Monday, December 10
UK Announces Plan For Offshore Wind Generators to Provide Enough Electricity to Power all Homes in the UK by 2020
Harnessing the vast potential of the UK's island status entered a new phase as Energy Secretary John Hutton announced proposals to open up its seas to up to 33GW (gigawatts) of offshore wind energy. He also announced that he will chair a panel of experts to advise him on renewable energy, underscoring the UK Government's determination to play its part in meeting the EU target of 20% renewable energy by 2020 [Click here to read full article...]
Friday, November 23
Solar Startup Ausra Inks $1B Deal With PG&E
Pacific Gas and Electric on Monday announced that it signed a 177-megawatt solar thermal power purchasing agreement with Ausra.
According to John O'Donnell, Ausra's executive vice president, the twenty-year agreement will generate over $1 billion in revenue for the Palo Alto, California-based start-up.
The plant will be located in San Luis Obispo County, California, and is expected to begin generating power in 2010. Ausra has filed its application for certification for this plant with the California Energy Commission, which must grant approval before construction begins.
PG&E supplies 12 percent of its energy from renewable sources, said Keely Wachs, PG&E’s environmental communications manager.
“PG&E continues to aggressively add renewable electric power resources” to its supply and the company is confident that it will meet or exceed its 20 percent renewable energy goal by 2010, he said.
Proving that bigger isn’t always better, the plant will use only one square mile of land and will burn no fuel, use minimal water, and have no air or water emissions.
[Click here to read the original article...]
According to John O'Donnell, Ausra's executive vice president, the twenty-year agreement will generate over $1 billion in revenue for the Palo Alto, California-based start-up.
The plant will be located in San Luis Obispo County, California, and is expected to begin generating power in 2010. Ausra has filed its application for certification for this plant with the California Energy Commission, which must grant approval before construction begins.
PG&E supplies 12 percent of its energy from renewable sources, said Keely Wachs, PG&E’s environmental communications manager.
“PG&E continues to aggressively add renewable electric power resources” to its supply and the company is confident that it will meet or exceed its 20 percent renewable energy goal by 2010, he said.
Proving that bigger isn’t always better, the plant will use only one square mile of land and will burn no fuel, use minimal water, and have no air or water emissions.
[Click here to read the original article...]
Thursday, November 8
AWEA Quarterly Report
AWEA QUARTERLY MARKET REPORT: WIND DELIVERS VITAL NEW POWER SUPPLY WITH OVER 2,300 MEGAWATTS INSTALLED THIS YEAR TO DATE Wind energy trade group raises estimate for 2007 installations, calls on U.S government to deliver strong renewable energy legislation
Continuing a major growth trend, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) today announced a substantial increase in the projected installation of new wind energy facilities in 2007. Previous projections for a record-setting 3,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity in 2007 have now been raised: AWEA reports that the U.S. wind energy industry is currently on track to complete a total 4,000 MW in 2007, shattering its 2006 record of 2,454 MW, and generating enough new electricity to power the equivalent of over one million homes. In its third quarter market report, AWEA also reports that the industry has already added over 2,300 MW of generating capacity to the nation’s electrical grid so far this year with a total of more than 5,000 MW in various stages of construction, establishing wind as one of the largest sources of new power in the country today. “The U.S wind energy industry is going to exceed what was already a record projection for installations this year,” said AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. “This is great news because it means that new, readily available, clean generation is reaching consumers at a time when electricity demand and global warming concerns are both on the rise. “But the not-so-good news is that, even as we face these twin challenges [climate change and growing energy demand], our country does not have a long-term, national policy in place to promote renewable energy development.” The federal production tax credit (PTC) for renewable energy will expire in December 2008, and there is no national renewable electricity standard (RES) or other long-term policy in place. Commented Swisher, “A national long-term policy to promote renewable energy, like the Renewable Electricity Standard approved by the House of Representatives in August, is essential for wind and other renewable energy industries to grow successfully and cost-effectively. The U.S. wind energy industry urges Congressional leaders and the President to work together and bring to the finish line energy legislation that extends the production tax credit and establishes a national standard for renewable electricity. “In addition to strengthening energy security and fighting global warming, more wind power and renewables will help stabilize electricity costs, and will create economic opportunity in both industrial and rural America .” Wind power is delivering a generous return on public investment: the continuity in the PTC since 2005 has spurred both record-breaking new generating capacity (2,431 MW added in 2005, 2,454 MW in 2006, about 4,000 MW expected in 2007) and a wave of investment in manufacturing facilities and services across the country, including in states that do not have a large wind resource. Additional returns include lower pollution costs, and growing income for communities in which wind farms are installed. The U.S. wind energy industry completed 1,251 MW of wind power generation since last reported, bringing the total installed to date this year to 2,310 MW and the total cumulative wind power generating capacity in the country to 13,885 MW, according to AWEA. One megawatt of wind power produces enough electricity on average to serve 250 to 300 American homes. State highlights include: -- Texas again added the largest amount of new wind power generation (600 MW); -- Colorado installed 264 MW and now ranks as the state with the 6th-largest amount of wind power generation; -- Washington , with 140 MW of new wind capacity, pulls ahead of Minnesota into 4th place; --Missouri saw the completion of its first utility-scale wind farm, a 56.7-MW project that generates power for electric cooperatives in the region and that makes Missouri the state with the 21st largest amount of wind power now installed; -- Illinois , Pennsylvania , and Iowa also saw the completion of utility-scale projects. The full AWEA quarterly market report is available online at http://www.awea.org/Projects/PDF/3Q_Market_Report_Nov2007.pdf
For a full list of projects completed this quarter, listing of states by capacity installed, and additional market information see http://www.awea.org/projects/
Continuing a major growth trend, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) today announced a substantial increase in the projected installation of new wind energy facilities in 2007. Previous projections for a record-setting 3,000 megawatts (MW) of new wind power capacity in 2007 have now been raised: AWEA reports that the U.S. wind energy industry is currently on track to complete a total 4,000 MW in 2007, shattering its 2006 record of 2,454 MW, and generating enough new electricity to power the equivalent of over one million homes. In its third quarter market report, AWEA also reports that the industry has already added over 2,300 MW of generating capacity to the nation’s electrical grid so far this year with a total of more than 5,000 MW in various stages of construction, establishing wind as one of the largest sources of new power in the country today. “The U.S wind energy industry is going to exceed what was already a record projection for installations this year,” said AWEA Executive Director Randall Swisher. “This is great news because it means that new, readily available, clean generation is reaching consumers at a time when electricity demand and global warming concerns are both on the rise. “But the not-so-good news is that, even as we face these twin challenges [climate change and growing energy demand], our country does not have a long-term, national policy in place to promote renewable energy development.” The federal production tax credit (PTC) for renewable energy will expire in December 2008, and there is no national renewable electricity standard (RES) or other long-term policy in place. Commented Swisher, “A national long-term policy to promote renewable energy, like the Renewable Electricity Standard approved by the House of Representatives in August, is essential for wind and other renewable energy industries to grow successfully and cost-effectively. The U.S. wind energy industry urges Congressional leaders and the President to work together and bring to the finish line energy legislation that extends the production tax credit and establishes a national standard for renewable electricity. “In addition to strengthening energy security and fighting global warming, more wind power and renewables will help stabilize electricity costs, and will create economic opportunity in both industrial and rural America .” Wind power is delivering a generous return on public investment: the continuity in the PTC since 2005 has spurred both record-breaking new generating capacity (2,431 MW added in 2005, 2,454 MW in 2006, about 4,000 MW expected in 2007) and a wave of investment in manufacturing facilities and services across the country, including in states that do not have a large wind resource. Additional returns include lower pollution costs, and growing income for communities in which wind farms are installed. The U.S. wind energy industry completed 1,251 MW of wind power generation since last reported, bringing the total installed to date this year to 2,310 MW and the total cumulative wind power generating capacity in the country to 13,885 MW, according to AWEA. One megawatt of wind power produces enough electricity on average to serve 250 to 300 American homes. State highlights include: -- Texas again added the largest amount of new wind power generation (600 MW); -- Colorado installed 264 MW and now ranks as the state with the 6th-largest amount of wind power generation; -- Washington , with 140 MW of new wind capacity, pulls ahead of Minnesota into 4th place; --Missouri saw the completion of its first utility-scale wind farm, a 56.7-MW project that generates power for electric cooperatives in the region and that makes Missouri the state with the 21st largest amount of wind power now installed; -- Illinois , Pennsylvania , and Iowa also saw the completion of utility-scale projects. The full AWEA quarterly market report is available online at http://www.awea.org/Projects/PDF/3Q_Market_Report_Nov2007.pdf
For a full list of projects completed this quarter, listing of states by capacity installed, and additional market information see http://www.awea.org/projects/
Wednesday, November 7
BP, Arizona State look to bacteria, not algae, for a biofuel
Algae's not the only organism that can be used as a feedstock for biofuel.
BP will collaborate with Arizona State University to try to figure out a way of using cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic form of bacteria, as a feedstock for diesel or synthetic petroleum. Ideally, the bacteria could be cultivated in large, contained plots of land baked by the sun--Arizona has a lot of that. The bacteria also consume carbon dioxide to grow. Thus, carbon dioxide could be pumped in from a power plant into the contained bacteria farm. The company could thus make money from selling carbon credits and selling fuel feedstock...[Click here to read the full article]
BP will collaborate with Arizona State University to try to figure out a way of using cyanobacteria, a photosynthetic form of bacteria, as a feedstock for diesel or synthetic petroleum. Ideally, the bacteria could be cultivated in large, contained plots of land baked by the sun--Arizona has a lot of that. The bacteria also consume carbon dioxide to grow. Thus, carbon dioxide could be pumped in from a power plant into the contained bacteria farm. The company could thus make money from selling carbon credits and selling fuel feedstock...[Click here to read the full article]
Tuesday, November 6
Will biofuels end OPEC’s power and agricultural protectionism?
Published: November 6 2007 16:32 | Last updated: November 6 2007 16:32
Biofuels are set to transform the global economy, according to Harvard University economist Ricardo Hausmann, leading to the demise of the price-setting power of OPEC and the end of agricultural protectionism.
He argues that technology is bound to deliver a biofuel that will be competitive with fossil energy at something like current prices. The consequences of this will be that the large potential supply of biofuels will cap the price of oil because its supply is much more elastic.
Professor Hausmann also argues that the large-scale biofuel production will cause increases in the price of agricultural land and of food that will relieve governments from the current political pressure to protect the agricultural sector. This, he says, will boost sustainable development in poorer nations.
Can these predictions become reality? Which biofuels will become most widely used? What do such scenarios mean for carbon emissions and energy security?
Professor Hausmann will answer your questions on Thursday 15 November 2007. Post a question now to ask@ft.com or use the online submissions form below.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/2fe3bea8-8c84-11dc-b887-0000779fd2ac.html
Monday, October 29
Handicapping the Environmental Gold Rush
In the race to profit off the scramble to go green, there will be winners and losers. Here's how the players currently stack up.
By JEFFREY BALLThe green stampede is on.
As a global economy powered by cheap fossil fuel comes under intense pressure to change, corporate executives are racing to stay ahead of the tectonic shift in their world.
From Capitol Hill to California and Brussels to Beijing, multinational companies are stepping up their lobbying and tweaking their product lines in response to demands that they get more environmentally attuned. New companies -- even new industries -- are challenging the established giants to exploit a growing market for everything from green cars to green fuels.
And a host of middlemen have sprung up to make markets in new financial instruments created by the proliferation of green-oriented subsidies and mandates. All these players are jostling to shape the new government rules to give them the bulk of the benefit -- and hit someone else with the bulk of the burden. Ultimately, the cost will be passed on to consumers.http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119335097973072106.html?mod=hps_us_inside_today
Wednesday, October 3
Saturday, September 29
The Littlest Eco-Warriors
By ELLEN GAMERMAN
This is a great article about opportunities for kids to learn about Global Warming and the environment. Anyways i thought maybe ETG could work on developing an outreach program for the youth in the community.
September 29, 2007
There's a new authority cracking down on environmental missteps -- the kids. Below, a sampling of resources that deliver environmental messages to the elementary school set.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119090528485241374.html?mod=moj_latest_newsThis is a great article about opportunities for kids to learn about Global Warming and the environment. Anyways i thought maybe ETG could work on developing an outreach program for the youth in the community.
Thursday, September 13
A different way to think of clean energy
There is a certain energy technology out there that provides energy for 2 billion people worldwide. It gives them warmth, light and the means to prepare food. Although this technology is renewable to a certain extent, by no means is it clean. It's also slowly killing those who rely on it. The technology is fire, and for more then a third of humanity it's the only real option. It's use comes at a price, however, and a recent article in the Lancet medical journal says that the health of 2 billion people is threatened because they rely on wood fires for their energy needs. For these people, even electricity from a dirty old coal-fired generator would mean a vastly improved life. [click here for link]
Wednesday, September 5
Clean Energy Investment Tops $18.1 Billion in 2006
New Energy Finance Ltd., a London-based research firm that specializes in alternative-energy investments, released a report today stating that private-equity funds and venture capitalists invested $18.1 billion in the clean energy sector last year. Two billion dollars still reside in such funds and have yet to be invested. Still, the $18.1 billion figure represents a 67% increase over 2005, when venture capital and private equity investment totaled $10.8 billion. NEF estimates that private equity and venture capital invested in clean energy will grow at a compound annual rate of approximately 17% through to 2013.
Source: Energy Roundup blog, WSJ.com
Source: Energy Roundup blog, WSJ.com
Sunday, September 2
Investors, big businesses see green in being green
http://www.cnn.com/
LONDON, England (AP) -- Big business fears that the fight against climate change will cost billions are now giving way to a different view: green can be the color of money.
More companies are involved in the creation of alternative sources of energy like electricity from wind farms.
The United States, Europe and Japan are locked in a frantic race to cash in on the exploding business of saving the planet. London has become the center for the multibillion dollar market in carbon emissions, attracting investors who trade CO2 allowances.
[Click here to read the original article...]
LONDON, England (AP) -- Big business fears that the fight against climate change will cost billions are now giving way to a different view: green can be the color of money.
More companies are involved in the creation of alternative sources of energy like electricity from wind farms.
The United States, Europe and Japan are locked in a frantic race to cash in on the exploding business of saving the planet. London has become the center for the multibillion dollar market in carbon emissions, attracting investors who trade CO2 allowances.
[Click here to read the original article...]
Monday, August 27
Bring on Geothermal!
Geothermal is one of the most underutilitzed sources of commercial and large home HVAC (in areas with the appropriate geology), and has tremendous potential as a renewable power source. This is a great heads-up article from Business Week.
Sunday, August 19
Is Clean Tech Immune From Market Woes?
August 8, 2007, 11:18 am
Deal makers in the so-called clean-technology business are mostly brushing aside recent market weakness and forecast a healthy flow of venture capital and other transactions in the solar, biofuel and wind energy sectors for the remainder of the year.
“Every area has momentum right now,” said Dan Pullman, vice president at investment bank McNamee Lawrence & Co. “You see it solar, you see it wind, alternative transportation, fuels, and plug-in vehicles.”
“We have a need to more efficiently use energy, and get more energy from renewable sources,” said Michael Carboy, clean energy analyst at Signal Hill. “Those don’t change based on market valuation. Corrections are an opportunity to look at names thought of as too expensive in the past.”
Carboy sees continued investment by venture capitalists in the sector, especially in energy storage and electric grid efficiency specialists, as well as new solar energy technology. However, he’s bearish on the ethanol stocks because they’re subject to swings both in corn prices and gasoline prices.
Jeffrey Saut, market strategist with Raymond James, sounded a word of caution on solar and other alternative energy shares, however. “If you bet the farm, you better have two farms,” Saut said. “Despite what the clean-tech people will tell you, if crude oil goes down, the price of anything related to alternative energy comes down with it. Most don’t stand on their own feet without high energy prices, or without government tax benefits.”
Saut also said he likes solar energy long-term, is bearish on ethanol, and wonders why free energy from geothermal heat isn’t more widely used.
Pullman of McNamee Lawrence said obstacles to clean tech include the Bush administration, which plans to veto the recently-passed House Energy Bill, as well as the high cost of silicon for solar energy panel makers. Players in the clean tech space expect more action from Washington — such as carbon trading legislation — after the presidential elections in 2008.
Pullman of McNamee Lawrence said obstacles to clean tech include the Bush administration, which plans to veto the recently-passed House Energy Bill, as well as the high cost of silicon for solar energy panel makers. Players in the clean tech space expect more action from Washington — such as carbon trading legislation — after the presidential elections in 2008.
Jeff Lipton, managing director of the Clean Tech Group at Jefferies, expects to see more IPOs and secondary offerings this year. First Solar, for example, just set plans to raise a whopping $1 billion in a stock offering. On the IPO front, GT Solar International Inc. has filed a $200 million IPO to boost its business as a maker of manufacturing equipment for the solar power industry.
Venture deals on the clean-tech radar screen include a $78 million round for Energy Photovoltaics, a $70 million round for GreenVolts and a $60 million infusion for BullMoose.
[Click here for the original article...]
Sunday, August 5
684 MW of euro-wind capacity goes for 2.5 billion
International Power buys Trinergy's wind portfolio. [Link]
Friday, August 3
It's safe, just trust us...
Along with solar, wind and other renewables, another power source is growing in popularity as a possible solution to the looming problem of climate change: nukes. Check out the front page of Fortune magazine this month. It's all about nuclear power. Safe, clean, abundant nuclear power. The accidents at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are ancient history and couldn't happen again. After all, there hasn't been another major reactor incident since Chernobyl melted down in 1986. Or has there? This Wall Street Journal report indicates that all is not well with the nuclear industry's incident reporting system. [Link]
Tuesday, July 31
Solar power makes tiny village beam
This story shows the potential of distributed solar generation in un-developed, poverty stricken parts of the world. Just imagine it's potential in the technologically advanced West, with our acres of rooftops and paved parking lots that are just waiting for someone to slap a PV panel on them. It's interesting that solar power is somehow too expensive and unreliable for the US government to encourage it's use by Americans, but it is cheap and reliable enough to power a poor, tiny Indian village. The fact that convenience is worth more to us then a stable, clean power source that has no expiration date is an indictment of our attitude towards energy as a society.
[Link]
[Link]
Thursday, July 26
Different strokes
Here's a story about a study that denounces renewable energy as environmentally destructive. The study's author attacks wind, solar and biomass as destructive to the land, claiming that the amount of land we would have to "rape" in order to fulfill our energy demand from these sources is so huge that the natural environment would be destroyed. See the story here:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070726/sc_livescience/studyrenewableenergynotgreen;_ylt=AnQAbNtukp4Q0G1eYF4Rwl2s0NUE
please post comments.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/livescience/20070726/sc_livescience/studyrenewableenergynotgreen;_ylt=AnQAbNtukp4Q0G1eYF4Rwl2s0NUE
please post comments.
Friday, July 13
Hydrogen Hype
I've heard enough inaccurate statements about hydrogen as a "fuel" to warrant a Blog entry. For decades, hydrogen-philes have been touting the potential that hydrogen has as the fuel source of the future. After all, we can get hydrogen from water, and water is everywhere.
The problem is, getting the 2 H's from H2O requires energy, and that (usually) means electricity. So, the advocates say, we can use nuclear or some kind of renewable energy to make electricity to produce hydrogen, then fill our cars and homes with hydrogen fuel cells that convert hydrogen back to...well...electricity.
Critics of this idea point out the obvious: why not just skip the middle step (and all the inefficienies of the process) and power our society with electricity? Rather than investing trillions of dollars on new hydrogen dispensing infrastructure for a grand "hydrogen economy," let's invest billions on upgrading the existing grid, expanding wind and solar, and producing efficient batteries that can go further per kWh.
As one electric car entrepreneuer told me recently, the next big breakthrough in getting more miles out of electric cars is not battery technology, but transmission technology. In the same way that a car with a 5-speed transmission gets better gas milleage than one with 4-speed (given the same engine), improving transmission technology will get more miles from the same amount of energy.
Granted, hydrogen might be a preferable fuel for certain long-distance, aero-space, or military applications. But for the rest of us, it is less than ideal.
Most of us drive less than 40 miles per day, and electric cars with technology developed more than 10 years ago could go twice that on a single charge. So, the question is, why bother switching to hyrdogen as a primary fuel when, for a much smaller price tag and a $10 extension cord, we have all the infrastructure we need to transform the way our society gets around.
The problem is, getting the 2 H's from H2O requires energy, and that (usually) means electricity. So, the advocates say, we can use nuclear or some kind of renewable energy to make electricity to produce hydrogen, then fill our cars and homes with hydrogen fuel cells that convert hydrogen back to...well...electricity.
Critics of this idea point out the obvious: why not just skip the middle step (and all the inefficienies of the process) and power our society with electricity? Rather than investing trillions of dollars on new hydrogen dispensing infrastructure for a grand "hydrogen economy," let's invest billions on upgrading the existing grid, expanding wind and solar, and producing efficient batteries that can go further per kWh.
As one electric car entrepreneuer told me recently, the next big breakthrough in getting more miles out of electric cars is not battery technology, but transmission technology. In the same way that a car with a 5-speed transmission gets better gas milleage than one with 4-speed (given the same engine), improving transmission technology will get more miles from the same amount of energy.
Granted, hydrogen might be a preferable fuel for certain long-distance, aero-space, or military applications. But for the rest of us, it is less than ideal.
Most of us drive less than 40 miles per day, and electric cars with technology developed more than 10 years ago could go twice that on a single charge. So, the question is, why bother switching to hyrdogen as a primary fuel when, for a much smaller price tag and a $10 extension cord, we have all the infrastructure we need to transform the way our society gets around.
Wednesday, July 4
Tilting at Windmills
The Economist always has fantastic articles. I went back to pull up one of their articles from their cleantech issue last fall, and thought I would repost the link to their article on wind power.
More...
More...
Tuesday, July 3
U.S. to Host Major Renewable Energy Event
Washington, DC [RenewableEnergyAccess.com]
The American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the leading U.S. renewable energy trade associations announced that they will host The Trade Show at WIREC 2008, to be co-located with the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) which occurs March 4-6, 2008 in the Washington DC Convention Center.
WIREC 2008 is the third global ministerial level event on renewable energy, following on the Bonn Renewables 2004 and the Beijing 2005 global meetings. In an earlier on announcement in May about the event, Secretary Rice noted that, "diversifying our energy supplies is a key foreign policy objective of this Administration," and that, "renewable energy sources can go a long way toward breaking the 'addiction to oil' that President Bush cited in his 2006 State of the Union Address." [To read the full article, click here...]
The American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) and the leading U.S. renewable energy trade associations announced that they will host The Trade Show at WIREC 2008, to be co-located with the Washington International Renewable Energy Conference (WIREC) which occurs March 4-6, 2008 in the Washington DC Convention Center.
WIREC 2008 is the third global ministerial level event on renewable energy, following on the Bonn Renewables 2004 and the Beijing 2005 global meetings. In an earlier on announcement in May about the event, Secretary Rice noted that, "diversifying our energy supplies is a key foreign policy objective of this Administration," and that, "renewable energy sources can go a long way toward breaking the 'addiction to oil' that President Bush cited in his 2006 State of the Union Address." [To read the full article, click here...]
VC-Backed Cellulosic Ethanol?
VentureBeat follows the VC-backed cleantech industry closely. This particular VentureBeat alert caught my eye because of the reported construction of a cellulosic ethanol plant.
Read on...
Read on...
Sunday, June 24
Smart Metering
Imagine for a moment that we bought food in the way we currently buy electricity. We might order from a supply list with no prices marked and have whatever we fancied delivered to our door whenever we pleased. A single, un-itemized bill would arrive in the mail once every couple of months covering all the food ordered and delivered during the billing period. How would our food bills probably compare to what they are currently? How would we go about reducing our food bill in order to save money when we know nothing about the cost of each act of consumption?
More at the Oil Drum...
More at the Oil Drum...
Thursday, June 21
The Happy UN Report
Investors Flock to Renewable Energy and Efficiency Technologie
Climate Change Worries, high oil prices and government help top factors fueling hot renewabl energy investment climate. Investors flock to renewabl energy and efficiency technologies; tranascations leap to record $100 Billion in 2006 Says UNEP study; Renewabl shed fringe image; American, European Markets Dominate, but 9% of Global Investments are in China, 21% in Developing Countries.
Climate Change Worries, high oil prices and government help top factors fueling hot renewabl energy investment climate. Investors flock to renewabl energy and efficiency technologies; tranascations leap to record $100 Billion in 2006 Says UNEP study; Renewabl shed fringe image; American, European Markets Dominate, but 9% of Global Investments are in China, 21% in Developing Countries.
Thursday, June 14
The Cellulosic Ethanol Delusion
Here at the University of California at Berkeley, we have all heard denunciations of corn ethanol by prominent faculty members like Jay Keasling and Chris Somerville. But as soon as the denunciations are done, these same people immediately propose the grand solution to humanity’s energy needs: ethanol from cellulosic biomass, preferably from their own patented superweeds.
Despite repeated claims to the contrary, there is no energy-efficient and scalable industrial technology for producing ethanol from biomass. The Canadian biotech firm, Iogen Corporation, has a demonstration facility in Ottawa, with a nameplate capacity of 1 million gallons of ethanol per year. But it has only produced about 60,000 gallons of ethanol in 180 days from a 4-percent dilute beer. This demonstrates that Iogen has no viable technology beyond what was already achievable in the Soviet Union and Germany some 80 years ago.
http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=516
Energy Outlook - The DOE Report
Thursday, June 14, 2007
A Wave of Wind A long train ride provided the opportunity to review the new report from the Department of Energy on the state of wind power in the US. For those who like numbers the ones in this document are fascinating. Significantly, they show that for the second year in a row, wind power capacity additions were second only to those for natural gas-fired turbines and ahead of coal, even when adjusted for “capacity factor”, the proportion of nameplate capacity actually utilized, on average. Furthermore, in at least a few states wind power is now contributing shares of total electricity sales that are comparable to the national shares from conventional sources such as hydropower and nuclear energy. At least regionally, wind is becoming mainstream, rather than niche.http://energyoutlook.blogspot.com/
Monday, June 11
Capital Hill News
Energy on the Senate Agenda
Posted by Mark Gongloff
Maya Jackson Randall of Dow Jones Newswires reports on this week’s Senate debate about energy:
The Senate is set to tackle a comprehensive energy policy proposal this week as Democratic leaders aim to keep their campaign promise to reduce the country’s dependence on foreign oil. Debate on the wide-ranging energy bill is likely to begin Monday evening, with the first votes expected as early as Tuesday.
http://blogs.wsj.com/energy/
Sunday, June 10
Corn ethanol unprofitable by 2008, says Iowa State
June 8, 2007 - Exclusive
By Dana Childs, inside greentech
Profits could disappear from the corn ethanol industry by the end of this year, said researchers at Iowa State University, in the latest of a string of doomsday predictions for the industry.
"We think the expected returns to an ethanol plant are zero or negative in 2008," said Bruce Babcock, economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State, in Ames, Iowa [Click here to read full article...]
By Dana Childs, inside greentech
Profits could disappear from the corn ethanol industry by the end of this year, said researchers at Iowa State University, in the latest of a string of doomsday predictions for the industry.
"We think the expected returns to an ethanol plant are zero or negative in 2008," said Bruce Babcock, economist and director of the Center for Agricultural and Rural Development at Iowa State, in Ames, Iowa [Click here to read full article...]
Saturday, June 9
Economy Based on Renewable Ingredients
Bio-factory producing corn-based polymer
LOUDON, Tenn. (AP) -- Railcars filled with a new bioengineered corn-based polymer are already pulling out of chemical giant DuPont Co.'s $100 million joint-venture factory with multinational agri-processor Tate & Lyle PLC. Next stop could be the carpet in your living room.
While other companies are working on several fronts to use more renewable resources, DuPont and Tate & Lyle consider themselves several steps ahead. They tout their plant about 35 miles south of Knoxville as "visible evidence that an economy based on renewable ingredients is possible."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CORN_BASED_POLYMER?SITE=IADES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT
Switching To Biofuels Could Cost Lots of Green
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, June 8, 2007; Page D01
As President Bush and congressional leaders rally support for their ambitious biofuel proposals, one ingredient is often left unstated: the cost.
Bush and members of Congress stress energy independence and environmental benefits of federal requirements for a massive increase in the use of biofuels in motor vehicles. But so far they have muted discussion of the prosaic details of how to pay for the subsidies and other incentives seen as crucial for meeting the new biofuels targets.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/07/AR2007060702176_pf.htmlMonday, June 4
U.N. warns of effects of global thaw
OSLO, Norway (AP) -- Melting glaciers, ice sheets and snow cover could speed the rate at which the planet heats up, causing rising sea levels, flooding and water shortages that impact as many as 40 percent of the world's population, a U.N. report said Monday.
The study, released before World Environment Day on Tuesday, highlighted the risk the receding ice cover could accelerate global warming, because the icepacks cool the planet by reflecting heat into space.
Even though much of the ice is in remote areas, such as polar regions and Greenland, the impact will be felt worldwide, U.N. Environment Program executive director Achim Steiner said.
"The report underlines that the fate of the world's snowy and icy places in a climatically challenged world should be cause for concern in every ministry, boardroom and living room across the world," Steiner said.
The report was released in the Norwegian Arctic city of Tromsoe, which is hosting the main international celebrations of World Environment Day under the theme "Melting ice - a hot topic?"
It builds on a series of reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released earlier this year.
The study by some 70 scientists, called "The Global Outlook for Snow and Ice," said warmer temperatures could raise sea levels by 30 to 50 inches this century, which could flood low-lying areas and force millions to flee.
Even those far from a coast could feel the impact, including as many as 1.5 billion people, mainly in Asia, who get their fresh water from the spring thaw of snow and ice.
"An estimated 40 per cent of the world's population could be affected by loss of snow and glaciers on the mountains of Asia," the report said.
In the Northern Hemisphere, snow cover in March and April has declined 7-10 percent over the past 30 or 40 years, the report said.
It said over the past 30 years, sea ice has declined 6-7 percent in winter and 10-12 percent in summer, while ice thickness has declined by 10-15 percent. The rate at which the Greenland ice sheet is melting has doubled over the past two or three years, and glaciers are receding in most of the world.
"Melting of ice and snow will in itself have severe consequences on nature and society. But it will also reduce the reflection of sun beams from the surface of the Earth and in this way contribute to further global warming," Norwegian Environment Minister Helen Bjoernoey said.
In addition to snow- and ice-free areas absorbing more heat, the melting of permafrost in places like Siberia could open new bodies of water, creating "thermokast lakes" that could release enormous amounts of the powerful greenhouse gas methane.
Bjoernoey said she was especially worried by the fact that "global warming results in further global warming."
The report said people are already adapting to the change. In China, a railroad built on permafrost includes a cooling system to prevent melting that would undermine frozen ground under the tracks.
Hunters in parts of Greenland have switched from traditional dogsleds to small boats because of changes in the ice.
Events in Tromsoe began Sunday, with South African Bishop Desmond Tutu hosting an ecumenical church service, and last through Tuesday, with a climate conference.
e.
China Rejects Emission Caps
By SHAI OSTER
June 4, 2007 1:33 p.m.
June 4, 2007 1:33 p.m.
BEIJING -- China issued a long-awaited plan for addressing climate change that reiterates its existing energy-efficiency targets and fails to include caps on emissions of greenhouse gases -- moves that reduce the chances of a breakthrough in climate-change talks at this week's meeting of world leaders.
In what it called its first national climate-change plan, China said Monday that it recognizes the problem of greenhouse-gas emissions -- which most scientists believe lead to global warming -- and pledged to broadly integrate efforts to mitigate such emissions into an overall plan for sustainable economic development. But officials rejected calls for specific targets for reducing China's greenhouse-gas emissions.
"To ask the developing countries to lower emissions too early, too abruptly and too bluntly will hinder their development and hamper efforts to achieve industrialization and modernization," Ma Kai, China's top economic-planning official, said at a news conference to unveil the national climate-change strategy.
Global warming will be a central topic at the meeting of leaders of the Group of Eight leading nations beginning Wednesday in Germany, which China's President Hu Jintao is to attend. Some experts expect China to surpass the U.S. this year as the world's top emitter of greenhouse gases, and some in the European Union and elsewhere are pressuring Beijing to agree to some form of commitment to reduce its production of such gases.
Last week, the U.S. removed a major obstacle for an international agreement, when President George W. Bush reversed longstanding policy and called on economic powers to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel is pushing for a last-minute deal on climate change at the G-8 meeting she is hosting. But China's adamant refusal to accept any targets on its carbon emissions could stymie that goal.
Chinese officials said Monday that they welcome the new U.S. position, but Mr. Ma said his government still prefers that a deal, like the Kyoto Protocol, be arranged through the United Nations. Beijing is a signatory to that agreement, which excludes China and other developing countries from emissions caps. The U.S. move "is not a substitute" for a U.N.-brokered deal on climate change, said Mr. Ma, who is chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission.
Chinese scientists have argued that the country is particularly vulnerable to climate change because it has scarce land and water resources and many of its major economic centers sit in low-lying coastal areas.
China's government says rich industrialized nations have contributed the bulk of greenhouse gases historically and should bear the brunt of the cleanup costs. It says caps on developing countries are unfair. While China is struggling with an unprecedented wave of industrialization and urbanization that has improved conditions for many of its people, millions of peasants remain poor, and Chinese officials say alleviating poverty takes priority over climate change.
While refusing to accept limits on greenhouse gases, Mr. Ma said China will reduce such gases through its drive to increase energy efficiency. About two-thirds of China's greenhouse gases come from burning fossil fuels such as coal or oil for energy. The government reiterated the target that it set a year ago of reducing energy consumption per unit of economic output by 20% between 2006 and 2010.
Mr. Ma said reaching that goal would mean releasing less carbon dioxide, a prominent greenhouse gas. But so far, China has had only limited success in reaching its energy-efficiency targets, and the breakneck pace of its economic growth could continue to make that difficult.
Last year, for example, China failed to meet its first-year target of cutting energy consumption relative to economic output by 4%, managing instead to reduce it by 1.23%. Nonetheless, that reduction did reverse the trend of deterioration in China's energy efficiency.
Mr. Ma asserted that from the start of the Industrial Revolution until 1950, 95% of carbon dioxide came from developed countries. From 1950 to 2002, developed countries accounted for 77% of greenhouse gases, he said.
In the past half decade, however, China has experienced a surge in investment in energy-intensive heavy industry such as steel, cement and chemical manufacturing, thanks to the rapid construction of its cities and low fuel prices.
Despite government crackdowns on pollution, investment in polluting industries has increased. In the first quarter , investment in the six dirtiest industries grew 20.6% from a year earlier, according to the state-run Xinhua news agency. The government is pledging another crackdown as well as new taxes on fuel and higher electricity prices.
A work report on pollution and energy efficiency released Sunday by the government mentions a 10% reduction in major pollutants by 2010, but carbon dioxide is excluded.
Monday, May 21
Oregon Wave Parks
Posted by KR
http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2007/04/30/daily5.html
"The rush is on to tap the waves that regularly coast toward Oregon for electricity.
At least three energy developers have plans to install parks of energy-generating buoys off the Oregon Coast.
The newest addition is Finavera Renewables Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, which has received permission to develop a 100-megawatt wave energy park in Coos County.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the preliminary permit, which is valid for three years and allows Vancouver, British Columbia-based Finavera to create a series of interconnected buoys that would be sufficient to power about 15,000 homes."
http://portland.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/2007/04/30/daily5.html
"The rush is on to tap the waves that regularly coast toward Oregon for electricity.
At least three energy developers have plans to install parks of energy-generating buoys off the Oregon Coast.
The newest addition is Finavera Renewables Inc. of Vancouver, British Columbia, which has received permission to develop a 100-megawatt wave energy park in Coos County.
The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued the preliminary permit, which is valid for three years and allows Vancouver, British Columbia-based Finavera to create a series of interconnected buoys that would be sufficient to power about 15,000 homes."
Applied Materials equipping solar factory start-ups
(Posted by Cyrus)
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com -->
Published: May 16, 2007, 8:36 AM PDT
AUSTIN, Texas--Applied Materials has said for the past year that it will build turnkey equipment for start-up solar-panel factories, and it appears that the company has begun doing just that.
TekSun PV Manufacturing is building a plant for manufacturing 120 megawatts worth of amorphous solar panels a year in Taylor, Texas, CEO Dan Vogler said at the Clean Energy Venture Summit taking place here this week. The production lines for the panels will indeed be turnkey lines provided by another company, he noted. (The 120-megawatt designation refers to the amount of power that, under optimal conditions, could be harvested from all of the panels produced by the factory in one year.)
[To read the original article, please click here]
By Michael Kanellos
Staff Writer, CNET News.com -->
Published: May 16, 2007, 8:36 AM PDT
AUSTIN, Texas--Applied Materials has said for the past year that it will build turnkey equipment for start-up solar-panel factories, and it appears that the company has begun doing just that.
TekSun PV Manufacturing is building a plant for manufacturing 120 megawatts worth of amorphous solar panels a year in Taylor, Texas, CEO Dan Vogler said at the Clean Energy Venture Summit taking place here this week. The production lines for the panels will indeed be turnkey lines provided by another company, he noted. (The 120-megawatt designation refers to the amount of power that, under optimal conditions, could be harvested from all of the panels produced by the factory in one year.)
[To read the original article, please click here]
Wednesday, April 18
TXU Sheds Coal Plan, Charts Nuclear Pat
Wall Street Journal (Posted by Cyrus)
Expansion Efforts IncludeLarge Plants in Texas;Rivals Likely to Follow
By REBECCA SMITHApril 10, 2007; Page A2
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
TXU Corp. has scrapped plans to build a large fleet of coal-fired power plants in Texas but hasn't altogether abandoned its expansion efforts. Instead, it hopes to build the biggest nuclear-power plants in the U.S.
TXU has shifted its focus to nuclear power at a time when three other organizations -- NRG Energy Inc., Exelon Corp. and Amarillo Power -- have said they, too, may build nuclear plants in Texas. If all the plans materialize, Texas could have more reactors than any other state in a decade's time, built in a deregulated market where missteps would be borne by shareholders or the federal government, not residents and consumers. Before deregulation, ratepayers would have been on the hook for any blunders by the power companies and might have had to pay higher electric bills as a result.
Texas could provide a proving ground for the expected nuclear renaissance because developers will proceed only if the economics appear bulletproof. That is because utilities in Texas no longer have monopoly territories. If customers don't like one supplier's price, they can pick another.
Nuclear power has gained favor because it doesn't rely on fuels that emit global-warming gases, like coal, or have volatile pricing. But cost overruns and accidents in decades past put development on the back burner until recently. Nuclear energy provides roughly 19% of the nation's power; coal provides about half.
At 1,700 megawatts apiece, the reactors selected by TXU, designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., of Japan, would be half as big in terms of capacity as the Westinghouse Electric Co. reactors at TXU's Comanche Peak nuclear plant, 80 miles southwest of Dallas. Company officials hope economies of scale will render the reactors capable of making electricity more cheaply than other reactors.
Executives for Mitsubishi said they believe their plants can be built in the U.S. for $1,500 per kilowatt of capacity, about 40% less than some other industry estimates, giving customers a shorter period of time before their investment is in the black. "It's at the low end of what everyone has been talking about," said Craig Nesbit, spokesman for Exelon's nuclear unit. "I'd say a lot of ears would perk up, if that happened."
TXU wants two to five new reactors, but that is subject to change. TXU's directors accepted a $32 billion buyout offer in February from a private-equity group led by Kolhberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group. If TXU is taken private, the new owners might alter TXU's investment plan. As part of that agreement, TXU agreed to cut back on its planned construction of coal-fired plants, unpopular with local residents and environmentalists.
NRG, of Princeton, N.J., wants to add two 1,350-megawatt reactors to its South Texas Project, which has two units currently, at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion apiece. Exelon, of Chicago, is hunting for a site able to meet tough criteria for safety, water and transmission access. It expects to have narrowed possibilities to two sites by summer. Because Texas is poorly interconnected with other states and electricity demand is rising briskly, the state will need much more generation in coming years unless it embraces conservation measures.
TXU's pact with Mitsubishi, announced last month or after the buyout, could face bumps. Mitsubishi's reactor design -- the U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor -- hasn't been certified for U.S. use, unlike reactors from General Electric Co. and from Westinghouse, controlled by a consortium led by Japan's Toshiba Corp.
Nor does TXU have permission to build yet. Both Mitsubishi and TXU say they are working on the necessary applications to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 and 2008, respectively. TXU wants a new reactor in operation in 2015.
NRG is the furthest along. Executives say they will have an application for a construction and operating license ready to submit to the NRC this autumn -- one of the first nationally -- that will rely on GE's advanced boiling-water reactor approved by the NRC a decade ago and now being updated. NRG hopes for an in-service date of 2014.
NRG Chief Executive David Crane says he isn't worried about overbuilding in Texas because he thinks a shortage of skilled laborers will slow construction projects to a pace that will let the market absorb additions. His firm is moving to capture federal incentives estimated at $250 million to $400 million annually.
TXU says its goal is to build reactors at a 30% discount, per unit of capacity, to what rivals spend. That is the same goal it espoused last year when it announced plans to build 11 coal-fired plants. The TXU claim has led to some skepticism by rivals, who view it as a publicity stunt. TXU says it will achieve savings through "lean manufacturing" techniques, but other firms are expected to do likewise. In the past, some nuclear plants cost 10 times as much as initially projected. Nobody wants to go through that pain again.
The fact that Mitsubishi was the vendor selected by TXU came as something of a surprise. Previously, TXU Chief Executive C. John Wilder had said TXU would tap a Westinghouse design, the AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which received final design certification from the NRC in early 2006. That is the reactor selected for about a dozen of the 20 nuclear projects announced so far in the U.S. Exelon is considering it for Texas but hasn't decided.
One TXU manager said TXU picked the Mitsubishi reactor because "the size made it a better value." TXU expects longer stretches between refueling shutdowns, giving it more power to sell.
It is too early to tell how the public will react, but many environmental groups are rethinking their position on nuclear power. Jim Marston, an attorney for Environmental Defense in Austin, says his group has reservations, "but we think global warming is so severe and the time for action is so short that we're willing to take another look at it."
Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com1
Corrections & Amplifications:
Nuclear reactors designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are one and one-half times as big as existing reactors at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas. This article incorrectly says the Mitsubishi US-APWR units are half as big as the Comanche Peak reactors. In addition, a chart with the article showing the states that generate the most power with nuclear energy should have used the unit of billions of kilowatt-hours instead of the incorrect unit of quadrillions of kilowatt hours.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117616353164164500.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) mailto:rebecca.smith@wsj.com
Expansion Efforts IncludeLarge Plants in Texas;Rivals Likely to Follow
By REBECCA SMITHApril 10, 2007; Page A2
(See Corrections & Amplifications item below.)
TXU Corp. has scrapped plans to build a large fleet of coal-fired power plants in Texas but hasn't altogether abandoned its expansion efforts. Instead, it hopes to build the biggest nuclear-power plants in the U.S.
TXU has shifted its focus to nuclear power at a time when three other organizations -- NRG Energy Inc., Exelon Corp. and Amarillo Power -- have said they, too, may build nuclear plants in Texas. If all the plans materialize, Texas could have more reactors than any other state in a decade's time, built in a deregulated market where missteps would be borne by shareholders or the federal government, not residents and consumers. Before deregulation, ratepayers would have been on the hook for any blunders by the power companies and might have had to pay higher electric bills as a result.
Texas could provide a proving ground for the expected nuclear renaissance because developers will proceed only if the economics appear bulletproof. That is because utilities in Texas no longer have monopoly territories. If customers don't like one supplier's price, they can pick another.
Nuclear power has gained favor because it doesn't rely on fuels that emit global-warming gases, like coal, or have volatile pricing. But cost overruns and accidents in decades past put development on the back burner until recently. Nuclear energy provides roughly 19% of the nation's power; coal provides about half.
At 1,700 megawatts apiece, the reactors selected by TXU, designed and manufactured by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd., of Japan, would be half as big in terms of capacity as the Westinghouse Electric Co. reactors at TXU's Comanche Peak nuclear plant, 80 miles southwest of Dallas. Company officials hope economies of scale will render the reactors capable of making electricity more cheaply than other reactors.
Executives for Mitsubishi said they believe their plants can be built in the U.S. for $1,500 per kilowatt of capacity, about 40% less than some other industry estimates, giving customers a shorter period of time before their investment is in the black. "It's at the low end of what everyone has been talking about," said Craig Nesbit, spokesman for Exelon's nuclear unit. "I'd say a lot of ears would perk up, if that happened."
TXU wants two to five new reactors, but that is subject to change. TXU's directors accepted a $32 billion buyout offer in February from a private-equity group led by Kolhberg Kravis Roberts & Co. and TPG, formerly Texas Pacific Group. If TXU is taken private, the new owners might alter TXU's investment plan. As part of that agreement, TXU agreed to cut back on its planned construction of coal-fired plants, unpopular with local residents and environmentalists.
NRG, of Princeton, N.J., wants to add two 1,350-megawatt reactors to its South Texas Project, which has two units currently, at an estimated cost of $3.5 billion apiece. Exelon, of Chicago, is hunting for a site able to meet tough criteria for safety, water and transmission access. It expects to have narrowed possibilities to two sites by summer. Because Texas is poorly interconnected with other states and electricity demand is rising briskly, the state will need much more generation in coming years unless it embraces conservation measures.
TXU's pact with Mitsubishi, announced last month or after the buyout, could face bumps. Mitsubishi's reactor design -- the U.S. Advanced Pressurized Water Reactor -- hasn't been certified for U.S. use, unlike reactors from General Electric Co. and from Westinghouse, controlled by a consortium led by Japan's Toshiba Corp.
Nor does TXU have permission to build yet. Both Mitsubishi and TXU say they are working on the necessary applications to submit to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in 2007 and 2008, respectively. TXU wants a new reactor in operation in 2015.
NRG is the furthest along. Executives say they will have an application for a construction and operating license ready to submit to the NRC this autumn -- one of the first nationally -- that will rely on GE's advanced boiling-water reactor approved by the NRC a decade ago and now being updated. NRG hopes for an in-service date of 2014.
NRG Chief Executive David Crane says he isn't worried about overbuilding in Texas because he thinks a shortage of skilled laborers will slow construction projects to a pace that will let the market absorb additions. His firm is moving to capture federal incentives estimated at $250 million to $400 million annually.
TXU says its goal is to build reactors at a 30% discount, per unit of capacity, to what rivals spend. That is the same goal it espoused last year when it announced plans to build 11 coal-fired plants. The TXU claim has led to some skepticism by rivals, who view it as a publicity stunt. TXU says it will achieve savings through "lean manufacturing" techniques, but other firms are expected to do likewise. In the past, some nuclear plants cost 10 times as much as initially projected. Nobody wants to go through that pain again.
The fact that Mitsubishi was the vendor selected by TXU came as something of a surprise. Previously, TXU Chief Executive C. John Wilder had said TXU would tap a Westinghouse design, the AP1000 pressurized water reactor, which received final design certification from the NRC in early 2006. That is the reactor selected for about a dozen of the 20 nuclear projects announced so far in the U.S. Exelon is considering it for Texas but hasn't decided.
One TXU manager said TXU picked the Mitsubishi reactor because "the size made it a better value." TXU expects longer stretches between refueling shutdowns, giving it more power to sell.
It is too early to tell how the public will react, but many environmental groups are rethinking their position on nuclear power. Jim Marston, an attorney for Environmental Defense in Austin, says his group has reservations, "but we think global warming is so severe and the time for action is so short that we're willing to take another look at it."
Write to Rebecca Smith at rebecca.smith@wsj.com1
Corrections & Amplifications:
Nuclear reactors designed by Mitsubishi Heavy Industries are one and one-half times as big as existing reactors at the Comanche Peak nuclear power plant in Texas. This article incorrectly says the Mitsubishi US-APWR units are half as big as the Comanche Peak reactors. In addition, a chart with the article showing the states that generate the most power with nuclear energy should have used the unit of billions of kilowatt-hours instead of the incorrect unit of quadrillions of kilowatt hours.
URL for this article:http://online.wsj.com/article/SB117616353164164500.html
Hyperlinks in this Article:(1) mailto:rebecca.smith@wsj.com
Monday, March 26
Austin Power: In Quest for Cleaner Energy, Texas City Touts Plug-In Car
Mayor's Unusual Plan Links Wind, Batteries;Pitching Auto Makers
By JOHN J. FIALKAMarch 26, 2007; Page A1
(Posted by Cyrus)
AUSTIN, Texas -- Of all the plans cooked up by cities to combat pollution and global warming, the one hatched here is among the most ambitious -- and, some say, one of the more quixotic.
Mayor Will Wynn is pushing a new version of the electric car called the plug-in, which runs almost entirely on electricity and has a big rechargeable battery. But that's not all. Mayor Wynn envisions the parked electric cars plugging into a network operated by the city's utility, which would then use the powerful car batteries as a big storage system from which to draw power during peak demand.
Roger Duncan, deputy manager of Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility, dreamed up the scheme three years ago after the mayor ordered him to get more electricity from "green" sources, especially from wind. Austin Energy already got 6% of its power from wind, but wind production peaked at night, when electricity demand was low. Mr. Duncan needed more clean power during hot days, when demand was high.
If there were enough plug-ins around Austin, Mr. Duncan figured, he could buy more wind-generated electricity, sell it to plug-in owners at night, then buy some of it back during the day from cars sitting in parking lots equipped with special sockets.
With concern about climate change on the rise, interest in renewable energy sources is moving from the fringe to the mainstream. Some utilities will buy extra power that their customers produce by home solar panels. These days, seemingly far-fetched plans like Austin's are drawing a level of support that would have been unlikely just a few years ago.
Austin, a city of 719,000 and the capital of Texas, is becoming one of the nation's biggest promoters of plug-ins. To give the market a push, it has launched a campaign -- called Plug-In Partners -- to line up people to buy the cars when they reach the market. Organizers say they've secured 8,000 pledges from individuals and organizations around the country to buy one when they're introduced.
The mayors of 50 major cities, several environmental groups and hundreds of utilities have endorsed the campaign, and many are intrigued by the power-storing concept. In California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, or BART, is looking into setting up a similar system for tapping into electric-car batteries in commuter parking lots, and several large utilities are studying the concept.
Although Mr. Duncan's 8,000 pledges are dwarfed by the 16 million vehicles sold annually in the U.S., both General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. have said in recent months that they plan to develop plug-ins and bring them to market. Their intention is to try to tap growing consumer demand for nongasoline-powered vehicles -- not to provide power storage for utilities. Other car makers also have expressed interest. GM spokesman Greg Martin says Mr. Duncan's effort played a part in the decision.
President Bush, in his last two State of the Union addresses, has cited plug-in cars as a promising alternative to gas-powered ones. Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would provide a tax credit to partially offset the cost of buying the vehicles when they become available.
Big hurdles remain. The cars require expensive lithium-ion batteries that haven't been perfected. Production of plug-ins is at least three to five years off, and experts say the cars could cost $50,000.
"Plug-ins will have a niche market," says Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry. "They're certainly not going to replace the family car."
Austin's plan to use the plug-in batteries as a power-storage network also requires additional work. Mr. Duncan will have to devise financial incentives, such as cheaper parking or discounted power, to induce car owners to allow Austin Energy to buy back extra power from their batteries. The city will have to install a computer-monitoring system to make sure the utility doesn't leave car owners without enough battery juice.
Mr. Duncan has found his most enthusiastic backers in the electric-utility business. Shifting some of the nation's vehicles from gasoline to electricity, these people say, would curb pollution and reduce reliance on imported oil -- and would make utilities more profitable and efficient. The Electric Power Research Institute, an industry group, has spent years researching and touting plug-ins, and supports efforts to use their batteries to store extra power. Utilities, which use thousands of vehicles, would likely be the first big buyers of the vehicles, the group says.
The idea of tapping the electricity stored in car batteries -- called vehicle-to-grid power, or V2G -- originated with Willett Kempton, an electrical engineer and associate professor at the University of Delaware. He came up with the idea in the late 1990s after he learned that electric cars require large batteries and that most cars sit parked most of the day.
"I said to myself, 'Wait a minute, this is a big storage system,' " Dr. Kempton recalls. In a 1997 paper, he and economist Steven Letendre detailed how electric cars, using computer-controlled connections, could draw power from the electric grid at times and pump it back into the grid at other times. Much of the software and hardware needed to do this, Dr. Kempton discovered, already existed. But car makers thought the idea was crazy, he says.
In 2001, Dr. Kempton went to San Dimas, Calif., where AC Propulsion was developing one-of-a-kind prototypes for electric cars, including a roadster called the Tzero. He and Alan Cocconi, the founder of the company, conducted an experiment using a two-way charging system that Mr. Cocconi had developed. The car's special lithium-ion battery was drawing power from a wall socket. With a laptop computer, the two men directed the electricity to move the other way -- from the car into the power line. The car's powerful battery generated more than enough electricity to temporarily meet the modest needs of the small company.
Electric cars first appeared in the 1890s. But they were overshadowed within 20 years by gasoline-powered cars, which were cheaper and had unlimited range. In the 1990s, concerns about reliance on imported oil and about climate change rekindled interest. Hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, which married electric drive systems with small gasoline engines -- but don't have to be plugged in -- have come to market and proven popular. But GM canceled its $1 billion drive to market an electric car, the EV1, in 2003 after California dropped a regulation requiring auto makers to sell some.
Austin takes pride in both its environmental record and its quirkiness. Austin Energy's Mr. Duncan, 59 years old, once raised money for local antinuclear campaigns by producing concerts starring Willie Nelson and other local musicians. These days, Austin Energy is part owner of a nuclear plant, and Mr. Duncan considers such plants part of the solution to global warming because they don't generate the pollutants that coal-burning ones do. The utility already uses more wind-generated power than any other major utility does, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. "This global-warming problem is so severe that we've got to use everything we have to fight it," he says.
Mr. Duncan concluded that plug-in vehicles would be especially useful in Texas, where wind-turbine "farms" in the western part of the state now supply the cheapest electricity. He figured he could sell the wind energy to plug-in owners at night, and during the day buy back extra power to help cool homes and office buildings.
To make the plan work, electric cars would have to plug in during the day at parking lots equipped with computer-monitored plugs. Dr. Kempton and other V2G devotees have written about existing technology that can track how much power utilities drain from each battery, so that too much isn't removed and car owners can be credited.
As Mr. Duncan saw it, the battery power could supplant dirtier energy generated by coal-fired plants and more expensive power from natural-gas-fueled facilities. The bottom line, he concluded, would be cleaner air for Austin and, assuming several thousand plug-in customers, $27 million more in annual electricity sales for Austin Energy.
But Mayor Wynn and Mr. Duncan quickly discovered that pushing plug-ins wasn't easy. Hardly
anyone knew what they were talking about. At the moment, only a few hundred plug-in vehicles exist. Some are custom-made experimental cars; others are conventional hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid that have been converted using kits, a process that car makers discourage.
Conventional hybrids, which average 40 to 60 miles a gallon, are propelled by both electric motors and small gasoline engines, which also keep the batteries charged. Plug-ins have much bigger batteries and are propelled solely by electric motors, with their smaller gasoline engines serving only to recharge batteries that run down on the road. Because they can run most or all of the day on electric power, they can travel more than 100 miles per gallon of gasoline.
In 2005, Austin's city council launched a public-awareness campaign about plug-ins. More than 11,000 residents signed petitions calling on auto makers to produce them, and local government agencies and businesses signed pledges to buy as many as 600.
Early on, Mr. Duncan met with some car-company officials in Washington to urge them to make plug-ins. "I didn't get a no, or anything. There was just plain silence," he recalls. "Finally, one of them asked me why was Austin doing this. I explained, and there was more silence."
In 2006, Austin's city council ponied up $1 million to mount a national campaign to drum up support. Mr. Duncan hit the road with a PowerPoint presentation, telling audiences that the cost of driving a plug-in car was comparable to paying 56 cents a gallon for gasoline.
Mayor Wynn, who headed the energy committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, rounded up endorsements from fellow mayors in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He lobbied the U.S. head of Toyota during a meeting in New York City. Mr. Duncan pitched farm groups, emphasizing that the plug-in's auxiliary motor could be made to run mainly on ethanol or biodiesel fuel.
Some environmental groups have been leery of the campaign, worried that utilities would want to use coal-fired plants, rather than clean energy sources, to power plug-ins.
Technical challenges need to be overcome. Developing the plug-in battery "is the biggest show stopper, if you want to call it that," says Ahmad Pesaran, a battery expert at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Plug-ins need big lithium-ion batteries, 200- to 300-pound versions of the ones used in many laptop computers. The batteries have to store 100 times as much power as conventional car batteries and at least five times as much as batteries in current hybrids. Batteries for prototype plug-ins, Mr. Pesaran says, run $15,000 to $20,000 apiece. Plug-ins won't be commercially viable, he says, until the battery costs are cut by 75%.
A joint government-industry research program could help reduce the cost, as could economies of scale from mass production, he says. While plug-ins might reduce dependence on imported oil, they'd require imported copper, nickel and cobalt, and lithium-ion technology currently dominated by Japan, South Korea and China.
Optimists predict that plug-ins will be in showrooms within three to five years. It's likely to take longer for utilities to be able to tap the extra power stored in plug-in batteries.
Mr. Duncan says he's willing to wait. During a four-year stint on Austin's city council, he sometimes practiced a Tibetan form of Buddhism during fights between pro-environment and pro-business members. "He meditates a lot and remains a completely calm person," says Jim Marston, director of the Texas office of Environmental Defense, a New York-based nonprofit group. "I don't think I've ever seen him raise his voice."
The vehicle-to-grid technology that utilities would need is slowly taking shape. In California, utilities are introducing computer-driven "smart meters" that can be set to run appliances, such as washing machines, at night, when rates are lower. A plug-in family car sitting in the garage could be one of those appliances, says Sven Thesen, an engineer who is exploring electric-drive systems for PG&E Corp. in San Francisco.
This two-way process could be used on the nation's electric-power grid, according to a study released in January by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The national grid has enough spare capacity at night to fuel as many as 180 million electric cars, which is equivalent to 84% of the nation's current automobile fleet, the study says. Fuel for cars powered by electricity would cost customers only about 30% as much as fuel for gasoline-powered cars, the study estimates.
Auto makers haven't said when plug-ins will reach market, but Mayor Wynn says Austin's City Council has already set aside $1 million to fund rebates for the first 1,000 residents to buy plug-ins. The city intends to change building codes to require plugs in municipal parking lots, with Internet connections to Austin Energy. After that, the mayor explains, "we'll be able to start harvesting parking garages."
-- Mike Spector contributed to this article.
By JOHN J. FIALKAMarch 26, 2007; Page A1
(Posted by Cyrus)
AUSTIN, Texas -- Of all the plans cooked up by cities to combat pollution and global warming, the one hatched here is among the most ambitious -- and, some say, one of the more quixotic.
Mayor Will Wynn is pushing a new version of the electric car called the plug-in, which runs almost entirely on electricity and has a big rechargeable battery. But that's not all. Mayor Wynn envisions the parked electric cars plugging into a network operated by the city's utility, which would then use the powerful car batteries as a big storage system from which to draw power during peak demand.
Roger Duncan, deputy manager of Austin Energy, the city-owned electric utility, dreamed up the scheme three years ago after the mayor ordered him to get more electricity from "green" sources, especially from wind. Austin Energy already got 6% of its power from wind, but wind production peaked at night, when electricity demand was low. Mr. Duncan needed more clean power during hot days, when demand was high.
If there were enough plug-ins around Austin, Mr. Duncan figured, he could buy more wind-generated electricity, sell it to plug-in owners at night, then buy some of it back during the day from cars sitting in parking lots equipped with special sockets.
With concern about climate change on the rise, interest in renewable energy sources is moving from the fringe to the mainstream. Some utilities will buy extra power that their customers produce by home solar panels. These days, seemingly far-fetched plans like Austin's are drawing a level of support that would have been unlikely just a few years ago.
Austin, a city of 719,000 and the capital of Texas, is becoming one of the nation's biggest promoters of plug-ins. To give the market a push, it has launched a campaign -- called Plug-In Partners -- to line up people to buy the cars when they reach the market. Organizers say they've secured 8,000 pledges from individuals and organizations around the country to buy one when they're introduced.
The mayors of 50 major cities, several environmental groups and hundreds of utilities have endorsed the campaign, and many are intrigued by the power-storing concept. In California, the Bay Area Rapid Transit System, or BART, is looking into setting up a similar system for tapping into electric-car batteries in commuter parking lots, and several large utilities are studying the concept.
Although Mr. Duncan's 8,000 pledges are dwarfed by the 16 million vehicles sold annually in the U.S., both General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp. have said in recent months that they plan to develop plug-ins and bring them to market. Their intention is to try to tap growing consumer demand for nongasoline-powered vehicles -- not to provide power storage for utilities. Other car makers also have expressed interest. GM spokesman Greg Martin says Mr. Duncan's effort played a part in the decision.
President Bush, in his last two State of the Union addresses, has cited plug-in cars as a promising alternative to gas-powered ones. Legislation has been introduced in Congress that would provide a tax credit to partially offset the cost of buying the vehicles when they become available.
Big hurdles remain. The cars require expensive lithium-ion batteries that haven't been perfected. Production of plug-ins is at least three to five years off, and experts say the cars could cost $50,000.
"Plug-ins will have a niche market," says Red Cavaney, president of the American Petroleum Institute, which represents the oil industry. "They're certainly not going to replace the family car."
Austin's plan to use the plug-in batteries as a power-storage network also requires additional work. Mr. Duncan will have to devise financial incentives, such as cheaper parking or discounted power, to induce car owners to allow Austin Energy to buy back extra power from their batteries. The city will have to install a computer-monitoring system to make sure the utility doesn't leave car owners without enough battery juice.
Mr. Duncan has found his most enthusiastic backers in the electric-utility business. Shifting some of the nation's vehicles from gasoline to electricity, these people say, would curb pollution and reduce reliance on imported oil -- and would make utilities more profitable and efficient. The Electric Power Research Institute, an industry group, has spent years researching and touting plug-ins, and supports efforts to use their batteries to store extra power. Utilities, which use thousands of vehicles, would likely be the first big buyers of the vehicles, the group says.
The idea of tapping the electricity stored in car batteries -- called vehicle-to-grid power, or V2G -- originated with Willett Kempton, an electrical engineer and associate professor at the University of Delaware. He came up with the idea in the late 1990s after he learned that electric cars require large batteries and that most cars sit parked most of the day.
"I said to myself, 'Wait a minute, this is a big storage system,' " Dr. Kempton recalls. In a 1997 paper, he and economist Steven Letendre detailed how electric cars, using computer-controlled connections, could draw power from the electric grid at times and pump it back into the grid at other times. Much of the software and hardware needed to do this, Dr. Kempton discovered, already existed. But car makers thought the idea was crazy, he says.
In 2001, Dr. Kempton went to San Dimas, Calif., where AC Propulsion was developing one-of-a-kind prototypes for electric cars, including a roadster called the Tzero. He and Alan Cocconi, the founder of the company, conducted an experiment using a two-way charging system that Mr. Cocconi had developed. The car's special lithium-ion battery was drawing power from a wall socket. With a laptop computer, the two men directed the electricity to move the other way -- from the car into the power line. The car's powerful battery generated more than enough electricity to temporarily meet the modest needs of the small company.
Electric cars first appeared in the 1890s. But they were overshadowed within 20 years by gasoline-powered cars, which were cheaper and had unlimited range. In the 1990s, concerns about reliance on imported oil and about climate change rekindled interest. Hybrids such as the Toyota Prius, which married electric drive systems with small gasoline engines -- but don't have to be plugged in -- have come to market and proven popular. But GM canceled its $1 billion drive to market an electric car, the EV1, in 2003 after California dropped a regulation requiring auto makers to sell some.
Austin takes pride in both its environmental record and its quirkiness. Austin Energy's Mr. Duncan, 59 years old, once raised money for local antinuclear campaigns by producing concerts starring Willie Nelson and other local musicians. These days, Austin Energy is part owner of a nuclear plant, and Mr. Duncan considers such plants part of the solution to global warming because they don't generate the pollutants that coal-burning ones do. The utility already uses more wind-generated power than any other major utility does, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. "This global-warming problem is so severe that we've got to use everything we have to fight it," he says.
Mr. Duncan concluded that plug-in vehicles would be especially useful in Texas, where wind-turbine "farms" in the western part of the state now supply the cheapest electricity. He figured he could sell the wind energy to plug-in owners at night, and during the day buy back extra power to help cool homes and office buildings.
To make the plan work, electric cars would have to plug in during the day at parking lots equipped with computer-monitored plugs. Dr. Kempton and other V2G devotees have written about existing technology that can track how much power utilities drain from each battery, so that too much isn't removed and car owners can be credited.
As Mr. Duncan saw it, the battery power could supplant dirtier energy generated by coal-fired plants and more expensive power from natural-gas-fueled facilities. The bottom line, he concluded, would be cleaner air for Austin and, assuming several thousand plug-in customers, $27 million more in annual electricity sales for Austin Energy.
But Mayor Wynn and Mr. Duncan quickly discovered that pushing plug-ins wasn't easy. Hardly
anyone knew what they were talking about. At the moment, only a few hundred plug-in vehicles exist. Some are custom-made experimental cars; others are conventional hybrids like the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid that have been converted using kits, a process that car makers discourage.
Conventional hybrids, which average 40 to 60 miles a gallon, are propelled by both electric motors and small gasoline engines, which also keep the batteries charged. Plug-ins have much bigger batteries and are propelled solely by electric motors, with their smaller gasoline engines serving only to recharge batteries that run down on the road. Because they can run most or all of the day on electric power, they can travel more than 100 miles per gallon of gasoline.
In 2005, Austin's city council launched a public-awareness campaign about plug-ins. More than 11,000 residents signed petitions calling on auto makers to produce them, and local government agencies and businesses signed pledges to buy as many as 600.
Early on, Mr. Duncan met with some car-company officials in Washington to urge them to make plug-ins. "I didn't get a no, or anything. There was just plain silence," he recalls. "Finally, one of them asked me why was Austin doing this. I explained, and there was more silence."
In 2006, Austin's city council ponied up $1 million to mount a national campaign to drum up support. Mr. Duncan hit the road with a PowerPoint presentation, telling audiences that the cost of driving a plug-in car was comparable to paying 56 cents a gallon for gasoline.
Mayor Wynn, who headed the energy committee of the U.S. Conference of Mayors, rounded up endorsements from fellow mayors in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, Dallas, Los Angeles and San Francisco. He lobbied the U.S. head of Toyota during a meeting in New York City. Mr. Duncan pitched farm groups, emphasizing that the plug-in's auxiliary motor could be made to run mainly on ethanol or biodiesel fuel.
Some environmental groups have been leery of the campaign, worried that utilities would want to use coal-fired plants, rather than clean energy sources, to power plug-ins.
Technical challenges need to be overcome. Developing the plug-in battery "is the biggest show stopper, if you want to call it that," says Ahmad Pesaran, a battery expert at the Energy Department's National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Plug-ins need big lithium-ion batteries, 200- to 300-pound versions of the ones used in many laptop computers. The batteries have to store 100 times as much power as conventional car batteries and at least five times as much as batteries in current hybrids. Batteries for prototype plug-ins, Mr. Pesaran says, run $15,000 to $20,000 apiece. Plug-ins won't be commercially viable, he says, until the battery costs are cut by 75%.
A joint government-industry research program could help reduce the cost, as could economies of scale from mass production, he says. While plug-ins might reduce dependence on imported oil, they'd require imported copper, nickel and cobalt, and lithium-ion technology currently dominated by Japan, South Korea and China.
Optimists predict that plug-ins will be in showrooms within three to five years. It's likely to take longer for utilities to be able to tap the extra power stored in plug-in batteries.
Mr. Duncan says he's willing to wait. During a four-year stint on Austin's city council, he sometimes practiced a Tibetan form of Buddhism during fights between pro-environment and pro-business members. "He meditates a lot and remains a completely calm person," says Jim Marston, director of the Texas office of Environmental Defense, a New York-based nonprofit group. "I don't think I've ever seen him raise his voice."
The vehicle-to-grid technology that utilities would need is slowly taking shape. In California, utilities are introducing computer-driven "smart meters" that can be set to run appliances, such as washing machines, at night, when rates are lower. A plug-in family car sitting in the garage could be one of those appliances, says Sven Thesen, an engineer who is exploring electric-drive systems for PG&E Corp. in San Francisco.
This two-way process could be used on the nation's electric-power grid, according to a study released in January by the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory. The national grid has enough spare capacity at night to fuel as many as 180 million electric cars, which is equivalent to 84% of the nation's current automobile fleet, the study says. Fuel for cars powered by electricity would cost customers only about 30% as much as fuel for gasoline-powered cars, the study estimates.
Auto makers haven't said when plug-ins will reach market, but Mayor Wynn says Austin's City Council has already set aside $1 million to fund rebates for the first 1,000 residents to buy plug-ins. The city intends to change building codes to require plugs in municipal parking lots, with Internet connections to Austin Energy. After that, the mayor explains, "we'll be able to start harvesting parking garages."
-- Mike Spector contributed to this article.
Wednesday, March 14
Start-Up Fervor Shifts to Energy in Silicon Valley
SAN FRANCISCO, March 13 — Silicon Valley’s dot-com era may be giving way to the watt-com era. Out of the ashes of the Internet bust, many technology veterans have regrouped and found a new mission in alternative energy: developing wind power, solar panels, ethanol plants and hydrogen-powered cars. [Click here for full article]
Monday, February 26
Energy-saving bulbs near "tipping point"
AMSTERDAM, Netherlands
European light bulb makers are close to an agreement in principle to work together on phasing out energy-wasting incandescent bulbs for the consumer market, the chief executive of Royal Philips Electronics NV's lighting division said Monday.
[Click here for the full article]
Posted by Cyrus
European light bulb makers are close to an agreement in principle to work together on phasing out energy-wasting incandescent bulbs for the consumer market, the chief executive of Royal Philips Electronics NV's lighting division said Monday.
[Click here for the full article]
Posted by Cyrus
Sunday, February 25
Lennar to install solar panels in all new Bay Area homes
East Bay Business Times - February 23, 2007
Lennar Corp. plans to install solar power systems in all its new homes built in the Bay Area.
The Miami-based home builder's Lennar Bay Area Homebuilding division made the pledge at the opening of its Milano community in San Ramon this week. The Milano homes are equipped with a roof-integrated solar electric system from PowerLight, a subsidiary of SunPower Corp.
Lennar and SunPower are part of the New Solar Homes Partnership, launched by the California Energy Commission, a 10-year, $350 million program that encourages the use of solar power in new residential home construction.
Under the partnership, the energy commission will work with developers and builders to create a self-sustaining market in which home buyers demand highly energy-efficient solar homes.
[Click here to read the full article]
Posted by Cyrus
Lennar Corp. plans to install solar power systems in all its new homes built in the Bay Area.
The Miami-based home builder's Lennar Bay Area Homebuilding division made the pledge at the opening of its Milano community in San Ramon this week. The Milano homes are equipped with a roof-integrated solar electric system from PowerLight, a subsidiary of SunPower Corp.
Lennar and SunPower are part of the New Solar Homes Partnership, launched by the California Energy Commission, a 10-year, $350 million program that encourages the use of solar power in new residential home construction.
Under the partnership, the energy commission will work with developers and builders to create a self-sustaining market in which home buyers demand highly energy-efficient solar homes.
[Click here to read the full article]
Posted by Cyrus
TXU buyout may scrap new coal plants
HOUSTON (Reuters) -- A proposed buyout of TXU Corp., Texas' largest electric company, may include an agreement with an environmental group for the Dallas-based firm to scrap plans to build eight of 11 coal plants in the state, the Natural Resources Defense Council said Saturday.
[for entire article click here]
Posted by Mike
[for entire article click here]
Posted by Mike
Thursday, February 22
Minnesota raises bar on renewable energy use
ST. PAUL, Minn. - Minnesota put its faith in a future fueled by renewable energy Thursday as the governor signed a law requiring utilities to generate a quarter of their power from renewable sources such as wind, water and sun by 2025. Considering where Minnesota stands now — about half the power produced in the state is from coal, and only 5 percent from renewable sources — the move is the most aggressive in the country, analysts say. [for original article click here]
Monday, February 12
The New Math of Alternative Energy
(Posted by Cyrus)
Does going green finally make economic sense?
By REBECCA SMITH
February 12, 2007; Page R1
Wall Street Journal
The numbers are starting to look promising. For years, the big criticism of alternative energy was cost: It was too expensive compared with energy based on traditional fuels like coal and natural gas.
Even though the fuel was often free -- such as wind or the sun's rays -- alternative-energy producers had to plow lots of money into finding the best way to capture that energy and convert it into electricity. Fossil-fuel producers, on the other hand, could draw on billions of dollars in infrastructure investments and decades of know-how.
Now the equation is showing significant signs of change. Costs are falling for some alternative-energy sources, driven by new technology and renewed development interest.
Alternative energy still can't compete with fossil fuels on price. But the margins are narrowing, particularly since oil and gas prices have been rising. The math looks even more favorable if you consider the environmental cost of fossil fuels -- which most purely economic calculations don't.
Alternative energy still faces obstacles to mainstream success. Many projects need government or utility subsidies and incentives to be viable. Generating costs have risen recently for some types of renewable resources, pushed by higher materials prices, labor costs and demand. Supply chains are prone to hiccups, and wind and solar-energy resources need backup sources of power to compensate on windless or cloudy days.
For all its promise, relatively little electricity currently comes from renewable sources, other than hydropower. According to the Energy Information Administration, renewable resources produced 2.3% of the U.S. electricity supply in 2005. Bio-mass was responsible for 1.5%, wind for 0.44%, geothermal for 0.36% and solar power for a scant 0.01%.
Ed Crane takes a look at how New York City is trying to merge affordable housing with environmental stewardship by sponsoring a green housing development. In contrast, coal-fired generation produced 49.7% of U.S. electricity supplies in 2005, followed by nuclear power at 19.3%, natural gas at 19.1%, hydropower at 6.5% and oil-fired generation at 3%.
But alternative energy stands to gain a larger share in years to come. Driven by concerns about global warming and energy security -- as well as the rising cost of electricity generated by fossil fuels -- regulators are forcing electric utilities to broaden their resource mix to include more "green" power.
At the same time, the federal government is requiring oil companies to blend more plant-based biofuels like ethanol with gasoline. Equipment makers are expanding their production lines, which should ease recent shortages of some materials -- like the polysilicon used in solar panels -- and take pressure off prices.
Here's a look at the economics of the various alternative-energy sources -- how much they cost now and what developments could make them more competitive.
[Click here for original article...]
Does going green finally make economic sense?
By REBECCA SMITH
February 12, 2007; Page R1
Wall Street Journal
The numbers are starting to look promising. For years, the big criticism of alternative energy was cost: It was too expensive compared with energy based on traditional fuels like coal and natural gas.
Even though the fuel was often free -- such as wind or the sun's rays -- alternative-energy producers had to plow lots of money into finding the best way to capture that energy and convert it into electricity. Fossil-fuel producers, on the other hand, could draw on billions of dollars in infrastructure investments and decades of know-how.
Now the equation is showing significant signs of change. Costs are falling for some alternative-energy sources, driven by new technology and renewed development interest.
Alternative energy still can't compete with fossil fuels on price. But the margins are narrowing, particularly since oil and gas prices have been rising. The math looks even more favorable if you consider the environmental cost of fossil fuels -- which most purely economic calculations don't.
Alternative energy still faces obstacles to mainstream success. Many projects need government or utility subsidies and incentives to be viable. Generating costs have risen recently for some types of renewable resources, pushed by higher materials prices, labor costs and demand. Supply chains are prone to hiccups, and wind and solar-energy resources need backup sources of power to compensate on windless or cloudy days.
For all its promise, relatively little electricity currently comes from renewable sources, other than hydropower. According to the Energy Information Administration, renewable resources produced 2.3% of the U.S. electricity supply in 2005. Bio-mass was responsible for 1.5%, wind for 0.44%, geothermal for 0.36% and solar power for a scant 0.01%.
Ed Crane takes a look at how New York City is trying to merge affordable housing with environmental stewardship by sponsoring a green housing development. In contrast, coal-fired generation produced 49.7% of U.S. electricity supplies in 2005, followed by nuclear power at 19.3%, natural gas at 19.1%, hydropower at 6.5% and oil-fired generation at 3%.
But alternative energy stands to gain a larger share in years to come. Driven by concerns about global warming and energy security -- as well as the rising cost of electricity generated by fossil fuels -- regulators are forcing electric utilities to broaden their resource mix to include more "green" power.
At the same time, the federal government is requiring oil companies to blend more plant-based biofuels like ethanol with gasoline. Equipment makers are expanding their production lines, which should ease recent shortages of some materials -- like the polysilicon used in solar panels -- and take pressure off prices.
Here's a look at the economics of the various alternative-energy sources -- how much they cost now and what developments could make them more competitive.
[Click here for original article...]
Solar Power Heats Up
(Posted By Cyrus)
State and Federal IncentivesHelp Lure Consumers
By STEPHANIE I. COHEN SPECIAL TO THE WALL STREET JOURNALFebruary 10, 2007; Page B2
The race is on to install solar-energy panels in American homes, thanks in part to generous government incentives such as California's $3.2 billion solar initiative, which was launched in January.
Only about 1/30th of 1% of all the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by solar power. But recent technological advances and a continued decline in the price of solar-power systems are prompting homeowners to ask if this renewable-energy source is worth the investment.
Other states with promising residential solar markets include New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Texas. Analysts say these states are becoming more attractive through generous state rebates, incentives offered by utilities willing to buy back solar power from residents in order to meet state renewable-energy requirements, and natural elements such as the days of available sunshine.
On the federal level, homeowners are eligible for a one-year tax credit for 30% of the cost of a residential solar-power system up to $2,000 through 2008.
But do residential solar-power systems, also called photovoltaic or PV systems, make economic sense? The answer hinges on how much and how fast solar energy can cut a homeowner's utility bills, and on how long it takes to pay off the initial investment to add solar panels to a home.
Consumers considering solar power tend to focus on the upfront costs. Solar-energy systems for homes begin around $25,000, but can go higher depending on the size of a house and the amount of power generated, says Rhone Resch, president of the Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents manufacturers.
In New Jersey, a 10-kilowatt residential solar-power system is estimated to cost $77,500. After a state rebate of $38,000 and a $2,000 federal tax credit, the out-of-pocket cost to the homeowner is $37,500. That will provide an estimated annual savings of $1,500 on electricity bills.
[Click Here To Read Original Article...]
State and Federal IncentivesHelp Lure Consumers
By STEPHANIE I. COHEN SPECIAL TO THE WALL STREET JOURNALFebruary 10, 2007; Page B2
The race is on to install solar-energy panels in American homes, thanks in part to generous government incentives such as California's $3.2 billion solar initiative, which was launched in January.
Only about 1/30th of 1% of all the electricity produced in the U.S. is generated by solar power. But recent technological advances and a continued decline in the price of solar-power systems are prompting homeowners to ask if this renewable-energy source is worth the investment.
Other states with promising residential solar markets include New Jersey, New York, Arizona and Texas. Analysts say these states are becoming more attractive through generous state rebates, incentives offered by utilities willing to buy back solar power from residents in order to meet state renewable-energy requirements, and natural elements such as the days of available sunshine.
On the federal level, homeowners are eligible for a one-year tax credit for 30% of the cost of a residential solar-power system up to $2,000 through 2008.
But do residential solar-power systems, also called photovoltaic or PV systems, make economic sense? The answer hinges on how much and how fast solar energy can cut a homeowner's utility bills, and on how long it takes to pay off the initial investment to add solar panels to a home.
Consumers considering solar power tend to focus on the upfront costs. Solar-energy systems for homes begin around $25,000, but can go higher depending on the size of a house and the amount of power generated, says Rhone Resch, president of the Washington-based Solar Energy Industries Association, which represents manufacturers.
In New Jersey, a 10-kilowatt residential solar-power system is estimated to cost $77,500. After a state rebate of $38,000 and a $2,000 federal tax credit, the out-of-pocket cost to the homeowner is $37,500. That will provide an estimated annual savings of $1,500 on electricity bills.
[Click Here To Read Original Article...]
Monday, February 5
Can Ethanol Get A Ticket To Ride?
As Its Popularity Increases, Railroads, Producers Strain To Get the Biofuel to Market.
By ILAN BRAT and DANIEL MACHALABAFebruary 1, 2007; Page B1
Like the corn it's made from, ethanol is largely a product of the small-town Midwest, distilled in places like Nevada, Iowa, and shipped to market by train.
Now, as ethanol producers ramp up production, they are straining railroads already taxed by burgeoning shipments of coal, containers and grain. And they worry that the transportation crunch could make it difficult for ethanol, despite its surge of support in Washington, to compete with energy rivals.
Rail and transportation logistics for the ethanol industry is "the mountain to climb...as we go forward," says Ken Eriksen, a senior vice president of Informa Economics Inc., an agricultural and renewable fuels consulting firm in Memphis, Tenn.
[Click here to read full article...]
By ILAN BRAT and DANIEL MACHALABAFebruary 1, 2007; Page B1
Like the corn it's made from, ethanol is largely a product of the small-town Midwest, distilled in places like Nevada, Iowa, and shipped to market by train.
Now, as ethanol producers ramp up production, they are straining railroads already taxed by burgeoning shipments of coal, containers and grain. And they worry that the transportation crunch could make it difficult for ethanol, despite its surge of support in Washington, to compete with energy rivals.
Rail and transportation logistics for the ethanol industry is "the mountain to climb...as we go forward," says Ken Eriksen, a senior vice president of Informa Economics Inc., an agricultural and renewable fuels consulting firm in Memphis, Tenn.
[Click here to read full article...]
Monday, January 29
Austin Will Not Meet 2007 Solar Goal
New plans in the works to boost use of solar power.
By Kate AlexanderAMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, January 29, 2007
The high price of harnessing the sun's rays means that Austin Energy will not reach an early milestone in its long-term solar power plan.
But the city-owned utility is laying a foundation in the desert of West Texas to expand its supply of solar power. The utility's 2003 strategic plan set a goal of building the capacity for 100 megawatts of solar power by 2020 and reaching a 15-megawatt threshold in 2007.
Right now, a little more than one megawatt of the utility's total capacity of 2,900 megawatts comes from the sun, enough to generate electricity for about 750 homes.
[Click here to view the original article]
By Kate AlexanderAMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Monday, January 29, 2007
The high price of harnessing the sun's rays means that Austin Energy will not reach an early milestone in its long-term solar power plan.
But the city-owned utility is laying a foundation in the desert of West Texas to expand its supply of solar power. The utility's 2003 strategic plan set a goal of building the capacity for 100 megawatts of solar power by 2020 and reaching a 15-megawatt threshold in 2007.
Right now, a little more than one megawatt of the utility's total capacity of 2,900 megawatts comes from the sun, enough to generate electricity for about 750 homes.
[Click here to view the original article]
Does nuclear power now make financial sense?
On Sept. 16, 1954, in a speech to a group of science writers, Adm. Lewis L. Strauss, then head of the agency now known as the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, made a bold prediction. The potential for peaceful uses of nuclear energy was so great, he said, that electricity produced by nuclear power plants would one day be “too cheap to meter.” Over the coming decades, the economics of nuclear power turned out to be more problematic. [click here for full article]
Sunday, January 28
Your hydrogen car is closer (and better looking) than you think...
Get in Honda’s FCX sedan, go for a ride and as you would expect from any Honda product, there is little drama: Put your foot to the drive-by-wire throttle pedal and off you go. It zips to 100 miles per hour, and it stops just as well. FCX gets a reported 270 miles on a full tank. There is sufficient room in back for two large adults, and its lines are almost avant-garde. [click here for full article]
Thursday, January 25
Fort Bend power plant planned: Hunton Energy would use fuel that produces low emissions
By TOM FOWLERCopyright 2007 Houston Chronicle
TOOLS
A Houston company plans to build a major power plant in Fort Bend County that it says will run on an oil refining byproduct and produce low greenhouse gas emissions.
The $2.4 billion project being developed by Hunton Energy, a unit of heating and air-conditioning contractor Hunton Group, is planned for a 200-acre site near Smithers Lake and the massive W.A. Parish power plant.
The proposed 1,200-megawatt plant, known as Lockwood Road, will be designed to produce electricity for less money per kilowatt-hour than a coal plant, Hunton Energy President Rocky Sembritzky said, thanks to a long-term contract with oil refiner Valero Energy to buy petroleum coke — a relatively inexpensive refining byproduct — to fuel the plant.
[Click here to read original article.]
TOOLS
A Houston company plans to build a major power plant in Fort Bend County that it says will run on an oil refining byproduct and produce low greenhouse gas emissions.
The $2.4 billion project being developed by Hunton Energy, a unit of heating and air-conditioning contractor Hunton Group, is planned for a 200-acre site near Smithers Lake and the massive W.A. Parish power plant.
The proposed 1,200-megawatt plant, known as Lockwood Road, will be designed to produce electricity for less money per kilowatt-hour than a coal plant, Hunton Energy President Rocky Sembritzky said, thanks to a long-term contract with oil refiner Valero Energy to buy petroleum coke — a relatively inexpensive refining byproduct — to fuel the plant.
[Click here to read original article.]
Battery Breakthrough? A Texas company says it can make a new ultracapacitor power system...
Battery Breakthrough?
A Texas company says it can make a new ultracapacitor power system to replace the electrochemical batteries in everything from cars to laptops.
A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a "game changing" energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.
EEStor's ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to "replace the electrochemical battery" in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.
The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety...
[To read original article click here].
A Texas company says it can make a new ultracapacitor power system to replace the electrochemical batteries in everything from cars to laptops.
A secretive Texas startup developing what some are calling a "game changing" energy-storage technology broke its silence this week. It announced that it has reached two production milestones and is on track to ship systems this year for use in electric vehicles.
EEStor's ambitious goal, according to patent documents, is to "replace the electrochemical battery" in almost every application, from hybrid-electric and pure-electric vehicles to laptop computers to utility-scale electricity storage.
The company boldly claims that its system, a kind of battery-ultracapacitor hybrid based on barium-titanate powders, will dramatically outperform the best lithium-ion batteries on the market in terms of energy density, price, charge time, and safety...
[To read original article click here].
Monday, January 22
Shell issues Technology Report
Royal Dutch Shell plc today issues its first Technology Report, an overview of 27 advanced technologies - some delivering benefits today and others that will shape the future of the energy industry.
The Shell Technology Report shows how the company is developing and applying technology to meet the tremendous challenge of securing the world's growing energy needs in an environmentally responsible way.
The Shell Technology Report shows how the company is developing and applying technology to meet the tremendous challenge of securing the world's growing energy needs in an environmentally responsible way.
CEOs call for action against climate change
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The chief executives of 10 major corporations and business groups, on the eve of the State of the Union address, urged President Bush on Monday to support mandatory reductions in climate-changing pollution and establish reduction targets. [click here to read entire article]
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