New Energy Currents: 2004-11-24

The election has come and gone, but energy issues are, you know, 'here to stay.' While oil prices may be settling down, international efforts to transform our energy systems and reduce greenhouse gases are just starting to gear up, as the Kyoto Protocol and a new Methane to Markets initiative (spearheaded by the US) come into effect. 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 - and, 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 to come up with a wide variety of potential approaches that will compete with as well as compliment each other as we slowly transform our energy systems. To help you keep track of these developments, 'New Energy Currents' is a broad but by no means comprehensive compilation of noteworthy news in energy technology and policy from the past month (by John Atkinson, of chiasm).

• Biofuels
• Fossils
• Hydrogen
• Nuclear
• Solar
• Space
• Water Power
• Wind
• Hybrid Vehicles
• Related Policy Issues

Biofuels:

• A new 'Thermal Combustor' technology that gasifies biomass and other carbon-containing waste to produce electricity has been 'successfully' tested in Italy - but the testing has been halted due to poor quality fuel. Legal action may result! Still, they claim the technology has been proven to be ready for commercialization and can be used to produce 5-50 megawatts of power.

• A Minnesota farmer has developed a digester system to harvest methane gas from the manure produced by his 800 cows to produce enough power for his farm and 78 homes. Helpfully, after going through the digester, the manure can still be used as fertilizer. His next project: a methane-to-hydrogen fuel cell!

Fossil Fuels:

• Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) represent, New York City represent! A new proposal would build a floating LNG transfer station in the Long Island Sound, the first of its kind in the US and one of the first in the world. The proposed station, which faces protests from environmental groups (surprisingly!), would receive LNG imports from overseas and convert them to pipeline gas for use in the New York City region. More supply, lower prices, I'm all for it - I live in a pretty drafty old house in Brooklyn, and the gas bill gets pretty ridiculous in the winter...

• LNG is also a very clean and increasingly well-established alternative vehicle fuel, particularly for heavy-duty transit bus and refuse truck applications. This month, the Department of Energy announced a new project to develop and deploy LNG-fueled tractor-trailers, which would expand the use of LNG to another high-use, heavily-polluting vehicle market.

• NASA researchers working on developing better fuels for a proposed trip to Mars have developed a method by which natural gas can be dissolved in gasoline to create a liquid natural gas/gasoline blend that could be distributed through existing gasoline infrastructure (with some modifications). The fuel blend would have a higher energy content and burn more cleanly than gasoline, in addition to fuel security benefits. I'm pretty dubious that the oil and natural gas industries could be brought together to make this a commercial reality, but it's a cool idea.

• Researchers studying the coal beds of Wyoming's Powder River Basin have discovered that methanogenic bacteria are actively creating methane - natural gas - through the anaerobic digestion of hydrocarbons. The scientists believe that we could harness an enormous, renewable source of natural gas if these 'Geobioreactors' were carefully cultivated and managed. While scientists knew that methane trapped in coal beds was produced by methanogens, it was previously thought that this was a process that occurred millions of years ago.

• As if this wasn't exciting enough, Crumb Trail points out the potential synergy with earlier research into geologic carbon dioxide sequestration, which explored the potential for using methanogens to remediate large CO2 deposits while simultaneously producing natural gas for energy. We could continue to burn cheap coal, capture and inject the CO2 into coal beds, and then use methanogens to convert the CO2 into relatively clean-burning natural gas.

• Clean coal's not just for the US - new industry estimates claim that installing clean coal systems in the UK's 16 coal-fired power plants would be a significantly more cost-effective solution for reducing CO2 emissions than wind power. Coal power accounts for 32% of the UK's electricity, and the UK power industry claims that instead of installing thousands of wind turbines, the same emissions reductions could be achieved at half the cost by just cleaning up existing coal power plants. These numbers are coming from the industry establishment, so take it with a grain of salt, but these are certainly legitimate and important questions for Kyoto countries to ask themselves as they struggle to meet their 2012 emissions targets.

• Innovative coal sequestration technologies are unquestionably good news for the developing world as well, since the insatiable energy needs of China and India are driving global coal production to new highs.

• China's not just looking at coal for electricity - they've just signed an agreement with South Africa to bring Sasol's commercial coal liquefication technology to China. Sasol's coal-to-gasoline technology has been used in South Africa since the 1950s (ah, the fruits of apartheid!) but would be deployed on a larger scale in China, where plants producing 60 million tons of gasoline from coal annually are planned. Coal liquefication is expensive, but if oil stays at around $40 a barrel, it should be cost-effective.

• A diversification of China's energy supply is good news for the world - its skyrocketing energy needs are causing political tensions around the globe as Chinese policy towards Brazil, the Sudan, and Iran have been increasingly affected by its energy needs. Particularly alarming is China's recent mega-mega oil and gas development deal with Iran, which will
  undoubtedly further complicate the US's already-complicated efforts to build support for a hard line against the Iranian nuclear program.

• President Bush's re-election, as well as the GOP's increased Senate majority, has prompted a renewed push to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) for oil drilling. If opened for exploration, ANWR could produce anywhere from 6 to 16 billion barrels of oil, boosting US production by 1.5 million barrels a day, not an insignificant addition to US oil reserves/production for the short term.

• Farther north, a new report predicts that a warming climate may open up significant, previously inaccessible oil and gas reserves in the Arctic. You see, it's all a huge conspiracy, the oil companies created global warming to destroy the planet just so they can get more oil! (kidding!)

• Finally, some more bad news for renewable energy advocates - oil prices dropped to a two-month low last week, at $46 a barrel, and this weekend the G-20 ministers predicted that the price of oil will settle at $35-$40/barrel for the medium term. This may put a monkey wrench in those placing bets/hopes on renewable and alternative energy technologies that, in their current state, need oil to be well over $50/barrel to become competetive.

Hydrogen:

• Those party poopers at Reason have just released a new study (PDF!) claiming that the hydrogen economy will be neither cost-effective nor environmentally beneficial. Interesting reading, although their conclusions should be taken with a big grain of salt, as technological advances will potentially (probably!) change the game within the next decade or two.

• Shell Hydrogen has opened the US's first public hydrogen station at an existing retail gas station, in Washington D.C. Berlin, meanwhile, opened the world's largest public hydrogen station last week (both via Cranial Cavity).

• Green Car Congress has all the details on Honda's new prototype home hydrogen fueling system, which can produce hydrogen through steam reformation of your existing natural gas supply at home. This is similar to Honda's long-delayed 'Phill' home fueling system for compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles, which gives you a CNG pump in your garage. The hydrogen economy could end up being clean and convenient.

Nuclear:

• Tensions continue to flare over who will be the lucky country to host ITER (formerly an acronymn for "International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor," now "THE WAY" in Latin), the international nuclear fusion reactor prototype that will be the largest international science project this side of the International Space Station. The European Union, backed by China and Russia, wants the reactor built in France, and is threatening to (unilaterally!) break off from the international project and proceed on its own if the other primary contender, Japan (backed by the US and South Korea), doesn't back down. Japan is understandably angered at the cowboy EU's threat to go it alone, and responded by saying it will certainly withdraw funding from the $12 billion project if construction begins in France.

• Back in New Mexico, researchers using Sandia Laboratory's Z Machine - think Spiderman 2 - have discovered a new technique to more accurately observe nuclear fusion reactions. The Z Machine produces incredibly powerful but poorly understood fusion reactions for nanoseconds at a time, and the immense energy produced made it impossible to observe very well - now, a new technique using a small crystal reflecting only one wavelength of light makes it possible to clear away most of the energy 'noise', which should facilitate efforts to increase output and better understand the fusion reaction.

Solar:

• Let's start at home - here's a lengthy and interesting article discussing the solar and energy efficiency technologies that are being used in the quest for affordable "net-zero-energy" home designs. One project leader puts it memorably: "What we’re trying to do is come up with the Volkswagen of net-zero-energy homes. All too frequently, the typical solar home is something more akin to a customized Cadillac." A DOE researcher interviewed for the article predicts that 'the people's solar home' may be a reality within a decade.

• On the big side, the world's largest solar power station will be built in South Korea's sunny southern South Jeola Province. The station will be completed by October 2006 and will have 15 megawatts capacity.

• Manchester's tallest building, the CIS service tower, is to be sheathed in one of the world's largest vertical arrays of solar panels. The building will be covered in 3200 square feet of dark blue solar panels representing 391 kilowatts of installed power - 'enough energy to make nine million cups of tea' (oh those Brits!). Now don't get me wrong, Manchester is very near and dear to my heart, but couldn't they have done this project somewhere less, you know, relentlessly dreary and sunless? Someone should've asked Morrissey about the weather...

• British scientists have received funds from the government's "SuperGen" program to reduce the cost of producing photovoltaics by half. The research will focus on reducing the thickness of PV coatings and reducing manufacturing time, as well as increasing their conversion efficiency. The article's implicit admission that PV technology is not sufficiently advanced for widespread, economical use is worth noting.

• South African scientists claim to have developed a process for manufacturing solar panels at one quarter the current cost, by using a copper-indium(gallium)-diselenide alloy instead of silicon-based technology. The system is still three years from actual production, and the details are a bit sketchy, but it's certainly worth keeping an eye on.

• Arizona Public Services is testing triple junction solar cells (which also use gallium-based alloys instead of silicon) that have a 32% conversion efficiency, making them the most efficient photovoltaics in the world (most PV cells have a conversion efficiency of around 15%). The cells, manufactured by Boeing and previously used in space applications like the Mars Rovers, utilize three layers of semiconducting material to harvest energy from different parts of the solar spectrum, which is then further concentrated by a system of mirrors.

• Over in New Mexico, Sandia National Laboratories is developing a prototype six-dish Stirling solar farm that will be the largest in the world. Stirling systems arrange small mirrors in the shape of a dish, which concentrate sunlight onto a central receiver that uses the heat energy to mechanically power a generator. These systems can achieve net 30% conversion efficiencies, making Stirling dishes more efficient than almost all current PV solar cells.

• More radically, the Alt-Energy Blog links to a sketchy but mindblowing press release from a California-based company that intends to build 2,600 megawatts of solar towers. The solar tower concept hasn't yet been proven (though the Alt-Energy post links to an earlier, less sketchy proposal for a tower in Australia), but it's basically an enormous (like 1 km tall enormous) solar chimney on top of an enormous (like 13 sq km enormous) greenhouse. The greenhouse is heated through the solar chimney, and the hot air is channeled up through the chimney at 50 km/hour, running a system of wind turbines. Looking forward to seeing if any of these get built.

• On the way, way smaller tip, chemical engineers at UC Davis have created semiconducting nanocables which may be crucial components of the PV cells of the future.

Space:

• Finally, for a peek into the distant(ish?) future, check out this Wired News story on "The Final Capitalist Frontier," which looks at the enormous potential resources available on other planets. Hydrogen and metals mined in space may make space travel 'sustainable' as well as reap huge profits for companies back home. My favorite quote: "The solar system is like a giant grocery store, it has everything we could possibly want." Take me to your express lane!

Wind:

• The debate over the huge proposed off-shore wind farm in the Nantucket Sound has escalated, as the US Army Corps of Engineers (who has authority over the area) has released a relatively favorable report on the project's likely environmental impact. This would be the first and largest offshore wind farm in the US, with 130 turbines producing up to 420 megawatts of electricity, but it is being opposed vigorously by local advocacy groups, including some environmentalists, who don't want to see the skyline changed, birds killed, &c. Big-time Massachussetts politicians like Governer Mitt Rommey and, last time I checked, Ted Kennedy and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., support the opposition, so this isn't over yet.

• A new proposal for the world's largest onshore wind farm, 230 turbines on the windswept island of Lewis in Scotland, has predictably drawn ire from locals, environments, and the British Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.

• On a very relevant note, California's Center for Biological Diversity is suing the operators of a large wind farm near San Francisco to force it to reduce the number of birds killed by the turbines. The group claims that 8,000 birds are killed by the turbines every year, and seeks compensation for past bird deaths to fund new wildlife habitat and is calling on the companies to install newer turbines and to take other steps to reduce the number of birds killed.

• Fortunately, a new vertical turbine design out of Berkeley promises to increase efficiency and reduce bird fatalities.

Water:

• A Dutch energy company has developed a technique to produce energy from the osmosis of water. The process, called pressure
  retarded osmosis, uses a semi-permeable membrane placed between freshwater and saltwater to produce energy. Details are sketchy as to how much energy can be produced at what efficiency, but apparently they are working to commercialize the technology.

• Here's an interesting article up on Reason discussing the 'next phase' of hydropower projects in the US, which is focusing on smaller, low-impact, distributed hydropower technologies using underwater turbines instead of dams. There's already significant progress on this front out here in the New York State, where Low Impact Hydropower Institute-certified hydro plants are currently generating 224 megawatts of electricity.

• A British engineer has had a EurekAlert!, coming up with a new design for cost-effective tidal power. Don Cutler wants to place existing turbine designs inside large bore underwater pipes, anchored to the seabed using oilrig technologies. He has no commercial backer yet, but it sounds like a simple, yet promising concept.

Hybrid Vehicles:

• Green Car Congress Mike has a new weekly forum on Worldchanging, "This Week in Green Vehicles," with links to relevant news and GCC posts every Sunday. Worth reading regularly, especially if you aren't a regular GCC reader.

• Limited availability of the Ford Escape Hybrid SUV isn't just because Ford is being cautious about the hybrid market - AutoWeek reports that their supply of nickel-metal hydride battery packs (from Japanese manufacturer Sanyo) is already maxed out. Sanyo and Ford are hoping to expand production in time for Ford's new 2007 model hybrids.

• Cheers and Gears has a good review of the new Chevy Silverado hybrid truck, featuring a 10-13% improvement in fuel economy AND power outlets that turn the truck into a mobile power generator for work, parties, whatever! I am thinking: "ULTIMATE BAND VAN." Friends Forever, eat your heart out, with one of these guys we could play shows in the woods, desert, wherever!
  
• Here's an early, very positive review of the hotly anticipated Lexus 400h hybrid luxury SUV (the world's first!) - which has just had its release delayed until April 15.

• And here's an early positive review of the 2005 Honda Accord Hybrid, which will offer not only a substantial fuel efficiency boost over the regular Accord but a horsepower boost as well. While it may appeal to more 'serious' drivers than the Prius, its fuel efficiency is significantly less, making it less appealing to 'green' drivers.

• Finally, Green Car Congress goes off the road and onto the tracks with this post on the diesel-hybrid electric "Green Goat" locomotives, which promise a 40-60% fuel use reduction and an 80-90% reduction in nitrogen oxides and particulate emissions.

Related Policy Issues:

• It's official - Russian President Putin's signature on the Kyoto Protocol starts the 90 day countdown until the treaty comes into force, on February 16. Kyoto's imminent arrival has stirred up talk of the world's two largest emitters, the US and China, facing 'increased pressure' to act, even leading some environmentalists to claim that China 'will be held accountable' although it has no obligations under Kyoto (despite the fact that it is expected to pass the US in greenhouse emissions by 2020). Hmmm, OK, sure...

• In more feasible, 'reality-based' greenhouse reduction news, the US last week announced its Methane to Markets plan, a 14-country initiative that will reduce methane emissions (methane produces a 20x more powerful greenhouse effect than CO2, though it is emitted in far lower volumes) from developing countries through the deployment of advanced methane capture technologies. This will reduce emissions cost-effectively while simultaneously facilitating economic development in the non-industrialized world - the captured methane will be sold for energy. As the White House Council on Environmental Quality said of the project, "we know how to do it, we know we can do it, and we know what the results will be" - the equivalent of taking 33 million cars of the road by 2015.

• Crumb Trail links to a related story on recent research that indicates that work now to reduce emissions of trace greenhouse gases like methane may be crucial to the success of longer-term efforts to reduce CO2.

• Also on the GOP power-trip tip - the election results make it more likely that the long-suffering US Energy Bill will finally be passed. This is excellent news for anyone interested in energy, even if you have an 'agenda' - both the fossil and renewable energy sectors badly need this bill.

• A new government mandate in Spain will require all new and renovated buildings to include plans for solar panels (via Worldchanging).

As always, leave any tips in the comments, or e-mail me at newenergy@windsofchange.net - and have an awesome Thanksgiving OK!