Passive Homes Save Energy

It may be possible to heat your living space by hosting a dinner party. With cutting-edge, well-insulated “green” homes, you may not even need a furnace or boiler, just your body heat.

“It’s like living in a glass thermos,” says Dr. John Eckfeldt, a physician who built a passive home in bitter-cold Isabella, Minn. Eckfeldt notes the temperature inside remains comfortable even as he watches snow falling outside.

In these homes the windows never feel cold, nor do the concrete floors, even though they don’t have in-floor heating. The homes also are super quiet because of insulation.

The technology started in Europe, where thousands of such homes have been built. Now it’s starting to catch on in the United States as consumers seek to cut energy bills.

Passive homes don’t require expensive solar panels or wind turbines. Instead, they focus on old-tech building science that is capable of reducing energy use up to 90 percent.

Blast From Past?

These homes are different from passive solar homes of the 1970s – south-facing windows for heating, thick walls and roofs, as well as efficient appliances and lighting.

The secret today is in superior insulation and air sealing. A mechanical system brings in fresh air, and it is heated or cooled as needed.

“It’s growing exponentially,” says Tom DiGiovanni, who heads the Passive House Alliance, a nationwide nonprofit group established last year to promote the standard.

Proponents say the passive standard’s prime tenets – insulation and air sealing – also can be used by owners of traditional homes because windows are becoming more affordable and building codes are demanding greater efficiency.

“It could be mainstream in five years,” says Nate Kredich, vice president of residential market development for the private U.S. Green Building Council, which has its own “green” rating system. The group, comprised of community of leaders, is working to make green buildings available to everyone within a generation.

By The Numbers

Passive homes cost 6 percent to 12 percent more than other types of new homes, but they recoup their investment in lower utility bills in seven to 12 years, according to DiGiovanni.

“The biggest extra cost is the windows,” he says, noting U.S. companies only recently began making triple-pane types. California’s Serious Materials makes ultra-efficient dual-pane windows which some U.S. passive homes have used.

“It’s innately reasonable,” says architect David Peabody, who designed the first passive homes in Washington, D.C.

He says the extra cost was about 8 percent, but the annual utility bills for the 4,200-square-foot homes are projected to be about $750.

U.S. households spent an average of $2,639 on energy for homes that size in 2005, the most recent year for available data.

Home Designs Limited

Most passive homes have limited windows and a boxy shape. Homes with curves and larger footprints require extra insulation and sealing, adding cost. Huge curved windows with upscale finishes can cost $450 per square foot.

John Semmelhack, a passive house consultant from Charlottesville, Va., says the criteria are very stringent. This is especially true if the owner is trying to achieve the top rating from the U.S. Green Building Council.

Regardless of location, passive homes cannot have a heating or cooling load above 4,755 BTUs per square foot. This is about one-tenth that of homes built to current building codes.

Passive homes also must be airtight, with meticulous sealing of ducts, joints, and hairline cracks.

To avoid overheating, the house must have exterior shading, ventilation and a cooling system. Generally, only a small solar panel is needed to meet the requirements of a “zero energy home.”

The Green View

WMB believes passive energy homes may provide many opportunities for manufacturers and suppliers to meet consumer demands, from materials to design.

As energy costs – particularly those for heating fuel oil – continue to jump at alarming and unpredictable rates, the consumer market will benefit from growing availability of passive homes.

It’s time to think inside, not outside, the box!

TechMan

ChinaWatch: Sunny Economics

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy. Whether we like it or not, China has a major impact on our financial health, so we keep tabs on what the big news is from our rival.


Driving Domestic Path

China's leadership is promising to steer the economy in a new direction in its blueprint for the next five years that would empower consumers and narrow a yawning wealth gap but require politically contentious reforms.

The latest Five-Year Plan calls for creating self-sustaining growth based on domestic consumption and reducing China's reliance on exports and investment.

That will require a cut in subsidies to state industries and curbs on local development plans that could provoke a backlash among some in the ruling Communist Party.

The leadership has said for years that China needs to alter a system Premier Wen Jiabao has declared “unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable.’’

But they avoided major reforms until the global crisis wiped out millions of export-dependent factory jobs and drove home the danger of over reliance on trade.

“The road map is clear, but the extent to which the political will and power is sufficient remains to be seen,’’ says Alistair Thornton, China analyst for IHS Global Insight, in an interview with the Associated Press.

If carried out, the plan could drive a far-reaching transformation of the world's second-largest economy from low-cost factory into a major consumer market.

It would shift money from companies to households, which could narrow the gulf between a rich elite and fledgling middle class who have profited from economic reform and China's poor majority.

More consumer demand could help to boost imports, narrowing China's trade surplus with the United States and other major economies.

Soaring Solar Power

China, the world’s biggest electricity consumer, is trying to figure out how to capture a larger share of the solar-energy market without losing money, according to Bloomberg News.

The government will spend at least a year studying Europe’s system of paying above-market prices for solar power before deciding if there’s a better way to spur clean-energy plants across China, says Wu Dacheng, an adviser to national power regulators.

The delay has stalled projects planned on Chinese soil by developers such as U.S.-based First Solar Inc.

“We need to learn from European countries like Germany” that pay subsidized rates to spark solar-panel installations, says Wu, vice chairman of the Solar Photovoltaic Committee of China’s Renewable Energy Society.

Europe, which attracted more than $65 billion in solar plant investment in 2010, is providing lessons for China.

Germany, the largest panel market, together with Spain and France carried out four unscheduled subsidy cuts in 2010, trying to slow a torrent of projects by developers and speculators.

China’s wait-and-see strategy on projects is part of a broader industrial plan to take a leading global role in harnessing energy from the sun.

China is first focusing state support on its own equipment manufacturers. That helps them gain market share and cut prices, lowering the eventual cost of a nationwide solar construction program China plans for itself.

“China is definitely playing a longer game in solar,” says Daniel Guttmann, head of renewable energy strategy at the consulting firm PricewaterhouseCoopers in London. “It has done a lot to subsidize its manufacturers.”

ChinaWatch

ChinaWatch: Solar, Euro, Partners

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy. Click the links for more info.

No Sunny Move

Evergreen Solar, the third largest solar panel producer in the United States, is moving its production operations to China and laying off nearly 1,000 American workers because of high production costs in the States, officials say.

This comes as a surprise, especially because the company rose to the top so quickly after being funded by the Massachusetts’ government.

The part of Evergreen Solar moving to China is the company’s main production facility in Devons, MA. Evergreen Solar representatives say they are receiving major support from the Chinese government.

Solar panel production is only a small part of the whole U.S. energy production industry. But concerns about climate changes and energy deficits are affecting the industry, with renewable energy facilities (especially producers) on the rise.

Though the U.S. government supports producers in the renewable sector, the Chinese government is moving ahead by offering larger support. It’s estimated that more than 50% of the global production in renewable energy is based in China.

Embracing The Euro

Growing into its role as a global economic power, China is pledging to buy billions of dollars' worth of bonds in European governments to help restore confidence in the debt-ridden region, the Los Angeles Times reports.

The move is the latest evidence that the giant Asian nation is developing ties with strategically important trading partners and expanding its influence in areas where it has long played a minor role.

In what European media have dubbed a charm offensive, Chinese Vice Premier Li Keqiang was all smiles on a recent swing through the continent, assuring the Germans that their economy was complementary to China's and praising the Spanish as good friends.

He also dispensed plenty of largess, promising to aid the souring economies of Spain and Portugal — pledges that were seen as more than just goodwill.

If Beijing wants its economy to keep flourishing, China can't afford the collapse of the euro any more than the nations that use it. The European Union is China's biggest trading partner, and China is the EU's second-biggest export market.

Global Partnership Awaits

U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner says China is expected to be the United States' largest trading partner 10 years down the line, adding that America is benefiting because of the economic ties between the two nations.

“It's very important to understand that this is a relationship with very substantial economic benefits to the United States,’’ Xinhua quoted Geithner, as saying.

He also said that in 2010, American exports to China exceeded the 100 billion dollars mark.

“They are growing at about twice the pace of our exports to the rest of the world,’’ Geithner says. “What that means is our exports to China will double in the next four to five years, and that means China is likely to become our largest trading partner sometime roughly 10 years from today.”

Currently, both the countries are each other's second largest trading partners.

ChinaWatch: Food, Autos, Tech

Welcome to ChinaWatch, WMB’s digest of news from the country with the world’s second largest economy. Click the links for more info.

What’s On Tap

The Chinese government plans to invest $30 billion in 2011 on water conservation projects, with the announcement made in the wake of Greenpeace report that China's food supply would be inadequate by 2030.

In 2010, China experienced widespread floods and draughts – and the net effect on the Chinese population was severe inflationary pressure on basic food prices.

Additionally, a recent report by Greenpeace concludes China's food supply “would be insufficient by 2030 and its overall food production could fall by 23 percent by 2050,” according to Digital Journal.

As the world's most populous country – more than 1.3 billion people – China has struggled to feed its people without assistance from other food producing nations.

China also faces challenges posed by desertification – as 20 percent of the nation's land mass is currently desert, according to the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting. The desertification question is considered China's most important environmental concern.

“We have to accelerate the construction of water conservation facilities as one of the key infrastructures the country needs to secure increasing grain production,” water resources minister Chen Lei says.

Autos Drive Promotion

China will actively promote auto imports over the next five years to help the country restructure and upgrade its auto industry, an official from the Ministry of Commerce says.

Qian Jingfen, in charge of imports at the MOC's Industrial Department, told an auto imports forum in Beijing that the auto import-promotion strategy will be implemented from 2011 through 2015 via corresponding financial, taxation and trade policies.

Qian said China will encourage the imports of advanced auto equipment, key technologies and components of energy-saving and new-energy vehicles in the period, according to crienglish.com.

The MOC decided to transfer to provincial-level government departments its power of granting automatic import licensing of 16 auto components, including automotive chassis, brakes and drive axles beginning 2011.

China's auto sales in the first 11 months hit 16.4 million units and were expected to reach 18 million units this year, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

China overtook the United States last year to become the world's largest auto market by selling 13.65 million vehicles, up 46 percent year on year, while production that year jumped 48 percent to reach 13.79 million units.

Despite the auto sales surge in China, imports of completely built units account for less than 5 percent of market share as world's major automakers set up joint ventures with Chinese partners to satisfy the vast Chinese market.

Flexing Industrial Muscle?

China is targeting growth in industrial output of 11 percent next year, slowing from an expected 15 percent pace in 2010, the official Xinhua news agency reports, citing Li Yizhong, minister for industry and information technology.

Li also estimates that investment in industries under the ministry, including information technology, will rise 19 percent next year, according to Bloomberg News.

The MIIT is targeting a 4 percent reduction in energy consumption per unit of industrial output next year, reports say.

The ministry also aims for an average 10 percent growth in industrial output over the next five years, and a 16 percent cut in energy use and emissions per unit of output, Xinhua says.

New From WMB: ChinaWatch

To our readers: We’ve noticed posts involving China draw higher viewer interest. In response, WMB will provide a weekly digest of business and consumer-related news, ChinaWatch, culled from reliable websites. As always, please share the post and comment if you like. Enjoy – Ken.

Food Prices Jump

Annual food price inflation hit 10.1 per cent in October compared with a year earlier - a level not seen in China since mid-2007 - deepening concerns that the economy is now starting to overheat after two years of stimulus.

Many ordinary people feel the official inflation figures underestimate the true rises.

''Ten per cent? That's a joke,'' says Li Mingwei, a shopkeeper at Beijing's largest wholesale food market. ''The price of leeks has doubled from last year; cooking oil is up by 25 per cent since the summer and rice by even more. Everything is going up.''

This kind of disgruntlement makes China's leaders very nervous. In the past, inflation has been a catalyst for social unrest, including in 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre, and it remains a sensitive political pressure point.

Investing In Green

China invested 200 billion yuan ($30.12 billion) to boost energy conservation and curb greenhouse gas emissions in the past five years, according to the Xinhua news agency.

He Bingguang - a senior official of the department of resource conservation and environmental protection at the National Development and Reform Commission, the country's central planning agency - made the statement to reporters in Beijing at a clean-technology conference.

The announcement comes two weeks before Chinese officials head to Cancun, Mexico, for climate pact talks, which aim to fix a new framework for tackling global warming.

China, the world's biggest emitter of greenhouse gases from human activity, has made a domestic vow to reduce "carbon intensity," the amount of carbon dioxide emitted for each dollar of economic growth, by 40-45 percent by 2020 compared to 2005.

GM Venture Debuts

General Motors Corp.'s commercial micro-van joint venture in China started producing its first Baojun brand passenger vehicle at a plant in southern China, the U.S. auto maker says.

The Baojun 630 sedan, which is the first model to be produced under the soon-to-be-launched Baojun brand name, rolled off the production line in Guangxi province's Liuzhou city on Monday, GM says in a statement.

The four-door sedan is the first of a series of passenger cars the joint venture, SAIC-GM-Wuling Automobile Co., expects to launch over the next few years under the Baojun brand name. GM says the Baojun 630 will go on sale in early 2011 through a new network of dedicated Baojun dealers.

The new brand was created to address growing demand for affordable passenger cars in China and is aimed at competing with the country's home-grown auto brands including Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. and BYD Co., GM says.

Global Warming Burns Us

Global warming has become perhaps the most complicated issue confronting world leaders, according to The New York Times. It may be this problem, not GDP to debt ratios, health care, or even terrorism that more determines our viability as a future global leader.

On the one hand, warnings from the scientific community are becoming louder, as an increasing body of science points to the rising dangers from the ongoing buildup of human generated carbon emissions produced mainly from burning fossil fuels and deforestation.

On the other hand, the technological, economic and political issues that need to be resolved before a concerted worldwide effort to reduce emissions can even begin are not getting easier. This is even more so in the face of global recession.

World leaders convened in Copenhagen, Denmark, in December 2009 with global warming on the agenda.


But that session, in the works for years, fell short with even lower expectations – the 192 nations represented merely agreed to try to reach a binding accord at a follow-up meeting in Cancun, Mexico, slated for December 2010.

But by summer 2010, Ban-Ki Moon, the United Nations Secretary General, stated no sweeping accord was likely and recommended a better solution might consist of small steps in separate fields that build toward a wider consensus.

At the heart of the international debate is a huge conflict between rich and poor countries over who steps up first and pays the most for planned energy changes to address global warming and climates changes.

In the United States, Democratic leaders in the Senate in July gave up on even reaching agreement on a scaled-down climate bill. Opposition came from Republicans and some energy-state Democrats. The House of Representatives, shifting from Democratic to GOP control in January 2011 as a result of this month’s elections, passed a broad cap-and-trade bill in 2009.

Meanwhile, recent increases and fluctuations in temperature have intensified public debate over how quickly and urgently to respond to global warming. Still, intense weather patterns appeared to be on the rise this year.

Arguable evidence, for example, could be seen in a string of snowstorms in the Washington state area and freezing weather in Florida last winter. Skeptics noted that weather (changing daily) and climate (the average weather for a particular region over a long time period) are not the same.

But it was the combination of flooding, heat waves and droughts during the summer months which caused researchers trained in climate analysis to see mounting evidence of weather extremes intensifying.

The long-term warming trends over the last century are well-established.


Scientists immersed in studying climate changes are projecting substantial disruption in water supplies, agriculture, ecosystems and coastal communities. Passionate activists at both ends of the debate are accelerating the discussion and decisions for rapid action.

Research polls show the public is locked into three camps. Roughly a fifth of Americans are eager for action, while a similar proportion aggressively rejects projections of catastrophe. And, unfortunately, most people have decided to tune out the issues or are confused about the implications and pending solutions.


We, at WMB, clearly support the first camp and are eager for swift action and change. We believe this huge problem possesses a reciprocating opportunity for new technology change.

Obviously, first and foremost, is to increasingly limit the use of fossil fuels in America. The United States needs to take a leadership role in this endeavor. We believe examples of technological implementation should include alternative energy sources from nuclear power plants to electric cars and new fuel cell technology.

We, at WMB, believe if action is not taken swiftly, we may surpass any opportunities for the Earth to repair itself against man’s inability to change. Obviously, some of these new technologies may cost consumers more money, but the longer we wait the higher the cost becomes, financially and environmentally.

We need to put aside political agendas and lobbyist initiatives if we are to even have a chance of saving our planet. The time for action was yesterday, so we’ve got to move forward faster now.

This post is by TechMan, WMB co-author who blogs about trends, issues and ideas affecting business, industry, technology and consumers. If you like this post, please share it.

Riding Energy’s Next Wave

New worldwide companies are being formed in a quest to learn how to capture the power of oceans and seas.

Wave power is the transport of energy by ocean surface waves, and the capture of that energy to do useful work – for example, for electricity generation, water desalination, or the pumping of water into reservoirs, according to Wikipedia.

The world’s first commercial wave energy farm was launched in 2008 three miles off the north coast of Portugal. Agucadoura Wave Park consists of three devises which can each produce 750 kilowatt hours of power. While this state-of-the-art wave farm may be considered a novelty for now, we at WMB don’t think that will be the case for long.

Waves are the result of wind blowing over the surface of the ocean. In many areas of the world, the wind blows with consistency and enough force to provide continuous waves. There is considerable energy in ocean waves. In turn, wave power devices extract energy directly from the surface motion of ocean waves or from pressure fluctuations below the surface.

About 70 percent of the earth is covered with water, and this water is the largest single repository of solar energy. One only need watch waves crashing into a rocky shore to appreciate the potential energy and force that is produced.

If just 2 percent of the ocean’s energy were converted to electricity, it would meet the entire world's power needs, according to the Northwest National Marine Renewable Energy Center in Washington state.

Even better, waves are predictable unlike solar power; this makes grid requirement more practical. Since greater numbers of people are living within 50 miles of oceans, power would not need to be transported long distances.

Wave energy has lagged solar and wind energy development mainly because of technical reasons. But now many of these problems have been solved. Oceans can be unforgiving, hostile and difficult to control, and salt water is corrosive. Creating devices that can withstand these conditions has been a challenge for years.

Most government money and private and industrial development were instead funneled to solar and wind power development. Big oil and gas companies have in recent years devised technologies adaptable to deeper and rougher waters. Even the BP oil disaster has taught engineers how to better understand deep water currents and waves.

Wave energy, more so than tidal energy, offers readily accessible ocean power. Tidal energy uses the currents in the sea, and wave energy draws power from the rise and fall of waves on the surface.

The Electric Power Research Institute, with offices and laboratories in California, North Carolina and Tennessee, conservatively estimates wave energy could provide about 6 percent of America’s electric needs, while tidal power could produce another 3 percent. To put this into perspective, hydroelectric power currently produces 6 percent of our power.

Wave devices come in a variety of designs, but all work to transform energy from the rolling motion of waves of water to electricity. Usually the aquatic motion is converted into mechanical energy that runs a turbine or generator.

Machines used in Portugal were designed by Pelamis Wave Power Co. of Scotland. Worldwide, there about 100 competing designs for wave and tidal converters. But as this industry matures, it will be necessary to weed out designs that are either too costly or inefficient.

Other designs include Aquamarine Power's Oyster and perhaps the most unusual wave energy converter, the Anaconda.
Developed by Great Britain’s Checkmate Seaenergy for use in deeper waters about 5 miles from shore, the Anaconda is a long sealed tube filled with water. It is attached to the seabed and pointed at incoming waves.

As each wave rolls over the tube, it creates and pushes a growing bulge within the length of the tube and builds pressure that operates a turbine at the other end. Such a devise may be 23 feet in diameter and 600 feet in length, and capable of generating 1 MW of power. The devise is constructed of a type of rubber and can survive years of use in seawater.

Costs for marine power are high but may drop rapidly as capacity and demand grow. Manufacturers predict this technology will produce power at 5 cents to 10 cents per kilowatt hour. But marine energy will need government support in the early stages, just like solar and wind-turbine. Wave energy is currently eligible for a 1.1 cent per kwh tax credit.

Pelamis officials say, “No new energy is competitive right out of the box,’’ but they claim that each doubling of capacity could bring down costs by 15 to 20 percent.

At WMB, we think government incentives could encourage private investors to back these new marine technologies because they help ensure the likelihood of return on investment.

K.P. Yue, a professor of ocean engineering at MIT, says, “It’s not ready for prime time – it needs about five to 10 years of development. But it could have a huge impact in 20 years.”

This post is by TechMan, WMB co-author who blogs about trends, issues and ideas affecting business, industry, technology and consumers.

Sunny Outlook For Solar Power

The best things in life are free and that’s certainly true when it comes to solar energy and the potential benefits it offers to the world, in particular the United States, one of the largest energy consumers on the planet.

President Obama’s recent announcement that the government will award $2 billion for new solar plants comes as much-needed welcome news amid all the political uproar about out-of-control government spending. If this particular spending of taxpayer money works as planned, it will create thousands of new jobs and increase the use of renewable energy sources.

Two companies will receive money from the president's $862 billion economic stimulus. Abengoa Solar will build one of the world's largest solar plants in Arizona and create 1,600 construction jobs; Abound Solar is building plants in Colorado and Indiana.

The Obama administration says those projects will create more than 2,000 construction jobs and 1,500 permanent jobs, according to the Associated Press.

Our politicians have jawed about ending our dependence on foreign oil since 1973-74, when the OPEC (Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries) embargo jacked prices and created a shortage that led, among other things, to gasoline rationing at the pumps. Some folks may remember the odd/even license plate system for vehicle refueling?

While technology in all areas, including solar, has continued to evolve since the 1970s, our attitudes remain locked in the thinking of the previous century when it comes to the use of fossil fuels. That’s dangerous for America because many of our enemies sit on the largest oil supplies.

The growing interest in electric hybrid cars and windmill farms are good transitional steps that can be complemented by our country’s investment in widespread development of solar power. Individually, these things are a drop in the bucket but combined they could really reduce our use of oil (and minimize the need for more offshore drilling rigs?).

Abound Solar, a manufacturer of low-cost, cadmium telluride, thin-film photovoltaic solar modules, said in a news release that it would use the U.S. Department of Energy’s conditional commitment to the company for a $400 million, seven-year loan guarantee to expand its solar module manufacturing capabilities.

Colorado-based Abound Solar will use the DOE funds to increase production of its thin-film photovoltaic modules at an existing manufacturing plant and to establish a second manufacturing plant that will create more than 1,200 high-tech jobs in Colorado and Indiana, while “driving down the cost of solar power for its United States and international customers,” company officials say.

Abound Solar, which has raised about $200 million in venture capital and private equity since its founding in 2007, built its first production line in Longmont, Colo., and began commercial operations. Abound anticipates using $100 million of the U.S. loan proceeds to increase the capacity of its existing Longmont facility to 200 megawatts per year by the end of 2011.

The company plans to invest the balance of the guaranteed loan to support construction of a larger manufacturing facility in Tipton, Ind. When both plants are complete, Abound Solar will be able to produce more than 840 megawatts of solar modules annually.

“The DOE loan guarantee program is essential to helping companies like Abound Solar scale-up innovations in photovoltaic manufacturing that are critical to reducing the cost of alternative energy,” says Tom Tiller, Abound Solar president and CEO. “When Abound opened its first manufacturing plant in 2009, we committed to providing high-performing, lower-cost modules to our customers; DOE is helping us keep that promise. The proceeds of this loan will build on the momentum we have already established and confidently expand our operations,’’ Tiller says.

The DOE has offered a conditional commitment for a $1.45 billion loan guarantee to Abengoa Solar, headquartered in Denver. The loan will support the construction and start-up of Solana, a 250-net megawatt concentrating solar power plant in Arizona, a facility the company claims to be the largest of its type in the world.

Santiago Seage, CEO of Abengoa Solar, says “this conditional guarantee could allow us to start construction of Solana this year.”

Vice President Kate Maracas says “the building of Solana will also create between 1,600-1,700 new construction jobs, and operation of the plant will add another 85 permanent jobs. These construction and operating jobs will create a few thousand additional indirect jobs. Taken together, 98% of the jobs created by Solana will be American jobs – primarily from Arizona, and a smaller portion from neighboring states.”

There’s no doubt solar energy projects are, pardon the pun, basking in the sun these days. Take for example SolarWorld’s pitch by Larry Hagman, who played Texas oil tycoon J.R. Ewing in the hit 1970s shows Dallas and also starred in I Dream of Jeannie in the 1960s.

Hagman is calling for people to embrace solar technology as part of a new "Shine, Baby, Shine" ad campaign for the Oregon-based solar panel manufacturer which employs 2,700.

"In the past, it was always about the oil. The oil was flowing and so was money. I quit years ago but I'm still in the energy business. There's always a better alternative. Shine, baby, shine!" Hagman, 78, says in a commercial posted on the SolarWorld website, before cackling happily.

The ad shows him looking at a portrait of himself as Ewing, exiting his hillside estate in Ojai, Calif., where he lives with wife Maj, and looking up at a red roof containing a solar panel.

Hagman is a longtime advocate of renewable energy and owns one of the largest U.S. residential solar panel systems, which cost him $750,000 when he bought it in 2003. He says they reduced his annual power bill from $37,000 to $13 (no typo).

Commercials aside, solar energy offers U.S. consumers and businesses a reliable, cost-effective alternative to fossil fuels. Saving the planet and sparing your wallet: what a powerful combination!

As for me, I practice what I preach at writenowworks.com.

U.S. Banks On Black Gold

President Obama’s plans to open a huge section of East Coast waters and other protected areas in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico has fueled a politically explosive debate over the hunt for more domestic production of oil and gas.

The president’s initiative, which would reverse 20 years of federal policy, allows exploration from Delaware to central Florida as well as the northern waters of Alaska, according to the Associated Press. Drilling could begin 50 miles off the coast of Virginia by 2012. Obama also has proposed that Congress lift a drilling ban in the oil-rich eastern Gulf of Mexico, only 125 miles from pristine Florida beaches. The entire Pacific seaboard will still be untapped as well as Alaska’s Bristol Bay area. Conservationists have defined these areas as national treasures for wildlife.

We believe this recent decision will have far-reaching economic and national security implications for the United States. The outcome will affect where and how U.S. consumers purchase oil for an ever-increasing oil-dependent nation.

While some think Obama is trying to divert attention away from the recent health care reform controversy, others believe his aggressive and somewhat practical policies are necessary.

Obama’s exploration announcement, coupled with his push to provide cleaner energy and efficient cars, is seen by some as a way to help stimulate the U.S. economy and create jobs. At a news conference last week, the president said “that the answer is not drilling everywhere all the time. But the answer is not, also, for us to ignore the fact”.

Some Washington insiders view Obama’s decision as a ploy to win Republican support for a comprehensive climate change bill. They suggest that if the Democratic president is to propel the renewable energy industry forward, he knows he will need support to limit carbon emissions.

On the other side, environmentalists are criticizing Obama and comparing him to GOP vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin, whose call for changes in the nation's energy policy at the 2008 Republican National Convention raised chants of “drill, baby, drill!” Urging more nuclear plants and increased drilling, warning about the threat of an Iran or terrorists holding U.S. energy supplies hostage, the former Alaska governor, as noted by the Los Angeles Times, said: "We Americans need to produce more of our own oil and gas. And take it from a gal who knows the North Slope of Alaska: We've got lots of both."

It comes as no surprise that Obama’s policy is drawing fire between environmentalists and oil industry supporters. For example, the conversation group Oceana declared that the president is “unleashing a wholesale assault on the oceans.” Oceana, founded in 2001, calls itself the largest international organization focused solely on ocean conservation.

America will increase oil production of 5.31 million barrels of crude per day to 6.13 million barrels of crude per day over the next 10 years, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. This represents an increase of 820,000 barrels per day through this period. The EIA collects, analyzes, and disseminates independent and impartial energy information to promote sound policymaking, efficient markets, and public understanding of energy and its interaction with the economy and the environment.

It’s clear we need to step up domestic production from a consumption standpoint. But it’s also apparent the president has a political agenda; he’s trying to show the opposition party that he is willing to compromise with the GOP in some areas. He has already done so in nuclear energy, but winning a broad environmental and energy bill likely will be daunting.

Some Republicans see this initiative as a positive sign, but others argue that too many exploratory areas are off limits.
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, calling Obama’s initiative a step in the right direction, questioned whether the administration would actually open new areas for oil production.

Access to oil and gas in the South Atlantic waters likely will meet stiff resistance unless Congress enacts a plan to share the billions of dollars in potential revenue from the lease sales and oil and gas development. Other senators argue that proceeds from oil and gas resources should be paid to the U.S. Treasury Department.

Obama also said he will release new requirements mandating automakers build more fuel-efficient cars and trucks. The standards include first-ever rules on vehicle gas emissions since they have been blamed for boosting carbon dioxide levels. As usual, it’s easy to see the president’s measures will affect individual industries with varying degrees. For instance, what may be negative for the automakers in the United States may prove to be a boon for oil companies and “green” start-ups vying for untapped business.

We believe that anything we can do as a nation to become more independent is in our best interest. This will force our country to develop necessary renewable energy resources while minimizing terrorist threats to our economic system.

This post is courtesy of TechMan who reports on trends, issues and ideas across industry, business and technology.

Kodak Ends Era With Sale

Kodak’s announced sale of its Organic Light Emitting Display business companies in South Korea has major implications for the company’s future, perhaps foreshadowing a takeover.

The industry mainstay pioneered OLED technology in the 1970s and has since built a portfolio of hundreds of patents resulting in licensing by manufacturers worldwide. Many analysts envision this technology as the standard display for decades.

And yet Kodak is exiting the development program?

Company officials, in a recent news release, claimed "OLED is one of the businesses we wanted to reposition to maximize Kodak’s competitive advantage at the intersection of materials and imaging science. This action is consistent with that strategy. Our OLED intellectual property portfolio is fundamental; however, realizing the full value of this business would have required significant investment."

Organic light-emitting diodes generate light on the screen's surface and don't have to be illuminated from behind; they don’t have a backplane. OLEDs are super-thin and consume less power than their non-organic LED counterparts.

AMOLED, or Active Matrix display, is a hybrid technology that pairs the active matrix backplane from a traditional thin-film transistor display with an OLED display. As a result, AMOLED displays have a faster pixel switching response time than do traditional displays and are not prone to ghosting when displaying moving animations.

Though Kodak invested heavily in the technology, the company decided this was not going to be its future. Instead, Kodak decided to pour most of its resources into inkjet technology.

William Napoli, director of Kodak’s Imaging businesses, was quoted as saying, “Kodak’s inkjet businesses are the future of the corporation.” Antonio M. Perez, CEO of Kodak, reportedly told the Wall Street Journal that consumer and commercial inkjet businesses were receiving the bulk of the company’s investments.

Even so, Kodak made significant strides in its OLED technology.

At The Society for Information Display, the company worked with Montreal-based Ignis Innovation and its Max-Life backplane technology. Together, they demonstrated a new, state-of-the art, 5-inch AMOLED display using white OLED with a RGBW matrix color filter and the Kodak deep-blue phosphor.

According to Display Daily, there also was progress on the solid-state lighting front. Kodak received a $1.7 million U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) contract in May for solid-state lighting development.

"Vapor Injection Source Technology allows manufacturers to significantly reduce unit-manufacturing costs, with high manufacturing throughput and material utilization that initially exceeds 50%, and could be greater than 75% in future manufacturing applications," according to the DOE, which gave Kodak an award for excellence for its project execution.

Dr. James Buntaine, CTO and vice president at Kodak OLED Systems, touted the future potential of its technology. "OLED solid-state lighting has tremendous potential to transform the future of the lighting industry -- enabling future lighting systems that are significantly lower-cost and more energy-efficient," he said.

So why did Kodak sell its future? Purely financial, and we think the pioneering giant is on the ropes.

The company reported first-half sales for Kodak’s Graphic Communications Group totaled about $1.3 billion, down 25 percent from a year earlier. The last quarter was not a whole lot better, and Kodak’s stock prices have been trading in a 52-week range of $2.01 to $7.66.

Kodak is betting on short-term success with printing pictures on paper, but for how long?

Certainly electronic displays are the wave of the future, and we think they will displace paper soon; maybe a generation or two, at best. It will be interesting to see how this dynamic plays out. We wouldn’t be surprised if Kodak becomes a takeover target in the next few years.

Note: This posting came to We Mean Business via TechMan, a contributor who monitors various industries.