[Biofuel] Amory Lovins Mother Jones
Power QA: Amory Lovins http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2008/05/interview-let-the-little-guys-play.html NEWS: The energy-efficiency guru who cofounded the Rocky Mountain Institute advocates feebates, negawatts, and letting the little guys play. By Michael Mechanic May/June 2008 Issue Mother Jones: What will it take for renewables to go mainstream? Amory Lovins: They already have in many places. The U.S. lags badly; only 4 percent of our power comes from micropower—cogeneration, wind, sun, small hydro, geothermal, biomass, and waste fuel. The reason the U.S. lags so badly is that we have obsolete rules that favor big over small, supply over efficiency, and incumbents over new market entrants. It's the very opposite of a competitive market. So a good dose of conservative economic principles would get us even further than trying to give technologies we like subsidies as big as the ones we don't like are already getting. Of course, desubsidizing the whole energy sector would be a wonderful advance. Remember, the subsidies that renewables get are an attempt to catch up with much larger and ever-increasing subsidies that fossil and nuclear already enjoy. And those are permanent, whereas the renewable ones tend to be temporary, doled out a year or two at a time. The U.S. wind industry has been crashed at least three times, quite deliberately, by Congress messing with the tax credits from year to year and in a stop-and-go fashion. You can't run an industry that way and develop the capacity and the jobs. That's why we import most of our wind turbines. MJ: So if you were king, what would you do to make renewables take off? AL: Level the playing field, but also let them in. There are many obstacles in most parts of the country to being allowed to hook up generators. Many utilities will pay you an unfairly low price or require high standby charges or require onerous and unnecessary engineering studies and fancy switchgear not required by the relevant standards, so these are simply barriers to competition. The barriers that renewables and efficiency face come less from our living in a capitalist market economy and more from not taking market economics seriously, not following our own principles. MJ: What energy policies should the next president try to enact right away? AL: I think the important policies need to happen at a state rather than a federal level. With modest exceptions, our federal energy policy is really a large trough arranged by the hogs for their convenience. MJ: So how could Washington best cut fuel consumption? AL: Let me give you one for electricity and one for oil, because they are each two-fifths of the CO2 problem. For electricity, we decouple utilities' profits from sales so they will no longer be rewarded for selling more energy or penalized for selling less, and if they do something smart to cut our bill, we let them keep a small part, maybe a 10th of the savings, as extra profit—so we, and they, are both incentivized. This has been tried in a couple of states very successfully. For cars, the most effective thing would be a “feebate”: In the showroom, less-efficient models would have a corresponding fee, while the more-efficient ones would get a rebate paid for by the fees. That way when choosing what model you want you would pay attention to fuel savings over its whole life, not just the first year or two. It turns out that the automakers can actually make more money this way because they will want to get their cars from the fee zone into the rebate zone by putting in more technology. The technology has a higher profit margin than the rest of the vehicle. MJ: What's the most promising new energy source? AL: The first 10 or so on my list are ways to wring far more work out of the energy that we already have much more cheaply than buying it. Typically, if we do that right in our buildings, vehicles, and factories, the capital cost will be comparable to today's or even lower. MJ: And in terms of supply? AL: Micropower is now providing about one-third of the world's new electric capacity. To give you an idea of how fast this revolution is going, in 2006 distributed renewables alone got $56 billion of private risk capital while nuclear as usual got zero—it's only bought by central planners. Nuclear added less capacity than photovoltaics and a 10th of what wind power added. Even in China, which has ambitious nuclear goals, they already have seven times as much distributed renewable as nuclear capacity, and it's growing seven times faster. MJ: Then I suppose you consider nuclear the most overhyped energy source? AL: Clearly. It's unable to find private investment despite federal subsidies now approaching or even exceeding its total costs. MJ: If you had $1 million to invest in the energy sector, where would you put it? AL: Efficient use. I want to do the cheapest things first to get the most climate protection and other
[Biofuel] CO2 Capture and Technology of the Future
CO2 Capture and Technology of the Future By Michelle Bennett April 26, 2008 http://cleantechnica.com/2008/04/26/co2-capture-and-technology-of-the-future/#more-282 Today’s topic is inspired by Solar Today magazine. “Scrubbing Carbon from the Breeze” was written by Rona Fried, Ph.D., president of SustainableBusiness.com in the May/June 2008 issue. Unfortunately this particular article is not available online. As climate change become a more central issue for people and governments around the globe, a lot of people are looking for solutions - fast solutions. If there were a quick and inexpensive way to dramatically reduce the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, we should go for it right? Well a number of “quick fix” solutions, which have centered around hacking the environment to fight climate change, have been floating around for years. One strategy is to capture the CO2 with plankton and bury it in the ocean (which is much easier and cheaper than pumping it into the ground). Another is to change the composition of our atmosphere to reflect sunlight. Others tend to be more sci-fi and outlandish - but all of them might just turn out to be disastrous. Even with more realistic alternatives, like carbon capture and sequestration from coal plants, have drawn criticism. But that hasn’t stopped some of the world’s wealthiest and most outspoken environmentalists from offering millions of dollars for a feasible and fast solution that captures CO2 out of the air after it’s released. No wonder some are trying to use technology to solve our CO2 problem. While renewable energy and energy efficiency help prevent more CO2 pollution, several companies are looking to make money off off the inert gas. Not to be confused with Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS), these focus on the technology and economics of only capturing CO2. What we do with the carbon next is an open question. Fortunately “CO2 is the 19th largest commodity chemical in the United States”, according to the DOE, with numerous industrial, agricultural, and everyday uses - you can even make fuel out of it. So whoever first manages to harvest it cheaply could make a lot of money, even without millions in prize money. Universities and academic collaborations compete with scientists and businesses to reach this goal. The Green Options network has featured promising technologies from Sandia National Labs before. While many are still in design or prototype stages, others are already being commercially demonstrated. Dr. Rona Fried points out in her Solar Today article that the technology is not new. Submarines and spacecraft use scrubbers and filters to protect their crews from their own exhalations. There’s even a famous scene in the movie Apollo 13 about repairing one such device in 1970. Get Adobe Flash player A better way to absorb CO2 on a larger scale is to use chemicals called sorbents. They soak up carbon dioxide on contact like a plant or sponge; then the CO2 can be separated from the sorbent and used. The trick is to build a machine that can do both without requiring excessive operation costs. If it needs too much energy, maintenance, etc., it simply won’t be profitable. ACCESS devicesA company called Global Research Technologies (GRT) believes they have designed a viable system in that works at ambient temperatures (no cooling required) and uses about the same amount of energy as a power-plant flue scrubber - the type already available to clean power plant emissions. They call it the ACCESS (Atmospheric Carbon CapturE SystemS) device, which has already been demonstrated, and it’s exciting because it could be located almost anywhere. They could line our highways, form rows like wind farms, or be installed near industrial facilities that use or produce CO2. Better yet, the technology is scalable, so the larger you build them the more CO2 they collect. One such ACCESS device the size of a tree could capture 1,000 times more CO2 than a tree. Global Research Technologies even claims that 250,000 such models, each about the side of a wind turbine, would neutralize the CO2 we’re currently emitting. GRT hopes to produce 100 of these devices within 5 years. Unfortunately they’ll be expensive, about $250/ metric ton of CO2 captured, but like any industry, economies of scale could dramatically reduce that cost to $30-$50 per ton. GRT hopes their technology will be competitive on the carbon offsets market. Klaus Lackner, a professor of geophysics at Columbia University, helped found GRT and design the ACCESS device. From the article: “Lackner outlined the potential of carbon capture as one piece of the portfolio of carbon reduction strategies”, which means of course that this is not THE ANSWER to climate change. We cannot and should not rely on this or any one solution to “solve” our CO2 problem. We still need to increase our energy efficiency, invest in renewable technologies, and work towards more
[Biofuel] Dutch town tests 'air-purifying' concrete
Dutch paving stones clean air pollution August 10, 2008 http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-10012741-54.html A Dutch University will see if chemically tricked-out paving stones can clean the air. The University of Twente (UT) has devised a concrete capable of converting the nitrogen oxide from car exhaust--the source of smog and acid rain--into a nitrate, another chemical that will wash away in the rain. Green chemistry: how green bricks convert nitrogen oxide air pollution into nitrates with the sun. (Credit: University of Twente) When fertilizers are applied heavily, high levels of nitrates can enter the soil or water and be toxic to humans or livestock. The University of Twente said that the nitrate production from its paving stones will be harmless. The researchers came up with the air-purifying paving stones by tapping the properties of titanium dioxide, a chemical that catalyzes chemical reactions when exposed to light. The top layer of the University of Twente paving stones contains the material mixed with concrete. So when sun shines, smog-producing pollutants will convert into nitrates and then wash away, keeping the stones surface clean in the process. The university received a sustainability grant to test its invention in the municipality of Hengelo. By the end of this year, researchers expect to complete construction of a road where one side is built with the specially coated paving stones. The other half will have tradition materials. The results of how much the stones reduce air pollution should be ready by next year. If successful, the tests could be expanded further, the university said. It's not the first time that the Dutch have been inventive with road construction. A civil engineering firm has devised a paving technique to absorb heat from asphalt to melt ice and heat neighboring buildings. --- Dutch town tests 'air-purifying' concrete http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jis9CRx2fycc04PMynfiKGxAuVVg THE HAGUE (AFP) — A road in the small Dutch town of Hengelo is to be paved with air-purifying concrete in a trial that could lead to a breakthrough in the fight against rising pollution, scientists said Wednesday. Experts from the University of Twente developed and tested the concrete paving stones which contain a titanium dioxide-based additive. In laboratory conditions, the additive -- under the influence of sunlight -- binds the nitrogen oxide particles emitted by car exhausts and turns them into harmless nitrates. With one rain shower everything is washed clean, the institution said in a statement. Nitrogen oxides, produced by industry and motor vehicles, are among the main air pollutants that lead to acid rain and smog. Developed from a Japanese invention, the bricks are now being put to the test in Hengelo in the eastern Dutch province of Overijssel. One half of a road under reconstruction is being paved with the new, green bricks, and the other half with the ordinary variety. By measuring the air quality in both areas, we will be able to show the efficacy of the bricks, said the statement. Apart for their ability to clean the air and repel dirt from the road surface, there was no other difference between these new bricks and the old ones, the university said. The province of Overijssel sees an opportunity in these bricks to improve air quality, it added. This trial project is of great significance for the entire country. The road was expected to be finished by year-end. The first air measurements will be taken early next year, with the first results expected next summer. ___ Biofuel mailing list Biofuel@sustainablelists.org http://sustainablelists.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainablelorgbiofuel Biofuel at Journey to Forever: http://journeytoforever.org/biofuel.html Search the combined Biofuel and Biofuels-biz list archives (70,000 messages): http://www.mail-archive.com/biofuel@sustainablelists.org/
