Sustainablog

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Today’s post is by Dr. Bill Chameides, dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok. This is the second post in a 2-part series on biofuels.

Last week’s topic was why corn ethanol is an environmental loser.

But are all biofuels losers? No. Some can be winners. One of those is called cellulosic ethanol.

What Is Cellulosic Ethanol?

All ethanol — whether it is corn or cellulosic — is the same chemical compound: C2H5OH. You might recall from elementary chemistry courses that the “OH” group at the end of the formula indicates that the compound is an “alcohol.” Alcohols can have varying numbers of carbon atoms. Alcohol with two carbon atoms is called “ethanol.” The other alcohols are generally too toxic to be ingested, and thus ethanol has been the libation of choice down through the ages. (Ethanol used as fuel is rendered nonpotable.)

So corn ethanol and cellulosic ethanol don’t signify different types of ethanol, but rather the different material (or feedstocks) used to produce them.
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This post is by Dr. Bill Chameides, Dean of the Nicholas School of the Environment and lead author of the forthcoming blog The Green Grok.

Everyone knows we need green energy to fight global warming. But there’s another big reason to tap renewable power sources –- not enough water.

Large swaths of the Southwest and Southeast are in the throes of debilitating droughts. North Texas and Oklahoma’s recent dry spell dragged on from 2003 to the spring of 2007 (more on U.S. droughts). Droughts have even wiped out entire civilizations like the Anasazi (see Jared Diamond’s Collapse and Eugene Linden‘s Winds of Change).

But today’s water problems are far more profound than those of the Anasazi. The huge quantities we use — unprecedented in human history — make us more vulnerable to drought. Our water woes stem from an ever-increasing demand for water to slake the thirsts of a growing population on the one hand and to irrigate crops to feed that same population on the other.

Few people appreciate that yet another sector is clamoring for more water — the power industry. Fortunately we have the technology to wean this one from our dwindling supplies. Read the rest of this entry »

Editor’s note: Localized, distributed electricity grids are a hot topic in the renewable energy world. Today, Joel at Life Goggles takes a look at a product that could make such grids a reality at the neighborhood level. This post was originally published on Thursday, April 3, 2008.

Dutch company Qurrent is developing technology that will enable neighborhood-wide energy networks. Winner of the 2007 Picnic Green Challenge, the system will be used to pilot the concept in the Netherlands.

Because of fluctuating patterns of consumption, homes with wind and solar energy generators can find themselves with surplus energy at some times of the day, but not enough at others. Surplus energy typically gets sold back to the main grid, but as with most electric power transmission, ~30% of it can get lost along the way.

If a group of homes could work together to manage their collective energy generation and use so that higher levels of demand in one home can be matched with surpluses in others, this would help eliminate waste and make it more efficient. Participating homes essentially form a “mini-grid” that shares energy internally before exchanging any with the main grid.

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Every year the Renewable Energy Network for the 21st Century (REN21) and the Worldwatch Institute put together a profile and report card of the world’s renewable energy sector.

The REN21 Renewables 2007 Global Status Report found that last year, wind power capacity increased about 28 percent and solar power capacity went up 52 percent. Renewable energy employs 2.4 million people and 65 countries now have national standards for accelerating the use of renewables. Investors and businesses of all sizes have followed suit. And while that’s impressive, Mohamed El-Ashr, Chair of Ren21, had this interesting comment:

“So much has happened in the renewable energy sector during the past five years that the perceptions of some politicians and energy-sector analysts lag far behind the reality of where the renewables industry is today … This leadership has never been more important, as renewable energy has now reached the top of the international policy agenda under the United Nations and the G8.”

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American and European venture capitalists invested more than $3.5 billion in clean technologies — a 13 percent increase over 2006.

But other nations want a piece of the pie; so Indian banks are going to provide Australian companies access to their energy markets in order to grow India’s cleantech sector. Equity funding for development projects is lacking on the subcontinent, but money from Australian investors can help bridge that gap for initiatives like renewable energy, water, building efficiency and transportation. Vivek Mehra, country head of Sustainable Investment Bank and Private Equity, Yes Bank India, told ThaiIndian News:

Australia has expertise on clean coal technology and India is going to rely on coal to meet its energy needs for a long time to come. The two countries can mutually benefit from sharing this clean and economically feasible technology.

Bridging the knowledge — and funding gaps — in our globalized economy will be critical in advancing a cleantech future, whether it’s in the developed or developing world. I suspect we’ll see even more collaboration between private investors and emerging economies as cleantech continues to boom and the money follows.

ThaiIndian.com

This is exciting stuff: Xcel Energy is going to test 80-ton batteries the size of two semi-trailers to capture the power generated from its wind turbines.

The utility is testing 20 such batteries with an 11-megawatt wind farm in southwestern Minnesota. There’s a test phase set for this spring and then the batteries are expected to go online in October.

The challenge with wind power, explained an Xcel Energy representative, isn’t that it blows and stops but that the speed of the wind varies. So the system will work like this: When the wind is blowing, the spinning turbines will help charge the batteries. When the wind slows, the batteries will help even out the flow of electricity to the grid. The batteries discharge one megawatt of power, which is enough energy to power about 1,000 homes. The Japanese-made batteries have a life expectancy of 15 years.

This is the first time a utility has used batteries in conjunction with a wind farm to help with peak power demands. By 2020, Xcel Energy is required by Minnesota to get 30 percent of its energy from renewable sources.

BusinessGreen
St. Paul Pioneer Press

Saudi Arabia makes more than 10 million barrels of oil a day, but it may be turning an eye on a cleaner, brighter prospect: solar power.

Oil minister Ali al-Nuaimi told French media that the oil-rich nation is researching how it can become a center for solar energy research and eventually become a “major megawatt” exporter in the next 30-50 years. He also said that Saudi Arabia is ready to invest in carbon capture and storage, even developing technology to extract carbon dioxide (CO2 - a major global warming pollutant) from the atmosphere and store it underground (I’ll admit, I haven’t heard of extracting CO2 from the atmosphere before).

This all comes on the heels of an agreement last November by Gulf OPEC members to invest three-quarters of a billion dollars US to fighting global warming and financing clean technologies. But is this just an attempt to be seen as a big player in the hot solar energy field — or could the Saudi government be concerned about peak oil and increasing regulations around the world that make fossil fuel use more expensive?

Forbes.com

Texas is numero uno when it comes to wind power generation. The Lone Star state has installed wind power close to 5,000 megawatts which translates to enough electricity to power a million homes. The huge turbines, scattered across wide open spaces, conjure up more progressive feelings compared to those generated at the sight of oil rigs or smoke stacks; they are feelings of a changing world, a cleaner world.

Because of the increased demand for wind power installation, the economies of some small locales in Texas are growing and welcoming the change. But this changing tide in the energy industry isn’t without some bumps in the road. Recently, when an unanticipated cold front killed 80% of the wind power in Texas, electricity for some offices and factories had to be cut. Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I turn around, it seems like a new state or new nation is building the world’s largest solar power plant! So here’s the latest one: Australia will break ground next year on a 154-megawatt solar plant in Victoria. That’s nearly twice the size of the largest solar plant in the U.S.

Once it’s up and running in 2013, the it could generate enough power for about 45,000 homes. It’s a very small percentage of Australia’s total electricity generation, but it would cut about 396,000 tonnes of emissions from spewing into the air. The Victoria plant is also expected to be one of the most efficient solar power plants in existence because it will concentrate the solar power, using 112 curved mirrors to direct the sun’s rays onto photovoltaic (PV) cells.

This clean power plant will contribute to Australia’s goal of getting 20 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2050. But we’ll have to wait and see how long it remains on top as the largest.

The Age
Earth Times
Financial Times

Illinois Representative Karen May (D-Highland) has introduced a bill calling for a system of renewable energy “feed-in tariffs” (FITs) like those used in Germany to spur the development of electricity from renewable sources. After its initial reading, HB 5855, The Illinois Renewable Energy Sources Act has been reported to the House Rules Committee for initial action.

Feed-in tariffs have proven remarkably successful throughout Europe, and especially in Germany, where some 55% of the world’s solar power capacity resides. I have covered the nuts and bolts of the FIT here and I have made a short argument for them here (but for a more comprehensive treatment of how and why the policy mechanism works, I recommend visiting the World Future Council’s PACT website, which is a powerful resource for advocates, policymakers, environmentalists, tech geeks and regular folks).

In a nutshell, a feed-in tariff offers a long-term guaranteed price contract (usually about 15-20 years) to any entity that contributes electricity to the grid via renewable sources like solar, wind, biomass, landfill gas, small hydro, geothermal and methane. Whereas existing policy mechanisms like the production tax credit favor large corporations with sizable tax liability, and investment tax credits favor those folks who can afford a large upfront cost that comes with a 20-30 year payoff, this policy tool encourages the distributed generation of renewable energy and it levels the playing field by providing long-term investment security for small businesses, homeowners, churches, schools and others, so they are more willing to make the financial commitment that is necessary for installing renewable energy themselves. This is not to say that our existing RE policy tools of choice (including renewable energy standards) are inherently bad, but they may be insufficient to spark the kind of growth in clean energy the public seems to be demanding.

The diffusion of renewable energy FITs has extended from Northern Europe to include some 47 countries worldwide, but the mechanism has yet to gain much political traction in the United States. The bill is modeled after the legislation proposed in the fall of 2007, when Rep. Kathleen Law introduced HB 5218 into the Michigan House of Representatives.

Ironically, while the eyes of renewable energy policy wonks (yes, there are such a thing) have been looking to California, Michigan and Minnesota for a successful German-style feed-in tariff, Rep. May’s bill took people by surprise. Read the rest of this entry »