New Energy Currents: 2004-10-27

The world faces an onslaught of news stories beginning with "With the price of oil currently at $50 a barrel..." Get used to the hurt - with surging oil consumption in China, dwindling supplies of easily recoverable oil and gas, and widespread instability in many of the key energy producing regions of the world, the energy market isn't going to become significantly less painful any time soon. Beyond our woes in the industrialized world, billions of people in the developing world will also need to increase their energy consumption dramatically in the years to come, as they work to meet their basic needs and increase their standard of living.

Despite what we might hear from the US presidential candidates (and energy lobbyists), there are no easy and no ready solutions to our energy problems. Fortunately, there's a lot of hard work being done by scientists, engineers, and (sometimes) policymakers around the world to come up with a wide variety of potential approaches that will compete with as well as compliment each other as we slowly transform our energy systems. To help you keep track of these developments as they happen, 'New Energy Currents' is a broad but by no means comprehensive compilation of noteworthy news in energy technology and policy from the past month. By John Atkinson of Chiasm.

• Wind
• Water
• Solar
• Nuclear
• Hydrogen
• Fossil Fuels
• Biofuels
• Alternative Alteratives
• Efficiency Improvements
• Related Policy Issues

WIND:

• China, who unsurprisingly holds the world's largest potential wind 'reserves', is in the process of building the World's Largest Wind Farm (14 × 6 km) outside Beijing - 200 mW capacity will be online by 2006, and a total of 400 mW capacity will be installed by 2008. This project, like many other clean energy projects in China, is being driven in part by Beijing's desire to make the 2008 Olympics a showcase for China's technological prowess.

• Wait, scratch that - an even LARGER wind farm is being planned for central South Dakota, an enormous project with the exciting (but kind of random) name "Rolling Thunder." If the project continues to go ahead as planned (always an 'if'), 'Thunder' will eventually include 1,000 turbines producing 3,000 mW, although since the project is being built in stages Beijing may be able to claim at least a tie when 2008 rolls around.

• Meanwhile, a huge turbine under construction in northern Germany - 590 feet, nearly twice the height of the Statue of Liberty! - illustrates the difficulties faced by Germany's aggressive renewable energy policy. Not only are Germans starting to complain about rising energy prices caused in part by legislation forcing utilities to buy renewable power, but Germany will have an enormously difficult time replacing its fossil- and nuclear-powered facilities with renewables in the years to come. As the article notes, the turbine is located across the meadow from a massive 1970s nuclear power plant nearing the end of its life cycle, making it clear how much energy's 'future' has to catch up to energy's 'past' in terms of capacity - the wind turbine will produce upwards of 17 gigawatt hours a year, while the nuclear plant represents an annual output of 6,000 gigawatt hours that will need to be replaced.

• On a smaller scale, innovative wind cooperatives in Minnesota are turning heads in Idaho. After seeing large-scale wind projects operated by out-of-state developers beginning to crop up in the region, Minnesota's farmers quite naturally decided it was time to get in on the action, forming cooperatives with local utilities to build small wind projects on their property.

• As small scale wind projects proliferate, increasingly sophisticated computer programs are being used to model localized wind patterns at an unprecedented level of detail. Slight differences in wind speed translate into big differences in power generated, putting a premium on getting accurate wind data before going ahead with construction. Wind farms are helping to drive the development of these wind modeling programs, but they aren't the most dramatic use of the technology - the Army has hired the same company to develop a system for forecasting local wind patterns to help protect troops threatened by airbone chemical or biological weapons.

• On a related note, last week Canada officially unveiled the Canadian Wind Energy Atlas, a database of hi-res wind statistics covering all of Canada. Canada is the first large-area country in the world to have a wind atlas covering its entire territory.

WATER:

• Via Alternative Energy Blog - the world's largest tidal power plant is being constructed at Ansan City's Shihwa Lake in South Korea. The project, to be completed by 2009, will cost a hefty $312 million to build a plant with a very respectable 254 mW of capacity - enough to meet the total electricity demand of Ansan City's 500,000 people.

• Alt-E James also has a post up on the growth of small-scale hydroelectric power in Japan. Japan's geography (mountains, rivers, &c) is especially well-suited to the widespread use of these applications, and, with their use of running water and their tiny environmental footprint, I daresay these generators resonate with deep currents in Japanese culture as well.

• Britain's geography gives it great potential resources for wave and tidal power, and the government is hoping to encourage UK leadership in wave and tidal generation technology by building a testing center called Wave Hub off the Cornwall coast.

SOLAR

• Industry experts at the Solar Power 2004 conference estimate that improved photovoltaic technologies and the rising cost of fossil fuels will make electricity generated with solar power cost competitive with fossil-generated electricity within 10 years. Solar power currently costs twice as much as conventional power to generate, and requires large government subsidies to compete.

• New regulation in the UK going into effect in 2006 will require that all new homes built in Britain be designed to accomodate solar panels. This is an important first step towards reaching the government's goal of having all new homes powered in part by solar energy by 2010.

• This news article has an interesting roundup on a variety of efforts to encourage investment in low-cost photovoltaics for rural Africa. Not least interesting is the reaction from the pastor of the village of Tanghin Dassouri in Burkina Faso, where solar panels have just been installed but where grid electricity is expected in two years: "For now we will be happy with the panels... but as soon as we get electricity, well, I think the panels will have to go." While it's great to see solar panels meeting immediate development needs in areas off the grid in Africa, it's important to remember that the people of the region aspire to a higher standard of living than these small solar generators will support. An interesting post on this and other issues in integrating photovoltaics into rural African villages is up over here, at WorldChanging.

• Here's another excellent potential application of solar technology - an American solar energy systems manufacturer and an Indian water pump manufacturer are teaming up to develop projects combining their technologies to bring clean water, irrigation and dependable power supplies to people in developing and war-torn nations, where public infrastructure is inadequate or damaged - including Iraq and Afghanistan.

• On a similar note, WorldChanging has an interesting article up on the utility of DIY solar projects in both developing country contexts and in emergency disaster/relief situations.

• On the tech side, those geniuses over at MIT have used proteins derived from spinach chloroplasts to create the world's first solid-state photosynthetic solar cell - and they have named it Photosystem I. The science is really amazing, one of the first of what will doubtlessly be many enormous contributions bioengineering will make to energy generation in the coming years (see below).

• The US Army Missile Defense Agency (MDA) has awarded a contract to develop lightweight regenerative fuel cell technology for high-altitude UAVs. The system will power a hydrogen fuel cell with solar energy, and will be used to keep airships with vital sensors and communications equipment airborne indefinitely.

• As if solar panel owners weren't already starting to get a little holier than thou - a temple in Northern India and a church in New Jersey have decided that solar energy is indeed the path of the righteous, powering their buildings with solar panels. The New Jersey church, in Lafayette, is the first of at least five planned 'Lighting the Way' congregations, a network of churches in New Jersey that are adopting solar power to encourage their communities to use renewable electricity.

NUCLEAR

• France is committed to continuing its heavy use of nuclear energy (which accounts for 75% of France's power), announcing plans to build the world's first EPR (European Pressurised Water) nuclear reactor on the coast of Normandy. Construction will begin in 2007, and the "third generation" plant will produce a cool 1,600 mW of capacity (up from 900 mW) more safely and more efficiently than the current second generation reactors that will have to be decommissioned over the next two decades.

• Sandia National Laboratories' awesome Z Machine - remember Spiderman 2? - has been approved for a $61.7 million refurbishment to help it provide better data with less maintenance for US nuclear fusion researchers.

HYDROGEN

• In a widely-cited study, a pair of brother/economists from the UK's University of Warwick have analyzed the amount of additional energy that would be needed to run the entire US transportation sector on hydrogen - predictably, it's an awful lot. Because producing hydrogen requires energy, and because we've got so many cars, 1,000 new nuclear power plants, or enough wind turbines to cover half of California, would be needed to bring a full-fledged hydrogen economy to the US. In an interesting discussion on FuturePundit, Randall Parker argues that, considering the importance of the goal, this may not be an unreasonable cost, and the Ergosphere's Engineer-Poet points out some problems with the Oswalds' work.

• Also on the hydrogen hype deflation front, a panel of experts from the Electric Drive Transportation Association warns that commercially viable fuel cell vehicles are at least another 15 years from the market. Someone should tell the folks working on California's Hydrogen Highway, who are busy trying to install tens of millions of dollars of hydrogen fueling infrastructure along all California's major highways by 2010 (about 5 years from now for those of you scoring at home). Early adopters of dedicated, hydrogen-only infrastructure may be in for some serious financial problems.
• On the 'good news' front, California's PolyFuel recently unveiled an improved fuel cell membrane technology. PolyFuel's sophisticated, hydrocarbon-based membrane will improve fuel cell performance, increase durability, and reduce costs (via Crumb Trail).

• The US Department of Energy has announced $75 million in new hydrogen research grants, making for some interesting reading if you're curious as to where the government thinks hydrogen technology should go. As Green Car Congress Mike notes, the list shows a remarkably strong interest in research being done in swing states, but it also shows an encouraging interest in producing hydrogen from renewable sources.

FOSSIL FUELS:

• Praktike's Place plugs "Winning the Oil Endgame", a book from the Rocky Mountain Institute that offers a strategy integrating four technological ways to displace oil: using oil twice as efficiently, then substituting biofuels, saved natural gas, and, optionally, hydrogen. The entire book is available free online, and author Amory Lovins writes:

"The route we suggest for the transition beyond oil will expand customer choice and wealth, and will be led by business for profit. We propose novel public policies to accelerate this transition that are market-oriented without taxes and innovation-driven without mandates."

• A new report by Standard & Poor predicts strong growth in the market for liquefied natural gas (LNG) as billions are invested into LNG plants and infrastructure. By cooling natural gas to minus 260 Fahrenheit, it becomes liquid, thus denser, and thus easier to transport in large volumes without building pipelines. As the demand for cleaner electricity and vehicles around the world rises so will demand for natural gas - the cleanest-burning fossil fuel - and LNG will play a big part in bringing more gas to market.

• On the pipeline tip, the US legislature has passed loan guarantees for the construction of a pipeline to bring more natural gas from Alaska to the lower 48 states. Demand for natural gas in the US is projected to increase 50% over the next 20 years, and an Alaskan pipeline would help reduce our soon-to-be-growing dependence on imported LNG (see above!).

• Los Angeles, home to the US's largest natural gas bus fleet (nearly 2,400), has ordered 200 of North American Bus Industries' frankly beautiful 60-BRT articulated compressed natural gas (CNG) buses. When they hit the road, they'll be the most advanced, shit-hot, and super clean buses in the US. If you're interested in BRT - Bus Rapid Transit, only the coolest bus service paradigm on the block - the US Federal Transit Administration has put out a fascinating and report on case studies all over the world, here.

• While natural gas buses struggle to maintain its foothold in the US market against the rising tide of diesel hybrids, China is surging ahead with its plans to make much wider use of natural gas in its bus fleets, with plans for the world's largest fleet - 10,000 - of Hythane™ buses to run in Beijing. Hythane (the generic name is HCNG) is a combination of compressed natural gas (CNG) with a small amount (up to 20% by volume) of hydrogen, which burns even cleaner than CNG and provides a reduction in greenhouse gases as well. As Green Car Congress notes, this is in addition to plans to convert an additional 18,000 buses to straight CNG in time for the 2008 Olympics.

• Myanmar, meanwhile, has announced its intention to convert ALL 260,000 of its vehicles to run on natural gas (via the Natural Gas Vehicle Coalition newsletter, sorry, no link). 2,000 have been converted so far, and no schedule has been announced for the conversion of the rest, but if it goes through with the plan it will be the first country to do so.

• One more link from UtiliPoint's IssueAlert service - this article discusses the bipartisan support for the development of clean coal technologies in the US and discusses the state of several major clean coal projects across the country. Also worth noting is a new report by a private consulting firm predicting that the role of coal power in meeting our future energy needs will be greater than forecasted by the US Department of Energy, and the role of natural gas will be less.

• Of course, let's not count out the reigning energy champ - MSNBC has an interesting article up on the ways in which new technologies continue to enhance our ability to locate and drill for oil (via Alt-E Blog).

BIOFUELS

• Researchers at the University of North Dakota have developed a first-of-its-kind biomass gasification technology that converts woodchips, agricultural by-products, and other biomass sources into a (natural gas-like) biogas that can operate a small diesel engine for power generation. They're currently looking to start demonstration products at forest product sites around the country, and envision the technology as being particularly useful for rural communities living in remote areas where fuel transportation costs are high.

• Similarly, researchers at the University of Washington have developed an efficient process for converting wood from small trees and branches into methanol (a fuel often derived from coal and used in race cars) for potential use in fuel cells. It's a neat double play - by turning small trees and branches into a source of power, this technology encourages not only energy independence but good forest management.

• Scientists from the India-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT) have developed a new ethanol source crop, a high-sugar hybrid of the cereal sorghum, for testing the Philippines. Sorghum is even easier to grow in terms of time and resources than sugarcane (which is significantly more efficient than corn, used to produce the vast majority of US ethanol), and waste from the process can be used as animal feed.

• A new study at the University of Toronto claims that the city's wastewater treatement plants could also be used to produce significant amounts of energy in the form of biogas. Currently, the city's plants use an aerobic treatment process in which microbes decompose organic material in the presence of oxygen; if the plants were converted to use an anaerobic (no oxygen!) digestion process, they would potentially produce enough methane-rich gas to produce upwards of 113 megawatts of electricity. This process obviously has wide applicability outside of Toronto, and similar demonstration projects using anaerobic digesters are being used to produce biogas at landfill sites.

• Wired takes a look into the Exciting Future (as usual) with this article on the future of biological energy production. Green algae and bacteria are being tweaked to produce large quantities of hydrogen from basic photosynthesis and digestion processes (respectively), and bacteria can also be used to directly produce electricity in microbial fuel cells. Although scientific obstacles are still significant, the future potential of this kind of technology is enormous, and one engineer quoted in the article claims that it will start making a big difference in as little as 10 years.

ALTERNATIVE ALTERNATIVES:

• Finally, in far-out awesome energy news, scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory have developed a thermoacoustic electric generator that will be able to power small probes in deep space using sound waves (via FuturePundit). The generator causes helium gas to expand and contract rapidly, creating thunder-like sound waves that drive the engine. Sound complicated? It is. Sound totally sweet? Yes.

EFFICIENCY IMPROVEMENTS

• Toyota has announced plans to start building its Prius hybrids in China in collaboration with China's largest automaker, First Automotive Works.

• Green Car Congress has posts up on new diesel and gas micro hybrids (cars with hybrid-like fuel efficiency improvements, but without a secondary propulsion system) which will help increase fuel efficiency in the EU and US respectively.

• In grid news, FuturePundit links to news on the long-anticipated advent of cost-effective superconducting wire coming to market, then goes on to discuss some of the possible changes to the grid that could emerge from this and future advances in superconductor technology.

• Speaking of the superconductors of the future, last week scientists at UC Irvine synthesized the world's longest electrically conducting nanotubes - 0.4 cm!

RELATED POLICY ISSUES

• The EPA has published the most comprehensive guide to buying green power to date, the Green Power Purchasing Guide. The guide is written for a broad audience and should be quite a useful resource for businesses, government agencies, universities, and other organizations interested in greening their energy supply.

• Lots of activity on the US policy front - the 1.5 cents/kilowatt hour wind power tax credit was renewed, lending needed certainty to new wind power projects across the US. The massive FSC-ETI corporate tax bill extended this tax credit to cover energy produced by geothermal, solar, biomass, and other alternative energy sources, which should help stimulate the burgeoning boom in alternative energy projects in the US. FSC-ETI also included an extension of the hefty tax credit for ethanol producers; disappointingly, the CLEAR ACT provisions providing incentives and funding for other alternative fuel vehicles didn't make it through the House, dealing yet another blow to the struggling US natural gas vehicle industry.

• Meanwhile, the California Air Resources Board (CARB) set another milestone in California's proud history of "it's just so crazy it might work!!" policy initiatives, adopting the first-ever statewide greenhouse emissions reduction plan in the US. The CARB regulation, which mandates up to 25 percent reductions in greenhouse gas emissions from cars and trucks by 2009, was predictably greeted with howls of protest by auto manufacturers. California accounts for 13 percent of the US auto market, certainly a big enough share to have a significant influence on the entire industry - it'll be interesting to see how successful the automakers are in fighting the regulation and/or meeting the targets.

• Russia seems to be on the verge of finally ratifying the Kyoto Protocol, which will allow the treaty to go into effect - no, really, for real, this time. The Russian government has been divided on this for some time now and have been sending mixed signals for over two years on the question of ratification, but Putin's United Russia party has moved to ratify the Protocol in the Duma, so it looks like this is really happening. Winds of Change's own Robin Burk discusses some of the possible Russian motives here.

• In corporate citizenship news, British Telecom has a plan - a rea one. They plan to be getting all of their own electricity from renewable sources in three years, the largest such private sector renewable program in the world.
  
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