Green Wombat

GE’s Global Warming Solution: Charge It!

July 25, 2007 by Todd Woody

General Electric today is unveiling what just may be the ultimate expression of the inherent contradictions of green capitalism: a credit card designed to offset the environmental impact of the very consumerism it promotes. GE Money’s (GE) Earth Rewards MasterCard (MA) takes 1 percent of all purchases and uses the money to invest in greenhouse gas reduction projects like capturing methane, planting trees and building wind and solar power plants. The Earth Rewards site lists "3 Easy Steps toward Reducing Your Climate Impact: 1. Choose Reward. 2. Shop. 3. Offset."

"It’s important to keep in mind that we can’t ‘shop away’ global climate change," GE cautions. "The most important thing for all of us … is to use energy more wisely by being as efficient as possible in everything we do. It is also important that, whenever possible, we purchase renewable energy through our utility providers and use alternative fuels in our vehicles. The final thing to do is to offset those remaining impacts that can’t be avoided. That’s where the Earth Rewards Card comes in."

Yet shopping away your carbon footprint is the logical extension of the guilt-free carbon-offsetting trend. Sure, a lot of people these days use their credit cards for routine daily purchases and if some small part of that spending can be used to fight global warming, well, who’s to argue with that. (And for GE, it’s just good business as the conglomerate invests in renewable energy projects.) But given that American-style consumerism is one of the drivers of global warming, promoting plastic often used to buy things people can’t afford and don’t need isn’t exactly a solution to climate change. Cutting up one of your credit cards probably will do more to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Saving the planet: Priceless.

Posted in enviro capitalism | 13 Comments »

PG&E Signs World’s Largest Solar Power Deal

July 25, 2007 by Todd Woody

photo: green wombat
California utility PG&E today will announce an agreement to buy 553 megawatts of electricity from a solar power plant to be built by Israeli company Solel in the Mojave Desert. That’s enough energy to light about 400,000 homes. It’s the largest deal of its kind, just edging out Southern California Edison’s (EIX) 2005 agreement to purchase 500 megawatts of solar electricity from a power plant to be built by Stirling Energy Systems in the Mojave. Solel’s 6,000-acre Mojave Solar Park is set to begin operating in 2011. The Solel station will be located near nine existing solar power plants built in the 1980s by Israeli company Luz (photo above) that continue to supply 354 megawatts of green energy to Southern California. It’s an appropriate locale. When Luz went bankrupt in the early ’90s after solar energy tax breaks evaporated and natural gas prices fell, Solel picked up the company’s parabolic trough technology. (Luz, meanwhile, has been revived as BrightSource Energy, which is negotiating a 500-megawatt deal with PG&E.) Solel will use a more advanced version of the solar trough for its Mojave project, which will contain 1.2 million mirrors and 317 miles of vacuum tubing. Just this week the company announced that it had upgraded the old Luz plants – most of which are now operated by FPL Energy (FPL) – with 30,000 new solar receivers.

Solar trough power plants use parabolic mirrors to track the sun and heat tubes of liquid to produce steam that drives electricity-generating turbines. The efficiency of solar troughs is quite a bit lower than other utility-scale technologies under development, but it’s tried and true and that’s what apparently attracted PG&E (PCG), which emphasized it was "commercially-proven." The San Francisco-based utility has been hedging its bets, signing deals with companies developing a variety of solar technologies. BrightSource Energy, for instance, will deploy fields of mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on a tower containing a water-filled boiler to create steam to drive a turbine. PG&E has also signed a deal with San Francisco solar startup GreenVolts to build a two-megawatt "plug-in" power plant that will use concentrating photovoltaic technology to produce electricity near urban areas.

PG&E’s deal with Solel is another sign that California has become a proving ground for Big Solar technologies. Stirling Energy Systems uses a giant solar dish to concentrate the sun’s rays on a Stirling heat engine. As hydrogen inside the engine expands it drives pistons that generate electricity. The Stirling dish is far more efficient than the solar trough but it has never been deployed on a large scale. Stirling Energy’s deals with Southern California Edison and San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) have options to produce up to 1.75 gigawatts of solar electricity. Add in the Solel 25-year contract and – assuming PG&E reaches a final deal with BrightSource Energy – California potentially could have nearly three gigawatts of utility-scale solar power online within the next five or six years.

Posted in solar energy | 6 Comments »

Avis Goes Green With Hybrid Rentals

July 24, 2007 by Todd Woody

Avis is greening its rental fleet, announcing today that it will add 500 Nissan Altima hybrids to the thousand Toyota (TM) Priuses it began offering earlier this summer. The move is probably less a sign of Avis’s (CAR) eco-consciousness than a strategy to spice up a dowdy rental fleet of Detroit cast-offs like the Chevry Impala. For ethanol fans, Avis offers flex-fuel cars. The hybrids are part of Avis’s new "Cool Cars" collection that includes some decidedly brown vehicles like General Motors’s (GM) Hummer and Dodge’s (DCX) Nitro monster SUV. Apparently traditional car rental agencies are feeling some pressure from Web-based competitors Zipcar and Flexcar, which maintain fleets of "cool cars" like the Prius, Honda (HMC) Civic hybrid and Mini Cooper but which, for the most part, eschew carbon-spewing big sedans and SUVs.

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AMD’s Ambitious Climate Change Plan

July 24, 2007 by Todd Woody

Years before green became the new black, Advanced Micro Devices began setting greenhouse gas reduction targets. Today the computer chip maker released its seventh annual Global Climate Protection Plan, announcing it had reduced greenhouse gas emissions by more than 50 percent between 2002 and 2007 – exceeding its 40 percent goal – and setting a new target of cutting emissions another 33 percent between 2006 and 2010. AMD (AMD) also aims to slash energy use 40 percent by 2010. Planet-warming emissions fell a whopping 68 percent between 2005 and 2006, largely due to AMD’s spin-off of its Spansion flash memory chip subsidiary, which allowed the company to cease counting its CO2 contributions.

In the long run, AMD’s biggest impact on global warming will come from its focus on making energy-efficient chips that power computers and servers. But AMD’s detailed disclosure of its greenhouse gas emissions and plans for operating in a carbon-constrained world are road map of sorts for companies that increasingly will find themselves under regulatory pressure to do what AMD now does voluntarily. It’s a tricky issue – companies like Google (GOOG) and AMD arch-rival Intel (INTC) have embraced corporate sustainability but are leery of the competitive impact of detailing their carbon footprints. Others, like Sun Microsystems (SUNW), have been more forthcoming. With California and other states imposing greenhouse gas caps and a national limit on emissions looming, transparency will be the new green. Companies will not only reap the public relations benefits of such disclosures and any carbon credits that might be associated with big greenhouse gas reductions but may even learn a thing or two from each other.

In that spirit, here’s a few highlights from this year’s AMD climate change report:

AMD’s global operations emitted total 94,062 metric tons of greenhouse gas equivalents in 2006.
Eighty-nine percent of the emissions came from energy use.
The company analyzed the distribution of some of its products and relocated facilities to reduce the distance goods must be transported to buyers. For instance, AMD discovered that half the buyers for its "processor-in-a-box" were on the East Coast, and so this year will move the distribution center for that product from California to Florida, eliminating an estimated 676,000 air miles used for product transportation. Relocating another distribution center from California to Texas will save an estimated 124,800 air miles.
AMD is incorporating green building design into its new campuses and manufacturing plants and retrofitting old ones to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. It’s also locating those facilities near public transportation to reduce commute-related emissions. AMD’s new Austin campus will be powered by renewable energy purchased through utility Austin Energy’s GreenChoice program.

Posted in corporate sustainability | 9 Comments »

PG&E, San Francisco Battle Over Wave Energy

July 23, 2007 by Todd Woody

photo: Jakanori
The first wave energy power plant has yet to be built off the California coast but a skirmish over who will control the seas has already broken out in Washington between utility PG&E and the city of San Francisco. Last February, PG&E (PCG) filed an application with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, or FERC, for preliminary permits to develop two 40-megawatt wave farms off the Northern California coast. Now the city of San Francisco – PG&E’s hometown – has asked FERC to deny the utility the wave energy permits. "While specifically not referring to this application, San Francisco believes the risk of sparking a ‘gold rush’ by ill prepared applicants with ill-conceived projects is too high and the drain on Commission resources in reviewing such applications would be too great," wrote San Francisco Deputy City Attorney Stephen A. S. Morrison in June 15 letter. Preliminary permits such as those PG&E are seeking give the holder three years to conduct a feasiblity study for a wave farm and then first dibs on obtaining a license for any resulting project. San Francisco, which Morrison stressed "is keenly interested in supporting the development of
local, clean, renewable energy, such as that anticipated in the
PG&E projects," fears that companies will "site bank," or lock up choice wave energy spots.

FERC is currently considering whether to change its wave energy permitting process. San Francisco supports scuttling the preliminary permit process and allowing all applicants to apply once they have a project ready for licensing. PG&E, on the other hand, believes the way to discourage site banking is to apply "strict scrutiny" to preliminary permit applications to ensure only legitimate projects proceed. "PG&E does not think FERC should prematurely reject pending new technology preliminary permit applications," wrote PG&E attorney Annette Faraglia.

So far San Francisco has not made any moves to oppose a proposed Chevron (CVX) wave farm that would be located adjacent to PG&E’s project off Fort Bragg in Mendocino County. The city and PG&E have long had a contentious relationship. Even as the two are currently cooperating on exploring the possibility of developing tidal power in San Francisco Bay, the city is considering dumping PG&E as its power provider in favor of securing its electricity elsewhere.

Some more details of the PG&E wave farms have emerged from federal filings. The utility is considering a number of wave energy technologies but currently anticipates that there will be between eight and 200 wave generators at each wave farm. PG&E plans to deploy and test several different types of wave generators at each site. But there will be numerous environmental hurdles to overcome before such projects can be built. In a letter to FERC, an Interior Department official said that PG&E’s Humboldt County project could affect at least three protected ocean-going bird species: the California brown pelican, the marbled murrelet and short-tailed albatross.

Posted in wave power | 5 Comments »

Chevron Joins California Wave Energy Gold Rush

July 20, 2007 by Todd Woody

There’s gold in them there waves. Five months after California utility giant PG&E filed plans to develop two 40-megawatt wave farms off the Northern California coast, oil behemoth Chevron is hitting the water with its own wave energy project in the same patch of ocean, according to an application filed with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. (Thanks to environmental reporter Frank Hartzell of the Mendocino Beacon for the tip.) Chevron (CVX) intends to initially deploy Scottish firm Ocean Power Delivery’s Pelamis wave generators off the small Mendocino County town of Fort Bragg. The wave farm will produce between two and 60 megawatts of green energy that Chevron plans to sell to PG&E (PCG) or other electricity providers. "The proposed project will be a new source of clean, renewable ocean energy to generate power for commercial and industrial purposes that currently consume natural gas or other combustible fuels," states the application filed by Chevron Renewable Energy, which is based in Houston of all places. "The proposed project is designed to displace electricity generated from a typical coal-fired generation resource, thereby avoiding the [greenhouse gas] emissions that would otherwise be released into the atmosphere."

Chevron estimates its project would eliminate 308,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be produced by coal-fired power plants. California, of course, has virtually no such plants but it does import about 20 percent of its electricity from out-of-state coal-fired power stations. Under California’s global warming law, regulators have banned utilities from signing long-term contracts for such dirty electricity and that’s creating opportunities for renewable energy producers to fill the void.

Chevron’s move is a boon to Ocean Power Delivery, which has become one of the leading wave energy producers with projects in Portugal and the U.K. (Green Wombat happened to just finish editing a story on the company that will appear in the August issue of Business 2.0.) OPD’s Pelamis "sea snakes" float semi-submerged on the ocean. As waves move the long articulated cylinders, oil is pumped through motors that drive generators that produce electricity. Chevron expects each 600-foot, 13-foot diameter sea snake to generate about 1.4 megawatts of electricity. The company will also consider other wave energy technologies. It will spend up to $2 million over the next two years conducting field studies and an environmental impact assessment of the project, according to the application.

Posted in wave power | 6 Comments »

Report: Plug-In Hybrids a Solution to Global Warming

July 19, 2007 by Todd Woody

photo: neuroticjose
The first major analysis of the potential impact of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles has found the widespread adoption of such cars and trucks would dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the United States and improve air quality. By 2050, plug-in hybrids, or PHEVS, could eliminate 450 million metric tons of CO2 annually – the equivalent of taking 82.5 million conventional cars, or a third of the nation’s current fleet – off the road. That would also cut oil consumption by nearly 4 million barrels a day. Assuming PHEVs hit the market by 2010, and depending on sales of the cars, the total reduction in greenhouse gases by 2050 would 3.4 to 10.3 billion metric tons, according to the study conducted by the non-profit Electric Power Research Institute and the Natural Resources Defense Council. The study was based on sophisticated computer modeling of the U.S. power grid and transportation system.

"What we�re talking about today is potentially a very, very large effect," said John Bryson, CEO of utility giant Edison International (EIX), during a press conference in Washington, D.C. this morning. Utilities like Edison, PG&E (PCG) and Austin
Energy have taken the lead in pushing automakers to get in gear on
plug-in hybrids.

Even if plug-in hybrids become the dominant form of transportation they would only spike electricity demand by five to eight percent, researchers said, because most car owners probably will charge their vehicles at night when power plants are idle or under-utilized. The study’s computer models considered various scenarios, from a high CO2-intensive grid to a greener one as well as plug-in hybrids with varying ranges and sales. But even if plug-in hybrids made up only 20 percent of the nation’s vehicle fleet in 2050 and the electric grid remained relatively dirty, greenhouse gas emissions would still decline by some 163 million metric tons annually.

The impact of plug-in hybrids on global warming will depend on the electric system, noted NRDC scientist Dan Lashof. "The key to utilizing plug-in hybrids is a cleaner power grid," he said. The greener the grid, the greater the greenhouse gas reductions as coal-fired power plants are displaced by renewable energy or begin to deploy technology to capture their CO2 emissions.

General Motors (GM) executive Tony Posawatz brought a plug-in Chevrolet Volt concept car to the press conference. The automaker is designing the Volt to run primarily on battery power and use other alternative fuels to extend its range. "We at General Motors are certainly very interested in this study," said Posawatz. "The potential for plug-ins, I think everyone recognizes, is tremendous."

Posted in green cars | 10 Comments »

Richard Branson’s Butanol Bet

July 19, 2007 by Todd Woody

Will the Boeing Dreamliner fly on the biofuel butanol one day? Richard Branson’s Virgin Fuels, which in April agreed to collaborate with Boeing (BA) on creating commercial jet biofuels, today announced it is investing in Gevo, a Pasadena, California, startup developing technology to turn biomass into butanol. Like corn-derived ethanol, butanol is an alcohol-based fuel but is much more energy rich and can be made from a wider range of biomass like straw and corn stalks. Virgin Fuels joins biofuels guru Vinod Khosla’s Khosla Ventures – which initially funded Gevo – in the company’s lastest financing round. Virgin and Kholsa are being tight-lipped about the investment, declining to reveal its size or the split between the two investors. You won’t find out much more by going to Gevo’ one-page site. The company was founded by three California Institute of Technology scientists and licenses its technology from the university. Along with the funding, Gevo announced that it had appointed a former Cargill executive, Patrick Gruber, as CEO. This is just the latest hookup between Virgin and Khosla. Virgin has also invested in Khosla-funded ethanol startup Cilion. Virgin Fuels has outposts in San Francisco and in Palo Alto.

Posted in biofuels | 1 Comment »

High Voltage Solar Power Controversy

July 18, 2007 by Todd Woody

photos: green wombat
A solar power plant that would supply green energy to hundreds of thousands of Southern Californian homes has come under attack – from environmentalists. Stirling Energy Systems has a contract to provide up to 900 megawatts of renewable energy to San Diego Gas & Electric from a 36,000 solar dish array to be built in the Imperial Valley desert. The first phase, a 300-megawatt, 12,000 dish array is to be completed by 2010. The rub: SDG&E (SRE) needs to build a $1.3 billion, 150-mile transmission line through a state park and other environmentally sensitive lands to get the renewable energy to its customers. Green groups are fighting the proposed Sunrise Powerlink, and in public hearings under way in San Diego they have cast the Stirling project as a technological Trojan horse being used by the utility to justify an environmentally damaging big power grab that could ultimately be used to deliver fossil-fueled electricity.

In testimony on behalf of the Center for Biological Diversity, a former executive with one-time Stirling Energy rival SAIC portrayed the Phoenix company’s Stirling dish as a costly and unreliable technology that would be hard-pressed to deliver on the SDG&E contract. A Stirling dish concentrates the sun’s rays on a heat engine. As hydrogen inside the engine expands it drives pistons that generate electricity. Stirling Energy currently operates a six-dish prototype power station at Sandia National Laboratories outside Albuquerque.

"The commercial viability of the Stirling system is unproven at this time," testified Barry Butler, veteran solar power scientist, in an affidavit. "My opinion is that dish/Stirling technology holds much promise. By 2020, the technology could be a significant player on a commercial scale in the concentrated solar power category. However, there is no possible way that dish/Stirling solar can move from high cost prototype models with substantive reliability concerns to large-scale production of high reliability low-cost commercial models by 2008 and full operation of a 12,000 dish, 300 MW array by the end of 2010." Butler based his testimony on SAIC’s experience with Stirling dish technology in 2002 when SAIC and Stirling Energy operated test dishes in Nevada. "Both SAIC and SES conducted maintenance on a nearly continuous basis to keep the units available for electricity production," Butler wrote in his affidavit.

Stirling Energy CEO Bruce Osborn, however, dismissed SAIC’s history with its Stirling dish technology, which it eventually abandoned, as irrelevant to his company. "It doesn’t seem realistic, or even reasonable, to compare SAIC’s problems and experiences to SES’ measured superior performance over extended periods," Osborn wrote in an email to Green Wombat. "Although the two systems are both called "Dish-Stirling Systems," they are in fact quite different in terms of the fundamental design approaches."

Posted in solar energy | 19 Comments »

No New Nukes for California

July 17, 2007 by Todd Woody

photo: emdot
The nuclear power business is resurgent, re-energized by billions in Congressional subsidies and its reincarnation as a relatively greenhouse-gas free source of electricity. But the industry can pretty much write off global warming-fighting California – the world’s eighth largest economy – as a market, according to a new state government report assessing nuclear power’s prospects in the Golden State. Three existing nuclear plants provide 15 percent of California’s electricity, but in 1976 the state banned the construction of new nuclear power stations until the California Energy Commission determines technology exists for the permanent disposal or reprocessing of radioactive waste. "Commercial nuclear power is riding a wave of renewed interest and support," notes the 302-page report from the California Energy Commission. But the authors conclude the lack of a permanent radioactive waste disposal site – such at the long-delayed facility at Yucca Mountain in Nevada – will continue to doom industry’s prospects in California. "In light of California�s moratorium on nuclear power development, until progress is made in disposing of or reprocessing spent fuel, the Energy Commission could not provide land use permits or certification for such a power plant at this time," according to the report. "It is unlikely that the Energy Commission will be able to provide land use permits or certification for a new nuclear power plant in California in the near future." The report also predicts that utilities that operate or own the state’s existing nuclear plants – PG&E (PCG), San Diego Gas & Electric (SRE) and Southern California Edison (EIX) – will not attempt to license new power stations in the next two years.

Beyond the hurdle posed by the California moratorium, the report casts doubt on just how clean and green the nuclear option would be. "Nuclear power generation poses direct environmental risks, including aquatic impacts from once-through cooling; risk of groundwater contamination with tritium; radiation hazards associated with disposal of radioactive waste; and risks of radioactive releases triggered by earthquakes, tsunamis, accidents, or sabotage," the report says. "Additional environmental impacts are associated with the full nuclear lifecycle, which starts with uranium mining and extends through reactor construction and operation to spent fuel storage/disposal or reprocessing and finally, decommissioning."

The California Energy Commission report also finds the jury is still out on how effective a nuclear strategy would be in countering global warming, noting that the capital-intensive industry could drain investment from much cheaper and greener renewable energy technologies. Still, the report’s authors did not rule out a return of nukes to California. "Ultimately, this debate over whether nuclear power should be part of a greenhouse gas reduction strategy is constrained by our limited knowledge of what other resources will be available," they state. "Consequently, the best path right now may to pursue all options and defer decisions until more is known."

Posted in nuclear energy | 13 Comments »

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