Algae-Based Crude the ‘Fuel of the Future’
The world's energy problems could soon be solved by harvesting solar radiation to turn blue and green algae into oil. (image: solarpowerninja.com)
Genetically modified blue and green algae is being touted as a miracle answer to the world’s energy problems which could one day fuel our cars and heat our homes.
Bioengineers have already developed algae that produce ethanol, oil and even diesel, ABC news reports. The only thing the organisms need are sunlight, CO2 and seawater.
Biochemist Dan Robertson is leading the project in a laboratory in Massachusetts. The head of research at US biotech firm Joule Unlimited says the organisms are as tiny as E. coli bacteria. He and his team have fine-tuned the genetic material so that when light passes through their outer layer, they excrete droplets of fuel.
The first tests of algae-based fuels are already being conducted in automobiles, ships and aircraft. The Rockefeller family and Microsoft founder Bill Gates are among the new technology’s investors.
“Commercial production of crude oil from algae is the most obvious and most economical possible way to substitute petroleum,” says Jason Pyle of the California-based firm Sapphire Energy, which is already using algae to produce crude oil.
“We have to grow algae like rice, in shallow patties of water on thousands of hectares.”
Sapphire expects one barrel of its green petroleum to cost between $70 and $100, significantly cheaper than petroleum, ABC reported.
The established oil industry is also interested in the technology. Exxon Mobile research and development vice president Emil Jacobs says oil from algae holds significant potential as economically viable, low emission transportation fuel “and could become a critical new energy source.”
The algae is being touted by some as a potential solution to the world’s fuel problems. Crude oil supplies are finite and many industry experts believe easily extractable oil reserves have already been discovered and pumped from the ground, meaning the days of cheap crude, gasoline and heating oil are over.
Unlike corn and grains for ethanol, algae does not require farmlands. It could be farmed on large scales in deserts. Though it requires large amounts of CO2 during photosynthesis, it releases the same amount when the oil the algae produces is burned, making algae-based fuels climate neutral.
Robertson says there is enough non-arable land with enough solar radiation and enough CO2 and water sourcing in the world to make large-scale algae petroleum production viable.
He also says algae-based fuel could easily be pumped into the oil industry’s existing pipelines and refineries. Cars and aircraft would not have to be modified to accommodate the biofuel, he says.
Presumably heating oil boilers will also be equipped to use the new fuel source, potentially offering heating oil dealers and their customers a reliable, affordable and environmentally-friendly fuel source of the future.
Obama to Install Solar Panels on White House Roof Next Year
President Obama, a vocal supporter of solar and other renewable energy sources, will soon lead by example and install solar panels on the White House roof. (image: reason.com)
On Tuesday, Secretary of Energy Steven Chu announced that as a part of his continuing commitment to growing renewable energy resources, President Obama will install solar panels on the presidential roof some time in 2011. The panels will generate electricity and heat water for 1600 Pennsylvania Ave., according to a report by the Associated Press.
The announcement marked the next evolution of American presidents’ on-again, off-again relationship with solar power. In the late 1970s, president Jimmy Carter had panels install to provide hot water for the presidential residence, but the Regan Administration removed the panels in 1986. President George W. Bush’s White House utilized a modest solar array to provide power to a maintenance building and heat the White House swimming pool. Based on Secretary Chu’s comments, the Obama version of White House solar power will be more extensive, as the president attempts to lead the country by example in promotion of homegrown renewable energy. Chu outlined the message Obama hopes to send during the announcement (from grist.com):
These two solar installations will be part of a Department of Energy demonstration project. The project will show that American solar technology is available, reliable, and ready to install in homes throughout the country. Around the world, the White House is a symbol of freedom and democracy. It should also be a symbol of America’s commitment to a clean energy future.
The announcement was cheered by many American environmental and green energy groups, including 350.org, a global warming group that in September carried one of the solar panels installed by President Carter from a college in Maine to Washington D.C. to encourage the president’s adoption of the technology.
What effect will a major solar installation on the White House roof have on the country and the green energy industry? It will definitely raise the profile of residential solar power and show many Americans that, as Secretary Chu mentioned, that it is indeed a viable power source and a good investment. The high price tag of solar installation will prevent it from becoming a widespread national trend, but the solar industry can definitely expect a nice boost in business from some presidential public relations—a boost that may have started already.
Analysis: Obama’s Speech on Renewable Energy Signifies Long-Term Support, but Little Short-Term Action
An artist's rendering of what the massive solar power plant in the Mojave Desert will look like. Development of the project by solar corporation BrightSource Energy began last week, attracting the attention of President Obama. (image: brightsourceenergy.com)
Though it may seem like ages ago, the oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico for a few months this year briefly brought the issues of US oil dependence and renewable energy development back to front pages around the country. In June, President Obama gave a speech on the BP oil spill that included an endorsement of clean energy industries as potentially huge boons to the US economy of the present and the future. Although unemployment and taxes have long since chased energy issues from news headlines, President Obama chose to make domestically produced renewable energy the focus of his weekly address to the nation on Saturday.
Obama has long made his support for renewable energy products known—he spoke about green energy often on the campaign trail, and even included it in his State of the Union speech at the beginning of this year. His message has been consistent: renewable energy industries hold huge potential to strengthen America’s economy by putting millions to work, producing new technologies that could be sold around the world, and reducing the nation’s dependence on imported fossil fuels. Consistent though it may be, that message has not been backed up by much legislative action from the White House or Congress.
Perhaps Obama had that in mind on Saturday, when he highlighted the groundbreaking of a massive solar energy farm in the Mojave Desert of California as a positive step toward the cultivation of a vibrant renewable energy sector in the US. What certainly was on Obama’s mind was the need to show voters that his Administration and Democratic allies in Congress have taken concrete and effective steps to stimulate the economy over the last 20 months. To do that, Obama emphasized that the solar project in California was made possible in part by support from the federal stimulus package, and pointed to spending cuts proposed by Republicans as the biggest threat to the project and others like it.
Was Obama’s speech on renewable energy in the US just lip service? The likely answers are both yes and no. The fact that Obama chose to reintroduce the renewable energy issue just a month before nationwide elections shows that he believes it could be a long-term winner for him and his party. And the fact that he chose a renewable energy project as the go-to example of stimulus dollars being productive (as opposed to highway and bridge projects, for example) means that he will likely continue to pump up renewable energy as a national project in the future. On the other hand, the controversial nature of renewable energy projects means that the passage of any legislative action taken to broaden the federal government’s support of such projects would require a lot of political capital—a commodity that the president is extremely short on right now. To the Obama Administration, the California solar plant also served the dual purposes of serving as an example of sensible and effective economic policy and the potential casualty of ill-advised actions pursued by political rivals. It is quite possible that those two considerations were much more influential on the President’s choice of focus for the weekly address than his love for and belief in the promise of green energy in America.
So Saturday’s weekly address was probably not a signal that green energy legislation will be a high priority for the president and his party in the near future. But, given the strength of his words and consistency of his message, it seems likely that renewable energy action will make it to the top of Obama’s to-do list at some point in the next two years. The clear connection Obama makes between the growth of the US renewable energy sector and the recovery and sustained growth of the economy makes it even more likely. In his own words, Obama categorizes the growth of the green energy industry as the greatest hope for a return to prosperity:
Our future as a nation depends on making sure that the jobs of the 21st century take root here, in America. And there is perhaps no industry with more potential to create jobs now and growth in the coming years than clean energy.
Strong statements like that are hard to back away from weeks or months later, and if even a fraction of the support for green energy he expressed on Saturday is genuine, it could very well be a personal cause for the President that he will keep coming back to.
Watch the president’s weekly address below, or at whitehouse.gov.
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Caribbean Island of Bonaire Aims for 100% Renewable Power by 2015
Wind turbines in Bonaire that are the main source of the island's electricity. (image: Maiapilo via flickr.com)
Currently, the promise of many renewable energy sources is limited by the fact that they simply can’t generate enough energy to satisfy an entire city, county, state, or country.
It’s fitting then that the first nation to rely exclusively on renewable energy would be a 113-square-mile island in the Caribbean Sea. On Monday, istockalalyst.com reported that the former Dutch colony of Bonaire, an island located off the coast of Venezuela, has set a goal to be powered by 100 percent renewable energy by 2015.
Bonaire’s only power plant burned down in 2004, and the island’s government responded by creating a plan to rebuild its generation infrastructure in exceedingly green fashion. According to istockanalyst, the island, with peak electricity demand of about 11 megawatts (MW) decided to construct
a hybrid wind-diesel power plant, which will comprise an 11MW wind farm supplemented by a 14MW diesel power plant, including a 3MW energy storage system.
To go fully renewable, the island hopes to use biodiesel derived from salt-water algae to power the diesel plant within five years. In addition to the environmental benefits of a wind-and-algae-biodiesel-powered society (zero emissions, zero pollution), the Energy Development in Island Nations website predicts that
power consumers on Bonaire can potentially look forward to a 10% to 20% reduction on their electricity bills; the rate reduction will take effect the very first day the project goes online.
Bonaire is about 50 miles from the coast of Venezuela, and attracts tourists interested in scuba diving, snorkeling, and biking. (image: wikipedia.org)
Boinaire’s transition to clean energy began in 2006, the wind turbines and wind/diesel power plant have been built. The next five years will be spent perfecting algae production and biodiesel refining processes to manufacture fuel.
No pollution, no greenhouse gas emissions, no dependence on imported oil—if all goes as planned, Bonaire will be living the ultimate green energy dream in just five years’ time. Though the applying of Bonaire’s plan to other parts of the world simply won’t work for a number of reasons, the tiny nation’s example can at least provide some inspiration by showing that fully renewable, earth-friendly energy consumption is an attainable goal.
Mafia Muscle in on Italy’s Wind Power
As The Simpsons' Fat Tony might say, "I'll give you a turbine you can't refuse." (image: pawatercooler.com)
Electricity generated by wind farms is clean energy—it does not produce air pollution or greenhouse gases, and it does not generate waste. But if those wind farms are tied to dirty dealings, is the energy still clean?
The UK’s Telegraph reported on Sunday that European organized crime has gotten into the wind business, and its mark is clearest in the Mafia’s ancestral home of Sicily. The European Union offers generous loans and subsidies to builders of wind farms and other green energy generation facilities, and the Mafia have apparently used extortion and money laundering schemes to take advantage of them.
Two Italian investigations into wind farm scams have yielded evidence that criminals bribed corrupt local officials for access to wind farm subsidies and embezzled EU funds. According to the Telegraph, one alleged Mafioso told his wife in a wiretapped phone conversation, “Not one turbine blade will be built in Mazara unless I agree to it.”
Perhaps the entrance of high-profile criminals into the renewable energy game is a good sign. Organized crime only gets into business when there’s money to be made, so if the Mafia is in the wind business it could be taken as a sign that the sometimes-unprofitable sector is in fact “legitimate.”
DOE: Americans Are Using Less Fossil Fuel, Less Energy
Electricity generated by wind in the US shot up 35 percent in 2008. (image: globalwhisperer.com)
A study released this week by the Department of Energy finds that the US significantly reduced fossil fuel consumption and overall energy consumption in 2009. While some of the declines in energy use can be attributed to the recession, they are also sings of long-term trends toward increased conservation, efficiency, and utilization of renewable sources.
A State Department report at America.gov included some highlights from the study:
-Total nationwide energy use decreased by 4.6 percent in 2009
-US oil consumption fell by 5 percent from 2008 to 2009
-Coal consumption in the US fell by 12 percent, the biggest drop in almost 10 years
-Americans used 35 percent more wind-generated electricity in 2008 than in 2007
-Current installed wind power capacity can power 2.4 million US homes
Despite recent years of impressive growth, renewable energy industries are on shaky ground, most because of uncertainly over the future of US energy policy. Generous tax breaks for renewable projects expire at the end of the year, and the much-debated new energy bill remains stalled in Congress.
Cultural, regulatory, and business trends all point to long-term growth of renewable energy in America. But a true boom in renewable energy usage is very much dependent on government support, and it seems at this point that when comprehensive energy form will actually take place is anybody’s guess.
Japanese Invention Turns Plastic Trash into Oil
Akitori Ito demonstrates how to use his invention, which turns waste plastic into crude oil. (image: youtube.com)
One of the reasons plastic disposable water bottles have become the arch-nemeses of environmentalists in recent years is that they are (like all other plastics) made out of crude oil. All those plastic bottles, plastic silverware, plastic toys, etc. use up a lot of oil. The GOOD Magazine blog posted a video from United Nations University on Monday that covered Akinori Ito’s creation of a machine that turns raw plastic trash into a derivation of crude oil.
The machine is incredibly small and portable, and uses only heat and water to extract the raw fuel from all kinds of plastic. As Ito, the CEO of the Blest corporation, explains in the video, the portability of the machine allows him to take it to developing countries with serious trash disposal problems and show schoolchildren that plastic waste can be a valuable commodity. Just like out-of-the ground crude, the oil extracted from plastic can be refined into gasoline, diesel, and kerosene.
Although the fuel from plastic is still a fossil fuel that emits carbon dioxide when burned, it could help reduce the carbon footprint of fuel production by sourcing plastic from population centers near refineries rather than shipping crude great distances.
Just another example of simple but amazing technology that could help power our world AND reduce our carbon footprint while reducing the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. And because it is a potential source of diesel fuel, plastic could soon be a new raw material for making heating oil. The future is now, people!
Thanks, Ito.
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Heating Oil Weekly Roundup: James Cameron Wants to Help, Biofuel Breakthroughs, and Western Wind Power
(image: xkcd.com)
Kevin Costner had his chance to fight the spill. Now James Cameron, director of Avatar and Titanic, wants to help, says Rebecca Keegan at Vanity Fair. Though BP was drilling for oil, not unobtainium, Cameron says his experience with underwater filming gives him the expertise needed to combat the gushing oil. BP didn’t take him up on his offer, so Cameron called them “morons.”
Ecofriend has tallied up 10 breakthroughs in the production of biofuels. Many of the breakthroughs have been covered here at HeatingOil.com, but to see them listed shows the diversity of technological advances in biofuels. Coolest sounding? Nanofarming. Grossest looking? The gribble. (Click through for a more close-up view of a gribble than you would ever want.)
A new report from the Department of Energy says that wind power may be more promising than previously thought for the western United States, says the New York Times’ Green blog. Wind energy could provide up to 30 percent of electricity for Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, New Mexico, and Wyoming. The key that the study found was that those states could avoid the major pitfall of wind power—what do you do when the wind stops blowing?—by coordinating utilities operations across such a large geographic area. The wind might stop in one place, but it will be blowing somewhere in those five states.
New Tidal Energy Source Could Produce More Power at Lower Cost Than Wind Turbines
Computer illustration of the Deep Green tidal power system showing three kites. (image: good.is)
A promising new development in renewable energy has appeared in the form of a kite, according to the online magazine GOOD. Swedish startup Minesto has created an underwater tidal energy system whose principal component is a broad-winged kite with a rudder and turbine attached to its body.
The kites that make up a technology dubbed “Deep Green” by its creators work like this: as tides move water over the kites, which are tethered to the ocean floor or to an anchor on the surface, it creates a lift force that causes the kites to move through the water in a figure-8 pattern. The motion of the kites accelerates the rotation of their turbines, generating 10 times more energy than would the motion of seawater by itself. Andrew Price at GOOD summed up the impressive efficiency of the Deep Green system:
The average American home uses about 11,040 kilowatt-hours each year. So one of these kites, working for an hour, could supply about two weeks worth of power for the average home.
The kite system appears to be the most efficient and cost-effective design of tidal energy systems, especially since the design of the kites is relatively simple and requires very few moving parts.
Tidal power is an especially promising green energy source because tides, unlike wind and sunlight, are eminently reliable, following a predictable pattern of motion every day, regardless of location, time of year, or weather conditions.
So next time you see a kite rising and diving through the sky, you could just be looking at the next source of super-efficient renewable energy.
Watch a video of Minesto demonstrating its Deep Green technology:
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The Simpsons Get off the Grid With Wind Power
The Simpsons admire their home wind turbine. (image: hulu.com)
In honor of the 40th Earth Day (last Thursday, April 22), Homer and the rest of the Simpsons clan got into the green energy game. On Sunday’s episode of The Simpsons (titled “The Squirt and the Whale,”on Fox), a huge electric bill prompts the family to attend the Alternative Energy Expo, where a Danish pitchman sells them a wind turbine to power their home.
The Simpsons’ experiment in alternative energy leads them to discover some real-life costs and benefits of wind power. They find that their home turbine contributes electricity to their local power grid in an arrangement that allows them to sell energy to their utility and significantly reduce their bills. They also learn, however, that wind power is only as reliable as the wind—when the air is still, their green power source stops producing electricity.
As is often the case, this episode of The Simpsons uses humor and hyperbole to bring attention to a burgeoning social trend. Wind (“A kite’s best friend, the flag’s partner in patriotism…you’ve seen cherubs blow it from map corners!”) power, along with solar power, geothermal heat pumps, and other clean energy technologies are increasingly attractive options for cost-conscious and green-minded Americans. But as our favorite yellow family’s experience shows, no one green power source is right for everyone.
Maybe Homer will build a biodiesel distillery in his garage for next year’s Earth Day episode.
Watch the full episode for a limited time on hulu.com.
Cape Wind, MA’s Offshore Wind Farm, Finally Approved
Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, flanked by Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, announces the approval of the Cape Wind project. (image: examiner.com)
After nine years of environmental and political challenges, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar approved the Cape Wind project, reported the Boston Globe. Cape Wind would be the first offshore wind farm to serve the US, but Salazar promised that many more would follow.
Complaints from two Wampanoag tribes caused the most recent delay in the approval of the plan. The Wampanoag claimed that the wind turbines would impede their religious observances associated with watching the sunrise and could disturb burial grounds that had been onshore before the sea level rose thousands of years ago.
Salazar said he had asked for changes that would accommodate the needs of the Wampanoag and other opponents of Cape Wind:
I am convinced there is a path we can take forward that both honors our responsibility to protect historical and cultural resources and at the same time meets the need to repower our economy with clean energy produced from wind power.
According to Salazar, the Cape Wind project will create jobs (1,000 in the construction alone), reduce carbon emissions, and produce the same amount of energy as a medium-sized power plant.
Politicians in Massachusetts were split on the decision. Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, said the approval of the Cape Wind project would allow Massachusetts to “lead the nation” into energy independence and a future of clean energy. Sen. Scott Brown, a Republican, opposed the decision on the grounds that “the Cape Wind project will jeopardize industries that are vital to the Cape’s economy, such as tourism and fishing.”
Despite the Interior Department’s approval, the fight over Cape Wind is not over. The New York Times reports that the wind farm’s opponents, including the Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound, plan to go to court to halt the project. While construction of the wind farm could conceivably begin as early as this year, legal challenges could delay the project for years to come.
Stationary Bikes Are Latest Source of Renewable Energy at Danish Hotel, Arizona Jail
An iPhone measures the amount of electricity generated by pedaling. This is on the bikes at the hotel, not the jail. (image: guardian.co.uk)
Guests at the Crown Plaza Copenhagen Towers have the chance to earn a free meal if they produce 10 watt hours of electricity by pedaling an electricity-generating stationary bike, reported the Guardian on Wednesday. The Copenhagen hotel wasn’t the first to implement such technology, though; CBS News reported that the Tent City Jail in Phoenix, AZ started a program last week that makes female inmates pedal if they want to watch TV.
Pedaling an electricity-generating bike produces only a minor amount of energy. It takes about an hour of cycling at Copenhagen’s Crown Plaza to produce 100 watt hours, the amount of energy necessary to power a 100-watt light bulb for one hour, so the exercise is doing more for the guest’s health and awareness of energy use than it is for the 366-room hotel’s utility bill. Luckily for guests, it only takes about six minutes to earn the free meal. For inmates at Tent City, an hour of pedaling runs a TV for about the same length of time. If they slow down, they generate less electricity and the TV might stop.
So far the experience is only available to environmentally minded world travelers and women incarcerated in Phoenix, but when luxury hotels and prisons find themselves embracing the same technology it could signal the beginning of a trend.
Atlantis of Tomorrow: Architects Design Green-Powered Underwater City
The waterscraper: walk out your front door, go for a swim (but watch out for sharks). (image: inhabitat.com)
One of the concerns for the future of our civilization in coming centuries is that we will eventually run out of inhabitable land. To prepare for this eventuality, a group of architects has designed the “waterscraper,” a mostly-submerged structure that provides space for working and living, powered by renewable sources.
Last month, inhabitat.com reported on the design, which was created by Sarly Adre Bin Sarkum for the eVolo Skyscraper Competition. The waterscraper is designed to be a fully self-sufficient floating city that relies on wind, solar, and wave power combined with a small above-water forest to grow food and oxygen.
Looks like tight living space, but the views would be awesome.
Maine Heating Oil Group Clarifies Opposition to Wind Power Bill
Wind power could be the future of Maine’s energy, but the Maine Energy Marketers Association thinks that decision should be left to consumers. (image: consumerenergyreport.com)
Maine’s suppliers of heating oil, propane, and other heating and transportation fuels have taken issue with “recent headlines” that cast them as opponents of offshore wind power, and the president of the Maine Energy Marketers Association, Jamie Py, penned an op-ed for Thursday’s Morning Sentinel that explained the group’s position.
The Maine Energy Marketers Association appears to have in mind a March 12 article in the Portland Press Herald that carried the headline, “Oil Dealers: Offshore Wind Plan a Mistake.” According to the Press Herald, heating oil dealers were the primary opponents at a hearing that debated the “bold” and “futuristic” plan to convert much of Maine’s energy use from fossil-fuel sources to electricity produced by offshore wind turbines.
Py insists that Maine’s energy marketers are not opposed to the development of offshore wind power as such; rather, they object to one specific provision of an offshore energy bill (LD 1810, Act to Implement the Recommendations of the Offshore Energy Task Force) that would allocate taxpayer money to incentives for residents to convert their heating systems from heating oil, propane, or natural gas to electricity.
Py lays out three objections to the provision: it would encourage people to convert to an energy source (electricity) that is more expensive than heating oil, it would harm the energy marketers who employ 12,000 people in Maine, and it would reduce consumers’ ability to make their own choices about how to spend money on their heating systems.
Price is always a major concern for consumers, and according to Py the current electricity rate is 15 cents per kilowatt-hour, which is the equivalent of $5.25 for a gallon of heating oil—well above the average cost that Py quotes for 2010 so far, which is $2.80 a gallon. Electricity produced by offshore wind power could carry even higher costs.
The Maine Energy Marketers Association is, of course, concerned about its own well-being, but Py makes the case that Maine’s energy marketers are an important part of the state’s economy. Energy marketers provide 12,000 jobs while offering a variety of heating options for consumers (heating oil, propane, wood biomass, biofuels), and support the development of homegrown biomass and biofuel industries. Py also points to developments in the heating oil industry—more efficient heating equipment, the increasing use of biodiesel blends for home heating—to support his claim that the carbon emissions from heating have already been cut by 40 percent in the last 30 years, and could be cut by an additional 20 to 40 percent.
Lastly, Py opposes the use of subsidies to promote electric heat, and argues that it takes the choice out of consumers’ hands. Whether heating oil or electricity heats Maine’s homes in the future should be up to residents who “should be able to make that choice based on competition in the market.”
Proponents of the wind power bill have rejoinders to all of Py’s objections. To them, the widespread use of heating oil makes Maine residents victims of price fluctuations in the oil markets, and the investment in wind power will create jobs and revenue that would offset jobs and revenue lost by energy marketers.
Because no one can say for sure what prices will be in the future—whether Mainers heat with heating oil or electricity—it’s nearly impossible to say what the long-term impact could mean for heating oil users’ bottom lines. Wind power advocates worry about soaring oil prices and think that wind power, with some initial help from subsidies, can become an affordable and renewable source of home heating. They could be right. But they could also be wrong.
If Maine does embark on a widespread shift from home heating oil to electric heat, the transition is bound to be painful and lead to higher energy costs, even with incentives. Whether those prices would ever come down is anyone’s guess.
Heating Oil Weekly Roundup: T. Boone Pickens’s Latest Investment, Scottish Wave Power, and Atomic Cars
T. Boone Pickens made his money in oil, but his latest investment venture is in water rights. (image: conservationreport.wordpress.com)
T. Boone Pickens made billions in the oil business and then turned his attention to natural gas and wind power, making him an unlikely figure in the environmental movement. Now he’s looking at water, says Shiela McNulty at Energy Source, a blog of the Financial Times. Pickens “is now the US’ biggest private holder of permitted groundwater rights,” and as water resources become scarce he could stand to make another billion.
Wave power is a potentially promising source of renewable energy, but it’s also a potential bust. Either way, Scotland’s making a big investment, reports Chris Morrison on BNET’s Energy blog, putting $4 billion into 10 different wave and tide projects. It’s a big gamble, but if Scotland pulls it off it could show the way for everyone else.
The North Pacific is home to a four-million-ton gooey mess of plastic that may be impossible to clean up. But that hasn’t stopped people from trying, and Alyssa Danigelis at Discovery News reports that Project Kaisei is trying not only to capture the debris but figure out how to turn it into fuel.
Could you ever drive a nuclear-powered car? In a roundabout way, yes, says Bruce Mulliken at the website Green Energy News. If the future of driving turns out to be electric cars, then your car will actually be powered by whatever energy source generates that electricity—in some cases, that could be nuclear power.
Rural China Pioneers Community Power from Biogas
The biogas-burning community of Fenghuang is in China's Sichuan Province. (image: z.about.com)
As China’s economy continues to grow at a breakneck pace, so does its thirst for energy. To meet this exponential increase in demand, China has turned primarily to coal, a dirty but cheap natural resource that the nation possesses in abundance. Coal powers the vast majority of China’s electrical plants, and is also used by millions of rural homes as a cooking and heating fuel. The industrial and residential burning of massive amounts of coal releases CO2 and other byproducts that contribute to global warming and adversely affect respiratory health.
For its part, one rural village in China’s Sichuan province has found a green energy source that replaces coal for its heating and cooking needs: biogas. As Reuters reported on March 4, the farming community has pioneered a system in which local plant waste is processed into biogas that is then piped into residents’ homes for heating and cooking. The biogas is similar to methane (which is the main component of natural gas) and is derived from the fermentation of biomass such as grasses or corn stalks. Combustion of biogas produces far fewer greenhouse emissions and none of the particulate emissions that come from burning coal.
While intense demand for electricity in China’s urban centers requires burning coal, wide availability of biomass and heavier reliance on gas fuel holds promise for expanding biogas use in China’s rural areas.
Perhaps if biogas proves to be a success throughout rural China, we could see biogas use growing in the rural US.
Watch a video of the Reuters report from New Tang Dynasty Television:
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Heating Oil Weekly Roundup: When Exxon Loved Solar, Gazprom Disses Shale Gas, and Nuclear Hydrocarbons
On the left, one of the winners of a solar power design contest held by Exxon, as featured in a 1977 advertisment. (image: greentechhistory.com)
At HeatingOil.com we’ve reported on oil majors making a move to invest in renewable energy, but apparently this is an older trend than we realized. Alexis Madrigal’s blog, Inventing Green, shows an Exxon advertisement (partially pictured above) from 1977 that features the 10 winners of a design contest for solar-powered housing.
Gazprom, the Russian natural gas giant, had planned to expand into the US market, but the expansion of shale gas production in the US has proven to be an obstacle. The company isn’t too worried, though. As Rowena Mason of London’s Telegraph reports, Gazprom’s exports chief, Alexander Medvedev agrees with environmentalists that shale gas drilling is a “danger to drinking water.” He added that is was “unimaginable” that Europe would allow such dangerous drilling practices.
Controversy has surrounded shale gas drilling, but Vincent Fernando of Business Insider reports on a new oil shale drilling technology being investigated that would take center stage in the nightmares of the green movement. It’s called the “nuclear-assisted hydrocarbon production method,” and would take advantage of the incredible heat released by spent nuclear fuel rods to extract oil trapped in shale formations. If hydrofracking worries you, the combination of nuclear power and oil drilling might seem like Frankenstein’s monster come to life, but it could also open up oil fields three times larger than Saudi Arabia’s and prevent nuclear proliferation by creating a use for nuclear rods.
The “sOccket” Is Both Soccer Ball and Portable Electric Generator
One of the developers of the sOccket demonstrates its use to children in South Africa. (image: soccket.com)
Instead of burning kerosene, play soccer. That’s the plan four students from Harvard have for the sOccket, a soccer ball that generates electricity during normal game play and stores it for later use, reports the Green Inc. blog of the New York Times. The sOccket could have an especially large impact in developing nations where electricity is not readily available and people rely on kerosene lamps. Fifteen minutes of play can create enough electricity to power a light for three hours.
Displacing kerosene with electricity is not just a win for clean energy, it’s a victory for public health. When burned indoors, kerosene fumes can have the same impact as smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.
The ball works by using technology similar to that found in flashlights that can be charged by shaking them, and the global popularity of soccer means that the balls could find use in many places where access to electricity is scarce. While the sOccket will not solve the world’s energy problems, it’s one of a number of ingenious developments to capture and store energy.
Flywheels Show Promise for Storage of Renewable Energy
Diagram of a room stocked with flywheel energy storage devices. (image: cogeneration.net)
One of the big challenges for solar or wind power is that they are intermittent, not constant. The sun only shines half the hours at best (not even counting clouds or rain), and similarly, the wind does not blow continuously. To make these energy sources more practical, efficient power storage is necessary; you need to be able to top up the “battery” when the power is on and then use it to provide electricity at night, on overcast days, or when the air is still.
As reported by the New York Times Monday, a Massachusetts company thinks it has a solution to the problem of energy storage: flywheels.
A flywheel is a nothing more than a heavy wheel that rotates or spins freely. If you connect it the right kind of dual-purpose electric motor—some electric motors, like the ones in hybrid and electric cars, can function as both motors and generators—you can use the motor to spin the flywheel up to speed when there’s a surplus of power. Then, when you need energy, you slow down the wheel and convert its momentum back to electricity. If the wheel is heavy enough and spinning fast enough—the ones that Beacon Power is installing near Albany, New York, weigh a ton each and spin up to 16,000 times a minute (267 times a second)—you can store an enormous amount of energy in them.
Energy Consultants: Fossil Fuel Use to Change Little by 2034
According to Black & Veatch, in 2034 windmills like these won’t provide much more energy than they do now. (image: media.supereco.com)
What will America’s fossil fuel consumption look like two decades into the future? Not much different from the picture today, to listen to the predictions in a set of findings by energy consulting firm Black & Veatch. The New York Times Green Inc. blog picked up the story yesterday, summarizing the firm’s findings with a minimum of commentary.
According to Black & Veatch, by 2034 our dependence on coal, oil, and natural gas will have declined less than 10 percent—from 76 percent to 68 percent of the total. Renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and geothermal will account for that decline, growing from 5 percent now to 13 percent. Coal plants supplying electricity will decline, but this will occur primarily because of the retirement of aging infrastructure, not due to any major shift in usage.
