World is Green

EcoMotors plans to build high-tech engine center - Crain’s Detroit Business

The EcoMotors engine is called an “opposed piston opposed cylinder” engine, or OPOC. The OPOC engine features two horizontally opposed cylinders powering a crankshaft in the center. The unique design eliminates traditional valves and cylinder heads, simplifying the engine.

EcoMotors will work to develop the engine to be used in passenger cars and trucks.

“It’s clean, it’s green,” Coletti said. “We’re talking about potentially upwards of 50 percent improved efficiency versus current turbo diesels.”

He said a 2.5 liter engine of this design delivers 350 horsepower, and it could be more affordable than conventional turbo diesels because it has half the moving parts.

The Australian states are working hard to compete against each other to come up with more restrictive solar options.

The South Australia government came up with a “net metering feed-in-tariff” which does not provide much incentive compared to a gross metering system.

Now, it is the turn of the Victorian government. Peter Campbell writes about the reasons why this legislation does not make sense. And below, a rally against the tariff.

After visiting the Bali convention on climate change and using their generous travel allowances to see how a good feed in tariff can promote emission reductions and jobs from solar power in countries like Germany, our Victorian Government has delivered a feed in tariff that is crippled and worthless.

My concerns are:

1. The Feed in Tariff is only paid on net metering.

The total electricity generated by panels should be subject to the tariff, as all the clean electricity generated has zero emissions which directly substitutes for coal-fired power and therefore reduces emissions accordingly.

In Germany and other locations where they pay the tariff on gross metering, there has been a dramatic rise in installation of solar power. Germany now has 400 times the solar output of Australia despite having about half our sunshine.

2. The Feed in Tariff has a maximum ceiling of 2kW

This is nonsense. The more solar zero emissions power we generate as a nation the better. This is a critical measure for reducing our emissions to combat climate change. The 2kW array size limit for getting the Feed in Tariff is simply crippling the financial motivation for people to install solar panels, and crippling their payback if they choose to install a bigger array.

3. No certainty for investment is provided

The complexities and restrictions of your feed in tariff resulting from net metering combined with the 2kW ceiling provide no certainty or guarantee for investment in a solar array, unlike gross metering with no ceiling which does. This is evident in countries like Germany where there has been significant investment in solar power - now the equivalent of two coal fired power stations, but with zero emissions.

The Victoria government has stipulated the price at 60c per KwH higher than South Australia’s 44c per KwH.

Peter provides an alternative solution.

I strongly urge the government to modify the tariff to a proven effective and equitable model , which is:

* 60 cents per kWh
* paid for at least 15 years
* paid on the entire output of a system via gross production metering
* no caps on array size and/or outputs.

Green business: Carbon works, why not water? | Citywire

Under a cap and trade system, water polluters could have the option to reduce pollution in their own operations or buy water pollution-control or water quality credits from another source at a lower cost than if they undertook the pollution control themselves.

In theory a cap and trade system would achieve the same overall water-quality improvement at a lower overall cost. It would also allow water treatment technology transfer if integrated into a larger global market system.

And such programmes don’t have to be limited to water-quality problems, either. Industries, farmers or cities could also conceivably buy and sell credits for water use, driving down the cost of water conservation and efficiency programmes.
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The holistic effect is to add to the sustainability of the commodity. The general trend in the price of water rights to abstract also has seen some incremental growth. A record was recently achieved in the US of close to $30,000 for an acre foot per year (325,851 US gallons or 1,233.5 kl (or m³) per year) – not bad considering similar rights were trading at $500 five years ago.

Fuel-efficient vehicles the future: Rann

The future of South Australia’s car manufacturing industry lies in the development of new low-carbon, fuel-efficient vehicles, Premier Mike Rann says.The SA (Edit:South Australia) submission called for the federal government’s $500 million Green Car Innovation Fund to be used for researching and developing new low-carbon technology for wider application across the industry.

“Clearly, car buyers in markets across the world, including Australia, are now looking to purchase more fuel-efficient, environmentally friendly vehicles,” Mr Rann said.

With Holden, the largest Australian car manufacturer and the subsidiary of GM, suggesting that they make a hybrid-electric of the popular Commodore model (nice looking car I should say) by 2010; Australian car companies and politicians are coming on to the new trend in the market. About time too, since Toyota just sold its 1 millionth Prius.

Update: A good article from Business Week on the greening of GM.

The Age reports on solar PV cancellations from households

Solar businesses, in a national phone hook-up on Friday, reported that at least five people had already lost their jobs and more were expected to go this week as cancelled orders surge.

From midnight on Tuesday, a family that earns more than $100,000 a year could no longer claim the rebate of up to $8000 on a solar photovoltaic system for their home.

The Clean Energy Council told The Sunday Age that one company had 98% of orders abandoned. The biggest impact has been in cities, where 50-70% of orders were being ditched, leaving companies with millions of dollars of lost business.

As previously noted, this clearly shows the effect of public policy and subsidy for the solar industry. As feed-in-tarriff’s, a mechanism which has produced good results in Europe, is not being aggressively pursued in Australia, this rebate is the only meaningful subsidy for the solar PV industry.

However, all is not lost. The Rudd labour government has announced a Green Loan program.

Around 200,000 households on up to $250,000 a year will be able to take advantage of the program which will offer loans of up to $10,000, with interest capped at the inflation rate, for green products aimed at making established homes more energy and water efficient.

The program would come into effect in January 2009 and run until 2012-13 but Mr Rudd flagged Labor would consider expanding it if it proved successful
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“(This is so) working families can install solar panels or rainwater tanks or roof insulation or solar hot water systems or high efficiency gas hot water heaters … or awnings or grey water recycling systems and energy efficient lighting,” he said.

We need to see how this industry will perform in the coming months and whether there will be a change in policy.

John Connor, CEO of the Climate Institute, writes in Crikey of the negative consequences of the budget for the energy and environmental industry.

The most important in our view was the failure to allocate any funding to the Renewable Energy Fund in the coming financial year, particularly as a number of drilling projects important to the development of the geothermal clean energy option were relying on funding this year. This has sent share prices tumbling and the Government scrambling to assure this industry they’ll be supported through the other “green energy fund”, the Energy Innovation Fund, or assurances for the following financial year. The only explanation for this blooper is that the efforts to hoover up as big a surplus as possible led to this hoovering of credibility.

That the main public heat has surrounded the means testing for the solar rebate demonstrates both the public backing for solar initiatives, and the precarious nature of rebates (and subsidies) as policy solutions. The visiting German Environment Minister observed that if you want to encourage solar PV rollout, a better policy instrument for unlocking longer term opportunities is guaranteed feed-in tariffs for electricity generation post installation. It’s clear that the rebate system has fed a boom. It is also clear that restricting the rebate to $100,000 pa households is causing something of a bust, especially for those businesses relying solely on the rebate program for their income. There are separate and relatively substantial pots of money for solar cities and solar schools initiatives that may allow a softer landing for the existing industry but the real spotlight should be on developing a consistent national feed-in tariff strategy for solar and other low emission sources that will not be captured by the Renewable Energy Target to make sure Australia has a diverse portfolio of clean energy options in 2020.

Mungo MacCallum writes on Crikey about Dr. Nelson, the leader of the Liberal party in Australia on his budget reply speech suggestion of a decrease in excise duty of 5c per litre of petrol.

There are some policy proposals which are so bad that they are unforgivable, and this is one of them. At the most superficial level it is meaningless populism: a five cent cut now would save the average family less than $5 a week and would be quickly absorbed by future price movements anyway. But at a deeper level it contradicts the entire thrust of sensible fiscal and energy policy.

Petrol in Australia is still relatively cheap compared to most of the world, especially Europe, and we still use far too much of it. Because it is a non-renewable and increasingly scarce resource, and a major contributor to climate change as well, we should be trying to wean people off it. By announcing that if punters whinge loudly enough the government can and will bring the price down, Nelson is sending all the wrong signals.

And it isn’t even an original idea: John Howard did it when he was in trouble at the beginning of 2001, but wisely resisted pleas for an encore for the next seven years. Nelson’s move, against all advice, is appalling policy and is now turning into bad politics as well. And by making it, he may well have added himself to the budget’s short but vocal list of losers

Even though we can understand the need for Dr. Nelson to propose a election style stunt in his budget reply speech, this is outright scandalous regarding his economic credentials and provides a glimpse of the climate change policy that can be expected if the Liberal party is elected again.