Former Governor Jennifer Granholm Discusses Clean Energy Investments

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Hans Rosling Explains the World Through the Lens of a Washing Machine

The master explainer takes on the washing machine. As always, thought provoking and truly global. Besides, he shows that statistics can be fun!

IEA Report: A Global Energy Technology Revolution Is Underway

"International Energy Agency says a global energy technology revolution is underway. According to a new report by the International Energy Agency, global investment in renewable electricity generation, led by wind and solar, reached an all-time high of $112 billion in 2008 and remained broadly stable in 2009 despite the economic recession. In OECD countries, the rate of energy efficiency improvement has increased to almost two percent per year, more than double the rate seen in the 1990s. And funding for low-carbon research, development and deployment has increased by one third between 2005 and 2008. However, the report, Energy Technology Perspectives 2010, also finds that without new policies to rapidly deploy low-carbon technologies on a large scale, energy-related CO2 emissions will almost double by 2050."


(Source: Apollo Alliance Weekly Update July 7, 2010)

Noble Prize Winner Urges Obama to Act on Climate Change

I found this link at Andrew C. Revkin's New York Times blog.

"A recipient of the 1976 Nobel Prize in physics, Richter was a signatory on a letter from 34 Nobel laureates to Obama last year pushing for a big and sustained rise in the federal investment in energy research. (He told me he is unaware of any response from the White House.) He also has written “Beyond Smoke and Mirrors,” a cogent road map for facing the daunting long-term challenge of cutting emissions of greenhouse gases even as humanity’s growth spurt crests in the next few decades."

It's well worth listeing too.

Here Is A Jaw-Dropping Piece Of Green Tech News: The Bloom Box

Lesley Stahl takes us inside Bloom Energy at CBS/60 Minutes. It's the most amazing thing, and CEO K.R. Sridhar is the most endeering energy entrepreneur you can imagine. But the Bloom Box is not just fantasy. It is installed and running at Google, Fedex, Wal-Mart, Staples and Ebay. It runs on fossil fuels, renewable fuels such as biogas, and on solar power. K.R. Sridhar, who is from India, tells Stahl that he want's to build home units that can run off the grid at $2,000 a pop. If that isn't enough to turn you on to this video, maybe nothing will...

Hans Sandberg


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Bloom Energy home page here.

Change to Green at House of Sweden

SACC-USA (the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in the U.S.) held a clean tech seminar at House of Sweden on February 6th together with the Embassy of Sweden. Speakers from Colorado, Michigan and Georgia stressed the importance of Swedish technology and know-how input to make America’s energy system greener.


Chemrec's U.S. CEO Rick LeBlanc at the Change to
Green seminar. Photo: Hans Sandberg
The seminar, which attracted over 150 people, was arranged in cooperation with the Embassy of Sweden, Sweden’s National Property Board, and the Swedish-American Chamber of Commerce in Washington. D.C. The Swedish Embassy treated visitors to the seminar to a special “Embassy of Sweden Edition” of my book Swedish-American Currents.


The "Embassy of Sweden Edition”
of my book. Photo: Hans Sandberg
Besides representatives for the three states, there were speakers from the Green Building Council, Swedish Bioenergy Association (Svebio), and Chemrec’s new U.S. subsidiary. The latter company has developed a technique that can turn a pulp and paper mill into a biorefinery, while still machine paper or pulp. Potentially revolutionary stuff, as it could save thousands of jobs and make many cities much less dependent of foreign oil. (For a full report from the Change to Green conference, see the next issue of Currents magazine!)


House of Sweden, Washington, D.C.
Photo: Hans Sandberg

The secret behind Sweden’s lead in alternative energy is that the country never allowed itself to surf on cheap oil, but taxed it high, which gave room for the alternatives, that now are ready for primetime. Back in the 1970’s, Sweden’s oil dependency was 77 percent, but it is quickly dwindling and should be phased out by 2020.

Hans Sandberg