New resource for energy solutions news....
Today's post: Wednesday, 9-29-2010
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: New resource for energy solutions news
Today my CEN National Update email came.
It had some potential good news and some bad news.
But then I noticed that it had a new resource for mostly good news about new projects on many kinds of topics.
The CEN description did not seem to match what I found on the website. BUT, the website was well enough done, I decided to post about it.
www.energyempowers.gov is the web address.
It has some headline stories of different kinds. It had a story about geothermal power, a story about wind power, and one on the new Porsche hybrid. And, it also featured 8 other stories.
But the part I liked best was that they also post stories by energy solutions category and by state.
In California there was a story about a Silicon Valley company that has a way of cutting silicon for wafers with dramatically less waste to cut costs and a Navy location in the Mojave desert to build carports for personnel that protect their cars and their paint from the sun and its heat while also generating photovoltaic solar power on their roofs.
The 3 main story areas are also subdivided. So the site is also useful to find articles on many different energy solution topics.
1. Renewable Energy contains stories by renewable energy source such as solar, wind, and geothermal.
2. Energy Savings has stories by in which area of the economy such as vehicles, homes, buildings, and industry.
3. Grants and tax credits lists those and has stories on people who used them to finance energy solution projects including 48C Advanced Energy Manufacturing Credit and WAP, the Weatherization Assistance Program.
These stories show that despite our inability to be as competitive with China and European countries in renewable energy and CO2 reduction due to organized political opposition by old energy companies, the current federal government is making a lot of small progress in dozens of areas that will gradually improve our energy economy and so is the entrepreneurial business community.
Showing posts with label Renewable Energy News. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Renewable Energy News. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Big companies getting into renewable energy....
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-15-2009
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.
Two ways to achieve this are:
1. … to use very large solar thermal plants in very sunny desert locations to generate electricity. Once set up, they generate close to zero carbon emissions while generating very large amounts of electricity. And, since they can store the heat efficiently for several hours, they can deliver some of their electricity at night!
2. … to bring large amounts of biofuels online to replace fossil fuels and do so in ways that do NOT conflict with food production or cause forests to be cut down to “grow” the biofuels. While such biofuels do release CO2 they also remove most of the CO2 first so they are close to carbon neutral. And, they can be blended with existing liquid fossil fuels &/or to replace such fuels as a way to make much of our current transportation economy more carbon neutral and lower CO2 levels.
Just this week I learned that some of the world’s largest companies are beginning to bet serious money on these two efforts exactly.
Of the two, the first may have the most potential for reducing CO2, particularly as we get more plug-in hybrids and all electric vehicles. But the need is so great and the transport part of our economy using liquid fuels is so huge, the second one is clearly much needed also.
1. I had heard of the idea of installing solar thermal plants across the deserts of Northern Africa and using undersea cables to deliver the electricity generated to Europe.
The recent news is that the two huge engineering firms, ABB and Siemens, Deutsche Bank, & 9 other companies have formed a consortium to do just that with a target of providing 15% of the electricity used in Europe by no later than 2050. And, their plans include seeing to it that the host countries also get large amounts of this electricity for their own use allowing them to get economic growth without fossil fuel use!
I’d prefer to have seen the announcement say 30% by 2035 since that might be doable. But the fact that such huge and well managed companies are doing the deal suggests strongly it will happen. That’s extremely good news indeed.
I particularly like that this project has the potential to benefit the economies of Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt which do not have huge oil deposits. It also will provide Saudi Arabia a lifeline when they run out of commercially extractable oil and improve its economy before then. And, it will increase the co-operation and dialogue between these countries and Europe.
(So, far that has not happened in the United States for sending solar thermal from our desert Southwest and Southern Rocky Mountain states to our population centers. Nor has such an idea been proposed to send solar thermal electricity from Mexico to the United States while giving Mexico carbon free electricity, economic growth and jobs. And, since that sector of the United States can almost provide 100% of current nationwide demand while the potential in Mexico is at least three times larger, that these two projects don’t yet have such development consortiums in place is extremely unfortunate.
Hopefully the North Africa – Europe project will cause some copycat efforts here.)
2. It was just announced yesterday that Exxon Mobil will invest $600 million in a partnership with Synthetic Genomics Inc, a biotech company from La Jolla, California to develop biofuel transportation fuels from algae.
If this preliminary work appears viable as a way to mass produce biofuels from algae Exxon Mobil will likely make additional, multibillion-dollar investments to put this into mass production.
Algae can be grown using land and water unsuitable for crop and food production. And the biofuels can be mixed with or replace the fossil fuels Exxon already provides. It also means Exxon will be able to use its current refineries, existing pipelines, and tanker trucks to get these biofuels to consumers.
$300 million will go to Exxon's internal costs and $300 million or more to Synthetic Genomics, if research & development milestones are met successfully.
The other good news is that there are other entries into competing biofuels from startups such as Solazyme in South San Francisco, California that is also working with algae as a feedstock.
Other large companies are also in the race.
Royal Dutch Shell is working with Iogen Corp in Canada to produce ethanol from wheat straw and with Choren Industries of Germany to develop a biofuel from wood residue. (Their other decision to stop backing solar and wind energy looks as if it may be a serious mistake.)
And, BP expects to work with Verenium Corp to build a $300 million cellulosic ethanol plant in Highlands County, Florida.
Neither these massive solar thermal installations nor cost effective biofuels that do not compete with food or forests on a very large scale will work at all soon.
But since large companies are backing them -- and the two projects have such large scale promise, they each are very good news and may well happen.
Today's post: Wednesday, 7-15-2009
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.
Two ways to achieve this are:
1. … to use very large solar thermal plants in very sunny desert locations to generate electricity. Once set up, they generate close to zero carbon emissions while generating very large amounts of electricity. And, since they can store the heat efficiently for several hours, they can deliver some of their electricity at night!
2. … to bring large amounts of biofuels online to replace fossil fuels and do so in ways that do NOT conflict with food production or cause forests to be cut down to “grow” the biofuels. While such biofuels do release CO2 they also remove most of the CO2 first so they are close to carbon neutral. And, they can be blended with existing liquid fossil fuels &/or to replace such fuels as a way to make much of our current transportation economy more carbon neutral and lower CO2 levels.
Just this week I learned that some of the world’s largest companies are beginning to bet serious money on these two efforts exactly.
Of the two, the first may have the most potential for reducing CO2, particularly as we get more plug-in hybrids and all electric vehicles. But the need is so great and the transport part of our economy using liquid fuels is so huge, the second one is clearly much needed also.
1. I had heard of the idea of installing solar thermal plants across the deserts of Northern Africa and using undersea cables to deliver the electricity generated to Europe.
The recent news is that the two huge engineering firms, ABB and Siemens, Deutsche Bank, & 9 other companies have formed a consortium to do just that with a target of providing 15% of the electricity used in Europe by no later than 2050. And, their plans include seeing to it that the host countries also get large amounts of this electricity for their own use allowing them to get economic growth without fossil fuel use!
I’d prefer to have seen the announcement say 30% by 2035 since that might be doable. But the fact that such huge and well managed companies are doing the deal suggests strongly it will happen. That’s extremely good news indeed.
I particularly like that this project has the potential to benefit the economies of Morocco, Jordan, and Egypt which do not have huge oil deposits. It also will provide Saudi Arabia a lifeline when they run out of commercially extractable oil and improve its economy before then. And, it will increase the co-operation and dialogue between these countries and Europe.
(So, far that has not happened in the United States for sending solar thermal from our desert Southwest and Southern Rocky Mountain states to our population centers. Nor has such an idea been proposed to send solar thermal electricity from Mexico to the United States while giving Mexico carbon free electricity, economic growth and jobs. And, since that sector of the United States can almost provide 100% of current nationwide demand while the potential in Mexico is at least three times larger, that these two projects don’t yet have such development consortiums in place is extremely unfortunate.
Hopefully the North Africa – Europe project will cause some copycat efforts here.)
2. It was just announced yesterday that Exxon Mobil will invest $600 million in a partnership with Synthetic Genomics Inc, a biotech company from La Jolla, California to develop biofuel transportation fuels from algae.
If this preliminary work appears viable as a way to mass produce biofuels from algae Exxon Mobil will likely make additional, multibillion-dollar investments to put this into mass production.
Algae can be grown using land and water unsuitable for crop and food production. And the biofuels can be mixed with or replace the fossil fuels Exxon already provides. It also means Exxon will be able to use its current refineries, existing pipelines, and tanker trucks to get these biofuels to consumers.
$300 million will go to Exxon's internal costs and $300 million or more to Synthetic Genomics, if research & development milestones are met successfully.
The other good news is that there are other entries into competing biofuels from startups such as Solazyme in South San Francisco, California that is also working with algae as a feedstock.
Other large companies are also in the race.
Royal Dutch Shell is working with Iogen Corp in Canada to produce ethanol from wheat straw and with Choren Industries of Germany to develop a biofuel from wood residue. (Their other decision to stop backing solar and wind energy looks as if it may be a serious mistake.)
And, BP expects to work with Verenium Corp to build a $300 million cellulosic ethanol plant in Highlands County, Florida.
Neither these massive solar thermal installations nor cost effective biofuels that do not compete with food or forests on a very large scale will work at all soon.
But since large companies are backing them -- and the two projects have such large scale promise, they each are very good news and may well happen.
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
Bad news & good for Renewable Energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 3-4-2009
I. First the bad news.:
A. We may be running out of time to deal with C02 and other causes of man-made global warming.:
1. California, where I live, though we’ve had recent rains, has now experienced 3 unusually dry years in a row. And Governor Schwarzenegger just proclaimed we may need to begin to ration water here. That may just be where we are in a normal set of dry years which will reverse later as it has done in the past. But it may not be normal and may be our new climate due to the definite warming California has experienced over the last 15 or 20 years.
If it is our new climate as driven by global warming, this trend will worsen as the C02 to warm our state further is already in the world’s atmosphere.
If so, we need large infrastructure investments in all these areas NOW:
a) desalination stations up and down the California coast –at least 20 and maybe 100 of them – AND new pipelines to get that usable water to the people, businesses, and farms that need it;
b) severe restrictions on lawn watering and large subsidies for installing and then requiring drip irrigation and soil water content monitoring and control systems both for urban areas and for farms;
c)large subsidies to install flush free urinals or very low flow ones in all dual use bathrooms and men’s rooms and leak repairing plumbing checks and repair;
AND,
d) even more rapid build-up of solar and wind electricity generation to replace the hydro power we will no longer get due to less rainfall and snowfall.
We may be already out of time and need all that NOW or within 6 months at least. Oops!! With what money? The State of California is already cutting services and adding taxes due to the current recession to keep from running out of money.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Virtually every other part of the world will have some similar problems supporting agriculture and providing water supplies soon if climate change begins to become this far along already.
2. The increase in sea level and shrinkage of the ice in Antarctica is beginning to occur faster than was originally predicted and the C02 to warm the world further and speed this up more is already in the world’s atmosphere.
But this one is potentially scarier. At some point huge chunks of ice will simply break off and drop into the sea. For very large chunks, that may produce tidal wave like effects. And this would speed the rise of sea levels around the world MUCH faster than now predicted. Such ice chunks will melt faster once that occurs as they will have more surface area exposed to the warmer temperatures.
For many islands and coastal areas that means that serious trouble may happen within 15 or 20 years; and there might be less warning than the people there now expect.
B. Some parts of our ability to add renewable energy are shrinking just as we need to increase it by over ten times instead.
Many alternative energy projects have been delayed or dropped due to:
the shrinkage in available credit; or from government support drying up due to the recession deleting the money the governments had allocated to support renewable energy; or from the sharp drop in oil prices making it harder to compete with oil now with the temporarily more expensive renewable energy sources.
I. Here’s some of the good news.:
A. The current severe recession is global and has resulted in dramatically reduced consumption of fossil fuels and has temporarily reduced our production of C02 by doing so.
Timewise that is actually a bit of a reprieve. We may have 5 to 10 years longer than we otherwise would have before we have to deal with more severe impacts from global warming. And, we might have that much more time to switch out of fossil fuels before global warming becomes impossible to reverse.
B. In the United States, Barack Obama won our election and became our President; & he and his administration have already made progress in moving our economy to use more renewable energy and become more energy efficient. (He may be premature in trying to increase the cost of using fossil fuels and removing their tax breaks while we are in a severe recession and do not yet have the renewable energy to replace them. But he will succeed in doing both to some degree I think. And, anything he does in those two areas, however small initially, will speed the development & use of energy sources other than fossil fuels.)
C. Businesses, entrepreneurs, and governments all over the world are developing innovations that will make renewable energy more available and cost less or help make our economy more energy efficient and able to do without fossil fuels.
Even better, they are beginning to put the best of what they already have to large scale use!! We are in a kind of a war where time is our enemy. And the successful generals in United States history, notably Patton & Grant, proved that attacking NOW with the best of what you have gets more results than trying to wait until conditions are perfect.
D. Germany has now proved that feed-in tariffs dramatically increase bringing renewable energy online without excessive government subsidy or economic disruption. And there is a good chance feed-in tariffs will soon be in use everywhere in the world. (See our post last week, on Wednesday, 2-25-2009.)
In summary, the global warming bad news is almost scarier than the news of the current recession. But the good news gives us ample reason to hope and ways to help speed up solutions.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 3-4-2009
I. First the bad news.:
A. We may be running out of time to deal with C02 and other causes of man-made global warming.:
1. California, where I live, though we’ve had recent rains, has now experienced 3 unusually dry years in a row. And Governor Schwarzenegger just proclaimed we may need to begin to ration water here. That may just be where we are in a normal set of dry years which will reverse later as it has done in the past. But it may not be normal and may be our new climate due to the definite warming California has experienced over the last 15 or 20 years.
If it is our new climate as driven by global warming, this trend will worsen as the C02 to warm our state further is already in the world’s atmosphere.
If so, we need large infrastructure investments in all these areas NOW:
a) desalination stations up and down the California coast –at least 20 and maybe 100 of them – AND new pipelines to get that usable water to the people, businesses, and farms that need it;
b) severe restrictions on lawn watering and large subsidies for installing and then requiring drip irrigation and soil water content monitoring and control systems both for urban areas and for farms;
c)large subsidies to install flush free urinals or very low flow ones in all dual use bathrooms and men’s rooms and leak repairing plumbing checks and repair;
AND,
d) even more rapid build-up of solar and wind electricity generation to replace the hydro power we will no longer get due to less rainfall and snowfall.
We may be already out of time and need all that NOW or within 6 months at least. Oops!! With what money? The State of California is already cutting services and adding taxes due to the current recession to keep from running out of money.
But that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Virtually every other part of the world will have some similar problems supporting agriculture and providing water supplies soon if climate change begins to become this far along already.
2. The increase in sea level and shrinkage of the ice in Antarctica is beginning to occur faster than was originally predicted and the C02 to warm the world further and speed this up more is already in the world’s atmosphere.
But this one is potentially scarier. At some point huge chunks of ice will simply break off and drop into the sea. For very large chunks, that may produce tidal wave like effects. And this would speed the rise of sea levels around the world MUCH faster than now predicted. Such ice chunks will melt faster once that occurs as they will have more surface area exposed to the warmer temperatures.
For many islands and coastal areas that means that serious trouble may happen within 15 or 20 years; and there might be less warning than the people there now expect.
B. Some parts of our ability to add renewable energy are shrinking just as we need to increase it by over ten times instead.
Many alternative energy projects have been delayed or dropped due to:
the shrinkage in available credit; or from government support drying up due to the recession deleting the money the governments had allocated to support renewable energy; or from the sharp drop in oil prices making it harder to compete with oil now with the temporarily more expensive renewable energy sources.
I. Here’s some of the good news.:
A. The current severe recession is global and has resulted in dramatically reduced consumption of fossil fuels and has temporarily reduced our production of C02 by doing so.
Timewise that is actually a bit of a reprieve. We may have 5 to 10 years longer than we otherwise would have before we have to deal with more severe impacts from global warming. And, we might have that much more time to switch out of fossil fuels before global warming becomes impossible to reverse.
B. In the United States, Barack Obama won our election and became our President; & he and his administration have already made progress in moving our economy to use more renewable energy and become more energy efficient. (He may be premature in trying to increase the cost of using fossil fuels and removing their tax breaks while we are in a severe recession and do not yet have the renewable energy to replace them. But he will succeed in doing both to some degree I think. And, anything he does in those two areas, however small initially, will speed the development & use of energy sources other than fossil fuels.)
C. Businesses, entrepreneurs, and governments all over the world are developing innovations that will make renewable energy more available and cost less or help make our economy more energy efficient and able to do without fossil fuels.
Even better, they are beginning to put the best of what they already have to large scale use!! We are in a kind of a war where time is our enemy. And the successful generals in United States history, notably Patton & Grant, proved that attacking NOW with the best of what you have gets more results than trying to wait until conditions are perfect.
D. Germany has now proved that feed-in tariffs dramatically increase bringing renewable energy online without excessive government subsidy or economic disruption. And there is a good chance feed-in tariffs will soon be in use everywhere in the world. (See our post last week, on Wednesday, 2-25-2009.)
In summary, the global warming bad news is almost scarier than the news of the current recession. But the good news gives us ample reason to hope and ways to help speed up solutions.
Wednesday, January 14, 2009
Mostly good news for renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 1-14-2009
The news on renewable energy lately is mostly good.:
1. Yesterday, AP online news reported that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Steven Chu was “warmly received” at his Senate confirmation hearing to be Energy Secretary.
And, he “confirmed as energy secretary he will aggressively pursue policies aimed at addressing climate change and achieving greater energy independence by developing clean energy sources.”
He “appeared before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee where he received immediate support from both Democrats and Republicans.”
“Chu, …. told senators that climate change is "a growing and pressing problem" and the nation's dependence on oil represents a threat to the U.S. economy and security.
Of the risks from global warming, Chu said: "It is now clear that if we continue on our current path, we run the risk of dramatic disruptive changes to our climate system in the lifetimes of our children and grandchildren." “
So, if the Senate’s initial response is any indication, Chu will be confirmed; and renewable energy and a variety of means to improve our energy efficiency throughout our economy, and a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions will get a huge boost when he takes office.
Specifically this article quotes Chu as saying.: “ "Improvements in energy efficiency is the one single factor that can most reduce our dependency on foreign oil,"”
My main concern when he was appointed is that he would get derailed by the traditional energy industries due to his seeming lack of political background. But, between his experience running the Lawrence Lab and his preparation for the job, he seems to have the ability to deal well with that.
He is apparently willing to allow some offshore drilling in less environmentally sensitive areas which will keep the representatives of the oil industry from voting against him now or derailing his programs later.
(He is following the lead of President-elect Obama in so doing.) And, despite it not being the very best choice for global warming, it will slightly improve our ability to be energy self-sufficient and pay less to import oil which many help our national security which he knows is also important.
And, since the Lawrence Lab he ran is and was involved in nuclear matters, he is aware that it will likely remain part of our energy mix.
“Chu said nuclear energy produces a fifth of the nation's electricity and 70 percent of the carbon-free electricity and "is going to be an important part of our energy mix." “
I still have safety concerns about nuclear power; but I like that he is aware that it DOES provide” carbon-free electricity.” And, he clearly made points with those senators who back it.
He realizes that we are now dependent on burning coal for electricity now and that so are China and India. Plus he was aware that senators from states where coal is a key part of their economies will be voting on his confirmation. So, as a near term solution, he strongly favors work on developing effective methods to burn coal but to retrofit some kind of devices that prevent CO2 from entering the atmosphere.
As an optimistic scientist, he has more faith than I that this is doable at all, let alone soon enough or inexpensively enough. But within 10 years, there may be breakthroughs that do the job. And, in the near term, he keeps the support of coal state senators and of India and China.
(As regular readers of this blog know, I favor turning coal into substitutes for natural gas and for gasoline and diesel fuel that we would burn anyway, which would help us wean our economy from its unsafe dependence only on natural gas and petroleum and improve our energy self-sufficiency. And, I favor replacing ALL coal burning plants for generating electricity with renewable sources or at worst nuclear power instead. So I hope those approaches also make progress.)
But I still find it very reassuring to see that Steven Chu is politically sound and looking for global warming solutions that will avoid short term harm to our economy. So my expectations of his performance have gone from liking his support for renewable energy and fighting global warming but fearing he would be ineffective to now believing he will be quite effective as well once confirmed and in office.
2. And, which will fit right in with new Energy Secretary Steven Chu’s emphasis on renewable and sustainable energy research and research to fight global warming, also in the past few days, Stanford University added a new $100 million donation to an earlier $75 million dollar donation by one of Yahoo’s founders to create a new research group on renewable and sustainable energy research, which in addition to doing new research will also plug in ALL related work done at Stanford AND begin to help train new young people into experts in this new field.
Since I live near Stanford and am affected by the economy of the Silicon Valley, I’m personally very please with this announcement. But it looks to be easily as important to the developing field of renewable and sustainable energy research and research on fighting global warming. In addition to the short term benefit we get from the research, in the longer run, & starting in just a few years, the new experts in the field developed at Stanford will also be hugely positive.
3. And yesterday, Massachusetts governor, Deval Patrick announced he has set a goal for Massachusetts to produce2,000 megawatts of wind electricity annually by 2020, which is enough to provide 10 percent of the state's current energy needs.
Massachusetts only produces seven megawatts of power annually now.
And, the entire United States now only produces a bit more than 21,000 megawatts a year now. Texas, thanks in part to T Boone Pickens, now produces 6,300 megawatts a year from wind, which is the most of any state.
So, for Massachusetts to put a new 1993 megawatts of wind power electricity generation in place is a significant increase by comparison.
And, governor Patrick has a start on his goal because there are already
300 turbines in various planning and permitting stages in Massachusetts, which will generate an estimated 420 megawatts of power.
4. Lastly, as a fan of cost-competitive solar photovoltaic power, I’ve liked the upbeat and accurate supporting scientific facts the CEO of Nanosolar periodically posts on Nanosolar’s blog. (They print thin film photovoltaic cells on something like a high speed continuous roll printing press to help speed manufacturing and bring costs down.)
About 4 weeks ago, as I recently discovered, he posted this.:
"1kg CIGS = 5kg Uranium
December 16, 2008
By Martin Roscheisen, CEO
The notion of a kilogram of enriched Uranium conjures up an image of a powerful (amount) of energy. Enough to power an entire city for years when used in a nuclear power plant, or enough to flatten an entire county when used in a bomb - that's presumably what many people would say if one asked them about their thoughts.
In our new solar cell technology, we use an active material called CIGS, a Copper based semiconductor. How does this stack up against enriched Uranium?
Here's a noteworthy fact, pointed out to me by one of our engineers: It turns out that 1kg of CIGS, embedded in a solar cell, produces 5 times as much electricity as 1kg of enriched Uranium, embedded in a nuclear power plant.
Or said differently, 1kg of CIGS is equivalent to 5kg of enriched Uranium in terms of the energy the materials deliver in solar and nuclear respectively.
The Uranium is burned and then stored in a nuclear waste facility; the CIGS material produces power for at least the warranty period of the solar cell product after which it can then be recycled and reused an indefinite number of times."
To be fair, nuclear power also has a breeder reactor version that allows for a lot more of the energy in the Uranium to be used. But I like Martin Roscheisen and the way he thinks and thought this an upbeat way to end this post.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Two new breakthroughs for solar power....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-22-2008
Here’s a story I found online by searching all news for “solar energy” on Yahoo news last Monday. (I’d also seen a different story earlier than that about this breakthrough.)
“New solar cell material achieves almost 100% efficiency,
could solve world-wide energy problems “
“TG Daily - Oct 20 12:01 PM Trendwatch By Rick C. Hodgin Monday, October 20, 2008 13:32 Columbus (OH) -
Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun's visible light energy. The material is comprised of a hybrid of plastics, molybdenum and titanium.”
The story is technical but goes on to explain that in solar photovoltaic cells, the sun’s light knocks some electrons loose that are available to be harvested as electricity and that are available for that purpose a very short time.
Someone at Ohio State found or realized that there might be a way to make more electrons available for a longer period of time in some kind of solar cell material. The researchers there then developed a material that does knock more electrons loose; but of even more importance it makes them available to be harvested over 7 million times longer than before. This material that they found by doing research on materials on a supercomputer apparently absorbs light from all the spectrum of light instead of just part of it and then delivers nearly 100 % of the energy absorbed as generated electricity.
It has yet to be found if this material can be made at low enough cost to be cost competitive with current technology. And, if they have made progress on solving this problem or on developing technology to do so, it wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Also, given the huge size of the potential uses of such efficient solar panels, the availability of the molybdenum and titanium used in such huge quantities at reasonable cost may be a constraint.
That said, there will be applications right away where high electricity generation from such photovoltaic panels in a limited area for the panels will be valuable.
For example, a company that wants or needs to generate all the electricity it needs onsite, may be able by using solar photovoltaic panels with this technology and installing them both on the roofs and over the parking lots for their company, they may be able to do so while this is not possible today.
And, as with the first material for incandescent light filaments led to new ones, it may be that there are less expensive ways to generate this effect and which will be discovered.
2. Mankind now has two important problems.
One is that we use electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Solar light and the electricity we can harvest from it are available only during the day and the amount of light solar panels receive during the day varies with the time of day and the weather.
Second, we are using up the reserves of fresh water in some areas of the world and in others, there is now less rainfall than before, likely because of global warming. These things are jeopardizing our supply of drinking water and water to grow our food crops.
MIT researchers may have found a solution to both these problems, particularly when combined with the first breakthrough described above. They have worked out a way to use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. By then storing the hydrogen and oxygen and running them through a very efficient fuel cell when you want or need electricity when the sun is not shining or you are getting less sunshine, you can make solar photovoltaic generated electricity available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And, it may be possible to also use this same technology to desalt sea water to provide a new supply of fresh water for drinking and for crops. (The bonus is that when you turn the hydrogen and oxygen into fresh water, you get to re-harvest the energy as electricity.)
The constraints on using this technology to store solar photovoltaic generated electricity are in making the overall process cost effective, in particular by making the fuel cells to retrieve the electricity at reasonable costs. That may well require technology we do not have yet.
But these two breakthroughs are of particular interest and potential value. So I wanted to use this blog to get the word out that they exist.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-22-2008
Here’s a story I found online by searching all news for “solar energy” on Yahoo news last Monday. (I’d also seen a different story earlier than that about this breakthrough.)
“New solar cell material achieves almost 100% efficiency,
could solve world-wide energy problems “
“TG Daily - Oct 20 12:01 PM Trendwatch By Rick C. Hodgin Monday, October 20, 2008 13:32 Columbus (OH) -
Researchers at Ohio State University have accidentally discovered a new solar cell material capable of absorbing all of the sun's visible light energy. The material is comprised of a hybrid of plastics, molybdenum and titanium.”
The story is technical but goes on to explain that in solar photovoltaic cells, the sun’s light knocks some electrons loose that are available to be harvested as electricity and that are available for that purpose a very short time.
Someone at Ohio State found or realized that there might be a way to make more electrons available for a longer period of time in some kind of solar cell material. The researchers there then developed a material that does knock more electrons loose; but of even more importance it makes them available to be harvested over 7 million times longer than before. This material that they found by doing research on materials on a supercomputer apparently absorbs light from all the spectrum of light instead of just part of it and then delivers nearly 100 % of the energy absorbed as generated electricity.
It has yet to be found if this material can be made at low enough cost to be cost competitive with current technology. And, if they have made progress on solving this problem or on developing technology to do so, it wasn’t mentioned in the article.
Also, given the huge size of the potential uses of such efficient solar panels, the availability of the molybdenum and titanium used in such huge quantities at reasonable cost may be a constraint.
That said, there will be applications right away where high electricity generation from such photovoltaic panels in a limited area for the panels will be valuable.
For example, a company that wants or needs to generate all the electricity it needs onsite, may be able by using solar photovoltaic panels with this technology and installing them both on the roofs and over the parking lots for their company, they may be able to do so while this is not possible today.
And, as with the first material for incandescent light filaments led to new ones, it may be that there are less expensive ways to generate this effect and which will be discovered.
2. Mankind now has two important problems.
One is that we use electricity 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Solar light and the electricity we can harvest from it are available only during the day and the amount of light solar panels receive during the day varies with the time of day and the weather.
Second, we are using up the reserves of fresh water in some areas of the world and in others, there is now less rainfall than before, likely because of global warming. These things are jeopardizing our supply of drinking water and water to grow our food crops.
MIT researchers may have found a solution to both these problems, particularly when combined with the first breakthrough described above. They have worked out a way to use solar energy to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. By then storing the hydrogen and oxygen and running them through a very efficient fuel cell when you want or need electricity when the sun is not shining or you are getting less sunshine, you can make solar photovoltaic generated electricity available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
And, it may be possible to also use this same technology to desalt sea water to provide a new supply of fresh water for drinking and for crops. (The bonus is that when you turn the hydrogen and oxygen into fresh water, you get to re-harvest the energy as electricity.)
The constraints on using this technology to store solar photovoltaic generated electricity are in making the overall process cost effective, in particular by making the fuel cells to retrieve the electricity at reasonable costs. That may well require technology we do not have yet.
But these two breakthroughs are of particular interest and potential value. So I wanted to use this blog to get the word out that they exist.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Good news for renewable energy....
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-15-2008
1. 3600 likely large sites, mostly solar, in & around California can generate over 6 times all the current electrical generation capacity that exists now in California.
Since many of these sites can be solar thermal, the electricity can be provided from 16 to 17 hours a day.
And, by adding the much greater photovoltaic installations possible on homes, businesses, and other buildings--& on covered parking lots, that’s an enormous potential. And, by adding all of these in the other states in the South Western United States from California to West Texas and the Rocky Mountain states and North Western Mexico -- and adding wind power and transmission lines, this part of North America can come close to providing all the electricity needed by all of North America including the future increased electricity needed over the next several decades. (The link to the report is below.)
This data suggests that Al Gore’s 100 % renewable goal is achievable or very close to it. And, from just this part of North America.
2. The new Solar company, Solyndra, may make photovoltaic solar for covered parking lots and flat roofs of commercial buildings and business facilities faster to install, more efficient, and less expensive. (See their press release below.)
3. Rolls of LED’s make may make walls & ceilings & even window shades the light source for rooms at reasonable cost & with much less electricity use than incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. And, it sounds like it may cost a good bit less than LED bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. (The AP story about this GE advance is referenced below.)
1. The 3600 site info comes from a study done by the engineering firm, Black & Veatch. (The heads up was in the Bottom Line column in the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle.)
See http://links.sfgate.com/ZEZW
or http://www.energy.ca.gov/reti/documents/2008-08-16_PHASE_1B_DRAFT_RESOURCE_REPORT.PDF .
2. Solyndra’s press release:
FREMONT, Calif., October 7, 2008 — Solyndra, Inc. today announced a new solar photovoltaic (PV) system for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra's PV system is designed to generate significantly more solar electricity on an annual basis from typical low-slope commercial rooftops with lower installation costs than conventional PV flat panel technologies. Commercial rooftops represent a vast, underutilized resource and huge opportunity for generating solar electricity. Since its founding in 2005, Solyndra has been developing technology and ramping manufacturing capacity to produce its proprietary CIGS-based thin film PV system. Solyndra is currently shipping its systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, to fulfill more than $1.2 billion of multi-year contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.
THE NEW SHAPE OF SOLAR
Solyndra's panels employ cylindrical modules which capture sunlight across a 360-degree photovoltaic surface capable of converting direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight into electricity. This self-tracking design allows Solyndra's PV systems to capture significantly more sunlight than traditional flat-surfaced solar panels, which require costly tilted mounting devices to improve the capture of direct light, offer poor collection of diffuse light and fail to collect reflected light from rooftops or other installation surfaces.
Conventional flat PV panels must be mounted at an angle and spaced apart for optimum energy production. The sunlight striking the spaces between the panels is not collected and thus is wasted. Solyndra's panels perform optimally when mounted horizontally and packed closely together, thereby covering significantly more of the available roof area and producing more electricity per rooftop on an annual basis than a conventional panel installation.
COST-EFFECTIVE INSTALLATION
To meet rooftop wind loading requirements, conventional flat solar panels must be anchored to commercial roofs with either ballast or rooftop penetrations, which are inherently problematic. Together with the need for tilting, the resulting complex mounting systems require significant investment in labor, materials and engineering. Conversely, because wind blows through Solyndra panels, no rooftop anchoring is required. Further, the low weight of the Solyndra system enables the installation of PV on a broader range of rooftops.
For typical conventional PV installations, a solar panel is only half the cost of a complete installation; the other half includes additional expenses such as installation, cables, and inverters. The horizontal mounting and unique air-flow properties of Solyndra's solar panel design substantially simplify the installation process for Solyndra's PV systems. The ease of installation and simpler mounting hardware of Solyndra's system enables its customers to realize significant savings on installation costs.
"By eliminating the need for roof-penetrating mounts and wind ballasts, PV arrays with Solyndra panels can be installed with one-third the labor, in one-third of the time, at one-half the cost," said Manfred Bachler, Chief Technical Officer at Phoenix Solar AG, one of the largest solar power integrators in Europe and a Solyndra customer. "For commercial rooftops, PV module installation time can now be measured in days, not weeks. For flat commercial rooftops this is game-changing technology."
According to Solyndra founder and CEO Chris Gronet, "Solyndra's system uniquely optimizes PV performance on commercial rooftops by converting more of the sunlight that strikes the total rooftop area into electricity while also providing for a lower installation cost and lower cost of electricity."
ABOUT SOLYNDRA
Solyndra designs and manufactures photovoltaic systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra employs high volume manufacturing based on proven technologies and processes to meet the needs of the global solar market. Using proprietary cylindrical modules and thin-film technology, Solyndra systems are designed to provide the lowest installed cost per system and the highest solar electrical energy output for typical low slope commercial rooftops. Headquartered in Fremont, California, Solyndra operates a state-of-the-art 300,000 square foot fully-automated manufacturing complex. Learn more at www.solyndra.com.
3. The story on this was in: "Flexible OLEDs could be part of lighting's future" (AP) Posted on Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:20AM EDT
In NISKAYUNA, N.Y., an industrial building contains a machine that prints sheets of LED lights. “. The OLED printer was made by General Electric….”
Summary: these 3 reports show that we are indeed on our way to having a much more energy efficient economy that is all or very nearly all powered by renewable energy.
That’s good news indeed.
Today’s post: Wednesday, 10-15-2008
1. 3600 likely large sites, mostly solar, in & around California can generate over 6 times all the current electrical generation capacity that exists now in California.
Since many of these sites can be solar thermal, the electricity can be provided from 16 to 17 hours a day.
And, by adding the much greater photovoltaic installations possible on homes, businesses, and other buildings--& on covered parking lots, that’s an enormous potential. And, by adding all of these in the other states in the South Western United States from California to West Texas and the Rocky Mountain states and North Western Mexico -- and adding wind power and transmission lines, this part of North America can come close to providing all the electricity needed by all of North America including the future increased electricity needed over the next several decades. (The link to the report is below.)
This data suggests that Al Gore’s 100 % renewable goal is achievable or very close to it. And, from just this part of North America.
2. The new Solar company, Solyndra, may make photovoltaic solar for covered parking lots and flat roofs of commercial buildings and business facilities faster to install, more efficient, and less expensive. (See their press release below.)
3. Rolls of LED’s make may make walls & ceilings & even window shades the light source for rooms at reasonable cost & with much less electricity use than incandescent or compact fluorescent light bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. And, it sounds like it may cost a good bit less than LED bulbs in lamps and ceiling fixtures. (The AP story about this GE advance is referenced below.)
1. The 3600 site info comes from a study done by the engineering firm, Black & Veatch. (The heads up was in the Bottom Line column in the business section of the San Francisco Chronicle.)
See http://links.sfgate.com/ZEZW
or http://www.energy.ca.gov/reti/documents/2008-08-16_PHASE_1B_DRAFT_RESOURCE_REPORT.PDF .
2. Solyndra’s press release:
FREMONT, Calif., October 7, 2008 — Solyndra, Inc. today announced a new solar photovoltaic (PV) system for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra's PV system is designed to generate significantly more solar electricity on an annual basis from typical low-slope commercial rooftops with lower installation costs than conventional PV flat panel technologies. Commercial rooftops represent a vast, underutilized resource and huge opportunity for generating solar electricity. Since its founding in 2005, Solyndra has been developing technology and ramping manufacturing capacity to produce its proprietary CIGS-based thin film PV system. Solyndra is currently shipping its systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, to fulfill more than $1.2 billion of multi-year contracts with customers in Europe and the United States.
THE NEW SHAPE OF SOLAR
Solyndra's panels employ cylindrical modules which capture sunlight across a 360-degree photovoltaic surface capable of converting direct, diffuse and reflected sunlight into electricity. This self-tracking design allows Solyndra's PV systems to capture significantly more sunlight than traditional flat-surfaced solar panels, which require costly tilted mounting devices to improve the capture of direct light, offer poor collection of diffuse light and fail to collect reflected light from rooftops or other installation surfaces.
Conventional flat PV panels must be mounted at an angle and spaced apart for optimum energy production. The sunlight striking the spaces between the panels is not collected and thus is wasted. Solyndra's panels perform optimally when mounted horizontally and packed closely together, thereby covering significantly more of the available roof area and producing more electricity per rooftop on an annual basis than a conventional panel installation.
COST-EFFECTIVE INSTALLATION
To meet rooftop wind loading requirements, conventional flat solar panels must be anchored to commercial roofs with either ballast or rooftop penetrations, which are inherently problematic. Together with the need for tilting, the resulting complex mounting systems require significant investment in labor, materials and engineering. Conversely, because wind blows through Solyndra panels, no rooftop anchoring is required. Further, the low weight of the Solyndra system enables the installation of PV on a broader range of rooftops.
For typical conventional PV installations, a solar panel is only half the cost of a complete installation; the other half includes additional expenses such as installation, cables, and inverters. The horizontal mounting and unique air-flow properties of Solyndra's solar panel design substantially simplify the installation process for Solyndra's PV systems. The ease of installation and simpler mounting hardware of Solyndra's system enables its customers to realize significant savings on installation costs.
"By eliminating the need for roof-penetrating mounts and wind ballasts, PV arrays with Solyndra panels can be installed with one-third the labor, in one-third of the time, at one-half the cost," said Manfred Bachler, Chief Technical Officer at Phoenix Solar AG, one of the largest solar power integrators in Europe and a Solyndra customer. "For commercial rooftops, PV module installation time can now be measured in days, not weeks. For flat commercial rooftops this is game-changing technology."
According to Solyndra founder and CEO Chris Gronet, "Solyndra's system uniquely optimizes PV performance on commercial rooftops by converting more of the sunlight that strikes the total rooftop area into electricity while also providing for a lower installation cost and lower cost of electricity."
ABOUT SOLYNDRA
Solyndra designs and manufactures photovoltaic systems, comprised of panels and mounting hardware, for the commercial rooftop market. Solyndra employs high volume manufacturing based on proven technologies and processes to meet the needs of the global solar market. Using proprietary cylindrical modules and thin-film technology, Solyndra systems are designed to provide the lowest installed cost per system and the highest solar electrical energy output for typical low slope commercial rooftops. Headquartered in Fremont, California, Solyndra operates a state-of-the-art 300,000 square foot fully-automated manufacturing complex. Learn more at www.solyndra.com.
3. The story on this was in: "Flexible OLEDs could be part of lighting's future" (AP) Posted on Fri Oct 10, 2008 10:20AM EDT
In NISKAYUNA, N.Y., an industrial building contains a machine that prints sheets of LED lights. “. The OLED printer was made by General Electric….”
Summary: these 3 reports show that we are indeed on our way to having a much more energy efficient economy that is all or very nearly all powered by renewable energy.
That’s good news indeed.
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