press release from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). (posted 16 Jan 2009)

Final Report of Synthesis and Assessment Product 1.2 (Past Climate Variability and Change in the Arctic and at High Latitudes) is posted. See also press release from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). (posted 16 Jan 2009)

These are all substantive and comprehensive studies, almost on a par with the IPCC's Fourth Assessment.

Northeast Greenhouse Gas Allowance Auction

2009-01-21T14:43:00.000-08:00

The second auction of allowances for greenhouse gas emissions held by the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) was a robust auction that yielded $106.5 million for use by the 10 RGGI states, according to Potomac Economics, an independent market monitor. The auction was held on December 17, and while some feared that the economic situation would depress the prices for the emission allowances, in reality the prices went up, selling at a clearing price of $3.38 per allowance. That's about 10% higher than the clearing price of $3.07 per allowance that was reached in the first auction, which was held in late September 2008. RGGI (pronounced "Reggie") is the first market-based, mandatory cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gas emissions in the United States. Ten northeastern and mid-Atlantic states are participating in the program, including Connecticut, Delaware, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont. See the RGGI press release (PDF 146 KB) and Web site. Download Adobe Reader.

RGGI helps reduce the region's greenhouse gas emissions in two ways: first, the steady reduction of the emissions cap will eventually force electric generators to find ways to cut their emissions, primarily through energy efficiency or renewable energy. As the cap decreases, the rising cost of the allowances will effectively add an increasing carbon price to traditional fossil-energy combustion, improving the cost competitiveness of cleaner alternatives. But the auction also yields a new source of revenue for the participating states. Massachusetts, for instance, gained $14.8 million from the latest auction, the bulk of which was directed toward utility energy efficiency programs, heating system upgrades for the homes of families earning low incomes, and a new "green communities" effort. The funds are also supporting a new $5 million training program for energy auditors, insulation installers, and other energy efficiency technicians, creating skilled labor needed for the "green collar" opportunities that are generated by the concerted effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. See the press release from Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick.

The RGGI states certainly seem to think the process works, as they have already embarked on a new effort to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions from vehicle fuels. Governor Patrick announced on January 5 that the 10 RGGI states are teaming up with Pennsylvania to create a regional Low Carbon Fuel Standard, which will be a market-based, technologically neutral policy to address the carbon content of fuels. The standard will require reductions in the average lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions per unit of useful energy, and it should promote a gradual shift to advanced biofuels and to cars powered with electricity. See the governor's press release.

After the Ball is Over...

2009-01-20T15:40:00.000-08:00

An auld song from the grandparents has been kickin' round my head today:

After the ball is over
After the break of morn
After the dancers' leaving
After the stars are gone
Many a heart is aching
If you could read them all
Many the hopes that have vanished
After the ball

Well, I guess you had to hear it in 3/4 time...

So now let's get to work. The draft American Recovery and Reinvestment Act details. Here are areas that may touch on GSHP in one way or another:

Local Government Energy Efficiency Block Grants: $6.9 billion to help state and local governments make investments that make them more energy efficient and reduce carbon emissions.
Energy Efficiency Housing Retrofits: $2.5 billion for a new program to upgrade HUD sponsored low-income housing to increase energy efficiency, including new insulation, windows, and furnaces.
Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Research: $2 billion for energy efficiency and renewable energy research, development, demonstration, and deployment activities to foster energy independence, reduce carbon emissions, and cut utility bills.
Advanced Battery Loans and Grants: $2 billion for the Advanced Battery Loan Guarantee and Grants Program, to support U.S. manufacturers of advanced vehicle batteries and battery systems.
Energy Efficiency Grants and Loans for Institutions: $1.5 billion for energy sustainability and efficiency grants and loans to help school districts, institutes of higher education, local governments, and municipal utilities implement projects that will make them more energy efficient.
Home Weatherization: $6.2 billion to help low-income families reduce their energy costs by weatherizing their homes and make our country more energy efficient.
Department of Defense Research: $350 million for research into using renewable energy to power weapons systems and military bases.
Alternative Buses and Trucks: $400 million to help state and local governments purchase efficient alternative fuel vehicles to reduce fuel costs and carbon emissions.
Industrial Energy Efficiency: $500 million for energy efficient manufacturing demonstration projects.
Diesel Emissions Reduction: $300 million for grants and loans to state and local governments for projects that reduce diesel emissions, benefiting public health and reducing global warming.
Department of Energy: $400 million for the Advanced Research Project Agency – Energy to support high-risk, high- payoff research into energy sources and energy efficiency.

New York Times Editorial

2009-01-20T15:06:00.001-08:00

A bit too much of the ol' "on the one hand..." caveat searching for dangers of a "drilling free-for-all," but otherwise right on the money. -Ed.

"The next administration should commit to developing this extraordinary resource."

January 14, 2009

Editorial

Geothermal Future

To most people the word “geothermal” means hot springs and geysers — like parts of Iceland or Yellowstone National Park where water is heated by the presence of magma near the surface of the earth. But the earth’s heat lies below everywhere, and it offers a virtually untapped energy reserve of enormous potential with a very short list of drawbacks.

In 2006, a panel led by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology surveyed the prospects for electricity production from enhanced geothermal systems. Its conclusions were conservative but very optimistic. The panel suggested that with modest federal support, geothermal power could play a critical role in America’s energy future, adding substantially to the nation’s store of renewable energy and more than making up for coal-burning power plants that would have to be retired.

Following up on the M.I.T. study and a separate survey of its own, the Bureau of Land Management issued a decision last month that would open up as many as 190 million acres to leases for geothermal exploration and development. These lands are mostly in the West, where hot rock lies closer to the surface than it generally does in the East.

There is a lot of research yet to be done about geothermal sources, new techniques for deep drilling and energy generation at the surface. But the basics are clear enough. Water is injected deep into the earth where it absorbs heat from the surrounding rock. As the fluid returns to the surface, that heat is used to generate electricity. The fluid is then re-injected. The system forms a closed loop. It creates almost no emissions and is entirely renewable. It also occupies a smaller surface area than either solar or wind power.

Key Technologies for More Energy Efficient, Carbon Neutral Living

2009-01-14T00:14:00.000-08:00

An Excerpt From Michael Hoexter's textbook-like Green Thoughts Blog

Part Four of His Summary for PolicyMakers Series

Listed below are some of the key technologies that will help us achieve energy independence and carbon neutrality more quickly.

1) Heat pumps: ground source, air source, hybrid and with bore hole thermal energy storage

2) Super-glass (low emissivity, selectively coated, insulated) and super-windows

3) High-R Insulation and structural insulated panels

4) Efficient Fluorescent and Efficient LED Lighting

5) Fiber-optic solar lighting and advanced skylights for daylighting

6) Intelligent building, lighting, and appliance controls

7) Light-colored and “cool-colored” building and paving materials (that reduce the heat island effect of the built environment and building heat loads)

8) Solar thermal water and space heating

9) Variable Frequency Drives (electronically adjusting pump and fan speeds to energy demand)

10) Weatherproofing and tighter building envelope standards (with testing)

11) Radiant heating (using water rather than air as the heat transfer medium in a building)

12) Induction cooktops, convection ovens and electric infrared grilling

Strange Times Ahead

2009-01-13T10:58:00.000-08:00

Something very funny going on here. Indications of things to come?

First Rex Tillerson, the head of Exxon, calls for a Carbon Tax to tackle global warming: "A carbon tax is also the most efficient means of reflecting the cost of carbon in all economic decisions – from investments made by companies to fuel their requirements, to the product choices made by consumers," Mr Tillerson said in a speech to the Woodrow Wilson Centre for International Scholars, a Washington think-tank. "As a businessman it is hard to speak favourably about any new tax. But a carbon tax strikes me as a more direct, a more transparent and a more effective approach."

Then Dick Cheney (who sponsored legislation as a Congressman that branded Nelson Mandela as a terrorist to this day) says he sees the inauguration of liberal Democrat Barack Obama as positive and remarkable and historic. "I have the same feeling that I think many Americans have, that it's really remarkable that -- what we're going to do here in a few days is swear in the first African American president of the United States. When I came to town in 1968, we'd had the Martin Luther King assassination, Bobby Kennedy assassination, riots in the cities, major, major disturbances, a lot of it racially motivated around the country.

"And in fact, things have changed so dramatically that we're now about to swear in Barack Obama as president of the United States. That's really a remarkable story and I think a record of tremendous success and progress for the United States."

And then we find out a possible explanation for this crazy talk: current lunar cycle will yield the the biggest and brightest moon of 2009, appearing about 14 percent bigger in our sky and 30 percent brighter than some other full moons during 2009, according to NASA.