Green Wombat

HP, Other Fortune 500 Companies to Increase Use of Renewable Energy

December 4, 2006 by Todd Woody

Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) this morning pledged to double its purchase of renewable energy to 25 million kilowatt-hours over the next year as part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s "Fortune 500 Green Power Challenge." The goal: Get Corporate America to buy 5 billion kilowatt hours of renewable energy to jump-start demand for solar, wind and other green power and reduce greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. HP’s move is the equivalent of taking 3,100 carbon-dioxide emitting cars off the road or eliminating electricity use from 1,800 households a year, according to the EPA. Cisco (CSCO), Starbucks (SBUX), Wells Fargo (WFC) and other companies made make similar pledges at a press conference in San Francisco later this morning.

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Coal is Still King: $1 Billion in Tax Credits for “Clean Coal” Companies

December 3, 2006 by Todd Woody

The U.S. Department of Energy has announced $1 billion in tax credits for nine companies developing gasification and other so-called clean coal technologies. The winners include Duke Energy (DUK) and the Southern Company (SO), two giant utilities in the southeast United States that have been targeted by environmentalists over pollution from their coal-burning power stations. Gasification breaks down coal and transforms it into a gas that can be burned with lower emissions of sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide, greenhouse gases that form smog and acid rain and contribute to global warming. Gasification plants operate more efficiently than standard coal-fired power stations and thus have lower carbon dioxide emissions. The technology, of course, does nothing to ameliorate the high environmental costs and greenhouse emissions that result from coal mining itself.

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Starbug: New breed of robot to monitor oceans, coral reefs

December 1, 2006 by Todd Woody

Anyone who has read Elizabeth Kolbert’s recent New Yorker article on the impact of global warming on the world’s oceans knows there’s an apocalyptic sea change under way, wrought by climate change, over-fishing and coral bleaching. Next year an inexpensive but technologically advanced autonomous underwater robot is expected to hit the market to boost scientists’ efforts to monitor an area that covers two-thirds of the planet’s surface. The Starbug will keep tabs on water quality, map fish habitat and survey threatened coral reefs. Starbug’s designer, scientist Matthew Dunbabin, told Green Wombat that the little yellow robot also could be deployed to monitor fish populations and detect over-fishing as well as for use in underwater gas and oil exploration and to patrol harbors. Developed by Dunbabin’s team at the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, the 4-foot-long (1.2 meter) Starbug (CSIRO photo above) is highly manueverable thanks to innovative thruster technology that lets it explore coral reefs and other areas off limits to traditional – read big and heavy – submersibles. That means the Starbug doesn’t have to be tethered to a boat and can operate independently without human intervention.
Another breakthrough: the Starbug "sees" its surroundings, using robotic vision to navigate rather than expensive sonar. Its cameras and the onboard Linux operating system also allow the Starbug to identify and count, for instance, the invasive crown-of-thorns starfish. The marine pest is killing off parts of the Great
Barrier Reef, an ecological cash cow that generates $11 billion annually in tourism revenues. Given that the Great Barrier Reef covers some 135,000 square miles (349,000 square kilometers), detecting outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish is an impossible and prohibitively expensive job for human divers. Dunbabin envisions fleets of Starbugs launched from small boats that will swim around the Great Barrier Reef, transmitting data back to base. For monitoring of bays and harbors, the Starbug can be launched from shore. The Starbug’s estimated cost of around $US 24,000 should fall with
mass production. Dunbabin’s team is now building the next generation Starbug and will use
the robot to conduct two habitat mapping trials early next year. "Currently we are talking with local and international companies for the commercialization of Starbug," says Dunbabin, pictured below with a Starbug prototype.

Posted in water tech | 1 Comment »

China’s Green Tech Boom

November 30, 2006 by Todd Woody

China’s voracious appetite for energy, its growing contribution to global warming and gargantuan pollution problems present huge opportunities for green tech entrepreneurs and investors, according to a panel of venture capitalists and seasoned China hands who spoke this morning on the People’s Republic’s impact on energy technology. "China will be the driver for clean tech in the future, more so than Europe and the U.S.," said Bryant Tong, a managing director at San Francisco VC firm Nth Power at the event sponsored by The Women’s Technology Cluster, a San Francisco-based incubator. Added Charles Wu, a partner at private equity firm TianDi: "The investment opportunity is enormous. One of my partners is involved in a company that went from $0 to $100 million in one year. You can’t do that in the U.S. In solar, wind and clean coal, there’s a lot of demand." The panelists identified wind power as a particular hot area for investment as China moves to build massive wind farms along its coasts. One overlooked opportunity: tapping China’s cadres of chemical engineers and other highly educated workers to develop green technology for export. "China not only has large numbers of IT engineers but large numbers of chemical engineers," said Wu. "How many chemical engineers do you see running around here?"

Former top Bechtel executive Cordell Hull, now chairman of Infrastructure World, said the fact that China is bringing online two 600-megawatt coal-fired plants every week and plans to build two 1,000-megawatt nuclear plants each year means that renewable energy’s portion of the power grid will be relatively small. But that’s a massive market, given China’s pledge to get 20 percent of its electricity from solar, wind and other renewable energy by 2020 and spend more than $60 billion to make that happen. "China has a history of pretty much fulfilling its national planning objectives," said Hull, who has 30 year’s experience working on China projects. "This is going to happen." One growing opportunity: providing technology and solutions to alleviate the severe air and water pollution caused by China’s reliance on dirty coal for energy. As the 2008 Beijing Olympics approaches, the Chinese government is ratcheting up spending on pollution control, he noted.

Still, pitfalls abound for green tech companies contemplating the Chinese market, cautioned the panelists.

Posted in enviro capitalism | 2 Comments »

Cloudy Outlook for Renewable Energy in California

November 29, 2006 by Todd Woody

Here’s some sobering reading for startups and other companies hoping to cash in on California’s green energy boom by building solar power stations, wind farms and wave generators: The Golden State is faltering in its efforts to meet a mandate to produce 20 percent of its electricity from renewable energy by 2010 and a third of its power from solar, wind and other green sources by 2020, according to a new report from the California Energy Commission. The review finds that renewable energy’s share of total electricity produced in California actually fell .3 percent last year while the state’s three big investor-owned utilities have made scant progress over the past couple years in tapping renewable energy sources. The report details the challenges California – the world’s sixth-largest economy – faces in realizing the goals set in its landmark global warming law. Achieving renewable energy targets is critical if the state is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 25 percent by 2020.

So in a land blessed by abundant sunshine, wind and waves, what’s the problem? The report identifies red tape and uncertainty over the contracting process for renewable energy projects as partly to blame for the fact that California utilities have signed some 4,200 megawatts worth of contracts for green electricity but only 240 megawatts have gone online to date. But the biggest obstacle, according to the commission, is years of delay in building transmission lines to connect new solar and wind power stations to the California grid. For instance, San Diego Gas & Electric has signed an agreement to
purchase 300 megawatts of electricity from Stirling Energy Systems, which plans to build a massive solar power plant in the California desert. Problem is, there’s no transmission line to move the electricity to the grid as the proposed Sunrise Powerlink transmission project (shown below) has been bogged down in bureaucracy. Likewise, a project that would allow the transmission of 700 megawatts of new wind energy from the wind-blown Tehachapi region has been languishing in limbo land. The energy commission meets next Thursday, December 7, to discuss the report and recommendations for speeding the availability of renewable energy. Click here for webcasts of energy commission meetings.

Posted in solar energy | 1 Comment »

Stocking Stuffer for a Green Christmas: The $40 Carbon Credit Gift Pack

November 28, 2006 by Todd Woody

Naughty little boys and girls get a lump of coal in their Christmas stockings; green little boys and girls get…carbon credits to take coal gases out of the atmosphere and fight global warming. The Science Museum of London and UK specialty gift retailer MoonEstates.com are selling the Climate Relief Gift Pack, which includes 100 kilograms (about 220 pounds) worth of carbon credits bought on the European carbon trading market, known as the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. The market helps European countries meet their obligations under the Kyoto Accord by setting greenhouse gas emission limits and then requiring corporations that exceed that cap to purchase credits from those companies that have lowered their emissions. In other words, by purchasing the Climate Relief Gift Pack – retailing for �20 or about $40 – you take the right to emit 100 kilograms of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases off the market, offsetting your personal "carbon footprint" from driving, flying – and buying all those PlayStation 3s, iPods and other carbon-producing holiday presents.

Therein lies a business opportunity: personal carbon trading products have been proliferating like coal-fired power plants in China, often confusing enviro-minded citizens about which are legitimate carbon offset services and which are just green-fleecing schemes. What’s needed is someone to create a certification program to give a green seal of approval to legitimate personal carbon trading services and to roll up these various programs.

Posted in carbon credits | 5 Comments »

Wal-Mart Teams Up with Al Gore to Fight Global Warming

November 27, 2006 by Todd Woody

When Green Wombat was in Australia last week so was Al Gore, criss-crossing the country to personally train "climate change presenters" – a hand-picked cadre who will hit the road to speak some inconvenient truths to their fellow Aussies. Now Wal-Mart (WMT) has donated $75,000 to help train 1,000 Americans to spread the word as part of Gore’s Climate Project. The donation coincides with the release of An Inconvenient Truth on DVD. The hit documentary will be sold, naturally, at more than 3,900 Wal-Mart outlets. The company is packaging the DVD with an energy-efficient, greenhouse gas-reducing compact fluorescent light bulb.

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Wombat Takes a Thanksgiving Respite

November 22, 2006 by Todd Woody

The Green Wombat has landed back in San Francisco and will taking a few days off from posting over the Thanksgiving holiday.

Cheers.

(In case you were wondering, at left is Wiggles, a 14-month-old Southern Hairy-Nosed Wombat.)

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

A Visit to One of the World’s Most Efficient Solar Power Stations

November 20, 2006 by Todd Woody

Solar Systems is the Australian company that last month scored funding to build the world’s largest solar power plant. (More on that in an upcoming post.) The Melbourne outfit already operates several small-scale power stations in Aboriginal communities in the Northern Territory. On Monday, I visited Hermannsburg, an outback community of some 600
people about 60 miles west of Alice Springs that uses what may be the planet’s most efficient and powerful solar technology to provide up to half of the town’s electricity.

What’s unique about Solar Systems’ approach is that it has created concentrator photovoltaic technology for large-scale power generation. Most photovoltaic uses these days are found in residential and commercial rooftop solar panels. The dominant technology for solar power plants is something called solar thermal, where solar radiation heats liquids or other substances to create steam that drives turbines to generate electricity. At Hermannsburg, each of the eight massive solar dishes focuses solar energy on an attached receiver made up of concentator cells that generate electricity that goes straight to the grid after being run through an inverter. That means no moving parts (other than the dishes as they track the sun). The plant runs on auto-pilot, with just one person needed to monitor the operation and perform minor maintenance.

As I drive up to Hermannsburg with John Lasich, Solar Systems’ founder
and technical director, the solar dish array can be seen on the edge of the town, a collection of pastel colored cement-block and tin-roofed homes scattered across the red desert. Beyond a building with a sign reading "If You Drink and Drive You’re a Bloody Idiot," is the community’s diesel generator and the year-old 192-kilowatt solar power station.

Posted in solar energy | 14 Comments »

Using “Smart Agents” to Save Energy, Fight Global Warming

November 16, 2006 by Todd Woody

�Smart agents� have infiltrated Australia�s renewable energy research center. The smart agents are wireless motes the size of a Treo that adorn office walls while other versions are attached to refrigerators, a wind turbine and solar panel arrays. The agents communicate among themselves, analyzing data and adjusting the center�s power systems and air conditioning. For instance, when the smart agent that controls the facility�s solar arrays learns from the weather report that maximum photovoltaic power will be produced around 2 in the afternoon, it will notify the agent that controls the center�s air conditioning. �That agent may say, `I�ll wait until 2 p.m. to turn on the air conditioning
when we have renewable energy coming online,’ � said Glenn Platt, the smart agent
project leader for the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, when the Green Wombat visited the CSIRO Energy Centre this week. Other agents monitor individual offices, observing that one person may prefer warmer temperatures than others. The mote (like the one pitctured at right) will adjust the thermostat for that office, saving on air conditioning costs.

CSIRO has been trialing the technology with utilities who are interested in installing smart agents in individual homes to control heating, air conditioning and appliances. Each home would be plugged into a neighborhood smart grid, with every house exchanging information with the others about power useage. Managing peak demand is a challenge for utilities � when it�s a scorcher, everyone turns on their air conditioning at the same time � so the agents learn which residents can tolerate higher temperatures and who is at home when. That allows the power company, through the agents, to turn
off the air conditioning in a handful of
houses for 15 minutes at a time to manage peak demand rather than implement rolling blackouts that take entire neighborhoods off the grid. As the share of electricity generated by solar and wind power grows, Platt expects demand for smart agents to rise as homes, businesses and utilities will need to manage increasingly complex systems to ensure that the cheapest and greenest energy is used a the right times.