Swedish King opens 2009 World Bioenergy Clean Vehicles and Fuels conference

His Majesty King Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden, patron of World Bioenergy opened this year's Bioenergy Clean Vehicles and Fuels conference in Stockholm on Wednesday.

The Swedish king is personally a great promoter of bioenergy in Sweden and he said that bioenergy will play a very important role in sustainable development in the world in his opening remarks.

Maud Olofsson, Swedish Deputy Prime Minister and President of EU Energy Ministers Council said during the opening plenary session that to achieve 2 degree target in climate issue, bioenergy will play a leading role.

"Bioenergy is a good example of achieving sustainable energy supply, creating jobs and improve competitiveness as we are developing eco-efficient economy. We have no choice, we must take action now. And I ask you the business people to put pressure on politicians to come to an agreement in Copenhagen," said Olofsson.

Olofsson stressed that free and fair trade is a precondition for eco-efficient economy. She is against any kind of protectionism.

Matthew Barzun, US Ambassador to Sweden talked about new US bioenergy incentives. But he also warned clouds and bubbles in the industry.

"I came from the internet background and I still remember the 1997 and later on problems in the IT industry. Therefore, I like to make a cautious note that we should avoid the big cloud and think of the small solid steps to move forward." He gave a vivid description about his warning and proposed for a step by step and down to earth method in developing the bioenergy sector.

During the three conference various seminars relating to the biofuels and clean vehicles will be held. On Wednesday, topics from policy and renewable energy directive, Bio refineries, co-production of fuels, social economic drivers, criteria for sustainable biofuels to clean technology state of art and zero emissions of vehicles were presented and discussed.

Professor Liu Dehua from Qinghua University presented the world most advanced technology in biodiesel production in China. He has shown participants that by using enzymes numerous times, the cost of biodiesel can be substantially reduced so that the biodiesel price can be compatible with the normal diesel price. Resources such as water and energy can also be saved.

He said the state of art technology is now in application in Hunan province, central China.

Irene Bohn from Skåne, South Sweden presented how they deal with the household waste by co-producing biogas and bio-fertilizer.

In the afternoon, strategies and efforts for zero emission vehicles and financing and investment in green growth were discussed.

Toyota and many other car companies from about 50 countries also came to the conference and exhibition. They present their clean car technologies while bio-fuel companies mostly from Sweden participated in the conference.

Dr. Klaus Bonhoff from Germany said it is wrong to think transport and bioenergy as separate sectors, they should be considered together by the policy makers. He talked about hydrogen and fuel cells for transport in Germany which is leading in this sector in Europe.

By Xuefei Chen, People's Daily Online, Stockholm

The Politics of Energy #22 - Live by the Sword...

Texans say a climate-change bill in Congress would take too big a toll on their state

(Editor's Note: Interesting how the climate change bill hits the biggest Red state the hardest. If  the bill were about results it would measure carbon emissions according to production efficiencies. But the bill is about huge new taxes, which makes it a political document aimed at parties with the least clout under a Democratic congress.)

By ÁNGEL GONZáLEZ

A bill in Congress to curb global warming has a lot of Texans boiling.

The bill proposes to make some companies pay for the carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases they emit, gases that scientists believe are contributing to rising temperatures. And that puts the Lone Star State, which produces more emissions than any other state and even some big industrialized countries like Canada, squarely in the cross-hairs.

If the climate-change bill becomes law, it will have a severe impact on the Texas economy, local officials say. A study commissioned by the state comptroller says 135,000 to 277,000 jobs could be lost in 2012, the year the legislation would take effect. Roughly 312,000 people work in the oil and gas industries in the state, home to a quarter of the nation's refining capacity and to oil giants Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips.

'A Monster'

"This is a monster for the state, given the fact that so much of our revenue comes from [the energy] sector," says Comptroller Susan Combs in an interview. "It's going to hit us disproportionately."

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, has said he thinks the bill would "devastate" some of the industries that have helped his state weather the recession better than other regions. "To throttle that one bright spot is a little bit puzzling," Mr. Perry said at a June roundtable held in Austin to discuss possible effects of the legislation. Also, a national campaign against the bill, sponsored by the oil industry and other opponents, made its debut in Houston in August.

Battle lines in the national debate over the bill highlight a growing split between mostly Republican states heavily invested in oil and gas production and Democratic-leaning coastal states that have invested in alternative sources of energy and rely on service industries. Joining Texas are the Oklahoma Legislature, which in May issued a statement against the bill, and former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, who lambasted the proposal in a Washington Post op-ed column, calling it "an enormous threat."

The bill, sponsored by U.S. Reps. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) and Henry Waxman (D., Calif.), won narrow approval in the House in June, but it is expected to face more heated debate in the Senate in coming months. Indeed, signs point to an uphill fight for the Obama administration as it tries to steer the country toward more expensive but cleaner sources of energy.

"Cheap energy has been a cornerstone of American policy," says Robert Stein, a political-science professor at Rice University in Houston.

Hearts of Texas

And perhaps nowhere are the stakes as high as in Texas. A study commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute, a Washington-based industry group that opposes the bill, projects that the measure would result in a loss of 1.95 million jobs by 2020—about 14% of which would be in Texas. In the same year, the study says, the legislation would cost the state's average household about $1,600 in lost purchasing power—58% greater than the predicted national average.

Texas emits about three times as much carbon dioxide per dollar of economic output as California or New York, the study says. Texas also far surpasses California, a more populous state with a bigger economy, in total emissions, due to its penchant for big trucks, its hot, sprawling cities, and its slate of energy-intensive industries like aluminum and petrochemicals.

Another reason Texas may take a bigger hit than other states: Refiners as a group would get less of a break than coal-powered generation facilities under the terms of the bill. The legislation proposes to give each polluter a certain allowance of emissions for which they don't initially have to pay. Companies would then have to buy permits for emissions that exceed their allowance.

The bill would require refiners to account not only for the carbon they emit when processing fuel, but also for the tailpipe emissions generated by the gasoline and diesel they sell. Even so, they would receive only 2.25% of allowances allocated under the bill, even though they account for 44% of total CO2 emissions subject to the bill, while coal-based electricity producers' allowances would be much closer to their actual emissions, says Bill Durbin, a Houston-based consultant with Wood Mackenzie, a global energy consultancy. "That will be a significant upfront cost for refiners," he says.

The Energy Information Administration, part of the U.S. Department of Energy, predicts the bill could add between 35 cents and $1.28 to the price of a gallon of gasoline by 2030—a premium that could erode fuel demand, and the health of a sector that represents about 15% of Texas' gross state product.

Supporters, Too

But not all of Texas is opposed to carbon caps. Robert A. Webb, president of the Austin-based Texas Renewable Energy Industries Association, argues that the state's economy can become stronger as a result of the climate bill. Not only does Texas have a lot of renewable-energy potential, but much of its oil-industry labor can be redirected toward making carbon-emitting facilities more efficient, Mr. Webb says.

"While we will have a temporary disruption, Texas is strong," he says. "Moreover, a lot of Texas industries can benefit." Mr. Webb is general counsel for Biofuels Power Corp., a power provider based in The Woodlands, Texas, that generates electricity from biofuels.

Some state Democratic proponents of the climate bill also say it could help nudge the state toward a more diversified, environmentally friendly economy. Indeed, Texas leads the U.S. not only in oil refining and natural-gas production, but also in wind-power capacity.

"As we move into renewables, Texas stands to gain more than other states," says U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez (D., Texas), who sits on the House committee that moved the initial version of the bill.

But Ms. Combs, the state comptroller, says the wind industry has created only 500 to 800 permanent jobs in the state, a small fraction of the jobs that she believes will be lost. "I don't know where the new jobs are going to come from," Ms. Combs says. "They're not going to come from wind." Landing a green job in Texas, she adds, could be akin to finding a "unicorn—a sort of mythical beast."..

Mr. González is the bureau chief for Dow Jones Newswires in Houston. He can be reached at angel.gonzalez@dowjones.com

German Cabinet Approves Massive Expansion of Offshore Wind Farms

Germany's coastline may soon be bristling with wind turbines. A new plan involves 2,500 turbines, 30,000 new jobs and enough power for over 8 million households. Still, some worry that environmental regulations, financing difficulties and even security issues might hurt the ambitious plan.


The plan involves setting aside zones between 12 and 200 kilometers (seven and 124 miles) off its northern shores. Of the 40 wind farms, 30 would be in the North Sea and 10 in the Baltic Sea. Of these, 25 have already received approval -- 22 in the North Sea and three in the Baltic Sea.

In total, the plan envisions German offshore wind parks holding up to 2,500 wind turbines. German Federal Transport Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee also said that the plan could create about 30,000 jobs.

According to ministry statements, the wind farms should generate around 12,000 megawatts by 2030. In strong winds, this would be equivalent to the energy generated by 12 medium-sized nuclear plants. "From our planned farms in the North Sea alone, we could provide 6.8 million additional homes with electricity," Tiefensee told reporters, adding that the farms in the Baltic Sea could provide energy for 1.5 million more households.

The plan is meant to double the current amount of energy supplied by wind in Germany to 12 percent by 2020. The country's national climate protection targets envision it satisfying 30 percent of its energy needs using renewable resources by 2030.

Reviving A Neglected Issue

While many in Germany are happy about the decision, others think that the government has been too slow to act on this issue. Critics point out that plans to boost Germany's offshore power production have actually been in the works since the beginning of the decade. In 2002, the coalition led by then-Chancellor Gerhard Schröder -- made up of the center-left Social Democratic Party (SPD) and the Green Party -- passed the German government's strategy on offshore wind energy development.

Felix Matthes, coordinator for energy and climate protection at the Institute for Applied Ecology in Berlin, told SPIEGEL ONLINE that the current grand coalition -- made up of Chancellor Angela Merkel's Christian Democrats (CDU) and the Social Democrats, which have been in power since 2005 -- has done "too little, too late to advance things decisively now."

Whether the plan can ever be achieved is another question altogether. There are strict environmental regulations that need to be considered. Likewise, many of the farms will be built very far out at sea. Since waves are stronger here and the water sometimes even 40 meters (130 feet) deep, construction and maintenance costs will be high. "The construction of a wind farm will easily consume between €500 million and €1 billion ($735 million to $1.47 billion)," Hermann Albers, the president of the German Wind Energy Association (BWE), told SPIEGEL ONLINE.

Connection & Financing Issues

Likewise, it can be hard for investors to commit to these projects because, as Albers explains, there have been problems connecting the wind energy back up to the power grid on land. Before the power companies will lay cables out at sea to connect the wind farm with their grids, they want a guarantee that the project has financing. But before the banks will finance a wind farm, they want a guarantee that the power companies are going to be able to connect the wind farm to their grid.

There is a clause in German infrastructure legislation related to this that says power companies must provide a connection. But, Albers says, "up until now, at best, that has been a friendly statement of intent."

But this is part of the reason why only Germany's energy giants -- such as E.on, Vattenfall or General Electric Deutschland -- are investing in wind energy. According to Albers, so far, around 70 percent of investment in the 25 approved wind farms comes from these large companies.

This development is also causing some concern in the Federal Environemt Ministry. The worry is that progress will be slow if only the large energy companies invest in wind power. This is simply because wind remains a risky investment for them, especially when compared to their more profitable ventures with nuclear or coal-fired energy.

"I really doubt Merkel's business know-how on this issue," says Hans-Josef Fell, the energy spokesman for the Green Party. "If these gigantic wind farms start up out at sea while German nuclear reactors are still working, then we will have a huge excess of energy. Power prices will collapse -- and the bottom line is that wind power will be less profitable than it should be."

Security Issues

Yet another reason for investors in wind energy to worry has emerged. In a recent interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung, Albers said that investments were being blocked because of security issues raised by the Bundeswehr, Germany's military. Wind farms can reportedly disturb the Bundeswehr's radar facilities. The moving rotor blades on the closely packed wind turbines cause a sort of radar shadow that conceals airplanes from detection. Albers noted that this problem had blocked a deal worth €400 million in the state of Lower Saxony, and he said that another in Schleswig-Holstein was also in danger of being cancelled.

A spokesperson for the Bundeswehr said that, while it was looking for a solution to this problem, "the monitoring of German air space was one of the German military's basic duties and could not just be suspended arbitrarily."

So Albers remains worried. He says the Bundeswehr should be updating its radar technology to deal with this issue and that the military is preventing "investment and environmental protection."

cis -- with wires
Spiegel Online

Energy 'Sprawl' and the Green Economy

We're about to destroy the

environment in the name of saving it.

By LAMAR ALEXANDER

Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He's also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind. This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines.

Is the federal government showing any concern about this massive intrusion into the natural landscape? Not at all. I fear we are going to destroy the environment in the name of saving the environment.

The House of Representatives has passed climate legislation that started out as an attempt to reduce carbon emissions. It has morphed into an engine for raising revenues by selling carbon dioxide emission allowances and promoting "renewable" energy.

The bill requires electric utilities to get 20% of their power mostly from wind and solar by 2020. These renewable energy sources are receiving huge subsidies all to supposedly create jobs and hurry us down the road to an America running on wind and sunshine described in President Barack Obama's Inaugural Address.

Yet all this assumes renewable energy is a free lunch a benign, "sustainable" way of running the country with minimal impact on the environment. That assumption experienced a rude awakening on Aug. 26, when The Nature Conservancy published a paper titled "Energy Sprawl or Energy Efficiency: Climate Policy Impacts on Natural Habitat for the United States of America." The report by this venerable environmental organization posed a simple question: How much land is required for the different energy sources that power the country? The answers deserve far greater public attention.

By far nuclear energy is the least land-intensive; it requires only one square mile to produce one million megawatt-hours per year, enough electricity for about 90,000 homes. Geothermal energy, which taps the natural heat of the earth, requires three square miles. The most landscape-consuming are biofuels ethanol and biodiesel which require up to 500 square miles to produce the same amount of energy.

Coal, on the other hand, requires four square miles, mainly for mining and extraction. Solar thermal heating a fluid with large arrays of mirrors and using it to power a turbine takes six. Natural gas needs eight and petroleum needs 18. Wind farms require over 30 square miles.

This "sprawl" has been missing from our energy discussions. In my home state of Tennessee, we just celebrated the 75th Anniversary of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Yet there are serious proposals by energy developers to cover mountains all along the Appalachian chain, from Maine to Georgia, with 50-story wind turbines because the wind blows strongest across mountaintops.

Let's put this into perspective: We could line 300 miles of mountaintops from Chattanooga, Tenn., to Bristol, Va., with wind turbines and still produce only one-quarter the electricity we get from one reactor on one square mile at the Tennessee Valley Authority's Watts Bar Nuclear Plant.

The 1,000 square-mile solar project proposed by Mr. Salazar would generate, on a continuous basis, 35,000 megawatts of electricity. You could get the same output from 30 new nuclear reactors that would fit comfortably onto existing nuclear sites. And this doesn't count the thousands of miles of transmission lines that will be needed to carry the newly generated solar power to population centers.

There's one more consideration. Solar collectors must be washed down once a month or they collect too much dirt to be effective. They also need to be cooled by water. Where amid the desert and scrub land will we find all that water? No wonder the Wildlife Conservancy and other environmentalists are already opposing solar projects on Western lands.

Renewable energy is not a free lunch. It is an unprecedented assault on the American landscape. Before we find ourselves engulfed in energy sprawl, it's imperative we take a closer look at nuclear power.

WSJ

Power surge: Britain turns on undersea 'windmill'

World first: An artist's impression of the 122ft SeaGen turbine (AFP)

The world's first commercial-scale tidal power turbine has supplied the British grid with its first surge of tidal electricity, Marine Current Turbines (MCT) said overnight.

The tidal current turbine, known as SeaGen, briefly generated 150 kilowatts of power off the coast of Northern Ireland as part of testing ahead of full commercial operations in a few weeks, the company behind the project said.

SeaGen works like an underwater windmill, with the rotors driven by the power of the tidal currents rather than wind.

Strangford Lough, where the turbine has been rooted, has among the strongest tidal currents in UK and Irish waters.

"This is an important milestone for the company and indeed the development of the marine renewable energy sector as a whole," MCT's managing director Martin Wright.

Once fully operational, SeaGen will be able to generate up to 1.2 megawatts, which is enough carbon-free electricity to supply about 1,000 homes.

Tides are created by the moon and sun's gravitational pulls on the oceans, combined with the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation.

Lying in the North Atlantic, the British Isles have some of the strongest tidal currents in the world, together with some of the strongest and most reliable winds to drive offshore wind turbines.

The British Government is hoping to exploit these natural advantages to help it reach tough European Union renewable energy targets but planning and grid connection problems have frustrated the rapid growth of wind power so far.

MCT has plans for a 10.5-megawatt project off the coast of Anglesey, north Wales, which it expects to commission by 2012.

ABC News - Reuters

Global warming wars: water will become more precious than oil

It has been predicted that droughts from global warming will make water more precious than oil and regional wars will most likely be fought over water rights.

All life is dependent upon water. It is the single most vital resource on the planet today and it has been treated as an unlimited source for far too long. It is the reason why NASA has spent billions of dollars sending probes to Mars in search of an extraterrestrial water source, with an eye toward possible human colonization in the distant future. Water is connected to all aspects of human survival, including agriculture to grow our food, environmental impacts of climate change, wetland ecosystems, wildlife migration, human health, and the sustainability of our planet.

It is for this reason that water will become more valuable than oil in just a few decades and water scarcity will likely replace oil as the commodity future wars will be fought over. There are already areas of the United States, particularly California, that are experiencing record droughts and water shortages for crops and agriculture.

In 2005, Governor Christine Gregoire declared a state of emergency in Washington, which is famous for its rainy climate, due to a drought that resulted from a record low snow pack and depleted water in creeks and rivers.

Thomas Fingar, the U.S. intelligence community’s top analyst, sees droughts, food shortages, and water scarcity happening on a global level by the mid-2020s.

“U.S. intelligence agencies accepted the consensual scientific view of global warming” said Fingar, “including the conclusion that it is too late to avert significant disruption over the next two decades. The conclusions are in line with an intelligence assessment produced this summer that characterized global warming as a serious security threat for the coming years.”

Over the next few decades, it is anticipated that floods and droughts will set off mass migrations and political dissention in many parts of the developing world.

Significantly, the UK government’s chief scientist, Professor John Beddington, warned in a speech to the government’s Sustainable Development UK conference in Westminster, that by 2030, a “perfect storm” of food shortages, scarce water and insufficient energy resources threaten to unleash public unrest, cross-border conflicts and mass migration as people flee from violence and poverty stricken regions.

Water shortages are already evident in many areas of the world. The Yellow River in China and the Nile River in Egypt, no longer reach the ocean most of the year, as water is drawn off upstream for agriculture and consumption. Water shortages result in food shortages. Especially the staples: rice, grains, and corn.

Balance of article: Examiner.com

The Politics of Energy #21 - Schwarzenegger to veto renewable energy bills

ASSOCIATED PRESS

SACRAMENTO, California (AP) — Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Saturday that he would veto legislation requiring a third of California's energy to come from renewable sources by 2020, choosing instead to mandate the change through an executive order.

The Democratic bills that passed the state Legislature just before the end of the legislative session Friday would have set up the most aggressive renewable energy standards in the nation.

But they also sought to limit the amount of energy from sources such as wind, solar and geothermal that could come from out-of-state. Schwarzenegger and some energy producers said the legislation would set up too many regulatory hurdles.

"The poorly drafted, overly complex bills passed by the Legislature are protectionist schemes that will kill the solar industry in California and drive prices up like the failed energy deregulation of the late 1990s," Schwarzenegger's communications director, Matt David, said in a statement Saturday.

The governor's office didn't immediately explain how Schwarzenegger would implement the goals of the legislation through the executive order.

The Independent Energy Producers, which represents companies that provide 80 percent of California's renewable energy, opposed the legislation, despite having sought a higher standard.

Jan Smutny-Jones, the association's executive director, said some of the language in the bills would have limited the placement of solar plants in some areas of the state, threatening projects that are already underway and others that are expecting to get funding through the federal stimulus package.

Consumer advocates and environmental groups sought the limits on out-of-state power because they wanted the bulk of California's renewable energy to be generated within the state. They said it would help promote job growth.

The legislation would have allowed utilities to import renewable energy generated outside California as long as the power came from a plant that connects to California's electricity grid.

Utilities also could buy a limited number of credits from out-of-state producers of alternative energy as a way to promote the development of clean power, even though that power would not reach California markets.

Republicans said the restrictions could drive up energy costs.

Daily Record

Precious Water - Dean Kamen Perfects Slingshot

MANCHESTER, New Hampshire (CNN) -- If you listen to inventor Dean Kamen, the biggest health problem facing the world today is not AIDS, obesity or malnutrition. It's a shortage of water.

Water is the most abundant resource on the planet, yet less than one percent of the Earth's freshwater supply is readily available to drink, according to the World Health Organization. Lack of accessible or clean drinking water, exacerbated by drought, is crippling communities in many developing countries.

"In your lifetime, my lifetime, we will see water be a really scarce, valuable commodity," Kamen says.

Those are scary words from the man whose creations include the Segway personal motorized scooter and the Luke (as in Skywalker) prosthetic arm. But the forward-thinking inventor and his team at DEKA Research in Manchester, New Hampshire, aren't sitting around waiting for the world's wells to dry up.

They've been working on an invention they say can tap into 97 percent of the world's undrinkable water.

It's called the Slingshot, and it's a portable, low energy machine that is designed to purify water in remote villages where there's not a Wal-Mart in sight. The device takes its name from a well-known story.

"We believe the world needs a slingshot to take care of its Goliath of a problem in water," Kamen says. "So we decided to build a small machine and give it to the little Davids."

Perhaps you've heard about the Slingshot, which Kamen has been working on for more than 10 years. Over that time it has turned dirty river water, ocean water and even raw sewage into pure drinking water. Kamen says it can turn anything that looks wet, or has water in it, into the "stuff of life."

The magic behind the Slingshot is a "vapor compression distiller" that stands between what looks like two empty fish tanks connected by a couple of hoses. One tank contains the contaminated liquid, the other is for the newly clean water.

The Slingshot boils, distills and vaporizes the polluted source, in turn delivering nothing but clean water to the other side. And it does it all on less electricity than it takes to run a hair dryer.

In summer 2006, Kamen delivered two Slingshots to the small community of Lerida in Honduras. They were used for a month and Kamen says everything ran as planned.

"The machine worked very well down there, taking virtually any water that the people from that village brought to us," he says. "All the water that we got from the machine was absolutely pure water."

But there's a problem. Kamen says each Slingshot costs his company several hundred thousand dollars to build. He's looking to partner with companies and organizations to distribute Slingshots around the world, but says a little more engineering work needs to be done in order to lower the production costs.

Kamen says the company would like to get the price down to about $2,000 per machine.

"The biggest challenge right now between this being a dream and a reality is getting committed people that really care about the state of the world's health to get involved," Kamen says.

The world's population is quickly approaching 7 billion, making access to clean water that much more important. According to the World Health Organization and UNICEF, more than 3.5 million people die every year from water-related diseases and almost 900 million don't have access to a safe water supply.

Kamen says people in developing regions of the world need the Slingshot as soon as possible. He also thinks the problem with polluted water will spread beyond small villages.

He says one Slingshot machine can supply about 250 gallons of water a day, which is enough for 100 people. That's a lot of Davids.

"It is literally like turning lead into gold," he says. "But I believe it's more important, because you can't drink lead or gold."CNN

The Emerging Global LNG Market

Gorgon's Fate Takes Shape
LNG Supply Deals Move Chevron Closer to Gas-Field Decision

(Editor's Note:  With the development of huge natural gas finds such as Gorgon, an efficient world market for Liquified Natural Gas (LNG) will finally emerge, presenting an energy alternative to oil.)

By BEN CASSELMAN, PATRICK BARTA and ROSS KELLY

A huge project to tap natural-gas reserves in a remote corner of Australia promises to cement the nation's status as a major energy producer and underscore Asia's emergence as the key growth market for the oil-and-gas industry.

Chevron Corp. and its partners, Exxon Mobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell PLC, will announce within days that they have given final approval to the project after years of delays, people in the industry say. The project will produce gas from fields off the Australian coast, super-cool it to convert it to a liquid, and ship it to customers around the world.

The decision to go ahead with the project, known as Gorgon after the offshore field where the gas will be produced, highlights how energy companies are counting on rebounding demand from Asia to lift their fortunes as the recession has cooled the global thirst for oil and gas.

Even by the standards of Big Oil, Gorgon is huge. The project will tap into 40 trillion cubic feet of gas, the equivalent of 6.7 billion barrels of oil. The companies have declined to discuss the price of the project, but government and independent experts have estimated the total cost to bring the project into production could amount to more than $40 billion, making it one of the world's most expensive energy projects.

Gorgon is expected to deliver its first gas shipment in 2014, more than 30 years after the field was discovered.

The new supplies from Gorgon and other projects in Australia could lead to a fundamental shift in the way gas is priced throughout the world. As more natural gas travels by free-ranging ships rather than immovable pipelines, traditional regional price differences could begin to erode as big buyers such as China gain more power to negotiate prices by playing competing suppliers against each other.

"We're seeing the first stages of what will ultimately be a more global natural gas market," said Mark Gilman, an analyst with Benchmark Capital in New York.

Blanace f article: The Wall Street Journal

Google invests for cheaper solar power

(Editor's Note: If you want something done right, do it yourself.)

Google is disappointed with the lack of breakthrough investment ideas in the green technology sector but the company is working to develop its own new mirror technology that could reduce the cost of building solar thermal plants by a quarter or more.

"We've been looking at very unusual materials for the mirrors both for the reflective surface as well as the substrate that the mirror is mounted on," the company's green energy czar Bill Weihl told Reuters Global Climate and Alternative Energy Summit in San Francisco.

Google, known for its internet search engine, in late 2007 said it would invest in companies and do research of its own to produce affordable renewable energy within a few years.

The company's engineers have been focused on solar thermal technology, in which the sun's energy is used to heat up a substance that produces steam to turn a turbine. Mirrors focus the sun's rays on the heated substance.

Weihl said Google is looking to cut the cost of making heliostats, the fields of mirrors that have to track the sun, by at least a factor of two, "ideally a factor of three or four."

"Typically what we're seeing is US$2.50 to US$4 a watt (for) capital cost," Weihl said. "So a 250 megawatt installation would be US$600 million to a US$1 billion. It's a lot of money."

That works out to 12 to 18 cents a kilowatt hour.

Google hopes to have a viable technology to show internally in a couple of months, Weihl said. It will need to do accelerated testing to show the impact of decades of wear on the new mirrors in desert conditions.

"We're not there yet," he said. "I'm very hopeful we will have mirrors that are cheaper than what companies in the space are using. . ."

Another technology that Google is working on is gas turbines that would run on solar power rather than natural gas, an idea that has the potential of further cutting the cost of electricity, Weihl said.

"In two to three years we could be demonstrating a significant scale pilot system that would generate a lot of power and would be clearly mass manufacturable at a cost that would give us a levelized cost of electricity that would be in the 5 cents or sub 5 cents a kilowatt hour range," Weihl said.

Google is invested in two solar thermal companies, eSolar and BrightSolar but is not working with these companies in developing the cheaper mirrors or turbines.

In wide-ranging remarks, Weihl also said the United States needs to raise government-backed research significantly, particularly in the very initial stages to encourage breakthrough ideas in the sector.

The company has pushed ahead in addressing climate change issues as a philanthropic effort through its Google.org arm.

Weihl said there is a lack of companies that have ideas that would be considered breakthroughs in the green technology sector. After announcing its plans to create renewable energy at a price lower than power from coal, it has invested less than US$50 million in other companies.

Weihl said Google had not intended to invest much more in early years, but that there was little to buy.

"I would say it's reasonable to be a little bit discouraged there and from my point of view, it's not right to be seriously discouraged," he said. "There isn't enough investment going into the early stages of investment pipeline before the venture funds come into the play."

The US government needs to provide more funds to develop ideas at the laboratory stage, he said.

"I'd like to see US$20 billion or US$30 billion for 10 yrs (for the sector)," Weihl said. "That would be fabulous. It's pretty clear what we have seen isn't enough."

stuff.co.nz - Reuters

The Politics of Energy #20 - France's Sarkozy urges carbon tax

By GREG KELLER

AP Business Writer

PARIS -- French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tax carbon dioxide emissions by households and businesses, a measure aimed at helping France slash its output greenhouse gases over the coming decades - but viewed with skepticism by many.

In a highly anticipated speech on the subject, Sarkozy sought to convince his compatriots of the need for the carbon tax, which surveys show around two-thirds of the French oppose. France would be the largest economy to impose one so far.

Sarkozy said that faced with threats to the climate and the need to reduce its dependence on oil, "it is time for France to profoundly adapt its taxation system and create real ecological taxation."

The tax would be initially based on the market price for carbon dioxide emissions permits, which is now euro17 ($24.74) per ton of carbon dioxide, Sarkozy said. At that level, the government expects to raise euro3 billion, which will be entirely returned to households and businesses through a reduction in other taxes or repaid via a so-called "Green Check," Sarkozy said.

The result would be a shift of the tax burden from other revenue sources to energy derived from fossil fuels in an effort to discourage their use.

Gasoline, diesel fuel, coal and natual gas will be subject to the tax, but not electricity, Sarkozy said. France generates most of its electricity via nuclear power, which doesn't emit greenhouse gases.

The tax would add 4.5 euro cents to each liter of diesel, 4 cents to each liter of gasoline and 0.4 cents for each KWh of natural gas consumed, Sarkozy said. The tax is intended to rise gradually from this level, Sarkozy said.

The plan, dubbed a "carbon tax" by most observers despite the government's effort to brand it as a "climate-energy contribution," has stirred passionate debate in France, where surveys say most voters oppose the idea.

Balance of article: Miami Herald

Centercut Factoids - Per Capita Oil Usage By Country

The United States is 23rd in the world in per capita oil usage at 68.672 barrels per day per 1,000 people. The U.S. uses just under one fourth of all oil produced at approximately 20.5 million barrels per day.

The US uses roughly 25% of the world’s energy, but contributes 29% of total GDP – a very efficient GDP/Energy Ratio of 1:.86. China by contrast just passed the US as the biggest pollution emitter in the world, but contributes just 8.8% of total world GDP, a GDP/Energy ration of 1:5.6 – so clearly China has a far worse GDP/Energy ratio than the US, as one might expect in a newly industrialized country.

NationaMaster.com (2007)

We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us - Pogo

With world awash in crude, OPEC focuses on getting members not to sell more than their quotas

Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi, whose country is OPEC's top producer and most influential member, told reporters Tuesday that crude's current prices "is good for everybody: consumers and producers."

TAREK EL-TABLAWY, AP Business Writer
 
VIENNA (AP) — OPEC appeared poised to hold oil production quotas unchanged Wednesday, with its ministers voicing satisfaction with current global crude prices.

Instead, the focus at the organization's meeting in Vienna was to be on persuading members not to sell more oil than their quotas permit.

Kuwait's oil minister, Sheik Ahmed Al Abullah Al Sabah, said OPEC's markets monitoring committee would suggest to the 12-country group that oil output targets be held steady at the organization's meeting Wednesday in Vienna.

The recommendation offers further indication that ministers from the bloc — supplier of roughly 35 percent of the world's crude — are turning their aim toward encouraging member discipline. Compliance with the output limits, which are designed to support prices, has been waning.

The group's current production target is just under 25 million barrels per day, but output figures excluding Iraq indicate OPEC members are pumping around 26 million barrels per day, analysts say, adding that Angola, Iran and Venezuela have been particularly lax with their quotas.

Balance of article - Los Angeles Times

Grid Connectivity: Invest in Alternative Energy's Missing Link

By Bill Paul

In Great Britain, more than 60 gigawatts (GW) of power, a quarter of that from renewable sources, reportedly is waiting to be connected to the nation’s power grid. In California, electric utilities say they have little hope of meeting the state’s mandate of achieving 20% of their generation from green sources by 2010 largely because of delays in getting transmission lines licensed and built. Meanwhile in Brazil, work is underway on what will be the world’s longest power line, which is being built with high-voltage, direct-current (HVDC) technology because it is ideally suited for hooking up renewable energy sources located in remote regions of the country.

Notice a trend here?

The “missing link” in many a nation’s scheme to go green is grid connectivity. Globally, hundreds of thousands of miles of new power lines are going to have to be built over the next five or so years to hook up the tens of thousands of carbon-controlling solar, wind, geothermal, tidal and other green electricity generation projects that governments everywhere are mandating must be built. (If, as expected, there’s a global cap-and-trade exchange in a few years, the number of needed miles of new grid will be even greater.)

It’s actually easier to invest in the “grid connectivity” sub-sector of alternative energy than it is in more prominent sub-sectors like solar and wind. Solar investors must worry about some super-duper new technology being developed that makes their guy’s business model obsolete. They also must worry about price swings in solar’s basic commodity – silicon. Wind investors, meanwhile, if they are in the U.S., run into the difficulty of buying shares in firms that only trade abroad.

With grid connectivity, not only are there relatively few leaders, they also trade on North American exchanges.

Last week, EnergyTechStocks wrote that to make money in alternative energy, an investor may need a mini-portfolio of Japanese stocks (see To Make $$ in Alternative Energy, US Investors Might Want to Build Their Own Japanese Stock Portfolio) This week the advice here is to also think about building a mini-portfolio of “missing link” stocks from among the following giants in the power transmission business: ABB Ltd. (ABB); Siemens AG (SI); General Cable (BGC); Quanta Services (PWR); MasTec Inc. (MTZ), and Valmont Industries (VMI).

There’s also a personal favorite of EnergyTechStocks’ managing editor, not that he has any money invested in the firm. It’s Composite Technologies (CPTC.OB). This company has a patented aluminum composite power line core that can transmit more power than regular copper lines. Yes, it’s more expensive, but with not-in-my-backyard (NIMBY) still ever-present, it would seem likely that governments will place a premium on getting more out of existing transmission rights-of-way.

Seeking Alpha

Report: Lights out next year for many solar firms

Denver Business Journal - by Sacramento Business Journal

Massive inventory buildup and Chinese competition could put half of all U.S. solar manufacturers out of business next year, according to a market research firm.

The report from The Information Network said inventory is averaging 122 days in 2009 versus 71 days in 2008.

Further, it reports that production has dropped to 27.9 percent of potential capacity in 2009 from 48 percent in 2008.

“As many as 50 percent of the more than 200 solar manufacturers, mired in red ink with current selling prices above $2 per watt, may not survive,” the report said. Making matters worse, lower cost products from China are projected to drop to below $1 per watt in 2010 and 50 cents in 2011.

Denver Business Journal

The Politics of Energy #19 - Wind power: Obama's promises just hot air so far

Obama hasn't granted a single permit on public land

Chicago Tribune
By Jim Tankersley and Christi Parsons, Tribune Newspapers

WASHINGTON - -- President Barack Obama is still at least a year away from seeing wind turbines take root anywhere off the U.S. coast, even though his administration has promised to make offshore wind a priority, and even though developers are lining up to string wind farms up and down the Atlantic seaboard.

The administration, delayed by controversy and red tape, has made "clean energy" one of its top policy pushes but has yet to grant a single permit for wind or solar development on public land, onshore or off. Administration officials say the first solar permits won't come until at least next year, and that the first offshore wind farm is also likely a year or two away.

Officials say they've moved quickly to clear the "regulatory underbrush" untended by a Bush team that made little effort to develop wind and solar energy on public land, and that their efforts have sparked a "flurry of activity" among developers.

"We're cooking, and we're excited about it," said David Hayes, the deputy interior secretary. "We are going to see this commercial development occurring, both offshore and solar."

The project proposed for Nantucket Sound, where the president vacationed last month, is a case in point.

For more than eight years, investors on all sides -- some with interests in the new sources of energy, and others making money off the old ones -- have been fighting to either navigate or gum up the permit process of the proposed Cape Wind Project.

The project would provide the majority of the power on Cape Cod and nearby islands, designers say, harnessing wind offshore and transmitting it via cables under the sea back to land.

The windmills would be visible from the mainland as well as Martha's Vineyard on a clear day, an idea that warms the heart of people like Barbara Hill, a Cape resident and head of non-profit Clean Power Now.

"They'll be like masts on the horizon," she says. "It's this perfect relationship between technology and nature."

Critics fear the impact on the environment, boaters and on fishermen who make their living on the shoal where the turbines would be constructed. American Indian tribes on the sound, who call themselves "People of the First Light," say the mills would obstruct their view of the sunrise.

"It would interfere with the natural beauty, the essence of why people come here," says Audra Parker of rival non-profit Alliance to Protect Nantucket Sound. "They don't come for an industrial landscape. They come to get away from that."

Republicans are prodding the administration to move faster on every domestic energy front. They chided Obama on an offshore-wind-themed mock postcard they released before the president's Martha's Vineyard vacation. "Don't let this energy opportunity breeze by you!" they wrote.

jtankersley@tribune.com

Step Right Up. Free Money. Get It While It While It Lasts

The Emperor’s New Clothes

Editor's Note: What would you say to an investor willing to put up one-third of a new energy project's cost, gaining nothing in return? No dividends, no interest. No fuss, no muss.

I am referring to the government's $3 billion dollar cash grant renewable energy stimulus program to incentivizing private investment in the wind sector.

Investors are funding new projects in wind power and other alternative energy schemes because of direct public investments enacted in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), also known as the stimulus bill. A Department of Energy and Treasury-funded cash grant incentive program is funding up to one third of new projects, particularly wind farms, slated to begin construction in 2009 or 2010. According to the WSJ, just four weeks into the program $800 million in grants have already been submitted and Wall Street bankers predict that figure to reach $10 billion by the end of 2010. Free money has a way of conjuring new projects.

Any banker will tell you that funding a project with one-third "free" money removes a certain percentage of the risk and increases yield to investors. While this is an excellent result in the short term - projects get funded - in the long term it is also true that many of these projects will fail, or disappear after the grants dry up.

Usually marketplace risk takes care of private ventures - some win - some lose. By printing $3 billion in government issued debt and injecting it into the alternative energy industry we distort an efficient capital market. Investments will be made that would not be made if one hundred percent of investors' capital were at risk. You cannot create demand by printing money. What you create instead is inflation.

Why would someone produce alternative energy absent a clear market contract for delivery? Why would someone invest in a project whose product cannot be efficiently integrated into the national electrical grid? Why would someone invest in an intermittent energy source without a cost-effective way to store energy?

These are normal questions any investor asks before committing capital. Our federal government just gave investors three billion reasons to forego these questions. So the question becomes, "Why would anyone go into the wind power business?" The answer is, "Because I'll take the taxpayers' money until it is all gone."

Richard L. Wottrich

Growing Pains for Geothermal

By Toby Shute - MSN Money

For some time now, I've been quietly rooting for geothermal power. It's clean, it's cheap, and unlike solar or wind, it provides a base load of power that doesn't depend on the sun shining or the wind blowing.

Sure, I spend much more time writing about the twists and turns of the solar industry, but that's because there are so many more publicly traded solar businesses. Mining company legend Ross Beaty recently brought Magma Energy public, but it's listed in Canada. Beyond Ormat Technologies, Inc. (NYSE: ORA), the pickings this side of the border are quite slim.

In recent months, I've been extremely heartened by one geothermal report, and deeply disappointed by others. Let's start with the positive.

Rocking the alternative-energy world

A study, published in the journal Energy Policy, Elsevier, has found that geothermal is both the most efficient alternative-energy technology and is also improving at the fastest rate. Wind power places second, while solar does not fare nearly as well, despite receiving the most government funding among emerging technologies.

The authors, from NYU's Stern School of Business, used a technology S-curve model that should be familiar to anyone who's read the work of Motley Fool CAPS mentor Clayton Christensen. Picture flattish growth, followed by exponential growth, and then a flattening again -- hence the "S" shape. Geothermal and wind technologies are both in that steep middle phase, where they are making rapid efficiency gains, translating to a high return on R&D investment. Wind is further along that curve, while geothermal has shown no signs of slowing performance improvement. Solar is improving much more slowly.

With geothermal poised to surpass the efficiency of fossil fuels with just a few billion dollars' more support (the authors peg the cost at $3.3 billion), the policy implications of this study are that our government funding priorities are out of whack. Imagine that.

Wait one hot minute

This is exciting stuff, but for geothermal to take the world by storm, it has to move beyond the exploitation of natural reservoirs such as occur at Calpine's (NYSE: CPN) Geysers facility and move to Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) that can pull the heat out of hot dry rock. Unfortunately, such projects have seriously stumbled lately.

First there was Australia's Geodynamics, which had an explosion at its Habanero 3 well in April. Commissioning continues to be delayed at the company's pilot plant.

More recently, AltaRock Energy suspended drilling at the Geysers after failing to make it more than a third of its way to total depth. You may recall this as the company in which Google's (Nasdaq: GOOG) philanthropic arm took a monetary interest somewhat over a year ago. There are some heavy hitters on board from the venture capital community here, and even the government has dished out a little cash to this deep driller.

Anybody here know how to run one of these drills?

This is disappointing stuff, but drilling difficulties are hardly an insurmountable challenge. Look at Transocean (NYSE: RIG), which just drilled a record 35,055-foot well in more than 4,000 feet of water, uncorking a giant gusher for client BP (NYSE: BP) in the Gulf of Mexico. The geothermal industry, with a fraction of the government money thrown at fossil fuels over the years, will figure out how to drill through 12,000 feet of rock.

That road to commercialization of EGS would certainly be easier if the oil and gas industry would clue the geothermal folks in on the dark arts of deep drilling. The conspiratorially minded among us may conclude that the energy majors have no such interest in doing so, since they have a good thing going with fossil fuels. Even though Chevron (NYSE: CVX) is the biggest geothermal producer in the world, I certainly don't see the company doing a lot to push the EGS envelope.

I probably wouldn't expect too much from this group, given the clear preference by companies such as Royal Dutch Shell and ExxonMobil (NYSE: XOM) to stick to biofuels. But with or without a helping hand from the hydrocarbon camp, I do expect the geothermal business to grow by leaps and bounds in the years ahead. Whether you should risk your own capital in one of these enterprises is a question for another day.

Copyright 2009 Motley Fool

It's the Population

Editor's Note: According to the Population Reference Bureau, there are roughly 133 million births per year globally. Over 100 million of these babies are born in less developed countries. There are roughly 54 million deaths per year globally; hence the net gain of humanity is close to 80 million humans a year.

This means that every year a country the size of Germany is added to the mix, stressing world resources and competing for food, energy and a basic standard of living. The net gain in less developed countries is about 70 million humans. Can you imagine any scenario where these governments can possibly keep up with such growth?

The one missing feature in any discussion of sustainability, global warming, alternative energy, starvation, access to clean water, and land usage issues, is population control. Until we start to address the obvious, the 2 billion humans on earth who have next to nothing, will continue to have nothing - which apparently is fine as long as they are not in 'your' backyard.

Richard Wottrich

Spain's Solar-Power Collapse Dims Subsidy

(Editor’s Note: This editor has been consistent in questioning massive governmental subsidies to "manufacture" demand for alternative energy. Governments cannot "conjure" productivity. There is no point in building alternative energy facilities if there is not productivity-driven growth to absorb it.)

By ANGEL GONZALEZ and KEITH JOHNSON

Spain's hopes of becoming a world leader in solar power have collapsed since the Spanish government slammed the brakes on generous subsidies.

The sudden change has rippled across the global solar industry, in a warning of the problems that government-supported renewable-energy programs can encounter.

In 2008, Spain accounted for half the world's new solar-power installations in terms of wattage, thanks to government subsidies to promote clean energy. But late last year, as the global economic crisis worsened, the government dramatically scaled back those subsidies and capped the amount of subsidized solar power that could be installed.

Factories world-wide that had ramped up production of solar-power components found that demand for solar panels was plummeting, leaving a glut in supply and pushing prices down. Job cuts followed.

"The solar industry in 2009 has been undermined by [a] collapse in demand due to the decision by Spain," says Henning Wicht, a solar-power analyst at research group iSuppli.

Spain is providing important lessons for the U.S., where lawmakers are engaged in a debate about how to support renewable energy. Boosters of clean energy, including President Barack Obama, have pointed to Spain as a success story showing how government policies jump-started renewable energy, created new industries, and helped the environment.

Balance of article: The Wall Street Journal

The Politics of Energy #18 - There is a Green Wind Blowing

(Photo: Denmark, RLW)

By Richard L. Wottrich, Managing Director, International, Dresner Parters

There is a powerful wind emanating out of Washington, D.C. It foretells that much of President Obama's success will depend on the creation of new "green" jobs in alternative energy and conservation. President Obama has recently appointed Van Jones as a special adviser on green jobs to the White House Council on Environmental Quality. Jones has a background in activism, promoting green jobs to lift people out of poverty. Many of these green jobs are assumed to be coming in wind power. What are the prospects for wind power in America?

Relative Size of Wind Power Production
Wind power in the United States reached 29.4 MW of installed capacity in the second quarter of 2009. In 2008, the U.S. surpassed Germany in installed wind power capacity, followed by Spain. (The world leader in percentage of utilized wind power is Denmark at 19 percent of stationary electricity production.) Including projects installed through the end of 2008, wind power accounted for just 1.26 percent of U.S. electricity last year. Worldwide average wind power production contributes 1.5 percent. Wind power project installations are growing in excess of 25 percent per year in the U.S.

Coal still accounts for 50 percent of U.S. electricity production and natural gas accounts for 23 percent. All renewable energy sources combined account for just 2.5 percent of U.S. electricity production. The sheer scale of energy requirements in America ensure that these relative ratios will change very slowly for years to come.

Slow Project Funding
The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009, signed by the president on February 17, includes a budget of $32.8 billion for clean energy, $26.9 billion for energy efficiency initiatives, and $18.9 billion for green transportation. Of this $78.6 billion, little has been allocated to date. For example, in August, the U.S. Department of Energy chose 25 cost-sharing alternative-fuel projects to receive a total of $300 million from ARRA, amounting to .0038 percent of proposed funding. Then, the first hurdle is the slow drip, drip of federal funding for wind power projects. The second hurdle is the politics behind the selection process.

Global Stimulus Spending
ICICI Bank recently projected that total infrastructure stimulus spending committed by governments worldwide during this recession will top $35 trillion over the next ten years! This astounding amount puts in perspective funds that the U.S. government plans on spending on wind power projects, as many other nations, including China and India, will be approaching, matching or exceeding our spending. Hence, our relative advantage in direct federal subsidies is perhaps less than one might infer from the headlines.

Wind Power in China
With 20 percent of the world’s population, China now consumes 10 percent of the world’s energy. This would suggest that just to come up to the international average, China will need to double its energy consumption. Indeed, China is opening one coal fired power plant a week as this article comes to print.

China is the fourth largest producer of wind power in the world. The Chinese government is planning to have 150 gW of installed wind power capacity by 2020, of which 30 gW will come from offshore wind farms. Installed wind power capacity should reach 35 gW by the end of 2011, of which 5 gW will come from offshore wind farms, says China Daily (government-owned Xinhau News Agency). China had more than 12 gW in installed capacity as of the end of 2008. China plans to build seven of the world’s largest wind farms with a minimum capacity of 10 gW, each by 2020 in Inner Mongolia, Xinjiang, Gansu and Jiangsu provinces. China is on the move and it is moving faster than the U.S.

Global Wind Power Equipment Manufacturing
Many wind power components are manufactured in other countries. This capacity is increasing rapidly in China, which has natural pricing, financing and governmental advantages in comparison to U.S. companies. China has its own $675 billion stimulus spending program, which they are allocating at a faster pace than in the U.S. Furthermore, the government-controlled banking system has been loaning huge amounts to Chinese companies, with total loans nearly equaling its GDP through the second quarter of 2009.

However, recent U.S. political emphasis is leading a shift toward domestic wind power manufacturing. Many turbine manufacturing leaders have opened U.S. facilities; of the top 10 global manufacturers in 2007, Vestas, GE Energy, Gamesa, Suzlon, Siemens, Acciona, and Nordex have an American manufacturing presence.

Even so, at least 15 Chinese companies are commercially producing wind turbines and several dozen more are producing components. Leading Chinese wind power companies are Xinjiang Goldwind Co., Dalian Heavy Machinery, Zhejiang Yunda Co., Shenyang Industry University (Shenxin Co.), Dongfang Electric Group and Sinovel Wind Co. While wind power growth prospects in the U.S. are promising, it would be unwise to underestimate the impact of Chinese wind power component manufacturers on domestic U.S. manufacturers once Chinese domestic demand is satisfied.

Smart Grid Technologies
A smart electricity grid is simply an upgrade of existing power grids, which generally "broadcast" power from a few central power generators to a large number of users, utilizing digital technology to specifically route power when and where it is required within a wide range of conditions. American electrical grids are overloaded, antiquated and fragmented. Any attempt to integrate large volumes of solar and wind generated electricity into the national grid must address this issue.

Prospects for expansion in renewable energy depend heavily upon the development of smarter grids, because most renewable energy sources are intermittent in nature. Any power infrastructure using a significant portion of intermittent renewable energy resources must be able to reduce electrical demand by "load shedding" when alternative energy sources suddenly or gradually diminish. This also infers that traditional energy producers require “negative” pricing incentives (variable taxation rates) to decrease electrical production when alternative energy sources are flowing.

To integrate disparate energy sources into a smart grid, dependable coal and natural gas sources must be coordinated with intermittent solar and wind sources. In a perfectly elastic smart grid, electricity prices should be allowed to spike exactly when the desired alternative energy sources are not present. Consumers will then, in theory, decrease consumption. However, this means that prices are unpredictable and literally vary with the weather, from the smart grid’s perspective. This is a smart grid vision fraught with political danger, as politicians likely will not sit idly by as their constituents see wildly vacillating electric rates.

Energy Storage
The solution for wildly spiking electricity prices in a smart grid is energy storage. However, it is very expensive to store electricity. Any parent who has run through dozens of batteries for his children’s toys understands this.

Grid energy storage allows energy producers to route excess electricity production over the transmission grid to temporary electricity storage sites. These sites become energy producers when electricity demand increases.

Advances in energy storage are essential if alternative energy sources are to increase dramatically, as intermittent energy sources cannot store energy. Solar thermal, molten salt storage, compressed air storage, hydroelectric energy storage, ice storage, and liquid nitrogen are among scores of technologies in development in this field.

It is a fact that Japanese companies lead the way in energy storage technology, including Japan Wind Development Energy Co., Ltd. Japanese car battery leaders (which can be adapted to wind power storage solutions) include Motor Corp. (TM), Honda Motor Co. (HMC), Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY) and GS Yuasa Corp. (GYUAF).

U.S. manufacturers will have to form joint ventures, license technologies and accelerate research and development to achieve in-country green jobs in energy storage.

The Future of Wind Power
Globally, alternative energy sources account for a small percentage of our energy needs. However, government tax incentives and direct subsidies are influencing a shift of resources into these industries, creating the potential for accelerating year-on-year increases in alternative energy capacity, and the resultant falling electricity prices associated with greater scale.

In the U.S., massive federal spending will likely achieve the same results, but it would be unwise to assume that the same manufacturing advantages that have facilitated explosive growth in China, India and elsewhere will not apply to the wind power industry. As direct competition in wind power components gains traction and scale, U.S. manufacturers will have to be very nimble and adroit to survive.

Oil, coal and natural gas will continue to be the dominate energy sources globally, and in the U.S., for the balance of this century. An increase of alternative energy sources for electricity in the U.S. to 10 percent of usage would represent a huge shift in resources and create many jobs along the way. However, at this point in time, such a shift is years away, as are the myriad green jobs that we assume will be created in the process.

Making Money in Alternative Energy Means Thinking Japanese

Raymond Meier
At Gozanoishi Shrine on Lake Tazawa, in Japan's Akita Prefecture.

Colorado power utilityXcel Energy Inc. (XEL) is among the leading U.S. developers of “smart grid” technology, but when it needed a partner with know-how for operating a wind-to-battery storage system, it turned to Japan Wind Development Energy Co., Ltd. [TYO:2766].

Get used to it. As much as President Obama keeps warning that the U.S. must become an energy technology exporter, not importer, in nearly every alternative sector, Japanese companies stand out. So much so, in fact, that now may be the time for investors to start building a mini all-Japanese alternative energy portfolio.

To start with, there are the usual suspects – Toyota Motor Corp. (TM), Honda Motor Co. (HMC), and Nissan Motor Co. (NSANY). They are likely to be the three leaders, not just for all-electric and plug-in electric cars and trucks, but also – thanks to a lot of cozy technological cooperation coordinated by Japanese research labs – the manufacturing leaders of the advanced batteries that will go into electric vehicles. Another big time car-battery development firm worth including is GS Yuasa Corp. (GYUAF).

Another obvious candidate is Japan Steel Works Ltd. (JPSWF.PK). While not everyone thinks of nuclear power as green energy, it doesn’t gush carbon dioxide and more of it is definitely going to be needed if the world has any hope of meeting expected increases in the demand for electricity. Japan Steel Works happens to be the world’s leading manufacturer of the principal section of a nuclear reactor’s key component, its containment vessel.

Two other obvious candidates are Sharp Corp. (SHCAY) and Sanyo Electric Co. (SANYY). These well-known consumer products concerns are also heavily involved in solar power, energy efficiency and more.

While there are plenty more names to choose from, two that EnergyTechStocks.com finds interesting for their long-term potential are Meidensha Corp. [TYO:6508] and Takuma Co. Ltd. (TKUMF). Meidensha’s energy unit makes efficient power generation systems and components, while its environmental unit is engaged in waste and sewage treatment. Takuma makes, sells and operates power plants that run on biomass. It also is involved in the waste treatment business.

Seeking Alpha

Clunkers Don’t Come Cheap

The New York Times Editorial Board Agrees With Wottrich Article With ChinaView

(Editor's Note: Wottrich was interviewed by Xinhau News Agency on August 26th, 2009, regarding the U.S. Cash-for-Clunkers program. His critical conclusions are supported by today's NYT's editorial.)

The $3 billion cash-for-clunkers program that ended last week worked well as a jolt of economic stimulus. Nearly 700,000 people used the rebate to buy new cars in July and August — adding about 0.3 to 0.4 percentage points to economic growth in the third quarter, at an annual rate.

But there’s also another lesson in the cash-for-clunkers experience: such rebates are a spectacularly inefficient way to implement environmental policy. Sure, the new cars deliver about nine miles per gallon more than those traded in, on average. But the benefits — measured in terms of reduced greenhouse gas emissions — come at inordinate expense.

On average, cars are driven 12,000 miles per year, according to government statistics. Considering that the traded-in clunkers had an average fuel economy of 15.8 m.p.g. while the new ones deliver 24.9 m.p.g., a swap saved some 278 gallons of gas per year — which would have released almost 2.8 tons of carbon dioxide when burned.

Assuming the clunkers would have been driven four more years, the $4,200 average rebate removed 11.2 tons of carbon from the atmosphere, at a cost of some $375 per ton. If they would have been driven five years, the carbon savings cost $300 per ton. And if drivers drive their sleek new wheels more than they drove their old clunkers, the cost of removing carbon from the atmosphere will be even higher.

To put this in perspective, an allowance to emit a ton of CO2 costs about $20 on the European Climate Exchange. The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a ton of carbon would be valued at $28 under the cap-and-trade program in the clean energy bill passed by the House in June.

The program might have been more efficient with modifications, like a smaller rebate. But even if the new cars bought under the program had zero emissions, the price of removing the clunkers’ carbon dioxide from the atmosphere would have been nearly $140 per ton.

The best tool to induce Americans to drive more fuel-efficient cars would be a gas tax that provided rebates for low-income drivers. Another, though inferior, alternative — if Congress couldn’t face the political risks of a gas tax — would be a program that provided a rebate for drivers of clean cars while imposing a fee on drivers of gas hogs.

In any case, as environmental policy, it’s just too expensive to buy clunkers to take them off the road.

Will Solar Ever Live Up to the Hype? Paul Allen, Vinod Khosla Bet On Infinia’s Engines of the Sun

Sitton, the CEO of Kennewick, WA-based Infinia, showed me a device resembling a satellite dish that has attracted some deep-pocketed investors, including Paul Allen and Vinod Khosla. Their hope is that Infinia’s dishes will finally turn solar energy into a workhorse for meeting more of the world’s electricity demand. If Sitton and his backers are right, he’ll be running a multi-billion dollar company five years from now. If he’s wrong, Infinia will be written off as just another costly pipe dream.

Here’s how this is supposed to work. That satellite dish I mentioned earlier? It has a little motor attached to it that keeps it in the right position to capture as many direct rays of sun as possible during daylight hours. Like any dish, it uses mirrors to reflect something, in this case, sunlight, back up to a focal point. That’s where Infinia has the business end of its device.

It’s a Stirling engine, made to convert that concentrated heat from the sun into mechanical work. It’s like a steam engine, except it doesn’t need water—it powers its internal piston through the expansion and contraction of helium. The heat moves the piston, which generates electricity. These engines are thought to be attractive for this kind of work, partly because they are highly efficient at converting heat into electricity, and they don’t require water, or oil. They are supposed to be able to last 25 years with zero maintenance, Sitton says.

Balance of article: xeconomy