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

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.

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]

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

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

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

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]

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...]

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...]

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...]

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]

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]

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]

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.]

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].

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.

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]

Boeing Claims Solar Record

Aerospace conglomerate’s Spectrolab subsidiary claims new solar cell gets better than 40 percent efficiency. [click to read article]

December 6, 2006

Cleantech Smackdown: Algae vs. Soybeans

Industry waters say the ‘Holy Grail’ of feedstocks for biofuels could be years from reality.
[click to read article]
December 7, 2006
By Jennifer Kho

Future of Wind Up In The Air?

Wind turbines at 10,000 feet? Next thing you'll tell me is that they floated up there on balloons. It sounds crazy, but there are companies trying to commercialize airborne wind turbines. Check out Magenn [click here] for more.