Berekely Approves City Backed Loans for Solar Panels

The New York Times reports that the Berkeley City Council late Tuesday unanimously approved a program to give city-backed loans to property owners who install rooftop solar- power systems. The loans, likely to total up to $22,000 apiece, would be paid off over 20 years as part of the owners’ property-tax bills.

At first, the city seeks to raise $1.5 million for a pilot program for about 50 homes. If it program is successful, the kitty could eventually contain tens of millions of dollars, and hundreds of property owners could be eligible to participate.

The program, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor of energy at the University of California at Berkeley and director of the school’s Institute of the Environment, is designed to entice people who might be scared away by the high initial cost of retrofitting homes to incorporate solar power or become more energy efficient.

It allows homeowners “to think about creating clean-energy homes with basically no cost” up front, he added.

Participating homeowners would pay roughly $180 more per month on their property tax bills, though much of that cost could be expected to be recouped in savings on electrical bills.

Over 500 miles on a tank... of Hydrogen

Toyota announced announced today that it has developed a fuel cell hybrid vehicle equipped with the newly designed high-performance Toyota FC Stack. The "TOYOTA FCHV-adv" acquired vehicle-type certification from Japan's Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport (MLIT) on June 3.

Toyota upped the size of the storage tank from 148 to 156 liters and doubled the storage pressure to 70 MPa (about 10,000 PSI). It also increased fuel efficiency by 25 percent through improved fuel cell performance, enhanced regenerative braking and cutting the amount of energy required to drive the accessory systems. The fuel cell also will operate at temperatures as low as 22 degrees Fahrenheit below zero.

Wired reports that several major automakers are aggressively developing hydrogen vehicles. BMW is putting its Hydrogen 7 in the hands of Hollywood celebrities, General Motors promise to roll out the Equinox Cell Vehicle later this year and Hyundai says it will produce hydrogen cars by 2012.

New Data on ANWR

The US Government has just released a report estimating the amount of oil that would be available from drilling in the Alaskan Artic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).

The report is interesting from a number of perspectives.

They have cut their estimates of the amount of oil available by more than 50% from the previous estimates they released in 1998.

"Between 2018 and 2030, cumulative additional oil production is 2.6 billion barrels for the mean oil resource case, while the low and high resource cases project a cumulative additional oil production of 1.9 and 4.3 billion barrels, respectively."

The 1998 report projected 5.7 billion barrels of production from ANWR for the mean oil case. The trend suggests that the more we know about ANWR, the more we lower the initial very rosy estimates for the amount of production.

The most recent report includes projections on the impact that ANWR will have on the price of oil.

"The opening of ANWR is projected to have its largest oil price reduction impacts as follows: a reduction in low-sulfur, light crude oil prices of $0.41 per barrel (2006 dollars) in 2026 for the low oil resource case, $0.75 per barrel in 2025 for the mean oil resource case, and $1.44 per barrel in 2027 for the high oil resource case, relative to the reference case."

This means that when ANWR hits peak production in 2026 (if drilling was approved this year) the impact on the price of oil at that time will be less than half of one percent.

Bottom line, you will never notice the difference in the price of oil.

We would be much better off taking the same investment dollars and using them to create new renewable energy sources, such as solar, wind and fuel cell technologies.

We would be much better off taking the same investment dollars and finding ways to make our cars more efficient.

The oil from ANWR will be depleted in 30 years. Investments in wind and solar will still be generating energy for many, many years after the last drop of oil in ANWR is gone.

Net Oil Exports Falling

A Wall Street Journal article reports that net exports of oil from the top 15 oil producers fell in 2006 and 2007, according to US Government data.

The implications for our future are huge.

There have been many projections made regarding when we will experience peak oil. Those projections usually focus on peak oil production. This data points out the cold hard reality that peak oil availability is what is important for oil importers.

If you are looking for the peak oil availability date for oil importers, that day has already come and gone.

Some would argue that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil because of economics.

Some would argue that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil for national security.

Some would argue that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil to protect the environment.

Some would argue that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil for moral reasons.

The cold hard fact is that we have to reduce our dependence on foreign oil because we have no other choice.

"Fresh data from the U.S. Department of Energy show the amount of petroleum products shipped by the world's top oil exporters fell 2.5% last year, despite a 57% increase in prices, a trend that appears to be holding true this year as well.

Demand in the Middle East is a major factor right now, said Adam Robinson, an oil analyst at Lehman Brothers in New York. Mr. Robinson predicts the region will constitute more than 40% of increased demand next year.

Saudi Arabia in particular has become a major energy consumer as the country pushes to put its oil riches to greater use. The kingdom is in the middle of a major investment campaign to become a world player in petrochemicals, aluminum and fertilizers, all of which will require huge amounts of oil and natural gas.

Since 2004, Saudi oil consumption has increased nearly 23%, to 2.3 million barrels a day last year. Jeffrey Brown, a Dallas-based petroleum geologist who studies net export numbers, said that at its current growth rate, Saudi Arabia could be consuming 4.6 million barrels a day by 2020.

That would cut significantly into Saudi exports even as the world looks to its largest oil supplier to help manage rising demand. Saudi Arabia has nearly a quarter of the world's proven reserves and supplies around 12% of the 86 million barrels a day that the world now consumes."

Microbes found that eat plastic bags

Now a high school teenager has found a way to make plastic bags degrade faster -- in three months, he figures.

Getting ordinary plastic bags to rot away like banana peels would be an environmental dream come true. After all, we produce 500 billion a year worldwide and they take up to 1,000 years to decompose. They take up space in landfills, litter our streets and parks, pollute the oceans and kill the animals that eat them.

Daniel Burd's project won the top prize at the Canada-Wide Science Fair in Ottawa. He came back with a long list of awards, including a $10,000 prize, a $20,000 scholarship, and recognition that he has found a practical way to help the environment.

He found strains one and two together produced a 32 per cent weight loss in his plastic strips. His theory is strain one helps strain two reproduce. Tests to identify the strains found strain two was Sphingomonas bacteria and the helper was Pseudomonas.

A researcher in Ireland has found Pseudomonas is capable of degrading polystyrene, but as far as Burd and his teacher Mark Menhennet know -- and they've looked -- Burd's research on polyethelene plastic bags is a first.

Sustainable Fishing - Not!

How the World's Oceans are Running Out of Fish

Callum Roberts, professor of marine conservation at York University, predicts that by 2050 we will only be able to meet the fish protein needs of half the world population: all that will be left for the unlucky half may be, as he puts it, 'jellyfish and slime'. Ninety years of industrial-scale exploitation of fish has, he and most scientists agree, led to 'ecological meltdown'. Whole biological food chains have been destroyed.

Roberts has one solution: marine reserves. Protecting up to 40 per cent of the world's oceans in permanent refuges would enable the recovery of fish stocks and help replenish surrounding fisheries. 'The cost, according to a 2004 survey, would be between £7bn and £8.2bn a year, after set-up. But put that against the £17.6bn a year we currently spend on harmful subsidies that encourage overfishing.'

Reserves must not be ruled by politicians, says Roberts. 'The model of industry-political control for regulatory bodies just doesn't work. It's like central banks - put them under politicians' control and they make dangerous, short-term decisions that result in economic instability. Put them under independent control, and they make better-judged, more strategic decisions.'

The Newfoundland cod fishery, for 500 years the world's greatest, was exhausted and closed in 1992, and there's still no evidence of any return of the fish. Once stocks dip below a certain critical level, the scientists believe, they can never recover because the entire eco-system has changed. The question is whether, after 50 years of vacillation and denial, there's any prospect of the politicians acting decisively now. 'It is awful and we are on the road to disaster,' says Tudela. 'But the collapse - in some, not all the situations - is still reversible. And it's worth trying.'

South Korea Village 100% Solar

"Donggwang has achieved what even the most powerful countries in the world are still struggling to accomplish: total energy independence with clean technology.

On the roof of each of the 40 houses in Donggwang lies a large beds of solar panels. Even the small, local elementary school runs on free electric energy from the sun. The photovoltaic panels produce enough energy to power the entire area. Amidst cattle and fields, Donggwang is a state-of-the-art renewable energy village.

When asked whether he is concerned about environmental issues, Mr. Lee replies casually, “Yeah, the environment is a very important issue. The motto is a clean city - clean island. They’re trying to do this solar and then the windmills. My favorite part of living in Jeju is the fresh air. The clean air.”