Photo by: midorisyu

Recently, supreme research brains at the UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science discovered a way to genetically modify a a type of bacterium to consume CO2 and produce isobutanol, a liquid fuel that can be used as a gas alternative.

And the process only requires sunlight to get going, meaning this achievement carries with it all sorts of cleaner, greener, cheaper energy implications.

Revolutionary? You betcha.

The modified bacterium potentially serves as not only a fuel substitute, but also an environmental cleanup agent through its consumption of carbon dioxide, the villain in our global warming story. Researchers say the ideal place for this bacteria is next to power plants emitting carbon dioxide so the plants’ greenhouse gases can be swallowed up and recycled into liquid fuel.

Unfortunately, the research is only in its initial stages, making it still too early to tell whether or not this will be the bacteria that saves the world.

Until then, we should continue doing our part to try and reduce emissions as we watch the infamous emissions clock climb to unfathomable numbers.

You can read more about the research here on the online edition of the science journal Nature Biotechnology.

Perpetually with one foot in the future, Japan recently brought on board a team of companies and researchers for what has got to be the most astro-ambitious project of the 21st century: the Space Solar Power System (SSPS).

The SSPS project, which Japan hopes to become fully realized as soon as 2030, will put into orbit giant solar panels just outside Earth’s atmosphere to gather the sun’s energy and beam it down to us in the form of lasers or microwaves. In the absence of clouds or that pesky ozone layer, solar energy can be over five times stronger in space than on Earth and according to the report from PhysOrg, Japan has been dead serious about this project since 1998.

Just a svelte island floating in the eastern Pacific, Japan depends on oil imports to run much of its machinery. If SSPS becomes a reality, Japan estimates the electricity produced will be six times cheaper than current in-country costs. “We’re aiming to produce stable, cheap power and hydrogen at a target price of 6.5 cents per kilowatt-hour,” research scientist Hiroaki Suzuki was quoted saying in the Scientific American.

But powerful lasers beaming down from space don’t exactly inspire confidence in the court of public opinion and the very twilight zone nature of the SSPS project has got all the science and technology blogs aflutter. Tonic admits that the plan “sounds so very far-flung and fanciful,” while Tech.Blorge refers to it as “as a nod to science fiction.”

And while Matador is committed to greener living (hey, we sent one of our MatadorU students to take on the No Impact Week Challenge), we’re reserving opinion until the 2020 test launch.

Around this time last year, Matador published this article about US commitment to renewable energy, though it is clear that, much like as with cell phones and robot girlfriends, the Japanese have outpaced all others once again.

What do you think about a giant laser beaming super concentrated solar energy down from outer space? Share your thoughts with us!

A wind farm in Scotland; Photo: beltzner

Last month, I drove from New York to Boston.

Along the way, I noticed a couple wind turbines dotting the landscape, their blades turning slowly in the coastal breeze. I wondered how much energy they produce.

According to this 2006 Boston Globe article, a single modern-day windmill generates a lot more energy than I thought: One turbine is capable of powering an entire town’s streetlights and traffic lights.

Wind turbines haven’t taken off in the U.S. yet, but it’s hard to understand why with news like this: wind farms in Spain generate more than 50% of the country’s electricity needs.

In fact, the total output of Spain’s wind farms exceeds the energy generation capacity of 11 nuclear power plants.

If this is the case in Spain, which takes third place in the top 10 list of countries using wind power, then imagine what’s going on in Denmark, which claims the top spot on that list. It gained that position, says TIME journalist Bryan Walsh, because it had the “political and public will to decide that it wanted to be a leader.”

With the conversation about the imminence of peak oil intensifying, maybe it’s time for other countries to exercise that same kind of will to explore the power of wind energy.

Community Connection:

Learn more about peak oil in these articles:

What Cuba Taught Us About Peak Oil

Interview with Derek Wallace from OrganicReform.org

Photo: Seamus Murray

1. Using Urban Space Smartly.

As a city-dweller, I’m always interested in stories about how urban designers, policy makers, politicians, and activists collaborate to think of innovative ways to optimize space, so it’s no surprise that this short piece from The Stimulist about San Francisco turning curbs and other public space into mini farming plots grabbed my attention.

2. Developing Alternative–Real Alternative–Fuel.

In the US, we say we’re committed to developing alternative fuel, but as oil prices soar then drop, soar then drop, our interest in alternative fuel fluctuates accordingly. There are lots of reasons why–not the least being major infrastructural overhauls that would be necessary if we implemented a massive alternative fuel system–but that shouldn’t keep us from continuing research and innovation in this important area.

Over at The Atlantic, correspondent Lisa Margonelli muses about the true economics of conventional fuel (not to mention the environmental economics), and then references a couple articles about the urine-powered fuel cell being developed by researchers at Ohio University. For the quick and dirty lowdown on pee power, check out this article, which explains how a single cow can produce enough pee to supply hot water for 19 houses.

3. Telling “Convenient Truths”: Urban Transportation Reform is Easier Than We Think

I first read about Curitiba, Brazil and its former mayor, the visionary Jaime Lerner, a few years back, so I was excited to receive a screener copy of the documentary, “A Convenient Truth: Urban Solutions from Curitiba, Brazil,” by mother-son team Maria Terezinha Vaz and Giovanni Vaz del Bello.

The filmmakers interviewed Lerner and other Curitiba urban designers and planners, all of whom affirmed that urban redesign is a whole lot easier than most politicians and decision makers claim it is. It’s an inspiring model for the most sustainable design for cities, and though it would be naive to think that Curitiba’s solutions are one-size-fits-all blueprints for the rest of the world, there are lots of lessons to be learned from this Brazilian city:

If you’re interested in seeing the full documentary, purchase information is available here.

4. Rachel Maddow Proves Lots of People Want to Make a Difference… They Just Don’t Always Know How.

Last week, popular political TV talk show host Rachel Maddow did a segment on the Iraqi national baseball team (yup, there is one) and its struggle to get basic gear and uniforms. Within 48 hours, the segment had generated enough attention to result in donations that more than outfitted the team and got them fully geared up. The take-away lesson? Lots of people are ready to pitch in to help others– they just need someone to bring an issue to their attention and provide them with the means to make a meaningful contribution.

5. Matador’s Own Misty Tosh Gets Ready to Expand 4th World Love.

I’m always inspired by Matador members and someone who consistently makes me stand back in amazement is Misty Tosh, founder of the NGO, 4th World Love. If you’ve missed the work she’s doing in Indonesia, check out this article. And then get fired up about her next project: She’s taking 4WL on the road–to Mexico’s Baja California–and she wants you to come along with her! Read up on all the details here.

Photo: greenforall.org

If you’re between the ages of 18 and 29 and you have an incredible, feasible idea for a clean energy project that can be put into practice, you might be interested in the Focus Roots Fellowships being offered by Focus the Nation, a national climate change awareness project.

Applicants must write a 1,000 word essay detailing the scope and nature of their proposed project, a 300 word introduction to a mentor who will provide expertise and support, and a projected budget for your project. This year’s fellowships are being offered in two categories–sport and art–and should focus on the use of sport or art to move the applicants’ communities away from coal energy toward cleaner energy.

Full details can be found here.

Community Connection:

Read up on “clean coal” in this article from the Matador archives.

Photo: Kyle May

But don’t pity Richard Gryzch.

Gryzch has finally finished building his solar-powered motorcycle, the ultimate DIY project that took two years and some creative financing, including selling his other motorcycles and his house.

Gryzch, who lives in the sun-soaked city of Phoenix, Arizona, claims the bike can get up to 90 miles an hour and can ride 50 miles on a single charge. He’s not done tinkering, though. Gryzch intends to keep tweaking his design so the bike can get 300 miles out of a single charge.

Community Connection:

What’s the most ambitious solar powered project you’ve heard about? Let us know by leaving a comment! And to see some other solar-powered gadgets that started out as DIY projects, check out this article from our archives.

Photo: The Pocket

The toddler cradled in his mother’s arms on a cold Shanghai street corner, pink hand outstretched. The family overflowing from its Chalco slum home on the fringes of Mexico City. Emaciated children, kindergarten-aged, hawking cheap souvenirs in front of Angkor Wat.

Common tableau to the seasoned traveler.

Photo: asalexander

We’ve seen so much. We’ve felt the steady accumulation of shock, sympathy, outrage, and intimacy such scenes engender. We’ve looked into others’ lives and tried to fathom the kind of help they need.

And then we reach the point where we’re ready to act, to engage. We’re ready to give back.

I’ve been at that point for a year now. But in grappling with how to respond to the volunteer impulse, I’ve come to realize that feeling compassion and doing something about it are two very different things.

It takes a flexible work schedule and some measure of financial stability, not to mention a fair bit of courage and determination.

And even when these factors align, there’s still the matter of selecting a compatible organization, one that works where and how you want to work. For me, that task was the most difficult.

Location

I’ve lived and traveled in Asia and witnessed stark poverty on that continent. Perennial stories of African impoverishment have nearly defined what it means to volunteer.

But need is non-geographical.

Therefore, you’re able to throw some personal preference into the mix. In my case, the desires to learn Spanish and visit South America directed my attention to that part of the world. Idle online browsing further narrowed the destination spectrum to three contenders: Bolivia, Chile, and Argentina.

Photo: NeilsPhotography

From the beginning, I knew Bolivia would likely win, being by far the poorest. But researching opportunities elsewhere allowed me to learn by comparison, develop a plan B, and ultimately decide that I’d like to participate in two projects over the course of a year instead of one.

Vocation

I’m not good with kids, nor am I a capable teacher. This automatically cut my options in half.

Photo: kiki-bolivien

Instead, I was most interested in community organizing, economic development, and sustainable practices. I have no formal background in these areas, so finding an organization open to providing some training was essential.

Such restrictive parameters, strangely enough, made my hunt easier. Searching by process of elimination proved more efficient than trying to track down exactly what I wanted.

Over time, I accumulated a shortlist of webpage bookmarks for programs that met the majority of my criteria. Now all I had to ask was, “Can I afford this?”

Cost

Frustratingly, the answer was often “no.” No, I can’t cough up $1,000 dollars a week to conduct glacier research in Patagonia or staff a homeless shelter in Chile, no matter how many perks are included.

The more of these opulent price tags I found, the more I wondered, “How could it cost so much to give back?”

If you find yourself asking this question, chances are you’re paying a middleman—a most decidedly for-profit company—to place you with the actual non-profit with which you’ll be volunteering.

They do all the legwork for you: assess your skills, identify a suitable organization, arrange local accommodation, and provide orientation resources and language lessons. This assistance isn’t cheap, even if your placement company is honest and knows what it’s doing.

Obviously, then, if you can arrange something directly with the group you want to work with, costs plummet substantially. But this is much harder to accomplish armed only with Google; likewise, small-scale charities may not have the time or manpower to help you acquire everything you need on the ground.

So what does this mean? In my experience, the equation goes like this: more research = happier (and cheaper) results. If you invest sincere effort in the search process, the right opportunity will present itself.

Resources

Sites like Idealist, Volunteer Abroad*, and other volunteerism search engines are good places to start.

(*tip: Search by country and examine the end of the list first. The smaller, cheaper operations get pushed to the back of the returns.)

But nothing compares with testimonials from people like you who’ve been there, done that. Post a query here on Matador and to the Lonely Planet Thorn Tree Forum, and check out Transitions Abroad to see what people are saying about the organizations on your shortlist.

Led by the resources above, I came in contact with Sustainable Bolivia, a Cochabamba-based nonprofit that both runs its own programs and places volunteers with local partner groups.

I’ll pay only for my housing and volunteer my time with an institute called Energetica in the area of renewable energy development. I start in two weeks.

While in many ways I have no idea what to expect, I feel confident that I’ve done my homework and uncovered the right position for me.

Now all that’s left is to go and see.

COMMUNITY CONNECTION: Did you know that more than 350 organizations from 35 countries are Matador members? Check out their profiles–and their volunteer needs–here.

Check out this fun, informative video: The Road to Sustainability.

It follows a cross-country road trip fueled entirely by waste vegetable oil picked up along the way. It’s the best introduction I’ve seen to the upsides, the pit-falls, and the realities of running your car on WVO.

Still want to know more?

Derek Wallace (that’d be the guy in the video) is a Matador contributor. Check out some of his work over at Brave New Traveler: Sustainable Organic Farming and You, Can International Travel Ever Be Sustainable? and What Cuba Taught Us About Peak Oil.

Elsewhere in the Matador network, give In The News: Biofuels and How To Stop Paying For Gas and Run On Free Vegetable Oil in 8 Easy Steps a read.

Since 2000, McCain has accepted nearly three times the donations from the coal industry as Obama and Biden combined ($51,850 for McCain versus $17,100 and $3,000 for Obama and Biden, respectively).

And yet even as Obama raises the progressive voice on a number of issues, he has proclaimed the virtues of “clean” coal as widely and vociferously as McCain.

During the campaign for the Democratic nomination, Obama enthusiastically boosted coal during stops in West Virginia and Kentucky. A mailer distributed ahead of the Kentucky primary read, “Barack Obama believes in clean Kentucky coal.”

In a speech given in my home state of West-By-God-Virginia, Obama pledged to create “up to 5 million new green jobs … including new clean coal jobs” if elected. And recently, Representative Rick Boucher (D-Virginia) opined that “Senator Obama truly is a friend of the coal industry.” (And Boucher ought to know – since 2000 he’s accepted $549,894 from big coal.

That the Democrats are in bed with the coal lobby will come as no surprise to anyone who attended the Democratic National Convention. The “clean” coal lobby sponsored events at the DNC and was widely advertised there. Obama even gave “clean” coal a shout-out during his acceptance speech.

And the recent bi-partisan economic bailout plan contains significant underwritten guarantees for “clean” coal money: about $2.5 billion in loan guarantees to provide for construction of so-called clean coal technologies.

Photo by BK59

Clean coal is a farce.

Trouble is, there’s no such thing as “clean” coal. It’s a marketing myth promoted by the big coal companies in order to rake in more public subsidies. Here’s why “clean coal” is a farce and should be opposed at every turn:

Coal, which makes up 50% of our energy use in the US today, is the largest source of greenhouse gas emissions in the country and on the planet, as well as one of the largest sources of air and water pollution worldwide. This makes coal the dirtiest form of energy on the planet.

Climate warrior and Nobel Laureate Al Gore sees the construction of new coal-fired power plants as the biggest threat to our climate, and has even called for civil disobedience “to prevent the construction of new coal plants that do not have carbon capture and sequestration.”

But although Gore says that carbon capture on coal plants meets his definition of clean energy, most experts and even “clean” coal proponents in industry predict that wide-scale carbon sequestration is at least a decade away. In fact, not one single plant in the US today has carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology. And there is not even one large-scale (300+ MW) coal plant with CCS anywhere in the world today.

Photo by Jen SFO-BCN

Coal plants are dirty and expensive.

The economic feasibility of coal plants is suspect – building new coal plants is expensive and getting more so every day: the estimated costs of building new coal-fired plants have increased nearly threefold since 2006 (from approximately $1250/kW to $3000-$3500/kW).

As energy columnist Joseph Romm points out, a recent study by the California Public Utility Commission “puts the cost of coal gasification with carbon capture and storage at a staggering 16.9 cents per kWh.”

Compare this with the current US average retail price of electricity of 9.5 cents per kWh. Romm surmises, “energy efficiency along with lots of low-carbon generation sources beat [coal with CCS] easily now or will very soon.”

Romm also points out that making even a modest dent in global CO2 emissions using CCS would “require a flow of CO2 into the ground equal to the current flow of oil out of the ground,” a staggering amount that, from an engineering point of view, doesn’t pass the laugh test.

When a new coal plant is proposed, it’s 8-12 years before it goes into operation. In comparison, it takes two years to build a massive wind farm, two-and-a-half years to build a large solar facility, and only a couple of weeks to put solar panels on home and business rooftops.

With all the talk about coal-fired power plants, it’s easy to forget where the coal comes from. The environmental and economic ruin that attend mountain top removal mining operations have plagued Appalachia for decades. One local non-profit, the Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition, reports “Mountaintop removal mining is turning Eastern Kentucky into a despicable latrine….”

Hundreds of mountains have been leveled, leaving ecological devastation (links to lots of photos here), poverty and unemployment in their wake.

Photo by ojbyrne

Egregious Stupidity

There’s something egregiously stupid about destroying a multitude of renewable resources – i.e. food, fiber and fuels which can be obtained sustainably from a forest, not to mention the manifold beneficial effects of biodiversity, watershed health, microclimate regulation, erosion control, and natural CO2 sequestration forests offer – in order to extract a heavily polluting, rapidly exhausted, and non-renewable resource.

This desecration of God’s Creation is perennially justified by the argument that “coal mining creates jobs” and is “good for the economy.” However, Grist Magazine has reported that the number of jobs created in Kentucky by coal has dropped by 60 percent in the last 15 years.

As noted by the non-profit Appalachian Voices, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics since the 1950’s the number of miners employed in West Virginia dropped from around 145,000 to just over 16,000 although during that time period coal production has greatly increased. Nationwide, coal jobs have dropped 80 percent in the past half-century, even as our coal production has increased.

Coal mining has been going on in Appalachia for a long time now. Yet Appalachia has long been and remains today one of the poorest, if not the poorest region in the nation. So it seems appropriate to ask, “Just when is coal mining going to start being good for the economies of places like West Virginia, southwestern Virginia and eastern Kentucky?”

With the bi-partisan support for so-called “clean” coal, no matter who moves into the White House next January, progressive environmental activists will have our work cut out for us if we are going to create a sustainable and clean-energy future based on wind, solar, renewables, increased efficiency, and – most importantly – demand reduction through economic re-localization.

Editor’s Note:

Be sure to read the author’s previous essays for BraveNewTraveler.com: The Crisis Of Too Much Energy and How Local Self-Reliance Will Overthrow The System.

In late September, Congress passed the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008. The new and extended tax credits associated with this bill have meant the go-ahead for solar plants such as the one being built by companies New Solar Ventures and Solar Torx in Deming, New Mexico and the Solana plant funded by Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Company in Arizona which will be the largest solar plant in the world. Together, these two plants will be capable of producing over 580 megawatts of electricity.

Traditionally, most solar power plants have used PV technology to generate electricity, but these new projects will utilize new and more efficient ways of harnessing energy. Rather than simply capturing the sun’s rays through PV cells on a larger scale, companies such as Ausra are using solar thermal technology to create industrial amounts of electricity. Solar thermal plants use large mirrors to reflect and focus sunlight onto a central tower, where water is heated to boiling point. The resulting steam drives a massive turbine, creating electricity.

Photo by Valerie Everett

The three largest solar power plants in the world are currently being built in the Mojave Desert, and when operational in 2011, will be able to collectively produce over 1500 megawatts of electricity. While this amount is modest in comparison with fossil fuel power stations, plants like these are a vital step towards energy independence,

The AUSRA project not only looks set to be one of the largest solar plants in the world, but also one of the most cost-efficient. That gave two ‘green’ reasons for venture capitalists such as Vinod Khosla to invest in the project.

Khosla’s company has a history of investing in cutting edge research into renewable energy, but this is the largest investment made to a single project. Khosla’s $25 million investment in the plant shows a confidence that solar power is here to stay. The company claims it will be able to match the price of electricity generated from fossil fuels within 1 – 3 years. (Current solar plants produce energy which is roughly 3 times the price of electricity from oil or coal burning plants.)

A low energy price is not the only ambitious claim that the company has made. In an interview with VentureBeat in 2007, Khosla and Executive Vice-President of Ausra, John O’Donnell, boasted an ambitious plan that would enable their technology to produce enough electricity to provide power for the entire US.

Photo by afloresm

With the US Congress extending its tax credit program for solar power for another 8 years (and only 1 year for wind power), and more efficient solar thermal plants being built across the world, it looks like solar power may well be the light at the end of the energy-crisis tunnel.