Andy Grove former chairman and CEO of Intel and one of the pioneers in the semiconducter industry spoke out today on the need for electric transportation and the widespread awareness of this coming up thru society.  Grove spoke recently with AP reporter Ken Thomas where he expressed his view of society needing to shift its focus to electric transport as a way of dealing with ever increasing oil prices.

Grove explained his goal. “The most important thing I would like to do is light that almost half-assumed truth up in neon lights: Electricity in transportation has to be done. It is urgent. It is important that everything else is secondary”.  Grove continued to explain, “The drumbeat of the electrical transportation is accelerating like nothing I’ve ever seen in my life”.  That is a pretty powerful statement by the man who helped intel control the CPU market much like microsoft has done with software.  Grove is banging the drum on the development of these new electric transport technologies as a way of rescuing our economy from the affects of oil price increases.

Grove pushes for government support/incentives to support the electric car movement, with a particular eye on retrofiting existing gasoline cars.  He continued to expand on his point when he compared the emergence of the PC with the current electrical transport industry.  “The personal computer … went to individuals first before it went to corporations. The conversion goes to individuals,” Grove said. “Electric cars … the corporations are sitting, wishing this whole friggin’ thing to go away. Which is exactly what the computer companies’ attitude was to personal computers.”

Cap and Trade Plan Called For In Western US and Canada
California has proposed a cap and trade program involving the 7 western US and three western Canadian Provinces that make up the Western Climate Initiative. The California Air Resources Board plan would cap CO2 emissions at 305 million metric tons with 85% of the state’s businesses participating.

A market for trading would be developed by the western states and Canadian provinces to buy and sell emissions credits. More …

US Government Freezes Solar Projects On Public Land
Citing the need for evaluation of impact before more construction, the Bureau of Land Management has ordered a moratorium on new solar projects on public land. Understandably, this has alarmed solar industry companies, who feel that time is of the essence for alternative energy to slow global warming.

Millions of acres in Western states are involved where solar power companies propose to lease land where they’ll build installations and sell the power to businesses and homes. More …

Volcanoes Could Power US
Energy industry experts say that volcanoes and hot springs could provide as much as a quarter of the energy the US needs, if exploration proves that it’s feasible to extract it. Right now, the government is inviting companies to purchase leases so that they can explore a volcano near Anchorage, Alaska.

The state is home to many volcanoes and hot springs, thus making it a natural first-choice for exploration. The Pacific Northwest and Hawaii are also possible sites for geothermal energy extraction from volcanoes. More …

Grid Upgrades Needed To Use Wind Power in US
The US is far behind other industrialized nations in the amount of renewable energy sources it uses. That makes it all the more urgent that the transmission grid is upgraded to handle the energy wind and alternative power sources would generate.

According to Don Furman, President-elect of the AWEA, we need to “mobilize our leaders into action” for several reasons including economics, ecology, reliability and community. More …

Can Kudzu Save the Biofuel Industry?
One of the world’s most invasive plants may soon be powering cars and power plants. Known to many as “the plant that ate the south” in the US, Kudzu has many advantages over corn or other food crops. It requires no fertilizer, no irrigation and no pesticides and can grow up to six and a half feet in a week.

If growers can figure out how to harvest it without destroying the long taproot that makes it so hardy, it might help solve the biofuel vs food debate. And while it wouldn’t totally solve the energy crisis or stop global warming on its own, it would add to other efforts.
More …

Bluewind Project Finds Buyer
A windfarm project off the shore of Delaware has found a buyer for its power. Delmarva Power agreed to a 25 yr contract with Bluewind to buy 25 MV of power from the proposed project.

At an estimated cost of $1.6 billion and a final capacity in the 600 MV range, the windfarm will be able to power 110,000 homes. More …

TH!INK Ox Is An Electric Car With a Future
The Norwegian car company Th!nk is getting backing from two US firms that were among the first companies to back Amazon and and Google before anyone knew that the new startups would rise so far. Their backing almost certainly assures that the Ox will be as much of a success in the US and the Th!ink City Car has been in Europe with over 10,000 units due to be sold this year.

With a range of up to 155 miles and an 80% charge time of less than an hour, the five-passenger Ox will probably be priced somewhere around $25K. More … 

Really Alternative Energy: Body Motion
Wouldn’t it be great if you could charge your cell phone by walking from the garage or bus stop to your office? Or maybe by walking Rover? M2E, in Idaho, says that it’s not only possible, but will become reality when their first model goes into production for the military later this year.

While getting an hour of talk time for six hours of movement may not seem like such a good deal, if you’re a light cell phone user, it would be more convenient than plugging the charger into a wall socket. More …
Raytheon Tests Cyclone’s Revolutionary External Combustion Engine
It can be scaled to fit almost any application and runs on a mulitplicity of fuels. Now, Raytheon plans to test the Cyclone eco-friendly engine with a view to further development.

Raytheon has already shown great interest in the potential of the award-winning engine, but wants further testing for thermodynamics and practical application.
More …
Germany Unveils World’s Largest Solar Facility
In addition to the three solar power plants it already has online, Germany is about to add the world’s biggest solar plant to its energy arsenal. The 40 megawatt poower plant will actually pay for its construction after only one year of operation.

The latest plant is only one reason that many experts are calling Germany the “greenest country” in the world. Laws that encourage conservation and alternative energy installation with new construction are helping Germany reduce its dependence on fossil fuel at a rate much faster than much of the industrialized world. More …

I’ll start this article with the disclosure that i own shares in Amerityre (AMTY) the company i feature in this article.  This company was suggested to me as a longshot, green investment by a friend out west who is into trading stocks (i’m into investing for a period of a year or two).

So, Amerityre manufacturers foam polyurathene tires, the sort that might be found on electric mobility devices and powered wheelchairs.  They make solid tires used in agriculture, they make “tire fill” to go into solid and “run flat” tires.  Most recently they’ve been working on pneumatic (air filled) tires to replace the traditional rubber tires used on cars and trucks.  So, why is this company suddenly on my Solar/Green blog?  Because this company fights global warming.

 Let’s start with the product that is still under development, the automotive, pneumatic tires.  The first test indicate that the Polyurathene tires were getting less traction than rubber tires, but also had a lower rolling resistance than rubber, enough to increase gas mileage by 5 to 10%.  So, if you just look at the final product, a tire on a car, this new concept can help reduce the use of gasoline and it’s CO2 output and is a greener product than rubber.  Yet the greatest value of the product is gained, not when it’s mounted a car, but during manufacturing.  To vulcanize rubber and create tires, you must use heat and pressure on the rubber to harden it.  In contrast the heat and pressure, which is a huge cost in terms of energy and CO2 is absent from the Amerityre process.

A second product, being shipped today, is a tire fill.  That is a material used to fill rubber tires that are used for construction or “run flat” and have a rubber outside and some solid form of fill. The “Amerifill” is a lightweight alternative to traditional fill, once again, helping remove weight from vehicles helping save fuel in the shipping and use of these tires.

 Is this a great investment? Will be soon driving on Polyurathene tires? I don’t really know, but it shows another business that is going to make money in the green revolution by causing the evolution of tires into to a product with a lower carbon and energy footprint.

The Liberal Party of candidate, the official opposition in Canadian Parliment are set to announce a carbon tax plan.  The plan is said to begin with a $10 per ton tax on everything but gasoline.  The Liberal Leadership argues that the current 10 cent per leader tax on gasoline, is a sufficient deterent to use and as a result will not be hit with a new carbon tax.

 The Liberal proposal calls from the tax to increase from $10 to $40 per ton over a period of 4 years.  The money collected from the carbon tax will be used to decrease income taxes on individuals and corporations.  The plan also mentions tax credits and other energy assistance to those in poverty or living in Northern Canada and have a greater need to use fossil fuels for survival. 

Congrats to the Liberals for the first proposed Carbon Tax in North America and for setting the price at $40, which is the current price of offsets in the European market.  With experts predicting the “real” price of carbon is likely between $60 and $120 per ton, at least the Liberals are starting with a realistic number.