If you're sick of Wattbuzz, try WattHead

I just found a really good energy blog called Watthead

You should totally check it out. I particularly recommend the latest article on biofuels.

Hydrogen research in Denmark

This article from Chemical & Engineering News reports that researchers at the Technical Institute of Demark have created a cheap replacement for precious metal catalysts.

The article points out that such a catalyst would be very useful in the production of hydrogen from water via electrolysis.

However, it should also be noted that other researchers at the Technical Institute have been experimenting with an ammonium salt, with the hope of developing it into a hydrogen carrier for a fuel cell system. So I wouldn't be surprised if they find a way to use their new catalyst to draw the hydrogen out of the ammonium salt for use in the fuel cell...

House Bill

The House recently passed a bill that will tax oil companies $16 billion.

Read about it here.

Offsetting carbon

Here's an article that talks about a new plan about how to deal with carbon offsets in England.

Carbon offsetting is where consumers can choose to pay money every time they perform a carbon emitting action (like taking a flight). The money goes to a carbon-generating activity, like planting a tree, or a carbon-saving activity.

This doesn't work, though, when the offsetting company fails to invest the consumers' money in actual offsets.

The article explains how this problem is being addressed in England by drawing up a form of an honor code.

I'd like to take a moment to share an insight I had from reading the introduction to a book called Emissions Trading: Principle and Practice by T. H. Tietenberg:

Many people feel uncomfortable with the idea of offsetting carbon. I pollute and pay someone else to clean up my mess? I pay another company to cut back emissions so that I don't have to? It just doesn't sound fair. Why can't we just tax everyone who emits carbon, and then EVERYONE will have to cut back their emissions?

Allow me to offer an overly simplified economic explanation (I am <> an economist!):

A pollution tax would be bad because it would make the economy unhappy. Why? Because for some polluters, it is easy to reduce emissions, but for others it is very difficult. Therefore, your pollution tax is a big cost for some people, and not others - not good.

Of course you might ask - then why doesn't the government simply demand a higher tax from people who can reduce their emissions more easily? It's a good idea. If we could come up with the right price for everyone, the system would be both fair and efficient.

Unfortunately, coming up with the right price is a big challenge for the government (or whoever would be enforcing the tax). There are so many factors to consider. And there are so many people who need to be taxed. Trying to come up with good standards would be a nightmare.

The marketplace, however, is great at setting the right price. Markets are happiest when the price is right. So how do we make a market for non-polluting?

Enters the world of emissions trading. Instead of taxing polluters every time they pollute, we give everyone an allotted amount of "pollution credits". For example, one company gets 10 credits per year, each of which allows the company to emit 10 tons of pollution.

"Hold on!" you might say. "That's still unfair. You just said yourself, not everyone is equal. So it isn't fair to give out the same number of credits. Some people will benefit more than others!"

True, but now there's a twist. Any credits that go unused can be traded to other companies; say, a company that needs extra credits to cover emissions beyond its limit. So while there might be a certain amount of unfairness at the beginning, that will level out as the companies begin trading credits. In this emissions market, the best price will naturally evolve over time.

And the overall level of pollution will go down, while still keeping the economy happy.

And the winner is...

The EPA just put out a list of the Top 25 green power purchasers. Guess who made number one?

PepsiCo.

I was surprised, for one. I was expecting to see something more along the lines of Google. Well done, Pepsi.

Although, it might not mean that much. I mean, PepsiCo is a big company and perhaps the 1 billion kilowatt hours they buy per year pales in comparison to the number of brown kilowatt hours they buy.

Still, well done.

District Energy

Here's an article that talks about "district energy".

District energy systems are systems that heat and cool many households from one centralized location. By doing so, there are a number of benefits:
- Economies of scale
- It is relatively simple for the central unit to upgrade its fuel to a more environmentally friendly variety.

I can see this working in apartment buildings, but what about suburban energy consumption? It's definitely much harder to build a district energy system over a sprawling suburbia. But it's the suburbs where (I assume) people generally use more energy in heating and cooling. I assume this because suburban homes are bigger. Also - at least for heating - I've been in buildings where there's so much heat being generated inside the building that a given apartment doesn' t even need to turn on the heat itself.

National standard?

According to this article, Congress is considering passing legislation that will force power utilities to acquire 20% of their power from renewable sources.

This is good news, I think. The utilities claim that it will raise costs for the utilities; costs which, presumable will be transfered to the consumer. I'm not really worried about this cost - I think it pays for itself. But one thing that was mentioned was that certain parts of the country might be affected more heavily.

Passing legislation like this is wonderful. But should the standards be national, or local?

Business and energy blog

It's called climatebiz

http://www.climatebiz.com/

Thanks to Mordechai for the tip...

Solar energy video

Here's a short video from the NYTimes. It's a little light on the details, though...

Plug in hybrids

Plug in hybrids are cars that have a rechargeable battery as well as a gas tank. You can use the gas if the battery runs out, and you can charge the battery through a normal house power supply.

I first learned about these while watching "Who Killed The Electric Car?" (which, by the way, is a very interesting and debate-provoking documentary). They seem like a great idea to me.

Looks like Ford is partnering up with a California energy company to push them. See here for more.

One of the most important points of the article is that electric grid has excess capacity, which could be rerouted to fuel these cars. How that can be done in an efficient way is certainly a major challenge, though. I'd love it if someone out there could send me some reading material regarding excess capacity on the grid... (yolevins@gmail.com)

Cool new plant - the seashore mallow

The seashore mallow is a plant that grows in salt marshes along the coast line.
So what does it have to do with energy?
- Its seeds yield good quantities of oil for biodiesel
- Its roots absorb carbon dioxide
- It grows where normal crops don't grow, so it doesn't displace arable land currently being used to grow food.

To see the complete article click here

Pretty scary stuff...

Here's an excerpt I read today:
(to see the website this came from, click here)

3. A world energy crisis

In recent weeks, there have been an increasing number of reports concerning serious electricity and gasoline shortages in no less than 24 countries around the world. In many cases, the leaders of these countries have announced that the situation is critical while at the same time offering assurances that they have plans to improve the situation shortly.

In about half the countries, the problem is simply not enough electricity capacity to meet growing demand sparked in part by rising world temperatures. In many cases, urban population is increasing so fast that investment in new infrastructure is not keeping up. In those countries which depend on hydro dams for a significant portion of their electricity, droughts have lowered water levels to the point where generators are being shut down. Countries that use oil for thermal or diesel power generation are finding their customers simply can’t afford electricity from $70 oil. Finally, in a few places such as Iraq and Nigeria, insurgents keep blowing up fuel lines to the generating stations. Rolling blackouts ranging from a few hours to most of the day are becoming far more common around the world than most of us realize.

Incidences of oil and gasoline shortages are becoming more common too. Nepal is completely out of retail gasoline and diesel as they can’t afford to pay India for their imports. A few weeks ago, Gambia nearly shut off all electricity production as the country could no longer afford the fuel. This list of woes goes on and on.

For most, there is little prospect that the situation will improve in the foreseeable future. Blackouts will grow longer and more widespread. Gasoline shortages will increase and supplies increasingly will be sold at black market prices.

Crazy Australian Water Plan

Someone's been watching Finding Nemo one too many times...

But if it works, I would give this guy major props.

Giant solar farm in California

Cleantech America is planning to build the world's largest solar farm, enough to power more than 20,000 homes.

Bill Barnes, Cleantech's CEO, sounds pretty confident in his company's ability to save the world... check it out

Iranian Oil

According to this article, Iran is about to run itself into the ground economically.

I'm no economist, but if anyone out there would care to read the article and recapitulate a few of his key points for me in layman's terms, I would be one happy fellow.

Hybrids

Here's a nice little interactive demo on hybrids from MSNBC

Floating wind turbines

Two companies, Norsk Hydro from Norway and Seimens from Germany, are teaming up to build floating wind turbines in the North Sea.

Here are a few numbers:
2009: The proposed year for a prototype turbine
$34 million: Its cost
5: Its megawatt output
2,200: The deepest water it can work in (in feet)

Here's the full article:

Ethanol

I think among all the proposed energy solutions, ethanol is the one that polarizes people the most.

On one end of the spectrum you have books like "Shuck the Sheiks", which claims that ethanol will solve all of our energy problems. It will replace petroleum, create jobs, develop a sustainable fuel and will end our military presence in the middle east.

On the other end are people who believe that the rise of ethanol fuel will be a disaster, for a number of reasons. Environmentalists will tell you that we are already working our planet beyond its agricultural capacity, and planting that much corn will deplete topsoil, aquifers, etc. Economists point to the fact that building up th ethanol industry disrupts global food markets, especially in North America. Some say it's a plot to get more government funding for corn farmers.

As is usually the case, I think the truth is somewhere in the middle. I don't believe that ethanol will solve all of our problems. But we can't dismiss it entirely without trying to see if the predicted problems can be avoided.

One issue that frequently bothers me is the fact that those who oppose ethanol generally base their arguments on the assumption that the ethanol in question will be produced from corn. Granted, that's where most of it comes from now. But I think that there is solid scientific promise for a next generation of cellulosic ethanol that can be made from things like switchgrass and other easily grown weeds. So why are we getting hung up on corn all the time?

I think the more legitimate question regards the net energy balance of cellulosic ethanol. This seems like a hotly debated issue. Some say it costs more energy to make it than it produces. What's that based on? Is it possible that the fuel is worth that cost? Is that net energy balance an unavoidable thermodynamic law, or is it something that can be reversed with improved catalysts and other technology?

So many questions...

Penn DOE Grant

The DOE has just awarded part of a multi-million dollar grant to researchers at Penn. The principal investigator will be Dr. Andrew Rappe of the Chemistry Department, who is studying how semi-conducting ferroelectric materials might convert sunlight into hydrogen.

Dr. Rappe is a member of the Energy Working Group at Penn (site: http://www.energy.upenn.edu/). The EWGP brings together researchers from various fields, but is particularly strong in solar and fuel cell research.

Full article

Airplane fuel

The US Air Force has announced a plan to go 50-50 (no more than half of their fuel will be petroleum-based) by 2010. The air force burns a lot of fuel, and doesn’t want to be tied down to petroleum sources.

However, the options they are considering don’t look so great from a global warming perspective. They are considering fuels derived from coal, natural gas and oil shale. These fuels would reduce dependency on petroleum, but would emit just as much – if not more – CO₂.

Air travel is a disproportionately high contributor to global warming. On the one hand, tackling air travel would make a significant dent in the overall level of emissions. On the other hand, our multitudes of air vehicles represent a crucial cog in the machine of global economics and politics.

So is fuel derived from coal, gas and oil shale a step in the right direction? It still hurts the environment, but it may be a good petroleum-free transition.

Full REDORBIT article click here