Posted on: Thursday, 4 November 2010, 11:40 CDT
By Ann Perry, ARS
A common roadside plant could have the right stuff to become a new source of biofuel, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) studies. Scientists with the Agricultural Research Service (ARS), USDA's principal intramural scientific research agency, have found that field pennycress yields impressive quantities of seeds whose oil could be used in biodiesel production.
Field pennycress belongs to the Brassicaceae family, along with canola, camelina and mustard-other prolific producers of oil-rich seeds. The ARS studies help support USDA's efforts to develop new sources of bioenergy.
At the ARS National Center for Agricultural Utilization Research in Peoria, Ill., chemists Bryan Moser, Gerhard Knothe and Terry Isbell and plant physiologist Steven Vaughn formed a team to study field pennycress' potential.
The scientists obtained oil from wild field pennycress, pretreated it with acid, and used a type of alcohol called methanol to react with the field pennycress oil to produce both biodiesel and glycerol. After some additional refining, the finished biodiesel was tested to see if it met the biodiesel fuel standard established by the American Society for Testing and Materials. The results suggested that, with some work, the previously problematic pennycress could become a commercial commodity.
All diesel-based oils start to gel when it's cold enough. So the cloud point, which is the temperature at which crystals become visible in the fuel, is a crucial factor in both biodiesel and petrodiesel production. Another important property is the pour point, the temperature at which the fuel fails to pour as a result of excessive solidification.
The average cloud and pour points for field pennycress biodiesel were 14 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 10 degrees Celsius) and minus 0.4 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius), respectively. These temperatures were well below the cloud and pour points of soybean oil-based biodiesel. This result suggests that field pennycress biodiesel is better suited for use in cold climates than many other biodiesel fuels, such as soybean oil-based biodiesel.
Another plus: Pennycress can be grown during the winter and harvested in late spring, so farmers who cultivate pennycress can also maintain their usual summer soybean production without reducing crop yields.
Results from this work were published in Energy & Fuels.
Friday, 5 November 2010
Solar-powered keyboards save energy while you type
Thursday, 4 November 2010
The development of a new solar-powered keyboard could reduce computer-related energy usage and provide a more environmentally friendly way of typing.
On November 1 consumer electronics company Logitech announced the availability of the company's first solar-powered keyboard, the Logitech K750.
The wireless keyboard is powered through an integrated solar panel which can be charged using indoor light. The company claims that the keyboard will work even in total darkness for up to three months. In addition to being powered by alternative natural resources, the keyboard is also free of harmful PVC-based materials and comes in fully recyclable packaging.
The keyboard is expected to be available throughout the USA and Europe in January 2011; the expected retail price is £69.99.
Other consumer electronics companies are also developing similar devices to meet the public demand for environmentally friendly products. Taiwan-based electronics company AU Optronics Corp. (AUO) has developed what it claims to be the world's first solar-powered touch keyboard solution for notebook computers, which is estimated to reduce power consumption by up to 20 percent. The device is expected to be presented at FPD International - an exhibition of flat panel technology held in Japan November 10-12.
The SlimStar 820 Solargizer developed by the Genius company is also solar-powered. The wireless device, which is sold in combination with a power-saving mouse, was awarded the 2007 innovation honor by American consumer group CES.
Computer-related energy usage can also be reduced by purchasing Energy Star-rated products. The US Department of Energy calculates that computers conforming to this internationally recognized energy efficiency standard use 70 percent less electricity when in sleep mode than other computers without power-saving features.
The development of a new solar-powered keyboard could reduce computer-related energy usage and provide a more environmentally friendly way of typing.
On November 1 consumer electronics company Logitech announced the availability of the company's first solar-powered keyboard, the Logitech K750.
The wireless keyboard is powered through an integrated solar panel which can be charged using indoor light. The company claims that the keyboard will work even in total darkness for up to three months. In addition to being powered by alternative natural resources, the keyboard is also free of harmful PVC-based materials and comes in fully recyclable packaging.
The keyboard is expected to be available throughout the USA and Europe in January 2011; the expected retail price is £69.99.
Other consumer electronics companies are also developing similar devices to meet the public demand for environmentally friendly products. Taiwan-based electronics company AU Optronics Corp. (AUO) has developed what it claims to be the world's first solar-powered touch keyboard solution for notebook computers, which is estimated to reduce power consumption by up to 20 percent. The device is expected to be presented at FPD International - an exhibition of flat panel technology held in Japan November 10-12.
The SlimStar 820 Solargizer developed by the Genius company is also solar-powered. The wireless device, which is sold in combination with a power-saving mouse, was awarded the 2007 innovation honor by American consumer group CES.
Computer-related energy usage can also be reduced by purchasing Energy Star-rated products. The US Department of Energy calculates that computers conforming to this internationally recognized energy efficiency standard use 70 percent less electricity when in sleep mode than other computers without power-saving features.
Low-carbon claims by Chinese cities are misleading, says energy expert
ChinaDialogue: Huge roads and carbon-intensive manufacturing undermine green claims by Chinese cities, says Jiang Kejun
Liu Jianqiang for ChinaDialogue guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 November 2010 11.31 GMT
Jiang Kejun, senior researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, was one of the first Chinese academics to study the concept of low-carbon cities. With his colleagues, he is currently producing a low-carbon programme for Shenyang in north-east China. During the recent climate-change talks in Tianjin, Liu Jianqiang spoke to Jiang about low-carbon cities.
Liu Jianqiang: "Low-carbon city" seems to have become a buzz word, with many places in China adopting this label. Are these cities really low-carbon?
Jiang Kejun: These so-called "low-carbon cities" are actually high-carbon. Per-capita emissions in Chinese cities are two or more times those of western cities. What's low-carbon about that?
LJ: Why are per-capita emissions so high in Chinese cities?
JK: Because, in developed nations, cities are used primarily for living – emissions come mainly from transportation and buildings. But Chinese cities are home to a lot of industry, and the associated emissions are high. There isn't actually much residential energy consumption.
China's strategic promotion of low-carbon cities is a good move, but many cities have gone about it the wrong way. They have all piled in to become "low-carbon cities" and it's been disastrous.
For example, the conference centre we're in now looks modern and luxurious – that's why the [UN-led climate-change] talks are here. But if any of the attendees want to cross the road outside, then they're in trouble: it's too wide, it's a waste of land. This is what Chinese people think modern is, but actually it's a rural view of modernisation.
You can describe our current approach to city building as entirely mistaken. Look at Beijing – it's all wrong, from the buildings to the roads to the planning of zones. We build huge buildings but use little of the space. From the 1990s to 2005, Beijing encouraged car use. "Transportation development" just meant increasing average traffic speeds, for example from 14 kilometres per hour to 15 kilometres per hour. Another target is road surface area: officials are judged on how much the area devoted to roads has increased, and the more that happens, the less space there is for bikes and pedestrians.
But Beijing's city leaders still say that having more cars is a sign of modernity. Beijing once demolished its city walls. Now it's knocking down the 798 art district [an artist community in decommissioned factory buildings in Beijing's Chaoyang district]. It is making the same mistake all over again. But this approach represents the way of thinking of most Chinese people.
LJ: What about Beijing's neighbouring city, Langfang? The environmental authorities once took the media there to do a report on low-carbon cities.
JK: That isn't genuine either. Langfang wants to be named a "model low-carbon city", but how is it going about it? It's just trying to look beautiful and modern. It's only got a population of 300,000, but several of its roads are as big as Chang'an Avenue [a major route through Beijing]. City greenery includes areas of grass that were actually carbon-intensive to create.
We've been telling our colleagues at the Ministry of Environmental Protection to change the standards for model cities to reflect actual low-carbon practices, otherwise it gives the impression that everyone is environmentally-friendly, despite still being high-carbon.
We can't blame Langfang or any other city – they were working to the ministry's standards. But now that "low-carbon" is the thing, the ministry is calling "environmentally-friendly" cities "low-carbon" instead. Langfang is a small city, you can normally bike from home to work in ten minutes, and drive in three or four – but car usage is higher than in Beijing. Why? Because parking is free and the roads are wide.
The most frightening thing is that, in the future, half of China's urban population will be in cities like this. If they all copy Beijing, our low-carbon cities are done for.
LJ: When everyone is trying to create low-carbon cities, why are they instead turning out to be high-carbon?
JK: Because nobody knows what a low-carbon city actually looks like, so most are just using their imagination. A lot of researchers don't even understand the idea.
LJ: Is it really the case that China doesn't have a single low-carbon city?
JK: No, it does have one – Shenyang [in Liaoning province] is planning to become a complete low-carbon city. My colleagues and I are helping in the design, from overall industrial makeup to buildings, transport, land use and lifestyles. The first aim is to have a good ratio of pavements and bike lanes to roads, with the best parking spots given to buses and bikes.
There is also a targeted rate of use of public transport and mandated percentage of dedicated bus lanes and bus speeds. Building a subway is just a matter of freeing up local-government finance, it's not very hard. There's also going to be an environmentally-friendly taxi fleet – Shenyang has an automobile manufacturing industry, so it can do that. It is also adopting higher energy-efficiency standards. For example, vehicles sold in Shenyang need to be more energy-saving than those sold elsewhere in China. And buildings need to meet energy-saving rates of 75%, the highest standard nationally.
LJ: Does the government have sufficient funds for low-carbon projects like this?
JK: We've worked out the costs for Shenyang – what the government will have to pay for and what others will cover. For example, property developers will cover the costs of meeting the 75% energy-saving standard, while other expenses such as transportation development can be met by the state. Government income is more than 50 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion) a year, so it can afford to use more than one billion of that on low-carbon cities.
LJ: Why is Shenyang so active in this field? What's the motive?
JK: Two members of the Central Political Bureau's Standing Committee used to work in Liaoning, and they want to see Shenyang as a successful trial. One of those leaders once visited Japan, where he was very impressed by their low-carbon cities, so he requested that Shenyang become a low-carbon city.
LJ: And besides requests from superiors, is there any other motive? Many officials are at least saying they want to build low-carbon cities.
JK: Local officials compete on GDP growth – if your economy grows 12%, I need to reach 13% and beat you. That's the thinking and they wear each other ragged. But China's GDP has been growing rapidly for three decades and there's not that much growth potential left. For example, where will Beijing's economic growth come from once Shougang Corporation [one of China's largest steel companies] has relocated? If you can't compete, change the game – come up with new standards, like "livable cities" or "low-carbon cities". And these local officials are smart. They want to keep up with global trends and central-government targets.
LJ: Will cities that take low-carbon choices, such as limiting energy-intensive industries, lose economic competitiveness?
JK: For cities such as Shenyang, it will actually increase competitiveness and make them money. Shenyang is a manufacturing hub and its precision machinery for example is – at the demand of central government – extremely energy efficient and very competitive. The world's 28 key low-carbon technologies, once they go into production, will need to be manufactured. And Shenyang has a strong advantage here.
But cities like Shenyang don't just want to be low-carbon themselves, they also want to help the nation – even the world – to become low-carbon, because only then will the nation and the world need their energy-saving technology.
This should also be one of China's strategic aims. Currently China is being pushed to reduce emissions, but in the near future it should be China pushing the world, because we've got advanced low-carbon technology and we'll want our standards to be used globally. In the future, economic competiveness will belong to those with the key technologies.
Our research team tracks several hundred technologies relevant to low-carbon development, and we have found that many of the most advanced ones are in China. If other nations don't develop their low-carbon economies, they will have no choice but to buy these products from China. For example, all of Indonesia's [clean] coal technology is imported from China – it's half the cost of the US equivalent, and the impact on India is huge. A Malaysian once told me that his country would need to come to China to buy electric vehicles.
The pattern of the future will be technological competition between industries and nations. It's time for the negotiation game to end.
Liu Jianqiang is the Beijing-based deputy editor of chinadialogue.
Liu Jianqiang for ChinaDialogue guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 November 2010 11.31 GMT
Jiang Kejun, senior researcher at the National Development and Reform Commission's Energy Research Institute, was one of the first Chinese academics to study the concept of low-carbon cities. With his colleagues, he is currently producing a low-carbon programme for Shenyang in north-east China. During the recent climate-change talks in Tianjin, Liu Jianqiang spoke to Jiang about low-carbon cities.
Liu Jianqiang: "Low-carbon city" seems to have become a buzz word, with many places in China adopting this label. Are these cities really low-carbon?
Jiang Kejun: These so-called "low-carbon cities" are actually high-carbon. Per-capita emissions in Chinese cities are two or more times those of western cities. What's low-carbon about that?
LJ: Why are per-capita emissions so high in Chinese cities?
JK: Because, in developed nations, cities are used primarily for living – emissions come mainly from transportation and buildings. But Chinese cities are home to a lot of industry, and the associated emissions are high. There isn't actually much residential energy consumption.
China's strategic promotion of low-carbon cities is a good move, but many cities have gone about it the wrong way. They have all piled in to become "low-carbon cities" and it's been disastrous.
For example, the conference centre we're in now looks modern and luxurious – that's why the [UN-led climate-change] talks are here. But if any of the attendees want to cross the road outside, then they're in trouble: it's too wide, it's a waste of land. This is what Chinese people think modern is, but actually it's a rural view of modernisation.
You can describe our current approach to city building as entirely mistaken. Look at Beijing – it's all wrong, from the buildings to the roads to the planning of zones. We build huge buildings but use little of the space. From the 1990s to 2005, Beijing encouraged car use. "Transportation development" just meant increasing average traffic speeds, for example from 14 kilometres per hour to 15 kilometres per hour. Another target is road surface area: officials are judged on how much the area devoted to roads has increased, and the more that happens, the less space there is for bikes and pedestrians.
But Beijing's city leaders still say that having more cars is a sign of modernity. Beijing once demolished its city walls. Now it's knocking down the 798 art district [an artist community in decommissioned factory buildings in Beijing's Chaoyang district]. It is making the same mistake all over again. But this approach represents the way of thinking of most Chinese people.
LJ: What about Beijing's neighbouring city, Langfang? The environmental authorities once took the media there to do a report on low-carbon cities.
JK: That isn't genuine either. Langfang wants to be named a "model low-carbon city", but how is it going about it? It's just trying to look beautiful and modern. It's only got a population of 300,000, but several of its roads are as big as Chang'an Avenue [a major route through Beijing]. City greenery includes areas of grass that were actually carbon-intensive to create.
We've been telling our colleagues at the Ministry of Environmental Protection to change the standards for model cities to reflect actual low-carbon practices, otherwise it gives the impression that everyone is environmentally-friendly, despite still being high-carbon.
We can't blame Langfang or any other city – they were working to the ministry's standards. But now that "low-carbon" is the thing, the ministry is calling "environmentally-friendly" cities "low-carbon" instead. Langfang is a small city, you can normally bike from home to work in ten minutes, and drive in three or four – but car usage is higher than in Beijing. Why? Because parking is free and the roads are wide.
The most frightening thing is that, in the future, half of China's urban population will be in cities like this. If they all copy Beijing, our low-carbon cities are done for.
LJ: When everyone is trying to create low-carbon cities, why are they instead turning out to be high-carbon?
JK: Because nobody knows what a low-carbon city actually looks like, so most are just using their imagination. A lot of researchers don't even understand the idea.
LJ: Is it really the case that China doesn't have a single low-carbon city?
JK: No, it does have one – Shenyang [in Liaoning province] is planning to become a complete low-carbon city. My colleagues and I are helping in the design, from overall industrial makeup to buildings, transport, land use and lifestyles. The first aim is to have a good ratio of pavements and bike lanes to roads, with the best parking spots given to buses and bikes.
There is also a targeted rate of use of public transport and mandated percentage of dedicated bus lanes and bus speeds. Building a subway is just a matter of freeing up local-government finance, it's not very hard. There's also going to be an environmentally-friendly taxi fleet – Shenyang has an automobile manufacturing industry, so it can do that. It is also adopting higher energy-efficiency standards. For example, vehicles sold in Shenyang need to be more energy-saving than those sold elsewhere in China. And buildings need to meet energy-saving rates of 75%, the highest standard nationally.
LJ: Does the government have sufficient funds for low-carbon projects like this?
JK: We've worked out the costs for Shenyang – what the government will have to pay for and what others will cover. For example, property developers will cover the costs of meeting the 75% energy-saving standard, while other expenses such as transportation development can be met by the state. Government income is more than 50 billion yuan (US$7.5 billion) a year, so it can afford to use more than one billion of that on low-carbon cities.
LJ: Why is Shenyang so active in this field? What's the motive?
JK: Two members of the Central Political Bureau's Standing Committee used to work in Liaoning, and they want to see Shenyang as a successful trial. One of those leaders once visited Japan, where he was very impressed by their low-carbon cities, so he requested that Shenyang become a low-carbon city.
LJ: And besides requests from superiors, is there any other motive? Many officials are at least saying they want to build low-carbon cities.
JK: Local officials compete on GDP growth – if your economy grows 12%, I need to reach 13% and beat you. That's the thinking and they wear each other ragged. But China's GDP has been growing rapidly for three decades and there's not that much growth potential left. For example, where will Beijing's economic growth come from once Shougang Corporation [one of China's largest steel companies] has relocated? If you can't compete, change the game – come up with new standards, like "livable cities" or "low-carbon cities". And these local officials are smart. They want to keep up with global trends and central-government targets.
LJ: Will cities that take low-carbon choices, such as limiting energy-intensive industries, lose economic competitiveness?
JK: For cities such as Shenyang, it will actually increase competitiveness and make them money. Shenyang is a manufacturing hub and its precision machinery for example is – at the demand of central government – extremely energy efficient and very competitive. The world's 28 key low-carbon technologies, once they go into production, will need to be manufactured. And Shenyang has a strong advantage here.
But cities like Shenyang don't just want to be low-carbon themselves, they also want to help the nation – even the world – to become low-carbon, because only then will the nation and the world need their energy-saving technology.
This should also be one of China's strategic aims. Currently China is being pushed to reduce emissions, but in the near future it should be China pushing the world, because we've got advanced low-carbon technology and we'll want our standards to be used globally. In the future, economic competiveness will belong to those with the key technologies.
Our research team tracks several hundred technologies relevant to low-carbon development, and we have found that many of the most advanced ones are in China. If other nations don't develop their low-carbon economies, they will have no choice but to buy these products from China. For example, all of Indonesia's [clean] coal technology is imported from China – it's half the cost of the US equivalent, and the impact on India is huge. A Malaysian once told me that his country would need to come to China to buy electric vehicles.
The pattern of the future will be technological competition between industries and nations. It's time for the negotiation game to end.
Liu Jianqiang is the Beijing-based deputy editor of chinadialogue.
Chancellor aiming to reveal structure of green investment bank by Christmas
George Osborne tells the Treasury select committee that the business model for the bank is now at an advanced stage
Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 November 2010 17.06 GMT
George Osborne said today he hoped to outline structural details of the government's green investment bank before Christmas, insisting that he wanted to "get it right" to ensure it was a success.
The chancellor told the Treasury select committee that the bank will be set up "as soon as possible", as he insisted that the planned business model was now at an advanced stage. The bank is expected to help fund clean energy projects such as windfarms.
The chancellor shed a little more light on the planned green investment bank as he gave evidence on his spending review in a two–hour session with MPs.
Stewart Hosie, MP for Dundee East, suggested to the chancellor that the green investment bank may not be up and running until 2013 or 2014, prompting Osborne to say he expected it would be operational before then. "I want it to get up and running as soon as possible," he said.
He said the government was in the process of trying to find the best business model to leverage private sector money, without which he said the project would effectively fail.
He told MPs there was no "off the shelf" business model that could be picked up by the UK government. Osborne told the cross-party panel of MPs that the £1bn earmarked for the bank in the spending review was a "backstop".
He has also set his sights on a share of the receipts from future asset sales. Last month, the climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, told the Guardian he was considering selling off the UK's stake in a uranium enrichment company that could raise around £1bn, though no decision has been taken.
But Osborne said the crunch would be securing private money, which was the "whole purpose" of the bank.
"The thinking is pretty advanced but this is the something new for the United Kingdom, so we want to get the model absolutely right and it involves not just a discussion within government, which is quite easy to have. But to make sure this is actually going to work, this is going to get private sector capital. If we launch something and then it doesn't attract private sector capital then it won't be a green investment bank, it won't have succeeded."
He said he wanted to "get it right" so that the bank "delivered the goods".
Hélène Mulholland guardian.co.uk, Thursday 4 November 2010 17.06 GMT
George Osborne said today he hoped to outline structural details of the government's green investment bank before Christmas, insisting that he wanted to "get it right" to ensure it was a success.
The chancellor told the Treasury select committee that the bank will be set up "as soon as possible", as he insisted that the planned business model was now at an advanced stage. The bank is expected to help fund clean energy projects such as windfarms.
The chancellor shed a little more light on the planned green investment bank as he gave evidence on his spending review in a two–hour session with MPs.
Stewart Hosie, MP for Dundee East, suggested to the chancellor that the green investment bank may not be up and running until 2013 or 2014, prompting Osborne to say he expected it would be operational before then. "I want it to get up and running as soon as possible," he said.
He said the government was in the process of trying to find the best business model to leverage private sector money, without which he said the project would effectively fail.
He told MPs there was no "off the shelf" business model that could be picked up by the UK government. Osborne told the cross-party panel of MPs that the £1bn earmarked for the bank in the spending review was a "backstop".
He has also set his sights on a share of the receipts from future asset sales. Last month, the climate and energy secretary, Chris Huhne, told the Guardian he was considering selling off the UK's stake in a uranium enrichment company that could raise around £1bn, though no decision has been taken.
But Osborne said the crunch would be securing private money, which was the "whole purpose" of the bank.
"The thinking is pretty advanced but this is the something new for the United Kingdom, so we want to get the model absolutely right and it involves not just a discussion within government, which is quite easy to have. But to make sure this is actually going to work, this is going to get private sector capital. If we launch something and then it doesn't attract private sector capital then it won't be a green investment bank, it won't have succeeded."
He said he wanted to "get it right" so that the bank "delivered the goods".
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