CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Al Gore, a self-described "wanna-be geek," is on the road talking about solutions to multiple problems.
The former vice president gave a speech at the First Parish Cambridge Unitarian Universalist church here on Saturday to promote his latest book, "Our Choice." Whereas "An Inconvenient Truth" documented the reasons for global warming, his latest book is focused almost entirely on ways to address climate change, Gore said.
But don't expect only a discussion of solar, wind and biofuels. In outlining the contents of "Our Choice" on Saturday, Gore said he consulted hundreds of experts in different fields to develop a comprehensive approach. The book includes discussions on carbon-capturing farming practices, word population projections, social psychology, and the political challenges to cutting fossil fuel use.
Al Gore signing books after his talk at the First Parish Cambridge Unitarian Universalist church in Cambridge, Mass.
(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)Rather than limit his remarks to climate change, Gore argued there are political and economic reasons to make a transition to a less-polluting society. "There is a common thread running through the discussion of climate, (national) security, and the economic crisis, and that is our ridiculous dependence on foreign oil and coal," he said.
The hundreds of billions of dollars a year the U.S. spends on importing foreign oil is one reason the military remains involved in the Middle East. It also undermines the country's finances, he said.
The economy, too, can be revived by developing emerging industries in the U.S. Among them are products and services to retrofit buildings to be more efficient; solar, wind, and enhanced geothermal power; a "super grid" that's able to transport solar and wind power efficiently; and plug-in electric cars.
"When put together, we have the tools and technologies to solve three or four climate crises," he said. "But the missing element is political will."
He predicted that the U.S. Senate will get a climate and energy bill through committee before the Copenhagen round of international climate negotiations next month. Despite the "odds and the pessimism," he said there is a chance for a binding political agreement from Copenhagen next month and a roadmap for a comprehensive treaty.
Gore said that an Internet-aided grass-roots movement is the way to influence political change on this issue.
For wind power to take a firmer hold, a missing ingredient must materialize: data.
Wind Pole Ventures is building a business as an information broker, gathering more accurate wind speed information for sale to wind farm developers. Last month, the Lexington, Mass.-based start-up signed on its first customer, Invenergy, which will use Wind Pole's data service to better predict wind performance.
There's better wind speed data at the top, says Wind Pole Ventures.
(Credit: U.S. Air Force)Wind power has grown rapidly in the U.S. over the past few years, but the output of large-scale farms has not always matched expectations, which means those projects are less profitable than predicted. Varying wind speeds also make managing the reliability of the grid more complicated, as unanticipated dips can cause outages.
Wind Pole has bought the rights to place wind speed measuring devices, called anenometers, on microwave towers. There were 1,200 of the towers put in place for communications during the Cold War, some of which are used as cell phone towers. But they were largely made obsolete by fiber optic links, said Steve Kropper, founder and CEO of Wind Pole.
Gathering data at 100 meters (328 feet)--about the same height of wind turbines' towers--delivers far more accurate information than getting a reading at 10 meters, which is how data is typically gathered now, Kropper said.
"Ten states have more than 3 percent wind power in their state and because it's intermittent, it comes and goes. So wind has the capacity to provide the grid or destabilize it," he said. "Since there is not storage yet, all we can do is have better predictions for when it blows and when it stops."
There are other companies and technologies aimed at getting more accurate wind speed data. Somerville, Mass.-based Second Wind has a solar-powered, land-based device that gathers data via sodar, which is like radar but uses sound waves instead of radio waves.
Kropper said that using "old-fashioned" anenometers allows it to be relatively cheap and attract investors wary of new technologies. Invenergy plans to use data gathered from almost 60 towers in six states in the U.S.
A Humvee made by American General.
(Credit: AM General)Lithium-ion battery manufacturer EnerDel has signed an 18-month, $1.29 million contract with the U.S. Army to design and test hybrid battery options for the Humvee.
Trying to power the iconic fuel-guzzling High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV aka Humvee) with a battery, may seem like trying to put out a fire with a garden hose. But a lithium-ion battery system can deliver a lot of power from a battery quickly, giving a truck like the Humvee the thrust it requires.
EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1, will collaborate with the U.S. Army's Tank Automotive Research, Development, and Engineering Center (TARDEC) on four possible power systems that could be implemented in the XM1124 version of the Humvee.
The company, which specializes in battery cell chemistry as well as the electronics and battery system designs, said it already has two viable options. EnerDel has developed a lithium-tatinate system in conjunction with Argonne National Laboratory that could accommodate the acceleration and hard braking required for such a powerful vehicle like the Humvee. It also has a lithium-manganese system that would give a vehicle extra-long range and allow electronics to be run off the battery for extended periods of time before needing to be recharged.
As part of the 18-month contract, EnerDel will also be involved in testing the systems under "extreme performance simulations." In addition to putting the test vehicles through the usual Humvee paces of wading through water and mountain climbing, there will also be an endurance test.
That will include seeing how a hybrid Humvee fares as a power plant for a field hospital or temporary military post. The requirement makes perfect sense given the ease with which a Humvee can be transported to hard-to-reach areas. One of its key features has always been that it could be dropped in to virtually any terrain by parachute.
A Humvee being parachuted out of a plane.
(Credit: AM General)The hybrid Humvee will also be more stealthy. Anyone who's had a close call with a Prius knows how dangerously silent hybrids can be in total battery mode. The hybrid version of the Humvee will have a powered-down "silent watch" mode that will allow it to run with its diesel generator off, reducing not only its noise, but also its thermal signature to avoid detection.
As always with major military project announcements, the company involved was quick to point out the down-the-road commercial application of its technology.
"In keeping with a long tradition, we also expect that innovations perfected here will have important benefits for the commercial markets," EnerDel President Rick Stanley said in a a statement.
There has already been interest in Raser Technologies' H3E, a plug-in hybrid version of a Hummer-branded SUV called the H3. While not truly a Hummer (the civilian version of the Humvee), the "Hummer-light" descendant has garnered the interest of even the most discerning Hummer enthusiasts.
So if EnerDel's batteries might be good enough to power a Hummvee, why haven't commercial automakers been knocking? They have actually. The company has signed research partnerships of varying commitment levels with Think Global, Fisker Automotive, Volvo, and Nissan. Its parent company, Ener1, is also working with U.S. utilities to develop smart grid storage units.
People at green-technology companies will likely keep an eye on next month's global climate change negotiations in Copenhagen but they aren't betting their businesses on the outcome.
Research and events company Cleantech Group on Thursday released an analysis called "Why Cop15 Doesn't Matter," referring to the 15th conference of international climate change talks scheduled to start December 7 in Copenhagen.
With numerous political and economic issues complicating the picture, it would be surprising if a major breakthrough pact emerged next month. But whether there is a binding agreement won't have an immediate impact on the adoption of green technologies, according to research analyst Stephen Marcus, who was the principal author.
Instead, any progress in ongoing global negotiations is a more of a "milestone" toward a day when heavy polluters will need to account for the amount of greenhouse gases they emit.
"The private sector is not letting the (United Nations) bureaucracy get in the way of getting things done," said Cleantech group managing director Dallas Kachan during a conference call with reporters on Thursday. "The funds are already flowing."
The Cleantech Group estimates that between $5 billion and $6 billion in venture capital will go to green technologies, a category which received more money than software last quarter.
More significant is the amount of money and political commitment made by national governments around the world. Over the next few years, the United States will spend tens of billions of stimulus dollars to develop clean-energy industries, such as solar, wind, and plug-in vehicles. China, too, has made economic development around clean energy a national priority.
Government programs designed to promote clean-energy technologies, along with growing private-sector financial interest in green tech, will be the primary driver for investment in the short term, according to the Cleantech Group.
Writing on the wall
The U.S. Congress is now considering an energy and climate bill that calls for the creation of a cap-and-trade system to regulate greenhouse gases. Large polluters would be given a certain number of pollution permits and be able to buy and sell them to stay under a government-set cap on emissions.
On Thursday, the U.S. Senate's environment committee passed an energy and climate bill despite a boycott from Republican members. The bill faces an uncertain future as it still needs to pass other Senate committees and be reconciled with an existing House version before being passed into law.
Although one of the most discussed portions of the bill is cap-and-trade legislation, many green-technology investors and entrepreneurs say that other measures in the bill would have a more direct influence on their business plans.
For example, the bill calls for stepped-up efficiency standards and a mandate that utilities use a certain percentage of wind, solar, or geothermal energy in their power generation. By contrast, limits on carbon emissions and trading carbon permits would be phased in over several years with a percentage of the permits given away for free.
Still, there are a number of corporations lobbying for a climate bill because it sends a signal that there will be a cost attached to carbon emissions.
On Wednesday, a varied group of businesses, including large utilities, formed a new group to lobby Congress to quickly pass a climate bill now moving through the Senate. Called American Businesses for Clean Energy, the group was created to garner more public corporate support for a climate and energy bill that would limit greenhouse gases.
The initial companies are pushing for passage of a climate bill in the U.S. because they expect it to spur innovation.
"Many within the business community are urging Congress to adopt meaningful energy and climate legislation, so we can move forward with investments in technologies and infrastructure that will be needed to meet future energy demand, grow our economy, and protect our environment," Tom King, the president of utility National Grid, said in a statement.
WASHINGTON--A key U.S. Senate environment committee approved a Democratic climate change bill on Thursday that would require industry to cut emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases 20 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.
The bill approved by the Environment and Public Works Committee will now become one of several initiatives in the Senate aimed at attacking global warming. But they are unlikely to produce legislation that would be voted on by the full Senate until next year at the earliest.
With Republicans boycotting the environment panel's measure, saying more analysis of the legislation was needed, 10 Democrats approved the bill and one Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus, voted against it.
Sen. John Kerry, who co-authored the bill with fellow Democrat Barbara Boxer, is leading an effort with some Republicans and the White House to draft a compromise.
Democrats in Congress, working on a major plank of President Barack Obama's agenda, have been anxious to show at least some progress on enacting a domestic climate change bill before December 7, when an international global warming summit convenes in Copenhagen.
While there were scores of amendments to the bill that environment committee members wanted to debate and vote on before approving it, they were unable to because of the Republican boycott.
Under committee rules, at least two Republicans had to be present to debate and vote on changing the bill.
Boxer delayed work on the legislation for two days, saying she was giving Republicans the opportunity to collect more information from EPA officials and to offer their own amendments.
But Republicans did not take her up on the offer and by Thursday, Boxer had lost patience with the delay.
She opened Thursday's work session reading from a letter from John Rowe, Chief Executive of Exelon, one of the country's largest utilities.
Calling the bill written by Boxer and Kerry "an excellent starting point," Rowe wrote, "We urge you as chairman, as well as your colleagues, to take the steps necessary to order the bill reported by the committee so that climate legislation can be considered by the full Senate."
Baucus' vote against the bill reflected the difficulties ahead in crafting a measure that would attract the 60 votes needed for passage by the Senate.
As an influential moderate Democrat, Baucus laid out changes he would seek, including a weaker carbon-reduction target. Other Midwestern and Southern senators from states heavily reliant on coal will seek their own changes, which could upset liberals now supporting the bill.
Story Copyright (c) 2009 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
Additional stories from Reuters
Micro-crops of algae grown in man-made open-air ponds.
(Credit: PetroAlgae)PetroAlgae has signed a memorandum of understanding to license its proprietary technology for producing and harvesting algae for fuel to Indian Oil, the company announced this week.
The Melbourne, Fla.-based company has developed bioreactors and harvesting methods for converting algae grown in open-pond freshwater farms into biodiesel.
The first phase of its partnership with Indian Oil will involve building a test facility to see whether PetroAlgae's production method is scalable. Once that has proven to be successful, Indian Oil plans to build a commercial production facility that could produce 200,000 tpa (tonnes per annum) of biodiesel. That facility would also produce a protein byproduct from the process that could be sold for use in making animal feedstock.
The Indian Oil-PetroAlgae deal lends further support to the notion that India's ambition is to rival Brazil as the world's largest exporter of biofuel in the coming years. Global biofuel use is expected to double by 2015, according to a recent report by Hart Energy Consulting, and many Big Oil players have been focusing efforts on getting a footing in that arena.
Until recently, most of the Big Oil interest in algae biofuel has been in the form of investments thrown at pilot projects, start-up companies, and research institutions. But the past few months have seen prominent partnerships with more clearly laid-out commercial ambitions.
In July it was announced that Exxon Mobil is investing over $600 million to produce biofuel made from photosynthetic algae in conjunction with the Calif.-based biotech firm Synthetic Genomics (SGI). Martek Bioscience, which initially was selling its fermented algae as a baby food additive, announced in August that it had signed a deal with BP on microbial biodiesel production from algae fermentation.
While algae start-ups seem to have weathered the economic investment drought, as PetroAlgae's own board head John Scott predicted in May, it remains to be seen which method for growing algae will win out.
There is an ongoing debate over whether it's more cost-effective to grow algae by fermentation or photosynthesis. The PetroAlgae deal with Indian Oil puts another mark in the photosynthesis column.
The winter months are on their way. Soon, we'll be continually running our heaters and leaving the lights on longer. During these months, energy bills soar.
But there are online resources that can ease the pain. They probably won't chop your bills in half, but they do offer suggestions that will help.
Energy Savers
The U.S. government's Energy Savers Web site provides some of the finest resources on energy efficiency of any tool in this roundup.
When you go to Energy Savers, you can learn all about energy conservation. The site has content on renewable energy, ways to reduce your energy consumption, and more. It also has information on how to perform home-energy audits to see what you could do to reduce your energy bill. All in all, Energy Savers is an extremely useful site if you plan to reduce your energy bill.
Energy Savers helps you find energy-efficient products.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Energy Star
Energy Star has quickly become a buzzword in the home-energy space, but its Web site is one of the most useful in this roundup.
When you get to Energy Star, you can do quite a bit. I used the site to find information on energy-efficient appliances. The content it provided was outstanding. Aside from that, Energy Star features tips on how to address some inefficient energy issues in your home. One of the site's best resources is its list of potential tax credits that you can get by acquiring Energy Star products. The page provides several links for you to find the products that help you qualify for the credit. I really liked Energy Star. If you're looking to find appliances that match your financial goals, this site is for you.
Energy Star lists all the tax credits you can qualify for.
(Credit: Screenshot by Don Reisinger/CNET)Don Reisinger is a technology columnist who has written about everything from HDTVs to computers to Flowbee Haircut Systems. Don is a member of the CNET Blog Network, and posts at The Digital Home. He is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure.
After: The 6th Street Bridge after high pressure sodium streetlights were replaced with LEDs (See end of post for a before photo).
(Credit: City of Los Angeles/Bureau of Street Lighting)Los Angeles is literally basking in a whole new glow.
The city has decided to replace its street lights and bus stop lighting with LEDs. The bus stop lighting will be solar-powered and off the grid.
LA's Bureau of Street Lighting has been actively testing out different types of energy efficient lighting to replace the public lighting that currently includes a combination of incandescent, mercury vapor, metal halide, and high pressure sodium lights.
In 2009, the agency began an LED street lighting energy efficiency program to actively replace its existing 209,000 streetlights. When complete, the city's energy consumption for public lighting should be cut by 40 percent and save 40,500 tons of carbon emissions per year, according to city statistics.
Now the city has decided on which specific lights to go with. Many of the street lamps will be LEDway streetlights from BetaLED. The solar-powered bus lamps are EverGen lights from Carmanah Technologies. Because the bus lights are self-sufficient, they will not need to be tied into the city's electric grid and will allow the city to remain lit even in the event of a blackout.
In a statement released Tuesday, Carmanah said its lights will also give the city more freedom to replace existing lights or introduce lights in new places without having to dig up sidewalks or tie into electricity poles, cutting down on installation costs.
But in addition to making the city more energy efficient, the switch from an abundance of high pressure sodium lights across the city's highways to LEDs is also drastically changing the city's look. Before and after photos provided by the city of the 6th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River illustrate a clear change in tint from orange to whiter lighting.
Before: The orange glow of high pressure sodium lights on 6th Street Bridge over the Los Angeles River before they were replaced with LEDs.
(Credit: City of Los Angeles/Bureau of Street Lighting)
A tanker carrying liquefied natural gas that was made from harvesting the naturally occurring gas produced from the decomposition of organic trash.
(Credit: The Linde Group)Trash collection giant Waste Management and the Linde Group petroleum engineering firm have partnered to create a plant that makes liquefied natural gas (LNG) from landfill gas, both companies announced this week.
Linde designed and operates the plant which is located close to Waste Management's Altamont Landfill near Livermore, Calif.
"The opening of the world's largest landfill-gas-to-LNG plant right here in California is a milestone and a testament to our commitment to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Now that the technology has been proven, we look forward to seeing its adoption spread so more vehicles can run on garbage," Linda Adams, secretary of the California Environmental Protection Agency, said in a statement.
Contrary to what might be inferred from Adams' enthusiastic sound bite, the project is not the utopistic dream of incinerating any old trash in a DeLorean for fuel, nor has either company claimed this. What the project does show is an idea that reduces pollution in two ways. The renewable source for fuel is also a naturally occurring gas that would have otherwise released itself into the atmosphere.
Waste Management collects the gas that is produced from the naturally occurring decomposition of organic trash in its Livermore landfill. The Linde plant then purifies and processes that gas into LNG. The LNG is then used to fuel some of Waste Management's fleet for collecting trash and recycling. Those vehicles, of course, having been slightly modified so that they can run on LNG.
While the plant has only produced about 200,000 gallons since it started operating in September, it has the capacity to eventually produce 13,000 gallons a day or 4 million gallons a year. That would be enough to cover the fuel needs of 300 Waste Management vehicles used for garbage and recycling collection, and save about 30,000 tons of emissions per year, according to company statistics.
This is not the municipal collection giant's first foray into trash-to-energy tech. Waste Management has been distributing solar-powered trash compactors and investing in various projects geared at converting waste in usable energy in several different forms.
Now you can test whether you're both techno-chic and an ecogeek by combining the iPhone with home wind turbines.
Small wind turbine maker Mariah Power has teamed up with software developer Create with Context to make an iPhone application designed to measure wind speed.
The application, which is due "any day," uses the iPhone's microphone to get a read on wind speed. It translates that into how much power a small wind turbine could offset. For example, a wind that averages 12 miles per hour is enough energy to run your refrigerator and freezer for a year, according to Create with Context.
The iPhone small wind application uses a microphone to get a read on wind speed.
(Credit: Create with Context)The application was written to get people excited about wind power. But it strikes me that actually buying a turbine based on an iPhone application is a bit risky.
Small wind turbines do indeed work, but experienced wind installers will tell you that they only deliver on their stated performance when there is a sufficient wind. That means placing a turbine far above and away from obstructions, such as trees and rooftops, in addition to getting that 12-mph average wind speed.
Two studies--one in the U.K. and one in Massachusetts--found that early buyers of pole-mounted wind turbines and roof-mounted turbines did not get the electricity output they expected. The primary reason was that the turbines weren't getting enough wind in their locations.
So an iPhone wind speed application could be fun to play with and even give you a decent idea of wind speed. But if you're serious, I'd suggest consulting a wind map from 3Tier or others and gather more data with an anemometer.
There are at least two other iPhone applications for measuring wind speed, called Wind Meter and Wind Speed, the New York Times notes.
