Bio

• The continuing inquiry into the energy balance of ethanol production continues with a new study claiming that more ethanol is produced than gasoline used when everything is really taken into account. Those who've been following this debate for awhile will note that similar 'wait, you missed this' arguments have been repeatedly made by each side, of course. The blogosphere's sharpest ag muckraker, Gary Jones, takes a look at this round, noting the worthwhile additions to the production model as well as the still-noteworthy omissions.

• Pennsylvania's first biodiesel production facility, a small, 2-3 million gallons/year prototype for 10 more 20-30 million gallon plants planned for the future, began operating this month. The plant will use Pennsylvania-produced soybeans as a feedstock, and, in a nice PR gesture, the first 10,000 gallons will be donated to the state to help reduce heating bills for families in need (via Green Car Congress).

• Green Car Congress takes a look at plans to build the world's TWO largest palm-biodiesel plants in Malaysia, the world's largest palm oil producer. The plants, one of which is being built by London-based investors and the other by the state-owned palm oil industry, will each produce 300,000 tonnes/year. Interest in palm oil as a biodiesel feedstock is surging, as it's currently the least expensive feedstock to grow as well as the easiest to refine.

• Meanwhile, Malaysia's neighbor Indonesia - the world's second-largest palm oil producer - is planning to develop 3 million hectares of new palm oil plantations over the next five years in anticipation of increased demand for biofuels.

• The USDA and US DOE have announced a partnership to share resources and coordinate research on plant and microbial genomics, starting with a project to sequence the soybean genome.

• Worldchanging picks up news from the CSM about an interesting new process for biofuel production: air pollution-eating algae. MIT's Isaac Berzin (a full-time rocket scientist!), has developed a system that harnesses emissions from coal power plants and feeds them to oily algae, capturing 40-80% of CO2 emissions and 80% of NOx emissions in the process. Berzin estimates that a 1 GW coal plant could yield 40 million gallons of ethanol and 50 million gallons of biodiesel a year, and expects to have a full-scale demonstration plant running by 2008 or 2009. As Jamais Cascio notes, the CO2 is eventually emitted into the atmosphere when the fuel is burned, limiting the technology's actual effect on greenhouse emissions, but it may be a cost-effective way to help reduce oil imports.

• Researchers at Oregon State University are continuing research into developing affordable microbial fuel cell wastewater treatment technologies. Fuel cells capable of producing electricity from the organic matter in wastewater streams could remove up to 80 percent of the pollutants in the water while providing a substantial portion of the power needed to run the plant - which, as the article notes, could be a particular boon for developing countries. Interestingly, the press release also notes that OSU oceanographers are using a related process to power mobile, seafaring measurement devices with the organic matter in plankton. (Via U of Oregoner Watthead).

• High prices for home heating have (briefly) made FuturePundit read more like PastPundit, as Randall Parker looks at surging sales of wood pellet- and corn-fueled stoves for home heating in the US.

• A new thermal depolymerization plant in Carthage, MO that converts turkey waste into oil products smells really BAD. So bad, in fact, that the plant is being shut down by the state, despite the fact that the plant's operator was apparently in the process of adding odor suppression equipment. Apparently, the price of enduring the smell of depolymerizing turkeyshit is considerably greater than $70/barrel oil. UPDATE: Thanks to commenter Robert Schwartz for this tip - apparently, yesterday the plant was granted a two-week stay of execution to prove that its new odor control equipment would be effective.

Electricity

• The Pacific Northwest National Laboratory has launched a new initiative to test and demonstrate a wide variety of 'smart grid' technologies in the pacific northwest. The Gridwise initiative will allow 300 households in the region to use and evaluate real-time pricing information, 'smart' appliances, and other tools with the potential to reduce electricity consumption for the duration of the year-long study. Via Worldchanging, which has a good summary with lots of links.

Fossil Fuels

• Green Car Congress has a detailed summary of the 2006 Detroit Auto Show and the state of the 'schizophrenic' US market that is struggling to simultaneously cater to demand for both increased efficiency and improved performance. This could be read in conjunction with Mike's post on the New Dehli Auto Expo's hydrogen-powered three-wheelers, but doing so may totally blow your mind.

• While efforts to open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) have repeatedly failed over the past few years, no Congessional approval was needed for the US Department of the Interior to open Alaska's Teshekpuk Lake region for oil drilling. Teshepuk Lake, which had previously been preserved for environmental reasons when more drilling in the North Slope was authorized by the Clinton administration in 1998, is the largest currently untapped oil resource on the North Slope other than nearby ANWR. The area is estimated by hold 1.5 billion barrels of oil, and drilling could begin as early as the winter of 2007.

• The Environmental Economics blog points to news of a 'mini-boom' in new boom in oil and gas in... Kentucky? A combination of high fossil fuel prices and the increasing affordability of advanced exploration and recovery techniques are encouraging smaller oil companies in the area to return to abandoned or never-drilled fields, resulting in a 40 percent increase in oil and gas permits in the state in 2005.

• Meanwhile, US coal may be about to hit a significant bump on its road back to power generation dominance - logistics. The US's aging and bottlenecked rail network may be inadequate to supply a major increase in coal demand. Geoff Styles agrees that there is a potential problem, but notes the existence of several potential solutions.

• Geoff Styles also reviews a NY Times piece on the increasing turn towards gas-to-liquid (GTL) technology to convert natural gas supplies 'stranded' in low-value markets into synthetic diesel fuel, a source which may account for 1 million barrels of oil/day of US consumption by 2010. Unlike the Times, Styles notes the complications posed by GTL's inherent competition with LNG, and his insights on this and other ramifications of GTL's resurgence are, as always, worth a read.

Hydrogen

• One of the first hydrogen fueling stations in the midwest US will produce hydrogen fuel using wind power. In a move designed to draw attention to the potential synergy between the development of the region's huge wind resource and the hoped-for hydrogen economy, Hydrogenics will build a small fueling station at North Dakota state University that will run a hydrogen-producing electrolyzer optimized to operate in tandem with the intermittency of wind turbines.

• An interdisciplinary team of scientists from the Technical University of Denmark has developed an innovative new medium for hydrogen storage: tablets. Instead of storing hydrogen in a gaseous form (which requires large, heavy, and expensive storage tanks), the scientists propose using safe, inexpensive tablets consisting of ammonia absorbed in sea salt. A catalyst could dissociate hydrogen from the tablet, which could later be recharged with another 'shot' of ammonia.

• Meanwhile, scientists in the private sector are working on a system for hydrogen fueling via a semi-liquid, 'pumpable' hydride slurry.

Nuclear

• In his New Year's address to business leaders and unions, French President Jacques Chirac announced plans for France to build the world's first prototype fourth-generation nuclear reactor by 2020. France is already the global leader with 75% of its electricity generated by nuclear power (mostly second-generation reactors). In addition to this initiative, France plans to deploy the first third-generation European Pressurized Water Reactors (EPR) by 2012, and it will be the future home of the international experimental fusion reactor (ITER - by 2015 or 2___ or whatever) .

• Record low temperatures in the Czech Republic forced a temporary shutdown of the aging, Russian-built Temelin nuclear reactor last week. The cold caused a malfunctioning in one of the plant's sensors, resulting in an automatic halting of the reactor turbine for several hours.

• NEI Nuclear Notes links to a good news source on the nuclear power industry for those who like to listen instead of read every once in awhile - "This Week in Nuclear," a regular podcast by nuclear professional John Wheeler.

Solar

• New Jersey's aggressive renewables programs are yielding results, as the town of Bayonne announced plans to install 9,500 solar PV panels on the roofs of Bayonne High School and the town's eight elementary schools. The panels, funded in part by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program, will add up to a total of 2 MW capacity, making it the largest PV installation on the east coast.

• The Rashtrapati Bhavan, the residence of the President of India, will also become home to the largest solar photovoltaic project in Asia. Although the 5-MW installation will obviously draw a lot of attention, it's not India's first, and perhaps not its most important initiative - as Jamais Worldchanging notes, the use of small-scale, off-grid solar in rural India has been facilitated by programs like the the Barefoot Solar Engineers initiative.

• FuturePundit takes a look at new organic photovoltaic cells being developed by a private partnership in collaboration with scientists from Princeton and USC. The Global Photonic Energy Corporation claims that their new cells set new records for harnessing energy from the near infrared range (NIR) of the solar spectrum, which is invisible to the human eye but full of energy that is not utilized by conventional silicon photovoltaics. These types of cells could thus potentially surpass silicon photovoltaics in not only cost but efficiency as well.

• Elsewhere at the nanoscale, Penn State researchers are developing solar cells based on arrays of titania nanotubes, for increased efficiencies in low-cost solar cells as well as for the direct production of hydrogen through photolysis.

• It's an eco-techphile's dream come true: solar-powered LED wi-fi lamposts! Dude, awesome - six are being installed at the University of Abertay in Dundee, Scotland. (via WattHead)

Water

• A 250 MW hydroelectric power plant will be built on the Nile River to supply electricity for Uganda. The project, largely funded by US investors, is thought to be the largest foreign direct investment into Sub-Saharan East Africa to date. It had been delayed for several years previously, and is proceeding despite continued concern from environmental groups about its impact, particularly on Uganda's ecotourism industry.

• In addition to the rural solar power initiatives mentioned earlier, the Indian government is working to use micro-hydro power, as well as biomass gasification, to electrify rural villages.

Wind

• Green Car Congress notes that a German shipping company has purchased the first SkySail wind-hybrid system - essentially a complicated, computer-controlled huge parasail that could reduce fuel use on large ships by 50%. The system will be installed on a 140m heavy cargo freighter in 2007, and SkySails hopes to begin regular sales by 2008.

• Worldchanging's Jeremy Faludi has a good post up bringing together information about several airborne wind power technologies currently under development. By 'ditching the tower', these designs would not only reduce the footprint of these 'flying windmills' but take advantage of the more consistent and stronger winds found at higher altitudes.

• Finally, Jesse Watthead makes a strong pitch for a particularly attractive niche for wind power - ski resorts. The resorts have significant energy costs, strong winds, and plenty of usable land - not to mention plenty of wealthy outdoorsy types to admire the turbines! - and Jesse does some rough calculations that make it look like a very feasible proposition. In fact, it's such a good idea that the trend may have already begun - Jiminy Peak Ski Resort in Massachussetts became the first ski resort to install a wind turbine back in November.