Wind Energy Going Big in Eastern U.S.

Wind energy could generate 20 percent of the electricity needed by households and businesses in the eastern half of the United States by 2024, but it would require up to $90 billion in investment, according to a government report released on Wednesday.

For the 20 percent wind scenario to work, billions must be spent on installing wind towers on land and sea and about 22,000 miles of new high-tech power lines to carry the electricity to cities, according to the study from the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory.
"Twenty percent wind is an ambitious goal," said David Corbus, the project manager for the study. "We can bring more wind power online, but if we don't have the proper infrastructure to move that power around, it's like buying a hybrid car and leaving it in the garage,"
The private sector cannot fund all the needed spending, so a big chunk would have to come from the federal government through programs such as loan guarantees, Corbus said.
The Obama administration is already dedicating billions of dollars to double the amount of electricity produced by wind and other renewables energy sources

by January 2012.
The amount of U.S. electricity generated by wind was up 29 percent during January-October of last year compared to the same period is 2008, according to the Energy Department.

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http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60J37V20100120

Bill Gate's Pledge for Renewable Energy

People often present two timeframes that we should have as goals for CO2 reduction -- 30% (off of some baseline) by 2025 and 80% by 2050.
I believe the key one to achieve is 80% by 2050.
But we tend to focus on the first one since it is much more concrete.
We don't distinguish properly between things that put you on a path to making the 80% goal by 2050 and things that don't really help.
To make the 80% goal by 2050 we are going to have to reduce emissions from transportation and electrical production in participating countries down to zero.
You will still have emissions from other activities including domestic animals, making fertilizer, and decay processes.
There will still be countries that are too poor to participate.
If the goal is to get the transportation and electrical sectors down to zero emissions you clearly need innovation that leads to entirely new approaches to generating power.
Should society spend a lot of time trying to insulate houses and telling people to turn off lights or should it spend time on accelerating innovation?
If addressing climate change only requires us to get to the 2025 goal, then efficiency would be the key thing.
But you can never insulate your way to anything close to zero no matter what advocates of resource efficiency say. You can never reduce consumerism to anything close to zero.
Because 2025 is too soon for innovation to be completed and widely deployed, behavior change still matters.
Still, the amount of CO2 avoided by these kinds of modest reduction efforts will not be the key to what happens with climate change in the long run.
In fact it is doubtful that any such efforts in the rich countries will even offset the increase coming from richer lifestyles in places like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, etc.
Innovation in transportation and electricity will be the key factor.
One of the reasons I bring this up is that I hear a lot of climate change experts focus totally on 2025 or talk about how great it is that there is so much low hanging fruit that will make a difference.
This mostly focuses on saving a little bit of energy, which by itself is simply not enough. The need to get to zero emissions in key sectors almost never gets mentioned. The danger is people will think they just need to do a little bit and things will be fine.
If CO2 reduction is important, we need to make it clear to people what really matters -- getting to zero.
With that kind of clarity, people will understand the need to get to zero and begin to grasp the scope and scale of innovation that is needed.
However all the talk about renewable portfolios, efficiency, and cap and trade tends to obscure the specific things that need to be done.
To achieve the kinds of innovations that will be required I think a distributed system of R&D with economic rewards for innovators and strong government encouragement is the key. There just isn't enough work going on today to get us to where we need to go.
The world is distracted from what counts on this issue in a big way.

Huffington Post
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Ballard Fuel Cells Ordered for Phileas Articulated Buses.

Ballard Power Systems has announced that it has received a sales order for five FCvelocityTM-HD6 power modules from Advanced Public Transportation Systems bv (APTS), a specialty bus OEM in The Netherlands, part of the VDL Group. The 150- kilowatt power modules will be installed and integrated by Vossloh-Kiepe with hybrid electric drive systems in 18-meter (60-foot) articulated Phileas buses manufactured by APTS.

Phileas is a new concept for passenger transport on high frequency dedicated bus lanes. When running on a free bus lane and equipped with magnetic markers for electronic lane assistance and precision docking, Phileas buses can offer the advantages of rapid rail transport.

Ballard’s power module is a ‘plug-and-play’ fuel cell-based product that enables system integrators to build clean energy buses more easily and at lower cost. These power modules incorporate sub- system components addressing humidification, hydrogen pressure regulation, hydrogen recirculation, water management, ventilation and controls. Since these sub-system components and fuel cell stacks are optimized within a power module, they can be more readily integrated with the bus hybrid electric drive system.

All the power modules will be shipped to APTS by the second quarter of 2010 and the first APTS Phileas bus incorporating a Ballard power module will be produced this year. Two Phileas buses powered by Ballard fuel cell modules will be operating in Cologne, Germany and two will be operating in Amsterdam. APTS currently has 70 Phileas buses in operation worldwide.

Ruud Bouwman, Director of APTS said “We are certainly pleased to be working with Ballard on our Phileas buses. APTS sees a sizable potential European market for this fuel cell ‘tram on tires’ concept, with each fuel cell bus reducing CO2 emissions up to 155 tons per year.”

Ballard’s participation in demonstration programs through five generations of heavy duty fuel cell power modules has yielded over two million kilometers (1.2 million miles) of actual revenue service, transporting over seven million passengers on buses in various locations around the world. Ballard’s next generation heavy duty fuel cell power module, the FCvelocityTM-HD6, delivers enhanced fuel cell durability and improved efficiency at a reduced cost, while offering an industry leading 12,000-hour (5-year) warranty.

Ballard Power Systems, of Vancouver, British Columbia, provides clean energy fuel cell products enabling optimized power systems for a range of applications.

Green Energy News
http://www.greenenergynews.com

E. Coli Recall: Huntington Meat Packing Recalls 864,000 Pounds Of Beef

MONTEBELLO, Calif. — A Southern California meat-packing firm has recalled some 864,000 pounds of ground-beef that might be contaminated with E. coli.
The Department of Agriculture's Food Safety and Inspection Service said Monday that no illnesses have been reported from the products sold by Montebello-based Huntington Meat Packing Inc. under the Huntington, Imperial Meat Co. and El Rancho brands.
The affected beef was sold to distribution centers, restaurants and hotels in California between Feb. 19 and May 15, 2008, and between Jan 5. and Jan. 15, 2010.
Huntington did not return a phone message.
Officials say department personnel discovered the problem during a food safety assessment.

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com

USGBC commits to helping rebuild Haiti

The U.S. Green Building Council, home of the LEED green building rating systems, has announced its commitment to help rebuild Haiti after the country was devastated by a 7.0 magnitude earthquake. Specific details are not yet available but the USGBC is encouraging those that can help to do so through the Clinton Foundation Haiti Relief Fund.

 

The USGBC has experience with rebuilding communities after natural disasters. The USGBC was involved in rebuilding efforts after a massive F5 tornado destroyed the entire town of Greensburg, Kansas as well as green rebuilding efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and the levee breaks wreaked havoc on the city.

 

The green building organization is already familiar with the unique challenges that they will face when undertaking such a massive effort in the impoverished island nation. In the spring of 2009, USGBC CEO Rick Fedrizzi was part of a United Nations Special Envoy to Haiti that included President Bill Clinton. Fedrizzi’s knowledge of the country will be valuable as the focus switches from recovering from the earthquake to rebuilding the nation.

 

Rebuilding plans are already underway and as more details about the USGBC’s involvement in Haiti are released, I will be sure to provide updated information.

 

Huffington Post

http://huffingtonpost.com

Is Antarctica Melting or Not?

NASA

reports on a new analysis of the Antarctic ice sheet and its apparent response to global warming.
NASA notes that one new paper states there has been less surface melting recently than in past years, and has been cited as "proof" that there’s no global warming

. Other evidence that the amount of sea ice around Antarctica seems to be increasing slightly is being used in the same way. But both of these data points are misleading. Gravity data collected from space using NASA's Grace satellite show that Antarctica has been losing more than a hundred cubic kilometers (24 cubic miles) of ice each year since 2002. The latest data reveals that Antarctica is losing ice at an accelerating rate, too. How is it possible for surface melting to decrease, but for the continent to lose mass anyway? The answer boils down to the fact that ice can flow without melting.
Two-thirds of Antarctica is a high, cold desert. Known as East Antarctica, this section has an average altitude of about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles), higher than the American Colorado Plateau. There is a continent about the size of Australia underneath all this ice; the ice sheet sitting on top averages at a little over 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) thick. If all of this ice melted, it would raise global sea level by about 60 meters (197 feet). But little, if any, surface warming is occurring over East Antarctica. Radar- and laser-based satellite data show a little mass loss at the edges of East Antarctica, which is being partly offset by accumulation of snow in the interior, although a very recent result from the NASA/German Aerospace Center's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (Grace) suggests that since 2006 there has been more ice loss from East Antarctica than previously thought5. Overall, not much is going on in East Antarctica — yet.
West Antarctica is a series of islands covered by ice. Think of it as a frozen Hawaii, with penguins.
West Antarctica is very different. Instead of a single continent, it is a series of islands covered by ice — think of it as a frozen Hawaii, with penguins. Because it's a group of islands, much of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS, in jargon) is actually sitting on the floor of the Southern Ocean, not on dry land. Parts of it are more than 1.7 kilometers (1 mile) below sea level. Pine Island is the largest of these islands and the largest ice stream in West Antarctica is called Pine Island Glacier. The WAIS, if it melted completely, would raise sea level by 5 to 7 meters (16 to 23 feet). And the Pine Island Glacier would contribute about 10 percent of that.
Since the early 1990's, European and Canadian satellites have been collecting radar data from West Antarctica. These radar data can reveal ice motion and, by the late 1990s, there was enough data for scientists to measure the annual motion of the Pine Island Glacier. Using radar information collected between 1992 and 1996, oceanographer Eric Rignot, based at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, found that the Pine Island Glacier’s "grounding line" — the line between the glacier's floating section and the part of the glacier that rests on the sea floor — had retreated rapidly towards the land. That meant that the glacier was losing mass. He attributed the retreat to the warming waters around West Antarctica. But with only a few years of data, he couldn't say whether the retreat was a temporary, natural anomaly or a longer-term trend from global warming.
Rignot's paper surprised many people. JPL scientist Ron Kwok saw it as demonstrating that "the old idea that glaciers move really slowly isn't true any more." One result was that a lot more people started to use the radar data to examine much more of Antarctica. A major review published in 2009 found that Rignot's Pine Island Glacier finding hadn’t been a fluke: a large majority of the marine glaciers of the Antarctic Peninsula were retreating, and their retreat was speeding up. Last summer, a British group revisited the Pine Island Glacier finding and found that its rate of retreat had quadrupled between 1995 and 20068.
The retreat of West Antarctica's glaciers is being accelerated by ice shelf collapse. Ice shelves are the part of a glacier that extends past the grounding line towards the ocean; they are the most vulnerable to warming seas. A longstanding theory in glaciology is that these ice shelves tend to support the end wall of glaciers, with their mass slowing the ice movement towards the sea. This was confirmed by the spectacular collapse of the Rhode Island-sized Larsen B shelf along the eastern edge of the Antarctic Peninsula in 2002. The disintegration, which was caught on camera by NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) imaging instruments on board its Terra and Aqua satellites, was dramatic: it took just three weeks to crumble a 12,000-year old ice shelf. Over the next few years, satellite radar data showed that some of the ice streams flowing behind Larsen B had accelerated significantly, while others, still supported by smaller ice shelves, had not. This dynamic process of ice flowing downhill to the sea is what enables Antarctica to continue losing mass even as surface melting declines.

Climate Change News
http://enn.com

The Five Most Affordable, Fuel Efficient Cars of 2010

The 2010 model year has more to offer the cost-conscious car buyer than ever before. There are 20 cars, SUVs and hatchbacks that get better than 30 mpg. But while each will save you money at the pump, many come at a premium (the hybrid versions of some models cost from $6,000 to $11,000 more than their gasoline-fueled counterparts). Don't despair. If you're in the market for a new car, there are seven that both get better than 30 mpg and cost less than $20,000. Better, these five cost less than $15,000 (two even come in under $12,000). Of course, truly cost conscious consumers will want to look at used cars, which can also be a good choice for the environment (avoiding all the energy and materials that go into the manufacturing of a new car). Use fueleconomy.gov to compare the efficiency of used and new cars, or check out The Daily Green's list of the 10 most reliable and fuel-efficient used cars.
If you're buying new, look no further:

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2010 Kia Rio

Price: $11,495
The manual Kia Rio gets 31 mpg without the benefit of a hybrid engine, keeping its cost low. (The automatic drive comes in at a combined 30 mpg, but does better on the highway.)
Stats
28 mpg city (27 automatic)
34 mpg highway (36 automatic)
$2.15 to drive 25 miles
$1,294 annual fuel cost
5.9 tons of CO₂ annually

2010 Smart ForTwo

Price: $11,990
Whether you pick up the classic coupe or the convertible (no, it's not a golf cart), the Smart ForTwo's 36 mpg make it the most fuel-efficient non-hybrid car on the market. And at $11,990 it's also the most affordable. It was rated one of Greenopia's greenest cars of the year.
Stats
33 mpg city
41 mpg highway
$1.85 to drive 25 miles
$1,113 annual fuel cost
5.1 tons of CO₂ annually

2010 Toyota Yaris

Price: $12,355
Whether the little Yaris you get is the 3-door hatch, the 5-door hatch (add $300) or the 5-door sedan (add $750), the little Yaris gets 32 mpg.
Stats
29 mpg city
36 mpg highway (35 for manual)
$2.09 to drive 25 miles
$1,254 annual fuel cost
5.7 tons of CO₂ annually

2010 Hyundai Accent Blue

Price: $13,645
At 31 mpg, this new baseline version of the Accent (which otherwise gets 30 mpg) is among the more affordable fuel efficient 2010 cars.
Stats
27 mpg city
36 mpg highway
$2.15 to drive 25 miles
$1,294 annual fuel cost
5.9 tons of CO₂ annually

2010 Honda Fit

Price: $14,900
If you're buying a new Fit, the automatic 5-speed gets the best mileage, with 31 mpg. It is rated one of the greenest cars of 2010 by Kelly Blue Book.
Stats
28 mpg city
35 mpg highway
$2.15 to drive 25 miles
$1,294 annual fuel cost
5.9 tons of CO₂ annually

Huffington Post
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