Green Tech

Swedish-Japanese phone maker Sony Ericsson on Thursday announced targets for reducing CO2 emissions.

The initiative, part of its pre-existing GreenHeart program launched in September 2008, is intended to reduce emissions by 20 percent across internal operations and by 15 percent over the full life cycle of its products by 2015.

Sony Ericsson plans to roll its green strategy into its entire portfolio over time, which is different from focusing on individual green products, such as Nokia's Green 3110 or Motorola's Renew W233.

"We would rather have mainstream models that we sell in large quantities than one particular green model," Jon Mulder, who heads the company's product marketing in North America, told CNET News. "Our customers should first and foremost be able to buy a great phone, and--by the way--find that it's a green phone, too".

One of three new products launching under Sony Ericsson's GreenHeart program is the C901, shown here.

(Credit: Kent German/CNET)

Methods for cutting emissions include providing e-manuals for products to reduce paper usage, and using smaller packaging to decrease the transport-related CO2 footprint, recycled plastics, low-power chargers, and water-based paint that uses local water in the manufacturing process.

Sony Ericsson is launching three products initially: the C901 GreenHeart, a new version of the Cybershot phone C901; Naite, a basic GSM and 3G phone; and the MH300 GreenHeart headset.

Sony Ericsson's approach is pragmatic and low profile, Mulder said. There will be no GreenHeart logo on the hardware, only indications in some of the software.

Sony Ericsson was ranked No. 3 out of 17 manufacturers of electronics in Greenpeace's latest version of its Guide to Greener Electronics from March 2009, earning 5.7 out of 10 maximum points.

The company slipped from its No. 1 position with 5.1 points in June 2008.

In March the same year, Greenpeace awarded Sony Ericsson's T650 the greenest rating among 37 products at the Cebit international electronics fair in Hannover, Germany.

A new campaign to improve automotive fuel efficiency worldwide by 50 percent by the year 2050 was announced at the Geneva Motor Show on Wednesday.

The Global Fuel Economy Initiative and its "50 by 50" campaign has the backing of leaders of four major international organizations: David Ward, director general of the FIA Foundation; Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency; Jack Short, the secretary general of the International Transportation Forum; and Achim Steiner, the executive director of the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP).

Car companies, the "50 by 50" report (PDF) says, must develop car fleets that collectively on average get double the gas mileage they get today, and people must buy them, in order to effectively reduce automotive CO2 emissions and oil consumption.

While the group praised all-electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles it noted that such advanced technology is not immediately necessary, nor a guarantee of carbon dioxide reductions until countries have cleaner electricity production.

"We have to find ways to reconcile legitimate aspirations for mobility, an ambitious reduction in CO2 from cars worldwide, and global economic recovery. There are opportunities to combine support for the industry with measures to achieve governments' environmental and energy policy goals," said a joint statement signed by the leaders of the four organizations.

The Global Fuel Economy Initiative report said a combination of simple steps when collectively applied could have a large impact.

On the technology side it recommended two main things:

• Develop more hybrids overall, offer more car models in a hybrid version, and when possible offer a plug-in hybrid version.
• Implement and improve less glamorous but achievable incremental technology for gas and diesel engine cars like weight reduction, better aerodynamics, and improved efficiency in the internal combustion engine.

But technology alone will not get the world to the goal unless it's propelled by political action, according to the report. On the political side, the initiative recommended the following:

• Present clear data on fuel economy statistics for cars as well as their effect on the global climate, and require automakers to be more transparent on a car model's real-life fuel efficiency.
• Lobby shareholders with significant stakes in automotive companies on the benefits of selling cars with fuel economy improvements.
• Convince governments to offer better incentives for companies to develop more fuel-efficient vehicles.
• Launch campaigns in different countries throughout the world to arm individuals with information on fuel efficiency and their options for car buying.

Taking those steps will save over 6 billion barrels of oil per year by 2050, and reduce carbon dioxide emissions from cars by about 50 percent, according to the report.

"Cutting global average automotive fuel consumption (L/100 km) by 50 percent (i.e. doubling MPG) would reduce emissions of CO2 by over 1 gigatonne (Gt) a year by 2025 and over 2 gigatonnes (Gt) by 2050, and result in savings in annual oil import bills alone worth over USD 300 billion in 2025 and 600 billion in 2050 (based on an oil price of USD 100/bbl)," said the report.

The initiative acknowledges that its goal is ambitious. The report points out that the amount of cars in the world is expected to triple by 2050. It attributes this expected growth to the surge of car ownership in developing nations.

Consulting firm Accenture released software on Wednesday built to help companies improve energy efficiency and reduce waste. The Accenture Green Technology Suite measures the "green" aspects of a corporation's information technology practices, data centers, and office operations.

Accenture's Web quiz provides a snapshot of a company's 'green' performance, followed by a report via e-mail.

(Credit: Accenture)

The company provides a Flash-based snapshot of the tools on its Web site.

"By implementing the specific, tailored green recommendations, organizations can achieve measurable environmental improvements that contribute to bottom line savings," said Steve Nunn, who heads Accenture's green IT programs.

Companies are increasingly fine-tuning software and Web-based tools to count carbons, to maximize energy efficiency, and to create greener supply chains, buildings, and consumer products.

Accenture partnered with the Silicon Valley Leadership Group on recent research that determined that retrofitting existing data centers can achieve energy efficiency close to that of new data centers.

A chemical used to make LCD televisions and semiconductors could cause more global warming than coal-fired power plants, a report warns.

Nitrogen trifluoride is a "missing greenhouse gas," according to a study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters on June 26. It's used in chemical vapor deposition, which makes liquid crystal displays, semiconductors, and synthetic diamond.

Production of the chemical could double to 8,000 metric tons in 2009, atmospheric chemist Michael Prather, who co-wrote the report, told New Scientist.

Nitrogen trifluoride's globe-warming effect reportedly could be 17,000 times stronger than that of carbon dioxide.

However, the picture is incomplete because nitrogen trifluoride isn't among the six gases covered by the Kyoto Protocol international climate change agreement.

This year alone, its production would release the equivalent of the global-warming emissions from Austria, totaling some 67 million metric tons, New Scientist noted.

And that would amount to more global-warming pollution than all the industrialized world's emissions of perfluorocarbons (PFCs) and of sulfur hexafluoride, which is considered more potent.

Kyoto's terms left out nitrogen trifluoride and some dozen other gases, in part because they weren't produced at a scale large enough to cause significant harm.

Some companies had turned to the man-made chemical initially to reduce pollution.

The market for flat-screen televisions, including LCDs, is expected to boom with the United States' full transition to digital television next February.

Along with it, watchdog groups warn that additional ecological harm could come, if toxic electronics waste isn't disposed of properly. Americans are expected to discard 80 million analog TVs by the end of 2009.

However, LCD televisions are often painted as eco-friendly because they consume less power than plasma and older rear-projection sets.

Correction June 30 11:30 a.m. PDT: See below for details.

A sampling of green-tech news with quick commentary.

• High fuel costs threaten suburban lifestyles - The Boston Globe
  Does America need a redesign? Rising gas prices could drive an exodus from suburbs into city centers.

• Novomer launching plastic made from CO2 - Greentech Media
  Plastic made from carbon could be used in electronics and solar equipment.


Digital maps show the scope of California wildfires.
(Credit: Google Earth)

• Google Earth maps California fires - Google Earth Blog
  Tagged maps and NASA satellite imagery help to pinpoint some 1,400 fires raging in California.

• Number of flights to plummet by summer's end - The New York Times
  The number of flights by American carriers could plummet to post-9/11 levels as airlines struggle with rising fuel prices.

• Canadian carbon tax kicks in - Canadian Press
  A new tax has British Columbians paying an additional 8 cents per gallon for gasoline. Are similar taxes bound for the United States?

• Pacific 'Ring of Fire' nations mull geothermal power - Reuters
  Rich in volcanoes, Indonesia and the Philippines consider tapping deep into the earth for energy.

• Molten salt provides highly efficient thermal storage - Renewable Energy World
  Molten salt could be key for solar "towers of power" to work smoothly despite volatile weather conditions.

• Will shoppers become hip to square milk jugs? - The New York Times
  Square milk jugs meant to save fuel and water are bound for more bulk discount stores.

• EcoRAM could save power in server farms - GreenTech Pastures/ZDNet
  Spansion says its new flash memory would be 10 times more reliable and consume one-eighth the energy of DRAM.

• Military resists superfund cleanup - The Washington Post
  The Pentagon and Environmental Protection Agency battle toxic waste cleanup.

• Report: World to use 50 percent more energy by 2030 - Red, Green, and Blue
  This is a good explanation of last week's report that projects a 51 percent rise in carbon dioxide emissions in the coming decades.

• VW testing 94 MPG plug-in hybrid electric Golf - Carscoop
  Volkswagen is testing a plug-in hybrid that can run 30 miles on a charged lithium-ion battery.

Correction: This story initially misstated the comparison between Spansion's new flash memory and DRAM. The new memory would consume approximately one-eighth the energy DRAM does.

I had a lively discussion with Susan Wood, CEO of SCC Americas, at the Carbon Finance North America Conference last week. SCC Americas is the U.S. arm of Syndicatum Carbon Capital, one of the largest developers of Kyoto-based CDM carbon credit projects in the world. Susan herself has been doing emissions trading for more than a decade, after starting out as an environmental engineer.

The punchline in our chat was quite fascinating--the U.S. voluntary carbon market does not reward complexity in projects, Susan says. Basically, U.S. carbon credit developers are only doing a few limited types of projects, like methane destruction. Why? Because the buyers, who dictate the voluntary markets, tend to be scared off by anything complex that they do not understand, or anything that does not appear to be future proofed against coming U.S. regulations. This stands in stark contrast to the CDM market, where complexity is often the hallmark of the major developers since the methodology and standards process is trusted to a much greater degree by compliance buyers than the voluntary standards are.

One other way to look at this issue is that much of the innovation in new ways to abate carbon is coming from CDM under Kyoto, not the voluntary markets. A bit sad, and a challenge to the voluntary standards community to get its act in order. Possibly the rise of new standards like Voluntary Carbon Standard and Green-e Climate will help fix the crisis in complexity, but we have been saying that for a while. As Susan puts it, we need it to happen yesterday.

Neal Dikeman is a founding partner at Jane Capital Partners LLC, a boutique merchant bank advising strategic investors and start-ups in clean tech. He is also the founder of Carbonflow, a provider of software solutions for the carbon markets.

Smoke cigars, do a partial load of laundry, drink bottled water, and feel no shame. That's what a campaign against a carbon trading bill is urging.

The latest parody of the proliferation of "green" social-networking sites and eco-friendly events comes via "Carbon Belch Day," a campaign from the conservative Grassfire.org alliance that encourages people to pollute as much as possible on June 12.

This carbon calculator encourages ecologically uncouth behavior.

(Credit: Grassfire.org)

So far, more than 140,000 people have signed a petition against "climate alarmism," according to Ron De Jong, spokesman for Grassfire.org. If the effort attracts half a million people, it would lead to the release of 105 million pounds of carbon a week from this Thursday.

The effort is strong on shock value, yet weak on social networking and Web 2.0 tools, other than its "belch" calculator. There are no real-world events planned, so expect no sea of SUVs clogging freeways, other than the usual weekday bottlenecks.

The point, instead, is a political campaign to get people to oppose the Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, which would establish a corporate carbon cap-and-trade system, but is already threatened by a promised White House veto.

"Somehow, this bogus idea of environmental indulgences has become accepted as a real and valid way to deal with our carbon guilt," De Jong wrote in an e-mail.

Other popular Grassfire petitions include "Secure our borders" and "Save marriage." Group founder Steve Elliott holds a master's degree in public policy from Regent University, founded by televangelist Pat Robertson, which counts many graduates in prominent government positions in Washington, D.C.

The campaign may be a crude attention-getting ploy to which I can be accused of pandering. But its effort seems doomed, swimming against the mainstream tide. Conventional wisdom has shifted to embrace global warming as a near scientific certainty, and, like it or not, popular culture celebrates all things "green."

Even if Lieberman-Warner flops, many experts in the clean-tech sector anticipate a boost as carbon markets expand in the United States, perhaps following the European model, especially as a new administration takes the helm in Washington. Attendees of clean-technology conferences regularly mention the coming carbon markets with the same certainty used to describe melting ice caps.

As carbon trading scales up, however, the next challenge will come as the public grapples with an abstract subject and demands accountability. Personal carbon footprint calculators and offsetting services are hard enough to navigate.

And motivation aside, the "belch" campaign shares a point with which many environmentalists would agree: that promoting fear of climate change could be counterproductive.

Remember the tagline of Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth? It was supposed to be "The most terrifying movie you'll ever see." A Time magazine cover last spring warned, "Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid."

Apocalyptic headlines and images of drowning polar bears sell, but they make people less motivated to "green" their daily habits, according to Michael Shellenberger, author and co-founder of the progressive Breakthrough Institute.

A study commissioned in 2000 by CNN founder Ted Turner found that the more people learned of the dire consequences of global warming, the less they felt they could do anything about it.

"And people were more likely to say they would buy an SUV to help them through the erratic weather to come rather than support increased CAFE standards," Shellenberger noted at a conference earlier in May.

A sampling of green-tech news.

• The Ethanol Industrial Complex--Forbes.com

  A snapshot of Senate hearings this week on the impact that U.S. government mandates for ethanol are having on corn prices. This article points out that even if mandates were loosened, high oil prices would keep corn ethanol demand strong.

• The Clean Energy Scam--TIME

  Time magazine declares biofuels a scam, listing the many problems with biofuels including deforestation in Brazil.

• New Source for Biofuels Discovered--Renewable Energy World

  University of Texas researchers create a microbe that can produce ethanol and other biofuels. Can a licensing deal and venture-backed start-up be far behind?

• Building the Zero-Emissions City--Technology Review

  More coverage of Masdar Initiative in Abu Dhabi to build a sustainable city with recycled water and renewable energy.

• Petrify, liquefy: new ways to bury greenhouse gas--Environmental News Network via Reuters

  Here's a new one: Scientists will test whether they can get stone to absorb thousands of tons of CO2. It's an alternative to carbon sequestration in underground caverns, which could leak.

• Carbon Markets: Booming but Vulnerable, World Bank Says--Environmental Capital (WSJ.com)

  The WSJ gives the good news/bad news on carbon markets. Yes, the volume of carbon trading is going up, but as carbon-cutting projects face more scrutiny, the UN is getting overwhelmed. Also, there's no long-term plan post-Kyoto.

• Fear, but Few Facts, on Hybrid Risk--The New York Times

  Who saw this coming? An article covers concerns over electromagnetic waves from hybrid cars, but thus far, there's no conclusive evidence on the potential problems.

Which parts of the United States emit the most global-warming gases? The best view until now came via satellites, which could capture only snapshots at about the state level. Total carbon emissions were known, but their distribution remained a mystery.

That changed on Monday with the release of the most detailed map to date of U.S. carbon emissions from fossil fuels.

With this U.S. map of carbon dioxide emissions complete, researchers next hope to conquer the world.

(Credit: Vulcan Project)

The map, by the Vulcan Project, took more than two years to complete and cost nearly a quarter of a million dollars, with backing from NASA and the Department of Energy. The result, named after the Roman god of fire, is 100 times more detailed than earlier imagery, according to its researchers.

"We knew that the previous emissions inventory of fossil fuels probably wasn't perfect, but we were a little surprised at how far off it was," said Kevin Gurney, a Purdue University assistant professor of earth and atmospheric science, who led the project. Additional researchers come from Colorado State University and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

They pooled together data from 2002 about carbon dioxide originating from power plants, roads, factories, businesses, and homes, and illustrated how the gas travels across land and oceans.

The overview map (above) appears at first to correlate emissions with population density. However, closer inspection reveals surprises, such as carbon dioxide clustered in semirural areas of the Southeastern United States, where manufacturing has shifted from the Northeast and Midwest.

"We've pushed power plants to where people don't live, so emissions have gotten spread out. Interstates run out in the middle of nowhere," Gurney said.

His team built a software program from the ground up to produce a video (see below) that shows great plumes of carbon dioxide trailing off from Southern California into the Pacific Ocean, and spreading from the northeast into the North Atlantic. Three-dimensional views display how thunderstorms and other weather patterns influence the migration of emissions.

The data is expected to be paired with findings from the Orbital Carbon Observatory satellite, set to launch in December to collect data about carbon in the Earth's atmosphere.

Gurney said he has been inundated with calls from lawmakers, businesses, and software makers seeking details and offering suggestions related to the Vulcan Project. The data available for download, for instance, could help support sophisticated carbon-trading programs.

"If we can show the reality of emissions and potential for people to change by buying hybrid cars, putting insulation on their homes, then this would be a great way to interact with consumers," Gurney said.

His team's next ambitious effort is the Hestia Project, a global map and climate portal named for the Greek goddess of the hearth.

"We want to make it even finer, to the individual-building level, and put it down to a 3-D, Google Earth kind of system that would allow people to zoom in anywhere," Gurney said. "Numbers in a table just do not connect with people. When they see their world and house--a photorealistic view--it resonates with their lives."

Next month, the Hestia Project, which is collecting partners and funding, will launch a prototype to track Indianapolis. Gurney aims to have that city mapped within a year or two. As a contrast, he hopes to focus on a city in China before mapping the planet.

Over the long term, a system ideally should take into account other global-warming gases, such as methane, in addition to measuring land use and carbon sequestration efforts, he said.