Is politics the biggest stumbling block to clean  energy?

A comprehensive new Guide to Sustainable Clean Energy expertly sets out the necessity, benefits and opportunities involved in making the switch. It delves into the surprisingly distant history of renewable energy, dissects the biggest challenges facing the sector today, and asks what might be powering our hoverbikes in the faraway future. Along the way, you’ll meet some of the leaders, going to great lengths to bring about the low-carbon transition. Read More

The Guide to Sustainable Clean Energy 2014

Blue and green tomorrow  (23 July 2014):

A comprehensive new Guide to Sustainable Clean Energy expertly sets out the necessity, benefits and opportunities involves in making the switch. It delves into the surprisingly distant history of renewable energy, dissects the biggest challenges facing the sector today, and asks what might be powering our hoverbikes in the faraway future. Along the way, you’ll meet some of the leaders going to great lengths to bring about the low-carbon transition.

In 1860, then-US president Abraham Lincoln described the wind as “an untamed and unharnessed force”. He continued, “Quite possibly one of the greatest discoveries hereafter to be made will be the taming, and harnessing of it.”

It is anyone’s guess what Lincoln would make of the faults and possibilities of energy generation in 2014. But after 154 years, he might say we are long overdue in making the most of the vast potential renewable energy has to offer.

Countless studies have outlined just how feasible – and financially sensible – it would be to vastly ramp up our clean energy output. The economy would benefit, society would thrive and the environment would be cleaner.

What’s clear is that the biggest stumbling block is political.

The debate all too often comes back to aesthetics – and whether something spoils the landscape. Nimbyism (‘not in my back yard’) is quickly turning into bananaism (‘build absolutely nothing anywhere near anyone’).

But if ever a document has existed to convert the most ardent bananaist, it is the Guide to Sustainable Clean Energy 2014.

Blue & Green Tomorrow’s comprehensive new report expertly sets out the necessity, benefits and opportunities of sustainable energy.

If Lincoln did travel through time into this world of wind farms and climate change, there would be no better text to get him up to speed on the state of energy today.

The guide, now in its third annual edition; delves into the surprisingly distant history of renewable energy, dissects the biggest challenges facing the sector today, and asks what might be powering our hoverbikes in the faraway future.

Along the way, you’ll meet some of the leaders going to great lengths to bring about the low-carbon transition. Prepare to be utterly inspired. 

Source: www.blueandgreentomorrow.com

Rome & Milan Airports get energy efficiency test underway

A European Union study shows that 500 airports in the 28 member countries together emit as much CO2 as a city of 50 million people. Airport buildings are disastrously inefficient structures which produce large quantities of greenhouse gases. With new airports and vast terminals being built across the planet, pressure is on the airline industry to improve its performance, so in a bid to try to curb the problem, the EU has begun a three year programme to cut airport emissions by 20%. Read More

Leaving on a jet plane? Your airport could be a big climate culprit

By Paul Brown for Copy Carbon (8 August 2014):

A European Union study shows that 500 airports in the 28 member countries together emit as much CO2 as a city of 50 million people. Airport buildings are disastrously inefficient structures which produce large quantities of greenhouse gases. With new airports and vast terminals being built across the planet, pressure is bound to grow on the airline industry to improve its performance, so in a bid to try to curb the problem the EU has begun a three-year programme to cut airport emissions by 20%.

It’s not just about those jets. Airport buildings belch greenhouse gases and make an outsized contribution to climate change, according to a new European study.

Airlines are under increasing pressure to use more efficient aircraft to reduce the growing damage the industry is inflicting on the planet.

In its defence, the industry says it produces only 2% of the world’s carbon dioxide and 12% of the total emitted from the transport sector, and that is tiny when compared with automobiles, which produce 74% of the CO2 emitted from transportation.

But in this battle of statistics the role of airports, the vast air-conditioned waiting rooms and shopping malls containing thousands of waiting passengers, has not been taken into account.

Now a European Union study is showing that Europe’s 500 airports in the 28 member countries together emit as much CO2 as a city of 50 million people.

The paper says airport buildings are disastrously inefficient structures which produce large quantities of greenhouse gases. Big airports each have emissions equal to a city of 100,000 people.

With new airports and vast terminals being built across the planet at an ever-increasing rate to facilitate the boom in tourism and business travel, pressure is bound to grow on the airline industry to improve its performance.

In a bid to try to curb the problem the EU has begun a three-year programme costing more than €3 million (US$4m) to cut emissions by 20%.

Cheap and easy

The problem is that the heating, ventilation and air conditioning plants consume half the energy used in each airport. The EU’s solution is to use computers to carefully control the plants so that faults are detected immediately and waste is kept to a minimum.

Two Italian airports, Fiumicino in Rome and Malpensa in Milan, used by 55 million people a year, agreed to test the scheme.

The engineers concentrated on the large air conditioning units, chiller plants and cooling towers at the airports. They found equipment running when it was not needed, incorrect heating and cooling settings, poor positioning of sensors and poor maintenance.

Just by simple inexpensive measures like re-setting heating controls and replacing faulty sensors, each airport could save 3,500 tonnes of CO2 a year, the study found.

The project coordinator, Nicolas Réhault, head of group building performance optimization at the Fraunhofer Institute for Solar Energy Systems in Freiburg, Germany, said the same software could be applied to other complex buildings and save large quantities of energy and emissions.

False comparison

“Airports are very complex infrastructures,” he said. “We have gained a lot of know-how on how these infrastructures work. This can be replicated to other highly complex buildings such as hospitals and banks. And it could be downscaled to simpler things, too.”

Airports Council International is so impressed by the results that it plans to demonstrate the results of the pilot project to Europe’s biggest airports in an attempt to get them to adopt the system.

The project will no doubt help the European Commission’s goals to cut overall carbon dioxide emissions but this focus on wasteful airports will also increase pressure on the industry to improve its performance.

Simply comparing emissions from each source – aircraft, trains and cars – does not tell the whole story for the aviation sector. For example, aviation is said to be more damaging because its emissions are high in the atmosphere and cause contrails that trap heat.

Environmental groups are likely to factor in the role of airports in increasing emissions when lobbying governments to take some action on aviation in future climate talks. – Climate News Network

Source: www.copycarbon.com

How buildings can generate energy & save it at the same time

From 1 – 3 September 2014, the Singapore Green Building Week (SGBW) will play host to international green building experts, policy-makers, academics and built environment practitioners, for a congregation of ideas, collaboration and learning, to achieve a shared vision of a greener planet through the green-building movement. Read More

As a preview for the Singapore International Green Building Conference we introduce one session on Solar PV and solar leasing and a profile on key note speaker and building energy efficiency researcher Stephen Selkowitz.

Solar PV and Solar Leasing

In a workshop session on Solar PV – Technology, Application, and the Economic, Solar Leasing For The Rooftop and Beyond is set out by Samridh Goyal, Founder & Chief Executive Officer, Solar Horizon. He will draw attention to the fact that Singapore is at the dawn of its solar horizon.

Solar PV has been identified as the most viable clean energy source for Singapore, given our vast rooftop footprint & ample sunshine. Emerging new models such as ‘Solar Leasing’ enable companies & businesses to adopt solar with no financial or operational risk.

Singapore is leading the regional push towards a “Sustain-Urban” future. BCA’s Green Mark scheme is a renowned certification for any aspiring Green Buildings. Moreover, EDB’s recently announced “SolarNova” program, anticipates up to 350 MW (S$ 700M) of rooftop Solar capacity by 2020 on Government buildings alone.

The high-upfront cost of Solar PV and long-term operational hassle are the main deterrents for Green Building’s to adopt solar energy. The emergence of innovative service providers such as Solar Horizon offering a variety of zero-cost Solar Leasing solutions is helping to de-risk Solar adoption for companies in Singapore and pave the way forward for Singapore as a Solar City.

The presentation provides a detailed overview and breakdown of the challenges, opportunities and benefits of Solar leasing for Green Buildings and integration of Solar PV within Singapore’s urban landscape – for the rooftop and beyond. There is a strong focus on innovative new Solar Leasing models (above and beyond traditional Power Purchase models) that make it easy for businesses to Go Solar.

Other speakers in the session look at Power Purchase Agreements  (the Sports Hub Case Study by Christophe Inglin, Managing Director, Phoenix Solar) and Third Party Solar PV and the Green Building Movement in Singapore by David Fullbrook, Senior Consultant, DNV GL.

More information on the full programme and speakers go to www.sgbw.com.sg

Building towards a ‘zero energy’ future

By Vaidehi Shah in Eco-Business.com (12 August 2014)

In the lead-up to the International Green Building Conference 2014, Eco-Business speaks to leading building energy efficiency researcher Stephen Selkowitz on the challenges of building green in the tropics and the future of zero energy buildings.

Building owners who have saved energy and money by installing glazed windows on their property to keep out the sun’s heat can thank Stephen Selkowitz for developing the coatings that make these savings possible.

Dubbed “the Steve Jobs in the world of energy efficient buildings”, the American researcher on building energy efficiency has spent much of his 36-year long career looking at ways to reduce the energy lost through building envelopes – that is, the windows, walls, and roofs that separate the building interior from the outdoors.

For two decades since the late 1980s, he led a research team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which developed “low-e” or low-emissivity window coatings that reduced the amount of heat that passes through glass.

Selkowitz also helped take the product from the laboratory to market by working closely with governments, architects and contractors. Today, this technology is used in buildings across the world and has saved US$7.7 billion in energy costs to date according to the US National Academy of Scientists.

Selkowitz was also the brains behind the “most advanced building efficiency simulator in the world” – the Facility for Low Energy Experiments (FLEXLab) launched in 2013. This unique facility consists of four testbeds where users can trial energy efficient features such as skylights, window materials and cooling systems on a small scale before implementing them in commercial projects.

For his ground-breaking work, Selkowitz – who leads the Windows and Envelope Materials Group at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory’s building technology and urban systems department - received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the laboratory in 2012. He was also given an award of excellence by McGraw Hill Construction’s industry publication, the Engineering News-Record, earlier this year.

Selkowitz will be speaking on sustainability leadership at the opening plenary of the upcoming International Green Building Conference (IGBC), a three-day event organised by Singapore’s Building and Construction Authority (BCA) which will convene over 1,000 professionals from the sector in the first week of September in the city-state.

In the run-up to IGBC, Selkowitz talks to Eco-Business about the unique challenges that Singapore’s hot and humid climate poses to building energy efficiency, the possibility of a future where zero-energy buildings are the norm, and how energy efficient innovations can make the leap from laboratory to market.

Singapore’s hot and humid environment poses a unique set of challenges in maintaining indoor environments at comfortable levels. What are some technologies and architectural concepts that can help achieve this in the most energy efficient way possible?

There are three major challenges to managing indoor environments in hot, humid climates.

The first is to aggressively control the incident sunlight and diffuse light from the sky so that enough daylight is admitted to offset electric light – but no more, since that would only add to cooling loads. This can be done with proper window design, glass selection and shading controls. The shape and orientation of the overall building, and adjacent landscaping, is also part of this challenge.

The second is to minimize unnecessary internal heat gains since they only make the cooling loads higher.

The third challenge is to address the fact that different parts of a building have different cooling needs, based on different occupancy levels. So cooling systems must not only be energy efficient in terms of cooling hardware, systems design and operational controls, but they should also meet the realistic comfort needs of occupants.

Source: www.eco-business.com

Zero-carbon electricity is within reach

CO2 emissions are rising, not falling. The global oil industry ishaving a field day – fracking, drilling, exploring in the Arctic, gasifying coal, and building new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The world is wrecking the climate and food supply systems at a breakneck pace. Jeffrey Sachs says if we ask governments and scientists to cooperate on war technology, shouldn’t we do at least the same to save the planet from carbon pollution? Read More

Climate targets have failed. Time to try something new

By Jeffrey D. Sachs (31 July 2014):

If the world is to solve the climate change crisis, we will need a new approach. Currently, the major powers view climate change as a negotiation over who will reduce their CO2 emissions (mainly from the use of coal, oil, and gas). Each agrees to small “contributions” of emission reduction, trying to nudge the other countries to do more. The United States, for example, will “concede” a little bit of CO2 reduction if China will do the same.

For two decades, we have been trapped in this minimalist and incremental mindset, which is wrong in two key ways. First, it is not working: CO2 emissions are rising, not falling. The global oil industry is having a field day – fracking, drilling, exploring in the Arctic, gasifying coal, and building new liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities. The world is wrecking the climate and food supply systems at a breakneck pace.

Second, “decarbonizing” the energy system is technologically complicated. America’s real problem is not competition from China; it’s the complexity of shifting a $17.5 trillion economy from fossil fuels to low-carbon alternatives. China’s problem is not the US, but how to wean the world’s largest, or second largest economy (depending on which data are used) off its deeply entrenched dependence on coal. These are mainly engineering problems, not negotiating problems.

To be sure, both economies could decarbonize if they cut output sharply. But neither the US nor China is ready to sacrifice millions of jobs and trillions of dollars to do so. Indeed, the question is how to decarbonize while remaining economically strong. Climate negotiators cannot answer that question, but innovators like Elon Musk of Tesla, and scientists like Klaus Lackner of Columbia University, can.

Decarbonizing the world’s energy system requires preventing our production of vast and growing amounts of electricity from boosting atmospheric CO2 emissions. It also presupposes a switchover to a zero-carbon transport fleet and a lot more production per kilowatt-hour of energy.

Need breakthroughs

Zero-carbon electricity is within reach. Solar and wind power can deliver that already, but not necessarily when and where needed. We need storage breakthroughs for these intermittent clean energy sources.

Nuclear power, another important source of zero-carbon energy, will also need to play a big role in the future, implying the need to bolster public confidence in its safety. Even fossil fuels can produce zero-carbon electricity, if carbon capture and storage is used. Lackner is a world leader in new CCS strategies.

Electrification of transport is already with us, and Tesla, with its sophisticated electric vehicles, is capturing the public’s imagination and interest. Yet further technological advances are needed in order to reduce electric vehicles’ costs, increase their reliability, and extend their range. Musk, eager to spur rapid development of the vehicles, made history recently by opening Tesla’s patents for use by competitors.

    “If we ask governments and scientists to cooperate on war technology, shouldn’t we do at least the same to save the planet from carbon pollution?”

Technology offers new breakthroughs in energy efficiency as well. New building designs have slashed heating and cooling costs by relying much more on insulation, natural ventilation and solar power. Advances in nanotechnology offer the prospect of lighter construction materials that require much less energy to produce, making both buildings and vehicles far more energy efficient.

The world needs a concerted push to adopt to low-carbon electricity, not another “us-versus-them” negotiation. All countries need new, low-carbon technologies, many of which are still out of commercial reach. Climate negotiators should therefore be focusing on how to cooperate to ensure that technology breakthroughs are achieved and benefit all countries.

They should take their cue from other cases in which government, scientists, and industry teamed up to produce major changes. For example, in carrying out the Manhattan Project (to produce the atomic bomb during World War II) and the first moon landing, the US government set a remarkable technological goal, established a bold timetable and committed the financial resources needed to get the job done. In both cases, the scientists and engineers delivered on time.

The example of atomic bombs might seem an unpleasant one, yet it raises an important question: If we ask governments and scientists to cooperate on war technology, shouldn’t we do at least the same to save the planet from carbon pollution?

Directed Change?

In fact, the process of “directed technological change,” in which bold objectives are set, milestones are identified, and timelines are put into place, is much more common than many realize. The information technology revolution that has brought us computers, smart phones, GPS and much more, was built on a series of industry and government roadmaps. The human genome was mapped through such a government-led effort – one that ultimately brought in the private sector as well. More recently, government and industry got together to cut the costs of sequencing an individual genome from around $100 million in 2001 to just $1,000 today. A dramatic cost-cutting goal was set, scientists went to work, and the targeted breakthrough was achieved on time.

Fighting climate change does depend on all countries having confidence that their competitors will follow suit. So, yes, let the upcoming climate negotiations spell out shared actions by the US, China, Europe, and others.

But let’s stop pretending that this is a poker game, rather than a scientific and technological puzzle of the highest order. We need the likes of Musk, Lackner, General Electric, Siemens, Ericsson, Intel, Electricité de France, Huawei, Google, Baidu, Samsung, Apple and others in laboratories, power plants, and cities around the world to forge the technological breakthroughs that will reduce global CO2 emissions.

There is even a place at the table for ExxonMobil, Chevron, BP, Peabody, Koch Industries, and other oil and coal giants. If they expect their products to be used in the future, they had better make them safe through the deployment of advanced CCS technologies. The point is that targeted and deep decarbonization is a job for all stakeholders, including the fossil fuel industry, and one in which we must all be on the side of human survival and wellbeing.

Published in collaboration with Project Syndicate. This blog was reprinted with permission from The World Economic Forum.

Author: Jeffrey D. Sachs, Professor of Sustainable Development, Professor of Health Policy and Management, and Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University, is also Special Adviser to the Uhttp://copycarbon.com/climate-targets-failed-time-try-something-new/nited Nations Secretary-General on the Millennium Development Goals.

Source: www.project-syndicate.org