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One Energy Question Will Win Fame, $25,000, and Maybe a Solution
Published November 19, 2008 @ 02:49PM PST
133 entered, but only 3 are left. Three problems in energy efficiency or storage in search of solutions, all finalists in the X-Prize Foundation's contest to find the goal for a future competition focused on energy and the environment.
And while the three finalists were picked by an expert panel, the foundation is double-dipping into the wisdom of crowds by asking the public to vote by Nov. 30 in order to pick the winner.
"We sponsored this contest because we think the world is full of great ideas from people who don't have a way to share them," said Lee Stein, Chairman and Founder of Prize Capital, LLC, in a statement. "By offering a prize, we provided a platform to share and surface innovative ideas. We hope this is the first of many prize winning checks Prize Capital will be awarding for smart energy ideas. After seeing the finalist videos, I'll be happy to hand any of them a check for $25,000."
The purse for solving the winning problem in the future X-Prize competition has not been announced -- but it's likely to be fat, as that contest will be part of a suite of environment and energy-related competitions worth as much as $100 million, according to the foundation. In 2004, a team led by Burt Rutan won $10 million from the foundation for building and flying the first private spaceship into suborbital space. It's the only X-Prize awarded to date.
All three finalist videos after the jump. Vote for a winner at www.xprize.org/crazy-green-idea. All 133 entries are still up on YouTube -- did the right three make it to the final round?
Follow the Governor's Climate Summit on Twitter
Published November 19, 2008 @ 02:00PM PST
My fellow former Worldchanger Gil Friend is live-tweeting from the Governor's Global Climate Summit -- follow along at http://www.twitter.com/gfriend
Related posts:
Financial Meltdown Won't Slow U.S. Action on Climate Meltdown, Says Obama
The Daily Climate: Schwarzenegger Hosting International Climate Confab
The Daily Climate: Five Corps. Flex Muscles to Fight Global Warming
Published November 19, 2008 @ 11:15AM PST
Five major U.S. corporations are calling for immediate and effective clean energy and global warming legislation from Congress in 2009. This new "BICEP" coalition -- Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy -- includes Levi Strauss & Co., Nike, Starbucks, Sun Microsystems, The Timberland Company, along with non-profit CERES, which advocates for corporate social and enviornmental responsibility.
Via press release, they've released a multi-point platform that includes: reducing greenhouse gas pollution at least 25 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 and 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050; establishing greenhouse gas cap-and-trade system that auctions 100 percent of carbon pollution allowances (rather than alloting a percentage of allowances to various industries for free); mandating capture-and-storage technologies for coal-fired power plants; and generating 30% of the nation's energy from clean renewables by 2030; and more.
My quick and dirty web search -- perhaps someone can check my numbers and update us in the comments -- suggests that in 2007, the five companies in "BICEP" had combined revenues of over $45 billion. This is roughly 3% of the total U.S. gross domestic product in 2007 of $13.84 trillion. Translation: That's a significantly sizable percentage of the GDP. Insert "flexing their muscles" joke here.
What do you think of corporations, and these corporations, pressuring Congress to solve the climate crisis? Tell us in the comments.
Meanwhile, African environmental ministers met today to hash out a common platform on global warming to take to next month's international climate treaty talks in Poznan, Poland, reports Agency France-Presse. One position they're likely to take is that African nations should not be held accountable for emissions in the same manner as other countries tagged as "developing nations," such as China -- which produces most of the world's human-caused carbon dioxide, compared to a collective 2% by the nations of Africa. By some assessments, global warming is at least partly to blame for the the droughts and desertification that are causing massive suffering in Africa. As my fellow Change.org editor Dave Bennion posted yesterday on the Immigrant Rights blog, "We know from tragic experience that drought can initiate or intensify conflict, especially in underdeveloped regions like Darfur...It's time for the public to take a closer look at how the issues of migration and environmental degradation are linked, and formulate policies that address the issues together."
Back in the U.S., young activists are organizing around the goal of no coal. The Post and Courier of Charleston, South Carolina reports that increasing numbers of young adults, many of them college students, are "attending hearings and engaging in demonstrations and acts of civil disobedience reminiscent of the protests their parents might have seen in the 1970s against nuclear plants." The reporter highlights 20-year-old Sara Tansey, who took a year out of her education at the University of South Carolina to fight the coal industry. "There are lots of young people who got engaged on the climate and energy issue during the election," she told The Courier. "I think young people are really awakening to injustice of the whole life cycle of coal."
Beset by a head cold and nasty cough today, so things are likely to be a little slower than usual at Stop Global Warming.
Image: Timberland's "nutritional" product label "offers data on two aspects of Timberland's environmental impact -- the energy used to produce the shoe and the company's purchases of renewable energy -- and three aspects of its community impact -- the number of hours served by Timberland employees in community service, the percentage of its factories "assessed against a code of conduct," and the child labor employed in making the shoe. It also tells where in the world the shoe was manufactured." Source: Worldchanging.com
Financial Meltdown Won't Slow U.S. Action on Climate Meltdown, Says Obama
Published November 18, 2008 @ 01:36PM PST
President-elect Obama may not be attending next month's U.N. climate treaty talks in Poznan, Poland. And he appears to be staying clear of the battle between Reps. Waxman and Dingell for control of a House committee that's key to future lawmaking on energy and global warming.
But Mr. Obama has taken the opportunity of this week's governor's summit on climate in Los Angeles to affirm that after he takes office, there will be no delay in acting to stop global warming.
Appearing via a videotaped message, the President-elect brought what was no doubt a welcome message to the the bipartisan gathering of governors -- many of whom have battled the Bush administration on creating stricter pollution standards to control greenhouse gasses -- joined by representatives from at least 10 other nations. "The science is beyond dispute and the facts are clear. Sea levels are rising. Coastlines are shrinking. We’ve seen record drought, spreading famine, and storms that are growing stronger with each passing hurricane season."
Mr. Obama stressed that the global financial crisis would not derail strong cap-and-trade carbon control policies after he takes office. In fact, he perceives the intertwined solutions to slowing economies, climate crisis, and national security. "We will establish strong annual targets that set us on a course to reduce emissions to their 1990 levels by 2020 and reduce them by an additional 80 percent by 2050," he said, reiterating promises he made on the campaign trail. "My presidency will mark a new chapter in America's leadership on climate change that will strengthen our security and create millions of new jobs in the process."
For the international delegates at the conference, Mr. Obama had a direct message. "While I won't be president at the time of your meeting and while the United States has only one president at a time, I've asked members of Congress who are attending the conference as observers to report back to me on what they learn there," he said." "Once I take office, you can be sure that the United States will once again engage vigorously in these negotiations and help lead the world toward a new era of global cooperation on climate change."
Sources: Reuters, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal Blogs, Agency France-Presse
Image: Barack Obama on campaign trail. Via barackobama.com
The Daily Climate: Oil Pirates Threaten Energy Security, more
Published November 18, 2008 @ 10:20AM PST
I try to not overdo the bad news coverage here at globalwarming.change.org. But now and then current energy and climate events scream "Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse" so loudly that it's futile to resist. And today is one of those days.
Presenting for your terriblisma enjoyment -- fire, locusts beetles, pirates, and political strife:
Pay the ransom or the oil gets it: Somali pirates hijacked an oil tanker "as long as an aircraft carrier" yesterday off the coast of East Africa. The Liberian-flagged tanker, the Silver Star, can hold up to 2 million barrels (84 million gallons) of oil, and has an international crew of 25. It's owned by Saudi Aramco. The U.S. military is taking notice because this pirate action has big implications for energy security. As the Los Angeles Times reports, Navy Adm. Michael G. Mullen said he was 'stunned' that the pirates were operating so far offshore: ""Four hundred fifty [nautical] miles away from the coast, that is the furthest, the longest distance I've seen for any of these incidents."
Related:
- Hijacked Supertanker Anchors Off Somalia (The New York Times)
- Saudi Super-Tanker Taken to Somali Pirate Lair (Agency France-Presse)
Today's New York Times has a detailed report on the devatation of forests in the Rocky Mountain West. From New Mexico to British Columbia, millions of acres of green lodgepole pine forests are turning rust-red as they are killed by an infestation of mountain pine beetles. Colorado may lose virtually all its pine forest in the next three to five years. "Foresters say the historic outbreak has several causes. Because fires have been suppressed for so long, all forests are roughly the same age, and the trees are big enough to be susceptible to beetles. A decade of drought has weakened the trees. And hard winters have softened, which allows the beetles to flourish and expand their range." The only thing this article does not do is name the likely ultimate driver of the drought and softer winters that are contributing to this disaster: global warming.
How do those beetles kill the pines? "The black, hard-shelled beetle, the size of a fingertip, drills through pine bark and digs a gallery in the wood where it lays its eggs," writes The Times. "When the larvae hatch under the bark, they eat the sweet, rich cambium layer that provides nutrients to the tree. They also inject a fungus to stop the tree from moving sap, which could drown the larvae. That fungus stains the wood blue."
Sounds a lot like what the Bush-Cheney administration is doing to the incoming Obama-Biden administration: digging in and knawing the life out of future reforms of energy, environment, and other policies. As the Washington Post reports, the Interior Department's top lawyer has converted half a dozen agency fixers from political appointments into career civil service roles in the agency -- a process called "burrowing." Two of these have been put in key roles controlling mining projects, as well as programs operated by the Bureau of Land Management and the Fish and Wildlife Service. Overall the Bush administration has "burrowed" 20 political appointees into career positions in Interior and other departments, the Post reports, which will make it much more difficult for the incoming White House to put its own preferred individuals into those roles.
Some congressional Democrates aren't doing President-elect Obama any favors, either: Rep. Henry Waxman (Calif.) is duking it out with Rep. John Dingell (Mich.) for control of the important House Committee on Energy and Commerce, which handles major environmental, consumer safety and health laws. As USA Today reports, Mr. Dingell is a long-time ally of the Big Three automakers, and has been seen as an impediment to strong carbon control legislation, while Mr. Waxman advocates strong environmental protections and an overhaul of Detroit. Whoever emerges the winner will be a big player in future energy and climate policies.
Related:
- Climate Change Strategy at Stake in Dispute Among Democrats (Living on Earth)
- Chemical Industry Weighs in With Dingell in Battle With Waxman (CQ Politics)
- Democrates Prepare for Bruising Committee Battle (National Public Radio)
The United Nations' climate body released the latest figures on global greenhouse gas emissions yesterday, and they're not good. According to the The United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which manages Kyoto-treaty-related global efforts to reduce greenhouse pollution, "greenhouse emissions—measured in terms of the most ubiquitous: carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e)—dropped by 894 million metric tons between 1990 and 2006 (the latest year for which figures are available)," reports SciAm.com. "But the UNFCCC found that emissions had grown by 2.3 percent—403 million metric tons of CO2e—from 2000 to 2006, and that the 16-year dip was due entirely to the drop in economic activity (factory and power plant shutdowns) in former Eastern bloc countries such as Russia after the 1989 fall of communist governments." Now that those countries have largely recovered economically, CO2e emissions have increased by around 258 million metric tons.
Worse -- yes, it's possible -- these data are nearly three years old ("not the freshest, but the most reliable on the market," per UNFCCC spokesman John Hay). So emissions may even higher.
Image: "Gusty winds drove wildfires into southern California cities in mid-November 2008. This image...shows the Los Angeles metropolitan area on November 16, 2008. Places where the sensor detected active fires are outlined in red...According to the National Interagency Fire Center daily situation report from November 16, the Sayre Fire north of San Fernando was 8,000 acres and 20 percent contained. The Freeway Fire was 5,800 acres and 5 percent contained. The following day, winds died down, and the fires’ ferocity ebbed. Evacuees were allowed to return to their communities." Source: NASA Earth Observatory
Related:
Obama Won't Be at UN Climate Talks in December
Published November 17, 2008 @ 05:49PM PST
When it comes to reforming U.S. global warming policy, the Bush-Cheney administration can't end soon enough -- but it won't end in time for next month's annual U.N. climate talks, being held in Poland. "There is not going to be an Obama delegation in Poznan," said Yvo de Boer, head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, at a press conference today, reports Reuters.
Obama on U.S. Oil Addiction: 'We go from shock to trance'
Published November 17, 2008 @ 05:15PM PST
President-Elect Barack Obama talked transition to the White House last night on 60 Minutes. He and interviewer Steve Kroft touched on energy. Here's the video; transcript after the jump.
