A Climate-Change Chameleon

"The climate world is divided into three: the climate atheists, the climate agnostics, and the climate evangelicals. I'm a climate agnostic."
A direct—some would say brash—man with a penetrating stare, it's hard to believe India's Environment and Forests Minister, Jairam Ramesh, is agnostic about anything. This is the man who dressed down Secretary of State Hillary Clinton last year when she pushed for India to adopt binding emissions targets. He was the first politician of a major nation to question the United Nations' claim that the Himalayan glaciers were melting at a rapid pace. And he's spearheaded his country's very own climate-change research institute—a direct challenge to the U.N.'s now-discredited Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
That record makes Mr. Ramesh one of the few policy makers in the world in a position to push a new, more economically rational approach to climate change—and debate the politics of it, too. It helps that he isn't media-shy. And like many Indian men, Mr. Ramesh has a penchant for the dramatic: "You have unlimited time!" he tells me, hands outstretched, as we settle down to a chat in his darkened office, with a single spotlight shining on the minister himself.
India is a "high-growth, low-emission" economy, Mr. Ramesh explains. "We contribute only about 5% of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, and even if we grow at 8% per year, by 2020, we would still be contributing only about 8% of world greenhouse gas emissions." He jabs at the air above his head to make his point, lowering it with each phrase: "So here is China at 23%, here is America at about 22%, and you have Russia at about 9% and India at 5%. So clearly about 45% of the emissions are coming from two countries. . . who don't want to do anything about it."

Source: climatechallengeindia.org

Tuning the energy innovation engine at MIT

BOSTON--The MIT Energy Conference here on Saturday covered a little bit of everything--"China speed," climate change, financing gaps, government policy, nuclear and natural gas, and, of course, science experiments--as entrepreneurs, business people, and academics tried to get their arms around big-picture energy challenges.

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has become a hotbed for clean-energy innovation over the past four years, attracting students and faculty to the field, some of whom have spun out promising companies.

Driving toward a cleaner energy future

        

At a showcase there, local companies and researchers working in wind, solar, biofuels, storage, and efficiency displayed some of their ongoing work. But at the conference, discussion focused more on conventional energy sources, policy, and financing.

Science fiction? 
The nature of global energy picture is well understood: growing demand in coming years, particularly from developing countries, is expected to result in more fossil fuel consumption and continue to increase greenhouse gas emissions. Governments around the world are expected to devise policies that improve national security by cutting imports of oil and other fuels.

Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, at the MIT Energy conference in Boston.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET)

But Nobuo Tanaka, the executive director of the International Energy Agency, gave a lunchtime talk that cast those general trends into actual numbers. And the outlook, to put it gently, issobering. The IEA, which was established after the oil shocks of the 1970s to manage the strategic oil reserves forOrganization for Economic Cooperation and Developmentmember countries, compiles statistics on energy and future projections for supply and demand.

Stabilizing carbon dioxide levels at 450 parts per million in the atmosphere--a level that is projected to result in an average global temperature rise of about two degrees Celsius--would require an "energy and environment revolution" with investment in the trillions of dollars, Tanaka said.

Among the technology assumptions in that scenario are a cost on carbon emissions, energy efficiency measures at large scale, and a massive build-out of low-polluting energy generation. That includes the construction of 18 nuclear power plants, 17,000 wind turbines, two or three huge hydroelectric dam projects, and 94 concentrating solar power plants every year between now and 2030.

"This is the scale and magnitude of the infrastructure investment...Can we do that? he said. Without large-scale deployment, the target of 450 parts per million is "science fiction," Tanaka said.

China speed 
It's well known that China's rapid economic growth is being fueled by a massive expansion of energy consumption and that the country has deep reserves of coal. But a panel of experts on China argued that China is becoming not just a giant consumer of energy, but a producer of energy technology as well.

Chinese manufacturers have become global players in solar, wind, and batteries, aided by national policies that encouraged rapid deployment of these technologies. But Chinese government leaders have a more holistic approach to clean energy, which also includes investment in research and development, said Julian Wong, a senior policy analyst at the Center for American Progress.

"As China's place in the world rises and it gains strength economically and politically, it has experienced a growing sense of insecurity that drives a sense of being self sufficient, not just in energy but also science and technology," he said.

In nuclear power, for example, Chinese companies are deploying technologies originally developed at other countries and improving on them, said Andrew Kadak, professor of nuclear science and engineering at MIT. In China, there are 26 nuclear plants under construction, while there are about that many in consideration in the U.S. "While we're talking about government loan guarantees, what to do with nuclear waste, China is building," Kadak said.

Differences in the political system are one reason that China moves so fast, said Hongmei Zhang, deputy general manager at the center for technology strategy and development at Chinese power supplier ENN Group. For example, the government plans to implement another five-year plan for energy starting in 2012.

"There are some cultural differences. To be honest, Chinese people tend to listen better. When our president Hu says something, we say, 'Yes, sir,'" she said. But in the U.S., people respond to directions by saying "Says who?" or offering second thoughts, she said.

Despite China's break-neck industrial build-out, the country faces a number of challenges before it will become the "cradle of new energy technology," said Ning Li, dean of the school of energy research at Xiamen University in China, which is doing research on nuclear, wind, and bioenergy.

"A great deal of work is going on but energy technology takes a long time to be accepted," he said. "(China) stands a very good chance to (make new energy and environment technology) for the world. And in the process, we will all profit and benefit from it."

A successful financial formula? 
In the U.S., the federal government has pumped tens of billions of dollars into electric car battery manufacturing, smart grid programs, and energy research through the ARPA-E agency.

But that doesn't mean that entrepreneurs and investors have cracked the code on how to successfully fund a green tech start-up. Because there's been a learning process, many venture capital investors probably would not make the same investments today as they would have a few years ago, said Steven Taub, senior vice president of investment strategy at GE Financial Services.

During a session on financing, conference attendees identified a number of gaps in the "energy investment pipeline," ranging from finding early-stage ideas to project finance for large-scale deployment projects.

Panelists agreed that national governments have a significant role to play, but they could not agree on what exactly that role should be. In general, there was consensus that the U.S. federal government should fund more research and development in energy, but less agreement on how to create the conditions for clean-energy industries to grow beyond the labs.

If a start-up company is able to develop a technology that generates electricity lower than the cost of coal, then it will be adopted regardless of government subsidies, argued David Anthony, venture capitalist at 21Ventures.

But the U.S. also needs to provide loan guarantees to companies that want to scale up energy companies and manufacture goods, said Howard Berke, senior adviser of Good Energies and former CEO solar company Konarka, who calls himself a "green Republican."

"It's our Achilles heel as a nation. We don't have a long-term strategy to secure a manufacturing complex in the United States. When we innovate it, somebody else produces it," he said.

Bill Aulet, a senior lecturer on energy innovation at MIT's Sloan School of Management, finished the conference on an optimistic note, saying that entrepreneurs are the most valuable "renewable resource." "We need to solve this problem not with dictates from above but from innovation from below," he said.

Source: news.cnet.com

The hybrids are coming in Europe

Chevy showed off the Volt in Geneva, along with its Opel equivalent, the Ampera.

(Credit: Wayne Cunningham/CNET)

Hybrids are big in Geneva (photos)

  

GENEVA--As hybrids gained ascendancy in the U.S., Europe showed little interest, with diesels proving more popular. But if the 2010 Geneva auto show is any indication, that preference is about to change.

Toyota showed two hatchback hybrids, one under its own brand and one as a Lexus, with both building on the successful Prius power train. BMW and Audi both showed luxury hybrid sedans as concepts, with feature lists that show them ready for production, and Volkswagen announced a hybrid version of its Touareg SUV.

Chevrolet is growing its presence, and brought its Volt to the show, while Opel's Volt equivalent, the Ampera, drove over 300 miles from Germany to Switzerland as a publicity stunt to show the practicality of the car. The Volt and Ampera are the only ones of the current crop to use series hybrid technology, with the wheels driven solely by electric power.

This influx of hybrids can be explained by upcoming European emissions regulations, which are likely to put a damper on diesel production.

Originally posted at Geneva Auto Show 2010

Source: news.cnet.com

It takes a village (of scientists) to reinvent energy

National Harbor, Md.--Attending the ARPA-E Summit this week was sort of like roaming the halls of clean-tech high school, one investor quipped when I asked him what he thought of the conference. It's an analogy that holds up pretty well.

There were the popular "kids" that everybody wanted talk to--high-profile green-tech investors like John Doerr of Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers and Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures. Authority figures who set the rules were out in force as well, including Energy Secretary Steven Chu, multiple senators, and other high-level Department of Energy officials.

Looking for a clean-energy home run (photos)

   

And then there were the nerds, the folks who loved taking science classes and building things back when they actually were in high school. These are the types of people who use a vocabulary most of us can barely follow--chemical compounds or industrial processes that you never heard of--because they have deep expertise in a particular field.

As usual, the politicians and money people got lots of attention. But in my mind it's really the class geeks who should be the rock stars at an energy innovation conference.

ARPA-E, which stands for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, was funded for the first time last year with a $400 million budget to award grants to companies and researching pursuing breakthrough clean-energy technologies. On Tuesday, Secretary Chu said that agency is structured around specific technology goals that have a chance at being developed within a few years.

For example, ARPA-E this week announced its grant solicitations for grid storage to complement wind and solar power, for energy-efficient air conditioning, and for efficient power electronics for wind turbines or LED lighting. The agency has already awarded $151 million to researchers developing methods for storing carbon dioxide underground and improving electric vehicle energy storage.

Google opens PowerMeter to energy monitors

Google on Wednesday released the API for its PowerMeter energy-monitoring Web application, a move that could let people get detailed home energy data without the need for a smart meter.

The Web application gives people a real-time graph of electricity usage and historical data with the goal of providing clues on how to ratchet down power use.

So far, Google has partnered with a few utilities which are offering PowerMeter to consumers as part of smart-meter rollouts. One device maker, which makes The Energy Detective (TED) monitor, has an option to displayelectricity data on PowerMeter.

PowerMeter creates a readout of a home's electricity use over the course of a day.

(Credit: Google)

By making the PowerMeter application programming interface available to outsiders, Google hopes that device makers and software developers will build applications that make energy information available to consumers, wrote program manager Srikanth Rajagopalan on the Google Code blog, adding that the API follows privacy guidelines and give consumers access to their information.

Google started working with smart-meter manufacturers because those two-way meters can be used to track electricity use in detail within a home. For example, one early beta tester of PowerMeter discovered that a pool pump consumed a big chunk of his electricity bill and ran it less frequently to cut electric bills.

There are a number of companies developing home monitoring devices, or displays, which can use different methods for gathering detailed electricity data. For example, TED and Powerhouse Dynamics' eMonitor device are typically installed by electricians who put clamps onto the cables that go into circuit boards to monitor current going to each circuit. Other device manufacturers have proposed getting meter data with a gateway using the wireless protocol used for automated meter reading.

Although Google's goal is to encourage third-party developers to connect to PowerMeter, it's possible that not all device manufacturers will be enthusiastic about doing that because PowerMeter is free at this point. Some energy-monitoring companies are developing proprietary software and, in some cases, plan to charge a monthly fee to get detailed usage electricity information from the Web.

Source: news.cnet.com

Innovations grow at Greener Gadgets confab

With the Empower device-charging rocking chair, I can juice up my iPhone while telling kids to get off my lawn.

(Credit: Ryan Klinger)

I recently saw the film "2012," where Earth appears to finally tire of the human race and decides to get rid of us. That, coupled with what seems to be an increasing number of natural disasters, makes me think that maybe it's time we take this green-tech thing seriously.

Apparently I'm not alone. Last week in New York, eco-minded thinkers gathered for Greener Gadgets, a conference aimed at sharing ideas for environmentally friendly gizmos. One stand-out event was the Green Gadgets Design Competition, where concepts from around the world were voted on by the public, then assessed by a panel of judges, as well as audience members.

First place went to a concept app using an iPhone as a demo. The Augmented Living Goods project, invented by a student in the U.S., uses your smartphone's camera to scan the bar code on produce. It then consults a database and, after fixing your position with GPS, tells you how far your potential food has traveled and if it's currently in season locally, as well as historical pricing among other data that's useful for helping consumers make more informed, sustainable choices in what they purchase and eat.

Great green gizmos (photos)

   

Second place went to something I'd actually like to see in every apartment in the near future. It's a solar panel with two integrated USB chargers. As more and more gadgets (cell phones, iPods, digital cameras, etc.) start adopting USB "trickle" charging, the demand for USB power goes up. This Illumi-Charger by U.S.-based GreenWaves.org stores power when it's not charging your devices in integrated batteries. That way the bottleneck is in the USB interface, not the amount of light it's absorbing. Pretty smart.

And third place went to the Empower, a concept for an electricity-generating rocking chair (no, really) by Ryan Klinger also of the U.S. It's simple, but smart. The power is sent through USB ports to trickle-charge your phone or iPod, or even to a regular 110 plug for a laptop or other standard-powered device.

There were lots more great ideas, too. Click through our gallery to see other finalists, including an energy-generating rocking toy that teaches kids about conservation and power generation; a unit that sorts through batteries and only sends power to those in need of juice; and a lamp that doubles as a charging station for small electrical devices.

Then let us know which ones you, the reader, think are not just the most innovative concepts, but also the ones most likely to make it to market. Let's have at it in the comments.

Source: news.cnet.com