My Green Mind reporting on the politics of green.

If as a kid you played with a battery-operated battleship, the U.S. Navy has upped the ante; with an electric battleship – actually a seaborne hybrid amphibious assault vessel christened the U.S.S. Makin Island.

The 847 foot, 41,335 ton (fully loaded) assault ship carries 2,891 persons, but it’s not her size that’s newsworthy. Rather it’s what drives her. She’s electric – and turbine – a hybrid vessel powered by a new gas turbine-electric engine that’s noteworthy as another sign that military technology is greening.

On her maiden voyage alone (Mississippi to San Diego), the Makin Island saved 900,000 gallons of fuel – sipping fuel as if through a needle-straw when compared to conventional boiler-fired ships.

The Navy’s hybrid assault ship achieves speeds of up to 10 knots running on electric motors without relying on her thirstier gas turbine engines. The latter kick in for higher speeds. Fuel efficiency comes from two induction-type auxiliary propulsion motors that power the shaft, driven directly from the ship’s electrical grid.

The Makin Island’s primary propulsion source is not in fact those less-efficient gas turbines. She actually runs on electrical auxiliary power system about 75% of the time.  Electricity for the ship’s electric motors requires fossil fuel for the pair diesel generators, but they are far more fuel-efficient than the ship’s gas turbine engines.

According to the Navy, the ship’s hybrid power will achieve savings of an estimated $250 million over the vessel’s 40-year life span, and she’ll save even more should the cost of diesel fuel rise, which it surely will.

The Navy’s new hybrid technology is also quieter and requires fewer sailors to operate boilers, monitor gauges and survey computer screens in the ship’s cooler engine rooms.

Don’t count the Air Force out which already has jets testing a half bio-based fuel from algae. Ultimately, the military’s ability to produce fuel from plants means less dependence on fuel depots in volatile locales. The Pakistanis, protesting drone incursions, drove that point home recently when they closed vital fuel transport roads to the American military in Afghanistan. And at sea, the ability to cruise on biofuels means a military with the capability to route ships more flexibly.

This week’s news from My Green Mind is of a wall plug module from GE called Nucleus. It can cut your electric bill and it’s coming soon. The device is a real home-of-the-future advance.

For starters Nucleus monitors how much juice your home gulps in real-time for any moment or over time periods: days, months and for up to three years. Your internet connected computer or a smart
phone displays your overall home electricity use, but you also see which individual devices are the big drains.

It gets better. If your utility company offers variable pricing adjusted for peak and non-peak hours, Nucleus helps you buy electricity cheaper. WIth it, you can make informed choices about when to use power, for example when to run a loaded dishwasher. Nucleus information helps you save. You may adjust your home thermostat from the office, turn off unnecessary lights, and cut energy to vampire suckers like a home theater system that’s not in use while you’re at work.

It gets better still. Coming soon, new, smarter GE Energy Star appliances will feed information to your Nucleus module so that they can respond to signals from your utility company. Signals will delay electricity use in peak periods. Once peak periods have passed, the smart appliances will complete the
cycle they delayed.

You get to pay lower prices for electricity, by using it during late evening and early morning hours. “Peak” periods, those of highest demand, are typically between 3 p.m. and 7 p.m. 

The hand-sized Nucleus module plugs into any standard wall outlet and connects via an Ethernet cable to your router or computer. The Nucleus comes with its own “dashboard” software pictured on the right. An internet connected computer or smart phone displays actual kilowatt use in the moment, with rates in corresponding colors to help you visually differentiate them. High-cost peak electricity use shows in red, with off peak use shown appropriately in green.

Long term, the Nucleus system will take advantage of the smart grid and of TOU (time of use) pricing. It will pave the way for you to use renewable energy resources such solar and wind, helping to curtail our dependence on foreign sources of oil for power while it reduces CO2 emissions.

The GE Nucleus works in conjunction with the new smart electric meters. If you don’t have one yet, note that by 2012 US electric companies will have installed more than 40 million smart meters.

Beyond 2012, GE hopes to provide the Nucleus with software upgrades that allow the system to monitor water use, natural gas and renewable energy use, and to follow the cost of plug-in electric vehicle charging.
The price of the Nucleus module and included software is expected to be between $149-$199. GE expects them on the market in 2011.

Look for more news on the Nucleus soon at MyGreenMind.com/blog.

According to the New York Times’ excellent article, Portugal Gives Itself a Clean-Energy Makeover, five years ago Portugal’s elected leaders did something unheard of in the US. Leaders decided to lead. They took the heat and charged ahead with a brilliant renewable energy plan.

When they began, 28% of Portugal’s grid electricity came from renewable sources – solar, wind and hydropower. The goal was to increase that. Today, five years since Portugal set their plan in motion, 45% of their electricity comes from renewable energy. The U.S. compares at 5%.

Of course there is no free lunch. At the start of the effort the average Portuguese family was already paying about double what we do for electricity, and the Portuguese have had to bear further cost increases of about 15% during the five year period of renewable energy expansion. But the investment has paid off in stabilized electricity costs even as the electricity rates in fossil fuel dependent nations keep rising. While in other nations dwindling petroleum supplies spike the cost of what citizens pay for electricity, the Portuguese continue to reap the benefit of their farsightedness.

Meanwhile we Americans ride the fuel price roller coaster and wonder if someday the family vehicle will again be a horse.

Portugal’s leadership illustrates what can be done. And the coastal nation is not alone in rapid renewable energy growth. Ireland, Denmark and Britain are projected to produce 40% of their electricity from renewable sources in fifteen years. Brazil and Canada aren’t far behind them. The US will be lucky to reach 15% by 2025, and that’s going to happen only if the deep political divisions in our Congress don’t scuttle progress.

I can hear the objections now. Surely, the oil lobby will cry, countries like Portugal had to increase their debt burden to invest in renewable energy?
But no. Portugal saves millions because electricity from renewable sources does not require the country to import oil, coal and gas to make it. The savings help pay for the project. 

So what could pull us from our energy malaise? Tell your representatives to have some pluck and vote to:

• assert federal authority over the design of an efficient energy grid. Private companies own and operate grid sections, just as they do in Portugal. But the efficient integration of regional grids won’t happen if the feds don’t control it. (I hear the screams now, “But that’s socialism.” No, we’re not suggesting America federalize the grid. but without a government blueprint, how will fiercely competitive energy producers integrate their sections? The Portuguese understood that and so the government controlled grid design. Of course, we could go down in flames in the name of pristine pure capitalism. We’d get a mishmash of a grid. We could also revert to cooling ourselves with hand fans.)

• subsidize firms at the forefront of renewable energy technologies (Investing in green manufacturing grows the tax base.)

• reduce our reliance on coal and petroleum imports by investing in nuclear, solar, wind, hydro and other renewable energy production systems. That’s a no-brainer.

• pass legislation on federal and state levels to fence in the regressive Supreme Court ruling that permits unlimited corporate campaign spending. (It’ll be easier to go green if legislators can get reelected without coal and oil money.)

• pass carbon cap legislation

The New York Times lists the five year Portuguese investment at about $22 billion and notes that much of the cost is recovered. The completed renewable electrical system costs $2.3 billion a year to operate, lower than the previous running cost because Portugal’s renewable-based grid doesn’t require imported fuels. What is more, the coastal nation will make money selling carbon credits to other EU nations; and finally Portugal is already making money exporting wind generated electricity to Spain during periods when the new system has a capacity excess.

Meanwhile America’s energy future sinks in Congressional timidity. Unlike the Portuguese, our actions say we’d rather export cash and pile debt than pass an energy bill with vision. It’s less painful for Congressmen to let families pay higher electric bills than it is to risk offending a corporate constituency. With inactivity comes reelection.  (Is there a Latin motto for that?)

Any urgency to take action is further mitigated on both sides of the isle by the assumption that our rich, natural fossil fuel resources, an accident of America’s geological good fortune, will save us. So let the next session of Congress deal with our energy crisis.

So what’s it going to be? We either follow Europe, China and India and invest a similar percent of our GNP in renewable energy, or we stock up on candles. At least they’ll be Yankee Candles.