Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

The next time you fill your tank at the gas station, think about where the oil you’re consuming came from. Chances are it came from the oil tar sands of northeastern Alberta, Canada, the single biggest source of imports to the United States and the second largest recoverable oil reserve in the world.

In 2008, Toronto-based Environmental Defence published a report calling the vast tar sands development “the most destructive project on earth.”

That assessment is now getting some support from a new study in the prestigious Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. It finds significant levels of arsenic, cadmium, lead and mercury—all toxic inorganic elements—polluting the Athabasca river system from the oil sands development.

University of Albert biologist David Schindler, a co-author, said the discharges are much higher than industry and government agencies have acknowledged, violate Canada’s Fisheries Act, and could concentrate to more dangerous levels in fish.

Last fall, Schindler and several colleagues documented significant releases of potentially toxic “polycyclic aromatic compounds,” some of which cause cancer or reproductive harm. (See the Centers for Disease Control summary here.)

Oil field developments in Canada's tar sands are notorious among environmentalists for the damage they do. Extracting the thick tar requires strip mining the surface forest or peat bogs, creating slurries with tens of millions of cubic meters of water (more than twice the consumption of the city of Calgary), and using steam heat to extract various petroleum products.

Producing the steam requires burning huge amounts of natural gas, creating CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Canadian oil sands developers will consume an estimated 2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day by 2015. As a result, oil from this region has a carbon footprint up to 20 percent higher than other oil, not far below coal.

And what’s left over from the mining are tailing “ponds” filled with toxic chemicals. As Environmental Defence commented in its 2008 report, “To describe them as “ponds” however, is to be guilty of understatement. These masses of toxic soup have now grown so big that they can be seen by the naked eye from space. Indeed, they now include the largest dams on the planet . . .”

Royal Dutch Shell announced recently that it will begin testing new technology to reduce the size of its waste pools and will license the process to its competitors at no cost. The industry reportedly plans to spend a billion dollars next year on reducing its toxic runoff.

But the industry has a long way to go to clean up its act. The Canadian government’s environmental department reported earlier this month that the volume of arsenic and lead dumped into the tailings ponds has grown 26 percent over the past four years.

And according to one news summary of the data, “The companies also released huge amounts of pollutants into the air last year, including 70,658 tonnes of volatile organic compounds, which can damage the function of human organs and nervous systems, and 111,661 tonnes of sulphur dioxide, a key contributor to acid rain.”

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Nothing concentrates the mind like a clear numeric goal. Here’s my nomination for a national environmental goal: 99g/km.

Car enthusiasts will recognize this number instantly: It’s the unofficial target of many green automakers for carbon dioxide emissions – 99 grams of CO2 per kilometer traveled.

Expressing the goal that way makes more sense than the usual fuel economy standard in miles per gallon (though as we’ll see, they have much in common). After all, every other car pollutant is measured and regulated in grams per unit of distance. Current federal standards dictate exhaust emissions of no more than 0.25 grams per mile of smog-producing hydrocarbons, 0.4 g/mi of nitrogen oxides and 3.4 g/mi of carbon monoxide.

Why not hold CO2—a greenhouse gas pollutant--to the same kind of standard?

As we know, establishing those emissions standards worked wonders, achieving results that many automakers claimed were impossible. Back in the 1950s, when the sources of smog in Los Angeles were first discovered, new cars coughed out an average of 13 g/mi of hydrocarbons, 3.6 g/mi of nitrogen oxides and 87 g/mi of carbon monoxide. We’ve come a long way, baby.

Setting a similarly tough but achievable standard for CO2 emissions could have the same beneficial effect, helping us combat the deadly effects of global warming.

At the current federal fuel economy standard, 27 miles per gallon, the average new car pumps out about 203 grams of CO2 per kilometer. It would take an average fuel economy of just over 55 mpg to cut emissions to 99 g/km. (My figures are based on federal guidelines indicating that one gallon of gasoline produces 8,788 grams of CO2 when burned.)

Crossing the magic threshhold of 100 g/km has become a powerful motivating factor for many competitive automakers—in fact, it’s a metric they now routinely boast about for their most efficient new and forthcoming models.

The Peugeot 3008 Hybrid4, the gasoline-powered Hyundai 110, the award-winning Volkswagen Golf BlueMotion diesel, the Toyota iQ, the Audi 1.6 TDI diesel, and the Ford Focus ECOnetic, among others all now tout a rating of 99 g/km.

Isn’t it time we made 99 g/km our new car standard? 

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

A new University of Florida study suggests that global warming 55 million years ago caused now-extinct carnivorous mammals to shrink in size. The study, scheduled to be published in the December edition of the Journal of Mammalian Evolution, explains that different species evolved to sizes much smaller than that of their ancestors during this warming period. Researchers say the Earth experienced increased levels of carbon dioxide and a drier environment during this period - but they do not completely understand exactly what caused the mammals to shrink. 

A multi-million dollar center where people will learn about climate change and the threat of sea level rise is slated to be built in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans near a floodwall that crumbled during Hurricane Katrina, destroying the neighborhood. The new climate change center, scheduled to open in 2011, will be funded with federal and private dollars. The physical design is still being worked out but a project spokeswoman said it would “serve as a community center and perhaps include job training services.” The area is still largely empty due to the devastation, but near where the center will stand, a number of energy efficient solar-powered homes are being built.

A powdered sugar like material, called "dry water," could provide a new way to absorb and store carbon dioxide, according to British scientists. In addition to trapping greenhouse gases, the powder has the potential to be used in a variety of other applications. It may, for instance, be a greener, more energy-efficient way of jumpstarting the chemical reactions used to make hundreds of pharmaceuticals and food products. Researchers assert dry water could also be used to store methane and may provide a safer way to store and transport potentially harmful industrial materials.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Scientists at Napier University in Edinburgh, Scotland, say they have developed a new vehicle biofuel made from Scotch whisky byproducts. The fuel is derived from pot ale liquid from copper stills and spent grains. "While some energy companies are growing crops specifically to generate biofuel, we are investigating excess materials such as whisky byproducts to develop them," Professor Martin Tangey, director of Napier's Biofuel Research Center, told the Financial Times. Tangey says tapping whisky byproducts "is a more environmentally sustainable option and potentially offers new revenue on the back of one of Scotland's biggest industries." Scotch whisky exports were a record $4.85 billion in 2009, or about one quarter of the UK's food and drink exports.

The BP oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico is attracting new remedial clean-up technologies. They include an oil-separating centrifuge system made by Ocean Therapy Solutions, oil-hungry bacteria grown at Tel Aviv University, and an oil-absorbing robot developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, The New York Times Green blog reports. The M.I.T. device is a solar-powered nanofiber conveyor belt said to absorb up to 20 times its weight in oil. Using "swarm" robotics, thousands of the devices could form "teams" to attack a spill. M.I.T. plans to enter the invention in an oil clean-up competition from the X-Prize Foundation with a $1 million prize for collecting and recovering spilled oil. 

The San Francisco Bay Area is gearing up to install 5,000 car chargers over five years for an expected surge of electric and plug-in hybrid cars like the Nissan Leaf, Chevy Volt and models from Mitsubishi, Toyota, Tesla and other automakers. The nine-county Bay Area currently has about 120 chargers. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District has approved a program for organizations to install chargers in the next five years at homes, apartments, office buildings, parking garages, BART stations and shopping malls. "We're trying to address range anxiety," says Damian Breen, director of grant programs for the air  quality district. "We want people not to be worried their electric vehicle is going to run out of juice."

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

If you're on a diet and someone offers you a tasty, low-carb alternative to fattening snacks, what happens? You're liable to eat more of them, canceling out many of the intended benefits.

Offer consumers a more energy-efficient refrigerator, and what happens? Joe Sixpack buys one for the kitchen, but fills the old one with cases of Bud in the garage. (The nation's 30 million secondary refrigerators use an estimated 25 million megawatt hours of electricity annually.)

Give a driver anti-lock brakes for safety, and what happens? She’s likely to take just a few more risks. Now put that driver in a fuel-efficient hybrid to cut down on gas consumption, and what happens? She drives farther because the cost per mile has gone down. Result: lower fuel savings than expected.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Apparently sick of cows getting all the good publicity, California’s chickens are now demanding equal time.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

Come November, California voters will have their say on Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization initiative. If passed, it will give adults aged 21 or older the right to possess, cultivate and transport the drug for personal use.

While California debates the merits of getting high from the hemp or Cannabis plant, Canada is taking a more productive tack. One of its engineering firms, Motive, is turning hemp into what it calls an “impact resistant bio composite material” for strong, lightweight car bodies. These will be critical to the next generation of high-mileage electric and other vehicles.

The goal is to produce materials as strong as the glass composites used in today’s racing cars, but at much lower cost and with more benign materials.

“Natural materials such as hemp can offer a green and sustainable alternative to conventional fibers used in composites,” said Dr. John Wolodko at Alberta Innovates Technology Future, which makes the hemp mats that Motive is using as its raw material. (AITF grows the hemp legally under license from Health Canada.)

Nathan Armstrong, president of Motive, said, “we saw a unique opportunity to make significant advancements in the automotive sector and support the Canadian Auto Sector by providing sustainable products and opportunities to create new green manufacturing jobs.”

Hemp has a wide range of productive uses, including textiles, paper, biodegradeable plastics and health foods (not just brownies). Hemp grown for such purposes typically has only trace amounts of psychoactive chemicals. But it’s nonetheless almost impossible to raise hemp commercially in the United States, aside from limited medical marijuana cultivation in California, because of federal drug laws.

Automakers have been drawn to hemp for over half a century. According to one source on the Internet (so it must be true), “Henry Ford used hemp-and-sisal cellulose plastic to build car doors and fenders in 1941. On video Henry Ford demonstrated that his hemp cars were more resistant to blows from a sledgehammer than steel-bodied cars were. . . . Carmakers such as Ford, GM, Chrysler, Saturn, BMW, Honda, and Mercedes are currently using hemp composite door panels, trunks, head liners, etc."

One U.S. manufacturer, FlexForm Technologies, uses hemp and other natural fibers, along with plastics such as polyproplene and polyester, to make an inexpensive but super strong composite material for automotive customers. The company also reports that it makes an outstanding core material for “eco-friendly” snowboards that have special appeal to “counter-culture” riders.

The attraction to carmakers is that hemp composites cost only 50 to 70 cents a pound, compared to several dollars a pound for many carbon or glass fiber composites.

A Canadian leader in hemp-fiber manufacturing, Stemergy, adds:

Beyond automotive the use of hemp fiber and other biofiber materials are expected to make large in-roads into home and commercial construction in the years to come. . . . Some of the products that are in the works include panel materials, utilizing hemp and earth-friendly binders as an alternative to wood-based panels such as ply-wood. New systems for blending hemp fiber with concrete or stucco are already in place and being refined as your read. Hemp fiber based insulation is available in Europe and detined to be implemented in North America in the foreseeable future. In short, hemp fiber and other bio-fibers will be the new materials in the high-energy cost era that has become a reality.

So rest assured that the Cannabis plant will play an ever greater role in your life—whatever the election results in November.

Posted by: Jonathan Marshall

An iPhone or Blackberry without a battery is just a dead lump of metal and silicon. In much the same way, many experts believe that an electrical grid without energy storage will forever be just a bunch of dumb wires.

That’s why PG&E on Friday filed a request with state regulators for funding to study the feasibility of building a major new “pumped hydro storage” facility in the Mokelumne River watershed in Amador County. The facility, if built, would provide critical backup energy to even out the fluctuations of wind and solar energy, thus supporting California’s ambitious goal of providing a third of the state’s electricity from renewable power by 2020.

The wind can blow strongly for hours, only to die out for days at a time. Solar modules can gush electrons in full sun, then go dormant when clouds pass overhead. Since customers don't want their lights to flicker on and off as the weather changes, today’s utilities—lacking much of any stored energy to call upon—must ramp generators powered by fossil fuels up and down as needed to keep supply in balance with demand.

As utilities add more and more wind and solar to their mix, managing the grid the old way would require a big investment in new backup natural gas-fired power plants.

Using energy storage instead to tame the output of wind and solar power--one of the key goals of the emerging “Smart Grid”—offers “multiple economic and environmental benefits,” according to a recent staff report by the California Public Utilities Commission. By storing “intermittent renewable power, the state may reduce greenhouse gas emissions from carbon-based electricity production, avoid the need to build expensive new transmission lines and power plants to meet peak energy demand, increase system reliability and generate economic activity through the manufacture and operation of these . . . technologies.”

Energy storage has won many converts, including the California Independent System Operator, key technology advisers to the California Air Resources Board, a new report by KEMA for the California Energy Commission, and the U.S. Department of Energy, which has doled out millions of dollars in grants to support storage R&D.

Major technology options include batteries, flywheels, ultracapacitors, compressed air storage and pumped hydro. PG&E is actively investigating battery and compressed air storage and has operated a pumped storage facility in Fresno County since the 1980s.

Pumped hydro, which dates back to 1929 in the United States, is particularly suited to large-scale applications. It uses two water reservoirs at different elevations. When customers need more energy, the utility releases water from the higher reservoir, running it through a turbine to generate clean hydroelectric power. When demand slackens, the utility can use cheap, surplus power to pump water back from the lower reservoir to the higher one for future use.

One notable fan of pumped storage is Energy Secretary Steven Chu. In a speech last year, he called it a potentially “perfect system” for complementing the use of more renewable energy. In another speech mentioning its virtues, Chu praised the efficiency of pumped storage: “As a massive battery it is about 80 percent effective—very, very good energy transfer and storage.”

PG&E isn’t the only California utility with its eye on pumped storage. The Sacramento Municipal Utility District is considering a 400 MW facility near Placerville. The Modesto and Turlock Irrigation Districts are considering a storage project that would make use of Don Pedro Reservoir. Another project is under consideration at Lake Elsinore.

The facility PG&E hopes to study would range in size from 400 MW to 1,200 MW—at the high end, about the same short-term output as two medium-sized power plants.

Posted by: Kory Raftery

Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:

Despite the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s claims that global warming is undeniable and extreme weather events happening all over the globe - all six Republican candidates vying for Judd Gregg’s vacated U.S. Senate seat in New Hampshire recently stood together to deny humans are contributing to climate change. Leading climate scientists agree that greenhouse gas pollution from burning fossil fuels is building up in the atmosphere at an increasing rate and recent studies show New England is not only warming, but experiencing a rash of extreme weather, like the 100-year flood events that happened in New Hampshire in 2005, 2006 and 2007.

In a time when wildfires continue to burn in Russia and the eastern seaboard of the U.S. has seen sweltering heat, Pakistan is now dealing with the worst flooding seen in the country in more than a century. The United Nations recently resolved to strengthen emergency relief efforts to the water stricken region and noted that the unprecedented floods reflected "the adverse impact of climate change and the growing vulnerability of countries to climate change." Climate scientists continue to point out there is a very real distinction between extreme weather and climate change but have asserted it is very likely that hot extremes, heat waves and heavy precipitation events will continue to become more frequent as a result of man-made global warming.

Clean energy investors in California are raising funds to do battle to defeat Proposition 23. The investors are raising millions of dollars for advertising that will be in contrast to messages put out by oil refiners who want to delay the state’s new law on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. If the proposition passes, it would delay California’s Global Warming Solutions Act, signed into law by Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger in 2006, which requires the state to reduce greenhouse gases linked to climate change to their 1990 levels by 2020.

Posted by: Leonard Anderson

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

Four teams from Switzerland, Germany, Australia and South Korea this week launched a solar-powered, emissions-free 80-day around-the-world race from Geneva to draw attention to electric vehicles. The 18,000-mile Zero Race will run through Moscow, Shanghai, Vancouver and San Francisco before stopping in Cancun, Mexico, for a United Nations Climate Conference, and then the vehicles will be shipped to Portugal and end the race in Geneva next January. Two vehicles are battery-powered scooters and the other two are custom sedans. The Zero Race is organized by Swiss adventurer Louis Palmer, the first person to go around the world in a solar-powered vehicle.

Iceland to become world leader in electric cars? A Forbes article suggests Iceland could be the first to make electric vehicles the default national transportation. Three quarters of the island nation's 317,000-plus population lives within 37 miles of the capital Reykjavik. Forbes says rural areas could probably be wired with just 15 fast-charging stations. "That, coupled with with the fact that 80 percent of  Iceland's energy is cheaply produced renewable (from geothermal and hydro) should give you a good idea why this is the ideal test bed for electric vehicles," the article says. Iceland has an agreement with Mitsubishi to deliver i-MiEV all-electric cars to the island with a claimed range of 80 to 100 miles.

The greenest college in the land is small Green Mountain College in Poultney, Vt., according to a survey by the Sierra Club's Sierra magazine. The college, with 820 undergrads, offers an extensive environmental studies program, burns wood chips and methane from cow manure for heat and electricity, and aims to become carbon neutral. The magazine sent an 11-page questionnaire to 900 colleges and universities to find the greenest institutions and received 162 responses. After Green Mountain, the top 10 colleges based on criteria from energy sources to financial investments included Dickinson College (Pennsylvania), Evergreen State College (Washington), University of Washington, Stanford University (California), University of California-Irvine, Northland College (Wisconsin), Harvard University (Massachusetts), College of the Atlantic (Maine), and Hampshire College (Massachusetts).