Ed Ring

This evening Former Vice President and Nobel Laureate Al Gore delivered a keynote speech on the subject of innovation at the Fairmont San Jose.  The occasion was the annual meeting of the $28 billion CPA firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu where about 300 of the most senior partners gather together from all over the world for a few days.  There were no cameras or recording devices permitted, but I had the privilege of attending along with a few other select clients and friends. EcoWorld's position on climate change has been consistent for several years, and it didn't change tonight:  (1)  If humans are causing climate change, it is from a variety of factors - in general, the role of anthropogenic CO2 is being overemphasized and the role of tropical deforestation is being underemphasized, (2)  Even if the rise in atmospheric CO2 is due to burning fossil fuel, by the IPCC's own...

Few would dispute the benefits unions have brought to society, especially through about the middle of the last century.  But the inspirational work of leaders from Mary Harris Jones to Cesar Chavez is used to obscure the reality in the 21st century - that in most states in America, unions in the public sector now exercise nearly absolute control over elections, politicians, and policy, and this is happening at all levels; state, county and municipal. Cesar Chavez A great and courageous American. (Photo:  Wikipedia) In California, the reality of union control over state politics became obvious during Governor Schwarzenegger's 2005 "year of reform."  After fruitless...

What if a wind turbine didn't have a gearbox and electric generator in the nacelle, but instead a highly efficient air pump that sent compressed air down a pipe and into a storage network?  That is the vision of General Compression, a privately held Massachussetts company that raised $8.1 million from 70 investors in April 2007. When you consider the likelyhood of implementing utility scale electricity storage, the primary need would arise if wind power begins to take on a significant share of total electricity generating.  When weather changes across an entire region that has huge wind generating capacity, it is possible several gigawatts of power can suddenly surge onto the grid.  Currently this is handled quite effectively by grid management systems shutting down fossil fuel generating plants or deactivating hydroelectric turbines - so the need for massive storage solutions may be overstated.  Denmark, for example, gets...

It's always nice to know along with extremely high worker productivity and a very hard working people, America's heavy industry is still able to deliver manufactured goods that compete and are sold on the global market.  What better combination of brawn and brains than a modern green locomotive, and in Erie, Pennsylvania, that is exactly what is flying out of the factory and into the world. General Electric has recently delivered their 1,000th production line "Evolution" series locomotive, an ultra-modern 4,500 horsepower unit that sets high standards for efficiency and emissions reductions.  Overall the Evolution locomotive has 40% lower emissions compared to earlier...

A company that is quietly competing to possibly become the biggest manufacturer of thin film photovoltaics on earth is Optisolar, headquartered in Hayward, California.  Optisolar already has a manufacturing plant at their Hayward headquarters, and has just signed a lease to construct a 600,000 square foot manufacturing plant in Sacramento, California.  (ref. Sacramento Housing & Redevelopment Agency Press Release of March 25, 2008, "Agency Welcomes Optisolar")  According to Optisolar's EVP Phil Rettger, "we have signed a long term lease for the facility, and construction is going on now to support manufacturing lines later this year." Along with developing manufacturing lines, Optisolar is developing and plans to operate solar farms, taking the unusual step of being one company performing two very distinct functions.  As solar farm developers, they have been active in Ontario, with over 200 megawatts...

While we appear tantalizingly close to having all-electric and extended range electric vehicles (EREVs) on the road very, very soon, thanks to advances in lithium ion batteries, how close are we to having utility scale electrical storage?  Since the storage capacity of EV batteries range from 10+ kWh (for EREVs) to 50+ kWh for all electric EVs, clearly there is significant opportunities for EV owners to use their cars as micro-utilities, buying power during off-peak and selling power during peak.  In aggregate, along with providing utility scale electrical storage, EVs may eventually eliminate peaks - charging and discharging intelligently and autonomously to smooth demand through daily and weekly cycles - saving their owners money and absorbing all the sudden wind energy the weather has to offer.  A helpful place to get up to speed on utility scale electricity storage is...

There are several reasons to question the inordinate emphasis on anthropogenic CO2 that continues to grip media, political and corporate elites.  Initially we were concerned because the pronouncements we were hearing in the media were almost always gross overstatements of reality.  Such observations lead us to publish debunking posts such as Antarctic Ice, Greenland's Ice Cap, Greenland's Ice Melting Slowly, Dams & Greenhouse Gas, Inconvenient Questions, Hottest Year, 1934, Arctic Cooling on Schedule, Global Warming Questions, Antarctica's Ice Mass, and more. Another concern we had early on was regarding the way "deniers" were being treated.  Apparently something as complex and chaotic as the global climate system is now operating in a predictive manner according to recently constructed and constantly updated computer models, and believing this is now a "moral...

Back in April 2005 we published the feature "Mangroves Stop Tsunami," which explained that much of the devastation from the tsunami that struck South East Asia in December 2004 could have been avoided if the mangrove forests hadn't been ripped out to make room for aquaculture and timber.  After the devastating cyclone hit Myanmar earlier this month, there was plenty of talk regarding the possible causes, but not much recognition of the role mangrove forests could have played in preventing much of the destruction. One exception to this was the Hong Kong edition of the Wall Street Journal, where in a May 9th report entitled "Forest Clearing May Have Worsened Toll," author Jane Spencer provided some facts...

Solar thermal power is considered an important step towards developing large scale sources of clean electricity, but within this sector there are some very distinct applications of the technology.  Bright Source Energy, with offices in Oakland, California, and Tel Aviv, Israel, is building next generation "power tower" solar thermal power plants. The power tower. (Photo: Bright Source Energy) The stated advantages of power tower technology seem to make a lot of sense.  The solar field of mirrors require no plumbing going to each mirror, containing a thermal transfer fluid, because the two-axis tracking mirrors point to a central boiler.  This saves considerable expense to install...

Back in January 2007 we posted "New Environmentalism," one of several attempts we've made to redefine environmentalism, that particular one inspired by comments from Robert Metcalf, a partner at Polaris Ventures in Boston.  Metcalf's comments were part of a keynote address he delivered at the Massachusetts Energy Summit entitled "Framing the First Massachusetts Energy Summit."  We liked Metcalf's take on free enterprise and private sector solutions to environmental and energy challenges, his support for creative innovations, and his unwillingness to accept every precept of the traditional environmentalist's conventional wisdom. Bob Metcalf "Every day a fusion reactor flies across the sky, taunting scientists who can't replicate that on earth." Metcalf is...