Obama’s drilling plan

Petroleum drilling rig. Image via Wikipedia

President Obama announced last Saturday that, in an effort to promote greater domestic oil production and help relieve prices at the fuel pumps, he intends to expand oil and gas drilling in the Gulf of Mexico and Alaska. The move was apparently meant to appease voters that are angry over soaring gas prices. At the same time, Obama has continued to press for repealing $21 billion in tax incentives for the big oil companies.

This isn’t the first time Obama has proposed expanding drilling. On March 31, 2010, he also announced the need to open more areas to gas and oil drilling. At that time, environmentalists sharply criticized the move and Republicans only offered lackluster support. The BP oil spill that occurred in the Gulf of Mexico a few weeks later effectively killed the proposal, with the administration placing a moratorium on deep water drilling.

This time around, Obama wants the Interior Department to allow drilling in Alaska’s National Petroleum Reserve. He also called for the faster evaluation and leasing of new oil and gas areas in the Gulf of Mexico. Obama cautioned that, “while there are no quick fixes to the problem [of high gas prices], there are a few steps we should take that make good sense.”

Some have argued that the proposal is aimed more at voter psychology than good sense. It’s unclear whether the move would have much effect on gas prices. It takes a long time for a policy change to produce a noticeable rise in oil production. Moreover, oil is a fungible global commodity. The price is determined by global supply and demand. If China is willing to pay more for oil than America, oil companies will only be too happy to send Alaskan oil overseas. The only way drilling for more oil in America would appreciably alter the price of gasoline is if the oil industry were nationalized.

However, there are ways in which the move does make good sense. Obama now looks like he’s doing something, energy markets usually respond positively to the prospect of greater future oil supplies, and real jobs will be created. The effect on the markets and the creation of jobs are especially welcome as the economy continues to slowly recover.

We’re No. 17! We’re No. 17!

Wind turbines in Vendsyssel, Denmark, help make the country a top clean energy producer. Image via Wikipedia

The Associated Press (AP) is reporting that a study (to be released May 9) commissioned by the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) and prepared by Roland Berger Strategy Consultants ranks the U.S. 17th in clean energy production. Denmark earns the top spot, with 3.1 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP) coming from clean tech (about $9.4 billion).

The report used data gathered from various energy and financial sources, like the International Energy Agency or bank and brokerage reports, to measure earnings from green energy technologies. These included not only energy production from renewable sources, such as biofuels, solar, or wind, but energy efficiency technologies as well. The countries were then ranked according to the amount of national revenue generated from these technologies. In other words, the percentage of a country’s GDP that came from clean tech determined its rank.

The report also looked at the pace of growth. The AP quotes Roland Berger Strategy Consultants’ senior research associate Ward van den Berg as saying, “Clean technologies are really growing fast, but China is responsible for the majority of that growth.” The report ranks China second, but says its production of green tech has grown a whopping 77 percent a year. This accounts for the largest earnings stated in the report, about $64 billion, which is 1.4 percent of China’s GDP. Donald Pols, an economist with the WWF, told the AP, “The Chinese have made, on the political level, a conscious decision to capture this market and to develop this market agressively.”

Pols went on to say that U.S. clean tech had grown substantially thanks to the policies of Obama, but this couldn’t compare to Chinese policies and Chinese growth. “When you speak to the Chinese, climate change is not an ideological issue. It’s just a fact of life. While we debate climate change and the transition to a low carbon economy, the debate is passed in China. For them it’s implementation. It’s a growth sector, and they want to capture this sector,” Pols told the AP. The U.S. generates about $45 billion from clean tech, representing 0.3 percent of its GDP.

According to the report, the top five producers in terms of percentage of GDP, in order of rank, are Denmark, China, Germany, Brazil, and Lithuania.

Batteries not required: Wireless sensors promote building efficiencies

EnOcean's Eco 100 power generator and transmitter. Image via Wikipedia

Wired’s Gadget Lab is reporting on a clever wireless energy sensor developed by EnOcean that can help manage energy efficiencies (and cut costs) in commercial buildings.

EnOcean is a spinoff of Siemens focused on making energy harvesting wireless sensors and transmitters. These devices harvest energy from the mechanical movement of light switches, swipe card readers, and door handles, or use the Peltier effect to extract energy from the temperature difference between surfaces, to power tiny transmitters. These transmitters can communicate on TCP/IP networks allowing for whole-building control.

“Most buildings today are dumb,” says EnOcean Chairman Graham Martin, “meaning they completely lack automation systems to manage energy use.” With EnOcean’s easy-to-install switches and thermostats in place, any internet-enabled device can communicate with the sensors to turn down the heat or shut off lights. And since the whole system is wireless, there’s no need to rip holes in walls to install automation systems.

While currently focused on commercial uses, EnOcean has its sights on more mainstream applications, such as homes. You can read more about how their technology works on their website.

China’s energy consumption will level off?

One of the biggest bugaboos in the west about the rise of China has been the concern over an exponential increase in Chinese energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions. A new report by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) is now challenging that assumption.

As reported in ScienceDaily, report co-author and director of LBNL’s China Energy Group Mark Levine says, “There’s been a perception that China’s rising prosperity means runaway growth in energy consumption. Our study shows this won’t be the case.”

The labor-intensive study developed a “bottom-up” model of energy use providing a more detailed look at energy demand patterns than standard methodologies. It looked at the drivers of energy consumption and the implications of efficiency policies. It also allowed for improvements in the efficiency of equipment as well as the reduction in demand as more households become saturated with appliances.

What the researchers (Nan Zhou, David Fridley, Michael McNeil, Nina Zheng, Jing Ke, and Mark Levine) found is that China’s energy consumption will begin to flatten in 2025-2030 and will fall by mid-century. Once everyone has a refrigerator, they won’t need another one each year. Once a highway or commercial building has been built, it will have a certain life period before needing to be replaced. The reason China’s energy demand is so high now is that it has to build up much of its infrastructure, as well as meet the demand for appliances from an increasingly wealthy populace, but that won’t last forever. China will eventually fall into the pattern of more developed countries where energy demand is flat even though standards of living continue to rise.

While this is good news, even if China’s energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions level off, they will still be far above their former levels.

You can read the report here.

Ready, set, innovate!

Back in March, we mentioned that the Department of Energy had a new idea to help jump-start energy startups – The ‘America’s Next Top Energy Innovator’ Challenge.

Well guess what, folks? Today marks the start of the Challenge! From now until December 15, entrepreneurs and companies can apply for up to 3 of the Department of Energy’s 15,000 unlicensed patents for only $1,000 up front and with much less paperwork required.

The idea is to expedite the process of bringing new energy technologies to the U.S. marketplace. ”Our goal is simple,” said Secretary Chu, “unleash America’s innovation machine and win the global race for the clean energy jobs of the future.”

If you’re interested, you can look through the available technologies and learn more about the process on the Department’s Energy Innovation Portal. You can also see a short powerpoint document the Department compiled that answers the most commonly asked questions.

Now get out there and innovate!