The article gets to the heart of the matter:

In the U.S., Botsman says “80 percent of the items people own are used less than once a month,” and collaborative consumption is “the reckoning of how we can take this idling capacity and redistribute it elsewhere.”

The ultimate idea is to have our economy value units of usage over units sold, and then the notions of “eco-efficiency and business efficiency align,” explains Botsman. In that world, sustainable design and longevity of goods become much more important in the production process. Car sharing might represent one of the largest available efficiency gains and Botsman says that “one car share gets approx 7-8 vehicles off the road.”

Scientific American’s David Biello asks If the world is going to hell, why are humans doing so well? He looks at research studying the question of humanity’s gains in the face of ecological degradation. The answer: as long as we can feed ourselves through farming we’re not too bothered as a species by global warming, pollution and all the rest — but this won’t last forever and there’s likely to be hell to pay down the line.

Technology Review’s David Rotman explores the question of how we’re going to pay for the costly transition away from fossil fuels in Cash for Infrastructure. Sadly, there’s no answer. Even a major increase in government investment isn’t going to be enough. Meanwhile, the flow of federal dollars is slowing. Although money spent on research and development could lead to breakthroughs, it’s not likely to be enough by itself.

Venture capitalist Rob Day looks at the same issue in his Cleantech Investing blog post All you need is… R&D? He points out that recent calls from people like Bill Gates for government and industry to pour money into energy innovation don’t address the whole problem. Energy markets hold barriers to innovation.

Day says the key is funding deployment:

“There are deep, deep needs for capital elsewhere in cleantech than just in the R&D lab. So-called “first projects”, the first production facilities for a new product, are infamously difficult to finance.

Elsewhere, customers may balk at a 3-year payback period but would gladly take on the cost-saving product if it was offered as a lease (thus saving money from day one), but that requires the vendor to provide the financing. Services — the businesses that would actually be doing the installation of the hoped-for disruptive innovations — remain very difficult to raise capital for.”

Earth2Tech’s Katie Fehrenbacher points out that projections that the global energy storage market will reach $35 billion by 2020 mean that this critical component of the clean energy revolution will be worth in 10 years what Facebook is expected to fetch if it goes public next year.

A common theme running through all these articles — if we don’t pay a lot now will pay even more later.

We’re also using more renewable energy, particularly wind power. This isn’t surprising either, given the growth in the wind energy sector in recent years and the stimulus funding.

The numbers, from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, show the same trends as last year.

Energy efficiency has also stayed consistent. The US lost 58% of the energy it generated in 2009 and 57.5% in 2008. Transportation energy losses were 75% and electricity sector losses were 68% in both years.

However, look a few years further back and you’ll see that our national energy efficiency is declining. The US lost 56% of the energy it generated in 2006. Transportation losses were 71% and electricity sector losses were 65%.

I combined the 2006 categories cars, freight and aviation into the equivalent of the 2008 and 2009 transportation category, so there could be a discrepancy there. But as far as I can tell there haven’t been any methodology changes.

So what’s the story? A couple of percentage points might not seem like a lot, but it represents a huge amount of energy. That’s about 2 quadrillion BTUs, which is nearly double the combined amount of wind, solar and geothermal energy the US generated last year. More importantly, it shows we’re moving in the wrong direction.

If anyone has an explanation or more details, let me know.

UPDATE 8-31-2010

Turns out there are some changes in how the numbers were derived from 2006 to 2008 and 2009, particularly the electricity generation numbers, according to A.J. Simon, an Energy Systems Analyst at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

But the main reason for the apparent drop in efficiency is a shift in where we spend our energy.

“The slight decline in efficiency that you calculated is due to the slowly changing distribution away from the industrial sector and towards transportation,” said Simon.

This helps put in perspective the importance of efficient transportation.

The picture is much more complicated for electricity generation.

Sean Casten of Recycled Energy Development has a nice explanation on Grist: Electricity markets are weird: why a carbon price isn’t enough. The main points:

• building power plants takes a lot of capital
• the Clean Air Act gives older coal plants a pass
• regulated monopolies aren’t markets
• deregulated electricity markets are too short-term

Another key point: “The carbon price required to shut down dirty generation is not sufficient to bring clean generation on line.”

All the more reason for massive government investment.

Be sure to check out the section’s nifty infographics in Energy’s Tricky Tradeoffs (PDF).

The news stories and perspectives articles that make up the section show that there are many options for transitioning away from fossil fuels and a lot of good science is underway. However, the technical and economic hurdles portend a difficult transition.

Not part of the special section (and therefore not freely accessible) is another perspectives article, Concentrating on Solar Electricity and Fuels, which looks at the state of concentrating solar energy. Focusing sunlight can produce a lot of thermal energy, which in turn can be used to generate electricity and turn water and carbon dioxide into liquid fuels.

My pessimistic side says these articles paint a picture that spells trouble for confronting climate change, simply because many of these technologies are likely to take a long time to make an impact.

Finding ways to store and transport solar energy, whether the electricity and liquid fuels are produced thermally or via photovoltaics, is the key to building a long-term, sustainable energy system. The problem is these technologies are likely to take decades to become economically viable and widely available. They either involve expensive infrastructure or are at early stages of laboratory research.

What would brighten this picture? An Apollo-like project (bet you haven’t heard those words recently) would be welcome. A price on carbon wouldn’t hurt, either.

The study says peak coal will happen next year or near to it, and studies and policies based on assumptions about centuries worth of coal remaining available are flawed. For instance, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has incorrectly assumed 100 years of increasing carbon dioxide emissions under business-as-usual scenarios, according to the study’s authors.

At the same time, the study’s lead author, Tad Patzek, said in a press release that carbon sequestration efforts are misguided:

“The current global hysteria around carbon capture and sequestration is leading to desperately poor government policies,” says Patzek. “For instance, large-scale subsurface sequestration of CO2 will decrease power plant efficiency by up to 50 percent. The same resources could be spent more wisely on increasing U.S. coal-fired power plant efficiency by 50 percent from the current 32 percent.”

Making coal-fired power plants emit less carbon may be a better route than trying to capture some of the carbon they produce, but this is arguing at the margins of the larger problem. We’ve already emitted enough carbon dioxide to assure nasty climate change effects. We need to drastically reduce emissions rather than simply slow their growth.

The notion that peak coal is just around the corner complicates efforts to model climate change. But it doesn’t change the problem we face or the stark choices we’re left to consider.

Peak coal will increase the cost of coal over time, but it’s not likely to do so sharply enough for soon enough to substitute for a price on carbon emissions. And growing energy demand could easily lead governments to find ways to increase coal subsidies.

From an energy security perspective — if nothing else — peak coal should spur us on to kick the carbon habit (no, it won’t be easy; yes, there will be pain). I worry when, instead, people talk about devoting resources to getting the most out of the fossil fuels we have left.

As it becomes increasingly common for consumers to have web access on the go – and operators can use sensors and real-time communication to flag available docks and bikes — barriers to adoption are falling away. It’s just plain easier to find a station and a bike that’s ready to roll. And with GPS chips that can locate you, a bike, or a parking spot, operators have a tool for tackling the bane of bike sharing networks of yore: theft.

The idea is to use data collected by people to augment or fill in the gaps in data collected by satellites and other remote sensing technologies. The data can be reported directly, harvested from social networks, collected by sensors on cars, homes, phones, etc.

Here’s an article on the subject. Here’s a previous post on citizen science and climate change.