The Oil Enforcement Agency

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The Oil Enforcement Agency

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The Oil Enforcement Agency was founded on January 31, 2006, by an act of civic charter following the 217th State of the Union Address. In his address, the President of the United States established the Agency's mandate: "We have a serious problem: America is addicted to oil. To break this addiction ... we must ... move beyond a petroleum-based economy."

The mission of the OEA is to enforce this mandate by bringing to justice those organizations, and principal members of organizations, involved in oil-addiction-fostering extraction, manufacture, or distribution of oil or oil consuming vehicles; and to recommend and support programs aimed at reducing dependence on said oil and other fossil fuels.

The Freedom from Oil Campaign

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The Freedom from Oil Campaign

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Freedom From Oil works to end America’s oil addiction and to stop global climate change by convincing the auto industry to dramatically improve fuel efficiency and to eliminate greenhouse gases from its fleet. We started in 2003 as a join project between Rainforest Action Network, Global Exchange, and The Ruckus Society. Originally called Jumpstart Ford - in 2007 we expanded our campaign to address the entire auto industry.

Vehicle-to-Grid is such a strange idea, why are people pursuing it?

"Vehicle-to-Grid" is a kind of reverse plug-in hybrid electric. The idea is some kind of poppycock wet dream that I don't understand the purpose its development. This idea comes around occasionally and involves some overly hyped breathless descriptions of the possibilities inherent in a car that has an onboard electricity generating plant. I've seen this idea applied to fuel cell cars and now to hybrid-electric cars.

PG&E Demonstrates Vehicle-to-Grid Technology and PG&E demonstrates first ever vehicle-to-grid charging and PG&E sees plug-in hybrids as potential profit centers discuss a recent showing by Pacific Gas and Electric of a modified Prius that has vehicle-to-grid capabilities. "The basic principle here is that electric cars charged at night while electricity is cheap can actually give some of that power back during the day when electricity costs more, and the owners of the vehicle that is giving that power back can get a credit towards the purchase of electricity when the car charges back up."

That's the idea .. that a hybrid electric car, or for that matter a fuel cell car, contains on board the car equipment capable of generating electricity. So why not, these people suggest, connect the car to the grid and use the onboard generator to generate electricity and sell it to the power company. And then the article suggests that time-of-use metering will allow the car owner to buy that electricity back in the evening when rates are cheaper.

Since the articles linked above are doing such a good job of portraying this as a positive thing, I want to list out some alternative points of view.

First is the cost and effort to load power into a car. For a hybrid car that means making a stop at a gasoline station, or for a fuel cell car it's a stop at a different kind of gas station. The use of the onboard generator means depleting that fuel, which then decreases the range of the car requiring the driver to make a stop at the gas station (of either kind) more frequently.

Second, time of use metering is rarely available to consumers. Instead consumers most often see flat electricity rates. The advantage accrues only when time of use metering is available.

Third, it's especially egregious to tie vehicle-to-grid to a gasoline burning vehicle. The goal is to reduce gasoline usage to zero, not to continue gasoline usage.

Fourth, a comprehensively installed vehicle-to-grid system means electrical intertie points at most or every parking spot in a parking lot. This would drastically increase the cost of building parking lots ... think, do you see power outlets installed in parking lots today? No. And we're not talking normal power outlets, but one capable of accepting power as well as sending power. This sounds like complexity, and would we trust average consumers to properly operate a power intertie system connected to their cars?

40% Efficient Solar Cells: They Are Being Used Back On Earth

The usual efficiency for solar panels is 10-20%. Efficiency is the conversion rate of capture, comparing the potential energy that strikes an area of ground with the energy (electricity) captured by the solar panel. This relatively low efficiency is one reason why solar electricity hasn't caught on. In December last year, a company called Spectrolab has achieved a new world record in solar cell efficiency. By using concentrated sunlight, Spectrolab demonstrated the ability of a photovoltaic cell to convert 40.7% of the sun’s energy into electricity. Multijunction cells perform at higher efficiencies than conventional single-junction silicon solar cells, because they convert more of the solar spectrum into energy by breaking it up into chunks. For example, the first layer of Spectrolab's record-breaking triple-junction cell is composed of gallium indium phosphide, which converts short-wavelength portions of the spectrum, such as blue and UV. The second layer, made of gallium arsenide, captures the middle part of the spectrum. The third germanium layer does a good job with IR light.

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40% Efficient Solar Cells: They Are Being Used Back On Earth

Descending the Oil Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas

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Descending the Oil Peak: Navigating the Transition from Oil and Natural Gas

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Report from the Portland Oregon Peak Oil Task Force on a proposed process for oil independence.

Peak Oil Task Force

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Peak Oil Task Force

Description: 

In May 2006, Portland Oregon City Council created a Peak Oil Task Force to develop recommendations on appropriate responses to uncertainties in the supply and affordability of oil. Changes in the availability of affordable petroleum products may have significant impacts on transportation, housing, food, and other life-essential products and services. The mission of the Task Force is to identify key short-term and long-term vulnerabilities and develop recommendations for addressing these issues.

TNT Starts Biodiesel Trial in India; Part of Global Initiative

TNT, one of the world’s leading express companies, has launched a pilot project in India to use biodiesel in its delivery vehicles.

Three trucks will participate in the year-long project between Pune, Nasik and Bangalore, covering a total distance of 45,000 kilometers (28,000 miles) per month.

...TNT’s biodiesel pilot project in India is part of the company’s global “Driving Clean” initiative to improve its environmental performance.

...For smaller vehicles, for which the Euro-5 standard has not yet been established, TNT is purchasing Euro-4 compliant vehicles with built-in particulate filters.

...Working with the United Nations Environmental Program (UNEP), TNT is developing a tool and strategy that will allow fleet managers to generate action plans for improving the environmental performance of their fleets.

The company began a pilot in Turkey in November 2006 in which two hybrid vehicles are being tested for six months on purchasing costs, fuel costs and emission rates.

Article Reference: 

TNT Starts Biodiesel Trial in India; Part of Global Initiative

U.S., Chinese researchers collaborate on clean coal

"With demand for energy - both electricity and transportation fuels - increasing, despite efficiency gains, coal usage is going to increase in both countries," said Mike Davis, associate laboratory director for Energy Science and Technology at PNNL.

..."This is a unique opportunity to design and test new processes - such as carbon dioxide capture - that will reduce significantly the environmental impacts of coal usage," said Doug Ray, associate laboratory director for Fundamental Science at PNNL.

...Initially, the consortium expects to collaborate on air separation, coal gasification, cleanup and separation, and water gas shift reactions in the gas stream, hydrocarbon synthesis and carbon dioxide capture and utilization.

Article Reference: 

U.S., Chinese researchers collaborate on clean coal

Juwi International

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Juwi International

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Juwi develops renewable energy projects worldwide. Working with landowners, local communities, financial institutions and utility companies, they evaluate sites, lease land, design, build and operate wind farms as well as large scale photovoltaic systems on rooftops and open-space installations.

First Solar

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First Solar

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First Solar has made the Promise of Thin Film a Reality and has become one of the fastest growing manufacturers of solar modules in the world. First Solar manufactures PV modules with an advanced thin film semiconductor process that Lowers the Cost of Solar Electricity. FS Series PV modules are designed for use in large scale, grid-connected solar power plants and are sold to leading solar project developers for use in commercial PV projects. First Solar application engineers work closely with our project development partners to design the optimal balance of systems solutions for use with First Solar PV modules, ensuring high performance and long term reliability.

biodiesel man

A pair of videos that show how to make Biodiesel

biodiesel man part 1of 2

biodiesel man part 2of 2

On Location: Jatropha Biodiesel in India

On Location: Jatropha Biodiesel in India is a very interesting introduction to biodiesel in transportation. The presentation is centered on the problems of transportation in India, and relies on video clips of Indian traffic.

Of especial interest is the Jatropha plant which is a prodigious oil producing plant. One of the states of India has embarked on a plan to introduce massive plantings of Jatropha so they can harvest the seeds and create a home grown biodiesel industry.

Philippines President Pushes Jatropha Planting for Biodiesel

The Biopact

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The Biopact

Description: 

The Biopact is a Brussels-based connective of European and African citizens who strive towards the establishment of a mutually beneficial 'energy relationship' based on biofuels and bioenergy (see our goals). For the time being, Biopact is an entirely volunteer effort, but the young organisation is working towards formalisation under a non-profit structure because of growing interest in its activities and its vision.

The group's main activities currently consist of building a web presence, delivering basic consulting services to the media and to bioenergy projects in the South, and of networking with other organisations.

Biopact unites specialists in several disciplines related to bioenergy seen in the broader context of development and trade: an economic anthropologist, a bio-engineer, a professor in chemistry, a tropical agronomist, a sociologist with expertise on Central-Africa, and a development economist.

Getting the price right for solar

The photovoltaic panel industry is looking to decrease the price of the products. So long as their price is uncompetitive related to the entrenched technologies solar power will remain a niche business. If solar power is to fulfill its destiny in helping us clean our environment and have a clean earth, the price must become competitive.

"We have to cut the cost in half of where we are today, and we can do that with a lot of the technologies and solutions available to us today," said Charlie Gay, vice president and general manager of Applied Material's solar business group, while speaking at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Energy 2.0 conference last month.

...Many solar manufacturers make their products out of silicon and use machines similar to those used in the chip industry, but solar panel makers won't be benefiting from Moore's Law, a phenomenon in the chip industry where power increases as cost go down.

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Getting the price right for solar

U.S. cities hot for hydrogen

This article starts with a demonstration hydrogen plant in Las Vegas built by Air Products. Apparently the plant is becoming a popular spot for visitors who they hope will see the hydrogen economy in operation and bring their excitement home with them.

The article discusses that the most common use for hydrogen fuel cell vehicles today is evaluation by municipal departments. This is like the evaluation programs conducted for electric vehicles over the last couple decades.

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U.S. cities hot for hydrogen

Full steam ahead for Nevada solar project

The Nevada Solar One power plant is essentially a tea kettle, just one that happens to take up 300 acres and can provide enough power for 15,000 homes. The plant, which will start to generate electricity for nearby Las Vegas in April, consists of approximately 184,000 mirrors arranged in long, parabolic arrays that focus the sun's energy on a receiver--a metal tube filled with oil that's encased in specialized glass--from German conglomerate Schott.

...The power generated by the plant, minus any subsidies, may not get to parity with electricity generated from conventional plants until around 2020, added Nikolaus Benz, a development manager for Schott.

...Schott, for example, has come up with a new coating for the glass tube on the receiver that lets 96 percent of the solar radiation through to the oil-filled metal tube sealed inside the glass.

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Full steam ahead for Nevada solar project

With Cellulosic Ethanol, There Is No Food Vs. Fuel Debate According To MSU Scientist

A criticism of most methods to produce biofuels like Ethanol and Biodiesel is that the typical source material is some kind of food crop. In the U.S. the typical ethanol producer starts with corn. Yup, corn, the stuff we'd be eating if it weren't being made into ethanol. Apparently the ethanol demand has caused a huge growth in planting corn this year. And it has caused food riots in Mexico because the price of corn has risen so high the people can no longer afford tortillas.

Bruce Dale, an MSU chemical engineering and materials science professor, has used life cycle analysis tools, which include agricultural data and computer modeling, to study the sustainability of producing biofuels - fuels such as ethanol and biodiesel that are made from renewable resources.

...Having studied ethanol for more than 30 years, Dale said that as the country moves toward large-scale cellulosic ethanol production, the yield of so-called energy crops - grasses and woody materials grown for their energy content - also will increase dramatically.

..."The evidence indicates that large-scale biofuel production will increase, not decrease, world food supplies by making animal feed production much more efficient," Dale said.

The core reasoning is that there are ways of producing ethanol and biodiesel from sources other than food crops.

Article Reference: 

With Cellulosic Ethanol, There Is No Food Vs. Fuel Debate According To MSU Scientist

AFVI Show: Ways to save billions of gallons of fuel at the nation's airports

Airports are basically the epitome of using fuel as if it's abundant. Jet aircraft can only exist and be economically used when fuel is cheap and easily available. In any case airports are centers of air pollution due to all the vehicles flying in and out all day long, plus all the ground vehicles. There are service vehicles and a dizzying array of other vehicles running around, including those shuttling people around the airport, and to or from the airport.

While there isn't much which can be done to increase fuel efficiency for the aircraft, or reduce emissions due to the aircraft, the ground vehicles are another matter. The article goes into several programs meant to decrease emissions from the ground vehicles.

Article Reference: 

AFVI Show: Ways to save billions of gallons of fuel at the nation's airports

The Low Carbon Diet

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The Low Carbon Diet

Description: 

This “30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds” is a fun, accessible, easy to use guide that will show you, step-by-step, how to dramatically reduce your CO2 output in just a month’s time.

Grounded in over two decades of environmental behavior change research, this illustrated workbook offers much more than a list of eco-friendly actions. It walks you through every step of the process, from calculating your current CO2 “footprint” to tracking your progress.

By making simple changes to actions you take every day, you’ll learn how to reduce your annual household CO2 output by at least 15%. And, for those who are more ambitious, you’ll discover how you can become “carbon neutral” and help your workplace, local schools, and community do the same.

SMART USA

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SMART USA

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smart is a member of the Mercedes Car Group. smart vehicles are sold in 36 countries throughout the world. Over 750,000 fortwo vehicles have been sold since its introduction. When the United States starts selling the smart fortwo it will become the 37th country. The smart fortwo is scheduled to be available in the first quarter of 2008.

SMART car coming to the U.S. ... again

The SMART Car is coming to the U.S. ... of course, it's already been imported (legally) to the U.S. That effort was run by ZAP a company more famous for electric vehicles of all sizes (ZAP meaning Zero Air Pollution) who imported cars they commercially bought in Germany and had an American company revamp the cars to meet DOT compliance. The new plan is for Daimler Chrysler to import the cars themselves.

The author of the article spends the hole time in reaction to the small size. As usual the "different" gizmo meets with initial "eeew, that's so strange" reactions. Yes, it's a small car but so what? Why do we need huge vehicles to haul us around? If most of our driving is one person alone in a car, then why do they need a car designed for four people? Especially when the car designed for one or two people can get tremendously better gas mileage!!!

Then there's this little bit of eeeew that's so strange: the fact that it doesn't go very fast, capping out at 84 miles per hour ... I dunno about you, but 84 miles per hour is pretty darn speedy. That is unless you're in Montana or Idaho or Nevada. But very few people live in those states, and for most people, especially the city dwellers for whom this car is meant would find that speed very comfortable.

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SMART USA home page

So small, even a caveman could parallel-park it

An inconvenient comparison of two homes

Al Gore, the big time promotor of environmental awareness and alarming people of global warming... you'd think he'd be living in a super green house and driving a super green car, right? One would hope he'd put his money where his mouth is.

Al Gore's home is a typical mansion of the rich elite in all its energy wasting glory.

George W. Bush's home in Crawford Texas is the epitome of off-the-grid living with every sort of sustainable energy gizmo you could think of.

If only GW would do for the country what he does for himself in his own home.

UPDATE (April 14, 2007) In Ecotality Gets Drudged When Gore Goes Green it's noted that Al Gore has applied for zoning permission to install solar panels on his house.

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An Inconvenient Truth

Ecotality Gets Drudged When Gore Goes Green

Palm oil deemed biofuel failure

Marcel Silvius, a climate expert at Wetlands International in the Netherlands, led a team that compared the benefits of palm oil to the ecological harm from destroying virgin Asian rain forests to develop lucrative new plantations.

...Scientists and policymakers from more than 100 countries are meeting in Brussels, Belgium, starting Monday to report on the impact of global warming, including storms, flooding and the extinction of plants and animals.

...The report issued late last year by Wetlands International, Delft Hydraulics and the Alterra Research Center of Wageningen University in Holland studied the carbon released from peat swamps in Indonesia and Malaysia that had been drained and burned to plant palm oil trees.

About 85 percent of the world's palm oil comes from the two countries, and about one-quarter of Indonesia's plantations are on drained peat bogs, the report said.

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Palm oil deemed biofuel failure

Death of the cell phone charger...?

Eep, what a story this is. The story? That for decades researchers have dreamed of the ability to transmit power over long distances. It would remove the need for power lines etc. The dream goes back to the earliest days of the development of Electricity, as Nikolai Tesla himself worked on this idea. I first read of it in Heinlein's novel Farmer in the Sky.

According to the article the bugaboo was accuracy of the power transmission. The power would bounce off everything in sight making the power received at the device come at varying frequencies and power levels. This made it hard to build a reception circuit. Some researchers have focused themselves for a few years on this problem and come up with a small and very inexpensive solution.

The power levels are appropriate for charging a cell phone or similarly low power demand. It offers a way to keep portable electrical gadgets charged with few worries. No more worrying about charging your shaver, wireless keyboard or mouse, etc, because the power will be transmitted to them.

It doesn't say whether the device requires a power transmitter, or whether it will receive power from the ambient electrical noise that's already bombarding us. Modern society has seen fit to create a zillion different electrical transmissions going on all around us, so in a sense we're constantly in a soup of electromagnetic energy already. Perhaps the gadget will just draw its power from that soup?

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Death of the cell phone charger