Tag: efficiency

Climate-smart studs…made of paper wood pulp

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A stud is a vertical framing member which, traditionally made of timber or steel, forms part of a wall or partition…Wood Tube, however, is made of a wood fibre that is chemically or mechanically reduced to pulp and is typically used in the manufacture of paper…We spoke with Tobias Söderbom Olsson from Wood Tube. He shared that the product was born when its inventors, Kurt Härdig and Patrik Kämpe, passed a construction site while they walked in the city and noticed the amount of steel used.

“With a background in the paper industry, they asked themselves: what if we could build with paper instead? With this idea stuck in their heads, they designed a stud to construct interior walls, and that’s how the Wood Tube paper stud was born.”

…After all, wood is a beautiful and extremely functional material, so using more of it for load-bearing structures or other architectural elements that can be seen and experienced – instead of hiding it inside a wall – seems to point towards the right direction. Thus, Wood Tube contributes to a more sustainable industry by drastically reducing CO2 emissions and using forest raw materials more efficiently.

I’ll second that emotion.

Growing Marijuana in a vertical farm

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Jean Chung/Bloomberg

South Korean startup Farm 8 Co. is among a proliferation of indoor urban growers that saw sales jump during Covid-19. It’s looking to increase sales by almost 50% to 90 billion won ($79 million) this year, partly by boosting production of medical and cosmetic-based plants such as ginseng, centella asiatica and artemisia campestris, Chief Executive Officer Kang Dae Hyun said. In August, the company joined the country’s first regulation-free zone for medical cannabis, growing and processing hemp for cannabidiol (CBD)…

Other vertical farms are also using the technology to meet rising demand for stringent quality control in medical and cosmetic applications, such as Denmark’s International Cosmetics Science Centre, Poland’s Vertigo Farms and California-based MedMen Enterprises…

Farm 8 currently grows about 1.2 tons of salad greens per day on less than an acre (0.5 hectare) of land, spread across locations in three cities in South Korea, including in a busy subway station in South Korea’s capital. It’s one of the top local lettuce producers for fast-food chains including Subway Restaurants, Burger King Corp. and KFC Corp. Sales rose 30% last year…

South Korea became the first country in East Asia to legalize cannabis for medical use in 2018, and in August 2020, the government set up a free trade zone for industrial hemp in the southeastern city of Andong to develop and extract cannabidiol for medical use with private companies. Marijuana remains illegal for recreational use in the country.

Just like the culture wars here in the GOUSA, the political powers-that-be in South Korea are sidling up to legalizing weed across the board. And like the candyass pols running things here, agonizing over electoral politics with a last century outlook is more important than medical and scientific reality.

I suppose the traditional relationship of cash over Christianity will continue to win out, albeit slowly. The legal weed bill here in New Mexico passed through the representative side of our state legislature and is sitting and waiting for action on the Senate side. The average glacier moves forward faster than so many “modern” political institutions.

Solar = 6¢ per kilowatt-hour, beating Obama’s goal by 3 years

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Formerly the largest piggery in Massachusetts

❝ The Department of Energy has announced that utility-grade solar panels have hit cost targets set for 2020, three years ahead of schedule. Those targets reflect around $1 per watt and 6¢ per kilowatt-hour in Kansas City, the department’s mid-range yardstick for solar panel cost per unit of energy produced (New York is considered the high-cost end, and Phoenix, Arizona, which has much more sunlight than most other major cities in the country, reflects the low-cost end).

❝ Those prices don’t include an Investment Tax Credit which makes solar panels even cheaper. The Energy Department said that the cost per watt was assessed in terms of total installed system costs for developers. That means the number is based on “the sales price paid to the installer; therefore, it includes profit in the cost of the hardware,”…

❝ The National Renewable Energy Laboratory, a DOE-funded lab that assesses solar panel cost, wrote that, compared to the first quarter in 2016, the first quarter in 2017 saw a 29-percent decline in installed cost for utility-scale solar, which was attributed to lower photovoltaic module and inverter prices, better panel efficiency, and reduced labor costs. Despite the plummeting costs for utility-scale solar, costs for commercial and residential solar panels have not fallen quite as quickly — just 15 percent and 6 percent, respectively…

❝ Now that utility-grade solar panels have crossed the finish line almost three years early, the DOE says that it’s setting a new goal line for 2030…Through the DOE’s Solar Energy Technologies Office, the federal department says it will start funding early stage projects focusing on “grid reliability, resilience, and storage.”

Too bad – for the moment – we’re saddled with an administration, White House, Congress and all – wholly committed to pimping for fossil fuel extraction and energy industries. Hopefully, the American electorate will learn to skip over idjits who prefer pimps to progress and elect some useful folks in 2018 and 2020.

Obama’s energy efficiency policy saves taxpayers over $500 billion – of course Trump’s pimps oppose it!

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Just another Trump pimp who can’t figure out how to sign his name

❝ A leaked draft study of the electric grid requested by Energy Secretary Rick Perry found that federal energy efficiency policies are in the process of saving U.S. consumers and businesses more than a half trillion dollars.

So…the new administration is halting energy efficiency policies and gutting funding for energy efficiency improvements for American homes. Perry’s department is currently being sued by 11 states for stalling efficiency mandates for air conditioners and other high-energy products.

❝ Back in April, Perry ordered a study from Department of Energy (DOE) staff to back up his claims that solar and wind power were undermining the U.S. electric grid’s reliability. But a July draft obtained by Bloomberg debunked that attack. Instead, the authors found that “the power system is more reliable today” than ever.

❝ …ThinkProgress reported the study concluded a large fraction of America’s aging fleet of coal and nuclear plants are simply not economic to operate anymore.

The study has a long discussion of why coal and nuclear aren’t going to become economic anytime soon. For instance, it’s increasingly clear that, for the foreseeable future, natural gas prices will stay low — and that renewable sources of power like solar and wind will continue the stunning price drops they’ve seen in the past two decades, which have upended the global power market…

❝ No good policy goes unpunished in the Trump administration, however, so California and New York are leading a coalition of states in a lawsuit to force DOE to publish five efficiency standards that were finalized under the Obama administration but were undergoing a 45-day review period (typically used for catching typographical errors and other minor problems…) when Trump took office. Six months later, the new administration still hasn’t sent the rules to the Federal Registrar to be published.

Three Bronx cheers for Trump efficiency in government. Not only is he – and his True Believers – incompetent at introducing and passing legislation which might benefit average Americans, they refuse to carry through simple publication of improvements like this which would save consumers a half-trillion dollar$.

Army has reached $1 billion in energy-saving projects

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Click to enlarge — US Army Corps of Engineers

In less than five years, the Army has engaged in 127 energy-saving projects with the private sector that now exceed $1 billion in investments, announced Secretary of the Army Eric Fanning…

The president challenged all federal agencies in December 2011 to partner with companies to save energy. It was called the Energy Savings and Performance-Based Contracting Investments Initiative and the president wanted all of government to execute $4 billion in projects by the end of 2016.

The Army’s projects alone represent 33 percent of all the federal government’s current contributions to meeting the president’s goal…

“On our installations, and wherever we maintain and train our force, the Army is focused on finding the sweet spot between energy efficiency and energy security,” he said. The 127 projects have been undertaken at 52 installations.

“This is a case where public policy has worked well,” said Katherine Hammack, assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment.

These contracts are important to the Army, she said. Federal agencies like the Army can leverage their utility budgets and take the steps essential to enhancing resiliency, achieving cost savings, and improving operations and maintenance, with no upfront costs to the government, she explained.

The costs of the projects are paid back over time as the Army realizes savings from the improvements…

RTFA for beaucoup details. Especially pleasant – and surprising – to see a chunk of the Pentagon come through with savings of any kind projected over time.

Existing dams could supply electricity for 35 million homes — that’s right, no new dams!

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Click to enlarge — Danita Delimont/Getty

❝ The U.S. Department of Energy estimates that the nation could increase its hydroelectric capacity 50 percent by 2050 without building new dams.

Rather, the new capacity would come from upgrading existing hydropower facilities with more efficient technology and by constructing hydropower storage facilities that pump water uphill into reservoirs during off-peak hours, when electricity is cheap. When demand and power prices spike, the water is released downhill through turbines to generate electricity.

Such a strategy could grow hydropower capacity from 101,000 megawatts to 150,000 megawatts by 2050, according to the report.

❝ “If this level of growth is achieved, benefits such as savings of $209 billion from avoided greenhouse gas emissions could be realized, of which $185 billion would be attributable to operation of the existing hydropower fleet,” said a Department of Energy spokesperson. “With this deployment level, more than 35 million average U.S. homes could be powered by hydropower in 2050.”…

❝ …About 2,000 of the country’s dams produce power, supplying 6 percent of electricity demand…But hydropower’s growth has stalled because of aging infrastructure, concerns over environmental impacts on rivers and wildlife, and a rise in alternative renewable sources…

❝ Jim Bradley, vice president of policy and government relations at conservation group American Rivers, said increasing hydropower could be a good thing environmentally.

“Typically, to get approval to upgrade existing dams with more efficient technology means they will have to consider the environmental performance at that site as well,” Bradley said. “So if they’re going to be improving them, they’ll be improving the environmental issues as well.”…

❝ Still, hydropower could be key to ensuring that the power grid operates smoothly as more renewable but intermittent sources of energy come online.

Solar and wind power only produce energy when the sun is shining and the wind is blowing. To keep the lights on when solar and wind farms aren’t generating electricity, grid operators rely on carbon-spewing fossil fuel power plants. That’s where pumped storage comes into play: Reservoirs can act as giant batteries, storing energy generated by solar power plants and wind farms.

Nothing new, of course, about hydropower or pumped storage. The engineering has been a lock for centuries. The significant upgrades are in the actual power generation and digital control of both local and interconnected regional systems. None of this is beyond the understanding of builders or consumers.

Only politicians, especially those paid to pimp for fossil fuel, stand in the way.

The FBI has a database that can catch rapists and other violent crooks — why aren’t cops using it?

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❝ More than 30 years ago, the Federal Bureau of Investigation launched a revolutionary computer system in a bomb shelter two floors beneath the cafeteria of its national academy. Dubbed the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, or ViCAP, it was a database designed to help catch the nation’s most violent offenders by linking together unsolved crimes. A serial rapist wielding a favorite knife in one attack might be identified when he used the same knife elsewhere. The system was rooted in the belief that some criminals’ methods were unique enough to serve as a kind of behavioral DNA — allowing identification based on how a person acted, rather than their genetic make-up.

Equally as important was the idea that local law enforcement agencies needed a way to better communicate with each other. Savvy killers had attacked in different jurisdictions to exploit gaping holes in police cooperation. ViCAP’s “implementation could mean the prevention of countless murders and the prompt apprehension of violent criminals,” the late Sen. Arlen Specter wrote…endorsing the program…

❝ In the years since ViCAP was first conceived, data-mining has grown vastly more sophisticated, and computing power has become cheaper and more readily available. Corporations can link the food you purchase, the clothes you buy, and the websites you browse. The FBI can parse your emails, cellphone records and airline itineraries. In a world where everything is measured, data is ubiquitous — from the number of pieces of candy that a Marine hands out on patrol in Kandahar, to your heart rate as you walk up the stairs at work.

That’s what’s striking about ViCAP today: the paucity of information it contains. Only about 1,400 police agencies in the U.S., out of roughly 18,000, participate in the system. The database receives reports from far less than 1 percent of the violent crimes committed annually. It’s not even clear how many crimes the database has helped solve. The FBI does not release any figures. A review in the 1990s found it had linked only 33 crimes in 12 years.

❝ Canadian authorities built on the original ViCAP framework to develop a modern and sophisticated system capable of identifying patterns and linking crimes. It has proven particularly successful at analyzing sexual-assault cases. But three decades and an estimated $30 million later, the FBI’s system remains stuck in the past…ViCAP was supposed to revolutionize American law enforcement. That revolution never came.

RTFA. It’s long and detailed…and interesting in many ways. Part of the problem is lousy design. Entering one case file can take over an hour. Part of the problem is who we get to be cops. “Cops don’t want to do more paperwork…Anytime you ask for voluntary compliance, it won’t be a priority. It’s not going to happen.”

The telling point is the Canadian program started to emulate ours — it works, it catches criminals. Especially violent criminals. The FBI system sucks up taxpayer dollar$ and gives back zilch.

Solar energy jobs have doubled in the last 5 years

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❝The number of solar jobs in the U.S. has more than doubled in five years. In fact, there are more people working in solar now than at oil rigs and in gas fields.

The solar industry added 35,000 jobs in 2015, up 20% from the previous year, according to the Solar Foundation, a nonprofit in Washington D.C.. The group is not funded by solar companies.

In contrast, oil and gas firms slashed nearly 17,000 extraction jobs in 2015 as energy prices continue to plummet. Oil prices are down a stunning 70% in the last 18 months and hovering just over $30 a barrel, a 12-year low.

❝There are about 209,000 solar energy employees in the U.S. They include solar panel installers, designers, engineers, sales folks and managers.

Today, the solar industry workforce is bigger than that of oil and gas construction, and nearly three times the size of the entire coal mining workforce.


Todd Valdez, owner of Sunkey Energy

❝Todd Valdez knows the money is good. He went to the Ecotech Institute in 2012 and started his own solar company, Sunkey Energy, two and a half years ago…

Valdez pays most of his employees $22 to $25 an hour, and his master electricians north of $30 an hour. Two of his employees left the oil industry last year to work for him. He says the amount of solar power his company installs has tripled in volume between 2014 and 2015…

Colorado is one of the hottest states for solar, Valdez says and California has the most solar energy jobs in the country.

❝Businesses and homeowners are eligible for a 30% tax credit if they install solar panels on their property. That’s been in place since 2006 but in December Congress renewed the tax credit for another six years. That lowers installation costs considerably.

Congress did figure out how to screw us a bit, though. Starting in 2017 that tax credit will be applied to less of the whole cost of private solar every year.

Has motorization in the US peaked?

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The answer to the question posed in the headline is “yes,” US motorization has indeed peaked. And so has the percentage of US economic productivity that ends up in our gas tanks. So we have that going for us.

Those who long for the days of bell bottoms, massive Afros and dominance of the Philadelphia Flyers may think of the mid-’70s as a good time, but when it came to how much of our dollars were being spent on gas, times were tough. According to the most recent version of a report from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI), the distance driven per dollar of gross domestic product (GDP) peaked in 1977 and has dropped 22 percent since then. Fuel use per GDP dollar hit its high in 1972…and has plunged 46 percent since then.

Keep in mind that the average fuel economy for new light-duty vehicles has doubled to from the early 1970s to its current rate of about 25 miles per gallon, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. Still, consistent with a previous version of the UMTRI reports, which said driving mileage per person maxed out around 2004, we are indeed driving less, thanks to factors such as electronic commerce and more data services.

Takes a while for good news to get around. I recall discussions like this in the 1960’s and folks said it would never come to pass. But, for all the reasons listed – and more – folks are driving less, diminishing importance of automobiles.

Autoblog’s Technology of the Year is the BMW i8

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No one’s pretending this is a car for everyone – even if you can afford one. But, it’s proof of concept that a production vehicle can have dynamic levels of performance in combination with better than average fuel consumption.

i8 small
Click to enlarge

The winner of Autoblog’s 2014 Technology of the Year award was given this year for not just one technology, but for how a suite of technologies worked together to make one impressive vehicle.

The BMW i8 was named the winner Wednesday night at the Belasco Theater in downtown Los Angeles, just outside the Los Angeles Auto Show. Autoblog’s editorial staff agreed that the i8, which drew crowds of attention during our testing days, represents a future of driving that we can’t wait to see happen…

Ultimately, we picked the car that excited us the most. The BMW i8 has a throaty exhaust note when accelerating. It’s got carbon fiber, and a plug-in hybrid system that uses a small 1.5-liter three-cylinder engine and an electric motor. It has through-the-road all-wheel drive, and in Europe it’ll come with laser beams for headlights.

All that, and it’s a massive eye catcher. People stop and stare when they see this car, for good reason. It’s simply gorgeous. For a more in-depth look at the Car and Driver test, click here.

An engine governor holds top speed down to 155mph. 0-60 times are under 4 seconds. Yet, through the C&D testing cycle and track testing they averaged 24mpg. With an electric-only range of 22 miles, this critter can match the mileage of a Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid IMHO.

Of course, the Ford ain’t $136K.