Blended Standards

Is E15 Gasoline Safe?

---

 ~ The American Petroleum Institute (API) is fighting the EPA over how much ethanol should be blended into gasoline. Is 15% ethanol content, E-15, safe for modern cars?

The [EPA] and the biofuels industry say the blend — which contains 15 percent ethanol, rather than the standard 10 percent — is safe for those vehicles.

But the oil and gas industry has produced studies finding that the mix would damage vehicle engines, and some automakers have said they would not honor warranties in cases where E15 was used.

“E15 could leave millions of consumers with broken down cars and high repair bills,” said Bob Greco, API group downstream director. “It could also put motorists in harm’s way when vehicles break down in the middle of a busy highway. We are asking the Supreme Court to step in and protect consumers by striking down EPA’s dangerous E15 mandate before it’s too late.”

Well, of course it "could". But will it? The API's studies have been called "scientifically weak" and there are, naturally, many other studies that show no harm. Could it be that the science is not settled?

Reminds me of another contentious argument of interest to the API...

Buildings With Integrated Wind Generation

Beyond Turbines

---

 ~ Here comes another unusual-looking building, the Strawscraper, which employs a hair-like covering which the wind ruffles to produce electricity:

The system utilizes Piezoelectric technology, which turns movement into electricity that can be stored for later use. The hair’s tiny movement is safe for birds and humans and isn’t noisy like traditional turbines can be. But Strawscraper isn’t all about the brains, it also has the beauty. The hair covering the building creates the illusion of movement, giving the normally static city skyline the illusion of motion.

While London's Strata Tower is still "expected" to generate perhaps 8% of the building's energy needs, after three years there is as yet no indication of the actual power produced. Perhaps sensibly, a power estimate is not being offered for the Strawscraper.

My prediction? It looks a lot like a scratching post, so beware giant predatory Siamese cats.

Another Market Failure

Heads I Win, Tails You Lose...

---

 ~ When oil is cheap there is little incentive to develop and commercialize biofuels or other liquid alternatives. Especially since they largely remain generally more costly than conventional hydrocarbons.

But when the price of a barrel of oil rises, alternative energy fuels will surge, right?

Actually, no:

Why Renewable Energy?

Lower Cost, Lowered Volatility

---

 ~ Furniture and home furnishings retailer Ikea plans to double spending on renewable energy to $4B by 2020. The PR value is probably great, but saving money is the driver:

The additional spending on projects such as wind farms and solar parks will be needed to keep expenses down as the company maintains its pace of expansion, Chief Executive Officer and President Mikael Ohlsson said in an interview in Malmo, Sweden.

“I foresee we’ll continue to increase our investments in renewable energy,” said Ohlsson.

Ikea plans to get 70% of its energy consumption from renewables by 2015, and 100% by 2020. Not only are wind and solar approaching or reaching grid parity in many places, they provide pricing stability and predictability for businesses, something not provided by volatile oil prices.

When Trees Grow to the Sky

Milan's Vertical Forest

---

 ~ A novel take on a green-walled building is under construction in Milan.

The Bosco Verticale (Vertical Forest) places trees on custom-designed ledges all the way up the outside walls of the two apartment towers.

Each apartment balcony will have trees (900 plantings are planned for the two buildings) that will provide shade in the summer and drop their leaves in winter to allow in winter sunlight. Plant irrigation is provided via a grey-water filtration. Additionally, photovoltaic power generation will help provide sustainable power to the building.

Welfare Incentives—III

Dependency

---

 ~ No question there are those who rely on handouts for their very survival. That said, there is equally no doubt that some at street corners and freeway off-ramps sporting "God bless" signs aren't begging, but are earning a living, or even supplementing one.

Legions of corporate persons engage in a similar exercise, infesting the off-ramps (and on-ramps) of Capitol Hill, making lofty (if vague and unprovable) claims about jobs as they buttonhole lawmakers in search of hand-outs. God bless!

Pterofin

Renewable Energy Using Biomimicry

---

 ~ My friend Wally Kempkey has been working very hard on this for many years.



Not only is it incredibly cool and creative, the concept is very well-suited to slow currents. Faster currents can be harnessed by conventional turbines like those made by Hydrovolts and others, but such currents are comparatively rare. Slower currents can be found all over the world in watercourses both natural and man-made. While the power generated can be small, the Pterofin device would provide huge value in off-grid developing world locations for water pumping or trickle-charging batteries.

Want a scale model for your desk? Give some love on Kickstarter.

My 2012 Predictions Revisited

About 3/4 Accurate

---

 ~ So how good was my prognostication of the past year? Not bad, although I did make some creampuff predictions that boosted the grade. Using a scale of 1 (utterly wrong) to 10 (perfectly prescient):

The Unlikely Opposition to Energy Independence

Tied to the Grid

---

 ~ Ironically, aspirations of being (partly) off-grid are thwarted by the grid itself.

Even if the progress to national energy independence is halting, and frustrated by barely-concealed Big Oil interests at every turn, still we can each act locally, right? Each of us as individuals can buy plug-in electric vehicles, retrofit homes with energy efficiency measures, and install solar panels on roofs. Can't we?

Sure. But it turns out that these don't confer the independence one might imagine.

Take solar panels, for example. When Superstorm* Sandy savaged the US Northeast, there were doubtless many who thought their preparation installing rooftop solar panels would prove prudent, and reward them with continued electricity and the breadth of common Western comforts it affords.

They were wrong.

A Renewable Saudi Arabia

Beyond Petroleum?

---

 ~ A key member of the Saudi royal family says that the kingdom aims to be powered 100% on renewable and "low-carbon forms" of energy. Maybe in his lifetime (but maybe not, because he is already 67.)

Prince Turki Al Faisal Al Saud said at a conference in Brazil:

Oil is more precious for us underground than as a fuel source. If we can get to the point where we can replace fossil fuels and use oil to produce other products that are useful, that would be very good for the world.

Some are skeptical, but the Saudis have said this before, and recognize, unlike here in the US, that oil production is not a very effective driver of economic prosperity.

Friends of Tax Reform...

...May Not Be Friends of Big Oil

---

 ~ Both presidential candidates share a stated desire to lower tax rates and simplify the tax code by eliminating deductions and credits. (And also those hardy but elusive scapegoats, fraud, waste and abuse.) Not everyone is fond of this idea, especially Big Oil:

“Tax reform will be a complicated process,” said Comstock, API’s manager for tax policy. “I think our members are wary of how that process will take place.

Unfortunately, tax reform by simplification entails eliminating "loopholes"—but only yours, not mine. Big Oil doesn't receive much public esteem, and their essentially indefensible billions in annual subsidies are under growing scrutiny. Even powerful House Republican and pro-fossil pol Frank Upton is talking about eliminating all energy subsidies, including for oil and gas.

Who Sets Energy Policy?

Probably Not Anyone You Trust

---

 ~ The Gallup poll of a few months back gauged the public's views on various institutions and industry sectors.

Those with the worst public image? The federal government was almost at the bottom, just above the oil and gas industry.

Those are precisely the two who are dictating our current energy policy. Little wonder we have permanent subsidies for fossil energy and such halting progress on transitioning to a clean and sustainable energy future.

Dinosaur Fossils

Are Investors Paleontologists?

---

 ~ Hey! Turn around and check out the view...

Our Abundant Energy

Abundant Language

---

 ~ Energy is important.

So no surprise much is written about it. But what is surprising is how powerful and deliberate the messaging about it is. That messaging is, in a word, abundant.

It seems no one can talk about drilling without phrasing it as the development of "our abundant oil and gas" resources. You hear it in the Senate, in the House, from the API, from the US Chamber of Commerce, from industry periodicals, from the Obama Administration.

Other words in the English language for relative plenitude are, well, abundant, but when it comes to our oil and gas resources "abundant" is the overwhelming word choice by politicians, lobbyists and journalists.

It's almost as if someone circulated a memo with the talking points and key messaging language!

So why don't we hear so much about our "abundant wind resources" or our "abundant solar resources"?

Buried Treasure?

Keep Fossil Fuels Buried

---

 ~ We should leave our fossil fuels in the ground.

And not just because it would keep that carbon and its climate change impacts out of the atmosphere, but also because it would add to our energy security as a country.

Keeping more of our fossil fuel wealth in the ground would increase our energy security in two ways:

Primitive Energy

Advancing Society?

---

 ~ How would you explain our society to a visiting alien?

Neil deGrasse Tyson is not Bill Nye or Carl Sagan, but he is at least as effective in making science accessible and understandable to the general public.

He's embarrassed by our addiction to fossil fuels. We should all be so, because it is an indication that our society is primitive.

Why? Consider the anthropological arc of humanity.

Free Speech

Free in What Sense?

---

 ~ There are just under 3 months until the November elections. Many are spending freely, but what are you hearing? Mostly a lot of hooey:

An analysis by the Annenberg Public Policy Center conducted for the Center for Responsive Politics found that from December 1, 2011 through June 1, 2012, 85% of the dollars spent on presidential ads by four top-spending third-party groups known as 501(c)(4)s were spent on ads containing at least one claim ruled deceptive by fact-checkers at FactCheck.org, PolitiFact.com, the Fact Checker at the Washington Post or the Associated Press.

These "top" 4 groups are the American Energy Alliance, Americans for Prosperity, the American Future Fund and Crossroads GPS. All are closely aligned with the most reactionary faction of the GOP and all are hostile to renewable energy. Despite persistent efforts to equate corporate and union spending, the numbers show clearly the dominance of corporate speech on our political debate. Big money is free to buy megaphones, but we are not free to learn who's doing the buying.

A Renewable Future

Present-Day Germany

---

 ~ Europe's largest national economy hit a milestone in the first half of this year—for the first time, 25% of German electricity generation came from renewable sources.

Wind energy was the largest contributor of green power, accounting for 9.2 percent of all energy output... Biomass, or material acquired from living organisms, accounted for 5.7 percent and solar technology for 5.3 percent.

Germany is the largest market for electricity in Europe, and has long been a leader in boldly reshaping its energy policy, including forswearing all nuclear after Japan's Fukushima disaster.

Interestingly, the policy has been driven the past many years by the country's conservative parties. Preserving resources and the environment for the future is a truly conservative notion, a truth lost on this country's radicals who inappropriately like to be called conservative.

Coal and Wind

Blackouts in India

---

 ~ As much as 10% of the world's population is without electricity following the second massive grid outage in India this week.

Blame is being spread around among an outdated, rickety grid, a lack of generation capacity, government inefficiency and corruption, a failure to follow agreed-to consumption limits by various states, poor energy pricing that encourages wasteful consumption, and, as one routinely expects from the corporate cheer-leading quarter, supposedly strangling environmental regulations. All of these are true at least in part, but the bigger cause is a failure to plan and build a stronger commitment to renewable energy.

Climate Change Adaptation

"We'll Adapt to That"

---

 ~ Those who deny climate change and its obvious impacts use many rationalizations. As these become harder to plausibly defend, there is a growing trend away from denying the reality to denying the significance of the impacts.

Embedded in the latest Climate Crock of the Week (video embedded below) is footage of Exxon CEO Rex Tillerson providing just such a blithe dismissal:

What do you want to do to adapt to [climate change]? And as human beings, as a species, that's why we're all still here. We have spent our entire existence adapting...

Changes to weather patterns that move crop production areas around—we'll adapt to that...

It's an engineering problem, and it has engineering solutions...

What do you want to do to adapt to that?

Yes, that's the right question to ask. So, what's the answer?