By: Bill Gates

Conservation and behavior change alone will not get us to the dramatically lower levels of CO2 emissions needed to make a real difference. We also need to focus on developing innovative technologies that produce energy without generating any CO2 emissions at all.

People often present two timeframes that we should have as goals for CO2 reduction – 30% (off of some baseline) by 2025 and 80% by 2050.

I believe the key one to achieve is 80% by 2050.

But we tend to focus on the first one since it is much more concrete.

We don’t distinguish properly between things that put you on a path to making the 80% goal by 2050 and things that don’t really help.

To make the 80% goal by 2050 we are going to have to reduce emissions from transportation and electrical production in participating countries down to zero.

You will still have emissions from other activities including domestic animals, making fertilizer, and decay processes.

There will still be countries that are too poor to participate.

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CHESAPEAKE, Va. – Solar Panels Plus (SPP), designer and manufacturer of solar water heaters, solar air conditioning/heating systems and photovoltaic solar panels, has released the SplitCool DC18, the world’s first and only DC-powered, high SEER air conditioning system. The SplitCool DC18 is ideal for any commercial or residential location where cooling or heating is required and grid power is unavailable, unreliable or requires generators (with potentially complex or costly refueling logistics).

“High-efficiency SplitCool DC18 units will dramatically lower the total system cost for running an air conditioner from solar panels, by eliminating the bulk of installation work required by competitive units and by using fewer solar panels and a lower battery requirement”

The SplitCool DC18 runs off a battery bank that is supplied power from an array of photovoltaic panels and installs without ducts, eliminating the majority of installation and materials costs. The unit can be added quickly to an existing structure and eliminates nearly 30 percent of cooling or heating losses which occur in the ductwork of forced air systems. It allows each room to be conditioned as a separate zone. The SplitCool DC18 can be used in permanent and temporary remote buildings or structures, such as construction office trailers, portable classrooms or medical facilities.

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Apple has filed patents for a device that could be used for energy management.

The patents, first reported by Patently Apple, is essentially a device that links outlets into homes via power line networking. With this, every outlet in your home into an Internet port. Power line networking, of course, can then be used to control power to devices. Errant lamps can be turned off. If you forget to turn down the thermostat, you can do it remotely.

Patently Apple has diagrams from the patent applications too, which were filed in the second quarter.

Is this original? Not really. Home plug is somewhat popular in Europe and some smart grid vendors tell me that it will become a popular protocol for smart grid there because a lot of houses are made of cement. ZigBee doesn’t do so well with cement. Don’t take my word for it–that’s what Freescale says, and they make both ZigBee and power line equipment. The biggest smart grid deployment in the world–the 30 million meter deployment by Enel in Italy-runs on power line. Echelon, which specializes in power line, will be pleased.

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By: Angela D. Harris

Capitol Hill was busier than usual last year as recession recovery efforts, health care, and climate change legislation dominated the national stage. With the spotlight fixed on Washington, California quietly continued to move towards greater energy efficiency and stronger environmental legislation. Considering the trends of California are often closely followed by the nation, contractors outside of the Golden State are beginning to take particular note of the developments that occurred in 2009 and are preparing for the developments of 2010.

GREEN BUILDING CODE TAKES EFFECT

California legislated the nation’s first ever green building code and made strides to increase its energy efficiency agenda when it passed Assembly Bill (AB) 32. The code officially took effect Aug. 1, 2009.

“California now has the nation’s first green building code — and there is no question that the implementation of AB 32 will further change the way buildings are made,” said Nancy Miller, national sales director for Green Technology. “Companies that know how to build energy-efficient, low-emission buildings have more of an edge than ever.”

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By: Peter Bosshard

In April 2009, President Obama said, “The nation that leads the world in twenty-first-century clean energy will be the nation that leads in the twenty-first-century global economy.” Will China or the United States win the race for clean energy technology and future economic predominance? Here is an update with some personal impressions from Beijing.

The United States government has allocated more than $38 billion to renewable energy projects in the economic stimulus program passed last year. It strengthened fuel efficiency standards for cars for the first time in more than a decade, and asked the Department of Energy to prepare more aggressive efficiency standards for household appliances.

Promoting clean energy and energy efficiency makes as much sense for China and it does for the US. According to the World Bank, China counts 16 from among the world’s 20 most polluted cities. The country pays a horrendous price for this pollution in terms of public health and economic losses. Like the Obama administration, the Chinese government has identified clean energy as a core sector of industrial policy. It hopes that a shift from energy-intensive towards knowledge-intensive sectors will reduce pollution and allow the country to climb up the economic value chain at the same time.

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