Environmental News, Articles & Information | Global Warming News | EcoWorld

We occasionally get press releases from a group known as Trans-Mediterannean Renewable Energy Cooperation (TREC) or TREC UK, visionary proponants of massive development of solar concentrators combined with large scale new HVDC (high voltage direct current) transmission corridors.

Parabolic solar thermal collectors (2 axis). (Photo: TREK UK)

According to pro-TREC sources, an area of 254 kilometers x 254 kilometers of hot desert, if covered with concentrating solar power plants, would provide electricity equivalent to the current annual electricity consumption of the whole world.

Needless to say we decided to crunch the numbers on that one.

If you assume these 64,516 square kilometers (64 billion square meters) were to have an output of 100 watts per meter, at 7.0 hours per day at 100 watts-hours per hour per square meter, this array would throw off 45 billion kilowatt-hours per day, or 395 trillion kilowatt-hours per year.

This imputes a constant 24-7 supply of 1,882 gigawatts, or 1.8 terawatts of electric power. The US draws about 450 gigawatts (or .45 terawatts) of electric power, or by these reckonings 24% of total global electrical output. That sounds plausible.

It’s important to note that at 6.4 billion people on the planet, this 64,000 square kilometer area would only represent an area of 10 square meters per person (that’s about 100 square feet, Jackson) – not much space to replace every electrical generating system on earth – nor much to double it.

Apparently in the latest report, the U.K. Parliament (this time around) is not going to support the construction of hundreds of gigawatts of solar fields in North Africa and the Middle East, delivering electric power on a continental scale via a new trans-Mediterranean grid using advanced-technology underground HVDC transmission lines.

For information on mega-solar concentrator potential, read our posts “Nevada Solar One,” “Solel’s Solar Thermal,” “< href="/home-buildings/thermal-circulation-systems.html"a title="Solar Circulation Systems">Thermal Circulation Systems,” “< href="/fuels/solar-thermal-storage.html"a title="Solar Thermal Storage">Solar Thermal Storage,” “Thermal Voltaic Power,” and “Serious Megawatts.”

To get an idea of the potential of HVDC transmission, read “Life in the Electric Age,” and “Saharan Solar Power.”

Trough solar thermal collectors (1 axis). (Photo: TREK UK)

Here is the text of the press release from TREC-UK, a group supporting the proposal for a trans-mediterranean HVDC power grid connected to massive new solar concentrator fields:

“A plan to supply the whole of Europe with clean solar power from desert regions in North Africa and the Middle East has now been debated in the House of Commons.

On Thursday, Dr Howard Stoate, MP for Dartford, described how, every year, each square kilometre of hot desert receives solar energy equivalent to 1.5 million barrels of oil. Multiplying by the area of deserts worldwide, this is several hundred times the entire energy consumption of the world. The key technology for tapping in to this cornucopia is the simple proven technique of “concentrating solar power” (CSP): using mirrors to concentrate sunlight to create heat and then using the heat to raise steam to drive turbines and generate electricity, just like a conventional power station. Solar heat can be stored so that electricity generation can continue at night.

Using CSP, less than 1% of the world’s deserts could generate as much electricity as the world is currently using. And it is feasible and economic to transmit solar electricity for 3000 km or more using highly-efficient ‘HVDC’ transmission lines. It has been calculated that 90% of the world’s population lives within 2700 km of a hot desert and could be supplied with solar electricity from there.

Quite apart from the transmission of solar energy throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa, the proposed ‘HVDC’ Supergrid would reduce wastage by allowing electricity to be transmitted from areas of surplus to areas of need, it would increase energy security because temporary shortfalls in any area could be covered from elsewhere, and it would help to match variable demands with variable supplies. It would also provide the means of transmitting electricity from large-scale but remote renewable sources such as off-shore wind farms, wave farms, tidal stream generators and the like.

Dr Stoate said “Concentrated solar power is a concept of literally dazzling simplicity. It is an idea so simple, and with such extraordinary promise as a means of power generation, that it seems astonishing that in Europe we are only just waking up to its potential, more than 20 years after its first use in California.”

Responding to Dr Stoate’s speech, energy minister Malcolm Wicks MP said “The world has huge solar resources, on which concentrated solar power technology can clearly draw. … The Government will continue to follow developments in concentrated solar power and long-distance electricity transmission.” He said that Dr Stoate had made several interesting and important points and that he would like to be better informed on the subject.”

What would it take to turn CO2 gas into a carbonate solid? According to Mark Clayton, VP of Corporate Relations for Austin based Skyonic, the process could be commercially viable in a few years.

What if fossil fuel had zero emissions? (Photo: Skyonic)

“Our rough numbers show that with the costs of the chemicals we use and the value of the byproducts, chlorine and hydrogen, the process can almost pay for itself financially,” said Clayton.

Apparently officials at Luminant, one of the biggest power generators in the United States, are in agreement, since they have invested in Skyonic and are working with them to build a demonstration plant. “We want a full scale design by the end of 2008, so we can break ground in 2009 and be operating two years after that,” said Clayton.

According to the EIA, the USA produces about 240 gigawatt-years of power from coal each year; just a little over 50% of all electric power in the USA comes from coal fired power plants. To do this, we mine about 1.1 billion tons of coal each year, and coal fired power plants release about 2.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions each year. So what would happen if 100% of these emissions were turned into sodium bicarbonate using Skyonic’s technology?

As it turns out, the process would require massive inputs of salt – which is a cheap and abundant material – and applying Skyonic’s process would exchange 2.3 billion tons of CO2 emissions for about 3.2 billion tons of sodium bicarbonate. As we note in our post “Plasco’s Waste to Energy,” as well as “Ze-gen’s Waste to Energy,” all municipal solid waste in the USA each year only totals 220 million tons, and all construction debris only adds another 100 million tons. For that matter, as we report in “Astec’s Green Asphalt,” the total volume of rock quarried in the USA each year is only about 3.0 billion tons – a staggering amount – but less than the volume of sodium bicarbonate we would produce if we converted 100% of these CO2 emissions from coal into a solid.

On the other hand, coal plants are becoming more efficient every day, there are other ways to utilize the CO2 – such as to nourish factory farmed algae for biofuel, and we probably aren’t going to eliminate 100% of these emissions right away, anyway. As Clayton pointed out, sodium bicarbonate is a fairly innocuous, non-toxic material, and there is capacity inside the coal mines to refill them with the carbonate waste to replace the coal that was removed. There may be other uses for the carbonate – Clayton noted there may be potential to use carbonate in cement, for example.

And as always, there are other technologies to scrub CO2 from coal fired power plant emissions – yet another scheme was reported today by Cleantech.com in their report “Carbon capture gets crystal powered.”

What is potentially most interesting about Skyonic’s technology is that it may have a relatively low cost – Clayton stated this process may actually be economically viable even without dependance on CO2 offset funding. In any case, capturing CO2 as a solid may be more sustainable than attempting to pressurize every underground cavern ever found. Like many solutions to environmental challenges, conversion of CO2 emissions into inert solid matter may be one of an assortment of remedies that in combination provide a comprehensive solution.

Visit a family of gorillas on your next family vacation. (Photo: Terra Incognita Ecotours)

Have you ever looked a beautiful pristine place shining brightly on your computer’s screensaver and thought how much you would like to be there right now?

For some people, a couch, cold drink and a decent video rental make up the key ingredients for their perfect vacation. What is a vacation anyway? The dictionary defines the word as “time away from work”, but for many of us, the ideal vacation doesn’t just mean a quick escape from the job, but an escape from the day to day lives we’ve become accustomed to. Working the 8-5 jobs leaves many drained and wondering what else the world has to offer. A plastic plant gathering dust next to the computer screen we stare at all day is never going to satisfy the need for a healthy dose of nature.

Nominated as “Best Tour Operator” in the 2006 First Choice Responsible Tourism Awards, Terra Incognita Ecotours, is a tour operator that has left many clients impressed. Terra Incognita founder, Gerard Caddick, spent many years working to conserve endangered species in South America before starting a business in the travel industry. Caddick’s tours include trips to Rwanda where visitors can spend the day with wild gorillas, to Costa Rica where it is rare to leave without having seen toucans, parrots and monkeys in the jungle canopy or Borneo where orangutan’s and elephants are a common sight.

Gerard Caddick, explains what makes eco-tours special ones: “I would say that what makes our trips different is that we’re focused on taking people to natural areas to experience the wildlife and cultures that occur there. So its very different form a beach vacation or cruise. There is an educational component where you learn about wildlife and nature issues.”

The Terra Incognita website provides a list that defines an ecologically responsible tour:

Minimize impact,

Build environmental and cultural awareness and respect,

Provide positive experiences for both visitors and hosts,

Provide direct financial benefits for conservation,

Provide financial benefits and empowerment for local people,

Raise sensitivity to host countries’ political, environmental, and social climate,

Support international human rights and labor agreements.

Have this little fellow join you for breakfast. (Photo: Terra Incognita Ecotours)

There really is something out there for anyone. A jungle safari might appeal to the more adventurous while a laid back cruise would seem more appealing to someone who just wants to sit back and relax.

The difference between an eco-tour and booking a trip on your own is that an eco-tour allows the traveler to give something back to the country that they visit.

“We made the decision early that that everyone’s involvement [in the local culture and habitat protection] would be a monetary donation,” says Caddick, “On every trip that we offer, there is a component of the tour costs that goes to a local conservation organization. Our logic was that we are targeting the baby boomer generation that has more money than time. People want to do the right thing, but they don’t have the time to do conservation or volunteer work, so they provide funding and get involved in that sense.”

Some examples of where tourist dollars go when traveling through Terra Incognita include: Project Angonoka to protect the most endangered tortoise in the world-the ploughshare,which is found solely in Madagascar (http://www.biaza.org.uk/public/pages/conservation/projects/angonoka.asp),
to the Belize zoo, to the Tropical Education Center and to the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project (MGVP) where veterinarians have the risky job of roaming through the jungles and treating injured gorillas. The MGVP project can be proud of having increased the Mountain Gorilla population by 17% in the past 20 years. (http://mgvp.32ad.com/)

A lot of thought is put into where Terra Incognita donates this money. “We like to find local conservation organizations,” continues Caddick, “We never give a whole lot of money, meaning it is not in the millions, so we want to make sure that what we give is wisely spent.”

Terra Incognita’s most popular and unique tour is the trip to visit the incredible Gorilla in Rwanda: “Sitting face to face with a mountain gorilla is a life changing experience,” says Caddick emotionally, “everyone we’ve taken to see these gorillas has been moved by the whole experience. I’ve seen grown men weep. Imagine coming face to face with something three times your size and marveling at how incredibly gentle and compassionate these creatures are. The Mountain Gorilla tour involves waking up at 5am where the lodge owner knocks on your door with tea or coffee at hand. Breakfast starts at 5:30am and the group heads out to start the trek through the jungle at 6am. There are seven Gorilla families in the area, and each visitor is assigned a group. It takes 1-3 hours to reach the gorillas and one hour is spent with them when they are found. They only have human interaction 1 hour a day. After the experience, you go back to the lodge and relax till the cocktail hour starts at 6pm and dinner at 7pm.”

A major concern for travelers is their budget. As with anything, careful research will provide a travel solution for everyone.

Smart growth cluster-homes, ala Italia. (Photo: A Closer Look Travel)

Kara Black, the owner and manager of A Closer Look Travel (http://www.acloserlook.travel/), recently became focused on sustainable travel. Black decided to specialize in social change travel and runs one of the few travel agencies that specialize in eco-tourism. Black explains how varied eco-tours can be: “The prices of eco-tours are diverse; you can find luxury deluxe ecotourism or you could do a home-stay which is extremely in expensive.”

St. John Island Vacations (http://www.caneelbay.com) is an example of a luxury vacation. As with anything, you get what you pay for, and being pampered, fed, massaged and entertained at the one of the most beautiful island escapes in the world does not come cheap.

Ecotourism does not mean that your trip involves backpacking through rugged terrain or working in a rural village to earn your keep. These are options, but not what defines eco-tourism.

A Closer Look Travel offers other types of tours to individuals wishing to make a direct impact by staying with local families and working in the area to pay for their stay. Kara Black explains that “you could stay in a ghetto in Brazil or in the Dominican Republic. Of course you would be housed in fairly safe accommodations and get tours of the living conditions of the people that live there so it is not a white washed tour. You would have the opportunity to purchase a well for a family that provides much needed water, or work in a health clinic or in a school to help educate local children. An example of a typical day on one these adventures include staying on the outskirts of the poor area in a sort of Bed and Breakfast, where you take a group transport to a clinic and work on a variety of tasks like talking with parents, observing the situation and assisting in ways where you don’t need medical expertise. You listen to people who work there, learn what their issues are and end up being donors to these programs. After a morning working at a clinic you would have lunch off site and then take a group bus to say, local archeological caves. Afterwards everyone enjoys time shopping at the beach district and receives a nicer meal for dinner. These types of tours are offered all over the world such as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Uzbekistan, the Dominican Republic, South and Central America and Honduras.”

Penguins in Patagonia. (Photo: A Closer Look Travel)

There are also opportunities to work with local habitats by planting trees or monitoring wildlife. Black continues to describe a tour that would appeal to travelers who want to completely immerse themselves in nature: “In the Earth Watch expedition up the Amazon, travelers stay in huts owned by the local tribes. You get to these huts by a dug out canoe boat. When you stay in your hut you hope you can sleep in because at night you stay up late studying cicadas via black light. During the day you go on wildlife excursions, and then you come back and enjoy dinner made from food grown locally. Afterwards you will stay up for several more hours and attract insects with the black light to count them.”

Tropical forests or third world countries are not the only popular travel destinations offered through Black’s travel agency: “You can stay at a ranch in Hawaii on the side of a volcano while reforesting native trees, another one of our trips includes a stay on a hilltop castle in Tuscany where guests learn how to do all the organic farming and learn how to sustainably harvest everything. You learn a lot about the history of the area and how locals live their lives.”

Unfortunately, even ecotourism can have negative impacts if not managed properly. The psychology behind travel has changed tremendously over the years. In the past, people did not give a second though about trampling through jungles or riding jeeps across the Sahara. As traveling became easier and the world smaller, many people decided to take advantage of the situation and sought adventure in pristine jungles, deserts and oceans. Over time, these areas degraded and the environmentally conscious noted changes in the land, an increase in pollution and changes to the local society as a whole. Hotels along beaches, garbage at camp sites, eroded paths in jungles, the overuse of water at golf resorts and the displacement of locals are all negative impacts of the non-environmentally conscious tourist.

To read detailed accounts of the negative impacts of tourism visit UNEP at http://www.uneptie.org/pc/tourism/sust-tourism/env-3main.htm or Tourism Concern at http://www.tourismconcern.org.uk/index.php?page=home.

Bearing in mind that the tourism industry has grown substantially in the past 20 years, the answer to the predicaments mentioned above are to change the way we travel, rather than to eliminate tourism to certain destinations completely. In fact, 10.8 billion dollars were spent by international tourists traveling to the U.S in the month of September 2007. This huge sum is proof of what a large market tourism is.

The breathtaking highlands of Peru (Photo: Eco Tours Online)

Egyptian born Kareem Hagar tried escaping the overpopulation and pollution caused by the tourism industry by visiting sites that tourists did not know about. In an effort to preserve the few areas in Egypt that were still intact he and his friend, Anthony Chamy, were inspired to create EcotoursOnline after moving to Canada. http://ecotoursonline.ca/.

“We never really considered this product to be a business at first,” says Anthony. “Kareem and I were raised in Egypt and a lot of the places we went to as kids are ruined now. Kareem went out on his own trying to find deserted beaches and oasis in the desert in an attempt to escape mass tourism in the area- the areas just lost their charm. I started tagging a long with him and soon year after year the group got bigger as more people joined who were interested in visiting areas unknown to tourists. When the groups got to be as large as 10-15 people, we saw potential for a product.”

Hopeful that they could protect the areas that remained, the duo started up a company with the purpose of educating the public about the importance of preserving the variety of archaeological wonders and cultures in Egypt.

“We found local people with the same passion for their country,” continues Anthony, “and we used their contacts and experience to create a unique itinerary. Visitors will have the chance to spend time with family and kids. Of course we are going to see the sights-the pyramids-but that’s just a side, where seeing what the country and it’s people are really like is the main issue. Our groups have been invited to weddings and dinners. A lot of our activities will also be participative tourism. Half a day might be spent with a fisherman where we help him built a boat He gets paid for his time and can sell the boat we helped make later on. We help you find hidden treasures and by traveling with us you’re no longer a tourist, you become a friend.”

Colorful threads from Madagascar - wear these to work on Monday! (Photo: Eco Tours Online)

Chamy and Hagar knew that preventing tourism completely was not the answer to preserving an area: “We have a big responsibility with this business. People are going to travel anyway. If we don’t take them they will end up going on their own. We show them a different side of the country and educate them so they learn to travel with respect for the future. People are spending thousands of dollars when they travel and this money is usually taken OUT of the country where the money is spent. These tourists completely ignore local culture where the only contact they have are with local housekeepers or servers…A lot of people do not know how bad things are for the country. In Cancun, for example, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong when you spend 600 dollars and are sunning yourself on a major hotel’s beach resort. We want to make it obvious.”

Another argument against ecotourism is that it is just the first step in the slippery slope to mass tourism. By sending people to pristine areas, they gain popularity and more people end up visiting the area. However, by creating an industry from a rain forest by providing trails or a bird watching tower, it is in the local’s interest to preserve the area rather than to destroy it in favor of a golf course or logging.

Caddick expresses a similar opinion: “There probably is some truth to [ecotourism evolving into mass tourism]. The more popular gorilla trekking is, the more people go there, the more lodges are built and the more of an impact there is. But I think the best way to engage and empower people to be concerned and be advocates for the environment is to educate them and have them enjoy these places. We can’t just lock them away. If people aren’t inspired and touched by it they can’t protect it. [Why would they want to?] You don’t want to love a place to death, but how does one set that level? You are going to have an impact whether it is just one person or thousands, but you don’t want to see places get locked away where only scientists have access to certain areas. If no one experiences it, then no one is going to want to protect it. It is a double edged sword.”

EcoWorld’s 2006 EcoTour survey “A Vast & Beautiful Planet,” describing some of the ecotours available on the planet. Since then, ecotourism has become even more popular. This is good news, but with an increase in popularity, potential travelers need to be careful when researching their options to ensure that ecotourism is not just a name in the company but the real thing.

Another thing to remember is that even though ecotourism is not the traditional tour or what many of us are used to, it is a great and affordable option to see parts of a country we would never find on our own. Many tours also offer travelers the opportunity to change the itinerary to enjoy areas you are specifically interested in. Kara Black has the following the advice: “People should not be scared of sustainable travel options. It’s a lot like normal travel and people can have the same kind of comfort and meet a lot of the same goals but they can actually add some richness to the experience as well. You can have a luxurious experience or a rustic one. You do run into a lot of bugs in the tropics&but it can be just as comfortable as your other travel arrangements if you plan ahead. [Plus, it wouldn't be the tropics without all the cool insects]”

For a detailed list of Eco-tours visit the Ecotourism Directory at:

http://www.ecotourdirectory.com/.

There is a recently published book by Jonah Goldberg entitled “Liberal Fascism” that attempts to define the term, as well as, somewhat provocatively, admonish the political left that the “right wing” has no monopoly on fascism. The book, which is scrupulously researched, describes the economic and political history of fascism, making the case that (1) European fascism was originally a left-wing, socialist, populist movement, and (2) the American counterparts of the European fascists were the progressives.

Liberal Fascism Jonah Goldberg’s incendiary treatise.

The hardest thing for most readers to get past – and I’ve read most of the online reviews of this book – is that fascism is typically equated with anti-semitism, militarism, dictatorship, demogaugery, genocide; all those phenomena associated with the extreme right wing.

But as Goldberg patiently explains, over and over, while one variant of fascism may have embodied all of this evil, it doesn’t change the fact that the modern political left has the same intellectual roots as Europe’s fascists who emerged in parallel with American progressives about 100 years ago.

Here is Goldberg’s definition of fascism: “Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including the economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the ‘problem’ and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism.”

Recently, in my current home town of Sacramento, California, a pioneering philanthropist named Charles Goethe, who founded the local university and donated large tracts of land for parks and schools, has had his name systematically expunged from history. Notwithstanding his social consciousness and generosity, Goethe believed in eugenics. But the well-meaning people who are busily demonizing Goethe today are ignoring the fact that Goethe, who was born in 1875, was a progressive, and virtually all progressives believed in eugenics. And they were the intellectual counterparts of the European fascists.

A few years ago I saw a German language version of the movie Titanic, released in late 1943. Watching the movie, I was struck by how obviously the plot was slanted to demonize wealthy profiteers; the villians were well-heeled capitalists of the whose desire to make a few extra dollars of profit spelled doom for the passengers on the Titanic. This was dissonant to me – weren’t the fascists right wing? Weren’t they the ultimate capitalists? This is a common misconception. The Nazis were socialists – national socialists, but socialists nonetheless. They believed in a partnership of government and industry for the purported benefit of the working man. And their economic model was ominously similar to what is being solidified today in America – as much by unwitting liberals as by errant conservatives. Neither wing has a monopoly on their enabling behaviors to create this “third way” economic model – known variously as corporatism, socialism, or economic fascism.

Just as fascism is a widely debated, widely misunderstood term, liberal is also a word that has two meanings. Goldberg describes how the terms “liberal” and “conservative” acquired their modern definitions: “In the past, liberalism had referred to political and economic liberty as understood by enlightenment thinkers like John Locke and Adam Smith. For them, the ultimate desideratum was maximum individual freedom under the benign protection of a minimalist state. The progressives, led by Dewey, subtly changed the meaning of this term, importing the Prussian version of liberalism as the alleviation of material and educational poverty… for progressives liberty no longer meant freedom from tyranny, but freedom from want… classical liberals were now routinely called conservatives, while devotees of social control were called liberals.”

There is far too much to this important book to summarize in a brief column. But the relevance of “Liberal Fascism” to environmentalism bears mention. As Goldberg writes: “The most tangible fascistic ingredient [of environmentalism] is that it is an invaluable ‘crisis mechanism.’ Al Gore constantly insists that global warming is the defining crisis of our time. Skeptics are called traitors, Holocaust deniers, tools of the ‘carbon interests’… the beauty of global warming is that it touches everything we do – what we eat, what we wear, where we go. Our ‘carbon footprint’ is the measure of man.”

We have repeatedly warned that there is no “denial industry,” indeed the measures being advocated to supposedly combat global warming are the biggest gift to the “corporatists” in the history of the world (read “The Alarm Industry”). The powerful vested interests that constitute the “alarm industry” are the ones who, ironically, anyone who truly believes in human rights should be worried about.

It really doesn’t matter if they fall under the ideals of true conservatism, classical liberalism, libertarianism, or even enlighted conventional liberalism – the values of individual freedom, free markets, private property, and limited government are under attack. The “green” fascism of environmental extremists, who are being given cover and credibility by corporatist interests, is the current incarnation of this dangerous ideology that mingles statism and populism in equal and potent measures. Goldberg’s book should be read, with an open mind, by every voter in America.

You look through it, drink out of it, watch television with its reflection-glass is everywhere. The uses are almost endless. Glass has existed since the beginning of time, where natural intense heat created by volcanic eruptions, meteors and lightning strikes transformed certain rock into this shiny smooth material. The earliest glass (non-translucent) dates back to around 3000BC. It is thought that Egyptians accidentally came across the craft when calciferous sand found its way into kilns and formed a glass glaze on the ceramics fired inside.

Glass was mainly used for decorative purposes at first, but it has come a long way since then. Every home and office is going to contain glass in one form or another – lamps, televisions and mirrors are all nonfunctional without the material. With so many items made from glass, however, it makes one wonder what happens to these things when they are no longer useful? 7% of household waste is glass and not all of it gets recycled. In 2001, over 2.5 million tonnes of glass was land-filled. This is unfortunate, as glass can be recycled indefinitely – its simple structure is not damaged when reprocessed.

Certain eco-friendly companies have invested in excess glass, taking advantage of its beauty and various functionalities. EnviroGLAS converts glass destined to be land-filled into gorgeous flooring, kitchen slabs and even incorporates the glass into landscapes.

“It was in 2002 that a glut of old glass bottles, mirrors and windows became the source for this chic green twist to the classic flooring concept. Publicity in July about the Texas city of Plano’s overabundance of crushed recycled glass inspired the creative solution of combining the multi-colored crystals with epoxy resin to create recycled glass Terrazzo.” (http://www.enviroglasproducts.com/about.asp)

Walking on floors designed by EnviroGLAS is a mesmerizing process, as bits of mirrors and colorful glass shimmer underneath your feet. There are dozens of colors to choose from and interested buyers can customize the mixture of glass to suit their taste. These color combinations are endless.

One concern is that these glass floors are fragile. This is definitely not the case. The website explains that “EnviroTRAZ recycled glass [and porcelain Terrazzo] will last the lifetime of your building, and most terrazzo floors last at least 40 years without needing refinishing. DFW Airport, Parkland Hospital, Dallas Baptist University and the City of Dallas’ Hensley Field Operations Center are four of the latest North Texas community landmarks to install this environmentally friendly flooring.”

Another benefit is that the seamless quality of the finished product is easy to keep clean. There are no nooks and crannies for mold or mildew to grow while the inert properties of the glass provide excellent air quality.

With maintenance costs almost nonexistent and endless pattern and color options – who wouldn’t want to walk on glass?

Although it’s been operating since June 2007, today Acciona dedicated their 64 megawatt solar thermal plant in Boulder City, Nevada. According to the Chairman of Acciona, José Manuel Entrecanales, the plant cost $260 million and will operate for several decades. The plant is rated to produce 64 megawatts in full sun and is expected to produce about 130,000 megawatt-hours per year.

A parabolic trough at Nevada Solar One. (Photo: Acciona)

While there have been solar thermal plants installed in recent years, particularly in Spain where Acciona has their headquarters, this is the first utility-scale solar thermal plant built in the USA since 1991.

It is interesting to compare this plant to some of the others being proposed. Ausra, for example, expects to generate 177 megawatts on a 640 acre installation – using their modified solar trough technology. Nevada Solar One occupies 400 acres.

This means Ausra claims their plant footprint will require 3.62 acres per megawatt output, whereas Acciona’s plant footprint requires 6.25 acres per megawatt – nearly twice as much. The comparison is misleading, however, since Acciona’s plant has a much greater ratio of balance-of-plant to solar field compared with Ausra’s. Also, of course, Ausra’s plant is still on the drawing boards, and until power is being generated to the grid, it isn’t fair to compare a design to a reality.

Another way to look at the footprint of solar electricity is to compare solar thermal to photovoltaic – and in this comparison, photovoltaic displays far more than the 2 to 1 range of efficiencies we’re possibly seeing with solar thermal. Thin film photovoltaics, which display efficiencies as low as 5%, require 4.6 acres per megawatt. Top-end crystalline photovoltaics, on the other hand, are available off the shelf at efficiencies of over 20%, which means they would require only 1.2 acres per megawatt.

If one assumes Californians draw about 30 gigawatt-years of electricity per year (and that’s on the low side if we start charging millions of electric cars every night, read “Gigawatt-hours per electric commuters”), then here’s how much land in California’s southern deserts would have to be given over to solar installations:

Solar thermal – best case: 731 square miles.
Solar thermal – conservative case: 1,278 square miles.
Photovoltaic – thin film low efficiency: 939 square miles.
Photovoltaic – crystalline high efficiency: 235 square miles.

If this sounds like a lot of square miles, it isn’t. California’s area is 158,000 square miles. Put another way, since California has 36 million inhabitants, 1,000 square miles, or 640,000 acres, equate to only 774 square feet per person. Much of California’s solar future will be via rooftop installations, which on a per capital basis almost certainly exceeds 774 feet per person.

Not addressed here are the storage issues facing solar power, and all intermittant power. It is no coincidence Nevada Solar One is located in Boulder City, in the shadow of Hoover Dam. If and when solar thermal power scales up into the multiple gigawatt output range, load balancing as the sunlight fades can be accomodated simply by reactivating one more turbine in the powerhouse. As a supplement to hydroelectric power, solar thermal even without storage solutions is very interesting, because the solar field can provide power during the day, allowing the hydroelectric turbines to remain idle until night-time. This can literally double the annual power-output capacity of deep water reservoirs, since the supply of water is often the primary constraint on their output.

Nothing compares to the power of the ocean. It is no wonder that the frothing waters of the seas slamming against cliffs invoke nothing but respect. Anyone who has swum amongst the waves only to be thrown back onto the shore knows how useless it is to fight against a current. Enormous waves have battled ships and won, while tsunamis have sucked countless homes out to sea. Even stones succumb to the torment of the ocean, taking on the shape pounded into them by the repetitive force of the waters. It is hard to imagine anything with more force than the sea.

It was only a matter of time before innovators such as the company “Wave Energy Technologies (WET)” discovered a way to harness the constant energy provided by the perpetually fluctuating waves of the sea. This is especially important since fossil fuels will not be an option forever. Since establishing itself in 2004, Wave Energy Technologies, has moved toward the goal of developing a fully functional “wave energy conversion device.” The Wet EnGen design was developed within that year and has undergone intense testing since then.

As illustrated in their website, “The main feature of the WET EnGen is its Smart Float which travels along a rigid spar at an incline of 45 degrees. The spar is moored at a single point of contact which allows the device to be fully compliant on all three axes (pitch, roll and yaw).” Follow this link to view an illustration showing the process.

Vice President, Perry E. Toms, explains the design in a little more detail: ” The WET EnGen has been successfully demonstrated in both sea trials just outside Halifax as well as in many tests conducted at National Research Council indoor wave tank facilities in Ottawa and St. Johns, NL. The device has a unique design and motion that automatically adjusts itself to capture the strongest wave energy in water depths ranging from 50 meters to many hundreds of meters. This design also can withstand storms and rough seas…The size of the units vary; a 20 kW unit was tested at Sandy Cove Nova Scotia which was approximately 5 meters x 5 meters on top and about 4.5 meters deep whereas a larger 250 kW unit would be larger at about 20 meters square on top and about 18 meters deep. The larger sized unit could provide all the electricity needs for approximately 150 homes.”

This device easily converts wave energy into electrical power or pressurized water for desalination. It seems that the potential for the Wet EnGen is immense. It is hard to beat this product with low maintenance costs and productivity in all areas including those with smaller waves.

One concern, however, is the environmental impact these devices will have. No one wants their pristine view of the ocean ruined by a dozen floating Wet EnGens. Toms argues that their technology is efficient and obstruction is minimal: “The WET EnGen, like an iceberg, has over 90% of its mass under water and does not present a visual detriment to coastal installations – most projects will be located hundreds of meters from shore. Also because wave energy is very dense, a wave energy farm will be much smaller in surface size compared to an equivalent sized wind project and can be designed with minimum impact to both the environment or to fishing or other marine enterprise.”

About two months ago we challenged what we perceive to be a bias in favor of ultra high density, subsidized housing on the part of urban planners who should be engineering cities but often seem to want to engineer society while they’re at it. These comments culminated (for now) with our Critique of New Urbanism (also known as “Letter from Wingnuttia”) posted back on December 13th, 2007.

Want to plant a big tree? Not so fast…

The original inspiration for our critique was a listserve sponsored by www.treelink.org, where urban foresters swap advice on how to manage and expand urban forests.

We warned these people who love trees that there is an inevitable conflict between their desire to expand the urban forest and what appeared to be their collective predilection for ultra high density communities.

You can’t cram 10-20 “detached single family homes” onto one acre via infill or within new planned communities and expect there to be room for trees – except of course for trees in public parks and on traffic medians, expensively maintained by public employees. In the urban environment, the private tree on a private lot is an endangered species, and if that sounds hyperbolic, too bad, because it’s true.

Now another threat to the urban forest is upon us, and the only surprise is that it hasn’t happened sooner. Unlike high density “infill” mandates, which we believe are destroying beautiful and irreplaceable semi-rural suburbs under false pretences, protecting solar access is a worthy goal. We have always been enthusiastic about solar power, and the liberating (and libertarian) nature of off-grid, small scale, privately owned energy and water systems.

So when we learned a homeowner in Santa Clara, California, is suing his neighbor because their redwood trees are growing up to shade his rooftop photovoltaic system, there wasn’t an immediate reaction either way. While we lean towards favoring the trees, we can certainly appreciate the concern somebody might feel if they dump $20,000 into rooftop photovoltaics only to see their yields relentlessly lowered in direct proportion to the height of their neighbor’s redwood trees. What do you do?

Rhonda Berry, Executive Director of the Silicon Valley based Our City Forest, was quoted in a report on the lawsuit (S.J. Mercury, “Tree Huggers Should Trump Solar Lovers”) as suggesting “we should develop neighborhood solar hubs – at schools or other public buildings – to provide energy to surrounding homes instead of putting panels on every house.”

Berry is on to something, although this conflict is just beginning and her idea is only part of a possible solution set. But if homeowners invest in solar power systems and reap the payback therein, why should that require them to put the installation on their own roof? Photovoltaics installed on one residential rooftop still cost about $10 per watt, whereas larger scale systems only cost about $6.00 per watt. That is a lot of savings to leverage, and property owners in sunny areas away from prime land, or owners of large commercial buildings with huge rooftop areas ought to be able to capitalize on this.

It’s time for virtual power companies to form. Why should I own a photovoltaic system on my own roof, when I can own a piece of a larger system and make a more cost effective investment – and still enjoy shade from my neighbor’s big urban trees? Is there a business model here?

Everyone sweats. It is the unfortunate truth that heat leaves us feeling uncomfortable, sticky and lethargic. It is no wonder that many countries with hotter summer climates like Argentina and Italy close shop during the hottest time of day. Between 1-5pm in the afternoon, you would be hard pressed to find any store open because no one wants to work in a 100 degree environment. Fortunately, with the development of Air Conditioning, work environments have become more comfortable and productivity is definitely higher because of it.

Typical air conditioning units work by using a refrigerant, like freon, for cooling. Strangely enough, the freon first runs through a compressor that transforms the freon into a HOT gas. This gas runs through a set of coils until it cools down to liquid form. Afterwards it runs through an expansion valve that forces the freon to evaporate and turn into a cold, low-pressure gas. This gas cools tubes of water that are pumped through a building to absorb excess heat.

The mechanics are simple to understand, but people are more concerned with the cost. During the hot summer months, electric bills sky rocket because of the need to keep cool. However, Ice-Energy has found a solution.

Energy costs are cut by around 20% when their patented “Ice Bear” is attached to an A/C unit. This machine runs at night, freezing water in its massive storage tank when temperatures are cooler and electricity is plentiful. This ice lasts well into the end of the day where it is used to keep the refrigerant cool before it runs to the AC. Cooling the refrigerant through an AC unit is an energy intensive process, but with the help of the Ice Bear, the refrigerant flows already cooled.

Ice Energy explains the process in their website:

“The Ice Energy system supplements your home’s central air conditioner. Cooling energy is created and stored during nighttime hours when energy is inexpensive and less polluting. During peak daytime hours, the stored cooling is supplied to your home through your air conditioning system. It’s a super-efficient ‘cooling battery’.”

The result is improved cooling comfort, but with 90-95% of the energy use shifted to nighttime hours.”

Through the use of their product, energy bills are cut dramatically and owners can be proud of reducing pollution.

That they are pioneers in “BIPV” technology (building integrated photovoltaics) makes Los Angeles based Solar Integrated a very interesting company. But what makes Solar Integrated really, really interesting is they very likely have the most inexpensive photovoltaic solution in the world today.

Solar Integrated’s flexible PV panels being installed on the CocaCola plant in Los Angeles.

Large scale photovoltaic installations are still very expensive. Even when you get up into the 500 kilowatt or 1.0 megawatt range, which spreads the “balance of plant” costs (the inverter, the power management system, the utility interties) over a higher quantity of photovoltaic panels, you are still looking at a total cost of around $7.00 to $8.00 per watt. Solar Integrated can beat these prices, and the reason is because they have come up with some of the first commercially available flexible thin-film photovoltaic panels.

Solar Integrated takes flexible amorphous silicon solar panels, supplied by Uni-Solar, and laminates them onto a flexible PVC roofing membrane. Their standard 9′ by 19′ foot panel delivers 816 watts in full sun, which equates to 4.8 watts per square foot. They also offer a standard 9′ x 19′ panel that delivers 864 watts; 5.0 watts per square foot.

Amorphous silicon, however, delivers output in overcast conditions or in conditions when the sun is low in the sky. Crystalline photovoltaics don’t share this characteristic, which means their efficiency advantages over amorphous photovoltaics is overstated unless this is taken into account. In Los Angeles, for example, there are 5.0 “full sun equivalent” hours of sunlight per day. But because amorphous silicon photovoltaics can absorb light in multiple spectra, they produce energy when there is less sunlight, and can stretch these 5.0 hours by about 20%. This translates directly into more watt-hours per square foot of PV, which in-turn translates directly into lower costs.

The reason Solar Integrated’s installation costs are probably the most competitive in the USA is because installation costs – the cost for skilled electricians and roofers – are now the largest portion of the installed cost of most photovoltaic systems. If state-of-the-art manufacturing costs of PVs are crossing below $1.00 per watt, and they are, there really isn’t much left to squeeze out of overall costs for PVs through technological advancements in their manufacture. But with installation costs in the industry averaging $5.00 per watt (the margin on PVs and balance-of-plant comprising the rest), it is crucial to bring installation costs down for the price of kilowatt-hours from PVs to attain grid parity. Solar Integrated’s flexible solar panels, which only weigh 12 ounces per square foot and can literally be unrolled onto rooftops, are extremely time-efficient to install. From an economic perspective, this innovation is a breakthrough as significant as anything that happens in the world of PV fabrication.

Randall Corey, Solar Integrated’s VP of Construction Operations said one of the primary reasons they have been able to get their installation costs so low was because the product was designed by roofers in the first place. As he put it, “The background of our people in roofing is one of our strengths, because with their help we developed a product where the integration of the photovoltaics into the building doesn’t compromise the roofing solution at all.”

Solar Integrated’s new factory has an output of 24 megawatts per year, and their installed base at this point is over 17 megawatts. Their 2.0 megawatt system at the Tesco Group building in Riverside, California, is the biggest building integrated photovoltaic system in the world to-date.

Solar Integrated has been a public company since 2001 and is traded (SIT) on the AIM market on the London Stock Exchange. They have 250 employees and revenues in 2006 were US$ 38M. While their 2007 revenues haven’t been announced, they experienced year over year growth of about 100%. How low can they get the cost of a large photovoltaic install? Give them a call.