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Pee power. Scientists may have found a way to extract hydrogen from urea, one of the main major components in ordinary pee. That compounds is way for the body to get rid of toxic ammonia that comes out at the end of various metabolic processes.

In many rural areas, urea would be the ideal source of nitrogen for fertilizing plants but it may also be a source of power one day.

Hank Greek at EcoGeek says:

Gerardine Botte at Ohio University has figured out an easy and efficient way to break the bonds in urea to produce hydrogen. The process consumes roughly one quarter of the energy needed to electrolyze water. And, yes, the world has a fairly plentiful (and renewable) supply of urea. Maybe not enough to power all our cars, but it's a start.

And all this time, I was only interested in the nitrogen. :)

B-Buy

Best Buy! This next story is about the role of national retailers in transforming the economy to greenness. Joel Makower gives us Best Buy as an example. He sums it up really nice as to the role of these big companies:

While cutting-edge innovation will likely come from countless start-ups, it will be up to the mass merchandisers to accelerate market uptake beyond the green devotees and early adopters.

C-Can

Canadians can! The country up north is one of my favorite countries. I've also wondering what the government was doing to encourage corporate sustainability. Our friend Tyler Hamilton at Cleanbreak has a summary.

In other news, Robert Rapier reminds us that thermodynamics wins.

Celcias reports that the 100th coal plant has been defeated. I'm sure Lester Brown would be proud!

Finally, is the big battle between Google and Microsoft? Earth2Tech suggests otherwise.

For example, there's a carpeting fiber made from corn instead of petro-based nylon that requires nearly a third less energy and emits nearly two-thirds fewer greenhouse gases. It is being manufactured at a repurposed polyester factory.

This is just one example of many, where businesses see as an opportunity to further sustainability goals into their plans.

Imagine eating your furniture once it's ready to be disposed! :)

And speaking of food, Megan Treacy at EcoGeek reports of a racecar that runs on the waste products of chocolate manufacturing. Even more remarkable is that the steering wheel, seat and car body are made from plant fibers including carrots, flax, soy, and other vegetables.

In other news...

* Greentech Media says a shopping spree has begun for carbon accounting software.

* Karla says that Waxman Bill is flawed.

* At VentureBeat, Matt says funding is falling except for energy storage.

* Maria has some cool pictures from the American Wind Energy Association meeting. Check out the small wind turbines!

"If everything goes according to plan, this will be the first real-world application of space solar power, with power delivery starting in 2016. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that this works out. The technology has been experimented with for a while and has a lot of potential and, let's face it, running your home on "space power" would be really cool."

If anyone is worried that the beam is gonna fry birds or planes that fly into its path, apparently the company has done analysis to show that radiation is not intense enough to cause harm.

Still, the thought of fried chicken falling out of the sky is kind of cool. :)

In other news...

While not the most attractive of technologies, lead acid batteries are certainly robust...and they may still have a promising future. On CleanBreak, Tyler discussed Axion's lead battery technology that lasts three times longer than conventional ones.

* It looks like the folks at Google think lead is the way to go, too. AltEnergy Stocks agrees.

* I don't remember how many ways you can sin, but Joel Makower talked about the Seven Sins of Greenwashing.

* Maria talked about Cap-and-Trade on TV.

* Simon says efficiency is still promising.

* Is natural gas a better standard than oil? Rob Day ponders.

And so I was quite pleased to hear this bit of news. In this article from Mainichi Daily News:

Wooden structures can cut down CO2 emissions in the process of construction from 81 tons to 33 tons per store compared to steel-framed stores. FamilyMart is also going to use insulation panels to reduce annual electrical usage by 15 percent, including air conditioners.

It’s not clear how they came up with these values but I would presume they took into account the life cycle of the different building materials. Processing steel is very energy intensive and can contribute greatly to emissions. Depending on the where the wood came from and how it is grown, the overall emissions associated with the wooden structure could be as low as they suggest.

While Family Mart’s target of building a thousand of their stores using wood is commendable, this blog points out that this number is only a fraction of the nearly 15,000 stores already standing.

So, we may be left wondering, ”Is Family Mart really committed?” Is this greenwashing? Nevertheless, when a high profile corporation like Family Mart takes these initiatives, other corporations are tempted and perhaps compelled to follow.

One interesting fact I learned about my breakfast from Family Mart. I usually get an anpan and milk. It turns out that anpans have twice the calorie as a can of Coke!

For those of us who want a quick glance at the latest news and have an overview of the entire news-scape, Alltop is the place. Serial entrepreneur and creator of the site Guy Kawasaki calls Alltop an "online magazine rack."

On it's Green page, Alltop lists the 5 most recent stories from the various news sources it has identified as being green.

The sources include blogs at NY Times, Wall Street Journal, Forbes, but include many non-mainstream sources that have emerged because of the Internet. The big stories will get lots of coverage but what's interesting is the news that are lower profile but just as interesting and valuable to know. These come from sites like EcoGeek and the .

Besides, eco and green news, Alltop features everything from Egos to Yoga. There's even a page dedicated to Japan. If you scroll to the bottom of that page, you'll find news aggregated from Japanese language sources!

Clearly, the web is transforming how we get our news. While mainstream sources will undoubtedly have a role to play, blogs and sites that do up-to-the-minute reporting and editorializing are becoming a regular part of journalism, providing valuable information.

Alltop Green is really a dream come true for me. It has saved me the time of sifting through many sites. But the bigger picture is the opportunity for the web to help facilitate sustainable practices. Check out this great article by Max Gladwell, in which he says:

The Internet did for communication what cheap oil did for consumer goods. It brought the world seemingly close together. From the U.S., you could find people in New Zealand or China who shared your same interests and then build a global online community. It was liberating. And now social media has turned this on its head.

Services like Meetup and even the big social networks (Facebook and MySpace) are enabling like-minded people to find one another online with the express purpose of meeting up in the real world. In Shirky’s Here Comes Everybody, he recounts how stay-at-home moms are the number-one group on Meetup. He says they are reinventing the social infrastructure of small towns and neighborhoods. Perhaps they’re getting together at the farmers’ market to do some local, organic shopping? on how social media and sustainability can align.

More than four in 10 Tokyo residents -- 41.6 percent -- said they "don't want to sacrifice a convenient lifestyle to prevent global warming," according to the poll results published recently by Japanese advertising agency Hakuhodo.

and furthermore

In a list of 27 daily activities considered to counter global warming, from taking only short showers to participating in tree-planting activities, Tokyo residents only scored above average for five of them.

They also ranked lowest when it comes to buying eco-friendly products.

Of course this analysis is relative to other capitals around the world and does not necessarily reflect sentiments outside of Tokyo. Nevertheless, this makes me wonder how much work we have ahead to change the mindset of people to truly take action. In many ways, this is the same problem we have in the US. When it comes time for action, many people will not follow through because of the sacrifices they will need to make.

In one sense, because Japan is already ahead of the curve when it comes to efficiency, it may be harder for them squeeze more out but clearly the question is how can improvements be continued..

Ever since I was young, I've let my imagination run freely and pretend seeing invisible animals from the future! Some of my friends are amused while others are just perplexed. But, talking animals may not be as silly as one could think. I recently read Sheri Tepper's The Family Tree, a fictional novel about ecological fallout.

As she investigates the mysterious murders of three scientists, she also gains the ability to talk to trees. She is also involved in an unhappy, almost lifeless marriage. As she is confronted challenge after challenge, she awakens to the realization that she could be the one saving humanity's future.

What makes this story - albeit a fantasy - so engaging, is that Tepper subtly and not to subtly comments on our current industrialized state of the world, one in which not only is the environment threatened but the ability for people to live freely. Some can interpret it as a criticism of today's state of human rights, agriculture, equity, and self-determination.

In a sense, stories like these make me better articulate how solving today's environmental problems also requires genuine leadership. Perhaps at the root of our global challenges, is the necessity for people understand how they fit in the world community and how their choices have grave consequences to people and to lands thousands of miles away.

Similar themes are evoked in Al Gore's recent book, The Assault on Reason. Without fundamental participation in today's increasingly interdependent world, democracy in the participatory sense may very well be threatened, Many leaders, including Gore, believe that without this general participation, solving global issues will be much more difficult.

Seriousness aside, did I mention something about talking animals? You'll have to read Tepper's book to find out how they came to be. Just a side note but I participated in an improv acting class recently and one of the exercises involved passing along an invisible animal of your choice to another member of the class. Maybe I'm on to something...

Nathan Polland, an intern, who works with us at the CleantechBlog visited about 75 companies at InterSolar 2008 and found that among the newer entrants into the market (and there are many), they are growing at 50+% a year!






The older, more established firms did not experience as fast growth as the entrants but are still gaining significantly from the market momentum. For more interesting statistics about the solar market, please check out Mr. Polland's full report.

I asked a German-American businessman who facilitates trade deals between the two countries on his views of Japanese companies in the US market. He noted that Sharp, which is one of the leading providers in Japan, has not done well in the US. He believes the problem lies in the fact that upper management in Japan does not have a good grasp of the US market. This is partly because the company does not let the US subsidiary take their own charge and develop a strategy that is appropriate here.

Recently, I read about a crop that is gaining attention for it's potential to provide cellulosic material: kudzu.

In addition to its many uses as food and for grazing, there is growing interest in the US for using Kudzu to make bio-ethanol. Kudzu requires little water or fertilizer to grow. It grows very rapidly and in fact has gotten out of control in the Southern states, where it is referred to as the plant that "ate the South."

Jaymi Heimbuch at Ecogeek writes:

"Researchers at the University of Toronto and the US Department of Agriculture are taking a close look at kudzu, a native plant of Asia that can grow more than 6.5 feet a week and is nearly impossible to get rid of. The team examined the amount of carbohydrate in the plant – the part that gets turned into ethanol – at different times of year in different parts of the plant. They found the root carries over 2/3 of the carbs by weight, and they estimate kudzu could produce 2.2 to 5.3 tons of carbs per acre. This translates to 270 gallons of ethanol per acre, comparable to the ethanol yield of corn."

Given that energy yields similar to corn can be achieved with far fewer resources, it will be interesting to see what researcher will say about how kudzu could be used for making fuel.

More interestingly, I also found out from Wikipedia that Kudzu is used in Chinese Medicine and that it's one of the known plants used for medicine I've been taking for allergies. In traditional medicine, it is known as 葛根 or kakkon.

Nevertheless, I also looked through the book and was thoroughly impressed. Dan presented some very relevant ideas on communicating complex ideas and the power visualization. The more I think about it, even simple ideas often do not get communicated very well with just words.

The prime example the author gives is how the airline company Southwest got started. Evidently, the founder Herb Kelleher showed to investors a picture on a napkin: three dots representing Dallas, Houston, and San Antonio and three arrows showing flights between them. That was all he needed to sell his idea!

What makes the author so compelling is that visual thinking does not require any artistic talent. Roam sums up the book as follows:

"Visual thinking is an extraordinarily powerful way to solve problems, and though it may appear to be something new, the fact is that we already know how to do it."

The book explains how powerful our visual system is and how anyone can use it to express ideas and solve any problem. This reminded me of my high school chemistry teacher who always encouraged us to draw simple pictures when approaching any problem...and it always worked!

What got me excited was how useful this is for scientists and entrepreneurs (and anyone for that matter!) to communicate sustainability concepts to the public. It's easy to forgot how simple drawings can really facilitate problem solving and can be applied to all sorts of situations. Roam does an excellent job of codifying these concepts.

The book gives valuable lessons on developing and presenting a visual approach for solving problems and selling ideas. Roam discusses the 4 steps of visual thinking, the 5 focusing questions, and the 6 ways we see (and show).

For more information, check out Dan Roam's website at: www.thebackofthenapkin.com or you can also buy it on Amazon.

Yuan Lee (YL): The development of renewable energy and efficiency will make contributions in coming years but the urgency of reducing carbon dioxide exceeds the development of science and technology. No single country alone can solve this problem. We will need to change our lifestyle in a drastic way.

FL: Scientists were recently surprised to find that CO2 emissions are rising faster than expected. Recently, you have come out in support of nuclear power. Why?

YL: Safety in plants is no longer a problem. The treatment and waste is. If the urgency for us is to reduce CO2, then nuclear power will be an important option.

FL: One of the gaps is between the social and physical sciences. Has anyone in Taiwan tried to address this gap?

YL: If you look at a Chinese painting, you find that everything in the painting is related to science. Look at this house. Energy and what we eat were all recycled. A hundred years, we were all a part of nature. So we can eat well without using so much energy! Today we waste so much energy.

FL: You have been involved with education reform. One of the concerns today is that there is not enough time to think. There is a lot of knowledge but not a lot of time to wonder about what it means. How do you strike a balance?

YL: We need enough knowledge to ask sophisticated questions. But schools today teach too much. We should learn so that we can do new things.

Click here for an earlier interview with Professor Lee on the chemistry of climate change.

In an article in the New York Times, coal plants are being built in Germany, the UK, the Czech Republic, and Italy, which already pays the highest cost in electricity. The author says:

"Over the next five years, Italy will increase its reliance on coal to 33 percent from 14 percent. Power generated by Enel from coal will rise to 50 percent.

And Italy is not alone in its return to coal. Driven by rising demand, record high oil and natural gas prices, concerns over energy security and an aversion to nuclear energy, European countries are expected to put into operation about 50 coal-fired plants over the next five years, plants that will be in use for the next five decades."

In contrast to an image of a Europe that is eco-conscious, these trends are driven by economics and energy security. Oil and natural gas prices reaching record levels, and so the only economical option is to turn to coal. At the same time, natural gas comes from Russia and could be affected by instabilities in the Russian government.

This seems contradictory to perceptions that Europe is ahead of the US when it comes to the climate change. Germany has put enormous resources into building up a solar and wind industry. France has many nuclear power plants, which has arguably contributed to lower emissions.

And yet one would think that Europe can continue these trends toward lower emissions but the limitations in squeezing out efficiency and deploying renewables suggest that either energy supplies coming from coal or nuclear are needed for the economy.

Large scale carbon capturing of emissions from coal fired plants have not yet been demonstrated to be successful. And so it may be time to reconsider nuclear power. While the risks of nuclear power are real, it may be one of the options needed to attain drastic reductions in GHG emissions without severely slowing down economic growth.

The debate in the US continues as the government has recently authorized the construction of nuclear power. As unpleasant as it may sound to many environmentalists, a similar public discussion in Japan is needed to better understand the costs and benefits of this source of energy.

With the price of gas exceeding $4 per gallon in the US, there is surging interest in vehicles with higher mileage. It may not be until we see $5 or $6 that there will be mainstream in converting to hybrids and plug-in electric vehicles.

Several efforts at high mileage have already made the news. Here is another one. This coming from our friends in Germany.

Volkswagen plans to introduce a 230 mpg car by 2010. It is described as a cross between a VW Bug and a bobsled.

Hank Green at EcoGeek writes:

The car's technology comes from it's unique shape and it's ultra-light body. The frame is actually made of magnesium, an extremely light metal, and the outer skin is reinforced with carbon fiber. The one cylinder engine is made of aluminum and sits on top of the rear axle. The car is only a bit more than three feet high and weighs less than 700 lbs.

Volkswagen says the design has been around since 2002 but because of it's design and perceptions over its safety, they have not marketed it. With such a low weight, it is thought that the car would lose out in a crash with a heavier vehicle.

Finish Your Dinner

In the UK, a new report says that by reducing food wastage, the country could prevent 18 million ton equivalents of CO2 emissions each year or nearly the amount emitted by one in the five cars.

David Erhlich at the Cleantech Group Ha href="http://media.cleantech.com/2823/food-waste-costs-billions-in-the-u-k">says:

According to the study, $2 billion worth of wasted food is still "in date." The group said it costs local authorities $2 billion to collect and dispose of all of the wasted food.

But there are answers, and WRAP said of the 6.7 million tonnes of food per year that's wasted, 4.1 million tonnes is avoidable.

UN: Renewable Investment Hits $100 Billion

In what is a financial milestone, the UN reports that global investment in renewable energy has exceeded $100 billion.

From Greentech Media:

"The finance community has been investing at levels that imply disruptive change is now inevitable in the energy sector," says Eric Usher, Head of the Energy Finance Unit at the UN. Usher said the UN's "report puts full stop to the idea of renewable energy being a fringe interest of environmentalists. It is now a mainstream commercial interest to investors and bankers alike."

And so we are among the first of a few generations that have not experience the challenges that humans were historically adapted for. Indeed, I feel fortunate to live in these times and to be living in an industrialized nation. I have not had to face imminent threats in my lifetime. But with fewer and fewer memories of the struggles that earlier generations endured, this notion of interdependence among people is thinning as well as the sense of community.

While nobody would advocate for intentional hardships, there is a need to plan for an uncertain future as civilization reaches the limits the of planet's resources and its capacity for renewal (some would argue we surpassed that a long time ago). According to various scenarios, the future climate will not be pleasant (if not harsh) and there will be a need to move away from the fossil fuel based economy that the world currently runs on.

Part of the solution is to restore the sense of community that has served humans so well in the past. By community, I do not mean a conspicuous gathering of people, but a general sense of shared responsibility. Along with the proper use of technology, humans will be able to collectively make better decisions for living sustainably.

So, is the world developing too fast? More likely we are simply not developing wisely. I don't know what policies will get us there, but some form of political leadership will be needed to evolve from our current pathway of development.