Smartplanet turned to David Biello who has been writing about the environment and energy for nearly 15 years, most recently for Scientific American.
which has helped fuel our exploding population and our overwhelming population is now causing even more problems.
Extending modern energy to the billion or so people who are still burning wood or dung.
These are things we should be doing right away to buy us some time to solve the harder problem of how to stop burning fossil fuels.
Eighty percent or more of our energy is still coming from fossil fuels. Eventually we need to go to zero or negative with our CO2 emissions.
But we need to remember the energy transitions in the past. Going from wood to coal took 200 years.
And we still are not completely there! As I mentioned earlier, there are still parts of the world where wood is the primary fuel source.
We need to get started on our transition from fossil fuel burning so that we can complete the transition in time to save human civilization.
That is if we want the Anthropocene to be more than a blip in the geologic record.
even if we burn all the fossil fuels, the planet as a rock will survive and so will a lot of the life on the planet,
What about the government agency Advanced Research Projects Agency Energy (ARPA-E? Â Are they working on useful solutions?
They are trying to get us off fossil fuels. SP: Are they as â Å out there â Â as their brother, DARPA,
And what we require is cheap energy. They are working on things like better batteries to replace oil used in transportation.
And they are doing natural gas research. And better biofuels research, like re-engineering plants, so they do a better job of turning sunlight into fuels than current plants do.
Or bypassing plants altogether, by taking sunlight and somehow turning it into a fuel that you can burn.
We are going to need every little bit of innovation to displace the burning of fossil fuels. SP:
What does success look like to you? DB: Success has three parts. One is a resilient and robust human civilization.
The fuel is cheap and inexhaustible. Green nuclear power can solve the global crises of air pollution deaths and climate change.
Cheap energy can help developing nations escape poverty and let industrialized nations improve economic growth. Is it safe?
and smoke detectors give us more radiation than nuclear plants do, but that's the message between the lines.
To those of you who have seen the pro-nuclear film Pandora's Promise, who can forget the irony-laced scene where the anti-nuke protestors take a break to eat sustenance-giving bananas?)
 Except in the rare, unlucky instances when nuclear plants go wrong-Fukushima and Chernobyl for instance-they do not emit radiation to the general public.
The average coal plant has spewed far more radiation over the years than has nuclear. Coal operators are allowed to do this under naturally occurring radioactive materials (NORM) exemptions.
 Especially alternative forms of nuclear reactors under development in some countries, which improve nuclear's safety performance to an even higher level,
and which auger advancements in economics, operations and waste management over today's reactors. Â Hargraves is particularly keen on a reactor that uses liquid thorium fuel instead of solid uranium,
as he makes clear in his book Thorium: Energy cheaper than coal (he  is also an adviser to Flibe Energy,
one of several startup companies that is developing a liquid reactor). Yes, it's time for more nuclear power.
if we had more nuclear reactors from which to pull them. Radiation reminds me of the albatross:
Updated Jan 29 around 10:05 a m. PST adding reference to alternative nuclear's improved waste managementcover photo of Half Dome at Yosemite is from Diliff via Wikimediathe land of milk and honey-and radiation:
It must be nuclear powerbombs away: Key uranium supply to U s.,from Russian weapons, ends.
Conventional nuclear giant Areva strikes thorium dealhans Blix: Nuclear must use thorium to reduce weapons risknobel physicist:
Thorium trumps all fuels as energy sourcenovel reactors atop MIT energy contest finalistsook who's talking:
Exxonmobil says world has to double nuclearbill Gates stop chasing nuclear'wave, 'pursues variety of reactorsa nuclear reactor to clean up the oil sands industryas thorium tests begin in Norway,
the nuclear industry watches closelyalternative nuclear energy race heats up as Canadian company entersturning Japan's nuclear past into its futureand the DOE energy innovation award goes to...
A new type of nuclear power
Rolling stones keyboardist Chuck Leavell on smart growthwashington-Last week, Rolling stones keyboardist, Mother Nature Network cofounder and conservationist Chuck Leavell was in Washington to talk about his new book
, Growing a Better America: Smart, Strong and Sustainable. Leavell and co-author J. Marshall Craig address topics including transportation, home building, alternative energy, renovation of our iconic buildings, community design and model growth. â Å With the incredible
pressures on our natural lands and natural resources, â Â Leavell said last week at the National Press Club,
The energy efficient homes in the development are surrounded by marshland, woods, canals, ponds and nature trails. â Å This is the right way to do it,
along with solar thermal energy tech--to utilize what we have (saltwater, CO2) to produce what we need (food, fresh water and energy).
This week, the project, which is supported by fertilizer companies, reached a milestone. Its Qatar pilot plant produced 75 kilograms of crops (like cucumbers) per square meter annually while consuming only sunlight and seawater, Science reports.
Another key element of the facility is concentrated the solar power plant: This uses mirrors in the shape of a parabolic trough to heat a fluid flowing through a pipe at its focus.
Cobalt is trying to replace some of the petroleum and petrochemical materials in anything from gasoline to plastics to paint.
we could produce over two billion gallons of biobutanol--enough to blend into all the gasoline used in Colorado for six years.
Cobalt will test how well the gasoline-butanol mix will run in automobile engines. CSU's Ken Reardon, professor of Chemical and Biological Engineering:
So, for example, you can see what the company's philosophy is related to carbon offsets (it prefers to generate renewable energy wherever it can)
The focus is the company's $49 million investment in equipment and renewable energy technologies related to an upgrade of its pulp recovery boiler and related equipment.
The Green-e certification acknowledges the company's work to ensure that 100 percent of the energy used to create its Opus web paper at the mill is generated on site.
The Somerset Mill is now generating about 250 million kilowatt hours of renewable energy annually as a result of its recovery cycle upgrade product.
As a corporation, Sappi Fine Paper established a goal to reduce its emissions from fossil fuels by 40 percent between 2008 and 2013 against a 2007 baseline measurement.
TOKYO--Â After Fukushima suffered the world worst nuclear meltdown since Chernobyl nearly three years ago,
¢tightlipped secrecy around its data and laughably low-tech decontamination strategies that don seem like a match for nuclear contamination.
where the city's support systems are located entirely within city limits, from  energy sources to food production.
It is the model for how we should be handling things like water management, energy utilization,
the sharing of nutrients, the transfer of energy from sunlight to plants and then to animals,
and converting organic waste into energy. Here he is in a video explaining his take:
According to the American Coal Ash Association, power plants produced 136 million tons of coal ash in 2008.
also support the coal industry, along with the greenhouse gases it emits, and therefore should be disallowed in their building and interior construction ratings.
as well as a massive solar power generator. Meanwhile, the design allows the structures to work as air vents for local conservatories.
Electricity is generated by a built-in solar photovoltaic system that converts energy from sunlight during the day hours.
China unveils world longest sea bridge 2, 625-feet solar power supertower to rise over Arizona (video) Amazing video:
and the produce does need not to be shipped long distances, conserving precious fossil fuels. Farmedhere employs local workers to reduce transport requirements.
Perhaps, most people try to protect the surroundings by reducing energy-consumption associated with foodstuff distribution from faraway farmers.
As farming became more mechanized and reliant on petroleum based inputs, it became a more independent and solitary career.
That reduced erosion, the runoff of chemicals into waterways and the use of fuel for tractors.
we need to prepare ourselves for a future without cheap oil and gas
Biohackingmany of the world's great innovators started out as hackers people who like to tinker with technology
The U s. uses roughly 21 million barrels of oil per day. According to a recent U s. Census bureau report, 2. 8 million people have so-called oeextreme commutes,
Public transportation is cited often as a cure for oil addiction. In the United states, rise of disabled elderly Americans will strain public transportation systems.
The U s. military hopes to soon use drones for cargo transportation and refueling. This is certainly a realistic hope according to Missy Cummings, director of the Humans and Automation Lab at MIT.
(and compressing the air in the first place requires energy that may not necessarily be oegreen), so refinements will be needed before we could all be riding on air.
All that can be said of it is a set of equations that describe its probability of being given in a place with a given energy
getting rid of the extra energy by giving off a burst of light. Astonishingly, that light contains all the quantum information needed to reconstitute the atom.
Energy The Future: World energy demand will increase dramatically. Experts predict that energy demand will rise by 60%between 2002 and 2030
and will require about $568 billion in new investments every year. Developing nations growing hungrier for scarce oil supplies,
coupled with concern over the environment in developed nations, will signal the end of the oil era.
Petroleum alternatives now comprise about 17%of global energy use and are growing at just 30%per year.
By 2020, only 30%of global energy is likely to come from alternative energy sources. Futurist Fixes 1. Piezoelectrics.
As covered in THE FUTURIST magazine (November-December 2007: Two students at MIT School of architecture are attempting to capture the untamed energy of urban crowds and convert it into a source of electric power.
James Graham and Thaddeus Jusczyk call their project a oecrowd farm. It a series of connected floor blocks that depress very slightly when people walk, run,
or jump on them, causing the blocks to move against one another. The design converts this oeslippage into power.
Ambient energy i e. vibrations in the surrounding environment derived from the piezoelectric phenomenon could provide power for future nanoscale devices.
In the future, nanodevices could use zinc oxide nanowires that draw energy from vibrations such as from the flow of blood
As a replacement for oil, algae is extremely practical, utilizes mostly cheap and abundant resources like saltwater and wasteland,
the cost of halophytic algae biofuel is less than the cost of petroleum trading at $70 per barrel or higher.
Tidal-current turbines and tidal-stream turbines tapping the power of sea systems like the Gulf stream could provide energy for power-hungry states such as Florida.
Energy use in Florida will go up nearly 30%in the next decade as a result of growth. Researchers from Florida Atlantic University have received a $5 million grant to see how the Gulf stream,
The Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology at Florida Atlantic University The Issue: Hunger The earth population is projected to increase by 2. 5 billion people in the next four decades,
the main reason people eat is to replace the energy they expend walking around, breathing, living life, etc.
Like all creatures, we take energy stored in plant or animal matter. Freitas points out that the isotope gadolinium-148 could provide much of the fuel the body needs.
But a person can t just eat a radioactive chemical and hope to be healthy,
The gadolinium-powered robots would make sure that the person body was absorbing the energy safely and consistently.
which the body could convert to energy to eat a bit less. In the January-February 2010 issue of THE FUTURIST magazine, Freitas lays out his ideas for improving human health through nanotechnology. 2. Better Design.
With sections focusing on food, water, shelter, health and sanitation, energy and transportation, and education, oedesign for the Other 90%focused on problem solving for the vast majority of the world people who survive under the poverty level
The UW team sought to further academic research in the field of tree power by building circuits to run off that energy.
but also in the energy and power consumption,"Parviz said.""As new generations of technology come online,
"Despite using special low-power devices, the boost converter and other electronics would spend most of their time in sleep mode
in order to conserve energy, creating a complication.""If everything goes to sleep, the system will never wake up,
The low-power clock produces an electrical pulse once every few seconds, allowing a periodic wakeup of the system.
Tree power is unlikely to replace solar power for most applications, Parviz admits. But the system could provide a low-cost option for powering tree sensors that might be used to detect environmental conditions or forest fires.
With the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 requiring an almost fivefold increase in ethanol production to 36 billion gallons annually by 2022,
and its net energy balance is high because the technique works almost anywhere using almost anything with great efficiency.
The end result will be sold E85 at the pump for about a dollar cheaper per gallon than gasoline, according to the company.
'"said Nathanael Greene, a senior energy-policy analyst at the Natural resources Defense Council.""The approach is interesting
Corn-based ethanol costs $1. 40 a gallon to produce, according to the Renewable Fuels Association.
May Wu, an environmental scientist at Argonne National Laboratory, says Coskata's ethanol produces 84 percent less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel even after accounting for the energy needed to produce
It also generates 7. 7 times more energy than is required to produce it. Corn ethanol typically generates 1. 3 times more energy than is used producing it.
Making ethanol is one thing, but there's almost no infrastructure in place for distributing it. But the company's method solves that problem
"Still, consumers will need some way of getting that fuel into their vehicle. Less than 1 percent of the nation's 170,000 gas stations sell E85, said Mike Omotoso, senior manager of the global power train group at J. D. Power & Associates."
"People aren't going to go to some remote location for fuel.""But with production set to ramp up quickly to meet the 36 billion gallon mandate,
Georgia on Ponce de Leon Avenue, put five 320-square foot recycled shipping containers tricked out with proprietary technology to reduce overall energy consumption
nutrients and light a crop needs so they are able to reduce energy consumption which further brings down the cost to grow the crop.
and because low-income and poor families are faced with higher fuel and housing costs, they are still unable to buy sufficient food
Low-cost sensors, clever software and advancing computer firepower are opening the door to new uses in energy conservation, transportation, health care and food distribution.
and adjusts room temperatures accordingly to save energy. At the Nest offices in Palo alto, Calif.,there is a lot of talk of helping the planet,
After creating Breathable Foods and an energy capsule, Edwards moved on to Wikicells, an edible packaging technology.
not builtthe cities of the future will have waste-to-energy plants, not shopping malls or churches, at their centre, according to urban designer Mitchell Joachim of Terreform ONE.
whereas in the energy market you need 50,000 calories per person, Brabeck-Letmathe told BBC News in July. oeit takes about 4,
900 litres of water if it comes from palm oil. Advances in bioechnology have helped us push food production to its limit.
¢Built to harvest all of the water and energy from the site;¢¢Smaller and reconfigurable to the needs of the mobile workforce;
Greig-Gran and Porras say governments can raise funds from the private sector for payments schemes in other, more indirect ways, directing revenue from taxes on energy and water.
or palm-oil production releases large quantities of stored carbon into the atmosphere. Grazing ruminant animals, like cattle and sheep, also contribute significantly to climate change.
The fuel of the futureone has to ask oewhat the hell were they thinking? Clearly, instead of thinking, the EU political elites were seduced by Greenpeace, FOE and similar activists.
So we know the EU energy policies are not the future. But we don t know how long this fantasy can persist.
Merkel faces reelection in September can we hope for a shift towards evidence-based energy policy?
By far the largest so-called renewable fuel used in Europe is wood. In its various forms, from sticks to pellets to sawdust, wood (or to use its fashionable name, biomass) accounts for about half of Europe renewable-energy consumption.
In some countries, such as Poland and Finland, wood meets more than 80%of renewable-energy demand.
Even in Germany, home of the Energiewende (energy transformation) which has poured huge subsidies into wind and solar power,
38%of non-fossil fuel consumption comes from the stuff. After years in which European governments have boasted about their high-tech
low-carbon energy revolution, the main beneficiary seems to be favoured the fuel of preindustrial societies.
But if subsidising biomass energy were an efficient way to cut carbon emissions, perhaps this collateral damage might be written off as an unfortunate consequence of a policy that was beneficial overall.
So is it efficient? No. Wood produces carbon twice over: once in the power station, once in the supply chain.
That, plus the shipping, requires energy and produces carbon: 200kg of CO2 for the amount of wood needed to provide 1mwh of electricity.
the assumption oethat biomass combustion would be inherently carbon neutral is not correct as it ignores the fact that using land to produce plants for energy typically means that this land is not producing plants for other purposes,
if whole trees are used to produce energy, as they sometimes are, they increase carbon emissions compared with coal (the dirtiest fuel) by 79%over 20 years and 49%over 40 years;
there is no carbon reduction until 100 years have passed, when the replacement trees have grown up. But as Tom Brookes of the European Climate Foundation points out, oewe re trying to cut carbon now;
does not encourage new energy technologies and is set to grow like a leylandii hedge
Synthetic biology. What woes it mean for agriculture? Today post was prompted by an invitation from Andrew Revkin to join in on a discussion spawned by his recent post at NYTS oedot Earth titled,
whether synthetic biology that utilizes plants for food, energy, and medicine might lead to an increase or loss of biodiversity.
synthetic fuels, biofuels, electricity, hydrogen, etc. â agriculture and food production: engineered crops, pest control, fertilizers, etc. â environmental protection and remediation:
This may well favor applications in existing industrial processes and commodity chains (energy, agriculture, aquaculture) and the operations of large business corporations.
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