Amplified Green

Solar energy is child’s play. Just use a magnifying glass in the sun and you’re generating energy in a jiffy. It’s what scientists at IBM are doing. They’ve launched what they claim to be breakthrough solar energy which is among the cheapest solar solutions around.

The scientists say they create five times more energy by concentrating the sun’s power through a lens. One square centimeter of solar cell produces as much as 230 watts of energy, the most ever in solar techology.

Having only just pioneered the technology, IBM says it will now focus on commercializing it at an installation cost of less than two dollars per watt. The company believes that it should be possible to produce systems even cheaper than that. The reason that IBM is so confident about this is pure maths; by using a much lower number of photovoltaic cells and concentrating more light onto each cell, they’ll ultimately need less total materials than your average solar farm.

One major hurdle that IBM scientists have yet to tackle is temperature control. Due to the high sunlight concentration - light of the equivalent of 2,000 suns are concentrated- temperatures are also going to be extremely high. The scientists say they will borrow innovations from other IBM R&D staffers specializing in cooling computer chips.

This post also appeared on Triple Pundit, the new blog by Treehugger, to which I contribute freelance articles about the environment and business.

Commercial hemp is a plant that scientists tout as having wonderful capabilities to combat climate change. The plant is outlawed in most countries including the US, but the EU subsidizes industrially grown hemp.

Commercially grown hemp has less than 1% tetrahydrocannabinol (THD), the psychedelic substance in ‘real’ cannabis. Most countries that shy away from growing it say they are fearful that farmers will also start growing the THD rich cannabis. Other than in the EU, the crop is grown in Canada, China, Russia and Australia.

Hemp takes in more carbon dioxide than any other plant and what’s more, hemp grows at an amazingly rapid speed. Wood made from hemp has 3-4 times the productivity of trees for paper manufacturing. And because it grows so fast, hemp can be used to solve the large-scale clearing of land and forests around the globe.

Various activists in the US are lobbying to get the crop reinstated. It was outlawed in the 1950s but Henry Ford ran his first car on hemp based fuel. Perhaps soon the activists will have their way. Already, the controlled substances act was amended last year to exclude industrial hemp from the legal definition of marihuana. The Campaign for the Restoration and Regulation of Hemp informs farmers and interested parties about the positive effects hemp has.

The applications of the crop for the energy industry are manifold and hemp is a way more powerful crop than rapeseed and other ethanol producing crops, without producing any harmful effects for the environment. Only one acre of hemp yields 1,000 gallons of methanol. Also, hemp can be used to create alternatives to coal, fuel oil, acetone, ethyl, tar pitch and creosote.

In the food sector hemp is also in strong demand. In 2004, the US alone imported $12 million worth of the stuff for the food sector. And the US healthcare market used $30 million worth of hemp.

Scientists at UK’s Newcastle University developed an energy efficient way to create a chemical reaction between epoxy and CO2. Big deal, you might think, but the resulting cyclic carbonates are estimated to cut Britain’s greenhouse gas by 4%!

The way it works is that cyclic carbonates are in high demand in the paints, petrol refining and biodegradable packaging industry, but until now the chemical component has been too expensive to create to consider it as a CO2 cutting agent. The process to create the chemical reaction required high temperatures and was therefore highly costly.

But in recent months, the Newcastle scientists found that using aluminum would create the chemical reaction at room temperature. They are now busy devising the most optimal ways to create the commercially very viable cyclic carbonate and the plan is to open a production plant that will manufacture the component for industrial supplies.

As much as 4% of the entire UK’s carbon dioxide can be ‘recyled’ this way, the Newcastle team claims. Professor Michael North who heads up the team says the technology has the potential to use up to 48 million tonnes of waste CO2 per year.

Writers at Carbon Balance and Management have published a study which shows just what happens as the cycle of carbon emissions and climate change reaches its saturation point.

We all know the theory underlying the global warming threat; landmass and oceans contain carbon and exchange carbon dioxide with the atmosphere. As our climate changes, the amount of CO2 absorbed by the land or the oceans changes. The link between the carbon cycle and CO2 emissions might very well only be relevant for the next ’several centuries. After that, there is no longer a connection between the two.

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Scientists who went on a two month expedition to the Southern Ocean say that the Antarctic deep sea gets colder, which might stimulate the circulation of the oceanic water masses. It was the first finding of the expedition and in the next few years they will study information from autonomous buoys to find out if there’s a trend. The scientists studied ocean currents as well as the distribution of temperature, salt content and trace substances in Antarctic sea water whilst aboard an Ocean vessel called the Polarsten and ended their trip in Punta Arenas/Chile. Their findings coincide with satellite image information indicating that last summer the Antarctic sea-ice extent has been the largest on record.

The expedition which counted 58 scientists and two teachers from ten countries aimed to investigate the role of the Southern Ocean for past, present and future climate. Oceanographer Eberhard Fahrbach who led the group said that the sinking water masses in the Southern Ocean play a major role in global climate. „While the last Arctic summer was the warmest on record, we had a cold summer with a sea-ice maximum in the Antarctic. The expedition shall form the basis for understanding the opposing developments in the Arctic and in the Antarctic,“ Fahrbach said. His team also reported they found the smallest iron concentrations ever measured in the ocean. (more…)

The climate change summit in Bangkok which ends tomorrow is not expected to reach much progress. Analysts say that the talks at best will result in an agreement to schedule more rounds of negotiations. The talks which are sponsored by the United Nations, would require new financing if this is the case.

The meeting aimed to draft an accord succeeding the Kyoto Protocol which expires in 2012. The Bangkok talks are the first of what had been planned to be three summits. Some 1,200 delegates from 63 countries are participating. The negotiators are working on the basis of the ‘principle of common but differentiated responsibility’ which they accepted in Bali in 2007. In other words, the new pact will bind all countries to various actions.

These are the opinions of the main countries involved:

China; developed countries should live up to a guideline they agreed on in Bali; 2020 cuts of 25 to 40 percent below 1990 levels.
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Organic photoelectrochemical, dye-sensitized cells, a new type of solar energy, is expected to hit the market this Summer. The technology, which is easy and cheap to use, will be embedded in hundreds of day-to-day consumer products. The dye cells can be used for windows, building facades, gadgets and even in clothing. The pioneer behind the technology is a Swiss professor named Michael Gratzel, who claims that his invention is more robust than regular photovoltaic panel solutions.

Dye based solar cells are made of titanium oxide nanochrystals. These are coated with light absorbing dye that can be used in various materials including glass and plastic. The dye is immersed in an electrolyte solution. When light reaches the surface, the dye sets free electrons which in turn create ‘holes’ – positive charges as a result of ‘lost electrons’. The titanium dioxide semiconducts and transfers electricity to an electrical circuit and energy is created.

The solar cells convert light to electricity with an efficiency of 7.2 percent, which is a record for this type of cell. Solar panels typically convert 16 percent to 20 percent of light into energy. But the advantage of the organic dye cells is that they also convert low light and that they can be ‘tuned’ for specific wavelengths.

The first company manufacturing dye sensitized solar cells is Konarka, which is based in Lowell, MA. This company announced it had successfully conducted the first-ever demonstration of manufacturing solar cells by highly efficient inkjet printing ten days ago. Konarka is focusing on getting the technology embedded in hundreds of day to day products. In the Summer Konarka is planning on shipping out its first products, mainly gadgets, lights and smart cards.

One drawback of the solution’s first editions was that the electrolyte could start to leak in cases of high temperatures. This has been redressed by altering the electrolyte liquids. Grätzel and his team refined this original design by optimising the sensitiser and using organic dyes based on indoline. This allows the titanium oxide to be thinner, which reduces the electron path length.

Michael Gratzel explained in a recent scientific paper published in Inderscience’s Angewandte Chemie how he’s sophisticated his technology.

The risks involved in biodiesel have been highlighted in recent media articles citing expert studies that pointed out huge anomalies in the blended biodiesel industry. Other research points out that pure biodiesels are rapidly improving in quality. Plus, there have been a few projects that provide alternative solutions to greenhouse gas emitting crops grown for the biofuels.

One of the most outrageous findings was revealed in research by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, which pointed out that samples of 20 biodiesel blenders (B20 biodiesels) contained hugely varying levels of the biological stuff.

The variations stretched from 10 to 74% of actual biodiesel content. The researchers say that it’s mostly the smaller retailers that cause the imbalances. Those retailers tend to use the so called splash blending method to mix the diesels; they pour the biodiesel into regular diesel in a big tank or truck.

Consumers feel cheated because the manufacturers of blended biofuels get a standard tax credit based on an x amount of biofuel components. This means that those that put in 10% instead of 20% biodiesel get rewarded for something they don’t deserve. And those that use higher percentages of biodiesel are putting their consumers at risk because the high blends of biodiesel can freeze in cold temperatures.

Meanwhile, other products in the biodiesel industry appear to be improving. According to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, pure biodiesel is vastly improving.

The problems with blended biofuels are rather simple to redress. A much more damaging report was published last year which cast serious doubts on the crops grown for use in biofuel. Researchers at SRI Consulting concluded that the emissions of greenhouse gases by growing some crops amounted to similar levels of the CO2 emissions by cars. Scientists are finding various alternative solutions to this problem. One ingenious solution is to make biofuels of the large quantities of glycerol that the biofuel industry has been producing thus far. The glycerol is harmful for the environment and its production is considered a drawback to the biofuel industry.

Scientists at the University of Leeds (UK) reported a few months ago that not only have found a perfect alternative to simply disposing of glycerol, but they had discovered a valuable hidden energy source in this waste material; a high-value, hydrogen-rich gas!

Other solutions that could facilitate fast and large scale implementation of non harmful biofuels include fungus infested straw and algae conversion. The straw solution is very workable and UK experts (video) say we could be running our cars on the stuff within the next five to ten years.

Every blogger encounters the feeling that they’re obliged to have a go at Peak Oil. In a way that’s not surprising, because the subject is vastly topical. This is a review of what the policymakers are doing.

The participants in the Peak Oil debate can be split into the oil barons, the worried public/activists/scientists and the politicians. The opinions of oil barons are one end of the spectrum and those of scientists/activists/public at large the other end. Policy makers are stuck in between. The big question? Whether peak oil actually means that we’re almost out of the stuff.

The oil companies say this is nonsense but it appears that they are less and less assured of political support. One of the most notable anomalies has been described in the book Half Gone, written by the former oil industry geologist Jeremy Leggett.
He says that the annual BP Statistical Review of World Energy consists largely of facts derived from third parties. This is poignant because the Review, which is regarded as a standard reference work by oil industry professionals, apparently relays in small print that the figures included don’t meet US Securities and Exchange Commission criteria for determining proven reserves.

This means that the company relies on completely different numbers for its own operations. Leggett writes that this is outrageous, especially since “this is an energy bible used by researchers the world over.” The anomaly spotted? BP treats its investors way different than the outside world. It makes you think twice about the words of BP’s Lord Browne, who said a few years back that people had yet to demonstrate that there has been a shortage of oil. “There is no shortage of oil, and that there never need be a shortage… there is no reason why there should be any shortfall in the foreseeable future,” Browne said.

Policymakers find themselves paying attention to the scientists that prove the likes of Browne wrong but large scale projects to reduce oil dependence or prepare for a depletion scenario are few and far between at the moment. Worldwide only one country has pledged to become oil independent at a future date; Sweden is determined to reduce its consumption by up to 50% by 2020. In the US, the city of Oakland followed in Sweden’s footsteps at the end of 2006, launching the Oil Independent Oakland By 2020 Task Force.

There was an update on the Task Force’s progress a week ago which you can read here. Oakland hopes to become a model for other cities. Interestingly, the city’s communications underscore that there is a lack of guidance on the part of the policy makers at Federal level on sustainable energy policy issues. An organisation that steps in here is the OilDepletionProtocol. Private persons and communities can sign up and Oakland is a signatory.

A very obvious yet persistent anomaly in oil circles is the belief that higher oil prices simply solve the problem of oil shortage. People who believe this argue that higher prices simply finance looking for oil in places that had been bypassed in earlier years because of the costs involved. “Energy isn’t like other commodities. At some stage it will take more than a barrel of oil’s worth of energy to drill for a barrel of oil, so the job won’t be worth doing however high the oil price - not in my back garden or underneath the ocean or in Canada’s tar sands”, retorts a writer of UK newspaper The Times.

A book/website entitled How Green Is Your City is also a good resource on the status of play. It ranks 50 US cities in terms of sustainability, reviewing each of the cities on 15 sustainability factors. It was first published in June 2007 and is frequently updated. Currenly, Portland, San Francisco and Seattle form the top three. Oakland ranks fifth.

Clean technologies are fast being commercialised and moving into global mainstream business. The driving forces are climate change, energy security and increasing energy prices. In the energy sector, these factors, are pushing clean technology markets of biomass, biofuels, solar, wind and fuel cells in the extent that cleantech is seen to be a next engine for economic growth.

The February issue of Energy & Enviro Finland outlines a few success stories, including a housing organisation’s experiment to warm housed using warmth from the seabed. The organisation, Finnish Housing Fair, installed pumps powered by fuel cells and microturbines driven by combustible methane gas from a rubbish dump. The fair area is almost self-sufficient in clean energy. What’s more, the low-energy system cools houses in the summer!

A few other successful projects are found in the forest industry. They include biorefineries, biofuels and combining nanotechnology and smart features with fibres for packaging.

The article also points out that Russia uses what’s known as associated gas – a side-stream of oil and natural gas production - to produce energy and hydrogen. Aim is to deliver this hydrogen in the future via natural gas pipelines to European countries.