Possible Fire Risk Puts Popular Approval of Electric Vehicles at Risk

http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2011/11/the-explosive-story-that-could-burn-electric-cars/249288/

This article from The Atlantic reports on a pending US government investigation into the possibility that the lithium ion batteries in the Chevrolet Volt pose a fire risk after they are exposed to traumatic impact.

I found this article to be insightful in pointing out the importance of perception of a given technology, and the direct relationship that a positive perception of a new technology has on its potential for wide-scale public adoption.

The electric car, as represented by the Volt, is experiencing a potential technical difficulty with regards to the possibility of fire. However, the real difficult that it faces is that this incident might stick in the public's mind so that whenever electric cars are brought up, the response is a negative association with the Volt's potential fire risks. Whether those risks materialize in wide-scale damage is immaterial - the real damage will have already been done to electric vehicles' public image. Understandably, then GM, Chevrolet's parent company, has been very active recently in addressing all of the concerns associated with this issue. It's resolution will mean big things for the future of the electric car.

-Clay Ramel

Maui Sees Smart Grid as Key to Renewable Future

In order to satisfy Hawaiʻiʻs very aggressive 70% renewable portfolio by 2030, the Maui Electric Company (MECO) has officially chosen Silver Springs Networks (in conjunction with the University of Hawaiʻi) to design the Maui Smart Grid Project. It will be interesting to see how well MECO is able to incorporate renewables into their grid because of the many cultural/NIMBY concerns that are associated with Hawaiian land.

If you want to read more of the article, check this out.

Kanoa OʻConnor

Jet Stream Winds Can't Actually Be Used

So, unfortunately it seems as if the upper-atmospheric jet stream cannot be used after all to count towards renewable energy generation. Apparently because of the absence of significant friction, it takes very little power to accelerate and maintain the jet stream. If we were to put turbines up there, we'd be wasting time and we may actually slow those upper-level winds down.

So much for those tethered wind farms...

Check the article here.

-Kaipo

EU to impose oil embargo against Iran??

Due to recent nuclear proliferation concerns in Iran outlined in a UN nuclear agency report France is pushing for an EU oil embargo on Iran. The recent storming of the British embassy in Tehran by Iranian "students" may increase pressure on Tehran from Europe. Italy, Spain and Greece account for 80 percent of Iranian oil imports in the EU and officials in Madrid and Rome have expressed opposition to the potential embargo. Paris has garnered the support of Berlin and London for such a move. Prices of heavy, sour oil similar to Iran's such as Urals, the Russian crude, have surged in anticipation of action by the EU.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/e0e7b672-1aa7-11e1-ae14-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1fDJFfrAm

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/ac75d732-16c6-11e1-bc1d-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1fDJFfrAm

- Ryan Triolo

Sarkozy Defends Nuclear Power

As France approaches its presidential elections, debate around the future of nuclear power within the country is starting to heat up. Last week, Sarkozy visited a nuclear power plant in the south France and reiterated his commitment to nuclear power. Sarokozy's comments come in stark contrast to other European nations. In the wake of the Fukushima disaster in Japan, Germany decided to shutdown its nuclear plants and Italy chose to cancel its plans to revive nuclear energy. France has a total of 58 reactors which supply 75% of the country's electricity. It's the world's second largest user of nuclear power behind the US. France's socialist party has vowed to cut France's nuclear dependence to 50% by 2025 -- Sarkozy argues that this would disastrous consequences on the nation's economy.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204452104577059954126364724.html?KEYWORDS=energy+independence+us

- Ab Gupta

US on Track to be Net Exporter of Petroleum Products

For the first time in 62 years, the US is on track to be a net exporter of petroleum products according to an article recently published by the WSJ. The change is largely due to the increasing demand from emerging economies and the slowly demand domestically. According to data provided by the US Energy Administration, the US sent abroad 753.4M barrels of oil-related products (such as gasoline and jet fuel) and it imported 689.4 barrels during the first 9 months of the year. Domestic production has increased significantly in recent years thanks to new sources of oil in North Dakota and Texas. The article does not go into detail of how we may have shifted our energy consumption to other sources but it highlights an interesting shift nonetheless.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203441704577068670488306242.html

-Ab Gupta

Africa's East Coast Potential Hotbed for Natural Gas

The Wall Street Journal reported today that Anadarko Petroleum, a Texas-based energy company, had revised its estimate for gas within its discovery area off the eastern shore of Africa from 6 trillion cubic feet to upwards of 30 trillion cubic feet (enough to satisfy US gas consumption for one year). The revision places a significant spotlight on the region, particularly given the rising popularity of natural gas as a substitute for coal as a cleaner-form of energy. Experts believe that Africa could become a major gas hub for Asia and other far Eastern markets.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203935604577065791838220060.html

- Ab Gupta

Coal power versus solar energy - which has a greater impact?

Filmmaker Matt Palmer, who in 2005 made a documentary on the Canadian oil sands called Pay Dirt, is working on a new project called the Unintended Consequences Documentary Project. The goal of the film is to increase the "energy literacy" of the general public. The idea is to present an unbiased, factual view on the entire picture of energy systems, both old and new. The quotes in the article seem to suggest that Palmer is skeptical of renewable energy options, at least as they have been portrayed in the media (although the author, or Palmer himself, may have chosen to portray this view to create interest).

The website for the project shows that they have raised less than $9,000 for the project, while their goal is $250,000 with 11 days left, so it seems unlikely that this will be made anytime in the near future. If it is ever made, it seems like it may line up well with the goals of the Energy Resources class.

Oil sands a ‘great Canadian development’: Governor General

Canadian Governor General David Johnston dismisses the environmental impact of exploiting the oil sands in Canada as more of a public relations issue than a real problem. He is encouraging the industry to focus on promoting the improvement of this impact, relative to conventional sources of oil.

“What we need is a campaign to say, ‘Yeah, it is more challenging, it does put more burden on our environment to exploit oilsands than just putting a straw down with oil that runs freely. But here is what we’re doing to reduce that burden year, by year, by year so that we’re going to get the additional cost to the environment as low as possible’.”

Energy Resource Giant Rio Tinto Set to Aquire Large Uranium Deposit in Canada

Rio Tinto has outbid Cameco, the world's largest uranium producer, for the purchase of Hathor Exploration which owns a large, undeveloped uranium deposit in Saskatchewan, Canada. The bid recently raised to C$654 million (approximately US$631 million) outbidding Cameco. Cameco has indicated that they will not raise their offer. The Financial Times reports that there is opportunistic deal-making currently occurring in the nuclear sector that has been depressed since the nuclear disaster at Fukushima. Companies in the industry express that despite this recent disaster the sector will continue to grow pointing to the rapid expansion of nuclear power in China. Among other resources Rio Tinto is a major holder of coal assets worldwide with recent purchases of major coking coal deposits in Mozambique and Mongolia.

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/deb7bc06-19d2-11e1-9888-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1f2EiGHSI


- Ryan Triolo

US solar rush now underway

The clean energy industries and the associated market economies in all countries right now are primarily driven through government policy.

This article highlights one of the effects of this very close tie-in between policy and the market economy.

Solar manufacturers are seeing a surge in demand, as much as 50% quarter over quarter, because some key US federal government incentives are set to expire and companies looking to take advantage of those federal subsidies are piling in the demand.

Complete story is linked here:

http://gigaom.com/cleantech/u-s-solar-rush-now-underway/

Fracking here, fracking there: Europe will have trouble replicating America’s shale-gas bonanza

Fracking here, fracking there: Europe will have trouble replicating America’s shale-gas bonanza

http://www.economist.com/node/21540256

Interesting article from the Economist. A few highlights:

EU has as much technically recoverable shale gas (natural gas trapped in shale formations) as the US, but it is not economic due to higher costs. EU geology is less favorable (its shale deposits tend to be deeper underground and harder to extract), EU's natural gas maturity is nowhere near the US (e.g., 100 rigs in EU vs 1600 in US, single gas well in Europe might cost as much as $14 MM compared with $4 MM in the US), and EU's regulatory environment is much more difficult (no existing network of existing pipelines and no open-access rules). Fracking is also a bigger concern in Europe (e.g., more densely populated, federal ownership rather than private).

Andrew L.

Nuclear Waste Disposal

A New Urgency to the Problem of Storing Nuclear Waste

This article looks into the recent surge in efforts to find a better solution for nuclear waste disposal in Europe. The article talks about how the Fukushima disaster worked as the wake up call for most nuclear powered nations to speed up their efforts to permanently dispose off the nuclear waste. Referring to the situation Germany, the author talks about how (before the nuclear sector was dismantled) anti-nuclear activists were wary of campaigning for proper permanent disposal of nuclear waste as this would make them seem pro-nuclear.

KKR Makes Billions on Shale Gas Play

The New York Times reported that KKR, one of the nation's oldest private equity firms, placed a significant bet on extracting natural gas from shale rock through fracking and has reaped billions in the process. The article highlights three entrepreneurs (Terrence Pegula, Jeffrey Hildebrand, and Stacy Schusterman), who at one point or another partnered with the firm and have all vaulted to the Forbes 500 list in the last decade.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/11/25/k-k-r-s-energy-billionaires-club/?nl=business&emc=dlbka31

- Ab Gupta

New trade war between China and the US!

China Looks into US Energy Trade Policies

Chinese government is looking to investigate the accusation brought forward by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce saying that the US trade policies (and subsidies) have badly hurt the development of Chinese renewable energy industry. This accusation come 2 months after a similar accusation was made against the Chinese government by seven US companies.

China is the major supplier of solar panels to the US right now but they still import Polysilicone (a major ingredient in most solar panels) from the US. The result of this brewing trade war could have a major impact on the renewable energy industry worldwide.

Oil and Gas Rights in the South China Sea

http://oilandglory.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/11/20/beijings_climbdown_in_bali_what_is_next_in_the_south_china_sea

This article from Foreign Policy details a recent shift in China's position towards the oil and gas deposits located beneath the South China Sea. Over the past several years, China has taken aggressive steps to deter other countries in the region from establishing oil and gas extraction operations in the South China Sea, much to the chagrin of those countries.

Recently, however, in a closed meeting between leaders from China, the United States, and several South East Asian countries, Premier Wen Jiabao of China stated that China had an interest in keeping the waters of the South China Sea "safe and free". This has been interpreted as a shift relative to their past, less cooperative position. This decreasing geopolitical risk may foreshadow a quicker path to full development of the energy resources located below the seabed.

Energy resource claims in the South China Sea will likely become increasingly important as demand for such resources continues to climb, especially in Asia. For historical analogues to the situation, one might look into disputes over oil found in the Caspian Sea.

-Clay Ramel

The Economist: editorial on fracking

Fracking is a hot topic these days! Here's a very timely editorial in the latest Economist.

Shale gas - Frack on
People should worry less about fracking, and more about carbon
Nov 26th 2011 | from the print edition

AT A recent shindig in London of the shale-gas industry, energy firms gave a rosy view of the fuel’s prospects in Europe. Like America, Europe has vast beds of shale rock, in which innumerable bubbles of natural gas are trapped. By cannoning water, sand and chemicals at them, a process known as hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking”, the bubbles can be released. This, the firms said, could bring Europe the same bonanza of cheap gas and new jobs in the industry that America is now enjoying (see article). It would also lessen Europe’s irksome dependence on Russian gas.

Outside the venue, meanwhile, protesters chanted, “Flaming water from our tap, we don’t want this fracking crap.” They referred to fears that fracking can cause contamination of aquifers by the methane and naturally occurring radioactive material it displaces, or by the chemicals it uses. Another worry is that fracking may cause earthquakes. A recent British study suggested that 50 tiny quakes in Lancashire were the result of fracking nearby.

Such issues have been raised in America, too, but energy firms there have been able to ignore them because they are exempt from many environmental rules. An intervention in 2005 by Dick Cheney, then vice-president, wrested an armful of exemptions specifically for fracking. That has helped the industry grow spectacularly. In 2000 shale beds provided 1% of America’s natural-gas supply; they now produce around 25%. But it has also allowed reckless American frackers to do environmental damage. Some are alleged to have pumped toxic chemicals into the ground with impunity.

In Europe, where environmentalists are stronger, energy companies have a tougher time. In response to anti-fracking protests, France has slapped a moratorium on the practice; in Britain, activists for Frack Off, a pressure group, have shut down drill sites.

Environmentalists are probably worrying too much about the immediate consequences of fracking. The technique has been in regular use in the conventional oil and gas industry since the 1940s; and in all that time no aquifer is known to have been contaminated by fracking. Fluids used in fracking and methane regurgitated from gas-wells may occasionally have got into groundwater: an energy company in Pennsylvania has been forced to deliver clean water to householders because of this. But that risk could be greatly reduced by tighter regulation, leading to better industry practice: it is not an argument for banning the procedure altogether.

It does appear that fracking can cause earthquakes. But so can geothermal energy production and other parts of the oil and gas production process. Wherever fluids are injected into deep wells, that is a risk. It warrants strict regulation and further study. It is not, however, a reason to shut down a promising industry.

But the industry’s promise should not obscure its dangers, especially when it comes to the fuel it provides. Energy firms often call gas a clean fuel: burning it releases roughly half as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as burning coal does. So if gas-fired power stations are built instead of coal-fired ones, the cheap gas bonanza will help control global warming. Unfortunately, though, they probably will not be. Few new coal-fired power stations are planned in America or Europe anyway. And China, which also has lots of unexploited shale gas, has few scruples about burning cheap coal. Either way, gas-fired power stations are more likely to substitute for solar panels, wind turbines and nuclear power stations.

The only way of ensuring that does not happen is to price fossil fuels to cover the cost of the environmental damage they do. Power generated from coal would carry a high carbon-price-tag; power generated from gas a smaller one; power generated from renewables none at all. Thanks to recession and a lack of political will, governments have found this politically impossible to do adequately or at all, as the latest UN climate summit, which begins in Durban on November 28th, will make clear. But the effort should not be abandoned; and cheap gas does not give governments an excuse to stop trying.

Fracturing of Pennsylvania

There has been a lot of discussion in the news lately around "fracking" for natural gas extraction.

This article presents a human angle on that discussion by talking about the impact of fracking, good and bad, on a rural community in Pennsylvania. In doing so, the article grounds a lot of theoretical discussions on the pros/cons of fracking in real life stories unfolding presently.

The article is linked here:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/20/magazine/fracking-amwell-township.html?pagewanted=2&sq=natural%20gas&st=cse&scp=3

Energy hogging data centers moving to the Artic

This is a very interesting article on how Facebook is relocating one of it's huge data centers to the cold, frigid artic region.

Data Centers are the huge computer server farms where all of our online data is stored. In this age where one of the biggest trends in technology is the move to the cloud, data centers are a big deal for all tech giants including Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Sales Force and the list goes on and on.

The only on going costs in operating a data center are the energy costs and the biggest chunk of those energy costs go towards cooling the computer servers. Running the computers, interestingly, takes only a fraction of the energy costs needed to run a data center.

Moving the data centers to frigid cold regions save these giant computer companies tonnes of money that they would have other wise spent on cooling the data centers.

The complete article is here.

Largest Dam Removal Project in US History Has Begun

Article: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/reeltimenorthwest/2016759296_first_coho_salmon_are_placed_i.html

The Elwha and Glines Canyon dams have begun the removal process. These dams are located on the Elwha River in the state of Washington. They were built in 1910 without fish ladders, so salmon are now swimming in an area that they haven’t been able to access in 100 years. This dam removal project is the largest in history, expecting to cost $530 million. Congress passed the Elwha River Restoration Act 20 years ago, mainly due to the concern of its impacts on the wildlife in the area, especially the salmon. The Olympic National Park and the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe have been instrumental in the process. Although the power generation ability of the dams has been lost, the wildlife is too important to the local people, and therefore the dams are coming down.

-Marielle Price

Google Pulls Plug on RE less-than C

Fairly major change of heart:

NOT[RE
Google Inc has abandoned an ambitious project to make renewable energy cheaper than coal, the latest target of Chief Executive Larry Page's moves to focus the Internet giant on fewer efforts.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/11/23/us-google-idUSTRE7AM03220111123

VC says now is the time for biofuels

Kyle Wong

The article talks about how advancements in biotechnology will soon make biofuels more cost competitive. Basically new technology will change the way of how we currently perceive biofuels.

From the article:

"It's a really exciting time in biofuels and biochemicals," VC Marianne Wu says. "We're looking at massive markets, increased demand, and significant advances in biology and chemistry. A lot of people assume that green biofuels mean higher prices or worse performance. That's changing. The companies we're investing in give customers the proposition that the fuel is green, performs the same or better, and is cheaper. One of our companies, Zeachem, uses chemical engineering to turn woody biomass into ethanol and basic chemicals, and it does so with the highest yield, lowest carbon footprint, and lowest cost. Zeachem is a biorefinery model, which is like the traditional model: A single petroleum refinery makes many products--solvents, chemicals, heating oil, gasoline. We're replicating what traditional refineries have always done: Take a feedstock and turn it into lots of different products. Biology can do the same."

http://www.fastcompany.com/1795746/marianne-wu-mohr-davidow-ventures?partner=rss&utm_source=pulsenews&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+fastcompany%2Fheadlines+%28Fast+Company+Headlines%29

E&Y: Austerity measures lead to less climate investment...once again, what looks like a good idea now is not a good idea in the long run

AUSTERITY MEASURES CUT GLOBAL CLIMATE SPENDING BY $22.5 BILLION
17 Nov 2011 / Services & Support (Clean Energy) / POLICY & REGULATION / Germany

Government austerity measures may reduce spending on renewable-energy subsidies, pollution abatement and research into clean technologies by $22.5 billion in the five years through 2015, Ernst & Young said.

The potential reduction follows budget cuts enacted by 10 nations including the U.S., Germany, Japan and Spain, the accounting firm said Thursday in an e-mailed report. An escalation of the debt crisis in the 17-nation euro area could see as much as $45 billion slashed from climate spending, it said.

The study shows the challenges facing more than 190 nations whose envoys will gather in Durban, South Africa, on Nov. 28 for two weeks of climate treaty talks. They’ll discuss creating a $100 billion-a-year climate fund and prospects for a fresh round of greenhouse-gas commitments under the Kyoto Protocol to replace goals that expire in 2012.

“Continuing economic uncertainty is pushing a low-carbon economy further out of reach,” E&Y’s London-based climate and sustainability chief, Juan Costa Climent, said in the statement. “Policy makers head to Durban under storm clouds of fiscal austerity, a global focus on national interests, and widespread skepticism for the prospects of securing a legally binding successor to the Kyoto Protocol.”

Kyoto members Russia, Canada and Japan have said they won’t take on new targets unless a broader agreement is reached. They’re seeking an accord that brings in the U.S., which never ratified the treaty, China and other developing countries not subject to Kyoto’s emission-cutting goals.

The study, commissioned by E&Y from Oxford Economics, also included a survey of more than 300 business executives. Of those, 83 percent said a multilateral agreement is needed to tackle climate change, while only 18 percent said a deal is likely to emerge in Durban.

Germany, which invests the most in carbon reduction, will reduce climate-related spending by about $2.1 billion from 2011 through 2015 because of austerity measures, according to the study. The U.S.’s spending will drop by $2 billion, Japan’s by $2.5 billion and Spain’s by $5.1 billion.

Should the euro-zone crisis deepen and lead some countries to default on their debt, the cuts could be bigger, the report showed, projecting possible reductions of $8.3 billion in Germany, $6.4 billion in the U.S., $6.2 billion in Spain and $6.1 billion in Japan. The other nations covered by the study are France, Italy, the U.K., South Korea, Australia and South Africa.
Source: Bloomberg News

November 17, 2011

From Edison’s Trunk, Direct Current Gets Another Look

By MICHAEL KANELLOS

Thomas Edison and his direct current, or DC, technology lost the so-called War of the Currents to alternating current, or AC, in the 1890s after it became clear that AC was far more efficient at transmitting electricity over long distances.

Today, AC is still the standard for the electricity that comes out of our wall sockets. But DC is staging a roaring comeback in pockets of the electrical grid.

Alstom, ABB, Siemens and other conglomerates are erecting high-voltage DC grids to carry gigawatts of electricity from wind farms in remote places like western China and the North Sea to faraway cities. Companies like SAP and Facebook that operate huge data centers are using more DC to reduce waste heat. Panasonic is even talking about building eco-friendly homes that use direct current.

In a DC grid, electrons flow from a battery or power station to a home or appliance, much as water flows downhill to a lake. In AC, electrons flow back and forth between generators and appliances in a precisely synchronized manner — imagine a set of interlocking canals where water continually surges back and forth but the water level at any given point stays constant.

Direct current was the electrical transmission technology when Edison started rolling out electric wires in the 19th century. Alternating current, which operated at higher voltages, was later championed by the Edison rivals Nikola Tesla and George Westinghouse.

The AC forces won when Tesla and Westinghouse figured out how to fine-tune AC transmission so that it required far fewer power plants and copper cable.

DC didn’t die, however.

AT&T adopted direct current for the phone system because of its inherent stability, which is part of the reason that landline phones often survive storms better than the electric grid.

And household appliances and much industrial equipment — everything from hair dryers to jet planes — are built to use DC. Embedded converters bridge the mismatch between the AC grid and the DC devices on the fly.

But those constant conversions cause power losses. For example, in conventional data centers, with hundreds of computers, electricity might be converted and “stepped down” in voltage five times before being used. All that heat must be removed by air-conditioners, which consumes more power.

In a data center redesigned to use more direct current, monthly utility bills can be cut by 10 to 20 percent, according to Trent Waterhouse, vice president of marketing for power electronics at General Electric.

“You can cut the number of power conversions in half,” Mr. Waterhouse said.

On a far smaller scale, SAP spent $128,000 retrofitting a data center at its offices in Palo Alto, Calif. The project cut its energy bills by $24,000 a year.

The revival of DC for long-distance power transmission began in 1954 when the Swedish company ASEA, a predecessor of ABB, the Swiss maker of power and automation equipment, linked the island of Gotland to mainland Sweden with high-voltage DC lines.

Now, more than 145 projects using high-voltage DC, known as HVDC, are under way worldwide.

While HVDC equipment remains expensive, it becomes economical for high-voltage, high-capacity runs over long distances, said Anders Sjoelin, president of power systems for North America at ABB.

Over a distance of a thousand miles, an HVDC line carrying thousands of megawatts might lose 6 to 8 percent of its power, ABB said. A similar AC line might lose 12 to 25 percent.

Direct-current transmission is also better suited to handle the electricity produced by solar and wind farms, which starts out as direct current.

In most situations, solar or wind energy has to be converted, and sometimes reconverted, into AC before it can be used. With HVDC, conversions can be reduced. DC grids can also more easily manage the variable output that occurs, say, when a storm hits or the wind dies.

In the United States, the Tres Amigas power station in New Mexico will use HVDC links to connect the nation’s three primary grids — the eastern, western and Texas grids. Ideally, it will create a marketplace where customers in New York and Los Angeles will be able to buy power from wind farms in Texas, which often have to dump power because of the lack of local demand.

HVDC Light, a version of HVDC invented by ABB in 1997 that is designed for shorter distances, has started to gain popularity because its cables are coated with extruded plastic. That allows cables to be buried underground more easily, avoiding some of the land-use hearings that have delayed proposals for above-ground AC transmission lines in the United States and Europe.

Direct current is also getting more attention at the level of individual buildings.

Nextek Power Systems, for example, has developed a system for delivering power via DC to lights and motion sensors through a building’s metal frame, instead of through wires.

Paul Savage, chief executive of Nextek, based in Detroit, understands why the public might view that notion with trepidation. But he said the current was not enough to electrocute anyone.

“If you licked your fingers you might get a little bubbly feeling, like if you put a nine-volt battery on your tongue, but it is not noticeable if you’re in a non-wet environment,” he said.

Of course, AC remains by far the dominant standard for electricity, and many are dubious about “DC is better” arguments.

Hardware for HVDC and other direct-current applications is expensive, so capital costs have to be recovered through efficiency. Google, never shy about experimenting with energy-saving technologies, has veered away from DC data centers, claiming that the capital costs do not justify the switch.

Still, sales and sales inquiries are climbing, DC advocates said. Just don’t expect Current War II, said Mr. Sjoelin.

“This is a complement,” he said. “We’re not going back to Edison.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/18/business/energy-environment/direct-current-technology-gets-another-look.html?hp

China’s Solar Loans Still Mostly Untapped

China’s Solar Loans Still Mostly Untapped

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/chinas-solar-loans-still-mostly-untapped/

Interesting article that disputes sole of the claims made by SolarWorld in the solar trade dispute. Five key Chinese solar and wind companies — Suntech, Yingli Green Energy, Trina Solar, JA Solar and Xinjiang Goldwind Science & Technology —have only tapped $866 million of the nearly $30 billion available to them in Chinese government credit lines, which is a measly 3%. Potentially calls into question some of the points supporting that Chinese solar panel manufacturers are actually operating under unfair conditions.

Andrew L.

Renewable Energy vs. Cultural Respect

So there's a huge wind farm project being planned for the islands of Maui and Lana'i in Hawai'i (which is where I'm from). There is a huge debate on whether or not this proposed farm will disturb existing archaeological sites and cultural areas.

Is the chance of destroying Hawaiian cultural heritage worth the desperately needed renewable energy?

...great question. Check out the relatively short story here.

New record efficiency for dye-sensitized solar cells = 12.3%

So I guess we have to update the PV lecture slides ALREADY!

Dye-sensitized Grätzel solar cells have just set a new efficiency benchmark.

By changing the composition and color of the cells, an Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL) team has has improved the efficiency of the famous Grätzel solar cells to 12.3%

see
http://www.worldofphotovoltaics.com/thin_film_photovoltaics/dye-sensitized_cells/dye-sensitized_solar_cells_break_a_new_record.html

and
http://lpi.epfl.ch/

Fracking doesn't just pollute water

The United States Army and U.S. Geological Survey agree that fracking causes earthquakes.  An earthquake that shook  six states on November 5th.  The center of the earthquake was Lincoln County- home to 181 injection wells.

http://oilprice.com/Energy/Natural-Gas/U.S.-Government-Confirms-Link-Between-Earthquakes-and-Hydraulic-Fracturing.html

Hawaiʻi and China Unified in Energy Future

Hawaiʻi Governor Neil Abercrombie signed an agreement with Yu Ping, vice chairman of the China Council for Promotion of International Trade, last Sunday to "pursue mutual interests in clean energy development" (whatever that means). Apparently, the details of this agreement are expected to be worked on further until March. A Honolulu Solar Company, Sopogy, has also agreed in principle with Chinese contracting and investment firm Sichuan Dongjia Investment Company to expand its business further in both Hawaiʻi and China.

Hereʻs the rest!

-Kanoa OʻConnor \m/

Lānaʻi Residents Halt Wind Farm Project

A 170-turbine wind farm may no longer have a home in Kaʻa, Lānaʻi Island, Hawaiʻi. The Hawaiian Electricity Company (HECO) - which serves the Honolulu area on the island of Oʻahu - had agreed with landowners Castle & Cooke to create the wind farm in an effort to reach the stateʻs 40% renewable energy standard by 2030. The Historic Hawaiʻi Foundation, however, recognized the proposed area as an "endangered historic place," bringing relief to the Lānaʻi residents with NIMBY concerns.

The full article is here.

-Kanoa O'Connor \m/

A Gold Rush of Subsidies in Clean Energy Search (NYT)

The California Valley Solar Ranch under construction near Santa Margarita.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/12/business/energy-environment/a-cornucopia-of-help-for-renewable-energy.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=energy-environment

By ERIC LIPTON and CLIFFORD KRAUSS

Published: November 11, 2011

WASHINGTON — Halfway between Los Angeles and San Francisco, on a former cattle ranch and gypsum mine, NRG Energy is building an engineering marvel: a compound of nearly a million solar panels that will produce enough electricity to power about 100,000 homes.

The project is also a marvel in another, less obvious way: Taxpayers and ratepayers are providing subsidies worth almost as much as the entire $1.6 billion cost of the project. Similar subsidy packages have been given to 15 other solar- and wind-power electric plants since 2009.

The government support — which includes loan guarantees, cash grants and contracts that require electric customers to pay higher rates — largely eliminated the risk to the private investors and almost guaranteed them large profits for years to come. The beneficiaries include financial firms like Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, conglomerates like General Electric, utilities like Exelon and NRG — even Google.

A great deal of attention has been focused on Solyndra, a start-up that received $528 million in federal loans to develop cutting-edge solar technology before it went bankrupt, but nearly 90 percent of the $16 billion in clean-energy loans guaranteed by the federal government since 2009 went to subsidize these lower-risk power plants, which in many cases were backed by big companies with vast resources.

When the Obama administration and Congress expanded the clean-energy incentives in 2009, a gold-rush mentality took over.

As NRG’s chief executive, David W. Crane, put it to Wall Street analysts early this year, the government’s largess was a once-in-a-generation opportunity, and “we intend to do as much of this business as we can get our hands on.” NRG, along with partners, ultimately secured $5.2 billion in federal loan guarantees plus hundreds of millions in other subsidies for four large solar projects.

“I have never seen anything that I have had to do in my 20 years in the power industry that involved less risk than these projects,” he said in a recent interview. “It is just filling the desert with panels.”

From 2007 to 2010, federal subsidies jumped to $14.7 billion from $5.1 billion, according to a recent study.

Most of the surge came from the economic stimulus bill, which was passed in 2009 and financed an Energy Department loan guarantee program and a separate Treasury Department grant program that were promoted as important in creating green jobs.

States like California sweetened the pot by offering their own tax breaks and by approving long-term power-purchase contracts that, while promoting clean energy, will also require ratepayers to pay billions of dollars more for electricity for as long as two decades. The federal loan guarantee program expired on Sept. 30. The Treasury grant program is scheduled to expire at the end of December, although the energy industry is lobbying Congress to extend it. But other subsidies will remain.

The windfall for the industry over the last three years raises questions of whether the Obama administration and state governments went too far in their support of solar and wind power projects, some of which would have been built anyway, according to the companies involved.

Obama administration officials argue that the incentives, which began on a large scale late in the Bush administration but were expanded by the stimulus legislation, make economic and environmental sense. Beyond the short-term increase in construction hiring, they say, the cleaner air and lower carbon emissions will benefit the country for decades.

“Subsidies and government support have been part of many key industries in U.S. history — railroads, oil, gas and coal, aviation,” said Damien LaVera, an Energy Department spokesman.

A Case Study

NRG’s California Valley Solar Ranch project is a case study in the banquet of government subsidies available to the owners of a renewable-energy plant.

The first subsidy is for construction. The plant is expected to cost $1.6 billion to build, with key components made by SunPower at factories in California and Asia. In late September, the Energy Department agreed to guarantee a $1.2 billion construction loan, with the Treasury Department lending the money at an exceptionally low interest rate of about 3.5 percent, compared with the 7 percent that executives said they would otherwise have had to pay.

That support alone is worth about $205 million to NRG over the life of the loan, according to an analysis performed for The New York Times by Booz & Company, a strategic consulting firm that regularly performs such studies for private investors.

When construction is complete, NRG is eligible to receive a $430 million check from the Treasury Department — part of a change made in 2009 that allows clean-energy projects to receive 30 percent of their cost as a cash grant upfront instead of taking other tax breaks gradually over several years.

Californians are also making a big contribution. Under a state law passed to encourage the construction of more solar projects, NRG will not have to pay property taxes to San Luis Obispo County on its solar panels, saving it an estimated $14 million a year.

Assisted by another state law, which mandates that California utilities buy 33 percent of their power from clean-energy sources by 2020, the project’s developers struck lucrative contracts with the local utility, Pacific Gas & Electric, to buy the plant’s power for 25 years.

P.G.& E., and ultimately its electric customers, will pay NRG $150 to $180 a megawatt-hour, according to a person familiar with the project, who asked not to be identified because the price information was confidential. At the time the contract was awarded, that was about 50 percent more than the expected market cost of electricity in California from a newly built gas-powered plant, state officials said.

While neither state regulators nor the companies will divulge all the details, the extra cost to ratepayers amounts to a $462 million subsidy, according to Booz, which calculated the present value of the higher rates over the life of the contracts.

Additional depreciation tax breaks for renewable energy plants could save the company an additional $110 million, according to Christopher Dann, the Booz analyst who examined the project.

The total value of all those subsidies in today’s dollars is about $1.4 billion, leading to an expected rate of return of 25 percent for the project’s equity investors, according to Booz.

Mr. Crane of NRG disputed the Booz estimate, saying that the company’s return on equity was “in the midteens.”

NRG, which initially is investing about $400 million of its own money in the project, expects to get all of its equity back in two to five years, according to a statement it made in August to Wall Street analysts.

By 2015, NRG expects to be earning at least $300 million a year in profits from all of its solar projects combined, making these investments some of the more lucrative pieces in its sprawling portfolio, which includes dozens of power plants fueled by coal, natural gas and oil.

NRG is not the only company gobbling up subsidies. At least 10 of the 16 solar or wind electricity generation projects that secured Energy Department loan guarantees intend to also take the Treasury Department grant, and all but two of the projects have long-term agreements to sell almost all of their power, according to a survey of the companies by The Times.

These projects, in almost all cases, benefit from legislation that has been passed in about 30 states that pushes local utility companies to buy a significant share of their power from renewable sources, like solar or wind power. These mandates often have resulted in contracts with above-market rates for the project developers, and a guarantee of a steady revenue stream.

“It is like building a hotel, where you know in advance you are going to have 100 percent room occupancy for 25 years,” said Kevin Smith, chief executive of SolarReserve. HisNevada solar project has secured a 25-year power-purchase agreement with the state’s largest utility and a $737 million Energy Department loan guarantee and is on track to receive a $200 million Treasury grant.

Because the purchase mandates can drive up electricity rates significantly, some states, including New Jersey and Colorado, are considering softening the requirements on utilities.

Brookfield Asset Management, a giant Canadian investment firm, will receive so many subsidies for a New Hampshire wind farm that they are worth 46 percent to 80 percent of the $229 million price of the project, when measured in today’s dollars, according to analyses for The Times performed by Booz and two other two industry financial experts. (The wide range reflects a disagreement between the experts on the future price of electricity in New Hampshire.)

Richard Legault, the chief executive of Brookfield Renewable Power, the division that oversees the Granite Reliable project in New Hampshire, declined to discuss his profit expectations in detail, but said the project might not have happened without government assistance.

“When everything has come together, it is a good investment for Brookfield, it is no doubt,” Mr. Legault said. “We are quite happy with it.” (Brookfield is also the owner of the small park in Manhattan that is home to the Occupy Wall Street protesters.)

Even companies whose business has little to do with energy or finance, like the Internet giant Google, benefit from the public subsidies. Google has invested in several renewable energy projects, including a giant solar plant in the California desert and a wind farm in Oregon, in part to get federal tax breaks that it can use to offset its profits from Web advertising.

Industry executives and other supporters of the subsidies say that the public money was vital to the projects, in part because financing for renewable energy projects dried up during the recession. They also note that more traditional energy sectors, like oil and natural gas, get heavy subsidies of their own. For example, in the 2010 fiscal year, the oil and gas producers got federal tax breaks of $2.7 billion, according to an analysis by the Energy Information Administration.

“These programs just level the playing field for what oil and gas and nuclear industries have enjoyed for the last 50 years,” said Rhone Resch, president of Solar Energy Industries Association. “Do you have to provide more policy support and funding initially? Absolutely. But the result is more energy security, clean energy and domestic jobs.”

Michael E. Webber, associate director of the Center for International Energy and Environmental Policy at the University of Texas, Austin, said renewable energy subsidies were a worthy investment. “It is a form of corporate welfare that is consistent with other social goals like job creation, clean air and boosting a domestic source of energy,” he said.

Overflowing Breaks

Obama administration officials said the subsidies were intended to help renewable-energy plants that were jumbo-sized or used innovative technology, both potential obstacles to getting private financing. But even proponents of the subsidies say the administration may have gone overboard.

Concerns that the government was being too generous reached all the way to President Obama. In an October 2010 memo prepared for the president, Lawrence H. Summers, then his top economic adviser; Carol M. Browner, then his adviser on energy matters; and Ronald A. Klain, then the vice president’s chief of staff, expressed discomfort with the “double dipping” that was starting to take place. They said investors had little “skin in the game.”

Officials involved in reviewing the loan applications said that Treasury Department officials pressed the Energy Department to respond to these concerns.

Officials at both agencies declined to discuss the anticipated financial returns of the clean-energy projects the federal government has agreed to guarantee, saying the information was confidential.

But Energy Department officials said they had carefully evaluated every project to try to calculate how much money the developers and investors stood to make. “They were rejected, if they looked too rich or too risky,” Mr. LaVera, the Energy Department spokesman said.

In at least one instance — NRG’s Agua Caliente solar project in Yuma County, Ariz. — the Energy Department demanded that the company agree not to apply for a Treasury grant it was legally entitled to receive. The government was concerned the extra subsidy would result in excessive profit, NRG executives confirmed.

In other cases, the agency required that companies use most of the Treasury grants that they would get when construction was complete to pay down part of the government-guaranteed construction loans instead of cashing out the equity investors.

“The private sector really has more skin in the game than the public realizes,” said Andy Katell, a spokesman for GE Energy Financial Services, which like Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and other financial firms has large investments in several of these projects.

But there is no doubt that the deals are lucrative for the companies involved.

G.E., for example, lobbied Congress in 2009 to help expand the subsidy programs, and it now profits from every aspect of the boom in renewable-power plant construction.

It is also an investor in one solar and one wind project that have secured about $2 billion in federal loan guarantees and expects to collect nearly $1 billion in Treasury grants. The company has also won hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts to sell its turbines to wind plants built with public subsidies.

Mr. Katell said G.E. and other companies were simply “playing ball” under the rules set by Congress and the Obama administration to promote the industry. “It is good for the country, and good for our company,” he said.

Satya Kumar, an analyst at Credit Suisse who specializes in renewable energy companies, said there was no question the country would see real benefits from the surge in renewable energy projects.

“But the industry could have done a lot more solar for a lot less price, in terms of subsidy,” he said.

-Uploaded by Jonathan Anderson

California Hits the 1GW PV Milestone

California finally passed the 1GW mark as of last week. They hope to be able to reach about 3GW by the end of 2020. PV is starting to get cheaper, much more popular, and the industry creates jobs.

Check out the article here.

It's about time we start catching up!

ExxonMobil Becomes First Supermajor to Explore in Kurdistan

ExxonMobil signed oil and gas exploration contracts with the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) making it the first "supermajor" to do so in Kurdistan, the semi-autonomous region of Iraq. The region holds "relatively untapped" oil and gas reserves estimated at 45 billion barrels of oil and 100,000 to 200,000 billion cubic feet of natural gas. The political climate in the region has until now prevented "supermajors" from moving in here. The national government in Baghdad views such contracts with the KRG as illegitimate and this may cause "certain political factions" in Iraq to call for an end to ExxonMobil's position in Iraq. In 2009 ExxonMobil led the first US consortium to enter Iraq in over 30 years.

Financial Times article:
http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/4e44f860-0bda-11e1-9861-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1dhDwUQ00

Ryan Triolo

Keystone XL Pipeline Decision Postponed

Article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-11-10/obama-administration-postpones-keystone-xl-pipeline-decision.html

The Obama administration has delayed the decision on whether the Keystone XL Pipeline will be approved for installation. TransCanada Corporation, a company that develops energy infrastructure, wants to fund a project that would transport oil produced from Alberta tar sands to the US. The pipeline route is from Alberta, Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, passing through Montana, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. The pipeline would deliver approximately 700,000 barrels of crude oil per day to the US from Canada. The reason for the holdup according to the Obama administration is the potential of the pipeline affecting the health and safety of citizens, especially in terms of water. Nebraska citizens, among others, are concerned about the effect on the Ogallala aquifer, the largest aquifer in the US. It provides drinking water to 1.5 million people. The decision is delayed until 2013 so that further research can be done on the impacts of the proposed pipeline.

-Marielle Price

Stanford and Cornell's Progressive Energy Saving Plans for Proposed New York City Campus

Article: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/24/education/24science.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=geothermalpower

Stanford and Cornell are the top two contenders for the Bloomberg Administration’s proposal for a graduate school of applied sciences in New York City, among several other competitors. Both schools are proposing aggressive energy measures including generation on site, as well as energy efficiency measures. Cornell’s proposal includes fuel cells and the city’s most expansive solar panel array, which would produce 1.8 MW of power. Cornell would also use geothermal wells for heating and cooling. They claim that their campus would use 40% less energy than the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) standards, and including the energy generated on site, they would be 75% below the standards. Stanford hasn’t publicly proclaimed all of its plans for the campus, but they do indicate that they will use ground-source heat pumps for heating and cooling, as well as possibly using wave power from the East River. Stanford plans to be 50% below the energy use standards and 80% less greenhouse gas emission standards set by ASHRAE. The proposals were due on October 28, and the City of New York should make a decision by the end of this year.

-Marielle Price

White Roofs May Cause Increases in Global Warming

Article: http://www.climatecentral.org/blogs/white-roofs-may-increase-global-warming/

Stanford professor Mark Jacobson and his team have published a report indicating that white roofs are in fact worse for global warming than conventionally colored roofs. White roofs have become popular recently because of their high albedo rating. A high albedo signifies high reflectivity (light colors) whereas a low albedo material is one that absorbs light (darker colors). White roofs reduce electricity bills related to air-conditioning because the building stays cooler on sunny days. However, people have also thought that white roofs help combat global warming by reflecting heat off of the earth’s surface, and back into the atmosphere and eventually space. Mark Jacobson’s research has shown that the reflectivity of white roofs send the sunlight back into the atmosphere, where it is absorbed by soot particles and other blackbody particles, which contribute even more to global warming. However, I don’t think Jacobson can make the case that white roofs are worse for global warming, because the majority of our energy today comes from greenhouse gas emitting sources, so the impact of the reduced energy load on homes with white roofs could counteract or even overcome the increased heat of blackbody particles in the atmosphere. He didn’t compare the greenhouse gas emission reduction due to white roofed buildings using less energy to his finding that the reflectivity of white roofs cause an increase of heat in our atmosphere.

-Marielle Price

Setbacks for Carbon Dioxide Capture Project

"Coal Project Hits Snag as a Partner Backs Off" Economic reasons forced one of the major partners in a carbon capturing venture called FutureGen 2.0 to back out of providing an old power plant for the purposes of converting it to experiment with CO2 technologies. The partner, Ameren, was one of a number of firms, including Babcock and Wilcox, Air Liquide and other member groups of the FutureGen CCS partnetship. The project was first undertaken under George W. Bush's presidency but the program lapsed because of funding issues; it was revived by the Obama administration as a project to burn coal directly with oxygen and capture the resulting CO2 for underground piping and storage. The $1 billion dollars in potential project funding may be jeopardized by the withdrawal of Ameren, though the other partners may continue to pursue the project. However, this highlights the general lack of economic incentives for CCS, as a number of experts in the field suggested that government support of this industry will be necessary while it remains undeveloped.

CCS may be necessary if we continue to rely on fossil fuels for providing our power generation and energy services; the field, however, may remain unproven if partnerships like this continue to face economic and logistic obstacles.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/11/business/energy-environment/coal-project-hits-snag-as-a-partner-backs-off.html?hpw

-Kristin Goodsell

IEA's Predictions on Shifting Oil Landscape

The Future of Oil:

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/10/business/energy-environment/eu-poisted-to-overtake-us-as-biggest-oil-importer.html

According to IEA’s World energy Outlook Predictions, the landscape of oil demand and use is about to change. Significantly, this by 2015, the European Union will overtake the US as the world’s largest importer of foreign oil and credits fuel economy standards and increased US domestic production of oil and natural gas for this shift. The emerging major drivers of oil price may not be new but they will be significant—production levels in the Middle East (esp. Libya) and the demand growth in Asia as more middle class consumers are fueling a growing vehicle market.

As shifting and growing oil demand affects the future of the global oil market, it may also affect the comparative advantages for renewables versus conventional energy resources. Renewable resources that might be more expensive now should be considered in light of the future expense of mitigating climate change effects—namely that “every $1 of investment avoided in the power sector [in shifting to renewables/greener resources] before 2020, an additional $4.30 would need to be spent after 2020 to compensate for the increased emissions.”

As the US and other countries take steps to decrease their oil consumption, this will not only affect the global oil market but the global renewables market as well. For any substantial positive climate change mitigation, however, the changes in oil demand will have to be more deliberate and conscientious.

-Kristin Goodsell

Elon Musk lets you get between SF and LA

By the time the Tesla Model S is on the road in 8 months, the charging infrastructure will be ready and waiting, at least to get you between SF and LA.  The trip is 400 miles- too much for even the 300 miles versions of the Tesla S.  Nevertheless, the ultra-rapid charging stations would use a plug that's proprietary to Tesla.

http://www.greencarreports.com/news/1068292_tesla-confirms-rapid-charging-corridor-between-la-and-sf

Keystone XL Pipeline Investigation

After an assessment showed that the Keystone XL pipeline would have minimal impacts, questions are being raised as to whether all the proper measures were taken to ensure the investigator, Cardno Entrix, was actually unaffiliated with Keystone. It seems they have listed Keystone as one of their "major clients" which would suggest a bias.

The resulting call for inquiry could delay the project's approval significantly.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/11/08/science/earth/inquiry-into-keystone-xl-pipeline-permit-process.html?_r=2&ref=us

- Thomissa

"Stopping Keystone XL Won't Help Global Warming"

From The Atlantic: "Environmentalists might be able to derail the Keystone XL oil pipeline. But that won't make a difference in the battle against global warming."

However, the article does not comment on potential dangers to the Ogallala Aquifer.

- Michael Kehoe

New Oil and Gas Resources - Will they hurt the development of renewable energy?

The development of new unconventional oil and gas resources might offer two potential outcomes - adequate time for the refinement and deployment of renewable energy on a wide scope, or a counterproductive delay that reduces the incentive for investment in those renewable energy technologies.

This New York Times "Room for Debate" features several different view points on what this new "boom" of fossil fuels will mean for renewables development.

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/11/06/will-a-boom-for-oil-and-gas-delay-renewable-energy/?hp

-Clay Ramel

NYT: "Here Comes the Sun"

From Paul Krugman at The New York Times: "For decades the story of technology has been dominated, in the popular mind and to a large extent in reality, by computing and the things you can do with it. Moore’s Law — in which the price of computing power falls roughly 50 percent every 18 months — has powered an ever-expanding range of applications, from faxes to Facebook.

Our mastery of the material world, on the other hand, has advanced much more slowly. The sources of energy, the way we move stuff around, are much the same as they were a generation ago.

But that may be about to change. We are, or at least we should be, on the cusp of an energy transformation, driven by the rapidly falling cost of solar power. That’s right, solar power."

- Michael Kehoe

Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases

Biggest jump ever seen in global warming gases

By SETH BORENSTEIN

Associated Press

Fri, Nov 4, 2011

WASHINGTON (AP) — The global output of heat-trapping carbon dioxide jumped by the biggest amount on record, the U.S.Department of Energy calculated, a sign of how feeble the world's efforts are at slowing man-made global warming.

The new figures for 2010 mean that levels of greenhouse gases are higher than the worst case scenario outlined by climate experts just four years ago.

"The more we talk about the need to control emissions, the more they are growing," said John Reilly, co-director of MIT's Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change.

The world pumped about 564 million more tons (512 million metric tons) of carbon into the air in 2010 than it did in 2009. That's an increase of 6 percent. That amount of extra pollution eclipses the individual emissions of all but three countries — China, the United States and India, the world's top producers of greenhouse gases.

It is a "monster" increase that is unheard of, said Gregg Marland, a professor of geology at Appalachian State University, who has helped calculate Department of Energy figures in the past.

Extra pollution in China and the U.S. account for more than half the increase in emissions last year, Marland said.

"It's a big jump," said Tom Boden, director of the Energy Department's Carbon Dioxide Information Analysis Center at Oak Ridge National Lab. "From an emissions standpoint, the global financial crisis seems to be over."

Boden said that in 2010 people were traveling, and manufacturing was back up worldwide, spurring the use of fossil fuels, the chief contributor of man-made climate change.

India and China are huge users of coal. Burning coal is the biggest carbon source worldwide and emissions from that jumped nearly 8 percent in 2010.

"The good news is that these economies are growing rapidly so everyone ought to be for that, right?" Reilly said Thursday. "Broader economic improvements in poor countries has been bringing living improvements to people. Doing it with increasing reliance on coal is imperiling the world."

In 2007, when the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its last large report on global warming, it used different scenarios for carbon dioxide pollution and said the rate of warming would be based on the rate of pollution. Boden said the latest figures put global emissions higher than the worst case projections from the climate panel. Those forecast global temperatures rising between 4 and 11 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century with the best estimate at 7.5 degrees.

Even though global warming skeptics have attacked the climate change panel as being too alarmist, scientists have generally found their predictions too conservative, Reilly said. He said his university worked on emissions scenarios, their likelihood, and what would happen. The IPCC's worst case scenario was only about in the middle of what MIT calculated are likely scenarios.

Chris Field of Stanford University, head of one of the IPCC's working groups, said the panel's emissions scenarios are intended to be more accurate in the long term and are less so in earlier years. He said the question now among scientists is whether the future is the panel's worst case scenario "or something more extreme."

"Really dismaying," Granger Morgan, head of the engineering and public policy department at Carnegie Mellon University, said of the new figures. "We are building up a horrible legacy for our children and grandchildren."

But Reilly and University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver found something good in recent emissions figures. The developed countries that ratified the 1997 Kyoto Protocol greenhouse gas limiting treaty have reduced their emissions overall since then and have achieved their goals of cutting emissions to about 8 percent below 1990 levels. The U.S. did not ratify the agreement.

In 1990, developed countries produced about 60 percent of the world's greenhouse gases, now it's probably less than 50 percent, Reilly said.

"We really need to get the developing world because if we don't, the problem is going to be running away from us," Weaver said. "And the problem is pretty close from running away from us."

_

Online:

Government carbon dioxide info center: http://cdiac.ornl.gov/

Taming Unruly Wind Power

This article describes how Bonneville Power Administration tackles the wind power surge in the grid due to the occasional storms that hit the region . Bonneville recruited local homeowners to install water heaters in their basement to store the excess energy generated by wind mills during the storm and subsequently save the grid from a potential blackout. The initiative has been welcomed by the volunteer homeowners who allowed Bonneville to build the $1000 'batteries' in their homes. Read the full article here

Fracking test likely cause of tremors

The article written by the BBC discusses how fracking outside of Lancashire was a likely cause of small tremors in the region. The report was conducted by a natural gas company, and says that there was a connection between the the fracking and the tremors. The company, Caudrilla Resources says that they are working with local and national authorities to put in early detection systems and unequivocally accept the findings of the independent report.

The article is relevant to our class discussion because there has been much debate over the environmental concerns of fracking.

Read the rest of the article here

Kyle Wong