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EU to invest billions in energy research / EurActiv
7 October 2009 – The European Commission today revealed its long-awaited blueprint for tripling Europe’s energy research funding within the next decade, in a bid to shift monies towards supporting the transition to a low-carbon economy in the next EU budget.
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The EU executive calls for the energy research budget to be increased to €50 billion over the next ten years. This would require yearly flows from both the public and private sectors to jump from their current €3bn to €8bn, it calculated.
The Communication on Financing the Development of Low-Carbon Technologies sets out how this money should be divided between key low-carbon technologies that can move Europe from 80% dependence on fossil fuels to 80% emissions cuts by 2050. The research priorities were identified in the 2007 Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan) that intended to reassert Europe’s competitiveness by putting declining EU energy research budgets back on track.
The financing plan, which was originally due out last year, was partly delayed due to the financial crisis, which required new thinking on how to reactivate growth, Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs told journalists. Furthermore, drawing up roadmaps for the various technologies took time, he added.
The final plan earmarks €6bn for research into wind energy, which the Commission believes could produce a fifth of the EU’s electricity by 2020. The money would help to fund developments offshore, where winds are stronger, by investing in next-generation turbines and new structures.
Solar energy would get €16bn for developing new photovoltaic concepts and large industrial concentrating solar power (CSP) installations to contribute 15% of EU electricity in ten years’ time. Bioenergy research would also get €9bn so that it could provide 14% of EU energy while respecting sustainability criteria.
In order to integrate renewables and implement the internal energy market, electricity grids would get €2 billion so that half of the networks can operate along a “smart grid” principle.
Apart from renewables, carbon capture and storage (CCS) is set to receive €13bn for up to 12 demonstration projects. Nuclear research would also get €7bn for putting the fourth generation into operation.
The financing proposal also foresees €11bn for a ‘Smart Cities’ programme, in order to counter criticism that the SET-Plan disregards energy efficiency. Between 25 and 30 cities are to be upgraded with low-carbon houses and transport so that they emit 40% less greenhouse gas emissions in 2020 than they did in 1990.
In addition, the Commission is calling for more money for future breakthrough technologies, such as motors fuelled directly by sunlight or batteries which store power at ten times their current density.
Public partnering with private money
The Commission believes that public-private partnerships are the most credible way to go about funding energy research. However, it did not spell out how the financial burden should be shared between the two.
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Europe will select 30 cities to pioneer “smart” electricity grids and space-proven insulation as it seeks to lead the global race for green technology, a draft European Union document shows.
The windpower sector must shift offshore and strive to provide a fifth of EU electricity by 2020 — ahead of industry goals — said a draft of the European Commission’s long-awaited Strategic Energy Technology Plan.
The so-called SET-Plan lays out the EU’s strategy for promoting hi-tech solutions to climate change to give European businesses a head start as the world switches to low-carbon energy.
Billions of euros will have to be poured into research to avoid falling behind the United States, which is pouring $777 million into energy research, the draft, obtained by Reuters ahead of the plan’s release next month, said.
“Basic research is chronically underfunded in the EU,” the report said. “We need to stimulate and incentivize our best brains to push back the frontiers of science.”
The project envisages 25 to 30 “smart cities” — highly insulated cities that glean energy from their waste and the sun and wind overhead and channel it down to the electric cars, trams and buses in the streets below.
“These Smart Cities will be the nuclei from which smart networks, a new generation of buildings and alternative transport means will develop into European wide realities,” it added.
EU officials are still calculating the exact needs for funding and how it will be split between industry and the public purse.
MIXED REACTION
Environmentalists gave the plan a mixed reception, saying it should have completely ditched coal power and nuclear.
The geothermal industry, which generates steady “baseload” power by tapping into the earth’s natural heat, said it provided the perfect complement to fluctuating wind and solar and expressed dismay it had been ignored altogether.
“A renewable energy mix can not be reached in the future without geothermal energy,” the European Geothermal Energy Council said.
Boosting energy efficiency will top the agenda, an area where the European Space Agency is expected to contribute.
“This could be achieved by transferring advanced insulation materials and ultra-efficient energy systems to the terrestrial energy sector,” the report said.
Coal-fired power stations will be pushed to trap and bury their carbon dioxide emissions and the nuclear industry will be urged to move toward a new generation of reactors — the so-called Generation-IV reactor.
“Such reactors will be able to exploit the full energetic potential of uranium, thus greatly extending resource availability by factors up to 100 over current technologies,” said the report.
Greenpeace campaigner Frauke Thies said the overall message was inconsistent, as money poured into coal and nuclear would only prolong Europe’s unhealthy dependence on an inflexible, centralized energy network.
“We must focus on building a decentralized and flexible energy system that can handle fluctuations in renewable energy and balance supply and demand,” she added.
GLOBE-Net (August 19, 2009) – Nexterra Systems Corp., a Vancouver-based supplier of biomass gasification solutions, and ANDRITZ, an Austrian market leader for customized plants, process technologies, have formed a strategic alliance to market drying solutions fuelled by renewable biomass energy from municipal wastewater treatment plants.
The combination of Nexterra gasification technologies with Andritz biosolids dryers will enable municipal wastewater treatment facilities to reduce fuel costs, eliminate dependence on fossil fuels, lower their greenhouse gas emissions and deploy a sustainable solution for biosolids management.
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), there are more than 16,000 wastewater treatment facilities in the United States operated by municipalities, each of which produces biological sludge or “biosolids” as a residual product from the wastewater treatment process.
Traditional biosolids management methods include spreading dried sludge on lands or trucking it to landfills. Many municipalities wish to discontinue these practices due to health concerns, rising fuel and management costs, greenhouse gas emissions from transportation, and diminishing landfill capacity. They are looking for biosolids management solutions that will enable them to reduce energy costs and carbon emissions.
During the first phase of their strategic relationship, ANDRITZ and Nexterra will target facilities where existing biosolids dryers can be retrofitted with Nexterra’s biomass gasification technology, and will use biomass fuel to replace natural gas as a heating source. The companies plan also to offer technology solutions for greenfield sites that combine ANDRITZ biosolids dryers and Nexterra gasifiers.
“This strategic relationship with ANDRITZ provides us with a partner who has a deep understanding and presence within the wastewater treatment market, which we see as a very significant market opportunity for our gasification technology,” said Jonathan Rhone, President and CEO of Nexterra. “Our vision is to offer municipalities a seamless range of renewable energy solutions for drying biosolids, and eventually for power generation with gas engines.”
Nexterra is developing a biomass to combined heat and power solutions (CHP) with General Electric, to be sized at 2 – 10 MW, that combine Nexterra’s gasification technology and gas conditioning equipment with high efficiency gas engines. This will enable municipalities to self-generate renewable heat and power on-site.
Additional details can be found at: http://www.nexterra.ca/Andritz
The supply chains of many manufacturing sectors went global when oil was cheap; today, improving energy efficiency is a top concern for executives. This interactive shows numerous opportunities to dramatically reduce energy costs in supply chains.
August 2009 • Tobias A. Meyer
Source: Climate Change Special Initiative
Supply chains have become increasingly global over the latter half of the century, as the globalization of trade was fueled by cheap oil. Today, the transportation of goods consumes 15 million barrels of oil a day—roughly one-fifth of total production.
Increasing the energy efficiency of supply chains
Explore levers for potential energy-efficiency gains in each stage of the supply chain.
In an ongoing study of energy efficiency in supply chains, McKinsey looked at numerous opportunities to reduce the amount of oil used to get goods from a manufacturer’s dock to a retailer’s shelf. These opportunities are available not only to manufacturers but to wholesalers, distributors, carriers, and third-party businesses. We’ve grouped these opportunities into six levers to illustrate possible next steps. Of course, the players in a chain operate independently from one another, so achieving all of these gains would require coordinated efforts and investments—a considerable challenge.
Finally, we examine potential gains in supply chain energy efficiency under three scenarios, based on low, medium, and high oil prices and electricity costs. In any scenario, however, companies would do well to set up energy-efficient supply chains, as their benefits greatly outweigh any downsides.
About the Author
Tobias Meyer is an associate principal in McKinsey’s Frankfurt office.
The International Herald Tribune 14 July 2009 – Exxon Mobil, perhaps the biggest skeptic about biofuels and alternative forms of energy, is about to make a major commitment to produce fuels from algae. Exxon is planning to spend $600 million in its first major foray into biofuels in partnership with Synthetic Genomics, a biotechnology firm founded by J. Craig Venter, the genomic pioneer.
Synthetic Genomics scientific capabilities encompass areas such as environmental genomics, microbiology, biochemistry, bioinformatics, plant genomics, genome engineering, synthetic biology, and climate change. In addition to the strong applied research efforts conducted at SGI, the company sponsors fundamental research at the J. Craig Venter Institute, a not-for-profit organization with more than 400 scientists and staff working on a variety of genomic research and policy fronts.
The investment amounts to a radical change of heart for Exxon, whose chairman and chief executive, Rex Tillerson, once derisively referred to corn-based ethanol as ”moonshine.”
But Emil Jacobs, the vice president of research and development at Exxon’s research and engineering company, said the investment comes after several years of looking at a range of options, including whether algae could be turned into transportation fuels at a competitive cost.
”We did a lot of work looking at alternative sources,” Dr. Jacobs said in an interview. ”We literally looked at every option we could think of with several key parameters in mind. Scale was the first. For transportation fuels, if you can’t see whether you can scale it up, then you have to question whether you need to be involved at all.”
Algal biofuel – sometimes nicknamed oilgae by environmentalists – is a promising technology, but finding cost-effective ways to mass-produce it has so far eluded researchers.
Experts believe that the benefits of biofuels made from photosynthetic algae are significant. Algae, for example, can be grown using nonarable land and either brackish or salt water unsuitable for crop, plant or food production, unlike first- and second-generation biofuel feedstocks.
It has another benefit that could eventually help cut greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming: algae need carbon dioxide to grow. Using genomic technologies, including genome engineering, both companies believe they can eventually develop strains of algae that can produce biofuel on a commercial scale while absorbing carbon dioxide emitted, for example, by power plants.
”Algae is the ultimate biological system using sunlight to capture and convert carbon dioxide into fuel,” Dr. Venter said.
Exxon’s investment includes $300 million for in-house studies and ”potentially more” than that to Synthetic Genomics ”if research and development milestones are successfully met,” Exxon said.
The companies referred to their partnership as a long-term research and development effort, with future investments that could rise into the billions of dollars. Large-scale commercial plants are not expected for at least 5 to 10 years, Dr. Jacobs said.
Photosynthetic algae and cyanobacteria, commonly known as blue-green algae, are very efficient at utilizing sunlight energy to convert carbon dioxide into cellular oils, or lipids, and other types of hydrocarbons that can then be processed into fuels and chemicals.
Synthetic Genomics said its scientists had been working for years to develop an efficient way to harvest these oils.
”Traditionally algae have been treated like a crop to be grown and harvested in a process that can be expensive and time consuming,” Dr. Venter said. His company has engineered algae that produce lipids in a continuous process.
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Urine turned into hydrogen fuel 02 July 2009
US researchers have developed an efficient way of producing hydrogen from urine – a feat that could not only fuel the cars of the future, but could also help clean up municipal wastewater.
Using hydrogen to power cars has become an increasingly attractive transportation fuel, as the only emission produced is water – but a major stumbling block is the lack of a cheap, renewable source of the fuel. Gerardine Botte of Ohio University may now have found the answer, using an electrolytic approach to produce hydrogen from urine – the most abundant waste on Earth – at a fraction of the cost of producing hydrogen from water. Botte says the idea came to her several years ago at a conference on fuel cells, where they were discussing how to turn clean water into clean power. ‘I wondered how we could do this better,’ she adds – so started looking at waste streams as a better source of molecules from which to produce hydrogen.
Urine’s major constituent is urea, which incorporates four hydrogen atoms per molecule – importantly, less tightly bonded than the hydrogen atoms in water molecules. Botte used electrolysis to break the molecule apart, developing an inexpensive new nickel-based electrode to selectively and efficiently oxidise the urea. To break the molecule down, a voltage of 0.37V needs to be applied across the cell – much less than the 1.23V needed to split water. Electrolysis breaks down the urea, releasing hydrogen ‘During the electrochemical process the urea gets adsorbed on to the nickel electrode surface, which passes the electrons needed to break up the molecule,’ Botte told Chemistry World. Pure hydrogen is evolved at the cathode, while nitrogen plus a trace of oxygen and hydrogen were collected at the anode. While carbon dioxide is generated during the reaction, none is found in the collected gasses as it reacts with the potassium hydroxide in the solution to form potassium carbonate.
According to Botte, currently available processes that can remove urine from water are expensive and inefficient. Urea naturally hydrolyses into ammonia before generating gas phase ammonia emissions. These emissions lead to the formation of ammonium sulphate and nitrate particulates in the air, which cause a variety of health problems including chronic bronchitis, asthma attacks and premature death. The group are currently conducting long term stability studies on their electrolysis systems, as well as conducting computational experiments to better understand the mechanisms at work.
Botte believes the technology could be easily scaled-up to generate hydrogen while cleaning up the effluent from sewage plants. ‘We do not need to reinvent the wheel as there are already electrolysers being used in different applications.’ She believes the only the thing that would hamper the process would be the presence of a lot of salt.
Bruce Logan, an expert in energy generation from wastewater and director of Pennsylvania State University’s H2E Center and Engineering Environmental Institute, applauded Botte’s efforts in developing a more energy efficient way of producing hydrogen than splitting water. However, he did caution that urea gets converted very quickly into ammonia by bacteria, which could limit the usefulness of the technique. However, Logan does feel that it would be a good idea to start saving up our urine – although not for the hydrogen. ‘You have to remember about the P [phosphorus] in pee – globally we need to start thinking about conserving phosphorus for fertiliser, because, just like oil, one day the deposits are all going to run out and we need to start building phosphorus recycling into our infrastructure,’ he says.
References: B K Boggs, R L King and G G Botte, Chem. Commun., 2009, DOI: 10.1039/b905974a
You’d be hard pressed to find anyone in this country who believes Canada needs more ice. But the distributors of a new green energy technology are trying to show consumers that’s exactly what we do need.
Behind a fence in the back of the Mountain Equipment Co-Op store parking lot in Burlington, Ont., six large blocks of ice, each the size of a playpen, sit in steel boxes melting slowly in the afternoon heat.
It’s the first Canadian installation of Ice Bear, the air conditioner’s answer to the hybrid car. It uses 95 per cent less electricity in peak hours than a conventional air conditioning unit.
“We see Canada as a terrific market,” said Greg Tropsa, Executive Vice President of Ice Energy, the company that developed and manufactures the Ice Bear. “We’ve got great prospects, especially now with the legislation that’s trying to get more green energy in the market.”
Toronto-based Transformative Technologies Inc. is partnering with Ice Energy to market and distribute the Ice Bear in Canada. “I think of all the effort it takes to build new natural-gas-fired facilities or fossil fuel power,” said James Alden, TTI’s president. “It’s clear Ice Bear is a great solution.”
And it’s getting attention. Gathered in the noonday sun in Burlington’s MEC parking lot are reps from Hydro One, London Hydro and Hydro Ottawa, among others. As the sweating lid is unscrewed from one of the 5-tonne units to reveal the melting ice inside, one of them quips, “Where’s the beer?”
Unlike your standard brew cooler, however, the big block of ice inside the Ice Bear is not what cools the building’s air. Not directly, at least.
During off-peak hours when electricity rates are at their lowest, the Ice Bear acts like a normal air conditioner and uses its compressor to cool refrigerant that in turn cools the air blowing into a building. What also happens overnight is the unit re-freezes water that had melted off the huge 200 kilograms cubes of ice. During the day when electricity rates are at their highest, the Ice Bear turns off its compressor and uses the ice to cool the refrigerant.
The result is an air conditioning system that uses about 300 watts – the equivalent of five or six light bulbs – rather than a traditional system that uses 6,000 watts.
For a store the size of this MEC, that could mean savings of roughly $400 a year, according to Ice Energy’s figures. Businesses also earn the goodwill of customers who like the use of green technologies in their stores.
“We’ve been getting a lot of feedback,” said Alicia Cairns, the manager of the Burlington MEC location. “The biggest things we hear about, are the solar panels and the Ice Bear system.”
But at a price tag of $8,500, businesses may ask themselves just how much a green image is worth.
While Ice Energy has done a few commercial installations, the company’s target market is utility providers. The technology allows utilities to reduce emissions and lower transmission costs. And in the hottest months when demand for energy goes into overload, instead of spending millions to rewire their distribution systems utilities can shift that demand to off-peak periods, Mr. Tropsa said. In the U.S., more than 20 utilities have already had trials of the Ice Bear units.
Canadians may not be far behind. London Hydro is “very seriously” considering investing in the technology, said its Conservation Program Manager, Hans Schreff.
“Our biggest problem here is the summer with air conditioning. It’s a very focused approach to solving that problem,” Mr. Schreff said. “It attacks peak energy, which helps us lower costs.”
With the Green Energy Act passed by the Ontario government in May, which is designed to increase the province’s dedication to renewable energy, utilities are being asked to consider more green technologies, said Tom Semler, Manager of Conservation and Demand at Hydro One.
“We’re going to get bigger targets for conservation,” he said. “These units could have a big impact for us.”
Ice Energy has yet to be profitable, but with the interest in the units Mr. Tropsa expects that could change within the next two years.
“You’re looking for [energy] storage, and what could be cheaper than water?” Mr. Tropsa said. “It’s a feel-good business, but it’s a potential money-maker too.”
Customizable Interactive Map Shows U.S. Alternative Fuel Data
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) announced the launch of a comprehensive mapping tool to help industry and government planners implement alternative fuels and advanced vehicles. The new TransAtlas tool combines several different types of geographic data to identify areas with potential for developing advanced transportation projects. It is sponsored by DOE’s Clean Cities initiative, which aims to reduce petroleum consumption in the transportation sector by promoting advanced vehicle technologies and alternative fuels. This interactive mapping tool is available by visiting www.afdc.energy.gov and clicking on the TransAtlas icon.
Promoting renewables is focus of new agency
Via: World Business Council for Social Development
The International Herald Tribune, May 19, 2009 Tuesday – In Sharm el Sheik, Egypt, delegates from 79 countries will meet next month to choose a home, a director and a preliminary work program for the International Renewable Energy Agency, which was set up this year to lead a global drive to accelerate and expand the development of renewable energy resources.
The agency grew out of a conference in Bonn on Jan. 26, which was sponsored by the German government, with support from Denmark and Spain. Of the 192 United Nations member states invited, 125 sent delegations and 75 European and emerging countries signed on to the final agreement establishing the agency, also known as Irena.
Membership includes leading European economies like Germany and France; emerging economies like India; major energy producers like Norway and Nigeria; hostile neighbors like Eritrea and Ethiopia, or Israel and Syria; and poor states like Liberia and Burkina Faso.
The United States has not yet joined the agency because of lingering commercial concerns, but is likely to do so, Hermann Scheer, a member of the Bundestag, the lower house of the German Parliament, said during an interview. Major countries like China, Britain and Brazil have not yet joined, either.
Very few countries ”have adequate and comprehensive programs for renewable energy, ” Mr. Scheer said, ”The others do not, and they need them urgently.”
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