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Electric car enthusiasts don't miss a chance to show the world what their beliefs are, and that their vehicles can even take them for a clean ride around the world - the cleanest ride ever.

According to the company, this giant generator (large as a tractor trailer truck) is planned to be shipped to Ohio where it will be plugged into the power grid. Also being powered by hydrogen, it has a source of energy that can be extracted from a clean natural resource such as water.

Being the core of the dispute between early electric car adopters, hydrogen may be the solution to the electric movement, eventually even beating batteries by cleanliness. The technology behind hydrogen powered cars poses a few issues, though.

As Russia reels under broiling temperatures completely outside the range of its experience, a widely quoted Russian political scientist is voicing the suspicion that the regional climate change is the deliberate work of the US, according to Radio Free Europe.

His idea is that the US is secretly trying to kill Russians and wipe out their crops with “climate-change weapons.”

Faced with soaring temperatures and the resulting droughts, crop failures, heat stroke deaths and wildfires, the deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation is suggesting that it had to have been deliberate. This had to have been an act of war, perpetrated by an enemy. (more…)

As Russia reels under broiling temperatures completely outside the range of its experience, a widely quoted Russian political scientist is voicing the suspicion that the regional climate change is the deliberate work of the US, according to Radio Free Europe.

His idea is that the US is secretly trying to kill Russians and wipe out their crops with “climate-change weapons.”

Faced with soaring temperatures and the resulting droughts, crop failures, heat stroke deaths and wildfires, the deputy director of the Strategic Culture Foundation is suggesting that it had to have been deliberate. This had to have been an act of war, perpetrated by an enemy. (more…)

I visited Rome last week and went to Villa Borghese just to find that I could too rent one of those pedal-powered vehicles for 10 euros an hour. You can't imagine the excitement and thrill I had - I write about this kind of stuff every day but never got the chance to actually ride something truly electric.

As it was initially designed, the HumanCar is a 2 to 4 seats vehicle that is powered by moving your body back and forth and not by pedaling. The movement charges a battery than runs an electric motor.

As they state in a press release, there's no need to install anything else besides a box, like batteries, solar panels or the lights themselves. Everything is self-contained and ready to be mounted on any lighting pole through by the use of an universal mount. One full charge lasts for three nights.

Having received $6 million from ARPA-E and $10 million from venture-capital funding, 24M (whose name stands for "24 molar") is working with Rutgers University and MIT. Yet-Ming Chiang, the materials professor from MIT, who also founded A123 Systems, is behind the wheel and doesn't yet reveal any in-depth technical details about the new battery.

-Beyond BP: Michael Klare on US Energy Policy
-Scientists Allege Federal Gov’t Tried to Muffle Plume Findings
-Oil sands toxins growing rapidly
-The Triumph of the Amateur: Remembering Matt Simmons
-Peak oil is the villain governments need
-High Oil Prices: Quantification of direct and indirect impacts for the EU)

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Using more buses, trains, and other forms of mass transit is a great way to address global climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and traffic congestion.

In the US, there is a quite a mass transit stigma, unfortunately. But there are a lot of efforts at making mass transit more comfortable, more attractive, and even sexy. From high-speed rail to modern streetcar systems to bus rapid transit to wi-fi on transit, there are a lot of cool things going on.

One more way to encourage more mass transit and facilitate its use is by creating super sweet and useful transit centers. San Francisco is on the road (or, we might change that phrase to “on a train”) to creating just such a transit center. Its upcoming Transbay Transit Center will perhaps be the sexiest transit center in the nation.

(more…)

Using more buses, trains, and other forms of mass transit is a great way to address global climate change, air pollution, water pollution, and traffic congestion.

In the US, there is a quite a mass transit stigma, unfortunately. But there are a lot of efforts at making mass transit more comfortable, more attractive, and even sexy. From high-speed rail to modern streetcar systems to bus rapid transit to wi-fi on transit, there are a lot of cool things going on.

One more way to encourage more mass transit and facilitate its use is by creating super sweet and useful transit centers. San Francisco is on the road (or, we might change that phrase to “on a train”) to creating just such a transit center. Its upcoming Transbay Transit Center will perhaps be the sexiest transit center in the nation.

(more…)

From an article by Nathan Phelps in the Green Bay Press Gazette:

Vorpahl Fire & Safety did not build its business with commercial wind generation in mind, but it's one of many companies that consider that industry a key opportunity for expansion.

For the last few months, Vorpahl has sold protective gear designed for workers in the wind energy sector, including safety harnesses, hard hats, gloves, high-visibility vests and tool bags.

Wind energy is a market the business is banking on for continued growth in the coming years.

“We've been trying to figure out creative ways to break into other, untapped, segments, and wind energy came up because it is really big in other parts of the country and it's starting to catch on in Wisconsin,” said Chris Vorpahl, marketing coordinator. “Love it or hate it … wind turbines are going to be here, and we want to provide the protection for the people maintaining, installing it and assembling it.”

Throughout the area, sectors that are one or more rings down the supply chain from the manufacture of wind turbines are grabbing a piece of the burgeoning industry.

New North, a nonprofit economic development organization, is setting up an October event in Milwaukee aimed at identifying business opportunities in the wind sector, said Jerry Murphy executive director of New North.

A group of engineers at Bridgestone America’s Technical Center in Akron, along with students from DeLaSalle School in Kansas City have recently developed a new all-electric car which has been successfully tested on Bridgestone’s Texas Proving Grounds.

The vehicles will first be launched in the United Kingdom as early as September and then in the Scandinavian nations (Sweden, Norway and Denmark). According to the company, both cars are at an advanced stage of development.

Point Roberts, WA (Investorideas.com Newswire) August 16, 2010 - OTC VOLUME LEADERS reports on the most active trading stocks on the OTCBB.

August 16, 2010 (Investorideas.com Mining stocks newswire) Investorideas.com a leading global investor and industry portal covering the green and renewable energy sector release a sector close-up on solar stock for trading August 16th.

August 16, 2010 (Investorideas.com renewable energy/green newswire) Baltimore Gas and Electric Company (BGE), a subsidiary of Constellation Energy (NYSE:CEG), today announced that it will move forward with implementation of smart grid throughout its Central Maryland service territory.

My Clean Break column today takes a look at some recent comments made by Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, who has become quite fascinated in the energy scene these past few years. Gates makes the point that those investing in clean energy must be patient, because it takes many years — usually several decades — for a new technology to take hold when it's up against an existing energy infrastructure and technologies that are slow to change or make room for alternatives. He said investors who made it big during the IT boom were spoiled and are now learning that energy investments are an entirely different beast and don't obey Moore's law. I agree, with the caveat that we don't need to wait for energy miracles to have a dramatic impact. There are many technologies and policy options today that can get us on our way, and while I think we'd all love to see a silver bullet solution emerge, it's foolish to expect it — and just as foolish to believe it will be a single bullet. We've got technologies today that work, and we have to realize that it will take the embrace of all of them to make the impacts we desire.

I've heard Gates discuss this issue several times, but there seems to be an inconsistency in his reasoning and messaging. On the one hand, he urges government to dramatically increase its R&D funding for clean energy. On the other hand, he laments the slow uptake of clean energy technologies because of the slowness of existing infrastructure to change and the perceived risks of changing. If that's the case, wouldn't it be better to focus on government support for deployment of the technologies we have today, rather than increased R&D funding for new breakthroughs that would still face the same implementation barriers?

Anyway — food for thought. I'm off to Halifax now to visit a wind farm, a tidal facility and a coal plant.

a2a_linkname="The long and expensive search for clean energy miracles need not delay action today"; a2a_linkurl="http://www.cleanbreak.ca/2010/08/16/the-long-and-expensive-search-for-clean-energy-miracles-need-not-delay-action-today/";

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In my recent post Thoughts on an Ethanol Pipeline, I described what I feel would be a more rational approach to ethanol policy than some of the policies that have been pursued over the years. This gist is that the Midwest currently produces about 95% of the ethanol in the U.S. (12.5 billion gallons), but they export 70% of that ethanol out of the Midwest. At the same time, they import gasoline that is the energy equivalent of 37 billion gallons per year of ethanol.

It would seem to be a more sensible energy policy to utilize ethanol production closer to the source of production — especially given that the motor fuel demand in the Midwest is far greater than the volume of ethanol produced there. Many readers agreed, and following that essay, they provided a number of excellent comments. I drew on those comments in my latest essay for Forbes: The Midwest Should Use Its Own Ethanol.

Here I want to continue to develop policy recommendations around this theme. One reader came up with a specific plan, which I share below (here is the link to the original comments).

The Rationale for a Policy Change

• The industry wants a pipeline to support a greater market on the east coast.
• This market will likely only grow by either raising the blend mandate, or exporting ethanol
• From a national energy use point of view, it is much better to have the ethanol being used near to where it is produced (Midwest).
• Presently, this is only happening to the extent required by the blend mandate – there is relatively little E85 usage.
• Other than raising the blend mandate, the only real way to grow ethanol use is by E85.
• Many/most flex fuel drivers (today) do not run on E85 because it is either hard to find and/or there is little financial benefit to doing so.
• Some new flex fuel vehicles are optimized for E85, and their drivers will get a financial benefit, but they will only be a small portion of the market.

Specific Recommendations

1. Scrap the VEETC (since there is a mandate already and it expires at the end of 2010).
2. Maintain a producer's credit for cellulosic ethanol, until 2015.
3. Double the VEETC credit for E85 sales (as well as for 85% blends of methanol and mixed alcohols).
4. Pay this credit to the retailer, not the fuel blender (if it is a different party).
5. Place an export tax on ethanol equal to all the producer credits (including corn grower's credit).
6. Do not give any government subsidy for the pipeline – let the industry decide if they want to spend that money, or develop the market in their own backyard.
7. Relax law allowing drivers (not retailers) to blend any amount of ethanol they like into their fuel.  i.e. mix E85 with regular gasoline in any proportion they want.

Projected Consequences

So, with a $0.90 tax credit on E85, drivers will have a real, immediate, and obvious monetary incentive to use it. Retailers, faced with making good margin on E85, will have good incentive to install pumps. The ethanol industry might even choose to partner with them to help pay for said pumps. The ethanol producers might even set up their own E85 stations at the distillery gate, just like wineries sell at the cellar door.

Fueling stations selling E85 and nothing else, supplied directly by the distilleries, will begin to appear, and would be VERY easy and cheap to set up, and would, of course, be within easy trucking range of said distilleries.

Drivers are legal to use higher mixes, but are not being forced to, and no one is selling higher mixes. The responsibility is purely with the drivers who decide to use higher mixes, or not, so the retailers/oil companies and ethanol industry are not liable for any engine problems (unless, of course, if the ethanol industry claims there won’t be problems).

Now, doubling the credit on E85 to $0.90 is a huge subsidy to the E85 users, but there are not that many of them (presently) so the total amount spent on this subsidy will be far smaller than the $6 billion/yr presently.

This plan leaves the oil refiners out of the ethanol subsidy business, but that is OK as they are mandated to blend x amount of ethanol, this is not destroying their business in any way – it is merely promoting an alternative fuel that they (to date) have refused to promote.

If the retailers and drivers “follow the money”, we would see a rapid increase in E85 usage, and I’ll bet it gets used more in corn country first, which is as it should be.

Conclusions

I agree with most of what this reader suggests, and believe it would create huge new opportunities for the domestic ethanol industry without the need for an E15 mandate. These policies would also move the industry closer to the generally accepted purpose of U.S. biofuel policy, which is to use biofuels to reduce demand for petroleum. The farther biofuels are moved from the point of production, the less petroleum they are able to offset due to the energy cost of moving the biofuels.

However, I don't believe the subsidy would need to be as high as $0.90 per gallon. I certainly think such a high subsidy would result in explosive growth for the E85 industry, but then we would once again have to contend with a $6 billion ethanol subsidy in just a few years. I think the same goal could be accomplished with a subsidy of around $0.50/gallon.

According to E85.com, over the past year E85 has been anywhere from 10% cheaper to 22% cheaper than gasoline. Given an observed E85 energy penalty of 25-30%, it is likely that E85 would need to be consistently 30% cheaper than gasoline to build a substantial market. (Another possibility is the continued development of engines that can reduce the E85 energy penalty by using higher compression ratios; if you only lose 10% fuel efficiency on E85 then you will happily buy E85 at only a 15% discount to gasoline).

The narrowest spread between E85 and gasoline over the past year occurred in December 2009 when gasoline was $2.56 per gallon and E85 was $2.30 per gallon. To increase that narrowest price spread back to 30% would require an additional E85 subsidy of $0.51 per gallon. At the widest spread over the past year in May 2010, this level of subsidy could have had E85 undercutting gasoline by more than 40%. At that price spread, E85 demand would grow rapidly.

Given the meager level of E85 sales in the U.S. today, this level of subsidy would be far lower than present ethanol subsidies, while providing strong incentives to build out E85 infrastructure and E85 vehicles. Further, it would actually strengthen the energy security of the Midwestern states well beyond the status quo.