Archive for April, 2008

Ten days ago, I attended a one-day symposium on climate change solutions at Oberlin College. Speaking at the symposium was John O’Donnell of Ausra.

Ausra is a leading player in the field of concentrating solar power (CSP), which utilizes mirrors to focus sunlight on a heating element containing a fluid, producing a steam that drives a turbine to generate electricity. In other words, solar thermal electricity – a field that was highly active in the 1980’s only to experience a hiatus of 15-plus years – is now coming back with a vengeance. Ausra claims that its CSP technology will soon enable electricity production (in sunny desert climates, such as the southwestern U.S.) for about 8-10 cents/kwh.

Mr. O’Donnell also discussed how Ausra was working on integrating its CSP generation technology with thermal energy storage approaches, so that Ausra’s powerplants would be able to produce electricity not just when the sun is high in the sky (from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.) but over a time window more closely aligned to utility peak loads, which stretch from about 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. He made the interesting observation that thermal energy storage, using oils and molten salts, is many times more efficient and cost-effective than large-scale energy storage with batteries.

With all of the hype (much of which deserved) for solar photovoltaics (PV), it’s easy to forget about solar thermal approaches, and CSP particularly. Although not as universally applicable as PV, CSP can make a big dent in national energy supply, exploiting only a relatively small fraction of otherwise unusable desert land. In many cases, the gating factor for CSP deployment – just as has been the case for wind energy – will be the availability, or lack, of transmission capacity to electricity load centers.

Mr. O’Donnell made the point that building roads in the U.S. was a local phenomenon subject to a patchwork of regulations and constraints until President Eisenhower broke down the barriers with the creation of the interstate highway system in the 1950s. He further noted that high-voltage DC technologies now readily available – such as those offered by ABB – could transmit large blocks of power across the continent with losses of only about 11% (excluding the conversion facilities at each terminal).

We in the cleantech community haven’t talked much about it, instead focusing on the sexy and cool generation/storage/consumption technologies, but maybe it’s time to ratchet the discussion about the so-called “smart grid” up to another level.

As posted on CleanTechBlog.com

Recently I was sent an article about electric cars. It profiles the Lightning GT, a 700-hp electric sports car that can accelerate to 60 mph in four seconds. To me, the news is not so much about the Lightning GT as it is about the batteries being used in the car.

The claim is that the battery, a lithium-ion type called Nanosafe being developed by a company called Altairnano, can provide a useful operating range of 250 miles, a full recharge time of 10 minutes, and a useful life of 12 to 20 years through 15,000 charge/discharge cycles.

If a battery can produce this kind of performance, and if large-scale production can enable the battery pack to be profitably sold at a few thousand dollars, mass adoption of electric vehicles cannot be far behind. This is because recharging an electric car from an socket produces a “fuel” that costs about the equivalent of $0.60 per gallon – about 1/6th the current cost of gasoline at the pump.

That’s a game-changer that could end our addiction to oil. While potentially a threat to the big petro-companies, such a development would be a huge boon to electric utilities, which all of a sudden would have a major overnight load to soak up off-peak excess capacity.

And the big long-term winner would be the environment. Even if the electricity comes from coal, the emissions profile of an all-electric car is much better than even a highly efficient gasoline or diesel car. If the electricity is produced by renewables such as solar and wind, then we’re talking about virtually a zero-carbon car.

As posted on CleanTechBlog.com

It’s notoriously the case that most photovoltaic (PV) installations are tailored – designed, engineered and installed – specifically for each application. This, of course, dramatically increases the cost and hassle factor for a customer to implement PV. For some time, PV pundits have stressed that the technology needs to become “plug-and-play” in order to make it easier and cheaper for customers.

Recently, Cincinnati-based Melink Corporation released a 500-watt, ground-mounted PV system with an embedded inverter and a three-pronged electrical cord that plugs into an outside socket, allowing anyone to generate electricity from the sun to help power their house.

Called “INGRID” (get it? “In-Grid”), this system costs less than $5,000 and can be hooked up virtually immediately without any engineering. Like a satellite dish, all you need is a clear view of the southern sky.

It’s so simple, basic and obvious that it’s a wonder Melink was first to market (or at least claims to be first to market) in the year 2008 with such a gizmo. Innovation comes in all sorts of flavors.

As posted on CleanTechBlog.com

A good friend of mine sent me a provocative email the other day:

“Last year, your government spent more than $8 billion of your tax dollars to achieve the following results:

• Dramatically increase the emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere
• Accelerate the destruction of the Amazon rainforest
• Raise the price of milk, bread, beef and other grain-dependent products by more than 20 percent
• Increase world hunger

“How did they do this? Two words: ethanol subsidies. Did I mention that the amount of corn it takes to produce enough ethanol to fill the tank of your typical SUV one time could feed the average person for one year (350 days)?”

This is one person’s “grabber” for an April 7 article by Michael Grunwald in Time Magazine titled “The Clean Energy Scam.” It presents yet another negative portrait of corn-based ethanol as a flawed technology, and flawed policies to support it.

However, to avoid throwing the baby out with the bathwater, it’s important to emphasize the phrase “corn-based.” While it’s increasingly clear that corn-based ethanol is of dubious merit except to the major agri-businesses like ADM and Cargill that benefit from the government’s largesse, that’s not to say the potential future emergence of cellulosic ethanol wouldn’t be a good thing all around.

The only debate is whether the current push for corn-based ethanol is really a useful bridge to – or even a propelling force for – the advancement of cellulosic ethanol. Certainly, ethanol proponents like uber-venture capitalist Vinod Khosla (see some of his papers and presentations) think that corn-based ethanol is helping pave the way to a cellulosic future by helping change the fueling infrastructure from gasoline to ethanol. Meanwhile, a growing chorus of contrary voices doesn’t see the cellulosic promise at all, and they focus their angst on the real and present problems generated by corn-based ethanol.

If cellulosic ethanol never makes it out of the lab and into the market, then the rush for corn-based ethanol will indeed have been an expensive dead-end – and will provide more food for the fodder of those who claim that government policy involving preferential subsidies should not pick technology winners.