Vibration power

It currently only works for small appliances such as TV remote control but it's still early days. BBC:

The idea behind the technology is to remove the need for toxic rechargeable batteries and other disposable batteries that can harm the environment, said the company.

So far, two of the AA sized prototypes developed produce a voltage of 3.2V or lower, which is just enough to charge low power consumption device such as TV remote controls.

Despite the low power, Carl Telford an analyst at electronics business consultants Strategic Business Insights, says the batteries are a significant break through with much potential.

"It's great because they will work OK in a low-power application for AA batteries that one can shake without breaking; a remote control, for example," he told BBC News.

"Of its size, it is small, compact, and directly compatible with existing power sources. Brother says that it can produce enough power at reasonably low frequencies, around 4-8Hz - this is impressive.

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China takes over as largest consumer of power

The US owned that position for around 100 years. Wall Street Journal:

China, powered by years of rapid economic growth, is now the world's biggest energy consumer, knocking the U.S. off a perch it held for more than a century, according to new data from the International Energy Agency.

The Paris-based agency, whose forecasts are generally regarded as bellwether indicators for the energy industry, said China devoured 2,252 million tons of oil equivalent last year, or about 4% more than the U.S., which burned through 2,170 million tons of oil equivalent. The oil-equivalent metric represents all forms of energy consumed, including crude oil, nuclear, coal, natural gas and renewable sources such as hydropower.

The figures reflect, in part, how the global recession hit the U.S. more severely than China and hurt American industrial activity and energy use. Still, China's total energy consumption has clocked annual double-digit growth rates for many years, driven by the country's big industrial base. Highlighting how quickly its energy demand has increased, China's total energy consumption was just half the size of the U.S. 10 years ago.

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Obama announces $2 billion for solar energy development

As the Gulf oil leak has reminded us, throwing more money at Big Oil and the status quo is not what we need. Washington Post:President Barack Obama announced Saturday the awarding of nearly $2 billion for new solar plants that he said will create thousands of jobs and increase the country's use of renewable energy sources.

Obama disclosed the funding in his weekly radio and online address, saying it is part of his plan to bring new industries to the U.S. Read More......

Americans want fundamental overhaul of energy policies, but don't ask them to pay more for gas

First off, not exactly a profile in American courage:

Overwhelmingly, Americans think the nation needs a fundamental overhaul of its energy policies, and most expect alternative forms to replace oil as a major source within 25 years. Yet a majority are unwilling to pay higher gasoline prices to help develop new fuel sources.

Secondly, people may say they won't put up with higher gas prices, but when gas hit $4.00 a gallon people weren't happy, but they didn't exactly rise up in protest either. Read More......

Oil rig disaster could be worse than Exxon Valdez within a week

From WonkRoom:

The catastrophic gusher of oil unleashed by the explosion of BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig last week is on track to quickly exceed the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill, an independent expert warns. An explosive burst of oil destroyed the exploratory rig 41 miles off the Louisiana coast on the eve of Earth Day, killing 11 workers. After the shattered hulk of the rig sank to the ocean floor a mile down, the pipeline continues to spew oil that has now reached shore, with an end weeks or months away. John Amos, the president and founder of the nonprofit firm SkyTruth, “which specializes in gathering and analyzing satellite and aerial data to promote environmental conservation,” estimated from satellite photos that the calamity is increasing at a rate of 850,000 gallons (20,000 barrels) a day.

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White House will now wait on offshore drilling until 'an adequate review' of massive Gulf spill

UPDATE via the Wonk Room: Repeating a GOP/Oil industry sounding talking point, earlier this month the President said:

It turns out, by the way, that oil rigs today generally don’t cause spills. They are technologically very advanced.

It turns out, by the way, they do:

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So, last month, Obama offered a great compromise on energy. He was going to allow coastal drilling, because he going to get beyond the "tired debates" over the issue. As John asked yesterday: Now who is looking tired? Now who is backtracking? This morning, David Axelrod said that there will be no drilling until there is "an adequate review." Note the President is apparently sticking with his plans for drilling, but needs a study about what happened in the Gulf of Mexico:

"All he has said is that he is not going to continue the moratorium on drilling but... no additional drilling has been authorized and none will until we find out what happened here and whether there was something unique and preventable here," White House senior adviser David Axelrod said on "Good Morning America" today, defending the administration's policy.

Axelrod said no new offshore drilling will go forward until "there is an adequate review of what happened here and what is being proposed elsewhere."

As Gulf Coast residents brace for mounds of slick to hit their shores, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has seeped into the energy debate in Washington, D.C. and threatens to disrupt Obama's policy and the bipartisan energy legislation in the Senate.

This spill threatens Obama's new policy of drilling, because "all he said" was that he's going to allow it. Obama owns it now. Imagine how much we'd be mocking Palin and the GOPers over their "drill, baby, drill" agenda if Obama hadn't adopted it. So, that quest for bipartisanship and the need to please conservative Democrats is really paying off. Read More......

US Navy going green

Of course, it's probably also a lot about saving energy and costs but still a very positive move. The Guardian:

The US navy is set to be both green and mean with the dawning of an new eco-friendly assault force that will mind its carbon footprint as it destroys its enemy. It is to launch "the Great Green Fleet", a fighting force of ships, submarines and planes powered entirely by biofuels. The first group will be tested in 2012, and the navy plans for it to be operational by 2016.

The push for greener fighting forces runs across the Pentagon. The military accounts for nearly 80% of the US government's energy consumption and the two wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have made strategists acutely conscious of both the massive cost and serious security risks of the gas-guzzling ways of the past.

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Toulouse, France to pilot 'walking energy' lit sidewalks

What a fun idea. Hopefully the pilot is successful and we see other projects like this around the world.

Embedded with microsensors which produce energy when people move over them, the modules seemed to Marciel to provide an unprecedented opportunity to alter how cities save and produce energy.

"It all stems from an observation that, in the public sphere, energy is wasted and it would be good if we could somehow get it back. There is nothing original in that but what the Dutch start-up had created was new," he said.

Although the authorities say they have succeeded in proving that the idea works – to the bewilderment of some sceptical Toulouse residents – they and the designers admit there have been problems.

The prototype of the modules, said Marciel, was unsuitable for street use as "at that stage they only worked if you jumped on them like a kangaroo". "So a model was developed on which you can walk normally and still produce enough energy to power the lights," he said.

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Death toll now at 25 with 4 missing in WV mine explosion

Just a horrific workplace tragedy in Montcoal, West Virginia:

If, as feared, the four missing miners are found to have perished and the death toll at Upper Big Branch rises to 29, it would be the worst U.S. mining disaster since 1970, when 38 were killed by an explosion at Finley Coal Co. in Hyden, Ky.

The cause of Monday's explosion has not been determined, but a buildup of methane or coal dust was considered the likeliest culprit.

Although Massey Energy boasts on its Web site of achieving its best safety record in 2009 and beating the industry average for the sixth consecutive year, safety officials said the Upper Big Branch Mine, run by Massey subsidiary Performance Coal Co., has a history of violations for not properly ventilating methane gas.

Federal inspectors fined the company more than $382,000 in the past year for repeated serious violations involving its ventilation plan and equipment at Upper Big Branch, the Associated Press reported. The violations also cover failing to follow the plan, allowing combustible coal dust to pile up and having improper firefighting equipment.

I suspect we'll be hearing more about Massey Energy over the next few weeks. ABC has some of the company's history:

The West Virginia coal mine where an explosion killed 25 workers and left another four unaccounted for in the worst mining disaster since 1984 had amassed scores of citations from mining safety officials, including 57 infractions just last month for violations that included repeatedly failing to develop and follow a ventilation plan. The federal records catalog the problems at the Upper Big Branch mine, operated by the Performance Coal Company. They show the company was fighting many of the steepest fines, or simply refusing to pay them. Performance is a subsidiary of Massey Energy. Another Massey subsidiary agreed to pay $4.2 million in criminal and civil fines last year and admitted to willfully violating mandatory safety standards that led to the deaths of two miners.

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Cynthia Tucker is not a fan of offshore drilling

Cynthia Tucker:

Conservatives scoff at the notion that President Obama is pragmatic, centrist or bi-partisan, but nothing else explains his decision to open up limited off-shore drilling. With the addition of drilling, Obama now endorses the same balanced plan for the nation’s energy independence that his GOP opponent, John McCain, did. Obama has already announced government support for building nuclear power plants in Georgia.

But has this balanced plan helped the president politically? Not so much.

Though Republicans like Lindsay Graham have been talking about compromise on energy legislation, I don’t expect to see any Senate Republicans actually vote for an energy bill that Obama supports. So much for bi-partisanship.

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'Saudi Arabia' of marine energy signs contracts

This is a very interesting new energy project. Besides the project itself, it's also interesting to note that one of the energy companies involved had previously been promoting a coal energy project which was stopped after protests. In France, the energy company has to purchase a certain percentage of their power from such sources. (I believe it's either 10% or 15%.) Google has recently been called out for moving a new data center to an area that uses coal energy as opposed somewhere that uses green energy. It's important that governments encourage alternative energy projects like this but it's also helpful if businesses encourage and reward the same. Cool stuff.

The seabed off the north coast of Scotland could be transformed into the "Saudi Arabia of marine energy" after seven power firms were awarded contracts for a landmark project designed to harness the area's potential for tidal energy and power up to 750,000 homes by 2020.

More than 20 firms were originally in the running for the project, billed as the world's first commercial wave and tidal scheme, in the Pentland Firth between northern Scotland and the Orkney Islands.

Yesterday, the seven successful bidders were informed by the Crown Estate, which owns much of the UK seabed and is funding the project alongside the Scottish government and local partners.

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Rich buying farm land and water rights in Africa while locals go hungry

The wealthy countries repeatedly find new ways to screw Africa. They're purchasing the fishing rights and denying locals the rights to fish the sea or selling more guns or owning profitable enterprises that ought to be owned locally. In this case, buying fertile land and denying it to locals is sick. The local governments aren't much better for allowing it but the countries to the north appear to have forgotten about their disastrous colonial legacy.

This is another example of the new wave of colonialism that is blocking Africa from making progress. Even worse, part of what is driving the effort is fuel. How many more examples like this do we need to see before people stop using food growing land to generate fuel? Instead of encouraging this, it's time to tax the hell out of these plans that are taking food away from people. The Observer:

Ethiopia is one of the hungriest countries in the world with more than 13 million people needing food aid, but paradoxically the government is offering at least 3m hectares of its most fertile land to rich countries and some of the world's most wealthy individuals to export food for their own populations.

The 1,000 hectares of land which contain the Awassa greenhouses are leased for 99 years to a Saudi billionaire businessman, Ethiopian-born Sheikh Mohammed al-Amoudi, one of the 50 richest men in the world. His Saudi Star company plans to spend up to $2bn acquiring and developing 500,000 hectares of land in Ethiopia in the next few years. So far, it has bought four farms and is already growing wheat, rice, vegetables and flowers for the Saudi market. It expects eventually to employ more than 10,000 people.

But Ethiopia is only one of 20 or more African countries where land is being bought or leased for intensive agriculture on an immense scale in what may be the greatest change of ownership since the colonial era.

An Observer investigation estimates that up to 50m hectares of land – an area more than double the size of the UK – has been acquired in the last few years or is in the process of being negotiated by governments and wealthy investors working with state subsidies. The data used was collected by Grain, the International Institute for Environment and Development, the International Land Coalition, ActionAid and other non-governmental groups.

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With all Palin's talk about being an 'energy expert', Alaska isn't even among the top 10 energy producing states

Alaska produces 2.9% of the total energy production of the US. Why does the media let her get away with her ongoing lie that Alaska produces 20% of the nation's energy, and thus that makes her an energy expert? It simply makes her, once again, an idiot and a liar. Read More......

Palin repeats falsehood that Alaska produces '20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy' - in fact it's 2.9%

This is important because in the interview she's claiming that, prior to running for VP, her main expertise was energy policy. Yet, she's unaware of the date concerning her own state. She's off by a factor of 7. And she's made this mistake before, but refuses to correct it. From Media Matters:

CHRIS WALLACE (HOST): Would you say you're more knowledgeable about domestic and foreign affairs now than you were two years ago?

PALIN: Well, I would hope so. Yes, I am. Two years ago, my engagement was on the state of Alaska, largest, most diverse state in the union. 20 percent of the U.S. domestic supply of energy coming from our state, desiring to and working towards ramping up that domestic energy production. That was my focus and now of course my focus has been enlarged. So I sure as heck better be more astute on these current events, national issues than I was two years ago.

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Underwater kites for energy

Another very interesting new possibility for generating energy. What's also interesting is the brief mention inside the article about UK energy consumption being a third of US households. That is quite a difference and it's going to have to change in the future. Also inside is a link to a computer generated video of what it would look like underwater.

A completely new concept of underwater wave energy using a simple 7 ton kite turbine design has been developed by Minesto; which is a spinoff from the Swedish military and aircraft design firm Saab. The Deep Green underwater turbine captures the power of the ocean just like a kite in wind.

The system could generate 18 terawatthours of energy annually, enough to provide nearly 4 million British households with reliably green electricity every year. UK households now use about a third of what average US households use in energy.

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Clotheslines or dryer?

Interesting read in the Times today by a number of people who are discussing the environmental and practical issues related to clothes drying. Obviously not everyone is going to find this one a thriller but it's interesting to see how different people view clothes drying. Like many (most, probably) Americans I grew up with a dryer. I bought one when I moved to Paris and wondered how the heck those nutty French did without one. Even though I observed plenty of people who could buy one (at least) but didn't, I still swore by my dryer.

Paris is miserably humid which means clothes can take a day, sometimes more to dry. And besides, who really wants one of those fold out dryers clogging up a room? During our own financial crisis a few years back our trusted dryer stopped being trustworthy. As much as I wanted to buy another it was going the way of the TV that died and would never be replaced. We simply didn't have the spare cash to buy another so we bought a used fold out drying rack and never looked back.

It's still ugly in the room and yes, it can take time but we notice the lower energy costs. We also notice our clothes last a lot longer since they're not being trashed by the dryer. It took a while but now I finally see why few people bother to buy the energy sucking beasts. Where it could easily get more challenging though is in a larger household with more than two people. People do it, but it has to be a bit more tricky keeping the process moving. Read More......

Sleazy tactics from DC-based lobbying firm, Bonner & Associates

Our opponents play dirty:

As U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello was considering how to vote on an important piece of climate change legislation in June, the freshman congressman’s office received at least six letters from two Charlottesville-based minority organizations voicing opposition to the measure.

The letters, as it turns out, were forgeries.

“They stole our name. They stole our logo. They created a position title and made up the name of someone to fill it. They forged a letter and sent it to our congressman without our authorization,” said Tim Freilich, who sits on the executive committee of Creciendo Juntos, a nonprofit network that tackles issues related to Charlottesville’s Hispanic community. “It’s this type of activity that undermines Americans’ faith in democracy.”

The faked letter from Creciendo Juntos was signed by “Marisse K. Acevado, Asst Member Coordinator,” an identity and position at Creciendo Juntos that do not exist.

The person who sent the letter has not been identified, but he or she was employed by a Washington lobbying firm called Bonner & Associates.

Don't think for a minute that these kinds of things don't happen with some frequency. Maybe not so egregiously. And, most don't get caught. But there was this article about DC-based Dewey Square allegedly forging letters to the editor about Medicare.

UPDATE: Think Progress reports Bonner & Associates has quite a history of astroturfing and other shenanigans. Read More......

India looks to green energy for future

While a great-to-have, green energy doesn't always have to be about the environment. The combination of energy independence plus sound financial sense is a good reason as well. Moving beyond the old oil based economy isn't such a bad idea for other countries either though we all know how hard it is for countries to change.

"We believe India is innovative and entrepreneurial enough to figure out how to deal with climate change while continuing to lift people out of poverty and develop at a rapid rate," she said Saturday in Mumbai.

"We need to get our act together," said Gauri Singh, joint secretary in India's Ministry of New and Renewable Energy, which was set up 26 years ago, "because India is growing faster than anyone can imagine. Renewable energy will have to supplement conventional power supply.

"Our priority is to achieve energy security and self-reliance. Climate change is not the main driver for renewable energy in India, it is a co-benefit," she added, echoing a debate in the United States, where renewable energy is being sold less as a way to save the planet than as a way to create new "green collar" jobs.

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VA TV station won't air GOP ad against Dem. Congressman who voted for energy bill

Remember last week how House GOP leader John Boehner had a tantrum during the debate on the energy bill, trying to filibuster the legislation? Well, that bill has sent the GOP over the deep end. The House Republican's political arm planned to run ads against Democrats who voted for the bill (although eight Republicans voted for it, too). But, an ad set to run against freshmen Tom Perriello (D-VA) was refused by a Roanoke, VA TV station:

Congressional Republicans were dealt a setback Thursday in their attempt to punish Democrats in swing districts for voting for climate change legislation in the House last week.

WDBJ-TV, a Roanoke television station, will not air a National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) ad attacking freshman Rep. Tom Perriello (D-Va.), citing factual inaccuracies, according to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee communications director Jen Crider. A source familiar with the station's decision confirmed Crider's account; WDBJ general manager Jeff Marks confirmed that the ad would not run, but declined to say why.

"The ad is not running, be we have not characterized why that is," said Marks. "We don't characterize why an ad is not running. We looked into the complaints [from national Democrats], but other than saying that, you really need to find out from the NRCC."

And, as this Huffington Post article noted,

the nonpartisan organization FactCheck.org called the ad "wrong."

Everything the GOP does these days is wrong. Read More......

UPDATED: House passed major Energy Bill after debate featuring tantrum by GOP leader Boehner

UPDATE @ 7:17 PM: The House just passed the Energy bill by a vote of 219 - 212. 44 Democrats voted no, but eight Republicans voted for the legislation. That makes it bipartisan, which, as we all know, is the most important thing EVER. Hallelujah.

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For the past couple hours, I've made the mistake of watching the House debate H.R. 2454 - American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009. Minority Leader John Boehner gave an hour long rant. The Hill called it a "filibuster-like move":

In a highly unusual move, Rep. John Boehner (R-Ohio) on Friday launched a filibuster-like move to delay a vote on the Democrats' cap-and-trade bill.

The House minority leader is going through the bill page-by-page in a speech on the House floor to protest changes made to the measure at just after three a.m. on Friday.

It looked and sounded like he was playing a game. The Republicans act pretty damn juvenile. One could easily forget that the GOP controlled the House from 1995 through 2007, yet never did anything of substance on energy. Seriously, Boehner sounded like a teenage punk with all his goofy gang members behind him, urging him on. Good god, they are useless. Speaker Pelosi turned down the opportunity for a speech and urged a vote.

The Obama administration has been aggressively lobbying for this legislation, which is a key part of his agenda. (When the White House wants something, they work for it.)

The House is now voting on, by a vote of 172 - 256, defeated a GOP substitute amendment to weaken the bill. The sponsor of the substitute, Randy Forbes from Virginia, is a real piece of work, too. Then, they'll go to final passage of the bill next. I'll update this post with final tallies shortly. Read More......