Obama: “We will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years”

From ClimateProgress:

[I will post the details of how Obama will achieve this remarkable goal when they become available. But clues can no doubt be found in his August energy plan, “Breaking news — A real energy plan for America: Efficiency now, 10% renewables by 2012, and one million plug-in hybrids by 2015,” where he pledges to “Require 10 Percent of Electricity to Come from Renewable Sources by 2012″ and 25 percent by 2025.]

In his big economic speech today at George Mason University, Obama pledged to jumpstart job creation and long-term growth by:

• Doubling the production of alternative energy in the next three years.
• Modernizing more than 75% of federal buildings and improve the energy efficiency of two million American homes, saving consumers and taxpayers billions on our energy bills.
• Making the immediate investments necessary to ensure that within five years, all of America’s medical records are computerized.
• Equipping tens of thousands of schools, community colleges, and public universities with 21st century classrooms, labs, and libraries.
• Expanding broadband across America, so that a small business in a rural town can connect and compete with their counterparts anywhere in the world.
• Investing in the science, research, and technology that will lead to new medical breakthroughs, new discoveries, and entire new industries.

His full remarks as prepared for delivery are below:

(more…)

Obama: “We will double the production of alternative energy in the next three years”
Thu, 08 Jan 2009 16:44:33 GMT

Technorati Tags: Obama,renewable energy,green economy

Solar electric cars invade Hollywood

By Ben Mack

Hollywood is probably the last place that you expect to go green. It talks a good game, but there is something about Botox, breast implants and reality TV that doesn’t say “eco-friendly.”

Cruise Car, which bills itself as the only company mass producing solar-electric cars, hopes to change that perception of Tinseltown with some help from Universal Studios, which will convert its entire fleet of 300 fossil-fuel burning, carbon-spewing vehicles to EVs.

“We’re extremely honored to have a partner like NBC Universal Studios work with us to help make our environment a sustainable place to live,” company president Ken Chester says in a statement (.pdf) that reads like a Hollywood script. “And we commend Universal for being leaders in the entertainment industry by converting to alternative energy transportation.”

The Florida firm offers an impressive 50 models in its lineup, something it claims makes it  one of the world's leading EV manufacturers. They vehicles are limited to 35 mph and the company says they can be made street-legal in most states. The eco-friendlier rides are used by the likes of the Pentagon and the University of Mississippi, and Universal has signed up for a fleet of the company's 14-seat Kudo transporters.

Cruise Car claims its rides are good for 40 to 60 miles per charge and says the photovoltaic panel, which produces up to 180 watts at 60 volts, can boost that by one-third on a sunny day.

Solar Electric Cars Invade Hollywood

Technorati Tags: renewable energy,electric car,solar

Green revolution: still possible amid deep recession?

By Mark Rice-Oxley

In 2008, oil prices spiked then collapsed, climate-change talks stuttered, and nuclear power reemerged. Europe banned incandescent light bulbs, Britain made cutting emissions legally binding, and US President-elect Barack Obama appointed the greenest US cabinet ever. But what does this augur for 2009? While nature and the economy can be wildly unpredictable, experts believe a warmer year is coming. At the same time, carbon-dioxide emissions are likely to drop as businesses slow. Some experts hope "green collar" jobs will help reverse the recession, but fossil fuels will probably continue to power much of the world for years. When and if the economy picks up steam, demand for oil will rise – as will prices.

Will the recession defeat efforts to combat climate change?

Leaders like Barack Obama are promising a "green new deal" through formidable investment in the green economy. Environmentalists say that green technology is far more labor intensive than traditional energy sources such as oil and nuclear. There will also be plenty of jobs in the energy efficiency segment, according to Lester Brown, founder of the Washington-based Earth Policy Institute, who sees benefits to both economy and environment from retrofitting buildings, for example.

"If you compare wind and solar technologies versus coal," he adds, "it's much more labor intensive by a factor of 2 or 3. So if you're interested in creating jobs, you have to look at efficiency and renewables."

Green revolution: still possible amid deep recession?
Wed, 07 Jan 2009 08:00:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: renewable energy,green economy,financial collapse

Omnivorous fuel cells

A prototype fuel cell runs on a wide range of fuels without turning up the heat.

Fuel cells are the most efficient way to convert chemical energy into electricity. But most either operate at high temperatures or require very pure hydrogen fuel. Superprotonic, a startup company in Pasadena, CA, is developing a fuel cell that can handle dirty hydrogen at relatively low temperatures. It could thus use hydrogen produced from other fuels--such as natural gas or ethanol--by a simple device called a "reformer."

In a fuel cell, an electrolyte is sandwiched between an anode and a cathode. A catalyst at the anode splits hydrogen into electrons and protons. The protons can pass through the electrolyte, but the electrons can't. So in order to reach the cathode, the electrons travel through an external electrical circuit, where they can be used to recharge a battery or power a device. At the cathode, another catalyst helps the protons and electrons combine with oxygen sucked from the air to form water--the fuel cell's only waste product.

Superprotonic's fuel cells rely on a material called a solid acid, first tested as an electrolyte in 2001 by Caltech materials-science and chemical-engineering professor Sossina Haile. "What makes our fuel cell special is the nature of this electrolyte," she says. Solid-acid fuel cells operate at what Haile calls a Goldilocks temperature: not too hot, not too cold.

Omnivorous Fuel Cells
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 05:00:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: fuel cell,alternative energy,hydrogen economy

Utah public land hero appeals for help

Via ClimateProgress:

[I am reprinting a post from the excellent blog Solve Climate on one individual who is trying to make a difference in a rather unusual way.]

On December 24th we [Solve Climate] carried a report about Tim DeChristopher’s heroic act of civil disobedience: he went to an auction of public lands and outbid oil and gas companies for 22,500 acres of land — in order to protect it from fossil fuel development. The price? A whopping $1.8 million the University of Utah student doesn’t have.

The downpayment is due on January 9th, a mere $45,000, and on the advice of the legal team working to protect him and keep him out of jail, DeChristopher is trying to raise the money. So far, he’s got $18,000 in hand, and a campaign that’s gaining steam.

Below is DeChristopher’s appeal letter, and the link for making a contribution is here.

(more…)

Utah public land hero appeals for help
Tue, 06 Jan 2009 14:37:20 GMT

Technorati Tags: global warming,activism

Vote for best science blog

I voted for RealClimate. Please do vote to counter the anti-science blogs ClimateAudit and Watts Up With That:

Best Science Blog

Polls close Tuesday January 13, 2009 at 5:00 p.m. (EST) / 2:00 p.m. (PST).

Technorati Tags: climate change,global warming

Bush leaves legacy of ocean protection

It's strange that Bush would go to such great lengths to protect ocean ecosystems, while at the same time assiduously dismantling environmental protections in the US. --Jim

Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers

WASHINGTON — President George W. Bush on Tuesday will create three new marine monuments in the Pacific Ocean to protect the deepest place on Earth, some of the last pristine corals and sanctuaries for vanishing marine species.

The three monuments — in the Mariana Islands in the western Pacific, the Rose Atoll off American Samoa and remote islands in the central Pacific — cover 195,280 square miles, the largest protected area of ocean.

Conservationists and the White House declared a new era for protection of unique and endangered places in the ocean, opportunities of scientific discovery and an important effort to protect some of the last places where the ocean still looks like the abundant world of centuries or even thousands of years past.

The Marianas Marine National Monument will protect the Mariana Trench, the deepest place on Earth — deeper than Mount Everest is high and explored for the first time only in 1960. The three monuments also protect corals and the ecosystems that include large migratory, resting and feeding sea birds, and endangered animals such as sea turtles.

"To me and the president and first lady, one of the things that really affected us in learning from the scientists is these locations are truly among the last pristine areas in marine environments on Earth," White House Council on Environmental Quality chairman James Connaughton told reporters Monday. "This is a huge day for marine conservation."

Bush leaves legacy of ocean protection

Technorati Tags: ocean,conservation

U.S. forest policy is set to change, aiding developer

Shift Would Let Firm Pave Logging Roads

By Karl Vick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 4, 2009; Page A02

LOS ANGELES -- The Bush administration appears poised to push through a change in U.S. Forest Service agreements that would make it far easier for mountain forests to be converted to housing subdivisions.

Mark E. Rey, the former timber lobbyist who heads the Forest Service, last week signaled his intent to formalize the controversial change before the Jan. 20 inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama. As a candidate, Obama campaigned against the measure in Montana, where local governments have complained of being blindsided by Rey's negotiating the policy shift behind closed doors with the nation's largest private landowner.

The shift is technical but has large implications. It would allow Plum Creek Timber to pave roads through Forest Service land. For decades, such roads were little more than trails used by logging trucks to reach timber stands.

But as Plum Creek has moved into the real estate business, paving those roads became a necessary prelude to opening vast tracts of the company's 8 million acres to the vacation homes that are transforming landscapes across the West.

U.S. Forest Policy Is Set to Change, Aiding Developer

Technorati Tags: deforestation,Bush,corruption

Organic weed control: Scientists serve up mustard meal to tame weeds

ScienceDaily (Jan. 4, 2009) — Sinalbin, the same compound that gives white mustard its pungent flavor, could also prove useful in fighting weeds. Agricultural Research Service (ARS) studies suggest sinalbin and other compounds released into soil by applications of white mustard seed meals can kill or suppress certain weedy grasses and annual broadleaf weeds.

Agronomist Rick Boydston, with the ARS Vegetable and Forage Crops Research Unit in Prosser, Wash., is conducting the studies with plant physiologist Steven Vaughn, at the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill. They evaluated the effects of three mustard seed application rates: half a ton, one ton and two tons per acre. Of the three, the one-ton and two-ton rates worked best in peppermint, reducing barnyard grass, green foxtail, common lambsquarters, henbit and redroot pigweed populations by 90 percent several weeks after application.

...

The research aim is three-fold: provide organic farmers with an alternative to hand-pulling, burning and other laborious methods of weed control in specialty crops including peppermint and potted ornamentals; develop value-added uses for seed meal, should mustards prove useful in making biodiesel; and diminish environmental risks possibly resulting from conventional herbicide use.

Organic Weed Control: Scientists Serve Up Mustard Meal To Tame Weeds
Sun, 04 Jan 2009 19:00:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: herbicide,organic farming,permaculture

Ocean wind power maps

Maps show potential areas where winds might produce energy.

Efforts to harness the energy potential of Earth's ocean winds could soon gain an important new tool: global satellite maps from NASA. Scientists have been creating maps using nearly a decade of data from NASA's QuikScat satellite that reveal ocean areas where winds could produce energy.

The new maps have many potential uses including planning the location of offshore wind farms to convert wind energy into electric energy. The research, published this week in Geophysical Research Letters, was funded by NASA's Earth Science Division, which works to advance the frontiers of scientific discovery about Earth, its climate and its future.

"Wind energy is environmentally friendly. After the initial energy investment to build and install wind turbines, you don't burn fossil fuels that emit carbon," said study lead author Tim Liu, a senior research scientist and QuikScat science team leader at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. "Like solar power, wind energy is green energy."

QuikScat, launched in 1999, tracks the speed, direction and power of winds near the ocean surface. Data from QuikScat, collected continuously by a specialized microwave radar instrument named SeaWinds, also are used to predict storms and enhance the accuracy of weather forecasts.

Ocean Wind Power Maps

Technorati Tags: wind power,renewable energy,NASA

One gigawatt solar power plant planned for northwest China

(Reuters) - Two Chinese companies on Friday announced plans to build a solar power plant in northwestern China that could one day be the largest photovoltaic solar project in the world.

The news helped spur a rally in shares of solar power companies that was also underpinned by higher oil prices and a strong rise the broader market.

China Technology Development Group Corp and privately held Qinghai New Energy Group will begin building a 30 megawatt solar power station in China's Qaidam Basin this year with an initial investment of $150 million, they said in a joint statement.

The project, which will combine thin-film and traditional silicon-based technologies that turn the sun's rays into electricity, ultimately will produce 1 gigawatt of power, the companies said, without giving a timeframe.

Big solar power plant planned for northwest China

Technorati Tags: solar power,photovoltaic,renewable energy,China

Did a comet hit Earth 12,000 years ago?

Nanodiamonds found across North America suggest that major climate change could have been cosmically instigated

By David Biello

Roughly 12,900 years ago, massive global cooling kicked in abruptly, along with the end of the line for some 35 different mammal species, including the mammoth, as well as the so-called Clovis culture of prehistoric North Americans. Various theories have been proposed for the die-off, ranging from abrupt climate change to overhunting once humans were let loose on the wilds of North America. But now nanodiamonds found in the sediments from this time period point to an alternative: a massive explosion or explosions by a fragmentary comet, similar to but even larger than the Tunguska event of 1908 in Siberia.

Sediments from six sites across North America—Murray Springs, Ariz.; Bull Creek, Okla.; Gainey, Mich.; Topper, S.C.; Lake Hind, Manitoba; and Chobot, Alberta—yielded such teensy diamonds, which only occur in sediment exposed to extreme temperatures and pressures, such as those from an explosion or impact, according to new research published today in Science.

The discovery lends support to a theory first advanced last year in that some type of cosmic impact or impacts—a fragmented comet bursting in the atmosphere or raining down on the oceans—set off the more than 1,300-year cooling period in the Northern Hemisphere known as the Younger Dryas for the abundance of an alpine flower's pollen found during the interval.

The cooling period interrupted an extended warming out of an ice age predicted by slight changes in Earth's orbit (known as Milankovitch cycles) that continues today. And it remains an unexplained anomaly in the climate record.
But a series of cometary fragments exploding over North America might explain a layer of soil immediately prior to the cooling containing unusually high levels of iridium—an element more common in cosmic wanderers like meteoroids than in Earth's crust. Paired with the fact that this layer occurs directly before the extinction of at least 35 genera of large mammals, including mammoths, it is strong circumstantial evidence for a cosmic event.

Did a Comet Hit Earth 12,000 Years Ago?

Technorati Tags: climate change

Slowing global warming with Antarctic iron

By Gerald Traufetter

Recent research shows that melting icebergs in the ocean around Antarctica may actually slow global warming. The iron particles they carry feed algae blooms that suck up CO2. Could man-made algae blooms in the frigid waters help combat climate change?

The catch was cold and lifeless, there wasn't a single fish flopping in the net. When the haul came to rest on the deck of the HMS Endurance in southern Atlantic off the coast of Antarctica, the only sound was a dull creak.

Then polar researchers picked up sledgehammers and set to work on their catch, a block of ice measuring more than 10 meters (33 feet) long. They chipped away at the ice until they had reached deep enough into its interior, and there they made an exciting discovery.

Under a scanning electron microscope, tiny iron particles became visible. "These particles measure only a fraction of a millimeter," team leader Rob Raiswell explains, "but they have great importance for the global climate."

...

"This is the first time we've been able to prove the presence of trace elements in icebergs," Raiswell explains. With their discovery off the coast of the Antarctic Peninsula, the scientists revealed a powerful mechanism that has been operating under the waves for millions of years: icebergs fertilize the ocean around the South Pole with microscopic particles containing iron. Algae are then able to bloom, and they in turn absorb the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide from the Earth's atmosphere via photosynthesis. Some of the algae then sinks to the ocean floor.

Slowing Global Warming with Antarctic Iron

Technorati Tags: carbon sequestration,iron fertilization,algae

Climate change policies failing, NASA scientist warns Obama

Award-winning researcher James Hansen says new president's rhetoric must be backed by action

James Randerson, science correspondent guardian.co.uk, Thursday 1 January 2009 15.23 GMT

Current approaches to deal with climate change are ineffectual, one of the world's top climate scientists said today in a personal new year appeal to Barack Obama and his wife Michelle on the urgent need to tackle global warming.

With less than three weeks to go until Obama's inauguration, Prof James Hansen, head of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, asked the recently appointed White House science adviser Prof John Holdren to pass the missive directly to the president-elect.

Obama spoke repeatedly during his campaign about the need to tackle climate change, and environmentalists fervently hope he will live up to his promises to pursue green policies.

The letter, from Hansen and his wife Anniek, is a personal plea to the first couple. It begins: "We write to you as fellow parents concerned about the Earth that will be inherited by our children, grandchildren, and those yet to be born … Jim has advised governments previously through regular channels. But urgency now dictates a personal appeal."

Climate change policies failing, Nasa scientist warns Obama

Technorati Tags: global warming,NASA,Obama

Conflict zone Mountain Gorillas viewed by rangers for first time in more than a year

Eastern DRC – Mountain gorillas in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) have been seen by park rangers for the first time since the rangers were forced out of areas of Virunga National Park by Laurent Nkunda’s army 15 months ago. Virunga National Park director, Emmanuel de Merode, successfully negotiated with Nkunda and got confirmation that Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) would be allowed to reenter and work in the southern part of the park.

Virunga National Park director, Emmanuel de Merode, successfully negotiated with Nkunda and got confirmation that Institut Congolais pour la Conservation de la Nature (ICCN) would be allowed to reenter and work in the southern part of the park.

ICCN, the government institution in charge of protected areas management, park rangers and their families were forced out of the park when rebel leader Nkunda and his army took control of several parts of the park including the areas where mountain gorillas are found in September 2007. Since that time, no one outside of Nkunda’s army has been allowed to monitor the gorillas.

“We were very worried about the mountain gorillas as we had not any contact with them for over a year but ICCN rangers have already seen many of the mountain gorilla families and we are happy to report that most of them seem to be doing well,” said de Merode. “We are continuing our census of the gorillas and are reinstating our antipoaching operations.”

Conflict zone Mountain Gorillas viewed by rangers for first time in more than a year
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 14:51:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: gorilla,extinction,poaching

Shade-grown coffee benefits more than birds

ScienceDaily (Dec. 31, 2008) — Here's one more reason to say "shade grown, please" when you order your morning cup of coffee. Shade coffee farms, which grow coffee under a canopy of multiple tree species, not only harbor native birds, bats and other beneficial creatures, but also maintain genetic diversity of native tree species and can act as focal points for tropical forest regeneration.

The finding comes from a study published by University of Michigan researchers Shalene Jha and Christopher Dick in the Dec. 23 issue of the journal Current Biology.

Jha, a graduate student whose main interest is insects, initially wanted to find out whether shade coffee farms nurture native pollinators such as stingless bees. When she began her fieldwork in Chiapas, Mexico, she focused on a particular tree, Miconia affinis, which is pollinated by an unusual method known as buzz pollination. In order to release pollen from its flowers, bees grab hold and vibrate their flight muscles, shaking the pollen free. Non-native species such as Africanized honeybees don't perform buzz pollination, but native bees do, said Jha, "so I thought Miconia, which requires buzz pollination and is common both in forests and on coffee farms, could be a bio-indicator of how well native bees are pollinating native plants."

Shade Coffee Benefits More Than Birds
Thu, 01 Jan 2009 01:00:00 GMT

Technorati Tags: biodiversity,permaculture

Revealed: The cement that eats carbon dioxide

Alok Jha, green technology correspondent
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 31 December 2008 14.59 GMT

Cement, a vast source of planet-warming carbon dioxide, could be transformed into a means of stripping the greenhouse gas from the atmosphere, thanks to an innovation from British engineers.

The new environmentally formulation means the cement industry could change from being a "significant emitter to a significant absorber of CO2," says Nikolaos Vlasopoulos, chief scientist at London-based Novacem, whose invention has garnered support and funding from industry and environmentalists.

The new cement, which uses a different raw material, certainly has a vast potential market. Making the 2bn tonnes of cement used globally every year pumps out 5% of the world's CO2 emissions - more than the entire aviation industry. And the long-term trends are upwards: a recent report by the French bank Credit Agricole estimated that, by 2020, demand for cement will increase by 50% compared to today.

Making traditional cement results in greenhouse gas emissions from two sources: it requires intense heat, and so a lot of energy to heat up the ovens that cook the raw material, such as limestone. That then releases further CO2 as it burns. But, until now, noone has found a large-scale way to tackle this fundamental problem.

Novacem's cement, based on magnesium silicates, not only requires much less heating, it also absorbs large amounts of CO2 as it hardens, making it carbon negative. Set up by Vlasopoulos and his colleagues at Imperial College London, Novacem has already attracted the attention of major construction companies such as Rio Tinto Minerals, WSP Group and Laing O'Rourke, and investors including the Carbon Trust.

Revealed: The cement that eats carbon dioxide

Technorati Tags: carbon sequestration