Dot Earth: Cities as Hubs of Energy and Climate Action

	Nov 6, 2010	New York Times
	ANDREW C. REVKIN 9:49 p.m. | Updated A pair of energy and development specialists from the mayors' offices in New York City and Los Angeles are going global. Jay Carson, a former deputy Los Angeles mayor and aide to both Clintons, and Rohit Aggarwala, the former chief sustainability advisor to New York City Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, are going to work for C40 Cities, a coalition of cities in rich and developing countries working to initiate and share ways to cut emissions of greenhouse gases and boost resilience to impacts of climate change. The two advisers make the move as Bloomberg prepares to take the chairmanship of the group for the next two years. He's in Hong Kong at a meeting focused on China's cities and is giving a speech laying out new goals for the group. The group was created in 2005 in London, largely under the direction of that city's mayor at the time, Ken Livingstone. In 2006, it held its second meeting, in New York City, and began working with the Clinton Climate Initiative, a project of former President Bill Clinton's foundation (and one that Carson worked on). I spoke with Carson and Aggarwala briefly earlier this week: "Our goal is to take C40 to the next level," Carson told me. "As it's become clearer that there's not going to be much action at the federal level, the importance of C40 grows. Some might say it's boring, nitty-gritty, nuts and bolts stuff, but it's in the implementation that happens at the city level where we're going to see the most action on climate change in the near future." Aggarwala noted that cities are natural hubs for initiatives that use energy more sparingly and move people more efficiently through transportation options involving feet, bicycles or mass transit. He said that the philosophy brought to the group by Bloomberg presumes that "economic growth, improving the quality of life and improvements to the environment are all the same thing." "A city is inherently more transit oriented and walkable than a suburb," Aggarwala said. "You're going with the grain of urbanization." Postscript: In the meantime, there are few signs of serious action by wealthy countries to carry out the pledges they made last December to help poorer ones withstand climate impacts and adopt less-polluting energy policies and technologies. On Friday, an advisory panel convened by the United Nations to propose ways to generate some $100 billion a year within a decade released a report on ways to start the money flowing. The best it could do was conclude that raising this money was "challenging but feasible." Oxfam America and other groups working to limit vulnerability to disasters, including those related to climate extremes, were cautiously upbeat about the analysis. "This should be a clarion call to negotiators tha

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Good Energy Policy Makes For Good Economic Policy

Good Energy Policy Makes For Good Economic Policy No Matter Who Is In The Majority
	Nov 4, 2010	Huffington Post
	While news outlets around the country continue to debate the impact of the midterm elections, I'd like to talk about a topic that was of importance long before political ads dominated TV -- and it will continue to be important long after the political analysis of this week's election ends. That topic is good energy policy. In the U.S. and around the world, we're facing an epic energy challenge: meeting rising energy needs while also reducing emissions from energy use. No matter which side of the aisle you support, I think that facing this dual challenge requires a framework of energy policy fundamentals to help guide our course. Regardless of the political complexion of the House or Senate, there are some key policy principles that should be considered not only for energy legislation, but also for any efforts aimed at our economic recovery: 1. Support all economic energy sources to meet growing demand: With global demand for energy projected to be about 30 percent greater in 2030 than it is today, we can't afford to rule out any economic energy sources. We must continue to support production of oil, natural gas and coal, which collectively meet about 80 percent of the world's energy needs. We also must support the development of alternative energy sources when and where they hold economic potential. 2. Promote fair, stable and predictable tax and regulatory policies: Investments in energy resources are measured in decades, not years. The success of these long-term projects depends on consistency in our tax and regulatory structures. Additionally, U.S. energy security depends on a fair tax structure that promotes investment in energy supplies around the world. A recent 10-country study found that the U.S. government takes a larger share of oil and gas earnings abroad than nearly all other countries in the study -- and potential new tax rules could make the U.S. the least competitive among this group, except for India. 3. Don't burden taxpayers with unnecessary energy business risks: Continuing long-term subsidies for alternative energy supplies that are not sustainable in the marketplace is a misuse of valuable taxpayer funds. We've seen this happen with the continued government support of corn ethanol, in addition to other renewable energy sources. By intervening in the nation's energy markets and picking "winners and losers," I think we're overlooking more immediate solutions to our economic and environmental challenges. Consider the fact that natural gas emits about 60 percent fewer emissions compared to coal, the main fuel used for power generation in the U.S. and around the world. And, we have plenty of supplies of it in the U.S. -- so allowing the natural gas industry to compete on a fair basis with other electricity feedstocks would promote new investments and employment and support national energy security. For the new members of Congress heading to Washington in January, as well the returning legislators, economic recovery and growth will be a top priority. One pillar of good economic policy is a sound energy policy. The U.S. oil and natural gas industry is ready to work with our country's leadership to do its part in meeting America's energy and economic recovery needs.

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Guest Post-Dryer Net-Energy Saver

Guest Post Provided by: Scotty, Scotts Contracting GREEN BUILDER, St Louis "Renewable Energy" Missouri--http://www.stlouisrenewableenergy.com-- contact scotty@stlouisrenewableenergy.com for additional information or to Schedule a "Free Green Site Evaluation" Home Repair and Green Building Entrepreneur !!!

Benefits of the DryerNET

• Saves energy.

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Art in Renewable Energy

Finding Art in Energy in the United Arab Emirates
	Nov 4, 2010	New York Times
	HILLARY BRENHOUSE NEW YORK — The densely packed stalks that would extract power from the wind, swaying like tall, slender grasses on a patch of desert between intersecting Arabian highways, are only a concept, for now. But in well-developed design plans, the thousand or so resin poles rise 55 meters, or 180 feet, are anchored in concrete bases and are fitted with LED lamps that flicker wildly as they sway in the wind — in proportion to the energy their movements generate. When the air is still, the lights go out. Conceived by the New York collaborative design studio Atelier DNA, Windstalk, as the project is called, recently won second place in a novel international competition in the United Arab Emirates. The Land Art Generator Initiative, now in its first year, considers large-scale land art installations that would double as clean energy producers. Its aim is to help participants to develop and ultimately attract investment to construct power-generating plants that are aesthetically and functionally integrated into the landscape. The contest was established by the husband-and-wife team of Robert Ferry and Elizabeth Monoian, whose firm Studied Impact is focused on the environmental effects of design. "We're responding in part to the not-in-my-backyard mentality we've seen regarding solar and wind installations," Mr. Ferry said. "It's easier for nonpolluting forms of energy to become intertwined in the fabric of urban planning than coal-fire or nuclear plants. If we can come up with ways to make renewable energy look beautiful, it will accelerate the transition to newer types of power." Hundreds of entries from more than 40 countries came in before the competition closed in June. One imagined an 80,000-square-meter, or 860,000-square-foot, sculpture shaped by an undulating ribbon of suspended, thin-film photovoltaic panels like a desert mirage. Another proposed an energy park containing about 200 para-kites, each fluttering glider capable of powering three energy-efficient homes. Visitors to a public display of the designs at the Dubai International Financial Center this summer were able to vote for their favorites, influencing the choice of 50 or so finalists. That shortlist was turned over to a 16-member jury of local and international artists, architects, academics and industry leaders. Selection criteria for the winner included its potential for integration into the surrounding landscape; the estimated amount of usable clean energy it would produce; the way its work would address its audience; the originality and relevance of the concept; and the energy required to build it. First and foremost, the designs were expected to function on a conceptual and artistic level, even if that would result in sacrifices to energy efficiency. Projects were free to draw on any scalable and tested technology as a creative medium. "The sky is the limit," Mr. Ferry said. "There are just so many ways to harness energy from nature." The first-place winner, to be announced in January at the 2011 World Future Energy Summit in Abu Dhabi, will receive an award of $15,000, sponsored by Masdar, the Abu Dhabi government-backed renewable energy company. Mr. Ferry and Mrs. Monoian say they hope that the U.A.E.'s first energy-producing artwork will be built in the next three or so years. They are in discussions with investors but are not limiting those talks to the jury's selections. "We're showing potential stakeholders everything, focusing on the projects that are the most pragmatic and buildable," Mr. Ferry said. The thick carpet of "windstalks" that came in second, as announced in early August, is projected to generate as much power in ideal conditions as a conventional wind turbine farm of comparable size. The reedlike poles may not be as powerful as rotating propeller shafts but can be packed more tightly together. Turbines must be adequately spaced apart to avoid turbulence. "Our system thrives on chaos," said Dario Nunez-Ameni of Atelier DNA. "The more movement, the better." Throughout their length, the stalks contain ceramic discs and electrodes strung together by cable. As they rise and fall with the breeze, the discs are compressed, generating an electric current. The concrete bases that accommodate each pole house generators that convert the kinetic energy into electrical energy by way of shock absorbers initially designed for automobiles. For days with calm weather, the power is stored using subterranean pumps. "While I personally find wind turbines to be beautiful and quite graceful, people complain that they destroy landscapes," said Mr. Nunez-Ameni. He said he hoped next year to have a full working prototype that could be used to draw in investment. The third-place entry, Solaris, envisages thousands of concave balloonlike solar units that shift position to respond to environmental conditions. They might realign to block harsh interior winds or orient themselves in particular ways toward the sun. Their surfaces reflect solar rays onto concentrated photovoltaic panels facing the sky, potentially creating enough energy in one year to power the country of Chad. Together, the modules create "a huge shaded interior space where you're isolated from the rapidly growing urbanism of the 21st century that is all over the Arabian Peninsula now," said its designer, Hadrian Predock. The installation was designed by the architectural firm Predock Frane of Santa Monica, California, for a site adjacent to Abu Dhabi's emergent eco-city Masdar, one of three undeveloped, hypothetical locations in the U.A.E. presented to the competitors. "We liked that the site was fairly introverted," said Mr. Predock. "It's surrounded by layers of trees and r

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