Free Energy at last!

[waltky]

Wonder if they'll get to keep it if it becomes profitable?...

Navajos to go into wind business
March 28, 2008 -- The Navajo Nation could play host to hundreds of windmills on its Arizona reservation near Flagstaff under a renewable energy plan.

The Arizona Republic reported that the windmills, standing 400 feet tall, would be erected as part of an agreement between the Navajo Nation and Citizens Energy, a Boston company. The Dine Wind Project would be the first commercial wind farm in the Grand Canyon State, the newspaper said.

The agreement resulted from negotiations among Navajo Nation President Joe Shirley Jr., other key tribal officials and Citizens Energy Chairman Joseph Kennedy II, a former member of Congress.

Shirley said in a statement that the wind farm will "bring prosperity for the Navajo people and build our energy independence while providing jobs and other benefits for the Navajo Nation."

Navajos will have "a significant ownership stake" in developments, reaping $60 million to $100 million over the project's lifetime, the tribal statement said. The operation is planned in the Gray Mountain area, about 50 miles north of Flagstaff.

Source

[waltky]

Hydrogen from algae...

Algae could be a major hydrogen fuel source in future
Washington, April 2,`08 : Scientists at U.S. Department of Energy's Argonne National Laboratory are working to chemically manipulate algae for production of the next generation of renewable fuels - hydrogen gas.

Some varieties of algae, a kind of unicellular plant, contain an enzyme called hydrogenase that can create small amounts of hydrogen gas. According to senior chemist David Tiede, many believe this enzyme is used by nature as a way to get rid of excess reducing equivalents that are produced under high light conditions, but are of little benefit to the plant. Tiede and his group are trying to find a way to take the part of the enzyme that creates the gas and introduce it into the photosynthesis process. The result would be a large amount of hydrogen gas, possibly on par with the amount of oxygen created.

"We believe there is a fundamental advantage in looking at the production of hydrogen by photosynthesis as a renewable fuel," said Tiede. "Right now, ethanol is being produced from corn, but generating ethanol from corn is a thermodynamically much more inefficient process," he added. According to Tiede, "What we would like to do is take that catalyst out of hydrogenase and put into the photosynthetic protein framework."

Algae has several benefits over corn in fuel production. It can be grown in a closed system almost anywhere including deserts or even rooftops, and there is no competition for food or fertile soil. Algae is also easier to harvest because it has no roots or fruit and grows dispersed in water. "If you have terrestrial plants like corn, you are restricted to where you could grow them. Also, there is a problem now with biofuel crops competing with food crops because they are both using the same space," said Tiede. "Algae provides an alternative, which can be grown in a closed photobioreactor analogous to a microbial fermentor that you could move any place," he added.

Algae could be a major hydrogen fuel source in future

[waltky]

Texas goin' the way o' wind...

Texas wind power could stall gas-fired projects
Thu Apr 24, 2008 - Rapid growth in the Texas wind power sector could lead several energy companies to reconsider plans to build or expand natural gas-fired plants to fill a looming electric crunch.

Texas will have nearly 5,000 megawatts of installed wind generation this summer, up from less than 3,000 a year ago. Regulators are mulling paths for new power lines that could move 5,000 to 18,000 MW of additional wind power from rural areas in western Texas to cities in the north.

New wind power could clash with more than a dozen gas-fired projects on the books of Calpine Corp., Exelon Corp, and FPL Group and others, that together exceed 12,000 MW, experts said. Companies that have proposed new gas plants "are concerned about the uncertainty of the future level of wind generation and the impact of the nodal market," said John Moore, a director of Navigant Consulting in Austin.

FPL Energy, which has filed an application to add 300 MW at a Lamar County gas plant, said it has not yet committed to build. "The expansion is something we are looking at, but no decision has been made," said FPL spokesman Steve Stengel. "A lot depends on economics."

Among other active developers, LS Power Group seeks to build 1,400-MW gas plants in Navarro and Montgomery counties; and Topaz Power Group wants to repower two existing gas-plant sites in South Texas with 700 MW each.

More Texas wind power could stall gas-fired projects | Special Coverage | Reuters

[waltky]

Should make us independent of foreign wind power...

DOE Report: Wind Could Power 20 Percent of US Grid by 2030
May 12, 2008 | A new report from the Department of Energy claims that wind turbines could generate 300 gigawatts by 2030, which would power about 20 percent of the US electrical grid.

The forecasting scenario would require tremendous growth in the wind industry, which currently produces about 17 gigawatts of electricity, or a little over one percent of total capacity. All by itself, such a change could reduce carbon dioxide emissions from electricity generation (think: coal and natural gas plants) by 25 percent and drop water consumption by four trillion gallons. These benefits could be achieved at a cost of about six bucks per person a year, say the report's authors. "To dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions and enhance our energy security, clean power generation at the gigawatt-scale will be necessary, and will require us to take a comprehensive approach to scaling renewable wind power," said Andy Karsner, the DOE's assistant secretary of energy efficiency and renewable energy in a release.

Currently, fossil fuels generate 85 percent of American energy, and about 70 percent of our electricity. Renewables (outside hydroelectric dams) are only responsible for a couple percent of our current electricity capacity. However, wind power has been expanding rapidly, growing 45 percent in 2007, as its cost has become competitive with traditional fossil fuel sources. Major business players from General Electric to oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens have gotten behind its deployment. Pickens, for example, is planning a $10 billion, 4-gigawatt peak production wind farm. A major driver of these investments is the price of oil, which is sitting over $120 a barrel, with long-term futures contracts also over $100 a barrel. The cost of natural gas is pegged to the price of oil, so rising oil costs make alternative energy investments more attractive. At the same time, scaling wind technologies is bringing their price down.

But there are major questions about the actual electricity production that wind farms put out. As many wind critics point out, four gigawatts of wind power isn't the same as four gigawatts of coal because the wind isn't always blowing, reducing their average watt ouput. Many grid engineers also think wind is a nightmare because it is so inconsistent, a problem that mass deployment of wind will make more and more apparent. It's worth noting that while the Department of Energy paid for the 248-page report, it did use information from a Black and Veatch consulting report commissioned by the American Wind Energy Association. The full report is available at 20percentwind.org. Yet among the current renewable options, wind and solar thermal appear to be the only technologies that could produce power at the utility-scale. Traditional solar photovoltaics have long payback times and are even trickier for the dumb electric grid to handle than wind.

More DOE Report: Wind Could Power 20 Percent of US Grid by 2030 | Wired Science from Wired.com

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says they oughta set up a windmill in front of all these blowhards runnin' for office...

... would provide enough power till the next election.

Maverick Oilman Bets $2B on Wind Power
May 15, 2008 - Maverick oilman T. Boone Pickens places $2 billion bet on wind power in massive Texas project

Maverick oilman T. Boone Pickens' plan for a mammoth wind farm in the Texas Panhandle is a $2 billion bet that Congress will extend a tax credit critical to the environmentally friendly industry. Pickens' company, Mesa Power, is purchasing hundreds of wind turbines from General Electric Co. to create the Pampa Wind Project, which will eventually cover 400,000 acres and generate enough power for more than 1.3 million homes.

"We are making Pampa the wind capital of the world," Pickens said. "It's clear that landowners and local officials understand the economic benefits that this renewable energy can bring not only to landowners who are involved with the project, but also in revitalizing an area that has struggled in recent years."

Pickens said the total cost of the deal will grow to between $10 billion and $12 billion after the initial $2 billion investment in GE's turbine technology. The entire four-phase project is forecast for completion in 2014. It will eventually have 4,000 megawatts of capacity.

More ABC News: Maverick Oilman Bets $2B on Wind Power

[waltky]

But try finding hydrogen to put in the tank...

Honda Makes First Hydrogen Cars
Monday, 16 June 2008 - Honda claims the FCX Clarity will help cut pollution and fuel wastage

Japanese car manufacturer Honda has begun the first commercial production of a zero-emission, hydrogen fuel-cell powered vehicle. The four-seater, called FCX Clarity, runs on electricity produced by combining hydrogen with oxygen, and emits water vapour.

Honda claims the vehicle offers three times better fuel efficiency than a traditional, petrol-powered car. Honda plans to produce 200 of the cars over the next three years. One of the biggest obstacles standing in the way of wider adoption of fuel-cell vehicles is the lack of hydrogen fuelling stations.

Critics also point out that hydrogen is costly to produce and the most common way to produce hydrogen is still from fossil fuels. Analysis of the environmental impact of different fuel technologies has shown that the overall carbon dioxide emissions from hydrogen powered cars can be higher than that from petrol or diesel-powered vehicles.

'Monumental step'

[waltky]

Need to get new power lines up...

Lack of new power lines threatens renewable growth
Fri Jun 20, 2008 - While companies scramble to drive down the price of power produced by sun and wind, many say a dearth of transmission lines in remote areas ideal for wind farms and solar plants is a bigger impediment than cost to spurring U.S. growth of renewable energy.

Demand is soaring for renewable energy projects to help reduce both pollutants and consumption of ever-costlier fossil fuels. At issue for developers of wind and solar projects, however, is that the resources to power them are most abundant in sparsely populated areas such as the Southwest's sun-baked Mojave desert and the blustery plains of the Midwest.

Building lines to channel that clean electricity to urban areas will be no small task, and renewable energy executives at a conference in New York this week warned that many planned solar and wind projects may never see the light of day if policymakers do not expand power grids to accommodate them. "Unless we figure out a way to move capital into transmission, moving power from the Dakotas to Chicago or from the Mojave to Los Angeles is going to be a great dream," Dan Reicher, the executive in charge of Google Inc's green energy push, said at the Renewable Energy Finance Forum.

He added that the progress of new transmission "in many respects will define whether 2 percent or 20 percent of U.S. electricity is renewable." Problems integrating renewable power with the grid are already playing out in Texas, the state with by far the most wind power. Major power lines are needed to transfer wind generation from West Texas to Dallas, Houston and San Antonio, where electric demand is highest, and congestion on the state's grid has sent power prices soaring.

More Lack of new power lines threatens renewable growth | Special Coverage | Reuters

[waltky]

Solar window panes in the near future?...

MIT develops window coating that collects energy
10 July `08 WASHINGTON (AP) — Perhaps Johnny Nash should be singing, "I can see energy now."

Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have developed a system that turns windows into a solar collector, letting people see clearly while collecting energy. A coating on the glass channels photons of light to a solar collector around the edge of the window, MIT electrical engineer Marc Baldo and colleagues report in Friday's edition of the journal Science.

"We think this is a practical technology for reducing the cost of solar power," Baldo said in a statement. The glass coatings absorb incoming light and then re-emit the energy into the glass, which conducts it to solar cells. The coatings can vary from bright colors to chemicals that are mostly transparent.

The materials are not expensive and can be added to existing solar panels, the researchers said, adding that they believe the technology could find its way to the marketplace within three years.

Source

[waltky]

Sunshine state goin' solar...

Florida solar plants OK'd by state panel
July 15,`08 -- The Florida Public Service Commission gave its approval Tuesday to a plan to build the first commercial solar power plants in the state.

Florida Power & Light plans three plants in the central part of the state. The three members of the commission approved them unanimously and enthusiastically, The Miami Herald reported.

The largest, a 75-megawatt plant in Martin County on the east coast, would be connected to a natural gas plant. The company says a 25-megawatt plant in DeSoto County would be the world's largest photovoltaic facility, while another 10-megawatt photovoltaic facility would be located at the Kennedy Space Center.

Commissioner Nathan Skop called the Martin County plant "a very innovative approach." Commissioner Nancy Argenziano said she was "just thrilled" by the proposals. The company said it had promised to build 300 megawatts of solar power, and the plants approved Tuesday put it more than one-third of the way there.

Source

[waltky]

Texas gives green light to lots more wind power...

Texas OKs lots more wind power
17 July `08 - Already U.S. leader, state moves ahead on $5 billion transmission project

Texas officials gave the go-ahead Thursday to the nation's largest wind-power project, a plan to build billions of dollars worth of new transmission lines to bring pollution-free energy from gusty West Texas to urban areas. Texas is already the national leader in wind power, and wind supporters say Thursday's move by the Public Utility Commission will make the Lone Star State a leader in moving energy to the urban areas that need electricity.

"We will add more wind than the 14 states following Texas combined," said PUC Commissioner Paul Hudson. "I think that's a very extraordinary achievement. Some think we haven't gone far enough, some think we've pushed too far." Expected to be finalized later this month, the approval represents a middle ground between five transmission scenarios ranging from $3 billion to $6.4 billion. The PUC had been asked by the Texas legislature to select the best transmission plan.

"It is expected that the new lines will be in service within four to five years," The PUC said in a statement. Environmentalist and consumer groups called the move a critical expansion of the "renewable energy superhighway," predicting it will spur wind energy projects, create jobs, reduce energy costs and reduce pollution.

$4 more a month on bills

See also:

Big Al gonna free us from OPEC oil...

Former Vice President Gore Issues US 10 Year Electricity Challenge
17 July 2008 - Former Vice President Al Gore is challenging the United States to produce all of its electricity through wind power, solar power and other environmentally friendly sources within 10 years. Gore said the transition would not only help resolve America's current energy and economic problems, but would also improve U.S. national security by reducing dependence on foreign oil.

Al Gore received a rock star welcome at an energy conference in Washington, where he issued a challenge to the country. "So today I challenge our nation to commit to producing 100 percent of our electricity from renewable energy and truly clean, carbon-free sources within 10 years," he said. Called an alarmist by some critics, Gore has made global climate change his signature issue, and his efforts won him a Nobel Prize. He admitted that weaning Americans off fossil fuels would require placing a carbon tax on burning oil and coal, which his plan would offset with a reduction in payroll taxes. But Gore said soaring gasoline prices and the current economic turmoil have created a new political environment where Americans are hungry for change.

"I do not remember a time in our country when so many things seem to be going so wrong simultaneously," he said. "Our economy is in terrible shape and getting worse, people are hurting. Gasoline prices are increasing dramatically and so are electricity rates. Jobs are being outsourced, home mortgages are in trouble. Banks, automobile companies, other institutions we depend upon are under growing pressure." Gore called on all Americans to pull together, citing the kind of national effort that made it possible for Neil Armstrong to walk on the moon just eight years after former President John F. Kennedy issued that challenge. He said both presidential candidates, his fellow Democrat Barack Obama and the presumptive Republican nominee John McCain are way ahead of most politicians in the fight against global climate change.

But Gore did criticize President Bush's proposal to resume offshore oil drilling as a way to address the current energy crisis. "It is only a truly dysfunctional system that would buy into the perverse logic that the short-term answer to high gasoline prices is drilling for oil 10 years from now in areas that should be protected," he said. The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama issued a statement after the speech, saying he strongly agrees with Gore that the U.S. cannot drill its way to energy independence, but must boost investments in renewable sources of energy. Obama said it is a strategy that will create millions of new jobs and leave American children with a cleaner and safer world.

VOA News - Former Vice President Gore Issues US 10 Year Electricity Challenge