I have often heard that there are 15o new conventional coal-fired power plants in various stages of development in the US today. Its a staggering number and all the more shocking when you consider that such projects are proceeding despite more and more ominous news about global climate change.

Recently this number was rekindled in my head upon my receiving a number of Architecture 2030 emails. Architecture 2030 is a program put forward by The 2030 Research Center and NM based Green Architecture Ed Mazria. The 2030 Challenge is a way to reduce building energy use by a minimum of 50% negating the need for new coal plants. I wondered why 2030 so I went through their site and as I suspected in The 2030 Challenge page:

Credible scientists give us 10 years to be well on our way toward global greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reductions in order to avoid catastrophic climate change. Yet there are hundreds of coal-fired power plants currently on the drawing boards in the US. Seventy-six percent (76%) of the energy produced by these plants will go to operate buildings.

Their campaign is focused on the idea that an important step in the effort to reverse global climate change is to stop the current massive effort to build coal power plants in the USA. This includes this nicely done ad Stop Coal Stop Global Warming that they are putting in the NYT.

They point out that over an 11-year period (1973–1983), the US built:

1. 30 billion square feet of new buildings;
2. added approx 35 million new vehicles;
3. and yet increased real GDP by one trillion dollars while decreasing its energy consumption and CO2 emissions.

The point is that we don’t need coal but efficient design and proven technologies. Its a good point but where is the money going to come to push these initiatives forward?

Do we need more taxpayer funded seed money to prime to the pump or will the market get up to speed just by enough socially and ecologically conscious citizens getting energized about the need to take actions? Possibility it is a combination of mandates, subsidies and mobilized civil society and social venture communities. Then it is assumed that once these ecologically designed technologies get up to speed, the costs of building green will come down enough so that they will be able to be fully competitive with existing ones, especially when long term life cycle maintenance and operational costs are considered, because green buildings typically use less resources.

Buildings use 76% of all the energy produced at coal plants. So the premise is that if we make more efficient buildings using currently available technologies that we reduce the need for those power plants. Yet the challenge is that is that the costs of rebuilding the modern built environment in the USA would be a massive effort that would involve massive infusion of money. Money that is currently going to sustain the war on terror or money that would require major tax increases. Currently it seems unrealistic that either the military budget would be reduced or that taxpayers would be willing to pay more to subsidize green technologies, despite the scientific evidence that there is a compelling need for action to reverse current trends in the amount of GHG released into the atmosphere.

Coal is the worst energy source because it has the lowest energy density in terms of the amount of carbon emitted per power produced. Also green buildings reducing coal power plant usage are only part of the equation. When we consider the evils of “King Coal,” the realization is that to reverse the trend of continued investment in coal power plants, we need to offer viable renewable energy alternatives to coal as well as offer conservation as a solution.

To address global climate change, we need to connect coal to the big picture of Global Climate Change at the national as well as international levels to meet the ambitious goals of The 2030 Challenge . The global climate change “pie” in the USA includes many factors besides GHG emissions from coal. There is petroleum and natural gas gives you a broader picture. When you figure in concrete and livestock farming both major GHG emitters with gasoline and diesel for transportation and power generation through coal and natural gas you get a sense that there is no one complete solution. In addition increasing rates of biomass burning (in regards to the fires we keep hearing about in the western US as well as in other parts of the world) on the planet possibly due to climate change is now creating another major source of CO2.

Because the GHG culprits are complex and interrelated in terms of how they have deeply embedded themselves into how we live our modern lives a comprehensive approach is needed that provides a complete inventory of the build environment and enables a new system of design. What’s needed is a design science revolution that introduces wholly new approaches that run the gamut from electric powered cars to integrated farming practices to daylighting and promising renewable energy technologies like Solar Thermal and Algae. An alternative strategy to mandating national change through national orgs, is developing a series of approaches that communities could embrace and tailor to their needs.

Chlorophyll Collective is a presently experimenting with the use of algae to promote more sustainable living.

In prep for Burning Man, Chlorophyll Collective built a mobile bioreactor unit using algae at Burning Man which they taught and showcased as a open source approach at the event.

They have also been featured at the Green City Gallery in Berkeley.

Megan Bracken (aka Meggio Omega) reports on her Tribe.net blog about how the well reported “premature burn” of the Man led to the shutdown of the whole Green Man section of the event affected their exhibit. Apparently no one in the collective was able to go to check on the system for one week as the BM staff raced to rebuild “the man.” From Meggio’s comments this decision to close the Green Man Pavilion seemed quite controversial.

Their system which they call “the Single Cell Solution” is designed to grow in a vertical closed-system using bioreactor tubes. In the process of growing the algae they have developed a process for bubbling the exhaust through it. In this process the algae absorbs the CO2 in the exhaust while it photosynthesizes enabling it to grow. The system includes the use of energy-efficient lighting to synthesize sunlight and stimulate photosynthesis at night. This is so the process continues day and night, whenever the generators are running.

The algae which are the most efficient photosynthetic organism on earth have high oil content. Because of this, many believe they can be converted into an efficient and renewable energy source for humanity. The idea is that the oil can be extracted from the algae and made into biodiesel or simply fed into the gen-set on a diesel configured to run on Straight Vegi Oil (SVO).

Currently this technology is relatively far from being commercially feasible at this time with many development stage companies competing for Venture Capital to develop this promising resource and experimental concept into a commercially viable source of renewable energy.

I recently chatted with Reinhold Ziegler of www.synergyii.com on Skype. He noted progress on several fronts.

He is now working with to develop an integrated farm system that uses a gasification process developed by Ed Burton and being put forward under the Ed Burton Company which is based Willits – about 2 hours north of SF on 101.

He says they are doing a joint venture with Tom Reed and Jim Fournier of Biomass Energy and Carbon:

Biomass Energy & Carbon develops biomass gasification technologies that produce clean, tar free, producer gas streams for electrical and thermal energy. The same process will also generate charcoal for use as a new kind of agricultural soil amendment, which permanently sequesters carbon in the soil thereby producing carbon-negative energy from biomass. Future designs will also include oxygen fed gasification systems that produce synthesis gas as a feed stock for catalytic gas-to-liquid fuel production.

BEC draws on the experience of its co-founders Dr. Tom Reed and Agua Das Ellis who together have over sixty years of experience in all aspects of biomass gasification and associated technologies.

The plan to build a 25 KW full Biogassifier in Colorado. The Ed Burton company will be supplying the fuel utilizing our new “chunkateer” spiral cutter. He reports that he has also set up an aeroponic growing system that is based on the Burton Nutrient-rich Water Processor. The system also uses the EPRIDA method of growing plants in charcoal which has been inoculated with arbusto micorhyzal fungus. The result is phenomenal, he says with redwood trees growing as fast as bamboo. The (click for full sized picture of gasifier) vegetable results are equally impressive.

Reinhold is also working with Aerotecture on a project to install innovative screw type wind turbines atop what is to be the San Francisco Civic Center. The building is expected to be more energy-efficient than any large office building in the United States. According to a report about the project in the SF Chronicle, “The headquarters of the city’s Public Utilities Commission [SFPUC] would include design features rarely seen in comparable buildings, such as wind turbines on the roof and a water recycling system in the basement. Solar panels would be embedded in outer walls, and a ventilation system using ‘thermal chimneys’ on each floor would pull hot air out of the building.” Construction is expected to start on the 12-story structure next year.

The idea is that while the sustainability measures add $16 million to the $178 million price tag, it demonstrates the city’s leadership and commitment to implementing sustainability on a very practical way. “We can’t ask people to change their way of doing business and not put our money where our mouth is,” said Susan Leal, the agency’s general manager.

The wind turbines are to be situated on the roof and stacked vertically behind glass walls along Golden Gate Avenue.
The wind tower is made of two Clark Y airfoils in a mirror image of each other. He says there are still “quite a few details to work out but they are planning to mount 36 10 KW turbines (8′ in diameter and 10′ high) and deliver a substantial fraction (to be determined but not estimated at around 40 percent) of the building’s daily budget of 4,000 KWhrs. The balance of this energy is provided by the PV panels on the roof and southern side facing S.F. City Hall.

The renderings are done in Google Sketch-Up which you can download for free. The $480 dollar version is substantially more powerful.

I got an mass email from Marc Gottschalk who is a member of the Clean Technology and Renewable Energy Practice of the Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Professional Corporation.

If anyone is interested the California Clean Tech Open final awards event will be held at The Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco the afternoon/evening of Monday, October 29, 2007. At the current time some free organizational capacity building courses are being provided to the finalists to help them develop their business plans.

I would have liked to have participated, seeing it as an opportunity to feature the Integrated Farming & Waste Management System developed by ZERI volunteer George Chan, but I found the entrance fee of $250 too high for my budget.

The really useful news is on the solar front, a new $50M fund is being made available through California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) to fund solar R&D and deployment.

For more information, please contact Peter Mostow at (415) 947-2051, Kevin Fox at (415) 947-2042, or Jason Keyes at (206) 883-2577.

More details here.