Smart Metering

Imagine for a moment that we bought food in the way we currently buy electricity. We might order from a supply list with no prices marked and have whatever we fancied delivered to our door whenever we pleased. A single, un-itemized bill would arrive in the mail once every couple of months covering all the food ordered and delivered during the billing period. How would our food bills probably compare to what they are currently? How would we go about reducing our food bill in order to save money when we know nothing about the cost of each act of consumption?

More at the Oil Drum...

The Happy UN Report

Investors Flock to Renewable Energy and Efficiency Technologie

Climate Change Worries, high oil prices and government help top factors fueling hot renewabl energy investment climate. Investors flock to renewabl energy and efficiency technologies; tranascations leap to record $100 Billion in 2006 Says UNEP study; Renewabl shed fringe image; American, European Markets Dominate, but 9% of Global Investments are in China, 21% in Developing Countries.

The 2007 report on Trends and Investment

The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion

Here at the University of California at Berkeley, we have all heard denunciations of corn ethanol by prominent faculty members like Jay Keasling and Chris Somerville. But as soon as the denunciations are done, these same people immediately propose the grand solution to humanity’s energy needs: ethanol from cellulosic biomass, preferably from their own patented superweeds.

Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there is no energy-efficient and scalable industrial technology for producing ethanol from biomass. The Canadian biotech firm, Iogen Corporation, has a demonstration facility in Ottawa, with a nameplate capacity of 1 million gallons of ethanol per year. But it has only produced about 60,000 gallons of ethanol in 180 days from a 4-percent dilute beer. This demonstrates that Iogen has no viable technology beyond what was already achievable in the Soviet Union and Germany some 80 years ago.

http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=516

Energy Outlook - The DOE Report

Thursday, June 14, 2007

A Wave of Wind A long train ride provided the opportunity to review the new report from the Department of Energy on the state of wind power in the US. For those who like numbers the ones in this document are fascinating. Significantly, they show that for the second year in a row, wind power capacity additions were second only to those for natural gas-fired turbines and ahead of coal, even when adjusted for “capacity factor”, the proportion of nameplate capacity actually utilized, on average. Furthermore, in at least a few states wind power is now contributing shares of total electricity sales that are comparable to the national shares from conventional sources such as hydropower and nuclear energy. At least regionally, wind is becoming mainstream, rather than niche.
http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/

looks like more money is going to be put to good use

Capital Hill News

Energy on the Senate Agenda

Posted by Mark Gongloff

Maya Jackson Randall of Dow Jones Newswires reports on this week’s Senate debate about energy:

The Senate is set to tackle a comprehensive energy policy proposal this week as Democratic leaders aim to keep their campaign promise to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. Debate on the wide-ranging energy bill is likely to begin Monday evening, with the first votes expected as early as Tuesday.

http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/

Corn ethanol unprofitable by 2008, says Iowa State

June 8, 2007 - Exclusive
By Dana Childs, inside greentech

Profits could disappear from the corn ethanol industry by the end of this year, said researchers at Iowa State University, in the latest of a string of doomsday predictions for the industry.
"We think the expected returns to an ethanol plant are zero or negative in 2008," said Bruce Babcock, economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State, in Ames, Iowa [Click here to read full article...]

Economy Based on Renewable Ingredients

Bio-factory producing corn-based polymer

By DUNCAN MANSFIELD
Associated Press Writer

LOUDON, Tenn. (AP) -- Railcars filled with a new bioengineered corn-based polymer are already pulling out of chemical giant DuPont Co.'s $100 million joint-venture factory with multinational agri-processor Tate & Lyle PLC. Next stop could be the carpet in your living room.

While other companies are working on several fronts to use more renewable resources, DuPont and Tate & Lyle consider themselves several steps ahead. They tout their plant about 35 miles south of Knoxville as "visible evidence that an economy based on renewable ingredients is possible."

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CORN_BASED_POLYMER?SITE=IADES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

Switching To Biofuels Could Cost Lots of Green

By Steven Mufson and Dan Morgan

Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 8, 2007; Page D01

As President Bush and congressional leaders rally support for their ambitious biofuel proposals, one ingredient is often left unstated: the cost.

Bush and members of Congress stress energy independence and environmental benefits of federal requirements for a massive increase in the use of biofuels in motor vehicles. But so far they have muted discussion of the prosaic details of how to pay for the subsidies and other incentives seen as crucial for meeting the new biofuels targets.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060702176_pf.html

U.N. warns of effects of global thaw

OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Melting glaciers, ice sheets and snow cover could speed the rate at which the planet heats up, causing rising sea levels, flooding and water shortages that impact as many as 40 percent of the world's population, a U.N. report said Monday.

The study, released before World Environment Day on Tuesday, highlighted the risk the receding ice cover could accelerate global warming, because the icepacks cool the planet by reflecting heat into space.

Even though much of the ice is in remote areas, such as polar regions and Greenland, the impact will be felt worldwide, U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner said.

"The report underlines that the fate of the world's snowy and icy places in a climatically challenged world should be cause for concern in every ministry, boardroom and living room across the world," Steiner said.

The report was released in the Norwegian Arctic city of Tromsoe, which is hosting the main international celebrations of World Environment Day under the theme "Melting ice - a hot topic?"

It builds on a series of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released earlier this year.

The study by some 70 scientists, called "The Global Outlook for Snow and Ice," said warmer temperatures could raise sea levels by 30 to 50 inches this century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee.

Even those far from a coast could feel the impact, including as many as 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, who get their fresh water from the spring thaw of snow and ice.

"An estimated 40 per cent of the world's population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia," the report said.

In the Northern Hemisphere, snow cover in March and April has declined 7-10 percent over the past 30 or 40 years, the report said.

It said over the past 30 years, sea ice has declined 6-7 percent in winter and 10-12 percent in summer, while ice thickness has declined by 10-15 percent. The rate at which the Greenland ice sheet is melting has doubled over the past two or three years, and glaciers are receding in most of the world.

"Melting of ice and snow will in itself have severe consequences on nature and society. But it will also reduce the reflection of sun beams from the surface of the Earth and in this way contribute to further global warming," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey said.

In addition to snow- and ice-free areas absorbing more heat, the melting of permafrost in places like Siberia could open new bodies of water, creating "thermokast lakes" that could release enormous amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.

Bjoernoey said she was especially worried by the fact that "global warming results in further global warming."

The report said people are already adapting to the change. In China, a railroad built on permafrost includes a cooling system to prevent melting that would undermine frozen ground under the tracks.

Hunters in parts of Greenland have switched from traditional dogsleds to small boats because of changes in the ice.

Events in Tromsoe began Sunday, with South African Bishop Desmond Tutu hosting an ecumenical church service, and last through Tuesday, with a climate conference.

e.

China Rejects Emission Caps

By SHAI OSTER
June 4, 2007 1:33 p.m.

BEIJING -- China issued a long-awaited plan for addressing climate change that reiterates its existing energy-efficiency targets and fails to include caps on emissions of greenhouse gases -- moves that reduce the chances of a breakthrough in climate-change talks at this week's meeting of world leaders.

In what it called its first national climate-change plan, China said Monday that it recognizes the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions -- which most scientists believe lead to global warming -- and pledged to broadly integrate efforts to mitigate such emissions into an overall plan for sustainable economic development. But officials rejected calls for specific targets for reducing China's greenhouse-gas emissions.

"To ask the developing countries to lower emissions too early, too abruptly and too bluntly will hinder their development and hamper efforts to achieve industrialization and modernization," Ma Kai, China's top economic-planning official, said at a news conference to unveil the national climate-change strategy.

Global warming will be a central topic at the meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight leading nations beginning Wednesday in Germany, which China's President Hu Jintao is to attend. Some experts expect China to surpass the U.S. this year as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, and some in the European Union and elsewhere are pressuring Beijing to agree to some form of commitment to reduce its production of such gases.

READ MORE

• U.S. Climate Satellite Program Trimmed

• Framing the Issue: Stressful Summiteering

Last week, the U.S. removed a major obstacle for an international agreement, when President George W. Bush reversed longstanding policy and called on economic powers to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing for a last-minute deal on climate change at the G-8 meeting she is hosting. But China's adamant refusal to accept any targets on its carbon emissions could stymie that goal.

Chinese officials said Monday that they welcome the new U.S. position, but Mr. Ma said his government still prefers that a deal, like the Kyoto Protocol, be arranged through the United Nations. Beijing is a signatory to that agreement, which excludes China and other developing countries from emissions caps. The U.S. move "is not a substitute" for a U.N.-brokered deal on climate change, said Mr. Ma, who is chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.

Chinese scientists have argued that the country is particularly vulnerable to climate change because it has scarce land and water resources and many of its major economic centers sit in low-lying coastal areas.

China's government says rich industrialized nations have contributed the bulk of greenhouse gases historically and should bear the brunt of the cleanup costs. It says caps on developing countries are unfair. While China is struggling with an unprecedented wave of industrialization and urbanization that has improved conditions for many of its people, millions of peasants remain poor, and Chinese officials say alleviating poverty takes priority over climate change.

While refusing to accept limits on greenhouse gases, Mr. Ma said China will reduce such gases through its drive to increase energy efficiency. About two-thirds of China's greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels such as coal or oil for energy. The government reiterated the target that it set a year ago of reducing energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20% between 2006 and 2010.

Mr. Ma said reaching that goal would mean releasing less carbon dioxide, a prominent greenhouse gas. But so far, China has had only limited success in reaching its energy-efficiency targets, and the breakneck pace of its economic growth could continue to make that difficult.

Last year, for example, China failed to meet its first-year target of cutting energy consumption relative to economic output by 4%, managing instead to reduce it by 1.23%. Nonetheless, that reduction did reverse the trend of deterioration in China's energy efficiency.

Mr. Ma asserted that from the start of the Industrial Revolution until 1950, 95% of carbon dioxide came from developed countries. From 1950 to 2002, developed countries accounted for 77% of greenhouse gases, he said.

In the past half decade, however, China has experienced a surge in investment in energy-intensive heavy industry such as steel, cement and chemical manufacturing, thanks to the rapid construction of its cities and low fuel prices.

Despite government crackdowns on pollution, investment in polluting industries has increased. In the first quarter , investment in the six dirtiest industries grew 20.6% from a year earlier, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The government is pledging another crackdown as well as new taxes on fuel and higher electricity prices.

A work report on pollution and energy efficiency released Sunday by the government mentions a 10% reduction in major pollutants by 2010, but carbon dioxide is excluded.