Before moving to San Francisco this year, I thought I'd have no problem without a personal vehicle. After all, I have two working legs, two bicycles, and there are public transit stops just blocks from my home. Surely all I was facing was a test of patience and planning diligence. I could get over complaints that public transit is a black hole for time by planning to take buses with a limited number of stops, or bringing my bike on the bus for part of the commute. Buying locally in an effort to reduce my carbon footprint and bolster small, independent businesses had a somewhat romantic ring to it.

It wasn't long before I hit some snags in my idealistic plan. Furniture, big loads of groceries, and dogs all tripped me up. When you're moving a couch, can you take it on the bus? If you reach a point where you no longer possess edible food, can you single-handedly transport a week's worth of groceries on foot, bike, or public transit? Maybe, if you have incredible bike panniers, legs of steel, or Go-Go-Gadget Arms. Not me. While dog-sitting, I realized I couldn't transport the pooch on the bus without a muzzle. Even that would have been a risky situation.

What fills the gap for me? A car sharing program. Most of these still do not allow dogs, but that's a dilemma that owners of non-service dogs choose to face. With the choice of several different types of vehicles about 4 or 5 blocks from my house, I no longer feel limited. A small truck can be reserved for the days when you and your roommate feel like raiding Ikea's collection, 30 miles away. Having a car for unusually ambitious grocery and supply shopping trips can make life a breeze. While I still try to avoid it if I can, this option keeps me from seeking ownership of a personal auto. The world's biggest car sharing program argues that each of one of its Zipcars takes more than 15 personal vehicles off the road. Benefits include (but aren't limited to) less congestion, lower emissions, and less auto waste in our environment.

To be honest, I'm in love with this service. (My choice is City CarShare.) Gas and insurance are included, and rates are usually quite reasonable when compared to the cost of ownership. The vehicles are frequently spotless, few miles from brand-new, and well-maintained. Reservations are dead-simple to make online or by phone, with options to extend if you're running late or have an accident. A simple electronic key fob gets me into whichever car I've reserved, every time. I never have to worry that I won't be able to park when I return, because spaces for these cars are reserved in safe locations.  In the past, calling the emergency line was such a pleasant experience that I wouldn't hesitate to drink a beer with the staff (which is an activity that should never, of course, involve their cars).

In addition to public transit, walking, and bicycling, I believe car sharing programs are fantastic. They fill the gap between car-centric lifestyles and greener, more flexible, living. Of course, the situation cannot work for everyone, but if we incorporate this option as we plan better communities and increase awareness of climate change, we could win a few more people over. Some things in life require a little flexibility, and if car sharing can provide an option for those in need, I'm all for it. I encourage you to check out your local services today, and I hope your experience is as worthwhile as mine.

Africa's largest water transfer effort, the Lesotho Highlands Water Project, plans to supply water to the industrial heartland of South Africa and to generate energy for impoverished Lesotho. The multi-billion dollar investment offers economic growth and greater water security for underserved communities in the region.

The project also presents water officials with countless opportunities to become rich on the side. In 2002, Lesotho courts sentenced the project's chief executive to prison for accepting bribes from 18 multinational companies that were vying for construction contracts.

The Lesotho case is a rare example of justice. Across the globe, the water sector is particularly prone to corruption, and the world's poor are usually the ones who suffer the costs.

The pervasive nature of dirty water politics is blamed for much of the stalled progress in improving access to water resources in this year's Global Corruption Report. It is the first report to assess how corruption affects the water sector worldwide.

The widespread corruption noted in the report reflects the large challenge of solving the world's water problems. As growing populations compete for shrinking water resources, the opportunities for corruption will increase and the damaging effects will become more severe.

"Corruption in water can lead to skewed and inequitable water resources allocation, to uncontrolled and illegal pollution, to groundwater over-extraction, and to degraded ecosystems," said Andrew Hudson, the principal technical advisor to the United Nations Development Programme, at the launch of the report. "In many cases, these impacts in turn result in reduced resilience and adaptability to the impacts of climate change."

Water corruption ranges from petty bribes to corporate manipulation of public water services. When added up, corruption raises the price for water services between 10 and 30 percent worldwide each year, the report said. These additional costs pose grave threats for countries' chances of meeting the U.N. Millennium Development Goal of halving the number of people without access to safe drinking water. Based on the worst-case scenario, corruption could raise the cost of achieving the goal by $48 billion.

The high cost of water engineering leads to the widespread prevalence of corruption. Municipal water infrastructure projects are valued at roughly $210 billion annually in Western Europe, North America, and Japan alone. Large-scale hydropower is considered a "breeding ground for corruption," the report said. An estimated $50-60 billion in annual investments is expected for hydropower worldwide in the coming decades.

A lack of government transparency is often linked to a country's failure to provide clean water. Half of the 20 nations with the worst record in Transparency International's Corruption Perceptions Index are located in sub-Saharan Africa, where 63 percent of the population lacks basic sanitation facilities, according to the U.N. Economic Commission for Africa [PDF].

The Global Corruption Report, produced by Transparency International and other Water Integrity Network organizations, encourages governments to curb water corruption in order to achieve the water access development goal. The report was discussed at last week's World Water Week conference in Stockholm, Sweden.

One-third of the global population lives in areas of water scarcity, according to the International Water Management Institute. The World Water Council predicts that some 3.5 billion people will live in areas without sufficient water supplies by 2025. If global society continues to consume water in a business-as-usual way, there may not be enough water to produce the food needed to feed the world in 2050, according to the Worldwatch Institute's 2008 State of the World report.

In countries where water resources are becoming scarce, water corruption will likely become an increasingly serious problem. The report notes that nine of the 10 countries with growing markets for private water and sanitation investments experience "high risks of corruption."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Photo courtesy Carol Von Canon via Flickr

 

 

Floridians are farming more than oranges, they are farming energy for their sustainable future, through the development of Destiny -- a 41,300-acre, proposed self-contained green community in Osceola County. Destiny, which calls itself America's first eco-sustainable city, will feature 40,000 houses, transit and travel opportunities, local farms and agriculture as well as other features that will make the community ultra-sustainable.

Osceola has setup the Destiny Sustainable Energy Farm as part of the Destiny program where it will grow crops such as sweet sorghum, algae, jatropha (succulent plant) and others that will be made into biofuels for energy purposes. Twenty acres alone will be sweet sorghum, as the plant is a highly drought-tolerant species and will not only establish, but also survive in poor soil, saving water resources for other more sensitive crops.

In addition to crops, the farm will house an education center designed to foster discussion, collaboration and information sharing about sustainable living and energy technologies. The farm will work to achieve water conservation, energy efficiency, waste reduction, and pollution prevention to establish a healthy balance between the community and the earth.

Osceola is partnering with the University of Florida, GreenTechnologies, LLC, Everglades Farm Equipment, American Drilling Services, Global Renewable Energy, Southern Farms, Energy Structures & Systems, Bio Greens Oil USA, LLC, and Subway and Green Sky Industries to launch the biofuel crops and technology to support this initiative.

Washington roofing contractor Troy Wagner came to a gradual realization over the course of 15 years of working on other peoples' roofs.

What he found was that roofs covered with moss lasted 40 or even 50 years -- far longer than a normal roof.  

"In the western side of the state of Washington we are blessed with 50 inches of rain a year, this means moss on all the roofs," Troy says. He discovered that typically, moss-covered roofs were only replaced when a home was for sale or if an insurance company demanded it.

Troy said that his observations led him to believe that the moss was actually protecting the roofs from the sun’s radiation, which can cause a roofing system to lose the ability to expand and contract with the change in temperature causing it to crack, curl and become brittle.

Finally, after seeing a particularly long-lived moss-covered roof, he had an inspiration. “Five years ago I ran into a house with a low-pitch 3/12 that had wood shingles, no felt paper and skip sheeting. The roof was 75 years old, covered with grass that had grown in the moss. This caused a light bulb to go off in my head and I said ahhhh, then ran home and tore off my roof.”

Troy started investigating vegetative roofing options, and now he and his wife grow dinner on a roof that -- if his theory is correct -- will last longer than the traditional roof.  In any event it certainly will work harder for them simply by helping them put food on the table in addition to doing its job as the roof over their heads.

Via Greenroofs Australia

The Canadian branch of Wal-Mart announced plans this week to cut energy use by more than 30 percent. The plan includes a high-efficiency design for Wal-Mart stores, which will include a variety of features:

• Capturing waste heat from refrigerators to heat air in other areas of the store
• Installing display lights that turn off and on based on customer-motion detectors
• Cutting energy used to light sales floors by 20 percent
• LED lights in various applications, like store-front signs that use 90 percent less energy
• Incorporating low-flow water fixtures
• Eliminating the need for constant heating, cooling and ventilation through centralized control and in-store carbon-dioxide monitoring
• Wiser use of construction materials, eliminating ceilings and changing chemical-intensive flooring
• Reducing the size of prototypical stores

David Cheesewright, the president and CEO of Wal-Mart Canada, announced the changes at the annual conference of the Association of Municipalities of Ontario. Wal-Mart Canada is based in Mississauga, Ontario and has 309 stores. He estimated that the changes could save $25 million (Canadian) over a five-year period. In the next year, Wal-Mart Canada plans build up to 27 stores, a combination of new, relocated and expanded locations. All stores built after the beginning of Wal-Mart Canada's fiscal year (February 1, 2009) will use the high-efficiency design.

Image — Wal-Mart Canada

Xcel Energy, one of the largest U.S. utilities, has agreed to disclose information about its carbon emissions. The utility company made an agreement with Andrew Cuomo, the attorney general of New York, to release an in-depth analysis on the risks (both physical and financial) that the company faces due to climate change. Those risks include potential financial problems from litigation and regulation, both present and future.

Dick Kelly, Xcel's chairman, issued a statement on the agreement: "We previously provided detailed information concerning the expected impact of climate change and greenhouse gas emissions regulations on our operations, and under this agreement we will make even more detailed disclosures."

The agreement was the result of a subpoena Cuomo issued based on a 1921 law that gives the attorney general's office access to corporate financial records needed to fight fraud. However, Xcel has not admitted or denied any wrongdoing in conjunction with the agreement. The agreement is binding and enforceable, requiring Xcel to provide details of the risks it faces from climate change in its Form 10-K fillings, the annual report a company is required to provide its investors by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Disclosures will include Xcel's current carbon emissions, projected increases in those emissions, strategies for offsetting or limiting its emissions and corporate governance actions related to climate change.

Cuomo used the same law, commonly known as the Martin Act, to request records from AES Corp., Dominion Resources, Dynegy and Peabody Energy — those investigations are still ongoing. All five investigations began in 2007.

Cuomo stated, “This landmark agreement sets a new industry-wide precedent that will force companies to disclose the true financial risks that climate change poses to their investors. Coal-fired power plants can significantly contribute to global warming and investors have the right to know all the associated risks. I commend Xcel Energy for working with my office to establish a standard that will improve our environment and our marketplace over the long-term."

Xcel, despite cutting its emissions by more than 18 million tons over the past five years, remains one of the largest utility polluters in the U.S. The company operates in eight states and relies on coal for almost half of the power it sells. Xcel bills itself, however, as the largest utility provider of wind power in the U.S. — concurrently with plans to build a new coal-fired power plant in Colorado.

Image — natjoschock

Czech utility company CEZ is working on what will be the largest wind farm in Europe. The new 600-megawatt wind farm, to be built in Romania, is expected to begin partial operations in 2009. The farm should be fully operational by the end of 2010. Construction will begin in September. The current largest onshore wind farm in Europe is located in Whitlee, Scotland.

CEZ announced the purchase this week of two wind farm projects (Fantanele and Cogealac) from Continental Wind Partners. The combination of the two will create a farm that is roughly double the size of the Whitlee farm. CEZ's total investment in the project is expected to reach 1.1 billion euros. Continental Wind Partners' primary business is financing wind farms — the company began in Romania and Poland in 2006 and has since expanded throughout Europe.

"The project has all necessary licenses and permissions including guaranteed connection to the grid and the hardware for the first stage has already been fully contracted," said Martin Roman, the CEO of CEZ.  "Investment into renewables is one of the strategic measures we are taking to respond to the adopted energy-climatic package of the EU."

CEZ is one of the largest utilities in Europe. It serves almost seven million customers throughout 11 countries in central and southeastern Europe.

Image — CEZ

Timelinks, a Dubai engineering firm has created a sustainable design for the largest man-made residential structure on the planet.

With a foundation covering almost a square mile and towering almost a mile high, it dwarfs the tallest tower in the world -- the Burj Dubai.

But this is much more than just the biggest building in the world: This is a design for an entire small city, able to support a million people sustainably. The Sumerians, Babylonians and Assyrians of ancient Mesopotamia would be astounded by this luxurious ziggurat a mere 3,000 years into their future. The sheer bravado of this gorgeous concept is just breathtaking.

Using solar and wind power, the mega structure will actually create its own moist internal weather. Steam generated with the help of photovoltaic cell panels on the pyramid’s exterior would be piped from the ground level to the uppermost heights of the pyramid’s interior and then released, instantly turning it into a soft drizzle that would fall on the lush garden communities inside the pyramid. Such an ecosystem, full of vegetation, mild temperatures and regular rainfall, would make it a very desirable city for people living in dry desert conditions.

Transport throughout the complex would be connected by an integrated 360-degree network horizontally and vertically. Private cars would be not needed at all for travel within the city.

Ridas Matonis, director of Timelinks, has created a futuristic vision of sustainable cities grounded in an ancient past. It would require 90 percent less land than a traditional city. Timelinks has patented the design and technology incorporated into the project and has applied to the European Union for a grant for technical projects.

A number of eminent professors will be on hand to explain the technicalities of how the Ziggurat project works and how these communities can be integrated in master projects when Timelinks unveils the concept in October at the Cityscape Dubai.

Via ecoworldly

The Geothermal Energy Association has released a new report that shows a 20% increase since January of new projects starting in the U.S. 

The projects underway will power four million homes with 4,000 megawatts (MW) of geothermal power. The report lists efforts newly underway in 14 states, mostly in the Pacific Rim states but also, surprisingly, Florida. Of these projects, 45 will be in Nevada, 21 in California, 11 in Oregon, Idaho and Utah will have 6 each, 5 in Alaska, 2 each for Arizona and Hawaii, and Washington, Colorado, Wyoming and Florida will each have one project. With the new additions, total U.S. geothermal power will approach 7,000 MW.

Volcanic areas like Iceland are typically those that best tap geothermal's potential. Worldwide, Iceland and Tibet currently draw the highest percentage of their electricity from geothermal sources -- 25% and 30% respectively. Geothermal energy today meets the total electricity needs of some 60 million people across the globe -- roughly the population of the United Kingdom.

Google is investing $11 million in geothermal power, and also has previously invested in electric vehicles powered by lithium, a side product of geothermal drilling.

Via Renewable Energy World and the Geothermal Energy Association

Photo by Phil Mercer

The Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society is reminding the New Zealand government that protecting natural resources means more than purchasing one’s way through environmental regulations.

Advocacy manger Kevin Hackwell put it plainly, saying, “it would be crazy to allow people to get carbon credits by destroying indigenous vegetation and planting pine trees when the vast majority of New Zealand’s carbon is stored in our native forests, scrublands and tussock grasslands.”

It’s true. Environmental initiatives must be about more than paying for the right to pollute. Environmental initiatives are about minimizing environmental impacts by reducing waste streams, increasing recycling, reducing carbon emissions and by restoring habitats. One of the most vital aspects of restoring habitats is to plant native vegetation because that vegetation can withstand local climate conditions and stand better to adjust (as applicable) to changing climate conditions. Additionally, replacing habitat with native vegetation draws back in native wildlife providing them with shelter, feeding and breeding resources. The result? A healthier ecosystem.

According to Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society, 93 percent of New Zealand’s carbon storage is in native lands. Sustaining and expanding vegetated land available to capture carbon through photosynthesis and store it in plant root systems, is a simple and effective way to continue an environmental initiative that promotes many benefits.

Charlie Cannon of Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) traveled to the democratic convention this week to present Dialog:City, creative methods for sustainable living and working. Cannon is a professor at RISD and with the help of students and colleagues, has put together an exhibition featuring projects from all parts of the globe that provide examples of environmentally responsible actions.

The program works to generate awareness and discussion around each topic. In fact, it extends beyond a presentation of scientific facts and figures into an “arts and cultural event that catalyzes civic discourse by inviting internationally renowned artists and designers to create participatory, interactive, and dialogical site-specific works.” This art is not abstract, but is open for interpretation and thoughts on how to take the many sustainable ideas back to local governments for implementation.

The exhibits have been strategically placed nearby the democratic convention in hopes of generating awareness about sustainable projects and initiatives that mitigate climate change. Project topics include agriculture, land use and energy use. Specific projects featured include a green roof project in New York, carbon offsets in California, and a green building in Colorado. The democratic convention is also working to be the greenest convention in history; Dialog:City helps to meet those goals by educating delegates about sustainable communities.

Cannon’s students at RISD have helped formulate these exhibits as well. It all began with when Cannon assigned students the task of designing methods to reduce carbon emissions globally. Students then collaborated on which projects represented sustainable actions and would generate dialog.

Not only is the exhibit meant to stimulate discussion for Democratic delegates, but also for the general public. To interest passersby, the project exhibit boards are setup in a “festival-like” format in Pepsi Center so that each project can be viewed via a tour of the grounds. To learn more about each project, the public can attend scheduled sessions that deliver details about each project.

More than exhibiting these projects is a simultaneous opportunity with the democratic movement to bring about change. Change and theories for change are echoing in Denver and throughout the nation. Some of these changes should and will be about sustainability. Change in the way we operate as a country at home and abroad. Change in how we relate to the environment at work and at home. Change in how we protect our natural resources and our wildlife. Change in how we build our future so that it reflects our American dreams.

Image courtesy Dialog:City

Earlier this week, we saw the contentiousness the offshore oil drilling issue can bring, with McCain protestors and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi exchanging jibes on the topic at the Democratic convention. But the fact is, increased need to probe the remote places of the Earth for oil may bring about far larger, more dangerous conflicts.

After amassing an empire on which the sun never set, then relinquishing it at the sunset of colonialism, the nation of Great Britain has once again become very interested in its territorial holdings near Ascension Island. This 35-square-mile hunk of rock, a thousand miles from anywhere, is not claimed by any other nation, but the British are asking to extend territorial waters beyond the 200 miles around the island, based on some geographic evidence that much of its landmass lies underwater.

There may be more than pedantic geography at play here. After all, England, along with the United States, France, the Netherlands and many other former colonial powers, controls isolated islands scattered across the globe. If these formerly barren land masses could be made to include great portions of the wealth of energy and minerals some say offshore drilling holds, there’s a fair chance international conflict is likely to ensue.

After all, less than half of all oceanic claims have been fully delineated, and some countries, most notably Russia, have already moved to stake a claim in disputed areas. While tentative agreements are in place to allow the UN to moderate disputes over seabed claims, the continuing conflict in Iraq and the recent military incursion into Georgia indicate that two of the world’s largest powers may have no qualms about writing their own rules in the interests of solidifying their energy supply. In the end, off-shore oil drilling may end up doing far more harm than good to the security of national energy supplies.

Renewable energy sources offer one of the best solutions to this problem of oil expansionism. While clean energy solutions are not perfect—certainly solar projects to benefit Europe but built in the Sahara bring the opportunity for exploitation and conflict—cleaner tech tends to focus largely on terrestrial or inshore production, and more importantly, extracts power from resources that are essentially infinite, all but eliminating the need for a rush to delineate who owns what.

While the progression of climate change may be too subtle or too easily contested for some people, the very real specter of international war should be a far louder and more pressing wake-up call against continued over-dependence on fossil-fuel based energy supplies.

Photo by Flickr user Troy Burwell

It sounds almost silly to say, but the price of carbon dioxide recently hit its highest level in a month in Europe. The right to produce one ton of carbon emissions will now run you about 24 euros, after the closing of a major oil pipeline in the North Sea and oil prices hovering steadily around $117 a barrel.

While the U.S. still seems at least a presidential term away from imposing carbon emissions restrictions, investors, speculators, and folks who are just curious can get a glimpse into the market dynamics of carbon trading simply by taking a peek across the pond.

While one might normally expect carbon prices to rise as the price of oil falls, carbon emissions pricing presents a far more complex problem than that of oil. For example, rising oil prices may instead draw utilities to less carbon-friendly sources, such as coal, thus increasing the demand for and price of emissions permits.

If you’re still a bit skittish on the idea, check out more in-depth analysis and community feedback on the European carbon market. One way or another, it’s an idea you’ll end up warming to in the end.

Plastic utensils derived from crude oil. Aluminum cans produced with the help of massive amounts of electricity. Non-biodegradable disposable plates. Sure, it might be fun while it lasts, but is your party going to be an ecological disaster the next morning?

Fear not, brave host/hostess, the Eco Party Pack from Eco My Party totally has you covered. Prepackaged with everything you need for anywhere from a 10-seat soiree to a 50-person hoedown, the focus throughout the kit is on sustainable production and biodegradable cleanup, right down to the packing tape that holds the thing together.

There’s no shortage of creativity in the Eco Party Pack, either. The utensils have a smooth, stylish design, while the rough-edged, unadorned white of the cups, plates, and bowls, is enough to reveal their humble, sugarcane roots, while setting them apart from traditional party supplies. While environmentally-friendly get-togethers are nothing new, they haven’t always been so stylishly presented.

However, what I find most appealing about the Eco Party Pack is that it tries to cover its low-carbon bases from start to finish. Production and transportation are both taken into account, making this the closest thing to a carbon-neutral party set you’ll see for a while.

Between 1990 and 2006 Sweden cut its carbon emissions by 9%, significantly exceeding the target set by the Kyoto Protocol, while enjoying economic growth of 44% in fixed prices.

Sweden achieved this by instituting a lot of sensible ideas, such as having district heating in every city (like we have in New York City) where hot water is piped to buildings within a neighborhood.

Previously, these had been coal-fired but now the water is heated using forestry waste. Sweden switched to direct electric heating in the '80s and, increasingly over recent years, has used heat pumps, which take two-thirds less electricity to heat.

But Sweden's most bizarre secret? biogas, which can be made by any combination of stomach-churning garbage ingredients.

Hang onto your hat: Blood, innards (and other unusable slaughterhouse waste), human sewage, animal waste, and even confiscated liquor goes into a tasty brew heated to 70 degrees Celsius for anaerobic bacteria to feast on for a month. Although certifiably cradle-to-cradle, sustainable, and plain old waste-not-want-not frugal, this solution is undeniably revolting.

Amazingly though, the final product is squeaky clean. It's virtually odorless, creates a nutrient-rich residue that can be used as soil or construction materials, and slashes vehicle carbon emissions an astounding 95%.

SvenskBiogas produces, distributes and sells biogas for transportation in eastern Sweden. Each year the company takes 50,000 tons of this mess and turns it into virtually carbon-neutral biogas. “Before, this just went to a landfill and would lay there and rot and create methane seepage,” says Svenk's marketing boss, Peter Undén. “So it’s a good thing to use this energy in a positive way.” In the fifth largest city Linköping, every bus and garbage truck, some of the taxis and the train pictured above all run on biogas. The city of Gotenborg has a network of pipelines pumping its purified biogas to specialized filling stations, where it is pressurized for delivery to vehicles.

We too could be generating huge amounts of fuel from sewage by producing biogas, and in California we have cows operating power stations on the side. It can be easily produced by fermenting any of these ingredients and we have them all. Any of the new vehicles being developed to run on natural gas, as for the T. Boone Pickens plan, can run on biogas as well. And that's good news, because we will have peak natural gas some day, sorry T. Boone...

But peak poop, I don't think so.

Via the UK Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, and meta efficient

We've heard about the unintended consequences of pursuing biofuels on food prices. Now, USA Today reports that increases in corn demand are pounding the Tequila industry.

Mexican growers of tequila's secret ingredient, blue agave, are switching over to crops like corn and beans in order to drink in the benefits of rising market price.

However, more lucrative crops aren't the only reason for the changes in crops. An agave plant takes 5-7 years to mature and a planting binge in the late 90's following a devastating freeze has resulted in a flood of agave today. As a result, the price of agave has dropped. In a few years, the choice of many farmers to grow corn could create a tequila squeeze.

It makes one wonder which other industries may be affected by the ethanol hangover. Overall, I think first gen biofuels are a good stepping stone, but if it somehow ends up affecting the bourbon market, I may have to rethink my position.

Source: USA Today

Photo by Flickr user im.no.hero

Burnes Home Accent has found a better solution for the sawdust waste that comes from the company's products. Burnes is working to cut the amount of waste it puts in landfills by a quarter over the next two years, starting by reusing the sawdust that results from its manufacturing and creating materials from that waste that winds up back in photo frames. Beyond photo frames, Burnes will also make photo albums and storage products.

The decision grew out of an environmental initiative Burnes launched last year. The company reevaluated its product materials and designs, as well as shipping and manufacturing. Burnes has developed several programs from that evaluation. The company has released a new line of photo frames — the Decor Essentials line — made with a variety of post-consumer plastic and wood. Burnes is also working to reduce waste by reducing the number of items damaged during shipping. For just one product, the 11-inch by 14-inch photo frame, Burnes has already reduced damaged deliveries from 40 percent to four percent.

The sawdust recycling program will begin with a test at Burnes' Durango, Mexico manufacturing facility. If all goes as expected, Burnes will expand the program to plants it has partnered with in Asia.

Image — Burnes

Utility companies in New York are being offered incentives to reduce their customers' energy requirements. The New York State Public Service Commission, the state agency in charge of regulating utility companies, will offer a total of $26.96 million to electric utilities to help them create energy efficiency programs.

The commission currently expects that energy use in 2015 will be 11 percent higher than it is today. The incentives are, in part, an effort to prevent or reduce those anticipated increases in electricity bills.

Electric utilities will receive a share of the almost $27 million in incentives if they can prove that they have met reduction goals. The Public Service Commission has set goals for each of the state's service territories. The overall objective is an annual reduction of 693,951 megawatt hours. If the commission can hit that target, it will have covered its portion of the state government's goal of cutting New York's energy use by 15 percent by 2015. The incentives will only apply to improvements in electric usage; the commission will negotiate incentives for gas utilities on a case-by-case basis.

Reduction targets have not yet been set for New York City, but the Public Service Commission is setting aside an additional $5 million for energy efficiency improvements in the city.

Photo — Kevin Labianco

While the economy in general has been slow, the cleantech industry has kept IPOs interesting. As of August 20, five companies in the green sector had filed the paperwork necessary to have an IPO this quarter, according to an Investors interview with Matthew Molberger, a market tracker of Renaissance Capital.

Five filings in approximately seven weeks isn't enough to call this the quarter of cleantech, but there's still time for more filings. It's a clear improvement over the first half of 2008 already: over the first six months of this year, only four cleantech companies filed paperwork for an IPO and only two have actually gone public. Molberger said, "To make a (trend), we need to see another string of flings in the coming weeks. But I think we're certainly starting to see a foundation."

The five companies that have filed so far this quarter are quite varied: One works with rechargeable batteries (A123 Systems). Another is in wind-power (First Wind Holdings). Two more are in solar power (STR Holdings and GCL Silicon Technology Holdings). The last is reusing food waste as fuel (Changing World Technologies). Despite the differences between these companies, though, they share certain opportunities. These sorts of cleantech companies have become very popular with investors, with interest growing along with oil prices. Although oil prices have dropped from the high of $147 per barrel earlier this summer, they are still high enough to guarantee investor interest in any company successfully working on clean power. There's also a quiet expectation that the new president — no matter which candidate wins in November — will enact legislation that provides incentives for alternative energy companies. Both Barack Obama and John McCain have discussed the need for such incentives during their campaigns.

Compared to the same time last year, IPO filings are down 43 percent. Only 138 companies have filed in this period and, while five cleantech companies might seem like a small count, cleantech IPOs represent the only rising number. Of course not all cleantech companies are perfect investments, but they're at least able to get an investor to pay attention.

It seems very likely that a few more cleantech companies will file for an IPO before the end of the year. And if those IPOs do come through, they will cement the cleantech industry's spot as the strongest investment around. Even when the economy recovers, cleantech will remain a solid investment.

Photo — Kwong Yee Cheng

Across the Heartland, researchers at land grant universities are racing to develop the right recipe of enzymes and digesters to break down cellulose contained in grass, wood, and any other plant so they can ferment the sugars inside to produce ethanol. Meanwhile plant breeders, soil scientists, agricultural engineers, and process chemists are at work developing new varieties of grass and woody species, and the planting patterns that yield the strongest harvests.

The goal is to replace – gallon for gallon – fuel made from oil with fuel made from home-grown plants that is produced in a network of regional bio-refineries scattered across the rural Midwest. Such plants could support American farmers and employ thousands of industrial workers earning family-supporting wages.

To be sure, there are important questions about the benefits and risks of generating fuel from plants. Environmental specialists say they are not convinced that producing grass as a cash crop and converting it to ethanol is as risk free as agronomists here contend.

How Much? How Long?
Financiers, meanwhile, wonder about the timeframe for scaling up the industry. Researchers say they are four or five years away from perfecting techniques to remove cellulose from wood and grass. And cellulosic ethanol plants -- which now depend on government grants and private investment -- don’t expect to turn a profit until well into the next decade.

Lastly, lingering questions surround the auto and truck industry’s eagerness to develop a national vehicle fleet capable of using the fuel, though General Motors is touting its investment in a Michigan cellulosic ethanol plant under development in the state’s Upper Peninsula.

“The technology I think is by and large there. But it‘s going to require some real rapid advancements to make it commercially viable,” said Brad Redlin of the Izaak Walton League, an environmental organization. “We’re certainly supportive of that whole idea.”

Nevertheless, farm scientists and industrialists say they are convinced that the middle part of the country is on the brink of a remarkable economic revival based on turning soil, sun, water, and plants into the nation’s primary source of clean, renewable transportation fuels.

Here at the University of Illinois, researchers have planted a 340-acre Energy Farm to grow switchgrass and miscanthus, two hearty perennials that can be converted to liquid ethanol. Both are easier to grow than corn, currently the source of most ethanol, and both can thrive on millions of acres of marginal lands unsuited for food production.

Midwest As New Clean Fuel Center
Researchers also are interested in producing ethanol from other plants, especially wood. Entrepreneurs are building ethanol plants in the North Woods of Michigan and Wisconsin, where they’ll turn downed limbs and chips left over from logging and from paper-making into clean-burning energy. The South is getting into the act, too, with a plant in Georgia that will steam and press wood chips into fuel.

“The area east of the Mississippi has really got the best opportunity, because you have higher summer rainfall,” said Steven P. Long, deputy director of the Energy Biosciences Institute, a joint venture between the University of Illinois and the University of California and funded by a $50 million annual grant from oil giant British Petroleum.

Long is developing a process to extract energy from trees and grass by using micro-organisms to break down cell walls. It happens in nature -- enzymes in a termite’s gut break down wood -- so it can happen in the lab, too. Long believes they can produce ethanol that will sell for $2.50 a gallon – the equivalent of $3.20 gasoline, since ethanol contains less energy than petroleum.

But cellulosic ethanol offers energy savings in other areas. Scientists call the amount of energy a fuel contains, versus the amount required to produce it, the “life-cycle energy balance.” Gasoline has a balance of .8 -- you get less energy out of a gallon of gas than you put in. Cellulosic ethanol’s balance has been estimated at 2.62, nearly three times as much energy produced as put into making it, according to studies by the energy and agriculture departments here. That’s twice as much as corn ethanol, since corn requires more water and fertilizer than biomass. Ethanol also produces 85 percent less greenhouse gases than gasoline, according to the federal Department of Energy.

“In the long term, if we can get our breakdown process cheap enough, it wouldn’t make sense to use corn,” Long said.

Long has been researching biofuels for more than 20 years, starting as a professor at the University of Essex, in England. His original motivation: Find fuel that wouldn’t contribute to global warming. That’s still the best argument for ethanol, Long says.

But he realizes that economic and political factors are driving the public’s demand for an alternative to oil. No one wants to pay $4 a gallon for fuel – especially when so much money – almost $60 billion a month now – is draining America’s wealth and ending up in the bank accounts of Middle Eastern despots. “At the end of the 1970s, during the first oil crisis, governments got interested,” Long said. “Then it kind of fell away. But I was able to get enough funding from the European Union to keep my lab going.”

Now, instead of government indifference, Long has to face the objections of conservationists who hoped that unused farmland would revert to prairie or forest, and that planting it in grasses will release more carbon than leaving it in its natural state. To deal with those concerns, he is measuring carbon output at the Energy Farm.

Tall Grass To Gas
Cellulosic ethanol, though, ought to placate several other groups. Ethanol made from grass and wood is likely to allay the concerns of consumers who chafe at using a corn for fuel, and driving up food prices. Another group is the beef industry, which has complained that ethanol, which consumes about a quarter of U.S. corn production, is driving up feed prices.

Agricultural economists respond that converting corn to ethanol has had only a small influence in rising food prices. The cost of fuel, fertilizer, and equipment is a more important factor, they say.

Eric Rund, a corn farmer in nearby Pesotum, Ill., decided to bypass the argument altogether. He contacted Long about growing miscanthus. He sees biomass, which is coming to be called “grass gas,” as the next source of commercial scale ethanol. An acre of miscanthus can generate 1,500 gallons of ethanol – three times as much as corn.

“From the numbers I’ve done, it’s more profitable in the long run,” Rund said. “I’m thinking that we’re eventually going to be making our liquid fuels from biomass. We can’t go with corn. If we used all of our corn crop in the U.S., it wouldn’t replace our fuel, and we wouldn’t have anything to eat.”

As a farmer, Rund prefers miscanthus because it requires little fertilizer, and, as a perennial, regenerates itself each year. It can also be grown on stream banks, which are unsuited for corn. And, miscanthus is best harvested in the winter, after the food crops are in.

On the other hand, miscanthus takes three years to reach its full height. Farmers would need government incentives to start cultivating the plant. Rund is encouraged by an Illinois mandate that 25 percent of the state’s electricity must come from renewable sources by 2025. Biomass could replace coal, providing farmers with a market for miscanthus.

A Government Role For Gas From Wood
Cellulosic ethanol won’t be commercially viable for several years, so the industry is depending on government help to get started. Mascoma, a Massachusetts ethanol producer, received a $26 million Department of Energy grant to build a plant in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula near Sault Ste, Marie. The state of Michigan is chipping in $15 million to make Mascoma’s facility its first Center of Energy Excellence.

Mascoma has also found a partner in General Motors, which wants to increase its fleet of flex-fuel vehicles. The upfront money is necessary because Mascoma’s plant won’t be running until 2012. Eventually, say company executives, it will produce 40 million gallons of ethanol a year. Most of that will fuel cars.

The Upper Peninsula has been economically depressed ever since its mines were tapped out and its virgin timber logged off. The region’s thin, sandy soils have never been well-suited for farming. But ethanol is a new market for the hardwood forests covering the peninsula. Mascoma plans to use wood chips discarded in the paper-making process, said Jay Niles, the company’s vice president of business development.

“Hardwood is superior to softwood for our process,” Niles said. “There’s a lot of hardwood forest in Maine, Michigan, the northern part of the West Coast.”

In the north woods of Wisconsin, Flambeau River Papers is planning to make biodiesel out of tree tops, which are now burned or left on the forest floor after loggers have carted away the more valuable trunks. Not only will the company produce 6 million gallons a year of diesel fuel, the steam from the process will power its paper mill, making Flambeau River independent of fossil fuels, said B.A. Thorp, a consultant on the project.

Flambeau’s plant will employ up to two dozen workers, at wages between $18 and $26 an hour, said company president Bob Byrne. The mill is unionized.

But the nation’s first cellulosic ethanol plant will be located in Soperton, Georgia, where Colorado-based Range Fuels plans to open a facility by the end of 2009. Georgia once had a thriving paper industry, but most of the mills moved to Asia. The timber is still there, awaiting a buyer.

“There’s a huge amount of wood products,” said Mitch Mandich, the chief executive of Range Fuels, which will employ 100 workers. “We can use limbs, pinecones, pine needles bark.”

Range plans to produce ethanol using a thermal chemical process that Mandich said would be cheaper than converting corn to ethanol, and the enzymes that Long and other scientists are researching. Using steam, heat, and pressure the Soperton plant will convert wood chips to synthetic gas, which will be mixed with a catalyst to make ethanol. To get it going, Range has a $76 million Department of Energy grant, and $158 million in investments.

The cost of corn ethanol depends on the price of corn, which tripled between 2004 and 2008. The enzymatic process requires microbes. Mandich won’t reveal how much it will cost Range to make a gallon of ethanol, but the company’s promotional literature says the end result will be competitive with gasoline, down to $50 a barrel, or less than half the current price of oil.

In its first year, Range will produce between 10 million and 20 million gallons and expects to find an immediate marketplace. Last year’s federal energy bill required the production of 16 billion tons of cellulosic ethanol by 2022. “There’s enough biomass in this country to put a serious dent in gasoline,” Mandich said.

Whether America can use that much depends on the popularity of flex fuel vehicles. Mandich already drives one – a Jeep Cherokee SUV. General Motors has committed making half its fleet flex-fuel by 2012. A bill recently introduced in the U.S. Senate would require the same target for all vehicles sold in the nation.

Ted McClelland writes from Chicago, where he lives and works. Reach him at tedsgarage@yahoo.com.

Throughout Tuesday's Democratic National Convention speakers hammered at John McCain's energy policy in seeking to make clean energy a major issue in the presidential campaign.

Governors from Kansas, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania and Montana with good records on promoting alternative fuels and energy efficiency seized the national stage opportunity to make the oversimplified point that Barack Obama is green while John McCain is a friend of the oil industry. Keynote speaker and former Virginia governor Mark Warner was one of several speakers to plug Obama's plan to put one million plug-in hybrids on the road.

While McCain's environmental record is mixed (he did co-sponsor major legislation to combat climate change that his Republican colleagues defeated), he has recently embraced offshore drilling. That point was repeated time and again by Democrats. The line of the day went to Montana Governor Brian Schweitzer, who said that energy independence by drilling for more oil isn't possible even "If you drilled in all of John McCain's backyards -- even the one's he doesn't know he has." (Watch his speech here.)

The democrats also put Jerome Ringo, the president of the non-profit Apollo Alliance on stage, to tout the green collar jobs that Obama wants to create by investing in renewable energy, as well as clean tech venture capitalist Nancy Floyd.

It will be interesting to see if the planners of the Republican National Convention respond to all of the green talk with an elaborate showing of support for clean energy during their time in the spotlight.

The world's leading certification system for sustainable architecture is set to undergo its most sweeping changes in 2009. The proposed revisions encourage designs that would reduce a building's impact on global climate change.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design, commonly known as LEED, has become the standard for green building design since the U.S. Green Building Council (USGBC), a nongovernmental organization, crafted the rating system eight years ago. Architecture that voluntarily improves energy efficiency, water conservation, and indoor air quality has surged in popularity in the past two years, especially in Europe and major U.S. cities.

According to USGBC's August statistics, more than 2,400 commercial and residential buildings worldwide are LEED certified, and nearly 14,000 are under way. The green building movement has the potential to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. In the United States, about 40 percent of all energy is used to heat, light, and cool residential and commercial buildings, according to the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy Information Administration.

Minimum LEED certification, however, does not necessarily guarantee environmental improvements. Developers who purchase environmentally related products off a LEED-supplied checklist may produce a LEED-certified building, but the building's future impact on energy and resource use is unknown. The proposed revisions are the beginning of a transition toward buildings that earn their green marks based on performance rather than eco-marketing.

The current LEED system allocates a maximum of 69 points for various environmental quality improvements. A building that receives 26 points is certified, and more points are necessary to receive the higher rankings of silver, gold, and platinum. While costly improvements such as solar panels are likely to boost a building's rankings, all categories are given equal weight, making some improvements less effective than others.

"LEED has been frequently criticized for not having a solid rationale for allocating credits," said Jerry Yudelson, a Tucson-based architect who teaches LEED-certification workshops. "The classic example is you get one point for putting in bicycle lockers and showers and one point for saving 7 percent of energy. Are those equivalent benefits?"

The new model emphasizes designs that the USGBC considers most beneficial for today's global environment. Improvements that reduce greenhouse gas emissions and burn fewer fossil fuels account for 34 of the 100 points. While a building requires only 40 points to receive certification, factors including access to transportation and energy efficiency can no longer be avoided, said Scot Horst, chair of the LEED steering committee. "We are saying climate change is the most important thing, so we put the most points to credits that deal with climate change," said Horst, president of the architecture consultancy 7Group. "If you want to get certified, you have to focus on those areas."

The new criteria place greater focus on the environmental impact of a building's entire life cycle. Contributions to eutrophication - the creation of oxygen-free dead zones in polluted water bodies - and "ecotoxicity" are now emphasized. Eventually, the USGBC envisions a system that assesses lifecycle impacts by measuring a building's pollutants, rather than being based solely on the attributes of building materials.

The 2009 LEED standards also plan to include more mandatory designs - most notably water efficiency. Building requirements, however, are not the same in all climates, and the stricter rules may further complicate efforts to streamline the process. Green developers in arid regions, for instance, struggle to balance air ventilation with energy conservation: if more hot air enters a building, more air conditioning is demanded.

To compensate for regional differences, the proposed standards grant local chapters "bonus points" that can be allocated toward design issues that would aid certification in that area. "This is the best way possible to give responsibility to chapters - they're the ones who know the local issues - without jeopardizing the consistency of LEED overall," Horst said.

But several architects still consider the system lacking. "There is a tension between having a national system... and yet still allowing a lot of regional differences," said Yudelson, who chairs the USGBC's annual conference committee. "[A solution] is for LEED 2012... We're not ready to make that big of a leap."

Regardless of the policy changes, some critics say a system like LEED does not do enough to improve the world's environmental woes. Architect Jonathan Ochshorn, an associate professor at Cornell University, said LEED-certified buildings are anecdotal examples of improvements that ultimately serve a corporation's profit, not the environment. "LEED in general is a way for institutions and corporations to collect points from a public relations standpoint," Ochshorn said. "The world isn't getting any better because of LEED."

The number of green buildings constructed remains relatively small - about 2 percent, according to a 2006 Green Building SmartMarket Report - due to higher building costs and the often stressful complexity of the certification system. To simplify the process, independent certifiers [PDF] have been hired to handle the growing number of certification requests. The costs are also beginning to fall as energy prices climb and green designs become mainstream.

"The changes in LEED are definite improvements, I think everyone is behind them, but we also need to improve the system," Yudelson said. "We need results, not just a certification on a building."

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Located right in the heart of midtown Manhattan, Bryant Park is more than just the fashion guru’s holy land. It is also home to what just might be the world’s most environmentally-friendly office high rise.

One Bryant Park is a LEED platinum rated high rise office building. It features a unique architectural design, which, along with full-length double glass windows, makes maximum use of natural light and prevents harmful UV exposure.

The building collects storm water and uses for a number of purposes, including landscape irrigation and water for restroom toilets. Electrical needs are met by light-sensing technology that dims electrically powered lights when sunlight is brightest, as well as an onsite cogeneration plant that provides 5.1 megawatts of energy to the office building. During non-business hours, a thermal systems generates ice, which is then used to cool air and circulate it through the offices. An air circulation system measures the amount of carbon dioxide present and adjusts to take in fresh and release stale air.

One Bryant Park houses many firms, real estate investment firm Marathon Asset Management among them. Marathon's leadership considers the company's move into One Bryant Park as a component of its many efforts to operate in a sustainable and socially conscious way. 

While its name may conjure up images of sweeping desert vistas, some of the world’s most visited religious sites, and decades of conflict in one of the most politically unstable regions of the world, the tiny nation of Israel may be poised on the brink of becoming a clean energy leader, although not in the traditional sense.

Following the model set by its high-tech leaders, such as Comverse Technology, whose billing systems power telecommunications firms across the globe, Israeli green energy companies plan to develop new methods and technologies in country, and export to where the demand is located.

But as a country surrounded by oil producing nations that have historically been unfriendly to it, Israel could have much to gain from its green-energy investment. Proof-of-concept facilities could provide working models for buyers abroad, while providing the local populace with clean, reliably-priced energy.

Though Israel has a climate ideal for solar, and a government friendly to green legislation, it still provides evidence that a country need not have a consumption engine as massive as the United States’, or be in as stable and protected an environment as Germany to make green energy a profitable, attractive part of the national economy

Over two million winter skiers left behind compacted powder and environmental impacts when they left the alpine slopes of New Hampshire in the 2006-2007 season. Wastes from tourists, air pollution generated from vehicle travel, energy to heat lodges to warm and toasty temperatures, and greenhouse gas emissions from all of the above, impact the serene and pristine New Hampshire ski areas.

To rid the slopes of these environmental impacts, the state’s Department of Environmental Services Pollution Prevention Program (NHPPP), the National Ski Areas Association, Ski New Hampshire and other state agencies are launching a program to green the slopes. The NH Green Slopes campaign is providing ski resorts with strategies and advice on technologies that reduce impacts large and small. First, environmental impacts are assessed and measured for each ski park. Once impacts are identified, the NHPPP conducts workshops to educate ski facilities about ways to minimize impacts by using new, cleaner technology or by reducing wastes.

Green techniques ski facilities being implemented include switching their operational fleets to biodiesel, powering some lodges with biodiesel, limiting vehicle idling, powering lighting with energy efficient products, recycling programs that educate visitors and employees, and purchasing carbon offsets as well as operating programs for visitors to purchase offsets.

As climate change shortens winters, the ski season has been affected by lack of snow, excess ice due to melting; refreezing and poor air conditions; providing even more challenges to the ski industry (NHPPP). The NH Green Slopes programs looks to not only mitigate additional impacts that contribute to climate change, but also manage slopes in a more sustainable way that mitigate impacts felt by climate change conditions.

For example, many slopes use high pressurized guns that run on fossil fuels to create snow powder for the slopes. Since winters will be shorted and less precipitation may result, more snow will need to be generated by the ski facilities. Moving these machines to biodiesel provides ski venues with a sustainable way to continue to offset a decreased season and meet environmental impact reduction goals.

NH ski areas that are participating in the NH Green Slopes programs include: Arrowhead Ski Area, Claremont; Attitash; Balsams; Bretton Woods Ski Area; Cannon Mountain, Franconia; Cranmore; Crotched Mountain; Granite Gorge; Gunstock Mountain, Gilford; Loon Mountain; King Pine and Purity Spring Resort; Newbury’s Mount Sunapee; Pats Peak, Henniker; Danbury’s Ragged Mountain; and Waterville Valley Resort.

 

Recently, some biofuel operations began marking out oceanic fisheries as a source of fuel. But news from Australia suggests that the world’s feline population may already be putting more stress on fish populations and markets than biofuels ever will.

 Worldwide, the cat food industry consumes a staggering 2.48 million tons of fish per year, most of it ecologically significant forage fish, such as sardines, herring and pollock. Dents in forage fish stock can echo up the food chain, cutting back on food supplies for species ranging from tuna to sea lions to albatross.

The situation in Australia has advanced to the point where cats’ fish consumption is outstripping their owners’ by nearly 6 pounds a year. In a world where less economically advanced nations struggle to feed their populations, it seems ridiculous to feed such a healthy protein resource to pets, while risking oceanic biodiversity in the process.

That having been said, it’s nearly impossible to keep people wanted to compromise in caring for their cats. So what’s the solution? Pet food suppliers, such as Mars Petcare, are turning to more sustainable sources of protein, such as scrap material from existing fish industries when making their products.

Google has added $5 million to its investment in Makani Power. The California-based power company has yet to release details on the kits it uses to collect energy from high-altitude winds, but Google is banking on the start-up's ability to follow through on a promise for inexpensive energy.

Makani is the brainchild of Saul Griffith, a recent winner of a MacArthur grant. He expects the elevation will allow Makani to collect ten times the energy a traditional wind turbine could produce. The new investment brings Google's support of Makani up to $15 million. In October 2006, Google's Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal (RE<C) program invested $10 million in Makani. Google also announced $10 million in investments in geothermal last week.

The market for wind energy — and the technology to provide it — is booming. In the U.S. alone, wind capacity increased by more than 27 percent. If Makani can get in on that market, Google's investment is guaranteed to pay off. It looks likely, too; Makani is the main company chasing high-altitude wind. Even if the idea of depending on a kite for power seems a little over the top to you, with Griffith in charge it seems very possible.

Image — Makani

Intel's chairman, Craig Barrett, announced that his company is offering a prize for innovative technologies that can reduce energy inefficiencies. During Barrett's keynote address at last week's Intel Developer Forum, he announced the Intel Challenge. Intel will award four prizes of $100,000 each for new technology that can meet today's needs in four categories, including the environment. The other categories include education, health care and economic development.

The environmental facet of the challenge focuses on reducing emissions, primarily through reducing energy needs. Barrett pointed to Brian McCarthy, the third-place winner of the 2008 Intel Science Talent Search, and his project on improving plastic materials for solar cell technology as the direction Barrett hopes challenger participants will explore.

"Technology is a tool to address some of the world's most pressing challenges related to healthcare, education, economic development and the environment," Barrett said. "No nations or individuals are untouched by these issues. Get involved. Be part of the solution." The challenge is, in part, proof of Intel's commitment to solving the climate change crisis through technological innovations.

Further information about the challenge is available on the Intel Challenge website. Registration for the challenge is not yet open, but you can sign up to be notified when registration opens.

Dow Jones Indexes and the Chicago Climate Exchange have partnered to launch two new global emissions indexes: a European carbon index and a certified emissions reductions index. The new indexes are expected to be only the first benchmarks in a larger series to be launched by Dow Jones Indexes and the Chicago Climate Exchange.

The Dow Jones/CCX European Carbon Index will serve as a benchmark for the European Union Emissions Trading Scheme (EU ETS). The Dow Jones/CCX Certified Emissions Reductions (CER) Index will serve the same purpose for the Kyoto Protocol Clean Development Mechanism (CDM). The European Carbon Index will list actively traded European Union Allowances (EUA) futures contracts on the European Climate Exchange. The index will offer benchmark prices for carbon credits issued through the EU ETS. The CER Index will do the same for the carbon offset allowances that the United Nations issue under the CDM.

"Reducing greenhouse gases and other pollutants has become a major worldwide initiative that has drawn the participation of industrialized and emerging economies in key regions around the globe, said Michael A. Petronella, President of Dow Jones Indexes. "Emissions trading has surfaced as the most cost-efficient means of achieving this goal and the Chicago Climate Exchange is well positioned to facilitate this trading on a global basis. The Dow Jones/CCX EUA and CER Indexes provide market participants with price gauges to assess their exposure to this growing asset class. We hope to expand our offerings for emissions-themed benchmarks in the future."

The two new indexes will have some key differences from any other equity index. Because carbon futures contracts usually include a specific delivery date, unlike equities that simply offer shareholders ownership of a corporation, they must be 'rolled.' To roll a futures position, upcoming contracts must be sold and contracts that are not yet due must be bought. The new Dow Jones and CCX indexes will be rolling indexes, and will roll contracts once a year — over four days each December.

Both the European Carbon Index and the CER Index are calculated in euros. Values for both indexes are published at the end of each business day. Based on back-tested history, both indexes seem to be promising investment opportunities. For the European Carbon Index, estimated daily back-tested history is available from January 2, 2008 forward. For the CER Index, data is available from April 1, 2008 forward.

GreenCarCongress has news that the Canadian conversion company Envia has just received an order for electric and plug-in electric trucks for a Canadian disaster relief business,  Angel Restoration.

Envia converts Fords into plug-ins or all electric models with more torque than the gasoline model Ford supplies, and with speeds up to 99 miles per hour.

The range is shorter than the gasoline model, depending on which battery is chosen - from between a 50 to 125 mile range between recharges. They are FastCharge capable in less than three hours using 220 volt, and of course can be recharged each night like a cell phone in household 120-volt plugs. Range is less of an issue in commercial use where a truck can recharge at the work site as well as at night, and commercial FastCharge EV infrastructure is gradually taking shape to supply new electric vehicles that extra daytime jolt.

I spoke with Jay Giraud the owner of Envia yesterday and he told me that most of his work has come from fleet owners who contact him to have their current fleet converted to EVs or PHEVs, but he also converts even brand new Fords.

Giraud's company shares a large building with fellow EV enthusiast David Gilroy's business  bmcmotorworks where finishing touches are being made to a new Rapid Electric Vehicles showroom targeted for opening in October. Envia also partners with local Ford dealer Metro Ford to provide charging stations and for parts and service on the EVs he has converted. They will continue to honor the Ford warranty on Envia's conversions. Giraud is currently working on creating a solar partnership to provide the power for the charging stations.

For the average commercial truck driver the difference between the high cost of gas and the low cost of electrons can make for enormous savings that more than justify the cost of the conversions. Giraud says that the conversion expense has a pay back time of about four years for a truck in typical commercial use, which is not bad. The other big incentive of course is that your company benefits by looking good as your fleet powers up to the work site. The disaster relief company can know it's looking angelic with its new, earth-friendly fleet.

It looks as if fleet owners are finding a solution to the high cost of running gasoline vehicles, and Giraud's company is profiting from a peak oil world. Its bad news for Ford when their best customers need to get their great commercial trucks re engineered to meet their needs, but the customer is always right.

As Wired puts it, it's been a really Ford Tough year for Ford.

Photo by Flickr user desolateplaces

We all know the big knock on hydrogen fuel: you’ve got to spend lots of energy and spew tons of carbon to produce the hydrogen gas. But taking inspiration from the world of plants, an international team of researchers has created a catalyst that is halfway to getting us hydrogen fuel from a much cleaner source: the sun.

Piggybacking on untold millennia of evolution, the researchers pinpointed the  manganese-containing catalyst most plants use to speed photosynthesis, and modeled their own compound on it. Though the scientists’ development is not soluble in water, it can be implanted in a polymer sheet with water channels to allow it to oxidize water in the presence of light. From there, a catalytic hydrogen-producing cathode cell could complete the creation of hydrogen.

Only a few years ago, the hydrogen car seemed a distant, infeasible technology, requiring near-miracles in several fields of production to make it a market reality. But as fiscal pressures have changed due to high energy costs and the looming prospect of carbon caps, researchers have dramatically lowered the obstructions to the “hydrogen economy” promised by President Bush. While many important hurdles still remain, research continues at an astonishing rate.

While many automotive pundits can tell you that below 45mph, it’s best to keep the sunroof open and the air conditioner off, a new development may add some new data to that equation. Building on existing solar technologies, Sunrise Solar is manufacturing a solar-collecting sunroof which could have a significant impact across the automotive world.

Though it’s doubtful the solar collector will be able to bring in enough electricity to completely compensate for an air conditioner, it could certainly reduce the energy load on the engine, and help maintain battery charge in cars during long periods of idleness or in extremely cold conditions.

Perhaps the most promising application for this product will be in battery-only or hybrid powered cars, as a way to charge the battery while parked at a location distant from an electric charging station, or to reduce fuel consumption when the vehicle is traveling at highway speeds and recharging the battery.

Functioning as a normal sunroof when not in use for power collection, the technologies employed in the solar sunroof may also find applications in other windows on the car, making for sleek, unobtrusive means of power generation that could be easily applied to nearly any other vehicle in the future.

Electric bikes aren’t new technology, but they are rapidly becoming a new trend among those interested in lowering their gasoline bill alongside their environmental footprint.

Electric bicycles work much like motorcycles, but run off of an electrically charged battery that you remove from the bike and plug into an electrical outlet, rather than a gasoline engine. Typically riders can get about 20 miles per charge.  

According to the National Bicycle Dealers Association, electric bike sales have increased from 6,000 sold in 2006, to 10,000 sold in 2007. Sellers like Amazon and NYCeWheels, expect sales numbers for 2008 to show an even more dramatic increase, due in part to gas prices, but also the public's greater dedication to environmental stewardship.

A few electric bike tidbits:

-Some countries do not require a vehicle driving license
-Helmets should be worn while operating the bike
-Speed restrictions apply in some areas, such as in the US with a limit of 20 MPH
-Batteries range in material make-up from lead, to variations of nickel and cadmium content, as well as lithium content. Each battery has a unique life expectancy. When the battery is no longer functioning, properly dispose of the battery by contacting the supplier or a local recycling center.

As quoted in the Spring 2007 Green Roof Magazine, Manfred Köhler, Founder of the Green Roof Centre in Neubrandenburg, Germany said that if a solar roof is placed over plants, both the roof and the plants perform better. The plants make the solar panels more efficient, because their evaporation cools the back of the exposed panels; solar panels work better when they are cool. Likewise, the dappled shade that the solar panels provide the plants below is similar to the canopy effect of taller trees protecting plants underneath from harsh direct sun.

Köhler, Professor of Landscape Ecology at Neubrandenburg, has been involved with research on green roofs and façade greenery since 1981. In his paper, Positive Interaction between PV-systems and Extensive Green roofs, Dr. Köhler says (rough translation):

The vegetation dynamics of the extensive green roofs is one of the main issues and has been monitored since 1992. On some of these greened roofs a photovoltaic –research power plant (PV) was installed in 1999. At that time it was the largest in PV- installation in Berlin. Ten different types of PV-panels were tested. Some of these panels are installed above the green roof, similar panels above a typical black Bitumen roof on a comparable building. So the interaction between green roofs and PV panels was tested for several years. Results: Under the shade of the PV panels the vegetation is modified significantly. It changed from a Moss-Sedum roof to a vegetation stand dominated by higher taller plant species like Artemisia and other. The biomass of plant species increased through the years. A green roof reduces the maximum temperature during the day time. This has a positive influence on the production of electricity by the PV-panels and makes them more efficient in the summer months.

This April, Martin Roscheisen, the CEO of Nanosolar, blogged about the same synergistic arrangement, that solar panels can be arranged to drip water for plants underneath:

In a municipal solar power plant, solar panels are mounted onto rails above the ground so that grass and flowers can continue to flourish in between and below the rows of panels. Care is taken that sufficient amounts of rainwater can drop through between adjoining panels so that the flowers and organisms below are not starved. In fact, in dry regions, the solar panels even benefit the ecosystem by increasing the moisture level in the soil.

This synergy is good news, not just for us as homeowners going green, but also for us as a nation, considering much larger solar installations, like the Solar Grand Plan published in Scientific American last December. For that to be implemented, 30,000 square miles of photovoltaic arrays would be needed.

When you include mining area in assessing the square miles coal uses, solar would actually take less space than coal per gigawatt hour of power produced, according to Scientific American, based on power being produced from solar installations already in place in the Southwest.

The Solar Grand Plan has backing from studies by the NREL in Colorado showing that more than enough land in the Southwest is available without requiring use of environmentally sensitive areas, population centers, or difficult terrain. Arizona’s Department of Water Conservation has noted that more than 80 percent of his state’s land is not privately owned and that Arizona is very interested in developing its solar potential.

But still, it is a large area of our beautiful land. Some environmentalists are discouraged by the size of solar installations such as the Grand Plan envisions, even though those 30,000 square miles could supply a third of our national electricity requirement. How much better for it to be designed to encourage plant growth underneath as well as cooling the panels in that hot Southwest sunshine. If the installation were designed as recommended by the green roofing professor and the solar CEO, we could have the best of both worlds.

Photo by Flickr user dotcommodity    

The predominant opinion seems to be that the next administration, weather a (D) or an (R), will be a supporter of renewable energy development, but wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems isn't taking any chances. The company, which in June sold $800 million worth of pinwheels to Alliant Energy now plans to spend $100 million convincing Americans they need more of them.

CNN Money reports that the 2-year campaign is aimed at raising awareness among citizens about the need for renewables, Vestas' products, and the availability of wind-related jobs. The spots will run in newspapers, online, and on TV and radio.

Rather than rely on the U.S. government, which has so far produced little in the way of subsidies and mandates for clean energy, Vestas is going to the voters. CNN quotes Seth Farbman, managing director at advertising firm Ogilvy & Mather, saying, "Consumers aren't going to run out and buy wind turbines, but they do influence government and politicians."

Vestas' ad push is tied to the company's other activities in the U.S., including a turbine plant in Colorado and a research center in Houston that will be home to 100 scientists. The company currently employs more than 1,200 people in the U.S., to increase to 4,000 by 2010.

As the traditional manufacturing industry essentially dies off, the door opens for foreign companies to fill the gap with green jobs. While more opportunities for American workers is surely a good thing, this trend highlights the fact that America has not invested in innovation for renewables and could be worse off because of it.

Source: CNN Money

In his first act after being inaugurated as Prime Minister of Australia, Kevin Rudd reversed John Howard's fuel-hardy ways by moving promptly to sign on to Kyoto. He had the support of most Australians: an impressive 84% Down Under say climate change is a real problem.

It would appear that Queensland's Premier, Anna Bligh, is following in Rudd's carbon footsteps. She has put a 20-year moratorium on shale oil extraction planned by Queensland Energy Resources (QER), halting the company's plans to dig up about 400,000 tons of rock for resource testing. Bligh said the government would spend the next two years researching whether shale oil deposits "can be used in an environmentally acceptable way" before she would release her moratorium.

Premier Bligh said that QER would be permitted to try to develop new technology, "And if that is proved satisfactorily, then the Government will have a look to see if other sites are suitable to be developed."

This marks the second energy source Queensland has halted until it can be proved environmentally sound. The state has already placed a prohibition on the mining and export of uranium.

QER said it had examined 60 different technologies for extracting shale oil and was confident that the one it had chosen would satisfy the requirements of the Queensland Environmental Protection Agency. The technique it plans to use is the Paraho process, which involves drilling holes and inserting heaters in target underground zones to slowly heat the shale, per Gargi Chakrabarty at Energy Bulletin:

"Once the shale is sufficiently heated, a chemical reaction starts and releases the lighter hydrocarbons, which rise. The heavier hydrocarbons remain within the formation. The lighter hydrocarbons, almost a gasoline-type product, are subsequently pumped out of the ground through conventional means.

The advantage of this new process is that it eliminates the problem of waste disposal, because the heavy hydrocarbons are left in their original form in the underground shale. Also, the process requires much less water.

In contrast, the old retort method requires a lot of water to cool the heated rock. Also, once the oil is extracted from shale, the greasy residue - which almost doubles in volume because of heat expansion - has to be disposed of."

Current oil shale mining makes at least three times more carbon emissions than traditional oil drilling and uses three barrels of water to make one barrel of oil. Australia is now a decade into the worst drought in the developed world. If this technique proves to be a more environmentally sound way to scrape oil from rocks than what we are doing now, it will be big news.

Oil Shale photo by Nick Bristow
 

Some good news today for those of us who breathe. In a move reminiscent of their
recent smokestack demolition in Minnesota, XCEL Energy has decided to retire two dirty coal power plants in Colorado, for its first utility scale solar concentrating power plant and 850 megawatts of wind power. XCEL is the fourth largest electricity company in the U.S. To date, 60% of that has been coal-fired electricity.

The power swap will take place in Colorado, where the Democratic National Convention is being held this week. Colorado is an interestingly Brown/Green energy state where the possibility of scraping up the state for oil shale vies with new green energy sources. The Danish wind giant Vestas -- which is in the incredibly fortunate position of having a $10 billion dollar backlog of wind turbine orders -- is bringing a new wind turbine building plant to the state.

Interestingly, XCEL is not a member of USCAP, the forward-thinking climate change prevention group, as is PG&E and other greener utilities and corporations. In fact, when Colorado passed its first Renewable Portfolio Standard of 10% by 2015, XCEL dragged its heels. But it discovered in the process of complying that it wasn't that difficult: the company it hit its target in 2007. Now XCEL supports the current 20% by 2020 target. The Washington Post attributes XCELs decision in part to the production tax credits (PTC) wind farms have had:

"Once Xcel executives began to come to terms with the new rules, they discovered that federal tax credits made wind power affordable."

Any new plant is going to be much more expensive to build than keeping an old one you already have on the books chugging along. So the PTC makes it affordable to build new green power plants. However, as they do every few years, these production tax credits expire at the end of this year.

Unfortunately, each time the Democrats have attempted to extend PTCs this year they haven't been successful, and the credits could fail to be renewed. With the Democrats in Colorado this week at their convention getting some media time, this would be a good time for them to publicize the good that the PTC has done.

Via SolveClimate

Photo by Flickr user Bree R

Bharat Book has just released a report that forecasts that the demand for biodegradable plastics in the U.S. will grow by nearly 20 percent.

In 2007, more than 70 percent of all biodegradable plastic went to creating packaging -- a trend that is expected to continue.

The applications of biodegradable plastics are expanding, due to the development of sophisticated polymerization and blending methods. And according to Bharat Book's forecast, the expansion is only beginning: The demand for biodegradable plastics is expected to reach 720 million pounds annually in 2012 — and that's just in the U.S. That market will be worth an estimated $845 million.

The report forecasts continued industry growth, with higher capacity and greater production efficiency expected to meet demand. There is also an expectation that the average prices for biodegradable plastics will drop. Of the various types of plastic, Bharat Book has pinpointed polyester-based biodegradable plastics as the fastest growing, due to lower prices for better resin blends.

Bharat Book is a research agency known for its published reports and databases. The full report on biodegradable plastics demand, titled "Biodegradable Plastics forecasts for 2012 & 2017" is available for purchase through the company's website.

Photo — Maynard

Angstrom Microsystems is a leader in green computing. It has dedicated more than eight years of research and development to finding green computing solutions — helping clients reduce their carbon footprint while saving money. Angstrom's efforts have included energy efficient, high-end blade servers, green workstations and even software solutions that provide maximum performance from equipment. Both hardware and software have contributed to Angstrom's green computing initiative:

• Energy Efficient Liquid Cooled Blade Servers
• Ultra-High Efficiency Power Solution
• Software-based Acceleration
• Use of Only Environmentally Friendly Materials
• Reusable Product Shipping Materials

Lalit Jain, the CEO of Angstrom Microsystems, explained the company's approach to green computing: "Green computing is not just a buzz word or passing fad for Angstrom or our clients. Rather, it is fundamentally at the core of what we do. Our client companies are concerned about the environment and want to reduce their carbon footprints, but they also want great return on their computing investments."

Angstrom is specifically focusing on improving energy efficiency for data centers. According the EPA, data centers make up three percent of American power consumption. A current project includes a patent-pending server that will cost 75 percent less to cool. The server is self-cooling and uses a non-conductive, non-toxic liquid.

Image — Angstrom

There are plenty of options for offsetting your company's carbon emissions, but what about your website's? Most businesses rely on outside vendors for server space and other website requirements, but there are limited options for even calculating the power needs of a given website, let alone offsetting them. CO2Stats is working on filling that niche.

CO2Stats uses a surprisingly simple method to calculate the carbon emissions of a given site. The company requires that participating websites add a small snippet of HTML code — it displays a 'Green Certified Site' logo as well as performing a series of calculations that aren't visible to the sites' users. There are several versions of the CO2Stats program, depending on how many page views a website owner wants to offset. The free version offsets only the first 100 page views for a participating website in any given month. The premium (in other words, most expensive) service that CO2Stats offers covers up to five million page views each month and is priced at $99.95 monthly.

The CO2Stats offset program covers not only the energy necessary to run a given site's server, but also the power needs of visitors to the site based on their locations and a set of publicly available statistics. CO2Stats' goal is to offset the entire carbon footprint of participating websites. The company handles purchasing renewable energy certificates for participants: CO2Stats purchases Green-E Certified renewable energy certificates from Sustainable Travel International and Native Energy. The purchasing process is CO2Stat's moneymaking operation — because it can buy in bulk, CO2Stats turn a profit on the fixed monthly fees charged to participating websites.

The founders of CO2Stats are Alexander Wissner-Gross and Timothy Sullivan. The two attended a computer conference in Beijing together in October 2007. The high levels of air pollution in Beijing led the two to create a startup that would reduce the environmental impact of the Internet. More than 2,500 websites have registered with CO2Stats since then, offsetting the web usage of millions of visitors.

Internet usage — and the power needed for all those websites — grows every day. But many businesses simply don't take their websites into account when calculating their carbon footprint. Part of the issue is that it seems complex: what metric should you use when considering visitors to the site? But CO2Stats has developed a metric, and made measurement a matter of copying and pasting code. CO2Stats' approach seems ideal for most companies.
 

Biofuels offer the promise of a low-carbon fuel that could power vehicles and stimulate the world's rural economies.

Yet biofuels are also among the most vilified of environmental technologies. Ethanol refineries are not always clean. The labor on biofuel farms is not always fair. The diversion of feedstocks from food to fuel may be driving up global commodity prices. And the forests, fields, and peat bogs cleared to make room for biofuel crops may release more carbon into the atmosphere than they would save from vehicles not burning fossil fuels.

To address these issues, the Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels (RSB) has gathered environmentalists, industry leaders, and university researchers to develop the first international standard for biofuel production.

In its initial draft, released earlier this month, the roundtable targeted the many sustainability problems associated with growing crops for liquid fuel production. Proponents praise the standards as an attempt to improve biofuel production even though the impact of the fuels is not fully known. Others argue that the standards will encourage the consumption of a fuel source destined to cause harm.

Transitions to Sustainability

The roundtable is the first large-scale effort to create a global standard for biofuels, although similar efforts for specific fuel feedstocks - including palm oil, soybeans, and sugar cane - are already under way. The task is by no means simple-issues vary by crop, climate, and geopolitics. Still, Charlotte Opal, the roundtable's coordinator, is optimistic that the standards can be a benchmark for worldwide biofuels production. "There are good biofuels and bad biofuels out there," she said. "We want to distinguish the good from the bad."

The standards require biofuel producers to consider the entire life cycle of their crops, including plans for water management and the preservation of "high conservation value" land through the establishment of buffer zones. Soil health would be "maintained or enhanced" and air pollution "minimized." Greenhouse gas emissions from biofuels production must be reduced over time, according to the guidelines.

The standards also include social provisions. Land must not be "legitimately contested" by local communities such as indigenous groups. If land rights are transferred, "local people shall be fairly and equitably compensated." Slave labor and child labor are banned. Some form of unionization must be allowed.

Some of these standards are aspirational. For instance, they recommend a business plan to ensure economic sustainability.

The biggest challenge to biofuels sustainability is ensuring that high-value land is preserved - either because it stores large amounts of carbon (as does forestland) or because it is well suited for human food production. If biofuels production pushes farmers or cattle grazers off their traditional lands and into newly cleared forests, for instance, are the fuels contributing to unsustainable behavior? Widespread forest clearing related to biofuels production has been reported in several regions, including Southeast Asia and South America.

The standards emphasize the use of marginal, degraded, or previously cleared land for growing biofuels. But the roundtable concedes that no simple methodology exists to prevent the unsustainable actions of other landowners affected indirectly by the fuels' expansion. "Indirect land use change is not in the control of the producer. How do you deal with that? It's a big, big philosophical hole," said Barbara Bramble, a senior international affairs advisor at the National Wildlife Federation and a member of the roundtable's steering board.

Currently, ethanol from "state-of-the-art" sugarcane production in Brazil may be the only biofuel capable of passing the standard's strict sustainability requirements using current production methods, Bramble said. Yet labor conditions akin to slavery and ecologically damaging monoculture practices [PDF] still trouble many of the nation's sugarcane farms, rendering this production less-than-perfect.

Setting such a high standard that covers so many areas of biofuel production may prevent any meaningful advances, said Henry Lee, the director of Harvard University's environment and natural resources program. "Certification standards could significantly enhance biofuels development or seriously retard it," Lee said. "The main concern is people try to deal with all problems-land, air, environment, child labor-with a biofuels requirement, and people are not going to do that."

Tad Patzek, a petroleum engineering professor at the University of California at Berkeley, said that no biofuels production could be considered sustainable if done on a large scale for more than one year. The large amounts of fertilizer inputs would inevitably tarnish the quality of the soil and surrounding waterways, he said.

"Essentially, you have a sea of plants, monocultures for tens of kilometers. In what sense can that ever be sustainable?" said Patzek, who suggested that the standards may only encourage the expansion of destructive biofuels. "I am extremely wary of well-meaning people who like to feel good about themselves, contributing in a terrible way to the destruction of our planet."

A Sea of Standards

As concerns about biofuels grow, a system that differentiates sustainable biofuels production is in strong demand from consumers and suppliers alike. "The good news is that you're starting to see...people all over the world starting to talk about these issues," said David McLaughlin, the World Wildlife Fund's managing director of agriculture. "People are much more amenable to following these standards and adopting them."

Several European countries are also developing sustainability criteria, as part of the European Union's mandate to replace 10 percent of gasoline or diesel with biofuels by 2020. The Texas-based Sustainable Biodiesel Alliance released draft standards for U.S. biofuels production last week. One difference among the standards is the language for genetically modified biofuel crops - the roundtable allows biotechnology that does not impair the environment, while the alliance discourages it.

Some leaders in the developing world already oppose the proposed international standards due to concerns that the guidelines would serve as trade barriers. "They see it as a very typical developed-country attempt to keep developing countries from profiting off a commodity," said Lee, who heard this criticism often during a biofuels workshop in May organized by Harvard and the Italian government.

Yet environmental standards in other areas, such as those developed by the Forest Stewardship Council for wood products, the Marine Stewardship Council for seafood, and the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements for organic produce, have already saturated developing-country markets, so a new standard for biofuels may be no different. "It's been on their landscape for the past 15 years," McLaughlin said. "It's nothing new to them."

The roundtable has no plans to establish a rigorous certification system at this time due to implementation costs and the difficulty of proving the source of blended biofuels. Instead, suppliers can voluntarily strive to follow the standards until a more stringent system is in place.

Even if the standards are followed, the ability for current biofuels technology to be truly sustainable remains to be seen. "We think it's an achievable standard," Opal said. "But it will take a lot of time to prove it and to achieve accountability."

The Roundtable on Sustainable Biofuels will be accepting comments on its standards through February 2009.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.