Updated: Carl Sagan - 'A Glorious Dawn' ft Stephen Hawking (Cosmos Remixed)

This is a non-sequitor but for me Cosmos was instrumental in helping me understand the world we live in - to the limited degree that I do. This is a clever and creative tribute to Sagan and Hawking:
What was so powerful about Cosmos was the bringing of wonder, creativity, science - and even compassion - together. It's a mix far too rare these days as we move through a period where ideology is trumping science at precisely the moment where we most need those great qualities that Sagan brought.

"...if we do not destroy ourselves... a still more glorious dawn awaits... our future depends powerfully on how well we understand this cosmos."

Watch the full series.

Updated: Cosmos is, apparently, the most watched series ever aired on PBS with 600 million viewers in 60 countries.

Rafael @www.climateatbay.net

BioFuelBox ramps up biodiesel

Biodiesel conjures images of a committed few who have done home conversions of their diesel Jetta or Mercedes, setting up some drums in their garage to filter and use the grease for the local fast food joint. There is however, a pretty big opportunity with biodiesel if it is scaled.

Heavy duty trucks burned more than 38 billion gallons of diesel fuel in 2006.

One company at least is aiming big, the peculiarly named BioFuelBox in San Jose. Interestingly BioFuelBox aims a big part of their sourcing on wastewater treatment plants and offers a mobile "box" with which to run its process and profit share with the source.

Unlike the home conversions which generally use specialized filters, BioFuelBox claims the fuel can be used in completely unmodified diesel engines and is profitable with oil at $30/barrel (currently at $66/barrel).

Earth2Tech reports:

It’s an interesting move at a time when other biodiesel plants are being idled, shuttered and put up for sale. But BioFuelBox says its biodiesel is cost-competitive with diesel from petroleum, that it’s already bringing in revenue, and that it expects to have 10 factories up and running by the middle of 2011, with its first profits early in the same year.

...
While the company wouldn’t disclose details about its proprietary system, called Novostream, Reddy said it involves three steps to extract oil from watery contaminated waste streams, convert the oil into fuel and then purify the fuel so it meets ASTM standards. The whole process takes about 15 minutes, and BioFuelBox uses buffer tanks to store waste and even out the supply so its factory can run 24 hours a day, he said.

The factory in American Falls, Idaho, gets its supply of grease from a wastewater treatment plant, said Richard Reddy, vice president of marketing for the company, adding that the company then sells the fuel to an unnamed diesel retailer, which sells the fuel regionally. Future plants might also sell fuel to the grease supplier, if that supplier also runs diesel trucks, school buses, or farm equipment, he said.

The company reports a second plant under construction and the ability to handle a huge range of grease. Could be promising.

Rafael @ www.climateatbay.net

Farmer Market Fun

I think we're going to the San Mateo farmers' market tomorrow morning, which is at CSM. Below are some shots from the last time we went. The peaches were awesome! For complete lists of Bay Area farmers' markets, try here or here.



































It gets busy, so we try to show up before 10 a.m.

Going Dutch

You may have read about or heard the news of plans to help the Bay Area absorb the reality of rising sea levels. Well, the answer might be with the Dutch. From the San Mateo Times:

How to plan for sea level rise, a still-abstract concept for many Californians, drew serious consideration from engineers, designers and urban planners from the Netherlands and the United States at a symposium Monday.

A group of government-sponsored Dutch experts presented a report with strategies to deal with sea level rise in San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta based on a year's worth of research in partnership with the Francisco Bay
Conservation and Development Commission.

With 50 percent of the Netherlands below sea level, the Dutch have been perfecting flood protection for the past 600 years.

The inevitable effects of climate change in California, and how cities can adapt to them, are starting to get more attention from Bay Area planners. While no one knows exactly how sea level rise will play out 100 or 200 years from now, analysts agree that more severe and frequent floods are going to be a part of it.

Avoiding sea level rise is by now impossible. The Bay has risen 8 inches since the start of the 20th century, and scientists worldwide agree that the Bay Area in particular can expect to experience sea level rise of as much as 16 inches by midcentury and as much as 55 inches by 2100.

Extreme storms will increase annual risk of flooding from 1 percent to 100 percent if no actions are taken to protect the Bay Area shoreline, potentially endangering 270,000 residents.

And here's NPR's coverage.

Solazyme: video on algae fuel

Ok, this is a hype piece but it is true that algae based fuel is one of the promising strategies for biofuel - definitely more promising that use of hydrogen (challenged by the fact it is not a source but a transport, and the infrastructure, even within cars is complicated), and maybe moreso than cellulosic ethanol (the most visible alternative but not yet scaled).

A couple players are out there working on algae. Locally this includes Solazyme, Live Fuels, Aurora and Mighty Algae. Here's a .handy list.

The big hurdle on algae is developing the process at scale. It seems that getting the stuff to grow to produce oils just right is very tricky. Here's a more technical discussion of the challenges.

Appreciation for what is good

I was walking along the Los Gatos Creek Trail this morning and seeing all the families out with their bikes and dogs and strollers and picnics.... Many people work hard to keep our parks open and accessible and preserving all the green life that consumes CO2.

Our elected officials and government staff hear a constant stream of requests - things that are not right, need fixing, or should be changed. Take a minute and send them a note of appreciation about something that is being done right! Appreciate the next park you visit and reflect on what it takes to keep these open and accessible. A simple TYVM keeps people energized and feeling supported.

Jill :)

Where fuel subsidies go

New study confirms what most already knew - subsidies go mostly to the dirty fuels of the past not to 21st century energy sources. $70.2 billion went to traditional sources—such as coal and oil. Support for energy from sources that never run out totaled only $29 billion (but $16.8 is questionable corn ethanol). It really would be great if there were fair competition. Full report here.

Happy Parking Day!

If someone's having a picnic today in a parking spot, don't be alarmed. From today's Chron:

Today street parking spaces around the Bay Area will be transformed into miniparks, art installations and other creative uses. Since its inception in 2005, Parking Day has been whimsically thumbing its nose at the quaint practice of reserving valuable public real estate for the automobile. Like Critical Mass, the monthly bicycle ride through San Francisco streets, the event has spread from San Francisco around the world. And, like Critical Mass, it is a strictly grassroots effort, open to anyone with a handful of quarters and a roll of AstroTurf.

It is also one of the more visible signs of a shift away from the dominance of the automobile in cities. Within the past year, we've seen the dramatic transformation of Broadway in midtown Manhattan to a bicycle- and pedestrian-friendly thoroughfare. Portland is creating two multimodal corridors for light-rail, buses, cars and bicycles by eliminating parking on two downtown streets. Boston has mounted an aggressive campaign to make its streets more bicycle friendly.

Greywater recycling now legal

We hopefully are going to see more of this. The big question is creating the right incentives for existing buildings and establishing standards for new ones.

As of Aug. 4, state law allows greywater -- the non-potable water from washing machines, bathtubs and bathroom sinks -- to be reused, typically for landscaping. Last week, Mountain View-based Vox Design Group was installing a basic greywater system on a house on Eldora Drive, which will recycle the water from the home's washing machine to go to three trees in the backyard. It is possibly the first such installation under the new law.
...
Today, a basic system from a single source, such as a bathroom sink or a washing machine, can be installed by anyone, without a permit, and with materials costing around $200. State law still requires that you follow a few rules, however, and water from toilets and kitchen sinks is considered "black water" and off limits.

...

Greywater's benefits for a homeowner include reduced water bills and reduced load on septic tanks. The wider environmental benefits include reduced demand on the state's water supplies, reduced groundwater depletion and reduced energy use. Linebarger says California uses 25 percent of its consumed electricity pumping and treating water.

Better Place rolls out software

Not as glamorous as batteries these days but extremely important.

The car’s on-board software system, which Better Place calls AutOS, will run on Microsoft’s Windows Embedded software on an Intel Atom processor. A video display will tell drivers how far they can drive and the location of the nearest charging post or switch station.

Drivers also can access the information on their mobile phones.

“It’s the heart of the Better Place solution,” said Sidney Goodman, Better Place’s vice president for automotive alliances. “If you need to switch batteries, the system will allocate a battery for you at the station so it’ll be waiting for you. It gives the driver a safety net and make them comfortable about how much energy they have and where they need to go.”

Hat-tip Green Wombat.

Green Building market risks

Earth2Tech reporting on a new report that reports:

A number of hurdles will need to be overcome in the coming years that, if not corrected, could significantly slow the market. Below is a list of five pressing issues we’ve compiled from interviews and research reports:

Financial Risk: The biggest concern to building owners, contractors and design firms is financial risk, New York-based insurance broker and risk adviser Marsh found in a study published in May. Participants in the study voiced worry about how constructing green buildings will effect overall profitability, cost of the project, and the ability to complete projects on a given budget. They said there is still uncertainty about the availability of affordable insurance solutions, volatility of commodity prices, and the lack of understanding by lenders and financial institutions about the green building environment.

Legal Risk: What if an architectural firm is contracted to build a green-certified building, such as through LEED, or promises a certain level of performance in terms of energy or water use but isn’t able to deliver? The legal world is still working out who carries what liability and what the compensation should be for not meeting those goals. Currently, most of the risk is borne by the architects, who include these requirements in their contracts with building developers, says Paula Vaughan, associate principal and co-director of the sustainable design initiative at architectural firm Perkins+Will.

But there are problems with this arrangement, she says. The design team (architects, engineers and other professionals) are only responsible for about two-thirds of the LEED points needed to get a building certified; the rest are dependent on the actions of the building contractors and owners. And even the most well-designed buildings can eventually be energy or water hogs if they aren’t properly operated, say if lights or cooling systems are kept on when they aren’t needed.

Green-washed Building Materials: This isn’t as much of a problem as it was five years ago, but it’s still a concern, says Vaughan. As the green building sector has gained steam, manufacturers of materials like paint, flooring and lumber rushed to bring green products to market. But many of these products didn’t live up to the manufacturers’ promises and were often of inferior quality compared with the conventional materials they were meant to replace. Vaughan says architects and other designers have now become savvier about the products that they specify, but there is still the need to be vigilant.

Driving Energy Retrofits: While green buildings are becoming more common for new construction, the vast majority of existing structures use energy inefficiently. That’s why reducing the built environment’s total impact on energy use over the next several decades hinges most crucially on retrofitting existing buildings. But persuading owners to spend tens of thousands, or even hundreds of thousands, of dollars to retrofit their buildings, even if the investments pay for themselves in three to five years, is often difficult, says Dave Leathers, senior vice president at Pittsburgh-based Limbach Facility Services, a mechanical contractor.

Building owners are often hesitant to spend limited resources on projects outside their core businesses, and in today’s economic environment accessing debt through financial institutions is difficult. Add to this the fact that many buildings are not owner occupied, so the benefits of more energy-efficient buildings go more directly to the tenants rather than the owners who have to pony up the cash. Perhaps the bigger problem is that there is no uniform, national legislation requiring existing buildings to be more energy efficient, says Leathers. Instead, there is a limited patchwork of municipalities around the country that promote or require certain standards to be met.

Regulatory Risk: The Marsh report also identified uncertainty about how the regulatory environment might evolve with respect to green buildings as a prime concern for the construction industry. Changes in government regulations could lead to significant punitive damages if green performance standards aren’t met. That might drive owners to seek warranties and guarantees to recapture costs from contractors.

Clean-tech and news on Khosla and Google plays

Clean-tech investing continues to show signs of perking up - paralleling other signs of rebound. Hard to say if this will be stable if there is a double-dip recession which appears to be a real possibility. But for the moment, it looks good.

The Mercury News reports on Khosla's success raising funds and how it is adjusting to changing conditions.

Attracting other people's millions with visions of expanding his experimental clean-tech portfolio, celebrated venture capitalist Vinod Khosla on Tuesday announced the creation of two new funds exceeding $1 billion — the largest venture fundraising success of the year.

Khosla Ventures' new war chest includes a $275 million fund dubbed Khosla Ventures Seed to nurture early-stage "green" ideas with investments of about $2 million, and an $800 million fund that would make more diverse investments up to $15 million.

...

CalPERS spokesman Clark McKinley said Khosla Ventures' diversity and ambition attracted its investment: "It goes beyond alternative energy to materials, water and other areas. There's high risk but high return. Some companies won't pan out but there could be great returns if he's able to create the next Exxon of the alternative energy field or the next great concrete company."

One of Khosla's bets in Mt. View based SkyWatch Energy. Skywatch is still in stealth mode but if their name and logo is any signal they're working on thin-film or small concentrated solar - possibly airborne, an idea that has been floating around. Earth2Tech has more on Skywatch fundraising. The rise of thin-film and lightweight concentrated solar components of course has led to a proliferation of ideas, both interesting and peculiar, such as inflatable and zip-together component cells.

In other news, Google bet geothermal startup AltaRock runs into a trouble in its northern California site and has suspended operation indefinitely at that location and looking at others. Earth2Tech reports:

AltaRock, founded in 2007, has been betting on a more advanced form of geothermal power called “enhanced geothermal,” an approach that doesn’t require existing steam vents or subterranean water sources. Conventional geothermal energy, which has been used for decades, is collected from naturally occurring pockets of underground hot water, which produce steam that can be used to run a turbine. Enhanced geothermal, on the other hand, drills into hot rocks, circulates water through the system and uses the steam to power a traditional turbine (see video, which interviews Steven Chu before he became the Department of Energy Secretary).

For Your Calendar

Looking for things to do this month? Here are three worthwhile events:

1. The Green Revolution: A Talk by Tom Friedman

When: Sept. 11, 8 pm
Where: The Flint Center for the Performing Arts, De Anza College Campus, 21250 Stevens Creek Boulevard, Cupertino.
Price: $35 (Ticket sales will go to support the environmental activities of Green Town Los Altos.)

Following in the wake of his most recent book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded, Tom Friedman will be talking on the Green Revolution and how it is changing America.


2. How Do We Get To Hopenhagen?

When: Sept. 15, 11:30am
Where: Commonwealth Club of California, San Francisco, CA
Panel: Adam Werbach, CEO, Saatchi & Saatchi S; Seth Farbman, Managing Director, Ogilvy & Mather; Greg Dalton, Founder, Climate One.

What do people around the world think about the threat of climate change and the promise of a new clean economy? Are they informed about the international negotiations in Copenhagen?


3. Liveable Green Solutions Expo Saturday

When: Sept. 19 11:00a to 3:00p
Where: Hillsdale Shopping Center, San Mateo, CA

Hillsdale Shopping Center is partnering with local environmental resources to host the Liveable Green Solutions Expo, a series of educational programs focusing on sustainable conservation and green environmental practices. Families are invited to come out and learn about the latest green initiatives easily applicable at home.