Biofuels:

• A Dutch engineer has developed a more efficient process for gasifying wood for electricity production - roast it first.

• One of Coca-Cola's Japanese plants has installed a methane fermentation system that will generate electricity using the plant's own used coffee grounds, tea leaves, and wastewater. I guess it's not particularly earthshaking, I just thought it was kind of funny that in a sense, all that coffee and tea 'powers' the plant twice - once as caffeine, once as energy. You know? Ha! (OK, this is kind of true for any for any food waste, but it's kind of more dramatic with coffee, right?)

• An Irish firm has signed a 25-year, £200 agreement to process 400 tons of organic waste/day from New York City into bio-fuel for use in generators. I've been further informed that the plant, located in upstate New York, will more specifically produce a pelletized compost fuel that contains 6500 btu/lb.

Fossils:

• Coal finally starts cleaning up after itself! A 521 MW plant in Pennsylvania - the largest of its kind in the world - is burning piles of "boney," waste coal from past mining operations that pollutes Pennsylvania's rivers, and getting credited as renewable energy in the process. Fair enough - it's estimated they'll get rid of 100 million tons of the stuff over the next 30 years.

• More coal recovery news - researchers at Virginia Tech have developed waste coal recovery and dewatering technologies that will be combined to economically recover clean coal dredged from a West Virginia slurry ponds.

• Disappointing news for the US oil industry is great news for the Energy Bill - House energy committee leaders have opted to leave ANWR out. Provisions opening up Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling would have been enormously controversial, and this difficult bill is going to need all the help it can get.

Geothermal:

• U.S. Geothermal has been offered a $2.2 million grant from DOE to incorporate an innovative new technologies into their planned geothermal power plant on the Raft River (Idaho!). The 10 MW plant - the first geothermal plant in the Pacific Northwest - would use ammonia adsorption power cycle (AAPC) technology that promises more efficient and lower cost electricity generation than current geothermal technologies (via Renewable Energy Law Blog).

Hydrogen:

• Researchers at Penn State have constructed a material made from titanium dioxide nanotubes that can harness ultraviolet light for the extraction of hydrogen from water. The material is easy to make, inexpensive, and stable - the big challenge is to shift the response of the nanotubes into the visible light spectrum (only 5% of the sun's energy is ultraviolet). (via Worldchanging)

• Ballard Power systems has achieved "a technology hat trick" - improved freeze start capability, improved durability, and reduced cost - with a new fuel cell stack design that can start repeatedly from -20 degrees C (-4 degrees F) and operate for more than 2,000 hours at a substantially reduced cost with no performance tradeoff.

Nuclear:

• Here's a well-grounded look at the prospects for a nuclear revival in the US. It's also notes that the recent efforts by nuclear energy proponents to get nuclear energy back on the policy radar is just the beginning - an "all-out campaign to re-introduce Americans to the concept" of nuclear power is in the works. I expect some resistance!

• Roland Piquepaille has an informative post up on the Toshiba 4S (Super Safe, Small and Simple) 10 MW 'Micro-Nuke' reactor. The nice folks at Toshiba will be giving a free reactor to the citizens of Galena, Alaska, as a demonstration of the innovative and 'super safe' design (pending permission from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission). Via Crumb Trail, where a subsequent post discusses the proliferation issues surrounding the 4S design as well as pebble-bed reactors.

• Michigan's 1,130 MW Fermi 2 nuclear plant was shut down in late January due to a reactor coolant leak. Everything = OK - no radioactive release, no evacuations, no problem. Still, it's stark reminder to nuclear energy opponents of why they continue to oppose nuclear power - and to nuclear energy advocates of why it's important to develop and deploy next generation reactor designs so that we can replace these creaky old things.

• On the subject of safety, engineers from Purdue University are hard at work improving the complex computer programs - "reactor safety codes" - used to simulate and safeguard against hypothetical accidents. Interestingly, the press release notes that the researchers are also modifying one of the codes so that it can be used to test nuclear plants designed for high-temperature electrolysis hydrogen production.

• Scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a process to successfully recreate the sudden bursts of nuclear energy that occur inside dense stars - that's right, we're one step closer to fusion! I'm sure we're, like, almost there.

Solar:

• Alt-E James reports that a site has been selected for Australia's solar tower - the tallest structure in the world! - the world's first. The solar tower, scheduled for completion in 2009, has 200 MW capacity and will be able to operate 24 hours a day. James also notes that a similar tower for China is being considered.

• Meanwhile, small-scale solar photovoltaic systems continue to attract interest as a rural development tool. The Asian Development Bank will be financing the demonstration of solar power systems in 10 communities in Afghanistan that will also cover the training of local solar technicians and entrepreneurs at a community-based training center in India. More than 80% of Afghanistan's population lives in rural areas and have little or no access to grid electricity, and Afghanistan's geography makes the extension of a centralized grid economically unfeasible for many parts of the country.

Waves:

• The Electric Power Research Institute has published a new report suggesting that electricity generated from wave energy may become economically feasible in the near future. Wave power promises to be steadier, less visible, and less dangerous to wildlife than its above-ground cousin, wind power. This Valentine's Day Reuters piece highlights the love that nascent wave power projects are already getting on both coasts (NYC & San Fran) of the US.

• An economic impact and feasibility study of the UK wave hub has been completed. The underwater testing facility for large-scale wave power projects would be the first of its kind and make Britain the center of the nascent global wave power industry, creating up to 700 jobs and contributing £27 million to the UK economy every year. It certainly sounds worth the estimated £12 million in construction costs, and the UK Energy Minister strongly supports the project.

• Roland Piquepaille has a another link-filled post up on recent research into wave power at Oregon State University, which is becoming 'the epicenter of wave energy development in the US.'

• Carolyn Elefant's excellent, new-to-me Wind and Wave Energy blog has up a collection of stories on ocean power projects in China, South Africa, and Spain.

Wind:

• Behold the mighty 5M wind turbine!! Currently being tested onshore in its home country of Germany, the '5M' is named after its impressive 5 MW capacity, made possible by the fact that it is a whopping 400' tall! While this is sure to give the 'not in my scenic backyard' crowd a heart attack (the manufacturer, REPower, also plans to demonstrate the 5M offshore off the Scottish coast), it should help bird lovers rest a bit easier - the massive blades turn more slowly than smaller wind farms, posing less of a threat to our flying friends.

• Undeterred by increasingly vocal Scottish wind farm opponents, Irish company Airtricity has its heart set on building the largest wind farm in the world in the North Sea, off the Scottish coast. 5,000 turbines, 10,000 MW, 1.2 billion pounds sterling. Seriously big!

• South Korean officials are meeting with power companies to discuss plans for the construction of four massive offshore windfarms. Not too many details yet, but they are expected to have a combined 1 GW generating capacity at construction costs of $2.92 billion.

• Iran has done preliminary work on identifying the locations of key wind 'reserves' in preparation for producing a detailed wind atlas for the country within the next three years. The minister of Iran's Renewable Energies Organization estimates that there's an estimated 6,500 MW of wind generating capacity in Iran - so why do they need that troublesome nuclear power plant, anyway?

• The California State Energy Commission has issued a new report that proposes permanently shutting down up to 650 of the turbines in the Altamont Pass Wind Resource Area and shutting down the rest for either the fall or the fall and winter in order to reduce the number of birds killed there. These steps could reduce the 5,400-turbine, 580 MW-capacity wind farm's installed capacity by a third but prevent up to 60% of the estimated 1,300 raptor deaths caused by the turbines each year. The Center for Biological Diversity, who has sued to try and force the turbine's operators to take measures to reduce bird kills and continues to lobby for action, has more information and a copy of the study here.

• Meanwhile, the embattled Cape Cod offshore wind farm proposal - one of the largest planned offshore farms in the world, with 130 turbines producing 420 MW of electricity - has hit yet another speed bump. The proposed wind farm is to be located in what is now federal waters, leaving Massachussetts officials with little say in the project's progress - until now. A 'recently discovered pile of rocks' in the Nantucket Sound will apparently allow the state to claim control over an extra 12 square miles of water, which would include as much as 10 percent of the wind farm's potential area.

• Hometown news - the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority has completed a draft report indicating that the state could feasibly accomodate 3,300 MW of wind power - which could provide 10% of its total projected energy needs - by 2008. Note that 600 of those MW would be from a proposed offshore wind farm in the Long Island Sound... I expect some resistance!

Policy:

• A report from the UK's National Audit Office warns that the government's renewable energy plan will be costly, adding more than £1B a year to electricity prices for the next five years.

• Green Car Congress takes a look at the proposed US Department of Energy budget for 2006, notable most for large increases in funding for nuclear R&D and clean coal. I expect wrangling!

• As President Bush reminded us in his State of the Union, it's (really) time for that Energy Bill. Here's hoping his political opponents will be too busy torpedoing his social security plan to stop this much more pressing, important, and pork-filled legislation.

• Finally, the Kyoto Protocol came into Being on February 16th. Believe it or not, there's actually a complete consensus on the treaty - both supporters and opponents agree that Kyoto (in and of itself) "won't solve global warming or avert disastrous climate disruption." Kyoto's emissions reductions targets are minimal, they don't include the US, China, Brazil, or India, and they probably won't be met anyway. Supporters insist that the important thing is that we are Doing Something, and that thinking about solving these problems will force us to actually do something useful in the future; opponents believe that a global climate change workshop isn't worth the risk to world economies, and that eventual solutions will be largely technological anyway, not political. I look forward to seeing how all this plays out, either (or neither) way.

In fact, in honor of pitchers and catchers reporting (the first sign of spring!), let me leave you with a baseball metaphor: Kyoto's kind of like spring training. First of all, it doesn't really mean anything. The quality of play is pretty scattershot, and you'll see lineups filled with a lot of minor leaguers and scrubs without much of a future. BUT, you'll see lots of hot young prospects too, kids that are bigger and faster than any you've ever seen, hopped up on high-tech workouts and 'performance enhancements' (federal research grants and subsidies!) - and they may be the future, but are they ready for the big leagues yet? And will those wily, still-productive veterans step aside gracefully, or will they just opt for even more expensive and dubiously legal 'training regimens' and play forever? &c

Feel free to send any tips, questions, or scouting reports to newenergy at windsofchange.net - see you in March.