Hydrovolts

Hydrovolts updates

2011-04-27T08:18:00.000-07:00

Hello again, I am finally going to blog regularly because a) our fans want it and b) I am writing this stuff up for PR and news anyway, and might as well get it all together. Look for regular posts, and Tweets even, now we have hired Michelle Holmes as our new Executive Assistant and marketing wizard. Michelle has a Masters in Environmental Studies from Evergreen College, worked in the Peace Corps in Africa, and has been a marketing manager for several companies. One of her tasks is to make me write blogs. I suppose it's inevitable.....

Now to updates:

Hydrovolts Class 1 small size turbine will be installed this Friday in Roza Irrigation canal for a month of testing in various configurations and sites.

Big turbine for India customer is being assembled and will be installed mid June for several months, with milestone date of Aug 15.

US Navy has requested Hydrovolts provide turbines for testing in september at Navy’s facility near Washington DC, at Navy expense

Student at US Naval Academy at Annapolis has demonstrated Hydrovolts turbines work as wave energy turbines, and Hydrovolts is now negotiating a Cooperative R&D Agreement with the Academy. Hydrovolts CEO Burt Hamner was an invited speaker to the Academy's meeting of the Society of American Military Engineers.

Hydrovolts has hired a new Marine Business Director with great success winning large Navy contracts. Brian Williams starts May 15.

Harvard engineering students have nearly completed their model Flipwing turbine and are testing it by towing it in Harvard's Olympic swimming pool. At least one Harvard student will be an intern for Hydrovolts working with Harvard this summer.

Company just recognized as an Artemis Top 50 Water Technology company, and as a Global Innovator by the Katerva Foundation. (yeah, I never heard of them either, www.katerva.org)

Company is presenting next week in San Francisco at the Investors Circle Spring Forum, and at TechConnect in Boston in June.

Company has retained the business advisory firm Sierra Asia to help find a business partner in China and begin our market entry process for China. Though this is daunting and even feels premature, it's necessary to protect our intellectual property and will take a while to accomplish.

Fundraising for Series A2 Preferred Stock proceeding steadily; $200k out of $600k is soft circled firm, and another $250k is soft soft. Full subscription expected by mid June, can close with $300k. Interested persons please contact Burt@hydrovolts.com or 206 491 0945.

Hydrovolts will hold an investors open house and cocktails on Tuesday May 10 at 4-6 pm at the McKinstry Innovation Center. The McKinstry factory tour starts at 4:30. This is for potentially interested investors, current investors, and key business partners. Please RSVP to Burt@hydrovolts.com or 206 491 0945.

Hydrovolts Blog lives again

2011-01-30T20:54:00.000-08:00

We are re-launching the Hydrovolts blog after a break of several months. Hydrovolts co-founder Chris Leyerle started and maintained the blog, and he left Hydrovolts in July 2010 to become an entrepreneur in residence at Washington State University, http://leyerle.blogspot.com/. I, Burt Hamner, the other co founder and the CEO, am now the blogger in chief. I am learning as I go.

Lots to report: Hydrovolts closed its Series A financing round in December, raising $700k. It was over-subscribed, so another financing round is in the works. We have hired a new Chief Operating Officer, Mike Layton. We are building three sizes of turbine, with an interchangeable rotor set for each size so we have many options for making power. In December we tested turbines in a government laboratory and got great data showing the turbine efficiency is better than we expected. Watch this video of the Flipwing in the Flume!

I'll keep this blog updated with our adventures, stay tuned!

Hiatus

2010-06-30T23:49:00.000-07:00

Thank you to all of our readers.

Taking a break from blogging to focus on other things...

Will return to posting after a while.

Update: I am no longer with Hydrovolts. Check out my new blog.

Crude Behaviors

2010-06-28T23:58:00.000-07:00

The Obama Administration's attempt to halt deepwater oil drilling temporarily with a six-month moratorium is, unsurprisingly, under attack. Federal district court judge Martin Feldman of the Eastern District of Louisiana overturned it last week, but his motives are clearly suspect:

Judge Feldman not only held numerous oil and gas interest stocks, but was trading them up to and including the morning of his fateful decision, and doing so out of an admitted realization that he had an appearance of ethical conflict. Feldman owned and was trading Exxon stock, a company whose Gulf of Mexico rigs were losing money at the rate of a half million dollars a day due to the moratorium, during the entire time he was assigned the case. Yet, failing to disclose his appearance of conflict on the record or recuse, Feldman nevertheless proceeded to issue a questionable decision clearly benefitting the oil and exploration industry he is so invested in.

[snip]

Even more distressing is the fact that it has now been revealed from Judge Feldman’s 2009 financial disclosure, literally just filed and only released this week after demand resulting from his questionable ruling, that Feldman is very heavily invested in Blackrock Financial products. Blackrock is, of course, the single biggest shareholder in BP.

So why, when the Government appealed this decision, did they not raise the glaring conflicts of interest?

Eight Is Enough

2010-06-22T22:19:00.000-07:00

Jon Stewart in one of his typically acerbic pieces on the promise of oil independence:

Coming on the heels of President Obama's speech on the BP spill, and with video clips detailing 4 decades of imprecations and high-minded exhortations from 8 presidents, Stewart complains, roughly, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 8 times, I am a freaking idiot."

We fail to demand real action from our leaders, or to hold them accountable for mouthing bromides. With our current president, I fear the audacity hope has become the folly of wishful thinking. As Pogo said, originally in a poster for Earth Day 1970, "We have met the enemy, and he is us."

Video here.

(h/t earth2tech)

Faint Hope

2010-06-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

President Obama's lack of conviction on climate and energy policy is now undeniable. His vacillating remarks on off shore oil drilling over the past few months illustrate his lack of leadership on this, the most critical issue of his presidency.

Eric Pooley over at Grist has an excerpt from his forthcoming book which lucidly surveys the Obama Administration's timeline of timidity. He concludes:

It is a cruel irony that the epic disaster in the Gulf -- a wakeup call to the need to reduce our dependence on oil -- makes it harder to pass a bill that would help us do so. Expanded offshore drilling (and the revenue it would bring) was the chip Obama hoped to use to draw oil-state senators into a grand bargain that would also include subsidies for nuclear power and carbon capture and storage, with a modest carbon cap in return. The oil spill blew up that idea by taking expanded offshore drilling off the table, at least for now. With few chips left, Obama appears to be hoping that public anger over the spill can help drive a new version of the climate bill. Soon, we’ll know whether he really means it. Democratic leaders in the Senate have been floating the idea of an energy bill without a carbon cap -- which would be yet another failure of nerve by a group of legislators badly in need of adult supervision. Passing a real climate bill will be excruciatingly difficult. Waiting will only make it harder. It’s time for Obama to intervene on the Hill, silence the naysayers inside his own administration, harness the public mood, and make good on his promise to fight.

So this is what the audacity of hope looks like--wishing for the First Nerd to remove his figurative glasses and punch back at the bullies. But he won't. Ever cerebral, Obama doggedly appeals to the non-existent good intentions of his opponents, believing that reason and patience will yield agreement. In time, onlookers feel contempt, not sympathy. The notion that Obama will risk any political capital to lead a fight is not a bold hope, but a limp wish.

Pooley hopes that public anger will prod a sclerotic Congress into passing a climate bill. However, public anger is attenuating from the steady trickle of bad news and is increasingly eager to look for other targets, particularly within the federal government. The oil lobby and their drill shills in the chattering classes are working hard, incredibly, to recast the oil disaster as an example of why government involvement is bad. (The argument, in defiance of both reason and evidence is roughly: Regulatory oversight failed, thus regulation is worthless, and so government should do nothing, except perhaps foot the bill.) The mob is searching for scapegoats of which to make an example, and the focus is punitive rather than constructive. It is absurd to hope that the public, exhausted from bad news, beset by economic gloom, incited by partisan hacks, and frustrated by collective impotence will spur a Congress captive of corporate interests to do other than pander to the electorate while they stroke entrenched incumbents.

Hope is not a plan. Obama's unwillingness to articulate a bold plan (or even a bold hope) contributes to the perception that our government is adrift. Worse, it reinforces the belief that government is incapable of solving problems, in turn making bold action even harder. On energy policy, this will guarantee the decline of American competitiveness. It is well past time for Obama to be a leader, not a mediator.

Hydrovolts Named 2010 Cleantech Open Semifinalist

2010-06-16T23:48:00.000-07:00

Monday night, for the second consecutive year, Hydrovolts was named a semi-finalist in the Cleantech Open. The announcement came Monday evening in the Puget Sound Energy building in Bellevue, Washington at a convivial event attended by members of the local entrepreneur, investor, and cleantech communities.

Last year Hydrovolts was one of the winners in the Pacific Northwest Region and went on to win the National Sustainability Award at the finals in San Francisco.

Leading this year's Hydrovolts team are Brian Peithman, Director of Engineering, and James Marvin, Director of Field Operations and Business Development. Hydrovolts continues to focus on irrigation canals and other constructed watercourses for initial turbine deployments, but also sees great value in applying the Flipwing technology to military applications where distributed renewable energy provides many benefits to national security and saves lives.
James spoke for the team in accepting the award:

The Cleantech Open is the world’s largest cleantech business competition. Its mission is to find, fund and foster entrepreneurs with big ideas that address today’s most urgent energy, environmental and economic challenges.

CTO Co-chair Byron McCann leads the Pacific Northwest CTO

Entrepreneurs, investors, professionals and others filled the room

The program provides the infrastructure, expertise and strategic relationships to turn clever ideas into successful global cleantech companies. Since 2006, through its one-of-a-kind annual business competition and mentorship program, the Cleantech Open has enabled hundreds of clean technology startups to bring their breakthrough ideas to fruition, helped alumni contestants raise over $260M, and created an estimated 1,200 green collar jobs. Fueled by a network of more than 600 volunteers and sponsors, the Cleantech Open unites the public and private sectors in a shared vision for making America’s cleantech sector a thriving economic engine. For more information, visit www.cleantechopen.com and follow @cleantechopen on Twitter.

Hydrovolts CEO Burt Hamner chats with Brian Boatman
and Geir Hansen of Silicon Valley Bank

Hydrovolts is one of 16 semifinalists in the Pacific Northwest and one of 104 semifinalists from 22 states and 91 cities across all 5 regions of this year's competition. Good luck to our fellow semifinalists!

Pacific Northwest CTO Semifinalists

James Marvin and Brian Peithman at right

Wooden Turbines

2010-06-13T23:36:00.001-07:00

Norwegian company Hydra Tidal plans to test a tidal turbine next month. While many are pursuing different kinds of tidal energy devices, this one is unique for its turbine blades made of wood. Says company founder and R&D director Svein D. Henriksen:

“Wood is a porous, homogeneous material — so it has better mechanical and hydrological characteristics than today’s conventional materials such as composites and steel. The major challenge is the actual assembly process, but we believe we have found a good solution.” He points out that using wood in turbine blades is also an environmentally sound choice, especially in a lifecycle perspective.

That wood is porous doesn't seem very significant, especially since the pine they plan to use is laminated. Many other materials are "homogeneous" too and the lifecycle advantages are rather minor. At 23 meters long, blade durability may be an issue too, and frequent replacement of weaker blades is no lifecycle or environmental boon. The allegedly better mechanical and hydrological aspects are not further described.

The plan to use floating deployment (as Hydrovolts does) is smart as it is faster, simpler, much cheaper, and doesn't need specialized boats. Still, the technology itself doesn't seem particularly different otherwise, apart from the wooden blades. So, why wood?

80% of the [turbine] can be recycled after its life span, which is more than 30 years. For example, our turbines are made out of glued wood. This material can handle tough ocean environments and they last very long. After the turbines' life end, they can be chopped and used in a bio energy power plant for example.

Hydra Tidal has, in cooperation with Harstad University College and Kunnskapsparken Nord AS(Science/Competence park), made a report about CO2 emissions in connection with the production of a complete Morild power plant. CO2 emissions are 40% lower than that of onshore wind power.

They've done some very clever things in Norway with renewable energy, so it will be worth watching to see how this turns out.

Putting Litter to Use

2010-06-10T21:43:00.000-07:00

A hotel made from trash:

The Corona Save the Beach Hotel, designed by German artist HA Schult, is open until June 7 near Rome's Castel Sant'Angelo, which is located along the Tiber river.

This is not Schult's first such effort:

"In the ocean, the trash from all continents meets one another. The trash from Africa meets the trash from Europe, meets the trash from South America," Schult said, pointing to the guitars and shoes plastered across the building.

"The environmental problem is a global problem. We are living in a planet of garbage," said Schult, whose most famous work is "Trash People," an installation of 1,000 human figures made out of trash.

"Trash People" was installed under the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, in front of the Giza Pyramids in Egypt, in Red Square in Moscow, at La Defense in Paris, and along the Great Wall of China.

Training Commuters is Difficult

2010-06-09T01:18:00.000-07:00

California Bay Area train system Caltrain has received approval from the Federal Railroad Administration to run electric locomotives on the same tracks as their current diesel stock. Apparently this is the first time such approval has been given to any system in the United States. The business case to save the struggling Caltrain was the decisive argument, according to Robert Doty, director of the Peninsula Rail Program which championed the move.

Doty suggested that this result moves the state closer to running high-speed trains on the same tracks:

The same equipment standards that we have qualified for, the equipment we're looking for, are the same equipment standards for high speed rail. So in effect what we've done is we found the process that needs to be followed and we've done it successfully. Now, they can take our process and expand it for high speed rail, so it is absolutely a precursor for high speed rail.

Well, that's a bit like saying that building a Volkswagon Bug paves the way to building a Porsche Carrera.

I suppose one can learn something transferable in the process, and the wires strung to power the trains may work for high-speed too. However, there would be a lot of expense on those particular tracks to achieve the necessary grade separation critical to allowing safe operation.

Still, replacing fossil fuel engines with electric ones is a good step, and if it eases the existential financial pressure on Caltrain it's great. The system has declared a fiscal emergency for the second year in a row, and is projected to lose $36M this year. On the table: fare increases and service cuts. The Bay Area commute is notoriously bad: the average length of time for commuters to San Jose is 23 minutes; to San Francisco it's 34 minutes. Almost 2,250,000 people or 68% of the working population commuted alone by car in the Bay Area in 2000. With an average commute length of 15 miles and a nominal per mile cost of 50 cents, the aggregate daily cost of this commute is more than $16,000,000. By contrast, the Caltrain daily deficit is less than $100,000.

The solution is more and more affordable transit options, not less. Of course, people have to see that public transit is better--faster, lower cost, less stress, etc. Raising fares and cutting service won't do that, but will instead just accelerate the downward spiral.

(h/t Polizeros)

A Sad Day for Our Oceans

2010-06-07T23:17:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is World Oceans Day. Although proposed by Canada at the Earth Summit in 1992, it was made official only last year.

Tomorrow is also Day 50 of the the worst ecological disaster in US history. (My opinion--there is some depressing competition.)

This year's Oceans Day theme, ironically enough, is "Oceans of Life."

Meanwhile, back at the Wingnut Wurlitzer: Jindal wants to keep drilling. Chevron agrees. Murkowski worries about liability exposure for big oil. Inhofe too. Cornyn thinks we shouldn't try for bold steps on energy policy. Shell Oil says drilling in ANWR is safe. Palin asserts the spill validates "drill, baby, drill." BP remains a corporate psychopath.

Words fail.

Permitting Insanity

2010-06-06T23:32:00.001-07:00

Why does it take more than 9 years and endless anguish to allow wind turbines in Nantucket Sound, but deepwater oil drilling routinely has environmental impact studies waived, supposedly because massive oil spills are unlikely? The oil industry has received approvals with potentially severe environmental impacts in as little as 10 minutes. Contrast the (over-)abundance of caution for wind and the cozy practice of superficial scrutiny for oil. Recent events make the dissonance especially jarring.

The Cape Wind offshore wind farm is closer than ever to the start of construction. Just more than a week after the explosion of BP's Deepwater Horizon platform, US Interior Secretary Ken Salazar gave formal approval, saying:

After careful consideration of all the concerns expressed during the lengthy review and consultation process and thorough analyses of the many factors involved, I find that the public benefits weigh in favor of approving the Cape Wind project at the Horseshoe Shoal location. With this decision we are beginning a new direction in our Nation’s energy future, ushering in America’s first offshore wind energy facility and opening a new chapter in the history of this region.

The project had previously won support from six state governors, many of whom hope to see wind farms built off their state's coastlines as well.

Developer Cape Wind Associates has spent nine years and $45M on analyses and studies to deal with endless procedural and legal roadblocks. Opponents of the project have spent a reported $20M to throw up all manner of objections: Bird and bat mortality. Impaired fisheries. Navigation problems. Ugly views. Damaged lobster habitat. Loss of cultural and historical value. Costly power.

Offshore wind farms have been built and operated in Europe for decades. These objections have all proven baseless, over-blown, or amenable to common-sense mitigation. No disasters predicted by opponents there have been borne out. Cape Wind will be economically viable: they have signed a power purchase agreement with National Grid at a competitive price. National Grid president Tom King remarked:

It’s truly fitting that the next milestone in our nation’s clean energy revolution is taking place in the Bay State and New England. We believe this project will provide long-term economic and environmental benefits here, throughout the region and across the nation. We absolutely must develop our homegrown renewable energy resources if we are to meet state and federal renewable goals, secure our energy future and seize the leadership position in the global clean energy economy.

Opponents of Cape Wind and similar renewable energy projects offshore need to take a hard look at their reasons for obstruction. Unless they don't own a car, live in an unheated yurt, grow their own food, and never buy any product not made locally of local materials they depend on the modern energy economy too. From where will that energy come? This is what the end of the Age of Oil looks like. While the transition from oil will take decades, alas, our future energy must inevitably come from something else. Concern trolling about impacts to birds, marine life, fisheries, views and the rest cannot now be taken seriously compared to this:

Our future energy security will require more than one offshore wind farm per decade. Maine recently announced its intention to foster development of offshore wind that would generate more than twice the state's current electrical needs by 2030. There are many imbalances between the dirty fossil energy of our present and the clean renewable energy of our future. These imbalances include disparate subsidies, disproportionate lobbying power, vast differences in available capital, and a stark divergence about what is in the public's long term interest.

So many things need to change, but redressing the unconscionable and indefensibly vast divergence in permitting burdens and timelines would be a good place to start.

Hydropower Potential - IV

2010-06-04T23:57:00.000-07:00

Alternative Energy eTrack aggregates multiple databases, news sources, insight from industry executives and other sources to produce data on the potential of various kinds of renewable energy. While the service is by subscription, some of the data sometimes appears elsewhere. For example, take this list of the top 10 countries for hydropower:

1. China - 179,056 MW
2. Brazil - 81,955 MW
3. United States - 78,054 MW
4. Canada - 75,287 MW
5. Russia - 46,756 MW
6. India - 39,546 MW
7. Norway - 29,317 MW
8. Japan - 22,089 MW
9. France - 20,850 MW
10. Sweden - 16,266 MW

It's interesting data for several reasons.

First, China's capacity is more than double that of the number two country, Brazil.

Second, all of the so-called BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are in the top six; there is a good correlation of the world's fast-growing and significant economies with hydropower capacity to supply the electrical power these countries need to sustain their growth. The significant investment in renewable generation merits recognition at least as much as the opprobrium over their investment in dirty fossil energy.

Third, hydro dwarfs other renewables in the US, with only wind at the same order of magnitude:

Wind 35,296 MW
Biomass 9,391 MW
Geothermal 3,153 MW
Solar (PV) 1,488 MW
Biogas 1,047 MW
Solar (CSP) 900 MW

Fourth, comparing this data to the capacities cited by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) shows that there has been little added hydro capacity since 2008, the last year available, but a healthy increase in wind capacity and substantial percentage increases in solar and biomass/biogas.

Finally, comparing these numbers to the overall US generating capacity of just more than a terrawatt (1,000,000 MW) shows how relatively paltry is the contribution of renewable sources to our electrical generation.

There is still a long way to go.

Hear My Train A-Comin'

2010-06-02T23:58:00.000-07:00

Would you take a high-speed train that doesn't stop?

The video shows the "non-stop MRT system" of its Taiwanese inventor Peng Yu-lun and is (I think) in Mandarin, but you can get a pretty good idea nonetheless of how passengers use ingenious reusable shuttles to get on and off a high speed train without it stopping or even (much?) slowing down:

English explanation here.

Possible problems:

Trains are taller, so existing bridges might need to be rebuilt
Not everyone in the train can fit in the shuttles, so they couldn't all get off en masse at the stadium station to go to the ball game
Acceleration of the shuttle may be too exciting for those with heart problems or other health issues
Most people are too terrified of derailments anyway
US patent 4,425,851 from 1984. Why did no one do this already?
A great Peter Tosh tune would be obsolete:

Update: A friend, working in the PRC for many years writes:

It is Mandarin. The platform announcer tells travellers that train 168 non-stop from Beijing to Guangzhou is approaching the station. Passengers travelling in the direction of Guangzhou are to board the shuttle. Then the train's announcer tells passengers disembarking at Wuchang to board the train's shuttle. Lastly there is a welcome to Wuchang station announcement. The inventor explains that he has put together a simple mechanical frame just to demonstrate the basic concept. He then describes the passenger movement for boarding and exiting the non-stop train from Beijing to Guangzhou.

This is very interesting!

Augmenting Thermal Power Plants with Hydropower from Cooling Water

2010-06-01T13:10:00.000-07:00

Nuclear power plants discharge a lot of cooling water

Much of our current electrical generation is done by large utilities in what are generically termed thermal power plants. Thermal power plants include those that burn coal, natural gas, biomass, or other fuels. They also include nuclear power plants. The common element to all of these is that they heat water, creating steam which is then used to drive steam turbines which turn the generators that make the electricity.

Once the steam has passed through the turbine it moves into a condenser where it is cooled back into liquid water, and circulated around to be heated again. Many of the condensers use water to cool the steam. Some plants use a closed loop of cooling water, where the cooling water is itself cooled; in nuclear plants this is the purpose of the tall cooling towers. Steam that escapes is replaced by a fresh supply of water, which is why these plants are typically sited near rivers or by the ocean where there is a large continuous water supply.

Other plants use an open loop or once-through water for their cooling, where water is drawn in continuously for cooling, then discharged back into the river or ocean. These discharges are almost always gravity flows rather than pumped, and these discharges of large amounts of water, running continuously in artificial channels, are perfect for Hydrovolts turbines to generate power, augmenting that made by the main part of the plant. Hydrovolts turbines can generate additional power at modest cost by harnessing these untapped flows; the electricity is sent via the existing transmission infrastructure.

Like most other artificial water flows in constructed waterways, little or no permitting is needed because environmental impacts are minimal. As a result, cost is low and speed of implementation is relatively rapid. This is a solution that lets us take a small, but quick step to a better energy future.

Big Business Responds to Climate Change

2010-05-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

The disinformation campaign and faux controversy about climate change has shifted public opinion. The general public has become less certain about the reality of climate change over the past year and more inclined to believe that a real scientific controversy exists. However, a majority of businesses are acting as if the controversy is settled according to accounting firm Ernst & Young:

70% of the world's largest companies plan to spend more on efforts to combat climate change
80% plan to spend more on energy efficiency measures
65% plan to develop products and services related to climate change
63% pan to increase transparency of reporting on related areas such as environmental performance, energy use and carbon emissions
Nearly 50% plan to spend at least 0.5% of revenue on such measures as energy efficiency

The survey of 300 businesses in the US, China and 14 other countries included a cross-section of businesses, including airlines, banks, and general industry. All had at least $1B in revenues. Noted Doug Johnston, Ernst & Young's U.K. director of climate change and sustainability:

With all the uncertainty following Copenhagen, many business commentators were expecting the momentum in climate change investments to slow. Our research has shown something very different.

It's quite surprising that business is leading the way in addressing a serious environmental problem on which the public shows increasing confusion and ambivalence. It is tempting to think that business is perhaps starting to see the costs and benefits more clearly; however, it may be more about keeping customers happy than about the operational bottom line: about 90% of the surveyed firms reported that their actions were due to customer demand.

Washington Manufacturing Awards

2010-05-27T23:39:00.000-07:00

The inaugural Washington Manufacturing Awards were held this evening in Seattle, and Hydrovolts finished as the first runner-up for Manufacturing Innovation of the Year in the Small Company category.

Nearly 100 companies were nominated for awards, and Hydrovolts was one of three finalists for the Innovation award. Companies were chosen

...by a panel of experts based on criteria that [included] revenue growth (relative to the industry), capital investments, leadership, employee training programs, production quality, productivity, energy conservation and other factors.

John Vicklund of Impact Washington helped emcee the awards sponsored by Seattle Business Magazine and RBI Financial. The reception and dinner was held in the Columbia Tower Club, high atop Seattle's tallest building with a sweeping view of the city and Puget Sound.

Rogers Weed, Director of the Washington State Department of Commerce gave the keynote address on the state and future of manufacturing in Washington. He has a dual focus on aerospace manufacturing because of its size and historical importance and on cleantech "because the Governor told me to" (laughter.) Rogers noted that the economy was improving and recovering from the loss of 190,000 jobs in the state. GDP has grown in Washington for the past 3 quarters, and he sees no likelihood of a "double-dip" recession. Asia remains huge to the state's economy and our export economy remains a national trend-setter not only in exports, but in manufacturing and manufacturing "value-add." Rogers believes and expects Washington to be a leader in the global economy.

In all, a fun evening with good food, a crisp program and great networking with old friends and new acquaintances. Thanks to Impact Washington and the sponsors for the recognition, and hearty congratulations to our friends at MicroGREEN Polymers, who won the top prize!

Scalable

2010-05-25T23:57:00.000-07:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine has many compelling advantages compared to other hydro turbines and to other kinds of electricity generators. It has many features, including being complete, compact, modular, safe, simple and scalable.

The Hydrovolts turbine is scalable in two fundamental ways.

First, the Hydrovolts turbine can be built in nearly any size, from very small to quite large. More importantly, the turbine's cross-axis design is rectangular, so it can be built in a broad range of different dimensions. Turbines can be built that are very wide but not very high, or they can be built more squarely. Propeller-type axial turbines always have a circular swept area, so they are ill-suited to water channels that are, for example, broad and shallow. Even with a cowling such turbines are not as adaptable because they cannot scale to arbitrary dimensions like the Hydrovolts turbine.

Second, the typical Hydrovolts turbine is a micro-scale device, and will generate 5-20kW in typical water flows. In very large channels multiple turbines can be deployed side-by-side in the channel, scaling up the power produced by deploying multiple turbines together. Where the water course is deep, turbines can also be positioned one above the other to take advantage of the height of the water column. Turbines can also be spaced one after the other down a water course. Even though any turbine slows the water as it extracts energy, gravity re-accelerates the water as the channel slopes away. Hydrovolts expects turbines typically can be placed 10 per mile, but the maximum rate will depend on the specific watercourse geometry.

Scalable is good. Power from Water.

Deepwater Horizon Causes and Lessons

2010-05-22T14:48:00.000-07:00

Many investigations lie ahead. President Obama has appointed a commission of inquiry. Industry shills have been hard at work for a month, unhampered by pesky facts. In the interim one of the most detailed analyses I have yet seen is posted at The Oil Drum. The author, a long-time oil and gas geologist, notes that the causes and lessons may change as more facts come to light. The analysis is aided by contibutions from offshore oil industry engineers, bit is also colored in its conclusions by their understandable bias towards perpetuating the industry that sustains their professional standing and provides their economic livelihood.

The principal conclusion pulls no punches:

What can be addressed now is the larger issue that a flawed, risky well plan for the MC 252 well was approved by the MMS, and BP, Anadarko and Mitsui management. Similar or identical plans were undoubtedly approved and used by many operators on other wells drilled in the Gulf of Mexico. A plan that does not include enough cement to overlap the final and previous casing strings, and that does not require running a cement-bond log to ensure the integrity of the seal is a defective plan. The fact that there have not been blowouts on previous wells does not justify the approval and use of an unsafe plan.

Similar or identical plans. There are currently 3,858 other offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, each of which can have as many as 20 wells.

Offshore oil drilling is not the solution to our energy problems. It is a reckless attempt to perpetuate our failing energy system, a system which cannot be sustained. It stands in the way of advancing real energy solutions. Time grows short.

Spewing Nonsense

2010-05-21T23:51:00.000-07:00

How much oil is spewing from the underwater volcano a mile under the Gulf of Mexico? More than a month after the Deepwater Horizon platform exploded on April 20, then burned and sank two days later, there is still no actual measurement. That there is none is troubling. How the estimates have changed is both instructive and even more disturbing. What might once have been considered spin is now revealed as outright lying. With this latest debacle BP has reached a new nadir in their long history of accidents, lying and greenwashing.

At first, BP insisted that any leak was minor, at most 1,000 barrels per day (BPD). BP stuck stubbornly to this figure for a week until the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced on April 28 that the rate was more like 5,000 BPD.

BP has tried very hard to control information about the disaster. It was only a week and half ago, under intense pressure, that they released video of the erupting wellhead:

5,000 BPD remains BP's official figure, but virtually no one believes it. By May 1, using just satellite imagery, estimates were ranging up to 25,000 BPD. Within two weeks, after examining video, another expert estimated the flow as high as 70,000 BPD. Wednesday, after viewing newer video, he raised his estimate to at least 95,000 BPD.

BP stubbornly sticks to the rate of 5,000 BPD, even though most credible third party experts believe the actual number is 20 times higher or more. Yet their own actions and statements show they don't even believe it themselves.

A week ago BP managed to insert a smaller tube as a siphon into the larger tube on the sea floor. Using this siphon, they have managed to suck some of the spewing oil to a boat. Initially BP claimed that they were siphoning 1,000 BPD. Then the figure rose to 2,000 BPD. Then 3,000 BPD. A few days ago they announced that they had reached 5,000 BPD.

The only problem was live video of the oil eruption continued to show enormous amounts, perhaps most of the oil, going uncontained and unsiphoned into the Gulf. So, obviously 5,000 BPD could not have been correct for both the amount coming out and the amount being siphoned. So what did BP do? Today they announced that well, actually, they were only siphoning 2,200 BPD, less than half their earlier "estimate."

Their estimate?

What are they doing with the oil they are siphoning? Can't they measure it? If the other end of the siphon were hooked up to a tanker, or refinery you know they would be measuring it exactly. To the barrel. It beggars belief that they don't know or can't figure out what they are doing.

So rather than admit what almost everyone else already knows, that much more than 5,000 BPD is spewing daily, BP must pretend that they are being even less effective in their meager mitigation efforts. They are lying to us.

BP is fully invested in pretending that the "spill" is minor and under control. Thus the obstinacy about the size. So too the generous "estimates" of the amount they are siphoning. It also explains the unprecedented heavy use of toxic dispersants and the almost total silence about the vast plumes of sub-surface oil. BP is working desperately to deny how much is spilling, to exaggerate how much they are recovering, and to try to keep as much as possible from coming to the surface where it can be seen and measured more easily. That all this may be making the ecological disaster much worse is just not as important as trying to protect the last frayed bits of their tattered public image.

Criminal is the only word we should apply to a company more interested in performing damage control to their reputation than to the world's oceans.

Update: It seems there's also a purely economic reason for BP to fib about the amount of oil gushing forth--they have to pay royalties of 18.75% on the value of any amounts "wasted."

Update 2: Documents released in Congressional testimony this week show BP knew it was lying:

When BP was citing the 1,000 barrel per day figure to the American people on April 28, their own internal documents from the day before show that their best guess was a leak of 5,768 [sic] barrels per day and their high estimate was more than 14,000 barrels that were spilling into the Gulf every day.

Ice to Eskimos

2010-05-20T03:50:00.000-07:00

In 2008 the average American consumed 30 gallons of bottled water, primarily from single-serving, single-use plastic bottles. That's 320 12-ounce bottles, or nearly one every day. It's obsessive.

There are many reasons not to drink bottled water.

Bottled water costs more than gasoline. It costs up to 10,000 times more than tap water. It uses 2,000 time as much energy. It has 100 times the life cycle costs.

Contrary to what many believe, it is not healthier. It's not even safer, since the FDA has jurisdiction only over the approximately 30% of water bottles that are shipped between states. Bottled water testing is haphazard and often quite lax. Meanwhile, the EPA has jurisdiction over all water systems that serve more than 25 people. Tap water is tested more rigorously and more frequently too. Check your local water utility's report here.

Bottled water is an environmental atrocity:

According to the Pacific Institute, based on the quantity of U.S. bottled water sales reported by the Beverage Manufacturers Corporation for 2005, 38 billion plastic bottles were sold in the U.S. which used 900,000 tons of plastic, requiring 1.7 million barrels of oil, to make the #2 PETE bottles typically used for commercially bottled water. The production of the plastic water bottles created 2.5 million tons of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas contributing to climate change. According to NBC News, the number of water bottles consumed by the U.S., if laid end-to-end, could encircle the Earth 150 times each year. Less than 1/4th of these bottles are recycled, according to the Container Recycling Institute. Most water bottles end up in the landfill, where the plastic may decompose after 1,000 years.

Not included in these calculations is the energy required to bottle and transport water from the sources, especially from such countries as France, Fuji, and Finland to the top consumer nations of the U.S., Saudi Arabia, Brazil, and elsewhere. The additional environmental impact of the long-distance shipping of bottled water adds many times to the environmental impact of the bottled water “carbon footprint.”

The plastic ends up in our oceans since as little as 25% of the bottles and fewer of the caps are recycled.

Still want to drink bottled water? Perhaps you have been hoodwinked by clever marketing.

Do something good for yourself, your bank account and the Earth. Get a reusable water container and learn where your local water fountains are.

Crude Strategies

2010-05-18T13:09:00.000-07:00

The situation in the Gulf is so grim humor can't rise above the sardonic. Thank goodness the problem is relatively small.

National Security Threats Too Great

2010-05-17T12:08:00.000-07:00

The following guest post by James Marvin, Director of Field Operations and Business Development at Hydrovolts was previously published in the National Journal's Expert Blogs on Energy & The Environment. James spent 20 years as a Navy SEAL and has seen first-hand the casualties of our oil addiction.

National Security Threats Too Great
by James Marvin

The United States has to pass comprehensive climate and energy legislation. The longer we wait, the more difficult it will become to address the issue. Whether the American Power Act will carry the day, or some other legislation already introduced, remains to be seen. Doing nothing though, is not an acceptable answer and whatever the solution turns out to be it has to be pragmatic and it has to be timely.

Where you stand is where you sit and from where I sit our country’s dependence on foreign oil is a national security issue. It is costing American lives and one could say it is costing America itself. Comprehensive energy and climate legislation, no matter whose it is, is where we have to go as a nation. It will provide incentives for new energy solutions. It will put a price on pollution. It will address existing energy technologies appropriately. It will keep dollars out of the hands of extremest groups, and it will help keep America safe.

What our country needs now, and what the world needs in terms of leadership, is legislation that addresses energy and climate change holistically. Lasting change is going to take time and will require patience, persistence, and perseverance. But it has to start now. The longer it takes to address the issue, the more difficult the solution is going to be.

In the end, comprehensive energy and climate legislation will have to be an amalgamation of disproportionate ideas, values, and solutions. The juggernauts will have to willingly embrace a new identity and it is everyone’s responsibility to help them transform.

At the McKinstry Innovation Center

2010-05-14T23:54:00.000-07:00

We moved into the McKinstry Innovation Center on Monday and we're now mostly unpacked. It's a beautiful space--light, airy and spacious. I took a few pictures today that give perhaps a sense of our new office and the various shared workspaces.

The third floor lobby entrance--where innovation begins!

Looking from the entrance towards the kitchen and dining area.

View down the length of the space showing some of the open collaborative area. Skylights make use of artificial lighting mostly unnecessary during the day.

One of the several meeting rooms in the middle of the floor. Each is built with recycled railroad ties, aluminum and glass. The green LCD display shows the room is available; the panel allows room reservation in advance.

A welcoming and open space at the north end of the floor has already seen its first party. Storage, sink, built-in ice maker and wine fridge suggest there will be more!

One of two large conference rooms at the end feature a gorgeous split slab table top from a salvaged tree. The McKinstry shop building is on the left, with a view of downtown Seattle in the distance.

The Hydrovolts team meets with engineers from Markey Machinery to discuss next steps in the intrumentation and testing of the Hydrovolts Alpha-1C Flipwing Turbine prototype. (L-R: James Marvin, Hydrovolts Director of Field Operations and Business Development; Gary Nishimura, Markey Machinery Engineer; Burt Hamner, Hydrovolts Co-founder and CEO; Peter Hammerschlag, Markey Machinery Chief Engineer; Brian Peithman, Hydrovolts Director of Engineering)

Hydrovolts' office. There are still boxes to unpack and things to hang up.

In a few weeks we will host an open house for our customers, partners, investors, vendors, families and friends. By then we will be fully installed and charging ahead. We look forward to seeing you and showing you both our fabulous new digs and also sharing some of the exciting developments of the past few weeks.

Hydrovolts
McKinstry Innovation Center
210 South Hudson Street
Suite 330
Seattle, WA 98134-2417

206-658-4380

Distributed Hydropower from Wastewater

2010-05-12T23:33:00.000-07:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine can generate power in man-made and natural watercourses of many kinds. The initial market is irrigation canals, and there are lots of others, including resource exploration, remote ocean sensors and military uses.

Because of the ingenious cross-axis design of the Flipwing, they can also generate power even in flows that are not clean, or even free of effluvia--flows like those found in sewer and wastewater systems in nearly every community.

There are 16,583 wastewater treatment plants in the United States serving nearly 3/4 of the population. There is growing interest in treating wastewater as a resource rather than something simply to be disposed. The biosolids have obvious application as fertilizer. The sludge can potentially be turned in to energy. Sewage can produce methane for fuel. Washington the Budd Inlet Treatment Plant has a pilot program to do just this. Treatment plant sites also lend themselves to solar installations. There are lots of ways to turn this waste into economic value.

As is the case with any site suitable for hydropower, the flow must be natural, moving due to gravity rather than to pumping. Sewage facilities like Seattle's Brightwater would not likely be customers as they would have few, if any, stretches of sufficiently strong and free flow. However, there are many facilities with suitable flows because plants and piping infrastructure are cheaper to operate where gravity can be used and the cost of pumping avoided. Treatment plants are typically sited to to seek this advantage.

Using wastewater flows to make power is a relatively new idea, but not unprecedented:

The first hydroelectric plant in Australia to generate power from treated sewage has been switched on at North Head sewage treatment plant as part of a New South Wales plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and generate green energy.

The hydro project was installed as part of a $150 million upgrade to the sewage treatment plant, government reports indicate.

The hydropower plant works by capturing energy from treated wastewater falling down a 60- meter shaft and will generate enough green energy to power almost 1,000 homes for a year, the government reported.

The new hydro plant will reduce Sydney Water’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12,000 tons a year, reports indicate.

It is great to see this happening. This project used a 60-foot drop which not all potential projects would enjoy. A hydrokinetic approach would work is many more flows as long as their was a fast enough flow, 2 m/s or more.

Three wastewater treatment plants, in Washington, New York and Oregon, have inquired so far about purchase of Hydrovolts turbines.

Micro Loans for Micro Power

2010-05-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

Hundreds of thousands of people have electricity because of distributed generation from small renewable energy systems financed by micro lending:

The Solar Home System (SHS) dissemination programme in Bangladesh is considered to be one of the most successful of its kind in the world, bringing power to rural areas where grid electricity supply is neither available nor expected in the medium term.

The program started in January 2005 and nearly 350,000 SHSs were installed by last summer, most of which had a rated power output of 50W. Systems came with 3-4 compact flourescent light bulbs. Owners benefit from lighting, especially in their kitchens and courtyards, and also use the systems to charge batteries, power radios, and even run 12V televisions. While statistics are lacking, it appears that some owners are using the power in their small stores and restaurants, boosting their income.

This is a great program beautifully suited to regions without existing electrical grid infrastructure, and has the potential to have a lasting and powerfully positive impact on the energy poverty that afflicts much of the developing world. Even small amounts of electricity can change lives for the better by providing lighting for reading, heating and cooking that doesn't burn nasty fuels with toxic byproducts, and the ability to create a business, boosting the local economy.

Such an approach could work with micro hydropower too.

National Train Day

2010-05-08T23:59:00.000-07:00

In the United States it's National Train Day. I like rail travel, and I prefer it to flying or driving.

Train travel in the US has its good and less good aspects. Here are 10 of each:

10 good things about traveling by train:

Great scenery through large windows
Electrical outlets for laptops or other equipment
Lots of room (more in coach than airlines have in first class)
A dining car with good-sized tables
A lounge car
TSA doesn't do trains
Show up 5 minutes before departure and get on easily
No jet engine roar, no seatbelts
Cheaper than cars or airplanes
Much smaller carbon footprint

10 things about train travel that need improvement:

More extensive regional networks that reach more destinations
More scheduled departures
High-speed rail (like France, Japan, China, etc.)
Better maintenance (so tracks aren't closed and passengers aren't shuttled to buses)
Wi-fi
Better synchronization of trains and local transit schedules
Better synchronization with freight trains
More dining options in stations and on board
On-line seat assignments
Public perception

Train travel is comfortable, convenient (within the existing network of stations) and a good value. Train travel is not yet what it could and should be, especially compared to the systems passengers enjoy in other countries, but it has come quite a ways.

Trains were once a key part of our transportation infrastructure. They will be again, but more investment is needed.

Hydrovolts Moves to McKinstry Innovation Center

2010-05-07T23:54:00.001-07:00

Monday is moving day!

We've been at our current office for more than a year, but are in the final stages of making our move to the McKinstry Innovation Center down in Georgetown. Our time at WRF has been great and the people--including Ron, John, Loretta, Kim, Thong, Morgan, Dale, and Britt--fantastic. Thanks to all of our friends at WRF for being part of our growth and progress!

Hydrovolts is one of two initial tenants at the McKinstry Innovation Center along with General Biodiesel.

Our new address is

Hydrovolts
210 South Hudson Street
Suite 330
Seattle, WA 98134-2417

Phone number ~~TBA~~ 206-658-4380. Our website, social media channels, emails, etc. remain unchanged.

Some press on the move here, here, here, and here.

Update: Added phone number and zip+4

Idle Plans

2010-05-05T23:35:00.000-07:00

In my home town of Toronto, the Board of Health is pushing for legislation to reduce the permitted idling of motor vehicle engines from the current 3-minute limit to one minute. People idling their engines longer face a $125 fine.

The Board acted in part on a report from Dr. David McKeown, Toronto’s medical officer of health, which stated:

For every litre of gasoline used, about 2.4 kg of CO2 are produced; for every litre of diesel fuel consumed, about 2.7 kg of CO2 are produced. The Clean Air Partnership estimated that idling in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area] wastes 90 million litres of fuel each year, suggesting that over 215 million tonnes of CO2 are emitted in the GTA each year as a result of idling. Assuming that vehicle ownership is distributed evenly across the GTA, Toronto’s contribution could be 105 million tonnes of CO2 each year as a result of idling.

The cars of yesteryear needed warming up because they used heavier motor oil which needed warming to fully lubricate the engine. Modern cars with computer controls need at most 10 seconds before they are ready to drive. Shutting off an engine if it would idle more than 30 seconds will save gas, although there are more effective eco-friendly driving steps.

Added McKeown, “I understand why people want to get into a warm car, but the price we pay for that is our health.”

The shorter limit was previously adopted by the Ontario city of Burlington, but is "widely ignored" and sporadically enforced.

Laissez Failure

2010-05-02T23:30:00.000-07:00

The slow-motion ecological catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico is horrifying.

The oil slick is now the size of Ohio, and growing by the hour. Edges of it are now reaching land and all along the Gulf coast residents wait with deep foreboding and growing anger as the dimensions of the disaster become clear.

This is not an oil spill, but an oil spilling, as more ruptures from the sea floor, surfaces, and spreads its devastating reach towards shore. 40% of the coastal wetlands in the United States are under threat, as are the majority of the country's oyster and shrimp fisheries. Local fishermen have moved quickly through the 5 stages of grieving as they face the imminent destruction of their livelihood, economic security, their way of life, and their future.

Emergency response began quickly and broad efforts at mitigation are underway. The Obama Administration formed a National Response Team, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal is mobilizing the state's National Guard, and locals are taking to their boats to deploy booms to intercept the sprawling slick. Dealing with the immediate crisis is paramount now, yet soon hard questions must be asked, and honestly answered. The critical questions are:

Why did this happen? How do we prevent it happening again?
On April 20, 130 miles south of New Orleans a BP exploratory oil well blew out, igniting the Transocean Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform in a fireball, killing 11 workers and critically injuring 3 others. The platform burned for two days before sinking. Initial reports were phrased to reassure, dismissing concerns of any leaks, but the timeline shows the failure of damage control both to the environment and to public perceptions. Nearly a mile below the surface oil continues to gush from the well head. Estimates have been revised upward from nothing, to 1,000 barrels per day (BPD) to the current official number of 5,000 BPD, and much larger numbers are not being refuted. 700,000 gallons of diesel fuel used on the platform also either burned or went to the bottom.

The possibility of something much worse--an unchecked gusher--cannot be ruled out:

The worst-case scenario for the broken and leaking well pouring oil into the Gulf of Mexico would be the loss of the wellhead and kinked piping currently restricting the flow to 5,000 barrels -- or 210,000 gallons -- per day. If the wellhead is lost, oil could leave the well at a much greater rate.

"Typically, a very good well in the Gulf can produce 30,000 barrels a day, but that's under control. I have no idea what an uncontrolled release could be," said Stephen Sears, chairman of the petroleum engineering department at Louisiana State University.

On Thursday, federal officials said they were preparing for the worst-case scenario but didn't elaborate.

The exact cause of the original eruption is still unclear, and may never be known with certainty, although initial suspicions focus on failure of the blow-out prevention equipment and the concrete used to seal the well head.

Several things are, however, abundantly clear:

It's happened before. Last August in the Timor Sea near Australia the Montara oil leak and environmental disaster took months to staunch and multiple attempts. Here too the oil company involved (PTTEP) downplayed the problem initially, even going so far as to dismiss the oil slick as merely "discolored" water from natural effects. Their estimate of 300 BPD of spillage may have really been more like 2,000 BPD. While it appears similar, the final cause has not yet been officially determined. Cutting corners to save time and costs, i.e. greed, is the prime suspect. Hearings have been held for the past two months; the final report was originally due last week, but its delivery schedule is now unclear. There is a long history of oil spills, including from platforms in the Gulf of Mexico.

This was a disaster waiting to happen. How much effort and care goes into ensuring that offshore oil operations are conducted with operational and environmental safety at the fore? Not enough, according to at least BP whistleblower who went public with the rampant corner-cutting on BP's similar Atlantis platform, also in the Gulf of Mexico. An independent engineering consultant concluded:

[The] widespread pattern of unapproved design, testing and inspection documentation on the Atlantis subsea project creates a risk of a catastrophic incident threatening the [Gulf of Mexico] deep-water environment and the safety of platform workers. The extent of documentation discrepancies creates a substantial risk that a catastrophic event could occur at any time... There is no valid engineering justification for these violations and short cuts... BP's recklessness in regards to the Atlantis project is a clear example of how the company has a pattern of failing to comply with minimum industry standards for worker and environmental safety.

BP has a history of putting profits before safety in Prudhoe Bay, Texas City, and offshore. It's what they do:

"It should be seen as a process failure, a cultural failure and a management failure," John Mogford, then BP's senior group vice president for safety and operations, said in an April 2006 speech about the lessons learned in Texas City. "It's not an easy story to tell. BP doesn't come out of it well."

Says mouthpiece Larry Goldstein of the oil industry-funded Energy Policy Research Foundation:

It’s a tragedy, but at the end of the day we are not going to stop doing things that need to be done.

Clearly, it should also be seen as criminal, sociopathic behavior.

The emergency response was ad hoc and ineffective. Early reports focused on the tragic deaths of the workers with no mention of oil spilling. After the sinking, BP professed confidence that their "team" would expeditiously handle any potential spill, and implied that the situation was under control. With the upward revision of the rate of spilling, they still sought to reassure, but were less confident: "Over the next few days, we should determine which method [to staunch the flow] is the best one to follow." By the end of the first week they were verbally relying on good weather to corral and burn the oil at the surface, an environmentally ugly approach itself, and one which proved only briefly and partially effective as rougher weather arrived. Now BP plans to drill "relief" wells to lessen the pressure at the well head and presumably slow the leak, but as even they admit, this will take months to do. Months. US Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA) will use his position as head of the House Energy and Commerce Committee to investigate:

"A striking feature of the incident is the apparent lack of an adequate plan to contain the spreading environmental damage," the lawmakers wrote. They said they are investigating "what the companies knew about the risks of drilling at the site and the adequacy of the companies' response plans."

They can't turn it off, they don't know how to. BP as much as admitted their failure to prepare in recent days as they appealed for help from rivals, the government, or, well, anyone. They had no plan.

Our risk, their reward. BP has lobbied for years against meaningful regulations to protect the environment, arguing that the costs were unacceptable:

In a letter published on the U.S. government Web site Regulations.gov, Richard Morrison, BP's vice president for Gulf of Mexico production, wrote that while BP "is supportive of companies having a system in place to reduce risk, accidents, injuries and spills, we are not supportive of the extensive, prescriptive regulations as proposed..."

Mr. Morrison noted that BP had already adopted policies that complied with the MMS's proposed new rules. But he challenged the need for companies to file regular audits of their safety programs with the agency, saying that would be "an administrative burden."

BP's view, shared by the rest of the oil industry, amounts to "trust us," yet independent review of the comparable Atlantis platform suggests that such trust is misplaced:

BP's recklessness in regards to the Atlantis project is a clear example of how the company has a pattern of failing to comply with minimum industry standards for worker and environmental safety.

The reason is simply one of cost-cutting for the sake of ever-fatter profits. The Deepwater Horizon well did not use the kind of emergency remote shut-offs that are required in other offshore oil countries like Norway and Brazil. Such devices allow sealing of the well head even in the event of a collapsed platform or broken riser and cost up to $500,000 each. Industry profiteering took precedence over safety:

U.S. regulators considered requiring the mechanism several years ago. They decided against the measure when drilling companies protested, saying the cost was too high, the device was only questionably effective, and that primary shut-off measures were enough to control an oil spill. A 2001 industry report argued against the shut-off device:
Significant doubts remain in regard to the ability of this type of system to provide a reliable emergency back-up control system during an actual well flowing incident.
However, a spokeswoman for Norway's Petroleum Safety Authority said the switches have "been seen as the most successful and effective option" in North Sea usage. Several oil producers, including Royal Dutch Shell, sometimes use the switch even when it is not required by country regulations.

Accidents of all kinds are simply viewed as a normal cost of business:

The federal Minerals Management Service has recorded more than 500 fires on platforms in the gulf since 2006. At least two people have died in gulf platform fires over the last four years, and about 12 more were seriously injured before the accident on the Deepwater Horizon. No accident so far has measurably slowed the rate of discovery and production.

Kjersti Hornnes Torgersen, a vice president at Statoil, the Norwegian producer and fourth largest lease holder in the gulf’s deep waters, said, “We will continue our drilling operations.”

Many people recall the Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska's Prince William Sound, which spewed 250,000 barrels of oil, devastated the local economy and took years and billions of dollars to clean up. Some of the oil is still there. Exxon successfully stalled, appealed, and wrangled over being held legally accountable for the original judgment (amounting to one year of its then current profits,) outlasting and exhausting many of the plaintiffs. BP has its eyes staring at its shoes right now, but does anyone think the corporate modus operandi will be different here? What will likely be different is the scope of the devastation. The Exxon Valdez spill was limited, if that's the right word, to what was in the tanker. The BP spill is limited only by the unknown size of the underground oil field. If the current 5,000 BPD estimate is correct, the spill will exceed that of the Exxon Valdez before the end of June, since there is scant likelihood of the well being plugged before then. If the higher estimates are correct, it is already worse.

Continuing business as usual makes economic sense for the oil companies. They reap enormous profits in part by paring costs on such things as environmental and worker safety. Many of the accidents result in costs or fines that are smaller than the costs of prevention. If the worst happens, and their is a huge disaster, they merely play meek until the furor dies down, and then use attorneys to wear down the litigants. It's nothing personal; it's just business.

They book the rewards and the public pays the costs. The picture would look very different if they had to account for the full environmental costs.

Laissez failure. Over the course of 30 years federal regulatory oversight bodies have been vilified, starved for funding, and vitiated in their effectiveness through sustained ideological attack. The resulting atrophy has left them unable to protect the public interest, not just in the environment but in areas from food to finance. How confident can we be that this will change in any meaningful way? Not very: federal regulators permitted expansion of drilling on the Atlantis project despite the lack of required documentation or procedures.

As with BP's misplaced hope a week ago that calm seas would allow simple control measures, so too regulators have long considered problems unlikely and solutions simple and low-cost. When it proves otherwise there is always mild shock and surprise--who knew this might happen? Later, amnesia prevents the learning of the lesson. Said BP's Gulf honcho Morrison:

We believe the industry's current safety and environmental statistics demonstrate that the voluntary programs... have been and continue to be very successful.

Nothing that is occurring now in the Gulf, nothing that even could occur, will change this view. The associated libertarian view that regulations should be voided because they are inimical to American freedom is overly simplistic. Rules of the road provide "more freedom in the form of a greatly enhanced ability to get wherever we want to go quickly and safely." In other words, freedom isn't the same as anarchy, and regulations prevent the anarchy of unrestrained individual action that can result, as we see here, in death and destruction.

Energy policy implications. Just in the last month the Obama Administration announced support for renewed offshore oil and gas drilling. The moratorium has been quickly restored until the investigation is complete. There will of course be many investigations, and for now supporters of offshore drilling are mostly laying low, waiting for events to pass and outrage to ebb.

Meanwhile, some are suggesting that the entire climate and energy bill could be threatened. This seemingly nonsensical result is solely because the support of some Senators hinges on increased largesse and advocacy for offshore drilling. Perversely, the massive environmental disaster in the Gulf has not reduced support for the ecological nightmare of offshore drilling by its supporters, but only reduced the possibility of acquiescence by those already dubious of its safety. In other words, support for offshore drilling hasn't changed, but rather only the willingness to be on the record supporting it.

Our legislators are cowards, unwilling to be accountable to the truth and to vote accordingly. In a rational world, where policy is formulated on the merits, undistorted by the fossil industry's campaign cash, our legislators would remove offshore drilling from the energy bill and focus instead on sustainable energy solutions without such massively deleterious consequences. In short, it would be what it should always have been--legislation building our energy future through renewable technologies. It would not diminish support, but serve to shape a better piece of legislation more fully informed by the hard realities of science, technology, and the practical limits of our own cleverness as a species.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar this past week gave final approval to Cape Wind after a near-Odysseian 9-year process. It's worth pausing for a moment to ponder why this took so long. Opponents, frequently aligned with fossil interests, claimed all kinds of terrible outcomes would occur: bird deaths, destruction of the marine environment, loss of fisheries, impaired views. And yet, in a classic case of projection, these are the precise outcomes washing ashore with the oil all along the Gulf Coast.

How is it that our discussion of the environment has become so warped, so detached from reality, so lacking in perspective, that we can approve offshore drilling, mountaintop removal, tar sand projects, so-called shale plays and other mortal assaults on our habitat, yet we struggle to allow offshore wind, solar arrays in the Mojave, or any number of other renewable projects because of vague and generally unsubstantiated worries?

Finally, do the now-hollow promises of the oil industry about the environment, safety, and so forth give anyone pause as we contemplate a revival of nuclear plant construction? Same rhetoric. Do we want to find out whether we will get a different result?

The offshore oil industry will not change unless it is forced to do so. Neither will coal. Or nuclear. Unless and until there is a vigorous, robust and sustained re-commitment to regulation based on the primacy of the public interest no further approvals should be given. The alternative is nothing short of criminal negligence if not rank corruption.

The politics of blame and hypocrisy. Political posturing wasn't long in coming, and its transparent mendacity is equally unsurprising, as is its intended effect of diverting attention.

First, despite Obama's foolish and ill-timed embrace of offshore drilling, this is not "his Katrina" unless the phrase is meant only as a test of his ability, unlike the feckless W, to respond. Hurricane Katrina was a natural disaster which we could not prevent, but to which we could only respond. This disaster was eminently preventable, but the weight of ideology and casino capitalism marginalized anyone advocating measures that might have done so. So far the federal response appears concerted, but I doubt even all the king's horses and men will be enough.

Second, suggestions of some kind of conspiracy where opponents of offshore drilling deliberately sabotaged the platform are scurrilous and without any foundation. Some making such wild accusations have long lacked credibility. Attempts to blame liberals, Democrats, etc. are fact-free partisanship and have no place in a discussion amongst adults looking for pragmatic solutions to the current crisis and lessons to apply in preventing future ones.

Third, all snark aside, it's essential to ask, how's that oily drilly thing working out? There's a lot of talk about accountability these days. You hear it being applied to those collecting unemployment benefits. To borrowers in underwater mortgages. To unwed mothers. Sometimes, fleetingly, from a few quarters, to those who tanked the economy. Is it not time, at last, to talk about accountability to the oil industry? To those poo-pooing the potential for environmental destruction? To the advocates of "drill here, drill now" and "drill, baby, drill"? To those, like Governor Jindal, who decry federal spending until it is spent on something he wants? To the media which shirks its obligation to demand such accountability?

The first federal investigation (of what will doubtless be many) has begun. Will there be true accountability and an honest inquiry? Or, will scapegoats be fingered and rationalizations based on supposed economic necessity trump truth, paving the way for a return to business as usual? Lather, rinse, repeat. An ancient piece of Wiccan wisdom says that one is repeatedly presented the same lesson, often in harsher form, until it is learned. The cost of our intransigent ignorance increases. Let us learn.

Hydrovolts is a B Corporation

2010-04-30T23:35:00.000-07:00

Hydrovolts has achieved certification from B Labs as a B Corporation--one of only 285 companies in the United States, and one of only 10 in Washington State.

Certification as a B Corporation attests to the values of a business, including those summarized in the B Corporation Declaration of Interdependence:

We envision a new sector of the economy which harnesses the power of private enterprise to create public benefit.

This sector is comprised of a new type of corporation, the B Corporation, which is purpose-driven and creates benefit for all stakeholders, not just shareholders.

The Declaration continues:

As members of this emerging sector and as entrepreneurs and investors in B Corporations, we hold these truths to be self-evident:
That we must be the change we seek in the world.
That all business ought to be conducted as if people and place mattered.
That, through their products, practices, and profits, businesses should aspire to do no harm and benefit all.
To do so requires that we act with the understanding that we are each dependent upon another and thus responsible for each other and future generations.

B Corporation objectives go beyond generating profits, embracing the importance of social and environmental values as well--triple bottom line values. B Corporations want to make the world a better place, and enshrine those values into their governing documents.

Hydrovolts achieved B Corporation certification following completion of a survey and assessment. We're proud that we achieved three areas of excellence--Accountability, Employees, and Consumers. Yet we can improve our practices (and hence our scores) in those areas as well as in Community and Environment, and commit ourselves to doing so.

Our commitment to sustainability is a natural fit for a B Corporation. We are proud to be part of a new wave of sustainably-focused business, and being the change we seek.

Distributed Hydropower for Remote Ocean Devices

2010-04-29T15:59:00.000-07:00

There are many users who want to place electronic devices in remote ocean locations where power is not available from the electrical grid. These remote ocean devices (often sensors of some kind) are powered by batteries; however, today's state-of-the-art solutions are expensive and inconvenient.

For example, researchers at the University of Washington frequently want to deploy Acoustic Doppler Current Profilers (ADCPs) or other devices to take measurements under water over the course of weeks, months or longer. Running power through a cable from shore is impractical and costly, but the alternative actually used has a stiff price too: a disposable battery that costs $500 and lasts a mere 10 days, after which it must be replaced. In addition to the recurring cost of replacement batteries, there is the enormous cost of a boat and crew to do the replacement--often $1,000 per hour or more. In the deeper ocean farther form shore, boat costs can easily top $100,000 per day.

For small ocean power, the Hydrovolts turbine paired with a rechargeable battery replaces the current disposable battery solution, providing a capital ROI of substantially less than one year.
Oceanographers from the University of Washington have worked with the Hydrovolts technology and have validated the basic performance and power output for a scale device during tow tests in Lake Union. This month Hydrovolts will send a prototype to the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) for further testing and validation.

Oceanographers are not the only ones interested in powering remote ocean devices. Various kinds of navigation buoys and other equipment used by coast guards and harbor authorities also need electricity. Military devices used for monitoring can be thousands of miles from shore and far below the surface. The cost of retrieving and replacing batteries for such devices in remote and austere environments is extreme. In addition, some of these devices are militarily or politically sensitive; there is also great value in not visibly attending them.

If power were available for extended periods far to sea, there are many other civilian devices that would become more practical to deploy. Tsunami warning devices have obvious value to NOAA and others. Remote devices that monitored advancing weather far to sea would allow improved coastal weather prediction, benefiting commercial fisheries, beach businesses and the general public.

Small wind power could be used for some remote power generation needs, but practically only for surface devices. Solar power could also be used in theory, but is even less well suited due to the difficulty of proper orientation and of keeping them clean. Both would necessarily be in the extremely harsh environment at the ocean surface. A Hydrovolts turbine, spinning below the surface would be subject to significantly less corrosive and mechanical stresses. The Flipwing design is also well suited to the low-speed ambient currents omnipresent in the ocean, because it can spin and make power even at speeds as low or lower than 1 knot (about 50 cm/s.)

Hydrovolts turbines, properly configured for the ocean environment can save money, sometimes a lot of money, for many organizations. They can also simplify logistics and enable the feasible deployment of many other useful and desirable equipment away from shore.

Time Grows Short

2010-04-27T23:31:00.001-07:00

Oil is a finite resource.

Production peaked in the US decades ago, and the global peak is happening now, if it hasn't already. The transition to a new energy economy must happen because our ability to produce fresh supply will decline, even as economic development quickens throughout the developing world, boosting demand. There are other reasons too: climate change, energy security, and addressing energy poverty, the root of poverty generally throughout the world.

Making the transition is an urgent need:

The most critical question is how much time we have to make the transition. A fully equipped hospital with on-duty surgeons and staff may be the ideal technology for a critically injured patient. But they mean little to such a patient if we are in the position of having to build the hospital and train the surgeons and staff before administering treatment. I think this analogy aptly describes our current predicament. If you miscalculate concerning the time question, it will not matter how clever human beings are.

Our Earth, the patient, suffers from a growing number and severity of injuries. Delivering the cure will take substantial time and investment. What are we waiting for?

Compact

2010-04-25T23:29:00.000-07:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine is designed to be complete, compact, modular, safe, simple and scalable.

I previously posted about how it is simple and complete.

It's also a compact solution. Other hydrokinetic turbines for micro-generation (i.e. less than 100kW) are much less so. Almost all use some kind of raft and place their generator and electronics above the water line. This solves one problem--how to keep the electronics dry--but introduces others:

Transmission--The rotor under water must somehow connect to the generator above it. Shafts, belts or chains can be used, but all have drawbacks, including efficiency loss, added maintenance burden, additional points of failure, and more mechanism that can entrain debris or become fouled.
Efficiency--Vertical axis turbines with a lift design, (e.g. a Darrieus turbine) lose efficiency unless they are perfectly vertical, However, extending the shaft to the surface makes maintaining vertical alignment nearly impossible.
Adaptability--By using a raft, other turbines must be sited close to the surface.
Cost--Additional materials and a larger design add to the cost to build, to transport, and to deploy.
Sustainability--The added cost is not just in money, but also in embodied energy and carbon footprint.

All the parts of the Hydrovolts Flipwing turbine fit together neatly in one self-contained package. The generators are linked directly to the rotor and the power electronics are right there too. The compact design makes deployment very quick and easy--just lower it into the water and moor or anchor it in any of several ways. The entire turbine can be deployed at optimal depth with shorter transmission, high efficiency, adaptability, and lower costs to the buyer and to the environment.

Compact is good. Power from Water.

Energy Security

2010-04-22T23:59:00.000-07:00

Earth Day turned 40 today. For many Earth Day is an occasion to think green, hope for a less polluted future, advocate for renewable energy and perhaps push for a solution to climate change.

Others dismiss Earth Day as a symbol of mushy-minded ecomania that elevates the environment over the economy. It's a false choice, but the notion that doing something about the environment will cost the economy persists. Those who are skeptical about climate change are generally the same as those who are negative about renewable energy.

However, there are other reasons to support and promote renewable energy, and a big one is energy security. If it's renewable we don't need to rely on the supply of something like oil or uranium that has to come from somewhere else, possibly a country or region hostile to us.

Energy security matters. Most casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan come from the necessity of fuel transport--the supply chain is long and highly vulnerable.

Failing to make the speediest transition to renewable energy is bad policy for many reasons. It costs lives. It costs money. It funds those hostile to us. And it's futile, because the current energy model is not sustainable. Even the military recognizes that we need to get beyond oil because we're running out of the stuff.

Veterans are speaking up. VoteVets and Operation Free have teamed up to run some powerful TV ads that make the connection between our dependence on oil and the cost in dollars and lives it leads to:

Polls of veterans are clear:

A compelling new poll of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans finds that 73 percent of them support Clean Energy Climate Change legislation in Congress, 79 percent believe ending our dependence on foreign oil is important to national security, and 67 percent support the argument that such legislation will help their own economic prospects.

The poll was conducted by Lake Research Group for VoteVets.org In February, and is made up of 45 percent self-identified Republicans, 25 percent Independents, and 20 percent Democrats.

Military leadership gets it too:

The military, which pioneered the gas-guzzling Humvee, was not always as concerned with conservation, says Kevin Geiss, the Army's program director for energy security. However, the Pentagon stated in its strategy review, published this year, that consuming less foreign oil and contributing less to climate change are critical to long-term safety.

"The Army's mission is not to be green. Our mission is to defend the nation. In that context, we've found it's in our interest to develop sustainable projects," Geiss says.

So why isn't it happening apace? Want to support our troops? Then support renewable energy and the impending climate and energy legislation that advances it.

Save money. Save lives. Save the Earth. That would be a happy Earth Day indeed.

Hydrovolts' James Marvin will be in Washington DC next week on April 28 to meet with military leaders and members of Operation Free. Contact us if you'd like to meet with him while he's there.

Hydrovolts RFP

2010-04-20T23:39:00.000-07:00

Yesterday we put out an RFP for the design and realization of a sensor system on our Alpha-1C prototype.

Summary:

Hydrovolts is seeking a Contractor to design and install sensor and data collection capability on a submersible hydrokinetic turbine to measure rotor torque and rpm while operating in water flow rates between 1 and 8 knots of current speed. The deadline for Proposals is April 30, 2010 and the selected Proposal will be announced May 3, 2010 with work to begin immediately.

We expect a lot more work of this kind in the future as well; the ideal solution will be reusable on this and future machines. See the RFP for more details or contact Hydrovolts Director of Engineering' Brian Peithman at 206-336-5560.

Hydrovolts Expands Leadership Team

2010-04-18T23:54:00.000-07:00

We're really pleased to announce a new addition to our team!

James Marvin, a former U.S. Navy SEAL Commander, started this past Monday as our Director of Business Development and Field Operations.

Burt Hamner, Hydrovolts CEO was enthusiastic:

We are excited to expand our team, and James’ expertise in both federal government relations and remote field operations will be integral to the company’s evolution and growth. James will not only implement turbine demos in canals and waterways around the world, but also help Hydrovolts do business with governmental organizations that work in remote, austere environments that can benefit from Hydrovolts’ renewable, fuel-free power generation technology.

James has 20 years of leadership experience in the most demanding and challenging environments around the world. His most recent assignment was Director of Operations for Naval Special Warfare Group Four (NSWG-4) where he managed maritime mobility platform operations for the U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in riverine, coastal, and open ocean environments. He has global operational experience and has worked in the Pacific, South America, the Middle East, Europe, Africa as well as the U.S.

James and his family recently moved to the Seattle area from Virginia. The way they planned and executed the move is illustrative of both James' talents and a broader trend in relocation for top professionals. You can read more in last week's profile in the Wall Street Journal.

James has hit the ground running. Tomorrow he and Hydrovolts Director of Engineering Brian Peithman are in the field near Yakima to do some advance work ahead of deployment of our first demonstration project later this spring.

Welcome James!

Rapa Nui's Descent into Darkness

2010-04-16T23:59:00.000-07:00

Many people insist, with all manner of justifications, that we can not, we should not, change the way we generate or use energy because we're not running out of oil, the climate isn't changing, and we aren't destroying our ecosystems everywhere one looks. Cornucopia forever.

What did the Easter Islander who cut down the last palm tree say while he was doing it?

[snip]

In fact, the question can be asked more broadly: “What were the thought processes and discussions amongst the inhabitants of Easter Island leading up to the removal of the last remnants of forest?” This could be seen, perhaps, as a hypothetical exploration, rooted in a real historical event, of “the psychology of resource depletion denial.”

A foreshadowing of the looming twilight of the Oil Age. The way of life on Easter Island wasn't negotiable either. The result?

As the forests shrunk in area and the annual percentage rate of depletion steadily increased, at some point, someone must have realised that the situation was not sustainable and said as much. The island is not that big and what was happening at one end would have been common knowledge at the other end.

Yet the inhabitants continued on. The forest dwindled to nothing and the soil washed away, depleted. Crop yields dropped. Felling trees destroyed animal habitat and then the animals. Food became scarce, leading to famine, inter-tribal warfare and eventually cannibalism. The population crashed in a mass die-off.

Let's Go LEGO

2010-04-14T18:18:00.000-07:00

LEGO is equipping and stimulating the next generation of cleantech inventors. This is great, but where's the hydropower turbine?

The Renewable Energy Add-on Set is designed as an addition to the Simple & Motorized Mechanisms Set, the core set in our Machines & Mechanisms range. When the Renewable Energy Add-On Set is combined with the customized activity pack, students will explore renewable energy sources; investigate energy supply, transfer, accumulation, conversion, and consumption; and use measurements and data analysis to describe and explain outcomes through hands-on activities and exciting, real-life models.

The LEGO folks also write:

Students will experiment using energy from their own bodies and the three main energy sources – solar, wind, and water – to generate, store, and use power.

Water is one of the big three – all right! Perhaps the wind rotor disconnects from the generator so it could be placed under water and use some kind of gears or belt to turn the generator above water. I'm going to get one when it is available this Fall (in time for Christmas I suppose.)

Sadly, biomass fans are totally out of luck.

(h/t Fast Company)

The World's Only Carbon-Negative Country

2010-04-13T23:53:00.000-07:00

Low fossil fuel use and a strong policy to protect forests makes it unique:

Run on Buddhist principles of respect for nature, Bhutan is the only country among 194 U.N. members to have formally told the United Nations this year that it is now "climate negative" -- soaking up more greenhouse gases more than it emits.

Bhutan, a tiny Buddhist kingdom in the Himalayas is also noteworthy as the only country in the world that calculates its Gross National Happiness.

Maintaining carbon neutrality will be "a big challenge" said Yeshey Penjor, who lead Bhutan's delegation to the U.N. climate talks last week in Bonn.

A key resource in reaching this goal is hydropower:

Bhutan's main plan to meet future energy demand is to exploit hydropower -- aiming to add 10,000 megawatts of capacity to an existing 1,500 MW in a nation where several mountain peaks are above 7,000 metres (22,970 ft).

That plan, which depends on foreign aid, would also enable exports to neighbouring India. Taking those green exports into account as helping to reduce emissions from burning fossil fuels, Bhutan would be able to achieve its carbon goals.

There are challenges, however, as the water resources are already stressed by competing demands. Hydrokinetic turbines have an advantage over traditional dams because there is no water diversion--power generation taps gravity-fed rivers and streams as the water flows to its ultimate use. Hydrovolts has received inquiries from Bhutan for turbines, and we look forward to helping them with their twin goals of reducing poverty through sustainable development and staying carbon neutral.

Partisan Challenge

2010-04-10T23:59:00.000-07:00

A famous American, fiercely partisan on any number of policy areas, nonetheless said this:

If we've learned any lessons during the past few decades, perhaps the most important is that preservation of our environment is not a partisan challenge; it's common sense. Our physical health, our social happiness, and our economic well-being will be sustained only by all of us working in partnership as thoughtful, effective stewards of our natural resources.

Who was the speaker? This same proud conservative also took credit for his fundamentally conservative viewpoint that the economy does not utterly trump the environment:

I'm proud of having been one of the first to recognize that States and the Federal Government have a duty to protect our natural resources from the damaging effects of pollution that can accompany industrial development.

Such a viewpoint was not remotely controversial at the time. One suspects that if President Obama or most any other leader were to speak these exact words today the resulting partisan firestorm of criticism would be intense and vitriolic. Recent polling suggests that a slim majority of Americans are now willing to throw the environment under the economic bus. The anemia of the current "recovery" is doubtless responsible for much of this sentiment, but the lack of unequivocal support for environmental protection by our leaders is also to blame.

Also culpable are the gasbags on cable working overtime to foment outrage and partisan bile. More sensible conservatives, truer to their values, are highlighting former President Ronald Reagan and his straightforward words on the conservative nature of environmental stewardship:

Republicans for Environmental Protection (REP), a national grassroots organization, announces the launch of its "What Would Reagan Do" radio ad campaign. The campaign started running in New Hampshire today - with other states to follow in the coming weeks.

The ads, which include clips from Ronald Reagan's speeches, honor the former president's memory as a conservationist and remind listeners that good environmental stewardship, including action to address climate change, is consistent with true conservative values.

"With talk radio personalities constantly peddling an anti-stewardship message under the guise of conservatism, it is a good time for a reminder about President Reagan's legacy as a good steward of our environment," David Jenkins, REP's vice president for government and political affairs, said.

"We especially want people to remember Reagan's leadership in negotiating the Montreal Protocol treaty, which began the phase-out of ozone depleting chemicals and has done more to safeguard the earth's atmosphere than any other law or treaty ever passed," Jim DiPeso, REP's vice president for policy and communication, said.

The REP's campaign web site also include an eminently reasonable page entitled "How to be a Climate Conservative". There are a few gratuitous asides (e.g. about Al Gore's supposed claim of inventing the internet) but this list should be sent to every dittohead, stupid Becker and parroting teabagger:

Acknowledge Our Stewardship Responsibly
Honestly Examine the Science
Think for Yourself
Don't Let Al Gore Get in the Way
Consider All of the Reasons to Act
Support Meaningful Solutions
Conserve

Check the detail in this list for yourself, and share it with your conservative friends. Challenge them to be a true conservative like their hero Reagan, who reaffirmed that protecting and preserving our environment is a core conservative value:

What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live... And we want to protect and conserve the land on which we live -- our countryside, our rivers and mountains, our plains and meadows and forests. This is our patrimony. This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it.

Conservation is conservative. Many Republicans who were thought conservative in their day have advanced a conservation agenda. Teddy Roosevelt established the National Park System. Richard Nixon created the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Reagan pushed for the Montreal Protocol to prevent ozone depletion.

What happened to modern American conservatives that has caused them to abandon these conservative values?

Complete

2010-04-08T23:36:00.000-07:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine is designed to be complete, compact, modular, safe, simple and scalable.

I previously posted about how it is simple.

It's also a complete, ready-to-use product right out of the box. Part of simple deployment, as I wrote last time, is not needing a lot of assembly or complicated hook-ups to other components. The Hydrovolts turbine arrives with all parts necessary to make power. The power cable that comes out of the turbine provides 110V or 220V depending on the prevailing standard. It can be wired straight into an electrical panel. We can even provide it with a simple power strip on the end!

It's complete in the same way that a diesel generator bought from the hardware store is. You buy it, bring it home, start it up, and start plugging things into it. Actually, it's even more complete than that: you never need to bother with fuel.

Complete is good. Power from Water.

Arid Sea

2010-04-06T23:22:00.000-07:00

How does one of the most massive bodies of water in the world vanish?

In the case of the Aral Sea, with sickening speed. What was once the world's 4th largest freshwater lake now is just 10% of its former size.

The causes are several: misguided economic development that ends up destroying, not creating jobs and economic vitality. Unsustainable practices. Grasping behaviors suggesting this may be an early harbinger of water wars to come.

Yet another example of the tragedy of the commons. The practices that are destroying the Aral Sea are not dissimilar to those that are destroying the oceans. Or the mountains. Or our climate.

I Guess They Didn't Need a Weatherman

2010-04-04T16:45:00.000-07:00

Interesting.

A London developer will complete construction this June on the Strata SE1, which it claims "is the first development in the world where wind turbines have been integrated within the fabric of the building."

How much power will these turbines make?

The three five bladed nine metre diameter wind turbines are rated at 19kW each and are anticipated to produce 50MWh of electricity per year... approximately 8% of Strata SE1's estimated total energy consumption.

Hmm. To achieve 50MWh of output, the turbines must generate a continuous average over the year of about 1.9kW each. So Brookfield Europe, the developer, apparently infers that the actual generation will be a mere 10% of the "rated" output, which is really rather poor. A nice round figure of 10% also sounds like a guess:

The actual energy output of the wind turbines will only accurately be known after they are fully commissioned and 2 years of comprehensive wind data analysis has been completed.

Brookfield assessed other renewable generation (photovoltaic, geothermal) as part of their effort to meet London's 10% renewable electricity target, but it would seem that they didn't erect a met tower to actually measure the wind resource. Furthermore, neither the building itself or the way the turbines are integrated appears to allow them to swivel into the wind which is necessary for best efficiency. They'd better hope the building has been oriented into the prevailing winds and that those winds don't change direction too much.

There's a reason that commercially viable wind turbines are so huge--economics. Small turbines aren't generally worth it in EROI, usable output or capital payback. Such high-cost, low-value devices approaches have been called, with some justification, eco-bling. The Strata turbines, with their small size, doubtful generation and ostentation in the design may have smoothed the permitting process, but other criteria were evidently at work:

Wind turbines were pursued as they offered the best potential to achieve results given the height and shape of the proposed building. The opportunity to incorporate them into the architecture and deliver a highly visible commitment to sustainable design added further validation.

Yep, geothermal is, you know, not very... sexy. So much harder to show it off!

Still, it's hard not to applaud the effort, even if in its renewable generation the project pays more attention to optics than offsets. The building will be the tallest residential tower in London with 408 apartments estimated to house up to 1,000 people. Apart from the renewable electricity generation, the design boasts other sustainability elements in its heating, lighting, ventilation, cladding and gray-water management.

In the future, much more of our electricity generation will be distributed and such a visible example as this building is great for raising awareness. However, if the function fails to follow the form the risk is in creating the wrong awareness, of renewable energy being a fad rather than a solution.

And An Island Never Cries

2010-04-02T23:48:00.000-07:00

Some continue to deny, against a flood of evidence, that ocean levels are rising. Such denial is easy if you dismiss reason and ignore your lying eyes. And that's what it takes when an entire island is swallowed by the sea:

A tiny island claimed for years by India and Bangladesh in the Bay of Bengal has disappeared beneath the rising seas, scientists in India say.

The uninhabited territory south of the Hariabhanga river was known as New Moore Island to the Indians and South Talpatti Island to the Bangladeshis.

Recent satellites images show the whole island under water...

[snip]

"What these two countries could not achieve from years of talking, has been resolved by global warming," said Professor Sugata Hazra of the School of Oceanographic Studies at Jadavpur University in Calcutta.

Professor Hazra added that sea level rise in the Bay of Bengal has accelerated over the past decade and the overtopping of other islands in the region in the next decade is likely. No one lives on these islands. Others are not so lucky.

Our Energy Future - II

2010-03-31T23:57:00.000-07:00

Where will our energy come from in the future? Peak oil is upon us, even if the exact date is not yet conclusively known. Nuclear power is at best a transitional step, and quite costly when factoring in construction and external costs. What's left?

How about 100% from renewable sources? A new report by PriceWaterhouseCoopers suggests Europe could be powered entirely by renewable sources, albeit at substantial cost of transition, especially on inter-continental transmission:

A "super-smart" grid powered by solar farms in North Africa, wind farms in northern Europe and the North Sea, hydro-electric from Scandinavia and the Alps and a complement of biomass and marine energy could render carbon-based fuels obsolete for electricity by 2050, said the report.

The goal is achievable even without the use of nuclear energy, the mainstay of electricity in France.

While the costs and challenges are great, those of clinging to the fossil economy would be much greater. But what is remarkable, of course, is that the modern industrial economy of Europe, roughly the same size as that of the United States, could be run entirely on renewable energy.

Thus, today's announcement by President Obama to expand off-shore oil drilling in the United States is especially disappointing.
It appears Obama is following the playbook in energy that he did with health care: ceding the lead to Congress to produce a variety of half-hearted and conflicting proposals while he unilaterally compromises with himself:

Mr. Obama and his allies in the Senate have already made significant concessions on coal and nuclear power to try to win votes from Republicans and moderate Democrats. The new plan now grants one of the biggest items on the oil industry’s wish list — access to vast areas of the Outer Continental Shelf for drilling.

His political aim seems obvious:

Daniel Yergin, chairman of the research firm IHS-CERA, said the announcement was designed to help build support for broad energy and climate change legislation being drafted in Congress. Senate negotiators have been meeting with industry leaders to write a bill that combines caps on greenhouse gas emissions with protections for coal-fired power plants, expanded offshore drilling and incentives for nuclear power.

There was little support from environmentalists. Said Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune:

The oil industry already has access to drilling on millions of acres of America's public lands and water. We don't need to hand over our last protected pristine coastal areas just so oil companies can break more profit records.

Obama's tepid triangulation won little support from conservatives, whose reaction ranged from complaints that the commitment to oil drilling was inadequate to open hostility: House Minority Leader John Boehner whined that Obama "continues to defy the will of the American people."

In fairness, Obama has complained for years that no, he really hasn't changed his position on offshore oil drilling:

He would be willing to compromise on his position against offshore oil drilling if it were part of a more overarching strategy to lower energy costs.

Obama's announcement is largely symbolic, and designed as an olive branch to Senator Lindsay Graham and others looking for a grand gesture that opens the door to an all-party compromise. But it is a lousy symbol as immediate reactions show, and reciprocation by Republicans in Congress is less likely than a gaggle of winged pigs. Oil production would take years to reach market, and will do little to increase oil supply. And of course, more oil means more carbon emissions, both in the production and the use of the oil. Which makes the prospects in Europe all than much more of a beacon for real progress:

The switch to renewables is more than a matter of energy security, said the report, backed by research from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and the European Climate Forum, both based in Potsdam, Germany.

"Substantial and fairly rapid decarbonisation... will have to take place if the world is to have any chance of staying within the 2.0 degree Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) goal for limiting the effects of global warming," the report said.

"All of the above" is not a credible energy policy. Leadership means making choices, picking some options and rejecting others. Small, hesitant commitments to a little of everything will produce not much of anything.

Update: fixed broken sentence

Tea Power

2010-03-29T07:33:00.000-07:00

The Kenya Tea Development Agency (KTDA) has a massive power bill from over 60 factories that process tea from 500,000 farmers. The supply from the national grid is costly and erratic, so last summer the KTDA created an energy subsidiary to pursue locally generated hydropower, reducing factory costs and boosting farmers' incomes. The Kenyan Ministry of Energy identified 12 sites for the KTDA to develop distributed hydropower generation. Two of these sites are now under development:

Imenti Tea Factory Company is already generating 1 megawatt through the Imenti mini-hydro project. Last June, the factory signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with the Kenya Power and Lighting Company to supply surplus power to the national grid. The second project still under construction at Gura river in Nyeri is a four-factory partnership that will serve the KTDA factories at Gitugi, Iriani, Chinga and Gathuthi.

The KTDA has invited expressions of interest to develop the sites. Meanwhile, consultants are reviewing the remaining sites and updating feasibility studies.

According to Mr. Daniel Theuri, the Team Leader at Que Energy Limited, which conducted the feasibility studies, 10 of the 12 sites are commercially viable with an estimated payback period of between two and five years. The 10 sites have a combined capacity of 22 MW.

Small hydros are constructed under a process known as “run of river” and do not affect the local communities as power is generated from the natural flow of the river.

[Kenyan Energy Minister, Mr. Kiraitu] Murungi urged KTDA and its factory companies to move fast and implement small hydros in the viable sites. He said affordable financing could be accessed by the agency once a proposal for implementation is approved.

The Kenyan tea industry, from farmers to factories to rural tea houses represent another opportunity for Hydrovolts turbines to make cost-effective, clean and green, distributed renewable energy. We've also received inquiries from India's tea sector.

Conservatives Announce Plan to Promote Renewable Energy

2010-03-28T08:06:00.000-07:00

Conservatives recently announced a 12-point action plan to boost renewable energy and nuclear power. The plan would also entail a substantial change to the energy sector. The plan recognizes the historical abundance of oil and gas in the country as well as the relatively recent rise of concern over pollution, resource depletion, and the green house gases emissions that are fueling climate change.

Some of the specific initiatives include:

A Green Investment Bank to provide public funding for new energy technologies
Establishing a "floor" price for carbon and an upstream tax
Accelerated demonstration projects for energy storage and carbon capture
Establishing an "energy internet", including distributed generation and a smart grid
Household incentives for energy efficiency
Electrifying the transport system
Implementing national feed-in tariffs

The current energy approach is "out of date"; what is needed are:

...proposals to send long term and predictable carbon price signals to the market will help investors and project developers. Similarly, proposals to make investments in the infrastructure needed to improve ... energy security more attractive will benefit the energy sector, as well as the wider economy.

[snip]

Unless we diversify our energy sources, unless we upgrade our energy networks, unless we pay as much attention to energy efficiency as we do to energy production, then our energy supplies will be neither secure nor sustainable.

Leaders of the energy industry, including large users of fossil fuels, lauded the "progressive" approach and welcomed the ways in which the plan would reduce planning uncertainty for business.

However, this proposal, despite its obvious merits will solve nothing here in the United States. Why?

This is a proposal from the Conservative Party in the UK. While one can easily quibble around the margins, what this proposal shows plainly is that true conservatives can see clearly how a coherent and forward-looking energy and industrial policy can be good economics, good policy and good politics. Writes party leader David Cameron (emphasis added):

British energy policy is out of date. It was designed almost thirty years ago for a world in which Britain had an excess of generating capacity; in which we enjoyed the benefits of growing North Sea oil and gas production; and in which neither local pollution nor climate change were the concerns they are today.

The most important question facing policy makers at that time was how to exploit resources and sweat assets at the least possible cost to consumers. The energy policy that is still with us now was the answer to that question – and, for a while, it appeared to be the right answer.

However, power plants get old, fossil fuel reserves dwindle away and pollution builds up to critical proportions. The benign conditions that applied a generation ago, do not apply today – and have not done so for at least a decade. The fundamental assumptions that underpin British energy policy have fundamentally changed.

The policy framework should have changed too, but, in thirteen years of Labour government, ministers have consistently ducked the task of reform. As a result, golden opportunities to update Britain’s ageing energy systems have been missed and the major investments needed to ensure the security and sustainability of our energy supplies have yet to be made.

Deferring decisions until time is running out is more costly than acting in a planned, timely manner. Thus, in addition to the burden of financial debt, Labour has left behind an ‘energy debt’ – one which consumers will have to pay for in the decades to come.

Indeed, most of the world's conservatives get this. Just not those in the United States.

New Logo

2010-03-26T22:54:00.000-07:00

We've updated our logo:

It still has the diamond shape containing a stylized water-course with power bursting forth.

We'll be rolling it out on the web site, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and our various print pieces over the next few weeks. Also coming soon: a fresh look for our web site.

As always, we'd love to hear your comments and ideas...

Low-Impact Hydropower

2010-03-25T23:56:00.000-07:00

The Obama administration's peripatetic interest in renewable energy focused yesterday on hydropower:

The Energy and Interior departments and the Army Corps of Engineers have agreed to create a new strategy for promoting hydropower development while reducing environmental impacts and streamlining regulations. But, the agencies caution, do not expect a proliferation of new dams.

"This is not ushering in a 21st century new dam era," Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said. "This is taking a look at existing facilities and low-impact hydro. This is an examination of what we can do with hydropower that does not necessitate the building of new dams."

Hydrokinetic power!

Under a new memorandum of understanding, the administration will evaluate new hydropower technologies and their potential impact on U.S. renewable energy supplies. Federal agencies will examine the potential of installing hydrokinetic turbines in major rivers, turbines in water pipelines beneath streets, highly efficient turbines to replace those in existing dams and turbines on existing turbineless dams.

Estimates vary on the amount of power untapped hydro sources might yield, but Energy Secretary Steven Chu estimated it could range between 16,000 and 25,000 megawatts.

A detailed assessment will provide a framework that will provide confidence to private investment:

The MOU directs the agencies to formulate a resource assessment of current Army Corps and Bureau of Reclamation facilities as well as identify ways to upgrade and modernize those facilities and install sustainable hydropower technologies at new sites.

The agencies will also coordinate research and development on advanced hydropower technologies and quantify the hydropower potential at federal facilities.

This is good, but private investment, especially in this financial climate, will not be enough. The federal government also needs to find ways to accelerate the technology to harness the enormous hydropower potential. Large sums are going to solar and nuclear; a similar commitment is needed for hydro:

"The concept of incentives is going to be critical moving forward. They need to align within the licensing and permitting process," said Linda Church Ciocci, executive director of the National Hydropower Association. "We need to take a hard look at ... what will make all this work in the end."

Update: Text of the MOU.

Climate Whodunit

2010-03-23T23:59:00.000-07:00

Who killed the climate?

For all the niggling over minor mistakes in the IPCC report, the preponderance of the evidence points to greenhouse gases:

So, we have a precedent for how climate change policy should be determined, not by the bogus logic that any hint of uncertainty in any of the climate science should be grounds for doing nothing, but rather that the overwhelming preponderance of the evidence demonstrating the human link to climate change should frame our actions.

A Full Accounting

2010-03-19T23:57:00.000-07:00

How much environmental damage results from business as usual? According to a forthcoming United Nations report about $2.2 trillion in 2008--from the activities of just the 3,000 largest global corporations. This amount is larger than the national economies of all but 7 countries in the world.

The report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.

Later this year, another huge UN study - dubbed the "Stern for nature" after the influential report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern - will attempt to put a price on such global environmental damage, and suggest ways to prevent it. The report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage.

The biggest cost is from the despoiling of our commons, i.e. the dumping of wastes into and onto that owned by humanity collectively, especially the air by pollution and greenhouse gases that cause climate change. The realization that we must protect our common environment has been taking hold for years. The Clean Air Act and The Clean Water Act were responses to the recognition that it harms all of us to allow our air and water to be fouled at our cost and for someone else's profit. The impact of greenhouse gases is much the same: costs to many (and extreme costs to some) while a few make greater profits by not having to pay for the full costs of what they do.

These externalized costs are a growing threat not just to the environment but to the health of the economy as well. Richard Mattison of Trucost, creator of the report, noted that "externalities of this scale and nature pose a major risk to the global economy and markets are not fully aware of these risks, nor do they know how to deal with them." While the estimated cost includes emissions into the air and pollution of water it does not include several things likely to drive the total cost higher: consumption by individuals, governments and smaller businesses, toxic wastes, and the consequential climate change effects such as mitigating erosion, and eco-migration.

Mattison observed that the costs will take a big bite about of profit margins, and what the policy response will be is unclear:

Whether they actually have to pay for these costs will be determined by the appetite for policy makers to enforce the 'polluter pays' principle. We should be seeking ways to fix the system, rather than waiting for the economy to adapt. Continued inefficient use of natural resources will cause significant impacts on [national economies] overall, and a massive problem for governments to fix.

Companies should start acting to clean up their act now rather than wait for a full-fledged disaster and a politicized policy response. Done right, they can even do well on their bottom line even as they do good for the environment.

(h/t 12 Degrees of Freedom)

Paying Dearly

2010-03-17T10:55:00.000-07:00

Australian ethicist and author Clive Hamilton has written a series of lucid articles that provides needed perspective on the SwiftHack affair (the so-called "Climategate scandal".)

While the “revelations” have been milked for all they are worth, and a lot more, the science remains rock solid. If instead of cherry-picking two or three that lend themselves to spin, you read the 1000 or so emails that were posted on a Russian server the picture that emerges is one of an enormously dedicated group of men and women doing their best to carry out research of the highest quality.

[snip]

And the emails reveal the enormous external pressure they were under. They show they were constantly accused of being frauds and cheats; their work was twisted and misrepresented; and they were bombarded with vexatious freedom of information requests orchestrated by denialists. In short, they were caught up in a hot political debate that they did not really understand or want to be part of, yet they were the target of savvy, secretive and ruthless organisations ready to pounce on anything they said or wrote.

The charge that these scientists have been engaged in some kind of deep and carefully hidden conspiracy to foist alarm about climate change on a gullible public does not withstand scrutiny.

As Hamilton and many others have repeatedly shown, there is no evidence for such a conspiracy. There is also no plausible motive for so many scientists to act, in essence, against their own self-interest. When scientists fabricate their work and are caught, their careers are irretrievably ruined. What does motivate scientists, especially those early in their careers, is precisely the opposite of careful conformity. Disproving some generally accepted scientific theory and surviving a careful peer review establishes a name and a reputation. Constantly probing for flaws in scientific theories and proposing better ones is the means by which our scientific understanding of the world advances.

At the core of the attacks is a lack of understanding of science and its method:

Bloggers and columnists, who attack climate science without ever opening an IPCC report or speaking to a real climate scientists, imagine that the body of climate science is a house of cards, and taking away one or two will cause it to collapse. In fact the scientific case for global warming is like a mountain built up by adding one rock at a time over many years. Even if all of the alleged errors were true it would amount to picking off a handful of rocks from the top of the mountain, leaving the rest unchanged and unmoved.

Yet these alleged mistakes – non-existent or trivial – with no implications whatever for the robustness of climate science have been deployed in a sophisticated campaign to blacken the reputations of the scientists responsible for alerting us to the perils of global warming.

The purpose of the campaign is to create doubt and delay, allowing those who fund the disinformation to continue to profit from business as usual.

Over the last five months, a vast gulf has opened up between the media-stoked perception that the climate science has been exaggerated and the research-driven evidence that the true situation is worse than we thought.

If anything, the dangers have been understated; the rate of change is accelerating. The FUD campaign is succeeding. Concludes Hamilton:

Just when we should be urging immediate and deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions, the public is being lulled into disbelief, scepticism and apathy by a sustained and politically driven assault on the credibility of climate science. For this we will all pay dearly.

(h/t Climate Progress)

Hydropower Potential - III

2010-03-16T10:16:00.000-07:00

There is significant untapped potential for hydropower around the world, including in the UK and in Europe more generally. There's also great potential in the United States.

In 2006 the US Department of Energy (DOE) Hydropower Division conducted an assessment of the potential for new micro and small hydropower across the USA.The assessment is based on traditional hydropower potential, not hydrokinetic potential, but the values are useful to note. DOE has identified over 500,000 sites with enough water volume and head that can each generate at least 10kW, and DOE has even mapped them online for every state with its Virtual Hydropower Prospector tool. DOE further overlaid various feasibility criteria in its maps and identified approximately 130,000 sites meeting the criteria. At least 20% of these sites would be suitable for at least one Hydrovolts turbine, for a total of 26,000 sites and at least that many turbines.
More than 1,500MW of annual mean power is available in each of Washington, Oregon, California, Idaho and Alaska. In some of these states utilities are already exploring how to harness this great untapped resource. For example, the Snohomish PUD in Washington State is planning more than 10 small hydro projects, including at Young's Creek. Says General Manager Steve Klein, "We're in a situation where we're doing what our customers and society want."

Similar projects have been proposed or completed in British Columbia, Colorado, and throughout the Pacific Northwest. The DOE study notes more than 500 suitable sites in Washington alone. Hydrovolts turbines provide an alternative technology to realize the promise of small hydropower for utility customers as well as isolated communities owning their own micro-grid. Unlike projects such as the one at Furry Creek, BC shown in the picture above, the Hydrovolts approach does not require the expense and environmental impact of a dam or weir, and allows both fish and whitewater enthusiasts easily to pass.

Hydrovolts turbines are a viable alternative to conventional hydropower in many places, and offer an attractive amount of power generation at significantly lower cost and reduced environmental impact.

Enough Science, We Need More Marketing

2010-03-14T10:25:00.000-07:00

Eric Roston at Grist considers the problem that renewable energy and other green technologies can be more expensive than the fossil/nuclear infrastructure we've used until now, and suggests some companies that might lead public opinion to the cleantech future:

I can’t help but wonder if the wrong companies are on the case. Shouldn’t Starbucks (which more than doubled the price of coffee), Apple (whose iPod delivers a tenth the sound quality of analog music at four times the cost), and AT&T (more dropped calls) get to work on making expensive-but-clean tech a style-driven phenomenon?

Sadly, he's on to something.

Simple

2010-03-13T13:28:00.000-08:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine is designed to be complete, compact, modular, safe, simple and scalable.

There are several aspects of being simple:

Simple design. The Flipwing is composed of 4 basic components: the rotor, the generator, the electronics, and the deployment. Each component is built with a minimum of materials and designed to accomplish its sole primary function; respectively: spinning, converting kinetic energy to electricity, making the electricity usable, and keeping the turbine optimally positioned.
Simple deployment. Being a self-contained floating unit, the Flipwing can be deployed in as little as an hour, and removed just as easily. Hook-up to equipment or to the grid uses equipment and procedures pioneered and long-used by small wind, solar and fossil fuel generators.
Simple maintenance. Since it easily taken in and out, the Flipwing can be out of the water for routine maintenance and back in without significant downtime. The simple design allows routine cleaning and lubrication to be done using common hand tools and off-the-shelf supplies and equipment.
Simple value. The Flipwing makes continuous, low-cost and immediately usable power, solving a basic need for business, communities and individuals world-wide.

Simple is good. Power from Water.

For your amusement, a satirical look at the perils of (large) corporations trying to do a simple design without having a simple objective in mind:

(h/t Polizeros)

The Power of the Open Road

2010-03-12T23:48:00.000-08:00

What will power our transportation future? The Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) has built a prototype magnetic train that runs on an electrical road:

On Tuesday researchers launched an environmentally friendly public transport system using a "recharging road"-- with a vehicle sucking power magnetically from buried electric strips.

The Online Electric Vehicle (OLEV), towing three buses, went into service at an amusement park in southern Seoul. If the prototype proves successful, there are plans to try it out on a bus route in the capital.

Our transportation future will not run on fossil fuels because those fuels will become increasingly expensive. Whether due to peak oil, or carbon pricing, or both, fossil fuels will eventually (and perhaps very soon) cost more than the alternatives: the various bio-diesel formulations and electricity. (The unlikelihood of such things as hydrogen power and fuel cells will be the subject, perhaps, of some future post.)

Current electric car technology is mostly seeking a transitional path through hybrids and plug-in hybrids, although fully electric vehicles are still mostly an expensive but exciting novelty. All-electric vehicles are constrained by the dual problems of being charged and then holding and using that charge to drive the vehicle meaningful distances. Many smart people and companies are working on these problems and they will eventually be solved in a practical way at a cost that will be acceptable, if only because the alternatives will not be.

The OLEV system bypasses these challenges because the power comes from the road, not from large, heavy batteries that must be recharged, typically for hours. KAIST claims the batteries in the vehicles will be only a fifth the size of those in a "conventional" electric vehicle and will require no "major" recharging. The system is similar to electric buses run from overhead wires, like the Metro 70 I take to the Hydrovolts office. However, not only are the wires are underground, but they needn't even be laid over the entire route:

Pick-up equipment underneath OLEV collects power through non-contact magnetic charging from strips buried under the road surface. It then distributes the power either to drive the vehicle or for battery storage.

If the system is used on Seoul bus routes, underground power lines would have to be installed on only 20% of the route at places like bus stops, parking places, and intersections, KAIST said in a statement.

Such smaller loops spaced along the route could even usefully be powered by distributed energy sources.

KAIST President Suh Nam-Pyo claims the cost is only a third that of the most competitive competing system:

Of all the world's electric vehicles, this is the most economical system... The potential for application [of this technology to public transport systems] is limitless. I dare say this is one of the most significant technical gains in the 21st century.

In a future electrified transportation system, this could be an exciting start.

Hydropower Potential - II

2010-03-10T23:55:00.000-08:00

The potential for Hydropower is enormous throughout the world, including in Europe. France, Italy and Norway have especially good hydropower resources, as does Turkey, from which we have had several purchase and distributor inquiries for turbines. But other countries have great potential too--like in the UK:

A study commissioned by the Government body has concluded that there is vast untapped potential across the England and Wales for generating energy from rivers.

Waterways in Wales, the upper reaches of the Thames, the Humber, the Aire, Severn and the Mersey have been identified as having the most potential.

The report found 5,000 sites for small and medium hydropower installations and another 21,000 sites were possible if river ecology could be adequately protected. The non-technical version of the report [pdf] reveals that the study focused on low-head hydro:

A total of 25935 ‘barriers’ have been identified and assessed. The term ‘barriers’ describes sites with sufficient drop to provide a hydropower opportunity. They are mostly weirs, but could also be other anthropogenic structures or natural features, such as waterfalls. The estimated average maximum power generation capacity on a barrier was 45kW, with a total potential capacity of nearly 1200MW, which could provide a maximum of about 1% of the UK’s projected electricity demand in 2020. In reality, the practical potential will be a fraction of this due to practical and environmental constraints.

There was immediate oppositon from fishermen and preservationists, but the authors of the report also suggest that, done properly, small hydro can provide benefits for watercourse ecology:

There is significant potential for win-win schemes that deliver hydropower and improvements in fish passage. Initial analysis suggests that about 4000 barriers were identified as potential win-wins. This represents half of the total power potential. Grants for fish passes alongside hydropower schemes could help unlock this potential.

It is doubtful that opponents will be so readily convinced of the supposed "win-win" nature of the idea. However, hydrokinetic turbines like the Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine can often work in these sites as well because water moves fast where it drops. There are certainly many more sites without these "barriers" but which also have fast water.

The report posits that more "fish-friendly" turbines like the Archimedes Screw would be necessary, along with safe passage routes for fish and sufficient flow to allow them to avoid the turbines altogether. The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine fits the need and the constraints perfectly.

The report concludes that additional hydropower may amount to only 1% of projected demand, but would still be very worthwhile to pursue:

Despite these small figures, hydropower offers a number of other advantages. It is a reliable and proven technology and is particularly attractive to local communities. Furthermore, the UK’s target of generating 15% of its energy from renewables by 2020 is extremely ambitious. In the Renewable Energy Strategy (2009), the Department for Energy and Climate Change suggest that 31% of electricity will need to be renewable to meet this target. This means we will need to exploit all available renewable energy sources to their sustainable maximum.

The UK is also introducing a feed-in tariff next month that will pay handsomely for small scale hydropower. Many good sites, fish-friendly, significant financial incentives, renewable energy targets--a perfect blend for the advance of small hydropower, particularly hydrokinetic turbines.

The Euthanasia of Reason

2010-03-06T23:50:00.000-08:00

Goya created the famous etching with the even more famous caption "The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters." While he may perhaps have sought to convey sleep as unleashing creativity, the caption as well as the imagery of foolish owls and ignorant bats is now used mostly as metaphor for the disasters that result from a lack of critical thinking.

It is a sleeping sickness for it renders its victims at length incapable of exercising their faculties' full function. The sickness is virulent, as it is readily contagious to those with a mental immune system weakened by atrophy. Even the somewhat more hale of mind are also susceptible to those evangelizing the joys of dimwittery who are as vectors for the pathology of embraced ignorance.

Perhaps, gentle reader, you think I wax over-much and with an excess of alarm? Sadly, no. These monsters of unreason have been so widely loosed that the resulting grotesqueries are everywhere visible. For example, behold the rich vein of raw unreason displayed in this recent piece: "Darwin Foes Add Warming to Targets." (The reporter, Leslie Kaufman, does not much heap irrationality on the idiocies of those quoted, but is, alas, guilty of journalistic stenography: can not the most absurd and ridiculous of statements be tagged for the utter nonsense that it is?)

How deep is our sleep? Let's bestir ourselves and see...

Critics of the teaching of evolution in the nation’s classrooms are gaining ground in some states by linking the issue to global warming, arguing that dissenting views on both scientific subjects should be taught in public schools.

Wingnuts unite! Apparently idiocy, not just misery, loves company. Now, I agree "dissenting views" on "scientific" subjects should be introduced in the instruction of science, but only where such dissenting views are themselves scientific. Do we indulge in the criticisms of grammarians to attack economics? Is it useful to marshal artists to impugn studies of zoology? Can chemists contribute meaningfully to the study of music? Each field has its own foundations, norms, corpus and methods of inquiry and adjudication. Teaching "dissenting views" that spring from the sleep of intellect merely muddies the field of inquiry and dumbs down the discourse.

In Kentucky, a bill recently introduced in the Legislature would encourage teachers to discuss “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories,” including “evolution, the origins of life, global warming and human cloning.”

What is the value of discussing “the advantages and disadvantages of scientific theories?” And why would such a discussion matter in the context of science? One scientific theory holds that obesity causes an increased likelihood of such unhealthy outcomes as diabetes, hypertension and coronary disease. This is quite disadvantageous, but so what? Pretending that such a well-supported scientific theory is disadvantageous is specious at best. Theories are not supported or disproved by how convenient they are.

“Our kids are being presented theories as though they are facts,” said State Representative Tim Moore of Kentucky.

This is anti-science propaganda masquerading as a reasonable and common-sense distinction, debasing all of common-sense, science and reason. I am tempted to don my philosopher's hat and challenge Moore to define his terms. What's a theory? What's a fact? Moore and many like him don't use these terms as science uses them; in his epistemology what he believes is a fact, while what I believe (and he doesn't) he terms a theory. In science, belief plays no role. Facts are repeatable observations. Hypotheses are explanations for facts that both predict future observations and are disprovable if those observations are different from what the hypothesis predicts. Theories are coherent and organized frameworks of hypotheses. Moore and others who speak of climate change or evolution dismissively as theories need to learn more about the scientific method. Yes, they are theories, as are gravity, nuclear fission, and the earth orbiting the sun.

The bill, which has yet to be voted on, is patterned on even more aggressive efforts in other states to fuse such issues. In Louisiana, a law passed in 2008 says the state board of education may assist teachers in promoting “critical thinking” on all of those subjects.

Teaching and encouraging critical thinking should be what all teachers do, at every level and in every subject, especially the sciences. How should a board of education "assist?" Promoting the exercise of reason "to help students understand, analyze, critique, and review scientific theories in an objective manner" is good; micro-managing and mandating the content of instruction is not. On the literal level language like that of this law really says rather little and should be unnecessary; it is there more as a dog-whistle to those who actually advocate religious and anti-science views.

Last year, the Texas Board of Education adopted language requiring that teachers present all sides of the evidence on evolution and global warming.

To paraphrase many others, you are entitled to your own theories, but not your own facts. There are no "sides" to evidence. Evidence is what we repeatedly observe, record and document. Theories are how you explain the observation and provide a framework for predicting future observation. It is fair, indeed necessary, to present competing theories, providing they are truly theories constructed by the scientific method and tested (and testable) against the evidence. What the reactionary and vigorously regressive Texas Board of Education really wants of course is to gin up a "debate" on these subjects despite the absence of a scientific basis, evidence or viable competing theories for doing so. Such an agenda undermines both science and students' ability to learn it. By making scientific instruction subservient to a political and religious agenda, the Board not just shirks its duty but condemns its students to scientific illiteracy. Is it any wonder that US students are increasingly at a competitive disadvantage in the global competition for higher education and scientific and technological leadership? The next time you hear someone fulminate about our education system's deficiency, consider this. Our students' peers in other countries are not hamstrung by such unscientific pap.

Oklahoma introduced a bill with similar goals in 2009, although it was not enacted.

The linkage of evolution and global warming is partly a legal strategy: courts have found that singling out evolution for criticism in public schools is a violation of the separation of church and state. By insisting that global warming also be debated, deniers of evolution can argue that they are simply championing academic freedom in general.

This has nothing to do with academic freedom; to the contrary, the partisans of climate change and evolution denial seek to discredit and repress science. The vilification of climate scientists is designed to intimidate and silence; it aims to destroy academic freedom, not champion it. The tactics are unrelated to the normal conduct of academic inquiry or scientific method. Insisting on "balance" in the classroom by presenting both peer-reviewed science and a priori religious views does a disservice to both. Pretending that the motivation is a high-minded exercise independent of partisan objective is not credible. The abuse of the court system to interfere with scientific inquiry, the freedom to pursue it and its dispassionate dissemination would be a worthy target of tort reform.

Yet they are also capitalizing on rising public resistance in some quarters to accepting the science of global warming, particularly among political conservatives who oppose efforts to rein in emissions of greenhouse gases.

One hand washes the other. This rising resistance corresponds to the growth of the disinformation campaign that suggests the appropriate arbiters of the merits of scientific theories are political fashions and individual prejudices. That many political conservatives are hostile to the science of climate change is really rather puzzling, and begs the question: what does it mean to be a conservative? Edmund Burke famously cautioned against mob rule, so why selectively subject some science to a plebiscite of public opinion? The unseemly and seismic lust towards power for its own sake has separated conservatism from its ideological foundations.

In South Dakota, a resolution calling for the “balanced teaching of global warming in public schools” passed the Legislature this week. “Carbon dioxide is not a pollutant,” the resolution said, “but rather a highly beneficial ingredient for all plant life.”

I'll wait while you go read the resolution itself; it's only one page. OK, how unhinged is that? They recycle the canard of global cooling, lie about atmospheric warming and urge instruction on the "astrological dynamics" on weather! If carbon dioxide is the "gas of life" let them try breathing the stuff and we'll see how lively that makes them. Remember that these are politicians using their positions as law-makers to both trample science and pronounce what shall be taught as science. The legislators who authored this gibberish may find carbon dioxide beneficial (perhaps because their mental functioning is nearly vegetative?) but those of us who are not plants, including our conservative Supreme Court, find it both polluting and dangerous.

The measure made no mention of evolution, but opponents of efforts to dilute the teaching of evolution noted that the language was similar to that of bills in other states that had included both. The vote split almost entirely along partisan lines in both houses, with Republican voting for it and Democrats voting against.

One party has embraced messy pragmatism and lives in the reality-based community. The other... not so much.

For mainstream scientists, there is no credible challenge to evolutionary theory. They oppose the teaching of alternative views like intelligent design, the proposition that life is so complex that it must be the design of an intelligent being. And there is wide agreement among scientists that global warming is occurring and that human activities are probably driving it. Yet many conservative evangelical Christians assert that both are examples of scientists’ overstepping their bounds.

The critical term here is "alternative views." Intelligent design is not an alternative theory, i.e. a competing scientific explanation, because it offers no capability to predict future phenomena. And because it makes no predictions, it cannot be falsified by observation, i.e. it cannot be refuted by science. Thus, it is dogma, not science--Creationism without the Creator. (As an aside, the deduction is faulty since it has a ready counter-example: our global financial system. It is forbiddingly complex beyond the comprehension of any one individual, yet it was created not by an intelligent being--insert banker-bashing joke here--but by an uncounted multitude of individual, self-interested actors. Does then its existence imply a sole creator, or rather its, er, evolution over time? Or should we deduce instead that intelligent design suggests not a Creator but instead pantheism?) Attempts to link climate change skepticism to attacks on evolution do not aid those attacks, but instead reek of desperation and highlight the flaccid reasoning of the skeptics. "Conservative evangelical Christians" should first get out of their glass houses before accusing scientists of "overstepping their bounds." And what bounds are those anyway?

John G. West, a senior fellow with the Discovery Institute in Seattle, a group that advocates intelligent design and has led the campaign for teaching critiques of evolution in the schools, said that the institute was not specifically promoting opposition to accepted science on climate change. Still, Mr. West said, he is sympathetic to that cause.

“There is a lot of similar dogmatism on this issue,” he said, “with scientists being persecuted for findings that are not in keeping with the orthodoxy. We think analyzing and evaluating scientific evidence is a good thing, whether that is about global warming or evolution.”

There's persecution of scientists going on, but it is directed at those patiently and methodically advancing understanding of the natural world through patient observation and peer review. The orthodoxy that engenders the persecution arises from fundamentalism (evolution) and an unwavering defense of entrenched energy interests (climate change), not from some supposed cabal of scientific correctness. The dogmatism West decries best characterizes intelligent design and climate change skepticism, two "alternative views" that are noteworthy for the lack of scientific rigor in their construction. Science is not magic. Those from the Discovery Institute and its brethren who would analyze and evaluate evidence could usefully start doing so with their own "theories."

Lawrence M. Krauss, a physicist who directs the Origins Initiative at Arizona State University and has spoken against efforts to water down the teaching of evolution to school boards in Texas and Ohio, described the move toward climate-change skepticism as a predictable offshoot of creationism.

“Wherever there is a battle over evolution now,” he said, “there is a secondary battle to diminish other hot-button issues like Big Bang and, increasingly, climate change. It is all about casting doubt on the veracity of science — to say it is just one view of the world, just another story, no better or more valid than fundamentalism.”

Krauss fingers the the rot at the core of our brainless public discourse. Opponents of policy on climate change tirelessly promote the supposed equivalence of "alternative views" and thereby implicitly reject the very foundations of scientific knowledge and method. Whether through ignorance or outright mendacity the result is the same--the devaluation and ultimate destruction of reason as a tool for understanding and decision-making. Instead, the process of enlightened inquiry is subjugated to superstitious thinking and the politics of tribal identity. The result is a ceaseless and alienating polarization, devoid of fact and reason, disconnected from the search for truth, and resembling nothing more than playground taunting in a recess from reason without end.

Not all evangelical Christians reject the notion of climate change, of course. There is a budding green evangelical movement in the country driven partly by a belief that because God created the earth, humans are obligated to care for it.

Are you one of these people? For the love of God, will you please speak up?

Yet there is little doubt that the skepticism about global warming resonates more strongly among conservatives, and Christian conservatives in particular. A survey published in October by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that white evangelical Protestants were among those least likely to believe that there was “solid evidence” that the Earth was warming because of human activity.

Only 23 percent of those surveyed accepted that idea, compared with 36 percent of the American population as a whole.

If you are one of those "least likely to believe" the evidence that we are destroying our only home, ask yourself what the origin is for that belief. Why is the evidence less compelling than someone's unscientific say-so? Choosing the shrill opinions of bloviating gasbags on TV or those who profit from deception over decades of unglamorous but methodical research is an abdication of reason. Dormez-vous, monsieur?

The Rev. Jim Ball, senior director for climate programs at the Evangelical Environmental Network, a group with members who accept the science of global warming, said that many of the deniers feel that “it is hubris to think that human beings could disrupt something that God created.”

The deniers know none of reason, history or current events. The Rev. Ball's organization is a voice for environmental sanity, and his site notes the Biblical passage which says the Lord will destroy those who destroy the Earth (Rev 11:18) so disruption seems quite possible. Indeed, humans are constantly disrupting what God created both on a spiritual level by the evil they do, and on the physical level including through habitat destruction, the extinction of species, mass landscaping, and yes, climate change. Then there were those other historical disruptions, like Hiroshima and the Holocaust. No, it is hubris to think we are incapable of evil, destruction, or selfish behavior, including the destruction of the Earth for temporary profit.

“This group already feels like scientists are attacking their faith and calling them idiots,” he said, “so they are likely to be skeptical” about global warming.

Most scientists are far too cautious and too focused on their work to call them idiots. An idiot is a stupid or ignorant person; the inability or unwillingness of the deniers to grasp elementary principles of science and reason is, well, ignorant. Thus, they are idiots. In their case the way to shed the label is not to attack those who are not ignorant, but to become educated.

For some this may be difficult:

State Representative Tim Moore, a Republican who introduced the bill in the Kentucky Legislature, said he was motivated not by religion but by what he saw as a distortion of scientific knowledge.

“Our kids are being presented theories as though they are facts,” he said. “And with global warming especially, there has become a politically correct viewpoint among educational elites that is very different from sound science.”

Moore manipulates the words "theory" and "fact" by using the lay definitions but applying them to science. In scientific endeavor these words are not opposites, yet that is how the deniers routinely characterize them by suggesting that if something is a mere theory that it is therefore not factual. This betrays ignorance of how science works and the meaning of the tools scientists use. The rest of his idiocy cannot then be taken seriously.

The evolution curriculum has developed far more than instruction on climate change. It is almost universally required in biology classes, while the science of global warming, a newer topic, is taught more sporadically, depending on the interest of teachers and school planners.

But interest in making climate change a standard part of school curriculum is growing. Under President Obama, for example, the Climate Education Interagency Working Group, which represents more than a dozen federal agencies, is making a strong push toward “climate literacy” for teachers and students.

Here is the real and disheartening thrust of climate denial in education. These legal and educational initiatives are deliberately designed to attack science outside of its rules. It is nothing short of an attack on knowledge itself, and is designed to advance a self-serving and partisan agenda on the strength of ignorance. By keeping the mob stupid, they remain more readily swayed by fear-mongering, exactly the danger identified by that previously mentioned paragon of conservatism, Edmund Burke.

State Representative Don Kopp, a Republican who was the main sponsor of the South Dakota resolution, said he acted in part because “An Inconvenient Truth,” a documentary film on global warming starring Al Gore, was being shown in some public schools without a counterweight.

Any time you hear any opponent of science and reason mention Al Gore you know that tribal identity politics are at work. If a classroom were shown materials about Copernicus and his (ahem!) theory of heliocentricity, would that also demand a "counterweight?" Should we not give Ptolemy equal time? This should not be about Al Gore or his film, but about teaching critical thinking. Presenting a "he said, she said" dichotomy without comment, fact-checking or analysis, and expecting students to sort it all out on their own does not work; all it does is encourage the taking of sides based on such ephemera as cosmetic appeal, reputation or name familiarity. Our media is besotted with this kind of stenography and the faux controversy it concocts. What Kopp, Moore and others want to create is the same unrefereed "debate" that elevates belief and opinion to the same respectability as fact-supported scientific theory. Such an approach does not elucidate; it obscures. It does not teach; it confuses.

The legal incentive to pair global warming with evolution in curriculum battles stems in part from a 2005 ruling by a United States District Court judge in Atlanta that the Cobb County Board of Education, which had placed stickers on certain textbooks encouraging students to view evolution as only a theory, had violated First Amendment strictures on the separation of church and state. Although the sticker was not overtly religious, the judge said, its use was unconstitutional because evolution alone was the target, which indicated that it was a religious issue.

Regrettably, despite the religious motive for the sticker, its content was in fact correct--evolution is a theory. That both sides would, in essence, agree that deeming it a "theory" would imply it was counterfactual is a sad testament to the degradation of scientific understanding in both our schools and our civic discourse.

After that, said Joshua Rosenau, a project director for the National Center for Science Education, he began noticing that attacks on climate change science were being packaged with criticism of evolution in curriculum initiatives.

He fears that even a few state-level victories could have an effect on what gets taught across the nation.

The teaching of science must include explication of what terms like "theory" actually mean. The controversy around stickers and textbooks would be rendered largely moot if there were a real effort to teach not just the facts and theories of science, but more importantly, how the process of science works, and the importance of the scientific method and the use of critical thinking. Students (and adults) increasingly expect to be told what is true, and accept it uncritically--to believe it, without ever learning how to challenge assumptions and the importance of doing so. No education or curriculum reform will make any difference to the decline of our intellectual capital until we change this.

James D. Marston, director of the Texas regional office of the Environmental Defense Fund, said he worried that, given Texas’ size and centralized approval process, its decision on textbooks could have an outsize influence on how publishers prepare science content for the national market.

“If a textbook does not give enough deference to critics of climate change — or does not say that there is real scientific debate, when in fact there is little to none — they will have a basis for turning it down,” Mr. Marston said of the Texas board. “And that is scary for what our children will learn everywhere.”

Very true. The role of Texas is absurd and the politicization of the process that produces the nation's textbooks leads to an inferior result destructive of our educational system. It is depressing that armies of parents turn out, zombie-like, to demand their prejudices and superstitions be enshrined as knowledge. It is even more depressing that the Texas Board is overweighted with aggressive partisans who use those parents as justification for the shameless implementation of their own narrow and parochial agenda on the rest of the country. And finally, it is dispiriting that the fight, while worth waging, over the content of these textbooks so dominates that we miss the real horror--a nation that is losing the ability to sort the important from the trivial, to separate science from belief, to think critically about its future and the problems growing both in number and seriousness that confront us.

A mass delusion is growing as tens of millions in the United States and many more around the world nurture a stunted and distorted view of science. Over the past 300 years this jewel of human intellectual accomplishment has accelerated our standard of living to previously unimaginable heights. Science, and in its application, technology, have created the very tools so-called conservatives employ to denigrate its value. With a relentless hostility to results they find inconvenient, they ignore the palpable hypocrisy of agreeing with science only when it suits their beliefs or mercenary ends.

The sleep of reason produces monsters, but in the decline of our discourse they are spawned not from creativity but delusion. Unable or unwilling to grasp the meaning and methods of science, politicians and pundits nonetheless pass judgment on its fruits, criticize ignorantly what they don't understand, and pervert the public discourse to their own advantage. Legions of the credulous and gullible accept their manipulations uncritically.

Worse, we no longer wait metaphorically for Morpheus to take us unbidden; we choose the sleep of reason, consuming spectacles and circuses to provoke and entertain, eschewing the effort to analyze and understand. As an addict hooked on escape to a concocted reality so we have become overly enamored of a political discourse where reason rarely awakes. The accelerating fragmentation of media channels and their relentless specialization encourages the unchecked indulgence of confirmation bias.

Our capacity for critical thinking is both atrophying from disuse and is being destroyed by the relentless message that we no longer need it. Our crepuscular consciousness can spawn phantasms that both delight and terrify, but most terrible are those we mistake for reality, or are encouraged to believe are a better and more accurate reality. Simply being faithful to one's tribal leaders is enough; no thinking required.

The foot soldiers of unreasoned skepticism are the shock troops in this new age of know-nothingness. They seek nothing less than to lobotomize us down to our lizard brains. By reducing the edifice of science to a popularity contest they invite the abandonment of critical thinking and seek to kill it as the method of deciding our future. By failing to resist its murder we become accomplices to the euthanasia of reason.

Who Speaks for Business?

2010-03-04T23:59:00.000-08:00

Who speaks for business? Who advocates for business and articulates their views on public policy? Businesses and their leaders do of course. They just don't always speak with one voice.

For example, a recent survey commissioned by international renewable energy group NTR Foundation and conducted by the Brunswick Group found more than half of the largest US companies wanting an end to the ambiguity surrounding climate change legislation.

About 50 per cent of America’s top business leaders believe a lack of clarity on climate legislation is negatively impacting upon the ability of the US to compete in the global market.

Seventy per cent of the respondents said climate change would be an important part of their commercial decision-making within five years. But almost three in four of the business leaders said security of energy supply was a more “pressing issue” for them than climate change.

Interestingly, the majority of the 130 Fortune 500 companies surveyed also did not believe having legislation was necessary for them to act:

Commenting on the findings, NTR chief executive Jim Barry said: “The results clearly show the business community considers the climate change challenge to be real and is responding, irrespective of government action.”

While energy security trumped climate change as the primary impetus, two thirds thought a legal framework was not required before acting to create green jobs.

NTR CEO Jim Barry said the results clearly show the business community considers the climate change challenge to be real and is responding, irrespective of government action.

‘The business leaders surveyed do believe, however, that the US needs more cohesive and effective legislation to ensure the country is not at a serious disadvantage in a global competitive context,’ Barry said.

So why do groups like the US Chamber of Commerce act as if they speak for all US businesses when they preach a do-nothing approach to addressing climate change? They are out of step with the majority of businesses.

The US Chamber of Commerce does not speak for most businesses, but instead appear captive of the large legacy energy interests, Nuclear, King Coal and Big Oil that profit from a system that allows them to externalize their costs on the rest of us. Their intransigence threatens the plant, our energy security and our economic future.

They don't speak for but a narrow self-interested minority. Why does anyone listen?

The Hydrovolts Turbine - VII

2010-03-01T08:06:00.000-08:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine had a very successful coming out at the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference a few weeks ago. So, where does it go next?

Moving into the McKinstry Innovation Center in a few months is exciting, but another great reason to be there is the football field-sized workshop just downstairs. We decided there's no reason to wait until May, so we took the turbine straight from the show to the shop.

Hydrovolts COO Chris Leyerle arrives at McKinstry

after the drive from Kennewick with the Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine

The talented staff at McKinstry got right to work.

A forklift plucks the Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine from the flatbed truck...

...and takes it inside the workshop at McKinstry

Hydrovolts CEO Burt Hamner inspects progress on the Alpha-1C prototype

with McKinstry Operations Manager Kenny Branson and VP Jack Cheetham

Brian Peithman of Hydrovolts discusses design considerations

with fellow engineers Nicolas Michel-Hart and Dan Lofstrom

The Hydrovolts and McKinstry teams with the Alpha-1C

Flipwing Turbine at the McKinstry shop

The Hydrovolts Alpha-1C Flipwing Turbine will be on display Thursday March 4 at the Innovation Center at McKinstry as part of the Pacific Northwest Region Cleantech Open kickoff and the Zino Green Investment Forum. Come to one or both events and see the future of distributed hydropower!

On the Move

2010-02-28T14:21:00.000-08:00

Hydrovolts will be moving to Seattle's Georgetown neighborhood in May.

On Friday we signed a Letter of Intent with McKinstry Company to be one of the first tenants in their nearly-complete McKinstry Innovation Center, whose purpose is to "bring new and emerging companies together to foster the advancement of clean, green energy technologies."

Said David Allen, McKinstry Executive Vice President, at the original announcement last October:

The opportunities before us are significant. There is great demand for new green energy efficient technologies. Companies who are developing these now have a place to collaborate and gain the momentum they need to propel this industry forward.

We look forward to working with Dean, David and our many other friends at McKinstry to advance the growing bright green sector in the Pacific Northwest, and create the renewable hydropower technology of the future.

Update: The folks at McKinstry have requested a clarification on their branding: Their name is "McKinstry Company" and we're moving to the "McKinstry Innovation Center" which is a "commercialization accelerator" not an "incubator."

Carbon Regulation Kabuki

2010-02-23T23:59:00.000-08:00

Well, the EPA got everyone's attention by announcing they were going to regulate green house gas (GHG) emissions as pollution under the Clean Air Act. Yesterday, they granted a stay. Why?

Slowing down the rules could give Congress more time to develop a legislative answer to reducing carbon pollution and avoid a lengthy legal battle over whether the agency has the authority to regulate the emissions.

This is exactly as expected; the Obama Administration doesn't really want to use the EPA to regulate GHG emissions, even though the Supreme Court cleared the way for them to do so. It's likely that such an approach wouldn't work very well anyway. What the Administration wants is to prod the Congress, and especially a dysfunctional Senate, into getting serious about crafting real climate and energy legislation.

Texas, other states, numerous fossil fuel-intensive businesses, parochial members of Congress as well as the usual suspects moved from carping to legal action in advance of the deadline last week.

Even as the EPA agreed to postpone its regulatory efforts, Administrator Lisa Jackson warned Congress against trying to overturn the Supreme Court's finding:

A vote to violate the greenhouse-gas endangerment finding would be viewed by many as a vote to reject the scientific work of the 13 US government departments that contribute to the US Global Climate Research Program. It would also be viewed by many as a vote to move the United States to a position behind that of China on the issue of climate change, and more in line with the position of Saudi Arabia.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is trying to handcuff EPA permanently, using a variety of tactics. Now Sen. Jay Rockerfeller (D-WV) is proposing to "set in stone" a ban on EPA action to allow Congress "the space it needs" to pass legislation:

EPA actions in this area would have enormous implications on clean coal state economies, and these issues need to be handled carefully and appropriately dealt with by the Congress, not in isolation by a Federal environmental agency.

Nice words. Sen. Rockerfeller makes obeisance to the need for Congressional deliberation, but the problem is the Senate, the so-called World's Greatest Deliberative Body, which is proving incapable of deliberating anything. The Senate has become so lethargic or so unwilling about doing anything it is tempting to refer to their pace as "glacial" except, of course, glaciers are actually moving rather quickly these days, as they retreat up mountains and into memory. Such appeals to take more time are just a feint to kill all action.

Enough. Are Senators so narcissistic that they slouch into action only if it appears some other governmental body is in danger of getting attention by actually doing something?

Distributed Solar Generation

2010-02-22T23:59:00.000-08:00

Earlier this month David Roberts at Grist reported that Recurrent Energy would announce a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Southern California Edison for 50MW of solar generation. The interesting part is that the deal involved three separate smaller-scale installations rather than one central array.

On their home page Recurrent says that they develop and operate solar power plants making 2-20MW. And:

Distributed-scale projects enjoy permitting and interconnection advantages that enable us to reach operating status quickly compared to central-scale projects.

We use proven solar technology to meet rising energy demand with a fleet of clean power plants located right where they’re needed most. Recurrent Energy is distributed solar power.

Just so! These are key advantages to distributed generation--getting on-line and making power quickly and saving cost by building appropriate scale close to the need, greatly reducing the many problems with providing transmission bandwidth between the load and distant generation. The company lists many advantages for distributed generation:

Distributed power delivers higher value to the grid.

Distributed power bypasses time-consuming land use issues.

Distributed power plants don’t require new transmission.

Distributed projects can be interconnected faster.

Distributed-scale projects are quicker to permit and build.

David Roberts, a big fan of distributed energy further notes:

This is not to unduly valorize Recurrent but simply to point out that the benefits it enjoys by focusing on distributed energy are the very benefits society accrues from distributed energy: more flexibility, resilience, and iterative speed. Most importantly, Recurrent is proof of concept that distributed projects can be aggregated into large-scale power purchase agreements. Distributed energy is now a viable market option.

It's great to see this happening. Distributed solar makes a lot of sense.

So does distributed hydropower, for all the same reasons!

The ARPA-E Pipeline and the Three Sputniks

2010-02-20T23:59:00.000-08:00

Arun Majumdar, Director of ARPA-E, spoke to about 150 people in the atrium of the Paul Allen Computer Science & Engineering Building at the University of Washington on Thursday. Dr. Majumdar provided a detailed explanation of the role of his agency in building a technology "pipeline" connecting the creators of new solutions to the integrators searching for solutions to the "three Sputniks" of energy security, green house gas (GHG) emissions, and US global technological leadership. He sees these as all connected, composing three axes of the same 3-D reality. We must stop importing 60% of our oil from "places hostile to us" and then burning it, exacerbating damage from climate change. Finding other ways to create the energy we need that are clean and renewable will also power US innovation, economic prosperity, and global leadership. Tackling these Three Sputniks is the Congressional directive to ARPA-E.

The range and scope of the challenges are enormous. He touched on a few examples of what his agency wants to tackle.

We emit 8 giga-tonnes of GHG every year, and the amount is increasing: "at the end of the year you have a huge bill." Dr. Majumdar alluded to the supposed "controversy" around GHG emissions and climate change, but was clear that, as far as he and his agency are concerned, the science is sufficiently settled. Using the always-apt Titanic analogy he dismissed those who first advocated that there was "no iceberg" and then would rather we "move the deck chairs." What is needed is to "turn the ship" and ARPA-E wants to make that happen.

Overlaying a population map of the world with a composite photo of the world at night, Dr. Majumdar noted the mismatch between population and the availability of electricity (using night-time lighting as a proxy.) The problem, he noted, is "if they turn on the lights as we have done, we are all in trouble." Such a dramatic use of electricity would produce an enormous increases in GHG emissions. How can the standard of living be increased in those parts of the world?

Displaying a chart of the energy use by universities in different countries, Dr. Majumdar noted how US universities use 5-10 times more energy for heating and cooling than their counterparts in China. Expanding on the theme, he showed energy use by the city of Philadelphia. Apart from the expected increase in energy cost for heating in winter and cooling in summer, the graph showed non-trivial cooling in winter and heating in summer. "It is like driving your car with the brakes on--why is this?" Systems that are not optimized, poor automatic regulation, and a legacy culture of cheap energy that is no longer true.

Dr. Majumdar summarized the first round of funding and highlighted a few noteworthy recipients. There were 3700 applications under the first round of grants, of which 20-25% "violated either the first or the second law of thermodynamics." After progressively more rigorous screening, the agency selected 37 grants and has funded 36 of them with an average of $4M over a 2-3 year time frame. He praised the "Series A" size and duration of the grants, which he believes can really launch an idea to commercial success. Smaller grants would run the risk of not providing enough for success, especially with the follow-on funding uncertainty of the last year or so. We can expect further funding from ARPA-E to be similarly structured.

Some of the funded grants include:

Agrivida, tyring to grow enzymes to break up cellulose so bio-fuels can scale up feasibly. They are trying to "put the cow inside the plant."
Grid-level Electrical Storage at MIT
FloDesign wind turbine, a mixer-ejector wind turbine (MEWT) similar to a jet, which has already exceeded the Betz limit in testing.
Car battery research in such things as zinc-air, lithium-sodium and lithium-air batteries.

ARPA-E is "not limited by a lack of good ideas" and is just getting going on its mission. It is "in the early stages, like DARPA of 1958." There is a tension between the "down-stream" "pullers" who integrate technology solutions to build applications addressing real-world problems and the "up-stream" "pushers" who are the innovative creators and sources of solutions. Resolving this tension by building a "pipeline" between them is how Dr. Majumdar is directing his agency to execute on its mission. This approach will also seek to connect basic research with later stage funders such as venture capital. It sounds a bit as if he wants to bridge the chasm! ARPA-E is also establishing a Fellows Program, which will bring in PhDs to form a kind of think tank "like a VC with dollars attached." In response to a later question he added that he thought the distinction between basic and applied research is "artificial" and his idea is to put scientists and engineers--the Fellows--together to break down those barriers he believes are retarding the more rapid advancement of solutions to the Three Sputniks.

Dr. Majumdar recognizes the need to "manage expectations" since he believes it will take 20 years to have a big impact. The next 3-5 years, however, will "provide trajectory" to launch the 20-year "home runs."

The questions ARPA-E will ask in searching for those early trajectory-setting efforts include:

What is the global landscape? Who are the players?
Where are the gaps?
What's new? What are the stretch goals?
Is there room for left-field ideas?
How to tweak for multiple outcomes and leverage of effort?
What quantitative metrics should be used?
Who are the customers who will adopt?
Will it scale in cost and volume?
What are the financial and policy needs? Barriers?
Who are the teams and players? What are the available ecosystems?
What is the risk profile, time horizon, budget, and why?

Metrics for deciding were also mostly directly commercial in nature, including such things as market size, number of patents generated, amount of follow-on investment generated, number of new companies launched, and so on. ARPA-E may share much of its name with DARPA, the agency whose genesis and success have largely inspired it, but its approach and guiding metrics are very different in their degree of commercial emphasis. It's a promising change well-suited to our current needs.

Dr. Majumdar concluded by re-purposing a quotation from Dr. Martin Luther King:

We are now faced with the fact, my friends, that tomorrow is today. We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now. In this unfolding conundrum of life and history, there is such a thing as being too late.

The ARPA-E Innovation Summit is March 1-3 and will provide a "platform for PIs who did not get funded to bring their ideas back to expose them to investors and other stakeholders."

Update: Fixed agency name (ARPA-E). My fingers are apparently used to typing "DARPA", but ARPA-E is of course part of the Department of Energy, not the Department of Defense. Also made a few typo corrections and added a few links.

Hydropower Potential

2010-02-16T23:59:00.000-08:00

Hydrovolts plans to install its first turbines in irrigation canals and other mandmade fresh water flows. There are many other large markets for hydrokinetic technology, including natural rivers and streams throughout the world. Small scale hydropower in the developing world has enormous potential to improve the health, education and quality of life for millions of people. Yet there is also huge potential for Hydrovolts turbines in western industrialized countries:

Graphic: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

The theoretical hydropower potential depicted in the map

prepresents a calculation based on the topography and precipitation in the countries, and is the amount power that could be extracted if all run-off was turbined down to the lowest level of the specified country (sea-level).

While this potential could not be fully realized for political and practical reasons, the use of hydrokinetic technology would allow a fuller realization because it would avoid the many problems involved with the dams needed by conventional hydropower, including increased evaporation, silting, and impairment of migrating fish runs.

Countries such as France, which derives much of its current electricity from aging nuclear power plants, would be clear beneficiaries of distributed hydropower. Hydrovolts has had multiple purchase inquiries from Turkey, as well as several requests to locally manufacture and distribute the Flipwing turbine.

The European Union has a 2020 target of a 20% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) and are on track to make it. Not all countries will achieve the target individually. Italy for one will need help, but it looks like hydropower could make the difference!

Update: Replaced graphic with higher-resolution version

Climate Insurance

2010-02-13T19:32:00.000-08:00

On Monday at the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference Claudio Stockle made the reasonable observation that the severely negative outcomes of climate change, ~~if they occur~~ which are happening everywhere one looks, demand action just for their possibility: it is "prudent to start taking some action, not to ignore it."

Just the day before Kurt Cobb made a similar point in discussing the need for "vigorous preparations" on climate change, even if the worst scenario is only 5% likely:

If you were told that the trans-Atlantic flight you were about to board only crashes 5 percent of the time, would you still board that plane? My guess is that you would change your reservations. Even with a 95 percent chance of surviving the flight, you would find the risk of death too high.

It is akin to the old adage of an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure. The cost of preparation for something that might never occur dwarfs the costs (financial, political, social) of dealing with it when it does. It is this straightforward calculation that impels people to buy insurance.

Why would we treat climate change differently?

One difference of note is that this we would be buying this figurative insurance to mitigate something with a much higher likelihood of occurring than just 5%. It's rather more like buying fire insurance after your attic is already ablaze.

Another difference is that, unlike actual insurance, we'd be buying something that produces real benefits even if (in some bizarrely unlikely scenario) somehow climate change never occurs or has no significant effects. Investing in the cleantech economy, reducing fossil fuel use, and promoting sustainability will pay real benefits: creating jobs, improving air quality and human health, and boosting global economic competitiveness.

The airline analogy "shows how sensitive humans are even to low probability events if the outcomes are severe enough." The intelligent choice is to take immediate action. It's simple game theory.

HCE Day 3

2010-02-11T09:08:00.000-08:00

The Harvesting Clean Energy Conference ended Tuesday. It was an excellent event and I and the rest of the Hydrovolts team really enjoyed ourselves. We made many good contacts and heard from many interesting speakers. The general proceedings finished around mid-day on Tuesday and attendees scattered to one of several field trips.

I regret I missed virtually all of the Tuesday morning talks and sessions and so cannot much report on them. Instead of the conference, I drove 45 minutes away to meet with am irrigation district that has expressed some interest in hosting a demonstration. The meeting with the Board of Commissioners went well, and they asked many good questions. An announcement on this soon, perhaps.

I heard from a friend that Conference Emcee Hal Calborn gave Hydrovolts a shout-out from the podium before the morning keynote as a Cleantech Open winner. We had several people come ask us about the Cleantech Open. I strongly encourage entrepreneurs to enter this year and others to volunteer their time and expertise. Being a part of the Cleantech Open has paid and continues to pay enormous dividends to Hydrovolts.

Thanks, Hal!

My notes from earlier in the conference: Day 1 and Day 2.

As things were winding down I heard that this might be the last year for the Conference. Only 10 years and already at the end? Say it ain't so! We'll be back next year, and that was what I heard from a lot of others as well. Why argue with success?

Tuesday afternoon Brian Peithman ("the Hydrovolts Engineering Department") and I made sure the Flipwing Turbine demonstration unit was properly secured to the flat-bed truck and I drove it back west. The turbine spent the night parked in front of my house in Bellevue's Somerset neighborhood, where it aroused some interest from the neighbors. A few had heard it about from the TV, and had many questions, including whether it was going to stay on the street for a while. Yesterday morning, however, I drove it to its new home, a great location with great resources and great people, and where we will be able to advance the Hydrovolts mission dramatically. I can't say just yet more about this, but look for an announcement next week.

HCE Day 2

2010-02-09T01:59:00.000-08:00

Day 2 of the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference kicked off at 8:00 a.m. here in Kennewick. There were quite a few more people in attendance than on Day 1, no doubt due to the full-day schedule, its being a Monday, and there being no distracting sporting events. Hal Calborn, Conference Emcee, summarized one of yesterday's key messages, that the focus on many attendees was on energy security being the key economic and policy driver and the need to create jobs in the burgeoning global clean energy economy. However, "it doesn't mean that climate change is not an issue."

Next up was US Representative Doc Hastings (R-WA) and the contrast of his "special remarks" to those yesterday by US Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) was stark. Inslee supported the Waxman-Markey and Stimulus bills; Hastings opposed them. Inslee is one Congress' most impassioned and articulate champions of renewable energy and clean technology; Hastings said he is "in favor" of renewables, but spent most of his time advocating for the primacy of oil and gas.

Said Hastings, "we cannot ignore the worldwide supply" or oil and coal, which he implied would last almost indefinitely: "Someday, probably not in my lifetime, we'll move away from oil and gas." He shared the conference consensus view that policy needs to address our growing energy insecurity: "It is not in our best interest to be importing from parts of the world that are hostile to us." We should not be importing oil when we have "tremendous reserves" in Alaska and on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) and "we ought to be utilizing that." Hastings asserted that every time we look for oil "we find more" and that "we are getting better at that every year."

Courtesy Strategic Energy Institute,
Georgia Institute of Technology

Sadly, no.

US oil reserves have been shrinking for decades. So has production. Offshore oil drilling simply will not make much difference. I am always disappointed when one of our more senior elected officials spouts easily disproved untruths in service of a pet ideological position.

Hastings objects to Waxman-Markey or any other form of cap and trade, a remark that led to some scattered applause. He believes that it ends up picking winners and losers, especially around who gets credits and who has to compete in auctioned allowances. This picking of winners and losers must be avoided, as it is a "subjective choice" and (deeply horrifying) a "non-market way."

He then, strangely contrasted that with the supposed success of a lighter governmental touch: the reduction of smog in Los Angeles, declaring that "people got fed up with it and industry responded." He leaves out the decades of relentless public pressure and governmental intervention and regulation, over the vociferous objections of industry, the Chamber of Commerce and businesses generally. The industry responded all right, by fighting tooth and claw. It was decades to win the relative success of today.

Hastings is absolutely right that governments should not pick winners and losers, and that is exactly why we need some kind of price on carbon, whether through cap-and-trade, a tax, or some other mechanism. Right now, the ability of dirty legacy energy interests to pollute the commons creates an un-level playing field. Opposing EPA regulation of carbon is also tantamount to choosing sides in the marketplace of energy. If Hastings were to truly adhere to his stated principles of diversifying energy, and being a true all-of-the-above advocate, he would support regulation of greenhouse gases, and demand that neither government nor the public health unjustly subsidize certain forms of energy. That he can point to a diverse list of renewable energy projects in his district shows not that this can happen without needed energy neutrality, but in spite of the lack of it.

Partisanship was another "special remark" as Hastings noted that he was "a big proponent of nuclear power... It is very clean." He added that "I was very pleased when [President Obama] talked about that in the State of the Union address." However, he then decried "the mixed message" when Obama "then talked about shutting Yucca Mountain." Yet, Obama did not mention Yucca Mountain in the SOTU, nor mention nuclear waste at all. Like the Teabaggers yesterday, Hastings cannot bring himself to agree or be agreeable even when his opponent grants him his point.

Hastings did not take questions.

Richard Wynne, Director of Geopolitical and Policy Analysis at Boeing Commercial Airplanes gave an engaging and informative presentation on the aviation company's efforts to reduce its emissions, primarily by developing viable alternative fuels to Jet A. He did so with poise and good humor, even in the face of a myriad of technical problems with the slide deck.

Air transport accounts for 8% of GDP and 32M jobs globally. Jet fuel is about 25% of an airline's operating costs; every 1 cent increase in the cost of a gallon of fuel adds $195M in costs. The industry is responsible for 2-3% of total CO2 emissions. Boeing wants to reduce this 25% by 2020.

"The industry uses 21st Century airplanes in a 1960's or 1970's infrastructure." The air traffic system is about 12% inefficient from such things as routing, flight paths, descent methods, etc.

Boeing uses carbon fuels now and does not believe that carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) or gas-to-liquids (GTL) techniques are worthwhile--the life cycle analysis (LCA) is poor. First generation fuels (e.g. ethanol) have food-for-fuel and other issues. Boeing is focused on 2nd generation fuels such as those made from camelina and jatropha, which may be as little as 2-3 years away from regular use (in a blend with regular Jet A.) Algae is still 8-10 year out, or maybe "decades." Camelina "has a lot of potential" but it won't be enough on its own; a multiple track approach is needed.

Boeing is also engaged in long term research on hydrogen and fuel cells. Batteries are unlikely to ever have the energy density to power full-size commercial jets.

The Three Rivers Convention center has had a really surprising number of problems with its audio/visual systems and setup during the conference. Clickers that don't work, screens poorly positioned, screens going out, no cheat screens for the presenters, choppy video, no one able to load or then advance slide decks, ... You would think that a convention center, whose raison d'etre is to host exactly these things, would execute them flawlessly, or at least with many fewer glitches. That said, the staff has been courteous and helpful. Just a lot of technical problems.

Burt didn't escape Washington, DC in time, so I gave his presentation this afternoon. A good audience, and very interesting presentations by fellow panelists Keith Knitter of Grant County PUD and Steve Rigdon of Yakama Power. Thanks to Andrew Munro of Grant County PUD and President of the National Hydropower Association for moderating and making the panel a success.

During the Plenary Panel Claudio Stockle of Washington State University urged that we plan for the middle-of-the-road climate change scenario. We can't know what will be, he said, but it is "prudent to start taking some action, not to ignore it." He used the amusing analogy: if we knew crossing a busy road with our eyes shut resulted in only a 10% chance of being hit, would we still do it? "I wouldn't cross!" he said. With climate change, even if the data is unclear, we should act. If we get the worst-case scenario, "we are in big trouble."

Read Smith, National o-Chair of 25x25 remarked "putting your head in the sand is not a plan. That's not leadership." Elected officials need our help.

Ross MacFarlane of Climate Solutions gave an excellent presentation during the breakout session on Energy Legislation in DC. I especially liked one of his slides illustrated with a Joel Pett cartoon. Ross also made the point that an emissions cap reduces pollution and creates incentives without picking winners. Exactly. Someone tell Doc.

Climate impacts and energy supply are the dominant drivers of 21st Century security concerns, but "if you are thinking about this as an environmental issue first and foremost, you're missing the point." --Frank Gaffney

Ross noted in response to a question that Senator Maria Cantwell's CLEAR Act had some merit, but that even the Senator knows that her bill will not pass as is as a standalone bill. But it can and probably will be part of a hybrid effort that will pass this year. Although pessimistic when heading to RETECH last week, Ross returned more hopeful that something will pass this year. But there is the "danger of the perfect being the enemy of the necessary." Indeed.

David Kolsrud gave a deadpan but hilarious presentation for the lunch keynote. Some of his better lines:

They have never built a statue in honor of a pessimist.

You can't tell how far a frog can jump by looking at him.

The energy and climate bill is the biggest rural development initiative since the Homestead Act.

We're all going to live in the future, and if we're going to live there, let's be a part of it.

China had its head in the sand. Then Nixon went there and we traded places. Now we have our head in the sand. What are we doing? Looking for more oil?

The exhibits have been very well attended and I have been repeatedly impressed and very pleased with the breadth of attendees, spanning all aspects and technologies of renewable energy and clean technology. The event has produced some robust synergy amongst different stakeholders and viewpoints. So far a great success.

It has also been a smashing success for Hydrovolts. I've done 2-3 dozen tradeshows and exhibitions over the years and this is the first time I have ever run out of brochures. And the first time I've run out of business cards. Awesome.

Burt will finally arrive at the conference about 9:30 Tuesday, and hopes to meet as many folks as possible. Look for him at our booth!

HCE Day 1

2010-02-08T01:32:00.000-08:00

US Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA) gave the keynote at today's opening session of the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference. He had many interesting things to say, and the predominantly friendly audience was liking what they heard.

His most important point: There will be clean energy jobs--lots of them--in the future. It is not a question of whether, but where.

While he was also quick to praise Washington State's largest trade partner in general, he was pointed in his criticism of how they were competing and had harsh words for what he called their "strange attitudes about trade." They trade from us, "reverse engineer" it, then close their market as they create their own competitive products. It is "unacceptable and non-sustainable." We cannot allow them to "illegally dominate the clean energy future."

Significantly, the fault is squarely our own: we have yet to aggressively compete in return. The Chinese have a "national goal" to dominate the cleantech sector, and the US as a nation needs to "stand up to them."

Funding is the key area of our competitive failure. We spend 1/30 as much on cleantech research and development as is spent on research and development for defense. According to Inslee, the US government spent more on a "bomb-proof Humvee" four years ago than on all of cleantech. Another example: the Apollo program spent 5 times as much on research and development to let astronauts "play golf on the moon" as we spend today on cleantech. China, by contrast is spending "$12M per hour in cleantech and their industrial base" to seize leadership in the world's biggest economic growth opportunity.

This lack of priority in funding cleantech has to change. We do not have "the luxury of time to wait another 10 years to do this." Echoing the famed missile gap of an earlier era, Inslee declared that there is a "race" between China (and Denmark, Germany, Spain and the UK) and us for pre-eminence, and "we're not going to finish #2!"

Where does climate change come in? He spoke of the budworm infestation that is killing thousands of acres of forest in Washington and other states, damage he has seen first-hand less summer climbing Mt. Daniel (a splendid hike by the way.) The cause is climate change: our winters are now infrequently cold enough to kill them off. However, the key point is not about whether one believes in climate change; the reality of it is irrelevant to the question of whether we have the vision and will to be economically competitive as a nation in the world economy. He added that there was a Senator who had "been on the fence" for the past 2+ years but is now "coming over" because he sees the economic impact in his state of making jet fuel from agricultural products. It's the economy, stupid.

Inslee noted that the biggest impediment to getting a real climate and energy bill through Congress was politics, and especially the lack of awareness on the part of some of his colleagues that such legislation would have positive economic benefits, not negative ones. He applauded the "true bipartisanship" of Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and jokingly alluded to the Senator's blunt observation that a "halfed-something approach (use your imagination)" was inadequate to the challenge. He repeated the oft-made jibe from the US House that the US Senate is "where good ideas go to die" and called the Senate's filibuster rules indicative of a "dysfunctional democratic organization" and an "unsustainable part of American democracy." This was greeted by hearty applause from the audience.

Inslee believes a cap of some kind is essential in any good policy; it is better than a tax because it creates a limit on emissions. Such a cap worked for sulphur dioxide to control acid rain; it will work for green house gases as well. Whether cap-and-trade, cap-and-dividend or a tax, action is necessary "to level the playing field" between the "old dirty energy" of the past and the clean energy economy of the future.

"We have to get a bill this year."

A small group of protesters showed up in the morning and held pickets out at the entrance to the parking lot. One of the organizers told me that they had been expected and were part of the Tea Party movement.

"What are they protesting?" I asked him. He shrugged. "Protesting the emphasis on cleantech? Wanting more focus on nuclear, clean coal and drill baby drill?" Every other attendee with whom I spoke said something closely similar. Inslee said it too, noting that there were people outside protesting "I'm not sure what." Perhaps they think clean energy bills will cost jobs, but the opposite is in fact true. It's odd really; President Obama basically agreed with them in the State of the Union speech, advocating all of these, even the boondoggle of so-called clean coal. But I doubt you'll hear any teabaggers praising him for it.

They seem rather to be simply...angry. Angry at whatever.

US Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) addressed the audience by video from Washington, DC, where she was caught by the Snowmaggedon. She praised Obama's proposal to dedicate $30B of the repaid TARP money for lending by community banks to small businesses, including cleantech startups. Like Inslee, she spoke of the urgent need to pass meaningful legislation, and especially creating "a true price on carbon."
Legislation can and should get done this year to provide "a predictable look at the future" for business certainty.

Driving the Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine demonstration unit out to Kennewick from Seattle was largely uneventful. The truck, while otherwise excellent, seems to have shocks dating from, perhaps, the Carter Administration. The rig bounced like a trampoline on the slightest bump and 800 pounds of turbine got some air under it a few times. Getting diesel at a local station I noticed one of the four casters had come off completely and was just lying on the bed of the truck. How many miles had I undulated down the highway without it sliding off the bed onto the highway?

There was a football game too, but I spent most of it drinking beer and talking to some of my friends at the show. Who dat?!

10th Annual Harvesting Clean Energy Conference & Exhibition

2010-02-06T22:19:00.000-08:00

In the prior post we provided some pictures and video of the Flipwing Turbine demonstration unit, which is on its way today to Hydrovolts' first public exhibition at the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference in Kennewick, WA. Come to the show and spin the turbine! There will be about 500 attendees, including Washington State's Governor Christine Gregoire and several members of the Congressional delegation (if they can get out of Washington DC!) There will be many great opportunities to learn and ask questions about renewable energy development in and for the Pacific Northwest. Join us!

Harvesting Clean Energy
February 7-9, 2010
Kennewick, WA

Now in its 10th year, the conference and exhibition will be held at the Three Rivers Convention Center (directions) and is a key initiative of our good friends at Climate Solutions.

As the brief brochure [pdf] explains: "The Harvesting Clean Energy Conference is the Northwest's premiere gathering to advance rural economic development through clean-energy production. Clean energy offers practical, profitable opportunities for our farmers, ranchers, rural utilities and towns, tribes and the region's economy. Over the past ten years, this event has connected thousands of individuals and organizations who share the rural clean-energy vision."

Hydrovolts CEO and Co-founder Burt Hamner is scheduled to speak as part of a panel discussing "New Energy Opportunities for Irrigated Agriculture - Tapping Irrigation Water Delivery Systems to Produce Hydropower" on Monday, February 8 from 3:30-5:00. The program notes that "irrigation water delivery systems are often excellent candidates for small hydropower" and the session will be an ideal vehicle to highlight the value of small hydropower such as that provided by a Hydrovolts turbine. Moderating the panel will be Andrew Munro of the Grant County PUD, who is also the President of the National Hydropower Association. Fellow presenters are Keith Knitter, Manager of Resource Planning with the Grant County PUD and Steve Rigdon, Generation Manager of Yakama Power.

Burt is scheduled to be part of the panel. However, he is currently trapped in the "snowmaggedon" of Washington DC,where he was speaking at Retech 2010. The local airports in and around DC are reportedly shut down for the next two days. He is trying to find a way to Richmond, VA or anywhere else with a functioning airport, but as one might expect ground transportation has, well, ground to a halt. If Burt cannot hop a plane tomorrow (Sunday) then I will give his presentation for him. At least Internet electrons are getting out of the Capital.

Also speaking at the conference will be Senator Maria Cantwell (D-WA) who is increasingly recognized as a leading expert on renewable energy, climate change, and sustainability in the US Congress. She has recently introduced the Carbon Limits and Energy for America's Renewal (CLEAR) Act, an innovative and remarkably succinct proposal to simultaneously address the related problems of energy security and climate change. Other noteworthy speakers include Rogers Weed, who's shaking up Olympia as Director of the Department of Commerce, US Representative Jay Inslee (D-WA), another energy and climate authority in Congress whose insight was recently featured on the Hydrovolts blog, and Peter Goldmark, Washington State's Commissioner of Public Lands. However, since Burt saw Congressman Inslee in DC on Thursday, there may be other changes to the speaker list!

Football fans needn't miss anything, as there is a Super Bowl party with a no-host bar, and the big game will be on the big screen.

Register now, and join us for what will be an outstanding program on renewable energy and sustainability for the rural northwest, and an exciting exhibitor presence for Hydrovolts as we share our vision for renewable hydropower in irrigation canals with customers, government officials, the news media and others.

We hope to see you in Kennewick!

The Hydrovolts Turbine - VI

2010-02-05T23:59:00.000-08:00

The Hydrovolts Flipwing Turbine demonstration unit has had a couple of in-water tests and made power over the past few weeks. Testing was done in the Ballard ship canal under tow to simulate the turbine in water flows of different velocities.

We put casters on the bottom so we could wheel it down the road from the shop at SteadyFlux, and right down the boat ramp into the water. After ballasting the tanks and maneuvering the boat, we were underway on the first tow test:

Pulling away from the dock for the first time:

Next up is the Harvesting Clean Energy Conference at the Three Rivers Convention Center in Kennewick, WA. We've loaded the turbine onto the flatbed truck for the road trip east!

Come to the show and see the turbine and learn more about the future of hydropower renewable energy!