Good & much better news for Renewable Energy....

Today's post: Wednesday, 11-17-2010

We need an 80% reduction in fossil fuel use by 2050 to avoid the worst global warming effects. And, practically speaking, we need to also double our electricity generation and double the useful work done per unit of electricity & other energy sources as well during that same time to have a decent economy.

At some point, the oil that we’ve been using to power much of our economy will begin to run low enough that our world economy will shrink due to lack of supply or excessive costs or both. Kuwaiti scientists recently predicted peak oil in 2014 – just 4 years from now.

And, once the demand for oil picks up again with the apparent economic recovery or supply begins to plateau or drop, the prices will again go back up. That will cause more hard times economically unless we have enough alternative sources of energy to turn to.

Today’s post: Good & much better news for Renewable Energy

1. Two trends look to intersect soon. There is a consistent push now to make solar more efficient and cost effective. And, due to increased demand for natural gas to make electricity for many reasons and the increased cost of acquiring it from shale without grave environmental damage, natural gas will gradually increase in price.

One company of the many that will likely get into this side of solar that already has a developed technology is Cogenra Solar of Mountain View, CA. Of the solar energy striking solar collectors, most of the 80 to 85% of it NOT used to make electricity is heat and is wasted by most solar collectors. Cogenra arrays make electricity and use the heat to make hot water. And the company claims to produce five times the useful energy as other solar collectors by doing so.

This combination, CEO Gilad Almogy says, enables them to beat current utility prices at today’s rates!

They’ve also found a way to do this with off the shelf components and can already begin to deliver systems. Since this is the case, they charge for the electricity and hot water they deliver rather than for the systems they install.

2. The even better news is in two parts.

A. The Boston Consulting Group released a study, “What’s next for Alternative Energy, “ a week ago today that said that cellulosic ethanol, wind farms, and large scale solar power plants are very soon to be competitive with fossil fuels without the need for subsidies. They said that this point will be reached much sooner than many people yet realize it will.

Cellulosic ethanol will become cost competitive by next year to four years from now, 2014. And, by 2020, 10 years from now, they see electricity generated from natural gas close to 9 cents per kilowatt hour and rising with solar electricity from large solar plants or farms to be at about the same price and falling.

They also see electric cars being up to 10 % of all new car sales by 2020.

Hopefully they are right on the first set of things.

But I think they may be far too conservative about electric car sales, particularly since plug-in hybrids in normal use, are likely to be over 90% electric powered.

In addition to the very large numbers of auto makers gearing up to make such cars, the next news today, suggests this trend may well accelerate.

B. Two stories recently show that GE is already very actively acting as a catalyst to make this trend speed up.

1) Last Friday, they announced plans to buy 25,000 electric cars by 2015, just five years from now – starting with 12,000 from GM next year.

It seems that GE build natural gas-fired generators for utilities and a home charging station they call the WattStation. GE also makes advanced design electric motors and sees this combined group of products as bringing them $500 million in revenue in just the next three years.

2) Today, the San Francisco Chronicle business section has a story that GE and a group of venture capital firms will invest $55 million in several start ups with some kind of smart grid technologies. The companies chosen were judged on whether or not they would contribute to a smarter electric grid, reduce energy use in buildings, &/or recharge electric cars and plug-in hybrids. Further, this effort will total about $200 million with about half of it from GE and the other half from the venture firms.

These developments are quite significant for several reasons.

First, virtually all clean energy except biofuels and cellulosic alcohol is used to generate electricity – from solar photovoltaic, solar thermal, wind, geothermal, and even nuclear power. None of these releases CO2 while they generate electricity.

Second, Bloom Energy has a product that makes electricity from natural gas with fuel cells that is more efficient than burning it and that produces no air pollution.

Third, running an electric car using even electricity made in coal fired plants releases less CO2 than the same car would release while burning gasoline.

Fourth, none of these energy sources for the electricity for electric cars and plug-in hybrids requires oil!

For the strength of the economy of the United States and its national security, this is extremely important news.