PROJECT EASY GREEN

I had never heard of Ray Anderson the first time I went to cover one of his speeches at a conference. But after a few minutes of listening to him, he became a hero of mine.

Anderson — as many of you probably know — became an unlikely, and influential, figure for the renewable movement. He built Interface, a carpet manufacturer based in Georgia, into a multibillion-dollar business over the course of several decades. Then, an employee asked what Interface planned to do for the environment. Anderson huddled with executives and handlers and wondered what to serve up as a reply: we comply with all laws; we have never been convicted, etc.

While preparing the canned response, someone gave him Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce that detailed how civilization could destroy itself through the depredation of natural resources.

“It hit me like a spear in the chest,” Anderson told me.

After reading the book, Anderson put Interface on a quest: to make Interface a carbon-neutral company by 2020.

Investors, pundits, customers and even employees thought he was nuts. But since 1996, Interface has reduced fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent and total energy use by 44 percent, curbed greenhouse gases by 82 percent, reduced water use by 73 percent, and decreased waste going to landfills by 67 percent. Meanwhile, revenue has grown 66 percent and earnings have zoomed. Since 2003, Interface has made 83 million square yards of carpet with zero environmental impact linked to its production. Employees began to examine ways to make their operations more efficient.

And carpet tiles — a European concept brought to the U.S. by Interface — are now all the rage among designers. Style, profit and sustainability in one package.

Just as important, Anderson realized that you can’t convince someone or an organization about the need to protect the environment or invest in a sustainable future. They have to convince themselves. You could try to goad Anderson into saying something bad about an opponent, but he would resist. He always felt that everyone would come to agree with him if given time.

The only person he would criticize was Milton Friedman. He couldn’t back the economic hero of the '80s and '90s. For those of you that lost thousands today in plummeting oil stocks, maybe you will want to pick up Anderson’s Confessions of a Radical Industrialist.

Demographically, he was in some ways the ideal messenger. A successful businessman not from California who came to believe in sustainability through personal conviction and a St. Paul-like moment backed up by a solid balance sheet. If his health hadn’t begun to fail, he would have been a formidable force in the Obama White House, or even the U.S. Senate.

Now we have to build on that legacy.

The following is an article based on an interview with Anderson last year:

The world changes in a moment, according to Ray Anderson.

A female executive from a large customer once visited Interface, the multibillion dollar carpet manufacturer founded by Anderson, with the express purpose of seeing Interface’s achievements in sustainable manufacturing in action.

Since 1996, Interface has reduced fossil fuel consumption by 60 percent and total energy use by 44 percent, curbed greenhouse gases by 82 percent, reduced water use by 73 percent, and decreased waste going to landfills by 67 percent. Meanwhile, revenue has grown 66 percent and earnings have zoomed. Since 2003, Interface has made 83 million square yards of carpet with zero environmental impact linked to its production.

“I don’t believe this stuff,” she said, so Anderson let her loose. Soon, she began to quiz a fork lift driver.

“'Ma’am, I come here every day to save the Earth,’ the driver said,” Anderson recalled. “She about collapsed.”

The driver then explained how changes on the factory floor that have reduced company costs and cut fuel consumption. Then he cut the conversation short. The emissions from his forklift were creating waste.

“She was a totally changed person,” he said. “It was love on the factory floor.”

Anderson remains perhaps the world’s most persuasive spokesperson when it comes to sustainability. Interface’s accomplishments speak for themselves. Carpet manufacturing traditionally relies heavily on fossil fuels — carpet is made from nylon — and the industry generates vast amounts of waste.

Interface, though, is already 60 percent on its way to achieving a zero footprint by 2020. At the same time, Interface has cut $400 million worth of waste out of its operation.

“Eliminating waste has more than paid for the rest of it,” he said. (You can find an impressive array of facts and figures in his book Confessions of a Radical Industrialist. I recommend it as a gift for the climate-change denier in your family.)

The emphasis on reducing waste and fossil fuels has also spawned new product lines — such as the ReEntry 2.0 carpet produced with recycled materials — that have directly led to large contracts with customers like Disney and the University of Georgia. 

A landfill-to-methane plant in LaGrange, Georgia has cut Interface’s costs as well as allowed the city to escape the need to spend $20 million on a new dump.  In fact, the city now gets around $300,000 a year from the sale of gas generated by the landfill.

On top of all this you have the man himself, a polite Southerner who grew up in a small town during the Great Depression. A football scholarship to Georgia Tech and few lessons in perseverance put him on the road to an engineering career and success as an entrepreneur.

There are politicians that would pay good money for that sort of hardscrabble background.

But even more important is the way Anderson believes that the concepts of recyclability, energy efficiency and sustainability can spread.

“People have to accept it for themselves,” he said.

The first person he persuaded was himself. In 2004, someone gave him Paul Hawken’s book The Ecology of Commerce. Hawken, one of the founders of Smith and Hawken, argued that industrial production, as we now practice it, will inexorably lead to disaster: you can increasingly exploit resources at an ever-accelerating rate. On St. Matthew Island in Alaska, a transplanted herd of reindeer grew from 29 animals to 1,350 to 6,000. When the grass disappeared, the population collapsed and St. Matthew Island was turned into a barren rock from overgrazing.

“It hit me like a spear in the chest,” Anderson recalled.  A few weeks later, Anderson — still reeling from his St. Paul moment — unfurled his goal to turn Interface into a zero-impact corporation. Employees were stunned and confused: Interface’s environmental commitment usually revolved around reiterating that it hadn’t violated any laws.

The concept, though, proved catchy and soon employees became motivated by the idea. Engineering manager Graham Scott persuaded nylon supplier DuPont to remove an ounce of nylon in a square yard of carpet. It freed up the same amount of energy that would be needed to run a factory for half of a year. Maria Ceballos, an employee in a southern California, plant came up with a way to save four tons of yarn a year. Job satisfaction, reduced costs and an improved environmental footprint were improved all in one motion.

Progressively, the ethos began to rub off on investors and customers. One customer, for instance, complained about a stack of battered cardboard boxes in one factory. He thought it projected a slothful image. Interface execs then explained how the boxes could be used several times before recycling. The customer admitted that they were the most beautiful cardboard boxes he had ever seen.

In fact, it’s hard to get Anderson to say something bad about anyone. He thinks everyone can ultimately understand the logic of sustainability and when they do, they will become the concept’s best salesperson.  I asked him why some people in the U.S. seem to be becoming increasingly hostile to renewable energy and sustainability.

“I’m not really meeting those people,” he said. “With oil at $100 a barrel, recycling saves us money.”

The only person who he seems to have no hope for is the late Milton Friedman.

“That guy did more harm than you can imagine. Friedman said that businesses exist only to make profit for their shareholders,” Anderson said. “A company surely exists for some higher purpose than that.”

It is the kind of statement you want to believe, I thought to myself after he said it. But history shows that the short-term profit motive invariably undermines long-term plans.

Then I remembered a conversation I had a few weeks earlier with Steve Tobak, a friend, source and chip exec. Tobak, also an author, is slightly to the right of Tom DeLay. He hates Al Gore, sneers at government programs and believes most green technologies are uneconomical gimmicks. On this particular day, he was excited about a recent purchase.

“Best thing I’ve ever done,” he said.

He was raving about his new solar system.

Maybe Anderson is right.

GOTEBURG, SWEDEN — Medetomidine was invented to tranquilize aggressive animals, but it also might help shipping companies curb marine pollution.

I-Tech, a relatively small company based in Goteborg, Sweden, has discovered that the sedative acts as a stimulant on barnacles. As a result, it potentially can become a substitute for copper as the primary anti-fouling material in marine paint.

“We don’t kill the organisms. We just scare them. We change the behavior of the barnacle larvae,” said Lena Lindblad, I-Tech’s R&D manager who discovered the properties. “It [medetomidine] inhibits secretion of a substance that gets them to stick.”

The company has tested the material in the Baltic Sea since 2009 and currently is conducting tests in Asia with a shipping company. In the U.S., the Navy “is actively interested,” she said. The Environmental Protection Agency will meet with the company next month.

While copper paints have been employed for years to prevent barnacles from attaching to the hulls of ships, the metal is toxic to marine life. It also flakes. Approximately 35,000 to 40,000 tons of the metal get dispersed into the oceans each year.

California has already passed regulations barring copper-based paints on pleasure craft and passenger ships. Washington state may soon follow. Commercial boats get repainted approximately every five years and pleasure craft get repainted every year, according to managing director Per Jansson. (Other companies and organizations have begun to hone in on greening ports.)

Besides its environmental impact, copper has become a financial albatross. Prices have more than doubled over the past few years and will likely remain volatile. A single liter of marine paint might contain $4 to $5 worth of copper, he said. If a ship requires six tons of paint, copper will account for three tons of the total.

“Fifty percent of the paint matrix is copper,” Jansson said.

Yet, shipping companies need it. Turbulence from barnacles can double a ship’s fuel consumption, according to Lindblad.

Enter Selektope, I-Tech’s brand name for medetomidine. Selektope is also toxic to marine life, but only a tiny amount is required.  Approximately one gram of Selektope can keep a hull as clean as 500 grams of copper.

“We are five magnitudes below toxic levels,” Lindblad said.

The material also breaks down in the water, unlike copper, so the toxic effects are temporary.

Potentially, the lighter weight could marginally increase fuel efficiency.

Jansson said that I-Tech will be able to compete with copper at its current prices. However, laboratory and manufacturing facilities need to scale. Still used primarily as a pharmaceutical, only a token number of kilograms of medetomidine currently get manufactured each year.

I-Tech, which has obtained some intellectual property protection for exploiting the drug for marine applications, will likely license or partner to move into volume production.

The discovery, Lindblad says, was somewhat accidental. She tested it on barnacle larvae expecting that it would sedate and slow them down. Instead, it caused them to become hyperactive and float away.

I-Tech will show off its technology later this year at an event at Stanford. Like Denmark, Israel, Finland and others, Sweden is increasing its efforts to convert its scientific expertise into commercial applications. The Stockholm Royal Seaport project, an eco-neighborhood touting green architectural advances and smart grid technologies, will serve as a test bed for technologies with export potential.

Also check out Seec (solar-enhanced geothermal) and Svenska Aerogel (inexpensive aerogels).

In the relatively near future, a fracking company may harvest electricity from the Marcellus Shale formation, too.

The power won't come from converting shale gas into electricity. Instead, it will be created by harvesting the 840-degree waste heat exuded by compressors onsite needed to squeeze the methane extracted from the rock into pipelines. The five compressors at the operation give off enough heat to generate nearly 2 megawatts of electricity, according to Jason Gold, CEO of waste heat developer KGRA Energy. The letter of intent has been signed and the formal deal should be announced soon, he added.

KGRA also hopes to finalize a project to produce 4 to 5 megawatts of electricity from the hot (887 degrees Fahrenheit) exhaust emanating from a cement factory. Another project will create electricity from the heat absorbed from liquid hydrocarbons in distillation towers at refineries.

This week, KGRA signed a deal to build an 800-kilowatt waste heat recovery system at Weyerhauser's Greenville, North Carolina plant.

"The amount of energy being wasted is staggering," said Gold.

The company embodies two trends in renewables. First, there's a growing interest in harvesting waste heat. The U.S. consumes 100 quads, or quadrillion BTUs, of energy a year, and 55 to 60 quads get dissipated as waste heat, according to research conducted at UC Berkeley. The heat emanating from car engines, notebook bricks and industrial ovens is really just energy purchased, but not used efficiently, by someone.

As an added bonus, power generated from waste heat tends to mimic baseline power, unlike the intermittent nature of wind or solar power. As long as the factory hums along, power is generated.

"This is utility-grade power," Gold said. "24 hours a day, seven days a week, 365 days a year."

The power figures above, Gold added, are for net power produced. KGRA deducts the power required for its own equipment from the total.

Second, it's the developer business model. KGRA, he emphasized, is a developer and not a manufacturer. The company essentially finds opportunities, tries to estimate the costs and output of a potential projects, and then signs the appropriate offtake agreements, pretty much like your typical solar developer. The company is both brand- and technology-agnostic, meaning that it will install heat recovery systems from General Electric, Ormat, Pratt & Whitney or whomever might work best in the given circumstances.

Structuring the deal so the end-user buys kilowatts instead of capital equipment, in general, helps eliminate the obstacles to acceptance. (Traditionally, industrialists bought the equipment and the vendor and contractor were often associated with the terms of the deal.) Most of the time, the end-user consumes all of the energy. If excess exists, it can be delivered to third parties via the grid. In some states, renewable credits bolster the price.

There's also an efficiency play here. Capturing waste heat and converting it to electricity reduces overall power consumption. Air conditioners can be turned down and onsite power generation reduces demand for power on the grid. At the oil refinery mentioned above, large electrical fans are employed to get rid of the heat. Because of the power conservation potential, some states and utilities will provide credits and rebates to waste heat projects, similar to how some utilities are subsidizing building retrofits and ice air conditioners under the guise of reducing peak power.

While KGRA will work with different technologies, the company primarily concentrates on organic Rankine cycle (ORC) machinery. In ORC waste heat recovery, captured heat is used to turn an organic liquid into vapor. The vapor then cranks a turbine. The key is that the vapor boils at a far lower temperature than water. ORC plants can operate with exhaust heat at 500 to 800 degrees Fahrenheit. Waste heat systems that rely on steam need heat in the 800-degrees-Fahrenheit-and-above range.

A total of 150 large-scale ORC plants have been erected in Europe and 25 have been launched in the U.S. "It is beyond a shadow of a doubt that it [ORC] works," Gold emphasized.

Whether a plant is appropriate for waste heat depends on a variety of factors and circumstances. How much exhaust does a plant produce and what is the temperature? Does power cost quite a bit or very little? How much will the end-user consume? Overall, though, ORC equipment in positive circumstances can generate power for a capital cost of $3.50 a watt.

Some companies, such as Phononic Devices and Alphabet Energy, are developing semiconductors that can convert heat directly into electricity, no turbine needed. The simplicity will lower the capital costs to $1 a watt, says Alphabet. But these chips, often relying on relatively new materials like silicon nanowires, tend to be in the experimental phase.

Waste heat doesn't enjoy the same level of support of subsidies as wind or solar, but that could change. For one thing, it's a competitive, rapidly growing field. Last year, the VC firm Westly Group experienced three IPOs: one was waste heat specialist China Recycling Energy Corp. Leaders in Washington also probably like the concept. Arun Majumdar, the director of ARPA-E, was the one who gave me those BTU figures noted above. He also conducted the research behind Alphabet Energy. Majumdar, of course, worked with Energy Secretary Steve Chu at Lawrence Berkeley Labs, which has been the epicenter of efficiency research for years.