Current Savers Blog

The seven seas get a single U.S. approach in a draft federal plan for oceans released on Thursday (and dated Sept. 10, when it was given to the prez). The report is a response to President Obama’s request for a plan and says a new National Ocean Council should use ecosystem management to take on the task. Previous efforts have been focused on solving individual problems — saving fisheries, stopping water pollution — which did not always match.

“This is the first time they have declared their intention to adopt a new way of managing the oceans, one that puts a priority on the health of the marine ecosystem, from which all the other benefits flow,” said Chris Mann, director of the Pew Charitable Trust’s campaign for healthy oceans.

Goals include addressing changing conditions in the Arctic, reacting to climate change and ocean acidification and land practices that affect water.

But wait — until they come up with details, it might not amount to a hill of beans.

Photo credit: Reuters/ (Fishing boats and other vessels form the words “Acid Ocean”  in Alaska,  September 2009)

California may be the Golden State, but it’s New Jersey where U.S. residents get the best deal on their solar power systems, new research shows.

A survey by Global Solar Centertried to give an “apples to apples” comparison for the cost of solar power in all 50 states, the center’s chairman Jack Hidary told Reuters.

The common denominator turned out to be the cash payback, or how many years it would take a residential or commercial customer to recoup their investment and start seeing real savings, Hidary said.
“That takes into account the cost of the system, the sun at that spot, the incentives of that region, utility rates. It blends in everything all together,” Hidary said.

The center analyzed the date using new software and found that New Jersey had the fastest payback — 1.5 years — for residential systems, followed by New York and Delaware with paybacks of three and six years, respectively. California tied for fourth place with Maryland, Massachusetts and Wisconsin, all with payback hitting seven years.

Rankings changed when the center looked at commercial solar power systems.

For commercial projects, Colorado, Wisconsin, Hawaii, Ohio and Oregon all share the top spot, with a 1.5 year payback time, according to the survey.

The center also found that solar hot water systems have a one-year payback in sourthern Texas and Florida.

“To put this all in context, five years ago you couldn’t find a state with less than a 10 or 15 year payback,” said Hidary, who also is a board member of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. He said the steep fall in solar panel prices and more government incentives have helped speed up the return on investing in a solar power system.

In less than a month, teams from 20 universities from around the world will gather on the National Mall in Washington DC for the 2009 Solar Decathlon, hosted mainly by the Department of Energy.

In the shadow of the U.S. Capitol, where lawmakers are mulling first-ever U.S. carbon dioxide regulations, teams will compete to build and operate small homes that derive all their energy from the sun’s infinite supply.

Some teams to watch are Cornell University and its “Silo House,” with three circular rooms, Virginia Tech and its Lumenhaus, which focuses on channeling natural light, and Team Germanyfrom Technische Universitat Darmstadt, which won the 2007 decathlon with a high-tech design.

Another team to watch is Rice University, which will feature its Zerow House, a no-nonsense solar house meant to be affordable to low-income families.  (The name combines Zero and Row, since row houses are a Houston icon.) Click on the YouTube link below to see a short tour of the Rice house narrated by Brent Houchens, a mechanical engineering professor at Rice.

Several different strategies will be in play during the contest. Some teams will seek to wow the judges by deploying the most high-tech solar arrays, appliances and interior designs. Team Germany is fielding another high-concept entry this year, and its stated philosophy is to “push the envelope with as many new technologies as possible.”

That strategy is evident in looking at the team’s modernistic 2-story cube, which is almost totally covered with PV panels and can churn out over 11 kilowatts of electric generation, more than enough to satisfy the house’s needs. Others, like Rice’s Zerow House, are focusing on affordability and livability — which could be a wise strategy in these lean financial times.

All the entries will demonstrate a concept known as “smart metering,” where a home’s power usage meter can spin both forwards and backwards and keep track of power sent onto the utility grid. Residents would get a check from their utility if they generated more electricity than they used. Most U.S. residential meters are not capable of the feat currently, but some U.S. utilities are warming to the idea.

Teams will also compete in feats of solar competency meant to prove their prowess not only in architectural design and affordability, but also everyday household tests that any homemaker will appreciate. Those include the Hot Water contest — using solar collectors to heat 15 gallons of water to 110 degrees Fahrenheit in 10 minutes or less, and the Appliances contest, which includes the dreaded towel test - washing and drying 10 loads of laundry during a week.

So why have Americans been slow to adopt solar technology when other countries like Germany have gone for them whole hog? Are more government incentives needed or is it a matter of lifestyle? Are Americans willing to sacrifice comfort and convenience to slash their carbon dioxide emissions and save energy?

Photo credit: REUTERS/Chris Baltimore (Zerow House in Houston)

It seems like a gutsy time to be advertising a hedge fund in newspapers and across billboards in London.

Until you realise at second glance that the adverts are a spoof by InBev-owned lager brand Stella Artois which is trying to boost its green and recycling credentials with some whacky marketing.

With slogans such as “An Investor measures the growth of his hedge fund” and “Once upon a time a hedge fund was just that”, the ads initially catch the eye of those of us interested in financial services.

The question is whether they’ll get people buying and drinking more Stella Artois beer. The beermaker is hoping to boost its sales by promising to work with The Tree Council to plant hedgerows across Britain — to help wildlife and soak up CO2 — if you buy a special pack of its lager.

The marketing industry response so far looks promising.

But the real test of whether people are spurred into drinking more Stella Artois out of a sense of environmental responsibility will be in the British countryside.

Look out for miles of hedgerows with “Sponsored by Stella Artois” signs.

In Los Angeles, listeners of public radio hear SunPower promotions on the airwaves while at the Oakland International Airport, travelers see ads for the solar power company.

San Jose, California-based SunPower Corp has banked on building a brand, a strategy that bucks the idea others argue — that brands don’t matter in the solar power industry because the renewable energy is essentially a commodity.

“When I buy electrons, I don’t care what flavor they are. I do care a lot about what they cost,” said Stephan Dolezalek, managing director of Silicon Valley venture capital firm VantagePoint Venture Partners.

At the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco, Dolezalek said different customers, such as residential versus utilities, analyze solar power choices differently. But Dolezalek doubts brand matters within the specific categories of solar power systems.

SunPower’s chief executive Tom Werner stands behind his company’s branding strategy, comparing it to the debate that arose in the personal computer industry.

“Remember white boxes PCs were going to run over the brand-name players? But people wanted to buy from a brand-name player because they wanted the service, they wanted that future-proofing –that I don’t buy it today and it’s obsolete in six months,” Werner told Reuters at the summit in San Francisco.

Werner said his company, which is vertically integrated, charges a premium for its high-efficiency solar panels and added services for residential customers.  He said brand carries weight for commerical customers and utilities, too, because they make significant capital investments and want a product with low technology risk.

“Does brand matter? I think it is definitively yes today,” Werner said. “Will it be sustainable? Of course that’s subjective, but you see tons of examples where brand and scale matter,” he said, noting how eBay has maintained a brand status among Internet auction sites.

Venture capitalist Dolezalek said that where brand does play a role in the solar sector is “whether my bank is willing to lend me for my project on an unknown brand.”

“As long as the bank is willing to lend on it, it really doesn’t matter whose brand it is because it is a commodity,” Dolezalek said.

We were wondering where readers stand in the debate. Does brand matter in solar power systems? Does its importance vary, depending on whether the panels are used in a small roof-top system or large field installation? Is solar power just a commodity — or is it more complicated than that?

(Top photo: Passengers at the Oakland International Airport sit next to an advertisement for solar power company SunPower Corp. Photo credit: Laura Isensee/Reuters. Second photo: Tom Werner, Chief Executive Officer of SunPower, speaks during the Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco. Kimberly White/Reuters)

Stephan Dolezalek, Managing Director of VantagePoint Venture Partners and Tom Werner, Chief Executive of solar power company SunPower, sat down at Reuters’ Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco and shared their views on global warming, investment and cleantech.

Dolezalek sees industrialization in developing countries as a more predictable impetus for investment than global warming.

Werner sees global warming as a stimulus for new business and a tool for adaptation.

What are your thoughts?  Is global warming an economic stimulus, an unreliable driver for investment, neither or both?

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman, pictures by Kim White)

Ken Oshman, the Chief Executive of Echelon, sat down at Reuters’ Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco to speak about revenue forecasts and smart meters.

The following is Oshman’s thoughts on how the sector may consolidate as the market picks up.

(Editing/video by Courtney Hoffman)

Bhutan has warned its citizens over cutting down thousands of young trees every year to make prayer flags, a threat to the tiny kingdom’s lush scenery and the government’s duty to bring “Gross National Happiness”.

Himalayan Buddhists put up prayer flags for good luck or to help the dead find the right path to their next life. The more flag poles put up for the departed the better, and Buddhist monks say fresh poles must be used each time.

Having failed to convince its citizens to switch from wood to steel for prayer flags, the government of the Himalayas’ last Buddhist kingdom is growing bamboo, which it hopes will be an attractive alternative.

Read the whole story here.

(Photo: Prayer flags in Thimphu, 23 Aug 2003/Kamal Kishore)

Follow FaithWorld on Twitter at RTRFaithWorld

Some politicians may be accused of dragging their heels when it comes to dealing with climate change, but you can’t say members of the United Nations’ Clean Development Mechanism’s executive board aren’t clocking in the hours.

The Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), an emissions trading scheme under the Kyoto Protocol worth $33 billion last year according to the World Bank, allows companies and countries to outsource their greenhouse gas reduction efforts by investing in clean energy projects in emerging countries like China and India, where making emissions cuts costs less.

Projects are submitted to the CDM for registration and a staff of over 100 examine and scrutinize each one to ensure environmental integrity.

The whole scheme is supervised by a 20-member executive board, chaired by Lex de Jonge of the Netherlands’ environment ministry.

“The members are all employed by governments and assigned to the board. They don’t get a salary from the UN but they receive a daily subsistence allowance to pay for meals, hotel and travel costs,” de Jonge said at the Reuters Climate and Alternative Energy Summit.

“As chair of the board, I spend 75% of my time on CDM issues and 25% on domestic issues relating to my actual job,” he added.

The CDM’s executive board holds some 7 to 8 week-long meetings a year, up from 5 meetings in 2005, the year international emissions trading really began to take shape.

“They’re quite long days. We start at 9am and it’s seldom that we finish before 7 or 8pm. The worst I’ve ever seen was we worked until 3am,” de Jonge said.

Between board meetings, de Jonge said members must attend meetings for other related panels or working groups to which they belong. These extra-curricular duties can take an additional 6-8 weeks a year. Factor in the additional work required to prepare for these meetings and you’re looking at months, not weeks.

“If you add it all up, between 25 and 40 percent of a member’s working year is devoted to the board, and that is sometimes difficult for board members because they have other jobs to attend to,” de Jonge explained.

Would you work this much for climate change?

To read our Summit interview with Lex de Jonge, click here

Scientists may face an uphill battle in trying to warn the world about the looming perils of global warming, but one of Britain’s top academics wouldn’t trade places with the politicians tasked with negotiating a new global treaty to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

“Although the science (of climate change) is difficult and still uncertain, it’s a doddle compared to the politics,” said Martin Rees, president of the Royal Society, Britain’s science academy.

Thousands of international delegates will convene at UN climate talks in Copenhagen in December. All early indications suggest those talks, seen as critical to agreeing a successor to the Kyoto Protocol after it expires in 2012, will be anything but a cake walk.

That said, Rees thinks UK policymakers have done a good job so far.

“We must give (the UK) government credit for its leadership in this area, going back to the Gleneagles G8 summit in 2005 when climate change was pushed up the agenda,” Rees said at the Reuters Climate and Alternative Energy Summit this week.

“The UK punches above its weight in the debate on climate change even though we only produce 2% of the world’s emissions,” said Rees, likening Britain to some sort of environmental boxer.

Rees thinks that because the UK has the high-tech know-how, it should strive to provide more than 2% of the solution to the climate problem by upping investment technologies to help replace fossil fuel burning.

“The level of research and development into new energy technologies is far lower than the scale of the challenge demands … The R&D on renewable energy should be closer to what we spend on health or medicine, but it’s tiny, tiny compared to that.”

“Without new technologies, we’ll never meet out 2050 targets,” he said, referring to Britain’s goal of cutting carbon emissions by 80% by mid-century.

Should the UK assume a larger climate role relative to its size or greenhouse gas contribution? Should it spend as much on researching renewable energy as it does developing cures for disease?

To listen to an excerpt of our interview with Rees, click here

To read the Reuters Climate Summit interview with Rees, click here

(Reuters photo - British boxer Amir Khan)