Tapping into Halloween Energy: vampires, robots, ghosts and pumpkin biofuels

Watching a bunch of kids parade as Cleopatra, witches, ghouls, storm troopers and even “John’s Portaloo”, it reminded me that Halloween stuff is fun. With all that is going on in our world today, it’s great to pause and lighten up. And a great chance to talk about some of the stranger happenings when it comes to renewables, sustainability and greener living.

Energy Vampires lurk in our homes

Southern California Edison (SCE), is one of the largest electric utilities in the US serving more than 13 million people. Earlier this week, SCE released a warning for its customers about the scary “energy vampires” that lurk throughout their homes and businesses. Instead of sucking blood, these vamps are our household electronics that draw electricity even when they are off. In fact, SCE estimates that you could save up to five percent of your bill if you simply unplugged or turned off items like DVD players, computers, stereos, TVs and computers.

Military robot eats biomass – and bodies?

It seems that FoxNews originally ran a story that a long-range, long-endurance military robot designed by Robotic Technology Inc foraged and powered itself with organic “biofuels.” Biofuels like fruits, veggies, cooking oils … oh, and bodies. Animal and human remains left on the battle field. But according to Dr. Bob Finkelstein, then-president of RTI, that simply wasn’t and isn’t true. Instead, his company’s Energetically Autonomous Tactical Robot or EATR is only sustained by plant-based biofuels, solar and traditional fossil fuels (oil, gas, kerosene, propane and coal). It turns out that EATR is programmed to recognize specific fuel sources and avoid others. As Dr. Finkelstein puts it, “If it’s not on the menu, it’s not going to eat it.”

Harnessing ghost energy

There was a lot of discussion around the Smart Grid this week following a $3.4 Billion infrastructure investment announcement that would fund 100 projects in 49 US States. IBM, one of the key vendors in the quest for Smart Grid supremacy, is promoting its offerings for home and business. During a 6 month pilot of 100 homes serviced by Fayetteville Public Works Commission in North Carolina, the use of Smart Grid technologies cut residential energy expenses by up to 40 percent.  IBM’s goal with the pilot project was to highlight the energy used by “ghost” devices: air conditioners, water heaters, and other devices that are using electricity even when no one is around.

Who knew we had so many ghosts and vampires living daily in our homes. Energy saving is good. But did you hear about bad energy ghosts, which have nothing to do with the grid but do seem to be something to keep in mind when building or ungreen?

Pumpkins power up cell stations

Ericsson, self-proclaimed world’s leading telecommunications supplier, began experimenting a few years back with biofuels-powered cellular networks. Its “green” macro base station was targeted at rural areas in developing countries that didn’t have access to a main electrical grid. The project, launched in Nigeria, used locally grown pumpkin seeds as well as groundnuts, jatropha and palm oil. There are few other details from Ericsson. Pumpkin seeds do have very high oil content and are purportedly very tasty and good for you. However, like other food stocks, they simply require more energy and aren’t truly viable as biofuels feedstocks to drive engines. They do however make great compost!

If interested, the EPA also has a listing of power pulls from all your tools and appliances. So if you’re considering using power tools to carve your pumpkin, you might want to see what you’ll get for the energy expended. Literally…

Trees Grow Large Under Climate Change Partnerships

Trees are one of the hottest items right now when it comes to climate change. The interest comes at a time when the lumber industry has been hit hard by this Great Recession, with wood product prices being their lowest in nearly two decades.

As lumber companies and mills fold, the quest to reduce and contain carbon emissions grows. And the changes are spurring some rather unlikely partnerships.

For example, one of the largest retailers of paper products Staples Inc. has just teamed with the nonprofit Dogwood Alliance to form a pilot called Carbon Canopy. The project is focused on the world’s most prolific paper-producing region, the southern U.S.  By following the standards developed by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Carbon Canopy offers a new revenue stream to landowners in the form of forestry carbon offsets.

A week or so ago, another amazing partnership has lead to the US’s single largest pre-compliance forest carbon transaction to date involving over 60,000 acres of woodlands. California’s largest private landowner, Sierra Pacific Industries, and Equator, LLC, a natural resources asset management firm, have entered an agreement that consists of a series of projects focused on developing compliance-ready carbon offsets. The transaction will sequester an additional 1.5 million tons of carbon dioxide over the next five years.

The Sierra Pacific/Equator deal will help save over 20,000 giant sequoias to boot. Even if you don’t live or visit Northern California, you’ll have seen these amazing trees featured in Star Wars – Return of the Jedi or one of the Jurassic Park movies. You can also get a great feel for the trees, which are featured in the October 2009 issue of National Geographic.

The current energy legislation being debated in the US provides healthy support for these and other forestry conservation efforts. Forestry preservation and expansion provides carbon sequestration, the biological, chemical or physical process that captures and stores harmful emissions caused by burning fossil fuels, like coal or oil. And trees turn out to be great big carbon storage devices ripe for carbon offsets.

The reality is that by 2020, the cost per household in the US to fund all of the discussed GHG emissions management would be less than a postage stamp per day — or roughly $175 a year. That is much less than what it costs to buy, plant & grow your own trees.

In the meantime, our GHG emissions control investments would also create 1.7 million jobs. Some of those jobs will directly be in the area of forestry preservation, management, monitoring and conservation. Tall order. Tall trees. Seems like a natural to me!

Other Opportunities:

WFI International has launched is Fellowship Program learn about sustainable forestry from the Pacific Northwest forestry sector. Over 75 Fellows from 24 countries have participated and applications are accepted year-round. For details, go to http://wfi.worldforestry.org/index/international-fellowship.html

Sustainable Stars Trek: the Next Generation

Teams line up to win a global competition for sustainable (and attractive) living.

Space may be the final frontier but for college students, terra firma is the place to be for the next generation of sustainable innovation funding.  While you wait to see photos of the LCROSS rocket smash into the moon, check out two major events for college students that are happening this week in the US.

The first launched today as the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) 4th biennial Solar Decathlo opened on the appropriately sunny Mall at the US Capital in Washington, DC.  College and university students from 20 schools, including last year’s winner Team Germany and four other international universities, are competing in the  two week event. The students goal is to “design, build, and operate the most attractive and energy-efficient solar-powered house.”

Germany won the 2007 competition with it's innovative use of solar thermal, luvre lighting and materials.

The German team won in 2007 (pictured here). The DOE funds the projects, rates them and awards the winner. The final houses aren’t just demolished at the end. Most go on to lead ongoing roles in the university’s community. Rice University, for example, took their 2007 entry and it stands as an arts/cultural center in Houston’s beleaguered Third Ward district.

“Our home’s greatest strength is getting away from the design of a box with obtrusive solar panels, and instead embracing a central courtyard as a fourth room,” said Preet Anand, a senior at Santa Clara University and member of Team California. Team California is the only group of this year’s competitors made solely of undergraduates. “Our home also features integrated engineering and architecture, a great example of this would be our solar panels that look like a natural component of our roof rather than sticking out from it.” Watch video of the team on the National Mall »

Students from around the US celebrate winning EPA P3 grants for their ideas to sustainably address the world's problems.

The second award announced this week is the US Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) grants for 2009-2010. The EPA awarded 43 P3 grants to teams of college and university students across the country. The awards, which start with $10,000(US) grants in Phase I and can go up to $75,000 in Phase II, are awarded based on designs of creative technologies that meet sustainability challenges in the developed and developing world.

There are some truly amazing ideas in this first round of awards. From using a Fresnel lens (what you’d see in a lighthouse) to make safe drinking water out of sea water to Appalachians applying alcohol-making still technology to producing biodiesel fuel to a team that is using chicken feathers to potentially develop components for better solar panels or the batteries of tomorrow, the projects run the gamut from energy efficiency to more sustainable textiles manufacture. Besides great ideas and great science, it looks like they had some fun too.

Both the Solar Decathlon and the P3 Grants highlight innovation, creativity and drive. And when it comes to sustainable innovation, it’s heartening to see these students boldly go where no one (or at least very few) have gone before.

May these kinds of awards and competitions truly “Live long and prosper…”

US Chamber loses big energy over its “extreme views”

This past week, large members announce they are leaving US Chamber over "extreme" energy policy

A few weeks ago, I wrote about the US Chamber’s strange and aggressive stance against policies that promote greater efficiency and more energy production via renewables. Since then, there have been a flurry of defections from the US Chamber ranks, one of the latest being one of the largest utilities in the US – PG&E out of Northern California (which happens to also be my electric/gas supplier).

Check out E&ETV’s interview with PG&E’s President & CEO Peter Darbee as he discusses disagreement with what he calls the US Chamber’s “extreme views.”

But PG&E is not alone. New Mexico’s largest utility PNM has also defected. In similar moves, Duke Energy out of the Midwest and Alstom Power, which provides equipment to the power industry, have also left the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity for similar reasons. Corporate giants, such as General Electric, have also been battling the US Chamber’s protectionist stance for years with a belief that you need to change with the times – and the times are calling for more green energy. UPDATE: Chicago-based Exelon, which services 5.4 million customers in Illinois and Pennsylvania, just announced they are leaving the Chamber as well.

Already noted that PNM out of New Mexico announced their parting of the ways on Friday.

PNM’s statement from a few days ago rather sums it up:

“…the utility sees climate change as a pressing environmental and economic issue and that it can be most productive by working with organizations that share its view on the need for “thoughtful, reasonable climate change legislation.”

The key word here is “reasonable.” History has proven over and over that sticking your head in the sand when faced with business, technological and consumer preference changes only leaves dead or dieing ostriches. Backing the interests of coal, oil and nuclear over truly renewable and much cleaner sources such as wind, solar, bio-fuels, waste-to-energy, geothermal and others is not in the best interest of US businesses. Even the utilities, who are the biggest producers/users/backers of fossil fuels and nuclear don’t see them as the way of the future.

The US Chamber is the heaviest lobbyist in Washington D.C. having something like $4 million a week(!) at its disposal. But as more of its members defect, like us, that war chest will shrink. Who will be next?

Waste is money

Since announcing that they could turn plastic waste into “oil-like” fuel at the price of $10 per barrel, cleantech start-up Envion has been under fire.  If it was that easy, say comments across the blogosphere, then people will be paying for garbage. Which they are, by the way. Paying for garbage, I mean.

Envion's process for turning trash into sustainable treasure

Cogeneration, the process of turning waste to fuel, has been around for years.  Many a school, church or manufacturing facility have been burning trash for heat for years.  Recycling companies like American Metals have been going to dumps to dig up old scrap for years.

What is different is that chemical and biological advancements that once seemed like science-fiction are now science-fact.  University labs and think tanks are poring an unprecedented amount of research funding into uncovering processes that make the most of global resources, old and new, and hopefully on a sustainable basis.

So innovations like Envion’s may become part of the mix.  Oh yes, they’ll need to address emissions issues and tackle production hurdles. Also, 4 percent recycling rates seem very low in light of new incentives to collect plastics.  But on the production side, a production facility like this may fit well with landfills that are already turning into great bioreactor power plants.

Like all good innovations, only time will tell whether Envion or anyone else can make gold out of plastic  — or if they are just wasting all of our time and energy.

US Chamber puts its energy into killing small business

The other day, as I was slogging through my 100+ daily emails, I was intrigued by one sent to me by the Institute for 21^st Century Energy. What caught my eye was the utter lack of accurate target marketing.  I mean, the enewsletter’s articles were all about big oil and gas exploration, meetings of West Virginia’s coal industry groups and pushes for nuclear. I was wondering why in the world I, a rather outspoken proponent of low emission, low waste, truly renewable energy sources, ever got onto this pubs’ mailing list.

Well, turns out it wasn’t another case of SPAM or poor list management. I signed up for it!

The non-profit Institute is actually the proud offspring of the US Chamber of Commerce, the for-profit organization self-promoted as the “world’s largest business federation representing 3 million businesses.” At least 96% of the Chamber’s members are small businesses of 100 or fewer employees.  Like me. So, yeah, it seems that entrepreneurial companies like mine are actually paying for this non-profit to promote the agendas of “Big Oil,” “Clean Coal” and “Safe nuclear” in Washington and elsewhere.

Digging a bit deeper, it gets even more twisted. When it comes to promoting Big Energy agenda, the US Chamber mantra is that business is not getting a fare shake in climate discussions. So the Chamber is ramping up to be at the forefront on behalf of “business people everywhere.” This includes threatening to take the EPA to court to debate whether or not the scientific evidence shows global warming endangers human health. It means the Chamber is getting someone to fund the millions of dollars they are using to try to kill the Waxman-Markey bill or any legislation aimed at putting a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

In addition, the Chamber is hosting a “Major Economies Business Forum on Energy Security and Climate Change” next week in Washington DC. The press release on the Chamber/Institute’s site says there will be two Republican speakers and the Democratic governor of West Virginia (talking about his state’s coal industry). Other than rhetoric, there doesn’t seem to be any way to register for this forum. I looked across the Institute and Chamber sites and Googled the conference. No registration page. No agenda.  Plenty of confusion.  Searches keep coming back to that “other commission”, the one formed by President Obama in March called the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate. It seems the Chamber has “modeled” their group after this government-sanctioned forum and coincidentally both say they have representatives from the 17 major economies. Other than that bit of misdirection, I continue to search and still can’t find anything that officially links the two in purpose, context, goals or content.

This seems a bit of marketing chicanery to me. Bait and switch. Smoke and mirrors? For the Chamber’s forum, it’s too early to tell. But I can definitely say that the Big Power story being promoted by the US Chamber does not “actively raise awareness of the business community’s views on elements of an international climate change agreement.”

Promoting the agenda of fossil fuel conglomerates does not speak for small businesses. Neither does carrying the torch for coal states like West Virginia. According to Wikipedia, coal remains the second largest emitter of carbon dioxide and emissions that cause acid rain. The coal industry has spent over $50 billion and yet there is not a single commercial scale coal fired power station in the US that captures and stores more than token amounts of CO2.

While looking backwards at jobs that will be lost if/when we dig up less coal – which will be a while since we have to keep relying on fossil fuels till we get our renewable infrastructure in place – we’re missing the point. Simply put, many more jobs will and are being created as we develop a Clean Energy economy than are being lost.

Also, promoting the status quo makes no sense to keep the US competitive in the long run. For example, a study of the G20 nations released Monday shows that the world’s top economies are starting to bet their economic recovery and long-term prosperity on being “more carbon competitive.” Long-term policies to limit climate change, such as the bills being fought so rigorously by the US Chamber, are “widely expected to force nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions, favoring leaner, more efficient economies run on renewable and other low-carbon energy supplies.”

In ongoing and related news out of China, the world’s fastest growing economy is making very large investments in renewable energy, including signing on to build the world’s largest solar power plant with Arizona-based First Solar. This announcement follows the nearly 80 gigawatts of renewable energy China has built in recent years.  When China has hundreds of gigawatts of fossil fuel-free energy, what country will be able to compete when it must continually pay foreign nations and higher and higher costs for fossil fuels to generate 90% of its electricity? Not the US.

So, in a nutshell, you don’t speak for this small business, US Chamber. Your obsession with the way things have been done versus where they are going is very unhealthy for business. You should be the first to champion a Clean Energy Economy, not regurgitating the rhetoric of very large, very deep-pocketed energy corporations.

And based on the shop owners, small manufacturers, parents, neighbors and friends I talk with around the world each day, your “Oil/Coal/Nuclear” agenda doesn’t speak for them either.  My opt-out notice is in the mail.