Renewable Oil From Algae

As gas prices continue to rise, alternative fuels are getting renewed attention. And that’s where the government’s biggest incubator in clean energy comes in. Like DARPA does for military technology, "ARPA-E" funds early stage, high-risk research. It has a more cumbersome name, "Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy."

The program is looking for the next Google in clean technology and it may come from innovations such as cryogenic carbon capture for coal plants or transportation fuels from algae. QUEST’s Andrea Kissack talks with Arun Majumdar, former deputy director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory who now heads up ARPA-E, about the long path toward a clean energy future.

Majumdar says ARPA-E is pre-venture, early research and describes some projects the agency is funding that show great promise, including advances in electric car battery research at two Bay Area start ups and promising biofuels research in Colorado. Majumdar is also the second man at the Department of Energy and credits the Recovery Act for adding new jobs and helping jump start already existing technologies. The DOE, however, has been under attack since solar manufacturer Solyndra filed for bankrupcy. Majumdar talks about the federal loan guarantee program and also responds to possible trade sanctions on solar panels coming from China. Finally, he discusses the big breakthroughs needed to make cleaner energy viable.

I began my trip last week with a few days visiting my father, two sisters, and a bunch of nieces and nephews living just north of Washington DC in Maryland. Both my sisters have recently been treated for cancer, so it was very good to see them happy and healthy. My older sister lost her job around the time she was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. After her COBRA insurance ran out she was able to join the high-risk pull for health insurance provided through the state of Maryland.

My father is a former NASA engineer who retired early to take care of my Mom when she was dying of cancer. Dad has a pretty good retirement plan. In his working days, he traded the higher pay he could have received working for a private company with lower pay but solid government benefits. When you see the weather satellite images during the local news weather report, chances are my Dad was somehow responsible for the performance of the satellite.

From visiting my family I traveled just a few miles south and west for the mid-Winter meeting of the National Association of State and Community Services Providers (NASCSP). My Dad dropped me off at the hotel where the conference was held. As we made our way south along Wisconsin Avenue we passed what seemed to me like several blocks of newer buildings that are part of the National Institutes of Health.

I came to the same NASCSP meetings in 2009, right around the time that the Obama Administration was pushing the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) through Congress. ARRA provided $5-billion to the DOE Weatherization Assistance Program. I described the atmosphere at the 2009 NASCSP meetings as like “drinking water from a fire hose.” Many community action agencies were preparing to double and triple their staff; buy equipment; and weatherize two or three times the number of homes they were used to weatherizing in half the time.

Their lives in 2010 were tough. Everyone from state attorney’s general and the federal Office of Management and Budget to the Department of Labor and the National Historic Preservation Program were looking over their shoulders demanding a level of accountability that would ruin most other agencies. There was some bad press about wasted funds and corruption and only back page, below the fold coverage of the successes. But the success of the weatherization program is clear. The program created more than 15,000 jobs in the last quarter of 2010. More than 330,000 homes were weatherized through ARRA so far, mostly in 2010. For every dollar spent almost two dollars has been returned to the economy in the form of savings on utility bills and increased economic activity. The health benefits of homes made healthy through weatherization for families and children is hard to calculate.

NSCASP and the Opportunity Council in Oregon announced a partnership with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) on the Healthy Homes Project, which will determine the most cost effective way to make homes healthy as well as energy efficient. The performance metrics for healthy homes are:

• Less asthma attacks (meaning less visits to the emergency room where many low-income families go for basic health care)
• Less school days missed
• Lowered stress on caregivers

Now if only we can get the NIH involved….

Government works when it is directed towards helping its citizens live healthy and productive lives. The current House of Representatives wants to zero out the weatherization program funding and take back the ARRA funds that haven’t been spent, in order to “help balance the budget.” One of the reasons I hope that the weatherization community partners with the NIH to help create healthy homes for families and children is that the NIH does research that benefits wealthy white men—the kind of people who are the decision makers in Washington.

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Cathy Zoi is truly one of the rock stars of energy efficiency, having worked in the Clinton White House, for Al Gore, and now as energy efficiency’s woman in Washington.

Notes from Asilomar: The 15th Biannual Summer Study, Energy Use In Buildings, of the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy (August 15–20, 2010).

Cathy Zoi, Assistant Secretary for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) at DOE, added a 1960s vibe to the Summer Study by calling the gathering “Woodstock for efficiency mavens.” Some in the audience at her plenary may have been at the original Woodstock mud fest in New York, and many in the audience have been passionately working for an energy efficient economy since the early 1970s. (Rumor has it that Art Rosenfeld and Carl Blumstein were at the original Woodstock.)

Cathy is truly one of the rock stars of efficiency, having worked in the Clinton White House, for Al Gore, and now as energy efficiency’s woman in Washington. Cathy Zoi, Steven Chu, and Barack Obama—quite the lineup!

Zoi went from celebrating what the administration has done, for example, earmarking $12 billion for home retrofit work and accelerating appliance efficiency standards development—to imagining what we can do. We can retrofit 5 to 10 million homes a year and 4 to 8 billion square feet of commercial buildings. We can save more than 5 Quads of energy in industry each year. We spend $1.1 trillion on stationary energy each year and a 20% savings means a $200 billion savings. We can meet 25% of our energy needs through efficiency by saving 3.5% a year, according the McKinsey Report. Art Rosenfeld put it in perspective—if we had done business as usual in this country since the Arab oil embargo in 1973, instead of saving about 2.5% a year because of the efforts of many people at Summer Study and other efficiency mavens, we would be spending $2.1 trillion on stationary energy this year instead of $1.1 trillion. It’s not just imagination! But can we cut refrigerator energy use in half, again?

Zoi would say yes, but…financial constraints, a scarcity of data, unconvinced regulators, and a public that has not yet got it, are obstacles to overcome. We have to improve our technology and our processes. For example, why not retrofit whole neighborhoods instead of a house here and a house there and save mobilization costs? And she needs the data! Send her the data—engineering estimates and actual performance data of energy savings and implementation costs. That will convince the regulators. To convince the public, find the language that sticks, e.g. "Retrofit Ramp-Up" is now "Better Buildings", and get the message out through structures that already exist, such as through utilities. DOE doesn’t have that much money for marketing.

The government has made a $12 billion down payment on energy efficiency, there are 7,700 energy efficiency projects in the works, and 17,000 good paying jobs have been created—irrefutable evidence that energy efficiency is good for the economy, at least for Summer Study attendees. It’s our job to convince the rest of the country.

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Recycling graywater from sinks, showers, and washing machines to irrigate your garden is the latest in green living—but until recently, was against the law.

The Department of Labor has received hundreds of millions of dollars to support training programs for home performance professionals—from weatherization technicians to high-end builders and remodelers—and workers for the new renewable energy economy. Community colleges across the nation are gearing up for crowded classrooms full of future green jobbers. Groups such as Green for All are serving as the conscience of the movement, and remind us that the new economy has to include those who stand to benefit the most, since the old economy hasn’t served them well. Labs such as Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and private companies are working at a fevered pace to assist the push for greener housing with advanced modeling tools, statistical data, some of the best minds and hearts, and new technology.

There is also more energy in water, so to speak. In late July, the California Department of Housing and Community Development made a proposal for a new graywater standard to the California Building Standards Commission. The new standard was almost immediately accepted. Graywater is shower, sink, and laundry water used for gardening and for toilet flushing that would otherwise be wasted. It’s taken a while for the state to figure out how to let its citizens use this water legally. Thousands have been using it illegally until now. The standards don’t address using graywater to flush toilets, and there are restrictions. For example, graywater from washing diapers cannot be used, and graywater cannot be used to water edible roots or edible plants with the edible parts in contact with soil.

California uses up to 10% of its energy treating, moving, or heating water, so saving water saves energy as well.

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This attic hatch insulation kit install is making the author use some choice language.

I promised Michele that I will practice the Yoga of home improvement projects and keep the cursing down to a minimum. My home improvement projects usually involve some cursing. I worked part time as a janitor when I was in high school and that's when I learned some pretty spicy language. I didn't intend to write about cursing here, but since I am in this so deep now, then damn it, I may as well connect the topic to some cutting edge scientific research. You got a problem with that?

British scientists found that cursing takes away pain. When people put their hands in a tub of cold water and cursed, they could hold their hands in longer than if they said things like, "butterscotch." If you don't want to take my word for it, you no-good so-and-sos, the research results were published in the online journal NeuroReport.

The attic hatch insulation kit will save us some energy losses and utility bill pain in the long run. According to the DOE Weatherization Assistance program, a gosh darn uninsulated 10 square foot attic hatch in a 100 square foot insulated attic can decrease the overall R-value of the attic floor by more than 50%! For example, an attic with R-38 insulation everywhere but on top of a stinking quarter-inch plywood hatch-with an R-value of approximately 0.3-will have an overall R-value of only R-17. What a freaking waste! Bloody hell!
You can find out more about insulating attic hatches at the Department of Energy's Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy Web site. Do it now!

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