Thursday, September 14, 2006

Bruce Mulliken's ENERGIES ... week of 8/27/06

ENERGIES... week of August 27, 2006,

TOUGHER THAN KYOTO: CALIFORNIA LEGISLATION SET TO CUT STATE'S CONTRIBUTION
TO GLOBAL WARMING.


In an interview with the BBC this week, John Holdren, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, said that the world's climate is changing much faster than predicted:A dangerous human disruption of the global climate is already being experienced and more should be expected. More heat waves, wild fires, floods and a sea level rise of 13 feet (4 meters) by the end of this century were in the realm of possibility, he said.

So, is the Global Warming Solutions Act passed by the California Legislature and set to be signed into law by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger too little too late? Possibly, but it's a groundbreaking step other states, even nations, will be looking at.

Certainly the measure isn't made to save the planet, only reduce the state's contribution of greenhouse gas emissions by a fraction. However, the overall thrust of the bill could lead to a major shift in terms of emissions from all industries world wide if the agenda in the bill is followed.

The bill is clearly seeking market and technology-based solutions but forces industry to bring down the state's emissions of global warming gases to 1990 levels by 2020, about a 25 percent reduction. (Compared with doing nothing, business as usual.) The bill is strict in setting a regulations process in motion but leaves the door open to find real solutions to reduce global
warming emissions.

For instance not only is carbon dioxide targeted but other greenhouse gases including methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons. perfluorocarbons, and sulfur hexafluorides as well. Industry may work on getting the other gases under control as well as carbon dioxide in their efforts to cut emissions.

The bill also asks the adoption of a cap and trade system but it isn't mandatory.

(A cap and trade system is an avoidance mechanism for polluters, not a direct emission-cutting solution. Polluters can avoid making direct cuts themselves by trading their problems away to others who know how to make the cuts.)

The bill calls for mandatory monitoring of emissions from industries including electric power generation. The bill even says that electric power sourced outside the state will be scrutinized for greenhouse gas emissions. (A separate bill, also set to be signed by the governor, requires power generators, when selling long-term contracts to California utilities, to meet greenhouse gas emission standards. This bill will make it tough for out-of-state generators with coal-fired powerplants to sell electricity in California.)

The bill includes a back-up mechanism for the state's already-in-place measure to reduce greenhouse gases from vehicles. If for some reason the existing law to cut greenhouse gas emissions for cars and trucks by 2009 does not remain in effect, the state can implement alternative regulations to control equivalent or greater reductions as set in this bill.

What could change the direction of efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is the bill's emphasis on technology to do it. The bill creates the probability of funding for clean technologies in a state that is already a leader. After all, the title of the bill includes the word Solutions, that
means to do just that - find solutions. California is already a technology rich, technology savvy state. The wizards of Silicon Valley, for instance, changed the world with computer and
Internet technology. Can that same wizardry develop technology to cut greenhouse gas emissions to legislated levels and perhaps beyond? It's very possible.

For a copy of the Global Warming Solutions Act of 2006, Assembly Bill 32 (AB 32) visit http://www.legislature.ca.gov/HARNESSING FLOWING WATER WITH KINETIC HYDROPOWER.

There's no shortage of flowing water on the planet: Fast moving tidal currents and rivers. Man-made channels or water diverted under a bridge or overpass. Mountain streams. Water stored in pumped storage facilities operated by power companies. Water flows everywhere around the globe and can be tapped for energy without damage to the local environment.

Whereas the head (the height) and the volume of water stored behind a dam provides the energy for a traditional a hydroelectric dam, the free-flow of water can also be a power producer though the use of kinetic turbines.

Not unlike installing a small wind turbine underwater (with protection for fish), some small kinetic turbines are already available and some large scale projects to harness tidal flows are being demonstrated or planned.

There seem to be more projects, more technology on the way.

Hydro Green Energy of Houston, Texas has announced that the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), through its Space Alliance Technology Outreach Program (SATOP), has tested the company's patented hydrokinetic design and found it capable of producing a 300-percent higher power output than a standard horizontal impact turbine of the same diameter. The higher potential output, the company says, will make the technology financially appealing: more power with less investment.

Low impact hydro is one technology that's almost lost in the shuffle of green technologies. The Internet could help find it.

A web-based tool offered by the Idaho National Laboratory identifies potential sites for low-impact hydropower on natural streams in the United States and thus open opportunities for many new small low-impact hydropower plants to be built.

The Virtual Hydropower Prospector (VHP) is a geographic information system that can be accessed by any web-connected computer without downloads. It displays locations of natural stream water energy resources and their gross power potential.

VHP is open for anyone to use. (Try it out for your state!)

Visit Hydro Green Energy at http://www.hgenergy.com and the Prospector at http://hydropower.inl.gov/prospector/

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week's news.

Germany is the world's leader in wind power. The country has more than 18,000 megawatts installed; almost as much as second and third place contenders, Spain and the US, combined.

The race to first place began with the country's dedication and support of wind energy as well as an outreach to farmers. Farmers were told correctly that the air above their fields could be harvested for energy while the fields were still harvested for crops.

(The same outreach is now being made to US farmers and it's working here too. The nation's breadbasket - the center Plains States - are evolving into the nation's wind powerhouse.)

But wind power is not for everyone. Often where there are windy croplands there are also communities that don't want towering turbines casting shadows over their towns.

Fortunately, where farms and communities are neighbors, energy can still be harvested above fields by installing solar arrays mounted on pedestals. Those pedestals are raised high enough to allow the area beneath to be tilled or for shade for grazing animals, but not so high as to be considered a fixture on the horizon.

The 12-megawatt Gut Erlasse Solar Park in Bavaria, Germany - the largest tracking solar photovoltaic powerplant in the world - is built that way. Solar arrays and tracking devices are mounted above a working agricultural field. Those tracking devices at Gut Erlasse are known as Movers and are supplied by German company Solon, which recently dedicated the project.

The Solon Movers tilt and rotate throughout the day to directly face the Sun. On a square foot basis the Movers can generate up to twice the annual solar electric capacity than conventional fixed solar arrays. And cows, of course, can snooze underneath.

SunPower of San Jose, California supplied solar cells to about a third of the Movers at Gut Erlasse and since the SunPower A-300 cells are more efficient than other cells used in the project, the company's cells generate a higher proportion of energy at the facility.

Visit SunPower at http://www.sunpowercorp.com/ and Solon at http://www.solonmover.com/

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed into law an expansion of the state's Solar Initiative aimed at putting one million solar systems on roofs by 2018. The initiative now says the state's municipal utilities, such the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) and the Sacramento Municipal Utilities Division (SMUD), will be included along with major private utilities in the program.

Further, the initiative also now says that beginning in January 2011 developers of more than 50 new single family homes must offer a solar energy system alternative to all customers.

At least one California developer is five years ahead of the new law.

BLU S.K.Y. homes is including solar systems on up to 300 homes in the Juliana's Garden neighborhood in the master-planned community of City of the Hills in Bakersfield, California.

The solar systems, to be supplied by Sharp Solar, range from 1.7 to 3.5 kilowatts depending on the size of the home. The solar systems will be grid-connected and supply a portion of each home's electrical needs. The homes also include low wattage and motion sensing lighting to reduce power consumption.

Installation of solar systems will be by Renewable Energy Concepts. Visit them at http://recsolar.com/ and visit Sharp Solar at http://www.sharpusa.com/solar

WORLD WIND WATCH.

With a continued boom in wind energy for the US and Canada suppliers are gearing up to cash in and are creating new jobs in the process.

DMI Industries, a division of Otter Tail Corporation, has opened the first wind tower manufacturing facility in Ontario, Canada. It is also the company's second such facility. The Ontario plant is in Fort Erie and has the capacity to build 400-500 steel wind tower sections per year with a potential to double that.

The company now employs 319 at its headquarters and manufacturing facility in West Fargo, North Dakota and the new plant in Fort Erie employs 110 with 10-15 new hires expected by the end of the year as well as another possible 100 by the end of 2007.

DMI has delivered more than 1800 towers to the wind industry since 1999 to nearly all the major players in the North American market.

Earlier this year others have moved into the wind tower market or are planning to.

Algoma Steel of Sault Saint Marie, Ontario with partner Schaaf Industries Corporation of Germany plans to establish a wind tower manufacturing facility in Sault Saint Marie to build up to 180 towers per year.

Tower Tech Holdings of Manitowoc, Wisconsin is building wind turbine towers at its 46 acre site there and has taken orders from turbine makers Vestas and Gamesa for wind projects

Visit DMI Industries at http://www.dmiindustries.com/index.shtml , Algoma Steel at http://www.algoma.com/ . Tech Tower at http://www.towertechsystems.com/

Having just broken ground on its wind turbine blade facility in Howard, South Dakota, California-based Knight & Carver has received a significant order for wind turbine blades.

Storm Lake Partners I of Storm Lake, Iowa has ordered an undisclosed number of 25-meter wind turbine blades. Production for the blades, to be the largest the company has built, will begin immediately in California. The order seems representative of the kind of business the company will be seeking when its 26,000 square foot manufacturing and repair facility in Howard opens in November. The company's main area of expertise is in yacht building but composite construction of yachts is similar to that of wind turbine blades.

The facility in South Dakota is expected to employ 10 - 25 full time workers when it opens with employment growth steady after that. Visit Knight & Carver at http://www.knightandcarver.com/

NewsLinks.

--- Expedia.com Offers Travelers a Greener Way to Fly http://www.expedia.com/ (click Press Room)(Carbon offsets from Terrapass
offered with travel purchases.) (8/28/06)

--- Hydrogen Engine Center, Inc. and Aditya Birla Group's Grasim Industries Ltd. Sign Joint Technology and Marketing Memorandum of Understanding http://www.hydrogenenginecenter.com/ (click News and Articles)(Will work together to bring HEC's hydrogen engine technology to the chemical industry.) (8/28/06)

--- British Wind Energy Association (BWEA) -- The Power of the Wind, A Powerful Attraction http://www.bwea.org/ ( Wind energy events in Scotland and England brings out thousands.) (8/29/06)

--- Commonwealth of Pennsylvania -- Governor Rendell: Pennsylvania
Redoubling its Purchase of Green Electricity
http://www.governor.state.pa.us/ (click The Press Room, August 2006)(Contract with Community Energy Inc., to purchase 200,000 megawatt hours a year, or 20 percent renewables, at premium rate of 0.34 cents per kwh.) (8/29/06)

--- FuelCell Energy Boosts Electric Power Output of DFC Power Plants 20 Percent in Same Footprint http://www.fuelcellenergy.com/ (Delivering more power directly enhances the value of a direct fuel cell (DFC) product to customers by reducing their cost per kilowatt hour (kWh).
(8/30/06)

--- GE, China's NGC To Jointly Develop Wind Turbine Gearbox http://www.ge.com/energy (The gearbox is a critical component of the GE 1.5-megawatt wind turbine.) (8/30/06)

--- Accelrate Introduces Revolutionary New "Sequencer" Product For Material Handling Industry http://www.accelrate.com/ (Product conceived to enable one to four batteries to be connected to a single high-speed charger.) (8/31/06)

--- Suncor Energy Celebrates Opening of Canada's Largest Ethanol Plant http://www.suncor.com/ ($120 million facility to produce 200 million liters of ethanol/year from 20 million bushels of corn sourced from Ontario farmers.) (8/31/06)

Events and Publications.

--- Solid Waste Association of North America (SWANA) Wastecon 2006 September
19-21, 2006, Charlotte, North Carolina.
http://www.swana.org/sections/wastecon/

--- American Council on Renewable Energy (ACORE) National Policy Conference;
November 29-30, 2006 Washington, DC http://www.acore.org/

--- Seattle Green Living EXPO September 16-17 and 23-24, 2006 Seattle,
Washington http://www.thehighpoint.com/expo

--- Eleventh National Renewable Energy Marketing Conference December 3-6,
2006 San Francisco, California
http://www.renewableenergymarketing.net/index.htm

Send ENERGIES to a friend or colleague. Visit Green Energy News on the web at http://www.green-energy-news.com/ . For ENERGIES paid and free trial subscriptions please visit the web site. Green Energy News is not responsible for content on external websites. Copyright Green Energy News Inc. 9/2/06 vol. 11 no. 23.

--- For the best in thermostats, and save on your energy consumption, be sure to check out: http://www.idtenergystore.com

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

Subscribe to Post Comments [Atom]

<< Home