Telling Stories

Solar Energy For Everyone! (Sort of)

The biggest hurdle in the refinement of solar energy, and energy in general, is the inability to store electricity in a cost-effective manner.  An MIT crew appears to have taken a giant leap towards addressing this issue.  Via Informed Comment:

In a revolutionary leap that could transform solar power from a marginal, boutique alternative into a mainstream energy source, MIT researchers have overcome a major barrier to large-scale solar power: storing energy for use when the sun doesn't shine.

Inspired by the photosynthesis performed by plants, Nocera and Matthew Kanan, a postdoctoral fellow in Nocera's lab, have developed an unprecedented process that will allow the sun's energy to be used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen gases. Later, the oxygen and hydrogen may be recombined inside a fuel cell, creating carbon-free electricity to power your house or your electric car, day or night.

Sunlight has the greatest potential of any power source to solve the world's energy problems, said Nocera. In one hour, enough sunlight strikes the Earth to provide the entire planet's energy needs for one year.

James Barber, a leader in the study of photosynthesis who was not involved in this research, called the discovery by Nocera and Kanan a "giant leap" toward generating clean, carbon-free energy on a massive scale.

"This is a major discovery with enormous implications for the future prosperity of humankind," said Barber, the Ernst Chain Professor of Biochemistry at Imperial College London. "The importance of their discovery cannot be overstated since it opens up the door for developing new technologies for energy production thus reducing our dependence for fossil fuels and addressing the global climate change problem."

Emphasis added.  In many places, these developments may make power plants either a thing of the past or will dramatically reduce the need for them.  Furthermore, if you're producing your own oxygen and hydrogen at home, this development may make it all the more possible for fuel cell vehicles to be used just like every other combustion vehicle.

Wonderful news indeed.

Gas and Energy Prices Got You Down? Use Less

This surprisingly obvious and surprisingly efficient advice comes from the Alliance to Save Energy:

NEW YORK (CNNMoney.com) -- Want to help the country save a quick million barrels of oil a day? Drive 5% less. Slow down. Inflate your tires.

Those three steps would reduce U.S. oil consumption by 1.3 million barrels a day immediately, according to the Alliance to Save Energy, a conservation group running an efficiency campaign backed not only by environmental groups but also the auto and oil industries.

That's nearly twice the estimated daily oil production that could come from drilling in the Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, according to the government's Energy Information Administration.

Emphasis added.  See?  The small stuff matters too!!!  And these are things anyone with a car can do.  Want some handy facts that will make you sound both intelligent and informed?

The United States consumes 20 million barrels of oil a day, nearly 10 million of which goes to making gasoline. The world gobbles up 85 million barrels of oil in all.

To boost supply, many want OPEC to bring more crude to market and to open up more U.S. areas to drilling - off the coastlines and in Alaska.

But OPEC countries are already pumping vigorously: Last week, Saudi Arabia could come up with only an additional 200,000 barrels a day. Getting from the country's current output of around 9 million barrels a day to over 12 million barrels a day - their target over the next few years - will take time. Some analysts don't even think it can be done.

As for drilling more in the United States, years or decades are required to build the necessary pumping platforms and pipelines.

Eventually, experts say opening up all the areas currently closed to drilling might yield between 1.5 million and 3 million barrels a day, although those numbers are extremely rough estimates.

That ought to be enough to keep friends and foes chatting for a while.

An Ignorant Mind is a Terrible Thing

I was checking out some latest polling from Rasmussen on offshore drilling.  Two findings stand out:

A new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey—conducted before McCain announced his intentions on the issue--finds that 67% of voters believe that drilling should be allowed off the coasts of California, Florida and other states. Only 18% disagree and 15% are undecided. Conservative and moderate voters strongly support this approach, while liberals are more evenly divided (46% of liberals favor drilling, 37% oppose).

No surprise there.  This, however, is pretty revealing.

Sixty-four percent (64%) of voters believe it is at least somewhat likely that gas prices will go down if offshore oil drilling is allowed, although 27% don’t believe it. Seventy-eight percent (78%) of conservatives say offshore drilling is at least somewhat likely to drive prices down. That view is shared by 57% of moderates and 50% of liberal voters.

Emphasis added.  Some people don't know that

[a] 2007 Department of Energy study found that access to coastal energy deposits would not add to domestic crude oil and natural gas production before 2030 and that the impact on prices would be “insignificant.”

Emphasis added.  We have to wonder whether this is the best possible expenditure of time and effort.  Do we really want to risk the environmental harm associated with offshore drilling for relief that won't come for more than two decades down the road?  We can accomplish so many other things in terms of developing alternative energy sources between now and then.  We can do more to reduce our dependency on oil - foreign or domestic - if we raise the CAFE standards and we continue to provide tax incentives for hybrid and other similar vehicles.

Heck, if we can develop a cost-effective way to produce hydrogen, we can switch to fuel cell vehicles and (1) end most of our dependency on oil, (2) improve air quality, and (3) reduce the emission of greenhouse gases all in one fell swoop.

You want something done sooner?  Lets help stabilize Iraq and get oil production going.  Not quite the way I described on my previous post, but lets help create the conditions in Iraq that will allow this to happen.  Not with a bunch of multinationals and 60 U.S. bases to protect their interest.  That will have a greater effect than offshore drilling.

But most people don't know this because they are ignorant, and I mean it in the general sense of lacking knowledge of all the facts, not in the "they are dumb" sense.

Of course, the alternative is to give people what they ask for.  Let them open up the coasts to oil exploration, and watch the price of oil . . . stay the same or rise.

The Problem With Obama's "Cap & Trade & Auction"

While doing some research for a post on the Democratic candidates' positions on immigration, posted over at Latino Pundit, I did come across Obama's position on reducing carbon emissions.

Cap and Trade: Obama supports implementation of a market-based cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions by the amount scientists say is necessary: 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Obama's cap-and-trade system will require all pollution credits to be auctioned. A 100 percent auction ensures that all polluters pay for every ton of emissions they release, rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies. Some of the revenue generated by auctioning allowances will be used to support the development of clean energy, to invest in energy efficiency improvements, and to address transition costs, including helping American workers affected by this economic transition.

Emphasis added.  My first impression was: "Great! Auction all the credits and make money off of it!  It's a win-win!"

Then I thought about it.  And I thought about it some more.  And some more.

And I've reached the conclusion that it's not only "not great" but it's a really awful idea.

Some very general background is appropriate before continuing this discussion.  A "cap & trade" program essentially works like this.  First, a cap on the emissions for a given pollutant is set.  How you set that cap is a discussion for another entry or three, but if you feel particularly wonky, you can check out this feasibility study for a U.S. - Canada cap-and-trade system for NOx and SO2.  Once the cap is set, each sector and each emitting entity know how much carbon they can emit and how many credits are available.  If they are projected to exceed that amount, then they have to either buy credits or they can make improvements to their facilities so that they reduce their emissions to the maximum allowable levels.

In some cases, an entity can make improvements that result in that entity emitting less than the maximum amount they are allowed to emit.  This amount under the maximum becomes a credit that the entity can then sell to another entity that needs the credits to be in compliance with the law.  Alternatively, the entity may want to keep those credits if they plan to expand its operations and feel they need the credit.  So, a "cap-&-trade" system lets the marketplace and the businesses determine who retrofits and who buys credits.

Under Obama's plan, all credits are to be auctioned.  All of a sudden, these industries really don't have any incentive to do more than the minimum because doing so doesn't give them any benefits.  Those "credits" would have to be auctioned off and its would be the federal government, not the industries, who would reap that profit.  That's the first problem.

Then there's the auction.  What kind of an auction will it be?  A free-for-all?  If that's the case, you will have the wealthiest companies buying out all the credits so they can turn around and trade them at a premium.  Instead of letting the market determine who does what, you're creating a system that will tend to concentrate those credits in a comparatively small number of companies.

On the other hand, if it is not a free-for-all auction and companies can only buy what they need, what is there left to trade?  All companies would be required to make improvements, reduce their operations, or close down altogether.

Then there's this:

rather than giving these emission rights away to coal and oil companies.

That really is not a problem at all because . . . carbon reduction is carbon reduction.  If a company has more credit than it needs, it means that the reduction you want from coal and oil companies has already been taken care of.  Giving oil and coal companies those credits isn't going to "bust the cap."  And as long as we have overall reduction in carbon emissions, why should we care where those reductions come from?

And while we would get more money to put towards research, it would, IMHO, be at the expense of creating real problems for these industries.

Until I hear more on these issues, I'll be very, very, leery of this proposal.

Tags: Energy, Environment, Politics

Global Warming Deniers

I find it hard to believe that there are still some people out there who either deny that global warming is real or who think it's not a big deal.

But they're still out there.

So, as a public service to you should you need to discuss with/argue with/beat-over-the-head-with-facts someone who's not as informed or as open-minded as he/she should be, I'd like to direct you to this article at Gristmill.  It provides an answer to every question I could think of and then some on this issue.  The title?  "How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic."  Trust me.  It's worth checking it out.

Tags: Environment,

Why We're Lagging on Ethanol

We're not putting our money where our mouth is.  Via Technology Review:

Cellulosic ethanol, a fuel produced from the stalks and stems of plants (rather than only from sugars and starches, as with corn ethanol), is starting to take root in the United States. This month, Celunol, based in Cambridge, MA, broke ground on an ethanol plant in Louisiana that will be able to produce 1.4 million gallons of the fuel each year starting in 2008. Other companies are moving forward as well with plans to build plants.

But experts from industry and environmental groups say that without loan guarantees and other incentives, the nascent industry will fail to emerge from the current demonstration phase to produce commercial-scale quantities of ethanol. And without that, it may be impossible to meet President Bush's ambitious goal of producing 35 billion gallons of renewable fuels a year by 2017.

Emphasis added.  Now compare this news item with this one:

RIO DE JANEIRO, Brazil: Brazil's state-run oil company Petroleo Brasileiro SA, or Petrobras, is aiming to make cellulosic ethanol commercially viable within the next decade, a company executive said Thursday.

"There is no industrial-scale production of cellulosic ethanol anywhere in the world today, as its production cost is higher than that of ethanol from sugarcane or corn," said Carlos Tadeu Fraga, executive manager at the company's Cenpes research center in Rio de Janeiro.

"Our objective is to reach a competitive price in the coming decade," Fraga said.

Emphasis added.  See, Brazil has been way ahead of the curve when it comes to ethanol research and production.  And they are aware that cellulosic ethanol is the wave of the future, or, at least, the near future.  And they are putting their money into developing techniques to produce cellulosic ethanol.

Not that ethanol is the be-all and end-all of alternative fuels.  Rather, as I mentioned here, ethanol is a nice transitional fuel while we develop other more effective alternative energy technologies.

But we have to start researching this in earnest now.  Not when gasoline is $5/gal.

Tags: Economics, Environment, Energy

Screwing Up On Ethanol, Again!

I've stated previously that I believe that ethanol is a nice, transitional step towards weening our country off oil and increasing national security.  I've also noted that we need so much ethanol to make any kind of progress in reducing our oil dependency that the 100% tariff on foreign ethanol makes no sense and only benefits the large-scale, commercial corn growers.

Well, it seem that Brazil, who's been developing ethanol technology for far longer than we have, will be leading the way again.  Check this news item:

Green Plains Renewable Energy, Inc. . . which began its Shenandoah plant operations on August 23, 2007, produced its first batch of ethanol yesterday and will have sufficient quantities for shipment by early next week.

The Shenandoah plant will have an annual capacity to produce approximately 50 million gallons of ethanol and 160,000 tons of distillers grains from approximately 18 million bushels of corn. The plant employs 37 full-time people. Fagen, Inc. constructed the plant and ICM, Inc. provided the process technology design.

Emphasis added.  Corn ethanol again.  That is the overwhelming source of ethanol being developed right now in the U.S.

Now check this out:

Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras . . .said on Tuesday it expects to reach large scale cellulosic ethanol production in 2015, with the first plant entering operations as early as 2011. . .

Experts say biofuel from cellulose could be a breakthrough as it would potentially raise ethanol production with the same cane area, through the use of biomass leftovers.

It could also allow a wider range of materials to be used for biofuel, which would take some demand pressure off of crops like corn and relieve consumer food price inflation.

"There are people investing a lot of money in this, so we have to be positioned.  We have to develop the project, have clients, conquer the market for when we have the lignocellulosic ethanol. So we better be fast," [Petrobras' new projects manager, Gilberto Ribeiro de Carvalho] said.

Emphasis added.  If ethanol is to have any kind of future, it will have to be through cellulosic ethanol.  The thing is that, just like you need to have different processes to distill ethanol from sugar cane and from corn, you'll probably need to have different processes to distill ethanol from diverse cellulosic materials.  Brazil is starting to figure out how to do it.  But here, in the U.S. we can't grow enough sugar cane.  So we need to start looking at what could be used for cellulosic ethanol (switchgrass anybody?) and how to get it done.

But we're not doing that.  So, in 20 years or so, you'll hear people complain about how much we depend on foreign ethanol.

Tags: Economics, Environment, Energy

Grass-Fed Beef

I decided to try grass-fed beef over the weekend.  There were a couple of considerations involved but, primarily, I wanted to try it because it is supposed to be healthier for you, healthier for the cows (if they are going to get slaughtered anyhow, they might as well live healthy, you know), and better for the environment.  I also read that grass-fed beef didn't taste like regular beef, so I wondered what it would taste like.

I bought a pound of grass-fed ground beef and a pound of grass-fed pork bacon.  Wife wasn't nearly as exited about trying this as I was, however.  Her words, or close to it, were, "why do we have to try this f***ing tree-hugger sh*t?"  Suffice to say that, in my household, I need to have environmental consciousness for two.

Saturday we had grass-fed burgers on the grill.  Wife was not amused.  Personally, I think that if I had served her the burger without telling her what it was, she would not have complained.  She didn't like it and she said that, from now on, I can have whatever I want, including "that tree-hugger sh*t," but she was having store-bought, irradiated, beef.  And that's why I, after Sunday's eggs and grass-fed bacon breakfast, have nearly a pound of grass-fed bacon in my refrigerator.

Anyhow, here's my $0.02 on grass-fed beef.  The texture of the ground beef was a little different than grain-fed-store-bought meat.  It was much leaner than I expected.  Your average ground beef at the grocery store is either 80-85% lean.  This felt closer to 90-95%.  But get this: it was moist.  It wasn't dry at all.  I think it had a somewhat different flavor to it, but the burger had so much stuff in it - ketchup, dry onion flakes, dry onion soup mix, one egg, and oatmeal - that it was hard to tell for sure.  Personally, I was very much satisfied with it and - budget permitting - will do so as often as I can in the future.

I liked the bacon, and I'm not really a bacon fan to begin with.  It had a nice, semi-sweet aroma and it was just as good as the store-bought stuff.  I can't say I'll buy it again, though, since I'm not really that big on bacon.  But I would not hesitate to eat it again.

Tags: Food and Drink, Environment

Why Ford Sucks

A couple of days ago it was announced that Toyota again edged all other car makers in U.S. sales:

Toyota again emerged as the best-selling brand in the U.S. during June, edging out Ford, while GM's Chevrolet brand fell to third. For the first six months of 2007, Chevrolet still holds the top-brand honors but Toyota has mounted a strong challenge, grabbing the second spot from the Ford brand, which fell to third during the January-June period and saw its sales drop another 8.6 percent in June.

Part of the problem is that Ford just doesn't get with the program.  It is undeniable that the days of cheap gasoline are over.  I think it was about five or six years ago when I last saw gas under a dollar.  Those days are not coming back.  Period.

It is also undeniable that, as gasoline prices increase, fuel-efficient hybrid vehicles like the Toyota Prius and the Honda Civic Hybrid have become more appealing to consumers, despite their comparatively higher price.  And the next step in this evolution is the plug-in hybrid: a vehicle that can be recharged from an electricity plug at home and can run exclusively on electricity for some distance - or time, depending on traffic - before kicking into gasoline-electric mode.  This next step is closer than most people think.

But don't tell Ford about it.

ROSEMEAD, California (Reuters) -- Ford Motor Company Chief Executive Alan Mulally says he expects the company to sell plug-in hybrids in five to 10 years.

"Within five to 10 years we will start to see this technology in our hands," Mulally said on the sidelines of a press event to announce an alliance between Ford and utility Southern California Edison to test 20 rechargeable electric vehicles.

Emphasis added.  Five to ten years?  Excuse me?  This technology already exists!  While Ford would start selling plug-ins by 2012 at the earliest and by 2017 at the latest, this is what's going on today:

Imagine a car that powers your home during a blackout. Or one that produces so much extra energy, the utility company pays you.

Stop imagining.

PG&E, joining a growing number of advocates for plug-in hybrid cars, will showcase a converted Toyota Prius at an alternative energy gathering in Sunnyvale today. The investor-owned utility, which appears to be the first in the United States to demonstrate a car that can power a home, says customers will be able to use plug-ins to cut greenhouse gas emissions as well as high home-energy bills.

Prices for plug-in hybrids are expected to range from $3,000 to $5,000 more than conventional hybrids, which would mean cars such as the Toyota Prius would be in the high $20,000 price range, said Bill Van Amburg, senior vice president for the industry trade group CALSTART.

The small number of plug-ins on the road today are custom-converted vehicles, much like PG&E's tricked-out Prius.

Emphasis added.

These entities have already reached that technological goal - converted Prius are proof-positive - and are moving towards a much more ambitious goal.

But Ford wants to wait until 2012.  Or 2017.  Maybe it has something to do with this.

The Senate’s adoption of the first major increases in fuel economy standards in a generation could spell big trouble for the already struggling US auto industry. The measure, which still has to be passed by the House of Representatives, would require automakers to raise fuel economy standards for cars, pickup trucks and SUVs to 35 miles per gallon by 2020.

In other words, Ford won't act until it definitely has to.  No foresight.  No vision.  No creativity.

No future.

Tags: Economics, Environment, Energy

How Did This Happen?

Via Yahoo! (Yippeee!!!)

Missing: Large lake in southern Chile

SANTIAGO (Reuters) - A lake in southern Chile has mysteriously disappeared, prompting speculation the ground has simply opened up and swallowed it whole.

The lake was situated in the Magallanes region in Patagonia and was fed by water, mostly from melting glaciers.

It had a surface area of between 4 and 5 hectares (10-12 acres) -- about the size of 10 soccer pitches.

"In March we patrolled the area and everything was normal ... we went again in May and to our surprise we found the lake had completely disappeared," said Juan Jose Romero, regional director of Chile's National Forestry Corporation CONAF.

"The only things left were chunks of ice on the dry lake-bed and an enormous fissure," he told Reuters.

CONAF is investigating the disappearance.

One theory is that the area was hit by an earth tremor that opened a crack in the ground which acted like a drain.

Southern Chile has been shaken by thousands of minor earth tremors this year.

These before-and-after pictures are pretty shocking, you know.  Hopefully there's a scientific explanation for this that doesn't involve aliens stealing our water.

Tags: Environment