An Exxon Mobil green ad was banned in the UK because it was said to be misleading, an ad-industry watch dog reported.

“We concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that natural gas was one of the cleanest sources of energy and that liquefied natural gas was environmentally friendly,” ASA said in a statement.

Exxon on the other hand said “they accurately stated that natural gas is one of the world’s cleanest fuels and that liquefied natural gas will play an important role in delivering new energy supplies.” Just to make up your opinion here is the advertisement.

What do you say?

A friend and I were discussing a couple of days an incident that happened at the Rose Bowl parade. One of the floats ran out of gas. The whole parade was held up because the float sponsor didn’t think to put enough gas in the car that carried the float. The sponsor, one of America’s huge oil company.

Perhaps oil companies should take care of the simple things, get their house in order before they make claims about the ‘other things’ they do, like go green or just put on a pretty face at a parade for example.

What do you think?

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As Bush made a move to protect the world’s largest marine sanctuary, on the other side of the world there is another surprise leader in the protection of the marine environment - China. China held its first international drill against oil spills with South Korea off the coast of Qingdao. Some 500 people, one helicopter, one fixed wing aircraft and 29 vessels were involved … none of them leaking anything, of course.

The Northwest Pacific region is at the highest risk of oil spills and a natural place for pollution prevention training. China gets some 400 oil tankers visiting each day carrying some 420 million tons of crude oil annually. In the past 24 years there have been 79 accidents involving oil spills of at least 50 tons of oil. Gosh, that’s about a year’s worth of crude oil wasted, no?

China lags in maritime firefighting capability and oil cleaning equipment. But, perhaps the Middle Kingdom is turning the corner. South Korea had the most serious oil spill in history last year when 15,000 tons of crude oil leaked into the sea near Hong Kong.

Nippon Yusen KK and Nippon Oil Corp are working on the world’s first solar powered ship … well, at least partially solar powered, they are saying. What? A hybrid ship? The two companies want to put solar panels on top of the 60,000-ton ship that are capable of generating 40 kilowatts of electricity each.

The ship will carry Toyota cars. Is anybody surprised?

Fuel savings are expected to be in the neighborhood of 6.5% and carbon dioxide emissions will be reduced by 1-2% or 20 tons per year. It will cost Nippon Usen about $1.4 million to create the solar panel system.

The ship is expected to be completed by December with damage to the panels from salt and vibration the biggest obstacles.

A Nippon Oil dude says, “If it’s possible, we want to aim for the full commercialization of the system in the next three to five years.” Yeah, we got to make money out of this operation, for sure.

Researchers at the Tokyo Institute of Technology have come up with a cheaper way to make ethanol from rice straw and other waste materials … cheaper by 30%.

A professor at the university’s Materials and Structures Laboratory has developed a catalyst that will break down plant-based materials resulting in a more efficient production of sugar. This sugar product is then mixed with water and heated to 100C (boiling the water away?).

More confusion on my part -

“The catalyst consists of a carbon material with multiple molecules attached to its surface. These molecules dramatically speed up the decomposition of plant cellulose, making ethanol production much more efficient.”

The bottom line - the catalyst can be made more cheaply making production of ethanol from non-food crops more cost-effective or about equal to what it costs to produce the bioethanol from corn and other foods.

If ethanol can be produced from non-food products, there will no increased food costs and adverse affects to third world countries, too. No?

Go, Tokyo, Go!

So, I wonder. How many points does Google want for throwing pocket change at an alternate fuel technology? The giant search engine machine pledged “10 million U.S. dollars in Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) technology, as part of its Renewable Energy Cheaper than Coal initiative. ”

Two geothermal tech start-ups and a university will benefit from the grant. “EGS expands the potential of traditional geothermal energy by orders of magnitude,” said Google.org. EGS has the potential to provide clean renewable electricity 24/7, at a cost cheaper than coal.

AltaRock (cool name will get you money) Energy will get $6.25 million and Potter Drilling will get $4.25 million. SMU will get a grant of $489,521 (nice round number). Australia, Germany and the European Union are the technology leaders.  All 50 states have thermal resources accessible by EGS. Just gotta dig down and plug in. Or we can Iceland and/or Mitsubishi to see how they do it.

But, $10 million from a company that makes a profit of over $1 billion quarterly. That’s like a man with $4,000 to do go with giving away just $10 and hoping to make a difference.

Electric Bike makers are having a field day. As gasoline prices go up, so do their sales. From the mountain tops of Colorado to Europe people are wanting to “get a little fresh air and exercise, and cut my carbon footprint, and spend less money on gas.”

Electric bikes work like a regular two-wheel one except they have a battery-powered assist. The Gluskin-Townley Group says sales last year were up 67% over 2006. A NYC dealer says sales are up 50%. Amazon.com says sales surged more than 6000% in July from a year earlier. Of course, that number could have been quite low last year, skewing these figures.

Last year some 89,000 electric bikes were sold in the Netherlands and 60,000 in Germany.

The principle behind electric bikes is akin to that behind hybrid cars: Combine the conventional technology — in this case, old-fashioned pedaling — with a battery-powered motor.

 

The net result is a vehicle that rides a bit like a scooter, with some legwork required. Most models have a motorcycle-like throttle that gives a boost while going up hills or accelerating from a stop. On some models, the motor kicks in automatically and adjusts its torque based on how hard the rider pedals.

Prices range from $1,400 - 2,525 and can go 20 miles before a recharge for about 10 cents. Let’s see, 20 miles on a gallon of gas at $5 or on a bike for 1o cents. Tough choice…..NOT!

Electric bike anyone?

source

One of the fun parts about writing GP is that I learn, too. I had never heard of the LEED award. It stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design and is presented by the U.S. Green Building Council. This year the award went to BOCOG - Beijing Organizing Committee of the 29th Olympic Games for the Beijing Olympic Village.

China’s initial concept of  “Green Olympics, High-Tech Olympics and People’s Olympics” has been realized and with minimum compromise it appears.

U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson presented the award calling the village  n example of U.S.-China cooperation in energy conservation and environmental protection, and that the Beijing Games have the best environmental protection in Olympic history.

The significance of the LEED award is that it has a strong influence in the world’s architecture sector, meaning that more places worldwide will hopefully learn from Beijing. Imagine that, China teaching the world how to be more environmentally friendly.

Go here to learn 20 Facts about Life in the Best Olympic Village in History.

source

Beijing set an Olympic Record for power consumption.  The Beijing power grid peaked at a consumption of 12.48 million KW at 11:24am…enough power to run a city of 17 million while they host an international sporting event attended by 200+ countries and 10’s of thousands of people. The previous record was 12.28 million KW. I think they were trying to finish all the building projects for the Green Village in one day for that peak.

It is estimated that the maximum demand will hit 14.6 million KW. The biggest demand is made by air conditioners, very much needed as the city is experiencing sweltering conditions - 35C (94F).

Despite the demand, Beijing Electric Power Co. is keeping up and the grid is stable. In the case of emergency, 50 power vehicles are standing by with a capacity of 26,890 KW and 201 repair teams are hanging out with their fans in hand. And…Africa is still being called the Dark Continent.

I am as surprised as the next guy. I didn’t think anybody could make Greenpeace content about anything. However, the environmental extremists have pronounced their blessings on Beijing for their 2008 Olympic Games preparations.

“We are glad to see that Beijing has improved its infrastructure in preparation for the Olympics,” says Greenpeace China’s Campaign director. It has made public transport more convenient, upgraded home heating systems, improved water treatment and, to some degree, reduced its reliance on fossil fuels.”

Greenpeace acknowledged Beijing’s

1. increased use of energy efficient technologies
2. use of renewable energy
3. use of geothermal heating systems
4. increased employment of wind and solar power
5. expanded public transportation system
6. cooperation with Coca-Cola and Samsung to meet specific environmental commitments.

“This is a huge leap from the polluting technologies currently used in the developing world. Beijing has shown that, when a concerted effort is made, change is possible,” Lo said.

Beijing missed out on

1. complying with internationally recognized timber procurement policies
2. use of zero-waste treatment

Can’t win them all. Greenpeace says the rest of China needs to learn from Beijing. Perhaps they would if the rest of the cities in China could take turn hosting the Olympics. All of Beijing’s advancements came with a price tag.

source

For all of you that didn’t knew, actor Johnny Depp owns a private island in the Caribbean for which he paid some $3 million. It was his dream since childhood, based on the whole Robinson Crusoe thing. But why would this be of any interest for us?

The star from the Pirates of the Caribbean is going to convert his 35-acre island (which he calls the”F*ck Off Island”) in the Bahamas, to run on solar hydrogen technology. In a recent interview to the Guardian, he said that the late Marlon Brando (famous for his Tahitian paradise) influenced him to take the decision.

Depp said, ‘Hey, man, I found this thing, this island!’ Brando said, ‘Well, what’s the elevation? Do you have a water system there? What about the electricity?’

Depp is waiting in line to get his grid-independent solar hydrogen system from Mike Strizki (really smart guy), the inventor who built the first solar-hydrogen house in the country. The star will have to pay from $250,000 to $500,000 depending on the size of the house, but since he owns an island, I don’t money are a problem.

Good job Johnny for your unlimited, clean energy solution.