While covering alternative energy stories over the years I have mentioned many different innovations and the companies who develop them into products. Often times the companies are start-ups with big plans for the future. It has now been long enough that this blog roll contains a history of some companies from inception, to going public, to mass production, and then….decline.

Solyndra (and its scandal) went from boom to bust fairly quick. For First Solar the process has been a bit longer and they are certainly not busted…yet. I have followed the company since it went public and even cheered when their stock price rose above $160 dollars back in 2007. Here was a U.S. company using a fairly new technology (thin film solar panels) becoming a world leaders. The future looked bright. Unfortunately the future was built upon a house of cards. The housing crisis hit in the and revealed that much of the world’s economy was running on a mountain of debt, not the production of real goods and services. The debt crisis has been slow to unfold over the last 2 or 3 years but it is now hitting home in Europe where First Solar (FSLR) had traditionally been quite strong. FSLR is closing its plant in Germany – story here (use google translate to read it in English). The gist of the article is that European Nations are ending most of their alternative energy subsidies and this means the solar market is kaput. I knew that solar production was somewhat dependent on government subsidies but I didn’t realize it meant nearly everything in Europe. FSLR is also laying off some employees in Malaysia. The stock price today, $18 and change.

It is a sad turn of events for those of us who are optimistic for a clean energy future. It just shows once again that central planning does not work out very often. It is very difficult to force things into the market that are not cost competitive. The one bright spot is that so many solar panels have been  produced in the last couple of years (a lot in China) that there is an over-supply on the market and the prices are the cheapest they have ever been in relationship to the price of oil. I have been saving up some money to buy an electric car, but I might use that money on some dirt cheap (relatively speaking) solar panels instead. I was thinking about starting simple and just installing enough capacity to run the water heater, or maybe get a new solar water heater.

Then again, natural gas is also dirt cheap right now, and I mean really dirt cheap! Running the water heater with natural gas is barely costing anything. Natural gas is so cheap that I was thinking about buying a conversion kit for my car. According to a TV report I viewed a couple weeks ago, the cost of running your car on natural gas is less than half of running it on regular gasoline. At that rate, and $4 per gallon gasoline, it would not take too long to pay for itself. But I would need to fuel it up somewhere.

Kulps' Stratford CNG Station

Thankfully some forward-thinking business people in the area are already planning for more compressed natural gas (CNG) usage. Kulps of Stratford have already installed a fueling station. Maybe more will follow. Many truck fleets around the U.S. are already converting completely over to CNG, and saving A LOT of money in the process. It is a good thing.

At this point you might be thinking it is not such a ”good” thing, after all, CNG is a fossil fuel. And what about the fracking problems? First of all, the fracking problems, according to many scientists, are overblown. Second of all, CNG is the cleanest realistic fossil fuel we could use in order to clean up the air and environment, while we continue to develop better technologies (like solar and nuclear) for the future. Forget biofuels, most of which are beset with environmental and financial problems. CNG is where it is at for the short term to clean up the environment AND act as a bridge to a cleaner alternative energy future. I think environmentalists are making a HUGE strategic mistake by battening down the hatches and giving it all they got to shut down natural gas production.

Considering AGW, natural gas would not seem like a good solution until you compare it with coal, oil, and biofuels. If developed nations switched most of their energy production and transportation infrastructure over to natural gas for the next decade we would emit a lot less carbon dioxide. Not only that, it burns sooooooo much cleaner that we would simultaneously clean up the air land and water. Not only that, we would save a lot of money and stimulate the economy! Not only that, the government wouldn’t be wasting billions of dollars in loan scandals like Solyndra. In fact, the government would receive a mountain of money from drilling royalties. And the biggest “not only that” – maybe there would be less support for destructive bloody wars in the Middle East. They could keep their oil because the U.S. is literally drowning in natural gas. Did I mention that natural gas can be made from waste material as well? Natural gas seems like the ideal bridge fuel. Now if only the government would get out of the way.

Have a pleasant Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Pollution

A follow-up for today:

Through the years I have periodically updated you on the subject of bee Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD). Bee populations in parts of the world have declined dramatically. I first became aware of this because it was originally blamed on AGW (back in the hey-day when almost everything was blamed on “global warming”). CCD is important because it is estimated that about a third of our plant-based food is insect-pollinated, much of that by bees. After many years of study, and relegating AGW to a minor role, it has been surmised that CCD is probably a combination of factors, with chemicals maybe playing a significant role in the problem. The latest insight is that popular pesticides called neonicotinoids can cause bees to lose their sense of direction. It probably is not the only thing going on here but if the experiments can be replicated in real-world dosing situations (levels/amounts that are typically sprayed on plants, not high dose lab treatments) it might help turn the corner in figuring out how to keep the bee colonies thriving.

One other suggestion has been percolating is that large bee growing operations might be more susceptible to colony collapse because they do not have much genetic or dietary diversity. If all the bees are nearly the same and they all eat nearly the same food, then they might all fall prey to the same diseases as well.

Have a good weekend! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Ecology, Pollution

Yesterday I detailed how economic considerations usually trump environmentalism (and AGW concerns) because of the near-term immediate impact of “economics”. When people are more worried about the next paycheck, they are less concerned with how much the climate might warm up 90 years from now, or how much the ocean might rise 1,000 years from now.

Despite the current economic recession, there are still many people concerned about what might happen to the environment and climate, as am I. Given the sometimes hyperbolic pronouncements of how nearly everything in the biosphere is going to die due to AGW, I am surprised more people don’t at least follow more of the headlines (whether a person is skeptical or not). Even as I am concerned about future pollution, I am not fatalistic. I know that fossil fuel usage is unlikely to continue the same upward trend into the future as it did in the past. I know that technological progress continues and this should help us be more efficient in the future as well as clean up some “messes”. I also know that life has a tremendous ability to adapt.

In the case of adaptability, many people are quite fatalistic about the fate of the oceans as the water warms up, even in the bottom water around Antarctica. Warmer and more acidic oceans are expected to be more hostile to life, including corals. Thankfully, at least in the near term, it appears that corals are not going to all die off. Recently scientists have found corals that can thrive in warmer than normal water and some that can adapt to higher acidity. Still, there might be some limit to which adaptation fails and some sort-of mass extinction occurs in the oceans, as seemed to have happened in the distant past.

If ocean acidification does become a major problem, it will potentially be a harder problem to crack/fix than just plain old warming of a couple of degrees. If heat would get to be too much of a problem, it could be fixed fairly easily with some sort-of sunshade technology. A recent study suggested that sunshade geoengineering would not affect crops too much. But cooling by blocking the sun would not help reduce the acidity of the ocean. Also, as far as future energy sources go, biofuels would once again be the worst choice because they still result in carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere (as well as bunch of other reasons - I have covered before). In addition we also need to keep a close eye on all of the synthetic biology that is being developed in the pursuit of biofuels. Solar, nuclear, geothermal, and wind would probably be our best bets to not only reduce pollution but to reduce the acidification of the oceans. Otherwise, we might end up doing some grand antacid experiments in the future.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Oceans, Pollution

Follow-up: last week I mentioned the HumanBirdWings viral video in the blog and said I was rather skeptical about it. My skepticism was justified as the Dutch film-maker gave up the prank late last week, saying it was an exercise in storytelling. It was also a very good fake video. Read a little more about the fake here.

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Given the warm weather a lot of people have been asking me about the snowmelt contest. It will be starting a few days earlier this year but not until the middle of April. The entry period will be for a couple weeks in April, and then we will wait and watch to see when the snow finally melts. The entry period usually goes through the last day of April but this year, if more very warm weather hits in April, the snow could melt during the last couple days of the month. More than likely it will last into May or June. I will let you know all the details here in the blog when the time comes.

The warm weather also has people thinking about anthropogenic global warming (AGW) a bit more as well, but not as much as you might think. Recent surveys have found that concern about AGW has waned as the economy has worsened. This should not be surprising. Most people are most concerned about their near-term situation. In the current recession, millions of people have lost jobs, food insecurity has increased, some have lost pensions or health-care coverage. These things affect how people will think/behave today or tomorrow. With respect to AGW, it is predicted to be environmental Armageddon, which would be very bad if it happens, but it is a slow-motion threat. It would evolve over the course of decades. The cost of damage to the ocean’s alone could be about $2 trillion according to one estimate, but $2 trillion spread out over decades, again, is not as dramatic. If people are hungry today, they will not focus too much on the prospect of the temperature rising by a few degrees 90 years from now. Now only if people would stop having as many kids (because of economic concerns), they might be able to solve near term problems and long term problems (AGW) at the same time. Whatever moves we make, more bureaucracy, as is suggested here, is probably the worst possible solution. 

This type of simple economic calculation also applies to alternative energy. A recent opinion article really does a good job stating the obvious, that alternative energy technology will not be widely adopted until we run out of fossil fuels. I am not that pessimistic but I know what the reality is. As long as fossil fuels are cheaper than the alternatives they will remain king. Even I declined to buy an electric car when I purchased a vehicle last year. The sticker price of electric car offerings were just too high. So it is left to upper income types to push fledgling technology forward. Most of the rest of us might not be choosing to go electric (or solar/wind for our house) but we are choosing more efficient vehicles. A recent study shows that the average mpg of the U.S. “fleet” is now at an all time high of 23. Good job U.S.! As long as the price of gas remains high, this number should continue to climb in coming years. Both of my cars get over 30 mpg and I hope I can afford one that achieves 40 mpg for the next purchase (if a cheap EV is not available).

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Climate Change, Oceans, Pollution, Weather NEws

You know I am generally thrilled to see advances in efficiency and I try to keep our faithful blog readers up to date on all the latest advances in technology and energy. Living more efficiently makes a lot of financial sense and allows us to lessen our impact on the environment. You would think that all the gains inf efficiency over past decades would have already helped lessen our impact, but that is not the case. Why? Something known as Jevons paradox. When energy and other items of modern convenience become cheaper we tend to use more of it (them). Clive Thompson does a good job explaining it in this article, mentioning the fact that when electricity became more efficient and cheaper, we didn’t just pocket the savings and continue living the same as before cheap electricity. No. Instead humans decided to light up the whole planet, which of course led us to burn megatons of fossil fuel – every day - for the last century at least.

But will this continue into the future? Perhaps, but I don’t think it will be in traditional ways. True, the developing world is gaining wealth and with that new-found wealth, many are purchasing modern conveniences like cars, better food, electronic gadgets, refrigerators, etc. Even though these items are sometimes orders of magnitude more efficient than the same items Americans purchased en masse during the 20th century, the total energy needed to support them will increase. The vast numbers of people rising out of poverty outweigh the efficiency gains, up to a certain point. Once more of the world, let us say over 50%, has a “comfortable” life and a reasonable amount of wealth, I would expect efficiency gains and new technology to start making a dent in our energy requirements and resultant pollution. After all, it is doubtful that everyone in the world is going to buy 2, 3, 4, or more houses, cars, and TVs and continue to outpace efficiency gains.

There are also two trends working against Jevons paradox. One is Peak Oil. Judging by how things have gone for the past decade, it looks like there is not going to be a crash in fossil fuel supplies (and oil) that sends us back to the stone age (as many Peak Oil theorists had predicted for many years). However, the price of fossil fuels will likely continue to remain high. The high price will force people to live more within their means. Also, the population growth of the world has slowed (hooray!). Most estimates put the number of humans on the planet at mid century around 9 billion. One study has shown that even if medical technology advances so fast so as to allow people to live well into the hundreds, the population will only rise to around 11 billion. Less people on the planet means less energy consumption in most scenarios.

So what could develop in the future that would keep Jevons paradox alive and well into the future. A new form of transportation? Flying cars or rocket ships? I doubt it. I think the main candidate for increased energy expenditure in the future will be virtual reality. Already in 2012 data centers (Internet server and computing ”farms”) are one of the fastest growing energy consuming sectors of the economy, and all we are doing it sharing pictures and playing video games. Spectacularly more immersive and addictive games, movies, and social experiences are coming. These applications for entertainment and the exploration of all things virtual will undoubtedly require mammoths amounts of computation and that means increased energy consumption. Even if we develop super cheap solar and nuclear energy, increased computational demands might continue to outpace our efforts to live more efficiently.

Now you might be thinking that it would be ok if we used more energy as long as it was from clean sources like solar and nuclear fusion. After all, we wouldn’t be emitting carbon dioxide, right? That is true, in regards to theoretical future greenhouse effects and pollution, things would be better, but the planet might still heat up. All the energy we use, no matter what the source, ends up as waste heat in the biosphere. Here is an interesting article looking at the long view of energy. While moving away from fossil fuels would be VASTLY better from a pollution standpoint, the future would not be hassle free with new forms of energy.

Have a nice Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Environment, Pollution

Before I delve into a few technology “follow-ups” on trends we follow in the blog, I just want to re-affirm that we seem to have turned our back on Winter. I mentioned late last week that the weekend (March 3rd and 4th) would probably be our last true Wintry weekend of the season. Winter tried to hold on yesterday with temps about 5 degrees below normal and a little dusting of snow in the late afternoon, but today Spring has sprung. Judging by the CPC 8 to 14 day outlook and my own perusal of the extended computer models, it seems we can say good-bye to (real) Winter conditions.

8 to 14 Day CPC Temp Outlook

As I mentioned a couple of times, we all know that a big snowstorm could develop later this month or even into April, after all, it is Wisconsin we are talking about, but late snow typically does not linger very long. I think most of the snow around Wausau and further south in the area will be gone by the end of this weekend and in the northwoods it will take about a week after that before most is gone.

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Now a little update on one of the revolutions occurring in energy efficiency. It is a true revolution in lighting, although it has taken a lot longer than what I expected (hard to believe that blog post was almost 5 years ago). So why has it taken so long? Cost. LED lighting, while it could be a boon for saving energy/money and lessening our impact on the planet is still quite costly. A couple of years ago, a single LED bulb that could screw into a regular socket was about $50. Today, some large retail chains are offering them in the $20 to $30 dollar range. I guess this is progress, but it is a far cry from the less-than-a-dollar incandescents we are all familiar with. I imagine it will be a couple of years yet before the price is more palatable for more of the population.

So the cost of LEDs is high but there is still progress in the field. Soraa, a company in Fremont California claims to have created a new LED that burns ten times brighter than other LEDs. They expect to begin selling the bulb commercially this Spring and they claim that the bulb will pay for itself in energy savings in just one year. The price? They won’t say.

Example of OLED tiles

Besides bulbs, there is also a lot of research going into OLED panels. These are organic LEDs that could be made into flexible tiles and used for lighting. A European consortium recently increased the efficiency and lifetime of such devices. Right now, most OLED applications are in touch-screen devices and not in lighting, but that might change in the future.

In the far reaches of LED research, scientists at MIT created an LED that emits more power in light than electrical power that goes into it. Sounds fantastic, doesn’t it? Sounds like a hoax, doesn’t it? It isn’t a miracle. The special LED actually takes some of the heat within it and converts it to light and that is where the extra energy comes from. This doesn’t have immediate applications because it is a tiny LED that operates on extremely low power, but interesting none-the-less.

Even before LEDs become more affordable there are other ways we might be able to save a lot of energy in lighting applications. A Berkeley start-up company is making individual bulbs with cheap microprocessor controllers and sensors within them. This way each bulb can sense motion and determine if there is a need for lighting withing a particular room. Each light could also receive instructions or be programmed to “turn out the light” when it is not needed. This would be particularly efficient for large office buildings where it is rare to need all the lights on (or off) all the time. As long as the extra electronics only cost a buck or two, then I could see this technology becoming more popular.

Another way that energy consumption for lighting and other electronic devices could be cut is to use direct current instead of alternating current. This type of set-up makes more sense in today’s world where we have a lot of gadgets running on DC power but that power first comes from the grid and has to be transformed (losing some energy in the process) from AC to DC (to run the device or charge a battery). Think about it. The main items in your house that need grid power are the big items – refrigerator, washer/dryer, maybe the stove – most other things could be run off of DC, especially all of the digital devices. Powering and controlling lighting could be done with ethernet or USB cables. This type of power set-up might never gain a big foothold in developed countries who are so used to AC power, but in developing nations without an enormous established electrical grid, it might be the perfect solution to merge with alternative energy sources such as solar panels.

As far as my experiment with LED bulbs goes, the sample bulbs I received nearly 5 years ago are still going strong. The light is the blue-ish tinted light common with non-incandescent bulbs, but it does not bother me. The more intense blue-ish light of LEDs is something that is getting better with newer products as well. And just to remind everyone why lighting is so important, 10% of our energy production goes to lighting alone here in the U.S.(as of 1002). Some estimates put worldwide energy consumption for lighting at 20%. With widespread adoption of LEDs, these numbers could be cut to 5% or less, and that means A LOT less pollution and fossil fuel consumption.

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Also, keep your eyes to the night-time sky over the next few days, a very active region of the sun is throwing off some big flares. It is expected to remain active for a few more days, thus increasing our chances of seeing the northern lights. Will mother nature cooperate? Not tonight and tomorrow night. But Thursday night and Friday night might turn out more clear. Take a look here for a cool video showing time-lapse photography of the northern lights and a good explanation of how they form as well as why the colors differ.

Speaking of geomagnetic storms, scientists calculate that there is a 1 in 8 chance between now and 2020 that a mega-solar stormcould hit the earth - one that could potentially knock out power to a good portion of the earth. In a case such as that it would be good to have an off-grid source of electric power. A mega-solar storm is something for which the U.S. is woefully unprepared.

Have a fine Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Pollution, Spring, Technology

One science and technology topic that seems to be flying well under the radar, something that is intimately tied to a cleaner energy future and electric vehicles, is that of self-driving cars. I am amazed that the cars are here and hardly anyone is talking about it. “Auto-pilot cars” (or other forms of transportation) were a staple of science fiction a few decades ago. I figured when the cars finally arrived, there would be a lot of buzz. Granted, the Darpa Grand Challenge did generate a lot of press a few years ago, but what is going on now is even more spectacular.

As I have profiled here in the blog, self-driving cars have logged thousands of miles on roadways around the world. They have operated flawlessly on crowded city streets as well as fast-moving freeways. One state (Nevada) has already legalized self-driving cars and another is drawing up some regulations. They are technically ready for the mass market, but probably not “commercial-ready”. The computer controls need to be better designed into the interior of these cars and they are probably quite expensive. Other than the finishing design touches, the main barriers to acceptance and success are social and legal. Here is a good article describing some of the legal implications.

One of Google's Robo Cars

I am sure there are quite a few people that will balk at the idea of having a computer drive a car down the highway. I am not too worried. I am much more worried about the human drivers that until recently, were primarily responsible for 40,000 deaths a year on U.S. highways. I would feel much safer on a highway with computer-driven cars instead of people driving cars while texting, while drunk, while screaming at their kids, while eating a messy sandwich, while talking on the phone, while applying make-up, while shaving, while reading, while playing air-guitar, while reading the paper, while dozing off, while….you get the picture. Driving a car on U.S. roadways is (or at least used to be as recent as a couple years ago) the number one cause of accidental death for adults. Rarely is a fatal accident caused by mechanical failure. Here is a good article detailing some of the advantages of “robo-cars”.

Some people are also worried that computer-driven cars cannot handle all of the contingencies that occur on a roadway, but the truth is that the vast majority of our driving is not too challenging. During my own drive to work and back I only make one left hand turn at an intersection without a stoplight. I am certain a computer could make the trip quite easily. In addition, it has been proposed that intersections could be managed by a computer as well so that self-driving cars could be coordinated and not clog things up. Many luxury cars already have computer-assisted driving built into them so going all the way to fully self-driving cars is not that big of a step.

But what about the thrill of driving? I know there are a lot of people who enjoy the road and it is often said that Americans have a “love affair” with their cars. Even though computers are likely much better drivers, I wouldn’t want to outlaw “driving for pleasure” or driving older model vehicles for show. However, if self-driving cars do become mainstream in a few years, I suspect that if you drive your own vehicle, you will probably have to pay a lot higher insurance.

The best part about self-driving Internet connected cars is that pollution and traffic congestion could be reduced. Smart cars communicating with each other could achieve optimum speed and spacing on the freeway and find less crowded routes to travel on the fly. Of course, having Internet connected cars opens the possibility of abuse by government authorities and that will have to be addressed with more openness and transparency.

The other problem that hasn’t been mentioned much is potential hacking. A car that transmits information over the Internet and/or over a cell network will be open to malicious hacking. There would have to be tight security protocols for the cars and an easy way for drivers to take over the controls if the computer went haywire. A more prosaic for of “hacking” that could be a problem is pranking. If some pranksters see an automated car on the road, they could mess with its driving by swerving, braking, and driving erratically near and around it.

Overall, these seem like minor hurdles to overcome. I can’t wait for the day when I can hop in my car and say “take me to work” or begin a long trip by saying “take me to St Louis”. That way I will have more time to relax or do other fun things while in the car. What do you think? Do you like the idea of self-driving cars or does it freak you out?

Infiniti's Electric Super-Car

In other EV news, Infiniti has announced a luxury electric vehicle and Chevy Volt production is shutting down (temporarily?) because of the predictable lack of demand. Not only is the Volt too costly, it doesn’t have exotic appeal for early-adopters. There are probably a few people still mad about the GM bailout as well. The Volt is a nice EV with good engineering, but it will have a tough time making it. Thankfully, there are other car companies with EV products and small innovators with passion that can fill the void.

Have a good Monday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Pollution, Technology

An interesting anniversary today. The Kyoto Protocol was was put into action on this date in 2005 (it was initially adopted in 1997). This was the first world-wide treaty to address potential future climate change due to carbon dioxide build-up in the atmosphere. It was an admirable attempt to get nations of the world to use less fossil fuel energy but was seriously flawed from the start. I could go into a lot of detail on how emissions targets were manipulated and enforcement was lacking, but the main criticism which I (and many others) have brought up is the fact that emerging/developing economies of the world, like China and India, were exempt from reducing emissions. many people chided the U.S. and Canada for not signing the agreement (but instead committing to cut emissions on their own), but as we see now, even if the U.S. had signed on, it wouldn’y have made a bit of difference because China is now the world’s number 1 polluter. In fact, if the U.S. had signed on and energy prices skyrocketed, even more manufacturing would have moved to China and it would be even more polluted.

Bad Air Pollution in China

China has been thinking about adopting some emissions caps, but I doubt there would be strict enforcement. They try to limit pollution as well, but the skies are still chock full of aerosols and other nasty stuff. At least the communist government has been forced to acknowledge the pollution recently. That is the first step in cleaning things up. They are also trying to promote more electric vehicle usage, which is a good thing.

Despite some rose-colored-glasses-reporting about the Kyoto Protocol, the fact is that the world still runs on oil and emissions have increased since 1997 and 2005. Leaving emerging economies out of the Protocol was a mistake, if they wanted it to succeed. Of course, some cynics would say that the true motive was to transfer wealth from rich countries to poorer ones and this has occurred to some degree. Some present climate negotiators have even truthfully said as much, that future agreements will be transfer of wealth agreements.

Given the increasingly interconnected world that we live in, it doesn’t make sense for some countries to be left out of future agreements. We need bring people together, persuade together, and cooperate on win-win solutions in order to fight pollution. Carrying around a “big government stick” just breeds more resentment.

Besides, governments of the world have failed in environmental policy and corrective action. That is the assessment from many leading environmentalists. They say that governments have done almost nothing to stop pollution in the years since Kyoto was signed. I could have easily predicted that! I am glad the environmental groups have finally seen the light and are going to (hopefully) come to the people directly with a more cooperative win-win attitude in the future.

The one refreshing thing I read out of the article (environmentalists griping about the government), is that more of them are talking about population control. That is one thing that has been missing from the discussion all these years. I am not talking about forced population control through sterilization or child quotas, just gentle persuasion toward people to put off having kids. If there is one thing that would cure pollution problems faster than anything else, it would be a declining world population. For some strange reason, environmentalists have not touched this subject much in the past. Maybe we will see more of it in the future.

While declining population would be a positive trend for a cleaner environment, it would not be good for traditional growth-defined economies, economic models, and nation states. That is why some countries are officially trying to persuade people to have more kids. Japan is considering offering more free goodies to people who marry and start families. France just flat out pays people to have more kids. So the next time you see a news article about France or Japan being more environmentally conscious than the U.S., just remember that they are purposefully trying to boost the population. Of course, in the U.S. people do get welfare/and tax breaks based on family size, but it is just a perverse illogical system, not a defined governmental policy to expand the population.

Of course, in the end, the best way to have a cleaner environment without heavy regulation and population control, would be to invent our way out of the trouble. This is what humans have always done. It is what we are best at. And, I am glad to see progress to that end on a daily basis. I often report on technological breakthroughs here in the blog.

Have a good Thursday! Meteorologist Justin Loew

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Climate Change, Pollution

Yesterday I profiled a solar power company that is furthering progress in alternative energy as solar still looks to be one of the better options for cleaner energy production in the near future. What about biofuel? Has anything changed in the new year?

There are no doubt some great advances in chemistry and biology that are making the production of liquid hydrocarbons (like ethanol or biodiesel) more efficient and viable. Joule Unlimited has created a new process that uses genetically engineered bacteria to convert carbon dioxide and sunlight into fuel. Their process is potentially much better than current cellulosic ethanol schemes if they can scale it up. Another company, Virent, based in Madison Wisconsin, is supplementing their biofuel process with natural gas in order to more easily make the liquid hydrocarbon fuels that we use in present day transportation.

Joule Unlimited Biofuel "Reactors"

Both of these companies are trail-blazers with truly impressive science and engineering feats under their belt, but the question remains, is biofuel the best way forward to reduce pollution and theoretical future climate warming. I still say no. In the case of Joule Unlimited, why use sunlight, bacteria, and CO2 to create a liquid fuel when you could just use solar panels to convert light into electricity. It would seem to be a simpler choice and solar-electric “fueled” EVs are tremendously cleaner than biofuel vehicles. A recent study has shown that electric fleet vehicles already are at a point where they make financial sense for companies operating in big cities. It might be more efficient/cheaper to make the biofuel for the time being but solar prices continue to decline every year.

In the case of Virent, you know how much I love to promote Wisconsin-based companies, but I have to wonder, why not just use natural gas as a fuel instead of using nat gas and biomass to create liquid hydrocarbons. Biofuel’s most likely purpose will be as a bridge fuel from now through the next few years when electric cars are not yet mainstream, practical for the masses, and affordable all the while fossil fuel (mainly oil) supplies become more scarce. Another possible bridge fuel is natural gas. It would be much simpler and cheaper. There is already a small nat gas infrastructure in the U.S. and in many other countries as well. The risks of exploiting natural gas reserves are quite low. The danger of frakquakes has mostly been overblown. Natural gas has been gaining political traction the U.S. but I would rather see the free market decide whether it makes greater sense for transportation. As we have seen lately, government “support” has not turned out so well.

Of course we will still need a lot of hydrocarbons for materials/plastic production and this is where many new biofuel processes will likely find their home. Virent is already making product for Coca Cola to use in their plastic bottles.

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An update on the Vostok drilling operation by the Russians in Antarctica: At least one news agency in Russia reported on February 5th  (and another article) that the scientists had indeed reached the surface of the lake. It is only one report, and I have not heard anything more official since. In any case, they will probably not be able to explore the lake or return samples to the surface until next Summer in Antarctica (our late Fall and Winter of 2012).

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Arctic climate, Pollution