Iowa's green energy policy struggle

By Scott Simon
BBC News, Iowa

The presence of prairie winds and rich soil makes Iowa literally fertile ground for developing alternative energy sources from wind turbines and biofuels.

Iowa invested $6m in wind turbine manufacturing

But the landscape is also a reminder that achieving energy independence is a formidable challenge and making an agricultural economy green is not easy.

Farm workers cannot take subways to work, farmers have to drive long distances into the fields to sow and harvest their crops and to deliver them to markets.

Farm animals themselves, not to put too fine a point on it, produce methane - a powerful greenhouse gas - that is trapped in the atmosphere.

Those challenges have not stopped the state setting itself ambitious goals.

Energy pioneers

The Iowa Climate Change Advisory Panel recently wrote a report for Governor Chet Culver setting out how the state can reduce carbon emissions by 90% by 2030.

The state has set up an Office of Energy Independence - surely the perfect place, I thought, to test how easy it will be for President Obama to achieve energy independence for the whole of America.

There are plenty of energy pioneers to be found in Iowa.

I feel like I'm doing something more than just building a washing machine, I'm building something for everyone to capitalise on Crugar Tuttle Wind turbine factory worker

Roger Neuberger, a farmer, lives near Clear Lake in the north-west part of the State - where the wind blows hardest.

He gets money from an energy company each year for making room for two wind turbines on his land.

Mr Neuberger has promised the energy company that he will not publicly reveal how much he is being paid, but other farmers have let it be known that, depending on when their contracts were signed, they can receive somewhere between $2,000 (£1,400) and $4,000 per turbine every year for the next 30 years.

Mr Neuberger is very happy, if rather modest about his role at the new frontier.

Asked if he felt like a pioneer, he replied: "Yeah, I suppose so."

"There were a number of farmers who didn't want to do this because they didn't understand - they were concerned how they were going to be treated. We've been treated wonderful. I couldn't ask for anything better."

Foreign oil

Iowa hopes that wind energy will deliver more than just electricity - and that investment in wind technology will help to transform towns depressed by unemployment.

Towns like Newton, which is just to the east of the capital, Des Moines.

Nearly 2,000 people lost their jobs in Newton when the town's biggest employer, Whirlpool, shut its doors in 2007.

Is ethanol really a clean alternative to fossil fuels?

Hundreds of those same workers, who once made washing machine parts, now make blades for wind turbines at the TPI factory.

But the jobs did not come cheap.

The state gave the manufacturer $6m in subsidies and tax breaks - in return the company promised to hire 500 people.

Larry Crady worked at Whirlpool for 23 years, making coin-operated laundry machines.

"It just wows you when you see a blade open and close," Larry says. "When you pull that blade out of the mould it's exciting, I feel like I'm doing something more than just building a washing machine, I'm building something for everyone to capitalise on."

Mr Crady's sense of wonder is understandable - the plant certainly has the "wow" factor.

The turbine blades are as long as a 747 jet and the factory is longer than an aircraft carrier.

It is fitting, then, that - according to the plant's manager - so many of those that work there feel that making the blades is as much about national security as it is about electricity.

"A lot of us in this company and in wind energy have a sense of calling to this," Crugar Tuttle says. "I think in the interview process it comes out with a lot of our veterans that this is about weaning us off foreign oil."

But wind energy is a long way from delivering independence for Iowa any time soon.

It provides just 8% of Iowa's energy needs.

If it is to go any way towards making the rest of the country energy independent, a distribution grid would be needed.

Controversial

President Obama has promised to invest $150bn in renewable energy over the next 10 years.

He hopes to increase dramatically the contribution that wind, solar and other renewable sources can make to the country's energy supply.

According to current projections, renewables will still be providing only 8% of the country's energy supply 20 years from now.

Certainly, energy independence will not be possible without replacing the foreign petrol used in cars.

We need sources of power that are constant and don't rely on things like whether the wind's blowing or the sun's shining Phil Wyse Iowa state representative

Many Iowans think the solution is biofuels (as do most presidential candidates - albeit only while they are campaigning in the crucial Iowa caucuses).

Refineries across the state produce 1.5 billion gallons of ethanol a year - enough to replace 10% of the petrol in America's cars.

But biofuels are controversial.

A UN report says they drive up the price of food.

And is ethanol really clean?

We visited POET's ethanol plant in Hanlontown in the northern part of Iowa.

The plant, like most in the state, is powered by fossil fuels.

I spoke to POET's Vice President for Project Development, Larry Ward.

He insists that despite the use of natural gas in the production of ethanol, it is a good bargain.

"There's a tremendous net gain from an energy standpoint. Using natural gas to produce ethanol you have a gain - for every unit of energy you put into the plant you get two units of energy out."

The trouble is, many of Iowa's ethanol refineries use coal - the dirtiest fuel of all.

It is one of the reasons why Iowa will soon be building another coal-fired power plant.

More than half of all the electricity produced by the new plant is expected to be used to fuel the state's ethanol refineries.

King coal

Another problem is that Iowa gets very cold in winter.

How many Americans would risk living in a place where January temperatures hover around -18F, if they had to rely on sun or wind power for heat?

What happens when the sun goes down and the wind dies?

That is why, despite the push for ethanol and wind power, coal is still king when it comes to powering Iowa.

It currently provides 85% of the state's energy needs.

Phil Wyse, a state representative for 22 years, believes Iowa and America need nuclear power.

"We need sources of power that are constant and don't rely on things like whether the wind's blowing or the sun's shining," he says.

"Alternative to coal? Nuclear more in the mix."

Despite all the wind energy and ethanol Iowa strives to produce, carbon emissions are still growing here - and they are 1% higher than the average for the whole of the US.

Iowa may have much to show the rest of America about green energy - including how hard it will be to make America energy independent.

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Tadpoles may hold cancer clue

Xenopus Laevis frog whose pigments can be manipulated by the new compound

Tadpoles could hold the key to developing effective skin cancer drugs according to researchers at the University of East Anglia.

The scientists have identified a compound which blocks the movement of the pigment cells that give the tadpoles their distinctive markings.

It is the uncontrolled movement of pigment cells that causes skin cancer in both humans and frogs.

The next step, the researchers say, is to test the compound in other animals.

The man-made compound, NSC 84093, was chosen out of a list of 3,000 which were screened to see if they affected the pigment cells.

It produced a distinct change in the colour markings on the tadpoles at very low concentrations.

The continuous stripe along the back of a wild tadpole was replaced by a pattern of individual blocks of colour.

The study is published in the journal, Chemistry & Biology.

Top tadpole has normal markings. The one underneath has broken markings along back

Grant Wheeler, a developmental biologist and lead researcher at the University of East Anglia, said:

"Forty of the compounds gave us an interesting difference which we wanted to follow up."

"The reason we were able to look at so many compounds was because it's very easy to look at the embryos and see the colour change."

"The pigment cells are interesting for a number of reasons.

"The first is that the place where they develop is not where they end up - they move through the embryo in a process called cell migration."

Invasive melanomas

It is when melanoma cells migrate through the body to the organs and cause secondary tumours that the disease becomes deadly.

Melanomas are one of the most dangerous forms of skin cancer because they are highly invasive and resistant to treatment.

Scientists hope that if they can block this process they can halt the cancer.

The compound in this study works by inhibiting matrix metaloproteinases (MMP) which are expressed by melanoma tumours in both humans and frogs.

Mr Wheeler said a chemist at the university recognised the structure of their compound and realised that part of it had known properties that meant it should bind to a zinc molecule.

MMPs are zinc-dependant enzymes and the researchers observed varying changes to the patterning on the tadpoles according to the strength of dose they were receiving.

Mr Wheeler added: "It's a long shot. We are quite far away from a cure for melanoma."

Ed Yong, health information manager at Cancer Research UK, said:

"There is still a lot of work to do before these interesting but preliminary results can be used to benefit people affected by cancer.

"But it just goes to show that studying animals like tadpoles, which may seem unusual, could lead to potential cancer drugs in the future."

Bevis Man from the British Skin Foundation said: "This is certainly an interesting discovery and is worth keeping an eye on, but is unlikely to get a breakthrough in terms of treatment within the next ten years."

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Jetting Their Way to a Better Understanding of Global Warming

By Douglas Fischer

CO2 JET: Scientists have outfitted a Gulfstream jet to make precise measurements of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

BOULDER—Scientists have taken the first crack at solving a fundamental climate mystery, criss-crossing the globe in a souped-up corporate jet to determine where and when greenhouse gases enter and leave the atmosphere.

An understanding of how these climate-warming gases move about the globe is a critical prerequisite for any policy aimed at curbing global warming, scientists said Thursday, and information gained over the next three years will play a crucial role in sharpening future predictions and improving their accuracy.

Using a high performance jet, scientists will take a series of "slices" of the atmosphere over the next few years from pole to pole and from the surface to the atmosphere's upper reaches.

They are expected to return from their first mission this week—a series of 11 flights from Colorado to the Arctic Circle to Tahiti, Antarctica, Easter Island and Costa Rica. Scientists running the instruments say they have seen several "wonderful jewels" in the raw data that challenge current thinking and assumptions.

When all the measurements are assembled, scientists added, they will for the first time have a picture of the atmosphere—and a global snapshot showing where and when some of the estimated 30 billion tons of carbon emitted annually by cars, factories, deforestation and other human activities enters the atmosphere.

"We were essentially retracing Captain Cook's voyages—obviously much later and with much more sophisticated instruments, but with some very similar parallels," said Britton Stephens, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research and one of the project's principal investigators.

"When he set sail, he knew the ocean was out there, but didn't really know the details. Similarly, we've been standing on the edge of the atmosphere—the surface—but we don't really know the details."

Researchers expect the $4.5 million mission to provide several critical answers to atmospheric riddles, but the two most important are fundamental to any effort to curb climate change, team members said during a conference call with reporters near the end of the first of five missions:

First, the project will fill key gaps in our understanding of how carbon cycles through the atmosphere and among the earth, air and oceans. Roughly half the carbon emitted by humans stays in the atmosphere, with the remainder being absorbed by ocean and earth ecosystems. But scientists don't understand how the system works or how quickly various gases mix.

The result, Stephens said, is that models of this so-called carbon cycle grown wildly divergent as they are projected into the future, with nearly 100 percent uncertainty by 2050.

Second, and perhaps most important, the map will provide a baseline against which efforts worldwide to curb carbon emissions can be judged. Need for such a benchmark has gained urgency, scientists and policymakers say, as the world moves toward regional, national and international agreements to limit greenhouse gases.

"If we expect to make treaties," said Steven Wofsy, a Harvard University professor of atmospheric and environmental science and another principal investigator, "those treaties have to be based on sound science. This slice of the atmosphere is going to help us understand that."

The effort is distinctly different from other efforts—such as the launch last week of a Japanese research satellite—to map carbon dioxide. Most measurements to date look solely at points on the surface. Satellite pictures can see broad swathes of the Earth but with very fuzzy resolution. This work, scientists said, examines nearly 100 different greenhouse gases in very fine detail at almost every altitude.

They have seen some "stunning" things: ground-level ozone, or smog, through the entire depth of the Northern Hemisphere at nearly triple the concentration observed in the Southern Hemisphere; a cloud of industrial pollutants sitting above the Arctic; a large mass of oxygen above the Southern Ocean.

"It supports the view of people who say there's a very big effect of pollution, even in the wintertime," Wofsy said.

To map the atmosphere, scientists are flying a specially equipped Gulfstream V jet, owned by the National Science Foundation and operated by Colorado-based NCAR.

The plane has a range of 7,000 miles, allowing researchers to traverse vast swathes of the Pacific without refueling. Extraordinarily powerful engines allow the jet to cruise at altitudes from 1,000 feet to 47,000 feet, into the lower stratosphere nearly nine miles up.

In contrast, a typical Boeing 767 has a range of about 4,000 miles and cruises at about 35,000 feet.

And while the jet started as a luxury corporate item, it is now anything but: the cabin is stuffed with pipes, pumps, filters, analyzers, sensors computers and other laboratory equipment. They have drilled holes through the fuselage so lasers could point up and down, added pods and intake valves, ditched the leather.

"We have the equivalent of a very expensive laboratory where we can sit behind our instruments as we're going along," Stephens said.

Scientists from NCAR, Harvard, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Scripps Intitution of Oceanography, the University of Miami and Princeton University will complete this week the first of five missions. They left Jan. 8, flying from Colorado to Alaska and the Arctic Circle, then south to New Zealand and Antarctica. Late this week they will return from Costa Rica to Colorado.

Four subsequent missions through mid-2011 will follow similar flight paths but at different times of the year, providing a range of seasonal snapshots of greenhouse gas emissions.

The research will help answer such questions as why atmospheric levels of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, have tripled since the Industrial Age and are on the rise again after leveling off in the 1990s. They will also answer how gases and particles in the atmosphere affect temperatures by influencing clouds or the amount of solar heat reaching the Earth's surface.

And by ramming their data, along with long-standing surface measurements, through computer models, they hope to expose the weaknesses of current projections.

"Some modeling approaches will simply fail," Wofsy said. "They won't be able to do this. That's what we're after here: We're confronting these global models with data."

And the experiment is also confronting scientists with a bit of perspective.

"It's quite an experience to fly in an airplane above the Arctic ice sheet, with moonlight illuminating it, and then a short time thereafter be above American Samoa and the lush tropical forest, and then a short time later be over New Zealand," Wofsy said. "It really gave a strong sense of the interconnection of the globe."

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