Growing hydrogen for the cars of tomorrow - Features
If we're going to run tomorrow's cars on hydrogen, it doesn't come any greener than farm fresh - New Scientist visits the gas growers
DOWN at the farm, glistening polythene tubes stretch into the distance across the salt flats of the southern Californian desert. But they aren't propagating some miraculous new crop that can grow on this barren, sun-baked earth. These water-filled tubes are teeming with countless microscopic algae that have been engineered to soak up the sun's rays and produce hydrogen to fuel the state's cars and other vehicles.
That, at least, is the vision of Tasios Melis of the University of California, Berkeley. And he's not stopping at California. "We've done some calculations," he says. "To displace gasoline use in the US would take hydrogen farms covering about 25,000 square kilometres." To put that in perspective, that's less than a tenth of what the US devotes to growing soya.
Crucially, you can farm algae where conventional crops don't stand a chance. The best areas will be sun-drenched deserts like the salt-covered dried ...
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Tuesday, February 28, 2006
India Mulls Nuke Deal Ahead of Bush Visit - Yahoo! News
NEW DELHI - With India and the United States struggling to work out a nuclear pact before President Bush arrives this week, India's prime minister pledged Monday not to compromise the country's security to seal the deal.
ADVERTISEMENT
During his visit beginning Wednesday, Bush is likely to find excitement over Indian-U.S. ties mixed with ambivalence about sidling up to a nation many see as the world's bully.
The landmark nuclear pact has, for many here, come to illustrate what India stands to gain from America — and what it has to lose.
Talks on the nuclear deal "are currently at a delicate stage," held up by disagreements over which of India's nuclear facilities are to be designated as civilian and which are to be considered military, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told lawmakers Monday.
Separating India's tightly entwined civilian and military nuclear programs is key to the deal, because the United States has only agreed to recognize India as having a civilian nuclear program — not as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.
"We have judged every proposal" from the U.S., Singh said. "The decision of what facilities may be identified as civilian will be made by India alone and not by anyone else."
The pact would allow the United States to provide nuclear technology and fuel desperately needed by India to fuel its booming but energy-starved economy. In return, India has pledged to separate its programs and open the civilian ones to international inspection.
The deal has faced opposition from some members of U.S. Congress, which must approve the pact. They argue it could undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India has refused to sign the treaty and defied the world by openly conducting nuclear weapons tests in 1998. India and Pakistan have often staged tit-for-tat missile tests that raise regional tensions.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president's approach with the pact will not only address energy needs for India, but will also address important proliferation issues.
"We've made some progress. The negotiations are ongoing," he said. "Whether it gets done during the trip or not, we will see. But we believe it will get done."
Indian opponents worry the United States is pushing to classify far too many of India's facilities as civilian, and thus subject to international safeguards. Some see it as an attempt to undermine the country's nuclear weapons program.
Among Indians, there is also "a sense of America being arrogant in its dealings surrounding the nuclear pact," said Nandan Unnikrishnan of New Delhi's Observer Research Foundation.
"India does not like to be perceived as someone who is doing something according to an external diktat," he said. "And the U.S. has been a little ham-handed in terms of trying to get India to see the world its way."
He cited U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford's remark in January that if India did not support referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program that the India-U.S. nuclear pact could "die" in Congress. The U.S. and other Western countries suspect Iran's program is geared toward making weapons.
Parties crucial to the survival of Singh's government seethed at the comment, claiming it as evidence that New Delhi was selling out to Washington for the sake of the nuclear deal.
The deal is also seen by some as Washington's attempt to balance to China's growing economic and political clout — something New Delhi wants no part of.
India and China "will cooperate, they will compete, they will try to balance each other," said analyst C. Raja Mohan. "But we certainly don't want to be seen as acting as a task horse for the Americans."
A poll in India's Outlook magazine illustrates the mixed feelings of many here.
Asked if India could trust the United States in times of need, 55 percent of the 1,634 people interviewed by pollster AC Nielsen said yes. But asked whether they thought America was a bully, 72 percent said yes. No margin of error was given.
"It's a situation of a rich man and a poor man who's getting richer," said Vijay Bhagat, a shop owner in New Delhi. "We need to work with the United States, we need the money — but we Indian people have to keep our self-respect."
There's little doubt that India has reaped tremendous economic benefits from its American ties.
India's outsourcing industry, for example, is expected to bring in $22 billion in revenues this fiscal year, much of that generated by business from America.
The boom has created millions of jobs, and has even given rise to luxury goods market with brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls Royce setting up shop.
But the luxuries are for a tiny few, and the economic liberalization that has stoked the boom has also raised fears among Indians — some 80 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day — that the government will soon have to remove subsidies on essentials such as cooking oil.
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NEW DELHI - With India and the United States struggling to work out a nuclear pact before President Bush arrives this week, India's prime minister pledged Monday not to compromise the country's security to seal the deal.
ADVERTISEMENT
During his visit beginning Wednesday, Bush is likely to find excitement over Indian-U.S. ties mixed with ambivalence about sidling up to a nation many see as the world's bully.
The landmark nuclear pact has, for many here, come to illustrate what India stands to gain from America — and what it has to lose.
Talks on the nuclear deal "are currently at a delicate stage," held up by disagreements over which of India's nuclear facilities are to be designated as civilian and which are to be considered military, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told lawmakers Monday.
Separating India's tightly entwined civilian and military nuclear programs is key to the deal, because the United States has only agreed to recognize India as having a civilian nuclear program — not as a legitimate nuclear weapons state.
"We have judged every proposal" from the U.S., Singh said. "The decision of what facilities may be identified as civilian will be made by India alone and not by anyone else."
The pact would allow the United States to provide nuclear technology and fuel desperately needed by India to fuel its booming but energy-starved economy. In return, India has pledged to separate its programs and open the civilian ones to international inspection.
The deal has faced opposition from some members of U.S. Congress, which must approve the pact. They argue it could undermine the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. India has refused to sign the treaty and defied the world by openly conducting nuclear weapons tests in 1998. India and Pakistan have often staged tit-for-tat missile tests that raise regional tensions.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president's approach with the pact will not only address energy needs for India, but will also address important proliferation issues.
"We've made some progress. The negotiations are ongoing," he said. "Whether it gets done during the trip or not, we will see. But we believe it will get done."
Indian opponents worry the United States is pushing to classify far too many of India's facilities as civilian, and thus subject to international safeguards. Some see it as an attempt to undermine the country's nuclear weapons program.
Among Indians, there is also "a sense of America being arrogant in its dealings surrounding the nuclear pact," said Nandan Unnikrishnan of New Delhi's Observer Research Foundation.
"India does not like to be perceived as someone who is doing something according to an external diktat," he said. "And the U.S. has been a little ham-handed in terms of trying to get India to see the world its way."
He cited U.S. Ambassador David C. Mulford's remark in January that if India did not support referring Iran to the U.N. Security Council over its nuclear program that the India-U.S. nuclear pact could "die" in Congress. The U.S. and other Western countries suspect Iran's program is geared toward making weapons.
Parties crucial to the survival of Singh's government seethed at the comment, claiming it as evidence that New Delhi was selling out to Washington for the sake of the nuclear deal.
The deal is also seen by some as Washington's attempt to balance to China's growing economic and political clout — something New Delhi wants no part of.
India and China "will cooperate, they will compete, they will try to balance each other," said analyst C. Raja Mohan. "But we certainly don't want to be seen as acting as a task horse for the Americans."
A poll in India's Outlook magazine illustrates the mixed feelings of many here.
Asked if India could trust the United States in times of need, 55 percent of the 1,634 people interviewed by pollster AC Nielsen said yes. But asked whether they thought America was a bully, 72 percent said yes. No margin of error was given.
"It's a situation of a rich man and a poor man who's getting richer," said Vijay Bhagat, a shop owner in New Delhi. "We need to work with the United States, we need the money — but we Indian people have to keep our self-respect."
There's little doubt that India has reaped tremendous economic benefits from its American ties.
India's outsourcing industry, for example, is expected to bring in $22 billion in revenues this fiscal year, much of that generated by business from America.
The boom has created millions of jobs, and has even given rise to luxury goods market with brands like Louis Vuitton and Rolls Royce setting up shop.
But the luxuries are for a tiny few, and the economic liberalization that has stoked the boom has also raised fears among Indians — some 80 percent of whom live on less than $2 a day — that the government will soon have to remove subsidies on essentials such as cooking oil.
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US, India to cooperate even if nuclear deal falters - Yahoo! News
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If the United States and India fail to resolve differences over a civilian nuclear deal when President George W. Bush visits New Delhi this week, cooperation between the two nations will still continue in many other areas, officials and experts said on Monday.
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The nuclear deal, agreed in principle last July, would give India access to U.S. civilian nuclear technology and experts say New Delhi views this a litmus test of improving U.S.-India ties.
But the two sides are at odds over a plan to separate India's civilian and military facilities, subjecting civilian sites to international inspections while the military sites remain off-limits.
The pressure is on to reach a deal by the time Bush arrives in New Delhi, but a formula outlined by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh falls short of Bush's stated criteria.
"The Indians are holding fast to a position that is inconsistent with stated U.S. objectives" for an agreement that is credible, transparent and defensible, Robert Einhorn, a U.S. former non-proliferation official, told Reuters.
Washington's aim is to prevent U.S. and other foreign technology from being used in India's nuclear weapons program.
Singh told parliament his government's proposal would put nuclear reactors that generate about 65 percent of atomic power under international scrutiny. But India would not accept such safeguards on its experimental fast-breeder reactor program, a major sticking point in negotiations.
Einhorn said this shows that "instead of leaving themselves with the capacity to produce 6-10 bombs a year, the Indians will have instead a capacity to produce close to 50 bombs a year if they choose to do it."
Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. ambassador to India who is India's U.S. lobbyist, said if there is no agreement by the summit, "it would have a very negative effect on the India elite and the Indian people for years."
Michael Green, Bush's former Asia adviser, said he was "more optimistic ... about ...the sustainability of this (U.S.-India) relationship, with or without the nuclear deal."
Although a delayed nuclear deal could slow improvement in U.S.-India ties, experts said the two countries are involved at so many other levels, including in defense and business, that Bush's vision of a "strategic partnership" would continue.
Defense ties are "the unstated foundation of U.S.-Indian relations" and will expand substantially over time, former Pentagon official Kurt Campbell said recently.
U.S. and Indian military have accelerated training exercises in the Asia-Pacific region and U.S. companies are now competing to sell India advanced jet fighters, he said.
Blackwill said India's modernization also involves acquiring four aircraft carriers. He stressed the value of ties with India's million-man army, the most experienced in combat after the United States and Britain.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Edward Markey (news, bio, voting record), a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was gathering support for a congressional resolution opposing the nuclear deal.
"Members of Congress are only beginning to understand what the ramifications are for the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty," he told a news conference.
Supplying nuclear fuel to countries like India that have not signed the treaty "derails the delicate balance that has been established between nuclear nations and destroys our credibility when insisting that other nations continue to follow this important nonproliferation policy," Markey said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - If the United States and India fail to resolve differences over a civilian nuclear deal when President George W. Bush visits New Delhi this week, cooperation between the two nations will still continue in many other areas, officials and experts said on Monday.
ADVERTISEMENT
The nuclear deal, agreed in principle last July, would give India access to U.S. civilian nuclear technology and experts say New Delhi views this a litmus test of improving U.S.-India ties.
But the two sides are at odds over a plan to separate India's civilian and military facilities, subjecting civilian sites to international inspections while the military sites remain off-limits.
The pressure is on to reach a deal by the time Bush arrives in New Delhi, but a formula outlined by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh falls short of Bush's stated criteria.
"The Indians are holding fast to a position that is inconsistent with stated U.S. objectives" for an agreement that is credible, transparent and defensible, Robert Einhorn, a U.S. former non-proliferation official, told Reuters.
Washington's aim is to prevent U.S. and other foreign technology from being used in India's nuclear weapons program.
Singh told parliament his government's proposal would put nuclear reactors that generate about 65 percent of atomic power under international scrutiny. But India would not accept such safeguards on its experimental fast-breeder reactor program, a major sticking point in negotiations.
Einhorn said this shows that "instead of leaving themselves with the capacity to produce 6-10 bombs a year, the Indians will have instead a capacity to produce close to 50 bombs a year if they choose to do it."
Robert Blackwill, a former U.S. ambassador to India who is India's U.S. lobbyist, said if there is no agreement by the summit, "it would have a very negative effect on the India elite and the Indian people for years."
Michael Green, Bush's former Asia adviser, said he was "more optimistic ... about ...the sustainability of this (U.S.-India) relationship, with or without the nuclear deal."
Although a delayed nuclear deal could slow improvement in U.S.-India ties, experts said the two countries are involved at so many other levels, including in defense and business, that Bush's vision of a "strategic partnership" would continue.
Defense ties are "the unstated foundation of U.S.-Indian relations" and will expand substantially over time, former Pentagon official Kurt Campbell said recently.
U.S. and Indian military have accelerated training exercises in the Asia-Pacific region and U.S. companies are now competing to sell India advanced jet fighters, he said.
Blackwill said India's modernization also involves acquiring four aircraft carriers. He stressed the value of ties with India's million-man army, the most experienced in combat after the United States and Britain.
On Capitol Hill, Rep. Edward Markey (news, bio, voting record), a Massachusetts Democrat, said he was gathering support for a congressional resolution opposing the nuclear deal.
"Members of Congress are only beginning to understand what the ramifications are for the nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty," he told a news conference.
Supplying nuclear fuel to countries like India that have not signed the treaty "derails the delicate balance that has been established between nuclear nations and destroys our credibility when insisting that other nations continue to follow this important nonproliferation policy," Markey said.
Indian PM defends US nuclear deal
Indian PM Manmohan Singh has said his government will not compromise national security in negotiating a landmark nuclear deal with the US.
Mr Singh was speaking in parliament ahead of US President George W Bush's India visit which begins on Wednesday.
Under the deal, India would gain access to US civilian nuclear technology.
India is required to place its civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards and open them to inspection under the deal.
Non-proliferation fears
"No part of this process would affect or compromise our strategic [nuclear] programme," Mr Singh told parliament in the Indian capital, Delhi.
There are fears the deal may boost India's nuclear arms programme
He said the government had "judged every proposal" from the US and the "decision of what facilities may be identified as civilian will be made by India alone and not by anyone else".
India says it has made progress in recent talks with the US in Delhi aimed at ironing out key differences over a proposed landmark nuclear deal.
However, a White House aide sounded a cautious note, saying a deal may not be agreed during the president's trip.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has said the US would use the Bush visit "as a forcing function" to secure an agreement.
"If we can, great. If not, we'll continue to work on it after the visit's over," he told reporters.
Critics of the accord, which has to be ratified by the US Congress, fear it could harm non-proliferation efforts.
Atomic weapons
India's desire to bar international inspectors from its "fast breeder" programme has worried Washington, observers say.
An aide to Mr Singh said last week there was no question of opening up the fast breeder programme.
Fast breeder reactors are particularly suited to producing plutonium for atomic weapons.
If ratified by the US Congress, the controversial deal would give India access to nuclear fuel and technology, including reactors.
There are fears it could help India develop more powerful nuclear weapons. India is bordered by two other nuclear-armed states, Pakistan and China.
India is required to place its civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards and open them to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Indian PM Manmohan Singh has said his government will not compromise national security in negotiating a landmark nuclear deal with the US.
Mr Singh was speaking in parliament ahead of US President George W Bush's India visit which begins on Wednesday.
Under the deal, India would gain access to US civilian nuclear technology.
India is required to place its civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards and open them to inspection under the deal.
Non-proliferation fears
"No part of this process would affect or compromise our strategic [nuclear] programme," Mr Singh told parliament in the Indian capital, Delhi.
There are fears the deal may boost India's nuclear arms programme
He said the government had "judged every proposal" from the US and the "decision of what facilities may be identified as civilian will be made by India alone and not by anyone else".
India says it has made progress in recent talks with the US in Delhi aimed at ironing out key differences over a proposed landmark nuclear deal.
However, a White House aide sounded a cautious note, saying a deal may not be agreed during the president's trip.
National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley has said the US would use the Bush visit "as a forcing function" to secure an agreement.
"If we can, great. If not, we'll continue to work on it after the visit's over," he told reporters.
Critics of the accord, which has to be ratified by the US Congress, fear it could harm non-proliferation efforts.
Atomic weapons
India's desire to bar international inspectors from its "fast breeder" programme has worried Washington, observers say.
An aide to Mr Singh said last week there was no question of opening up the fast breeder programme.
Fast breeder reactors are particularly suited to producing plutonium for atomic weapons.
If ratified by the US Congress, the controversial deal would give India access to nuclear fuel and technology, including reactors.
There are fears it could help India develop more powerful nuclear weapons. India is bordered by two other nuclear-armed states, Pakistan and China.
India is required to place its civilian nuclear facilities under international safeguards and open them to inspection by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).
Baltic states agree nuclear plant: "The three Baltic states of Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia have signed an agreement to build a new nuclear power plant in Lithuania.
Their prime ministers said they wanted the Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian state-owned energy companies each to take an equal share in the project.
At present the Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant generates more than 70% of Lithuania's electricity.
It also supplies Estonia and Latvia with power.
But as part of the deal which allowed Lithuania to join the European Union in 2004, Ignalina has to be closed down.
That process will be complete by the end of 2009 - leaving the Baltic states reliant on Russian gas for almost all of their power.
For countries which only gained independence from the Soviet Union 15 years ago, that has never been a popular prospect.
And since the row between Ukraine and Russia which disrupted gas supplies to several European countries, there has been increasing political pressure on the Baltic leaders to find alternative sources of power.
The agreement that the three prime ministers have signed also commits them to draw-up a pan-Baltic energy policy by the end of this year and to push for the development of a joint EU policy, which they hope would make them less vulnerable to any rise in the price of gas.
However, it is on a new, large nuclear power plant that most hopes are pinned.
But with few details as yet of how they will fund it, or even a firm decision on where it will be built, the Baltic states may face a gap between the closure of Ignalina and the opening of any new nuclear plant when they will have no choice but to rely on imported gas from Russia.
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Their prime ministers said they wanted the Lithuanian, Estonian and Latvian state-owned energy companies each to take an equal share in the project.
At present the Soviet-built Ignalina nuclear power plant generates more than 70% of Lithuania's electricity.
It also supplies Estonia and Latvia with power.
But as part of the deal which allowed Lithuania to join the European Union in 2004, Ignalina has to be closed down.
That process will be complete by the end of 2009 - leaving the Baltic states reliant on Russian gas for almost all of their power.
For countries which only gained independence from the Soviet Union 15 years ago, that has never been a popular prospect.
And since the row between Ukraine and Russia which disrupted gas supplies to several European countries, there has been increasing political pressure on the Baltic leaders to find alternative sources of power.
The agreement that the three prime ministers have signed also commits them to draw-up a pan-Baltic energy policy by the end of this year and to push for the development of a joint EU policy, which they hope would make them less vulnerable to any rise in the price of gas.
However, it is on a new, large nuclear power plant that most hopes are pinned.
But with few details as yet of how they will fund it, or even a firm decision on where it will be built, the Baltic states may face a gap between the closure of Ignalina and the opening of any new nuclear plant when they will have no choice but to rely on imported gas from Russia.
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Novatel Wireless Updates EV-DO and HSDPA Embedded Module Development Programs
US : Novatel Wireless announced an update to its embedded module developments across major Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) and High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) standards, as follows:
Expedite EV620 EV-DO Wireless PCI Express Mini Card
An embedded module for integration into laptops, the PCI Express Mini Card is a form factor specification designed in mobile platforms and is optimized for most laptop systems. The Expedite EV620 provides wireless broadband data access on EV-DO networks at speeds up to 2.4 Mbps, and is designed for easy integration into laptop platforms and other wireless devices. The Expedite EV620 also includes receive diversity on 800 and 1900 MHz band CDMA2000 1xEV-DO and CDMA2000 1X networks, providing reliable connectivity, maximum data throughput and efficient management of device power consumption. The Novatel Wireless Expedite EV620 is backward compatible to CDMA2000 1X for true nationwide data connectivity in the US. With connection speeds comparable to DSL, laptops can quickly and easily stream audio and video files and download data-intensive attachments and multimedia applications anywhere within an EV-DO service area.
Expedite EU730(TM) and Expedite EU740(TM) HSDPA PCI Express Mini Cards
The Expedite EU730 operates on 850 and 1900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA networks in North America, while the Expedite U740 operates on 2100 MHz UMTS/HSDPA networks in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The Expedite EU730 and EU740 enable data speeds up to 1.8 Mbps, and are backward compatible to 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz Enhanced Data Rate for Global Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) networks for wireless data access worldwide. Laptops integrated with the EU730 will be targeted for the North American market, while the EU740 integrated laptops will be available for the European market.
"This achievement is a testament to the quality and diversity of our broadband data solutions," said Peter Leparulo ( inset ), chief executive officer for Novatel Wireless. "We are currently working with several leading laptop and other mobile computing manufacturers to offer consumers and business professionals the convenience and flexibility of wireless broadband computing from any location."
PCI Express Mini Card is a form factor specification designed in mobile platforms and is optimized for most laptop systems. The PCI Express Mini Card design of the Expedite EV620, the EU730 and EU740 is standard in most notebooks, providing quick and easy integration, and minimizing space on the laptop motherboard. This enables platform manufacturers to reduce integration costs and maintain external slots for other functions.
US : Novatel Wireless announced an update to its embedded module developments across major Evolution Data Only (EV-DO) and High Speed Data Packet Access (HSDPA) standards, as follows:
Expedite EV620 EV-DO Wireless PCI Express Mini Card
An embedded module for integration into laptops, the PCI Express Mini Card is a form factor specification designed in mobile platforms and is optimized for most laptop systems. The Expedite EV620 provides wireless broadband data access on EV-DO networks at speeds up to 2.4 Mbps, and is designed for easy integration into laptop platforms and other wireless devices. The Expedite EV620 also includes receive diversity on 800 and 1900 MHz band CDMA2000 1xEV-DO and CDMA2000 1X networks, providing reliable connectivity, maximum data throughput and efficient management of device power consumption. The Novatel Wireless Expedite EV620 is backward compatible to CDMA2000 1X for true nationwide data connectivity in the US. With connection speeds comparable to DSL, laptops can quickly and easily stream audio and video files and download data-intensive attachments and multimedia applications anywhere within an EV-DO service area.
Expedite EU730(TM) and Expedite EU740(TM) HSDPA PCI Express Mini Cards
The Expedite EU730 operates on 850 and 1900 MHz UMTS/HSDPA networks in North America, while the Expedite U740 operates on 2100 MHz UMTS/HSDPA networks in Asia, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. The Expedite EU730 and EU740 enable data speeds up to 1.8 Mbps, and are backward compatible to 850, 900, 1800 and 1900 MHz Enhanced Data Rate for Global Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS) and Global System for Mobile Communication (GSM) networks for wireless data access worldwide. Laptops integrated with the EU730 will be targeted for the North American market, while the EU740 integrated laptops will be available for the European market.
"This achievement is a testament to the quality and diversity of our broadband data solutions," said Peter Leparulo ( inset ), chief executive officer for Novatel Wireless. "We are currently working with several leading laptop and other mobile computing manufacturers to offer consumers and business professionals the convenience and flexibility of wireless broadband computing from any location."
PCI Express Mini Card is a form factor specification designed in mobile platforms and is optimized for most laptop systems. The PCI Express Mini Card design of the Expedite EV620, the EU730 and EU740 is standard in most notebooks, providing quick and easy integration, and minimizing space on the laptop motherboard. This enables platform manufacturers to reduce integration costs and maintain external slots for other functions.
Ausam Energy announces spudding of Loy Yang-2 well
CALGARY, Feb. 17 /CNW/ - Ausam Energy Corporation ("Ausam" or the"Company") is pleased to provide an update on its activities in Australia. Drilling has commenced on the Loy Yang - 2 exploration/commitment welllocated at PEP 166 in the Onshore Gippsland Basin in Victoria. The operator isPetro Tech, a subsidiary of Lakes Oil NL ("Lakes"). The drilling of the wellis expected to take approximately 20 days. Ausam has a 50% interest in PEP 166, an 877,000 acre permit. Ausam haselected to reduce its percentage interest from 50% to 25% in an 8,650-acreenvelope (the "Loy Yang Block") covering the Loy Yang Dome prospect inexchange for Lakes funding 100% of the costs to drill, fracc, test andcomplete the well. Ausam will retain its 50% interest in the remainder of PEP166. About Ausam Ausam is a public company trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under thesymbol AUZ. Ausam, through its Australian subsidiary Ausam Resources Pty Ltd,is engaged in the business of oil and natural gas exploration in Queensland,Victoria and Western Australia. Ausam is applying proven North Americandrilling and completion techniques that have not traditionally been used inthe Australian energy industry. Ausam's growth strategy includes the organicdevelopment of its current holdings and selective corporate transactions.Ausam presently has permit interests over approximately 3.4 million gross(2.1 million net) acres of exploration lands onshore Australia. The TSX Venture Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of theproposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents ofthis press release. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does notaccept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This newsrelease may contain forward-looking information. Actual future results maydiffer materially from those contemplated. %SEDAR: 00008979EFor further information: Mark G. Avery, Chairman, President and CEO,
mavery@ausamenergy.com; Alastair J. Robertson, Chief Financial Officer,
arobertson@ausamenergy.com; Ausam Energy Corporation, 1430, 1122 - 4th
Street S.W., Calgary, Alberta T2R 1M1, Tel: (403) 215-2380, Fax:
(403) 206-1457, W
CALGARY, Feb. 17 /CNW/ - Ausam Energy Corporation ("Ausam" or the"Company") is pleased to provide an update on its activities in Australia. Drilling has commenced on the Loy Yang - 2 exploration/commitment welllocated at PEP 166 in the Onshore Gippsland Basin in Victoria. The operator isPetro Tech, a subsidiary of Lakes Oil NL ("Lakes"). The drilling of the wellis expected to take approximately 20 days. Ausam has a 50% interest in PEP 166, an 877,000 acre permit. Ausam haselected to reduce its percentage interest from 50% to 25% in an 8,650-acreenvelope (the "Loy Yang Block") covering the Loy Yang Dome prospect inexchange for Lakes funding 100% of the costs to drill, fracc, test andcomplete the well. Ausam will retain its 50% interest in the remainder of PEP166. About Ausam Ausam is a public company trading on the TSX Venture Exchange under thesymbol AUZ. Ausam, through its Australian subsidiary Ausam Resources Pty Ltd,is engaged in the business of oil and natural gas exploration in Queensland,Victoria and Western Australia. Ausam is applying proven North Americandrilling and completion techniques that have not traditionally been used inthe Australian energy industry. Ausam's growth strategy includes the organicdevelopment of its current holdings and selective corporate transactions.Ausam presently has permit interests over approximately 3.4 million gross(2.1 million net) acres of exploration lands onshore Australia. The TSX Venture Exchange has in no way passed upon the merits of theproposed transaction and has neither approved nor disapproved the contents ofthis press release. The TSX Venture Exchange has not reviewed and does notaccept responsibility for the adequacy or accuracy of this release. This newsrelease may contain forward-looking information. Actual future results maydiffer materially from those contemplated. %SEDAR: 00008979EFor further information: Mark G. Avery, Chairman, President and CEO,
mavery@ausamenergy.com; Alastair J. Robertson, Chief Financial Officer,
arobertson@ausamenergy.com; Ausam Energy Corporation, 1430, 1122 - 4th
Street S.W., Calgary, Alberta T2R 1M1, Tel: (403) 215-2380, Fax:
(403) 206-1457, W
Revolutionary Fuel-Cell Technology at UTC 's SimCenter
: "UTC and local officials have unveiled a fuel cell system at the Sim Center. The box is just one of two in the country producing electricity and hydrogen at the same time. The other is located in Silicon Valley. The fuel cell project already produces electricity, and could be part of the power lighting your home. Local officials hope the Tennessee Valley will be a leader in researching and producing alternative energy. The machine runs on natural gas, and has very low carbon dioxide emissions. The fuel cell could heat a six-thousand square foot home.
Daily news, weather and more provided by
WDEF - News 12 & Media General News Service"
: "UTC and local officials have unveiled a fuel cell system at the Sim Center. The box is just one of two in the country producing electricity and hydrogen at the same time. The other is located in Silicon Valley. The fuel cell project already produces electricity, and could be part of the power lighting your home. Local officials hope the Tennessee Valley will be a leader in researching and producing alternative energy. The machine runs on natural gas, and has very low carbon dioxide emissions. The fuel cell could heat a six-thousand square foot home.
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WDEF - News 12 & Media General News Service"
Green machines - Business - Business - theage.com.au
Hybrid cars run on the smell of an oily rag and emit much less of those horrible greenhouse gases. Many say they are the future, but motoring giants such as BMW and Nissan-Renault call them a stop-gap ahead of a bigger revolution to come. Richard Webb reports.
You can't beat the story surrounding hybrid cars at the moment. What with petrol at more than $1.10 a litre and concern over our warming planet following the hottest year on record, they seemingly kill two birds with one finely engineered eco-friendly stone.
Japanese car giant Toyota, which is neck to neck with General Motors as the world's biggest car maker, is leading the way in the hybrid field. It expects to sell 400,000 of its market-leading Prius petrol-electric cars worldwide this year on the way to a target of 1 million cars a year by the end of the decade.
Demand for these cars has gone through the roof. The Prius is one of only two hybrid cars on sale in Australia - Honda launched a new generation Civic Hybrid at the Melbourne International Motor Show which closes today - and there is a three-month waiting list for them. Such is the demand that second-hand Prius cars have been known to sell for more than they cost new.
By recycling energy they are eco-friendly and if you buy one of the new Civics, Honda will also plant six trees every year for the first three years to offset the greenhouse gas emissions you create while driving.
But for all their green credentials, these cars have their drawbacks. They operate using a petrol motor in conjunction with an electric motor powered by a large rechargeable battery stored onboard. The interaction between the two is controlled by a computer.
This additional technology means more weight and comes at a price. The addition of a hybrid system adds 20 per cent or more to the vehicle's construction cost while the extra weight of the large battery reduces fuel efficiency when the electric motor isn't in play.
In both the Prius and Civic Hybrid, the onboard battery is charged when you brake and this energy is then used to power the electric motor, which kicks in when the vehicle is travelling slowly or accelerating.
It's a great combination for stop-start city driving as it allows the electric system to recharge often and take more of the engine burden but is not so good when you hit the open road. Tests have shown that when driving distances, you can get better fuel efficiency with diesel vehicles, partly because they don't have to lug a big battery.
Still, something has to give. As China online publisher Lyric Hughes Hale said late last year, the rise of China means "in automotive terms, the death of the internal combustion engine".
Pay-back time
Consumer group Choice road-tested both the Prius and the old Civic Hybrid and liked what it found. It said the vehicles emitted considerably less greenhouse gas - some studies say up to 66 per cent of that of the average family car - were reliable, and that once you got over the quirks (the Prius can be quiet when the electric motor is taking the strain at low speeds) delivered a similar drive to a standard sedan.
But Choice found that based on fuel at $1 a litre, and travelling an average 15,000 kilometres a year, it would take more than nine years of driving to recoup the difference in purchase price between the Prius and Toyota's standard Camry. The time was more than 17 years for the old Honda Civic Hybrid versus its Honda equivalent, although the big gain with Honda's new generation hybrid vehicle, launched last week, is that Honda has reduced its fuel consumption from 5.2 litres per 100 kilometres to 4.6 litres.
Should petrol hit $2 a litre though, Choice said the payback time on the Prius would drop to 4.5 years. "We think either is a perfectly acceptable alternative to a car powered by fossil fuels alone."
They handle well
RACV chief engineer Michael Case has put the Prius and the previous Civic Hybrid through their paces and gives them a resounding thumbs-up. "They are surprisingly good to drive and we didn't see any technical issues," he said. "In many ways they were just like driving a normal petrol engine vehicle."
Under RACV tests, the Prius registered fuel efficiency of 5.1 litres per 100 kilometres against an average small car consumption of 8 to 9 litres per 100 kilometres. The Civic Hybrid turned in 6 litres but this was for the previous model. "They are interesting vehicles and while the initial models have been a little expensive, hopefully when they move to newer models and sales have increased, the purchase price will fall to more in line with that of a standard vehicle," he said.
Not convinced
Toyota, and to a lesser extent Honda, are going big on petrol-electric hybrids but some other major car manufacturers are not convinced. BMW Group chairman Helmut Panke said that while hybrids had a future they were not the total solution. "Hybrid is a niche application," he said.
"In typical driving conditions there are vehicles that are much more efficient today than the hybrids. I would predict that in the next five to eight years that every manufacturer will have, let's say, one hybrid vehicle in their line-up. But hybrid is not going to be the complete portfolio solution."
Nissan-Renault chief Carlos Ghosn was more damning. "Hybrid sales account for less than 1 per cent of global sales - it is a niche technology," he said. "The question is how much the consumer is willing to pay for them and if they are unsure at $US70 a barrel (for oil) then I would be very worried."
This lack of conviction was reflected in US President George Bush's advanced energy initiative to lower US oil consumption. Mr Bush's State of the Union address this month flagged that another $US30 million ($A41 million) would be spent to speed up the battery development for hybrid vehicles but $US289 million was allocated for hydrogen fuel cell development.
The alternatives
There are two ways to greatly improve petrol-electric technology and both are actively being sought. One is to reduce the weight of the onboard battery. This month US battery giant Johnson Controls teamed up with French battery group Saft to begin developing a larger version of the lithium-ion batteries now used in electronic equipment such as mobile phones. These batteries emit more power per battery kilo, potentially bringing more fuel efficiency gains. But they bring with them a problem as lithium explodes relatively easily.
A second option is to team the electric motor with a more efficient diesel engine for further fuel consumption gains. But some say the real solution will occur when we finally move to a new fuel altogether and at the moment, billions of dollars are being ploughed into developing hydrogen fuel cells.
Hydrogen fuel cells are clean as a whistle as they use a readily available gas and emit no pollutants, just water vapour. However the technology looks to be at least five years away from being usable and to date involves extremely high pressures, raising explosion issues.
Even when marketable, there is the huge hurdle that any new fuel faces - the need to introduce hydrogen servicing facilities into fuel stations.
Page 1 2 3Next pageView full articleEmail Print
Hybrid cars run on the smell of an oily rag and emit much less of those horrible greenhouse gases. Many say they are the future, but motoring giants such as BMW and Nissan-Renault call them a stop-gap ahead of a bigger revolution to come. Richard Webb reports.
You can't beat the story surrounding hybrid cars at the moment. What with petrol at more than $1.10 a litre and concern over our warming planet following the hottest year on record, they seemingly kill two birds with one finely engineered eco-friendly stone.
Japanese car giant Toyota, which is neck to neck with General Motors as the world's biggest car maker, is leading the way in the hybrid field. It expects to sell 400,000 of its market-leading Prius petrol-electric cars worldwide this year on the way to a target of 1 million cars a year by the end of the decade.
Demand for these cars has gone through the roof. The Prius is one of only two hybrid cars on sale in Australia - Honda launched a new generation Civic Hybrid at the Melbourne International Motor Show which closes today - and there is a three-month waiting list for them. Such is the demand that second-hand Prius cars have been known to sell for more than they cost new.
By recycling energy they are eco-friendly and if you buy one of the new Civics, Honda will also plant six trees every year for the first three years to offset the greenhouse gas emissions you create while driving.
But for all their green credentials, these cars have their drawbacks. They operate using a petrol motor in conjunction with an electric motor powered by a large rechargeable battery stored onboard. The interaction between the two is controlled by a computer.
This additional technology means more weight and comes at a price. The addition of a hybrid system adds 20 per cent or more to the vehicle's construction cost while the extra weight of the large battery reduces fuel efficiency when the electric motor isn't in play.
In both the Prius and Civic Hybrid, the onboard battery is charged when you brake and this energy is then used to power the electric motor, which kicks in when the vehicle is travelling slowly or accelerating.
It's a great combination for stop-start city driving as it allows the electric system to recharge often and take more of the engine burden but is not so good when you hit the open road. Tests have shown that when driving distances, you can get better fuel efficiency with diesel vehicles, partly because they don't have to lug a big battery.
Still, something has to give. As China online publisher Lyric Hughes Hale said late last year, the rise of China means "in automotive terms, the death of the internal combustion engine".
Pay-back time
Consumer group Choice road-tested both the Prius and the old Civic Hybrid and liked what it found. It said the vehicles emitted considerably less greenhouse gas - some studies say up to 66 per cent of that of the average family car - were reliable, and that once you got over the quirks (the Prius can be quiet when the electric motor is taking the strain at low speeds) delivered a similar drive to a standard sedan.
But Choice found that based on fuel at $1 a litre, and travelling an average 15,000 kilometres a year, it would take more than nine years of driving to recoup the difference in purchase price between the Prius and Toyota's standard Camry. The time was more than 17 years for the old Honda Civic Hybrid versus its Honda equivalent, although the big gain with Honda's new generation hybrid vehicle, launched last week, is that Honda has reduced its fuel consumption from 5.2 litres per 100 kilometres to 4.6 litres.
Should petrol hit $2 a litre though, Choice said the payback time on the Prius would drop to 4.5 years. "We think either is a perfectly acceptable alternative to a car powered by fossil fuels alone."
They handle well
RACV chief engineer Michael Case has put the Prius and the previous Civic Hybrid through their paces and gives them a resounding thumbs-up. "They are surprisingly good to drive and we didn't see any technical issues," he said. "In many ways they were just like driving a normal petrol engine vehicle."
Under RACV tests, the Prius registered fuel efficiency of 5.1 litres per 100 kilometres against an average small car consumption of 8 to 9 litres per 100 kilometres. The Civic Hybrid turned in 6 litres but this was for the previous model. "They are interesting vehicles and while the initial models have been a little expensive, hopefully when they move to newer models and sales have increased, the purchase price will fall to more in line with that of a standard vehicle," he said.
Not convinced
Toyota, and to a lesser extent Honda, are going big on petrol-electric hybrids but some other major car manufacturers are not convinced. BMW Group chairman Helmut Panke said that while hybrids had a future they were not the total solution. "Hybrid is a niche application," he said.
"In typical driving conditions there are vehicles that are much more efficient today than the hybrids. I would predict that in the next five to eight years that every manufacturer will have, let's say, one hybrid vehicle in their line-up. But hybrid is not going to be the complete portfolio solution."
Nissan-Renault chief Carlos Ghosn was more damning. "Hybrid sales account for less than 1 per cent of global sales - it is a niche technology," he said. "The question is how much the consumer is willing to pay for them and if they are unsure at $US70 a barrel (for oil) then I would be very worried."
This lack of conviction was reflected in US President George Bush's advanced energy initiative to lower US oil consumption. Mr Bush's State of the Union address this month flagged that another $US30 million ($A41 million) would be spent to speed up the battery development for hybrid vehicles but $US289 million was allocated for hydrogen fuel cell development.
The alternatives
There are two ways to greatly improve petrol-electric technology and both are actively being sought. One is to reduce the weight of the onboard battery. This month US battery giant Johnson Controls teamed up with French battery group Saft to begin developing a larger version of the lithium-ion batteries now used in electronic equipment such as mobile phones. These batteries emit more power per battery kilo, potentially bringing more fuel efficiency gains. But they bring with them a problem as lithium explodes relatively easily.
A second option is to team the electric motor with a more efficient diesel engine for further fuel consumption gains. But some say the real solution will occur when we finally move to a new fuel altogether and at the moment, billions of dollars are being ploughed into developing hydrogen fuel cells.
Hydrogen fuel cells are clean as a whistle as they use a readily available gas and emit no pollutants, just water vapour. However the technology looks to be at least five years away from being usable and to date involves extremely high pressures, raising explosion issues.
Even when marketable, there is the huge hurdle that any new fuel faces - the need to introduce hydrogen servicing facilities into fuel stations.
Page 1 2 3Next pageView full articleEmail Print
Bush�s alternative energy R&D plan absent from key economic report
Three Democrats have contacted the White House Council of Economic Advisers to ask why the group’s new annual report fails to mention President Bush’s plan to free the US from dependence on Middle East oil through investments in technologies such as hybrid vehicles, electric cars and fuel cells. These missing details were all key elements of Bush’s State of the Union speech last month.
In a February 16 letter to the council, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-CA, Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, and Jim Davis, D-FL, ask why the document, released on February 13, differs so significantly from the President’s energy goals articulated in his State of the Union Address.
“While the CEA Report does describe many policy proposals supported by the Administration, it does not appear to reflect the President’s State of the Union energy plan,” the lawmakers state. “We request an explanation of how we are to interpret this report, and whether the American people should dismiss the President’s State of the Union Address, as apparently the Council of Economic Advisers has.”
The report does, however, refer to its support for a number of the Administration’s energy policies, including greater access to oil and natural gas resources and opening a small portion of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for this purpose, noting that the US holds only 2 percent of the world’s total proven oil reserves. By comparison, Saudi Arabia holds 21 percent of the oil, while Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates are at 10, 9 and 8 percent, respectively.
Other sites House Government Reform Democratic press release (PDF). Council of Economic Advisers annual report (PDF).
Three Democrats have contacted the White House Council of Economic Advisers to ask why the group’s new annual report fails to mention President Bush’s plan to free the US from dependence on Middle East oil through investments in technologies such as hybrid vehicles, electric cars and fuel cells. These missing details were all key elements of Bush’s State of the Union speech last month.
In a February 16 letter to the council, Reps. Henry Waxman, D-CA, Marcy Kaptur, D-OH, and Jim Davis, D-FL, ask why the document, released on February 13, differs so significantly from the President’s energy goals articulated in his State of the Union Address.
“While the CEA Report does describe many policy proposals supported by the Administration, it does not appear to reflect the President’s State of the Union energy plan,” the lawmakers state. “We request an explanation of how we are to interpret this report, and whether the American people should dismiss the President’s State of the Union Address, as apparently the Council of Economic Advisers has.”
The report does, however, refer to its support for a number of the Administration’s energy policies, including greater access to oil and natural gas resources and opening a small portion of the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for this purpose, noting that the US holds only 2 percent of the world’s total proven oil reserves. By comparison, Saudi Arabia holds 21 percent of the oil, while Iran, Iraq and the United Arab Emirates are at 10, 9 and 8 percent, respectively.
Other sites House Government Reform Democratic press release (PDF). Council of Economic Advisers annual report (PDF).
Ethanol could be star player in hydrogen fuel cell technology
FARGO, N.D. - We're all aware of how easy it is to pull into a service station and fill the gas tank with an ethanol blend gasoline. But in the not too distant future that ethanol could be a means of adding hydrogen to a storage tank on our car to power the fuel cell that will propel the car, according to Dr. Sandy Thomas, president of H2Gen Innovations, Inc. and a speaker at the North Dakota Corn Growers annual convention in Fargo on Feb. 8.
Thomas, along with many others, predicts it's just a matter of time until the internal combustion engine becomes a thing of the past and fuel cell technology will take its place in powering automobiles and other vehicles.
“Someday our grandchildren will have to go to a museum to see an internal combustion engine,” he said, “and they will say, ‘What were they thinking back then?'”
In powering a car with hydrogen, the hydrogen fuel cell combines oxygen from the air and hydrogen using a chemical process that will generate electricity and water as a byproduct. The electricity is then used to run an electric motor, which powers the car's wheels and provides motion.
Thomas has the vision that in maybe 10 to 15 years the average motorist will pull into a local filling station and fill with hydrogen and drive off for another 300 to 400 miles before needing to refill the hydrogen tank. The hydrogen would come from a hydrogen generator module, which his firm now makes, that would take the hydrogen portion out of such things as natural gas or ethanol and compress the hydrogen and store it at the local filling station, where it would be dispensed to the motorist.
At the present time, Thomas is using natural gas for the hydrogen conversion process, but he claims ethanol is by far the most economical and efficient way of transporting hydrogen from the corn field to the consumers' car.
Thomas estimates it would cost around $13 billion annually to convert the present gas station infrastructure to a “hydrogen from ethanol process,” which sounds like a lot of money. But he claims that pales in comparison to the $80 billion a year cost currently being spent to keep our traditional fossil fuel system intact.
Society will also realize a huge savings by converting to a hydrogen fuel system. In the year 2040 Thomas predicts the savings to society will amount to $200 billion dollars when the pollution and oil import savings are added together and that figure will shoot up to a savings of $500 billion by the end of the century.
Efficiency factors also favor the hydrogen fuel cell. According to Thomas, the internal combustion engine is 12 to 14 percent efficient at best. A fuel cell, on the other hand, has an efficiency rating of around 40 percent and the electric motor driven by electricity from the fuel cell is around 90 percent efficient. When all of the fuel cell components are combined they end up being 2.4 times more efficient than an internal combustion engine.
There have been only a few fuel cell vehicles manufactured at this time so the costs are extremely high, however most of the major auto makers are devoting large amounts of research dollars into fuel cell vehicles and Thomas predicts their costs will start to come down.
When asked if these fuel cell vehicles would have enough power, Thomas noted that an electric motor has a very high torque rating, and when Ford started to test market a fuel cell vehicle, they had to install a governor to limit the electrical flow when starting up, otherwise the rapid torque caused the tires to rip apart. Thomas also expects longer vehicle life once the fuel cell vehicle becomes commonplace.
“Many of the delivery trucks in Europe now are powered by electrical motors, with the power coming from batteries on the vehicles, not fuel cells,” he said. “But these electric motor vehicles are seeing a fairly maintenance-free life of 300 to 400 thousand miles since there are so few moving parts.”
Even though attendees at the corn convention were thinking in terms of ethanol from corn, Thomas pointed out that ethanol from any product would work equally well, whether it be from grain products, biomass products like switchgrass, animal waste, forestry products or even municipal solid waste.
He also noted that for this process to be completed, a transition strategy must be completed on two fronts: First, the auto industry needs to move from the internal combustion engine to hybrid electric vehicles, some of which may be partially fueled by a fuel cell, and then to a total hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
And second, the hydrogen fueling business must transition itself from using natural gas to produce hydrogen, which only lessens our dependence on fossil fuels partially, to using ethanol for hydrogen, which will switch the hydrogen supply to a totally renewable source and dry up our need for imported oil.
Finally, in the area of cost, once the process is up and running, Thomas predicts that drivers will see hydrogen costs less than $1.50/gallon gasoline equivalent, based on a range basis.
“I really believe this needs to be our future,” he said.
Print this story
E-mail this story
FARGO, N.D. - We're all aware of how easy it is to pull into a service station and fill the gas tank with an ethanol blend gasoline. But in the not too distant future that ethanol could be a means of adding hydrogen to a storage tank on our car to power the fuel cell that will propel the car, according to Dr. Sandy Thomas, president of H2Gen Innovations, Inc. and a speaker at the North Dakota Corn Growers annual convention in Fargo on Feb. 8.
Thomas, along with many others, predicts it's just a matter of time until the internal combustion engine becomes a thing of the past and fuel cell technology will take its place in powering automobiles and other vehicles.
“Someday our grandchildren will have to go to a museum to see an internal combustion engine,” he said, “and they will say, ‘What were they thinking back then?'”
In powering a car with hydrogen, the hydrogen fuel cell combines oxygen from the air and hydrogen using a chemical process that will generate electricity and water as a byproduct. The electricity is then used to run an electric motor, which powers the car's wheels and provides motion.
Thomas has the vision that in maybe 10 to 15 years the average motorist will pull into a local filling station and fill with hydrogen and drive off for another 300 to 400 miles before needing to refill the hydrogen tank. The hydrogen would come from a hydrogen generator module, which his firm now makes, that would take the hydrogen portion out of such things as natural gas or ethanol and compress the hydrogen and store it at the local filling station, where it would be dispensed to the motorist.
At the present time, Thomas is using natural gas for the hydrogen conversion process, but he claims ethanol is by far the most economical and efficient way of transporting hydrogen from the corn field to the consumers' car.
Thomas estimates it would cost around $13 billion annually to convert the present gas station infrastructure to a “hydrogen from ethanol process,” which sounds like a lot of money. But he claims that pales in comparison to the $80 billion a year cost currently being spent to keep our traditional fossil fuel system intact.
Society will also realize a huge savings by converting to a hydrogen fuel system. In the year 2040 Thomas predicts the savings to society will amount to $200 billion dollars when the pollution and oil import savings are added together and that figure will shoot up to a savings of $500 billion by the end of the century.
Efficiency factors also favor the hydrogen fuel cell. According to Thomas, the internal combustion engine is 12 to 14 percent efficient at best. A fuel cell, on the other hand, has an efficiency rating of around 40 percent and the electric motor driven by electricity from the fuel cell is around 90 percent efficient. When all of the fuel cell components are combined they end up being 2.4 times more efficient than an internal combustion engine.
There have been only a few fuel cell vehicles manufactured at this time so the costs are extremely high, however most of the major auto makers are devoting large amounts of research dollars into fuel cell vehicles and Thomas predicts their costs will start to come down.
When asked if these fuel cell vehicles would have enough power, Thomas noted that an electric motor has a very high torque rating, and when Ford started to test market a fuel cell vehicle, they had to install a governor to limit the electrical flow when starting up, otherwise the rapid torque caused the tires to rip apart. Thomas also expects longer vehicle life once the fuel cell vehicle becomes commonplace.
“Many of the delivery trucks in Europe now are powered by electrical motors, with the power coming from batteries on the vehicles, not fuel cells,” he said. “But these electric motor vehicles are seeing a fairly maintenance-free life of 300 to 400 thousand miles since there are so few moving parts.”
Even though attendees at the corn convention were thinking in terms of ethanol from corn, Thomas pointed out that ethanol from any product would work equally well, whether it be from grain products, biomass products like switchgrass, animal waste, forestry products or even municipal solid waste.
He also noted that for this process to be completed, a transition strategy must be completed on two fronts: First, the auto industry needs to move from the internal combustion engine to hybrid electric vehicles, some of which may be partially fueled by a fuel cell, and then to a total hydrogen fuel cell vehicle.
And second, the hydrogen fueling business must transition itself from using natural gas to produce hydrogen, which only lessens our dependence on fossil fuels partially, to using ethanol for hydrogen, which will switch the hydrogen supply to a totally renewable source and dry up our need for imported oil.
Finally, in the area of cost, once the process is up and running, Thomas predicts that drivers will see hydrogen costs less than $1.50/gallon gasoline equivalent, based on a range basis.
“I really believe this needs to be our future,” he said.
Print this story
E-mail this story
EWE forges ahead with fuel cell technology
close collaboration with politicians for market launch
cooperation with European Fuel Cell Technology GmbH
Oldenburg--Businessmen and politicians intend to collaborate closely in the future, to spur on the rapid market launch of fuel cell technology. For this purpose, the “Joint Technology Initiative” (JTI) is to come into being in 2007. It is a merging of business enterprises and EU representatives in the form of a private-public partnership. It is anticipated that the initiative will promote demonstration projects across Europe until 2013, in the areas of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. The collaboration is aimed at making promotion both effective and practical.
A new committee is being formed to prepare the way for the JTI, in which EWE, the energy service provider, is also represented. “We are delighted at being given the opportunity to invest, at international level, our many years of experience with this technology of the future” explains Management Board Chairman, Dr. Werner Brinker. “On the other hand, this collaboration is our guarantee that the politicians will continue to support innovative energy ideas.” Brinker goes on to say that the development of efficient and environmentally friendly technologies is absolutely vital - particularly against the backdrop of the growing demand for energy and the increase in environmental pollution.
Only in June of last year did EWE and the Australian manufacturer, Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (CFCL), sign a contract for the installation of two experimental fuel cells. As an extension of this collaboration, beginning in March, EWE is now planning to test two plants from the Hamburg manufacturer, European Fuel Cell (efc) in single family dwellings. In the autumn of last year, EWE and efc already signed a cooperation agreement to this effect.
In single family dwellings, EWE has already installed and trialled 34 fuel cells from the Swiss manufacturer, Sulzer Hexis. In multiple dwellings, it has installed seven fuel cell units, in collaboration with the Vaillant Company and is also phasing in the involvement of local tradesmen in the practical tests. In addition, the company is developing a Decentralised Energy Management System, in order to integrate decentralised energy production plants in the existing energy supply, by means of intelligent interlinking of resources.
EWE ranks among Germany’s largest energy services companies and is headquartered in Oldenburg in the federal state of Lower Saxony. The group’s business activities comprise electricity, natural gas and water supply, environmental technology as well as gas transmission and trade, telecommunication and information technology.
EWE’s state-of-the-art energy infrastructure ensures a safe and secure supply as well as efficient operations. At an early stage, the company expanded its activities beyond its core competences as a network operator. Today, EWE offers a diverse range of services. In addition to its activities in its home region between the Ems, Weser, and Elbe rivers, EWE continues to expand its operations in Eastern Germany and Poland. In 2004, the EWE Group recorded sales of €6.1 billion and expanded its workforce to over 5,300 in 2005.
close collaboration with politicians for market launch
cooperation with European Fuel Cell Technology GmbH
Oldenburg--Businessmen and politicians intend to collaborate closely in the future, to spur on the rapid market launch of fuel cell technology. For this purpose, the “Joint Technology Initiative” (JTI) is to come into being in 2007. It is a merging of business enterprises and EU representatives in the form of a private-public partnership. It is anticipated that the initiative will promote demonstration projects across Europe until 2013, in the areas of hydrogen and fuel cell technology. The collaboration is aimed at making promotion both effective and practical.
A new committee is being formed to prepare the way for the JTI, in which EWE, the energy service provider, is also represented. “We are delighted at being given the opportunity to invest, at international level, our many years of experience with this technology of the future” explains Management Board Chairman, Dr. Werner Brinker. “On the other hand, this collaboration is our guarantee that the politicians will continue to support innovative energy ideas.” Brinker goes on to say that the development of efficient and environmentally friendly technologies is absolutely vital - particularly against the backdrop of the growing demand for energy and the increase in environmental pollution.
Only in June of last year did EWE and the Australian manufacturer, Ceramic Fuel Cells Limited (CFCL), sign a contract for the installation of two experimental fuel cells. As an extension of this collaboration, beginning in March, EWE is now planning to test two plants from the Hamburg manufacturer, European Fuel Cell (efc) in single family dwellings. In the autumn of last year, EWE and efc already signed a cooperation agreement to this effect.
In single family dwellings, EWE has already installed and trialled 34 fuel cells from the Swiss manufacturer, Sulzer Hexis. In multiple dwellings, it has installed seven fuel cell units, in collaboration with the Vaillant Company and is also phasing in the involvement of local tradesmen in the practical tests. In addition, the company is developing a Decentralised Energy Management System, in order to integrate decentralised energy production plants in the existing energy supply, by means of intelligent interlinking of resources.
EWE ranks among Germany’s largest energy services companies and is headquartered in Oldenburg in the federal state of Lower Saxony. The group’s business activities comprise electricity, natural gas and water supply, environmental technology as well as gas transmission and trade, telecommunication and information technology.
EWE’s state-of-the-art energy infrastructure ensures a safe and secure supply as well as efficient operations. At an early stage, the company expanded its activities beyond its core competences as a network operator. Today, EWE offers a diverse range of services. In addition to its activities in its home region between the Ems, Weser, and Elbe rivers, EWE continues to expand its operations in Eastern Germany and Poland. In 2004, the EWE Group recorded sales of €6.1 billion and expanded its workforce to over 5,300 in 2005.
E85 too expensive to make a difference right now - Autoblog
There are a lot of E85 haters out there, and we've certainly seen quite a few of you grace the comments section of this site. To the chagrin of Bob Lutz and George Bush, you may have a point.
Turns out that E85 is quite a bit more expensive than gas -- it takes 1.4 times as much of the 85/15 ethanol/gasoline mixture to go the same distance as gasoline, according to an article in USA Today. The paper points out a situation in Nebraska, where E85 cost $2.16 compared to $2.06 for gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol, sometimes the Midwest's version of regular unleaded. The math just doesn't add up, and consumers aren't ready to spend more money for less efficiency.
The lack of demand due to the higher price could adversely affect efforts by Ford, GM and the Bush administration to push E85 as a viable alternative to gasoline, setting back plans to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
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Reader Comments
(Page 1)
1. Here we can use the same argument that hybrid owners use to defend their purchases. There is a good chance they will never recoup the additional cost of a hybrid over a standard version of the same car through increased efficiency. They are willing to shell out the extra $$ anyway though, either to do their part for cleaner air, or to make a statement.
The same applies to e85. Buyers of the fuel will not recoup the higher price (at today's prices) through increased efficiency, but they will be doing their part for cleaner air and perhaps making a statement (although far less glamorous than in a hybrid)
Also, e85 may be more expensive now, but if something were to go wrong in the extremely volitile Middle East and dirsupt our tenuous relationship with the oil nations there, you might see that the domestic e85 will be cheaper. This is the beauty of the Flex Fuel cars - in times when the pure gas is cheaper, you can buy that. If the price of oil skyrockets, you are covered - buy the domestic ethanol.
Posted at 6:21PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Erik 0 stars
2. "America's dependence on foreign oil"
-Always has been, terror or not, always will be until the well runs dry-
Being from the class of 00, I'm let down that our older generation has failed us :-)
Posted at 6:53PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Ryan 0 stars
3. If we were using some other fuel, say hypolene (which is made up), and we had a choice to switch to gas made from black oil we pulled from the ground at great expense (natural and man resource-wise), or to switch to ethanol, guess which one we would pick.
The only reason we're not on E85 is because it wasn't available when we had to pick.
Now it is, but we're invested in an infrastructure which favors oil.
I say let's switch! Lets get the tax incentives rolling to make E85 competitive, and lets stop using oil to power cars. It is the right thing to do!
Posted at 7:10PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Matt 0 stars
4. "It is the right thing to do!"
Thank you, Wilford Brimley.
There are a lot of E85 haters out there, and we've certainly seen quite a few of you grace the comments section of this site. To the chagrin of Bob Lutz and George Bush, you may have a point.
Turns out that E85 is quite a bit more expensive than gas -- it takes 1.4 times as much of the 85/15 ethanol/gasoline mixture to go the same distance as gasoline, according to an article in USA Today. The paper points out a situation in Nebraska, where E85 cost $2.16 compared to $2.06 for gasoline blended with 10 percent ethanol, sometimes the Midwest's version of regular unleaded. The math just doesn't add up, and consumers aren't ready to spend more money for less efficiency.
The lack of demand due to the higher price could adversely affect efforts by Ford, GM and the Bush administration to push E85 as a viable alternative to gasoline, setting back plans to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil.
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1. Here we can use the same argument that hybrid owners use to defend their purchases. There is a good chance they will never recoup the additional cost of a hybrid over a standard version of the same car through increased efficiency. They are willing to shell out the extra $$ anyway though, either to do their part for cleaner air, or to make a statement.
The same applies to e85. Buyers of the fuel will not recoup the higher price (at today's prices) through increased efficiency, but they will be doing their part for cleaner air and perhaps making a statement (although far less glamorous than in a hybrid)
Also, e85 may be more expensive now, but if something were to go wrong in the extremely volitile Middle East and dirsupt our tenuous relationship with the oil nations there, you might see that the domestic e85 will be cheaper. This is the beauty of the Flex Fuel cars - in times when the pure gas is cheaper, you can buy that. If the price of oil skyrockets, you are covered - buy the domestic ethanol.
Posted at 6:21PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Erik 0 stars
2. "America's dependence on foreign oil"
-Always has been, terror or not, always will be until the well runs dry-
Being from the class of 00, I'm let down that our older generation has failed us :-)
Posted at 6:53PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Ryan 0 stars
3. If we were using some other fuel, say hypolene (which is made up), and we had a choice to switch to gas made from black oil we pulled from the ground at great expense (natural and man resource-wise), or to switch to ethanol, guess which one we would pick.
The only reason we're not on E85 is because it wasn't available when we had to pick.
Now it is, but we're invested in an infrastructure which favors oil.
I say let's switch! Lets get the tax incentives rolling to make E85 competitive, and lets stop using oil to power cars. It is the right thing to do!
Posted at 7:10PM on Feb 16th 2006 by Matt 0 stars
4. "It is the right thing to do!"
Thank you, Wilford Brimley.
J. Craig Venter's Next Little Thing:
J. Craig Venter, maverick biologist, wants to cure our addiction to oil. To do so, he proposes creating a designer microbe -- the heart of a biological engine -- from scratch, then adding genes culled from the sea to turn crops such as switch grass and cornstalks into ethanol.
While he's at it, he'd like to modify or devise microorganisms to produce a steady stream of hydrogen.
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Either could prompt a major shift in the economics of the energy industry and in the process bring Venter to a secondary goal: showing the world he can be as successful running a company as he was at sequencing human DNA.
"We are on a crusade as much as it is an economic goal," Venter said. "This is one of those crusades that only works if it becomes really profitable."
Five years after antagonizing government scientists while racing them to map the human genome, Venter is back, making the typically bold statements that have long polarized opinion about him. Either he is one of this era's most electrifying scientists, or he's one of the most maddening. He is apt in conversation to compare himself to Robin Hood. Or Darwin.
"Yes, Craig confronts," said Alfonso Romo Garza, a Mexican billionaire, controller of a decent chunk of the world's commercial vegetable seeds and a backer of Venter's latest undertaking. "Of course, he's antagonistic. He's controversial. But I love controversial people because those are the people who change the world."
Bearded from a three-year, Darwinesque yacht trip around the world, Venter also now sports an extensive collection of genetic material scooped from the sea on his journey -- and that's the raw material for his alternative fuel project. With $15 million from Garza, he has launched a new company in Rockville called Synthetic Genomics Inc.
It is a small firm with classic Venter ambition. Create life. Use it to make fuel.
There are caveats, to be sure.
Venter's business career made him rich, but his record running Celera Genomics Corp. was spotty. The company's original business plan -- selling access to the genetic data Venter helped develop -- faltered because the information became public through the government's efforts.
Celera has since waxed and waned with other business plans that haven't yet worked out.
He insists this time that things have changed.
J. Craig Venter, maverick biologist, wants to cure our addiction to oil. To do so, he proposes creating a designer microbe -- the heart of a biological engine -- from scratch, then adding genes culled from the sea to turn crops such as switch grass and cornstalks into ethanol.
While he's at it, he'd like to modify or devise microorganisms to produce a steady stream of hydrogen.
washingtonpost.com talk
Share Your Thoughts
Who's Blogging?
Read what bloggers are saying about this article.
Women's Bioethics Blog
Short Sharp Science
daleynews
Full List of Blogs (3 links) »
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Tag This Article
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1. Save to description:
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2. Save to notes (255 character max):
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Either could prompt a major shift in the economics of the energy industry and in the process bring Venter to a secondary goal: showing the world he can be as successful running a company as he was at sequencing human DNA.
"We are on a crusade as much as it is an economic goal," Venter said. "This is one of those crusades that only works if it becomes really profitable."
Five years after antagonizing government scientists while racing them to map the human genome, Venter is back, making the typically bold statements that have long polarized opinion about him. Either he is one of this era's most electrifying scientists, or he's one of the most maddening. He is apt in conversation to compare himself to Robin Hood. Or Darwin.
"Yes, Craig confronts," said Alfonso Romo Garza, a Mexican billionaire, controller of a decent chunk of the world's commercial vegetable seeds and a backer of Venter's latest undertaking. "Of course, he's antagonistic. He's controversial. But I love controversial people because those are the people who change the world."
Bearded from a three-year, Darwinesque yacht trip around the world, Venter also now sports an extensive collection of genetic material scooped from the sea on his journey -- and that's the raw material for his alternative fuel project. With $15 million from Garza, he has launched a new company in Rockville called Synthetic Genomics Inc.
It is a small firm with classic Venter ambition. Create life. Use it to make fuel.
There are caveats, to be sure.
Venter's business career made him rich, but his record running Celera Genomics Corp. was spotty. The company's original business plan -- selling access to the genetic data Venter helped develop -- faltered because the information became public through the government's efforts.
Celera has since waxed and waned with other business plans that haven't yet worked out.
He insists this time that things have changed.
FuelCell Energy Selected by U.S. Department of Energy to Develop a Coal-Based Multi-Megawatt Solid Oxide Fuel Cell System
Company to develop large-scale solid oxide fuel cell/turbine (SOFC/T) power plant with near-zero emissions that efficiently converts coal to electricity for central power generation
DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2006-- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqNM:FCEL), a leading manufacturer of ultra-clean and efficient electric power generation plants for commercial and industrial customers, today announced it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a prime contractor of a third project team to develop a coal-based multi-megawatt solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system. The total project award for the 10-year, three-phase Fuel Cell Coal-Based System program is approximately $85 million. The project is subject to negotiation of a final agreement.
The program's goal is to develop a multi-megawatt SOFC power system, 100 megawatts and larger, with at least 50 percent overall efficiency in converting energy contained in coal to grid electrical power. This compares to today's average U.S. coal-based power plant with an electrical efficiency of approximately 35 percent. Other program goals include capturing 90 percent or more of system's carbon dioxide emissions and meeting a cost of $400 per kilowatt (exclusive of coal gasification unit and carbon dioxide separation subsystems).
"Coal technology development is a keystone of the President's new Advanced Energy Initiative," said Wayne Surdoval, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory's Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Technology Manager. "The clean and efficient use of coal is vital to our nation's energy security. Research conducted under DOE's Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems Program should ultimately lead to fuel cell power plants that use this abundant and cost-effective resource with near-zero emissions."
The DOE selected FuelCell Energy to be prime contractor for this program based on the company's high temperature fuel cell expertise, which includes: progress on its SOFC development in Phase I of the SECA Program, development and commercialization of sub-megawatt and multi-megawatt carbonate Direct FuelCell(R) (DFC(R)) power plants, previous experience with operating DFC power plants on coal gases, and successful results of its Direct FuelCell/Turbine(R) (DFC/T(R)) combined-cycle product in the DOE's Vision 21 Program. FuelCell Energy recently announced an electrical efficiency milestone of 56 percent for the DFC/T power plant, a record for a combined cycle sub-megawatt fuel cell power plant.
FuelCell Energy will be responsible for the overall systems development of its coal-based multi-megawatt SOFC/T power plant. Other team members include: Versa Power Systems, Inc. (Versa), providing state-of-the-art SOFC stack technology development; Gas Technology Institute (GTI), providing fuel cell pressurization tests; and Nexant, providing coal gasification expertise.
"This award by the DOE recognizes the strength and leadership of our high temperature megawatt-class fuel cell products," said R. Daniel Brdar, President and CEO of FuelCell Energy, Inc. "The experience we have gained with over 40 DFC power plants at customer sites, including the development of multi-megawatt systems, as well as the record-setting electrical efficiency of our DFC/T alpha unit, will be great assets for us in the SOFC/T product development."
The objective of Phase I, a 3-year, $10.5 million program, is to focus on the design, cost analysis, fabrication and testing of large-scale SOFC stacks amenable for incorporation into 100-megawatt systems. Phases II and III will focus on fabricating and aggregating larger SOFC systems, as well as proof-of-concept systems to be field tested for a minimum of 25,000 hours.
"Being part of this new DOE program will enable us to begin scale-up of our 5 to 10 kilowatt SOFC stack that has demonstrated successful performance under the SECA program," said Robert Stokes, President and CEO of Versa of Littleton, Colo. "We look forward to continuing our successful collaboration with FuelCell Energy to develop the fuel cell technology required for large central power stations to produce affordable, efficient and environmentally-friendly electricity from coal."
Coal is a cost-effective energy source and, with approximately 250 years of reserves, is America's most abundant fossil fuel. Improving the ability to use this domestic energy supply reduces America's dependence on foreign markets and increases energy security.
Fuel cell systems are ideally positioned to capitalize upon the nation's coal resource. Fuel cells do not rely upon combustion, enabling them to produce affordable, highly efficient and environmentally friendly electricity from coal. As a result, fuel cells are one of the most attractive power generating technologies for the future.
Advances made under the Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems program are expected to become key enabling technologies for FutureGen, a planned DOE demonstration of advanced power systems that emit near-zero emissions, have double today's electric generating efficiency, co-produce hydrogen, and sequester carbon dioxide.
FuelCell Energy joins two other project teams -- one led by General Electric Hybrid Power Generation Systems and the other by Siemens Power Generation, Inc. -- to leverage knowledge gained in the DOE's Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Program, and extend coal-based SOFC technology to large central power generation stations.
This latest SOFC technology development program continues FuelCell Energy's ongoing fuel cell development work with the DOE that dates back to 1976. FuelCell Energy completed an 11- year development program in 2004 for its DFC power plants that it is commercializing today, and has been a prime contractor in the SECA program since 2003. All phases of the coal-based SOFC program will be cost-shared between the DOE and the FuelCell Energy in amounts to be determined.
About FuelCell Energy
FuelCell Energy Inc. develops and markets ultra-clean power plants that generate electricity and heat with higher efficiency than conventional fossil fuel plants and with virtually no air pollution. Fuel cells produce base load electricity giving commercial and industrial customers greater control over their power generation economics, reliability and emissions. Emerging state, federal and international regulations to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions consider fuel cell power plants in the same environmentally friendly category as wind and solar energy sources -- with the added advantages of running 24 hours a day and the capacity to be installed where wind turbines or solar panels often cannot. Headquartered in Danbury, Conn., FuelCell Energy services over 40 power generation sites around the globe that have produced more than 80 million kilowatt hours, and conducts R&D on next-generation fuel cell technologies to meet the world's ever-increasing demand for ultra-clean distributed energy. For more information on the company, its products and its worldwide commercial distribution alliances, please see www.fuelcellenergy.com.
Direct FuelCell, DFC and DFC/Turbine are registered trademarks of FuelCell Energy, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The Company's sub-megawatt DFC fuel cell power plant is a collaborative effort combining its Direct FuelCell technology with a Hot Module(R) balance of plant design from MTU CFC Solutions, GmbH.
Company to develop large-scale solid oxide fuel cell/turbine (SOFC/T) power plant with near-zero emissions that efficiently converts coal to electricity for central power generation
DANBURY, Conn.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 27, 2006-- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqNM:FCEL), a leading manufacturer of ultra-clean and efficient electric power generation plants for commercial and industrial customers, today announced it has been selected by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) as a prime contractor of a third project team to develop a coal-based multi-megawatt solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) system. The total project award for the 10-year, three-phase Fuel Cell Coal-Based System program is approximately $85 million. The project is subject to negotiation of a final agreement.
The program's goal is to develop a multi-megawatt SOFC power system, 100 megawatts and larger, with at least 50 percent overall efficiency in converting energy contained in coal to grid electrical power. This compares to today's average U.S. coal-based power plant with an electrical efficiency of approximately 35 percent. Other program goals include capturing 90 percent or more of system's carbon dioxide emissions and meeting a cost of $400 per kilowatt (exclusive of coal gasification unit and carbon dioxide separation subsystems).
"Coal technology development is a keystone of the President's new Advanced Energy Initiative," said Wayne Surdoval, DOE National Energy Technology Laboratory's Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Technology Manager. "The clean and efficient use of coal is vital to our nation's energy security. Research conducted under DOE's Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems Program should ultimately lead to fuel cell power plants that use this abundant and cost-effective resource with near-zero emissions."
The DOE selected FuelCell Energy to be prime contractor for this program based on the company's high temperature fuel cell expertise, which includes: progress on its SOFC development in Phase I of the SECA Program, development and commercialization of sub-megawatt and multi-megawatt carbonate Direct FuelCell(R) (DFC(R)) power plants, previous experience with operating DFC power plants on coal gases, and successful results of its Direct FuelCell/Turbine(R) (DFC/T(R)) combined-cycle product in the DOE's Vision 21 Program. FuelCell Energy recently announced an electrical efficiency milestone of 56 percent for the DFC/T power plant, a record for a combined cycle sub-megawatt fuel cell power plant.
FuelCell Energy will be responsible for the overall systems development of its coal-based multi-megawatt SOFC/T power plant. Other team members include: Versa Power Systems, Inc. (Versa), providing state-of-the-art SOFC stack technology development; Gas Technology Institute (GTI), providing fuel cell pressurization tests; and Nexant, providing coal gasification expertise.
"This award by the DOE recognizes the strength and leadership of our high temperature megawatt-class fuel cell products," said R. Daniel Brdar, President and CEO of FuelCell Energy, Inc. "The experience we have gained with over 40 DFC power plants at customer sites, including the development of multi-megawatt systems, as well as the record-setting electrical efficiency of our DFC/T alpha unit, will be great assets for us in the SOFC/T product development."
The objective of Phase I, a 3-year, $10.5 million program, is to focus on the design, cost analysis, fabrication and testing of large-scale SOFC stacks amenable for incorporation into 100-megawatt systems. Phases II and III will focus on fabricating and aggregating larger SOFC systems, as well as proof-of-concept systems to be field tested for a minimum of 25,000 hours.
"Being part of this new DOE program will enable us to begin scale-up of our 5 to 10 kilowatt SOFC stack that has demonstrated successful performance under the SECA program," said Robert Stokes, President and CEO of Versa of Littleton, Colo. "We look forward to continuing our successful collaboration with FuelCell Energy to develop the fuel cell technology required for large central power stations to produce affordable, efficient and environmentally-friendly electricity from coal."
Coal is a cost-effective energy source and, with approximately 250 years of reserves, is America's most abundant fossil fuel. Improving the ability to use this domestic energy supply reduces America's dependence on foreign markets and increases energy security.
Fuel cell systems are ideally positioned to capitalize upon the nation's coal resource. Fuel cells do not rely upon combustion, enabling them to produce affordable, highly efficient and environmentally friendly electricity from coal. As a result, fuel cells are one of the most attractive power generating technologies for the future.
Advances made under the Fuel Cell Coal-Based Systems program are expected to become key enabling technologies for FutureGen, a planned DOE demonstration of advanced power systems that emit near-zero emissions, have double today's electric generating efficiency, co-produce hydrogen, and sequester carbon dioxide.
FuelCell Energy joins two other project teams -- one led by General Electric Hybrid Power Generation Systems and the other by Siemens Power Generation, Inc. -- to leverage knowledge gained in the DOE's Solid State Energy Conversion Alliance (SECA) Program, and extend coal-based SOFC technology to large central power generation stations.
This latest SOFC technology development program continues FuelCell Energy's ongoing fuel cell development work with the DOE that dates back to 1976. FuelCell Energy completed an 11- year development program in 2004 for its DFC power plants that it is commercializing today, and has been a prime contractor in the SECA program since 2003. All phases of the coal-based SOFC program will be cost-shared between the DOE and the FuelCell Energy in amounts to be determined.
About FuelCell Energy
FuelCell Energy Inc. develops and markets ultra-clean power plants that generate electricity and heat with higher efficiency than conventional fossil fuel plants and with virtually no air pollution. Fuel cells produce base load electricity giving commercial and industrial customers greater control over their power generation economics, reliability and emissions. Emerging state, federal and international regulations to reduce harmful greenhouse gas emissions consider fuel cell power plants in the same environmentally friendly category as wind and solar energy sources -- with the added advantages of running 24 hours a day and the capacity to be installed where wind turbines or solar panels often cannot. Headquartered in Danbury, Conn., FuelCell Energy services over 40 power generation sites around the globe that have produced more than 80 million kilowatt hours, and conducts R&D on next-generation fuel cell technologies to meet the world's ever-increasing demand for ultra-clean distributed energy. For more information on the company, its products and its worldwide commercial distribution alliances, please see www.fuelcellenergy.com.
Direct FuelCell, DFC and DFC/Turbine are registered trademarks of FuelCell Energy, Inc. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. The Company's sub-megawatt DFC fuel cell power plant is a collaborative effort combining its Direct FuelCell technology with a Hot Module(R) balance of plant design from MTU CFC Solutions, GmbH.
The power of the poop
Rather than step in it, or throw it on landfill sites, dog owners in San Francisco could soon be using their pooches' poo to generate energy for their homes, writes Dan Glaister
Friday February 24, 2006
Working like a dog: can Fido power your house? Photograph: Paul Yeung/Reuters
Is it possible to have a productive pooch? Can that faithful friend make an economic contribution to the home? Are big dogs more fuel efficient than small dogs? The answer is yes, yes and, er, quite possibly.
Imagine a future. You live in San Francisco, a progressive sort of place, hip to the beat of modern living, named after St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. Your nuclear family - including dog - lives in a non-nuclear house.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You've got solar panels on homes. Why not home-based anaerobic digestion processes?" asks Fernando Berton. Fernando is not from the future, at least not yet. He works for California's Integrated Waste Management Board. The Integrated Waste Management Board has a job to do and, as the board members often tell themselves, it's messy work but someone's got to do it.
The Integrated Waste Management Board also has a vision. It is a vision of a world - or, more specifically, a San Francisco - where landfills are obsolete and doggie bags have a whole different meaning.
The Board is charged with bringing to reality the city's self-imposed target of putting zero waste in landfill sites by 2020. On its way to meeting that target - which calls for a 75% reduction in landfill waste by 2010 - the city already recycles 60% of its rubbish.
But that reduction has led to closer scrutiny of the more resistant components of the average dustbin. A recent study found that 4% of the city's residential waste - some 6,500 tons a year - is made up of animal byproducts, a scientific term for dog shit. The dog shit rivals disposable nappies for the space it takes up on landfill sites.
So the Board came up with a plan and hired Sunset Scavenger (motto: "Life's a mess, we sort it out") to help it out. The plan is simple, inspired and at last gives some incentive to all those dog owners who fail to clear up after their best friends. Sunset Scavenger will scoop up the poop, store it, ferment it and then sell it back to its previous owners' owners.
Under the pilot plan, announced this week, Sunset Scavenger will place biodegradable bags and what are tastefully called dog-waste carts in a popular San Francisco dog park. The dog poo will then be put into a methane digester, where bacteria will eat away at it for two weeks before it turns into methane gas. The gas can then be used to power appliances such as cookers and heaters that currently run on natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.
"American dogs and cats produce millions of tons of waste a year, and no one knows where it's going," said Will Brinton, a worried-sounding Maine scientist. "That's really beginning to be looked at as a nightmare," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The poo that makes it on to a landfill site is usually encased in a plastic bag, where it remains, mummified, for years. If the poo is not picked up it remains where it falls, and dissolves into the ground on its way to joining the water supply. Some dog owners add it to garden compost, a risky approach given the pathogens present in dog poo, which are not eradicated by the low temperatures reached during composting.
Here's Fernando again. "California sends 40 million tons annually to landfill, and over half of it is organic in nature. It makes sense to look at the alternatives. If we can turn something from a waste into a resource, we should be doing that."
But Fernando, houses with their own poop machines, with Fido generating enough gas to power the fire? For that to work, Fido's output would have to be plentiful and regular. The days of the lapdog could well be numbered.
Special report
Waste and pollution
Net notes
11.07.2002: Rubbish
01.08.2002: Rats
Useful links
Waste and recycling - Defra
'Are you doing your bit?' recycling campaign
Community Recycling and Economic Development programme
Community Recycling Network
Waste and Resources Action Programme
UK Recycled Products Guide
Rather than step in it, or throw it on landfill sites, dog owners in San Francisco could soon be using their pooches' poo to generate energy for their homes, writes Dan Glaister
Friday February 24, 2006
Working like a dog: can Fido power your house? Photograph: Paul Yeung/Reuters
Is it possible to have a productive pooch? Can that faithful friend make an economic contribution to the home? Are big dogs more fuel efficient than small dogs? The answer is yes, yes and, er, quite possibly.
Imagine a future. You live in San Francisco, a progressive sort of place, hip to the beat of modern living, named after St Francis of Assisi, patron saint of animals. Your nuclear family - including dog - lives in a non-nuclear house.
Article continues
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"You've got solar panels on homes. Why not home-based anaerobic digestion processes?" asks Fernando Berton. Fernando is not from the future, at least not yet. He works for California's Integrated Waste Management Board. The Integrated Waste Management Board has a job to do and, as the board members often tell themselves, it's messy work but someone's got to do it.
The Integrated Waste Management Board also has a vision. It is a vision of a world - or, more specifically, a San Francisco - where landfills are obsolete and doggie bags have a whole different meaning.
The Board is charged with bringing to reality the city's self-imposed target of putting zero waste in landfill sites by 2020. On its way to meeting that target - which calls for a 75% reduction in landfill waste by 2010 - the city already recycles 60% of its rubbish.
But that reduction has led to closer scrutiny of the more resistant components of the average dustbin. A recent study found that 4% of the city's residential waste - some 6,500 tons a year - is made up of animal byproducts, a scientific term for dog shit. The dog shit rivals disposable nappies for the space it takes up on landfill sites.
So the Board came up with a plan and hired Sunset Scavenger (motto: "Life's a mess, we sort it out") to help it out. The plan is simple, inspired and at last gives some incentive to all those dog owners who fail to clear up after their best friends. Sunset Scavenger will scoop up the poop, store it, ferment it and then sell it back to its previous owners' owners.
Under the pilot plan, announced this week, Sunset Scavenger will place biodegradable bags and what are tastefully called dog-waste carts in a popular San Francisco dog park. The dog poo will then be put into a methane digester, where bacteria will eat away at it for two weeks before it turns into methane gas. The gas can then be used to power appliances such as cookers and heaters that currently run on natural gas. It can also be used to generate electricity.
"American dogs and cats produce millions of tons of waste a year, and no one knows where it's going," said Will Brinton, a worried-sounding Maine scientist. "That's really beginning to be looked at as a nightmare," he told the San Francisco Chronicle.
The poo that makes it on to a landfill site is usually encased in a plastic bag, where it remains, mummified, for years. If the poo is not picked up it remains where it falls, and dissolves into the ground on its way to joining the water supply. Some dog owners add it to garden compost, a risky approach given the pathogens present in dog poo, which are not eradicated by the low temperatures reached during composting.
Here's Fernando again. "California sends 40 million tons annually to landfill, and over half of it is organic in nature. It makes sense to look at the alternatives. If we can turn something from a waste into a resource, we should be doing that."
But Fernando, houses with their own poop machines, with Fido generating enough gas to power the fire? For that to work, Fido's output would have to be plentiful and regular. The days of the lapdog could well be numbered.
Special report
Waste and pollution
Net notes
11.07.2002: Rubbish
01.08.2002: Rats
Useful links
Waste and recycling - Defra
'Are you doing your bit?' recycling campaign
Community Recycling and Economic Development programme
Community Recycling Network
Waste and Resources Action Programme
UK Recycled Products Guide
Hybrid Cars to Get High-Occupancy Waiver - New York Times
ALBANY, Feb. 24 — Hybrid-power cars will be allowed to use high-occupancy-vehicle lanes on the Long Island Expressway starting on March 1, regardless of how few people are in the car, the Pataki administration said on Friday.
The policy, which applies only to the highest-mileage hybrids like the Toyota Prius and the hybrid version of the Honda Civic, brings to New York an incentive used by several other states to promote fuel-efficient vehicles. Virginia, for example, is one of the top markets for hybrid vehicles because it has allowed them for several years in its H.O.V. lanes. California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Georgia are among the states with similar laws.
In New York, the expressway is the only highway that has H.O.V. lanes, which are meant to encourage carpooling. For hybrid-car owners, it will certainly be a welcome policy, in view of the expressway's reputation as "the world's biggest parking lot."
In a statement, Gov. George E. Pataki said the new rule "will help create a stronger, cleaner New York."
"By encouraging the use of cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles on our roadways and providing New Yorkers with an incentive to use them, we will reduce our dependence on imported energy, and help improve our environment," the statement said.
The proposal is part of a range of energy initiatives that were announced last month as part of Mr. Pataki's proposed budget, which includes tax breaks for hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels. Hybrids can also qualify for federal tax breaks.
But not all hybrids will get H.O.V.-lane access. Only those that get at least 45 miles per gallon in highway driving, as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency in its testing laboratories, will be permitted in the lanes. That will disqualify all the hybrid sport utility vehicles currently available, like the Ford Escape or Toyota's Lexus RX400h.
It will also disqualify pickup trucks made by General Motors that use mild forms of hybrid technology, as well as the hybrid version of the Honda Accord, a car that uses its advanced technology as much for speed as it does for saving gas — a prevailing trend in newer-model hybrids that has been irksome to environmental groups.
One reason for the restriction is to avoid problems that Virginia has had with hybrid vehicles overcrowding H.O.V. lanes. In Virginia, a larger number of hybrid models have access to the lanes, including the Ford Escape, which gets about 30 miles per gallon in highway driving, according to the environmental agency.
"Basically, if you put it any lower, they might overcrowd the H.O.V. lanes," said Peter Constantakes, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki, referring to the 45 mile-per-hour minimum requirement.
That number could be changed, however, because the agency is in the process of reformulating the way it calculates mileage estimates, which are particularly overstated for hybrid cars.
"If E.P.A. changes the criteria on miles per gallon, adjustments can be made to the program," Mr. Constantakes said.
Registered owners of hybrids that qualify can apply to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a "Clean Pass" sticker, which will allow them to use the 40 miles of H.O.V. lanes along both the east and westbound Long Island Expressway. The H.O.V. lanes are restricted on weekdays, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
More Articles in New York Region >
ALBANY, Feb. 24 — Hybrid-power cars will be allowed to use high-occupancy-vehicle lanes on the Long Island Expressway starting on March 1, regardless of how few people are in the car, the Pataki administration said on Friday.
The policy, which applies only to the highest-mileage hybrids like the Toyota Prius and the hybrid version of the Honda Civic, brings to New York an incentive used by several other states to promote fuel-efficient vehicles. Virginia, for example, is one of the top markets for hybrid vehicles because it has allowed them for several years in its H.O.V. lanes. California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida and Georgia are among the states with similar laws.
In New York, the expressway is the only highway that has H.O.V. lanes, which are meant to encourage carpooling. For hybrid-car owners, it will certainly be a welcome policy, in view of the expressway's reputation as "the world's biggest parking lot."
In a statement, Gov. George E. Pataki said the new rule "will help create a stronger, cleaner New York."
"By encouraging the use of cleaner, more energy-efficient vehicles on our roadways and providing New Yorkers with an incentive to use them, we will reduce our dependence on imported energy, and help improve our environment," the statement said.
The proposal is part of a range of energy initiatives that were announced last month as part of Mr. Pataki's proposed budget, which includes tax breaks for hybrid vehicles and alternative fuels. Hybrids can also qualify for federal tax breaks.
But not all hybrids will get H.O.V.-lane access. Only those that get at least 45 miles per gallon in highway driving, as determined by the Environmental Protection Agency in its testing laboratories, will be permitted in the lanes. That will disqualify all the hybrid sport utility vehicles currently available, like the Ford Escape or Toyota's Lexus RX400h.
It will also disqualify pickup trucks made by General Motors that use mild forms of hybrid technology, as well as the hybrid version of the Honda Accord, a car that uses its advanced technology as much for speed as it does for saving gas — a prevailing trend in newer-model hybrids that has been irksome to environmental groups.
One reason for the restriction is to avoid problems that Virginia has had with hybrid vehicles overcrowding H.O.V. lanes. In Virginia, a larger number of hybrid models have access to the lanes, including the Ford Escape, which gets about 30 miles per gallon in highway driving, according to the environmental agency.
"Basically, if you put it any lower, they might overcrowd the H.O.V. lanes," said Peter Constantakes, a spokesman for Mr. Pataki, referring to the 45 mile-per-hour minimum requirement.
That number could be changed, however, because the agency is in the process of reformulating the way it calculates mileage estimates, which are particularly overstated for hybrid cars.
"If E.P.A. changes the criteria on miles per gallon, adjustments can be made to the program," Mr. Constantakes said.
Registered owners of hybrids that qualify can apply to the Department of Motor Vehicles for a "Clean Pass" sticker, which will allow them to use the 40 miles of H.O.V. lanes along both the east and westbound Long Island Expressway. The H.O.V. lanes are restricted on weekdays, from 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. and from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m.
More Articles in New York Region >
Bill to clean up nuclear sites rises by nearly �1bn
Mark Milner, industrial editorSaturday February 25, 2006The Guardian
The potential bill facing the government for cleaning up British Energy's nuclear liabilities has risen by almost £1bn to more than £5bn.
British Energy said yesterday that the latest of a series of five-yearly reviews of its uncontracted liabilities and decommissioning costs had shown they had increased by £956m to £5.3bn, mainly as a result higher decommissioning costs.
Under British Energy's restructuring plan completed last year, the government agreed to indemnify the company against any shortfall in the nuclear liabilities fund which meets the clean up costs. In return British Energy contributes 65% of its net cash flow to the fund. The increased liabilities will not mean the company will have to pay more to the fund.
Article continues
Yesterday British Energy said its operating profits for the nine months to January 1 totalled £377m, with £242m coming in the third quarter.
The company has eight nuclear power plants and one coal fired station and its profits have been boosted by the rising price of electricity. It has pre-sold all its planned output for the current financial year at an average price of £33.3 per megawatt hourand has sold 60% of next year's output at an average price of £37.8 per megawatt hour. The company's performance was, however, held back by unplanned shutdowns with British Energy acknowledging that unexpected loss of generating capacity would lead to higher costs.
So far this year British Energy has invested £170m in its plant and is planning to increase that to up to £300m for next year, a programme which it hopes will cut unexpectedshutdowns. It is also planning to increase spending on operating costs by around £60m, including more staff and higher spending on insurance and security. The company declined to be drawn on the increased security measures.
Elsewhere in the energy sector, National Grid confirmed that it is in talks with the US natural gas distribution company KeySpan Corp which industry sources suggested could lead to a $7bn (£4bn) bid. The UK company already has energy interests in the north east United States and KeySpan's operations in New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire are seen as a good fit.
Analysts had suggested National Grid could launch a rights issue or place shares to help finance a deal but yesterday the company said any transaction would be on a cash basis, financed from borrowings. Consolidated Edison from the US is also seen as a possible bidder, though it could face competition problems.Special reportThe nuclear industryUseful linksBritish EnergyDepartment of Trade and IndustryBritish Nuclear Fuels LtdCampaign for Nuclear DisarmamentGreenpeaceHSE nuclear glossaryCome Clean WMD awareness programmeUK atomic energy authorityNational Radiological Protection BoardFriends of the EarthWorld Nuclear AssociationWorld Nuclear Transport Institute
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Mark Milner, industrial editorSaturday February 25, 2006The Guardian
The potential bill facing the government for cleaning up British Energy's nuclear liabilities has risen by almost £1bn to more than £5bn.
British Energy said yesterday that the latest of a series of five-yearly reviews of its uncontracted liabilities and decommissioning costs had shown they had increased by £956m to £5.3bn, mainly as a result higher decommissioning costs.
Under British Energy's restructuring plan completed last year, the government agreed to indemnify the company against any shortfall in the nuclear liabilities fund which meets the clean up costs. In return British Energy contributes 65% of its net cash flow to the fund. The increased liabilities will not mean the company will have to pay more to the fund.
Article continues
Yesterday British Energy said its operating profits for the nine months to January 1 totalled £377m, with £242m coming in the third quarter.
The company has eight nuclear power plants and one coal fired station and its profits have been boosted by the rising price of electricity. It has pre-sold all its planned output for the current financial year at an average price of £33.3 per megawatt hourand has sold 60% of next year's output at an average price of £37.8 per megawatt hour. The company's performance was, however, held back by unplanned shutdowns with British Energy acknowledging that unexpected loss of generating capacity would lead to higher costs.
So far this year British Energy has invested £170m in its plant and is planning to increase that to up to £300m for next year, a programme which it hopes will cut unexpectedshutdowns. It is also planning to increase spending on operating costs by around £60m, including more staff and higher spending on insurance and security. The company declined to be drawn on the increased security measures.
Elsewhere in the energy sector, National Grid confirmed that it is in talks with the US natural gas distribution company KeySpan Corp which industry sources suggested could lead to a $7bn (£4bn) bid. The UK company already has energy interests in the north east United States and KeySpan's operations in New York, Massachusetts and New Hampshire are seen as a good fit.
Analysts had suggested National Grid could launch a rights issue or place shares to help finance a deal but yesterday the company said any transaction would be on a cash basis, financed from borrowings. Consolidated Edison from the US is also seen as a possible bidder, though it could face competition problems.Special reportThe nuclear industryUseful linksBritish EnergyDepartment of Trade and IndustryBritish Nuclear Fuels LtdCampaign for Nuclear DisarmamentGreenpeaceHSE nuclear glossaryCome Clean WMD awareness programmeUK atomic energy authorityNational Radiological Protection BoardFriends of the EarthWorld Nuclear AssociationWorld Nuclear Transport Institute
Advertiser links
Free Delivery on Fitness Equipment
Free nationwide delivery on fitness equipment. Request our...fitness-superstore.co.uk
Which? Report on Fitness
Which? Online gives unbiased advice and information on a...trial.which.co.uk
Fitness Clothing by Anniluce UK
High quality fitness clothing for men and women which is...anniluce.co.uk
Can fungi trim the gasoline habit?
By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Souped-up microscopic fungi could help cut the U.S. gasoline habit by converting a billion tons of agricultural waste into domestic fuel, while also slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
As if that isn't enough, the concept has the blessing of the president -- an ex-oilman.
On a tour of the Midwest this week, President George W. Bush reiterated that he wants to wean the United States off its "addiction" to imported oil, partly by funding research into new methods of producing ethanol -- a fuel currently made in North America mostly from corn kernels and in Brazil from sugar cane juice.
Filamentous fungi and other microbes can be bred to break down an array of feedstocks, including wood chips, corn stalks and switch grass, that require no fertilizer and less input than traditional sources of the fuel.
James Woolsey, former CIA director under Bill Clinton, compared the state of the science for the new ethanol to the quick rise of the aero industry after the first flight.
"The Wright Brothers have flown," said Woolsey, who is now a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Woolsey and other experts say the biggest factors supporting the growth of an ethanol derived from native grasses and crop waste is that the science to make it is already within reach, and cars that burn it are already on the road.
To make cellulosic ethanol, enzymes spewed from fungi convert cellulose from the fibrous parts of plants, such as stalks, into sugar that then is fermented. In traditional ethanol, yeast breaks down sugar from the starchy parts of plants, such as corn kernels.
Scientists bioengineer fungi -- such as "jungle rot" that chewed through tents of the U.S. Army during World War Two in Guam -- to make the best enzymes for different fibrous plants.
"Fungi are the scavengers in nature that break down cellulose anyway, so we're not trying to turn an elephant into a mouse," said Mark Emalfarb, president and chief executive of Florida-based Dyadic International Inc.
Emalfarb said fungi Dyadic uses to soften and lighten blue jeans can break down corn stalks, sugar cane waste and rice straw into fuel.
It's a step beyond making conventional ethanol in which yeast breaks down easier-to-process plant starch.
COSTS
The current price is high, about $2 to $3 per gallon, compared with about $1.07 a gallon for conventional ethanol, according to Glenn Nedwin, president of Danish enzymes company Novozymes.
But as the first commercial plants open and processing is perfected, costs should quickly fall, Woolsey said.
Feedstock abounds. The U.S. government estimates that more than 1 billion tons of crop and forest waste are available. Potentially, that amount of waste could make 80 billion gallons a year of ethanol -- about a third of U.S. gasoline demand.
And native crop switchgrass and other low-input feedstocks can be grown far away from the current Gulf of Mexico and Midwest oil refining centers. That would allow the fuel to be produced nationwide and could cut the need to transport fuels thousands of miles.
What's more, the fuel can cut carbon dioxide emissions. At least one big energy company under mandate by the European Union to cut greenhouse emissions is investing. Royal Dutch Shell has invested $40 million in Iogen, which has been operating a pilot plant making the fuel in Canada for two years.
FOLLOWING BRAZIL'S LEAD?
Brazil has slashed imports of Middle Eastern oil by expanding its conventional ethanol program. If fungi or bacteria can be engineered to break down sugar cane waste, it could even cut its dependence on its own oil, experts say.
President Bush hopes to reduce oil imports from violence-torn countries, in part by making cellulosic ethanol competitive in six years.
That could give a headache to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose slice of the world's oil production is growing as output elsewhere wanes. OPEC currently produces 40 percent of the world's oil and is expected to produce 60 percent of world oil in 2030.
U.S. conventional ethanol output grew 17 percent last year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. That could lay the groundwork for growth in cellulosic ethanol.
"Corn is a transitional technology, it's creating infrastructure and demand, but ultimately we're going to be growing specialized energy crops," said Chris Somerville, a researcher at Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project.
Already, 37 states have stations that pump E85, a blend of conventional ethanol with gasoline. The total number of pumps is small, but ethanol is closer to reality than hydrogen fuel cells, the government's other big transportation fuel push.
And the few hydrogen fuel cell cars in existence cost about $1 million. But more than 5 million U.S. cars can burn E85.
Energy experts are cautiously optimistic. "The infrastructure is there or the technology to create it is there," said Aaron Brady, an analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Massachusetts. "I don't see any huge hurdle to getting this stuff to the pump," he said.
He said the fuel could become a big part of an alternative fuel program that eventually cuts oil dependence by including solar, wind and nuclear power.
The first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant is slated to open this year in Spain, owned by SunOpta Inc. Iogen plans to build a $350 million commercial plant in the Midwest or Canada next year, though it hasn't secured financing yet.
Earlier this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman announced that Washington is offering $160 million to build up to three industry-government funded cellulosic ethanol refineries.© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
By Timothy Gardner
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Souped-up microscopic fungi could help cut the U.S. gasoline habit by converting a billion tons of agricultural waste into domestic fuel, while also slashing greenhouse gas emissions.
As if that isn't enough, the concept has the blessing of the president -- an ex-oilman.
On a tour of the Midwest this week, President George W. Bush reiterated that he wants to wean the United States off its "addiction" to imported oil, partly by funding research into new methods of producing ethanol -- a fuel currently made in North America mostly from corn kernels and in Brazil from sugar cane juice.
Filamentous fungi and other microbes can be bred to break down an array of feedstocks, including wood chips, corn stalks and switch grass, that require no fertilizer and less input than traditional sources of the fuel.
James Woolsey, former CIA director under Bill Clinton, compared the state of the science for the new ethanol to the quick rise of the aero industry after the first flight.
"The Wright Brothers have flown," said Woolsey, who is now a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton.
Woolsey and other experts say the biggest factors supporting the growth of an ethanol derived from native grasses and crop waste is that the science to make it is already within reach, and cars that burn it are already on the road.
To make cellulosic ethanol, enzymes spewed from fungi convert cellulose from the fibrous parts of plants, such as stalks, into sugar that then is fermented. In traditional ethanol, yeast breaks down sugar from the starchy parts of plants, such as corn kernels.
Scientists bioengineer fungi -- such as "jungle rot" that chewed through tents of the U.S. Army during World War Two in Guam -- to make the best enzymes for different fibrous plants.
"Fungi are the scavengers in nature that break down cellulose anyway, so we're not trying to turn an elephant into a mouse," said Mark Emalfarb, president and chief executive of Florida-based Dyadic International Inc.
Emalfarb said fungi Dyadic uses to soften and lighten blue jeans can break down corn stalks, sugar cane waste and rice straw into fuel.
It's a step beyond making conventional ethanol in which yeast breaks down easier-to-process plant starch.
COSTS
The current price is high, about $2 to $3 per gallon, compared with about $1.07 a gallon for conventional ethanol, according to Glenn Nedwin, president of Danish enzymes company Novozymes.
But as the first commercial plants open and processing is perfected, costs should quickly fall, Woolsey said.
Feedstock abounds. The U.S. government estimates that more than 1 billion tons of crop and forest waste are available. Potentially, that amount of waste could make 80 billion gallons a year of ethanol -- about a third of U.S. gasoline demand.
And native crop switchgrass and other low-input feedstocks can be grown far away from the current Gulf of Mexico and Midwest oil refining centers. That would allow the fuel to be produced nationwide and could cut the need to transport fuels thousands of miles.
What's more, the fuel can cut carbon dioxide emissions. At least one big energy company under mandate by the European Union to cut greenhouse emissions is investing. Royal Dutch Shell has invested $40 million in Iogen, which has been operating a pilot plant making the fuel in Canada for two years.
FOLLOWING BRAZIL'S LEAD?
Brazil has slashed imports of Middle Eastern oil by expanding its conventional ethanol program. If fungi or bacteria can be engineered to break down sugar cane waste, it could even cut its dependence on its own oil, experts say.
President Bush hopes to reduce oil imports from violence-torn countries, in part by making cellulosic ethanol competitive in six years.
That could give a headache to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, whose slice of the world's oil production is growing as output elsewhere wanes. OPEC currently produces 40 percent of the world's oil and is expected to produce 60 percent of world oil in 2030.
U.S. conventional ethanol output grew 17 percent last year, according to the Renewable Fuels Association. That could lay the groundwork for growth in cellulosic ethanol.
"Corn is a transitional technology, it's creating infrastructure and demand, but ultimately we're going to be growing specialized energy crops," said Chris Somerville, a researcher at Stanford University's Global Climate and Energy Project.
Already, 37 states have stations that pump E85, a blend of conventional ethanol with gasoline. The total number of pumps is small, but ethanol is closer to reality than hydrogen fuel cells, the government's other big transportation fuel push.
And the few hydrogen fuel cell cars in existence cost about $1 million. But more than 5 million U.S. cars can burn E85.
Energy experts are cautiously optimistic. "The infrastructure is there or the technology to create it is there," said Aaron Brady, an analyst at Cambridge Energy Research Associates in Massachusetts. "I don't see any huge hurdle to getting this stuff to the pump," he said.
He said the fuel could become a big part of an alternative fuel program that eventually cuts oil dependence by including solar, wind and nuclear power.
The first commercial cellulosic ethanol plant is slated to open this year in Spain, owned by SunOpta Inc. Iogen plans to build a $350 million commercial plant in the Midwest or Canada next year, though it hasn't secured financing yet.
Earlier this week, U.S. Energy Secretary Sam Bodman announced that Washington is offering $160 million to build up to three industry-government funded cellulosic ethanol refineries.© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Hydrogen and the Internal Combustion Engine
San Diego, Calif. - Prior to the WestStart Clean Heavy Duty Vehicle Conference, there was a related symposium on site in San Diego, "Why Hydrogen: A Commercial Perspective". Keynote speaker Andy Abele (Executive Director, Strategic Development Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide) delivered an informative presentation on the hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine (HICE) as a bridge to fuel cell technology.
As part of its transportation technology program, Quantum is developing and distributing hydrogen-fueled Priuses to five cities in California and also developing light, medium, and heavy-duty HICE vehicles. This includes testing with hydrogen/natural gas blends as well as straight hydrogen fuels.
Although HICE technology offers many of the advantages of fuel cells for transportation at a fraction of the current cost for fuel cell propulsion, it also faces a number of the same challenges.
Ethanol is a renewable liquid fuel that is already being used with gasoline, using the existing fuel infrastructure.
Biodiesel offers similar benefits in the diesel arena.
Hydrogen remains a gaseous fuel that relies on an alternative fueling infrastructure: will it be more readily accepted than natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas? In order for hydrogen to succeed - either for HICE or fuel cell applications - it needs a combination of: technology advancement in solving problems of range, longevity and cost; policy support, to encourage and drive market acceptance; funding - specifically cost sharing of R&D, capital costs and infrastructure deployment; and consistency in certification, standards and permitting. -
San Diego, Calif. - Prior to the WestStart Clean Heavy Duty Vehicle Conference, there was a related symposium on site in San Diego, "Why Hydrogen: A Commercial Perspective". Keynote speaker Andy Abele (Executive Director, Strategic Development Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide) delivered an informative presentation on the hydrogen-fueled internal combustion engine (HICE) as a bridge to fuel cell technology.
As part of its transportation technology program, Quantum is developing and distributing hydrogen-fueled Priuses to five cities in California and also developing light, medium, and heavy-duty HICE vehicles. This includes testing with hydrogen/natural gas blends as well as straight hydrogen fuels.
Although HICE technology offers many of the advantages of fuel cells for transportation at a fraction of the current cost for fuel cell propulsion, it also faces a number of the same challenges.
Ethanol is a renewable liquid fuel that is already being used with gasoline, using the existing fuel infrastructure.
Biodiesel offers similar benefits in the diesel arena.
Hydrogen remains a gaseous fuel that relies on an alternative fueling infrastructure: will it be more readily accepted than natural gas or liquefied petroleum gas? In order for hydrogen to succeed - either for HICE or fuel cell applications - it needs a combination of: technology advancement in solving problems of range, longevity and cost; policy support, to encourage and drive market acceptance; funding - specifically cost sharing of R&D, capital costs and infrastructure deployment; and consistency in certification, standards and permitting. -
Ballard Focuses On New Business - The Car Connection
The revolution has stalled, but the maker of fuel cells is still looking for customers.
by Joseph Szczesny (2006-02-27)
Vancouver-based Ballard Power Systems sits at the leading edge of the fuel-cell revolution - but judging from the Canadian company's recent financial report, the revolution is on hold.
Ballard's partners include automotive heavyweights Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda. And public-relations stunts are in full flower: DaimlerChrysler recently dropped off a fleet of experimental fuel-cell vehicles atLos Angeles International Airport for a long-term test. But overall, the development of fuel-cell vehicles appears to be stuck in the slow lane.
The goods news - for Ballard, anyway - is that it managed to reduce its financial losses to $83 million in 2004, which compares favorably with the $175.4 million loss the company posted in 2004. The company's cash reserves held steady at around $233 million and the company shipped or booked for customers in Japan orders for 221 stationary fuel cells. In addition, the cars and buses equipped with fuel cells logged more than 720,000 test miles last year.
However, revenue, a critical measurement for any kind of start-up or company dabbling in new technology, dropped by a third in 2005 to $53.7 million from $81.4 million. The sale of a European venture but the company's revenues also declined because key automotive customers deployed fewer test vehicles last year than they did in 2003 or 2004, according to the company's abbreviated financial reports.
Meanwhile, Ballard, which has been one of the pioneers in the development of commercially viable fuel-cell systems, is still holding discussions with another unidentified automotive partner, according to the company's latest reports. The company's automotive engineers also showed a fuel stack that could start at very cold 25 degrees below zero Centigrade and dropped off demonstration vehicles in Santa Clara, Vancouver, and Beijing, which is thought to be one of the world's great markets for futuristic fuel-cell vehicles.
Ballard also reported it was pushing ahead with efforts to commercialize some of the fuel-cell technology it has under development. However, at $73 per kilowatt hour, the energy Ballard has developed remains very expensive.
Thus, while Ballard is in pretty good shape, the financial results suggest that the automakers themselves have grown more skeptical about the prospects for some kind of a breakthrough in fuel-cell technology. Ballard noted the spending on engineering went up in 2005 but it's hard to detect any sense of real urgency or a breakthrough in the financial numbers.
John Sheridan, Ballard's newly appointed president and chief executive officer, said, "2005 was an important year for Ballard as we repositioned the company and developed a commercial strategy with a sharper focus, which has opened new opportunities for Ballard in materials handling and backup power markets."
"As well, our natural gas-fueled cogeneration fuel cell product captured the leading position in the Japanese market and Ballard-powered fuel cell vehicles continued to demonstrate outstanding performance in automotive markets around the world," Sheridan added.
Ballard's goals for 2006 are relatively modest. It is planning to continue its push into the residential cogeneration market in Japan by shipping 280 finished fuel cells. Another 300 Ballard-made fuel cells are destined from other customers, primarily in material handling, where they are used as a backup source of power.
In addition, Ballard will continue with its automotive experiments and its officials said last week the Canadian company is in an excellent position to meet the goals laid out in its technology roadmap.
However, despite the growth of its commercial business and relative financial stability, Ballard expects only modest growth in its revenue to around $55 million to $60 million this year.
Sheridan, who served as Ballard's non-executive chairman before accepting the chief executive role, also stressed the near term when he accepted the CEO role.
"While the fuel-cell sector has been through some tough times over the past few years, I'm excited by Ballard's repositioning and our near terms and mid-term opportunities," said Sheridan , "as we progress towards the longer-term value creation opportunities in automotive markets."
The revolution has stalled, but the maker of fuel cells is still looking for customers.
by Joseph Szczesny (2006-02-27)
Vancouver-based Ballard Power Systems sits at the leading edge of the fuel-cell revolution - but judging from the Canadian company's recent financial report, the revolution is on hold.
Ballard's partners include automotive heavyweights Ford, DaimlerChrysler, and Honda. And public-relations stunts are in full flower: DaimlerChrysler recently dropped off a fleet of experimental fuel-cell vehicles atLos Angeles International Airport for a long-term test. But overall, the development of fuel-cell vehicles appears to be stuck in the slow lane.
The goods news - for Ballard, anyway - is that it managed to reduce its financial losses to $83 million in 2004, which compares favorably with the $175.4 million loss the company posted in 2004. The company's cash reserves held steady at around $233 million and the company shipped or booked for customers in Japan orders for 221 stationary fuel cells. In addition, the cars and buses equipped with fuel cells logged more than 720,000 test miles last year.
However, revenue, a critical measurement for any kind of start-up or company dabbling in new technology, dropped by a third in 2005 to $53.7 million from $81.4 million. The sale of a European venture but the company's revenues also declined because key automotive customers deployed fewer test vehicles last year than they did in 2003 or 2004, according to the company's abbreviated financial reports.
Meanwhile, Ballard, which has been one of the pioneers in the development of commercially viable fuel-cell systems, is still holding discussions with another unidentified automotive partner, according to the company's latest reports. The company's automotive engineers also showed a fuel stack that could start at very cold 25 degrees below zero Centigrade and dropped off demonstration vehicles in Santa Clara, Vancouver, and Beijing, which is thought to be one of the world's great markets for futuristic fuel-cell vehicles.
Ballard also reported it was pushing ahead with efforts to commercialize some of the fuel-cell technology it has under development. However, at $73 per kilowatt hour, the energy Ballard has developed remains very expensive.
Thus, while Ballard is in pretty good shape, the financial results suggest that the automakers themselves have grown more skeptical about the prospects for some kind of a breakthrough in fuel-cell technology. Ballard noted the spending on engineering went up in 2005 but it's hard to detect any sense of real urgency or a breakthrough in the financial numbers.
John Sheridan, Ballard's newly appointed president and chief executive officer, said, "2005 was an important year for Ballard as we repositioned the company and developed a commercial strategy with a sharper focus, which has opened new opportunities for Ballard in materials handling and backup power markets."
"As well, our natural gas-fueled cogeneration fuel cell product captured the leading position in the Japanese market and Ballard-powered fuel cell vehicles continued to demonstrate outstanding performance in automotive markets around the world," Sheridan added.
Ballard's goals for 2006 are relatively modest. It is planning to continue its push into the residential cogeneration market in Japan by shipping 280 finished fuel cells. Another 300 Ballard-made fuel cells are destined from other customers, primarily in material handling, where they are used as a backup source of power.
In addition, Ballard will continue with its automotive experiments and its officials said last week the Canadian company is in an excellent position to meet the goals laid out in its technology roadmap.
However, despite the growth of its commercial business and relative financial stability, Ballard expects only modest growth in its revenue to around $55 million to $60 million this year.
Sheridan, who served as Ballard's non-executive chairman before accepting the chief executive role, also stressed the near term when he accepted the CEO role.
"While the fuel-cell sector has been through some tough times over the past few years, I'm excited by Ballard's repositioning and our near terms and mid-term opportunities," said Sheridan , "as we progress towards the longer-term value creation opportunities in automotive markets."
Energy bill generates heat
Gas- and oil-drilling rigs and electricity-generating windmills off the coast. A liquid natural gas port and oil refineries onshore. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants and more windmills inland. Solar panels. Tax breaks for energy-efficient appliances and clean-running, gas-sipping cars.
All this and more is part of the vision of Virginia's future that Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, lays out in his Virginia Energy Plan.
It's a vision that disturbs environmentalists.
"The Virginia Energy Plan was basically written by big energy companies like AEP and Dominion to basically subsidize their existence," Sierra Club activist Joshua Low said last week.
Wagner prefers to describe his bill as dealing with immediate energy needs through traditional sources while trying to develop alternatives for the future.
"We don't have an energy shortage in this country," Wagner said. "We have an energy policy problem that creates an energy shortage."
Everyone knew the United States' energy system was flawed, he said. Hurricane Katrina and the surge in fuel prices that followed made those flaws impossible to ignore.
While the nation's energy policy has problems, Virginia doesn't have an energy policy. Wagner's legislation would change that by developing a 10-year road map. It addresses virtually every aspect of energy use and production and even offers some advice to the federal government.
"It's a pretty broad-based approach and it addresses a lot of things," said Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, who is co-sponsoring Wagner's bill. Bell called an energy policy critical to the state's economy.
Michael Town, director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club, agrees the state needs an energy plan. He's just not sure this is the right plan.
The Sierra Club is concerned about the bill's support for offshore drilling and the way it overrides local government in the siting of liquid natural gas terminals, nuclear power plants and windmills. The plan doesn't say enough about conservation, either, in Town's opinion.
"I'm sure there are some people who have heartburn with some parts of it," Bell said. "But that's true of a lot of bills we vote on."
How much heartburn a person has, Bell suggested, depends on their perspective.
From Cale Jaffe's perspective, the legislation has "a host of problems."
The biggest, said Jaffe, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, is the bill's promotion of offshore drilling.
"It's a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors campaign," he said.
Even if the most optimistic estimates prove to be accurate, Jaffe said, Virginia's coast won't produce enough oil or gas to affect energy prices in the commonwealth.
"Unless Virginia is going to start out-producing Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela, we're not going to move the ball much," he said.
If the legislation passes, the money Virginia would receive for drilling and other energy-related activity would be divided among transportation (40 percent), water quality (40 percent), coal research (5 percent) and alternative energy research (15 percent split among three programs).
Michael Karmis, director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research, is more positive about the legislation. The Virginia Tech-based center would be intimately involved in developing the state's energy plan if Wagner's legislation passes. The center would also get more research money, particularly for clean coal.
"Clean coal is a much broader term than most people appreciate," Karmis said. The term includes advanced technology such as the gasification of hydrogen from coal for use in fuel cells, he said.
Created by the General Assembly in 1977, the center's board includes the biggest energy companies and some of the biggest energy users in Virginia. The Virginia Mining Association is represented on that board. Dink Shackleford, the association's executive director, called Wagner's bill "a move in the right direction."
"Anything any of us can do to save and develop clean energy sources is almost a duty now," Shackleford said. "But we need a lot of energy and just saving some on heating cost or some lower-using electrical appliances are just not going to get us out of this.
"When the rubber hits the road, it's coal that comes out as the best way to meet Virginia's energy needs. We can encourage these other technologies and their development, but they are many years out and can't really meet the huge demand that the entire country is facing."
The Sierra Club's Town sees the legislation's concentration on conventional energy sources as one of its weaknesses.
"This is a way to promote more fossil fuel use," Town said.
And burning so much fossil fuel, he said, created many of the country's energy and environmental problems.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fossil fuels generated 62.5 percent of Virginia's electricity in 2003. Nuclear power accounted for 33.6 percent. Hydroelectric plants provided 2.4 percent. Renewable sources such as wind accounted for 1.5 percent.
Nationally, nuclear power accounted for less than 20 percent of electricity generation. Renewables and hydroelectric plants produced nearly 10 percent.
Wagner's legislation would do more than promote fossil fuel. It would create a consortium to study alternative energy sources; set up a system to provide grants for alternative energy research; and provide tax breaks for people who buy energy-efficient cars.
"I think it's really an attempt at green-washing," said Jaffe, "making it look like a more environmental bill than it is."
The new alternative-energy consortium would be funded by offshore drilling proceeds. It would share that funding with the Water Quality Improvement Fund, the Transportation Fund, clean coal research and the alternative energy research grant program.
To qualify for the tax break, cars would have to get more than 40 miles per gallon according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's combined mileage estimates. They would also have to be "super-ultra-low-emissions vehicles."
According to the EPA's Web site, only four 2006 cars meet the 40 mpg requirement. Only three of them meet the SULEV standard. None of them is sold in Virginia.
Karmis said the legislation would stimulate research and planning.
"Essentially," he said, "it allows Virginia to do some short-term and long-term energy thinking."
Town thinks the General Assembly needs to do more long-term thinking about this bill.
He would like to use it as the starting point in a discussion about Virginia's energy policy, but he'd like to see the bill carried over to the legislature's 2007 session so legislators would have time to study it.
"I don't think legislators want to go home and find out there were things in this legislation they didn't know were there."
This bill could shape Virginia's energy policy for the next 20 years, Town said.
"I don't think they need to do that in the next 20 days."
Gas- and oil-drilling rigs and electricity-generating windmills off the coast. A liquid natural gas port and oil refineries onshore. Nuclear and coal-fired power plants and more windmills inland. Solar panels. Tax breaks for energy-efficient appliances and clean-running, gas-sipping cars.
All this and more is part of the vision of Virginia's future that Sen. Frank Wagner, R-Virginia Beach, lays out in his Virginia Energy Plan.
It's a vision that disturbs environmentalists.
"The Virginia Energy Plan was basically written by big energy companies like AEP and Dominion to basically subsidize their existence," Sierra Club activist Joshua Low said last week.
Wagner prefers to describe his bill as dealing with immediate energy needs through traditional sources while trying to develop alternatives for the future.
"We don't have an energy shortage in this country," Wagner said. "We have an energy policy problem that creates an energy shortage."
Everyone knew the United States' energy system was flawed, he said. Hurricane Katrina and the surge in fuel prices that followed made those flaws impossible to ignore.
While the nation's energy policy has problems, Virginia doesn't have an energy policy. Wagner's legislation would change that by developing a 10-year road map. It addresses virtually every aspect of energy use and production and even offers some advice to the federal government.
"It's a pretty broad-based approach and it addresses a lot of things," said Sen. Brandon Bell, R-Roanoke County, who is co-sponsoring Wagner's bill. Bell called an energy policy critical to the state's economy.
Michael Town, director of the state chapter of the Sierra Club, agrees the state needs an energy plan. He's just not sure this is the right plan.
The Sierra Club is concerned about the bill's support for offshore drilling and the way it overrides local government in the siting of liquid natural gas terminals, nuclear power plants and windmills. The plan doesn't say enough about conservation, either, in Town's opinion.
"I'm sure there are some people who have heartburn with some parts of it," Bell said. "But that's true of a lot of bills we vote on."
How much heartburn a person has, Bell suggested, depends on their perspective.
From Cale Jaffe's perspective, the legislation has "a host of problems."
The biggest, said Jaffe, a lawyer with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Charlottesville, is the bill's promotion of offshore drilling.
"It's a bit of a smoke-and-mirrors campaign," he said.
Even if the most optimistic estimates prove to be accurate, Jaffe said, Virginia's coast won't produce enough oil or gas to affect energy prices in the commonwealth.
"Unless Virginia is going to start out-producing Saudi Arabia, Russia and Venezuela, we're not going to move the ball much," he said.
If the legislation passes, the money Virginia would receive for drilling and other energy-related activity would be divided among transportation (40 percent), water quality (40 percent), coal research (5 percent) and alternative energy research (15 percent split among three programs).
Michael Karmis, director of the Virginia Center for Coal and Energy Research, is more positive about the legislation. The Virginia Tech-based center would be intimately involved in developing the state's energy plan if Wagner's legislation passes. The center would also get more research money, particularly for clean coal.
"Clean coal is a much broader term than most people appreciate," Karmis said. The term includes advanced technology such as the gasification of hydrogen from coal for use in fuel cells, he said.
Created by the General Assembly in 1977, the center's board includes the biggest energy companies and some of the biggest energy users in Virginia. The Virginia Mining Association is represented on that board. Dink Shackleford, the association's executive director, called Wagner's bill "a move in the right direction."
"Anything any of us can do to save and develop clean energy sources is almost a duty now," Shackleford said. "But we need a lot of energy and just saving some on heating cost or some lower-using electrical appliances are just not going to get us out of this.
"When the rubber hits the road, it's coal that comes out as the best way to meet Virginia's energy needs. We can encourage these other technologies and their development, but they are many years out and can't really meet the huge demand that the entire country is facing."
The Sierra Club's Town sees the legislation's concentration on conventional energy sources as one of its weaknesses.
"This is a way to promote more fossil fuel use," Town said.
And burning so much fossil fuel, he said, created many of the country's energy and environmental problems.
According to the U.S. Department of Energy, fossil fuels generated 62.5 percent of Virginia's electricity in 2003. Nuclear power accounted for 33.6 percent. Hydroelectric plants provided 2.4 percent. Renewable sources such as wind accounted for 1.5 percent.
Nationally, nuclear power accounted for less than 20 percent of electricity generation. Renewables and hydroelectric plants produced nearly 10 percent.
Wagner's legislation would do more than promote fossil fuel. It would create a consortium to study alternative energy sources; set up a system to provide grants for alternative energy research; and provide tax breaks for people who buy energy-efficient cars.
"I think it's really an attempt at green-washing," said Jaffe, "making it look like a more environmental bill than it is."
The new alternative-energy consortium would be funded by offshore drilling proceeds. It would share that funding with the Water Quality Improvement Fund, the Transportation Fund, clean coal research and the alternative energy research grant program.
To qualify for the tax break, cars would have to get more than 40 miles per gallon according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's combined mileage estimates. They would also have to be "super-ultra-low-emissions vehicles."
According to the EPA's Web site, only four 2006 cars meet the 40 mpg requirement. Only three of them meet the SULEV standard. None of them is sold in Virginia.
Karmis said the legislation would stimulate research and planning.
"Essentially," he said, "it allows Virginia to do some short-term and long-term energy thinking."
Town thinks the General Assembly needs to do more long-term thinking about this bill.
He would like to use it as the starting point in a discussion about Virginia's energy policy, but he'd like to see the bill carried over to the legislature's 2007 session so legislators would have time to study it.
"I don't think legislators want to go home and find out there were things in this legislation they didn't know were there."
This bill could shape Virginia's energy policy for the next 20 years, Town said.
"I don't think they need to do that in the next 20 days."
Monday, February 27, 2006
Korea losing out in the race for energy
February 27, 2006 ¤Ñ [Second in a series] Since leaping into the slot of the world's second-largest consumer of oil, outpacing Japan in 2002, China has become a major energy power on the global scene. National representatives are traveling across the globe in a search for oilfields and other natural resources such as iron ore.
With an economy that has been growing at 9 percent annually in the past few years, China has become a voracious consumer of natural resources, and could see a pronounced drop in its growth if it does not get them. According to International Energy Agency, China's oil dependency ratio, which stood at 45 percent in 2004, is expected to rise to as high as 83 percent in 2030 ¡ª in other words, only one barrel in five of the huge economy's needs will be pumped from domestic sources by then. Under the circumstances, China has little choice but to develop every possible domestic resource it has while pushing hard for the rights to develop foreign energy sources.
The Chinese government launched an east-west pipeline project in the early 1990s in a bid to carry oil and gas produced in its western Xinjang province to its east coast. About 4,000 kilometers (2,400 miles) of pipeline is already in place, and China last year began supplying natural gas from fields in the Tarim Basin of its northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the Shanghai area. The government is also planning a buried, 10,000-kilometer pipeline across the country by 2015.
China also jousted with Japan for the right to develop the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea, where it is drilling only about 4 kilometers from the boundary of the exclusive economic zone claimed by Japan. It has also discovered its largest undersea oil and gas resources in the Bo Hai Gulf. Thanks to those efforts, China is positioned for an increase in seabed oil and gas production of more than 15 percent annually.
China's pursuit of resources does not end there. The China National Offshore Oil Corp. recently spent $2.3 billion to buy 45 percent of the rights to the Akpo oil field in Nigeria. Another national oil corporation, China National Petroleum Corp., last August acquired Petro Kazakhstan, the third-ranking oil company in Kazakhstan. China National Petroleum Corp. later secured rights to exploit oil resources in Venezuela, Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran and Indonesia. An employee at the Korean National Oil Corp. said that China has, since 1993, bought 34 oil companies in 19 countries, a spending spree that has surprised competitors because of its willingness to buy at almost any price.
China is not alone in Asia in its rush to procure as many resources as possible. Japan has an energy company that produces one-fourth of the world's coal and ranks third in the volume of liquid natural gas it produces globally. Mitsubishi Corp. had sales of 160 trillion won ($165 billion) in 2004, and 70 trillion won of those sales came from the development, production and trade of foreign energy and metals.
The company is producing crude oil and natural gas from nine fields in the Gulf of Mexico, and has invested about 2 trillion won into the development of gas fields in Sakhalin, an eastern Russian island. In addition, it is exploiting energy and mineral resources from 25 countries around the globe, including the United States, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil and Gabon. Mitsubishi has over 10,000 employees working in the field of energy resources ¡ª Korean trading companies average about 30.
Japanese trade corporations such as Mitsui Corp., Itochu Corp., Sumimoto Corp. and Marubeni Corp. are also snapping up natural resource development rights; they obtain about half of their net profits from resources trading.
The majority of Chile's copper mines, for example, are owned by Japanese trading companies. The Chilean mines in total churn out about 38 percent of the global production of copper. Mitsui and Marubeni together hold nearly 40-percent stakes in the Chilean mines ranked first, third and fourth in production. Nearly all of the production is exported for consumption in Japan.
Mistui's crude oil from overseas fields is about 2 billion barrels a year, an amount equivalent to Japan's total consumption.
And in a decidedly un-Japanese (or un-Korean, for that matter) development, Japanese companies have been increasingly going at each other hammer and tongs in competition for foreign resources. Mitsui and Sumitomo jousted for control of a natural gas field in Indonesia in 2003 and a marine oil field off Western Australia in 2004.
A senior employee at Mitsubishi's energy operations said, "We care only about us and our shareholders' earnings. So it's natural that we sometime compete with and sometimes are partners with other Japanese companies."
In fact, Japanese trading firms are getting more aggressive in the energy sector. Mitsubishi announced in 2004 that it would make resources its core business, to spur long-term revenue growth. It did not conceal its ambition to become the world's largest energy company; last year, an executive said Mitsubishi was looking for a European energy corporation to acquire.
Sumimoto also made it clear that it would make the energy sector its top priority in its mid-term management plan for 2005 to 2007.
"Compared to only several billion won that Korean companies invest into resources development every year, Japan is spending at least one trillion won a year," an employee at a Korean trading company worried. "More investments by Japanese companies will only make it harder for Korean energy firms to win the battle to get more energy."
by Special Reporting Team
February 27, 2006 ¤Ñ [Second in a series] Since leaping into the slot of the world's second-largest consumer of oil, outpacing Japan in 2002, China has become a major energy power on the global scene. National representatives are traveling across the globe in a search for oilfields and other natural resources such as iron ore.
With an economy that has been growing at 9 percent annually in the past few years, China has become a voracious consumer of natural resources, and could see a pronounced drop in its growth if it does not get them. According to International Energy Agency, China's oil dependency ratio, which stood at 45 percent in 2004, is expected to rise to as high as 83 percent in 2030 ¡ª in other words, only one barrel in five of the huge economy's needs will be pumped from domestic sources by then. Under the circumstances, China has little choice but to develop every possible domestic resource it has while pushing hard for the rights to develop foreign energy sources.
The Chinese government launched an east-west pipeline project in the early 1990s in a bid to carry oil and gas produced in its western Xinjang province to its east coast. About 4,000 kilometers (2,400 miles) of pipeline is already in place, and China last year began supplying natural gas from fields in the Tarim Basin of its northwestern Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region to the Shanghai area. The government is also planning a buried, 10,000-kilometer pipeline across the country by 2015.
China also jousted with Japan for the right to develop the Chunxiao gas field in the East China Sea, where it is drilling only about 4 kilometers from the boundary of the exclusive economic zone claimed by Japan. It has also discovered its largest undersea oil and gas resources in the Bo Hai Gulf. Thanks to those efforts, China is positioned for an increase in seabed oil and gas production of more than 15 percent annually.
China's pursuit of resources does not end there. The China National Offshore Oil Corp. recently spent $2.3 billion to buy 45 percent of the rights to the Akpo oil field in Nigeria. Another national oil corporation, China National Petroleum Corp., last August acquired Petro Kazakhstan, the third-ranking oil company in Kazakhstan. China National Petroleum Corp. later secured rights to exploit oil resources in Venezuela, Sudan, Algeria, Iraq, Iran and Indonesia. An employee at the Korean National Oil Corp. said that China has, since 1993, bought 34 oil companies in 19 countries, a spending spree that has surprised competitors because of its willingness to buy at almost any price.
China is not alone in Asia in its rush to procure as many resources as possible. Japan has an energy company that produces one-fourth of the world's coal and ranks third in the volume of liquid natural gas it produces globally. Mitsubishi Corp. had sales of 160 trillion won ($165 billion) in 2004, and 70 trillion won of those sales came from the development, production and trade of foreign energy and metals.
The company is producing crude oil and natural gas from nine fields in the Gulf of Mexico, and has invested about 2 trillion won into the development of gas fields in Sakhalin, an eastern Russian island. In addition, it is exploiting energy and mineral resources from 25 countries around the globe, including the United States, Australia, Vietnam, Brazil and Gabon. Mitsubishi has over 10,000 employees working in the field of energy resources ¡ª Korean trading companies average about 30.
Japanese trade corporations such as Mitsui Corp., Itochu Corp., Sumimoto Corp. and Marubeni Corp. are also snapping up natural resource development rights; they obtain about half of their net profits from resources trading.
The majority of Chile's copper mines, for example, are owned by Japanese trading companies. The Chilean mines in total churn out about 38 percent of the global production of copper. Mitsui and Marubeni together hold nearly 40-percent stakes in the Chilean mines ranked first, third and fourth in production. Nearly all of the production is exported for consumption in Japan.
Mistui's crude oil from overseas fields is about 2 billion barrels a year, an amount equivalent to Japan's total consumption.
And in a decidedly un-Japanese (or un-Korean, for that matter) development, Japanese companies have been increasingly going at each other hammer and tongs in competition for foreign resources. Mitsui and Sumitomo jousted for control of a natural gas field in Indonesia in 2003 and a marine oil field off Western Australia in 2004.
A senior employee at Mitsubishi's energy operations said, "We care only about us and our shareholders' earnings. So it's natural that we sometime compete with and sometimes are partners with other Japanese companies."
In fact, Japanese trading firms are getting more aggressive in the energy sector. Mitsubishi announced in 2004 that it would make resources its core business, to spur long-term revenue growth. It did not conceal its ambition to become the world's largest energy company; last year, an executive said Mitsubishi was looking for a European energy corporation to acquire.
Sumimoto also made it clear that it would make the energy sector its top priority in its mid-term management plan for 2005 to 2007.
"Compared to only several billion won that Korean companies invest into resources development every year, Japan is spending at least one trillion won a year," an employee at a Korean trading company worried. "More investments by Japanese companies will only make it harder for Korean energy firms to win the battle to get more energy."
by Special Reporting Team
Palmetto State shows off its power
JASON SPENCER, Staff Writer
Published February 25, 2006
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Photo: PATRICK COLLARD
Dr. Arden Bement, National Science Foundation director, left, talks with Steve Foulger, material science and engineering associate professor, center, and Congressman Bob Inglis, R-S.C., during a tour of the Clemson Research Center on Thursday.
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COLUMBIA -- The panels were off. U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., peered and poked and prodded into what looked oh-so-boring on the outside.
Inglis was enamored with the stationary fuel cell that used hydrogen to at least partially power a building -- a complex, actually, and a large one at that, complete with student living facilities and a learning center.
The University of South Carolina-Columbia's "green dorm" was a small but integral piece in a showcase provided for National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement Jr. over the past two days.
Bement heard about ultraviolet optoelectronics and fifth-grade math and science. He gave the state a pat on the back on his way out, praising advances in hydrogen-based technology, philosophical and social science research and the backing of corporations such as BMW in the state's automotive cluster.
Bement said he sees the future in the Palmetto State, which he believes will be a center for technological development -- especially in the arena of hydrogen-based energy.
And he got an inside look at one such project, inspecting the green dorm's power source.
Natural gas flows into it, generating hydrogen to travel through a stack of plates that make up the fuel cell. Once inside, electricity is created to power interior lights and heat water used in kitchens and bathrooms. Invisible steam escapes through the top.
The contraption runs about $65,000 -- plus about $15,000 a year in maintenance costs, which primarily amounts to an annual fuel cell replacement.
Inglis couldn't get enough.
He's only seen it about a million times before.
"Oh, yeah, he's a regular visitor," a nearby professor laughs.
It was an adult science fair.
No tomato-sauce volcanoes. No Styrofoam dioramas of the universe. Mostly, it was just a bunch of suits talking.
Friday was a chance to hobnob with Bement, who was in the state to check on his group's sizeable investment here, and to learn about new and ongoing research.
He says he liked what he saw.
Introduced as "the nation's first (and largest) eco-sensitive facility for undergrads," the West Quad complex includes four buildings -- including the green dorm -- and has grass on one rooftop, solar panels on another, its own irrigation system, and low-pressure showerheads, faucets and toilets.
It uses up to 49 percent less energy and up to 29 percent less water than comparable facilities. Its success has convinced USC to strive for environmentally friendly buildings in its future expansions.
Inglis, who sits on the committee that approves the National Science Foundation's funding, hosted the West Quad visit on Friday, wrapping up the tour that included Clemson University and a Mauldin Elementary School and ended atop the green dorm. Literally.
Clemson, Bement said, was "becoming one of the top research facilities in the country." And he believes the juxtaposition of research and private investment at that school's International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville will "greatly improve … opportunities for technological advancement."
But Bement, in his comments to school officials, also planted seeds -- pointing out upcoming funding opportunities the National Science Foundation will offer.
It's the kind of suggestion you write down and remember. And probably act on.
"One little nod from him in the whole (grant application) review process -- people are human, you know -- will affect those reviewers," Inglis said.
It was a time for the schools to show off foundation-funded projects, and let those officials in on other projects that could use some financial assistance.
"We're hoping he'll go back and remember one or two or three of the wonderful things we're doing," said Harris Pastides, USC's vice president for research. "And that he'll remember us as one of the places on the map."
In the past 20 months, the National Science Foundation has funded $18.3 million worth of projects at USC.
In all, that group is funneling more than $216 million into various active projects at South Carolina businesses and institutions.
Most of that has been divvied up between the Naval Electronics Systems Engineering Center in Charleston (about $77 million), Clemson University (about $53 million) and the USC Research Foundation (about $35 million).
Bement and his colleagues seemed especially interested in USC research into the societal and ethical impact of nanotechnology -- How do you regulate something that changes a material on a molecular level? How do you anticipate conservative arguments that such manipulation is best left to God? -- and programs that encourage minority doctoral candidates and future researchers.
The combined presentations carried an overall theme of evolution.
"This is a cultural change, if you want to think about it this way. There was a time in the '70s and '80s where we were teaching students, and it was research for research's sake. This is about focusing on innovation," said John Van Zee, director of the school's National Science Foundation-funded Fuel Cell Center.
"We're interested in capturing imaginations, and maybe fuel cells can do that for the next generation of scientists and engineers."
The school's Fuel Cell Program was the centerpiece of Friday's stop.
Inglis sees that program as one ingredient in a larger concoction. But all of them can be found in the Palmetto State, he said.
"South Carolina is a small enough state that if we get our act together and cooperate, we've got a real story to tell about our role in the hydrogen economy," he said. "Put it all together, and you've got something to sell."
Jason Spencer can be reached at 562-7214, or jason.spencer@shj.com.
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JASON SPENCER, Staff Writer
Published February 25, 2006
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View larger image
Photo: PATRICK COLLARD
Dr. Arden Bement, National Science Foundation director, left, talks with Steve Foulger, material science and engineering associate professor, center, and Congressman Bob Inglis, R-S.C., during a tour of the Clemson Research Center on Thursday.
Order photo reprints
Local News Headlines
Mother of two disappears
Eminent domain: House, Senate at odds over bill
Making the leap
Local Sports Headlines
Spartans getting hot at the right time
They needed this
Melton leads Wofford to baseball sweep
Top AP Headlines
29 Killed in Iraq; Blasts Rattle Baghdad
Ports Deal to Get Broader Security Review
Saudis: 2 Foiled Bombers on Terror List
COLUMBIA -- The panels were off. U.S. Rep. Bob Inglis, R-S.C., peered and poked and prodded into what looked oh-so-boring on the outside.
Inglis was enamored with the stationary fuel cell that used hydrogen to at least partially power a building -- a complex, actually, and a large one at that, complete with student living facilities and a learning center.
The University of South Carolina-Columbia's "green dorm" was a small but integral piece in a showcase provided for National Science Foundation Director Arden Bement Jr. over the past two days.
Bement heard about ultraviolet optoelectronics and fifth-grade math and science. He gave the state a pat on the back on his way out, praising advances in hydrogen-based technology, philosophical and social science research and the backing of corporations such as BMW in the state's automotive cluster.
Bement said he sees the future in the Palmetto State, which he believes will be a center for technological development -- especially in the arena of hydrogen-based energy.
And he got an inside look at one such project, inspecting the green dorm's power source.
Natural gas flows into it, generating hydrogen to travel through a stack of plates that make up the fuel cell. Once inside, electricity is created to power interior lights and heat water used in kitchens and bathrooms. Invisible steam escapes through the top.
The contraption runs about $65,000 -- plus about $15,000 a year in maintenance costs, which primarily amounts to an annual fuel cell replacement.
Inglis couldn't get enough.
He's only seen it about a million times before.
"Oh, yeah, he's a regular visitor," a nearby professor laughs.
It was an adult science fair.
No tomato-sauce volcanoes. No Styrofoam dioramas of the universe. Mostly, it was just a bunch of suits talking.
Friday was a chance to hobnob with Bement, who was in the state to check on his group's sizeable investment here, and to learn about new and ongoing research.
He says he liked what he saw.
Introduced as "the nation's first (and largest) eco-sensitive facility for undergrads," the West Quad complex includes four buildings -- including the green dorm -- and has grass on one rooftop, solar panels on another, its own irrigation system, and low-pressure showerheads, faucets and toilets.
It uses up to 49 percent less energy and up to 29 percent less water than comparable facilities. Its success has convinced USC to strive for environmentally friendly buildings in its future expansions.
Inglis, who sits on the committee that approves the National Science Foundation's funding, hosted the West Quad visit on Friday, wrapping up the tour that included Clemson University and a Mauldin Elementary School and ended atop the green dorm. Literally.
Clemson, Bement said, was "becoming one of the top research facilities in the country." And he believes the juxtaposition of research and private investment at that school's International Center for Automotive Research in Greenville will "greatly improve … opportunities for technological advancement."
But Bement, in his comments to school officials, also planted seeds -- pointing out upcoming funding opportunities the National Science Foundation will offer.
It's the kind of suggestion you write down and remember. And probably act on.
"One little nod from him in the whole (grant application) review process -- people are human, you know -- will affect those reviewers," Inglis said.
It was a time for the schools to show off foundation-funded projects, and let those officials in on other projects that could use some financial assistance.
"We're hoping he'll go back and remember one or two or three of the wonderful things we're doing," said Harris Pastides, USC's vice president for research. "And that he'll remember us as one of the places on the map."
In the past 20 months, the National Science Foundation has funded $18.3 million worth of projects at USC.
In all, that group is funneling more than $216 million into various active projects at South Carolina businesses and institutions.
Most of that has been divvied up between the Naval Electronics Systems Engineering Center in Charleston (about $77 million), Clemson University (about $53 million) and the USC Research Foundation (about $35 million).
Bement and his colleagues seemed especially interested in USC research into the societal and ethical impact of nanotechnology -- How do you regulate something that changes a material on a molecular level? How do you anticipate conservative arguments that such manipulation is best left to God? -- and programs that encourage minority doctoral candidates and future researchers.
The combined presentations carried an overall theme of evolution.
"This is a cultural change, if you want to think about it this way. There was a time in the '70s and '80s where we were teaching students, and it was research for research's sake. This is about focusing on innovation," said John Van Zee, director of the school's National Science Foundation-funded Fuel Cell Center.
"We're interested in capturing imaginations, and maybe fuel cells can do that for the next generation of scientists and engineers."
The school's Fuel Cell Program was the centerpiece of Friday's stop.
Inglis sees that program as one ingredient in a larger concoction. But all of them can be found in the Palmetto State, he said.
"South Carolina is a small enough state that if we get our act together and cooperate, we've got a real story to tell about our role in the hydrogen economy," he said. "Put it all together, and you've got something to sell."
Jason Spencer can be reached at 562-7214, or jason.spencer@shj.com.
Top Jobs
Administrative Assistant Seeking highly View full ad
Skilled Trade LABOR FINDERS Needs View full ad
Education Academic Specialist Student View full ad
Restaurant Managers Management opportunities View full ad
Medical RN MANAGER RN to work in risk View full ad
Medical RN/CASE MANAGER SPARTANBURG View full ad
• See all Top Jobs
Top Autos
2003 SATURN L200: Auto, Loaded, 36,921 Miles. $10,750. View full ad
93 CADILLAC Sedan Deville: 4.9 V8, new tires, etc. View full ad
02 FORD RANGER EDGE: Ext. cab, 4 dr., 96K mi., PS, PB, $7, View full ad
02 FORD RANGER EDGE: Ext. cab, 4 dr., 96K mi., PS, PB, $7, View full ad
2000 CADILLAC Seville SLS Ice white, tan leather, 42K View full ad
93 CADILLAC Sedan Deville: 4.9 V8, new tires, etc. View full ad
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