The greening of America push-button style

Three items caught my attention in the last few days. The first was this story out of the Inland Empire that noted more home builders are touting green features such as energy efficiency, although traditional factors such as location and lot size still influence buyers more.

The second was this blog by K. Kaufmann of my old employer, The Desert Sun in Palm Springs, who correctly opined that creating nifty green technology is one thing, but persuading people to change their behavior enough to use it is entirely different. Hence the Green Button campaign, designed to forge a more personal connection with power bills.

The third was this GreenBiz.com post about businesses having trouble keeping up with the demand for green products.

It is apparent that a green tint is spreading, albeit unevenly. Businesses, universities, governments and more individuals are heeding the message of clean energy and efficiency. This blog links to statistics confirming the increasing awareness that stems from a desire to either save money or to do the right thing environmentally.

But the transformation won't occur overnight. The benefits of new lights, air conditioners and weatherization are tough to sell, especially when there is an upfront cost.

Solar energy advances at rocket speed

 

Politicians are fond of cliches, especially this one: "I didn't get that memo."

Memos are just one thing that politicians don't get, but it could be true in the case of solar energy. Technology has advanced so fast and so far that policy makers and even utilities have been left behind. Many experts are working off outdated information and don't realize renewable energy is now cost competitive in many circumstances, according to this report from Bloomberg New Energy.

"...awareness of the current economics of solar power lags among many commentators, policy makers, energy users and even utilities," the report stated.

Authors attributed the lag to rapidly dropping prices of solar panels, ambiguous metrics used in the solar industry and persistent dissemination of outdated data - "occasionally by those with an interest in clouding the discussion," they say.

The authors also take issue with traditional metrics and messaging, such as "grid parity," which is used to describe the point where the cost of renewable energy matches other more traditional power sources. But the method is so yesterday, according to the authors, because, in part, it often compares a "retail technology to a wholesale price."

Saving lives: The real power of renewable energy

Renewable energy can change lives in many parts of the world - places that aren't connected to the grid. It can power homes, help farmers become more productive and prevent death.

Solar, wind and other forms of clean energy enable parts of the non-electrified world to skip the grid the same way many Africans leapfrogged over landlines straight to cell phones (which in this case are being charged by solar power). It is costly to connect remote areas to the grid, and renewable energy can be a game changer.

This item talks about a big solar project in Tibet, where terrain is rugged and population centers are distant. In this story, the author talks about using solar power to bring water to an orphanage in Kenya. Kerosene pollutes and flashlights are often inadequate, so a California doctor working in Nigeria asked her husband to develop a "solar suitcase" that can be set up in a rural clinic. PBS has a story here.

Evolution or revolution? Clean energy movement is expanding

The Great Recession left the economy in shambles and turned lives upside down, but it forced more people to  cut spending and energy and, in some ways, was a good thing, according to a survey of more than 2,800 consumers and business people by Deloitte Center for Energy Solutions.

The 2012 survey revealed people and businesses are more aware of the cost-cutting potential of energy efficiency, that younger adults have strong appetites for clean technology and that businesses are setting more aggressive energy goals - in large part because their customers demand it.

"Customers care, so companies do too," the report states.

Authors noted that near two-thirds of businesses surveyed said their customers want more environmentally considerate solutions, up from 49 percent only a year ago. Meanwhile, more than 75 percent of those businesses actively promote their green campaigns.

The surveys found that businesses continue to invest in energy efficiency even as finding capital becomes more challenging, and as a majority of them acknowledge it is hard to track available financial and tax incentives. The companies are motivated by the strong cost savings and competitive edge associated with energy efficiency, but public good - "it's the right thing to do" - also is a catalyst.

Heat and time take toll on solar panel performance

Solar arrays at NREL.

The widely held belief of solar systems is that once the initial cost is paid off, the rest is gravy.

Or more specifically, that the power harvested from the sun is free for those who own their systems. And that's true.

However, there's an important detail to consider, especially if the cost of materials and labor are financed over a long period.

"Numerous studies have shown that degradation rates for silicon modules are typically less than 1 percent per year," says analysis from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colo.

That means power output diminishes minutely each year and could be significantly less for a system once the up-front costs are paid off after financing. That could mean a photovoltaic solar array produces 40 percent less power than the day it was installed once a 40-year loan is paid. A highly technical NREL study says declines could actually be less, ranging from .5 percent to .7 percent.

EPA honors highly efficient building designs

Efforts to save energy by designing more efficient buildings continue to gain steam.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently recognized about 100 commercial building design projects estimated to be nearly 40 percent more energy efficient than typical buildings. The agency made the announcement at the American Institute of Architects National Convention in Washington, D.C. The projects were submitted by 43 architecture firms and achieved Designed to Earn the Energy Star certification.

Projects that receive Designed to Earn the Energy Star certification are In total, the projects recognized at the convention are estimated to prevent nearly 175,000 metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions annually and save more than $23 million in annual energy costs across 10 million square feet of commercial space.

"These new building design projects are helping to save energy and money from the ground up for American families and businesses," says Gina McCarthy, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Air and Radiation, in a statement. She says they range from skyscrapers to rural elementary schools.

Energy efficiency: Some states perform better than others

The top states for encouraging energy efficiency are Massachusetts at No. 1 and California at No. 2, according to a clean energy research organization.

Both have strategies and programs in place to enhance the clean energy mix of their energy production and encourage a shift to cost-saving measures and clean energy. Their efforts have been followed, mimicked and analyzed many times.

But the bottom performers? Not so much.

"There is plenty of room for improvement," say Michael Sciortino, Rachel Young and Steven Nadel in "Opportunity Knocks: Examining Low-Ranking States in the State Energy Efficiency Scorecard." They work for the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy, a nonprofit research and policy analyst.

The worst 10 states in promoting energy efficiency in descending order, with the last being the worst, are: South Dakota, Alabama, Missouri, West Virginia, South Carolina, Oklahoma, Kansas, Mississippi, Wyoming and North Dakota. ACEEE ranks the states according to policies and programs that advance efficiencies in buildings, transportation and industry.

The best way to use California's carbon windfall

New studies show that using revenue from California's landmark carbon-trading system for energy efficiency and residential renewable energy programs would yield the biggest bang for the buck, and have the strongest chance of surviving a legal challenge.

Nonprofit group Next 10 commissioned studies to determine the best use of proceeds from the cap-and-trade program effective 2013. Most of the models end up generating new revenue for the state through economic growth and new jobs, with programs that improve residential lighting and make other energy-slashing upgrades generating the most. Here is a link to the report that sums up the findings.

University of California, Berkeley, and Resources for the Future examined ways state officials could spend money - the group used the sum of $100 million although the real figure could be higher - raised by the sale of emissions allowances to non-utililty entitites.
The teams modeled scenarios ranging from giving the money to taxpayers in the form of rebates to creating green lending programs to using it on portions of the high-speed rail project. A rebate program would be the most risky legally because it doesn't directly support the greenhouse gas reduction goals of AB 32, the researchers determined.

Energy-efficiency projects, however, could create many more jobs and pump more money into state coffers, depending upon the program. The strongest potential and least legal risk appear to be with programs that fund energy upgrades in lower to middle-income households.

Funding components of high speed rail with carbon-trading revenue would create fewer jobs and less money for the state. It also would be more risky legally, the analysts discovered.

Cows soak up solar power as farmers embrace renewables

The 250-mile  San Joaquin Valley is the nation's salad bowl.

Farmers in the eight counties from Lodi to the Grapevine produced almost $26 billion worth of food and fiber in 2010. Agriculture is big business - and consumes gobs of power.

Which is why farmers here are embracing renewable energy to help power their enterprises. Solar is the energy of choice, which makes sense in a region with my-shoes-are-melting-into-the-pavement summer temperatures. Solar arrays are being installed on rooftops, carports and other places throughout the Valley.

This dairy was the first in Kings County to get solar, but more dairies and feedlots will likely install alternative energy. This item notes that a Coachella company installed solar energy at a feedlot to provide energy and shade.

The San Joaquin Valley has about 1.8 million cows and 1,700 dairy farms, according to Neil Black, president of California Bioenergy who spoke at a recent California Public Utilities Commission meeting in Fresno, (Here's our blog post from the meeting), so maybe we'll see more cows mixing with solar projects.

The Valley's vast expanses of land are attractive to developers of larger-scale solar projects as well, so planning officials in the region are formulating land-use policies to avoid conflicts with prime farm land. Those projects garner the big headlines, but individual growers and farming operations, such as those mentioned above and Fowler Packing  (with its new 8,256 solar panels), are really helping harvest the sun.

Fowler Packing plans to use solar energy to help power its packing and cold storage facilities. It won't be the last San Joaquin Valley - or should we say, "Solar Valley" - farming enterprise to reach for the sun.

Hitting the hydrogen highway is the ultimate video game

Hydrogen is not yet a viable, cheap and easy-to-use fuel.

But the quest to solve that clean energy puzzle continues.

Sciencedaily.com reports that scientists at Brookhaven National Laboratory have developed a nickel-molybdenum-nitride catalyst to more cheaply crack hydrogen from water. Chemist Kotaro Sasaki is quoted as saying his team wanted to find a high-activity low-cost method of extracting hydrogen.

He says the catalyst "actually outperformed our expectations."

And according to globalenergyworld.com, Lynne Macaskie, professor of applied microbiology at the University of Birmingham in England, reports a method of creating hydrogen from food waste. "The bacteria can produce hydrogen," says Macaskie at a bioenergy workshop in São Paulo, Brazil. "At the moment manufacturers pay to dispose of waste, but with our technique they could convert it to clean electricity instead.”

Not ready for prime time

Impressive. So what's the hold-up? Why can't entrepreneurial ingenuity figure out a way to get a clean fuel on the market that could transform our skies and reduce the competitive pressures forcing up the price of gasoline, diesel and other fossil fuel?