By Susan DeFreitas

In Pennsylvania, a combination of state and federal funding has come together to create a center for research innovations in the field of green buildings. The Energy Innovation Hub at the Philadelphia Navy Yard will bring together researchers from the world of academia, the private sector and two national laboratories in a concerted effort to save energy, cut carbon pollution and help to position the U.S. at the forefront of green building and retrofitting design.

The Penn State researchers spearheading the effort will receive $129 million over the next five years from several government sources, including the Department of Energy (DOE), in addition to a $30 million from the state of Pennsylvania to form the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC), which will include more than ten academic institutions, two DOE laboratories, five high-profile global industry partners, and regional economic development agencies–all with full-time personnel at the GPIC ocused on developing innovations that will make buildings more efficient.

Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy used in the United States. Finding ways to improve energy efficiency in buildings is the next big frontier in energy research and development. This award places Penn State and our partners at the forefront of this national effort,” said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, in a statement.

His colleague, Henry C. Foley, Penn State vice president for Research and the principal investigator for the proposal, added that the award is expected to spur real innovation and job growth for Philadelphia, the region and the nation. The GPIC represents the culmination of a decade’s worth of efforts on the part of more than 90 organizations.

Reprinted with permission from Earthtechling

In recent analysis of vehicle sales by segment, the differences between traditional internal combustion engine (ICE) vehicle sales and hybrid (HEV) sales show that hybrids are not competitive in several key segments within the U.S. The small car segment accounts for 20% of U.S. sales, but only accounts for 12% of HEV sales (with only 2 models available). While the midsize car segment with the popular Toyota Prius accounts for 68% of HEV sales (a total of 11 models available) compared to 31% for the segment among ICE vehicles. An indication that both manufacturer and consumer acceptance in this segment is strong.

There are several reasons that HEVs may not be capturing the same level of small car market share as the ICE small cars, though price and value are certainly one of the key issues. In this segment, many consumers are inclined to go for solutions that don’t break the bank, such as flex-fuel vehicles or high-efficiency or turbo ICEs. If product plans are representative of an automaker’s opinion, there appears to be some agreement with this strategy as high-efficiency ICEs with improved fuel economy with minimal cost increase seem to be the direction many are headed with new products (for example, the Chevy Cruze and Ford Fiesta).

This leads one to expect that the growth of plug-in vehicles in this segment will likely be niche vehicles, similar to how small luxury cars are niche vehicles within the small car segment.

Beyond cars, consumer demand continues to push the development of trucks, whether that’s crossover SUVs or full-size pickup trucks. Midsize/large SUVs and pick-up trucks combined account for about 27% of the U.S. new vehicle market, while sales of hybrids in these segments combine for about 3% (a total of 4 models, all GM). This mismatch between share of ICEs and HEVs is the result of several factors, cost of the vehicles, fuel economy gains that require many years of use to see payback, and lack of availability.

The prevailing assumption is that most consumers won’t pay for small improvements from HEVs in fuel economy in big truck segments, and that assumption is likely correct. The cost recovery for a $4,000 to $8,000 premium for the HEV version likely takes many years to pay back with fuel economy gains that net savings of $300 to $500/year (based on a 12K miles per year driving cycle and $3/gallon gas price). Even at double the gas price, paybacks on expensive HEVs system are at least 5 years or longer. Additionally, let’s not forget that truck buyers in the bigger vehicle segments are often looking for specific towing or cargo capabilities that HEVs have to live up to, which in some cases may drive the cost of the HEV even higher. The differences between HEV and ICE segment market share point to an opportunity within these segments for other less-costly technologies such as high-efficiency ICEs, start-stop hybrids or turbo-diesel engines.

Dave Hurst is senior analyst at clean tech research and consulting firm Pike Research

By David Belden

If micro-inverters are the current craze in the solar industry, then I predict that solar energy monitoring systems will be the next big thing.

Micro-inverters (and other parallel technology) are given lots of attention because they can increase the efficiency of a system by up to as much as 10%-20%. Similarly, solar electricity systems that are hooked up to monitoring systems have a 10% energy production increase over systems that are not hooked up to monitoring systems, according to Will Shortt, CEO of Deck Monitoring.

PV solar panels last at least 25 years, where as inverters only come with an 8-10 year warranty. That means that sometime in the 8-10 year range the inverter will die and the system will stop producing energy. With a monitoring system in place the installer or homeowner will know immediately that the system has been compromised. Otherwise it could be weeks or months before the homeowner looks at their energy usage statement from their utility company and realizes that their solar electricity system is not longer producing energy.

Monitoring systems currently cost around $1,000, which seems like a small price to pay for installers to be able to ensure that a homeowner’s system is working properly. With a monitoring system in place an installer could offer a “performance assurance”, and that may be just the differentiator needed to close the deal.

All California installers are required to give a 10-year warranty, but this might compel them to give even longer warranties. Similarly, it may motivate installers to offer warranties in other states.

Combine a warranty with monitoring systems and I can see how a solar installer could proactively call a homeowner to say that they’re going to drop by to clean the panels when they see the productivity drop rather than the other extreme of having a system fail for some reason, then have a furious customer calling because their $20,000 solar energy system has not been producing electricity for the past month. I’d much prefer to read stories on yelp about how great an installer is because they called a customer to say there was a problem that they were going to come out to fix before the customer even knew there was an issue.

Thomas Dinkel, CEO of SunReports said that SunPower, SunRun, Solar City, and Sungevity all offer monitoring with any systems they install, and therefore to be competitive with them other installers will likely start offering monitoring as well.

The most compelling feature of monitoring systems is the ability to measure performance against what was promised and what is expected of the system. Not only is it fun to see, but it also serves as a great indicator if something goes wrong with the system.

Lastly, when homeowners are able to view their solar energy production or energy usage in a clear, easy to view fashion, they inevitably will adjust their behavior and start using less energy, which is a great positive side-effect.

*Clean Power Finance recently hosted a webinar with SunReports and Deck Monitoring, which is where I learned much of what I just reported. However I’m sure there are other monitoring solutions out there, and I’d be interested in hearing about them too.

Reprinted with permission from CleanTechies

By Nino Marchetti

A new study out which took a look at the recycling efforts of mobile phone manufacturers such as Apple and Nokia tells a sobering tale of how mobile phone recycling is amazingly low, with rates of 10% considered good. IDC, the firm behind this survey, believes the mobile industry faces a long road to being green.

IDC, in announcing the top five mobile phone vendors it believes are most sustainable, notes that it is “critical for the manufacturers of these devices to demonstrate their corporate responsibility by working toward greener phones that simplify safe and proper disposal and even reuse of the billions of mobile phones in the market.” The top five vendors (in alphabetical order) include Apple, noted for recycling in 95 percent of the countries where its products are sold; LG; Nokia, praised for being particularly strong in the area of materials where between 65% and 80% of any Nokia device can be recycled; Samsung; and Sony Ericsson, which IDC noted had “optimized packaging to be more environmentally friendly by including recycling mailers and developing lighter boxes saving 80% on CO2 emissions from transport versus the standard box.”

IDC, in determining the results of its study, used five criteria (packaging, materials, energy, end-of-life program, and overall sustainability efforts) and 20 sub-criteria. The research firm went to the manufacturers directly, physically inspecting the packaging, devices, and accessories of mobile phone manufacturers, and leveraging published corporate responsibility reports and other corporate and product environmental reports as available. It also reviewed third party rating and watchdog information from the likes of Energy Star and Greenpeace.

Reprinted with permission from EarthTechling.com

This is a guest editorial from Roland Hwang of the Natural Resourced Defense Council.

Today, a consumer group, Consumer Federation of America, released a new study that clearly shows stronger pollution and fuel efficiency standards that result in 60 miles per gallon by 2025 is good for consumers’ pocketbooks. But not only do consumers win, it also means less pollution, less oil dependency, and a stronger, more competitive auto industry. It’s one of the best examples of why good environmental and clean energy policy goes hand-in-hand with lowering consumer fuel bills and restoring American industry to a leadership position.

Achieving 60 mpg by 2025 can be done by using and improving on technologies that already exist, such as hybrid electric cars and electric vehicles. In fact, according to a new study released yesterday by the University of Michigan, the technical potential is to triple fuel economy to 74 mpg, even before considering plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles. We have learned from cell phones, microwaves, and computers that higher volumes can lead to dramatic improvement in innovation and drive down costs.

Raising standards to 60 mpg is good for consumers, good for the environment and good for jobs. Here are the top three reasons why we need stronger pollution and fuel efficiency standards:

Reason #1: Pays for itself. According to the consumer group Consumer Federation of America, cost of fuel savings technologies pays for itself in the first year of ownership.

Reason #2: Making cars and trucks go further on a gallon is the cleanest, cheapest, and fastest way to meet our energy needs. It will reduce our dependency on oil from the Middle East while cutting emissions of greenhouse gas and other pollutants.. Passenger vehicles—cars, minivans, pickups and SUVs—are the single biggest consumer of oil, accounting for about 40 percent of our oil consumption. To break our oil addiction and avoid future disasters like the Gulf spill, we must raise the efficiency of our cars and trucks.

Reason #3: Without stronger standards, American automakers could fall behind in the global race for the clean car market, putting even more manufacturing jobs at risk. As recent reports by the business consulting firm McKinsey and Company show and others, the US auto industry is locked in a global race to dominate the market for clean, advanced technology vehicles. In the 1970s, the U.S. auto industry fell asleep at the wheel when it came to building fuel efficient cars and ceded huge market share to the Japanese companies like Toyota and Honda. In the 1990s, while the U.S. auto industry chose to build Hummers rather than hybrids, it once again, fell behind in leadership to Toyota and Honda on hybrids. In the 2010’s, without stronger standards, the U.S. auto industry risk losing ground to the fast rising Chinese auto industry.

This post by Roland Hwang first appeared on Switchboard, the Natural Resources Defense Council blog.

By John Vidal

Social networking website Facebook is coming under unprecedented pressure from its users to switch to renewable energy. In one of the web's fastest-growing environmental campaigns, Greenpeace international says at least 500,000 people have now protested at the organisation's intention to run its giant new data centre mainly on electricity produced by burning coal power.

Facebook will not say how much electricity it uses to stream video, store information and connect its 500m users but industry estimates suggest that at their present rate of growth all the data centres and telecommunication networks in the world will consume about 1,963bn kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more electricity than is used by France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.

Facebook announced in February that it planned to build what is expected to be the world's largest centralised data storage centres in Portland, Oregon. Although it will include some of the world's most energy-efficient computers, the sheer scale of the Facebook operation will almost certainly use more electricity than many developing countries.

The company has said it will source its electricity from Pacific Power. It uses coal power – the dirtiest form of power generation – for 67% of its electricity, and produces less than 12% of its electricity from renewable sources. The company has said it plans to generate more electricity from renewables in future but has given no detailed information.

In a statement Facebook said: "It is true that the local utility for the region we chose, Pacific Power, has an energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average. However, the efficiency we are able to achieve because of the climate of the region and the reduced energy usage that results minimises our overall carbon footprint.

"Said differently, if we located the data centre most other places, we would need mechanical chillers, use more energy, and be responsible for more overall carbon in the air – even if that location was fuelled by more renewable energy."

Kumi Naidoo, director of Greenpeace International, urged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to commit his company to a plan to phase out the use of dirty coal-fired electricity. In a letter to Facebook, Naidoo said: "Facebook is uniquely positioned to be a truly visible and influential leader to drive the deployment of clean energy."

Earlier this year Greenpeace admitted that many of its own web hosting operations are also housed in data centres powered primarily by coal and nuclear power. The environmental group said it offset all the energy used to power its main website in Amsterdam and used renewable energy where it could. Many of its servers in Washington also used wind power.

John Vidal is the environment editor for guardian.co.uk

Reprinted with permission from ecopolitology

By Christopher DeMorro

This summer I was lucky enough to be able to drive across the county and visit 29 states and dozens of different cities. One city that really stuck out to me though was Portland. It was young, hip, and, although cool in its own right, was not at all my scene (I’m a country boy through and through). What really stuck out to me about Portland though was the traffic, or lack thereof. See, Portland has a rather complete public transportation system, which includes a lot of streetcars.

The streetcars have been a success for Portland, and other cities are taking notice. Combine that with changes to the Department of Transportation’s new guidelines for building public transit, and we could see a real streetcar renaissance.

It used to be that there was hardly a city anywhere that didn’t have a streetcar line running down most major roads. Before cars became popular, streetcars and steam trains were the most popular methods of travel. Unfortunately, streetcars and trains died together as Americans flocked towards cheap cars and cheap gas. Those days appear to be coming to an end though, and streetcars are poised to make a major comeback.

Portland’s streetcar system is a driving factor behind many new streetcar projects. Studies suggest the streetcar lines in Portland have brought $3.5 billion of business investment and resulted in over 10,000 units of housing being built and filled. My experience is that you can get almost anywhere in Portland via their public transportation. If more cities would use streetcars, it would likely lead to similar results, all the while reducing traffic congestion and bringing in jobs. And more jobs is exactly what our country needs.

Source: USA Today | Image: Associated Press

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

By Edouard Stenger

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the French government is close to launching a tender for contracts of 10 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind capacity.

600 wind turbines will be implemented within five to ten sites in Normandy, Brittany and the regions of Pays de la Loire and Languedoc. They are scheduled to start producing electricity by 2015.

This may be only the beginning as the government wants to produce up to 6,000 MW via offshore wind by 2020.

By then the technology may enable us to build floating wind turbines with 10 MW of capacity each. This would allow this renewable energy source to generate more electricity without nobody even noticing.

It seems that France is more and more willing to play catch up with Denmark, the European pioneer in this renewable energy source. The United Kingdom also set aggressive wind energy targets earlier this year. To date France has absolutely no offshore wind turbines.

Three gigawatts of capacity is enough to power the cities of Lyon and Marseille combined (around 1.3 million people).

This is as much capacity as two nuclear EPR reactors. However, wind is an intermittent energy source compared with nuclear (a nuclear reactor produces electricity 80 percent of the time while wind turbines are about 35 percent)

Last month, the local energy giant GDF Suez announced that it is willing to invest 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to build a 700 MW wind-farm project in northern France. This site was previously selected as the most favorable in the country for developing the energy.

One of the goals is to create local jobs in manufacturing turbines as currently the country imports all its turbines. Despite having faced occasional harsh resistance from local communities, land based wind power already accounts for more than 4,000 MW.

If this plan is to be successful, France would need to install each year more than what the entire European Union installed offshore in 2009. This is a bold goal.

Reprinted with permission from CleanTechies

By RP Siegal

Bjørn Lomborg may not be a household name around here, but that’s through no fault of his. In November 2001, this Danish environmental author and economics professor was selected “Global Leader for Tomorrow” by the World Economic Forum. Lomborg was selected as one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people of 2004. In June 2002, Business Week named Lomborg one of the “50 Stars of Europe” in the Agenda Setters category. The magazine noted, “No matter what they think of his views, nobody denies that Bjørn Lomborg has shaken the environmental movement to its core.”

Controversy may as well have been his middle name, especially after his book The Skeptical Environmentalist: Measuring the Real State of the World came out in 2001. The book was critical of the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World report “for using short-term trends to predict disastrous consequences, in cases where long-term trends would not support the same conclusions.”

He was particularly outspoken on the subject of global warming whose importance he felt was being overstated. In the book’s introduction he writes, “Global warming, though its size and future projections are rather unrealistically pessimistic, is almost certainly taking place, but the typical cure of early and radical fossil fuel cutbacks is way worse than the original affliction, and moreover its total impact will not pose a devastating problem for our future.”

However, Lomborg has a new book entitled Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits in which he proposes an aggressive $100 billion annual fund specifically targeting global warming solutions such as the familiar list of renewables including wind, wave, and solar as well as nuclear power and a number of more controversial geo-engineering approaches like cloud whitening, which, it has been suggested, might reflect a larger portion of the sun’s heat back into space than ordinary clouds.

Lomborg’s path to his current position was neither short nor straight. In 2003, the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty investigated his work and cited him for fabrication of data, deliberately misleading use of statistical methods and several other charges. However, an appeal to the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation invalidated the charges. Needless to say the controversy continues, mostly simmering in academic circles.

As to his present position, Lomborg defends himself vigorously against the dreaded flip-flopper charge, pointing out that he never disputed the existence of manmade warming, but only the details of its severity and more importantly, what actions will be most effective.

The impetus behind this book was his effort to answer the question “If the world is going to spend hundreds of millions to treat climate, where could you get the most bang for your buck?” He now says that an annual investment of $100 billion will eliminate the threat of global warming by the end of this century.

Still his clear reversal comes at a critical point in time when momentum has eroded and major policy initiatives both globally and here in the US have stalled even as industry shills spreading doubt seem to have regrouped and reclaimed a significant chunk of public opinion.

RP Siegel is co-author of the eco-thriller Vapor Trails.

Reprinted with permission from TriplePundit

By Zach McDonald One month after putting the energy bill onto the back burner due to a lack of bipartisan support, Senate majority leader Harry Reid has told reporters that the bill will be revived after the November elections, during the so-called “lame duck” session.

In a conference call yesterday, Reid said he hoped that the possible addition of a renewable fuels standard—which reportedly could attract the votes of two Republicans, including Sen. Sam Brownback—might be enough to push the bill over the edge. Of course, whenever the margins are slim on a piece of legislation, you can usually expect an orgy of horsetrading—meaning that almost anything could be cut or added to the bill in pursuit of that one final vote needed for passage.

Unclear is the fate of $3.8 billion in additional funding for electric vehicles which was originally part of the more expansive Promoting Electric Vehicles Act of 2010. That bill was cut down and folded into the Energy Bill after cap and trade—and pretty much every other substantial provision—was cut from the now-dead Climate Bill. In its staid, Senate Democrats bundled together funding for Home Star energy retrofits, incentives for natural gas and electric vehicles, and new money for the Land and Water Conservation Fund, dropping any pretense that the legislation represented significant progress in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Thus, the Energy Bill of 2010 was born.

But even modest levels of new funding for environmental initiatives have proven to be too much for a bitterly divided Congress to stomach. Democrats hope that after the midterm elections, the seas will calm somewhat, with moderate Republicans no longer feeling as much pressure to fight the majority at every turn. Look for new funds for congressional favorites like ethanol and so-called “clean coal” to potentially find their way into the bill. Hopefully that won't mean that the already weakened electric vehicles initiative will be cut any further.

Reprinted with permission from PluginCars.com

Cisco and Itron announced a strategic alliance that promises to “advance the transformation of the world’s energy infrastructure”. It sounds pretty big, yes? The press release would be a good source for smart grid “buzzword bingo”, with the announcement of a joint collaboration on a standards-based, open, highly secure, interoperable, scalable, reliable, enterprise-class, IP-based, end-to-end, reference-design platform. The hour-long press/analyst call didn’t seem to clear up the confusion, judging from the number of calls I fielded from various folks just afterwards.

So just what did Cisco and Itron announce? It seems Itron and Cisco will develop network software, initially instantiated within Itron’s OpenWay smart meter hardware, leveraging IPv6 and other “Cisco IP” goodies, for a highly secure, open, and interoperable RF mesh field area network. Itron will embed and license “Cisco IP technology” within OpenWay as well as distribute Cisco networking equipment and hardware.

Ultimately, this “platform” will be offered to all (i.e. other AMI and smart grid vendors) to help grow the market. Neither vendor would answer questions about product specifics or timing of when the “platform” would be released. Still seem fuzzy? Itron has already embraced IP in their recent revamp of the OpenWay network. An IEEE 802.15.4 working group is working feverishly on a RF mesh utility network standard, and the IETF is nearing completion of an IP-based ZigBee stack redo to be included with the eagerly anticipated Smart Energy Profile 2.0. So is there anything new and interesting in this alliance?

Plenty – at least potentially. Buzzword bingo aside, there are no “highly secure, open, and interoperable” AMI neighborhood area networks today, except perhaps the PLC-based smart meter interoperability demonstrated last year in Europe between Itron, Landis+Gyr, and Iskraemeco under the influence of EDF’s 35 million meter checkbook. Other smart grid application domains, such as distribution and substation automation, are similarly challenged. These are all rapidly moving toward IP, and while IP adoption is necessary, it is far from sufficient for delivery of the “secure, open, and interoperable” promise.

Cisco may be the only vendor with the technical capability, financial heft, and market audacity to bring a unified end-to-end smart grid communications architecture to fruition, and this venture with Itron should be seen in this context.

The “Cisco IP” that Itron is licensing and embedding should be understood as both “Internet Protocol” and “Intellectual Property”. This includes much of the “special sauce” that is required to actually operate a robust end-to-end network. And providing differentiated (even proprietary?) special sauce such as network management, security regimes, and performance monitoring and management, within the context of IP standards, is largely how Cisco came to lead in the market for enterprise and telecom networks.

What Cisco gains from this partnership is an opportunity to proliferate such “Cisco IP” to a growing base of smart meters. This is key puzzle piece in for an integrated end-to-end network offering, where the rewards in the home and enterprise parts of smart grid may be Cisco’s biggest opportunity. Having Itron as a channel for Cisco equipment is an obvious and necessary bonus.

Itron gains badly needed “street cred” as an IP-based AMI supplier, especially versus Silver Spring Networks, who has given them fits. More importantly however, Itron likely realized that the walls of the AMI garden are down, and gaining pride of place within Cisco’s unified smart grid architecture is a strong competitive move. The actual technology Itron can leverage, especially for security, won’t be bad either, allowing them to concentrate on the actual AMI hardware and applications instead of reinventing the network wheel.

There are a few warning signs customers should monitor. In the press release, Cisco’s Paul De Martini calls Itron’s current-generation OpenWay solution “an excellent candidate for future upgrades”, though the Itron execs were somewhat less equivocal during the analyst conference call. And historically “Cisco IP” has no less vendor lock-in power than the most proprietary SCADA or AMI system today.

Other smart grid vendors may feel a bit uneasy, especially Silver Spring Networks, who is still building momentum for their seemingly perpetually-imminent IPO on the strength of an IP-based system. Some Itron partners may also need reassurance, particularly Certicom, a supplier of public key encryption and key management technology, who could easily get squeezed out of OpenWay.

Given the vagueness of the specifics and timing around this announcement, it will take some time before we can assess whether any of the potential promise is being met. We’ll be watching to see how Cisco assembles additional pieces in their smart grid puzzle, especially around broad architectural technologies such as network management and security. We’ll also see how Itron’s AMI roadmap evolves to match up with such Cisco architectural initiatives.

So it may be some time before we can declare “bingo”, but in the meantime, let the buzzwords fly!

Bob Gohn is senior analyst at clean tech research and consulting firm Pike Research

By Timothy B. Hurst

Water. Most Americans think nothing of it. Turn on the faucet and we expect clean water to flow under good pressure at the temperature of our choosing. But to make all that happen, water requires energy and lots of it. A full 3 percent of electrical power generation is used to treat, pump and distribute water in the U.S. (to say nothing of heating it). And in California, that figure is as high as 19 percent.

Imagine H2O is turning the concern about the intersection of energy and water into an opportunity by opening a $100,000 global competition to find the world’s most promising water businesses that save energy.

Innovations could focus on a number of areas including water heating/cooling, pumping and transport or low-energy treatment. Entries for this year's competition, The Water-Energy Nexus, will be accepted beginning today, September 1, through November 15, 2010.

“Opportunities for saving energy exist at every stage of the water cycle,” says Scott Bryan, Director of Operations at Imagine H2O. “Many of these innovations could be attractive to all water users from utilities down to the individual consumer.”

Imagine H2O is a non-profit company created in 2008 "to inspire and help bring to market sustainable solutions to global water problems through entrepreneurship." The Water-Energy Nexus is the second contest Imagine H2O has held for water innovation. The 2009 contest, Water Efficiency, rewarded business plans that offered the greatest promise of breakthroughs in the efficient use and supply of water in agriculture, commercial, industrial or residential applications.

Like last year, this year’s $100,000 purse includes cash as well as access to the Imagine H2O Incubator Program that helps bring the winning ideas to market. Business incubators have the ability to not only provide seed money and in-kind support for startups, they can also be pivotal in bringing products to market.

“This prize highlights a big market opportunity for entrepreneurs,” says Tamin Pechet, Imagine H2O’s Chairman. “Tomorrow's water supply system will have to be an energy-efficient one.”

Reprinted with permission from Earth and Industry

By Science Daily

A tiny marine filter-feeder, that anchors itself to the sea bed, offers new clues to scientists studying the stability of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet -- a region that is thought to be vulnerable to collapse.

As part of a study for the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML), scientists from British Antarctic Survey (BAS) analysed sea-bed colonies of bryozoans from coastal and deep sea regions around the continent and from further afield. They found striking similarities in particular species of bryozoans living on the continental shelves of two seas -- the Ross and Weddell -- that are around 1,500 miles apart and separated by the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

This new finding, published this month in the journal Global Change Biology, leads the science team to conclude that these animals could have spread across both seas only by means of a trans-Antarctic seaway through what is now a 2 km solid layer of ice. They suggest also that this seaway opened up during a recent interglacial (warm period between ice ages) perhaps as recently as 125,000 years ago when sea level was about 5 metres higher than today.

While some geological evidence suggests that the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) collapsed at least once in the last million years, scientists are keen to determine the frequency of collapse and to understand the processes and connections between warm periods and deglaciation events. Elsewhere around Antarctica the marine animals that could help scientists estimate the date when West Antarctica was ice free, were obliterated during ice ages by advancing glaciers that bulldozed their fossil remains off the continental shelf.

Article continues: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/08/100831073254.htm

Reprinted with permission from Environmental News Network

By Thomas Miner

The U.S. EPA and Department of Transportation today proposed two new fuel economy labels for passenger vehicles and light trucks, both of which change the way fuel efficiency information is communicated and includes detailed information about vehicles’ greenhouse gas emissions.

The first label design (see Image 1 below) proposed features a letter grade which communicates the vehicles overall fuel economy and greenhouse gas emissions performance. It also provides consumers an estimate of the expected fuel cost savings over five years compared to an average gasoline-powered vehicle of the same model year.

The second label (see Image 2 below) proposed would keep the standard miles-per-gallon metric and communicate the yearly fuel costs of the vehicle instead of the fuel cost savings. The label also includes metrics about the vehicles GHG emissions as compares overall performance with other vehicles in the same class as well as average vehicle performance.

The labels are currently open to a 60-day public comment period and the agencies hope to have a final label design by the beginning of 2011. This will allow the new window stickers to be rolled-out for the 2012 model year, when the first GHG emissions limits for cars and light trucks takes effect. According to Reuters, the new efficiency rules will require vehicles achieve, on average, 35.5 miles-per-gallon by 2016, a 42% increase from current limits.

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Life Media

Jo Borras

Energy giant Shell International has signed binding Agreements with Brazilian company Cosan to begin forming a new, $12 billion joint venture project that would see Shell develop sugar cane ethanol and new, “next-generation” alternative fuels.

More on what this project means for the future of biofuels, after the jump.

With annual production projections, the Shell/Cosan project aims to be one of the largest ethanol producing firms in the world, and—considering Shell’s equity in logistics firms Iogen Energy and Codexis—enjoy enviable access to infrastructure that will allow easy distribution of the newly-produced ethanol, as well.

Mark Williams, Shell Downstream director, explains that “the proposed joint venture is set to pool our complementary businesses, enhance our growth prospects in ethanol production globally and support our growth platform for our retail and commercial fuels businesses in Brazil.” Executives from Cosan echoed this belief, and both companies “toed the line” with appropriate references to green tech and sustainable fuel sources.

The new joint-venture company also promises generate its own electricity from sugar cane bagasse, powering all of its jobsites, as well as ten cogeneration plants that are already operational.

With 18 billion liters of fuel sales projected, across 4500 retail sales locations, the Shell/Cosan company should have a competitive edge in Brazilian fuels distribution that may, eventually, make the trip stateside as Shell begins to offer E85 at more and more locations across the US… which is good news for gearheads and good news for fans of ethanol-based fuels.

SOURCE: Cosan.

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

After years of delay, things are finally heating up for large-scale solar thermal power plants in California’s remote deserts. In the last month, a California Energy Commission (CEC) siting committee has recommended at least five solar plants for approval. Last week the first of these projects gained official go-ahead from the agency. The Beacon Solar Energy project is the first utility-scale solar power plant to receive approval in California since 1990.

A project of NextEra Energy Resources, the largest developer of renewable energy in the United States, the Beacon solar project will cover more than 2,000 acres of western Mojave Desert with parabolic trough collectors that will focus sunlight onto liquid-filled pipes. The solar-heated liquid will be channeled to a boiler, where it will produce steam to spin an electricity-generating turbine.

The power plant will create 250 megawatts (MW) of solar electricity when performing at peak production. The project has been wading through the complex permitting process since 2008. This and many other projects have been hampered by environmental concerns as to their impact on the local environment, including wildlife habitat and water issues.

While the Beacon Solar Energy project has the advantage of being located on private land in Kern County, CA, most of the 150 similar projects up for approval by the CEC are located on public lands administered by the U.S. Department of Interior, under its Bureau of Land Management (BLM) division. Only in the wake of extensive environmental impact surveys, and in some cases, important concessions by the developer, are some of these projects getting close to seeing the light of day.

NextEra’s Beacon project will have to secure a power purchase agreement with a utility before it can really break ground. I’d like to assume that this wouldn’t be very difficult, considering California utilities’ rush to meet state energy mandates requiring 20 percent of their energy to come from renewable resources by the end of 2010. But time is of the essence for NextEra and other developers as well, as the federal government’s Treasury Grant Program, which allows solar projects to opt for up-front grants in lieu of federal tax credits otherwise paid over time, is scheduled to expire at the end of this year. That initial funding is key to projects gaining financing from lenders wary of the perceived risk associated with intermittent solar power.

Other projects OK’d by a siting committee and slated for approval by the CEC — following 30 days of public comment — include the 400 MW Ivanpah Solar Plant from Brightsource Energy and the Genesis Solar Energy Project, yet another NextEra Energy Resources project (by subsidiary Genesis Solar). For more information on pending utility-scale solar projects in California, visit the CEC website and scroll down to “Power Plant Licensing Under Review.”

Reprinted with permission from CleanTechies

(Reuters) - Biofuel demand is driving a new "land grab" in Africa, with at least 5 million hectares (19,300 sq miles) acquired by foreign firms to grow crops in 11 countries, a study by an environmental group said on Monday.

The contracts by European and Asian companies for land to grow sugar cane, jatropha and palm oil to be turned into fuel will involve clearing forests and vegetation, taking land that could be used for food and creating conflicts with local communities, Friends of the Earth said in the study.

Proponents of biofuels argue they are renewable and can help fight climate change because the growing plants ingest as much carbon dioxide from the air as the fuels made from them emit when burned.

Critics say there is a risk of the crops infringing on land that could be used for growing food and that destruction of rainforests to make way for palm oil and sugar outweighs any carbon benefits gained from the use of such fuels.

"The expansion of biofuels ... is transforming forests and natural vegetation into fuel crops, taking away food-growing farmland from communities, and creating conflicts with local people over land ownership," Mariann Bassey, a Friends of the Earth Nigeria activist, said in a statement.

The report said Kenya and Angola each had received proposals for the use of 500,000 hectares for biofuels and there was a similar plan to use 400,000 hectares in Benin for palm oil.

Rice farmers had been forced off their land for a sugar cane project in Tanzania, it added.

"The competition for land and the competition for staple food crops such as cassava and sweet sorghum for agrofuels is likely to push up food and land prices," the study said.

Other studies have suggested biofuel expansion would not be harmful and could even be beneficial for African agriculture.

Last month, researchers from Britain's Imperial College, carbon trader CAMCO, and the Forum for Agricultural Research in Africa (FARA) said biofuels would boost investment in land and infrastructure.

They said this could have a positive effect on food production, and if properly managed would not mean destroying natural forests.

(Reporting by Tim Cocks; editing by Michael Roddy)

By Lane Jost

The New York Times is reporting that major multinational banks are growing weary of delivering debt to industrial extraction projects, such as mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.

The piece looks at a recent policy shift by Wells Fargo in providing financing for coal projects:

“In the most recent example, the banking giant Wells Fargo noted last month what it called “considerable attention and controversy” surrounding mountaintop removal mining, and said that its involvement with companies engaged in it was “limited and declining.”

Apparently Wells Fargo has been a relatively small player in the sector ($78 million in bonds and loan financing since 2008 according to the Rainforest Action Network). However, HSBC, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America have begun demanding greater environmental impact disclosure from potential mining customers.

While there’s no doubt increased due diligence in mining deals has something to do with flat oil prices over the past year, environmental risk assessment is becoming a material piece of financial risk assessment. This is a leadership position for banks trying to appeal to the SRI community.

Reprinted with permission from Next »