Recently, President Obama announced the first round of funding to get high-speed rail developed here in the United States. The total investment came to about $8 billion, spread out across the country from the Northeast to California. It is really nothing but a drop in the bucket when you tally the total required investment; California’s proposed high-speed rail alone could cost $40 billion or more.

Over in the UK though, the government has proposed to drop a whooping £30 Billion (about $45 billion US) into developing high-speed rail across the country. And if anyplace needs high-speed rail, it is definitely the UK.

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These are quite different results  from a Gallup poll on a reduction in climate concerns widely publicized yesterday, showing that conservatives’ belief that climate change is occurring has dropped a full 20 points in the last year to just 30%, obscuring a relatively minor rise of 2% as liberals concern levels rose to 74%.

The threat to the climate is a great concern globally at 83%, with 76% of respondents worrying about future fossil energy shortages. The rising cost of fossil fuels is the biggest worry overall with 90% of the 9,000 respondents in 22 countries.

A large majority of the respondents support more government intervention to build more renewable energy to solve climate change and reduce the cost of extracted energy. (more…)

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Starting at an amusement park in South Korea, but perhaps expanding much further in the future, a new type of large electric vehicle magnetically pulls power out of buried electrical strips under the road (or “recharging roads”).

This online electric vehicle (OLEV) may be “one of the most significant technical gains in the 21st century” according to its creators at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).

The vehicle was launched at Seoul Grand Park in southern Seoul this week. If all goes well, it will soon be tried out on a bus route in Seoul as well. After that, who knows?

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In an interview with the Dallas Morning News, Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson, said that he doesn’t think using compressed natural gas (CNG) in vehicles makes much sense.

While he sees a dramatically increasing demand for CNG in other applications such as centralized power generation, he said that it takes such a huge investment to convert fueling stations and cars (especially long haul trucks) over to CNG, that it just doesn’t pencil out.

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While it’s long been known that LG Chem — and it’s Michigan-based subsidiary, Compact Power Inc. — were chosen to build the cells for the Chevy Volt’s lithium-ion battery packs, up till now most of the research, refinement and production of those cells has been done in Korea.

LG Chem has been hinting for over a year that all of that battery cell production will eventually shift to the US. Today the company revealed that they’ve chosen to invest $300 million in a Holland, Michigan battery plant capable of suppling cells for more than 50,000 plug-in cars per year. The plant is expected to employ over 400 workers by 2013.

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“A planet of men? Since when?” asks the German-based Gender CC — Women for Climate Justice in a statement.

The new panel, to be co-chaired by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown and Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi, will look into ways to raise at least $100 billion a year by 2020 to help developing countries combat climate change. The panel includes Guyana’s president, Norway’s prime minister, finance ministers, investors and leading economists: all men.

Marion Rolle of GenderCC says U.N. Secretary General Ban Ki-moon could expand the panel and add some well-qualified women before a first meeting planned in London for March 29. “There’s still time” she told me.

Rolle says Ban’s next test will be the appointment of a successor for Yvo de Boer, the top U.N. climate change official, who stands down on July 1 after four years in the job. His predecessor was a woman,  the late Joke Waller-Hunter.

“The important thing is to look at the qualifications of both men and women. It must not be a woman at any price,” Rolle said. Many studies show climate change is harsher on women in developing countries than men, partly because mothers usually have to stay in areas affected by droughts, deforestation or crop failure.

Strong female candidates for de Boer’s job might be Kenya’s Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai or Dessima Williams, Grenada’s ambassador to the United Nations, she said.

Yet so far, nominees for the post are all … men.

(Picture: United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon speaks next to U.N. climate chief Yvo de Boer (R) at a news conference during the U.N. Climate Change Conference 2009 in Copenhagen December 15, 2009. REUTERS/Ints Kalnins)

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Are vans suddenly cool again, or did I just miss the memo?

For a while there it seemed like the van, especially the minivan, was on its way out. Just look at Ford and GM’s lineups… no more mini-vans. But Ford has started importing the Transit Connect, and plans to introduce an electric version at the end of this year. Not to be outdone, Nissan announced the NV200 van at the Tokyo Auto Show last year, and said it could come to U.S. shores not too far in the future — and an all-electric version could follow thereafter.

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If you don’t like big trucks loaded with torque, you should just stop reading now.

But if you’re like me, you love you some torque and towing capacity. The 2011 Ford Super Duty truck has best in class towing capacity and payload hauling, as well as two new engines; a 6.2 liter gas engine good for 405 horsepower and 385 ft-lbs of torque, and a new Powerstroke diesel that makes 390 horsepower and a mammoth 735 ft-lbs of torque. Even more impressive? It is the cleanest diesel Ford has ever put into a truck. How awesome is that?

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Fisker Automotive is one of the electric car hopefuls that has won many of us over with their sleek, sexy visions of what an electric car should look like. The company has received hundreds of millions in government funding, and recently acquired an old GM plant in Delaware which they are retooling to produce their Karma plug-in sedan and an as-of-yet unnamed, “lower cost” sedan.

During a recent presentation at the New Castle Chamber of Commerce, Fisker spoke about the progress of the plant and their future plans. This includes hopefully producing around 100,000 plug-in electric vehicles per year by 2014.

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The machine by UK company Xeros Ltd uses 3mm-long nylon beads that can get into all crevices and folds of clothing and absorb stains and dirt.  Stephen Burkinshaw, a polymer chemist at Leeds University, discovered that nylon beads at 100 percent humidity could attract stains away from clothing and into the center of the beads, preventing deposition back onto the clothes.

The machine uses a small amount of water to dampen the clothes and to reach the right humidity level, then the drum is flooded with the beads.  When the cycle is complete the beads drain away with the water to be reused hundreds of times.

I’m sure you’ve already started questioning what happens to these plastic beads once they’re done scrubbing clothes.  The company wants to eventually create a closed loop where the saturated beads can be refreshed and reused in the machines, but for the time being they will be collected and recycled.

Xeros says that if all of the US used these machines instead of regular washing machines, it would save 1.2 billion tonnes of water per year and  the CO2 emissions saved would equal taking 5 million cars off the road.  The machine would also eliminate the need to dry clean many delicates, another environmental benefit.  The Xeros machine is expected to be available by the end of next year.

via Guardian

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If you really want to see the future of everyday transportation, you have to look no farther than the racing series happening right around the corner. As much for entertainment and competition as it is a testbed for new technology, the highly competitive nature of racing forces engineers and manufacturers to put their best foot forward if they hope to stand out (and beat!) the rest of the crowd.

The American Le Mans Series is one of my favorite racing series and the season starts up in just a few days. Just in time to compete for the 2010 season, Braille Batteries has announced a partnership with Primetime Race Group to tackle the newly-formed Le Mans Prototype Challange.

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SyracuseCoE in Syracuse, NY is itself a LEED-platinum-certified, 55,000 square-foot building that serves as a testing ground for renewable energy and efficiency technologies.  The south wall of the building is home to a concentrated solar facade that, at first glance, resembles the frosted cube walls found in doctors’ office waiting rooms.

This 8-foot by 8-foot facade houses several clear pyramid lenses that track the sun and concentrate the rays onto high-efficiency PV cells.  Extra energy not converted to electricity is used for heating water and radiant heat in the building.  And because it’s made up of clear panels, it also adds natural lighting indoors.  You can watch a video of the system at work here.

Using a concentrated solar power system in an architectural application is a new concept, so the center will be monitoring and reporting on its performance.

The facade was designed by the Center for Architecture Science and Ecology and the company HeliOptix is licensed to market it.

via Jetson Green

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As we’ve talked about on these pages before, the battle for the hearts and minds of the next generation of car purchasers is starting. By the end of the year many major auto manufacturers will have some kind of electric vehicle for sale on the mass market and by 2014, nearly all major manufacturers have plans to introduce at least one electric car.

In these early stages, carmakers have chosen several different paths, some opting to go for the cars powered solely by batteries (Battery Electric Vehicles or BEVs) such as the Nissan LEAF, some for the plug-in hybrids (PHEVs; like a Prius with a bigger battery), and some for the extended range electric vehicles (EREVs with small generators on board to charge the batteries) such as the Chevy Volt.

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Fred Krupp is president of the Environmental Defense Fund. The views expressed are his own.

It’s as though three mammoth challenges facing America are intertwined like the strands of a rope: reducing our dependence on Mideast oil; creating new American jobs from clean energy; and reducing pollution responsible for climate change.

Together, those strands are a lifeline to the future.

While the House of Representatives passed comprehensive energy and climate legislation last summer, polarization has created gridlock in Washington, paralyzing most major legislative initiatives, including clean energy.

But a new, “tripartisan” partnership has emerged in the Senate that offers a hopeful way forward.

The legislation being crafted now by Sens. John Kerry, Lindsey Graham and Joe Lieberman is garnering interest on both sides of the aisle.

It will create the certainty our businesses need to invest in a clean energy future, and it will send the signal to American and global investors that our clean energy economy is open for business.

It offers common ground and a good chance at securing bipartisan consensus on energy and climate legislation.

Senator Graham is one of the most conservative voices in the Senate, but he believes a bill is critical to American success in the future, in part because it will spark a new wave of job-creating investment and manufacturing here.

It will create certainty for businesses and investors, moving tens of billions of dollars to now stalled construction projects and mobilizing armies of workers to build them.

The Senator has expressed concern that if we stay on our current trajectory, China will capture most of these emerging jobs.

“Six months ago,” he said recently, “my biggest worry was that an emissions deal would make American business less competitive compared to China.  Now my concern is that every day that we delay trying to find a price for carbon is a day that China uses to dominate the green economy.”

On another occasion last month, he put it more bluntly:  “Every day we wait in this nation, China is going to eat our lunch.”

He’s right to be worried – a majority of Americans are worried too. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll revealed that most Americans believe America’s role in the world economy will diminish in the coming years, and many believe “the 21st century will belong to China.”

The truth is, China is already beating the U.S. to clean energy jobs.

China is quickly becoming the global powerhouse in clean energy manufacturing and innovation, dwarfing the efforts of America.

Backed by huge investment and an industrial policy bigger than the world has ever seen, China has become the worldwide leader in new energy technology markets while the U.S. is quickly falling behind.

Last year, China passed Denmark, Germany, Spain, and the U.S. to become the world’s largest maker of wind turbines.

In the last two years, China also became the world’s largest manufacturer of solar panels, a technology invented and long dominated by Americans.

Wind and solar aren’t the only green technologies where China is advancing rapidly.

China is also leading in advanced vehicle and battery technology.

The Chinese firm BYD introduced the world’s first plug-in hybrid vehicle, and China’s production of lithium ion batteries accounted for 41 percent of the global market by 2008.  The number of battery companies in China increased from 455 to 613 between 2001 and 2004.

China is also an emerging world leader in ultra-high-voltage, or UHV transmission technology, which reduces energy losses when electricity is transmitted over long distances.

China now has more than 100 domestic UHV manufacturers and suppliers, and the State Grid Corporation will invest $44 billion through 2012, and $88 billion through 2020, in building UHV transmission lines.

So how can America compete with China in the emerging green economy?

Along with Sens. Graham, Kerry, and Lieberman, I believe we can match the scale of China’s centralized industrial policy by fully deploying the engine of American prosperity: our marketplace. It is the only tool we have with the scale and capital to compete with China.

If the U.S. puts a limit on carbon pollution, we will send a clear signal to the marketplace that will unleash a massive wave of private investment in low-carbon energy sources and technologies like carbon capture and storage that would allow us to compete with the Chinese.

Only when American policy creates a profit motive for investors, inventors and entrepreneurs, will we have a chance to win the race.

President Obama recently made that case to the Business Roundtable, calling for a price on carbon to kick-start America’s efforts to win the clean technology race:

“A competitive America is also an America that finally has a smart energy policy. We know there is no silver bullet here – that to reduce our dependence on oil and the damage caused by climate change, we need more production, more efficiency, and more incentives for clean energy.

“But to truly transition to a clean energy economy, I’ve also said that we need to put a price on carbon pollution.”

The president expanded his commitment to ensuring that legislation passes this year, when he met with a bipartisan group of fourteen senators to discuss their concerns.

This is a sign of real progress – not only because the president has made climate and energy legislation a priority, but because Republicans and conservative Democrats alike are at the table, shaping that legislation together.

Photo shows the U.S. Capitol dome reflected in the glass roof of its underground visitor center in Washington, February 24, 2009.  REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst

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Here in the US, tea is essentially a niche product, falling way behind coffee in terms of popularity. But in places like the Middle East, Europe, and Asia, tea far surpasses coffee as a national past time. In 2008 alone, the world production of black tea was more than 3.8 million tons.

Typically, all those spent tea leaves and remaining liquid are tossed out with the trash, but now two Pakistani researchers have decided to tackle what they perceived as a waste of resources, and have figured out how to completely recycle the leftover tea and tea leaves into biodiesel, ethanol, methane, propane, fertilizer and even chemical spill absorbent.

Pretty ingenious if you ask me.

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