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Bloom Box Wave of the Future?

Matthew Cordell February 23, 2010 - 3:18 pm

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On Sunday 60 Minutes introduced the world to the "Bloom Box," a "power-plant-in-a-box" that gets buried in your backyard, off the grid.  That's right, your own personal, clean power system.  

As game-changing as it sounds, Bloom Energy is not the only crew working on such a box. In fact, some are working on a nuclear box -- small, sealed reactor in a concrete block with a heat tube -- that could provide cheap, long-lasting energy for communities in the developing world...if it weren't for the whole security thing.

However, what makes Bloom's box so interesting is the reverse reaction, in which the waste CO2 is put back through the system, producing more fuel.  In other words, in theory, less greenhouse gas waste, more power. All of these systems (including those from Panasonic, Ceres, and ClearEdge) are a beacon of hope in the fight against climate change, but Bloom could be a cut above. Though, according to Wired, "transforming carbon dioxide into fuels isn’t easy and neither is conserving that energy from the first reaction to run the second one."

Why should we believe that Bloom has the goods? The genius behind this project is K.R. Sridhar, a rocket scientist who had originally built a similar system to create oxygen for the planned manned mission to Mars. That's right, a la Total Recall.  When the mission got scrapped, Sridhar turned to this project, and he could be soon delivering it to your backyard.

 

Talking clean energy in Vegas

John Boonstra August 10, 2009 - 1:45 pm

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Speaking of gambling...Streaming live from Las Vegas, it's the National Clean Energy Summit, featuring (among others) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Energy Secretary Steven Chu, and UN Foundation boss Tim Wirth.

 

How many lightbulbs does it take to change global warming?

John Boonstra August 4, 2009 - 9:23 am

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Well, many. But, according to the S-G, it can make a big difference:

Recently, I visited an ambitious project to promote energy-saving lighting in China. By phasing out old-fashioned incandescent lightbulbs and introducing a new generation of lighting, China expects to cut national energy consumption by 8 per cent.

This can have a profound global impact. Consider this: lighting accounts for 19 per cent of world energy consumption. Scientists say we can reduce that by a third or more merely by changing lightbulbs.

Sure, it's one thing to use the nifty-looking CFL bulbs in your own house, but one house times...China...makes for a lot of energy saved.

(image from flickr user TheRogue under a Creative Commons license)

 

Conservation Win

Matthew Cordell June 8, 2009 - 12:30 pm

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Clever, though, as Advertising Peanuts points out, it's not as clever during the day.  Eskom is the government-controlled electricity provider in South Africa, where this message hits home.

 

Not sated on soot?

Matthew Cordell May 13, 2009 - 11:15 am

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If you couldn't get enough of my soot coverage this morning, here's more. Everything you need to know about black carbon in 2:14.

 

What to burn in the developing world?

Matthew Cordell May 13, 2009 - 7:59 am

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As I was cleaning out my feeds this morning, I stumbled across this brilliant article on Black Carbon, part of a series on "stopgap measures that could limit global warming."  

Black Carbon, aka "soot," produced by primitive cooking stoves in the developing world, accounts for up to 20 percent of global warming according to some scientists and represents "low-hanging fruit" -- the most possible bang for the buck (in regard to both cost and effort) in confronting climate change.

Not two minutes later, this report popped up on BBC tv (BBC, why no embed?) about researchers at Nottingham University who have discovered a way to make fuel out of banana peels (abundant in many parts of the developing world) and sawdust using no specialized equiptment.  Aside from dramtically reducing the occurrence of comic accidents, burning banana peels could also reduce the use of firewood as fuel, limiting deforestation and, therefore, addressing climate change. 

Count me skeptical that, if this is as cheap and easy as the researchers suggest, savvy entrepreneurs in the developing world wouldn't have already figured it out.  Nonetheless, I like this coverage because it focuses on access to cheap, renewable, and environmentally friendly sources of energy in the developing world, an issue that doesn't get enough air time and dramatically affects both climate change and the MDGs.  The real answer? I like solar cookers, but that may just be because I'm loathe to disagree with the Boonstra.

 

NPR loves the grid

Matthew Cordell April 29, 2009 - 8:37 am

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NPR is sure doing its due diligence on the "smart grid."  This week they're running a 10-part series -- every day both on Morning Edition and All Things Considered...now that's dedication. 

This morning, while moving my car to a legal spot, I caught Part 5: Getting Constant Current From Fickle Winds, which explores the chicken and egg problem that potential wind farmers face in South Dakota. They are slow to build wind farms because there are no power lines to take the energy to market, and they won't build power lines because there is no power generation yet. Seems like a deal could be worked out...

My favorite so far? Part 1: An Aged Grid Looks to a Brighter Future. Also love the cool interactive map they've built so you can better envision the grid.

 

 

GE's Smart Grid Super Bowl Ad

Matthew Cordell February 2, 2009 - 10:42 am

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In case you missed it while sprinting to the bathroom during last night's nail-biter, this is the GE ad touting the smart grid that aired during the Super Bowl last night. It's savvy marketing on their part, attaching their name in such a public venue to a technology that (hopefully) will get a lot of media play this year. UN Dispatch will be closely following the issue. Need to get caught up?

 

Avoiding a "Cheap and Dirty" Fix for the Economy

Peter December 1, 2008 - 12:00 pm

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Factory.jpg

As the global financial crisis deepens, one question being debated is how the world will deal with urgent environmental issues.

On the one hand, we can seek a "green transformation" through public investment:

In the face of economic catastrophe, yesterday's controversial assertion has become today's conventional economic wisdom. That lack of regulation is one root of the current depression is not only the view of liberals and moderates, but also of sensible conservatives. And the need for public investment to fight the depression is no longer in doubt either. There are really only two tools in the conventional economic toolbox to fight a depression: lower interest rates, and public investment. Given that real interest rates are close to zero, that doesn't leave a whole lot of alternatives. ...

The bottom line is that we have about $275 billion a year we could productively invest in a green transformation, rising over the course of 20 years to $475 billion, and then dropping down to $265 billion for a decade after the transformation was complete, to pay off the last of the "green debt." Those subsidies would make up for any difference in cost between green energy and dirty energy.

On the other hand, governments can resort to short-term economic fixes over long-term environmental solutions:

The world must avoid a "cheap and dirty" fix for the economy that could undermine the fight against global warming, the U.N.'s top climate official said on Sunday.

Yvo de Boer said the world risked a second financial crisis if governments reacted to economic slowdown by building cheap, high-polluting coal-fired power plants that might then have to be scrapped as climate impacts hit.

"What concerns me most is that the financial crisis will lead to a second set of bad investment decisions," he told a news conference before Dec. 1-12 talks involving 186 nations working on a new climate treaty.

"I hope that the second financial crisis is not going to have its origins in bad energy loans," he said.

Let's hope we have the foresight to heed De Boer's warning.
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Is it Time for "A Green New Deal"?

Matthew Cordell November 3, 2008 - 12:51 pm

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by Jana Gastellum, Associate Director, Energy Future Coalition

Among churning financial markets, two international organizations, the United Nations and the International Energy Agency, recently called for green growth as a solution to the current economic crisis.

Last week, Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon promoted the UN Environment Programme's call for a Green New Deal. Coupling solutions to poverty, energy security, and the environment, Secretary Ban says,

A solution to poverty is also a solution for climate change: green growth. For the world's poor, it is a key to development. For the rich, it is the way of the future... At a time when the global economy is sputtering, we need growth. At a time when unemployment in many nations is rising, we need new jobs. At a time when poverty threatens to overtake hundreds of millions of people, especially in the least developed parts of the world, we need the promise of prosperity. This possibility is at our fingertips.

We have experienced great economic transformations throughout history: the industrial revolution, the technology revolution, and the era of globalization. We are now on the threshold of another -- the age of green economics.

<!--break-->Similarly, Newsweek International published a cover story, "A Green New Deal," that reports on the normally conservative International Energy Agency calling for "radical changes in the way the world drives its cars, its factories and, indeed, the global economy." But is this prudent given the possibility of a global recession? Many world leaders think so:

[T]here are...powerful voices being raised amid the din of despair, saying that now is precisely the time to seize the initiative and launch that "global revolution" the IEA is calling for. And not just because it will stave off disasters two or three decades away, but because it can provide the impetus to pull the global economy out of the slump it's in now and put it on a more solid foundation than it's had in at least a generation.

We see examples of where green growth policies have already worked and will continue to yield benefits. In Germany the renewables sector has already created 250,000 jobs. By 2020, it is expected to outpace the auto industry--the largest manufacturing business--in job creation. France's efficiency laws, already on the books, are expected to create 200,000 jobs over the next dozen years. In the UK, wind turbine development alone is expected to add 160,000 jobs by 2020. And Japan's ministry for trade, economy and industry is planning for a new era of industrial infrastructure development fueled by energy efficiency and innovative technologies.
The Newsweek article ends with these words:

"The nation is asking for action, and action now," said Franklin Roosevelt when he took office in 1933 and launched the New Deal. Today the global economy--the planet itself--is asking for the same thing.

The U.S. is about to transition to a new President. We should seize the opportunity to invest in a new era of clean technology development. The future demands no less.

 

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