In this article:

Exploring the footsteps of the human race

Just learned about this exciting endeavor from Don Belt last night… http://www.outofedenwalk.com

“ABOUT 60,000 YEARS AGO, OUR ANCESTORS TOOK THE FIRST STEPS OUT OF THEIR PREHISTORIC AFRICAN “EDEN” TO BEGIN EXPLORING THE EARTH. IN EARLY 2013, REPORTER PAUL SALOPEK WILL FOLLOW IN THEIR FOOTSTEPS DURING AN EPIC ON-FOOT JOURNEY THAT WILL TAKE SEVEN YEARS.”—

Sounds like an amazing story! Being a scientist/engineer, I wonder whether bringing some ‘standards’ to the interviews Paul will be conducting along his way would introduce some means of reasonable comparisons between cultures, landscapes, geographical and sustainability factors? Furthermore, it might be interesting to capture some of the meta data being generated by the social-media ‘cloud’ somehow graphically – meaning if one could dig-out the common information/opinions/factors from this data, and display this graphically e.g. vs. region/religion/… this might become interesting data.

Looking forward – Happy walking Paul!

Energy Conference & Energy Future

In This Article:- Conference on Renewable Energies and what legistlators thing about science

Solar Power - we know the sun provides more energy every second than we need to power this planet with electricity if we'd installed solar panels. But even though much solar has and is being installed the wide spread adoption is still somewhat slow. Could added storage help? The idea is simple: peak solar production doe not coincide with peak electricity demand. Thus, when cost of electricity is highest you get the most $ for your solar energy. Thus the solution - store it for some few hours and release it during peak times.

The E2 conference next month in the Netherlands looks into these topics, and I shall contribute with a talk during thisconference. Here's a link to the topics discussed at that meeting.

Does Congress get a passing grade on Science?

 
The question is, how does the US congress views scientific topics like renewable energy and climate change? Scientific American recently asked 32 congressmen and women to respond to 8 selected science questions. The answeres are interesting and encouraging at once. Nine out of the 17 respondance acknowledged climate change which is uplifting. Other science related topics were brought up by the congressmen on the security of the internet, aka cybersecurity. This is a field that need much attention as communication and transaction pathways are virtually to 100% conducted via the web.

Continuing on this notion, and timely to the upcoming US elections, here is the link the respondance of "Top American Science Questions" from President Obama and Sen. Romney. Without going into too much detail the difference are quite obvious. The current administration did a tremendous effort in supporting science and engineering especially in the energy, water, and .... So how about economy? Well, Mitt Romneys biggest critique on the current administration is their apparent failure to grow the economy. The problem of many political leaders is that they sadly have a path for 4 years max, i.e. when elections are due. Obama however did plant seeds for a much bigger and larger project. He indeed presented a vision of a clean and US energy independent future. This forward thinking and long-term planning and preparing of the US polulation for the challenges of the 21st century is what makes true leaders stand out. And to the Mitt's economy point; 

• #1 when the Obama administration tool over the economy was down with 800,000 jobs lost every month from mis-leadership during the Bush years
• #2 the world saw the largest economical crises since the balck friday in 1929
• #3 the economy is already on a good way to recover
• #4 the long-term payoffs from stimmulation packets in Science, Engineering, clean energy, water, education WILL pay off in the mid-to long term - that's economics 101 

 In conclusion, the where we look sustainable energy sources like solar cells as discussed at the OSA E2 conference in Nov 2012, in the US congress, or at the economical growth plan of the Obama administration one thing is clear - the success and competitiveness of a country is and will be dominated by those who bet on scientific leadership.

In This Article:

- Greene cards for foreign graduates?! 

Stay or not to stay, that is here the question. The decision whether foreign students that earn highest degrees from US universities should use their degree to work in the states is a valid one. However, even for the highly needed STEM fields, that is science technology, engineering, and math, the path to a straight forward work place and permanent residency is currently quite cumbersome, time consuming and expensive; 12+ months waiting time, extensive application forms, in addition to attorney fees in the 5+ thousands are the norm. Well, a partisan bill was recently submitted to the congress by a Texan Congressmen, Mr. Lamar Smith (surprisingly from the Republican party).

55,000 Green cards for foreign Students

The idea: instead of offering a lottery to win 55,000 green cards every year, the proposal calls to give these cards to masters and PhD level foreign graduates. Would this be a good idea? Well, truth is, that STEM majors are rare all over the globe, not just the US. STEM majors are typically those who bring in high tax revenues since they have a decent salary. STEM majors are also those who are able to develop intellectual property (patents), and start new companies, especially in the IT sector. All in all, STEM majors are a strong engine for US’s technology infrastructure. Thus, it comes to no surprise that even republicans want to open doors for these highly talented graduates. We therefore find a strong argument to go ahead with the bill.

Coming back to the question whether this is a good idea, one can also argue against the bill, by highlighting diversity as one of the strengths of the states. In fact the green card lottery was instigated by a motivation to increase diversity. However, in a world with more and more challenges, faster innovation cycles, and a constant competition for experts the question is, whether we want to educate those smart men and women in these innovation critical majors, and then send them home afterwards. In this regard, Mr. Smith's proposal seems quite appealing and forward thinking.

In this article: Optics and your future

 

When we think about optics or photonics, many people intuitively think about some special applications, like projectors, lasers (shows), or maybe TV’s. It turns out, Photonics is part of your life in MULTIPLE ways every day, i.e. in your daily routine. Let me give you an example. Take your cell phone: starting from the inside out, it uses a processor uses smallest electronic elements called transistors which were made by optical lithography. Then of course there is a display, which features a lot of optical parts and components. Then let’s think about what you do with the phone. Well basically communicating or excessing data on the net. Those data get in and out of your handheld via RF signals which light is just a part of. But there is more, the entire backbone of todays’ internet is based on photonics, or fiber optics; here 100,000 billion bits of information float down a fiber every second – sounds a lot? Is a lot! Lastly, your nice an detailed handheld case is likely to be machined with the use of lasers as well. In short in every aspect of live optics is becoming more and more important. 

"The Future of modern IT technologies lies in Photonics"

Such potential of photonics has been recently recognized in a report entitled “ Optics & Photonics: Essential Technologies for Our Nation” released by the National Academy of Sciences’ (NAS) in Washington DC. In their keynote speeches Steven Chu, the U.S Secretary of Energy, and Craig Barrett, Founder and CEO of Intel, addressed the importance and potential of optics and photonics technologies to drive economic growth, create jobs, and enabling future innovations to advance society as a whole.

For instance, Chu highlighted solar cell technologies, which are coming down in price per watt electricity they produce. A long-time target was to get to 1$/W for solar cells, which we have already surpassed (current values are 0.86$/W). However, there is much more potential for solar cell deployment for sustainable energy sources. For example in the so called E2 conference held in November 11-14 in the Netherlands organized by the Optical Society of America (OSA), researchers and industrial leaders come together to discuss new device breakthroughts and system installation methods that make solar cells truly a mass product. Imagine, the efficiency of current solar cells to double, and with the trend of rising electricity costs, a pay-back time of your solar system of less than one year – after which there is an opportunity to actually make a profit using your system?

In the next posts we will be discussing interesting details about solar cells and optical breakthroughts of the.

  

In this article: Open government = the essence of democracy!?






Here a question:  Do we need more or less Government?

The answer is rather difficult. Arguments for Less gov influence are open markets, trade and innovation. Arguments for more gov regulative actions are a more fair system, better allocation of resources and more democracy. 

But what if both are 'wrong'? What if the answer is in a different direction, and could maybe sound like this: It's about engaging citizens and people living in a country and giving them an opportunity to care for their nation. This is important to balance the pure materialistic view of the world. Yes, we need markets, but we also need social, peoples energies as well. 

To this end it is interesting to observe the 'Open Government' directions the current administration is undertaking. The argument is to allow for and call upon more freedom for citizens, and not only for the U.S. but the all nations. 

It is a voluntary program where countries pledge to and demonstrate a willingness of open policies and transparency. These efforts of the 'free world' are good ones, and brings countries closer together, and is in sharp contrast to what Russia's new (old) is doing in his home garden. 

"Around the world, we're standing up for freedom to access information" (B. Obama 8-2012)

Now, so far so good. But more conservative and cautious minds could say, that such open governments are inherently information leaky-prone. Are they right? Well, hard to assess from the outside, however, let's just reaffirm that such open initiatives, talks and regulatory infrastructures are by no means an open door and information passage for any kind of confidential information. I would actually argue, that it is a no brainier that open structures are only implemented in areas where an open platform and discussion is appropriate. At the same time, the ongoing development and tremendous efforts in cyber-security are a good example that the US is tightening it's grip on information - which is a good thing.

The idea of open government is promising and could be an enabler for more joint collaborations and could bring a notion of reducing bureaucracy, and hence unnecessary deficit spendings. I agree with the President, that the idea of freedom around the world is tightly connected to information, and  let me add - education. Why? Because if humans dont know they start believing in ... whatever one tells them. Now if the person telling them is a dictator, they would still believe it, since they have no grounds to think otherwise. Imagine how many wars could be avoided if people started to actually used their 3.5 pound wobbly mass resting on top of their shoulders and start critically evaluating the information presented to them?

All in all, the direction of 'open government' is a trend worth pursuing towards more integrity, freedom, and democracy on this planet. 

In This Article:
- A snapshot of a recent report on the shift of economic value of Solar energy at high grid penetration 

Is more always better? And if not, why?

The questions is: when a lot of the population uses solar, how do economical values of such renewable energies change?

The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory recently released a new report: “Changes in the Economic Value of Variable Generation at High Penetration Levels: A Pilot Case Study of California.” In this report, we evaluate how a subset of the benefits and costs of variable renewable generation changes with increasing penetrations on the electric grid.

And surprise surprise without energy storage options, high solar adoption will have adverse effects: that is, increasing solar penetration shifts peak residual demand into low sun hours.

Here is a presentation of the report:

http://eetd.lbl.gov/ea/ems/reports/lbnl-5445e-ppt.pdf 

Comments from the authors:
We use a unique investment and dispatch model that simulates long-run investment decisions while also incorporating detailed operational constraints and hourly time resolution over a full year.  The model is applied to a case study that is loosely based on California in 2030. Increasing amounts of wind, single-axis tracking photovoltaics (PV), and concentrating solar power (CSP) with and without thermal energy storage (TES) are each added in isolation.  For each technology and penetration level, the marginal economic value of the variable renewable generation resource is calculated and decomposed into capacity value, energy value, day-ahead forecast error cost, and ancillary services costs.  This marginal economic value at each penetration level represents the change in benefits for a small change in the amount of variable renewable generation at that penetration level, as opposed to the average economic value of all variable generation up to that penetration level.

Important to note is that the analysis focuses on a subset of the benefits and costs of variable renewable generation.  The benefits examined include the avoided capital investment, fuel, and operations and maintenance costs of other (fossil-fuel-based) power plants.  The model calculates these avoided costs while accounting for operational constraints on conventional generators and the increased need for ancillary services with higher penetrations of variable renewable generation.  The analysis, however, does not consider other costs and benefits that may be important, including: the capital cost of building the variable renewable generation, environmental impacts, transmission and distribution costs or benefits, effects related to the lumpiness and irreversibility of investment decisions, and uncertainty in future fuel and capital investment costs.  Notwithstanding these limitations, the analysis conducted here provides important insights that can inform long-term decisions about renewable procurement and supporting infrastructure.

The primary findings of the analysis are as follows.  The marginal economic value of all three solar options (PV, CSP without TES, and CSP with TES) is relatively high at low penetration levels, exceeding both the value of a flat-block of power and the marginal value of wind energy, largely due to the high capacity value of solar at low penetrations. The value of PV and CSP without TES, however, drops considerably as penetration increases toward 30% on an energy basis -- initially due to a decline in capacity value (as increasing solar penetration shifts peak residual demand into low sun hours), followed by a decrease in energy value.  In contrast, the value of CSP with TES drops much less as penetration increases. As a result, at solar penetration levels above 10% of total energy generation, the CSP with TES is found to be considerably more valuable relative to PV and CSP without TES. The value of wind is largely driven by energy value and is lower than solar at low penetration. The value of wind is found to drop with increasing penetration, but at a slower rate than the drop in value of PV and CSP without thermal storage. Hence, at high penetration, the value of wind can exceed the value of PV and CSP without thermal storage.

Though some of these results may be somewhat unique to the specific case study examined here, and the model only captures a subset of the benefits and costs of renewable energy, the findings nevertheless provide unique insight into how the value of variable renewable generation changes with technology and penetration level. The findings also show the importance of an analysis framework that accounts for long-term investment decisions as well as short-term dispatch and operational constraints, and point to areas where future research is warranted.  As one example, a forthcoming LBNL report will examine the impact of several ‘mitigation strategies' that may help to stem the decline in the economic value of variable renewable generation at high penetration.  These mitigation strategies include technological diversity, where multiple variable renewable generation technologies are added to the system simultaneously as opposed to one technology at a time, more-flexible thermal generation, low-cost bulk power storage, and price-responsive demand.

Green Driving in the Bay Area - California

In This Article:

- More Green cars on Bay Area's street's than ever & free EV charging @ SFO airport to help green driving adoption

This morning, I biked to work my usual route, and just for fun counted the number of hybrid and EV vehicles on the streets in East Bay in California. I was amazed to not only see the usual Prius suspects (total count =31), but also spotted two Chevi Volts. In addition what made my ride this morning really great was that during my 20 minute ride the number of pure electric vehicles (yes no gasoline engine whatsoever) is really growing now; I came across 3 Nissan Leaf's and one Tesla Roadster. 

Ok, agreed, the towns of Berkeley and Albany are predestined to become early adopters for green driving, but nonetheless to see people adopt to clearer driving in a larger scale is great to see. With Obama's increased tax credits for EV's (from $7500 up to $10,000), more car options, and falling vehicle costs it comes to no surprise that 2012 was quoted the first year where driving a hybrid car is viewed as something 'normal'. 

Green Vehicle Parking Station @ SFO Airport

Incidentally,  the San Francisco Intl' Airport SFO has recently engaged to become more green, by offering charging stations for EV and plug-in hybrid. And the best is - charging up your vehicle is free until the end of 2013. Here is a map to locate the stations (map). I think offering such infrastructure and cash incentives are great steps towards accelerating the adoption of clean driving.