ALTERNATIVE ENERGY BLOG - Solar-Energy-Wind-Power.com

100% Carbon Free Electricity by 2018

2008-07-17T21:04:00.001-07:00

We need a massive increase in electricity generated from alternative energy.

Here's Al Gore's vision:

Here's one way to achieve 100% Carbon Free Electricity

Thoughts?

Why are Oil Prices So High?

2008-06-01T05:14:00.000-07:00

Why are oil prices so high? This is the question being asked with increasing frequency in many countries around the world. Some would have you believe that the blame should be placed on "greedy oil companies", "Arabs", "speculators" or "OPEC".

While speculation is happening with investors and hedge funds looking to commodities for returns that are not being seen in the stock or property markets, there are underlying fundamental reasons which mean prices are likely to stay high.

Last November the International Energy Agency released its annual World Energy Outlook report. Traditionally the agency has projected energy supply based on projected demand.

The agency has projected that India and China will lead the increase in energy demand making 45% of total growth. Oil imports for these two countries combined will grow to 19.1m barrels a day by 2030 compared to 5.4m barrels a day in 2006.

Demand for oil will grow to 116m barrels a day by 2030, an increase of 37% on 2006 oil usage. In this report back in November the International Energy Agency warned the price of a barrel of oil could rise to $159 by 2030 due to high growth in demand. This estimate now looks very conservative.

The reality is there have been some fundamental changes.

Before if the United States went into recession, this would lower demand for oil and prices fell. Now with China, India and other rapidly developing nations demanding ever increasing quantities of oil a recession in America is unlikely to lead to falling oil prices like it did in the past. Were per capita oil use in China and India to reach the same level as in the United States, this would fully deplete the world's remaining proven oil reserves in just 15 years and prospective resources, in 26 years.

The other fundamental change is that there is little excess production capacity. While Saudi Arabia would like the world to think it could increase production if it deemed it "beneficial" to the stability of the market, this is just an illusion of control. The reality of the OPEC cartel is that while sticking to production quotas may have benefited the group as a whole, individual countries have always "cheated" consistently and repeatedly exceeded their production quotas. In the past this has lead to significant downward pressure on prices.

This time the signs are that the world is at or near its maximum oil production capacity. Does this mean Peak Oil has arrived? In my opinion - not yet.

New production will continue to come online in the coming years which is likely to raise worldwide maximum oil production. So we haven't reached peak production... yet.

What we may be experiencing is what Robert Rapier calls Peak Oil Lite, with the early effects of Peak Oil arriving. Demand is rising faster than supply. In its July 2007 report the International Energy Agency predicts OPEC spare capacity will decline to minimal levels by 2012. The lack of spare capacity means, that price volatility increases with price spikes occurring in the event of supply disruption.

So what we are likely to experience prior to Peak Oil is Peak Export. According to Eugene Linden in BusinessWeek when it comes to oil our biggest concern should be the amount of "global oil available for export".

According to the Export Land Model developed by Jeffrey Brown - exports decline faster than production declines, the rate at which exports decline accelerates over time and only a small percentage of a producing country's production is exported following peak production.

According to a report in last week's Wall Street Journal, fresh information from the US Department of Energy shows the quantity of petroleum products shipped by the top exporting countries in 2007 fell 2.5% last, while prices increased 57%.

Net exports from major producers Mexico, Norway and Venezuela have fallen in every year since 2005.

With the rise in prices individual producing countries in OPEC had every incentive to "cheat" and yet exports fell. The influx of wealth into the Middle East has led to a boom in domestic demand. It seems that Middle Easterners aspire to the same gas guzzlers and energy rich lifestyles as Americans. Soaring profits from high-price crude have fuelled a boom in oil demand in Saudi Arabia and across the Middle East, leaving less oil for export. In 2007 the output of the region's six largest oil exporters - Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, Iran, Kuwait, Iraq and Qatar - fell by 544,000 barrels a day. During the same period domestic demand increased by 318,000 barrels a day, leading to a decrease in net exports of 862,000 barrels a day.

A recent report from CIBC World Markets also indicates that as much as 40% of Saudi Arabia's expected production increases will be offset by rising internal demand by 2010, and Iranian exports will decline by more than 50% for similar reasons.

Indonesia recently withdrew from OPEC as it has gone from being a net exporter of oil, to a net importer of oil.

The Wall Street Journal report comments that the fall in oil exports "defies traditional market logic." Perhaps that should be blind faith that OPEC nations can turn on the taps if prices rise "too high". It seems even oil traders are unsure what is driving prices as according to one market analyst quoted by BBC News "we really don't know what the fundamentals are doing at any point in time." Much of the information on fundamental factors in the oil market is not public or freely available.

In simple terms demand is outstripping supply and prices are rising. This is how the market is supposed to work.

Other fossil fuel prices tend to follow oil. IEA's latest World Energy Outlook forecasts coal is set to rocket in demand, increasing by 73% from 2005 to 2030. This means coal's share in global energy demand will rise from 3% to 28%. It is predicted by 2015 America will go from being a net coal exporter to a net coal importer. Coal is the most carbon intensive way of generating electricity and this report predicts that rather than becoming a smaller part of the energy mix, coal is predicted to play a much bigger role.

With a presidential election this year in the United States and gas prices at record levels, oil and energy in general is set to be a key issue. There is the opportunity to have a serious debate about energy - a fundamental part of our lives which has been taken for granted for far too long. However the responses from the presidential candidates so far have not been encouraging.

In 2002 McCain declared that ethanol is a "giveaway to special interests in corn-growing states as the expense of the rest of the country." In 2003 he put out a press release saying "Ethanol does nothing to reduce fuel consumption, nothing to increase our energy independence, nothing to improve air quality." He went on to describe it as "highway robbery." Hillary Clinton signed a letter saying that there is "no sound public policy reason for mandating the use of ethanol".

McCain, Clinton and Obama all seem to have drunk the ethanol Kool Aid and seen the bright white light that has converted them to E85. In 2008 none of these presidential candidates seems to have anything negative to say about ethanol.

In 2006 Barack Obama along with four Republican and one Democrat senator introduced the Coal-To-Liquid Fuel Promotion Act.

There have also been accusations made against "Big Oil", "OPEC" (including by British Prime Minister Gordon Brown) and suggestions that a "gas tax holiday" or "windfall tax" would fix everything. It's always easier to find a scapegoat.

One bandaid being suggested from some quarters, is to open up drilling in the United States in areas which are currently off limit. This would give access to 19 billion barrels of oil enough to meet US needs for approximately two-and-a-half-years or world demand for just over 7 months at current rates of consumption.

To quote the head of the International Energy Agency:
"All countries must take vigorous, immediate and collective action to curb runaway energy demand.

The next ten years will be crucial for all countries... We need to act now to bring about a radical shift in investment in favor of cleaner, more efficient and more secure energy technologies."

Further Reading:
The Ethanol Scam in "Gusher of Lies"

You can read more on what the energy policies of McCain, Clinton and Obama should be in this Open Letter to the Next President.

House Passes 15% Renewable Energy by 2020

2007-08-06T05:57:00.000-07:00

The United States House of Representatives has passed an Energy Bill requiring utility companies to produce 15 per cent of their electricity from renewable sources such as wind and solar power by 2020.

The Bill passed in the House on a 241-172 vote, despite strong opposition from electric utility companies and the White House, which has threatened to veto the measure. Twenty six Republicans voted in favor and nine Democrats opposed the bill.

A senior analyst for Lazard Capital Markets described the bill as "a significant positive step towards creating a cohesive energy policy."

The renewable electricity standard applies only to investor-owned utilities and exempts rural electric cooperatives, municipal utilities, the Tennessee Valley Authority and the state of Hawaii from the mandate.

The bill also calls for stronger energy efficiency standards for appliances and lighting and incentives for building more energy-efficient buildings. The bill bans the sale of 100-watt incandescent light bulbs by 2012 and requires that all bulbs be 300% more efficient than today’s ordinary bulbs by 2020. The bill also includes a range of loan guarantees, federal grants and tax breaks for alternative energy programs. These include building biomass factories, research into making ethanol from wood chips and switch grass and producing better batteries for hybrid cars.

The bill will repeal a tax break for oil companies from 2004, and another tax break relating to income from foreign oil production. Critics of the two tax breaks called them loopholes that the industry had taken advantage of.

The 786-page House energy bill does not include an increase in fuel-efficiency standards for cars and light trucks. That issue, as well as whether to force major increases in the use of E85 fuel as a substitute for gasoline, were left to be negotiated when the House bill is merged with energy legislation the Senate passed in June.

"There's a war going on against energy from fossil fuels" said Representative Ralph Hall, Republican-Texas. Representative Joe Barton predicted the bill "isn't going to go anywhere" because President Bush would veto it if it reaches his desk.

In a somewhat surprising comment from the White House, they accused the bill of making "no serious attempts to increase our energy security". This defies commonsense as by producing more electricity from domestic renewable sources rather than with imported natural gas by definition increases the United States' diversity and security of energy supply.

As with all legislation the details (such as a subsidy for installing gas pumps for expensive and inefficient E85 fuel) need to be checked carefully. Regardless a 15% renewable energy standard is good news.

Brief Analysis of Climate Change Report

2007-05-07T03:41:00.000-07:00

Here’s my brief analysis of and comments on the recent IPCC working group report on Mitigation of Climate Change released from Bangkok, Thailand as it relates to alternative energy.

Energy Efficient & Net Zero Energy Buildings

Energy efficiency and renewable energy are rightly held to be a key ways to reduce carbon emissions. Buildings, both residential and commercial, are a significant emitter of greenhouse gasses.

Solar hot water heating can be used to provide up to 70% of annual hot water needs for homes, it can also be used in commercial buildings that require significant hot water such as gyms and nursing homes.

Geothermal (ground source heat pumps) is a lesser known source of alternative energy which can be used to both heat and cool buildings in a highly efficient way and is suited both to residential and commercial buildings. It can also be used to provide hot water. As bore holes and/or trenches need to be dug for geothermal to be installed, it is particularly suited to new builds.

Electricity can be provided from renewable sources via the grid (e.g. wind power) or off-grid it can be generated using for example solar photovoltaic panels (PV).

The use of insulation, natural light & shade, low energy lighting, motion detection lighting etc. can further reduce energy usage.

As noted in the report appropriate building codes can minimise carbon emissions from buildings.

Alternative Energy = Energy Security

The report notes that nations seeking energy security (security of supply) can help achieve it using alternative energy. Nations lacking their own fossil fuels resources should be concerned with the negative impact reliance on fossil fuels can have on their economies. By increasing utilisation of alternative energy resources, nations can increase their energy security.

Transport Policy & Fossil Fuels Subsidies

I was disappointed by the report’s lack of vision on transport. It correctly notes that past increases in efficiency in internal combustion engine (ICE) design have been used to increase power rather than fuel efficiency meaning vehicle carbon emissions have continued to climb. This trend has even continued into hybrid vehicles with performance being favoured over fuel economy (e.g. Lexus hybrid cars). Mention was made of making increased use of biofuels, which can actually significantly increase carbon emissions (see this post on Palm Oil Biodiesel). The glaring emission, is the need for a fundamental shift from the internal combustion engine to electric vehicles. I got the impression the report in trying to build consensus was avoiding treading on any toes. Perhaps that’s why it recommended only reducing rather than eliminating the subsidisation of fossil fuels.

Research and Development + Technology Transfer

India and China will soon be at the top of the list of carbon emitting nations. The report wrongly suggests that because many new power stations are being built in developing nations, they will be using new energy efficient designs and technologies. While new power stations may be more efficient than those built decades ago, for cost reasons less efficient technology is usually used (for more details see this post on Clean Coal). The report notes there have been low levels of investment in research and development. Investment is needed now and much more should be done to aid the transfer of the most energy efficient technologies between nations.

IPCC working group report on Mitigation of Climate Change (pdf link)

Seeing Red: Palm Oil Biodiesel

2007-02-05T03:08:00.000-08:00

In the enthusiasm for renewable energy and taking care of our environment, it is easy to assume that making fuel from plants (biofuel) must be by definition "green" and renewable. However when it comes to energy issues, easy assumptions can be dangerous assumptions. In previous years some politicians and advocates in Europe have made these assumptions without sufficient thought and research and secured government subsidies for companies importing palm oil from South East Asia to make biodiesel for transport and for use in electricity generation.

The demand for palm oil in Europe has soared in the last two decades, first for use in food and cosmetics, and more recently for fuel. This cheap oil can be used for a variety of purposes, including as an ingredient about 10 percent of supermarket products, from chocolate to toothpaste.

Promoted by hundreds of millions of dollars in national subsidies, the Netherlands quickly became the leading importer of palm oil in Europe, taking in 1.7 million tons in 2006, nearly double the previous year.

Now it is increasingly difficult to ignore the mounting body of scientific evidence that palm oil plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia, rather than preserving the environment are in fact actively destroying it. By subsidising biofuels, European governments have artificially raised demand for palm oil in Europe, and accelerated the destruction of huge areas of rainforest in South East Asia. Palm oil plantations are often expanded by draining and burning peatland, releasing enormous amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. As a result Indonesia has become the world's third largest emitter of carbon dioxide, ranked after the United States and China, according to a study released in December by researchers from Wetlands International and Delft Hydraulics, both based in the Netherlands.

The 2003 European Union Biofuels Directive, which required all member states aim to have 5.75 percent of transportation run on biofuel in 2010, is now under review. In the Netherlands, the data from Indonesia has prompted the government to suspend palm oil subsidies.

In Europe a small amount of rapeseed and sunflower oil is used to make diesel fuel, however increasingly plant oils are being imported from the tropics, since there is simply not enough plant matter or land for biofuel production at home. So while the billions of dollars in European subsidies appear to have reduced carbon emissions in European countries by importing biofuels, this has been achieved by exporting them and increasing their impact many times by the permanent destruction of rainforest and peatland in South East Asia.

For anyone familiar with how the ethanol industry works in the United States, they will be unsurprised to learn that the palm oil industry was promoted long before there was adequate research. Biofuel Watch, an environment group in Britain, now says that "biofuels should not automatically be classed as renewable energy." It supports a stop on subsidies until more research can determine if various biofuels in different regions are produced in a nonpolluting manner. The group also suggests that all emissions arising from the production of a biofuel be counted as emissions in the country where the fuel is actually used, providing a clearer accounting of environmental costs.

BEFORE: rainforest on the Indonesian part of the island of Borneo

Friends of the Earth estimates that 87 percent of the deforestation in Malaysia from 1985 to 2000 was caused by new palm oil plantations. In Indonesia, the amount of land devoted to palm oil has increased 118 percent in the last eight years.

AFTER: a palm oil plantation

Peat is an organic sponge composed of 90 percent water that stores huge amounts of carbon, which when it is drained emits huges amounts of carbon into the atmosphere.

Even worse peatland is often burned to clear ground for plantations. The Dutch study estimated that the draining of peatland in Indonesia releases 660 million tons of carbon a year into the atmosphere and that fires contributed 1.5 billion tons annually.

Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
the haze has covered much of SE Asia for extended periods of time since 1997

The total is equivalent to 8 percent of all global emissions caused annually by burning fossil fuels, the researchers said. "These emissions generated by peat drainage in Indonesia were not counted before," according to a Wetlands spokesperson. "It was a totally ignored problem."

While for the moment the widescale destruction of rainforests in South East Asia continues, hopefully the palm oil story will serve as a cautionary tale which will lead to much better informed policymaking and behaviour. Politicians must resist the urge to rush to legislate and subsidise in order to bask in the glow of being seen to be "doing something" while a number of so-called green companies profit from taxpayer subsidised destruction. Energy policy must make sense from a scientific (i.e. it should be energy positive), economic and environmental viewpoint. However the continued promotion of ethanol and coal-to-liquids calls for continued skepticism.

City Utilities End Coal Fired Electricity Contracts in California

2006-11-24T15:52:00.000-08:00

In what is hopefully the start of a new trend, several Southern California cities have decided not to renew long-term contracts for coal-fired electricity, choosing instead to turn to cleaner sources of electricity.

City officials told Utah-based Intermountain Power Agency they wouldn't be renewing their contracts for coal-fired power, which expire in 2027, and would instead be looking for alternative energy sources.

"It's a huge change," said Mayor Todd Campbell of Burbank, one of the cities that decided not to renew its contract.

The cities are Pasadena, Glendale, Riverside and Anaheim. They join the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power, which has already choosen not to renew the contract with Intermountain. Currently coal fired electricity makes up a significant percentage of their power, for example Pasadena Water & Power says that the Intermountain plant is 65 percent of our energy.

Intermountain's general manager Reed Searle said the company had worked for three years on the renewals and was now looking at ways to modernize its plants to bring them into compliance with California's greenhouse gas legislation that takes effect on the first of January.

The cities' decision came after increased pressure from politicians and environmentalists.

Senator Dianne Feinstein wrote a letter to an umbrella group for the cities last week saying she was "shocked and dismayed" by an initial decision last month by Burbank to renew the contract.

Phyllis Currie, general manager of Pasadena Water & Power said the utilities wanted to explain how important Intermountain was to California cities. "It's a serious issue when you tell us to walk away from that," she said.

The move could put Southern California in the forefront nationally of the commercial use of alternative energy in coming years.

Intermountain has extended its renewal offer for power from the plants until 2023 from the previous deadline of May 2007 in the hope state regulators will let utility officials renew the contracts if greenhouse gases are reduced. Electricity utilities are starting to feel the pressure for "clean" coal.

$402m Tidal Energy Plant For New Zealand

2006-11-22T16:30:00.000-08:00

New Zealand’s Northern Advocate reports that a US $402 million (NZ $600m) proposal to generate electricity with 200 tidal-powered turbines submerged at the entrance to the Kaipara Harbour could get under way next year. The harbour is one of the largest in the world. It’s a broad shallow harbour covering an area of over three hundred square miles and has more than two thousand miles of shoreline. It has a two and a half mile wide entrance to the Tasman Sea halfway along its length.

Although officially called a harbour, the Kaipara is rarely used for shipping, owing to the treacherous tides and bars at its mouth. For this reason, no large settlements lie close to its shores, although small communities dot its coastline.

Crest Energy has applied to the Northland Regional Council for resource consent to set the 22m-tall turbines on the seafloor along about 8km of the 30m deep main channel at the harbour entrance.

The tidal energy is expected to get the turbines generating 200 megawatts of power - enough for 250,000 homes. The turbines, shielded from fish, would sit on heavy concrete pylons and be at least 5m from the surface at low tide. Leisure craft and barges could pass over them, but would be restricted from anchoring in the turbine area.

Two 30km-long cables 125mm in diameter would feed electricity into the national grid.

Crest Energy claims the size and commercial scale of the Kaipara project would make it the largest of its kind in the world.

If the project gets the green light, possibly around the middle of next year, the company plans to raise about $50 million to begin building turbines.

Buy This Alternative Book

2006-11-01T11:11:00.000-08:00

Here at the Alternative Energy Blog, while not underestimating the scale of the challenges facing the world, we like to talk about solutions. Another website that has consistently done this is World Changing, which started as an award winning group blog, became a non-profit and has now also become a 600 page book.

This firecracker of a book is about the future of the world, full of big ideas on how humanity, technology and our environment can interact in a positive way. If you are tired of pessimistic doom and gloom tomes on the state of the world and the business as usual messages of many of our political & business leaders, this is the book for you. It is a optimistic read, overflowing with ideas for change.

What are you waiting for?

Go buy World Changing and instead of the Barefoot Contessa, let's see barefoot solar engineers on the top sellers list.

Clean Coal or Dirty Coal?

2006-10-03T01:51:00.000-07:00

When President Bush said “America is addicted to oil”, he could also have said that America is addicted to coal.

Most Americans are not aware of the sheer scale of current coal use in the United States. Over 50% of electricity is generated from coal with 20 pounds of coal per a person being burnt every day to generate electricity.

While questions are increasingly being raised about remaining oil and gas reserves, we are assured that there is plenty of coal left to burn. Indeed in a talk to a meeting of builders and contractors at the Capital Hilton on June 8, 2005 President Bush asked the audience,
"Do you realize we've got 250 million years of coal?"

Hopefully readers will spot this obvious gaffe. The figure quoted by the coal industry is 250 years of reserves, not 250 million years. The energy illiteracy of the average person is worrying enough, but in our political leadership it is a real cause for concern.

There are an estimated one trillion tons of recoverable coal in the world, by far the largest reserve of fossil fuel left on the planet. The United States has over 25% of the world’s recoverable coal reserves. An important point to remember when considering how many years of coal we have left is that these figures are based on current rates of consumption and do no take into account growing demand for electricity. Since 1980 coal use for power generation has increased by over 75%.

A good percentage of the coal that’s left is too dirty to be burned in conventional power plants and much of its buried in inconvenient places. In 1974 the USGS published an estimate of the recoverable reserve base at 243 billion tons. This however failed to take into account real world restrictions on mining: state and national parks, roads, towns, proximity to railroads, coal quality, losses during mining and geologic limitations. When these are factored in less than 50% of the coal estimated as “recoverable” in the 1974 study was available for mining. This fails to taken into account how much is economically recoverable at market prices. In a 1989 study by the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Kentucky, at $30 a ton 22% of coal was economically recoverable. The author Tim Rohrbacher wrote “a strong argument can be made that traditional coal producing regions may soon be experiencing resource depletion problems far greater and much sooner than previously thought”.

Recently there has been a rise in suggestions that America should replace its addiction to oil, with diesel fuel made from American coal. There is currently in place a Coal-to-Liquids Tax Credit of $0.50/gallon in place until 2023. The idea has been around for a long while, in the second world war it was used by the Germans to make Nazi oil from coal when their supply of normal gasoline was cut off. I remember when I first started researching peak oil I realised after awhile if things got bad that coal rich countries might turn to making Nazi oil in desperation when petroleum depletion started to bite. Of course calls to start building Coal to Liquids plants aren’t proof that petroleum depletion is well advanced, but I hardly see it as a source for optimism.

Fischer-Tropsch pilot plant

You don’t need to be an expert on coal liquefaction to realise that it’s a bad idea as this article on AutoblogGreen shows. It’s expensive, uses lots of water, produces double the carbon dioxide when compared to regular petroleum use and produces diesel when the vast majority of the U.S. car fleet runs on gasoline. Over at the Ergosphere, the Engineer Poet crunches the numbers and compares coal to liquids versus electric vehicles. He calculates that to replace the United States petroleum consumption at current rates would take 214 four billion dollar coal to liquid plants (that’s not far off a trillion dollars in investment) and the mining of an additional one and a half billion tons of coal a year, in addition to the one billion tons already being mined for electricity generation. It should be noted that the high percentage of electricity currently produced from coal is not an argument against electric vehicles, this is something I have covered in detail elsewhere on this blog. Electric motors are inherently more efficient than the internal combustion engine. It is far easier to control emissions from large power plant, than from the exhausts of thousands of cars. Electric vehicles are not reliant on one source of energy and in the longer term polluting non-renewable sources of electricity can be replaced by clean alternative energy.

The coal industry’s promotion of the idea that America has a vast reserve of coal is slowing the transition to clean renewable sources of energy. In addition to tv spots showing child actors extolling the virtues of coal, the industry has spent heavily to get the ear of the political establishment. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Peabody Energy, the world’s largest coal company spent over 5% of its revenues on political contributions, for comparison Exxon Mobil and General Motors spent a fraction of one percent.

In seeming return for such generosity, The Energy Policy Act of 2005 included five billion dollars of subsidies for the coal industry.

Virtually every power plant built in America between 1975 and 2002 was fired by natural gas. However between 1970 and 2000, the amount of coal America used to generate electricity tripled.

Now with natural gas prices rising steeply, U.S. power utilities are expected to build the equivalent of 280 500 megawatt coal-fired electricity power plants between 2003 and 2030. China is already constructing the equivalent of one large coal burning power plant a week with two thirds of energy production coming from dirty coal. 16 of the 20 most polluted cities in the world are in China. India is the third largest producer of coal in the world, also getting over two thirds of its energy from coal. If these new coal plants are built, they will add as much carbon dioxide to the atmosphere as has been released by all the coal burned in the last 250 years.

Acid run off from coal mining

Coal’s sale price may be low, but the true costs of its extraction, processing and consumption are high. Our use of coal leads to ravaged mountains, air pollution from acidic and toxic emissions and fouled water supplies. Coal mining is massively more invasive than oil or gas drilling. Coal burning power plants account for more than two-thirds of sulfur dioxide, 22% of nitrogen oxides, nearly 40% of carbon dioxide and a third of all mercury emissions in the United States. Results of the largest mercury hair sampling project in the U.S. found mercury levels exceeding the EPA’s recommended limit of one microgram of mercury per gram of hair in one in five women of childbearing age tested. Each year coal plants produce about 130 million tons of solid waste, about three times more than all the municipal garbage in the U.S. The American Lung Association calculates that around 24,000 people a year die prematurely from the effects of coal fired power plant pollution.

Techniques for addressing CO2 emissions exist, although the will to quickly implement them lags.

The techniques electric utilities could apply to keep much of the carbon dioxide they produce from entering the atmosphere are known as CO2 capture or geological carbon sequestration. This involves separating the CO2 as it is created and pumping it underground to be stored.

Until recently I wasn’t aware that all the technological components needed for carbon sequestration are commercially ready (according to an article in September’s Scientific American magazine) as they have already been proven in applications unrelated to avoidance of climate change. However integrated systems have yet to be built on a commercial scale.

Capture technologies have been deployed extensively throughout the world both in the manufacture of chemicals (e.g. fertilizer) and in the purification of natural gas. Industry has gained experience with CO2 storage in operations to purify natural gas, principally in Canada, as well as using carbon dioxide to boost oil production, mainly in the United States.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated in 2005 that it is highly likely that geologic locations worldwide are capable of sequestering at least two trillion metric tons of CO2 - more than is likely to be produced by fossil fuel consuming power plants this century.

Carbon sequestration is not without risk. The two main risks are sudden escape and gradual leakage of carbon dioxide. In 1986 at Lake Nyos in Cameroon, Africa carbon dioxide originating from a volcano killed over 1,700 people. However according to IPCC this is unlikely for engineered CO2 storage in carefully selected, deep porous geologic rock formations. In regard to gradual leakage the IPCC estimated in 2005 that in excess of 99% of carbon sequestered is “very likely” to remain in place for at least one hundred years.

Studies indicate that 85%-95% of the carbon in coal could be sequestered using existing power generation technologies.

A key point is that fundamentally different approaches to carbon capture would need to be pursued for power plants using the old pulverised coal technology as opposed to the newer integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). IGCC plants use heat and pressure to cook off impurities in coal and convert it into a synthetic gas, this gas is then burnt in a turbine. These plants are 10% more efficient than conventional plants, consume 40% less water, produce 50% less solid waste and burn almost as cleanly as natural gas plants.

Although building IGCC power plants is slightly more expensive (10%-20%), IGCC is likely to be the most effective and cheapest option for carbon capture.

In an IGCC plant designed to capture CO2 the syngas exiting the gasifier, after being cooled and cleaned of particles, would be reacted with steam to make a gas made up mainly of CO2 and hydrogen. The CO2 would then be extracted and pumped to a storage site. The remaining hydrogen would be burned to generate more power. Captured carbon dioxide can by piped up to several hundred miles to a suitable geologic storage site.

A recent study found that for carbon capture in a saline formation one hundred kilometers from a power plant would cost an additional 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour (over the generation cost of 4.7 cents per kilowatt-hour for a coal IGCC plant that vents carbon dioxide), making a 40% premium. With coal generation costing 6.6 cents for a kilowatt hour, this would make wind power cheaper than coal and with technology advances could also provide a boost to other renewable energy sources (e.g. concentrating solar power).

However electricity producers are rushing to build conventional coal pulverisation power plants, just as they rushed to build coal plants without sulfur scrubbers prior to legislation coming into force. This is short-sighted as it is more expensive, more energy intensive and less effective to attempt to capture carbon from conventional coal power plants. It is highly likely that having built these plants, that the coal industry would expect the taxpayer to foot the bill for the additional expense. Of the one hundred or so plants being planned or under construction in America only a handful use IGCC technology.

Proposed Design for FutureGen

FutureGen, is the Department of Energy financed one billion dollar zero emissions plant intended to turn coal into electricity and hydrogen. Proposed in 2003 and backed by a consortium of coal and electric companies, it is not due to come online until at least 2013. Many in the industry consider this date to be dubious nicknaming the project NeverGen. It is intended to make it look like the coal industry is doing something, while actually doing very little and in the process putting off changing how coal plants are built for a decade or two. Indeed in its Coal Vision report(pdf), the industry does not plan on building “ultra-low emissions” plants on a commerical scale until between 2025 and 2035. According to the report “there is considerable debate about the need to reduce CO2 emissions”. The report also states that “achieving meaningful CO2 reductions would require significant technical advances”.

The report further states “large scale and long term demonstrations of carbon sequestration technologies over a geographically and geologically diverse range of... sites are needed before making any policy decisions concerning carbon management”. The coal industry wants sequestration to be demonstrated not only in the United States but additionally “similar assessments need to be conducted internationally”. In terms of who should pay for these demonstrations the report writes “the government must play a significant role”.

It sounds that if the coal industry has its way, it won’t be using carbon capture for many decades.

Instead of waiting until 2013 or even 2035, the coal industry could be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture now. The rush to build conventional coal pulverisation plants is extremely short sighted as these plants could be operating for the next fifty years or more.

In the first instance I advocate maximising our use of clean renewable energy. At the moment wind power is being used to generate only 0.5% of electricity in the United States. Using existing technology wind power could cost effecively generate a significant portion of many countries electricity supply. Significant sums of money should also be invested in making solar power and wave power more cost effective, as well as investments in energy long shots such as cellulosic ethanol and fusion power. If we are going to continue to use coal as global society as a major source of energy, which seems pretty much inevitable for at least the next few decades in key countries such as the United States, China & India, then we should be building IGCC power plants with carbon capture and retiring existing dirty coal plants now. If there are unforeseen problems with carbon capture, we need to find out now rather than in a few decades time. The coal industry's business as usual attitude is simply not acceptable.

Jeff Goodell in his recent book “Big Coal” concludes, “coal gives us a false sense of security, if we run out of gas and oil, we can just switch over to coal… the most dangerous things about our continued dependence on coal is it preserves the illusion that we don’t have to change our thinking”.

Further Reading:
“Big Coal” by Jeff Goodell
“What to Do About Coal?” in Scientific American September, 2006

Lively Discussion of Coal to Liquids

Coal Vision by the Coal Based Generation Stakeholders Group

Mountaintop Removal

A Quick Guide to Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining

When Will Coal Production Peak?

Plug-In Hybrid Campaign

2006-09-03T00:58:00.000-07:00

I encourage everyone to sign this online plug in hybrid campaign urging automakers to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs). The petition basically says, 'If you build it, we will buy it.' Plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles are key to energy independence and reducing pollution.

Over 40 percent of the generating capacity in the U.S. sits idle or operates at a reduced load overnight, when most PHEVs would be charged. That means tens of millions of plug-ins could be charged every night without the need to build additional electric generation capacity.

According to the California Electric Transportation Coalition that commissioned a study, if automakers begin producing Plug-Ins within the next few years, 2.5 million cars (eight percent of the cars on America's roads) could be Plug-Ins by the year 2020. That's the equivalent of taking as many as 5 million of today's vehicles off the road. Annually that's 11.5 million tons of CO2 which won't be emitted and 1.14 Billion gallons of gasoline would be saved each year. For those concerned about energy security it is definitely a step in the right direction. Less than 2% of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, so using electricity as a transportation fuel would greatly reduce dependence on imported petroleum.

Sign the Plug-In Hybrid Petition

Is Ethanol / E85 Fuel the Solution?

2006-07-26T11:12:00.000-07:00

I've recently received a number of emails calling for me to Kick the Oil Habit by supporting E85 which is a liquid fuel made up of 85% ethanol and 15% regular gasoline. Having previously had my doubts about ethanol I emailed fellow blogger the Engineer Poet seeking his opinion. A large part of this resulting post is based directly on his reply and as such the credit belongs to him.

So is E85 fuel the answer to America's (and the world's) addiction to oil?

E85 fuel is not the solution. It is not even a part of the solution, it is a part of the problem. Here's why, in a nutshell:

All US vehicles can burn 10% ethanol (E10), but the US does not even produce half as much ethanol as universal E10 would require. We make about 5 billion gallons of ethanol, but use 140 billion gallons of gas.

E85 and "flex fuel" is a loophole for the automakers to sell guzzlers without having to pay CAFE penalties. It makes the problem worse. Ending the loophole probably means ending E85, because there is no other reason for it to exist.

Since the best estimate is that every gallon-equivalent of ethanol takes about 4/5 of a gallon-equivalent of other fossil fuel to make it, each gallon of E85 really represents about 0.6 gallons-equivalent of various fossil fuels. Since most flex-fuel vehicles get roughly 2/3 the mileage on E85 as they do on gasoline, they burn about 90% as much fossil energy even at their best.

Even if we can use "cellulosic ethanol" to reduce the inputs of fossil-derived fertilizer and whatnot, we can't make enough no matter what we do. The efficiency of the average gasoline-powered vehicle is about 15%, and we just can't grow enough inputs to make up for throwing 85% of our produced energy away. The most efficient use of biomass is in local combined heat and power plants, not as a feedstock for ethanol.

Low corn prices and high oil prices, and a government subsidy of 51 cents per gallon have fuelled unprecedented growth of the ethanol industry. In the case of the U.S. ethanol industry, fossil fueled trucks ship the fuel halfway across the country from the population sparse corn belt to population and car dense states like California and Texas. Science magazine found only a 13% reduction in CO2 emissions for bioethanol over gasoline (and only 11% for E85 fuel). U.S. government federal records show a single ADM corn processing plant in Clinton, Iowa generated nearly 20,000 tons of pollutants including sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and volatile organic compounds in 2004. The EPA considers an ethanol plant as a "major source" of pollution if it produces more than 100 tons of any one pollutant per year. From an emissions standpoint it is far preferable to drive a fuel efficient gasoline car than a low efficiency flex fuel vehicle running on E85.

E85 fuel is not a solution. It is a distraction, like hydrogen vehicles. Further, every E85 vehicle is also a gasoline-compatible vehicle. It will maintain demand for petroleum as long as it is on the road. If you want to end oil addiction you have to get rid of the things which use it.

E85 ethanol fuel may make a small contribution now, but it is a dead end. If we want to really be free of fossil fuels (including imported oil), we have to re-think things as completely as changing from riding horses to driving motor cars.

Ethanol has already created an addiction of its own. The farmers and agribusiness interests which got into it found it hugely profitable, and they have big investments in its continuation. Even if you developed a better way of using corn today, you'd still have a lot of money lobbying to use it for ethanol, and even force it to be used for ethanol.

This is already a race between technologies which can make us independent of fossil fuel, and technologies which get subsidy money. In that race, the subsidy seems to win every time. At least 43 percent of Archer Daniels Midland's annual profits are from products heavily subsidized or protected by the American government. For every $1 of profit earned by ADM's ethanol operation (the largest in the U.S.), it costs taxpayers $30. If you subsidize a technology which can only replace half our gasoline (and none of our diesel, jet fuel, or anything else), you're probably going to be stuck with it.

A hobbyist wrote an article about his home-built plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV). He published this article in Mother Earth News... in 1978.

We don't need any new technology. We could be building these cars today. Heck, we could have been building them in 1995 (when the CARB ZEV mandate came in)... or maybe even 1985. They would have been crude, but they would have gotten the job done. We can do far better today, of course.

People finally got fed up and started building their own PHEV's out of Toyota Priuses. It's time to quit the excuses, both making them and accepting them.

CAFE regulations utterly failed to contain U.S. motor-fuel consumption. This is not opinion, this is historical fact. Now the E85 fuel campagin wants to do the same thing again, but "reduce" consumption with E85 instead of directly cutting gallons-per-mile. You'll get the same result as before - if driving doesn't cost more, people will continue to drive as much or more.

There are roughly 200 million light-duty vehicles in the USA. One recent news item says that there will be all of 6 million flex-fuel vehicles by 2007. That's a whole 3%.

The average flex-fuel vehicle is a guzzling truck (because they get the biggest CAFE preference from it). If those trucks get 13 MPG on E85, and they drive the national average of 13,000 miles/year, those 6 million vehicles would consume 5.1 billion gallons of ethanol. That's roughly the same as the total production capacity of the nation.

The E85 fuel campaign is currently sponsoring a road trip to highlight the usage of E85, but also the difficulty of driving a car solely on E85 due to its lack of availability.

the electric Tesla Roadster - 250 mile range, one cent a mile, 0-60 in 4 seconds, 130 mph top speed - photo from Autoblog Green

However, had this trip been made in a Tesla Roadster or tZero from AC Propulsion, it could have instead highlighted how EASY it is to get electricity wherever you are... even if you never stop at a filling station! Using non-toxic lithium-ion batteries they have a 250 mile range, charging overnight from an electric outlet.

E85 fuel is a distraction, a diversion, a red herring. Just as the switch to "hydrogen economy" (remember that?) was before it. Both require huge investment, new infrastructure and will not lead to a post-oil economy. The hydrogen economy was promoted principally by both automakers and oil companies as a stalling strategy to avoid having to change the way they currently do business. Oil companies were also aware in the unlikely event that the hydrogen economy did take off (with huge taxpayer subsidies) that they would be supplying hydrogen produced from natural gas which they were already profitting from. The automakers sat around lamenting the fact they couldn’t start to build cars as there are hardly any hydrogen filling stations and the energy companies would not open commercial hydrogen filling stations as there is no demand for them. While appearing to want to do something, both the automakers and energy companies continued for a few more years with business as usual.

The Nissan Armada promoted on the E85 fuel site - with no fuel economy figures indicated

The campaign for E85 fuel is somewhat similar. The automakers are eager to produce flex fuel vehicles which require a relatively cheap modification to the highly profitable gas guzzling SUVs they already produce. By backing E85 fuel they can continue to produce the highly inefficient vehicles while appearing to be green (as seen in GM's Live Green Go Yellow campaign). Car and Driver magazine estimates the CAFE loophole could have saved GM more than $200 million in fines in 2005 alone.

As GM admits the consumer can choose “to operate on gasoline or on a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. So, you can choose the fuel that's best for you. That's good to know, because E85 fuel is not yet widely available.” In other words in the vast majority of cases your new flex fuel vehicle will still be running on regular gas. Charter members of the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition (NEVC), which promotes E85 fuel, when it was set up in June 2000 include GM, DaimlerChrsyler, and Ford.

Meanwhile E85 fuel is also been promoted by organisations such as the National Corn Growers Association, as well as regional and state corn growers organisations, associated agribusinesses and biofuel companies. All of which have a commercial interest in promoting E85 fuel. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, a clearinghouse on political donations, the agribusiness sector has funneled more than $190 million into federal election campaigns since the 2000 election cycle. In the NEVC’s bylaws its purpose is described as to "ensure that as decisions regarding the future of America’s use of alternative forms of transportation fuels are being made, ethanol has a role in the nation’s alternative transportation fuel market and support the expanded use of ethanol" and to "advance legislative proposals" to this effect. This seems to be regardless of whether ethanol/ E85 fuel is the best or is even a good solution to our energy challenges.

As the Engineer Poet points out in this post, burning fuel for transportation is very inefficient way of using energy. Whether you are fed up with the current use of petroleum for transportation for environmental, political or financial reasons E85 fuel is simply not the answer. What we need is a step change, as represented by moving from using gas burning vehicles to electric vehicles.

To encourage this, I urge you to sign this online plug in hybrid campaign asking automakers to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Autoblog Green's exclusive interview with Tesla Motors' chairman

Tesla Roadster Video

Archer Daniels Midland (ADM) - the Largest U.S. Ethanol Producer

Vinod Khosla Debunked

Car and Driver Magazine on the Promise of Energy Independence through Ethanol

USA Today on the Ethanol Debate

Cutting Down Borneo's Rainforests to Make BioFuels

Why Alternative Energy?

2006-07-17T10:00:00.000-07:00

A poll carried carried out for the BBC World Service of nearly 20,000 people from across 19 countries found wide support for alternative energy strategies.

The poll illustrates a perceived triple threat from the way the world produces and uses energy.

Majorities across all 19 countries indicate that citizens fear:

the climate and environment are being harmed
that the global economy will be destabilised
that competition for energy will lead to greater conflict

Some eight out of 10 of those questioned were worried about the threat to the environment. In Australia, Great Britain, Canada and Italy the level of concern topped 90%.

Doug Miller, president of the poll firm GlobeScan, said: "What's fascinating is that in the midst of historically high energy prices and geopolitical tensions, the number one energy concern in every industrialised country we surveyed is the environmental and climate impacts."

Creating tax incentives to encourage the use of alternative energy sources such as wind and solar power found favour with 80% of respondents.

But there was lukewarm support for more nuclear energy to reduce reliance on fossil fuels. On average, 49% were in favour of building more nuclear plants.

Majorities of 60% or more in 18 of the 19 countries polled said they feared energy shortages and prices would destabilise the world economy.

The least concerned was Russia, a major oil and gas producer, which benefits from higher prices.

Both US and EU leaders have warned Russia not to use energy as a tool of foreign policy. Earlier this year, the nation's monopoly, Gazprom, cut off gas supplies to Europe during a price dispute with Ukraine.

Some 73% of those questioned were worried that energy shortages would lead to greater conflict among nations.

In total, 19,579 citizens were interviewed in Australia, Brazil, Canada, Chile, Egypt, France, Germany, Great Britain, India, Israel, Italy, Kenya, Mexico, Philippines, Poland, Russia, South Korea, Ukraine and the US.

Polling was conducted for the BBC World Service by polling firm GlobeScan and its research partners.

Full Article on BBC News

$4b Investment in Wind Power by BP Alternative Energy

2006-07-17T09:15:00.000-07:00

BP is making its first major investment in wind power with a joint venture that will lead to a major expansion of its generating capacity.

The oil company announced it had entered a five-year supply and development agreement involving five wind power projects in the US with Clipper Windpower.

The news sent Clipper shares up 80p, or 28 per cent, to 362.5p in London. The projects, with an anticipated total generating capacity of 2,015 megawatts, are situated in New York, Texas and South Dakota.

BP has also secured a mix of firm and contingent orders of up to 2,250 megawatts of additional Clipper wind turbines in its global wind energy portfolio, the companies said.

BP launched BP Alternative Energy to focus on solar, hydrogen and wind power but its wind operation has up to now been confined to two projects with a combined output of only 31 megawatts.

Steve Westwell, the chief executive of BP Alternative Energy, said: "We believe the Clipper turbine is a breakthrough in reducing the total cost of renewable energy and we are pleased to be the first large customers for this innovative technology."

This is thought to be the biggest single investment in wind power estimated at $4 billion US dollars.

The announcement, came in the same week that the British government published its energy review and a telephone poll found that 79% of respondents thought solar power and 76% wind power were the best investments in electricity generation for the UK.

Alternative Energy Inspires Young Scientists

2006-05-15T01:41:00.000-07:00

In Indianapolis a number of the 1,500 young scientists competing in the International Science and Engineering Fair for $4 million dollars in prizes and scholarships pursued alternative energy innovations.

Seventeen year old Allison Wilson from Stuart, Iowa, won $11,000 in scholarships by making ethanol fuel from prairie grass.

Renewable energy also inspired 17 year old Brian Sutterer of Terre Haute, Indiana, who generated electricity using the difference in temperature above and below ground (geothermal energy).

2006 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

Ethanol Fuel in South Africa

2006-05-14T13:15:00.000-07:00

photo (c) 2005 Julia Freeman

Tumi Makgetla reports in South Africa's Mail & Guardian that while an interest in alternative energy and green politics is often seen as the preserve of the chattering classes, working-class people in Johannesburg's inner city are already using renewable energy in their homes.

On a pavement in Joubert Park in Joburg (how Johannesburg is commonly called), shoppers cluster around Tumelo Ramolefi’s stall exclaiming and asking questions about his products. Ramolefi is not selling the usual inner-city hawker stock of facecloths and socks, or "smileys" (boiled sheep heads) and "runaways" (pigs’ trotters). Instead, it is his display of innovative renewable-energy gadgets that attracts the attention of passers-by, and often turns them into converts to the green-energy cause.

His bestselling items are ethanol gel stoves and lamps, which offer a healthier, safer and more efficient fuel alternative to paraffin or coal fires.

Ethanol gel is a renewable form of energy made by mixing ethanol with a thickening agent and water. The ethanol is extracted through the fermentation and distillation of sugars from sources such as molasses, sugar cane and sweet sorghum or starch crops, like cassava or maize.

Ramolefi sells ethanol gel products and appliances for GreenHeat South Africa, which has branches in Durban, Jo’burg and Cape Town. The stoves and ethanol gel -- produced from sugar cane -- are manufactured in Durban. A two-plate stove sells for R160 (approx. $25 USD) and a lamp for R50 (around $8).

"This stove is number one," said Maria Ndlela, who works in a recycling centre in Joubert Park and has owned her stove for two months. She says it is easy to use and, while paraffin is cheaper than the gel, the gel is more cost-efficient in the long run. Five litres of gel costs about $9.70 and paraffin costs approximately $3.55 for the same amount. "Gel lasts. If you don’t use it too much, five litres of gel takes you a month to use, but five litres of paraffin lasts only three days."

Ndlela says an added attraction of ethanol is that the paraffin price fluctuates. “The price of paraffin is going up and down, up and down with the petrol price,” she said, “So now I’m forgetting about paraffin.”

“What I like about the stove is that it will conquer our unreliable electricity,” said Florah Thulare.

Safety is also a big selling point in favour of ethanol products, particularly for those who use coal or paraffin for heat and cooking. Paraffin stoves, which explode or are easily knocked over, cause fires, and poor ventilation can lead to asphyxiation.

"Coal can actually kill you during the night," says Ramolefi. "In this coming month, we know people are going to die, but there’s no campaign."

Gel fuel burns with a carbon-free flame, so it does not cause respiratory problems such as asthma, which can be caused by emissions from paraffin, coal and wood fuel. The gel also does not produce any smoke or smell.

Gel fuel will not ignite if spilt like gas or paraffin. The gel is non-toxic and thus is not poisonous if swallowed by children. The stoves are designed so they will not fall over if bumped and the stove’s legs allow it to slide when pushed instead of toppling over. Even if an ethanol lamp is overturned, the gel will extinguish the wick.

The stoves are designed for cooking, but about half of his customers buy them as heaters, said Ramolefi.

Ramolefi has sold about 70 stoves in the past eight months and hopes the market will grow and prices will consequently drop, making the stoves more affordable for the poor.

My latest post (July 2006) on Ethanol E85 Fuel

Full article on how ethanol gel is replacing paraffin in South Africa

Austin Energy Excels as #1 Green Energy Electricity Utility in America

2006-04-15T04:00:00.000-07:00

UPDATE: This is a list of the top ten green energy programs in the United States with the latest December 2005 figures and links to these electric utilities. One of the biggest differences we can make is to switch to "green energy" - energy generated from 100% renewable sources. Florida Power & Light is a new entry into the top ten at number four. The company recently announced the construction of the largest solar array in Florida on the site of a closed landfill in Sarasota. The 1,200 photovoltaic solar panels are each about 31 inches wide and 63 inches long. The facility is to be more than 28,000 square feet, or about half the size of a football field. "We sought a location that had a ground site large enough for 250 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels," said Jeff Bartel, FP&L VP of external affairs.

If you live in a part of the United States that is not served by an electric utility on this list please see this Map of Green Energy Providers by State.

As our energy challenges are global I appreciate every assistance in compiling a similar list of renewable energy providers in other countries. Feel free to email or leave a comment.

Returning to the United States, Austin Energy has shown its commitment to renewable energy by topping the list. The U.S. Department of Energy said Austin Energy's Green Choice program sold more than 334 million hours of renewable energy last year.

More than 350 businesses in Austin get their power from renewable sources as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Austin Energy uses electricity from 61 West Texas wind turbines.

Here's the top ten green energy programs in the United States (as of December 2005).

1. Austin Energy -
areas served include Austin, Texas
green energy from Wind Power, Land Fill Gas, Small Hydro -
435 MWh/year

2. Portland General Electric (PGE) -
areas served include Portland, Oregon
green power from existing Geothermal, Wind Power, Small Hydro - 340 MWh/year

3. PacifiCorp - includes Pacific Power and Utah Power
areas served include:
Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, California, Utah, Idaho
green energy from Wind Power, Biomass, Solar Energy -
234 MWh/year

4. Florida Power & Light - green power from Biomass, Wind Power, Solar Energy - 225 MWh/year

5. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) -
green power from Landfill Gas, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 195 MWh/year

6. Xcel Energy -
areas served include: Denver,Colorado; Elkhart, Kansas; Wakefield, Michigan; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Roswell, New Mexico; Fargo, North Dakota; Boise City, Idaho; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Amarillo, Texas; Eau Claire, Wisconsin
green electricity from Wind Power - 148 MWh/year

7. National Grid -
areas served include:
New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Nantucket
green power from Biomass, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 128 MWh/year

8. Basin Electric Power Cooperative (SMUD) -
green power from Wind Power - 114 MWh/year

9. Puget Sound Energy (PSE)-
area served Washington state
green energy from Wind Power, Solar Energy, Biogas -
71 MWh/year

10. OG&E Electric Services -
area served Oklahoma
green electricity from Wind Power - 64 MWh/year

(source: NREL)

MWh/year = million kWh/year rounded down

List of Green Energy Providers by State

One of the single biggest ways we as individuals can encourage the use of alternative energy and help aid the transition to a post fossil fuel age is to buy electricity partly, or preferably completely, generated using alternative energy.

Switching your electricity utility provider may be as simple as requesting a form or filling one in online. That's exactly how I switched to 100% renewable energy (generated mainly from wind power with some solar power and small scale hydro thrown into the mix). Renewable energy options are available throughout the U.K. and in many other countries.

To find out if you can switch to renewable energy in your area look on your search engine of choice for "green energy", "green power" or "green electricity". You may also need to add your location to the search. If your local utility doesn't provide a renewable energy option yet, email or call them and ask why.

Original News 8 Austin Article

Green-e Certified Electricity Products

Mixed Signals & Federal Funding for Alternative Energy Research

2006-03-09T11:22:00.000-08:00

There have definitely been some mixed signals on alternative energy research recently. At the same time President Bush's State of the Union address called for a 22 percent increase in federal spending to develop alternative energies, dozens of staffers and contractors for the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in Golden, Colorado, were being laid off.

The disconnect was a political embarrassment for the president, so federal officials restored the laboratory's funding, rehiring the workers who had been laid off just in time for President Bush’s scheduled speech at the NREL.

In his speech the President acknowledged the confusion, “I recognize that there has been some interesting mixed signals when it comes to funding," President Bush said.

This comes at a time when a new national public opinion survey demonstrates overwhelming public support in the United States for government policies and investments that will support development of alternative energy sources. The survey of 1,000 registered voters was conducted by Public Opinion Strategies of Alexandria, VA, for the Energy Future Coalition. The survey’s findings included:

According to the survery there is nearly unanimous support for a national goal of having 25% of the United States domestic energy needs met by alternative energy by the year 2025. Ninety-eight percent of voters see this goal as important for the country, and three out of four (74%) feel that it is "very important." Ninety percent of voters believe this goal is achievable.

Similar majorities support government action to encourage greater use of renewable energy. Eighty-eight percent of voters favor financial incentives, and 92% support minimum government standards for the use of renewable energy by the private sector.

Nearly all voters (98%) say the costs, such as the cost of research and development and the cost of building new renewable energy production facilities, would be worth it to get the United States to the 25% by 2025 goal.

Voters consider energy to be an important issue facing the country, rating it similarly with health care, terrorism and national security, and education, and ahead of taxes and the war in Iraq. Half (50%) of voters believe America is headed for an energy crisis in the future, and 35% believe the country already is facing a crisis.

So just how much is the United States government spending on alternative energy research? After the 22% increase the budget will stand at $771 million. This amounts to less than one percent of the $55,000 million the federal government spends annually on research, nearly half of which is devoted to healthcare.

It’s time for action.

Source for figures on federal funding for alternative energy research

President Bush's speech at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory

America's Energy Future

Austin Energy Excels as #1 Green Energy Electricity Utility in America

2006-02-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

UPDATE: This is a list of the top ten green energy programs in the United States with the latest December 2005 figures and links to these electric utilities. One of the biggest differences we can make is to switch to "green energy" - energy generated from 100% renewable sources. Florida Power & Light is a new entry into the top ten at number four. The company recently announced the construction of the largest solar array in Florida on the site of a closed landfill in Sarasota. The 1,200 photovoltaic solar panels are each about 31 inches wide and 63 inches long. The facility is to be more than 28,000 square feet, or about half the size of a football field. "We sought a location that had a ground site large enough for 250 kilowatts of photovoltaic panels," said Jeff Bartel, FP&L VP of external affairs.

If you live in a part of the United States that is not served by an electric utility on this list please see this List of Green Energy Providers by State.

As our energy challenges are global I appreciate every assistance in compiling a similar list of renewable energy providers in other countries. Feel free to email or leave a comment.

Returning to the United States, Austin Energy has shown its commitment to renewable energy by topping the list. The U.S. Department of Energy said Austin Energy's Green Choice program sold more than 334 million hours of renewable energy last year.

More than 350 businesses in Austin get their power from renewable sources as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Austin Energy uses electricity from 61 West Texas wind turbines.

Here's the top ten green energy programs in the United States (as of December 2005).

1. Austin Energy -
areas served include Austin, Texas
green energy from Wind Power, Land Fill Gas, Small Hydro -
435 MWh/year

2. Portland General Electric (PGE) -
areas served include Portland, Oregon
green power from existing Geothermal, Wind Power, Small Hydro - 340 MWh/year

3. PacifiCorp - includes Pacific Power and Utah Power
areas served include:
Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, California, Utah, Idaho
green energy from Wind Power, Biomass, Solar Energy -
234 MWh/year

4. Florida Power & Light - green power from Biomass, Wind Power, Solar Energy - 225 MWh/year

5. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) -
green power from Landfill Gas, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 195 MWh/year

6. Xcel Energy -
areas served include: Denver,Colorado; Elkhart, Kansas; Wakefield, Michigan; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Roswell, New Mexico; Fargo, North Dakota; Boise City, Idaho; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Amarillo, Texas; Eau Claire, Wisconsin
green electricity from Wind Power - 148 MWh/year

7. National Grid -
areas served include:
New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Nantucket
green power from Biomass, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 128 MWh/year

8. Basin Electric Power Cooperative (SMUD) -
green power from Wind Power - 114 MWh/year

9. Puget Sound Energy (PSE)-
area served Washington state
green energy from Wind Power, Solar Energy, Biogas -
71 MWh/year

10. OG&E Electric Services -
area served Oklahoma
green electricity from Wind Power - 64 MWh/year

(source: NREL)

MWh/year = million kWh/year rounded down

List of Green Energy Providers by State

One of the single biggest ways we as individuals can encourage the use of alternative energy and help aid the transition to a post fossil fuel age is to buy electricity partly, or preferably completely, generated using alternative energy.

Switching your electricity utility provider may be as simple as requesting a form or filling one in online. That's exactly how I switched to 100% renewable energy (generated mainly from wind power with some solar power and small scale hydro thrown into the mix). Renewable energy options are available throughout the U.K. and in many other countries.

To find out if you can switch to renewable energy in your area look on your search engine of choice for "green energy", "green power" or "green electricity". You may also need to add your location to the search. If your local utility doesn't provide a renewable energy option yet, email or call them and ask why.

Original News 8 Austin Article

Green-e Certified Electricity Products

Alternative Energy Argentina: Bringing Wind Power to Remote Areas

2006-02-05T11:29:00.000-08:00

Max Seitz reports for the BBC that wind power is the most widespread renewable energy source in Argentina - and Patagonia in particular has extraordinary potential due to its strong and constant winds.

He travelled to southern Chubut province, about 890 miles south of Buenos Aires, where wind power is making life easier for a number of isolated communities

In the midst of a dark wilderness, wind-generated electricity is changing lives in the region, lighting homes and schools in remote areas.

"Patagonia provides ideal conditions, unique almost, for the development of wind power," explained Hector Mattio, Director of the Regional Centre for Wind Power (or Cree in Spanish).

"We get very strong sustained winds of 11 metres per second, while in Europe they usually only reach about nine," Mattio added.

Cree - funded by the Chubut government and located in the provincial capital Rawson, near Trelew - currently has many community projects on the go to install wind generators.

So far, more than 300 isolated rural villages in Chubut have received small wind turbines which provide them with light, communication and power for domestic electric appliances.

A 66-year-old Araucano Indian, Julian Ibanez, welcomed us to his stone-built house.

Julian owns horses and sheep but his prize possession is a three-blade, 12-metre high wind turbine with 600-watt power (the equivalent of 10 light bulbs). Like others in the region, he simply calls it the "windmill".

"They installed the windmill a while ago now and it's changed our lives. We didn't have electricity before, just a kerosene lamp and that was it; now we have light and we can listen to the radio."

Julian led me to a plain bedroom, where he had a fuse box attached to the wall and a 12-volt car battery, and explained how everything worked.

The wind turns the windmill blades and a cable takes the energy produced into the house. The fuse box controls the voltage and battery charge.

Marcos added that the electrical supply is constant - whether it comes directly from the generator or, when there is no wind, from what has been stored by the accumulator.

Some dwellings have installed an inverter, a gadget to transform a 12 volt output into 220 volts - ideal for domestic appliances.

Another inhabitant of the area, 30-year-old Adelino Cual, also an Araucano, had this to say: "We have electricity 24 hours a day, not just the little lamp we had before. We no longer have to buy kerosene or gas-oil. It works out cheaper for us."

The engineers had shown him how to work and maintain the generator and the fuse box: "They taught me, for example, how to change the fuses if they blow; I've changed them several times," he said.

And Marcos added that the idea is for those benefiting from the technology to be self-sufficient.

After visiting the hamlets around about, we made our way to the heart of Chacay Oeste, which comprises a dozen or so houses and a school-shelter which accommodates some 30 pupils from neighbouring settlements.

The school has been provided with six wind turbines, installed by Cree in the highest part of the town.

"They provide energy for our building, for the shelter and also the teachers' houses. During the school holidays, they are used to supply energy to the rest of the village".

Before turbines were installed, Chacay Oeste got its electricity from a petrol generator, the noise of which had become part of the landscape for the locals.

"The windmills have changed things a lot for the youngsters. Now they have access to computers, and teachers can educate them through television programmes."

"Now I feel I communicate more with other people. Not like before - we were a bit unsociable," Julian confessed after telling me that he regularly listens to the radio to find out what is going on, and that he really appreciates the Cree technicians' visits.

And at Cree they confirm that this is indeed what it is all about: The social impact the technology has had on the communities has helped to integrate them more.

Full BBC Article

Alternative Energy Ecuador: 15MW Windfarm for Loja

2006-01-03T15:35:00.000-08:00

Vilcabamba, Loja Province, Ecuador

Ecuadorian company Villonaco Wind Power, 80%-owned by Canadian alternative energy generator Protocol Energy, is scheduled to begin construction of a 15MW wind park this month in Ecuador's Loja province, Protocol chairman and CEO Thomas Logan told BNamericas.

Villonaco is 20%-controlled by Loja province-owned generator Enerloja.

Operations are scheduled to commence November-December 2006 on schedule.

So far all funding for the US$26mn project has been provided by Logan and a private placement of up to 1.6 million shares at CDN$0.50/share, which is 50% completed.

Several companies submitted bids to manufacture the wind turbines last May. Villonaco has narrowed the field down to two companies, Spanish wind power firm Gamesa Eólica and German wind power equipment manufacturer Nordex, and should announce its decision this month, Logan said.

The turbine tender does not only pertain to this venture but also to two additional investment phases in the country, the second of which is a 30-65MW wind farm in the feasibility stage, with construction scheduled for the first half of 2007. The third investment phase is a 25-40MW expansion of the Villanoco wind farm.

The second level of Protocol's strategy is to launch a wind project in Peru and/or Chile, with internal studies indicating that execution of a 125-150MW program would be appropriate in Chile for 2007.

"Along the Andes in Ecuador, Peru, and Region I and II in Chile you're dealing with a wind regime that blows, in the case of Ecuador, with a median speed of 12.5m/s, so about 80% better than the best wind in Canada. But more importantly, it blows at that level for 13 hours/day," Logan said, adding that the turbines will continue turning 24 hours a day.

The company aims to sell power to mining companies "simply because miners are energy hogs. The average mine has operating costs that are 20% energy-related. They all have the same requirements, which is a stable and guaranteed source of energy at a reasonable price, and wind does that," Logan said.

Within four years Protocol aims to generate 400-500MW of wind, geothermal, biomass and run-of-the-river hydro power through its global endeavors, which have an initial focus in Latin America.

Original BN Americas Article

China to Spend Billions on Alternative Energy

2006-01-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

China is to spend billions on alternative energy and many times more on oil and coal.

Tim Johnson of Knight Ridder reports that barely a dozen years ago the country didn't need deep-sea oil ports, massive tank farms and a brawny foreign policy to procure oil in far-flung spots.

Today, China is an oil-guzzling dragon with a voracious thirst, much like the United States. Supertankers stretching three football fields in length now wait to enter China's deep-sea ports.

The busiest oil terminal is at Ningbo on the East China Sea. Shipping records show that in November, supertankers arrived there from Saudi Arabia, Oman, Iran, Yemen, Equatorial Guinea, Angola and Congo to feed a craving that's helped drive up crude oil prices, rattle global politics and put China and the United States at odds in some of the world's most unstable regions.

China's thirst for oil has emboldened Iran and complicated the refugee crisis in Sudan. With its economy growing at a 9 percent annual rate, China is also courting many of America's oil suppliers, including Canada and Venezuela.

Increasingly, the United States and China are throwing elbows as global rivals for energy. The tussle could get more aggressive if the two nations can't manage to co-exist in the global energy contest.

"We've got to start those discussions before the race for oil becomes as hot and dangerous as the nuclear arms race between the U.S. and the Soviet Union," Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., said in a Nov. 30 speech to the Council on Foreign Relations. "If we let it go, this could end up in real military conflict, not just economic conflict." It is interesting to note that this "race for oil" is framed as a zero sum game in which one country wins and another loses. An alternative would be international cooperation to maximise energy efficiency, minimise pollution and radically increase renewable energy.

Compared with the United States, which consumes 25 percent of the world's annual oil output, China burns only 6 percent of the world's production. Yet its energy use is rising steeply.

China exported more oil than it imported until 1993, when imports began to surge. This year, it's importing 3.4 million barrels a day, and some estimates say that within a decade it'll need 7 million barrels a day. Within two decades, demand could reach 12 million barrels a day, which would equal U.S. imports today. China's oil thirst since 2000 has accounted for 40 percent of the global demand growth for crude oil.

Senior Chinese officials grow testy at the suggestion that China's rising needs are roiling oil markets, saying the nation is following a natural path to prosperity.

"Some people complain that China is driving up oil prices. They think the reason lies in China's high consumption of oil," said Zhang Guobao, the vice-chairman of the National Development and Reform Commission. But Zhang said that China's per capita energy consumption is one-sixth of developed countries and deserves to rise.

"Chinese people want to live a prosperous life. So the world should respect China's right to development," Zhang said. In other words Zhang is saying the Chinese have a right to an energy rich lifestyle, sound familiar?

China still wastes energy, leaving huge potential savings from efficiency. To generate $1 million in economic output, China needs eight times more oil -- or its energy equivalent -- than Japan does. Chinese officials claim a turnabout in efficiency is under way. Last summer, China made fuel standards for cars more stringent than those in the United States, and a campaign is afoot to ramp up reliance on renewable energy. The United States and other western nations have an opportunity to help China to become as energy efficient as possible as fast as possible rather than trying to sell Chinese consumers gas guzzling SUVs.

Some experts suggest long-term projections on China's energy needs may be premature because the nation is capable of rapid adaptation and change, and of greater reliance on its vast coal reserves.

Some 68 percent of China's power comes from coal, and the nation is building electric power plants at a rate never seen before on Earth, fueling them from unsafe shafts where thousands of miners are killed each year.

China built power plants this year generating 68 gigawatts of electricity and plans 80 more gigawatts of capacity in 2006, equal to the entire capacity of Britain.

"It took the U.K. 110 years to build those 80 gigawatts," said James M. Brock, an expert who advises the Beijing office of Cambridge Energy Research Associates, a U.S. consultancy.

Nonetheless, China is seeking oil security differently than other countries in East Asia. It has sent its three major state-owned oil companies to scour the globe and invest in foreign oil companies and oil fields. China, a relative newcomer to capitalism, allegedly deeply mistrusts the global oil markets, viewing them as distastefully volatile.

Some analysts believe China's strategy has led it to bid heavily -- and even to overpay -- for some assets. It's adapted a very 19th century approach to energy security, where you seek an almost mercantilist lock-up of energy sources," said John J. Hamre, the president of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington public policy organization.

China has some reason to be nervous. While imported oil makes up only about 12 percent of China's total energy needs, its energy lifelines increasingly lead to the volatile Middle East. Some 60 percent of China's oil imports come from the Persian Gulf region. Supertankers carrying the oil must pass through the pirate-infested Malacca Straits off Malaysia, where China's oil is protected by the U.S. Navy. China is beefing up its own navy, but it still can't protect faraway sea-lanes. To diversify its suppliers, China has gone oil shopping in Central Asia, West Africa and even in South and North America.

Sometimes, Chinese oil companies simply bid high, as CNOOC, one of the national oil companies, did last summer when it offered $18.5 billion for the California oil company Unocal, a deal that was derailed by Capitol Hill critics who suggested that it threatened U.S. national security.

At other times, Chinese diplomats trail the state oil companies, sweetening investment bids with offers of few-strings-attached aid packages, hands-off political support and weapons.

"Everywhere the Chinese go in the developing world, they go with a lot of development money" said Gal Luft, a Washington-based analyst and the executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, a non-profit organization that focuses on the relationship between energy needs and the economy and national security.

China has offered large amounts of development aid in Africa, where it gets 28 percent of its imported crude and plays an increasingly important diplomatic role.

Last year, China gave Angola, its second-largest oil supplier after Saudi Arabia, a $2 billion oil-backed loan to help repair its war-ravaged national infrastructure.

China has courted oil-rich nations such as Sudan, Venezuela and Iran that are officially out of favour with Washington, even dangling the possibility of using its United Nations Security Council veto to protect them against sanctions.

China last year repeatedly blocked U.N. attempts to punish Sudan for failing to stop atrocities in its Darfur region. China owns a 40 percent stake in the major oil consortium drilling in Sudan, and it buys half of Sudan's crude exports.

Eyeing Nigeria's oil fields, China has offered Lagos some $7 billion in investments and said it may sell the country fighter jets too.

Iran which won pledges from China last year for $70 billion worth of oil and natural gas deals, also enjoys vital support from Beijing. Iran now appears confident that it can resist pressure from the European Union and the United States over its nuclear program, certain that China will veto any attempt to impose U.N. sanctions.

Reuters resports that a Chinese state-owned energy firm plans to invest at least $2.48 billion over the next five years in biomass, garbage treatment and other alternative energy projects.

China Energy Conservation Investment Corp. made the plans to take advantage of a new law promoting renewable energy, which sets tariffs in favor of non-fossil energy such as wind, water and solar power and is due to take effect in January.

"We see tremendous business opportunities from the new law," the China Daily quoted Wang Yi, a senior company official, as saying. Coal provides some 70 percent of electricity in China, the world's second-largest energy consumer and producer of greenhouse gases. The state-owned company has started building two wind farms and a new facility that would harness steam generated from garbage and sewage treatment to produce power, the newspaper said.

The firm had budgeted about $1.1 billion to build the garbage-powered plant underway in eastern China and 10 others like it in other parts of the country over the next five years, Wang said.

Another $1.1 billion would go toward constructing up to 30 biomass energy projects in major agricultural provinces, which use organic or woody material such as straw to make fuel or generate power.

China has set a goal of getting 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, though it has acknowledged that coal will remain its primary source of electricity for decades to come.

Comment

Within the overall context China's $2.48 billion investment in alternative energy seems insignificant. China is spending huge sums expanding dirty coal fired electricity production. These new plants are not "clean" coal plants and are certainly not carbon neutral (at least not before 2020). Huge amounts of energy is being wasted in China and this looks set to continue. China has some of the world's worst industrial pollution. It doesn't have to be this way. There is an opportunity for international development and cooperation to help China and the rest of the world avoid some of the worst negative consequences of rapid industrialisation. It won't be cheap and it won't be easy.

Or we can seek to deny the Chinese the energy rich lifestyle that many in the west believe is their birthright.

China - An Energy Timebomb?

Watthead - Is Red China Going Green?

Top Ten UK Alternative Energy Projects

2005-12-31T13:31:00.000-08:00

Solar Powered CIS Tower in Manchester

The UK’s top ten alternative energy projects have been named by the UK government’s Department of Trade and Industry (DTI). They include offshore turbines in Kent, the solar-powered CIS tower in Manchester and a wave buoy in Cornwall.

A target of supplying 10% of the UK's electricity from renewable energy by 2010 has been set by the British government.

The list includes three wind farms, three solar-power projects, and two examples of microgeneration, or projects with lower outputs.

According to the government, the 30-turbine Kentish Flats wind farm has been described as "the Ferrari of the turbine world".

Black Law A in South Lanarkshire was one of the largest wind farms approved in the UK, and the Cefn Croes project near Aberystwyth the most powerful when it opened in June.

The CIS tower in Manchester - the city's tallest building - was on course to be the biggest user of solar panels in the UK.

The biomass plant in Enniskillen, Northern Ireland, was singled out for producing a "revolutionary new wood pellet bio fuel", created by burning sawdust and woodchips.

The wave buoy project off the north Cornwall coast was highlighted as a project that would "speed up the installation of one of the world's first wave farms". The site is being investigated as a possible wave hub location - an offshore electrical socket that would be connected to the national grid.

Cornwall Wave Buoy

“Revolutionary” Northern Ireland Biomass Plant

Australia: Alternative Energy Grants

2005-12-29T05:44:00.000-08:00

Geothermal Plant

From geothermal power to better batteries, millions have been spent on alternative energy research grants in Australia, according to Rod Myer writing for The Age of Australia.

The AUD $23 million (approximately $17 million) spent by the Australian Federal Government under the first tranche of its $100 million (US $73m) pledge to aid the alternative energy sector has highlighted innovations by local companies to cure Australia's fossil fuel addiction.

Two companies awarded grants under the Renewable Energy Development Initiative (REDI) have developed a no-emissions alternative for base-load generation. Geodynamics received $5 million grant to help develop its geothermal electricity plant near Innamincka in the north of South Australia. Scope Energy, another betting its future on geothermal energy, received $3.9 million grant to aid development. Its principal, Roger Massey-Greene, says the grant will help finance a drilling program of 500-metre deep holes to prove up its resource. Scope plans to open a 50-megawatt plant, but Mr Massey-Greene says he hopes to see this expand to 1000 MW in the longer term.

Scope has a geographic advantage, he believes. Its site is near Millicent, in the south-east of South Australia, meaning it is close to transmission lines and the population centres of Melbourne and Adelaide. "We expect the cost to be very competitive with combined-cycle gas power plants," Mr Massey-Greene said.

Scope's geothermal technology will tap hot water heated deep in the earth and run it through a heat exchanger to generate electricity. Mr Massey-Greene likens this process to a "fridge operating in reverse".

Geodynamics' system will pump water through hot rocks and use the resulting steam to generate power. Scope's wells will be as deep as 4.5 kilometres. The technology that Scope is planning has been in use at a plant in Italy that has operated for 101 years, Mr Massey-Greene said.

Stage one of the plant is expected to cost $4 million per megawatt to construct, compared with about $750,000 for a combined-cycle gas plant. "But we have no fuel costs," Mr Massey-Greene said. Geothermal plants run at an output of about 98 per cent of rated capacity. Mr Massey-Green believes geothermal power has a great future. In New Zealand it provides 7 per cent of power needs and this could rise to as much as 15 per cent. Some in the market believe that Scope will float in the first half of 2006.

Melbourne-based Katrix will use its $811,000 Renewable Energy Development Initiative grant to further develop its new fluid expander that may enable solar energy to be harnessed for electricity. Founder Attilio Demichelli says the expander, which does the job of a turbine, will allow solar thermal energy to be adapted for small-scale use far more cheaply than photovoltaic systems.

Katrix is developing units in which solar energy will heat refrigeration fluid that will run through an expander linked to a generator to produce power. The expander is cheaper than a miniature turbine to build and has a number of advantages, including its ability to take gas or steam at 22 atmospheres (twenty two times atmospheric pressure) back to one atmosphere in one step.

Katrix projects that in the Californian market — once government solar energy grants are factored in — its system will return its cost to consumers in two to three years, compared with 15 years for photovoltaic systems. Mr Demichelli, a private investor, and inventor Yannis Tropalis have invested over $3 million in the technology in three years.

Another REDI grant, of $290,000, has gone to V-Fuel, which is developing a vanadium bromide redox battery. The funding will help develop a prototype of a battery that its promoters hope will be efficient enough to use to store power from renewable energy plants. Efficient storage would enable technologies such as wind power and solar energy to get over a bugbear — unpredictability, because no one knows when the sun will shine or the wind will blow.

V-Fuel principal Michael Kazacos says the grant is crucial to the company, which has raised only $400,000 up to now. V-Fuel has developed a five-kilowatt battery but is aiming to produce a 50-kilowatt prototype. That, he says, will cost $1 million, and further funding is being sought from another federal grant scheme.

"There is a lot of interest in Europe," Mr Kazacos said. "We have had offers of collaboration from there." The battery was 85 per cent efficient, he said, and "we are aiming at having a $200-per-kilowatt production cost". The vanadium bromide process was developed at the University of NSW by Professor Maria Skyllas-Kazacos, who is a principal of V-Fuel.

according to Origin - Sliver Cells are "long, ultra thin, quite flexible & perfectly bifacial"

Origin Energy received a $5 million grant to aid development of its facilities for manufacturing solar energy cells using photovoltaic sliver technology. The technology aims to cut the cost of solar energy cells by reducing silicon usage by up to 90 per cent. Sliver cells are micromachined to less than 70 microns thick with solar cell efficiency running at over 19%. Silicon is the most expensive part of a solar energy cell. Origin Energy says it costs $11,000 to fit a house with a one-kilowatt unit. This would take 20 years or more to pay itself off. However, as energy prices rise and production costs fall, this payback time will be cut. Origin Energy also owns a 19% stake in Geodynamics and offers Green Earth electricity from 100% renewable sources to Australian electricity consumers. For more green energy in Australia see the government Green Power website.

Geothermal Energy: Hot Dry Rock

Article in The Age on Australian Alternative Energy Grants

Alternative Energy Hungary: First Windfarm in Hungary

2005-12-25T16:35:00.000-08:00

Kaposvar

Austrian company Öko-Energia GmbH is to invest Ft60 billion ($284.6 million) in establishing the first wind farm in Hungary, in the south Rábaköz region, 150km west of Budapest. Forty-eight wind turbines will be built, at a price of between Ft500-800m ($2.37-3.79m) and producing 2,000 kilowatts per hour.

Although the company has yet to sign any agreements with the landowners, according to Lajos Takács, the mayor of Dénesfa, this won't hinder the project. "I am sure the company will be able to come to an agreement with the property owners," Takács said.

Budapest Sun Article on Hungary's First Windfarm

Alternative Energy in Central America

2005-12-24T16:12:00.000-08:00

Managua, Nicaragua

Cancún, Mexico - With the signing of an energy partnership with Mexico, Central America is poised to see a steady supply of oil and natural gas from its northern neighbor.

Mexico's focus on hydrocarbons was clear in the plan, drafted by Mexican officials, which ranked development of alternative energy as only the seventh out of eight priorities for the region.

"Petroleum is an addiction; it's like a drug," Costa Rican President Abel Pacheco retorted during the meeting. "We have to understand that it's not going to be available forever."

Costa Rica has led the region in alternative energy, with 90 percent of its electricity from hydroelectric, geothermal and wind-powered generators, according to Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Costa Rica's energy and environment minister.

Nicaragua and El Salvador have also been investing in alternative energy projects. El Salvador gets 50 percent of its energy from renewable energy sources, according to Ismael Sánchez, a professor of energy sciences at the Universidad Centroamericana Jose Simeon Cañas in El Salvador.

Alternative Energy Kazakhstan: Wind Power

2005-12-12T04:50:00.000-08:00

Tian Shan Mountains

Kazakhstan plans to build a five megawatt wind power station by 2010 at Dzungarian Gates near the Chinese border as part of an electric energy industry development programme.

The Global Environmental Facility approved a fund of $2.5 million, while the government allotted $4 million. The United Nations Development Program expressed support in the project and intends to provide technical aid to support development of wind power industry in Kazakhstan, according to local reports.

Kazakhstan has the world's largest potential of wind power resources per capita, according to the Kazakh research and development institute Kazselenergoproekt. It is estimated at 1.82 trillion kilowatts per hour.

According to Kazselenergoproekt, Kazakhstan has a unique geographical location in the wind belt of the Northern Hemisphere. The research institute has identified 15 promising sites to construct large wind power stations. Experts note that the "intensity of wind potential in a number of locations in the country is as high as 10 megawatt per a square kilometer - such wind potential is unique". Particularly promising is the potential of Dzungarian Gates and Shelek Corridor, located near the Chinese border.

About 90 percent of Kazakhstan’s electricity is generated from coal and gas. The remaining 10 percent comes from hydroelectric power. The move is part of Kazakhstan's efforts to develop alternative energy as it aims to alleviate dependence on oil and gas revenues. Wind power, solar energy, hydropower and biomass are part of this diversification program. The plan aims to build 500 megawatts of installed wind power capacity by 2030.

Source: Government of Kazakhstan

Energy Freedom Challenge: Clean Energy Capital of the United States of America

2005-12-01T09:12:00.000-08:00

Austin 8 News reports that Austin, Texas is to host a nationwide competition and the prize is the title of "Clean Energy Capital of the U.S."

The group Solar Austin pitched the idea of the contest to the U.S. Department of Energy. The group received a $45,000 grant to organize and host the contest. "Renewables have become a real attractive source for any community, any city," Solar Austin Co-Director Jane Pulaski said. She is convinced alternative energy has become so attractive, cities across the nation would be willing to compete to see which can move away from fossil fuels first.

"Clean Energy Capital of the U.S., I mean, who wouldn't want that title?" Pulaski added the title would attract new businesses, residents and positive publicity for the community that earned it.
In August Solar Austin received the grant to organize, market and host the contest in its first year. On Wednesday, the group officially launched the contest with an evening fundraiser.

The Energy Freedom Challenge is a race to see which city in the U.S.A. can be the first to get 50 percent of its energy from renewable energy sources like wind, solar, geo-thermal, methane and biomass power by the year 2025.

Right now Austin receives 5 percent of its energy from either wind, solar or landfill methane power; well short of hitting the 50 percent mark.

Austin can expect plenty of competition from other cities for the clean energy title from places like Portland, Seattle, Phoenix, Chicago, New York, and New Jersey.

The Union of Concerned Scientists will be in charge of establishing the rules, metrics and qualifications for the contest.

Solar Austin expects to have cities signed up to compete by early next year. Austin will be both the host and a competitor in the first year.

Austin's Green Choice program already sells more renewable energy to customers than any other program in the country.

Green Choice allows Austin Energy customers to choose to have their power come from wind or solar sources. The program is so popular Austin Energy had to place new subscribers on a waiting list. One of the city's wind farms is expanding this winter. Austin Energy hopes to open up the Green Choice wait list once the expansion is finished in February.

The clean energy contest will be run in Austin, Texas for the next 20 years.

Full Austin8News Article

BP to Create BP Alternative Energy Business Unit

2005-11-28T17:56:00.000-08:00

BP has announced that it plans to double its investment in alternative and renewable energies to create a new low-carbon power business with the growth potential to deliver revenues of around $6 billion a year within the next decade. Building on the success of BP Solar business unit, which expects to hit revenues of $1 billion in 2008, BP Alternative Energy will manage an investment program in solar, wind, hydrogen and combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT) power generation, which could amount to $8 billion over the next ten years. Readers will note that within this $8 billion are included investments in natural gas power generation which as a fossil fuel is not in my opinion a form of alternative energy and also investment in hydrogen which is a carrier of energy rather than a source. It should also be noted that the vast majority of BP's approximately $15 billion annual investment budget will remain focussed on oil and gas projects, which currently offer much higher returns.

BP chief executive Lord Browne said "We are now at a point where we have sufficient new technologies and sound commercial opportunities within our reach to build a significant and sustainable business in alternative and renewable energy."

Browne said the first phase of investment would total some $1.8 billion over the next three years, spread in broadly equal proportions between solar, wind, hydrogen and CCGT power generation.

Investment in solar over the next three years is planned to boost BP's leading position as a leading manufacturer and supplier of photovoltaic systems. In a field where technology improvements and higher productivity are causing costs to decline, BP currently has 10 percent of the global market which is growing at 30 percent a year, faster than any other form of renewable energy.

BP currently has more than 100 megawatts of solar manufacturing capacity in the US, Spain, India and Australia, with a plan to double its capacity before the end of next year. BP recently signed a strategic joint venture to access China's expanding solar market and provide local manufacturing capacity and is exploring similar opportunities elsewhere in the region.

"As the pricing of carbon develops through trading schemes and other initiatives, the market will grow rapidly as low-emission technologies displace less clean forms of power generation."

Investment projected for wind represents a significant step up in this area of power generation for BP. The company currently runs two wind farms alongside existing oil plants in the Netherlands. It also owns industrial land in open, high-wind regions of the US, away from residential areas, providing the possibility to build the first large-scale US wind farm generating up to 200 megawatts in 2007. The company has identified enough US sites to accommodate wind turbines with a total capacity of 2,000 megawatts.

Projected investment in CCGT will be spent mainly in the US where the company already has significant co-generation capacity and is currently finalizing plans for a new $400 million scheme at one of its major plants that will deliver 100 megawatts of power to the plant, and 420 megawatts to the local electricity grid.

BP's move is at odds with the views of some in the oil industry, including the world's largest private oil and gas firm, Exxon Mobil, which argues renewables are a poor use of investors' funds.

BP Alternative Energy Website

Hurricane Wilma Power Outages Boost Solar Power in Florida

2005-11-28T01:41:00.000-08:00

Florida Solar Energy Center

South Florida's Sun-Sentinel newspaper reports that Florida resident Pam Wall was able to relax while the rest of her neighbors were cloaked in darkness after Hurricane Wilma struck. The Fort Lauderdale resident still had all her modern conveniences -- working lights, TV, hairdryer, coffee pot and refrigerator -- all thanks to solar power.

Two solar-powered panels attached to the homemade sailboat docked in her back yard enabled Wall and her husband to enjoy all the noise-free, stress-free power they wanted while they waited almost three weeks for electricity to be restored to their house.

"We just lived on the boat and all the power we needed was from our solar panels," she said. "We didn't worry about fuel."

Wall is one of a small number of South Floridians who found solar power to be an effective alternative during times of disaster. The group's ranks are expected to grow, industry officials say, as residents realize how vulnerable they are to power outages and gas shortages each hurricane season. Also, new tax credits that go into affect on the first of January allow homeowners and businesses to deduct 30 percent of the cost of a solar-power system from their taxes, for a total credit of up to $2,000, according to the Energy Policy Act of 2005.

Instead of buying a gas generator this year in preparation for hurricane season, Dan Fieldman of Jupiter bought two solar panels for $683. After Wilma knocked out the electrical grid, he laid the panels out on his lawn, hooked them up to a car battery, attached a few small appliances and watched the World Series on TV as he checked his email.

"It was dead silent, it didn't stink up the place and I didn't have to worry about buying gas," he said. "I had a little color television and a laptop and a refrigerator. It was great."

There are drawbacks. Solar power is more expensive than regular electricity, needs sunshine to work and can be more difficult to set up.

Nonetheless, local governments are also getting in on the action, using solar-powered traffic signals and lights to make roads safer during outages. The city of Coral Springs used seven solar signals after the storm, and officials found them so successful they have ordered another four despite their hefty price tag of $10,000 each.

"They worked out wonderfully," said Police Chief Duncan Foster. "They have proved themselves in the man-hours we saved directing traffic. We didn't have to put an officer in those intersections and risk their safety."

Florida Solar Energy Center in Brevard, Florida

Jim Fenton, director of the Florida Solar Energy Center, the largest state-supported renewable energy research institute in the United States and a branch of the University of Central Florida, wants to take things a step further and lobby the state to install mobile solar-power systems at local schools that serve as hurricane shelters. That way, he said, the schools can save money on their energy bill during the year, have power if electricity is knocked out, and send out the mobile system after a storm if it is needed elsewhere.

For most, however, the advantage of solar energy during this year's outage was simply a surprise benefit to something they originally did for economic, environmental or practical reasons.

Tim Williamson, a Hollywood resident and pastor of Hollywood Hills Alliance Church, had a solar water heater installed at his home five years ago to save about $30 a month on his energy bill. It was such a luxury to have warm water after Wilma, he now says he would consider hooking up other solar-power systems.

"We were taking nice hot showers when everyone else was taking cold ones," Williamson said.

The main reason more people don't have a solar-power home is simple. It's pricey.

Diane Marshall of Key Largo spent about $24,000 to set up her solar-power home, which also purifies its own water and won her the 2005 "Green Building" Award from The Council for Sustainable Florida.

As a result, while there are tens of thousands of people with solar water heaters in the state, there are only a few hundred who have solar electric systems that power their homes, estimated Jim Dunlop, an engineer with the Florida Solar Energy Center.

Even with all that expense, there are technical challenges associated with using solar power during an outage, experts explain.

First off, there are two kinds of solar power: solar electric and solar thermal.

Solar-electric systems, also known as photovoltaic systems, use silicon cells on a solar panel to convert the sun's energy into direct current electricity. An inverter turns this electricity into power most appliances can use.

But to work at night and during periods of cloudiness, solar-electric homes need to incorporate a battery system that stores the solar power generated during daylight. Otherwise, they only work when the sun is shining.

Some choose to forgo such battery systems because they cost about 25 percent more, Dunlop said.

Solar water heaters, an example of a solar-thermal system, work much more simply by using the sun's energy to directly heat water. But they also have their quirks. For example, homeowners need to make sure they have a solar-powered water pump -- not an electric one -- as part of their solar water heater if they want hot water during a prolonged blackout.

Julie Joyce of Fort Lauderdale learned this the hard way when she lost hot water a few days after Wilma because her pump was electric. Two weeks into the outage, Joyce paid a company $640 to install a solar pump.

"Ahh, it was wonderful," she said, recalling her first hot shower, saying the price was worth it. "It's up there forever now."

Another concern: solar panels must be installed correctly so the panels don't fly off in a storm or become damaged.

Bone, the owner of a solar home on No Name Key, said the panels on his house did fine in the hurricane, but he has seen some homes where they have not. He said there are two ways to mount panels on roofs -- flush or, as was common in the 1980s before Hurricane Andrew, tilted to the south for maximum sun exposure. Tilted panels have a greater chance of catching wind and tearing off, he said. Most modern installations must meet strict building codes that certify they can withstand hurricane force winds.

Despite such drawbacks, those who have tried solar power say it is easy to get hooked on the silent, abundant energy source -- both during an outage and after.

"If I ever redo my house, I would put solar panels everywhere," said Wall, the solar sailboat owner. "You can use it all the time, not just during a hurricane."

Full Sun-Sentinel Article

Ecovillages, Watching TV, Saving Water and Changing Energy Consumption

2005-11-27T04:11:00.000-08:00

One of the aims of the Alternative Energy Blog is to go beyond reporting the opening of the latest windfarm and explore our existing energy culture and how this culture can be changed. While the recent UK television series "No Waste Like Home" went into the homes of families which used several times the energy of the "average" family, the recent episode of the documentary series "30 days" from American documentary maker Morgan Spurlock (of "Supersize Me" fame) approached the issue by taking two "ravenous consumers of fossil fuels" and making them go cold turkey by taking them off-grid by living on the Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage, a commune "committed to radical environmental sustainability" in rural northeastern Missouri.

This approach was in my opinion a limited success. While it may have made for reasonably diverting television with one participant saying they couldn't live without their hair products and the other adopting the name "Meato" when challenged by the community's vegan diet it seemed to achieve only limited change in the participants with vague commitments to installing low energy lightbulbs and trying to use public transport more. The programme failed to challenge their belief that "oil isn't going to run out any time soon" or even provide any reasons to change other than the effects of diesel pollution in one Californian port town. So while recycling their "humanure" and running a car on discarded vegetable oil (which regular readers will know is NOT a scalable solution) may have been curiosities, there were few "take aways" for either the participants or the viewers. For me this was where "No Waste Like Home" succeeded by actually engaging the participants in their everyday environment and presenting them with both a "radical" and "practical" change to their energy usage from which both they and the viewers could learn from.

The Interflush

A different BBC television series "Dragons' Den" highlighted for me another issue. The series in which entrepreneurs pitch their ideas to "elite business experts" saw the inventor of the Interflush pitch his ideas to the panel of "business experts". The invention itself promises radical water savings "an unbeatable 47%" from a device which retails for around $30. Unfortunately a combination of a distinct vagueness on predicted sales figures and less than polished presentation skills meant there were no offers of investment. An affirmative answer by the inventor to the question "do you see yourself as more of an eco-warrior than an entrepreneur?" from the panel ended his chances. He was mocked for trying (and failing) to sell his invention to water companies who make money from selling more water. Yet isn't there something wrong when the world faces serious energy problems and oil, gas, electricity and water companies make bigger profits when people consume more. It is interesting therefore that energy giant BP in their latest marketing campaign asks "Do you know how big your carbon footprint is?". While the debate will continue as to just how green BP really is (the fact remains almost all their profits come from oil and gas) this campaign is getting people to think about their energy use which is definitely a good thing. Thinking about energy has to been a mainstream concern for all of us and our culture needs to change to reflect this. I'm interested in how readers think we should be creating this culture change.

Interview with 30 days show participant Vito Summa

Dancing Rabbit's response to 30 days

note: the "Off the Grid" episode of 30 days was first broadcast on July 13th on the FX Network and November 24th on More4 in the UK.

Windpower Microgeneration: Home Wind Turbines

2005-10-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

According to BBC News household windmills are becoming quite the fashion, but they ask can they make money?

Domestic wind turbines have been described as "the new handbags" - the latest luxury items craved by those who want to be first to try new technology. But this description overlooks their green credentials, because any electricity powered by the elements is reducing CO2 emissions, which are blamed for global warming. And there are also the financial motivations.

A household with a windmill can save money on bills and sell excess electricity back to the national grid. So could wind turbines become a nice little earner?

They are certainly on the increase - 7,000 households have been given grants to get the turbines installed.

A report this week by the Sustainable Consumption Roundtable envisages a future where households generate their electricity at home, using wind, solar and heat energy - but only if the government bought panels and turbines in large quantities for public buildings, so costs fall.

"Then we could all afford them," says Alan Knight, the group's chairman. "To install a generator or solar panel today you need specialist help. You should be able to buy one at B&Q [the UK equivalent of Home Depot - James] and stick it in yourself."

Turbines come in a range of sizes, prices and powers, and living close to neighbours can make planning permission problematic.

David Nisbet put up a 6kw turbine in his Essex garden in May, after overcoming 22 planning objections from neighbours about noise and visual impact. It is 11.5m high to the tip of the blade and it cost him £10,000 ($17,500) , plus a £5,000 grant.

His motivation was both financial and environmental and he was inspired by seeing two windmills at the Ford auto plant where he works.

Although he says the concerns of others have been allayed, the first few months haven't been as windy as he hoped.

"In the last eight to 10 years we've had strong south-westerly winds but not this year," he says. "It's been fickle and I'd put this six months down as a lean year.

"It's been generating electricity but not as much as I had hoped for. It's connected to the grid and any surplus flows back into the grid."

The wind provided 80% of his electricity in the summer and he estimates it will heat the house through winter, thereby saving him a total of £1,000 a year ($1,750) in heating bills. In 10 years, he hopes to have paid off his investment, but he will still have been buying electricity from the grid during that time.

It isn't possible to be totally dependent on wind because it doesn't blow every minute, says Alison Hill at the British Wind Energy Association.

"You may get the 4-5,000 units a year to run a household but not every single hour of every day so you would need to have standard electricity grid connection to get electricity from the grid.

"We are quite lucky in the UK because when we have most wind we have most demand - winter. That profile of generation is quite beneficial, but no-one can have 100% self-sufficiency on wind alone.

"If it looks like you have a big wind resource and a good turbine, you can connect that turbine to the grid and sell that, so there's an additional revenue for householders there.

"Typically, a household sees a reduction of between a quarter and a third in its annual electricity bill."

Solar panels can supplement wind to boost a home's renewable sources but some households do claim to make a profit purely from wind, by generating so much electricity that the amount they sell back is greater than the amount they buy.

That would require a very energy-efficient house and living in a particularly windy part of the UK, says Ms Hill.

And the future is bright - despite the end of government grants in February - because big companies like British Gas are investing in new kinds of turbines which have yet to come on the market, she adds.

BBC News Article

Alternative Energy Investment

2005-09-09T05:50:00.000-07:00

Mark Tran reports in the Guardian on the state of the alternative energy investment market.

The past few months have seen record levels of investment in alternative energy amid fears that high oil prices are here to stay.

Last month, Impax, an investment group focusing on alternative energy, successfully raised €60m (£40m) in the first tranche for a new equity fund, New Energy. The new fund, that will target renewable energy projects mainly in western Europe, aims to grow to at least €125m within 12 months.

With the current interest in green energy - wind, solar and biomass - New Energy should have no trouble reaching its target. Alternative energy as an investment is currently very much in vogue. What was notable about New Energy was that it attracted interest from some big financial players.

The British Airways pension fund, Co-operative Insurance Society and South Yorkshire Pensions Authority all provided finance for the fund.

"It illustrates that large institutions see commercial returns in the sector," said Impax chief executive, Andrew Simm. "Global concerns about flooding as well as drought have generated investor interest in companies that address some of the damage."

Big companies are also stepping up the pace of investment. In May, General Electric, the US conglomerate that makes products from jet engines to power generation, announced plans to double its annual investment in renewable energy technologies to $1.5bn (£816m) by 2010. In Europe, companies such as Spain's Iberdrola and Britain's Npower are making big investments in wind power projects.

In the financial community, a dozen or so investment funds have sprung up in Europe for institutions and small investors who want to make a bet on green energy. Apart from Impax, there is Henderson's Industries of the Future Fund and Sustainable Asset Management, Europe's largest sustainability investor.

According to New Energy Finance, a London-based energy research company, the second quarter of 2005 saw near-record levels of venture capital and private equity investment in the clean energy sector - some 45 deals worth an estimated $340m. "It is good to see that the number of renewable energy funds and the amount of money flowing into these funds is increasing," said Juliet Davenport, the chief executive of Good Energy, a UK supplier of 100% renewable electricity. "The renewable generation market is at an important stage in its development; it needs the continued support of the consumer, investor and government to ensure that it reaches its potential and really starts to make a difference to climate change."

Ms Davenport rightly notes that renewable energy is at a crucial juncture. Although investment is at record levels, it is still pretty paltry. Markets are pretty much subject to herd instinct; as a new area of investment, renewable energy is still unproven. The big money lies with pension funds and while a few - notably the California state pension fund Calpers - have dipped their toes in clean energy, others are still at the water's edge.

"The pension funds navigate with rear view mirrors," said Michael Liebreich, founder and chief executive of New Energy Finance. "They put money into sectors that are proven money makers. They're still into traditional equity. If they could put just a tenth of 1% of their money into renewable energy, it would be a real shot in the arm for the sector."

Institutional investors for the most part remain resistant, even though all the indicators show that the renewable or low carbon energy and energy technology sectors are poised for dramatic growth.

The big investors face several dilemmas: the track record of venture investment in the sector is less than stellar; they have to choose from a wide range of investment opportunities covering geography, technology and business models, and they have to figure out who are the best fund managers.

"The sector just doesn't have the sort of success stories that make reputations," Mr Liebreich wrote in a leader article for New Energy Finance. "The good teams with good track records from outside the sector, by definition, don't have experience of clean energy, with its particular technologies, regulatory issues and investment cycles."

But things are changing. This week, Numis became the first London stockbroker to have a dedicated renewable energy analyst.

Numis "feels that this relatively new and under researched sector will develop into a core sector for both traditional and socially responsible investors alike", the company said on its website.

The London Stock Exchange is planning an event next month that will bring together executives of small renewable energies listed on the Aim stock market, and the wider investment community. The first event of its kind, the occasion will allow these companies to strut their stuff for analysts and investors.

Currently, only around $20bn a year is invested worldwide in renewable energy capacity; mainly wind and solar, with some in biomass and biofuels. A further $5bn is spent on research each year, particularly into hydrogen and fuel cells. But that figure is bound to grow. New Energy Finance expects the figure to increase to over $100bn within a decade - a sustained compound annual growth rate of 15-20%. That means there will be opportunities to make money provided investors make the right choice.

Wells Fargo 2006 Report on Alternative Energy Investment Opportunities

North Korea: Energy Security - Progress via Energy Aid?

2005-08-11T01:33:00.000-07:00

almost empty streets at 5pm in Pyongyang in 2002

BBC News reported last month that South Korea has offered 2,000MW (2 Gigawatts) of free electricity to North Korea as an incentive to end its nuclear ambitions.

Seoul is proposing to lay power lines across the Korean border, as an alternative to a US-brokered nuclear power deal which collapsed in 2002.

Seoul is worried that if the North were to collapse, it could be flooded with millions of hungry North Korean refugees.

South Korea is one of the largest single donors of aid to the secretive communist state. It is the South's biggest donation to the North since 2000.

The UN World Food Programme is currently feeding some 6.5m North Koreans - nearly a third of the population.

The offer came as diplomats prepared to resume six-nation talks on the North's nuclear programme.

South Korean Unification Minister Chung Dong-young told a news conference that the power proposal would supply the same amount of electricity that the North would have received if two light-water reactors being built by an international consortium in the 1990s had been completed.

That deal, known as the Agreed Framework, collapsed after Pyongyang allegedly admitted to the US in 2002 that it had a secret, enriched uranium programme.

The proposed power lines would provide the North with 2m kilowatts of electricity a year from South Korea's own power grid, and would be ready by 2008.

The power being offered is equivalent to the output of two large power stations and would help towards redressing North Korea's serious energy shortage.

The BBC's Charles Scanlon in Seoul says the South Korean government has since seized the initiative, fearing that the confrontation between Pyongyang and Washington could escalate.

This may set an interesting precedent for other states with nuclear ambitions for power stations, if not nuclear weapons. Security of energy supply seems set to be an increasing area of conflict between nations although it doesn't have to be. There is an opportunity for the more technologically advanced nations to speed the transfer of the latest and cleanest power generation technology to developing nations and to cooperate in the development and utilisation of clean renewable energy.

Alternative Energy Blog is One

2005-08-11T00:00:00.000-07:00

It's been one year. I'd like to thank in no clear order...

Jamais Cascio and everyone else from the excellent group blog World Changing for advice, encouragement and inspiration. The Engineer Poet for both his contributions in the comments section of this blog and the posts on his own blog. Sterling D. Allan of Free Energy News. City Comforts, Dr. Menlo, Andy Darvill, Knowledge Problem, Triple Pundit, Rebecca Blood, Liberal Oasis, Curt Rosengren, Gristmill, Trends I'm Watching, Asian Security, The Adventuress, Swerve Left, EnviroPundit, Myke, Okiedoke, Sustainablog, Alternative Energy Stocks, David's Brain, Safety Neal, Joel Makower, Ian McGibboney, Dustbury, Howling at a Waning Moon, Grandinite, Concerned Scientist, CirKits, How to Save the World, Renewable Energy Law Blog, Jeff Vail, Winding Road, City Hippy, Mike Capone, Adventures in Ethical Consumerism, Posthuman Blues, The Future is Green, NYPD Jew, Where We are Bound, AEMan, Jozet, groupThink, Enviroman, Future Hi, NPI, Hippy Shopper, Obsidian Wings, American Samizdat, FutureWire, Dirty Greek, Italian Version, We Saw a Chicken, Skeptacles, Pardue Duran, Entropy Production, Funny Farm, Suburban Treehugger, Amor Mundi.

John Atkinson for his great energy roundups on the Winds of Change blog. Justin at the efficiency blog Metaefficent. The Peak Oil bloggers - Mobjectivist, Culture Change, Peak Energy, Post1, Kurt Cobb, The Fraser Domain, Flying Talking Donkey, and the Peak Oil Optimist. Fred Wilson whose blog put me on to a number of great blogging tools and services when I was first starting.

And finally Jason Calacanis for the original impetus to start the blog.

Thanks to everyone that reads the Alternative Energy Blog, everyone I've unintentionally missed out and special thanks to anyone who leaves comments or has emailed ideas for posts. Links to the Alternative Energy Blog are always welcome and the discussion in the comments section is what keeps me blogging.

As you can see from the list above supporters of alternative energy are diverse and many. Conservatives, liberals and those that defy categorisation. Socialists and venture capitalists. Those favouring government support and those in favour of free market approaches.

It remains my opinion that promoting alternative energy is far too important to be a partisan issue. Moving to a clean renewable post fossil fuel future is a long term project, one I am committed to. I hope this blog will continue to raise awareness and provoke discussion of our energy future.

Alternative Fuel: Ethanol Fuel Production Subsidies

2005-07-26T03:42:00.000-07:00

I was recently taken to task by a reader for not giving more coverage to ethanol fuel (alcohol). I replied that I am yet to be convinced that ethanol is either energy positive or economically viable. I then forwarded her reply to the Engineer Poet who continued the correspondence resulting in a post entitled "the money-grubbing mendacity of the ethanol lobby" with accompanying calculations. In reply the original emailer sent me a press release from the "grassroots voice of the U.S. ethanol industry ".

The Slate recently ran an article entitled "the ethanol subsidy is worse than you can imagine".

In it Robert Bryce reports that for the last generation, ethanol has been America's fuel of the future. But there has never been more hype about it than there is today. Green-energy analysts like Amory Lovins, environmental groups like the Natural Resources Defense Council, neoconservatives like James Woolsey, and farm groups like the American Coalition for Ethanol are all touting the biofuel.

Making ethanol, they claim, will help America achieve the elusive goal of "energy security" while helping farmers, reducing oil imports, and stimulating the American economy. But the ethanol boosters are ignoring some unpleasant facts: Ethanol won't significantly reduce our oil imports; adding more ethanol to our gas tanks adds further complexity to our motor-fuel supply chain, which will lead to further price hikes at the pump; and, most important (and most astonishing), it may take more energy to produce a gallon of ethanol than it actually contains.

The greens, hawks, and farmers helped convince the Senate to add an ethanol provision to the energy bill—now awaiting action by a House-Senate conference committee—that would require refiners to more than double their use of ethanol to 8 billion gallons per year by 2012. The provision is the latest installment of the ethanol subsidy, a handout that has cost American taxpayers billions of dollars during the last three decades, with little to show for it. It also shovels yet more federal cash on the single most subsidized crop in America, corn. Between 1995 and 2003, federal corn subsidies totaled $37.3 billion. That's more than twice the amount spent on wheat subsidies, three times the amount spent on soybeans, and 70 times the amount spent on tobacco.

The stickiest question about ethanol is this: Does making alcohol from grain or plant waste really create any new energy?

The answer, of course, depends upon whom you ask. The ethanol lobby claims there's a 30 percent net gain in BTUs from ethanol made from corn. Other boosters, including Woolsey, claim there are huge energy gains (as much as 700 percent) to be had by making ethanol from grass.

But the ethanol critics have shown that the industry calculations are bogus. David Pimentel, a professor of ecology at Cornell University who has been studying grain alcohol for 20 years, and Tad Patzek, an engineering professor at the University of California, Berkeley, co-wrote a recent report that estimates that making ethanol from corn requires 29 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol fuel itself actually contains.

The two scientists calculated all the fuel inputs for ethanol production—from the diesel fuel for the tractor planting the corn, to the fertilizer put in the field, to the energy needed at the processing plant—and found that ethanol is a net energy-loser. According to their calculations, ethanol contains about 76,000 BTUs per gallon, but producing that ethanol from corn takes about 98,000 BTUs. For comparison, a gallon of gasoline contains about 116,000 BTUs per gallon. But making that gallon of gas—from drilling the well, to transportation, through refining—requires around 22,000 BTUs.

In addition to their findings on corn, they determined that making ethanol from switch grass requires 50 percent more fossil energy than the ethanol yields, wood biomass 57 percent more, and sunflowers 118 percent more. The best yield comes from soybeans, but they, too, are a net loser, requiring 27 percent more fossil energy than the biodiesel fuel produced. In other words, more ethanol production will increase America's total energy consumption, not decrease it. (Pimentel has not taken money from the oil or refining industries. Patzek runs the UC Oil Consortium, which does research on oil and is funded by oil companies. His ethanol research is not funded by the oil or refining industries.)

Ethanol poses other serious difficulties for our energy economy. First, 8 billion gallons of ethanol will do almost nothing to reduce our oil imports. Eight billion gallons may sound like a lot, until you realize that America burned more than 134 billion gallons of gasoline last year. By 2012, those 8 billion gallons might reduce America's overall oil consumption by 0.5 percent. Way back in 1997, the General Accounting Office concluded that "ethanol's potential for substituting for petroleum is so small that it is unlikely to significantly affect overall energy security." That's still true today.

Adding more ethanol will also increase the complexity of America's refining infrastructure, which is already straining to meet demand, thus raising pump prices. Ethanol must be blended with gasoline. But ethanol absorbs water. Gasoline doesn't. Therefore, ethanol cannot be shipped by regular petroleum pipelines. Instead, it must be segregated from other motor fuels and shipped by truck, rail car, or barge. Those shipping methods are far more expensive than pipelines.

There's a final point to be raised about ethanol: It contains only about two-thirds as much energy as gasoline. Thus, when it gets blended with regular gasoline, it lowers the heat content of the fuel. So, while a gallon of ethanol-blended gas may cost the same as regular gasoline, it won't take you as far.

My latest post (July 2006) on ethanol and flex fuel vehicles can be found here:
Ethanol E85 Fuel

To support a real solution to our transportation energy challenges I encourage you to sign this online plug in hybrid campaign urging automakers to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

If you have comments I suggest the debate continues here.

Full Slate Article

American Coalition for Ethanol Press Release

Star Phoenix article criticising Pimental and Patzek's research

Rocky Moutain News' Coverage of the National Corn Growers Association Opinion

The Ohio Farm Bureau Federation's Coverage

Atomic Power Creates More Greenhouse CO2 Emissions than Natural Gas Plants?

2005-07-05T06:16:00.000-07:00

Osprey Natural Gas Combined Cycle Power Plant in Florida

It's been excellent to see the debate going on in the comments section over the recent posts on atomic power. One of my main aims in establishing this blog was to help promote debate on our energy future, it would also be nice to see posts on other energy sources stimulate as much discussion!

I suspect the article which is the subject of this post may further stimulate the debate.

The Australian reports that according to an Australian scientist atomic power generates more damaging greenhouse gas emissions than gas-fired power.

As federal and state politicians debate the merits of starting down the atomic power path to help reduce Australia's contribution to global warming, scientists say it may not be so clean after all.

University of NSW Institute of Environmental Studies senior lecturer Dr Mark Diesendorf says atomic power stations do not emit carbon dioxide (CO2) themselves, but the processes involved in creating atomic energy do.

Mining, milling, uranium enrichment, atomic fuel production, power station construction and operation, storage and reprocessing of spent fuel, long-term management of radioactive waste and closing down old power stations all require the burning of fossil fuels, he says.

"Most of the energy inputs to the full life cycle of atomic fuel come from fossil fuels and are therefore responsible for CO2 emissions," Dr Diesendorf writes in this month's edition of the Australasian Science magazine.

Atomic power stations using high-grade uranium ores would have to run for seven to 10 years before they created enough power to cancel out the energy required to establish them.

Wind power takes just three to six months to do the same.

For lower grade uranium ores, greenhouse gas emissions outweighed those produced by an equivalent gas-fired power station, Dr Diesendorf said.

Full Newspaper Article in the Australian

Micro Wind Power Turbines for UK Office Building

2005-07-04T04:16:00.000-07:00

The BBC reports that an miniature urban wind farm is being built on top of a 13-storey building in Manchester city centre using micro wind turbines.

The 24 turbines, which will stand 3m tall, will be erected on top of the CIS building on Portland Street.

The turbines will produce 56,000 units of renewable energy each year, enough electricity to service about 5% of the energy needs of the building.

Co-operative Financial Services (CFS) are currently covering another of their bases, the CIS Tower, in solar energy panels.

The CIS Tower is one of the tallest buildings outside London in the UK and is being clad with three solar panels.

Once completed, it will be among the largest vertical displays of working solar panels in Europe.

CFS said its plans for an urban wind farm will make its Portland Street building the largest-ever commercial application of micro-wind turbines in the UK.

The company said it is now looking into placing the wind power micro-turbines on more of its 200 sites.

Gary Thomas, head of property and facilities at CFS, said taking a greener approach to business also had financial benefits.

"Embedding renewable energy in buildings reduces the need to buy electricity and I anticipate a payback on the initial investment within around three years," he said.

Ken Lewis, resources director added: "Forty per cent of Europe's energy use is associated with buildings and this project, along with the Solar Tower development, demonstrates that these piles of steel and concrete have tremendous potential for future energy generation."

Councillor Neil Swannick, Manchester City Council executive member for planning and the environment, has applauded the move saying CFS have made a practical contribution to energy conservation.

"The Manchester Energy Strategy endorses the view that wind turbines are not just for rural sites," he said.

"A world-class city such as Manchester has a responsibility to use energy more efficiently and to generate it from renewable sources where we can."

Only 85 years of Uranium Supplies?

2005-06-29T14:48:00.000-07:00

Uranium

Agence France-Presse reports that a British think tank opposed what it said were draft plans by the Group of Eight (G8) industrial nations to expand the use of atomic energy as a way to fight global warming.

Issuing its report before next week's G8 summit in Scotland, the New Economics Foundation on Wednesday said atomic power was an uneconomical and inefficient way to deal with climate change and would increase the risks from terrorists.

Andrew Simms, author of the report, "Mirage and Oasis," told AFP that atomic power would be too costly and too slow to develop in time to deal with the urgency of reducing the carbon emissions that cause global warming.

Simms, the foundation's policy director, said the supply of uranium needed to fuel atomic plants was too limited and would be exhausted in 85 years based on current industry estimates of availability and the existing rate of use.

"If you suddenly dramatically scaled up in a very short period of time, you'd also, a little bit like oil, you'd very quickly run into natural resource limits," he said.

In addition, increased use of atomic power would present greater risks to the problem of weapons proliferation and greater exposure to possible attacks by terrorists, the report warned.

"The more plants you have the greater the vulnerability (to attack) you have. There's no doubt about that," he said.

Instead, the report said, renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and geothermal power could, in theory, each individually meet all of the world's energy needs, without warming the world's climate.

It leaves no toxic legacy and is abundant and cheap to harvest both in Britain and around the world.

Practically, however, it would require a broader combination of renewable energy sources than is currently used, linked to a range of micro, small, medium and large scale technologies and applied flexibly.

"If just around one third of the UK's electricty customers installed 2KW microgen photovoltaic (solar) or wind systems it would match the capacity of the UK atomic programme."

Better still, it said, small scale renewable power technologies could provide energy supplies for millions of people who currently lack basics such as lighting or the ability to cook without inhaling indoor smoke.

The foundation said early drafts of communiques intended for the G8 summit in Gleneagles, Scotland on July 6-8 suggest a new international push to expand atomic power, the report said.

Simms said his foundation obtained the latest draft last week, without saying exactly how it was obtained.

In a statement on the foundation website, Simms said: "Without sustainable, reliable supplies of energy, the world faces a future in which climate change and fuel shortages will combine with catastrophic results.

"The poorest and most vulnerable will suffer the worst. But a resurgence of interest in nuclear power, justified by voodoo economics, stands to hinder and potentially derail renewable energy.

"As people gather for a G8 summit that holds the financial keys to our future energy choices, it has become clear that you cannot make poverty history, without stopping runaway climate change. And that making energy sustainable is the surest way to do both."

Hot Fusion Energy

2005-06-28T06:22:00.000-07:00

The BBC reports that France will get to host the project to build a 10bn-euro ($12.16bn) fusion reactor, in the face of strong competition from Japan.

The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (Iter) will be the most expensive joint scientific project after the International Space Station.

The Iter programme was held up for over 18 months as parties tried to broker a deal between the two rivals.

Fusion taps energy from reactions like those that heat the Sun.

Fusion is seen as a cleaner approach to power production than nuclear fission and fossil fuels.

Prof Sir Chris Llewellyn Smith, director of UK Atomic Energy Authority's (UKAEA) Culham division, said the decision was "wonderful news".

"Rapid construction of Iter will be a major step in the development of fusion as a potential large-scale source of electricity that will not contribute to climate change," he added.

In terms of the physics and huge amounts of energy involved, the Iter project would be akin to building a star on Earth.

It would be the first fusion device to produce thermal energy at the level of conventional electricity-producing power stations, and would pave the way for the first prototype commercial power station.

In a fusion reaction, energy is produced when light atoms - the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium - are fused together to form heavier atoms.

Plasma has some of the qualities of a gas, but conducts electricity and responds to magnetism.

Unlike oil, gas and coal, the sources of deuterium are almost infinite, for it is present in seawater. Tritium is a man-made isotope derived by irradiating the plentiful element lithium in the fusion vessel.

To use controlled fusion reactions on Earth as an energy source, it is necessary to heat a gas to temperatures exceeding 100 million Celsius - many times hotter than the centre of the Sun.

The technical requirements to do this, which scientists have spent decades developing, are immense. But the rewards, if Iter can be made to work successfully, are extremely attractive.

One kilogram of fusion fuel would produce the same amount of energy as 10,000,000 kg of fossil fuel.

Fusion does produce radioactive waste but not the volumes of long-term high-level radiotoxic materials that have so burdened fission.

Fusion energy may be only a few decades away or it may be many more. Regardless it is important for us to make serious investments into potential solutions to the energy challenges facing us. These include fusion, wind power, solar energy, improving battery technology for automotive applications, wave power, energy efficiency, smart grids, and micropower generation.

Full BBC Article

BBC - How Fusion Energy Works

Alternative Energy Venezuela: OPEC Oil Producer Switches to Wind Power to Increase Exports

2005-06-28T04:32:00.000-07:00

Playa Medina, Sucre, Venezuela

Business News Americas reports that Venezuela's state oil company PDVSA aims to boost fuel oil exports by about 100,000 barrels a month through the increased use of wind for electric power generation according to Nervis Villalobos, the president of state-owned electricity firm Cadafe and deputy energy and oil minister.

PDVSA and Cadafe want to take advantage of high international oil prices and at the same time develop an environmentally friendly source of power generation, Villalobos said.

"For PDVSA and for the country, there is an enormous attraction in being able to free up these liquid fuels and export them," Villalobos said.

A barrel of fuel oil "is worth US$4 in the domestic market, while abroad it sells for US$40," Villalobos said.

PDVSA is currently involved in two projects that would use wind to generate electricity, Villalobos said.

The first project was announced by PDVSA president and energy and oil minister Rafael Ramírez in April in the wake of an electricity mishap that left PDVSA's Amuay refinery - part of the CRP refining complex - without power for several days.

This US$50mn venture at Los Taques, a wind-swept stretch of beach in Falcón state near PDVSA's CRP complex, would generate up to 100MW, including 40MW during its first stage.

PDVSA and the Spanish-Venezuelan consortium that designed the project, VER, are currently deciding on how to finance it, Villalobos said. Cadafe would buy 100% of the power generated by the plant.

The project should be up and running "by mid 2007, if it's approved this year," since construction is expected to take at least 18 months, Villalobos said.

The second wind project in the northern part of Sucre state is still in a very early stage, Villalobos said.

Villalobos reiterated Cadafe's estimate of a 9% jump in power demand for Venezuela this year, up from 7% in 2004. If these wind projects are not put in place, more fuel oil will have to be devoted to thermoelectric generation rather than exported, he said.

When major OPEC member countries which get their oil at a fraction of the cost of the rest of the world start switching to alternative energy, isn't it about time for those countries dependent on oil to do more?

Original Business News Americas Article

Home Savings from Ground Source Heat Pumps

2005-06-24T05:22:00.000-07:00

Alternative Energy Blog reader Bruce Stenswick from Minnesota emailed me about his experience of installing a ground source heat pump. Here's what he says to say:

For the winter of 2003-2004, from early October to early May I used 7620 kwh of electricity. That is equivalent to 26MBtu of natural gas. My heat pump has a coefficient of performance of 3.3, which means I needed 26 x 3.3 = 85 MBtu of heat for the winter. In order to obtain that amount of heat from a 95% efficient natural gas furnace, I would have to purchase 85/.95 = 90 Mbtu of natural gas. 95% efficient is close to the tops in efficiency. Natural gas this last winter varied from $8.60 to $9.90 /MBtu. At $9.50, 90 MBtu is $850. The 7620 kwh of electricity at Xcel Energy's electric space heating rate of $0.054...../kwh would be $413. So I cut my heating bill in half.

From an energy perspective, I assume a 35% efficient power plant and 7% line losses. Doing the calculations on this I come up with 80 MBtu of natural gas needed to produce the 7620 kwh of electricity delivered to my house.

From a CO2 perspective, I calculate I cut my CO2 output about 30%. 11% because of the efficiency gain, and another 20% due the fact that Minnesota gets 20% of it electricity from sources that do not produce CO2, mostly nuclear.

Other pollutants, I have no idea how to calculate.

In reality, I like to claim I put nothing into the air when I heat my house. I buy all of my electricity from Xcel Energy's WindSource program, which means I pay $0.02/kwh extra. Xcel then goes out and buys or builds that much extra wind energy above and beyond what has been mandated by the legislature. Even doing that, I still cut my heating bill 33%.

These numbers might not hold for everyone. Heat pumps do not work well in cold temperatures with setback thermostats. That does not affect me since someone is always home and the thermostat is never below 68 in the winter. People with setback thermostats often have the house at 60 when no one is home.

This is an overlooked area. At the gas rates we had this winter, I cut my heating bill in half because of the low electric rates that utilities give for heating with electricity. My house was a retrofit. Geothermal heat pumps beat the pants off of natural gas if you are building from scratch and can put in radiant floor heat.

(please note I haven't verified his figures)

Grants for Geothermal Ground Source Heat Pumps

Author of The Tipping Point & Blink on Geothermal Energy

World Leaders Needed: The Future of Oil and Everything Else

2005-06-23T00:32:00.000-07:00

Today's post is inspired by an engineer, details of which I'll get to later.

Energy is the future. Our future depends on energy. Many people in the developing world spend much of their time thinking about and acquiring it. Firewood and food. Most people in the developed world spend little or no time thinking about or acquiring energy. An apparently endless supply of energy is assumed to be as certain as the sun rising tomorrow. Only a tiny proportion of us even consider this assumption, let alone question it.

And yet oil, gas and coal are finite and will run out (at least in economically significant and useful quantities). The end of cheap oil will arguably occur within a few short decades, if it is not already upon us. When I was at school I remember being told that oil would run out in a few decades. I remember feeling vaguely concerned, until it occurred to me that people much smarter than me must be working on it and would have a solution soon.

A few decades later I am wondering where these people are.

The answer of course is they live amongst us. Engineers, economists, bloggers, scientists, activists, and entrepreneurs. And yet at the moment most are not focused on solutions to our energy challenges, because many are not aware there is a problem.

Much of the mass media promotes materialism with shows such as MTV Cribs showing bigger and bigger houses with garages full of cars. Indeed here in the UK there seems to be one channel whose non-music programming is made up almost entirely of half hour shows titled "the fabulous life of" which seem dedicated to the worship of conspicuous consumption.

Most of our politicians seem dedicated to the "not in my term" mentality.

And yet despite our general lack of awareness, despite the scale of the challenges, the potential payoffs for coming up with solutions are huge.

For the companies and entrepreneurs who bring solutions to market there are bound to be significant financial rewards. Beyond this there is the prospect of a more peaceful world. I'm not proposing a utopian vision of a world where everyone lives in perfect harmony. However it is pretty easy to predict that having people compete over scarce resources is likely to result in conflict. Clean renewable energy offers the prospect of countries spending more time cooperating to harness the power of the sun, wind and ocean and less time competing over finite resources.

If the developed world stands to benefit from this, the developing world has even more to gain. Rather than experiencing the dirt and pain of industrialisation, renewable energy may allow them to leapfrog ahead.

As individuals it is time to become aware of our energy usage and its implications. Make our homes more energy efficient, switch to a renewable electricity supplier, generate some or all of our own power using means such as solar panels or mini wind turbines.

However it is not enough to act just as individuals. For humanity to move forward it is not about being more virtuous than everyone else. It is not about pointing fingers and assigning blame to drivers of certain types of car, people of a particular political affiliation or even to whole nations and continents. It is about building on what we can agree on and seeking consensus. We may not agree on the right solution but that's okay because there won't be one single solution - it will be a combination of many - it's more important to agree on a direction. A clean renewable, post fossil fuel future.

It is about informing, persuading, inspiring and influencing those around us. Our friends, neighbours, colleagues, society and the world at large.

Which brings me to the inspiration for this piece - a post by the Engineer Poet looking at the future of aviation once the cheap oil has run out and the discussion continuing in the comments section. It's just one example of people coming together to focus not on the problem, but on possible solutions.

Wind Energy China: One Gigawatt Wind Power Plant Largest in China

2005-06-16T06:06:00.000-07:00

The China Education and Research Network reports a 1,000 megawatt (one gigawatt) wind power plant, currently the largest in China, has been initiated in Anxi County of northwest China's Gansu Province.

With an investment of USD $967 million (RMB eight billion yuan), the project will play an important role in the development of new and clean energy resources and easing the power shortages in the eastern and western areas.

Wind Energy: Wind Power Australia

2005-06-15T01:54:00.000-07:00

The second-biggest wind farm in Victoria, Australia – a $326-million project with 128 turbines – will go ahead at Waubra in western Victoria after approval today from the State Government.

Melbourne-based company Wind Power will place the turbines on land leased from local farmers at Waubra, north-east of Ballarat.

The approval for the Waubra development brings the number of wind farms in Victoria to six, with Toora, Codrington and Challicum Hills operational, and construction underway at Wonthaggi and Portland.

The 128 turbines are capable of generating 192 megawatts of wind power or one fifth of the 1,000 megawatt renewable energy target Victoria aims to achieve by 2006.

Alternative Energy Armenia: First Wind Power Plant

2005-06-14T15:11:00.000-07:00

Iran and Armenia has signed an agreement for SANIR Co to construct four wind turbines units in Armenia in the next two months.

The capacity of the power plant is 2.5 MW experimentally and it is the first of the power plant that Iran is to construct outside its borders.

Iran and Armenia signed a memorandum of understanding here on Saturday to bolster bilateral cooperation in the field of electricity.

The agreement was signed by Iran's Energy Minister Habibollah Bitaraf and his Armenian counterpart Armen Movsisyan.

First Wind Power Plant Full Article from Iran's Mehr News Agency

Portraits - Faces of Armenia

Energy Independence vs. Energy Illiteracy

2005-06-13T14:10:00.000-07:00

Americans overwhelmingly want a new direction for U.S. energy policy in the United States and believe dependence on imported oil is a very serious problem.

These and other findings were part of a survey of attitudes on the environment conducted last month for the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies by Global Strategy Group.

Dan Esty, director of the Yale Center of Environmental Law and Policy, was delighted by the large consensus across all regions.

"In a country where everything is so deeply divided, we have a staggeringly high percentage of people aligning for change," Esty said.

More than two-thirds say the federal government isn't doing enough, while 63 percent want President Bush to do more.

Just over half of those polled in the nationwide survey believe the environment in the United States is getting worse. Among Democrats, 70 percent take this pessimistic stance, as do a majority of independents and 33 percent of Republicans.

Party distinctions disappear on the seriousness of America's dependence on imported oil, with 94 percent of Republicans, 91 percent of independents and 93 percent of Democrats expressing concern.

Asked the best way to address this problem, 93 percent want the government to require the auto industry to improve gas mileage, an opinion that showed no gender or political gap.

This puts the electorate squarely at odds with Congress, which recently rejected a proposal to make SUVs and minivans more fuel efficient.

"This is a wake-up call to Washington. The political class appears to be out of touch with their constituents," Esty said.

Across the board, people favored more solar power facilities, wind-turbine farms and increased funding for renewable energy research.

To quote the conclusion of the excellent "End of Oil" by Paul Roberts which I just finished reading:

"Each year that we fail to commit to serious energy research and development or fail to begin slowing the growth of energy demand through fuel efficiency, each year that we allow the markets to continue treating carbon as cost-free, is another year in which our already unstable energy economy moves so much closer to the point of no return."

It's time to stop dropping the ball.

It's time to go gas optional.

Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy Environmental Poll

The nationwide sample of 1,000 Americans over the age of 18 was randomly selected and the telephone poll was conducted from May 15-22. The survey has an overall margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

Wind Energy: Vietnam Wind Power

2005-06-10T02:47:00.000-07:00

Vietnam's Thanh Nien newspaper reports that a major Danish development agency has provided funds of over U.S. 51 million dollars (VND820 billion) for a 50.4 megawatt wind power plant in the central Vietnam province of Binh Dinh, local authorities said.

The Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the sponsor for the future plant, which will comprise of 28 turbines that can produce up to 170 million kWh of electricity every year to ease the chronic power shortage in the region.

Alternative Energy Nevada: Incentives to Install Solar Panels in NV

2005-06-09T13:14:00.000-07:00

An energy bill designed to encourage energy efficiency and boost the usage of alternative energy by Nevada's utilities was one of the last bills approved by lawmakers before they adjourned their special session.

The measure directs the Nevada Commission on Economic Development to approve a fifty percent property tax reduction for up to ten years to owners who have buildings that meet energy conservation standards.

Under the bill, alternative energy systems such as PV solar panels and home wind energy turbines are exempt from sales taxes.

Installers of photovoltaic solar panel systems, which convert sunlight into electricity, will need to be licensed.

The measure also allows Nevada Power and Sierra Pacific Power to get energy credits for energy efficiency programs that can be used to meet part of their alternative energy requirements under the state's renewable energy portfolio law.

University of Illinois at Chicago Study Provides Boost for Wind Power

2005-06-09T12:33:00.000-07:00

Mike Ramsey reports in the PJStar that Gov. Rod Blagojevich's proposed renewable energy standards for electric utilities would generate an estimated $7 billion in economic benefits and 7,800 new jobs through 2012, according to a University of Illinois at Chicago study commissioned by his administration.

The Illinois Commerce Commission is considering a Blagojevich-sponsored plan that would obligate power companies to generate 2 percent of the state's electricity from renewable sources beginning next year. The requirement would rise 1 percentage point annually to 8 percent by 2012, with wind power turbines providing most of the renewable power.

The 146-page report slated to be released today estimated the economic benefit to Illinois at about $1 billion annually, or $7 billion over seven years. The amount reflects private investment to build wind power turbines, the growth of maintenance and supply businesses and other economic trickle-down.

During the same time frame, nearly 8,000 new jobs would be created, the study said.

"We think this really creates a very strong case for what the governor has proposed," Steve Frankl, Blagojevich's environmental and energy policy adviser, said Wednesday. "It's clear that there are significant benefits for the state on the environmental front and the economic front."

William Worek, who oversaw the study at UIC's Energy Resources Center, said the goals explored in the document are "conservatively realistic."

"When other people talk about renewables, the tendency is to be overly optimistic," he said. "This report really looks at realistic scenarios that can be met versus something that may sound good but doesn't track in the sense of numbers."

Authors of the study crunched numbers beyond 2012, envisioning a scenario where power companies had to reach a 16 percent "renewable portfolio standard" by 2020 in Illinois. That would add another $14 billion in economic growth and an additional 4,500 jobs, Worek said.

Wind power farms already exist in Illinois. Developers have built farms in Lee and Bureau counties, and an energy cooperative in Pike County installed a single wind turbine. A nearly 300-turbine project is in the works in McLean County. Several other central Illinois counties have begun adopting wind farm ordinances in preparation for future developments.

The ICC originally was expected to consider a alternative energy plan last month. The process has taken longer than expected as interested parties, including utilities and consumer advocates, have met to hammer out details, using the Blagojevich proposal as a model. The commission may take action later this month, a spokeswoman said.

Currently, less then 1 percent of power sold to Illinois consumers comes from renewable sources. Most power is from nuclear and coal-burning power plants. Illinois annually consumes about 140 million megawatt hours, Frankl said.

Shell WindEnergy Plans World's Largest Wind Farm Supplying 25% of London Homes' Electricity

2005-06-08T01:07:00.000-07:00

Plans have been submitted to build one of the world's largest wind farms, which could generate enough electricity to supply a quarter of London homes.

The £1.5bn ($2.73 billion US dollars) London Array wind farm could see 270 wind turbines over 152 square miles in the Greater Thames Estuary.

London Array Limited won the right to lease an offshore wind farm site between the Essex and Kent coasts in December 2003 but has just applied to the government and local planning authorities for permission to develop the area.

The off-shore wind farm, which could produce up to 1,000 megawatts (one gigawatt) of renewable wind energy, would be built 12 miles off shore by 2011.

The consortium says it would not be an eyesore, because it is so far out, and says it will would mean 1.9m tonnes less carbon dioxide each year.

Jason Scagell, of E.ON UK Renewables - part of the London Array Consortium along with Shell WindEnergy and CORE Limited - said they wanted to reduce carbon emissions.

He said: "It's only through building more powerful wind farm sites such as this that we'll be able to reach the government's tough targets for renewable generation."

The development is a joint venture between energy giants Shell and E.On and an Anglo-Danish company, Core. Erik Kjaer Sorenson, director of Core, said: "This project will supply the equivalent of a quarter of London's domestic load and will surely, once and for all, bury the myth that wind energy is insignificant.

"Furthermore, it is merely the first of a number of similar-sized wind power schemes that will place the UK market at the forefront of offshore renewable energy development worldwide."

The Stateline wind farm, between the states of Washington and Oregon in the U.S., is so far the largest wind farm in the world, with a maximum capacity of 300 megawatts, said Alison Hill, a spokeswoman with the British Wind Energy Association. Germany is the country with most wind energy capacity in the world, followed by Spain, the U.S. and Denmark, Hill said.

The world's biggest offshore wind farm that's already in operation is Denmark's Nysted windfarm, which can produce 165 megawatts and is operated by Energi E2 (link currently does not work in Firefox). The next largest is another Danish project, Horns Rev.

Havgul AS, a Norwegian wind-power company, plans to build three wind parks off the coast of northwest Norway with a combined capacity of 1,410 megawatts, according to its website. The company plans to submit applications for regulatory approval by the end of this year. The project originally comprised four parks, though one was shelved earlier this year after protests from local communities.

The three Norwegian parks, if approved, are unlikely to be completed before London Array, said Morten Thomsen, a spokesman for Energi E2.

Alternative Energy Vietnam: 400MW Geothermal Energy Capacity

2005-06-07T01:54:00.000-07:00

Vietnams's Thanh Nien newspaper reports that the earth can be regarded as an enormous geothermal machine, the abundant energy of which is demonstrated by the eruption of the volcanoes, hot spring water, and hot natural air. Man is presently harnessing only a small fraction of that energy.

The start-up capital for such energy is around US$1.5 million per MW, which is 1.5 times more expensive than that of hydroelectricity, experts said.

Geothermal electricity, however, is more feasible than hydroelectricity with a shorter period of construction (estimated from 2 to 3 years), and a smaller construction site; a heat-storing tub located at several km underground, according to experts.

Developed countries like the US, Japan, Russia, and developing ones such as China, the Philippines, Malaysia, among others are making hectic preparations to construct geothermal power stations.

Vietnam finds itself located on the world geothermal map, with its capacity expected to be up to 400MW. The capacity of the US, for example, is 3170MW, Japan 458MW, Indonesia 379MW, and New Zealand 300MW.

Strikingly, the Philippines owns a resource capacity predicted to be as much as 2764MW, and it expects to catch up with the US in this field.

Vietnam’s potential regions are in the North West, North East, the North, and especially in South central Vietnam, in areas such as Le Thuy (Quang Binh), Mo Duc, Nghia Thang (Quang Ngai), Hoi Van (Binh Dinh), Tu Bong, and Danh Thanh (Khanh Hoa). Geothermal energy electricity projects seem to be very feasible, with completed plants forecast to have capacity ranging from 20MW to 50MW.

Geothermal energy’s output capacity is less than that of hydroelectricity, however, the preeminent and stability of the clean, environmentally-friendly, and permanent source of energy would play an important role in diversifying Vietnam’s energy sources.

In the 1990s, the US’s Ormat Corporation spent a lot of money and effort researching and planning to establish a geothermic electric plant in Vietnam with the capacity up to 20MW. It also agreed to sell the electricity to Vietnam Power Corporation at a competitive price, but Vietnam has no policy to favor such plan, and Ormat had to part with its project.

Among the hot sunny days with widespread lack of electricity in May, the Mechanics Institution, reporting to the Vietnam Science and Technology Institution, held a conference entitled "Developing and Using Geothermal Energy in Vietnam". The top outcome from the conference was that scientists expected the Vietnamese government to start developing Vietnam's geothermal energy sources soon.

Japan Seeks Protection From Crude Oil Prices By Reducing Energy Consumption

2005-06-06T16:21:00.000-07:00

James Brooker reports in the New York Times that surging oil prices and growing concern about meeting targets on cutting emissions produced by burning fossil fuels have revived efforts around the world to improve energy efficiency. But perhaps nowhere is the interest greater than in Japan.

Even though Japan is already among the most frugal countries in the world, the government recently started a national campaign urging people to replace their older appliances and buy hybrid vehicles as part of a patriotic effort to save energy and fight global warming. And big companies are jumping on the bandwagon, counting on the moves to increase sales of their latest models.

On the Matsushita appliance showroom floor these days, the numbers scream not the low, low prices but the low, low kilowatt-hours.

A vacuum-insulated refrigerator, which comes with a buzzer that will sound if the door stays open more than 30 seconds, boasts that it will consume just 160 kilowatt-hours a year, one-eighth of the power needed by standard models a decade ago.

"It's like squeezing a dry towel" for the last few drops, said Katsumi Tomita, an environmental planner for Matsushita Electric Industrial. "The honest feeling of Japanese people is, 'How can we do more?"'

A number of other affluent countries with few domestic energy resources of their own are responding in similar ways. In Germany, where heating accounts for the largest share of home energy use, a new energy-saving law has as its standard the "seven-liter house."

The goal is to use seven liters, or 1.8 gallons, of oil to heat one square meter for a year, about one-third the amount consumed by a house built in 1973, before the first oil price shock. Three-liter houses - even one-liter designs - are now being built.

In Singapore, where year-round air conditioning often accounts for 60 percent of a building's power bill, new codes are encouraging the use of things like heat-blocking window films and hookups to neighborhood cooling systems where water is chilled overnight.

Other countries, including the United States, the largest energy consumer by far, have lagged behind, but even American consumers are starting to turn their backs on big sport utility vehicles and looking at more fuel-efficient cars in response to higher gasoline prices.

But Japan is where energy consciousness probably reaches the highest levels. The second-largest economy produces virtually no fossil fuels, importing 96 percent of its energy needs - a dependence that has led to tremendous achievements in improved efficiency. France and Germany, where governments crusade against global warming, expend almost 50 percent more energy to produce the equivalent of $1 in economic activity. Britain's energy use, by the same measure, is nearly double; that of the United States, nearly triple; and China's almost eight times as high.

From 1973 to today, Japan's industrial sector nearly tripled its output but kept energy consumption roughly flat. To produce the same industrial output as Japan, China consumes 11.5 times as much energy.

At JFE Holdings, a leading steel company, plastic pellets made from recycled bottles now account for 10 percent of fuel in the main blast furnaces, reducing reliance on imported coal. Japanese paper mills are investing heavily in boilers that can be fueled by waste paper, wood and plastic. Within two years, half of the electricity used in the country's paper mills is to come from burning waste.

As host nation for the Kyoto Protocol, the pact for cutting the so-called greenhouse gases suspected of being behind global warming, Japan takes its commitment seriously. But it faces a big challenge. According to figures released last month, Japan's emissions were 8.3 percent above the 1990 level for the year that ended on March 31, 2004.

Original Newspaper Article on the International Herald Tribune Website

Smaller More Efficient Solar Energy Tower Now Able to Provide Base Load

2005-06-01T05:06:00.000-07:00

ABC News Australia reports that planned modifications to a proposed green energy solar tower (also known as a solar chimney) in north-western Victoria might mean the tower will no longer be the world's tallest man-made structure.

The tower - to be built north of Mildura - was to have been one kilometre high, producing enough green energy to power up to 200,000 households.

Enviromission chief executive Roger Davey says two new technologies may mean the tower could be made smaller, but perform better in terms of energy production and economics.

"If it was smaller it's still going to be very, very large - it will still be one of the largest structures, it will still be a renewable energy icon, it will be one of the most high yielding renewable energy projects if we get these two technologies right," he said.

UPDATE (taken from the Enviromission website):

Initially proposed at 200MW, the original Solar Tower concept required iconic design dimensions to achieve the necessary output for commercial development. Continuous improvement of the concept during project feasibility has involved the investigation of methods to increase power station efficiency and capacity in parallel to reducing design dimensions for greater commercial feasibility.

Enhancements identified with the potential to improve the efficiency of the collector zone of a Solar Tower, if successfully adapted to the concept, will result in design changes that will facilitate the delivery of smaller scale, commercial power plants; typically ranging in size from an installed capacity of 25MW upwards.

The two stand alone, proven enhancements, proposed for adaptation to the concept will introduce the ability to dramatically improve the performance of the roof area of the collector zone and introduce a method of storing heat (previously unavailable to the concept) creating greater base load generation.

Successful adaptation of the enhancements will enable an array of power plants to be built with vastly higher output at a much lower capital cost.

“The business case is significantly strengthened where capacity and revenue is increased from a substantially reduced capital cost base” said executive chairman Roger Davey.

“These inroads now mean a Solar Tower can be designed with installed capacities ranging from 25MW to 200MW adding unprecedented flexibility for the commercial development of Solar Towers in more diverse locations.

Plans for Solar Tower in China

Solar Tower for California?

Large Visualisation of How the Solar Chimney will Look

Reducing Electricity Costs With Solar Panels and Wind Turbines in Scotland

2005-05-31T03:37:00.000-07:00

Scotland's Herald reports that a quiet revolution is sweeping the country. It involves hundreds of schools, community groups and small businesses turning to wind turbines and solar panels to provide their power.

According to new figures, there has been an upsurge in small-scale renewable energy projects, with a 14-fold increase over the past five years. They are supported by the results of a new survey showing that about 70% of Scots would consider installing a renewable energy device in their home. The survey and figures were released after Friday's announcement that Windsave, the Glasgow-based firm, has signed an exclusive agreement with British Gas to install wind turbines on private and local authority-owned properties.

The company sold one of its first rooftop turbines to Brian Wilson, the former energy minister, who installed it on the roof of his home in the west end of Glasgow. Nearly 300 households have already invested in renewable technology, according to figures collated by the Scottish Renewables Forum. They show that the number of communities and businesses turning to green energy has increased from just 19 in 2000 to 273 this year. A further 83 have applied for planning permission.

Although many such projects reflect a concern for the environment, they are also an effective way of cutting fuel bills, according to Scottish Renewables. One school, St John Bosco primary in Erskine, is expecting to save about £6000 a year after installing a wind turbine at Easter.
The devices used range from wind turbines and solar panels to lesser-known technologies such as biomass heating and micro-hydropower systems.

Maf Smith, chief executive of Scottish Renewables, described the growing interest in small-scale renewables as a "quiet revolution sweeping the country".

A survey commissioned by the Scottish Renewables Forum shows it is not only community groups and small businesses that are interested in the potential of renewable energy.

Individual households are also keen, with 92% saying they thought domestic renewable devices were a good idea. It also found that a majority of Scots would consider putting in some sort of renewable device, with solar panels the most popular option. Of the 848 people interviewed by NOP World, 33% said they would consider putting up a wind turbine.

Among the various concerns that might stop householders investing in green energy, the biggest were cost, cited by 33%, and a lack of information which 20% felt was a problem.

Scottish Renewables said groups such as the Scottish Community and Householder Renewables Initiative (SCHRI) and the Energy Savings Trust could help tackle those obstacles to further growth in small-scale projects. Since it was set up in January 2003, the Scottish Executive-funded initiative has awarded about 150 grants worth £3.8m to help community projects and 390 awards, worth £678,000, to households.

The figures show that renewable devices are being installed in schools, businesses, ferry terminals and care homes across Scotland, although the majority are in the Highlands and Islands. The Highlands will have a total of 37 such projects by the end of this year, with biomass and wind the most popular sources of energy.

In Orkney, where there are 33 projects, turbines and heat pumps make up the majority of renewable devices installed, while in the Western Isles, solar panels are the most popular, making up nearly 40% of the total number installed.

"A 14-fold increase in micro-generation by Scottish communities and businesses in five years is a great achievement and it's good to know that many Scottish-designed devices are being used," according to Maf Smith.

Windsave Competitor - Stealth Gen

For U.S. readers pico wind generators "from $50"

Full Scottish Herald Article with list of rural alternative energy projects in Scotland

Wind Power USA: First Offshore Wind Farm in the United States To Be Built in Georgia?

2005-05-25T07:02:00.000-07:00

Southern Company and the Georgia Institute of Technology announced today that they will collaborate on the Southeast's first offshore wind power project off the coast of Savannah, Georgia.

In their press release the Southern Company have stated that the goal of the project is to determine if offshore wind power is a feasible and efficient renewable energy option for power generation. The project concept is expected to include three to five wind turbines that could generate 10 megawatts of power, enough to power about 2,500 homes.

"We remain interested in finding viable renewable energy options that can play a part in meeting the growing demands of our customers," said David Ratcliffe, president, chairman and CEO of Southern Company. "Our partnership with Georgia Tech presents us a unique opportunity to assess offshore wind power as a cost-effective option for generating power in our region."

The first step of the project, a design and conceptual engineering phase, will start in July using technical expertise from both Georgia Tech and Southern Company. The first phase of the project will evaluate various technology options for wind turbines, platforms/foundations, submarine cabling and grid interconnection. Detailed analyses of a site location and environmental regulations and jurisdictions, including permitting requirements, will also be determined.

The project is a continuation of research conducted by Georgia Tech's Strategic Energy Initiative, a research group devoted to testing both the scientific and economic feasibility of innovative technologies. The research was funded with a National Science Foundation grant focused on innovative energy options in the coastal Georgia region.

Though many discounted the Southeast as a possible site for offshore wind turbines, the Georgia Tech group, led by Dr. Sam Shelton, was able to prove that there may be enough wind for power generation by analyzing six years of wind data collected from Navy platforms located off the coast of Savannah. The strong westerly winds that blow along Georgia's coastal waters coupled with the technological advances seen in the last few decades make this offshore region the best site in the Southeast for an offshore wind demonstration project.

In addition to its plentiful wind, the area is also ideal for offshore wind because of its extensive area of shallow water at distances beyond the shoreline view, which could reduce building costs and avoid the challenges of building and operating wind turbines in deep-water.

The project also has the potential to be the first offshore wind project completed in the United States. There are only two other planned U.S. offshore wind projects, one near Fire Island and Long Island off the coast of New York and another between Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard off the coast of Massachusetts, but both are much larger than the Southern Co./Georgia Tech project and neither has been approved.

Georgia Institute of Technology Official Website

Southern Company Official Website

Wind Energy: Nasa Funded Study Identifies 72 Terawatts of Global Wind Power Potential

2005-05-23T05:13:00.000-07:00

Stanford researchers have produced a new map that pinpoints where the world's winds are fast enough to produce wind power. The map may help planners place wind turbines in locations that maximize power harnessed from winds and provide widely available low-cost energy. After analyzing more than 8,000 wind-speed measurements to identify the world's wind-power potential for the first time, Cristina Archer, a former postdoctoral fellow, and Mark Z. Jacobson, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, suggest that wind captured at specific locations, if even partially harnessed, can generate more than enough power to satisfy the world's energy demands. Their report appears in the May Journal of Geophysical Research-Atmospheres, a publication of the American Geophysical Union.

"The main implication of this study is that wind, for low-cost wind energy, is more widely available than was previously recognized," said Archer.

The researchers collected wind-speed measurements from approximately 7,500 surface stations and 500 balloon-launch stations to determine global wind speeds at 80 meters (300 feet) above the ground surface, which is the hub height of modern wind turbines. Using a new interpolation technique to estimate the wind speed at hub height, the authors reported that nearly 13 percent of the stations had average annual speeds strong enough for windpower generation.

Wind speeds of 6.9 meters per second (15 miles per hour) at hub height, referred to as wind power Class 3, were found in every region of the world. Some of the strongest winds were observed in Northern Europe, along the North Sea, while the southern tip of South America and the Australian island of Tasmania also featured sustained strong winds. North America had the greatest wind-power potential, however, with the most consistent winds found in the Great Lakes region and from ocean breezes along coasts. Overall, the researchers calculated hub-height winds traveled over the ocean at approximately 8.6 meters per second and at nearly 4.5 meters per second over land (20 and 10 miles per hour, respectively).

The authors found that the locations with sustainable Class 3 winds could produce approximately 72 terawatts, that's 72,000 Gigawatts or 72 million Megawatts. A terawatt is one trillion watts, the power generated by more than 500 nuclear reactors or thousands of coal-burning plants. Capturing even a fraction of those 72 terawatts could provide the 1.6 to 1.8 terawatts that made up the world's electricity usage in 2000. Converting as little as 20 percent of potential wind energy to electricity could satisfy the entirety of the world's energy demands.

The study, supported by NASA and Stanford's Global Climate and Energy Project, may assist in locating wind farms in regions known for strong and consistent breezes. In addition, the researchers suggest that the inland locations of many existing wind farms may explain their inefficiency.

"It is our hope that this study will foster more research in areas that were not covered by our data, or economic analyses of the barriers to the implementation of a wind-based global energy scenario," Archer said.

Update: The excellent group blog WorldChanging has an image of the Global Wind Power Map

Original Article on Stanford University's Website

Grassroots Action: Switching to Green Energy in Cornwall, England

2005-05-10T05:14:00.000-07:00

Eden Project in Cornwall, England

A non-profit word-of-mouth campaign encouraging people to switch to Green Energy tariffs is being launched at the Eden Project in Cornwall, England on the 12th May. After covering campaign costs, ten pounds (around $20) is being donated to charity for every household which switches to a Green Energy tariff. The charities supported include the Cornwall Green Communities Fund, which will support small-scale renewable energy and energy-saving projects that benefit local communities.

Let me know in the comments if you've switched to a renewable energy tariff yet.

Cornwall Switch to Green Energy Campaign

Cornwall Geothermal

More Photos of the Eden Project by Les St Clair

Peak Oil: Non-Geological Peak Scenario

2005-05-09T03:03:00.000-07:00

Geoff Styles has written a post on a recent report on peak oil by Science Applications International (SAIC) which was commissioned by the U.S. Department of Energy. What is particularly of note in Geoff's analysis is his emphasis on non-geological factors such as "geopolitics, access, and industry investment patterns".

In what I'm going to call the Styles Scenario - oil production could reach a temporary peak based on non-geological factors which could become permanent as a result of underdevelopment of resources by OPEC.

I agree with Geoff, time is wasting. The world needs a serious discussion about where our future energy supplies are going to come from.

The Styles Scenario: Geoff Styles' full post on a possible non-geological peak in oil production

Austin Energy Texas First in America for Alternative Energy Electricity Sales

2005-04-25T02:16:00.000-07:00

Austin Energy has shown its commitment to renewable energy.

The U.S. Department of Energy said Austin Energy's Green Choice program sold more than 334 million hours of renewable energy last year.

More than 350 businesses in Austin get their power from renewable sources as an alternative to fossil fuels.

Austin Energy uses electricity from 61 West Texas wind turbines.

Here's the top ten green energy programs in the United States (as of December 2004).

1. Austin Energy -
areas served include Austin, Texas
green energy from Wind Power, Land Fill Gas, Small Hydro -
334 MWh/year

2. Portland General Electric (PGE) -
areas served include Portland, Oregon
green power from existing Geothermal, Wind Power, Small Hydro - 262 MWh/year

3. PacifiCorp - includes Pacific Power and Utah Power
areas served include:
Oregon, Washington, Wyoming, California, Utah, Idaho
green energy from Wind Power, Biomass, Solar Energy -
191 MWh/year

4. Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) -
green power from Landfill Gas, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 176 MWh/year

5. Xcel Energy -
areas served include: Denver,Colorado; Elkhart, Kansas; Wakefield, Michigan; Saint Paul, Minnesota; Roswell, New Mexico; Fargo, North Dakota; Boise City, Idaho; Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Amarillo, Texas; Eau Claire, Wisconsin
green electricity from Wind Power - 137 MWh/year

6. National Grid -
areas served include:
New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Nantucket
green power from Biomass, Wind Power, Small Hydro, Solar Energy - 88 MWh/year

7. Los Angeles Department of Power and Water (LADPW) -
area served Los Angeles through the Green LA program
green energy from Wind Power, Landfill Gas - 75 MWh/year

8. OG&E Electric Services -
area served Oklahoma
green electricity from Wind Power - 56 MWh/year

9. Puget Sound Energy (PSE)-
area served Washington state
green energy from Wind Power, Solar Energy, Biogas -
46 MWh/year

10. We Energies -
areas served include Wisconsin and Michigan
green power from Landfill Gas, Wind Power, Small Hydro -
40 MWh/year

(source: NREL)

MWh/year = million kWh/year rounded down

List of Green Energy Providers by State

One of the single biggest ways we as individuals can encourage the use of alternative energy and help aid the transition to a post fossil fuel age is to buy electricity partly, or preferably completely, generated using alternative energy.

Switching your electricity utility provider may be as simple as requesting a form or filling one in online. That's exactly how I switched to 100% renewable energy (generated mainly from wind power with some solar power and small scale hydro thrown into the mix). Renewable energy options are available throughout the U.K. and in many other countries.

To find out if you can switch to renewable energy in your area look on your search engine of choice for "green energy", "green power" or "green electricity". You may also need to add your location to the search. If your local utility doesn't provide a renewable energy option yet, email or call them and ask why.

Original News 8 Austin Article

Green-e Certified Electricity Products

Wind Energy Japan: Vestas Eyes Offshore Future

2005-04-23T03:19:00.000-07:00

While it sees the Japanese mainland as a challenge due to the country's dense population, Danish wind turbine maker Vestas Wind Systems A/S is hoping to put some puff into its sales with offshore installations, the company's president said.

Svend Sigaard, president and chief executive officer of the world's largest wind turbine manufacturer, spoke to The Daily Yomiuri at 2005 World Exposition Aichi, where the company is exhibiting at the Nordic Pavilion.

"Japan is a densely populated country, and that makes the Japanese market more difficult compared with other markets. If we utilize the possibilities of nearshore installations or even offshore installations in the future, that will give us the possibility of continued use of wind energy.

If we go offshore, it's more expensive because the construction of foundations is expensive. But often the wind is stronger offshore, and that can offset the higher costs.

We're getting more and more competitive with our equipment. The price--if you measure it per kilowatt-hour produced--is going lower, due to the fact that turbines are getting more efficient. So we're creating increased interest in wind energy.

If you compare it to other renewable energy sources, wind is by far the most competitive today. If we're able to utilize sites close to the sea or at sea with good wind machines, then the price per kilowatt-hour is competitive against other sources of energy. "

Energy Efficiency: LED Lights to Replace Lightbulbs?

2005-04-19T07:11:00.000-07:00

Alternative Energy Blog reader Jeff Vail emailed me about this Associated Press article on the increasing use of and advances in LED technology.

LED lamps were unthinkable until the technology cleared a major hurdle just a dozen years ago. Since then, LEDs have evolved quickly and are being adapted for many uses, including pool illumination and reading lights, as evidenced at the Lightfair trade show in New York this week.

More widespread use could lead to big energy savings and a minor revolution in the way we think about lighting.

LEDs have been around since the 60s, but have mostly been relegated to showing the time in an alarm clock or the battery level of a video camera.

They haven't been used as sources of illumination because they, for a long time, could not produce white light - only red, green and yellow. Nichia Chemical of Japan changed that in 1993 when it started producing blue LEDs, which combined with red and green produce white light, opening up a whole new field for the technology.

White LEDs

And the industry has been quick to exploit it. LEDs are based on semiconductor technology, just like computer processors, and are increasing in brightness, energy efficiency and longevity in a way that's reminiscent of the way each year's new crop of processors is faster and cheaper than last year's.

Researchers at the Lighting Research Center at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., said they had boosted the light output per watt of a white LED to almost six times that of an incandescent light bulb, beating even a compact fluorescent bulb in efficiency.

The current generation of mass-produced white LEDs is not as effective. It's about twice as good as a light bulb of the same wattage, but the energy savings aren't enough to overcome the major drawback of being expensive.

"It's hard to convince consumers based on energy savings alone," said Nadarajah Narendran, director of lighting research at Rensselaer. "If you look at compact fluorescent lamps, they're four times as efficient as incandescent lights, and how many homes have those? It's less than 5 percent penetration."

But development is brisk, and the Department of Energy has estimated that LED lighting could cut national energy consumption for lighting by 29 percent by 2025. The total savings on U.S. household electric bills until then would be $125 billion.

LEDs have other advantages that are propelling them into niche uses, despite their upfront cost.

LED Traffic Lights

Current white LEDs will last up to 50,000 hours, about 50 times as long as a 60-watt bulb. That's almost six years if they're on constantly.

That makes them attractive for places where changing bulbs is difficult or expensive - like on the outside of buildings or in swimming pools. Osram Sylvania, the lighting subsidiary of German manufacturer Siemens AG (SI), makes 27-foot long strips of flexible, adhesive tape covered in LEDs for such applications. They are also being used in traffic lights and increasingly in car tail lights.

Hotels are interested in using LEDs in bedside lamps to save them the trouble of replacing burned-out bulbs, said Jim Anderson of Lamina Ceramics, which showed off a 6-watt array of LEDs that produce light equivalent to a 20-watt halogen bulb.

LEDs are also durable. Being solid-state, they can resist the vibrations in aircraft and cars, according to Narendran, who has worked with Boeing on designs for aircraft cabins.

BMW LED Tail Light

The feature of LEDs likely to propel them into homes is aesthetic, not practical. Arrays that mix red, green and blue LEDs can produce any color of the rainbow. Instead of a dimmer, you might have three sliding knobs that let you mix color.

"On a very hot day you might want blue light to cool it down a bit, or on a winter day you may want to simulate sunlight," said Steve Landau of Lumileds Lighting, an LED-making joint venture of Agilent Technologies Inc. (A) and Philips Lighting.

Qantas Airways Ltd., the Australian airline, recently outfitted its first-class cabin with LED lighting that shines a deep blue when it's time to sleep.

A system like that would be too expensive for most homes, but industry experts believe the price will come down in a few years as the technology develops.

"We are still in a very young research environment," said Norbert Hiller, vice president at Cree Inc. (CREE) of Durham, N.C., which produces blue and green LEDs. "Our researchers keep surprising us."

AP article on LED Lighting Technology

Energy Efficient Product Reviews

Alternative Energy in Developing Countries: New U.N. Report

2005-04-18T04:44:00.000-07:00

a Ghanaian woman

A United Nations environment agency survey has revealed the potential for renewable energy in some of the world's developing countries is much greater than previously thought. The UN Environment Agency (UNEP)'s four-year project to map the solar and wind resources of 13 countries has discovered thousands of megawatts of new renewable energy waiting to be unleashed in Asia, Africa, and South and Central America

"In developing countries all over the world we have removed some of the uncertainty about the size and intensity of the solar and wind resource," said UNEP executive director Klaus Toepfer. "SWERA (The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment) is a good example of international cooperation that can produce a range of positive environmental and social outcomes. In the case of renewable energy, knowledge is literally power."

"SWERA (The Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment) has clearly demonstrated that the modest amounts needed to support renewable energy assessments can significantly change the way countries pursue their energy goals," said SWERA's project manager Tom Hamlin.

The countries where SWERA has carried out surveys to date are: Bangladesh, Brazil, China, Cuba, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guatemala, Honduras, Kenya, Nepal, Nicaragua, and Sri Lanka.

China alone has the potential for more than 100,000 megawatts of renewable power, while Brazil also has large amounts, according to the study.

Small countries also have surprising potential. Sri Lanka has a wind power potential of 26,000 megawatts, which is 10 times the country's installed electricity capacity.

Windy Lake Nicaragua gives the small Central American country 20,000 megawatts of potential renewable power.

In Guatemala, wind estimates before SWERA were mostly unknown, but is now estimated at 7000 megawatts, based on SWERA products. The Guatemala Ministry of Energy has established, with support from SWERA, the Center for Renewable Energy and Investment within the Ministry to carry out validation studies and identify sites for wind energy development.

The benefits for each country differ. "If you look at China and Brazil they're going to be manufacturing the (renewable) plants and there are big economic benefits in that," said Hamlin. "And there are broad economic benefits for the smaller countries," he said. "Instead of always importing petroleum they would have domestic resources so they would save on the costs and risks of having petroleum prices fluctuate wildly."

In the African country of Ghana, where the SWERA study discovered more than 2,000 megawatts of wind energy potential, this is "quite a significant amount" according to UNEP, as it estimates that Africa need just 40,000 megawatts of electricity to power its industrialisation.

Solar and Wind Energy Resource Assessment Website

Alternate Energy Japan: Energy Plan to Decrease Dependence on Oil

2005-04-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi on Friday instructed ministers in his Cabinet to work out a long-term energy plan featuring increased use of alternatives to oil, such as solar and wind power, a government official said.

At a meeting of ministers on the country's energy policy, Koizumi said Japan should draft an energy plan that goes beyond the one the government has compiled up to fiscal 2010 and that the new plan should put priority on departing from oil dependency and boosting alternative energy consumption, the official said.

"We need to decrease consumption of oil and bring in new alternative energy sources including solar and wind power as well as fuel cells," Koizumi was quoted as saying. "That is the way we should transform our country from a nation with almost no resources."

Recent surges in crude oil prices to record-high levels are behind the policy, the official said.

The premier said nuclear power is an important source of energy for Japan but it would be difficult to increase the number of nuclear power plants.

Some electric power companies have become reluctant to promote nuclear plant construction because of local opposition and the high cost of building and running the plants, analysts say.

Under the government's revised energy supply plan, which is expected to be formalized by May, Japan aims to lower dependence on petroleum in primary energy supply from 47 percent in fiscal 2000 to 41 percent in fiscal 2010.

Considering the technological lead Japanese automakers like Toyota and Honda have shown in hybrid technology, it is time for the Japanese government to show leadership in promoting plug-in hybrid technology and alternative energy. By doing so Japan can lock in long term electricity and transportation fuel prices and reduce its significant exposure to rises in fossil fuels prices. It also has an opportunity to set an example on an international level by leading the way to a post oil age.

Alternative Energy Technology: Toshiba Develops One Minute Rechargable Lithium-Ion Battery

2005-04-04T05:24:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Alternative Energy Blog reader Josh who referred me to this recent press release by Toshiba who have developed a high energy density lithium-Ion battery that recharge 80% of its capacity in one minute. This is sixty times faster than typical lithium-ion batteries (which among other applications are commonly used in cellphones). As Josh (who has worked as an engineer at Ballard Fuel Cells) commented:

"Having worked extensively with fuel cells, I think this technology may dominate over everything Ballard has already developed. With high energy density, fast charging cells, there is also a clear path to fully electric vehicles with no need to change current infastructure. Vehicles could also easily be charged from home, at work, or gas stations could adapt by providing high-speed charging facilities."

According to the press release its secret is the use of "nano-particles" to "prevent organic liquid electrolytes from reducing during battery recharging. The nano-particles quickly absorb and store vast amount of lithium ions, without causing any deterioration in the electrode".

The battery has a long life cycle, losing only 1% of capacity after 1,000 cycles of discharging and recharging, and can operate at very low temperatures.

Toshiba will bring the new rechargeable battery to commercial products in 2006. Initial applications will be in the automotive and industrial sectors, where the slim, small-sized battery will deliver large amounts of energy while requiring only a minute to recharge.

According to the press release "the battery's advantages in size, weight and safety highly suit it for a role as an alternative power source for hybrid electric vehicles", which is exciting news for plug-in hybrid cars.

Full Toshbia Press Release including comparison charts with other types of battery technology

Alternative Energy Hungary: River Energy

2005-03-17T05:13:00.000-08:00

The Budapest Sun reports that Laszlo Oroszi, the inventor of an alternative energy system, believes rivers hold at least one of the keys to Hungary meeting European Union directives on alternative energy.

EU members must produce at least 6% of their energy via renewable energy sources by 2010, with the Union discussing the possibility of increasing this to 12% by 2020.

Currently only 3.6% of energy generated in Hungary comes via alternative energy sources (excluding nuclear), primarily from windfarms, bio-plants (wood chipping) and solar panels.

Oroszi told The Budapest Sun, "Electricity cannot be stored in bulk form and must constantly be generated."

Wind and sunshine have sporadic cycles in Hungary, and costly to run bio-plants need huge storage facilities for fuel.

"So far very few experts have even considered using Hungary's rivers to harvest much needed energy," said Oroszi, explaining that this is currently the sole source that can offer alternative energy producers "clean or green energy non-stop".

"Every second, billions of cubic meters of river water is flowing through Hungarian territory," he enthused.

Oroszi says that, based on scientific research, the Danube river (which flows a total 417km in Hungary) has a yield of 2,270 cubic meters per second, and flows at 1.18 meters per second (measured at Nagymaros), while the Tisza river (which flows 596 km in Hungary) yields about 740 cubic meters per second at a speed of 0.61 meters per second (measured at Szeged).

With the EU subsidizing green projects, Oroszi has received many inquiries concerning his patented idea for a relocatable cluster of generators producing power from flowing water, for which feasibility studies are also underway. "It would be an offense not to harvest the colossal amount of money-saving energy available in Hungarian rivers when the world is yearning for renewable energy sources.

"Even the slowest flowing, so-called 'passive rivers' can be utilized to harvest electricity, even to supply whole villages nearby," he said. Oroszi added that the system is "guaranteed to not only be profitable, but also environmental-friendly."

Nuclear Power: Nuclear Energy Back on the Agenda for Britain?

2005-03-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Robert Edwards writes in Scotland's Sunday Herald about the resurgence of nuclear lobby in the UK:

Nuclear power is back on the agenda with a bang in Britain. The speed with which it has moved centre stage in the political debate has taken everyone by surprise – including the scientists, civil servants and politicians that support it. Most people had naively assumed that the issue had been effectively killed off for at least a decade by the government’s energy policy White Paper in February 2003.

After years of investigations and discussions, it concluded by dismissing the industry’s call for a £10 billion programme to build 10 new nuclear power stations as an “unattractive option”. Nuclear power could not be ruled out for the future, it said, but there was no current economic case for it.

Yet now, just two years down the road, here we are rehearsing the same arguments again. Some suspect that this is the result of a poorly organised conspiracy by a powerful nuclear lobby, deeply embedded in the government establishment.

“The nuclear industry has grasped at climate change like a drowning man clutching a passing log,” said Tom Burke, a visiting professor at Imperial College, London, who was an environmental advisor to four ministers.

Public interest was stirred last year by a few leading “green” gurus coming out in favour of nuclear power. The most famous was the originator of the Gaia theory of the Earth as a self-regulating organism, Professor James Lovelock. He is linked with a small group known as Environmentalists for Nuclear Energy based near Paris. His argument is that because nuclear power emits much less carbon dioxide – a greenhouse gas – than fossil fuels, it is the best technology available to combat the threat of climate change.

Pro-nuclear environmentalists, however, make up only a tiny fraction of the green movement, and they are not new. They can trace their ancestry back to those in the 1950s and 1960s who were so appalled at the destruction wrought by the atomic bombs dropped on Japan by the US in 1945, that they devoted their lives to “atoms for peace”.

There has also been a flurry of leaks from Westminster, all suggesting mounting pressure within government to take decisions on nuclear power. The latest, last weekend, was a memo to the new industry secretary Alan Johnson from his senior energy official Joan MacNaughton.

“It is generally easier to push ahead on controversial issues early in a new parliament”, she advised the minister. She also revealed that the environment secretary Margaret Beckett had been preventing the government’s review of climate change policy from considering nuclear power.

Ministers in London are sharply divided on the wisdom of building more nuclear stations, which may account for some of the leaks. But with the Prime Minister leaning in favour, and Gordon Brown at the Treasury worried about the public spending implications, it is difficult to predict what will happen.

An opinion poll for the BBC during the election showed that only 17% of people in Scotland supported more nuclear stations, compared to 73% who backed more wind farms.

Public opinion aside, there are major barriers to new nuclear stations. A new programme would likely be based on an untested US-designed reactor known as the AP1000, which is claimed to be cheaper and safer. But before it could be licensed for use in Britain, it would have to be fully assessed by the government’s Nuclear Installations Inspectorate. Unfortunately, as the Sunday Herald has previously revealed, the inspectorate is chronically short of staff, and has been embroiled in a morale-sapping work-to-rule for more than 18 months.

The former chief inspector of the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate, Laurence Williams, told a meeting of the government’s Nuclear Safety Advisory Committee last November that evaluating an established international design would take 25 experienced inspectors about two years. It would take at least another year to recruit and train them, plus public inquiries which “would be a significant further drain on resources”.

It takes about 10 years to build a nuclear station from scratch, so according to Peter Roche, the earliest any new reactor could be up and running is 2018. This is seven years after Hunterston B is scheduled to close.

It is often forgotten that nuclear power, as a generator of electricity, can only avoid the pollution caused by burning coal, oil or gas in power stations. It can do nothing to prevent the vast amounts of carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles and farms.

“Energy efficiency can start reducing carbon dioxide emissions today,’’ argued Roche. ‘‘Just one or two efficiency measures, such as making sure all new central heating boilers and white goods are state-of-the-art, would be enough to displace the savings new reactors could make.”

Even representatives of the nuclear industry, when asked to comment on the prospect of new stations, seem unenthusiastic. A spokeswoman for the UK Atomic Energy Authority, which operates Dounreay, said: “Our mission today is very much about decommissioning our sites in a safe and publicly acceptable manner.”

Do we need nuclear power?

At a UK level the last major independent analysis of the question was conducted by the Cabinet Office’s Performance and Innovation Unit, in preparation for the 2003 energy White Paper. It suggested that a combination of increased energy efficiency, the widespread use of combined heat and power stations and a boost in renewable energy sources such as wind and wave power could sustain an annual growth rate of 2%, while cutting carbon emissions.

In Scotland an investigation for the Scottish Executive in 2001 by energy consultants Garrad Hassan concluded that all forms of renewable energy in Scotland could potentially generate a massive 214 terawatt/hours of electricity a year.

That is more than four times as much as the 50 terawatt/hours generated north of the Border in 2002, almost a third of which was exported to England. Only about a sixth of the total is currently provided by the Hunterston B nuclear station.

“A combination of demand reduction and energy efficiency, along with increased renewable energy capacity in non-environmentally sensitive areas would make new nuclear power plants unnecessary to meet climate change targets, even with the planned closure of Hunterston B,” said Clifton Bain from the Royal Society for Protection of Birds in Scotland.

Keith Parker, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association, was encouraged by Tony Blair’s remark last week that the debate about climate change should include “serious consideration” of nuclear power. “Nuclear power can continue to make a significant contribution to securing future energy and environmental commitments,” he told the Sunday Herald.

what is wrong with nuclear power?

A common assumption about nuclear power is that it can be relied upon to keep churning out lots of power. The reality, as nuclear operators will sometimes admit, is rather different.

British Energy’s Montague says that it’s “no secret” that there are “reliability problems” with the advanced gas-cooled reactors such as those at Hunterston B and Torness. One problem is that some of the thousands of graphite bricks that surround the reactor cores are cracking, threatening the safe running of the plants.

The performance of British Energy’s reactors is worse than those in other parts of the world. According to Sig Berg, the managing director of the World Association of Nuclear Operators, the unplanned loss of nuclear generation in the UK was 12% in 2002, compared to under 2% in the US.

The cost of nuclear power is also daunting. Cleaning up the radioactive mess left at Dounreay, which only ever produced very small amounts of electricity, is likely to cost at least £4bn over the next four decades. The estimated total cost of cleaning up all Britain’s nuclear plants – which is being met by taxpayers – is £50bn.

The vulnerability of nuclear companies to price fluctuations was starkly demonstrated by the near-collapse of British Energy in 2002. It had to be bailed out by the government with a £650m loan from public funds.

One consequence of that was the company’s decision to close its Peel Park headquarters in East Kilbride. New documents released to the Sunday Herald last week under the Freedom of Information (Scotland) Act reveal that this triggered a severe staffing crisis that could have put safety at risk.

Alongside fears about safety, there is the long-running saga of what to do with Britain’s 470,000 cubic metres of nuclear waste. Not to mention the 18 million cubic metres of soil and concrete thought to be have been contaminated with low-level radioactivity from leaks and spills at nuclear sites.

The government’s latest attempt to solve this problem – asking a group of independent experts to come up with recommendations – is in trouble. One scientist, Keith Baverstock, has been kicked off the Committee on Radioactive Waste Management (CoRWM), while another has decided to withdraw. Both are thoroughly disillusioned by the process.

Baverstock, formerly a senior radiation adviser with the World Health Organisation in Europe, accused CoRWM of wasting time on “amateurish” attempts to draw up a list of options. “The public health aspects of the problem are being ignored and trivialised by people who do not sufficiently understand the issue,” he said.

Strangely, what critics regard as the most dangerous aspect of nuclear power is sometimes the least talked about. Joined at the hip to the military industry, nuclear power depends on technologies which can also be used to make fuel for atomic bombs. This essential ambiguity is at the root of some of the most destabilising confrontations in the world today.

Britain is enriching uranium at Capenhurst near Cheshire at the same time as urging Iran not to enrich uranium at Natanz. The British government extracts tonnes of plutonium at Sellafield in Cumbria as it tries to persuade North Korea not to do likewise at Yongbyon.

The global tensions that inevitably result from these attempts to control the spread of nuclear weapons disturb many. It doesn’t take a genius to understand how terribly high the stakes are.

Full Scottish Sunday Herald Article

Alternative Energy Argentina: Study of U.S. $19 Billion Wind Power Project to Produce Hydrogen

2005-03-07T04:32:00.000-08:00

BNAmericas reports that Argentine energy company Capex aims to start pre-feasibility studies in two months on a US$19bn project to generate 16,000MW of wind power to produce 13.3 million cubic meters a year of hydrogen.

Hydrogen is a clean burning fuel that could be mixed with natural gas for power generation, used in domestic appliances and also as a vehicular fuel (although I believe plug-in hybrids are a far more viable technology which can be used now). With a number of large cities in the Southern Cone with air pollution issues, Capex sees the possibility of a regional market for the fuel.

Project location depends on further studies, but the area under consideration is around Pico Truncado in the northeast of Santa Cruz province in Argentina, where wind speeds are some eight meters a second with a capacity factor of 45%.

The US$19bn figure covers the wind turbines, hydrogen production infrastructure and delivery to port. Investment on such a scale is beyond the reach of Capex alone, and so it would associate with other companies already involved in hydrogen technology, such as automobile manufacturers, should the project proceed further.

Capex produces oil and gas, and generates gas-fired electric power at the wellhead at Agua del Cajón in Neuquén province. It is 60% owned by Capsa, the local unit of Anglo-Dutch oil company Shell.

Of course at the "pre-feasibility study" stage this project is still essentially just talk. It does however offer one vision of how relatively remote wind power resources can be utilised by major centres of population. Even that the project is being considered shows that major investment in wind power (of the type Engineer Poet in his comment on the recent China Renewable Energy Law article thinks won't happen) is a possibility.

Business News Americas Story

Sound Sculpture Park "City of Sound" in Pico Truncado, Argentina

Alternate Energy China: Renewable Energy Law sets 10% Target

2005-03-04T00:01:00.000-08:00

BBC News reports that China's government has passed a renewable energy law which is intended to increase production of energy from sustainable sources.

The law, which will come into force early next year, seeks to increase the usage of solar and wind power to 10% of China's total consumption by 2010. This would equate to around 60 gigawatts.

However, while the new law has been welcomed, it has been suggested that the targets are over ambitious.

Rising oil prices and concerns over environmental damage prompted the move.

At present China relies on coal for most of its power, mining 1.8bn tons in 2004.

By fixing prices for electricity from solar and wind generated power, the government hopes to create financial incentives for existing operators and attract investment to these new markets.

But while there has been rapid expansion in the sustainable energy sector, it currently provides only a fraction of China's needs.

Currently wind power in China only contributes 0.01% to the power grid. To increase that to 10% in five years is ambitious, but in my opinion it's a target well worth aiming for. If China takes the same relentless attitude to pushing down the costs of wind turbine manufacture as it does with consumer goods the benefits may be realised around the world.

Full BBC News Article

Solar Energy Nanotechnology: Carbon Nanotubes Used to Improve Efficiency

2005-03-01T02:56:00.000-08:00

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI) scientists have demonstrated an ability to precisely grow skyscraper like "towers" composed of carbon nanotubes atop photovoltaic cells to extract more power from the sun.

The nanometer-scale scale towers, which would be coated by the special p-type and n-type semiconductor (p/n) junction materials used to generate electrical current, would increase the surface area available to produce electricity.

Reflections off the towers would provide more opportunity for each photon of sunlight to interact with the p/n junction of the cell. That would increase the power output from PV cells of a given size, or allow cells to be made smaller while producing the same amount of power.

Because their cells will be more efficient, it is believed they can use older and more mature p/n-type material technologies and less costly silicon wafers to hold down costs and rapidly advance the project into commercial products.

Full Azonano Article

Georgia Tech Research Institute (GTRI)

Alternative Energy California: A Million Solar Power Homes?

2005-02-28T04:12:00.000-08:00

Californian Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a new plan to make California a world leader in solar energy.

It drops a previous provision, that doomed his "million solar homes" plan last year, that required that half of all new homes eventually be solar powered following opposition from businesses and the construction industry.

California builds about 150,000 new homes a year. Experience shows about 10 percent of homeowners would choose solar if offered the option – about 15 times the roughly 1,000 solar homes currently built each year in the state, said Bernadette Del Chiaro, a solar advocate for the nonprofit Environment California.

"It's clearly the most ambitious solar initiative ever proposed in the United States," said David Hochschild, policy director for the nonprofit organization Vote Solar.

The incentive approach is modeled on Japan, the world leader in solar power, which has seen a 72 percent drop in solar costs as 70,000 homes have been outfitted for the alternative power over the last 10 years.

California already is the third-largest consumer of solar power equipment, behind Germany, but gets 40 percent more annual sunlight than Germany and 20 percent more than Japan.

The goal is to have 3,000 megawatts worth of solar power by 2018, which amounts to about 5 percent of the state's entire electricity usage at peak periods – generally hot summer afternoons when electricity is most in demand, most expensive, and when solar panels are most efficient.

That's the equivalent of 40 new, $30 million, 75-megawatt natural gas plants. One megawatt is enough to power about 750 homes.

"We will be building literally power plants' worth of solar on roofs across the state," said Del Chiaro.

The goal is to create a large, stable solar market that will lower the cost not only of components but also of installation to the point that incentives will no longer be necessary to make solar energy affordable.

Hybrids: Hybrid Boats, Hybrid Ships and Beyond

2005-02-24T00:44:00.000-08:00

The New Scientist reports that for several weeks last summer, a team of German engineers from the company SkySails sailed back and forth across the Baltic Sea testing the potential of high-tech kites to pull a ship across the ocean by hitching a ride on winds high above the waves.

The idea isn't to propel a ship by wind alone - a conventional diesel engine will help it along on days when the wind is blowing from the wrong direction, is too strong or dies away entirely. But since the kite reduces the need to use engines, the team at SkySails believes it can halve the amount of fuel a ship burns.

This is just one of the ways in which sail power is being revived.

For nine years a team of naval architects in Copenhagen, Denmark, has been working on a completely new design: a 50,000-tonne cargo ship whose diesel engine will be augmented by a set of high-tech sails set on six masts. Canvas is definitely out. Aerofoils are in.

Led by the naval architects Knud E. Hansen, the research not only produced a new design of ship but also looked at how the ship could make the most of wind power and the cargoes it would be best suited to carrying. Now the team is about to embark on full-scale trials.

The small crew needed on a modern ship, combined with the low wages they are paid, means that the cost of fuel as a proportion of total running costs rose from 10 per cent in 1900 to between 25 and 60 per cent by 2000.

Modern windships can also take advantage of new technologies and materials that weren't available in the days of sail. Wind tunnel tests on different types of rigging and sails quickly showed the Danish team how poorly traditional sails perform. A sail is more than a simple sheet of fabric. To propel a ship it needs to take up an aerofoil shape, and that only happens when the wind fills it. If the wind is too light, or it keeps changing direction, the canvas flaps uselessly and generates drag rather than propulsion.

So the Danish team came up with an alternative that exploits materials borrowed from the aerospace industry. Using high-performance steel for the masts does away with the need for stays to hold them upright. The sail itself is made of fibreglass, with a profile like an aircraft wing. Flaps on the sail's trailing edge generate extra thrust when extended, but can be retracted to minimise aerodynamic drag - important when using engine power alone.

Wind-tunnel tests showed this design to be twice as efficient as the sails on a traditional windjammer. Even more importantly, the sail generates thrust when the ship is sailing close to the wind. Simulations suggest that the vessel will be able to make progress under sail even when the wind is blowing as little as 40 degrees off the bow, which is an excellent performance for a large sailing vessel. With a fresh breeze of 9 metres per second at 100 degrees - blowing only slightly from behind - the sails alone can propel the ship at 13 knots (25 kilometres per hour.

Unlike traditional sails, these fibreglass wings will not need a large crew to operate them, the designers say. They can be controlled hydraulically from the bridge, and because they never need to be lowered there is no need for storage space that would eat into the cargo capacity. The downside is that in light winds, with the ship under diesel power, they exert aerodynamic drag - even with flaps retracted - which negates some of the fuel savings from having them there in the first place.

The SkySails kite suffers no such handicap. The idea is to harness the winds higher above the ocean with an inflatable aerofoil - a kite designed to fly at a height of 100 to 500 metres, towing the ship on a cable fastened to the hull.

At 500 metres, winds are often stronger and less variable than at sea level, and can differ in direction from those immediately above the waves by 10 to 15 degrees, according to Barry Gromett of the UK's Met Office in Exeter. "Although these differences are not huge they could be really useful," he says.

SkySail's aerofoil is designed to maximise thrust whatever the wind conditions. It uses a computer autopilot and patented wind sensors coupled to the ship's steering system to calculate the kite's optimum position. Then the autopilot manoeuvres the kite using motors in a control unit suspended beneath it to change the trim of the aerofoil by adjusting the tension in its control lines. The kite can move along a rail around the hull to maximise its towing efficiency and a winch on the ship adjusts the length of the kite's main line to fly it where the wind speed and direction are most favourable.

Last year's trials in the Baltic, aboard an 8-metre model of a cargo vessel, were mostly carried out in unfavourable conditions of weak and variable winds. Nevertheless, they showed that the SkySails kite can generate 1 to 1.15 kilowatts for every square metre of aerofoil. "In favourable winds it would generate a lot more thrust," says Stephan Wrage, founder of the company. The kite is designed to be retrofitted to ships of almost any size, but SkySail's largest version, with an area of 2000 to 5000 square metres, will generate propulsive power equivalent to a large ship's engine, he says.

Since the kite is controlled by an autopilot, Wrage says it will not need many extra crew to handle it. Compressed air will be used to blow it up when it is deployed and when not in use it is deflated, so storing it should not be a problem either. But as any kite flyer will tell you, launch and recovery are likely to be a little more complicated. SkySails says it will be an automated process, but won't reveal details until its engineers fit their first system to a ship next year.

Selecting a course that maximises the benefits from the wind is an important part of any successful voyage under sail. Here modern windships have another key advantage over their predecessors: they will have access to far more accurate weather forecasts to help get the best from the wind.

On routes such as Rotterdam to New York the ship would save up to 27 per cent of the normal fuel bill at its design speed of 13 knots, the Danish team calculate.

Just as sales of hybrid cars have been spurred on by environmental concerns and the rising price of gasoline, the price of marine diesel (which closely follows crude oil prices) has soared to nearly three times its 1999 levels and there are increasing concerns about pollution from shipping. These engines release pollutants such as sulphur, nitrogen oxides and PM10 particles. In particular, marine diesel oil contains 2.7 per cent sulphur - more than 500 times what is allowed by the EU for diesel sold for cars and trucks. By 2010 it is estimated that cargo ships will account for three-quarters of all Europe's emissions of sulphur dioxide. In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency is stepping in with new regulations to help improve air quality around large ports.

Just as changing driving habits maximises the mpg returned for a hybrid car reducing the design speed of the windship from 13 to 11 knots, for example, would cut fuel bills by a third on both the North Atlantic and the Indian Ocean routes because the engine wouldn't have to work so hard.

In Australia SolarSailor have developed a passenger boat, showcased at the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, that can be powered by solar panels, and whose movable wing-like solar panels can also act as sails. They are being considered for use as urban ferries and would use up to 50% less fuel. According to WorldChanging the inability of the Solar Sailor to run 100% off the sun and wind when operating as a ferry is due to the application's speed requirements--the craft can only do 12-14 knots maximum estimate without also using battery/diesel hybrid assist; but cutting fuel usage in half is still a huge and admirable achievement. It's better than today's best hybrid cars do.

SkySails has its eye on a rather different market. "One surprising result from the trials was the vessel's stability in heavy seas," Wrage says. Unlike conventional sails, the kite tends to stabilise the ship instead of making it heel over. This is partly because it is tethered to a rail close to the vessel's centre of gravity, and partly because the horizontal tug of the kite is counterbalanced by the vertical pull it generates, which tends to hold the vessel upright. "The sail acts like a damper so the ship moves smoothly, which will prevent passengers being sick." This is significant because Wrage sees cruise liners, and the growing number of cargo ships that carry passengers, as important markets for the technology. The next step for SkySails is to move from a model to a full-size craft.

So could there be a sea change for sail? "It will now be profitable both environmentally and economically to build the windship," says Anders Carlberg of Knud E. Hansen. Other new sailing ship projects are already in the works, one in Germany and one in Japan. Carlberg and his team estimate that full-scale trials of their design will start within three years.

The point to be made is hybrid engine technology has encouraged a new way of thinking beyond the garage which has many applications from buses, trucks and tractors to even planes. While GreenCarCongress brings us news of an Extreme Flywheel Plug-in Hybrid concept theoretically capable of 250mpg. The overall trend spells an end to head-in-the-sand consumption of oil and the beginning of a transition to a post-oil age with hybrid technology most likely being one of a number of key bridge technologies.

WorldChanging's coverage of the Solar Sailor a Hybrid Solar / Wind Boat

WorldChanging's Original Article and Dicusssion of the SkySails Concept

WorldChanging on an entirely solar powered aircraft concept

Gravity Powered Aircraft Concept

Full Text of New Scientist Article

Wired's 2000 coverage of the Solar Sailor

SkySails Official Website

Naval Architects Knud E Hansen

Alternative Energy Zambia: Solar Power for Rural Electrification

2005-02-22T10:27:00.000-08:00

One hundred and twenty one community-based organisations and nine schools in rural areas of Zambia will soon be getting BP Solar panels to generate electricity for lighting, radio, television and refrigeration. The panels will be supplied by BP Solar which has been awarded a contract by the Zambia Social Investment Fund. BP Solar is one of the world's largest solar companies and has manufacturing facilities in the United States of America, Spain, India and Australia.

Arnaud Mine, CEO of Apex-BP Solar, said: "This project is another example of the part solar energy is called on to play in sustainable development in Africa. It combines environmental, economic and social considerations, while obviating the need to set up capital-intensive infrastructure in the regions concerned. The same technology is already available in Europe for more specific applications."

The project will produce a peak power of approximately 250 kilowatts (kWp).

Alternate Energy Pakistan: US $875m Windpower Project to Provide 30% of Karachi's Needs

2005-02-17T00:08:00.000-08:00

A new US$875 million wind power project will provide 30 percent of Karachi's power needs, a state government official has said. Speaking at the inauguration of the Gharo project, adviser to Sindh Chief Minister for Environment and Alternate Energy, Noman Saigol, said it was the first alternate energy project for Sindh.

Sixteen companies from the US, Japan and China are taking part in the project, which will be built on 19,700 acres of government-provided land.

The windpower project, expected to employ 30-40,000 locals, will have a 50MW capacity, rising to as much as 900MW by 2010, he said.

Alternative Energy Iran: Windpower for the North West

2005-02-15T00:20:00.000-08:00

Iran has been carrying out a set of expert-level studies to set up seven wind power plants in three northwestern provinces.

If the results of the studies confirm that the target regions are fine for the purpose, the projects will be immediately started under private sector management.

Arastou Sadeqi, the director of the wind and water energies department in the Iran New Energies Organization had earlier said that “the government has removed basic problems on the way of investors and therefore several domestic and foreign companies have applied to subcontract these projects.”

He stated that 17 wind measuring stations equipped with 40-meter height masts have been installed in Gilan and Azarbaijan provinces each of which cost the government about $15,000 in investment.

With a youthful population of nearly 70 million and a fast-growing economy, energy consumption is rising by around 7 percent annually. Iran estimates that it may need capacity to generate some 90 GW by 2020, from about 31 GW at present.

About three quarters of current electricity needs come from gas-fired power stations, and the rest from hydroelectricity or oil.

Site Agreed for Australian Solar Tower, Plans for Solar Tower in China

2005-02-09T02:25:00.000-08:00

The firm behind the plan to build a power-generating solar tower (also described as a solar chimney) - touted as the world's tallest structure - in Outback New South Wales is to sign an agreement to buy the site.

Melbourne-based Enviromission will buy a 10,000ha slice of Tapio station at Buronga, 25km northeast of Mildura, to build the 1km tower.

Enviromission chairman Roger Davey confirm the purchase price was in excess of a million dollars (USD). The agreement will be signed in Mildura, about 350 miles northwest of Melbourne, before an audience of community leaders.

"It confirms our commitment to the site and the Sunraysia region for the first solar tower."

The mammoth project, worth hundreds of millions of dollars, will be built by the end of 2009.

The reinforced concrete tower will cover approximately one square kilometres at its base and will be surrounded by a "greenhouse" of glass, polycarbonate and polymer. Air at 30C at the edge of the glasshouse is heated up to 70C at the centre, where the tower draws it through 32 turbines to the cooler air above.

The power station will produce up to 200 megawatts of electricity and can generate 24 hours a day.

EnviroMission and SBP estimate the cost of their first 200-megawatt solar thermal tower at $670m, and say the cost of subsequent towers would fall. An engineering infrastructure, materials manufacturing plants and trained workforce would be in place and the design and construction would have been refined.

The initial cost is comparable with the $600m cost of building a new 200MW brown-coal power station and a drying plant for the coal, which is nearly 70% water by weight. A 200MW black-coal power station in Queensland would cost $440m. These prices ignore the unknown environmental and health costs of greenhouse gas, sulphur and particulate emissions from coal-fired power stations.

Each solar tower would abate between 920,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide emissions annually from fossil fuels. Solar towers would help lessen Victoria's heavy dependence on brown coal-sourced electricity.

Enviromission floated on the Australian Stock Exchange in 2001. Its major investor is the owner of the solar tower technology, US company SolarMission Technologies.

Enviromission has the exclusive Australian rights to the technology, first developed on a much smaller scale in Spain in the early 1980s, using a German design.

There are also plans to invest a further US$8 million for development of a solar tower in China.

Enviromission will be a part owner of a global intellectual property company that will benefit from solar towers built around the world, Davey said.

The pre-feasibility study was completed successfully in February last year.

actual photographs (as far as I can tell) of the demonstration project in Manzares, Spain:

Solar Tower Spain

Inside the Spanish Solar Tower

Solar Tower Turbine in operation

more info:

February 2005 Wired Article on Australian Solar Tower

Solar Chimney in California?

Enviromission Website

Solar Mission Website

Wave Energy News: USA, UK and South Africa

2005-02-07T01:59:00.000-08:00

There are multiple ways to tap the energy of the ocean, including its tides, thermal features, and salinity. But wave energy appears to be the most promising and closest to commercial production.

A new report from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) suggests that generation of electricity from wave energy may be economically feasible in the near future. The study was carried out by EPRI in collaboration with the DOE's National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) and energy agencies and utilities from six states.

Conceptual designs for 300,000 megawatt-hour (MWh) plants (nominally 120 MW plants operating at 40% capacity factor) were performed for five sites in the United States: Waimanalo Beach, Oahu, Hawaii; Old Orchard Beach, Cumberland County, Maine; WellFleet, Cape Cod, Massachusetts; Gardiner, Douglas County, Oregon; and Ocean Beach, San Francisco County, California.

The study determined that wave energy conversion may be economically feasible within the territorial waters of the United States as soon as investments are made to enable wave technology to reach a cumulative production volume of 10,000 - 20,000 MW.(For comparison land-based wind turbines currently generate 40,000 MW.)

"Wave energy will first become commercially competitive with land-based wind technology at a cumulative production volume of 10,000 or fewer MW in Hawaii and northern California, about 20,000 MW in Oregon and about 40, 000 MW in Massachusetts," said Roger Bedard, ocean energy project manager. This forecast was based on the output of a 90 MW Pelamis wave energy conversion plant design and application of technology learning curves that will enable cost savings.

The forecast results have convinced the project team of the rationale for investment in wave energy technology research and development, including demonstration projects to prove the feasibility of wave energy conversion technology in actual sea environments.

Bedard explained that there are several compelling arguments for investing in offshore wave energy technology. First, with proper siting, conversion of ocean wave energy to electricity is believed to be one of the most environmentally benign ways to generate electricity. Second, offshore wave energy offers a way to minimize the 'Not in my backyard' (NIMBY) issues that plague many energy infrastructure projects. Wave energy conversion devices have a very low profile and are located far enough away from the shore that they are generally not visible. Third, wave energy is more predictable than solar and wind energy.

A characteristic of wave energy that suggests that it may be one of the lowest cost renewable energy sources is its high power density. Solar and wind energy is concerntrated into ocean waves, making it easier and cheaper to harvest. Experts estimate that 0.2% of the ocean's untapped energy could power the entire world.

Wave power was delivered to the electrical grid for first time in August 2004. The electricity was generated by a full-scale preproduction Pelamis prototype in Orkney, Scotland by Ocean Power Delivery Corporation.

The new EPRI study indicates that a site off the central Oregon coast is probably the best place in the country to establish a United States Ocean Energy Research and Demonstration Center. Electrical engineers at Oregon State University (OSU) have already created three prototypes of devices that could harness wave energy: A permanent magnet linear generator, a permanent magnet rack and pinion gearbox, and a contactless direct drive generator buoy.

Meanwhile in a British company hopes to harness South Africa's wave energy and establish three wavepower farms. The South African government has set targets to introduce renewable energy over the next decade, but there are no commercial renewable energy power plants in the country.

And in more wave energy news, UK Energy Minister Mike O'Brien recently announced a $78 million support scheme for wave power. The new scheme will allocate up to GBP £42 million towards supporting a number of larger scale pre-commercial demonstration wave and tidal farms.

"One of the other extremely promising possibilities with wave energy is the ability to scale these systems either up or down in size, whatever you need to fit the electrical demand," OSU professor of electrical engineering - Annette von Jouanne said. "Small systems could even be used with individual boats at anchor to generate their own electricity."

The development of wave energy right now is probably 15-20 years behind wind power, which is just starting to achieve some optimal production technologies

EPRI Offshore Wave Energy Reports

Eskom Press Release on Wave Energy

Automakers Wonder Where the Profit Is. Hydrogen? Hybrids? No, Finance.

2005-02-01T07:10:00.000-08:00

Quick quote from a CBS Marketwatch article:

Last week, Nissan chief executive Carlos Ghosn lamented that while gas-electric hybrid cars are in vogue, their cost of production makes no economic sense.

He also dashed hopes for hydrogen-fuel-cell vehicles: "The cost to build one fuel-cell car is about $800,000. Do the math and you figure out that we will have to reduce the cost of that car by more than 95 percent in order to gain widespread marketplace acceptance," Ghosn said in a speech at the National Automobile Dealers Association annual convention in New Orleans.

That means gas-powered cars and trucks are where auto companies will have to stay to find profit from vehicle sales. But that isn't really the case either. Ford and GM make more money through their financing arms than the actual manufacturing of cars of trucks.

/endquote

Well the good news for those looking forward to a hydrogen economy is that the vehicles have got about 20% cheaper, last thing I heard was they cost about one million dollars each. The bad news is that the infrastructure will costs HUNDREDS of billions and the energy & car companies are looking at you the taxpayer to pay for it. And then of course there's the small question of how to produce hydrogen economically using renewable energy. Seems like the much hyped hydrogen economy is still a few decades of at the very least.

So if selling cars isn't really that profitable any more (although I find it hard to believe selling giant SUVs and pick-ups which don't have to meet emissions or safety standards isn't profitable) then why not go after the giant emerging markets of China and India? And why not go after them with a truely innovative product like an electric vehicle. If most of the money is made through finance, why not expand your customer base with a zero emissions electric car.

Full CBS Marketwatch Article on the Future of the Auto Industry

Alternate Energy Philippines: MicroHydro Power

2005-01-29T03:19:00.000-08:00

The Philippine Daily Inquirier has a number of special reports on the country's "preventable crisis" of energy supply including this one on the use of micro-hydro electricity.

While there is talk of a coming energy crisis in some areas of the Philippines, including Mindanao and the Visayas, in the remote communities in the Cordilleras, microhydroelectricity is being put to use.

Microhydro power plants (those with 7.5 to 35 kW capacity) don't need big, controversial dams to operate.

In fact, a small spring in Barangay Buneg, Conner town, Apayao province and in Barangay Lon-oy, San Gabriel town, La Union province - has enough power to run a generator for household electricity.

Hardly accessible, Buneg and Lon-oy are among 10,000 villages not covered by the National Power Corp. (Napocor) grid. Under the Philippine Energy Plan, Buneg and Lon-oy are among the villages due to be electrified 2010. But this is only on paper.

Remote communities and non-government and Church organizations advocating micro-hydro power say they cannot wait for the government to bring electricity to them.

So, on their own, representatives of the 300 Mabaka people of Buneg got in touch with the Catholic Church and the Sibol ng Agham at Teknolohiya, or Sibat, a Metro Manila-based non-government organization helping install environment-friendly and community-run alternative energy facilities.

From 1996 to 2002, the Mabaka folk had provided labor and Sibat, through its engineer, the project supervision. Sibat also sourced funds from the United Nations Development Programme.

Inaugurated in January 2003, the Buneg 7.5-kW micro-hydro power plant has since been providing electricity to 36 families.

Under bright fluorescent lamps, children can now study their lessons and read books while Rosalina Dangli, the community's lone public teacher, can prepare her lesson plans.

Before he calls it a day, Mabaka elder Andanan Agagen weaves rattan baskets at night, which he sells to lowland folk in Conner town.

Courtesy of the Episcopal Church of the Philippines and the community, a 15-kW micro-hydro power facility in Lon-oy has not only lit up the 130 houses of 1,000 upland farming folk. The facility has also enabled many families to make brooms for sale, even at night.

And now that the electricity is flowing, the women have embarked on money-earning ventures such as processing ginger into salabat or ginger tea powder.

Other privately initiated micro-hydro power plants are starting a quiet industrial revolution in areas inaccessible to national power company.

A 5-kW micro-hydro power project built in 1993 in the sub-village of Ngibat in Tinglayan town, Kalinga province, powers a blacksmith shop, which manufactures simple farm tools such as trowels, hoes, bolos and machetes for the 30 families in the community. It also operates a community rice mill and a vulcanizing shop.

A 30-kW micro-hydro power facility in Tulgao village, also in Tinglayan, built in 1999 also with the help of Sibat, now runs a rice mill and a sugarcane presser, which is twice faster than the carabao-drawn dapilan (wooden presser).

The Cordillera's various springs and tributaries offer great potential for small water-powered electricity generators.

Philippine Daily Inquiry special reports on the country's "preventable crisis"

Wave Power: Energy Buoy to Lead to Wavefarm?

2005-01-28T06:01:00.000-08:00

BBC News reports that a pioneering project to harness wave power off the coast of north Cornwall, England is being monitored by scientists around the world.

A state-of-the-art energy buoy is being launched 12 miles off St Ives by the Renewable Energy Agency for the South West (Regen SW) on Friday.

The $132,000 buoy will record wave activity and measure wave power.

Regen SW has been awarded $368,000 from the npower Juice fund, which supports renewable energy technologies.

The project is designed to speed up the installation of one the world's first wavefarms, which could be in place within three years off the north Cornwall coast.

The area is being investigated by the South West of England Regional Development Agency (SWRDA) as a possible site for the creation of a Wave Hub.

This would act as an offshore electrical "socket" connected to the national grid by an underwater cable.

The Wave Hub would be the UK's first large-scale wave energy project, allowing manufacturers to carry out tests before going ahead with the development of commercial projects.

The British government wants the UK to be producing 10% of its energy needs from renewable resources by 2010.

Full Text of BBC Article on Wave Power Buoy

Alternative Fuel Cars: Plug-In Hybrids and Electric Cars

2005-01-27T04:11:00.000-08:00

fueling by plugging in

The Christian Science Monitor has an article on plug-in hybrids.

Not long after Dan Kroushl got his new 2004 Toyota Prius, he began to wonder about the mysterious button on the dash. It didn't seem to have any function. Didn't boost the turbo or engage an ejector seat. In online discussions with other Prius enthusiasts, Mr. Kroushl soon discovered the button did have a hidden function: It could turn the gasoline-electric hybrid into an all-electric car - for a mile or so on limited battery power.

This "stealth mode" button works fine in Japan and Europe where it's handy for drivers to roll politely about densely packed subdivisions in the early morning and late evening. But the button has been disconnected for North America's Priuses.

Now, scores of Prius owners in the United States are activating the button on their own - despite company warnings that altering the car will void its warranty.

Some drivers, including Kroushl, are going even further: adding battery capacity - and a plug. The hoped for result: a high-tech commuting car that plugs into a socket at night and gets amazing gas mileage the next day.

In effect, these backyard mechanics have turned the hybrid car's appeal on its head. Instead of emphasizing gasoline over electric power and the convenience of today's cars, they're aiming to create less polluting higher-mileage vehicles that emphasize electricity over gasoline - even if it's a bit less convenient.

"One guy I know plugs his Honda hybrid into a windmill for power," Kroushl says. "It costs him practically nothing to drive."

Since before the Model T, electric cars have been among the most efficient modes of transportation. They made a bit of a comeback in the mid-1990s, when General Motors and other automakers reintroduced electric-only cars to meet a proposed California clean-air mandate. But with the weakening of that requirement, which called for some vehicles to be zero-emission in 2003, GM, Toyota, and Honda stopped production of their electric vehicles. Some automakers, which had leased the cars, began taking them back to be destroyed.

the discontinued Ford Think

Only the dedication of enthusiasts has kept them from disappearing completely. This past summer, after Ford Motor Co. announced it would send its electric Think vehicles to the crusher rather than sell them to buyers in Norway for a million dollars, environmental groups occupied the roof of the company's Norwegian offices and held a mock funeral at a San Francisco dealer. Within two weeks, following a protest by Greenpeace, Ford agreed instead to ship its vehicles to a Norwegian electric-car manufacturer.

Just last week, Ford also reluctantly agreed to let Dave Bernikoff-Raboy, a California rancher, buy the all-electric pickup truck he had been leasing. He was so devoted to the vehicle, which recharged off a solar panel, that he camped out near a Ford dealership in Sacramento, California, to protest that automaker's plans to dispose of its remaining electric fleet.

Neocon Green James Woolsey

The article contains some quotes from who some are calling the Neocon Greens:

"We're not talking about electric vehicles, but about plug-in hybrid vehicles that can be topped off with electricity for short trips," James Woolsey, former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, said last month during the unveiling of a report by the 16-member National Commission on Energy Policy. "The potential in terms of national policy, and in terms of global warming, ought to be focused on by anyone" concerned about terrorism or "paying over $2 a gallon."

"We think the transportation fuel sector should be diversified by utilizing more electricity as a fuel - plug-in hybrids that can get 100 miles per gallon and allow you to run on electricity alone for 20 to 30 miles, then shift to the combustion engine," says Gal Luft, director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security, an energy-security think tank in Washington.

Automakers however show little interest:

"Why would anyone want to do that?" wonders Sam Butto, a Toyota spokesman in Torrance, California, when told some Prius owners are creating their own plug-in Priuses. "One of the great features of the Prius is that you don't have to plug it in."

In my opinion they are failing to distinguish between having to plug it in and enabling consumers to plug-in their hybrids if they want to.

According to David Hermance, a Toyota environmental engineer there are a number of challenges in making a plug-in Prius including a "much, much, much larger battery" needed to increase range, which would add hundreds of pounds.

However as cellular phones have shown battery technology is improving all the time and the problems in mass producing plug-in hybrids may be insignificant when compared to producing hydrogen powered cars and the associated infrastructure.

And that's where plug-in hybrids have a major advantage. They can use the existing electrical infrastructure and be charged over night. Utility owned coal and gas generators cannot easily be shut down and therefore are run continuously even during the night when there is significant excess capacity. Therefore up to a certain level oil consumption could be decreased without any increase in electrical generation capacity. While in most countries the majority of electricity comes from polluting non-renewable sources this can be changed over time as more clean renewable power is added.

For those concerned about energy security it is definitely a step in the right direction. Less than 2% of U.S. electricity is generated from oil, so using electricity as a transportation fuel would greatly reduce dependence on imported petroleum. The Electric Power Research Institute projects that a midsize sedan PHEV with a sixty mile electric range would use fives times less gasoline a year than a regular vehicle of the same size.

The vast majority of journies in the United States are under forty miles and in European countries such as the United Kingdom the average journey is eight miles. Batteries have all ready been developed which can allow these trips to be completed solely on electric power.

According to Professor Frank from the University of California at Davis compared with conventional cars, the annual gasoline fuel consumption of the modified cars "is only about 10 percent, because you're using gas so infrequently," he says. "Our studies show [that] the average person would only go to the gas station six times a year compared with maybe 35 times a year."

The article continues:

Built on a stock Explorer platform, the hybrid retains all its original interior space. There is also more space in the engine compartment because the vehicle lacks moving parts like a fan belt, generator, water pump, and even a transmission. Because it has fewer than one-fifth the number of moving parts of a conventional SUV, the hybrid's weight, even with a heavier battery, stays the same. Assembly is simpler and reliability, better. In production, it might cost $40,000 or less, he says.

Ford Explorer Hybrid converted to be a Plug In Hybrid

Despite repeated presentations to the Big Three automakers in Detroit, Frank has received little interest from them. But last year, Toyota flew his Explorer to its research facilities in Japan so engineers could pore over the vehicle. "There's no question in my mind that Toyota has plans for a plug-in hybrid right now, but they aren't talking about it," he says.

Certainly, plug-in hybrids are for real. DaimlerChrysler is reportedly near delivery of the first batch of what is expected to be as many as 100 Sprinter delivery vans that permit travel of up to 20 miles on electricity alone. This will come in handy in car-clogged European cities currently considering bans or other limits on gas- and diesel-powered delivery vehicles.

AC Propulsion had demonstrated a converted VW Jetta with a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) system. Renault is offering its Kangoo PHEV that can go 60 miles on a charge before switching back to gas. Commuter Cars Corp. of Spokane, Wash., is offering a low-volume electric car called the Tango for $85,000.

Renault Kangoo + Scenic Lighthouse

Meanwhile, a not-for-profit outfit called CalCars in San Francisco is modifying two Priuses by adding more battery power and a plug. The group has discovered an empty space under the hatch near the current battery that looks almost as if Toyota intended to do this itself one day. "We hope to get significantly more miles per gallon with the additional battery power," says Felix Kramer, the group's founder. "Our purpose is to show Toyota that there is demand for this kind of vehicle."

Will Toyota - or Detroit - respond? Not without major breakthroughs in technology, says Dan Bedore, a Ford spokesman. "It's become pretty clear that our ... non-plug-in hybrid system is the direction we see the market going."

"The answer is they really don't want to do it," Frank says. "We're just a bunch of students. If we can build this with off-the-shelf technology, they can too - and do things better than what we do. If they really were interested in doing something in the short term, they could do it."

I would agree with this sentiment. The profits for major automakers like Ford are in building high-profit SUVs which are exempt from environmental and safety standards rather than building smaller efficient plug-in hybrids and electric vehicles (EVs).

The hype around the hydrogen economy allows many automakers to spend a few million on prototypes and avoid doing anything now to change the fuel economy of their best selling vehicles. Rather than waiting decades and spending hundreds of billions on a hydrogen infrastructure that may never materialise or mere billions of dollars in subsidies for corn based ethanol fuel which can never replace gasoline, we can instead use plug-in hybrids as a simple and cost effective way to reduce dependence on oil and reduce pollution using the existing electrical infrastrucutre to which we can continue to add clean renewable energy sources such as wind power.

To encourage this, I urge you to sign this online plug in hybrid campaign asking automakers to produce plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

Hybrid Consortium

Full Christian Science Article on Plug-In Hybrids

Mercedes-Benz prototype PHEV Sprinter Van with benefits and projections of PHEV use (pdf)

Ergosphere Blog with detailed technical analysis of the use of plug in hybrid cars

Ergosphere on Advances in Battery Technology

Geoff Styles on some of the challenges facing advocates of a Hydrogen economy

Spanish Electric Utility Company Invests over U.S. $2 billion in Renewable Energy

2005-01-26T09:19:00.000-08:00

Spanish electricity company Endesa SA has said that it will invest EUR1.9 billion (US $2.46 billion) in the next five years to increase its renewable energy capacity in Europe.

In a presentation to analysts filed to the market regulator, the company said it will spend EUR1.4 billion in domestic renewable energy to get some 2,100 megawatts in wind power capacity in Spain and Portugal. It will also spend EUR500 million to buy some 350 MW of renewable capacity in Italy and another 55 MW in France.

The renewable investment figure represents 32% of the company's EUR6 billion planned investment in new capacity throughout Europe through 2009.

The company expects to have a total renewable capacity of 4,100 MW a the end of 2009, compared with 1,858 MW in 2003, and with more than 2,000 MW estimated for 2004, said a company official.

Hopefully this a sign of things to come, with other utility companies throughout the world spending a major portion of their investments in new generating capacity on clean renewable energy.

Endesa Official Website

Alternative Energy Afghanistan: Solar Energy for Rural Use

2005-01-20T02:25:00.000-08:00

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has said that it has approved a $750,000-dollar grant to develop solar energy technology for use in isolated rural areas in Afghanistan.

The grant, financed by the British government, would demonstrate how solar energy could enhance the quality of life in poor, remote villages which could not be connected to wider power grids, the ADB said in a statement issued from its headquarters in Manila.

Most of Afghanistan’s population have no access to modern energy sources like electricity and gas and are forced to rely on traditional fuels like firewood. This depletes the country’s forests, damaging the environment.

However the country has a great potential for solar power since the sun shines for about 300 days a year in Afghanistan.

The grant will be used to provide solar energy systems to communities on a pilot basis and to train ten people from different ethnic groups as solar energy technicians at a training centre in India.

Upon returning to Afghanistan, they would train ten additional people from their communities.

It's hoped that solar energy systems in Afghanistan cam be used to provide lighting for literacy programs, provide water for clinics and to power water pumps and irrigation systems.

Alternative Energy Estonia: Eight Windmills to Provide 1% of National Electricity

2005-01-16T02:19:00.000-08:00

In Paldiski, Estonia on the site where border guards used to keep watch on the western outpost of the Soviet Union, Baltic European Union newcomer Estonia is erecting a wind farm to generate clean electricity.

The wind-swept Pakri peninsula, which juts into the Baltic Sea 60km west of the capital Tallinn, once hosted a training centre for Soviet border guards. The nearby town of Paldiski was a key Soviet nuclear submarine training ground.

The first three windmills of the Pakri Wind Farm have just been put into operation, with five others to follow before the end of the month.

When the farm is fully up and running, it is expected to supply one percent of Estonia's energy needs, and about 10,000 Estonian households are expected to get electricity from the farm.

The Parki Wind Farm is setting a precedent in the region in the carbon pollution quota market. Under the Kyoto Protocol's implementation project, 0.5 million tons of reduced greenhouse gas emissions will be sold to Finland.

It's among the very first wind power projects anywhere where the economic feasibility is achieved through the sale of CO2 reductions under the joint implementation scheme of the Kyoto Protocol.

On January 1, the EU opened a market for trading in carbon dioxide and other gases.

The total investment cost of the Pakri project is 24 million euros. Most of Estonia's energy is generated using oil-shale fueled power plants, which are big pollutants.

With an expected annual production of 56 GWh (GigaWatt hours), the Pakri wind farm will meet about one per cent of Estonia's net electricity consumption, and thus contribute to achieving Estonia's target of providing 5.1 percent of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2010.

Developers have already made plans for building more wind farms on other former Soviet military installations in Estonia.

Alternative Energy Cuba: Four Wind Turbines for Guantanamo Bay

2005-01-15T06:07:00.000-08:00

Four new wind turbines are being installed at the U.S. Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba and are projected to save $1.5 million in annual oil imports. The Los Angeles Times also listed an additional benefit as being "showing energy-starved communist neighbours what they are missing".

Base public works officer, Cmdr. Jeffrey Johnston and the base commander, Capt. Leslie J. McCoy, noted that Cuban military officials with whom they met periodically had been keenly interested in the wind project, which is now the most visible feature of the base from any direction.

"The Cubans are very intrigued by the wind generators, but I see no potential for sharing the technology at this time," McCoy said, alluding to the absence of diplomatic relations with Havana and a trade embargo that had been in place since shortly after Castro came to power in 1959.

Cuba has suffered widespread and protracted electricity outages in recent years as the price of oil has driven up production costs. The country has invested little in developing alternative energy resources.

Los Angeles Times article on the addition of Windmills in Guantanamo Bay

Grid Computing to Help Get Renewable Energy into the UK National Grid

2005-01-14T06:23:00.000-08:00

A European grid computing project worth £4.7m could solve the approaching problem of how to co-ordinate the electricity output of a proliferation of new wind farms and solar power stations.

The UK power grid is today dominated by relatively few large power stations, but the move towards renewable energy will mean an explosion of smaller energy sources around the country.

Dr Peter Hobson, project leader of Brunel University's portion of the GridCC project, said that dynamically co-ordinating alternative energy source output on the national grid will prove difficult in the future. Grid computing, which harnesses the processing power of many interconnected computers at different locations may be the answer, he said.

'Today renewables contribute intermittently to the power grid, but in 15 years we're aiming for 30 per cent of our power from alternative sources and it's not viable to have them leaping on and off unexpectedly. We need a way to handle the change frommonitoring a few hundred power stations with private networks, to controlling 30,000 alternative energy generators.'

The project aims to develop the equipment and software needed to build a grid computing network that could autonomously process the instrument data from thousands of energy sources, and allow the power industry to optimise the ebb and flow of electricity on their national grids.

e4engineering.com article on GridCC Project

Alternative Energy China: Asia's Largest Wind Farm

2005-01-13T07:00:00.000-08:00

A private company plans to build Asia's biggest wind farm in the sea south of Shanghai, setting up 100 turbines in shallow coastal waters, an industry group said Thursday.

The announcement of the 2 billion yuan (US$250 million) project comes as China struggles with severe electricity shortages while also trying to reduce its heavy reliance on dirty coal-fired power plants.

Zhejiang Green Power Investment Co. is to build the project along the coast of Daishan County in Zhejiang, the province south of Shanghai, the China Electricity Council said. It didn't say when construction was to begin.

The wind farm is to have a generating capacity of 200 megawatts, according to the council, the main trade group for China's power industry.

At the end of 2004, China's total wind power capacity was a mere 730 megawatts.

Alternative Energy Vietnam: Pico Hydro - Small Scale Hydro-Electric Energy

2005-01-08T03:30:00.000-08:00

Hanoi, the booming capital of Vietnam, according to the BBC epitomises the country's Asian tiger status. But while the standard of living in the cities has risen dramatically over the last few decades, in the countryside it is a different story.

The mountainous Da Bac province, outside Hanoi, is home to the Muong indigenous ethnic group. Many are rice farmers and few can afford the electricity from the new pylons that line the valleys. Instead, they are turning to a low-priced alternative.

Pico Hydro is a small-scale version of conventional hydro-electric power generation. The streams at the bottom of the valleys are powering a low-tech grid for the people of Da Bac.

Pico Hydro units need only a constant water supply and a slope with a one-metre drop. This produces a flow rate that can drive a turbine fast enough to generate electricity, providing houses with a direct power supply.

In some villages nearly every household has one. Imported 300-watt turbines cost about US$20, and have proved to be the most popular.

"Using Pico Hydro is really easy. There aren't any difficulties. It's actually more difficult to use the high voltage grid - it's much more expensive for us," says Ban Van Giang who lives in Da Bac.

"With better lighting, my wife can work and walk in the house easier, and my children can have better light to do their homework."

Vietnam has the world's highest uptake of Pico Hydro, with 120,000 units installed so far.

Cheap renewable means of generating electricity like Pico Hydro are key to spreading the benefits of electricity throughout the world in a sustainable way.

full BBC News article on water purification and small scale hydro power generation

Alternative Energy Tanzania: Wave Power to Replace Gas in Zanzibar?

2005-01-07T06:40:00.000-08:00

Zanzibar is considering the possibility of turning Indian Ocean currents and waves into electric power to make the utmost of its geological position as an archipelago off east Africa.

If the initial study proves viable, the Zanzibar Utilities Company will build a power plant on the Pemba Island, one of the three major islands consisting the archipelago, which enjoys a history of strong currents and tidal waves.

The company expects to resort to power generated from tidal waves or ocean currents to turn the table against its loss-making situation. It now spends an average of 200 million Tanzanian shillings (200,000 US dollars) per month to generate power via gas turbines whereas it collects 60 million shillings (60,000 dollars) for its power supply.

Ocean energy constitutes to a large unexploited source of renewable energy and wave power therefore commands a good economical potential.

The Zanzibar Utilities Company will wait for the initial study to decide on whether to benefit from the wave power or the tidal power, which dictate two different energy converters to transform wave energy or tidal energy into electricity.

With prices of non-renewable natural gas rising in many countries around the world as readily accessible supplies dwindle, those countries which have a suitable stretch of coastline and are unwilling to invest the huge sums of money some of the world's richest countries are spending on LNG (liquid natural gas) terminals may find wave and/or tidal power to be a viable and renewable alternative.

Angola Press article on Zanzibar Wave Power

Alternative Energy Bangladesh: Reaching Where the Grid Can't

2005-01-06T04:04:00.000-08:00

According to this editorial in the Financial Express of Bangladesh daily loadshedding and suspension of production in industrial zones due to low gas pressure clearly indicate that Bangladesh is experiencing a severe energy delivery crisis.

The editorial describes energy, and especially, electricity, as being one of the most important ingredients required to alleviate poverty and ensure socio-economic and human development.

Access to electricity in Bangladesh is one of the lowest in the world. The coverage at present stands around 30 per cent of the total population. However, the rural areas of Bangladesh, where nearly 80 per cent of the population live, are seriously deprived of electricity.

Larger energy supplies and greater efficiency of energy use are thus necessary to meet the basic needs of a growing population. As the conventional grid-fed electricity can only cover 15 per cent of the total households, tapping different sources of alternative energy can be used for the benefit of the people.

The government in its national energy policy clarified its vision that it wants to electrify the whole country by the year 2020. But, major electrification through grid expansion is not a viable option for most parts of Bangladesh in the foreseeable future mainly due to inaccessibility and low consumer density. There are many areas in the country where electricity will not reach in the next 30 years. Some experts say, the current rate of electrification will take decades to provide access to electricity to all people in the country. In contrast, favourable natural conditions like sufficient sunshine and wind-speed exist for promotion of alternative energy in Bangladesh.

To fulfil the Bangladeshi government's vision of universal electrification, alternative energy sources will have to take a vital role for off-grid electrification.

Of all the options, solar energy has so far been considered the most easy and viable option. Solar energy's attributes of needing no fuel, high durability and reliability and being able to operate for prolonged periods without maintenance make it economical for all types of remote applications.

Different private business houses have started introducing solar thermal and photovoltaic systems in rural areas.

As the Rural Electrification Board (REB) has a countrywide network through its cooperatives, it can take a leading role in electrifying rural Bangladesh instead of keeping it dependent on the Power Development Board (PDB), which provides it with gas-based electricity.

It has become increasingly clear that, for the development of alternative energy in Bangladesh, the funding windows of non-government and private sources as well as financial and development institutions should be augmented. Furthermore, innovative new financing opportunities including micro-financing may be utilised to attract private capital to supplement the energy deficiencies in rural areas and thus to fulfil the aspirations of the Bangladeshi poor.

Financial Express article on tapping sources of renewable energy in Bangladesh

Alternative Energy Morocco: Solar Energy Water Heaters

2004-12-31T01:04:00.000-08:00

According to arabicnews.com Morocco's alternative energy sector has been boosted by three international agreements.

The agreements were signed in Marrakech on Wednesday, a three-party cooperation agreement between Morocco and Italy, on the one hand, and Morocco and the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), and the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), on the other.

The Agreements aims at developing the Moroccan market of the solar-water heaters (Promasol), through two mechanisms of financing for the promotion of the Moroccan market of renewable energies.

The first agreement relates to cooperation between the Italian Ministry of the Environment and the Territory and the Moroccan Center for the Development of Renewable Energies (CDER), that will benefit from a one million dollar Italian contribution.

The second agreement that sets up the framework of cooperation with the Italian Ministry of the Environment is related to the use of renewable energies in the hotel sector.

Solar water heaters in Morocco rose from 20,738 in 1998 to 111,332 in 2004. For comparison Hawaii has approximately 75,000 domestic installations (each costing about five thousand dollars) and is the leader in the United States for per capita solar water heater installation.

The CDER said that the development of this sector will have a positive impact on industry as it will create more than 1,000 jobs and bring some 1.2 billion Dirhams investments (about 130 million dollars).

Arabic News article on Morocco and Solar Energy Water Heaters

Geothermal Energy: Hot Dry Rock (HDR) - The Habanero

2004-12-29T01:11:00.000-08:00

Hot Dry Rock (HDR) geothermal energy or heat mining has recently been recognized as a new resource according to Irena Knethl's article on alternative energy technology in Australia in the Yemen Times.

Hot Dry Rock technology is capable of generating low cost, base-load power on a large scale.

In Australia the US $5.4m experimental basin represents the largest known geothermal resource in the world and has the potential to supply thousands of megawatts of low cost power. Known resources have the energy equivalent of 50 billion barrels of oil according to the article.

Hot Dry Rock (HDR) does not depend on new technology. It relies on extracting heat from particularly hot granite at depths of less than 5 km (approximately 3 miles) from the surface
The heat is extracted by means of circulating water from a deep surface well, through an engineered underground heat exchanger, with the hot water returning to the surface through the second well.

HDR geothermal electricity should be distinguished from conventional geothermal electricity, such as the power plants installed in the hot spring regions. Conventional geothermal energy is generated from naturally occurring hot water and steam in rocks near volcanic centres. This form of electricity production is well established in many countries. Conventional geothermal power stations are generally limited in size and are often linked to emissions of volcanic gases and toxic elements.

HDR geothermal energy generations differ from its conventional cousin below ground. It relies on artificially creating an underground heat exchanger to extract heat from high temperature locks by circulating water. It uses existing technologies, equipment and skills that were developed for the oil and geothermal power generation industries. The simplest HDR plant consists of one injection well and two production wells. Water from the injection well flows through the underground heat exchanger developed within the hot rocks. The superheated water is brought to the surface under pressure and used to boil an organic liquid. The water cooled by the process is the re-injected into the underground heat exchanger in a closed loop, to extract more heat. The vapour goes through a turbine to generate electricity.

It is thought that a small number of locations around the world have the right conditions for cost effective production of HDR electricity.

Such power plans can only work where there are special geological conditions and very hot granite rock. This rock has to be no deeper than five kilometres as that is the current depth that oil-drilling equipment can comfortably reach. The granite has to be covered by a three kilometre thick blanket of insulating rocks so that the heat does not escape to the surface.

The pilot well has been named “The Habanero”, after the world’s hottest chilli. Outside of volcanic areas, these rocks are the hottest in the world. Hot dry rock geothermal electricity production in Australia will be the deepest and the hottest well ever drilled on mainland Australia and also first deep geothermal well.

It is expected that HDR geothermal will become an important energy source in the next ten years.

Additional Diagram

The article also contains an intriguing snippet about a new wave power "air bag" developed in Australia:

A revolutionary system of extracting energy from ocean waves has been invented in Australia. It uses an underwater air bag coupled to underwater compartments that circulate air. The system is anchored to the sea floor, does not protrude above the waterline, and encourages marine life in the same way as an artificial reef. It uses a flexible air-filled membrane, which moves up and down as waves pass overhead. During compression, a valve opens and air is stored in a lower compartment. While existing wave energy devices use only part of each wave's energy, this new system achieves greater efficiency by focusing more of the wave energy on the device.

A prototype unit exposed to an 80 m wave front has the potential to produce 1.5 megawatts of electricity, which mean a production capacity of 13 million kilowatt hours per year – equating to enough electricity supply 770 to 1.026 homes.

Official Webpage of the Hot Dry Rock (HDR) Project

Yemen Times article on Hot Dry Rock technology plus the wave power air bag and solar tower

Asia Tsunami: Solar Energy for Disaster Relief

2004-12-28T11:09:00.000-08:00

"When natural disasters strike these days, the international response tends to be the same - immediate interest, immediate help but long term neglect."
BBC News

According to William Young, a research engineer at the Florida Solar Energy Center:

"the importance of electricity during and following a disaster is not always appreciated until the power actually goes out. It is not only vital for keeping streets lit, but it is necessary for medical services and communications. "When power lines are down, citizens cannot be promptly informed of hazards, and it's difficult to notify emergency workers of situations that require their attention. Electrical power is also crucial to medical clinics, which must operate such electronic equipment as vaccine refrigerators, other medical equipment, and emergency lighting."

There had been limited use of photovoltaics in disasters until 1989. PV has supplied emergency power following Hurricanes Hugo, Andrew, Mitch and Luis as well as after the Northridge Earthquake in Southern California.

Several years before Hurricane Andrew struck South Florida, USA, PV-powered streetlights had been installed in a Miami suburb. After the storm, all 33 streetlights were still standing and provided the only light in the area until utility power was restored. In response to Hurricane Luis, Miox Corporation provided PV-powered water purification units to the Virgin Islands, USA. The units produce hundreds of gallons of potable water each day.

A viable use for PV is to meet the emergency demands in large-scale disasters, where power will be out for long periods of time and survivor support is difficult to provide due to the extensive area destroyed. Massive infrastructure damage makes refueling generators a challenge, as pumping stations are often inoperable and roads impassable. Power distribution lines are difficult to fix because of the impassable roads, much less transporting materials for reconstruction. When a disaster strikes an island and the port is destroyed, shipping fuel for generators becomes a problem.

PV is a viable source of electrical power for certain disaster relief applications such as low power needs and long term use.

There are inappropriate applications for photovoltaics in response to disasters. The large-scale power needs of sewer and water facilities, hospitals, large shelters, distribution and emergency operations centers are better met with gasoline or diesel generators in an emergency.

William Young's article (pdf) on Photovoltaics: Disaster and Energy Security Applications
(view as html)

Disaster Relief article on the use of Solar Power in a crisis

Article on the technological challenges facing CARE Canada and the Canadian Red Cross (including the use of solar power)

News and information Blog about resources, aid, donations and volunteer efforts for the Asia Earthquake and Tsunami

U.S. Department of Energy launches Energy Efficiency website

2004-12-27T01:08:00.000-08:00

The United States Deparment of Energy has launched an energy saving tips website.

DOE Energy Saving Tips Website

Also CNN has an article on saving money on your energy bill