Cleaner Energy through more Lane-Miles?

This is the kinda thing that, if it works, is really cool:

Researchers at Worcester Polytechnic Institute have just done a batch of research that they hope will help turn the world's roads into cheap collectors of solar power.

They started with the assumption that asphalt gets frakking hot when the sun shines on it, and then started making some serious leaps.

First, they decided to figure out what part of the asphalt gets hottest, which turns out to be about two centimeters below the surface. Then they tried to figure out how to make it even hotter. The painted an anti-reflective coating to their test blocks, and then added highly thermally conductive quartzite to the mix.

The result is blacktop that gets even hotter and stays hotter for longer than regular asphalt. Of course, this left them with the problem of how to get the energy out of the road. By laying down a series of flexible and highly conductive copper pipes before pouring the asphalt they were able to pump water through the asphalt, picking up the heat, for use in power generation.

This is the kind of private sector innovation that needs to be encouraged. The private sector, working to harness the resources that we have, to address our power concerns. I love the idea.

Maybe we can get Paul Foer to be reasonable about supporting constructing more lane-miles yet...

The Cost of Ethanol Subsidies

I have noted on more than one occasion that the insistence on the use of corn-based ethanol as an alternative fuel is having serious impact on our economy, higher food costs, as well as a negative impact on our environment. Check out this video from Reason.tv which further discusses the role of ethanol and ethanol subsidies in our environmental degradation:



This is insistence on ethanol as an alternative fuel really needs to be reconsidered before we do further damage to the economy and to the environment...

The Free Market Strikes Back

We have talked a lot about the economic damage that may potentially be brought be the overzealousness to implement new eco-friendly standards and laws. Well over in England, the party is over and the free market is reasserting itself:

Julie Burchill can't stand them. According to her new book, Not in my Name: A Compendium of Modern Hypocrisy, she thinks all environmentalists are po-faced, unsexy, public school alumni who drivel on about the end of the world because they don't want the working classes to have any fun, go on foreign holidays or buy cheap clothes.

Michael O'Leary, the chief executive of Ryanair, agrees. In an interview with Rachel Sylvester and me, he told us that the "nutbag ecologists" are the overindulged rich who have nothing better to do with their lives than talk about hot air and beans.

So the salad days are over; it's the end of the greens. Where only a year ago the smart new eco-warriors were revered, wormeries and unbleached cashmere jeans are now seen as a middle-class indulgence.

But the problem for the green lobby isn't that it has been overrun by "toffs": it's the chilly economic climate that has frozen the shoots of environmentalism. Espousing the green life, with its misshapen vegetables and non-disposable nappies, is increasingly being seen as a luxury by everyone.

Read the whole thing.

It's nice to see that we have clearly reached a tipping point when it comes to the environmental movement. Sure, it's easy to be somebody like Al Gore and (claim to) live a life in balance with the Earth, and with carbon offsets, and all that rot. But while this rich environmentalists can afford to take major steps in order to (claim to) be more environmentally friendly, clearly not everybody can live that way.

The reactions that we see in stories like this, and the reaction to yesterday's issue in Germany gives me more hope that economic factors will continue to keep radical environmentalism at bay, and allow the public and private sectors to assume more reasonable stances in regards to conservation and environmental protection.

The Green Dictatorship

Given the jones that Governor O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats has for the expansion of power in the name of the all things environment, I expect that this idea from Germany will be coming to a General Assembly near you:

This fairy-tale town is stuck in the middle of a utopian struggle over renewable energy. The town council’s decision to require solar-heating panels has thrown Marburg into a vehement debate over the boundaries of ecological good citizenship and led opponents to charge that their genteel town has turned into a “green dictatorship.”

The town council took the significant step in June of moving from merely encouraging citizens to install solar panels to making them an obligation. The ordinance, the first of its kind in Germany, will require solar panels not only on new buildings, which fewer people oppose, but also on existing homes that undergo renovations or get new heating systems or roof repairs.

To give the regulation teeth, a fine of 1,000 euros, about $1,500, awaits those who do not comply.

Read the whole thing.

This, of course, is completely appalling to anybody who believes in private property rights. Why should any government in any country force business owners and homeowners to install a technology that is inefficient and far from cost-effective? And all in the name of what? In the name of cleaner energy? In the name of global warming? Or, in actuality, is it really in the name of the expansion of government power?

This is the sort of thing that concerns me about the future of our state. We know many things about Governor O'Malley and Annapolis Democrats. They look for ways to diminish the property rights of Marylanders. They are committed to the religion of global warming. They are committed to the expansion of government powers. And they are committed to higher taxes, higher fees, and forcing taxpayers to spend money on unnecessary expenses.

If you think about it, this sort of thing is right up O'Malley's alley. And let's face it, we have seen this sort of thing before here in Maryland. After all, it was only just this year that the General Assembly narrowly averted destroying Maryland's economy by passing the Global Warming Solutions Act.

Whether or not Team O'Malley tries to implement the policy in place in Marburg, there is certainly an impetus not just here in Maryland but across the nation to impose a "Green Dictatorship" that severely restricts the freedom and the wallets of citizens and taxpayers alike. We must remain vigilant in order to protect our economy and protect our nation from this radical ideology.

Go Green by Saving Green

Resident arena apologist Dan Rodricks couldn't go three days without talking about the new arena, with yesterdays column adding new levels to his preposterous stance on the matter:

Here's how Baltimore gets the world's attention, attracts an NBA or NHL franchise, pulls in a major corporate sponsor, establishes another tourist destination a couple of blocks from Camden Yards, helps foster a new sector of jobs in Maryland and reduces long-term operating costs of its new downtown arena: with pizza made from tomatoes grown on the premises.

It is absolutely essential that the city recruit a visionary architect to design the new arena, and this design must be green from the ground up - even below ground - and I'm not kidding about including a terrace or hothouse for a tomato garden.

When I say "green," I don't mean 20 percent green. I mean green beyond green - far beyond what has been achieved in public and private spaces so far. Baltimore's new arena should meet or surpass goals of the U.S. Green Building Council. It should have a major wow factor architecturally but also set an example of sustainability for the nation and the world.

So to recap, Dan Rodricks, who already thinks that spending millions to build a new arena is more important than fixing schools and eradicating violent crime, now wants to double the cost of the arena, while increasing the price of tickets and concession on the middle and working class families of the area, just to make his bleeding heart feel better.

That's not to say that some of his ideas aren't good. I have no problem with the use of solar panels, particularly in light of the more effective and cheaper solar technologies that are out there these days.

But when you consider that fact that this new arena will be used more than the current arena, and the fact that the probably location of this arena is going to create traffic congestion worse than what we current see for the facility, wouldn't the most environmentally friendly suggestion regarding the new arena, if Rodricks were really serious about putting the environmental issue first, would be to not build it in the first place?

Rodricks support for the arena is somewhat inconvenient given his wacko environmental stances over the years. The easiest way to reconcile this is to save Baltimore taxpayers some green of their own, in the manner of the money that can be saved by not building this silly project.

Aren't you over your carbon limit, comrade?

For better or for worse, Britain once again is taking the lead on completely insane policymaking:

Every adult should be forced to use a 'carbon ration card' when they pay for petrol, airline tickets or household energy, MPs say.

The influential Environmental Audit Committee says a personal carbon trading scheme is the best and fairest way of cutting Britain's CO2 emissions without penalising the poor.

Under the scheme, everyone would be given an annual carbon allowance to use when buying oil, gas, electricity and flights.

And how would this cockamamie idea work?

Every adult in the UK would be given an annual carbon dioxide allowance in kgs and a special carbon card.

The scheme would cover road fuel, flights and energy bills.

Every time someone paid for road fuel, flights or energy, their carbon account would be docked.

A litre of petrol would use up 2.3kg in carbon, while every 1.3 miles of airline flight would use another 1kg.

When paying for petrol, the card would need to swiped at the till. It would be a legal offence to buy petrol without using a card.

When paying online, or by direct debit, the carbon account would be debited directly.

Anyone who doesn't use up their credits in a year can sell them to someone who wants more credits. Trading would be done through specialist companies.

Leave it to the British to institutionalize bad policies under a Gordon Brown's stewardship (which, if there is anything fortunate about it, is making Tony Blair look like a Thatcherite and helps give ascendancy to the Conservatives, such as happened in London).

Of course, such a policy has not been well thought out by the MP proposing it. What about government agencies? Tourists? Local schools? How in the world does such an idea work? And what type of penalties does one receive for being a "carbon criminal" and selling petrol without the proper papers?

Unfortunately, I have a bad feeling that such idea may again see life in a General Assembly near you...

Saving the Planet, Starving the Poor

Another catch-up from yesterday, here is a frightening thought:

And it has linked food and fuel prices just as oil is rising to new records, pulling up the price of anything that can be poured into a gasoline tank. "The price of grain is now directly tied to the price of oil," says Lester Brown, president of Earth Policy Institute, a Washington research group. "We used to have a grain economy and a fuel economy. But now they're beginning to fuse."

That's right, ethanol is making it harder and harder for people to put food on their plate. Not just because it makes it harder to buy grain, but because of all of the other uses grain has as it relates to food production, particularly when it comes to feeding livestock. Read the whole thing...

I've talked before about the potential pratfalls of switching to an ethanol based fuel situation, whether it relates to the impact on the poor, increased pollution due to higher grain production, or the further degradation of rain forests. And once again I can't emphasize enough the idea that people are jumping headfirst into support ethanol production no matter how wasteful ethanol production is and how much the increased use and production of ethanol may hurt, not help, our environment.

Obviously, the private sector needs to take the initiative in creating alternatives to both the use of oil and the use of ethanol in fuel consumption. Clearly, if there is a way to produce cleaner fuels we need to investigate those alternatives but we certainly should not do so at the cost of making it harder and harder for our working families to put food on the table.

But what about the independence of scientists?

What about it? You see, William Gray (as I have noted before) is the world renowned meteorologist from Colorado State University, famous for his hurricane season predictions. He's also a global warming skeptic. And one for whom the university tried to curtail funding for recently:

By pioneering the science of seasonal hurricane forecasting, William Gray turned a university far from the stormy seas into a hurricane research mecca.

But last year, the long-term relationship between Gray and Colorado State University, where he has worked for nearly half a century, nearly unraveled in an episode that highlights the politically charged atmosphere that surrounds the global warming debate.

University officials told Gray that handling media inquiries related to his forecasting required too much time and detracted from efforts to promote other professors' work.

Gray, who has emerged as a leading voice of skepticism about global warming, reacted hotly, firing off a memo to Dick Johnson, head of CSU's Department of Atmospheric Sciences, and others. He didn't buy the too-much-media reasoning.

"This is obviously a flimsy excuse and seems to me to be a cover for the Department's capitulation to the desires of some (in their own interest) who want to reign (sic) in my global warming and global warming-hurricane criticisms," Gray wrote in the memo obtained by the Chronicle.

Gray initially declined to speak about the issue. But on Tuesday, Gray acknowledged the dispute.

"You see, so many people in our department make a living off the global warming threat," he said. "So I think that's part of why they came to me."

Since last year, he said, the university has "backtracked" on its position.

CSU officials said late last week that they intend to support the release of Gray's forecasts as long as they continue to be co-authored by Phil Klotzbach, a former student of Gray's who earned his doctorate last summer, and as long as Klotzbach remains at CSU.

Gray, an emeritus professor at CSU who has taught dozens of graduate students who populate the National Hurricane Center and other research institutions, has become increasingly vocal in his skepticism about climate change, saying the planet is warming due to natural causes.

Other than once again noting the fact that the concept of scientific "consensus" on global warming is pure crap, I have to ask this question; is the row over funding at Colorado State related to his skepticism of global warming. And if it is, would not the global warming believers be crying foul if, say, a scientist who believed in global warming had his fundingcurtailed by a Republican administration?

Baby it's gonna get cold outside!

Once again, more scary scientifically-based reasons to think that the Ice Age is on it's way:

THE scariest photo I have seen on the internet is www.spaceweather.com, where you will find a real-time image of the sun from the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory, located in deep space at the equilibrium point between solar and terrestrial gravity.

What is scary about the picture is that there is only one tiny sunspot.

Disconcerting as it may be to true believers in global warming, the average temperature on Earth has remained steady or slowly declined during the past decade, despite the continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide, and now the global temperature is falling precipitously.

All four agencies that track Earth's temperature (the Hadley Climate Research Unit in Britain, the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York, the Christy group at the University of Alabama, and Remote Sensing Systems Inc in California) report that it cooled by about 0.7C in 2007. This is the fastest temperature change in the instrumental record and it puts us back where we were in 1930. If the temperature does not soon recover, we will have to conclude that global warming is over.

There is also plenty of anecdotal evidence that 2007 was exceptionally cold. It snowed in Baghdad for the first time in centuries, the winter in China was simply terrible and the extent of Antarctic sea ice in the austral winter was the greatest on record since James Cook discovered the place in 1770.

As always, read the whole thing. And remember this; the evidence that we are entering a period of natural, solar-related global cooling is just as strong, if not stronger, than the evidence that we are suffering from anthropomorphic global warming. And it's all the more reason why states and countries should not trip over themselves trying to pass far reaching legislation (i.e. O'Malley's Global Warming Solutions Act) without seriously considering the scientific and economic ramifications of such legislation.....

Brighter Ideas

The concept of CFLs are not new, though I was writing about them long before we knew about the environmental hazards these "green" bulbs provided. But as always, there is something better:



The moral of this story is this; let's not make irrational jumps to support things, particularly to help the environment, that sound great in the short term without trying to get a basic understanding of what the costs are that come with the benefits. And this is a lesson that the fringe-left environmentalist groups have been seemingly incapable of figuring out....

More Biofuel Worries

I've touched on this subject a few times before, but it still demands our undivided attention:

The world's rush to embrace biofuels is causing a spike in the price of corn and other crops and could worsen water shortages and force poor communities off their land, a U.N. official said Wednesday.

Speaking at a regional forum on bioenergy, Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization acknowledged that biofuels are better for the environment than fossil fuels and boost energy security for many countries.

However, she said those benefits must be weighed against the pitfalls - many of which are just now emerging as countries convert millions of acres to palm oil, sugar cane and other crops used to make biofuels.

Read the whole thing. Now the next paragraph illustrates a key point that Ms. Suzuki makes that I cannot reinforce enough:

"Biofuels have become a flash point through which a wide range of social and environmental issues are currently being played out in the media," Suzuki told delegates at the forum, sponsored by the U.N. and the Thai government.

Biofuels have become a sexy way for all parties involved to talk approvingly about alternative fuels. Folks on the environmental left can take about ways to create (theoretically) cleaner burning fuels that by continuing to use fossil fuels. And politicians get an easy way to pander to the farm vote by encouraging ethanol subsidies.

But as we continue to note, this continued reliance and glamorization of biofuels as the wave of the future is showing that it will have many drawbacks, and a lot of them will be harmful to the environment and harmful to the working poor, especially in developing nations trying to get ahead of the curve.

Foremost among the concerns is increased competition for agricultural land, which Suzuki warned has already caused a rise in corn prices in the United States and Mexico and could lead to food shortages in developing countries.

As usual, it's time that leaders from the around the world consider the consequences of "going green" before jumping headfirst into an empty pool. Let us hope that this rush to biofuels has not done any more damage to our ecology to our global economy, particularly in developing nations in Asia. I hate to repeat myself, but let's not kill the environment to save the environment.

"Progress" on Environment anything but

Good job team:

President Bush has signed a law requiring automakers to increase fuel efficiency by 40 percent. It also requires wider ethanol use.

Or not:

Because of rising demand for ethanol, American farmers are growing more corn than at any time since World War II. And sea life in the Gulf of Mexico is paying the price.

The nation's corn crop is fertilized with millions of pounds of nitrogen-based fertilizer. And when that nitrogen runs off fields in Corn Belt states, it makes its way to the Mississippi River and eventually pours into the Gulf, where it contributes to a growing "dead zone" — a 7,900-square-mile patch so depleted of oxygen that fish, crabs and shrimp suffocate.

The dead zone was discovered in 1985 and has grown fairly steadily since then, forcing fishermen to venture farther and farther out to sea to find their catch. For decades, fertilizer has been considered the prime cause of the lifeless spot.

With demand for corn booming, some researchers fear the dead zone will expand rapidly, with devastating consequences.

"We might be coming close to a tipping point," said Matt Rota, director of the water resources program for the New Orleans-based Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group. "The ecosystem might change or collapse as opposed to being just impacted."

And this ties in with the story I noted back in September where the demand for ethanol is killing rain forests in tropical climes.

Once again, it seems like political convenience took precedence over proven science. Nobody can possibly tell me that it is better for us to be growing more and more corn for ethanol use if it means creating a massive dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. Sorry, that's "fixing" one problem (I'll get to that in a second) and creating one that is just as bad, and possibly even worse, in it's place.

And let's get back to the point of ethanol. Because guess what? There is no consensus that widespread use of ethanol (or other organic fuels) as a replacement for fossil fuels is a positive for the environment:

Energy outputs from ethanol produced using corn, switchgrass, and wood biomass were each less than the respective fossil energy inputs. The same was true for producing biodiesel using soybeans and sunflower, however, the energy cost for producing soybean biodiesel was only slightly negative compared with ethanol production. Findings in terms of energy outputs compared with the energy inputs were:

• Ethanol production using corn grain required 29% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
• Ethanol production using switchgrass required 50% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
  
• Ethanol production using wood biomass required 57% more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel produced.
  
• Biodiesel production using soybean required 27% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced(Note, the energy yield from soy oil per hectare is far lower than the ethanol yield from corn).
• Biodiesel production using sunflower required 118% more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced.

Of course, the study that I copied that from is from the notoriously anti-science , in the pocket of big business folks from.....the University of California-Berkeley. And Professor Tad Patzek, one of the authors of the aforementioned paper, is a major skeptic of biofuels to say the least (though in the interest of full disclosure, his bio notes that he worked for Shell back in the day).

Once again, Congress and the administration have teamed up to take "action" that does not necessarily accomplish any of the goals with they purportedly have aimed to achieve. By trying to increase ethanol production, they may have unwittingly caused the expansion and promulgation of a large environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and may be contributing to the increase, not decrease, of fossil fuel output due to the energy used to create biofuels.

We need to work on ways to create new alternative fuels whose use and production methods help us clean, not pollute, the environment. The rush of Washington to "do something" to fix the problems is merely meddling in areas that the politicians seem not to understand. By doing the wrong thing, this legislation merely proves that in all likelihood it will be the free market, not Washington, that will come through with the big breakthroughs that will continue to create a cleaner planet. As usual, Washington gives us a cure that could be worse than the disease...