energyhawk - save money by saving energy

The end, or just the beginning? Our new roles in the new planetary climate.

Bruce — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 05:33:35 +0000

First the good news: I’ve discovered my new favorite blog (besides this one, of course), at Grist.org: http://gristmill.grist.org.

The bad new (hard to call it good news) is that published there I found the best commentary yet written on climate change, Beyond the point of no return, written by Ross Gelbspan. Ross is a journalist whose resume includes 30 years at publications like the Boston Globe and the Washington Post.

Ross runs down the what I’ve started overhearing through the shared walls of our culture, but have been trying to block out because it’s too awful to eavesdrop on: that whether or not humans were the only cause, or the primary cause, of global warming, and regardless of what our governments might agree to in the nexst 50 years, radical climate change is now unstoppable.

The question that now races towards each of us like a concrete wall is: what will you and I do?

And then: who else are you, and I, responsible to? What will we do for our loved ones, our children, our families, our history, our culture, our nation, our people (the human race) — what do you and I do now out of respect, obligation, and affection for them?

Most of us are prepared for anything but this. But we can change…. Here’s to living in interesting times.

Wind farms may be practical offshore in Northern California

Bruce — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 06:46:45 +0000

A new Stanford University study concludes that wind farms off the coast of California would ultimately produce between 25 and 100% of California’s energy needs.
http://www.physorg.com/news116519900.html
However, little power transmission capacity currently exists in the parts of Northern California where the winds are most suitable (where the population is less dense), and a number of hurdles must be overcome such as adapting wind turbines for deeper water and mitigating the environmental and aesthetic impact of offshore wind farms.

Imagine a mile-square grid of buoys bobbing in the waves, generating energy — the wave farm cometh

Bruce — Sun, 09 Dec 2007 14:56:57 +0000

Wave farms are being prototyped off the Oregon coast. The motion of the waves can be converted via turbines into electricity and piped back on shore.

A new financial model for green energy production

Bruce — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 11:05:16 +0000

Capital markets financed the industrial revolution and the technological revolution (not to mention a few wars — read the House Of Morgan if you want to find out who wound up financing BOTH sides of the arms build up in WWI and WWII, I kid you not).

Now capital markets are funding the green revolution in energy production. MMA Renerwable Ventures raises money from instituional investors to finance solar panel installations. End users (like Estee Lauder) arrange for MMA to construct solar installations for them, and buy the power generated at below-market rates, but don’t have to pay for construction.

GREAT packaging, spreading the risk and benefits around where they are the most palatable — you gotta love capitalism when it works out this way.

Google and HP invest heavily in solar power generation

Bruce — Tue, 27 Nov 2007 10:08:03 +0000

HP has just joined Google (although on a smaller scale) on the solar power bandwagon. Both companies are turning corporate campuses into 1-megawatt + solar power installations, saving money while reducing greenhouse gas emissions — which is appropriate considering each consumes massive amounts of electricity during the ordinary course of business.

How does 300 miles per gallon sound?

Bruce — Tue, 20 Nov 2007 20:41:35 +0000

The Aptera Typ-1, which looks sort of like a Cessna without the wings, is a hybrid gasoline electric that its makers claim gets 300 miles to the gallon. It’s a tricycle design that gets listed as a motorcycle when you register with the department of motor vehicles, apparently. I’d like to see the crash tests first, of course, but then I’m really liking the sound of this as a commuter vehicle.

Solar trough power generation

Bruce — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 18:08:37 +0000

I’m amazed to realize that we don’t see more of such simple solutions as solar trough power, which essentially involves setting up a back-yard scale set of parabolic troughs which use focus sunlight to heat liquid that spins a turbine and generates power. At present these are simple and effective for generating small quantities of power, like enough to run a commercial refrigerator, although larger scale installations are contemplated: http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9816886-54.html?tag=nefd.blgs

ADDENDUM (November 20): Similarly, solar concentrators are being used get more effeciency out of solar cells: http://www.news.com/8301-11128_3-9820924-54.html?tag=nefd.top

(Thanks again to the News.com Green Tech Blog!)

Hydrogen from cellulose via bacteria

Bruce — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 14:06:46 +0000

Penn State researchers are claiming 68% efficiency (or more importantly, more energy is released from biomass in the system than is expended assembling the system in the first place) with fuel cells that generate hydrogen from cellulose.

The Star Wars solution: Energy beamed from space.

Bruce — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 13:55:53 +0000

I’d like this one a lot better if the US Department of Defense weren’t promoting this power generation solution as useful for supporting troops in, or rather, near combat zones….

Scientists are saying that within 40-some years the cost of launching gear into space will have dropped enough for it to be feasible to build giant solar collectors in geosyncronous orbit that beam energy back to earth via lasers or microwaves. Ground stations convert the beams back to electricity for the grid.

The Matrix Inverted: Power from Life (but no pod people — yet)

Bruce — Thu, 01 Nov 2007 15:30:53 +0000

A company called Living Power System has developed a process wherein electricity — at this stage, enough to run relatively low-power devices like LED lights — is generated from soil. In s sort of a living fuel cell, microbes growing across an electrode planted in the earth generate an electron flow as they metabolize nutrients in the soil.
http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9809164-7.html

It’s another example of a biotech energy generation mechanism besides the more familiar microbes-digesting-switchgrass to generate ethanol.