Feb 08 2010
Like Rodney Dangerfield, electric power plants that burn biomass don't get much respect in this age of high-tech solar and wind energy. But the conditional approval last week by the California Public Utilities Commission of a deal between PG&E and the owners of a small cogeneration plant near Bakersfield bodes well for the future contribution of biomass to a cleaner environment.
The Mt. Poso Cogeneration Company has operated a coal-fired cogeneration facility (combined power plant and industrial heat source) since 1989. Now it plans to convert the facility to burn agricultural and urban wood waste--everything from orchard prunings to clean demolition wood--to generate 44 megawatts of power, enough to meet the needs of about 47,000 average homes. Unless engineering or economic obstacles emerge, the plant should begin feeding biomass power into PG&E's grid by 2012.
The plant will divert woody biomass, which would have been burned in the open, to a combustion facility with modern emissions control equipment. And it will reduce carbon pollution by substituting biomass--which might otherwise have decayed, releasing greenhouse gases--in place of coal.
The retrofitting of old coal plants to run with at least some biomass won a ringing endorsement in a new study published by the Journal of Environmental Science and Technology. Substituting wood pellets for just 10 percent of the coal used in power plants in the United States and Canada would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 170 million metric tons each year, it concluded.
The idea is catching on. In December 2006, Public Service of New Hampshire began running a 50 MW former coal-fired plant entirely on wood chips. Portland General Electric is now seriously considering converting Oregon's only coal-fired plant to burning wood pellets. And several other cogeneration plants in PG&E's service area are considering similar conversions.
California likely could do even more. Currently, biomass accounts for only about two percent of the state's power (comparable to wind and small hydro). David Bischel, president of the California Forestry Association, has argued that dead trees, scrub brush and other wood waste are abundantly available as fuel for additional power generation.
Biomass generation isn't a cure-all, but it's an important part of the clean-energy solution, even for transportation. As noted previously in NEXT100, some scientists have determined that in most cases it's better for the environment to burn biomass to generate electricity for plug-in vehicles rather than converting it to biofuel to run in traditional engines.
Feb 05 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
A white roof may look like a painted masterpiece to those who want to reduce urban heat. The National Center for Atmospheric Research recently completed a study demonstrating that white roofs can be an effective method for cooling. The study’s simulations provide an idealized view of different types of cities around the world and indicate that, if every roof were entirely painted white, the urban heat island effect could be reduced by 33 percent.
According to a new report released by a leading Canadian environmental group, the city of Vancouver, which will host the 2010 Olympic Winter Games, would earn a bronze medal if fighting climate change were an Olympic sport. The report claims the event’s organizers have done a good job building energy efficient venues, but have fallen a tad short when it comes to offsetting carbon emissions surrounding the Winter Games. Environment is one of the three “official pillars” of the Olympic movement.
Just before athletes from around the world will have a chance to earn their gold, silver and bronze medals, athletes from Indianapolis and New Orleans will go after the Vince Lombardi trophy. And it is estimated that this year’s Super Bowl – which the NFL says is more environmentally responsible than in the past – will produce 310,000 pounds of carbon emissions. In addition, researchers claim the stadium in Miami will use 187,000 KW of electricity and the television sets of home viewers will consume roughly 10,004,603 KW of energy. And speaking of green, it is estimated that close to 54 million pounds of avocados will be consumed by guacamole loving fans.
Feb 05 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attentionthis week:
San Francisco startup and solar brokering firm One Block Off the Grid, or 1BOG, is applying a business model emphasizing social media such as Twitter and door-to-door pitches to match groups of homeowners seeking solar systems with local solar installers. 1BOG put in 550 solar systems in 2009, its first year, and is expanding into new markets in 2010. The solar customers get volume discounts and 1BOG gets referral fees from the installers. The company is introducing a program in New Jersey and planning moves into San Antonio and Honolulu. "We want 2010 to be the year where we bring solar to the masses," says Dave Llorens, co-founder and general manager.
Oil-dependent Hawaii aims to get 70 percent of its total energy needs from clean resources by 2030 -- 40 percent from renewable power generation and 30 percent from energy efficiency. The islands have abundant solar, wind, geothermal and wave resources. The state is considering projects such as a 30-mile undersea cable to link proposed wind farms on Lanai and Molokai to electric grids on Oahu and Maui. Hawaii's Gas Co. is using municipal solid waste and animal fat to make synthetic gas for its customers. "We're adopting policies and technologies here that can serve as a model for the rest of the globe," Jeff Mikulina, executive director of the Blue Planet Foundation, a Hawaii clean energy advocacy group, told the Los Angeles Times.
Last March, NEXT100 reported on a novel 60-foot catamaran made of used plastic bottles under construction in a shed on the San Francisco waterfront. The boat, named Plastiki, now is going through trials on San Francisco Bay before it hoists sails early in March to cross the Pacific to Australia. Plastiki's twin hulls are made of 12,500 plastic bottles filled with dry ice. David de Rothschild, project leader and scion of the Rothschild banking family, aims to draw attention to plastic waste winding up in landfills and in the oceans. He told the San Francisco Chronicle the way to get the recycling message across is a plastic sailing adventure -- a message in a bottle.Bon Voyage!
Feb 04 2010
Maybe it's just his optimistic personality, but Joel Makower, executive editor of GreenBiz.com, made a strong case today that the glass is at least half full for the green economy going into 2010, even in the face of one of the deepest recessions in memory.
Makower presented the highlights of his organization's third annual State of Green Business Report today at PG&E's Gold LEED-certified auditorium before an audience of about 400 people. The report identifies 10 major trends in green business and 20 key indicators of its health, such as green power use, toxic emissions and energy efficiency.
"Something remarkable happened in 2009," Makower told the audience of business executives and green activists. "Green business didn't go away--it even thrived. You not only kept your jobs but in many cases became more critical to your companies' mission."
Last year saw significant progress on six indicators tracked by the report, including the number of clean-energy patents (an all-time high), energy efficiency, the number of green IT products, the development of green office space, and declining use of paper and water.
Makower said he's heartened by the "race to the top" in several industries such as computing, where Energy Star and EPEAT-rated equipment is rapidly gaining ground, and package delivery, where the US Postal Service, UPS and Fed Ex are all making great strides in acquiring cleaner fleets.
On the other hand, setbacks last year included the slow rate of improvement in greenhouse emissions per unit of GDP, shrinkage of telecommuting and inadequate recycling of electronic equipment.
Of the major business trends discussed in the report, one of the most interesting is the concept of "radical transparency," which refers to the "virtuous circle that develops when detailed information about companies, products and ingredients is instantly available, enabling consumers to make smarter choices, thereby moving markets toward less-harmful products."
This transparency starts at the grass roots, where the "tweet and text generation," as the report calls them, exploit social media to spread word instantly about good and bad business practices. It is also driven by the many web sites, like HealthyStuff.org, that provide sustainability information on a host of consumer products.
And, at the corporate level, it is being driven by ratings from groups like the Carbon Disclosure Project, Climate Counts and Dow Jones, with its Sustainability World Index. More and more corporations, including PG&E, are working with investor outfits like Ceres to produce annual corporate responsibility reports that detail impacts of their businesses on the environment, communities and employees.
Once transparency and disclosure start taking hold, they spread powerfully by example, and may eventually become required. A striking example was the ruling last month by the Securities and Exchange Commission that public companies must warn investors of significant risks that global warming might pose to their businesses.
Someday soon we'll all wonder why that decision was ever controversial. In the meantime, companies will either have to clean up their act, or informed investors will jump ship. That's the power of transparency.
Feb 03 2010
One of the biggest stories to come out of this week's announcement of the Department of Energy's new budget was its support for nuclear power plant--including $36 billion in new loan guarantees.
But one of the most overlooked stories was DOE's proposed support for small modular reactors in the $195 million "Reactor Concepts Research, Development and Demonstration" program. According to The Energy Daily, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu "appears to have won a tussle with the White House Office of Management and Budget," which "last year had sought to bar DOE work in that area."
In December, a senior DOE official told a Senate committee that small nuclear reactors--typically a tenth the size of most commercial reactors operating today--may prove more cost-effective for many applications and pose fewer proliferation risks. Their modular designs may be suitable for mass production, lowering costs and improving reliability. Some are even designed to be installed underground, reducing the threat of terrorist attack.
A fierce race to develop small commercial reactors is underway globally."Technical and manufacturing innovations make [small reactors] a potential game-changer for the global clean energy market," said Christofer Mowry, president and CEO of Babcock & Wilcox Modular Nuclear Energy, which is developing a 125 MW reactor of its own.
Like their big brethran, most small reactors under development today create heat through uranium fission, which is used to create steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity.
But because of their small size, they should be easier to manufacture and more suitable for remote locations or industrial uses. Many designers claim they are inherently safe as well, incapable of runaway chain reactions and melt-downs. And many proponents project that they could generate clean power for as little as 6 to 9 cents per kilowatt hour, a fraction of the cost of solar power.
One of the centers of research on small reactors is Sandia National Laboratory. Its proposed design will generate between 100 MW and 300 MW of power, and has a relatively simple cooling system based on liquid sodium. It should operate for several decades without refueling, and cost only $250 million per unit.
Meanwhile, design concepts developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory are being commercialized by Santa Fe-based Hyperion Power Generation, Inc. In November, it unveiled its design for a power module, or "fission battery," that generates 25 MW of power, enough to serve about 20,000 typical homes. Hyperion calls it a "safe, self-contained, simple-to-operate" design that is "small enough to be manufactured en masse and transported in its entirety via ship, truck, or rail."
Corvallis-based NuScale Power, commercializing DOE-funded research at Oregon State University, also says it has developed a small nuclear power system that is "safe, modular and scalable." Its 45 MW water-cooled reactors could be combined in clusters to produce as much power as a conventional reactor but with much less construction time. The company hopes to submit a design to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for certification this year. The company is backed by CMEA Ventures, based in San Francisco.
Feb 02 2010
The space race is back. But this time, instead of landing a man on the moon, the goal is to unlock the commercial potential of clean and virtually limitless solar power from space.
Southern California-based Solaren Corporation is working on it for PG&E. Mitsubishi and more than a dozen other Japanese companies are working on it for the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). Now Europe's number one space company, EADS Astrium, says it, too, has begun developing key components to beam power collected by orbiting solar panels back to Earth, where it can be delivered to the electric grid.
While Solaren and JAXA envision beaming power via radio waves, Astrium is working instead on high-powered infrared lasers to carry the energy. It is also collaborating with scientists at the University of Surrey to develop devices that convert infrared energy to electricity. Their chief technology officer says a space mission to demonstrate the technology should be feasible within five years, according to Aviation Week and Space Technology.
Ralph Nansen, former program manager for solar power satellites at Boeing, president of Solar Space Industries and author of the new book Energy Crisis: Solution from Space, told me that infrared laser solutions appeal mainly to the military, because their tightly focused beams could in theory supply power to remote battlefield locations.
Unlike radio waves, however, high-power lasers raise both safety and political concerns, and they don't penetrate thick clouds. One of the great appeals of space solar power carried by radio waves is its ability to deliver energy around the clock and under nearly all weather conditions, unlike terrestrial solar.
As Nansen points out, however, "The whole key to the thing is developing a
Nansen said the United States lags in the development of space solar power, despite many years of studying its potential, because NASA says it's an energy program, and the Department of Energy says it's a space program. So unless private U.S. companies can deliver, expect Japan, Europe or even Russia to take the lead.
Nansen, like a growing number of experts believes space must become the next great source of clean energy here on Earth. Agree or not, you can believe him when he says, "I’ve worked on this long enough to know it’s not easy."
Feb 01 2010
Since the Obama administration didn't succeed at first, it's try, try, trying again this year to convince Congress to phase out fossil fuel subsidies to help fight global warming.
The administration's new budget proposes ending $36.5 billion in subsidies--mostly various kinds of tax credits--for oil and gas production over the next decade in order to "foster the clean energy economy of the future and reduce our reliance on fossil fuels that contribute to climate change."
And lest we forget, fewer subsidies will mean less budgetary red ink as well.
Obama is following through on a promise he made last year at the G20 economic summit in Pittsburgh "to phase out fossil fuel subsidies so that we can better address our climate challenge."
While the prospect of putting a price on carbon emissions is still controversial, calls to withdraw taxpayer subsidies from polluting sources of energy should be much easier to swallow. For years, economists of many stripes have suggested that it makes little sense to subsidize production of fossil fuels--mature and highly profitable forms of energy whose price generally does not reflect the harm they cause to human health and the environment.
Industry associations, on the other hand, argue that federal "incentives" for fossil-fuel production are merited in order to promote domestic energy security and to create jobs.
Last fall, The Environmental Law Institute, in partnership with the prestigious Woodrow Wilson International Center, published an analysis claiming that fossil fuels received a vastly disproportionate share of the $100 billion in federal subsidies for energy from 2002-2008.
Traditional oil, gas and coal interests received a bit more than $70 billion in tax breaks and direct subsidies, according to the study. Corn ethanol, a controversial fuel additive, received just shy of $17 billion. Traditional renewables received only $12 billion.
Those estimates, predictably, have fueled a lively academic debate. In the long run, however, the accuracy of specific estimates doesn't matter most. What counts more is whether Congress is willing to pay the political cost of upsetting traditional interests in order to fight global warming by tilting the energy market in a greener direction.
Jan 29 2010
Several stories on the science and politics of global warming caught our attention this week:
The Pentagon will release its quadrennial defense review on Monday and early accounts claim the U.S. military will list global warming as a threat to national security. The writers are expected to call the issue an “instability accelerant” that could pose great danger to American troops on foreign soil. "Climate change is a factor that interacts with other trends, principally weak governance, poor economies and population growth, to drive states toward instability, which can, in turn, spawn a range of security challenges," the researchers said in the paper.
President Obama formally embraced the Copenhagen Accord, stating the U.S. will aim for a 17 percent emissions cut in carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for global warming by 2020. But the president warned that the goal was conditional on other countries also submitting their pollution-cutting targets to the United Nations. The condition was likely aimed at fence-sitters in Congress who do not want to see the United States commit to steps on fighting global warming unless other major polluters like China and India go along.
Scientists say rising seawaters are causing the lifeline of the ancient Egyptians to expand, raising havoc in Egypt by turning the Nile Delta into a salty marsh and forcing farmers off their lands. To combat rising sea levels, the farmers who have decided to stay and fight are importing sand to stave off the salty sea in an effort to protect their land and their crops. Experts claim even a small rise to sea levels over the next 15 years would flood 200 square kilometers and displace 500,000 people, effectively killing 70,000 agricultural jobs.
Jan 29 2010
Everyone knows that "sustainable" is good, but what exactly is it? Corporate Knights, a Canadian-based magazine for "clean capitalism," has come up with a comprehensive definition--and it announced yesterday that Pacific Gas and Electric Company ranks second on its Global 100 list of sustainable large companies, right behind GE.
Working with three strategic partners--Inflection Point Capital Management, Legg Mason's Global Currents Investment Management and Phoenix Global Advisors LLC--Corporate Knights came up with what they call the "international gold standard" for sutainability indexes. It summarizes 11 separate measures, including energy productivity (sales divided by energy consumption), water productivity, leadership diversity, R&D intensity and transparency.
Announcing the magazine's findings at Davos World Economic Forum, editor-in-chief Toby Heaps said that to be considered sustainable, companies must "squeeze four times more wealth out of every resource they use."
Heaps explained the significance of the new global ranking: “By using clear metrics to show investors which companies stand out from their peers, we hope to create a virtuous cycle where the most sustainable companies attract the most capital and earn the best returns.”
Although U.S. companies lead the list, they comprise only 12 of the 100. The United Kingdom dominated with 24; Canada and Australia took the bronze medal with 9 each.
Jan 29 2010
Several items relating to the business and technology of clean energy and the environment caught our attention this week:
Solar energy companies and relief organizations are helping Haiti to recover from the devastating earthquake, supplying solar panels to power lighting, water purification systems, ovens, mobile phones, laptop computers and other devices. Sun Ovens International is sending stand-alone and commercial solar ovens to Port-au-Prince. Solar panel maker Sol Inc. is providing solar lighting at an orphanage, relief camps and hospitals, while SolarWorld is powering 10 water purification systems. Faith Comes by Hearing, a provider of audio Bibles, is partnering with a relief organization to distribute 600 sun-powered Bibles.
Iceland is the world leader in pollution control and natural resource management, according to the 2010 Environmental Performance Index (EPI) developed by environmental experts at Columbia and Yale. The EPI, presented at the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, ranks 163 countries on performance across 25 metrics. Iceland registered high scores on environmental public health, controlling greenhouse gas emissions and reforestation. Other top performers include Switzerland, Costa Rica, Sweden and Norway. The U.S. was ranked 61 "with strong results on some issues, such as provision of safe drinking water and forest sustainability, and weak performance on other issues including greenhouse gas emissions and several aspects of local air pollution."
The Olympics are embracing recycled materials for the eco-friendly 2010 Vancouver Winter Games and London's Summer Games in 2012. Medalists at the Vancouver Olympics and Paralympics Winter Games will receive gold, silver and bronze medals containing metal from recycled TVs, computers and keyboards. London's Metropolitan Police Department is melting down confiscated guns and knives with some of the metal going to help construct the Olympic Stadium in East London.
