About a week ago, I received an envelope from PG&E with an image of a little boy walking through a field. The front of the envelope said:

On behalf of Ryan, age 1 and three quarters, we thank you in advance.

I knew right away that it was a conservation effort, so rather than tossing it in with the junk mail, I set it aside to read later. I finally opened it and read about the "ClimateSmart" program, which offered:

For about $5 a month, you can make the energy that you use "climate neutral" by investing in environmental projects that absorb or reduce greenhouse gases.

I was a bit skeptical because of the constant use of scare quotes every time the phrase "climate neutral" was used in the mailer. Turns out, this program is not exactly like green tags, or carbon offsets. As I read at Grist, the ClimateSmart program is not at all a way of purchasing renewable power, and doesn't support programs to create, support or expand renewable power. If you are considering joining the PG&E ClimateSmart program, do read these two posts at Grist:

• PG&E's 'ClimateSmart' offsets are anything but
• Update on PG&E's ClimateSmart Offset Program

Filed under california · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 7:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

I got this email 27 minutes ago from Robert Birgeneau, our Chancellor:

Colleagues, students, and friends:

I am proud and excited to tell you that a partnership led by UC Berkeley has been selected to receive an unprecedented $500 million from global energy firm BP to lead the way in research to develop new, clean, renewable sources of energy. With this remarkable support, the work Berkeley will undertake will be transformative for our nation and, indeed, our planet.

The campus will partner with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in this 10-year effort, which was announced this morning at a campus press conference by Robert A. Malone, chairman and president of BP America Inc., along with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.

This new research effort -- the Energy Biosciences Institute (EBI) -- will focus initially on biotechnology to produce biofuels, that is, transportation fuels that are made from plants. Berkeley and its partners will bring the most creative science, innovative technologies, and astute understanding of social sciences to bear to develop viable solutions to global energy challenges, among the most fundamental problems facing us today.

[...]

First thought: holy crap that's a lot of money (second thought: wow, BP is actually putting its money where its mouth is). I think this is fantastic news, not only for Berkeley, but also for energy research in general. For more information about this rather unprecedented research partnership, see here and here.

UPDATE: This article in the SF Chronicle more succinctly lays out what this all means.

Filed under berkeley · biology · energy · science

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 11:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Yesterday, Giao and I stopped by our local Elephant Pharmacy. Elephant is sort of like the Trader Joe's of pharmacies, except no small-molecule prescriptions of any kind are dispensed (they do have Chinese medicines and yoga/wellbeing courses). It's sort of where you'd imagine the hippy/co-op types go when they want to "reinvent themselves."

But much like Trader Joe's, I can't walk by it without going in and seeing what's inside. When we stepped in yesterday, we walked by the fruits 'n veggies first (noting the supremely ripe melon smell... it is melon season, turns out), and then I followed Giao to the boutique soaps section. I immediately noticed a new brand — called Pangaea Organics. OMfG. The product is pretty cool: your standard exotic/organic incredibly aromatic heavenly bar soap. Very nice. BUT THE PACKAGING... they package the bar soaps with the best packaging I've ever seen. It's a simple recycled-egg-carton style clamshell with a single layer of cardstock wrapper with the logo/UPC/etc. So sustainable it hurts. But moreso, so modern. It's such a cool look, and it's so eco friendly. I hope more companies buy into this type of packaging.

Pangaea claims that the packaging starts to decompose within 48 hrs, which I believe. I've also come to find out that IDEO had something to do with their packaging. Nice work, fellas.

As Paris would say, pretty hot.

Filed under berkeley · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 8:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Even though An Inconvenient Truth opens tomorrow in L.A. and New York, a lucky few of us here at Berkeley got an advanced screening of it tonight as part of the China - U.S. Climate Conference on campus. Al Gore was originally scheduled to speak in person, but sent an advanced copy of the film for us to see because he was unable to make it.

Although I haven't had time to fact-check, and I still need to let all the proverbial juices mellow, my first impression was "wow."

The movie was not so much a documentary in the style of Michael Moore, but rather, it was more like going to hear a very entertaining speaker. Gore is still goofy-doofus Dr. Namedropper, but once you learn to see past his not-terribly-likeable persona and actually listen to what he's saying (and realize that planet-wide changes are happening), it's pretty eye-opening. Even as a scientist, it's hard to pay attention to all the current geophysical research—I look through Science and Nature all the time where these articles are published, and it's overwhelming trying to piece it all together—nevertheless, Gore does a pretty good job of placing it all together into a good narrative... one that is very thought-provoking.

It's a powerful, powerful film, devoid of obvious hyperbole and I would recommend in a heartbeat for everyone I know to see it on opening weekend in your area. You can find out when and where it opens by going to the movie's website.

UPDATE: Man, Fox News is just out of control.

UPDATE: Grist blows away my review. Now, forget what you just read, and read this instead.

Filed under berkeley · culture · energy · science

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 10:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

If you haven't already seen the ridiculous new pro-CO₂ ad campaign, then please click here. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (apparently an industry-funded lobby group) has made two new video ads to vilify the prevailing notion that global warming is bad.

The first time I saw these, I thought they were parodies... at least now we know how many content-less clichés one can put in a 60-second spot! Make sure you have speakers. Oh, and more fun at realclimate.org.

Filed under culture · energy · science

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 11:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I've hoped for some time that our generation will evolve away from the typical Baby Boomer dream of owning a giant pretentious house. If you ask me, there are too many suburban and exurban zones littered with McMansion "subdivisions." These developments (a far cry from real neighborhoods) consist of rows upon rows of new, identical, treeless "Texas Tuscan"-style homes that manage to pull off the rather impressive feat of being simultaneously joyless and unsustainable. The McMansion is perhaps best summarized in this Urban Dictionary entry:

A large and pretentious house, typically of shoddy construction, typical of "upscale" suburban developments in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. Such houses are characterized by steep roofs of complex design, theatrical entrances, lack of stylistic integrity and backsides which are notably less fussy than their fronts. They are often placed closely together to maximize the developer's profits and appeal to people who value perceived social status over actual, physical, economic or historic value.

Although Nancy is just a school teacher, she mortgaged herself up to her neck to buy a new McMansion on Woodbridge Road Court in Clayton Hills Valley Estates at North Pine River Hollow Meadows.

As I understand it, the reasons people buy these houses must be because:

• they are cheap compared to the alternatives— you get a crapload more bang for the buck, but often at the expense of quality construction and good architecture;
• these types of homes are the only ones being built in many communities;
• people just don't know any better, because they've never lived in a human-scale home; and/or
• many of those that live in these suburban developments unconsciously embrace (or even defend) the rather racist foundations of Caucasian suburban flight in the late twentieth century.

We should be living closer to each other in smaller, more efficient, human-scale homes. On the other hand, this just seems a bit extreme.

Filed under architecture · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 11:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's a sad day in America when the CEOs of oil corporations are the only ones in the room making any sense. Rex Tillerson, CEO of Exxon Mobil, is quoted in the Houston Chronicle as encouraging conservation in order to bring down the high cost of gasoline:

"We just have to ask people to make sure they are using energy wisely," he told CNN. "Be efficient with it, don't waste it." [...]

Exxon Mobil doesn't want to see $3 gasoline any more than we do. Tillerson didn't say that, but it's implicit in his comments.

At that price, we start looking for alternatives, and we just might find one. Three-dollar gas may mean record profits for Exxon Mobil in the short term, but it could accelerate the decline in long-term demand. In other words, higher gasoline prices could mean lower profits later.

And finally:

The solution to higher gasoline prices is, of course, to either consume less, produce more, or a combination of the two — not the easy answers politicians now seek.

I'd prefer to see the former rather than the latter.

Filed under economics · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 12:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today, Apple announced an upcoming recycling program for all Mac computers. So, in addition to running a reliable, simple and intelligent operating system, and in addition to being able to also run standard Windows PC applications on the latest, most beautiful hardware, Apple users will also be able to return their Mac computer for recycling at the end of its lifetime. Which means environmentally conscientious Apple users will also enjoy a little more peace of mind:

US customers who buy a new Mac® through the Apple Store® (www.apple.com) or Apple’s retail stores will receive free shipping and environmentally friendly disposal of their old computer as part of the Apple Recycling program. Equipment received by the program in the US is recycled domestically and no hazardous material is shipped overseas.

You may be aware that recycling is often not very cost efficient, so Apple is presenting a good model of corporate responsibility by effectively incorporating the cost of recycling into the retail price. This is really the only way to go for electronics (where improper disposal often results in copper, lead, zinc, cadmium and mercury contamination into the local ecology/water supply). And it makes life easier for consumers and municipal governments, who are often ill-equipped to handle consumer electronics recycling.

That said, it isn't just corporate responsibility that's guiding technology companies. There are also upcoming restrictions on sales of hazardous materials in California and the European Community:

Apple also announced that the fifth generation iPod®, iPod nano and iPod shuffle are 100 percent compliant with the upcoming restrictions of hazardous substances (RoHS) in California and Europe, which are recognized as the new global standard for environmental regulation. iPod’s RoHS compliance comes months ahead of the July 1 deadline set by the European Union, and most of the materials covered by the RoHS directive, including mercury, cadmium, chromium VI and brominated flame retardants, were voluntarily eliminated from all Apple products years ago.

So it looks like there is going to be some legal "encouragements" to make this sort of thing happen. This is a good thing; let's hope we see more of this in the coming months.

UPDATE: You may know that Netflix patented its business model (6,966,484; 7,024,381); in much the same way, Apple might be able to claim patent protection for this free send-back system. At first, patenting might seem like a bad idea, but Apple could always freely license the idea to other companies on the condition that they acknowledge Apple. That might earn Apple some clout in technology and environmental circles.

Filed under california · culture · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 5:50 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A few weeks ago, a company called Pulsar Advanced Technologies announced that they had developed a microwave-powered tankless hot water heater. The idea is an intriguing one: rather than maintaining and heating a 50-gallon tank of water 24/7, simply replace the tank and heater with a microwave-powered unit. When the unit detects a pressure drop, it powers up the magnetron and rapidly pumps microwaves into the passing water. The virtue of the tankless water heater is that it doesn't require constant thermal regulation of a large tank—the microwaves simply heat the water when needed. And the assumption, at least, is that microwave heating of water is relatively efficient and fast enough to fully heat the water as it flows through the unit.

Is it such a far-fetched idea? One reader at Slashdot named Lawrence Wade (a.k.a. "BigBlockMopar") opines:

"Consider, for a second, that most microwave ovens put out something on the order of 700W of RF power... and that most of their nameplates indicate they consume 1200W-1500W to do it.

So, watt for watt, will it elevate the temperature of the water more than a conventional resistance element?"

Wade is right, magnetrons are not 100% efficient (tempting as it is to believe otherwise). Unfortunately, this troll goes on to blow his own credibility:

"I can't see how, and I have more than a few University-level engineering courses in thermodynamics, chemistry and electrical engineering under my belt."

Anyhow, water does have a high absorption coefficient in the microwave range (ε ≈ 1 cm^-1 [ref]), which makes for good energy transfer between the microwave radiation and the water. But Wade is right, converting the AC power arriving from the utility company into DC voltage, then using that DC power to run the magnetron is going to cost something. According to Wikipedia and this guy's blog, the transfer efficiency of magnetrons are on the order of 0.65 to 0.70, which means that at least 30-35% of the energy used to power the hot water heater will be lost as dissipated heat before ever reaching the water.

Neverthless, a back-of-the-envelope calculation should give us some idea about the total cost of ownership of one of these water heaters. The heat capacity of liquid water at STP (25 °C and 1 atm) is ~4 J/(g K). Since a gram of H₂O corresponds to 1 mL, and because we're concerned with only relative temperature change, we can say that

The heat capacity C_p says that for each degree Celsius we raise one liter of water, we'll need to supply 4 kilojoules of energy. Now, I know that water's heat capacity is going to change with temperature, and that piped-in water is at a higher pressure, but for this first approximation, I'll assume that these higher-order corrections are relatively minor.

Now my (low-flow) shower head says that it uses 9.5 L/min, and I usually take showers that last about 15 minutes, so I would need at least 140 L of hot water each day. Furthermore, water this time of year is about 55 °F coming in, and I like my water to be somewhere in the ballpark of 115 °F, which means I need to heat the water 60 °F (16 oops^(†), actually 33 °C). With that in mind, we have all we need to estimate our daily hot water energy demand:

It just so happens that this value corresponds to 5 kWh/(person day). Next, let's normalize this by our magnetron efficiency of 0.65, and finally assume that the design of the microwave heater is such that 90% of the microwaves generated actually get absorbed by the passing water. This gives us our overall energy usage for this simplified microwave heater model.

And since the national average retail cost of electricity is about 9 cents per kWh, this means the cost would be on the order of $24/month for each person taking a daily shower. Not too shabby. Actually, after correcting my original mistake with the temperature conversion, this figure strikes me as fairly expensive. This is also, to be fair, a low figure (because I'm ignoring loss of heat through pipes and other unavoidable dissipation), however it shouldn't be too far off the mark. This is no quantum advance for water heating, but it might make a difference depending on your usage. (Especially if you use hot water very infrequently).

If you feel you've been exposed to water contamination, then you will want to contact a lawyer to see if your exposure was illegal. A mesothelioma law firm may be able to help you because they are often both work related conditions. A mesothelioma attorney can help you get the payment you deserve!

Oddly enough, depending on your usage, it might actually make more sense to stick with a conventional heater. If you have a large household that goes through a lot of hot water, a conventional heater might actually be more energy efficient. The tradeoff comes about because the immersed resistive coils of the conventional electric heater have virtually lossless transfer efficiency while the tank requires constant heating; on the other hand, microwave heating is relatively lossy but requires no temperature maintenance. Therefore, the energy benefit to using the tankless heater goes up when one uses hot water less frequently. For myself and other apartment-dwellers, a unit like this may make sense, but it is probably not be such a good idea for multi-person households.

Of course this simplistic model says nothing about how quickly the microwave hot water heater can heat up this water (or even if the unit really can heat such a large flux of water so quickly). If the company, Pulsar Advanced Technologies, would release some specs, we could start to get an idea of how useful a product this thing actually is! In the mean time, it should be possible to calculate a theoretical "temporal energy transfer function" of the unit if someone has the relevant physical constants for water in front of them. The last URL below links to an engineer's blog where he may have done just that. Unfortunately, his model is either too sophisticated or too unclear for me to follow.

If anyone has any practical experience with one of these units, I'd love to hear your thoughts about it!

Some relevant URLs:

• Tankless Water Heater Guide
• Pulsar Advanced Technologies
• Mahi Engineering Consultant

^(†) Thanks to commenter Ron, below, for pointing out a mistake I made in the conversion from °F to °C. I have corrected the values above to account for the difference.

UPDATE: This site has a lot of excellent posts regarding water heaters in general, but has some particularly nice posts on tankless models. Some of the links to left sell tankless water heaters and are useful as pricing guides.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: If you don't want to do the math, this simple model predicts energy usage of about 0.24 kWh per gallon of hot water.

Filed under energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 4:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (5) | TrackBacks (1)

Jim of blogs for industry brings some much-needed data to the discussion of ag product transportation. After crunching some numbers from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), he concludes that:

[Commercial transportation adds up] to about 14% of total US energy consumption...which means that transportation of Ag products at "more than 20%" would be on the order of 3-4% [of total consumption.]

His estimates are probably good, and generally jive with other statistics provided by the EIA regarding petrol consumption. It is useful to keep in mind that the numbers he uses do not consider import of foreign products (and during the winter months, many fresh fruits and vegetables do come from South American sources). Huski may be correct in pointing out that eating only local foods makes an impact of questionable magnitude on the current energy market. But for many, the ethics of being earth-friendly are completely separable from economics. An article in today's San Francisco Chronicle illustrates that considering energy when choosing everyday foods is a growing habit for many people ^(†).

A decision clearly more important than food is in choosing good locations for cities before they are built. This may end up being a critical investment we can make in our nation's future; due to their scale and lack of density, our current urban models are overly dependent on abundant sources of energy for transportation. There are no guarantees that said energy will be around just two generations from now ^(‡).

The EIA says that the United States uses oil for transportation disproportionaly from the rest of the world. Mind you, this is not in a per capita sense (although I bet that's true too), but in a usage distribution sense. From the EIA:

In the United States, in contrast to other regions of the world, about 2/3 of all oil use is for transportation [...] (in most of the rest of the world, oil is more commonly used for space heating and power generation than for transportation.)

Why is this so? In part, because the United States is one of the only industrialized countries that has a high level of commercial activity even in the most inhospitable regions of its interior. North America contains regions of vastly differing climates, and time after time, we have chosen to plunk down entire communities where the local environments do not support agriculture (a.k.a. "life"). Life in a desert city, for example, would be impossible without access to cheap, abundant transportation. The "flourishing communities in the desert" require daily import of food for each of its citizens, a feat only an industrialized country could pull off, and one that is, if not unsustainable, then just plain dumb. I mean, seriously, why do people want to live in places like this? (Viewed along a different axis, the treeless suburban houses remind you an awful lot of the old Soviet-style apartment buildings...)

Why do people live there? I can only guess that it's the access to cheap housing. If true, this would suggest that we'll continue building "out" until we run out of fuel, literally. It's not apparent to me that there's a clear solution... but to be perfectly honest, Jim succeeded making me question whether or not there's a clear and present problem. I do know that I don't like the current method of urban outgrowth—it seems rediculous to plan urban, suburban and ex-urban communities the way we do now (which is to let the housing builders raze the local flora, construct entire residential zones consisting of identical houses in rows, then move on without planting more than 0.3 trees per hectare).

But this, I know, is an unpopular idea. Nobody wants the state dictating where to build housing (I certainly don't). I think the only way to fix this problem is to change the culture so that people would want live close to farms, close to clean water and close to public transportation. This is already happening in California, and as much as I would hate to admit it, the local/organic foods movement can take some credit for that. It remains to be seen if this attitude will be adopted elsewhere...

^(†) See also: this article at infosthetics. Excerpt: 'OilStandard' illustrates a potential future when oil will replace gold as the standard by which we trade all other goods & currencies (thanks to Nick for the link).

^(‡) For the record, I am certainly not proposing any Malthusian catastrophe. It's just that we may make life easier for future generations if we build cities in a way that has worked for thousands of years (i.e. densely, and close to water and agriculture), rather than the way we started just sixty years ago.

Filed under architecture · culture · economics · energy · food

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 12:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

While I am a big believer in the inherent good of technology, I also am secretly a bit of an environmentalist. I worry a lot about how the standard of living in most of America is so thoroughly enmeshed with The Automobile. In particular, I think we Americans need to think more about where we place our burgeoning towns, as well as put more thought into the planning of these urban centers. I would also claim that the demand for out-of-state agricultural foodstuffs are the source of many problems with regard to energy consumption. Fixing this problem may not be easy, but would have enormous benefits for national energy policy.

Continue reading "Technology may not fix America's energy problem (but food choices will)" »

Filed under architecture · economics · energy · food

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 9:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (4)

Treehugger picks up an article about deriving ethanol from microbial digestion as a means to energy independence. They remark on some recent commercial ventures, including:

Iogen opened a small, $40 million factory in 2004 to show it can produce cellulosic ethanol in commercial quantities. In the last two years, it has produced 65,000 gallons of ethanol that is blended with 85 percent gasoline to fuel about three dozen company and Canadian government vehicles. Oil giant Royal Dutch Shell has invested $40 million for a 30 percent ownership stake in Iogen; Petro-Canada and the Canadian government are also investors. The company will build a $350 million, commercial-scale factory next year if it can secure financing — which has long been a big if and remains one of the biggest stumbling blocks to bringing cellulosic ethanol to gas pumps. Under a best-case scenario, Passmore said Iogen won't be producing commercial quantities until 2009.

While I think this is awesome, I (apparently like many investors) am not quite so charmed by ethanol's promise just yet. There are contrarian reports as to its real energy costs, and when researchers do side with ethanol, it's often because of reduced greenhouse emissions and petrol consumption. Both of these things are good, but only incrementally.

Ethanol would be more sustainable than, say, gasoline, and this would increase our energy independence... but — if it takes a large amount of energy to make, then purify, then distribute — then where's the payoff? (I can just hear the second law of thermodynamics laughing at us now...)

Guess there's not much of a consensus just quite yet, at least among those who study energy. Which is probably why investors haven't jumped on-board yet. But with increased commercial activity comes innovation, so we'll just have to wait and see...

Filed under biology · energy · science

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 9:53 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

env fuel cell bike. This is about one of the coolest things I have seen in a long time. The env fuel cell motorcycle (pronounced "envy") has the potential to change a lot of things. It can go up to 200 miles per fueling, coasts along at speeds up to 50 mph, and can run for up to 4 hours continuously. There are no moving parts in the engine, and the bike is no louder than a desktop computer. Its emissions consist of the following compound(s): water vapor.

Pioneered by the UK company IntelligentEnergy, the env is rated as a motorcycle, and is expected to retail for between USD 6,000-8,000 once it is mass-produced. Each fill-up is expected to cost about USD 4. The one piece of data I'm missing is where and how I would buy myself a big, hot, flammable can of compressed hydrogen gas. I have a sneaking suspicion they have underestimated the storage and transport costs of a highly flammable gas like H₂. Hopefully I'm wrong, or missing something...

Be sure to read the second page at their site about the core. Did I mention that already?

Filed under culture · energy

Posted by H. C. Hodges at 8:09 PM | Permalink