So, believe it or not, this isn't the first post on sailing and solar; back in February my brother-in-law shared how he and my sister keep the Play Actor green on the big blue (you can link to their blog here). However, I think this tech is beyond what Bud has going on their Baba 35!
Japanese tech company, Eco Marine Power is working on and experimenting with EnergySail which would be a renewable energy driven sail that could be fitted to traditional fuel powered vessels. Anything from large carriers to patrol ships could one day be powered by the sun!
The device is being tested in a lab in Osaka with focus on control systems and command interface testing. EnergySail could see open seas as early as 2013.
When Dee saw this headline she was so impressed she whipped out a quick BION post, which means I have Thursday off! Thanks, Dee!
Siemens, a
manufacturer out of Germany, hasfound a reason to build this incredibly large off-shore wind
turbine, and has plans to build a total of 300. This reminds me of
something my brothers would have enjoyed working on as kids. The blades on
these puppies are incredibly large (75 meters) that’s equivalent to just over
246 feet.
Hummm,
to put this into prospective let’s just say the blades are about the same size
of 2 and a half football fields, 1 and a half Olympic size swimming pools or
almost three times the height (at its highest point) of the Golden Gate bridge.
Now, double that for a whopping 154 meter span but still weights less than more
typically produced blades by using lightweight materials during construction.
The entire blade is made of a single piece of “glass fiber-reinforced epoxy
resin and balsa wood”. Balsa wood? Yes, that’s right, balsa wood.
Not
knowing my wood that well, I had to look up what the heck balsa wood was and if
it was a renewable resource. Come to find out it is native to southern Brazil
and northern to southern Mexico, but is found in other countries such as
Indonesia, Thailand and Papua New Guinea. The best part is that it is a pioneer
plant (or as my dad would have said, it’s a volunteer), plants itself in
clearings in forests, wither man made or where trees have fallen, or in
abandoned agricultural fields. It grows extremely rapidly which explains the
lightness of the wood, lower density even than cork, and about 60 percent of
the world’s supply comes from balsa plantations that grow it in densely packed
patches and harvested after 6-10 years.
Okay, back on track, besides it being lightweight in
relation to its size the construction processes also makes the wind turbine
extremely strong. A really great asset to have when they will be hit with the
energy of about 200-tons of air per second out in the sea!
According
to Siemens the tips of the 75 meter long blades will be able to move at up to
80 meters per second or 2.16 mph. So, my mind starts to wonder, why so big? The
answer is actually simple. As the turbine blades get longer the amount of
electricity they produce increases very rapidly. Because offshore wind projects
are quite expensive it makes sense to build a few big wind turbines than lots
of small ones.
The headline from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) says, "It's Official: Wind Energy Can Be Stored Cheaply"' but gosh--cheap just sounds so...cheap. Energy storage is more than just a cool advancement in technology, it is the Holy Grail. Grid level storage will make alternative and renewable energy available to the mass market with regularity and at a truly affordable rate. It's energy storage that will make harnessing temperamental energy sources like wind and solar plausible as a solution to our world energy needs. It's energy storage that is the missing link. To include cheap in the sentence seems somewhat demeaning ( although it is a press release from MIT and if Good Will Hunting taught me anything it's that those MIT guys know their stuff!).
Turns out one MIT guy in particular knows his stuff about grid level electrical storage and how to make it cost effective. Professor Donald Sadoway has developed the liquid metal battery; a device as he says, invented to the price point of the electric market. Professor Sadoway's TED talk about his liquid metal battery is entertaining (colored chalk!) and actually makes simple sense of something that should be much more complicated.
Donald Sadoway: solving energy's biggest challenge, like a boss.
Here at the SJVCEO, we have fun doing what we do. Now, let's clarify: what we do is not always fun or exciting because sometimes it's difficult and just plain frustrating-- but, we always do everything we can to make sure even in the less than great times we keep it positive.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, BARACK OBAMA, President of the United States of America, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, do hereby proclaim October 2012 as National Energy Action Month. I call upon the citizens of the United States to recognize this month by working together to achieve greater energy security, a more robust economy, and a healthier environment for our children.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of October, in the year of our Lord two thousand twelve, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-seventh.
Now, our team thinks the messaging could have been more effective if the White House had used Lionel Richie as the official ambassador of Energy Action Month, but we get that they're a little busy and didn't have time to consult with us on the roll out. We'll forgive the oversight, this time, mainly because we're too busy dancing along...you guessed it...All Night Long!
Today's BION is a cheat. Frankly, I'm just not up to it as I have my second sinus infection in a month and the fifth for the whole summer (yes, it's still over 90 degrees here so it's summer in my book!). So, today you're getting a schmorgishborg of BIONs from headlines that excited me--or as I've previously mentioned, something my husband found on Reddit and then set to me.
It wasn't all that long ago that California's Central Valley erupted in a fervor. Not quite as monumental as the Arab Spring, but intense...for California. And what was at the heart of this movement, this act of rebellion? Class warfare? Ineffective government? Double digit unemployment? Nope. It was this guy on the right.
The PG&E SmartMeter roll out in Bakersfield, California has been called a text book case on how not to roll out a smart meter installation campaign. Lois Henry, over at the Bakersfield Californian has spent the last four years covering the brouhaha in great detail. But I'm here to tell you a different story--a story of love. I'm here to tell you about my love affair with my SmartMeter.
Yup, Believe it or not, I live in central California and I LOVE MY SMARTMETER!
Over the top? No, not once you understand our journey. SmartMeter came to our house quietly in 2009. I remember the "while you were out" notice on the door, and walking around the side of the house to say hi, but that's about it. It wasn't love at first site. Around the same time I had my head down and was working many late nights trying to learn my way through the energy industry and SJVCEO was still trying to find its place. It wasn't until 2010 when I took over as the lead on the VIEW Partnership and fell into the rabbit hole that is energy benchmarking I started thinking more about my own energy use. I wondered if I couldn't learn how to better serve our local governments through better understanding the way I used energy.
SmartMeter allowed me to see how I used my energy throughout the day. I could log on to my PG&E account (before the launch of My Energy) and pull a graph from the day before. It looked something like this:
Okay, that's a graph from My Energy, but with the exception of the pretty colors the content is the same. This was eye opening! I could watch my habits throughout the day. That spike at 7:00 a.m.? That's when I couldn't handle a blow dryer, curling iron and a house at 78 degrees and cranked the AC down to 74. You'll notice it decreases after 8:00 a.m. when likely my husband woke up freezing and returned the thermostat to 79 (where he likes to diligently keep it). I could see Ryan (husband) and Dutch (Saint Bernard) warm up as the day progressed; as the the temperature crept up to 110 degrees so did our energy use. And, back in these days things like laundry and dishwashers ran during the day so we didn't have to worry about chores eating in to our "us time". Well, we learned to adapt.
I realized that we could just as easily run the dishwater overnight, despite that it annoys Dutch to no end, and do the laundry in the mornings. I also learned to wear my hair in a ponytail much more frequently in the summer months so I didn't have to worry about the heat of styling, which kept the AC off until after noon. Oh, and those spikes at the end of the day? That's me again. I hate sleeping in a hot house so I would turn the temperature down to go to sleep. I had to give up the compulsion to sleep under a blanket no matter the season. It was hard, but I've survived. And, my power bill went down. A lot.
Comparing August 2009 to August 2010 we had fewer peaks and less time in the 5 kWh+ zone, and a bill that was more than $100 less than the previous year. Woo hoo!
That was my Koolaid; that's when I became and energy efficiency evangelist.
I realized it wasn't retrofits (although some serious insulation helped), but behavior modification that made the biggest difference. And so it became my mission to integrate behavior modification recommendations in all our SJVCEO work. My SmartMeter, and what I was able to learn and appreciate gave me a story that I could share and relate to the work that we were doing in the Valley. Why benchmark thousands of municipal energy accounts (poor Maureen)? Because, seeing your energy habits sitting right next to cost makes a heck of an impression. It also lets you see what you're doing right and not-so-right. Now, I could tell a city, "hey, your office facilities are using almost as much energy at night as they are in the day. Maybe we should take a look at what your staff is doing." But that usually elicits a "sure, let's look at it next quarter." Now, if I have my laptop I can log in to the city's Portfolio Manager account and say, "See your use and how much it's costing you at City Hall? That's more than twice the national average for a similar space. Why don't we take a look and see if we can't get this bill lower than $16,000 per month." Then I'm more likely to get someone to escort me through the building after hours and see that office lights and nonessential machines are let on, and that the A/C is still kicking away at the government building standard--just short of Arctic! That knowledge can lead to an education campaign to get employees to shut down at night, and perhaps even designates a person to make sure the A/C is turned up to keep the space controlled, but not freezing. Say these simple steps, these behavior modifications end up saving a city $1,000 per month? Maybe more? That's why we benchmark thousands of municipal energy accounts (still, poor Maureen).
So yeah, I love my SmartMeter, but the problem is not everyone has a SmartMeter--or an intelligent metering system. Not even the everyone in the San Joaquin Valley has one...but that's about to change!
As mentioned in my ode to Carl and Eddy Southern California Edison's SmartConnect is coming to town! This means that those residential and small business customers in our VIEW Partnership and beyond (Armona, California Hot Springs, Camp Nelson, Delano, Ducor, Earlimart, Goshen, Hanford, Ivanhow, Lemon Cove, Lindsay, McFarland, Pixley, Porterville, Springville, Strathmore, Terra Bella, Three Rivers, Tipton, Tulare, Tule River Indian Reservation, and Woodlake) are going to be able to track their energy use electronically and we don't have to do anything (yay for Maureen!).
At SJVCEO (even beyond my desk) we're pretty excited about SmartConnect, so we're going to take a team approach to sharing the enthusiasm with the blogosphere. On Wednesday, October 3 Maureen's Wellness Wednesday will address the question of intelligent meters and radio frequency, and on October 8th Dee's Money Monday will address how SmartConnect can help small businesses and residents invest wisely in energy efficiency. I may even pull together another BION, but we'll have to see how October goes! And because no one wants a Friday blog with out a couple of talking houses, here are my buddies, Carl and Eddy! This time Carl gets the drop on Eddy and has to breakdown the super cool online tools that work with SmartConnect--darn, I gave it away!
Yesterday I shared that I was quite looking forward to my time on the blog with 'believe it or not', and I even sought to channel the spirit of Mike Nemeth in the finding of something wonderfully odd. Well, it seems that I channeled a bit too well. I had prepared piece on something I thought was super cool--solar roadways. Yeah, roads made of solar. I was pretty thrilled until I was adding labels and 'solar roads' autofilled for me.
Crap.
Turns out Mike already covered these guys in 2011 and so did Sandy, in 2010. So, I thought I could scrap it, pull together another post and voila! the first BION. Well, that didn't happen. You see, blogging is lovely, but it's not my day job--not by a long shot. I like the open road--or so I tell myself. So in between a trip to Firebaugh Wednesday evening and an early morning in Visalia today the best I can give you is the SJVCEO third annual Solar Roadways post!
Cue the confetti!
I'm keeping my original post--you can find it down below. However, I felt the third annual look at solar roads deserved a little something extra; it needed a TED talk. Why? Because TED talks make me happy. They make me feel infinitely smarter than I am. Sometimes they depress the heck out of me. But no matter what feeling they produce, they always make me feel something. That, and I have a nice little daydream about my own TED talk and being on that big black stage. It is almost as awesome as my daydream of advising a sitting president on energy policy, or presenting to the UN General Assembly. All awesome, just different levels.
Luckily, Scott Brusaw, the founder and engineer behind Solar Roadways hit the TED stage--or the TEDx stage. TEDx is a totally new discovery for me. Turns out there are independently and locally organized TED-ish talks. The self-organized events are designed to "spark deep discussion and connection in a small group". The TEDxSacramento was in sync with Sandy, and in 2010 invited Mr. Brusaw to break it down TED style on solar roads.
I actually really like this talk. Once he gets past the nervousness and "early days" and gets into his passion, he sells it. This could be huge, and it's Mr. Brusaw's love of the project that makes me think so. We always say there's no silver bullet that can fix our energy conundrum; maybe, if solar roads make it we could at least have the LED lit road that gives us the path to get there.
*my first run at solar roads*
Occasionally, or every day, my husband will send me something he found on Reddit . To his credit it is often something about a Saint Bernard, or politics, a really cool "I am a" but more often than not it's about something sort of related to my job. That's right--my husband is my slave driver--never letting me leave the office behind!
Okay, okay, he's not that bad. He finds me jewels like the video below.
These guys are making roads out of...wait for it...solar panels. Yup, 'believe it or not' you could one day be driving on an energy producing, solar panel paved interstate! See what the heck is going on here:
Japanese tech company, Eco Marine Power is working on and experimenting with EnergySail which would be a renewable energy driven sail that could be fitted to traditional fuel powered vessels. Anything from large carriers to patrol ships could one day be powered by the sun! 
