According to a report published this week, more needs to be done to identify, encourage and support the entrepreneurs who are promising new ways to tackle climate change.
The report from the National Endowment for Science, Technology & the Arts (NESTA), coincides with the launch of the organization’s ’Environment Challenge’, a £1 million prize fund to inspire novel approaches to carbon reduction.
’The Disrupters’ report uses eight examples to illustrate the importance of innovation in the fight to reduce carbon levels. These stretch beyond the traditional expectation of new, energy-efficient technology to include new ways of owning energy assets, and new services to engage people in energy saving.
The report stresses the potential impact of these entrepreneurial approaches, showing how the eight it profiles alone promise savings equivalent to the carbon dioxide emitted by 1.6 million homes. However, it argues that not enough is being done to ensure all this innovation has the widest possible effect, E4engineering.com said.
With no obligation and limited encouragement for individuals to save energy at home, for example, innovative approaches like ’GREENHomes’--a service for busy, environmentally conscious Londoners which arranges for their homes to be made more environmentally friendly--will simply not penetrate a wide enough market. Equally, without major energy system changes, ’2¡C’, which has developed a way to use the pressure in gas pipelines to generate renewable electricity, cannot actually be adopted.
Measures must be put in place that ensure this new innovation is adopted by bigger players; that put other companies under pressure to change; and that persuade more people to take action on CO2 reduction. More broadly, the report shows how the government’s current focus on encouraging the creation of new technology in answer to climate change also makes it hard to develop non-technological solutions or ones that focus on using existing technology differently.
Jonathan Kestenbaum, CEO of NESTA, said: ’In an area with the highest need for innovation, we also see some of the biggest barriers. If we are to overcome our dependence on carbon, it’s vital we start to remove these barriers and encourage what begin as niche ideas to become more widespread’.
Highlighting the current challenges, the report calls for government to develop better ways of supporting these entrepreneurs and provide the right conditions and opportunities for them to flourish.
The report suggests that government re-direct some of its investment in innovation towards lower-carbon alternatives and include support for non-technological innovation, like those that drive behavior change.
Within this, government should provide local and regional decision-makers with the autonomy and funding to involve local households, communities, businesses and the public sector in carbon reduction. This might result in a community piloting a new technology or establishing a voluntary carbon-trading scheme
The report also suggests reforming the energy markets to create better incentives for innovation and extend the remit of Ofgem so that it is in a position to provide some of those incentives.
Building on these aspects, NESTA is developing a £1 million prize fund to inspire more innovative approaches to carbon reduction amongst community and third sector organizations.
Full details of the initiative, which will reward imaginative, high impact solutions from not-for-profit organizations, will be announced in October.

Tandem cells are comprised of two multilayered parts that work together to gather a wider range of the spectrum of solar radiation.

While the technology is still two to three years from being commercially viable, a professor of physics at the University of California, Santa Barbara and a team of Korean scientists have created a new “tandem“ organic solar cell with a six and a half percent efficiency.
Developed at the Center for Polymers and Organic Solids at the university, the technology advancement was a joint effort between Nobel laureate, and professor, Alan Heeger and Kwanghee Lee of Korea. The discovery, explained in the July 13 issue of the journal Science, marks a step forward in materials science.
“The result is six and a half percent efficiency,“ said Heeger, who co-founded Konarka Technologies in 2000 to develop and market solar cells based on this technology. “This is the highest level achieved for solar cells made from organic materials. I am confident that we can make additional improvements that will yield efficiencies sufficiently high for commercial products.“
Tandem cells are comprised of two multilayered parts that work together to gather a wider range of the spectrum of solar radiation--at both shorter and longer wavelengths. Heeger and Lee, who have collaborated in the past on the advancement of solar cell efficiency, expect this technology to be on the market in about three years, Solaraccess.com said.
The new tandem architecture both improves light harvesting and promises to be less expensive to produce. In their paper, the authors explain that the cells “... can be fabricated to extend over large areas by means of low-cost printing and coating technologies that can simultaneously pattern the active materials on lightweight flexible substrates.“
The multilayered device is the equivalent of two cells in series, said Heeger. The deposition of each layer of the multilayer structure by processing the materials from solution is what promises to make the solar cells less expensive to produce.
“Tandem solar cells, in which two solar cells with different absorption characteristics are linked to use a wider range of the solar spectrum, were fabricated with each layer processed from solution with the use of bulk heterojunction materials comprising semiconducting polymers and fullerene derivatives,“ wrote the authors.
The cells are separated and connected by the material TiOx, a transparent titanium oxide. This is the key to the multilayer system that allows for the higher-level efficiencies. TiOx transports electrons and is a collecting layer for the first cell. In addition, it acts as a stable foundation that allows the fabrication of the second cell, thus completing the tandem cell architecture.
Heeger shared the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2000, with Alan MacDiarmid and Hideki Shirakawa, for the “discovery and development of conducting polymers.“ The tandem solar cells reported in the Science article utilize semiconducting polymers from the class of materials that were recognized by the Nobel Prize award.
Lee, a professor in the Department of Materials Science and Engineering at the Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, in Gwangju, Korea, made fundamentally important contributions to the tandem organic solar cell project, along with first author Jin Young Kim, a postdoctoral fellow who is also from Korea. Other collaborators from UCSB’s Center for Polymers and Organic Solids include Nelson E. Coates, Daniel Moses, Thuc-Quyen Nguyen, and Mark Dante.

South Africans will soon say goodbye to cheap electricity, Eskom said in its 2007 annual report released on Thursday.
“The cheap-electricity era is coming to an end, here and in all other markets,“ chairperson Valli Moosa warned in his message.
South Africa’s electricity is the cheapest in the world. Citizens pay 28 cents per kWh. Finland, Sweden and Canada are next cheapest, at 48 cents per kWh.
Chief executive Jacob Maroga said the electricity regulator had permitted a 5,9 percent tariff increase for the period between April 2007 to March 2008. It was 5,1 percent for the review period.
“However, higher primary energy costs, greater borrowing and bigger capital spending highlight a growing mismatch between currently agreed price increases and prudent forward planning.“
The company’s return on assets dropped to 7.8 percent from 9.1 percent in 2006. Increased investment caused the debt to equity ratio to increase to 0.3 from 0.2 in 2006, MG.co.za reported.
Revenue was R40-billion, up from R36-billion in 2006. Profit for the year was R6-billion, up from R4-billion in 2006.
Capital expenditure increased from R10-billion to R17-billion. Net cash from operating activities was R13-billion, up from R12-billion last year.
Sales volume growth of 2.3 percent was projected and 4,9 percent growth was delivered.
Eskom’s customer service index--a broad measure of customer satisfaction and service perception--increased from 86,3 percent in 2006 to 87.1 percent.
“A creditable performance, given the supply challenges,“ the report states.
Moosa said that over 20 years the utility planned to double its electricity-generating capacity. This would involve a “significant increase“ in investment, which could be achieved by Eskom becoming more efficient, capital injection from the government or higher prices.
Over the next five years Eskom would spend R150-billion on increasing its capacity. This would mean doubling the size of its balance sheet in that period.
“To illustrate the scale of this step change, the original total cost of Eskom’s current property, plant and equipment in commission is approximately R113-billion. The cost of building just one major base-load power station in our new expansion program is about R80-billion,“ said Moosa.
On efforts to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions, Maroga said Eskom planned to reduce the coal component of its electricity generation to 70 percent. Currently 88 percent of generating mix was coal-fired. This used up more than 100-million tons of coal every year.
Renewable energy production would increase to 2 percent of the generating mix or 1,600MW through biomass, solar, hydro and wind facilities.
This includes potential imports of hydro energy. The nuclear energy contribution to the national grid would rise to between 13 000MW and 20,000MW over the next 20 years.
Moosa said the utility planned to develop the world’s largest solar thermal power plant capable of generating 100MW, subject to technical and commercial feasibility. Furthermore, a pilot project to harness the power of underground coal gasification has already reached an advanced stage.
Maroga attributed power failures in 2006 and 2007 to higher-than-expected demand, unplanned cuts and, more importantly, a diminishing reserve capacity.
In recent years Eskom’s reserve margin for generation capacity had shrunk to between 8 percent and 10 percent, below the aimed-for reserve margin of 15 percent.
“The margin is tight and will remain so until 2013 when new base-load stations start coming online. The next five to eight years will require a collaborative effort by all stakeholders to minimize the likelihood of power interruptions,“ said Maroga.

The furnace can continuously eliminate the waste from 12,000 incontinent patients.

Patents are pending on Europe’s first furnace fired entirely by soiled nappies, which was constructed for the Liebenau Foundation, an operator of rest homes in the southwest corner of Germany.
Nurses and carers at the handicapped and old people’s homes are proud that every disposable diaper helps save a little fossil fuel.
“When this thing is running, we don’t need any gas or oil in the building,“ said chief technician Marco Nauerz in the furnace room of the foundation’s main site at Meckenbeuren near Lake Constance.
The 11-meter-high (36-feet-high) plant can consume 8 million diapers annually. By Nauerz’ calculation, that means it can continuously eliminate the waste from 12,000 incontinent patients. There is no risk the supply will dry up.
Liebenau has already signed up 40 rest homes, some of which it owns and others run by other operators, as suppliers, and it expects to double the number by the end of the year.
The diapers are packed in plastic sacks and arrive in airtight garbage trucks.
“You can’t smell anything here, can you?“ said Nauerz, showing the “fuel“ shed, where extractor fans suck out any odors.
Nauerz, 55, and no stranger to diapers as a father of three, has gained new respect for the soiled nappy through his work, Dw-world.de reported.

As Much Stored Energy as Wet Chopped Wood
Engineers say they have an average moisture content of 58 percent and can release as much energy as wet chopped wood. At 910 degrees Celsius, they burn in seconds. The foundation uses the energy to heat water in bathrooms and in its laundry to clean towels and sheets.
The total cost of the plant, the “fuel“ depot and new pipes came to 3 million euros ($4 million), Nauerz estimates.
Best of all, Liebenau expects to make a profit from diapers, as it charges rest-home operators to get rid of the waste. The fees are lower than those at land-fills or commercial incinerators.
To date, the foundation has had to pay 350,000 euros ($481,880) annually in land-fill fees for its own 2.1 million used diapers per year.
The furnace was jointly developed by Liebenau staff and an engineering company in Bregenz, Austria. An automatic conveyer from the hopper to the furnace was also specially made for the job.

German Law Does Not Recognize Diapers as Fuel
The partners were surprised to run into legal difficulties, seeing as German law makes no provision for diapers as fuel.
The plant had to have flue-gas treatment like regular commercial incinerators, although the engineers say diapers are mainly organic: just cellulose, biodegradable plastic film and the contents.
As a non-profit charity, Liebenau is also concerned about being kind to the environment, so it insists that all the diapers be “local produce“ and rejects long-distance transport of the new fuel. Instead, it hopes to sell the furnaces elsewhere in Europe. Patents have been applied for, and Nauerz said the partners were developing a business model. Baby diapers are not expected to enter the model, as householders can dump these in domestic rubbish at no extra charge.

Commercial demand for fuelcell products and services--including revenues associated with prototyping, demonstration and test marketing activities--will expand nearly sixfold to $2.5 billion in 2011 and reach $8.5 billion in 2016. Despite the small size of fuelcell technology’s current commercial footprint, a number of viable markets are expected to develop over the next ten years as technological advances and economies of scale help drive costs down to competitive levels. High energy prices and environmental concerns will also contribute to fuelcell commercialization activity and market gains. As additional products enter the marketplace, commercial sales will make up an increasingly large share of total fuelcell expenditures. However, it will take time for fuelcells to penetrate markets now served by other power sources, and commercial demand will continue to account for less than half of all fuelcell spending in 2016. These and other trends are presented in “World Fuel Cells,“ a new study from The Freedonia Group, Inc., a Cleveland-based industry market research firm, Fuelcellsworks.com said.
With a number of products now on the market, electric power generation applications accounted for well over half of all commercial fuelcell sales in 2006. However, the portable electronics market is forecast to register the strongest growth through 2011 and beyond, rising from what are presently extremely low levels of demand, as commercialization activity picks up. Demand for fuelcell-powered motor vehicles will also rise at a healthy rate, driven by increases in prototyping, demonstration and test marketing activity as fuelcell technology continues to improve and manufacturing costs decline.
In 2006, five countries--the US, Japan, Germany, Canada and the UK--accounted for four-fifths of all commercial fuelcell demand. These and other developed nations will continue to account for the vast majority of product and service sales over the next decade, with a few notable exceptions, like China. Most developing countries are not expected to become sizable fuelcell markets until some time later, due both to less evolved end-use sectors and a scarcity of capital to invest in early-generation fuelcell systems. However, fuelcells will find some use as a source of electricity in developing nations with inadequate central power grids.

Shares of International Coal Group Inc. fell about 10 percent in trading Friday, after it reported a widened second-quarter loss.
The company reported a loss of $10.2 million or 7 cents per share, compared to a loss of $601,000, or breakeven per share, in the year-ago quarter.
JP Morgan analyst John Bridges said the company’s poor performance highlighted the continuing difficult operating conditions in the Central Appalachian region, AP reported.
Additionally, he said the company’s plans to pursue “a larger capital markets transaction“ to increase liquidity suggests that difficult trading conditions and limited free cash flow will continue.
“International Coal Group is going ahead with its growth plans even though the market, via low prices, is saying the coal is not essential,“ he said. “This has negative implications for the Central Appalachian region and supports out cautious view on miners in this region.“
He reiterated his “Underweight“ rating on the stock.
Shares fell 59 cents, or 10.4 percent, to $5.06 in afternoon trading, after falling as low as $4.75 earlier in the session. The stock has traded between $3.85 and $6.56 in the past year.