New Energy Currents: 2004-12-22

While oil prices may be settling down, international efforts to transform our energy systems are just gearing up. In addition to the industrialized world's efforts to clean up its own massive energy systems, the non-industrialized world's need for new energy sources is growing steadily - in China's case, so explosively that it will have a dramatic and lasting affect on the global environment and international politics.

Fortunately, there's a lot of hard work being done by scientists, engineers, and (sometimes) policymakers around the world as we slowly transform our energy systems. To help you keep track of these developments as they happen, 'New Energy Currents' is a broad but by no means comprehensive compilation of noteworthy news in energy technology and policy from the past month. Brought to you by John Atkinson of chiasm, who will shamelessly note right up here that his band is leaving the NYC to tour major cities all up and down the US west coast next week - check the dates and catch some of my personal 'new energy', y'heard?

• Biofuels/Biomass
• Fossil Fuels
• Hybrids/Cars
• Hydrogen
• Nuclear
• Solar
• Wind
• Related Policy Issues

Biofuels/Biomass

• North Carolina's Golden LEAF Foundation - which distributes half (about $70 million annually) of the state's tobacco settlement money to tobacco-dependent communities - has decided to invest $5 million to begin construction of a new soy biodiesel plant in the state. The plant (based on a proposal by the state's Grain Growers Cooperative) is the first in the state, and the foundation hopes that soy biodiesel could become a major new industry for rural parts of the state (via Green Car Congress).

• Well, it was only a matter of time before those two got together - a patent is pending on a new biodiesel/ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) blend, called Cleaner Burning Biodiesel (CBB), which will achieve deeper emissions reductions in hydrocarbons, carbon monoxide, particulate matter, sulfur dioxide, and even nitrogen oxide - which is actually emitted in greater quantities by conventional biodiesel blends than straight diesel. After 2006 all diesel fuel sold in the US will have to be ULSD, so I imagine this blend will be rather popular.

• Benson, Minnesota will be the home of the world's largest turkeyshit-fired power plant. Similar 'poultry litter' plants have been built in England, but this plant - which will generate an impressive 55 megawatts of electricity by burning 700,000 tons of dung every year - will be the first, though probably not the last, to be built in the US.

Fossil Fuels

• The Vice President of China's National Coal Association is calling on the Chinese government to allow coal prices to be set by the international market.

• Liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports are often cited as an important short- to medium-term solution to tightness in the domestic natural gas market. However, significant public resistance based on environmental and security concerns threatens to hamper US progress in installing needed LNG infrastructure. Enter all-star political consultant Mike Murphy, who will be directing a $1 million pro-LNG ad blitz funded by the LNG industry. LNG is GOOD, you will LIKE IT.

• Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have discovered key atomic-level structural properties of advanced ceramics using the Lab's unsurpassed National Center for Electron Microscopy. A better understanding of the molecular structure of advanced ceramics will allow for the creation of much tougher ceramics that could be used to create gas turbine engines that would run at far higher temperatures than metal engines, allowing for much more efficient and less-polluting power plants (via Crumb Trail).

• Crumb Trail also links to this fascinating piece on the Flame Doctor System, a system that uses chaos-derived algorithms to monitor the flickering of the burner flames in coal-fired power plants. This information is then used to make instant adjustments to each burner to maximize the efficiency of power generation while reducing emissions of carbon monoxide and nitrogen oxide (both of which result from incomplete combustion) by 50 and 30 percent, respectively.

Hybrids/Cars

• Hey, hybrid heads - the ever-useful hybridcars.com has a handy new program for YOU: the Gas Mileage Impact Calculator, which you can use to compare the gasoline savings and emissions reductions from driving a variety of hybrid vehicles vs. a variety of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles. Add some meat to your MPG-obsessed boasting!

• Green Car Congress has an interesting post up on the California Car Initiative's efforts to hack the Toyota Prius to turn it into a plug-in hybrid. Not so difficult, really!

• Fuel Cell Works has reposted an excellent review of the present and future of hybrid cars from The Economist. Hint: it's even brighter than you think.

• What do you get when you add a parasail to a diesel cargo ship? Hybrid power, ocean-style. A simple, and fascinating (if unproven), idea, via Worldchanging.

• Worldchanging also has the scoop on a collaboration between a little company called Chorus Motors and a little company called Boeing to produce electric motors based on Chorus's revolutionarily small, yet powerful design. Initial applications will focus on airlines, but there could be obvious ramifications for automobiles as well.

Hydrogen

• Scientists at Emory University have broken through the "oxo-wall" by successfully creating multiple, stable bonds between oxygen and platinum. While metal-oxygen combinations are not at all uncommon over on the left side of the periodic table, metals on the right side (behind the "wall", in columns 9-12) form extremely unstable bonds with oxygen, and previous attempts to create metal-oxo species with gold, silver, iridium, rhodium, and platinum had all failed. The insights provided by this new breakthrough should have important ramifications for the fabrication of fuel cells and automotive catalytic converters, among other uses.

• A new manufacturing technique for PEM fuel cells is the first to use only injection-molded thermoplastics, instead of aluminum, gold-coated stainless steel, graphite or thermoset-graphite blends. The less expensive materials could lower the cost of manufacturing fuel cells by a full 50%.

• The Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory has made a significant breakthrough in the production of hydrogen, developing a process that uses the heat produced in a nuclear reactor to significantly lower the energy requirements for separating hydrogen from water using electrolysis. The process, called high-temperature electrolysis (HTE), can achieve 45 to 50 percent conversion efficiencies (compared to 30 percent for conventional electrolysis), making it the highest rate of hydrogen production that has been achieved so far. [cue soul-searching by conflicted enviros]

Nuclear

• Of course, you can't build a next generation nuclear energy/hydrogen production plant if you can't deal with your existing nuclear plants. Utilipoint has a good review of the ongoing dilemma posed by nuclear waste storage in the US.

• Meanwhile, outgoing US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham acknowledged that China - where nuclear energy is relatively unburdened by political/environmental challenges - will soon become a world leader in the use of nuclear power. Abraham heralded the development as an opportunity for increased cooperation on energy technology between China and the US, and says that the DOE is "preparing to move forward on a policy level." Great!

• Japan, struggling with its own nuclear waste, has begun testing a new reprocessing facility that will extract plutonium from spent fuel, enrich it, and combine it with uranium oxide for reuse in light-water nuclear reactors. The process is already used in Europe and Russia, but concerned environmentalists have slowed its deployment elsewhere.

• Speaking of Japan, the pissing contest between Japan and the EU over who will get to host the internationally-funded ITER experimental fusion reactor continues apace!

• Basic fusion research, however, is also continuing apace, despite the ITER impasse. Scientists from Columbia University (CU represent!) and MIT have created a device that can generate a minature magnetosphere, a magnetic field similar to those that surround the earth and other planets. Strong magnetic fields could be employed to confine plasma under pressure in a hypothetical future fusion reactor.

• Mineral samples from the surface of the moon indicate abundant quantities of helium 3 (a helium isotope that is extremely rare on earth) in the moon's soil and rocks. Small quantities of helium 3 could be used with deuterium (a hydrogen isotope) to fuel nuclear fusion reactions - 25 tons of the gas could provide enough electricity for the entire US for a whole year. While there are only 10 kilos of helium 3 on earth, there are an estimated one million tons on the moon, which could produce more than 10 times as much energy as all the fossil fuels on earth. Um, awesome!

Solar

• Asia's largest photovoltaic power station (with 1 megawatt capacity) has been installed in China's international horticulture and flower exhibition garden, in Shenzen.

• Michelin has announced plans for a large-scale solar photovoltaic project spread across four locations in Germany. Rooftop photovoltaic systems to be installed in Homburg, Landau, Bad Kreuznach and Bamberg will generate 10 megawatts of electricity and cover a total area of 200,000 square meters, at a total cost of about 50 million euros.

• The Australian Government released a white paper detailing the scope and guidelines for their potentially innovative new Solar Cities program. The Solar Cities program "will bring together governments, industry and communities in partnerships to test new sustainable models of electricity supply and use" over the next nine years, and will begin with a trial in Adelaide and at least other urban areas around Australia.

• California - the world's third-largest market for solar technology! - is considering a variety of strategies to make good on Governor Schwarzenegger's ambitious campaign promise to aggressively promote the use of solar panels in the state. Administration officials hope to have one million buildings equipped with solar panels producing 3,000 megawatts of electricity by 2018.

• Last month's New Energy Currents linked to a press release on a prototype solar dish-Stirling energy system being developed by Sandia National Laboratories and Stirling Energy Systems. This month brings us this, more in-depth piece on the Sandia Stirling project as well as a more general discussion of the history and mechanics of Stirling dish systems, which are simpler and currently more energy efficient than photovoltaics.

• Researchers at Georgia Tech have developed a new approach to creating organic solar cells that are lightweight, flexible, and cheap. While current prototypes have only reached power conversion efficiencies of 3.4 percent, the cheapness and flexibility of the material would make it ideal for incorporation into small electronic devices - they could be powering RFID tags within two years.

• Near Near Future links to this New Scientist article on thin photovoltaic films that could be sewn into textiles, yielding, for example, a jacket that could simultaneously charge your cell phone - all in the near, near future of 3 years or so!

• Related: Scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a new, cost-effective method of manufacturing metal-oxide films using polymer-assisted deposition (PAD). The PAD process grows the films - which are expected to play a major role in the development of flexible, low-cost photovoltaics, among other uses - in a water-based solution (making it ideal for coating irregular surfaces) and can be used to create films of simple or complex metal oxides.

• Related x2: Here's a good review of the efforts of three different startup companies to achieve nanotech-fueled breakthroughs in the manufacturing cost and efficiency of solar cells (via Trends I'm Watching).

Wind

• An application has been filed for the construction of a 'West Coast Cable' - a 1,600 (expandable to 3,200) megawatt submarine transmission line that would allow for the direct transmission of energy from Canada to California. The cable will run 3-12 miles offshore along British Columbia, Washington, Oregon, and California for 1,200 miles, and it is hoped that it will allow the enormous amount of "stranded" renewable energy resources of Canada's west coast (an area which has been estimated to have the largest wind resources in the world) to be tapped by energy-hungry Californians.

• Several US companies are working together on developing two 100 megawatt wind farm cooperatives in China that will produce both electricity and hydrogen. Details are sketchy, but it sounds interesting, right?

• The UN Development Fund has launched a new program in collaboration with the Kazakh government to begin aggressive development of Kazakhstan's ample wind resources. The article notes that there isn't much indigenous demand for wind power, owing to Kazakhstan's low population density and substantial oil and coal resources. An international emissions trading regime could change that, of course.

• Alt-Energy Blog posts on a wild and crazy Dutch design for a new, much more effective way to harness the power of the wind - THE LADDERMILL.

Related Policy Issues

• The big news this month was the nearly two weeks of meetings in Buenos Aires for parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change - the treaty which spawned the suddenly-imminent (Feb. 16th!) Kyoto Protocol. A lot of ink and digits and invective from all sides has been spilled on this, but if you want a day-by-day review of the proceedings, the Earth Negotiation Bulletin's coverage is the place to go - their lengthy summary of the meetings and their history can be found here. Libertarian-types will appreciate Tech Central Station's extensive and mildly triumphalist coverage.

• This week's Business week looks at potential investment opportunities in renewable energy companies - if you are interested in making money off this trend, you are interested in reading this!

• The privately-funded National Commission on Energy Policy released a new report presenting its 'bipartisan strategy to meet America's energy challenges' - "Ending the Energy Stalemate" (PDF!) - to much media attention and much grumbling from the environmental community. The paper, which was drafted by a wide-ranging group of energy experts from industry, government, academia, and environmental groups, is well worth a read and full of realistic compromises that maybe, just maybe, will help produce a viable Energy Bill this year. Utilipoint has a good, reasonably non-partisan summary.

• Finally, you can't make a good argument without some good NUMBERS - the US Energy Information Administration has released its 2005 Annual Energy Outlook.

As always, leave any tips in the comments, or e-mail me at newenergy@windsofchange.net. Also please have an AMAZING holiday season/New Year! Stay alive in 05! See you then.