Green homes finding a market but...

A block of new greener houses made their debut in San Jose earlier this month in Orchard Heights.

the first nine of the new homes at Orchard Heights (3,600-square-foot or larger homes starting at around $1 million) went on sale, and seven were sold. And this in a fragile housing market where sales of new homes fell to a 13-year low nationwide in January and sales in Santa Clara and San Benito counties dropped 45 percent last year.

The good news here of course being that these homes attracted buyers even in a bad market. The recent report by the Commission for Environmental Cooperation points to buildings as the best bet to cut CO2.

But the traction of these houses is also related to the fact that the housing decline has hit the lowest rungs hardest, much less so at upper income levels. This points up another challenge - the size of the homes.

Home sizes have grown steadily from an average of 1,000 sq. ft. in 1950 to 1,500 sq. ft . in 1973 to nearly 2,500 sq. ft. last year, even as family sizes have declined - 3.14 to 2.57 per household from the 1970s to today. House sizes may be peaking but home size and environmental footprint are highly correlated. Having a clean grid certainly will help but even in the best case, it doesn't address the materials and land implications. Consider, from 1970 to 1990 Los Angeles population grew 45%. In the same period, the city's developed land grew 200%.

And how we develop our cities then translates to how much we need to drive... We need to bring all the solutions to bear because things are going in the wrong direction.

Flip the switch

What would happen if every person in the world turned off the lights for one hour? If everyone joins the Earth Hour 2008 campaign tomorrow night, we'll find out.

Started last year by the World Wildlife Federation of Australia, the objective was for everyone in Sydney to turn off the lights for one hour. On March 31, 2007, an estimated 2.2 million people and more than 2,000 businesses in Sydney participated. Such prominent places such as the Sydney Opera House and the Harbour Bridge went dark. As a result, Sydney’s energy usage dropped 10 percent during the 60-minute span.

Thanks to last year's successes, this year’s Earth Hour is worldwide. Everyone is asked to turn off the lights on March 29 from 8 to 9 p.m. It seems like a simple task. But it actually puts into perspective how dependent we are on having electricity available to us. It forces you to get creative with your time. Go for a stroll, play cards, gaze at the stars! It's only 60 minutes. Can you do it? Whatever you decide to do, just know that by turning the lights off tomorrow night, you will be contributing to a rapidly growing global campaign that has helped propel the ongoing global warming debate to the forefront.

Growth of pond scum

Earth2Tech profiles movers in the algae bio-fuels space including Bay Area startups Aurora, Solazyme, and Mighty Algae. Note the increasing involvement of big oil. And as previously noted, other players in the bio space.

Global Warming REMIX - Al Gore's Testimony to Congress

Pretty cool. Bay Area imagery prominent in the mix:
Via Peter, a Climate Project presenter.

Tahoe losing clarity

Bad news for one of California's crown jewels.

In a new study, researchers at the University of California-Davis predict that climate change will irreversibly alter water circulation in Lake Tahoe, making it less hospitable to some native plants and fish, and that it will happen sooner than most people expected - in a little more than a decade.

Global warming is already causing warmer lake temperatures along the shoreline, and is likely to continue to cloud up the cobalt waters that attract tourists from all over the world. However, the most recent news came as a shock to even the researchers.

The full report at UC Davis.

Article of faith

So it turns out that the Jesuit Community of Santa Clara University in California was among the first members of the Chicago Climate Exchange.

However, deep divisions are emerging in the conservative religious community with a recent statement by Southern Baptists. The split in part is running on generational lines.

ABC recently had coverage of the opposing positions:

Perkins: A major component of Global Warming is to reduce population because people are seen as part of the problem. And, of course, population control includes abortion. It also includes same-sex relations because they do not cause offspring.
ABC: In a new book, Tony Perkins even argues that if the storms and droughts predicted by climate scientists do come about, Christians should see them as a sign of the Second Coming.

Perkins: Where people are told and taught to look inwardly and making sure that they are spiritually prepared to meet the End Times.

Of course, if this is just about the "End Times" then we should immediately stop doing anything productive - grow food, go to the dentist, etc. There are lots of things we could do to accelerate meeting our maker!

Hat tip to People for the American Way.

Open source car?

Silicon Valley has been revolutionized in the last few years by open-source software. Once an arcane side-alley of the software world products like Linux, Apache, MySQL, JBoss, and numerous other products have challenged the way companies develop software. It has also spawned a rethinking of potential of and approach to large scale collaboration.

Now a software developer is taking the concept to cars. Check out the team working on Kernel.

Wired charges ZAP...

Wired Magazine runs a not-so-flattering story about ZAP, the Santa Rosa, Calif.-based electric scooter maker. Earth2Tech has the story.

Doerr characterizes clean-tech investment

Earth2Tech has the story

While Internet companies can become profitable in less than five years with about $25 million in equity (he refers to Google, Amazon and EA), biotech firms need $1 billion and more than 10 years (KP invested in Genentech), Doerr says. In contrast, greentech firms like Kleiner portfolio fuel-cell company Bloom Energy has needed $250 million and 7 years to deliver a product. The pay off, Doerr says, is that the markets are so much larger for greentech investing: $6 trillion for the energy market, compared to $100 billion for the Internet.

The economy & the efficiency opportunity

As the economy shows increasing signs of worsening with both the mortgage lending meltdown and soaring oil prices it is becoming increasingly important to recognize where some of our best opportunities are - and one of those is in energy efficiency.

Avery Cohn and Jit Bhattacharaya of the leadership team of the UC Berkeley Energy and Resources Collaborative highlight the opportunity in the SJ Mercury, noting:

Just ask Lee Scott Jr., the chief executive of Wal-Mart. By installing lower-energy light bulbs, increasing transportation efficiency and demanding that its suppliers reduce energy-intensive packaging materials, Wal-Mart has been eliminating its energy waste.

At an economics conference earlier this month in Santa Barbara, Scott explained that Wal-Mart's energy diet does the most to protect quarterly earnings in the worst economic times. Energy efficiency will also pay dividends for Wal-Mart in the long term by reducing its greenhouse gas emissions.

Wal-Mart's energy diet isn't charity. It's sound business strategy.

An here in California this is important not only for the soaring cost of petroleum and its derivative, gasoline. The cost of natural gas, which is mostly domestic, is also expected to rise. Natural gas is a major fuel in our region's electrical power generation accounting for approximately 40% of PG&E's energy mix.

Bay Meadows moves forward but much to do

If we are going to solve the climate crisis we will need to innovate not only on energy but in many other areas. Few things are as important as how we build our cities.

If our built environment is walkable, bikeable, with transit options and accessible amenitites, not only will it reduce our energy (and water consumption) but we can have more community-oriented neighborhoods with a better quality of life.

And in our region there are few better examples than the potential at Bay Meadows.

After a series of court challenges, the legal fight came to an end last month.

The group's decision is the death knell for a drawn-out referendum effort that began after the San Mateo City Council approved a plan to replace the 73-year-old track with shops, offices and condominiums. The Friends of Bay Meadows collected thousands of signatures to force a vote, but just enough were ruled invalid that the petition failed.

This is good news as there is an urgent need to address the regional housing crisis which not only makes it outrageously expensive to live here, but that condition forces people out to distant communities like Pleasanton or Gilroy while commuting long, and polluting, distances.

But there's still much to do.

If all goes smoothly, the city will remain on track to approve the project's first and largest portion at an April 21 city council meeting. However, the extra meeting has opened the door for one last volley of questions and objections from officials, observers and critics.

Planning Commissioner Kelly Moran has demanded better explanations of how vehicle, pedestrian and bike traffic will flow through the neighborhood. Bicycle advocates want to know more about plans for bike paths and parking.

More on cleantech boom: $254 Billion market by 2017

According to Clean Energy Trends 2008:

... revenues in four benchmark sectors -- biofuels, wind power, solar photovoltaics, and fuel cells -- are up 40 percent in one year, to $77.3 billion in 2007. The report finds that for the first time, three leading clean-energy technologies each surpassed $20 billion in revenue.

This is now showing that returns on the growing investment in this sector is becoming real.

"Clean energy has moved from the margins to the mainstream and the proof is in these numbers," said Clean Edge Co-founder and Principal Ron Pernick. "Amid last year's plummeting housing prices, rising foreclosure rates, and record high oil prices, clean energy continued to provide a bright spot in an otherwise sluggish economy."

This may well be the growth engine out of the current economic mess (not to mention global warming and national security).

Solar access upheld - panels get their days in the sun

The issue in Sunnyvale of the solar panels and the neighboring shading trees is moving towards resolution with solar access being upheld. The situation - where neighboring trees grew to block the sun falling on solar panels - generated enormous media attention and the legal process came down on the side of the panels. Now an arborist is scheduled to attend to the trees next week.

An article in the CS Monitor profiles the neighbors and offers this observation from a commentator:

That there is an inevitable conflict between trees and solar power "is a false proposition," says Ralph Knowles, professor emeritus of architecture at the University of Southern California and an authority on sunlight in urban landscapes. The potential for conflict hinges on the type of tree, he says. Unlike evergreens, deciduous trees shade a yard during summer but shed their leaves in winter, providing light when solar panels are most starved of it.

The Solar Shade Control Act went unnoticed for 30 years, but since December it has come up in several lawsuits, says Stamen, the tree lawsuit specialist. "The legal system," he says, "will see [more of] these cases in the near future."

The article also notes that State Senator Joe Simitian is looking at adapting the law to move such cases into civil court which seems appropriate though also references possible additional protections for preexisting trees. The latter suggestion will be a 'devil in the details' discussion.

No salmon

Very bad news.

The most startling data comes from the Sacramento river, the source of more than 80 per cent of all the mature salmon caught off California. Last year, only 90,000 spawning adults returned to the river, the second lowest figure on record, and the projections for this year, based on sightings of two-year-old fish during last autumn’s spawning run, are for fewer than 60,000. To put those figures in perspective: the Sacramento River once saw spawning populations of 800,000. The federal government sets a minimum of about 120,000, below which it doesn’t authorize any fishing season at all.

Reasons are complex but changes in ocean currents and reduced river water flows are among the reasons suggesting that climate change is having an impact here.

Pacifica and Morgan Hill step up

Things are definitely trending in the right direction locally when cities start taking action on their own without much prodding. Latest is that Pacifica has signed the Mayors Climate Protection Agreement and that Morgan Hill has done or is in the process of doing an emissions inventory.

A quick review of Morgan Hill's website shows that they set an agenda back in September (and reinforced in a February planning session) to pursue a number of actions including:

Climate Protection: Identify, inventory, monitor, reduce, and mitigate local greenhouse gas emissions to reduce the community’s carbon footprint in cooperation with the State’s efforts to implement AB 32.

Community Health: Educate, encourage, and assist local residents, institutions, and businesses in improving the overall health and wellbeing of the community.

Energy: Develop a local energy system that maximizes opportunities for locally-developed clean energy generation and supports the use and development of cleaner energy generation sources nationwide.

Green Buildings: Use incentives, regulations, and laws to improve the environmental
performance of new and existing buildings, roads, landscapes, and facilities in the
community.

That's worthy of a little jig...


Hat tip on the Muppets to OpenLeft

Sustainability: a little perspective

Tonight's Sustainable San Mateo County event was great. The organization seems to be gaining momentum. The awards dinner had some 50 tables and probably 450 people. It was quite a bit larger than last year's. A lot of familiar faces - many though making new careers in solar energy, having made career changes in the past year.

There were the requisite awards of course including some impressive Green Building accomplishments like Nueva School in Hillsborough

A candidate for gold-level LEED certification from the U.S. Green Building Council, the Hillside Learning Complex has been designed to serve as a model of green architecture and a tool for teaching about environmental sensitivity and sustainability. The new buildings will minimize their impact upon the pristine natural setting of the school while maximizing multiple benefits derived from the native ecology, including wind for ventilation and cooling, sun for heating and energy generation, and rain for irrigation and fire prevention.

The somewhat disappointing element was that the featured projects are at the highest end and not the kind of project accessible to most. Of course, these projects accelerate the market and know-how but ultimately we want all price ranges to be equally prominent. After all, such projects do exist, proving that green doesn't cost more green.

But in talking to local leader Jill, she helped put it in perspective. As she noted, "when I started in this [field] twenty years ago, every award went to a project I was personally familiar with. It's great now. There's so many things happening that when these awards come up they're usually a project I didn't know anything about!"

Still, we must go far quickly...

Brave New World - will biology save us?

Will our salvation emerge from a primordial soup? Perhaps few technologies hold as much promise and peril as biotech when it comes to the climate crisis. A number of Silicon Valley firms are racing to make biology do the heavy lifting.

"Algae has a chance to save the planet," said Michael Fertik, who is quietly working on a a startup, Mighty Algae Biofuels, in addition to his main job as chief executive of ReputationDefender in Menlo Park. "It's not a category killer. It's category Armageddon."

Well, hopefully not Armageddon. But you get the picture.

Most of these firms are exploring various farming or fermentation processes. Interestingly, the article in the Mercury notes that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory restarted its research on fuel production with algae, collaborating with Chevron.

Others are more ambitious, looking to dramatic genetic engineering strategies:

Energy: Growing green

From the SF Chronicle

Worldwide sales for companies specializing in biofuels, wind farms, solar panels and fuel cells grew 40 percent in 2007 to reach $77.3 billion, according to an annual report issued Tuesday by Clean Edge, a research firm that studies the green technology industry.

Fantastic opportunity and the trends are clearly in the right direction.

Time for geoengineering?

As suggested earlier in the post on the carbon sink effort the idea of a techno-fix to global warming is gaining some persistent attention. While Climos may be nutty, perhaps others are less so.

In the case of Planktos or Climos, the problem with measures like seeding iron to capture carbon is that they are unmeasurable and wildly unpredictable. Ecosystem complexity makes it very difficult to ensure there won't be some adverse runaway processes resulting in toxic algae or hypoxia impacting food supplies. Or even worsening CO2 releases:

A number of small-scale trials tested Martin's idea but it soon emerged that zooplankton multiplied as quickly as the phytoplankton, with the result that the animals quickly ate the organic material formed as a result of adding the iron. Instead of the carbon sequestered by the phytoplankton sinking to the seabed as planned, it was emitted to the sea and air by the feeding zooplankton.

Nevertheless, there is a serious question to ask about whether the climate crisis, even with the best case of emissions reduction, might necessitate radical action to mitigate climate change. After all, measured CO2 levels and observed warming are far exceeding predictions. Ideally any radical measures should be controllable, measurable and reversable.

In his talk at Google, Ken Caldeira takes up another form of geoengineering.

Oil at $200?

In 2005 Goldman Sachs predicted oil could go to $100 a barrel that summer. They were wrong but not by much. Oil again hit highs today of over $100 again. There is a creeping normalcy to the extraordinary prices.



 
 
 
       
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What makes them extraordinary actually is not the the current price, but how it compares historically on an inflation adjusted basis. We have exceeded the highest recorded prices from the 1970s oil embargo with relatively little actually happening in terms of disruptions.

Discussion of the historical view is available at InflationData.com through the end of December 2007. The Wall Street Journal has a similar one that's not quite as current but with historical notes.

Goldman Sachs is now predicting it to go to $200 a barrel if there is a disruption.

After all peak oil is here.

Clean-tech on the map

The good folks at Earth2Tech put together a cool Google Map of cleantech startups around the world. Probably not comprehensive but a good snapshot. Not surprisingly, there's a good concentration here at home:

Go far quickly - Gore at TED

Comments on Al Gore's presentation at TED 2008.

Local warming - a bigger threat (for men)

We have been warned.