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How to Create Green Change in a Conservative Culture

Green Economy Post — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 05:24:00 -0800

By Anna Clark, President of EarthPeople

Evidence abounds that companies can improve their financial bottom line by looking out for the other two-thirds of their triple bottom line. So if sustainability makes so much sense, why isn't everyone doing it?

The hurdle is not the hard facts so much as the soft ones. Companies, like people, have personalities. Some are progressive, but most are conservative. When it comes to sustainability, the progressives get a lot of press, but in reality, they are the exceptions to the rule.

I'm no stranger to working in a conservative culture. Before launching a sustainability consulting practice, I was a management consultant with PricewaterhouseCoopers and IBM, working within industries like oil and gas and accounting. As a sustainability consultant, my first clients included law firms, also conservative by nature. Ready to barrel down the green superhighway at top speed, I created green plans that would take them from zero to 60, only to find out they were more content to creep along in the slow lane.

The issue wasn't in figuring out what to do. There are a number of well-documented third-party certification programs that can deliver demonstrable value through cost-savings measures that reduce environmental impact and increase brand awareness. The real challenge in greening a conservative culture lies in bridging the chasm between "progressives" and "conservatives."

Conservatives are cautious; progressives throw caution to the wind. Conservatives are grounded in reality; progressives are planted in possibility. Although these are broad generalizations, in today's highly charged political environment, any issue, particularly a heated one like energy, is subject to sweeping generalizations and half-truths.

So how do we chart a course for change within a conservative culture without being labeled as progressive - and potentially disregarded as a result? That question was on my mind when I met Dan Northcut.

Dan is the Director of Environmental Studies at St. Mark's School of Texas, a private preparatory school for boys founded in Dallas in 1906. Dan has been with the school for over 20 years. In fact, if you count the six years he spent there as a student, you could say he's been there for nearly 30 years.

During that time Dan has seen a lot. He remembers the late seventies when conserving energy was considered patriotic. To do its part, the school removed every other bulb from the light fixtures in its hallways and classrooms. Then came the 1980s. The solar panels were removed from the White House and the zeal for energy conservation in America was on the wane. Nearly two decades of relatively cheap energy followed. Fast forward to today. Conservation has once again become a hot topic in the national discourse, prompting companies to take a fresh look at conservation practices. But while the words "going green" roll of the tongue with ease, rolling out green initiatives that reduce greenhouse gases is not so easy. Many organizations today pay lip service to sustainability while only a few are making genuine investments to make facilities and operations more efficient.

So what sets St. Mark's School of Texas apart? A proactive, comprehensive approach to the 21st century realities of energy insecurity and climate change, driven by broad support from stakeholder groups, a spirit of leadership among its students, and the personal commitment of people like Dan Northcut, who also serves as the school's environmental director.

During the past few years, St. Mark's has implemented a single-stream recycling program and has switched its power source to a blend of 30-percent renewable energy, setting a goal to increase that amount by 10 percent each year. Dan's AP Environmental Science elective course is so popular that the school added a second section. An environmental component is also being integrated into the curriculum of the lower school, giving younger students exposure to sustainability concepts at an early age. Even the teachers' lounge reflects eco-consciousness, now that Styrofoam cups have been replaced with ceramic mugs bearing St. Mark's special green branding.

The most significant reflection of St. Mark's commitment is the Board of Trustees' approval of LEED certification for the two new buildings undergoing construction. This decision added just two percent more to the construction cost. St. Mark's will recover this within approximately 10 years - less if the cost of energy rises - with the added benefits of a healthier indoor environment.

The school's eco-improvements, which began two decades ago with Dan, now have the support of teachers, administration, students, parents, and the board. How one person helped drive change at St. Mark's presents a roadmap any change agent can follow in a conservative culture.

Although Dan has a longer history in his organization than the typical employee in a company, longevity has less to do with his success than the vital qualities of personal commitment, a penchant for education, a collaborative approach, and sheer enthusiasm. The green programs that gain traction, when compared to the ones that produce lackluster results, are created through one person or team exhibiting these traits.

Let's take a closer look at these qualities in terms of Dan's experience:
Personal Commitment. As the Director of Environmental Studies, Dan demonstrates knowledge of ecology and conservation on a daily basis. He also walks his own talk by living a green lifestyle. Nobody is suspicious of his motives.

Education. Conservatives don't want to be sold to, but they do want to be informed. What tends to hold people back, even CEOs, from jumping into new territory are concerns that they can't quite articulate. People need to develop a comfort level with green ideas. For the Headmaster, Dan created a "green print" plan, prioritizing and budgeting every element of his strategy. Dan engages the students through his environmental science classes, the administration through practical modifications for a greener campus, the parents through newsletters, and the community through free events such as movie festivals featuring eco-oriented documentaries.

Collaboration. Dan is just one guy. As with any organization, there exists at St. Mark's a number of spheres of influence: students, parents, administrators, and board members. By working with these groups to address their specific concerns or interests, Dan is not pushing an agenda but providing a service. He's garnering buy-in throughout the process by asking influential people to help support these programs.

Enthusiasm. Dan has fun. He likes people and seeks to understand them. Dan's persistence is tempered by his enthusiasm, so that even when he urges people to make green changes, he does so without annoying them. Enthusiasm is the antidote to burnout for anyone steering a green initiative inside a change-resistant culture.

Having the right people in place is half the battle. The other half involves strategy. To drive progress in a conservative culture, you must demonstrate the following: Top-level support. While a progressive culture will take grass roots efforts seriously, a conservative culture is more likely to follow the direction of top-level leadership. When the St. Mark's Board of Trustees decided that building its new facilities to LEED standards was the right thing to do, the school's green program finally got some teeth. Sustainability went from being "Dan's project" to becoming a core value of the organization.

Management-level and administrative support. A major stumbling block in organizations that fulfill the first prerequisite is failure to engage other rungs of employees. Engaging stakeholders requires a sincere statement backed by action on the part of the leader, as well as education and incentives to motivate staff that may be reticent to support "progressive" ideas.

Minimal risk. Any initiative perceived as a risk to the brand will not gain support.

A clear path. Conservative cultures are not innovative by nature. By sharing case studies of similar companies' sustainability initiatives, change agents can offer a concrete path to follow. Reputable third-party certifications like Energy Star also offer a step-by-step plan as well as promotional materials and opportunities for recognition. Bottom-line value. The numbers have to demonstrate a relatively short payback period with a clear ROI.

Political awareness. Know the culture. I had to learn this lesson the hard way. Sometimes you can have everything else in place and the plan can still fall flat. Never underestimate the importance of hierarchy in the planning stage. Know your audience. If you don't engage the right people early on, they will not appreciate the value of a sustainability plan that may require funds or behavioral changes, even if the numbers work on paper.

As specialized as the sustainability field is becoming, the gulf between where the experts are heading and where everyone else still remains continues to widen. In trying to solve complex problems, we create solutions that make sustainability ever more confusing for conservative cultures to embrace. Already they must wade through scores of certifications and requirements that can resemble regulations to the less informed. The result is stagnation, frustration, and inertia.

In order to get green off the ground within a change-resistant culture, try going back to basics. Even a program as simple as the three R's: reduce, reuse and recycle, can be effective. Companies that put into place a simple but measurable program may see enough positive evidence to inspire more strategic actions down the road. Slow and steady wins the race.

Conservation is still a conservative value, so why the pushback from conservative cultures? The reality is that most companies, like people, don't make decisions according to their values as much as their circumstances, especially in uncertain times. In this case, sustainability enthusiasts might dispense with idealism and try Dan's pragmatic approach, which he succinctly summarizes in the words of Harry Truman, "It's amazing what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit."

Reprinted with permission from the Green Economy Post

Bill Would Extend Solar Benefits to Communities

Cleantechnica — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 07:18:00 -0800

By Timothy B. Hurst

An idea being considered in Colorado that would allow for the establishment of 'community solar gardens' - solar arrays owned by a group of investors who cannot benefit from a rooftop solar installation - has now caught the eye of U.S. Senator from Colorado, Mark Udall. Udall yesterday announced a bill that would extend the tax credit available to homeowners who put solar panels on their roofs, to those homeowners who collectively own small solar arrays located somewhere other than their own property.

The Solar Uniting Neighborhoods (SUN) Act of 2010 updates the tax code regarding solar energy, giving investors of community solar projects a 30 percent tax credit just like individuals who install PV cells on their houses.

"By eliminating the requirement that the solar panel be on one individual's property, it frees Americans to work together on community projects where each individual can claim a tax credit on part of a shared project," said Udall on a conference call with reporters.

The concept behind the SUN Act is that it would open up solar ownership to people who would like to invest in solar, but because they live in an apartment, have a poor solar resource, or simply cannot afford the substantial up-front investment, have not.

"By grouping these solar panels, you can reduce the cost by 30 percent compared to installing a panel or a set of panels on every roof in the neighborhood," Udall added.

The big difference between the Community Solar Gardens bill introduced in Colorado and the one Udall announced yesterday, however, has to do with who can take advantage of the tax benefit: the Colorado bill covers not only homeowners but also renters.

The way the Colorado bill is worded, anyone may take advantage of the law who is a customer of a qualifying retail utility and who has "identified one or more physical locations located in the same county or municipality as the Community Solar Garden." The Colorado bill also allows subscribers to change the premises to which a subscription is attributed, and also to sell them to other qualifying subscribers, should the subscriber move out of the state or country.

The tax credits would be available for the next next five years at a cost of about $117 million. Udall says his measure will likely be included in an energy and climate package, or as part of a larger tax bill.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

Get Smart on Grid Investment Grants

CleanTechies — Wed, 17 Mar 2010 06:46:00 -0800

The Department of Energy, under its Smart Grid Investment Matching Grant Program, provides reimbursement of 20 percent of qualifying smart grid investments.

Qualifying costs include, but are not limited to, certain manufacturing related costs, software that enables computers or other devices to engage in smart grid functions, and metering devices, sensors, and control devices that are capable of engaging in smart grid functions.

Recently, questions have been raised as to whether the DOE grant under this program is subject to federal income tax.

The IRS, in Revenue Procedure 2010-20, concluded that the DOE grant is not subject to federal income tax.

In Rev. Proc. 2010-20, the IRS noted that the DOE grant is considered a contribution to capital that is not subject to tax under section 118 of the Internal Revenue Code. Section 118 of the Internal Revenue Code provides that, in the case of a corporation, gross income does not include a contribution of capital to the corporation.

In particular, the Treasury regulations related to Section 118 highlight that contributions to capital include contributions made by a person other than a shareholder, for example, a governmental body for the purpose of enabling the corporation to expand its operating facility.

The corporation receiving the DOE grant must however reduce the basis of the property to which the DOE grant relates to. For example, if a corporation purchases a smart grid related device for $1,000 and receives a DOE grant under the Smart Grid Investment Matching Grant Program in the amount of $200, the basis of the device shall be reduced by the DOE grant amount.

The resulting basis of $800 is the basis of the property for purposes of depreciation.

Rev. Proc. 2010-20 becomes effective March 10, 2010 and does not apply to non-corporate taxpayers or to DOE grants related to smart grid research, development, and demonstration.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechies

They're Hiring! CSR Jobs Grow by 33 Percent

SustainableBusiness — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 06:16:00 -0800

The posting of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) jobs increased 33% in 4Q09.

That follows a rather dismal year, when postings fell 68% from 3Q08 to 3Q09, according to the CSR Jobs report released by Sustainability Recruiting. The worst of the decline (61%) occurred between 3Q and 4Q of 2008, mirroring the drop in the stock market. CSR job listings declined even further through 1Q09 before leveling off through most of the year at a low point not seen since mid-2006.

The 4Q09 up-tick is promising, although it remains to be seen whether it will continue in 2010.

Among the most notable findings in the report is the increase in senior-level corporate positions--those with VP and Director titles. Before 2006, none of the job postings had a title of VP or above.

Dave Stangis, Vice President of CSR and Sustainability at Campbell's Soup commented: "The emergence of the VP of CSR and VP of Sustainability titles seems proof of the growing strategic business position of CSR."

Ellen Weinreb, CEO of Sustainability Recruiting, said: "A number of factors are involved. Most notable is the increased value being placed on CSR as a component of corporate strategy. This elevates the importance of positions performing this role.

Katie Kross, author of A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability, notes: "More and more employers are broadening the definition of CSR to include not only corporate citizenship, but also a focus on energy and environmental management issues. I also see employers posting job openings in traditional roles like operations and marketing that include some CSR responsibilities."

According to Weinreb, there is enormous demand for CSR jobs from jobseekers. The catch-22 is that employers require candidates for these positions to have previous experience.

Reprinted with permission from SustainableBusiness.com

Rural Coops Could Lend a Hand on Retrofits

Cleantechnica — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 19:37:00 -0800

By Susan Kraemer

A new type of utility-financed energy efficiency subsidy was introduced by Senator Merkley of Oregon to some surprisingly bipartisan support, gaining two Republican co-sponsors, in an indication of where a few Republican votes might be found in energy and climate legislation.

The Rural Energy Savings Program would provide Federal funding to rural electric co-ops so they could offer "on-bill" financing to their customers, allowing families and businesses to repay an energy efficiency retrofit loan off slowly over time through the savings on their monthly energy bill that the energy retrofit creates.

Like Property Assessed Clean Energy (PACE) funding it allows an entity to float bonds to provide the upfront cash, like Berkeley First and the subsequent municipal financing programs for putting in residential renewable energy.

The difference is, instead of a city or county, a rural electric coop would be fronting the money. Current PACE programs have used municipalities and cities, like Berkeley, or counties like Sonoma to float a bond and provide the funding and to be paid back over time through a corresponding increase in the homeowner's property tax bill.

Since the homeowner was no longer paying for electricity the tax assessment amounted to a substitute "utility bill", making the solar installation free in the sense that it is no more expensive than what homeowners were already paying. The lack of upfront expense is the draw.

Whether the money is fronted by a city or by a electric coop; the repayments should work just as effectively. Both cities and utilities are already in payment plans with the homeowner, a utility for electricity, a city for property taxes. Adding to that payment - while reducing the electricity payment correspondingly - is thus relatively straightforward.

And whether the money goes to produce energy - as in Berkeley and Sonoma County, funding solar panels - or to reduce energy use; as in this one for energy efficiency, should make little difference.

With enough efficiency measures like heat recovery, ground heat exchange, radiant cooling and heating, much better insulation, much higher R-value windows and walls - energy use can be reduced by efficiency up to 85% or so.

The National Rural Electric Cooperative Association supports the legislation. The USDA would administer it.

Republicans Lindsay Graham of new wind powerhouse South Carolina and Richard Lugar (of 90% coal powered Indiana) were the surprise cosponsors.

When the Senate finally takes up climate legislation, and with a few Republicans actually cosponsoring ideas like this one; it just might - I'm betting that this new electric utility version of municipal funding will be part of it.

Reprinted with permission from Cleantechnica

Fisker Says It Could Build 100,000 Electric Cars Annually At Delaware Plant

Gas 2.0 — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:40:00 -0800

by Christopher DeMorro

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.

Fisker's Karma sedan makes some bold promises; 0-60 in six seconds, 125 mph, and 50 miles of all-electric power, after which it becomes a hybrid car capable of high mileage (around 67 mpg or so). The Karma is also going to cost $80,000, not exactly practical for most of America. That is why Fisker is also working on what they call "Project Nina", a lower-cost sedan with mass market appeal. The Karma is certainly eye-catching; I'm hoping the Nina will be just as sexy.

During his speech, company CEO Henrik Fisker said that he wants to build cars that people want. And as a recent study pointed out, people don't just want fuel efficiency; they want a car that is in every way a better automobile. Fisker hopes to get prototype models of the Nina pumping out of the plant next year, with production ramping up in 2014. The Karma will be assembled in Finland and shipped over to America later this year, although the Delaware plant could feasibly be retooled to build the Karma as well. Fisker hopes to also export both of these cars to emerging markets like China.

I'm looking forward to the Karma in a big way, and it would be nice to see a start-up company give the Detroit Big Three some competition en masse.

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

The Unpersuadables

Celsias — Fri, 12 Mar 2010 08:02:00 -0800

by George Monbiot

There is one question that no one who denies manmade climate change wants to answer: what would it take to persuade you? In most cases the answer seems to be nothing. No level of evidence can shake the growing belief that climate science is a giant conspiracy codded up by boffins and governments to tax and control us. The new study by the Met Office, which paints an even grimmer picture than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change(1), will do nothing to change this view.

The attack on climate scientists is now widening to an all-out war on science. Writing recently for the Telegraph, the columnist Gerald Warner dismissed scientists as "white-coated prima donnas and narcissists ... pointy-heads in lab coats [who] have reassumed the role of mad cranks ... The public is no longer in awe of scientists. Like squabbling evangelical churches in the 19th century, they can form as many schismatic sects as they like, nobody is listening to them any more."

Views like this can be explained partly as the revenge of the humanities students. There is scarcely an editor or executive in any major media company - and precious few journalists - with a science degree, yet everyone knows that the anoraks are taking over the world. But the problem is compounded by complexity. Arthur C Clarke remarked that "any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."

He might have added that any sufficiently advanced expertise is indistinguishable from gobbledegook. Scientific specialization is now so extreme that even people studying neighbouring subjects within the same discipline can no longer understand each other. The detail of modern science is incomprehensible to almost everyone, which means that we have to take what scientists say on trust. Yet science tells us to trust nothing; to believe only what can be demonstrated. This contradiction is fatal to public confidence.

Distrust has been multiplied by the publishers of scientific journals, whose monopolistic practices make the supermarkets look like angels, and which are long overdue for a referral to the Competition Commission. They pay nothing for most of the material they publish, yet, unless you are attached to an academic institute, they'll charge you 20 pounds or more for access to a single article. In some cases they charge libraries tens of thousands for an annual subscription. If scientists want people at least to try to understand their work, they should raise a full-scale revolt against the journals which publish them. It is no longer acceptable for the guardians of knowledge to behave like 19th-Century gamekeepers, chasing the proles out of the grand estates.

But there's a deeper suspicion here as well. Popular mythology - from Faust through Frankenstein to Dr No - casts scientists as sinister schemers, harnessing the dark arts to further their diabolical powers. Sometimes this isn't far from the truth. Some use their genius to weaponize anthrax for the US and Russian governments. Some isolate terminator genes for biotech companies, to prevent farmers from saving their own seed. Some lend their names to articles ghostwritten by pharmaceutical companies, which mislead doctors about the drugs they sell. Until there is a global code of practice or a Hippocratic oath binding scientists to do no harm, the reputation of science will be dragged through the dirt by researchers who devise new means of hurting us.

Yesterday in the Guardian Peter Preston called for a prophet to lead us out of the wilderness. "We need one passionate, persuasive scientist who can connect and convince ... We need to be taught to believe by a true believer". Would it work? No. Look at the hatred and derision the passionate and persuasive Al Gore attracts. The problem is not only that most climate scientists can speak no recognizable human language, but also the expectation that people are amenable to persuasion.

In 2008 the Washington Post summarized recent psychological research on misinformation. This shows that in some cases debunking a false story can increase the number of people who believe it. In one study, 34% of conservatives who were told about the Bush government's claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were inclined to believe them. But among those who were shown that the government's claims were later comprehensively refuted by the Duelfer report, 64% ended up believing that Iraq had WMD.

There's a possible explanation in an article published by Nature in January. It shows that people tend to "take their cue about what they should feel, and hence believe, from the cheers and boos of the home crowd." Those who see themselves as individualists and those who respect authority, for example, "tend to dismiss evidence of environmental risks, because the widespread acceptance of such evidence would lead to restrictions on commerce and industry, activities they admire." Those with more egalitarian values are "more inclined to believe that such activities pose unacceptable risks and should be restricted."

These divisions, researchers have found, are better at explaining different responses to information than any other factor: race, gender, class, income, education or personality type. Our ideological filters encourage us to interpret new evidence in ways that reinforce our beliefs. "As a result, groups with opposing values often become more polarized, not less, when exposed to scientifically sound information." The conservatives in the Iraq experiment might have reacted against something they associated with the Duelfer report, rather than the information it contained.

While this analysis rings true, the description of where the dividing line lies isn't quite right. It doesn't describe the odd position in which I find myself. Despite my iconoclastic, anti-corporate instincts, I now spend much of my time defending the scientific establishment from attacks by the kind of rabble-rousers with whom I usually associate. My heart rebels against this project: I would rather be pelting scientists with eggs than trying to understand their datasets. But my beliefs oblige me to try to make sense of the science and to explain its implications. This turns out to be the most divisive project I've ever engaged in. The more I stick to the facts, the more virulent the abuse becomes.

This doesn't bother me - I have a hide like a glyptodon - but it reinforces the disturbing possibility that nothing works. The research discussed in the Nature paper shows that when scientists dress soberly, shave off their beards and give their papers conservative titles, they can reach across to the other side. But in doing so they will surely alienate people who would otherwise be inclined to trust them. As the MMR saga shows, people who mistrust authority are just as likely to kick against science as those who respect it.

Perhaps we have to accept that there is no simple solution to public disbelief in science. The battle over climate change suggests that the more clearly you spell the problem out, the more you turn people away. If they don't want to know, nothing and no one will reach them. There goes my life's work.

This article was originally posted at www.monbiot.com and printed in the Guardian. Reprinted with permission from Celsias

Green Marketing Best Practices Shared by Executives

Green Economy Post — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 15:45:00 -0800

by Sofia Ribeiro

High-profile leaders gathered to discuss opportunities in the world of environmental capital at the Eco:nomics Conference, and the identify what the best practices where when applying green marketing. The include: looking for the "low-hanging fruit" for quicker ROI, giving customers reasons to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors, making the message personal by explaining how a consumer's purchase has direct environmental results, and avoiding a hard sell on environmental benefits.

The Eco:nomics Conference, one of the most popular conferences in the green industry, took place a few weeks ago in Santa Barbara, California. High-profile leaders from Walt Disney, RecycleBank, Yale, GE and The Climate Group, as well as Wall Street Journal's editors, got together to talk about the real risks and opportunities in the fast-changing world of environmental capital.

One of the topics discussed was green marketing and best practices. These were the main outcomes:

What works

- Companies should focus on improving their own energy efficiency, while emphasizing benefits to local communities. Look for the "low-hanging fruit" for quicker ROI.

- Companies should give customers reasons to adopt environmentally responsible behaviors.

- When it comes to green marketing, provide information about a product's environmental benefits close to the point of purchase. Make the message personal by explaining how a consumer's purchase has direct environmental results.

- When providing information to stakeholders, avoid a hard sell on environmental benefits. Instead, engage stakeholders in a dialogue.

- In green marketing, explain the benefits to the environment as part of a bigger value proposition.

- Consider how waste can be an opportunity, not a cost or liability.

- Get a double whammy by undertaking a project that will boost productivity at the same time as cutting emissions.

- When working with nongovernmental organizations, there must be a shared understanding of the goals and constraints of a partnership, with both sides understanding and respecting the rules of engagement.

- To get a project off the ground, consider new forms of financing, both public and private. For instance, it is possible to add solar panels at no upfront cost using a power purchase agreement (PPA).

What doesn't work

- Participants suggested that the government should not be put in a position "to pick winners and losers" for any technology or business process. Instead, the government should help develop technology-neutral standards.

- Companies cannot use uncertainty over government action on climate change as an excuse to stop innovating.

- Firms cannot simply talk about being green. Sustainability must become part of a company's DNA.

- Avoid politicizing sustainability. Instead, explain the economics behind adopting energy efficiency and reducing environmental impacts.

- When working with nongovernmental organizations, do not strike a deal that has no substance. Be sure to carefully consider the people and resource needs of a partnership.

- For best results when financing energy efficiency or other environmental projects, the market requires more certainty in government policy.

Reprinted with permission from Green Economy Post

The Weekly: News from Around the Matter Network

David Ferris — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 13:54:00 -0800

by David Ferris

Bubble, Bubble, Methane is Trouble: A vast storehouse of methane under the Arctic Ocean has perforated and is starting to leak, researchers disclosed. While scientists have long been preoccupied with methane release from permafrost on mainland Siberia, the underwater stores in the adjoining East Siberian Arctic Shelf are much larger, and the release of even a small fraction could lead to a dramatic increase in global warming. Methane is a greenhouse gas at least 25 times more powerful than CO2.

Now a Word from Our Other Gases: It was a promising week in the world of fuels. A Colorado startup revealed a solar concentrator that can vaporize biomass and make high-yield synthetic fuels. British scientists explored enzymes in the gut of a boat-eating bug that could break down straw or waste wood. Meanwhile, a California newbie called Transonic Combustion claims to have invented a fuel-injection system that could boost mileage of plain old gas by 50 percent. The company registered 64 miles to the gallon in recent test drives.

As if that wasn't enough, Brazil's 10 millionth vehicle powered by sugarcane ethanol hit the road. Also, the world's largest shipping company, Maersk, said it would try to cut its CO2 output by 20 percent over the next seven years by blending its heavy engine oil with biofuels.

Winners in the Cheap, Common-Sense Category Are...: Rooftop solar water heaters are spreading like dandelion seeds in China and Europe; if worldwide growth projections hold true, in the next decade they could save the energy equivalent of 690 coal-fired power plants. Hurrah also for the efficient cookstove, a simple contraption that could stamp out soot, reduce the melting of glaciers, and help women and children live longer in the developing world.

Electric Batteries Cheaper; Charging Stations Out? Prices for electric-car batteries are dropping so fast that an electric car might not cost as much as the bean-counters thought. Also, a study finds that most electric-car drivers get around fine by charging at home; does this mean electric-car charging stations are a big waste of money?

Now Get Out of Here: With the Greek economy in meltdown, there's never been a better time to buy an island. If it sinks underwater because of global warming, then make like the Maldives and build your own.

Reprinted with permission from The Ferris Files

The Case Against Biofuels: Probing Ethanol's Hidden Costs

Yale Environment 360 — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 08:35:00 -0800

by C. Ford Runge

In light of the strong evidence that growing corn, soybeans, and other food crops to produce ethanol takes a heavy toll on the environment and is hurting the world's poor through higher food prices, consider this astonishing fact: This year, more than a third of the U.S.'s record corn harvest of 335 million metric tons will be used to produce corn ethanol. What's more, within five years fully 50 percent of the U.S. corn crop is expected to wind up as biofuels.

Here's another sobering fact. Despite the record deficits facing the U.S., and notwithstanding President Obama's embrace of some truly sustainable renewable energy policies, the president and his administration have wholeheartedly embraced corn ethanol and the tangle of government subsidies, price supports, and tariffs that underpin the entire dubious enterprise of using corn to power our cars. In early February, the president threw his weight behind new and existing initiatives to boost ethanol production from both food and nonfood sources, including supporting Congressional mandates that would triple biofuel production to 36 billion gallons by 2022.

Congress and the Obama administration are paying billions of dollars to producers of biofuels, with expenditures scheduled to increase steadily through 2022 and possibly 2030. The fuels are touted by these producers as a "green" solution to reliance on imported petroleum, and a boost for farmers seeking higher prices.

Yet a close look at their impact on food security and the environment - with profound effects on water, the eutrophication of our coastal zones from fertilizers, land use, and greenhouse gas emissions - suggests that the biofuel bandwagon is anything but green. Congress and the administration need to reconsider whether they are throwing good money after bad. If the biofuel saga illustrates anything, it is that thinking ecologically will require thinking more logically, as well.

Investments in biofuels have grown rapidly in the last decade, accelerating especially in developed countries and Brazil after 2003, when oil prices began to climb above $25 per barrel, reaching a peak of $120 per barrel in 2008. Between 2001 and 2008, world production of ethanol tripled from 4.9 billion gallons to 17 billion gallons, while biodiesel output rose from 264 million gallons to 2.9 billion gallons. Together, the U.S. and Brazil account for most of the world's ethanol production. Biodiesel, the other major biofuel, is produced mainly in the European Union, which makes roughly five times more than the U.S. In the EU, ethanol and biodiesel are projected to increase oilseed, wheat, and corn usage from negligible levels in 2004 to roughly 21, 17, and 5 million tons, respectively, in 2016, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.

In the U.S., once a reliable supplier of exported grain and oilseeds for food, biofuel production is soaring even as food crop export demand remains strong, driving prices further upward. Government support undergirding the biofuels industry has also grown rapidly and now forms a massive federal program that may be good for farm states, but is very bad for U.S. taxpayers.

These subsidy supports are a testament to the power of the farm lobby and its sway over the U.S. Congress. In addition to longstanding crop price supports that encourage production of corn and soybeans as feedstocks, biofuels are propped up by several other forms of government largesse. The first of these are mandates, known as "renewable fuels standards": In the U.S. in 2007, energy legislation raised mandated production of biofuels to 36 billion gallons by 2022. These mandates shelter biofuels investments by guaranteeing that the demand will be there, thus encouraging oversupply.

Then there are direct biofuel production subsidies, which raise feedstock prices for farmers by increasing the price of corn. In the U.S., blenders are paid a 45 cent-per-gallon "blender's tax credit" for ethanol - the equivalent of more than $200 per acre to divert scarce corn from the food supply into fuel tanks. The federal government also pays a $1 credit for plant-based biodiesel and "cellulosic" ethanol.

Finally, there is a 54 cent-per-gallon tariff on imported biofuel to protect domestic production from competition, especially to prevent Brazilian sugarcane-based ethanol (which can be produced at less than half the cost of U.S. ethanol from corn) from entering U.S. markets. These subsidies allow ethanol producers to pay higher and higher prices for feedstocks, illustrated by the record 2008 levels of corn, soybean, and wheat prices. Projections suggest they will remain higher, assuming normal weather and yields.

The rapid increase in grain and oilseed prices due to biofuels expansion has been a shock to consumers worldwide, especially during 2008 and early 2009. From 2005 to January 2008, the global price of wheat increased 143 percent, corn by 105 percent, rice by 154 percent, sugar by 118 percent, and oilseeds by 197 percent. In 2006-2007, this rate of increase accelerated, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, "due to continued demand for biofuels and drought in major producing countries." The price increases have since moderated, but many believe only temporarily, given tight stocks-to-use ratios.

It is in poor countries that these price increases pose direct threats to disposable income and food security. There, the run-up in food prices has been ominous for the more than one billion of the world's poor who are chronically food-insecure. Poor farmers in countries such as Bangladesh can barely support a household on a subsistence basis, and have little if any surplus production to sell, which means they do not benefit from higher prices for corn or wheat. And poor slum-dwellers in Lagos, Calcutta, Manila, or Mexico City produce no food at all, and spend as much as 90 percent of their meager household incomes just to eat.

But the most worrisome of recent criticisms of biofuels relate to their impacts on the natural environment. In the U.S., water shortages due to the huge volumes necessary to process grains or sugar into ethanol are not uncommon, and are amplified if these crops are irrigated. Growing corn to produce ethanol, according to a 2007 study by the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, consumes 200 times more water than the water used to process corn into ethanol.

In the cornbelt of the Upper Midwest, even more serious problem arise. Corn acreage, which expanded by over 15 percent in 2007 in response to ethanol demands, requires extensive fertilization, adding to nitrogen and phosphorus that run off into lakes and streams and eventually enter the Mississippi River watershed. This is aggravated by systems of subterranean tiles and drains - 98 percent of Iowa's arable fields are tiled - that accelerate field drainage into ditches and local watersheds. As a result, loadings of nitrogen and phosphorus into the Mississippi and the Gulf of Mexico encourage algae growth, starving water bodies of oxygen needed by aquatic life and enlarging the hypoxic "dead zone" in the gulf.

Next is simply the crop acreage needed to feed the biofuels beast. A 2007 study in Science noted that to replace just 10 percent of the gasoline in the U.S. with ethanol and biodiesel would require 43 percent of current U.S. cropland for biofuel feedstocks. The EU would need to commit 38 percent of its cropland base. Otherwise, new lands will need to be brought into cultivation, drawn disproportionately from those more vulnerable to environmental damage, such as forests.

A pair of 2008 studies, again in Science, focused on the question of greenhouse gas emissions due to land-use shifts resulting from biofuels. One study said that if land is converted from rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce biofuels, it causes a large net increase in greenhouse gas emissions for decades. A second study said that growing corn for ethanol in the U.S., for example, can lead to the clearing of forests and other wild lands in the developing world for food corn, which also causes a surge in greenhouse gas emissions.

A third study, by Nobel-Prize winning chemist Paul Crutzen in 2007, emphasized the impact from the heavy applications of nitrogen needed to grow expanded feedstocks of corn and rapeseed. The nitrogen necessary to grow these crops releases nitrous oxide into the atmosphere - a greenhouse gas 296 times more damaging than CO2 - and contributes more to global warming than biofuels save through fossil fuel reductions.

Thus have biofuels made the slow fade from green to brown. It is a sad irony of the biofuels experience that resource alternatives that seemed farmer-friendly and green have turned out so badly.

What's needed are a freeze on further mandates to slow overinvestment, reductions in the blenders' tax credit - especially when corn prices are high - and cuts in tariff protection to encourage cost-reduction strategies by U.S. producers. And the high environmental and human costs of using corn, soybeans, and other food crops to produce biofuels should spur government initiatives to develop more sustainable forms of renewable energy, such as wind power, solar power, and - one day, perhaps - algal biofuels grown at waste treatment plants.

Yet sadly, as in so many areas of policy, Congress and the administration prefer to reward inefficiency and political influence more than pursuing cost-effective - and sustainable - energy strategies.

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

Boat-Eating Bug May Hold Key for Future of Biofuels

Gas 2.0 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 10:00:00 -0800

by Nick Chambers

New research out of the University of York in Britain is unraveling some mysteries of the common wood-eating gribble that could provide the key to cheaply turning abundant wood and straw fiber into biofuel.

For centuries the gribble has been known to the seafaring world mainly for eating holes in their ships, docks and piers - causing untold amounts of damage. But the bug's uncanny knack for digesting raw wood holds the promise of enzymes that can, by themselves, turn wood and straw fibers into sugars, which can then be easily turned into ethanol through simple fermentation.

The current process of making this kind of ethanol, known as cellulosic ethanol (or "celluline," as I like to call it), is quite difficult; with many companies resorting to energy-intensive plasma gasification or multiple steps involving toxic hot baths of chemicals or extremely long processing times.

But the gut of the gribble plays host to some pretty amazing enzymes the creature produces all on its own that accomplish the same things that plasma gasification or toxic chemicals can - but without all the fuss. Investigating little wood-eating creatures like gribbles and termites for answers on how to turn wood and straw into fuel is not new. Over a year ago, I wrote about similar research on termites. But termites accomplish the breakdown of wood by working in coordination with some microbes that inhabit their guts, whereas gribbles make the enzymes all by themselves and have no microbial help.

It's this subtle difference that makes gribbles potentially more valuable to the world of biofuels. If we could simply produce some enzymes that worked in an industrial setting to turn wood and straw waste into sugar, there would be virtually no barriers to producing cheap and plentiful, ecologically sound ethanol.

The researchers are currently trying to figure out exactly how the enzymes work. After that the next hurdle would be to figure out a way to scale them up to work on the commercial level. As the researchers point out, perhaps one day people will be piloting boats powered by biofuels produced with enzymes from a bug that used to cost the boating industry lots of money. How's that for a twist of fate?

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

Using Intense Sun to Vaporize Biomass

Yale Environment 360 — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 09:52:00 -0800

A U.S. startup has developed a process that uses concentrated solar heat to vaporize biomass into synthetic fuels, a system the company says is cleaner and more efficient and can produce twice as much fuel per ton of biomass as existing systems. In the process, a network of solar mirrors direct sunlight at a mounted gasifying unit, heating ceramic tubes to 1,200 to 1,300 degrees C. Any biomass, such as wood and crop waste, that is passed through the tubes becomes vaporized and is converted into synthetic gas, the company says. At such extreme temperatures, the process leaves behind little tar residue, which the developers say can be expensive to get rid of and can kill the catalysts that reform the product into liquid fuel later in the process. And unlike other gasification processes - in which the heating comes from the burning of 30 to 35 percent of the biomass - this system requires no biomass to heat the unit, said Alan Weimer, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Colorado, Boulder, who is working with Colorado-based Sundrop Fuels to commercialize the process.

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360

Celebrating 10 Women in Wind and Solar Energy

Green Economy Post — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 08:06:00 -0800

by Jeremy Gross

Women's History Month is here! Let's take a look at some of the women who are shaping wind and solar energy as renewables plays an expanding role in all our lives.

Women's History Month began in 1978 as "Women's History Week" in Sonoma County, California. Then in 1981, Congress passed a resolution that made the history week a national event. Finally, in 1987, Congress expanded the celebration to a month, officially declaring March as Women's History Month.

At Green Economy Post, in honor of Women's History Month, we celebrate women who are making great strides in the green economy and renewable energy - areas which will continue to have a tremendously positive impact in all our futures.

Here are 10 women who are players in our renewable energy focused future:

Marlene Brown is an Electrical Engineer and a Senior Member of the Technical Staff at Sandia National Labs. Marlene is a former President of the New Mexico Solar Power Association (NMSEA), and is currently on the Board of Directors. She has worked with photovoltaic (PV) systems for over 15 years, installing hundreds of systems throughout world. She has also taught solar energy installation classes for over 10 years and spends many hours promoting renewable energy technology as a career choice for women. Using an all female class, she put photovoltaics on her house in May 2004. Marlene was the 2009 Winner of the American Solar Energy Society's "Women in Solar" award.

Katherine Kent has been President of the Solar Store since 1998. The Solar Store provides both remote and grid tie solar energy systems for rural and urban homeowners. Katherine earned a BS in Chemical Engineering, an MS in Nuclear and Energy Engineering, and an MBA! She is also a licensed professional engineer in Arizona, a Certified Energy manager, and has commercial and residential Arizona contracting licenses in electrical and plumbing with solar. Katherine has received numerous awards throughout her career: the Department of Energy's presented her with the Energy Innovation award for work on passive cooling strategies for desert climates; she was named 1995's Distinguished New Engineer by the Society of Women's Engineer's; and was named the 2007 Woman in Solar Energy by the American Solar Energy Society.

Alison Kwok, AIA, Ph.D., LEED AP, is a professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Oregon, Eugene where she teaches design studios, seminars in climatic design, lighting, and building performance in addition to classes in environmental technology. Her current research interests include thermal comfort, air movement patterns in naturally-ventilated spaces, physical building performance measurement, and environmentally-responsible design. Over the years, Alison has encouraged her students to study passive solar design through case study investigations and she received the American Solar Energy Society's 2008 WISE (Women in Solar Energy) Award.

Dr. Jan Hamrin is founder and president of the Center for Resource Solutions, a national nonprofit working to fight climate change by building policies and consumer-protection mechanisms in renewable energy, greenhouse gas reductions and energy efficiency. Jan has served the Commission for Environmental Cooperation as an advisor to on renewable energy policy issues, and the G-8 Renewable Energy Task Force. She led a team towards designing the implementation of the California RPS program and developing a western renewable energy tracking system and a tracking system association for North America. Jan has a Ph.D. in Ecology, with a focus on public policy evaluation of environmental and energy programs, from the University of California, Davis. She also has Masters degrees in Public Administration and Consumer Science from U.C. Davis as well as a B.S. from the University of New Mexico. Jan received the "Green Power Pioneer" award from the Department of Energy and Women of Wind Energy's 2007 Woman of the Year Award.

Jan Blittersdorf is CEO and President of NRG Systems, a wind measurement systems manufacturer that she joined in 1987 as CFO and vice president. In 2006, Jan was the first woman to be recognized as the Wind Woman of the Year by WoWE (Women of Wind Energy), and is currently on the WoWE's Board of Directors. Additionally, Jan is a member of the Audit Committee for the American Wind Energy Association. She is also on the Board of Directors for Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility, on the Advisory Boards for the University of Vermont School of Business and Vermont Technical College, as well as a member of the Business Advisory Council for the Vermont Speaker of the House. Jan received bachelor's degrees in nursing and human development from the University of Vermont.

Lisa M. Daniels is the Executive Director and founder of Windustry, an organization that promotes renewable energy solutions and empowers communities to develop and own wind energy assets. She has been providing wind energy information and assistance to farmers, ranchers, elected officials, rural utilities and other interested groups since 1995. Lisa leads Windustry's contracts with the US Department of Energy and National Renewable Energy Laboratory and is a Wind Powering America partner. She serves on the American Wind Energy Association Community Wind Work Group Steering Committee, and the National Wind Coordinating Committee's Steering Committee. Lisa is also a founding member and on the Board of Directors for Women of Wind Energy (WoWE). The Wind Powering America program honored her in 2004 with the Chicago Regional Office Wind Advocacy Award for regional leadership, creativity, and commitment to wind energy development - and also in 2005 for her work with the Agriculture Outreach Team.

Karen Conover has over 20 years of experience with wind energy technology and other renewable energy applications. She co-founded Global Energy Concepts (GEC) in 1994, growing to 100 employees and two offices. GEC was acquired in 2008 by DNV as part of the Cleaner Energy group and is currently the Director of Wind Business and Strategy Development. Her work includes wind resource assessment, project design, technical due diligence, site selection, feasibility studies, financial and economic analysis, bid preparation and evaluation, project development, policy evaluations, training, testing, construction oversight, performance evaluation, and O&M planning. Karen has been an active American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) board member since 1995 where she was the first woman and also the youngest person appointed to the board. She was also named WoWE's 2009 Woman of the Year. Karen holds an M.S. in Energy Systems Engineering from the University of Arizona and a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering and Material Science from Duke University.

Rachel Shimshak has been the Director of the Renewable Northwest Project (RNP) since its inception in 1994. Under her leadership, RNP has supported the Northwest's implementation of more than 2,700 MW of wind, geothermal, and solar projects. In 2005, she was chosen by the Governor of Oregon to represent the state on the Western Governor's Association Clean and Diversified Energy Advisory Committee, and she was chosen by the four Northwest Governors to serve on the Comprehensive Review of the Northwest Energy System in 1996. She has served on the Boards of several, non-profit, clean energy and educational organizations and is currently the Secretary of the Bonneville Environmental Foundation. Rachel was also named WoWE's 2008 Woman of the Year.

Trudy Forsyth is currently a Senior Project Leader for the National Wind Technology Center at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Trudy is also the NREL liaison with the AWEA Small Wind Turbine Committee, which wrote and published the AWEA Small Wind Turbine Industry Roadmap, a multi-year strategy for the small wind industry. Trudy is currently part of the National Organizing Committee for ASES 2009, is a member of the Small Wind Certification Council, chairs the ASES Small Wind Division, and serves on the steering committee for Women of Wind Energy. She received an NREL 2003 Staff Award for Outstanding Community and Professional Service and special recognition from the Interstate Renewable Energy Council for her strategies to promote the use of renewable energy. Trudy has a B.S. and M.S. in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Colorado, Denver.

Sarah Wright is the Founder and Executive Director of Utah Clean Energy (UTC), a non-profit public interest organization working to build a new clean energy economy. Sarah also serves on the Governor's Energy Advisory Council and the Blue Ribbon Advisory Council on Climate Change. She was previously an environmental consultant focused on occupational health and ambient air quality permitting. She won the 2009 WoWE Rising Star award for her accomplishments in promoting wind, renewable energy and efficiency within the state of Utah. Sarah holds a B.S. in Geology from Bradley University, and an M.S. in Public Health from the University of Utah.

Reprinted with permission from Green Economy Post

Largest Container Ship Operator Pledges To Cut CO2 Emissions by 20%

Gas 2.0 — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 15:44:00 -0800

by Christopher DeMorro

Container ships straddle a fine line between ultra-efficient and ultra-polluters. They can carry thousands of 20-ft containers across thousands of miles of ocean in relatively short time, but they also burn sulfur-laden heavy oil fuels. Each ship can emit over 150,000 tons of CO2 every year, 5,000 tons of sulfur, and other harmful particulates attributed to death and disease along heavily populated coastlines.

A.P. Moller Maersk AS operates the world's largest container ship fleet. For the first time in 106 years, they lost money due to the economic downturn. How much money? $1.3 billion. Ouch. But they've also pledged to reduce their CO2 output by 20% by 2017. How nice would that be?

The Maersk Alabama was a ship captured by Somali pirates last year, which may be why the name is familiar to you. As recently as 2007, many shipping companies were placing orders for huge, $100 million dollar container ships that could hold thousands of containers. In this sense, these ships are incredibly efficient, requiring crews that often number under two-dozen. Sometimes over 1,000 feet long, they are monsters in every sense of the word, especially when it comes to emissions.

Green Car Congress reports that 12% of the world's shipping fleet is idled right now. Not exactly good for the economy... but better for the environment. But perhaps more importantly, Maersk is also saying that they will cut their CO2 emissions by 20% by 2017. Maersk operates a fleet of over 500 ships, ranging from small boats like the Alabama that can carry a little over 1,000 containers to the Emma, which has an unofficial capacity of about 15,000 containers. If they truly did cut their emissions by 20%, that would be a huge dent in the global emissions equation. They are currently experimenting with a 5-7% biofuel blend. But perhaps even more shocking is their vocal support for a carbon tax on shipping.

I still say bring back sails. But what do I know?

Reprinted with permission from Gas 2.0

Plague of Black Carbon Can Be Eased With New Stoves

Yale Environment 360 — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 14:40:00 -0800

by John R. Luoma

With a single, concerted initiative, says Lakshman Guruswami, the world could save millions of people in poor nations from respiratory ailments and early death, while dealing a big blow to global warming - and all at a surprisingly small cost.

"If we could supply cheap, clean-burning cook stoves to the large portion of the world that burns biomass," says Guruswami, a Sri Lankan-born professor of international law at the University of Colorado, "we could address a significant international public health problem, and at the same stroke cut a major source of warming."

Sooty, indoor air pollution from open wood or other biomass fires has long been linked to health problems and deaths. More recently, scientists have been surprised to learn that black carbon - not only from biomass fires but from dirty diesel engines and other sources - is a far larger contributor to global warming than previously suspected: The dark particles absorb and retain heat close to the Earth's surface that might otherwise be reflected.

Some two billion people around the world, Guruswami notes, do most or all of their cooking and heating with fires from simple biomass - dried dung, wood, brush, or crop residues. In India alone, the ratio is much higher - about three-fourths.

"Think about that," says Guruswami, who directs his university's Center for Energy and Environmental Security. "Two billion people, one-third of the people on Earth, are caught in a time warp, with no access to modern energy. They got energy from Prometheus a long time ago, and that was it."

Public health scientists have been pointing out for years that open fires and primitive stoves for cooking and heating used in much of the developing world pose profound health risks, particularly among women and children. Women typically spend hours cooking multiple meals beside smoky fires and stoves, with infants and small children in close proximity.

The public health implications alone are profound: 1.5 million lives are lost to respiratory, heart and other soot-related harm every year, according to World Health Organization estimates.

As for the climate aspects, atmospheric scientists have more recently reported that ordinary soot - or black carbon - plays a surprisingly large role in global and regional warming. Some scientists now estimate that small, solid particles of black carbon are responsible for about one-fifth of warming globally and, as such, are the second-largest contributor to climate change, after carbon dioxide gas.

In addition to soaking up heat in the atmosphere, the tiny, dark particles - or aerosols - are blown poleward or up mountains, where they settle on snow and ice and absorb warmth. Although dirty diesel engines, power plants and other more advanced technologies produce black carbon, cooking fires appear to be the largest source of soot in developing nations.

More alarming, extra warming driven by black carbon appears to be especially amplified in the high country of Asia's Tibetan Plateau, home to the world's highest mountains. There, in a region sometimes called the "Third Pole," summer melt-water from thousands of glaciers forms the headwaters of major rivers that provide water to more than a billion people in teeming cities and small farms below, in India, China, and smaller nations like Burma and Vietnam. In fact, the plateau has been called "Asia's water tower," feeding the Ganges, the Indus, the Brahmaputra, the Mekong, the Yangtze, and the Yellow rivers.

Already, glaciers on the plateau have declined by about 20 percent since the 1960s. Scientists have predicted that with rising Asian populations and more open fires, diesel engines, and burning of forests, the glacial melt will accelerate, eventually diminishing the rivers below.

Beginning in 2007, scientists at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography helped establish just how profound warming boosted by black carbon might be in the Tibetan Plateau. While previous hints had come from computer models, Scripps scientists working in India measured soot levels and dispersion by flying three unmanned aircraft equipped with sensors across the region. Using this data, the Scripps team, headed by climatologist Veerabhadran Ramanathan, concluded that black carbon was probably contributing at least as much to the Tibetan Plateau's glacial melt as were greenhouse gases. A separate study last month estimated that black carbon was responsible for at least 30 percent of glacial melt in the Himalayas.

Late last year, NASA reported that black carbon rises into the atmosphere, attaches to dust, and moves with warm-season air patterns to the Himalayan foothills. Heat from the sun warms this "brown cloud," accelerating its typical monsoon season rise up the slope, essentially pumping heat up the mountains, according to William Lau, who heads research in atmospheric sciences at NASA'S Goddard Space Flight Center.

"Over areas of the Himalayas, the rate of warming is more than five times faster than warming globally," Lau said at a press briefing in December, noting that the heating problem is most dramatic in the western part of the Tibetan Plateau. "Based on the differences, it's not difficult to conclude that greenhouse gases are not the sole agents of change in [this] region," he added. "There's a localized phenomenon at play."

Enter the cook stove. A November 2009 study published in The Lancet, the British medical journal, estimated that a decade-long, all-out effort to equip about 90 percent of Indian households that burn biomass with clean-burning cook stoves by 2020 would reduce premature deaths by 17 percent annually, essentially saving 55.5 million years of human life.

But there's a key reason the world's poor have long cooked with biomass over sooty fires, often nothing more than a "three-stone fire" with dried dung or brush smoldering under a pot sitting on a triangle of stones: They couldn't afford anything better.

The University of Colorado's Guruswami says that to be workable for billions of people who might live on as little as one dollar a day, a better cook stove has to have three main attributes: It has to reduce soot, it has to be long-lived, and it has to be cheap - ideally $10 or less. The good news is that inventors and engineers have come up with various versions of efficient cook stoves, some of them both simple to use and inexpensive.

In the early 1980s, Oregon-based engineer Larry Winiarski developed what he called the Rocket Stove, designed for cleaner combustion and more heat using a fire that burns the tips of a long bunch of small wood sticks: To feed the fire as the tips burn away, a cook need only push the bundle in further. The Rocket stove is designed to take advantage of natural convection to burn its biomass more efficiently, and in fact uses about half as much wood as a primitive three-stone fire or simpler stove.

The Aprovecho Research Center, a nonprofit where Winiarski serves as technical director, estimates that more than 40 stove projects in many nations have since built Rocket stoves, and estimates that more than a quarter-million Rocket stoves are now being used worldwide.

Fort Collins, Colo., home to a major university-based combustion laboratory, is a hotbed of cook-stove advocacy and dissemination.

Envirofit, a nonprofit started by two engineering graduates of Colorado State University and two professors, has developed a modified, patent-pending Rocket stove that it claims is exceptionally durable. A problem with past designs is that metal combustion chambers tend to quickly fail due to high heat and caustic fumes. But Envirofit worked with Oak Ridge National Laboratory scientists to develop a combustion chamber made of metal alloys that give it an exceptionally long life - long enough, it says, that it can issue warranties on the chamber for five years.

The group works closely with Colorado State's world-class Engines and Energy Conversion Lab to develop other combustion-chamber and stove efficiency features. The engineering focus, says Envirofit Vice President of Engineering Nathan Lorenz, has been to "control the geometry of the combustion chambers and heat transfer." The more heat you transfer, the faster a pot heats up, the less fuel you burn.

About 100,000 Envirofit stoves have already been sold in India, at prices as low as 700 rupees, or about $15. The stoves quickly pay for themselves in fuel savings alone, allowing households to save $50 to $75 annually that would have been spent on wood or other biomass, even while using 60 percent less biomass and eliminating about 80 percent of soot.

Another Fort Collins-based nonprofit, called Trees, Water, and People, focuses on Central America, Mexico, and Haiti, where it promotes local construction of Rocket-type stoves. Working with local partners, the group says it has built more than 35,000 stoves.

In India, Scripp's V. Ramanathan has helped pioneer a newer program that adds a layer of science. Dubbed Project Surya, this nascent effort is conducted in partnership with the United Nations Environment Programme. Its first community-wide experiment, launched last March in a village in Uttar Pradesh state, will provide cook stoves, along with solar lanterns (to replace sooty kerosene lamps), to every household that wants them.

The unique feature: The project is designed to collect a wealth of data. A small sensor on the roof of the home of the village leader will provide the first accurate measurements of how much carbon is actually reduced in the local setting. Regional sensors and satellites will eventually help scientists learn more about more widespread pollution effects.

The Energy and Resources Institute in India also has launched a "Lighting a Billion Lives" campaign designed to replace soot-producing kerosene lamps and dung or wood fires with solar-powered lanterns. Begun in 2008, the campaign has so far supplied more than 6,000 solar lanterns to people in roughly 200 Indian villages.

Elsewhere, two of Europe's largest industrial corporations, Phillips and Bosch, also have high-efficiency cook stoves in development. At Yale University, mechanical engineer Allesandro Gomez, director of the school's Center for Combustion Studies, has begun to work on other designs.

But a conundrum remains. Researchers have found that it can be difficult to convince people to switch from traditional cooking methods to more advanced stoves, for a variety of reasons that range from uneasiness with unfamiliar or finicky technology, to upfront costs. Working with Yale development economist Ahmed Mushfiq Mobarak and a local NGO, a team of researchers at Stanford University has found that many households in Bangladesh simply do not regard the high-efficiency cook stoves as great improvements. The group found that even when offered completely free stoves, more than 30 percent of households refused the offer.

Envirofit's Lorenz says some of those stoves are simply too cheaply made. That's why his nonprofit focuses on charging at least minimally for its more durable products, and even paying attention to product aesthetics. "People would rather be treated like customers than victims," he says.

In India, the promise of improved cook stoves and reduced black carbon have triggered high-level government action recently. In December, New and Renewable Energy Minister Farooq Abdullah announced a new "National Biomass Cook-stoves Initiative." Given that the world's wealthiest nations are overwhelmingly responsible for planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, it seems reasonable to suggest that these countries could launch micro-lending programs to underwrite the widespread adoption of clean stoves.

India and the world have at least one good reason to move quickly to reduce black carbon: Compared to greenhouse gas reductions, slashing black carbon offers a much quicker and cheaper fix. While climate-altering carbon dioxide can remain in the atmosphere for many decades, solid soot generally falls from the sky in days or weeks.

"It's a faster fix, and when you think about the humongous cost of fixing even one power plant to reduce carbon dioxide, it's really cheap," says Guruswami. "This is what economists like to call low-lying fruit. Let's find a way pick it."

Reprinted with permission from Yale Environment 360