#State Leadership In Financing A Greener Future While crippling paralysis has become standard operating procedure for Congress in the face of mounting climate and energy challenges,
state and local leaders don have the luxury of standing idle. Around the country, many governors and mayors are finding new ways to respond to the real-world challenges of a changing climate.
Chief among these efforts is a growing movement to establish state green banks: innovative new financial institutions that use public debt to leverage new and significant private-sector investment in more modern
and less-polluting domestic clean energy infrastructure. Notably, in 2013, the state of New york set the foundation for a $1 billion state green bank to support private investment in New york clean energy economy.
In December 2013, Gov. Cuomo announced an initial capitalization of $210 million to fund the bank launch in early 2014.
Launching this bank is an important act of leadership by the governor and the New york state government to provide better tools to build a stronger,
more competitive, and more resilient economy. The New york Green Bank is launching at a time of mounting evidence of the direct negative impacts of climate change on the nation environment, economy, and energy infrastructure.
Superstorm Sandy exposed this vulnerability with stark urgency and in so doing has underscored the critical investment challenge of rapidly building smart, resilient,
and low-carbon energy infrastructure. At the same time, new clean energy technologies are distinctly ready to meet this challenge, but bringing these technologies to scaled deployment across the economy is contingent on having ready access to capital and strong market structures to support new investment.
In recent years the clean energy sector has demonstrated dynamic growth. U s. solar power capacity, for instance, recently surpassed 10 gigawatts as the price of solar panels has fallen some 75 percent during the past five years
and continues to drop. Furthermore, America largest source of new electrical capacity in 2012 came from wind power,
lifting the total U s. wind capacity to more than 60 gigawatts. These successes are spurring new private-sector attention to the opportunities for clean technology.
The leadership of individual states to utilize their financing authorities to improve access to credit
and better manage financial risk is a bright spot in advancing the development of a clean energy economy powered by a modernized and climate-resilient electricity infrastructure.
Although the cleantech industry continues to grow, one of the primary hurdles to bringing new clean energy technology to market remains the availability of the affordable capital needed to move great ideas from the research
and prototype phase to a commercial scale. Advanced energy technologies are forced to compete with well-established
and historically government-subsidized conventional energy industries for limited available capital. This competition creates an artificially inflated perception of risk,
which can strand innovative business models and new technologies in what is known as the alley of death, where efficient,
low-cost capital is simply not available from institutional investors and bond markets to finance commercialization at scale.
This is where state green banks come into play. These financial institutions are some of the most powerful tools for mobilizing new sources of public and private capital into emerging and necessary clean energy projects.
Independently administered and self-sustaining, green banks offer much-needed certainty and predictability to investors by ensuring reliable access to efficiently priced and long-term sources of credit to finance publically beneficial, clean energy infrastructure.
Although green banks are relatively new institutional mechanisms, they have proven to be well-crafted strategies for stimulating robust private-market participation.
National green banks have been deployed successfully in the United kingdom, Germany, andchina to harmonize policies and systematically marshal public credit supports to build emerging clean energy markets.
In the United states the Connecticut Clean energy Finance and Investment Authority is building a strong track record of success,
while Hawaii, Massachusetts, and California are also establishing similar clean energy financing entities. These emerging green banks also draw on the experiences of infrastructure banks employed in California, Puerto rico, British columbia,
and elsewhere to finance the construction of bridges, roads, transit, and other public facilities. Current state of clean energy financing programs Connecticut The New york Green Bank will join the Connecticut Clean energy Finance and Investment Authority,
or CEFIA, in paving the way for the successful implementation of state green banks and public,
state-level, clean energy financing. Established in 2011, CEFIA featured an initial capitalization of $48 million to provide broad credit support to Connecticut clean energy projects and companies.
CEFIA supports the development of Connecticut clean energy industry through a combination of grants, loans, and other credit supports,
as well as educational programs for businesses and homeowners. These programs include lending for residential solar electricity and hot-water systems,
deep energy efficiency retrofit loans through the Property Assessed Clean energy, or PACE, program for commercial and multifamily buildings,
and a competitive grant program for micro grids. In 2013 CEFIA used $40 million to attract more than $180 million of private investment f
which $20 million will be recovered. This investment supported almost 30 megawats of new clean energy and savings of 9, 000 MMBTU of energy per year.
Hawaii In June 2013, Hawaii enacted S b. 1087, which authorized $100 million in bonds to finance a renewable energy loan fund that can provide low-cost financing for homeowners
and businesses to invest in solar panels and other clean energy projects. The loans, which are designed to offset the upfront cost of photovoltaic systems,
can be paid back through on-bill financing, a payment plan that allows homeowners to pay back the loans through a premium on their utility bills.
The program could be especially beneficial for low-income residents and renters, helping them secure the necessary upfront capital
and extend payback timeframes. California California currently operates two green financing authorities through the state treasurer office:
The California Alternative energy and Advanced Transportation Financing Authority, orcaeatfa, and the California Pollution control Financing Authority, or CPCFA.
These programs have issued more than $13 billion in tax-exempt bonds to finance low-cost loans for energy-efficiency improvements and tax incentives for clean energy manufacturing.
California has seen recently also a renewed push to establish a dedicated green bank. Democratic State Sen.
Kevin de Leon of California has proposed a green infrastructure bank that would issue loans and financial assistance to public and private economic development projects.
Lieutenant Gov. Gavin Newsom has called for a similar green bank initiative and suggested that proceeds from California cap
and trade auctions could finance it. Such a bank would further augment California ambitious support for a robust clean energy industry
and would represent an efficient use of funds already designated to reduce California emissions. Massachusetts In 2009, Massachusetts established the Massachusetts Clean energy Center,
or Masscec, which invests in early stage clean energy companies and renewable energy projects. Masscecalso provides financing tools to municipalities, homeowners,
and businesses in the form of loans, rebates, and grants. Masscec programs have helped support the growth of Massachusetts clean energy industry, with an 11.8 percent increase in clean energy jobs from 2012 to 2013.
Unlike a true green bank, however, the program remains focused on early stage markets. In 2013
Massachusetts began a Green Bond program to attract environmentally conscious investors. The socially responsible bonds will be used to finance environmentally friendlyinfrastructure initiatives,
including water quality projects, energy-efficiency upgrades for state buildings, river revitalization, and habitat restoration projects. In June 2013, the state sold $100 million worth of green bonds as part of a larger bond sale, attracting some new investors specifically because of the green label.
This program represents a positive step in Massachusetts to prioritize investment in green infrastructure projects and could serve as a strong foundation for a fully capitalized state green bank in the future.
West Coast Infrastructure Exchange Launched in November 2012 the West Coast Infrastructure Exchange, or WCX, is a partnershipof Oregon, California, Washington,
and British columbia that facilitates collaboration by the region four state or provincial governments on small and large infrastructure projects, especially interstate projects.
The states anticipate that $1 trillion of necessary infrastructure investment will be required over the next 30 years.
In order to facilitate efficient financing and project management, WCX will work to build public-private partnerships,
standardize project assessments, and convene working groups to evaluate project-financing needs. The most likely projects for WCX are new development and the retrofit of the region electricity grids and water infrastructure.
WCX will seek to attract large state pension funds such as California State Public Employeesretirement System, or Calpers,
and California State Teachersretirement System, or Calstrs, as well as institutional investors for these capital-intensive but reliable investments.
However, while WCX will serve similar purposes to state green banks, there is no indication that it will provide direct financial support to leverage private investments for infrastructure.
Rather, the exchange will likely facilitate the coordination and streamlining solely of private capital without public enhancement.
Key mechanisms for state green banks State green banks are important but underutilized tools because they attack the very heart of the challenges currently facing renewable energy and energy efficiency in capital markets.
These financial institutions can specifically target some of the most significant and persistent market barriers that have served to slow the development and deployment of new clean energy technologies.
In order to maximize their effectiveness, green banks can employ improved mechanisms to flexibly facilitate the aggregation, credit enhancement, andsecuritization of renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects.
By doing so, states can significantly improve the function and structure of their clean energy markets.
Each of these tools will efficiently inject limited public dollars into transactions in a way that leverages far greater private investment than would have been accomplished otherwise,
thus increasing the scale and scope of public-sector impacts. By allowing private capital to flow more efficiently into publically beneficial projects
a green bank can reduce costs for taxpayers and ratepayers, while significantly increasing the effective use of limited public dollars.
Aggregation State green banks should focus on mechanisms that allow the aggregation of decentralized investments across energy and real estate markets.
Currently, the volume and project size of clean energy transactions are often too small and decentralized to attract private capital efficiently into the market.
As a result, pricing is artificially high, decreasing investment and establishing a vicious cycle that suppresses clean energy deployment.
By serving as a warehouse for energy-efficiency and renewable energy loansnd by providing a clear point of entry into the market for customers
investors, and project developersreen banks can play a critically important function in beginning to build volume,
reduce costs, and achieve scale across statesclean energy markets and within the emerging industries. In addition, green banks should be allowed flexibility to experiment with policy designs
in order to learn which types of aggregating mechanisms are utilized most readily in the market. Credit enhancement A key principle of green banks is that they use public dollars strategically to reduce perceived risks for private investors in undertaking investments in clean energy projects.
By providing well-structured credit enhancements, a green bank can align public investments in a more targeted way to fill gaps in the capital market in order to leverage far greater volumes of private capital into needed projects.
State green banks should employ a range of credit-enhancement mechanisms from establishing loan-loss reserve funds to originating subordinated debt into individual transactions and developing new insurance products or other risk-mitigation strategies.
The particular structures employed, however, must be driven by the needs of different energy technologies, market segments, target investors,
or beneficiary populations within the state, and they will vary across the programs of such a bank.
Securitization Green banks can add great value to a state renewable energy and energy-efficiency market by facilitating the securitization of these asset-backed investments.
There is a substantial disconnect in current markets between the financing and origination of specific clean energy projects and the scaled institutional investment in pooled financial products.
The current inability of project developers to efficiently access institutional capital in the secondary market limits the liquidity of investments
and serves to further inflate pricing, increase complexity in transactions, and decrease overall volume. Acting in this way,
green banks will greatly support the development of clean energy projects across states and will positively impact the cost of clean energy development by offering real consumer protection for ratepayers,
while expanding the deployment of renewable energy and energy-efficiency projects. A key design principle of any proposed green bank is that it is structured to increase private-sector participation in the market for clean energy project financing.
This will gradually reduce the need for public subsidy as the market achieves maturity and commercial scale.
Rather than crowding out participation of private financial institutions, a green bank should use carefully targeted inducements to leverage greater private investment
and bring new participants into these transactions. As previously noted, the tools employed by green banks are understood well
and have been amply proven in other areas of public finance, including affordable housing, community economic development, technology research and development,
and infrastructure investment. Through green banks, these strategies can be employed to meet the specific challenges of clean energy deployment and market transformation.
As free standing and self-sustaining financial institutions, green banks can also offer much-needed support for more effective implementation of widely used state regulations such as Renewable Portfolio Standards,
or RPS, and Energy efficiency Resource Standards, or EERS. Thirty states and the District of columbia currently employ RPS initiatives,
and 25 states haveeers mechanisms to promote clean energy development. Green banks can act as powerful accelerants of these important policies by facilitating the availability of the capital necessary to finance the costs of meeting these goals
and by boosting the expansion of the markets that such policies are intended to support. Green banks can enhance the predictability and stability of renewable energy and energy-efficiency markets and,
if properly administered and fully capitalized, they will accelerate and magnify the impact of these market-driving regulations.
By mobilizing private capital efficiently in the service of meeting strong standards state green banks can prove to be powerful resources in helping utilities, developers,
and state regulators to more effectively meet the ambitious goals and targets laid out in RPS and EEPS statutes across the country.
Finally, green banks offer states a mechanism to reallocate unspent direct subsidies or new revenue from environmental initiatives into establishing durable credit facilities,
which will induce vastly more private capital for vitally beneficial public projects. Establishing a green bank allows states to put dollars to work that would
otherwise provide onetime consumer benefits and instead use those limited public funds to leverage new private capital resources that would
otherwise be unavailable for clean energy investments. Furthermore because green banks are designed to recycle the proceeds from these transactions,
they are able to cycle investments multiple times, thereby reducing the need for further public subsidy over time.
For all of these reasons, a green bank should be preferred a mechanism for inducing new capital investment,
accelerating the maturation of state clean energy markets, and helping the nation as a whole move toward a transformed, clean energy economy.
Conclusion With the initial capitalization of the New york Green Bank, New york has launched a dynamic tool that,
by operating within the market, will yield incentives that are far more enduring than any programs of onetime subsidies.
By establishing a robust green bank Gov. Cuomo has taken bold leadership action. New york green bank offers an evergreen source of capital,
which will continue to invest in clean energy projects and promote overall economic growth long after the Obama administration tenure.
Such a proposal represents smart economic policy, as well as sound energy policy, and it will benefit New york ratepayers
and taxpayers as it improves environmental and community health. New york, Connecticut, and Hawaii are paving the way today with their green banks for new private-sector investment within robust, reliable,
and expanding clean energy markets that meet the needs of a vibrant and growing economy. As clean energy technologies continue to demonstrate their growing competitiveness
they will require access to sufficient streams of affordable capital for successful commercialization. This trend is already underway through new investments in public solar companiesand auto companiesrenewed focus on clean technologies.
Green banks are the right tools to leverage the private financing necessary to bring these technologies to wide-scale commercialization and support their competition within energy markets.
Moreover, state green banks offer great potential to drive innovation, fueling local and regional economic growth and job creation.
America and the rest of the world are facing vast climate and energy challenges. State green banks are a uniquely flexible solution that can operate at the scale of this challenge to accelerate the development and deployment of next-generation technology and infrastructure that is clean
resilient, and vastly more efficient. As our country faces the growing danger of extreme weather and climate change, it is all too clear that investment in state of the-art-the art clean energy infrastructure is essential for the continued strength of the U s. economy.
By advancing this financing strategy, elected officials and regulatory agencies can take bold action to ensure the economic vitality and long-term interests of their citizens, consumers, and ratepayers.
The New york Green Bank represents a bold next step in this growing national movement o
#Implants And Powering Them From Within Your heart expends half a joule of energy every time it beats.
That the same amount of juice you need to lift an apple 1. 6 feet off the ground.
Before every contraction, the potential energy trapped in chemical bonds within cardiac muscle cells is released and converted into the mechanical power of the heartbeat.
But, like all energy, that which is harnessed to power the heart is destroyed never; it just changes form as it radiates away from the organ as heat and vibrations of surrounding tissue and fluid.
Now, a science team has announced a breakthrough in harvesting the energy released from the movement of the beating heart,
the breathing lung and the flexing diaphragm. Theye developed a superthin device that can be attached to an organ to generate electricity from its movements.
The tiny device is already within the range of generating enough electricity to power a pacemaker on its own,
says John Rogers, a coauthor of the study that was published on Jan 20 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. he thing about cardiac pacemakers is that they are operated currently battery
and have limited a lifespan, says Rogers, a University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign materials science and engineering professor. hen the battery runs out,
you need to have surgery to replace it. Power is always a challenge. The innovation is a flexible piezoelectric layer sandwiched between biocompatible plastic.
Rogers says the whole system is about as stiff as the plastic used to make food wrappers.
When the piezoelectric material flexes due to contraction and relaxation of the organ to which it is affixed,
it generates electrical energy from the movement. Because organ movements occur as pulses, the team had to include energy storage in their creation
so that electricity could be delivered continually. They accomplished this by building in a tiny chip-scale
commercially available battery into the device. Thin, flexible mechanical energy harvester, with rectifier and microbattery, mounted on the bovine heart.
Courtesy University of Illinois/University of Arizona. Thin, flexible mechanical energy harvester, with rectifier and microbattery, mounted on the bovine heart.
Courtesy University of Illinois/University of Arizona. The team found through testing that their system could deliver 0. 2 microwatts per square centimeter of stable electricity over 20 million cycles.
Voltage and current outputs, they write, were three to five orders of magnitude higher than previous experiments.
These results, the team concluded, demonstrate that their system could power implants like pacemakers with
or without batteries. ur ultimate goal is to replace the battery of an implant altogether,
Rogers tells Txchnologist, ut even extending the life of the implant own battery is useful.
They grew rat smooth muscle cells on their prototypes to determine that the materials were not toxic.
They then affixed it to beating sheep and cow hearts to see if it would operate as they had hoped
and determine the best positions to place it. Their system converts mechanical to electrical energy at about two percent efficiency,
a number that Rogers says is need based on the not to interfere with the target organ natural operation.
The authors see huge potentials in their device both inside and outside the human body. ardiac and lung motions, in particular, serve as inexhaustible sources of energy during the lifespan of a patient,
they write. n addition to uses on internal organs, the same types of systems can be implemented in skin-mounted configurations for health/wellness monitors or nonbiomedical devices.
The potential to eliminate batteries or, at least, the need to replace them frequently represents a source of motivation for continued work in these and related directions. e
#Cadillac ELR Regen On Demand Technology Wins Award Cadillac, in developing the ELR extended range electric vehicle,
did actually build a ride that, while pricey, also has a number of innovations in it.
One particular feature, its Regen on Demand regenerative braking technology, stands out so much for its design it was awarded recently the Green Car Journal 2014 Green Car technology Award.
As for what this is specifically, Cadillac described Regen on Demand by saying that ike most regenerative braking systems in hybrid and electric vehicles,
the ELR electric motor acts as a generator while braking, automatically recovering energy that delivered to the batteries as electricity.
Unique to the ELR extended range electric vehicle, Regen on Demand also allows a driver to instantaneously engage
and disengage regen at will by pulling back or releasing left or right steering wheel paddles. This not only creates electricity on demand,
but enhances driving dynamics by inducing regen drag that allows decelerating before turns and in other circumstances,
without braking or requiring a driver foot to reposition from the accelerator pedal. adillac has evolved cleverly a common electric-drive efficiency system into an intriguing feature that adds a new dimension to the driving experience,
said Ron Cogan, editor and publisher of Green Car Journal and Carsofchange. com, in a statement. ver-increasing efficiency is crucial to our driving future,
yet efficiency itself is not an attraction for a great many car buyers. Cadillac Regen on Demand is inspired an example of how technology can increase efficiency
while connecting with a driver, enhancing driving dynamics along the way. Besides the Cadillac ELR technology, other nominees for the award included the Acura Sport Hybrid SH-AWD powertrain;
Audi 3. 0-liter TDI clean diesel engine; BMW i3 carbon fiber reinforced plastic passenger cell; Ford 1. 0-liter Ecoboost engine;
Honda accord plug-in powertrain; Hyundai hydrogen fuel cell; Mazda i-ELOOP brake energy regeneration system; Porsche plug-in hybrid powertrain;
and Ram Truck 3. 0-liter Ecodiesel engine D
#New Sensor Easily Detects Greenhouse gases Scientists have created a highly sensitive portable sensor to test the air for the most damaging greenhouse gases.
The device uses a thumbnail-sized quantum cascade laser (QCL) as well as tuning forks that cost no more than a dime to detect very small amounts of nitrous oxide and methane.
The QCL emits light from the mid-to far-infrared portion of the spectrum. That allows for far better detection of gases than more common lasers that operate in the near-infrared.
The technique called uartz-enhanced photoacoustic absorption spectroscopy (QEPAS invented at Rice university in 2002 by engineer Frank Tittel, Professor Robert Curl,
and their collaborators, offers the possibility that such devices may soon be as small as a typical smartphone.
Tittel team tested the small device at a Houston dump and found it capable of detecting trace amounts of methane3 parts per billion by volume (ppbv) nd nitrous oxide ppbv. ethane
and nitrous oxide are both significant greenhouse gases emitted from human activities, says Tittel, professor of electrical and computer engineering and a professor of bioengineering. ethane is emitted by natural sources, such as wetlands,
and human activities, such as leakage from natural gas systems and the raising of livestock. uman activities such as agriculture, fossil fuel combustion, wastewater management,
and industrial processes are increasing the amount of nitrous oxide in the atmosphere. he warming impact of methane
and nitrous oxide is more than 20 and 300 times, respectively, greater compared with the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, over a 100-year period.
For these reasons, methane and nitrous oxide detection is crucial to environmental considerations. QUARTZ TUNING FORK The small QCL has only become available in recent years,
Tittel says, and is far better able to detect trace amounts of gas than lasers used in the past.
Previous versions of the QCL are just as effective, but far too bulky for mobile use.
What makes the technique possible is the small quartz tuning fork, which vibrates at a specific frequency
when stimulated. he ones we use are made for digital watches and are very cheap, says postdoctoral researcher
and co-lead author Wei Ren. he fundamental theory behind this is the photoacoustic effect. The laser beam is focused between the two prongs of the quartz tuning fork.
When light at a specific wavelength is absorbed by the gas of interest localized heating of the molecules leads to a temperature
and pressure increase in the gas. f the incident light intensity is modulated, then the temperature and pressure will be as well,
Ren says. his generates an acoustic wave with the same frequency as the light modulation,
and that excites the quartz tuning fork. he tuning fork is a piezoelectric element, so when the wave causes it to vibrate,
it produces a voltage we can detect. That signal is proportional to the gas concentration.
The unit can detect the presence of methane or nitrous oxide in just a second he says.
GETTING SMALLER To field test the device, the team installed it on a mobile laboratory used during NASA DISCOVER-AQ campaign, which analyzed pollution on the ground and from the air last September.
The lab analyzed emissions from a Houston landfill, and the QEPAS sensor findings compared favorably with the lab much larger instrument,
Tittel says. his was a milestone for trace-gas sensing, Ren says. ow wee trying to minimize the size of the whole system.
Tittel says a smaller QEPAS device will be added this year to the mobile monitoring van currently carrying out a Rice university of Houston survey of pollutants in the city.
Postdoctoral researcher Mohammad Jahjah is co-lead author of the paper which appears in the journal Analyst.
The National Science Foundation and the Robert Welch Foundation supported the research
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