Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
Ah, the English winter - all the charm of an STD. It’s got icy pavements, frozen fingers and a working day that precludes seeing any of the fleeting British daylight - once you add in a snowballs with stones in the centre (Greenbang salutes the innovative kids she went to school with for that one) and road gritters, and there’s not much to put a smile on your face for a few months.
But the Highways Agency is working on scheme to store a little bit of the summer for reuse in the colder months. Unfortunately, it won’t mean beaming 25 degree days and mojitos into your living room - it’s rather more practical than that.
According to <a href=”http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/25/solarpower.energy”>The Guardian</a>, the Highways Agency is planning to test a scheme where roads have water filled pipes put in underneath that can gather solar energy in the summer and then pump it back out in the winter to melt icy roads.
The Guardian says it’s already been tested in Toddington, where the trapped summer heat was enough to keep the road ice-free for nearly all of the following winter.
It’s not a short payback project: the paper quotes a Transport Research Laboratory report which reckons the system would pay back the outlay within some 30 years.
Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
As Greenbang understands it, in the heady days of the 70s and 80s, Brazilian farming was chiefly dependent on the likes of the A Team and McGuyver to keep the wheels of agriculture turning. If such TV programmes are to be believed, without the likes of Richard Dean Andersen and Mr T, gangsters with questionable moustaches would have taken over long ago.
Luckily, Brazilian feedstock growers don’t need soldiers of fortune any more - they have BP instead.
The oil giant has has taken a 50 percent stake in Tropical BioEnergia, a biofuels joint venture between Santelisa Vale and Maeda Group which makes ethanol from what it calls sustainable feedstocks. Currently, Tropical BioEnergia is already builiding one 435 million litres a year refinery, and aims to have another up and running before too. The cost for the twosome? A mere $1 billion.
BP will pay around $59.8 million for the stake in the company and will put in more capital in the future.
And according to BP, the future of ethanol is sweet:
The joint venture will focus on potential sugarcane production and the manufacturing and marketing of conventional ethanol, including the associated agricultural assets and cogeneration plants. Sugarcane is the most efficient source of biofuel currently available. Sugarcane lends itself to further improvement through the use of advanced biofuels technology and will therefore be a compelling source of renewable fuel for the foreseeable future. It provides a greenhouse gas emissions reduction of up to 80 per cent.
Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
Why is it that spies always get the cool stuff? Take James Bond. Greenbang would kill for a watch that shoots lasers, an underwater car or an exploding pen. Not to protect Queen and country though, more to show off to her mates on Friday night out.
Now, the real life Qs of the US intelligence services have plans to build a spy plane that - wait for it - can stay in the sky for five years thanks to solar power.
Managed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - that’s the US Department of Defence’s R&D boffins to you - Project Vulture, as it’s known, will see the development of a plane that can carry out missions to gather information on the baddies. It’ll work just like a satellite, but will get dressed up as an airplane.
Aurora Flight Sciences will build the unmanned plane with other contractors, such as BAE, providing the electronics. Odysseus, as they’ve called it, will run on solar power during daylight and on stored solar energy during the night. Now the companies just have to work out how to keep the energy flowing while Odysseus is airborne for five years.
Aurora predicts that Odysseus could also be used for monitoring the weather and telecommunications.
Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
When elderly women outside shopping centres come up to you waving clipboards, what do you do? Dodge them like they’ve got a communicable disease, or settle down to fill in their market research questionnaires on hand creams, fire safety or whatever anodyne subject they’d like to discuss?
If you’re the sort who likes sharing your opinions, Greenbang has an opportunity that might be up your alley.
The European Commission is currently in the process of dreaming up an offshore wind power action plan and it’s put a shout out for anyone with an opinion to come forward.
If you are one of these people:
nvestors, project developers, wind turbine manufacturers, energy companies, government services, environmental NGOs and all other interested stakeholders, including the general public
then the EC wants to hear from you. The Commission is hoping your answers to its wind questionnaire can help it answer “clearer understanding of the specific key challenges for future large-scale development of offshore wind energy in Europe, as well as with ideas on how the EU could support the development of European offshore wind energy resources”.
If you want to take part, go here.
Posted by jumperhead on April 28th, 2008
If you spent your days pushing around £124 billion, it must be difficult to find a new career that would still get your pulse racing. Great white shark wrestler, professional russian roulette player, Naomi Campbell’s maid - the options must be somewhat limited.
None of the above, apparently - the answer is, of course, green tech.
Russell Read is the chief investment officer of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System (Calpers) and is used to handing $244 billion’s worth of raw cash for the pension fund.
But, he told The Independent he’s had enough of that particular fund and he’s off to start his own VC firm with an eye on clean tech.
According to Read, not enough money is getting to companies quickly enough - which is where his VC venture will come in.
Read told the Indy:
“We could find new sources of energy without causing the same crises that we are seeing at the moment. What is missing is investment vehicles that can identify and develop and scale up the most compelling opportunities that are being developed by research institutions and other private sector initiatives.”
Among the sectors tickling his fancy are wood biofuels, the Independent says.
Posted by Petah Marian on April 25th, 2008
Liz Peace, chief exec of the British Property Federation, told the Low Carbon World conference that environmental sustainability legislation needs to be overhauled in order to meet green building targets.
Apparently, the communication coming out of the government isn’t exactly as clear as the property industry would like.
Peace said she wants ministers to focus on explaining what results they’re after, rather than giving the construction industry highly prescriptive and confusing initiatives, which make it harder rather than easier for it to hit government targets.
Studies into the impacts and benefits of such moves; fiscal incentives and a government supported measurement and reporting framework would be far better bet to help the construction industry be that little bit greener, says Peace.
Posted by jumperhead on April 25th, 2008
Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers is a big name in green tech investing. Four big names, in fact, and it just can’t get enough of investing in green companies. It’s decided to get out its great big VC wallet, along with venture capitalist chum Rockport Capital Partners, and share some of the wealth with Norwegian electric car lot Think. Like Eddie Murphy, the joint venture the trio have established is coming to America.
And guess what the joint venture will be called… ready?… Think North America. Sometimes it’s like people aren’t even trying.
According to Think, the motor that they’ll be taking across the pond to the new world - named the City - is the “only crash tested and highway certified electric vehicle”. It looks like California will be Think’s first stab at the north American market.
The first City cars look like they’ll be hitting American shores in 2009, with some trial projects set to debut before then.
Think also has another electric vehicle in its stable - the Ox - a fully electric 4/5 seater that’s scheduled to hit the road some time in 2010 or 2011.
Posted by Petah Marian on April 25th, 2008
Speaking at the Living in a Low Carbon World Conference this week, Shadow Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Secretary Peter Ainsworth revealed the opposition’s plan for the environment: an altogether non-controversial plan to turn carbon emissions into commodities that can be trade, and changing the tax system so that polluters pay for their eco-crimes.
He went on a self professed “rant” about the current government’s treatment of climate change, arguing that they do not have a logical, consistent and coherent environmental policy (I’m not a linguist but I think that he used three words that pretty much mean the same thing). Despite this repetition, he deliver a few well-placed jabs to the current government:
- Government departments are less carbon efficient than ten years ago,
- They have introduced biofuels without consulting the electorate
- and they’re planning to build a new generation of coal power stations.
Ainsworth also wants to hand the eco-planning baton back to the average Joe, giving communities and local councils more freedom in choosing how they wish to tackle the issue of climate change, particularly focusing on the current regulations around new buildings.
He also said that “it’s not a politician’s role to tell us how to live”, which is odd, given that’s almost entirely what they do - after all, what are laws for? In the case of climate change, I wonder if taking this sort of hands off approach to climate change at a high level is only going to lead to disaster?
After all, isn’t it just that sort of light touch approach from worldwide governments that’s lead to businesses polluting with gay abandon in the first place?
Posted by jumperhead on April 25th, 2008
Very small bottles of toiletries just ripe for theiving, fluffy bathrobes not at all ripe for theiving, expensive internet connections, mints on the pillow, the couple next door going at it like it’s their last day on earth - ah yes, Greenbang loves hotels as if they were her own child.
And, like a younger sibling, one hotel brand is competing to make her love it that little bit more: Element is a new hotel brand from the Starwood chain (the people behind Sheraton and Westin and all that lot) that has buffed up its green building credentials.
The hotels in the chain (the first is coming this summer, with some 20 others by 2010) will all meet the US Green Building Council’s LEED certification.
Greenbang is disproportionately pleased to report that the Element hotels will actually feature in-room recycling bins (paper, plastic, glass) - the absence of which irritates Greenbang no end whenever she’s away.
There’s also eco nods to recycled carpets, green paint (green in nature, rather than colour), natural rather than electric light, priority parking for hybrid drivers, filtered water from the taps instead of bottled and an organic breakfast. Nice.
Posted by jumperhead on April 25th, 2008
Samsung has mostly been making headlines this week for the departure of its CEO, who left after accusations of tax evasion. But while the suits get on with some reorganisation and presumably some finger pointing for good measure, Greenbang will turn its attention to what’s being developed in Samsung’s lab.
Not a scandal proof-board, alas, but a water powered hydrogen fuel cell for Samsung’s mobile phones.
According to the folks at Samsung, the fuel cell’s a bit of a doozy as it just need H2O rather than the usual methanol.
It can also put out three watts of electricity - enough to keep your mobile on the go for 10 hours or so - and it could be on the market from 2010. Hurrah!
Bit of a downside thought - in its current iteration, you’d need to swap the hydrogen cartridge every five days. But - yes, there’s a but - in future, Samsung will make batteries that don’t need all this fiddly swapping nonsense - you’ll just have to put in some water every now and again.
