General Electric (GE) has announced it is restructuring its lighting business towards energy efficiency models and decreasing its emphasis on traditional incandescent bulbs. Thanks to consumer demand for efficient lighting and some governments even threatening to ban old fashioned bulbs, GE is refocusing its products to align more closely with the need.

Jim Campbell, President and CEO of GE’s consumer and industrial division, explained:

“We are increasing our focus on the development and production of new, innovative lighting products like LEDs, organic LEDs, our new high efficiency incandescent light bulbs and other products that our customers will increasingly demand and require.”

LEDs, or light-emitting diodes, use a semiconductor device that emits light when an electric current passes through it. They are a super-efficient form of lighting. An organic LED means that the emitting layer material is an organic compound. They are lighter and more flexible than regular LED lights, and have been used in cell phone displays and digital cameras.

GE also said it can now buy lighting components at a lower cost than what it takes to make the components itself. That means lighting factories in the U.S., Brazil, and Mexico will close, laying off about 1,400 employees.

An emerging, efficient lighting market also means competition is heading up for market share. Rumor has it that GE has been eyeing up Cree, a maker of LEDs. Acquiring Cree may give it stronger position against the other lighting giant, Royal Philips Electronics.

Associated Press, via the Sioux City Journal
Earth2Tech

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

Coal and nuclear plants may not be dropping like flies, but the business climate and the planet’s climate have caused some utilities to think twice about investing in them.

Tampa Electric of Florida has announced that it won’t build a coal plant to meet future energy needs, as originally planned. The coal plant was going to be an integrated gasification combined-cycle plant, or IGCC, which means that the coal is broken down into different gases that make it easier to pull out and store the carbon dioxide (CO2) so it doesn’t get released into the atmosphere. It’s still a very expensive technology and has yet to be tested on a very large scale, but because the U.S. is so reliant on coal power, many believe sequestration is the only way to cut emissions fast enough to slow global warming.

Tampa Electric cited the uncertain future regulation of CO2, the challenge of carbon capture and sequestration, and the associated costs. Although the utility sees IGCC as playing a significant role in future energy needs, the economic risks were too high and too uncertain at this time to proceed. Instead, the utility will look at other technologies like renewables, natural gas, and efficiency. Florida has also had a slew of new clean energy laws, including limits on global warming emissions and requiring utilities to get 20 percent of their electricity from renewables.

Likewise, Xcel Energy says it can delay the need for new baseload generation in Minnesota because of its diversification into new, cleaner energy (particularly wind power and efficiency measures). Xcel argued that more hydropower from Canada — not considered “green” by many because of its destruction to native communities there — and upgrades to nuclear plants are not needed because of the aggressive energy bills passed during the last legislative session. Those laws direct Xcel to get 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources and to begin cutting energy use 1.5 percent annually beginning in 2010. Xcel’s own analysis concluded: “[C]learly there will be periods when available wind energy will supplant base-load resources to meet our customers’ energy needs.”

Diversifying our energy sources and emphasizing efficiency measures have started impacting how utilities do business and how their customers power their lives. While there is no silver bullet for a clean energy future, changes like these are all part of the “silver BB” approach to get us moving towards a smarter energy system in the 21st century.

Cross posted on Maria Energia

The Energy Blog
Wind Energy Weekly

Former President Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative has been all over the news lately, working with nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and big business to move the ball forward with clean energy solutions to global warming. Whatever you think of the guy, it’s hard to deny that his partnerships are impressive and the results could be revolutionary.

Besides the agreement by utilities to invest in energy efficiency, and besides Florida Power & Light’s major new commitment to solar energy, the Clinton Global Initiative is also partnering with the Joint U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean Energy (JUUCCCE) on efficiency efforts in China.

The China Lighting Conversion program will distribute 10 million free energy-efficient compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs) to customers. CFLs use one-third the energy of traditional bulbs, but are still cost-prohibitive to many Chinese. According to JUUCCCE, the CFLs would save about 3.7 million tons of CO2 over 4 ½ years — enough to avoid having to build one typical U.S.-size coal plant. While I tell myself it’s encouraging to see the start of another clean energy commitment in China, I’m still disheartened by the multiple coal plants they’re building each week. But change has to start somewhere.

The other JUUCCCE program is the Energy Efficient Urban Design Tools for Mayors. This is an interactive, multimedia curriculum to train hundreds of Chinese mayors on technology and best practices that can make their cities more energy efficient. Mayors will learn about green building programs, for example, and will connect with vendors, service providers and financial advisors to help them implement what they learn. The key with this program will be rigorous follow-up and support to ensure that the information learned isn’t forgotten or lost in the bureaucracy one the mayor returns to the city.

The first phase will begin with the CFL program in April 2008, with the training for mayors to start in October of next year.

Joint U.S.-China Cooperation on Clean Energy

A large, old, rich, and impressive group of businesses leaders has called for more action to slow global warming.

The Business Roundtable is an association of CEOs of 160 U.S. companies with $4.5 trillion in annual revenues, more than 10 million employees, and makes up nearly one-third of the total value of the U.S. stock market. They lobby lawmakers on issues like jobs, healthcare, and trade. And last week they released a statement on one of the hottest of issues: global warming.

The Business Rountable’s Climate Change Statement acknowledges that although its members – such as ExxonMobil, General Electric, DuPont, and State Farm Insurance – have varying views on how exactly to address global warming, they do agree on some essential elements:

• More companies should make cutting emissions a priority and report publicly on their progress.
• Energy efficiency should be increased 25 percent.
• Any legislative or regulatory framework must stimulate private sector innovation and investment, as well as consumer awareness of new technologies.
• Increase research and development in new low-emissions technologies.
• Investment in climate science must continue at a high level “so that we can better understand and predict the magnitude and timing of future warming of the planet."
• Policies should be flexible enough to realign timelines with the development of new technologies, price spikes, or economic competitive imbalance.
• Consider different policy tools, including cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, or energy standards.
• Any policy solution should be economy-wide and not impact a particular industry sector, technology, or geographic region.
• Maximize access to limited feedstock and energy supplies (for example, figure out carbon capture and sequestration so coal could be burned with less emissions).
• Adopt a global framework where all major emitting countries (specifically including China, Brazil, and India) are committed to reduction goals.

I’m a bit wary of parts of this list. It reminds me of the discussion I and other bloggers had with Exxon’s Vice President of External Affairs back in January, where it seemed like a perfect global warming solution was the enemy of a good global warming solution. I wonder, if a solution doesn’t include a commitment by China, India, and Brazil, is the U.S. still supposed to stand still and do nothing? It sounds like it…

The fact that so many businesses – to varying degrees of seriousness – are talking about global warming solutions is encouraging. The Sierra Club dismissed the Rountable’s statement as an atempt to appear sensitive while seeking to ensure that new regulations accomodate its members. Well, of course they want new regulations to accomodate them. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. But where can we find common ground? All of us should be open to ideas and reasonable compromise, but also make sure we’re not fiddling while the clock is ticking.

Business Roundtable

Reuters

According to the American Wind Energy Association, U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) recently told wind power supporters that a House vote on a national renewable portfolio standard (RPS) was likely to happen the week of July 30.

A renewable portfolio standard – also called a renewable energy standard – is a measure requiring utilities to get a certain amount of their power from renewable sources by a particular time.

Last month in the Senate, Senator Jeff Bingaman’s (D-NM) RPS amendment to the energy bill was killed before a vote could be held. Although the current House version of the energy bill does not have an RPS provision, Representatives Tom Udall (D-NM) and Todd Platts (R-PA) are expected to offer an amendment requiring utilities to get 20 percent of their energy from renewables by 2020. This amendment is based on H.R. 969, which calls for an RPS and is also authored by Udall and Platts. (Make sure your Representative is one of the 120 co-sponsors here).

In her meeting with wind power supporters, Pelosi underscored the critical role an RPS would play in moving the nation towards global warming solutions.

According to the Union of Concerned Scientists, a 20 percent by 2020 RPS would save consumers nearly $11 billion on energy bills by 2030 and save nearly 2 billion short tons of coal from being burned up into the atmosphere. Similarly, the American Solar Energy Society found that an RPS could help create nearly 40 million new jobs in the U.S. by 2030 in the renewable energy and energy efficiency sectors.

It’s Getting Hot in Here
Union of Concerned Scientists
Wind Energy Weekly

Late last week in a vote of 65-27, the Senate passed an energy bill that made progress in some areas but was stripped down in others.

The crown jewel was certainly a near-40 percent increase in fuel efficiency requirements for vehicles by 2020. For the first time, SUVs, vans, and small trucks fall under the same regulations as passenger cars. Each vehicle group must achieve a 10 miles per gallon (mpg) increase in fuel efficiency by the target year, with an overall average requirement for the manufacturer’s fleet increasing from 27.5 mpg to 35 mpg. The current requirement has not changed in nearly 20 years.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) fought the standards and wanted to instead pass a more auto industry-friendly fuel requirement. But he admitted that one reason for his effort’s failure was the growing concern over global warming. From the Associated Press:

“‘The public wants action, rightfully so, on global warming,’ Levin said in an interview. And he added, the auto industry is ‘a juicy target.’”

Although an improvement in fuel efficiency is a long-overdue step forward, some perspective is required. Watthead over at Cleanergy.org points out the 35 mpg standards by 2020 is about where China and Japan are today, where the European Union was five years ago, and where states that adopt California’s tailpipe standards will be in five years.

Other achievements in the energy bill include:

• A 36 billion gallon by 2022 renewable fuels standard, including the specification that at least 60 percent of the requirement must be met by “next generation” biofuels like cellulosic ethanol. Cellulosic ethanol is not made from corn but rather other plant materials like switchgrass.

• New appliance and lighting efficiency standards, as well as a requirement that the federal government accelerate the use of more efficient lighting in public buildings.

• The development of an action plan (but not a requirement) to cut oil consumption by 2.5 million barrels per day by 2017. That’s roughly the same as the total current imports of oil from the Middle East. The Office of Management and Budget is responsible for the plan.

Here’s what didn’t make it in the energy bill:

• No support for coal-to-liquids synthetic fuel production and no support for expanded coal, nuclear, or oil use. So although some key pieces of progressive clean energy legislation were left out, at least we’re (so far) not expanding more of our dependence on dirty fossil fuels.

• No package that would have extended production tax credits and other financial incentives and offsets for renewable energy. The $32 billion package, previously approved 15-5 by the Senate Finance Committee, also included a repeal of tax credits for major gas and oil companies' domestic manufacturing activities.

• No national renewable energy standard that would have required 15 percent of our energy to come from clean, renewable sources by 2020.

The Senate energy bill now awaits action in the House. The House Ways and Means Committee passed a tax provision last week that includes support for wind and biodiesel. Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Representative Edward Mackey (D-MA) have both agreed that gasoline use must be more efficient and plan to work to ensure that the House’s action mirrors the Senate’s.

Associated Press, via CIO Today
BioCycle
Cleanergy.org
Sioux Falls Argus Leader

I saw it for myself: President Bush directed the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), along with the departments of energy, transportation, and agriculture to come up with a plan to cut global warming emissions by the year 2008. As for the details…well, they get pretty vague.

Bush spoke a lot about fuel consumption, again alluding to our nation’s addiction to oil, but never called for a specific increase in vehicle efficiency standards. He repeated his State of the Union proposal to replace 20 percent of the nation’s gasoline with alternative fuels in the next 10 years. He summed up his plan:

“When it comes to the environment and energy, the American people expect common sense, and they expect action.”

But apparently not too much action: The Washington Post reports that U.S. negotiators are attempting to weaken a climate change declaration set to be unveiled at next month’s G-8 summit of the world’s top industrial nations. Specifically, U.S. officials want to strike a sentence about energy efficiency,

“Therefore we will increase the energy efficiency of our economies so that energy consumption by 2020 will be at least 30 percent lower compared to a business-as-usual scenario”

and language to cut carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions to 50 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. Furthermore, the U.S. proposed striking an opening line that declares

“…tackling climate change is an imperative, not a choice. We firmly agree that resolute and concerted international action is urgently needed in order to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions and sustain our common basis of living.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair, and newly elected French President Nicolas Sarkozy are all pushing for a strong statement on global warming solutions.

The heads of the U.S. departments called on by President Bush to come up with a plan said a draft should be available by this fall. But will it be real action? While the President is calling for change, his representatives at the UN are doing everything they can to stall it. We know political rhetoric when we see it, Mr. Bush. Fool us once…

CNNMoney.com
Washington Post

Gary Reysa and his wife cut their energy use in half with their self-designed “Half Plan.” A retired airplane product development engineer from Boeing, Gary continues to satisfy his mechanical and creative curiosity with an array of efficiency and renewable energy projects at his home near Bozeman, MT.

I spoke with Gary by phone on April 5th.

Green Options: Why did you decide to cut your energy use in half?

Gary Reysa: I’m very concerned about global warming, and now that that I have a new grandchild, I see the impact it could have on future generations. It’s easy to get the feeling that there’s not much an individual can do, so my wife and I thought: What can we do? Could we make a significant cut in our energy use and global warming emissions? Could we cut it in half?

GO: How did you begin?

GR: The Half Plan seemed really ambitious to us at first. For one thing, we had no access to special technology. But I had begun some projects back around 2000 when we moved into our house and I started keeping track of our energy bills. When we officially began the Half Plan, we decided to do the projects that offered the most energy saving per dollar spent for our climate, house, skills, and habits.

GO: Wouldn’t it have been a lot easier to just buy carbon offsets?

GR: I have mixed feelings about carbon offsets. I wouldn’t criticize anyone for doing it, but it’s just not for me. I do believe there are a lot of places in the world where you can spend a few bucks and get carbon reductions. But I feel like some people use them to get out of doing real action.

I feel better about doing something directly that reduces my carbon footprint. But even with the Half Plan, we still have to buy green power from Northwest Energy to make up for what we use. We’re not completely independent of the power grid.

GO: You said you didn’t have access to any special technology for cutting your energy use. Did that affect the execution of your plan?

GR: Not at all – once we started researching it, we found out that almost all the equipment we needed was actually available locally.

We did a lot of different projects to cut our energy in half. We bought a Toyota Prius, installed a solar water heater, energy-efficient light bulbs, better insulation in our attic, sealed up the windows, put our computers on power strips (shutting off the power strips stops the computer from continuing to “sip” electricity, even when it’s supposedly off) and installed dryer venting. And those are just a few of the projects.

GO: Has the Half Plan been very expensive?

GR: So far we’ve spent $8800. The single biggest expense has been the Toyota Prius - but it’s also been the single biggest energy savings and biggest cut to our global warming emissions. It cut our transportation energy use by about 60 percent! We thought we’d be making a sacrifice by buying a smaller car, but it’s been great and we use it for 85 percent of our driving. We do live in the snowy mountains, so we need bigger car with 4-wheel drive part of the time.

I factored in a $4000 cost for the Prius into the overall $8800 cost of the Half Plan, because $4000 is the premium we paid for the hybrid features. We were due to replace our old Outback vehicle anyway (it had 205,000 miles on it), so the decision was whether to buy a conventional or a hybrid car.

Our other big expenses included the solar projects. In fact, I just finished another big solar project, but I haven’t factored that into the cost yet. It's a solar space heating project that uses solar water heating collectors to provide space heating for the house. The collectors are on the south wall of our new garden shed. They heat water in a 500 gallon tank behind the shed which gets pumped to the house.

Solar collectors for space heating

GO: Have the savings outweighed the initial investments?

GR: The savings has been phenomenal. We’ve invested $8800 and I’ve calculated that we’ll save $4600 in energy costs and 20 tons in global warming pollution each year. The cost savings will continue to go up as electricity and fuel prices go up.

One really neat project has been making our computer use more energy efficient. Our two computers and related equipment use about 270 watts of power when turned on. We put all of it on power strips. At night, we hibernate the computers and then turn everything off with the power strip switch. During the day we have the computers set to hibernate if they are inactive for 15 minutes.

This saves a total of 1624 kilowatt hours of electricity per year, 3200 lbs of global warming emissions, and $162 per year! This just knocked me out.

GO: What was the Half Plan’s biggest surprise?

GR: The biggest surprise was that there were no surprises. It was pretty painless except for the money invested into the projects, but we’ve already earned a big chunk of it back in our first year of savings.

It was relatively easy to do these projects, too. We live pretty normally – as in we waste a lot of energy! – but we started paying more attention to how we use our energy. To me, it would be fall-off-the-log-easy for people to do this without sacrificing or paying much. It’s just a lack of focus that keeps it from happening.

GO: Now that you’ve found the Half Plan so easy to do, have you thought about cutting your energy even further?

GR: We plan to cut it in half again. This time we will have to use solar PV panels for our electricity, which has a higher cost and a slower return than our other projects. But I’m not doing this next phase for the financial return; I’m doing it to cut my carbon dioxide pollution that causes global warming.

GO: So the next half may not be so easy?

GR: We did the Half Plan without changing our lifestyle at all. But to cut our energy further, we’re going to have to make changes like drive less or bike more. That’s not a downfall for us, it just requires more work. There will certainly be lifestyle changes this time.

For example, we just got back from Hawaii. I felt guilty for spending 2500 lbs of CO2 to go! But I think if we’re going to get serious about making another 50 percent drop, then we will need to start thinking harder about trips like that.

GO: So how do you entertain yourself out in Big Sky country?

GR: I love the TV show Living with Ed. It's a reality show with Ed Begley Jr and it's about how he lives his green lifestyle with his wife in Studio City, CA. It makes technical sense, it’s very entertaining, and he really cares about the issue and lives his life accordingly.

For a good read, I’d recommend The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook by Godo Stoyke. It gives a long list of projects that people can do to cut their CO2 emissions and save money. It details the equipment needed, cost, return, energy saving, and carbon saving. I like the book so much I bought a second copy for our local library.

GO: Your website is a fantastic resource; very easy-to-understand information, graphs, and calculations. Any specific tips on how folks can get started on the Half Plan?

GR: At my website, Build It Solar, I have a Half Plan for People Who Like Plans and a Half Plan for People Who Don’t Like Plans, so folks can choose what works best for them.

I’m an engineer, and I know that simplicity is everything. When you have trouble with a design, it’s almost always because it’s too complex. For example, I found that the solar thermal designs are really simple and that anyone should be able to build it.

The other thing folks have to realize is that we are the problem. When you get mad about global warming, you have to look at yourself in the mirror. I read stuff on the Internet and I get the feeling that people are pointing fingers but aren’t identifying the problem as themselves. Instead, they want a quick fix or someone else to come along with the technology that will allow us to not have to do anything. And they feel comfortable about the fact that they’re not doing anything.

We’re the ones generating this problem, but that also makes it easy for us to do something about it. We’re in the driver’s seat to make drastic reductions. It’s easy to do. For example, efficiency is something you can implement quickly, and we can get a significant drop in emissions right away and painlessly. If enough people do that, we’ll have really made a difference.

GO: Do you think this can all really make an impact?

GR: My actual CO2 reduction is about 20 tons each year. If 100 million families did the same thing, the energy we would save we be about 25 percent of all of the U.S. CO2 emissions. That's huge! And the best part is that we know this can be done – with no help from new technology or George Bush. We can do this ourselves, right away.

With all sorts of vehicles touting fuel efficiency, low emissions, and a dizzying array of alternative fuels, what's a person to do? If you need a vehicle, how do you find the best one that does what you need but doesn't do in the planet? The answers aren't so clear-cut (so to speak).

Want a hybrid car? There are full hybrids and mild hybrids. The Toyota Prius, a full hybrid, connects an electric motor and a battery to a standard combustion engine. A mild hybrid, like the Honda Insight, works the electric motor only when extra power is needed. This can make it slightly more efficient than a regular vehicle in stop-and-go traffic, but it can't run on battery power alone and doesn't offer the same fuel efficiency as a full hybrid.

Then there are plug-in hybrids, which are out on the roads but not yet mass produced. A plug-in hybrid has a battery pack that can power the vehicle for up to 60 miles - further than most people drive in a day. If you do have a longer trip, the engine kicks in automatically after the battery runs out of juice. You can recharge the battery using an ordinary 120-volt socket.

Let's not forget about the whole swath of alternative fuel vehicles, which can be a murkier area for a lot of people.

Efficient and cleaner diesel vehicles - which can compete with full hybrids in terms of fuel efficiency - have taken off in Europe. According to Business Week, 50 percent of all vehicles sold in Europe are diesel-powered, by only 1.5 percent of U.S. vehicles are diesel. However, a study done by JD Power & Associates predicts that number to double by 2012. Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz, Ford, and DaimlerChrysler all expect to sell diesel vehicles in all 50 U.S. states by the end of 2008.

There are about 3.5 million flex-fuel vehicles on the road right now, all of which can run on a blend of 15 percent gasoline and 85 percent ethanol, or E85. It's cleaner burning than straight gasoline, and helps strengthen rural economies. But many people don't even know whether their vehicles can handle E85, or don't have easy access to E85 pumps. Infrastructure continues to be an issue, and there's a lot of talk that we'll soon see ethanol made from a more efficient plant source than corn.

For better or for worse, there's no easy answer when it comes to "Which car is the greenest?" Whether it's hybrid, diesel, a plug-in, or ethanol, you'll want to do your homework when determining which shade of green is best for you. Click here for some of the latest models.

about.com
Business Week
Edmunds.com
National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition
Plug-In Partners

China’s environment minister, Xie Zhenhua, just announced that his country will increase its use of renewable energy and implement energy efficiency measures to fight global warming.

The plan came out after a two-day meeting of environment ministers from the Group of Eight (G8) industrialized nations and five major developing countries, including China, to discuss successor agreements to the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

The plan includes improving efficiency by 20 percent by 2010, increasing renewable energy like hydropower, wind, and solar to be 10 percent of all electricity used by 2010, and decreasing nitrous oxide emissions to the 2005 level by 2010.

Zhenhua was vague about China setting specific targets for carbon dioxide cuts, saying that the success of the Kyoto Protocol’s 2012 targets need to be evaluated and assessed before further targets are determined.

China is the world's second biggest emitter of carbon dioxide pollution, after the United States.

China Economic Net
Reuters, via The Age