Cheaper Color-Changing Window

Stained glass: These photos show the two electrodes that make up the color-changing part of an electrochromic window. The clear electrode on the left has has been impregnated with lithium. The dark electrode on the right been drained of ions.   Credit: NREL

Thin, battery-like films change color when the weather changes.

By Katherine Bourzac

Thirty percent of the energy used by buildings in the United States is spent making up for heat loss or gain through windows. That adds up to about $40 billion in electricity costs each year. Windows that change color in response to changes in the weather can help save on electricity costs by absorbing sunlight in the winter and reflecting it in the summer. Such windows have existed for awhile, but they are expensive and not widely used. Now researchers are developing cheap printing methods for making these electrochromic systems, and hope to make electrochromic films that can be cut to fit existing windows.

Electrochromic windows sandwich materials that change color when a small electrical field is applied across them. This change is triggered by changes in light or temperature measured by sensors. “With electrochromic windows, everything happens dynamically–you don’t have to think about it,” says Anne Dillon, senior scientist at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). “The problem is, they’re too expensive.”

This week at the Materials Research Society meeting in Boston, Dillon and research scientist Robert Tenent at NREL presented their new and potentially cheaper method for making electrochromic windows.

Typical electrochromic systems are made up of two electrodes separated by an electrolyte that shuttles ions between them. The electrode materials, usually oxidized metals, change color when an ion such as lithium moves into and out of them.

The NREL systems are based on electrodes made of nickel oxide and tungsten oxide and are the first electrochromic systems to be made by spraying down cheap precursors and then heating them. NREL has tested the systems using a liquid electrolyte, and is currently developing systems that rely on solid ion conductors. When a voltage is applied across the NREL system, lithium ions move out of the nickel oxide and into the electrolyte; on the other side, lithium ions move into the tungsten oxide. The movement of the ions causes the two electrodes to color.

Spraying the films is not only a cheaper alternative, says Tenent, it also provides some advantages in performance. The NREL team found that adding a small amount of lithium to the nickel-oxide ink solution before it’s printed made for a film that changes color much faster and within a wider range. In 29 seconds, as lithium leaves the nickel electrode and it darkens in color, the electrode goes from transmitting 80 percent of incident light to transmitting just 30 percent. Adding a small amount of lithium using conventional manufacturing techniques would be much more difficult, Tenent says.

There are other ways to make color-changing windows–by using materials that undergo a chemical change in response to light, for example. But these materials are prone to degradation. The NREL group is developing the metal-oxide electrodes in the hopes that these materials, which are robust and don’t degrade in response to light, will have long lifetimes.

So far, the NREL system has been tested on glass substrates. To make a truly affordable window coating, the group is working to make electrochromic films based on flexible, transparent plastics. The group is talking to DuPont, which makes plastics, about collaborating to fabricate electrochromic films sandwiched between one of the company’s heat-tolerant polymers. The nickel-oxide precursor must be heated to about 300 ºC in order to form the electrode material, a temperature many plastics can’t tolerate.

http://www.technologyreview.com/energy/24049/

California water allocation hits record-low level

From: Steve Gorman, Reuters

California officials said on Tuesday that drought and environmental restrictions have forced them to cut planned water deliveries to irrigation districts and cities statewide to just 5 percent of their contracted allotments.

Although the state Water Resources Department typically ends up supplying more water than first projected for an upcoming year, its 5 percent initial allocation for 2010 marks the smallest on record since the agency began delivering water in 1967.

Drastic cutbacks in irrigation supplies this year alone from both state and federal water projects have idled some 23,000 farm workers and 300,000 acres of cropland in California, according to researchers at the University of California

at Davis.

Water shortages also have forced California cities large and small to raise rates they charge and to ration supplies.

The state water allocation initially set for this year was 15 percent of the amount users are entitled to receive under their contracts. That figure was later raised to 40 percent, still well below the 68 percent averaged over the past decade.

While a return to wetter weather in the months ahead could quickly ease the crunch, the initial 2010 allotment was greeted with alarm up and down a state already beset with chronic budget problems and jobless levels above the national average.

“On the heels of three years of drought and ongoing regulatory restrictions, we are now bracing for yet another year of painfully limited water supplies,” said Laura King Moon, assistant general manager for the State Water Contractors.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/environmentNews/idUSTRE5B105D20091202

http://www.enn.com/business/article/40774

Alaska Governor Fights Against Proposed Protected Space for Endangered Beluga Whales

Photo via iwona_kellie

by Jaymi Heimbuch, San Francisco, California

The beluga whales of Cook Inlet have dwindled in population from around 1,300 in the early 1980s to around 300 today. They’re genetically and behaviorally unique based on where they live, but their people-populated living space is part of what keeps them in harm’s way. And the governor of Alaska Sean Parnell is doing nothing to assist them in gaining a proposed 3,000 mile area of protected space.

Reuters reports that under a proposal issued on Tuesday by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), over 3,000 square miles – about one third of the inlet – would be set aside as protected. However, it’s the exact area that has Parnell battling against it. Alaska’s former governor Sarah Palin battled against getting the whales listed as endangered in the first place. It seems the whales have few friends in government in their state.

The space covers summer feeding areas where the whales enjoy salmon and smelt while feeding their newborns, but it also overlays areas used heavily for oil and gas production, shipping, fishing and municipal wastewater discharge, according to the article.

Image via NOAA

Parnell is arguing that the protected area will only harm commerce while doing nothing to boost beluga numbers. While it would likely impact commerce, having water cleared – or at least limited – of human activity would very likely help to at least stabilize, if not increase numbers for the sheer fact that there’s less disturbance and pollutants entering the beluga habitat. The initial decline in numbers is due to overharvesting by Native subsistance hunters, but scientists say it is the environmental impact of human in the inlet that are keeping the numbers from bouncing back.

The location of the proposed habitat is based on scientific research as well. From NOAA, “We have used the best available science and the traditional knowledge of Alaska natives to identify areas essential to helping Cook Inlet beluga whales survive,” said Doug Mecum, acting administrator of NOAA’s Fisheries Service Alaska region.

So while the proposed protected habitat falls within a range where heavy commerce takes place, it is indeed the best hope for the species. NOAA’s Fisheries Service scientists estimate that there is a 26% chance that these whales will become extinct in the next 100 years, so measures like protected habitat are vital.

The period for public comments open today and runs through January 31, 2010. A final decision will be made in early spring of 2010.

More on Protecting Endangered Species
4,500 Square Kilometers of Canadian Arctic Protected, Three New National Wildlife Areas Established
Sumatran Orangutans to Lose (More) Of Their Land to a Paper Company
Countries Falling Behind As World’s Oceans Are Still “Vastly Under-Protected”: Study

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/alaskan-governor-against-proposed-protected-space-for-endangered-beluga-whales.php

Malaysian Rainforest Tribes Establish ‘Peace Park’ to Push Back Loggers

photo: Bruno Manser Fonds

by Matthew McDermott

Here’s one solution to holding back loggers: Bruno Manser Fonds reports seventeen Penan communities in Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia have proclaimed a new tropical forest reserve on their lands. The newly inaugurated Penan Peace Park will preserve their last remaining undisturbed forests from development, allowing tourism and preserving their culture.

Our Heritage Must Be Preserved
A former regional chief in the region, James Lalo Kesoh described the necessity of establishing the park:

As nomadic hunter-gatherers, we Penan people have been roaming the rainforests of the Upper Baram region for centuries. Even though we have settled down and started life as farmers sicne the late 1950s, we still depend on the forests for our food supply, for raw materials such as rattan for handicrafts, for medicinal plants and for other jungle products. Our entire cultural heritage is in the forest and needs to be preserved for future generations.

The Penan Peace Park consists of about 1630 square kilometers around the Gunung Murud Kecil mountain range, near the border of Indonesia.

The Penan people in the region have opposed logging in their rainforest for the past three decades, repeatedly blocking roads and taking direct action against encroachments.

Hat tip to Mongabay on this one…

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/12/malaysian-rainforest-tribes-establish-peace-park-push-back-loggers.php

U.S. Proposes Climate Adaptation Fund for Poor Nations

By LISA FRIEDMAN of ClimateWire

The United States has proposed a new global fund that would direct billions of dollars to help poor countries prepare for climate disasters and adjust to low-carbon economies.

The fund would likely operate under the World Bank, U.S. Treasury officials said, and would be the main vehicle to deliver emissions reduction and adaptation measures throughout the world.

William Pizer, deputy assistant secretary for environment and energy at the U.S. Treasury Department, explained that the fund would contribute to a spectrum of projects from “building a solar park or creating a financial vehicle to support investments in energy efficiency to creating an insurance mechanism for disasters or crops.”

The world’s poorest countries also are among the most vulnerable to climate change and will be disproportionately affected by harsher droughts, rising sea levels and fiercer storms, scientists say. The World Bank estimates it will cost $75 billion to $100 billion annually for developing nations to accommodate a world that is warmer by 2 degrees Celsius.

Part of the global climate deal that nations are negotiating in U.N.-sponsored talks in Copenhagen next week involves the promise of substantial funding to help defray those costs.

Just how much money nations will put into the pot remains unknown. That is one of the prickliest questions that negotiators face. Yet while dollar figures — or absence of them — grab headlines, analysts say the architecture of the fund is one of the nuts-and-bolts issues fundamental to the climate talks.

“It’s certainly a critical part of what needs to be addressed and concluded in the negotiations,” said David Waskow, climate change program director at Oxfam America. “At the end of the day … it’s never a just a question about money, but also how the money is governed and spent.”

An expected target of $7B to $10B

Countries are expected in Copenhagen to offer between $7 billion and $10 billion for immediate needs in poor countries, with about $1.3 billion expected to come from the United States. The United States has not declared how much it will allocate in the long term. Pizer didn’t offer any clues, but said agreeing on a structure for delivering and accounting for the money would be a major step forward.

“I don’t think we would be going down this avenue if we didn’t see the need for scaling up funding in the future,” he said.

Under the proposal — which mirrors ideas put forward by Mexico and Australia — the fund would be governed by a board made up equally of net donors and recipients. All countries except the least-developed nations would be expected to contribute “in accordance with their national circumstances and respective capabilities.”

Elliot Diringer, vice president for international strategies at the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, noted that the proposal reflects “a growing view that some of the faster-growing developing countries are in a position to help,” as well as industrialized ones. A number of environmental groups oppose the notion and say only rich countries should be expected to foot the bill for climate change.

In a recent analysis, ActionAid USA, Friends of the Earth US and the Sustainable Energy and Economy Network faulted the proposal for failing to force countries to contribute to the fund. The groups also argue that any money for poor countries to address climate change must be in addition to regular foreign assistance, and call for a board governed by a majority of developing countries.

“This is important so as to mirror the composition of parties in the UNFCCC [U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change] and to ensure that those most affected by climate change are in the majority on the governing bodies,” the groups wrote.

Narrowly focused on easing burdens of climate change

Treasury officials said they envision a fund that can leverage private-sector investments as well as public funds. They described it as one of several financial arrangements available to help developing countries access funds for different needs.

Article Continues – http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2009/12/02/02climatewire-us-proposes-climate-adaptation-fund-for-poor-53618.html

Copenhagen’s Clean-Tech Dividend

Hot air: A wind turbine and several national flags welcome visitors to the Bella Center in Copenhagen–the venue for the U.N.’s Climate Change Conference.   Credit: Claus Starup

Climate deal could deliver incentives to grow nascent energy technologies.

By Peter Fairley

The 11^th hour is, as often happens in negotiations, proving fruitful for the United Nations Climate Change Conference that opens Monday in Copenhagen, Denmark. The last-minute actors are President Barack Obama, who last week said he will personally deliver a pledge to reduce U.S. emissions 17 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao, who unveiled an ambitious energy-efficiency target one day later. Those moves have economists, analysts, and technology developers increasingly hopeful that the 11-day talks will secure a deal to reduce global emissions of greenhouse gases, thus extending the market for energy-efficient technologies.

The impact could be both immediate and far-reaching, according to Ethan Zindler, who directs U.S. research for the London-based consulting firm New Energy Finance. “It sends an important long-term signal to the marketplace about commitment from multiple nations. That’s something that, particularly in the U.S., there’s been a desire to see for some time,” says Zindler. At the same time, he says, Obama may have made his pledge in the hopes that Copenhagen will help secure the passage of U.S. energy and climate legislation. The climate bill offers incentives for renewable energy installations and large-scale demonstrations of carbon sequestration.

Columbia University economist Graciela Chichilnisky, who crafted the Kyoto Protocol’s carbon trading provisions, predicts that Copenhagen will produce a deal mandating emissions reductions by 2020 equal to or greater than those pledged by Obama. “That is the minimum that will happen,” says Chichilnisky.

Chichilnisky says the U.S. pledge equates to just a 3 percent cut from the Kyoto Protocol’s 1990 baseline. The Obama pledge is dwarfed by the EU’s pledged 20 percent cut from 1990 levels by 2020 and the 25 percent cut pledged by Japan. Climatologists are calling for cuts of 80 to 90 percent by 2050. As Chichilnisky says of the U.S. pledge: “It’s absurd, but it’s a beginning.”

Finn Strom Madsen, the executive in charge of R&D for Danish wind-turbine company Vestas, agrees that a deal at Copenhagen is critical for renewable-energy developers, regardless of the scale of the mandate. Madsen says real value in Copenhagen is having world leaders reach “the political consensus that we need to bring alternatives into the conventional energy mix, and that we need to do it faster than we’re doing it today.”

Vestas, in fact, already announced plans this fall to boost its R&D staff of 1,375 people by almost half in order to push ahead with several large R&D efforts simultaneously. These include: a six-megawatt turbine for offshore use that is twice as powerful as Vestas’s biggest turbine; floating foundations for deep offshore waters; and stealth turbines to minimize disruption of air traffic radar. “If it turns out that we don’t get anything [at Copenhagen] and people are throwing rocks at each other, we might reconsider some of the things we’re doing,” says Madsen. “But we certainly expect that we will have a political agreement.”

Story Continues - http://www.technologyreview.com/business/24044/

EPA Delays Action on More Ethanol in Gasoline

From: Tom Doggett, Reuters

WASHINGTON – Newer American cars will likely be able to handle higher ethanol blends in their gasoline but the decision to approve an industry request to change the fuel mix will have to await final testing next year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said today.

The EPA was supposed to decide by December 1 on a petition from Growth Energy and 54 ethanol manufacturers to let gasoline contain up to 15 percent ethanol.

While farmers who provide the corn to make ethanol also support the initiative, automakers asked the EPA during the summer not to approve higher blends until the agency had test results showing the fuel would not damage vehicles.

The EPA said it needs more time to review test data on the effects a higher ethanol ratio would have on vehicles. U.S. gasoline is now approved to contain up to 10 percent ethanol, which is made mostly from corn. The EPA expects to have final vehicle testing data on the effects of higher-blended ethanol by mid-June, according to a letter to Growth Energy that the EPA posted on its website.

Article continues: http://www.reuters.com/article/internal_ReutersNewsRoom_BehindTheScenes_MOLT/idUSTRE5B032K20091201

http://www.enn.com/pollution/article/40773

Global Salmon Study Shows ‘Sustainable’ Food May Not Be So Sustainable

Popular thinking about how to improve food systems for the better often misses the point, according to the results of a three-year global study of salmon production systems. Rather than pushing for organic or land-based production, or worrying about simple metrics such as “food miles,” the study finds that the world can achieve greater environmental benefits by focusing on improvements to key aspects of production and distribution.

For example, what farmed salmon are fed, how wild salmon are caught and the choice to buy frozen over fresh matters more than organic vs. conventional or wild vs. farmed when considering global scale environmental impacts such as climate change, ozone depletion, loss of critical habitat, and ocean acidification.

The study is the world’s first comprehensive global-scale look at a major food commodity from a full life cycle perspective, and the researchers examined everything — how salmon are caught in the wild, what they’re fed when farmed, how they’re transported, how they’re consumed, and how all of this contributes to both environmental degradation and socioeconomic benefits.

Article continues: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/11/091124152803.htm

http://www.enn.com/wildlife/article/40766

Climate Scientists’ “Secret” Data Revealed!

Image via Data Protection Online

by Brian Merchant

Many in the climate change denying camp are claiming that climate scientists are somehow secretive of the studies they do and the data they gather, because some private emails a few of them exchanged were hacked into and made public. This myth that climate data is secret is gaining traction, however, propagated by talk radio hosts like Limbaugh and Glenn Beck and ‘news’ outlets like Fox News. But nothing could be further from the truth. There’s a wealth of climate data–more than you could probably ever read yourself–and it’s now right at your fingertips.

The scientists who run the extensive climate resource RealClimate have put together a sort of one-stop homepage linking out to climate data around the world. They include raw and processed data, papers, and add suggestions from readers. RC explains their prerogative as such:

Much of the discussion in recent days has been motivated by the idea that climate science is somehow unfairly restricting access to raw data upon which scientific conclusions are based. This is a powerful meme and one that has clear resonance far beyond the people who are actually interested in analysing data themselves. However, many of the people raising this issue are not aware of what and how much data is actually available.

Indeed. Hence, they’ve posted a data page that also includes “links to sources of temperature and other climate data, codes to process it, model outputs, model codes, reconstructions, paleo-records, the codes involved in reconstructions, etc.” In other words, there’s a ton of info. And far from the closed off community many in the ill-wishing media outlets would have you believe, suggestions and participation is more than welcome:

The climate science community fully understands how important it is that data sources are made as open and transparent as possible, for research purposes as well as for other interested parties, and is actively working to increase accessibility and usability of the data. We encourage people to investigate the various graphical portals to get a feel for the data and what can be done with it. The providers of these online resources are very interested in getting feedback on any of these sites and so don’t hesitate to contact them if you want to see improvements.

See for yourself. The ever-evolving RealClimate Data Sources page is stuffed with transparent, accessible, accurate data on climate. And it’s curated by scientists themselves, who’d be happy to hear your suggestions. It’s enough to make a climate change denier weep.

More on Climate Change
The Truth Behind the Hacked Climate Email Controversy
The World’s Most Cited Climate Change Denier: The World’s Leading Climate Scientist?
Why the US Lags Behind the Entire World in Understanding Climate Change

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2009/11/climate-scientists-secret-data-revealed.php

Seven Answers to Climate Contrarian Nonsense

CLIMATE CONTRARIAN: Senator James Inhofe has called global warming the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American people.  Senator James Inhofe

Evidence for human interference with Earth’s climate continues to accumulate

By John Rennie

On November 18, with the United Nations Global Warming Conference in Copenhagen fast approaching, U.S. Senator James R. Inhofe (R-Okla.) took the floor of the Senate and proclaimed 2009 to be “The Year of the Skeptic.” Had the senator’s speech marked a new commitment to dispassionate, rational inquiry, a respect for scientific thought and a well-grounded doubt in ghosts, astrology, creationism and homeopathy, it might have been cause for cheer. But Inhofe had a more narrow definition of skeptic in mind: he meant “standing up and exposing the science, the costs and the hysteria behind global warming alarmism.”

Within the community of scientists and others concerned about anthropogenic climate change, those whom Inhofe calls skeptics are more commonly termed contrarians, naysayers and denialists. Not everyone who questions climate change science fits that description, of course—some people are genuinely unaware of the facts or honestly disagree about their interpretation. What distinguishes the true naysayers is an unwavering dedication to denying the need for action on the problem, often with weak and long-disproved arguments about supposed weaknesses in the science behind global warming.

What follows is only a partial list of the contrarians’ bad arguments and some brief rebuttals of them.

Claim 1: Anthropogenic CO2 can’t be changing climate, because CO2 is only a trace gas in the atmosphere and the amount produced by humans is dwarfed by the amount from volcanoes and other natural sources. Water vapor is by far the most important greenhouse gas, so changes in CO2 are irrelevant.

Although CO2 makes up only 0.04 percent of the atmosphere, that small number says nothing about its significance in climate dynamics. Even at that low concentration, CO2 absorbs infrared radiation and acts as a greenhouse gas, as physicist John Tyndall demonstrated in 1859. The chemist Svante Arrhenius went further in 1896 by estimating the impact of CO2 on the climate; after painstaking hand calculations he concluded that doubling its concentration might cause almost 6 degrees Celsius of warming—an answer not much out of line with recent, far more rigorous computations.

Contrary to the contrarians, human activity is by far the largest contributor to the observed increase in atmospheric CO2. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, anthropogenic CO2 amounts to about 30 billion tons annually—more than 130 times as much as volcanoes produce. True, 95 percent of the releases of CO2 to the atmosphere are natural, but natural processes such as plant growth and absorption into the oceans pull the gas back out of the atmosphere and almost precisely offset them, leaving the human additions as a net surplus. Moreover, several sets of experimental measurements, including analyses of the shifting ratio of carbon isotopes in the air, further confirm that fossil-fuel burning and deforestation are the primary reasons that CO2 levels have risen 35 percent since 1832, from 284 parts per million (ppm) to 388 ppm—a remarkable jump to the highest levels seen in millions of years.

Contrarians frequently object that water vapor, not CO2, is the most abundant and powerful greenhouse gas; they insist that climate scientists routinely leave it out of their models. The latter is simply untrue: from Arrhenius on, climatologists have incorporated water vapor into their models. In fact, water vapor is why rising CO2 has such a big effect on climate. CO2 absorbs some wavelengths of infrared that water does not so it independently adds heat to the atmosphere. As the temperature rises, more water vapor enters the atmosphere and multiplies CO2’s greenhouse effect; the IPCC notes that water vapor [pdf] may “approximately double the increase in the greenhouse effect due to the added CO2 alone.”

Article Continues (in detail) – http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=seven-answers-to-climate-contrarian-nonsense