November 26th, 2009

India goes to Copenhagen

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 10:43 am

Categories: Blogroll, India, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, fossil fuel, global warming, law & politics

Tags: emissions, greenhouse gases, Copenhagen

As the world’s fourth largest producer of CO2 emissions, India is crucial to any possible agreement in Copenhagen next month. Here’s a look at how that nation’s leaders see the international emissions debate.

India has positioned itself as spokesnation for many underdeveloped nations: the rich guys should pay first and pay most. Don’t hold back India because you’ve been driving cars and burning tons of coal for decades. We in India have a right to our share of the economic pie.

This argument will be parroted in the U.S.Congress by those working to stop any energy and emission regulation law. See, they can say, if we clamp down on our pollutilon it will just give India another economic advantage in competing with our corporations and leach out even more U.S. jobs. Once the media have forgotten about the medical insurance issue, jobs and the lack of jobs in the U.S. will become the national obsession. So job-related arguments will be paramount for most of 2010, an election year as well.

November 15th, 2009

Geoengineering warning to Congress

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 8:08 am

Categories: Blogroll, India, air pollution, climate change, energy, engineering, environmental health, green tech, ocean, research

Tags: Atmosphere, Carbon Dioxide, U.S. Congress, Harry Fuller

A British scientist recently warned some American Congressmen: geoengineering schemes are not a magic bullet. Furthermore, there’s no guarantee any human effort can reverse global warming.

The testimony also covered issues of how to calculate and then govern any major geoengineering experiments. Various schemes have been suggested for either CO2 removal from the lower atmosphere, or reducing the amount of solar radiation hitting the earth or its atmosphere.

The first semi-large geoengineering experiment did not go as hoped with nature reacting in an unforeseen way to seeding the South Atlantic with iron to increase plankton to increase CO2 capture. That Greman-Indian joint project was named Lohafex. Natural predators, shrimp, came in and devoured much of the extra plankton, their usual food source.

November 10th, 2009

IBM figures rail transit is going to get faster and cleaner

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 2:11 pm

Categories: Africa, Blogroll, China, India, Latin America, Russia, air pollution, cars & traffic, conservation, energy, engineering, environmental health, federal government, green tech, law & politics, renewable energy, research

Tags: Harry Fuller

I recently spoke with IBM’s Ken Donnelly, the company’s world-wide industry leader for transportation. IBM is busily working with major rail systems all over the globe: China, India, Taiwan, South Africa, Brazil, even in the U.S. IBM’s smart transit services are suited for metro area rail lines and bus lines as well. IBM’s system offers asset management, real-time monitoring of conditions of trains, signals and rails.

It’s exciting to hear about the state-of-engineering rail lines. Taiwan’s new end-to-end system transects the island on a north/south axis. It can travel at 300 KM per hour. With thirty minutes for stops the train goes end to end in Taiwan in 90 minutes. And their on time record: over 99%.

What’s on-time in Taiwanese? Here in the willy-nilly world of U.S. rail a train within two or even three minutes of its scheduled time is considered “on time.” However, in Taiwan the leeway is exactly six SECONDS.
Taiwan high speed train. Courtesy IBM.

The IBM management system used on the Taiwan high-speed rail system monitors the cars, the rails, the signal system and measures the crucial vibration effects along the route. Taiwan, like California, is prone to earthquakes which can threaten rail system safety.

Speaking of California, it is estimated a north-south high speed rail system there will cost over $50 billion. The current stimulus plan has eight billion to spread around the U.S. Meanwhile, the Chinese government is going to spend a quarter of a trillion dollars on their high speed rail system. Donnelly says the technology for high speed rail now exists, and like the highway system the U.S. began building in the 1950s, high speed rail will bring great economic rewards if it is built.

Most large nations are investing heavily in rail services. Russia. India. In Brazil they’re preparing for the summer Olympics in 2016. They hope to have a high speed rail service connecting Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro when the Olympics come to town. Earlier I blogged about the new consortium doing rail research and planning, in a center based in China.

All the new technology of high-speed rail is electric-powered, said Donnelly. In many areas railroads run their own power-generation plants and electricity is carried on overhead lines or ground-level third rails. The trains, rails, bridges, signals are all metered and data is constantly fed into the IBM management system that then sechedules maintenance and replacement, measures wear on parts, watches for failures of equipment and manages the necessary invrestory of new parts. Donnelly said the efficiency of rail systems is crucial if they are going to attract and maintain heavy daily use or replace air travel for medium distance travel. In Taiwan you can go 300 KM in 90 minutes, faster than you can get checked onto an airplane in most airports. At that level of service, you take the train and avoid the plane. Trains are far more fuel-efficient than trucks, cars, planes.

November 6th, 2009

Pre-Copenhagen climate talks end in Barcelona

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 2:12 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, India, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, global warming, law & politics, renewable energy

Tags: Climate Change, Global Warming, Harry Fuller, Copenhagen talks, Australia, Kevin Rudd

The talking is done. But not much else was done. “Stalemate” says an Indian pub. “Rich-poor stalemate” says a Britich paper.

On a pact to end deforestation in developing nations: “toothless” says Reuters.

And a pro-action Prime Minister in Australia vented his frustration on global warming inaction. He directly attacked global warming deniers as protectors of vested interests.

“They are a minority. They are powerful. And invariably they are driven by vested interests. Powerful enough to so far block domestic legislation in Australia, powerful enough to so far slow down the passage of legislation through the Congress of the United States. And ultimately, by limiting the ambition of national climate change commitments, they are powerful enough to threaten a deal on global climate change both in Copenhagen and beyond.”

Those are the words of Aussie PM, Kevin Rudd. Now who could he have been talking about?

November 5th, 2009

X-Prize competition for ultra-efficient car speeds ahead

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 12:02 pm

Categories: India, air pollution, building, cars & traffic, conservation, energy, engineering, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, green tech, law & politics, petroleum, renewable energy, research

Tags: West Philly, Tata, ZAP, Delta Motorsport, X-Prize, fuel efficiency

Ten million dollars will go to the team that has designed, builds and runs the best car with a minimum of 100 MPG rating. The X-prize folks have now narrowed the field to 53 designs submitted from across the globe. Among those making the cut: Tata Motors of India and engineering students at Cornell University. Of the car designs moving forward: 28 are in the Mainstream Class and 25 in the Alternative Class.

Here you can find a list of the teams in the final competition. American universities are Cornell and Western Washington. There is also one public high entered: West Philly. Read about them here.

The only car makers I recognize on the list: Tata and ZAP. Tesla did not make the cut. Ooops. None of the big guys dare put their engineering to this test. Honda, Mercedes, GM, Toyota–nope.

One team is entering a Toyota chasis. They promise a “steam combustion” engine in a Prius! The two areas of concentration seem to be: highly efficient energy use, of course, and then very light materials in the vehicle itself.

Britain’s Delta Motorsport is building an electric car with a small hydrogen fuel celland small back-up internalcombustion engine.
Delta Motorsport’s X-Prize entry.

The X-Prize Foundation recently got $5.5 billion from the federal government for this clean car competition.
“Our clean energy future depends on our ability to design and commercialize new highly-efficient vehicles that are cost-effective for consumers and use significantly less energy,” said Energy Secretary Steven Chu. “This funding will support cutting-edge, American innovation that can help us fundamentally transform personal transportation and address the global climate crisis.”

Here’s what the X-Prize folks have to say about their own mission: “The X PRIZE Foundation is an educational nonprofit prize institute whose mission is to create radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity. In 2004, the Foundation captured world headlines when Burt Rutan, backed by Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, built and flew the world’s first private vehicle to space to win the $10 million Ansari X PRIZE.”

For the fifty-three competing vehicles performance testing will begin in spring 2010 and winners will be announced in September 2010. Exact dates and locations will be announced shortly. This could be fun to watch.

October 29th, 2009

Indian cement company buys American solar technology

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 3:19 pm

Categories: Blogroll, India, building, conservation, energy, engineering, environmental health, green tech, renewable energy

Tags: Cement, Telecom & Utilities, Harry Fuller, Infinia, Dalmai, cement, solar heat, Stirling engines

Dalmai Cement, one of India’s largest, is going to use American technology to harness solar power for a new cement plant. Making cement is an energy-intensive business. In the U.S. over 10% of all our energy goes into making building supplies like cement, glass, steel and roofing.

The technology is being supplied by Infinia, which I blogged about recently. Dalmai is also buying the necessary engines from Stirling Energy Systems which makes engines that turn heat into mechanical energy and thence into electricity.

October 25th, 2009

Copenhagen countdown

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 2:21 pm

Categories: Africa, Blogroll, China, India, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, law & politics

Tags: Nation, Copenhagen, Leadership, Food & Beverage, Management, Manufacturing, Harry Fuller

Will he or won’t he? To go, or not to go? That is the question.

Some MSM outlets say Obama will skip Copenhagen. Yet political leaders in the U.S. and abroad are urging him to attend.

The international climate change conference flies into Copehagen in December, trailing clouds of CO2 behind each jet. And the speculation and political bloviation over whether President Obama will attend is sure to reach atmospheric heights unless he makes a public announcement of his intentions.

Meanwhile, President Obama continues to push for an energy bill from Congress, and even talked to MIT students and faculty about how they can help with clean energy innovation and research. Bet they already know that.

Whether or not the American President is at the Copenhagen talks is more symbolic than substantive. His presence did not get Chicago the Olympics they wanted so why would we imagine he can wrestle over 170 nations into some global warming concensus?

President Obama is to go to Oslo, Norway, to accept his Nobel Peace Prize. That’s set to happen while the climate change conference is going on. Oslo’s a very short plane ride from Copenhagen. It is also a guaranteed international platform where he could talk about global warming without going to nearby Denmark.

COPENHAGEN: THE STAKES

Some African nations see their future at stake. Many nations there already have widespread poverty, drought, starvation. The three poorest nations on earth are in tropical Africa. Some analysts warn African nations they have to walk away from the next international agreement if it limits how they are can grow food or their economy.

Both China and India have been signalling they are ready for global action on global warming. But they also take the long-beloved stance that they want no legally binding mandates. They get the “you-can’t-tell-us-what-to-do” position from the longstanding American policy that this nation is above international law, period. India did ratify the Kyoto Protocol, China and the U.S. did not. That expires in 2012. The lead U.N. negotiator on climate change has now admitted there’ll be no agreement reached in Copenhagen. Perhaps a framework? An understanding? A promise to meet again? A statement of intention? An option on future talks? Maybe they need some political deriatives that look good and have no value. That’s worked great for Wall Street.
India is asking for widespread sharing of clean technology.

September 30th, 2009

Cleantech draws more investments in Q3

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 5:39 pm

Categories: Blogroll, China, Europe, India, biofuel, cars & traffic, energy, engineering, federal government, green tech, law & politics, mass transit, renewable energy, solar, venture capital

Tags: Clean Technology, Cleantech Group, Investment, Finance, Harry Fuller

Investment globally were again for the cleantech sector, markking further rebound from the beginning of this year which began glumly. Cleantech Group says total Q3 investments were nearly $1.6 billion. Overall investments in cleantech were up 10% from Q2 but still lagging compared to Q3 in 2008, just before the big drop-off in Q4, 2008.
The leading sector: solar with a total prize of $451 million. That sector was led by money pouring into California-based thin film company Solyndra. It raised $198 million.
Ranking second in Q3 capital capture: Transportation (including Vehicles, Advanced Batteries, Biofuels) with $383 million. Electric carmaker Tesla, based also in California, was the sector leader with over $80 million raised. That does not include any of the money it got from government programs.
Cleantech focuses solely on private financing and investment, not government funding.
CLEANTECH GEOGRAPHY
The U.S. continues to dominate private investment in cleantech. Of course that mlo ey can quickly be dwarfed when a government like China or the U.S. starts throwing money arround. North America had two-thirds of the global cleantech investments, whle California had 60% of the U.S. total or 30% of ALL investments globally. Could it be that California’s greentech sector is on a role?
Europe and Israel got 29% of the total capital and China only 3%. Again, this does NOT count any of the money put into firms by the Chinese government which Has the most capital rich “fund” on earth right now. And they don’t have to support a military fighting two wars and manning bases in dozens of countries.

CLEANTECH IPOs
In the leading cleantech IPO of the quarter, and one of the most significant cleantech exits to date, A123Systems made its long awaited debut on the NASDAQ Global Market, in which the company raised $380 million at a company valuation of $1.3 billion (which rose to $1.9 billion by the close of day one trading). Other clean technology IPOs recorded in 3Q09 were wind farm developer Indian Energy, which began trading on London’s AIM, raising $16.2 million, and India-based Euro Multivision, which raised $13.5 million on the Bombay Stock Exchange for the company’s photovoltaic solar cell manufacturing unit.
At the end of trading in September, A123 (aone) was trading over $21 per shrae, having launched its IPO at $13.50. Clearly there is appetitie in the public market for greentech firms.

September 20th, 2009

U.S. still thumbing its nose at global warming agreements

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 5:49 pm

Categories: Blogroll, China, Europe, European Union, India, Kyoto Protocol, air pollution, cars & traffic, climate change, conservation, energy, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, global warming, law & politics

Tags: U.S., Agreement, Global Warming, Harry Fuller

Japan’s new prime minister is leaning toward putting greenhouse gas emission limits on his nation. This week he will tell the U.N. he wants a 25% reduction in emissions by 2020. The out-going Japanese regime had been less interested in taking action.
There’s no such move likely from the U.S. And that inaction almost insures there’ll be no effective pressure on India or China to curtail their emissions either.
European nations are eager to see more direct action on global warming, even pushing for madatory international emission limits. One British leader pointed out the “ambition gap” between Europe and the U.S.
A great stumbling block for American political leaders: there seem little chance there’ll be any action on energy and global warming in the U.S. Senate before the Copenhagen climate summit in December. A conference this week at the U.N. will produce only talk.
STANDARD BOILER PLATE
This verbiage will now be attached to any blog I do about global warming. It’s amazing to me that somebody who can apparently read and then post comments still wonders in public why global warming matters on a technology web site. But I am naive, always assuming everybody’s paying attention.
It’s because of money. If global warming has enough acceptance among corporations, the public and even pols, there will be more money spent on green tech, wisely or unwisely. If oil prices stay low and most people don’t care a fig about global warming, green tech will have a difficult time succeeding, regardless of its merits. Not every good idea succeeds. VCs usually invest where they think there’s best chance for a good return. In greentech as in any tech the winners will often be determined by luck, brilliance, timing, happenstance and even marketing. Behind it all will be the money and behind that: whether the evidence for global warming and curtailing pollution drive action or is written off as claptrap.

August 13th, 2009

Biodiesel's future

Posted by Harry Fuller @ 2:44 pm

Categories: Blogroll, Europe, European Union, India, Latin America, air pollution, biofuel, cars & traffic, climate change, conservation, energy, engineering, environmental health, federal government, fossil fuel, global warming, green tech, law & politics, petroleum, recycling, renewable energy, research

Tags: Biodiesel, Innovation Fuels, John Fox, Soy, Diesel, Harry Fuller

I recently spoke with Innovation Fuels CEO John Fox. His firm already makes biodiesel at plants in Milwaukee and New York Harbor. He says next year will see a growth in bodiesel production in the U.S. The 2010 federal requirement calls for all diesel oil–heating and vehicles–to have 2% biodiesel blended in. Innovation makes their biodiesel from animal fats and used vegetable oils. They do not use soy beans or other first generation food crops. Innovation and the biodiesel business in America got hurt when Europe began a five-year anti-American tariff on biodiesel. But Innovation still does export some biodiesel. It faces competition from Brazil, Indonesia, Argentina, India and other major farm producers.
Fox says Innovation will not use basic materials like soybeans which can also be used for food. Soy is the basic material for biodiesel currently used in Argentia and Brazil. That can lead to destruction of native forests to clear land for cash crops. In Europe rapeseed or canola is the basic source of much biodiesel produced there. France is the #1 biodiesel producer there.
Fox is encouraged by the “cash for clunkers” program which he expects to lead to more and more diesel-powered cars in America. Europe’s private vehicle fleet is already over half diesel-powered. Diesel is more efficient than gasoline and requires less engine maintenance. German diesel makers will soon face competition in the U.S. from Chrysler and Japanese firms. More diesel cars, more biodiesel.
Innovation is also working with the heating oil industry on introducing more biodiesel blends. The first state to require biodiesel in all home heating oil: Massachussetts. Fox expects that requirement to spread.
WHAT’S SO GREAT?
Biodiesel from waste materials is greener than that made from soy or other traditional raw products, says Fox. He says soy-based biodiesel only results in a 22% percent carbon emission reduction when you measure the process from planting to end product. With Innovation’s recycled products there is an 80% carbon reduction over the lifecycle of the oil. Fox sees something even better in the future.
PENNYCRESS
Pennycress with seed pods. Courtesy: Innovation Fuels.
Related to canola, Fox says the pennycress could be a great raw material. Pennycress holds out a promise of up to 90% carbon reduction compared to a gallon of diesel made from crude oil. The seeds are high in oil content, and on the same amount of land you can produce five times more oil with pennycress than with soybeans. Further, pennycress does not require prime food-production soil nor irrigation. In many areas you can grow two crops per year. Soybeans require much of our best American farmland: been to Iowa recently? Corn and soybeans. Soybeans: one crop per year in the U.S.
Innovation is currently working on pennycress growing and research with universities in New York State and Wisconsin.
WATCHING WASHINGTON
Fox pointed out that his fledgling industry is working to compete with the billions of dollars made in profit by the oil industry every year. They’ve had over a century to build their infrastructure, he says. So far Innovation has spent about ten million dollars. But rapid expansion of home-grown diesel will require considerable capital, he says. Private capital is very scarce these days, he added. There are $230 million dollars in stimulus money that could go for loan guarantees to biodiesel firms, says Fox. Loan guidelines have just been published. He’s hopeful.
If there is a federal energy bill passed into law, that could bring further fuel madates, more money and perhaps even more federal direct spending. Imagine those government limos running on biodiesel blend? Or tanks using biodiesel in military training.