by Nino Marchetti

111 alternative fuel vehicle teams competed, but in the end only three were chosen to share a $10 million pot to help build their car of tomorrow dreams. Such was the ending today of the 30 month long Progressive Insurance Automotive X Prize event, which saw 136 vehicles entered and slowly eliminated in a competition that started in 2008.

The winners are: in the $5 million mainstream class, the Edison 2 “ Very Light Car,” which was fueled by E85 ethanol and achieved a fuel economy of 102 MPG; in the $2.5 million alternative side-by-side class, the Li-ion Motors Corp “Wave II,” which was powered by an electric battery and achieved a fuel economy of 187 MPGe; and, in the $2.5 million alternative tandem class, the X-Tracer Team Switzerland “E-Tracer,” which was powered by an electric battery and achieved a fuel economy of 205.3 MPGe.

Besides getting some hefty cash prizes, the winners were paraded before an audience of auto industry, business and government leaders, some of which could help this small outfits to go big time.In addition, according to the X Prize Foundation, “under a U.S. Department of Energy-funded technical assistance program, qualified Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE competitors will also gain funding support for access to key automotive expertise and test facilities. The aim of the program is to assist teams in readying their vehicles and technologies for introduction to the market.”

The stated goal of the competition in which these winners emerged was to “inspire a new generation of viable, safe and super fuel-efficient vehicles capable of achieving 100 miles per gallon or the energy equivalent (MPGe).” It was quite a long journey for all the competitors, who had to go through vehicle and business plan development; on-track testing at Michigan International Speedway, which included dynamic safety testing by partner Consumer Reports; and laboratory verification at the Department of Energy’s Argonne National Lab. All were certainly worthy vehicles of tomorrow.

Reprinted with permission from EarthTechling

The market for building-integrated photovoltaics (BIPV) will grow more than tenfold by 2016, approaching 2.4 gigawatts (GW) worldwide--compared to just 215 megawatts (MW) in 2009--according to a new analysis.

Historically, BIPV and building-applied photovoltaics (BAPV) have been relegated to a niche market because solar modules and panels have simply cost too much and have been too difficult to install on residential and commercial roofs as well as building walls, windows, and other parts of the building structure. Additionally, production of BIPV products with appealing aesthetics has been limited.

However, that is all beginning to change, according to Pike Research. The analyst firm forecasts that growth in the market will generate annual wholesale revenues of $4 billion by 2016, under a base case scenario.

“Rapidly falling cost per watt will be a major driver of BIPV and BAPV installations in the coming years,” says senior analyst Dave Cavanaugh. “In addition, rooftop installations are becoming much easier with the market entry of new, high-efficiency CIGS-technology panels and shingles. At the same time, the aesthetic appeal of BIPV and BAPV is improving with the introduction of solar crystalline-silicon modules and thin film tiles and shingles that blend into building facades, atria and rooftops.”

Cavanaugh adds that other key growth drivers include newly-instituted generous BIPV/BAPV feed-in tariffs in countries such as Italy, Japan, France, the United Kingdom, and the Canadian province of Ontario, and he believes it is likely that the United States will institute BIPV/BAPV incentives beginning in 2011.

Additional factors that are likely to fuel adoption of BIPV/BAPV are efficiency improvements in both c-Si modules and flexible thin film panels and shingles, an enhanced supply chain for BIPV/BAPV solar products, much easier rooftop installation, and an increasing desire to “go green” by owners of residences and commercial buildings.

The report “Building-Integrated Photovoltaics” includes base case and upside scenario forecasts for BIPV/BAPV installed capacity by world region and technology, along with forecasts of wholesale market revenues through 2016.

An Executive Summary of the report is available for free at the link below.

Some of the players in the BIPV market include: Global Solar with flexible CIGS modules; Dyesol Inc., (ASX: DYE) through a joint venture called DyeTec Solar; Ascent Solar (NASDAQ:ASTI) with flexible CIGS modules; Suntech Power (NYSE: STP) through the licensing of a solar roofing tile; Energy Conversion Devices (Nasdaq: ENER); and Dow Chemical (NYSE: DOW), which is planning a massive roll-out of a solar roofing product called the Powerhouse Solar Shingle.

Website: www.pikeresearch.com

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Business

by Tate Dwinnell

Cereplast (CERP) a leading manufacturer of compostable and sustainable plastics, has announced a multi million dollar partnership with Sezersan Ambalaj (Sezersan), a subsidiary of Asc Group in Turkey, to produce bio twist films made from Cereplast Compostables(R) resins which has form memory and is heat sealable. The patented product will serve as wrap packaging for a variety of food products distributed throughout Europe.

“We are honored to partner with Sezersan and be the first to market with bio twist films which offer an environmentally sound alternative for their clients’ packaging needs,” said Frederic Scheer, Founder, Chairman and CEO of Cereplast, Inc. “Companies are increasingly looking at bio-plastics as an alternative to petroleum-sourced plastics in order to meet growing consumer and industrial demand for economically and ecologically sound, ‘green’ products.”

Shares of CERP are up about 6 percent today and breaking out of a bullish wedge formation on the daily chart. It’s a very compelling play down at these levels.

Reprinted with permission from Green Stocks Central

by Thomas Miner

Hershey’s has come under pressure from NGO’s and human rights groups this week for their strategies around the sourcing of their cocoa beans. The organizations claim that the chocolatier sources from African farms which may utilize forced child labor, challenging the company’s corporate responsibility record.

The report was issued by Global Exchange, Green America, Oasis USA and the International Labor Rights Forum (ILRF) on Monday, timed to coincide with Hershey’s first issued sustainability report. In addition to claiming that the company has done very little to ensure that it’s West African supply of cocoa meets international labor standards, the group says Hershey has a severe “lack of transparency” around its suppliers and urged the use of third party certifications.

The report called on the company to use 100% Fair Trade Certified cocoa beans for one of its five top-selling chocolate bars by 2012 - and to commit that the "majority" of cocoa across its products will be certified Fair Trade Certified by 2022.

In response Hershey pointed reporters from just-food to their CSR report, where it said they would : advance and fund programmes that enhance livelihoods and ensure fair labour practices in cocoa-growing regions" as well as "promote partnerships with cocoa-sector companies, NGOs and governments to develop and implement agreed-to milestones to measure progress in sustainable cocoa farming by 2011".

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Life Media

by Pete Danko

A plug-in electric vehicle will certainly reduce emissions over a gas car. But will it actually save you money—and if so, how much? The huge utility Southern California Edison is now providing its customers an easy-to-use online tool to answer those complex questions.

Take someone living in Riverside who, say, drives 12,000 miles a year, gets 25 miles per gallon with their current car and pays $3 a gallon for gas (all variables that can be personally tailored with the tool). If that person switched to a battery electric vehicle and took advantage of lower, off-peak charging rates—and installed a separate meter for the vehicle—they’d pay $54 more a month for electricity. But their gasoline expenditures would drop from $120 to zero, yielding a net savings of $66 a month. If the vehicle were charged under standard residential rates, however, the savings would drop to just $15 a month, according to the tool.

Showing customers that gap was a big reason Southern California Edison developed what it calls the Plug-In Car Rate Assistant. “The online car rate assistant will provide an idea of the bill impacts and the benefits of charging electric vehicles during off-peak hours, 9 p.m. to noon,” the utility’s Steve Powell said in a press release. ”It’s important for customers to understand the advantages of the various rate plans.”

Reprinted with permission from EarthTechling

by Zach McDonald

Three years after its founding, Fisker is finally ready to show off its first production vehicle. Not that three years is actually a long time to get a car company off the ground, but Fisker did originally promise to deliver its Karma plug-in hybrid in 2009. Still, you can hardly blame Fisker for making big promises as it accumulated investment capital and applied for loans, and now it looks like company is one step closer to getting its cars on the road.

Fisker announced today that it will debut the first factory-built Karma at the Paris Motor Show in October. The announcement is big news for the manufacturer, which has recently suffered from a reputation for missed deadlines.

Also promised for Paris are new details about company's global retail network, which Fisker is relying on to eventually sell 100,000 cars per year. The projection seems almost silly in an economic climate that is likely to price its cars out of more consumers' reach than Fisker was probably counting on when it first set the goal. The company does have a production facility that is capable of handling the load, but whatever distribution strategy it has in the works would have to be downright magical to deliver those numbers in the foreseeable future.

But despite its tendency to over-promise, Fisker might not be as vulnerable as some critics suggest. The carmaker has raised a lot of money and seems to have won the faith of the federal government—judging by the massive $528 million loan it was awarded by the Department of Energy earlier this year. The majority of that money will go towards developing and selling the Project NINA sedan, which Fisker hopes to sell for less than $40,000—putting it in direct competition with the Chevy Volt. That vehicle is slated to go on sale in 2012, but with Fisker's history, it's difficult not to question the projected price and delivery date.

So as of later this month, Fisker will have an $89,000 convertible to sell in a market that has seen sales slump for its chief competitor, the Tesla Roadster. If the Karma is well-recieved, it won't make the company profitable but it will do a lot to establish its brand reputation. Regardless of when Project NINA becomes a reality or how much it costs once it does, the first true test for Fisker will be the Karma, which will have to live up to some pretty big expectations. In less than a month, we'll get our first clues as to whether it has succeeded.

Reprinted with permission from PluginCars

by David A. Gabel

As September begins to bring cooler temperatures, Americans can look back objectively at the past summer (June-August). The above average temperatures in the contiguous states combined to make it the fourth warmest ever. Only seven of the lower 48 states had normal temperatures, and 29 were much above normal. This news is detailed in the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) State of the Climate report issued on September 8, 2010.

The analysis of climatic factors — temperature, precipitation, storm patterns — has been conducted since 1895, and all current recordings are compared to the historic long-term average (1901-2000). The report is compiled in Asheville, NC, at NOAA's National Climatic Data Center.

The following are highlights from the summer in the United States.

The Southeast experienced their warmest summer ever, the Central states had their third warmest, and the Northeast had their fourth warmest. The Pacific Western states experienced near-normal temperatures. The unusual warmth mostly dominated the eastern half of the country.

The following states set records for the warmest summer ever: Rhode Island, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee, South Carolina, Georgia, and Alabama. Particular cities that set summer temperature records include the following: New York City (Central Park), Philadelphia, Trenton NJ, Wilmington DE, Tallahassee FL, and Asheville NC.

The hot summer also brought about abnormal precipitation trends for parts of the country. Heavy rainfall dominated the Upper Midwest, making up for the precipitation deficits of the first five months of the year. Wisconsin had its wettest summer on record, with 6.91 inches of rainfall above average. Other states in the top-ten wettest summers include Michigan and Iowa (third wettest), Illinois and Nebraska (sixth), South Dakota (ninth), and Minnesota (tenth).

Conversely, the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic suffered a persistent lack of rainfall. A lingering high pressure system and lack of tropical weather activity contributed to below average levels of precipitation. This caused severe drought in several states such as Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia. However, the heavy precipitation in the Upper Midwest helped pull the national precipitation level above average for this summer.

The following are year-to-date highlights.

The Northeast has experienced its warmest year, with temperatures 3.4 degrees F over the norm. Only two states had below normal temperatures: Florida and Texas. As for precipitation, the drought in the south offset the deluge in the north, leading to near-normal precipitation levels for the year.

Other weather highlights include tornado activity, particularly in Minnesota. The state is set to break its own record of 74 tornadoes, set in 2001. Also, wildfire was much lower than average, thanks to milder weather in the Western states. The acreage burned during August was the lowest in 11 years, and year-to-date, it was less than half the long-term average.

To view NOAA's Climate Services, go to: http://www.climate.gov/#climateWatch

Photo by TheBusyBrain/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Environmental News Network

As of the summer of 2010, the landscape for the wind industry has changed dramatically from last year, when the U.S. set a record by installing over 10 GW in a single year and claiming the title of the world’s top wind power producer for the second year in a row.

According to recent statistics provided by the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA), the amount of new wind power capacity installed in the first half of this year only adds up to 71 percent of what was installed during the same time period in 2009. Only two new manufacturing plants have been built, factories key to the nation’s economic revival. Prior to 2005, the U.S. imported more than 70 percent of major wind turbine components for domestic wind projects. Today, the share of domestically manufactured wind turbine components has grown to more than half. Despite the growth in the domestic supply chain, considerable components going into wind turbines being installed in the U.S. are imported, particularly high value parts that comprise the gearbox and generators. The majority of steel castings are also coming from overseas.

Without federal support, China will certainly blow past the U.S. on the wind energy front, and the promise of large numbers of green jobs that the Obama Administration has been touting will never materialize. In the second quarter of 2010, China’s investments in wind power was more than double that of the U.S., a harbinger of things to come. The centerpiece of the recovery for the domestic wind industry in 2009 was a provision in the stimulus legislation allowing wind farm developers to receive a direct payment from the U.S. Treasury, rather than the previously existing PTC. The large investors with big tax appetites were often many of the same financial powerhouses who got in trouble, many embroiled in scandal; others just no longer had the need for large amounts of tax credits due to poor financial showings.

Under this new provision, the Treasury provided more than $1.5 billion in 2009 in crucial capital to at least 37 different wind projects, using large and small turbines, powering the equivalent of 800,000 homes and providing a lifeline for the industry. Even more importantly, 40,000 jobs were saved.

Though the Midwest has lost more than 1.2 million manufacturing jobs since 2000, a number of recent studies suggest that new energy industries can create as many as 1.2 million jobs over the next decade, with as much as a third of those in high-wage, high-skill manufacturing and construction occupations – or so claims the Midwest Governor’s Association. In one state, Michigan, for example, new energy production jobs grew at a much faster rate (+7.7 percent) since 2005 than did employment across the entire Michigan economy (-5.4 percent).

At present, despite intense lobbying by AWEA and broad bi-partisan support for the concept of a Renewable Electricity Standard (RES), it appears that one of the few bright spots in the nation’s economy is beginning to peter out. Even if an RES was passed, significant investments would need to be made in transmission infrastructure to bring wind generation from remote sites to urban markets.

It appears that the hype over the “green economy” is now colliding with reality. Of course, if one takes the macro-perspective, perhaps allowing China to lead the world on wind power isn’t such a bad thing – given that they surpassed the U.S. last year as the world’s largest contributor to global climate change.

Peter Asmus is an analyst at Pike Research specializing in renewable energy.

Another festive ciclovia event is being held in San Francisco this weekend; Sunday Streets is coming to the Western Addition. Neighborhood roadways that are usually clogged with automobiles will be opened for public recreation this Sunday—providing car-free recreational space for everyone (see a map and more at Sunday Streets website). Come play in the streets! Ride your bike, skate, walk the dog, dance or just go for a leisurely stroll. Thousands of volunteers help make these fun events happen. To get involved, sign up to volunteer for Sunday Streets.

For decades massive ciclovias have been happening in Colombia; they were even part of the inspiration for San Francisco’s Sunday Streets. In Bogota each Sunday up to 2 million people enjoy over 70 miles of car-free streets. This is a great Streetfilms short about the weekly South American events:

Reprinted with permission from Ecolocalizer

by Timothy B. Hurst

Mars, U.S. Department of Agriculture and IBM release preliminary cacao genome sequence to public domain.

Chocolate is not only sweet business, it's big business. In 2011, the global chocolate industry is expected to grow to $13 billion. But all that chocolate is not without some pretty heavy costs. In any given year, pests and disease can wipe out an entire harvest for a cocoa farmer. In fact, crop losses from pests and disease inflict $700 to $800 million in damages to farmers each year, creating a devastating ripple effect for 6.5 million farmers in Southeast Asia, West Africa and South America that rely on cocoa production for their livelihoods.

To maximize yields and to hedge against devastating crop damage, most cocoa farmers use large doses of pesticides and insecticides on their crops -- sometimes employing questionable child labor practices to do so (although there is evidence of improvement in the case of the latter).

Yet when compared to other agricultural crops (eg. corn, soybeans and wheat) there has been very little investment in scientific research to improve the cacao tree and its ability to resist pests and disease -- until now.

In a collaborative research initiative between the world's biggest chocolate company, Mars, Inc., the U.S. Department of Agriculture-Agricultural Research Service and IBM, scientists today announced that they have successfully sequenced the genome for theobroma cacao, the tree that bears chocolate's essential fruit -- the cocoa bean.

"Cacao farmers lose up to 80 percent of their production due to pest and diseases,” said one of the researchers on the project, Dr. Juan Carlos Motomayor, tropical agronomist and the Scientific Research Manager for the Cocoa Sustainability Program at Mars, in a phone interview on Tuesday.

Dr. Motomayor said that mapping the cacao genome sequence will improve the cocoa growing process and bolster the efficiency of traditional breeding programs already in place.

The team hopes that unlocking the sequence will ultimately allow cocoa farms, 90 percent of which are small and family operations, to produce three or four times more cocoa than what they usually produce, but on less land surface.

"This way they can have a better use of land space - and could diversify their crops," said Motomayor.

But the real kicker is not only that that the sequence is immediately being made available to the public domain, and that anyone accessing the genome may never patent anything produced by it.

Cacao knowledge 'thousands of years' behind corn, wheat

Known as an “Orphan Crop” by scientists because it grows in regions with less access to scientific resources than annual row crops like corn, wheat and soy, cacao has been the subject of very little research. "We are thousands of years away from the level of corn and wheat information," said Dr. Motomayor.

Not only that, but because the cacao is a perennial crop, the breeding process--whereby, scientists decide which plants to breed together to get the most desirable characteristics--takes years.

"From the time you do the cross to the time you select a better cultivar you have to wait 8 years," said Motomayor. "It's not a very efficient agricultural system.”Map of cacao genome

“With these tools scientists can work with cacao like they do with wheat and corn," said Motomayor.

The results of the research will be made available to the public in perpetuity via the Cacao Genome Database. Making the genome publicly available will prevent it from being privatized. It will also allow scientists to immediately begin applying the findings to crop cultivation efforts.

"We want everyone to have access to the sequence, to prevent people from patenting the cacao gene," said Motomayor.

Mars said their investment will have a long-term return for the company and for the overall sustainability of the cocoa industry.

Howard-Yana Shapiro, Ph.D., Global Director of Plant Science for Mars, said the genome sequencing project may not benefit Mars' bottom line in the short term, "in the long run, it will ensure mutually beneficial results for the company, cocoa farmers and tree crop production in key regions of the world."

Moving forward, researchers plan on continuing to analyze and characterize the cocoa genome in preparation for their findings to be peer-reviewed by a major scientific journal.

Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry

One of the more contentious issues facing climate scientists is whether rising ocean temperatures will cause more frequent and powerful hurricanes. In an interview with Yale Environment 360, Kerry Emanuel, of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says that amid the uncertainty, one thing seems likely: an increase in the most potent — and destructive — storms.

In 2005, just weeks before Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, MIT meteorologist Kerry Emanuel published a paper in Nature saying that the wallop packed by hurricanes was increasing as sea surface temperatures climbed. His research was cited by many as evidence that the world could expect more Katrinas in the 21st century. But in 2008, writing in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, Emanuel seemed to say, "Whoa. Not so fast." While hurricanes might become more powerful, Emanuel said, there will likely be fewer hurricanes overall this century, and hurricane trends would vary widely around the globe.

As the 2010 Atlantic hurricane season winds down, Emanuel spoke with Yale Environment 360 senior editor Fen Montaigne about his current thinking on the issue of hurricanes and climate change. The bottom line, said Emanuel, is that sea surface temperatures in the tropical waters where hurricanes and typhoons form have increased by nearly 1 degree F in the past century. Higher sea surface temperatures are likely to lead to more powerful and destructive hurricanes — categories 3, 4, and 5 — while, paradoxically, a warming atmosphere will probably reduce the number of less powerful storms.

But Emanuel stressed that much remains to be learned about hurricanes, including why it is that roughly 90 tropical cyclones — about a dozen of which are in the Atlantic — seem to form every year. Models of future hurricane behavior, says Emanuel, tend to be “all over the place.” And natural feedbacks — hurricanes, for example, churn deeper, colder water to the surface, lowering sea surface temperatures — complicate the science of forecasting future hurricane trends.

One thing, however, is certain, says Emanuel: Government policies encouraging people to live in vulnerable, low-lying coastal zones — think South Florida — are folly. State and federal subsidies and bailouts of coastal home and business owners essentially mean that people living in less exposed inland areas are paying for the risk taking of coastal residents, who are frequently well-off. “We have the situation of hard-working people in factory jobs and farmers subsidizing the landowners of Palm Beach,” said Emanuel. “That’s crazy.”

Yale Environment 360: The topic of hurricanes and what might happen to them as the world warms has been a subject of great interest to you, and your position has evolved. I wanted to see what your thinking is now.

Emanuel: Let me turn the clock back to 1987 when we published the first paper on this subject, which made use of a recently developed theory that looks at the energetics of hurricanes.

And it was basically that the supply of energy is evaporation of ocean water, which transfers heat from the ocean to the atmosphere. And the drain on energy is friction between the winds and the ocean surface. And that allows you to make an estimate of how strong hurricanes could get…It gives you an upper bound of hurricane wind speed, and the upper bound turns out to be a very good predictor of how strong hurricanes can be. And the upper bound is such that you could easily calculate how climate change of any kind affects it. We realized way back in 1987 that CO2-induced warming would increase that speed limit on hurricanes, if you will. And that was also published in Nature [in 2005], and the increase was modest but by no means negligible. The main point of that paper is that there was this fantastic relationship between ocean temperature and hurricane power…It surprised us how much power increase you got with just a little bit of increase in the sea surface temperature. . . .

In the 2008 paper, we had developed a technique for basically inferring hurricane activity from a coarse representation of the climate, such as you might get from a climate model…The main point of the paper is to show the models are all over the place. [But] there is a general consensus that on the global scale there probably will be a decrease in the frequency of storms [hurricanes].

e360: And why would that be?

Emanuel: That’s because if you go to the tropics where hurricanes form, everybody knows it's pretty humid down where we live in the boundary layer of the atmosphere. But if you go two or three miles up, it's actually quite dry…When you try to form a disturbance in the tropics or anywhere else for that matter, if you try to get some thunderstorms together for example, the moist air from near the surface of the ocean rises into the atmosphere. This is what you see when you look at a cumulus cloud or a cumulonimbus cloud. But, when it's dry in the middle atmosphere, some of that condensed water in the form of cloud or rain will re-evaporate into the dry air and cause a downdraft. And that downdraft brings cold, dry air down to the surface. And, it's like pouring cold water on a fire. You know, it just basically wipes out everything that is trying to happen…There is a lot of dry air in the middle atmosphere that tends to suppress their formation…

e360: And in a warming world you would expect more of that suppressive dry air in the middle atmosphere?

Emanuel: Yes, the middle atmosphere, in a relative sense, dries out if you warm it…That's what causes there to be a decline. But there is something fighting against that, which is that the energy available for hurricanes, as we predicted in 1987, also goes up.

e360: Because of increasing sea surface temperatures?

Emanuel: Yes, basically…Now, the thing that we were very careful to point out in this paper is [that] the change in [hurricane] activity depends very much on whose climate model you look at. And the second thing we said, which is terribly important, is that it varies a great deal from place to place around the world. So, it may be that the global average [of hurricanes] is declining, but the Atlantic is sailing upward…

The other thing you should be very careful to understand if you look at hurricane damage over the last 100 years, the vast majority of damage has been done by a handful of storms that happened to be very intense when they made landfall. Category 3, 4, and 5 events have caused 80 percent of the damage in the United States.

e360: Hurricanes like Katrina?

Emanuel: Right, Rita, Andrew and so forth. The vast majority are still 1’s.

The Category 1’s and 2’s are far more numerous than 3’s, 4’s, and 5’s, but they hardly do any damage at all. So, when you count events, if you say the frequency is going up, you're basically saying the frequency of 1’s and 2’s is going up because they dominate the frequency. So it doesn't really matter. What you really ought to care about are the 3’s, 4’s, and 5s. In just about every model simulation the frequency of those goes up in the global warming.

e360: Can you explain why?

Emanuel: So we have a bell shaped curve, and the peak of the curve is at a wind speed of 70 or 80 knots, and there's a little tail that sticks out, at 150 knots or something. Now, what happens in climate change is that bell gets a little bit squatter but it also gets fatter. And so, if you're looking at the middle of the distribution, you actually see a decline in the number of events. But, if you're looking way out on the tail you see an increase in the number of events…So it follows that the number of 160-knot storms goes up.

e360: Just so I understand, because I realize it's not as simple that as sea surface temperature goes up hurricanes become more frequent and more powerful. But, if you have warmer sea surface temperatures, more radiation, more heat going into the surface of the ocean, is the reason that you are likely to get more storms of that 3, 4, and 5 category simply because that greater radiation creates greater evaporation and larger storms?

Emanuel: You almost have it right. The key is to recognize that the strength of the hurricane is related to what we call the evaporation potential of the surface…In other words, that's the heat balance of the upper ocean. The ocean gains heat by radiation both from the sun and infrared radiation from the atmosphere or the clouds within it. But it loses heat mostly by evaporation. And so, the greater the amount of radiation coming into the sea, the greater the rate of evaporation has to be to balance that…That means that you have to have a greater evaporative potential. It's that potential that dictates hurricane wind speeds . . .

e360: Have you observed more energy in storms in recent decades?

Emanuel: Yes, especially in the Atlantic. We get into some nasty problems here of detection. And, the problem is that the Atlantic only contains about 11 percent of all the tropical cyclones on the planet, [but] is the only place where we routinely fly airplanes into hurricanes . . .

But when you look at hurricane power, it really has been going up a lot in the last 20 years or so in the Atlantic in sync with the temperature of the tropical Atlantic, which by the way is at an all-time record high right now.

e360: What's the high right now, and how much has it gone up in recent decades?

Emanuel: Well, we have to be very specific about when and where. But in the place where hurricanes form in the tropical Atlantic — we call it the main development region — just averaged over August, I think, you're talking about an average temperature of around 28 degrees Celsius…It’s about a half a degree centigrade [.9 Degrees F] warmer than it was a hundred years ago.

e360: And is that significant in terms of potential storm formation?

Emanuel: Here again, there's a problem because there is a constant tendency to think, well, it's just a function of the ocean temperature.

But, as we discussed a minute ago, the ocean temperature is just a co-factor. It's not the cause but on the other hand, it's a very tempting thing because we can measure it and do measure it quite well. But the 2005 [Nature] paper showed that you get a lot of bang for the buck if you insist upon correlating hurricane power with ocean temperature. You know, a little bit, two-tenths of an increase, gives you a big increase in power.

e360: And globally are scientists measuring [ocean temperature increases] in the tropical regions where hurricanes form?

Emanuel: Oh, yeah. I mean, the temperature just about everywhere in the tropics is going up.

e360: By a half a degree over the last century?

Emanuel: Yeah, by a roughly similar amount over a hundred years.

e360: And I know scientists like Susan Solomon and others are saying, `You ain't seen nothing yet because a lot of this heat in the atmosphere is going to start transferring into the ocean.’ What is your thinking about what kind of sea surface temperature increases we could be looking at in the 21st Century?

Emanuel: If you believe the global models, you're talking about another two degrees at least of warming in the tropics.

e360: Wow, two Celsius?

Emanuel: Yes, but there are a lot of caveats…Hurricanes may matter themselves for the climate. In other words, there may be some feedback. We think there actually is a feedback of hurricanes on climate. And, the way that they feed back principally is by their effect on the ocean. You see, when you get a hurricane one of the things it does is churn the cold water out from the depths up to the surface, and it thereby keeps the surface of the tropical ocean cooler than it would otherwise be. Now, if you did start to see an increase in hurricane power, it's possible that that would be negative feedback on ocean temperature. It would keep the temperatures from going up quite that much. We don't really know how effective that might be. There is just beginning to be some work on this, but if we don't include that effect, you're looking at around two degrees [Celsius] additional warming.

e360: Which, according to your research and your models, has got to lead to an increase in more powerful storms?

Emanuel: Yes, most of the models in the theory suggest that the more powerful storms become more numerous, and those are the ones you worry about…I think the thing that people should see as interesting is the frequency of intense events. And that sort of goes up everywhere, but it goes up very unevenly. The reasons why it doesn't go up uniformly is because the climate is a complicated system, and there are changes in atmospheric and oceanic circulation which cause some regions to warm up more than others . . .

e360: If you talk to climate scientists. there is an expectation of a sea level rise in the next century of two feet, maybe five feet, maybe six feet. When you as a hurricane specialist contemplate those kinds of sea level rises in a place like Florida, with increased hurricane intensity, that has got to be really bad news, right?

Emanuel: Yeah, it is bad news because the two big killers in hurricanes are the storm surge — which is basically like a tsunami but created by the winds of the hurricane rather than by an earthquake — and freshwater flooding. If you're talking about delta regions — and there are lot of delta regions around the world like in Bangladesh that are heavily populated — then you get both. You get increased water coming from the sea and increased rainfall from hurricanes, water coming down rivers. It's bad news.

e360: I would like to get into the issue of government policies that encourage intense coastal development. Given what you're looking at with the likely increase in intensity and power of storms and sea level rises, what needs to be done now to start planning for this?

Emanuel: Even if the climate weren't changing, if we don't want to have more Katrinas, we need to stop subsidizing people to live in dangerous places. The United States is one of the few places in the world that does that, and it does it heavily. So we are basically paying people to move to places where they're at risk. And, it doesn't make any sense…

We have situations where people who are not living in terribly risky places are paying maybe 10 percent too much premium on insurance policies for their houses, whereas people living in dangerous coastal regions are paying way, way less than the risk actually warrants. We in this so-called free market economy do radical things like cap the premiums that insurance companies are allowed to charge. And this is all done because people who live on the coast — not so much on the Gulf Coast, but the East Coast — are usually wealthy and therefore well-connected politically. And they get legislators to pass regulations saying you can't raise my insurance rate, and so the system adjusts in very complex ways. You want to keep insurance companies in business. You can't force them to take huge losses, so you quietly allow them to overcharge people living inland. And, it's a very unfair system. It's a net transfer of wealth from poor to rich, and the worst aspect of it is it promotes huge coastal development. And, therefore, huge damages when even ordinary storms make landfall in the United States.

If you go to other developed countries…I was just in Taiwan. It's got a very hurricane-prone coastline. The east coast of Taiwan gets battered every year. If you look at it, it's a much more sensible arrangement than we have. There are a handful of fortresses that wealthy people build so that they'll take a Category 5. But everything else are sea shanties. Every farmer and fisherman has got a plywood thing down on the beach where they go for a couple of weeks with their family in the summer. And every two years it blows away. So what? They rebuild it. It has no value. There is no insurance involved. That's very sensible. It's also very democratic, and they don’t have Katrina disasters in Taiwan. We have Katrina disasters. They're political disasters. People call them natural disasters to direct attention away from where it belongs. They're political disasters, and nobody in my field will tell you anything different, by the way. This isn't controversial. It's just that nobody knows how to change the system.

e360: And when you talk about this system of subsidies that has led to this rush of coastal development, you're talking about not only in private insurance, but are you speaking as well about government disaster aid?

Emanuel: Yes, the three big ones are capping insurance, federal flood insurance, which pays for storm surge damage, and federal disaster relief. And there are solutions to this.

One is if you're talking about disasters in some sense they're predictable. Like if you build your house in the flood plain or you build your house in a hurricane- prone region, even if it is declared a disaster you should be forced to pay something, right? This is for the same reason that in a rational [insurance] system, if we have two identical people [and] one smokes, we charge the smoker because it's voluntary behavior, and if he wants to smoke, that's fine. It's a free world, but don't force your neighbor to pay your medical bills, please.

e360: Such a vulnerable stretch like Miami and the South Florida Coast. When you look at the intensity of development — and they're right at a few feet above sea level on the beach — what is going to happen as the 21st, 22nd centuries roll around in places like that?

Emanuel: I think we know what's going to happen. There will eventually be a hurricane there, and it will do far too much damage for the state to cover. You know, the state basically has become the insurer of property in Florida. Everybody knows that a relatively small hurricane will bankrupt the [state hurricane insurance] plan, and they will all go with hat in hand to the federal government. So the rest of us will bail them out. And so we have the situation of hard-working people in factory jobs and farmers subsidizing the landowners of Palm Beach. It's crazy.

Photo by NASA Goddard Space Flight Center/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

Here’s what we hear: a naggingly high unemployment rate, a wavering stock market, tea party protests, low approval ratings for the President and the party in power…

Here’s what we don’t hear: President Obama’s stimulus package is funding green technology around the nation – creating jobs, spurring innovation and transforming the U.S. economy.

The Obama administration ensured that a portion of last year’s Recovery Act went towards fulfilling a campaign pledge: 1 million electric cars on U.S. highways by 2015. To that end, $2.4 billion was intended to jump start an entire industry geared toward the production of lighter, more energy-dense lithium-ion batteries to power the next generation of vehicles. Just one example: With a $249 million share of these funds, A123 systems is building battery-production plants across Michigan, employing about 800 workers and laying the groundwork for a grand conversion of Michigan’s faltering economy towards green technology. Another $110 million is helping Johnson Controls – Saft convert a closed auto parts factory into a state-of-the-art battery-production plant in Holland, MI . In addition to more, lighter batteries with the capacity to go farther on a charge, an electric car industry requires an entirely new infrastructure to support it: charging stations. ECOtality (based in Arizona) received $114 million, which it bundled into a larger funding package to set up 15,000 charging stations in 16 cities across 6 states, including the San Diego Metro Area. With a support structure like this, sales of the Chevy Volt and Nissan Leaf (all-electric vehicles due to roll out in late 2010 and early 2012, respectively) could get a serious boost.

But Stimulus investments in green technology aren’t just about electric cars. With a 1,400 percent increase in wind energy production in the U.S. since 2000, and China emerging as a formidable rival in the renewable energy business, some Stimulus funding has been targeted towards spurring innovation (and continuing to increase capacity) in the wind power industry. Cannon Power is using a $200 million grant expand its wind farm in Washington by more than 350-megawatts – creating 250 jobs and providing enough clean energy to power some 250,000 homes every year. Energetx received $3.5 million for research into new advances in wind turbine blade production. And in a sign of optimism, Energetx has teamed up with Grand Rapids Community College for a specialized training program to help fulfill anticipated needs of more than 1,000 additional workers.

Green technology, green energy, green jobs…Stimulus a failure? Think again.

Dan Heffernan lives and works in San Francisco. His storied academic background includes Environmental Policy and Planning, Economics and Wildlife Biology. His passion for all things green is matched only by his obsession with national politics. For a heavily-biased political rant, check out his blog at www.HeffBombs.com.

by David A. Gabel

A toxin produced by a type of cyanobacteria, also known as blue-green algae, has been devastating a colony of sea otters off the coast of California. In a paper published in the journal, PLoS ONE, by the California Department of Fish and Game (DFG) and the University of California (UC), Santa Cruz, researchers link the deaths of over 21 California sea otters to toxic chemicals from algae flowing into the ocean.

Blue-green algae itself can be detrimental to the natural ecosystem because it can block light from reaching the depths of the water and starve the water of dissolved oxygen. Once the oxygen goes, no marine life can survive and you get "dead zones." Now, according to the researchers, one particular type of algae is also releasing a deadly toxin known as Microcystis.

Warm, nutrient-rich fresh water systems are ideal for large blooms of Microcystis. The toxic algae can resemble slimy green goo as it as it forms a thick green mat over the surface of the water. Eventually the fresh water flows into the ocean, carrying the algae with it. However, the toxin does not break down right away as it reaches the salt water. It can last well over three weeks without any serious degradation.

The Microcystis can cause acute liver failure, damage body tissue, and be fatal, as was witnessed with the sea otters. Melissa Miller, lead author of the study and senior wildlife veterinarian at the DFG, began recovering the dead otters along the shore of Monterey Bay in 2007. This sparked a wider search for the sources of the toxin. The search lead the scientists to Pinto Lake in Watsonville, a lake with a history of Microcystis blooms. Pinto Lake drains into Corralitos Creek, then into the Pajaro River, one of three main rivers to empty into Monterey Bay.

In the ocean, the Microcystis can be eaten or absorbed by creatures such as oysters, mussels, clams, and crabs, which are then consumed by sea otters. Deaths from this toxic bacteria have attributed to the overall decline of the California sea otter population. According to co-author Tim Tinker, "These findings also show the value in closely monitoring sentinel species like sea otters as a way to detect and understand threats to coastal oceans."

Humans can also be at risk from Microcystis poisoning if they eat shellfish harvested near the mouths of rivers, especially during or after periods of heavy rains. Commercially harvested shellfish, however, come from areas that are unlikely to be contaminated. Pets can also be at risk from drinking the water at places like Pinto Lake, or from getting wet and then licking their fur.

Another problem is that there are no state or federal regulations for exposure to the toxin. Even low levels of exposure can promote the development of liver cancer. No surveillance system exists for Microcystis detection in the United States, as well as most other countries.

The authors of the study have received funding from the US Environmental Protection Agency to continue their research in order to make recommendations on how the algae blooms might be controlled or prevented.

Link to published article in PLoS ONE: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0012576

Photo by Mike Baird/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Environmental News Network

by Zachary Shahan

5 U.S. capitals are going to get a green makeover with the help of the EPA this year. These five lucky cities have just been announced by the EPA.

A new U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) program, Greening America’s Capitals, launched earlier this year. And now, the EPA has chosen the first five capitals that will be participating in the first year of this program (starting this fall).

Before we announce these five cities, however, you are probably wondering what this program is exactly.

From the EPA itself:

Greening America’s Capitals is a project of the Partnership for Sustainable Communities between EPA, the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), and the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to help state capitals develop an implementable vision of distinctive, environmentally friendly neighborhoods that incorporate innovative green building and green infrastructure strategies. This program will assist three to five communities per year, with the first projects beginning in the fall of 2010.

EPA will fund a team of designers to visit each city to produce schematic designs and exciting illustrations intended to catalyze or complement a larger planning process for the pilot neighborhood. Additionally, these pilots could be the testing ground for citywide actions, such as changes to local codes and ordinances to better support sustainable growth and green building. The design team and EPA, HUD, and DOT staff will also assist the city staff in developing specific implementation strategies.

5 Capitals Selected for a Greening in 2010

The capitals chosen (from the pool of cities that applied by July 9, 2010) were:

1. Boston, Massachusetts

2. Charleston, West Virginia

3. Hartford, Connecticut

4. Jefferson City, Missouri

5. Little Rock, Arkansas

For a lot more on why these cities were chosen and how they will use the money, take a look at the EPA’s Greening America’s Capitals page.

With buildings being responsible for about 1/3 of greenhouse gas emissions and motor vehicles being the largest net contributor to global warming (especially due to), encouraging and helping to plan for greener building and greener city and neighborhood planning are two of the best things the EPA can be doing on this front. It’s nice to see this proactive new program getting started.

Reprinted with permission from Ecolocalizer

How can companies like SunRun, Sungevity, and SolarCity provide a zero down or $1000 down solar lease while charging less per month than a utility company? Here’s a high level overview of how solar leasing companies make money.

The first step is project finance. Because there is a 30 percent federal tax credit for residential solar electricity projects, the leasing companies, who ultimately own the home solar energy systems that they lease to homeowners, are able to sell those tax credits via a tax equity fund. That is to say, they sell the tax credit to an investor or a bank that has taxable income that they’d like to shelter. By sheltering the taxable income the investor may be able to get into a lower tax bracket. Win win for both parties. The leasing company has money to pay for the installations and the tax equity fund investors get a tax shelter. The only one who doesn't necessarily win is the tax man.

The leasing company could also raise money by offering a recurring revenue stream for investors. For example, they could provide investors with a 6 percent return annually for 20 years if they know that their margins from their leasing business will be greater than 6 percent a year.

Once the leasing company has raised money to finance their projects, they then sign up customers and use the project finance money to cover the upfront costs of buying and installing the solar panels. Customers generally pay between $0 and $1000 down paired with a monthly lease payment that increases around 2.5 - 3.5 percent a year for 10-20 years (vs a historical 6 percent annual increase in utility electricity prices)

At this point the leasing company has raised money by selling tax credits and predictable returns, then used that money to pay for and install the solar panels. Other than periodic maintenance of the panels (washing them) and potentially replacing the inverter at some point the leasing company’s work is essentially done after the initial installation. They'll monitor the system using a renewable energy monitoring system so that they know of any issues with the system as soon as they arise.

The homeowners will pay zero down or some amount of money down depending on what they want their monthly payments to be. More down generally means a lower monthly payment. For the duration of the lease the homeowner who will pay the lease company a monthly fee to lease the panels and will get clean, renewable solar energy for the life of the lease.

20 years of payments will likely add up to be more in today’s dollars than a one time payment today to buy and install a system, and that is in part where leasing companies make money. You are paying them for the ability to pay for solar energy on a monthly basis rather than pre-paying it for the next 20+ years. Also, because of the number of installations they do per year leasing companies are often able to negotiate better pricing on materials and the installations than an individual home owner would be able to, again, an area where they could make money.

So between the lower equipment & installation costs, the monthly lease payments, the investment vehicle with predictable long term returns, and the tax equity fund project finance, the solar leasing companies are able to help home owners go solar for as little as zero money down while still running a profitable business.

Reprinted with permission from Residential Solar 101

PepsiCo's (NYSE: PEP) Frito-Lay North America division announced its intention to build the largest fleet of commercial all-electric trucks in North America.

New York City will become the first U.S. city to receive its favorite snacks from fully-electric delivery trucks, with five new trucks beginning routes this month.

In total, Frito-Lay will be deploying 21 electric trucks this year. The company projects it will roll out 155 additional trucks in 2011. The trucks--called the Newton--are designed by Smith Electric Vehicles. They generate zero tailpipe emissions and operate for up to 100 miles on a single charge.

The initial rollout in New York was funded through a grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA).

With the seventh largest privately owned fleet in the U.S., Frito-Lay has set a goal of becoming the most fuel efficient fleet in the country.

Mike O'Connell, director of fleet capability for Frito Lay North America, said, "There are real economic and environmental benefits to electric trucks. Once the planned 176 electric trucks are deployed we will eliminate the need for 500,000 gallons of fuel annually. Each truck emits 75 percent less greenhouse gases than a conventional diesel truck."

New York will be the first of three cities in the U.S., along with Columbus, Ohio and Ft Worth, Texas, where Frito-Lay will be piloting electric trucks on regular daily routes. The company has already deployed six electric trucks in Canada.

Photo by James Lee/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Business

Recently there have been a few reports on the “newly discovered” gyre that sits in the Atlantic, containing plastic debris like that in the North Pacific. This is not new to the science world, but it is fairly new to mainstream readers who may not focus so much on ocean issues. The Economist recently wrote, in an article on August 23rd, that there could be “Good News for Turtles,” due to the perceived decrease in plastic pollution. Though it might be true that some studies in the Atlantic over many years have not shown an increase in plastic accumulation, the title on the article made it seem like we are starting to solve the issue, and that we can now let our guard down on the impacts of plastic pollution in the ocean. Though a decrease in plastic could be occurring in that part of the ocean, there are many things that we need to remember vis-a-vis the Atlantic and potential plastic flow into that body of water.

This could in fact be a good story - that our recycling and waste management policies in North America and Europe have started working. This is in fact where much of the debris in this part of the ocean would come from, based on the currents. It should be expected that as education, recycling and better coastal waste management come into maturity, coupled with slowing growth in these societies bordering the ocean, that plastic waste entering the sea should be declining. It should be noted, however, that we do not know if new materials being used today have different buoyancy traits than before, if ocean acidification impacts this material in new ways, or at what point the material buoyancy may change due to marine fouling, which could cause this waste material to sink well before it is captured in sample nets.

The Atlantic may be one good case study, where policies and education can make a difference. In other growing parts of the world, however, where consumption is on the rise, particularly with disposable products, many of which are made from plastic, the growth in consumption and waste generation has rapidly outpaced the infrastructure and capabilities of recycling and waste management. Coupled with lower levels of environmental education and awareness, we have a growing problem to face in the sea. Plastic pollution is evident in almost every country, and river pollution is one of the heavy contributors. We must remember that the “coastline” that we should be monitoring is not only that of salt water, but all streams and rivers, as everything flows downstream, to the ocean.

The issue of marine debris is one that becomes part of the “global commons”, though it may have started out as a local issue. When material like plastic does not biodegrade (at least not for hundreds of years in many cases) and it moves into international waters (potentially into one of the five main gyres in our ocean), there are no national jurisdictions which have the mandate, or the responsibility, to clean this up. We are all contributors to the problem. One very interesting point is that if you look at the UN Laws of the Sea, most are related to an ocean industry, or, large land-based pollution incidences, but not related to consumer behavior or municipal waste handling. However, this is where approximately 80 percent of the marine debris comes from – land, and us, in our daily lives. Article 207 of the Laws of the Sea, is in fact meant to prevent land-based pollution to the ocean – however, most of those who govern on land, near the sea, or even upstream in river catchments, likely have no concept or sense of engagement with this Law of the Sea, as they are all land based. So, we technically have a law in the UN to help prevent this, but, the majority of those on land do not feel themselves as “sea related” and therefore are likely dismiss, or do not even know about, the ways that this law can and should be used.

This is a great opportunity for all of us who care to bring this back to the world’s attention. This law is an asset whose time has come. River mouth outflows are a great place to start, as this is where much of the world’s ocean debris can come from, which means that not only ocean-coastal waste management is necessary, but the “coastal” concept needs to be transferred and implemented all the way up a river. A good example of where this could make an impact is in China, where river debris continues to be a challenging issue due to a high population along the river basins, an increase of disposable non-biodegradable materials, and a lack of proper education, waste management and recycling in the river vicinities.

2010 should be seen as the year that we all start taking note, and really making some positive changes for our ocean. The fact that one set of data is showing some signs of improvement, should not mean that we need to let down our guard, by any means, but instead realize that this is a problem we can truly make improvements on.

Photo by Colin Chudyk/flickr/Creative Commons

Doug Woodring is the founder of Project Kaisei, a nonprofit dedicated to understanding and solving the problem of marine debris. To help Project Kaisei and the ocean, book a hotel room on Expedia's new site - http://travelrelief.org/project-kaisei/ and click Project Kaisei. Kaisei gets 8 percent of all bookings, at no cost to the buyer.

by Susan DeFreitas

A new energy efficiency law for televisions bought and sold in the Golden State has finally gone into effect. It regulates that, starting in 2011, new televisions sold in California should consume 33 percent less electricity compared to models on the market right now. This jumps to 49 percent less electricity by 2013. It had to travel a long regulatory approval route after first being approved by the state’s energy commission last year.

Energy Commission Chairman Karen Douglas said, in a statement, “today is a bright day in California. The Office of Administrative Law has approved the Energy Commission’s energy efficiency television regulations. The ultimate winners are the California consumers who will save money and conserve energy by purchasing new TVs.” She went on to note as well that “today’s approval signals a continuation of the Energy Commission’s strong, historic role for providing smart energy policy for the State of California.”

The Energy Commission’s new regulation mandating improved energy efficiencies in television sets was officially approved by California’s Office of Administrative Law on September 1st, 2010. These first-in-the-nation standards were approved unanimously by the Energy Commission in November of 2009 and will now go into law, effective January 2011. When fully implemented, these regulations are expected to save Californians $8.1 billion in energy costs, as well as enough energy to power 864,000 homes.

Reprinted with permission from EarthTechling

by Tate Dwinnell

Ocean Power Technologies (OPTT) announced today two additional grants from the DOE totaling $4.8 million to help to continue to advance its research into wave energy systems and put the finishing pieces in place for the country’s first commercial wave energy plant in Reedsport, Oregon.

CEO Charles F. Dunleavy commented: “These awards are another significant step in a global drive to make wave power a commercial reality. OPT’s programs of work under these awards are in accord with the Department of Energy’s objectives to help develop innovative technologies that contribute to the clean energy economy. The funds will help OPT to accelerate the commercialization of our PB150 wave power stations in the US and facilitate the development of our 500 kilowatt-rated PowerBuoy technology. We appreciate the DoE’s continued support of OPT’s programs to harness wave power as a major source of renewable energy.”

Shares of OPTT aren’t moving on the news today and are down about 1 percent, but it appears they may be ready to turn the corner after a steep decline in 2010. The stock made a strong move with good volume Friday, getting back above the 50 day moving average.

Reprinted with permission from Green Stocks Central

by Timothy B. Hurst

As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2010 Game Day Challenge, any college or university in the U.S. with a football team (which excludes my alma mater which dropped its football program at the height of the depression in 1932) can take their competition off the gridiron and into the stands by competing to see which school can recycle, reduce waste and cut greenhouse gas emissions the most.

The challenge is for schools to design a waste reduction plan for one home football game in October and measure the results. Schools can collect common materials for recycling including paper, beverage containers, cardboard, and food to be donated and composted. The amount of waste generated and recycled will determine which school is the greenest.

Schools can win in several categories including the least amount of waste generated per attendee; greatest greenhouse gas reductions; highest recycling rate; highest organics reduction rate (i.e., food donation and composting), and; highest combined recycling and composting rate.

While I think EPA's challenge programs like these are a great place to start, why not step up the program and evaluate the categories over the course of a season? Reducing waste, greenhouse gas emissions, and increasing recycling and composting for one game per season doesn't really gauge the staying-power or long term viability of such programs.

Registration for the competition is now open. To enroll in the Challenge, schools must complete and submit the Registration Form by September 30, 2010.

The winning colleges will be announced in November and, like last year, will be publicized on EPA’s website.

Photo by BeatBoxBadHabit

Reprinted with permission from Ecopolitology

by Mridul Chadha

AES Corporation, one of US' leading power generation and distribution companies, has offered to invest $1.7 billion to set up a new coal-fired power plant in the Indian state of Bihar.

AES Corporation (NYSE:AES) has filed a letter of 'expression of interest' with the State Industrial Promotion Board to set up a coal power plant in the Bhagalpur district of Bihar. Ever since the formation of a new state out of Bihar the state has been struggling to meet its power demands. Several of its power generation units went to the new state and the one's which stayed under the Bihar State Electricity Board's control are non-functional.

The power situation in Bihar is dismal, to say the least. With a functional installed capacity of about 240 MW, Bihar's two thermal power plants manage to generate only about 120 MW everyday. The power demand, on the other hand, is a staggering 2,200-2,500 MW per day. Although the central grid has promised to allocate more than 1,600 MW to fulfill the power demand, these promises are rarely kept leading to high power deficits.

The Bihar State Electricity Board was hoping to get 600 MW from the Subansiri power station in Arunachal Pradesh, India's largest hydro-electric power plant, which is set to be completed by 2012. However, the generation company NHPC, owned by the Indian government, signed a power purchase agreement with another state ignoring earlier agreements with Bihar and three other eastern states.

Coincidentally (or perhaps not), these four states (Bihar, West Bengal, Orissa and Jharkhand) are controlled by opposition parties to the Congress-led central government, while the state which would benefit from the new power agreement, Rajasthan, is controlled by a Congress government.

For years, Bihar had been the weak point in India's economic march to become a superpower. Previous state governments completely ignored economic development, employment generation and crime had become one of the biggest problems of the state. Under the present government Bihar was able to record the fastest economic growth rate among all Indian states during the 2008-09 fiscal year.

In order to maintain this pace of development power demand of the state must be met. While Bihar and its neighboring states are placed in the richest resource belt of India, it continues to lag in the overall economic development with thousands of people moving to metropolitan cities like Delhi and Mumbai in search of employment.

If AES' plan to set up the power plant is approved it would bring more foreign investors as the power sector in India has tremendous opportunities of growth. However, there remain certain fundamental hurdles in the approval and implementation of the project.

The Bihar government has told AES that land acquisition and arrangement of coal would be entirely the company's responsibility. But AES could use its experience in setting up a 240 MW power plant in the neighboring Chattisgarh and an on-going project in Chandigarh to overcome these problems.

Photo by Adam Sofen/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Earth & Industry

California-based solar company Sunpower Corp. (Nasdaq: SPWRA, SPWRB) will use a grant from the state to research photovoltaic (PV) energy storage for large commercial applications.

The $1.8 million grant from the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) is the second round of funding from the California Solar Initiative Research, Development, Deployment and Demonstration (CSI RD&D) Program.

SunPower will partner with three energy storage companies, Ice Energy, Xtreme Power and ZBB Energy (NYSE Amex: ZBB), to establish a pilot program for demonstrating the integration of advanced energy storage systems in combination with existing PV systems for commercial customers. Working with a "major retailer," SunPower plans to demonstrate the economic and operational benefits of combining PV with each of the partners' storage devices.

"Rooftop solar is affordable today and growing rapidly in cities all across America," said Jim Pape, SunPower president, residential and commercial. "SunPower is excited to work with PG&E, KEMA, Sandia National Laboratories, and our storage partners to evaluate how to make solar power even more valuable during peak energy periods."

The CPUC California Solar Initiative (CSI) has a goal to create 1,940 megawatts (MW) of new, solar-produced electricity by 2016, moving the state toward a cleaner energy future and helping to lower the cost of solar systems for consumers.

The CSI budget is $2.2 billion over 10 years, and has five distinct program components. The RD&D program, one component of the CSI Program, has an overall budget of $50 million and aims to achieve California's goal of creating a vibrant solar industry. This program provides grants to fund solar research and demonstration projects that will measurably reduce the cost and accelerate the installation of solar and other distributed technologies that could employ solar for generation, storage, or that could reduce the use of natural gas.

Photo by Chris Phan/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Business

by Thomas Miner

World Community Grid, a network of PC owners who donate their unused computing power to solve humanitarian and sustainability challenges, is teaming up with three projects aimed at producing cleaner water – a serious issue for over 1 billion people and increasingly a concern for forward looking-businesses.

To accelerate the pace, lower the expense, and increase the precision of these projects, scientists will harness the IBM-supported World Community Grid to perform online simulations, crunch numbers, and pose hypothetical scenarios. The processing power is provided by a grid of 1.5 million PCs from 600,000 volunteers around the world - and is equivalent to one of the world's fastest supercomputers.

The University of Virginia Watershed Sustainability Project will use World Community Grid to power its "UVa Bay Game/Analytics" project, which models the effects of agricultural, commercial and industrial decisions on the Chesapeake Bay. The “Computing For Clean Water” project, started at China’s Tsinghua University Centre for Novel Multidisciplinary Mechanics, is developing ways to filter and scrub polluted water, as well as convert saltwater into drinkable freshwater, with less expense, complexity, and energy than current techniques. The third project, based in Brazil, is seeking a cure for a common parasite based disease – schistosomiasis – prevalent in tropical regions and transmitted via foul water.

Reprinted with permission from Sustainable Life Media

by Nick Chambers

As a recent anti-electric car opinion piece on the Detroit News begins, "It's nearly time to put up or shut up." After reading the piece through several times I now agree with the sentiment wholeheartedly, but in the complete opposite of the way the author, Neil Winton, meant it to be interpreted: He really should think about doing the latter a bit more often himself.

I've taken some of the overarching points of his article and dissected them for your reading pleasure.

"The first evidence of battery-power reality will be an enormous increase in call outs for road side assistance as electric motors expire miles from home."

Essentially what Winton is saying here is that you, the electric car purchaser, are too stupid to even be able to communicate in grunts and gestures. He's also showing an intriguing lack of understanding of how plug-ins work; I think he meant "as the batteries expire miles from home."

Unless the driver of a plug-in car is completely unaware of the limitations of his or her vehicle and doesn't ever look at the dashboard, this just won't happen. It's like saying that you'd willingly take your 300 mile range combustion-engined SUV on a 400 mile trip into the tundras of Siberia knowing that you would have no access to fuel. Who would do that? Nobody. It'd be stupid. Luckily most people in Europe and the U.S. drive less than 40 miles a day, so the EV can handle 90 percent of your daily needs, and when it doesn't you use your second car.

"The second will be a scary rise in accidents, as frustrated truckers overtake electric cars crawling home on highways, like the tired old milk floats of yesteryear."

I don't even understand this one. These are highway capable EVs we're talking about, meaning they can travel at highway speeds—they also have all the accouterments that any other modern day vehicle comes with. Why would there be anymore "crawling home" than you see with combustion cars? The segment of society that crawls along at speeds much slower than the posted speed limit will drive slowly regardless of what vehicle they have.

All I can think is that the image Mr. Winton has of an EV is based on the strange depths of his own mind that has conjured up a used Yugo with 10 inch wheels that has a lead acid battery strapped to the hood and a jacuzzi motor bolted to the transmission.

"The silence of battery cars will lead to more pedestrian deaths and squashed pets."

Apparently, all you people who think EVs are great are simply homicidal lunatics who detest baby seals. I'm starting to think the group of EV advocates who hate this argument because it fuels the fire of those who are trying to find every reason to say EVs are bad is completely correct.

We've dealt with this topic in the past, so suffice it to say that firstly there are no good studies that link quiet cars with an increase in pedestrian (or pet) deaths. Secondly, all cars these days are extremely quiet, so if this is an issue with silence being deadly, it's an issue with all new cars across the board. Thirdly, every first generation EV that is coming to market in the next two years is equipped with some kind of pedestrian warning system—for better or worse—and the current trend in global politics is to make this required at some point in the near future.

"Recently, Britain's state-controlled BBC, quoting electric car maker Mitsubishi, said the cost of ownership of battery cars is actually more than regular cars when you figure in depreciation, so the argument about running costs is lost."

We dealt with this issue in another post. In that post it was discovered that the BBC's claims were based on having no knowledge of what the depreciation rate of these cars would be. Having no real experience with EVs on the mass marketplace, it is just as likely that they will increase in value as they will decrease.

When you look at it that way, the BBC could have easily written a piece that praised EVs as having a cost of ownership twice as low. In fact, much of the discussion in our previous post took into consideration that EVs will have very little service requirements and will have added value in other ways. And imagine when fuel prices start to rise again, as they inevitably will (nobody is denying that). All those intangibles make predicting their depreciation in 5 or 10 years almost impossible and, therefore, completely debunk anything the BBC (and Mitsubishi) had to say on this topic.

"The transmission of electric power from generation to use is enormously inefficient, with some experts saying only just over 30 percent of the original power is actually available for use, the rest draining away during transportation; so much for increased efficiency."

I'd like to see his references on this one. In 2007 in the U.S. the average transmission and distribution loss through power lines was about 6.5 percent and getting better. Compare this to the the loss of roughly 65 percent of the energy in gas when combusted in an internal combustion engine—and that doesn't account for the losses that occur prior to combustion.

Nobody, and I mean nobody, would, in their right mind, claim that mining fossil fuels out of the ground, transporting them to a processing plant, processing them in the processing plant, shipping/piping them to a fuel station, storing them at the fuel station, pumping them into a car and then burning them in the engine is even slightly more efficient than electrical power generation and transmission.

"The power generated mainly comes from coal fired power stations so the zero emissions claim goes out the window, although in France, where upwards of 80 percent of electricity is generated by nuclear power, this claim does resonate."

There are plenty of studies that show, even when fueled by coal-fired power plants, electric cars are cleaner than your average gas car. But in the U.S. coal makes up about 50 percent of our electricity so you'll never have a completely coal-fired power grid and as your grid gets cleaner, so does your electric car. With a plug-in car, you never have to get an upgraded car to get continually improving emissions. It's another added benefit of plug-in cars. There are also lots of other reasons to like a centralized energy distribution network like the electricity grid.

"The price of battery cars puts them out of the reach of all but a few rich, early adopters. Visitors to showrooms will find themselves asked to buy a car with a sticker price more than twice what you would expect to pay for a small family car, but which also has limited and unpredictable range."

Any new technology will initially be more expensive. When the PC first came out it was derided as being a toy for the rich as well, and many people thought it would never catch on. But that's the beauty of the market; if there's enough demand, prices will come down quickly. The concept Winton is espousing as a negative is actually part and parcel of how capitalism has worked, well, since forever.

"So why are some manufacturers betting the ranch on a product that will look incompetent compared with green competitors like hybrids? They are being pushed down this route by governments armed with massive subsidies, and which maybe haven't looked much past the hype."

On the contrary, Mr. Winton, the reason plug-in cars have obtained such a huge amount of political support from across the spectrum is that the hype is actually correct. They address environmental, economic, regulatory and energy security issues in one fell swoop. And, before you start complaining about massive government subsidies, that gas car you're driving would never have been possible had the governments of the world not dumped untold billions of tax payer dollars into the development of a gas powered infrastructure.

The rest of Winton's critique relies on 'expert' testimony, but really, after sifting through this first part, who wants to read the rest of the drivel? Yet, I did, and I can tell you that what he ends up highlighting in his post essentially leads to the conclusion that there will be 2.5 million EVs on the roads by 2015, after 2020 EVs will really take off, and the future is electric, but it's just going to take a while to get there. Well, duh. His clear and absolute hatred of plug-in vehicles is not congruous with his article's final message.

Mr. Winton, what is it about EVs that really gets your goat when you can't even find 'experts' to truly support your viewpoints? All you've ended up telling us is, essentially, that we're all stupid for even liking the idea of EVs.

So there you go EV owners, present, past and future, you're stupid, your car is a withering piece of junk built out of mud and rat droppings, you have a pathological hatred of puppies, and you don't care about money!

Altogether now: "Thanks Mr. Winton!"

Photo by J Rosenfeld/flickr/Creative Commons

Reprinted with permission from PluginCars