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Twenty-five years ago, along with another young journalist, I coauthored a book called California, Inc. about our adopted home state. The book described “California’s rise to economic, political, and cultural ascendancy.”

As relative newcomers at the time, we saw California as a place of limitless possibility. And over most of the next two decades, my coauthor, Paul Grabowicz, and I could feel comfortable that we were indeed predicting the future.

But much has changed in recent years. And today our Golden State appears headed, if not for imminent disaster, then toward an unanticipated, maddening, and largely unnecessary mediocrity.

Since 2000, California’s job growth rate – which in the late 1970s surged at many times the national average – has lagged behind the national average by almost 20 percent. Rapid population growth, once synonymous with the state, has slowed dramatically. Most troubling of all, domestic out-migration, about even in 2001, swelled to over 260,000 in 2007 and now surpasses international immigration. Texas has replaced California as the leading growth center for Hispanics.

Out-migration is a key factor, along with a weak economy, for the collapse of the housing market. Simply put, the population growth expected for many areas has not materialized, nor the new jobs that might attract newcomers. In the past year, four of the top six housing markets in terms of price decline have been in California, including Sacramento, San Diego, Riverside, and Los Angeles. The Central Valley towns of Stockton, Merced, and Modesto have all been awarded the dubious honors of the highest foreclosure rates in the nation during the past year.

Even with prices down, many of the most desirable places in California are also among the most unaffordable in the nation. Less than 15 percent of households earning the local median income can afford a home in L.A. or San Francisco. In Santa Barbara, San Diego, Oxnard, Santa Cruz, or San Jose, it’s less than a third. That’s about half the number who can buy in the big Texas or North Carolina markets. Moreover, state officials warned in October that they might have to seek as much as $7 billion in loans from the U.S. Treasury. This is a disappointing turn for a state that once saw itself as the harbinger of the future.

Not surprisingly, few Californians see a turnaround soon. In the most recent Field Poll in July, a record high 63 percent of Californians said they are financially worse off than they were a year ago, while a record low 14 percent described themselves as better off. Poll director Mark DiCamillo called it “the broadest sentiment of pessimism we’ve ever seen.”

Of course, California can still attract many newcomers, particularly young and ambitious people who dream of a career in Hollywood or Silicon Valley. The problem is that when you grow up and have failed to secure your own dotcom or television series, life in Texas, Arizona, North Carolina, or even Kansas starts looking better. According to real estate analysts, the only thing preventing the current outflow from being worse is that homeowners cannot sell their residences in order to move.

All of this suggests a historic slide of California’s role as a bastion of upward mobility. In 1946, Californians enjoyed the nation’s highest living standards and the third highest per-capita income, noted journalist John Gunther. As recently as the 1980s, Californians generally got richer faster than other Americans did. Now, median household income growth trails the national average while the already large divide between the social classes – often bemoaned by the state’s political left – grows faster than in the rest of the country.
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Can California recover the vitality that defines her heritage?

Today, notes a recent Public Policy Institute of California study, California has the 15th highest poverty rate in the nation. Only New York and the District of Columbia fare worse if the cost of living is factored in. Indeed, after accounting for cost of living, L.A., Monterey, and San Francisco counties – all places known for concentrations of wealth – have poverty populations of 20 percent. “San Francisco,” says historian Kevin Starr, a native of the city, “is a cross between Carmel and Calcutta.”

The Political Roots of the California Ascendancy

You can blame many factors for California’s fall from grace: too much immigration from poor countries, the impact of global competition on technology and aerospace industries, the end of the Cold War, failing schools, and the 12 years of political control by the Texas-centric Bushes. Yet other states have weathered similar storms and still gained ground on the Golden State.

The real problem lies in the decline of the state’s political culture. “Our society may be evolving spectacularly but our politics are devolving,” suggests Starr, the state’s most eminent historian. “California is in no way a role model for anyone from outside the state.”

For much of the 20th century, California – already blessed by climate, topography, and fertility – was also relatively well governed. California’s schools, universities, and infrastructure were considered among the finest anywhere. From the 1920s on, its prevailing ideology was a kind of business-like progressivism. Californians in both parties embraced the idea that government could be a positive force in the economic and social life of California. However, they also embraced the latest notions of scientific management. One report from the administration of California’s Republican Governor Hiram Johnson, produced in the early part of the 20th century, stated that the goal was “to systematize the business of the State of California.”

California’s state government laid the foundation for its remarkable ascendancy. Progressivism’s pragmatic orientation, the melding of science and technology into government, the large-scale investment in infrastructure, and a strong nonpartisan tradition produced spectacular results. In his famous book Inside USA in 1946, Gunther gushingly described California as “the most spectacular and most diversified American state … so ripe, golden.”

Another Republican California governor, Earl Warren, who served between 1943 and 1953, epitomized progressive virtues – pragmatic in policy, nonpartisan in approach, and activist in his manner. Later on, as the GOP became more conservative, the progressive mantle shifted to the Democrats. Under Governor Edmund G. “Pat” Brown, elected in 1958, the state continued with an aggressive program of public works, a rapid expansion of higher education, and the massive California Water Project.

Like his Republican progressive predecessors, Brown advocated civil rights for minorities but also promoted business interests, notably in real estate development, Hollywood, aerospace, and agribusiness. Equally important, the Democrat embraced the traditional good government principles of the progressives. Shortly after taking office, Brown initiated a thorough reorganization of state government, attempting to make it more businesslike. California, Brown himself noted, needed “to apply the latest concepts of management, organization, and cost control just as modern corporations have done.”

The End of the Progressive Era

By the mid-1960s, Brown’s traditional progressivism was being undermined by rising interest-group liberalism. State employees, left-liberal lobby groups, and minorities were demanding more and more from the governor. Fed up with ever-growing taxes and social spending, business interests became increasingly alienated. Once seen as a boon to the private sector, state government was becoming perceived by corporate interests as overly meddlesome and hostile.

Perhaps even more damaging was the cultural rift that developed. Many white middle- and working-class voters felt threatened by the rise of new militant minority and student groups. Riots at Berkeley and Watts deepened resentments against the university and African Americans, two linchpins of Brown’s support.

In the 1966 gubernatorial election, Ronald Reagan smashed Brown and the remnants of the old progressive coalition. The former actor captured both business support and grassroots votes in previously Democratic-leaning areas in suburban L.A. and the Central Valley. Numerous interviews conducted with his closest confidants at the time make clear that they did not intend to impose a conservative social agenda, but hoped to slow the regulatory regime and restore order on the state’s campuses and ghetto streets.

One scholar has claimed that Reagan “destroyed” progressivism, but some of the blame should also be laid at the feet of the Democrats. To be sure, Reagan slowed the growth of government, but infrastructure building continued and the state university grew, as did many social problems. Much the same could be said of later Republican governors George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson, whose policies were only moderately conservative.

Enter Governor Moonbeam

The real problems for the progressive model, ironically, began to surface with the rise of Pat Brown’s son, Governor Edmund G. “Jerry” Brown Jr. He veered away from the traditional focus on nonpartisan governance and infrastructure spending – what long-time advisor Tom Quinn called “this build, build, build thing” – and instead focused on an environmentally friendly, “small is beautiful” approach.

However, the real problems did not ultimately reside with the brash, creative, and sometimes unpredictable young governor himself. Entrenched Democratic interest groups, particularly public employees, resisted property tax relief for California’s middle-class homeowners. Ultimately, this failure brought about the passage of Proposition 13, a strict limit on property taxes that would sharply curtail infrastructure spending and reduce the ability of local governments to address serious problems.

During Brown’s watch, and even despite his occasional opposition, the Democratic Party came increasingly under the sway of public employees, trial lawyers, and narrow interest activist groups. Their ability to raise money and impose their political will often outweighed that of even the most powerful business interests.

The full bill for this transformation would eventually be paid not by Brown, but by his former chief of staff, Gray Davis. Becoming governor in 1998, Davis became the prisoner of the special interest groups with whom his predecessors, Deukmejian and Wilson, had struggled.

By then, California’s shift to the Democrats had become inexorable and, with the fading of a GOP counterweight, influence within the party flowed to its more radical factions further to the political left. As a result, the state moved decisively away from the economic growth focus of Pat Brown. It seemed determined to wage war against its own economy. As pet social programs, entitlements, and state employee pensions soared, infrastructure spending – the hallmark of the Pat Brown regime and once 20 percent of the state budget – shrank to less than 3 percent.

The educational system, closely aligned with the Democrats in the legislature, accelerated its secular decline. Once full of highly skilled workers, California has become increasingly less so. For example, California ranks second in the percentage of its 65-year-olds holding an associate degree or higher and fifth in those with a bachelor’s degree. But when you look at the 25-to-34 age group, those rankings fade to 30th and 24th.

Instead of reversing these trends, the state legislature decided to spend its money on public employees and impose ever more regulatory burdens on business. Davis, a clever and experienced public servant, understood this but could not fight the zealots in his own party. When the state’s revenues shrank after the high-tech bust in 2000, he appeared to be their complete captive. Perhaps the most telling example of the misplaced priorities of the state’s majority party took place amid the state budget crisis when legislators, facing an imminent fiscal disaster, took time to debate legislation about providing more protections for transgender Californians.

Enter the Girlie Man

Davis’s apparent inability to gain control of the looming budget crisis opened the door to his 2003 recall and the election of a Republican, Arnold Schwarzenegger. The former bodybuilder and action hero promised to clean up “the mess” in California. He took aim at what he derided as the “girlie men” in the legislature, promising to get the state’s affairs in order. It was not to be. After a bruising defeat by liberal interest groups over a series of propositions, the onetime tough guy embraced what he called “bipartisanship.” The media, particularly on the national level, cooed, but in reality the governor simply ceded initiative to the very “girlie men” – the left-leaning state legislators – that he formerly promised to rein in.

Under Schwarzenegger, notes former GOP Assemblyman Keith Richman, the state budget actually grew even faster – 10 percent annually as opposed to 7 percent – than under his spendthrift Democratic predecessor, Gray Davis.

Dan Walters, the dean of California political reporters, argues that Schwarzenegger never bothered to learn the basics of state governance. As a result, state spending, particularly on state employees and their pensions, continued with no notion that another budget crisis was looming.

The Economic Crash

The Terminator and his advisors also never understood the economic rot undermining the state. The governor assumed little could be done to preserve manufacturing, warehousing, and other high-paying blue-collar jobs in California. Instead, he bought the idea that “creative” professionals in technology, finance, and entertainment could keep the state economically vibrant.

To be sure, the big players in technology and entertainment still often keep their main offices, and sometimes their research facilities, in California. However, they also tend to locate their middle management and production jobs to more affordable, enterprise-friendly states and countries. This is one reason, notes the Milken Institute’s Ross DeVol, that tech growth has been relatively weak even during the much-ballyhooed Internet 2.0 boom.

Worst of all, the governor’s economic team did not see the danger of the state’s growing reliance on the real estate bubble. According to my colleagues at the Praxis Strategy Group and others, as much as 50 percent of the state’s job growth in the 2000s relied on an inflated property market. It worked for a time, keeping many people – investors, homeowners, construction workers, financial types – gainfully employed and the state, for a while, solvent. A better-informed governor might have known it would all unravel. Indeed, in early 2007, even as it was clear that the bubble was deflating, Schwarzenegger continued to play vaingloriously to the klieg lights, promoting California as “the harmonious state, the prosperous state, the cutting-edge state … a model not just for 21st-century American society, but the world.”

Instead of addressing the fundamental fiscal and economic problems, the governor preened for the local and national media by making California the focal point for addressing global climate change. He also proposed a gigantic $14 billion healthcare program largely funded by a state that has beleaguered smaller businesses.

Fiscal reality scuttled the healthcare plan, but business is still trying to figure out how to cope with a carbon regime faced by few of their competitors. Meanwhile, California’s unemployment is now over 7.3 percent, fourth worst in the nation, behind only Michigan, Mississippi, and Rhode Island.

In wide regions of the state – from San Diego up through the Central Valley – the only boom is in the foreclosure business. Nor are the inner-city revivals doing much better. Shining condominium towers in Oakland, L.A., and San Diego have either cut their prices or, in many cases, gone rental, a fitting tribute to an age of diminished expectations.

…and Now the Return of Governor Moonbeam?

The state’s Republicans might be expected to exploit such a record of Democratic failure but seem incapable of doing so. Since the mid-1990s and Pete Wilson’s embrace of Proposition 187, the ballot measure designed to restrict social services provided to illegal immigrants, many grassroots elements of the party have tended to demonize the immigrants who make up almost 40 percent of the workforce.

The state is already close to a minority majority; Latinos alone make up half of the current kindergarten class. Republicans could blame the Democrats for the state’s persistent fiscal crisis. They could score points against the elitist aspects of ultra-green policies, the gluttony of public employees, the prospect of higher taxes, and the more radical parts of the left’s social agenda. However, that argument must be addressed toward, not against, the state’s increasingly minority middle class.

Instead, the most probable political scenario is more of the same, or worse. The two leading candidates for governor, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom and 70-year-old Attorney General Jerry Brown, are considerably to the left of and even greener than Schwarzenegger.

Brown is clearly the stronger candidate, with a demonstrated appeal to minority voters that Newsom lacks. And Brown enjoys greater name recognition and better access to the big urban land interests, Hollywood, and Silicon Valley, the main money sources of the party other than the unions. In addition, Newsom is particularly ill suited to make even Jerry Brown seem out of touch. In a campaign, Newsom will have to justify his city’s policy of shielding illegal alien felons. He has spoken publicly about fining residents up to $1,000 for failing to sort their garbage correctly, something sure to repel most Californians.

Yet a second Brown administration poses enormous risks. Although somewhat pragmatic as mayor of Oakland, Brown has become an increasingly strident apostle of Al Gore’s global warming ideology. Brown calls global warming “the most important environmental issue facing the state and the world.” He has made it clear that he hopes to use legislative and executive power to curb suburban growth and induce people to cram themselves into California’s already congested, often crime-ridden cities.

Brown also seems determined to declare a holy war against the state’s already weakened agricultural and industrial base. As attorney general, he has pledged to block a proposed northern California plant that violates green values by using plastic bottles, a policy which, if he carries it out to its logical end, will decimate almost every blue-collar and industrial industry in the state.

So is there hope for the Golden State? Perhaps, although California likely will never regain the preeminence of a quarter century ago. Brown is many things, but he is also smart and flexible, as he showed by embracing Proposition 13 after its passage in 1978. He could still find a way to push the legitimate part of the green agenda, such as expansion of renewable fuels, without forcing every carbon- consuming business or single-family homebuilder out of the state.

Finally, there is this: no place in North America enjoys California’s combination of fertility, natural beauty, and diversity. Many Californians accept high housing prices, silly regulations, and noxious lawyers as part of the price of paradise. In a country of 50 states and more than 300 million people, there should still be a niche for an exceptional place, even if it no longer can pretend to lead the nation.

Joel Kotkin is executive editor of NewGeography.com and is a presidential fellow in urban futures at Chapman University. He is author of The City: A Global History and is finishing a book on the American future. This article originally appeared at American.com and is republished with permission.

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The drinking-water pipe network in the United States extends more than 700,000 miles — four times the length of the national highway system. Much of the infrastructure is more than 100 years old.

It is estimated by the American Water Works Association that U.S. water utilities will need to invest $250 billion over the next 30 years to replace the aging pipes, many of which leak.

That typically involves digging up streets, which is costly. Enter a new platelet technology being tested by Yorkshire Water in the UK. It was developed by a company called Brinker, which was spun off from the University of Aberdeen. (It’s estimated that about a third of London’s drinking water is lost through leaking pipes.)

The technology is already used by the natural gas and oil industries to plug holes in leaky water pipes used to increase the pressure for extraction. Brinker says the technology’s parameters are: pressures from 2 to over 500 bars; and holes in pipes from 0.3mm to 50mm in diameter. The company says holes that big have been successfully sealed.

The platelet technology works the same way blood platelets seal a bleeding wound. They work under pressure, traveling inside a water pipe to seal the leak from within.

The platelets are composed of materials that have passed stringent tests to ensure they don’t pose a risk to people who drink them. Testing is currently underway and the expectation is to have the technology in widespread commercial use in 2010.

What’s the spending outlook this year and next for water technologies like Brinker’s? A recent survey conducted by Changewave Research revealed the recession is weighing heavily on projected spending for water projects.

Desalination technology purchases are expected to be down by nearly 33 percent over the next 12 months, while long-term investment in infrastructure repair and replacement for pipes is holding steady or expected to attract more spending than any other water category over the next two years.

What’s more, wastewater treatment and water filtration are expected to get a bump in spending from the residual effect of water-infrastructure spending. Changewave Research’s survey also found that the company best positioned to benefit in the water industry is General Electric.

With the expected steady investment in water-pipe replacement and repair infrastructure, the upside of Brinker’s platelet technology looks promising for a lot of leaky municipal water systems.

Another interesting water technology comes from Tongji University in Shanghai where researchers worked with Wei-xian Zhang, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Lehigh University and recently completed a multiyear project studying how iron can be used to detoxify pollutants in industrial wastewater.
The iron, called zero valent iron because it is not oxidized, was obtained in the form of shavings or turnings from local metal-processing shops for less than 15 cents a pound.

Following a pilot test of the iron-detox approach two years ago, the Shanghai government approved a grant to construct a full-scale treatment reactor in the Taopu district. It can process almost 16 million gallons a day of wastewater. Prior to the experiment, few people believed scrap iron could be used to clean water. –Lee Bruno

Nobody likes a dirty workspace, but the chemicals splashed onto counters, mirrors and walls often leave a toxic residue that can cause more damage than the grime you clean off. Half of our lives are spent indoors. Who wants to spend that time inhaling unpronounceable chemical ingredients that float through the air?

According to California’s Green Initiative (a government funded directive) “Each year about six out of every 100 professional janitors are injured by the chemicals in the products that they use. Burns to the eyes and skin are the most common injuries, followed closely by breathing toxic fumes. Repeated long-term exposure may cause chronic illnesses or allergic reactions to workers who are exposed to chemicals regularly.”

The toxic fumes aren’t the only problem. Millions of mop heads, dirty sponges, soaps and bleach mixtures end up in the trash or flow to our rivers and even our crops!. The Green California website continues to explain that “Californians [not unlike everyone else in the world] wash tons of liquid cleaners down the drain, which may eventually flow into our rivers and ocean, or end up on agricultural land. For example, researchers found that approximately 75 percent of the antibacterial hand soap ingredient, triclocarban, persists during wastewater treatment and accumulates in municipal sludge, which later is used as fertilizer for crops”.

Chlorine-free diapers (Photo: Seventh Generation, Inc.)

Companies like Seventh Generation and Tuway provide alternative cleaning methods to reduce environmental damage and product costs.

Seventh Generation offers an impressive assortment of cleaning products made without bleach or fragrances and with more delicate detergents. The company also warns that many items claimed to be “fragrance free” actually use yet another chemical to MASK a scent that would be quite obvious without this masking agent.

With nothing to hide, Seventh Generation discloses all of their ingredients which are made with natural oils, botanical extracts and of course the occasional dash of hydrogen peroxide and sodium carbonate (still a far cry from the immense list of chemicals in traditional cleaners).

Tuway, on the other hand, focuses on the cloth cleaning materials such as sponges and mops. Their microfiber mops last three times longer than conventional mops (made from the floppy synthetic and cotton blended yarn that tends to fall apart so easily). Tuway’s microfiber has tiny cross-sections on every fiber which lift and trap moisture and bacteria with seven times the absorption rate of traditional mops. Microfiber mops reduce the amount of bacteria in the area by 99%, which is substantial when compared to the 30% absorbed by regular mops. All this reduces mop costs, water usage, chemical costs and labor.

There are options to clean house without having to sacrifice air quality. Contrary to popular belief, harsh chemicals aren’t always necessary to get things clean.

(On a side note, there are a few plants homeowners can put in their homes to help remove contaminants from the air such as spider plants, English ivy, potted mums and Peace lilies. )

Mid-level ethanol blends such as E12, E15, E20 and even as high as E40 have garnered a lot of attention lately. Mainly because ethanol producers want a quick and easy way to soak up a surplus of ethanol that will soon reach the saturation point for the current supply in the marketplace.

Under current federal law, conventional fuel cannot contain more than 10 percent ethanol, known as E10, but proponents for higher mid-level blends would like to replace the current gasoline mixture with higher levels of ethanol, which would change the fuel used in vehicles and small engines.

GM’s concerns with higher ethanol blends include the capability of our engines and fuel systems to handle them. Anecdotally, some might do fine. But there are 250 million vehicles on the road in the U.S. and only about 7 million of them are designed to handle higher ethanol blends.
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The 2009 E85 Ethanol-Capable Buick Lucerne. GM has sold over 3.0 million flexfuel cars in the U.S., operable on any mixture of gasoline and ethanol up to 85% ethanol. Conventional engines, however, are not necessarily equipped to run on ethanol mixes greater than 15%. (Photo: GM)

In addition, there are marine and industrial engines, plus a host of outboards, lawn and garden equipment, motorcycles and various off-road vehicles that would be impacted as well. None of this equipment was designed to use mid-level ethanol blends and some was not designed to use ethanol at all.

Higher ethanol blends run hotter in many non-flex-fuel equipped vehicles and virtually all of the non-automotive equipment, and the way this process works is that a small change in temperature produces a very large change in behavior.

The biggest question is long-term durability. The only durability study conducted on these fuels to date was done for the Australian Department of the Environment (ref. Fuel Quality Publications, Australian Government).

It found corrosion, seal attack, and catalyst damage due to the engine control system’s failure to adapt to the ethanol and using the wrong mixture at high power.

When the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its preliminary test findings on E15 and E20 last month, little was said about six of 13 vehicles tested exhibiting catalyst overheating. A damaged catalyst is less effective at eliminating pollutants and allows increased tailpipe pollution. The leaner fuel mixture – ethanol is 35 percent oxygen – also lead to drivability and operability issues in older vehicles and non-automotive equipment.

GM is working with other automakers, the oil industry, DOE and EPA to develop and execute test programs to determine and document the effects of these higher blends on the existing fleet. This work takes time.

At GM, we think E85 ethanol is the best alternative to petroleum in the near term, but in order for ethanol, or any alternative fuel, to succeed it needs the good will of the public and government behind it. Prematurely implementing a higher ethanol blend that damages the gasoline-fueled equipment could cause irreparable harm to ethanol’s reputation. And ethanol took a big hit with the Australian public following the introduction of mid-level blends in limited areas. This is what prompted the Australian Department of the Environment to fund the E20 study performed by Orbital Engine Co.

GM has worked to expand the E85 infrastructure in this country, assisting more than 300 stations in 15 states with securing state and other grants to help offset the cost of installing E85 pumps. We are now implementing a partnership with the National Governors Association to help 10 states grow their E85 infrastructure (ref. States to Enhance Access to E85 Fueling Stations, National Governors Association).

Our commitment to E85 includes making 50 percent of our vehicles capable of running on gasoline, E85 or any combination of the two by 2012, provided there is sufficient infrastructure in place. Let’s be clear about the math: No combination of mid-level blends will add up to enough ethanol use to meet the Renewable Fuels Standard that calls for 36 billion gallons of ethanol a year by 2022.

E85, which is an alternative fuel vs. a fuel additive, is a choice we provide free to GM customers. We know choice can work, as it has in Brazil and Sweden, where governments required fueling infrastructure to support FFVs. Customers typically choose between ethanol and gasoline, depending on which is the best deal.

The bottom line is GM supports and encourages greater ethanol fuel availability for our flex-fuel vehicles, but we are concerned about customers misfueling conventional vehicles by using fuels containing more than 10 percent ethanol. The long-term durability of higher ethanol blends in conventional engines needs to be tested thoroughly because advocates are proposing to change gasoline for all of us, forever.

Coleman Jones is the Biofuels Implementation Manager at General Motors.

Earlier this year, on October 27th, Ausra commissioned their first solar thermal pilot plant, a 5.0 megawatt facility located in Kimberlina, just north of Bakersfield, California. It is the first solar thermal power facility to be commissioned in California in over 20 years – significantly, the approximately 350 megawatts of solar thermal power installed back in the 1980′s are all still operating.

There are three basic types of utility scale solar thermal power, all of which have strengths and weaknesses and all of which currently compete to become the most cost effective version. Bright Source Energy has been working on an improved “power tower” design, where a field of two-axis tracking mirrors (which can be installed on single poles placed on unimproved ground) reflect sunlight onto a single boiler. The advantages of this design are less site preparation, no transfer fluid plumbing required in the solar field, and a much hotter boiler which can make condensation and reuse of the steam on the backside of the turbine more cost-effective. Bright Source commissioned a 1.5 megawatt pilot plant in Israel earlier in 2008, and has projects in the pipeline in California.

Acciona Energy’s 64 megawatt plant, located near the Hoover Dam in Nevada and commissioned earlier this year, uses the “parabolic trough” design, where the solar field consists of single-axis trough-shaped parabolic tracking mirrors that turn from east to west each day, reflecting sunlight onto a tube containing heat transfer fluid that runs lengthwise at the focal point above each trough. This heated fluid is collected from the solar field and fed to a central steam turbine.

Ausra’s design, unlike the well-established power tower and parabolic trough designs, combines attributes from each of them, and adds a few unique features. Similar to the parabolic trough design, Ausra runs heat transfer fluid into the solar field into linear heat collection tubes located at the focal point of the reflectors. But the reflectors are only slightly concave, and the heat collection tubes are located further above the reflectors. This innovation allows one heat collection tube to sit at the focal point of several mirrors, allowing higher temperatures and greatly reducing the amount of plumbing required to go into the field.

Two lines from Ausra’s Kimberlina solar field – note how several mirrors share one collector tube, which is positioned well above the collectors. (Photo: Ausra)

One of the surest ways to determine which design is most efficient is to compare prices. Another interesting factor is the amount of land required, since concern over land consumption is a common criticism of utility scale solar power. It is probably too early to determine Bright Source’s costs or land consumption per megawatt, since their pilot plant is relatively small, but data is in on Acciona and Ausra.

Acciona’s Nevada Solar One plant cost $260 million and produces 64 megawatts at full output, a cost of $4.1 million per megawatt. Ausra’s Kimberlina plant cost $15 million and produces 5.0 megawatts, a cost of $3.0 million per megawatt. Ausra’s planned Carrizo plant, intended to produce 177 megawatts at a cost of $500 million, is estimated to come in at $2.8 million per megawatt. For comparison, Optisolar’s utility scale Sarnia solar field in Ontario, Canada, using thin-film photovoltaics, cost $300 million and produces 40 megawatts at full output, at a cost of 7.5 million per megawatt. Of course, when calculating cost per kilowatt hour, you have to take into account the “capacity factor,” the full-output-equivalent hours per year divided by the total hours in a year. By this measurement, Acciona’s desert plant has a capacity factor of 23%. Ausra’s estimated capacity factor, in the only slightly less hot and sunny southern San Joaquin Valley is between 18% and 22%. One can only imagine the capacity factor – not disclosed – for Optisolar’s plant located in Canada is significantly less than this.

In terms of land consumption, the comparisons are also interesting. Ausra’s Kimberlina pilot plant, at 10 acres and 5.0 megawatts, generates 0.5 megawatts per acre, or 320 megawatts per square mile. Their Carrizo plant will consume about 550 acres, generating 177 megawatts, which means at scale their space efficiency estimate drops to 206 megawatts per square mile. But that is actually very good by comparison.

Acciona’s Nevada Solar One plant consumes 400 acres and generates 64 megawatts – equating to only 102 megawatts per square mile. And Optisolar’s thin-film solar field consumes 902 acres to generate 40 megawatts, a paltry 27 megawatts per square mile.

When you consider megawatt-hours per year per square mile, the capacity factor comes into play. It is unlikely you will get more than about 1,200 full-sun-equivalent hours per year in Ontario, Canada, which equates to a capacity factor for Optisolar’s Sarnia field of 14%, which in-turn equates to 34,000 megawatt-hours per square mile per year. By contrast, Acciona’s Nevada Solar One, with 2,000 full-sun-equivalent hours per year can generate 204,000 megawatt-hours per year per square mile, and Ausra’s Kimberlina plant, at a slightly lower 1,800 full-sun-equivalent hours per year, but a much higher output of 320 megawatts per square mile in full sun, can generate an impressive 576,000 megawatt-hours per square mile per year. Ausra’s planned Carrizo plant, at full scale, projects a somewhat lower 206 megawatts per square mile in full sun, but that still equates to 370,000 megawatt-hours per square mile per year.

Without going into cost per kilowatt-hour derivations in this analysis, it is probably fair to say utility scale solar thermal plants such as Ausra is developing have a chance to compete with conventional energy on a level playing field – given they are already coming in at $3.0 million per megawatt and have capacity factors exceeding 20%. A thin-film energy plant at scale, at $7.5 million per megawatt, and a capacity factor that is likely lower than 15%, is going to have a much tougher challenge to commercially compete with conventional energy. And the fact that Ausra’s Carrizo solar field, megawatt-hour vs. megawatt-hour, will consume literally ten times less land than Optisolar’s Sarnia solar field, should not be lost on anyone considering desirable options for utility scale solar development. With solar energy, where you build it – and what technology you employ – dramatically impacts the costs and the land consumption necessary.

In a recent email received from Ausra’s Chief Development officer, Rob Morgan, he states “Ausra’s core technology is the most land use efficient solar technology in operation today.” The facts would seem to bear this out, when comparing parabolic trough and thin film technology to Ausra’s novel hybrid design. It will be interesting to see how Bright Source’s power tower technology compares, when that data becomes available.

Some Related Posts: Optisolar’s Thin Film, Bright Source’s Power Tower, Photovoltaic vs. Thermal, Utility Scale Photovoltaics, Acciona’s Nevada Solar One, Ausra’s Solar Thermal Power

The problem for scientists and engineers has been that in order to tune a catalyst to do what is desired, you need to know how it adapts during a reaction. Trouble is, watching catalysts in action has escaped the reach of scientists until now.

With the aid of powerful spectroscopy technology, U.S. Department of Energy Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory scientists observed catalysts restructuring themselves in response to various gases swirling around them.

The spectroscopy helps provide a window into these reactions for tuning catalysts. These insights are expected to help improve pollution control as well as fuel cell technologies. Smarter catalysts hold promise for removing toxins from water and helping feed hydrogen fuel cells.

Scientists used an advanced spectroscopy system at Berkeley Lab’s Advanced Light Source to study nanoparticles composed of two catalytic metals.

In the lab, Gabor Somorjai, a researcher who holds joint appointments with the Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s department of chemistry, teamed up with spectroscopy expert Miquel Salmeron of Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division and UC Berkeley’s department of materials sciences and engineering.

The two scientists observed how particles changed their composition in the presence of different reactants. Prior to these observations, scientists had to rely on snapshots of catalysts taken before and after a reaction.

The scientists said that the observations gleaned from watching catalysts change in real time is extremely valuable in helping design smart catalysts that change as a reaction evolves.

Armed with this information, scientists think they can develop nanoparticle catalysts and reactants tailored to most efficiently yield a product, whether it’s gasoline or cleaner emissions.

Nanodiamonds

It is difficult to overstate the pride and the hope that accompanies the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency of the United States. As America’s leader, he brings youth, intellect, optimism and empathy to the world stage; he represents many of America’s greatest virtues; ability to change, desire to improve, belief in progress, compassion for everyone. Barack Obama is the latest wonderful surprise America has delivered to the world; he is American exceptionalism incarnate. The City on the Hill celebrates today, as a new page in history is turned. Obama’s victory showed the world the good character of the American people.

With a Democratic Congress, and an enthusiastic following rarely seen, Barack Obama has a unique opportunity to deliver on his promises of change. In the spirit of bipartisanship that has inspired the best of Obama’s deeds, as well as those of his challenger, here is EcoWorld’s centrist agenda for Obama’s Presidency – with right-of-center notions mingled with left-of-center notions. Those on the left will no doubt find many of these suggestions difficult – they will be joined by those on the right who find difficulties with all the rest. This agenda is not meant to be comprehensive, but rather, at least somewhat pertinent to the green and cleantech issues we cover.

Barack Obama

A CENTRIST AGENDA FOR BARACK OBAMA

(1) Health Security: Make Medicare available to anyone who wants to pay the premiums, regardless of their age or work status. Make all healthcare expenditures deductible. Make Medicare coverage portable going into or coming out of private insurance plans, and allow private insurance plans to compete with Medicare. Don’t create any new administration, allow Medicare to take care of all of this. Allow Medicare to offer coverage to private companies who find their package competitive with private insurance plans. Fund this through collection of premiums and by raising the cap on Medicare withholdings.

(2) Retirement Security: Merge all public employee defined benefit plans in all states, counties and municipalities throughout the United States with Social Security, liquidate public employee pension funds and invest the proceeds into the Social Security fund. Have one, upgraded retirement security formula – based on Social Security – apply to all workers, public and private. This restores solvency to all state and local governments. Fund benefit upgrades by raising the Social Security limit as much as necessary, possibly by requiring a declining percentage of higher income bracket increments without ever applying a cap.

(3) Military Strategy: End America’s neglect of strategic military spending – deploy the F-22 and F-35 jets and accelerate development of the next generation of flying machines and all promising innovations in this vital area. Invest in space industrialization, starting with a no-compromise national aerospaceplane design. Restore and extend American leadership in all aspects of aerospace. This is an investment that yields the dividends of technological leadership and spinoffs to our industries.

(4) Reject Protectionism. Invest in struggling major U.S. manufacturers by providing low interest loans. In companies where these loans are provided, take over their corporate pension funds by merging them with the Social Security fund and apply to these workers the same set of defined benefit calculation formulas that all retired workers receive through Social Security. This restores solvency to America’s largest manufacturers and makes them more competitive. Prove that American workers combined with American innovation are second to none. Global trade provides benefits to everyone.

(5) Revisit the Global Warming Debate: Start by appointing two international peer review teams of respected scientists, one of skeptics, and one of alarmists. Let them report and compare findings based on observational data and model simulations in an intellectually honest manner. Meanwhile, bann global warming related fees and taxes, they are being used to delay government budget and spending reform. Recognize the fungible connection between allowing global warming takings and avoiding public sector fiscal reform.

(6) Adopt Centrist Ideology: Embrace the American opportunity, and continue entitlement reform. Explain the corrosive effects of welfare, and continue the reforms Clinton initiated. Challenge disadvantaged communities to rise out of the cycle of dependence through their own initiative, and encourage a meritocracy where initiative is rewarded. Recognize corruption exists in all sectors, corporate, financial, academic, government – everywhere. Reform Wall Street but also regulate and reform unions, especially in the public sector where they have far too much influence.

(7) Practice Common Sense Environmentalism: End excessive zoning and land use restrictions based on extreme environmental concerns and restore property rights. This will help everything from housing to resource extraction to stay affordable, and nurturing a robust competitive market for supplying goods will help avoid future bubbles. Focus on eliminating genuine pollution instead of worrying about CO2, for example, upgrade coal emission scrubbers to parts per billion (from parts per million) levels of toxin removal. Investigate environmental groups and other nonprofits who use their tax deductible donations for partisan political activity.

(8) Set Realistic Infrastructure Priorities: Invest in practical, versatile infrastructure that people want. Instead of subsidizing ultra high density “transit villages” and building light rail, get government out of the housing business, and fund more and wider freeways and car friendly infrastructure. Fund research to develop next generation busses and smart cars. Rebuild our roads and bridges – trains can wait. Restore balance to the urban planning dialogue. Embrace supply side resource solutions; instead of rationing water, build desalination plants and upgrade sewage treatment plants for water reuse. And if rate-payers are going to foot the bill for windfarms and solar fields, invest as well in underground transmission conduits.

9) Develop all Energy Sources: Continue to encourage alternative energy, but also develop more nuclear power, natural gas and oil. Help the coal fired power plants completely clean their emissions (except for the CO2 which is probably just a harmless trace gas that plants require to live and that we can’t possibly significantly reduce in any case). Create energy and water abundance; in general, emphasize creating resource abundance through market competition. Invest in any cost-effective energy investments that can be performed in a relatively clean manner. Restore intellectual honesty to impact comparisons, for example, the relative consequences of developing 1.0+ million square miles of fuel-growing lands vs. 100,000 square miles of tar sands.

10) Keep the Dream Alive: Once America has rekindled a new era of prosperity, the most sustainable and best yet, we can further improve all the entitlements we afford, all the investments we make, and all the marvels our technology delivers. Maybe by Obama’s second term we can already afford to start programs to build bullet trains and bases on the Moon. As our prosperity grows, we will continuously upgrade our treatments for every human ailment, have increased options to rescue and protect charismatic fauna and their habitats; we can and we will manage our industrial, financial and natural ecosystems better than ever. America is the heart of the new world generation; we have proven this again with the election of Obama; it is our time.

The Question of Carbon Trading: There is one huge question relating directly to Obama’s agenda and green issues, and that is carbon trading. If carbon trading is done right, and if it is the only way to prevent global economic deflation, then we probably should get started. Despite some claims to the contrary, the impact of carbon takings and redistribution is regressive, and even via a market trading application creates new and burdensome requirements for business. It could destroy many small businesses, and so it should only be applied to the largest companies in limited sectors.

Equally vital, implementation of carbon trading should reject the excessive preoccupation with reducing CO2 emissions. The motivation for carbon trading should be to accelerate transition to non fossil fuel energy, not to reduce CO2 emissions. Any sort of carbon sequestration or reduction schemes, absent other benefits such as improved efficiency – should not be considered eligible as offset investments. Carbon auction proceeds should be primarily invested in alternative energy production and research and an upgraded power grid. Carbon trading will revive Wall Street and create a new asset class on which to collateralize capital formation. For the purpose of global economic recovery alone, limited carbon trading is possibly worth considering if it can be correctly applied.

A recent column by a decidedly non-centrist commentator, the occasionally offensive but always lucid Mark Steyn noted an Obama Presidency would usher in the 4th wave of socialism in America. The first would have been the New Deal, the second LBJ’s Great Society, and the third the stealthy infiltration of state and local organizations over the past 25 years. But socialism is governance, socialism is collective behavior, ultimately socialism might describe the ideology of any functioning social contract. Can both entitlements and takings apply in a flat, impassive way, with an equal formula granted every citizen? If so, then as technology and economic freedom increases overall productivity, the government can steadily offer more services and security without relying on greater takings, or on counterproductive and unfair redistribution in either direction. Socialism is a continuum, not a place. How much is the question.

If this version of a centrist agenda is not anathema to Obama and his top people, is not excluded from the table, then one might hope a new and uniquely American center can form. If the ideological opponents of Obama’s original constituency are not overwhelmed and silenced in a storm of righteous rhetoric accompanied only by new government takings, and instead are helping to write the new laws, and being listened to “even more when we disagree,” then there is hope indeed. To make the next quantum leap, Obama must aspire to construct a transcendent center.

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How epic has this correction been? The answer is worse than the 1987 programmatic crash (S&P -32%) but not as bad, to-date, as the 1973 oil crisis (S&P -48%) or the dot-com bubble (S&P -49%). For an excellent graphic of these events and the current housing bubble (S&P -45%) visit Calculated Risk. In this graph each of the indices starts at the same point on the top of the vertical axis, which represents the percentage amount of drop in index value. With the horizontal axis representing time, it can be seen that while the percentage drop of the S&P 500 is not quite as severe as in the case of the corrections of ’73 or ’00, those corrections took 2-3 years to hit bottom. We are less than one year into this correction and the S&P is down 44%.

For sustainable energy the correction to-date has been even more severe. Our graph from the October 7, 2007 S&P 500 peak to the end of October 2008 shows the changes to the four sectors we have been tracking since the S&P peak. At their minimums the four indices were down between 65 – 80%.

CAMINO INDICES VS. S&P 500

Camino Renewable Energy Indices vs. S&P 500 for the period 9-07 through 10-31-08. Camino’s solar index is down 60%. (Copyright: Camino Energy)

The month of October was particularly bad for sustainable energy where 100% of the companies in our indices had negative returns.

CAMINO’S RENEWABLES INDICES – LAST 30 DAYS THROUGH 10-31-08

Down 32-85% in one month, Camino Renewable Energy Indices performance for the period Oct. 1st, 2008 through Oct. 31st, 2008 (Copyright: Camino Energy)

So what am I optimistic about? Simple, I’m optimistic the sustainable energy industry will continue to exist and at some point prices get so low that the stocks represent attactive buys. I think this is particularly true for solar as the statistics below show for 10 of the US traded companies I track in the Camino SOLAR index (detail here).

CAMINO’S SOLAR INDEX – TOP TEN AVERAGE RATIOS

Earnings growth would have to fall dramatically for Caminos’s top ten solar stocks to not be good buys. (Copyright: Camino Energy)

SOLAR growth rates would have to slow dramatically to make the companies overpriced at current levels. Even if their earnings growth slows by a factor of 4 these ten companies would still be fairly priced. And I don’t see many reasons to expect such a slowing. Modules prices are expected to fall which should boast sales and improve customer ROI. Retail electric prices are virtually unaffected by oil prices in many economies so the basic economic benefit of solar isn’t going away. Subsidies are locked in in the US. Financing should be available with the massive governmental pushes to create liquidity while lowering rates. And the technology continues to improve further driving down costs and improving solar’s competitive position.

There may be other bargins in the sustainable energy sector but the solar sector is a good place to start with plenty of potential investment targets.

Mark Henwood is the founder of Camino Energy, an information provider specializing in globally traded sustainable energy stocks. Disclaimer: Henwood has positions in JASO, SOL, CSIQ, STP, SOLF, and LDK.