As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico from BP’s sunken Deepwater Horizon rig, half a continent away a major new pipeline is delivering the first supplies of crude to refineries in Illinois. With the consistency of heavy molasses, the raw oil took about three months to travel some 1,073 miles.
The pipeline is the first step in a $12 billion TransCanada Corp. project that aims to more than double the capacity of oil that can be piped into the U.S from Canada, just as Americans are looking for alternatives to offshore drilling and oil from the Middle East. Oil extracted from Alberta’s tar sands — deposits of dense, sticky sand, saturated with a viscous form of petroleum — account for about 20 percent of U.S. crude imports. The newly opened pipeline, known as Keystone I, is part of a network that, when completed, will wind 3,800 miles underground through three provinces and eight Great Plains states before terminating in Texas.
Carbon dioxide is one of the most plentiful gases in the atmosphere, but when soda makers want to inject the fizz into their sweet-tasting drinks, they often have to pay through the nose for it. Many bottlers buy CO2 that was created as a byproduct of industrial processes, paying up to $300 per ton for the gas.
So what if instead of relying on CO2 shipped via tanker trucks, soda makers could snare the gas right out of the air with a forest of roof-mounted synthetic “trees” — cutting their costs and helping reduce greenhouse gas pollution at the same time? Continue reading ‘Carbon Trees’ Would Suck CO2 Out of Air | OnEarth→
Given the state of climate policy in Washington, one could be forgiven for thinking that carbon capture and storage, or CCS, had pretty much fallen off the global to-do list. CCS is shorthand for a host of technologies that promise to let us continue imbibing fossil fuels without the greenhouse gas hangover. Put simply, CCS works by nabbing CO2 from coal, gas, or oil — either before, during, or after the fuels are combusted — and diverting the greenhouse gases back into some sort of permanent storage, usually deep within the earth. Continue reading Lord Stern Says More Effort Needed to Accelerate Progress in Carbon Capture & Storage | OnEarth→
NoahHorowitz is the brains behind NRDC’s efforts to cut energy use in buildings. His areas of expertise include residential lighting and appliances, consumer electronics, information technology gear, and energy-saving “cool” roofs. For more about his research on efficient TVs and video games, see his Switchboard blog.
How does lighting efficiency fit into our overall challenge to reduce energy use?
Better lighting is just one part of a broader push to improve how buildings use energy. A typical building lasts 150 years, so any technology we build into them is likely to stay in place for decades. It’s better to build them right, the first time, than to fix them later. This means putting in more efficient lighting, superior insulation to keep things cool in the summer and warm in the winter, and good windows that let in light but that don’t leak energy. NRDC supports these goals by trying to upgrade codes and by promoting efficiency incentives at local, state, and national levels.
Federal standards to improve lighting efficiency are due to come into effect in less than two years. How do the rules work?
NRDC was the chief architect of the lighting standards included in the Energy Independence Act of 2007. The rules phase out inefficient lightbulbs in a technology-neutral way. In other words, the rules don’t specifically ban incandescents. Nor do they specify LEDs or CFLs as replacements. The rules simply set efficiency targets that come on line in two steps, first in 2012 then again in 2020.
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The government is offering a $10 million reward for the lightbulb of the future.
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Beginning in 2012, common household bulbs must use 30 percent less power. That means today’s incandescents (which convert only 10 percent of the electricity they consume into light — the rest is given off as heat) don’t pass the new code. Today’s incandescent 60-watt bulb puts out about 900 lumens of light, or about 15 lumens of light per watt of electricity. The 2012 standards calls for bulbs of around 20 lumens per watt or better. By 2020, the rules call for a further improvement in efficiency, to about 45 lumens per watt, about three times more efficient than today’s bulbs. That’s about the efficiency of a CFL today.
If CFLs can do the job, why do we need the L Prize, which focuses on LEDs?
The L Prize jump starts research and development of LED technology to bring down the price and spread the technology faster than it might otherwise on its own. The 2007 energy act puts money aside to help with R&D and set-up the prize. For the industry, the prize is valuable for the prestige it brings. And it should help consumers, too. The prize is a seal of approval from the government on LED technology.
Are today’s LED bulbs ready to work as substitutes for incandescents?
Not quite yet. For now, screw-in LEDs aren’t a great application because of the way they give off heat. Where incandescent bulbs radiate heat from the glass, LEDs radiate heat from their bases, where it’s more difficult to remove the heat. This can impair their efficiency.
Another problem that LED makers are working with is that because of the way LEDs make light — in narrow beams — current LEDs are best suited as directional light sources. For omni-directional coverage, when you need to light a whole room, current LEDs might not be best. But in some uses, they’re a good fit, such as for recessed ceiling lights.
LED makers see that there are over four billion screw-based sockets in the U.S., all of which will need a new kind of bulb sometime after 2012 when most incandescents go away. So they’re working to fix these problems.
How will general household lighting evolve after 2012, then?
LEDs aren’t a silver bullet. For example, the bulb Philips submitted for the L Prize uses about 9 watts to produce the light of today’s 60-watt incandescent. Philips LED is just a bit more efficient than today’s CFLs, though. And for now, new LEDs are costly: maybe $15 per bulb, versus a few dollars for a CFL. That price will come down, and their efficiency will improve gradually.
So come 2012, LEDs won’t suddenly replace all incandescents. There will be a period when there’s a mix of new technologies — CFLs, LEDs and others — each coming in to take the place of old-fashioned bulbs. There’s also next-generation halogen — some manufacturers call it the “new incandescent” — that will also compete against the CFL.
It may take LEDs longer to become mainstream, perhaps further into this decade. After 2012, where we used to use a 100-watt bulb to light a room, it will be replaced by a 70 watt that’s perhaps a next-generation halogen. Then you will have a 23-watt bulb CFL with better quality than one of today’s. And after that maybe will come LEDs at around 15 watts, with even better quality light.
With lighting on the right track, what other household devices could benefit from improved efficiency?
Just about anything that connects to your TV could be vastly improved. Most cable and set-top boxes are left on day and night, regardless of use. They consume lots of power and have very little intelligence to power down. Consider a digital video recorder such as TiVO, a common feature in many cable boxes. They typically draw 30 watts when turned on, and 29 watts when turned off, just one watt less.
Video games are similar. They’re left on all the time, too. Gamers leave them on because they worry they’ll lose their place in the game. And 40 percent of homes have them. On average, it can cost about $100 per year to leave them on. That means that in just a few years, the cost of energy they use is more than the price of the game system itself.
We need those things to sleep when we’re sleeping. If you have a DVR and a couple of other boxes in your home, all together they can use as much energy as your fridge. We’re working with the industry to get better standards in place. If these devices went into low-power mode when not in use, we could cut their overall electricity consumption by up to 75 percent. It’s criminal how much energy they use.
Philips’ LED bulb, the first L Prize entry, puts out the light of a conventional 60-watt bulb (rear), but uses just a sixth of the energy. Courtesy Philips
Government offers $10 million L Prize for energy efficient lighting that even CFL haters can love
Call it the curse of the CFL.
Back in 2007, before those swirly twists of glass had become mainstream, their energy-gobbling predecessors were put on death watch by Congress. The incandescent bulb, in use for more than a century, was judged too inefficient to meet the new standards established that year as part of a broader energy bill. Come 2012, the regulations require that common household bulbs use 20-30 percent less electricity. The U.S. push isn’t unique, either: similar rules are coming on line in Australia, Canada, and Europe.
Enter compact fluorescent lights, or CFLs. It didn’t take long for the bulbs to emerge from their niche status and go mainstream, hyped by a blitz of utility incentives, industry ads, and public service messages. Spurred on by high electricity prices, the public dutifully unscrewed their Edison-era bulbs and subbed in the new eco-alternatives.
“My father once told me that I would never be successful because I have too much contempt for authority,” says Edward Tufte. “I think that’s been an enormously successful strategy.”
At 67, Tufte (pronounced TUFF-tee) defies easy categorization. He has been a university statistician and a public policy wonk. And these days, he’s more excited about turning bulldozers into sculpture than the abstractions of information analysis.
This August, U.S. airlines face their first big deadline to meet European Union rules on emissions linked to global warming. That’s when carriers landing in Europe will have to submit proposals to the EU on how they plan to track such emissions. This is a first step toward tough European “cap-and-trade” laws requiring airlines to either slash greenhouse gases or pay for permits to emit, starting in 2012. U.S. airlines are watching these developments anxiously, in part because they are already struggling with weak travel demand and yo-yo’ing fuel prices.
The Air Transport Assn. (ATA), which represents U.S. carriers, says the plan violates international law, and that the U.S. government is obliged to object. If the EU proceeds on its course, it faces a thicket of lawsuits, predicts Nancy Young, ATA’s vice-president for environmental affairs. “We adamantly oppose their scheme,” she says—adding that having to purchase credits will stifle funding for the very innovations airlines must develop to cut emissions.
Just how much new carbon costs might increase airfares is unclear. One aviation industry study estimates the annual operating costs of airlines landing planes in Europe will rise by billions of dollars if the EU enacts its plan. But green groups tell a different story. They point to an EU analysis that puts the average price increase for a cross-Atlantic round-trip ticket at just $6 to $56 by 2020, depending on the cost of carbon permits. The effect on prices is “within the range of fluctuations travelers are used to,” says Mark Kenber, policy director at the Climate Group in London.
Environmentalists argue that, compared with the auto and electric power sectors, airlines have had it easy when it comes to efficiency targets and carbon policies. Their special status dates back to 1997, when many countries enacted the Kyoto Accord, a global pact to cut greenhouse gas output. Kyoto didn’t set specific reduction targets for airlines or marine shippers, though both groups were asked to come up with their own plans. That’s because plane flights accounted for just 2% of total industrial emissions at the time, and because of murky jurisdiction issues when planes or ships cross national borders.
U.S. carriers have boosted their fuel efficiency by 31% since 1990 and have promised an equal gain by 2035. Airplane and engine builders, from Boeing (BA) and Airbus to General Electric (GE) and Rolls-Royce (RYCEY), are researching lightweight materials and plant-based jet fuel. Airlines are seeking streamlined flight paths to avoid wasting fuel. Still, because air traffic is growing so fast globally, the sector’s emissions are on track to more than double by 2035.
Outside the U.S., key carriers such as Air France-KLM (AFLYY), British Airways (BAIRY), Cathay Pacific (CPCAY), and Virgin Atlantic are supporting just the sort of carbon caps the ATA opposes. They’re making the case in the runup to the Copenhagen Accord, a process to replace Kyoto that will move into high gear in December. On May 24 the International Aviation Transportation Assn.—a global trade group—for the first time agreed to reduce emissions.
U.S. carriers, which consume 35% of the world’s jet fuel, may not be able to opt out of carbon limits much longer. The Waxman-Markey climate bill moving through Congress includes aviation in its gas reduction goals. “The writing’s on the wall,” says Jake Schmidt, international climate policy director at the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Aston is Energy & Environment editor for BusinessWeek in New York.
Beijing has big plans to curb pollution and start a cleantech industry. But the global recession and looming trade frictions will test its resolve
The Sun-Moon Mansion, Himin Solar Energy's headquarters in Dezhou
China’s unprecedented growth in recent years has come at a terrible price. Two-thirds of its rivers and lakes are too polluted for industrial use, let alone agriculture or drinking. Just 1 in 100 of China’s nearly 600 million city dwellers breathes air that would be considered safe in Europe. At a time when arable land is in short supply, poisoned floodwaters have ruined many productive fields. And last year, ahead of most forecasts, China passed the U.S. to become the world’s largest source of greenhouse gases.
The immensity of these troubles has produced a result that may surprise many outside China: The nation has emerged as an incubator for clean technology, vaulting to the forefront in several categories. Among all countries, China is now the largest producer of photovoltaic solar panels, thanks to such homegrown manufacturers as Suntech Power (STP). The country is the world’s second-largest market for wind turbines, gaining rapidly on the U.S. In carmaking, China’s BYD Auto has leapfrogged global giants, launching the first mass-produced hybrid that plugs into an electrical outlet. “China is a very fast follower,” said Alex Westlake, a director of investment group ClearWorld Now, at a recent conference in Beijing.
GOVERNMENT SUPPORT
Understanding they are in a global race, China’s leaders are supporting green businesses with policies and incentives. Beijing recently hiked China’s auto mileage standards to a level the U.S. is not expected to reach until 2020. Beijing also says it will boost the country’s share of electricity created from renewable sources to 23% by 2020, from 16% today, on par with similar targets in Europe. The U.S. has no such national goal.
While most environmentalists applaud these developments, China watchers are voicing two very different sets of concerns. Some question whether China will really stand by its ambitious targets and are worried by signs of backsliding as the recession in China’s key export markets drags down economic growth. Another group, interested mainly in America’s own industrial future, fears that China’s growing dominance in certain green technologies will harm budding cleantech industries in the U.S. After all, China’s emergence comes just as the Obama Administration is trying to nurture these same types of ventures, hoping to generate millions of green jobs. Many of these U.S. businesses will have trouble holding their own against low-price competitors from China.
Beijing’s green intentions will soon be put to the test. China is in the midst of the biggest building boom in history. A McKinsey & Co. study estimates that over 350 million people—more than the U.S. population—will migrate from the countryside into cities by 2025. Five million buildings will be added, including 50,000 skyscrapers—equal to 10 New York Cities. And as quickly as new offices and houses multiply, they are filled with energy-hungry computers, TVs, air conditioners, and the like, sharply increasing demand for electricity, which comes mainly from coal-powered plants.
Environmental groups say it is therefore critical that Beijing promote rigorous, greener standards. And to some degree, that’s happening. A government mandate states that by the end of next year, each unit of economic output should use 20% less energy and 30% less water than in 2005. Portions of Beijing’s $587 billion economic stimulus package are earmarked for cleantech. On top of that, in March the Finance Ministry unveiled specific incentives to spark solar demand among China’s builders. Included was a subsidy of $3 per watt of solar capacity installed in 2009—enough to cover as much as 60% of estimated costs to install a rooftop solar array.
USING WASTE HEAT
Steps like these will help Himin Solar Energy Group in Dezhou, Shandong Province. Founded in 1995 by Huang Ming, an oil equipment engineer turned crusader against the use of fossil fuels, the company is the world’s largest producer of rooftop piping systems that use the sun’s rays to heat water. Its eye-catching headquarters, the Sun-Moon Mansion, showcases these heaters, which Himin cranks out in immense volumes—about 2 million square meters’ worth each year, equal to twice the annual sales of all such systems in the U.S. Because its water heaters sell for as little as $220, they are becoming standard in new housing complexes and many commercial buildings across the country.
Broad Air Conditioning, based in Changsha, Hunan Province, is also set to profit as Beijing pushes toward its green targets. By using natural gas and so-called waste heat from other machines and appliances instead of electricity, Broad’s big chillers can deliver two to three times more cooling per unit of energy than a conventional unit. In a similar fashion, Haier, headquartered in Qingdao, Shandong Province, combines low-cost manufacturing and a variety of advanced technologies to create affordable, energy-sipping refrigerators and other appliances. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Haier supplied more than 60,000 such devices for visiting athletes and tourists to use.
As these and other domestic players bump up against technological obstacles, they can draw on the expertise of many of the world’s top multinationals. In return for access to its domestic market, Beijing asks such companies as General Electric (GE), DuPont (DD), 3M (MMM), and Siemens (SI) to share their technology, help upgrade their China-based supply chains, and spread industrial processes to make manufacturing more efficient. These aren’t simply green practices, says Changhua Wu, Greater China director of the Climate Group, a consultancy in London that partners with companies to combat climate change. “They’re best practices.”
GE, for example, has transferred expertise to Chinese partners in everything from wind turbine construction to the building of low-pollution factories. At the Beijing Taiyanggong power plant, waste heat from the combustion process is recycled, resulting in around 80% efficiency, more than double the rate of most conventional power plants in the U.S. The bulk of GE’s sales of turbines for power plants in China are the ultra-efficient models. David G. Victor, a Stanford University professor who has studied China’s electric grid, says some of the coal plants being built there are “much more advanced than those we see in the U.S.”
Wal-Mart Stores (WMT), which buys some $9 billion worth of goods in China each year from some 20,000 vendors, infuses its supply chain with the latest ideas about energy efficiency. For example, Chinese factories that work with Wal-Mart are obliged to track vast quantities of data on energy use and make the information available for audits. “Many Western companies can’t track their own energy consumption,” says Andrew Winston, consultant and co-author of the book Green to Gold.
TORPEDOING U.S. SOLAR?
China’s early achievements in cleantech owe a lot to collaborations such as these. The benefits: China cleans up its own pollution, and the government-backed initiatives in solar and wind help drive down the cost of renewable energy systems in countries around the world.
But there is a downside. The rock-bottom prices for made-in-China green technology could make it impossible for cleantech ventures in the U.S., Europe, or Japan to compete. How, for example, will they go up against Suntech Power, based in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province, the world’s lowest-cost manufacturer of standard solar panels? The U.S. boasts plenty of advanced technology. But any efforts by Washington to nurture this sector could be quickly undercut by a flood of Chinese-made solar panels. Such a deluge is likely if there is a big increase in public subsidies for rooftop solar systems. “What [that would] do is create 10,000 Chinese jobs,” says Roger G. Little, chief executive of Spire Corp. (SPIR), a leading U.S. maker of manufacturing equipment for photovoltaics. “If we import all the [solar] modules, it will obliterate U.S. manufacturing” in this area.
A similar scenario exists in the much heralded area of electric vehicles. BYD, headquartered in Shenzhen, started selling its first plug-in hybrid, the F3DM, last year. It beat Toyota (TM) and General Motors (GM), both of which are developing such “plug-ins,” and hit the market with a price tag they probably can’t match: just $22,000. Henry Li, a BYD general manager, says the company will roll out a version of the car in the U.S. in 2011. Chevy’s answer to this car, called the Volt, is expected to cost about twice as much and won’t be out until next year.
How did BYD pull off this coup? Part of it is just being the new kid on the block. Today’s automobiles, with their advanced combustion engines, are the most complex mass-produced goods ever made, assembled from thousands of highly engineered parts provided by a web of suppliers. It’s difficult for a Chinese startup to compete on such a sophisticated playing field. But the emergence of a new, green-vehicle category clears the way. BYD was able to break in by leveraging its background as a battery maker. When it ran into technical hurdles, the company could draw on a deep pool of inexpensive, well-trained talent at China’s top engineering schools. BYD is also a leader in pure electric vehicles, the logical next step. The government is now putting some muscle behind BYD’s push. It is heavily subsidizing electric-car sales in about a dozen cities—in a stroke, making China the world’s biggest market for such advanced vehicles. Its goal is to boost domestic output of battery-powered vehicles to a half million per year in 2011.
How Washington and the beleaguered U.S. auto sector might respond to a wave of inexpensive electric vehicles from China is difficult to predict. And it is also unclear how China’s cleantech efforts in cars, energy, and other areas will be affected if key markets such as the U.S. and Europe don’t recover quickly from the recession. Chinese makers of solar photovoltaics, including Suntech, export about 98% of their production. They have been battered this year by a collapse in demand in Germany, Spain, and Japan, China’s top markets for solar gear. Suntech’s factories are currently running at half of last year’s capacity.
Even inside China, academics and business executives say Beijing needs to do more to bolster cleantech initiatives and make them recession-proof. For example, without better information on how such policies as the current Renewable Energy Law are to be enforced, “many of the terms are meaningless,” complains Himin’s Huang. And even when the terms are clear, companies don’t always adhere, says Zhou Weidong, the Guangzhou-based China director at the Business for Social Responsibility, a global consultancy promoting sustainable business practices: “Paying penalties is cheaper than complying with the law in many areas.”
At times, it seems as though Beijing is pedaling in the wrong direction. Late last year, China’s Environmental Protection Ministry loosened review standards on potentially polluting industrial projects. In an economic crunch, “environmental protection is downplayed to second, or third, or even fourth priority,” observes Guo Peiyuan of SynTao, a corporate social responsibility advisory firm in Beijing.
While acknowledging there has been some backsliding, most China watchers say the government is unlikely to stage a full-throttle retreat. Too much of its export growth is contingent on meeting strict environmental regulations. And Beijing recognizes that Chinese society can’t tolerate much more environmental degradation. The World Bank estimates damage from pollution—everything from decimated fisheries to premature human death—saps nearly 6% of China’s gross domestic product each year as well. For economic reasons alone, it will be difficult for China to turn back the clock.
Environmentalists argue that, compared with the auto and electric power sectors, airlines have had it easy when it comes to efficiency targets and carbon policies. Their special status dates back to 1997, when many countries enacted the Kyoto Accord, a global pact to cut greenhouse gas output. Kyoto didn’t set specific reduction targets for airlines or marine shippers, though both groups were asked to come up with their own plans. That’s because plane flights accounted for just 2% of total industrial emissions at the time, and because of murky jurisdiction issues when planes or ships cross national borders.