Green technology investments

Dyesol and Pilkington Sign Joint Venture MOU

2010-04-06T18:56:00.000-07:00

On 8th March 2010, Dyesol (ASX:DYE) announced a collaboration with Pilkington North America (PNA) to develop opportunities in the building integrated photovoltaic (BIPV) market place utilising Pilkington’s TEC series of transparent conductive oxide (TCO*) coated float glass and Dyesol’s dye solar cell (DSC) materials and technology. PNA is part of the NSG Group (NSG), one of the world’s largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for the building, automotive and specialty glass markets.

This announcement is to inform ASX and Dyesol’s shareholders that the two companies have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to form a Joint Venture (JV) which will be located in the USA. In addition to optimising the TCO glass produced by Pilkington and the DSC materials and technology controlled by Dyesol, the joint venture will develop and deliver a total platform solution to downstream suppliers to the building and construction markets seeking to develop glass-based BIPV products. The opportunities for the platform solution include BIPV, solar panels, automotive glazing, photovoltaic powered displays, and security products. The proposed JV is planned to collaborate directly and indirectly with and assist organisations worldwide to bring products to market. The combination of Pilkington’s leading expertise in TCO glass, including their vast experience in glass products, plus Dyesol’s recognised leadership in DSC technology is designed to ensure that the best technology platform for long-life high performing DSC glass products will be available.

Marc Thomas, CEO Dyesol, Inc. comments: “Pilkington has the reputation for quality and engineering excellence in the architectural and flat glass market. Pilkington TCO coated glass has been used globally for energy efficiency and active glazing for over 20 years and Pilkington is the market leader. PNA has maintained its leadership position by producing the best performing and highest quality TCO glass (sold under the TEC product line). Pilkington TEC product is the most specified TCO glass worldwide and has been the glass of choice for Dyesol’s DSC development programme since its inception in 1994.”

By far the biggest potential market for DSC glass is in BIPV. Of the nearly 50 million tonnes of flat glass produced annually, about 90% is used in buildings. When this is coupled with the fact that over 50% of all electricity worldwide is utilised in buildings, the demand for energy efficient and energy producing glazing and interior glass-based products in buildings becomes easy to identify. While all photovoltaic technologies can be applied to roofs in good solar environments, only DSC can produce power all day every day in any sunlight condition. The world is becoming increasingly urbanised and world’s cities comprise a much larger proportion of walls and facades than roofs. This is exemplified by the fact that the average GDP growth since 1990 is 2.7% p.a. while the glass usage growth is 4.2% p.a. cumulative. Flat glass is the key growth industry in the expansion of the built environment.

Richard Caldwell, Executive Chairman Dyesol Limited notes “Dyesol is committed to establishing best-in-class partnerships with the leaders in market segments which leverage the strengths of Dyesol’s DSC products and technology. The addition of Pilkington also aligns with the existing Corus programme, and strategically positions Dyesol and its partners to make significant progress in advancing the glass and metal based BIPV markets, respectively. In summary, Dyesol has now established strategic relationships with global leaders to completely cover a building with energy harvesting technologies which utilise Dyesol materials.”

Richard Altman, President of Building Products North America stated, “Pilkington has been involved in various ongoing solar initiatives since the late 1980’s. The Dyesol initiative affords Pilkington another solar platform to further expand our portfolio of strategic initiatives in this arena. Dyesol’s technology is an attractive BIPV opportunity leveraging the world leading technologies of both companies.”

*TCO glass is a float glass with a transparent tin oxide coating specifically designed for use with photovoltaic cells to provide heightened transmittance and improved conductivity properties.

For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0)411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Dyesol debuts in Bloomberg’s top five New Energy Pioneers

2010-03-23T01:36:00.000-07:00

Dyesol Limited (ASX: DYE) is one of only five companies in the world and the only Australian company to make the Bloomberg New Energy Finance New Energy Pioneers.

New for the 2010 Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit, the Pioneers Programme recognises five companies that Bloomberg New Energy Finance analysts consider to be highly promising and progressive in the field of new energy technology and innovation.

The companies – AlertMe, Magnomatics, Novacem, Topell Energy and Dyesol – represent a range of sectors, from energy storage conversion to energy efficiency and transportation. The companies were recognized at the third annual Bloomberg New Energy Finance Summit in London yesterday.

“Bloomberg New Energy Finance chose these companies because we feel they are potential ‘game changers’ in new energy technology and innovation,” said Michael Liebreich, chief executive of Bloomberg New Energy Finance.

“The work they are doing is progressive and significant to the future of the energy sector, and they could play a significant role in the world’s transition to a lower carbon, more secure, smart, decentralised energy system.”

According to Dyesol’s executive chairman Mr Richard Caldwell, “To be included in the Bloomberg New Energy Finance New Energy Pioneers is a magnificent achievement for Dyesol. We are indeed proud and honoured to be recognised, as the world leader in our field,” he said.

In a world class performance, Dyesol also announced last week that the company has partnered with one of the world’s largest glass makers Pilkington North America to develop and commercialise glass with power generating capabilities.

Initially the collaboration will address the non-view glass market (spandrel) which accounts for 40 per cent of the total glass market.

The global market for flat glass is estimated to be 6 billion square metres in 2010 and growing at 5 per cent a year.

For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0)411 208 951
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Note to editors
The Technology – DYE SOLAR CELLS
DSC technology can best be described as ‘artificial photosynthesis’ using a layer of nanoparticulate titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) coated with a dye and filled with an electrolyte deposited on glass, metal or polymer substrates. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. Compared to conventional silicon based photovoltaic technology, Dyesol’s technology has lower cost and embodied energy in manufacture, it produces electricity more efficiently in normal light conditions and can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels or metal sheets rather than taking up roof or extra land area.

The Company – DYESOL Limited
Dyesol is located in Queanbeyan NSW (near Canberra) and in August 2005 was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code ‘DYE’). Dyesol manufactures and supplies a range of dye solar cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC. Dyesol has subsidiaries in UK, Italy, Switzerland, USA, Korea and Singapore plus representatives and agents in Turkey, Germany, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. The Company is playing a key role in taking this third generation solar technology from development into commercial production.

World's Top Polluter Emerges as Green-Technology Leader ~ WSJ

2009-12-15T15:14:00.000-08:00

World's Top Polluter Emerges as Green-Technology Leader

By SHAI OSTER

BEIJING -- Xu Shisen put down the phone and smiled. That was Canada calling, explained the chief engineer at a coal-fired power plant set among knockoff antique and art shops in a Beijing suburb. A Canadian company is interested in Mr. Xu's advances in bringing down the cost of stripping out greenhouse-gas emissions from burning coal.

Engineers led by Mr. Xu are working to unlock one of climate change's thorniest problems: how to burn coal without releasing carbon into the atmosphere.

Mr. Xu is part of a broader effort by China to introduce green technology to the world's fastest-growing industrial economy -- a mission so ambitious it could eventually reshape the business, just as China has done for everything from construction cranes to computers.

China looms large over the global climate summit in Copenhagen, where Chinese officials are pressing the U.S. and other rich nations to accept new curbs on their emissions and to continue to subsidize poor nations' efforts to adopt clean-energy technology. China is the world's biggest source of carbon emissions. Less understood is the way China is now becoming a source of some of the solutions.

China's vast market and economies of scale are bringing down the cost of solar and wind energy, as well as other environmentally friendly technologies such as electric car batteries. That could help address a major impediment to wide adoption of such technologies: They need heavy subsidies to be economical.

The so-called China price -- the combination of cheap labor and capital that rewrote the rulebook on manufacturing -- is spreading to green technology. "The China price will move into the renewable-energy space, specifically for energy that relies on capital-intensive projects," says Jonathan Woetzel, a director in McKinsey & Co.'s China office.

China's government is backing the trend. It wants to replicate the success of the special economic zones that transformed cities such as Shenzhen from a fishing village near Hong Kong into one of the biggest manufacturing export centers in the world. Set up when China began its economic reforms in the 1980s, the zones were designed to attract foreign investment into light manufacturing to kick-start exports. They became engines of China's economic boom.

Regulators will announce several low carbon centers next year that will have preferential policies to promote low carbon manufacturing and exports.

China's goals face big challenges. China could end up becoming simply a low-cost manufacturing base, not a source of innovation. Worse, its drive to cut costs could stifle innovation overseas.

And Beijing has a long way to go to reducing China's carbon footprint. For each out-of-date power plant it shut down in a two-year cleanup campaign, it added the capacity of roughly two more. Even some of the better power plants are run poorly because company bosses don't want to pay to clean up their emissions.

In the fight against global warming, some of the biggest gains are to be made in scrubbing carbon from coal-burning power plants. China and the U.S. together have 44% of the world's coal reserves, and aren't about to give up on the cheap and reliable source of power. According to U.S. government projections, world coal use could increase nearly 50% by 2030.

"If emissions aren't reduced from power plants, global warming cannot be avoided," says Jonathan Lewis, a climate specialist at the U.S.-based Clean Air Task Force, which has sought to pair U.S. utilities with Chinese companies. "The solution can be led by the U.S. and China."

Capture technology traps carbon dioxide gasses released by coal plants. The gas can be pumped deep underground, typically into salt caverns or aging oil fields. The carbon can be stripped either before or after the coal is burned. Post-combustion capture is simpler and can be retrofitted on existing power plants. Current versions cut energy output by a fifth or more.

Far more complicated is precombustion carbon capture, which involves completely redesigning plants. Coal is turned into a gas, the carbon is stripped out and the rest is burned. Called "integrated gasification combined cycle" plants, these cost billions of dollars and haven't been developed on a commercial scale yet.

China has a technological lead in turning coal into gas. It has been using the technology widely to make petrochemicals and fertilizers as a substitute for pricier natural gas. Houston-based Future Fuels LLC has licensed gasification technology from China to use in a plant in Pennsylvania.

Critics say current carbon capture technologies are merely a Band-Aid for global warming. That's because they're so inefficient that even more coal has to be burned to produce the same amount of electricity. Also, the technology uses a lot of water and sequestering carbon underground isn't proven.

Still, some analysts estimate carbon capture could account for between 15% to 55% of the world's cumulative carbon emissions reduction by 2100.

Among those leading the ramp-up is Mr. Xu. These days, he is busy with three clean coal projects. One is on the outskirts of Beijing, underneath looming cooling towers of the Gaobeidian Huaneng power plant.

Mr. Xu and colleagues work at a state-run research institute partly owned by China Huaneng Group, China's biggest utility. The state-owned giant produces about 10% of China's electricity, nearly all from coal.

The Beijing project, started before the 2008 Summer Olympics, traps a fraction of the carbon dioxide emitted by the plant, purifying and selling it for use in food packaging and for the fizz in sodas. Using what he's learned in Beijing, Mr. Xu is building another capture facility in Shanghai that will be 30 times bigger.

If Mr. Xu's team can figure out how to bring the costs down -- mostly by recycling energy lost in the process of scrubbing out the carbon -- these units could be retrofitted to coal-fired power plants around the world.

Mr. Xu is also involved in the GreenGen project, a $1 billion power plant led by Huaneng that will turn coal into a gas before burning it. The project is scheduled to go online by 2011. Burning gas is more efficient than burning coal -- meaning less coal is required to make the same amount of electricity. The less coal burned, the less carbon released.

Though carbon capture has moved into the mainstream, it is still at least five to 10 years away from becoming a widespread technology, analysts say.

In the meantime, China is reshaping two of the biggest green technologies in use already -- wind and solar power.

In 2004, foreign firms owned 80% of China's wind-turbine market, according to energy consulting firm IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Now, Chinese companies own three-quarters of the country's market, thanks to companies which make turbines a third cheaper than European competitors.

Chinese wind-turbine makers are starting to export. In October, Shenyang Power Group struck a deal to supply 240 turbines to one of the largest wind-farm projects in the U.S., a 36,000-acre development in Texas.

China already has a 30% share of the global market for photovoltaic solar panels used to generate electricity. Solar-power panel makers, including Suntech Power Holdings Co., Yingli Green Energy and Trina Solar Ltd., export most of their product to Europe and the U.S., contributing to a 30% drop in world solar-power prices.

Chinese competition is forcing rivals to shift production. U.S. Evergreen Solar Inc. said it will move its assembly line from Massachusetts to China. General Electric Co. said it will shut a facility in Delaware. BP PLC's solar unit said this spring it would stop output in Maryland and rely on Chinese suppliers instead.

Yet, despite China's armies of fresh engineering graduates, foreign companies still create and own most of the key technologies. "China lags about 10 years behind in technology," says Bernice Lee, a research director at Chatham House, a London-based think tank that analyzed patent holders on renewable and low-carbon technology.

As in other industries, China's cheap manufacturing may spark protectionism. In one hint of battles to come, Sen. Charles Schumer (D., N.Y.) wrote a letter to the U.S. energy secretary protesting the use of federal stimulus money to support the $1.5 billion wind project in Texas unless it relies on U.S.-built turbines.

Critics in rich countries accuse China of unfairly subsidizing companies via cheap loans from state-controlled banks and dumping excess supply overseas.

Others say China's missteps could hurt the market for all. "China is making prices cheaper in renewables today, by lunging into oversupply, as it does in most industries," says Daniel Rosen, principal of consulting firm Rhodium Group. "The question -- and danger -- is whether by oversupplying the market today China is damaging longer-term innovation and competition in the sector for the future."

In green technology, China has figured out ways to turn excess capacity to its advantage. Until this year, China's solar-panel makers exported nearly all their output to countries such as Germany and Spain, where government supported growth in the sector.

That changed this year when solar-panel prices fell as dozens of new Chinese polysilicon-makers started operating. The sudden glut in the raw material to make solar panels coincided with a drop in orders from European companies hit by the recession. The result: Polysilicon prices fell by half from January peaks. HSBC estimates they could drop 20% more by the end of 2010.

Softening prices created an opportunity for Chinese regulators. Officials are now talking about raising solar power capacity targets five- or tenfold, so that by 2020 China could have more than double current global solar-power capacity.

Executives at Trina and Yingli say increased economies of scale from making more panels for China will push costs even lower. "We could go to $1 a watt by the end of 2010," which would be a landmark in bringing solar power in parity with conventionally produced electricity, says Yingli's Chief Executive, Miao Liansheng, a veteran of the People's Liberation Army who sold cosmetics before turning to solar panels.

"The Chinese manufacturers can now make [solar panels] a lot cheaper than Europe, the United States and Japan because the whole supply chain is now available in China," says Martin Green, who runs the photovoltaic center at the University of South Wales in Australia, a training ground for many scientists working in China's solar industry. "The Chinese are making it more affordable, and they're more adventurous in introducing new technology as well."

The ability to manufacture cheaply is attracting the notice of U.S. utilities. Huaneng says it can make gasification equipment cheaper than foreign rivals.

Duke Energy Corp., of Charlotte, N.C., signed a pact with Huaneng in August to share information on clean-coal technology. Duke says it would take eight years to build an IGCC plant in the U.S. -- versus three in China.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB126082776435591089.html?mod=rss_Today's_Most_Popular#printMode

Write to Shai Oster at shai.oster@wsj.com

Dyesol and Merck collaborate in dye solar cells

2009-10-14T23:18:00.001-07:00

Dyesol Limited and Merck KGaA have signed an agreement to collaborate in the development of electrolytes for use in dye solar cells (DSC). This joint development agreement is the precursor to potential future commercial arrangements with Merck to manufacture existing and next generation electrolytes for application in DSC.

Merck is one of the world leaders in the development and production of ionic liquids which are key raw materials used in DSC electrolytes. Merck has patented intellectual property and vast know-how in the field of ionic liquids and is a leading supplier of materials for allied applications such as liquid crystal displays. Dyesol is the leading developer of DSC materials and solutions, having a broad portfolio covering DSC materials, product designs and manufacturing equipments.

The first phase of the collaboration involves the development of new electrolytes, optimisation of electrolytes for high performance, refinement of material specifications to assure ultra long life, and scale up for volume manufacture. Dyesol will contribute the results of the past 12 years of testing on over 400 different proprietary electrolytes that has resulted in DSC with proven stability of well over 25 years in European conditions.

Merck and Dyesol are, in parallel, discussing the terms for exploitation to ensure that Dyesol’s major corporate partners have secure lines of material supply and redundancy to underpin their investments in major DSC product manufacturing facilities, and that third parties worldwide have access to the best possible DSC electrolytes. As a result of this collaboration, both Dyesol and Merck will have the capacity and capability to manufacture DSC materials.

Dr Gavin Tulloch, Global Managing Director of Dyesol, said, “This collaboration arises from two years of planning and discussions. During this period, both Dyesol and Merck have recognised the great technical and commercial potential that collaboration can bring. Combining Merck’s capabilities as a major world force in chemical production and supply and the technology leader in ionic liquids, together with Dyesol, the leading DSC technology and industrialisation group, adds exceptional potential to the commercialisation of the unique photovoltaic technology.”

"Photovoltaic renewable energy sources are showing increasing potential worldwide. The cooperation with Dyesol, the world leader in the dye solar cell sector, offers us the opportunity to leverage valuable potential in this attractive market. In addition, Merck already holds an excellent position due to its experience in the electrolyte market," says Dr Emil Aust, Senior Manager of Ionic Liquids at Merck KGaA. "When used as the main components of DSC electrolytes, Merck's task-specific ionic liquids, partly patented, make it possible to use both solid and flexible DSCs, thus enabling outstanding new applications in the future."

For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4111 or on +61 (0)411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Note to editors
The Technology – DYE SOLAR CELLS
DSC technology can best be described as ‘artificial photosynthesis’ using an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) and ruthenium dye deposited on glass, metal or polymer substrates. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. Compared to conventional silicon based photovoltaic technology, Dyesol’s technology has lower cost and embodied energy in manufacture, it produces electricity more efficiently even in low light conditions and can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels or metal sheets rather than taking up roof or extra land area.

The Company – DYESOL Limited
Dyesol is located in Queanbeyan NSW (near Canberra) and in August 2005 was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code "DYE"). Dyesol manufactures and supplies a range of dye solar cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC. Dyesol has subsidiaries in UK, Italy, Switzerland, USA, Korea and Singapore plus representatives and agents in Turkey, Germany, Abu Dhabi, Malaysia, Taiwan and Japan. The Company is playing a key role in taking this 3rd generation solar technology from development into commercial production.

The Partner – MERCK KGaA
Merck is a global pharmaceutical and chemical company with total revenues of € 7.6 billion in 2008, a history that began in 1668, and a future shaped by approximately 33,000 employees in 60 countries. Its success is characterised by innovations from entrepreneurial employees. Merck's operating activities come under the umbrella of Merck KGaA, in which the Merck family holds an approximately 70% interest and free shareholders own the remaining approximately 30%. In 1917 the US subsidiary Merck & Co. was expropriated and has been an independent company ever since.

China's Solar Footprint Set to Explode

2009-10-09T00:39:00.000-07:00

China's Solar Footprint Set to Explode; Creates Investment Opportunity, Says GTM Research

Oct 8, 2009 16:18
Nikkei Electronics Asia

Demand for solar panels inside China could explode over the next three years, presenting an opportunity for investors and select international partners, according to a report from GTM Research, the market research arm of Greentech Media.

China has a cumulative installed base of 140MW of photovoltaics (PV). By 2012, the report forecasts growth reaching 1.4GW to 2.6GW, driven by new state policies like the Golden Sun program that can cover 50% to 70% of the cost of solar systems, according to the two report authors, China-based Matt Miller and Matthiah Larkin.

During the same period, the full price of a solar system installed will drop from US$2.82 in 2009 to US$2.18, lower than in the US or Europe because of lower prices for labor, inverters and other factors. In the West, panels sell for approximately US$2 a watt. In China, a panel now sells for US$1.57 a watt.

By 2020, the cumulative installed PV base could grow to 10GW. As early as 2007, Chinese industry officials had aimed for 300MW by 2012 and 1.8GW by 2020.

The shift to solar could help deflect criticism internationally and more importantly de-escalate ongoing conflicts over coal mining and pollution in various provinces, but the main driver in the shift to solar is a concern over jobs. The country exports more than 95% of its solar panels. The global recession, however, has stoked fears that demand from Spain, Germany and the US could drop.

During the same period, the solar manufacturing footprint will grow from 5.6GW of capacity in 2009 to 8.1GW in 2012. In 2005, China had a production capacity of 400MW and a cumulative installed base of 70MW.

"Growth is likely to be lumpy and uneven, as bottlenecks will inevitably arise in the project approval and funding disbursement process," states the report. "There are many political layers involved (local government, provincial DRC, NDRC, and the Ministry of Finance, at a minimum), and because application volume will be extremely high."

China’s green leap forward

2009-09-27T16:25:00.000-07:00

Beijing

Behind the notorious clouds of filth and greenhouse gases that China’s industrial behemoth spews into the atmosphere every day, a little-noticed revolution is under way. China is going green. And as the authorities here spur manufacturers of all kinds of alternative energy equipment to make more for less, “China price” and “China speed” are poised to snatch the lion’s share of the next multitrillion-dollar global industry – energy technology.

Chinese factories already make a third of the world’s solar cells – six times more than America. Next year, China will become the largest market in the world for wind turbines – overtaking America. This fall, a Chinese firm will launch the world’s first mass-produced all-electric car of this century. And where are American utilities buying the latest generation of “clean coal” power stations? China.

“The Chinese government thinks of renewables as a major strategic industrial option” that will help fuel this country’s future growth, says Li Junfeng, deputy head of energy research at China’s top planning agency. “We will catch up with international advanced technology very quickly.”

China will likely remain the world’s worst polluter, emitting more CO2 than any other nation, for the foreseeable future. Its reliance on cheap coal to generate the bulk of its electricity makes that almost inevitable.

At the same time, however, “this country is installing a one-megawatt wind turbine every hour,” points out Dermot O’Gorman, head of the World Wide Fund for Nature in Beijing. “That is more encouraging than the one coal fired power station a week” that normally dominates foreign headlines.

Indeed, China is pushing ahead on renewable technologies with the fervor of a new space race. It wants to be in the forefront of what many believe will be the next industrial revolution. If it succeeds, it will hold far-reaching implications for the planet – affecting everything from Detroit’s competitiveness to global warming to the economic pecking order in the 21st century.

“The rest of the world doesn’t even realize that we are very likely ceding the next generation of energy technology to the Chinese,” says Todd Glass, an energy lawyer with Wilson Sonsini Goodrich and Rosati in San Francisco.

A 20-MINUTE DRIVE from the Great Wall, along the south shore of the Guanting reservoir, straw-hatted peasants tend their corn crop as the elegant blades of windmills spin idly above them in the gentle breeze, farming the wind.

Guanting’s 43 wind turbines provided some of the power for last year’s “Green Olympics” of which China was so proud, and they continue to generate not only electricity, but admiration: The wind farm is a favorite spot for newlyweds to take their wedding photos.

“They find the windmills beautiful and magnificent,” says Yin Zhiyong, the Guanting wind farm manager, as he shows a visitor around. “So do I.”

Mr. Yin trained as a coal engineer; when he was at college 20 years ago, wind-power courses were not offered. Today, he is convinced, “new energy sources are the new way of development. I’m part of the future.”

The Chinese government shares that view. The country’s installed wind power capacity has doubled each of the past four years, and is likely to exceed the 2020 target next year, a decade ahead of schedule. A revised goal, expected to be more than three times higher than the current one, will be announced soon, officials say.

Beijing has deliberately stimulated the wind sector with an array of subsidies and tariffs and a rule obliging power companies to buy renewable energy similar to a law now before the US Congress. So fast have windmills been built that the national grid cannot handle all the energy they generate, and much is wasted.

But the industry built by government policy is now looking much further afield. “Goldwind’s goal is to become a multinational and international company,” Wu Gang, the CEO of Goldwind, the firm that built Guanting’s turbines, told the “Securities Times” last month. “That is our business target.”

Already, he pointed out, Goldwind is building wind farms in Texas, and Goldwind acquired its key technology by buying 70 percent of the German company Vensys, not by developing it itself. That deal points up a key ingredient in Chinese firms’ strategies: If they don’t have time to develop technological proficiency, they will use their financial clout to get ahead.

China’s top planning agency is soon expected to announce plans to raise the proportion of renewables in the country’s energy mix to 20 per-cent by 2020, matching the European Union’s ambitious target.

Goals like this act as clear pointers for the state-owned power generating companies, where “the idea of planned industrial policy is in their blood,” as Ellen Carberry of the China Greentech Initiative puts it.

That approach is apparent in the electric-car sector, says Ms. Carberry, who represents 60 global and Chinese companies seeking to grow the green technology market here.

Two Chinese firms, BYD Auto (for Build Your Dreams) and Qingyuan are vying to bring an all-electric car to market this fall. In December, BYD started selling the world’s first mass-produced plug-in hybrid vehicle.

With the passenger vehicle sector moving forward, the government ordered 1,000 hybrid buses for Beijing and Shanghai earlier this year. It announced customer rebates of up to 40 percent off the price of new cars, depending on their energy efficiency.

Almost overnight, Beijing has focused world attention on the Chinese hybrid vehicle market. “They saw that Detroit was in a muddle, so they will leapfrog,” says Carberry.

The government has taken a different path with solar energy, refusing until recently to offer any encouragement of its use at home because solar’s price was still much higher than traditional fuels and incentives would have been very expensive. But that hasn’t stopped Chinese and foreign venture capital firms from investing in the manufacture of solar panels for export. Here, as in other fields, “China is a fast follower,” says Alex Westlake, a founder of Clearworld Now, which invests in Chinese green-tech firms.

Though solar technology is not as advanced in China as in the US, producers here have used the country’s traditional cost advantage to vault to the top of the solar sales league.

And when the government does make up its mind which technology to back, its support “will make the Chinese photovoltaic market the biggest in the world,” predicts Miao Liansheng, CEO of Yingli, one of the country’s top solar-cellmakers.

The sheer size of China’s market, and the economies of scale that size allows, are key components of the country’s advantage. “They are using their manufacturing strength and imposing cost discipline on the world,” says Mr. Glass.

NOWHERE ARE CHINA’S green ambitions more evident than in its drive towards new “clean coal” technology, which would help Beijing reduce its emissions of pollutants and CO2 while remaining reliant on its giant coal reserves. China burns coal to generate 80 percent of its electricity; the United States uses it for half its power. No matter how many sources of renewable energy those two countries tap, coal will remain their dominant fuel source for several decades.

Many energy experts are pinning their hopes on new ways of using an old technology, coal gasification. It cuts SO2 and NOx emissions and separates out CO2 so that it can be captured and then either used in industry, digested by biodiesel-producing algae, or stored permanently underground.

The US was meant to lead the way toward a near zero emissions coal-fired power plant by building one first while other countries, including China, waited for experimental data before constructing their own.

But the US Futuregen project ran into so many cost and political troubles that it was shelved. As a result, the Chinese government decided last year to move ahead with its own project. The Greengen plant, designed to be the most efficient and cleanest coal-fired power station ever built, should begin operations by the end of next year, officials here say.

In the meantime, two Chinese research centers, the East China University of Science and Technology and the Thermal Power Research Institute, have developed coal gasification techniques to challenge America’s lead in the field. Both recently licensed their inventions to American firms building power plants in the United States.

“The general thinking in the US is that we are 30 years ahead of China in technology,” says Ming Sung, a Chinese-born American who worked most of his career with Shell. “We think it’s a one-way transfer. China licensing technology to the United States is still very unusual. But it will become less and less unusual.”

He points to underground coal gasification, where solid fuel is converted to gas without even being extracted, as an example. China graduated 17 PhDs in that field last year. Only two graduated in the rest of the world.

Not that the US is a technological laggard, of course. US firms were developing advanced coal gasification technologies 30 years ago, but the Department of Energy lost interest in them when the oil embargo ended, complains Mr. Ming. “The US is very innovative, but everything comes to fruition in China,” he says.

Or, as Zhang Hongmei puts it: “In America, some people say there is no such thing as clean coal. It is very controversial. Here it’s not a question of debate or lobbying. It’s a question of doing something.”

Ms. Zhang is director for technology strategy and development at ENN, China’s largest privately owned clean-energy provider. At its spacious and exquisitely manicured campus in Langfang, 40 miles east of Beijing, executives live in villas by the fairways of the company golf course.

That is the kind of perk that has helped the company recruit many engineers abroad – both foreigners and Chinese whom ENN has tempted home. “In China as a whole, research levels are still generally low. We are at a very, very young stage compared to the US or Europe,” says Gan Zhongxue, ENN’s chief technology officer. “So we recouped many researchers from the US and Europe who are familiar with advanced technology and can then do something for ENN.”

“China cannot yet produce things with the credibility and quality behind the ‘Made in Germany’ label,” adds Jennifer Morgan, an analyst with E3G, a London-based environmental think tank. “They are not there yet.”

Still, the country has plenty of reasons to attempt to be the world’s next green-energy power. For one thing, it has few natural energy resources of its own. Plus, its pollution problems are so severe that it has little choice. The country’s outsized reliance on coal is literally a matter of life and death: 750,000 people in China die prematurely each year because of air pollution, a World Bank study in 2007 found (though the Chinese government insisted the bank cut that statistic from its final report). Only 1 percent of the population breathes air that would be considered safe in Europe.

Moreover, Beijing – just like US President Barack Obama – sees renewable energy as an economic boon. Building out a new global energy industry over the next half century will generate more business than any other sector, Chinese officials predict, and they want a hefty chunk of that business. “This gives us an opportunity to develop a new area for a new industry” says Professor Li. “It’s good for our long-term development.”

BUT THE QUESTION LOOMS: What does China’s rise as a green power mean for the rest of the world? Certainly it has its benefits. A China with more solar cells and electric cars will help reduce the amount of heat-trapping gases building up in the Earth’s atmosphere.

It could also reduce the competition for, and depletion of, dwindling natural resources – notably oil. If China rises as a green-technology manufacturing hub, it could supply the world with low-cost solar panels and wind turbines as it does now with toys and textiles.

Yet there are worries for the West, too. If green energy is the new industrial revolution, Beijing will be grabbing many of the jobs of tomorrow. That will likely hasten the day when China becomes the world’s No. 1 economic power.

“China sees [green technology] as an enormous market that is not claimed or controlled by any one nation, and there is an opportunity for them to do it,” says Carberry. “The combination of urgency; the enormous needs; a focused, systematic planned government; an army of engineers; and access to capital may define China as the platform for the green- technology industry globally.”
Mr. Westlake of Clearworld Now, echoing the 1980’s song by the American rock band Timbuk3, puts it more pithily: “The future’s so bright, you gotta wear shades.”

Climate change quickens

2009-09-27T16:11:00.001-07:00

Dyesol Inc lining up for a wave of new energy investment

2009-09-21T15:26:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Dyesol newsletter. It has been some time since we published a newsletter in this form, providing something of a round up of recent activity. However as our projects and plans come to fruition, and the company grows, I believe that it is important that we maximise opportunities to tell our shareholders, the broader markets and the public about the full range of the activities, about some of the big milestones we are reaching and about some of the small steps taken.

Since the last newsletter there has been a flurry of activity – the 3rd Conference on the Industrialisation of Dye Solar Cells organised by Dyesol was held in Japan, several big announcements have been made and rapid progress has been achieved throughout all of our international joint ventures and partnerships.

In other exciting news, in recognition of the extraordinary development of DSC, its inventor Professor Michael Graetzel, our close scientific collaborator and Chairman of Dyesol's Technology Advisory Board, won the 2009 Balzan prize for work in the ‘Science of New Materials’ in Italy.

Dyesol Inc lining up for a wave of new energy investment in the USA

While the world has struggled under the heavy burden and sometimes chaotic fallout from a meltdown in US asset prices, a new energy era has quietly begun in America that created the perfect conditions required for Dyesol to formally incorporate a US subsidiary.

Barack Obama’s Presidency has been dominated by the financial crisis that he inherited, but it is the initiatives he has launched in energy that made it advantageous for Dyesol to establish a permanent presence in the USA.

With a declared target of producing at least 25% of the USA’s enormous electricity production from renewable sources by 2025, the Obama administration have already committed $60 billion to the green jobs and a clean energy economy through the ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’. President Obama has further underwritten the American energy revolution with a promise of $150 billion in research and development funds for new energy technology over the next 10 years.

More than the substantial dollars however, it is the fundamental change in direction by the new President that could release the full entrepreneurial zeal and brilliance of the US economy onto the challenge of climate change, and the need to reduce fossil fuel dependency.

Marc Thomas has recently been appointed Chief Executive Officer of Dyesol’s North American subsidiary and his primary role is to develop strong business case for the future of the venture.

“This first step in entering the dynamic USA market has been carefully considered for some time,” said Sylvia Tulloch, Managing Director of Dyesol Industries. “We will be planning the resourcing and direction of our newest international subsidiary to ensure that Marc Thomas can pursue the opportunities arising from the Obama administration’s initiatives in support of the clean energy technology sector. What is beginning to happen in the USA should open significant opportunities for Dyesol.”

Dyesol investment in capacity leads the world

Commissioning of Dyesol’s materials manufacturing facilities in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, in October 2008 has proven to be timely, despite the financial crisis that has gripped the globe. Demand for DSC materials has experienced strong growth in the period since the facility was commissioned, and the production team have been committed to fill orders from companies and universities working on DSC projects.

Dyesol is one of the world’s only suppliers of the nano-chemistry, premium materials, laboratory and pilot production line systems required for DSC research and manufacturing. Since the new factory opened Dyesol has exported more than 90% of everything produced.

The solar photovoltaic market, forecast to be worth $US30 billion in 2008, is attracting many established industrial companies who want to be part of the market of renewable energy. For many corporations, DSC is seen as a potentially lower risk, and lower cost entry point into renewable energy products and Dyesol, with its portfolio of feedstocks, laboratory and pilot plant equipment, and technical consulting services, is becoming the first point of contact for many new entrants once the decision has been made to investigate third generation photovoltaics as a possible product line.

The recent receipt of an order for $AUD1 million worth of goods and services from a PETRONAS subsidiary is an example of the sort of interest that Dyesol is getting from global corporations. PETRONAS is a leading global oil and gas industry player based in Malaysia that has previously had little involvement in the solar energy sector.

The goods and services ordered from Dyesol comprise just a first step for a company of this scale, but is a step that would only have been taken once significant research and opportunity assessment had been done, including assessment of available suppliers of materials and know-how. Dyesol believes that this order is a huge endorsement of Dyesol’s capacity to support organisations with big plans for their future in renewable energy.

“The dyes and pastes that we produce in our new facilities are being used in research laboratories and the emerging DSC industry around the world,” said Dr Gavin Tulloch, Dyesol Managing Director Global. “Major corporations such as Sony are now developing DSC technology themselves, and are producing fascinating prototypes, and we are just one step away from the commercialisation of such products. The demand for DSC materials will of course grow exponentially once these products are released to the market”.

In addition to increasing its manufacturing capacity in Queanbeyan, Dyesol’s commercial partnerships are also rapidly moving towards commercialisation of DSC product that have the potential, on their own, to create very significant and long term demand for materials.

Dyesol has, over the past 12 months, established a facility in North Wales, United Kingdom to support the Dyesol/Corus collaboration. This project has been awarded a generous assistance package by the Welsh Assembly Government, to accelerate the commercialisation of DSC technology onto steel sheeting. Corus, a subsidiary of Tata Steel, is the world’s fifth largest steel producer.

Dyesol Italia srl is partnering with Italian energy company ERG Renew and with the world’s leading façade company, Permasteelisa to develop and commercialise next generation solar panels for buildings.

These activities that Dyesol is directly supporting are only the tip of the iceberg of the DSC research and commercialisation activity underway around the world and Dyesol’s state of the art manufacturing puts it in a strong position to be the leading global supplier of DSC materials, services and facilities.

Dyesol walks the walk

What would be the point of making renewable energy if the technology that made the energy was manufactured in an environmentally damaging way? The management and staff of Dyesol are serious about this question as they are collectively committed to ‘eco-logical’ action at every level of the enterprise. Dyesol regards returns to shareholders, ecology and social commitment as objectives of equal rank.

Dyesol already has a natural advantage to face the challenge of sustainability because DSC technology has the lowest embodied energy of any solar technology. Embodied energy is the total life cycle energy of a product, including costs of mining and refining of raw materials, energy of facilities and equipment, energy associated with manufacturing, energy associated with our staff and contractors and services, energy of transport, energy for marketing sales and administration, energy for product and facility maintenance, and energy for recycling of our products.

However, Dyesol takes the responsibility a step further and is driving down energy used in manufacturing with a ‘yield improvement’ programme in the manufacturing operations. This aims to ensure that higher quality, better performing materials, are manufactured at higher yields per unit of embodied energy.

In the process of designing and constructing the Company’s manufacturing facilities in Queanbeyan, New South Wales, Dyesol management investigated every cost effective measure to reduce the energy and water consumed on the premises.

As well as the expected steps of insulation and air-flow management, the air-conditioning systems use ozone friendly refrigerants, and the minimum outside air quantities required to refresh air quality and provide occupant safety. Electronic control systems provide the ability to regulate individual air conditioning systems to serve after hours operation independently.

Energy efficient T5 lighting with individual switching of local areas and time control operation of lighting has been installed, as well as time controls on under bench hot water units for point-of-use application, and pipe lagging to all supply lines, reduce heat waste in the water system.

Paper, brochures and other marketing materials are recyclable. Staff are required to utilise the paper, glass and plastics recycling bins provided.

Dyesol takes sustainability seriously, it is not just for appearances. The Company also takes its role as a new energy economy leader seriously, and intends to stay in the top ranks of the global indices that track performance of clean energy companies.

Since March 2008 the Company has been included in the Australian CleanTech Index© and Dyesol is in the top 20 out of over 60 companies in this index. In 2008 the Company was included in the “Top 100 Low Carbon Pioneers” of CNBC Europe. And in 2008 Dyesol received a Prime Rating from OEKOM Research, Munich, Germany. Dyesol is very proud about these acknowledgements of our credentials. These achievements encourages us to intensify our efforts to become more strongly ecologically beneficial, not just neutral.

Korea Enters the Organic Photovoltaic Age

The opening of the Dyesol-Timo pilot production plant in Seong Nam, South Korea on 13th July 2009, could be said to be the symbolic beginning of a new era for that extraordinarily industrious country. The opening ceremony, involving Korean officials, politicians and business people, who were joined by the Australian Ambassador to Korea, Mr Sam Gerovich, were imbued with some gravitas, and a sense that something exceptional was occurring.

In just 10 months the Dyesol-Timo JV team constructed and commissioned a world class pilot plant which has the potential to lead South Korea into the forefront of DSC commercialisation. In the course of the project planning, and the development of the facility, Dyesol scientists were also fully engaged in transferring the knowledge needed to successfully operate the facility to the Timo DSC team lead by Professor Moon.

Dr Gavin Tulloch, Managing Director Global, was there on the day to speak for Dyesol, and took the opportunity to remind the guests about the unique virtues of DSC that means that it really cannot be compared to other conventional photovoltaic technologies.

“Dye solar cell technology exists totally independent of all other types of photovoltaics – it emulates part of the photosynthesis process. It builds on millions of years of natural evolution of low energy processes – processes that utilise minimum energy to produce electrons,” Dr Tulloch said.

“Consider how a leaf functions in photosynthesis. It works in all light levels. It does not have to face directly at the sun for photosynthesis to occur. It operates in shade. It has low embodied energy and is very energy efficient. Most importantly,” Dr Tulloch pointed out, “this means that the voltage created in the leaf structure is virtually independent of light level for all orientations – and this is true for DSC also. Our challenge has been to match nature and it has been essential to understand the fine electrochemical balance and to select materials that, when combined, provide exceptional stability and hence very long lifetimes of up to 50 years.”

Having emulated photosynthesis in the lab, the next challenge for Dyesol’s scientists was to create processes that enable the basic building blocks of a dye solar cell to be mass produced. The pilot production line constructed for the Dyesol-Timo joint venture is based on a series of proprietary process, assembly and test equipment developed and commercialised by Dyesol to do just that, mass produce DSC.

The potential for DSC in the South Korean industrial economy cannot be understated. Glass-based DSC products would be very well suited to South Korea, where the solar conditions, dense urban cityscapes and rapid adoption of new technology provides an ideal environment for a number of DSC products.

South Korea is one of the fastest growing solar markets in the world and is forecast to remain so. The Korean Government has established a positive policy platform for clean technology development and recently announced plans to invest an astounding 2% of GDP worth 107 trillion won per annum (US$84.5 billion) in environment-related industries over the coming five years.

Dyesol will continue to actively support the venture, including providing access to the extensive IP holdings of the company, new innovations and developments, and supplying high performance cost competitive DSC materials and equipment.

China's massive PV stimulus 20 GW by 2020.

2009-06-25T23:52:00.000-07:00

Chinese government has set a new target of adding 20 GW of installed photovoltaics (PV) power generating capacity in the 10 years from 2010 to 2020, which means an increase of two GW for each year, a president of a Chinese solar PV enterprise was quoted by Xinhua-run Shanghai Securities News as saying.

?The figure is bigger than the current combined installed capacity of the globe, and it?s really a big stimulus to PV enterprises, meaning huge market space of home PV industry,? said the company president who has been invited to give opinions on the pending stimulus plan for new energy industry by the National Development and Reform Commission.

He also predicted that China is likely to publish its new energy industry stimulus plan next month at the soonest.

According to him, the plan raises the target for the installed capacity of the photovoltaics industry from 1.80 million kw to 20 GW by 2020.

China now has several solar PV enterprises listed in foreign stock markets. They include SunTech Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (STP.NYSE), LDK Solar Co., Ltd. (LDK.NYSE), Trina Solar Limited (TSL.NYSE), Solarfun Power Holdings Co., Ltd. (SOLF.Nasdaq) and China Technology Development Group Corporation (CTDC.Nasdaq), Yingli Green Energy (YGE.NYSE), and JA Solar (JASO.NASDAQ).

Substantial Order Received from Global 500® Company by DYESOL

2009-06-21T17:28:00.000-07:00

Dyesol has received an order in excess of A$1 million for the supply of DSC goods and services from a 100% subsidiary of PETRONAS, a FORTUNE Global 500® company.

A further, more detailed announcement describing the size and nature of the proposed project will be made in due course.

China Begins Its Transition to a Clean-Energy Economy

2009-06-09T17:20:00.000-07:00

The Chinese government is putting the finishing touches to a $440bn (£272bn) incentive package designed to boost use of solar and wind power in the country.

According to various reports, new incentives for solar farms and rooftop panels are to be introduced, possibly as early as next month, while government funding will also be made available for large-scale wind farm projects.

Precise details of the new incentive schemes are yet to be released, but the investment is expected to come from China's $586bn economic stimulus package, which was announced last year to offset the impact of the global financial downturn.

The investment will be focused on increasing China's renewable energy capacity, excluding hydropower, to account for six per cent of its overall power supply by 2020. Despite rapidly emerging as a key player in the global clean tech market, currently just 1.5 per cent of China's energy comes from renewable sources.

By 2020, the government hopes to be able to generate more than 100GW of energy through wind power and have installed solar capacity of 1,800MW.

As well as cutting carbon emissions, a more diverse energy mix is also expected to enhance China's energy security. Currently, about 75 per cent of the country's power is provided by coal, which is mostly supplied by domestic mines. However, the industry's poor safety record has recently led to authorities closing several mines after a string of fatal accidents. As a result, China has been relying on imports of coal from countries such as Australia.

The planned targets and incentives for renewable energy are the latest in a series of measures from the Chinese government designed to bolster its environmental record ahead of international climate change talks in Copenhagen later this year.

A great deal of new legislation has been introduced in recent months, such as bans on plastic bags and tighter standards governing air pollution, while the government has also implemented a nationwide energy-efficiency push designed to improve energy intensity by 20 per cent.

This interesting report debunks all the tripe about China and it committment to clean energy....

A common refrain from climate action naysayers is that, “China is building two coal-fired power plants a week!” They insist that the United States should
wait until this major emitter takes on binding commitments to climate change mitigation before it decides to adopt global warming pollution reduction
policies in the American Climate and Energy Security Act (H.R. 2454). They further claim that if such a bill became law, the United States would be
transferring its jobs to countries such as China and India that are doing nothing to curb emissions. But that thinking is exactly wrong.

Critics fairly point to the fact that 80 percent of China’s power is derived from dirty coal, and that China recently surpassed the United States as the
word’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide. Yet China’s per capita emissions remain a fifth that of the United States, and its historical cumulative per
capita emissions from 1960 to 2005 are less than one-tenth that of the United States.

Still, the Chinese have recognized that it’s climate inaction—not climate legislation—that will lead to its own economic undoing. As the U.S. Congress
debates the merits of enacting renewable electricity and energy efficiency standards, China has already forged ahead with building its own low-carbon
economy, laying the foundation for clean-energy jobs and innovation.

China ranked second in the world in 2007 in terms of the absolute dollar amount invested in renewable energy, according to the Climate Group. It spent $12
billion, which put it just behind Germany’s $14 billion. These investments have placed China among the world leaders in solar, wind, electric vehicle,
rail, and grid technologies. And now approximately 9 percent of China’s $586 billion economic stimulus package will go toward sustainable development
(excluding rail and grid) projects.

China is expected to unveil in the coming weeks another extensive and unprecedented stimulus package—reported to be in the range of $440 billion to $660
billion—dedicated

solely to new energy development over the next decade, including generous investments in wind, solar, and hydropower. If those expectations are fulfilled,
China could emerge as the unquestioned global leader in clean-energy production, significantly increasing its chances to wean its energy appetite off coal,
and at the same time ushering in an era of sustainable economic growth by exporting these clean-energy technologies to the world.

The bottom line: China is not there yet, but it is beginning to transition to a clean-energy economy through a wide range of actions. The United States
should recognize China’s efforts and encourage China to expand upon them. We have sketched this claim before, but let’s run though the numbers in more
detail.

Energy efficiency

Energy efficiency is China’s primary energy priority. China just last year revised its Energy Conservation Law to declare that it “implements an energy
strategy of promoting conservation and development concurrently while giving top priority to conservation” (emphasis added). This emphasis runs through
many of China’s policies.

• China aims to reduce energy intensity—the amount of energy consumed per unit of gross domestic product—by 20 percent of 2005 levels by 2020. Each
province and provincial-level city has been assigned an energy intensity reduction target ranging between 12 percent and 30 percent, and the respective
governors or mayors are held accountable to such targets. Their success is part of the basis for their evaluation for promotion. China has made steady
progress toward reaching this goal, achieving a 10-percent reduction of energy intensity by the end of 2008. If the goal is fully realized, it will
translate to an annual reduction from a business-as-usual scenario of over 1 billion tons of carbon dioxide per year starting in 2010. By comparison, the
European Union’s targets under the Kyoto Protocol translate to an annual absolute reduction of 300 million tons of carbon dioxide by the end of its
compliance period in 2012. • The Top 1,000 Energy-Consuming Enterprises program, which China started in 2006, sets energy efficiency benchmarks for the top
1,000 energy-consuming enterprises across nine sectors of heavy industry. These 1,000 industries alone constituted 33 percent of China’s overall energy
consumption and 47 percent of industrial energy consumption in 2004, and 43 percent of China’s carbon dioxide emissions in 2006. Data suggests that the
program is on target to achieve its goal of saving 100 million tons of coal equivalent, which translates to reducing carbon dioxide emissions by between
300 million and 450 million tons. This is also the equivalent of removing 68 million to 100 million cars from the road. • China launched a rebate program
in April 2008 to subsidize the purchase of energy efficient light bulbs by 30 percent on wholesale purchases and 50 percent on retail sales. Some local
governments provide an additional subsidy of up to 40 percent. China

subsidized 62 million bulbs by the end of January 2009, which can help save 3.2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity annually and reduce carbon dioxide
discharges by 3.2 million tons. China announced plans earlier this year to double the size of the program to subsidize 100 million bulbs in 2009.

• Smaller and less efficient power plants in China are closing down as larger, more efficient power plants are built. China shut down 34 gigawatts worth of
small, inefficient plants between 2006 and 2008, and plans to close another 31 GW over the next three years. This active policy of “opening-the-large-and-
closing-the-small” increased average efficiencies from 370 grams of coal per kilowatt hour of electricity generated in 2005 to 349 grams in 2008. And new
plants such as the 1 GW ultrasupercritical coal plant in Yuhuan can generate a kilowatt hour of electricity with just 283 grams of coal. • China enacted a
new building code in 2006 that requires new buildings to halve their energy consumption levels compared to the current average. Enforcement remains a
difficult challenge, and the code does not address the vast stock of existing structures, only 4 percent of which meets the new standards. A more
successful program has been the requirement that government offices set thermostats at no lower than 26 degrees Celsius in the summer and no higher than 20
degrees Celsius in the winter, while encouraging the general public to do the same. And China has recently launched the Three Star green building
evaluation standard, a voluntary set of standards aimed at encouraging green building development with performance standards above and beyond what the
building code requires. • China is the world’s largest producer of electronic and home appliances, and it developed mandatory energy efficiency standards
and labels for a range of such products in 2005. These standards are coupled with the adoption of green procurement polices for government offices and
state-owned enterprises and will enable China to avoid 100 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions per year. • A pilot energy demand-side program—whereby
the quantity and pattern of consumption are smartly managed to match supply constraints—in Jiangsu province has eliminated the need to build 300 megawatts
of electricity capacity in the area, thus eliminating 1.84 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent. A World Bank study concludes that if properly scaled,
demand-side management can eliminate the need to build more than 100 GW of electricity capacity in China by 2020. Renewable energy

China is keenly aware of the threats that climate change poses and the need to diversify its energy base away from coal and oil. The Renewable Energy Law
of 2006 and subsequent Medium and Long-Term Renewable Energy Plan set a framework for ambitious targets to develop renewable energy sources in China.

• China has set a goal of generating 10 percent of its electricity from renewable energy sources by 2010, and 15 percent by 2020. • China just tripled is
2020 target for installed wind capacity from 20 GW to 100 GW and has recently surpassed India as the fourth-largest installer of wind power. • China’s 2020
target of building 1.8 GW of installed solar power capacity is expected to be increased at least fivefold to 10 GW. China was the world’s largest
manufacturer of solar photovoltaic panels until recently, providing roughly 40 percent of the global market share in 2008. An overwhelming majority of
those solar panels have been exported, but China’s domestic solar market is on the cusp of experiencing a boom thanks to new solar incentives announced
this year that cut the cost of purchase and installation by as much as half. • One in 10 Chinese households use solar thermal water heaters. China had
deployed 40 million solar water heaters in 2007—two-thirds of the global market share. The country plans for 30 percent of its households to have installed
solar water heaters by 2020. • China has a target for 300 GW of installed hydropower by 2020, which is twice what it has now. • China implemented a feed-in
tariff for biomass power generation at the rate of 3.2 cents per kwh. This means that China essentially provides a preferential electricity tariff to
biomass power producers of 3.2 cents per kwh over the tariff for conventional fossil fuels. It plans to install 30 GW of biomass power capacity by 2020. •
China aims to use 10 million tons of bioethanol and 2 million tons of biodiesel by 2020, replacing 10 million tons of petroleum-based fuel annually. • The
national renewable energy targets do not include nuclear energy. China currently has just over 9 GW of installed nuclear power, but is poised to ramp that
up to account for 5 percent of electricity production by 2020, translating to an installed capacity of 60 to 75 GW. • All electricity end-users (other than
the agriculture sector and residents of Tibet) have had to pay a renewable energy surcharge of 0.001 yuan per kwh since 2006. This surcharge doubled to
0.002 yuan per kwh for commercial and industrial users in August 2008. Proceeds from the surcharge have been distributed in three batches to renewable
energy projects (mostly wind and biomass)—$34.6 million in 2006, $106 million in the first through third quarter of 2007, and $295.2 million in the fourth
quarter of 2007 through the second quarter of 2008.

Energy grid

China, like the United States, must modernize its national grid infrastructure in order to accelerate its uptake of renewable energy. This discussion is
actively in the works now.

• China is an emerging world leader in ultra-high-voltage, or UHV transmission technology, with more than 100 domestic manufacturers and suppliers
participating in the manufacturing and supply of UHV equipment. A transmission line from Shanxi to Hubei boasts the highest capacity in the world, and is
able to transmit 1,000 kilovolts over 640 kilometers. The State Grid Corporation will invest $44 billion through 2012, and $88 billion through 2020 in
building UHV transmission lines. • China will unveil in the coming months plans to build an extensive smart grid by 2020. Auto industry

In contrast to the decline of the United State’s automotive industry, China is creating a strong and robust automotive manufacturing capacity, especially
with respect to highly efficient cars, hybrid-electric vehicles, and pure-electric vehicles.

• China has fuel economy standards that translate to 36.7 miles per gallon and is said to be considering a proposal to raise that to 42.2 mpg by 2015. The
U.S. standard was only 27.5 MPG for 20 years, although President Barack Obama announced a new standard in May of 35.5 mpg by 2016. • China last September
doubled taxes on cars with engines above four liters from 20 percent to 40 percent, and increased them from 15 percent to 20 percent for those with engines
between three and four liters. At the same time, China reduced taxes for cars with engines under one liter from 3 percent to 1 percent. • China has been
criticized until recently for fixing energy prices at artificially low rates. China is now embarking on progressive energy price reform to indirectly link
transportation fuel prices to global crude prices. It raised gasoline and diesel prices once in 2007 and once in 2008. Yet it has increased prices twice in
the first five months of this year alone. • China wants to raise its annual production capacity of hybrid, all-electric cars and buses to 500,000 by the
end of 2011. This would account for only 5 percent of total car sales, but is up from 2,100 in 2008. Thirteen cities will roll out pilot subsidy schemes
for “new energy vehicles,” ranging from $7,350 for small hybrid passenger cars to $87,700 for large, fuel-cell-powered commercial buses. The subsidies will
target public-sector purchases such as public transportation, sanitation, and postal services. The State Grid plans to deploy pilot networks of charging
stations in Beijing, Tianjin, and Shanghai, while Nissan-Renault plans to help establish a pilot charging infrastructure network in Wuhan.

• China’s emerging leadership in electric vehicles is based on its innovation in energy storage technology. The world’s first mass-produced, plug-in hybrid
is the F3DM, launched by China’s BYD Auto last December. Just six years ago this company was only in the business of making batteries for mobile phones.
The F3DM sells in China for approximately $22,000. • China has also become the world’s leader in electric bicycles, which are fitted with a small 250-watt
motor and rechargeable nickel-cadmium battery. They have a range of 60 kilometers between charges and can reach speeds of 30 kilometers/hour, which make
them ideal for intracity mobility, providing a zero-emission (during operation) alternative to a car or motorcycle. China accounts for 80 percent of global
electric bicycles sales. Public transportation

Cars will probably remain outside of economic reach for Chinese households, despite the growing automotive market. Mass transit—particularly intracity
subways and long-distance high speed rail—will remain the mobility solutions of choice.

• China is embarking on the largest railway expansion in history and plans to spend more than $1 trillion expanding its railway network from 78,000 km
today to 120,000 km in 2020. Of this, 13,000 km will be comprised of high-speed rail. The 1,300 kilometer Beijing-Shanghai line is under construction and
it will reduce travel time between those destinations from 14 hours to 5 hours when it opens in 2013. This will attract an estimated 220,000 daily
passengers and should dramatically reduce air travel between the metropolises. • China reportedly has 26,000 km of electrified railways, making it second
in the world in this arena. Encouragingly, this figure accounts for 32 percent of China’s total railways, but is responsible for 50 percent of overall
passenger and cargo volume. • China is poised to have the world’s largest network for intracity urban rail transit. About 2,100 km of railway lines will be
laid and operational by 2015 in 19 cities. Ten cities currently have 29 urban rail routes, totaling 778 km, and 14 cities are building 46 urban rail lines,
which total 1,212 km. Other initiatives

• An unprecedented wave of rural-to-urban migration is creating opportunities to experiment with new development patterns. There are over 40 different eco-
city projects currently proposed or under development throughout China.

• Low-carbon manufacturing zones, such as those in Baoding, Tianjin, and Jiangsu, are emerging as engines of growth for clean energy. • China has a target
to increase forest area coverage to 20 percent by 2010 and has committed $9 billion annually toward this effort. • A total of 1,200 counties across the
country are utilizing fertilizers according to the results of local soil tests to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide—a less common but more potent global
warming pollutant. Conclusion

It’s true that China’s absolute emissions are rising as its economy continues to expand by 6 percent to 8 percent annually even amidst a global recession,
and that compliance with government mandates are difficult to assess given the lack of transparency in reporting or to enforce due to limited institutional
capacity. But it would clearly be incorrect to accuse China of doing nothing on climate change.

When the framework for assessing a country’s climate change mitigation efforts is narrowly confined to carbon emission caps, it glosses over a multitude of
complementary actions that provide meaningful emissions reductions compared to a business-as-usual scenario. This is why we at the Center for American
Progress have proposed “carbon cap equivalents” as a better model for assessing a country’s carbon profile rather than only looking at stipulated caps.

The carbon cap equivalents strategy calls for us to rigorously model what China’s carbon dioxide emissions reductions will add up to through a future
date—such as the 2020 benchmark midterm year used in the U.N. climate change negotiations process—relative to a base line year, such as 1990. Looking at
the full range of China’s measures in this way shows that these iterated measures will amount to significant reductions relative to a business-as-usual
scenario had China continued its emissions growth unabated. Together they will amount to a level of emissions reductions equivalent to if China had adopted
an explicit targeted emissions cap.

We must also use the same technique to reveal the actual carbon emissions reductions achievable in the midterm by the American Clean Energy and Security
Act currently making its way through Congress. A full analysis of the carbon cap equivalent of ACES compared to a model of the full range of measures being
undertaken by China will likely show that the two countries are not as far apart in terms of their aspirations for carbon reductions as is commonly
thought.

What makes the above list of actions by China all the more impressive is that the country’s leaders decided to act unilaterally even though its per capita
GDP and per capita emissions, both historical and present, remain a fraction of the United States’. China hasn’t done so out of charity, but out of
recognition that doing so is both critical to its national security and a huge opportunity for future economic prosperity.

Sure, China can do more. But we can create a much more constructive platform for forging a consensus in Copenhagen or forming the basis for a bilateral
agreement with China on climate change by acknowledging and understanding the effects of the full range of China’s climate actions outside of its lack of
hard caps on carbon emissions. A more extensive analysis should quiet the naysayers on Capitol Hill that use the false excuse of Chinese inaction to block
the passage of the historic climate and energy bill in the U.S. Congress.

http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2009/06/pdf/climatechinav3.pdf

India ~ 2,00,000 MW of Solar capacity by 2050

2009-06-01T19:04:00.000-07:00

A year ago India announced that solar power would be a major part of its climate action plan but between then and now, other than some project announcements, we haven't heard all that much. But now Worldwatch Institute reports that Indian newspaper The Hindu has seen a draft copy of a national solar power plan which seriously ups the ante:
According to the leaked document, India's "solar mission" will include measures for rapidly expanding the use of small-scale photovoltaic panels, solar lighting systems, and commercial-scale solar plants, in order to drive down costs and encourage domestic solar manufacturing. The efforts would occur in both rural and urban areas and target residential as well as commercial users. The plan also proposes scaling-up centralized solar thermal power generation, with the aim of achieving cost parity with conventional grid power by 2020 and the full necessary energy infrastructure by 2050.

With India's installed solar capacity currently at only 3 megawatts, this would be the most ambitious solar plan that any country has laid out so far. The scope of the initiative would also match and ultimately far exceed India's plans for nuclear power generation.

Specifically the plan aims to have 20,000 MW of solar power by 2020, expanding to 100,000 MW by 2030 and 200,000 by 2050.

Funding This All Might be the Most Ambitious Part
Which not only is "ambitious" but also going to be expensive to implement: Worldwatch cites Greenpeace's Energy [R]evolution report in saying that by 2050 India could generate 69% of its electricity and 70% of its heating and cooling needs from renewable sources, but that will require an investment of $154 billion.

In the leaked draft, government investment would amount to $18-22 million, with presumably the balance to be made up through international financing mechanisms.

treehugger

Building efficiency ~ energy-efficiency dollars work over time; they work double and triple time,

2009-05-31T18:54:00.000-07:00

Building efficiency retrofits serve the triple benefits of mitigating global warming emissions, reducing energy bills, and creating good, local jobs. Residential buildings alone account for 21percent of total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and substantial efficiency savings are obtainable through easy and proven techniques. Yet if energy-efficiency retrofits offer such obvious environmental, economic, and employment benefits, why have they been so slow to materialize? The answer lies in a host of market failures, and developing viable, scalable solutions has proven challenging—until now.

“Green Jobs/Green Homes New York” outlines a policy roadmap for New York State to achieve mass-scale energy-efficiency improvements—or retrofits—of 1 million housing units over the next five years. “We know from the past 30 years of weatherization that with a relatively small investment in changing an existing structure you can save 30 to 40 percent in home energy,” said Gelman. “In New York, that will amount to about $1 billion per year if 1 million homes are weatherized.”

The policies outlined in this report can help stimulate the economy and lay the foundation for long term growth, but not without leadership from government, as well as engagement from local community groups and other stakeholders. “Free markets are not going to fix these problems without strong policy and real leadership,” said Hendricks.

Encouragingly, clean-energy policies were part of the economic stimulus package passed earlier this year. President Barack Obama outlined a plan last March to invest $59 billion from the stimulus in direct spending and tax incentives to promote clean energy and energy efficiency. Over the next two years, this federal investment will pour into state energy-efficiency programs and expand their capacity. “Those humble, hard-working energy-efficiency dollars work over time; they work double and triple time,” said Jones. These dollars can help cut home energy bills and poverty by creating jobs; reducing emissions, pollution, and asthma; and even making homes more valuable.

Video

The Green Jobs/Green Homes NY program will make retrofits available to owners of any type of housing in New York State and at any level of income as long as owners are utility customers in good standing and live in targeted geographic areas. Retrofits can also be made available to renters of single-family homes who own the utility meter account and have sole physical control of the housing unit. The program plans to use an array of innovative financing, community outreach, and community partnership strategies to make it all happen. “New York has one of the largest weatherization programs in the country, retrofitting 25,000 to 26,000 homes per year. This report would increase the number of homes 12 times the current rate,” said Dyen.

The report estimates that the Green Jobs/Green Homes NY plan will directly create 60,000 job-years related to the expansion of retrofit work and another 60,000 job-years indirectly through additional economic activity. The program will employ 14,000 long-term, full-time skilled retrofit workers, providing an opportunity to reach out to groups that have been previously disenfranchised in the job market. “We need to consider not only how to make access to jobs for people who don’t have a lot of work experience or don’t come to it with a lot of skills, but also how to make good jobs,” said Donner. “We need to treat these as complimentary goals rather than contradictory.”

Organization on the community level will be crucial to educate local groups and homeowners about the importance of investing in retrofitting. Also, environmentalists and unions will jointly benefit from the report’s proposed policies. “If these groups can join together and replicate the New York model across the country,” said Chambers, “then ‘yes we can’ becomes more than a chant, it becomes a way of life.”

GE plans $1.5 billion in cleantech R and D by 2010

2009-05-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

GE eyes $1.5 billion in cleantech research by 2010

General Electric Co aims to boost its investment in clean-tech research and development to $1.5 billion a year by 2010, the largest U.S. conglomerate said on Wednesday in its annual “Ecomagination” report.

The maker of products ranging from electricity-producing wind turbines to energy-efficient compact-fluorescent lights, wants to grow green-business revenues to what it called a “stretch” target of $25 billion next year, up from $17 billion in 2008 and $6 billion in 2004….

GE said it expects stimulus spending in the United States, China and elsewhere around the globe to create about $400 billion of new demand for green technologies and clean-energy products, including wind turbines and solar panels.

The company earlier this month said it was building a plant near Albany, New York to build a new generation of high-capacity batteries that would power its upcoming hybrid railroad locomotive. Last month, it said it was working with Florida utility company FPL Group on the roll out of a “smart grid” system intended to encourage homeowners to lower their electricity consumption during peak demand times.

Global CEOs back greenhouse gas cuts, carbon caps

Global business leaders added momentum to prospects for a new U.N. climate treaty by agreeing Tuesday that the world must cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by mid-century by setting specific limits on carbon.

Government officials reported little progress in setting such limits, however, showing how distant a new treaty remains.

Some 500 CEOs and other top business experts said at the conclusion of the three-day World Business Summit on Climate Change in Denmark that “immediate and substantial” emissions cuts were needed by 2020, followed by cuts of at least 50 percent of 1990 levels by 2050. They said governments should use the marketplace to set a global price on carbon instead of taxing it, according to a statement from conference organizers.

Carbon allowances — the glue in House energy package

A massive climate bill has taken its first step forward in the House, its path paved by the giveaway of allowances — free greenhouse gas emission permits designed to mute the economic impact of a carbon cap-and-trade program.

Free allowances — each conveying the right to pump a ton of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere — were the glue that held the sprawling bill together for Reps. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) and Ed Markey (D-Mass.) and fellow Democrats on the Energy and Commerce Committee last week.

The “cap” of cap and trade would impose steadily tightening limits on greenhouse gas emissions. Companies covered by the bill whose emissions exceeded their caps would have to purchase emission allowances, or buy offsets — for example, by investing in rainforest preservation. Some allowances could be banked or borrowed to ease transitions. But the decisions would affect firms’ choices of fuels, introduction of new technologies, and decisions to hire, fire, expand, shrink or move operations overseas.

http://climateprogress.org/2009/05/27/energy-and-global-warming-news-ge-clean-energy-research/

US Solar sector rises on utility demand

2009-05-18T15:12:00.000-07:00

Associated Press, 05.18.09, 03:46 PM EDT

The solar sector soared in Monday trading as last week's record-setting solar thermal contract from Pacific Gas & Electric signaled continued demand from utilities.

Shares also rose ahead of the much-anticipated energy bill, which investors expect will deliver generous provisions for solar energy once passed.

Last week, California utility Pacific Gas & Electric Co. signed new solar contracts with Oakland-based BrightSource Energy for a total of 1,310 megawatts of solar thermal power, the nation's largest solar deal.

Raymond James analyst Pavel Molchanov said the deal signals solar power's growing mainstream acceptance by utilities. Solar thermal power is economically viable only in areas of high-sunlight and is a utility-scale technology because it is used to power large, conventional turbines, Molchanov noted.

PG&E's "mega-deal" for solar thermal power boosts demand from utilities for photovoltaic products as well. As this trend builds momentum, utilities could offer the industry the most durable source of photovoltaic demand.

Molchanov rated GT Solar International Inc., JA Solar Holdings Co. and Real Goods Solar Inc. "Outperform." He also recommended buying shares of First Solar Inc., which he rated "Strong Buy."

Shares of GT Solar jumped 18 cents, or 3.4 percent, to $5.55 in afternoon trading. JA Solar shares rose 5 cents to $3.16. Real Goods Solar share rose 4 cents to $2.12. Shares of First Solar climbed $7.28, or 4.1 percent, to $184.71.

Elsewhere in the industry SunPower Corp. shares increased $1.35, or 5.4 percent, to $26.40. Trina Solar shares rose 62 cents, or 3.7 percent, to $17.53. Molchanov rated both these companies "Market Perform."

Repost ~ 'Distributed power' to save Earth

2009-05-12T19:42:00.001-07:00

By Jason Palmer
Science and technology reporter, BBC News, Prague

Economist Jeremy Rifkin galvanised the Research Connections 2009 conference in Prague with a roadmap to simultaneously solve the economic and energy crises.

He proposed a pan-European strategy of small-scale energy generation and smart energy grids that make everyone a partner in energy.

What is more, he said, the plan would create millions of jobs and foster investment that would see the end of the current economic crisis.

Mr Rifkin leads a roundtable of 100 top CEOs and government officials who have subscribed to the plan.

The roundtable is part of the Foundation on Economic Trends, which Mr Rifkin founded.

He said old economic models will not see humanity through, and the combination of the climatic, energy and economic woes of the planet created a "perfect storm" that will see in a new era for its inhabitants.

But such a revolution is not unique to human history, he said.

"The great economic revolutions in history occur when two things happen," he explained.

"First, we humans change the way we organise the energy of the Earth; we've done this frequently over the course of our history.

"Second, and equally important, we change the way we communicate to organise new energy regimes. When energy revolutions converge with communication revolutions, those are the pivotal points in human history."
" Your building becomes your power plant, just like your computer becomes your information vehicle to the world "
Jeremy Rifkin

The current renewable energy push, in common with the information and communication technology revolution that characterised the 1990s, is just such a pairing of regime changes.

But in Mr Rifkin's grand plan, every citizen of the EU would participate in order to revolutionise the way energy is generated, used, and monetised.

Four pillars

Although the sheer scope of the idea raised eyebrows throughout the room, Mr Rifkin laid out a cogent, four-part plan that he said could in one stroke dispel the perfect storm he described.

The first two pillars of the plan were a call to technological arms: further develop renewable energy technologies' efficiencies, amplify production to access "economies of scale", and develop means to store the intermittent energy they harvest.

The third pillar is a common idea writ very large indeed. He called for a pan-European commitment to microgeneration - small installations of renewable energy technology work in place of, for example, vast wind farms - but on every single building already up or yet to be built.

"We cannot build enough centralised wind and solar parks to run Europe," he said.

"If this energy is distributed over every square foot all over the world, why would we collect it only at a few points? The problem is we're using 20th century, centralised, top-down business models."

Instead, Mr Rifkin suggested overhauling the technology of infrastructure and architecture such that buildings have integral power generation: solar panels and small vertical wind turbines on roofs, heat pumps harvesting geothermal energy in basements.

In rural settings, agricultural waste could be used to generate methane and in coastal regions, tidal power could be harvested.

"Your building becomes your power plant, just like your computer becomes your information vehicle to the world. Every home, factory, industrial park, every building is converted," he explained.

While existing buildings could generate a sizeable fraction of their energy demands, new buildings would be "positive power" - generating more than they need through grand changes in building materials and architecture.

Jump-start

Such an idea is not new; in fact, installations are already underway. Mr Rifkin cited car maker GM's Opel factory in Zaragoza, Spain, which sports a $78m (£52m) solar panel array.

It produces some 10 Megawatts of power, which means the energy savings could pay for the installation in just nine years.

Elsewhere in Spain, Navarra and Aragon have, in the past 10 years, moved to generating 70% of their energy with renewables.

Using wind turbines in the Pyrenees, hydroelectric generation from snowmelt, and sun-tracking solar arrays, Aragon will be 100% self-sufficient in six months and be in energy surplus in six more.

"Everyone can do that tomorrow," Mr Rifkin emphasised. Moreover, it is a handy way out of an economic abyss.

"If you want to jump-start an economy it's always about construction. You jump-start not hundreds of thousands of jobs building solar collectors, but millions of jobs reconverting the entire infrastructure."

The scale of the proposed changeover is unconvincing for Paul Ekins, professor of energy and environment policy at King's College London.

"People tend to want power when they demand it and they tend to want it to be there all the time," he told BBC News.

"It's certainly possible that microgeneration has a role to play in the future energy system, but my view is that central generation is likely to be a very important part of satisfying that demand."

'Distributed capitalism'

The fourth pillar of the plan would make everyone a stakeholder in the scheme by overhauling the outdated power grid system.

"We're going to use the same tecnology that created the internet; we take the power grid of the EU and turn it into an 'intergrid' that works just like the internet.

"Say you're producing 30% of your energy need, it's peak period in the middle of the day and you don't need the electricity. If millions of people send just a little bit back to the grid, peer-to-peer just like we send information on the internet, that's distributed power."

But the distributed computing allowed by the revamped power grid could introduce a new economic paradigm - what Mr Rifkin calls "distributed capitalism".

"The main grid [will be] completely distributed, software connected to sensors connected to every appliance in your home: thermostat, washing machine, toaster, everything.

"At any one time the system will know what every washing machine is doing in Europe. If you have peak demand, not enough supply, software can say to two million washing machines 'forget the extra rinse'.

"If you bought the program - it's all voluntary - you get a cheque at the end of the month or a credit from the electricity company."

Like microgeneration, the idea of such "smart grids" has been circulating in the energy community for some time. But it is the sheer scope of all facets of Mr Rifkin's plan that makes it unique.

He has formed the "Third Industrial Revolution Roundtable" with 100 leaders from industry - big names such as IBM and BASF are on the list - as well as governments to further promote the idea.

And he is sure that the EU will continue to lead the way, citing the "golden goose" of the union: it is the largest internal market economy in the world, making it particularly poised to undertake such an ambitious plan.

Professor Ekins wonders about the likelihood that all the facets such a long-term, high-investment initiative is what the future holds.

"The world has room for visionaries," he said, "and one of the characteristics of visionaries is that their total vision very rarely comes true.

"Normally the future ends up having some aspect of different competing visions."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/8043397.stm

Published: 2009/05/11 13:27:29 GMT

China Emerges as a Leader in Cleaner Coal Technology

2009-05-10T20:15:00.000-07:00

China is making other efforts to reduce its global warming emissions. It has doubled its total wind energy capacity in each of the past four years, and is poised to pass the United States as soon as this year as the world’s largest market for wind power equipment. China is building considerably more nuclear power plants than the rest of the world combined, and these do not emit carbon dioxide after they are built.

But coal remains the cheapest energy source in China by a wide margin. China has the world’s third-largest coal reserves, after the United States and Russia.

“No matter how much renewable or nuclear is in the mix, coal will remain the dominant power source,” said Ashok Bhargava, a China energy expert at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

Another problem is that China has finally developed the ability to build high-technology power plants only at the end of a national binge of building lower-tech coal-fired plants. Construction is now slowing because of the economic slump.

By adopting “ultra-supercritical” technology, which uses extremely hot steam to achieve the highest efficiency, and by building many identical power plants at the same time, China has cut costs dramatically through economies of scale. It now can cost a third less to build an ultra-supercritical power plant in China than to build a less efficient coal-fired plant in the United States.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/11/world/asia/11coal.html

Cap and Trade great for economy.... Krugman

2009-05-06T19:54:00.000-07:00

So it’s important to understand that just as denials that climate change is happening are junk science, predictions of economic disaster if we try to do anything about climate change are junk economics.

Yes, limiting emissions would have its costs. As a card-carrying economist, I cringe when “green economy” enthusiasts insist that protecting the environment would be all gain, no pain.

But the best available estimates suggest that the costs of an emissions-limitation program would be modest, as long as it’s implemented gradually. And committing ourselves now might actually help the economy recover from its current slump.

nyt

Opportunities for Dyesol in Low Carbon Society

2009-05-05T16:36:00.000-07:00

KEY POINTS

Dyesol Limited was invited as a delegate to the recent G8 Environment Ministers meetings in Italy
International Energy Agency (IEA) identified that the built environment utilises over 40% of all global energy
World Bank stated that an Energy Revolution is needed to arrest climate change
IEA stated that the two preferred technical approaches to arresting growth of carbon intensity are energy efficiency and renewable energy
Dyesol DSC technology was presented as the opportunity to combine energy efficiency and renewable energy in building products
During April the G8 Environment Ministers have met in Siracusa in Italy to consider initiatives for protecting the environment including moves to create a low carbon society through reducing growth of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere. Dyesol was invited to represent Australian industry and 3rd generation solar at the High Level Forum in Trieste from 2-4 April and at the industry session in Siracusa on 22 April. Dyesol was represented by Dr Gavin Tulloch, Managing Director Global.

As a panellist in Trieste and a delegate in Siracusa, Dr Tulloch had the opportunity to present the advantages of DSC technology in ameliorating global climate change as well as presenting Dyesol to the world forum. Other companies invited to Siracusa included GE, Westinghouse, Mitsubishi, ENEL, Areva, ERG, Shell, Edison, BMW, Tata, while leading first generation solar company, Sharp, and second generation solar leader, First Solar, were panellists with Dyesol in Trieste.

The meetings considered and commented on two key papers by IEA (‘Ensuring Green Growth in a Time of Economic Crisis: The Role of Energy Technology’) and World Bank (‘Financing Technology to support low-carbon and climate resilient growth’).

The emphasis of the claims and recommendations of these authoritative papers are:

Well over $200B must be invested per annum to ensure that atmospheric carbon concentration does not rise significantly above 550ppm by 2020.
The effects of climate change would be far more serious to the world economy than the current global financial crisis if unaddressed.
Current energy solutions are inadequate to the task and an ‘Energy Revolution’ is essential.
Major energy users include the built environment (>40% of global energy use) and transport (~16%).
In the next ten years the preferred methods for reducing carbon intensity are energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Developing nations will have to play an increasing role in technology led reduction of carbon intensity.
Governments must increase investment in R&D, Demonstration and Deployment to seed the introduction of new low carbon technologies at the pre-commercial stage.
Public/Private partnerships are a preferred means for government investment both in developed and developing countries.

During presentations and discussions, Dr Tulloch provided the following information about Dyesol’s DSC technology and products:

The credible means to address energy intensity in the built environment are energy efficiency and solar power.
DSC steel-based panels and glass façade panels incorporate energy efficiency as an inherent feature of the product design.
DSC building products not only produce energy at the point of use but also save substantial energy and additional capital cost through avoiding distribution.
Regulation, using a model similar to that enforced for cigarette smoking, can create a common approach by different jurisdictions to energy management in the built environment.
Dyesol’s model of public/private partnerships, as evidenced, for example, by the partnership with Corus (Tata) and the Welsh Assembly Government is a very good model that assures access to technology and markets.
DSC technology has very low embodied energy compared to other sources of renewable energy, so implementation of DSC is a low carbon intensity commercially viable activity.
DSC technology has a low cost of implementation and can be modular so is affordable for developing countries as well as developed countries in which Dyesol operates.
Dyesol’s model for licensing/partnerships can provide manufacturing technology and hence economic growth to developing countries while maintaining materials technology under Dyesol’s control.
Dyesol’s DSC technology is directed to achieving grid parity for built environment products through combining energy efficiency with point of use renewable energy.

For further information contact Gavin Tulloch on +61 (0) 2 6299 1592.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Note to editors
The Technology – DYE SOLAR CELLS

Dyesol Commentary and Update – 3rd Quarter 2009

2009-04-28T19:35:00.000-07:00

Highlights
Retains strong cash position – over $6.1 Million cash on hand
Burn rate drops by 24%
Revenue growth of over 70% re FY 2008
Cash inflows maintained
Operational expenditure prioritised to projects
Low capital expenditure
Solid order book for 4th Quarter and beyond
No debt
Now, three quarters through FY 2009, a year in which nearly all industrial companies have suffered a drastic drop in revenue and substantial reduction of cash, Dyesol continues to achieve revenue growth, with income at the end of the 3rd Quarter being 70% greater than that achieved for the whole FY2008. Meanwhile the company has substantially reduced cash burn rate while maintaining excellent progress on all projects. By the key measure of operational cash burn, Dyesol has reduced its expenditure by nearly $1M in the quarter, a reduction of 24% in burn. During the quarter, the company met another key milestone in our partnership project with Corus and announced the first stage commitments from projects in Korea and Turkey – moving the company closer to full commercialisation. Last week, at the Dyesol sponsored conference in Nara, Japan, attended by a record 250 delegates, Dyesol announced the achievement of over 12% efficiency for an industrial size tandem cell – demonstrating that the company is also expanding and strengthening its IP portfolio.

At the end of the quarter Dyesol has $6.137M at bank and continues to have no debt. The monthly burn rate for the quarter averaged $560K indicating that cash reserves are close to one year of operations. The employment levels at Dyesol are now steady as we have completed expansion of the team in the UK to meet the accelerated project schedule. Further business expansion in other jurisdictions will depend on additional funds being secured from partners, government or investors.

In investment activities, as announced in the previous quarter, Dyesol has continued to reduce expenditure on capital equipment as nearly all requirements for current projects have been committed.

Dyesol still holds all its cash as current deposits in top trading banks in Australia (CBA and Westpac/St George), UK (HSBC), Switzerland (Raiffeisen), Singapore (HSBC) and Italy (BPM).

During the quarter the company also confirmed supplier collaborations in Europe and commenced evaluation of outsourcing of equipment manufacture to specialist international equipment engineers, in order to reduce the need for further capital expansion.

The fourth quarter will bring further operating cash inflows from sales of services and equipment in Asia and Europe, growing materials sales and substantial grant payments in UK. Operational and investment cash flows are forecast to remain steady.

Dyesol enters the final quarter of FY2009 confident that the company will continue to grow through the current financial crisis and will be well placed to serve what the IEA and World Bank refer to as the Energy Revolution that could dominate industrial growth for the coming decades. Dyesol is well placed to address the worlds largest energy demand, the built environment due to the fact that our technology and products can operate in any light conditions and at any angle to the sun – a Unique Selling Proposition USP for Dyesol’s Dye Solar Cells.

Economic survivalists take root

2009-04-18T23:14:00.000-07:00

By Judy Keen, USA TODAY
When the economy started to squeeze the Wojtowicz family, they gave up vacation cruises, restaurant meals, new clothes and high-tech toys to become 21st-century homesteaders.

Now Patrick Wojtowicz, 36, his wife Melissa, 37, and daughter Gabrielle, 15, raise pigs and chickens for food on 40 acres near Alma, Mich. They're planning a garden and installing a wood furnace. They disconnected the satellite TV and radio, ditched their dishwasher and a big truck and started buying clothes at resale shops.

PHOTO GALLERY: A survivalist family

"As long as we can keep decreasing our bills, we can keep making less money," Patrick says. "We're not saying this is right for everybody, but it's right for us."

Hard times are creating economic survivalists such as the Wojtowicz family who are paring expenses by becoming more self-sufficient.

Reviving "almost lost" skills and preparing for tough days make people feel more in control, says Charlotte Richert, consumer sciences educator for Oklahoma State University's Extension Service in Tulsa County.

Karen Gulliver, MBA program chair at Argosy University in Eagan, Minn., expects the movement to grow as the sour economy forces people to reassess priorities. People are asking, "Do I really want to be 100% vulnerable with no self-sufficiency skills if something happens?" she says.

Some signs of the trend:

•Stockpiling. When the stock market drops, orders surge for freeze-dried food, survival kits and emergency supplies, says Nitro-Pak president Harry Weyandt. One best seller: a $3,375 food reserve that feeds four people for three months.

•Gardening. Sales of vegetable seeds and transplants are up 30% from 2008 at W. Atlee Burpee, the USA's largest seed company. The National Gardening Association says 7 million more households will grow food this year than in 2008 — a 19% rise. A book on building root cellars is the top seller at Johnny's Selected Seeds in Winslow, Maine, supervisor Joann Matuzas says.

•Canning. Jarden Corp. says sales of its Ball and Kerr canning and preserving products are up more than 30% from 2008. Sonya Staffan, owner of The Jam and Jelly Lady commercial cannery in Lebanon, Ohio, is offering twice as many classes this year.

•Sewing. More people are learning to sew so they can mend clothes and make home décor, says Rachel Cohen, spokeswoman for SVP Worldwide, owner of sewing-products makers Singer and Husqvarna Viking.

•Relocating. Steve Saltman, general manager of LandAndFarm.com, a national real estate company, says more customers want to "live simply in a less-expensive place." Jonathan Rawles of SurvivalRealty.com says more people moving to rural areas "are specifically worried about economic and social instability."

Patrick Wojtowicz's family decided to transform their lives when his paycheck began to shrink last year. A truck driver, he was spending more time on the road, paying his own expenses while waiting for loads. He disliked being away from home for weeks at a time and worried about losing his job. Melissa Wojtowicz is self-employed and works from home.

Their dual paychecks allowed them to live comfortably, but they weren't satisfied, Patrick says. "We would basically buy stuff to feel good," he says. "When that stuff stopped filling the voids we had, we started analyzing what it was that we were really missing. We were missing being around each other."

The Wojtowiczes made a list of the things they could give up if Patrick quit his job and they relied on Melissa's income. They already lived in a house on property Patrick inherited from his father a few years ago.

Gabrielle "put up enough resistance to qualify as being a teenager," Patrick says, but soon she was reminding her parents to turn off lights to save electricity.

Steps such as that, and keeping the thermostat set on 63 degrees this winter, cut monthly electric bills from $300 to $150, Patrick says. He hunts deer and turkeys. Instead of buying books and going to movies, they visit the library weekly. For Christmas, they got canning gear so they can preserve the food they grow.

"The earn, spend, earn era has come to an end for us," he says on truenorthfound.blogspot.com, their blog. "The idea of living a fuller, more satisfying life seems simple to us now. ... Money, cash, credit, maybe they don't matter. Maybe, just maybe, it is those things that impede our ability to be truly happy."

Whatever happens to the economy, the Wojtowicz family hopes to remain self-sufficient. Instead of spending their tax refund, as they usually did, they used it to pay down debt. They stopped using credit cards and they're trying to build up savings. "I'm working harder than ever," Patrick says, "but it's more satisfying work and ... it's much easier to sleep at night."

http://www.usatoday.com/news/offbeat/2009-04-14-survivalistsinside14_N.htm

Turkey positions for large-scale DSC manufacture

2009-04-16T16:17:00.001-07:00

Dyesol has been engaged by Nesli Dye Solar Cells Enerji Sistemleri Sanayi Ve Ticaret Anonim Sirketi (Nesli) to complete a detailed feasibility study establishing a glass-based DSC volume manufacturing facility in Turkey. Nesli has secured a line of funding for a phased development program, with initial capacity growing in discrete stages to 100,000m2 before expanding to a 500,000m2 manufacturing capability in the subsequent stage. Nesli is supported in the commercialisation by the Turkish Development Bank (Turkiye Kalkinma Bankasi – TKB).

The Contract for Supply with Nesli for this initial phase is valued at €200,000 (approx. AU$400,000) and is part of a potential €60 Million program involving Dyesol providing on-going technical support, production equipment and DSC manufacturing materials. This ensures a long-term strategic relationship between the two companies, continuing demand for Dyesol materials and a defined growth path for the technology.

Gordon Thompson, Dyesol Director, says “The feasibility study provides the launching pad for a long-term strategic relationship which will be a win-win situation for both Nesli and Dyesol in seeding and growing the DSC market in Turkey”. Unal Kazak, Director of Nesli, agrees “The decision to engage the world leaders in the commercialisation of DSC to undertake this study and be our long term partners in a secure relationship is essential to achieve growth targets”.

The advantage of Dyesol’s DSC technology over conventional photovoltaic technology is its lower facility cost, lower energy for manufacture, proportionally higher output of electricity in ambient light conditions, and the ability to directly incorporate it into buildings as passive electricity generators – multifunctional building panels. This is known as BIPV or building integrated photovoltaics.

Global experts meet in Japan to advance industrialisation of Dye Solar Cells

2009-04-16T16:15:00.000-07:00

Sydney, 16 April 2009 – For the first time since its inception in Australia in 2006, the International Conference on the Industrialisation of Dye Solar Cells (DSC-IC 2009) will be held in Asia this year, in Nara, Japan, from April 22 to 24. This is the third International Conference on the Industrialisation of DSC, building on the success of previous DSC-IC conferences in St Gallen, Switzerland and Canberra, Australia.

The strength and growth of the photovoltaic industry in Japan, together with the advancements in Dye Solar Cell (DSC) technology and research within the East Asia region, make this venue the ideal place to bring together leading scientists, technologists and industrialists from the field of DSC.

Following the official opening by Nara Governor Arai, joint conference chairpersons, Professor Shozo Yanagida and Professor Tsutomu Miyasaka, will be joined by over 250 participants, including top academic, institutional, government and industry experts in DSC technology.

Leading experts from around the world spearheading the commercialisation of DSC technology, including Professor Michael Graetzel, Professor Anders Hagfeldt, Professor Laurence Peter, Professor Hironori Arakawa and Dyesol’s Dr Gavin Tulloch and Dr Hans Desilvestro, are just a few of the long list of impressive speakers confirmed for the conference next week.

More than ever, the pace of DSC commercialisation is being dictated by urgent global economic and environmental drivers. As recently as the April G20 meeting in London, governments have demonstrated their commitment to meeting the challenges of global warming through promises of new legislation and policy, thus creating significant new opportunities for DSC technologies. DSC technology is the most advanced of the third generation technologies and promises solutions where other technologies cannot deliver. G8 Environment Ministers meet in Sicily next week to determine how to accelerate the reduction of the worldwide carbon footprint through energy efficiency and low energy renewables such as DSC. .

The advantages of DSC over conventional silicon-based photovoltaic technology are its lower cost, lower embodied energy for both the manufacturing plant and production, greater output of electricity in ambient and low light conditions, and the ability to be directly incorporated into buildings as active electricity generating glass facades and steel roofs – building products that combine energy generation with energy efficiency.

The global solar photovoltaic market was valued at almost US $30 billion in 2008 and is forecast to reach US$100 billion in revenues by 2013.

Dyesol Limited is pleased to be the lead sponsor of the conference.

For further information contact Catherine Gleeson on +61 (0)2 6299 1592.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Note to editors
The Technology – DYE SOLAR CELLS

DSC technology can best be described as ‘artificial photosynthesis’ using an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) and ruthenium dye deposited on glass, metal or polymer substrates. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. Compared to conventional silicon based photovoltaic technology, Dyesol’s technology has lower cost and embodied energy in manufacture, it produces electricity more efficiently even in low light conditions and can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels or metal sheets rather than taking up roof or extra land area.

The Company – DYESOL Limited

Dyesol is located in Queanbeyan NSW (near Canberra) and in August 2005 was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code ‘DYE”). Dyesol manufactures and supplies a range of Dye Solar Cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC. The Company is playing a key role in taking this third generation solar technology out of the laboratory and into the community.

More detail about the company and the technology can be found at: http://www.dyesol.com

More detail about the conference can be found at: http://www.dsc-ic.com

GE, Vestas Lead U.S. Wind Turbine Sales, Taking 56% of Market

2009-04-12T15:47:00.000-07:00

April 12 (Bloomberg) -- General Electric Co. and Vestas Wind Systems A/S, the world’s two largest suppliers of wind turbines, sold a record 4,648 megawatts in the U.S. last year, taking 56 percent of the total market, an industry group said.

Installations rose 58 percent to 8,300 megawatts. Wind turbines accounted for 42 percent of all new generating capacity in the U.S., almost matching the additions of natural gas fueled plants, the Washington-based American Wind Energy Association said today in a statement.

Juno, Florida-based FPL Group Inc.’s NextEra Energy Resources ranked first among companies that install wind turbines, with 25 percent of U.S. generation totaling 25,300 megawatts, enough to power 7 million homes, the group said. That’s about 2.5 percent of total U.S. power supply. The U.S. leads the world in wind-power capacity.

Texas and Iowa have the most wind generation, followed by California and Minnesota. Minneapolis-based Xcel Energy Inc. leads regulated utilities in wind-power production. Minnesota leads the nation in the share of power coming from wind at 7.5 percent.

President Barack Obama set a goal of doubling U.S. renewable energy over three years. Wind turbines are typically the cheapest source of renewable energy.

Employment in the wind industry rose 70 percent from a year ago to 85,000, the trade association said.

GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, retained the lead in largest number of wind turbines installed, with a 43 percent market share, the group said. Randers, Denmark-based Vestas had 13 percent, followed by Siemens AG and Suzlon Energy Ltd. with 9 percent each.

Developers were taking advantage of federal and state incentives to encourage renewable energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Installations this year have stalled as a credit crisis dried up financing, the wind association said.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aU5YTxhhDvIE&refer=home

Progrees at Dye-Timo

2009-03-12T16:37:00.000-07:00

Manufacture of the remaining equipment for the pilot plant for Dyesol-Timo, the Korean joint venture between Dyesol Limited and Timo Technology Co., Ltd, is underway in the Australian factory of Dyesol Limited. Confirmed funding for the equipment comes from the JV and the order exceeds A$500,000 for the supply of equipment and associated services. Dyesol will assist in the commissioning of the total prototype production facility on delivery of this equipment. In addition to the equipment expansion, support provided by the Korean Government allows the addition of seven new technical staff to the team.

This is an important step for Dyesol-Timo, and will accelerate the completion of the product development phase. The additional equipment supplements the existing facilities of Dyesol-Timo, allowing sufficient production capability to finalise product and line design and move the technology towards volume manufacture. Products from the pilot line will be used for test bedding, and evaluation for selected applications. The pilot line will provide the basis for a future larger scale manufacturing facility for selected products resulting from the current development phase.

Renewable energy is an important component of the Technology Development Programme under the auspices of the Ministry of Knowledge Economy of the Korean Government. This progressive step in Korea is an indication of the demand that exists recognising DSC technology as an increasingly important contributor to the solar photovoltaic industry. Continuing research and development by Dyesol in Australia, and with partners in Europe and Asia, cements the Dyesol Group as a leader in the field of DSC technology.

Preparing for a Flood of Energy Efficiency Spending

2009-03-01T15:46:00.000-08:00

By KATE GALBRAITH
Published: February 25, 2009

KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — To the casual eye, the basement of this city’s Firehouse 9 looks like a jumble of old hydrants, Dr Pepper cartons, rakes and random gear. To specialists in energy efficiency, the 1960s-era building is a mess of a different sort: wasteful hot water heaters for the firefighters’ showers, ancient refrigerators and outdated lights.

Wrapping up an elaborate energy audit, Knoxville is about to find out which of 99 city buildings are wasting the most energy. It hopes to begin repairs this summer, just in time to catch a tsunami of federal stimulus money earmarked for such unglamorous tasks as replacing light bulbs and fixing leaky insulation.

Knoxville’s timing is excellent. The city began the arduous work of cataloging deficiencies before the stimulus bill passed, and it is well along in planning its next steps. But experts worry that other beneficiaries, especially cities, are not ready to oversee the huge sums of energy-efficiency money about to come their way.

The money in the bill is enough to pay for a tremendous expansion of efficiency efforts across the country. But as with other parts of the stimulus package, the efficiency plan is creating tension between spending the money quickly, to get rapid economic stimulus, and spending it well, to do the most good over the long run.

“There’s enormous opportunity here for expansion of energy efficiency in this country,” said Lowell Ungar, the policy director for the Alliance to Save Energy, an advocacy group. “But there is certainly the potential for waste.”

President Obama signed the stimulus package into law on Feb. 17, hailing it as a shot of money big enough to help shake the economy from its lethargy while advancing many of his campaign priorities. Accelerating the country’s energy transition is at the top of his list. Many experts in the field agree with him that carefully chosen investments in efficiency will ultimately save more than they cost, by cutting energy bills.

At least $20 billion in the stimulus bill was earmarked for programs like improving the efficiency of government buildings and the homes of poor people, and trying to find better ways to save energy. That is far more, advocates say, than any bill in history. Within a few months, the money is likely to start landing in the bank accounts of thinly staffed state and city agencies that are accustomed to scraping for a dime here, a dollar there.

Utah expects that its state energy office will receive $40 million for energy efficiency, renewable energy and related programs — 123 times the size of the office’s current budget, said Jason Berry, who manages the four-person unit. He is about to go on a hiring spree.

The package contains $5 billion to weatherize low-income homes through the Department of Energy, enough to give the state programs that manage that work 10 to 30 times the money they received last year, said Christina Kielich, a department spokeswoman.

For advocates of this relatively obscure program, “it’s like they finally got to the other side of the desert and it’s pouring rain,” said Seth Kaplan, a vice president of the Conservation Law Foundation, an environmental group.

The stimulus package also contains $4.5 billion to modernize federal buildings and $2.5 billion for research into energy efficiency and renewable energy. The biggest chunk, $6.3 billion, will be distributed by the Energy Department in grants to state and local governments, which can spend the money on things as diverse as thicker window panes for state capitols and rebates for homeowners who change their light bulbs.

Homes and commercial buildings account for 39 percent of national energy consumption. Experts say that improving their efficiency is not only cost-effective but also a good way to reduce the nation’s emissions of the greenhouse gases that cause global warming.

But figuring out how to spend the money effectively — learning which university buildings need their doors caulked, for example, or which firehouse walls have insulation that is too thin — can involve time-consuming, tricky analysis by skilled technicians.

“People are very conservative about their buildings,” said Donald Gilligan, the president of the National Association of Energy Service Companies, a trade group. “Nobody wants to put a failed technology into the school buildings or have the lights not work.”

In Knoxville, a team of auditors hired by the city is spending six months peering into the grimy nooks of fire and police stations and even the convention center, where one employee referred to the downstairs boiler area as a “money-eating room.”

Knoxville — which says the stimulus money may help accelerate or expand its program — hopes to reduce the city’s energy bills as much as 25 percent, and the city is “definitely on the front end of the wave as far as efficiency and municipalities addressing efficiency,” said John Plack Jr., a director of project development for Ameresco, which is conducting the Knoxville energy audit.

In the Southeastern region of the country, where Mr. Plack works, low electricity prices have often made saving energy an afterthought, unlike in California and much of the Northeast. For example, Nashville, nearly 200 miles west of Knoxville, has not conducted an energy audit of its city buildings, though it hopes to use stimulus money to look through its own stock of fire stations and libraries.

“There’s a lot of municipalities out there who are completely unaware this is moving forward,” Mr. Kaplan said, referring especially to smaller cities. “They just don’t have the infrastructure in place to deal with this.”

The Energy Department, which is doling out most of the grants, has been assailed on Capitol Hill for delays in disbursing other types of assistance for clean energy. Ms. Kielich said in an e-mail message that the department hoped efficiency grants would begin flowing to city and state energy offices within 120 days, and that it planned to begin disbursing weatherization money “expeditiously and responsibly.”

On the receiving end, absorbing the huge increase in money for weatherization could be particularly challenging, said Ian Bowles, the secretary of energy and environmental affairs for Massachusetts. Though he contends it can be done, “the weatherization folks are going to have to quintuple their effort in order to put that money out,” he said.

In some cases, the managers of efficiency programs may not need to look far to find ways to spend the money.

In Knoxville, the Community Action Committee, whose operations include helping poor people weatherize their homes, works from a building with a $14,000 monthly utility bill — some of it because of an enormous skylight that lets in too much blistering Tennessee sunshine in the summer.

“It’s embarrassing,” said Barbara Kelly, executive director of the committee. “We do better for our clients than we do for us.”

Manufacturing solar cells as easy as printing money

2009-02-23T17:43:00.000-08:00

PLASTIC solar cells could be fabricated as easily as printing money, according to the CSIRO.
The organisation’s Future Manufacturing Flagship is part of the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC), which is developing flexible, large area, cost-effective, reel-to-reel printable plastic solar cells.
The consortium includes scientists specialising in chemistry, physics and materials science. It will develop the molecular building blocks as a foundation to what the government is calling the ‘solar energy revolution’. It will use polymer technology which is already used in Australian bank notes.
Banknote printing company Securency International has started printing trials, which could see solar cells mass produced cheaply, allows large-area coverage such as on rooftops.
The three year $A12 million VICOSC solar cell project is 50% funded by the Victorian Government through an Energy Technology Innovation Strategy Sustainable Energy Research and Development grant.

link

What would it take to accomplish a “Green Economy?”

2009-01-27T15:59:00.000-08:00

Here is a barely (but increasingly) coherent draft diatribe about sustainability that seeks to slip below the surface platitudes and status quo propaganda. To get a better look at what a first iteration toward sustainability would entail requires an unflinching answer to the question, “What would a true “green economy” require?” If and how a person or institution addresses the real issues tells us a lot, and there is less and less time for equivocation. Most are trapped in the paradigm they claim to try to seek to transcend, supporting “greenwash” enterprises with nothing sustainable but surface that will accomplish little worthwhile but conventional profit (still their principal focus).

Here’s a slogan-revealing, cant-smashing, fluff-exposing look into the hard physical and social science of sustainability. When a person or institution talks about a “green economy,” one can either expose their shallowness or confirm their probity. The superficial and the phonies can’t even enter this conversation, because most have neither the physical nor moral courage to confront the myths and illusions of our time. We as Americans are disadvantaged for entering this conversation because political realism (realpolitic in the rest of the world) is almost unknown in our society since we are genetically biased against it and it’s not taught anywhere.

This diverse material may appear disjointed (it’s not; it’s iterative) and extreme; however, given all that we know about human nature — the history and science of our species, culture, and civilization, this synthesis is the best-fit hypothesis to explain the facts in evidence. It is not about advocacy; it is seeking to accurately describe “what is” so advocacy can be sane and effective.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell (apocryphal)

A “green economy” must, by definition, be sustainable.

That means it cannot manifest a structural commitment to “growth.”

Economic growth has relied on population growth. That cannot continue. This is the most evident (and most disregarded) truth of all: there is not one single social, political, economic, or environmental “problem” that is not exacerbated by more people and alleviated (but not solved) by fewer. When all the problems are regarded together in a system of multiple parallel-and-converging threads, this truth becomes even more obvious. That population pressures are not a major focus for the few sane humans still involved tells us that ideology and denial have totally corrupted political discourse. More on this below...

Ever since the dawn of time, what we now call economic growth has relied on increasing energy use (from eating meat, from burning wood, from domesticated animals, from monoculture agriculture, from coal, from petroleum, from electricity, from…). With Peak Oil, that cannot continue (unless all that space-alien technology escapes from Area 51). Per capita energy use has been declining since 1979.

Growth has implied improving quality-of-life. That has not been happening for 50 years, not even for the elites.

“Peak Oil” is a lot easier to understand, and much more marketable, than the Tragedy of the Commons. Easiest of all, however, is “global warming.” If the IPCC had said, “Cut economic activity by 90%,” instead of “Cut Carbon Dioxide by 90%,” then at least the peak-oilers (if not the ruling Oligarchs) might have gotten a useful message. But what else could anyone expect in a world where politicians and academic economists would rather die than tell the truth? And that’s only partly because they would be assassinated if they did. It is totally contrary to established patterns of ruthlessness, short-sightedness, and self-serving for the established powers to ever pass laws to limit economic activity, thus there is no hope the ruling Oligarchs can maintain their own situation or preserve anyone else.

Oligarchy? A government resting on a valuation of property, in which the rich have power and the poor man is deprived of it.

Plato (428-347 B.C.), The Republic, Book VIII

It gets bad. Peak oil means peak food. The much-vaunted “green revolution” in global food production starting in the 1960s has been as much a black revolution as anything else, with its intensive reliance on petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides, as well as petroleum-based fuels for farming, processing, and distribution. A resource-limited volumetric effect independent of market-force equilibrium will give us “stagflation” in foods, where no amount of new or old money (the medium for expressing demand) will be able to drive an increase in — or even maintain — food production (supply). There just won’t be enough energy to continue to produce and deliver the food we consume now. Entirely aside from supply manipulations such as the Iraq occupation, genuine supply limitations will drive prices up relentlessly, and any significant increase in energy production will require major reallocation of social resources and with it a major rebalancing of economic (and thus political) power.

There will be stagflation on oil and other commodities, as well, which will affect the entire economy with price increases, especially on those unable to increase production. This will be willfully mis-construed in a polity with a culture of denial fueled by “leadership” self-interest. In the general economy, stagflation will challenge the myths and ideology of growth. In the biosphere, stagflation is the new boundary condition.

It gets worse. Peak food means peak people. If you are going to grow more people, it will require more food. If you have less food, you will grow fewer people. If the rate of decrease in food production is faster than the natural death rate, people will begin to starve in large numbers. Population size goes negative, and not without a lot of graceless turmoil (that’s intended as dramatizing understatement). More on this below…

Even if a steady-state economy — an economy neither growing nor shrinking— is accomplished, it might not be sustainable if that state is too demanding of resources (including energy). It’s not just about growth; it’s about size, too. Efficiency of resource use (and re-use) and conservation of energy become of paramount importance on a finite spherical planet.

Two Growth Scenarios with Math

No intentionally sustainable population of animals (including Homo) has ever evolved, nor could one. Evolution doesn’t conserve “individuals,” it conserves “genes.” Here’s a thought scenario to demonstrate what kinds of behaviors will tend to evolve:

Assume that two fundamental "genetic sets" (strains of people) exist in a Pleistocene tribe. For starters, each group is represented by ten mating pairs, for a total of 40 people in the tribe. Further assume that each tribe loses 30% of its population every twenty years due to war, disease, and famine.

Members of Gene Set 1 are intelligent, honest, and forward-looking. The mating pairs in this set only have two children each and limit personal consumption because they know the tribe is over carrying-capacity (many die of starvation). After 20 years, this set has 20 original adults + 20 children = 40 members.

Members of Gene Set 2 are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars, and only care about the present. The mating pairs in this set consume ten times as many resources as the first group and have an average of ten children before the females die of overwork. After 20 years, this set has 10 original adults (the males) + 100 children = 110 members.

A famine kills 30% of the tribe. We assume it affects both Sets equally. Now, Set 1 has only 28 members, while Set 2 has 77 members. The tribe has grown: it now has a total of 105 members. The fraction of Gene Set 1 will continue to shrink through time until it dies out. What kind of people will be selected during this population growth? Obviously, it’s people who are stupid, corrupt, chronic liars, and only care about the present. The ancestors of everyone alive today were selected by a process something like this one (despite all the epi-genetic and environmental variations introduced into the system), with Alpha-clan dominance and resource-sequestration only exacerbating the trend.

Here’s some more math, of an engineering nature: it would take approximately 50% of the entire industrial capacity of our country exclusively focused for 20 years to build the wind-power infrastructure to replace the amount of energy we are deriving now from our principal high-density energy source — petroleum. Similar investments would be required for tapping solar, tide, and other ambient energy flows. What would become of the “growth” conversation under such a regime?

That means that it cannot maintain the extreme resource-use inefficiency of “the market”

A “market” may be efficient at the price mechanism (i.e., efficient in using money, of which, ironically, there is no shortage except in our conditioned habits of thought) were we ever in a market not distorted or manipulated by concentration of power in command-and-control Oligarchs. However, there are no Adam-Smith-type “free” markets anymore, given corporate consolidation and corporate-government convergence and engagement (also known as “fascism”). So “price efficiency” is a meaningless virtue. Thinking mankind will run out of “money” is like thinking we will run out of inches or feet.

The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than their democratic State itself. That, in its essence, is Fascism, ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any controlling private power.

Franklyn Delano Roosevelt, message to Congress, 29 April 1938

Existing markets are 50% to 90% inefficient in resource use. Financially, this “overhead” is the enormous edifice of banks, insurance companies, advertising agencies, and all other institutions associated with money, economic competition, and distribution of resources in terms of money. The most debilitating aspect of this is that the ‘financial sector” actively subtracts significant actual value from the general economy while diluting monetized value through terminal inflation. Physically, included in the overhead is all the “competitive” manufacturing duplication and decentralization of facilities for development and design and manufacture, the absurd losses from “planned obsolescence” and disposability of goods, and the extreme wastefulness and toxicity of industrial processes — made invisible and deniable by externalizing costs (and more on this below). The second-most debilitating corruption of the entire “market system” may be the secondary ideology of “consumerism” and its widespread crippling of social and personal values.

Worse, treating human resources as expendable commodities exemplifies how “market economics” replaces human values with market values (denominated in Dollars, Euros, etc.). Moreover, the act of someone buying a car, going to work, manufacturing or selling anything solely to “make a profit” (rather than serve a personal or social need) is the part of overhead and waste that is generated by vanity and ego. “Profit” is inherently inefficient, as one look at the American health-care system will show.

Profit is a penalty.

Joseph Schumpeter, an economist of the Austrian School

Military redundancy is another example of profitable inefficiency. Yet another is modern food production: the 20th-century industrialization of agriculture has increased the amount of greenhouse gases emitted by the food system by an order of magnitude; chemical fertilizers (made from natural gas), pesticides (made from petroleum), farm machinery, modern food processing and packaging and transportation have together transformed a system that in 1940 produced 2.3 calories of food energy for every calorie of fossil-fuel energy it used into one that now takes 10 calories of fossil-fuel energy to produce a single calorie of modern supermarket food.

A green economy must abandon the conventional “market ideology,” and since that is simply politics by another name (and how Our Neo-feudal Lords and Masters manipulate us), to accomplish a “green economy” we must fundamentally change the operating basis of our polity, and evolve the cultural and personal values driving it.

That means that it cannot continue to hide its inefficiencies and distortions by shifting costs to unmonetarized “externalities” and hiding them outside an artificially closed financial system

The economy is a wholly-owned subsidiary of nature. A green economy must internalize all closed-system costs and benefits, and expand the boundaries of that system to include the entire planet. “Natural Capital” must become as important (or more) than Capital.

Economists in particular, for the most part, have failed to come to grips with the ultimate consequences of the transition from the open to the closed earth.

Kenneth Boulding, 1966

It must also stop monetarizing social, personal, and spiritual values, and must give equal (or greater) priority to non-monetarizable human and ecological values. Not everything can be valued in currency, and currency-value cannot adequately reflect human priorities.

…untrammeled intensification of laissez-faire capitalism and the spread of market values to all areas of life are endangering our open and democratic society.

George Soros, 1997

The cost of energy must be measured in terms of energy (ERoEI — “energy returned on energy invested”) instead of “money,” and applied in a right-sized steady-state “economy” in a new form of cooperative “systems” government — explicit political decisions not based on concentrating wealth, but actually dedicated to the common good (a good made more attainable through reducing population as one of many parallel threads).

Some of the ideas of the Imperial Chinese system look attractive (although not totally attractive) to advance the common good. Late Imperial Chinese government maintained a viable self-myth as a “meritocracy” and it was known as “examination hell.” Morals (Confucian, et al.) were taught to everyone — especially the political leadership, in a classic example of Alpha socialization-indoctrination. Principle-based leadership is a long-term survival strategy to stabilize an ecosystem of fractious factions of the Oligarchy. The English aristocracy of the 18th and 19th centuries is another example. This is not understood by the Proles, who don’t think dynastically, and whose minds are consumed with visions of their next wife or speedboat or fix.

The Chinese Imperial system was in principle almost the opposite of our “everything for sale” government and society. We, on the other hand, have gotten greedy, using petroleum to exploit the past, and monetization and debt to exploit the future.

That means that it cannot continue to use a debt-financed currency in a central-bank-controlled system

The global so-called “fiat” currency system is inherently unsustainable and unstable, requiring pyramid and Ponzi manipulation, endless dilution with “new” money levered off existing debt, and periodic re-initializing by the feudal elites (the “economic cycle”). It totally distorts all relationships between wealth, power, and value, concealing facts of political governance behind the religiosity of economic “science.” This debt system requires “growth” in the Dollar-value of assets to absorb the increase in the number of monetary units and conceal the structural inflation (which the government must under-report) that is necessary for the system to work for its owners, our neo-feudal Lords and Masters.

Let me issue and control a nation’s money and I care not who writes the laws.

Mayer Amschel Rothschild, 1790 (apocryphal)

We need to dispel the notion that somehow Government is in control of money-making. The banks create money for the benefit of their owners, the already-rich Lords and Masters. They are not acting as a shill for Government; governments have completely ceded this power to them. We also need to dispel is the myth that there is any significant difference between major private banks and government doing the printing. The upshot is the same, very few people controlling the system, making new money from nothing, and not distributing it evenly (seigniorage, dilution, and “riding down the multiplier”). Money is “created” when a fractional-reserve bank makes a loan; in other words, our “money” is backed by debt — mortgage debt, consumer debt, “national” debt, corporate debt, currency debt, debt on debt, debt on debt on debt. There is no “money,” there is only debt.

If the American People ever allow the banks to control the issuance of their currency, first by inflation and then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers occupied. The issuing power of money should be taken from the bankers and restored to Congress and the people to whom it belongs. I sincerely believe the banking institutions having the issuing power of money are more dangerous to liberty than standing armies.

Thomas Jefferson, Third President of the United States (1743-1826)
(Letter to James Monroe, January 1, 1815)

Debt is “discharged” by rolling over into new debt (which defines “new” “money” as the interest accumulates), not paid or “redeemed” with representative value (labor-productivity, precious metals, commodities, etc.). This represents a limitless increase in claims against finite planetary resources. The tremendous volume of such debt cannot be redeemed.

The End-Game of Irredeemable Debt

Established economics ignores the effect of irredeemable debt (as opposed to redeemable currency) on productivity. It watches debt per GDP and is happy as long as this ratio stays below 100% by a fair amount. However, what should be watched is the ratio of additional debt to additional GDP.

The increase in GDP brought about by the addition of new debt to the economy is called the marginal productivity of debt. That ratio is the only one that matters in judging the quality of debt. After all, the purpose of contracting debt is to increase productivity. If debt volume rises faster than national productivity, big trouble is brewing, but only the marginal productivity of debt is capable of revealing it.

Precipitous decline

Before 1971, the introduction of one Dollar of new debt used to increase the GDP by as much as three Dollars or more. Since 1971, this ratio started its precipitous decline that has continued to this day without interruption. It went negative in 2006, forecasting the financial crisis that is breaking now. The reason for the decline is that irredeemable debt causes capital destruction. It adds nothing to the per-capita quota of capital invested in aid of production. Indeed, it may take away from it. As leveraged debt displaces real capital (which represents the deployment of more material and better tools), productivity declines. The laws of physics, unlike human beings, cannot be conned. Irredeemable debt can only create make-believe capital.

By confusing capital and credit, economics obliterates facts of nature. It conceals the cost of running the debt-breeding merry-go-round. It makes capital destruction invisible. The stock of accumulated capital supporting world production, large as it may be, is not inexhaustible on a finite planet. When it is exhausted, the music stops and the merry-go-round comes to a halt. It does not happen everywhere all at the same time, but it must happen everywhere sooner or later.

The marginal productivity of debt is an unimaginative taskmaster. It insists that new debt be justified by a minimum increase in the GDP. Otherwise capital destruction follows, a vicious process of deflation preceded by rampant inflation as more and more debt-based "money" is pumped into the system to shore it up (until it collapses).

At first, there are no signs of trouble. If anything, the picture looks rosier than ever. But the seeds of destruction inevitably, if invisibly, have sprouted and will at some point paralyze further growth and production. To deny this is tantamount to denying the most fundamental laws of our known universe — the law of conservation of energy and matter and its handmaiden, the second law of thermodynamics.

The minions of the Oligarchs who run the banking system can only temporarily deny and defy that natural law. In service of their Lords and Masters’ power, they are leading a blind crowd of mesmerized people to the brink where momentum may sweep most of them to their financial destruction. Yet not one university economics department in the world has issued a warning, and not one court of justice has allowed indictments to be heard from individuals and institutions charging that the issuance of irredeemable debt is a crude form of fraud, and calling for the punishment of those apparently responsible, whether in the government, in the central bank, or elsewhere. Although entirely predictable (economists are High Priests within the Oligarchic system, and judges are employed to regulate it), their behavior in this regard could not be more reprehensible and unsustainable. Rather than acting to protect a universal common good, they act as chattel servants of their Patrons to advance and conceal further power concentration by the already mighty.

The marginal productivity from additional debt is exactly analogous to Joseph Tainter's notion of "marginal productivity from increases in complexity" presented in The Collapse of Complex Societies (Cambridge, 1988). As complexity advances linearly, the cost of maintaining it increases exponentially. The energy cost of additional complexity returns less and less productivity, which eventually goes negative (as does the marginal productivity of additional debt). Society begins to fall apart in both cases, and that accelerates. Having both at once contributes to a Perfect Storm of change that is intensified by global climate change and Peak Oil.

Growth and complexity have always been fueled by more and more matter and, more important, more and more energy (from meat, wood, slaves, domesticated animals, wind, monoculture agriculture, coal, petroleum, electricity, etc.). When existing complexity is no longer supported by energy sufficiency, and “money” growth can no longer maintain energy (and material) production, society collapses (as it has so many times in history), blind-sided, in our case, by an ideological commitment to "growth."

Anyone who believes exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.

Kenneth Boulding, Economist

The inconspicuous beginnings of irredeemable debt have blossomed into a colossal edifice, a complex inverted pyramid of debt precariously balanced on a tiny and ever-shrinking foundation of real material value.

Increases or decreases in the level of money supply are thought to influence the level of production in the economy. However, this is true only if the ‘externals’ to the economy — i.e., sources of energy from outside of the money circle — are constant. When the availability of energy changes, the economy changes in ways not correctable by manipulations of the money supply.

H.T. Odum in A Survey of Ecological Economics, Krishnan, Harris, and Goodwin, editors, Island Press, 1995, page 205

This pyramid could remain stable as long as there was unlimited inexpensive energy (or, at least, the illusion or promise of such energy) and material to represent at least some value in all that debt. Complexity requires energy to maintain, much less expand. When the marginal energy cost of energy goes negative, there is no amount of "money" (whether as irredeemable debt or as gold-backed currency) that can produce it. The same applies to material goods.

So "money" (as the notion is used today) cannot be made "sustainable." Either:

Money is "limited" (pegged to gold or some other commodity) and ultimately in such short supply that it leads to war over resources and power (World War One, c.f., Karl Polyani).

OR

Money is "unlimited" (a central-bank debt-based “fiat” currency) and ultimately in such oversupply that it causes hyperinflation and leads to war over resources and power (World War Two, c.f., Weimar Republic, Adolf Hitler, and now...).

Next is more war to eliminate excess population and prop the "money" system in place (and with it, its owners’ grip on power) as long as humanly possible.

The Straw Dogs are Paper Tigers

“War” is politics by another name. (von Clauswitz)
“Economics” is politics by another name. (Hazel Henderson)
“Sociology” is politics by another name. (Jay Hanson)
“Political Science” is politics by another name. (Alexander)

None of those is “science” at all; they are components of a neo-feudal confusion-and-control system. One must not call economics a creationalist cult, one must instead refer to it as Darwinian and scientific — survival of the “economically fittest.”

Economics is a “social construction.” Humans did not co-evolve with money or markets. There were no economists in the Pleistocene, nor “money.” There were “politics,” defined as “getting people to do things.” Since humans did not evolve with a “medium of exchange” (except, perhaps, meat for sex), no a priori reason exists for us to have a monetary system and all that it entails.

Economics was invented by rich and powerful Oligarchs to serve their own interests. Just look to see what institutions hire economists to see the truth of this. Economics professors and economists are professional dis-information agents who claim that “money” is just a “medium of exchange.” In a society where even the formal political system floats on a sea of money, this lie can’t even pass the “straight face” test.

If economics, money, and the monetary system were invented by our rich and powerful Lords and Masters, why did they do it? Obviously, for political purposes — to make the rest of the world do their bidding without the uncertainties of more literal forms of force. It also makes it easier for the competitive factions of the Oligarchy to cooperate when advantageous (i.e., when extracting and concentrating wealth from the productivity of the rest of us).

Money to gain Power; Power to protect Money.

Medici Family Motto (apocryphal)

Thus, economics, the financial system, and money became a “hidden political system” that pretends to be something else. It’s the perfect political system for the Oligarchs, who make political decisions that effect us all, are not held responsible for those decisions, and get others to pay for them with their earnings and their lives. Obviously, the Oligarchs do not want a one-person, one-vote political system (a “republic” or “democracy”) when they can have a one-dollar, one-vote political system (an “economy”).

It is natural that the country whose theories of government are the most unrealistic in the world should develop the greatest and most powerful sub rosa political machinery.

Thurman W. Arnold

Karl Polanyi in The Great Transformation (1944) thought the “key step” was to overturn the belief that social life should be subordinated to the market mechanism. Once free of this “obsolete market mentality,” the path would be open to subordinate both national economies and the global economy to democratic politics based on “human values.”

Whole dimensions of what it means to be a human being and be treated as one are not incorporated into the economic calculus of capitalism.

Peter F. Drucker, Managing in the Next Society

Originally, corporate charters were not “to make a profit at any lawful purpose;” they were to accomplish some semi-governmental task (with political overtones for the ruling elite) like “pacify” colonial subjects, build public works that would require much capital and promised to generate revenues, and do things that could be “plausibly deniable.” General share ownership among the elites has distributed and diluted (if not outright concealed) responsibility and accountability.

Rather than quarrel about booty, owners could share even more wealth by concentration and collaboration outside a zero-sum game. “Economic change” may actually be “regime change” with attendant violence and blood (however artfully obscured) if driven to occur before it happens naturally from evolving culture-change. Since economics is just politics by other means, then a Steady State Economy must actually be†an expression of Steady State Politics (or some steady-state social equilibrium). What that would mean in practice in our post-modern world is a great mystery, but when there is true “green power,” there will be a “green economy.”

Red is the Opposite of Green

Our rich and powerful Lords and Masters are animated by, and indoctrinate us in, a form of religion whose god is the unencumbered self-regulating market. Economic historian Deborah Redman explains:

Because the order of nature is providential, the free market that reflects natural order also reflects the workings of providence. In this way the spheres of morality, theology, jurisprudence, and economics become hostages to nature, so to speak.

The Rise of Political Economy as a Science, Deborah Redman; MIT,
1997, page 237

Like all gods, this economic god is an abstraction; it doesn’t actually exist. Nevertheless, we evolved to fight and die for this economic god just like a suicide bomber fights and dies for his God. In essence, Western elites are missionaries with the biggest and best weapons.

Even though scientists and philosophers have been pointing out inherent flaws in our economic god for over a hundred years, we have been — and will remain — stuck in a tight loop that goes something like this:

First, Western elites demand a world organized around the god of self-regulating markets:

All over the globe, we have recently witnessed a return to religious fundamentalism. In my view, the return to the equilibrium price-auction model in economics represents a parallel development — a desire for psychological certainty in a world that is, in the last instance, uncertain. (page xix)

No discipline except economics attempts to make the world act as it thinks the world should act.†But of course what Homo sapiens does and what Homo economicus should do are often quite different.†That, however, does not make the basic model wrong, as it would in every other discipline.†It just means that actions must be taken to bend Homo sapiens into conformity with Homo economicus.†So, instead of adjusting theory to reality, reality is adjusted to theory. (page 21)

Lester C. Thurow, Dangerous Currents: The State of Economics, Random, 1983

When the failures of self-regulation of these markets become intolerable problems, elites blame outside “interference:”

There is at the core of the celebration of markets a relentless tautology. If we begin, by assumption, with the premise that nearly everything can be understood as a market and that markets optimize outcomes, then everything else leads back to the same conclusion — marketize! If, in the event, a particular market doesn’t optimize, there is only one possible inference: it must be insufficiently marketlike. This epistemological sleight of hand is an astonishing blend that blurs the descriptive with the normative. It is a no-fail system for guaranteeing that theory trumps evidence. Should some human activity not, in fact, behave like an efficient market, it must be the result of some interference that should be removed or a stubborn human refusal to appreciate markets. It cannot possibly be that the theory fails to specify accurately how human behavior works.

Everything for Sale, Robert Kuttner; Knopf, 1997, page 6

Our Lords and Masters then demand that governments and central banks mitigate these intolerable problems by cutting interest rates, providing bailouts, regulating every aspect of society, and if necessary, going to war to maintain the grip of fear of the “Other” and their own grip on power. This caused World Wars One and Two. Our “leaders” are now talking about World War Three. They are seeing red, and intend to have more wars, because they have developed a cultural and psychological “war technology” that advances their agenda and effectively deceives all but the Oligarchs.

Taxes are not raised to carry on wars, wars are raised to carry on taxes.

Thomas Paine (apocryphal)

With State-against-State wars now superceded by culture and economic wars (because the States themselves are chattel to the Oligarchy, with a few notable regional and cultural exceptions), the Wars on Poverty, Drugs, Cancer, Terror, ..., and ... are all systematically designed to perpetuate its “enemy,” and perpetuate the livelihood of the warriors engaged in an enforced stable equilibrium with that enemy, while providing grist for media manipulation as “public policy” is defined and re-defined to generate huge profits for the owners and controllers of the corporations involved. This is intensified by “privatization:”

Vietnam showed us that foreign wars don’t end when the invader can no longer fight, but when the invasion is no longer profitable.

Greg Palast

After any one (or set of) these intolerable problems have been mitigated or equilibrated, we all go back to the first step and initiate a new subject-matter loop, whose subject is some enterprise the Oligarchs wish to strengthen their hold over — a new “War on Whatever.” One man’s conspiracy is another man’s business plan.

The War on “Global Warming” and “Climate Change”

Given the unsettled science and the clear energy-budgets, all the frenzy about reducing greenhouse-gas emissions is incremental window-dressing to advance one element in a strange pervasive emotional climate of fear-shock and denial-numbness, and to advance yet another layer of taxation (the “carbon tax,” for wealth re-allocation), manipulation (a marketing fad for more profits and maintenance of monopolies), and political control (from aligning hysteria), in addition to all the other successful such gambits. It is not substantive; it is pocket-media and customized hype.

This “global warming” hysteria is another triumph of pre-scientific Positivism: using mathematical models to predict outcomes we desire, independent of complexity-confusion and adequate data. As Milton Friedman wrote in 1953 in a different but analogous context (economics):

To be important, therefore, a hypothesis must be descriptively false in its assumptions.

In other words, to have any predictive value at all, a model of a complex non-linear open system (such as a national economy or a planetary climate) must be so oversimplified and constrained by its simplifying assumptions, arbitrary parameters, and artificial boundary conditions that it will no longer reflect reality. In the Fifties, “chaos math” had not yet been developed, and still hasn’t penetrated into the agenda-bound mainstream. It provides us a deeper insight than Friedman’s that such predictions are wish-fulfillment masquerading as science — “confirmation bias” made all the easier when an audience is habituated to believe in what it thinks “science” is, has no training or experience in rigorous critical thinking, or has some social advantage to gain thereby. Yes, we certainly can manifest confirmation bias in science, but we have been alerted to it and are not pretending it’s not a distraction (whence peer review…).

There is a very real benefit to the commons of this frenzy: a reduction in use of finite energy (and other) resources, largely through greater efficiency in conventional modes of use. The benefit to its orchestrators is greater concentration of wealth and more solidly entrenched political control through even greater control of essential resources.

The Hypocrisies of Desperation

There is actually something like a consensus among most of the modern “conservative” Statists that “Our most basic civil liberty is the right to be kept alive.” Note the passive voice: “...to be kept alive” (by someone else, that is, by the government, that is, to serve the interests of its owners, and yours). Hardly a self-responsible, self-empowered ethic.

That’s a very long way from “Give me liberty or give me death,” one of the mythological slogans of rebellious “democracy.” The “culture of life” as the theocons call it does not, alas, mean a deep respect for human life, from cradle to grave, with prudence as the guide to the grayest areas at the very beginning and very end of life. It has come to mean an absolutism with respect to maintaining life and survival — even to the point of absurdity, as in the Terri Schiavo case or opposition to RU486. And to the other wing of today’s conservatism — the authoritarian wing — it means sacrificing basic liberties (such as habeas corpus) and basic moral principles (such as the prohibition on torture). But it remains a staggering sign of how so-called conservatism has abandoned what were once its core principles, and shamelessly manipulates fear of terrorism and adherence to religious fundamentalism.

If the right to be kept alive by the government is the single most important civil liberty, then there are no other civil liberties. If the government’s primary job is keeping people alive, then anything which can be potentially perceived as dangerous to life can be prohibited and “warred-on:” “dangerous” speech, “dangerous” press coverage, the habeas corpus rights of “dangerous prisoners” held without trial, “dangerous” property rights like the right to buy or sell “dangerous” products (i.e., guns, drugs, cigarettes, McDonald’s, etc.). And this says nothing of the socialist implications of such an ethos, since the “right to be kept alive” by the government necessarily implies that the government must provide its chattels free proprietary healthcare, free proprietary education, free food, free water, and free anything that would tend to “improve” and preserve an individual’s life. Anything short of death, then, becomes a small price to pay to be maintained, in effect, as the property of the State. This harks back to royal families owning the State and its chattel subjects. This “ownership,” explicit or implicit, overt or covert, is an essential feature of both traditional and neo-feudalism. As one illustration, why, then, is suicide illegal?

Any general instinct to sustainability, then, becomes lost in an irresponsible ideology of immediate gain (“Bread and Circuses,” wives and boats and various fixes) and obsession with an ultimate “Rapture” that obviates all worldly considerations.

Human rights are more important than national security. After all, what is national security for, if not to secure human rights? The Constitution of the united States of America lists the rights that the nation was intended to preserve — against, incidentally, an assault from the same sort of government that would have us abandon human rights for “national security,” while in fact its main interest is in preserving the power and increasing the wealth of its owners. So it contrives a campaign of hype and fear, and shocks and indoctrinates its people to obey its dictates for the chimerical promise of security. Sadly, it believes its own lies, and implodes into manic self-delusion (except, perhaps, for a few ruthless architects at the helm) in direct proportion to its religiosity. One should never underestimate the power of genetically mediated inter-personal and tribal automatic behaviors (algorithms), both at the Alpha top and the servile bottom.

[Statist, Islamist, Christianist, Marketist... are all a metaphor for each other, and all are identities and beliefs that are manipulated by ruthless factions whose sole motivation is power at any cost.

The principal function of modern government is to keep people apart.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)]

Human values are more important than market values. “Economics” is the religion of the modern corporate State, and the new opiate of the masses — even for those already narcotized by other fundamentalisms. Statist Oligarchs rely on religiosity (the pretense of objectified external absolute authority — the automaton behind the curtain of Oz) whatever its form or content, and are not shy to layer it on. Ironically, religion originated out of authoritarian tribal power dynamics, so marketism and traditional religion are natural feudal bedfellows, especially in their Statist denominations. This is ironic because of the legitimate pretensions and aspirations of political philosophy and of spirituality. Add corporatist prelates of the marketist religion owning the government (“just another corporation”) and its chattel “citizens” (or, now, “consumers”), and one has a neo-feudal fascism committed to concentrating wealth and power in as few hands as possible, as ruthlessly as Alphas have ever propagated their own agenda in history, and with more serfs than ever convinced they are “free.”

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.
The truth has been kept from the depth of their minds by masters who rule them with lies.
They feed them on falsehoods ‘till wrong looks like right in their eyes.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832)

Cartago Delenda Est

Cato the Elder was a patrician member of one of the Alpha clans of the hereditary Roman Senatorial class, and in a position to have private armies and navies at his command to take advantage of State-mandated “wars.” He was also in a position to drive those wars politically, by selling off pieces of the not-yet-vanquished “enemy” to other patrician Oligarchs acting collectively as “The State,” with the Equestrian and Proletarian taxpayers of Rome heavily subsidizing the patricians’ efforts to accomplish conquest and governorship as representatives of Rome, to loot the kingdom until they got replaced politically in the Senate (or, later, and similarly, at the imperial Court), militarily as part of a dynastic coup, or by assassination covert or overt.

Some Roman Oligarchs so fully filled their most wildly imagined coffers that they become conflicted and inclined to disengage the fray (if not outright inbred and decadent), making them even easier prey for the next, hungrier band of ever-more-ruthless brigands.

The same thing is happening now over the oil-rich Middle East, as one dynastic clan or multi-clan Oligarchic faction exploits a credulous “nation” of ignorant and naive people blocked emotionally and neurologically near a mean emotional developmental age of two-to-three years.

Grown men do not need leaders.

Edward Abbey, A Voice Crying in the Wilderness (Vox Clamantis in Deserto)

Diluting the Dollar to death is just setting up for the next regional “fiat” currency, the “Amero,” owned by the next ascendant faction of Oligarchs, positioning its own currency so they will have complete mastery of the polity. Not only have they evolved to define State policy and sequester State resources for their own purposes, but to negotiate a relatively bloodless transition from one top-Clan to another in decline.

Whosoever controls the volume of money in any country is absolute master of all industry and commerce ... and when you realise that the entire system is very easily controlled, one way or another, by a few powerful men at the top, you will not have to be told how periods of inflation and depression originate.

U.S. President James A. Garfield

Chinese Imperial policy docked noble families one level of rank per generation unless they maintained or advanced their rank by playing by the Emperor’s rules. This is the original meaning, the etymology, of the word “disparaged.” The first thing a faction or Clan does when it comes to power is block the pathway or loophole which they exploited to gain their power (so no-one else can come up their base, given that all the prior ruling Clans had each blocked their approaches). The last thing they do is loot the kingdom on the way out (unless they’ve been finessed or blocked). Gradually, every aspect the entire polity becomes locked down under control of one faction or another.

And this ritual goes way back to primate bands in the forest and savanna: in their natural settings, silverback gorillas and hoary chimpanzees have been seen running the same basic scam — hyping-up fear of a bordering band of “others,” and then defusing actual conflict through “safe” Alpha-culture conventions while appearing to their band to be “defeating” that “other” band (and exchanging genes through slavery, which also was the principal vector for cultural and technological diffusion). Competing Alpha Clans (“factions” of the Oligarchy) conspire together (“coopetition”) to maintain in “the people” the illusion of external “warfare” to maintain their primary position through fear and covert internal “class warfare” against everyone else (and each other when expedient). This is a significant evolutionary behavioral and cultural advance over the silverbacks who had to run solo with their flock of females and offspring.

Such archetypal primate-band patterned behavior is certainly poly-genetically mediated. It’s a great example of evolutionary psychology (or “behavioral genetics) at play — algorithms deeply embedded in our entire human reality.

This behavior-pattern is just as genetic-derived-impulse-driven now as then, with that impulse at least 800,000 years in evolutionary development (more likely a few million), with barely 4000 years of civilization’s re-conditioning unable to overcome the inbred power of both the aggressive Alphas’ impulses to command, and the impulse in a different population, the herd, the flock, the band, the Proles, to submit and obey. Or else. Breeding matters, and please note that is an Alpha-vocabulary word, not a proletarian one.

The only fundamental difference between this atavistic situation and modern society is that the serfs in a traditional feudal system knew they were serfs, while in our neo-feudal system the serfs believe they are free.

The collective mind of the serf class with its politically correct belief-structures has imploded itself with the self-delusion that they are “surrendering” of their own free will to be “kept alive” by the State, and so it’s not a loss of integrity or sovereignty and degrees of freedom. The cognitive mind cannot experience the difference between “submit” and “surrender,” although it can certainly spin symbological froth and frenzy ad infinitum.

The purpose behind any action is to feel something or to avoid feeling something. When a being is motivated by avoidance to feeling something, he acts out of fear. Fear will eventually move one into this intellectual level, where symbols have been substituted for feelings. Feelings are no longer safe. People who have the purpose to create feel; people who have the purpose to avoid feeling think.

The most creative people not only feel, but they can translate feelings into symbols that will arouse feelings in another. In answer, the one who is avoiding feeling often imagines the creative person is enforcing feeling on him, and he usually counters with some act of resistance. This causes suffering.

What is the meaning of life? Life is. Life doesn’t come with a meaning. You can study the symbols or you can go out and feel alive.

Harry Palmer, Avatar

So “Iran delenda est” is nothing new on the face of the Earth, nothing new at all. In fact, this entire story is thousands of years in developing. Its contemporary players are simply the most adept and the most obscure. Iran is “dÈj‡ vu all over again” of Iraq, which is a mirror of all the pretext-driven-and-fear-driving power grabs used by various United States administrations, various Israeli administrations, Nazi (and non-Nazi) Germany, the Roman Empire and Republic... the list is endless.

[Who are those players? The “richest” lists as a distraction...
Distinctions: Ownership versus control
Dynastic wealth and power versus new riches
Hidden-influence style versus open-status style

The CEO is just another hired hand.

J.P. Morgan]

The Alphas are becoming increasingly masterful at their covert rule, as they define the listening as well as the speaking; the myth-making as well as the myth fulfillment. Yes, the 20th Century was the century of technology, but far beyond the physical technologies like electronics, petroleum, and metallurgy, it was the century of the technologies of propaganda, socialization, education, and psychological and social conditioning. Combined, all these have given the Alpha elites mastery of communications and weaponry, and of the very thoughts and drives of their chattel serfs. They know what to say and how to be heard with no un-orchestrated noise, since no-one else is allowed to speak in the “main-stream media.” Our Lords and Masters offer the seductions of bounty and the illusion of power for the paper-tiger “loyal opposition,” and assassination if that doesn’t work. Pop Quiz: What two things do U.S. Presidents Lincoln, Garfield, and Kennedy all have in common?

Assassination is a political tactic alive and well in our Twenty-first Century, perhaps more than ever. Anyone who is dancing in the highest circles of power is always at risk for his life. It has always been so. It’s structural: when one is newly and increasingly powerful, one must kowtow to the stronger. When one is powerful, others kowtow. If the struggle for power is too even and too intense, and if one knows and speaks more than one’s power can protect, it’s up or out, and out can be very definitive. There are so many deaths that fit a political-assassination profile (starting with a qui bono test) in the past 50 years (and more); what does it take for naÔve Americans to see that as a realistic possibility much less a routine actuality?

The only sustainability the dynastic Oligarchs are committed to is to sustain their power, even if it kills them. That it might kill anyone else, or even everyone else, appears unimportant (“We’ve bred our children to know what to do...” and “We have secrets you’ll never find out...” and “Trust us (or our proxies).”).

A Green Economy is Simply Not Possible in our Polity

The Founders of the USA, for excellent reasons, didn’t trust government, so they founded a government that was defined by, and controlled by the rich — the “minority” whose interests the Republic is designed to protect from the democratic mob. It’s based on three core assumptions:
1. The best way to solve social problems is through economic growth. Growth seems inevitable and eternal when one has a virgin continent at one’s feet.
2. Individuals know best how to improve their lives.
3. The best way to increase economic growth is to simply ask people who are good at it for
advice.
That’s why lobbyists are absolutely necessary to the function of our government. Without lobbyists, our corruptible-but-otherwise-unqualified elected officials and their appointed minions would have absolutely no idea what to do.

In other words, elected officials ask the factory owner what government can do to increase his profit so he will build more factories, provide more jobs, and then individuals can make themselves better off. Keep giving the rich a greater fraction of the economic pie and they will keep increasing the size of the pie. This is the fundamental assumption of so-called “supply-side” economics (now thoroughly discredited through bitter experience).

That’s how our Founders designed it, and that’s how “public” policy is made today:

The policy formation process begins in corporate boardrooms... where problems are identified as issues to be solved by new policies. It ends in government, where policies are enacted and implemented.

G. William Domhoff, UCSC

Our Founders saw the “common good” as the sum of “individual goods” which could be measured by spending — the more, the better. Today, spending is measured by Gross Domestic Product (GDP).† It’s literally a measure of money (not materiel, not value) changing hands.†Our “Standard of Living” is simply a measure of how much money one spends. Obviously, now that we are entering a decades-long period of declining global economic activity (in the physical resource sense — not in the currency-denominated GDP sense), most of our Founders’ core assumptions have been shown to be incorrect.

Biophysical Laws

Thermodynamic laws, evolution theory, and modern genetic sciences were unknown by our Founders. Today, these laws and sciences signal the end of our form of government. The first law of thermodynamics (conservation law) states that there can be no creation of matter and energy. This means that the economy is totally dependent upon natural resources for everything: it is a “wholly-owned subsidiary” of nature. The German physicist Helmholtz and the British physicist Lord Kelvin had explained this principle by the middle of the 19th century.

The second law of thermodynamics (entropy law) tells us that energy is wasted in all physical and economic activity. In 1824, the French physicist Sadi Carnot formulated the second law’s concepts while working on “heat engines.” The English Lord Kelvin and the German physicist Clausius eventually formalized Carnot’s concepts as the second law of thermodynamics. Part of the second-law overhead goes to maintain complexity, which consumes additional energy exponentially as it increases linearly.

Our government was designed to require more-and-more energy (endless economic growth) to solve social problems, but the thermodynamic laws described above limit the available energy. Energy “resources” must produce more energy than they consume, otherwise they are called “sinks” (this is known as the “net energy” principle). In other words, if it costs more-than-one-barrel-of-oil to “produce” one-barrel-of-oil, then that barrel will never be produced – the money price of oil is irrelevant. Thus, the net-energy principle places strict limits (in the physical sense) on our government’s ability to solve social problems. Although central bankers can print money, they can not print energy.

Biologists have found that our genes strongly predispose us to act in certain ways in certain circumstances. This explains why history repeats itself and why humans have engaged in war after war throughout history: from time-to-time an environment emerges when “inclusive fitness” is served by attacking your neighbor and stealing his resources. This social aggression is further rewarded by the same dopamine and other neurotransmitter pathways in the brain activated by sex, food, psychoactive drugs, and intense exercise.

Since our civilization and government were designed to require ever-growing energy resources, but energy resources are strictly limited by thermodynamic laws and a finite planet, sooner or later our civilization will collapse into another global spasm of resource wars. It’s just a matter of time.

Elections Don’t Matter — What Matters Are Lobbyists

A “genetic” algorithmic process called “reciprocal altruism” guarantees that elected officials and their cronies will nearly always come around to agree with the “suggestions” of lobbyists and each other. It’s a natural, automatic, and subconscious process. Only a sociopath is immune. Unfortunately, no lobbyists represent the common interest: they are mid-rank subjects of the feudal Oligarchs, bought and paid-for. Our Founders assumed that the common interest was the sum of individual interests. Our Founders based our system on the ideas of the French Physiocrats, which were formulated before the laws of thermodynamics were understood, and before the technologies of the corporation for concentrating wealth and power through social control were developed.

Local Government: No Public Advocate!

Local government policy begins in corporate boardrooms too, but additional structural aspects of our political system guarantee that local communities are powerless to stop the Oligarchs and the merely “rich” from converting local neighborhoods into cash.

Our present system of government is designed so elected and appointed officials serve as both public advocate and judge, a situation that makes it structurally impossible to advance the common good. On the one hand, we are expected to evaluate the impacts of complex economic proposals; on the other hand, we are supposed to be non-professionals — just plain folks.

The result is that, say, county commissioners can’t personally evaluate the proposals in front of them, nor do they get objective opinions or studies from a public advocate (the government’s professional planners are known to not represent the public interest, even though elected commissioners are supposed to act as a watchdog on government). Similarly, even though Supreme Court justices are intended as a watchdog on the rest of government, in this same regard they have upheld the power of eminent domain for giving private property to private, corporate parties, nominally for the “public good.”

Yes, commissioners do hear from a few citizens of unknown motivation and expertise who are able to take a day off work to testify. But since these individuals rarely bring “studies” (with explicitly-stated assumptions, etc.), it’s always unclear how much weight to give to their testimony. Moreover, commissioners are acutely aware of their impossible double role of judge and advocate, bend over backwards to give the appearance of objectivity, and thereby nearly-always give the benefit of the doubt to a “developer” or an advocate for the interests of the established powers. Some “reasonableness” can always be found to justify anything. “National security” is probably the best example.

A good analogy for our present “public policy” system is a court trial composed of a “defendant” (the public), a “prosecutor” (the developer), and a “judge” (elected officials or commissioners.) In this analogy, the public has no professional advocate and there is no jury. Moreover, the judge frequently accepts gifts from — and takes the advice of — the prosecutor (the developer’s lobbyists).

No one would argue that a defendant could ever get a fair trial with a legal system like this.
Our Founders assumed that since economic growth was always the best way to solve social problems, the public didn’t need a professional advocate to ever question special interests.

The point here is that since our government was specifically designed to rely on perpetual economic growth to solve social problems and maintain public order, the political system is self-reinforcing and literally out of human control. When economic growth becomes impossible — as thermodynamics tells us it must — then our present form of government becomes impossible too.

Wherever men hold unequal power in society, they will strive to maintain it. They will use whatever means are convenient to that end and will seek to justify them by the most plausible arguments they are able to devise.

Reinhold Neibuhr

Those after-the-fact arguments rationalize primary behaviors that are complex automatic algorithms derived from genetic imperatives.

The ACGT Man Behind the Curtain...

When most people look around the world today they see a lot of problems. If they are clever, they see sets of interacting problems. They see energy and technology problems; they see ecological and environmental problems; and they see economic problems. If they are somewhat deeper thinkers, they may see population problems. The simple truth is that they are all suffering from vision problems.

What most people see as technological or social problems are more correctly seen as a set of symptoms of a systematic underlying problem, symptoms that are manifesting themselves in the social and technological arena. In the same sense, what people are interpreting as “ecological problems” are the set of symptoms that are manifesting in the world’s ecology. And what people are interpreting as “economic problems” are merely the set of symptoms that are manifesting in the world’s economy.

The underlying problem is the same in all three cases. It is not merely that there are so many of us, it is that Homo sapiens is a hyper-aggressive species with no effective predators, the ability to manipulate its environment on a planetary scale, and the ideological perception that it is apart from, and superior to, that environment (a projection native to feudal Alpha identity). In all of nature, such instability leads to expansion-and-collapse cycles — Gaian precursors of the “economic cycle.”

The spreading perception that the core environmental problem is human population growth is useful, but woefully inadequate. Population growth is just another symptom of the problem stated above. One can demonstrate this with a simple thought experiment: imagine that we stabilized our population tomorrow, at our current seven-plus billion people. Would that fix the problems of resource depletion, ecological devastation and the economic instability caused by our insistence on continual material growth? It wouldn't, because those problems are still worsening where populations have already stabilized or are even in outright decline.

Addressing any one of the problems areas — energy/technological, ecological, economic, or population — would still leave us with problems in the other three. We can (and will) tinker around in each of these areas, because that's our Buddha-nature: human beings are innate tinkerers. We will do things to ease the situation in each of those symptom domains. But none of that tinkering addresses the fundamental problem, which is that humanity appears to have evolved without a crucial internal self-restraint mechanism (Our Buddha-nature doesn’t extend that far).

That entirely typical evolution happened because, as with every other species, those restraints were readily available within the environment — mainly resource scarcity, predation, disease, and, later, war. Because those external restraints were available, selection didn't endow us with internal restraints because they weren't needed. In fact, during our early time as a species, an internal self-restraint mechanism acting in addition to the external restraints would have been counter-productive, and would have been actively selected out of our makeup.

However, as we developed the physical, mental, and cultural abilities to circumvent those external restraints — through extinguishing all large predators, and developing agriculture, mining, medicine, and “social science” — we outfoxed ourselves, because in the absence of either internal or external restraints we are left with no effective way to reign in our genetic urge for unlimited expansion and the automatic algorithmic behaviors it generates. All that remains is our intellectual capacity to foresee outcomes and to regulate our behavior through “reason,” which is not strong enough to counterbalance our innate behavioral imperatives.

Alpha conditioning is very strong, as the selection pressures have been more concentrated and stringent than for the Proles. Since the intensity of the conditioning and genetic-behavior enforcement are stronger in the Alphas, their algorithmic behaviors have become narrower, more specialized, more rigid, more unstable, and less adaptive. Hence the continuous turnover as Alpha clans become “decadent” and cycle through factions, and the habit of Alphas to see the problems as being other Alphas rather than the system itself. And hence the obsessive expression of simplistic market values over more subtle and demanding human values, and of “inevitable” apocalyptic end-games over adult relationship with our selves and each other.

There may be no hope whatever that our tinkering will solve the real dilemma of humanity. We are behaving exactly as our evolution has defined us, and it’s unlikely that we will stop. Our challenge is to figure out ways in which our feeble minds can create the conditions for the continued survival of our species and perhaps some of our civilization, despite both our unconstrained, innate urge to grow and our glorious but tragic ability to “reason” after the fact. Collectively, we are barely able even to distinguish these countervailing aspects of our fundamental nature, much less change them. They are at the root of all our troubles, and we will need to be enormously cunning to outmaneuver them.

This gives new meaning to the notion “think outside the box,” and requires an integration of thinking and feeling that has not yet happened in our culture.

There are Viable Alternatives, but not Easy Ones

The late Dr. M. King Hubbert is probably the geophysicist best known to the world’s general public because of his startling prediction, first made publicly in 1949, that the fossil-fuel era would be of very short duration, and his remarkably accurate predictions in 1956 that US oil production would peak in about 1970 and decline thereafter and world Peak Oil would occur “sometime after 2000.”

His social thesis is that our civilization is seriously handicapped because its two most important intellectual underpinnings, the science of matter-energy and the historic system of finance, are incompatible. A reasonable co-existence is possible when both are growing at approximately the same rate. That, Hubbert said, has been happening since the start of the industrial revolution but it is soon going to end because the amount the matter-energy system can grow is limited while the growth of “money'” is not.

"I was in New York in the ‘30s. I had a box seat at the depression," Hubbert said. "I can assure you it was a very educational experience. We shut the country down because of monetary reasons. Back then the physical system was ready to roll. This time it's not."

The man known to many as a pessimist was, in this case, quite hopeful. In fact, he might be the ultimate utopian. We have, he said, the necessary technology, including making use of abundant low-cost energy available from the sun. “All” we have to do is completely overhaul our culture and find an alternative to money.

This means abandoning two fundamental axioms of our culture: the Puritanical work ethic used so effectively to herd the Proles, and the idea that growth is the normal and only healthy state of affairs. Hubbert challenged the latter mathematically and concludes the exponential population growth of the last two centuries is the opposite of the normal situation: "It is an aberration. For most of human history the population doubled only once every 32,000 years. Now it's down to 35 years. That is dangerous.

"During the last two centuries of unbroken industrial growth we have evolved what amounts to an exponential-growth culture. Our institutions, our legal system, our financial system, and our most cherished folkways and beliefs are all based upon the premise [and ideology] of continuing growth.

"Since the tenets of our exponential-growth culture (such as a non-zero interest rate) are incompatible with a state of non-growth, it is understandable that extraordinary efforts will be made to avoid a cessation of growth. Inexorably, however, physical and biological constraints must eventually prevail and appropriate cultural adjustments will have to be made."

Work is becoming increasingly unimportant: "Most employment now is merely pushing paper around. The actual work needed to keep a stable society running is a very small fraction of available manpower.

"Since the energy-cost of maintaining a human being exceeds by a large amount his ability to repay [in monetary terms], we can abandon the fiction that what one is to receive is in payment for what one has done, and recognize that what we are really doing is using the bounty that nature has provided us [not God, not Our Lords and Masters, and not our hard work]. Under these circumstances we recognize that we all are getting something for nothing, and the simplest way of effecting distribution is on a basis of equality, especially so since production can be set equal to the limit of our capacity to consume, consonant with adequate conservation of our physical resources.

“On this basis our distribution then becomes foolproof and incredibly simple. We distribute purchasing power in the form of energy certificates that bear the identification of the person to whom issued, and are non-negotiable. They resemble a bank check in that they bear no face denomination, this being entered at the time of spending. They are surrendered upon the purchase of goods or services at any center of distribution and are permanently canceled, becoming entries in a uniform accounting system. Being non-negotiable they cannot be lost, stolen, gambled, or given away because they are invalid in the hands of any person other than the one to whom issued. If lost, new ones may be had for the asking. Neither can they be saved because they become void at the termination of the two-year period for which they are issued. They can only be spent.

“Contrary to the rules of the Price System, the purchasing power of an individual would no longer be based upon the fallacious premise that a man is being paid in proportion to the so-called ‘value’ of his work (since it is a physical fact that what he receives is greatly in excess of his individual effort) but upon the equal pro rata division of the net energy degraded through the production of consumer goods and services. In this manner the income of an individual is not dependent upon the nature of his work, and we are then left free to reduce the working hours of our population to as low a level as technological advancement will allow, without in any manner jeopardizing the national or individual income, and without the slightest unemployment problem or poverty."

Hubbert went on to calculate that following a transition period, the work required of each individual need be no longer than about 4 hours per day, 164 days per year, from the ages of 25 to 45. Income will continue until death. "Insecurity of old age is abolished and both saving and insurance become unnecessary and impossible."

We then see that the proposals for Negative Population Growth should be implemented immediately (so that the steady-state equilibrates at a sustainable level), and that all attempts to reduce the deficit, balance the budget, or pay off the national debt are futile. The deficit and the “national debt” represent the subsidy the government has paid in its attempt to keep growth and unemployment at the level of social tolerance. No government has ever paid off such debt.

Wealth is not “Created”

One idea which underpins all Western social philosophy is that people can “create” wealth. This basic idea has been the focus of economists for as long as they have existed and philosophers for at least six thousand years. The vision that humans can “create wealth” results in an “ever-expanding pie” view of the world. As Simon said, the more creators, the more wealth. This kind of wealth is represented almost exclusively by “money.”

The opposite vision is that the bounty of nature including its “energy” resources is the ultimate source of wealth. Moreover, a vision of energy as wealth, when combined with an understanding of thermodynamics, results in an “ever-shrinking pie” view of the finite spherical planet and its human world. More people equals less wealth per capita.

Human beings can create money, and to an infinite extent. As long as we have access to sufficient natural resources (including energy) for that money to represent (together comprising usable wealth), we can build a polity with a purpose greater than acquiring “wealth.” When resource availability falls behind money availability, we have an infinitely corruptible system in which any social purpose becomes lost in money manipulations for political power and “inclusive fitness.” A healthy monetary system closely aligns money with resources, and aligns growth with success at accomplishment of social ends and improving all dimensions of the quality of life of human beings.

The steady-state economy into which we are being inexorably forced implies an interest rate of zero, which means the end of any monetary system configured for exponential growth. The only way of satisfying the desires of those with less (and securing more resources for the already privileged) is economic growth, which has “kept the peace” because people have believed that they were, or could be, increasing their “inclusive fitness.” Without economic growth, the competition for resources will be seen as a zero-sum game. When growth of actual wealth stops, people will become violent (as they have throughout all of history). They will no longer be conditionable into fighting over money when winning that fight no longer increases their well-being (as fighting over natural resources can). The “work-ethic” would no longer be an ideology to get some people to concentrate wealth for others. The dogma of “growth” would no longer be useful to placate the poor by tantalizing them with the “get rich” pie in the sky, thereby suppressing their natural tendencies towards violence.

We are being forced to completely rethink our cultural ideas about how to organize our economy and distribute purchasing and political power. Social conditioning would require a different basis, as would status. Applying the “opposite” vision would de-couple political and economic power and would leave the present elites with no basis for their control. They would have to generate another, and that population is probably the least suited for creative social engineering. Their first instinct will be to maintain control through the traditional means (largely fear-based) our species has evolved to apply — contrived wars against an arbitrary “other,” socio-religious manipulations, and central authority masked as necessary to deceive the complacent, the conditioned, and the naive.

[United States’ governance was] born with a bias against democracy... ‘Inverted totalitarianism’ lies in wielding total power without appearing to, without establishing concentration camps, or enforcing ideological uniformity, or forcibly suppressing dissident elements so long as they remain ineffectual. [Such a form of political power makes the US] the showcase of how democracy can be managed without appearing to be suppressed.

Sheldon Wolin, Democracy Incorporated, 2008

Hubbert’s synthesis shows there are ways to re-organize the fundamental (and not-so-fundamental) bases of our polity. However, getting there from here is no simple matter, and some polities are potentially more amenable to such changes than others.

For example, Britain's type of government and different history might have fewer obstacles in finding a sane, potentially effective way such as rationing to respond to an energy or general resource shortage. If one is looking for a traditional term for a social system based on the state taking care of all its people, "socialism" is a probably the closest. England has a long history of aristocracy-led "socialism" derived from feudalism, but America does not.

Despite its secularist rhetoric and prattle about “democracy,” the American political system and its military are integrated with fundamentalist religion much like Islamist states such as Saudi Arabia. The British Parliamentary system of government allows minority views to be heard in government (e.g., "Greens") but our one-party-two-factions "Christianist/corporate" system does not. Thus the only voices readily heard in Washington, DC are corporate spokesmen with profit agendas or preachers with religious agendas.

At the level of appearances, the Oligarchs and their minions would actively hate rationing because it would demolish their self-myth and self-worth as it dismantled their status displays. Worse, they would hate it because they would lose their wealth-and-power-concentration advantage (their “inclusive fitness”). It would be extremely difficult even for England to change, because of our human nature. In our one-corporation-one-vote political system, it would require a majority of corporate board members and their minions to adopt a new world-view and then believe their social status will increase by giving up marketist Capitalism, and then an equal revolution to overcome the objections of a hundred thousand fundamentalist preachers and their minions.

Summary

Economics is nothing more than politics in disguise. It is the art of privatizing gains and socializing losses. It is the State Religion of the United States. Its god is lust for power; its idol is growth. When personal and clan power becomes less important than quality of life; when a critical mass of humanity wakes up and takes responsibility for its genuine needs over its Pleistocene emotions and its social-conditioned wants; when the love of money and power is no longer the root of evil; then we could have a green economy.

The human mind is a product of the Pleistocene age, shaped by wildness that has all but disappeared. If we complete the destruction of nature, we will have succeeded in cutting ourselves off from the source of sanity itself.

David Orr, environmental philosopher, in Adbusters, Sept/Oct 2002

There is an elaborate hierarchy of Oligarchs and their proxies who are the decision-makers on social-resource allocation. They have their own set of motivations, algorithmically expressing their “inclusive fitness” for clear and ruthless advantage. What counter-motivators are they even able to recognize and perhaps internalize, to expand their own sustainability advantage to include larger and larger domains, perhaps even a planetary one? As we enter deeper into this social conversation, we will become more and more able to distinguish those counter-motivators. What conscious choices they are even able to make is unclear.

The big picture is over seven billion people struggling to increase their social status by controlling and using natural resources. All organizations within a country work to support the genetic drive for more status by its leading members while suppressing dissenting opinions.

Because the “selfish genes” drive for status in the primate band and tribe has been so successful in providing a survival advantage, it is enormously powerful, with people willing to go so far as to kill themselves (e.g., hara-kiri) and family members (e.g., “honor” killings) to maintain and advance their own status and that of their families and clans (their “us”). Besides being one of the most powerful, the genetic drive for status can never be satisfied:

I put for the general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless desire of
power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

Thomas Hobbes

All leading people within a social paradigm simply lie (mostly subconsciously) to further their drive to increase status. In effect, they are leading because they lie so well. Moreover, no one is willing to voluntarily lose social status ("lose face") by explicitly or even implicitly admitting they were fundamentally wrong all along.

When individuals and tribes are frustrated in their endless drive to increase “inclusive fitness,” they resort to violence. The only familiar alternative to public violence is the endless conversion of natural resources into ever-more-marvelous status displays. But the laws of thermodynamics and the rampant consumption of the past few hundred years show us that there are fewer natural resources available for conversion into these displays, and far fewer on a per capita basis. The genetic drive for more-and-more colliding with thermodynamic laws and physical limitations allowing less-and-less must lead to a new world war over natural resources, unless there are some very powerful interventions delivering compelling counter-motivators to Our Lords and Masters — such as withdrawal of a critical mass of our consent.

Anytime we can’t figure out how to find a win/win solution to a problem, it just means we haven’t really learned the rules of the game we are playing.

Dr. Eliayhu Goldratt, Avraham Goldratt Institute

The required criteria for success in the 21st century are ecological integrity, effective decision-making, and social cohesion. These are progressively replacing current commitments to maximum economic growth, compulsive consumption, and international competition.

Robert Theobald, Reworking Success

Assembled by Alexander Carpenter, 2007-2009 With thanks to Jay Hanson, Michael Rivero, Paul Chefurka, Phil Arreguin, Andrew Sullivan, Antal Feket, M. King Hubbert, Robert Hickerson, et al.

Compilation Copyright 2008-9

Oh, and one last thing: Gravity is matter’s urge to snuggle.

Resources
http://www.countercurrents.org/goodchild291207.htm
http://www.hubbertpeak.com/hubbert/hubecon.htm
http://www.warsocialism.com/
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0208/S00055.htm
http://www.solari.com/learn/
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-9050474362583451279
http://www.moneyasdebt.net/
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/07/24/eco-junk/
http://www.yesmagazine.org/article.asp?ID=1834
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seigniorage
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthago_delenda_est
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punic_Wars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inclusive_fitness
http://www.augustreview.com/news_commentary/global_banking/the_twilight_of_irredeemable_debt_2008050890/
http://sociology.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/
http://www.australia.to/story/0,25197,23040467-060,00,00.html
http://www.newsweek.com/id/130637/output/print
http://www.warsocialism.com/SelfDeception.pdf
http://www.warsocialism.com/thermogenecollision.pdf
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0901/S00135.htm?ref=patrick.net#a
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article21732.htm

Quotations on the Theme…

Evolutionary psychology is not just one more school of psychology. It is a perspective on the whole of psychology that claims that we are human animals, and that our minds, no less than our bodies, are products of the forces of nature operating on a time frame of millions of years; human nature was forged from our ancestors’ struggle to survive and reproduce.

David Livingston Smith, Why We Lie: The Evolutionary Roots of Deception and the Unconscious Mind

Ends are ape-chosen; only means are man’s.

Aldous Huxley

...underlying all the other reasons for warfare is almost always this fundamental imbalance of resource stress and population growth.

Steven LeBlanc, Constant Battles, page 169

The raging monster upon the land is population growth. In its presence, sustainability is but a fragile theoretical construct.†To say, as many do, that the difficulties of nations are not due to people but to poor ideology and land-use management is sophistic.

E.O. Wilson, The diversity of Life, 1992, pages 328-329

Even when grappling with the idea of economic disintegration, Americans attempt to cast it in terms of technological or economic progress: eco-villages, sustainable development, energy efficiency and so on. Under the circumstances, such compulsive techno-optimism seems maladaptive. ... Why do people seem incapable of doing the simplest things without making them into projects, preferably ones that involve some element of new technology?

Dimitry Orlov, Our Village

Scientists search for truth by forming statements that can be tested.†If a statement cannot be tested, then it is not “scientific.”†Testable statements are known as “hypotheses” and take the general form “If [I do this], then [this will occur].”†For example, the hypothesis “If I drop a rock, then it will fall to the ground” can be tested to see if it is “false.”

In 1934, Sir Karl Popper proposed a criterion of testability, or falsifiability, for scientific validity.† Scientific theories are hypotheses from which can be deduced statements testable by observation; if the appropriate experimental observations falsify these statements, the hypothesis is refuted.†If a hypothesis survives efforts to falsify it, it may be tentatively accepted.†No scientific theory, however, can be conclusively established.

Popper’s mode of thought — the habit of attempting to prove oneself wrong — is the only path to knowledge about the real world.

Evolutionary psychologists have found that humans evolved to naturally use a “falsification strategy” with respect to the social world, but use a “confirmation strategy” with respect to the physical world.†Our innate social-world “falsification strategy” causes us to instinctively reject social anomalies and attempt to “falsify” claims about the real world that might jeopardize social beliefs (e.g., the claim that global oil production will “peak” soon).

On the other hand, our innate physical-world “confirmation strategy” allows us to defend social constructions of reality (e.g., the “free market”) to the death, even if the ideals they represent are far from physical reality.

Consider first a phenomenon I call the deontic effect in human reasoning (Cummins, 1996b, 1996c). Deontic reasoning is reasoning about rights and obligations; that is, reasoning about what one is permitted, obligated, or forbidden to do (Hilpinen, 1981; Manktelow & Over, 1991).†Deontic reasoning contrasts with indicative reasoning, which is reasoning about what is true or false.†When reasoning about deontic rules (social norms), humans spontaneously adopt a violation-detection strategy: They look for cheaters or rule-breakers.†In contrast, when reasoning about the truth status of statements about the world, they spontaneously adopt a confirmation-seeking strategy.† This effect is apparent in the reasoning of children as young as three years of age (Cummins, 1996a; Harris & NuÒez, 1996) and has been observed in literally hundreds of experiments on adult reasoning over the course of nearly thirty years, making it one of the most reliable effects in the psychological literature (see Cummins, 1996b, 1996c, and Oaksford & Chapter, 1996 for reviews of this literature).

Denise D. Cummins & Colin Allen (Editors), The Evolution of Mind,
Oxford, 1998, pages 39, 40

...[R]emember that this out-of-control global financial system is a man-made artifact, a political regime devised over many years by interested parties to serve their ends. Nothing in nature or, for that matter, in economics requires the rest of us to accept a system that is so unjust and mindlessly destructive.

William Greider, in The Nation

Economic students are programmed (using modern “doublethink” techniques) to believe that there are no “limits to growth.”

Plenty of Gloom, The Economist, Editorial, 20 December 1997

Gross National Product counts air pollution and cigarette advertising, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. It counts the destruction of the redwood and the loss of our natural wonder in chaotic sprawl. ... Yet the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile. And it can tell us everything about America except why we are proud that we are Americans.

Robert F. Kennedy, 18 March 1968

We may congratulate ourselves that this cruel war is nearing its end. It has cost a vast amount of treasure and blood. It has indeed been a trying hour for the Republic; but I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country. As a result of the war, corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war. God grant that my suspicions may prove groundless.

Abraham Lincoln, in a letter of 21 November 1864 to Colonel William F. Elkins

[With the development of modern physics] it became possible to see orthodox economic theory for what it really was: a bowdlerized imitation of nineteenth-century physics… It was not the methods of science that were appropriated by the early neoclassicals as it was the appearances of science, for the early neoclassicals possessed a singularly inept understanding of the physics they so admired…†[Neoclassical economists attempt] to reduce all social institutions such as money, property rights, and the market itself to epiphenomena of individual constrained optimization calculation.†All these attempts have failed, despite their supposed dependence upon mathematical rigor, because they always inadvertently assume what they aim to deduce…†Conservation principles are the key to the understanding of a mathematical formulation of any phenomenon, and it has been there that the neoclassicals have been woefully negligent.

Philip Mirowski, Against Mechanism: Protecting Economics from Science,
Rowman and Littlefield, 1988, pages 5-6

The mind is a squadron of simpletons. It is not unified, it is not rational, it is not well designed - or designed at all. It just happened, an accumulation of innovations of the organisms that lived before us. The mind evolved, through countless animals and through countless worlds.

Like the rest of biological evolution, the human mind is a collage of adaptations (the propensity to do the right thing) to different situations. Our thought is a pack of fixed routines - simpletons. We need them. It is vital to find the right food at the right time, to mate well, to generate children, to avoid marauders, to respond to emergency quickly. Mental routines to do so have evolved over millions of years and developed in different periods in our evolution, as Rumi noted.

We don't think of ourselves as of such humble origins. The triumphs that have occurred in the short time since the Industrial Revolution have completely distorted our view of ourselves. Hence, the celebrated triumph of humanity is its rationality: the ability to reason through events and act logically, to organize business. To plan for the future, to create science and technology. One influential philosopher, Daniel Dennet, wrote recently: "When a person falls short of perfect rationality...there is no coherent...description of the person's mental states."

Yet to characterize the mind as primarily rational is an injustice; it sells us short, it makes us misunderstand ourselves, it has perverted our understanding of our intelligence, our schooling, our physical and mental health. Holding up rationality, and its remorseless deliberation, as the model of the mind has, more important, set us along the wrong road to our future. Instead of the pinnacle, rationality is just one small ability in a compound of possibilities.

The mind evolved great breadth, but it is shallow, for it performs quick and dirty sketches of the world. This rough-and-ready perception of reality enabled our ancestors to survive better. The mind did not evolve to know the world or to know ourselves. Simply speaking, there has never been, nor will there ever be, enough time to be truly rational.

Rationality is one component of the mind, but it is used rarely, and in a very limited area. Rationality is impossible anyway. There isn't time for the mind to go through the luxurious exercises of examining alternatives. Consider the standard way of examining evidence, the truth table, a checklist of information about whether propositions are correct or not. To know whether Aristotle is a hamburger, you would look up "Aristotle" or "hamburger" in this table. Now think of the number of issues you immediately know well - what Yugoslavia is, whether skateboards are used at formal dinners, how chicken sandwiches should taste, what your spouse wore this morning - and you will see that your own truth table, if entered randomly, would have millions of entries just waiting! [pages 2-3]

A mind built up with countless specific adaptations can never be rational. We piece together the results of a small set of probes to judge the world, picking up a few signals and making quick assessments of what is outside, in the case of marauders, and inside, in the case of memories and dreams. Such a mind will never be rational; but it will always try to adapt. And it cannot always be correct either. If we consider a mind that has evolved to meet most situations adequately, say 95 percent of them, we may have a better idea of what being correct is. [page 221]

Since the mind evolved to select a few signals and then dream up a semblance, whatever enters our consciousness is overemphasized. It does not matter how the information enters, whether via a television program, a newspaper story, a friend's conversation, a strong emotional reaction, a memory - all is overemphasized. We ignore other, more compelling evidence, overemphasizing and overgeneralizing from the information close at hand to produce a rough-and-ready realty. [page 258]

The [mental] system we recruited had the primary aim of reacting quickly to immediate danger - those who did lived long enough to produce us. Those who acted more thoughtfully and with due deliberation of the proper course, who could avoid panic when confronted by mild threats - who acted rationally, that is - probably lived shorter, and thus less generative, lives. The survival argument against rationality in primeval conditions is that payoff is very lopsided: Fail to respond to a real danger, even if that danger would kill you only 1/10,000 as often, and you will be dead. A few years later, you will be deader in evolutionary terms, for fewer of your genes will be around. However, an overreaction to danger produces only a little hysteria, a little stress, and maybe a little embarrassment - probably little or no loss of reproductive ability. Maybe the excitement would even recruit a little more reproductive effort!

Running from every snake or tiger or loud noise probably doesn't disrupt life too much. Not running, while it might kill you only slightly more often, can eventually produce major changes in the population. The same numbers hold in this example as for the height difference cited earlier. If panic in response to a threat in all cases improved survival by even 1/10,000, those who panicked would be 484 million times more populous than those who did not. And so it was good to respond emotionally and quickly to the average dangers threatening most of our ancestors. Rationality is a great idea and ideal, but we never had the time for it; we don't have time for it now, and thus we don't have the mind for it. [page 262]

Robert Ornstein, The Evolution of Consciousness, Prentice Hall, 1991, ISBN 0-13-587569-2

The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it†with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.

H. L. Mencken

Biochar the answer~ Lovelock

2009-01-27T13:09:00.000-08:00

So are we doomed?

There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast.

Would it make enough of a difference?

Yes. The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes of carbon yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won't do it.

Do you think we will survive?

I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again.

I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings.

biochar

ALTERNATE ENERGY INVESTING, PEAK OIL AND KYOTO COMPLIANCE

2009-01-13T17:01:00.001-08:00

by Andrew McKillop
Founder member, Asian Chapter, Internatl Assocn of Energy Economists
Former Expert-Policy and programming, Divn A-Policy, DGXVII-Energy, European Commission
Former Director of Information, OAPEC subisidiary AREC, Abu Dhabi, UAE
January 12, 2009

ABSTRACT

Energy Transition away from fossil fuels is driven by two crises – declining resources of both oil and gas, whose prices are able to attain extreme highs whenever global economic growth is strong, then crash to extreme low prices when economic growth falters; and the intensifying crisis of climate change, which the IPCC and other sources warn may become catastrophic within less than 30 years. While public and political acceptance of the urgent need to mitigate climate change is nearly total, neither peak oil or peak gas are widely accepted as being, if anything, more urgent because the lead time to very serious impacts from declining export supplies of both these current pillars of the global energy economy is so short – no more than a few years.

These crises are intertwined and inter-dependent. The only lasting solution is Energy Transition away from fossil fuel dependence, to a fast-growing utilisation of alternate low carbon, and zero carbon renewable energy sources, developed on a worldwide basis taking account of local and regional availability of the renewables. This of course requires massive, stable, coordinated and long-term investment without extremes of market-induced volatility, within a plan that firstly targets the reduction of oil and gas intensity (average per capita demand) in the OECD countries.

Introduction

Through 2008 oil prices attained an all-time high of about 147 USD/bbl (WTI grade, front month contract, Q2 2008) before crashing to well below 40 USD/bbl in December 2008. This fall of about 75%, similar to the massive deflation or contraction in value for many equities, for world cargo shipping rates, base metals such as nickel or copper, and most agro-commodities, is usually hailed by political leaders and mass media in the consumer societies as a 'good thing'. At these price levels for oil, and related price levels for gas or coal, however, almost any alternate or renewable technology, such as windfarms (specially offshore), solar electric power, waste dump methane recovery, electric cars and linked battery technology, and other non-fossil energy sources and systems become totally uneconomic. As we have seen with the biofuels or agrofuels, and possibly soon with windpower in Europe, investor support and mobilization for continued growth of these alternate and renewable energy systems has quickly fallen away.

In a context of massive asset price volatility and therefore uncertainty, it is easy to forget the 'fundamentals', but for oil these are very clear. While the 2008 price peak exceeded the previous all-time peak of early 1980, which in 2008 dollars was around 100-120 US dollars/barrel, there were many differences between the two situations. The biggest difference was that the 1980 price peak had a single and simple cause: the ‘Iran crisis’ of 1979-1980, during which the overthrow of the Chah's regime slashed Iranian oil production and exports by about 60% for 6 months. Exports fell about 2.5 million barrels/day (Mbd), which at the time was well over 7.5% of world total export supply or 'offer'.

No similar, geopolitically caused, very sharp loss of export supply can be offered as the reason for the constant increase of oil prices through nearly a decade, from 1999.

Another major difference is that global economic growth had already collapsed in 1980, notably due to extreme high interest rate policies, at the time of the 'Iran crisis' which drove oil prices to peak highs. Through 2005-2007 global economic growth was at record highs, and continued until an essentially financial and banking crisis triggered a collapse of economic growth. Constant reductions of interest rates to historic lows have, so far, done nothing to restore conventional or 'classic' economic growth, but may lead to extreme high rates of inflation whenever there is any recovery in conventional economic growth as measured by conventional indicators like steel production, car sales, house sales, airline miles traveled, shipping cargo rates, etc.

We can therefore note that constantly rising oil and commodity prices, in 2005-2007, did not 'damage' the vintage economic growth of the period, nor produce exceptionally high inflation, but in fact tended to intensify conventional economic growth, in a process that I call Petro Keynesian growth. To be sure, oil prices of well beyond 125 USD/bbl in 2008 increased inflation, led to big falls in consumer confidence, and most certainly aggravated other existing problems in the economy, but the general process of rising oil, energy and commodity prices most certainly contributed to rising global economic growth, particularly in the period of 2005-2007.

New trends and Factors

Underlying the constant rise of oil prices we have a sometimes denied, but real depletion crisis well described and studied by ASPO groups in different countries. This relatively newly recognized, but long-term process is joined by climate change, as another long-term, newly recognized factor which will very surely affect world energy and the global economy for decades to come. Back in the 1980s, we can note, anthropogenic climate change was an unknown subject, even if Milankovitch's astronomic climate change theories were well known. By 1992 however, at the Rio environment conference the subject emerged.

Some 16 years later, after heroic attempts at 'climate change denial' by the Bush administrations of 2000-2008, and studied ignorance of the subject by emerging economy leaderships, climate change has become an integral part of effective political response to the basic challenge of oil depletion and natural gas depletion. Depletion is of course is not openly acknowledged as the driver for mounting calls to quickly, and massively develop alternate and renewable energy, particularly oil substitution and oil saving sources and systems. Other reasons for oil saving are usually preferred: for example energy security and dependence on Middle Eastern oil, high oil prices and their inflationary impact, and "long term" problems of "possible" oil depletion are more often communicated as the reason for seeking to urgently substitute oil in the energy economy.

In fact, the challenge of oil and gas depletion is at least as real as, and nearer-term than the onset of catastrophic climate change - which could start by 2025-2035, if world fossil fuel burning is not seriously curbed, and atmospheric concentrations of CO2 are allowed to spiral up to 500 ppm. Other impacts of global climate change, to be sure, will act well before these dates. However, uncontrolled reduction of oil and gas burning simply through depletion will occur a lot sooner than 2025, with the first onset of annual falls in export supply availability of oil and both LNG or pipeline gas in the period 2010-2012. The severity of the present and ongoing global economic recession may 'stretch' these dates a little, but not a lot.

We can be sure that political parties and consumer media editorialists feel that climate change is acceptable for mobilizing public opinion for an uncertain, and fast-changing economic future, and a useful way to not mention oil and gas depletion as the reason why alternate and renewable energy must be urgently developed. However, we are forced to admit that the process of free market asset growth and decline, that is boom followed by slump will surely penalize the fast-growing "Cleantech" asset sector (that includes alternate and renewable energy financing). In fact, unimpeded market freedom could lead to the "Cleantech" sector collapsing, with general equities and other investment sectors, if oil stays for any length of time at under 40 dollars-a-barrel.

Need for Safeguards

What are needed are safeguards. These will include state, bilateral or multilateral frameworks, subsidies, legislation and intervention aimed at ensuring rapid but efficient growth of non-fossil energy supplies on a worldwide basis while preventing, or limiting extreme price volatility for oil and gas supplies. Without these safeguards, and with continuing low traded prices for oil, gas and coal, the alternate and renewable asset bubble will almost certainly, and quite soon collapse in an inevitable slump, like the dotcom asset bubble of 1998-2001, or the housing and property bubble of 2002-2007.

If we look at world traded oil and gas supply, both are considerably smaller than total production and consumption, more so for gas than oil. The major exporters, and importers of both oil and gas supply and consume a very large proportion of both. For oil we find in 2007 that the 20-largest exporters, and 20-largest importers were responsible for over 90% of world total export supply, and over 90% of total imports. For gas we find an even larger concentration (over 95%).

World export supply of both oil and gas require visibility (that is predictability) regarding the volumes available, and unit prices. Due to the large concentration of total exports and total imports by a small number of countries, this process could be quite efficiently set in any forum able to bring together permanent delegations from the 20-largest exporter countries, and 20-largest importer countries. This would take oil and gas pricing out of, and away from the speculative market currently involving many thousands of participants or 'players', all seeking short-term gain, with no political responsibility for their actions, and no interest in the effects of extreme oil or gas price volatility on other sectors – for example long-term investment in alternate and renewable energy.

As to the so-called 'efficiency' of the private market pricing system, we can note that in 2008 it was able to shift oil prices by at least 75% each way in about 9 months ! Volumes of 'paper oil' treated by speculative traders, counting all major oil markets (Nymex, ICE, IPE, Dubai Mex, Tocom, etc) in 2008 were at least 100 'paper barrels' for each 1 barrel of physical oil changing hands. Adding the markets for petroleum products we easily arrive at well over 150 barrels of 'paper oil' treated for 1 barrel of physical. If this is 'efficient' the word obviously has special new, arcane or mystical meaning. We can simply note that low trading costs per barrel, which is a favorite defense of free market price setting without state or multilateral intervention, has to be set against trading around 150 times total real world deman for crude and products. This amounts to about 150 X 51 million barrels-per-day (close to 7.8 billion barrels per day).

World total physical oil consumption in the full 365-day year of 2007 was about 31.5 billion barrels.

Bringing the main exporters, and main importers together in a permanent, UN-level entity will very obviously help to prevent sequences of extreme and uncontrollable volatility, due to the market-only system based only on speculation. Numerous models and precedents in fact exist for this type of multilateral mechanism, taking the long period of 1945-2008 into account.

Paradigm change

To be sure in late 2008, and even more surely in 2009 it is the global financial and economic crisis that occupies most headlines and column inches. Few if any analysts and economic or financial authorities such as the European Central Bank and US Federal Reserve today forecast that economic recovery is 'just around the corner'. Less often stated in official press statements, we can be certain that world traded oil and gas prices will not stay for long at the derisory price levels of Dec 2008. Long-term trends of increasing depletion, and slower, smaller net additions of supply capacity (particularly export supply capacity) will quite soon lead to structural undersupply. For the moment of course, the massive slump in world economic activity, and therefore oil demand can hold prices down – for as long as the exporters cut their supply by 'too little and too late' – but this supposed 'happy interval' for consumers will not be durable or sustainable.

In other words and more simply, oil and energy prices will not stay depressed at the same price levels they stayed at through 1986-1999. The one-time chance of Cheap Oil through 1986-1999 is very unlikely to ever return again. At latest when structural undersupply intervenes, perhaps by 2010, the inevitable free market response – bidding prices to extreme highs – will lead to a sharp increase in world inflation and rapidly falling economic growth in a context of extremely high borrowing by national governments in response to the current economic crisis. To be sure, calls for oil supply volumes and pricing to be 'controlled' will almost certainly emerge. With further shortage of oil and gas supplies due to depletion, free market pricing will tend to be reduced, or abandoned, but in a context of open and constant crisis favouring uncoordinated bilateral, or perhaps regional supply and pricing arrangements.

Acting before this de facto abandonment of 'free market pricing' should be the focus of coherent and responsible proposals, today. Intervention in free financial and economic markets to try limiting the collapse of economic growth is now very certainly accepted by political deciders – the same is needed to safeguard the long-term transition to dependence on alternate and renewable energy and avoid or limit extreme oil and energy prices while free market trading still dominates supply and pricing.

De-linking oil with Economic growth

As we found during 2005-2007, world oil and energy demand remained very strong despite ‘extreme’ prices, proving that oil and gas price elasticity is very low oil in the conventional or ‘classic’ economic growth process: demand increases with rising prices until extreme high prices are attained – followed by economic slump. In other words the 'Petro Keynesian growth' process has little or no feedback until extreme high price levels are attained for energy and other commodities in short supply, after which economic slump results, with a collapse of energy and commodity prices – and investment in all competing substitutes.

Even in deep economic recession in the OECD countries (about one-sixth of world population, and about 45% of world GNP depending PPP corrections) it is likely that most fast emerging, new industrial giant and large economies like China, India, Brasil, Pakistan, Turkey, Bangladesh (and others) will continue increasing their oil and gas consumption. Some may be able to increase their domestic production of oil and gas, and coal, but most will not. Their increasing 'call on export offer' will tend to attenuate the fall of world oil demand, provisionally forecast for the year 2009 by agencies like the OECD's IEA at up to 1.5 Mbd, or about a 1.75% reduction in world total demand relative to 2008. In fact in 2009, this fall of demand may intensify, and further depress traded oil prices, on the one hand, threatening the reaction of more drastic oil export supply cuts by OPEC and Russia, on the other hand.

Taking entry to the 1980-83 recession for comparison, this economic slump compressed world oil demand by about 3.5% pa, but with the return of global economic growth in 1984, world oil demand also rapidly returned to growth.

The current very short term context of sharply falling oil demand, with a potential fall also of gas and coal demand in 2009, has to be compared with the expected falls in world oil supply capacity from as early as 2010, forecast by experts within the ASPO group. These estimates are of annual falls in world total production capacity quite rapidly attaining 4% - which is somewhat higher than the probable rate of contraction for world oil demand due to the current global economic slump. At any time there is recovery of conventional economic growth, the large and increasing shortfall in supply or 'supply/demand gap' will quickly become evident.

It is very clear that the emerging economies will continue increasing their national oil, gas and coal demand until and unless energy prices attain some extreme high – or that reason prevails, and these countries are brought into a global and multilateral plan and framework for accelerated Energy Transition. This must, as already noted, feature fossil energy intensity reduction in the OECD and accelerated, coordinated and automatically funded, worldwide development of ARE.

One major problem is the credibility of 'de-linkage' of oil with economic growth. For the emerging economies this is evidently and clearly not the case – their conventional and fast economic growth produces strong growth of their fossil energy demand. For the OECD group and according to ECB president Trichet, and US Fed chairmen Greenspan, then Bernanke, OECD countries have continuously cut their 'oil linkage' of economic growth since the Oil Shocks of the 1970s. However, this ‘de-linkage’ shown by an average fall of about 10%-25% in barrels consumption per 1000 dollars of GNP through the period of about 1975-2000 was only apparent. Since about 1998, many of the OECD countries have in fact increased their oil burn per unit GNP. In addition, the 'historic' fall in oil intensity in OECD countries was accompanied by a strong opposing trend, of sharply rising natural gas burning, and gas intensity (average gas demand per capita, per year).

Apparent falls in oil intensity in the OECD countries have also been strongly helped by de-industrialisation and delocalisation, which ‘exports’ oil and energy demand for industrial production and raw materials outside the ‘postindustrial’ OECD. This enables the de-industrialised OECD to 'swap' services and hi-tech product exports (needing little oil), for oil-intensive consumer products, semi finished goods, and raw materials. Consequently, the 'oil balance of trade' is heavily in favor of the de-industrialised, or de-industrialising OECD countries, and amounted in 2007 to around 1 barrel/capita/year, on average, for the EU-15 countries. For the USA exactly the same 'hidden oil imports' due to trade structure also apply.

The reality of continued, high level dependence on fossil energy, and linkage with economic growth has likely contributed to the political momentum in EU countries resulting in their adoption of the 'energy-climate package' of Dec 2008. This plan includes a target of 20% renewable energy in the EU energy mix by 2020, but without automatic financing outside the linked target of 20% reduction in CO2 (and other) climate changing gas emissions, which is still essentially based on CO2 permits trading. Regarding aid, assistance and investment for alternate and renewable energy development outside Europe, the plan still essentially relies on the ‘clean development mechanism' (CDM), for financing support, through emissions credits, for non-fossil energy development in nonOECD, often low income associated and developing countries (the ADCs).

The CDM process is far from transparent, is small scale, and has no structure or plan for efficient development of all available renewable energy sources in the ADCs. In particular we can note the absence of any automatic financing mechanism, which is strongly needed to ensure constant and rapid progress in non-fossil energy development outside the OECD.

The ‘impossible’ challenge of Kyoto compliance

The outlook for climate change is increasingly sombre, for example near-term and major impacts related to the accelerated melt of the northern polar ice cap. This in turn reinforces calls for an accelerated deployment of alternate and renewable energy (ARE), but no multilateral framework for their growth has so far been proposed. The need for this is increased when we take expected fossil energy demand growth of the emerging economies, which are outside the present Kyoto framework except for the CDM process.

In these still fast-growing economies, we find their typical oil demand per capita, or oil intensity, is usually less than one-fifth of the average in European Union countries, and one-tenth the US average. For natural gas and electricity demand, the differential is very similar, or larger. Only with coal demand do we find a smaller differential relative to average per capita consumption in the OECD countries – noting of course that coal emits the highest-possible amount of climate change gases per unit of useful delivered energy.

The Kyoto Treaty has since its first ratification by present adhering countries lacked credibility because it excluded, and may for some while continue to exclude ‘large emitter’ countries with massive coal burns, specially USA, China or India, to which we can easily add Russia, Indonesia and Australia. In particular, one of the strongest constraints on bringing the world's largest coal burning countries into the Treaty will be their implied need to abandon or sharply reduce coal-based thermal electric power generation as their main choice for electric power, until and unless economically feasible 'clean coal technology' emerges.

Energy sector development will necessarily include the renewables, especially when the intrinsic high cost, and long lead-time choice of nuclear energy is confronted by the nearly unlimited national security risks of the « friendly atom ». Many renewable energy sources excluding geothermal, hydro and wind are essentially concentrated, or more richly-available in low-latitude or intertropical regions. Their efficient development requires attention to and acceptance of this reality, that is basic resource availability - this problem (of basic resource availability) explaining a certain part of the difficulty impeding faster renewable energy development in the Northern, higher latitude countries.

The nearly impossible challenge of Kyoto compliance for signatory countries – that they should reduce total emissions of greenhouses gases to 1990 levels - should logically focus attention and resources on faster development of non-fossil energy outside the OECD group. This will focus attention on ‘intertropical’ renewable energy resources, and related economic development such as food production and water supply. However, as at present, no plan, mechanisms or frameworks – including financing mechanisms - exist for accelerating and widening the process.

Using less Oil and Gas

For the OECD countries the most urgent priority is very simply – using less oil and gas. Oil burning is considered by the Kyoto process as more pollutive than equivalent natural gas burning (per unit energy), despite the fact that release of unburnt methane necessarily increases with total amounts produced, transported and consumed. Worldwide loss-in-production and transport losses of natural gas, by LNG tanker, through regasification, and by pipeline are very high – at least 10%, compared to well below 2% for oil. Estimates made by the World Bank and US satellite defense agencies for 2006 were that gas losses only associated with oil production (flared, vented gas and gas-in-liquids lost), these amounted to about 160 Billion cubic metres, more than 25% of total gas consumption in the EU-27.

Reduction of oil burning but with greater (sometimes much greater) use of gas is however favoured or prioritized by the Kyoto process. For ‘model compliant countries’, as for the other less compliant countries, the recent past of 1990-2005 shows that restored economic growth nearly always restores fossil energy demand growth.

As most European Union leaderships like to advance their political adherence to the goals of the Kyoto Treaty (reducing CO2 emissions, notably) we can compare this stated goal, with the reality of oil and gas consumption growths of some major EU countries through 1990-2005

Table 1
Growths of OIL and GAS consumption for selected EU-15 countries, 1990-2005

Country
National OIL consumption
National GAS consumption

Ireland
110%
100%

Spain
55%
350%

Portugal
45%
250%

Netherlands
40%
25%

Denmark
15%
175%

Germany
(small)
50%

France
(small)
45%

Italy
(small)
55%

U K
(small)
85%

Figures (approx) rounded to nearest 5%. ‘Small’ = 10% or less
(Data for above table/ Eurostat, BP Statistical Review)

The above short list excludes countries from the ‘new’ mostly East European EU member states, which are a special focus of ‘clean development’ as currently considered by the Kyoto process. The East European EU countries, which have attracted considerable industrial investment and EU ‘internal delocalisation’ to benefit from cheap labour and weak environmental legislation, have through 2005-2007 experienced growth of their oil and gas demand at rates up to 5% per year for oil, and 7%/year for gas. Their coal demand has also increased rapidly. This growth of fossil energy demand, similar to that in Russia, is due to so-called ‘re-industrialisation’. This trend follows the de-industrialisation of the 1990s, triggered by the political collapse of the Soviet Union and the economic collapse of Russia.

Economic collapse, we can note, can 'deliver' very radical and fast cuts in oil and gas demand – but this only stacks up an equally fast rebound, whenever economic growth returns. Collapse of oil and gas demand in the ex-Warsaw Pact countries and in Russia through about 1990-96, in the Russian case led to large but temporary export surpluses of Russian oil and gas. In energy and economic policy terms, this gave credibility to the New Economy myth of ‘unfettered market forces’ being able to overcome physical limits on supply. In fact and basically, oil and gas importer nations benefitted from the chaotic economic rout and mass poverty caused by 'market liberation' in Russia, under Yeltsin, with a rather sure strengthening of nationalist policies regarding energy resources by the following Putin and Medvedev regimes.

With Russia's economic recovery and re-industrialisation, energy demand spiraled up, the same way it had spiraled down, previously. The net result was that energy conservation, efficiency raising, and transition to renewable energy were completely sidelined by a classic 'boom-bust' (or in fact 'bust-boom') process in the economy and society. Energy transition was of low interest to policy makers or business deciders, and of little or no concern to the public.

Does Kyoto compliance mean Energy transition ?

As signed by over 180 countries, this presently political engagement of 'Kyoto compliance' can be contrasted with the implied target of reducing national oil and gas burn to 1990 levels in the ratifying countries. We could, for example, consider what annual percent cut in oil burn, and natural gas burn would be needed in the selected EU-15 countries listed above, if they were to re-achieve 1990 levels of oil and gas consumption by 2008-2012. Figures of over 20%-per-year would in some cases be needed, particularly for gas burning, proving (if needed) that the Kyoto Treaty cannot be considered as an 'energy transition' tool or strategy, except under some hypothetical and massive change in public opinion and political decision, making climate change mitigation a national emergency. If for any reason there was an attempt to achieve 'total compliance' in a short period of time, this would in fact require deep and permanent economic depression.

The Clean Development Mechanisms (CDMs), notably the supply of renewable energy based, or lower emission conventional fossil fuel technology to associated developing countries (for the EU this is the ACP group of countries), are in fact equally needed inside the ratifying countries. For several ratifying countries, even the current and heavily reworked emission cutting targets are as high as 3.5% - 4.5%/year, strongly implying that very intensive, and organized plans for national oil and gas saving, and development of alternate and renewable energy must be set in place very quickly. We must add that due to Peak Oil and Peak Gas, targets at least as high as these will be needed for reducing oil and gas intensity, in all the OECD countries.

It could be argued that ratifying states will have no option but to seek compliance procedures other than national oil and gas consumption cuts. This will include extension of tradable licenses to pollute, perhaps worldwide and to more sectors (like transport and agriculture) and rapid growth of CDM, so as to buy or obtain sufficient ‘emission credits’. In the absence of this cumbersome, opaque and probably very slow process, we may easily find that, by 2012, total CO2 emissions have simply grown, and the free markets for oil and gas are in permanent extreme-price rout.

In reality, greenhouse gas emission cuts should be as high as 7.5% or more, each year, with ideally about the same amounts of annual cuts in oil and gas burn - but few if any economists would care to estimate what these heroic cuts would do to the economy in the absence of effective multilateral frameworks. We can however compare these huge implicit targets with actual oil and gas demand cuts during the 1980-1983 world recession: this as already noted led to about an annual fall of 3.5% in world oil demand, for 3 years. This recession was the worst-ever since the 1929-36 Great Depression, and at least concerning the severity of its onset was close to the start of the present recession in 2008-2009.

During this recession, world oil demand consecutively fell for 3 years, for the first time in the entire period since World War 2. OECD-wide cuts in oil demand, over 3 consecutive years (1980-1982), were about 9.6%. By 1983-1984, world oil demand was again growing.

Even worse in relation to implied targets for national fossil energy demand cuts, world gas demand did not follow oil demand, but increased from about 1300 to 1340 Million tons oil equivalent (Mtoe) in 1980-1983. Since then, world gas demand has increased much faster than oil demand, and is about 2650 Mtoe today.

The place of renewable energy based CDMs

The Kyoto Treaty is above all still-fluid, with unfinalized objectives, calculation bases and methods. Targets for emission cuts are still imprecise and unsure, and have been ‘politically sweetened’, for example regarding coal dependence for electric power production (about 55% of world electricity is coal based). Emissions reduction inside the ratifying countries will have to considerably increase in a short period of time, but because of the economic and technical difficulty of this, the CDMs in the ADCs and in the emerging economies will become an inescapable, vital part of the framework and process for compliance.

This context must focus the intertropical renewable energy technologies and systems, where potentials are so large they offer some scope for reducing or limiting the inevitable and large impacts of world oil depletion, and world natural gas depletion. While denial of impending depletion can be maintained a short while longer, these inevitable trends will soon exercise leverage on policy and public opinion, as depletion accelerates rather fast in the next 5 years.

The intertropical renewables include real potentials for large-area solar, large-area biomass and large scale Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC) systems and processes, also including electric power system interconnexion and integration. Particularly in the case of OTEC, solar and biomass energy development, the net outputs for economically feasible projects will necessarily include non energy products, for example fish and crustaceans in the case of OTEC installations, and food commodities in the case of large area biomass and solar energy projects.

Probably the key element is scale. The merited reproach of renewable energy technology is that it is small-scale, high-cost and unreliable, as well as imposing multiple and strong economic, social, cultural or other constraints. This concerns many of the renewables in high latitude environments, where only wind electric power (among the 'new renewables') has radically grown and been easily-integrated in existing, fossil-based energy mixes. High land costs and incompatible existing infrastructures, and especially the cultural values of energy-intensive society also reduce the applicability and feasibility of fast growth of alternate and renewable energy in the higher latitude, Kyoto Treaty ratifying countries.

This being the case it is therefore rational to re-focus attention to the intertropical renewables, and focus North-South cooperation in the rapid and efficient, large-scale integration of this form of economic and infrastructure development. CDMs offer an avenue and focus for this effort. Without large-scale and preferably automatic financing mechanisms it is doubtful if fast progress can be achieved in this domain – and in fact in global Energy Transition.

Conclusions

Restoration of global economic growth – the current N°1 target of all political leaderships worldwide – will inevitably restore global oil and gas demand, but within a short period this will face structural undersupply of markets.

Political and public opinion support to strong action for limiting climate change and developing alternate and renewable energy is nearly total, but no global plan, programme and, in particular, multilateral financing mechanism and framework exists.

The need to reduce oil and gas intensity of the OECD countries is implicitly accepted or targeted by Kyoto Treaty application, specially in the EU-27 countries – which however will need to obtain, or buy, very large amounts of emission credits through the CDM procedure in the implementation period of 2008-2012.

Renewable energy based CDMs, in this context, will become of great economic significance and political interest. This will notably include the ‘intertropical renewables’, which not only have large economic potential, but also have very large energy supply potentials.

Extending the Kyoto Treaty for Energy Transition faces numerous obstacles, suggesting that a linked, multilateral transition plan, programme and frameworks – specially including financing mechanisms – must be quickly proposed, debated and put in place.

The Rush for Gigawatts in the Desert

2009-01-12T13:22:00.000-08:00

The Rush for Gigawatts in the Desert Explodes
Although the economy is in the dumps, there's been a 78% jump in applications to build solar projects on BLM land in the last six months.

There might be a credit crunch, but that's not stopping solar companies from trying to lay claim to millions of acres of desert real estate.

The federal Bureau of Land Management has seen a 78 percent jump in the number of solar energy project applications since it reversed a controversial decision last July and started to accept applications again.

The number of applications has risen to 223 from 125. The applicants are vying to build solar power plants that are 10 megawatts or larger in California, Arizona, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Colorado, according to the BLM data provided by Andrew Malone in the agency's public affairs office.

In all, these projects would occupy 2.3 million acres. It's difficult to say what the total power generation capacity that has been proposed is since some developers have yet to specify that information on their applications. Many of the proposals call for building projects with hundreds of megawatts of generation capacities.

"I didn't realize they had gotten that many," said David Briery, a spokesman for BLM's Desert District in California.

Briery isn't so surprised by the high number of projects being proposed in his district, home to the Mojave Desert and other vast tracks of sunny, rural land (see map for proposed solar energy projects). The BLM has listed on its Website 75 projects worth 51.6 gigawatts in the Desert District, but the numbers don't reflect the total applications it has received because the list isn't updated quickly (you can download an Excel file for the partial list on the BLM Website).

Overall, there are 107 applications for the BLM land in California, 71 applications in Nevada and 35 in Arizona, Malone said. New Mexico, Utah and Colorado make up the rest.

Although the BLM oversees 258 million acres of land in the country, many tracks are not suitable for power plant developments because they are too far from the transmission lines or don't receive enough hot, direct sunlight, which certain types of solar technologies call for.

The rush of applications is a strong indication that entrepreneurs see gold in desert land. In fact, some locations are considered so desirable that several companies are lining up for the chance to develop the same plots. So if the first company fails, then the second applicant can step in, Briery said.

Although the BLM has been flooded with solar energy proposals, it doesn't process them quickly. That's because the path to getting permits for build those power plants will involve lengthy environmental and other reviews by not only the BLM but also other federal and state agencies.

"There's always a sharp fallout between the application stage and when a plant can be successfully permitted, designed and built. That's the big unknown," said John Geesman, a former member of the California Energy Commission and the current co-counsel of the American Council on Renewable Energy.

Out of the 223 proposals, only 2 projects are far enough along to undergo environmental reviews, a critical juncture in the permitting process. The two projects come from BrightSource Energy in Oakland, Calif., and Stirling Energy Systems in Phoenix, Ariz. Both are proposing solar-thermal power plants which, unlike rooftop solar panels, use the sun's heat to generate electricity.

BrightSource wants to build three solar-thermal plants totaling 400 megawatts in the Mojave Desert (see project description). The company has signed contracts with PG&E to deliver the power from the project.

Stirling Energy is proposing a 750-megawatt solar-thermal power project to be located in Imperial County, which is south of the Mojave Desert (see project description).

BLM will need more employees to review those applications promptly, Geesman said. But whether it will get the staffing boost from a new administration that portrays itself as a solar energy booster remains to be seen.

"Until the new administration presents a budget, you are not going to know what the regional BLM staff is going to be," Geesman said.

Given the strong interest in developing solar energy in California, the state has tried to streamline the permitting process. For example, it signed a memorandum of understanding with the BLM in late 2007 to jointly conduct environmental reviews of each project.

That will help to speed up the process, but doing environmental reviews is an inherently time-consuming process that requires detailed assessments of each project's impact on wildlife and other natural resources, Geesman said.

The BLM is drafting a document that it hopes will also speed up the permitting process. The document, called the Solar Energy Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), would carry out a comprehensive analysis of solar energy projects' potential environmental, social and economical impact.

Each applicant will still have to carry out an environmental review of the project to gauge its specific impact, but the PEIS would serve as a reference. The PEIS, among other things, would identify land that is suitable for solar energy development and the best procedures and practices for approving projects.

The need to do a PEIS is what prompted the BLM to stop accepting solar energy applications last year (see BLM Lifts Moratorium on Public Land for Solar). The PEIS was to take two years to complete, and the agency wanted to focus on getting the PEIS done before considering more projects.

The agency has completed a PEIS for wind and geothermal energy developments.

Dyesol and Corus Accelerate Solar Cell Commercialisation

2008-12-31T02:30:00.000-08:00

Building Integrated

At a time when virtually all of the construction and solar cell industry is experiencing a significant slowing of activity and short term demand and profitability declines are the norm, the Corus/Dyesol partnership has announced that the project to bring dye solar cells (DSC) onto metal roofing is being accelerated. The decision to accelerate the project was made on the basis of anticipated demand growing dramatically from 2010 and the success of the program to date, wherein the achievement of product milestones is well ahead of schedule.

Dyesol and Corus will commit more technical and production engineering staff to the project, and initiate real life product testing by mid 2009. The commercialization path will be shortened to eliminate one stage of the manufacturing assurance phase. This will mean that product will become available from the first production line in 2010 for selected customers.

The acceleration of the current phase is being financed predominantly by bringing forward planned commitments. Details of plans for the earlier commitment of production facilities from 2010 will be released over the coming months.

The dye solar cell integrated into steel roofing promises to be the first solar cell technology that can be grid competitive in the normal light conditions experienced in most cities around the world. The advantages of dye solar cells derive from the similarity with photosynthesis. Consequently, dye solar cells exhibit operating voltage stability across the normal daily solar conditions, including cloudy and hazy conditions. DSC is also less susceptible to hot conditions than other solar technologies – and it comes in a variety of natural colours. The technology has been demonstrated by Dyesol through accelerated testing to have an operating lifetime well in excess of the 25 years needed for BIPV applications. Combined with the low energy required for manufacture and relatively cheap materials of construction, DSC has tremendous potential for application wherever steel roofing is used.

For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

Dyesol and Corus Accelerate Building Integrated Solar Cell Commercialisation

2008-12-15T18:00:00.000-08:00

At a time when virtually all of the construction and solar cell industry is experiencing a significant slowing of activity and short term demand and profitability declines are the norm, the Corus/Dyesol partnership has announced that the project to bring dye solar cells (DSC) onto metal roofing is being accelerated. The decision to accelerate the project was made on the basis of anticipated demand growing dramatically from 2010 and the success of the program to date, wherein the achievement of product milestones is well ahead of schedule.

Dyesol and Corus will commit more technical and production engineering staff to the project, and initiate real life product testing by mid 2009. The commercialization path will be shortened to eliminate one stage of the manufacturing assurance phase. This will mean that product will become available from the first production line in 2010 for selected customers.

The acceleration of the current phase is being financed predominantly by bringing forward planned commitments. Details of plans for the earlier commitment of production facilities from 2010 will be released over the coming months.

The dye solar cell integrated into steel roofing promises to be the first solar cell technology that can be grid competitive in the normal light conditions experienced in most cities around the world. The advantages of dye solar cells derive from the similarity with photosynthesis. Consequently, dye solar cells exhibit operating voltage stability across the normal daily solar conditions, including cloudy and hazy conditions. DSC is also less susceptible to hot conditions than other solar technologies – and it comes in a variety of natural colours. The technology has been demonstrated by Dyesol through accelerated testing to have an operating lifetime well in excess of the 25 years needed for BIPV applications. Combined with the low energy required for manufacture and relatively cheap materials of construction, DSC has tremendous potential for application wherever steel roofing is used.

For further information contact Viv Hardy at Callidus PR on +61 (0)2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.
In Europe contact Eva Reuter, Investor Relations, Dyesol Europe on +49 177 6058804

GreenSmith launches backup battery for grid

2008-12-08T03:22:00.000-08:00

Washington D.C.-based GreenSmith Energy Management Systems unveiled technology it says can solve the peak demand problems of U.S. utilities.

CEO Rodney Smith said the company has designed a battery control and management system that, when paired with lithium ion battery GreenSmith acquired from a manufacturer overseas, can store 20 kilowatt-hours at a time and provide between 3,000 and 4,000 full-discharge cycles.

The idea is that utilities could charge the battery when it's cheaper to produce energy, such as in the middle of the night, and could discharge that energy onto the grid when it's most expensive to produce power.

Smith said ideal circumstances would be to use the battery during peak demand instead of firing up a peak power plant, which is more expensive to run. The unit could help reduce the need for additional power plants and prevent utilities from losing excess power generated.

"Utilities are far more receptive to distributed storage technologies than they are to smart grid, and for a reason," Smith told the Cleantech Group. "Grid replacement is like trying to replace the air traffic control system. You have to put a lot of money into it before you see any rewards from it. With our technology, you get the benefit right away."

The technology can be paired with intermittent renewable energy sources, such as wind and solar, to better align power supply with power demand, Smith said.

That field is also being targeted by companies such as ZBB Energy, which has contracted with the Australian government to accelerate development of the company's zinc-bromine storage systems for renewable energy projects (see ZBB gets Australian contract for renewable energy storage and ZBB, Zest in energy storage deal).

Tyngsboro, Mass.-based Beacon Power (Nasdaq: BCON) is promoting its multiple-flywheel systems to supply or absorb electricity, giving extra stability to a grid that's experiencing demand or supply peaks (see Beacon slows flywheel storage plans).

According to the Carnegie Mellon Electricity Industry Center, there is a strong economic case for flywheel installations to improve grid stability, as evidenced by the New York Independent System Operator and the PJM Interconnection.

Last year, Windsor, Colo.-based Ice Energy revealed a device to shift up to 95 percent of air-conditioning load to off-peak hours while providing full cooling performance (see Ice Energy cools down power demand).

Other technology is attempting to use molten salt for energy storage (see Concentrated solar gets salty and Cleantech Group picks winners and losers in concentrated solar thermal).

GreenSmith's systems are designed to be managed from a central location, either programmed to optimize cheap energy price or manually controlled. Utilities, regional transmission agencies and co-ops in the U.S. are the current market, but GreenSmith eventually plans to target global markets, especially those with intermittent access to the electric grid.

Consumers aren't the target for GreenSmith, although Smith said the devices could be modified for home use.

GreenSmith is in talks with several utilities and expects a pilot project with a utility to begin operating in about two months. The company plans to produce commercially by mid-2009, with tens of thousands of units sold that year.

After that, GreenSmith expects to sell hundreds of thousands of units to utilities a year. A large utility would probably use about 3,000 units in a pilot test and as many as a million units in full deployment, whereas a small utility might seek between 100 and 1,000 for a pilot, Smith said.

Each unit would cost about $10,000, minus volume discounts, which Smith said produces an energy cost of less than 10 cents per kilowatt hour.

GreenSmith has raised an undisclosed amount in angel funding from private investors. The company is currently raising a Series A round led by Blue Lagoon Capital, but Smith declined to reveal the size of the round, saying that reports of a $20 million round were incorrect.

The company, which Smith said has a "handful" of employees, originally pursued smart grid technology when it was founded in 2007 as an offshoot of think-tank Intelligent Power Unit. Smith decided energy storage presented a more lucrative business model because it was faster to market.

"We thought, what if instead of trying to fight peak you could shift peak?" Smith said. "So we decided to focus on storage."

One of the next big things...biochar

2008-12-07T18:22:00.000-08:00

POZNAN, Poland (Reuters) – An ancient technique of plowing charred plants into the ground to revive soil may also trap greenhouse gases for thousands of years and forestall global warming, scientists said on Friday.

Heating plants such as farm waste or wood in airtight conditions produces a high-carbon substance called biochar, which can store the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide and enhance nutrients in the soil.

Plants absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Subsequently storing that carbon in the soil removes the gas from the atmosphere.

"I feel confident that the (carbon storage) time of stable biochar is from high hundreds to a few thousand years," said Cornell University's Johannes Lehmann, at an event on the sidelines of U.N. climate talks in the Polish city of Poznan.

Lehmann estimated that under ambitious scenarios biochar could store 1 billion tons of carbon annually -- equivalent to more than 10 percent of global carbon emissions, which amounted to 8.5 billion tons in 2007.

Under a conservative scenario the technique could store 0.2 billion tons of carbon annually, he said. That would still require heating without oxygen -- called pyrolysis -- some 27 percent of global crop waste and plowing this into the soil.

Lehmann cited experiments on 10 farm crops suggesting biochar can also increase yields by up to three times, because the organic matter holds on to nutrients.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) said in November that global greenhouse gas emissions were so out of control that avoiding more dangerous levels of climate change depended on creating negative emissions later this century.

The energy adviser to 28 industrialized countries cited biochar as one way of achieving that.

The technique rings alarm bells among some environmentalists worried it could spur deforestation, but its chief problem may be that it is barely proven on a commercial scale.

"It will remain theoretical without making demonstration plants on the ground," Lehmann said.

Soils containing biochar made by Amazon people thousands of years ago still contain up to 70 times more black carbon than surrounding soils and are still higher in nutrients, said Debbie Reed, director of the International Biochar Initiative (IBI).

The IBI was in Poznan to lobby for research funding for biochar. In Poznan, 187 countries are meeting in ongoing talks to agree a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. They hope to finalize a deal next year.

Lehmann emphasized that the technique was not a substitute for fighting climate change by curbing man-made greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

New steel works facilities opened

2008-11-05T20:33:00.000-08:00

New steel works facilities opened
New high-tech environmental facilities at a steelworks in Deeside have been opened by First Minister Rhodri Morgan.

The two new multi-million pound projects at Corus' Shotton steel works should safeguard around 600 jobs at the plant.

One will produce panelling which includes insulation for roofing on commercial or residential buildings.

The second will undertake research into steel coated with solar cell technology to produce electricity.

Rhodri Morgan said it showed how companies were putting environmental technology at the forefront of investment plans.

"During difficult times in the construction sector, it is more important than ever for companies to be right at the forefront of new environmental technology exploiting new niche markets," he said.

"That's what today's product launches are all about.

"They are yet another example of how Corus continually looks to innovate and invest in delivering some of the most sustainable products available to today's construction sector."

The Shotton plant employs around 600 workers.

The new £6m production line at the works will produce around three million square metres of panelling a year using three shifts of workers.

It is widely recognised as the most automated and efficient production line in Europe.

The two panels sandwich insulation material between them.

The second project is an £11m joint collaboration between Corus and the Australian company Dyesol.

It is backed with about £5m in assembly government money, said a Corus spokesman.

The scheme aims to produce metal cladding products coated with a special dye including cells to make electricity.

"Steel production is being reduced across Western Europe, but demand for innovative products is very high," said the spokesman.

Shotton has lost more than 490 jobs since 2001 with the slim-down in the steel industry.

Corus was taken over by Tata Steel last year and the combined enterprise employs around 82,700 people across four continents.

Dyesol/Corus facilities open in Wales

2008-11-04T16:46:00.000-08:00

Wales, 30 October 2008 – Australia’s dye solar cell technology company, Dyesol furthered its goal of capturing a significant slice of the global solar photovoltaic market, forecast to be worth over $US 30 billion in 2008, with the opening today of a new multi-million dollar facility in Wales, just weeks after unveiling its materials manufacturing and equipment design and assembly facility in Australia.

The leader of the Welsh Assembly Government and First Minister for Wales, The Right Hon Rhodri Morgan AM opened the new Photovoltaic Accelerator Facility which is a continuation of a collaborative program between Dyesol and Corus to accelerate the commercialisation of Dye Solar Cell (DSC) technology onto steel sheeting building products.

The Welsh Assembly Government has been a strong supporter of the partnership, providing a substantial assistance package of over £5M towards the establishment of the new facility, which is located in Shotton in North Wales, and the development of DSC on steel products. At the time of receiving this grant, it was the highest sum ever to be awarded under this grant scheme.

At the opening, Corus, the fifth largest steel producer in the world, also showcased the most technologically advanced composite panel manufacturing lines in Europe, reinforcing Corus’s commitment to the region where two other Corus businesses already operate. Mr Phillippe Varin, CEO of Corus, stressed the importance of innovation to the future of Corus, particularly at this time when traditional steel business is affected by the credit crisis. For Corus, DSC on steel represents a major new business opportunity.

The advantage of Dyesol’s DSC technology over conventional photovoltaic technology is its lower facility cost, lower energy to manufacture, proportionally higher output of electricity in normal and low light conditions, and the ability to directly incorporate it into buildings as passive electricity generators – multifunctional building panels. This is known as BIPV or Building Integrated Photovoltaics. The partnership with Corus is bringing DSC to the market as a fully integrated steel building product produced on the Corus coil-coating lines. Dyesol is the exclusive supplier of all the DSC input materials, test, and DSC prototype manufacturing and testing equipment to this partnership.

Speaking at the opening, Dyesol’s Global Managing Director, Dr Gavin Tulloch said, “Dyesol is proud to be associated with Corus, a partner that has demonstrated its commitment to the environment and the future of cost effective energy security. We are also proud to be associated with the Welsh government, whose commitment to the team has accelerated the project. Dyesol’s business is to be part of technical collaborations and business partnerships in those countries where organisations, research institutes and governments recognise and foster an environment that promotes the rapid commercialisation of DSC technology.”

“As governments around the world legislate to meet the consequences of global warming, significant new opportunities and new applications are emerging as Dyesol works with more organisations to develop new products, including security applications, the communications market and buildings facades. In a tightening credit market, lower cost projects such as what Dyesol offers will have much more appeal than the billion dollar silicon projects” Dyesol Chairman, Mr Richard Caldwell commented.

The Dyesol group was founded in Australia, is listed on the ASX (DYE) and trades in Germany (D5I), and has European operations in Italy, UK and Switzerland with representation in Germany, as well as a joint venture in Korea and operations in Singapore.

Dyesol Update

2008-10-29T22:13:00.001-07:00

Dyesol finished the first quarter of the financial year with cash reserves of $10.54 million and controlled cash flow, as planned for the period.

The September 2008 quarter demonstrated that Dyesol has achieved its goals to stabilise operational spending while increasing revenue. In fact, revenue increased by 387% to $1.29M (including $359K in R&D tax rebate). Consequently nett operational spend was down 40% to $2.092 Million. Expenses for all operational activities are steady. It is noted that all Dyesol’s cash is held as current and short term deposits in top trading banks in Australia (CBA and St George), UK (HSBC), Switzerland (Raiffeisen), and Italy (BPM). Dyesol’s investment in our joint venture with Timo Technologies in Korea of US$490,000 was made at an exchange rate of 0.8986 ($US/$A).

During the quarter, Dyesol completed commitments for equipment for the new facilities in St Asaph, Shotton and Queanbeyan. Total investment was $2.165M with creditors outstanding of less than $400K. The Dyesol facility in St Asaph is the company’s demonstration laboratory facility and is used for R&D and materials approval and complements our joint prototyping facility at University of Rome Tor Vergata (formally opened this quarter). Since the cash report date, Dyesol has opened the new materials manufacturing and engineering facilities in Queanbeyan and received excellent acclaim for the quality and professionalism of this initiative. Dyesol’s commitments to facilities with Corus at Shotton have now been finalised with equipment produced in Queanbeyan currently being installed in Wales. Further expansion of facilities will depend on new business opportunities.

Since the cash report date, the company has received formal confirmation that cash payments due from the Welsh Government and from Tor Vergata University totalling over A$1.25M have been authorised. Existing contracts in Korea and Taiwan due for completion early in the new year will generate revenue exceeding $1.1 Million on completion of project milestones.

Expenditure in UK and Italy is backed by the company’s holdings in Sterling and Euros. Expenditure in Switzerland is subject to exchange rate fluctuations.

Dyesol has no debt and capital lease liabilities of only $29K. In Australia, the company has invested in long shelf life raw materials inventory for potential materials contracts – stock level is over $800K. The company has a robust balance sheet with over $23M nett assets.

Authorised by: Dr Gavin Tulloch (Managing Director Dyesol) +61 (0)2 6299 1592

On peak Oil - ASPO

2008-09-27T17:24:00.000-07:00

Monday, September 22, was the first day of the formal meeting, following the Breakout sessions on Sunday. The meeting had over 500 attendees, so that all the seats were full as the meeting started, and there were soon folk standing at the back of the hall. Kjell Aleklett, President of ASPO-International, began with a brief review of world conditions before Sally Odland moderated the first session which was an introduction, or reminder, of the basics of oil generation and exploration. This was provided by Ken Verosub, a professor of geology at UC Davis. Starting with the basics of oil formation, he pointed out the combination of different geological events, and the resulting layers of rock that have to be formed in place in order to create, capture and then trap the rock, and the need for geological movement to then concentrate the supply so that it can be recovered.

He pointed out that the oil has to be “cooked” just the right amount to convert it to oil, which requires a certain depth of burial, at one stage in its history. He illustrated the events through the creation of oil traps around a salt dome. To find the traps, the methodology has had to get more refined. Originally, two-dimensional models of the subsurface were achieved by using exploding sound sources and a small array of geophones to pick up reflected sound waves and thus map the layers of rock beneath the surface. The systems today can use computer analysis to generate three-dimensional images which can be projected into rooms that allow the geologists a degree of exploration not available in earlier years.

He went on to explain how a “Hubbert” curve of depletion is formed for a given oil field, from the accumulation of production rise and decline of the individual wells in a field. He mentioned that the results of the combination of geological rocks that have to come together to provide a viable field restrict potential discoveries to relatively known places. (These do not include many of the places where the “Drill here, Drill now” message is enunciated). Finding where there is enough oil to justify a well is neither easy nor cheap. He then used some simplified math to show that the amount of oil that is left is already diminished to the point that, in the best circumstance, oil production will peak in the 2010 to 2015 time frame. This assumes a world max production of around 100 mbd (we’re at about 86 now).

Sally Odland works at the Lamont-Doherty Laboratory where just recently they have acquired an ex-industrial sesmic survey ship. Because of the recent cost increases in ship repair, and the fact that the industry kept hiring away the team members, restoring the boat took much longer and more funds than anticipated. The costs of fuel now mandate that the ship be rented out to industry for 5 months of the year, so that the School can afford to use it for the other 7 months.

Sadly Gil Mull one of those who helped drive the first exploration well in the North Slope of Alaska could not make the conference, but Sally went through the slides of his presentation, and these will be available at the ASPO website within a couple of days, and are well worth seeing.

Jeremy Gilbert tried to sound a Wake-up call. He noted that in many reports of the remaining reserves and production the only reliable numbers are often the page numbers. He now sees that the projections of the arrival of peak oil have been optimistic, and that the risks have got worse, as the peak point approaches. He noted that as world gas prices continue to rise, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA) has just cut oil and gas prices (which increases domestic demand). He spoke disparagingly of previous IEA projections, but noted that the agency has recently undergone a change in heart and now sees three problem areas:

(1) the geological constraints on finding large fields of oil;
(2) the lack of investment able to exploit these increasingly difficult and expensive sites; and
(3) the much greater production problems that working in these more difficult environments bring.

He bemoaned the renewable energy mantra that “solar, wind or something, UFO’s perhaps, will bring an answer to our crisis.”

The problem is that we are finding only smaller fields each year, and must thus find more of them to make up for depletion. Those who call for more drilling need to learn that this will take time (given that all the rigs available are already busy, and that permitting etc all takes time). And as for new technology, this is usually applied in harder-to-produce rock, where its implementation only brings overall recovery values up to what they were originally estimated to be. He noted that while we have doubled the number of drilling rigs (around 3,500) in recent years, overall production levels have remained the same. And since Russia likely peaked last year, we are now running on borrowed time.

In short, it is past time that we wake up to the crisis at our door. He recommended the Deutsche Bank Report “From shale to shining shale” which is a critical look at shale gas plays.

Morey Wolfson of ASPO (and the Colorado Governor’s office) then presented a truly impressive new addition to the ASPO web site, the new Google Earth Global Energy Infrastructure tour . The tour had been put onto a 20-min video that he ran. Having watched it, I really encourage you to check out the site. It shows all aspects of the energy issue, and finds and shows the places that are important to it. (You could count the tankers in the Malacca Straits).

The next speaker was Matt Simmons whom I have heard on numerous occasions, but who this time talked into a silence as intense as any I have heard. He scared the audience in a way I have not seen before, perhaps because we were all much more willing to believe this time, given his record from the past.

He noted at the beginning of his talk that there are 150 miles of unit trains leave Wyoming every day. (Ed note – a 1-mile unit train contains 110 rail cars of 100 tons of coal each.) He talked about the elements of risk that we have now forgotten how to apply. He noted that we have forgotten how savage a collapse can be, or how fast it can occur. (Enron unfolded in 7 days. The events of the last week showed how even faster collapse can come now). The delays in bringing oil production on line from the recent hurricanes will only underline this point.

As a result places are running out of gasoline (Ed note the two folk next to me at the table were from Atlanta and Tennessee and neither town had any gas stations left with fuel, as far as they knew). The South is going to have to cope with a growing shortage until more of the infrastructure comes back on line, and that may be weeks into the future. This will get worse if all motorists suddenly start topping up their tanks, since this will sensibly empty the floating reserve that is the volume moving through the system at the moment. This will, in turn, remove confidence in the system, which will make the situation worse. The heating oil situation for the North East is only going to get worse in this scenario. And there is no data on how close to a collapse we currently are. And the collapse could well be a disaster equivalent to that of Gustav/Ike squared.

He noted that contrary to the solutions for the financial world there is no insurance policy that can help with Peak Oil. The paradigm is changing and sadly the world is still Energy Illiterate.

He also commented, having talked with producers of the new gas wells being drilled in the various shale formations around the country, that this is close to, if not already at a point where the energy costs to sink the well are not returned by the gas recovered from it. Further in talking with Baker Hughes folk (the ones that track the wells that are drilled around the world), he found that those who thought depletion in old fields was less than 5% got no takers from his audience, 60% of the audience thought that depletion was between 6 and 8% and the remainder thought that it was in the range above 10%. (As noted earlier the assumed value is often taken as somewhere between 2 & 4% with TOD using around 4.5%). It was by far the most pessimistic that I have heard him give.

We then broke for lunch and I was confronted by the question as to whether the situation would be so bad that we would not be able to come to a meeting, if one is held next year. Then the annual M King Hubbert Awards were presented, and we will talk about them in a separate post.

Jim Buckee of Talisman gave the luncheon address, talking on the production company viewpoint. He differentiated between the volume available in a field, and the production rates that can be achieved at it. He said that Peak Oil is real, and illustrated this conclusion by discussing the decline in production rate from virtually all the major oilfields of the world. 90% of production comes from 10% of the fields and we know which they are. He then went through the list, which was dominated by the comment “in terminal exponential decline.” The depletion rate he quoted (after the 50% production point) was on average 10%.

In discussing the KSA fields he said that these also will follow these rules, as Abqaiq already is. Talk of increasing post peak production with Enhanced Oil Recovery Techniques does not spell out what these might be, and his opinion was that this was a likely myth. Recent Natural Gas Liquid (NGL) increases have hidden the likely peaking of crude oil, but this will only last a short interval more before it too will start to decline.

He did give a realistic reason why the major oil companies have not admitted to Peak Oil, pointing out that it will lead to reactions very similar to those that hit the financial community last week. Nevertheless with resource nationalism rising this makes further exploration tough; makes it difficult for industry to attract people; has doubled production costs over the last 3 years; and leads to a constant fight against field declines.

He pointed out that there is no opposite to a train wreck. Further nationalism just means that the state takes a larger slice of a pie of fixed size. The change in production from majors to IOCs to NOCs has led to increasingly smaller production levels at higher costs. He felt we would hold production at the current level of around 85 mbd for another decade, but only because we will soon see effective rationing of this supply.

I then took a short break and missed the first after-lunch talks so any input on those would be helpful. I came back as Hermann Franssen was taking about the role of the IEA, and its recognition that times have changed, and as a result that its predictions of the future supply are changing also. He tried to get the audience to understand the world from the KSA point of view. That they see a constant threat to the price of oil, and their income, and thus act very protectively to ensure that they can continue to make money selling their oil. But they are also conscious that they want to leave some oil for their offspring, and thus are very conservative in their production management. However Aramco is very compartmentalized, and thus only very few people really know the numbers and what is going on. And some of those that do are very pessimistic.

We must change things, and this requires successful “suits” going to Washington with a message. This message should include the need to fix the American transport system (against which are marshaled all those that have an interest in the highway system as it currently stands).

The world’s stock or cars will double in the next 17 years, but the Middle East is close to reaching an upper sustainable production level, and non-OPEC has peaked. Thus, the best we can hope for is in the 90 – 105 mbd range. He was nervous of the foreign policy of Gazprom. And while they are in the Middle East already, it must be remembered that America has zero credibility in this region.

Andy Weissman in the first of two talks, covered Electricity and Gas, noting that their crisis points are not yet here, though close. We could easily soon see natural gas (NG) prices that equate to $150/bbl of oil. The supplies of NG that have become so critical to powering the national power grid are going to decline in volume, and thus increase in price. LNG is the marginal production we will come to rely on, and this will impose an additional premium on price. He anticipates global shortages of LNG by 2012/2013, with devastating consequences. He sees 5 essential requirements to meeting our needs:

1. Greater sense of urgency needed
2. Replace the IEA
3. Deelop a national strategy to review energy use across the board
4. Maximize all cost effective domestic resources
5. Use the best expertise available to review the options.

Jim Puplava felt that the worst is yet to come. He relies on the Chicago Federal National Activity Index. When this falls below -0.7, then there will be recession (it’s close). He is recommending a Prius to help in the time when gas rationing arrives. We are at a point where we have maximized the rig count and yet production is not rising. He feels it is ludicrous not to expect a decline in non-OPEC production. We have an immediate crisis and need to take action. We are talking about the wrong set of solutions and need to change the mind set. The opinion of the experts has been shaken and the lack of good information does not help.

After the break John Theobald introduced the next session with the opening section of the film Soylent Green which, for those who have forgotten, is people. (See the movie).

He then introduced David Fridley who reviewed the recent growth and change in condition in China. It is an economy where coal dominates supply (at around 97% of the resource base) and with a reserve of around 238 billion tons, is likely to continue to do so into the future.

Biomass (rice hulls and similar debris) is used extensively in the hinterland as a fuel source for cooking and heating. Industry otherwise dominates consumption, while transport needs have been small. However, the coal consumption has out-stripped the capabilities of rail to carry it, and thus trucks are increasingly used. These increase the energy cost for delivery by a factor of 16, but China has few other options. China has been busy buying up resources all around the world; it must do so to meet its needs. It is looking at Coal to Liquid and Coal to Chemical plants with the first CTL going in to Shenhua in Inner Mongolia. But it will be a large consumer of water at around 10 tons for every ton of liquid produced, in an area that has little water to spare. Ethanol was not a success, so they now produce methanol and blend this into gasoline.

Diesel is dominant in transportation. There are very few private automobiles, compared to other countries.

Vince Matthews then talked about Peak everything else, and included China in this analysis which saw China seeking major volumes of many commodities and in the process driving up the price. There were many examples given in the slide show of these increases, over a range of minerals. Steel price for example has risen six-fold. Where prices have not yet risen dramatically it has been because of long-term contracts that control price until they expire.

We forget that much of our NG is imported from Canada, and as their needs rise and production falls their exports to us will decline. Thus even though the rig count has increased, we are still in trouble. 49 coal plants came off line last year, to be replaced by NG, but while the number of wells drilled increased from 9,000 to 30,180 over the past few years, production has not matched this increase. Production from the Rockies region is flattening out.

Many folk talk about our redemption coming through increased use of photovoltaics (PV) and solar energy, not recognizing that solar cells require rare earth elements that are largely falling under the control of China, and whose price continues to rocket upwards. China is searching diligently for mines and prospects to acquire (doesn’t really matter what the mineral) and is becoming much more successful than ourselves. (though he noted that Shell is buying up the water rights in Colorado around the oil shale area).

The days activity were summarized by Robert Hirsch, who again emphasized the magnitude of the problem – just matching 1% of global need requires 850,000 bd of oil equivalent. He looked at certain one-liner phrases that had cropped up over the day. “Willful human blindness” was one of the more memorable, as was “Peak roads”.

And then we adjourned to network. As I mentioned in the earlier post there were many of our readers at the meeting, it was a great pleasure for us to meet and chat with many of those, particularly the ones who don’t often comment. And to those as other attendees, I do ask that you expand on my brief review, fill in the blanks and add your impressions.

Thanks.

Dyesol results

2008-08-28T15:32:00.001-07:00

The year to 30 June 2008 has seen Dyesol emerge as a leading force internationally in new generation solar energy. In this year the Company has made significant investment to establish capacity to deliver on the many business opportunities that have arisen. Dyesol now has operations spanning Europe and Asia that enable the Company to bid for and win contracts that we could not have considered or qualified for from our Australian base. An example is the partnership with Corus to develop and industrialise dye solar cells on strip steel for building integration. Our investment in establishing Dyesol UK, setting up prototype facilities in North Wales and employing the team of 8 scientists has brought fruit through the commitment by the Welsh Assembly Government to support the partnership to a level of £5 million during the prototype and pilot production phases. This has enabled Dyesol to plan with assurance for volume manufacture in the UK for the planned industrialization phase. In Italy, Dyesol has established a collaboration with the Universita Dgli Studia Roma Tor Vergata following commitment by the university to acquire a prototyping facility from Dyesol. The industrial and academic team is finalizing a bid for a €10 million project in Italy. In Asia, Dyesol has been approached by many companies seeking to commercialise DSC. Since the end of the year, we have been able to announce three of those projects, two in Korea and one in Taiwan. The Company has been very selective in entering partnerships and collaborates only with organizations that demonstrate financial capacity and long term business and technological commitment. This is essential for commercial success as Dyesol’s business model provides for our major returns to be earned once our partners, collaborators and licencees enter volume manufacture. Consequently, the Company undertakes significant due diligence before committing to a commercial relationship to the extent that there are several other opportunities in Europe, Asia, North America and the Gulf that the international team are evaluating at this time.

In Australia, FY08 has been the year for commitment to production resources for materials and equipments. The new materials manufacturing facility is now completed and will be officially opened shortly. That facility has a capacity of $10 million worth of dye per annum and will shortly be able to produce over $5 million of pastes per annum. The facilities have capacity to double output as demand grows. Our new engineering facilities are on line and the range of prototype equipments is now complete. This investment in the future is reflected in the expenditure on corporate growth and capital equipment. Expense for international growth has predominated in the marketing expense of $2.39 million. The other key element in this line item is the expenditure on exhibitions and sponsorship of high profile conferences in our field. Capital expenditure this year has been $2.37 million predominantly for facility expansion in Queanbeyan, but also comprising the initial prototyping capacity at our facilities in St Asaph in Wales. These new facilities in Queanbeyan will complete Dyesol’s planned investment in Australian operations.

Coupled with the commitment to corporate growth and facilities, the Company has steadily expanded its technological and executive resource to be able to serve the rapidly growing project base internationally. Expenditure on personnel more than doubled in the year to $4.17 million of which $0.67 million was the non-cash value of staff options as calculated by the Black-Scholes method.

In this year sales grew to $2.12 million. While this was below expectations at the start of the year, it is primarily a matter of phasing in key projects in UK, Italy and Asia, each of which has now commenced. The principle project is the partnership with Corus. During the year, one planned project has not eventuated due to the closure by the new Australian government of the Commercial Ready scheme that provided assistance to companies in expansion phase investment. During FY08, Dyesol successfully completed the project for DSTO to develop a camouflage flexible solar panel. The commercial version of this panel will be known as SureVolt reflecting the capability to produce useful power in any light conditions. That project has now entered the engineering phase to prepare for pilot production.

The overall loss for the year of $7.66 million included non cash items of $1.23 million for share based payments to staff and international marketing consultants. This high value was arrived at using the Black Scholes option valuation method and is well out of the market as a result of volatility of Dyesol share price during the year. Depreciation and amortisation amounted to $740K and foreign exchange losses total $180K ($117K unrealized). Payments of a one-off nature totalled $1,130K, primarily related to consultancy services for business establishment and international activities. Significant labour costs were incurred in the administration and marketing areas, with the level of administration support directly related to the increase in scientific personnel. Conference costs of $302K mainly relate to the highly successful Nanofair exhibition and conference at St Gallen in September 2007. Total marketing, new office establishment, and sales expense was $2.37 million, above expectations due to the rate of expansion achieved in the year. The other major expenditure category was R&D which totalled $2.17 million, a level that the Company intends to at least maintain to remain the world leader in DSC technology, equipment and materials.

The year end sees a very solid Balance Sheet with Current Assets at $17.7 million compared to Current Liabilities of only $0.94 million. The Company carries no bank debt and no assets are subject of security. When capital assets are brought to account the Company has a healthy Net Asset balance of $24.28 million. The confidence shown by shareholders in investing $24.4 million during the year has been a key element in the rapid expansion that Dyesol has been able to implement this year.

Net cash usage for operations of $7.8 million reflects an average utilisation of $650K per month within the planned range for this phase of the Company’s growth. Consequently, with similar spend over the next period to promote Dyesol in the international sphere and meet our investment goals under existing development projects, while accepting that cash levels will be maintained due to progressively higher revenue, will place Dyesol in a very good position to reap the rewards from sales to several major customers and partners.

Driven: Shai Agassi's Audacious Plan

2008-08-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

Shai Agassi — on a mission to end oil.

Shai Agassi looks up and down the massive rectangular table in the Ritz-Carlton ballroom and begins to worry. He knows he's out of his league here. For the last day and a half, he's been listening to an elite corps of Israeli and US politicians, businesspeople, and intellectuals debate the state of the world. Agassi is just one of 60 sequestered in a Washington, DC, hotel for a conference run by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy. Among the participants: Bill Clinton, former Israeli prime minister Shimon Peres, Supreme Court justice Stephen Breyer, and two past directors of the CIA.

It's December 2006. Scheduled to speak in a few minutes, Agassi gets nudged by the Israeli minister of education: "Be optimistic," she tells him. "We've got to close with an upbeat tone." Agassi thanks her. Optimism won't be a problem.

At 38, Agassi is the youngest invitee. Just after the dotcom boom, SAP, the world's largest maker of enterprise software, paid $400 million for a small-business software company he started with his father; now he's SAP's head of products and widely presumed to be the next CEO. But he's not here this morning to talk about business software. Instead, his topic will be the world's addiction to fossil fuels. It's a recent passion and the organizers invited him to counterbalance the man speaking now, Daniel Yergin, the famed energy consultant and oil industry analyst. Yergin gives them his latest thinking: Energy independence is unattainable. Oil consumption will continue to rise. Iran will get richer. It's not exactly what this audience wants to hear.

Now it's Agassi's turn. He starts off uncharacteristically nervous, stammering a bit. He's got something different, he says. A new approach. He believes it just might be possible to get the entire world off oil. For good. Point by point, gaining speed as he goes, he shares for the first time in public the ideas that will change his future—and possibly the world's.

Agassi has dark hair, light brown eyes, and a square jaw. He's a careful speaker, holding back until the right moment before delivering his thoughts. He's partial to dramatic pauses, especially if he's about to explain how the future is going to look—something he does all the time. People often think he's kidding, partly because he always has a slight, wry smile. But when the pause ends, what follows—no matter how far-fetched—is never a joke. At his first executive board meeting at SAP, a company that had grown dominant by moving slowly and conservatively, Agassi suggested nearly a dozen heretical ideas. He said SAP should give away its hardware and software for free—just charge for IT support. He said SAP should make its database business open source to undermine Oracle. The other board members laughed: The new kid was a cutup! But they stopped when SAP cofounder Hasso Plattner looked around the table and said, "He's the only guy making sense here."

Agassi's interest in energy is new. In 2005, he joined Young Global Leaders, an invitation-only group for politicians and businesspeople under 40. The four-day induction seminar was held at the Swiss ski resort of Zermatt. Between lectures, YGLs like Skype cofounder Niklas Zennström and NBA star Dikembe Mutombo pledged to find ways to "make the world a better place" by 2020. Agassi's assignment was the environment, and he quickly focused in on climate change.

Most left the event and just poked around in their own industries, looking for small tweaks and improvements. But Agassi wanted something bigger. Back home in Silicon Valley, his day job involved coaxing SAP into the Web 2.0 era. But after Zermatt, his nights were devoted to dinners with energy experts, books on energy policy, and sessions on Wikipedia, learning everything he could about the carbon economy. Getting off oil was the key, he decided. But how? He started by looking at cutting energy usage in the home, then moved to a more tempting target: transportation. Was hydrogen the answer? What about embedding power in the street—like slot cars? Could more be done with biofuels? Agassi kept a running file on his home PC and began working on a series of white papers.
Agassi will sell his battery-powered cars cheap and make money off drivers' electricity purchases.
Photo: Joe Pugliese

The problem, he decided, was oil-consuming, CO2-spewing cars. The solution was to get rid of them. Not just some, and not just by substituting hybrids or flex fuels. No half measures. The internal combustion engine had to be retired. The future was in electric cars.

This was hardly an original insight; electric cars had been the future for over 100 years. In the late 1800s and early 1900s, the Electric Vehicle Company was the largest automaker in the US, with dealers from Paris to Mexico City. But oil, in the end, supplanted volts on American highways because of one perennial problem: batteries. Car batteries, then and now, are heavy and expensive, don't last long, and take forever to recharge. In five minutes you can fill a car with enough gas to go 300 miles, but five minutes of charging at home gets you only about 8 miles in an electric car. Clever tricks, like adding "range extenders"—gas engines that kick in when a battery dies—end up making the cars too expensive.
Q&A With Israel's Shimon Peres

In early June, Wired's Daniel Roth talked with Israeli president Shimon Peres about Better Place, the greening of Israel, his obsession with Israel's burgeoning solar industry, and the problems that come with turning a vision into a reality. An edited excerpt:

Wired: Was the message of getting off oil something you were concerned about before?

Peres: I thought that the greatest problem of our time was oil. Oil on one hand is polluting the land, and on the other hand it's financing terror. They say jokingly that the Middle East is divided into these kind of countries: the oily countries and the holy countries. We are obviously a holy country. We don't have oil. We don't have water.

Wired: You brought Better Place and Renault together. Did you expect them to form this partnership?

Peres: I never worried about it. My great advantage is that I'm ignorant. My own mentor was David Ben-Gurion. He used to say all experts are experts for things that did happen. There are no experts for things that may happen.

Wired: Before Israel publicly announced its Better Place rollout, I was told that you and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert were going to announce that Israel was going to declare complete energy independence. But the announcement was much more modest. What happened?

Peres: It's not the end of the story. I am now pushing solar energy and introducing the new environmental approach to life. It's foolish: Why should we hang on oil when we can hang on the sun? The sun is much more permanent, more democratic, and there's plenty of it. I'm feeling that our technology will miniaturize the equipment of the solar energy and reduce the cost. So I'm very glad that we started. Israel is going to be a green country. That's our ambition. And our ambition is to do it as soon as possible.

Wired: So can Israel become a clean tech global power?

Peres: Israel, you know, is too small of a country to become a world market and too small a country to become a great world producer, but we have enough scientists per square kilometer to become a world laboratory. And smallness has its own advantages; when you are small you can be really daring, you can be a pilot plant. You cannot, for example, try a car like Shai Agassi's in Texas. It is too large and would be too costly and complicated. Here we can do it on a human scale and eventually extend it and expand it.

Wired: Do you see any "peace dividends" coming out of the clean tech push?

Peres: Oh yes. Ecology forces us to cooperate. Water is not disciplined, the air doesn't ask for visas to fly from one place to another place, and if seas are beginning to die, all partners have to save them. So today the economy is very much a matter of environment, and environment is an independent force that is not committed to borders or rules or conventions. And nature is impatient. You cannot say: I'm going to negotiate pollution for 10 or 20 years. Pollution won't wait for you. Pollution is not a political force; it's a force of nature.

Agassi dealt with the battery issue by simply swatting it away. Previous approaches relied on a traditional manufacturing formula: We make the cars, you buy them. Agassi reimagined the entire automotive ecosystem by proposing a new concept he called the Electric Recharge Grid Operator. It was an unorthodox mashup of the automotive and mobile phone industries. Instead of gas stations on every corner, the ERGO would blanket a country with a network of "smart" charge spots. Drivers could plug in anywhere, anytime, and would subscribe to a specific plan—unlimited miles, a maximum number of miles each month, or pay as you go—all for less than the equivalent cost for gas. They'd buy their car from the operator, who would offer steep discounts, perhaps even give the cars away. The profit would come from selling electricity—the minutes.

There would be plugs in homes, offices, shopping malls. And when customers couldn't wait to "fill up," they'd go to battery exchange stations where they would pull into car-wash-like sheds, and in a few minutes, a hydraulic lift would swap the depleted battery with a fresh one. Drivers wouldn't pay a penny extra: The ERGO would own the battery.

Agassi unveiled the outline of his vision for the crowd at the Saban event: a new kind of infrastructure, with ubiquitous charge stations, that was not only simple and logical but potentially profitable, too. As he talked, he read the body language of the audience—they were leaning forward, they were nodding—and he fed off it, layering on details. A country like Israel, he told them, could get off oil by simply adopting his new business model. No technological breakthroughs were necessary. No new inventions. It was as if he'd discovered a trapdoor beneath both the gasoline industry and the auto industry, a combined $3 trillion market. It sounded easy and unavoidable. Even Daniel Yergin was amazed. Shai Agassi had stolen the show.

A week later, Agassi was in bed when his phone rang. He was asked to hold for Shimon Peres. At first he thought it was a joke.

"Now what?" said the familiar rumbling voice on the other end of the line. Peres said he had been thinking about Agassi's speech since returning to Israel. He wanted to know what Agassi was going to do about it.

"What do you mean?" Agassi asked.

"You spoke so beautifully, you have to make this a reality. Otherwise, it will remain a speech."

After that conversation, Agassi couldn't get Peres' voice out of his head. A few months later, when his boss broke the news that he wouldn't be getting the top job at SAP anytime soon, Agassi shocked just about everyone in the tech world by quitting. And not long after that, in May 2007, he launched Project Better Place, the world's first global electric-car grid operator (he later dropped "Project"). He had no cars, no test site, and no electrical engineering or auto experience. It wasn't even clear that consumers wanted change. They were paying $3 a gallon, painful but bearable.
Electric Avenues
AutoOS, the Better Place operating system, would transform the transportation grid. Here's how.

*
1
A special key fob linked to the car indicates the status of the battery. If the logo is throbbing blue, the car is fully charged.
*
2
The driver unplugs and heads out. The software analyzes the first few minutes of driving and guesses the destination based on past history: "Work?" it asks. The driver speaks a response and the system determines how much energy is needed for the day.
*
3
During the commute, the location-aware system finds and displays three open parking spaces near the office that are equipped with Better Place charging spots.
*
4
An automatic arm extends to plug into the car. The spot then communicates with the control center, which anticipates the driver's energy needs so as to allocate power economically. It might, say, limit consumption during expensive peak hours. The driver gets a text: "80 percent charged."
*
5
An unexpected meeting comes up. The driver enters a new route, and AutOS determines there is insufficient charge to get there. The driver orders a battery swap.
*
6
AutOS finds the most convenient battery-exchange location and books a bay. The old battery gets lowered onto a hydraulic plate, and the car moves forward on a car-wash-style track. In five minutes, a fully charged battery is in place.

Nevertheless, many of Agassi's colleagues from SAP joined him. They realized that what Shai was building was still essentially a software company. He needed a network that allowed cars to tell the grid how much charge they were carrying and how much more they required. The system had to know where the car was so it could tell the driver where to go to "fill up." And it had to electronically negotiate with the local energy utility over when it could and couldn't take power and how much to pay. Few of his colleagues asked to read the business plan before signing on. They were joining the cause, not just the company. "Once you have a mission," Agassi told me over dinner one night last winter, "you can't go back to having a job."

By early summer 2008, Agassi had two countries ready to roll out the plan, a major automaker producing the cars, and $200 million in committed capital. He had launched the fifth-largest startup of all time in less than a year.

After a career spent thinking exclusively about business software, Agassi now thrills to the idea that he's changing the world. "I get to shift multiple markets," he says. "I get to shift economies. It's extremely liberating. I breathe differently."

Israelis like to call Peres, now their president, a visionary, and they mean it as both a compliment and a dig. He sees where things can go but not necessarily how to get there. When I spoke with him, he recognized that Agassi has to deal with the same challenge: "When you translate a dream into reality," he said, "it's never a full implementation. It is easier to dream than to do."

It is mid-May, and Agassi is sitting at the head of a conference table in the Kiryat Atidim high tech office park in northern Tel Aviv. Two dozen Better Place engineers and executives are grabbing platefuls of fresh watermelon and finding seats. About a third have flown in from the company's Palo Alto headquarters; the rest are based here. Agassi knows the Israeli tech community intimately. He was born here to immigrant parents—his dad's family fled from Iraq, his mom's from Morocco—and at 15 he was accepted into the Technion, Israel's MIT. After graduating, he and his father, also a Technion alum, started a series of software companies. They had their pick of talent: The country's density of scientists and engineers is among the highest in the world.

This is the first time that most of these Better Placers have been together in one room. Agassi slumps low in his chair, staring at this morning's first speaker, his little brother, Tal. Better Place is a family affair. Agassi's younger sister, Dafna Barazovsky, also works there, and their father, Reuven, frequently sits in on meetings.
Better Place's Barak Hershkovitz is designing the AutoOS.
Photo: Joe Pugliese

Tal wears a tight-fitting button-down, and as usual his hair is heavily gelled in spikes. At 33, he is Better Place's head of network deployment, overseeing every aspect of the all-important electric grid. Behind him are three gray-and-blue mock-ups of the charging stations. These will be much more than dumb sockets; they have to carry the charge, sure, but they also must withstand being dinged by cars, vandalized by thieves, and subjected to the heat and cold. And they have to communicate with Better Place headquarters to verify that, yes, this is a subscriber and here's how to bill them. The first order of business is to choose a design.

"Put them on the table," Agassi tells his brother, who gently positions the foam models so everyone can vote. The first looks like a giant Pez dispenser, with a skinny trunk leading up to a cantilevered box that houses the charging equipment. The second has a fat base and a skinny body that zigs in the middle, like a svelte E.T. The last one is waist-high, smaller than the others, and resembles a stunted drive-through squawk box. It's the most practical: It can be freestanding or mounted, and it would be the least objectionable to retail centers. It wins unanimous approval. Then, from all around the table, come the real questions. How does the box signal that it's out of service? Where will the 32-amp charging cable go—in the charging spot or in the vehicle? "In America and Australia, it has to be outside the car," declares Ziva Patir, a former vice president of the International Organization for Standardization. Agassi hired her in April, because he not only wants Better Place to adhere to every country's existing regulations, he wants to define the new standards for the coming global electric recharge grid. So the power cords will have to be coiled inside the device and pulled out like a garden hose. But how many hoses? Enough for two cars? Four cars? And if four, won't the box be too small to hold them all? Plus, what if the power outlet on the car is in the back and the driver pulls in facing forward?

Agassi has been listening, saying nothing. But now he reacts. "Our customer goes to park her car," he says. "She pulls in, then she's squeezing between two cars to drag out this big cable and walk it back to her car. She'll be wearing her nice work clothes and getting them dirty." His eyes are closed, his hands resting on his head. "Guys," he says, using a term that always signals his disappointment with the group, "we've just lost half the market. You need to make life simple for people."

Tal stands in the front of the room, slightly stunned. A small-scale Agassi family feud breaks out. Dafna, 37, head of marketing for Better Place's Israel operations, says it's not asking a lot for people to pull into a parking spot a certain way. Their father is sitting up front, but he remains quiet. Tal finally comes up with a response: "We can have a hydraulic arm holding the cable," he says.

That enrages the rest of the room. An arm! The cost of adding an arm to the hundreds of thousands of charge spots they envision will crater the business model, argues someone from the Israeli office. Forget money, someone else says: Redesigning these things will push us way behind on our deadlines. Agassi dismisses the whole idea of an arm. "It'll break in three months," he mutters to himself.

He tries to move the meeting along, but the cable and the connector keep coming up. Each proposed solution creates a new set of problems. ("It's like a fractal," Agassi tells me later of the process, with a hint of pleasure. "But at the end, what you want is a snowflake.") He asks occasional questions, but usually just about how the speaker came to a certain conclusion—it's the thought process more than the answer that seems to intrigue him.

Finally, as Hebrew and English blur into a confusing Esperanto roar, Agassi raises both arms over his head: "One conversation!" he shouts. And then, the pause. He suddenly sees how it's going to work. Maybe the arm isn't so wrong. "This is 'think different,'" he says, invoking Apple, a company that features prominently in the detailed business metaphors he always seems to have at hand. "What do we need to make this happen? Two servos, two degrees of movement for the arm." Pause. "This is the driver experience: He goes into a spot and the spot connects itself. In 2008, we put the cable in the unit, in 2010 we use an arm, in 2012, there's a smart arm that connects automatically. For the home unit, the users get a pull cable for free, or they pay $500 and they get autoconnect. It'll cost $250 to build, and we'll sell it for $500." Agassi has not only come around on the arm, he now thinks it is essential. End of discussion. He even names a company that can build the arm and suggests how to structure the deal.
The choice: to recharge batteries at plug-in spots, or swap them out at special stations.
Photo: Joe Pugliese

"Shai's got two big traits," says Aliza Peleg, Better Place's VP of operations. "By the time he's thought of something, to him it's been completed, it's been achieved," she says. "The other trait is that by the time you've understood what he's thinking, he's already somewhere else. You're in catch-up mode 24/7."

For months, Tal and his team have been working with vendors to design and price the charging spots. Now he has to go back and tell them that they need to add arms—and eventually smart arms—and that the redesign has to be ready by their next all-company meeting, in 90 days.

Crazy. That's what people say when they first realize the scope of Agassi's project. He's tilting at electric windmills, fighting a fight that has undone countless well-funded, well-intentioned entrepreneurs before him. In a time when Silicon Valley is all about small—scalable startups like Flickr, Tumblr, and hundreds of other vowel-deprived minicompanies—Agassi is thinking big. Google, Ford, and Exxon Mobil big. His brother tells me that Better Place is going to become one of the biggest companies in the world. When I ask Shai if he's worried about a competitor stealing his idea, he stares at me like I'm an idiot. "The mission is to end oil," he says, "not create a company."

Most startups try out their product on beta testers. Agassi wanted a beta country. A cooperative national government would be willing to modify the tax code or offer other incentives—essential to getting consumers on board quickly. He wasn't selling cars, but really building a network; the bigger the initial base, the stronger the network effect. A small island nation would be ideal, since the range of his car is limited by the range of his charging grid. Fortunately, he already had deep family and business ties to a virtual island—Israel is surrounded by water on one side and by enemies on all others. The farthest a driver can safely go in a straight shot is about 250 miles. Plus, Israel is increasingly queasy about its role as an oil importer. Anything that threatens the livelihoods of hostile Arab oil sheikhs and Iranian mullahs has a special appeal in Agassi's native land.

Agassi got to work convincing the Israeli government in 2007. First he, Peres, and Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert pressed legislators to change the tax code to make electric vehicles more attractive to consumers. Under the proposed tax scheme, Israel's 78 percent tax on cars would be replaced by a 10 percent tax on zero-emission vehicles and a 72 percent tax on traditional gas-guzzlers. (After four years, the sales tax on electric vehicles will rise sharply.) Agassi argued that the revenue losses—calculated at $700 million over five years—would be insignificant compared to what foreign oil costs the economy. At a Jerusalem press conference in late January, Olmert beamed down at Agassi, who was sitting in the front row: "In order to bring about this dramatic change, sometimes we need a boy like in the fairy tales to say, 'Look, the emperor has no clothes.' We can all see that for ourselves, so how come we haven't said so? And this boy comes along and puts things in motion to bring about change. And the boy in this story—and he really is a boy, practically, but he has achieved more than many adults have—is, of course, Shai Agassi."

He had a country, but he also needed someone to build the cars. At the 2007 World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, when Agassi was still representing SAP, he met Carlos Ghosn, CEO of both Nissan and Renault—related companies that together form the fourth-largest automaker in the world. The two talked in Peres' hotel room. Agassi's timing couldn't have been better. Ghosn was looking for a way to leapfrog his competitors in the clean-vehicle arena. GM was chasing the hydrogen fuel cell, Ford liked biofuels, Toyota had the Prius. Ghosn was especially dismissive of the hybrid approach: "They're like mermaids," he told the Israelis. "When you want a fish you get a woman, and when you want a woman you get a fish." Ghosn's companies didn't have much except a tiny electric Nissan car and plans for a high-powered lithium-ion battery to be developed by Nissan and NEC. At best, he figured, he might be able to sell the vehicles to post offices or other companies that would buy a few dozen and never drive them more than 60 miles. Agassi's plan could open much bigger doors. Still, who was this guy? Ghosn was interested, but it was too early to make any commitment.

Two months later, Agassi quit his job at SAP. Soon he was looking for money and, in early June, he found himself sitting in an office in Tel Aviv's gleaming Millennium Tower, pitching to one of Israel's richest men, Idan Ofer.

Ofer is short and powerfully built; he carries himself like a wrestler ready for his next takedown. Ofer and his family have investments around the world, and much of their money is tied up in shipping. But he'd recently bought the largest oil refinery in Israel and was finalizing a joint venture with Chery Automobile, the massive Chinese auto company. Ofer liked what Better Place could do for Israel, and he thought it could work around the world. Plus, he really liked how it might make his China investment more valuable. Chery could build cars to work on the Better Place infrastructure. China itself could be a market. (Agassi has no deal yet with Chery, but one is being discussed.)

Most Israeli entrepreneurs who tried to get into Ofer's wallet were interested only in becoming big in Israel, then selling out. Ofer was impressed that Agassi's global ambitions surpassed even his own.

"He had the self-image of being an equal to Steve Jobs or Michael Dell or Bill Gates," Ofer says. "Even if this ends up destroying—for lack of a better word—my refinery business, that will be small money compared to what this will be. When you play chess, you give up something to get something else."

After the meeting, Ofer joined Agassi in the elevator. By the time they got to the street, he had committed $100 million. The total would eventually grow to $130 million. Agassi raised another $70 million more from Morgan Stanley and two venture firms, VantagePoint Venture Partners and Maniv Energy Capital.

Once Agassi had $200 million to fund the grid and a government serious about tax breaks, Renault began developing an electric car that would be ready for the market by 2011. Agassi promises that 50 Renault prototypes will be on Israeli roads this winter—and 1,000 stations will be there to recharge them. He's not talking about some three-wheeled, pimped-out golf carts, either, but blend-in-at-the-school-parking-lot cars and SUVs. The sedan will be mid-size, similar to Renault's popular Laguna and Mégane models and able to go from 0 to 60 in a respectable 7.5 seconds. Better Place expects to have close to 100,000 vehicles by the end of 2011. And while these might show up in Israel first, Renault plans for them eventually to be on roads worldwide. "We wouldn't have invested if we thought this was a onetime, one-place story," says Patrick Pélata, Renault's product manager and Ghosn's number two.

4x4 Projects in Kfar Saba, a suburb of Tel Aviv, is the auto equivalent of an Olympic training center. The building, however, doesn't look like much, just a mustard-yellow warehouse on a cluttered industrial side street. And inside, it's just a warren of cars, trucks, and auto parts. But on a lift sits a white Jeep Wrangler that's been outfitted with supersize off-road wheels, like a monster dune buggy. A green Hummer is parked in back, its diesel engine replaced with a high-powered Chevy small-block. And a silver BMW 318i has a shiny new Corvette V-8; touch the gas and the tail whips out, perfect for drifting. The only vehicle that doesn't really fit in is a completely ordinary family sedan, a silver 2005 Renault Mégane—Better Place's first prototype.

Agassi needed some way to test Better Place's all-important software, called AutOS (pronounced "autos"). The system serves as energy monitor, GPS unit, help center, and personal assistant, packed into an onboard PC that will also hold cellular and Wi-Fi chips. As part of the debugging process, Agassi bought the used Mégane and sent it to 4x4 with his car guy, Quin Garcia. The assignment was to convert it into an electric car.

Garcia was just finishing his master's in automotive engineering at Stanford University last year when he heard Agassi give a speech on campus. A few months later, he had a job at Better Place. Garcia's manner is laid-back Northern California until anything related to cars comes up, at which point he turns as intense as everyone else at Better Place.

Garcia reaches into the Mè9gane and pushes a button. Nothing happens. "It needs to be rebooted," he shouts to the owner of the shop. Garcia opens a silver box under the hood and fiddles with some buttons. "Control-Alt-Delete," jokes Better Place executive Barak Hershkovitz.

Hershkovitz oversees AutOS. He is the hard-nosed realist to Agassi's dreamer, the Scotty to his Kirk. That means Hershkovitz, even when he's joking, comes off hangdog—he knows that deadlines are looming.

Hershkovitz was about to start a residency in ophthalmology when he teamed up with Agassi in 1998. He was a brilliant, self-taught programmer, and what started as a bit of moonlighting quickly turned into a full-time job, first at one of the Agassi family companies, then at SAP. He quit soon after Agassi left, and now, with a staff of six, he's building AutOS.

The system reboots, and Garcia taps a blank spot on the dashboard to show where the car's AutOS-powered LCD will go. The garage's owner gets behind the wheel. I take the passenger seat, Garcia and Hershkovitz climb in back, and we head toward the highway. As we accelerate, I'm pinned uncomfortably to my seat. Unlike a traditional engine, an electric motor produces all of its power right away. (Recently, Ofer, whose $130 million investment made him chair of the board, took the prototype for a spin. Garcia and others watched in horror as Ofer's sharp steering, combined with the instant torque, caused an axle to snap.)

I keep waiting for the shift to another gear—the jerk that signals it's time to breathe again. "A normal gas engine spins at 6,000 rpm," Garcia says, noticing my surprise. "This motor can spin up to 12,000 rpm," which means there's no need to change gears. "You don't have the normal car problem where you need first gear to get off the line. We just took the original transmission and stuck it permanently in second."

As we approach a stop sign, the car feels like it's being held back by a rubber band. The tug, Hershkovitz explains, comes from what's called regeneration. "When you take your foot off the pedal, the car has kinetic energy," he says. "The motor starts charging the battery, turning the kinetic energy back to electric energy." He starts running through possible ways to turn the physics into a game: He wants Better Place users to be able to go to a Web site and see which drivers have racked up the most "regen." Maybe they'll win prizes.

Garcia decides to argue the point. "If you're regening, it means you used too much energy in the first place!" Meaning drivers should just take their foot off the accelerator sooner.

"Ah, you are not a computer. It's not like you can calculate how much energy you need to get to that red light," Hershkovitz says.

"Every time you do regen, there's a loss—it's not like you get it all back," protests Garcia. "The perfect driver would cruise around without ever using regen or the brakes. When they came to their destination, they would coast to a stop."

Hershkovitz ignores him. "Come on, let's go," he says as we pull back into the 4x4 shop. He has an appointment with a Japanese team from NEC to talk batteries. I follow him into his rented Mazda5 and find my body relaxing to the familiar shifts and jerks of the internal combustion engine.

The initial deal with Israel was, thanks to Agassi's connections, practically foreordained. The real test would be signing up a second country—a "validator," to use Agassi's term. In March, he got one. Denmark is everything Israel is not: a cold climate (which is hard on batteries), a net exporter of oil, a nation friendly with its neighbors. Agassi had no ties to the government. But he had a business model that proved irresistible to a Danish company called DONG Energy.

For DONG, Denmark's largest utility, Better Place offers an opportunity to solve one of its biggest problems: the economies of wind power. DONG makes a higher portion of energy from wind—18 percent—than any other power company in the world. Danish politicians want to see that figure doubled, which is good and green but completely impractical: Some days the wind blows, and some days it doesn't. Banking wind energy is expensive and inefficient—DONG would have to buy fields of batteries. Rather than lose it, the company ends up giving away excess power to Germany and Sweden. So when DONG CEO Anders Eldrup met with Agassi, he immediately saw that Better Place would not only appeal to his countrymen's environmental leanings, but the cars would also be a cheap, distributed way to store excess wind power. After the partnership was announced, Eldrup went for a haircut and found himself bombarded with questions about Better Place. His longtime barber had never once asked about Eldrup's business. Before the Better Place announcement, the man explained, he'd never really cared.

Better Place did seem to sell itself. That's what Agassi was discovering. The day of the Denmark announcement, he received a text message from an executive at a carmaker outside of the US. (He declines to name the company.)

"What's going on in Denmark?" it read.

Agassi, a bit confused, wrote back that he had just announced country two.

"What's the announcement?"

Agassi typed: "Zero percent tax on our cars, DONG as a partner."

The next day he got another text message: "But there was already 0 percent tax on alternative energy cars in Denmark."

Agassi sent back a long missive explaining that because of Better Place, Denmark was talking about expanding its tax break beyond the current 2012 cutoff date; that DONG was promising that it could supply 100 percent clean energy for all Better Place cars; that he's raising an additional$160 million for Denmark alone; and that Renault intended to supply all the cars Denmark could buy. He finished the message with some barbed advice: "I'll be offering $20,000 cars in a market where you're selling $60,000 cars. How many have you planned to sell in 2011 in Denmark? Because I recommend you take them off your plan."

The next day, Agassi was invited to a meeting with the automaker's CEO.

"I have a strong feeling this is where the industry is going to go," says Rod Lache, an auto analyst at Deutsche Bank. In March, Lache crunched the numbers for his clients on what Better Place might do to their portfolio of auto holdings. He figured a typical driver in the US gets 20 mpg. With gas at $4 per gallon, a driver who clocked 15,000 miles per year would have an annual gas bill of $3,000. The equivalent cost of electricity and battery depreciation—Better Place's cost to fill up its customers' cars, in other words—would be about $1,050. If Agassi had cheaper cars (thanks to tax breaks or incentives) and offered monthly plans that were lower than or equal to what consumers were paying at the pump, this would be phenomenally attractive. "Frankly," Lache wrote, "we are not aware of any reason why [automakers] would not sign up for this."

Early this summer, Daimler CEO Dieter Zetsche told a German newspaper that his company would have an electric Mercedes and an electric Smart car on the market by 2010. When asked about the cost, he said it really depended on whether the batteries came with the car or were leased. No one had thought about separating the battery from the car before Agassi; now CEOs like Zetsche were treating it as standard electric-car business practice. And yes, Zetche confirmed, Daimler is talking to Better Place.

It's a warm mid-March morning in Washington, DC. Agassi has just flown in from San Francisco on the red-eye. He was booked in business class but ended up in coach, sleeping across three seats. His ever-present uniform—dark suit, white shirt—looks slightly rumpled. For years, Agassi has traveled almost constantly, and the irony of fighting planetary destruction while clocking countless hours of carbon-spewing jet travel isn't lost on him. "I have so many sins to pay on my climate bill right now that we hope this works really fast," he says.

If Better Place is to live up to Agassi's revolutionary goal, it will eventually have to win over Americans, the world's largest per-capita polluters. But that won't be easy.

He starts the day off with a speech at a conference organized by a left-leaning think tank. Speaking without notes, Agassi roams the stage, preaching the inevitability of his plan. He has a way of describing things that is never zero-sum; everybody wins in his version of the future, even when he's selling massive disruption.

"For the car companies, we made it simple," he says. "We separated the ownership of the car and the ownership of the battery. See, car companies don't know how to assess the life of the battery. So they go through these complicated programs of testing them for a long period of time. And we told the car company, you know what? Just like you don't sell a car with a card that says 'Here is oil for the life of the car,' you don't sell cars with the batteries for the life of the car, because the battery is crude oil." He explains that his plan alone, once scaled up, could produce a 20 percent drop in the world's CO2 emissions. And he wasn't stopping there. "If we also buy clean generation, we reduce the price of clean electrons so that at the end of 10 years, clean electrons are cheaper than coal-based electrons, and nobody builds another coal plant at that point. That's another 40 percent of CO2 emissions; that's the treaty Tony Blair is now working to get for the world by 2050. I'm telling you, we can get there a decade after we finish the car side. We can get there in 2030—60 percent reduction in our CO2 emissions."

After every speech—or just in the course of everyday business—one or two people ask Agassi for jobs. Michael Granoff, the venture capitalist who was Better Place's earliest investor, now works for Agassi as head of oil independence policies. ("I joke that 29 days a month Shai's my boss, and one day a month"—when Agassi briefs investors—"I'm his," Granoff says.) Today in DC, a young man from the Boston Consulting Group corners Agassi on his way out of the Hilton conference room and hands over his résumé. Granoff, who has organized Agassi's day, waits until the man is out of earshot and reminds Agassi that the same guy made the same request after a speech in Boston. Agassi has a groupie.

Outside the hotel, Granoff and Agassi jump into a hybrid Lexus SUV and head to Capitol Hill for a series of meetings. In the office of a New York House Democrat named Steve Israel, Agassi settles into a leather couch and makes a direct pitch. "Whoever is number 44," meaning the next president, "will transfer $2 trillion to $3 trillion out of the economy"—the amount America will spend on foreign oil in his first term. This is a line Agassi has been testing lately, and Israel seems to bite. "So what do we do?" asks the legislator. Agassi lays it out: He wants tax hikes on gas-powered cars. Israel tells him that will never fly. As Agassi discusses other possible incentives, Israel interrupts him: "We don't make batteries, so aren't we going to swap out foreign-oil dependence for foreign-battery reliance?" It's a strange theory, but Agassi doesn't blink. The conversation suddenly shifts to the best way to set up a battery-manufacturing center in the congressman's Long Island district.

Israel is late for a vote, so everyone hustles off toward the Capitol. As Israel veers away toward the House floor, Agassi enters an elevator followed by Kansas senator Sam Brownback. Granoff, who seems to know everyone in DC, introduces the two and quickly explains Better Place. Brownback asks if he can buy one of Agassi's cars. "One problem: We need the infrastructure first," Agassi says. "That's what we're building."

"All you need is a plug, right? Why would you need an infrastructure?" asks Brownback, who towers over Agassi.

Agassi pulls out his BlackBerry: "We're like AT&T, not Nokia," he says. But the cell phone analogy doesn't click here.

"So you're like a long extension cord?" asks Brownback, and everyone laughs politely. Agassi starts to explain, but the senator steps out. Granoff promises that he'll bring the two men together soon for a more substantial discussion.

The rest of the day proves equally unsatisfying. One senator cancels at the last minute; another offers little but good wishes. In nearly every meeting, insiders ruefully give the same advice. Getting anything like the deal he has in Israel is going to be impossible.

Washington was a bust, but there are other ways to conquer America. Agassi has already been contacted by the mayor of Los Angeles and politicians in Michigan and New York City. San Francisco mayor Gavin Newsom was in Agassi's Young Global Leaders class. "My proposal was about health care or something in San Francisco," Newsom says sheepishly. He traveled to Israel to meet with Better Place in May. But Agassi is wary. For one thing, San Francisco is hardly an island, and as leader of a municipality, Newsom has few tax levers he can pull to make the electric car affordable. That hasn't kept the mayor from combing through statutes for fees the city might lift. "This is the irony: The city is working harder to get their business than the business itself. Shouldn't he be sucking up to San Francisco?" Newsom asks, only half joking.

But there is a natural place to start in the US. The island state, Hawaii, depends on shipped-in oil; a full 14 percent of the state's annual $62 billion gross domestic product goes to oil producers, more than any state in the nation. After Israel announced its Better Place plans in January, Hawaii governor Linda Lingle asked for a meeting.

This spring, Agassi went to Honolulu. The governor ushered him into her grand koa-wood-paneled conference room. She sat at the head of the table, flanked by cabinet members. Agassi showed them how the model worked, how it would roll out, how unstoppable it would be. The governor's people wanted to know why this wasn't just shifting the environmental burden to the electric utility. Agassi said he'd pay a premium to buy energy made only from renewable sources, making it cost-effective for the utility to put in wind farms or solar-powered plants—something Lingle has been pushing for. The tourism and economic development director was impressed, but one thing bothered him: Consumers want choices. "This is Hawaii," he said. "Where are the convertibles?"

At a larger meeting a few weeks later, one of Agassi's lieutenants made the case to dozens of Hawaii's business and political leaders. Like others, Dave Rolf was intrigued. He represents the state's auto dealers, a powerful lobby in the state capitol that's against anything that cuts into car dealer profits. The meeting lasted eight hours, and Rolf left stunned. Not only was this going to happen, he decided, it needed to happen, and Hawaii was the perfect place. He fired off a letter to GM's regional head in California urging the carmaker to pay attention. The auto industry needed to be part of this from the get-go. They needed to be making electric cars. "This is kind of a world-changer," Rolf says.

A few months ago, I stopped by Agassi's Palo Alto headquarters to sit in on a three-day strategy meeting. The company has just moved in, and the walls are still decorated with motivational posters put up by the previous tenant. Empty cubicles are waiting to be filled.

The entire staff is trying to write a mission statement with help from a moderator. He flips through slides on a screen: "Our mission is to transform personal mobility." "Our mission is to break the world's oil addiction (before it breaks us)."

Agassi, in a black leather jacket, a stiff blue-and-white button-down, and faded jeans, stops the moderator. "We still think we're selling to them," he says, after one of his long, drawn-out pauses. "We're not. It's not us to them. It's them to us. You see, people want this to happen; we just happen to be in the way of their getting what they want. We can't give them the car fast enough. That's something we need to capture: 'We're here to serve you,' not 'We're here to sell to you.' We're a facilitator, not the creator. This is going to be a community. We just need to get out of their way. They're going to push for policy, they're going to sell the cars, they're going to be zealots."

I start thinking about the people he has already hooked: mayors, CEOs, investors, statesmen, even car dealers. At one point, Tal had marveled to me about Shai's ability to convince you that the answers to the most challenging problems are easy and obvious. "He tells you the story, and it sounds so simple. Why don't we have it today? Why isn't it here already?"

It's true. Shai Agassi has only one car, no charging stations, and not a single customer—yet everyone who meets him already believes he can see the future.

China goes greentech

2008-08-03T17:40:00.000-07:00

August 1, 2008
Page 1 of 2

China, the world's biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is poised to lead world production of solar cells, wind power turbines and low-carbon energy technology.

China is already the world's largest renewable-energy producer as measured by installed generating capacity, according to a report today from the Climate Group, a coalition of companies and governments that support solutions to global warming. The country is also the world's top manufacturer of solar cells and will be the leading exporter of wind turbines by 2009.

China's position as a renewable-energy consumer and manufacturer runs counter to its ranking as one of the world's biggest polluters and the country's rapid expansion of coal-fired power generation. About 75% of China's electricity comes from coal, said Changhua Wu, China director for the Climate Group, who is based in Beijing.

''They have to do clean energy because they can't just do more and more dirty energy,'' said Michael Liebreich, chief executive officer of London-based New Energy Finance Ltd., which provides research to clean-energy investors. ''We're seeing China as being a Number 1, 2 or 3 player in lots of different sectors in this industry.''

China is closing older coal-fired power plants and replacing them with more efficient coal generators, Changhua said in a July 25 interview. While China will continue to rely on coal to fuel its rapid economic growth, state officials understand the need to transition to clean energy, she said.

The government wants to reduce the amount of energy China uses to produce each unit of economic output by 20% in two years and has told its 1,000 largest energy-consuming companies to cut their power consumption even more, according to the report.

Extreme pollution

Meantime, the government is imposing emergency traffic and industrial production restrictions to lessen pollution during this month's Olympic Games in Beijing.

Leaders ''really understand the issue,'' Changhua said. ''They know the urgency of the issue. They know the impact of the issue not only to the world but to China.''

About 16% of China's electricity came from renewable sources in 2006, led by the world's largest number of hydroelectric generators, according to the report. The nation's goal is to increase the proportion of renewable electricity to 23% by 2020.

China invested over $US12 billion ($12.75 billion) in renewable energy in 2007, second only to Germany. The nation needs to invest another $US398 billion to reach its 2020 renewable energy goals, an average of $US33 billion a year, the report said.

Getting things done

''The system in China compared to many other countries seems to be more effective,'' Changhua said. ''Basically, if the top leadership in Beijing decides to drive this kind of effort, they really get things done.''

China, which leads the world in production of solar photovoltaic technology, has doubled its output of solar panels in each of the last four years, according to the report. Suntech Power Holdings Co., based in Jiangsu, is the world's third- biggest supplier of solar cells. China's six largest solar-cell makers had a market value of over $US14 billion at the beginning of this year.

China is exporting solar panels to developed countries better able to pay the higher costs of generating electricity from the sun, Liebreich said. Domestic production of cheaper wind power is advancing, Liebreich said.

''I don't think they want to shackle themselves to high electricity costs just to develop an industry,'' Liebreich said in a July 30 interview. ''Wind is a more mature industry. There isn't the same economic penalty today to implement wind.''

Europeans, Americans

In 2007, each of China's 1.3 billion people emitted 5.1 tons of carbon, less than the 8.6 tons from each European and the 19.4 tons for each American. Last month, the world's richest countries, which are responsible for almost half the world's emissions, pledged to cut heat-trapping pollution by at least 50% by 2050.

The Group of Eight nations didn't specify how to make those reductions or provide intermediate targets. Developing nations including China said industrialized nations should commit to emissions of at least 25% by 2020 and 80% by 2050.

Additions to watchlist

2008-07-28T16:37:00.001-07:00

"Renewal energy stock Geodynamics(ASX Code: GDY).It's a promising geothermal player.

"Clean coal' stocks Linc Energy(ASX Code: LNC) and White Energy(ASX Code: WEC).

DyeSol endorsed by Oekom Research.

2008-06-19T15:48:00.000-07:00

Canberra, Australia 19 June 2008 - Leading Australian Dye Solar Cell (DSC) technology company, Dyesol Limited (ASX: DYE) has been ranked among the world’s best companies in the Renewable Energy & Energy Efficiency Sector by global company ratings agency, Oekom Research.

Oekom Research AG is one of the world’s leading rating agencies and provides the crucial head start in the segment of sustainable investments. Being the partner of institutional investors and financial service providers, Oekom develops innovative investment strategies that combine sustainability research with a high rate of return.

Oekom Research has awarded Dyesol a Prime Corporate Responsibility Rating, qualifying the Company as an attractive proposition for ethical and sustainable investors, many of whom see this rating as a pre-requisite for investment in the ethical and renewable energy sectors.

“This is a tremendous endorsement,” Dyesol Industries’ managing director, Mrs Sylvia Tulloch, says. “This rating, from one of the leading international and independent company rating agencies, consolidates Dyesol’s position at the forefront of the renewable energy sector and reinforces the Company’s credentials as a sound investment.”

As Dyesol rapidly expands its global footprint and ramps up manufacturing capacity, the Prime Rating could not come at a better time.

In May this year and in partnership with one of the world’s largest steel producers, Dyesol formally commenced the joint Welsh Assembly Government (WAG) sponsored project to integrate Dye Solar Cells (DSC) onto strip steel. WAG is providing funding under the SMARTCymru program and the project will be undertaken in North Wales.

Globally, there are over a billion square meters of coated steel roofs erected each year providing an unmatched opportunity for expanding the market for solar electricity generation.

DSC is the only solar technology which is being integrated into the coil coating process used to produce colour coated steel sheets. With rapidly rising energy prices, including oil now settling above the US$100/barrel mark, and global focus on climate change, the demand is expanding for buildings with lower imported energy use and a considerably reduced overall carbon footprint, not just in the U.K. and Europe, but also in the Gulf and East Asia.

Earlier this month, Dyesol signed a Heads of Agreement in (HOA) with Timo Technology (KOSDAQ: 037340) to progress joint venture discussions to develop Dyesol’s DSC technology for the consumer electronics market in Korea.

Just recently and closer to home, Dyesol met the second last milestone in the contract with Defence Science and Technology Organisation (DSTO) for the development and demonstration of light weight flexible camouflage solar panels.
“We are on track to becoming the world leader in DSC technology. In fact, in 2008 Dyesol will transition from pilot stage into full commercialisation ensuring we fully maximise the value in the Company,” Mrs Tulloch says.

For further information contact Viv Hardy at CallidusPR on +61 (0) 2 9283 4113 or on +61 (0) 411 208 951.

Note to editors

About Oekom Research

Oekom Research AG is one of the world’s leading rating agencies and provides the crucial head start in the segment of sustainable investments. Being the partner of institutional investors and financial service providers, oekom develops innovative investment strategies that combine sustainability research with a high rate of return.

The Technology – DYE SOLAR CELLS

DSC technology can best be described as ‘artificial photosynthesis’ using an electrolyte, a layer of titania (a pigment used in white paints and tooth paste) and ruthenium dye sandwiched between glass. Light striking the dye excites electrons which are absorbed by the titania to become an electric current many times stronger than that found in natural photosynthesis in plants. Compared to conventional silicon based photovoltaic technology, Dyesol’s technology has lower cost and embodied energy in manufacture, it produces electricity more efficiently even in low light conditions and can be directly incorporated into buildings by replacing conventional glass panels rather than taking up roof or extra land area.

The Company – DYESOL Limited

Dyesol is located in Queanbeyan NSW (near Canberra) and in August 2005 was listed on the Australian Stock Exchange (ASX Code ‘DYE”). Dyesol manufactures and supplies a range of Dye Solar Cell products comprising equipment, chemicals, materials, components and related services to researchers and manufacturers of DSC. The Company is playing a key role in taking this third generation solar technology out of the laboratory and into the community.

THE CALIFORNIA GARDEN

2008-06-15T00:54:00.000-07:00

Pat Marfisi applies the low-water, layering technique to his Hollywood Hills plot and reaps an abundance of organic produce.
By Lisa Boone
Los Angeles Times Staff Writer

June 12, 2008

PAT MARFISI carries bales of alfalfa hay and straw into the center aisle of his Hollywood Hills vegetable garden and begins tearing off pieces of the stuff. He doesn't have any animals to feed, just his "no-dig" landscape: raised beds using lasagna-like layers of fodder, bone and blood meal and compost -- and remarkably little water.

Now that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a statewide drought, Marfisi's 300-square-foot patch seems more relevant than ever. It's his personal horticultural laboratory for a low-water, sustainable technique he learned working on organic farms in Australia last year.

Since he began gardening in this fashion, he says, he has been "inundated" with food. With the exception of some recent losses to raccoons drawn to the soil's abundant grubs and earthworms, Marfisi's garden is thriving with beets, collard greens, chard, celery, tomatoes, chives, peppers, basil, chives, lettuces and leeks. He estimates he grows enough food to feed three people daily.

When asked how much he waters, Marfisi shoves his hand deep beside some Swiss chard and pulls out moist, decomposed soil laced with remnants of straw. "I haven't watered in 10 days," he says. "This is what I want people to know: You can have beauty and abundance without a lot of water."

The retired Marfisi came upon the method while working as a volunteer farmhand Down Under, where the technique has been used since the 1977 paperback, "Esther Deans' Gardening Book: Growing Without Digging," promoted it as a solution to poor soil, rampant weeds, water shortages and costly food.

"Today, L.A. faces a lot of the same issues," Marfisi says. "In addition, we have global warming from pollution, and home gardening is a significant way to reduce transportation cost and related pollution."

He points out that noted food and science writer Michael Pollan, author of the recent "In Defense of Food," estimates that the distance traveled by food to the plate of an average American is 1,500 miles. "This number is 150 feet for most home gardeners," Marfisi says. "That is a huge reduction in transport cost and pollution."

UNTIL HE had time for hands-on yard work, gardening was a passionate intellectual pursuit for Marfisi, who likes to sit for hours studying bugs with reference books in hand. But after leaving his job as a management consultant, he enrolled in UCLA Extension's horticulture program, which inspired him to dump water-hungry annuals and replace them with California natives. Then last year, Marfisi, who has a doctorate in economics, decided he wanted to become a farmer.

At age 60, Marfisi became a WWOOFer -- he joined World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms ( www.wwoof.org), an international cultural exchange program that provides organic farmers free labor in exchange for providing workers with food and lodging.

The former consultant for big-name clients such as Sun- America thought it would be the ultimate work-study program to learn about sustainable farming and lifestyles.

"The attraction was to get into the heart of the world of permaculture and biodynamics and experience it firsthand," he says. "Being retired, I had the time. I thought, 'I'm still healthy and strong.' I figured now is the time to do it." (He hopes to join WWOOF again next year in Costa Rica).

He started on a farm in New Zealand. Moving to Australia, he eventually worked on farms in six cities in Tasmania, Southern Australia and the Northern Territory. His friends thought he was crazy.

"Here is a guy who made the transition from corporate board rooms to the deserts of Australia and New Zealand to examine horticulture," friend Perry Parks says. "I couldn't get my head around it initially. At his age . . . hiring yourself off to various farms? Digging fence posts?" he says, chuckling.

"But tracking him through his e-mail messages, it seemed to be a real change of pace and it took on a kind of a meditative quality. Everything seemed to be slower, simpler and clearer. He got a lot out of it. Now he's come back and put it into practice," Parks says.

THOUGH there is some debate over the origins of the no-dig method -- Ruth Stout's "How to Have a Green Thumb Without an Aching Back," first published in 1955, and Masanobu Fukuoka's "One Straw Revolution," translated to English from Japanese in 1978, are other references -- one thing is certain: It is easy and it works.

Veteran gardeners will say that the greatest amount of work in creating a successful vegetable garden goes into soil preparation. One of the best things about this sustainable alternative: You don't have to break your back digging and pulling roots.

"It's a wonderful movement," says landscape designer and garden writer Rosalind Creasy, author of "The Complete Book of Edible Landscaping." "So many gardeners presume you have to start with a rototiller. That only destroys the soil structure and burns the organic matter."

No-dig beds are created by layering organic materials above ground on newspaper. Marfisi starts with alfalfa hay (Deans recommends Lucerne hay, but it's hard to find locally), then straw and finally compost. Marfisi dusts the newspaper, alfalfa and straw with blood and bone meal. (Details in accompanying story). The layers then decompose, turning into a nutrient-rich mixture much like compost.

Marfisi says no-dig is more efficient, water wise, because once a plant has a 10- to 12-inch root system, the layers of compost and straw keep moisture around the roots. And you can keep layering it over and over again as the organic matter breaks down.

Aside from its looking a little messy, Creasy finds few negatives to no-dig. She does urge novice gardeners, however, to learn about soil nutrients that vegetables need. "You still have to fertilize," she says. "You still have to renew the nitrogen. Peas are legumes and they have nitrogen-mixing bacteria. Broccoli is a heavy feeder. You [also] have to think about crop rotation."

Marfisi concedes that it is harder to get nitrogen and the acidity or alkalinity right in a fresh no-dig bed than in conventional soil. But once the organic matter has been in for two or three months and fertilizer is added, these imbalances seem to correct themselves, he says, and his harvests have been bountiful.

It seems Marfisi was destined to become a locavore from an early age. He clearly remembers the first seeds he planted as a 7-year-old in Missouri. The simple act of pushing seeds into soil and waiting to see what happened was the beginning of a lifelong yearning that would haunt him until he retired.

"I was blown away that seeds manufactured flowers," he says of discovering pink and orange zinnias weeks later. "Even to this day it still amazes me. . . . That picture remained in the back of my mind, while I was working 80 hours a week."

Now vegetables provide that same fascination. "Reconnecting to earth is huge for people who are contemplating retirement."

Capacity expands in solar PV

2008-05-27T19:45:00.000-07:00

According to Gaetan Rull, analyst at Yole Developpement, "The production capacity for wafer based solar cells will increase 62% and reach 10GW in 2008." One of the reasons identified by Yole Développement, is the anticipation of the renewed availability of silicon that will start in late 2008 and will drastically increase in 2009-2010. Leaders have succeeded in securing long term supply agreements and want to be ready when poly-Si will be available. Visibility on specific projects is reduced after 2010. Leading cell manufacturers have an-nounced their projects up to 2011 but medium and small companies have not disclosed their plans. Yole is tracking expansion projects on a daily basis and will update production capacities as soon as information is available. Regarding modules activities, Germany, Spain, USA and China are leading and Japan consolidating.

Signet Solar Rolls Out Industry's Largest Silicon Thin Film Solar Photovoltaic Modules

http://www.i-micronews.com/lectureArticle.asp?id=1490

Signet Solar, a manufacturer of silicon thin film photovoltaic modules announced the fabrication of the industry's first ever Gen 8.5 (5.7 m2) silicon thin film solar PV module at its new factory near Dresden, Germany in a record setting ten months from the start of construction. After finishing construction of the 200,000 square foot production facility in only seven months, Signet Solar completed installation of equipment and started initial fabrication in less than three months. Signet Solar's technology lowers the cost of photovoltaic (PV) modules by combining proven silicon thin film technology, with very large area manufacturing and an industry standard equipment set. The initial modules from the fully automated module manufacturing line met the specification of the product and were confirmed by independent testing by Fraunhofer Institute.
I believe that there is a good chance of picking up any type of solar system next two years at very good prices are very high since the global recession should be in full effect by the 2009-2010 time frame as the same time huge capacity comes on line.

Algae and hydrogen

2008-05-24T19:28:00.000-07:00

Robyn Williams: Oil is a main supply to drive transport and other engines. But what about hydrogen? We've discussed this before. What about hydrogen from ponds with algae?

Ben Hankamer: One question we often get is; is it actually feasible to produce any biofuel, whether it's hydrogen or oil or whatever, on the scales that we need globally? Say if you had a solar voltaic panel right now at 12% efficiency, the area you would need for global energy, to supply the entire global energy demands would be about 4% or 5% of the Sahara desert. It's actually doable. Every year we receive 8,000 times the amount of energy we require to drive our economy from solar energy, which we just really don't use.

On an Australian scale, if you start thinking about algal efficiencies of, say, 7% efficiency, something like that, if we had a 7% efficient system we would require something like 1% of Australia's surface in order to produce the energy requirement that we need for Australia.

Robyn Williams: Any reasons to think that you could get 1% of the surface area?

Ben Hankamer: No, it's not been discussed, but when you start thinking about the vast areas of non-arable land in Australia that could be used, there's huge potential. You've probably heard the big debate at the moment about food versus fuel with biofuels, and that's one of the big strengths of micro-algae is you can locate those on non-arable land and therefore not compete with food production.

Robyn Williams: We'll meet Ben in a moment at the University of Queensland. That's where they got the algae in the ponds, even using salt water (which works) to make the fuel of the future. But there are technical hurdles to leap as well as financial ones. Dr Peter Isdale is CEO of IMBcom at the university.

Peter Isdale: It's all about cost, and the cost of the production of hydrogen at the moment is quite high from conventional sources, but the algal photosynthesis route offers a way of producing it quite cheaply.

Robyn Williams: How cheaply?

Peter Isdale: We've done feasibility studies in conjunction with a large engineering company, and we've shown that we are within reach of being able to produce the hydrogen at something which approximates commercial viability. The missing ingredient and the missing cost factor is what will be picked up in the development of bio-reactors and the engineering solutions.

Robyn Williams: Tell us something about the scale of this. Is it small ponds? Is it just a number of vats? Or is it on a big scale that could be expanded almost indefinitely?

Peter Isdale: Given that the projections for the production system for the algal hydrogen is likely to be in sort of square box-type bio-reactors, then we can visualise it by looking at a series of ponds over which you could presumably theoretically gather the hydrogen as it bubbled to the surface. We've done some projections which show that if you were to construct a series of ponds 1,000 metres on the side, that's a square kilometre, and 33 of these ponds would actually supply Queensland's stored chemical energy needs for the year 2020.

Anyway, intuitively you would think, well, how could that be, because after all that's an area about the size of the city of Mt Isa. But in fact it does work out that at the efficiency level that we project, that hydrogen will be produced, that such a small area of ponds would actually produce the energy that you'd need.

Robyn Williams: For the whole of Queensland, what an extraordinary suggestion. Now, if I come to Ben, could you first of all introduce yourself?

Ben Hankamer: I'm Ben Hankamer, I'm group leader at the IMB and the focus of my work is really on developing clean fuel systems.

Robyn Williams: How did this idea about hydrogen from algae come up in the first place?

Ben Hankamer: We really based our work on a study that was initially presented by Tasios Melis from Berkeley, and he showed that normally if you have algae you grow them and they absorb sunlight and they use the solar energy that they capture to split water into protons and electrons, and they combine that with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and make all the bio-molecules in the cell. What Tasios Melis showed was that if you deplete those cultures of sulphur you could switch over the photosynthetic pathway towards hydrogen production. So you have a two phase process; one in which you split water and make the protons and electrons and store them, say as starch, for example, and in the second phase you convert that starch and other bio-molecules to hydrogen.

Robyn Williams: So they don't want to make hydrogen but you make them.

Ben Hankamer: Yes, it's really a survival mechanism. So under anaerobic conditions, just like you or I need oxygen to breathe and if we don't have it we die, and the reason we would die is that we can't make ATP which is the universal energy carrier in the cell. What these algae have developed to do is to convert the protons and electrons back to hydrogen, feed them out of the cell, and this process allows them to stay alive and produce ATP.

Robyn Williams: Okay, so when you've got the algae in the pond, can you keep going indefinitely, feeding them stuff, or do they get to a certain point and stop?

Ben Hankamer: It has already been demonstrated that you can do this in a cyclical process. So if you take sulphur out of the medium and induce hydrogen production and then you add a bit of sulphur back in, you can allow the algae to recuperate, and then you take the sulphur out again and do it as a cyclical process in that way. So yes, that's possible.

Robyn Williams: What do you feed them, just sulphur?

Ben Hankamer: You can do this in a number of different ways. From a purist point of view the best thing to do is just add the trace elements that most plants need, plus water and sunlight and carbon dioxide. But you can actually add other carbon sources, such as acetate and different carbon sources to improve the process.

Robyn Williams: So that seems to be pretty cheap, as a feed, to maintain them.

Ben Hankamer: Yes, it is relatively cheap as a feed, that's one of the benefits of the system.

Robyn Williams: You're telling me here is a system that can actually scale up to supply a state like Queensland with its needs, and yet it requires very little in the way of resources. It sounds almost too good to be true.

Ben Hankamer: I don't like to try and make it sound better than it really is. There are efficiency issues. So at the moment we are at a conversion efficiency of about 1% from light to hydrogen. That would be in an outside system right now. And where we need to get to to make it economically viable is about the 7% to 10% mark. So there are definitely improvements that need to be made. We've spent a lot of time working with IMBcom and with Peter Isdale's group to do industrial feasibility studies and evaluate where those key bottlenecks are in making those processes economically viable. One point is to make the bio-reactors cheaper. Most bio-reactors cost in the order of about 100 euros per square metre, and we need to bring that down to about 10 euros.

Robyn Williams: That's about $A15?

Ben Hankamer: That's about right, yes. You can probably already see this is a really multifaceted project; you need to do genetics on the algae, you need to develop best media conditions, you have to build bio-reactors. And so this resulted in my colleague Olaf Kruse and I setting up the solar bio-fuels consortium, and using this consortium to headhunt people with specific skills and bring them into the consortium to tackle all aspects of the project. So Clemens Posten, for example, at the University of Karlsruhe in Germany, is in the process of making these cheap bio-reactors.

Robyn Williams: Okay, imagine what's it's like in, let's say, 2020...it's the phrase of the moment! Imagine a town with various ponds around it, they may be enclosed, they maybe with ducks swimming on them...perhaps not...but could you imagine, to supply my hydrogen driven car or bus, what that town might look like and how much of its needs could be supplied?

Ben Hankamer: Think of it more like a series of large plastic bags that would be either flat on the ground or organised in some kind of structure to catch the light, and the hydrogen would be bubbling off those cultures and you would collect the hydrogen. In the first phase of development what we would do is we would feed that hydrogen into fuel cells and generate electricity which could be fed to the local households. That would be the easiest thing to do while an infrastructure is being developed for hydrogen distribution and hydrogen cars.

Already, if you look at the car manufacturers, most car manufacturers have an active program in terms of developing hydrogen powered fuel cell cars. You can see the space shuttle is already running on hydrogen. Boeing is in the process of developing airplanes which can run on fuel cell hydrogen systems. People are developing laptops that can be driven on hydrogen, et cetera. So you can see everything from a small scale to a large scale gradually being built up.

Probably what will happen is initially people will start with the small things, the niche markets like fuel cell powered lap top et cetera, and gradually go to the larger scales. I think the thing that will probably interest most people is what about the hydrogen car and how would that work. So you would need to have some kind of storage facility for the hydrogen and some kind of pressurised system to deliver the hydrogen into the car. So the storage at the moment, there's two strategies; one is that you pressurise the hydrogen and make it into liquid hydrogen, just like a gas cylinder really.

Or the other one is a system called a metal hydride storage unit, which you can imagine like a metal sponge, a nano-sponge, it has very tiny pores in it and you pressurise it so the hydrogen goes in and bonds with the surface of the metal, and by using this kind of approach you can pack the hydrogen atoms in very tightly and store them. To release them you apply heat and the hydrogen gas gets released from the system and is supplied either to a car or whatever it is you're powering.

Robyn Williams: So that's what it will look like. In the meantime, back in 2008, what are the impediments?

Ben Hankamer: At the moment one of the real problems that industry is facing is that they don't knew what will be the fuel for the future. It might be hydrogen, it might be bio-diesel, for example, it might be more liquid gas that we're already using at the moment, LPG. So for industry it's very difficult to know where to invest. That's one problem. So there's going to need to be a guide from government to support preliminary research across a number of different fields. It's often tricky for government because governments don't want to influence the direction of the market, they want the free market and the market to develop itself.

On the other hand, industry is usually interested in supporting projects within a five-year term, and for very long-term infrastructure projects such as the hydrogen economy, one will also need some government involvement at that level. With the Garnaut report coming out later on this year there will be guidance there in terms of how a carbon trading scheme should be built up for Australia, and that in turn will give more value to renewable energies and therefore start guiding the development of such systems.

Robyn Williams: Talking about politicians, back to Peter Isdale; what's been the response from Canberra and the state government of Queensland, for example, on the prospects for such research?

Peter Isdale: I think governments have to work with what they've got, and state and federal governments have been quite supportive of a lot of alternative energy proposals. Hydrogen is probably a little far away. I'd say the main focus at the moment is on clean coal technologies and bio-fuels. When and if the advantages and the availability of good, clean hydrogen work themselves into the market frame, I think we'll see much more support for the kind of development that we're after.

Robyn Williams: And Ben mentioned Germany and America, what about overseas? Is it burgeoning there, this sort of research?

Peter Isdale: Yes, it is, and there's a lot of money being spent internationally on hydrogen research, particularly bio-hydrogen.

Robyn Williams: With algae?

Peter Isdale: With algae. It's seen as having a huge potential, but it's not within the realms of investment returns at the moment. For example, it's not a venture capital play to invest in hydrogen at the moment. The time to return is outside the window of venture capital.

Robyn Williams: You're not putting off my listeners who are millionaires, billionaires, who are about to write a cheque, are you?

Peter Isdale: The listeners are welcome to write the cheques. The thing is that it takes patient capital, and where there are many patient listeners who have listened to you over the years, if they've got patient capital we'd love to hear from them.

Robyn Williams: Dr Peter Isdale with Dr Ben Hankamer at the Institute for Molecular Bioscience, University of Queensland. Hydrogen from algae.

Guests

Peter Isdale
Chief Executive Officer IMBcom Pty Ltd The University of Queensland
http://www.imbcom.com.au/

Ben Hankamer
Institute for Molecular Biosciences The University of Queensland
http://www.imb.uq.edu.au

Endless Possibility

2008-05-13T21:28:00.000-07:00

Hermann Scheer has been described both as the "solar king" and the "Stalin of windpower", but the German MP behind the revolutionary project to make his country completely energy self-sufficient is sanguine. "Our dependence on fossil fuels amounts to global pyromania," he says, letting out the characteristically jolly chuckle that escapes whenever he is making a serious point. "And the only fire extinguisher we have at our disposal is renewable energy".

Scheer, chair of the World Council for Renewable Energy, has been a fierce advocate of renewables for more than 20 years, and it was he who came up with the idea of the "feed-in tariff law", which has been picked up across Europe and by opposition parties in Britain. According to what has become known as "Scheer's law", German households and businesses that generate renewable energy can sell it back to the grid at more than triple the normal market price.

"The key to it working is that consumers have guaranteed access to the grid at guaranteed prices," explains 63-year-old Scheer, a qualified economist. This probably goes further than any single piece of national legislation in the world to encourage the growth of the renewable energy industry.

Power companies do not like it, but it has given incredible verve to an industry that had not until now had many believers. More than 300,000 individuals and small businesses have jumped at the opportunity in Germany, and the number is rising all the time. Scheer's family, whose house is powered by a windmill, is among them.

"The general target is to mobilise all renewable options, producing a renewable energy mix and reducing the dependency on conventional energy over time," he says. So far, 15% of Germany's energy comes from renewables, an increase of 11% in just eight years. By 2030 at the latest, the 100% target should have been reached. "We could increase the speed of this growth if it weren't for the barriers we're facing at local and regional levels," he says, citing both psychological and legal obstacles.

Scheer's law has created whole new industries - wind power, which employs 80,000 people in Germany, and photovoltaic (solar) power, which employs 40,000. The jobs are, in effect, subsidised, but in time this will become less and less significant because of the system's commercial success. Both wind and solar sectors are growing at around 30% a year, making them attractive for investors and for developers of technology. The potential returns are huge.

Feed-in tariff

Several Mediterranean countries - including Spain, Italy and Portugal - have latched on to Scheer's law and are in the process of introducing it. The governments of Brazil and China have also called on Scheer to advise them as to how they might apply it. In Britain, the Conservative leader, David Cameron, has shown an interest in the feed-in tariff concept, which Scheer will make the focus of his address to a parliamentary committee on environmental matters.

Scheer comes to London next week as part of the Royal Institute of British Architects' series of architecture and climate change talks. But while Britain is under pressure to adopt something similar, Scheer can feel the strong resistance to his ideas in a government that appears to be more wedded to nuclear power and coal. He calls the British government's negative attitudes towards renewables "small-minded" and "inexplicable".

He dismisses the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform's view that the feed-in tariff, with its system of subsidies, stifles competition. "The fact is that the subsidies paid for fossil and nuclear energy are much higher - hundreds of millions of pounds a year - around 10 times more than has been spent on renewables over the past two decades," he says. "And nuclear power stations, for instance, are even relieved from having to pay their huge insurance bill because the taxpayer picks it up. So this argument about renewables and subsidies doesn't stand up.

"I cannot understand the [UK government's] attitude. I think it's a big mistake, based on ignorance over years about the real potential of renewable energies. Because this was ignored, there's a so-called nuclear renaissance taking place, and according to the British government this will happen without public money. This will never work. I assume this is just a trick to get the British public support for nuclear, but without public money it's impossible."

He also cites the damage he thinks British independent scientist James Lovelock has done for the renewables cause, with his claim that only nuclear power can halt global warming - an attitude that the government seems to have adopted. Scheer says: "[Lovelock] says renewable energies cannot work, but he shows that he has practically no knowledge of the real state and development of renewable energy whatsoever." Among the myths, he says, are that renewables are expensive to acquire and unreliable. "What's happening in Germany proves that that's not the case, and the more widespread it becomes, the better the technology will be and the cheaper it will be."

Scheer will try to communicate that when in London. "I'll tell them all about the benefits renewables have for economic, cultural and civilian development, and will urge them not just to look at actual cost comparisons, because that's such a small-minded view and with that we can't find a grand strategy or solve this macro-economic and macro-ecological problem."

Scheer, a holder of the Alternative Nobel Prize, and a self-described "possibilist", would like to reverse the view in Britain, which he refers to as "the unbroken power of one-dimensional thinking", by demonstrating how free and plentiful renewables are compared to fossil fuels and nuclear. "The amount of sun, wind, geothermal and bioenergy at our disposal is by far sufficient," he says. "Take just the sun - it sends around 15,000 times more energy to our planet than all 6 billion people need. These resources are indefinite and cheap - the sun and wind won't be sending you a bill, and neither can you privatise them.

"And don't give me the arguments against the aesthetics of windmills. They're not there to be liked - it's enough to accept that they're necessary, because we need 100% emission-free energies. Who, after all, likes power lines? But they're accepted. Here we're dealing with an existential problem."

To illustrate the unmilked potential in Britain, he points out that Germany is home to 20 times more installed windpower systems than the UK, "although the UK has better wind conditions, longer coastlines, and more space for good sites". The difference is, he says, "thanks to the feed-in tariff, we created an industrial dynamic".

Scheer is the author of the seminal works A Solar Manifesto and The Solar Economy, the most widely-read books on the subject of the transition to renewable energy. In them he argues that modern technologies will help create a "solar information society". Backing his point is the world's first mass implementation programme of photovoltaic solar energy roofs, which Scheer helped to push. It saw 100,000 solar roofs installed in homes and businesses across Germany.

"We're talking about the most important and exciting structural change of civilisation since the beginning of the industrial age," he says, with another chuckle. "The benefits and ramifications are huge. Not only do renewables mitigate climate change, they also give us cleaner cities, improved health, revitalise the agricultural economy so that the farmers of today will become the oil sheikhs of tomorrow, and fight underdevelopment and deprivation in the developing world."

Social commitment

One of the most exciting aspects, he says, is the boost given to the freedom of individuals as they become less dependent on conventional power and its providers. "You give people energy independence and you get social commitment - you only get that with renewables," he argues.

Even national security issues could be overcome, and wars over energy become obsolete. "Look at all the political support there is for oil and gas," he says. "For a start, you could get rid of the British costs for military commitment in Iraq which belongs to the oil bill. Think of the savings!"

At some point, Scheer believes his ideas will become commonplace. He lets the 19th-century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer make the point for him. "There are three stages to a new idea," Scheer says. "At first, it is ignored. Second, there is strong opposition against it. And finally, those who once opposed it set about introducing the initiatives themselves as if they'd been theirs all along."

· Hermann Scheer will be speaking on April 22 at the Royal Institute of British Architects as part of its International Dialogues: Architecture and Climate Change series. Tickets are available through architecture.com