The 10 Biggest Cleantech Disappointments of 2008

By KATIE FEHRENBACHER

There was a lot to cheer about in the cleantech sector in 2008: record investment levels, a U.S. president-elect that supports clean power, and the extension of tax credits for renewables. But there were a lot of missed opportunities this year, too, as markets crashed, fundings were delayed and technologies hit hurdles. Below, the biggest cleantech disappointments of 2008 (next up, The 10 Biggest Cleantech Wins in 2008):

1) Tesla Hits A Wall: The embodiment of the future of electric vehicles discovered how expensive it is to make them. In 2008 the startup started to run low on cash — reportedly at one point as little as $9 million — and was forced to do layoffs and delay the production of its second-generation vehicle, the Model S. Now the company is relying on a loan guarantee from the Department of Energy, which could be risky.

2) EEStor Delays Some More: We were waiting for mid-2008, then late 2008 to see more details — a prototype perhaps — or even initial production of secretive energy storage EEStor’s technology. But alas, the startup and its partner say the big unveiling won’t come till 2009. We’ll see.

3) T. Boone Derailed: Oil baron turned wind power advocate T. Boone Pickens used his $58 million PR campaign this year to create a lot of hope and support for clean power. Then the economy tanked. Pickens told us that the debt markets in particular took the wind out of his sails.

4) Wave Power Plan Gets Washed Away: Canadian company Finavera Renewables saw its plans to install a 2MW wave power project in California waters wash out to sea when the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) denied its application. Finavera had been planning to work with California utility PG&E on what would have been the first commercial wave energy contract in the U.S. The CPUC said the wave power plan was neither viable or economical.

5) The Clean Coal Lobby Gets Dirty: A report from the think tank the Center for American Progress finds coal companies have only spent $3.5 billion over the past several years investing in R&D for carbon capture and sequestration, the most promising technology for reducing emissions from coal power — just 1/17th of the coal industry’s profits in 2007 alone, according to the group. Meanwhile the industry’s been increasingly claiming coal is cleaning up its act — and upping lobbying efforts in support of regulations to protect it. According to Open Secret, the amount of money spent by the coal mining lobby jumped to $12.67 million in 2008, while the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity, which is made up of coal and power companies, spent $8.49 million.

6) Corn Ethanol Industry Still Asking for Aid: Corn-based ethanol companies had a rough year: Corn prices spiked, the industry faced political and public backlash, and margins on ethanol narrowed, forcing companies like VeraSun to file for bankrupcy. Most recently, the corn ethanol lobby asked for $1 billion in short-term credit from the government and as much as $50 billion in loan guarantees. The lobby claims it’s not a bailout, but the industry isn’t sustainable — enough already.

7) GM Still Featuring Bob Lutz: The U.S. automaker with one of the most promising electric cars in the pipeline is still employing an exec that publicly disputes the carbon theory of global warming. GM has managed to convince the government it needs a bailout, which requires it to prove it can be financially viable and meet current emissions laws — perhaps it should take the inspection opportunity to do some housecleaning in the C-level suite?

8) UK Wind Plans Blowing Away: The UK looks to be facing an uphill climb when it comes to meeting its wind power targets. The government has a plan to supply a third of its electricity from wind by 2020, but both Royal Dutch Shell and BP have pulled their offshore wind projects investments in the region as reports suggest the goal is far too aggressive. Meanwhile the British Wind Energy Association, an industry trade group, has cut the CO2 reduction calculations for the UK wind plan in half after talks with the UK’s Advertising Standards Authority, which enforces rules on claims in advertisements.

9) It’s Gonna Be A Lot Harder Than We Thought: Beyond problems with wind power, scientists and politicians have realized that meeting existing carbon reduction goals won’t be enough. The research, from the University of Colorado at Boulder and McGill University in Montreal, says plainly: “Stabilization is a more daunting challenge than many realize and requires a radical ‘decarbonization’ of energy systems.” The conclusion: More regulations boosting research and development for clean technology is needed.

10) The Current Administration: The need for more cleantech R&D brings us to the last point — the current U.S. government has consistently ignored the urgency of climate change and failed to invest appropriately to deliver cleantech innovations. The incoming administration’s commitment to a modestly aggressive plan — $150 billion over 10 years in clean power — is making that strikingly clear.

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Faster Climate Change Feared

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer

Ice sheets in the Antarctic and Greenland, above, are losing 48 cubic miles per year, pushing up sea level worldwide. (By John Mcconnico -- Associated Press)

The United States faces the possibility of much more rapid climate change by the end of the century than previous studies have suggested, according to a new report led by the U.S. Geological Survey.

The survey -- which was commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program and issued this month -- expands on the 2007 findings of the United Nations Intergovernment Panel on Climate Change. Looking at factors such as rapid sea ice loss in the Arctic and prolonged drought in the Southwest, the new assessment suggests that earlier projections may have underestimated the climatic shifts that could take place by 2100.

However, the assessment also suggests that some other feared effects of global warming are not likely to occur by the end of the century, such as an abrupt release of methane from the seabed and permafrost or a shutdown of the Atlantic Ocean circulation system that brings warm water north and colder water south. But the report projects an amount of potential sea level rise during that period that may be greater than what other researchers have anticipated, as well as a shift to a more arid climate pattern in the Southwest by mid-century.

Thirty-two scientists from federal and non-federal institutions contributed to the report, which took nearly two years to complete. The Climate Change Science Program, which was established in 1990, coordinates the climate research of 13 different federal agencies.

Tom Armstrong, senior adviser for global change programs at USGS, said the report "shows how quickly the information is advancing" on potential climate shifts. The prospect of abrupt climate change, he said, "is one of those things that keeps people up at night, because it's a low-probability but high-risk scenario. It's unlikely to happen in our lifetimes, but if it were to occur, it would be life-changing."

In one of the report's most worrisome findings, the agency estimates that in light of recent ice sheet melting, global sea level rise could be as much as four feet by 2100. The IPCC had projected a sea level rise of no more than 1.5 feet by that time, but satellite data over the past two years show the world's major ice sheets are melting much more rapidly than previously thought. The Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets are now losing an average of 48 cubic miles of ice a year, equivalent to twice the amount of ice that exists in the Alps.

Konrad Steffen, who directs the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado at Boulder and was lead author on the report's chapter on ice sheets, said the models the IPCC used did not factor in some of the dynamics that scientists now understand about ice sheet melting. Among other things, Steffen and his collaborators have identified a process of "lubrication," in which warmer ocean water gets in underneath coastal ice sheets and accelerates melting.

"This has to be put into models," said Steffen, who organized a conference last summer in St. Petersburg, Russia, as part of an effort to develop more sophisticated ice sheet models. "What we predicted is sea level rise will be higher, but I have to be honest, we cannot model it for 2100 yet."

Still, Armstrong said the report "does take a step forward from where the IPCC was," especially in terms of ice sheet melting.

Scientists also looked at the prospect of prolonged drought over the next 100 years. They said it is impossible to determine yet whether human activity is responsible for the drought the Southwestern United States has experienced over the past decade, but every indication suggests the region will become consistently drier in the next several decades. Richard Seager, a senior research scientist at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, said that nearly all of the 24 computer models the group surveyed project the same climatic conditions for the North American Southwest, which includes Mexico.

"If the models are correct, it will transition in the coming years and decades to a more arid climate, and that transition is already underway," Seager said, adding that such conditions would probably include prolonged droughts lasting more than a decade.

The current models cover broad swaths of landscape, and Seager said scientists need to work on developing versions that can make projections on a much smaller scale. "That's what the water managers out there really need," he said. Current models "don't give them the hard numbers they need."

Armstrong said the need for "downscaled models" is one of the challenges facing the federal government, along with better coordination among agencies on the issue of climate change. When it comes to abrupt climate shifts, he said, "We need to be prepared to deal with it in terms of policymaking, keeping in mind it's a low-probability, high-risk scenario. That said, there are really no policies in place to deal with abrupt climate change."

Richard Moss, who directed the Climate Change Science Program's coordination office between 2000 and 2006 and now serves as vice president and managing director for climate change at the World Wildlife Fund-U.S., welcomed the new report but called it "way overdue."

"There is finally a greater flow of climate science from the administration," Moss said, noting that the report was originally scheduled to come out in the summer of 2007. "It really is showing the potential for abrupt climate change is real."

The report is reassuring, however, on the prospects for some potentially drastic effects -- such as a huge release of methane, a potent heat-trapping gas, that is now locked deep in the seabed and underneath the Arctic permafrost. That is unlikely to occur in the near future, the scientists said.

"It's unlikely that we're going to see an abrupt change in methane over the next hundred years, but we should worry about it over a longer time frame," said Ed Brook, the lead author of the methane chapter and a geosciences professor at Oregon State University. "All of these places where methane is stored are vulnerable to leaking."

By the end the century, Brook said, the amount of methane escaping from natural sources such as the Arctic tundra and waterlogged soils in warmer regions "could possibly double," but that would still be less than the current level of human-generated methane emissions. Over the course of the next thousand years, he added, methane hydrates stored deep in the seabed could be released: "Once you start melting there, you can't really take it back."

In the near term, Brook said, more precise monitoring of methane levels worldwide would give researchers a better sense of the risk of a bigger atmospheric release. "We don't know exactly how much methane is coming out all over the world," he said. "That's why monitoring is important."

While predictions remain uncertain, Steffen said cutting emissions linked to global warming represents one of the best strategies for averting catastrophic changes.

"We have to act very fast, by understanding better and by reducing our greenhouse gas emissions, because it's a large-scale experiment that can get out of hand," Steffen said. "So we don't want that to happen."

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Penguins gather in Antarctica

By Murray Wardrop

Adult Emperor Penguins lean over a large, healthy chick they have raised. Snow Hill Island, Antarctica. Photo: Barcroft Media

The young penguins on Snow Hill Island, Antarctica, only began moulting their juvenile grey plumage within the last two months but must prepare themselves for a bitter winter ahead.

But the chicks will now have to hunt for themselves when they get hungry because their parents stop feeding them at this time of year, so they become more independent.

By assembling in colonies, and huddling together, they can keep warm by rotating which of them stand in the centre of the group.

The emperor penguin is the largest of all penguins, easily recognised by its black cap, blue-grey neck, orange ear-patches and bills, and yellow breasts.

Recent research has projected that an increase in temperature of two degrees would kill off half the emperor penguin colonies in Antarctica as their ice pack habitat melted away.

The US government faced criticism from wildlife campaigners earlier this month after not including the emperor penguin among a list of seven species to be given protected status.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service said there was insufficient evidence to list the emperor as threatened at present, citing uncertainty over climate change predictions.

Assembling at the breeding colonies early in winter, shortly after the sea ice has formed, emperor penguins breed during the perpetual darkness of the Antarctic winter, in March and April.

Gathering together near a solid iceberg, the female lays a single egg that she passes over to the male, who incubates the egg until it hatches.

The females return to the colonies seven to eight weeks after laying to relieve their mates and tend to the newly-hatched chicks.

By midsummer, the fledglings are independent and will be ready to breed in as little as four years.

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