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  • Lovins reveals alternative oil plan

    Energy guru Amory Lovins lays out his plan for weaning the US off oil and revitalizing the economy in the process at the Technology, Entertainment and Design conference in Monterey, California. It’s the subject of his book Winning the Oil Endgame, and he makes it sound fairly simple: On one hand, the deadly risks of continued dependency, and on the other, some win-win solutions.

    The basis of his approach is that peak oil and climate change are engineering problems, not moral ones and that we simply need to think hard to come up with solutions. One of his most accessible solutions is to reduce the weight of automobiles by more than half. Currently most cars weigh at least ten times the human that drives them. This means that ninety percent of the energy they consume is used to drive the car, not the passenger around. 

  • Rudd praises US on climate flexibility

    "I would commend the flexibility we saw from the Government of the United States in allowing this consensus draft to go forward at Bali." Mr Rudd said yesterday.

    "Informally, I had discussions with the American delegation myself in Bali and I do not know, is the honest answer, what the US negotiating position will be during the course of this year."

    A new global climate negotiation was achieved over the weekend at negotiations in Bali when the US delegation dramatically backed down after holding out on terms proposed by developing countries.

    Subsequently the White House issued a statement saying the negotiations would need to differentiate between the responsibilities of fast growing major developing economies like China and India and the rest of the developing world.

    On Sunday following the announcement of the successful deal negotiated in Bali Mr Rudd made a point of recognizing the role played by both developing countries and the US in delivering the historic deal.

    "I believe the world community has taken a positive step forward here, developed countries and developing countries and there has been movement on the part of our friends in the United States as well, which needs to be recognized," he said then.

    "I hope to spend as much time as possible with the Chinese leadership acting on that and with the objective of achieving a greater agreement and greater consensus with our friends in China on future courses of action for them."

    One of the first key meetings in the two year road to "implementation-land" will be a second meeting of major emitting countries in Hawaii convened by President George W Bush at the end of January.

  • Introducing the Solar Tree

    "The solar cells on the tree were able to store enough electricity in spite of receiving no direct solar light for days at a time because of the clouds. They showed that solar trees really are a practical form of street lighting," Christina Werner from Cultural Project Management (Kulturelles Projektmanagement, Vienna) told RenewableEnergyAccess.com.

    She said that the City of Vienna was now in the process of deciding whether to install more solar trees.

    "We hope that not only the city of Vienna but other cities will see the merits of using renewable energy for street lighting to cut emissions," Christina Werner said. "Someday soon solar trees could well be the main form of street lighting in Europe."

    Putting solar powered LED light systems on trees would cut down on the carbon emissions and also slash the bills of local authorities, she said.

    Street lighting consumed 10 percent of all the electricity used in Europe in 2006 or 2,000 billion KWh, and resulted in carbon emissions of 2,900 million ton.

    The use of more energy-efficient lighting in the Austrian city of Graz, with a population of almost 300,000 saved the city 524,000 KWh of electricity and 67,200 euros [US $96,800] in 2005.

     

     Close up of branches on a solar tree in Vienna.  (Credit: Gerhard Koller/MAK)

    "Not just trees but other objects could be decorated with solar cells and so keep streets well lit at night time," she said.

    The branches of the solar tree were decorated with 10 solar lamps, each one comprising 36 solar cells; they also had rechargeable batteries and electronic systems.

    A sensor was used to measure the amount of light in the atmosphere and trigger the solar lamps to go on automatically at sunset and off at sunrise.

    The tree’s lights went on for the first time in Vienna on October 8, 2007 at 11:00 pm. They are now on display outside the La Scala opera house in Milan.

    The tree was designed by Ross Lovegrove, a British designer, who said that they are not only efficient but also attractive and bring "nature into a gray city environment".

    An Italian company specializing in designer lighting systems, Artemide, as well as the world’s largest producer of photovoltaic (PV) cells, the German company Sharp Solar, joined forces to turn the design into reality.

    The idea came from Peter Noever, the Director of the Austrian Museum for Applied Arts in Vienna (Österreichisches Museum fuer angewandte Kunst). 

     Solar Tree, prototype, November 2007, designed by Ross Lovegrove and produced and developed by Artemide polycrystalline solar cells by Sharp. On display at the Piazza della Scala, Milan, Italy.  (Photo by David Zanardi)

    Ross Lovegrove and Sharp are now working on the design study for a car that is powered by solar energy.

    Sharp solar had a production volume of 434 megawatts in 2006 and a world market share of 17 percent. It produces PV cells in a factory in Katsuragi, Japan.

    Most of Sharp’s modules are used for solar energy systems on roofs, but the company believes that solar cells could soon be used in all areas of everyday life from clothes to satellites – including Christmas trees.

    Jane Burgermeister is a RenewableEnergyAccess.com European Correspondent based in Vienna, Austria.

  • PNG goes ahead with palm oil

    Woodlark Island is a small island, some 80,000 hectares, in the Pacific with a population of 6,000 residents. Vitroplant plans to convert 60,000 acres to palm oil plantations for biofuels. A solid majority of villagers reportedly oppose the project, and were not even aware of it until after its approval.

    An oil palm plantation on Woodlark Island will endanger the island’s flora and fauna, cause environmental upheaval, and result in drastic cultural change. Woodlark Island is home to at least nineteen endemic species, including a speckled nocturnal marsupial called the Woodlark Cuscus, and an endemic ebony tree. The initial logging would cause many of these rare species to go extinct, and toxic waste and runoff will threaten freshwater and marine ecosytems.

    Woodlark Island continues to maintain a social and ecological system that has supported human and other life for millennia; with healthy forests, wildlife and humans. Those opposing the project locally are concerned with disintegration of the native culture from socially unacceptable behavior and starvation as gardening and hunting activities are displaced.

    Throughout Southeast Asia, particularly in Malaysia and Indonesia, large swaths of rainforest have been and continue to be destroyed to produce biofuel crops. Oil palm has many uses, but increasingly it is used in biodiesel in Europe and elsewhere, raising ethical issues of burning a food product for fuel. Oil palm agrofuel is heralded as a climate change mitigation measure, yet the initial rainforest clearance leads to much more carbon release than its production and use avoids.

    The islanders of Woodlark have worked hard to draw international attention to this issue, and have issued an appeal for the support of international NGOs and citizens to pressure the government to withdraw the project. Register your support here.

  • Ebono at the bowlo

  • Planet Ark after 5000 tonnes of printer waste

    Planet Ark story 

    Environmental company Planet Ark and print cartridge recylcer, Close the Loop, have teamed up to recycle the 5,000 tonnes of print cartridges that are currently dumped as landfill every year in Australia. The initiative is known as Cartridges for Planet Ark and provides recycling boxes around the country to encourage people to starve landfill sites of the 34 cartridges that are thrown out, every minute. Despite the inefficiencies of recycling when compared to re-use, the printer companies backing the initiative point out that recycling the resources in the cartridges is more environmentally friendly than throwing them out.