Parts of a car’s bodywork could one day double up as its battery, according to the scientists behind a new €3.4 million ($4,633,520 as per Feb 6, 2010) project announced on February 5, 2010.

Researchers from Imperial College London and their European partners, including Volvo Car Corporation, are developing a prototype material that can store and supply electricity. The material is also strong and lightweight enough to be used for car parts.

The researchers say that the composite material that they are developing is made of carbon fibers and a polymer resin. The material will be able to store and supply large amounts of energy much more quickly than conventional batteries. The material does not use chemical processes, making it quicker to recharge than conventional batteries. Furthermore, this recharging process causes little degradation in the composite material, because it does not involve a chemical reaction, whereas conventional batteries degrade over time.

Because the material could make vehicles lighter, more compact and more energy efficient, it could ultimately enable drivers to travel for longer distances before needing a recharge.

In addition, the researchers believe the material could potentially be used for the casings of many everyday objects such as mobile phones and computers, so that they would not need a separate battery. This would make such devices smaller, more lightweight and more portable.

The project co-ordinator, Dr Emile Greenhalgh, from the Department of Aeronautics at Imperial College London, says: “We are really excited about the potential of this new technology. We think the car of the future could be drawing power from its roof, its bonnet or even the door, thanks to our new composite material. Even the Sat Nav could be powered by its own casing. The future applications for this material don’t stop there – you might have a mobile phone that is as thin as a credit card because it no longer needs a bulky battery, or a laptop that can draw energy from its casing so it can run for a longer time without recharging. We’re at the first stage of this project and there is a long way to go, but we think our composite material shows real promise.”

In the new project, the scientists are planning to develop the composite material so that it can be used to replace the metal flooring in the car boot, called the wheel well, which holds the spare wheel. Volvo is investigating the possibility of fitting this wheel well component into prototype cars for testing purposes.

The team says replacing a metal wheel well with a composite one could enable Volvo to reduce the number of batteries needed to power the electric motor. They believe this could lead to a 15% reduction in the car’s overall weight, which should significantly improve the range of future cars.

The material could be charged by plugging a car into household power supply. The researchers are also exploring regenerative charging when a car slows down. For the first stage of the project, the scientists are planning to further develop their composite material so that it can store more energy. The team will improve the material’s mechanical properties by growing carbon nanotubes on the surface of the carbon fibres, which should also increase the surface area of the material, which would improve its capacity to store more energy. They are also planning to investigate the most effective method for manufacturing the composite material at an industrial level.

Founded in 1907 - Imperial's work has included the discovery of penicillin, the development of holography and the foundations of fibre optics. Current focuses include tackling climate change and developing clean and sustainable sources of energy.

President Obama, in his State of the Union speech, challenged members of congress to focus on solving the nation's problems instead of seeking short-term political gains. He also stated that the nation that owns the renewable energy race will dominate the world economy in this century. Finally, Obama has stated his vision for a world without nuclear weapons. Then he went on to promote nuclear energy, and that promotion contradicts his imperatives. How?

Nuclear energy adds little if anything to solving the nation's problems. The nuclear energy industry has seized on the climate problem to promote itself - a so-called nuclear "renaissance". And while nuclear energy does reduce carbon emissions, it is the least effective approach. As Amory Lovins, energy guru at the Rocky Mountain Insitute, states, "We must invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most climate solution per dollar and per year. Expanding nuclear power does the opposite."

To his credit, Obama's budget has increased funding to solar, wind and geothermal research and development. But China, S. Korea and Japan are outspending the U.S. in the production and expansion of renewable energy sources. China, according to Lovins, leads the world in five renewable energy technologies, even though these technologies were invented in the U.S.

Finally, promotion of nuclear energy and reduction of nuclear proliferation are opposing goals. If you doubt that, ask yourself why Iran is so urgently pursuing nuclear energy when it sits in the middle of a solar gold mine. If the urgency is shifted to solar, wind, geothermal, biomass, etc., then little doubt is left regarding the motives of a nation intent on pursing nuclear energy.

So the president should weed out the contradictions in his message, and he should stop "playing politics" with America's energy, climate, and national security. Instead of trying to entice republicans with offers of nuclear development, he should make them justify their preferences for nuclear energy. Are they militaristic? Are they political? Both?

The adminstration's budget seeks to entice republican support for a climate bill by proposing nuclear energy

The Obama administration is seeking a "bi-partisan" approach to the climate problem by proposing nuclear energy as part of the solution to greenhouse gas emissions. The proposal, other than a political enticement to "skeptical" and "oppositional" republicans, has no merit on its own.

According to Taxpayers for Common Sense , "Taxpayers should be seriously concerned about loan guarantees to the nuclear industry—proposed reactors have been riddled with cost overruns, delays and significant design problems, all of which can easily lead to taxpayers losing billions of dollars if and when these risky projects default."

Amory Lovins has long been a critic of nuclear energy as a solution to climate change.

He states:

"...nuclear power is the least effective method: using it does save carbon, but about 2-20 times less per dollar and 20-40 times less per year than buying its winning competitors (mentioned below). Nuclear expansion would thus reduce and retard climate protection. We must invest judiciously, not indiscriminately, to get the most climate solution per dollar and per year. Expanding nuclear power does the opposite."

When you consider that First Solar now has production capacity of 1 Gigawatt per year (and growing), which is the equivalent of an average size nuclear plant, you might wonder why Obama is even talking about nuclear energy. The answer, of course, is politics. What else could it be?

American Petroleum Industry Claims Ending Subsidies Is a "Tax Hike"

For the second time, the Obama administration is attempting to end $36.5 billion in subsidies to the oil and gas industries. The cuts would take place over ten years beginning in 2011.

The American Petroleum Institute called the cuts a "tax hike", and criticized the administration for increasing taxes during a recession. The lobby claimed that this decision would discourage domestic oil and gas exploration

But Interior Secretary, Ken Salazar, noted that ending the subsidies would not likely affect the domestic industry, given that industry profits have been very healthy. The cut in subsidies represent around 1% of the domestic industry revenues.

The White House budget included increases in funding for solar, wind and geothermal research and development. Still, European and Asian countries are outspending the U.S. on renewable sources of energy, the industries that the president states will define this century's economic leaders.

For more information:

"Obama budget seeks to end oil, gas subsidies

China, Japan and South Korea Poised to Out-Compete U.S. in Global Clean Energy Economy

Could Raise Sea Level By 24 Centimeters (9.4 in.).

A study, published by the Proceedings of the Royal Society, indicated that the Pine Island glacier in Antarctica has passed a tipping point, and that melting is inevitable over the next 100 years. Observations have shown that water is flowing from the glacier at a 25% increase compared to 30 years ago.

Climate change is warming the Amundsen Sea, which is to the south of the Pacific Ocean. Warmer oceans are melting the glacier from below.

The projection of a complete meltdown in 100 years was considered a conservative projection, based on modeling. Observations suggest the rate of melting may be much faster than the model indicates. The meltdown could occur sooner than the projected 100 years. A 24 centimeter rise in sea level was also considered conservative. The actual sea level rise could be as high as 53 centimeters (20.9 in.).

The glacier was thought to have passed a "tipping point" at which melting will now occur at an accelerating rate.

For more information:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18383-major-antarctic-glacier-is-past-its-tipping-point.html

The Ecological Society of America, the professional organization of America's scientific ecologists, notes that climate change will likely negatively impact ecological services provided by nature, including food production, clean water and natural carbon sequestration.

Nature provides the economy with $trillions$ of "free" services, annually. When climate cynics complain that legislative action to reduce/reverse greenhouse gas emissions (carbon dioxide, methane, etc.) will "tax" poor Americans and "hurt the economy," such costs of inaction are never considered.

And yet, ESA President, Mary Power, states, "Decision-makers cannot overlook the critical services ecosystems provide."

ESA proposes four recommendations to address climate change:

1. conservation of forests and habitat.

2. critically evaluate management intensive strategies - e.g., increasing carbon uptake by use of fertilizers may not be a strategy worth pursuing.

3. include ecological impacts of "geo-engineering" as a strategy to address climate change.

4. take the long view - ecological impacts may occur decades out, with far-reaching implications. Careful assessment on carbon concentrations and anticipate ecological reactions far into the future.

Further recommendations re: water conservation, migration and habitat conservation can be read at the ESA Report, linked below.

For more information:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/01/100126123213.htm

http://earthtrends.wri.org/features/view_feature.php?fid=15&theme=5

http://www.esa.org/pao/policyStatements/pdfDocuments/Ecosystem%20Management%20in%20a%20Changing%20Climate.pdf

On Monday, the Pentagon will release its Quadrennial Defense Review (QDR), in which it will state that climate change poses a risk to American security in the decades going forward. Climate change represents an "accelerant of instability and conflict," according to the report.

The draft QDR noted that already, 30 military bases are "at elevated levels of risk from sea level rise," and that increased incidence of heat waves and fire risks will impact combat training.

Addtionally, the assessment states that climate change will destabilize governments of poor nations around the world, and lead to greater areas of common waterways, which have historically been covered by ice sheets.

The report emphasizes "proactive" relationships with foreign militaries, to help stem the help enhance the world's preparedness for natural disasters.

Clearly, the Pentagon views climate change as a real threat. I doubt seriously that climate cynics' opinions will be swayed, but I hope the public is informed of this military report. Recently, the cynical strategy has been to erode public opinion re: the "very high" (90%) probability of human-induced climate change. I have little doubt that if the public understands the Pentagon is taking the threat seriously, support for a climate bill will grow.

Why the Pentagon should carry more credibility than all of the world's major scientific organizations is a mystery to me - but as it is, I think the Pentagon's QDR will help politicians address the problem, rather than leave it to future generations to deal with.

For more information:

http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/78855-pentagon-review-to-address-climate-change-for-the-first-time

Food miles have come into vogue as a way of assessing the sustainability of our production systems. Food miles are good, but it helps to turn it around too, and take a look at how much food it would take to keep society functioning. In hunter/gatherer times a very simple equation governed our food supply. Basically the amount of energy you got from your food had to be more than the amount of energy you spent getting it. Oh, we cooked it at times, and preserved it in various ways. But overall that equation had to hold.

We blew that constraint out of the water when fossil fuels were discovered. But now here comes the rub: we can't keep using fossil fuels to lubricate our economy quite the way we have been.

In any case, I thought it would be valuable to put things in perspective by converting our fossil fuel usage into a tortilla equivalent. A 15 cm (6 in) corn tortilla has 45 food Calories in it. (That's less than half of a same size flour tortilla, but I'll stick with the corn since that's the most common in the developing world.) The average adult requires 2000 to 2500 food Calories per day, or the equivalent of 45 to 55 tortillas worth of energy to live. So we can figure 50 tortillas as a sort of minimum amount of food to keep a person alive.

Food calories, of course, are actually kilocalories, i.e. the nutritionist's 'Calorie' is actually 1000 of the engineer's 'calorie.'

Given all this, it's just a matter of converting units. I won't bore you with that. Let me just present some findings.

1. If you had a neon sign made of eight forty watt lamps (kind of an average size sign for a largish grocery store window) that was on for 10 hours a day all year, it would consume 1,168 kwh of electricity. That's 20,000 tortillas a year, or about the same amount it takes to keep a person alive for a year.
2. According to Stuart Brown of Fortune Magazine, the average Fedex truck makes 100 stops a day, and travels 1500 miles (2400 km) per month. No wonder that Melanie Warner reports in Fast Company that Fedex trucks get a dismal 6 miles per gallon ( 2.5 kilometers per liter). On the average day then, a Fedex delivery truck consumes 8.33 gallons of diesel. This translates into 5822 tortillas, or enough to keep a person alive for almost 4 months. Something to think about if you are getting your online grocery order delivered to your home as well.
3. On a five hour flight, New York to London say, a Boeing 747 consumes 18,000 gallons (75,000 liters) of fuel. This is over 12.5 million tortillas, or enough to feed a quarter million people for a day. Or to keep 10 people alive their whole lives. Assuming 500 passengers, this amounts to 25,000 tortillas per passenger to make the trip. (Not counting the 50 it takes to keep you alive.)
4. Flying strawberries up from Buenos Aires to sell in New York in January? 27,051,000 tortillas. Enough to feed half a million people for a day. (I don't know how many strawberries you can fit in a 747.)

I've focused only on energy requirements here. Obviously it takes more than tortillas to keep a person alive. But, still, I think putting our energy consumption in the units of food is pretty sobering. I don't think that we'll be going back to hunter/gatherer days any time soon. Economic systems, and large companies in particular, are amazingly creative when it comes to profits and survival. But anyone thinking that we can just keep operating the way we are is seriously mistaken.

We were given two ears and one mouth because we're to listen twice as much as we talk"

I spent last week at the NCSE Conference on the Environment. It was three days where some of the greatest environmental thinkers from Herman Daly to Van Jones spoke and engaged us to think creatively about creating a more sustainable 'New Economy'.

Considering that a large proportion of my interest in sustainable development lies in applying SD to an American context (because I believe as long as we keep consuming the developing world's resources over here, it's going to be very difficult for them to economically develop over there), I was eager to attend.

But over the three days; I grew increasingly disillusioned.

Perhaps it's because during the breakout session the first day, when I pointed out a flaw in a woman's reasoning I was inform that 'my daddy had spend a great deal of money educating my brain, I had better use it to find solutions' instead of ostensibly poking holes in her thinking. I was left wondering why it was socially acceptable to assault my person (and ostensibly my youth) instead of my argument.

Throughout the conference I found time and time again that nearly everywhere I went the discourse (and the event itself) was dominated by middle (to older than middle aged) white men, most of who were either ensconced in academia or business. The solutions offered up were either alternatively on enormously long time scales (much longer than the environment is currently telling us we have) or tied to business in such a way that may make profitable sense but not ecological sense. For example, as one participant, a trained wildlife ecologist, informed me after a session California is laying tons of solar in the Mojave desert disrupting a relatively delicate ecosystem and losing significant efficiencies that come with transporting energy over long distances solely because you can't legally slap a panel on someone's roof without their consent and no one has been able to find a way of getting around that issue to profitably do home based solar power systems on a wide scale.

What I found most disheartening was not that many of these people failed to intuitively incorporate realities outside of their own, but rather that having been appointed self-declared experts they honestly felt that they held the answers. Institutional entitlement made them feel as they could honestly hold the solutions despite excluding (with a few exceptions) the voices of the young, the female, the poor, and the non-white.

It is quite the experience having an older male telling you (a fertile female) that we need to control female fertility if we can hope to solve the environmental and poverty problem.

The ultimate example of hubris was when they declared that there would be a Haiti discussion table at lunch one day to discuss how they could help Haitians become ensconced in the New Economy. I overheard one woman tell another male participant at the end of one session how awesome a test case Haiti would be in terms of acting out the new economy theories.

Really? Really.

How people, most of whom had never set foot on the island, who knew little of its history or culture honestly felt that not only had the right but also the ability to shape the direction of a 8 million people, quite literally made me sick.

And that, in my limited exposure to sustainable development on an institutional level is the problem. Everyone seems to have the answers that they close themselves off to the questions, to alternative ways of thinking and of doing. And by positioning themselves as experts they do more damage than good. Because they are obligated out of pride and necessity to have an answer they cannot adjust or ask deeper questions (Jeffrey Sachs I'm looking at you).

It is as that Aboriginal Women's group stated so eloquently:

"If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us walk together."

We have to accept the limits of our knowledge, put away our egos and learn to walk together.