New Scientist has an article on cold fusion scientist Martin Fleischmann - Fusion in a cold climate.

MARTIN FLEISCHMANN can still remember the morning he entered his lab and saw the terrific hole in the workbench. It was about the size of a dinner plate. Beneath, nestled in a shallow crater in the concrete floor, were the remains of a chemistry experiment that had been fizzing idly for several months without incident. "It had obliterated itself!" he recalls.

It happened overnight, so no one witnessed the meltdown that took place in a basement lab at the University of Utah, Salt Lake City, in 1985. But for Fleischmann and his longtime colleague Stanley Pons, there could be only one cause: room-temperature or "cold" fusion. If they were right, the chemists had made a reaction that nuclear physicists had thought next to impossible, one that potentially held the key to almost limitless clean energy. Yet four years later, and just weeks after they had announced their discovery at a now infamous press conference on 23 March 1989, their work was dismissed from mainstream science. Cold fusion became a pariah field, and Fleischmann and Pons fell under the shadow of disrepute.

At his home near Salisbury, UK, 82-year-old Fleischmann looks too beaten to entertain suggestions that, after two decades, cold fusion might actually be gaining acceptance. He has Parkinson's disease, and although he still speaks in his usual measured phrases and Czech accent, he is slow and often loses his train of thought. "All my activities are devoted to giving up," he laughs, glancing at his coffee cup performing another involuntary rattle on its saucer.

Even so, he regrets not having resolved his past dealings with the mainstream science community, who he thinks behaved in a "very unscientific" manner. "When we wrote this up I said [to Pons] we had to write exactly what we had done and how we analysed the results, which is what we did," he says. "Is it wrong? Where's the mistake? And that has never been answered really." ...

Fleischmann considers it "naive" to assume hot fusion in free space should proceed via the same mechanism as cold fusion, which - if it does exist - takes place in the metal lattice of an electrode. "The notion that processes in the lattice are different to processes in free space is anathema to the physicists," he says.

During the years following 1989, a number of researchers shrugged off scepticism about cold fusion and persevered with the field. As the numbers of reports of excess heat ran into the hundreds, scientists uncovered possible reasons why the major labs failed to get positive results, such as insufficient "loading" of deuterium in the electrodes. Patchy evidence also accumulated for several different by-products such as tritium, neutrons, helium-4, gamma rays and X-rays, which hint at a fusion reaction.

Sceptics say such measurements have been badly executed, and any positive results are probably artefacts. However, this year, on the 20th anniversary of Pons and Fleischmann's press conference, a group at US military company SPAWAR in San Diego, California, announced persuasive evidence for high-energy neutrons ejected during the fusion of a deuterium and tritium atom in an electrode, using the same detectors developed for hot fusion (New Scientist, 28 March, p 10). Then in April, Robert Duncan, an expert in instrumentation and measurement at the University of Missouri in Columbia, appeared on US news programme 60 Minutes, having spent months visiting cold-fusion labs and crunching data for himself. Duncan, who had previously felt cold fusion was "junk science", concluded that the excess heat is "quite real".

Support like this is unlikely to cut ice with hardened sceptics, however, and Fleischmann thinks any big developments in the field will have to be made away from the US and the UK. "The west has dedicated itself to the hot fusion field," he says. "And really, the success of that field has depended on putting forward the view that this is the only way to go."

Fleischmann believes hot fusion projects such as the JET reactor in the UK and the upcoming ITER in France will ultimately prove too complicated to generate useful energy, although he agrees that it is worth investigating all avenues: "I think unless we get fusion to work in some fashion we are doomed, aren't we?"

This may be true. But perhaps the real tragedy is that Fleischmann will probably never know whether his work turns out to be futile, or if he made a vital discovery that was dismissed unfairly. "Whenever anything new happens, people always try to say it is nonsense, because of x, y, z," he says. "That is the natural behaviour of people: to say that what is known is all there is to be known; everything that is outside that region has to be wrong."

The New York Times has a report on Exxon's new partnership with Craig Venter to produce algae based biofuel - Exxon to Invest Millions to Make Fuel From Algae.

The oil giant Exxon Mobil, whose chief executive once mocked alternative energy by referring to ethanol as “moonshine,” is about to venture into biofuels.

On Tuesday, Exxon plans to announce an investment of $600 million in producing liquid transportation fuels from algae — organisms in water that range from pond scum to seaweed. The biofuel effort involves a partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology company founded by the genomics pioneer J. Craig Venter.

The agreement could plug a major gap in the strategy of Exxon, the world’s largest and richest publicly traded oil company, which has been criticized by environmental groups for dismissing concerns about global warming in the past and its reluctance to develop renewable fuels.

Despite the widely publicized “moonshine” remark a few years ago by Exxon’s chairman and chief executive, Rex W. Tillerson, the company has spent several years exploring various fuel alternatives, according to one of its top research officials.

“We literally looked at every option we could think of, with several key parameters in mind,” said Emil Jacobs, vice president for research and development at Exxon’s research and engineering unit. “Scale was the first. For transportation fuels, if you can’t see whether you can scale a technology up, then you have to question whether you need to be involved at all.”

He added, “I am not going to sugarcoat this — this is not going to be easy.” Any large-scale commercial plants to produce algae-based fuels are at least 5 to 10 years away, Dr. Jacobs said.

Exxon’s sincerity and commitment will almost certainly be questioned by its most galvanized environmentalist critics, especially when compared with the company’s extraordinary profits from petroleum in recent years.

“Research is great, but we need to see new products in the market,” Kert Davies, the research director at Greenpeace, said. “We’ve always said that major oil companies have to be involved. But the question is whether companies are simply paying lip service to something or whether they are putting their weight and power behind it.” ...

Currently, about 9 percent of the nation’s liquid fuel supply comes from biofuels — most of it corn-based ethanol. And by 2022, Congress has mandated that biofuel levels reach 36 billion gallons.

But developing biofuels has been tricky, and Mr. Tillerson has not been alone in his skepticism. Many environmental groups and energy experts have been critical of corn-derived ethanol, because of its lower energy content and questionable environmental record.

According to Exxon, algae could yield more than 2,000 gallons of fuel per acre of production each year, compared with 650 gallons for palm trees and 450 gallons for sugar canes. Corn yields just 250 gallons per acre a year.

Exxon’s partnership with Synthetic Genomics is also a vote of confidence in the work of Dr. Venter, a maverick scientist best known for decoding the human genome in the 1990s. In recent years, he has focused his attention on a search for micro-organisms that could be turned into fuel.

“Algae is the ultimate biological system using sunlight to capture and convert carbon dioxide into fuel,” Dr. Venter said.

Algal biofuel, sometimes nicknamed oilgae by environmentalists, is a promising technology. Fuels derived from algae have molecular structures that are similar to petroleum products, including gasoline, diesel and jet fuel, and would be compatible with the existing transportation infrastructure, according to Exxon.

Continental Airlines, for example, has demonstrated the fuel’s viability in a test flight of an airplane powered in part by algae-based fuel.

The Pentagon has also been looking at alternative fuels, including algae, to reduce the military’s dependence on oil.

And while cost-effective mass production of algae has eluded researchers so far, it holds potential advantages over other sources of biofuels. Algae can be grown in areas not suited for food crops, using pools of brackish water or even farming them in seawater.

Elsewhere, Bloomberg reports Exxon appears to be in trouble for some questionable business practices in Texas - Exxon Sabotage May Merit $1 Billion Fine, Agency Says.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the largest U.S. oil company, may be fined more than $1 billion for “malicious” sabotage of wells to prevent other producers from tapping fields it no longer wanted, the Texas General Land Office said.

Jerry Patterson, commissioner of the land office that oversees oil leases that help fund Texas schools, asked the Texas Railroad Commission to conduct hearings into an alleged 1990s program at Exxon Mobil of plugging abandoned wells with trash, sludge, explosives and cement plugs. The barriers made it impossible for other producers to revive the wells, Patterson said in a statement he gave to Bloomberg News yesterday.

Under Railroad Commission rules, Exxon Mobil could face fines of $10,000 a day per well, Patterson said in the statement, which he plans to release on Monday. He said those penalties could add up to more than $1 billion on wells the company abandoned in 1991 after a disagreement over royalties with the owners, the O’Connor family, a Texas oil dynasty.

Margaret Ross, an Exxon Mobil spokeswoman, said, “The area in which the wells are located has a water table very close to the surface. It was critical that Exxon protect the groundwater by plugging the wells solidly and thoroughly.”

In March, the Texas Supreme Court dismissed lawsuits against Irving, Texas-based Exxon Mobil for damaging the wells, ruling that too much time had passed. O’Connor heirs and Emerald Oil & Gas Co., which took over some of the former Exxon Mobil leases, were plaintiffs in the suits.

‘Flagrant Violations’ Alleged

“Exxon committed irrefutable, intentional and flagrant violations of state rules regulating the oilfield,” Patterson said in the statement. “The senseless waste of our natural resources, the sabotage of a producing oilfield and cover-up by Exxon is a malicious act that must be dealt with by the state of Texas.”

The Railroad Commission in Austin hasn’t decided whether to hold hearings on the well closings, said Ramona Nye, a spokeswoman for the agency. The three commissioners are next scheduled to meet on July 21. Nye confirmed the agency has the authority to fine companies $10,000 a day for improperly plugging an old well.

The 118-year-old commission has been responsible for regulating oil production in the state since the 1930s, when rampant drilling caused a supply glut that collapsed crude prices, according to the Texas State Historical Association.

From the 1950s to the late 1980s, the O’Connors earned more than $40 million in royalties on crude and gas pumped from 121 wells that Exxon Corp., as the company was then known, and a predecessor, Humble Oil & Refining Co., drilled on the family’s land near Corpus Christi, according to court filings.
Royalty Dispute

The relationship between Exxon and the family deteriorated in the late 1980s, when the company’s request for a reduction in the 50 percent royalty rate was rebuffed, court documents showed. Exxon said the field was no longer profitable and began shutting wells, a process that concluded in August 1991, the documents showed.

Two years later, Emerald Oil, a closely held energy company based in Refugio, Texas, agreed to lease from the O’Connors one- third of the area formerly operated by Exxon. When Emerald drilled into the plugged wells to revive production, drill bits collided with cement, severed pipes and explosive charges normally used to perforate rock formations, Patterson said.

Exxon failed to accurately describe the obstacles it dumped into the wells in reports known as W-3s that it filed with the Railroad Commission, Patterson said in a July 15 letter to the Railroad Commission. Those reports gave Emerald a false picture of how difficult and costly it was going to be to resurrect crude output, he said.

Technology Review has an article on impediments to smart grid implementation, including regulations, privacy and security concerns - The Big Smart Grid Challenges.

A smarter electricity grid could fundamentally change the way people pay for and manage their electricity use. In theory, the technology could help reduce demand, save money, and improve reliability and efficiency. But implementing the necessary changes will be difficult, according to experts attending a symposium on the smart grid at GE Global Research in Niskayuna, NY, this week. They expect resistance from regulators and consumers alike, citing the complexity of the proposed system as well as concerns about privacy and security.

The smart grid will incorporate new networking technology, including sensors and controls that make it possible to monitor electricity use in real time and make automatic changes that reduce energy waste. Furthermore, grid operators should be able to instantly detect problems that could lead to cascading outages, like the ones that cut power to the northeastern United States in 2003. And the technology ought to allow energy companies to incorporate more intermittent, renewable sources of electricity, such as wind turbines, by keeping the grid stable in the face of minute-by-minute changes in output.

For consumers, the smart grid could also mean radical changes in the way they pay for electricity. Instead of a flat rate, they could be charged much more at times of high demand, encouraging them to reduce their energy use during these periods. Companies such as GE are developing refrigerators, dryers, and other appliances that can automatically respond to signals from the utility, shutting off or reducing energy consumption to allow consumers to avoid paying the peak prices. Such strategies could allow utilities to put off building new transmission lines and generators to meet peak demand--savings that could be important as proposed regulations on carbon dioxide emissions force them to switch to more expensive sources of electricity.

But the necessary changes could prove difficult for consumers to adjust to, says Garry Brown, chairman of the New York State Public Service Commission, a utility regulator. Industrial and commercial electricity customers already have variable electricity rates that change with the time of day, but "they have the ability and expertise and wherewithal to figure out what to do with this," Brown says. "They have a manager that spends their life trying to react to it." Ordinary consumers don't have that advantage. Indeed, in the 1990s the New York state legislature blocked mandatory variable pricing amid concerns about the impact it could have on customers who couldn't avoid peak prices, such as people who must use electric-powered medical equipment around the clock. We have to be "slow and cautious," about introducing the technology, Brown says.

The grid upgrade may also face resistance from regulators because some of the benefits are difficult to measure. Regulators are responsible for ensuring that utilities make wise investments that restrain the price of electricity. But improved efficiency and reliability can't easily be quantified, says Bryan Olnick, a senior director at the major utility Florida Power and Light. He says that regulators need to start considering long-term societal benefits in addition to electricity costs. Ultimately, regulators will need proof that the systems can deliver the promised benefits, which is why there are now smart-grid demonstration projects in places including Boulder, CO; Maui; and Miami.

The Oil Drum has a look at enigmatic ultracapacitor company EEStor and goes into some depth in taking a look at the science behind the (claimed) technology - Who Killed the Electric Gas Tank?.

A few months from now, or perhaps 5-10 years from now, we will know whether or not EEStor can make good on its promise to sell a electrical storage device capable of propelling a reasonably-sized automobile down a freeway for a couple hundred miles before needing a recharge. There are some indications that they are making progress and that this could happen, but there are many reasons to remain skeptical. In this post, I will wade into these waters -- and then get out quickly. Will EEStor revolutionize motor transportation and more? Will it even work?

The human quest for energy is an interesting topic. Mostly by burning things, we have transformed our relationship with the planet and each other. It has been said that we are addicted to oil, but it is more the case that we are addicted to what harnessed energy can do. As it is learned that some utilization of energy is not sustainable for environmental reasons, or for lack of supply, the natural response is to search for other ways of doing the same activity but with another energy supply. And conventional economics promises us that something will come along.

In modern times, one of our sacred rights (or rites?) is the ability to drive a 1-2 ton vehicle up to a fuel station, fill it up without spending a fortune or more than a few minutes of time, and then drive around at 70 miles per hour without worrying about needing more fuel for awhile. A car with a battery and an electric motor, for whatever reason, didn't bring us to this present state of mind. But take away the gasoline (or diesel), and the dream lives on -- even better, because maybe we can skip the trip to the gas station and refuel the car at home. Zenn Motor Company makes and sells electric cars, and they are clearly appealing to those with this dream:

Imagine a car that was whisper quiet at highway speeds, could go for hundreds of miles and left no trail of emissions behind. This car would never need to visit a gas station, and would top off its ‘tank’ within a few minutes.

The car is electric…and it’s powered by a revolutionary energy storage system: EEStor’s EESU (Electrical Energy Storage Unit). To put this into perspective, imagine a car that enabled guilt-free driving, eliminated dependency on foreign oil and that completely changed transportation as we know it. ...

REW has a report on more solar PV power plants for China - Suntech to Develop Multi-GW Solar Projects in China.

Agreements for up to 1.8 GW of solar PV developments in China have been signed by Suntech Power Holdings Co., Ltd.

The company says that it has recently entered into a number of strategic agreements with each of Shaanxi provincial government, Shizuishan city government, Ningxia province, Qinghai provincial government and Panzhihua city government, Sichuan province to develop 300 MW, 500 MW, 500 MW and 500 MW of solar projects respectively. These projects are expected to be developed in several stages and is subject to the satisfaction of a number of conditions, including obtaining related permits from the National Development and Reform Commission.

The FT has an article on the slow progress towards deciding what type of tidal power scheme will be built on the severn estuary - Severn tidal power schemes: Prepare for a dust-up

Among the UK government’s raft of carbon reduction plans announced today, it confirmed it will be making a decision on a Severn River estuary tidal power scheme next year.

It will not be easy to get there, however. Few oppose harnessing the Severn’s massive power. The idea has been around for decades - in fact more than a century, according to some reports - because of its high tidal range of up to 11.3m. Located in Britain’s south-west, it is also handily close to people and industry, meaning transmission costs would not be a big hurdle.

The UK government undertook a feasibility study into power schemes using the Severn last year, and decided to provide further funding to five of 10 proposed projects. This decision, however, prompted outrage. Opponents to big barrages have several criticisms: damage to bird habitats, impact on shipping, and unnecessary expense are the main objections.

Cambridge physics professor David Mackay, who examined the UK’s available renewable resources in his book ‘Without Hot Air’, likes tidal power but points out that the while a Severn barrage could theoretically provide current Severn barrage proposals only use energy from the tide moving in one direction, halving its potential.

But a coalition of green groups criticised the choice, saying the government favoured big expensive projects over lower-impact proposals such as lagoons. The government response was that these were the only ones that were realistic, and it had put a smaller amount of money towards ‘embryonic’ approaches such as low-barrage heads, tidal fences and lagoons, which it says have yet to be proven.

The big bad of the schemes, from the critics’ point of view, is the Cardiff-Weston plan which is estimated to cost about £20bn - but would produce an impressive 5 per cent of the UK’s power needs. Of the four other schemes, which range from £2.3bn to £4bn, one would provide 1 per cent and the others, about half of that amount.

The Economist has an article on another stumble forward for the Nabucco gas pipleine, which I've long believed will end up transporting Iraqi gas (as opposed to Iraqi oil) to Europe - He who pays for the pipelines calls the tune.

TRAGEDY and farce have too often been the hallmarks of European efforts to improve energy security. Dependence on Russia, which supplied a third of its gas imports through Kremlin-controlled east-west pipelines, seemed to be rising inexorably and worryingly. Squabbling between Russia and Ukraine led to repeated supply cuts. The Russians exploited energy to divide and rule their Western neighbours. Big energy companies in countries such as Germany and Austria sought cosy relations with Russia’s state-controlled gas giant, Gazprom.

The overlap between politics and profit was epitomised by Gerhard Schröder, a former German chancellor. Since 2005 he has been the front man for Nord Stream, the pipeline that is planned to run under the Baltic. Along with South Stream, a sister project across the Black Sea, Nord Stream would let Russia bypass troublesome transit countries, chiefly Ukraine. West European customers could benefit, but the plans alarm countries in the east that are at greater risk of Russian bullying.

Now this gloomy picture is brightening. For a start, Europe has diversified its sources of supply: cost and unreliability have led Gazprom to lose a third of its European market to imports from Norway, Qatar and Trinidad, says Mikhail Korchemkin of East European Gas Analysis, a consultancy. Second, one of the European Union’s efforts to curb Russia’s transit monopoly is gaining traction. In a signing ceremony in Ankara on July 13th, the Nabucco pipeline, which will connect Europe to gas-rich Central Asia via the Balkans, Turkey and the Caucasus, won formal backing from the main transit countries: Austria, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, as well as from Germany.

This step reflects a €200m ($283m) dollop of EU money, plus some political shifts. Turkey had earlier bargained toughly (some said destructively). The EU’s quiet expression of interest earlier this year in White Stream, a rival project across the Black Sea, may have changed Turkish minds. And Nabucco has hired Joschka Fischer, a former German foreign minister, as a consultant (see article).

Nabucco could carry some 30 billion cubic metres of gas a year. But that is only a fifth of what Russia exports to Europe; and it will not be finished until at least 2015. Moreover, the sources of that gas remain unclear. Azerbaijan has enough only for the project’s early stages, though it is exploiting new offshore gasfields. Iran would be a logical supplier, but is out of the question on political grounds. A promising newcomer is Iraq’s Kurdish region. In May a Western-backed consortium unveiled an $8 billion plan to extract gas there and sell it to Nabucco. This week Nouri al-Maliki, Iraq’s prime minister, said he could supply half the gas the pipeline needed.

But the biggest prize would be gas from Turkmenistan, a Central Asian dictatorship that claims to sit atop one of the world’s largest gas reserves. The Turkmen leadership is hesitant about annoying the Kremlin, which now buys all of the country’s exports to make up for Russia’s own flagging gas production. But an EU-backed negotiating consortium has made some progress in talks with Turkmenistan. President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov recently announced that his country had a surplus of natural gas “available to foreign customers, including Nabucco”.

That would, however, require a new pipeline under the Caspian Sea, which would not only be costly and slow but also subject to objections from Russia and Iran (which would like to offer a land-based route instead). Russia is the only serious naval power in the Caspian. It showed in last August’s war with Georgia that it is prepared to use military force to protect its interests in the neighbourhood.

An American delegation, including Barack Obama’s national security adviser on the region, Michael McFaul, has just been to Turkmenistan to stress the importance the West puts on making Nabucco a success. American lobbying proved crucial to the success of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline that runs from Azerbaijan to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast, which opened in 2005. Many thought that was a pipe dream in the beginning, but with strong political backing it came to acquire an aura of inevitability. Nabucco’s backers hope to repeat the BTC pipeline’s trick.

Other less ambitious pipelines are also moving ahead. ITGI, which aims to bring Azeri gas to Italy via Turkey and Greece, has just announced a deal to extend a spur north to Bulgaria, ending that country’s near-total reliance on Russian gas. Another EU-backed scheme, the Trans-Adriatic Pipeline, has signed up gas from Iran and expects to draw on Azerbaijan too.

Earth911 has an article on making tires using orange oil instead of crude oil - New Tires Made of Oil from Orange Peels.

Tire manufacturer Yokohama is now selling a model made with 80 percent non-petroleum material, substituting orange oil as the primary ingredient to make vulcanized rubber.

The new tire is called the Super E-spec™ and has already received the Popular Mechanics Editor’s Choice Award in 2008. Yokohama will initially market the tire for hybrid car models such as the Toyota Prius.

“The eco-focused dB Super E-spec mixes sustainable orange oil and natural rubber to drastically cut the use of petroleum, without compromising performance,” Yokohama vice president of sales Dan King said. “It also helps consumers save money at the gas pump by improving fuel efficiency via a 20-percent reduction in rolling resistance.”

Orange oil is considered sustainable because it is produced from a renewable resource. The same philosophy of reducing petroleum use is utilized in producing plastics from corn starch or vegetable oil.

Yokohama has yet to release the environmental impact of disposing these tires, which typically provides an environmental concern. The petroleum in traditional tires can burn for months in a landfill and is difficult to extinguish. These fires also release black smoke and toxins into the air. Yokohama has not specified whether the orange oil will biodegrade over time.

The process for recycling tires involves devulcanizing the rubber, which would essentially remove the oil and extract natural rubber. Because this is an expensive process, used tires are often shredded and turned into playground surfacing or additives for the soil in sports turf. It can also be reused as artwork.

Lou Grinzo has a look at the sources of electricity generation in the US and where the power is consumed (or wasted) - GOTW: Electricity Flow Diagram.

When the US Dept. of Energy recently released the latest edition of its Annual Energy Review, that naturally included updated versions of their “flow diagrams”, which are still the most useful set of graphics I’ve seen for understanding the sources and uses of all energy, coal, petroleum, natural gas, and electricity in the US.

This time around, let’s do electricity...

You can find links to all of the flow diagrams from the Annual Energy Review on the AER’s home page, in HTML and PDF format.

The things I find most interesting in this one include:

The relative sizes of the sources. Coal really is about half, as much as we wish it were otherwise, and oil is a barely perceptible sliver (don’t tell the media; they still love their decades-old conviction that the US still generates a sizable portion of its electricity with oil). Renewables, while still smaller than we’d prefer, is mostly conventional hydroelectric power.

Conversion losses practically leaps off the screen. This is (mostly) the energy lost in burning fuel to heat water to make steam to spin a turbine to pump electrons. When I show this chart to middle school students and tell them what “conversion losses” means, they give me the most withering, “Just how stupid are all you adults, anyway???” look. Aside from those awkward moments, it’s a good reminder that we decide things like how to generate electricity via economics, not energy or natural resource conservation.

Transmission and distribution losses are tiny. The almost universal misunderstanding among mainstreamers is that T&D losses are a huge factor in their electricity costs, when it just isn’t so. By comparison, conversion losses are 24.8 times higher.
The relatively even balance between residential, commercial, and industrial consumption. My guess is that while the commercial and industrial sectors are hardly paragons of environmental concern or even conservation purely for the sake of saving money, they’re probably on the whole much better than the residential sector. If my guess is right, then the low-hanging fruit for electricity conservation is in our homes and not at our jobs.

Transportation’s share of consumption is so tiny you almost need a magnifying glass to see it. How much do you think that will change, on a percentage basis, in the next ten years?

Not bad for one diagram, eh?

MNN has a post on a group of promising electric car startups - Plugging in, taking off: Eight electric vehicle startups to watch.

We’re in Silicon Valley, and the setting is a nondescript industrial park. The office looks like all the rest, though it invariably has a garage attached to it. This is the scene for numerous electric vehicle (EV) startups, many of them headed by California tech refugees. I hear from them nearly every day now. It’s an entrepreneurial field day not seen since, well, the tech startups of the 1990s—which took place in exactly the same place.

The cast of characters and their ranking changes daily, but here is my listing of the eight that I think—right now—are most likely to make it (in roughly descending order):

Tesla Motors.

What’s not to like about the ultra-sexy Tesla Roadster, which reaches 60 mph in 3.9 seconds on battery power alone? Well, there is that $109,000 price, but believe it or not it took relentless expense-cutting to get the materials cost down from $140,000 to the $80,000 it is now. So Tesla, which will introduce its four-door Model S in 2011, is finally poised to make money. “Combined with a steady production volume of 20 to 30 per week in the third quarter this year and a good take-up rate of the higher-priced Roadster Sport,” CEO Elon Musk said in June, “we expect to cross over into profitability next month.”

There’s also the $465 million that Tesla got through the federal advanced technology loan program, which will be used to produce the Model S, and also to build a powertrain plant in California.

Bright Automotive.

Bright doesn’t do sexy. Its vehicle is a plug-in hybrid panel van, intended for fleet use. Headed by John Waters, the guy who designed the battery pack for the General Motors EV-1 electric car, Bright has laser-like focus on just the fleet market, and is talking to big players like Coca-Cola. Launched just last year, the Bright team built its vehicle from the ground up in a year. On the road, the Bright Idea (which I have not yet seen) achieves a reported 100-mpg equivalent. Production is set to begin in 2012, with a target of 50,000 annually, but that’s pretty ambitious.

Brammo.

There’s something about a distribution deal with Best Buy that gets people to take you seriously. This is a cool-looking electric motorcycle that can be fixed by the Geek Squad. The $12,000 Enertia, which has a lightweight carbon-fiber frame carrying lithium-iron-phospate batteries, weighs just 280 pounds. Fast it isn’t, with a top speed of 50 mph from its 18-horsepower electric motor, but Brammo is claiming the equivalent of 300 mpg. It recharges in three hours on regular house current. CEO Craig Bramscher says, “What we’re selling is a lot closer to consumer electronics than to transportation.” I second that emotion.

Fisker Automotive.

German-born Henrik Fisker is an industry veteran who knows how to create a business plan, in this case to finance the 2010 Karma, a Tesla-rivaling four-seat plug-in hybrid exotic with a 50-mile range on its battery pack, and the fuel economy equivalent of 100-mpg once the engine kicks in. The car, to be built in Finland, will sell for $87,900. If it’s a Tesla-like tiger on the road (I haven’t driven it) the Karma will have a good chance in the marketplace. Fisker thinks it will be producing 15,000 annually, and again that’s a big number. (Tesla has only delivered 500 cars so far.) Deposits are $5,000, but if you want the more-exclusive Karma S convertible that will be $25,000 please.

BYD.

The fact that financier Warren Buffett bought into this Chinese company (10 percent for $230 million) caused a lot of people to sit up and take notice. And when BYD got a plug-in hybrid car on the market before any other world manufacturer, they noticed even more. I saw the car at the Detroit Auto Show, and the F3DM is not exactly showy, but on the other hand it can reportedly go 60 miles on a charge, and the one-liter gas engine recharges on the fly. BYD says it will come to the U.S. in 2011. BYD is not technically a startup, but cars are a relatively recent development for this world-leading battery company.

Think Global.

This Norwegian company has had a fascinating history. From a startup in Norway it went to becoming part of Ford, but the automaker sold out in the 1990s. The company has had serious cash flow problems, but is reportedly soon to announce a reorganization plan that will include U.S. sales. Think’s major asset is a lightweight, plastic-bodied electric car with sodium or lithium-ion batteries (from a variety of manufacturers, including U.S.-based Ener1) that it has already started delivering in Europe. According to its website, “Think is getting closer to resuming production of the Think City and to honoring its commitment to start delivering vehicles to customers before the end of the year. Think’s customers are eagerly awaiting their new Think EV in cities across Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands, Austria and Spain.” Think is technically not a start-up either, but for the few cars it has ever sold its re-launch certainly counts as one.

Coda.

I drove a Coda in Greenwich, Connecticut recently, my first time behind the wheel of a Chinese-made car. Coda’s Corolla-sized car is based on the Saibao sedan, with a big battery pack built by the Tianjin Lishen Battery Joint-Stock Company. Porsche Design Studio gave it a makeover (necessary, if the $45,000 asking price is to find buyers). The Coda reaches 60 mph in less than 11 seconds, is speed-governed at 80 mph, and has 100-mile range. CEO Kevin Czinger is a smart player, with a long business resume, and his car has cemented strong relationships with Chinese and European supplier that should make the car more than the sum of its parts. The plan is to sell 2,700 in 2010, and then ramp up to a full production capacity of 20,000 annually.

Wheego.

This Atlanta-based startup makes the whimsically named Wheego Whip, a low-speed vehicle that’s not allowed on roads with speed limits of 35 mph or more. Unlike other LSVs, this $19,000 entry with 55 miles of range is fully finished, with four-wheel discs, air conditioning, a stereo and other amenities that take it beyond golf-cart status. There are reportedly 40,000 LSVs on American roads, but Wheego will soon introduce a fully road-worthy EV and that’s when the company could really become a player. CEO Mike McQuary is, like Elon Musk at Tesla, a former investor who liked what he saw. “The Whip is the best electric car in the world,” he says.

The Energy Collective has a post on the transition to energy efficient LED lighting - The Transition to LED Lighting.

In a new paper (subs req'd) published as the cover article in the March edition of the Proceedings of the IEEE, the authors take a comprehensive look at technology, costs and policies influencing the adoption of light emitting diode, or LED, lighting. The 30-page (!) journal paper, authored by colleagues Inês L. Azevedo (A Sustainable Research contributor), M. Granger Morgan and Fritz Morgan is titled, The Transition to Solid State Lighting.

90% of U.S. residential lighting is provided by incandescent bulbs, which is bad news and good news. The bad news, the authors tell us, is that incandescent bulbs only convert between 0.2-2.6% of the electricity consumed into useful life. This inefficiency should be no surprise, as an incandescent is essentially a little fire enclosed in a bulb. The good news is that they are cheap and generally last less than a year before the bulb burns out. This means that unlike cars or buildings, replacing our "fleet" of residential light bulbs has a relatively short time-scale. But what do we replace with? This spring the NY Times discussed the promise of LEDs, but this week is reporting that the death of incandescents has been greatly exaggerated. The authors of this paper discuss the comparative advantages of solid-state lighting, or LEDs.

When talking about lighting, we need to get the terms right. System Efficacy is a measure of how much light is perceived by the human eye (lumens) vs. how much power you need to produce it (Watts). You want the most light you can get for the least amount of power. This is outlet-to-eye efficiency, so to speak, so it considers losses starting at the lighting ballast (the part at the base of CFL, for example), losses in the bulb itself, and then losses in whatever cover we put over it (e.g., the glass). The authors report a system efficacy in lumens per watt for the following bulbs: Incandescent (2-16 lm/W), Halogen (6-30 lm/W), Fluorescent Tube (16-90 lm/W), CFL (9-68 lm/W), HID (4-120 lm/W), and finally a white LED (18-170 lm/W). Translation: LEDs good, could get better.

The paper also presents method to evaluate costs from different lighting technologies, and in the middle of a technical paper they present a refreshing review of discounted utility models and economic theory, and give some insight into how we make (sometimes really bad) decisions about what technologies we buy. For instance, the paper reviews studies that estimate residential consumers apply implicit discount rates to energy efficient appliance purchases of up to 300%! This means they aren't willing to pay a little more up front for a more efficient appliance that will clearly save them money over time, unless that money saved is large enough to be seen from space. [N.B. My proposed solution to this, is a tax credit for credit card companies to offer a energy star credit card, with a fixed rate of 5%, that can only be used to purchase energy star products, but I digress.]

The paper continues through scenarios about U.S. lighting demand, and energy savings through LED adoption. They report: "A solid-state lighting adoption of 5%, 50%, and 99% in terms of lumen demand would provide cumulative savings between 2007 and 2015 from 20 to 50 TWh, from 125 to 340 TWh, and from 385 to 1030 TWh for the residential sector; and from 25 to 30 TWh, from 90 to 110 TWh, and from 430 to 525 TWh for the commercial sector, depending on the assumptions made about future lighting demand."

They go on to estimate that LEDs will be among the lowest cost options for of carbon mitigation (that's $/ton avoided): "According to our simulations, the cost-effectiveness of mature lighting technologies ranges from 4 to 28 $/ton CO2. Assuming a 10% discount rate, solid-state lighting cost-effectiveness for a utility ranges from 34 to 134 $/ton CO2 in 2008 and from 4 to 14 $/ton CO2 in 2015, making it among the more attractive investments available for large CO2 abatement by the electricity sector."

Technology Review has an article on solar power technology for the higher latitudes based on Stirling engines - Solar for Dark Climates.

Cool Energy, a startup based in Boulder, CO, is developing a system that produces heat and electricity from the sun. It could help make solar energy competitive with conventional sources of energy in relatively dark and cold climates, such as the northern half of the United States and countries such as Canada and Germany.

The company's system combines a conventional solar water heater with a new Stirling-engine-based generator that it is developing. In cool months, the solar heater provides hot water and space heating. In warmer months, excess heat is used to drive the Stirling engine and generate electricity.

Samuel Weaver, the company's president and CEO, says that the system is more economical than solar water heaters alone because it makes use of heat that would otherwise be wasted during summer months. The system will also pay for itself about twice as quickly as conventional solar photovoltaics will, he says. That's in part because it can efficiently offset heating bills in the winter--something that photovoltaics can't do--and in part because the evacuated tubes used to collect heat from the sun make better use of diffuse light than conventional solar panels do.

The system is designed to provide almost all of a house's heating needs. But the generator, which will produce only 1.5 kilowatts of power, won't be enough to power a house on its own. The system is designed to work with power from the grid, although the power is enough to run a refrigerator and a few lights in the event of a power failure.

The company's key innovation is the Stirling engine, which is designed to work at temperatures much lower than ordinary Stirling engines. In these engines, a piston is driven by heating up one side of the engine while keeping the opposite side cool. Ordinarily, the engines require temperatures of above 500 °C, but Cool Energy's engine is designed to run at the 200 degrees that solar water heaters provide.

Fast Company has a post on an experiment using solar power to help power a cargo ship carrying Toyota Prius' - Cargo Ship Propelled by Solar Panels Docks in L.A..

Like it or not, we still get most of our goods from overseas. And the cargo ships that transport our products use massive amounts of energy--on average, a 1,000-foot ship carrying 8,000 cargo containers sucks up as much as six megawatts of power, or enough electricity to power 4,000 homes. Now Tokyo-based shipping company NYK Line is trying to cut down on diesel power with the 665 foot long car carrier ship, the M/V Auriga Leader.

The ship has 328 solar panels on its top deck that provide 40 kilowatts of power. The Auriga set sail in Japan last year, but docked at the Port of Long Beach--the second busiest port in the U.S.--for the first time last week. Other ships have put solar panels on cargo ships before, but only to provide auxiliary power. The Auriga's panels will direct power into the main electrical grid to power everything from the ship's thrusters to hydraulics for the steering gear.

NYK hasn't yet made concrete plans to mass produce the Auriga Leader. For the next few years, NYK will conduct field experiments to check the ship's endurance against saltwater damage, wind pressure, constant vibrations, and more. During that time, Toyota will use the ship to transport cars between the U.S. and Japan. NYK has also shown off other carbon-cutting shipping ideas. The NYK Super Eco Ship 2030 concept uses liquified natural gas-powered hydrogen fuel cells to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 69%.

The LA Times notes that the panels only generate a small proportion of the power required to power the ship when docked, let alone to propel it - Solar energy helps to power huge ship at Port of Long Beach (however, combined with something like SkySails at sea, it would still provide a handy improvement in overall fuel efficiency).

The huge car carrier ship called the M/V Auriga Leader idled at the Port of Long Beach, burning through enough electricity to power 100 homes as workers loaded and unloaded a fleet of Toyotas.

But unlike any of the diesel-spewing, power-draining vessels that travel here, the Auriga Leader sports 328 solar panels on its top deck -- a small array that provides 10% of the energy used by the giant ship while she is docked.

The ship -- part of a demonstration project by the Port of Long Beach, Toyota and Tokyo-based shipping company NYK Line -- is the first to use solar energy to help fill all of the vessel's power needs, rather than to run auxiliary lights or serve other small functions.

"This is the first ship to direct the solar power into the ship's main electrical grid," said Brian Mason, national manager of marine logistics and export for Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A. Inc. "It's helping all of the time, and its helping with everything, like the ship's thrusters and the hydraulics for the steering gear."

The practical effect is that the ship is burning less diesel fuel as its engines idle to power the ship's electrical systems. The ship's solar array can generate about 40 kilowatts or about enough power to run 10 average homes.

Gas 2.0 reports that Toyota are considering adding more space-efficient panels to the ship to generate a more useful amount of power - Toyota Tests Solar Power Cargo Ship; It’s Seaworthy.

Toyota’s 60,000-ton, seven story cargo ship can carry more than 6,200 cars at a time and regularly does so, transporting Toyota, Lexus and Scion vehicles from Toyota Motor Co. factories in Japan to Toyota’s 144-acre spread at this port in Los Angeles.

Normally, the eco-saintly Priuses onboard are heralded into port by the noxious fumes of climate-unfriendly fossils as they slide into the Golden State.

But seven months ago, (Wow. That places this decision right around the time of the financial apocalypse last Fall!) Toyota installed this test array, comprising 328 solar panels, on the top deck as an experiment to see if such a system would work effectively aboard a car carrier. So far, so good, State said, adding that not a single problem had arisen since the panels were installed last December. “She may be the first of her kind,” he said, “for sure, she will not be the last.”

And additionally, now that their attention is on it; electrical engineers at Toyota’s headquarters in Japan have found solar modules that are three times more efficient than the ones used here. (”More efficient” just means it takes less space to make the same power; but, where space is an issue, as on a ship deck, efficiency just means that you can install more power in less space than you could before.)

Taciuc Dorin; the ship’s mechanical engineer said the ship could have been equipped with enough solar to supply a quarter of its demand - a 500 KW solar system. But this initial test installation was more to determine if sea conditions were too dangerous for making their own electricity on board. Even this smaller system and accompanying equipment cost $1.8 million.

Green Building of the week from Inhabitat is this tower planned for Istanbul - July 8, 2009
Regnum Tower for Istanbul Features BioClimatic Architecture.

Steeped in centuries old architectural gems, Istanbul has historically been considered the ornate centerpiece of Turkey. Today, Istanbul has become a focus for investors and talented international architects alike, both hoping to take advantage of the inevitable emergence of this ancient city into a full-fledged global metropolis. One such design is Park Associati’s Regnum Tower, which caught our attention for its bioclimatic architecture, beautiful sculptural design, and the rigor to which it was planned to meet the highest standards of sustainability. And did we mention the views?

Foregoing an over-imposing block construction, Italian based firm Park Associati formed Regnum Tower into three distinct components around a single transparent volume, creating a winding figure and a continuously changing façade. The internal plan has divided the building into five five-floor sections, each with an open-level common area containing bioclimatic glasshouses.

The green filled glasshouses will provide shade and cross ventilation, cooling both the building and its occupants. A definite plus for those hot and humid Istanbul summer days! The orientation of the building will also prove beneficial in collecting winter warmth, with southeast to southwest windows capturing some heating energy on sunnier days.

Neal Dikeman at Cleantech Blog has a post on some basic rules for investing in clean energy technology - The Rules in Cleantech.

I've now been asked enough times, that at the risk of destroying what little edge Jane Capital may have in cleantech, I finally got around to blogging our "Rules" in cleantech investing and business in general. Hopefully it will stimulate some good debate.

One of the things that makes cleantech different from other investing areas, is the best practice rules are the opposite of what the best investors have grown up with. Maybe that's because cleantech IS energy and energy IS different.

Here is our version of the Rules:

1. Energy is slow and big - Energy technology R&D and commercialization time frames are longer and costs higher

2. Technology is “cheap”, the scale up is where all the risk is

3. There is no disruptive technology in energy, only disruptive policies and resource shocks that make certain technologies look disruptive after the fact - aka, "it's the policies (and subsidies), stupid"

4. At scale, there is no capital efficient investing in energy

5. Commodity prices and policy tend to be more important variables than technology and management

6. Energy is at heart a resource play, the price you pay matters more than what you do with the resource

As a result we've worked out a strategic playbook:

1. Look for mature technologies - if it's not 10 year old technology, don't touch it.
Limit scale up risk and look for technology with few dependencies for scale

2. Embrace policy - solid policy frameworks are much better bets than great technologies. In fact, most of the serious money in cleantech has been made by being in the right place when the policies or subsidies hit critical mass, not by developing technologies after the fact.

3. Expect lower exit multiples, and target lower burn rates over a longer commercialization time as a result

4. Discipline wins. Think Stage Gate and SPC instead of venture style “massively parallel” R&D commercialization strategies

5. Don’t be afraid to play a diversified investment strategy

6. Don’t ignore Acquisition & Development as a viable growth strategy

7. Don’t be afraid of good low tech deals, that's where many the cleantech hits have been (if we haven't heard "that's not a venture bet" 3 times, we tend to stay away.)

8. “Powder dry approach” - deploy limited capital early on for larger stakes and focus on returning capital quickly, not rapidly deploying capital

9. Secure vastly superior market intelligence before moving - stealth is pretty much a worthless strategy, you're too likely to miss key things that way.

The Colorado Independent has an article on pressure being brought to bear on opponents of hydraulic fracturing, who believe it contaminates ground water supplies - Colo. School of Mines professor says he was threatened with firing over hydraulic fracturing comments.

Dr. Geoffrey Thyne is no Ward Churchill. He’s a geologist and an academic with three decades of field work and experience as a research scientist in the oil and gas industry, including the last 13 years at Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

Thyne said in an interview that he was caught completely off-guard in late May when his bosses at the 135-year-old school threatened to fire him for comments he made to reporters on hydraulic fracturing — an increasingly controversial but equally common practice of injecting natural gas wells with high-pressure water, sand and chemicals to force open rock formations and free up gas.

U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, a Denver Democrat, is co-sponsoring legislation that would remove a Safe Drinking Water Act exemption for the process, also known as “fracking,” that was put in place by the Bush administration in 2005. Oil and gas industry trade groups have mounted a massive — and expensive — campaign to fight DeGette’s bill and maintain the exemption, which no other extractive industry enjoys.

Thyne said he was threatened with termination as a research associate professor at Mines, a position he still holds through the end of the summer, because of pressure put on the state school by powerful players in the oil and gas industry who were upset with his position that federal regulation of hydraulic fracturing may ultimately be necessary if oil companies don’t find other solutions.

“I was shocked,” Thyne said. “It’s fine to call up and complain. It’s fine to call up and say, ‘Hey, we want an explanation of why you said this.’ I think that’s totally reasonable. What I found so interesting is no one’s ever called me, except my bosses, and they just come in and go, ‘Your ass is going to get fired if we can find a way to do it.’”

As it turns out, a position came open as a senior research scientist at the Enhanced Oil Recovery Institute at the University of Wyoming, and so Thyne is transitioning there by the end of the summer. But he clearly was rattled with the fallout from comments he made to both National Public Radio and Denver’s KUSA Channel 9 TV in late May.

“There’s some really powerful people that are making a lot of money off of this, and when they see any kind of opposition, their response is to pick up the phone and say, ‘Fire this guy,’” Thyne said. “I’m first surprised that a state institution can be influenced that way …”

Colorado School of Mines public relations officials did not return a call requesting comment Thursday. Late Thursday afternoon a spokeswoman provided an e-mail response (see related blog item).

Thyne contends there needs to be much more rigorous study of fracking to determine the extent to which it can contaminate groundwater supplies. Industry money currently being poured into the aggressive and highly defensive campaign to defeat DeGette’s legislation would be better spent building a credible scientific case for why the exemption was necessary in the first place, he adds.

Lou Grinzo has a post on a paper from the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta on "The Peak Oil Debate" (pdf) - The Fed and peak oil. I like the paper's point "Perhaps the peak oil literature would better serve society by being more solution-oriented, focusing on discovering the best way to transition to a world with less conventional oil rather than locking horns about discrepancies in terminology.".

Laurel Graefe, a senior economic researcher working for the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta has written an excellent overview of peak oil, “The Peak Oil Debate” [16page, 1.6MB PDF].

I consider this a must-read piece, as much for armchair oil experts as beginners, and as much for who published this as what it contains. This should be very high on your list of “brother-in-law” documents, the ones you can safely recommend to co-workers, neighbors, or, well, your brother in law.

While Graefe has taken a decidedly middle of the road approach, which will be enough all by itself to infuriate the Apocalypticons, she also touches on several points that I would have expected a publication from any part of the Fed to ignore.

I should also mention that if you’re one of those economist-haters who have seizures when I or one of my fellow dismal scientists does the “on the other hand…” thing, then you should probably read this only under the influence of a suitably calming libation. I thought Graefe used this technique properly, in that she highlighted some of the rampant uncertainties involving oil, but at no point did I think she was hiding behind a false question to escape taking a position.

The notable details, in no particular order:

The paper talks about peak oil, by that name, without condescending to prefacing it with “so called” or anything similar. I know this sounds like a triviality, but I think it’s critical to de-demonize the term so that politicians and voters can talk about it without all the baggage that the term has grown over the years.

Graefe tells us on page 1 that “The term ‘peak oil’ is not about running out of oil; oil; we will likely have oil to pump for generations to come. Peak oil refers instead to the inevitable point at which the world’s energy output can no longer increase, and production begins to level off or decline.”

She gives the reader an excellent overview of the kinds of oil we use–conventional vs. unconventional, proved vs. probable vs. possible reserves, deep sea reserves, etc.–and never strays far from two critical details, the cost and the role of technological advancement in extracting various kinds of oil.

She mentions on page 7 what I consider the key detail in our run-up to peak oil:

“Still, despite their drawbacks, nonconventional resources will likely play an increasingly important marginal supply role in the future as reserves that are easier and cheaper to produce become depleted.” This is the mechanism that (1) will impact human beings and (2) give us the needed incentives to transition away from oil, both via increased prices. The view, sometimes implied quite subtly in online conversations, is that we’re going to hit a wall at full speed when we reach the peak. That characterization is as wrong as it is cartoonish.

Graefe also talks candidly about Matt Simmons’ number one issue (and references his work in a footnote), the lack of transparency in oil reserve numbers.

In talking about oil prices in 2008, she says:

However, the price spike also had an upside: Consumers began to drive less and conserve more, while businesses and producers set out ambitious plans to invest in energy-saving technology and upgrade outdated equipment. Alternative (both nonconventional and renewable) sources of energy, which historically had been price prohibitive, emerged as attractive substitutes to $145 per barrel oil and gasoline above $4 a gallon. World oil demand plummeted as record prices and a worldwide economic slowdown forced consumers to cut back on their energy use. But just as talk of a new green era was entering the mainstream, crude prices retreated as quickly as they had come.

I found this notable simply because of the explicit comment that driving less and conserving more were positive developments. This is a mindset that can only help us in the coming years.

The last three grafs of the paper deserves quotation in full (emphasis added):

The supply of energy as we have known it is in the process of transition. Today’s “easy” conventional oil that the world relies upon as a primary energy source is being depleted, and, regardless of the exact timing of peak oil production—be it this year or fifty years down the road— the world faces the challenge of adapting to a new model of energy supply. Although the peak oil literature tends to concentrate heavily on the scenarios of peaking world oil production, the true underlying issue is a fear that the transition from conventional oil to substitutes will be expensive and chaotic, leaving insufficient time for supply substitution and adaptation.

This adaptation process—which involves using more renewable resources and conservation and developing new technology and processes to better access hydrocarbon deposits and more efficiently extract and refine nonconventional sources—has already begun. But the road to the future energy balance—one with dwindling amounts of conventional oil—is far from mapped out.

It is possible that the world’s vast endowments of hydrocarbon resources will be heavily relied upon to answer this growing call for substitutes for the conventional oil supply. However, there is also potential for an energy future largely diversified away from hydrocarbon use. Most likely, future energy sources will be a combination of the two. Perhaps the peak oil literature would better serve society by being more solution-oriented, focusing on discovering the best way to transition to a world with less conventional oil rather than locking horns about discrepancies in terminology.

Do I have to say how delighted I am to see this emphasis on the timing of the transition and her rebuke of the more obsessed members of the peak oil community? I didn’t think so.

To be sure, I think there are some problems, or at a minimum, things I would have preferred to see done differently in this paper.

No mention of Chris Skrebowski’s bottom-up analysis of world oil supply? Given his methodology and background, not to mention his 2011 prediction, I think this stands out as a conspicuous omission.

It’s “Fatih Birol”, not “Faith Birol” (page 12). Death to spellcheckers!

My biggest concern is that the overall paper is so controlled in tone that a newcomer to the field who hasn’t read Simmons, Skrebowski, Aleklett, or any of the other rational people writing about peak oil could jump to the conclusion that, “Nobody knows what’s going to happen, so I’m not going to change anything or worry about it. Things will work themselves out.” That’s precisely the mindset that will be most damaging, since there is still quite a lot people can do individually and through their influence over concentrations of power (via their vote and spending patterns) before they’re forced to take action by much higher oil prices in just a few years.

The New York Times has a post on the deabte in Iceland about over-exploiting geothermal power, risking turning a renewable energy source into a non-renewable one (at least intermittently) - Iceland Debates the Limits of Geothermal.

The tiny nation of Iceland is often cited as a model for the world in its use of renewable energy. Virtually all of its electricity comes from dams or geothermal power plants. Drive around the countryside, as I did last month, and you will see billows of steam coming from some hillsides, a sure sign of a geothermal operation with the occasional hot springs attached.

Some Icelanders are questioning just how long the renewable power can last. At the core of the debate are the country’s efforts to build up a power-intensive aluminum industry — itself an effort to diversify the economy away from fishing. Already some 80 percent of Iceland’s electricity goes to heavy industry, mainly the country’s three big aluminum plants, according to Iceland’s new environment minister, Svandís Svavarsdóttir.

Work has begun on a new aluminum plant near the airport, though it appears to be proceeding only slowly. Arni Finnsson, the head of Iceland’s Nature Conservation Association, argues that the plant would be such an energy hog that it would “virtually wipe out all geothermal electricity in southwest Iceland.”

Environmentalists appear to have a strong ally in the government: Ms. Svavarsdóttir said in an e-mail message that she and her party were “very skeptical about the further expansion of the aluminum industry, to say the least.” She also vowed to “press for a more rational and balanced decision-making in this regard.”

Why is there a limit to geothermal energy? According to Mr. Finnsson, if Iceland’s resources are tapped too quickly, the underground hot water necessary to produce the power (and heat buildings in Iceland) could run out in 70 years or so. Geothermal energy, he said, is “not renewable if you use it to an extreme.”

Ms. Svavarsdóttir agreed that overuse of the resource could lead to a “temporary depletion of a geothermal field,” and also noted the hydrogen sulfide pollution concerns related to geothermal production.

I was sorry to see this week that Billmon's (one of the brightest lights in the earliest days of the blogosphere, for those of you haven't heard of him) fan site "Moon of Alabama" is shutting its doors - Five years of Moon of Alabama - Time to close it down. While I've rarely checked in there in recent years I'm still sad to see another pioneer giving up.

On a related note, I'm sure most long time readers have noticed the marked decrease in post volume here (and the near complete absence of original material) over the past 6 months - my apologies for that, but I've been both very busy at work and working through a divorce, so my time to do much online reading has been pretty limited (let alone writing something worthwhile of my own). I'm hoping I'll get everything back under control in a couple of months, but in the meantime please bear with me...

From the MoA About page:

Some time ago, the commenting at Billmon's Whiskey Bar became a bit excessive. Billmon therefore closed the comments at his place on June 29, 2004. The community of commentators was left behind to search for a new place.

Moon Of Alabama was opened as an independent, open forum for members of the Whiskey Bar community.

Bernhard started and still runs the site. ...

Now Bernhard stops the site. The decision to do so was taken six weeks ago and has nothing to do with recent developments in the world or any comment on this blog.

The main reason is financially. If there were a big, generous sponsor I could keep on doing this. Believe it or not, even while this is a small place, keeping it clean and posting on a wide range of issues makes it a full time job. Until recently I could sustain running it because I had reserves and a real job that allowed a lot of flexibility and a nice pay. Both are gone.

I now need to, again, 'get a life'. There are other issues too. Running such a blog is rather isolating. Being so much on the news and developing a bullshit detector as good blogging requires, creates too much distance from real, small issue social life around oneself. Psychologically it is quite a drag down. Read every line of The Daily Palestinian post from bottom to top and you will understand what I am thinking about.

In the total five years MoA got some 4,305,000 pageviews from about 2.1 million visits. Some 133,000 comments were posted and some 4,260 posts were published. Those numbers may sound big, but even with advertisement and small donations it would not be economically viable to run with this format and reach.

As this page view graph shows there were ups and downs but still a nice long-term up trend. A few more years on ... but who knows?

Thanks to all who came here, read and commented. A special thanks to those who have been around since the very first days. Dan of Steele, Juannie, r'giap, annie ond others come to mind.

In a few days, I will close the comments to this and other threads. I'll arrange something for b real to keep his Africa Comments alive and free of spam. I'll stop reading news.

I may, (may!) produce a CD with the archives of this blog plus the full Billmon archives. Check back in two or three weeks on how, maybe, you can get it.

To all of you, thanks!

And goodbye.

MOA is making available a CD of all their content (and a full archive of Billmon's site, which has been pretty much purged from the internet as far as I can tell) for those who want it - A Billmon And MoA Archive CD is Now Available. It looks like the barflies are now moving on to "Le Speakeasy".

Each CD includes the nearly complete archive of Billmon's Whiskey Bar website from his first post on April 10 2003 until The Bar closed on December 28 2006. It is only 'nearly' complete as 22 pictures from early Billmon posts, despite best efforts, are still missing. Over 780 pictures are included though. This is, I believe, the most complete Billmon archive available anywhere.

Also on the CD is the complete archive of Moon of Alabama from its launch on June 30 2004 up to July 2 2009. All posts, media and comments are included.

A search index is provided on the CD that covers both archives. For Windows users a free software to use the search index is included too. Mac and Unix users will have to download their (free) version from the net (link provided on the CD). The search engine allows google and yahoo like searches through both archives.

The two archives are interlinked. Links from the Moon of Alabama archive which originally pointed to the billmon.org website now point to the Whiskey Bar archive on the CD and vice versa. One can search and surf through and in between both archives without an active internet connection.

While I have been careful in preparing and verifying the archives and each CD I can not give any guarantees. In total there are 9,100 files on each CD which together take up some 527 megabyte. I have not reviewed each of these files on each CD I will send out. Still - if your copy does not work at all you will of course get a new one.

How to get one?

Send an email to MoonofA_at_aol_dot_com and include your postal address. I will send back an email with information on how you may contribute you fair share to the costs involved. Please allow me a day or two for responding to requests.

If you are not able to pay anything for a CD please let me know. Moon of Alabama barflies who can not pay will get a CD for free. More generally - everyone decides for themselves what s/he wants to contribute for a CD.

Robert Gottliebsen at The Business Spectator has a look at unrest and fossil fuel reserves in China's wild west - The peril in China's west. I'm not sure I agree with his theory that difficulty in getting energy from the western regions would mean less demand for Australian resources (maybe they'd want more LNG, coal and uranium from us a result) but its good to see some reporting on this topic.

The riots in China’s Xinjiang province reminded me of a conversation I had about a decade ago with a group of Chinese from Beijing. They explained that in the province of Xinjiang there were vast oil and gas reserves but before they were properly developed the area would need to have a majority of Han Chinese from the eastern provinces.

Changing the population mix of an enormous area like Xinjiang which borders Tibet, India, Russia, Mongolia and other states is no easy task. But according to China Today, the Han Chinese now account for at least 41 per cent of the population.

Many of the Uyghur groups who traditionally dominated the area had moved out seeking jobs in eastern China to take advantage of the boom. Some of those people have come home because of the slump in manufacturing in eastern China which has cost 20 million jobs. The return of these Uyghur people may have increased the unrest pressures in Xinjiang.

The great weakness in the China growth story is that to date most of the benefits of the boom have been in the east. The recent solution from the government has been to substantially increase infrastructure spending in its western provinces. One of the biggest recipients of this infrastructure spending plan has been Xinjiang. The Chinese realise that Xinjiang is one of their most dangerous areas, but it is also one of the most valuable because of its vast oil, gas and coal reserves – including the potential for massive coal-seam gas developments, where companies such as Arrow Energy are in the front line. There is a gas pipeline to Shanghai and large new coal mines are planned.

In the next few weeks there will be many articles in our media about human rights abuses in Xinjiang and I have no doubt that many will be factual. But while not approving of human rights abuses, Australia has a lot at stake in western China. If western China starts to break up then the China growth story will also start to break down and with it will come a much lower demand for our resources.