Seeding the oceans not economical

Geo-engineering schemes to reduce levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and so reduce the risk of global warming and climate change keep cropping up. Ocean fertilization is one such. This involves dispersing large quantities of iron salts in the oceans to fertilize otherwise barren parts of the sea and trigger the growth of algal blooms and other photosynthesizing marine life. Photosynthesis requires carbon dioxide as its feedstock and when the algae die they will sink to the bottom of the sea taking the locked in carbon with them.

But there are so many aspects of marine dynamics which come into play and which we do not still understand. This has been the warning issued by many experts.

According to Daniel Harrison of the University of Sydney Institute of Marine Science, NSW who calculated the impact of iron seeding schemes in terms of the efficiency of spreading the iron, the impact it will most likely have on algal growth is low. The tonnage of carbon dioxide per square kilometer of ocean surface that will be actually absorbed compared to the hypothetical figures suggested by advocates of the approach is lower. In essence it is going to be a very costly affair!

His calculations take into account not only the carbon dioxide that will be certainly be sequestered permanently to the deep ocean but also subtracts the many losses due to ventilation, nutrient stealing, greenhouse gas production and the carbon dioxide emitted by the burning of fossil fuels to produce the iron salts and to power their transportation and distribution at sea. His calculations suggest that on average, a single ocean iron fertilization will result in a net sequestration of just 10 tonnes of carbon per square kilometer sequestered for a century or more at a cost of almost US$500 per tonne of carbon dioxide.

Now, it is a good question if money should be the deterrent to a good cause. But when you look at all the iron needed to make a significant difference, and all the unknown factors in the equation, it is dicey!

Vortex power

Fossil fuel power plants generate ample waste heat that can be used to make more electricity. Many modern plants have been capturing this heat and increasing the efficiency of the plants. A novel idea of a retired engineer hopes to create a huge vortex of warm air to cause a change in pressure at the bottom in order to drive a turbine-generator.

The concept for creating a vortex, like a tornado, is based on the fact that air, when heated, will expand, become lighter and rise up. As the air rotates and goes up, the pressure at the bottom of the vortex becomes lower. As surrounding air enters at the bottom, and the difference in pressures then drives a turbine generator to produce electricity.

The diameter and height of the vortex make a difference in how much energy can be produced. A vortex that is 200 meters in diameter and goes up 10 kilometers into the air could have the production capacity of 200 MW, Louis Michaud, the engineer, said. He envisions power plant owners to set up vortex-building equipment at existing facilities to make use of the waste heat and increase the overall electricity-production efficiency of the power plant.

A combined-cycle natural gas power plant takes the heat byproduct from burning natural gas and makes steam to run a turbine generator. Doing so increases the efficiency of a power plant from the 40 percent range (simple-cycle design) to just over 60 percent (combined-cycle design).Michaud claims that his vortex station could make use of the waste heat a second time and boost the efficiency by another 20 percentage points.

For his prototype project, he plans to build a much smaller one that goes up 15 meters into the air and shows how it could turn a turbine. Michaud hopes to produce enough results to prove the technology concept by the end of the summer of 2013.

There have been fancy ideas like capturing the energy packed in a lightning – enough to power the needs of the planet’s denizens many times over! But what material can withstand the heat of a lightning? How can it be stored? Many questions but that does not stop people from dreaming. After all so much energy going waste every moment as lightning strikes. There have also been those who want to trap high-energy cosmic particles… Ultimately, it will be the analysis of energy input to that output. Let the most bizarre idea ignite!

Yield drops in rice and wheat crops

The Green Revolution has stagnated for key food crops in many regions of the world, according to a study. Among the top crop-producing nations, vast areas of two of the most populous -- China and India -- are witnessing especially considerable stagnation or decline in yield.

The study was published in the Dec. 18 issue of Nature Communications by scientists with the University of Minnesota's Institute on the Environment and McGill University in Montreal, Canada.

The study team developed geographically detailed maps of annual crop harvested areas and yields of maize (corn), rice, wheat and soybeans from 1961 to 2008. It found that although virtually all regions showed a yield increase sometime during that period, in 24 to 39 percent of the harvested areas (depending on the crop) yield plateaued or outright declined in recent years.

Interestingly, the researchers found that yields of wheat and rice -- two crops that are largely used as food crops, and which supply roughly half of the world's dietary calories -- are declining across a higher percentage of cropland than those of corn and soybean, which are used largely to produce meat or biofuels.

"This finding is particularly troubling because it suggests that we have preferentially focused our crop improvement efforts on feeding animals and cars, as we have largely ignored investments in wheat and rice, crops that feed people and are the basis of food security in much of the world," said study co-author and IonE director Jonathan Foley, professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in the College of Biological Sciences. "How can we meet the growing needs of feeding people in the future if one-third of our cropland areas, in our most important crops, are not improving in yield any more?"

The paper suggests two actions based on its findings. First, it recommends working to maintain the positive trajectory for the 61 to 76 percent of croplands where yield is still climbing. Second, it encourages crop-producing regions around the world to look at their yield trends and those of others to identify what's working and what might be improved. Going by what climate scientists say, we can expect more of such drops in yield. Add to it water scarcity and you have enough of a doomsday scenario. The Mayans as also most other civilisations learnt it the hard way as they exploited natural resources to the last bit. Do we know any better? Will a date make a difference?

Scaling up renewables the way to beat the unreliability!

Often, the solution is simple. Even as we go chasing complex ways to solve a problem, the simple and often direct method lies ignored. So also with renewable energy where the challenge has been that of intermittency and unreliability of supply. Storage has been the oft quoted solution, and not without its own set of challenges.

Now consider what research from University of Delaware suggests: By 2030, scaled-up green power could meet the demands of a large grid 99.9 percent of the time. Simple, right? Intermittency and unreliability comes in when you dont have enough. So what best than to boost supply through a diverse range of sources?

A mix of offshore and onshore wind, along with contributions from solar power, could provide reliable power flow during all but a handful of days.

Moreover, researchers found that scaling up renewable generation capacity to seemingly excessive levels -- more than three times the needed load, in some instances -- proved more cost-effective than scaling up storage capacity, due to the high systems costs associated with storage technology.

Inefficiency is something that troubles thermal plants.  Power plants burn three times the amount of fuel energy needed to produce their energy output. Over-generation of renewable power would be cost effective even if all excess energy were simply dumped, according to the study. If that excess energy were harnessed -- to offset the costs of heating fuels, for example -- costs could be lowered even further.

If reliability has long haunted renewable sector, the answer lies in spread! By extending enough wind turbines and solar panels over a wide enough area, it is possible to achieve approximate reliability by shifting power from active to passive regions.

Coming to baseload power and using fossil fuel backed plants as backup, the University of Delaware study found a large enough system of renewable energy generators could feasibly fill its own reliability gaps. In our 99.9 percent scenario, they found that, in four years, only five times would you need to bring fossil-fuel plants back online to ensure power supply.

Ghost consumption

While on the subject of energy conservation, there are some simple stark facts most of us are unaware of. We know about replacing incandescent lamps, buying energy-efficient labeled products, etc. But there are some facts largely unknown. Energy experts have been trying to focus on these small but effective measures to release wasted power. For instance, many devices in our homes such as TV, DVD players, AC machines, music systems, etc have a standby mode. If not “switched off” they can consume as much as 6 Watt to 10 Watts of power!

Mosquito mats if not switched off consume 10 to 15 watts during day time. Frequent opening and closing of doors of refrigerators can drastically increase power consumption. Air-conditioners have a wide difference in power consumption for even 1 degree difference in cooling. By simply selecting a comfortable 24 deg rather than a cold 18 deg not only is comfort assured but much energy saved.

Use of excessive lighting should be avoided and task lighting can be chosen. Using table lamp in place of wall mounted 40Watt tube light is an example for this. Popular Zero Watt bulbs are not zero energy consuming devices. They consume around 15watts of power!

Solar cookers for day time cooking can save a lot of energy. Cookers are available which can be operated from balcony of a house.

Every little but conscious action counts.

Revisiting the n-issue

We need more power. No one can argue that. With only 53% of the rural population having access to grid electricity, no doubt we need more power. The Central Electricity Authority shows that the gap in average supply and demand varied from 8 to 11% between 2007 and 2012, while the peak varied from 9 to 18%. Both the peak and base deficits will, in fact, increase to 14% and 20% respectively by 2017 at the current rate of growth in India.

But, while we need any kind of clean power, the question is whether we can afford nuclear. Managing nuclear plants can even be dangerous. But isn’t handling lead-acid batteries also a dangerous hazard? Even generating solar power is not without its toxic hazards. Think inverter and battery store! Of course, not as hazardous as a nuclear plant but many such will add up to create their own problems.

Now consider that nuclear plants have been functioning pretty well except for the couple of mishaps. Can we rule them out? Or call them only dangerous? Since nuclear has been around for around 60 years, how about a comparison with fossil fuels and their cumulative damage down 60 years? The water they have used and polluted, the carbon they have emitted, the flyash they produce, etc. Can one then dismiss nuclear, especially if the safeguards are established? Perhaps we need to look at smaller plants rather than big ones with their potential for large mischief.

However, instead of constantly producing more power, wouldn’t it help if we learnt to get more from less? Also to turn off the switch when we can afford to. An energy expert was saying that even if every house in India turned off just one light for 5 hours a day, the country would have no power problem!

Storage holds the key for meaningful transition

Science Daily reports on a study from the University of Delaware and Delaware Technical Community College suggests that wind and solar could power the grid 99.9% of the time if combined with a certain amount of energy storage and fossil fuel backups for the rare occasion that clean energy alone was not enough.

Using computer modeling, the researchers explored 28 billion combinations of renewables and storage mechanisms, each tested with four years of weather and energy demand data. The results were encouraging, and because the study focused not just on matching supply with demand, but rather achieving the most cost effective solutions, it revealed some rather useful findings. For one, that it is cheaper to over-build generation capacity to a point where there is excess supply on sunny or windy days, and still an adequate direct supply when demand is high but wind or sun are in short supply.

During the hours when there was not enough renewable electricity to meet power needs, the model drew from storage and, on the rare hours with neither renewable electricity or stored power, then fossil fuel. When there was more renewable energy generated than needed, the model would first fill storage, use the remaining to replace natural gas for heating homes and businesses and only after those, let the excess go to waste.

The study used cost estimates for renewables in 2030, that showed wind and solar at roughly half the installation price they are today, with maintenance costs remaining roughly constant. Add energy conservation and sustainable resource use and what have you?!

Direct grants for solar projects

India has just released a draft policy with the goal of building 9,000 megawatts of grid-connected solar plants by 2017, more than eight times its current capacity. Plans include auctioning 1,650 megawatts of photovoltaic capacity by the central government in the next financial year, grants to cut project costs and loosening curbs on the purchase of equipment from overseas, according to the draft published on the website of the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy.

The solar industry will be funded with direct grants covering as much as 40 percent of the upfront cost of building projects. That model has previously been used to build roads, ports, railways and fossil-fuel plants in India, says the Bloomberg report.

Since India began its National Solar Mission in 2010 the many players have managed to cut average costs of photovoltaic power 51 percent. The program has sought to drive down the cost of solar power to the level of other forms of grid-supplied electricity by 2017. But private lenders have been slow to fund solar because of a lack of confidence in the technology, according to the draft.

Higher interest rates and the short-term lending available for renewable projects in India add as much as 32 percent to the cost of clean power compared with similar projects in the U.S. and Europe, according to a report released today by the Climate Policy Initiative and the Indian School of Business. Developers submitting bids that need the least funding will win solar auctions, according to proposed rules. Grants would be paid in stages as projects reach milestones to prevent developers from bidding too low and ignoring plant performance.

That approach seeks to avoid the large, drawn-out subsidies taken on by European governments that pay fixed premium tariffs to clean-energy plants for as long as 20 years. Germany, Italy and the U.K. have rolled backed support as the cost of their subsidies ballooned as installations boomed.

The draft raises the possibility of doing away with a rule that requires projects to buy crystalline cells and panels from local manufacturers. Those companies have filed a complaint alleging foreign competitors are dumping equipment below cost in India.

Keeping up with the Joneses!

Today it is all about data and more data for any good job that needs to be done. So smart meters should be the next big thing in the world of smart power. Because it gives you data and data. But is the data what counts or something else, like behavior science?!

In the US there are growing number of so-called electricity consumer engagement companies that set out to help customers reduce their electricity use, primarily by analyzing their current consumption and finding the easy fixes. These companies are mixing in data from the rapid deployment of smart meters with behavioral science to try and answer a key question: How can we get people to care? The central idea is that by showing people how much electricity they use, when they use it, they can be driven to change. In the process, these companies have found that more important than providing details of how to save power and when to use gadgets, is to show what the neighbors and peers are using or saving!

“The buzzwords around the utility industry today, it’s all about consumer engagement,” says Dean Chuang, a senior research analyst. Studies have suggested that a big chunk of energy — as much as 20 percent — that enters a house ends up wasted. The companies involved in these new efforts say customers who pay attention to their data and use their software products save from one to ten percent on their electricity bills.

The U.S. government has gotten on board, with the launch in early 2012 of the Green Button initiative from the Department of Energy. Utilities that sign on to Green Button provide a simple way for customers to download personalized energy usage data from the utility web site. The first two waves of utility partners will cover 27 million customers, with more on the way. When utilities around the country partner with these consumer engagement firms they can send consumers home energy use reports or audits that give a far clearer picture than a standard bill. These home energy reports can compare usage amounts to other households nearby and, if smart meters have been deployed in a given area, can offer detailed opportunities for improvement — when to use appliances, better control of thermostats, and so on.

Smart appliances can also connect to these systems and allow, say, a dishwasher to run at 3 a.m., when power demand and prices are low. But people using such data are miniscule. Most are energy unaware. And the big culprit for that are subsidized rates for power. Unless the price begins to pinch, will any amount of smart information help change consumption patterns?

Record high emissions

Global carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are set to rise again in 2012, reaching a record high of 35.6 billion tonnes -- according to new figures from the Global Carbon Project, co-led by researchers from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia . The 2.6 per cent rise projected for 2012 means global emissions from burning fossil fuel are 58 per cent above 1990 levels, the baseline year for the Kyoto Protocol.

This latest analysis by the Global Carbon Project is published December 2 in the journal Nature Climate Change with full data released simultaneously by the journal Earth System Science Data Discussions.

It shows the biggest contributors to global emissions in 2011 were China (28 per cent), the United States (16 per cent), the European Union (11 per cent), and India (7 per cent). Emissions in China and India grew by 9.9 and 7.5 per cent in 2011, while those of the United States and the European Union decreased by 1.8 and 2.8 per cent.

Emissions per person in China of 6.6 tonnes of CO₂ were nearly as high as those of the European Union (7.3), but still below the 17.2 tonnes of carbon used in the United States. Emissions in India were lower at 1.8 tonnes of carbon per person.

The 2012 rise further opens the gap between real-world emissions and those required to keep global warming below the international target of two degrees. Emissions from deforestation and other land-use change added 10 per cent to the emissions from burning fossil fuels. The CO₂ concentration in the atmosphere reached 391 parts per million (ppm) at the end of 2011.

These results lends further urgency to recent reports that current emissions pathways are already dangerously high and could lead to serious impacts and high costs on society. These other analyses come from the International Energy Agency, the United Nations Environment Programme, the World Bank, the European Environment Agency, and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

Jobs galore in renewable sector

India’s renewable energy sector create up to 2.4 million jobs by 2020, according to a report jointly commissioned by environmental group Greenpeace, the Global Wind Energy Council and the European Renewable Energy Council. To date, the sector employs 200,000 people, but this could jump 14 times by 2030 with the right policies and investments in place, stated India Energy [R]evolution report.

By 2050, about 92 percent of India’s energy infrastructure will be based on renewable energy sources. Renewables such as wind, solar thermal energy and photovoltaic, will comprise 74 percent of electricity generation.

The study projected that the country will experience immediate market development, with high annual growth rates achieving renewable electricity share of 32 percent already by 2020 and 62 percent by 2030. Moreover, the installed capacity of renewable energy will reach 548 gigawatts in 2030 and 1,356 by 2050.

Meanwhile, the radical shift to renewable energy and energy efficiency on a long-term basis will deliver savings of about one-fourth of the country’s energy spending. Given that renewables have no fuel costs, India could save as much as 285 trillion Indian rupees ($ 5,500 billion) to 7.1 trillion Indian rupees ($ 138 billion) per year under the Energy [R]evolution scenario.

The total average yearly investment in fossil fuels will be offset by the growth of renewable energy, stated the report. Thus, India would shift roughly 97 percent of the overall investments in renewables along with cogeneration, of which the average renewable energy investments annually will reach 6.1 trillion India rupees ($ 117 billion) between 2011 and 2050.

“Future of India’s growth lies with massive expansion and deployment of renewable energy technologies through key policy reforms and significant investments, without putting any negative impact on its pristine forest and dependent marginalized communities,” stressed Greenpeace.

Renewable energy development will also help India reduce its carbon emissions, which is now crucial in the face of climate change. The report stated that the country will decrease its emissions from 1.7 million tons in 2009 to 426 million tons in 2050. Additionally, annual per capita emissions will drop from 1.4 ton per capita to 0.3 per capita. By 2050, India’s carbon emissions will be 72 percent of 1990 levels, noted the report.

The India Energy [R]evolution report, which focuses on the socio-economic impacts of renewable and proposes the pathway to ensure India’s energy security in the long run, “comes at a critical time when the country is facing massive power shortage due to the inability of fossil fuels to meet its economic aspirations,” said Greenpeace.

Green cannibal algae rings hope

A carnivorous island may still be a figment of imagination from a recent Ang Lee film but research has just found that there are plants that eat their own kind. Photosynthesis we know is the way plants manufacture their quota of energy. Some plants do this by eating other plants! Members of the biological research team at Bielefeld University have made a groundbreaking discovery that one plant has another way of doing this. They have confirmed for the first time that a plant, the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, not only engages in photosynthesis, but also has an alternative source of energy: it can draw it from other plants. This finding could also have a major impact on the future of bioenergy.

Until now, it was believed that only worms, bacteria, and fungi could digest vegetable cellulose and use it as a source of carbon for their growth and survival. Plants, in contrast, engage in the photosynthesis of carbon dioxide, water, and light. In a series of experiments, the team cultivated the microscopically small green alga species Chlamydomonas reinhardtii in a low carbon dioxide environment and observed that when faced with such a shortage, these single-cell plants can draw energy from neighbouring vegetable cellulose instead.

The alga secretes enzymes (so-called cellulose enzymes) that 'digest' the cellulose, breaking it down into smaller sugar components. These are then transported into the cells and transformed into a source of energy: the alga can continue to grow.

'This is the first time that such a behaviour has been confirmed in a vegetable organism', says Professor Kruse. 'That algae can digest cellulose contradicts every previous textbook. To a certain extent, what we are seeing is plants eating plants'. Currently, the scientists are studying whether this mechanism can also be found in other types of alga.

This property of algae could also be of interest for bioenergy production. Breaking down vegetable cellulose biologically is one of the most important tasks in this field. Although vast quantities of waste containing cellulose are available from, for example, field crops, it cannot be transformed into biofuels in this form. Cellulose enzymes first have to break down the material and process it. At present, the necessary cellulose enzymes are extracted from fungi that, in turn, require organic material in order to grow. If, in future, cellulose enzymes can be obtained from algae, there would be no more need for the organic material to feed the fungi. Just when it seems like everything that is to be disocvered has been, nature throws another surprise. And mankind grabs each discovery to turn it for its own benefit. The game goes on... 

UK serious about energy efficiency

UK government has launched a new strategy entitled the ‘Energy Efficiency Strategy’ that aims to save the equivalent of 22 power stations-worth of energy by 2020. Published by the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC), the Strategy “is aimed at changing the way energy is used in sectors such as housing, transport and manufacturing over the coming decades.”

The Strategy also includes immediate actions that the government hopes will help “kick start a revolution in UK energy efficiency.” Some aspects of the strategy include: £39 million to fund five centres examining business and household energy demand. The five End Use Energy Demand Centres, funded by the Research Councils UK and project partners and led by leading universities, will look at what drives energy demand and how to change future behaviour. 

An energy efficiency labelling trial with John Lewis. DECC and John Lewis will introduce a product-labelling trial next year that shows the lifetime running costs of household appliances. A similar trial in Norway showed that this information led to consumers purchasing goods that are more energy efficient.

A drive on financing energy efficiency for business and the public sector. As well as a guide to help public sector organisations cut their energy use, the government will fund a nationwide rollout of RE:FIT, the Mayor of London’s award winning programme to improve public sector energy efficiency. The government is also working with ENWORKS in the North West to understand how best to finance and upgrade to more energy-efficient equipment in commercial and manufacturing businesses.

Super solar steam

Can water be boiled in a totally new way? Yes, and in the process provide much needed energy to so many industrial processes and sanitation!

Rice University scientists have unveiled a revolutionary new technology that uses nanoparticles to convert solar energy directly into steam. The new "solar steam" method from Rice's Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) is so effective it can even produce steam from icy cold water.

The technology has an overall energy efficiency of 24 percent. Photovoltaic solar panels, by comparison, typically have an overall energy efficiency around 15 percent. However, the inventors of solar steam said they expect the first uses of the new technology will not be for electricity generation but rather for sanitation and water purification in developing countries.

The efficiency of solar steam is due to the light-capturing nanoparticles that convert sunlight into heat. When submerged in water and exposed to sunlight, the particles heat up so quickly they instantly vaporize water and create steam. 

A solar steam demonstration showed a test tube of water containing light-activated nanoparticles submerged into a bath of ice water. Using a lens to concentrate sunlight onto the near-freezing mixture in the tube, the scientist showed she could create steam from nearly frozen water. Steam is one of the world's most-used industrial fluids. About 90 percent of electricity is produced from steam, and steam is also used to sterilize medical waste and surgical instruments, to prepare food and to purify water.

People in developing countries will be among the first to see the benefits of solar steam. Rice engineering undergraduates have already created a solar steam-powered autoclave that's capable of sterilizing medical and dental instruments at clinics that lack electricity.

"Solar steam is remarkable because of its efficiency," said Neumann, the lead co-author on the paper. "It does not require acres of mirrors or solar panels. In fact, the footprint can be very small. For example, the light window in our demonstration autoclave was just a few square centimeters."

Another potential use could be in powering hybrid air-conditioning and heating systems that run off of sunlight during the day and electricity at night. Halas, Neumann and colleagues have also conducted distillation experiments and found that solar steam is about two-and-a-half times more efficient than existing distillation columns.

As we go on, wonder what exciting discoveries remain to unfold! 

Phone audits!

Could smartphones be used in energy 'audits', designed to help householders adopt energy conservation measures (ECMs) to reduce emissions, conserve resources and reduce operating costs? Yes.

Traditionally, energy audits are undertaken by trained staff who travel from house to house, burning lots of petrol on the way. Their audits tend to focus on heating and cooling, and ignore other energy-thirsty devices, such as appliances. The vast majority of homes will also never have such an audit.

If suitable software could be created, householders could perform their own with their smartphones. Much of the technology needed already exists: phone sensors can take pictures for reports, act as crude light meters or confirm a variety of measurements; GPS data is already available for a wide range of applications. Even existing technology could analyze users' appliances, provide the energy-efficiency rankings of similar homes, and give breakdowns of current energy use.

An intuitive tool can be developed with which an untrained user would be able to choose their house type, energy source and payment method, choose an ECM and input data as instructed. For example, a user might provide the type and number of light fittings in their home, then receive suggestions for energy-saving replacements in real time; as technology developed, the range of tasks that could be performed by smartphone would grow.

A smartphone could also 'push' users to make changes when conditions are right, for example, when a rebate or cheaper tariff was available. Unlike the traditional 'one-off' audit, this system 'has the potential to keep users actively involved and constantly engaged with the energy efficiency of their homes'.

The biggest advantage of the smartphone-based energy auditing system is the high potential for accelerated energy and emissions savings. In their Southern Ontario case-study area alone, the researchers estimated that it would take auditors 55 years to cover all 157,000 dwellings in the current fashion. With smartphone technology, all the homes could, in theory, be audited simultaneously, cumulative carbon-dioxide savings from smartphones would surpass those from traditional audits in 13 to 17 years, even with conservative assumptions.

Of things to come...

Some glaciers of the Himalayas will continue shrinking for many years to come, despite anything! This forecast by Brigham Young University geology professor Summer Rupper comes after her research on Bhutan.

Published in Geophysical Research Letters, Rupper's most conservative findings indicate that even if climate remained steady, almost 10 percent of Bhutan's glaciers would vanish within the next few decades. What's more, the amount of melt water coming off these glaciers could drop by 30 percent.

Rupper says increasing temperatures are just one culprit behind glacier retreat. A number of climate factors such as wind, humidity, precipitation and evaporation can affect how glaciers behave. With some Bhutanese glaciers as long as 13 miles, an imbalance in any of these areas can take them decades to completely respond.

Snowfall rates in Bhutan would need to almost double to avoid glacier retreat, but it's not a likely scenario because warmer temperatures lead to rainfall instead of snow. If glaciers continue to lose more water than they gain, the combination of more rain and more glacial melt will increase the probability of flooding -- which can be devastating to neighboring villages.

"Much of the world's population is just downstream of the Himalayas," Rupper points out. "A lot of culture and history could be lost, not just for Bhutan but for neighboring nations facing the same risks." To illustrate the likelihood of such an outcome, Rupper took her research one moderate step further. Her results show if temperatures were to rise just 1 degree Celsius, the Bhutanese glaciers would shrink by 25 percent and the annual melt water would drop by as much as 65 percent

US could beat Saudi to top oil position!

The latest IEA report predicts that a relatively new technology for extracting oil from shale rock could make the United States the world’s leading oil producer within a decade, beating the current leader, Saudi Arabia. The International Energy Agency estimates that US production could reach 11.1 million barrels per day by 2020, almost entirely because of increases in the production of shale oil, which is extracted using the same horizontal drilling and fracking techniques that have flooded the U.S. with cheap natural gas.

As of the end of 2011, production had already increased to 8.1 million barrels per day, almost entirely because of shale oil. Production from two major shale resources in the U.S.—the Bakken formation in North Dakota and Montana and the Eagle Ford shale in Texas, now total about 900,000 barrels per day. In comparison, Saudi Arabia is expected to produce 10.6 million barrels per day in 2020. The shale oil resource, however, is limited. The IEA expects production to start gradually declining by the mid-2020s, at which time Saudi Arabia will reclaim the top spot.

Shale oil is creating a surge in U.S. oil production in part because it’s easy to find, says David

Houseknecht, a scientist at the U.S. Geological Survey. The oil is spread over large areas, compared to the relatively small pockets of more conventional oil deposits in the United States.

Just how much shale oil can be produced—and how fast—depends heavily on two factors: the price of oil, and how easy it is to overcome possible local objections to oil fracking, says Richard Sears, a former executive at Royal Dutch Shell and a visiting scientist at MIT.

Oil shale costs significantly more to produce than oil in Saudi Arabia and many other parts of the world, so for oil companies to go after this resource, oil prices need to stay relatively high. Concerns that fracking will contaminate drinking water have led to objections in some areas, as have concerns that shale oil requires far more drilling wells than conventional oil production.

The IEA does conclude that the United States will nearly be energy self-sufficient by 2035, but that’s after offsetting oil imports with exports of coal and natural gas. To be truly energy independent, the United States would have to invest in technology for converting natural gas and coal into the liquid fuels needed for transportation, or have other technical breakthroughs, such as improved batteries or biofuels, that would quickly reduce the demand for oil.

Carbon tax or Sin tax?

The National Electricity Policy-2005 had promised: Access to Electricity - Available for all households in next five years; Availability of Power - Demand to be fully met by 2012. Energy and peaking shortages to be overcome and adequate spinning reserve to be available; Supply of Reliable and Quality Power of specified standards in an efficient manner and at reasonable rates; Per capita availability of electricity to be increased to over 1000 units by 2012; Minimum lifeline consumption of 1 unit/household/day as a merit good* by year 2012. The 2011 Census shows 9 crore households lack access to electricity!

There is not much hope that above promises can be met even in the 12^th five year plan unless certain urgent and strong measures are taken under the provisions of the Energy Conservation Act, 2001, the Electricity Act, 2003 and other relevant Acts & Policies.

In economic parlance, a demerit good is a good or service

whose consumption is considered unhealthy, degrading, or otherwise socially undesirable due to the perceived negative effects on the consumers themselves. It is over-consumed if left to market forces. Examples include tobacco, alcoholic beverages, recreational drugs, etc. Because of the nature of these goods, governments often levy taxes on these goods (specifically, sin taxes), in some cases regulating or banning consumption or advertisement of these goods.

Some energy experts have an interesting thought process: Considering the fact that 34 % of the households in India are still living without electricity, should over consumption/inefficient use/abuse of electricity be considered as 'Demerit Good' and be taxed heavily as 'Sin Tax' ?! What do you think??

Shades of grey light

Just when you have flushed out the last incandescent at home, researchers in Japan have modified the blackbody radiation of an incandescent bulb, demonstrating the possibility of 95% electric power to visible-light conversion and paving the way for luminous efficiencies beyond 400 lm/W.

Because visible radiation is typically 10% of the output from an incandescent bulb, with the remaining 90% being infrared (IR) radiation, an emitter should be designed with high visible emissivity and low IR emissivity. Using Kirchhoff's law, modeling shows that a material with high reflectance in the IR wavelength region and low reflectance in the visible region displays a reverse trend in emissivity. By imposing a step-function-like reflectivity onto the surface of the heating material, IR radiation is reduced. The researchers fabricated such a thin-film structure (emitter) by co-sputtering 50 nm thick chromium metal and 50 nm thick chromium oxide onto a copper substrate.

The problem with incandescents was that only 2–5% of total input electrical power is converted to visible light, translating to low luminous efficiencies of 15–20 lm/W. Now that seems like being tackled. So is it worth pursuing this line? Why?

Unlike LEDs, incandescent lamps require no external regulating equipment, are inexpensive to produce, and work on either alternating or direct current over a wide range of applied voltage values. So perhaps we must take another look.

Almost 200 years have passed since the creation of the first incandescent light; however, there is ample scope for new discoveries and new applications in incandescence. Comes down again to, no black and whites only greys in life!

Spinning out of control

It is no more about how to check climate change. No more about 2 and 3 and 4 degrees. The scenario has shifted to how we plan for a warmer world. A much warmer world! This is because it is inevitable. We have crossed the tipping point.

Going by a latest study, it will now be almost impossible to keep the increase in global average temperatures up to 2100 within the 2C target that scientists believe might avert dangerous and unpredictable climate change.

The study by the accountancy giant PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) sees the world as destined for dangerous climate change this century – with global temperatures possibly rising by as much as 6C – because of the failure of governments to find alternatives to fossil fuels!

An analysis of how fast the major world economies are reducing their emissions of carbon dioxide from fossil fuels suggests that it may already be too late to stay within the 2C target of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it found. To keep within the 2C target, the global economy would have to reach a “decarbonisation” rate of at least 5.1 per cent a year for the next 39 years. This has not happened since records began at the end of the Second World War, according to Leo Johnson, a PwC partner in sustainability and climate change.

Even doubling our current rate of decarbonisation would still lead to emissions consistent with 6C of warming by the end of the century.

This could well end up as another reason why not to do anything at all!

Learning from Sandy

Sandy is the power of Nature over man, man in all his technological might. But more important Sandy shows human failure: our failure to listen to those who understand far better than most of us do the impact of human behavior on the atmosphere, our climate system, and the ecosystems that surround us.

While it is true that no singular weather event can be directly linked to human-caused global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported with increasing confidence that weather extremes will become more frequent, more widespread, and more intense with rising greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC’s assessments have led to many prominent people term global warming as this century’s greatest threat.

Sandy reveals our refusal to take responsibility for our actions and our skepticism that real change (of natural systems as well as of our own behavior) is possible, as Worldwatch Institute. (Read the excerpts from the institute's note.)

The storm devastated the Caribbean before heading up the East Coast of the United States, then turned inland and finally crawled all the way up to Canada, reminding us that climate change is a shared threat that knows no national boundaries. It is well accepted now that in order to prevent a warming of more than 2 degrees Celsius (considered the absolute maximum of temperature increase without major disruptions to the climate system and many ecosystems), human-caused greenhouse gas emissions need to peak well before 2020, possibly 2015. There is no action towards this.

Sandy illustrates what we cannot tire of emphasizing: if we don’t want our climate system to spin out of control entirely, to the point of no return, then efforts to change must be made in all sectors and on all levels of human activity and interaction. From the individual to the local, from states and provinces to nations, from the regional to the global: we need change—political, technical, and behavioral change—wherever it can be achieved, as quickly as it can be achieved.

Sandy also whos how those communities that have begun to prepare for higher sea levels and stronger storms are faring better than those that didn’t believe this would be necessary. And despite our rapid nearing of the 2°C threshold, we should not forget how much worse the impacts of climate change might already be without the many actions that humans have taken to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This can—and should—make us believe that, after all, change is possible.

Quantum dots add value to PV

Research shows that the way scientists look at solar power will be changing constantly in the coming years. Newly developed solar powered cells may soon outperform conventional photovoltaic technology. Scientists from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have demonstrated the first solar cell with external quantum efficiency (EQE) exceeding 100 percent for photons with energies in the solar range. (The EQE is the percentage of photons that get converted into electrons within the device.)

While traditional semiconductors only produce one electron from each photon, nanometer-sized crystalline materials such as quantum dots avoid this restriction and are being developed as promising photovoltaic materials. An increase in the efficiency comes from quantum dots harvesting energy that would otherwise be lost as heat in conventional semiconductors. The amount of heat loss is reduced and the resulting energy is funneled into creating more electrical current.

By harnessing the power of a process called multiple exciton generation (MEG), the researchers were able to show that on average, each blue photon absorbed can generate up to 30 percent more current than conventional technology allows. MEG works by efficiently splitting and using a greater portion of the energy in the higher-energy photons. The researchers demonstrated an EQE value of 114 percent for 3.5 eV photons, proving the feasibility of this concept in a working device.

This could mean solar panels that produce power at much cheaper rates than non-renewable sources! 

Efficiency shows US the way

Americans used less energy in 2011 than in the previous year, due mainly to a shift to higher-efficiency energy technologies in the transportation and residential sectors. Meanwhile, less coal was used but more natural gas was consumed according to the most recent energy flow charts released by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

Wind power saw the biggest jump from .92 quadrillion BTU, or quads, in 2010 up to 1.17 quads in 2011. Hydroelectricity also saw an increase going from 2.51 quads in 2010 up to 3.17 quads in 2011. Hydroelectricity jumped significantly in 2011 because 2011 saw large amounts of precipitation in the Western U.S.

The majority of energy use in 2011 was used for electricity generation (39.2 quads), followed by transportation, industrial, commercial and residential consumption. However, energy use in the residential, commercial and transportation sectors decreased while industrial energy use increased if only slightly.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), the nation’s solar photovoltaic (PV) capacity now exceeds 3.5 GW. This figure is the result of a new system at the EIA for estimating the lower bound on total installed PV capacity. The figure includes both utility and customer-scale installations. The latter was not captured in previous estimates.

Of this 3.5 GW of installed solar PV, about 30% of it is considered utility-scale solar. The remaining 70% is found in consumer-sited installations, including commercial/industrial (42%) and residential (28%). These data will give researchers the ability to more accurately track small-scale solar grown in the United States. Though, these data will still not capture off-grid PV systems.

New inverter holds promise

An Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis assistant professor has invented a new class of power inverter that could put cheaper and more efficient renewable energy products on the market. Professor Afshin Izadian, a researcher at the Richard G. Lugar Center for Renewable Energy at IUPUI, has invented a power inverter that employs just a single switching transistor and generates infinite-level voltages.

Power inverters are at the heart of several renewable energy technologies. Solar power, battery storage, electric vehicles, motor drives and manufacturing robots all use inverters to generate AC power efficiently. However, the current inverters with multiple switching transistors generate limited voltage levels, are heavy, generate unwanted harmonics (voltage frequencies) and require filters to reduce the harmful effects to the electric grid.

Izadian's invention, the result of a creative reconfiguration of an electrical circuit during a laboratory experiment, would make inverters cheaper, lighter and therefore more efficient than current models. While studying how voltage levels and polarities are created in inverters, he made his discovery.

Not only did the bench test work, it led to the discovery of several other circuits and controllers for high-power inverters with lower switching loss, higher voltage performance and lighter reconfigured circuits. For example, unwanted harmonics are greatly reduced with Izadian's invention. This means car manufacturers can reduce the size and insulation of traction motors so that electric vehicles can be made cheaper. The size and weight of the power electronics can also be reduced, which can boost fuel economy in hybrid cars and buses. Such advantages translate into wider adoption of green technologies and more affordable renewable energy for homes, vehicles and businesses.

Who will COP out this time?

Governments must take action and invest in nature to secure the diversity of life on earth and address today’s development challenges – urges IUCN (International Union for Conservation of Nature) at the 11th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP11), ongoing in Hyderabad, India.

Biodiversity loss continues and has breached safe planetary boundaries. It’s time for a serious check-up on progress we’ve made to turn the Big Plan into Big Action. According to the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™, out of the 63,837 species assessed, 19,817 are threatened with extinction, including 41% of amphibians, 33% of reef building corals, 25% of mammals, 13% of birds, and 30% of conifers.

It is no more about saving Nature for Nature’s sake but saving it for mankind’s sake!

Biological diversity is essential for our existence. The natural infrastructure of forests, rivers and oceans – with their natural riches and innate ability to help us adapt to climate change and minimise its impacts – offers viable solutions to today’s most pressing development challenges, including social and economic ones.

As IUCN notes, investing in natural infrastructure is a cost-effective way to respond to long-term human needs, including poverty reduction, food security, access to water and energy as well as a stable economy and generation of employment.

The signing of the CBD in 1993 was seen as a great victory for the developing countries. The convention gave the legal sovereignty claims to individual governments to own their biodiversity and to regulate and share its benefits with communities. This was a departure from the earlier approach of biodiversity being ‘common heritage of mankind.’ Unfortunately this novel treaty has remained largely in print. In India, the passing of Biological Diversity Act in 2002 and establishing of National Biodiversity Authority has had least impact in checking biodiversity destruction in the country. Blindly aping the western industrialised model of agricultural and livestock development has meant severe damage to India’s biodiversity.

Meanwhile, the Living Planet Report of 2012 which documents the changing state of biodiversity and its implications, states that due to the consistent trend of over consumption by developed and developing nations, the ecological footprint exceeded the earth’s bio-capacity and the area of land and productive oceans actually available to produce renewable resources and absorb CO2 emissions -- by more than 50 percent! Ecological foot print is larger than bio-capacity. We have been dipping into dwindling reserves for some time now.

Hopefully, some action will emerge out of the Hyderabad meet – in the form of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity and its 2020 Aichi Targets to save and restore nature.