Author: JT McLain

Plastic Electronics Could Slash the Cost of Solar Panels

A new technique developed by Princeton University engineers for producing electricity-conducting plastics could dramatically lower the cost of manufacturing solar panels.

By overcoming technical hurdles to producing plastics that are translucent, malleable and able to conduct electricity, the researchers have opened the door to broader use of the materials in a wide range of electrical devices.

With mounting concerns about global warming and energy demand, plastics could represent a low-cost alternative to indium tin oxide (ITO), an expensive conducting material currently used in solar panels, according to the researchers.

“Conductive polymers [plastics] have been around for a long time, but processing them to make something useful degraded their ability to conduct electricity,” said Yueh-Lin Loo, an associate professor of chemical engineering, who led the Princeton team. “We have figured out how to avoid this trade-off. We can shape the plastics into a useful form while maintaining high conductivity.”

A multi-institutional team reported on its new technique in a paper published online March 8 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The area of research, known as “organic electronics” because plastics are carbon-based like living creatures, holds promise for producing new types of electronic devices and new ways of manufacturing existing technologies, but has been hampered by the mysterious loss of conductivity associated with moldable plastics.

“People didn’t understand what was happening,” said Loo, who co-wrote the paper. “We discovered that in making the polymers moldable, their structures are trapped in a rigid form, which prevented electrical current from traveling through them.”

Once they understood the underlying problem, Loo and her colleagues developed a way to relax the structure of the plastics by treating them with an acid after they were processed into the desired form.

Using the method, they were able to make a plastic transistor, a fundamental component of electronics that is used to amplify and switch electronic signals. They produced the electrodes of the transistor by printing the plastic onto a surface, a fast and cheap method similar to the way an ink-jet printer produces a pattern on a piece of paper.

A Race to Reap Energy From the Ocean Breezes

As New Englanders await a decision in Massachusetts on a bitterly contested proposal to build the nation’s first offshore wind farm, the State of Rhode Island is forging ahead with its own project in the hope of outpacing — and upstaging — its neighbor.

Crucial to its strategy is dispelling worries that economics will trump the environment, or the broader public good.

Instead of having a private developer dominate the research on potential sites, as Massachusetts has, Rhode Island embarked on a three-year scientific study, to be completed in August, of all waters within 30 miles of its coast. It has spent more than $8 million on research into bird migration patterns, wildlife habitats, fish distribution, fishermen’s needs and areas that might be of cultural importance to Indian tribes.

Its goal has been to head off the hurdles that have been in the way of the Massachusetts project, which has pitted coastal Indian tribes, business interest and homeowners against the developer, Cape Wind, and proponents of alternative energy. Frustrated by the failure of the two sides to broker an agreement, the Obama administration’s interior secretary, Ken Salazar, has promised to determine the fate of the project on his own this month. (On Friday a federal historic panel sent Mr. Salazar its recommendation that the government reject the Cape Wind Project.)

“We took the opposite approach of what Cape Wind did,” said Grover Fugate, the chief administrator of the Rhode Island project and the director of the state’s Coastal Resources Management Council.

Still, independent of the scientific study, Rhode Island has proposed two potential offshore sites — a $200 million eight-turbine project off Block Island, and a far bigger $1.5 billion farm in the eastern Rhode Island Sound — and has selected a preferred developer, Deepwater Wind.

In February, Gov. Donald L. Carcieri went so far as to suggest that the Block Island site was “on target to become the nation’s first offshore wind farm.”

Massachusetts counters that it is much further ahead. “We’ve been through all the state permits and we’re awaiting the final permits,” Ian Bowles, the state’s secretary of energy and environment, said in a recent interview.

Rhode Island has not secured permits, but it has trumpeted what Cape Wind so far lacks: a “power purchase” agreement with a utility company to buy what a farm generates. Yet on Wednesday, the state’s utility commission rejected that pact, which involved the proposed farm off Block Island, as too costly.

So for now, Cape Wind is poised to be first, said Matt Kaplan, a wind analyst at Emerging Energy Research, a firm that tracks emerging energy markets.

“If Cape Wind makes it through the permitting process, that is a major feat that no other offshore wind project has achieved in the U.S.,” he said. “However, power purchase agreements have been hard to secure.”

Officials consider a viable project as a source of energy and jobs, but the wind wars are also driven by state pride. “There is a rivalry to be the first state to have an offshore wind project in the nation,” Mr. Kaplan said. “And there is some embarrassment on the part of Massachusetts, having taken so long with Cape Wind.”

Delaware, Maine, New Jersey, New York and Virginia are also eager to secure permits and to lease blocks from the federal government in waters beyond the three-mile limit of state control.

N.Y. Auto Show Is Rife With Lithe Energy Savers

There was no shortage of news surrounding reduced energy consumption during the press conferences at the 2010 New York International Auto Show. Even Infiniti’s new 8-passenger QX56 SUV gets 20 mpg on the highway. Among the many product introductions and company announcements, Ford, Hyundai and Chevy stood out with notable strides in vehicle efficiency and forward thinking technology partnerships.

Ford

We sat down to a packed press conference thinking that FoMoCo was simply going to unveil their new Lincoln MKZ Hybrid, tell us how it’s not the same as Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids, and call it a day. Sure the new Lincoln promises to be the most fuel-efficient luxury sedan in America, with 41 mpg in the city (6 mpg more than 2010 Lexus HS 250h), but we knew bigger news was on deck when the turnaround king himself, Alan Mulally, walked out onto the stage. The former Boeing CEO and cost-cutter extraordinaire was there to announce Ford’s new tie-in with Microsoft’s Hohm software application.

“Ford and Microsoft both share a strong commitment to contributing to a better world. Today, we begin the next major step in our working together and leading the way for energy efficiency and environmental sustainability,” said Mulally. “For Ford, this is a needed step in the development of the infrastructure that will make electric vehicles viable.”

Hohm is a free web-based service Mircosoft currently offers to consumers. It was designed to reduce energy costs and increase conservation by providing homeowners with insight into energy-use patterns. When Ford breaks cover on their Focus EV next year, an adapted version of Hohm will allow customers to connect with local utility providers to optimize vehicle charging.

They even piped Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer onto the big screen by satellite to chime in on the future impact of EVs. If you recall, Ford formally worked with Microsoft on SYNC, an in-car wireless connectivity platform that allows drivers to voice activate phone calls and MP3 tracks. It has been installed on more than 2 million Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles since its launch in 2007. Just like SYNC, Ford was not able to secure exclusive rights to the technology.

Hyundai

On the heels of Hyundai’s sixth generation Sonata mid-size sedan launch at last year’s L.A. Auto Show, the Korean automaker showed off new hybrid electric and turbocharged sport variants that add frugality, variety and performance to the Sonata family.

A palpable level of energy and eagerness emanated from the crowd as president and CEO of Hyundai America John Krafcik introduced the sleek new Toyota killers to flashing lights and high-energy music. As Krafcik pointed out, Hyundai and their Hybrid Blue Drive technology are a little late to the hybrid party (Toyota has been making hybrids for more than 10 years) but aren’t without a laundry list of best in class specs and industry first technologies.

Boost for U.S.-China Clean Energy Research

The Department of Energy announced this week the availability of $37.5 million in financing for Chinese and American researchers working on clean energy projects.

The goal is to stimulate joint research between the countries, which are the world’s top energy producers and consumers, and greenhouse gas emitters, said David Sandalow, the department’s assistant secretary of energy for policy and international affairs.

“Working together we can do more than working alone,” he said. “We are the biggest emitters in the world and together we have an enormous capacity to innovate.”

The D.O.E. financing will only go to American researchers and institutions, and grantees will match the department’s money dollar for dollar, bringing the United States’ contribution to $75 million.

An additional $75 million will be supplied by China for Chinese researchers. However, all proposed projects must involve researchers from both countries.

“We don’t have a specific template for exactly how this will work,” Mr. Sandalow said. “It could be that an American institution will propose and identify their Chinese partners as part of the application, or they may make proposals and then find Chinese partners.”

The efforts are part of an initiative called the U.S.-China Clean Energy Research Center, announced last year to bring together teams of Chinese and American scientists. The center will open a headquarters in both countries.

The current financing will be aimed at projects with three areas of focus: buildings, clean coal and vehicles.

Projects could be related to building heating and cooling, advanced lighting and sensor controls, Mr. Sandolow said.

Drilling Plan May Buoy Efforts on Energy Policy

Ever since he ran Bill Clinton’s “It’s the Economy, Stupid” presidential campaign in 1992, James Carville has held a reputation for common-sense Democratic strategy.

In recent years, Mr. Carville has seized on the transformation of America’s energy system, which simultaneously touches voter concerns about the economy, national security and the environment. But he acknowledges that “energy independence” has lately lost political altitude.

Relatively low gas prices have drained away urgency, and the recession has heightened fears of economic dislocation. Republican charges that President Obama favors what they call a “cap and tax” plan that would destroy jobs while limiting carbon emissions have further damaged prospects for comprehensive energy legislation in Congress — just seven months before midterm elections.

But Mr. Carville, a Louisiana-bred campaign veteran, found encouragement in Mr. Obama’s new plan to expand domestic oil drilling. The plan makes it easier for Senator Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Mr. Carville’s home state, to back the president’s goals; it also increases pressure to cooperate on pro-drilling Republicans.

Having prevailed on health care and made progress on new Wall Street regulations, Mr. Obama and his Congressional allies “are starting to move the chains a little bit,” Mr. Carville noted. On energy, “They’re setting the table for something that’s inevitable.”

The springtime 2010 question is: inevitable when?

…. Now an ideologically divergent Senate triad — a liberal Democrat, John Kerry of Massachusetts; an independent, Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut; and a conservative Republican, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina — are preparing to unveil their version.Like the House bill, their work in progress would reduce carbon emissions by 17 percent from 2005 levels over a 10-year period. That matches the goal Mr. Obama specified at global climate talks in December.

The three senators eschew the politically tainted term “cap and trade,” but not the concept. They would begin by capping carbon emissions for utilities, and in later years extend caps to manufacturers.

For the oil industry, they would impose a fee on refiners. To lure conservative Democrats and swing-vote Republicans, they would expand oil drilling and incentives for nuclear power.

Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham hope for passage by July 4, then negotiations with the House. But mustering the 60 Senate votes needed to overcome a filibuster represents a huge hurdle.

The Right Time?

Even advocates agree that after the exhausting health care push, it is an uphill fight. In fact, Tim Wirth, a former Democratic senator from Colorado who now leads the United Nations Foundation, warns that the debate could turn into an effort by Mr. Obama simply to prevent Congress from blocking his regulatory authority to limit carbon emissions. That authority represents the administration’s backup plan if legislation fails.

But the administration and its allies have not given up, insisting that only a carbon cap will create incentives for the American renewable energy industry to flourish and compete with economic rivals, notably China. The Senate negotiators have actively wooed support from business, including oil companies.

Within the 59-member Senate Democratic caucus, the conservative Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas and Ben Nelson of Nebraska appear out of reach. But as Mr. Graham prods his party to respond to younger voters’ environmental concerns, there is a chance of offsetting Democratic defections.

“There’s a path to five or six Republicans,” said Carol M. Browner, Mr. Obama’s coordinator of energy and climate policy. Among the prospects: moderate Senators Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of Maine; Mr. Kerry’s Massachusetts colleague, Scott Brown; and George LeMieux of Florida, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, and Judd Gregg of New Hampshire.

Q1 CleanTech Investments soar 83% from Q1-09

In another sign of a rebound for green technology, global investors poured $1.9 billion into green tech startups in the first three months of the year, up 29 percent from the fourth quarter of 2009 and an 83 percent rise from the year-ago quarter, according to a report released Wednesday by the Cleantech Group and Deloitte.

“The bounce back in venture investment from lows in early 2009 has continued, with the first three months of 2010 representing the strongest start to a year we have ever recorded,” Sheeraz Haji, president of Cleantech Group, said in a statement.

The Cleantech Group, a San Francisco market research and consulting firm, and Deloitte, the international accounting firm, surveyed investments made in 180 companies in North America, Europe, Israel, China and India.

Investors favored electric car-related startups, which captured $704 million in the first quarter of 2010. Half of that investment went to Better Place, a Silicon Valley company that has struck deals to build charging stations and other infrastructure in Australia, California, Canada, Denmark, Hawaii and Israel.

Two California electric carmakers, Fisker Automotive and Coda Automotive, took in $140 million and $30 million, respectively.

Solar startups scored $322 million, with solar cell maker SpectraWatt, an Intel spinoff, receiving $41.4 million and Enphase Energy, which makes microinverters for solar panel systems, taking in $40 million.

Energy efficiency companies continued to attract investors, with lighting startups making some of the biggest deals of the $217 million invested in the first quarter. Although North America’s share of green tech deals in 2009 fell to 62 percent from 72 percent, the region was responsible for 81 percent of investments in the first quarter of 2010, an increase of 133 percent from the year-ago quarter.

EPA sets water standards in bid to curb mountaintop-mining pollution

U.S. EPA set new water-quality standards for surface coal mining in central Appalachia today that Administrator Lisa Jackson said would likely block mountaintop-removal projects from dumping wastes in streams.

The guidance sets the first-ever numeric water standards for conductivity — a measure of the level of salt — in streams near surface coal mines and is intended to protect 95 percent of the region’s aquatic life and freshwater streams, the agency said.

To qualify for a Clean Water Act permit, mining companies must show their proposed project will leave streams with conductivity measured at no more than 500 microsiemens per centimeter, a measure of salinity that EPA said is roughly five times above normal levels.

There are “no or very few valley fills that are going to meet this standard,” Jackson told reporters in a conference call. “Valley fill” refers to the practice of dumping waste from mines into nearby valleys. Mining operations have buried nearly 2,000 miles of Appalachian headwater streams, the agency said.

“We expect this guideline to change behaviors, to change actions,” Jackson said. “Because if we keep doing what we have been doing, we’ll continue to see degradation of water quality.”

The standards were prompted by a growing body of research indicating surface mining is damaging Appalachia’s environment and public health, Jackson said.

“The people of Appalachia shouldn’t have to choose between a clean, healthy environment in which to raise their families and the jobs they need to support them,” she said. “This is not about ending coal mining, it is about ending coal mining pollution.”

EPA today also released two draft studies, one documenting the adverse effects on aquatic ecosystems of pollutant levels associated with high conductivity. Conductivity levels are on average 10 times higher downstream from mountaintop mines and valley fills than in unmined watersheds, the draft concludes.

The new regulations are effective immediately on an interim basis while EPA takes public comment and considers revisions. The regulations do not apply retroactively to existing Clean Water Act permits, but they will be applied to the nearly 80 permits that EPA last year held for “enhanced review,” Jackson said.

Jackson said the new guidelines apply for now only to surface mines in central Appalachia because that is where the data they are based on were gathered, but she said the science could eventually compel the agency to consider conductivity standards for waters surrounding underground mines, as well.

West Virginia’s senior U.S. senator, Democrat Robert Byrd, praised EPA’s action. “I am pleased that EPA Administrator Jackson took our concerns about the need to provide clarity very seriously and has responded with these guidelines,” he said in a statement. “Today’s announcement will hopefully now have everyone reading off the same page.”

… Environmental groups called the standards a major and much-needed crackdown on coal-mining pollution.

“The new policy represents the most significant administrative action ever taken to address mountaintop-removal coal mining,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. “Today’s announcement reaffirms the Obama administration’s commitment to science and to environmental justice for the communities and natural areas of Appalachia.”

Cape Wind inks 130-turbine deal with Siemens

Though their project has not yet secured approval from the Interior Department, the developers of the controversial Cape Wind project in Nantucket Sound announced yesterday that they will purchase the wind farm’s 130 turbines from Siemens Energy Inc.

Cape Wind declined to discuss terms of the contract, but it is worth hundreds of millions of dollars — the turbines cost between $5 million and $10 million apiece, a state official said. The project, which could become the nation’s first large-scale offshore wind farm, would provide roughly 75 percent of the energy needed by Cape Cod and surrounding islands, the company says.

With a market share of more than 50 percent, Siemens is the world’s leading offshore wind turbine manufacturer. About three-quarters of offshore turbines installed in Europe last year came from Siemens, according to a report by the European Wind Energy Association.

The Cape Wind contract is contingent upon final federal approval for the project, which has drawn criticism from several American Indian groups in Massachusetts. The Mashpee, Aquinnah and Chappaquiddick Wampanoag tribes say the the wind farm would interfere with their rituals by obstructing their view of the sun over Nantucket Sound.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar has said he will make a decision by the end of April after receiving recommendations from a federal advisory panel on historic preservation.

“We’ve been working hard for the last year to make our selection,” Cape Wind spokesman Mark Rodgers said, when asked why the company announced the contract before securing approval. “Now that we’ve made it, we thought, why wait?”

Volt finds a willing customer: Washington

The Obama administration said it placed an order for 100 Chevrolet Volts, scheduled to be the first electric-powered vehicles made by a U.S. automaker.

U.S. President Barack Obama set a goal of putting 1 million plug-in cars on the road by 2015. The order placed this week is a small part of the administration’s long-term goal of purchasing 5,000 hybrid vehicles, the Detroit Free Press reported Thursday.

“We’re going to lead by example and practice what we preach,” Obama said.

The order continues an environmentally themed week in Washington.

On Wednesday, Obama announced he was lifting some restrictions on offshore drilling.

On Thursday, the Department of Transportation and the Environmental Protection Agency said they would cut greenhouse gas emissions by raising standards for vehicle fuel efficiency.

By mandating an increase in fuel efficiency of 5 percent a year 2012 through 2016, the administration expects to raise the average fuel efficiency for U.S. cars made in that span to more than 34 miles per gallon.

NASA: Agency plans 62% boost in climate research funding

NASA rolled out a new plan yesterday to bolster spending on climate research by 62 percent by 2015. The dramatic budget increase is meant to make up for cutbacks during the George W. Bush administration and marks what NASA officials call a “philosophical shift” on the issue.

Under the new plan, NASA’s Earth Science budget would get a $2.4 billion or 62 percent infusion over the next five years, according to Edward Weiler, the agency’s associate administrator for science.

NASA’s capabilities will not change dramatically, but the new funds will provide for improvements, innovations and replacements, said Michael Freilich, Earth Science Division director.

By 2015 the division will have launched as many as 10 new missions to collect information about ice coverage, ocean temperatures, ozone depletion and how much carbon dioxide is being released through human activities. Five of the satellites have been in the works for years but did not have firm launch dates because of funding questions.

With the new strategy, the agency plans to focus more on collecting a broader swath of interrelated climate data in a long-term, continuous fashion, Weiler said.

“The key to Earth system science is to make multiple measurements more or less simultaneously of many different quantities — that’s the only way we can understand how the various processes that define Earth system interact,” Freilich said.

The agency currently has 13 climate research satellites in orbit, but all but one are “well beyond their design lifetimes,” Freilich said. Without action, NASA would have “played a much smaller role” in Earth and climate science in the future as the older systems failed, he said.

The budget for other NASA programs is expected to remain generally flat in the coming years

New US vehicle fuel standards to cut oil imports

The U.S. government’s higher fuel economy requirements for new vehicles are expected to reduce gasoline consumption and cut fuel imports, the government said on Thursday.

The vehicle fuel efficiency standards will be phased in starting with the 2012 model year, raising vehicle fuel economy to an average 35.5 miles per gallon by the time the 2016 models are in showrooms — up 42 percent from the current level.

Over the two-decade life-span of the better-mileage cars and trucks, the government expects about 1.8 billion barrels of oil will be saved. [ID:nN01242702]

That’s about a quarter of current annual consumption of oil. The Energy Department forecasts U.S. oil consumption at 6.9 billion barrels for 2010.

“The new standards, coupled with the shift in consumer preferences induced by the 2008 oil price spike, are likely to limit U.S. gasoline demand and overall petroleum use to an extent last seen in the early 1980s,” said Tim Evans, analyst at Citi Futures Perspective in New York

“There is a chance that the 2007 U.S. peak in gasoline demand may hold up as a record for quite a long time, even a decade or more, particularly if we continue to see periodic oil price spikes that would reinforce the message to conserve,” Evans said.

About half the reduction in gasoline consumption caused by the new standards will be reflected in lower U.S. imports of refined fuel, and the other half will come from reduced domestic fuel refining, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration said.

In turn, about 90 percent of that reduction in U.S. oil refinery output is expected to result in lower crude oil imports as a refinery feedstock, while the remaining 10 percent will reduce U.S. oil production, the agencies said.

“Each gallon of fuel saved as a consequence of improved fuel efficiency standards and (greenhouse gas emission) standards is anticipated to reduce total U.S. imports of crude petroleum and refined fuel by 0.95 gallons,” the agencies said in their technical documents supporting the new standards.

Automakers will meet the fuel efficiency requirements by selling cars and trucks that use less fuel, but also by selling more vehicles that don’t run solely on gasoline, such as plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or cars and trucks that operate with clean-diesel engines, the government said.

These alternative vehicles also will help shave U.S. gasoline demand.

Car owners will save an average $4,000 in fuel expenses over the life of a model-year 2016 vehicle, according to agencies’ estimates.

Everything you need to know about Obama’s new fuel-economy rules

The federal government rolled out new auto fuel-efficiency standards today, capping more than a year of planning and, as the New York Times notes, a 30-year battle between regulators and automakers.

The new standards are a big deal—they’ll do more to cut the pollution of heat-trapping gasses than anything the Obama administration has done so far. But if it seems like you’ve heard about them before, you probably have—the regs got lots of press when they were first proposed last May. Thursday’s action puts that plan into effect, for 2012-2016 vehicles.

In Europe, a Call for Tighter Caps on Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Climate advocates called for tighter caps on greenhouse gas emissions in the European Union after figures released on Thursday showed that some of the dirtiest industries benefited from a surplus of permits.

The figures from the European Commission showed the largest annual decline in emissions from industries covered by the bloc’s carbon trading program since it began in 2005, a drop that was largely a result of the global economic slowdown.

Many of the companies that were issued permits have made millions of euros from selling their excess credits, anticipating that they would have plenty in years to come, or because they needed to generate cash to shore up their balance sheets as the economic crisis bit deeper.

In many cases these companies have also held on to some of their surpluses, which would make it easier for them to offset future emissions after the economy recovers.

Emissions from factories and power plants covered by the European Union’s Emissions Trading System fell by 11.3 percent, according to Emmanuel Fages of Orbeo, a carbon trading unit in Paris partly owned by the French bank Société Générale. The price of a permit to emit one ton of carbon dioxide was mostly unchanged at about 13 euros ($17.66) in afternoon trading on European markets.

Carbon trading, also known as cap and trade, is supposed to be the European Union’s main tool to control greenhouse gases. The system is the world’s biggest greenhouse gas market. The same businesses that emitted 1.9 billion tons of carbon dioxide in 2008 emitted 1.7 billion tons in 2009, according to Mr. Fages.

The figures were only about 90 percent complete, but Mr. Fages said they were “probably a good proxy” of the final, verified results, expected in May.

Trevor Sikorski, an analyst with Barclays Capital, attributed some of the decline in emissions in the electricity sector to an “increasing move in power towards gas and other forms of low-carbon generation.”

Environmentalists and other analysts said the overall results showed that companies that were big polluters were not facing sufficient pressure from the system to cut emissions in Europe.

“This new information makes it clearer than ever that the union must increase its climate ambitions,” said Bryony Worthington, the director of Sandbag, a nonprofit organization that advocates improving the way carbon trading functions.

US fuel rules spur hybrids, auto engine efficiency

Industry will build cleaner-burning diesel cars, plug-in hybrids and more efficient gasoline engines to achieve the 42 percent increase in fuel efficiency madated by the U.S. government for 2016.

The initiative mandated by Congress and toughened by the Obama administration over the past year represents the first meaningful increase in fuel mileage targets since their introduction in the 1970s. It also will be the first federal effort to regulate tailpipe emissions.

These standards are The biggest step the U.S. government has ever taken to cut CO2.  Here are more details

New standards drafted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Transportation Department to be unveiled in Washington on Thursday will be phased in starting with the 2012 model year.

They will raise fuel economy gradually each year to a fleet average 35.5 miles per gallon for 2016 models. That is up 42 percent from the current 25 mpg.

Higher mileage requirements aim to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 900 million metric tons and save 1.8 billion barrels of oil over the life of vehicles built through 2016.

That is equivalent to taking 58 million cars off the road for a year, President Barack Obama said on Tuesday in an address on energy policy initiatives that include higher fuel mileage goals and plans to expand U.S. offshore oil and gas drilling.

“Overall, this is a huge step forward. It’s the biggest thing this government has done to reduce consumption of oil and curb global warming pollution,” said Ann Mesnikoff, transportation expert at the Sierra Club.

Brian Carolin, senior sales and marketing vice president for the North American unit of Nissan Motor Co, said the new rules present each company with challenges.

“All of these regulations are tough,” Carolin told Reuters in an interview at the New York auto show. “Ford has their own road map to get there. We will have our own unique solution.”

Industry insiders say U.S. and overseas carmakers have to pull all their levers to meet the new Obama fuel standards, which for each company is an average of their fleet performance.

Consumers already have choices that come close, meet or exceed the 2016 standard, mainly from the gasoline-electric hybrid designs.

The 2010 Prius hybrid sedan made by Toyota Motor Corp averages 51 mpg in city driving and 48 mpg on the highway, according to EPA. The Ford Motor Co Fusion hybrid gets 41/36 mpg and the Honda Motor Co Civic hybrid achieves 40/45 mpg.

All electric cars or those designed to run predominantly in electric mode are also part of the mix. Nissan plans to launch the Leaf in December and General Motors Co is getting ready to roll out the Volt.

Fuel efficiency rules aimed at advanced vehicles

The Obama administration is setting tough gas mileage standards for new cars and trucks, spurring the next generation of fuel-sipping gas-electric hybrids, efficient engines and electric cars.

The heads of the Transportation Department and the Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday were signing final rules requiring 2016 model-year vehicles to meet fuel efficiency targets of 35.5 miles per gallon combined for cars and trucks, an increase of nearly 10 mpg over current standards set by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.

The EPA, which received the power to regulate carbon dioxide emissions in a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, will set a tailpipe emissions standard of 250 grams (8.75 ounces) of carbon dioxide per mile for vehicles sold in 2016, or the equivalent of what would be emitted by vehicles meeting the mileage standard. The EPA is issuing its first rules ever on vehicle greenhouse gas emissions.

President Barack Obama, previewing the plan Wednesday, said it marked a reversal “after decades in which we have done little to increase auto efficiency.” Obama said the standards would “reduce our dependence on oil while helping folks spend a little less at the pump.”

Each auto company will have a different fuel-efficiency target, based on its mix of vehicles. Automakers that build more small cars will have a higher target than car companies that manufacture a broad range of cars and trucks. The standard could be as low as 34.1 mpg by 2016 because automakers are expected to receive credits for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in other ways, including preventing the leaking of coolant from air conditioners.

For the Smart Grid, a ‘Synchrophasor’

Move over, smart meter — and make room for the synchrophasor.

It might sound sound like a device out of a Start Trek movie, but a synchrophasors is actually a metal box about the size of a mailbox (this kind) that sits in an electricity substation — the junction point for transmission lines. It measures conditions on those lines — like power flows, voltage and some more exotic characteristics of electricity, like frequency and phase angle — and reports the information back to a computer at a grid control center.

The hope is that synchrophasors, when deployed by the hundreds, will increase the amount of energy that can be reliably transmitted on the high-voltage grid, which will be necessary if North America is to integrate more wind and solar power.

Of course, much of this sort of monitoring is already commonly done. The difference is, most existing devices report once every two to four seconds, which is an eternity in the world of the high voltage grid. The synchrophasors will report back 30 times a second.

Better yet, it will report back with a time stamp, which it will generate by listening for a GPS signal, so that all the reports can be synchronized and computers at the control center can be clear on the sequence of events. Hence the term “synchrophasor.”

With more frequent sampling, grid operators will be able to see disturbances as they begin to develop, and take compensating actions, like shifting the location where power is being added to the system, according to Roger Harszy, the vice president of real time operations at the Midwest Independent Transmission System Operator, the largest grid organization in North America in terms of square miles covered — and the second largest in terms of customers supplied.

The Midwest I.T.S.O. said earlier this week that it had received a promise of $17.3 million from the Energy Department to pay for half of a $34 million program to install 150 to 200 of the devices.

(Synchrophasors cost only $2,000 to $3,000 each, but connecting them and building a computer system to handle the data is more expensive.)

The Energy Department is using Recovery Act money to seed synchrophasor projects around the country. It said last November that it was giving the Western Interconnection, which covers the area from the Rockies to the Pacific, $53.9 million for the devices. Several dozen are in service now but the long-term plan is four thousands of synchrophasors spread around the United States and Canada.

When deployed, they will be a bit like traffic cameras at major intersections, allowing controllers to get a sense of the overall system. For the Midwest I.T.S.O., this is a step up from the situation in the summer of 2003, when major transmission lines in the system were out of service, and operators did not know it.  The result was a massive blackout.

If there is a blackout, synchrophasors could also determine which failures came first, and which were merely effects of the first failures. Establishing the sequence of events was a nightmare for the investigators in the 2003 blackout, because while individual parts that shut down — like circuit breakers — had individual data loggers, the clocks on them were not coordinated, making it hard to establish where the disturbance began.

But engineers hope the main use of synchrophasors will be preventive, not forensic. “Bringing in this type of technology, the speed of the data coming in will give our operators the ability to see issues emerging,’’ said Mr. Harszy.

Lawrence Berkeley to build biofuels-development unit

Private biofuels companies, garage tinkerers and federal researchers alike will be able to test their ideas in a new facility for advanced biofuels work to be developed in San Francisco’s East Bay area.

The Energy Department’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory will spend about $18 million in federal funding on the planned Advanced Biofuels Process Development Unit, DOE announced today.

“With this investment, we will vastly increase the capacity to test new innovative approaches on a larger, integrated scale,” Cathy Zoi, DOE’s assistant secretary for energy efficiency and renewable energy, said in a statement. “Scaling up these clean energy technologies is crucial to addressing climate change and building a strong, domestic clean energy economy.”

DOE said the new center, to be built with stimulus funds, will be “a publicly available facility where researchers can integrate process steps and test innovative technology pathways.”

The department maintains publicly accessible scientific facilities for a range of specialized uses, many of them dedicated to advanced physics work. It said this would be the only publicly available facility for this kind of biofuels research.

Universities, national laboratories and industry innovators are the intended users of the new center, which is expected to include facilities to test biomass pretreatment approaches, enzyme production, fermentation for various biofuels, and purification treatments.

DOE said potential sites for the facility are being considered, and it is scheduled to open in 2011.

Second radioactive substance found at Vermont Yankee

Five days after announcing they had found and stopped the source of radioactive tritium leaks at Entergy Corp.’s Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, state health officials confirmed yesterday they have detected a second, more persistent type of radioactive material in soil near the facility.

Levels of cesium-137, a material that takes more than twice as long as tritium to lose its radioactivity, were between three and 12 times higher than would be expected. For that reason, health officials said in a statement it “appears likely the Cs-137 comes from Vermont Yankee reactor related sources.”

Though cesium-137 is not found in nature, small amounts of it can be found around the globe due to atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons and the 1986 accident at the Chernobyl reactor in the former Soviet Union. Exposure to both cesium and tritium are linked to a higher risk of cancer.

Vermont Yankee spokesman Larry Smith said the new finding did not surprise plant executives, adding that the radioactive cesium will be removed along with the tritium when soil is removed from around the plant’s buildings. Smith agreed with a recent statement by William Irwin, radiological health chief at the state health department, who said the cesium likely came from leaking fuel rods that posed a problem decades ago at many nuclear plants.

Meanwhile, Vermont legislators have started drafting legislation that would force Vermont Yankee to set more money aside for the decommissioning of the plant after it stops operating. Though Vermont Gov. Jim Douglas (R) has previously vetoed two similar bills, the circumstances have changed, now that the state Senate has rejected a proposal to allow the plant to keep running beyond 2012.

Mexico City drastically reduced air pollutants since 1990s

This megalopolis once had the world’s worst air, with skies so poisonous that birds dropped dead in flight. Today, efforts to clean the smog are showing visible progress, revealing stunning views of snow-capped volcanoes — and offering a model for the developing world.

As Mexico prepares to host world leaders at a U.N. climate-change conference later this year, international experts are praising the country’s progress. Many say its determined efforts to control auto emissions and other environmental effects of rapid urbanization offer practical lessons to cities in China, India and other fast-growing countries.

International officials say steady improvement of Mexico City’s air could bolster President Felipe Calderón’s bid for a leadership role among developing countries seeking to address global warming.

“We have seen a lot of improvement. It is very clear,” said Luiz Augusto Cassanha Galvao, a senior environmental officer at the Pan-American Health Organization. “On a scale of one to 10, they were at 10, and now they’re at five.”

Mexican officials have attacked the root causes of pollution that plagues many large urban centers with spiraling growth.

Camelina blend powers Air Force test flight

The Air Force conducted the first-ever flight test yesterday of a military aircraft powered by a biofuel-jet fuel blend.

The A-10 Thunderbolt II jet flew from Eglin Air Force Base in Florida for a 90-minute test of a blend of 50 percent jet fuel and 50 percent biofuel made from camelina.

Camelina — a flowering, non-edible plant in the mustard, cabbage and broccoli family — was tapped as a biofuel feedstock by a Honeywell company, UOP, under a 2007 contract with the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Now UOP is under contract with the Defense Energy Support Center to produce 600,000 gallons of the camelina blend for the Air Force and the Navy. The company also makes a comparable biofuel for commercial aircraft.

The test flight’s goal was to let the Air Force determine if biofuel-powered flight would be indistinguishable from any other, said Maj. Chris Seager, the test fight’s pilot. The result, he said: “As far as things we’ve seen, the engine parameters are looking closely” like those of standard military jet fuel.

Leading up to the flight, the Air Force had completed lab and ground evaluations of the biofuel blend, said Jennifer Holmgren, UOP’s general manager of renewable energy and chemicals. She called the flight “an important step towards the Air Force’s goal to certify alternative fuels.”

Starting this summer, the Air Force expects to test the fuel in the F-15 Eagle, F-22 Raptor and C-17 Globemaster III as part of a wider effort to wean itself from fossil fuels.

“We hope to certify the entire Air Force fleet to use these fuels by the 2012 time frame,” said Jeff Braun, director of the Air Force’s Alternative Fuels Certification Office. The goal, he said, is to replace half the Air Force’s fuel with alternatives by 2016.

“I think the flight demonstrates that this is indeed a feasible objective,” he said.

But the high cost of the biofuel blend poses a problem. Standard jet fuel for military aircraft costs between $3.50 and $4 a gallon, Braun said, while the alternative fuel purchased for the test flight cost about $65 a gallon….

Commercial airlines have conducted flight tests with biofuel blends made from camelina, jatropha and algae, but they used jet fuel different from that powering military aircraft. Also, the airlines haven’t conducted a test flight in which all engines are powered by the blend, according to UOP.

Ethiopia looks to hydropower to meet growing demand despite enviro concerns

In a bid to end an energy crisis, Ethiopia is building a series of megadams on its plentiful rivers, hoping to increase its power generation 15-fold by 2020 and become an energy exporter to the region.

With the help of Italian and Chinese construction firms, Ethiopia is building dams hundreds of feet high to capitalize on hydropower from rivers coming down from the highlands.

“For a developing country like ours, the dams are a must,” said Abdulhakim Mohammed, head of generation construction at the Ethiopia Electric Power Corp. “Power is everything.”

In rural areas of the country, 2 percent of households have access to electricity, while the capital city of Addis Ababa has been beset by blackouts. The fast-growing economy and population has caused demand for electricity to rise by 25 percent annually with no matching growth in production. That led planners to look to the the rivers cascading from Lake Tana, which provides 85 percent of the water for the Blue Nile.

Several new plants will be built in the next few years, joining the dams that are already on line or near completion. But the scale of the projects is alarming environmental groups. A coalition of global environmental groups started an online petition to stop the dams, particularly the 797-foot Gibe III. The groups warn that the dam could cause environmental damage as well as social and economic effects on the tribes that live downstream.

The dam will end the Omo River’s natural flood cycle, which could affect herders and farmers and reduce the water level in nearby Lake Turkana. International Rivers, one of the groups that launched the petition, says Gibe III should be stopped and that other dams can meet the country’s power needs. But the government is dismissing those concerns, looking to China to secure financing to continue the project.

Putting wind-generated power where it’s needed

The national push for more wind turbine-generated electricity could turn Illinois into a transmission hub.

“Illinois is the crossroads. Historically, whether it’s rails, shipping, travel, O’Hare airport, it’s a geographical midpoint, or hub, positioned for all things moving west to east,” said Thomas O’Neill, chief operating officer at Chicago-based Exelon Transmission Co., a unit of Exelon Corp.

But while regulators are paving the way for wind-farm development with tax credits and loosened regulations, the key challenge facing those developers is that existing transmission lines, substations and transformers are inadequate to handle the amount of energy expected to come from wind farms in various stages of development across the country. There’s already a waiting list for wind-farm developers who want to hook into the existing grid.

“It’s easy to be green and say let’s build wind but we have to think about — how are we going to deliver that?” said O’Neill.

In the near term, companies are opting to harness wind power closer to existing transmission lines, usually near urban areas, to avoid the lengthy and costly process of building new lines. Aside from pockets of strong winds in the midsection of Illinois, however, some of the most powerful wind in the U.S. stretches from the upper Midwest, south, into Texas.

In order to integrate and move that alternative power east through Illinois, the grid would have to be expanded and upgraded, say transmission experts and utility companies.

The estimated cost to move that wind power east could range from $64 billion to $93 billion in 2009 dollars and would require 17,000 to 22,000 miles of transmission lines to be built in the eastern half of the country alone, according to the Eastern Wind Integration and Transmission Study (EWITS) published in January and prepared for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory.

U.S., China Are Top Clean Energy Markets, Ernst & Young Says

The U.S., China and Germany are among the most attractive markets for developers of renewable energy technologies, according to Ernst & Young.

The U.S. scored of 70 out of 100, followed by China, scoring 67, on the Ernst & Young All Renewables index. The index, released today, rates countries based on the attractiveness of their renewable energy markets, infrastructure and support for specific technologies.

Provisions in the 2011 U.S. budget, including a proposal to increase the number of wind and solar energy projects built on government-owned property, are likely to boost clean energy development, Ernst & Young analyst Michael Bernier said in the report. Foreign developers may benefit from a new national renewable energy development fund in China, the report said.

Potential solar tariff cuts in Germany may drive investors away, the accounting firm said. The U.K. boosted its rank to fifth place on the index, tying with Spain, after Britain rolled out plans to extend its renewable obligations system to 2037 and pledged to support new projects for up to 20 years. India ranked fourth on the index.

Transmission dominates FERC chief’s 2010 agenda

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission is striving to propose rules this year that would dictate how power lines are financed and pricing is set for nontraditional grid resources, the agency’s chief said yesterday.

Chairman Jon Wellinghoff said FERC “set the framework” last year for decisions on electricity infrastructure and new market resources by producing a five-year strategic plan and establishing the Office of Energy Policy and Innovation.

Now the agency is ready to provide more certainty and send the right signals to those who would build transmission and increase nontraditional or “demand-side” resources, including flywheel and battery storage. The agency aims to voluntarily reduce power consumption using demand response, Wellinghoff said.

“Getting the prices right and getting the ability to allocate costs right so that we can start really start moving infrastructure in place and start really putting the demand side in place into the markets — that is where I hope to get this next year,” he told reporters.

Wellinghoff said he has ordered FERC staff to draft a proposed rule soon on transmission funding formulas known as cost allocation. The staff is currently reviewing comments from stakeholders on that issue, and the agency may well see filings by regional transmission operators this year, Wellinghoff said.

“We ought to look at benefits to the entities that the costs are spread to,” he said. “We should not spread costs to someone that there is absolutely no benefits to.”

FERC already proposed a rule about making demand-side resources equal in market value to traditional power supply, and Wellinghoff said he is hoping to examine the pricing structure for other non-traditional supply soon

Why kill cap-and-trade? Because it’s there

Harvard economist Robert Stavins posted a short and provocative essay on his blog Sunday about cap-and-trade’s spectacular fall from rhetorical grace.

(I say rhetorical because, as he points out, some form of cap-and-trade remains part of all the major Capitol Hill climate change bills. What’s dead, at least for now, is the “economy-wide” cap-and-trade idea the House appoved last year.)

Stavins notes that the recession and the Wall Street crisis – which battered the reputation of trading markets – had something to do with cap-and-trade becoming politically toxic.

But then, the heart of his argument (and the italics are his):

But the most important factor — by far — which led to the change from politically correct to politically anathema was the simple fact that cap-and-trade was the approach that was receiving the most serious consideration, indeed the approach that had been passed by one of the houses of Congress.  This brought not only great scrutiny of the approach, but — more important — it meant that all of the hostility to action on climate change, mainly but not exclusively from Republicans and coal-state Democrats, was targeted at the policy du jour — cap-and-trade.

The same fate would have befallen any front-running climate policy.

Does anyone really believe that if a carbon tax had been the major policy being considered in the House and Senate that it would have received a more favorable rating from climate-action skeptics on the right?  If there’s any doubt about that, take note that Republicans in the Congress were unified and successful in demonizing cap-and-trade as “cap-and-tax.”

Likewise, if a multi-faceted regulatory approach (that would have been vastly more costly for what would be achieved) had been the policy under consideration, would it have garnered greater political support?  Of course not.

BP closing Maryland solar manufacturing plant

BP will close its solar-panel manufacturing plant in Frederick, the final step in moving its solar business out of the United States to facilities in China, India and other countries.

Just 3 1/2 years ago, in an announcement widely hailed by Maryland officials and promoters of “green jobs,” BP unveiled a $70 million plan to double output at the facility and erected a building to house the production lines.

But on Friday the company said it would lay off 320 workers and keep only a hundred people involved in research, sales and project development. BP said laid-off employees would receive full pay and benefits for three months, followed by severance packages and job-placement assistance. The company, unable to sell or lease the building, will tear it down.

“We remain absolutely committed to solar,” BP chief executive Tony Hayward said in an interview Friday. But he said BP was “moving to where we can manufacture cheaply.”

The company said in a news release that by closing down high-cost manufacturing locations, BP slashed unit costs by more than 45 percent.

A few years ago, under the leadership of then-chief executive John Browne, BP said that its initials should stand for “beyond petroleum” and that the solar business was a key part of that new image even though it remained a tiny part of the oil and gas giant. Hayward, who came up through the oil-and-gas-exploration side of the company, said BP remains committed to renewable energy where it makes economic sense.

Laser Guidance Adds Power to Wind Turbines

The wind industry may soon be dependent on a different kind of environmental awareness that has more to do with lasers than ecology.

A new laser system that can be mounted on wind turbines allows them to prepare for the wind rushing toward their blades.

The lasers act like sonar for the wind, bouncing off microscopically small particulates and back to a fiber optic detector. That data is fed to an on-board processor that generates a three-dimensional view of the wind speed and direction. Subtle adjustments in the turbine blade’s angle to the window allows it to capture more energy and protect itself in case of strong gusts.

The startup company that developed the Vindicator system, Catch the Wind, recently deployed a wind unit on a Nebraska Public Power District turbine. It increased the production of the unit (.pdf) by more than 10 percent, according to the company’s white paper. If those numbers held across the nations’ 35 gigawatts of installed wind capacity, the LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) sensors could add more than 3.5 gigawatts of wind capacity without adding a single additional turbine.

“This is what they call disruptive technology,” said William Fetzer, vice president of business development for Catch the Wind. “There are roughly 80,000 to 90,000 wind turbines out in the world, and they don’t have this technology.”

Austin Aiming for a Grid Makeover

The city of Austin, Tex., today presented a wide-ranging list of recommendations for remaking its electricity system, including more energy efficiency measures and a change to the business model of the local utility.

The effort, known as the Pecan Street Project, goes beyond the concept of smart-grids and could serve as a national model, its backers say.

“We believe it is not enough for the grid to be smart. It needs to be smart and green,” said Jim Marston, who directs the Texas office of the Environmental Defense Fund and is a Pecan Street board member, in a conference call Wednesday.

Some other smart-grid projects, Mr. Marston added, are “are only looking for ways to lay off meter readers.”

The report’s recommendations range from expanding “demand response” programs to better management of water systems, which require huge amounts of electricity for pumping water.

But the key idea was rethinking the way Austin Energy, the electric utility, makes its money. Currently, the more electricity customers use, the more money the utility — and the city of Austin, whose single largest source of revenue is the utility — earns.

“This basic economic model is the single greatest obstacle standing between Austin Energy and a modernized energy delivery system,” the report stated.

This conundrum applies to most utilities around the country too. Roger Duncan, another Pecan Street board member who recently retired as the general manager of Austin Energy, said that he “didn’t really see any other utilities facing up to this problem.”

Pecan Street Project representatives say that some of the recommendations are already being implemented. Last year the Department of Energy awarded a $10.4 million grant to the group for a pilot smart-grid project in an Austin neighborhood.

GE unveils European wind energy future

General Electric announced Thursday it was investing roughly $453 million to expand wind energy facilities in four European countries.

Expansions plans for GE in Europe include the use of the company’s next-generation 4-megawatt turbine for offshore deployment. The new turbine features a drive train system that eliminates the need for a gear box and is the largest wind turbine in GE’s fleet.

Ferdinando Beccalli-Falco, president and chief executive of GE International, said the investments would help his company tap the huge wind energy potential in offshore Europe.

“Offshore wind will play a vital role in meeting the growing global demand for cleaner, renewable energy and has a bright future here in Europe,” he said.

GE points to studies that show that if all offshore wind farms planned for Europe are completed, the European Union could avoid more than 200 million tons of greenhouse gas emissions each year.

The projects could also meet up to 10 percent of the EU’s electricity needs, moving Europe closer to its goal of getting 20 percent of its energy from renewable resources by 2020.

The four projects in the United Kingdom, Norway, Sweden and Germany could enter operations as early as 2016.

Conservative Evangelicals embrace God and green

The cultural revolution of the 1960s and ’70s included the birth of the environmental movement. That’s when “there was a deep split, and the right stole God and the left stole green,” says Jonathan Merritt, a 20-something evangelical Christian who sees himself as a political conservative but also as an environmentalist. “I think God and green go together, and I think they belong together.”

While many Chris­t­ian denominations enthusiastically support efforts to combat climate change, evangelical Christians, who tend to be both theologically and politically conservative, have been caught up in an internal tussle over the issue in which skeptics seem to hold the upper hand.

But a new generation of Evangelicals such as Mr. Mer­ritt – who, he argues, carry less “baggage” from the 20th-century’s cultural wars – are making a spirited effort to show that their religious beliefs and their environmental concerns are not only compatible but inextricably linked.

“I’m an environmentalist because I’m a Christian and not in spite of that fact,” says Merritt, an author and speaker whose book, “Green Like God: Unlocking the Divine Plan for Our Planet,” will be published on Earth Day, April 21.

Conservative US Protes­tants are among those Chris­tians most likely to be skeptical that human-induced climate change is taking place. In a poll last year, only 34 percent of white Evangelicals agreed there is solid evidence that Earth is warming because of human activity. In contrast, 48 percent of white mainline Protestants agreed, according to the survey, released by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

White House hosts discussion on electric vehicles

The Detroit Free Press reports that the Obama administration will bring leading automakers together today to explore how the industry can best launch electric vehicles with the aid of utility companies.

Several people familiar with the event told the newspaper that auto industry task force chief Ron Bloom will oversee the meeting, which will include the Detroit automakers, several foreign companies including Honda Motor Co. and electric vehicle startups Fisker Automotive Inc. and Tesla Motors Inc.

Obama has been a strong supporter of electric vehicles. As a presidential candidate he campaigned on a pledge to push for 1 million plug-in hybrid vehicles on U.S. roads by 2015, and last year the White House announced $2.4 billion in grants to automakers and suppliers for electric vehicle efforts.

While electric utilities have generally backed automakers’ push toward battery-powered vehicles, both industries have lingering concerns about the availability of charging stations and how much energy demand such vehicles could create for the grid.

A group of electric wholesalers covering two-thirds of the United States and Canada released a study yesterday that stated that plug-in hybrids could boost electric demand by 10 percent in some areas only if all were charing during peak hours. If charging were staggered throughout the day, the study found minimal boosts in energy demand

Seoul Mayor Pins Political Hopes on Green Growth

On a recent morning, the mayor of Seoul stopped by a local amusement park to inaugurate a new electric tram system to ferry tourists around the grounds, replacing an old noisy one that belched exhaust. Music blared. A phalanx of TV crews trailed him.

For some politicians, the event might have been an obligatory photo opportunity, something to be endured en route to more important meetings. But for Oh Se-hoon, who has been striving to build a defining legacy for his mayoralty, it was a signature moment.

“We are the first in the world to use the technology this way,” he said, admiring the way the tram sucks electricity from power strips buried beneath the road. “What we are doing is changing history.”

Mr. Oh is among a new breed of South Korean politicians who increasingly stake their political fortunes on so-called green growth. For Mr. Oh, that means creating jobs based on environmentally friendly technologies and figuring out how to make this city, home to one-fifth of the country’s 49 million people, a healthier, more pleasant place to live.

Since taking office in 2006, Mr. Oh has striven to make the city look nicer and greener. Under his Design City slogan, the municipal authorities carted away urban eyesores like leaky shacks for shoe shiners and replaced them with artfully designed, government-subsidized kiosks. They revamped the old city center, turning part of its Kwanghwamoon Boulevard into a plaza where children can skate in winter.

“My goal in the changing of the face of Seoul is all related to enhancing its attractiveness,” said Mr. Oh, who is seeking re-election as his four-year term winds down. “If the city is attractive, people, information and capital flow in. This in turn creates economic re-vitality and it also creates a lot of jobs.”

Perhaps the issue Mr. Oh has pursued most successfully is air pollution.

While some of his competitors in the election may dismiss some of Mr. Oh’s initiatives as gimmicky, even they concede that the pink haze that used to envelop the metropolis has largely disappeared. The amount of pollutants in Seoul’s air has dropped 20 percent in the past four years, according to city data.

Brazil expands wind energy portfolio

Spanish renewable energy giant EDP Renewables broke ground on a third onshore wind farm in Brazil that has an installed capacity of 70 megawatts.

EDP Group subsidiary EDP Renewables began work on the 2,000-acre site in the state Rio Grande do Sul that would eventually meet the energy demands of 200,000 consumers.

Two wind farms in the region would combine with the Rio Grande do Sul project to deliver 84 MW of wind energy to Brazil.

An expanding Brazilian economy inspired the government to look for alternative energy resources, which would reduce the national dependence on foreign energy.

The Brazilian government awarded the wind farm license to EDP Renewables in January. The wind farm in the city of Tramandai comprises 31 wind turbines.

‘Green Fund’ for Climate Change Proposed by IMF Staff

A “Green Fund” designed to help nations meet climate-change pledges would sell bonds in global markets and use the proceeds to help poor countries deal with the effects of global warming, International Monetary Fund staff proposed in a report.

The report released today expands upon an idea mentioned by IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn earlier this month as a way to raise $100 billion a year by 2020.

The plan offers a mechanism for rich nations to honor their agreement from last year’s Copenhagen climate summit to provide that amount of money to developing countries to confront drought, flooding, food shortages and disease exacerbated by global warming.

Governments could inject reserve assets in the fund, including those disbursed by the IMF last year, it said. The IMF staff plan also calls for wealthy nations to provide separate subsidies to help finance grants, according to the report.

“Once created, the Green Fund could provide a unified resource mobilization framework capable of meeting the financing needs identified at Copenhagen for decades to come,” the IMF staff paper said. “This seems far preferable to the alternative — a succession of difficult international negotiations every few years, with uncertain outcomes.”

The climate fund is aimed at encouraging progress on negotiations towards a global agreement on curbing carbon emissions. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change forecasts as many as 250 million Africans may be exposed to water shortages by 2020 and some countries may see harvests fall by 50 percent.

GM to unveil prototype of Segway-powered electric vehicle

General Motors Co. will unveil a prototype pod-shaped electric vehicle at May’s World Expo in Shanghai that it says will combat urban congestion, traffic accidents and pollution.

The Electric Networked Vehicle, or EN-V, is an upright, two-wheeled pod powered by a Segway Personal Transporter. The vehicles are designed to be small and clean enough to solve growing problems of congestion, parking availability, air quality and affordability.

There will be an estimated 1.2 billion vehicles in 2030, up from 844 million three years ago, according to the Motor & Equipment Manufacturers Association. At the same time, 60 percent of the world’s population will live in urban areas, according to GM, making commuting more difficult. Currently, the association says, 30 percent of fuel is wasted while drivers look for parking spots, a problem GM hopes to combat with the smaller EN-V.

The EN-Vs will have a top speed of 25 miles per hour and a range of 25 miles. They are powered by lithium-ion batteries. GM hopes to outfit them with sensors, cameras and GPS devices so they can communicate with each other, avoid crashes and be operated autonomously. The communication would also let drivers talk to each other while driving, hypothetically creating a situation where two vehicles could hold a video conference while commuting to work.

There is no price available, but GM estimates they would coast one-sixth to one-fifth the cost of a conventional motor vehicle.

Glad to see something potentially useful may come out of the Segway (aka electrifyied walking).

Mitsubishi to triple electric car production

Mitsubishi Motors Corp. will more than triple the annual production of its electric car over the next three years to meet higher global demand.

The company will produce 9,000 of its zero-emission i-MiEVs in the coming fiscal year, 18,000 the next year and 30,000 the following year, according to spokesman Yuki Murata.

Mitsubishi sold 1,400 of the cars in Japan and another 250 abroad in 2009, the car’s first year of production. The i-MiEV will enter the U.S. market in the fiscal year starting in April 2011.

The i-MiEV can be recharged from a regular home socket and can go 100 miles on just seven hours of charge. But it is twice as expensive as the Prius hybrid, a problem Murata said the company is hoping to combat in the coming years.

Meanwhile, Mitsubishi’s rival Nissan Motor Co. unveiled its electric car, the Leaf, which will go into mass production in 2012. The Leaf can go 100 miles on a single charge.

Don’t Risk ‘Clean Energy’ Future to Save Coal Jobs, Says BP’s CEO

The United States isn’t going to get “beyond petroleum” anytime soon, but the chief executive of oil giant BP says it’s time for the nation to start thinking beyond coal.

The nation should not be trying to save coal jobs at the expense of cleaner fuel industries, Tony Hayward, head of BP PLC, told a Washington think tank audience yesterday, adding that there is no reason to keep building coal-burning power plants here.

“We’ve got to find a better way to create jobs than preserving coal jobs,” Hayward told his audience at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Hayward’s comments reflect an increasingly bitter political rift between two of the largest elements of the country’s energy industry — coal and natural gas.

Gas executives are irritated that authors of the House climate bill last year built significant protections into the legislation to protect coal industry jobs and coal-state lawmakers. If lawmakers want to cut carbon emissions, they say, they should look more to natural gas, which emits about half as much carbon as coal. They say gas should be the “bridge fuel” to a low-carbon future or, even better, a permanent fixture of a diverse approach to lowering emissions.

“The coal sector was disproportionately favored in the first go at this,” Hayward said. “It’s about creating jobs.”

BP is one of the world’s largest producers and refiners of oil and gas. But it has little or no stake in coal, a fact that the coal industry highlights in challenging Hayward’s assertions.

‘Smart growth’ taking hold in U.S. cities

Redevelopment of urban centers has continued to outpace construction in the outskirts of suburbia, according to a recent U.S. EPA study, suggesting a “fundamental shift” has begun in the real estate market as the Obama administration pushes denser development through its “livability” initiative.

Though the nation’s urban centers emptied for decades as suburbs sprawled outward, developers in many large cities are increasingly looking inward for building opportunities, according to the study, titled “Residential Construction Trends in America’s Metropolitan Regions.” In 26 of the nation’s 50 largest metropolitan areas, the share of residential construction taking place in central cities more than doubled since 2000.

As expected, the effect was strongest in the metropolitan areas with the strictest regional land-use policies, such as Portland, Ore. But many metropolitan areas known for sprawl, including Chicago and Los Angeles, saw similar increases in redevelopment at the urban core.

“This acceleration of residential construction in urban neighborhoods reflects a fundamental shift in the real estate market,” the report concludes. “The market fundamentals are shifting toward redevelopment even in the absence of formal policies and programs at the regional level.”

Environmentalists have long embraced the idea of urban redevelopment, which conserves untouched land while reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions. So, too, have they supported the dense, transit-oriented housing typically built in urban centers.

Those ideas have found support from the Obama administration’s Partnership for Sustainable Communities, run jointly by EPA, the Transportation Department and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. This year’s budget includes $100 million for the Sustainable Communities Planning Grant Program, which offers funding for the development of state, regional and municipal policies on sustainable development.

Decades of federal housing and transportation policy have worked at cross-purposes, “precluding smart, integrated problem solving,” Ron Sims, deputy secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, told a House panel last month. The livability initiative will be a step toward “improving building-level energy efficiency, cutting greenhouse gas emissions through transit-oriented development, and taking advantage of other locational efficiencies,” he said.

Critics of the “livability” program have painted it as an effort to tell Americans where to live, but data in the recent study suggest consumers might be one step ahead of the administration.

“The livability initiative is in sync with where the marketplace was going anyway,” said Ed McMahon, senior resident fellow for environmental policy at the Urban Land Institute. “There’s been a pent-up demand for urban living, and that demand is evident in housing prices.”

Development continued moving toward the city center in 2008, the most recent year for which data were available, even as the housing market collapsed. The buildings started that year were less often single-family homes and more often large, multi-family developments such as apartment complexes and blocks of condominiums, according to the study.

Construction of single-family homes fell to about 600,000 units in 2008, down from 1.7 million three years earlier. High-density residential construction remained flat at about 200,000 units, the same number of units built before the housing bubble burst.

Those developments made up 23 percent of all housing projects started in 2008, up from 10 percent in 2005.

Much of the shift appears to be demographic, said Kaid Benfield, director of the Smart Growth Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Aging baby boomers and young people today are drawn to urban areas, he said, but that tendency is inextricably tied to environmental issues.

“There has been a lot of thought given at all levels of government and among the consuming public to what our environmental footprint is, and what the shape of our communities ought to be,” Benfield said. “The experience with sprawl over the last few decades has produced a reaction.”

U.K. to Create Clean Energy Bank, Boost Port Funding

The U.K. plans to create a 2 billion-pound ($3 billion) “green investment bank” to promote low-carbon energy as the nation seeks to cut emissions.

“We need to renew and modernize our energy supplies,” Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said in his annual budget in Parliament in London today. “China is building a new power station every week to meet its growing energy needs.”

Asset sales and private investments will be used to fund the bank, Darling said. The proposal comes three months after opposition Conservative Party leader David Cameron suggested a green bank to consolidate government funding for clean energy. Prime Minister Gordon Brown must call an election by June.

Britain, chasing a target to get 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, is planning $120 billion of offshore wind projects as well as gas and nuclear plants to replace aging generators. As much as 30 percent of the country’s power capacity is set to be shut down over the next decade.

Darling said the government will sell assets including the Channel Tunnel rail link to raise 1 billion pounds for the fund, which would be matched by private investments. The Chancellor also pledged about 60 million pounds to develop ports in support of offshore wind turbine makers.

While the green bank will help kick-start important projects, it “doesn’t fit with the urgency of the task at hand,” Ben Caldecott, head of U.K. energy policy at Climate Change Capital in London said in an e-mailed statement.

‘Difficult Market’

“As the cash for it is dependent on selling off strategic assets in difficult market conditions, it will take many months or even years before the fund is able to make a meaningful difference,” Caldecott said.

The structure of the bank will be developed by the government in consultation with investors and could be functioning by the second half of 2011, according to the Treasury. The money will help finance companies aiming to provide clean energy and reduce pollution, Darling said.

The U.K. has two to three years of “very comfortable” electricity supplies before aging capacity is phased out, Ofgem Chief Executive Officer Alistair Buchanan said in February. The country will need to spend as much as 200 billion pounds to replace infrastructure and curb emissions within the next 10 years, according to the regulator.

Last week, the Conservatives said they would adopt measures including a carbon floor price and feed-in tariffs if they win the election. The party also suggested speeding up the roll-out of smart meters and providing consumers with as much as 6,500 pounds of energy efficiency improvements.

Browner: Fuel economy, tailpipe emissions rules to go final next week

The Obama administration plans to finalize tougher auto efficiency regulations next week, White House climate and energy czar Carol Browner said Wednesday.

The joint Transportation Department-EPA rules will boost car and light truck mileage standards to reach an average of 35.5 miles per gallon in 2016. They include first-time greenhouse gas requirements.

The standards represent a deal struck last year between the administration, automakers, and states that were planning to implement their own tailpipe greenhouse gas rules.

The states, led by California, agreed to shelve their rules while the joint national program is in effect.

The White House has frequently cited the new federal rules in opposing Capitol Hill proposals that would overturn EPA’s ability to regulate greenhouse gases. The White House argues that nullifying EPA power would hurt automakers by opening the door to a patchwork of state requirements.