Category Archive

An (already outdated) article published in the Journal of Light and Visual Environment tracks the rapid advances made over the past 6 years in LED technology, predicting even greater efficiency in the lighting sector for the future. The article, written by George Craford of Philips Lumileds Lighting Company, outlines some of the more notable trends and accomplishments in LED lighting in recent years, including:

• Luminaire efficacy of 80 lumens/watt in commercial applications as of 2007 (up from 30 in 2004)
• A move toward combining red, blue, green, and amber LEDs in order to produce white light, as opposed to using white phosphor
• Projected luminaire efficacy of 150 lumens/watt

Also noted are some of the barriers to LED penetration of the lighting market, including its high cost (LEDs currently cost about 10x more than compact fluorescent or incandescents) and the “cold” or bluish quality of the light they emit. Nevertheless, as mentioned in a report submitted to the Department of Energy, LEDs are likely to compose up to one third of the lighting market by 2027.  This conclusion seems plausible in light of the passage of stringent new energy efficiency rules for televisions sold in California, a timely mandate as TV makers are already implementing LEDs in their products, as well as a broader increase in the demand for LED lights which have witnessed compound annual growth rates exceeding 37% in recent years with a projected total market of $12 billion in 2012.

There has been some chatter lately about India’s ambitious plan to install 20 gigawatts of photovoltaic capacity by 2020, as well as achieving a manufacturing capacity of 20 gigawatts annually by the same year and installed capacity of 100 gigawatts by 2030 and 200 gigawatts by 2050. The plan is outlined in a government report from April 2009 published in its entirety on the Greenpeace International website, and notably calls for the establishment of a national Solar Energy Authority, microfinance initiatives to deliver household and village scale electrical generation, heating, and lighting systems to 20 million individuals, grid parity with rural diesel generators and coal thermal power plants by 2020 and 2030 respectively, a feed-in tariff, and mandates for the integration of solar photovoltaic and thermal power generation to fossil fuel power plants.

The plan won’t be cheap, as noted in a post on the New York Times’ Green Inc.:

Total costs would be 85,000 and 105,000 crores ($18.5 billion to $22.8 billion) over a 30-year period. To help finance the project, the plan foresees a significant tax on gasoline and diesel — fuels the government currently subsidizes.

Despite these costs the plan would be a smart investment in the long run as a hedge against rising coal, natural gas, and diesel fuel costs, while also markedly reducing environmental and health externalities and increasing productivity and employment. Ultimately photovoltaics could become a considerable export-driven industry for India, much as it has in China which currently manufactures between 1/5th and 1/2 of the world’s photovoltaic cells and panels and announced its own goal of 20 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2020. This would go a long way toward easing China’s current energy constraints caused by a cold snap that has slowed transportation of coal and led to a government ration on fossil fuels used for electricity generation in order to ensure adequate supplies for heating purposes. This competition is sure to benefit ancillary developing nations as costs continue to fall and supply increases.

In a high-profile spectacle exposing the deplorable working conditions that are at the base of Brazil’s sugar and bioethanol industry, the largest conglomerate in the sector was placed on a government black list of companies whose employees work in slave-like conditions. BNDES, the state development bank, froze all accounts (amounting to some $411  million dollars) with Cosan after the Labor Ministry added them to a black list of approximately 163 companies in the country whose conditions are likened to that of slavery. A BusinessWeek article notes that the Labor Ministry “liberated” 42 workers from their debt-based servitude to the company, and an article from Yahoo!News Brazil mentions that the company is facing 13 labor law infractions including use of laborers under the age of 18, lack of adequate housing for employees, lack of potable water at work sites, and finally, a commercial relationship between Cosan and its employees in which employees were issued credit which ultimately led to them becoming indebted and forced to work in order to service those debts.

Cosan alone is responsible for roughly 5% of global sugar production as well as 4% of global ethanol production and as a result of the Labor Ministry’s actions Petroleo Brasileiro (better known as PetroBras) has announced plans to review its purchase of ethanol from the company. The developments come in the face of a polemic trend toward mechanization of sugarcane harvests, with states like São Paulo now rendering 50% of the crop with heavy machinery instead of manual labor. Only two decades ago nearly 100% of the crop was harvested principally by migrant laborers from the country’s poverty stricken northeastern states.

Biofuels have become one of the largest nightmares for Brazilian and international environmentalists who find themselves caught between government policies which have resulted in the country becoming essentially self-sufficient in energy production (see page 30 of report, >10% of total energy consumed is from external sources), and the myriad NGOs and community based organizations who are crying foul of the destruction of pristine forests in the Atlantic rainforest, cerrado, and Amazon basin to make way for more sugarcane, African palm, and soybean plantations. The United States has recently surpassed Brazil in ethanol production in a political boondoggle of its own, producing some 9 billion gallons of ethanol this year almost entirely from corn based feedstocks (total annual US consumption of gasoline is approximately 135-140 billion gallons annually) despite mounting evidence that the net environmental impact of combusting corn ethanol is null to negative, as noted by Harvard professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Michael McElroy:

The balance in terms of emission of greenhouse gases is close to a wash for the United States: the reduction in net emissions of carbon dioxide obtained by using corn rather than petroleum as a “feedstock” for motor fuel is largely offset by additional emissions of the several hundredfold more potent greenhouse gas, nitrous oxide, formed as a byproduct of the nitrogen fertilizer used to grow the corn.

Not to mention a report by the National Taxpayer’s Union which estimates that “every dollar of ethanol profit costs taxpayers $30.” And so the recent news from Brazil will add fuel to the raging debate over the social, economic, and environmental costs of biofuels.

La permacultura es un sistema de diseño ambiental que trata de armonizar la relación entre los seres humanos y el medio ambiente, creando una cultura que pueda durar indefinidamente – una cultura permanente en contraste con la que tenemos ahora, una cultura basada en el consumerismo de recursos limitados y no renovables (como el petróleo y el carbón). El interés en los métodos de permacultura ha ido creciendo en los últimos años, especialmente tras el éxito en aumentar la producción de alimentos que  han tenido en Cuba tras el Período Especial. En 1991 se acabaron las importaciones de petróleo, comida, y máquinas industriales de la Unión Soviética y Cuba tuvo que regresar a métodos casi completamente orgánicos para alimentar a su población. Poco después un equipo de Australianos, liderados por Bill Mollison, vino a enseñarles a los Cubanos cómo adoptar métodos de policulturas, micro-huertas urbanas, pesticidas y abonos orgánicos. El éxito ha tenido resultados profundos para todos con el promedio de calorías consumidas por persona subiendo un 50% desde el comienzo del programa, y ahora la gran mayoría de las verduras y frutas en el país se cosechan dentro de 25 kilómetros de los consumidores finales.

Los fundamentos de la permacultura forman una guía apta para individuos, comunidades, y compañías que buscan operar y vivir en una manera más sostenible. Son 12 principios en total y los listamos abajo (para leer más sobre ellos vea el libro digital de Davíd Holmgren – La Esencia de la Permacultura, y para os nossos amigos brasileiros veja Os Fundamentos da Permacultura)

1. Observa e interactúa
2. Capturar y almacenar energía
3. Obtén un rendimiento
4. Aplicar la autoregulación y aceptar la retroalimentación
5. Usar y valorar los servicios y recursos renovables
6. Deja de producir residuos
7. Diseño de los patrones a los detalles
8. Integrar más que segregar
9. Usa soluciones lentas y pequeñas
10. Usa y valora la diversidad
11. Usa los bordes y valora lo marginal
12. Usa y responde creativamente al cambio

Quetsol toma estos principios como una guía para la visión de la compañía y nuestros productos ayudan a individuos y comunidades integrar recursos renovables como paneles fotovoltaicos en su entorno. Para aprender más sobre la permacultura, vea también el sitio de Permaculture TV (español y portugués).

I have been blessed with opportunities to see talks and lectures from truly revolutionary thought leaders of our time, from Amory Lovins to Vinod Khosla. I am further blessed to live in an area of the world where a good idea can emerge from a garage and evolve into a 20,000 person company that reinvents everything from maps to communication. It was, then, a true honor to be in attendance at an event called the Clean Tech Open at the end of November where I got to see some of the most innovative clean tech start-ups compete for incredible prizes of cash and in-kind services, and more importantly, for the attention of venture captalists and philanthropists.

The entrants ranged from social enterprises like Drip Tech which aims to commercialize low-cost drip irrigation systems in the developing world, to HydroVolts, a company designing and installing small scale hydroelectric generators for use in both developed and developing nations. Then there was the National Prize Winner EcoFactor, recipient of $100,000 in seed capital and $150,000 of in-kind services from Silicon Valley firms) which has developed a simple software program that parses data from your home thermostat and makes adjustments for optimal efficiency. Finally, I was impressed by Alphabet Energy, started by Matthew Scullin (PhD, Materials Science, Physics, and Energy Resource Analysis from UC Berkeley). Their product is a thermoelectric material that can transform waste heat from coal, natural gas, and other power generating facilities into electricity, and they have a claimed total addressable market of over $1 trillion (there are a lot of dirty and inefficient power plants out there). You can read more about the contest from the Clean Tech Open Blog. All in all the event was a tour de force exposé of myriad solutions to the structural problem of our profligate use of energy resources, and a real source of what Amory Lovins likes to call “applied hope”.