Tag Archives: business & technology

Forget solar panels, here come building-integrated photovoltaics

by lqr8rg5rr Posted on July 24, 2013

Forget solar panels, here come building-integrated photovoltaics

By John Upton

Ben West

This roof doesn’t have solar panels — it has solar shingles.

Solar panels are becoming passé. Why put solar panels on top of building construction materials when you could just tap the power of the sun directly through the construction materials themselves?

Bloomberg reports on the rapid growth in building-integrated photovoltaics, or BIPV. These are solar power–harvesting cells that are incorporated into the walls, roofs, and windows of buildings — integrated seamlessly instead of being bolted onto a finished building as an apparent afterthought:

From stadiums in Brazil to a bank headquarters in Britain, architects led by Norman Foster are integrating solar cells into the skin of buildings, helping the market for the technology triple within two years. …

The market for solar laid onto buildings and into building materials is expected to grow to $7.5 billion by 2015 from about $2.1 billion, according to Accenture Plc, citing research from NanoMarkets. Sales of solar glass are expected to reach as much as $4.2 billion by 2015, with walls integrating solar cells at $830 million. About $1.5 billion is expected to be generated from solar tiles and shingles.

The technology provides a respite for solar manufacturers, opening the way for them to charge a premium for products. Traditional solar panel prices have fallen 90 percent since 2008 due to oversupply, cutting margins and pushing more than 30 companies including Q-Cells SE and a unit of Suntech Power Holdings Co. into bankruptcy.

The industry is already well established in the U.S., where Dow Chemical Co. (DOW), the country’s largest chemical maker by sales, is selling in more than a dozen states solar shingles that look like regular roofing material.

Expect green buildings of the future to look a lot more blue.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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As citrus disease spreads, government cryopreserves tree roots

by Unacoomt Posted on July 23, 2013

As citrus disease spreads, government cryopreserves tree roots

By John Upton

USDA

Cryopreservation in action.

Cryonics may never bring slugger Ted Williams back to life, but federal scientists hope that freezing the tips of tree roots could help save America’s $3.4 billion citrus-growing industry.

Unlike the famous baseball player, who was frozen after he died in 2002 (with his head and body stored in separate containers), the plant tissue that U.S. Department of Agriculture scientists are preserving in subzero temperatures is very much alive.

Citrus trees are increasingly under threat from citrus greening, aka Huanglongbing or “Yellow Dragon Disease,” a bacterial disease spread by insects. It has killed millions of citrus trees in the U.S. since it was first detected in Florida in 2005.

From a USDA press release:

[S]cientists are creating a backup storage site or “genebank” for citrus germplasm in the form of small buds, called shoot tips, which have been cryopreserved—that is, plunged into liquid nitrogen for long-term cold storage. …

Some genebanks maintain living citrus trees in dedicated groves and screenhouses. But in cryopreservation, [plant physiologist Gayle] Volk saw a way to safeguard valuable germplasm without fear of losing it to insect or disease outbreaks, as well as natural disasters such as freezes, droughts and hurricanes. Instead of safeguarding whole plants or trees, her approach involves cutting tiny shoot tips from new growth, called “flush,” and cryopreserving the material for storage inside state-of the-art vaults at the ARS National Center for Genetic Resources Preservation (NCGRP) in Fort Collins, Colo.

The center is something of a “Fort Knox” for plant and animal germplasm. In addition to the value of its collections, which are crucial to conducting research and ensuring the food security of future generations, the NCGRP’s storage vaults can withstand tornado-strength winds, floods, and the impact from a 2,500-pound object traveling at 125 miles an hour.

If citrus greening does turn the nation’s citrus crop to pulp, here’s hoping that Volk’s sci-fi-worthy research can help to reconstitute it.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Think you can’t afford an EV? Think again

by hu7vfd0 Posted on July 23, 2013

Think you can’t afford an EV? Think again

By Claire Thompson

Tom Raftery

You could be as happy as this guy.

It’s easy to see the electric car as a symbol of the kind of offbeat elitism often associated with eco-conscious living — the rich man’s veggie oil-powered VW bus, if you will. But that could change as the industry starts going Model T on EVs, making them more affordable for the masses. Automakers are now offering an array of discount leases and perks that, when combined with government tax incentives, make EV ownership accessible for a much broader segment of the population.

Owning an electric vehicle automatically slashes drivers’ fuel costs by as much as 80 percent. But it’s the up-front cash that presents a barrier to most prospective buyers, not to mention the lack of widespread charging infrastructure. Of course, growing ranks of EV drivers would spur the construction of more charging stations and attract still more electric converts. But with so few choices on the market, none of them wildly affordable, it’s hard to get that cycle started.

Until now. The Wall Street Journal reports:

Bronson Beisel, 46, says he was looking last fall for an alternative to driving his gas-guzzling Ford Expedition sport utility around suburban Atlanta, when he saw a discounted lease offer for an all-electric Nissan Leaf. With $1,000 down, Mr. Beisel says he got a two-year lease for total out-of-pocket payments of $7,009, a deal that reflects a $7,500 federal tax credit.

As a resident of Georgia, Mr. Beisel is also eligible for a $5,000 subsidy from the state government. Now, he says, his out-of-pocket costs for 24 months in the Leaf are just over $2,000. Factor in the $200 a month he reckons he isn’t paying for gasoline to fill up his hulking SUV, and Mr. Beisel says “suddenly the car puts $2,000 in my pocket.”

Beisel also got a charging station installed at his house for no up-front cost. He’s spending less than $15 a month so far for the electricity needed to power the Leaf. That means that, including charging costs, he’s paying no more than $1,180 a year to drive his EV around town. Compare that to the $9,000 per year it costs to own and operate a typical gas-powered car.

Beisel compared the deal to “a two-year test drive, free.” Another Leaf driver is taking that approach literally:

Matt Brooks, a software engineer in Rochester, N.Y., says he decided to replace a hybrid Prius with a Leaf because the lease was so cheap. He’s paying $239 a month for 24 months with no money down. Mr. Brooks says he likes the car, but doesn’t expect to buy it when the lease is done. Used Leafs are selling below the purchase price written into his lease, he says.

Manufacturers are under pressure to comply with state regulations like California’s, which requires that by 2018, 4.5 percent of cars sold in the state be zero-emission vehicles; by 2025, 15 percent. Only the Nissan Leaf and the Tesla Model S sold more than 1,000 cars during the first quarter this year. But discount leases like the ones Brooks and Beisel have could help those numbers rapidly accelerate.

In an effort to ramp up production and lower costs, Nissan is increasingly manufacturing the Leaf and its pricey battery packs at factories in Tennessee instead of in Japan (creating American jobs in the process). This helped drop the 2013 Leaf’s starting price ($28,800) by $6,400 compared to last year’s model.

Of course, the one major drawback of EVs is that they’re primarily city cars because most roads still lack charging stations. That’s why many EV owners still keep a gas guzzler around for out-of-town trips. But one automaker has a solution to that problem: As part of the $32,500-plus cost of its new 500e electric, Fiat USA offers 12 days a year of free access to a gas-powered rental car. So unless you’re planning a truly epic road trip, you don’t need to own a second car in order to hit the highway.

And hey, if a guy with a name as bro-y as Bronson Beisel, not to mention a veteran New York cabbie, can proudly pilot an electric car, they’re clearly not just for highfalutin hippies anymore.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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Seattle mayor wants to block Whole Foods because of its low wages

by Marya7iog Posted on July 22, 2013

Seattle mayor wants to block Whole Foods because of its low wages

By Lisa Hymas

Dave Lichterman

Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn says Whole Foods should pay more or get lost.

The Washington, D.C., city council made national news earlier this month with its effort to force Walmart to pay higher wages at six new stores the company hopes to build in the city.

A similar fight is afoot in Seattle — but over Whole Foods. Mayor Mike McGinn, who’s up for reelection this year, is leading the charge against a proposed new store in the West Seattle neighborhood. Seattle Times columnist Danny Westneat reports:

“I’m setting a new standard here, that we are going to look at the wages they pay, and benefits, when a company wants to develop with land that involves public property,” McGinn told me in an interview. …

McGinn contended in a letter that the nonunion Whole Foods pays “significantly lower” wages and benefits than other grocery stores, including some already in West Seattle. So the idea of allowing Whole Foods to go in there violates the city’s social and economic justice goals.

Whole Foods, as you might imagine, was gobsmacked. The company is no stranger around these parts — it has six hugely popular Seattle-area stores, employing 1,500 workers.

Whole Foods claims it pays nonmanagement workers in Seattle an average of $16 an hour, plus health benefits, but McGinn disputes that claim.

“If Whole Foods wants to open up their books and prove to us that they provide equal pay and benefits to the other grocery stores, then that’s something we would definitely consider,” McGinn said.

To get his backing, Whole Foods needs to make “meaningful increases” in worker pay. If the store is allowed to open as is, it will only drag down wages at the other stores, causing a “race to the bottom,” he said. …

“This is a new effort, and we’ll be looking at the wages and benefits of any large companies that want to develop using public property.”

The Stranger reports that the planned Whole Foods development is also “opposed by a coalition of labor, businesses, and residents, who worry about the project’s impact on traffic congestion, pedestrian safety, living wage jobs, and small local businesses.” And the alt-weekly notes that “Whole Foods is notoriously anti-union while the national supermarket chains it competes with here—Safeway, Albertsen’s, and QFC/Kroger—are all union shops.”

McGinn doesn’t actually have the power to block the store. Whole Foods is seeking to buy a public alleyway as part of its development plan, but the city council will make the final decision on that. Still, McGinn said he’s using the case to take a stand on income inequality.

Meanwhile, in D.C., Mayor Vincent C. Gray will make the final call on the Walmart controversy. He could either sign or veto a city council measure that would force Walmart to pay a living wage to workers in the city.

Lisa Hymas is senior editor at Grist. You can follow her on Twitter and Google+.

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No one knows how to stop these tar-sands oil spills

by wjtydf3g Posted on July 22, 2013

No one knows how to stop these tar-sands oil spills

By John Upton

Photograph obtained by the

Toronto Star

Oil polluting the ground at Cold Lake in Alberta.

Thousands of barrels of tar-sands oil have been burbling up into forest areas for at least six weeks in Cold Lake, Alberta, and it seems that nobody knows how to staunch the flow.

An underground oil blowout at a big tar-sands operation run by Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. has caused spills at four different sites over the past few months. (This is different from the 100-acre spill in Alberta that we told you about last month, which was caused by a ruptured pipeline.)

Media and others have been blocked from visiting the sites, but the Toronto Star obtained documents and photographs about the ongoing disaster from a government scientist involved in the cleanup, who spoke to the reporter on condition of anonymity. The prognosis is sickening. From Friday’s article:

The documents and photos show dozens of animals, including beavers and loons, have died, and that [nearly 34 tons] of oily vegetation has been cleared from the latest of the four spill zones. …

“Everybody (at the company and in government) is freaking out about this,” said the scientist. “We don’t understand what happened. Nobody really understands how to stop it from leaking, or if they do they haven’t put the measures into place.”

The disaster raises big, scary questions about the safety of the underground oil extraction method being used:

The company’s operations use an “in situ” or underground extraction technology called “cyclic steam stimulation,” which involves injecting thousands of gallons of superhot, high-pressure steam into deep underground reservoirs. This heats and liquefies the hard bitumen and creates cracks through which the bitumen flows and is then pumped to the surface. …

Oil companies have said in situ methods are more environmentally friendly than the open-pit mining often associated with the Alberta oil sands, but in situ is more carbon and water-intensive.

And perhaps more spill-intensive:

“This is a new kind of oil spill and there is no ‘off button,’” said Keith Stewart, an energy analyst with Greenpeace who teaches a course on energy policy and environment at the University of Toronto. “You can’t cap it like a conventional oil well or turn off a valve on a pipeline.

“You are pressurizing the oil bed so hard that it’s no wonder that it blows out. This means that the oil will continue to leak until the well is no longer pressurized,” which means the bitumen could be seeping from the ground for months.

The spills are happening on traditional territory of the Beaver Lake Cree First Nation, whose members are understandably seething. From iNews 880:

[Beaver Lake Cree Nation citizen Crystal] Lameman says as a Treaty Status First Nation person she feels her rights and treaties are being violated as she is not being allowed in her ancestor’s traditional hunting ground.

“We should have free access to it as treaty status Indians and we have no access to it and we can’t trust what we’re being told now,” explains Lameman.

… The First Nation is pursuing a constitutional challenge that argues the impacts of the oil sands are infringing their treaty rights to hunt, fish and trap.

In case you’d forgotten, it’s just this kind of tar-sands oil that would be shipped down the middle of America through the Keystone XL pipeline. If the Obama administration approves the pipeline project, even more tar-sands oil extraction is likely in Alberta [PDF] — and even more spills.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Crude on the tracks: Oil spills from trains skyrocket

by PhoenixBrook3 Posted on July 19, 2013

Crude on the tracks: Oil spills from trains skyrocket

By Claire Thompson

As more oil is being shipped by train across North America, more oil is being spilled from trains. EnergyWire reports:

The number of spills and other accidents from railroad cars carrying crude oil has skyrocketed in recent years, up from one or two a year early in the previous decade to 88 last year.

Most of the spills are relatively small — nothing like the deadly disaster in Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, earlier this month — but with oil shipments on the rise, there’s cause to be concerned.

Oil production has increased thanks to fracking and other drilling technologies, but North America’s pipeline network hasn’t kept up, so railroads are stepping in to fill the void, especially in areas not served by pipelines. Rail transport is more expensive, but it doesn’t require new infrastructure or permits. U.S. railroads have already moved 40 percent more crude and refined product this year than in 2012.

Reuters reports:

With that growth has come a number of high-profile spills and accidents, many on Canadian Pacific Railway’s network, which runs through Alberta, the largest oil exporter to the United States, and the Bakken field [in North Dakota].

Canadian Pacific suffered the industry’s first serious spill in late March, when 14 tanker cars derailed near Parkers Prairie, Minnesota, and leaked 15,000 gallons of crude. Regulators have not released the results of their investigation into the incident, and Canadian Pacific declined to comment.

Critics point out that old tank cars can puncture easily, and that trains carrying heavy oil loads can wear down railroad tracks.

But it’s difficult to compare the safety of railroad shipments versus pipeline shipments. Edward Whittingham, director of the Canadian environmental group Pembina Institute, told The New York Times earlier this month that the methods are “equally unsafe.” While rail spills are more frequent, they generally result in less oil spilled. In comparison, pipeline spills can be both more difficult to detect and greater in volume. More from EnergyWire:

Federal law requires railroads to report smaller crude oil spills than pipelines, which rail officials say makes their total numbers look higher. Pipelines must report spills of 5 gallons or more. Of the 88 rail spills last year, 23 were 5 gallons or more.

Gee. If only there were some source of energy that didn’t need to be transported thousands of miles and didn’t pose a constant risk of mass ecological contamination. Let me know if you hear of one.

Claire Thompson is an editorial assistant at Grist.

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Monsanto virtually gives up on growing GMO crops in Europe

by Silvester Mongan Posted on July 19, 2013

Monsanto virtually gives up on growing GMO crops in Europe

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Europeans who don’t want Monsanto’s GMO crops on their land can rejoice.

Monsanto has pretty much given up any hope (at least for now) of selling its genetically engineered seeds for corn, sugar beets, and other crops in Europe, where opposition to GMO food is overwhelming.

From the L.A. Times:

Monsanto Co. said Thursday it will largely drop its bid to grow some of its genetically modified crops in Europe.

The world’s largest seed-maker has nine pending applications with the European Commission, the executive body for the European Union. A spokesman said the company plans to withdraw eight of those applications.

The requests “have been going nowhere fast for several years,” said Brandon Mitchener, a spokesman for the St. Louis-based company’s European entity. “There’s no end in sight … due to political obstructionism.”

The European Union’s stubborn resistance to transgenic crops stands in stark contrast to the welcome mat rolled out by American lawmakers for agro-giants and their most controversial products. From the BBC:

The company said it would now concentrate on growing its conventional seeds business in Europe.

It will also look to get EU approval to import its genetically modified crop varieties from the US and South America into Europe.

In 2012, Germany’s BASF halted the development of genetically modified crops in Europe and moved its European research operations in this area to the US.

Welcome home, corporate industrial science.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Wind power is a steal: Big deals in Midwest show wind’s affordability

by irj972ys Posted on July 18, 2013

Wind power is a steal: Big deals in Midwest show wind’s affordability

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Doing it on the cheap.

Xcel Energy announced deals this week that will boost its use of wind power in the Upper Midwest by 33 percent, demonstrating that wind is increasingly cost-competitive with fossil fuels, even natural gas.

The Minneapolis-based utility is buying into three 200-megawatt wind farm projects, enough to power 180,000 homes, saying they will save its customers $180 million over 20 years. Xcel already has 1,800 megawatts of wind capacity up and running in the region, but it’s hungry for more. From an Xcel press release:

“Wind prices are extremely competitive right now, offering lower costs than other possible resources, like natural gas plants,” said [Xcel official Dave] Sparby. “These projects offer a great hedge against rising and often volatile fuel prices.”

At the same time, the projects will reduce carbon emissions by 1.2 million tons each year in Xcel Energy’s Upper Midwest service territory, where the company already is on track to reduce carbon emissions by 30 percent by 2020 from 2005 levels.

From the Minnesota Star Tribune:

“It’s a huge announcement,” said Joe Sullivan, a regional policy manager for Wind on the Wires, a St. Paul-based industry group. “What it shows is that when it comes to adding new [generation] resources, wind is floating up to the top. It is beating out other resources in the market.”

Xcel said it will buy power from two planned wind farms near Windom, Minn., and near Jamestown, N.D., being developed by Geronimo Energy of Edina, and take ownership of another wind farm planned by RES Americas Development near Austin, Minn.

Financial terms of the deals were not disclosed, but Geronimo said that each of its 200-megawatt wind farms will cost about $350 million. All three projects are expected to be operating in 2015 or earlier.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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E.U. bans another bee-killing insecticide

by Edbre23ne Posted on July 17, 2013

E.U. bans another bee-killing insecticide

By John Upton

Shutterstock

This sort of bee behavior is safer in Europe than it is in America.

Bees of America, please don’t take this the wrong way, but it might be time to buzz off to Europe.

The European Union will limit the use of yet another bee-endangering insecticide, part of its efforts to protect pollinators from agricultural poisons.

The use of fipronil, a nerve agent produced by German company BASF and widely applied by farmers to kill insect pests, will be outlawed on corn and sunflower seeds and fields across Europe. From Reuters:

The restrictions take effect from Dec. 31 but seeds which have already been treated can be sown until the end of February 2014.

The ban follows similar EU curbs imposed in April on three of the world’s most widely used pesticides, known as neonicotinoids, and reflects growing concern in Europe over a recent plunge in the population of honeybees critical to crop pollination and production.

A scientific assessment from the EU’s food safety watchdog EFSA said in May that fipronil posed an “acute risk to honeybees when used as a seed treatment for maize”.

Fipronil, mainly sold under the Regent brand name in Europe, may still be used on seeds sown in greenhouses, or leeks, shallots, onions and other vegetables that are harvested before they flower, posing a low risk to foraging bees.

The U.K. and the U.S. have both been reluctant to restrict sales of pesticides that pose a threat to bees, but the U.K. is bound by the European Union’s recent bans and restrictions, while the U.S., of course, is not. Beekeepers and environmentalists in the U.S. are currently suing the EPA in an effort to institute similar bans here. From The Guardian:

Bees and other pollinators are essential in the growing of three-quarters of the world’s crops, but have seen serious declines in recent decades due to habitat loss, disease and pesticide use. In Tuesday’s vote, only the UK, Slovakia and the Czech Republic abstained and only Spain — the biggest user of fipronil — and Romania voted against. The UK was also one of eight of the 27 EU member states that unsuccessfully opposed the EC neonicotinoid ban.

“The UK abstained from the vote as there were concerns that the proposals were not based on sound scientific evidence,” said a [spokeswoman for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs]. “Fipronil is not used in any authorised pesticide in the UK so this ruling will have little impact [here].”

Paul de Zylva, of Friends of the Earth, welcomed the “leadership” of the European commission but added: “Yet again the UK’s pesticide testing regime has proven to be unfit for purpose. It’s disappointing to see the UK government abstaining from another cut and dried opportunity to protect bees.”

To the bees of America: Bon voyage.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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Keystone XL could hike gas prices as much as 40 cents a gallon

by Constantinee9g Posted on July 17, 2013

Keystone XL could hike gas prices as much as 40 cents a gallon

By John Upton

Shutterstock

Going up, up, up …

If the Keystone XL pipeline is built, Americans could pay as much as 40 cents more per gallon for gasoline in some parts of the country, according to a new report by the nonprofit Consumer Watchdog [PDF].

That’s because oil extracted in Canada would start to bypass traditional American markets, traveling through the pipeline to the Gulf Coast and onto tanker ships bound for international markets where oil fetches higher prices.

“The pipeline is being built through America, but not for Americans,” Consumer Watchdog researcher Judy Dugan said in a statement. “Keystone XL is not an economic benefit to Americans who will see higher gas prices and bear all the risks of the pipeline.” From the report:

The aim of tar sands producers with refining interests on the Gulf Coast — primarily multinational oil companies — is to get the oil to their Gulf refineries, which would process additional oil largely for fuel exports to hungry foreign markets. Other oil sands investors, including two major Chinese petrochemical companies and major European oil companies, have an interest in exporting crude oil and/or refined products to their markets. Such exports would drain off what the tar sands producers consider a current oversupply, and help push global oil prices higher. …

U.S. drivers would be forced to pay higher prices for tar sands oil, particularly in the Midwest. There, gasoline costs could rise by 20 cents to 40 cents per gallon or more, based on the $20 to $30 per barrel discount on Canadian crude oil that Keystone XL developers seek to erase. Such an increase, just in the Midwest, could cost the U.S. economy $3 billion to $4 billion a year in consumer income that would not be spent more productively elsewhere. The West Coast imports much smaller amounts of Canadian oil in a larger and more complicated market. Even so, a sharp price hike for Canadian oil could bump Pacific Coast gasoline prices by a few cents a gallon.

The report also connects a few corporate dots, showing who’s really intended to benefit from Keystone XL:

Consumer Watchdog

Click to embiggen.

John Upton is a science fan and green news boffin who tweets, posts articles to Facebook, and blogs about ecology. He welcomes reader questions, tips, and incoherent rants: johnupton@gmail.com.

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