Ed Ring

In the aftermath of the defeat of Proposition 7, the ambitious citizen's initiative that would have required California's utilities to deliver 50% renewable electricity by 2030, where is the golden state in terms of increasing its production of renewable electricity, and what factors are likely to help or hinder implementation of large scale electricity projects in California? Prior to the election on November 4th, California's 2002 renewable portfolio standard (RPS) called for 20% renewables by 2010 - a tough challenge at this point since in 2007 California was only up to 12.7% renewable electricity (ref. CPUC). Immediately following Prop. 7's defeat, California Governor Schwarzenegger...

A recent comment on our report entitled "Ford Delivers Electric Vehicles" (written in April 2001 when USPS tried out a fleet of 400 EVs) has called our attention once again to EEStor (site under construction), the stuff of legends, the company developing an ultracapacitor to supply partners such as ZENN Motor Company, among others. According to Wikipedia's entry on EEStor, EEStor's capacitor may achieve an energy density as high as 700 watt-hours per kilogram. By comparison, the lithium ion battery only attains an energy density as high as 150 watt-hours per kilogram. This is making up a lot of ground. For example, a lead acid battery has an energy density of about 40 watt-hours per kilogram, but a good off-the-shelf conventional capacitor only has an energy...

Our latest interactive spreadsheet "Cost to Mitigate CO2" is an attempt to present the financial implications of precipitously moving to a fossil fuel free world. We have provided only three variables - how many parts per million of increased atmospheric CO2 correspond to one degree centigrade higher global average temperature, how many gigatons of CO2 emissions correspond to a one ppm greater concentration of atmospheric CO2, and how much it costs (US$) to avoid emitting one ton of CO2. Our default assumptions are probably the best case, that is, the least expensive case. We assume that 15 gigatons of CO2 emissions will increase atmospheric CO2 by 1.0 part per million, that for every 50 parts per...

One of the keys to achieving the next step in commercializing renewable transportation fuels is to have a refining technology that can utilize a variety of biomass feedstocks. In the case of cellulosic ethanol, there are a lot of competing technologies out there, but not very many that can operate using virtually any cellulosic feedstock. Coskata is an Illinois startup whose technology appears to have this flexibility. Coskata recently closed a $40 million private equity financing as reported earlier this month by Private Equity Hub in their report "Blackstone Backs Cellulosic Ethanol Startup Coskata." According to Coskata's Chief Marketing Officer, Wes Bolsen, "what this round does is get us through construction of our commercial...

Absent a rigorous examination of statistics, meaningful dialogue about environmental issues is impossible. This is particularly challenging now that environmentalism is generally recognized to be inextricably linked not only with the endlessly complex science of ecology, but with the dismal science of economics as well. To try to quantify the rational basis for a legitimate ideology of environmentalism is not easy. One way to productively further the dialogue of rational environmentalism is to publish online interactive spreadsheets of hopefully instructive simplicity, quantitatively presenting options in terms of costs and benefits for environmental issues management. To this end, we...

The essense of New Suburbanism is to support a clean, but wider human footprint - which is anathema to much of conventional environmentalist wisdom.  In many parts of the world, such as within the state of California, there is abundant open space. California, especially within its vast interior, has hundreds upon thousands of virtually vacant square miles of rolling foothills, rangeland, forests, farms and fields. The Golden State is a whopping 158,000 square miles in size, with only 36 million people, most of them already crammed quite amicably within reasonably dense urban areas. California will always have plenty of available land, and the mantra that the personal residences of...

The fate of GM, Chrysler and Ford hang in the balance, with widely varying sentiments regarding what can be done, if anything. Both a bailout or a bankruptcy present a set of opportunities as well as negative consequences. If a bailout were structured to include in its terms some of the restructuring benefits that otherwise could only be realized through bankruptcy, however, it would be the preferred option. Indeed, a federal bailout that facilitated fundamental cost cuts for the automakers might set a useful precedent for restructuring other large U.S. institutions that have overpaid workforces and inefficient operations, such as most of our state and local governments. Using General...

Earlier this month heralded the formal launch of "Carbon Information Management" (CIM) software from Planet Metrics, a Northern California based company that has been brewing this "web-based, multi-dimensional software that helps organizations to create and deploy innovative sustainability strategies" since early 2007. Unlike Environmental Health and Sustainability (EH&S) software, such as the enterprise wide solutions offered by market leaders in that space such as ESS, CIM software focuses on helping enterprises assess the total carbon footprint of their products and processes. As such, CIM offers an important analytical tool to help companies move towards clean and sustainable operations that...

Earlier this year, on October 27th, Ausra commissioned their first solar thermal pilot plant, a 5.0 megawatt facility located in Kimberlina, just north of Bakersfield, California. It is the first solar thermal power facility to be commissioned in California in over 20 years - significantly, the approximately 350 megawatts of solar thermal power installed back in the 1980's are all still operating. There are three basic types of utility scale solar thermal power, all of which have strengths and weaknesses and all of which currently compete to become the most cost effective version. Bright Source Energy has been working on an improved "power tower" design, where a field of two-axis tracking mirrors (which can be...

It is difficult to overstate the pride and the hope that accompanies the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States. As America's leader, he brings youth, intellect, optimism and empathy to the world stage; he represents many of America's greatest virtues; ability to change, desire to improve, belief in progress, compassion for everyone. Barack Obama is the latest wonderful surprise America has delivered to the world; he is American exceptionalism incarnate. The City on the Hill celebrates today, as a new page in history is turned. Obama's victory showed the world the good character of the American people. With a Democratic Congress, and an enthusiastic following...