Startech Environmental Starts Manufacturing Plasma Converter for Australia
Company Puts 20,000 pound-per-day System in Production For PlasTech Solutions The System is the First of Its Kind in Australia
Startech Environmental Corporation (OTC Bulletin Board: STHK), a fully reporting company, announced today that the 10 ton-per-day Plasma Converter System for PlasTech Solutions, Ltd. has been put into production. The commencement of the manufacturing process scheduled for February 6, 2006, actually started about two weeks ahead of schedule on January 24, 2006. Delivery is scheduled for a date later in the year.
PlasTech Solutions, Ltd. of New South Wales, Australia is Startech's exclusive distributor for Australia, New Zealand and Oceania. The first-of-its-kind Startech 10 TPD Plasma Converter in the PlasTech territory will be processing an assortment of industrial and institutional wastes.
For further information, please contact: ruth.buchanan@plastechenviro.com
Joseph F. Longo, CEO of Startech said, "With PlasTech based in Australia, GlobalTech in China, and Mihama in Japan, the Company's distributors are now perfectly positioned to sell to and service the enormous Western Pacific Rim and Asian markets. Mihama, located in Kobe, Japan is expected to have completed the recommissioning of its Startech Plasma Converter System, moved from Fukuoka, and to be processing wastes by the end of February, 2006 in Mihama's newly built Plasma Converter Processing and Demonstration Center in Kobe.
About Startech - a Waste Industry and Energy Company
Startech Environmental is a Waste Industry and Energy company engaged in the production and sale of its innovative, proprietary plasma processing equipment known as the Plasma Converter System(TM). The Plasma Converter System safely and economically destroys wastes, no matter how hazardous or lethal, and turns them into useful and valuable products. In doing so, the System protects the environment and helps to improve the public health and safety. The System achieves closed-loop elemental recycling to safely and irreversibly destroy Municipal Solid Waste, organics and inorganics, solids, liquids and gases, hazardous and non-hazardous waste, industrial by-products and also items such as "e-waste," medical waste, chemical industry waste and other specialty wastes while converting many of them into useful commodity products that can include metals, a syn-gas energy product called Plasma Converted Gas (PCG)(TM) and also hydrogen for use and for sale.
Startech regards all wastes as valuable renewable resources. Plasma Converters process, as feedstocks, materials previously regarded as wastes.
For further information, please visit http://www.startech.net or contact Steve Landa at +1-888-807-9443, +1-203-762-2499 x148 or sales@startech.net.
Safe Harbor for Forward-Looking Statements
This press release contains forward-looking statements, including statements regarding the Company's plans and expectations regarding the development and commercialization of its Plasma Converter(TM) technology. All forward-looking statements are subject to risk and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those projected. Factors that could cause such a difference include, without limitation, failure of the customer to obtain appropriate financing for the project, general risks associated with product development, manufacturing, rapid technological change and competition as well as other risks set forth in the Company's filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The forward-looking statements contained herein speak only as of the date of this press release. The Company expressly disclaims any obligation or undertaking to release publicly any updates or revisions to any such statement to reflect any change in the Company's expectations or any change in events, conditions or circumstances on which any such statement is based.
Web site: http://www.startech.net
Distributed by PR Newswire on behalf of Startech Environmental Corporation
Friday, February 03, 2006
Suzlon to build Australia's largest wind farm for AGL - India News - Webindia123.com
Suzlon Energy has announced that it would install a wind farm of 95 MW turbine capacity in rural South Australia for a gas company, which once completed next year will be the largest wind farm in that country.
The farm, to be built by Melbourne-based Suzlon Energy Australia Pty Ltd (SEA) which is a subsidiary of Suzlon Energy A/S of Denmark, has entered into a contract with Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) to design, procure, construct and commission a wind farm consisting of 45 units of the S88 2.1 MW wind turbines. It would become operational in 2007.
The farm will be located at Hallett, around 220 km north of Adelaide.
''This is an exciting day for Suzlon, and the one that we have worked hard to reach in Australia,'' said Dan Kofoed Hansen, CEO, SEA.
Suzlon was proudly continuing its expansion globally with its entrance into the Australian market with such a well-respected customer, the release quoted Indian subidiary's Chairman and CEO Tulsi Tanti saying.
''Suzlon Australia's team has professional experience and history in EPC contracting, whilst our India-based group has extensive experience in successfully providing total wind farm solutions. I believe the Suzlon groups combined background knowledge and expertise is set to deliver an outstanding wind power plant for AGL,'' he added.
UNI AR SSS SKB1726
Suzlon Energy has announced that it would install a wind farm of 95 MW turbine capacity in rural South Australia for a gas company, which once completed next year will be the largest wind farm in that country.
The farm, to be built by Melbourne-based Suzlon Energy Australia Pty Ltd (SEA) which is a subsidiary of Suzlon Energy A/S of Denmark, has entered into a contract with Australian Gas Light Company (AGL) to design, procure, construct and commission a wind farm consisting of 45 units of the S88 2.1 MW wind turbines. It would become operational in 2007.
The farm will be located at Hallett, around 220 km north of Adelaide.
''This is an exciting day for Suzlon, and the one that we have worked hard to reach in Australia,'' said Dan Kofoed Hansen, CEO, SEA.
Suzlon was proudly continuing its expansion globally with its entrance into the Australian market with such a well-respected customer, the release quoted Indian subidiary's Chairman and CEO Tulsi Tanti saying.
''Suzlon Australia's team has professional experience and history in EPC contracting, whilst our India-based group has extensive experience in successfully providing total wind farm solutions. I believe the Suzlon groups combined background knowledge and expertise is set to deliver an outstanding wind power plant for AGL,'' he added.
UNI AR SSS SKB1726
Improving the Forward Curve for Green Power
Problem: Financing Constrains Renewable Energy Development
As renewable energy project developers know full well, financial institutions demand certainty. Financial resources for traditional power projects are conditioned on the existence of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). But due to the cost of doing business renewable energy project developers are asked to demonstrate long-term commitments for the purchase of not only the electricity, but also the RECs.
Many project developers are finding a market for their electricity, but power sold at market rates does not go far enough to recoup investment in most renewable power projects. Banks are hoping that projects can improve their bottom lines and achieve profitability faster by forward selling the renewable energy credits, in many cases separately from the power itself.
However, long-term sales of RECs have been very difficult to execute. Despite a number of state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) programs set up to facilitate compliance trading in RECs - and a nascent wholesale nation-wide voluntary REC market - forward sales of RECs rarely exceed five years. This is short of the typical 10-year REC sale agreements most banks require before financing a renewable energy project.
Solution: REC Forward Curve
State policy makers created RECs as a means to monetize the environmental and fuel diversity benefits of renewable power. Sure, these projects produce electricity, but they do so without many of the environmental impacts of traditional fossil fuel generation. There are now more than 19 states and the District of Columbia that have created state legislation, which require entities selling electricity in these states to have a specific portion of their supply from renewable sources. In addition to buying renewable power directly, companies in many states can also purchase just the RECs to meet their RPS requirements.
These RECs are being traded in nascent markets that have yet to attain the liquidity, efficiency, and transparency needed to develop investor assurance. Most RPS programs have been implemented in states with deregulated energy markets. Competitive energy suppliers in these markets usually only have certainty in their load for a period of 1-3 years, because of how load is auctioned in cycles. For this reason trades are usually made for compliance with the current year's obligations - not for long-term sales that extend several years.
Long-term trading is also hampered by regulatory policy in individual states or regions that continues to be in flux. Several states continue to fine-tune their RPS requirements, including the mechanics of trading mechanisms in response to renewable energy supply and demand considerations or other public policy goals. If regulation was more certain and uniform across regions liquidity and price transparency would improve, inviting the entrance of additional speculative capital to the REC markets.
This market-generated view of future REC prices is called the forward curve, and it is a common factor in all types of commodity trading from energy and metals to soft commodities like coffee or sugar. Establishing a forward curve would greatly increase the amount of renewable energy facilities being built because developers could more easily obtain financing.
Benefits of the Forward REC Curve
Banks and other financial institutions look for revenue streams for extended periods of time to determine the economic feasibility of projects. Knowing that a developer can sell his or her RECs for a 10-year term allows these financial institutions to have the confidence they need to lend a more substantial percentage of project costs.
In addition, creating a stable forward market allows market speculators to enter into the marketplace. As speculators enter the marketplace, there are more potential buyers and sellers of RECs at any given time, enhancing liquidity. Once a marketplace becomes more liquid, participants become more confident in both the viability of the market and price stability. The price volatility of today's liquid and short-term REC markets has scared off participants who feared they might have gotten caught on the wrong side of a trade, unable to exit their positions.
How to Establish a Forward Curve
The key to creating a viable forward curve lies in transparency and regulatory certainty. Foremost, there must be stable regulatory policy underpinning REC markets. If the rules governing state RPS and REC trading remain consistent, REC market players can make long-term decisions without the risk of regulatory change.
In most state RPS, a premium is put on certain types of renewable generation that provide the most environmental benefits, such as photovoltaic solar, wind, landfill gas, and in some cases biomass generation. These premium renewable sources are often labeled "Class 1" or "Tier 1". States could provide additional clarity by creating uniform market standards for Tier 1 or Class 1 generation. Standards for these generation sources differ by region. Coordination of these standards will allow the market to more easily trade specific tiers or classes of RECs over broader geographic regions with consistent price expectations, bolstering the forward market.
Market transparency must also be improved in order for a forward curve to develop. Buyers and sellers in the REC market can more easily make long term trading decisions if they are fully aware of supply conditions and market prices. REC tracking systems that market participants can trust and that effectively account for market supply are essential. Price transparency is vital as well. Evolution Markets was the first to offer daily updates on REC prices through its online evo.ID market data system. This bulletin board is publicly available and the belief is that the improved availability of accurate price information will give the market confidence to engage in forward trading.
Lastly, a successful forward REC market will depend on the entrance of new participants. These participants will need to be entities willing to take on risk for substantial upside, either by bridging the gap between wholesale term deals and retail sales to compliance buyers, or by serving as credit-worthy counterparties themselves. Renewable energy project development is poised to leap from a niche to mainstream market, but first REC markets will need to align with the same forward structure currently available in traditional energy markets such as fuel and power.
About the author...
Andrew Kolchins is a Director, Renewable Energy Markets for Evolution Markets LLC. Working from Evolution Markets' White Plains headquarters, Mr. Kolchins leads the company's brokerage services focused on facilitating trades in the compliance driven state renewable energy certificate (REC) markets in the Northeast and Texas, providing expert brokerage service to renewable energy project developers, green power marketers, traders, utilities, and end users. With extensive structured transaction and energy markets expertise, Mr. Kolchins serves customers in regional compliance REC markets. He will also seek to leverage environmental credit markets to coordinate renewable energy project finance, facilitating an overall increase in regional renewable energy capacity. Mr. Kolchins joins Evolution Markets from Green Mountain Energy where he built and managed the sales team for Sunshine Energy, a premium program for Florida Power & Light (FPL) that allows residential customers of FPL to purchase a cleaner form of electricity for the grid. Before working with Green Mountain, he served for seven years as a broker of natural gas swaps, options, and physical basis trades for a handful of institutional brokerage firms. Mr. Kolchins also assisted in the development and marketing of Bloomberg's online energy trading platform, PowerMatch.
The information and views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyAccess.com or the companies that advertise on its Web site and other publications.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For further Information
Evolution Markets
Please Note: RenewableEnergyAccess.com does not endorse the sites behind these links. We offer them for your additional research. Following these links will open a new browser window.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Comments (9) reader comments on this story
post a new comment
-- Adrian Akau, January 31, 2006
Andrew Kolchin are truly comprehensive. The renewable energy industry cannot have a true market until it attains stability. As the master says, market interest in renewables is presently in its infancy. The changes he suggests must be further implemented before renewables become acceptable as every day investment commodities. Right now, many investors are not willing to touch them with a 10 foot pole. Just wait until the price of oil hits $150 a barrel, Andrew.
adrianakau@aol.com
-- Charles Butterfield, January 31, 2006
During the great depression of the 1930's President Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Tennessee Valley authority probably deserves more credit than any other source for developing our modern electrical grid, and establish electricity as a dominant source of energy, rather than merely a supplemental one for the wealthy people who could afford it.
Investors did not like this new invention of electricity. It was too uncertain. It was merely a luxury only for the wealthy. Kerosene lamps were the source of light for a large portion of the population.
This large government project demonstrated the desirability and reliability of electricity. It also created the demand that the investors were looking for.
(contiinued)
-- Charles Butterfield, January 31, 2006
Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we spent the money that we are spending on the war in Iraq on renewable energy instead?
We would not have to sit around and wait for the investors. We would lead the way on renewable energy. This country could become energy independent, we would not have to import oil from the middle east, and we would dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissons.
We have a tremendous opportunity coming up for us in 2008. We will be electing a new president in 2008. We should elect someone who is willing to implement a Tennessee Valley Authority type project to develop renewable energy sources as the dominant souce of energy, not merely a supplemental one.
And we do not want to be left to the whims of the investors when it comes to renewable energy.
Thank you,
Charles Butterfield
-- Werner Loell, February 1, 2006
It's too late to stop the disaster and the eventual extinction of ours and other vulnerable species, just like the dinosaurs, except they did not cause climate change.
-- Roy Bauer, February 1, 2006
I agree there is not enough liquid and the states are in flux. They will continue to be as more and more developments arise.
This is a competely new world that is growing by leaps and bounds. It is no longer going to be about power generation. But about how the power is generated, or distributed.
With a broader means of developing and transporting comes with a broader market. So we do not depend on any (one) or become dependant on any (one) be it a person, place, or thing again.
-- Francis Golden, February 1, 2006
The Renewable Obligation (RO) in the UK requires the distribution companies to obtain 10% and increasing year on year, of their supplies from renewable sources.
Intermittant power, e.g. wind and tide, still needs a backup. Nuclear cannot do this: it cannot switch on and off. There is a still a need for a continuous supply that is currently coming from fossil fuels. However
coal incineration produces harmful emissions and LNG: CO2 and negative balance of payments.
Pyrolysis (non incineration) of the bio-degradable part of waste is eligible for ROCerts. This is struggling to get established due to obtaining contracts from waste authorities to take to the Banks. The waste authorities will not accept a tender unless backed by a contract, - Catch 22.
Ironically the first plant is probably to be in the USA; converting waste tyres to produce heat and power.
-- Charles Butterfield, February 1, 2006
Werner:
Thank you for your exaggeration and hyperbole. It is not too late to reverse climate change by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, we have the greatest opportunity that I have seen in the past forty years to make renewable energy sources the dominant energy source instead of fossil fuels.
That opportunity also carries with it great risk. If we do not act quickly, fossil fuels will be repaced with nuclear power plants, not renewable energy sources.
One of the best ways to get some influence that I have found is to help a political candidate that supports your point of view.
I recommend: Get started helping on a congressional campaign for a candidate who supports renewable energy.
Thank you,
Charles Butterfield
-- Roy Bauer, February 2, 2006
The climate has bean getting warmer even before the industial development. The thing is that we have the means to try to stable the climate before it takes a serious turn for the worst. The problem lies with not just our goverment. But with the industry as we know of it.
Question is it the fosil fuels or is it the electromagnetic field of the earth. Or could it be the amount of black top that we use on our roads. Or could it be the amount of asfalt on our roofs. Or just the amount of dark color with both. Or is it some thing that the earth goes through.
The idea is that we know what is harmfull to us. We know that in a closed enviroment it is bad for us. But because it is so good for our pocket books, and that we neeed it to live off of today. There is no body going to do anything today about it.
-- Roy Bauer, February 2, 2006
That is why I am here today to talk about it and to bring it to every bodies attention. We must change our ways.
Even if it has some thing to do with just about money. Every were you go a person has to use money or curency. It is not about how much we teach or tell our children how to live any more. It is about how we teach our childern how to spend or make money. Not about how we use or conserve or enviroment any more. This is just some of the things that have to change.
Add Your Comment
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If you are not yet Registered -- it's quick and easy. Just click below.
Thanks!
Register Now!
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Problem: Financing Constrains Renewable Energy Development
As renewable energy project developers know full well, financial institutions demand certainty. Financial resources for traditional power projects are conditioned on the existence of long-term power purchase agreements (PPAs). But due to the cost of doing business renewable energy project developers are asked to demonstrate long-term commitments for the purchase of not only the electricity, but also the RECs.
Many project developers are finding a market for their electricity, but power sold at market rates does not go far enough to recoup investment in most renewable power projects. Banks are hoping that projects can improve their bottom lines and achieve profitability faster by forward selling the renewable energy credits, in many cases separately from the power itself.
However, long-term sales of RECs have been very difficult to execute. Despite a number of state renewable portfolio standard (RPS) programs set up to facilitate compliance trading in RECs - and a nascent wholesale nation-wide voluntary REC market - forward sales of RECs rarely exceed five years. This is short of the typical 10-year REC sale agreements most banks require before financing a renewable energy project.
Solution: REC Forward Curve
State policy makers created RECs as a means to monetize the environmental and fuel diversity benefits of renewable power. Sure, these projects produce electricity, but they do so without many of the environmental impacts of traditional fossil fuel generation. There are now more than 19 states and the District of Columbia that have created state legislation, which require entities selling electricity in these states to have a specific portion of their supply from renewable sources. In addition to buying renewable power directly, companies in many states can also purchase just the RECs to meet their RPS requirements.
These RECs are being traded in nascent markets that have yet to attain the liquidity, efficiency, and transparency needed to develop investor assurance. Most RPS programs have been implemented in states with deregulated energy markets. Competitive energy suppliers in these markets usually only have certainty in their load for a period of 1-3 years, because of how load is auctioned in cycles. For this reason trades are usually made for compliance with the current year's obligations - not for long-term sales that extend several years.
Long-term trading is also hampered by regulatory policy in individual states or regions that continues to be in flux. Several states continue to fine-tune their RPS requirements, including the mechanics of trading mechanisms in response to renewable energy supply and demand considerations or other public policy goals. If regulation was more certain and uniform across regions liquidity and price transparency would improve, inviting the entrance of additional speculative capital to the REC markets.
This market-generated view of future REC prices is called the forward curve, and it is a common factor in all types of commodity trading from energy and metals to soft commodities like coffee or sugar. Establishing a forward curve would greatly increase the amount of renewable energy facilities being built because developers could more easily obtain financing.
Benefits of the Forward REC Curve
Banks and other financial institutions look for revenue streams for extended periods of time to determine the economic feasibility of projects. Knowing that a developer can sell his or her RECs for a 10-year term allows these financial institutions to have the confidence they need to lend a more substantial percentage of project costs.
In addition, creating a stable forward market allows market speculators to enter into the marketplace. As speculators enter the marketplace, there are more potential buyers and sellers of RECs at any given time, enhancing liquidity. Once a marketplace becomes more liquid, participants become more confident in both the viability of the market and price stability. The price volatility of today's liquid and short-term REC markets has scared off participants who feared they might have gotten caught on the wrong side of a trade, unable to exit their positions.
How to Establish a Forward Curve
The key to creating a viable forward curve lies in transparency and regulatory certainty. Foremost, there must be stable regulatory policy underpinning REC markets. If the rules governing state RPS and REC trading remain consistent, REC market players can make long-term decisions without the risk of regulatory change.
In most state RPS, a premium is put on certain types of renewable generation that provide the most environmental benefits, such as photovoltaic solar, wind, landfill gas, and in some cases biomass generation. These premium renewable sources are often labeled "Class 1" or "Tier 1". States could provide additional clarity by creating uniform market standards for Tier 1 or Class 1 generation. Standards for these generation sources differ by region. Coordination of these standards will allow the market to more easily trade specific tiers or classes of RECs over broader geographic regions with consistent price expectations, bolstering the forward market.
Market transparency must also be improved in order for a forward curve to develop. Buyers and sellers in the REC market can more easily make long term trading decisions if they are fully aware of supply conditions and market prices. REC tracking systems that market participants can trust and that effectively account for market supply are essential. Price transparency is vital as well. Evolution Markets was the first to offer daily updates on REC prices through its online evo.ID market data system. This bulletin board is publicly available and the belief is that the improved availability of accurate price information will give the market confidence to engage in forward trading.
Lastly, a successful forward REC market will depend on the entrance of new participants. These participants will need to be entities willing to take on risk for substantial upside, either by bridging the gap between wholesale term deals and retail sales to compliance buyers, or by serving as credit-worthy counterparties themselves. Renewable energy project development is poised to leap from a niche to mainstream market, but first REC markets will need to align with the same forward structure currently available in traditional energy markets such as fuel and power.
About the author...
Andrew Kolchins is a Director, Renewable Energy Markets for Evolution Markets LLC. Working from Evolution Markets' White Plains headquarters, Mr. Kolchins leads the company's brokerage services focused on facilitating trades in the compliance driven state renewable energy certificate (REC) markets in the Northeast and Texas, providing expert brokerage service to renewable energy project developers, green power marketers, traders, utilities, and end users. With extensive structured transaction and energy markets expertise, Mr. Kolchins serves customers in regional compliance REC markets. He will also seek to leverage environmental credit markets to coordinate renewable energy project finance, facilitating an overall increase in regional renewable energy capacity. Mr. Kolchins joins Evolution Markets from Green Mountain Energy where he built and managed the sales team for Sunshine Energy, a premium program for Florida Power & Light (FPL) that allows residential customers of FPL to purchase a cleaner form of electricity for the grid. Before working with Green Mountain, he served for seven years as a broker of natural gas swaps, options, and physical basis trades for a handful of institutional brokerage firms. Mr. Kolchins also assisted in the development and marketing of Bloomberg's online energy trading platform, PowerMatch.
The information and views expressed in this article are those of the author and not necessarily those of RenewableEnergyAccess.com or the companies that advertise on its Web site and other publications.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For further Information
Evolution Markets
Please Note: RenewableEnergyAccess.com does not endorse the sites behind these links. We offer them for your additional research. Following these links will open a new browser window.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Total Comments (9) reader comments on this story
post a new comment
-- Adrian Akau, January 31, 2006
Andrew Kolchin are truly comprehensive. The renewable energy industry cannot have a true market until it attains stability. As the master says, market interest in renewables is presently in its infancy. The changes he suggests must be further implemented before renewables become acceptable as every day investment commodities. Right now, many investors are not willing to touch them with a 10 foot pole. Just wait until the price of oil hits $150 a barrel, Andrew.
adrianakau@aol.com
-- Charles Butterfield, January 31, 2006
During the great depression of the 1930's President Franklin Delano Roosevelt implemented the Tennessee Valley Authority.
The Tennessee Valley authority probably deserves more credit than any other source for developing our modern electrical grid, and establish electricity as a dominant source of energy, rather than merely a supplemental one for the wealthy people who could afford it.
Investors did not like this new invention of electricity. It was too uncertain. It was merely a luxury only for the wealthy. Kerosene lamps were the source of light for a large portion of the population.
This large government project demonstrated the desirability and reliability of electricity. It also created the demand that the investors were looking for.
(contiinued)
-- Charles Butterfield, January 31, 2006
Can you imagine what we could accomplish if we spent the money that we are spending on the war in Iraq on renewable energy instead?
We would not have to sit around and wait for the investors. We would lead the way on renewable energy. This country could become energy independent, we would not have to import oil from the middle east, and we would dramatically reduce our greenhouse gas emissons.
We have a tremendous opportunity coming up for us in 2008. We will be electing a new president in 2008. We should elect someone who is willing to implement a Tennessee Valley Authority type project to develop renewable energy sources as the dominant souce of energy, not merely a supplemental one.
And we do not want to be left to the whims of the investors when it comes to renewable energy.
Thank you,
Charles Butterfield
-- Werner Loell, February 1, 2006
It's too late to stop the disaster and the eventual extinction of ours and other vulnerable species, just like the dinosaurs, except they did not cause climate change.
-- Roy Bauer, February 1, 2006
I agree there is not enough liquid and the states are in flux. They will continue to be as more and more developments arise.
This is a competely new world that is growing by leaps and bounds. It is no longer going to be about power generation. But about how the power is generated, or distributed.
With a broader means of developing and transporting comes with a broader market. So we do not depend on any (one) or become dependant on any (one) be it a person, place, or thing again.
-- Francis Golden, February 1, 2006
The Renewable Obligation (RO) in the UK requires the distribution companies to obtain 10% and increasing year on year, of their supplies from renewable sources.
Intermittant power, e.g. wind and tide, still needs a backup. Nuclear cannot do this: it cannot switch on and off. There is a still a need for a continuous supply that is currently coming from fossil fuels. However
coal incineration produces harmful emissions and LNG: CO2 and negative balance of payments.
Pyrolysis (non incineration) of the bio-degradable part of waste is eligible for ROCerts. This is struggling to get established due to obtaining contracts from waste authorities to take to the Banks. The waste authorities will not accept a tender unless backed by a contract, - Catch 22.
Ironically the first plant is probably to be in the USA; converting waste tyres to produce heat and power.
-- Charles Butterfield, February 1, 2006
Werner:
Thank you for your exaggeration and hyperbole. It is not too late to reverse climate change by any stretch of the imagination.
In fact, we have the greatest opportunity that I have seen in the past forty years to make renewable energy sources the dominant energy source instead of fossil fuels.
That opportunity also carries with it great risk. If we do not act quickly, fossil fuels will be repaced with nuclear power plants, not renewable energy sources.
One of the best ways to get some influence that I have found is to help a political candidate that supports your point of view.
I recommend: Get started helping on a congressional campaign for a candidate who supports renewable energy.
Thank you,
Charles Butterfield
-- Roy Bauer, February 2, 2006
The climate has bean getting warmer even before the industial development. The thing is that we have the means to try to stable the climate before it takes a serious turn for the worst. The problem lies with not just our goverment. But with the industry as we know of it.
Question is it the fosil fuels or is it the electromagnetic field of the earth. Or could it be the amount of black top that we use on our roads. Or could it be the amount of asfalt on our roofs. Or just the amount of dark color with both. Or is it some thing that the earth goes through.
The idea is that we know what is harmfull to us. We know that in a closed enviroment it is bad for us. But because it is so good for our pocket books, and that we neeed it to live off of today. There is no body going to do anything today about it.
-- Roy Bauer, February 2, 2006
That is why I am here today to talk about it and to bring it to every bodies attention. We must change our ways.
Even if it has some thing to do with just about money. Every were you go a person has to use money or curency. It is not about how much we teach or tell our children how to live any more. It is about how we teach our childern how to spend or make money. Not about how we use or conserve or enviroment any more. This is just some of the things that have to change.
Add Your Comment
Registered users, please make sure to Log In. We and others want to know your ideas and opinions.
If you are not yet Registered -- it's quick and easy. Just click below.
Thanks!
Register Now!
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Behind GE's clean-energy push Tech News on ZDNet
You can say clean technologies have gone mainstream when General Electric gets into the act.
The industrial giant began a few years ago to buy up some of the renewable-energy divisions from larger companies like Enron. Now, GE is increasing its R&D and marketing development budgets to create a larger name for itself in coal gasification, wind power and fuel cells.
Ali Iz, the general manager of technology growth at General Electric, the group that oversees GE's solar and other alternative-energy efforts, recently sat down with News.com Editor at Large Michael Kanellos to discuss how the conglomerate will bring out products that will pollute less and add to GE's bottom line.
Q: GE has been running a lot of ads on alternative energy lately. Is this a new direction for the company, or are you just bringing attention to it now?
Iz: We entered wind four years ago and solar a year and a half ago. We're working on integrated coal gasification. There wasn't an epiphany earlier this year or last year where we said, "We're going to do cleaner and better stuff." We've always been doing it. It's just that it has not been focused.
One thing we are doing though is doubling the R&D spending from about $700 million to a billion and a half by 2010 on cleaner technologies. That's a major commitment, and that includes fuel cells, wind, coal gasification, combined cycle and cleaner gas-turbine technology.
And this is not just energy. Cleaner products and technology also will impact our transportation business, rail and our aircraft engine business.
When you look at the alternatives, which ones seem most promising? What do you like about solar, for instance?
Iz: The installation today is costly. It has to be a lot less. The inverter has to be more robust and less costly than today. We're going to be introducing a new inverter (a device that converts direct current into alternating current) in early '06 for residential applications that is going to be, we believe, significantly more reliable.
Also, we are working on module technologies that integrate seamlessly with rooftops. If you integrate seamlessly, it doesn't jut out of the roof. It's a great product.
It's been very successful in California. We're in 55 home development sites in California. The home builders see it as a differentiated house, and it reduces the electricity bill of the buyer significantly--like to about a third. In Ladera Ranch in Orange County, many home builders are using solar. Our consumer finance, GE Consumer Finance, came up with a mortgage product (for solar homes).
Here's a good example. Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley installed a 129-kilowatt solar system, and they are 100 percent solar powered. That includes their processing units, refrigeration, their offices. It's a 100 percent solar powered facility.
One thing that has hurt solar before is that the panels make it look like you're putting up an aircraft hangar on your roof. They are very ugly.
Iz: Right. So we want to do away with that, and we've done it with concrete roof tiles. We're also working on other roof systems.
At the end of the day, solar has to be under $3 a watt without incentives to become mainstream because, under $3 a watt, it will compete with the retail price of electricity. And that's the key. Today it's between $6 and $8. (Editor's note: Japan, Germany and several U.S. states give rebates and tax cuts to property owners who install solar systems.)
Who is buying solar? Demand is obviously way up because of the shortage in panels.
Iz: Even today with all the attention solar is getting in the U.S., the U.S. market is about 10 percent of the total. Japan is about 30 percent, Europe is about 50 percent. And the biggest market in Europe--in the world, actually--is Germany, a country that is really not known for its abundance in sun, right? Germany grew by 90 percent last year.
Is geography ever a problem? You can't really expect solar to do well in Alaska.
Iz: You do want sunshine, but there are some subtleties in the technology. For example, thin film can generate more power with less sunshine versus conventional technology. But in general, the more sunshine there is, the more electricity you're going to have to generate. You're always going to produce more in California, Arizona, Nevada than, say, in Minnesota.
Now how about coal gasification? A lot of start-ups have recently landed VC money for this.
Iz: We acquired ChevronTexaco's gasification technology about a year ago, and we've been working on that, and we believe that is going to be a significant growth opportunity for it. It is certainly much cleaner, and we are close to getting the cost to a point where it's going to be competitive with pulverized coal--very close. It's still a little bit more expensive but we recently received our first order.
It just makes sense. It's less polluting. You're gasifying and burning it like natural gas. And the technology has been around a long time. The Germans had something like this during World War II.
And there is a lot of coal, not only in the U.S., but in China and elsewhere.
How about wind?
Iz: Wind has been a tremendous growth story for us. When we acquired Enron's wind business--in 2001, I believe--the revenues were about a few hundred million, and in '06 we're expecting $3.5 billion.
Europe has been very big for the past couple of years. The U.S. now is booming. As the turbine--the machines--get bigger, the cost will come down. The turbines are getting larger, and the diameters on the blades are increasing, and so they can capture more wind.
We believe shortly wind is going to be competitive with centralized generation--particularly with turbines located offshore. This is now the major growth initiative.
Do you mean offshore as in something that would resemble an oil platform?
Iz: Well, no. These are wind farms anchored to the sea bottom, not too far offshore. There are good winds there, and you don't have as many issues with land use.
Are emerging nations looking at alternative energy technologies? The additional expense sometimes has a tendency to push these ideas into established markets. China has been kind of the vanguard of how to make a country really dirty.
Iz: Actually, cleaner energy is really no longer limited to Europe and the U.S. I think just about every country is concerned about cleaner environment. Thailand is one of the countries promoting solar and wind.
Are you doing anything in wave? A lot of experts shake their heads when someone proposes trying to install this sort of heavy equipment in stormy seas.
Iz: We're evaluating it. When you look at statistics on solar...I've read somewhere that if you covered 7 percent of Arizona with solar panels, it would be sufficient to power the entire U.S. It sounds fantastic, but you aren't going to do that. The same logic applies to wave. Yes, there may be sufficient potential wave power, but how much area do you need? And where do you put it? And what are the technology issues? It's early.
Now onto fuel cells. I'm just guessing where GE is mostly looking at residential fuel cells.
Iz: Well, actually our fuel cell effort is focused on not necessarily the residential and the small commercial, but bigger systems, so substation megawatt-plus systems. We also have our global research center working on the hydrogen economy. It's still early.
How would a megawatt fuel cell substation operate anyway?
Iz: In the U.S. and in a lot of the developed world, we believe our utility customers, instead of building peaker power plants, may opt for putting a small 1-to-5-megawatt fuel cell hybrid in a substation. These would be solid oxide fuel cells.
You can say clean technologies have gone mainstream when General Electric gets into the act.
The industrial giant began a few years ago to buy up some of the renewable-energy divisions from larger companies like Enron. Now, GE is increasing its R&D and marketing development budgets to create a larger name for itself in coal gasification, wind power and fuel cells.
Ali Iz, the general manager of technology growth at General Electric, the group that oversees GE's solar and other alternative-energy efforts, recently sat down with News.com Editor at Large Michael Kanellos to discuss how the conglomerate will bring out products that will pollute less and add to GE's bottom line.
Q: GE has been running a lot of ads on alternative energy lately. Is this a new direction for the company, or are you just bringing attention to it now?
Iz: We entered wind four years ago and solar a year and a half ago. We're working on integrated coal gasification. There wasn't an epiphany earlier this year or last year where we said, "We're going to do cleaner and better stuff." We've always been doing it. It's just that it has not been focused.
One thing we are doing though is doubling the R&D spending from about $700 million to a billion and a half by 2010 on cleaner technologies. That's a major commitment, and that includes fuel cells, wind, coal gasification, combined cycle and cleaner gas-turbine technology.
And this is not just energy. Cleaner products and technology also will impact our transportation business, rail and our aircraft engine business.
When you look at the alternatives, which ones seem most promising? What do you like about solar, for instance?
Iz: The installation today is costly. It has to be a lot less. The inverter has to be more robust and less costly than today. We're going to be introducing a new inverter (a device that converts direct current into alternating current) in early '06 for residential applications that is going to be, we believe, significantly more reliable.
Also, we are working on module technologies that integrate seamlessly with rooftops. If you integrate seamlessly, it doesn't jut out of the roof. It's a great product.
It's been very successful in California. We're in 55 home development sites in California. The home builders see it as a differentiated house, and it reduces the electricity bill of the buyer significantly--like to about a third. In Ladera Ranch in Orange County, many home builders are using solar. Our consumer finance, GE Consumer Finance, came up with a mortgage product (for solar homes).
Here's a good example. Shafer Vineyards in Napa Valley installed a 129-kilowatt solar system, and they are 100 percent solar powered. That includes their processing units, refrigeration, their offices. It's a 100 percent solar powered facility.
One thing that has hurt solar before is that the panels make it look like you're putting up an aircraft hangar on your roof. They are very ugly.
Iz: Right. So we want to do away with that, and we've done it with concrete roof tiles. We're also working on other roof systems.
At the end of the day, solar has to be under $3 a watt without incentives to become mainstream because, under $3 a watt, it will compete with the retail price of electricity. And that's the key. Today it's between $6 and $8. (Editor's note: Japan, Germany and several U.S. states give rebates and tax cuts to property owners who install solar systems.)
Who is buying solar? Demand is obviously way up because of the shortage in panels.
Iz: Even today with all the attention solar is getting in the U.S., the U.S. market is about 10 percent of the total. Japan is about 30 percent, Europe is about 50 percent. And the biggest market in Europe--in the world, actually--is Germany, a country that is really not known for its abundance in sun, right? Germany grew by 90 percent last year.
Is geography ever a problem? You can't really expect solar to do well in Alaska.
Iz: You do want sunshine, but there are some subtleties in the technology. For example, thin film can generate more power with less sunshine versus conventional technology. But in general, the more sunshine there is, the more electricity you're going to have to generate. You're always going to produce more in California, Arizona, Nevada than, say, in Minnesota.
Now how about coal gasification? A lot of start-ups have recently landed VC money for this.
Iz: We acquired ChevronTexaco's gasification technology about a year ago, and we've been working on that, and we believe that is going to be a significant growth opportunity for it. It is certainly much cleaner, and we are close to getting the cost to a point where it's going to be competitive with pulverized coal--very close. It's still a little bit more expensive but we recently received our first order.
It just makes sense. It's less polluting. You're gasifying and burning it like natural gas. And the technology has been around a long time. The Germans had something like this during World War II.
And there is a lot of coal, not only in the U.S., but in China and elsewhere.
How about wind?
Iz: Wind has been a tremendous growth story for us. When we acquired Enron's wind business--in 2001, I believe--the revenues were about a few hundred million, and in '06 we're expecting $3.5 billion.
Europe has been very big for the past couple of years. The U.S. now is booming. As the turbine--the machines--get bigger, the cost will come down. The turbines are getting larger, and the diameters on the blades are increasing, and so they can capture more wind.
We believe shortly wind is going to be competitive with centralized generation--particularly with turbines located offshore. This is now the major growth initiative.
Do you mean offshore as in something that would resemble an oil platform?
Iz: Well, no. These are wind farms anchored to the sea bottom, not too far offshore. There are good winds there, and you don't have as many issues with land use.
Are emerging nations looking at alternative energy technologies? The additional expense sometimes has a tendency to push these ideas into established markets. China has been kind of the vanguard of how to make a country really dirty.
Iz: Actually, cleaner energy is really no longer limited to Europe and the U.S. I think just about every country is concerned about cleaner environment. Thailand is one of the countries promoting solar and wind.
Are you doing anything in wave? A lot of experts shake their heads when someone proposes trying to install this sort of heavy equipment in stormy seas.
Iz: We're evaluating it. When you look at statistics on solar...I've read somewhere that if you covered 7 percent of Arizona with solar panels, it would be sufficient to power the entire U.S. It sounds fantastic, but you aren't going to do that. The same logic applies to wave. Yes, there may be sufficient potential wave power, but how much area do you need? And where do you put it? And what are the technology issues? It's early.
Now onto fuel cells. I'm just guessing where GE is mostly looking at residential fuel cells.
Iz: Well, actually our fuel cell effort is focused on not necessarily the residential and the small commercial, but bigger systems, so substation megawatt-plus systems. We also have our global research center working on the hydrogen economy. It's still early.
How would a megawatt fuel cell substation operate anyway?
Iz: In the U.S. and in a lot of the developed world, we believe our utility customers, instead of building peaker power plants, may opt for putting a small 1-to-5-megawatt fuel cell hybrid in a substation. These would be solid oxide fuel cells.
Virent Startup Hydrogen From Biomass System
Virent Energy System today announced that it has successfully started up the first ever demonstration system capable of directly converting sugars and glycerin into power. The system, purchased by Madison, Gas & Electric (MGE), is based on Virent's patented Aqueous Phase Reforming (APR) process, a carbon neutral, one-step method for on-demand production of hydrogen, natural gas and/or other fuel gases for distributed power systems from widely available renewable biomass.
The MGE system integrates a Virent APR System with a hydrogen/natural gas fueled generator set provided by City Engines. The system has demonstrated the ability to deliver a minimum of 10kW of environmentally friendly power to the MGE grid since its startup at the beginning of this year at Virent's location in Madison, Wisconsin. Virent was able to customize the gas production from its APR system to deliver desired compositions of hydrogen, natural gas and other fuel gases to the generator set. The system currently operates on pure glycerin. In the future, the Company will use a lower grade of glycerin that is generated as a byproduct of the biodiesel production process. Virent also intends to use sugar in the form of sorbitol and glucose as a feedstock for this initial unit. Over the next 18 months, this system will generate needed reliability and performance data for an APR system in a live environment.
Virent's APR system offers a cost effective method for low temperature production of hydrogen and/or fuel gas. By demonstrating the capability of localized, on-demand fuel delivery, the system is a promising first step to providing a reliable method for renewable fuel generation from a variety of widely available biomass sources. The APR systems can be designed to deliver predominantly hydrogen or alkanes (i.e. natural gas, ethane, butane and propane), or a customized blend of these fuels. Virent refers to these various biomass-generated streams as SupernaturalTM fuels. This system design will target a number of opportunities, ranging from stationary power systems, industrial hydrogen, renewable fuel stations or, longer term, mobile applications.
Dr. Randy Cortright, Chief Technical Officer and Founder of Virent, pointed to the extensive laboratory and design work that went into the system as the key to this successful startup. "This system is a validation of all of our work over the past couple of years on developing the APR process. We have told collaborators about the promise of this technology, and now we have a working system to demonstrate that APR is capable of becoming a viable production system. I believe this is a crucial first step to delivering a reliable, cost effective system for production of renewable fuels. Through our efforts on this system, we now have a much fuller understanding of the process that will lay the groundwork for even more compelling APR units in the near future."
Eric Apfelbach, Chief Executive Officer of Virent, commented on the performance of the system, "The level of excitement generated by this APR system start-up is very high because the system greatly exceeded all of our targets for power output and performance with an integrated ICE. It is very clear that the APR system represents a compelling option for cost effective, clean, distributed energy generation. With the global availability of CO2 neutral feedstocks and the ability to fuel microturbines, fuel cells, and ICEs in an unteathered fashion, the market opportunities are enormous. We are proud of Virent development team and appreciative of the support provided by MGE."
Related Fuel Storage, Distribution & Production Stories
Virent Energy System today announced that it has successfully started up the first ever demonstration system capable of directly converting sugars and glycerin into power. The system, purchased by Madison, Gas & Electric (MGE), is based on Virent's patented Aqueous Phase Reforming (APR) process, a carbon neutral, one-step method for on-demand production of hydrogen, natural gas and/or other fuel gases for distributed power systems from widely available renewable biomass.
The MGE system integrates a Virent APR System with a hydrogen/natural gas fueled generator set provided by City Engines. The system has demonstrated the ability to deliver a minimum of 10kW of environmentally friendly power to the MGE grid since its startup at the beginning of this year at Virent's location in Madison, Wisconsin. Virent was able to customize the gas production from its APR system to deliver desired compositions of hydrogen, natural gas and other fuel gases to the generator set. The system currently operates on pure glycerin. In the future, the Company will use a lower grade of glycerin that is generated as a byproduct of the biodiesel production process. Virent also intends to use sugar in the form of sorbitol and glucose as a feedstock for this initial unit. Over the next 18 months, this system will generate needed reliability and performance data for an APR system in a live environment.
Virent's APR system offers a cost effective method for low temperature production of hydrogen and/or fuel gas. By demonstrating the capability of localized, on-demand fuel delivery, the system is a promising first step to providing a reliable method for renewable fuel generation from a variety of widely available biomass sources. The APR systems can be designed to deliver predominantly hydrogen or alkanes (i.e. natural gas, ethane, butane and propane), or a customized blend of these fuels. Virent refers to these various biomass-generated streams as SupernaturalTM fuels. This system design will target a number of opportunities, ranging from stationary power systems, industrial hydrogen, renewable fuel stations or, longer term, mobile applications.
Dr. Randy Cortright, Chief Technical Officer and Founder of Virent, pointed to the extensive laboratory and design work that went into the system as the key to this successful startup. "This system is a validation of all of our work over the past couple of years on developing the APR process. We have told collaborators about the promise of this technology, and now we have a working system to demonstrate that APR is capable of becoming a viable production system. I believe this is a crucial first step to delivering a reliable, cost effective system for production of renewable fuels. Through our efforts on this system, we now have a much fuller understanding of the process that will lay the groundwork for even more compelling APR units in the near future."
Eric Apfelbach, Chief Executive Officer of Virent, commented on the performance of the system, "The level of excitement generated by this APR system start-up is very high because the system greatly exceeded all of our targets for power output and performance with an integrated ICE. It is very clear that the APR system represents a compelling option for cost effective, clean, distributed energy generation. With the global availability of CO2 neutral feedstocks and the ability to fuel microturbines, fuel cells, and ICEs in an unteathered fashion, the market opportunities are enormous. We are proud of Virent development team and appreciative of the support provided by MGE."
Related Fuel Storage, Distribution & Production Stories
Investors press top 2,000 firms on climate change
LONDON (Reuters) - Investors with some $30 trillion of assets have written to 1,933 of the world's biggest companies demanding disclosure on their climate change stance, the UK-based Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) said on Wednesday.
The world's biggest shareholders want to know how well prepared companies are for the effects of climate change and for hardening climate change policy, as fears grow for impacts on investments.
The CDP's fourth such annual request is on behalf of a swelling investor group, up from $20 trillion last year and $10 trillion the year before, and is directed at a growing company target list, up from 500 last year.
"There are business risks and opportunities (from climate change) that have implications for the value of investments in corporations worldwide," said Paul Dickinson, CDP project coordinator.
The investors have demanded disclosure on companies' risk from extreme weather events, often associated with climate change, and about their emission of carbon dioxide (CO2), widely blamed by scientists for climate change, and for their strategies to cut emissions.
Detailed information on emissions is seen even more key this year given high energy prices, increasing the attractiveness of companies which are less carbon and energy intensive, or which have active programs in this direction.
"It's a question of institutional investors taking a well-informed view of the profitability of companies based on energy consumption and (carbon) emission performance," said Dickinson.
"You could take a view that climate change will be good for green technology companies such as GE."
Unprepared companies could also find themselves in the firing line of policy, investors fear, as political rhetoric hardens on the need for CO2 cuts, for example as required under the Kyoto Protocol, while a blase attitude to climate change could also risk reputation damage.
Some large companies are taking a proactive line on climate change, including companies associated with high carbon energy.
For example BP Plc said last November it plans to double its investment in greener energy sources over the next three years.
The world's second-largest listed oil firm said it may invest up to $8 billion in wind, solar, hydrogen and high efficiency gas-fired power generation projects over the next 10 years.© Reuters 2006. All Rights Reserved.
Air Products' Newest Hydrogen Fueling Station in Riverside, Calif. Filling Cars for Five-City Demonstration Program
LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Air Products'(NYSE: APD) newest hydrogen fueling station in Riverside, Calif. was busytoday filling hydrogen converted vehicles as the City of Riverside held adedication ceremony officially declaring the station open. It is the secondhydrogen fueling station Air Products has opened within a week as a station inSanta Ana, Calif. was dedicated on Jan. 26. These two stations are part of afive-city hydrogen fueling alternative energy demonstration program beingimplemented by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) wherethe respective cities involved will use Air Products' fueling technology tofuel electric hybrid Toyota Prius(R) vehicles converted to be hydrogen capableby Quantum Technologies. "These AQMD projects showcase the multiple hydrogen fueling technologyoptions that we have to offer," said Dan Rabun, California hydrogen fuelbusiness manager for Air Products. "At Riverside, the city is fuelingvehicles at a permanent station, with hydrogen generated from on-siteelectrolysis-based hydrogen production, and at Santa Ana the city is using ourmobile fueling product to deliver hydrogen produced by reformation technology.This five-cities effort continues to grow our leadership position in hydrogenfueling in California." At Riverside, Air Products' Series 200(TM) system, a totally integratedvehicle fueling system, is providing the storage and dispensing of hydrogen tohydrogen-powered vehicles with internal combustion engines modified to burngaseous hydrogen. This model station and proprietary technology providescustomers flexibility in using hydrogen generated at the site, or deliveredhydrogen, integrated with storage and vehicle dispensing capabilities. On-site hydrogen is provided to the fueling system from a production modelHOGEN(R) 6M Electrolyzer manufactured by Proton Energy Systems. Proton, asubsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC), is a keysupplier to Air Products, and the companies have a preferred supplierarrangement for electrolyzer based fueling stations. "Our ongoing work with Air Products and the South Coast Air QualityManagement District continues to show how electrolysis technology can work inreal world vehicle fueling applications," said Robert Friedland, senior vicepresident, Hydrogen Technology Group at Proton. "We are helping todemonstrate how using hydrogen as a motor fuel is becoming more and morepractical for our nation's transportation needs." At Santa Ana, Air Products' HF-150 mobile hydrogen fueler is beingoperated by the city to fuel another fleet of hydrogen converted vehicles.The HF-150 provides hydrogen for vehicle fueling from Air Products' nearbyWilmington, Calif. hydrogen plant. Additional locations involved with the AQMD five cities effort that willdedicate and operate hydrogen fueling stations this year include Burbank,Santa Monica, and Ontario. In all, the five stations will provide hydrogen toa fleet of 30 hydrogen burning internal combustion vehicles. The hydrogen-fueled internal combustion vehicles, which meet the state's strictestemissions requirements, are considered a near-term bridge to longer-termfuture technologies including fuel cell vehicles. Near-zero emission vehiclesincluding those powered by fuel cells are considered a key strategy toimproving air quality in Southern California. The AQMD is the air pollutioncontrol agency for Orange County and major portions of Los Angeles, SanBernardino and Riverside counties. The five-cities program is aimed at stimulating demand for hydrogenfueling, accelerating the expansion of the region's hydrogen fueling network,and educating the public on hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Air Products is an industry leader in hydrogen safety and engineering, anda global leader in hydrogen production and distribution, as well as theindustry leader in hydrogen fueling stations for clean transportationapplications with over 40 installations in the United States andinternationally. In California, Air Products has 11 fueling stations, and itsUniversity of California-Davis station was designated by Governor ArnoldSchwarzenegger as "Hydrogen Highway Network Station #1" in 2004, as part ofthe Governor's "Hydrogen Highway Network" initiative. Air Products (NYSE: APD) serves customers in technology, energy,healthcare and industrial markets worldwide with a unique portfolio ofproducts, services and solutions, providing atmospheric gases, process andspecialty gases, performance materials and chemical intermediates. Founded in1940, Air Products has built leading positions in key growth markets such assemiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen, home healthcare services, naturalgas liquefaction, and advanced coatings and adhesives. The company isrecognized for its innovative culture, operational excellence and commitmentto safety and the environment and is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainabilityand FTSE4Good Indices. The company has annual revenues of $8.1 billion,operations in over 30 countries, and over 20,000 employees around the globe.For more information, visit http://www.airproducts.com. ***NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements. Actualresults could vary materially, due to changes in current expectations.
SOURCE Air ProductsWeb Site: http://www.airproducts.com
LEHIGH VALLEY, Pa., Feb. 1 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Air Products'(NYSE: APD) newest hydrogen fueling station in Riverside, Calif. was busytoday filling hydrogen converted vehicles as the City of Riverside held adedication ceremony officially declaring the station open. It is the secondhydrogen fueling station Air Products has opened within a week as a station inSanta Ana, Calif. was dedicated on Jan. 26. These two stations are part of afive-city hydrogen fueling alternative energy demonstration program beingimplemented by the South Coast Air Quality Management District (AQMD) wherethe respective cities involved will use Air Products' fueling technology tofuel electric hybrid Toyota Prius(R) vehicles converted to be hydrogen capableby Quantum Technologies. "These AQMD projects showcase the multiple hydrogen fueling technologyoptions that we have to offer," said Dan Rabun, California hydrogen fuelbusiness manager for Air Products. "At Riverside, the city is fuelingvehicles at a permanent station, with hydrogen generated from on-siteelectrolysis-based hydrogen production, and at Santa Ana the city is using ourmobile fueling product to deliver hydrogen produced by reformation technology.This five-cities effort continues to grow our leadership position in hydrogenfueling in California." At Riverside, Air Products' Series 200(TM) system, a totally integratedvehicle fueling system, is providing the storage and dispensing of hydrogen tohydrogen-powered vehicles with internal combustion engines modified to burngaseous hydrogen. This model station and proprietary technology providescustomers flexibility in using hydrogen generated at the site, or deliveredhydrogen, integrated with storage and vehicle dispensing capabilities. On-site hydrogen is provided to the fueling system from a production modelHOGEN(R) 6M Electrolyzer manufactured by Proton Energy Systems. Proton, asubsidiary of Distributed Energy Systems Corp. (Nasdaq: DESC), is a keysupplier to Air Products, and the companies have a preferred supplierarrangement for electrolyzer based fueling stations. "Our ongoing work with Air Products and the South Coast Air QualityManagement District continues to show how electrolysis technology can work inreal world vehicle fueling applications," said Robert Friedland, senior vicepresident, Hydrogen Technology Group at Proton. "We are helping todemonstrate how using hydrogen as a motor fuel is becoming more and morepractical for our nation's transportation needs." At Santa Ana, Air Products' HF-150 mobile hydrogen fueler is beingoperated by the city to fuel another fleet of hydrogen converted vehicles.The HF-150 provides hydrogen for vehicle fueling from Air Products' nearbyWilmington, Calif. hydrogen plant. Additional locations involved with the AQMD five cities effort that willdedicate and operate hydrogen fueling stations this year include Burbank,Santa Monica, and Ontario. In all, the five stations will provide hydrogen toa fleet of 30 hydrogen burning internal combustion vehicles. The hydrogen-fueled internal combustion vehicles, which meet the state's strictestemissions requirements, are considered a near-term bridge to longer-termfuture technologies including fuel cell vehicles. Near-zero emission vehiclesincluding those powered by fuel cells are considered a key strategy toimproving air quality in Southern California. The AQMD is the air pollutioncontrol agency for Orange County and major portions of Los Angeles, SanBernardino and Riverside counties. The five-cities program is aimed at stimulating demand for hydrogenfueling, accelerating the expansion of the region's hydrogen fueling network,and educating the public on hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Air Products is an industry leader in hydrogen safety and engineering, anda global leader in hydrogen production and distribution, as well as theindustry leader in hydrogen fueling stations for clean transportationapplications with over 40 installations in the United States andinternationally. In California, Air Products has 11 fueling stations, and itsUniversity of California-Davis station was designated by Governor ArnoldSchwarzenegger as "Hydrogen Highway Network Station #1" in 2004, as part ofthe Governor's "Hydrogen Highway Network" initiative. Air Products (NYSE: APD) serves customers in technology, energy,healthcare and industrial markets worldwide with a unique portfolio ofproducts, services and solutions, providing atmospheric gases, process andspecialty gases, performance materials and chemical intermediates. Founded in1940, Air Products has built leading positions in key growth markets such assemiconductor materials, refinery hydrogen, home healthcare services, naturalgas liquefaction, and advanced coatings and adhesives. The company isrecognized for its innovative culture, operational excellence and commitmentto safety and the environment and is listed in the Dow Jones Sustainabilityand FTSE4Good Indices. The company has annual revenues of $8.1 billion,operations in over 30 countries, and over 20,000 employees around the globe.For more information, visit http://www.airproducts.com. ***NOTE: This release may contain forward-looking statements. Actualresults could vary materially, due to changes in current expectations.
SOURCE Air ProductsWeb Site: http://www.airproducts.com
New material brings hydrogen fuel, cheaper petrochemicals closer to reality
A rubbery material that can purify hydrogen efficiently in its most usable form for fuel cells and oil refining has been developed by a chemical engineering group at The University of Texas at Austin.
In the Feb. 3 edition of Science, Dr. Benny Freeman details how his laboratory designed the membrane material and tested its ability, with colleagues at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to successfully separate hydrogen from carbon dioxide and other contaminant gases.
This member of a new family of membrane materials with superior gas-separating ability could lower the costs of purifying hydrogen for hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cells are considered a leading alternative energy for running cars and other devices in the future. The membrane material could also replace an expensive step in current petrochemical processing, or reduce how much energy the step requires. The membrane was tested under conditions that mimic those routinely used by the petrochemical industry to refine petroleum components (crude oil and natural gas) for use.
"A significant amount of the hydrogen in use today goes into the refining industry to refine crude oil to produce gasoline or other products, so this membrane could lower refining costs," said Freeman, the Kenneth A. Kobe Professor in Chemical Engineering.
The membrane differs structurally and functionally from previous options, with a key advantage being its ability to permit hydrogen to remain compressed at high pressure. A compressed form of the light-weight gas is needed to process fossil fuels and for it to serve as a readily replaceable fuel for fuel cells.
Freeman and graduate student Haiqing Lin designed the membrane material in Freeman's laboratory at the university's Center for Energy and Environmental Resources.
The engineers and RTI collaborators Lora Toy and Raghubir Gupta tested flat, disk-shaped versions of the material for its ability to separate different mixtures of hydrogen and carbon dioxide gases at different temperatures. The researchers used the three common temperatures for industrial hydrogen purification: 95 degrees, 50 degrees and minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
The new membrane not only separated these two gases better than previous membranes, but did so when additional components such as hydrogen sulfide and water vapor were present as occurs in industrial settings. The membrane worked so well that it was 40 times more permeable to (better at separating out) carbon dioxide than hydrogen.
In contrast, current commercial membranes favor the transport of hydrogen, a small molecule, over larger carbon dioxide molecules. This process results in hydrogen being transferred to a low-pressure environment that requires expensive recompression of the gas before use.
The new membrane avoids this recompression step by favoring the transport of larger, polar gas molecules as a result of the polar nature of the polymer materials making up the membrane. The polar, reverse-selective materials based on ethylene oxide interact better with polar gases such as carbon dioxide than with smaller, nonpolar hydrogen gas, which is left behind in a high-pressure state.
"The membrane likes carbon dioxide more than hydrogen, and we optimized that affinity," Freeman said. Plasticization, a process that softens materials and dilates them, was also found to improve the movement of the larger carbon dioxide through the new membrane for separation purposes. Several companies have already shown interest in collaborating to develop the material for industrial-scale applications.
###
For photos of Dr. Freeman and his students, go to: www.engr.utexas.edu/news/action_shots/pages/freeman.cfm.
The research is part of President Bush's 2003 Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to develop alternative fuel options to gasoline by 2010. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, with additional support from the National Science Foundation.
A rubbery material that can purify hydrogen efficiently in its most usable form for fuel cells and oil refining has been developed by a chemical engineering group at The University of Texas at Austin.
In the Feb. 3 edition of Science, Dr. Benny Freeman details how his laboratory designed the membrane material and tested its ability, with colleagues at Research Triangle Institute (RTI) in Research Triangle Park, N.C., to successfully separate hydrogen from carbon dioxide and other contaminant gases.
This member of a new family of membrane materials with superior gas-separating ability could lower the costs of purifying hydrogen for hydrogen-fueled vehicles. Hydrogen fuel cells are considered a leading alternative energy for running cars and other devices in the future. The membrane material could also replace an expensive step in current petrochemical processing, or reduce how much energy the step requires. The membrane was tested under conditions that mimic those routinely used by the petrochemical industry to refine petroleum components (crude oil and natural gas) for use.
"A significant amount of the hydrogen in use today goes into the refining industry to refine crude oil to produce gasoline or other products, so this membrane could lower refining costs," said Freeman, the Kenneth A. Kobe Professor in Chemical Engineering.
The membrane differs structurally and functionally from previous options, with a key advantage being its ability to permit hydrogen to remain compressed at high pressure. A compressed form of the light-weight gas is needed to process fossil fuels and for it to serve as a readily replaceable fuel for fuel cells.
Freeman and graduate student Haiqing Lin designed the membrane material in Freeman's laboratory at the university's Center for Energy and Environmental Resources.
The engineers and RTI collaborators Lora Toy and Raghubir Gupta tested flat, disk-shaped versions of the material for its ability to separate different mixtures of hydrogen and carbon dioxide gases at different temperatures. The researchers used the three common temperatures for industrial hydrogen purification: 95 degrees, 50 degrees and minus 4 degrees Fahrenheit.
The new membrane not only separated these two gases better than previous membranes, but did so when additional components such as hydrogen sulfide and water vapor were present as occurs in industrial settings. The membrane worked so well that it was 40 times more permeable to (better at separating out) carbon dioxide than hydrogen.
In contrast, current commercial membranes favor the transport of hydrogen, a small molecule, over larger carbon dioxide molecules. This process results in hydrogen being transferred to a low-pressure environment that requires expensive recompression of the gas before use.
The new membrane avoids this recompression step by favoring the transport of larger, polar gas molecules as a result of the polar nature of the polymer materials making up the membrane. The polar, reverse-selective materials based on ethylene oxide interact better with polar gases such as carbon dioxide than with smaller, nonpolar hydrogen gas, which is left behind in a high-pressure state.
"The membrane likes carbon dioxide more than hydrogen, and we optimized that affinity," Freeman said. Plasticization, a process that softens materials and dilates them, was also found to improve the movement of the larger carbon dioxide through the new membrane for separation purposes. Several companies have already shown interest in collaborating to develop the material for industrial-scale applications.
###
For photos of Dr. Freeman and his students, go to: www.engr.utexas.edu/news/action_shots/pages/freeman.cfm.
The research is part of President Bush's 2003 Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to develop alternative fuel options to gasoline by 2010. It is funded by the U.S. Department of Energy, with additional support from the National Science Foundation.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
Waste Management opens new renewable-energy power plant at landfill - 2006-01-27
Waste Management of Texas Inc. began operations of a new gas-to-energy power plant at its Covel Gardens Landfill that will convert enough landfill gas to power thousands of homes and businesses in San Antonio.
Waste Management formed a partnership with Houston-based Energy Developments Inc. to design, build and operate the power station. CPS Energy, San Antonio's gas and electric utility, in turn will purchase the energy to supply power to residents and businesses.
"Covel Gardens Landfill generates about nine megawatts of green energy that will be used to light up approximately 6,000 homes," says Covel Gardens Landfill Manager Ric Green. "This 'green' power source benefits the San Antonio environment and economy because it helps offset the need for non-renewable resources such as coal and oil."
Gas is naturally created as waste decomposes in a landfill. It can either be destroyed by a central flare or it can be captured and converted for use as a clean energy source.
"We are excited about acquiring this new supply of renewable energy; it benefits both our customers and our community," says Richard Peña, senior vice president of Energy Supply for CPS Energy. "This increment of electricity from landfill gas and our substantial amount of wind-generated electricity truly makes CPS Energy a state leader in renewables."
Energy Developments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Developments Ltd., an independent power producer founded in Australia in 1998.
Waste Management of Texas Inc. began operations of a new gas-to-energy power plant at its Covel Gardens Landfill that will convert enough landfill gas to power thousands of homes and businesses in San Antonio.
Waste Management formed a partnership with Houston-based Energy Developments Inc. to design, build and operate the power station. CPS Energy, San Antonio's gas and electric utility, in turn will purchase the energy to supply power to residents and businesses.
"Covel Gardens Landfill generates about nine megawatts of green energy that will be used to light up approximately 6,000 homes," says Covel Gardens Landfill Manager Ric Green. "This 'green' power source benefits the San Antonio environment and economy because it helps offset the need for non-renewable resources such as coal and oil."
Gas is naturally created as waste decomposes in a landfill. It can either be destroyed by a central flare or it can be captured and converted for use as a clean energy source.
"We are excited about acquiring this new supply of renewable energy; it benefits both our customers and our community," says Richard Peña, senior vice president of Energy Supply for CPS Energy. "This increment of electricity from landfill gas and our substantial amount of wind-generated electricity truly makes CPS Energy a state leader in renewables."
Energy Developments is a wholly owned subsidiary of Energy Developments Ltd., an independent power producer founded in Australia in 1998.
Scramble to unlock Arctic's energy potential
Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, analysts and key industry figures argued that unlocking the region's potential could help ease global concerns over assured energy supplies. But difficult questions remain about the impact on the environment and the fraught subject of exactly who owns what, with up to eight countries claiming some interest in the Arctic and others racing to catch up. "It will never replace the Middle East" as an oil source, said Helge Lund, head of Norway's Statoil energy group, but "it has the potential to be a good supplement." Lund said the Arctic may account for as much as 25 percent of undiscovered oil and gas resources worldwide, the equivalent of 375 billion barrels. Analysts say the Arctic is highly attractive because it is closer to Europe and the United States, reducing transportation costs, and offers the prospect of more stability and supply security than the volatile Middle East. Moreover, global warming has reduced Arctic sea ice -- which last year was the lowest on record -- and opened the way for increased marine transport and access to natural resources. George Newton, chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, said surface temperatures were set to rise up to 5.5 degrees within a century even without taking the impact of booming economies such as China and India into account. He predicted tourist and commercial maritime traffic through the fabled and normally ice-locked Northwest Passage within a decade. Even China, he added, was showing an increasing interest in Arctic research and had recently bought an icebreaker. European Union energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Brussels wanted to diversify its energy suppliers. Currently, a quarter of its natural gas comes from Russia, and 15 percent from Norway.
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"We regard Russia in the future as a reliable supplier," he said, but that did not mean the European Union should not seek alternatives. "We should be more concerned about situations where there is disruption of supply." Lund said that if Barents Sea resources could be successfully exploited, a new gas pipeline could be attached to existing pipelines serving Europe. He said concerns over the environmental impact of increasing use of Arctic resources could be allayed by new technologies such as sub-sea facilities that would not harm fish and other marine stocks. "Often people under-estimate the power of technology" to cope, Lund added, calling for a single management regime for all the Arctic's natural resources on the basis that "neither fish and hydrocarbons know boundaries." But that touches on another tricky issue -- deciding which country owns or can exploit which parts of the Arctic. Eight nations -- Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the United States -- have Arctic interests. Of those, all bar Sweden and Finland enjoy Arctic coastlines, and border and sovereignty disputes, such as between Russia and Norway, Russia and the United States and the United States and Canada, are hampering cooperation. A country is permitted 200 nautical miles under the Law of the Sea for its territorial waters, but can also lay claim to extra mileage on the continental shelf -- essential to explore and utilise sub-sea energy resources. "I don't see any geopolitical tensions arising out of the Arctic," Piebalgs said, although Newton pointed out that unlike Russia, the United States still had not ratified the treaty.
Addressing the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, analysts and key industry figures argued that unlocking the region's potential could help ease global concerns over assured energy supplies. But difficult questions remain about the impact on the environment and the fraught subject of exactly who owns what, with up to eight countries claiming some interest in the Arctic and others racing to catch up. "It will never replace the Middle East" as an oil source, said Helge Lund, head of Norway's Statoil energy group, but "it has the potential to be a good supplement." Lund said the Arctic may account for as much as 25 percent of undiscovered oil and gas resources worldwide, the equivalent of 375 billion barrels. Analysts say the Arctic is highly attractive because it is closer to Europe and the United States, reducing transportation costs, and offers the prospect of more stability and supply security than the volatile Middle East. Moreover, global warming has reduced Arctic sea ice -- which last year was the lowest on record -- and opened the way for increased marine transport and access to natural resources. George Newton, chairman of the US Arctic Research Commission, said surface temperatures were set to rise up to 5.5 degrees within a century even without taking the impact of booming economies such as China and India into account. He predicted tourist and commercial maritime traffic through the fabled and normally ice-locked Northwest Passage within a decade. Even China, he added, was showing an increasing interest in Arctic research and had recently bought an icebreaker. European Union energy commissioner Andris Piebalgs said Brussels wanted to diversify its energy suppliers. Currently, a quarter of its natural gas comes from Russia, and 15 percent from Norway.
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"We regard Russia in the future as a reliable supplier," he said, but that did not mean the European Union should not seek alternatives. "We should be more concerned about situations where there is disruption of supply." Lund said that if Barents Sea resources could be successfully exploited, a new gas pipeline could be attached to existing pipelines serving Europe. He said concerns over the environmental impact of increasing use of Arctic resources could be allayed by new technologies such as sub-sea facilities that would not harm fish and other marine stocks. "Often people under-estimate the power of technology" to cope, Lund added, calling for a single management regime for all the Arctic's natural resources on the basis that "neither fish and hydrocarbons know boundaries." But that touches on another tricky issue -- deciding which country owns or can exploit which parts of the Arctic. Eight nations -- Canada, Denmark (via Greenland), Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Russia and the United States -- have Arctic interests. Of those, all bar Sweden and Finland enjoy Arctic coastlines, and border and sovereignty disputes, such as between Russia and Norway, Russia and the United States and the United States and Canada, are hampering cooperation. A country is permitted 200 nautical miles under the Law of the Sea for its territorial waters, but can also lay claim to extra mileage on the continental shelf -- essential to explore and utilise sub-sea energy resources. "I don't see any geopolitical tensions arising out of the Arctic," Piebalgs said, although Newton pointed out that unlike Russia, the United States still had not ratified the treaty.
Scientists set sights on biomass to reduce fossil fuel dependence
Using plants rather than oil or coal to produce fuels and chemicals could play an essential role in reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuels, according to a group of scientists from the UK and the USA writing today in the journal Science.
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The scientists from Imperial College London, Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have evaluated the scientific and technological potential of a future based on renewable plant matter and biological material such as trees, grasses, agricultural crops, known as biomass. Their conclusions form the basis of a strategic alliance between the three institutions, the AtlantIC Alliance. Today's paper describes the scientific challenges of creating a facility to process all the components of biomass. Such a facility would make a range of fuels, foods, chemicals, animal feeds, materials, heat and power in proportions that would give maximum value with minimum waste. The scientists believe that efficient refining of biomass will be vital for producing renewable products with reduced carbon emissions. Biofuels and biomaterials are derived from plants which take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Their net contribution to the addition of greenhouse gases can be very small if minimal non-renewable energy is used when processing them into useful material or energy products. Dr Charlotte Williams , from Imperial's Department of Chemistry and one of the authors of the paper, said: "We're looking at a future for biomass where we use the entire plant and produce a range of different materials from it.
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"Biomass has a completely different molecular structure compared with hydrocarbons from oil. That means we'll need to develop new techniques so that we can transform plant material into everything from specialty, high value products such as perfumes and plastics to higher volume products such as fuels." Imperial hopes that the partnership with Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge will combine their complementary areas of expertise and examine the critical issues from alternative angles. The project has been given a major boost by the award of a UK Office of Science and Technology grant to develop the alliance, backed up by internal funding from each of the partners. Professor Richard Templer, Head of Imperial's Department of Chemistry, said: " No one institution is going to cover all the aspects and issues in this transition from a fossil resource-based present to a bio-based future. This partnership will increase the range of our scientific capacity. It will also enable us to evaluate the scientific and technological possibilities for the bio-based future from different perspectives, and in respect to the different potential for applications in the UK, USA and more widely, for example in developing economies." Source: Imperial College London
Using plants rather than oil or coal to produce fuels and chemicals could play an essential role in reducing the world's dependence on fossil fuels, according to a group of scientists from the UK and the USA writing today in the journal Science.
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The scientists from Imperial College London, Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge National Laboratory have evaluated the scientific and technological potential of a future based on renewable plant matter and biological material such as trees, grasses, agricultural crops, known as biomass. Their conclusions form the basis of a strategic alliance between the three institutions, the AtlantIC Alliance. Today's paper describes the scientific challenges of creating a facility to process all the components of biomass. Such a facility would make a range of fuels, foods, chemicals, animal feeds, materials, heat and power in proportions that would give maximum value with minimum waste. The scientists believe that efficient refining of biomass will be vital for producing renewable products with reduced carbon emissions. Biofuels and biomaterials are derived from plants which take carbon dioxide from the atmosphere as they grow. Their net contribution to the addition of greenhouse gases can be very small if minimal non-renewable energy is used when processing them into useful material or energy products. Dr Charlotte Williams , from Imperial's Department of Chemistry and one of the authors of the paper, said: "We're looking at a future for biomass where we use the entire plant and produce a range of different materials from it.
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"Biomass has a completely different molecular structure compared with hydrocarbons from oil. That means we'll need to develop new techniques so that we can transform plant material into everything from specialty, high value products such as perfumes and plastics to higher volume products such as fuels." Imperial hopes that the partnership with Georgia Tech and Oak Ridge will combine their complementary areas of expertise and examine the critical issues from alternative angles. The project has been given a major boost by the award of a UK Office of Science and Technology grant to develop the alliance, backed up by internal funding from each of the partners. Professor Richard Templer, Head of Imperial's Department of Chemistry, said: " No one institution is going to cover all the aspects and issues in this transition from a fossil resource-based present to a bio-based future. This partnership will increase the range of our scientific capacity. It will also enable us to evaluate the scientific and technological possibilities for the bio-based future from different perspectives, and in respect to the different potential for applications in the UK, USA and more widely, for example in developing economies." Source: Imperial College London
Bush in a lighter shade of green
President Bush's State of the Union speech might well be remembered for his phrase that "America is addicted to oil".
Bush speech on TV in Tokyo: is world climate change his issue?
The rest of it, apart perhaps from a call on Iranians to get rid of their "small clerical elite", was a reiteration of the themes on which his presidency stands or falls.
He gave not an inch on Iraq nor on his intention to "act boldly in freedom's cause" (nor on his wiretapping without warrants).
One would expect that. They are the bedrock of his policy.
On all those policies, especially the foreign ones, he was defiant if at times somewhat defensive. His rallying call on Iraq, for example, was to say: "Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win and we are winning." This, three years after war was first waged.
Oil addiction
His section on energy indicates that he is having to respond to the green lobby, which has been growing fast at a local and state level in the United States. (Update: one reader also suggests that he might be reacting to higher energy prices).
His answer, as it has been from the start of this whole debate in fact, is to rely on science.
"The best way to break this addiction is through technology," he said.
He proposed to spend more on clean energy research - on zero-emission coal fired stations, ethanol fuel from such things as "wood chips and stalk, or switch grass", "revolutionary solar and wind technologies" and, importantly in view of the worldwide debate on this, "clean, safe nuclear energy."
It is worth noting, however, that he put energy in its place. He mentioned the need to detox from oil only as the sixth on a list of seven measures the United States had to take to stay "competitive."
The preceding five were "keeping our economy growing", being "good stewards of tax dollars", opening "more markets for all that Americans make and grow", sorting out an "immigration system" and providing "affordable health care".
The seventh was a plan to improve science and technology education.
Climate change not the motive
And he did not mention climate change as the overriding concern behind energy policies.
George Bush is not going to make the same mistake that Jimmy Carter made
Q&A: Dependence on foreign oil
Those words, like the bark of the dog in the night in the Sherlock Holmes story of the stolen racehorse, are not in the speech.
Nor are the words "greenhouse gases." The nearest he came to a climate reference was when he outlined one benefit of cleaner energy.
"This country can dramatically improve our environment," he declared.
So the benefit is for the US not necessarily the world, though the world, of course, would also benefit.
And the breaking of the oil addiction was also seen a foreign policy goal.
He proposed replacing "more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025", making "our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Applause followed.
The goal is not quite as ambitious as it might sound. These days the US gets more oil and petroleum products from Venezuela, Mexico and Canada than it does from the Middle East.
The Jimmy Carter experience
Mr Bush does not like targets and in this he might well have been mindful of the disastrous speech on energy made by President Jimmy Carter back in 1979.
At the time, Mr Carter was, like Mr Bush, rather down in the polls.
On returning from a trip abroad, he went up to Camp David, the president's retreat in the Catoctin Mountains north of Washington, and did not come down for a week.
Instead, a whole series of leaders from across the field of American endeavour went up the mountain to see him.
He then came down and announced in a gloomy speech that America was in a crisis.
He identified that as an energy crisis and declared: "Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation."
He set all kinds of hopelessly unrealistic targets (not importing more oil than in 1979 for one; generating 20% of power from solar energy by 2000 for another) to reduce American dependence on oil.
Of course this all simply boomeranged on Mr Carter. Americans did not like to be told it was all their fault and at the time did not like being told to tighten their belts.
It wasn't that hard for Ronald Reagan to come along and give them their confidence back.
George Bush is not going to make the same mistake that Jimmy Carter made.
If he has gone green, it is perhaps a lighter shade of green.
Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
President Bush's State of the Union speech might well be remembered for his phrase that "America is addicted to oil".
Bush speech on TV in Tokyo: is world climate change his issue?
The rest of it, apart perhaps from a call on Iranians to get rid of their "small clerical elite", was a reiteration of the themes on which his presidency stands or falls.
He gave not an inch on Iraq nor on his intention to "act boldly in freedom's cause" (nor on his wiretapping without warrants).
One would expect that. They are the bedrock of his policy.
On all those policies, especially the foreign ones, he was defiant if at times somewhat defensive. His rallying call on Iraq, for example, was to say: "Fellow citizens, we are in this fight to win and we are winning." This, three years after war was first waged.
Oil addiction
His section on energy indicates that he is having to respond to the green lobby, which has been growing fast at a local and state level in the United States. (Update: one reader also suggests that he might be reacting to higher energy prices).
His answer, as it has been from the start of this whole debate in fact, is to rely on science.
"The best way to break this addiction is through technology," he said.
He proposed to spend more on clean energy research - on zero-emission coal fired stations, ethanol fuel from such things as "wood chips and stalk, or switch grass", "revolutionary solar and wind technologies" and, importantly in view of the worldwide debate on this, "clean, safe nuclear energy."
It is worth noting, however, that he put energy in its place. He mentioned the need to detox from oil only as the sixth on a list of seven measures the United States had to take to stay "competitive."
The preceding five were "keeping our economy growing", being "good stewards of tax dollars", opening "more markets for all that Americans make and grow", sorting out an "immigration system" and providing "affordable health care".
The seventh was a plan to improve science and technology education.
Climate change not the motive
And he did not mention climate change as the overriding concern behind energy policies.
George Bush is not going to make the same mistake that Jimmy Carter made
Q&A: Dependence on foreign oil
Those words, like the bark of the dog in the night in the Sherlock Holmes story of the stolen racehorse, are not in the speech.
Nor are the words "greenhouse gases." The nearest he came to a climate reference was when he outlined one benefit of cleaner energy.
"This country can dramatically improve our environment," he declared.
So the benefit is for the US not necessarily the world, though the world, of course, would also benefit.
And the breaking of the oil addiction was also seen a foreign policy goal.
He proposed replacing "more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by 2025", making "our dependence on Middle Eastern oil a thing of the past." Applause followed.
The goal is not quite as ambitious as it might sound. These days the US gets more oil and petroleum products from Venezuela, Mexico and Canada than it does from the Middle East.
The Jimmy Carter experience
Mr Bush does not like targets and in this he might well have been mindful of the disastrous speech on energy made by President Jimmy Carter back in 1979.
At the time, Mr Carter was, like Mr Bush, rather down in the polls.
On returning from a trip abroad, he went up to Camp David, the president's retreat in the Catoctin Mountains north of Washington, and did not come down for a week.
Instead, a whole series of leaders from across the field of American endeavour went up the mountain to see him.
He then came down and announced in a gloomy speech that America was in a crisis.
He identified that as an energy crisis and declared: "Energy will be the immediate test of our ability to unite this nation."
He set all kinds of hopelessly unrealistic targets (not importing more oil than in 1979 for one; generating 20% of power from solar energy by 2000 for another) to reduce American dependence on oil.
Of course this all simply boomeranged on Mr Carter. Americans did not like to be told it was all their fault and at the time did not like being told to tighten their belts.
It wasn't that hard for Ronald Reagan to come along and give them their confidence back.
George Bush is not going to make the same mistake that Jimmy Carter made.
If he has gone green, it is perhaps a lighter shade of green.
Paul.Reynolds-INTERNET@bbc.co.uk
BBC NEWS Americas Renewable energy close, Bush says
President Bush has said alternative fuels to compete with petrol could be produced within six years.
Speaking in Nashville, Mr Bush said that scientists were close to a breakthrough on making ethanol from materials such as grasses.
Technology, he hoped, would help the US "reduce if not end" reliance on Middle Eastern oil in his lifetime.
In his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr Bush criticised the US "addiction" to oil.
"The best way to break this addiction is through technology," he said.
Other Opec suppliers are Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela
Other leading non-Opec suppliers include Angola, Russia and the Virgin Islands
On Wednesday President Bush set off on a tour of the United States to bring the messages in his State of the Union speech to all corners of the nation.
He told the Nashville audience that the US was close to a breakthrough in making ethanol from materials like grasses or woods.
"All of a sudden, you know, we may be in the energy business by being able to grow grass on the ranch! And have it harvested and converted into energy. That's what's close to happening," he said.
"We're told that if we continue to focus on research, we'll be able to within six years have a competitive fuel to gasoline."
The US is the world's biggest consumer of oil.
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
President Bush has said alternative fuels to compete with petrol could be produced within six years.
Speaking in Nashville, Mr Bush said that scientists were close to a breakthrough on making ethanol from materials such as grasses.
Technology, he hoped, would help the US "reduce if not end" reliance on Middle Eastern oil in his lifetime.
In his annual State of the Union address on Tuesday, Mr Bush criticised the US "addiction" to oil.
"The best way to break this addiction is through technology," he said.
Other Opec suppliers are Algeria, Libya, Nigeria and Venezuela
Other leading non-Opec suppliers include Angola, Russia and the Virgin Islands
On Wednesday President Bush set off on a tour of the United States to bring the messages in his State of the Union speech to all corners of the nation.
He told the Nashville audience that the US was close to a breakthrough in making ethanol from materials like grasses or woods.
"All of a sudden, you know, we may be in the energy business by being able to grow grass on the ranch! And have it harvested and converted into energy. That's what's close to happening," he said.
"We're told that if we continue to focus on research, we'll be able to within six years have a competitive fuel to gasoline."
The US is the world's biggest consumer of oil.
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
PNG puts politics aside for gas project [ 31jan06 ]
THE Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, has told a Townsville delegation he is confident the politics of government and industry can be overcome to develop the $6 billion PNG gas project.Sir Michael met with the delegation, led by Mayor Tony Mooney, in Port Moresby yesterday.
"We may be politicians," he told Cr Mooney, "but we know also that industry have their own politics too."
"You can be rest assured we are quite confident.
"We hope we can pull it together and make it work for the betterment of both countries."
A consortium led by ExxonMobil but also including the PNG Government is backing development of gas fields in the country's remote Southern Highlands to supply markets, including Townsville, in eastern Australia via a PNG to Queensland pipeline.
Pipelines are to be built from PNG across the Torres Strait along the east coast of Queensland to Gladstone with lateral pipes to run from Weipa across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Gove in the Northern Territory and from Keelbottom Creek north of Townsville to Ballera in the State's southwest.
The gas fields are in the Hides and Kutubu oil fields up to 9000 feet above sea level which have been producing oil for export since 1993.
Representatives of gas corporation the Australian Gas Light Company (AGL), which has announced a $500 million investment in 10 per cent of the oil and gas fields and agreements as a major gas customer, have joined the Townsville delegation for a tour of oil and gas plant and infrastructure.
AGL spokesman Dean Russell told the meeting with Sir Michael that the gas project remained on track with final engineering design to be completed by the first quarter of this year and a decision on whether to go ahead with the project to be made in the third quarter of this year.
Mr Russell said the Queensland Government's decision last week to grant special status to the Ballera lateral pipe was a significant step.
"That will link PNG gas into the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane markets," he said.
"That's a very significant step for us."
Mr Russell said AGL had decided to split the company with the infrastructure business owning and operating the pipeline and the energy business owning the gas and power stations in Townsville and other areas.
AGL plans to build a $350 million 370 megawatt power station at Townsville to be commissioned in 2009 when PNG gas comes on stream.
Cr Mooney told Sir Michael the delegation had received positive feedback about the project which it would take back to Townsville.
"We have to keep on lobbying the State and Federal Governments to make sure there are no barriers," Cr Mooney said, to which Sir Michael replied:"I think the State Government is okay, you have to lobby hard the Federal Government, the big one."
Feedback
W
THE Prime Minister of Papua New Guinea, Sir Michael Somare, has told a Townsville delegation he is confident the politics of government and industry can be overcome to develop the $6 billion PNG gas project.Sir Michael met with the delegation, led by Mayor Tony Mooney, in Port Moresby yesterday.
"We may be politicians," he told Cr Mooney, "but we know also that industry have their own politics too."
"You can be rest assured we are quite confident.
"We hope we can pull it together and make it work for the betterment of both countries."
A consortium led by ExxonMobil but also including the PNG Government is backing development of gas fields in the country's remote Southern Highlands to supply markets, including Townsville, in eastern Australia via a PNG to Queensland pipeline.
Pipelines are to be built from PNG across the Torres Strait along the east coast of Queensland to Gladstone with lateral pipes to run from Weipa across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Gove in the Northern Territory and from Keelbottom Creek north of Townsville to Ballera in the State's southwest.
The gas fields are in the Hides and Kutubu oil fields up to 9000 feet above sea level which have been producing oil for export since 1993.
Representatives of gas corporation the Australian Gas Light Company (AGL), which has announced a $500 million investment in 10 per cent of the oil and gas fields and agreements as a major gas customer, have joined the Townsville delegation for a tour of oil and gas plant and infrastructure.
AGL spokesman Dean Russell told the meeting with Sir Michael that the gas project remained on track with final engineering design to be completed by the first quarter of this year and a decision on whether to go ahead with the project to be made in the third quarter of this year.
Mr Russell said the Queensland Government's decision last week to grant special status to the Ballera lateral pipe was a significant step.
"That will link PNG gas into the Adelaide, Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane markets," he said.
"That's a very significant step for us."
Mr Russell said AGL had decided to split the company with the infrastructure business owning and operating the pipeline and the energy business owning the gas and power stations in Townsville and other areas.
AGL plans to build a $350 million 370 megawatt power station at Townsville to be commissioned in 2009 when PNG gas comes on stream.
Cr Mooney told Sir Michael the delegation had received positive feedback about the project which it would take back to Townsville.
"We have to keep on lobbying the State and Federal Governments to make sure there are no barriers," Cr Mooney said, to which Sir Michael replied:"I think the State Government is okay, you have to lobby hard the Federal Government, the big one."
Feedback
W
CSIRO backs coal-friendly technologies - Breaking News - National - Breaking News
Australia's primary scientific organisation has come out in support of the federal government's coal-friendly technologies, moving away from renewable energy research.
The CSIRO said it would focus $90 million in resources on low-emission projects such as carbon sequestration instead of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
But jobs will be shed from its current workforce of 6,500 and cuts will also be made to the organisation's traditional research areas of manufacturing and agriculture, The Australian newspaper reports.
Opposition science spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said Australia had the world's highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
"But the CSIRO doesn't seem to care about renewable energy research," Ms Macklin said.
But CSIRO chief Geoff Garrett said industry and consumers depended heavily on coal to fire electricity and that was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
He also defended the organisation's industry partnerships, saying they were pivotal.
"The key point is making great science and great research accessible to Joe Public," Dr Garrett said.
© 2006 AAP
Australia's primary scientific organisation has come out in support of the federal government's coal-friendly technologies, moving away from renewable energy research.
The CSIRO said it would focus $90 million in resources on low-emission projects such as carbon sequestration instead of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power.
But jobs will be shed from its current workforce of 6,500 and cuts will also be made to the organisation's traditional research areas of manufacturing and agriculture, The Australian newspaper reports.
Opposition science spokeswoman Jenny Macklin said Australia had the world's highest greenhouse gas emissions per capita.
"But the CSIRO doesn't seem to care about renewable energy research," Ms Macklin said.
But CSIRO chief Geoff Garrett said industry and consumers depended heavily on coal to fire electricity and that was unlikely to change in the foreseeable future.
He also defended the organisation's industry partnerships, saying they were pivotal.
"The key point is making great science and great research accessible to Joe Public," Dr Garrett said.
© 2006 AAP
State Of The Union: The Advanced Energy Initiative
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- In His State Of The Union Address,President Bush Outlined The Advanced Energy Initiative To Help Break America'sDependence On Foreign Sources Of Energy. The President has set a nationalgoal of replacing more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by2025. With America on the verge of breakthroughs in advanced energytechnologies, the best way to break the addiction to foreign oil is throughnew technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to developcleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources. Tonight, thePresident announced the Advanced Energy Initiative, which provides for a 22%increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy (DOE). TheInitiative will accelerate our breakthroughs in two vital areas; how we powerour homes and businesses; and how we power our automobiles. Changing The Way We Power Our Homes And Businesses The Administration Will Work To Diversify Energy Sources For AmericanHomes And Businesses. Accelerating research in clean coal technologies, cleanand safe nuclear energy, and revolutionary solar and wind technologies willreduce overall demand for natural gas and lead to lower energy costs. ThePresident's Advanced Energy Initiative proposes speeding up research in threepromising areas: -- The President's Coal Research Initiative. Coal provides more than halfof the Nation's electricity supply, and America has enough coal to last morethan 200 years. As part of the National Energy Policy, the Presidentcommitted $2 billion over 10 years to speed up research in the use of cleancoal technologies to generate electricity while meeting environmentalregulations at low cost. To tap the potential of America's enormous coalreserves, the President's 2007 Budget includes $281 million for development ofclean coal technologies, nearly completing the President's commitment 4 yearsahead of schedule. -- The President's 2007 Budget Includes $54 Million For The FutureGenInitiative. The FutureGen initiative is a partnership between government andthe private sector to develop innovative technologies for an emissions-freecoal plant that captures the carbon dioxide it produces and stores it in deepgeologic formations. -- The President's Solar America Initiative. The 2007 Budget will proposea new $148 million Solar America Initiative - an increase of $65 million overFY06 - to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convertsunlight directly to electricity. These solar photovoltaic "PV" cells can beused to deliver energy services to rural areas and can be incorporateddirectly into building materials, so that there can be future "zero energy"homes that produce more energy than they consume. -- Expanding Clean Energy from Wind. The 2007 Budget includes $44 millionfor wind energy research - a $5 million increase over FY06 levels. This willhelp improve the efficiency and lower the costs of new wind technologies foruse in low-speed wind environments. Combined with ongoing efforts to expandaccess to Federal lands for wind energy development, this new funding willhelp dramatically increase the use of wind energy in the United States. Changing The Way We Power Our Automobiles We Are On The Verge Of Dramatic Improvements In How We Power OurAutomobiles, And The President's Initiative Will Bring Those Improvements ToThe Forefront. The United States must move beyond a petroleum-based economyand develop new ways to power automobiles. The President wants to acceleratethe development of domestic, renewable alternatives to gasoline and dieselfuels. The Administration will accelerate research in cutting-edge methods ofproducing "cellulosic ethanol" with the goal of making the use of such ethanolpractical and competitive within 6 years. The Administration will also stepup the Nation's research in better batteries for use in hybrid and electriccars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. -- The Biorefinery Initiative. To achieve greater use of "homegrown"renewable fuels in the United States, advanced technologies need to beperfected to make fuel ethanol from cellulosic (plant fiber) biomass, which isnow discarded as waste. The President's 2007 Budget will include $150 million- a $59 million increase over FY06 - to help develop bio-based transportationfuels from agricultural waste products, such as wood chips, stalks, or switchgrass. Research scientists say that accelerating research into "cellulosicethanol" can make it cost-competitive by 2012, offering the potential todisplace up to 30% of the Nation's current fuel use. -- Developing More Efficient Vehicles. Current hybrids on the road run ona battery developed at the DOE. The President's plan would accelerateresearch in the next generation of battery technology for hybrid vehicles and"plug-in hybrids." Current hybrids can only use the gasoline engine to chargethe on-board battery. A "plug-in" hybrid can run either on electricity or ongasoline and can be plugged into the wall at night to recharge its batteries.These vehicles will enable drivers to meet most of their urban commuting needswith virtually no gasoline use. Advanced battery technologies offer thepotential to significantly reduce oil consumption in the near-term. The 2007Budget includes $30 million - a $6.7 million increase over FY06 - to speed upthe development of this battery technology and extend the range of thesevehicles. -- The Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. In his 2003 State of the Union address,President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to developtechnology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells, which wouldpower cars, trucks, homes, and businesses with no pollution or greenhousegases. Through private-sector partnerships, the Initiative and relatedFreedomCAR programs will make it practical and cost-effective for Americans touse clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020. The President's 2007 Budgetwill provide $289 million - an increase of $53 million over FY06 - toaccelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cells and affordable hydrogen-powered cars. Through the President's program, the cost of a hydrogen fuelcell has been cut by more than 50% in just four years. -- America Must Act Now To Reduce Dependence On Foreign Sources Of Energy.There are an estimated 250 million vehicles on America's highways, andAmericans will purchase more than 17 million vehicles this year. It will takeapproximately 15 years to switch America's automobiles over to more fuelefficient technologies. The sooner breakthroughs are achieved, the better forAmerica. The President's Advanced Energy Initiative Will Build On The Progress Made Since 2001 Since 2001, The Administration Has Worked To Ensure Affordable, Reliable,Secure, And Clean Sources Of Energy. In 2001, the President put forward hisNational Energy Policy, which included over 100 recommendations to increasedomestic energy supplies, encourage efficiency and conservation, invest inenergy-related infrastructure, and develop alternative and renewable sourcesof energy. Over the past four years, the Administration has worked toimplement these recommendations and improve the Nation's energy outlook. Last Summer, The President Signed The First Comprehensive EnergyLegislation In Over A Decade. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is strengtheningAmerica's electrical infrastructure, reducing the country's dependence onforeign sources of energy, increasing conservation, and expanding the use ofclean renewable energy.
SOURCE White House Press OfficeWeb Site: http://www.whitehouse.gov
WASHINGTON, Jan. 31 /PRNewswire/ -- In His State Of The Union Address,President Bush Outlined The Advanced Energy Initiative To Help Break America'sDependence On Foreign Sources Of Energy. The President has set a nationalgoal of replacing more than 75% of our oil imports from the Middle East by2025. With America on the verge of breakthroughs in advanced energytechnologies, the best way to break the addiction to foreign oil is throughnew technology. Since 2001, we have spent nearly $10 billion to developcleaner, cheaper, and more reliable alternative energy sources. Tonight, thePresident announced the Advanced Energy Initiative, which provides for a 22%increase in clean-energy research at the Department of Energy (DOE). TheInitiative will accelerate our breakthroughs in two vital areas; how we powerour homes and businesses; and how we power our automobiles. Changing The Way We Power Our Homes And Businesses The Administration Will Work To Diversify Energy Sources For AmericanHomes And Businesses. Accelerating research in clean coal technologies, cleanand safe nuclear energy, and revolutionary solar and wind technologies willreduce overall demand for natural gas and lead to lower energy costs. ThePresident's Advanced Energy Initiative proposes speeding up research in threepromising areas: -- The President's Coal Research Initiative. Coal provides more than halfof the Nation's electricity supply, and America has enough coal to last morethan 200 years. As part of the National Energy Policy, the Presidentcommitted $2 billion over 10 years to speed up research in the use of cleancoal technologies to generate electricity while meeting environmentalregulations at low cost. To tap the potential of America's enormous coalreserves, the President's 2007 Budget includes $281 million for development ofclean coal technologies, nearly completing the President's commitment 4 yearsahead of schedule. -- The President's 2007 Budget Includes $54 Million For The FutureGenInitiative. The FutureGen initiative is a partnership between government andthe private sector to develop innovative technologies for an emissions-freecoal plant that captures the carbon dioxide it produces and stores it in deepgeologic formations. -- The President's Solar America Initiative. The 2007 Budget will proposea new $148 million Solar America Initiative - an increase of $65 million overFY06 - to accelerate the development of semiconductor materials that convertsunlight directly to electricity. These solar photovoltaic "PV" cells can beused to deliver energy services to rural areas and can be incorporateddirectly into building materials, so that there can be future "zero energy"homes that produce more energy than they consume. -- Expanding Clean Energy from Wind. The 2007 Budget includes $44 millionfor wind energy research - a $5 million increase over FY06 levels. This willhelp improve the efficiency and lower the costs of new wind technologies foruse in low-speed wind environments. Combined with ongoing efforts to expandaccess to Federal lands for wind energy development, this new funding willhelp dramatically increase the use of wind energy in the United States. Changing The Way We Power Our Automobiles We Are On The Verge Of Dramatic Improvements In How We Power OurAutomobiles, And The President's Initiative Will Bring Those Improvements ToThe Forefront. The United States must move beyond a petroleum-based economyand develop new ways to power automobiles. The President wants to acceleratethe development of domestic, renewable alternatives to gasoline and dieselfuels. The Administration will accelerate research in cutting-edge methods ofproducing "cellulosic ethanol" with the goal of making the use of such ethanolpractical and competitive within 6 years. The Administration will also stepup the Nation's research in better batteries for use in hybrid and electriccars and in pollution-free cars that run on hydrogen. -- The Biorefinery Initiative. To achieve greater use of "homegrown"renewable fuels in the United States, advanced technologies need to beperfected to make fuel ethanol from cellulosic (plant fiber) biomass, which isnow discarded as waste. The President's 2007 Budget will include $150 million- a $59 million increase over FY06 - to help develop bio-based transportationfuels from agricultural waste products, such as wood chips, stalks, or switchgrass. Research scientists say that accelerating research into "cellulosicethanol" can make it cost-competitive by 2012, offering the potential todisplace up to 30% of the Nation's current fuel use. -- Developing More Efficient Vehicles. Current hybrids on the road run ona battery developed at the DOE. The President's plan would accelerateresearch in the next generation of battery technology for hybrid vehicles and"plug-in hybrids." Current hybrids can only use the gasoline engine to chargethe on-board battery. A "plug-in" hybrid can run either on electricity or ongasoline and can be plugged into the wall at night to recharge its batteries.These vehicles will enable drivers to meet most of their urban commuting needswith virtually no gasoline use. Advanced battery technologies offer thepotential to significantly reduce oil consumption in the near-term. The 2007Budget includes $30 million - a $6.7 million increase over FY06 - to speed upthe development of this battery technology and extend the range of thesevehicles. -- The Hydrogen Fuel Initiative. In his 2003 State of the Union address,President Bush announced a $1.2 billion Hydrogen Fuel Initiative to developtechnology for commercially viable hydrogen-powered fuel cells, which wouldpower cars, trucks, homes, and businesses with no pollution or greenhousegases. Through private-sector partnerships, the Initiative and relatedFreedomCAR programs will make it practical and cost-effective for Americans touse clean, hydrogen fuel cell vehicles by 2020. The President's 2007 Budgetwill provide $289 million - an increase of $53 million over FY06 - toaccelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cells and affordable hydrogen-powered cars. Through the President's program, the cost of a hydrogen fuelcell has been cut by more than 50% in just four years. -- America Must Act Now To Reduce Dependence On Foreign Sources Of Energy.There are an estimated 250 million vehicles on America's highways, andAmericans will purchase more than 17 million vehicles this year. It will takeapproximately 15 years to switch America's automobiles over to more fuelefficient technologies. The sooner breakthroughs are achieved, the better forAmerica. The President's Advanced Energy Initiative Will Build On The Progress Made Since 2001 Since 2001, The Administration Has Worked To Ensure Affordable, Reliable,Secure, And Clean Sources Of Energy. In 2001, the President put forward hisNational Energy Policy, which included over 100 recommendations to increasedomestic energy supplies, encourage efficiency and conservation, invest inenergy-related infrastructure, and develop alternative and renewable sourcesof energy. Over the past four years, the Administration has worked toimplement these recommendations and improve the Nation's energy outlook. Last Summer, The President Signed The First Comprehensive EnergyLegislation In Over A Decade. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 is strengtheningAmerica's electrical infrastructure, reducing the country's dependence onforeign sources of energy, increasing conservation, and expanding the use ofclean renewable energy.
SOURCE White House Press OfficeWeb Site: http://www.whitehouse.gov
State of the Union 2006: Dusting Off the Old Energy Policy
No doubt, President George W. Bush struggled to come up with something new on energy policy for his State of the Union address. After all, the massive 1,725 page Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed only six months ago, and its wide-ranging provisions have just begun to be implemented. This energy bill contained a host of federal outlays, tax breaks, subsidies, and other inducements to encourage the development and use of alternative energy technologies and the upgrade of conventional ones. So rather than add something new, the President’s remarks on energy offered more of the same. Unfortunately, this is not a promising approach. Rather than expand government interference in energy markets and pick winners and losers from among emerging technologies, Washington should get out of the way and let market forces work. Streamlining energy regulations and removing federal restrictions on domestic energy production would have been a good place to start and should have been part of the speech.
Much of the energy focus in the speech was on America’s growing dependence on oil—especially oil from unreliable and unfriendly regimes. This is a legitimate concern, though the President‘s “addiction” rhetoric was excessive. The President’s solution is government-led research and development of petroleum alternatives that might one day meet the nation’s transportation needs. The favored technologies include hydrogen fuel cells and cellulosic ethanol. This type of research is nothing new. The federal government has spent billions on these efforts since the 1970s and made little progress. Invariably, the research reveals that these kinds of alternatives have serious problems of their own, such as costs that are often far higher than those of conventional fuels. Even after decades of research and development, commercial viability of alternative fuels remains elusive.
Oil remains the transportation fuel of choice, and nothing has yet to supplant it. That may change—and ongoing federal research could make a contribution—but the government’s research track record and the staying power of oil suggest caution in predicting the end of oil and the dawn of an age of alternative fuels.
The President outlined an approach on electricity that was much the same. He pledged to increase federal support for solar power, clean coal, and other generation options, though the history of such research is filled with many more disappointments than breakthroughs. Nonetheless, between the provisions in the energy bill and any policies that emerge from this State of the Union address, such research will be heavily subsidized for years to come.
In sum, Washington has never been good at picking winners and losers in technology markets, but it keeps on trying. The State of the Union address signaled that this approach still dominates.
America’s energy future is not an either/or proposition between current fuels and new ones. The research programs the President mentioned in his address will take at least a decade or two (at least) before anything useful results from them. Meanwhile, Americans will continue to be dependent on current fuels and technologies, and for transportation, that means petroleum. The age of oil will be with us for at least a while longer, and Washington has an obligation to ensure that oil is as affordable as market forces allow.
To that end, there is room for Congress to streamline or eliminate the regulations that make it harder to expand refineries and more expensive to refine oil into the many specialized gasoline blends required by law. Such unnecessary regulatory costs add to the energy prices that American consumers face. Congress should also pass legislation opening restricted areas in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off America’s coasts to oil and natural gas exploration and drilling. Expanding domestic oil and gas production, flat in recent years in the face of rising demand, is a long-overdue measure.
Despite the President’s past support for such ideas, he chose not to mention them in this State of the Union address. Americans can only hope that this omission does not discourage Congress from moving forward with such pro-energy measures in 2006.
Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
No doubt, President George W. Bush struggled to come up with something new on energy policy for his State of the Union address. After all, the massive 1,725 page Energy Policy Act of 2005 was passed only six months ago, and its wide-ranging provisions have just begun to be implemented. This energy bill contained a host of federal outlays, tax breaks, subsidies, and other inducements to encourage the development and use of alternative energy technologies and the upgrade of conventional ones. So rather than add something new, the President’s remarks on energy offered more of the same. Unfortunately, this is not a promising approach. Rather than expand government interference in energy markets and pick winners and losers from among emerging technologies, Washington should get out of the way and let market forces work. Streamlining energy regulations and removing federal restrictions on domestic energy production would have been a good place to start and should have been part of the speech.
Much of the energy focus in the speech was on America’s growing dependence on oil—especially oil from unreliable and unfriendly regimes. This is a legitimate concern, though the President‘s “addiction” rhetoric was excessive. The President’s solution is government-led research and development of petroleum alternatives that might one day meet the nation’s transportation needs. The favored technologies include hydrogen fuel cells and cellulosic ethanol. This type of research is nothing new. The federal government has spent billions on these efforts since the 1970s and made little progress. Invariably, the research reveals that these kinds of alternatives have serious problems of their own, such as costs that are often far higher than those of conventional fuels. Even after decades of research and development, commercial viability of alternative fuels remains elusive.
Oil remains the transportation fuel of choice, and nothing has yet to supplant it. That may change—and ongoing federal research could make a contribution—but the government’s research track record and the staying power of oil suggest caution in predicting the end of oil and the dawn of an age of alternative fuels.
The President outlined an approach on electricity that was much the same. He pledged to increase federal support for solar power, clean coal, and other generation options, though the history of such research is filled with many more disappointments than breakthroughs. Nonetheless, between the provisions in the energy bill and any policies that emerge from this State of the Union address, such research will be heavily subsidized for years to come.
In sum, Washington has never been good at picking winners and losers in technology markets, but it keeps on trying. The State of the Union address signaled that this approach still dominates.
America’s energy future is not an either/or proposition between current fuels and new ones. The research programs the President mentioned in his address will take at least a decade or two (at least) before anything useful results from them. Meanwhile, Americans will continue to be dependent on current fuels and technologies, and for transportation, that means petroleum. The age of oil will be with us for at least a while longer, and Washington has an obligation to ensure that oil is as affordable as market forces allow.
To that end, there is room for Congress to streamline or eliminate the regulations that make it harder to expand refineries and more expensive to refine oil into the many specialized gasoline blends required by law. Such unnecessary regulatory costs add to the energy prices that American consumers face. Congress should also pass legislation opening restricted areas in Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and off America’s coasts to oil and natural gas exploration and drilling. Expanding domestic oil and gas production, flat in recent years in the face of rising demand, is a long-overdue measure.
Despite the President’s past support for such ideas, he chose not to mention them in this State of the Union address. Americans can only hope that this omission does not discourage Congress from moving forward with such pro-energy measures in 2006.
Ben Lieberman is Senior Policy Analyst in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation.
Grow with the flow: another LNG deal, 17 years on
AUSTRALIA's second export LNG (liquefied natural gas) project has commenced operations with the arrival of a carrier in Darwin to load the first cargo from ConocoPhillips's Wickham Point plant.
The Kotowaka Maru, a 125,000 cubic metre LNG carrier, is expected to leave within the next two days.
An LNG carrier will arrive at the load-out facility in Darwin every 7-10 days.
The first shipment from Darwin comes almost 17 years after Australia's first LNG exports from the NW Shelf gas project to Japan in 1989.
Since then, the project, now Australia's biggest resources development, has loaded more than 2000 cargoes.
The $2 billion Darwin LNG project - which includes the cost of the Wickham Point plant and the pipeline linking it to remote gas reservoirs - is the second phase of development for the ConocoPhillips-operated Bayu Undan gasfields in the Timor Sea, about 500km northwest of Darwin.
The Bayu Undan reservoirs are included in the Joint Petroleum Development Area administered by the Australian and East Timor Governments, which means 90 per cent of the government revenues from Bayu Undan go to the Timor Government. More than $US300 million has been provided to East Timor from Bayu Undan, by far the biggest contribution to the country's revenue.
Darwin LNG has contracts to supply Toyko Electric and Tokyo Gas with around 3 million tonnes of LNG a year for 17 years.
Santos, with 10.64 per cent, is the only direct Australian investor in the project, which was completed on budget and early. The the first shipment was originally scheduled to be loaded in March.
It will usually take 10-12 hours to load a ship in Darwin, although the initial cargo will take a little longer to meet the demands of final commissioning.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin, who witnessed the early morning arrival of the Kotowaka Maru, said that the dream of making Darwin the second international gas hub in Australia had come true after years of hard work.
"This is as big as it gets. The first shipment of LNG marks a new stage of growth for our economy, which will see jobs for Territorians," she said.
The Wickham Point site has approval for the production of 10 million tonnes of LNG a year and ConocoPhillips is actively pursuing new gas supplies for an expansion.
AUSTRALIA's second export LNG (liquefied natural gas) project has commenced operations with the arrival of a carrier in Darwin to load the first cargo from ConocoPhillips's Wickham Point plant.
The Kotowaka Maru, a 125,000 cubic metre LNG carrier, is expected to leave within the next two days.
An LNG carrier will arrive at the load-out facility in Darwin every 7-10 days.
The first shipment from Darwin comes almost 17 years after Australia's first LNG exports from the NW Shelf gas project to Japan in 1989.
Since then, the project, now Australia's biggest resources development, has loaded more than 2000 cargoes.
The $2 billion Darwin LNG project - which includes the cost of the Wickham Point plant and the pipeline linking it to remote gas reservoirs - is the second phase of development for the ConocoPhillips-operated Bayu Undan gasfields in the Timor Sea, about 500km northwest of Darwin.
The Bayu Undan reservoirs are included in the Joint Petroleum Development Area administered by the Australian and East Timor Governments, which means 90 per cent of the government revenues from Bayu Undan go to the Timor Government. More than $US300 million has been provided to East Timor from Bayu Undan, by far the biggest contribution to the country's revenue.
Darwin LNG has contracts to supply Toyko Electric and Tokyo Gas with around 3 million tonnes of LNG a year for 17 years.
Santos, with 10.64 per cent, is the only direct Australian investor in the project, which was completed on budget and early. The the first shipment was originally scheduled to be loaded in March.
It will usually take 10-12 hours to load a ship in Darwin, although the initial cargo will take a little longer to meet the demands of final commissioning.
Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin, who witnessed the early morning arrival of the Kotowaka Maru, said that the dream of making Darwin the second international gas hub in Australia had come true after years of hard work.
"This is as big as it gets. The first shipment of LNG marks a new stage of growth for our economy, which will see jobs for Territorians," she said.
The Wickham Point site has approval for the production of 10 million tonnes of LNG a year and ConocoPhillips is actively pursuing new gas supplies for an expansion.
Second power station planned for Collie. 01/02/2006. ABC News Online: "Another coal-fired power station for Collie in Western Australia has been given conditional approval by the State Government.
Griffin Energy wants to build the 200 megawatt power station next to its Bluewaters One plant, which is currently under construction.
The Government says the second plant can go ahead if several environmental conditions are met, including greenhouse gas offset programs.
Griffin Energy has not yet secured any customers for either power station.
Executive general manager Wayne Trumble says the deregulation of the energy market and the resources boom will create considerable demand for coal-fired energy.
'We're quite confident that there will be a demand in the marketplace that will need to be fulfilled, new industries in mining and mineral processing and competing directly for the existing loads that are within the market,' he said."
Griffin Energy wants to build the 200 megawatt power station next to its Bluewaters One plant, which is currently under construction.
The Government says the second plant can go ahead if several environmental conditions are met, including greenhouse gas offset programs.
Griffin Energy has not yet secured any customers for either power station.
Executive general manager Wayne Trumble says the deregulation of the energy market and the resources boom will create considerable demand for coal-fired energy.
'We're quite confident that there will be a demand in the marketplace that will need to be fulfilled, new industries in mining and mineral processing and competing directly for the existing loads that are within the market,' he said."
Russians ponder aluminium plant [February 02, 2006]: "GIANT Russian aluminium company Rusal is considering building a greenfields aluminium smelter in Queensland - and aims to power it through its own generating capacity.
Chief executive Alexander Bulygin said preliminary studies had found that Queensland's combination of coal and alumina supplies could allow a greenfields smelter investment that relied on low energy costs.
Speaking from Moscow last night, Mr Bulygin declined to specify the investment or the time frame.
But it is understood Rusal has already had extensive discussions with Queensland's electricity-generating companies and with the PNG Gas Project owners.
Rusal said that its plans were independent of another Russian-backed group, Aldoga, which had halted plans to build an aluminium smelter at Gladstone.
Mr Bulgyin spoke after the privately owned Rusal, the world's third-largest aluminium group, reported record earnings for 2005.
He said Rusal's 2005 sales increased by 12.8 per cent to $US6.1 billion ($8 billion) compared with $US5.4 billion in 2004.
Rusal, which was formed in 2000 from aluminium companies in Russia and the former Soviet Union, accounts for 75 per cent of Russian aluminium output and 10 per cent of world production.
Its investment in the world's largest alumina refinery, Queensland Alumina at Gladstone, is the biggest Russian investment in Australia.
Releasing Rusal's production and financial results for 2005, Mr Bulygin said measures taken by the Chinese Government to curb primary aluminium production growth, as well as significant power and raw material limitations, would impede China's development as a net exporter.
'Therefore, Rusal believes that all these facto"
Chief executive Alexander Bulygin said preliminary studies had found that Queensland's combination of coal and alumina supplies could allow a greenfields smelter investment that relied on low energy costs.
Speaking from Moscow last night, Mr Bulygin declined to specify the investment or the time frame.
But it is understood Rusal has already had extensive discussions with Queensland's electricity-generating companies and with the PNG Gas Project owners.
Rusal said that its plans were independent of another Russian-backed group, Aldoga, which had halted plans to build an aluminium smelter at Gladstone.
Mr Bulgyin spoke after the privately owned Rusal, the world's third-largest aluminium group, reported record earnings for 2005.
He said Rusal's 2005 sales increased by 12.8 per cent to $US6.1 billion ($8 billion) compared with $US5.4 billion in 2004.
Rusal, which was formed in 2000 from aluminium companies in Russia and the former Soviet Union, accounts for 75 per cent of Russian aluminium output and 10 per cent of world production.
Its investment in the world's largest alumina refinery, Queensland Alumina at Gladstone, is the biggest Russian investment in Australia.
Releasing Rusal's production and financial results for 2005, Mr Bulygin said measures taken by the Chinese Government to curb primary aluminium production growth, as well as significant power and raw material limitations, would impede China's development as a net exporter.
'Therefore, Rusal believes that all these facto"
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