Energize Now Blog

Microsoft Pays Employees For Energy Efficiency Improvements

2008-07-14T15:19:00.002-04:00

Microsoft has introduced employee incentives to improve energy efficiency and it’s paying off. From 2004 to 2007, Microsoft saw a 22 percent improvement in the energy efficiency of its data centers, Network World reports.

Microsoft has begun charging business units based on the amount of energy consumed by the servers that host their services instead of basing the charge on the amount of floor space required to stack the servers that their services used - which led to extremely dense, power hungry servers.

This has allowed the company to do away with underutilized equipment resulting in major savings.

The effort has also led to developers writing new code and examining the trade off between extra speed and energy savings.

Data-center facilities managers are in the game plan too - yearly bonuses are based on year-over-year efficiency improvements.

Dupont is also using incentives to cut energy use.

To the source...

Tiny Somerset set for large coal gasification push -The Green Blog - A Boston Globe blog on living Green in Boston

2008-07-11T16:23:00.001-04:00

Tiny Somerset set for large coal gasification push -The Green Blog - A Boston Globe blog on living Green in Boston

A $25 million demonstration project that converts coal to clean-burning natural gas is scheduled to be built at the large Brayton Point power station.

But it is a second proposal at a smaller coal-fired power plant in the community that is raising residents’ ire. Last week, that plant moved another step closer to gasification after a state environmental judge moved to dismiss an appeal by 12 Somerset area citizens challenging the state’s decision to allow it.

Secret World Bank Report Blames Biofuels for Food Price Spike | Wired Science from Wired.com

2008-07-11T16:04:00.000-04:00

Secret World Bank Report Blames Biofuels for Food Price Spike | Wired Science from Wired.com

State starts a green era

2008-07-03T07:41:00.004-04:00

Law encourages renewable sources; Utilities expected to help cut costs - By Beth Daley Globe Staff / July 3, 2008

Governor Deval Patrick signed a landmark energy bill yesterday that does away with long-standing obstacles to building renewable power projects in Massachusetts and making homes and businesses more energy efficient.

The Green Communities Act was hailed by environmentalists as among the most innovative efforts in the nation to reduce dependence on fossil fuels and to encourage use of clean technologies that don't contribute to global warming.

The law will probably result in utilities' designing customized plans for homeowners and businesses to cut energy costs and providing rebates to pay for measures such as installing insulating windows and more efficient boilers. Homeowners and businesses will be able to rent solar panels from utilities to avoid expensive up-front costs, and the law makes it easier for homeowners who have installed wind turbines or solar panels to sell surplus energy.

Supporters said the new law could save hundreds of millions of dollars through energy efficiency, helping to hold down consumers' electric bills as energy prices are skyrocketing.

"I am here today to sign into law the best clean energy bill in America," a jubilant Patrick said during a signing ceremony at the Museum of Science. "Climate change is the challenge of our times, and we in Massachusetts are rising to that challenge."

Massachusetts has long been a leader in energy legislation, and it is taking part in a regional effort to reduce greenhouse gases from power plants. Patrick has set an aggressive goal to increase solar power in the state by 600 percent in four years.

The law "maintains Massachusetts' status as a state leader," said Patrick Hogan of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Virginia-based environmental policy think tank.

Business leaders praised the legislation, saying it could stabilize electric rates in New England, already among the highest in the nation. Utilities, including NStar and National Grid, said they have long focused on energy efficiency but are eager to ramp up the effort, as well as to provide solar power to customers.

"It pushes us to a new level," said Tom May, NStar's chief executive. "We get to cross the street to our customer side and help them with energy choices . . . such as windmills in a neighborhood or solar panels. It's helping them reduce their carbon footprint."

Among the law's major provisions:

A requirement for utilities to invest in energy efficiency when it is cheaper to do so than it is to buy power. Historically, companies would simply buy more power when demand went up, which over time would lead to construction of very costly and polluting power plants. Now, utilities will have to invest in energy efficiency if to do so is equal to or cheaper than buying power. The law will also use at least 80 percent of the revenue from the regional effort to cap power plant emissions for efficiency programs, such as home energy audits to identify how to save on energy bills.

"The cleanest power plant is the one that never gets built," said Sam Krasnow, attorney for Environment Northeast, a research and advocacy group. "Energy efficiency is the cheapest and cleanest energy resource available."

Several efforts to promote renewable power. Utilities would have to enter into 10- or 15-year contracts with renewable energy developers, an effort to help those developers get financing from banks. The Patrick administration is particularly proud of a provision that lifts a prohibition on utilities owning solar electric panels and allows them to rent the panels to customers. The law is designed to allow utilities to recoup the cost of panels over time from rental fees while the customers reap energy savings.

Utilities will have to purchase a greater amount of their electricity from renewable power sources than under current law. By 2030, utilities would buy 25 percent of their power from renewables.

It is unclear whether that goal, one of the most ambitious in the nation, can be met, however. The current requirement of 3.5 percent has not been met, partly because of the difficulty in siting renewable projects. The utilities instead pay a fee to the state.

The creation of "Green Communities." The state will commit $10 million annually to help communities figure out ways to become more energy efficient or invest in renewables, including giving them no-interest loans. New buildings in the state will have to meet updated building codes with energy-savings provisions.

The energy bill encountered some controversy during the two years it took to become law. Early versions guaranteed a market for coal gasification, a technology that is cleaner than conventional coal-burning power plants but still emits large amounts of carbon dioxide.

The final language would give financial incentives to gasification technologies only in limited cirumstances and only to those that capture and store the carbon dioxide underground.

Environmentalists had nothing but praise for the law yesterday, saying it was a paradigm shift in the way energy will be created, bought and sold.

"This is a tremendous advancement that comes not a moment too soon, given rising energy prices and the climate crisis," said Sue Reid, a lawyer with the Conservation Law Foundation.

Article source:

Beth Daley can be reached at bdaley@globe.com.

NASA warming scientist: 'This is the last chance'

2008-06-24T01:16:00.003-04:00

WASHINGTON (AP) — Exactly 20 years after warning America about global warming, a top NASA scientist said the situation has gotten so bad that the world's only hope is drastic action.

James Hansen told Congress on Monday that the world has long passed the "dangerous level" for greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and needs to get back to 1988 levels. He said Earth's atmosphere can only stay this loaded with man-made carbon dioxide for a couple more decades without changes such as mass extinction, ecosystem collapse and dramatic sea level rises.

"We're toast if we don't get on a very different path," Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute of Space Sciences who is sometimes called the godfather of global warming science, told The Associated Press. "This is the last chance."

Hansen brought global warming home to the public in June 1988 during a Washington heat wave, telling a Senate hearing that global warming was already here. To mark the anniversary, he testified before the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming where he was called a prophet, and addressed a luncheon at the National Press Club where he was called a hero by former Sen. Tim Wirth, D-Colo., who headed the 1988 hearing.

To cut emissions, Hansen said coal-fired power plants that don't capture carbon dioxide emissions shouldn't be used in the United States after 2025, and should be eliminated in the rest of the world by 2030. That carbon capture technology is still being developed and not yet cost efficient for power plants.

Burning fossil fuels like coal is the chief cause of man-made greenhouse gases. Hansen said the Earth's atmosphere has got to get back to a level of 350 parts of carbon dioxide per million. Last month, it was 10 percent higher: 386.7 parts per million.

Hansen said he'll testify on behalf of British protesters against new coal-fired power plants. Protesters have chained themselves to gates and equipment at sites of several proposed coal plants in England.

"The thing that I think is most important is to block coal-fired power plants," Hansen told the luncheon. "I'm not yet at the point of chaining myself but we somehow have to draw attention to this."

Frank Maisano, a spokesman for many U.S. utilities, including those trying to build new coal plants, said while Hansen has shown foresight as a scientist, his "stop them all approach is very simplistic" and shows that he is beyond his level of expertise.

The year of Hansen's original testimony was the world's hottest year on record. Since then, 14 years have been hotter, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Two decades later, Hansen spent his time on the question of whether it's too late to do anything about it. His answer: There's still time to stop the worst, but not much time.

"We see a tipping point occurring right before our eyes," Hansen told the AP before the luncheon. "The Arctic is the first tipping point and it's occurring exactly the way we said it would."

Hansen, echoing work by other scientists, said that in five to 10 years, the Arctic will be free of sea ice in the summer.

Longtime global warming skeptic Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., citing a recent poll, said in a statement, "Hansen, (former Vice President) Gore and the media have been trumpeting man-made climate doom since the 1980s. But Americans are not buying it."

But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., committee chairman, said, "Dr. Hansen was right. Twenty years later, we recognize him as a climate prophet."

On the Net:
Hansen's speech: http://www.columbia.edu/jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf

Justices Take Case on Navy Use of Sonar

2008-06-24T00:23:00.003-04:00

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Monday stepped into a long-running environmental dispute over the impact on whales and other marine mammals of Navy training exercises off Southern California.

The court, warned by the Bush administration that a set of conditions placed on the exercises by the federal appeals court in San Francisco “jeopardizes the Navy’s ability to train sailors and marines for wartime deployment during a time of ongoing hostilities,” agreed to hear the Navy’s appeal during its next term.

The training exercises, which are due to end next January, will continue in the meantime, because the appeals court issued a stay of its own order when it ruled in the case four months ago. That court, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, ordered the Navy to suspend or minimize its use of sonar when marine mammals are in the vicinity.

The Navy acknowledges that the sonar can cause “behavioral disruptions” and short-term hearing loss in dolphins and whales, but denies that these effects are serious or lasting. But the Natural Resources Defense Council maintains that the high-intensity sonar causes “mass injury,” including hemorrhaging and stranding. The appeals court said the Navy’s own assessment “clearly indicates that at least some substantial harm will likely occur” without the measures designed to mitigate the sonar’s effects.

The justices themselves will not resolve the debate over the extent of the harm. Rather, as presented to the Supreme Court, the case is a dispute over the limits of executive branch authority and the extent to which the courts should defer to military judgments.

In January, as the case was proceeding in the appeals court, President Bush granted the Navy an exemption from one federal environmental law, the Coastal Zone Management Act. Simultaneously, the Council on Environmental Quality, an executive branch agency, declared that “emergency circumstances” warranted granting an exemption from the full effect of another statute, the National Environmental Policy Act.

These actions did not sway the appeals court, which said that “while we are mindful of the importance of protecting national security, courts have often held, in the face of assertions of potential harm to military readiness, that the armed forces must take precautionary measures to comply with the law.”

In the government’s appeal, Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council, No. 07-1239, the administration describes training in the use of sonar to detect submarines as an “essential element” of the exercises, which it says are designed to “train the thousands of military personnel in a strike group to operate as an integrated unit in simultaneous air, surface and undersea warfare.”

The administration’s brief says that by imposing conditions on the use of sonar, “the decision poses substantial harm to national security and improperly overrides the collective judgments of the political branches and the nation’s top naval officers regarding the overriding public interest in a properly trained Navy.”

Under the appeals court’s order, the Navy must suspend the use of sonar or reduce it to specified levels when a marine mammal is seen at certain distances. The appeals courts said this requirement would not compromise the Navy’s ability to conduct the exercises.

Another appeal before the Supreme Court on Monday also presented a clash between executive power and environmental protection, concerning the fence being built on the Mexican border by the Department of Homeland Security.

But in this instance the government had prevailed in the lower court, and the justices, without comment, declined to hear an appeal filed by Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club. The question was the validity of a federal law that allows the secretary of homeland security to waive any federal, state, or local laws that, in the secretary’s “sole discretion,” present obstacles to the fence project.

Michael Chertoff, the department’s secretary, invoked this authority last year in waiving 20 laws, including the Endangered Species Act, to enable the fence project to proceed through a national conservation area in Arizona.

The lawsuit filed by the environmental groups maintained that the statute violated the separation of powers by delegating to the secretary a form of legislative authority. The lawsuit also challenged the law’s unusually truncated judicial review provision, which limits the types of challenges that can be brought in Federal District Court and strips the appeals court of jurisdiction to hear any appeal.

Judge Ellen Segal Huvelle of the Federal District Court here upheld the law, saying that the breadth of the waiver provision did not make it unconstitutional. The case was Defenders of Wildlife v. Chertoff, No. 07-1180.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/24/washington/24scotus.html?ex=1371960000&en=7eae2e93512ae004&ei=5124&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink

Trying to make the blacktop greener

2008-06-16T22:56:00.004-04:00

States working to curb pollution from road runoff

Every time it rains, a soup of chemicals washes off roadways: Brake fluid, oil, salt, antifreeze, and heavy metals from tens of thousands of cars pour off the asphalt and, often, into rivers and streams.

Until recently, this form of pollution received little attention from regulators and environmentalists, but a movement is slowly building to create what may seem a contradiction: green highways.

Two weeks ago a federal judge in Boston ruled that the Massachusetts Highway Department was violating the federal Clean Water Act and ordered the agency to better control storm water from roadways in urban areas. Meanwhile, some states are beginning to capture and filter storm water before it reaches waterways, using vegetation and porous median strips among other solutions.

"All the pollution that runs off highways is put very quickly into our waterways," said Christopher M. Kilian, director of the Clean Water Program and the lead lawyer in the Massachusetts case for the Conservation Law Foundation, a Boston-based environmental group that sued the Highway Department. "But there are approaches we can use to stop it."

Once, the biggest problems facing waterways such as the Charles River and Boston Harbor were obvious. Raw sewage and toxic chemicals from homes and factories stank and made stepping in the water so foul people would avoid any contact. A decades-long cleanup of these pollution sources, mandated by the Clean Water Act, has gone a long way toward restoring waterways. Boston Harbor now sparkles on many summer days, and the Charles is clean enough that a 1-mile swim is scheduled there tomorrow.

Yet these scrubbing efforts were relatively simple because the pollution could easily be traced back to its sources. Now environmentalists are focusing on a problem that is more dispersed: runoff, carrying everything from dog waste to fertilizer, from lawns, sidewalks, roadways, natural areas, and farms. It is the main reason about 40 percent of rivers, lakes, and estuaries are not clean enough to meet fishing or swimming standards, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency.

While it's difficult to tease out the highways' share of the problem, federal officials are focusing on them because so many contaminants are washed from roadways, solutions are available and straightforward, and the federal Clean Water Act requires highway departments to deal with the problem.

"Most roads have no controls at all," said Nancy Stoner, director of the Clean Water Project at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Her group is involved in a long-running lawsuit seeking to force the EPA, which enforces the Clean Water Act, to require anyone building roads, schools, and any private construction to use specific, proven technologies to minimize storm water runoff.

There are many highway contaminants. Chloride, sodium, and calcium can accumulate on the pavement from salt and sanding operations. Ordinary wear and tear causes cars to shed oil, grease, rust, and rubber particles. Once the contaminants are washed into waterways, they can be consumed by fish, frogs, and other aquatic life, or settle in the water, contributing to contaminant levels.

The green highway movement also includes advocacy for the use of recyclable materials for pavement or the creation of wildlife crossings. But environmentalists and scientists say storm water runoff is by far the most pressing problem - and the most expensive to fix.

The solutions are hardly high-tech. The goal is to slow water running off pavement and allow it to percolate through soil, vegetation, and stones, which cleanse it before it reaches waterways. Porous road shoulders and medians allow water to migrate into the ground instead of flowing directly into storm drains and rivers. Man-made ponds and adjacent wetlands hold runoff until it can evaporate or seep through soil. Still, such solutions can be difficult in highly urban areas where space is at a premium.

Headway is being made around the country. In January, California promised to reduce runoff pollution from its freeways in Los Angeles and Ventura counties by 20 percent to settle a lawsuit the Natural Resources Defense Council brought in 1994. Two years ago, the EPA, the Federal Highway Administration, several mid-Atlantic states, and other groups formed the Green Highways Partnership to test small-scale green highway programs that can serve as national models. Maryland has constructed man-made ponds on a pilot basis to hold highway storm water so it can filter through soil more slowly. Universities from Villanova to Louisiana State are working to perfect porous pavement technology.

In Massachusetts, state highway officials say they try to incorporate storm water management when building roads or reconstructing them in urbanized areas. But in its lawsuit, the Conservation Law Foundation said the state wasn't doing anything about runoff from the vast network of roads.

Federal District Court Judge William G. Young agreed, saying highway storm water on Interstate 190 in Lancaster was clearly contributing to pollution in a nearby waterway, as were two Route 495 sites that were polluting the Charles River. He also said the agency needs to do a better job assessing how to keep pollution out of waterways in urbanized areas. He told MassHighway to come back to him with a revised storm water management plan by the end of 2009. He praised the agency for doing a good job given fiscal and other constraints, but said "best efforts, of course, is not the standard."

MassHighway officials said they were pleased with the decision because the judge took pains to compliment them on many of their efforts. They acknowledged that they have not initiated new storm water management technologies on roadways that aren't undergoing any other work because of its prohibitive cost, probably hundreds of millions of dollars if storm water controls were installed on state highways in urban areas. They are now waiting for a US Geological Survey report that will help determine where and how pollution is running off highway segments so they can decide where to focus clean-up efforts.

"I think [the judge] was saying, given the breadth of our responsibility, we are doing a pretty good job," said Highway Commissioner Luisa M. Paiewonsky. "[We are] improving a plan already underway."

By Beth Daley
Globe Staff / June 14, 2008

World Poll Finds Global Leadership Vacuum

2008-06-16T21:01:00.005-04:00

Bush Widely Mistrusted, But No Other Leader Does Much Better - Only UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Gets Moderately Positive Ratings

A new WorldPublicOpinion.org poll of 20 nations around the world finds that none of the national leaders on the world stage inspire wide confidence. While US President George W. Bush is one of the least trusted leaders, no other leader--including China's Hu Jintao and Russia's Vladimir Putin--has gained a broad international base of support.

Only UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon received largely positive ratings in a worldwide poll that asked respondents whether they trusted international leaders "to do the right thing regarding world affairs."

WorldPublicOpinion.org conducted the poll of 19,751 respondents in nations that comprise 60 percent of the world's population. This includes most of the largest nations--China, India, the United States, Indonesia, Nigeria, and Russia--as well as Mexico, Argentina, Britain, France, Spain, Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Egypt, Jordan, Iran, Turkey, the Palestinian territories, South Korea and Thailand. Fielding was conducted between January 10 and May 6. The margins of error range from +/-2 to 4 percent.

WorldPublicOpinion.org, a collaborative research project involving research centers from around the world, is managed by the Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA) at the University of Maryland.

Sixteen of the 20 publics surveyed say they lack confidence in US President George W. Bush. Only Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf is rated negatively in more nations. Just two countries (Nigeria and India) give Bush positive ratings while a third (Thailand) is divided. Bush also got the highest average percentage of negative ratings (67%).

Although China is a rising world power, most publics do not express confidence in Chinese President Hu Jintao. Thirteen publics give Hu predominantly negative ratings while only five (Nigeria, South Korea, Iran, Azerbaijan and Ukraine) tend to be positive. India is divided. On average 44 percent of those surveyed around the world show little or no confidence in the Chinese leader; only 28 percent express some or a lot of confidence. (In all cases the leader's own public is excluded from the count of countries and the average rating.)

Vladimir Putin remains popular inside Russia as he makes the transition from president to prime minister but he has not emerged as an attractive world leader. Eleven publics have a negative view of Putin while just five are positive and three are divided. On average 32 percent express confidence in Putin--one of the highest positive ratings--but a larger 48 percent do not. No region has predominantly positive views on Putin's global leadership. Putin appears to have become a divisive figure. Although his ratings have improved slightly since a 2007 poll by the Pew Global Attitudes Project, the large positive movement in certain countries--such as China, where Putin's ratings are up 17 points--is balanced by negative movement in others--such as the United States, where his ratings are down 21 points.

"While the worldwide mistrust of George Bush has created a global leadership vacuum, no alternative leader has stepped into the breach," said Steven Kull, director of WorldPublicOpinion.org. "Hu Jintao and Vladimir Putin are popular among some nations, but more mistrust them than trust them. Also the nations that trust them are not organized into any clusters that have the potential to be a meaningful bloc."

The only world leader to elicit largely positive views is UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. In nine nations a plurality or majority say they have some or a lot of confidence in him to do the right thing. In eight nations a plurality or majority say they have little or no confidence. Three nations are divided.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, though relatively new to the world stage, gets positive ratings in six nations, more than any other chief of state. Nonetheless, even more publics (11) say they do not trust the British leader. Two (France and Thailand) are divided.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has the poorest ratings around the world. Only in China do positive views (37%) outweigh negative ones (30%). Nigeria is divided and the other 18 nations lean negative.

In the Middle East publics are generally the most negative: Egyptians, Jordanians, Iranians and the Palestinians express little or no confidence in nearly all of the leaders rated.

Although France gets positive ratings in other international polls, President Nicolas Sarkozy does not. Fifteen out of 19 nations rate his international leadership unfavorably. On average, 25 percent of those surveyed express confidence in Sarkozy to do right thing while 48 percent express little or no confidence.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad gets negative ratings in 13 nations, the most after Bush and Musharraf. Only three nations are slightly positive while one is divided. On average across the 17 nations (excluding Iranians) asked about Ahmadinejad, only 22 percent say they have some or a lot of confidence, while 52 percent say they have little or no confidence.

Although confidence in Ahmadinejad is up slightly from polling conducted by Pew in 2007, he is still far from being a viewed as a credible leader, even in the Muslim world. Majorities in all four Arab nations surveyed (Egypt, Jordan and the Palestinian territories) say they lack confidence in Ahmadinejad. So does a majority in Turkey, including 54 percent who say they have "no confidence at all." Only in Indonesia does a bare plurality view Ahmadinejad favorably as an international leader.

DETAILED ANALYSIS OF LEADERS WITH A GLOBAL PROFILE

US President George W. Bush has the second largest number of nations expressing negative views of his role in international affairs. Fifteen nations give negative ratings and two give positive ratings. Thailand is divided. On average 67 percent express low confidence.

The one country with a majority expressing a positive view of Bush is Nigeria with 60 percent saying they have some or a lot of confidence. Indians also lean positive (45 to 34%).

Interestingly, this year Chinese views have softened (41% positive, 45% negative)--with the number of those expressing positive views up 10 points since Pew's 2007 poll.

The most negative ratings come from the Middle East region. Despite the Bush administration's renewed efforts to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, nearly all Palestinians (95%) express low confidence, with 79 percent expressing "no confidence at all." Nearly as many express a lack of confidence in Egypt (92%, 68% no confidence), Jordan (88%, 84% no confidence) and Turkey (83%, 77% no confidence). Iran, interestingly, gives the mildest negative ratings in the region (80%, 72% no confidence). Nearby Azerbaijan, though, only leans negative (49% negative, 42% positive).

The two Latin American countries polled--Argentina and Mexico--are also intensely negative. In Argentina 84 percent express a lack of confidence (63% no confidence). In Mexico 83 percent express a lack of confidence (54% no confidence). Negative views have risen in Mexico since 2007 by 16 points.

European countries are only slightly less negative on President Bush. Most negative are the French: 85 percent express a lack of confidence (63% no confidence). Among the British, 77 percent give negative ratings (up 7 points from 2007), while 48 percent express no confidence at all.

Interestingly, Russians are relatively moderate with 66 percent saying they lack confidence in Bush to do the right thing and 36 percent saying they have "no confidence at all." Similarly six in ten Ukrainians lack confidence, and 36 percent have none at all.

While Indian views lean positive and Thai views are divided, those of their Asian neighbors are more negative. Majorities in Indonesia and South Korea are negative and China also leans negative, though these publics' negative views are decreasing over time.

Fifty-seven percent of Indonesians express a lack of confidence in Bush, down from 79 percent in 2007. Those expressing "no confidence at all" have dropped from 35 to 19 percent. Among South Koreans, 68 percent give Bush a poor rating, but this too is down from 73 percent in 2007.

The numbers of those saying they have "no confidence at all" have only inched downward from 22 to 18 percent. Among the Chinese, 45 percent lean negative, down from a majority of 51 percent. The number of those giving Bush a positive rating is up 10 points, from 31 to 41 percent.

Chinese President Hu Jintao

Among the eight global leaders assessed, opinion of Hu Jintao rests in the middle range. Thirteen countries give predominantly negative ratings while five give positive ratings and one is divided. On average, 43 percent express a lack of confidence while 28 percent express confidence. Compared to 2007 Pew polling, on average, negative views have increased a bit, but this movement represents a balance between sharp movements both to the positive and the negative among specific countries.

The country most positive about the Chinese President is Nigeria, where 58 percent express a positive view of Hu. Close behind is South Korea where 56 percent say they have confidence in him. This number is up sharply from 2007 when Pew found just 27 percent expressing such confidence.

However, this positive trend in South Korea does not reflect a broader regional trend. Positive views in Indonesia have dropped to 27 percent from 42 percent in 2007, while negative views are now 42 percent. India has held steady with divided views--32 percent express confidence, 30 percent little or none--unchanged from 2007. Thais are mildly negative (29% negative, 25% positive) but 45 percent give no opinion.

The most negative views of Hu, once again, come from the Middle East--and here these views seem to be worsening. Eighty-two percent of Palestinians have little confidence in Hu with 50 percent saying they have "no confidence at all." In Jordan and Turkey, 59 and 58 percent have negative views (52 and 53% say they have no confidence at all, respectively). Egyptians are also mostly negative (53%), but only 18 percent say they have "no confidence at all."

Compared to 2007, Jordanians and Palestinians have grown more negative concerning the Chinese President, with negative ratings rising 21 and 31 points, respectively. A Middle Eastern country that bucks this negative trend is Iran, where a majority of 52 percent has a positive view and just 16 percent a negative view. Also, in Azerbaijan, a plurality of 37 percent has a positive view as compared to 30 percent with a negative view.

One of the most negative publics is in the United States. Seventy-nine percent lack confidence in Hu (33%, no confidence). This is up sharply from 2007 when just 46 percent had a negative view.

European views are moderately negative. Among the French 53 percent do not have confidence in Hu (18% do)--down from 70 percent in 2007. In Britain, 48 percent are negative (up from 39 percent in 2007) while 29 percent are positive.

Russians lean negative (31 to 21%), but 47 percent do not answer. In 2007 Russians leaned slightly positive with similar numbers not answering. In Ukraine an overwhelming two-thirds do not provide an answer; the few that do lean positive (20 to 13%). In 2007, similar numbers did not answer and views were more evenly divided.

Views lean negative in Mexico and Argentina. Argentines are 38 percent negative and 19 percent positive. Mexicans are 44 negative and 34 percent positive, but in Mexico positive views are up 16 points from 2007.

Russian Leader Vladimir Putin

Vladimir Putin--President at the time of the polling, now Prime Minister--receives ratings comparable to the other European leaders in the poll. Eleven countries have a negative view of Putin, five have a positive view and two are divided. On average, 32 percent express confidence, while 48 percent do not.

Among the sixteen countries also polled by Pew in 2007, Putin's overall ratings are up four points. But this upward trend is the product of a balance between countries that have had large increases in positive views--such as China, where Putin's ratings are up 17 points--and those with large increases in negative views.--such as the United States, where his ratings are down 21 points.

Some of Putin's most positive ratings are found in Asia. The most upbeat country is China, where 75 percent express some or a lot of confidence (up from 58% in 2007). Also notably positive is South Korea, where a majority now expresses confidence in Putin (54%, up from 24%)--due perhaps in part to Russia's role in negotiations with North Korea. India also leans positive (44 to 18 %). However, Indonesians lean negative: just 23 percent express confidence and 46 percent, a lack of confidence. Thais are divided (26% positive, 26% negative, 47% no opinion)

Among Russia's more immediate neighbors, Ukraine has a majority expressing confidence in Putin (59%). The minority with negative views (20%) is down 13 points from 2007. Azerbaijan is divided--45 percent positive to 49 percent negative. Russians themselves are overwhelmingly positive about Putin (80%).

The Western European picture, though, is distinctly more negative. A large majority of French express a lack of confidence (76%), with 55 percent expressing no confidence at all. Spanish views are similar, though less emphatic: 70 percent lack confidence, but only 36 percent have no confidence at all. Fifty-six percent of Britons also express a lack of confidence, up 9 points from 2007.

The Middle East is similarly negative. The Palestinians hold the most negative view of Putin (85%-up from 71% in 2007), with 55 percent expressing no confidence at all. Sixty-eight percent of Jordanians express a lack of confidence (60% no confidence) as do two-thirds of Turks (58% no confidence). Fifty-six percent of Egyptians express a lack of confidence, but this is down from 70 percent in 2007, and just one in four say they have "no confidence at all."

In sharp contrast to its neighbors, a plurality in Iran (48%) expresses "some" or "a lot of" confidence in Putin, and just 27 percent express a lack of confidence.

In the Americas, 71 percent in the United States express a negative view--21 points more than in 2007. In Latin America, a majority of Mexicans (56%) have a negative view, up from 48 percent. Argentines lean negative (47 to 24%).

In Africa, Nigeria is divided, with 40 percent expressing "some" or "a lot of" confidence and 38 percent expressing little or no confidence.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon

Ban Ki-moon is the only leader to receive moderately positive ratings. In nine nations a plurality or majority say they have "some" or "a lot of" confidence in him to do the right thing. In eight nations a plurality or majority say they have "little" or "no confidence at all". However, many do not provide an answer.

Those saying that they have confidence include majorities in South Korea (83%) [Ban's country of origin], Nigeria (70%), and China (57%). Pluralities say so in Britain (49 to 27% little or no confidence), France (45 to 21%), India (40 to 22%), Indonesia (39 to 33%), and Azerbaijan (38 to 29%). Interestingly, Iranians also give Ban a positive rating (43 to 18%), despite the sanctions that the United Nations Security Council has imposed on Iran to press it to stop its uranium enrichment program.

Five nations show strongly negative views--all in the Middle East region. Majorities say they have little or no confidence in the Palestinian territories (90%, 59% no confidence), Jordan (70%, 63% no confidence), Turkey (63%, 56% no confidence) and Egypt (78%, 38% no confidence).

Four other countries--the United States, Russia, Argentina and Thailand--predominantly express low levels of confidence in the UN leader, with relatively few saying they have "no confidence at all." In these countries the dominant answer is "not too much" confidence, or a failure to give a response. Those saying they have "not too much" confidence may be expressing a lack of familiarity with the relatively new and low-profile Secretary General, rather than indicating that they hold a negative view of the world leader.

In the United States, 40 percent say they have "not too much confidence," while 20 percent say they have "no confidence at all." Most Russians choose not to answer (46%), though 20 percent say "not too much" and 10 percent say "no confidence at all." Similarly, among Argentines, 36 percent do not answer, 16 percent say "not too much" and 21 percent say they have no confidence. Finally, in Thailand 49 percent do not answer, 23 percent say "not too much" and 7 percent have no confidence.

Views are divided in Mexico, Spain and Ukraine. In Spain, 32 percent express confidence, while 30 percent lack confidence. In Mexico, 44 percent say they have confidence while 41 percent express little or no confidence (16%, no confidence). In Ukraine a remarkably high 67 percent do not answer, while 16 percent express confidence and 18 percent little or no confidence.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown

Gordon Brown is the national leader that gets the largest number of nations giving him positive ratings. Nonetheless, more nations give him negative ratings (11) than positive ratings (6), while two are divided. On average, just 30 percent say they have confidence in Brown and 43 percent say they have little or no confidence.

The most positive evaluations of Brown can be found among Americans and Nigerians where, in both cases, 59 percent express some or a lot of confidence. Thirty-five and 30 percent, respectively, express little or no confidence.

Views are also fairly positive towards Brown among most Asian publics polled. These especially include South Korea (57% positive) and China (50%). India leans towards positive evaluations (37% positive to 28% negative), though 35 percent do not answer either way. Thais are divided (27% positive, 26% negative, 46% no answer). Only the Indonesians lean negative with 43 percent expressing little or no confidence (28% some or a lot).

Out of all regions polled, the Middle Eastern publics' evaluations of Brown are by far the most negative. Large majorities say they have "little" or "no confidence at all" in his leadership in the Palestinian territories (90%, 67% no confidence), Jordan (72%, 67% no confidence), and Turkey (65%, 60% no confidence). A large majority of Egyptians (66%) also give negative ratings but only 27 percent say they have "no confidence at all." A more modest majority of Iranians (52%) lack confidence in Brown, but most of these (39%) say they have "no confidence at all." Azerbaijanis, however, lean positive (43 to 32% negative).

Britain's European neighbors have more moderate or unformed views of Brown. At this stage the French public is roughly equally divided between those who say they have a positive view (35%), a negative view (33%) and have no view either way (33%). Russians lean negative (40 to 19%) but 40 percent do not answer. Ukrainians also lean negative (26 to 17%), with more than half (57%) declining to offer an opinion. In Spain, 43 percent are negative, 22 percent positive, with no response from 35 percent. Britons themselves are divided on Brown (48% positive, 46% negative).

The Latin Americans polled also lean negative with many not answering. Among Mexicans, 46 percent are negative, 34 percent positive and 21 percent do not answer. Among Argentines, 45 percent are negative, 22 percent positive and 32 percent do not answer.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Among the 19 nations questioned, only four rate Nicolas Sarkozy positively while 15 rate him negatively. On average, 25 percent say they have confidence in Sarkozy to do right thing in world affairs, while 48 percent say they have little or no confidence.

Most of his positive ratings come from Asian countries. South Koreans have the largest number (48%) expressing confidence in Sarkozy's ability to do the right thing regarding world affairs. Chinese lean positive (42 to 22%) though 37 percent do not take a position. Indians also lean positive (35 to 30%)--though less so--and fairly large numbers (35%) also do not express a view. Indonesians, on the other hand, lean negative (46 to 19%) with 35 percent not answering. Thais are similar (30% negative, 23% positive, 48% no view).

Nigerians are the second most positive about Sarkozy. Forty-seven percent have a positive view, 33 percent a negative view and 21 percent do not answer.

Harshly negative views are found in most Middle East publics. Low levels of confidence in Sarkozy's leadership are expressed by very large majorities in the Palestinian territories (91%, 67% no confidence), Turkey (73%, 68% no confidence), and Jordan (72%, 66% no confidence). A large majority of Egyptians (68%) also express negative views, but only 28 percent say they have "no confidence at all."

More moderate views are expressed by Iranians and Azerbaijanis. Iranians lean negative (47 to 10%) with large numbers not taking a position. Azerbaijanis also lean negative (48 to 31%).
Publics in the Americas have little confidence in Sarkozy's leadership. Fifty-five percent of Americans express a lack of confidence (as compared to 38% expressing confidence) as do 52 percent of Argentines (26% expressing confidence). Mexicans also lean negative (48 to 33%).

France's regional neighbors also lean negative toward Sarkozy, with many still withholding judgment. The British lean negative (42 to 32%), with 24 percent undecided. Russians also lean negative (42 to 20%) with more (38%) not answering. Ukrainians tilt negative (28 to 18%), with a remarkable 54 percent withholding judgment. The Spanish are Sarkozy's harshest critics, with 60 percent expressing little or no confidence and just 25 percent expressing some or a lot. French opinion of their own leader, while negative, is milder than that of the Spanish (54% negative, 44% positive).

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

For Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, 13 nations give negative ratings, two give mildly positive ratings and two are divided. On average, just 24 percent say they have "some" or "a lot of" confidence, while 52 percent say they have "little" or "no confidence at all" in Ahmadinejad to do the right thing in world affairs. Compared to polling conducted by Pew in 2007, positive views are up just slightly, like in the case of Putin, masking a number of sharp divergent movements in opinion among specific countries.

The most favorable views of Ahmadinejad are found in Asia. Among the Chinese, a plurality now has a positive view (38 to 27% negative)--up 16 points from 2007. Similarly, in India views now lean positive (35 to 26%)--also up 16 points. In both cases this is a reversal from 2007 when both countries had pluralities expressing a lack of confidence. In Indonesia, views are now divided, with 40 percent expressing some or a lot of confidence (down 11 points), and 36 percent expressing little or no confidence.

However, a majority of South Koreans show a lack of confidence (62%). Thais also lean negative, 34 percent to 15 percent (though 50% did not respond).

Views are quite negative among Iran's neighbors in the Middle East. The most negative are Turks with 62 percent expressing a lack of confidence (54% no confidence). Sixty-two percent of Palestinians also hold this view (36% no confidence). Fifty-six percent in Egypt and Jordan also express a lack of confidence (29% and 43%, respectively, have no confidence at all). Likewise, in Iran's immediate neighbor Azerbaijan, 54 percent are negative.

In Europe, negative views of Ahmadinejad prevail. A large majority in France (71%) expresses a lack of confidence (51% no confidence) as do 61 percent of the British. Pluralities in Russia (40 to 11%) and Ukraine (27 to 8%) lack confidence.

The most negative view is in the United States. An overwhelming 87 percent express a negative view with 56 percent saying they have "no confidence at all." The negative majority in the United States has grown 15 points over 2007, apparently due to growing awareness of Ahmadinejad (the number of respondents with no opinion is down 14 points this year).

In Latin America, both Argentina and Mexico have majorities with negative views. In Argentina 52 percent are negative (33% no confidence) and in Mexico 65 percent lack confidence (40% no confidence).

Nigerian opinion is divided, with 42 percent expressing some or a lot of confidence and 39 percent expressing little or no confidence.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf

Only one country leans toward a positive view of Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, one is divided and 18 have predominantly negative views. On average across 20 publics, a majority of 54 percent say they have "little" or "no confidence at all" that Musharraf will do the right thing regarding world affairs, while just 18 percent have "a lot" or "some" confidence in him to do the right thing.

The one country that gives Musharraf a mildly positive rating is China, where 37 percent are positive and 30 percent negative. Nigerians are divided--39 percent positive, 42 percent negative.

The most negative views are found in Pakistan's Middle Eastern neighbors. Eighty-one percent of Palestinians say they do not have confidence in Musharraf (55% no confidence at all). Very negative views are also found in Jordan (64%, 56% no confidence at all), Egypt (70%, 36% no confidence at all) and Turkey (61%, 55% no confidence at all). Azerbaijan leans negative (45 to 29%).

With the exception of China, views among Asian countries are quite negative. Majorities have negative views of Musharraf in South Korea (66%) and in Pakistan's neighbor, India (54%). Views lean negative in Indonesia (48 to 22%) and Thailand (38 to 31%).

Among European publics polled, a lack of confidence is most widespread among the French (62%), Spanish (61%) and British (57%), along with a plurality of Russians (42 to 7%). Ukrainians lean negative (28 to 4%), but two-thirds do not provide an answer.

In the Americas an overwhelming majority in the US (79%) have a negative view as do a large majority of Mexicans (65%). A plurality of Argentines (50 to 8%) also has a negative view.

Source: WorldPublicOpinion.org

Photos: Charles Ommanney (3); Khue Bui (2); AP (1)

Cheaper, More Efficient Solar Cells

2008-06-08T19:03:00.005-04:00

A new type of material could allow solar cells to harvest far more light.

Much more efficient solar cells may soon be possible as a result of technology that more efficiently captures and uses light. StarSolar, a startup based in Cambridge, MA, aims to capture and use photons that ordinarily pass through solar cells without generating electricity. The company, which is licensing technology developed at MIT, claims that its designs could make it possible to cut the cost of solar cells in half while maintaining high efficiency. This would make solar power about as cheap as electricity from the electric grid.

The effort uses a type of material called a photonic crystal that makes it possible to "do things with light that have never been done before," says John Joannopoulos, a professor of physics at MIT who heads the lab where the new designs for solar applications were developed. Photonic crystals, which can be engineered to reflect and diffract all the photons in specific wavelengths of light, have long been attractive for optical communications, in which the materials can be used to direct and sort light-borne data. Now new manufacturing processes could make the photonic crystals practical for much-larger-scale applications such as photovoltaics.

StarSolar's approach addresses a long-standing challenge in photovoltaics. Silicon, the active material that is used in most solar cells today, has to do double duty. It both absorbs incoming light and converts it into electricity. Solar cells could be cheaper if they used less silicon. If the silicon is made thinner than it is now, it may still retain its ability to convert the photons it absorbs into electricity. But fewer photons will be absorbed, decreasing the efficiency of the cell.

MIT researchers developed sophisticated computer simulations to understand how thin layers of photonic crystal could be engineered to capture and recycle the photons that slip through thin layers of silicon. Silicon easily absorbs blue light, but not red and infrared light. The researchers found that by creating a specific pattern of microscopic spheres of glass within a precisely designed photonic crystal, and then applying this pattern in a thin layer at the back of a solar cell, they could redirect unabsorbed photons back into the silicon.

Today's solar cells already reflect some of the light that passes through the silicon. But the photonic crystal has distinct advantages. Conventional solar cells are backed with a sheet of aluminum. The photonic crystal reflects more light than the aluminum does, especially once the aluminum oxidizes. And the photonic crystal diffracts the light so that it reenters the silicon at a low angle. The low angle prevents the light from escaping the silicon. Instead, it bounces around inside; this increases the chances of the light being absorbed and converted into electricity.

As a result, the photonic crystal can increase the efficiency of solar cells by up to 37 percent, says Peter Bermel, CTO and a cofounder of StarSolar. This makes it possible to use many times less silicon, he says, cutting costs enough to compete with electricity from the grid in many markets. The savings would be especially large now, since a current shortage in refined silicon is keeping solar-cell prices high and slowing the growth of solar-cell production.

The company plans to work with existing solar-cell makers, applying its photonic crystals with a machine added to the solar-cell makers' assembly lines, Bermel says. But StarSolar needs to choose a large-scale manufacturing technique that will allow it to produce the photon crystals inexpensively. What's needed is a way to cheaply arrange two materials in an orderly three-dimensional pattern. For example, microscopic spheres of glass would be arranged in rows and columns inside silicon. Currently, techniques such as e-beam lithography can be used, but that's too slow for large-scale manufacturing.

Shawn-Yu Lin, professor of physics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, has developed a method for manufacturing eight-inch disks of photonic crystal--a measurement considerably larger than what can be done with conventional techniques. The method, which employs optical lithography similar to that used in the semiconductor industry, works best for a type of solar cell that concentrates light onto a small chunk of expensive semiconductor material. Such a device would require a relatively small amount of photonic crystal compared with conventional solar cells. Lin says the technique could be applied for more-conventional solar panels, although it would be expensive.

Another potentially less-expensive method, called interference lithography, creates orderly patterns in the photonic-crystal materials. The method is fast and uses machines that are far less expensive than those used for conventional optical lithography. It also requires fewer steps than Lin's existing process, so he says it could be far cheaper. Such methods have been developed by Henry Smith, professor of electrical engineering at MIT, who was not involved with the StarSolar-related work. Smith says his interference-lithography method could be used to build templates for imprinting photonic-crystal patterns on large areas.

Another promising technique is self-assembly, in which the chemical and physical properties of material building blocks are engineered so that they arrange themselves in orderly patterns on a surface. For example, Chekesha Liddell, professor of materials science and engineering at Cornell University, has engineered building blocks in the shape of peanuts and the caps of mushrooms that line up in rows because of the way they fit together and the tug of short-range forces between them. She says this could be useful for assembling photonic crystals for solar cells.

With such approaches available, Bermel says that StarSolar hopes to have a prototype solar cell within a year and a pilot manufacturing line operating in 2008.

Source MIT Technology Review

Nature's Photonic Crystal

2008-06-08T18:03:00.006-04:00

Scientists find an elusive diamond structure in a Brazilian beetle.

Researchers have discovered a species of Brazilian beetle that has the unusual trait of reflecting iridescent green from almost any angle. By examining the structure of the beetle's scales, scientists at the University of Utah found an ideal photonic-crystal structure for visible light--a type of material that optical scientists have been seeking for years.

Three-dimensional periodic structures called photonic crystals are potentially valuable materials for controlling photons; scientists could use photonic crystals operating at visible wavelengths to develop more-efficient solar cells, telecommunications, sensors, and even optical computer chips. A diamond-based structure, in particular, is thought to be the most effective three-dimensional photonic crystal for visible light, because it can reflect a wide band of colors and has high reflectivity. Less light escaping means researchers can better control and manipulate the photons.

Photonic crystals that control visible light have been challenging for scientists to fabricate from appropriate materials, because of how small the periodicity in the structure must be to manipulate wavelengths that short. One- and two-dimensional photonic crystals for visible light have been created, as well as a three-dimensional diamond structure for the longer wavelengths of infrared. A diamond structure that can reflect visible light over all angles for all polarizations has not yet been made. But studying this beetle's scales may provide new insights into how to construct such a three-dimensional photonic crystal for visible light.

Michael Bartl, a professor at the University of Utah, graduate student Jeremy Galusha, and their colleagues used a very thin slicing technique to discover and model the scales of the Lamprocyphus augustus. Inside each scale, which is about 100 micrometers across and 15 to 20 micrometers thick, is a three-dimensional photonic structure. The structure resembles how carbon atoms arrange in a diamond, and it consists of a crystal lattice with a repeating periodic unit structure of about 300 nanometers, says Bartl. Within a scale, the diamond lattice is positioned at different orientations, giving the beetle its green sheen from almost any angle.

The diamond-structured photonic crystals are among the most difficult to fabricate, says Georgia Tech professor Zhong Lin Wang. "Using biology as a template, this paper shows the possibility of fabricating man-made diamond photonic crystals with well-designed optical performance," he says.

The beetle's scales themselves can't be used for any practical application, because the chitin material is too fragile and not conductive. The group is in the process of molding the beetle scales out of a semiconductor. "We're making good progress," says Bartl. Besides using the beetle structure as a mold, he and his colleagues are also studying how the beetle fabricates the structure, in hopes of mimicking the process to create artificial diamond photonic structures.

Applications using photonic crystals "have been more or less restricted to the near infrared spectrum," says Ayman Abouraddy, a research scientist at MIT. "We already know [that the diamond structure] will be useful; we just don't know how to make it efficiently. The fact that a beetle--with a down-and-dirty chemical synthesis approach--is able to create quite a clean structure like this is surprising."

Source - Technology Review by MIT

FALLING WATER TABLES, FALLING HARVESTS

2008-06-06T19:31:00.004-04:00

Scores of countries are overpumping aquifers as they struggle to satisfy their growing water needs.

The drilling of millions of irrigation wells has pushed water withdrawals beyond recharge rates, in effect leading to groundwater mining. The failure of governments to limit pumping to the sustainable yield of aquifers means that water tables are now falling in countries that contain more than half the world’s people, including the big three grain producers--China, India, and the United States.

Most of the world’s aquifers are replenishable, so that when they are depleted, the maximum rate of pumping will be automatically reduced to the rate of recharge. Fossil aquifers, however, are not replenishable. For these--including the vast U.S. Ogallala aquifer, the deep aquifer under the North China Plain, or the Saudi aquifer, for example--depletion brings pumping to an end. Farmers who lose their irrigation water have the option of returning to lower-yield dryland farming if rainfall permits. But in more arid regions, such as in the southwestern United States or the Middle East, the loss of irrigation water means the end of agriculture.

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvests in some countries, including China, which rivals the United States as the world’s largest grain producer. A groundwater survey released in Beijing in August 2001 revealed that the water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces over half of the country’s wheat and a third of its corn, is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region’s deep aquifer, which is not replenishable.

The survey reported that under Hebei Province in the heart of the North China Plain, the average level of the deep aquifer was dropping nearly 3 meters (10 feet) per year. Around some cities in the province, it was falling twice as fast. As the deep aquifer is depleted, the region is losing its last water reserve--its only safety cushion.

A World Bank study indicates that China is mining underground water in three adjacent river basins in the north--those of the Hai, which flows through Beijing and Tianjin; the Yellow; and the Huai, the next river south of the Yellow. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce one ton of grain, the shortfall in the Hai basin of nearly 40 billion tons of water per year (1 ton equals 1 cubic meter) means that when the aquifer is depleted, the grain harvest will drop by 40 million tons--enough to feed 120 million Chinese.

As serious as water shortages are in China, they are even more serious in India, where the margin between food consumption and survival is so precarious. To date, India’s 100 million farmers have drilled 21 million wells, investing some $12 billion in wells and pumps. In a survey of India’s water situation, Fred Pearce reported in New Scientist that "half of India’s traditional hand-dug wells and millions of shallower tube wells have already dried up, bringing a spate of suicides among those who rely on them."

India’s grain harvest, squeezed both by water scarcity and the loss of cropland to non-farm uses, has plateaued since 2000. A 2005 World Bank study reports that 15 percent of India’s food supply is produced by mining groundwater. Stated otherwise, 175 million Indians are fed with grain produced with water from irrigation wells that will soon go dry.

In the United States, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) reports that in parts of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas--three leading grain-producing states--the underground water table has dropped by more than 30 meters (100 feet). As a result, wells have gone dry on thousands of farms in the southern Great Plains, forcing farmers to return to lower-yielding dryland farming. Although this mining of underground water is taking a toll on U.S. grain production, irrigated land accounts for only one fifth of the U.S. grain harvest, compared with close to three fifths of the harvest in India and four fifths in China.

Pakistan, a country with 164 million people, is also mining its underground water. Observation wells near the twin cities of Islamabad and Rawalpindi in the fertile Punjab plain show a fall in the water table between 1982 and 2000 that ranges from 1 to nearly 2 meters a year. In the province of Balochistan, which borders Afghanistan, water tables around the capital, Quetta, are falling by 3.5 meters per year. Throughout the province, six basins have exhausted their groundwater supplies, leaving their irrigated lands barren. Sardar Riaz A. Khan, former director of Pakistan’s Arid Zone Research Institute, expects that within 10–15 years virtually all the basins outside the canal-irrigated areas will have depleted their groundwater supplies, depriving the province of much of its grain harvest.

Iran, a country of 71 million people, is overpumping its aquifers by an average of 5 billion tons of water per year, the water equivalent of one third of its annual grain harvest. Under the small but agriculturally rich Chenaran Plain in northeastern Iran, the water table was falling by 2.8 meters a year in the late 1990s. New wells being drilled both for irrigation and to supply the nearby city of Mashad are responsible. Villages in eastern Iran are being abandoned as wells go dry, generating a flow of "water refugees."

Saudi Arabia, a country of 25 million people, is as water-poor as it is oil-rich. Relying heavily on subsidies, it developed an extensive irrigated agriculture based largely on its deep fossil aquifer. After several years of supporting wheat prices at five times the world market level, the government was forced to face fiscal reality and cut the subsidies. Its wheat harvest dropped from a high of 4.1 million tons in 1992 to 2.7 million tons in 2007, a drop of 34 percent. Some Saudi farmers are now pumping water from wells that are 4,000 feet deep, nearly four fifths of a mile or 1.2 kilometers. Recognizing its hydrologic limitations, in early 2008 the Saudi government announced plans to phase out wheat production entirely by 2016.

In neighboring Yemen, a nation of 22 million, the water table under most of the country is falling by roughly 2 meters a year as water use outstrips the sustainable yield of aquifers. In western Yemen’s Sana’a Basin, the estimated annual water extraction of 224 million tons exceeds the annual recharge of 42 million tons by a factor of five, dropping the water table 6 meters per year. World Bank projections indicate the Sana’a Basin--site of the national capital, Sana’a, and home to 2 million people--may be pumped dry by 2010.

With its population growing at 3 percent a year and with water tables falling everywhere, Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. With its grain production falling by two thirds over the last 20 years, Yemen now imports four fifths of its grain supply.

Since the overpumping of aquifers is occurring in many countries more or less simultaneously, the depletion of aquifers and the resulting harvest cutbacks could come at roughly the same time. And the accelerating depletion of aquifers means this day may come soon, creating potentially unmanageable food scarcity.

Lester R. Brown

# # #

Adapted from Chapter 4, "Emerging Water Shortages," in Lester R. Brown, Plan B 3.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2008), available for free downloading and purchase at http://www.blogger.com/www.earthpolicy.org/Books/PB3/index.htm.

Web: http://www.blogger.com/www.earthpolicy.org

1st Demonstration-scale Cellulosic Ethanol Plant Opens in U.S.

2008-05-28T19:32:00.009-04:00

A 1.4 million gallon demonstration-scale plant will use waste biomass to make biofuel.

A biorefinery built to produce 1.4 million gallons of ethanol a year from cellulosic biomass will open tomorrow in Jennings, LA. Built by Verenium, based in Cambridge, MA, the plant will make ethanol from agricultural waste left over from processing sugarcane.

The new Verenium plant is the first demonstration-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in the United States. It will be used to try out variations on the company's technology and is designed to run continuously. Verenium wants to demonstrate that it can create ethanol for $2 a gallon, which it hopes will make the fuel competitive with other types of ethanol and gasoline. Next year, the company plans to begin construction on commercial plants that will each produce about 20 to 30 million gallons of ethanol a year.

Until now, technology for converting nonfood feedstocks into ethanol has been limited to the lab and to small-scale pilot plants that can produce thousands of gallons of ethanol a year. Since these don't operate continuously, they don't give an accurate idea of how much it will ultimately cost to produce cellulosic ethanol in a commercial-scale facility.

Almost all ethanol biofuel in the United States is currently made from corn kernels. But the need for cellulosic feedstocks of ethanol has been underscored recently as food prices worldwide have risen sharply, in part because of the use of corn as a source of biofuels. At the same time, the rising cost of corn and gas have begun to make cellulosic ethanol more commercially attractive, says Wallace Tyner, a professor of agricultural economics at Purdue University. A new Renewable Fuels Standard, part of an energy bill that became law late last year, mandates the use of 100 million gallons of cellulosic biofuels by 2010, and 16 billion by 2022.

So far, however, there are no commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants in operation in the United States, although a number of facilities are scheduled to start production in the next few years. The Department of Energy is currently funding more than a dozen companies that will be building demonstration- and commercial-scale plants. One of these, Range Fuels, based in Broomfield, CO, plans to open a commercial-scale plant next year. It will have the capacity to produce 20 million gallons of ethanol and methanol a year.

Verenium will use a combination of acid pretreatments, enzymes, and two types of bacteria to make ethanol from the plant matter--called bagasse--that's left over from processing sugarcane to make sugar. It will also process what's called energy cane, a relative of sugarcane that's lower in sugar and higher in fiber. The high fiber content allows the plants to grow taller, increasing yield from a given plot of land.

Cane bagasse largely consists of bundles of cellulose that are surrounded by hemicellulose. Cellulose is made of long chains of glucose, a six-carbon sugar of the type usually fermented to make ethanol from sources such as corn. Hemicellulose, however, is made of five-carbon sugars, which typically can't be fermented using the same organisms as glucose. One of the things that makes Verenium's process novel, says John Malloy, the company's executive vice president, is its ability to ferment sugars from both cellulose and hemicellulose.

The process begins when the cane is ground up and cooked under high pressure with a mild acid to hydrolyze the hemicellulose and separate it from the cellulose. The five-carbon sugars in hemicellulose are then fermented using genetically modified E. coli. The cellulose is broken down with enzymes and fermented with another type of bacteria called Klebsiella oxytoca. This bacteria does double duty, since it also produces enzymes that break down cellulose, reducing the amount of enzymes from outside sources by 50 percent. The dilute ethanol produced from fermentation of both types of sugar is then distilled to make fuel.

In addition to opening the demonstration plant, Verenium is also starting to grow energy cane and to work with local farmers to ensure a steady stream of material for its planned commercial plants. Short term, the company says that it can rely on leftover bagasse from sugar production, but eventually it will draw on energy cane grown specifically to make ethanol. Provisions in the Farm Bill, which was recently passed by the United States Congress, will help by providing farmers with incentives to plant energy crops, says Carlos Riva, Verenium's CEO. The incentives are important because it takes two to three years for energy cane, a perennial plant, to become established and reach ideal production levels. As a result, farmers will need to start planting the crops next year, before commercial plants are built and there is a market for these crops.

The opening of the demonstration plant, and the current construction of a number of other demonstration- and commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plants, marks a turning point for the industry, Riva says. The development of improved enzymes and fermentation organisms means that no further scientific breakthroughs are needed to make cellulosic ethanol commercially successful, he says. "There's been a tremendous amount of background work in science and technology development," he says. "We've learned so much about the process that the really important thing now is to start to deploy the technology at a commercial scale."

Source - Technology Review

Photo Credit: Shelly Harrison Photography

Oil Left in the Ground

2008-05-22T21:10:00.005-04:00

High prices still haven't prompted companies to use advanced extraction methods.

Even with record-high oil prices, about two-thirds of the oil in known oil fields is being left in the ground. That's because existing technologies that could extract far more oil--as much as about 75 percent of the oil in some oil fields--aren't being widely used, according to experts in the petroleum industry.

Several well-established technologies, including "smart oil fields," exist that could significantly boost the supply of petroleum from oil reservoirs. But a lack of investment in such technologies, particularly by the national oil companies that control the vast majority of the world's oil reserves, is holding back implementation.

When oil is drawn from a field too quickly, or from a bad location, or with the wrong kind of well, large amounts of oil can be left behind, says Richard Sears, a visiting scientist at MIT who has served as a vice president for exploration at Royal Dutch Shell, based in the Netherlands. But the best technologies for managing an oil field require up-front investment--when an oil field is mapped and characterized and the first wells are drilled--and the payoff can take decades.

In most oil reservoirs, the oil resides in porous rock in geologic layers that are tens of meters thick but stretch for miles. A conventional oil well is a vertical shaft, so it is in contact with only a narrow cross section of the reservoir. Such a well depends on oil percolating through microscopic pores over long distances. That can slow production, and often oil can be stranded inside the irregular geometry of the oil field.

For 15 to 20 years, however, it's been possible to drill horizontal wells. These follow along the length of an oil field, so that the well is in contact with oil for miles, rather than for just several meters. What's more, advanced imaging technologies and new drilling rigs have made it possible in recent years to drill to an accuracy of one or two meters, Sears says. The increased precision in drilling allows oil companies to stay close to the top of the reservoir, where the oil is, and away from the water that can exist in the reservoir.

It has also become possible to make "smart wells" that include sensors that can survive the extreme temperatures and pressures found deep underground. These allow oil companies to detect, for example, when water, instead of oil, is being pulled into the well, and to quickly shut off production from that area, while continuing to produce from other sections of the well.

Such smart oil fields have started to become more common for international oil companies such as Shell, Exxon-Mobil, and BP. But they still aren't used in most oil fields. And their use is particularly low in fields run by national oil companies, says Larry Schwartz, a longtime researcher and scientific advisor for Schlumberger, a Houston-based company that provides various services to oil companies.

Schlumberger historically focused on providing services at the "front end," he says, which includes taking measurements, such as of the amount of oil and how easy the oil will be to produce, and "drilling sophisticated wells." But since oil prices have been high, the company's biggest revenue stream has come from projects related to improving existing wells, such as by fracturing rock underground to try to improve oil production at conventional wells that have stopped producing as much as they used to.

Steven Koonin, BP's chief scientist, says that cutting-edge research could lead to automated oil rigs on the sea floor, ultra-deep-water ocean drilling, and arctic exploration and production, as well as to technology for extracting oil from unconventional sources, such as shale. But although oil prices have been higher than $60 a barrel for almost three years, Koonin says that for the most advanced technologies, "oil prices will have to stay high for a couple of years longer before companies think they can make big investments."

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Billionaire Oilman T. Boone Pickens Backs Wind Power

2008-05-20T08:26:00.006-04:00

(CNN) -- Billionaire oilman T. Boone Pickens is sinking billions of dollars into a new wind farm in Texas. It is likely to become the biggest in the world, producing enough power for the equivalent of 1.3 million homes. CNN's Ali Velshi asked the oil legend why he thinks wind could be the answer to this country's energy problems:

Ali Velshi: Tell me about the wind. Now, you are buying, for a start, more than 600 wind turbines from General Electric. You're going to put them on this big tract of land in Texas, and you're going to generate a lot of electricity.

What happens to that electricity? Tell me where you think you're going to make your money and how this is going to help the situation in America.

T. Boone Pickens: Well, that's the first step to a 4,000-megawatt wind farm. This is 1,000 megawatts.

We start receiving those turbines in mid 2010. We will have the total 4,000 megawatts finished by the end of 2015. That power will go into a transmission line that will tie into the Electric Reliability Council of Texas system in the state of Texas, and it will be transmitted downstate.

Velshi: What's your view of wind power? It's one of several things that we should be looking at in terms of powering our homes, electrical power? We get most of it from coal and natural gas, and some from nuclear. Are you thinking it's one of the formats of power we should be thinking about, or is this going to be bigger than we all thought?

Pickens: The Department of Energy came out with a study in April of '07 that said we could generate 20 percent of our electricity from wind. And the wind power is -- you know, it's clean, it's renewable. It's -- you know, it's everything you want. And it's a stable supply of energy.

It will be located in [the] central part of the United States, which will be the best from a safety standpoint to be located. You have a wind corridor that goes from Pampa, Texas, to the Canadian border. And it has -- the wind, it's unbelievable that we have not done more with wind. Look at Germany and Spain. They have developed their wind way beyond what we have, and they don't have as much wind as we do. It's not unlike the French have done with their nuclear. They're 80 percent power generated off of nuclear, we're 20 percent.

Velshi: I'm fascinated by wind power. I love going by a field of these turbines. And I think they're fascinating.

You don't happen to think they're attractive, and you're not really putting them on your land. You're going to be using other people's land to put these things on.

Pickens: That's right. And it's very clear, these are my neighbors. And they want them. It generates income for them.

A turbine will generate somewhere around 20,000 [dollars] a year in royalty income. And on a 640-acre tract, you can put five to 10 of these on the tract. And you don't have to have them if you don't want them.

Velshi: And it's quite common that people who maybe have a piece of land, they might be farmers or something like that, this is extra income to them by making a deal with somebody like you who is going put these things up, if they don't mind having them on the land. Do they get the electricity from it or do they just get a royalty check?

Pickens: A royalty check. But look at Sweetwater, Texas. That town was 12,000 people, then went down below 10,000. The wind came in, it's above 12,000 in population now. The local economy is booming.

That can be repeated over and over and over again all the way to the Canadian border. Then you have a solar corridor that goes from Sweetwater, Texas, west to the West coast, and that solar corridor can also be developed.

But we are going to have to do something different in America. You can't keep paying out $600 billion a year for oil.

Air Pollution Increases Blood Clot Risk

2008-05-13T18:49:00.006-04:00

(WebMD) Air pollution increases the risk of deep vein thrombosis (DVT) -- dangerous blood clots in the veins -- even at pollution levels the EPA deems "acceptable."

Harvard researcher Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, and colleagues in Italy studied 870 people diagnosed with DVT from 1995 to 2005. They compared their particulate air pollution exposure in the year before their diagnosis to that of 1,210 matched people without DVT.

They found that DVT risk goes up 70% for every 10 microgram-per-cubic-meterrise in particulate air pollution above 12 micrograms per cubic meter of air (the lowest pollution level measured in the study).

The U.S. EPA standard for particulate air pollution is 150 micrograms per cubic meter of air. However, it's likely that fine and very fine particles cause most of the health risks linked to particulate air pollution. The EPA sets much lower standards for these smaller particles, which Baccarelli and colleagues did not specifically measure."

Our findings introduce a novel and common risk factor into the pathogenesis of DVT and, at the same time, give further substance to the call for tighter standards and continued efforts aimed at reducing the impact of urban air pollutants on human health," Baccarelli and colleagues conclude.

Air pollution affects the heart and blood vessels even more than the lungs, notes Robert D. Brook, MD, a University of Michigan expert on the cardiovascular effects of air pollution. An editorial by Brook accompanies the Baccarelli report in the May 12 issue of Archives of Internal Medicine.

The study, Brook notes, adds DVT to a long list of cardiovascular illnesses linked to air pollution that includes heart attacks, heart failure, stroke, and sudden death.

However, Brook warns that while Baccarelli and colleagues link air pollution to a huge increase in DVT risk, part of this result may be due to chance or the unique circumstances of the population studied. Other studies are needed to better determine the absolute risk.

Even so, Brook says, we don't have to wait for these studies -- we already know that air pollution, even at current levels, is not healthy."

You do not need to know every last detail about the archer who shot you with a poison arrow before you know you need to pull the arrow out," he writes.

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(AP PHOTO)

Shell pulls out of Iran gas deal

2008-05-10T08:42:00.006-04:00

LONDON, May 10 (Reuters) - Oil major Royal Dutch Shell (RDSa.L: Quote, Profile, Research) has pulled out of a planned gas project in Iran, after coming under pressure not to participate from U.S. lawmakers who were concerned about Iran's nuclear programme. A spokeswoman said on Saturday that the world's second-largest non government-controlled oil company by market capitalisation was pulling out of Phase 13 of the giant South Pars gas field but may yet join later stages of the field's development.

Shell, Spain's Repsol (REP.MC: Quote, Profile, Research) and the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC) signed a Memorandum of Understanding in January 2002 to develop Phase 13 in a project to be known as Persian LNG.

At the time, Shell said deliveries of liquefied natural gas -- gas cooled to liquid under pressure for transportation in special tankers -- could begin in 2007.

However, United Nations sanctions on Iran related to its nuclear programme, which it claims is for power generation but which the U.S. and European states believe is aimed at developing weapons, and criticisms of the deal from U.S. politicians and investors, slowed progress.

Meanwhile Iran grew impatient and threatened Shell with eviction from the project if it did not commit formally.

The spokeswoman for the Anglo-Dutch company said:

"We have agreed the principal of substitution of alternative later phases for the PLNG project so that INOC can proceed with the immediate development of Phase 13."

She would not give a reason for the decision. Repsol was not available for comment.

Iran will now need to find new partners for the project. Media reports have suggested Russia's Gazprom (GAZP.MM: Quote, Profile, Research), Indian Oil Corp (IOC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) and Chinese companies could join, as they are expected to be less susceptible to U.S. political pressure, but the companies have limited experience of LNG.

(by Tom Bergin, editing by David Christian-Edwards)

100 MPG - CalCars and the beauty of high-mileage ideas

2008-04-19T20:56:00.004-04:00

By Jay Inslee and Bracken Hendricks Special to the Apollo News Service

To see the future of the American automobile, take a spin down to Corte Madera, California, and introduce yourself to the CalCars boys.

This group of rebels met one sunny day in April 2004 in the garage of a typical condominium ten miles north of the Golden Gate, determined to roll out a car that could be “fueled” by plugging it into a wall at night with a standard extension cord and run on gas when needed. It was a Toyota Prius when they started and a symbol of an American revolution in automobiles when they finished.

The group was led by Felix Kramer, an entrepreneur who had an idea as big as his mustache. In 2003, after selling his Internet start-up, he cast about for his next adventure and landed on an audacious quest: to revolutionize the auto industry.

He knew that gas-powered, internal combustion cars were destroying the atmosphere and deepening our addiction to oil, and that things had to change. He stumbled on the work of Andy Frank at the University of California at Davis and Bob Graham at the Electric Power Research Institute. They are brilliant inventors who had radically re-thought how to power a car and created a blueprint for the first hybrid you could charge on the grid. Kramer decided to build a mass market for this change.

“Our whole auto configuration was decided by just a very few people, a handful of big auto company execs and the government. They had fouled up,” he said. “It was time to expand the number of Americans who had a hand in this future. So I decided to build a large group of folks who would demand the production of a clean, efficient car. To do that, I knew we had to first build such a car. So that’s exactly what we did.”

A multi-talented group of innovators answered Kramer's Internet call. They met in a garage owned by one of the new members of the team. Then they put the Internet to work to generate “open source” ideas they could incorporate into the design. Two years and a thousand feet of wire later they had converted a 2004 Prius into a car capable of driving on nothing but electricity from the garage wall jack for its first twenty-five miles each day. Kramer's plug-in may be the first car ever built “over the Internet.”

Secret SwitchIt was not an easy project. They succeeded only after discovering a secret switch that had literally been hidden in the American version of the Prius hybrid, which allowed the car to run in an all-electric mode, never relying on the gasoline engine. That discovery triggered Felix’s revelation that if he could boost the battery capacity, he could create a hybrid with monstrous mileage. So they went to work with a collection of tools, $700 worth of old nickel hydride batteries, and a growing collection of car enthusiasts who hovered around the garage at all hours.

When they finally drove their number out of the driveway and down the street in September 2004, Kramer felt justifiable pride. “All kinds of people want this kind of car: people like generals who care about security; environmentalists who care about the planet; and municipalities who care about cost.

“But it seems the last people in the world to ‘get it’ are the big car companies,” Kramer added. “Now that our CalCars cars are on the road, and these cars are being built in various places around the country, our vision is going to force changes. That is now happening.”

Plug-in, Second GenerationIt sure is. Kramer now has been tooling around California for 15,000 happy miles in his second-generation plug-in. It uses lithium ion batteries, gets a hundred miles per gallon of gas, and costs one cent a mile to run. Compare that to nine cents a mile to fuel a typical car with just gas. It is a miser of a car.

Kramer owns the first plug-in hybrid ever commercially sold in America. Plug-in hybrids are not yet rolling off assembly lines, but custom conversions like Kramer’s — built by EnergyCS, a small start-up in California that is beginning to make plug-in conversions available to the public — are being sought by an ever-growing market. Many more will follow.

Kramer takes joy in the car’s simplicity. He plugs a 19-inch cord in the rear bumper into a standard extension cord in his garage at night. Tooling around town, he is in all-electric mode for the first twenty-five quiet miles, covering the majority of his commutes gasoline free. He delights when he goes into forums of energy experts and shows them the little cord he uses.

“This is all the infrastructure we need to remake our car world,” he says. “We don’t have to build huge infrastructure for hydrogen. We can just ship clean electricity over the wires.”

What’s more, Kramer can smile as he drives, because with every mile he is saving CO2 emissions. He says, “When the car is in all-electric mode, it is putting out 60 percent less CO2 than a normal gas car, even taking into consideration all the CO2 coming out of the stacks of the plants that generate the electricity. Even if we never improve our electrical grid a bit, and even if people drive way more than the batteries can hold, some studies have shown this car can reduce CO2 by 36 percent. This is the best thing on the global warming front going.”

As an added bonus, Kramer’s wonder car has an attribute no mortal and few machines can claim—it gets better with age. “The electrical grid feeding my car is going to get cleaner over time,” he explains. “Instead of burning coal that releases carbon, we will be relying more and more on wind power, solar power, and geothermal. So the fuel—electricity—driving my car is going to get cleaner every year. How many cars do you know that get better the longer they are on the road?”

What About Detroit?Can Detroit deliver anything comparable?

We asked Tom and Ray Magliozzi, better known as Click and Clack, the Tappet Brothers, stars of the nationally syndicated radio talk show Car Talk. Their opinions are not exactly nuanced: “For thirty years now the companies have put everything they had into more power instead of more efficiency.”

Ray, who has a degree from MIT—as does Tom—and now runs Ray’s Garage in Cambridge, Massachusetts, elaborates: “The technology has been incredible, but it’s all about power. If the companies had put into efficiency what they have put into power, we would be driving cars getting sixty miles per gallon now. They have done fuel injection and computer-controlled engines but have not put those gains into efficiency. Any high schooler could have done better if they had wanted to.”

Indeed, Detroit cannot lead the way into the future by tinkering at the margins of its old business model. Nor can it get away with disingenuous promises of cleaner cars and ad campaigns that show gas-guzzling SUVs bringing us closer to nature. It will have to adopt the same spirit of innovation as Felix Kramer and his plug-in crew.

With General Motors now poised to release the plug-in hybrid electric Volt, it just might be that the revolution Kramer sought to provoke is starting to take hold. Only time will tell if the big three are ready to get serious about radical new designs that break our addiction to oil. But the technology is fast approaching that can help US auto companies make the leap beyond the small efficiency gains that have dominated recent fights, and finally launch us into a future of clean and efficient energy.

A National Security BenefitWhen plug-in technology is combined with a flex-fuel engine that can burn gas or biofuels, it can actually get vastly higher mileage per gallon of gas. Even without using biofuels, it reduces our dependence on foreign fuel, because 97 percent of the electricity it consumes is produced from domestic energy sources. Kramer’s car is virtually free of Saudi Arabian influence.

Excitement for hybrids is not confined to the road. Utilities salivate over the prospect of turning the storage capacity of plug-in batteries into an adjunct to the electrical grid. Power plants may soon be able to feed their juice into our car batteries at night when demand is lowest, using base electric load more efficiently and storing energy in our cars while they are parked for use during the day. In this way, our cars may one day serve to level out electrical supply and demand on the grid as we slumber.

Roger Duncan, vice president of Austin Energy, a Texas utility, is working to make plug-ins a regular feature of the grid. He has organized a massive national grassroots initiative called Plug-In Partners, which has demonstrated the demand for these cars with pledges from literally hundreds of cities, businesses, and non-profits from Chicago to Phoenix, from California Edison to the U.S. PIRGs (Public Interest Research Groups). Chicago is retrofitting 850 plug-in hybrids, and New York State is converting the 600 hybrids in its fleet to plug-ins.2 Several companies are already converting hybrids for commercial sale using the ideas of these pioneers.

A garage gave birth to Hewlett-Packard and the electronic age, not to mention rock and roll and the modern entertainment industry. A garage may also have given birth to the future of personal transportation and the age of the plug-in car.

First cities go dark for Earth Hour

2008-03-29T09:23:00.006-04:00

SYDNEY, Australia (AP) -- Sydney's iconic Opera House and Harbour Bridge went dark Saturday night as the world's first major city turned off its lights for this year's Earth Hour, a global campaign to raise awareness of climate change.

The lights on the arch of Harbour Bridge were turned off at 8 p.m., followed shortly by the shells of the Opera House and other city landmarks. Most businesses and homes were already dark as Sydney residents embraced their second annual Earth Hour with candlelight dinners, beach bonfires and even a green-powered outdoor movie.

The city was noticeably darker, though not completely blacked out. The business district was mostly dark; organizers said 250 of the 350 commercial buildings there had pledged to shut off their lights completely.

The number of participants was not immediately available but organizers were hoping to beat last year's debut, when 2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses shut off lights and appliances, resulting in a 10.2 percent reduction in carbon emissions during that hour.

The effect of last year's Earth Hour was infectious. This year, 26 major world cities and more than 300 other cities and towns have signed up for the event.

New Zealand and Fiji kicked off the event this year. In Christchurch, New Zealand, more than 100 businesses and thousands of homes were plunged into darkness, computers and televisions were switched off and dinners delayed for the hour from 8 to 9 p.m. Suva, Fiji, in the same time zone, also turned off its lights.

Auckland's Langham Hotel switched from electric lights to candles as it joined the effort to reduce the use of electricity, which when generated creates greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming.

After Australia, lights will go out in major Asian cities, including Manila and Bangkok before moving to Europe and North America as the clock ticks on. One of the last major cities to participate will be San Francisco -- home to the soon-to-be dimmed Golden Gate Bridge.

"What's amazing is that it's transcending political boundaries and happening in places like China, Vietnam, Papua New Guinea," said Earth Hour executive director Andy Ridley. "It really seems to have resonated with anybody and everybody."

Organizers see the event as a way to encourage the world to conserve energy. While all lights in participating cities are unlikely to be cut, it is the symbolic darkening of monuments, businesses and individual homes they are most eagerly anticipating.

Even popular search engine Google put its support behind Earth Hour, with a completely black Web page and the words: "We've turned the lights out. Now it's your turn."

"It is a wake-up call," said Sydney Lord Mayor Clover Moore. "We need to really plan for our future. (Earth Hour) is something we can all do together. Going global is very empowering."

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AP Photo

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press.

Inside the world of war profiteers

2008-03-27T00:51:00.006-04:00

From prostitutes to Super bowl tickets, a federal probe reveals how contractors in Iraq cheated the U.S.

ROCK ISLAND, Ill.—Inside the stout federal courthouse of this Mississippi River town, the dirty secrets of Iraq war profiteering keep pouring out.

Hundreds of pages of recently unsealed court records detail how kickbacks shaped the war's largest troop support contract months before the first wave of U.S. soldiers plunged their boots into Iraqi sand.

The graft continued well beyond the 2004 congressional hearings that first called attention to it. And the massive fraud endangered the health of American soldiers even as it lined contractors' pockets, records show.

Federal prosecutors in Rock Island have indicted four former supervisors from KBR, the giant defense firm that holds the contract, along with a decorated Army officer and five executives from KBR subcontractors based in the U.S. or the Middle East. Those defendants, along with two other KBR employees who have pleaded guilty in Virginia, account for a third of the 36 people indicted to date on Iraq war-contract crimes, Justice Department records show.

On Wednesday, a federal judge in Rock Island sentenced the Army official, Chief Warrant Officer Peleti "Pete" Peleti Jr., to 28 months in prison for taking bribes. One Middle Eastern subcontractor treated him to a trip to the 2006 Super Bowl, a defense investigator said.

Prosecutors would not confirm or deny ongoing grand jury activity. But court records identify a dozen FBI, IRS and military investigative agents who have been assigned to the case. Interviews as well as testimony at the sentencing for Peleti, who has cooperated with authorities, suggest an active probe.

Rock Island serves as a center for the probe of war profiteering because Army brass at the arsenal here administer KBR's so-called LOGCAP III contract to feed, shelter and support U.S. soldiers, and to help restore Iraq's oil infrastructure.

In one case, a freight-shipping subcontractor confessed to giving $25,000 in illegal gratuities to five unnamed KBR employees "to build relationships to get additional business," according to the man's December 2007 statement to a federal judge in the Rock Island court. Separately, Peleti named five military colleagues who allegedly accepted bribes. Prosecutors also have identified three senior KBR executives who allegedly approved inflated bids. None of those 13 people has been charged.

A common thread runs through these cases and other KBR scandals in Iraq, from allegations the firm failed to protect employees sexually assaulted by co-workers to findings that it charged $45 per can of soda: The Pentagon has outsourced crucial troop support jobs while slashing the number of government contract watchdogs.

The dollar value of Army contracts quadrupled from $23.3 billion in 1992 to $100.6 billion in 2006, according to a recent report by a Pentagon panel. But the number of Army contract supervisors was cut from 10,000 in 1990 to 5,500 currently.

Last week, the Army pledged to add 1,400 positions to its contracting command. But even those embroiled in the frauds acknowledge the impact of so much war privatization.

"I think we downsized past the point of general competency," said subcontractor Christopher Cahill, who for a decade prepared military supply depots under LOGCAP. Now serving 30 months in federal prison for fraud, Cahill added: "The point of a standing army is to have them equipped."

KBR, a former subsidiary of Halliburton Co., says it has been paid $28 billion under LOGCAP III. The firm says it quickly reports all instances of suspected fraud and has repaid the Defense Department more than $1 million for questionable invoices.

In a statement, KBR said its roughly 20,000 employees and 40,000 subcontractors have performed laudably in a war zone where Army demands shift rapidly and local suppliers don't always maintain ledger books. Spokeswoman Heather Browne wrote: "Ethics and integrity are core values for KBR."

But a wiretapped transcript recently released in Rock Island underscores the brazen nature of the exceptions.

In October 2005, with federal agents tailing them, three war contractors slipped through London's posh Cumberland hotel before meeting in a quiet lounge. For the rest of that afternoon, the men sipped cognac and whiskey and discussed the bribes that had greased contracts to supply U.S. troops in Iraq.

Former KBR procurement manager Stephen Seamans, who was wearing a wire strapped on by a Rock Island agent, wondered aloud whether to return $65,000 in kickbacks he got from his two companions, executives from the Saudi conglomerate Tamimi Global Co.

One of the men, Tamimi operations director Shabbir Khan, urged him to hide the money by concocting phony business records."Just do the paperwork," Khan said.

Party houses, prostitutes

In October 2002, five months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, Khan threw a birthday party for Seamans at a Tamimi "party house" near the Kuwait base known as Camp Arifjan. Khan "provided Seamans with a prostitute as a present," Rock Island prosecutors wrote in court papers. Driving Seamans back to his quarters, Khan offered kickbacks that would total $130,000.

Five days later, with Seamans and Khan hammering out the fine print, KBR awarded Tamimi the war's first $14.4 million mess hall subcontract, court records show.

In April 2003, as American troops poured into Iraq, Seamans gave Khan inside information that enabled Tamimi to secure a $2 million KBR subcontract to establish a mess hall at a Baghdad palace. Seamans submitted change orders that inflated that subcontract to $7.4 million.

By June, Seamans and fellow KBR procurement manager Jeff Mazon, a Country Club Hills resident, had executed subcontracts worth $321 million. At least one deal put U.S. soldiers at risk.

The Army LOGCAP contract required KBR to medically screen the thousands of kitchen workers that subcontractors like Tamimi imported from impoverished villages in Nepal, Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.

But when Pentagon officials asked for medical records in March 2004, Khan presented "bogus" files for 550 Tamimi workers, Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Lang said in a court hearing last year.

KBR retested those 550 workers at a Kuwait City clinic and found 172 positive for exposure to hepatitis A, Lang told the judge. Khan tried to suppress those findings, warning the clinic director that Tamimi would do no more business with his medical office if he "told KBR about these results," Lang said in court. The infectious virus can cause fatigue and other symptoms that arise weeks after contact.

Retesting of the 172 found that none had contagious hepatitis A, Lang said, and Khan's attorneys said in court that no soldiers caught diseases from the workers or from meals they prepared. It remains unclear if that is because the workers were treated or because they did not remain infectious after the onset of symptoms.

Still, the incident shows how even mundane meal contracts can put troops at risk. Similar disease-testing breaches cropped up at cafeterias outsourced to firms besides Tamimi, former KBR Area Supervisor Rene Robinson said in a Tribune interview.

"That was an ongoing problem," Robinson said. "When the military asked for paperwork, it was spotty." KBR was forced to begin vaccinating the employees at their work sites, he added.

Tamimi and its U.S. lawyers did not respond to requests for comment. The company has said it is cooperating with federal authorities.

By July 2005, Tamimi had secured some 30 KBR troop feeding subcontracts worth $793.5 million, records show. Khan continued to negotiate Iraq war subcontracts for Tamimi until shortly before he was arrested in Rock Island in March 2006.

He is now serving a 51-month prison sentence for lying to federal agents about the kickbacks he wired to Seamans, who pleaded guilty and served a year and a day in prison. Both declined to comment.Seamans, a 46-year-old Air Force veteran, once taught ethics to junior KBR employees. At his December 2006 sentencing hearing, he expressed remorse for taking the kickbacks, telling the judge: "It is not the way that Americans do business."

It was another repentant LOGCAP veteran standing before a Rock Island judge on Wednesday. Peleti, formerly the military's top food service adviser for the Middle East, wept as he admitted taking bribes from Tamimi and three other subcontractors between 2003 and early 2006.

Ribbons and badges glittered across Peleti's pressed green Army shirt. "I stand here before you today to convey my remorse and sincere regret," he said, then broke down.

One subcontractor, Public Warehousing Co., took Peleti and another top Army official to the Super Bowl, a defense investigator said in court Wednesday. The firm has denied wrongdoing. Khan also bribed Peleti to influence LOGCAP contracts with cash. Peleti was arrested in 2006 while re-entering the U.S. at Dover Air Force Base with a duffel bag stuffed with watches and jewelry as well as about $40,000 concealed in his clothing.

While prosecutors documented kickbacks in only the first two of Tamimi's mess hall subcontracts, they contend that the tone was set to corrupt the system."Tamimi and Mr. Khan have their hooks into Mr. Seamans, they have their hooks into KBR," Lang said in court last year. "

It is difficult to assess the kind of damage that did to the integrity of the subcontracting process when the first two subcontracts are corrupted."

Auditors in the basementMilitary auditors say they closely monitor the layers of KBR subcontractors who actually perform most of the LOGCAP work, stationing teams in Iraq. But one Rock Island search warrant said auditors working back in the U.S. could manage only limited reviews of the cascade of deals.

In the basement of one of KBR's Houston office buildings, a 25-member team from the Defense Contract Audit Agency had "no communications" with "personnel on the ground," so they could not confirm whether goods and services actually were delivered, the search warrant application said.

In the absence of oversight, some Middle Eastern businessmen would offer "Rolex watches, leather jackets, prostitutes, and the KBR guys weren't shy about bragging about the fact that they were being treated to all that stuff," said Paul Morrell, whose firm The Event Source ran several mess halls as a KBR subcontractor.

Such questionable relationships continued long after early procurement managers like Seamans had been rooted out. Early subcontractors such as Tamimi became almost indispensable in part by outfitting Army cafeterias with expensive power generators and refrigeration systems, records and interviews show.

"If you ever gave Tamimi a hard time, you'd get a call," former KBR subcontract manager Harry DeWolf told the Tribune.

When subcontracts came up for renegotiation, DeWolf said, companies like Tamimi "would say, 'Fine, we're going to pull out all of our people and equipment.' They really had KBR and the government over the barrel."

Complicating the investigation of war-contract crimes, the government of Kuwait has denied a U.S. request to extradite two Middle Eastern businessmen accused of LOGCAP fraud. The country's ambassador last year sent letters to the Justice Department asking the U.S. to drop its case against one of them, arguing that international agreements forbid U.S. prosecution of Kuwaiti residents for crimes allegedly committed on Kuwaiti soil. Prosecutors disagree, but a judge is considering Kuwait's assertion.

Investigators also have faced challenges in dealing with KBR. The company has withheld some internal company documents relating to Mazon, Seaman's fellow KBR procurement manager, the firm's attorneys wrote in court filings.In response to one subpoena, the firm gave agents about 2,760 of Mazon's computer files but withheld 398others, saying they were covered by attorney-client privilege or other protections.

Federal prosecutors say they have given KBR no special treatment and that the company has legal rights afforded to all firms whose employees have been charged with wrongdoing. "We did withhold some documents as being privileged," a KBR spokeswoman wrote, but added that the company has provided statements and grand jury testimony.

Mazon has pleaded not guilty to charges that he inflated a fuel contract. His attorneys say the fuel subcontract was accidentally inflated when figures were converted from U.S. dollars to Kuwaiti dinars then back again. At least 22 KBR troop support subcontracts were inflated through similar errors, Mazon's attorney J. Scott Arthur wrote in papers filed in Rock Island.

KBR attorneys said the company informed federal officials of three similar "double conversions" on other subcontracts. But KBR said it "has not undertaken an exhaustive search of its millions of pages of procurement documents" to determine whether other such errors exist.

By David Jackson and Jason Grotto Tribune reporters

Measuring Asia's Pollution Exports

2008-03-26T08:29:00.003-04:00

NASA has quantified the amount of pollution that moves from East Asia to North America.

Atmospheric scientists have long known that air pollution travels vast distances and is a global phenomenon. Now researchers at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have conducted the first-ever satellite-based measurements of pollution aerosols transported from East Asia to North America.

The researchers looked at four years of satellite data and found the amount of pollution arriving in North America to be equivalent to 15 percent of local emissions of the United States and Canada. It is "a significant number," says Hongbin Yu, an associate research scientist at the University of Maryland, in Baltimore, who is working at NASA Goddard and led the study.

"This means that any reduction in our emissions may be offset by the pollution aerosols coming from East Asia and other regions," says Yu. The new study will be published in April in the American Geophysical Union's Journal of Geophysical Research.

The study was conducted from 2002 to 2005, using measurements from a satellite instrument called the moderate-resolution imaging spectroradiometer (MODIS) onboard NASA's Terra satellite. The instrument measures the reflective solar radiation and emitted thermal radiation from the earth's surface and atmosphere.

The satellite-based instrument can look at 36 different wavelengths of the solar spectrum, and it does so with better spatial resolution than previous satellite instruments, says Lorraine Remer, a physical scientist and a member of the MODIS science team at Goddard.

For the study, the researchers measured the reflected solar radiation at seven different wavelengths. Being able to see different colors of the spectrum allows the researchers to differentiate the types of particles more accurately than the older sensors, says Remer.

"Some particulates are absorbing things like black carbon that come out of diesel exhaust, making it a black color," says Ronald Prinn, a professor of atmospheric sciences and the director of the Center for Global Change Science at MIT. "Particles that are produced from sulfur that comes from the burning of coal are very bright white. You can look at the multiple colors ... and get information about composition and density as well."

The instrument is able to distinguish between man-made pollution and naturally occurring particles based on size. Naturally occurring dust and sea salt are typically larger than aerosol particles emitted from combustion sources, forest fires, automobiles, and industry, says Remer.

The MODIS instrument works by scanning a broad swath of the earth--about 2,300 kilometers--and counting the number of photons it is receiving by turning them into electrical signals. The instrument can measure the entire earth in one day.

MODIS does a better job than aircraft instrumentation does because it can observe the earth all the time, capturing events that only happen occasionally and accumulating them over the whole year, says Richard Honrath, a professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at Michigan Technological University, in Houghton. "We can only do continuous measurements at ground level, but then you only see events that hit the ground," he says.

The instrument also gets "spatial and time detail that one would never get from ground-based measurements, and it captures the entire pollution plumes rather than just having a few observing stations looking up," says Prinn.

NASA researchers drew two virtual lines at 20 degrees north to 60 degrees north, and they measured the optical effect of the particles as they crossed those lines, says Yu. Using software that he made, the researchers culled this data and mapped it to see globally where the pollution is located.

The researchers found that 18 teragrams--almost 40 billion pounds--of pollution is exported from Asia, and that 4.5 teragrams--10 billion pounds, or about 25 percent--reaches North America annually, says Mian Chin, an atmospheric scientist at NASA and a coauthor of the study. But the instrument measures the total atmosphere column and does not have the vertical structure, so it is unknown how many of the pollutants are at surface level, and how many are aloft in the atmosphere, says Chin.

Despite that uncertainty, the scientists say that it is the higher-altitude pollution that is probably most worrisome. "We think the pollution being imported to North America will impact the weather and climate; we don't expect any big impact on the air quality because particles from East Asia are exported at high altitude," says Yu.

"It is very difficult to lower pollution levels of man-made pollutants to extremely low levels because pollutants come in the air from other countries that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, cannot control," says Prinn. Agrees Honrath: "You have to consider the future industrial growth of Asia if you develop long-range plans for meeting air-quality goals in the United States."

source - Technology Review
photo credit - NASA

Money Troubles Stall BioTown USA Project

2008-03-24T19:06:00.006-04:00

REYNOLDS, Ind. (AP) — This one-stoplight farming hamlet had big dreams in 2005 when it was christened BioTown USA.

Its goal: to become the first U.S. community to meet all electricity and gas needs through renewable energy by using everything from farm waste to sewage.

Industry and government officials led the early charge. BP installed a gas pump offering an ethanol fuel blend, and South Dakota-based VeraSun Energy Corp. started building an ethanol production plant near town.

Former U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns stopped by in support, as did the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Visitors also included a group of Chilean corn farmers who were touring the Midwest and interested in learning more about biofuels.

But the visitors are long gone, and many say the excitement is too. Money problems, leadership changes and other obstacles have sparked skepticism that Reynolds will ever succeed at moving the state, much less the nation, toward homegrown energy and away from foreign oil.

"I'm not happy about the whole situation, and a lot of people in town aren't either," said farmer Tonie Snyder. He helped provide thousands of bales of corn stover last fall that were supposed to be burned using technology that now may never be built.

From the outset, the vision for BioTown was ambitious. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and the state Department of Agriculture wanted to create a model for energy self-sufficiency. No other U.S. community produces all its own energy, and a German village that runs on renewable energy took eight years to develop.

But project officials believed they could turn this community of about 550 people, surrounded by silos and stubbly corn fields, into something special.

"We are taking challenges and turning them into opportunities by developing homegrown, local energy production to become independent from foreign sources," Daniels said in announcing the project.

The timetable was aggressive. State officials hoped to break ground in November 2006 on a $10 million facility that would house the core equipment needed to turn manure and other biomass material into energy, and start generating electricity for the town by July 2007.

The groundbreaking happened, and General Motors offered deals on flex fuel vehicles to people living in the Reynolds ZIP code. But there has been little other progress, and now BioTown leaders acknowledge they have adjusted their vision. But they insist the project will happen.

"What we try to remind folks all the time is that this project, there's no manual that you pull out and say, 'How do you do a BioTown?'" Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller said. "We're kind of inventing it as we go."

BioTown seemed like a "shot in the arm" to Fred Buschman, a lifelong resident of this community about 80 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.

"It was like something you dreamed of but never really believed could happen," the 77-year-old town council member said.

A couple of restaurants, car dealerships and a gas station make up most of Reynolds proper. But steady streams of truck traffic flow through town each day on state route 43 and U.S. 24, and railroads crisscross the community. State leaders said the infrastructure and surrounding farms made Reynolds an ideal location for BioTown.

"They were going to make this a showtown for the whole world to come in and look at, and I thought it was the greatest thing that ever could happen to the town of Reynolds," Snyder said.

State officials said private funding would drive the project. The startup firm Rose Energy Discovery Inc. would install an anaerobic digester, a device that converts manure methane into electricity, and a gassifier would be built to create a gas that can be burned for heat or put in a boiler to make steam.

But Rose Energy dropped out last summer after failing to line up enough private investment. In October, VeraSun suspended construction on its ethanol plant due to a steep drop in ethanol prices, which combined with high corn prices has slowed factory construction around the country.

Work has not begun on the Reynolds digester.

Last fall, Snyder and his fellow farmers readied about 5,000 bales of mostly corn stover that was supposed to feed the gassifier. Months later, thousands of the unused bales collect snow and rain as they sit in a field just outside town.

The farmers finally received full payment for the bales earlier this month, Snyder said.

The new technology developer, Energy Systems Group, hasn't decided whether to install the gassifier, so state officials say the bales will become animal bedding.

BioTown proponents say there's still plenty going on.

Energy Systems Group, a Vectren Corp. subsidiary, will spend about $10 million on the digester and is still lining up financing for it. President Jim Adams said he hopes to start building within the next month or so and wants to produce power by the end of this year.

"The whole process has gone a little slower than we anticipated, securing the fuel and a power purchase agreement for some of the output," he said. "But that's all coming together."

Most of what they produce will likely be sold to a power company. BioTown leaders learned early that it would be nearly impossible to take Reynolds off an established electricity grid so it could supply its own power.

Miller said the cost to build a grid just for Reynolds would be prohibitive, and the community would still need backup help to prevent service interruptions.

BioTown Development Authority President John Heimlich preaches patience as the project sputters on. Last year, he and other BioTown leaders visited the German village of Juehnde, which runs on renewable energy.

"I think what we see now, maybe as our vision, is kind of an evolving project, so maybe there isn't a final look so to speak," he said.

Despite the setbacks, BioTown is attacking global energy problems with local solutions, and that's the best approach, said Brooke Coleman, director of the Boston-based New Fuels Alliance, a renewable energy advocacy group.

He said the project takes on some steep obstacles like removing a community from an established power grid. Renewable energy developers have tried to do this for years and have long met resistance from power companies.

Aside from that, the slumping economy and falling dollar make investors cautious about renewable energy technology.

"This town is tackling some of the most challenging issues facing the move toward energy independence," he said.

Source - The Associated Press
AP Photo/Tom Strickland

White House takes air out of new EPA regulations

2008-03-24T16:50:00.005-04:00

THIS MARCH, the Environmental Protection Agency was about to take a major step forward in curbing pollutants that cause smog - until it got word from the White House to make it a baby step instead. The weakened rule will result in several thousand preventable deaths annually. Environmental groups and public health organizations should take the EPA to court for letting last-minute interference by the president and the White House's Office of Management and Budget dictate a less stringent standard.

Thanks to improved pollution controls on cars, power plants, and other industries, Americans breathe much cleaner air than they did a generation ago. But smog is still severe enough in many areas to cause respiratory and heart problems and shorten lives.

The rule regulates acceptable levels of ozone, the main component of smog. Ozone forms when the sun heats up vehicle exhaust, smokestack pollution, and emissions from gasoline and many other substances.

Even under the old standard, set in 1997, most of Massachusetts, with the exception of Bristol County and Nantucket, was in violation, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The new standard will place the entire state out of compliance. Fixing that will require a continuation of the vehicle-inspection and maintenance programs now under way, in addition to efforts to reduce emissions from solvents and paints. New measures, such as encouraging greater energy efficiency to reduce pollution by power generators, likely will be needed as well, according to DEP.

It's well worth the trouble and expense to gain improvements in respiratory health. Nationally, the EPA estimates that its new rule will prevent 1,300 to 3,500 premature deaths a year. A stricter rule favored by its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee would save as many as 9,200 lives a year.

Under current law, EPA can consider the cost of complying with a clean-air standard in setting a timeline of compliance, but not in deciding how stringent the rule should be. Memos leaked last week indicate that input from the bean counters in the budget office did affect the standard, although EPA administrator Stephen Johnson denies it.

Johnson did call recently for amending the Clean Air Act to allow the agency to weigh compliance costs in setting an antipollution rule. Congress should not give this proposal the time of day, and should instead call Johnson before it to explain just what role the White House played in his decision to allow higher smog levels than his own scientific advisers recommended.

Source - boston.com

The 'Peak Oil' Theory: Will Oil Reserves Run Dry?

2008-03-21T01:06:00.004-04:00

Oil's recent slide and the slackening demand that an economic slowdown's expected to bring have stimulated hopes that crude could soon safely stabilize below the $100 range.

But beneath seesawing supply and demand lies the deeper question of just how much oil the planet has in the first place — and how much it will have in the future.

The answer to that question supports — or undermines — the theory that we are in the midst of an ever-tightening supply that will lock prices into a permanent, rising arc. That, in nutshell, is what's meant by the term "peak oil".

It’s an issue that matters, especially to major energy players who are in a race to disprove the theory and trying to bring on-stream more oil fields than are currently being depleted.

John Hofmeister, president of Royal Dutch Shell's US operations, shared his thoughts on the supply issue on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday. He took aim at the peak oil theory as popularized by Matthew Simmons, the author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy." (See the Hofmeister interview at left.)

“The peak oil theory has really swamped the world — God bless Matt Simmons,” Hofmeister told CNBC.

Simmons is mistaken, said Hofmeister, because he is overly focused on a single country: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter and OPEC swing producer.

Although Saudi Arabia is a dominant player, the Shell executive said focusing solely on Saudi Arabia leaves out the all other places around the globe where Big Oil and national oil companies are busy exploring for untapped oil reservoirs.

Those reservoirs could include the vast — but currently restricted — reserves of the US Outer Continental Shelf, which holds an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. Tapping into such a large supply would slash the $500 billion US sends overseas for each year for oil imports.

As things stands, however, only 15 percent of those reserves are currently exploitable, a good part of that off the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

Simmons is also off the mark, Hofmeister contends, because he excludes unconventional sources of oil such as the oil sands of Canada, where Shell is already active.

The Canadian oil sands — a natural combination of sand, water and oil found largely in Alberta — is believed to contain 1 trillion barrels of oil. Another 1 trillion barrels are also trapped in rocks in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Given all that, we asked Simmons, who is chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a specialized energy investment-banking firm based in Houston, to respond to Hofmeister's comments and explain how his peak oil scenario can be avoided.

CNBC: What's your response to critics like Hofmeister?

Simmons: There is a kind of schizophrenia within the likes of Shell where the chairman basically says, "We think by 2012 global demand will exceed conventional supply" and yet Hofmeister basically says the idea that we are ever going to have peak oil is ridiculous.

CNBC: But he's suggesting you are leaving out unconventional sources of energy in your calculations.

Simmons: They make the distinction [between conventional and unconventional], but they don’t seem to make the connection about the vast difference of flow. They are so hung up on the total estimated volume. Once they start in a project they say, "Well, the reserves last forever so we can book a million barrels of reserves."The energy that is consumed to get oil out of the oil sands of Canada — in massive amounts of potable water and natural gas — is so vast you are really turning gold into lead. What you get out is a very low quality amount of oil that has to be upgraded and diluted with high quality oil to get synthetic crude. What I can’t figure out is why the executives of these oil companies don’t understand that.

CNBC: And what about the reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf?

Simmons: That’s sort of irrelevant because we have such an unbelievable shortage of deep-water rigs. We are totally out of deep-water drilling rigs. There are about 100 that are struggling to get built. Four will ready by the end of next year.

And none of that deep-water stuff they are talking about has been properly tested to know if it is even commercial. It’s in such remote areas that we just don’t have the tool kit to realistically bring it on stream before maybe ten years from now — maybe 6-7 years from now.

CNBC: What about other major finds such as the major off-shore discovery Brazil has made that is estimated could be the third largest oil field in the world?

Simmons: There have only been five wildcat wells drilled there. That’s like me saying I have drilled a well in Kansas, and another in Colorado and in New Mexico and in the panhandle of Texas and if they are all part of one giant oilfield, it is the biggest oil field ever in the Western Hemisphere. That’s an enormous "if."

You can claim that, but the proof of that would only be after you drill about 100 wells and flow test them all. And what we know is that 99 percent of those types of reservoirs never connect.

CNBC: You still think there are production difficulties in Saudi Arabia, but what do you expect will be the impact on production worldwide?

Simmons: Yes, and it’s why we have such a hard time growing production any more, and unfortunately demand doesn’t understand that. We are basically having to run faster and faster to stay in place as too many areas go into steady and steep decline. You look at the North Sea … the last 7-8 years, Norway and the UK have been declining a rate of about 17-18 percent per year. And once you get a field down to its last 10 percent, then it levels out and goes into a long steady state of gentle decline — that is the state of Prudhoe Bay today.

CNBC: So, what is your prognosis for prices?

Simmons: I think prices have to go way higher. The sooner people get used to the fact that we are still living in a fool’s paradise, the better ... you just can not argue that $100 a barrel is expensive when you realize it is 15 cents a cup — do you know anything other than crude oil that sells for 15 cents a cup? I know wine doesn’t, bottled water doesn’t.

Source - CNBC

Picture - Mike Eliason

Google Will Finance Enhanced Geothermal

2008-03-20T08:18:00.003-04:00

Expect Google.org to make investments in the next couple of months in enhanced geothermal energy, says Dan Reicher, the Internet giant's director of climate change and energy initiatives.

Google's philanthropic arm is in talks with universities on funding basic research into tapping into the vast stores of energy underground, Reicher said at a two-day energy summit sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. He said it also expects to finance companies that are working toward advances in this form of renewable energy.

A description of enhanced geothermal, graphics that show how it works, and a map of its potential can be found with this story in U.S. News.
Google announced its "renewable energy cheaper than coal" initiative late last year, but this is the clearest signal yet that the company is poised to add enhanced geothermal to its investment portfolio.

So far, Google's program has made $10 million investments in two companies that seek to produce renewable energy cheaper than coal: eSolar, a concentrating solar thermal power firm, and Makani Power, which seeks to develop ultra-high-altitude wind power. Reicher said tapping into wind power at 3,000 or even 10,000 feet up is "admittedly very high risk" but fits in well with Google's game plan on renewable energy investments.

"We don't have the constraints of venture capital firms, with the usual three-to-six-year exit strategy and need for return," Reicher says. "We're looking for higher-risk, higher-payoff investments." He also said Google.org is likely to invest in commercialization of cellulosic ethanol—another example of a promising technology that has a hard time getting out of the so-called Valley of Death, development of risky, first-of-a-kind plants.

Reicher also addressed why Google is engaged in the issue of renewable energy. As a large user of electricity, Google has aimed to purchase green resources and has often found them not available or prohibitively expensive.

"There's a great deal of optimism about renewable energy, great engagement of the public, and interest of the investment community," Reicher says. "There needs to be a fundamental change in the cost structure of renewables if we expect them to compete. And let's talk about the competitive landscape—first and foremost about coal. The aim has to be to make renewable energy competitive with coal and to do it in years, not decades."

to the source

Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air

2008-03-19T08:54:00.007-04:00

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Green Freedom™ for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuel and chemical production

Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom™, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.

Currently, the principal market for the Green Freedom production concept is fuel for vehicles and aircraft.

At the heart of the technology is a new process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating this electrochemical process with existing technology, researchers have developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.

"Our concept enhances U.S. energy and material security by reducing dependence on imported oil. Initial system and economic analyses indicate that the prices of Green Freedom commodities would be either comparable to the current market or competitive with those of other carbon-neutral, alternative technologies currently being considered," said F. Jeffrey Martin of the Laboratory's Decisions Applications Division, principal investigator on the project.

Martin will be presenting a talk on the subject at the Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, February 20, 2008.

In addition to the new electrochemical separation process, the Green Freedom system can use existing cooling towers, such as those of nuclear power plants, with carbon-capture equipment that eliminates the need for additional structures to process large volumes of air. The primary environmental impact of the production facility is limited to the footprint of the plant. It uses non-hazardous materials for its feed and operation and has a small waste stream volume. In addition, unlike large-scale biofuel concepts, the Green Freedom system does not add pressure to agricultural capacity or use large tracts of land or farming resources for production.

The concept's viability has been reviewed and verified by both industrial and semi-independent Los Alamos National Laboratory technical reviews. The next phase will demonstrate the new electrochemical process to prove the ability of the system to both capture carbon dioxide and pull it back out of solution. An industrial partnership consortium will be formed to commercialize the Green Freedom concept.

by Nancy Ambrosiano, nwa@lanl.gov

Photo credit - Desktop Engineering