Peter Fairley

Wind and the Whale

Humpback whales are surprisingly agile, executing tight banking turns in spite of their 40-ton hulk. How? One factor may be ten or so fibrous ‘tubercles’ protruding from the leading edge of their pectoral flippers. These protruding, oversized knuckles (a humpback’s flippers are analogous to your arms, but most of the length is finger) alter the airflow over the flipper. The result is an airfoil that is largely immune to the sudden loss of lift or ‘stall’ can trip up fighter pilots when they try to carve into turns too aggressively.

What does all that have to do with our energy future? Toronto-based airfoil designer WhalePower Corp. thinks that the serrated profile of the humpback fin could hold the key to smoother-running pumps, fans and wind turbines. Find all that a bit much? Would you believe the scientist behind this novel airfoil design is Frank Fish?

Read more about the promise of this technology in the current issue of Discover Magazine (see “Wind Turbine That Imitates Flippers Could Increase Efficiency”).

A note of caution: Convincing risk-averse wind turbine builders and buyers to try something new will require some, “pretty hard test data,” according to Bob Thresher, director of the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Wind Technology Center. In other words WhalePower has plenty more work ahead than the hopeful tagline on its website – “A Million Years Of Field Tests” – would suggest.

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September 8, 2008 by pfairley

Drilling the Media on Drilling

Food for thought on the power of repetition and omission from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, a Washington-based thinktank. Their report, Oil Drilling in Environmentally Sensitive Areas: The Role of the Media, asserts that major TV news outlets are selling Americans on John McCain’s new-found affinity for expanded domestic oil and gas drilling as a response to rising energy prices.

The study shows that most news coverage of proposed drilling for oil in environmentally sensitive zones in the U.S. ignores relevant data from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Energy Information Agency showing that such drilling would have no impact on the price of oil. It then asserts that this omission has contributed to increasingly widespread public support for expanded drilling.

Kudos to CNN, which stands out as the only broadcast outlet that presented the federal data this media critic thought most relevant.

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September 7, 2008September 21, 2018 by pfairley

Realistic Expectations for Renewable Energy

RenewableEnergyWorld’s Inside Renewable Energy podcast returned to the potential green bubble this week. Carbon-Nation readers will recall that in May this podcast reviewed our reporting on organic photovoltaics, and the allegations that researchers developing that very promising (but still quite nascent) approach to solar power had overstated their advances. This week’s entry, “Keeping the Industry in Check”, broadens the issue to take on overheated hyperbole coming from the renewables industry writ large.

Podcast Editor Stephen Lacey’s quotes from wind energy expert Mack Sagrillo capture the conversation’s overall message: Buyer beware. “It’s great that people are looking for alternatives, but it’s amazing how little people know when they seek them out. That leaves people open to purchasing a product that is less-than-reliable. We are a very gullible culture, we’re always looking for the magic bullet,” says Sagrillo.

Lacey brings me in to speak to media’s role. Some of my touchstones: Asking uncomfortable questions; providing caveats that make the story a little more messy but a lot more accurate; and letting readers know when technology advocates are providing only half the story.

The most important audience for the above? The editors that serve as the ultimate gatekeepers for the reader and, all too often in my opinion, underestimate their audience’s appetite for complexity.

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August 20, 2008August 30, 2008 by pfairley

Bikes Battle for Beijing Gold

Time for Carbon-Nation to take its annual summer hiatus, as its editor heads off to grid-free living on Eagle Island. We leave with this musing on the role bicycles may play in cleaning up Beijing’s act posted on MSN Green today.

Surfing over from MSN Green? Here’s an ironic addendum to the biking in Beijing piece: One of the key factors currently limiting China’s exports of electric bicycles is tight supplies of lead for batteries, caused in part by the air quality-inspired closure of Beijing-region factories!

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August 4, 2008October 23, 2008 by pfairley

U.S. Law Swinging for Carbon Controls

Just over one year ago Carbon-Nation pondered the continued construction of conventional coal-fired power plants in the U.S. despite the availability of cleaner gasification-based technology. In Why EPA is not Mandating Cleaner Coal I laid out the legal case for EPA to mandate the use of Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle technology — something the Bush Administration has refused to do:

As the Clean Air Act stipulates that new power plants must be built using the best pollution control technology available, new coal plants dirtier than IGCCs should thus be technology-non-grata.

At the time I posited that the then-recent U.S. Supreme Court decision declaring carbon dioxide a pollutant under U.S. law might help to turn the tide. That appears to be happening. Late last month a judge in Georgia overturned a permit for a planned coal-fired power plant, linking the Supreme Court ruling and the existing Clean Air Act requirement for best available technology.

Here’s how the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, a Washington-based think tank, presented the decision in “Georgia Court Rejects Proposed Coal-Fired Plant Over GHG Emissions Concerns” :

On June 30, 2008, Judge Moore of Georgia’s Fulton County Superior Court revoked a permit for construction of a proposed 1200-megawatt coal-fired power plant in the state. Ruling in favor of the plaintiffs, Judge Moore found that the permit filed by Longleaf Energy and approved by the Georgia Environmental Protection Division failed to consider the best available pollution control technology (BACT) to mitigate harm caused by the proposed plant’s estimated annual emissions of 8-9 million tons of CO2. The defense had argued that a BACT analysis was unnecessary because CO2 is not a pollutant subject to regulation under the Clean Air Act (CAA). In rejecting the defense’s argument, Judge Moore cited the U.S. Supreme Court’s April, 2007 decision in Massachusetts v. EPA, in which the Court found that CO2 does qualify as a harmful pollutant that the United States Environmental Protection Agency must consider regulating under the CAA.

The company behind the project, Longleaf Energy Associates, plans to appeal.

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July 28, 2008October 23, 2008 by pfairley

Toyota’s Solar Sales Scheme

“Cool” was the first word out of University of Minnesota aerospace engineering prof Jeff Hammer’s mouth when I told him Toyota’s Prius may soon come with its own rooftop solar generating system. But does it make sense? Not really, says Hammer: “The car is not always in the sun and there’s no surface facing the same direction all the time. The best thing to do is set [your solar panels] somewhere fixed that’s always in the sun and use the energy directly. That’s what the economics would tell you to do.”

That’s pretty damning coming from Hammer, whose job is to help turn solar energy into motive power. Well, sort of. Hammer is faculty advisor for an engineering team that put together one of 18 solar-powered vehicles competing in the 2008 North American Solar Challenge — a 2,400 mile race from Dallas to Calgary that got underway this weekend. His job is actually to help engineering students learn. “The main thing that solar car racing does to help automakers is that engineering students get a better education,” says Hammer. “We don’t think of building a solar car as a research activity or technology development activity.”

So what is Toyota doing offering solar panels that will be largely wasted? Showing once again that it is the master of green marketing. For the full story, see my full report — “Does Car-Mounted Solar Make Sense?” — at MIT’s TechReview.com today.

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July 13, 2008July 14, 2008 by pfairley

Garbage to Gas Addendum

An important paragraph fell out of my waste gasification coverage this week during the editing process:

Bryden [PlascoEnergy’s CEO] says the core functions of their 100-m.t./day demo plant are performing to expectations. Nevertheless, he acknowledges that its also had its share of teething pains. The feed system has proved susceptible to jamming, regularly interrupting test runs. And they discovered that after such unanticipated interruptions oxygen entering the system ignited particulates and burned the baghouse filters designed to capture that soot before it exits the plant. Adding a valve stopped the filter fires, and Bryden says PlascoEnergy will install a new waste feeder in August.

These are the kinds of glitches one expects with new technology. But they’re also an important reminder that this is new technology and, as such, there’s no guarantee it will work as advertised.

Caveat emptor.

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July 4, 2008July 5, 2008 by pfairley