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Utility scale solar thermal power is something you still don’t hear much about, but along with photovoltaic power, it is a big part of the reason solar power is possibly the only source of renewable energy that is not only absolutely clean and sustainable, but capable of exponential growth for decades to come. And Ausra, headquartered in Palo Alto, California, has perhaps the most promising solar thermal design we’ve ever seen.

Ausra’s “solar field” of reflectors. Note the heat exchanging tube overhead.

Solar thermal power uses mirrors to reflect sunlight onto heat exchangers, in order to heat a thermal transfer fluid to drive a turbine, which turns a generator to produce electricity. Only about 500 megawatts of solar thermal power capacity exist in the world today, most of it at Kramer Junction in California’s Mohave Desert.

Compared to total worldwide energy production, solar thermal electricity production is negligible, only about one 20th that of photovoltaic energy production, which itself represents less than one-twentieth of one percent of worldwide energy production. But this is about to change, and solar thermal technology will race photovoltaic technology neck and neck, as together they grow to a significant share of global energy production.

There are three basic ways to concentrate solar energy – one is a “power tower” where a boiler sits atop a tower surrounded by 2-axis tracking mirrors that each individually move each day to reflect the sun’s light onto the boiler. Another design is a field of parabolic mirrors, each of them equipped with a 2-axis mechanism to track the sun all day, with each of them having a heat exchanger positioned at a single reflective focal point a few feet away from the center of the dish. Finally, the most cost-effective design appears to be the parabolic trough, where only a single axis tracking mechanism moves curved, mirrored troughs each day from east to west, with a heat exchanging tube suspended at the reflective focal point above each trough. All of these designs have been tried with some success.

What Ausra has done is taken the parabolic trough concept, with the simpler single-axis tracking mechanism, but designed a solar field where one heat-exchanging tube, running north to south, is suspended several meters in the air above several lengthwise tracking mirrors. Because the heat exchanging tube is further away from the mirrors, they don’t need to be as curved, reducing costs. Because several mirrors share one tube, there is a greatly reduced need for plumbing. And single-axis rotation, simply moving east to west with the sun, requires far less mechanical elements, and far less maintenance.

Yesterday we had a chance to speak with John O’Donnell, a physicist who is now EVP of Ausra. He explained several additional reasons why Ausra’s design is destined to become the standard for solar thermal power stations. Each of the mirrors is designed just small enough to fit in a standard interstate multi-mode shipping container. Each mirror requires just eight minutes to be manufactured on an automated production line. They are light weight and primarily require only flat glass and raw steel in their manufacture. The heat exchanging tubes are single lined and require far less maintenance than earlier designs. The heat transfer fluid is water; not molten salt, or some other expensive, corrosive, toxic substance – just water, of which nearly 100% is recycled. Ausra’s elegant, least cost design, according to O’Donnell, “has generated explosive interest around the world.”

Something we never would have guessed is that the incremental costs for building an oversized steam storage unit are not significant; O’Donnell noted both that the storage unit would not consume very much space, and even if it were built out to allow 20 hours of operation per day, it would add less than 10% to the cost of the entire power station. A clear advantage of solar thermal power is this ease in stretching the hours of operation into the evening when power consumption is heaviest. O’Donnell stated the current designs have a steam storage unit sized to stretch the daily hours of electricity generation through 8 p.m., which is when peak demand typically begins to subside. Ausra believes they can sell electricity using their technology for $.10 per kilowatt-hour; a price that is definitely competitive with today’s rates, especially during peak hours.

A brief report on solar thermal power would not be complete without noting the space required to generate electricity using this technology. In “California Land Use Choices” we estimated you can get 130 megawatts from a one square mile solar thermal power station. A utility scale photovoltaic power station of the same size would generate about twice that, but would cost far more to build. According to O’Donnell, the plant they are in the permitting phase for right now, to be located just south of Paso Robles in sunny Central California, is going consume exactly one square mile, and it is designed to generate 175 megawatts. Unlike biofuel, the land required to power the world with solar thermal or photovoltaic energy is simply not significant.

It’s appalling that the European environmentalists allowed biodiesel subsidies. The idea we can burn our biosphere in the tanks of our cars, and that this is somehow better than using petroleum, is the death knell to tropical forests. In turn this is the cause of droughts due to loss of transpiration, extreme weather because tropical deforestation undermines the monsoon circulation, and even global warming both due to the thermal impact of hotter open land vs. cooler reflective cloud cover that forms over tropical forests, and (arguably, at least) the CO2 impact of removing perennial uptake as well as the massive one-time release of CO2 when the forest is removed. Tropical deforestation has more to do with climate change than burning petroleum.

The Orangutans of Borneo Stop the biodiesel subsidies, stop the slaughter.

Despite this strong likelyhood, if not fact, Europeans have patted themselves on the back for their biofuel subsidies, and created a world market for biodiesel that had scarcely existed. And now the genie is out of the bottle, and the last forests are burning away.

To fix the problem at this point, Europeans will have to impose punitive import tarifs on any and all biodiesel, and redirect the full force of funds that had been subsidizing biodiesel, using them instead to purchase, protect and reestablish tropical rainforests. Five million square miles of tropical rainforest have been lost, and less than three million remain. Millions of square miles of rainforest must be restored, in order to avert anthropogenically induced disruptive climate change.

Orangutans are the latest victims of rainforest destruction for biofuel. Nobody should be surprised that as politically correct biofuel is subsidized, not only tropical deforestation occurs (causing climate change), but consequences also include massive destruction of biodiversity and prolific specicide. As reported on MSNBC’s report “Orangutans Squeezed by Biofuel Boom,” tropical deforestation is rampaging faster than ever. According to the report: “Encouraged by government tax breaks, many of Indonesia’s largest conglomerates as well as foreign companies are investing millions in expanding plantations and refining facilities on Borneo, which has one of the richest ecosystems in the world and is one of the only remaining homes of the orangutans.”

As we’ve repeatedly warned, biofuel is not sustainable. A human being, running on calories (products of sun, water and plants), only consumes caloric energy at a rate of about 100 watts. Our cars require on average about 25 kilowatts to operate. That is to say, meeting the nutritional requirements of billions of people literally require 250 times less farmland than meeting the fuel requirements of billions of cars and industrial machinery. That is the energy reality, and small wonder rainforests are toast. Read “Reforesting vs. Biofuel.”

Our love for wildlife and wilderness is undiminished by our contention that over-emphasis on endangered species is strangling the economic growth of American cities. If it isn’t enough that biofueled tropical deforestation is the real cause of catastrophic climate change, then perhaps the impending doom of the Orangutans and other species and ecosystems might move environmentalists at last. Stop the subsidies, stop the slaughter.

When will China do something about the cloud of air pollution that drifts across the Pacific? It’s going to cause an ice age, for goodness sakes. Can’t we have economic growth, without asthma? This isn’t to say China shouldn’t increase her footprint – isn’t the Three Gorges complex just like America’s Grand Coulee and Hoover Dam and many other glorious national achievements? It’s their river.

China’s Three Gorges become 17.5 Gigawatts.

On the other hand, there is a plume of emissions from coal plants, oil combustion, flares and fires, that wafts across the Pacific from Asia to America, and it is thousands of miles wide.

It comes from China, workshop of the world, from its burgeoning economy, and let’s not say there aren’t other Asian tigers emitting plenty of their own, because they are. From Korean furnaces to Indonesian rainforests, the burning is epic.

So here one may comment on our “China’s Eco-Crisis” feature report by Gordon Feller. The fact that in the last ten years India has improved their energy intensity from 30,000 BTUs per $1.00 GNP to only 4,500, and that China has improved their energy intensity from 46,000 BTUs per $1.00 of GNP to less than 6,500 – while America is now behind them at a greatly improved 7,000 – is very, very encouraging. We are greener and greener – dramatically.

Perhaps projections of solar adoption and retrofitting are far, far below potential, as well. Perhaps adaptation through free enterprise is the freedom humanity needs to create the weath that will let us tackle anything, be it global warming or global cooling.

So wither China? Is it possible they might at least remove the particulates and most noxious pollutants from their industrial emissions? That would certainly be cheaper than stopping the burning entirely, or sequestering all the CO2! And if we argue that CO2 may be terrible, why don’t we end biodiesel subsidies in Europe? That would probably help put out the flames in Indonesia, where the CO2 belched to burn rainforests to grow biofuel dwarfs the CO2 output of our industries.

The average amount California sets aside from public employee payrolls and invests into CALPRS and CALSTRS each year is about 16% of each active employee’s salary. This money is invested by CALPRS and CALSTRS all over the world. In fact, a CALPRS representative once boasted for the record that “20% of our fund we invest in California!” The other 80% is invested globally.

The reason the globalized nature of these public pension funds – as well as the amount on top of salary (16%) set aside each year – is relevant is because they are not financially sustainable without massive tax increases to make up shortfalls. Sustainability is more than a principle to be engineered into green technology – sustainability is a force that will asset itself in all things. Sustainability applies, either by design or correctively, in everything from economics to population demographics. For example, any sustainable human population will end up being elderly. Read “Sustainable Demographics.”

We make much of Social Security and Medicare ending up insolvent in 30-40 years, but we think nothing of public employee pension funds, far more lavish, that face insolvency any day now. And 16% set aside is not nearly enough, when one considers social security sets aside around 12%, for a retirement security that is well less than half as good, probably more like a quarter as good as a typical public employee pension.

It’s not that all Americans shouldn’t get this lavish benefit, we enjoy perhaps the highest worker productivity in the world, but what is feasible? CALPRS and CALSTRS have been earning something like 8% real returns with their globalized retirement funds, and they think they can sustain this. They can’t. It’s difficult to say what a sustainable rate of return is, but in the USA, for example, real GNP growth has been more like 3% per year. While we have seen impressive gains in China and India, it is not prudent to assume that 8% real returns in any portfolio this big can be sustained. Investment portfolios controlling assets representing wealth at this scale – funds that are themselves equivalent to the GNP of the USA – cannot over time earn returns greater than the real growth rates of the economies in which they invest.

And forget about CO2 taxes to rescue the solvency of public agencies who have awarded unsustainable future benefits to their workforce. Sustainable security is for everyone. In any nation, it’s only fair that public workers and the private taxpayer workers who support them should both get the same deal. And the deal will need to be sustainable – if you want to allocate 16% of salaries to public sector pensions, increase social security payments to 16% of payrolls, and take away the $91K ceiling on assessments. And assume a 4% return on funds invested – and see what you can offer every American.

The Ziggurat building in West Sacramento looks like a step pyramid, like the ones you might see in ancient Egypt or Mesopotamia. But this modern pyramid has eleven steps, corresponding to its eleven stories, a bit more than the step pyramids of Egypt or the ziggurats of Mesopotamia. The Ziggurat building is currently owned by California’s State Dept. of General Services, or DGS.

Will Sacramento’s Ziggurat serve reminder, that we were a cradle of greentech civilization?

In the old days, this beautiful building was lit at night by warm floodlights that made the sides of the square building glow like a white canvas tent that has illuminations burning inside.

Those lights took a gem of a building and turned it into an ethereal and enchanting jewel, and every night its reflection shone in the Sacramento River, and could be seen in the reflective sides of the multi-story downtown buildings on the eastern shore.

Today the Ziggurat building looms in the dark like a gloomy phantom, because we must not emit CO2. And how much CO2 are we talking about? If we assume CO2 emitted equates to energy expended, then we know we have to figure out how much electricity these lights require, and install a sustainable (and non-CO2!) power supply.

According to sources, the electric bill to light the Ziggurat at night is about $300 per month, and that really isn’t a lot of electricity – if we assume they paid $.10 per kilowatt-hour, we’re talking 3,000 kilowatt-hours, or 100 kilowatt-hours per night. Just park and hook up two fully charged Tesla Roadsters, and you’d have just enough.

With at least eight good hours of sun at 12 watts per square foot output, you would need 15,000 square feet of photovoltaic array to store 100 kilowatt-hours each day. Even in winter, a good 15,000 square foot, 12.5 kilowatt (output in full sun) PV array could easily produce enough electricity each day to power the lights on the Ziggurat each night. At $10 per watt (installed), this solar power system will cost $125,000.

Ah, but you might say – what about the storage of that electricity? Well let’s assume we use batteries to store all this electricity, and let’s assume these batteries don’t cost more per kWh than, say the batteries in the Tesla Roadster. Since the Tesla Roadster has about 50 kWh of battery storage onboard, if we assume 50% of the $100K cost for a Tesla Roadster is for the battery pack, then battery storage costs $1,000 per kilowatt. That is probably on the high side for what we need at the Ziggurat building – but let’s just say the storage system will cost $100,000. It will probably cost a lot less than that.

So what sort of bang can we get for this 100 kWh we’re ready to throw into the night sky in the form of glorious, frivolous illumination? If you figure the Ziggurat building is 400 feet long and 300 feet wide, with eleven “steps” with 20 feet between each step, then the total sum of all eleven progressively smaller floor circumferences is 28,600 linear feet. If you put one 8 watt LED bulb every 28 feet, then you will have exactly one thousand inspiring points of light to envelop the Ziggurat. At a mind-blowing $30 apiece, you still only add another $30,000 to purchase the bulbs for a system that, clearly, can be built for under $250,000.

Is this just a boondoggle to please the aesthetically minded among us? Well anything that does nothing but make the world more beautiful is a boondoggle, if you put it that way. But what is the return on investment for this installation? If you figure you’re saving $3,600 per year in electric costs at the night rate of $.10 per kWh, you’ve only got half the picture. During the summer when there are more hours of sun, the system will generate surplus energy to help power the buiding during the day, which at peak rates of $.25 per kWh, will earn another $2,300. Using conservative assumptions, the system will return 2.3% per year before any subsidies or credits.

What’s stopping this simple adapatation so Sacramentans can admire and be inspired by a beautiful building again? Can’t we let these lights shine in the darkness, reminding us that we live in a spectacular city? Turn on the lights! As long as we don’t allow our obsession with CO2 emissions to cause us to overlook (or even enable) the destruction of our forests and fisheries, the earth will abide.

As for the costs – please know that if you deferred the retirement benefits of just one average public sector worker within this building for five years, you would have more than enough money to pay for this sustainable lighting system. And know that the funds from CO2 offset credits and CO2 taxes will not be paying for this photovoltaic system, they will mainly be paying to keep afloat the otherwise completely unsustainable public sector retirement benefits. So as private sector taxpayers sign up for reverse mortgages to supplement their social security, while paying more for their “footprints,” they might please understand which way the financial river flows, and why.

CHINA, USA, INDIA – 1995 vs. 2005

China’s economy has grown by nearly 14 times in the last ten years

Nowhere is the environmental impact of China’s modernization more evident than in the Three Gorges section of the Yangtze River.

The standard discussion of environmental challenges treats them as more socio-political, in the short-term, and a threat to economic development, but only in the long-term.

The May 2007 suspension of construction on a paraxylene plant in Fujian, for instance, was widely characterized as a gain for local interest groups at the expense of jobs. The primary force behind the suspension was indeed local and political rather than environmental, since far more damaging projects are underway all across the country.

Moreover, the Communist Party obviously sees a short-run trade-off between economic and environmental gains. The October 2005 Party plenum denounced the blind pursuit of economic growth at the expense of, among other things, pollution control. More recently, the 2007 National People’s Congress reasserted growth as the top priority, explicitly of more importance than environmental objectives.

It is certainly true that environmental degradation – especially of the water supply – threatens long-term growth. But there are also short-term dangers, exacerbated by sustained and ill-advised policies.

Carbon emissions and the long-term question of climate change are the pollution issues that receive the most publicity. But there is also the short-term cost of respiratory ailments from conventional air pollution. The last World Bank report on the topic puts the majority of the world’s most (air) polluted cities on the mainland. A generation of urban children has grown up under conditions of poor to abysmal air quality, which will affect their participation in the labor force just as the PRC begins a demographic shift to labor shortage.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao

In carbon emissions the present debate over whether China has passed the US as the worst offender is immaterial. If it hasn’t already it will do shortly; shortly after that it will lead the world by a huge amount. Rapid growth in heavy industry ensures this outcome and the last four years are irrefutable evidence the central government will not undermine the industrial boom. Only four of 32 provinces met emissions targets in 2006.

Beijing is correct that much offending output is in high demand by the same trade partners objecting to carbon emissions. In the current setting, though, this argument might chiefly turn out to be ammunition for foreign protectionists. Dismissing overseas environmental concerns could contribute to an economic shock as access to export markets is inhibited Energy constraints.

Closely connected to emissions is energy use. The State Environmental Protection Administration happily projects cuts in the discharges of major pollutants and, thus, a decline in chemical oxygen demand by 2010. This is difficult to reconcile with the objective of a 20% drop in energy consumption per unit of GDP, as the latter implies a considerable increase in absolute energy consumption from GDP growth.

As an illustration, demand for oil products is so high that improvement in the quality of gasoline has stagnated, delaying implementation of tougher auto emissions standards.

Since energy use is rising, chemical oxygen demand will only decline if the energy mix changes significantly. Yet efforts to change the energy mix for environmental and other reasons are being aborted due to environmental and economic consequences.

A mad flight to divert corn stocks to ethanol production, encouraged by central government incentives, has boosted corn prices at a time when food costs are driving inflation. The State Council has thus been forced to halt corn-for-ethanol production. The State Development and Reform Commission is now discouraging once popular coal-to-oil liquefaction projects in light of the power and water these projects require.

Chinese President Hu Jintao

Water shortages and their economic implications are being recognized in Beijing. By 2010 there is supposed to be a dramatic 30% cut in water per unit of industrial value added. Coincident with this announcement, though, the State Statistical Bureau stopped making industrial production totals public, so that progress cannot be monitored. In May deteriorating conditions in some agricultural areas, in particular lack of clean water, contributed to the spread of Porcine Reproductive and Respiratory Syndrome (blue ear disease). According to the Ministry of Agriculture, this is the main factor pushing up the cost of pork, another notable contributor to food costs.

Over a longer timeframe low water inflow has inhibited the anticipated expansion of hydropower use for at least a decade. This partly explains increased reliance on coal and has contributed to power shortages. Now the Ministry of Water Resources is worried, not just about water flow on the Yangtze but that large sections of the river are so polluted that the damage might be irreversible. This would obviously be a death-blow to regional agriculture. International development banks are being asked to ease the scarcity of clean water and multinationals corporations are stepping into remaining gaps. In June alone the World Bank approved a $170m loan for water supply and waste disposal in Liaoning and the Asian Development Bank lent $150m to treat wastewater in Anhui.

France’s Veolia Environnement is the principal private-sector operator. It won a 30-year, $1bn water management contract for Haikou, Hainan in June, one of many for Veolia. Desalinization may not be sensible except in desert countries, but China’s problems are such that is becoming so. Israeli water company IDE will build a $120m desalinization plant serving Beijing and Tianjin.

About the Author: Gordon Feller is the CEO of Urban Age Institute (www.UrbanAge.org). During the past twenty years he has authored more than 500 magazine articles, journal articles or newspaper articles on the profound changes underway in politics, economics, and ecology – with a special emphasis on sustainable development. Gordon is the editor of Urban Age Magazine, a unique quarterly which serves as a global resource and which was founded in 1990. He can be reached at GordonFeller@UrbanAge.org and he is available for speaking to your organization about the issues raised in this and his other numerous articles published in EcoWorld.

MAP OF CHINA

CIA China Facts 2006

Last week we had the chance to talk with Bill Davis, the President of Ze-gen. This three year old company is possibly the furthest along in the race to develop technology to turn waste into fuel – eliminating the need for landfills in the bargain.

Each year, the United States produces about 100 million tons of construction debris, and about 220 million tons of municipal solid waste. Currently nearly all of this waste goes into landfills.

Pouring the foundation at Ze-gen’s pilot plant in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

What Ze-gen has done in New Bedford, Massachusetts, is set up a demonstration plant to accept up to ten tons per day of construction and demolition residual material. The material is used as the feed stock in a gasification process that utilizes molton bath technology.

The result of this process, which Davis emphasized is not the same as incineration, are “syngas” (primarily carbon monoxide and hydrogen) which can be used to generate electricity, and slag that can be used for construction aggregate.

The reason the New Bedford location was chosen is because it is next to an existing “transfer station” where construction and demolition waste is shredded prior to transfer to landfills. This shredding process yields a mixture of 90% wood, 5% residual metal, and 5% silica (with small amounts of other material) that looks like bark mulch. Having this materials prep already done allows the feedstock to be more easily tested in the 2,700 degree (fahrenheit) furnace.

Davis said that right now they are perfecting the design of the tubes being used to feed the material into the molton bath. This should take a few more months. After settling on a design to move materials from the shredder to the furnace, the next step will be to go into continuous operation and do gas analysis. As Davis put it, “we are looking at the quality and consistency and BTU level and contaminents that are in the stream. That will inform the engineering for the gas cleanup system.”

When asked about possible difficulties prepping construction debris and municipal solid waste, Davis noted “it appears wastestreams over time are surprisingly consistent,” and “we have some proprietary technology to drive the variability out of the feedstock.”

Developing technology to turn municipal solid waste and construction & demolition residue into electricity and construction aggregate is not easy. Davis estimates it will be sometime around 2010 or 2011 before they will have a full scale facility accepting waste and producing electricity. In order for the capital expense to be justified by the revenues over the lifetime of the plant, not only “tipping fees” (payments to accept and process waste streams – replacing the fees charged by landfill operators) are necessary, but also revenues from sales of electricity.

Evidently the prospect of municipalities all over the USA eventually adopting this technology, however, has attracted top tier investment in Ze-gen from Flagship Ventures and Vantage Point Partners – with the most recent round of financing concluded in the Summer of 2007.

And how much energy could converting 100 million tons of construction and demolition residue along with 220 million tons of municipal solid waste generate per year? Based on the generally accepted 2.11 kilowatt-hours of recoverable net energy per pound of waste, the USA could generate 154,000 megawatt-years of electricity per year, which equates to 4.61 quadrillion BTU’s. With the USA currently consuming around 100 quadrillion BTU’s of energy per year, reprocessing 100% of these waste streams would offset about 5% of the energy currently consumed in the United States, along with eliminating the need for landfills.

Our top feature this month on EcoWorld is an in-depth report on India’s hydroelectric power by Avilash Roul entitled “India’s Hydro Power.” Within this article the reader is provided a comprehensive survey of India’s current hydroelectric generating capacity, their potential hydroelectric capacity, as well as the current plans India has to develop more of their potential hydro power. Also within this article is detailed analysis of the pros and cons of hydroelectric power development in India.

The purpose of this post is not to restate what is within Roul’s lengthy report, but to provide a forum for comments and debates on this topic of vital importance. As we note in our introduction to the story “for India to produce half as much energy per capita as members of the European Community, its overall energy production would need to quadruple.” Can this challenge be met? Should this challenge be met? We would say yes to both of these rhetorical questions, but then the question becomes how?

Hydroelectric power, nuclear power, biofuel, and fossil fuel all offer significant solutions towards increasing India’s energy production, but none of them are without serious concerns. Other alternatives considered greener are not without drawbacks; photovoltaic and solar thermal, our favorite alternatives, are going to take a long time before their installed base begins to take on a serious share of overall energy production. Does India have that long?

Should India develop all of its hydroelectric potential? Should India develop any of its hydroelectric potential? How can India’s compelling need for more energy to fuel economic growth be balanced with humanitarian and environmental concerns, as well as the need to preserve individual rights and the democratic process that is one of India’s greatest assets?

It’s generally accepted that to develop new cars with a green ethos designers will have to start thinking outside the traditional box, but this year at the 2007 Tokyo Motor Show, Honda decided to redefine the box while they were at it. The company unveiled its concept vehicle christened “Puyo,” a name meant to onomatopoetically convey the Japanese phrase for “touching the vehicle’s soft body.” They hope drivers will regard the Puyo as more a lovable pet than a piece of machinery.

Honda’s “Puyo” Concept Car With four independently steered wheels, the Puyo can do a 306 degree turn in-place.

Body-wise the Puyo looks a bit like a marshmallow on wheels. Outfitted with panoramic windows and a glass roof, the vehicle’s body is crafted of a soft, gel-like material derived from silicone.

The construction is seamless and contoured so that there are no corners. At the same time, however, the material allows for the Puyo to be the mood ring of automotive design.

Lighting under the luminescent body allows the Puyo to glow in different colors to convey how it’s feeling. Green means the car is happy.

The soft body was conceived to cause less harm to pedestrians in the event of a collision. Inside padded materials protect occupants in the spacious cabin in much the same way. The seats are reminiscent of barstools with backs while the second row is a comfortable bench that’s really almost a couch. Single side doors open out and up in a scissor-like fashion to give access to both rows.

The Puyo, described as a “city car” concept, can turn 360 degrees in place making the idea of “reverse” obsolete. The driver steers intuitively with a joystick while seated in front of a fluid meter display in a gray cloth dash that includes a warm blue speedometer. The dash rises up toward the driver when the car’s engine starts and retracts when the ignition is cut.

Sadly, there are few released details on the engine itself except that it’s a fuel cell unit for quiet and environmentally sound, clean propulsion. Honda says it’s small and given the design of the Puyo, it would have to be. There just isn’t anything there that constitutes a “hood” in the conventional sense.

There’s a great deal to like in the Puyo concept, even if it never hits the streets. The high visibility and zero turning radius make the Puyo ideal for maneuvering in crowded city conditions. It’s comfortable without superfluous amenities and the fuel cell engine is right on track for the green street cred that has become the lynch pin of 21st century automotive design. Unconventional thinking is the breeding ground of important technological breakthroughs and, if nothing else, the Puyo is unconventional.

You wouldn’t think so if you looked at the way mainstream media cherry-picked National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s (NOAA) recent “Arctic Report Card,” released on 10-17-2007.

From CBS News we get the headline “Rapid Changes In Arctic, Experts Warn,” with the lead stating:

“The Arctic is under increasing stress from warming temperatures as shrubs colonize the tundra.”

From the BBC we get “Warm wind hits Arctic climate,” with the lead stating

“The Arctic is being hit by melting ice, hotter air and dying wildlife.”

Yet if you actually read the report from NOAA, you get a much less alarming story:

“The first update of a report tracking the state of the Arctic indicates that some changes in that region are larger and occurring faster than those previously predicted by climate models, while other indicators show some stabilizing.”

“Not all indicators show extreme events, and some signals are mixed. For instance, North Pole ocean temperatures are returning to 1990s values, but currents are relatively warm around the edges of the Arctic Ocean.”

“Permafrost temperatures are stabilizing in both North America and Eurasia, but permafrost melt remains a serious problem. Shrubs are moving northward into tundra areas, but causes for treeline movements are difficult to assess because forest management practices are as influential as climate change.”

If you talk with atmospheric scientists, like we do, you will have to wonder why mainstream journalists don’t bother to mention the “Pacific Decadal Oscillation” (ref. Wikipedia) a 60-70 year cycle, well documented, that causes Arctic warming lasting for decades, followed by cooling.

Here are the dates applying to this cycle:

• 1905: After a strong swing, PDO changed to a “warm” phase.
• 1946: PDO changed to a “cool” phase.
• 1977: PDO changed to a “warm” phase.
• 1998: PDO index showed several years of “cool” values, but has not remained in that pattern.

Based on 20th century records, therefore, the shift to warming occurred in 1905 and again in 1977, a 72 year cycle. On that basis, the shift back to cooling would occur 72 years after the last cooling shift which was in 1946. So of course the 1998 index suggesting cooling had not yet occurred is misleading. The documented length of the PDO cycle indicates sustained cooling may not begin until 2018.

Unfortunately, by then in the name of curtailing global CO2 emissions, we may have nationalized our energy industry and gone to war with China. Under such a scenario, which is frighteningly possible if we are not permitted to continue the “debate,” by 2018 we will live in a world where the global north (developed nations) strangled the economies of the developing world in the name of anti-CO2 alarmism, and brought global CO2 emissions down to preindustrial levels. And in that world we will be told the hundreds of millions killed through the resulting wars and increased poverty, and the implementation of socialist tyranny from Brussels to Barstow was worth it – because the Arctic cooled again.

In reality the Arctic was cooling right on schedule, and we could have had peace and prosperity instead of socialism, tyranny, thought police, international tension, economic misery, neo-colonialism in the name of fighting CO2, and WWIII.

Think about it. Global warming alarm is a very, very dangerous trend, because it stifles debate, foments panic, and calls for drastic measures. Rational debate must be ongoing both as to the extent of this warming, the cause of this warming, and what the appropriate response should be, both politically and economically.