Department of Energy Secretary Chu announces $93 million from the Recover Act to support the development of additional wind energy in the United States. The money will support R&D and testing for wind turbine drivetrains, support university and industry consortia focusing on critical wind energy challenges, advanced technology development in the private sector and a National Wind Technology Center in Colorado.
Chu also announced the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will receive $100 million for infrastructure projects. The largest is the development of an energy efficient LEED Platinum certified office, constructed at the same cost as that of a low efficiency commercial office building. The others are to use solar and other green energy sources to reduce the labs carbon use and to upgrade the integrated bio-refinery research facility used to develop commercial scale cellulose to ethanol technologies.
During his visit to the Golden, CO facility Chu stated that $26 billion of the more than $100 billion in the Recover Act for renewable energy projects had already been authorized with the goal of 70% being authorized by early September. He also discussed streamlining the DOE loan approval process with the goal of reducing the time to getting a loan application approved to a few months. It has been known to take years under the current process.
It is great to see some of this huge spending bill is being directed to innovation and more importantly that this is being coordinated with private industry. There continues to be a gap in funding for the commercialization of proven technologies. Until this gap is filled, the great innovation from the labs and universities will be delayed in helping solve our energy issues.
Bob Metcalfe, using the history of the Internet as a guide, provided his list of things to look for and look out for in the changing energy sector.
Metcalfe gave an optimistic view of the environmental challenge suggesting not only are we in a Global Warming Bubble but that cheap, clean energy will be so abundant, it will easily be squandered.
He suggested the best place for research is in the research universities and not in government labs which are “nothing more than local earmarks”. In this model, professors along with their graduate students, will commercialize innovation with the help of entrepreneurs and venture capital.
Metcalfe warned that energy and environment are two overlapping issues and they should be viewed as two things. Otherwise, we may solve energy without solving the environment or vice-versa. Oh, and he offered a new color for clean energy, blue.
Economists Nicholas Stern and Michael Grubb, along with European Commissioner Janez Poto?nik, agree that the United Nations Climate Change Conference, to be held in Copenhagen in December 2009, marks a critical juncture for addressing climate concerns. And they all agree the United States must take serious action to back up the serious language currently coming out of Washington, D.C.
McKinsey’s Matt Hirschland interviewed economist Nicholas Stern in Brussels this past January. You can read the transcript here or click below to watch the video.
It is likely that the energy to power your car came from the Sun hundreds of millions of years ago and was converted by algae into simple sugars that eventually was pumped out of the ground as crude oil. Is it possible to shorten this cycle into a few weeks or even days and power our economy by cultivating algae today? Many people are betting that we will, as more and more investments are made in algal biofuel companies.
Why the interest in algae? The primary reasons is it grows fast, very fast. In fact, with ample sunlight, CO2 and the right nutrients, algae can double it’s mass in a few hours. And under the right conditions, algae can also be coaxed into producing a large percentage of its mass into fuel rich lipids. With no need to reach toward the sky algae spends little to no energy building the complex cellulosic structures found in land plants. This means a higher percentage of the plant can be converted to fuel. Some companies are focusing on genetically altering fast growing strains to directly produce hydrocarbons, in effect, eliminating the refining step.
Today companies are able to produce biofuel from algae for somewhere between $9 and $36 per gallon. Not barrel, per dollar. Huh? Yes, algal biofuel science still has some work to do. Algae grown in ponds get a free source of energy from the sun, but require a lot of water and the associated energy costs of moving it around and filtering the final product. These open ponds also have to be protected from natural strains which do not produce the desired lipids. Closed bioreactors are great at controlling the environment and preventing contamination, but require a lot of energy either via artificial light or in the case of GreenFuel, sugar.
Algae has advantages in addition to its ability to grow quickly. Acre per acre, algae outperforms any other biofuel source around. Compared to 60 gallons of diesel per acre from soybeans or 600 gallons per acre from oil palms, algae can produce 1850 gallons per acre and some experts are claiming 5,000 gallons per acre is feasible.
Algae also consumes a vast amount of CO2 and produces lots of oxygen. Three quarters of the oxygen in our atmosphere is produce by algae. Experimental sites are often located at coal fired utility plants in order to use the vast amounts of CO2 produces by burning coal to feed the algae. While this certainly does not sequester the CO2, it lowers the total emissions by recycling the CO2 and gaining energy from it twice.
There are forms of algae that grow in lots of types of water that we would find difficulty using for ourselves or our food supplies. This allows algae farms to use water that will not impact scarce water sources. These add up to a crop that can be grown on land not used for food, using water that would not be used for human consumption or food crops and suck up a lot of CO2 in the process. We simply have to find ways to do it more cheaply.
Trading activity picks up for carbon financial instruments (CFIs) after the release of President Obama’s budget. Even though the budget does not include revenue from carbon allowances until 2012, future contracts prior to this date moved higher. Some people believe these instruments can be used as early action credits in a federal cap and trade system.
Between 2012 and 2020, nearly $645 billion could be raised from the sale of emission allowances, the budget outline says.
According to Point Carbon (subscription) estimates, that would assume around 80 per cent of the economy would face caps on their greenhouse gas output starting 2012 at 2005 levels, or roughly 7.2 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent.
This means the budget is banking on carbon prices of nearly $13.70 per tonne by 2012.With the cap declining around 2 per cent per year after 2012, Point Carbon estimates the price of carbon in 2020 would go up to $16.5 per allowance.
So just what is a cap and trade system and how does it work? MSNBC has a Frequently Asked Questions page that answers this question. While President Obama signaled his desires in his budget, congress is required to pass the legislation and the details. Many experts are suggesting legislation is unlikely this, however “Powerful Democrats such as House Energy and Commerce Committee Chairman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., have said they would work hard to get legislation passed by this summer.”
Earlier this week, the White House stated a climate bill passed in 2010 would be fine as long as it included the critical components President Obama included in his campaign promises. This is consistent with President Obama’s budget which includes revenue for carbon cap and trade allowances of $658 billion in total for the years 2012 through 2019. $150 billion of this will be committed to invest in clean energy along with tax credits.
2008 was a bumper year for wind energy investment. The US added 8,300 megawatts (MW) of wind energy to lead the world with 25,170 MW. 42% of the country’s new power-producing capacity came from wind. The 50% increase in wind power generation also created 35,000 jobs bringing the total employee bast to 85,000.
Worldwide over 27 gigawatts (GW) of wind capacity was added. China doubled capacity to 12.2 GW and is on tract to double capacity again in 2009 and may reach its goal of 30 (GW) by 2010, ten years ahead of plan. All of Asia added about 8.3 GW with Europe and North America adding 8.9 GW each.
In the US, the financial crisis hit the wind industry and orders for turbines and components has slowed to a trickle. This needs to be reversed quickly if the US is to stay ahead of schedule to reach 300 GW of wind capacity, or 20% of our electricity needs, by 2030.
Three prominent weather forecasting companies took advantage of their podium positions to request laboratory support to help them provide better information to renewable energy projects, namely wind projects. The monthly Sustainable Energy and Atmospheric Sciences seminar series kicked off the new year January 21st at the National Institute of Standards (NIST) in Boulder, CO.Pascal Storck of 3Tier, Bruce Bailey of AWS Truewind, and Mark Ahlstrom of WindLogics spoke about the weather/wind forecasting process in the US and requested help in these areas:
1) Increased number of observation points to improve accuracy.
2) Independent evaluation of low profile observation instruments, such as LIDAR and SODAR, to increase adoption by the industry
3) High quality global and regional forecasts
4) Improved mathematical prediction models
It was the clear consensus that the US Labs are critical to providing the data needed to help wind projects successfully plan and use wind energy AND that the US Labs could do a lot more to help the forecasts being provided to the project operators. Today the European forecasts are often better at predicting weather over the western states than the forecast generated here. To insure the US meets the predicted increase in Wind Capacity from about 20 GW today to more than 300 GW by 2030, better information about the weather is critical.
“America, in the face of our common dangers; in this winter of our hardship let us remember these timeless words. With hope and virtue, let us brace once more the icy currents. An endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children’s chirdren, that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end. That we did not turn back nor did we falter and with eyes fixed on the horizon and god’s grace upon us, we carried forth that great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations.”
Larry Kazmerski, from the National Research Energy Lab (NREL) in Golden, CO was the keynote speaker at this month’s Night with a Futurist put on by The DaVinci Institute. Kazmerski entertained the largest crowd to attend a Night with a Futurist event throughout his lecture while hitting on these 5 key points:
Solar is real – now
Investment in Policy and R&D are priorities
Cutting time from lab to manufacturing is key
Significant increase in science and technical workforce is needed
Balancing near and longterm R&D must be maintained
The highlight of the evening was a story from Kazmerski’s early days at NREL. A local newspaper reporter seemed uninterested in his description of the energy conversion properties of some of the PV cells they were testing. When the talk turned to the government officials visiting from Saudi Arabia, Kazmerski convinced the reporter the Saudi’s were investing heavily in solar energy and that they planned to sell the US sand for silicon production at $40 per barrel. This appeared in the the paper the following week and Kazmerski claims he still holds the record for fewest seconds between arrival at NREL and a summons to the director’s office.
So, how many Google searches produce the equivalent CO2 emissions as boiling a cup of water?
A confusing question unless you been following the stream of posts generated by the Sunday Times of Londonquoting (or misquoting) Harvard University physicistAlex Wissner-Gross‘ study on the energy used by view webpages. IN the story, the Times reporters stated “Performing two Google searches from a desktop computer can generate about the same amount of carbon dioxide as boiling a kettle for a cup of tea, according to new research.” This seems to equate to about 7 grams of CO2.
Google immediatelyresponded in a blog poststating “we have designed and built the mostenergy efficient data centersin the world, which means the energy used per Google search is minimalsuggesting the number is closer to 0.02 grams per search.” And went on to state the energy used by the PC performing the search is greater than the search itself.
Meanwhile according to Tech News World,Wissner-Gross claims neither he nor the studymentioned Google or had anything to do with Google and certainly not with tea kettles. “They did that. I have no idea where they got those statistics,” Wissner-Gross said.
And in response to these back and forth discussions, more than a few bloggers have decided to weigh in:
Globally, wind power installations are expected to triple from 94GW at the end of 2007 to nearly 290GW in 2012, according to BTM Consult, a Danish market-research firm. They will then account for 2.7% of world electricity generation, the company predicts, and by 2017 their share could be nearly 6%.
Well behind much of Europe in percentage of electricity generated from the wind, the US has 18% of worldwide wind power production following a year which saw an increase of 45% in wind power capacity.
British scientists at Novacemhave developed a cement from magnesium silicate which absorbs more carbon dioxide while hardening than is emitted during production. The high heat cooking required for conventional or Portland cement production emits about .8 tons of CO2 for every ton of cement. When mixed with water cement absorbs about half of this amount of CO2. The net production of .4 tons of CO2 per ton of cement produces about 5% of the world’s Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions. Novacem’s cement emits only .5 tons of CO2 while the curing process absorbs more than twice this amount, 1.1 tons. Many years of testing remain and much will have to change to use this in more than a few applications. Converting even a small portion of the 2 billion tons of cement production from contributing .4 tons of GHGs to removing .6 tons is a good thing. Technology that turns a major CO2 emissions problem into a substantial abatement process are exactly what is needed to help solve Global Warming.
