Social networking website Facebook is coming under unprecedented pressure from its users to switch to renewable energy. In one of the web's fastest-growing environmental campaigns, Greenpeace international says at least 500,000 people have now protested at the organisation's intention to run its giant new data centre mainly on electricity produced by burning coal power.

Facebook will not say how much electricity it uses to stream video, store information and connect its 500m users but industry estimates suggest that at their present rate of growth all the data centres and telecommunication networks in the world will consume about 1,963bn kilowatt hours of electricity by 2020. That is more than triple their current consumption and more electricity than is used by France, Germany, Canada and Brazil combined.

Facebook announced in February that it planned to build what is expected to be the world's largest centralised data storage centres in Portland, Oregon. Although it will include some of the world's most energy-efficient computers, the sheer scale of the Facebook operation will almost certainly use more electricity than many developing countries.

The company has said it will source its electricity from Pacific Power. It uses coal power - the dirtiest form of power generation - for 67% of its electricity, and produces less than 12% of its electricity from renewable sources. The company has said it plans to generate more electricity from renewables in future but has given no detailed information.

In a statement Facebook said: "It is true that the local utility for the region we chose, Pacific Power, has an energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average. However, the efficiency we are able to achieve because of the climate of the region and the reduced energy usage that results minimises our overall carbon footprint.

"Said differently, if we located the data centre most other places, we would need mechanical chillers, use more energy, and be responsible for more overall carbon in the air - even if that location was fuelled by more renewable energy."

Kumi Naidoo, director of Greenpeace International, urged Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg to commit his company to a plan to phase out the use of dirty coal-fired electricity. In a letter to Facebook, Naidoo said: "Facebook is uniquely positioned to be a truly visible and influential leader to drive the deployment of clean energy."

Earlier this year Greenpeace admitted that many of its own web hosting operations are also housed in data centres powered primarily by coal and nuclear power. The environmental group said it offset all the energy used to power its main website in Amsterdam and used renewable energy where it could. Many of its servers in Washington also used wind power.

John Vidal is the environment editor for guardian.co.uk

Reprinted with permission from ecopolitology September, 02, 2010

The New York Times is reporting that major multinational banks are growing weary of delivering debt to industrial extraction projects, such as mountaintop removal coal mining in West Virginia.

The piece looks at a recent policy shift by Wells Fargo in providing financing for coal projects:

"In the most recent example, the banking giant Wells Fargo noted last month what it called "considerable attention and controversy" surrounding mountaintop removal mining, and said that its involvement with companies engaged in it was "limited and declining."

Apparently Wells Fargo as been a relatively small player in the sector ($78 million in bonds and loan financing since 2008 according to the Rainforest Action Network). However, HSBC, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan Chase and Bank of America have begun demanding greater environmental impact disclosure from potential mining customers.

While there's no doubt increased due diligence in mining deals has something to do with flat oil prices over the past year, environmental risk assessment is becoming a material piece of financial risk assessment. This is a leadership position for banks trying to appeal to the SRI community.

Image Credit by Chuck "Caveman" Coker via Flickr under a CC license

Reprinted with permission from The Inspired Economist August, 31, 2010

The horseshoe crab is one of the most ancient animals on the planet today. They have survived massive upheavals throughout the Earth's history and have remained intact and unchanged. Recently their numbers have been in decline, and this is thought to be due to coastal habitat destruction and overharvesting (they are often used as bait or in fertilizer). However, new research from the US Geological Survey (USGS) indicates that their population size also parallels changes in the climate. With predicted climate change in the future, their numbers may continue to decline.

The largest source of horseshoe crab decline remains overharvesting and habitat destruction. The new research suggests that climate change can play a role in altering the amount of successfully reproducing horseshoe crabs. According to Tim King, scientist with the USGS and lead author of the study, the accompanying sea-level rise and water temperature fluctuations may limit horseshoe crab distribution and interbreeding. This can lead to localized and regional population declines. This would mirror what occurred after the last ice age as temperatures rose.

"Using genetic variation, we determined the trends between past and present population sizes of horseshoe crabs and found that a clear decline in the number of horseshoe crabs has occurred that parallels climate change associated with the end of the last Ice Age," said King.

Significant declines have already been occurring along the entire eastern seaboard of the United States and eastern Gulf of Mexico. Further declines may have a devastating impact on the ecosystems which rely on nutrient-rich horseshoe crab eggs for food each spring. Species that have been affected include migrating seabirds such as the Red Knot, which feeds on the eggs at Delaware Bay during its 10,000 mile annual migration. Also, the Atlantic loggerhead turtle, which feed on the adult horseshoe crabs of Chesapeake Bay, have been forced to look for less desirable sources of food, affecting their population size.

Conservation managers can use the findings from this study to make more well-informed decisions on how to protect horseshoe crabs and other related species. For example, one finding indicated that males moved from one bay to the other, but females remained in one spot. Since females are more important in order to reproduce, devising local strategies may be more important than regional strategies.

"Consequently, harvest limitations on females in populations with low numbers may be a useful management strategy, as well as relocating females from adjacent bays to help restore certain populations," King said. "Both studies highlight the importance of considering both climatic change and other human-caused factors such as overharvest in understanding the population dynamics of this and other species."

The study was published in the journal, Molecular Ecology. It was authored by Tim King, Soren Faurby of Denmark, Matthias Obst of Sweden, and others. A previous study on this subject was also authored by Tim King and others in the journal, Transactions of the American Fisheries Society.

Link to published article in Molecular Ecology: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1365-294X.2010.04732.x/abstract

Link to published article in Transactions of the American Fisheries Society: http://afsjournals.org/doi/abs/10.1577/T04-023.1

Reprinted with permission from Environmental News Network August, 31, 2010

Back in the 1920's, the cartoonist Rube Goldberg became a household name by drawing a seemingly endless series of fanciful and absurd contraptions in which a simple action, such as pushing a lever, would lead to an unfolding mechanical drama. The lever might drop a ball into a chute, where it would roll to the bottom and knock a wheel into motion, which in turn would activate a scissors that would cut a rope... You get the idea.

It's no surprise, therefore, that when scientists began to wrestle with the potential impact of human-generated greenhouse gases, they often used Goldberg's machines as an analogy. Earth's climate is a complex, interrelated system involving the land, atmosphere, biosphere, and oceans. If you push on a lever by pumping extra CO2 into the air, it sets off a cascade of events - warming air; warming oceans; melting ice; changes in evaporation, vegetation, ocean currents, wind patterns and more - which themselves push on the system in various ways, leading to more changes, which further alter the system, and so on.

Over decades, improvements in observations of the present climate, reconstructions of ancient climate, and computer models that simulate past, current, and future climate have reduced some of the uncertainty in forecasting how rising temperatures will ripple through the climate system. Except, that is, when it comes to clouds. No variable has more confounded climate scientists than how clouds will react to - and influence - a warming world.

Satellite technology allows scientists to localize clouds in 3-D and associate different cloud types with their amount of solar reflection. And although researchers are still far from certain whether an anticipated increase in cloudiness will further heat up the planet or offset the warming a bit, a growing consensus among climate modelers is that clouds will increase, rather than hold back, the warming triggered by greenhouse gases. That's largely because water vapor itself is a powerful greenhouse gas, which means that clouds should trap more heat than they are likely to reflect back into space.

Still, at this point, few climate scientists would be willing to stake their reputations on a definitive forecast of how clouds will impact the climate system in coming decades and centuries. Stanford University climate scientist Stephen Schneider, in an e-mail written just a week or so before his untimely death on July 19, said, "Cloud feedback has been uncertain by a factor of 3 since I did the first paper with that title nearly 40 years ago - we are still no closer to an answer."

Many of Schneider's colleagues would argue that they are farther along in understanding cloud "feedbacks" than that. But the uncertainty is understandable, given the many variables at play in studying the effect of clouds on a warmer planet: What types of clouds will form and at what altitude, what particles will the clouds form around, and how can modelers go from predicting the ways any given bank of clouds might behave as opposed to forecasting how the effects on systems of clouds on a regional or global scale? Then there is the problem that, unlike temperature readings - which have been taken in many parts of the globe for more than a century - cloud observations have been far less complete.

Given the uncertainties, it's no surprise that climate skeptics, including prominent ones like Freeman Dyson of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., have argued that vagaries in the response of clouds undercut the reliability of climate projections.

Despite the many unknowns, however, Dave Randall, a cloud modeler at Colorado State University, insists that "we do know a lot about clouds. We just don't know enough. We're not in the infant stages of understanding any more; we're in first or second grade, and on the way to adolescence."

A Challenge for Climate Modelers

Generally, in a warming world, scientists expect more evaporation of the oceans, leading to more water vapor in the atmosphere and more cloudiness. That would probably increase surface temperatures, but clouds block the sun, keeping some of its energy from heating the Earth's surface, which should hold the warming back. That's the case, at least, if they're low-level clouds; high-altitude cirrus clouds are much less reflective, so they tend to enhance warming. And more water in the atmosphere might not lead to more cloudiness anyway: A warmer atmosphere needs more H2O to become saturated - the fundamental requirement for cloud formation.

A major problem facing climate modelers is extrapolating the behavior and impacts of clouds from an individual level to a regional scale. The resolution of climate models - the grid boxes researchers divide the atmosphere into for the purposes of simulations, analogous to the pixels that make up a digital image - is much bigger than any individual cloud. And, says Randall, what goes on inside those grid boxes in the real world varies widely depending on local conditions, including the type of particles around which water vapor condenses to form clouds.

If you pour lots of sunshine into, say, the Amazon basin, you'll evaporate a lot of water from the surface, which favors cloud formation. But once the clouds form, they cast shadows, which cuts off evaporation. If you get a big plume of dust blowing off the Sahara, that dust absorbs solar radiation, creating a warm layer of air a kilometer or two above the ocean, which inhibits cloud formation. If ice particles in the upper atmosphere are a certain size, they'll seed the formation of cirrus clouds - but if they're a little too big, they can't stay aloft, so clouds don't form.

Randall cited one example of a huge regional cloud phenomenon in the tropics whose behavior in a warming world is uncertain. Known as the Madden-Julian Oscillation, the phenomenon involves the formation of enormous systems of thunderstorms over the oceans, driving weather patterns affecting millions of people. "Most models do not even produce this phenomenon, even though it's the largest feature in tropical atmosphere," said Randall. "If you're missing that, you're missing an important thing. We'd like to be able to predict whether it will get stronger and more common, or less."

Climate scientists would obviously be far more confident in the models if the simulations of cloud behavior matched the real world. But just as with the computer models, observations of clouds have been too spotty to get an accurate picture of what's going on. Meteorologists have been taking reasonably consistent readings of temperatures around the world for more than a century, which is why the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change can talk so confidently about the fact of global warming. But there's no comparable data set on clouds, which means that "there's really nothing we can say about how clouds have changed globally over the 20th century," says Amy Clement, a climatologist at the University of Miami.

But that began to change about a decade ago with a set of satellite-borne NASA experiments known as "Clouds and the Earth's Radiant Energy System," or CERES. "What we measure," says CERES principal investigator Norman Loeb, of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, "is how much radiation is being reflected from the Earth and how much is being emitted, all the way from the top of the atmosphere down to the surface."

When you combine that with data from other instruments that look at the physical properties of what's going on down below - whether those emissions and reflections are coming from clouds, aerosols, or the surface itself - you can see where the clouds are and where they aren't, how they ebb and flow, and, crucially, how their presence or absence correlates with changes in temperature. You can, in Loeb's words, "unscramble the egg." The bad news is that it will take several decades to unscramble it fully.

Over the past decade when scientists have finally begun to get high-quality, uninterrupted data on clouds, there have also been strong El Nino and La Nina events - the sort of short-term natural variations that can temporarily mask the underlying signal of climate change. "As you collect more data," says Loeb, "the signal will emerge from that natural variability. In 15 or 20 years, it will start getting interesting." Nevertheless, he says, the measurements so far suggest that there's no strong negative climate feedback from clouds, and some indication of a positive feedback - just as the models have been forecasting.

Given the preliminary nature of these results, it's too soon to rule out a negative cloud feedback. MIT's Richard Lindzen, for example, has proposed a mechanism called the Iris Hypothesis that could in principle produce a cooling effect. The idea is that as the Earth warms, the increase in humidity leads to a change in the balance between heat-reflecting cumulus clouds and heat-trapping cirrus in the tropics, with the former increasing and the latter diminishing. The result would be a strong counterweight to greenhouse warming - not enough, perhaps, to overcome it, but enough to make the warming minimal.

The problem, says Clement, is that "there's no empirical evidence for it." Atmospheric scientist Bing Lin has used CERES data to test Lindzen's hypothesis, finding that instead of a strong negative feedback, there's actually a weak positive one.

Another set of real-world experiments is known collectively as the GEWEX Cloud System Study. (GEWEX stands for Global Energy and Water Cycle Experiment). Scientists from different government agencies go out for several weeks at a time, using some combination of aircraft, ships, and remote sensing instruments to observe clouds in great detail on small scale. Then they compare the observations, not against global climate models, but against models that simulate clouds on those same scales. It's a sort of bottom-up approach that's helping inform the top-down models climate modelers use, says Anthony Del Genio, of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

All of the evidence so far is only suggestive, not definitive, that clouds will accelerate warming. Yet most climate scientists say that the case is getting stronger. And researchers who remain uncertain about the impact of clouds on the climate say that even if clouds have a slight cooling effect, it will not be sufficient to put the brakes on human-caused warming.

"I'm as skeptical as any other scientist," says Clement. "I still ask myself, 'Do I really believe this global warming thing?' I can't just give students the party line. But the conclusion I come to is that it's really hard to see anything in the data or models that suggest clouds can overwhelm the effects of CO2 on temperature."

Del Genio comes to pretty much the same conclusion. "The only possible way to explain the warming we've experienced from 1970 onward," he says, "is if the climate has a significant sensitivity to greenhouse gases. We've monitored volcanoes, the sun, pollution aerosols, and despite all of these things [which would tend to slow temperature increases], we've seen systematic warming. That's telling us that even if clouds end up being a negative feedback, it couldn't be large enough to offset the warming significantly."

And cloud feedbacks could equally well end up being a more strongly positive feedback than the models are suggesting.

"In most things where uncertainty goes both ways, we tend to plan against the worst-case scenario," says Del Genio. If you have high cholesterol, for example, you try to reduce it - even though high cholesterol doesn't necessarily guarantee a heart attack. With climate change, he says, "We freely admit that we don't understand everything. But if we're anywhere close to being right, there's significant warming in our future."

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360. August, 30, 2010

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360 March, 26, 2010

People in California's hinterlands pay a very high price for electricity. They use three times more power than the average; trying to stay cool, and they now pay four times the base rate for it. They think that's not fair, and PG&E agrees with them. PG&E is applying for a rate change to reduce the top tier rate, and spread the cost of that higher energy use amongst the rest of their ratepayers.

But it's no secret in solar circles that one reason for the boom in California solar has been those high rates paid by the most profligate energy consumers in the state. A "front-of-the-bay" Bay Area counterpart who (by not needing air conditioning or a swimming pool) pays about $100 for an average of just 550 kilowatt hours a month.

But someone with a swimming pool and air conditioning, in back of the Berkeley Hills, in the stifling cities of Concord, Walnut Creek, Pleasanton and Livermore - that see summer temperatures routinely over 95 degrees Fahrenheit - can easily spend up to $400 a month for 1,500 kilowatt hours a month of electricity.

They want to reduce that amount to only three times the base rate of 11 cents a kilowatt hour - to 30 cents a kilowatt hour, dropping almost 20 cents. Instead of the current five tiers, based on usage, PG&E proposes a switch to three tiers.

The rate for the bottom two tiers would remain the same, but many customers who are now in those two tiers would be placed in a higher tier (with the reduction from five to two tiers) and, as a result, pay a higher rate. Overall, PG&E would not make more money on the change. The high energy users would drop about $100 off their monthly bills, and the rest of us would pay $10 more a month to make up the difference.

But, if PG&E lowers the steepest rates of the inland residents, that will lower the pricing incentive that they have to switch to cleaner solar power.

Currently solar is cheaper than PG&E right away for those who have those high bills. So it has been easy for many local solar companies to compete with PG&E - part of the reason that California's green jobs have grown three times as fast as jobs in the moribund regular economy.

Homeowners' solar now supplies more than 2.5% of state utility's peak demand for power on the grid and that figure is approaching 5%. But without that high bill incentive, less solar power would be put on the rooftops of inland residents.

Removing the incentive from homeowners would just return the pressure to PG&E to add more dirty gas powered electricity, with the danger that more natural gas electricity brings to California's water supply, our health, and future climate.

In the long run, keeping that rate inequity is better for all Californians.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica March, 26, 2010

[Our ongoing series "Communicating Climate Change" with Dave Levitan will often feature conversations with journalists and other communicators who face the challenge of writing on climate issues. We have previously featured former New York Times climate reporter and Dot Earth blogger Andy Revkin as well as Climate Progress blogger Joe Romm. - Ed.] Kate Sheppard covers energy and environmental politics in Washington, D.C., for Mother Jones. Prior to joining Mother Jones, she wrote for Grist in Seattle, and her work has also appeared online at the Washington Post and New York Times, as well as in the Guardian and elsewhere. You can follow her on Twitter @kate_sheppard. Links and emphasis are mine. Dave Levitan: You went to Copenhagen, and participated in what was a brief deluge of coverage for climate change and related policy issues. How do you keep people's interest or attention when there isn't such a large and visible event to pin stories on? Kate Sheppard: Well, usually I'm covering what's going on with day-to-day politics in Washington. And even if what's happening right now is going really slowly, there are almost constant updates on what's happening on policy, and new perspectives on where that debate is going. So that is one way to keep people-especially people who are really focused on politics or policy-involved, is to just keep following that day-to-day. I think for a wider public who might not be quite as tuned in with what's happening here in Washington, it's about making the connections between the policy and climate change and their everyday lives. What does the clean energy future mean for you as person who is a homeowner or a driver, or a parent concerned about public health - it's about connecting those things I think to what people experience every day. Climate change itself is something that's big and far away and somewhat nebulous, but there are a lot of implications for politics and policy and everyday life. DL: I've noticed that lacking in a lot of coverage of climate policy, and I've written about this here - do you try and get in explanations of WHY cap-and-trade, or WHY a focus on clean energy jobs, what it means in the larger view? KS: I think in a lot of articles I do attempt to make that connection. And a lot of times covering the policy debate it's about covering the individuals and the personalities that are played here as well, and sometimes stories focus more on that than on the direct outcomes. But I think making those connections wherever possible is really important. And to some level a lot of the political stories people just care about because they follow politics closely and they want to see who is doing what, here in Washington especially. And an angle I feel I approach it from is looking at the impediments to acting on this problem. So, what industry groups, or lobbies or people or ideas are standing in the way of doing something about what is recognized to be a significant challenge? DL: Can that sort of thing create any backlash? Do you get differing responses when you write about the types of people who are standing in the way? KS: No, I'm writing to an audience that generally is concerned about the issues and wants to do something about climate. I probably wouldn't have much success at getting the head of ExxonMobil on the phone. But I think our readers connect with pointing out who is standing in the way. DL: I've gotten really interested in this, and asked others about it - the problem of preaching to the choir. At Mother Jones, do you see that as sort of the point, or is there an attempt to reach out to a broader audience? KS: We have a more generally politically progressive audience who maybe isn't following the climate debate quite as closely, but is following other really important political and social issues right now. So, it's about bringing in readers to the climate conversation who maybe came for something else. And it also reaches a wider audience. I think a lot of reporters read what we cover and can get new and different ideas and insights from what we write as well. We're covering specific angles that they might not have been covering, and we have to do a lot of investigative work, so it is reaching a wider audience through that. DL: How did you first come to the environmental policy beat? KS: I was a journalism and politics major in college, and my first job after college was working at Grist magazine out in Seattle. I had been interested in politics but hadn't followed environmental politics quite as closely as some other things, but I just became really interested in the subject area. It was an area where there was constantly news, and I didn't think it was being particularly well covered. And it has become the only thing I really want to write about right now. DL: How has your approach changed in going from Grist to Mother Jones? KS: I'm writing for people who maybe don't follow things quite as closely, so you need to explain things a bit more in depth. I don't think its too drastically different. I think my approach has been-no matter which place I'm writing for-that I'm writing to people who don't necessarily have an in-depth understanding. That's the important thing, to make it accessible to more people. I try to imagine I'm writing for my folks back home, or people who aren't either obsessed with politics or obsessed with environmental news. DL: Since I'm looking through the challenges of covering climate change, what are we in the media doing the worst at? KS: I think that communicating the science is one of the biggest challenges for everyone. Scientists have trouble communicating it to the public. They are by nature cautious, and everything is very measured, and it takes a long time to study these things and its often very hard to communicate that nuance and care, and that's also hard for reporters. And scientific literacy in the US is not very high, so to figure out how to overcome those barriers and communicate theories accurately is huge. DL: Do you think it is getting better? KS: I don't know if I've been around long enough to say if its getting any better. Especially with communicating science, there is a very loud echo chamber out there that is actively fighting against the science, and that definitely hasn't gotten much easier. Reprinted with permission from Ecopolitology Follow Dave Levitan on Twitter @davelevitan. Image credit: Kate Sheppard; America.gov February, 10, 2010

In Pennsylvania, a combination of state and federal funding has come together to create a center for research innovations in the field of green buildings. The Energy Innovation Hub at the Philadelphia Navy Yard will bring together researchers from the world of academia, the private sector and two national laboratories in a concerted effort to save energy, cut carbon pollution and help to position the U.S. at the forefront of green building and retrofitting design.

The Penn State researchers spearheading the effort will receive $129 million over the next five years from several government sources, including the Department of Energy (DOE), in addition to a $30 million from the state of Pennsylvania to form the Greater Philadelphia Innovation Cluster (GPIC), which will include more than ten academic institutions, two DOE laboratories, five high-profile global industry partners, and regional economic development agencies-all with full-time personnel at the GPIC ocused on developing innovations that will make buildings more efficient.

Buildings consume 40 percent of the energy used in the United States. Finding ways to improve energy efficiency in buildings is the next big frontier in energy research and development. This award places Penn State and our partners at the forefront of this national effort," said Penn State President Graham B. Spanier, in a statement.

His colleague, Henry C. Foley, Penn State vice president for Research and the principal investigator for the proposal, added that the award is expected to spur real innovation and job growth for Philadelphia, the region and the nation. The GPIC represents the culmination of a decade's worth of efforts on the part of more than 90 organizations.

Reprinted with permission from Earthtechling September, 03, 2010

It has been five years since Hurricane Katrina swept through New Orleans, and many parts of the city are still waiting to be rebuilt. Thanks to the Make It Right Foundation, much of the rebuilding will focus on green and sustainable technologies. Home owners still coming back to the infamous 9th Ward will get to be part of a new sustainable community.

What is the "Make It Right Foundation"?

The brainchild of actor Brad Pitt, the "Make It Right Foundation" is an organization created to help rebuild the devastated 9th Ward in New Orleans. By focusing on green and sustainable building practices, the members hope to create a sustainable community that residents can be proud of.

The foundation began in 2006 as a group of 13 architecture firms hired by Pitt to design affordable, eco-friendly houses for New Orleans residents. So far, Pitt and the "Make It Right Foundation" have begun building homes on the exact spot where the Industrial Canal levee breached on Aug. 29, 2005. The goal is to have 150 homes built by December, 2010. For the residents of New Orleans, the project provides a way to return home.

Many of the homeowners shared their stories about "Make It Right." One resident, Ann Parfaite said:

"This project affords residents in the Lower 9th Ward the opportunity to return to their neighborhood under better conditions than they were prior to the hurricane. I am very happy to be able to participate in the Make It Right program and to be restored to my home in the Lower 9th Ward," said Parfaite

All of the homes built so far in the 9th Ward have been certified as LEED platinum for their energy efficiency and sustainability. According to "Make It Right" and the U.S. Green Building Council, the area is now the "largest, greenest neighborhood of single family homes in America."

As rebuilding continues in New Orleans, other parts of the city are also working to become greener. The The Grand Bay Coastal Resources Center recently became the first Mississippi's state government-owned building to be LEED certified. Soon, New Orleans could become the most sustainable city in America.

Image credit: eschipul via flickr/CC license

Reprinted with permission from Green Building Elements September, 03, 2010

The energy efficiency retrofit industry for public buildings is relatively well developed worldwide compared to the private building retrofit industry. It is a large market in the United States, with annual revenues for energy service companies in the vicinity of U.S. $4 billion. However, long-term energy efficiency and carbon mitigation targets worldwide will rely heavily on improving the efficiency of the entire building stock. Public buildings represent only about a quarter of the total commercial building stock in the United States, and retrofits have barely begun to touch the private building stock.

One reason for the sluggishness of efficiency in the private building stock is the lack of post-retrofit data on building performance. Although there are many successful examples of retrofits in the private sector, the industry as a whole needs a robust set of data on post-retrofit performance and payback before they will be convinced that the opportunity to reduce operating costs is real, the risks are low, and the ROI is high enough to justify investments in efficiency.

Today, efficiency retrofits are typically based on a predictive model in which building engineers model energy use based on the building's equipment, envelope, climate, and usage patterns. However, the actual performance of the building can often diverge significantly from the predictive model, and this discrepancy makes private building owners reluctant to invest in energy efficiency. It also makes financial institutions unwilling to provide the necessary financing to support efficiency projects, as the perceived risks (that buildings will not meet their predicted efficiency levels) are too high.

There is also the issue of payback period. Whereas the public sector is willing to accept payback periods of 10-15 years, the private sector rarely accepts paybacks of over 4 years. Additional post-retrofit performance data would ease concerns about the paybacks of certain measures and reduce the perceived risks. Today there is a tendency toward "cream skimming," or selecting only measures with the fastest paybacks (such as lighting retrofits, energy control management systems, and retrocommissioning). Reliable data on the ROI for all efficiency measures would give investors the confidence they need to invest in efficiency.

The industry is just now starting to take the first few steps toward addressing this major barrier. For example, the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation, a philanthropic arm of Deutsche Bank, is starting to compile a set of data on several hundred buildings in New York City. Gary Hattem, the president of the foundation, argues that "if underwriters can determine a predictable savings from retrofits, then they can create a financial instrument backed by these savings to sell on the open market." In other words, data on post-retrofit building performance would reduce the perceived risks and free up capital for efficiency.

If the Deutsche Bank Americas Foundation and other groups can compile post-retrofit performance data in commercial buildings, it would do a lot to push the needle and lower the bar for private building owners to begin investing in energy efficiency.

Eric Bloom is a research analyst at clean tech research and consulting firm Pike ResearchSeptember, 01, 2010

Every other month or so for the last eight years, my small local water district in Colorado has sent me--and everyone else in the district--a multi-page flier explaining that some of the water tested in my district contains elevated levels of lead.

The letter explains that homes built before 1986 are more likely to have lead pipes, fixtures and solder and that the water district is bound by the EPA to send us these letters -- however, I wonder how much it costs to print and mail all of these fliers versus the cost of finding the problem sources and fixing them. After discussing potential causes and possible health effects, the fliers conclude with a suggestion that you test your water, but it also hints that if you have a home built after 1986, you're probably okay.

But according to a piece by former California State Assemblywoman Wilma Chan at AlterNet, you may not be as okay as you think.

Chan writes:

"In 1986, a federal law was enacted to reduce lead in our drinking water plumbing. However, faucets sold today can still contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled as "lead-free" under the 1986 federal law."

According to the EPA, even legally "lead-free" plumbing may contain up to 8 percent lead and faucets may contain up to 4 percent lead. The most common problem is with brass or chrome-plated brass faucets and fixtures which can leach significant amounts of lead into the water, especially hot water.

Chan notes that the typical household faucet weighs about six and a half pounds. That means a typical household faucet can contain up to a quarter pound of lead and still be labeled "lead free" under the federal safe drinking water law.

Lead is particularly toxic to children and can lead to irreversible brain injury and developmental and behavior problems. The EPA estimates that fifteen to twenty percent of children's lead exposure comes from drinking water, costing the U.S. as much as $319 billion annually in lost productivity.

In adults, elevated levels of lead in drinking water can increase blood pressure and prolonged exposure could also lead to kidney problems.

The concern about lead content in faucets should be particularly striking consider that over the past twenty years, plumbing fixture manufacturing has moved out of the U.S. where, as recent product recalls for lead in toys, melamine in pet food, and toxic drywall--all manufactured in China--show that government oversight is nowhere nearly as stringent as it is in the U.S.

Elevated lead content in faucets first caught the eye of the California legislature in 2006 and is now raising the hackles of the U.S. Congress who see that current standards may not be stringent enough, especially considering the recent track record of some foreign manufacturers.

U.S. Representative Anna Eshoo (D-California) has introduced a federal bill, H.R. 5289, to truly eliminate lead from our drinking water plumbing. Modeled after a law first passed in California in 2006--and similar standards which have since been adopted in Vermont and Maryland--H.R. 5289 would tighten lead content standards to help ensure "zero leaching of lead" from faucets.

Just before Congress broke for summer recess, H.R. 5289 was passed by the House as part of a larger bill dealing with drinking water protections. The bill still needs to be passed by the Senate and signed by President Obama before it becomes law.

Photo: Some rights reserved by Tom Raftery

Reprinted with permission from Ecopolitology August, 30, 2010

If micro-inverters are the current craze in the solar industry, then I predict that solar energy monitoring systems will be the next big thing.

Micro-inverters (and other parallel technology) are given lots of attention because they can increase the efficiency of a system by up to as much as 10%-20%. Similarly, solar electricity systems that are hooked up to monitoring systems have a 10% energy production increase over systems that are not hooked up to monitoring systems, according to Will Shortt, CEO of Deck Monitoring.

PV solar panels last at least 25 years, where as inverters only come with an 8-10 year warranty. That means that sometime in the 8-10 year range the inverter will die and the system will stop producing energy. With a monitoring system in place the installer or homeowner will know immediately that the system has been compromised. Otherwise it could be weeks or months before the homeowner looks at their energy usage statement from their utility company and realizes that their solar electricity system is not longer producing energy.

Monitoring systems currently cost around $1,000, which seems like a small price to pay for installers to be able to ensure that a homeowner's system is working properly. With a monitoring system in place an installer could offer a "performance assurance", and that may be just the differentiator needed to close the deal.

All California installers are required to give a 10-year warranty, but this might compel them to give even longer warranties. Similarly, it may motivate installers to offer warranties in other states.

Combine a warranty with monitoring systems and I can see how a solar installer could proactively call a homeowner to say that they're going to drop by to clean the panels when they see the productivity drop rather than the other extreme of having a system fail for some reason, then have a furious customer calling because their $20,000 solar energy system has not been producing electricity for the past month. I'd much prefer to read stories on yelp about how great an installer is because they called a customer to say there was a problem that they were going to come out to fix before the customer even knew there was an issue.

Thomas Dinkel, CEO of SunReports said that SunPower, SunRun, Solar City, and Sungevity all offer monitoring with any systems they install, and therefore to be competitive with them other installers will likely start offering monitoring as well.

The most compelling feature of monitoring systems is the ability to measure performance against what was promised and what is expected of the system. Not only is it fun to see, but it also serves as a great indicator if something goes wrong with the system.

Lastly, when homeowners are able to view their solar energy production or energy usage in a clear, easy to view fashion, they inevitably will adjust their behavior and start using less energy, which is a great positive side-effect.

*Clean Power Finance recently hosted a webinar with SunReports and Deck Monitoring, which is where I learned much of what I just reported. However I'm sure there are other monitoring solutions out there, and I'd be interested in hearing about them too.

Reprinted with permission from CleanTechies September, 03, 2010

Water. Most Americans think nothing of it. Turn on the faucet and we expect clean water to flow under good pressure at the temperature of our choosing. But to make all that happen, water requires energy and lots of it. A full 3 percent of electrical power generation is used to treat, pump and distribute water in the U.S. (to say nothing of heating it). And in California, that figure is as high as 19 percent.

Imagine H2O is turning the concern about the intersection of energy and water into an opportunity by opening a $100,000 global competition to find the world's most promising water businesses that save energy.

Innovations could focus on a number of areas including water heating/cooling, pumping and transport or low-energy treatment. Entries for this year's competition, The Water-Energy Nexus, will be accepted beginning today, September 1, through November 15, 2010.

"Opportunities for saving energy exist at every stage of the water cycle," says Scott Bryan, Director of Operations at Imagine H2O. "Many of these innovations could be attractive to all water users from utilities down to the individual consumer."

Imagine H2O is a non-profit company created in 2008 "to inspire and help bring to market sustainable solutions to global water problems through entrepreneurship." The Water-Energy Nexus is the second contest Imagine H2O has held for water innovation. The 2009 contest, Water Efficiency, rewarded business plans that offered the greatest promise of breakthroughs in the efficient use and supply of water in agriculture, commercial, industrial or residential applications.

Like last year, this year's $100,000 purse includes cash as well as access to the Imagine H2O Incubator Program that helps bring the winning ideas to market. Business incubators have the ability to not only provide seed money and in-kind support for startups, they can also be pivotal in bringing products to market.

"This prize highlights a big market opportunity for entrepreneurs," says Tamin Pechet, Imagine H2O's Chairman. "Tomorrow's water supply system will have to be an energy-efficient one."

Reprinted with permission from Earth and Industry September, 01, 2010

The project is supported by $12.9 million in funding under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and $110 million from the private sector. The Cheoah Dam supplies power to Alcoa Inc.'s (NYSE: AA) primary aluminum production factory in Alcoa, Tennessee and surrounding communities.

The operators of Cheoah Dam estimate that this project can save the 40 hydropower operation jobs and 1,600 aluminum production jobs that would be lost if this facility's 90-year old equipment, which has exceeded its typical useful life, were to fail.

Upgrades like the ones planned for Cheoah Dam represent significant opportunities to make hydropower even more cost-effective. This project will boost the Cheoah Dam's total generating capacity to 129 megawatts (MW), reduce the plant's dependence on fossil fuels by 60% and add 40-50 years to the facility's life. The work will not require any dam modifications or significant regulatory delays.

The Cheoah Dam is located on the Little Tennessee River in western North Carolina and was completed in 1919. Four of the five hydropower turbines at this facility are original equipment, with the fifth added in 1949. The modernization upgrades include replacing the oldest units with new high-efficiency turbines, generators, and transformers, and upgrading other equipment plant-wide.

In Related News...

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) and the State of Colorado have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to simplify procedures authorizing the development of small-scale hydropower projects in Colorado.

FERC has seen rising interest among entities seeking to develop small, low-impact hydropower projects, and federal surveys have identified several hundred potential small hydropower projects of smaller than 5 MW in Colorado with a combined capacity of more than 1,400 MW.

Under the MOU, Colorado will develop a pilot program to test options for simplifying and streamlining procedures for authorizing conduit exemptions and small 5MW or less exemption projects while ensuring environmental safeguards.n FERC will waive certain consultation requirements when all relevant resources agencies agree to do so.

FERC has signed MOUs with four other states recently on the development of hydrokinetic projects: California, Washington, Maine, and Oregon.

FERC said it will soon unveil a new web page devoted to small hydropower licensing at the site below.

Website: www.ferc.gov

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com August, 31, 2010

According to Agence France Presse (AFP), the French government will launch next month a tender for contracts of 10 billion euros ($12.6 billion) to build 3,000 MW of offshore wind capacity.

600 wind turbines will be implemented within five to ten sites in Normandy, Brittany and the regions of Pays de la Loire and Languedoc. They are scheduled to start producing electricity by 2015.

This may be only the beginning as the government wants to produce up to 6,000 MW via offshore wind by 2020.

By then the technology may enable us to build floating wind turbines with 10 MW of capacity each. This would allow this renewable energy source to generate more electricity without nobody even noticing.

It seems that France is more and more willing to play catch up with Denmark, the European pioneer in this renewable energy source. The United Kingdom also set aggressive wind energy targets earlier this year.  To date France has absolutely no offshore wind turbines.

Three gigawatts of capacity is enough to power the cities of Lyon and Marseille combined (around 1.3 million people).

This is as much capacity as two nuclear EPR reactors. However, wind is an intermittent energy source compared with nuclear (a nuclear reactor produces electricity 80 percent of the time while wind turbines are about 35 percent)

Last month, the local energy giant GDF Suez announced that it is willing to invest 1.8 billion euros ($2.3 billion) to build a 700  MW wind-farm project in northern France. This site was previously selected as the most favorable in the country for developing the energy.

One of the goals is to create local jobs in manufacturing turbines as currently the country imports all its turbines. Despite having faced occasional harsh resistance from local communities, land based wind power already accounts for more than 4,000 MW.

If this plan is to be successful, France would need to install each year more than what the entire European Union installed offshore in 2009. This is a bold goal.

photo : Freefotouk     

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechies August, 30, 2010