Green Car Congress relays word from the ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit in Washington DC (March 2010) that EcoMotors International, a Khosla-funded start-up, showcased a 100mm cylinder bore, base module.

“The opoc engine operates on the 2-cycle principle, generating one power stroke per crank revolution per cylinder. Each module consists of two opposing cylinders per module, with a crankshaft between them; each cylinder has two pistons moving in opposite directions. This design configuration eliminates the cylinder-head and valvetrain components of conventional engines, offering a more efficient, compact and simple core engine structure, the company says. The power density is more than 1 hp per pound of engine weight. The fully balanced opoc engine can run on any liquid fuel.”

Since such development occurs at a time when European emission standard for a large goods vehicle will be less than 1.5 grams of CO2 per kW-hr, the EcoMotors design “features 90% cylinder scavenging, a high-pressure fuel injection system, and an electrically controlled turbocharger, allowing it to run higher levels of EGR (Exhaust Gas Recirculation).” Another way to increase efficiency is no valvetrain. “The opoc engine has 40% less friction than conventional valve-controlled engines.”

Four features allow scavenging as high as 90%:

• Asymmetric port timing
• Circumferential ports
• Uni-flow air charging
• Electronically controlled turbocharging

The electrically controlled turbocharger (ECT) incorporates an electric motor into the turbo assembly. In essence, it provides a supercharger, driven by the electric motor, as an adjunct to the exhaust-driven turbocharger. Boost pressure can be created by the electric motor, the turbocharger, or both.

The ECT effectively eliminates turbo lag because the electric motor provides much faster turbine response, and also provides boost when there is low energy from the exhaust flow. The motor is actuated by an electronic controller, which can be integrated with the engine control unit. When it is being spun by the turbocharger, the electric motor acts as generator, producing electricity.

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Scientists who study the Earth’s geologic past implicate rapid methane releases with extinction events.

This blog was a bit more dramatic: “Ever wondered what makes for a Climate Progress nightmare. Wonder no longer.”

And, Climate Progress commentary reflected the deep concern among scientists that Natalia Shakhova’s announcement stimulated. “The methane CLATHRATES were first observed to be melting and releasing methane into the atmosphere in 2008, and this was not expected for at least another couple of decades, if at all this century. The climate models could be seriously underestimating the potential positive feedbacks.”

Editor’s note: Shakhova is the researcher at UAF’s International Arctic Research Center who announced the research findings.

Andrew C. Revkin covered the story, and even connected it with the prior BBC story, and yet in his next post quoted David Archer, “Methane sells newspapers, but it’s not the big story, nor does it look to be a game changer to the big story, which is CO2.” Which made me recall David Robert’s Syllogism of Doom.

The Syllogism of Doom goes:

1. If we (that is, humanity) increase our use of coal, the atmosphere will likely tip over into irreversible, catastrophic warming.
2. We are going to increase our use of coal.
Therefore:
3. The atmosphere will likely tip over into irreversible, catastrophic warming.

With melting permafrost comes increased GHG emissions, atmospheric degradation leading to irreversible catastrophes from global warming. This blog relayed a warning about such positive feedback in August 2007. The melting permafrost is a tipping point. “If we see runaway methane from underneath the Siberian permafrost,” portends Jamais Cascio, “we could see temperatures increasing far faster than even the most pessimistic CO2-driven scenarios — perhaps as much as 8-10° C, very much into the global catastrophe realm.”

Other AG Posts on topic of Melting Permafrost

• Only a Few More Days
• The Climate in the Cryosphere
• Chris Feld testified before Congress
• Absolutely Now

• Only a Few More Days
• The Good News Just Keeps Coming In
• The Climate in the Cryosphere
• Fire Burn and Cauldron Bubble
• Drawing a Line in the Coal Dust

While this blog has mentioned before how airfoils can improve HAWT performance, it has resisted mention of a related turbine strategy* until now when it saw that Department of Energy is funding FloDesign Wind Turbine Corporation of Wilbraham, MA. FloDesign is developing a new shrouded, axial-flow wind turbine.

* Editor’s note: After Gutenberg did have a post before about a concept called FloDesign and responded to a request to remove it.

In comparison with existing HAWTs (Horizontal Axis Wind Turbines), the Mixer Ejector Wind Turbine is capable of delivering more energy per unit swept area with greatly reduced rotor loading.

• Airfoils Also can improve HAWT Output
• Low Speed Wind Turbines
• GE Wind Turbines
• Wind Energy Costs Dropping
• Turkey in the Wind

Not for all the wind turbines in China would I bear such weight

“Unlike health care, when it comes to nukes (Editor’s note: Ryan refers to nuclear weapons and not nuclear power; a different aspect of the same underlying delusion),” writes Grimm, “cost is no object.”

The lead story in Saturday’s Washington Post, about the nuclear weapons decisions facing President Obama, runs longer than 1,300 words, but five a reader won’t find are “cost,” “dollars,” “money,” “debt,” or “deficit.” A reader would also search in vain for any talk of a “fiscal crisis” or a need to balance nuclear weapons priorities with available revenues.

The waning empire logic: See how destructive our potential, that means we still are great. While such delusion is sufficiently horrific, there is greater malevolence in the corruption implicit in such destructive tendencies. Lobbying positions for previous “representatives” along with the rationale “Everybody is doing it” ensures BAUAAAE (Business As Usual And Above All Else), whether the beneficiary is the Defense, Fossil Fuel or Insurance industry. It is “going with the flow”, after all, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion every day.

In a recent review of ECONned, Richard Smith asks how the ‘free market’ concept has turned into profoundly destructive behavior. “We are supposed to believe that by some alchemical process, maximum indulgence of human greed results in maximum prosperity for all.”

ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism ASIN: 0230620515

• Very Rare… Truth Telling by a Politician
• Medical Bills Can Lead to Bankruptcy
• More Good News!
• Halt! Who Goes There?
• Keep Your Pod Down

The 6,272-megawatt peak — which does not include turbines in the windy Panhandle because that region is on a different grid — surpassed another record. The state’s overall wind average is significantly lower than these spikes: Last year Texas got 6.2 percent of its electricity from wind, according to Dottie Roark, a spokeswoman for the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which operates the grid serving most of the state. The nation as a whole has less than 2 percent wind in its electricity mix.

A new NREL study offers great new maps of wind energy potential across the country, highlighting areas with key elements necessary for development: high wind speeds, access to transmission lines, and cheap land. The resolution of the Truewind maps is 650 feet, “so developers could use them not just to located the best area for an entire farm, but for each machine.”

As Lena Hansen and Amory Lovins nevertheless noted recently, “Denmark already is 20 percent wind-powered, heading for 50 percent to 60 percent, and five German states are 30 percent to 40 percent wind-powered (over 100 percent at some times).” A new study by NREL (the National Renewable Energy Laboratory) found that the U.S. could theoretically generate 37 million gigawatt-hours of wind power per year. Such development is critical in a nation, the electricity mix for which is presently less than 2 percent wind.

One reason that Texas leads other states in wind power is the amount of high-quality sites. Another reason is that Texas has an RPS (Renewable Portfolio Standard). The RPS and similar requirements equal a target of 5880 MW by 2015.

Photo: Brian Harkin for The New York Times

Texas “is able to break new wind records due partly to the growth of wind in areas with sufficient transmission. A 180-megawatt wind farm opened last September near Corpus Christi, noted Ms. Roark of the electric council. NextEra Energy Resources, a major wind developer, also recently completed a private transmission line for its enormous wind farm in West Texas.”

Developers already have exceeded that target. Since developers already have built around 7000 MW, there have been market adjustments. So many wind turbines have gone up in West Texas that when wholesale prices crashed and a fair amount of existing wind farms shut down.

Texas’s progress in installing turbines is testing the bounds of just how much wind the electrical grid can handle. Some turbines are slowed or shut down on windy days because the state does not have sufficient transmission wires to move all the power from the remote, windy areas of West Texas to cities like Dallas and Houston that need it. Last night and this morning, for example, the prices for wind generation offered on the main Texas grid actually fell below zero, a sign of oversupply that usually prompts wind generators to shut their turbines down.

Texas is spending nearly $5 billion to fix the transmission problem. It plans to build a web of power lines that would be able to deliver the wind energy from congested West Texas, home to 89 percent of the wind capacity on the state’s main grid, to power-hungry cities. That process, however, looks likely to be delayed by a recent court decision.

Centralized power production in the United States and throughout the world historically has used a “sledgehammer” approach to power production, i.e., two-thirds of the energy consumed to create electricity is lost in the conversion process. And, the ongoing thinking would seem to be, “No matter. We just will blow the tops off some more mountains and keep on polluting the atmosphere with Green House Gases.”

This report comes after T. Boone Pickens said that he scuttled a Texas wind farm project in part because of the lack of adequate transmission lines from remote locations to cities. This blog also touched on this topic recently. Where wind and solar energy is abundant also can present challenges transmitting the electricty to big markets.

The transmission issue is complex. Trading electricity (and greater dependency upon electric propulsion) requires improvements to the existing infrastructure; so stimulus money must go toward repair and enhancement of existing grids. Yet without investment in new transmission such development is bias toward the status quo, i.e., inefficient, dirty, centralized electric power plants. Texas’s challenges, observes Gailbraith, “may serve as a test case for the nation.”

A 2008 Department of Energy report outlined the changes that will be needed if the nation is going to achieve a goal of 20 percent wind power by 2030. One of the key prerequisites, the report said, is better transmission lines.

And, not the only prerequisite… an article in the Wall Street Journal explains another reason for seeing an oversupply of wind power: a fall of about 70% in natural gas prices from last year’s high made wind less attractive as a source of power. Yet at a time when climatologists forecast a 2 degree Centigrade increase in global average temperature, how could there be an oversupply of low-carbon energy?

Yes, the question was rhetorical. Yes, the answer is BAUAAE. Yes, this blog is in a funk and it blames Professor Joe.

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Sludge Happens. In this East Tennessee spill, about 5.4 million cubic yards of toxic, carcinogenic, radioactive coal ash sludge. Let’s just check. Ah, both senators from Tennessee, Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander, support the resolution of disapproval. And, I see that Representative Marilyn Lloyd (TN) is a co-sponsor of H.J. Res. 77. Could someone hand them some spoons, please?

And, now the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), which severely underreported the severity of coal ash waste pollution and its threat to human and environmental health throughout the United States, may take further action regarding coal ash impoundments.

Truthout News Analyst Joshua Frank reports that a new independent study released February 24 by the Environmental Integrity Project and Earthjustice says that the EPA’s tally of coal ash contamination locations last year did not include 31 sites that they should have included in the totals. The study, “Out of Control: Mounting Damages From Coal Ash Waste Sites,” may shame the EPA enough to encourage further action.

“While the catastrophic spill at TVA’s Kingston plant has become the poster child for the damage that coal ash can wreak, there are hundreds of leaking sites throughout the United States where the damage is deadly, but far less conspicuous,” said Jeff Stant of the EIP, said in a statement released along with the report.

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• The weight and length of the chain of coal cars
• Unpriced Consequences of Energy Production
• But, seriously, and I’m not making this up
• Just a Minor Spill, No Big Back Room Deal
• Whoopsie!

Photo: Chris P. Walsh

A program in Ontario encourages industrial partners to invest in improvements that capture and use waste heat. Usage varies; it could be as electricity generation, process steam, heating or other industrial purposes. Conventional electricity generation is about 30 percent efficient. On the other hand combined heat and power (a.k.a., cogeneration) converts up to 90 percent of the fuel into usable energy.

Such savings from energy efficiency are available to other industrialized nations as well, to include our neighbor to the North. Ontario is one of the most industrialized provinces in Canada. Ottawa resident Michael Graham Richard tells Treehugger readers that the province has set a goal of 300 million negawatts.

Negawatts is jargon. Amory Lovins created the term after seeing a typographical error: ‘negawatts’ and not megawatts of electricity saved. The Ontario Power Authority aims to cut power demand by energy retrofits for any industrial consumer connected directly to their transmission system. “Under the program, the power authority will pay up to 70 per cent of the cost of an energy retrofit.” There is a $10 million cap to reimbursement to the industrial consumer. “Energy savings are expected to achieve a one- to two-year payback.”

In Canada and elsewhere that there is well-established industry, the factories evidence an era when energy in general was cheaper than now, and there was less concern for placing a burden on the environment. Mr. Richard notes, “There are many low-hanging fruits; for example, some have been flaring gases and could be used to generate on-site power and heat.”

“Greenpeace activists rappelled off of a Pittsburgh bridge with a massive banner with a message to energy policy makers.

A primary example is low-grade waste heat. Making electricity from energy normally wasted is profitable and environmentally friendly. This blog has cited Michael Newell, a waste heat entrepreneur, who has said, “Every kilowatt you are generating from our system is a kilowatt you don’t need from fossil fuels.”

The IPCC Synthesis Report authors recommend combined heat and power as a current, commercially available means to mitigate emissions from energy production. Utilities need enough financial incentive to alter their business practices and encourage industrial customers to use less energy. Unfortunately, many utility companies remain reluctant to assume the principle role of saving life on the planet as we know it.

Some Suggested Resources:

• The Clinton Foundation’s Global Energy Efficiency Building Retrofit Program
• RMI Library: Best of Amory Lovins
• Consortium for Energy Efficiency

• Waste Heat can make Electricity
• More Coal? More Nuclear? What about Less?
• Condensing Flues
• Record Efficiency
• If a Tree Goes into a Refinery in a Forest

The predicted tipping point for electric vehicles occurs when public charging is available and charge times are as little as 15 minutes. With the shift to electric drive and burgeoning mobile communications, manufacturers see an important role for telematics. For instance, developers want to offer Europeans the chance to book rail tickets and have a fully charged electric vehicle waiting by means of cell phone. Another example is Nissan LEAF Connected Mobility IT System that will calculate range and show nearby charging stations.

Mobile telecommunications allows not only an exchange of information about vehicle status, but also enables GPS or other beacon-enabled navigation and other network-based services.

Telematics is a term for how systems in a vehicle communicate and exchange information. Which leads us to an innocuous story at Green Car Congress about an Illinois-based Electronics Manufacturing Services.

Yes, in the corn-to-ethanol heartland, there exists a company to offer the DAS (Data Acquisition System) for each one of the competing vehicles in the Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE. As AG readers may recall,the Automotive X Prize is $10 million dollars, which will go to the winner of a competition between a new generation of practical, safe and super fuel-efficient vehicles.

Telematics is essential to deciding the winner. The MOREY DAS “will transmit a range of vehicle data such as accelerator position, vehicle speed, fuel economy, and battery power from each vehicle to a local event server” and ultimately to a web site, www.FuelOurFutureNow.org, allowing “fans to track the progress of competition vehicles in real-time.”

One feature of the vehicle tracking will be the calculation of each vehicle’s efficiency, measured as MPGe—miles per gallon or its energy equivalent. MOREY will work closely with fellow Progressive Insurance Automotive X PRIZE partner, ThinkWrap, on the implementation of the online portal, which will feature a GPS-driven map with interactive vehicle icons and virtual instrument displays to make the experience truly interactive and engaging.

• Top Level Architecture
• Nissan LEAF Connected Mobility IT System
• Berlin soon to have 100+ EVs, 500 Charging Points
• Toyota City Has Charging Stations
• Pull Those Old Sound Files Off the Net

Efficiency and conservation are often a sound investment economically and environmentally.

According to the Department of Energy, heating and cooling account for 50 to 70% of the energy used in the average American home. A large proportion of energy is lost through cracks in walls and ceilings. In terms of energy conservation, people can make immediate improvements to their energy profile simply by adding insulation to their home.

Arguably (video), the best insulation for any green home is cellulose. According to the U.S. Green Building Council cellulose requires comparatively less energy. Some cellulose insulation is 75% recycled material. There also is renewable cotton, abundant fiberglass, even soy-based foam insulation, which has the highest percentage of renewable resource ingredients in the industry with 60%.

By adding insulation to their home a homeowner adds to their home value, while conserving energy and reducing their utility bill. The period for the homeowner to get a ROI (Return On Investment) will vary, and long-term savings will outweigh upfront costs.

Smart Meters can help in finding areas in the home where the loss of energy dollars occurs. In some locations, local governments are providing residents with them for free. This seems the best strategy for getting residents the tools necessary to cut energy costs. The idea is that consumers are more likely to make necessary changes to their energy consumption when they actually see where inefficiency occurs.

Sustainability is a new way of thinking about an age-old concern: ensuring that our children and grandchildren inherit a tomorrow that is at least as good as today, preferably better.

Aside from personal effort, there are a lot of groups and organizations that people can get involved with that tackle larger projects. UNPEPP (the University-National Park Energy Partnership Program) is a great example. UNPEPP is a PPP (Public Private Partnership) that connects federal grant monies with university students eager to change the United States landscape one national park at a time. Universities all across America use the federal grant money to create internship opportunities for students to travel to a national park in their area and work with energy and environmental professors, experts and park staff to do energy audits, recommend energy conservation measures and carry out renewable energy technology. Ultimately parks can save thousands in energy costs and cut their carbon footprint. (See UNPEPP 10 year Report.) This type of partnership is a rewarding experience for everyone involved and similar PPPs are at the forefront of the green energy movement.

A third part of building the green energy infrastructure involves business owners. While individual efforts generally result in relatively smaller improvements and PPPs sometimes get delayed by energy policies hung up by the legislative process, some private businesses can tackle cost-saving projects that can create a large impact. More businesses are now seeing the potential for going green without delay.

Because of decreased utility costs, a business owner could recoup the ROI (Return On Investment) within a short a period as two years

Devised in 1998 LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Certification is a scoring system that many private business use to help gauge just how far a company has gone to merge green initiatives into their designs. Specifically, the LEED Green Building Rating System provides an environmentally sustainable benchmark for buildings and neighborhoods.

According to USGBC, 72% of electricity consumption and 39% of energy use come from buildings in the United States alone. LEED certified buildings use efficient resources to improve performance with energy conservation, CO2 emissions reduction, and water efficiency all while enhancing the ecosystems they are a part of – not diminishing them.

One major company, Globetrotters Engineering Corporation (GEC), an architectural company founded by engineer and CEO, Niranjan Shah, is an example of a company that adheres to LEED certification. GEC is responsible for many facets of modernization and expansion of O’Hare International Airport in Chicago (the first privately managed terminal in the United States). Niranjan Shah benefits from green design by proving that it is helpful to society and profitable all at the same time. Another company that earned LEED Certification is the Washington D.C. based mortgage company, Fannie Mae, which was responsible for the first-ever LEED data center.

There are countless other companies that are earning LEED certification. Government incentives to companies earning LEED certification is a way to boost the number of participants. Such guidelines bolster environmental sustainability and show that federal agencies are environmentally friendly, even while members of Congress dither over federal energy policy.

On a larger scale, organizations like the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI), founded by Bill Clinton and counselor Doug Band, are doing their part to bring the strongest political leaders together to tackle world problems. However, small projects at home, public private partnerships and LEED certification are methods that combine to allow everyone a chance to curtail inefficient energy use.

Written by Marcus Reyes

Other AG posts on the topic of LEED certification or net-zero architecture

• Local Ecological Ingenuity and Sustainable Energy Initiative
• Improving Energy Efficiency in Building
• Buildings Can Play a Key Role in Combating Climate Change
• Building America’s Zero Energy Homes
• Building Integrated Photo Voltaic
• Net Zero, Carbon Neutral Buildings
• Zero Energy Homes

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“La la la la la
Doo doo doo doo doo doo doo, owww!”

@rmarg: Interesting construction to your rhetorical question, “baseloaded renewables” sounds like a name for a new-formed, short-lived folk group at the local coffee house ‘open mike’. In the gamut from off-grid living to utility-scale, solar thermal electric power plants, one might suspect preparation for weighty discussion about energy storage. So let’s assume that it is a challenge to generate a 100% demand when off-grid.

As to a consensus about solar thermal electric power, you may want to direct that inquiry to those doing due diligence for the World Bank. One might suspect their MENA (Middle East – North Africa) efforts cite publications by NREL (National Renewable Energy Laboratory) and Ben-Gurion National Solar Energy Center scientists (“Off with their heads!“). However, I lack sufficient knowledge to answer your question authoritatively.

More basically, where you might look for resolution to your confusion is with a greater appreciation of thermodynamics and life cycles. To quote your friend and mine, Mister Inconvenient Truth, “the crisis is still growing because we are continuing to dump 90 million tons of global-warming pollution every 24 hours into the atmosphere — as if it were an open sewer.”

Natural gas and not wind power may seem a good compromise with our fossil fuel masters in the short-term. After all, we really don’t know how much hydraulic fracturing threatens the watershed of the 90 million living in New York City, and burning methane is less devastating to the atmosphere than burning coal or “unconventional fuel” from the tar sands and oil shale.

Having advocated solar and wind and not Business As Usual And Above All Else, I expect next a Wildish thump about wind energy’s carbon footprint. (Citing a nuclear energy expert, donncha kno, Anna.) Again, I lack sufficient knowledge to answer such a retort authoritatively.

OTOH, I do know something about consensus… true consensus when one stands in favor, stands opposed, or stands aside. During a recent speech, President Obama foretold more compromise. His mention of oil drilling off coast (and not wind turbines) evoked my strident, “No”. His mention of “clean coal” evoked a wry smile and terse negative head shake while I listened further.

When he came to the main theme, i.e., look for the union pipe fitters building the loops in the first new nuclear power stations since Three Mile Island, I remained silent. Like the old joke, the patient died but the operation was a success, more nuclear is the wrong decision for the right reason. When the question is low-carbon base load, Big Eddie got his way that day, just as Big Farm continues to do with corn to ethanol. We call it “political expediency”.

OTOH, I appreciated how from an engineering perspective Lena Hansen and Amory Lovins recently questioned the base load idea. Instead, they wrote about how to increase capacity to meet demand.

Editor’s note: Video explanation of title and picture caption follows.

• What about the Long Term Forecast?
• Getting juice to the Big Markets
• Opportunity Knocks, Opportunity Costs
• Wind Power in Cold Storage
• RE<C