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We’ve reported before on TREC, “The Trans-Mediterranean Renewable Energy Cooperation,” an initiative that campaigns for the transmission of clean power from deserts throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa.”

The mission of this group, affiliated with the Club of Rome, is to promote the construction of high voltage direct current (HVDC) transmission lines throughout Europe, the nations ringing the Mediterranean, and the Middle East. At the same time, they are calling for the construction of solar thermal power stations in the Sahara Desert to produce electricity that can be efficiently transmitted to European markets via the HVDC cables.

This is an ambitious project, to put it mildly. We reported on HVDC transmission technologies in our post “Life in the Electric Age,” describing the attempt to bring HVDC to the west coast of North America. HVDC has several advantages over typical high voltage AC transmission lines. Most importantly, HVDC experiences far less power loss over long distances, and the lines can be buried underground. We have also covered TREC’s work in the past, in our posts “Mega Solar Concentrators,” and “Saharan Solar Power.”

A solar field and power tower. (Photo: Bright Source Energy)

One of the questions with solar thermal power, particularly if you are going to operate these plants in the desert, is how to access an adequate water supply for the steam turbine. Clearly these plants would have to recycle nearly all of the water if they were to be practical. The solution to this may lie in using the “power tower” design, vs. the various parabolic trough designs. The reason for this is because the temperature in the power tower, where a solar field of mirrors all focus on a single boiler, gets quite a bit hotter than vs. competing designs, up to 550 degrees centigrade.

This advantage is realized when it is time to recycle the water back into the solar field. Because the water is being reused, the steam that moves the turbine that turns the generator cannot simply be blown into the atmosphere. Instead the steam has to be condensed, meaning the condensor has to shrink the steam back into water at the same rate as the hot steam is being released into the turbine, to avoid back pressure that will undermine the efficiency of the turbine.

Because a power tower design can achieve temperatures of 550 degrees centigrade, vs. approximately 325 degrees centigrade for a parabolic trough design, it is possible to efficiently air cool the water exiting the turbine for recirculation back into the solar field – even in the Sahara Desert. With a parabolic trough design, there simply may not be enough differential in temperature between the steam entering the turbine and the ambient temperature to allow cost effective water cooling. For more on this read “Bright Source’s Power Tower.”

TREC’s goal of replacing literally terawatts of power output throughout Europe, the Mediterranean and the Middle East with solar thermal power stations may never happen at the scale they envision, but the technologies they are advocating are being explored around the world. Solar thermal power combined with HVDC electricial transmission technology are innovations that should be explored further. It is also encouraging that the solar thermal cycle of boiling and condensing water may conceivably be integrated with desalination. TREC’s vision is an example of a comprehensive potential solution to many challenges – efficient energy transmission, renewable energy production, and alleviating water scarcity.

Time is precious. We’ve all heard that before, and it’s not a happy thought to have when minutes tick away during the day’s unpleasantries: waiting at stop lights, sitting in traffic, cleaning the house, playing chauffeur to kids, meetings… the list goes on. Much of our time isn’t our own.

It is no wonder that the Roomba was such a hit when first introduced to the market. This little vacuuming robot has saved buyers countless hours by diligently rolling around the floor and picking up crumbs, hair and specks that would otherwise have needed attending to. Following the footsteps of the Roomba comes an independent self-charging, solar powered lawn-mowing machine made by the Swedish firm Husqvarna.

Couples don’t need to argue over whose turn it is to cut the lawn while business-folk can leave their homes for a week and come back to an elegantly cut lawn. Husgvarna’s ‘automower’ is a futuristic looking device-the first of its kind- that functions on solar and electric power.

Having a robot equipped with sharp blades rolling around the garden may sound like a half-hazard idea, but Husgvarna has taken every possible precaution. Just like with any lawn mower, there are chances of getting cuts if feet or hands find their way under the hood. Typically, the automower will gently bump into an obstacle, whether it be a tree, fence or lethargic pet, and safely turn around continuing on another route. When it needs charging, it will return to the charge port until it is ready to continue another cycle.

With the ability to tend to almost a full acre of grass, and able to transverse the same terrain as a traditional lawnmower, autmower is a cool little gadget to have rolling around the yard while you sip your lemonade and read a book in the sun.

Another major benefit of the device, besides an eliminated chore, is that this mower is environmentally friendly; releasing absolutely no emissions. The fine mulch produced also makes excellent fertilizer and is quickly reabsorbed into the ground. Neighbors will also appreciate the silence: At 63 dB this mower is much quieter than traditional mowers that operate at up to 100 dB.

Costing around $2000, it is a large investment that many buyers have already deemed worthwhile. Thanks to an anti-theft device, owners don’t need to worry about their precious lawnmower getting stolen. As an added precaution, autmowers will only function with their individual charging docks and require a PIN number.

For individuals concerned with emissions, but who don’t want to spend more money on their lawnmower than they do on the family can opt for the battery powered lawnmower designed by Neuton. At around $350 you get similar environmental benefits as you would using the automower, but you have to put a little more work into your lawn.

The parallels between the internet revolution and the 21st century green revolution are many, but the most salient perhaps is this: Wonderful progress is going to come out of this boom, but lots of business models and products are going to come and go, and we’re going to look back at many of them and shake our heads in disbelief.

GreenBuild.com is an excellent online resource for information about all things green relating to construction, and I sincerely hope they’re around and thrive forever. Every Friday they email me their “Friday’s Green Video,” and they are always interesting. But today’s video highlighted what can only be characterized as “bleeding edge green.” By comparison, in our post “Affordable Green Homes,” we reported on Michelle Kaufmann Designs, where this architect is trying to apply green building concepts to modular homes that are elegant and green, but fall within the budget of normal people. In that post, we contrasted Kaufmann’s products to the “Idea House” built in 2007 in San Francisco, which while incorporating brilliant green innovations, cost over $500 per square foot to build.

If the cost for the Idea House was stratospheric, the cost for the home featured in GreenBuild’s Friday video today was stellar. This 9,000 square foot home will go on the market for $15 million, which comes out to a cost of $1,670 per square foot. I’m not sure just how nice this home is, but if I can afford $15M for a home, I’m not going to tolerate low flow shower heads. And call me a curmudgeon, but the “ethanol burning fireplace” that the home features is one of those things we’ll shake our heads at someday. I’m surprised they didn’t explain that the fireplace will only burn cellulosic ethanol.

Once again, there are wonderful innovations in this home, and pioneering these innovations requires bleeding edge applications before costs settle down to levels affordable to mainstream consumers. But will everyone someday be able to afford geothermal heating and cooling systems? Probably not – this may never make sense financially. Will unsubsidized photovoltaics ever compete with conventional energy? More likely, but we’re not there yet. If you are looking for what green innovations are most likely to end up in your home in the next ten years, look to companies who are identifying what is practical and applying them to their products. For example, look to the green innovations in the homes by Michelle Kaufmann designs, and not to the bleeding edge green mega mansions of Long Island’s elite.

And if you’re investing in green technology, step back and ask yourself – IF all this climate panic subsides, and abundant clean fossil fuel (coal, shale, oil sands) has brought energy prices back to earth – will the business you’re interested in still be standing? No responsible investor should ignore this scenario.

Even a turkey wants to avoid the bleeding edge.

After visiting the GM technical center last April, which resulted in the feature story “GM’s Volt EREV,” it was clear the next big step for the Volt would be to get the actual production design batteries into prototypes and onto the test track. That step has been taken, with an official announcement by GM Vice Chairman Bob Lutz on his post of June 5th on the GM FastLand blog entitled “At Last: Behind the Wheel of Volt Test Mule.”

With a program as fast paced as GM’s Volt project, the first major automotive development program in history that does technology development and vehicle development in parallel, it is amazing how dated a print magazine article can be, before it even goes to press. In the July/August (it isn’t even July yet!) issue of the Atlantic Monthly, a feature appears on the Volt entitled “Electro-Shock Therapy” by Jonathan Rauch. If you read this feature closely, you will see the final interviews with GM officials cited in the story were in March – for a story published in a magazine with a cover date that is still in the future! In the article, Rauch reports “the car is 10 weeks behind the original schedule.” When you have about 130 weeks to launch, that is not a trivial delay. But is this claim still accurate?

When I visited GM in April, Frank Weber (GM’s Global Vehicle Line Chief Engineer E-Flex Systems) stated “we are working with incredible speed,” and “all project plans we have now are targeting November 2010.” So where are they now? As GM spokesperson Rob Peterson put it in an email received earlier today, “The timelines for the Volt’s development remain intact – the team is still targeting a November 2010 launch,” adding “As Frank [Weber] noted in April, we did indeed install prototype li-ion E-Flex batteries into our engineering development mules in May. Testing of the battery under dynamic conditions has been very encouraging.”

Returning to Lutz’s comments of June 5th: “On the drive out to Milford, as I passed gas station after gas station with prices for regular unleaded hugging the $4 mark. This makes the importance and potential of our all-electric glide through our proving ground roads even clearer.” Clear indeed. As we have endlessly explained here, there are a host of advantages to electric drive compared to gasoline drive – great traction, a great power-to-weight ratio, a huge functional RPM range, and zero pollution. But perhaps the most dramatic advantage of the electric motor over the gasoline engine is its superior ability to convert fuel into traction. An electric motor converts electricity into traction at a 90% (or better) efficiency. A modern internal combustion engine rarely can achieve efficiencies converting gasoline energy into traction at more than about a 35% efficiency.

To illustrate what this means in practice, normalize the units of energy, by converting kilowatt-hours and gallons of gasoline into BTUs – a universal unit of energy. One kilowatt-hour contains about 3,400 BTUs of energy. One gallon of gasoline contains about 125,000 BTUs of energy. So if a car gets 25 MPG, it is consuming 5,000 BTUs of gasoline energy per mile. If a car gets 50 MPG, it is consuming 2,500 BTUs of gasoline energy per mile. The Chevy Volt, a compact (but not subcompact) vehicle that will get an impressive 50 MPG on gasoline only, will get 3.5 miles per kilowatt-hour on electricity only. Rounding slightly, this means the car can go one mile using only 1,000 BTUs of electrical energy. This astonishing 2.5x to 5.0x efficiency advantage is the reason electric cars are going to dramatically change the rate at which we consume energy.

If you examine this advantage in terms of dollars and cents, the disparity between costs using gasoline vs. costs using electricity become even more dramatic. It appears likely electricity prices, off peak, can stay around $.10 per kilowatt-hour. Even new solar thermal utility projects are projecting costs per kilowatt-hour of less than $.10/kWh. This means the Volt as a plug-in, even allowing for a 10% energy loss in the charge & discharge of the onboard battery, can be operated at a fuel cost of about 3.5 cents per mile. Gasoline, on the other hand, even with 50 MPG, at $4.00 per gallon will cost a driver 8.0 cents per mile, more than twice as much.

As Venrock’s Matt Trevithick, an expert in EV technology puts it, “With electricity, we have always had a better motor, but with gasoline, we have a better fuel. History tilted in favor of the fuel.” With production design lithium ion batteries now onboard EREVs on a test track of the world’s largest automaker, history is beginning to tilt in favor of the motor. The electric age continues to dawn.

Modern technology is evolving at a frightening speed and ambitious scientists are beginning to realize that anything is possible. Less than a century ago, if you’d told anyone that people will travel to the moon, you would have found yourself heading to the nearest psychiatrist, no matter how calmly you relayed that information. Claims of talking to someone on a miniature phone, driving around in a horseless cart, building skyscrapers or seeing moving pictures in a box will have harbored the same results. With todays technology, however, even the most phenomenal natural process can be replicated and according to some, improved.

Volcanoes have been responsible for spewing up islands (formed from massive amounts of magma) since the beginning of time. It is a challenge imagining anything more powerful than an erupting mountain. However, a now infamous United Emirates Development company-Nakheel-had decided to take on the challenge of creating huge man made islands off the Dubai coastline-without any volcanic help.

Cities have been carved out of mountains and forests, it was only a matter of time before we saw islands erected in the ocean. The first of Nakheel’s projects was the Palm Jumeirah, launched in 2001, with more islands currently being added. Palm Jumeirah is already home to 500 families and contains malls, hotels, resorts, schools and parks. Leaving this sanctuary is unnecessary since it provides everything a family would need to live comfortably. According to the Nakheel website: “ When complete, projects such as the Palm Trilogy, the World and Waterfront will add more than 600 miles of beachfront to the Dubai coastline and cover over 2 billion sq ft.”

The idea of building islands is catching on: Phuket, Thailand is planning to build Zoran, a man made island specifically designed to cater to super yachts. Spain has proposed a Marina development near Gibraltar, while Qatar has already started building “The Pearl” off its coast. International Listings shows the top 10 man made islands in greater detail.

With the ability to create something of such proportions comes an environmental responsibility. Smaller islands have been built in the past, such as Florida’s Venetian Islands built during the 1920s. These islands, built to house more luxurius real estate, connect to the causway that runs from Miami to Miami beach.

Dubai thrives on tourism and as the fastest growing city in the world, is always adding real estate. The addition of 60km per 1km of coastline gives tourists added incentives to visit the country and enjoy the warm waters. Pouring billions of tons of sand onto the ocean floor does not sound like it is doing the ocean ecosystem any favors, even though Nakheel company representatives claim that the corals in the area where mostly dead and with minimal wildlife. This is arguable, especially with the water now murky from the silt, but in Nakheel’s defense, they plan on creating artificial coral habitats, the sand will eventually settle, while the areas between the developed islands have already proven to be ideal habitats for species of sea grasses. Smaller remote islands will be specially created for nesting sea turtles. It is important to note that turtles tend to nest in uninhabited areas making Dubai’s mainland beaches inhospitable to the species. It is in the developers’ best interest to create the ideal habitats for the local wildlife since snorkeling with dolphins, turtles and fish amongst coral reefs and sea grasses adds to the appeal of living on an island.

Looking at the Dubai coast from space, the expansive swirls of land and palm shaped islands seem out of place. It will be interesting to see whether oceanic wildlife will benefit from the expansion, especially with oceanic experts and conservation biologists giving advice to the development team.

When it comes to improvements, it is good to start with the basics. The fundamental part of any city, road, or building is concrete. By reducing the amount of energy needed to build, and by simplifying the components of the concrete, CO2 emissions are reduced while the whole building process is made more efficient.

Voted a GoingGreen winner and covered in numerous publications ranging from Time Magazine to Gizmag, Hycrete is a company at the forefront of cement technology. Hycrete has been manufacturing products in New Jersey for 40 years, and had already made a significant impact to the building industry by bringing a class of rust inhibitors to the market in the 1950s. Its more recent claim to fame-waterproof cement technology-was developed in the mid 90s when Michael S. Rhodes, one of Hycrete’s key inventors, developed the unique moisture and corrosion blocker.

Rhodes’ accomplishments are impressive: He has worked with NASA to develop solid rocket fuels and improve the heat shield of the Apollo series. The inventors’ interests are varied, however, and don’t stop there: Rhodes was also involved in creating products for the military, such as protective foams for submarines. At Hycrete, it was time to develop a product to shield one of the most used building materials on earth-Cement-from the elements.

The main problems associated with cement are corrosion and cracking. Hycrete describes the issue in their data sheet: “Conventional concrete absorbs water and dissolved salts through a network of capillaries and cracks. [This water weakens the cement and may cause rusting to any steel piping or internal structures. Also, water runoff is often an issue] Hycrete Elite’s hydrophobic properties shut down the capillary wicking action that carries salts to the reinforcement layer and transforms concrete into a waterproof construction material. Unlike external membranes or coatings, Hycrete Elite provides real time protection as it is mixed into concrete to provide integral waterproofing and corrosion resistance.” Being waterproof, cement mixed with hycrete elite is perfect for rooftop gardens, parking lots, erosion control etc.

Waterproofing cement the ‘old-fashioned’ way is a major environmental issue: A popular approach is to line the entire structure with a waterproof membrane. The problem with this membrane is that it is typically composed of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) which are non recyclable, so when this cement needs replacing it is simply tossed into a landfill. Almost half of the building materials sitting in landfills are made up of this kind of cement.

The soap like properties of hycrete, on the other hand, follow the ‘cradle to cradle’ philosophy and break down when returned to the soil. By being mixed into the cement rather than sprayed on top of it (though this is an option with other hycrete waterproofing products), the cement is recyclable and can be reused. It would be nice not to have to worry about leaky roofs while watering your fruit garden on top of a high rise complex.

It would be fitting, after just reporting on a recent appearance by Former Vice President Al Gore (ref. Al Gore and Innovation), to review his latest book “The Assault on Reason.” The premise of the book is that modern mass media constitutes a relentless march towards “one way conversations,” where money and power dictate what radio, then television, have force-fed into the minds of vulnerable and impressionable human psyches. Gore then offers hope that the internet and the Democratic party can reverse this trend.

Al Gore Will his greentech revolution save the earth, or merely revive socialist tyranny?

Gore’s concerns about mass media are certainly not unfounded, but what struck me again and again when reading the book was how easily you could substitute the canards he accuses his Republican political adversaries of manipulated the media into brainwashing into the body politic, with Gore’s own canards.

“Our systematic exposure to fear and other arousal stimuli on television can be exploited by the clever public relations specialist, advertiser, or politician.” – Al Gore

One of the favorite arguments of global warming alarmists is the so called “precautionary principle.” If some future scenario is sufficiently horrific, then taking steps to prevent it, even if it isn’t likely it will happen, is simply prudent and rational behavior. But Gore himself debunks the precautionary principle:

“Another psychological phenomenon that is important to understanding how fear influences our thinking [is] ‘probability neglect.’ Social scientists have found that when confronted with either an enormous threat or a huge reward, people tend to focus on the magnitude of the consequence and ignore the probability.” – Al Gore

That might be Saddam’s nukes. Then again, it might be the spectre of sea level rising 300 feet, too. Fear indeed is a powerful selling tool. Once again, to quote Gore:

In the immediate run up to the election campaign of 2002, a new product – the war against Iraq – was being launched. For everything there is a season, particularly in the politics of fear.” – Al Gore

Now we’re in the election season of 2008, and what high profile $300 million advertising campaign is about to be launched – in the “immediate run-up to the election campaign?” None other than Al Gore’s climate change advertising blitz. Look for footage of extreme storms, burning deserts, endangered mega-fauna, and starving children. Yet when it comes to co-opting media by using hype to trump logical analysis, Gore is at his outraged best:

“I don’t remember a single newspaper, commentator, or political leader ever questioning the president’s claim that our nations objective should be to ‘rid the world of evil.’ Further, I heard precious little questioning of the preposterous logic by which the president and vice president had conflated Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. It was as if the nation had decided to suspend the normal rigors of logical analysis…” – Al Gore

Well how many newspapers, commentators, or political leaders are questioning global warming alarm? How many are pointing out that the reality of climate change, the reasons for climate change, the severity of climate change, and the steps to mitigate climate change – are all worthy of vigorous debate? Gore’s propaganda machine has silenced them all, using the same tactics he deplores throughout his new book. It is as if we have “suspended the normal rigors of logical analysis.” Climate change alarm has become a secular faith. And speaking of faith, what about this?

“Bush has stolen the symbolism and body language of religion and used it to disguise the most radical effort in American history to take what belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged.” – Al Gore

If the absolute intolerance of the global warming alarmists, who dominate the media and call those of us who simply call for reasoned discussion “deniers,” isn’t evocative of religious extremists, I don’t know what is. Similarly, if making Americans pay punitive prices and endure rationing of government controlled energy, water and land – so attorneys, CPAs, Wall Street traders, huge and heavily subsidized corporations, well-heeled environmentalist nonprofits, the U.N., and academia can harvest the proceeds to enrich themselves – isn’t being seen as “the most radical effort in American history to take what belongs to the American people and give as much of it as possible to the already wealthy and privileged,” it is only because Gore’s media machine has done its work well.

These are just a few examples of how Gore’s criticisms of media and Republicans could just as easily apply to his own campaign. Indeed Gore slips at one point and pretty much admits he’s cut of the same cloth, when he writes “there are, of course, many historical examples of vivid imagery producing vicarious traumatization that has been used for positive purposes.” Such as those Polar Bears perched precariously on a rapidly melting fragment of sea ice, perhaps? Or New York City covered with mountains of glacial ice? Apparently Gore doesn’t really mind the assault on reason represented by modern media one bit. He just minds when he can’t control it.

Not to worry. Gore’s vision is on the ascendancy these days. Ever seen the bumper sticker that says “Endless War,” with a few letters crossed out so it actually reads “End This War”? That is how anyone who can see what Gore and the radical environmentalists – who now control the environmental lobby here in the USA and most other places in the world – should view the war on anthropogenic “greenhouse gas.” They won’t succeed in reducing greenhouse gas emissions to anywhere near where those supposedly accurate “general circulation models” indicate they need to go in order to avert planetary catastrophe. But that isn’t the point. The objective is to take over huge new sectors of the economy, to put America on a war footing, to ration energy, land and water, and as with all socialist totalitarian states, this will benefit the rich and hurt the poor. This is the “endless war” we should all fear. Gore’s remarks on page 143 of his new book summarize the threat of reinventing our political economy according to the gospel of global warming alarmism quite well:

“There are also reasons for concern this time around that what we are experiencing may no longer be the first half of a recurring cycle, but rather the beginning of something new. For one thing, this war is predicted by the administration to last for the rest of our lives. So we are told that the conditions of national threat that have been used by other presidents to justify arrogations of power will persist in near perpetuity…it will become a more or less permanent struggle that occupies a significant part of our law enforcement and security agenda from now on. If that is the case, then when – if ever – does this encroachment on our freedoms die a natural death?” – Al Gore