Ecobella Blog

By Bjorn Lomborg

COPENHAGEN – Our current approach to solving global warming will not work. It is flawed economically, because carbon taxes will cost a fortune and do little, and it is flawed politically, because negotiations to reduce CO2 emissions will become ever more fraught and divisive. And even if you disagree on both counts, the current approach is also flawed technologically.

Many countries are now setting ambitious carbon-cutting goals ahead of global negotiations in Copenhagen this December to replace the Kyoto Protocol. Let us imagine that the world ultimately agrees on an ambitious target. Say we decide to reduce CO2 emissions by three-quarters by 2100 while maintaining reasonable growth. Herein lies the technological problem: to meet this goal, non-carbon-based sources of energy would have to be an astounding 2.5 times greater in 2100 than the level of total global energy consumption was in 2000.

These figures were calculated by economists Chris Green and Isabel Galiana of McGill University. Their research shows that confronting global warming effectively requires nothing short of a technological revolution. We are not taking this challenge seriously. If we continue on our current path, technological development will be nowhere near significant enough to make non-carbon-based energy sources competitive with fossil fuels on price and effectiveness.

In Copenhagen this December, the focus will be on how much carbon to cut, rather than on how to do so. Little or no consideration will be given to whether the means of cutting emissions are sufficient to achieve the goals.

Politicians will base their decisions on global warming models that simply assume that technological breakthroughs will happen by themselves. This faith is sadly – and dangerously – misplaced.

Green and Galiana examine the state of non-carbon-based energy today – nuclear, wind, solar, geothermal, etc. – and find that, taken together, alternative energy sources would get us less than halfway toward a path of stable carbon emissions by 2050, and only a tiny fraction of the way toward stabilization by 2100. We need many, many times more non-carbon-based energy than is currently produced.

Yet the needed technology will not be ready in terms of scalability or stability. In many cases, there is still a need for the most basic research and development. We are not even close to getting this revolution started.

Current technology is so inefficient that – to take just one example – if we were serious about wind power, we would have to blanket most countries with wind turbines to generate enough energy for everybody, and we would still have the massive problem of storage: we don’t know what to do when the wind doesn’t blow.

Policymakers should abandon fraught carbon-reduction negotiations, and instead make agreements to invest in research and development to get this technology to the level where it needs to be. Not only would this have a much greater chance of actually addressing climate change, but it would also have a much greater chance of political success. The biggest emitters of the twenty-first century, including India and China, are unwilling to sign up to tough, costly emission targets. They would be much more likely to embrace a cheaper, smarter, and more beneficial path of innovation.

Today’s politicians focus narrowly on how high a carbon tax should be to stop people from using fossil fuels. That is the wrong question. The market alone is an ineffective way to stimulate research and development into uncertain technology, and a high carbon tax will simply hurt growth if alternatives are not ready. In other words, we will all be worse off.

Green and Galiana propose limiting carbon pricing initially to a low tax (say, $5.00 a ton) to finance energy research and development. Over time, they argue, the tax should be allowed to rise slowly to encourage the deployment of effective, affordable technology alternatives.

Investing about $100 billion annually in non-carbon-based energy research would mean that we could essentially fix climate change on the century scale. Green and Galiana calculate the benefits – from reduced warming and greater prosperity – and conservatively conclude that for every dollar spent this approach would avoid about $11 of climate damage. Compare this to other analyses showing that strong and immediate carbon cuts would be expensive, yet achieve as little as $0.02 of avoided climate damage.

If we continue implementing policies to reduce emissions in the short term without any focus on developing the technology to achieve this, there is only one possible outcome: virtually no climate impact, but a significant dent in global economic growth, with more people in poverty, and the planet in a worse place than it could be.

Source: Project Syndicate

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, renewed his call for a European carbon tax on imports to the bloc on Thursday as he unveiled details of a new charge on fossil fuel products in France.

“I will not accept a system … that imports products from countries that don’t respect the rules [on carbon emission reductions]. We need to impose a carbon tax at [Europe’s] borders. I will lead that battle.”

The French president has in the past sparked accusations of protectionism after calling for European import tariffs on products from countries that do not abide by international targets on carbon emission reductions.

On Thursday economists warned that such an initiative – likely to be supported by some European countries such as Italy – could have catastrophic consequences for the ongoing attempts to strike a global trade deal.

“This would put the developed world on a collision course with China, India and other developing countries. It could do serious damage to the international trade system,” said Simon Tilford, chief economist of the Centre for European reform. “It would be seen as naked protectionism.”

Mr Sarkozy sought to defend his position, which is clearly aimed at making France’s own carbon tax more palatable in the face of strong public opposition.

“A carbon tax at the border is the natural complement to a domestic carbon tax. More importantly, a carbon tax at the borders is vital for our industries and our jobs. This has nothing to do with protectionism,” he said. “This is about fair play.”

France will become the largest economy to levy a carbon tax when it comes into effect next year.

Mr Sarkozy set the tax at €17 per tonne of carbon emissions, just above the €14 signalled by François Fillon, his prime minister, last week, but still far below the level recommended by environmental activists.

This represents about 4.5 cents per litre of diesel, or 4 cents per litre of gasoline and 0.4 cents per kilowatt hour of gas.

In a concession to concerns within his own party about the impact of a new tax on poorer and rural households, Mr Sarkozy said the tax would be offset by reductions in income tax or special “green cheques” for those below the tax threshold.

“The creation of the carbon tax will not increase charges in our country,” he said. No household or business would be worse off as a result, he added, and an independent commission would be set up to monitor the impact of the tax

Source: MINA

Without looking into absolute number of tons reduced and into the different sectors, a company that pledges a reduction of 25%+ on its emissions over a short period of time, makes a strong statement.

Looking into EPA Climate Leaders, the following companies stand out meeting the 25%+ reduction:

1. 3Degrees pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2007 and maintain that level through 2012.
2. 3M achieved its initial goal by reducing total U.S. GHG emissions by 60 percent from 2002 to 2007.
3. Advanced Micro Devices pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 33 percent per manufacturing index from 2006 to 2010. AMD achieved its initial goal by reducing global GHG emissions by 53 percent per manufacturing index from 2002 to 2006.
4. Burt’s Bees pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 35 percent per dollar sales from 2006 to 2011.
5. Cherokee Investment Partners pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2007 and maintain that level through 2011.
6. Cisco Systems pledges to reduce total global GHG emissions by 25 percent from 2007 to 2012.
7. Codding Enterprises pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 50 percent per square foot from 2005 to 2010.
8. Conservation Services Group pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2006 and maintain that level through 2010.
9. Cummins pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 25 percent per dollar revenue from 2005 to 2010.
10. Deere & Company pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 25 percent per dollar revenue from 2005 to 2014.
11. Dell pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 15 percent per dollar revenue from 2007 to 2012, and to achieve net zero global GHG emissions by 2008 and maintain that level through 2012.
12. Design Continuum pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent per square foot from 2007 to 2012.
13. DPR Construction pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent per employee from 2007 to 2015.
14. EarthColor pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 40 percent per dollar sales from 2006 to 2012.
15. Ecoprint pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2006 and maintain that level through 2010.
16. Exelon Corporation achieved its initial goal by reducing total U.S. GHG emissions by 38 percent from 2001 to 2008.
17. Fairchild Semiconductor pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 30 percent per manufacturing index from 2003 to 2010.
18. FetterGroup pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent by sheets printed from 2007 to 2012.
19. First Environment pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2008.
20. Genzyme Corporation pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 25 percent per dollar revenue from 2007 to 2012.
21. Green Mountain Energy Company pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2005 and maintain that level through 2009.
22. Intel Corporation pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 30 percent per production unit from 2004 to 2010.
23. Johnson Controls pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 30 percent per dollar revenue from 2002 to 2012.
24. Lincus Incorporated pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 30 percent per square foot from 2006 to 2011.
25. Lockheed Martin pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 30 percent per dollar revenue from 2001 to 2010.
26. Melaver pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2006 and maintain that level through 2009.
27. National Renewable Energy Laboratory pledges to reduce total U.S. GHG emissions by 75 percent from 2005 to 2009. NREL achieved its initial goal by reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 10 percent per square foot from 2000 to 2005.
28. Owens Corning pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent per unit of production from 2006 to 2012.
29. PepsiCo pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent per ton of production from 2006 to 2015.
30. PSEG achieved its initial goal by reducing U.S. GHG emissions by 31 percent per kWh from 2000 to 2008.
31. Quad/Graphics pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 25 percent per page printed from 2003 to 2013.
32. Shaklee Corporation pledges to maintain net zero U.S. GHG emissions from 2006 to 2009.
33. Steelcase pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 40 percent per dollar sales from 2004 to 2009.
34. STMicroelectronics pledges to reduce U.S. GHG emissions by 50 percent per manufacturing unit from 2000 to 2010.
35. The Tower Companies pledges to achieve net zero U.S. GHG emissions by 2008 and maintain that level through 2012.
36. Unilever pledges to reduce global GHG emissions by 25 percent per ton of production from 2004 to 2012.
37. Xerox Corporation pledges to reduce total global GHG emissions by 25 percent from 2002 to 2012. Xerox achieved its initial goal by reducing total global GHG emissions by 18 percent from 2002 to 2006.

Reference:  EPA Climate Leaders

By Chuck Squatriglia

August 26, 2009

The Japanese government wants the EV evangelists at Better Place to electrify some of Tokyo’s taxis, and the cabs with cords could be on the road by January. They will use the Silicon Valley startup’s swappable batteries, which can be replaced in about the time it takes to fill a gas tank.

The pilot program between Better Place and Nihon Kotsu — Tokyo’s largest taxi company — will be the first real-world test of the innovative battery-swap technology. Better Place says the ability to quickly and easy change a dead battery is essential to eliminating the “range anxiety” that makes EVs a tough sell. Tokyo is a perfect proving ground because the city has about 60,000 taxis — more than New York, Paris or Hong Kong. Although those taxis represent just 2 percent of the vehicles in Japan, they account for 20 percent of the CO2 that country’s automobiles produce, said Kiyotaka Fujii, president of Better Place Japan.

“Japan has a very large taxi market,” Fujii said at a press conference, according to Japan Times. “I believe EVs with switchable batteries will spread to many other Asian countries, if they succeed in Japan.”

The pilot program is starting small — really small. Better Place says “up to four newly modified and fully operational” electric taxis will serve the Roppongi Hills neighborhood of central Tokyo. Better Place plans to build one of its $500,000 battery-swap stations in Roppongi Hills to keep the cars going.

But Better Place and Japan’s Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry — which commissioned Better Place for the pilot program — have big plans. Better Place says it anticipates building 100 battery swap stations within the next decade and converting all of Tokyo’s taxis to electricity. It isn’t clear who’s going to build those cars, though. Although several automakers — most recently Mitsubishi with its iMiEV and Nissan with its Leaf — promise to begin selling electric vehicles, so far only Renault is building one with a swappable battery.

Still, taxis are a logical place for the technology because they can work from a centralized location — in this case, a battery swap station — and the economies of scale offered by a massive fleet could make the technology more cost-effective.

“Battery-switchable EVs are effective as vehicles that get a lot of use, such as taxis and cars used for car-sharing,” Minoru Nakamura, the crude oil distribution unit manager at the ministry’s Natural Resources and Energy Agency, said, according to Japan Times.

You can see the battery swap station in action here and check out our coverage of Better Place here.

Photo of a taxi in Tokyo’s Roppongi Hill neighborhood. megabn/Flickr

Source: Wired

George Ahn

CEO

TRIRIGA

Home Depot battled negative headlines in May when shareholders voted down a resolution to enforce more rigid and transparent energy efficiency measures. The resolution proposed that the organization assess company-wide energy use from its buildings, transportation and supply chain. It also urged Home Depot to set energy use reduction targets and report findings and progress to shareholders.

While the measure did not pass, it received support from the $20 billion Connecticut Retirement Plans and Trust, the advisory firm RiskMetrics Group (RMG), and other investors in the $7 trillion Investor Network on Climate Risk (INCR). Despite the outcome, the resolution foreshadows a future in which shareholders increasingly require reports on energy efficiency improvements and climate change risk. Organizations that fail to put the right systems in place today to meet these reporting requirements will suffer.

Findings from CERES, a coalition of investors, environmentalists and public interest groups, report that “the resolution filed with Home Depot is one of a record 67 global warming resolutions filed with 58 U.S. companies and two Canadian companies as part of the 2009 proxy season.” The findings confirm that companies must start to disclose risks from climate change now and provide stakeholder groups with a plan to mitigate those risks.

Further, despite the evidence that climate change disclosure will quickly transition from a proposal to an imperative, many companies have not started to track or abate their carbon emissions.

In fact, according to a 2009 report co-authored by CERES, over 76 percent of the S&P 500 fail to even mention climate change in SEC filings. This is surprising given that, according to a September 2008 McKinsey survey of 1,453 international executives, 50 percent said that environmental issues ranked among the top three areas that would most affect shareholder value in the next five years. While organizations appreciate investors’ concerns, they often lack the tools necessary to address them.

Further evidence that organizations will face more stringent demands from shareholders comes from INCR, an alliance of over 80 institutional investors and financial firms that collectively manage more than $7 trillion in assets. INCR has suggested that congress mandate climate change disclosure in SEC filings, and INCR Director and CERES President Mindy Lubber states, “climate change is a bottom line issue and investors have a right to know which companies are best positioned for the emerging clean energy global economy.”

To meet shareholder climate risk reporting requirements, organizations need technology that not only measures their current carbon footprint, but also manages abatement opportunities, facilitates emissions reduction initiatives and tracks progress and ROI. To gain a sense of where and how to start reporting, consider real estate. Buildings represent 48 percent of energy consumption and present the most significant opportunities to reduce environmental impact, improve operating costs, and demonstrate carbon reduction accountability.

With a technology framework that can identify underperforming building locations, provide a set of analysis tools to evaluate different carbon reduction options, and manage those options through to completion, organizations can address even the most exacting shareholder resolutions.

Investors will use a number of tools to determine how well companies address risks from climate change, including the Global Framework for Climate Change Disclosure, the Carbon Disclosure Project, CERES, and SEC Filings. Companies should seek out technology solutions that provide flexible reporting platforms to facilitate carbon reporting to multiple agencies. All else being equal, companies that adequately disclose and address risks from climate change will be rewarded with higher valuations and a lower cost of capital.

As your organization evaluates shareholder demands, ask yourself this: do you have the right tools to disclose your impact on the environment, or will you, like Home Depot, face climate nondisclosure backlash and risk losing shareholder support?

George Ahn is President and Chief Executive Officer of TRIRIGA. He has more than 18 years of software industry leadership.

Source: Environmental Leader

Two years into development, innovative startup enables path to energy independence; Unveils proprietary production system capable of supplying unlimited quantities of renewable fuel at costs competitive with fossil fuels

Cambridge, Mass.—July 27, 2009—Joule Biotechnologies, Inc., today unveiled a revolutionary process that harnesses sunlight to directly convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into liquid energy. This eco-friendly, direct-to-fuel conversion requires no agricultural land or fresh water, and leverages a highly scalable system capable of producing more than 20,000 gallons of renewable ethanol or hydrocarbons per acre annually—far eclipsing productivity levels of current alternatives while rivaling the costs of fossil fuels.

“There is no question that viable, renewable fuels are vitally important, both for economic and environmental reasons. And while many novel approaches have been explored, none has been able to clear the roadblocks caused by high production costs, environmental burden and lack of real scale,” said Bill Sims, president and CEO of Joule Biotechnologies. “Joule was created for the very purpose of eliminating these roadblocks with the best equation of biotechnology, engineering, scalability and pricing to finally make renewable fuel a reality—all while helping the environment by reducing global CO2 emissions.”

Joule’s transformative process leverages highly-engineered photosynthetic organisms to catalyze the conversion of sunlight and CO2 to usable transportation fuels and chemicals. The scalable system facilitates the entire process—from sunlight capture to product conversion and separation—with minimal resources and polishing operations. This represents a significant advantage over biomass-derived biofuels, including newer algae- and cellulose-based forms, which are hindered by varying obstacles: costly biomass production, numerous processing steps, substantial scale-up risk and capital costs.

The modular design is engineered to meet demand on a global scale while requiring just a fraction of the land needed for biomass-based approaches. It can be easily customized depending on land size, CO2 availability and desired output. The functionality is proven and can readily scale from smaller operations with limited land to extensive commercial plants.

Joule liquid energy has up to 100 times the energy storage density of conventional batteries, and can be very efficiently stored and transported with no degradation of power.

Joule liquid energy meets today’s vehicle fuel specifications and infrastructure, and is expected to achieve widespread production at the energy equivalent of less than $50 per barrel. The company’s first product offering fuel, will be ready for commercial-scale development in 2010.

Source: Joule Biotechnologies

• Experts are putting thousands of metal mirrors networked
• Project aims to eliminate the current dependence of the European Coal
• Energy will be distributed thru high-voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission cables under the Mediterranean sea

In just six hours of the Sahara desert receives solar energy from which humanity consumes in a whole year.

Therefore, a network formed by 60 scientists from Europe and Africa yesterday announced a project to capture part of that energy to produce electricity and use non-polluting, for now, on both continents.

The initiative, designed by the private conglomerate called DESERTEC Industrial Initiative, based in Germany, is the creation of a huge network of solar-thermal-solar farm in various parts of the Sahara desert.

Despite being located in the desert, all plants are located near a water source, on the shores of the Mediterranean. This occurs because water is an important part of the production of energy.

The plants under construction will be different to the traditional power plants because they do not work with photovoltaic cells or solar panels, which are normally quite expensive and some are difficult to install, but use metal mirrors to capture the sun’s rays.

Once they catch the sunlight, this energy is stored in a container. Then, another container filled with clean water from the process of water desalination in the Mediterranean, will be responsible for cooling the first container that stores the sun’s heat to generate steam.

The resulting water vapor is responsible for pushing the turbines and thus generates the electricity that we all know and has many uses.

The technology also has other value-added as the plants can generate electricity network in the absence of sunlight, i.e. at night or on cloudy days because it has the ability to store the heat it produces and then cooled with desalinated water.

Source: La Nacion
Source: Financial Times
Related: DESERTEC Foundation

If you are an engineer, a designer or simply an enthusiast interested in helping to make cleaner cars available to all, we want to hear from you! We are currently building up the community of people who will make this happen, while establishing the on-line infrastructure. Go to Get Involved for more information.

Our starting point is the design schematics licensed to us by Riversimple. Riversimple has built a hydrogen fuel cell powered network electric car which was unveiled to the public for the first time in London on 16th June 2009.

This wiki site, which is still in an early stage of development, is the platform where, over the next few months, designs will be made available under a Creative Commons license for viewing and download, where information about the projects is made available and where discussions will take place

Source: Riversimple

The factors that contributed to the decline include:

· Energy prices

o In 2008, gasoline and diesel prices were at their all-time peak level

o Near the end of the year, despite lower energy prices, gasoline and diesel demand was dampened by a drop in consumer income

· Lower economic growth

o In 2008, GDP growth was a modest 1.1 percent

o In the 4th quarter, GDP fell at an annual rate of 6.3 percent

· Total energy consumption in 2008 fell by 2.2 percent

Source: EIA