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In regions where pumping and distributing water requires significant electricity use, policies that lead to reduced water consumption could address climate change more efficiently than requiring businesses and households to use less energy, according to water expert Peter Gleick.

“Some of the cheapest greenhouse gas emission reductions available seem to be not energy-efficiency programs, but water-efficiency programs,” said Gleick, president of the California-based Pacific Institute, a global water research center.

Gleick notes, for example, that it may be cheaper for consumers to reduce the overall hot water usage in their homes than to replace their incandescent light bulbs with more energy-efficient alternatives.

The virtues of water efficiency can be found in California and China - regions where water shortages have become emergencies and droughts may worsen with climate change. Conditions may become more severe in the future as consumers turn to water solutions that often require even greater energy supplies.

In California, where drought is afflicting the land for the third year in a row, the state is reducing water deliveries by 20-30 percent this winter and warns of “the most significant water crisis in its history.” The water shortages are forcing farmers to cut production and lay off employees in an already sour economy.

Meanwhile, water transportation, storage, and treatment account for about 19 percent of the state’s electricity, according to a 2007 California Energy Commission report [PDF]. To reach the rapidly expanding urban clusters in southern California, for instance, water is pumped 2,000 feet (610 meters) over the Tehachapi Mountains north of Los Angeles.

David Zoldoske, director of the Center for Irrigation Technology at California State University-Fresno, has led efforts to educate central California farmers about proper pump maintenance since 2001. With the help of utility company subsidies, the project has helped improve the efficiency of several irrigation pumps, saving 19.4 million kilowatt-hours of electricity annually between 2002 and 2005, he said.

But the recent drought may reduce many efficiency gains. Farmers are digging deeper water wells and several counties are exploring plans to build desalination plants. Both measures lead to significant increases in energy use.

“When you’re running out of water, you don’t care about what the energy bill is…and we’re in dire straits here in California,” Zoldoske said. “Where people can use water more efficiently, people will opt for that…. But the availability and reliability of water is more of a concern.”

In China, drought now stretches across the northern wheat belt, and nearly 4 million people are without proper drinking water. After declaring an emergency “rarely seen in history” on Thursday, the government said it plans to send cloud-seeding rockets into the air to encourage rain, and to redirect portions of the Yangtze and Yellow rivers.

Many regions of China fit into Gleick’s definition of “peak water” [PDF] - a term used to describe situations when water is consumed from aquifers or the ground faster than it can be replaced, or when water-use patterns irreversibly damage the local ecology.

“China is an example where [water] problems come together in the worst ways on the planet,” Gleick said during a presentation of his bi-annual report, The World’s Water, at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington, D.C. last week. “Water resources are over-allocated, over-used, and grossly polluted by human and industrial waste.”

To address the country’s water deficiencies, the Chinese government began plans in 2001 for a South-North Water Diversion project. The $62 billion project hopes to divert water from the Yangtze to the arid north along eastern, central, and western routes. If the project is completed (the western route has yet to begin), a significant amount of energy would be required to pump water across the country.

“It takes a lot of energy to move, treat, clean, and use water. A remarkable amount of water, it turns out,” Gleick said. “So whatever we can do to reduce the energy required to meet our water needs reduces greenhouse gases.”

The Chinese government in 2005 prioritized a 20-percent reduction in “energy intensity” - the amount of fuel needed to generate each dollar of national income - by 2010. Historically, water production and supply have consumed less energy over time. Energy intensity declined about 30 percent between 1997 and 2004, according to a 2008 study in the journal Water Policy [PDF].

But the study predicts that as China follows through on its promise to expand water treatment facilities across the country, energy consumption will rise.

“Reducing urban and other end-user water intensity could conserve both water and energy,…saving households money on water and energy and creating jobs elsewhere in the economy,” said David Roland-Holst, an economist at the University of California at Berkeley who co-authored the study.

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

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(Posted by Ben Block in Water at 12:00 PM)

Originally
from Worldchanging: Bright Green

by Ben Block


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Ben Block from Worldchanging: Bright Green on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

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Earlier this week, Google.org announced plans to develop a personal energy metering tool that will allow users to monitor their home energy consumption. The PowerMeter “will show consumers their electricity consumption in near real-time in a secure iGoogle Gadget,” according to the organization’s website.

Google believes consumers have a right to detailed information about their home energy use, and that real-time energy information could help people make smarter choices that will save them energy and money:

Our lack of knowledge about our own energy usage is a huge problem, but also a huge opportunity for us all to save money and fight global warming by reducing our power usage. Studies show that people save 5-15% of their energy costs when they have access to information about their energy consumption.

Over the next three years, with support from the Obama Administration’s proposed stimulus package, more than 40 million U.S. homes are set to receive smart meters. But many currently available smart meters do not display information to the consumer, which Google states is “unacceptable:”

We believe that detailed data on your personal energy use belongs to you, and should be available in a standard, non-proprietary format. You should control who gets to see it, and you should be free to choose from a wide range of services to help you understand it and benefit from it.

The organization is currently testing the software with Google employees and seeking out utilities and smart energy device makers to partner with. When PowerMeter is released, the tool will be free and is rumored to be based on an open source model.

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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Emerging Technologies at 12:41 PM)

Originally
from Worldchanging: Bright Green

by Sarah Kuck


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Sarah Kuck from Worldchanging: Bright Green on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment, reblog innovation

If I told you that the air in a corporate office building filled with PhD holding climatologist and atmospheric scientists felt positively electrified, you might think I was a little off. But the truth is that during my visit to energy efficiency company 3TIER, I witnessed an office packed with people truly excited and enthusiastic about their daily tasks. I guess it helps to know your work is reshaping the energy future of the world.

3TIER is an international company providing people with the information they need to make smart decisions about renewable energy. They help people, businesses and governments make decision about what renewable energy project (wind, solar, or responsible hydro) would be most efficient and effective for where they’re located. Basically, said founder and CEO Ken Westrick, 3TIER takes information and tries to turn it toward a decision point, which hopefully ends in the investment in renewable energy. (You can read more about the process here.)

I walked down Capitol Hill to their downtown Seattle headquarters the other day to get a behind the scenes look at how they are quickly building a reputation as the world’s go-to source for renewable energy efficiency expertise.

3TIER started building its home on the cutting edge in the late 1990s, when Westrick began to see clearly the coming demand for the newly burgeoning field of renewable energy. He saw how the combining trends of oil depletion, climate change and energy security were creating ripe conditions for a triad of alternatives in solar, hyro and wind power.

“The train was heading toward the cliff,” Westrick said. “You could see this sort of thing coming.”

Although Westrick saw this growth as a powerful force just waiting to be unleashed, not everyone was there quite yet. In 2001, starting a business that combined using the Internet to map renewable energy potential seemed to many like a poor decision, but to Westrick it was a long term vision.

Now, 3TIER conducts business across the globe from their offices in North and Central America as well as in India.

“The thirst for the type of information we provide is out there,” Westrick said. “Governments and investors want to know, ‘where do I put it? What technology do I need to put in? And how do we operate it?”

What’s really interesting is 3TIER’s ability to take answers to questions like this to leaders in developing countries interested in what resources they could be using. 3TIER is working with these countries to help them see what resources they have readily available, which would allow them to leapfrog over dirty, industrial models of obtaining energy straight to clean, abundant, renewable energy.

3TIER gives governments and business of all sizes, and people from all areas of the world the information they need to start the policy or investment conversation. Through their open and free information source, FIRSTLOOK, they are giving everyone the ability to at least think about and check into the possibility of alternative energy.

“We figure out where’s the best place to put renewable energy projects, help you make it much more efficient in it operation,” Westrick said. “The best place to put a turbine isn’t the windiest spot. It’s the place where it’s windiest when you need it most.”

Westrick said that their clients come to 3TIER for different reasons — some believe in climate change, some see this as a wise, money making investment, others see it as a way to achieve energy security or to create jobs.

“We are trying to give folks inspiration for policy, investment and conversation,” Westrick said. “I don’t care why they are getting on board, as long as they are getting on board to recognize that we need to do something about this.”

As I was shuttled through the halls of 3TIER headquarters, meeting people with titles like director of forecasting and solar resource assessment analyst, I realized this was the future: People working together to solve global problems, making a living out of doing what’s right, solving global problems through collaboration, giving it away when it makes sense to, and using state of the art technology to do so.

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(Posted by Sarah Kuck in Business at 3:30 PM)

Originally
from Worldchanging: Bright Green

by Sarah Kuck


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Sarah Kuck from Worldchanging: Bright Green on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment, reblog innovation

Computers and cacti go together like chocolate and peanut butter.

Bill McKibben once lamented the unsexiness of waste heat recovery, an energy efficiency technique that languishes in obscurity despite its potentially huge environmental benefits. Perhaps this story will capture the public imagination: in a move that will save money and cut carbon emissions, the University of Notre Dame in Indiana has begun housing some of its computer servers in the nearby “Arizona Desert Dome,” a conservatory for cacti and other desert plants.

Computer servers create a lot of waste heat — so much so that keeping them cool is a major cost driver and engineering challenge for data centers. Particularly in coal-fired Indiana, air conditioning for data centers equates to a lot of carbon emissions.

Cacti, on the other hand, need a lot of heat, particularly in the winter, when South Bend is blanketed in snow.

You can see where this is going. Housing servers in the desert dome, where air currents can carry away their waste heat, is expected to save the university about $100,000 in cooling costs. Meanwhile, the city will save some of the $70,000 it spends each year to keep the conservatory warm. Given that the conservatory was cut out of the city’s 2010 budget altogether, such steps toward self-sufficiency are necessary to ensure its continued existence.

And here’s some recycled energy news with perhaps wider impact: Vinod Khosla is backing a company that creates solar energy systems designed to harness the waste heat from traditional solar photovoltaic panels.

Details on the technology are scarce. It sounds a bit like a solar panel smooshed together with a solar hot water heater — presumably alongside some clever engineering to make the smooshing as efficient as possible. The company claims to be able to double the energy capture of today’s solar photovoltaics, which, if true, would represent an an enormous leap forward for rooftop systems.

Recycled waste heat presents one of the biggest, cheapest opportunities for slashing our carbon budget. It looks like the idea is starting to get its day in the sun.

Adam Stein is a co-founder of TerraPass, where this post originally appeared. He writes on issues related to carbon, climate change, policy, and conservation.

Photo credit: University of Notre Dame

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(Posted by Adam Stein in Columns at 9:00 AM)

Originally
from WorldChanging

by Adam Stein


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by Adam Stein from WorldChanging on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment, reblog innovation

This article was written by Alex Steffen in January 2008. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

This is interesting:

In an analysis of the potential impacts of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles projected for 2020 and 2030 in 13 regions of the United States, ORNL researchers explored their potential effect on electricity demand, supply, infrastructure, prices and associated emission levels. Electricity requirements for hybrids used a projection of 25 percent market penetration of hybrid vehicles by 2020 including a mixture of sedans and sport utility vehicles. Several scenarios were run for each region for the years 2020 and 2030 and the times of 5 p.m. or 10:00 p.m., in addition to other variables.

The report found that the need for added generation would be most critical by 2030, when hybrids have been on the market for some time and become a larger percentage of the automobiles Americans drive. In the worst-case scenario—if all hybrid owners charged their vehicles at 5 p.m., at six kilowatts of power—up to 160 large power plants would be needed nationwide to supply the extra electricity, and the demand would reduce the reserve power margins for a particular region’s system.

The best-case scenario occurs when vehicles are plugged in after 10 p.m., when the electric load on the system is at a minimum and the wholesale price for energy is least expensive. Depending on the power demand per household, charging vehicles after 10 p.m. would require, at lower demand levels, no additional power generation or, in higher-demand projections, just eight additional power plants nationwide.

Of course, there’s a mechanism for helping people plug their cars in at the right time: pricing energy in response to demand, through miracle smart grid technologies that will be available sometime in the very near future like, well, yesterday.

Of course, even the coolest of hybrids plugged into the smartest of grids won’t save our bacon if we don’t change the sources of our energy and the design of our communities.

Vehicle-to-Grid Plug-In Hybrids, for Free is part of our month long retrospective leading up to our anniversary on October 1. For the next four weeks, we’ll celebrate five years of solutions-based, forward-thinking and innovative journalism by publishing the best of the Worldchanging archives.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Worldchanging Retro at 9:26 AM)

Originally
from WorldChanging

by WorldChanging Team


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by WorldChanging Team from WorldChanging on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment, reblog innovation

This article was written by Joy Green in March 2008. We’re republishing it here as part of our month-long editorial retrospective.

What happens when disruptive ideas combine?

We’ve heard a lot about distributed energy generation and smart grids recently – cities could act as distributed power plants, channeling energy from hundreds of thousands, even millions of individual rooftops (think micro-wind and solar PV) into common use and minimizing transmission losses. In essence - your home or building generates clean power and sells the surplus to the grid at peak prices for you during the day– it buys any excess energy you need during the evening when prices are low. You could plug your hybrid car into this fabulous integrated system and depending on the time of day it would either sell surplus energy from its battery to the grid or charge itself up ready for use the next morning.

We’ve also heard a lot about product-service systems. At the moment, as I’m working on an urban mobility futures project at Forum For The Future , I’m particularly interested in the Velib scheme in Paris – the self-service, easy access bike hire scheme with banks of bikes outside metro stations and other key points that has got thousands of Parisians cycling again (Similar to Barcelona’s Bicing system - ed.). You pick up a bike anywhere you need it and drop it off, no-fuss, at your destination. Like the smart grid, this is also a form of distributed infrastructure – you could call it a lightweight public transport infrastructure that smooths the peaks of demand for the more traditional system of the metro and the bus.

And if you combine them?

MIT recently outlined a service model for personal urban mobility that does just that.

Imagine the Velib bike scheme in Paris supplemented with self-service electric, stackable two-seater mini-cars at transport interchanges and hundreds of other points all over the city. These mini-cars are designed for multiple short urban trips so they don’t need huge bulky batteries or high top speeds. They’re tiny (six stack in the same space you’d park a regular car), lightweight, ultra-maneuverable and super-convenient – you’d never have to worry about finding a parking space again. You just swipe your card, pick up a mini-car whenever you need one from a nearby stack, and drop it off at another stack when you are done.

This already sounds like a good service model, but what makes it much more interesting are the potential second and third order effects. When the cars stack together, they effectively become large, intelligent batteries plugged into the grid – and the perfect partners for smart grids and distributed power generation. Car stacks could mop up and store excess energy or provide an extra boost of local power as required, so would be a particularly good fit with buildings that generate power from intermittent renewables such as solar or wind (or even, by the coast, wave power). In essence, each mini-car doubles as a mobility service and an intelligent energy storage device. With a hundred or so mini-cars in a stack, and hundreds or thousands of these car stacks in a city, you’d have enormous battery capacity being added to the electrical grid – perfect for large-scale distributed energy generation from renewables on buildings. The batteries would provide the flexibility to cope well with fluctuations in demand and generation.

If you then add in ubiquitous mobile networking and ‘embedded intelligence,’ things get even more interesting. William J Mitchell at MIT speculates on these mini-cars

* knowing patterns of energy prices and mobility demand, and intelligently playing the energy futures market
* operating in an environment of fine-grained, highly dynamic road congestion pricing, and intelligently playing in the road space market
* knowing parking space availability and dynamically adjusted prices, and intelligently playing in the parking space market

In effect, these cars becoming “Google for the city, efficiently getting you to its resources, while taking account of time and cost constraints”

Even without this heady third stage though, the proposal is a potential distributed system that integrates energy, transport and the built environment. It’s an idea for personal urban mobility that takes on many of the perceived strengths of the car – convenience, independence, weather protection and safety. (One caveat here though - it would be difficult to predict how many car journeys this system would actually displace without running a pilot project. Velib has so far mostly displaced public transport journeys – which is also helpful for easing pressure on creaking infrastructure – but had little effect on car use.)

It’s also a little closer to how an ecosystem works – flexible, interlinked and resilient. And this is a lot closer to how we’re going to have to think and act if we’re going to solve problems like personal mobility in a world where there are 9 billion of us and 6 billion of us live in cities.

Smart Grid, Meet the Product-Service Model is part of our month long retrospective leading up to our anniversary on October 1. For the next four weeks, we’ll celebrate five years of solutions-based, forward-thinking and innovative journalism by publishing the best of the Worldchanging archives.

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(Posted by WorldChanging Team in Worldchanging Retro at 10:10 AM)

Originally
from Worldchanging

by WorldChanging Team


reBlogged

on Jan 1, 1970, 8:00AM

Originally by WorldChanging Team from Worldchanging on January 1, 1970, 9:00am

Posted under reblog environment

HEHE, Helen Evans and Heiko Hansen, won the Golden Nica of the Prix Ars Electronica in the category Hybrid Art for Pollstream, a series of projects attempting to visualize various forms of smoke emissions.

Nuage vert and Smoking lamp have already been described here. The third project in the series is called Toy emissions (My friends all drive Porsches). For this piece HEHE navigated a remote controlled toy car through the streets of New York. The toy car was manipulated to emit colored smoke clouds. First they performed Toy emissions in Brooklyn, because they were a little nervous about getting arrested. When it seemed to go well, they moved to Manhattan.
(Unfortunately i did not find a video online of this very impressive action)

HEHE have been developing Nuage vert since 2002. After several failed attempts to perform it in France, the project has been actualized in Helsinki for a week long performance in February 2008. There the green laser cloud were projected onto the emissions of a power plant and used to visualize local energy consumption. The residents of the city’s neighborhood of Ruoholahti were asked to participate by lowering their energy consumption within a certain time frame, the less energy was consumed the bigger the size of the projection. The project shows very successfully how art can be used to increase ecological awareness in an urban context.

Read more about Nuage vert in the project concept.
The project was also documented on the blog nuagevert.org

[Photos mine and from artist website]

Originally
from we make money not art

by Jan


reBlogged

Originally by Jan from we make money not art

Posted under reblog art