Saturday, September 16, 2006

ENERGIES ... week of 9/10/06

MORE EVIDENCE OF GLOBAL WARMING,
BUT WORLD STILL SEEKS MORE OIL.

In research published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters,
scientists from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) document that
perennial Arctic sea ice - ice that lasts all year round - shrunk 14 percent
in area between 2004 and 2005. Scientists noted that in recent decades the
extent of summer ice - seasonal ice that forms in winter but melts in summer
- has been getting smaller at a rate of about 0.7 percent per year or
between 6.4 and 7.8 percent per decade.

The 2004 - 2005 perennial ice shrink is 18 times what had been previously
considered the annual rate.

Since the Arctic ice cap floats, its demise would have little effect on sea
levels. However, receding ice at the top of the planet may be an early
indicator of an increased rate of ice melt in Greenland and the Antarctic,
where melting ice would cause sea levels to rise.

In another report published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of
Sciences, 19 scientists from 10 institutions concluded that there was an 84
percent chance that two thirds of the rise in ocean temperatures in the
tropical Atlantic and Pacific can be attributed to an increase in greenhouse
gases from human activities. In turn, the authors say, warmer water
temperatures have caused an increase in hurricane strength and activity in
both basins. Sea surface temperatures in those regions have risen 0.6 and
1.2 degrees F since 1906 they say.

The official word from the US National Hurricane Center is that hurricanes
are cyclical and warmer waters play only one part of many in hurricane
development.

Yet while rising greenhouse gases, shrinking ice caps and increased
hurricane activity are growing concerns in the scientific community, some in
the oil community are still concerned about the supplies needed for growing
world economies in the future. The connection isn't being made as to the
potential damage to the planet that increased levels of burning oil could
cause.

In an attempt to relieve concerns about world oil supplies, Abdallah S.
Jum'ah, president and chief executive of the state-owned Saudi Arabian Oil
Company (aka Saudi Aramco), the world's largest oil producing company, said
in a statement that he believed there was 4.5 trillion barrels of
recoverable oil on the planet - enough for another 140 years at current
levels of consumption. Today's proven reserves are about 1.2 trillion
barrels. (The word "proven" in the oil industry means educated
guess.)

But between the lines his words need to examined. He used the term "current
rate of consumption" but the rate of consumption is expected to increase
dramatically, not stay the same, particularly as China and India grow. So,
the 140 year mark may be considerably off.

And in the statement Jum'ah talks about new discovery methods such as using
computer technology as well as new technologies and investment needed for
better recovery rates from existing wells, tapping ultra deep offshore oil
and converting extra-heavy oil and oil from tar sands and shale into
marketable fuels. The research into new technologies and the investment
needed to implement them could require that the price of oil remain
relatively high in order to support that investment. Jum'ah did not suggest
that his company had found any additional "easy" sources of oil.

Visit Geophysical Research Letters at http://www.agu.org/journals/gl/
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences at
http://www.pnas.org/papbyrecent.shtml , the US National Hurricane Center at
http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/ , Saudi Aramco at http://www.saudiaramco.com

THE TWO PATHS OF AUTOMOTIVE RESEARCH:
CELLULOSIC ETHANOL AND LITHIUM-ION
BATTERIES.
WHICH WILL PREVAIL?

Right now there appear to be two directions green vehicle research is
headed. One is toward the development of cellulosic ethanol - ethanol made
from everything from wood chips to grass clippings - as replacement for
gasoline in conventional cars. The other path is toward better battery
technology specifically with lithium-ion batteries to be used in hybrid,
plug-in hybrid or electric vehicles.

Will one technology beat the other in the race for cleaner vehicles for
tomorrow? Or will the technologies simply converge and complement each
other?

Since cellulosic ethanol could be derived from nearly free plant waste or
cheaply grown fuel crops (such as switch grass) it seems likely that it will
be less expensive to produce than today's ethanol made from corn or sugar
cane.

Further conventional gasoline engines need only minor and inexpensive
conversions to allow them to run on ethanol. Those two attributes alone
should should give cellulosic an edge.

But ethanol will always have less energy content than gasoline. More needs
to be burned for the same number of miles driven. Further, to substantially
switch from gasoline to the carbon-neutral fuel, significant investment
would be needed to produce the quantities required. Because of that lower
energy content the quantity of ethanol produced would eventually be greater
than gasoline, including the growth in consumption. Still then would there
be enough bio - feedstock available for production?

Further, ethanol fueled cars still have tailpipe emissions, thus cause air
pollution, though less than gasoline fueled cars.

For now, lithium-ion batteries, to be considered for the next generation of
electric, hybrid vehicles and the eventually the first generation of plug-in
hybrids, are expensive. (The Volvo 3CC concept electric car required 3000
AA-size lithium-ion cells. The street price today is about $2 per cell. Do
the math.)

Yet hybrid vehicles use the existing fueling infrastructure. Plug-in hybrids
use the existing plus an occasional grid connection. And pure electrics use
only the grid or a distributed energy source. The industrial world is
already wired, so the additional investment needed to connect the wired
world to cars is minimal. Further electric and plug-in hybrid cars can use
energy from a variety of sources: coal, nuclear, natural gas, or oil-fired
power plants as well as solar, wind, geothermal, landfill gas, even
powerplants fueled by the same carbon neutral feedstocks used to make
cellulosic ethanol. They can also utilize power generated overnight but not
sold.

Of course lithium-ion electric vehicles are emission free. The related
emissions, if any, are from the source of electricity to charge them.

On both fronts there have been major announcements.

The Research Institute of Innovative Technology for the Earth (RITE) and
Honda have jointly developed a new technology to produce ethanol from
cellulosic biomass including inedible leaves and stalks of plants, such as
rice straw.

Apparently one of the problems in the development of cellulosic ethanol is
the formation of fermentation inhibitors formed primarily during the process
of separating cellulose from biomass. Those inhibitors interfere with the
function of microorganisms that convert sugar into alcohol thus reduce
ethanol production.

RITE, which is world renowned for its development of a bio-process for
chemical commodities production utilizing microorganisms, has developed with
Honda a process utilizing a RITE strain of microorganism that substantially
reduces the harmful influence of fermentation inhibitors and, in turn,
yields more ethanol. The process can also be used to make other products
such as automotive materials made from biomass.

The partnership will now research methods for mass production that will
include energy conservation and energy recovery processes to further reduce
the carbon footprint associated with production.

On the lithium-ion front Altair Nanotechnologies has announced it will soon
ship its first NanoSafe (TM) battery and has been delivering a barrage of
information about its new lithium-ion battery design.

The company says NanoSafe can be recharged to an 80 percent level in about a
minute. It too can be recharged up to 9000 times retaining 85 percent charge
capacity. (With daily recharging in an electric vehicle the battery pack
would last up to 25 years.)

The company also says that its battery is power-packed for its weight and
size. Altairnano laboratory measurements indicate power density as high as
4000 watts per kilogram and over 5000 watts per liter, up from about 1000
watts per kilogram for conventional designs.

The company also says NanoSafe is, well, safe. It won't explode like other
designs since the company replaces graphite, which can lead to explosion,
with nano-titanate material as the negative electrode. The possibility of
explosion has been a major concern of lithium-ion batteries.

Altairnano is delivering its first NanoSafe battery in September to Phoenix
Motorcars for incorporation into a freeway-capable electric sedan. The
company will also be working with Alcoa's AFL Automotive division to develop
a battery pack for medium-duty hybrid trucks.

NanoSafe battery technology will be demonstrated at the California Air
Resources Board Zero Emission Vehicles meeting in Sacramento, September 25
-27, 2006.

Instead of running along two different paths the two technologies -
cellulosic ethanol and lithium-ion batteries - could meet in ethanol fuel
burning plug-in hybrids that have zero vehicle emissions some of the time
but are able to use a carbon neutral fuel for ultra long trips or where
there is no grid connection.

Visit Altair Nanotechnologies at http://www.altairnano.com/ and Honda World
News at http://world.honda.com/worldnews/

ALL ABOUT SOLAR.

This week's news.

It's not all that difficult to get into the solar cell and module business.
Companies like Spire Corporation, GT Solar or Amtech Systems will sell you
turnkey solar cell and wafer production lines as well as complementary
turnkey module and manufacturing lines. They'll even help you get set up and
teach you how to make solar cells.

In the end you'll have a decent product and you'll be in growing solar
energy business, but you won't be producing cutting edge solar products.

For cutting edge solar you'll have to go beyond buying solar manufacturing
equipment from a vendor. You'll have to make the equipment itself. That is
what separates ECD Ovonics and its United Solar division from many others.
Everything from research and development to design and engineering to
manufacturing and building the manufacturing equipment is done in-house.

Home grown may also be the reason ECD has been slower in its expansion than
other companies. It takes time to build all the solar-making machines from
scratch rather than just buying them.

Yet ECD is slowly expanding and has plans to have 300 megawatts of solar
building capacity in place by 2010 up from 28 megawatts today. This Fall the
company will have another 30 megawatts ready for operation and the company
has just announced that it would have an additional 60 megawatt facility in
Greenville, Michigan operating by the end of 2007.

It appears from now till 2010 the company will be in continuous expansion
mode.

The company's cutting edge solar are amorphous thin-film triple junction
cells that are made on a roll-to-roll process. The solar cells and the
company's solar products are flexible and lightweight and don't require a
glass cover for protection from the elements. Visit ECD Ovonics at
http://ovonic.com/ United Solar at http://www.uni-solar.com/ Spire at
http://www.spirecorp.com/ GT Solar at http://www.gtsolar.com/ .

For companies that make the equipment to manufacture solar cells business
has been as brisk as those who make and market solar products themselves.

During the last 12 months Amtech Systems has received about $9 million in
orders for solar manufacturing equipment including a recent $2 million order
from an undisclosed Asian-based solar company. Amtech's solar orders for the
past 12 months have increased 500 percent over the previous 12 month period.
Visit Amtech at http://www.amtechsystems.com/

WORLD WIND WATCH.

China needs energy for continued economic growth and it isn't fussy about
where it gets it. Nor is China wedded to conventional fossil fuels, though
it is consuming plenty, by the looks. The country seems just as happy
building wind or hydro capacity as it does building coal plants or importing
fuels from beyond its borders. (The country might also see the rut the US
has gotten itself into with oil and not want to follow down that muddy
path.)

China too, although not a Kyoto signer, can and is getting involved in
carbon dioxide emissions reductions.

Through the Joint Application Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) contained
in the Kyoto Treaty, Spanish power company and wind developer Endesa has
announced it will buy 2.7 million tons of CO2 emission rights from three
wind farms and one small hydro project in China. In the agreement Endesa
will purchase all of the emission rights from these four sites from 2006 to
2012.

Overall Endesa has a target through its own Climate Initiative to purchase
15 million tons of CO2 emissions rights through to 2012. At its own
facilities the company has cut CO2 emissions by 27.5 percent between 1990
and 2004, while doubling their generation output during the same period.
Endesa further expects to reduce its CO2 emissions by 35 percent in 2007
compared to 1990.

NewsLinks.

--- Green Building Initiative(TM) Recognizes First Materials Recovery
Facility To Be Built Green in United States http://www.thegbi.org/ (click
News, Recent News)(Colorado recycling facility the first in US to be
recognized by the Green Building Initiative's (GBI) environmental assessment
and rating system for commercial buildings.) (9/8/06)

--- Plutonic Power Secures the Rights for Three New Run-Of-River Green
Energy Hydropower Projects http://www.plutonic.ca (Proposed projects in
Canada for up to 121 Megawatts to meet energy needs of 40,000 homes.)
(9/8/06)

--- Color Kinetics -- Los Angeles International Airport Unveils
Energy-Saving Color Kinetics Installation http://www.colorkinetics.com/
(More than 1,800 LED-based fixtures as part of a lighting renovation
project.) (9/11/06)

--- Fiberstars Recognized by Wall Street Journal for Technology Innovation
http://www.fiberstars.com/ (click news) (Fiber optic lighting uses 20%
energy of conventional lighting.) (9/11/06)

--- Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR) -- Farmer Ownership Should Be
Federal Focus in Building Cellulosic Ethanol Industry
http://www.ilsr.org/columns/2006/091106.html (Group urges the US Department
of Energy to change its piecemeal approach to commercializing ethanol from
cellulose and develop a comprehensive strategy.) (9/11/06)

--- Cyberlux to Supply Cottonwood Fine Kitchen Furniture With its Aeon
Product Line http://www.cyberlux.com/ (LED under cabinet lighting to be
offered by cabinet manufacturer.) (9/13/06)

--- Gensler -- First 'Green' Car Dealership in US Opens Near Dallas
http://www.gensler.com/ (click Press Room)(Gensler has designed the first
car dealership to register for a Leadership in Energy and Environmental
Design (LEED) rating with the US Green Building Council.)
(9/13/06)

--- General Motors Announces Collaboration With State of Florida and Inland
Food Stores to Help Bring E85 Ethanol Fuel to North Florida
http://www.gm.com/ (click GM News)(A total of 17 E-85 fueling stations in
Tallahassee area started between now and the beginning of
2007.)(9/13/06)

--- European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) -- "After communications
revolution, we need an energy revolution" http://www.ewea.org/ (Interview
with author Jeremy Rifkin.) (9/14/06)

--- Avista Offers Incentive for Washington Customers Who Generate Renewable
Energy http://www.avistacorp.com/ (click News Room) (Residential and small
business customers who generate with electricity using wind, solar or
anaerobic digester may be eligible.) (9/15/06)

Requests for Proposals and Funding Opportunities.

--- Due date extended! The Sacramento Municipal Utility District (SMUD) has
released a Request for Offer (RFO) for purchase of renewable energy to help
meet its Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS) goals and its
Greenergy(tm)program requirements.

Renewable electric energy providers and project developers can download the
RFO documents at http://www.bids.smud.org.

The due date for submittal of offers has been extended to November 7 th, and
a second pre-bid conference is scheduled for October 12th.

Events and Publications.

--- American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) Wind Power Finance & Investment
Workshop, October 4 - 5, 2006 New York, New York
http://www.awea.org/events/finance2006oct

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

--- 13TH Alternative Fuels & Vehicles National Conference + Expo 2007
Anaheim, California, April 1-4, 2007
http://www.afvi.org/NationalConference2007

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. 9/16/06 vol. 11 no. 25.

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