For some reason these things remind me of the night time scenes of Avatar, might be geeky but it does. Gionata Gatto and Mike Thompson unveiled these new pendant lamps at the Milan Furniture Fair. These lamps absorb light energy from ambient sources. I woldn’t mind trying one of these puppies our for myself.

Source: Gorgeous Energy-Absorbing Trap Light Never Needs to be Plugged In | Inhabitat – Green Design Will Save the World

In a previous post Environmentalist Love To Point Fingers But Hate When Others Point Back I coverd how environmentalist usually will point the darker sides out in others however, they’ll rarely talk about when they have been wrong. Today is another great example of how environmentalist go for the low blow but at least this time they added some humor into thier usually staunch, serious remarks.

Multiple different groups from the Sierra Club to the VoteVets.org came together to raise $11 million for a oil slinging campaign (literally). The purpose of the video personally calls out Sens. Burr (NC), Johanns (NE), Nelson (NE), McCaskill (MO) and Reid (NV  on Sen. Murkowski’s “Big Oil Bailout” resolution, which would have stripped the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon emissions.

The Sierra Club’s Michael Brune on the ads:

“As the nation continues to grapple with the BP oil disaster, one thing remains very clear – the urgent need to end to our dependence on oil. Now is the time for real action from our nation’s leaders to craft a foundation on which we can build an America free from oil addiction, create millions of new clean energy manufacturing, construction, and service jobs here at home, and reduce the carbon pollution that is threatening our economy, our health, and our climate. We’re joining our colleagues in the national security, labor, and conservationist communities today to tell Senators that the American people won’t tolerate shills for Big Oil and that won’t settle for anything less than a clean energy future.”

The ads in Florida depict Sen. Nelson as covered in oil, with his life in danger. Only action on climate and energy can save him. Nelson has been attacked over his connection to Big Oil and his vote is considered crucial to getting to 60, the minimum to avoid a filibuster.

A new Center for American Progress (CAP) report by Sean Pool presents the “network lifecycle” approach to clean energy innovation. The paper shows how the innovation lifecycle of clean energy technology can be divided into five phases, each involving a different an evolving network of participants with its own challenges and policy needs.

Freeing our economy from its dangerous addiction to fossil fuels and averting the calamitous risks of climate change will require a major technological transformation in the way we produce, transmit, and consume energy. Inventing, developing, building, and deploying these new technologies will require a new era of American technological innovation. The result will be new industries and jobs, along with more clean energy and less pollution.

The good news is that we know that innovation is a fundamental driver of economic growth, and America has led the world in innovation for the past two centuries—from the mechanization of textile manufacturing in the late 18th century to the invention of the Internet in the late 20th century. Innovation is America’s first and greatest competitive advantage—or, as President Obama said “it’s in our DNA.” Twenty-first century clean energy technologies are already being designed, built, marketed, and installed to replace more than a century’s worth of entrenched fossil fuel infrastructure, and a recent report by the Department of Commerce indicates that there are nearly 2 million clean energy jobs in our economy today, with more on the way.

The bad news, however, is this: the United States lags behind many other countries in these emerging technology sectors because our public policy does not fully recognize the central role that innovation plays in sustaining quality economic growth and job creation. Part of the problem is a lack of understanding about exactly what innovation is, how it works, and more importantly who is involved. Policymakers in particular need to understand how different public and private sector players interact to form innovation networks, and how these networks change over time, which is why we’ve put together this primer on the energy innovation lifecycle.

We’ll first define the different stages of the innovation lifecycle, then describe the network of players engaged at each stage of the process. This “network lifecycle” approach can help us better understand who does innovation, the processes that drive it, and the opportunities for public policy to aid it at various points in the process. As you’ll see, our innovation economy in the energy arena needs some key reforms to perform at its peak again.

Defining Innovation: New Ideas that Create Value

“Innovation” is a broad and often vague term, and its meaning varies in different policy circles. But no matter what the context, innovation is fundamentally the process of inventing, introducing, and adopting a new product, practice, system, or behavior.

An innovation can be a new product, machine, policy, business model, administrative structure, managerial system, or even a new cultural or social norm that benefits society. But regardless of whether an innovation affects social processes, economic process, or physical and technological processes, what distinguishes an innovation from an idea or a principle is that it creates value and improves society.

This paper focuses on clean energy technology innovation—the invention and propagation of new machines that generate, save, or transmit energy. But as we will show, producing these new devices also requires the use of new modes of manufacturing, which can be thought of as technologies themselves, as well as new business models that can finance, produce, market, and sell these new machines.

Creating a clean energy economy is just as much about “process innovation”—incremental improvements to the materials and manufacturing process of technologies we already know about—as it is about finding new or undiscovered “breakthrough technologies.” Understanding the five phases of energy “innovation lifecycles” and the five kinds of participants in “innovation networks” will help show how these seemingly separate goals are actually related.
Five phases of the energy “innovation lifecycle”

Energy innovation is not just the process of inventing new technologies and doing research and development in government or university labs. Innovation is actually a set of interrelated processes that can be broken down into five basic phases:

• Discovery
• Development
• Demonstration
• Commercialization
• Maturation

Each phase is undertaken by a different and evolving network of participants, and each has its own distinct policy needs.

The five-phase summary below is a synthesis of numerous academic innovation lifecycle models dating back to Joseph Schumpeter, an Austrian economist born in the late 19th century. It is important to note that rather than discrete or entirely separate categories, the different phases in this generalized model take place along a continuum and sometimes may overlap.

Discovery

Discovery is the process of researching a basic idea or scientific principle that may one day lead to a useful technology, and is done mostly by researchers in universities. This process also goes by the names “basic science,” “blue skies research,” or “pure research,” and the first goal of the process is to expand the store of scientific knowledge. Technologies at this stage in life are not fully formed, and most will never graduate to the next stage of development due to technical or cost-related constraints. Nevertheless, the goal of public policy at this stage is to empower smart researchers to cast as wide a net as possible in the hopes that one idea in a hundred could one day revolutionize industry. Government grants for university research and funding of federal labs are the primary sources of funding for this early phase of innovation, since there is not yet a functional technology that can produce profits for private investors. The Energy Frontier Research Centers are an excellent example of recent Department of Energy policy that is supporting discovery by putting money in the hands of able researchers with promising ideas on a competitive basis. The discovery phase creates science research and administrative jobs.

Development

Development is the process of linking the basic science of a discovery with functional technology, also sometimes known as “applied research.” Universities and government labs often continue to play a lead role during development, although promising technologies may begin to attract the attention of potential entrepreneurs, who seek out “seed funding” to help create startup companies to work on
developing the technology or even building functional prototypes.

Because the risks are too great for typical investors, this early jolt of private capital most often comes from angel investors—wealthy individuals who support entrepreneurs with personal funding—or venture capital firms, which do the same with larger pools of funding. Because funding for development is often very scarce, inventors and entrepreneurs themselves sometimes must tap into their personal savings—this is known as “boot-strapping.” This phase is also sometimes referred to as the “seed stage,” as the potential business generally has not developed a full grown and profitable business plan.

The Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, or ARPA-E, was designed on the same model as its older brother, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA. ARPA-E is an initiative of the DOE initially funded by the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and is an excellent example of support for development- phase technology innovation. Job creation during development includes both public and private research and administrative jobs, as well as the possibility for business, management, finance, and perhaps small-scale fabrication jobs.

Demonstration

Demonstration is the process of finalizing prototypes and testing them under real-world conditions to assess operability, technical performance, profitability, and in some cases even regulatory issues. This may also be referred to as “proof of concept” or “technology transfer” because this is the phase when technology must begin to move from labs and research institutions to assembly lines and
businesses. Both demonstration and early commercialization are sometimes also referred to as “deployment.”

Examples might include the construction and operation of a first-of-its-kind advanced nuclear reactor, a demonstration scale cellulosic ethanol biorefinery, or a coal-fired power plant with carbon capture-and-storage technology. All of these are scientifically understood technologies that are undergoing small-sale demonstration as a precursor to wider commercialization. Manufacturers who build, contractors who install, and utilities that operate and monitor the technology become essential parts of the innovation network at this stage, and their interactions with researchers and financiers promote an important kind of real-world knowledge creation called “learning by doing.”

Although demonstration projects are rarely profitable in isolation, the primary goal of demonstration is to indicate to the public, potential investors, and the business community that production processes now exist and that the technology is nearing market. As this takes place, the burden of financing begins to shift from basic government research grants to much smaller “proof of concept” development grants and on toward private financing from angel investors and venture capital firms, though the risks are still very high. For capital-intensive, industrial scale technologies, such as a commercial-scale carbon capture-and-storage coal plant, financing for demonstration may flow directly from established industry players or other large companies.

But private investors need to see a clear path to profitability before investing, and demonstration projects on their own can rarely provide this without public support. In the highly regulated and capital intensive energy industry, the path to profitability often depends on significant government incentives and assurances. This is especially problematic for capital-intensive clean energy technologies that require a lot of upfront investment to develop land, build power lines, and construct and install equipment. The scarcity of private finance is why many in the business and policy community refer to the process of carrying a promising technology from proof of concept through commercialization as crossing the “valley of death.”

Commercialization

The commercialization phase is when new technologies must meet the market test. Entrepreneurs must prove that they can produce and sell the new products profitably to early adopters and niche markets. This generally involves finalizing production processes, building a factory, obtaining manufacturing equipment, developing relationships with component suppliers, and finding enough potential buyers to make it all a worthwhile investment.

The “valley of death” private financing problem is acute at this stage, too, as new funding is critical to this cash-intensive and often capital-intensive phase of the innovation cycle. Follow-on rounds of venture capital, private equity, and/or debt financing (that is, borrowing from a bank or selling bonds) become increasingly prominent sources of money, as small- to medium- scale manufacturing and services operations are established. Startup companies at this phase are expected to generate some cash flow from sales of the technology, although profitability for the first few years may still depend on government incentives such as tax credits or cash grants for investment and electricity production, loan guarantees, or the sale of Renewable Energy Certificates to utilities who need them to meet state renewable electricity standards.

Commercialization is a critical bottleneck in current U.S. innovation policy because entrepreneurs have a growing backlog of technically proven technologies for which they cannot find affordable financing to grow their operations and achieve the economies of scale necessary to compete with conventional incumbent technologies. A Clean Energy Deployment Administration or “Green Bank” that can provide loan guarantees and other credit enhancements is one potential policy response to this market pitfall. The creation of a public-private equity investment partnership could be another way to break this financing bottleneck.

Commercialization creates more permanent manufacturing and construction jobs, as companies increase profitability and invest in and operate new manufacturing facilities, and as clean energy technologies are deployed, installed, and operated.

Maturation

Maturation occurs when new technologies graduate from niche to mainstream markets by scaling up manufacturing, gaining market share, increasing efficiency, and showing that they can compete on cost with incumbent sources of energy. In the case of renewable energy, this often occurs once technologies reach “grid parity”—the point at which the renewable energy is equal to or cheaper in price than existing power sources.

As new technologies become commercially competitive, they gain market share and gradually begin to displace incumbent technologies. This process is sometimes also called “diffusion.” Mature innovation networks should ideally become profitable for all participants independent of government incentive programs, although in the case of the incumbent fossil fuel industry, many wasteful subsidies continue to persist due to political pressure. As profitability becomes positive, seed-stage investors, angel investors, and venture capitalists are able to “exit” their investments and make a profit, either by selling their shares at an initial public offering or by selling the entire company to another larger corporation.

The innovation cycle begins anew at this stage as increasingly self-sufficient clean energy manufacturers begin to reinvest their own profits in new research toward incremental improvements to their technology and production process, or seek to acquire smaller companies with promising ideas for how to continue to improve quality or reduce costs. Continuing process innovation remains critical, even for mature technologies, but policymakers all too often ignore this aspect of innovation policy. The bailout of the U.S. auto industry, for example, can be seen as a failure of a mature industry to continue to innovate.

A major goal of public policy at this stage is to ensure that cutting-edge researchers and manufacturers continue to collaborate effectively to organically develop and commercialize the next generation of clean energy manufacturing technologies. But direct government incentives for investment and production of the original technology should begin to sunset on a reliable path.

Finally, finding a price for carbon that finally holds polluters accountable for the damages they cause would be the largest and most important long-term driver of private sector finance for clean energy activities. It would signal to the investment community that the clean energy sector is ripe for long-term growth, and unleash billions of dollars of in private, profitable investment in new businesses, new infrastructure, and new jobs.

When it comes to the green revolution this is the biggest battle that is being faced; arm chair activist and people who think the environmental problems that we’re encountering will work out by themselves. Is the real problem for renewable energy, sustainable living, and reducing our dependency on oil from the lack of scientific evidence or the promoted outlook on life that is becoming standardized with American citizens?

Note: Barbara makes a really interesting note on individual power and collective power in the last minute of the video.

A groundbreaking 2006 United Nations report found thatraising animals for food generates more greenhouse gases than all the cars and trucks in the world combined[1].

Luckily, we can help fix this problem by changing our diet.

According to a 2006 study done by researchers at the University of Chicago, most Americans can reduce more greenhouse gas emissions by becoming a vegan than they can by switching to a hybrid electric car.

They found that eating a vegan diet prevents the equivalent of 1.5 tons of CO2 emissions every year, more than the 1 ton of CO2 emissions prevented by switching from a typical large sedan to a Toyota Prius [2].

So why does meat cause so much global warming? There are a number of factors. Here are a few:

• Manure. The tens of billions of farmed animals of the world produce massive amounts of manure, which emit green house gases such as methane, nitrous oxide, and carbon dioxide.
• Cow Burps. Ruminant animals such as cows and sheep, also emit huge quantities of methane via burping and flatulence. Methane has 23 times the global warming potential of CO2, and the livestock industry alone is responsible for 37 percent of human-induced methane emissions.
• Deforestation. Forests are being destroyed to make room for cattle to graze or to grow crops to feed livestock. When the trees are cut down or burned, the CO2 they store escapes back into the air.
• Synthetic Fertilizer. Growing feed for farmed animals requires intense use of synthetic fertilizers manufactured with fossil fuels. This process emits a tremendous amount of CO2, and the fertilizer releases nitrous oxide[3] — a greenhouse gas that is 296 times more potent than carbon dioxide.
• Burning Fossil Fuels. The burning of fossil fuels releases CO2, one of the primary gases responsible for global warming. In addition to fertilizer manufacturing, the meat industry uses fossil fuels to heat the buildings that house the animals, to produce of all the crops to feed to the animals, and to transport, process, and refrigerate all of the meat. Cornell ecologist David Pimentel estimates that animal protein demands about eight times as much fossil fuel than for a comparable amount of plant protein.

Why should we care? Global warming is a problem that could have devastating long term consequences. As the National Resource Defense Council notes, if we don’t do something soon to prevent this, “Sea levels will rise, flooding coastal areas. Heat waves will be more frequent and more intense. Droughts and wildfires will occur more often. Disease-carrying mosquitos will expand their range. And species will be pushed to extinction.” [5]

Many of these changes have already begun.

References

I’m sure you’ve heard the terms Cap and Trade in the news and probably most recently as saving energy has become even more important. Cap and Trade will be affecting us all and is a subject that you’ll need to be educated on because you’ll see it coming through your legislation in the near future. Cap and Trade is actually quite complex but the following video by Planet 100 does a great job condensing this crucial environmental topic down to the nuts and bolts.

Where Cap and Trade Legislation Is Heading

Current legislation has been in battle for an all encompassing Cap and Trade system and has now been narrowed down to a utility only bill. The logic behind narrowing an all encompassing cap and trade bill down to a utility bill is simple due to the fact that electricity is the biggest emitter for carbon.

U.S. Energy Information Administration

For another, most of the lowest-cost carbon reductions are expected to come from electricity. Here’s how the EIA projects an economy-wide cap-and-trade system would affect various sectors:

via Ezra Klein via Harvard’s Robert Stavins

As you can see, about half the total carbon reduction under an economy-wide cap-and-trade system is expected to come from the utility sector. By contrast, transportation is scarcely affected. The reason for this is simple: It takes an extremely high price on carbon to substantially raise the price of gasoline.

Under the American Power Act, the ceiling on the price of a ton of carbon in 2013 is $25. Even in the unlikely event that the price hits the ceiling, that will boost the price of a gas by just under a quarter per gallon. Given that gas has swung around over a $2-3 range just in the last few years, a quarter isn’t much more than noise. A recent study at Harvard found that in order to reduce carbon emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, gas will need to rise to $7 a gallon by then. Getting there from today’s $4 gas would require a carbon price of well over $300 a ton, and that, in turn, would completely upend the utility sector. So it won’t happen.

In sum: Cap-and-trade was always mostly about the utility sector, so if it becomes explicitly about the utility sector, it’s not a total loss, if a few conditions are met. Read more at Grist

Leave a comment if you have any additional questions or would like some more resources for your own research.

After reading an article on how a small Japanese village recycles everything under the kitchen sink to reach 2020 zero waste goals I started to look around unique ways people can start reducing their waist in cleaner way. Smells, aesthetic appeal, and time it takes to create your own compost bin can be deterring for many people including myself. However I cam across this KinetiCompost at Quirky a company that helps take creative ideas to market.

The KinetiCompost is the fastest, simplest, most eco-friendly way to create nutrient-rich compost for your garden. All you have to do is put your compostable materials in KinetiCompost’s rotomolded barrel, pop on the lid, and let mother nature do what she would normally do – only about 10X faster! KinetiCompost is made of durable, 100% recycled plastic and steel so you don’t have to worry about harming the environment!

These types of green products need to be more saturated in our market. I feel that a lot of people want to do the right thing however they don’t want to give up their lifestyle or appearance. These types of products make it easy for people to make a change in their lives which we all know change is one of the hardest things for a human being to do.

After four trips to visit the gulf stat affected by the BP disaster President Oboma plans to give his first-ever Oval Office speech to the nation on Tuesday evening.This manmade calamity threatens the nation’s economy, health, and environment. This is also a crucial moment in the BP catastrophe, which threatens to swamp his domestic agenda. But it also provides an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate leadership by tackling all the aspects of this crisis, including taking charge of the clean up, getting more help from BP, providing long-term public health and economic recovery, and adopting an oil-use and pollution-reduction reform agenda to minimize the likelihood of another catastrophe.

Moreover this is an even a bigger opportunity for community members in our state to start understanding what is going on in our own local area. To give you a quick update here’s a letter that I received from our state’s senator Patty Murray. I’d like to ask you a few questions to keep at top of mind when reading through this letter from our senator.

1. Do you think we’re doing enough collectively in our city?
2. What other political or grass root movements are happening that you think deserves some light on their efforts?
3. What tools do you need to make a difference?

Dear Mr. Lemenager:

Thank you for contacting me regarding energy and climate change legislation currently being considered in Congress.  I appreciate hearing from you regarding this important issue.

As you know, our nation is faced with a growing global demand for energy, a heavy reliance on fossil fuels, high energy prices, and environmental concerns regarding energy use.  Washington state families are struggling with energy costs in these tough economic times, and we all want a more diversified national energy policy that increases our national security by cutting our demand for foreign oil.

The Pacific Northwest has much to lose from climate change, including increasingly severe storms and rising sea levels.  Climate change will negatively impact forests, coastal and salmon habitats, and economically important farmland.  These resources define Washington state’s quality of life and help sustain the region’s economic competitiveness.  I believe American innovation will lead to real solutions to these issues, and will be an economic engine that creates millions of clean technology jobs.  Congress must adopt a comprehensive policy that promotes research and development to keep America at the cutting edge of the clean technology economy.

As you may know, the House of Representatives passed H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act, on June 26, 2009.  There are several energy and climate change proposals under consideration by the Senate.  Senator Bingaman (D-NM) has an energy only bill.  Senator Cantwell (D-WA) introduced a “cap and dividend” bill.  Most recently, Senators Kerry (D-MA) and Lieberman (I-CT) have unveiled a draft comprehensive climate and energy proposal that prices carbon.  I am working with my colleagues to continue to push for a comprehensive climate change and clean energy bill.

Throughout my tenure in the United States Senate, I have supported energy and climate policies that benefit consumers, encourage diversification of our nation’s energy sources and protect our fragile environment. As a member of both the Senate Budget and Appropriation Committees, I have fought for increased funding for important alternative energy research and development programs in Washington State and across the nation. In order to encourage private sector development of new forms of energy technology, I have consistently supported higher fuel economy standards for vehicles and federal tax incentives to help spur investment in wind, solar, biomass, and other renewable energy sources. I believe it is vital that Congress works to increase energy independence without sacrificing environmental protections or hurting the economy or consumers.

Energy use and climate change are two of the most critical issues facing our nation. Please be assured I will keep your views in mind as related legislation comes before the Senate for consideration. If you would like to know more about my work in the Senate, please feel free to sign up for my updates at http://murray.senate.gov/updates. Thank you again for writing, and please keep in touch.

I hope all is well in Issaquah.

Sincerely,

Patty Murray
United States Senator

Greenopolis makes a very simple – yet powerful – promise to their users:

• Help you to recycle easily
• Help to save our natural resources for our children’s children
• Track conservation through recycling and re-use
• Educate and reward conservation

Through both the On-Line site of Greenopolis and their physical, On-Street presence of Greenopolis Recycling Kiosks, they allow customers to do actual, “trackable” good for the planet. They also try to make your everyday life better by offering rewards for helping the world and changing the way we handle natural resource and recyclables.

Take some time create an account and contribute some of your thoughts to their cause.

A coworker and friend Benjamin Gauthey sent me this video today. It’s amazing what true innovative minds can do with so little. In 300 square feet this apartment can change into 24 different rooms with some innovative sliding walls.

This video really leaves me thinking what are the things in my life I look to expand because I want more instead of thinking how can I change what I currently have to fit my needs. This is a big question that needs to be addressed for the green community. Building new tech and products are great however are they solving the right problems. How are you innovating your life?