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1. Controversial Globe-Changing Measures Could Be the Only Answer to Climate Change
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2. Earth2Tech Week in Review
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3. 10 Things to Know About Sarah Palin and Energy
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4. Woolsey: Grid an Easy Target for Unsophisticated Hackers
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5. Mazda to Crash the Electric Car Party?
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6. Tesla to Charge Daimler's Electric Smart Cars?
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7. Texas $2.3B Biomass Plant Gets Approved
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8. Optony: Where Thin Film and Concentrating Solar Meet
Controversial Globe-Changing Measures Could Be the Only Answer to...
Katie Fehrenbacher - Big Green
Just what you wanted to hear on a holiday: thanks to a lack of political action, the controversial practice of geoengineering, or intentionally modifying the global environment, may be the only way to combat climate change in a necessary time frame, according to a group of scientists. Researchers Brian Launder of the University of Manchester and Michael Thompson of the University of Cambridge have published a series of papers in the U.K.’s Royal Society that call for a serious look at a variety of extreme measures to stabilize global warming, like seeding the oceans with iron, injecting sulphur into the upper atmosphere, and creating fake clouds over the sea.
The researchers say that there have been very few measures put in place to meet carbon emission reductions, and the targets that have been put in place could fall far short. On top of that the researchers say there is new evidence that the Earth’s climate is even more sensitive to carbon emissions than previously thought. This all leads the scientists to conclude that geoengineering techniques, which have long been considered extreme and last resort measures, should be studied and reviewed as possible options to combat climate change.
These geo–scale interventions are undoubtedly risky: but the time may come when they are universally perceived to be less risky than doing nothing.
One of the papers in the group concludes that the practice of fertilizing oceans with iron to boost plankton blooms and sequester carbon through the plankton lifecycle has the “potential to enhance sequestration,” but that much is not known. Researchers need to do more fieldwork and create better mathematical models before scientists can evaluate the practice further, the paper says. We’ve previously covered startups Climos and Planktos, which are trying to create business models off of ocean fertilization.
Geoengineering techniques will undoubtedly have unknown consequences, which could possibly have negative effects on the Earth’s atmosphere. But we agree that more controversial strategies should be evaluated and researched. Here’s our Top Ten List Of Most Controversial Ways to Save the Planet, which we published last November:
- 1. Ocean seeding: More iron causes more plankton blooms; plankton eat carbon and when they die sink to the bottom of the ocean, thereby sequestering it.
- 2. Re-ice the Arctic: A University of Alberta scientist proposes a fleet of 8,000 barges to re-ice the Arctic with salty ice, thereby cooling the water and keeping the conveyor belt moving.
- 3. Sulfur solar shield: Inject sulfur into the upper atmosphere, thereby creating a reflective shield that would keep the Earth cool.
- 4. Ocean-cooling pipes: An ocean-cooling pipe that would cool the ocean in front of approaching hurricanes, as well as causing plankton blooms that could act as a CO2 sink.
- 5. Cloud seeding: Shooting various things into the clouds to stimulate them into action to create a reflective, cooling cover.
- 6. Genetically Modified CO2-Eating Trees: While all trees scrub CO2 from the air and produce the oxygen that we breathe, scientists are looking into genetically modifying trees' ability to "eat" carbon dioxide.
- 7. Fake Plastic CO2-Eating Trees: Modeled on trees' ability to suck in CO2, these machines would pump air "through a chamber containing sodium hydroxide, which reacts with the CO2 to form sodium carbonate." After a few more reactions, there'd be pure CO2, which could be injected into the ground like a regular old carbon storage system.
- 8. Space mirrors: Using mirrors to reflect sun rays back into space. The problem is that they'd have to be huge and there would have to be a lot of them, and launch costs could be in the thousands of dollars per pound.
- 9. Reflective space mesh: Proposed by Edward Teller, the father of the hydrogen bomb, this reflective mesh would be placed out in space, about a million miles between the sun and the Earth.
- 10. Glacier Blankets: Blanket glaciers with a special material designed to protect high-value Alps skiing territory.
Earth2Tech Week in Review
Craig Rubens - Misc
V-P nominations and the Democrat’s supposedly green convention clogged the airwaves this week, but what does it all mean for cleantech? Here’s our take on the running mates and the other headlines from the week.
10 Things to Know About Sarah Palin and Energy: Presumptive Republican nominee John McCain has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate, bringing to the GOP ticket a full-throated call to drill, drill, drill.
10 Things to Know About Biden and Energy: Who can't like a guy who in 2006, in response to oil companies' record profits and rising gas prices, point blank asks the chairman of Exxon and execs of other energy companies if they "needed" billions in tax breaks.
Solar Map: More Than 30 Utility-Scale Solar Plants in the U.S.: There are more than 30 utility-scale solar power plants, one megawatt or larger, under various stages of development in the U.S., and we decided to start mapping them out.
Nanosolar Boosts Funds to Massive Half Billion Dollars: Nanosolar's CEO Martin Roscheisen writes on the company blog that Nanosolar has raised $300 million in an oversubscribed equity financing round, which closed in March, that brings its total to just under half a billion dollars. That could make it one of the most well-funded startups. Period.
Solazyme Grows $45M for Algae Fuel: Last week, Solazyme CEO Jonathan Wolfson said confidently that his synthetic biology startup would be able to produce millions of gallons of biofuel from algae within three years. That confidence could have been fueled by a large, $45.4 million Series C round of funding that the company has raised.
10 Things to Know About Sarah Palin and Energy
Craig Rubens - @NYT
Palin comes from the land of gas pipelines, oily indictments, ANWR and drowning polar bears. Here’s 10 things to know about McCain’s energetic V-P pick:
Standing Up to Big Oil: Serving as the ethics commissioner of Alaska’s Oil & Gas Commission, Palin built her reputation on cracking down on big oil and her fellow Republicans for corruption. As governor, she also successfully led a bipartisan tax levvy on big oil’s profits.
Doesn’t Believe An Inconvenient Truth?: In an interview for the upcoming issue of NewsMax, Palin said: “A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one, though, who would attribute it to being man-made.”
Creation of Alaska’s Climate Change Sub-Cabinet: She might not be sure why the globe’s climate is changing, but Palin does recognize that her home state is thawing. Palin created the Climate Change Sub-Cabinet to consolidate the state’s knowledge on climate change and guide the state’s mitigation and adaptation policy. The Cabinet was also charged with exploring the state’s renewable energy potential, especially “geothermal, wind, hydroelectric, and tidal resources.”
Carbon Cap and Trade: Both McCain and Obama are calling for a cap-and-trade system on carbon. States are already establishing their own carbon markets, where futures trades have begun on the Northeast’s Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. The Western Climate Initiative is looking to follow suit, and though Alaska is not a member, Palin did sign the state on as an observer last year.
Drill, Drill, Drill: As governor of an oil-rich state, it’s no surprise Palin is in favor of domestic oil production. While McCain has reversed his position on drilling on the outer continental shelf (OCS), he has yet to call for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which Palin refers to as “that little 2,000 acre plot.” But Palin thinks he’ll change his mind: “[McCain] came around on OCS…I anticipate the same with ANWR.”
Alaska Gasline Inducement Act (AGIA): After passing the state legislature with only one “nay,” Palin’s AGIA received just a single bid to build a gas pipeline from Alaska’s Northern Slope to the Lower 48. TransCanada will build and operate the $26 billion Alaska Highway Pipeline Project with $500 million in help from the state of Alaska.
Energy Rebate Check: Palin issued a press release praising Obama’s proposal for $1,000 energy rebate checks. She had proposed a $100-a-month energy debit card, but dropped that plan in favor of a $1,200 one-time special payment to eligible Alaskans, which she signed into law just this week.
Gas Tax Holiday: Alaska has some of the highest gasoline prices in the country and Palin signed into law a gas tax holiday, suspending the motor fuel tax on gasoline, marine fuel, and aviation fuel for one year. McCain and Clinton both were in favor of gas tax holiday while Obama claimed such a move was merely a “gimmick.”
Energy Efficiency, Conservation and Weatherization: The governor recently signed a proclamation declaring September as "Energy Efficiency Month" in Alaska. In May, Palin authorized the emergency distribution of $300 million from the Alaska Housing Finance Corporation — $200 million is being used to expand the AHFC’s weatherization program and the other $100 million will be distributed in rebates to homeowners making energy upgrades to their residences.
Pro-Offshore Oil, Anti-Polar Bear: Palin filed a lawsuit against Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne to reverse the decision to list the polar bear as a threatened species. Palin fears “extreme environmentalists” would use the Endangered Species Act to block offshore gas and oil exploration. Palin claims polar bears have survived earlier warming periods and that the current population is actually thriving.
Woolsey: Grid an Easy Target for Unsophisticated Hackers
Katie Fehrenbacher - Policy
CIA Director-turned-venture-capitalist Jim Woolsey (who is advising John McCain on energy issues) says that our power grid is so vulnerable to cyber-hacking that 10- or 11-year-old hackers could get through, Woolsey said in an interview on the Blog Talk Radio Show.
“The systems that operate now to protect the grid from hacking probably do a reasonable job against 8-year old hackers, but once you get to be the 10- or 11-year old hackers they’re in there like Flynn. The grid’s cyber protections are awful.”
It’s a theme that Woolsey has addressed before — back in June, he asked a panel of energy experts at the Google/Brookings plug-in electric vehicle conference what was being done to secure the grid. His question was in response to an article in the National Journal, which alleged that Chinese paramilitary hackers were responsible for two massive U.S. blackouts.
Silver Spring Networks CTO Raj Vaswani previously explained to us that securing the grid is different from securing Internet services and that the "threat model is extremely complex because you've got devices sitting out in the field potentially for years with no physical security." Woolsey also mirrored that sentiment in the Blog Radio show and said that hardware like transformers are open to physical attack.
Mazda to Crash the Electric Car Party?
Tony Borroz - Big Green
Mazda is supposedly jumping into the green car game, with plans to build a range-extended electric vehicle that will debut in 2010, according to a report from Autocar via Wired. So if two's company and three's a crowd, GM, with its Chevy Volt, and Toyota, with its next-gen Prius, are probably feeling like their party’s about to be crashed.
We say the more the merrier, as we all benefit from this kind of competition. But some of the details of this report are puzzling, notably that: "Autocar quotes unnamed ’senior sources’ saying Mazda is testing an electric car that uses a Wankel rotary engine to charge the battery." Wankels, although small and powerful, are pretty darned inefficient. They aren’t the cleanest-running engines, either, so using them in a hybrid — range-extended or other-wise — doesn't make all that much sense.
Mazda’s move to start building green cars, however, makes a lot of sense. Sooner or later, this is a party that everyone is going to have to join. And Mazda is majority owned by Ford, meaning that whatever goodies and tech tricks it can cook up, Ford can then use in the rest of their cars.
GM, meanwhile, has decided to go into overdrive with plans for the Chevy Volt. In the International Herald Tribune, GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz says that GM will have production versions of the Volt working in a large test fleet by late 2009. As one of the most highly anticipated cars in GM's history, GM can’t afford to have the Volt’s debut dimmed by competitors. While the article’s headline claims that “No hybrid race between Toyota, GM,” there is undoubtedly a race that is being fiercely run, even now. That also means that the Volt could be much further along than GM has let on, and could be able to start assessing its viability much, much earlier.
Tesla to Charge Daimler's Electric Smart Cars?
Craig Rubens - Startups
Tesla Motors will be charging up Daimler’s electric Smart ForTwo cars with its own lithium-ion battery technology, the German edition of the Financial Times reports (hat tip Autoblog Green). According to the report Tesla will supply the batteries for the 150 cars Daimler plans to deploy first in Berlin; Daimler subsequently aims to expand that test fleet up to 1,000 cars across several European cities. The batteries will give the mini electric cars an urban driving range of more than 90 miles.
We got in touch with Tesla in the hopes of getting more detail, but they declined comment.
The deal is reportedly part of a larger initiative Daimler is reportedly unveiling today with German utility RWE to create a network of some 500 public charging stations around that country’s capital. Daimler has been running a similar pilot project in London where some 100 electric Smarts have been zipping about since late last year. The pilot fleet currently has charge times of eight hours, but Daimler reportedly hopes that with Tesla’s newer batteries and a utility helping with infrastructure, the charge time could be reduced to two or three.
We heard back in June that Daimler and Tesla were getting cozy. At the time, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche wouldn’t comment on the California startup but did announce electric Mercedes and Smart models for 2010. Zetsche also said that Daimler was in talks with Shai Agassi’s electric car infrastructure startup, Better Place. Today’s news of Daimler’s deal with RWE doesn’t rule out a roll for Better Place, but it could mean the German auto maker might be trying to electrify the German autobahn without Agassi.
Texas $2.3B Biomass Plant Gets Approved
Katie Fehrenbacher - CNN Green
Despite rising controversy over a proposed $2.3 billion biomass plant in East Texas, the Austin city council unanimously approved the contract on Thursday, the local Statesman reports. Under the terms of the contract,Nacogdoches Power will construct and operate a 100-megawatt plant, which will burn woody wastes, including sawdust and tree trimmings, and sell the power to Austin Energy over the course of 20 years.
The plan is controversial because critics says the contract was secured behind closed doors with Nacogdoches and a competitor says it could have offered a biomass plant for a lower cost than $2.3 billion. The CEO of competitor American Biorefining & Energy Inc. sent the Austin city council the company’s own proposal for a biomass project on Wednesday and questioned the bidding process. The approved biomass project is also being looked at closely for its environmental effects, and Nacogdoches will be required to report on how the plant is affecting forests, air and water quality.
The city of Austin has set a goal of delivering 30 percent of its electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Austin Energy currently only gets about 6 percent of its energy from renewable sources, and John Baker, the company's chief of strategy, told us earlier this year that wind energy alone wouldn't get them to 30 percent. If all the planned wind, solar and biomass come through on schedule, Austin Energy could be getting as much as 18 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2012.
Optony: Where Thin Film and Concentrating Solar Meet
Katie Fehrenbacher - Startups
Usually, solar concentrating systems use mirrors and lenses to focus sun rays onto tiny, highly-efficient, multi-junction solar cells that can withstand the high concentrations and heat. The problem is that while only a small amount of the solar cell is used in these systems, the material itself can be pretty expensive. Yu says the company’s thin-film material, which it plans to manufacture itself, is cheaper than these cells as well as traditional silicon-based photovoltaics.
But to stand up to concentrations and heat, the thin-film solar cells would have to be tweaked significantly. Yu wouldn’t discuss what the thin-film material was made of or how it was modified, only that it is to be able to withstand high heat. Thin-film material deposited onto glass could help with a modest dissipation of heat. Yu also wouldn’t describe the level of concentration, but we’re thinking it’s probably at a lower concentration than the high-powered systems being developed in other concentrating set-ups. Yu plans to first focus on the commercial market to sell the systems, and estimates the power output of the system between tens of kilowatts and a megawatt.
So far, Yu says Optony has raised only angel funding and $250,000 from the Department of Energy's Technology Commercialization Development Fund (TCDF). The company is also working to develop the technology with the National Renewable Energy Labs (where Yu worked for five years, previously). The merger of the low-cost solar options could be a winning idea, but we’ll wait to learn (and see) more from the firm before we get too excited.
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