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1. Meltdown! Charting the effects of the financial crisis
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2. Android to Launch Carbon Footprint Calculator, Ecorio
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3. The financial sector and the "real economy"
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4. Chrysler Shows Off Dodge EV, Jeep & Minivan, A123 Inside?
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5. Iberdrola Floats Oceanic PowerBuoy
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6. Will financial crisis take the shine off efficiency?
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7. Flush with less water
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8. Are we running dry?
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9. What You Need to Know About the Senate Energy Bill
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10. The Daily Sprout
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11. Surprise! Chrysler to Unveil Electric Car Plans
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12. GreenVolts Concentrates on Utility Project With $30M
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13. Who's the Greenest U.S. City of them All? Portland
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14. Electric Motorcycle Startup Raises Funds From Best Buy
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15. San Jose Mayor to Cleantech Startups: Call Me!
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16. Making good on a resolution
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17. To tackle global warming, California takes aim at sprawl
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18. Does the air-powered car really work?
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19. How to decipher the recycling numbers on plastic stuff
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20. Pictures of Ike
Meltdown! Charting the effects of the financial crisis
Politics
by Adam Stein
In the wake of the financial meltdown, some have wondered about about the broader implications of the disappearance of Lehman Brothers’ carbon trading desk. And the answer to that question, at least, is easy: there are no broader implications to the disappearance of Lehman Brothers’ carbon trading desk.
This is true for a variety of reasons, not least among them that Lehman Brothers was a small player in the carbon markets. The center of gravity in the carbon-trading world is in Europe. Beyond that, the carbon market itself is just one corner of the energy finance universe. So Lehman is a corner of a corner, and anyway the disappearance of a single trading desk is nothing really to fret over.
A trickier question is what affect the broader issues in the financial markets have for the development of clean energy. And, well, it’s hard to say, as all sorts of countervailing forces are at work.
It helps to step back briefly and consider what is actually going on in the economy. The Freakonomics blog recently offered up one of the most lucid discussions of the ongoing financial crisis. I recommend the whole thing, but in a nutshell:
Financial institutions borrow money all the time to fund their investments. When the real estate bubble burst, a lot of those investments lost value rapidly, leaving banks such as Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers unable to borrow new money and unable to repay their existing debt. This situation can lead to a domino effect — “contagious failures” — in which borrowers are unable to repay lenders, who are then themselves sucked into the financial crisis.
The issue isn’t that all these financial institutions are suddenly worthless. By all accounts, most of AIG’s business is quite healthy, and the government will turn a healthy profit on the bailout. Rather, the institutions fail because they don’t have enough cash to cover their near-term debts, in much the same way that you can starve to death in your $3 million house if you don’t have money to buy bread. So the federal government steps in, effectively guaranteeing that these companies will be able to repay their loans. But even if the intervention works to stave off the contagion, very few institutions want to loan out more money in this environment.
This is a big problem for anyone who needs a loan to finance an investment or business activity. Guess who needs loans? Clean energy developers. Windmills ain’t cheap.
Looking broadly, I see at least five broad economic trends affecting the clean energy market over the next few years.
The credit crunch. Banks are having a hard time of it right now. This is an unequivocally bad thing for the clean energy sector. Clean energy projects typically entail massive up-front capital outlays, followed by relatively low ongoing costs. Banks provide the money for those up-front expenditures in the form of loans.
Except that right now, banks have retreated into their pillow forts. One analyst projects that, by 2020, the clean energy sector in Europe will require about 85 billion euros per year in financing to meet EU goals. Given the current pace of lending, debt finance will fall about 21 billion euros short. I’d put very low confidence in these specific numbers, but they are illustrative of the problem faced by energy developers who need cash to turn blueprints into megawatts. A secondary likely effect of the credit crunch is consolidation in the clean energy industry, as financially healthy energy developers (especially in Europe) snap up sound-but-cash-strapped counterparts.
Fossil fuel prices. To simplify: dirty energy competes with clean energy. High fossil fuel prices make clean energy projects look more attractive.
There are people paid much more money than to me predict the direction of fossil fuel prices, and I won’t pretend to have any special insight here. Based on my own analysis, which involves drawing a supply and demand curve on piece of graph paper with a crayon, I predict that fossil fuel prices will continue to gradually rise for years to come, while also exhibiting high volatility. The underlying upward trend in fossil fuel prices will be positive for clean energy development, but the volatility will blunt some of the benefit by injecting a high degree of uncertainty into the market.
Supply chain constraints. Whatever the state of the present economy, clean energy has been booming for several years now. One inevitable consequence of the growth is that manufacturers are having a hard time keeping up with demand for basic infrastructure, such as wind turbines. This situation should eventually right itself, but it will remain a brake on growth in the near term.
Global carbon policy. In fits and starts, governments worldwide are putting a price on carbon. And though the shortcomings of these early attempts have been well noted, in aggregate policymakers are stumbling in the right direction. These efforts are helpful, even if they aren’t anywhere near enough.
The economy. Although it is very difficult to make predictions about the direction of the economy, it appears likely the current downturn will continue for some time. Which is bad for the climate, mainly because of the way that a weak economy interacts with the other items on the list.
For example, slow growth saps the political will for dramatic action on climate change. Some legislative efforts, such as California’s AB32, are probably too far along to be at major risk for derailment. RGGI in the northeast is also pretty far along, but not so far along that New York Governor David Paterson wouldn’t consider bolting from the agreement. And, of course, federal legislation continues to lurch zombie-like around the halls of congress. The next president will have to expend a lot of political capital to pass a national carbon cap even under the best of circumstances. These are not the best of circumstances.
So the scorecard on macro trends in the clean energy sector reads: credit crunch, very bad; high fossil fuel prices, very good; supply chain constraints, bad but self-righting; global carbon policy, nascent but directionally correct; overall economic malaise, generally dampening.
Anything to add to this list?
Android to Launch Carbon Footprint Calculator, Ecorio
Craig Rubens - Startups
Google and T-Mobile unveiled the G1 today, the first phone powered by Android, Google’s own mobile operating system. The G1 is launching on Oct. 22, along with its market for third party applications, the Android Market Place (similar to Apple’s App Store.) And lucky for us, one of the featured applications is Ecorio, a carbon footprint calculator.
The application, which tracks your travels and calculates your travel carbon footprint, was built by the five-man, Toronto-based Ecorio team with $300,000 in prize and development money from Google. But beyond simply recording data, it encourages you to take action in three ways — reduce, inspire and offset (”RIO”) — offering up alternatives to driving, ways to share energy-saving tips with other users and a quick and easy way to purchase carbon offsets.
By pinging your GPS, the application tracks your travel and can build a velocity profile (similarly to how RunKeeper tracks your running speeds), figuring out how efficiently you’re driving. You can keep multiple vehicle profiles so you can tell it if you’re crushing the earth in your Escalade or sipping fuel in your Prius. The team is also working on getting it to recognize air travel, which they hope to have ready by launch.
This all sounds very similar to Carbon Hero, an application being developed for the Blackberry that tracks travel carbon costs via GPS. But Ecorio also provides alternatives to driving, using Google Transit to recommend public transportation and even integrates with Zimride, the large Facebook carpooling program, to locate carpools or allow a user to offer up a new carpool.
But no matter what you do, you likely won’t be able to reduce your footprint to zero — and that’s where offsets come in. Ecorio allows you to purchase carbon offsets from Carbonfund.org using Google Checkout. Users can choose a project either in renewable energy, energy efficiency or reforestation.
Like so many mobile services, Ecorio offers a vague social element. The “Inspire” function allows users to comment on projects, offer fuel-saving tips and share public-transit stories. It’s not exactly clear how users will take to the “Inspire” element, but the Ecorio team hopes it will build a strong community around the application and leverage peer pressure to encourage users to reduce their footprint even more. Ecorio is already available in the Android Market Place for free, so as soon as you can get your hands on a handset you can download it and start tracking your footprint.
Ecorio’s developers intend to make the app available across as many devices and platforms as possible, including iPhone, Blackberry and Facebook, but are currently focused on getting the Android build out the door. Have your own great idea for a green mobile app? Nokia has recently launched its own competition with $150,000 up for grabs.
The financial sector and the "real economy"
Politics
by Adam Stein
Can you stand a bit more meltdown blogging? Over at Grist, the proposed bailout has stirred up an understandable level of angst over the government’s willingness to shower Wall St. with money at the first sign of crisis, and meanwhile sit idly by while the ice caps melt.
And the point is well-taken, of course, but the some of the more piqued comments do ignore the broader implications of the financial crisis. Wherever the blame for the current mess lies, the “let Wall St. burn” approach won’t do anybody any good, least of all the environment.
To be clear: I’m not suggesting that the bailout plan as currently proposed is the right one (such questions are above my pay grade). But banks do matter, credit matters, and voters matter, particularly when it comes to climate change. All of these factors will be deeply and negatively affected by a spreading financial panic.
A commonly held notion is that if the government can find a trillion dollars in its pocket to buy toxic mortgages, it ought to be able to cough up at least some comparable figure to solve the climate crisis. And there’s a large kernel of truth to this notion. Our current level of investment in both R&D and infrastructure is a travesty.
But this line of thinking quickly runs into a hard limit. It’s going to take more than a trillion dollars to fix climate change. It’s going to take more than ten trillion dollars. In fact, it’s going to take a lot more.
That’s the scary bit. The happy bit is that this money is going to be spent anyway, as the private sector pours unimaginable sums into infrastructure over the coming decades. The important question is whether the economic and political incentives will favor clean development, or whether we’ll continue down the path we’re presently on.
Do you want offshore wind farms to beat out coal plants in competitive bids? Then wind developers need access to capital. Politicians need space to maneuver. And voters need not to be scared out of their wits by the prospect of slightly higher electricity bills. (Note that the potential for offshore wind in the mid-Atlantic region of the United States is by itself a “trillion-dollar-plus build-out.”)
Again, this is in no way a defense of the status quo ante in the financial industry, or an argument against accountability. But the things that made sense a week ago — carbon pricing, efficiency measures, investments in renewable energy — continue to make sense today. And all of these things will be held back by prolonged sickness in the financial sector.
Chrysler Shows Off Dodge EV, Jeep & Minivan, A123 Inside?
Katie Fehrenbacher - Automotive
Looks like Chrysler was feeling out-shined by GM’s Volt showing last week. This morning Chrysler unveiled plans for at least four electric vehicle models — an all-electric Dodge EV, a range-extended electric Jeep and a minivan, and a city vehicle, although there’s no EcoVoyager in site. Chrysler says one of the vehicles will be on the market by 2010. Chrysler CEO Bob Nardelli said the company has “made huge commitments both from a resource standpoint and a financial standpoint” to electric vehicles.
Nardelli is very aware of Chrysler’s down and out reputation — Chrysler was previously dumped by Daimler and then taken over by buyout firm Cerberus. He told CNBC: “We may have been knocked down but we’ve never been knocked out.” ‘Til now Chrysler hasn’t been a prominent voice in the electric vehicle discussions.
So what do the EVs look like? The Dodge EV has a range of 150 to 200 miles, uses a lithium-ion battery pack, takes four hours to charge on a 220 outlet, and 8 hours on 110. AutoblogGreen says it’s based on the Lotus Europa. The extended-range electric vehicles have a range of 400 miles; the minivan EV seats 7, and the jeep EV has a new in-wheel electric capability, using electric motors in each wheel. Chrysler will also be building a city car based on its neighborhood vehicle, the Peapod.
Interestingly, the Wall Street Journal reports this morning that lithium ion battery startup A123Systems is in “advanced talks” to supply batteries for Chryslers electric vehicles. GM has also been talking to A123 about supplying batteries for the Volt, too.
Iberdrola Floats Oceanic PowerBuoy
Craig Rubens - Energy
Spanish utility Iberdrola has started to tap the power of the motion of the ocean with the deployment of its first PowerBuoy from wave energy developer Ocean Power Technologies.
Currently bobbing up and down off the coast of Santoña, Spain, the PowerBuoy is the first of 10 planned buoys which Iberdrola plans to eventually have producing 1.39 megawatts for the grid. The company claims it will be the world's first commercial utility-scale wave power generation venture. The project also had development help from French energy giant Total S.A; regional development agency SODERCAN; and the IDEA, the Spanish energy agency.
New Jersey-based Ocean Power Technologies is working all over the world with its PowerBuoys. Since testing a 1 megawatt installation for the U.S. Navy in Hawaii beginning in 2004, the wave-energy firm signed a joint development agreement with Australian energy provider Griffin Energy to build and operate a 10- to 100-megawatt wave-power station off the coast of Western Australia.
Hydrokinetic energy has been making waves in the clean energy sector. A number of startups are working to scale the technology for utility use, while city and federal governments are eager to add more renewables to the grid. New York City has been experimenting with tidal turbines in the East River, where Verdant Power recently sank in another 16-foot rotor. The location is ideal, with currents so strong the first rotors broke under the strain.
Startups will have to figure out how to make robust energy generators that can withstand the constant brutality of waves and currents — but if all that destructive energy can be captured and harnessed, it would be a huge new energy resource.
Will financial crisis take the shine off efficiency?
Society
by Adam Stein
I previously noted that the financial crisis is likely to be very bad news for renewable energy developers dependent upon access to credit for their cash-hungry projects. Geoffrey Styles points out that a credit crunch will also affect consumer-driven efficiency improvements (of the sort the my colleague Erin recently undertook):
If consumers can’t obtain attractive financing for more efficient appliances, heating systems, or rooftop solar power installations, the markets for those products will languish, and their aggregate impact on energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions will be less than hoped, at least for the next few years. That also applies to more efficient cars, especially those involving technologies that add significant up-front costs.
There are few different things going on here. One is that consumers often make large purchases on credit. As credit tightens, many will simply be unable to obtain that solar water heater, for lack of access to favorable loans.
A second issue is consumer confidence. There’s a tendency to simple hunker down when times are bad. And while generally consumption is thought to bring pressure on natural resources, the environmental math becomes trickier for products that are themselves consumers of energy. If you drive a 1983 Grand Cherokee, you do the world a favor by swapping it for a Prius.
A final problem is that the financial return on efficiency improvements actually drops when money becomes more expensive (that is, when interest rates go up). If you spend $1,000 on some new double-glazed windows that save you $100 a year in heating costs, you’ll make your money back in about 15 years, assuming a 5% interest rate. Why fifteen years and not ten? Because you could also put that $1,000 in the bank and get a nice 5% return. If the interest rate goes up to 10%, however, your investment in double-glazed windows will pay itself back…never.
On the flip side, if the credit crisis turns into a general recession, people will simply start using less energy to try to bring down their discretionary spending, much as they’ve curtailed driving in response to high gas prices. Unfortunately, such temporary cutbacks don’t offer much in the way of structural, long-lived solutions to greenhouse gas emissions. And more to the point, analysts aren’t really expecting the slowdown to affect carbon output very much.
Flush with less water
Conservation tips
by TerraPass
Making a few simple modifications to your toilet is an easy, low-cost way to start reducing water waste and your water bill, too! Here are some simple steps to creating a lower-flow toilet.
Put a few inches of gravel or pebbles in the bottom of an empty gallon jug. Fill the rest up with water and cap it. If you prefer slightly more water for flushing, use a smaller jug.
Remove the lid of the toilet tank and flush. Notice the location of the flushing mechanism.
Place the filled jug in the tank, making sure not to interfere with any part of the flushing mechanism.
Allow the toilet to fill back up.
If the jug floats a little, add more gravel to weigh it down.
Replace the toilet tank lid and use your toilet as normal.
Note: a brick is not recommended for sinking in the toilet tank, as it may eventually begin to deteriorate and could damage the toilet mechanism.
How this helps
Flushing with less water cuts your water use without compromising the effectiveness of your toilet. The effect is most dramatic if you have an older-model toilet (i.e. one that requires more than three gallons to flush). Although a toilet made after 1994 already uses only 1.6 gallons to flush, it’s still possible to further reduce this amount, but be wary of flushing with less than one gallon.
More information
Read this tip in full at GreenYour.com.
Related tips (from GreenYour.com)
This tip is reproduced with permission from GreenYour.com.
Are we running dry?
Society
by Pete Davies
A new documentary on water shortages in the U.S. will be screened on PBS early next month. The American Southwest: are we running dry? highlights the shortages in fresh water supplies to over 30 million Americans and investigates possible solutions to the problem.
Watch the trailer here.
High among the solutions is that old standby, conservation. Transport, storage and heating of water are all major energy suckers. We have noted on this blog before now that up to 30% of the carbon footprint of a southern California home is made up of energy used to transport water.
We’re increasing the range of water conservation products available through the TerraPass Green Store. Through out new partnership with Greenfeet.com we’re now offering an expanded selection of products including low-flow showerheads and shower timers.
And if you’re interested in a more academic (but still engaging!) approach to water scarcity issues, be sure to check out David Zetland’s Aguanomics. Zetland is a big proponent of better management of water property rights, a topic analogous in some ways to carbon credits.
What You Need to Know About the Senate Energy Bill
Craig Rubens - Hitlines
While there certainly is no ideal time to have one’s financial institutions come crumbling down, the collapse of America’s major banks was particularly poorly timed for those hoping to have the renewable energy credits extended before Congress adjourned. The Senate pushed back a vote from Friday to this week on the tax credits, but with the need to pass legislation on the financial bailout, the renewable tax credits could easily take a back seat. Meanwhile, the much touted bipartisan “Gang of 20″ has pulled their bill and plan to reintroduce it next year.
The Senate is set to take up debate of the energy bill the House just passed some time this week. House Democrats pushed through a bill last week with almost no Republican support that does extend the renewable energy credits but manages to simultaneously infuriate both the treehuggers and the “drill, baby, drill” contingent. The bill allows for offshore drilling 100 miles offshore, or 50 miles if states would allow it.
The clock is ticking as Congress is set to adjourn for the year at the end of this week. An appropriations bill must also be passed to keep the government funded beyond Oct. 1st when the governmental fiscal year ends. Republicans have threatened to block such a bill, effectively shutting the government down, if Democrats don’t vote to lift the ban on offshore drilling.
The renewable energy provisions to be debated were floated in the Senate’s “The Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008.” To see what’s at stake for cleantech, check out the energy stipulations after the jump.
Extension of the Production Tax Credit: The production tax credit for power generated via wind would be extended for one year and would extend for two years a similar credit for tidal and wave energy generation.
Extension of the Investment Tax Credit: The 30 percent tax credit for investing in solar, wind, geothermal and ocean energy equipment would be extended eight years, including residential solar installations.
Energy Efficiency Tax Credit: Homeowners could claim a 10 percent investment credit for eight years on energy efficiency measures like insulation and efficient windows, water heaters and heating and cooling equipment.
Plug-In Electric Cars Tax Credit: Consumers could collect a tax credit of $2,500 to $7,500 for the purchase of a plug-in electric car, depending on the capacity of the battery.
Clean Coal Tax Credits: $1.5 billion would be put toward “advanced coal electricity projects and certain coal gasification projects that demonstrate the greatest potential for carbon capture and sequestration.”
CO2 Capture Credit: The bill provides a $10 credit per ton for the first 75 million metric tons of CO2 captured used in enhanced oil recovery and $20 credit per ton for CO2 captured and permanently sequestered underground.
The Daily Sprout
Katie Fehrenbacher - Misc
Green Mobile Power!: The telecom trade group GSMA is calling for renewable power sources, like solar, wind and sustainable biofuels to power 118,000 off-grid base stations in developing countries by 2012 — release.
The Campaigns Debate Climate Change Plans: Well, not the candidates themselves, but their spokespersons — Douglas Holtz-Blackberry-Eakin for McCain and Yale professor Dan Esty for Obama — WSJ.
Drill Ditty: The Huffpost blogs on country singer Aaron Tippin’s (of Where the Stars and Stripes and the Eagle Fly fame) latest good ol’ oil drillin’ song: “Drill Here, Drill Now,”. A classic, we celebrate his entire collection. — Huffington Post.
Bill McKibben — Yes on Prop H: To all those San Francisco voters, environmentalist Bill McKibben says you should vote yes on San Francisco’s Clean Energy Act, Prop H. The Prop calls for 100 percent renewables in 3 decades. — Fog City Journal.
Senator Alexander Plugs-In Prius: Senator Lamar Alexander has become the latest plug-in Prius convert and spent $10,000 to convert his Prius with A123 Systems’s Hymotion plug-in kit — AutoblogGreen.
Surprise! Chrysler to Unveil Electric Car Plans
Tony Borroz - Automotive
Well this one caught a lot of people napping. Turns out that Chrysler actually has some electric vehicle plans of its own, and they plan to show them to their dealers this week. Update: Chrysler showed off an all electric Dodge EV, a range-extended Jeep and a minivan and plans for a city vehicle on Tuesday — no ecoVoyager, though. Check out our post here.
As far as American automakers are concerned, it’s not exactly the best of times. And after Chrysler was dumped by Daimler and then taken over by buyout firm Cerberus, a lot of gearheads started to think that the Big Three would soon be the Big Two.
But what's this? Not only is Chrysler showing signs of life, but it’s jumping into the EV game, and jumping in with both feet. Although the company is being secretive with the details, it does have plans to preview a number of eco-friendly cars to dealers this week, including possibly the Chrysler RE-EV ecoVoyager.
The ecoVoyager isn't the same kind of electric vehicle that is starting to hit the market via early movers like Tesla, or even series hybrids, like Chevy's Volt. Chrysler has chosen to work on a hydrogen fuel cell, a technology that’s been in the labs of car companies for years. Using hydrogen means no emissions, and hydrogen can be easily produced using a variety of means. Though it’s also one of the more expensive options out there, and after seeing the failed attempts of California to launch a “hydrogen highway,” fuel cell vehicles seem significantly farther away than other green car alternatives.
Here’s how the power train of the ecoVoyager’s hydrogen fuel cell works: There are two surprisingly powerful electric motors that send 268 HP to the front wheels. They get juice from a lithium-ion battery pack (which has a battery range of 40 miles) and the batteries get a charge via the hydrogen fuel cell, which keeps its hydrogen in two tanks under massive pressure at the very back of the vehicle. All these mechanical bits and bobs are mounted low, essentially beneath the floor, meaning the ecoVoyager is very space efficient and has room for four full-sized adults.
The vehicle itself is shaped like a swoopy, rounded minivan. Essentially it's a highly stylized one-box design reminiscent of a scarab (the insect, not the sports car), and has all the amenities that American drivers, circa 2008, are looking for (AC, radio, that sort of stuff).
Apart from actually bringing a working fuel cell vehicle to market, that styling could prove to be Chrysler’s biggest hurdle. Consumers can be notoriously fussy over styling; look at what happened to the Ford Edsel. And unlike Ford in the 50s, Chrysler also has to make the ecoVoyager (or any other green car) a viable economic proposition.
The ecoVoyager could be the car that puts Chrysler back in the game. Although the other car companies are focusing more on current EV technology, so the ecoVoyager could also set Chrysler back…again.
GreenVolts Concentrates on Utility Project With $30M
Craig Rubens - Hitlines
Like many of the company releases coming out about yet-to-be-built solar power plants, GreenVolts is claiming a world record with its GV1 installation, which it says will deliver “the world's largest non-silicon concentrating photovoltaic project.” The GV1 project is to be built on eight acres in Tracy, Calif. (Check it out on our map.) GreenVolts has signed a power purchase agreement with utility PG&E for 2 megawatts of power by 2009 from GV1, the first megawatt of which GreenVolts says it will deliver by the end of this year.
GreenVolts' technology uses dishes set on a rotating, dual-axis “CarouSol” which tracks the sun, harnessing its rays and concentrating them onto small but efficient solar cells. The company says its solar systems require less land and produce twice the energy of traditional solar panels. This round of funding comes from Oak Investment Partners. A year ago GreenVolts, winner of the 2006 California Clean Tech Open, raised $10 million in Series A fund from Greenlight Energy Resources and Avista.
Who's the Greenest U.S. City of them All? Portland
Katie Fehrenbacher - Hitlines
As the Mayor of San Jose showed us, cities are becoming very eager to implement green practices, and they can act as the first line of defense for fighting climate change. So, what are the greenest cities over all? According to researchers at SustainLane this morning, Portland, Ore., is the tops, followed by San Francisco, Seattle, Chicago and New York (check out their complete list of the 50 greenest cities).
SustainLane says the criteria includes issues such as air quality, clean energy, how residents commute to work, LEED buildings and green businesses. Portland has been working on a green vision since Oregon adopted a sweeping progressive land-use policy (PDF) in the early ’70s and is still working on getting all car trips — commute, home-to-store — to under 20 minutes, says SustainLane. The city’s focus on transit-oriented development, regional development, non-pipe stormwater management, successful redevelopment of the Pearl District, Recycle At Work program and Bicycle Master Plan are among the initiatives that have earned the city it’s green cred, and likely played a role in earning the SustainLane’s kudos.
The list is relatively unchanged since previous years, where Portland remained No. 1 and San Francisco, Seattle and Chicago filled in the rest of the top four stops. San Jose Mayor Reed can be happy to note that the city went up two in the rankings to 21, and New York, Boston and Minneapolis all moved up too. Oakland dropped several rankings, as did San Diego and Colorado Springs.
Electric Motorcycle Startup Raises Funds From Best Buy
Katie Fehrenbacher - Hitlines
Best Buy Capital hasn’t made many public investments (its formation made the news earlier this year because of discovered job postings), and an electric motorcycle doesn’t seem like a standard product to sell at one of its stores. But Brammo’s CEO Craig Bramscher told PEHub that its motorcycle can trend more toward being a consumer electronic than a vehicle.
The Enertia joins a growing list of new alternative electric vehicles that aren’t the standard four-wheeled cars, including VentureOne from Venture Vehicles, Aptera’s Typ-1 and the Vectrix. Prominent venture capitalists are backing both Venture Vehicles and Aptera; Brammo’s other investors include Chrysalix Energy Venture Capital.
San Jose Mayor to Cleantech Startups: Call Me!
Katie Fehrenbacher - Hitlines
The mayor of San Jose, Chuck Reed, has a message for all the cleantech startups out there — give him a call and let him know what you need. In a video interview with us Reed gives out his digits and tells green companies looking to do business — building plants, establishing headquarters — to come to San Jose and contact the city to see what kind of incentives are available. Reed says the city can move at the speed of business, which was the key to securing the new Tesla plant. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk told us in a previous interview that he was really surprised that the city of San Jose could move so quickly, “almost like a commercial operation.”
Check out our video on how Reed intends to turn San Jose into the cleantech capital of the world, with a Green Vision plan that calls for 25,000 cleantech jobs, reduced per capita energy consumption by 50 percent and 100 percent of the city’s electricity from clean power, all within 15 years.
Making good on a resolution
Science & Technology
by Erin Craig
We had a very exciting evening at my house yesterday. At about 6:30 pm, my husband interrupted my post-run shower to tell me that the our hot water heater’s inlet pipe — the one that fills the water heater from the City’s supply lines — was hot.
“You actually put your hand on it?” I said, a bit incredulously.
“No, no, on the insulation,” he assured me. “The insulation is just warm, I’m sure the pipe is very hot.”
This was good news. It meant that as my shower depleted the hot water tank, it was being replenished with water that was already hot.
Not to be outdone, I waited until his post-exercise shower was finished, then went out to the garage and listened closely. No whooshing natural gas noise.
“Hey,” I shouted. “The water heater isn’t heating!”
I repeated this ritual no fewer than 3 more times over the course of the evening. I did it when my daughter took her shower. And when the dishwasher was running through its first cycle. And when it was running through some other cycle, just to be sure.
Throughout the evening, the water heater performed perfectly, delivering nice hot water without ever tripping the temperature sensor (usually tripped by cold water coming in from the city to replenish the warm water we use from the tank). As a result, the natural gas flame never ignited and we enjoyed fossil-fuel-free hot water.
The joys of a solar water heating in action!
As I noted in an earlier blog post, I pledged to install a solar water heating system as my New Year’s resolution. My utility enacted an incentive program enabled by a recent state law, and mine was the first project installed under that program by my contractor.
I learned a few things about solar water heaters. The concept is extremely simple: divert the incoming city water to your roof, let it get hot up there, then send it down “pre-heated” to your existing water heater. Indeed my neighbor has a jury-rigged system that does exactly and only that; they’ve piped the city water up top where a long, rugged, black hose snakes back and forth several times before returning to a joint which send the water down to the water heater. This arrangement probably cost a few hundred dollars (including labor) many years ago, and I assume it has served them well.
That system has several pitfalls, however. The water in the big black hose can freeze. The hose can degrade and leak. Squirrels can chew on it. I suspect it wouldn’t pass a building inspection, and perhaps most importantly, it doesn’t make the best use of the sun’s energy.
Among modern engineered systems, there are two broad categories: passive systems and active ones. Passive installations are similar to my neighbor’s in that the city’s water pressure is the only source of energy required to move water through the system. Turn on a hot water faucet and the water moves. No electricity needed, no moving parts. Active systems, on the other hand, use a pump which circulates either the water or a heat-transfer fluid (like antifreeze) up into the sun and down into the water tank. Since it uses a pump, active systems can include electronic controllers which optimize the system’s efficiency and minimize the need for the fossil-fuel system to kick in. Heat-transfer fluid systems are great in areas where the temperature routinely drops below freezing.
Since I live in temperate northern California, I chose a passive system (pdf). It’s less expensive and I like the fact that there’s virtually nothing to maintain. My water moves through a series of copper tubes treated with a selective surface coating, all contained within a collector panel. The collector panel is designed to minimize heat loss and positioned to maximize sun exposure.
We’re thrilled with our system. We’ll benefit from a federal solar tax credit (available for systems installed before December 31) as well as our utility rebate. All-in, my cost will be about $3,800 and will pay back in about 7 years.
To tackle global warming, California takes aim at sprawl
Politics
by Adam Stein
California, long on the vanguard of battles over land use, is poised to pass legislation that would harmonize regional planning efforts with the state’s overarching goal of reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The most ambitious anti-sprawl legislation in the country, the bill seeks to coordinate housing, transit, and commercial development to reduce the impact of growth on the environment.
Coincidentally, I happen to be in the middle of Robert Bruegmann’s Sprawl: A Compact History. Although not quite pro-sprawl, the book is decidedly anti-anti-sprawl, portraying efforts at shaping or controlling land use as largely the outgrowth of shifting and highly subjective aesthetic standards that disregard the desire of ordinary citizens for privacy, mobility, and choice. In this view, the automobile, bete noir of sprawl antagonists, has merely made the timeless privileges of the affluent few available to the middle-class many. Without entirely dismissing the problems associated with sprawl, Bruegmann suggests that many of the proposed solutions are destined to fail, either because complex urban systems respond in unexpected ways to simplistic planning measures, or because such measures offer fragile levees against so strong a flood of consumer desire for room to stretch out.
Although Bruegmann’s argument is thin in places, the book does raise useful questions about how, when, and even why to try to shape the development of our cities and their surroundings. Such questions are helpful in clarifying goals and focusing legislative efforts toward areas they are most likely to have a positive impact (and least likely to do harm).
In many respects, California’s new regulations start in a strong place. They have a clear and quantifiable aim: the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, particularly those from transportation. Further, the regulations avoid a one-size-fits-all approach, as they must in a state as large and diverse as California. Instead, local governments will submit regional plans to state officials, who have billions of dollars of infrastructure funding to grant as incentives.
Further, the bill unites a diverse coalition of often adversarial groups. Developers, affordable housing advocates, and environmentalists (with some notable holdouts) have rallied around the legislation’s balance of carrots and sticks.
None of this, of course, guarantees that the submitted plans or the liberal application of government money will have the desired effect of bringing about low-emissions development. It’s worth keeping in mind that price levers are often a far better way of exerting pressure on complex systems than imposing direct controls. High gas prices are already slowing or reversing certain long-standing patterns of growth. Carbon pricing, gas taxes, congestion charges — all are effective tools for bringing direct reductions in greenhouse gas emissions while avoiding possibly inefficient, restrictive, or just ineffective mandates.
This may be the most important point in favor of California’s new planning regulations: they take place in the context of a set of energy policies designed to align consumer incentives with the broader planning effort. If the effort succeeds, California will likely once again set the pattern for other states to follow. If it fails, it will force urban planners to take a harder look at the tools in their toolbox.
Does the air-powered car really work?
Science & Technology
by Adam Stein
Zero Pollution Motors is drumming up press again, with claims that an improved version of its “air-powered car” can travel 848 miles on a single tank of compressed air.
The comments in response to the New York Times article run to the skeptical side (“I bet it can fly too”), which seems a little bit ironic, because — unlike the water-powered car — the air-powered car is a perfectly respectable piece of technology. As air is released from a compression tank, it drives an engine that moves the lightweight foam-and-fiberglass vehicle. A similar idea is being contemplated on a much grander scale to generate steady electricity from intermittent wind or solar energy.
The question is not whether the air-powered car works, but whether it works well enough. As an energy storage mechanism, compressed air has certain built-in advantages over lithium ion batteries. An air tank is far cheaper than a battery, quicker to charge, and easy to maintain.
On the flip side, the air-powered car suffers from the same problems that have doomed so many other attempts to move beyond the internal combustion engine: limited range and a lack of refueling infrastructure. Zero Pollution Motors claims to have addressed the range issue with the addition of a small fuel-powered heater, which boosts the efficiency of the air engine. Although the heater gives the lie to the “zero pollution” claim, such a system still represents a considerable efficiency improvement over conventional gasoline-driven cars.
Nevertheless, skepticism is warranted. The company has been claiming that production versions of the air-powered car are just around the corner since 2000. This time, the claims might be better grounded in reality, but other companies haven’t been sitting still. In 2010, Zero Pollution Motors may be battling GM and others for dominance in the clean car market.
How to decipher the recycling numbers on plastic stuff
Society
by Erik Blachford
You know those little numbers inside the recycling symbol on the bottom of plastic bottles and containers? Well, the other day when I read that those numbered with a 7 might contain BPA, and therefore not be suitable for my kids to use, I realized that I hadn’t a clue how to decipher the numbers. Which made me think that perhaps I should learn, and share.
Most plastics in the US are labeled with the numbers 1 through 7, in line with the code developed in 1988 by the Society of the Plastics Industry. The numbers refer to the type of polymer used to produce the plastic in question. You would think, given the use of the recycling “chasing arrows” around the numbers, that the numbers refer directly to the plastics’ use in recycling, but they don’t.
And that is what has confused matters. I wish I could tell you that it’s OK to put only certain numbers into your local blue box recycling program, or that it’s OK to put all kinds in, but the reality is that it differs from municipality to municipality. In general, it seems that a number 1 or a number 2 symbol is the lowest common denominator when it comes to recycling — most every program can handle stuff with those codes.
There’s a full list with a lot of detail here, but in general you can be pretty sure that plastic containers for soda, water, and food are recyclable, as are laundry detergent and shampoo bottles. OK, but what about everything else?
Here in San Francisco, I get the following joyous proclamation from the good folks at SF Recycling — “The days of looking for numbers contained in the recycling symbol on plastic containers are over in San Francisco!” That’s heartening. Now we can just put in everything except plastic bags and other film plastics in the blue box.
I’m afraid that you’ll have to look up your own local recycling service to find out your local rules. Don’t have one? Start one up!
When you are on the road and away from your home rules, you can be pretty sure that 1’s and 2’s are always recyclable (except bags).
And if you are vexed by the question of how clean the plastics need to be, don’t fret too much about it. They don’t have to be dishwasher clean, but it’s best if they are thoroughly rinsed. Most of them end up in applications like plastic lumber, where the blemishes and imperfections brought on by having some foreign matter in the recycling tank don’t matter so much. That said, since most recycling centers still do a lot of separation work by hand, you are doing the workers a real favor by rinsing.
I do have one remaining question. How much of what I drop into the blue box actually gets recycled? I bring it up because the Coop America web site suggests that perhaps ONLY the 1’s and 2’s do:
While the materials that are technically capable of being recycled don’t vary from place to place, … there are a range of tactics that municipalities use to maximize citizen participation in recycling. For example, some municipalities that do not recycle any plastics #3-7 nonetheless advise citizens to put all plastics #1-7 into their recycling bins, out of the belief that more people will participate if they don’t have too many complicated rules to follow. Then the MRF fishes out whatever they cannot recycle and sends it to a landfill or incinerator.
And reader Jane Martin helpfully provides the scoop on our local recycling program in San Francisco:
SF sends our #2,4 and 5 plastic to Lodi, CA to a company called Epic Plastics. They produce primarily bender board or plastic lumber.
The #1,3, 6 are being bailed and shipped to China. China is paying for the material, and they are not burning it, rather they are sorting it and melting it down into plastic pellets that are then remolded into recycled plastic products much of which is then sold back into the United States. Many times the products are not being labeled as having recycled content.
Pictures of Ike
Society
by Adam Stein
Ike was apparently not as bad as it could have been, but these pictures of the devastation are nevertheless astounding.
AP Photo/Pool, Smiley N. Pool
There’s a debate going around on whether environmentalists have gone too far in linking extreme weather events to global warming, or whether they haven’t gone far enough.
AP Photo/David J. Phillip
I’ll keep my opinion to myself, and instead make the high-minded point that we surely do need to get a lot more serious about adaptation to global warming’s effects.
AP Photo/Richard Alan Hannon
A large amount of climate change is already baked into the system, and as events such as hurricanes make clear, the human toll can be enormous, even in wealthy countries like the U.S.
AP Photo/Matt Slocum
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