As I have noted on a couple occasions in the past (Carbon emissions down, and down again), the U.S. is no longer the biggest polluting nation in the world. Almost all metrics of air, water, and soil pollution in the U.S are better than 4 or 5 decades ago. The big surprise for many of the environmental bent is that carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. have gone down. The latest report indicates that carbon emissions are the lowest they have been since 1992!! (another article on the report can be found here).

Kudos to the U.S., anyway, I am willing to say this is a good thing. Unfortunately this good news was not trumpeted very much in national media outlets (unlike the record low arctic sea-ice). I am always talking about positive reinforcement and here is a great opportunity. Environmentalists and climatologists who are concerned about AGW should be online and in media everywhere extolling the virtues of cutting emissions and telling everyone to keep up the good work. With solar panel prices so low, the government could be pushing more people to install them and further lower our emissions. Even if you are skeptical about “global warming” (AGW), using less fossil fuels and cleaner fuels is a great thing because it reduces the U.S. dependence on foreign energy and promotes cleaner air, water, and soil.

China is the world's worst polluter

The U.S. is emitting so much less carbon dioxide that it now only accounts for 16% of the world’s emissions. China has soared past the U.S. and now emits 29% of the world’s carbon dioxide. I wonder how long it will take for perceptions to re-align. For so many years now the U.S. has been endlessly derided as the world’s worst polluter. China, and even India on many metrics, are now much worse. Will environmental organizations now start protesting in China?

So what is behind the dramatic drop in U.S. emissions? It is a combination of things. Alternative energy is playing a small part. The continuing economic slump is playing a small part. The switch to natural gas has made the biggest impact – which I pointed out a few months ago. In comparison to the negative side effects of using natural gas as a transition fuel (fracking problems, potential pollution), the reduced emissions are most definitely worth it.

Some commentators are not impressed, saying that the U.S. is just exporting manufacturing to other countries and that is why our emissions are going much lower while other countries are rising. This is not really true. Yes, manufacturing jobs in the U.S. are under pressure, but the U.S. still manufactures a lot of stuff. According to the U.S. Census bureau, U.S. manufacturing output grew 11% in 2011 up to nearly $5 trillion. So how do we still manufacture so much and yet have lower emissions? Productivity and efficiency. It is happening all around us all the time. It is progress. Progress can be scary, as I have mentioned before here and here, but we must confront it. Without progress or change, I am unsure that life would be very meaningful.

Progress (greater efficiency) happens in such small increments that it can sometimes be hard to notice. No one person can keep up with all the changes, but I try to hit the highlights from time-to-time in the blog. Even though LED lights have not seen wide adoption within the home, they are increasingly used for traffic lights, street lights, parking lot lights, and many more applications. Each light that replaces an incandescent or fluorescent light is an incremental gain in energy efficiency. Automobiles continue to become more efficient every year and the number of hybrids and electrics continue to grow. Appliances get more efficient every year. And the list goes on and on.

Aerogel protects a flower

One seemingly small improvement I noticed the other day was the creation of a flexible aerogel. If you are unfamiliar with aerogel, it is sometimes referred to as solid smoke. It is the lightest solid material known, excluding a similar  nanotube based substance invented/created just a couple of weeks ago. Read about aerogel here at wikipedia. It is a strong super-insulating substance but has not found much use because it is also very brittle. Now along comes flexible aeorgel (no word on the cost yet) and all of a sudden we could have another significant increase in efficiency. Could you imagine how much better aerogel would be at insulating houses, or appliances like refrigerators and freezers? Appliances could be much lighter as well, saving on material and shipping costs.

The little developments matter. As long as the U.S. doesn’t get into another wasteful speculative boom like the housing bubble and its attendant suburban sprawl, the future should be much cleaner.

Have a good Wednesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under AGW, Alternative Energy, Technology

Here is a little follow-up on a topic I brought into the lime-light a few years ago – LED lighting. As you remember, I was hoping for a revolution in lighting, but it did not come to pass. LED lighting is making more inroads in the present day but progress is slow. Phillips has come out with a 20 year bulb, but it is still too expensive for mass adoption, retailing for about $50. Another problem besides price is that all of our houses are out-fitted with sockets. LEDs are very flexible and modifiable and can be made to fit in any room, in any arrangement, in any color. The trouble is, people would have to re-wire much of their home in order to take advantage of this flexibility – a problem that other people have noticed as well. Sockets were a good standard approach for the past, but perhaps they have outlived their usefulness.

So what about the sample LED lights I have been using during the intervening 5 years (since my first big blog post on the subject)? The lights that were shaped like standard bulbs are still working fine. I haven’t noticed any decrease in the light intensity or any other changes in performance/function. I also used one of the flood light-type LEDs in one of my desk lamps and that one started mis-behaving just last week. It didn’t burn out but it started blinking. I haven’t tested it out since last week but I will again in the near future and see if the blinking is a prelude to complete failure of the bulb.

Speaking of bulb failures, we also use the CFL bulbs in our house. We have very few incandescent bulbs – maybe 1 or 2 in the whole house. What I have noticed with the CFL’s is that they tend to burn out at a regular rate. It was about 6 years ago that I started switching all of our bulbs over to CFL. Almost all of them them burned out after 6 years. It is if they are designed to fail after a certain point. Incandescent bulbs burn out faster, but they vary quite a bit. I have had some incandescents burn out in a matter of months and others last many years. I just found it strange that the CFL’s all burned out after about 5 years of use, which it the average stated lifespan on a lot of the promotional material and packaging.

I also notice that the CFL’s just don’t “blink out”. Sometimes they burn out, which is not supposed to happen. I have included a picture of one of the bulbs I found “burned”. You can see how the plastic (or ceramic) based material where the lighting element is adjoined to the base of the bulb turned brown because of the heat. This is a little disconcerting and I am not the only one who has noticed. Here is a more in depth, engineer’s take on the situation.

And one last point about energy savings with new lighting technology. As I have mentioned in the past, just because we have more efficient lighting, doesn’t automatically mean that there will be a lot of energy savings or reduced pollution. An unfortunate effect of humans & progress is that when something becomes cheaper to use, we typically use more of it. The same could turn out to be the case with LED lighting. I can see many people thinking, “why turn out the light in the room when no one is in there, it is so efficient, it doesn’t cost as much to keep it burning, right.”

Have a pleasant Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Technology

Last week I mentioned how strange it is that some self-declared environmentalists need to be convinced that science and technology offer some of the best hope for lessening our impact on the “natural world”. This should not be a controversial subject since humans are known as the “tool-maker” species on the planet. We have always used our brains and creative talent to improve our lot in life and to clean up some of the messes we have left behind. There is a danger in our technology getting to powerful and out of control, but it is a chance we should take, in my opinion, because the benefits are also quite great.

Currently, one of the least controversial technologies is computing. Everyone uses it. It makes our lives better. The impact on the environment is probably less than many other “things” we use, although it is not negligible because computing and moving data does take some energy. It should be a no-brainer to turn computation loose on some of our most pressing environmental concerns and the National Research Council agrees – stating that computing advances are vital. Entrepreneur Bill Gross also agrees, pointing to how the decreasing cost of computing will assist in the adoption of more expensive alternative energy.

the Kraken Super Computer

One would think that even bigger computational power at our disposal would in the near future would be even better, and it would be, but we cannot forget the power-usage aspect of computers and data. That is the point from a recent Intel conference on super computing. They are projecting that an exascale super computer will be built by the year 2018. The main impediment to such a development is power consumption. If current computer technology was used to create an exascale super-computer, they would have to build a nuclear power plant right next to it in order to make sure it had enough power. The challenge is to keep the power requirement under 20 MW (yes, that is megawatts!). This is still a lot of energy, but it would be manageable.

Thusly, it is a good thing that computer components such as chips and transistors ontinue to see gradual improvement in power and performace metrics. One potential dramatic breakthrough could come from emitter-coupled spin-transistor logic which has the potential to be 1 million times more power efficient at high computing speeds than traditional computer circuitry.

One company that you would think to be well positioned to leverage computing power toward alternative energy solutions would be Google. After all, they do have their campus in Mountain View littered with solar panels. The idea of transforming the energy landscape was not lost on Google and they tried their best to create their own alternative energy division/project but unfortunately it didn’t quite pan out. I am still heartened to read that they spend around a billion dollars a year on alternative energy for their operations. I hate to say it, but that is a lot better than Apple, a company that has plenty of money to spare for alternative energy.

Have a fine Friday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Environment, Technology

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

“Scarry Looking Cloud Club” now that is something I never thought I would see. The NWS in Milwaukee had people send in their favorite “Scary Looking Cloud” or SLC for short during the months of August and Sept.  They have now put together a page on their site with some of their favorite pics.  I think it is actually an educational site because they show different features on peoples on amateur photos

Check out the Scary Club!

You might not know it but October is Energy Awareness Month!

The Department of Commerce has some easy tips that you can do to save energy at home and around your workplace.  I know one tip that I have tried to start doing is unplug any cords that I don’t need all the time, for example phone chargers.  When they are plugged in and not being used they are called phantoms, because they are sucking energy.  Many appliances like TVs, chargers, computers, coffee makers etc… actually draw more energy then when off.  In a household 75% of the energy used to power the items is when they are actually turned of not on.  I learned this couple years ago and since then have tried to make a more conscious effort to unplug items not being used! Another one that I am slowly converting to and my family has done is changing your light bulbs.  If you use compact fluorescent light bulbs in place of the older incandescent bulbs you can save 50 percent of your lightning costs. The newer bulbs only use 1/4 the energy and they last up to 10 times longer, in other words they are worth the cost!

Check out the tips and see what you can do during the month of October and all year long!

Have a great night, stay dry! Meteorologist Kristen Connolly

Posted under Alternative Energy, Science

If you were wondering where I have been over the last week and a half, I was on a trip to Europe for business and pleasure. I had the opportunity to visit several countries and note some interesting things.

A Church in Cambridge

I also have a few pictures to share. The weather was not as good as here in Wisconsin, but it was extremely nice for a long trip. It was a bit windy in the Netherlands and a little cloudy in Belgium, otherwise we had partly to mostly sunny weather and high temps in the 60s and 70s. I traveled to the UK (mainly Cambridge), Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium. Some quick notes:

1. Europe is more energy efficient and environmentally friendly than the U.S. but the difference is not huge. The living spaces are smaller so heating and cooling costs are generally less. Most electrical outlets (especially in the hotels) have switches. That way they don’t have current loss when leaving appliances and gadgets plugged in. The toilets use less water – some even have 2 sizes of flush (one for “number 1″ and one for “number 2″. Also, in the hotel rooms, you have to put your electronic room key in a slot in order to turn on the lights.

St. Pauls in Munich

When you leave the room and take the key card with you, the lights go off. I didn’t see too many alternative energy installations such as wind and solar, but I didn’t go looking for them either. They drive much smaller and fuel efficient cars. This is due to the higher price of gas but also because there just isn’t a lot of space for parking or driving big vehicles.

2. In general, things are a bit more reserved in Europe. America is (or at least has been in the recent past) a place of optimism and “amped-up” living. Our roads, houses, meals, coffee cups, and cars, are bigger. We have more space, we work for it, and it shows.

A Gazebo at Nymphenburg

3. The cultural differences are not as wide as they used to be. The world is getting smaller. When I was in the Hague in the Netherlands, I often felt I was in a large American city. The population was diverse, and many people spoke English. With fairly good internet and cell coverage, it is easy to stay in touch with family and friends back home and around Europe, so it doesn’t feel as much like you are in a far-away land. It wasn’t too long ago that expensive long distance phone calls and postcards were the only way to communicate when you were living or vacationing abroad.

More comments and pictures tomorrow.

Have a good Tuesday! Meteorologist Justin Loew.

Posted under Alternative Energy, Environment, Viewer pictures