Quantum mechanics and Foosball? Credit: RickyDavid.

When I began this story, it seemed pretty simple. I'd heard that scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab were working to mimic photosynthesis and create a man-made version of the process that could supply us with renewable energy.

The premise is to create a "closed-loop" energy system. Artificial leaves would use water, sunlight and carbon dioxide as inputs to create fuels like butane. Those fuels would be used for transportation or fuel cells. And by burning those fuels, we would produce carbon dioxide. The cycle goes on from there.

I never thought that quantum mechanics would enter the picture. That's what I discovered at the UC Berkeley lab of Graham Fleming. He says we have a lot to thank photosynthesis for. It produces the oxygen we breathe and is the basis for the entire food chain on the planet.

Fleming's lab is dedicated to understanding how photosynthesis works so well. And one of the things they've found is that plants are somehow tapping into quantum mechanics to improve their efficiency. It's pretty complicated – but with the help of the folks in Fleming's lab, they helped me understand it through, of all things, Foosball. Here's an audio version of it to help you out.

Listen to the Building an Artificial Leaf radio report online, and listen to our Web Extra: Photosynthesis and Foosball.

The former Vice President Al Gore was a speaker at this year's Greenbuild International Conference and Expo.

It took me about six hours to travel from my bed in Walnut Creek to the Phoenix Convention Center, the location of this year’s Greenbuild International Conference and Expo, sponsored by the U.S. Green Building Council, and then about an hour more to make my way to the Home Energy booth in the Exposition Hall. Big event, big venue. There are more than 1,000 companies and organizations here, representing every facet of green building, from mulch to windows to lighting to HVAC to water to insulation to… I don’t know the final count, but I heard there are more than 20,000 participants.

Thank goodness I had booked a few appointments. Otherwise I wouldn’t have known where to start. I met Graham Martin, Chairman and CEO of EnOcean Alliance. The Alliance brings together companies from around the world who work in wireless devices. The group got together to ensure that Company A devices could talk to Company B devices. For example, Verve Living System is a lighting control system that allows a person to wirelessly turn on and off all the lights and outlets in a house. Goodbye wasted standby power! It is being used in new construction and is especially appropriate for multifamily buildings, but it can be installed in retrofit buildings.

With Illumra controls, you can turn on and off whatever office lights you want from your iPhone, from wherever you are. And Graham was enthusiastic to show me EnOcean switching devices that need no batteries. The mechanical energy of one finger flipping a toggle switch is enough to power a wireless signal telling your air conditioner to shut down. According to Graham, EnOcean technology will take the smart grid into the home. “ZigBee is great technology to connect homes to utilities because it can use power from the network. But once inside, EnOcean technology uses so little energy that you never even have to change a battery.” Wow, it’s like the Smart Grid is learning to talk. Its first words are “Fight global warming.”

In the evening we were inspired by Vice President Al Gore at Chase Field, where the Arizona Diamondbacks play baseball. I got to watch from the press box, and we didn’t even have to be quiet. The food was pretty good and the beer was very good and I met some interesting people who write about glass, construction processes, and international trade relations. The “former next President of the United States” warmed up the crowd with some, frankly, corny jokes. There was one about a farmer and a pickup and cow, but I won’t waste anymore of my word count on that. He said, “We have enough ideas and technology to solve three or four global climate crises, but we only have one.” I like his optimism. The former next President called for a new Marshall Plan for energy security. “With the first Marshall Plan, we made sure that there would not be another world war in Europe. There are a lot of reasons why we have gone to war there, and there is a lot of interest in the area of the world that happens to sit on two-thirds of the world’s oil supply. We need to move away from fossil fuels so that we are no longer dependent on other countries for our economic security.”

But it was Gore’s last point that gave me a big boost. “I was thirteen years old when President Kennedy challenged the nation to put a man on the moon. Most people thought that we didn’t have the technology or the knowhow to do it. “When Apollo 11 landed on the moon, the average age of the scientists and engineers manning their stations in Mission Control was 26. That means that they were 18 when President Kennedy made his speech.” I work with people every day who were part of the energy efficiency revolution of the 70s and 80s and who are still going strong. Gore asked for a show of hands of anyone 18 years old or younger. From the press box I saw a lot of hands.

What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head?

Do you love a long, hot and powerful shower? What would it take you to change your shower to a low-flow shower head? Be honest.

• A. I understood the environmental impact that it would have
• B. I have knowledge of and compassion for the watershed
• C. Someone came to my house and put in a free low-flow shower head for me
• D. I would be publicly recognized
• E. I verbally committed to doing it
• F. Everyone else on my block is doing it
• G. President Obama and Jane Goodall are doing it (not together!)
• H. All of the above.

Canadian environmental psychologist Doug McKenzie-Mohr believes that the last five reasons inspire more behavior change than the first two. I recently took a workshop with McKenzie, who coined the phrase “Community Based Social Marketing”, and was amazed to learn that studies indicate that “information intensive” campaigns are not very effective. Uh-oh – time to recycle the brochures. This is the method that we have been using to influence behavior change for years.

An earlier blog of mine explored what makes a person care about nature. Now I’m compelled to explore what makes a person change a behavior for the good of nature – the outcome I ultimately desire. Perhaps Community Based Social Marketing (CBSM) is the answer.

CBSM believes that people do not change behavior or do an activity because:

• They do not know about it
• They have many perceived barriers to the activity
• They believe it is easier to continue to do their current behavior than to change

Once the targeted audience knows about the issue, and the barriers are identified with research, it is time to convince them that the benefits outweigh those barriers.

There are many tools for inspiring the change of behavior: making a commitment, copying a well-respected community leader, being reminded with prompts, realizing that the behavior is the current social norm, clear and vivid messages, incentives, ease or a combination of these concepts. CBSM also believes that requests to change behavior are the most effective when they are at the community level and involve direct contact with humans. At the end of the program, outcomes are measured, not outputs. This makes sense!

So, with this in mind, what if President Obama and Dr. Jane Goodall arrived at your door with a lovely, low-flow shower head and installed it while they told you all about the watershed and how you are helping. They then planned to install an identical shower-head in all your friend’s bathrooms followed by thanking you all in the local newspaper. Would you change your showering behavior then? I think I would – a victim to the new concept of Community Based Social Marketing.

I can’t wait to try to get influence our zoo public to compost, our staff to recycle, and my supervisor to send me to more of Doug McKenzie’s workshops. And I will await that knock on my door.

To go solar or not to go solar? Homeowners looking to save money on their energy bills have a number of factor to consider.

It's easy to get excited about installing solar panels on your house – particularly when you find out that state and federal rebates can cut the price almost in half.

But, as we've reported before, you might get more bang for your buck from far cheaper (and yes, far less exciting) fixes. Small things like weather stripping your doors, turning down the thermostat or upgrading your refrigerator, can put a dent in your utility bills.

Even if you've done all that, solar panels still might not pencil out. That's because of something called "tiered pricing", which is how most utilities calculate your monthly energy bills. The idea is that energy is relatively cheap as long as you stay within a certain amount. Exceed that, and you're in the next "tier," where the rate increases. At the next tier, the rate is even higher. The difference between top tier and bottom pier can be as much as 44 cents versus 8 cents per kilowatt hour.

That's why solar panels tend to make more sense for people with substantial energy needs – the big, air-conditioned houses, the heated pools, the multiple flat-screen TVs.

The higher your monthly utility bills without solar panels, the faster those panels will pay for themselves once they're installed. Plus, even if those panels don't meet the complete energy needs of your house, they may be enough to bring you down to a lower tier, where the rate is much better.

If you're interested in making your home more energy efficient, this handy and comprehensive online audit from the people at Lawrence Berkeley National Labs is a good place to start.

Henry Coe State Park won't be experiencing any part-time closures, but it will reduce trash and restroom service and has shuttered a new visitor center off the Pacheco Pass.

So you want to reserve that primo camping spot at your favorite California State Park? You might just have to take your chances. Most state parks are not accepting reservations through spring of 2010. It's part of a series of service cuts to slash millions from the State Parks' budget. Remember back in September when the Governor threatened to close 100 parks to balance the budget? Well, after a giant public outcry, he backed off but he still is requiring California State Parks to cut this year's budget by 14-million dollars. Superintendents from the state's 21 parks have come up with a plan to close that budget gap.

More than half of the state's parks will be scaling back days or hours. The list includes inland campgrounds and day use areas, many state beaches, museums and missions. In addition to reduced hours, trash and restroom service will be cut back at many state parks. I visited Henry Coe State Park in Morgan Hill. Because of it huge acreage (87,000 acres) and back country wilderness, Coe won't be experiencing any part-time closures, but it will reduce trash and restroom service and has shuttered a new visitor center off the Pacheco Pass. The park also lost all of its ranger aides. I also took a tour with the Superintendent at Angel Island State Park where they will be closing some restrooms, postponing school field trips and non-emergency repair needs. The situation is not expected to get better right away. The governor has already signed a budget that requires State Parks to cut 22-million dollars next year. California's parks have relied on the state's unpredictable general fund…and that has resulted in a billion dollar maintenance backlog. Park supporters are considering a ballot measure for next year that would impose about a 15-dollar a year vehicle license fee to pay for park operations. Want to hear more? Check out our radio report.

A technician checks the combustion efficiency and safety of a water heater—an important part of any home energy audit.

I hope I’m certifiable. I’ll find out in about a year when I’ve completed all the training and taken the written and field exams to become a Building Performance Institute (BPI) certified Building Analyst. The certification would allow me to perform energy audits on homes and maybe even get paid for it if I started an auditing business or joined an existing company. The certification would not prepare me to perform energy upgrade measures, such as air sealing and insulating an attic, only recommend the most cost effective ones. Many energy auditors work with a team of trusted contractors who can do the work the homeowner chooses.

My publisher Tom White and I decided that going through the kind of training that we have been pushing in our magazine will give me a more realistic view of the home performance industry, and the people who are just entering it now—the new weatherization workers, and newly minted technicians, contractors, and small business owners who will help build the new green economy. And it’s an excuse to get off my butt and out of the office more often. If I get certified, I’ll need to continue taking classes and have hands-on experience in the field to stay certified.

There are three kinds of certifications for a wannabe energy auditor to consider: certification as a Building Analyst through BPI; certification as a HERS (Home Energy Rating System) rater through the Residential Energy Services Network; or one of many “green builder” certifications that exist nationwide. I think the Building Analyst is the most basic. The training follows closely that of a HERS rater, but HERS raters need to become expert at rating software; it’s a bit more involved. I thought about being certified through Build It Green California as a Green Building Professional. But once I’m certified through BPI, I think it would be a small step to being certified by the other organizations.

Now I am asking what many people in the midst of career decisions are asking. Where do I go for the training and how much will it cost? BPI is in Malta, New York. (Might as well be Malta, the country.) Fortunately, BPI has hundreds of affiliates and approved trainers all over the country. There is also online training, and trainers who will travel to your hometown, as long as you have several people interested in the training. My plan so far is to complete an online training course through well-respected training organization, Saturn Online. That will prepare me for the Building Analyst written exam. I can even take the exam online. The course costs $595, plus about $70 for a book and field manual. Once you start the online course, you have about 8 weeks to complete it, so I can study and take the quizzes and final exam in my spare time—maybe over the holidays. The written exam fee is $225.

But you can’t get all the training you need online, nor would I want to. (Remember me wanting to get off my butt more often?) Saturn also offers three day intensive hands-on field seminars in locations in several locations around the country that culminate in the Building Analyst field exam. I have friends in Portland I haven’t seen in a while; maybe I’ll go there for my field training. The field seminar costs $950. If you want to take the exam at the end of the seminar, there is an additional $350 charge for proctoring. Total costs of going for BPI Building Analyst certification: $2,190. The value of certification: priceless.

Luis Medellin and Karl Tupper set up a drift catcher in Lindsay, CA.

My radio story on pesticide drift looks at how residents in the citrus town of Lindsay are monitoring pesticides in the air and in their bodies. They are using a device called a Drift Catcher, modeled after technology used by the California Air Resources Board and the Department of Pesticide Regulation.

The pesticide drift catcher has a vacuum pump that sucks air into a glass test tube, where pesticide residues are trapped in a resin. Community members change out the test tubes and send them to a lab, where scientists crack them open, extract the residues with an organic solvent, and then analyze those extracts through gas chromatography.

The Lindsay study measures Chlorpyrifos, a pesticide that can cause headaches, blurred vision, and muscle weakness when people breathe in the air from a recently-sprayed orchard or field. Studies also show prenatal exposure MAY have effects on children's cognitive and motor skills.

Environmental lawyers are using preliminary data from the Lindsay drift catchers in a petition asking the EPA to create pesticide buffer zones around schools, child care centers, and hospitals.

Listen to the Catching the Drift – Part Two radio report online.

This year's Wildlife Conservation Network Expo in full swing at the Mission Bay Conference Center.

It’s a sunny, fall day in October and I am driving into San Francisco. I pass the colorful Love Parade floats revving up without a glance of longing. I pass the turn towards Golden Gate Park for Hardly Strictly Blue Grass Festival without an ounce of FOMO (fear of missing out). I giddily park outside of Mission Bay Conference Center and enter the Wildlife Conservation Network’s yearly Expo. Parades and music will have to wait; I am ready to gorge myself on colorful wildlife and rock star conservationists. Each year I am more amazed and enthralled by this extraordinary event.

The Wildlife Conservation Network (WCN) was founded in 2002 in Los Altos by Charlie Knowles and Akiko Yamazaki. Their unique approach to conservation is based on the venture-capitol model and offers organizations expert networks, fundraising support, global exposure and Silicon Valley expertise. 100% of donations to WCN go to programs. It is an efficient system with measurable results and an excellent example of conservation action.

The Wildlife Conservation Expo is a dream come true for wildlife people, and after many years of attending, it feels like an international family reunion of cousins related by their passion for animals and the natural world. Flying in from 30 countries, including the mountains of Uganda, the savannahs of Zimbabwe or the steppes of Uzbekistan, they come together to share their miraculous projects. I marvel that I simply need to navigate the s-curved bridge from Oakland to be amongst this kin of conservation heroes.

The day consists of short and sweet speaking sessions from these 24 wildlife powerhouses, each one more inspiring than the next. Between sessions, participants visit the many tables featuring local, national and international groups and projects. The Oakland Zoo table was surrounded by such favorite groups as Africa Matters, Animals Asia, WildAid, Reptile & Amphibian Ecology International, Project Tamarin, Mountain Gorilla One Health Program, Red Panda Network, Elephant Voices, or our Teen Wild Guide’s favorite, The Saiga Conservation Alliance. Add in mingling with hundreds of like-minded people, and it is a day that can’t be beat. Oh, did I mention Jane Goodall is the keynote speaker? As I write this, I watch her graciously speak with participants, sign books and scratch the head of one of the Working Dogs for Conservation. Lucky dog.

At Dr. Jane’s presentation, she begins with her uncanny chimp-like pant-hoot greeting and reminds us that passion is the most powerful asset one could have. That if we all explored and exercised our passions, what a different world it would be. As usual, I leave WCN with new ideas, new reasons to be hopeful and renewed gratitude for WCN.

The 2010 dates have yet to be decided. Watch the website for details.

Editor's Note: This week we have the first of two special reports on pesticide drift.

In this week's Quest radio piece, I talk to two pregnant organic onion workers who got sick after an apple farmer sprayed pesticides on a nearby orchard. Following a nearly three month investigation, the Kern County Ag Commissioner issued citations finding both the apple grower and the organic company at fault (see the citations here and here). Workers told me that even after the drift started, the organic farm's supervisor encouraged them to keep bunching onions, telling them to put handkerchiefs over their mouths to block out the smell of the insecticides.

Whenever a big pesticide drift accident like this happens, it raises important questions: How often do these kinds of incidents occur? Are things getting better for people in communities near where pesticides are sprayed?

That's hard to tell, because of the way the Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) and County Ag Commissioners keep track of the data. There's no single enforcement code to categorize incidents as "agricultural drift affecting humans."

DPR does keep a statewide database of acute illness related to pesticides, as documented in worker’s comp or physician's records. Pesticide activists say those numbers are low, because many victims don't see a doctor. And doctors don't always know how to recognize symptoms of pesticide illness, or that they are supposed to report those cases.

And here's another twist: back in 2000, DPR changed its criteria for how it evaluates pesticide illness. So you can't compare the number of incidents from the 1990s with incidents today. All that makes it very difficult to determine if growers and regulators are really doing a better job keeping the public safe from chemicals drifting off the farm, especially after the passage of bills like the 2004 law sponsored by State Senator Dean Florez.

While that law clarified rules for emergency responders and required growers to pay medical bills for uninsured victims, it doesn't seem to have led to a dramatic drop in pesticide drift incidents.

In 2006, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger vetoed a bill that would have sped up pesticide drift investigations and increased penalties. Instead, he directed DPR to streamline the enforcement guidelines for counties. Ag Commissioners can now issue a maximum fine of 5,000 dollars for each person sickened by pesticide drift.

That's a penalty some advocates, like Californians for Pesticide Reform think is far too low to act as a deterrent.

Meanwhile, County Ag Commissioners are facing budget cutbacks that may shrink their enforcement teams. Many agriculture commissioners already have just six or seven pesticide enforcement inspectors to police thousands of farms.

The Department of Pesticide Regulation says it can't enforce the law unless drift incidents are reported. The department has launched a new campaign to educate fieldworkers about pesticide drift, printing up wallet-sized cards with a toll-free hotline number in English and Spanish.

Listen to the Catching the Drift radio report online.

One of 20 solar-powered homes on display at the Mall in Washington D.C. This one is from the University of Kentucky. Credit: Mike Miskelly

The Solar Decathlon judges these houses in, of course, ten categories.

• Architecture — 100 points
• Market Viability — 100 points
• Engineering — 100 points
• Lighting Design — 75 points
• Communications — 75 points
• Comfort Zone — 100 points
• Hot Water — 100 points
• Appliances — 100 points
• Home Entertainment — 100 points
• Net Metering — 150 points

There are some interesting differences this year, compared to the last contest in 2007. Instead of charging a plug-in hybrid vehicle, as they did in 2007, teams now have to power a home entertainment system. The sponsors of the contest realized that electronic devices, like TVs, make up an ever-bigger share of a typical home’s electricity draw. That’s happening right now, while a plug hybrid car in most every driveway or garage is a thing of the future. A second new feature is that today’s solar houses are connected to the grid. The category “net metering” was not in the last contest. Teams earn points by sending more energy, created by sunlight, to the grid than they use from the grid. The ultimate goal for those of us the home performance field is that all homes become “net-zero” energy homes, or “net-positive,” meaning that the produce as much or more than the grid supplies them over the course of a year. A big problem with solar energy, as well as another renewable source, wind, is that power is created intermittently. Energy storage is necessary, and it is often expensive and not very efficient. With net-zero energy homes, the grid itself provides the storage capacity. When I lived in a Catholic religious community (Holy Cross Priests), the economics of community life were simple—take what you need and give what you can. Same for a net-zero energy house.

I wanted to take a look at the Team Germany (Technische Universität Darmstadt) home, the winners in 2007, but the house was in the process of being judged. Judges don’t announce when they will be visiting a house and which category they will be judging. Teams must keep, for example, the shower water in their solar homes at a precise temperature and flow rate all during the contest. No one knows when a judge will come to the door with a thermometer and flow gauge.

We walked by every house, and stopped at two—with the smallest lines snaking there way out front. (The Solar Decathlon expected as many as 250,000 visitors this year—looks like they made it.) We took a tour of the Iowa State and the University of Kentucky homes. I was partial to the simplicity and the day-lighting scheme of the Iowa house, which made use of simple pine siding and clerestory windows. Mike was more impressed with the Kentucky house, which had some pretty nifty fold up furniture and other creative uses of space. A member of the Kentucky team told us they were inspired by Shaker furniture. The house had wooden chairs, designed in Kentucky and made in Italy, that folded up to be hung on the walls, with decorative features that makes them pleasing to the eye. The Iowa house was made specifically with an older couple in mind. It has a simple layout and it is easy to move around in. Both the Iowa and Kentucky houses had big open showers in the bathrooms, with tiled floors and drainage. Energy efficiency and luxurious (though low-flow) showers can go hand in hand!

As of this writing (Wednesday), Team California, (Santa Clara University and California College of the Arts) is in the lead, with Illinois (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) in second, Team Germany in third, and Team Ontario/BC (University of Waterloo, Ryerson University, and Simon Fraser University) in fourth. The categories of Net Metering, Engineering, and Lighting Design have yet to be judged.

Updates soon!