A Bloom is a Bloom is a Bloom...

"Pick a card, any card." Bloom Energy CEO K. R. Sridhar displays Bloom Energy Fuel Cells

Last week 60 Minutes featured Bloom Energy in a breathless rock star treatment of the company's CEO, K.R. Sridhar. As reporter Lesley Stahl fawned over Sridhar, he showed off a tiny square box composed of fuel cells supposdly capable of powering an Amercian home. Few other facts were evident or presented.

Just out of frame lurked John Doerr of Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers (KPCB), preening like a new father celebrating his first baby boy. KPCB has somewhere between $100 million and $400 million invested in Bloom Energy, depending upon who you listen to.

Too good to be true? Perhaps, but here are the real questions:

When will it be ready for prime time - the home market?
What will it cost?
How durable will it be?
Do you buy it or lease it?
Can you get off the grid, or sell energy to the grid?
If it's this good, then won't energy consumption spike up?

And last but not least, why are so many celebrities endorsing the Bloom Box? That's enough to scare Warren Buffett.

Richard Wottrich

Paint goes nanotech

An IIT Mumbai and Jadavpur University alumnus has made an eco-friendly, long lasting product.

By Ritwik Mukherjee, mydigitalfc.com

Arup Kumar Chatterjee has used nano technology to produce a new paint for your walls made, which he claims, is robust, long lasting and offers high resistance to impact and abrasion. It has high water repellency, is anti-fungal, bactericidal, UV protective and, above all, environment-friendly. Chatterjee is an alumnus of IIT Mumbai and Jadavpur University.

“While conventional paints and coatings are made of large molecules where water, dirt and other particles can leach into the gaps and erode the surface, the nano-engineered paints are densely packed with robust molecules that act as a penetrative and functional barrier,” Chatterjee, who is an M Tech said.

Nanotechnology is the chemical manipulation of functional paints and coatings at the molecular level to create highly resistant, longer lasting and environment friendly products. Chatterjee’s invention from the stable of his own company—I-CanNano (Innovation Center for Applied Nanotechnology) has been certified by the Paint Research Association as being 99.99 per cent bacteria free and an eco-friendly paint.

“This is low cost paint compared to any other available. And all these paints are now being manufactured at a new state-of-the-art plant at Baruipur, South 24 Parganas, West Bengal,” said Chatterjee.

Chatterjee’s clientele already includes Godrej & Boyce, Parryware Roca, Mahindra, Shapoorji & Pallonji and more. “Although everything at ICanNano is indigenously developed, we are working in close collaboration with Caneus Jet Propulsion Lab, USA, National Research Center, Canada, Neumann-UK and Bell Helicopters,” said Chatterjee.

“We are quite happy and satisfied with these nano-engineered product,” says B J Wadia, president of Godrej & Boyce. “We had always been looking at hit conductivity in paints and there is no denying the fact that hit conductivity has improved significantly through this new-found technology.”

He is not the only one. Head of contracts at Shapoorji & Pallonji N D Tarapore said, “The whole world is going green, or atleast aspiring and trying to go green. We have been able to move in this direction with the help of these research-based nano technology engineered paints & coatings and composites. The quality and durability have also gone up substantially.”

At the company, former president and scientist APJ Abdul Kalam wrote in the comment book: “This is affordable nanotechnology for common man”.

The claims of the company appear to have been validated by Paint Research Association, UK. The recent PRA study shows that ICanNano’s paints are not only anti-fungal but also anti-bacterial and UV stabilised.

Chatterjee’s company wants to commercially take this technology to the common man. I-CanNano is driving industrial nanotechnology scenario across various industries in construction, automotive, biotech, renewable energy and filters. Paints and coatings is one of the first areas chosen for commercialisation, where nanotechnology impact is early.

In industrial segment, his product portfolio includes heat conducting paints, high electrically insulating paints that withstand 5,000V, high anti-corrosive paints, pollutant adsorbant paint, high impact and scratch resistant paints, high temperature resistant paints and clear coat paints.

“Besides, we have already started working towards commercialisation of composites. I-CanNano is envisaging development of world’s largest carbon nano-fiber manufacturing facility in India catering to not only light weight/high strength composites for aerospace, wind blade, automotive structures but also for high abrasion resistant rubbers, conducting inks, and electrodes,” Chattrejee said.

I-CanNano already has one US patent on fuel cell electrode and one Indian patent on super-capacitor electrode to its credit. It has research interest in hydrogen storage and fuel cell development.

The centre has also developed process technology for industrial scale manufacturing of nano-materials that are tunable in size and structure, scalable and pure in terms of quality.

Said Chatterjee, also a visiting scientist at IIT Mumbai and a governing body member of Calcutta University: “We have not restricted its activity in the field of nano-materials but also graduated to development of applications in various areas of paints and coatings, composites, filters, catalysts, electrodes and drug delivery. This development of nano-products is due to graduation from first generation to third generation nanotechnology.”

In nanotechnology, entry barrier is high and once a product gets developed dissemination is fast. ICanNano does not envisage any entry barriers where products are technologically and commercially competitive, yet affordable. Currently, I-CanNano has its foothold in USA, UK, Africa and UAE and is planning to expand further.

Proposal to Link the Nation's Grid Sparks a Debate

By PETER BEHR of ClimateWire


The Tres Amigas transmission project in New Mexico, which seeks to link the nation's three power grids to share wind power across the United States, has attracted both eager allies and some determined foes.

Scandia Wind Southwest LLC, a venture led by Norwegian wind power developers, has proposed to build an initial 2,250 megawatts of wind power in the Texas Panhandle, with a potential capacity of 10,000 MW. That amount of power, the equivalent of 10 large nuclear power plants, could move into the Eastern and Western grid interconnections, and to Texas' independent grid, over the Tres Amigas transmission linkage.

The Tres Amigas project would operate three power switching hubs connected by several miles of superconducting direct-current lines, on a 22.5-square-mile section near Clovis, N.M., adjoining Texas and Oklahoma. The hubs would direct power flows in and out of the three regions, whose electrical systems are not synchronized, creating bridges for electric power to flow across the entire country, wherever transmission capacity permitted.

Tres Amigas has strong support from New Mexico's Democratic Governor, Bill Richardson. The American Wind Energy Association and the Solar Energy Industries Association support the concept of uniting the three non-synchronized grids. Landowners in the Panhandle area -- such as Crosby County Wind Farm LLC, a Dallas-based company with 100 landowners and 30,000 available acres -- are behind the project. A subsidiary of ITC Holdings, the Michigan-based independent transmission company, is interested in building lines to the Tres Amigas project.

No one, perhaps, is more enthusiastic than Harald Dirdal, a partner with Havgul Clean Energy, a Norwegian company that is developing several thousand megawatts of onshore and offshore wind power projects in its country. Dirdal said that he and his partners were prospecting for wind power opportunities in the United States when they learned last year about the Tres Amigas venture, led by Phillip Harris, former head of the PJM Interconnection, the grid operator in much of the mid-Atlantic and Great Lakes regions.

"We thought if we could do a big development in the Texas Panhandle, a really big development, we could interconnect into the three national grids ourselves," Dirdal said. "We had no clue about Tres Amigas' existence whatsoever. So literally I was jumping up and down in Oslo when I heard about, for about half an hour, in pure joy."

But lined up against Tres Amigas are units of Occidental Petroleum, the fourth-largest U.S. oil and gas company, whose sales totaled $24 billion in 2008 and $15 billion last year. Through its subsidiaries, Occidental is a major purchaser of power for its chemicals, hydrocarbon and manufacturing businesses, and a marketer of electricity, as well.

A transmission 'game changer' collides with 1930s law

As Harris has said, Tres Amigas is a "game changer," a facility that could move large amounts of power in any direction among the three grids, with potentially big impacts on prices and profits that existing generators now receive, as well as consumers' electricity costs. Tres Amigas' financial plan depends on selling its transmission access to generators and power marketers who would take advantage of the connection to buy cheaper power in one of the grids and sell it in another when prices are higher. That makes it a competitive outsider in parts of the established markets.

Occidental is the most vocal opponent of Tres Amigas' requests for two rulings from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that it says are essential. The project is seeking FERC approval to charge negotiated transmission rates for access to its network.

And it asks FERC to disclaim jurisdiction over any Texas transmission line owners that connect with Tres Amigas, a crucial procedural step that would maintain the independence of the Electric Reliability Council of Texas, which runs the grid in three-quarters of the state. Texas created its own grid in the New Deal to keep from being regulated by Washington's new Federal Power Commission, FERC's predecessor.

Occidental has filed several 50-page-plus broadsides with FERC against the Tres Amigas plan, and has brought forward an expert witness to challenge Harris' technical arguments on why his project's engineering design would keep Texas' electrons from "intermingling" with outside grids. Keeping the electrons separate means that the Texas system would not be linked to its neighbors as a policy matter, keeping it clear of FERC's jurisdiction over interstate wholesale electricity markets, Harris argues.

Harris stated that intermingling does not occur because the alternating-current energy flowing into the Tres Amigas "superstation" would be converted to direct current at each of the project's three hubs linked with the three grids. "Nothing is mixed," Harris said.

Occidental's expert, Songhoon Yang, with the consulting firm Bates White LLC in Washington, D.C., argued in a FERC filing that it is obvious that electric power will be moving among the grids through the Tres Amigas facility, so Harris' argument that the project's engineering interrupts the flow is not valid.

FERC has not ruled yet on either of the Tres Amigas petitions. Several of the parties that have commented in the commission's two dockets, ER10-396 and EL10-22, are urging the commission to take its time, because of the project's uniqueness and the difficulty of assessing its impact.

The Electric Power Supply Association, representing merchant power producers, said it took no position on the fate of the Tres Amigas project but urged FERC to move with care.

Is Texas wind power being undermined or efficiently shared?

The Public Utility Commission of Texas noted that it is in the midst of ruling on new transmission projects that would connect 18 gigawatts of wind power to the state's urban areas -- the result of lengthy renewable energy planning. It wants to see a stronger legal case made at FERC to ensure that it stays independent. Texas Industrial Energy Consumers, another Tres Amigas opponent, says the massive transmission investment Texas is planning to bring its wind resources to market could be undermined by Tres Amigas.

The American Public Power Association said that while it appreciates Tres Amigas' "bold vision," FERC needs to conduct its own analysis of the project's impact on electricity prices. "It should not simply rely on Tres Amigas's assertions that it 'cannot cause prices to rise above competitive levels' because power buyers would go elsewhere," the association said.

Three Occidental companies and Texas Industrial Energy Consumers have asked FERC to order discovery and hold a "contested evidentiary hearing" on the Tres Amigas project -- a lengthy process that advantages the side with the deepest pockets, attorneys note.

However FERC rules on Tres Amigas' two requests, the project may still face hurdles unless new policies are forthcoming from Congress or FERC to support the siting and financing of transmission projects for renewable power, energy experts say.

Dirdal, who has spent much of the past year traveling to potential wind power sites in the United States, has been in that field since 1995 but said he is still learning about U.S. energy politics.

He argued that linking the grids would permit the greatest possible sharing of wind power originating in different time zones and different climate regions, substantially smoothing out the effects of wind's variability and intermittency. The result would be a stronger wind energy network less in need of expensive backup generation, he said. But the venture does challenge the existing order on the grid, and that is evidently a force to be reckoned with, he said.

Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved.

For more news on energy and the environment, visit http://www.climatewire.net/

Wind energy job growth isn't blowing anyone away

Wind farm near Palm Springs. (Mark Boster / Los Angeles Times / January 29, 2007)

Despite record growth in generating capacity, the industry is creating few employment opportunities overall.


By Jim Tankersley
jtankersley@latimes.com
Copyright © 2010, The Los Angeles Times

America's wind energy industry enjoyed a banner year in 2009, thanks largely to tax credits and other incentives packed into the $787-billion economic stimulus bill.

But even though a record 10,000 megawatts of new generating capacity came on line, few jobs were created overall and wind power manufacturing employment, in particular, fell -- a setback for President Obama's pledge to create millions of green jobs.

Obama has long pitched green jobs, especially in the energy, transportation and manufacturing fields, as a prescription for long-term, stable employment and a prosperous middle class.

But those jobs have been slow to materialize, especially skilled, good-paying, blue-collar jobs such as assembling wind turbines, retrofitting homes to use less energy and working on solar panels in the desert.

On the campaign trail, Obama promised to create some 5 million green jobs over a decade. The stimulus bill approved last year allocated billions of dollars to the clean-energy sector. And the president continued to set high expectations for green-job creation in last week's State of the Union speech.

Administration officials admit that they are nowhere near that pace. Last month, government economists released their first tally of clean-energy jobs created or saved by the stimulus: 52,000.

Several factors accounted for the slow start, some of them linked to weakness in the overall economy. Electric power demand fell nationwide last year. Electricity from coal and natural gas is still by and large cheaper than wind or solar power. Renewable energy companies, faced with limited demand, often used parts and equipment in stock or imported renewable technology instead of building turbines or solar cells domestically.

Industry analysts and energy company executives said job growth is also hampered by lingering uncertainties in federal energy policy. Those include questions about when or whether existing tax breaks will expire and whether the Senate will pass a climate bill that would make fossil fuels more expensive -- and renewable energy more competitive.

The federal stimulus bill spared the wind and solar industries steep job losses last year, executives said.

In the wind industry, the bill saved about 40,000 factory, installation and maintenance jobs, according to the American Wind Energy Assn. The industry had gained as many as 2,000 installation and maintenance jobs in producing the record megawatts of new capacity, but wind power manufacturing lost just as many jobs, the trade group said.

Clean-energy leaders and many outside analysts added that green companies won't begin hiring in large numbers until the federal government mandates renewable power consumption nationwide and dramatically upgrades the nation's electric grid.

Wind turbine manufacturers "need more certainty" to add shifts and factories in the United States, said Elizabeth Salerno, director of data and analysis for the wind industry trade group.

"Demand is the trigger," she said. "But it has to be long-term, stable demand."

Obama's advisors said the biggest clean-energy benefits of the stimulus are still to come, and that they have planted the seeds for a green-job proliferation by financing worker training and leveraging tens of billions of dollars in private investment in green technology. The Energy Department projects that U.S. renewable power generation will grow four times faster from 2008 to 2012 than it would have without the stimulus.

"A lot more has to be done if we're going to realize the president's vision for a truly transformative clean-energy economy," said Jared Bernstein, Vice President Joe Biden's chief economist. "Our administration will pick up where [the stimulus] leaves off and finish the job. The president is completely committed to that."

Others said the administration's efforts, including stimulus grants and tax credits that fund some applicants but not others, may have pushed clean-energy investment dollars overseas, particularly to China. Since 2008, China has approved more solar-power capacity than the United States has installed in its history.

"The inconvenient truth for America's economic recovery is that China's Communist Party has cultivated a more favorable, predictable and hospitable market for private investments in clean-energy technology and energy infrastructure than the federal government of the United States," said Alexander "Andy" Karsner, a fellow at the Council on Competitiveness.

Energy Department officials said that instead of focusing on one or two technologies, they have funded a "portfolio of technologies" that will battle for a share of a growing domestic and global market.

"We are not in the business of picking winners," said Matt Rogers, a senior advisor at the Energy Department who oversees stimulus spending. "We're creating competition among innovative approaches in the marketplace."

Global clean-energy competition worries many of the staunchest champions of green jobs in Washington, including Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chaired a hearing on solar jobs in the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee last week.

Among the executives testifying was Robert Rogan, senior vice president for ESolar Inc. in Pasadena. Rogan's young company secured contracts last year for 3,500 megawatts of solar power. One of its projects is set for California; another, in New Mexico, will create hundreds of construction jobs this year.

But the bulk of ESolar's power installations will come in China, which also provides some components of its solar plants.

In an interview, Rogan credited the stimulus for helping clean-energy companies through a "very bad" year in the American private finance market.

He insisted U.S. solar companies are poised for "explosive" growth, but that to maximize it, they need longer-term incentives and better transmission lines to link solar hot spots, such as the Southwest, and demand centers, such as the East Coast.

Oil Bigs to Obama: Get Real - That's Just the Way Davos Rolls

Aramco Oil Production Command Center

Adam Lashinsky, Senior Editor at Large

The CEO of Saudi Aramco, the national oil company of Saudi Arabia, lashed out at the Obama administration Thursday, lamenting the oversupply of “rhetoric” from major oil-consuming nations regarding energy independence. Without naming the U.S. president directly, Khalid Al Falih couldn’t have been clearer who he was referring to. He called pervasive talk from nations that want to wean themselves from an addiction to foreign oil, a common trope in U.S. environmental circles, “unachievable and misleading to the public.”

Al Falih anchored an extraordinary collection of representatives of major oil producers at a morning session at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Chaired by consultant and prizewinning author Daniel Yergin, the panel provided a heavy dose of reality into a debate often dominated in Western media and policy circles by a hopeful yearning for alternative energy.

Some highlights:

Tony Hayward, group chief executive of BP (BP), said that though the recession certainly had crimped energy demand in developed countries, BP is forecasting a 40% increase in energy consumption among non-OECD nations over the next 20 years. Furthermore, for all the development initiatives in alternative energy, oil and gas will remain predominant. “Even in the most aggressive climate change legislation perceived, hydrocarbons will represent 80% of energy consumption over next 20 years,” Hayward said. He also said that while gasoline demand is now in “structural decline” in Europe and won’t again exceed 2007 levels, that decline will be more than offset by increased demand in China alone.

Peter Voser, CEO of Royal Dutch Shell, also offered his view of energy “realism.” Change in the energy industry, he said, doesn’t work like an on-off switch. “It takes 25 to 30 years to gain 1% of global market share from the moment we start investing in a major project,” he said.

Ilham Aliyev, president of major oil and gas producer Azerbaijan, said 85% of the country’s GDP is now industrial – as opposed to energy — up from zero when Azerbaijan became independent of the Soviet Union. He didn’t say it, but his country’s achievement is in marked contrast to Russia, which remains heavily reliant on oil revenues.

The sole representative of energy consumers was Andrew Liveris, chairman and CEO of Dow Chemical (DOW), which bills itself as the largest energy customer in the U.S. He said Dow’s energy costs jumped from $8 billion to $32 billion when the price of oil spiked. Interestingly, Liveris flagged the impact of oil-price volatility on his business. Normal hedging, he said, becomes impossible in such a climate, which in terms crimps investment given the uncertainty produced by an inability to hedge. Liveris said he supports neither a carbon tax, which merely would be passed on to consumers, nor cap and trade, which would reward speculators. He said he supports carbon pricing that changes behavior, but he didn’t supply his preferred method.

BP’s Hayward also gave an update on his company’s efforts in Iraq, where it is in the process of redeveloping an oil field BP discovered in 1953. The field is producing 1 million barrels of oil per day now, he said. BP intends for its investments in the field to boost production to 3 million barrels by 2020. Overall, Hayward predicted Iraq will be producing 10 million barrels a day in 10 years. That would be a five-fold increase and a gigantic accomplishment.

The star of the show by far was Aramco’s Al Falih. He believes the “peak oil” debate is dead, though it caused damage in the form of price increases and volatility. He said Saudi Arabia has 4 million barrels per day of idle oil capacity at the moment and that the country continued to invest in its fields through the recession, adding 2 million barrels of capacity last year despite the global decline in demand. His beef is that though Saudi Arabia continues to invest in production, “we don’t see reciprocal assurances from customers, by which I mean policymakers, to signal to us a long-term commitment.”

There was no discord on this panel of the global oil elite. With no time for Q&A, if anyone sympathetic to the Obama administration’s energy policy was in the room, they had no opportunity for rebuttal.

CNN

Our Ultimate Sustainability: More funds required to protect Earth against killer asteroids

(Painting: Don Davis)

New York, January 23 -- NASA will not be able to detect the potentially devastating near Earth objects (NEOs) by 2020, concluded a report released Friday.

Explaining the reason, the report titled ‘Defending Planet Earth: Near-Earth Object Surveys and Hazard Mitigation Strategies’ stated that the government has not provided enough money to carry out the searches to track asteroids or comets.

In 2005, the government had ordered a survey to track nearly 90 percent NEOs, about 140 meters in diameters.

Unfortunately NASA will not be able to complete the survey as searches, though mandated, have not been funded by the Congress.

Focus on large asteroids

The Earth has always been subject to threats from comets and asteroids, and these cosmic collisions have played a major role in the mass extinctions.

Scientists have over the years focused on large asteroids but the impact by these asteroids or comets is very rare. The last worst impact was 65 million years ago when an asteroid, around 10 kilometers in diameter, hit the Yucatan peninsula on the east coast of Mexico, leading to extinction of the dinosaurs.

Russians scientists had last month confirmed that an asteroid named Apophis is heading towards Earth and it could hit the planet in 2030s, leading to catastrophic disaster.

Having more than 20 years of warning about the potential impact, the Russian scientists are not sitting idle. In fact, they have already started making plans like to avert the menace.

More threat from small objects

But the report states that space rocks as large as that head towards Earth on very rare occassions, it is the smaller asteroids that pose more threat. The scientists at the National Research Council argued that currently the nation spends $4 million a year to search for NEOs but this amount is insufficient.

There are more than 2 million space objects that have a near-Earth orbit. Though it is normal for such objects to pass to pass Earth within the distance of a moon about once a week, asteroids could prove devastating if they strike the planet.

An object of about 50 to 75 meters in radius could lead to destruction equal to devastation created by nuclear explosion. In order to avoid the wreckage, it is imperative for the government to fund the survey so that NASA can launch space probes to the orbit of Venus to track the threats posed by Earth’s neighborhood.

As this could prove expensive, the cheaper option is that government should fund telescope so that the scientists can detect the 90 percent of asteroids by 2030.

Since a lot of planning is required to launch spacecraft to divert the path of an asteroid heading towards Earth, the nations should focus on organized evacuations and other civil defense efforts to deal with small asteroids, states report.

The Money Times

Electric Vehicles in the Caribbean

(Photo: RLW)

GEM eS Electric

Collectivity of Saint Barthélemy, Caribbean

Wal-Mart completes a megawatt solar project in Apple Valley

Wal-Mart Stores Inc. keeps moving ahead with its plan to shift its power supply to renewable energy with the completion of its largest solar-power project yet.

Earlier this month, Wal-Mart completed three other solar projects in Paramount, Baldwin Park and San Bernardino.

This time, the mega-corporation has wrapped up the installation of more than 5,300 solar panels across nearly 7 acres at its Apple Valley distribution center. The setup will generate 1 megawatt of power, the equivalent of the supply needed by 175 homes.

The company’s solar initiative was first announced in May 2007 and expanded in April 2009 to aim for 10 to 20 solar facilities in California over 18 months. A month later, in May, a San Bernardino Superior Court judge blocked the discount retailer’s plan for a Yucca Valley supercenter, in part because Wal-Mart’s proposal did not include solar-power provisions.

Tiffany Hsu, Los Angeles Times

Photo: The entire Apple Valley solar array. Credit: Wal-Mart

Twisted Physics: Scientists Create Knots of Light

Like your shoelaces or electrical cords, light can get twisted into knots. Now, scientists have used a computer-controlled hologram and theoretical physics to turn a light beam into pretzel-like shapes.

Like your shoelaces or electrical cords, light can get twisted into knots. Now, scientists have used a computer-controlled hologram and theoretical physics to turn a light beam into pretzel-like shapes.

The twisted feat not only led to some pretty cool images, but the results have implications for future laser devices, the researchers say.

"In a light beam, the flow of light through space is similar to water flowing in a river," said lead researcher Mark Dennis of the University of Bristol in England. Even though the light from something like a laser pointer travels in a straight line, it can also flow in whirls and eddies, Dennis explained.

These swirls of light are called optical vortices. Along the vortices the intensity of light reaches zero, or no light. "The light all around us is filled with these dark lines, even though we can't see them," Dennis said. "Our work actually twists dark filaments within the light beam into knots."

The researchers knew these optical vortices could be created with holograms, which direct the flow of light. By using so-called fibered knot theory, a branch of abstract mathematics inspired by everyday knots, Dennis and his colleagues created customized holograms and reflected a regular laser beam from them.

"The hologram acts like a filter for incoming light, similar to the stained glass window in a church," Dennis told LiveScience. "After going through a stained glass window, the light has taken on the pattern of colors of the window." But there's a difference: "Whilst the stained glass window manipulates color, the hologram manipulates the phase of the light wave."

So each point on the hologram, like a small pane of window glass, changes the point of the wave's cycle in that part of the light beam. They created a hologram that would change the phase of light so that it flowed around a dark knot.

Then, the team scanned a camera through the laser field to get images of the knots. (A computer program applied before the team had created the hologram essentially made the field around the dark knot appear bright.)

Their results, detailed online Jan. 17 in the journal Nature Physics, are "firsts" for a couple of reasons. While so-called knot theorists have studied mathematical equations similar to dark knots, the new research created these knots with math functions that followed rules of propagating light. In addition, unlike other dark knots created that have been tangled up with other knots, Dennis and his colleagues produced isolated dark knots within the light beam, he said.

"For me, it shows how physicists can adapt existing pure mathematics, such as knot theory, and find it manifest in physical phenomena," Dennis said. "It also shows how finely we can control the flow and propagation of laser light using holograms. This degree of control is likely to find applications in future laser devices."

For those wanting to make their own knots, Dennis said all you would need is their hologram and a laser beam.

Copyright © 2010 LiveScience.com. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Geothermal Industry Struts Its Stuff for Wall Street, Capitol Hill

By NATHANIAL GRONEWOLD of Greenwire

NEW YORK -- The geothermal power industry is maneuvering to escape the shadows of the wind, solar and biofuels sectors and get financiers and lawmakers to take notice.

But high up-front project costs and the impatience of investors keeps getting in the way, leaving industry with its hopes pinned on government grants and tax incentives.

Hoping to change its luck, the Geothermal Energy Association (GEA) held its largest gathering ever yesterday, drawing financiers, politicians and project developers to a posh hotel in Lower Manhattan. The gathering featured a lunchtime keynote speech by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.). GEA representatives capped the day by ringing the closing bell at NASDAQ.

The goal: "to let Wall Street know about the fundamentals of geothermal energy, which has ... been around for more than 100 years," said Arni Magnusson, executive director of sustainable energy at Islandsbanki, a major geothermal player in Iceland.

Iceland is famous for using geological forces below ground for power. About 30 percent of Iceland's electricity needs are met with geothermal plants, the rest with hydropower, and nearly every Icelandic home is heated with a geothermal system. Iceland is also a major exporter of geothermal technology, explaining Islandsbanki's interest in expanding the market.

Far less known is that the United States is already far and away the world's largest home for geothermal. Of the roughly 10,000 megawatts of global geothermal capacity, about a third is in the United States, about 3,153 MW, according to GEA. Almost all of that is in California, with Nevada and Utah catching up.

"Nevada already has about 450 megawatts of conventional geothermal power in production," Reid told the gathering yesterday. "In the next three to five years, with the right mix of incentives and policy, my state alone could add 64 new projects that would bring that number up to nearly 2,500 MW."

Magnusson estimates that U.S.-installed capacity could easily double in the next five years as more projects come on line. But sustaining the momentum will require about $26 billion in fresh capital, money that geothermal developers have to compete with the wind and solar power industries to get.

GEA executive director Karl Gawell said Western states have the best potential for conventional geothermal power, which directly taps existing underground steam vents to spin turbines. A more unconventional and controversial technology proposes injecting water into super heated rock underground to generate the steam artificially.

Overall, advocates say, geothermal technology is proven and has distinct advantages over wind and solar. Geothermal power is a steady and reliable baseload, which electric utilities appreciate. And geothermal plants use less land than wind farms or solar arrays.

But Gawell admits major Wall Street investment banks shy away from geothermal because it takes years to see a return on investments. A Nevada project that came online last year took five years to complete, compared with a lead time of little more than a year for a standard wind farm.

"They're realizing that geothermal can be a good investment," Gawell said. "You've just got to stay in there a little bit longer."

The geothermal industry has also gotten a late start at building lobbying power in Washington. Its support on Capitol Hill does not approach that given to the ethanol industry or other renewable energy technologies.

"They built a reputation up over decades, but I think that we're getting there," said Gawell in an interview. "We're starting to get moving, and maybe in a number of years we'll catch up. But at least you're seeing that positive growth and excitement."

The industry is especially excited about the $400 million in the federal stimulus law devoted to research into new geothermal technology. But a lack of certainty about what kind of heat resource can be found thousands of feet beneath the surface makes geothermal-well drilling riskier than oil and gas exploration. One in five wells turn out to be dry holes, so enhancing developers' ability to read the underground potential is critical to enticing new investments.

Still, the industry seems to be expanding by leaps and bounds, and fast growth rates alone could be enough to draw in new capital.

Between 140 and 150 new U.S. projects are on the horizon, and 200 new megawatts of capacity came online last year. GEA estimates its industry is growing by about 15 percent annually.

Geothermal players are excited by predictions that capacity will shoot up to 10,000 MW in the United States as the nation's energy needs grows.

By 2012, "we think the strategic landscape starts to change quickly," said Paul Leggett, a vice president of investment banking at Morgan Stanley. "We do think the geothermal industry is ready for a takeoff."

Copyright 2010 E&E Publishing. All Rights Reserved. For more news on energy and the environment, visit http://www.greenwire.com/

Solar energy: Russia sees huge potential for joint ventures

Aerial view of the solar panels in Chennai. Russia keen to assist Indian firms to construct solar power stations. They are also planning to enter into series of MoUs with Indian partners. File Photo: S. Thanthoni

Russia keen to assist Indian firms to construct solar power stations. They are also planning to enter into series of MoUs (1) with Indian partners

Lauding the major renewable energy initiative of Jawaharlal Nehru Solar Mission, Russia on Tuesday expressed strong confidence that both New Delhi and Moscow had great potential for forging joint ventures and setting up manufacturing facilities for application of solar energy in the fields of industrial, military, civil and space sectors.

“In our opinion, India has adopted a very right approach in renewable energy. This is a very interesting and really ambitious programme and if implemented fully would put India among the world leaders in application of solar energy and its components,” said Sergey V. Seredin, First Deputy Director General (Economics and Finance) Open Joint Stock Company, Research, Production Enterprise ‘Kavant’ told The Hindu during this visit to New Delhi to take part in the conference on Solar Energy Mission.

Mr. Seredin said the Russian side was very much interested to participate in the solar mission programme and was ready to assist India and Indian companies to construct solar power stations on a turnkey basis as they had advanced technological knowhow in this field.

“We are open to forging joint ventures and also set up manufacturing facilities in India and Russia for solar energy components for industrial and other use, including supply of solar cells, modules or other such applications. We see huge prospects for joint ventures with India,” he added.

Mr. Seredin, accompanied by his associate, Sergey Dyachev, who is also part of the Russian delegation, said the company was planning to enter into a series of memorada of understanding (MoUs) with Indian partners as well as the Government agencies for providing them with solar power station technology and its installation.

Explaining further, he said that till now photovoltic panels (PV) technology was used only for space applications but now it was being adopted for industrial use as space technology had moved from silicon expertise to more advanced multi-layer and multi-junction structures.

“We are pioneers of new technology and we are working today on space technologies that could be used for industrial use in multiple applications,” he added.

Mr. Seredin said they were also part of the ambitious Brahmos missile project being implemented by India as they were supplying some components for this system.

“Our opinion is that this experience should be spread further to other fields. It would be a good solution to various issues and this could also involve production of solar panels in Russia or India. Such a work plan would be economically profitable for both the parties as production of solar components and cells requires huge consumption as large volumes, like the market in India, could bring down cost of solar energy,” he said.

Stating that energy was less costly in Russia, Mr. Seredin said volumes in India could bring down prices significantly in the coming years.

“All over the world there is tendency to reduce the price of each watt of installed solar power and this process is likely to continue. We are looking at new technologies to increase efficiency and reduce price levels. We are ready to transfer to India and our partners here the latest technology.

“The policy of the Indian Government in terms of solar energy production like fixed tariffs, guaranteed returns offered to buy electrical power produced by solar energy means is good. Without such support, it would be difficult to initiate business opportunities for the production of expensive electrical power,” he said.

The Hindu

1 - MoU - A memorandum of understanding (MOU or MoU) is a document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in situations where the parties cannot create a legally enforceable agreement. It is a more formal alternative to a gentlemen's agreement.

In some cases, depending on the exact wording, MoUs can have the binding power of a contract; as a matter of law, contracts do not need to be labeled as such to be legally binding. Whether or not a document constitutes a binding contract depends only on the presence or absence of well-defined legal elements in the text proper of the document (the so-called "four corners"). For example, a binding contract typically must contain mutual consideration—a legally enforceable obligations of the parties, and its formation must take place free of the so-called real defenses to contract formation (fraud, duress, lack of age or mental capacity, etc.).

China Becomes Top Exporter in the World

Germany overtaken in list of top trading nations

Chinese economy on track to grow by 9.5% in 2010
 
China completed a resurgent 2009 with a huge rise in exports establishing China as the world's biggest exporter, ahead of Germany, for the first time. The juggernaut Chinese economy also revealed record monthly imports of crude oil and a vast renewed appetite for iron ore and copper.

Trade in December, according to figures from China's customs office, showed a massive 17.7% year-on-year jump in exports, dramatically outpacing a forecast for 4% growth. The huge increase came after 13 months of decline.

Crude oil imports averaged more than 5m barrels a day for a month for the first time in December, up by more than a fifth from November, as the country sucked in raw materials at a faster pace than expected.

Imports jumped by 56%, pushing China's overall trade surplus in the month down by 4% from November instead of the expected 3% increase.

While some experts said much of the increase was due to seasonal factors and quirks in commodities markets, it appears that the strength of demand from China is signalling a further rise in global trade during 2010.

Imports of unwrought copper rose by more than a quarter from November to 369,368 tonnes, more than expected, while copper scrap imports jumped an even bigger 46%. Soya bean imports hit a record 4.78m tonnes in the month, with a surge in supplies from the United States and Brazil. Exports of aluminium and finished steel were also up strongly. China's economy is predicted to grow 9.5% in 2010, topping last year's expected figure.

The figure will be welcomed by business leaders who argue that China needs to shrug off the effects of the downturn if global trade is to recover. China is widely seen as a key engine of growth, especially as the US economy remains in the doldrums, with rising unemployment and many of its major manufacturing industries still badly hit.

However, the increased consumption of raw materials is likely to fuel criticism that China is failing to meet its environmental obligations. A dash for growth is seen as incompatible with the need to minimise burning fossil fuels and felling rainforests. Open-cast copper mining and soya bean farming on previously protected rainforest, have been top of environmental concerns for several years.

The development research centre of the state council, a leading thinktank, said China's economy would remain robust as market-driven investment picked up while government-led stimulus spending slowed. It said real estate investment would buoy growth, while inflationary concerns remained mild.

China is understood to have bought oil contracts in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and other Middle Eastern countries to secure oil ­supplies ahead of a boom in ­manufacturing. US and Brazilian farmers are also understood to be ready to increase supplies of Soya beans as domestic demand from the meat industry, which uses soya beans as a feedstuff, soars to record levels.

Adding to ­environmental concerns, China's steel mills undertook a massive production drive in 2009, partly in response to a $585bn government stimulus plan. ­Disregarding a 60% collapse in the export market, they produced almost half the world's steel in 2009.

Guardian

Theolia Sells French Wind Power Assets To Boralex

The Wall Street Journal - PARIS (Dow Jones)--French wind energy company Theolia SA (TEO.FR) Tuesday said it has sold wind power assets in France with a capacity of 47 megawatts to Canada's Boralex Inc. (BLX.T).

Financial details of the transaction weren't disclosed. The assets include a seven-megawatt wind farm in operation since December 2006, as well as two wind projects with capacities of 30 megawatts and 10 megawatts respectively.

The commissioning of both wind projects, which will be built by Theolia, is expected by mid-2010, the company said. Theolia added that it expects to exceed its target to sell 200 megawatts of wind projects and assets in 2009 following this deal.

Earlier Tuesday, Theolia reached a debt deal with its main bondholders, including a project for a capital increase of up to EUR100 million, in a move to reduce its debt and to ensure funding for its projects. Theolia shares closed down EUR0.21, or 6.5%, at EUR3.03.

Company Web site: http://www.theolia.com/

By Elena Berton, Dow Jones Newswires; +33 1 40 17 17 65; elena.berton@dowjones.com

The Alternative Energy Conundrum

The U.S. Department of Energy is in the process of transferring $32 billion of your tax dollars to various new and promising technologies in Alternative Energy. It is estimated that 40% of the nation's energy comes from petroleum, 23% from coal, and 23% from natural gas. Nuclear power supplies roughly 8.4% and renewable energy supplies less than 7%, mostly from hydroelectric dams. This means that your tax dollars are being directed into a tiny sector of Alternative Energy research and development; predominately solar and wind power.

What are the issues in this arbitrary focus?

First and foremost this puts the federal government in the position of picking winners and losers in the research, development and commercialization of Alternative Energy; a role that it is uniquely not qualified to perform.

Secondly force-feeding this much capital into such a tiny energy sector distorts the market, which attracts fraud, abuse, political decision-making and unqualified recipients.

Finally it is an inefficient way to promote energy efficiencies, as many of the companies receiving this money will ultimately fail, leaving just a few winners. Taxpayer funds expended on the losers will not be recovered, as much of it is in the form of grants and guaranteed federal loans.

What are rational methods of encouraging the transition to Alternative Energies?

Our congress has arbitrarily raised the ethanol content requirement for gasoline. Unfortunately the ethanol industry cannot meet the arbitrary targets set. Far more efficient would be to simply tax gasoline at a higher level, sufficient to trigger the profitability hurdle rates of more developed Alternative Energy technologies, including ethanol, other biofuels, electric cars and gas-driven systems.

Our congress is vested in responding to political power centers that contribute back to them a sliver of the very funds it bestows. At the same time they seek to keep the energy transition pain away from the voters who elect them. This is the recipe that distorts our energy decisions.

Today the U.S. uses roughly 21 million barrels of oil a day, of which roughly 15 million barrels is imported. Depending upon the cost per barrel this represents over $600 billion in import expenditures each year. As an example, a simple VAT tax of $10.00 per barrel would raise over $70 billion each and every year for transition costs to Alternative Energy. Such a tax would be market neutral and could be directed to reward the winners in new technologies with legislation that eases the way to new energy distribution systems for industry and the consumer.

Richard Wottrich, Blog Editor

Magnetic North, Arctic

Santa Claus reportedly has gone “green” with sophisticated new technologies powering his sleigh last night:

The runners are made of nano silicon, which reduces friction and increases mileage.

The sideboards have a nano skin composed of hundreds of thousands of micro-fans, capable of providing all the electricity required for the onboard computer.

Flexible solar panels on the backs of the reindeer team power an electric generator that connects to the main power source – still shrouded in secrecy after hundreds of years.

And finally, Santa himself has dropped about 50 pounds after a crash micro diet in November. Less weight in the sleigh means better mileage as well.

All in all a very good night!

Richard Wottrich, Blog Editor

State funding fuels China's global push in wind, sun

Reuters

When A-Power Energy Generation Systems secured a deal to supply turbines for a US wind farm project in October, the little-known Chinese firm had an ace up its sleeve to help it clinch the deal. A-Power was armed with USD 1.5 billion in financing from state-run Chinese banks to fund the 600 megawatt project in Texas.

While global peers have limited access to cheap state loans, Chinese renewable energy firms are getting a boost from Beijing as they win clean technology projects around the world. Much of that is via low-interest loans from big state banks for their clients to finance their purchases.

This support is giving China's renewable energy firms an edge over Asian rivals such as India's Suzlon Energy, Japan Wind Development and Australia's Infigen Energy, as well as heavyweights like German polysilicon firm Wacker Chemie and Danish wind energy firm Vestas Wind.

"I don't think A-Power could have done this deal without access to cheap financing," said Jacob Kirkregaard, a research fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington DC, who recently published a paper on wind energy.

"China is clearly the big kid on the block, no doubt about that," he said, referring to the state support for renewable energy. "That's not something many Asian countries can emulate."

Shares of A-Power, which only entered the wind business in 2008, hit a 15-month high last Friday after it said it will supply wind turbines for the Texas project.

Such deals are unfolding as China aggressively develops its renewable energy sector and as its companies play catch-up with bigger, global peers including German solar cell producer Q-Cells AG and Spanish wind farm operator Iberdrola, which have built up solid track records, also with help from more than a decade of government subsidies.

Most of China's alternative energy makers, including solar firms Yingli Energy Holdings and Suntech Power Holdings, and wind gear maker China High Speed Transmission, already have access to low-interest financing from state-run banks to fund their growth as well as client purchases.

Interest rates on loans for wind power generator China Longyuan Power Group, for example, are 10 percent below the prevailing benchmark rate set by the Peoples' Bank of China (PBOC), said Morgan Stanley in a report.

"Chinese banks are motivated by the mandate from the government to develop renewable energy as a national priority," said Zhao Feng at Denmark-based BTM Consult ApS, a consultancy that specialises in renewable energy.

"In Europe, the banks, when they offer loans, tend to assess the project and look at it more closely from a risk perspective."

Such state-backed financing is a common policy tool for governments globally trying to support industries they want to develop. China also provides similar strong support for its energy firms for overseas acquisitions, and its telecoms equipment makers as they try to expand abroad.

Beijing's support comes as Chinese players attempt to create new markets as the cost of developing renewable energy falls and competition intensifies for projects at home.

China's USD 300 billion sovereign wealth fund, China Investment Corp (CIC) [CIC.UL], is also helping to bolster the industry.

In the last several months, the fund has pumped about USD 1.1 billion into the sector, buying stakes in solar firm GCL-Poly Energy, the world's No.3 polysilicon company by capacity, and China Longyuan, the world's fifth-largest wind power company.

But analysts say access to cheap money will only get China's alternate energy firms so far. "Essentially, you need to get the product right," said Felix Lam, analyst with CCB International. "Cheap loans can't guarantee a project's success, you've got to have the technology. "It's the technology that will give you that advantage long-term."

Danish wind of change on energy

BBC Wales' Environment Correspondent Iolo ap Dafydd looks at the contrast between who invests, owns and benefits from wind energy in Denmark, compared to Wales, and other problems which may face the wind industry.

Tall wind turbines usually provoke two types of reactions - either you don't mind them, or you loathe them.

As the UK wind industry is celebrating a never-before achieved 4 gigawatts of installed wind energy capacity, the sector now claims that wind energy powers over 2.3 million homes in the UK - and claims it saves 6 million tonnes of coal annually.

Compared to Denmark, though Wales and the UK has a way to go, despite a relatively flat few years for the Danish wind sector.

The real difference between Wales and Denmark though is not the 500 or so turbines on and offshore in Wales, or the 5,000 currently working in Denmark, but who owns them, and who pockets the profit.

According to Hans Christian Soerensen, a member of the Danish Wind Owners Association, 20% of the Danes' electricity comes from the wind and by 2020 the target is to have 50% of its electricity from wind.

The owners association is independent of the turbine manufacturers and their businesses in the UK. Mr Soerensen is involved with two co-operative wind farm businesses in Copenhagen. The 12-turbine Lynetten field - where I met him - and where four of whose turbines are owned by some 900 people, and the offshore Middlegrunden, literally the "middle ground". The 20 turbines on this bank out to sea between Denmark and Sweden are also part-owned by some 1,500 people.

In Denmark, people who live within five kilometres of wind farms are offered a chance to invest in them and in time benefit financially from the revenue of their shares.

He said: "If there's not enough to finance [the wind farm], it will be taken over by the remaining part of the local county. The local counties will be part owner."

New wind farms in Wales this year are the Norwegian-owned Alltwalis in Carmarthenshire, and the offshore Rhyl Flats, currently Wales' largest wind farm, off the north Wales coast. Owner RWE npower, also plans the much bigger 750 MW Gwynt y Mor site further out to sea.

But not all of Wales' wind farms are privately owned by multinational companies. Geraint Davies is the enterprising farmer, who with a few neighbours, built Moelogan wind farm. He said it was not for specifically for environmental or energy reasons but as a business venture for his farm.

Mr Davies said: "It's got to make a difference to the local economy, there's no two ways about it. If we turn things round then all the better for Wales and for the local economy.

"It also helps, in the planning system, if people see that maybe there's a greater advantage to the area where people have to live with the turbines."

A further nine turbines have been erected and are on line this year, overlooking the Conwy Valley. Despite the lengthy and slow planning process in Wales, Geraint Davies is planning a new 67 MW site in mid Wales.

But the biggest wind farms in Wales, all those over 50MW, are approved by the UK government, not the assembly in Cardiff. Most wind energy here is financed by large energy companies, which also bank the profits.

Just like in Denmark, not everyone is enthusiastic about wind farms, whether local or company-owned. Some think the turbines are a scam, and that there are "reasons for rejecting wind power as a large scale source of electricity," writes John Etherington who has published a book on wind technology.

The Wind Farm Scam is already being reprinted, and the former reader of ecology at University of Wales in Cardiff argues the biggest folly about wind farms is people believing them to be efficient, and capable of supplying enough energy in future.

He said: "It doesn't work like that. The electricity is not there continuously."

Consumers Shifting Gaze to Electric Scooters

An international field of electric bike manufacturers is becoming crowded as sales rise.

By Richard Wottrich, Blog Editor

The world of scooters already is competitive. It includes well-known manufacturers such as Honda Motor Co. and Piaggio Group that have established dealer networks as well as many smaller, niche manufacturers that import scooters from countries like China and India where two-wheeled transportation is the accepted norm.

Vespa, an Italian line of scooters manufactured by Piaggio, offers eight models from $3,200 to $6,900. Honda sells five scooters from $2,000 to $8,500. Plus, Vespa's and Honda's gasoline engine-powered scooters already make economical sense because they get 70 to 90 m.p.g.

Relatively speaking many of these scooters pollute proportionally more per gallon than environmentally friendly automobiles like the Prius. However changes are coming.

Even Peugeot plans a return to the electric scooter market by 2011 with its E-Vivacity scooter. While green rides are all the rage the past few years, the latest planned foray into electric scooter production is actually the second for the French manufacturer, as it made the first mass-produced electric scoot with its very own Scoot’elec that launched way back in 1996.

Smaller players like Current Motor Co. in Michigan USA aim to capitalize on the surging interest in more efficient electric vehicles with an electric scooter that can go more than 50 miles on a charge. Current Motor has developed two scooters -- the C124 and the C130 -- and plans to sell them for $5,499 to $6,799. The scooters have a range of 50 to 80 miles per charge and a top speed of 60 m.p.h.

Hero Electric (Hero Group) plans to launch new efficient scooter models in India soon, as reported by The Hindu. Perth, Australia, scooter manufacturer Vmoto has aso announced plans to manufacture an electric scooter. Vmoto will link with one of the world's leading electric scooter companies, Germany-based E-Max, to make the scooters at Vmoto's factory in China.

Taizhou Wangpai Automobile Industry Co., Ltd. and  Beiyi Electric Bicycle Co., Ltd. are among dozens of Chinese manufacturers supplying the huge Chinese demand for scooters.

Worldwide production of motorcycles and scooters will top 225 million units in 2010, just 3.4% of our global population. There is plenty of room for growth.

Copenhagen Climate Summit Ends In Confusion

By Richard Wottrich, Blog Editor

The Copenhagen Climate Summit (COP-15) dissolved yesterday into a food fight between the haves and the have-nots.

The chairman of the plenary session of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) declared on Saturday morning, "The conference decides to take note of the Copenhagen Accord of December 18, 2009," swiftly banging down his gavel. Everyone else exited stage right.

This was precipitated by a US-led group of five nations - including China, India, Brazil and South Africa - that tabled a last-minute proposal that President Barack Obama called a "meaningful agreement".

The language in this agreement purportedly does not even set 2C as a formal target; just that the group "recognizes the scientific view that" the temperature increase should be held below this figure.

The five-nation proposal had "promised" to deliver $30bn (£18.5bn) of aid for developing nations over the next three years, and outlined a goal of providing $100bn a year by 2020 to help poor countries cope with the impacts of climate change.

The agreement also included a method for verifying industrialized nations' reduction of emissions, but this method is entirely voluntary. The agreement is not legally binding.

The main opposition to the five-nation accord came from the ALBA bloc of Latin American countries to which Nicaragua and Venezuela belong, along with Cuba, Ecuador and Bolivia.

To be accepted as an official UN agreement, any agreement requires the endorsement of all 193 nations at the talks.

China, U.S. Firms Enter Car-Battery Deal

BEIJING—Two leading Chinese car makers have enlisted U.S. automotive-battery suppliers to help develop clean-energy vehicles as competition to bring an affordable electric car to the world's largest auto market heats up.


A123 Systems Inc., of Waterrown, Mass., on Thursday said it is setting up a joint venture with SAIC Motor Corp. to develop battery systems for hybrid-electric and pure-electric passenger and commercial vehicles. SAIC, China's largest auto maker by sales volume, will hold 51% of the venture, A123 said in a statement.

Shanghai Advanced Traction Battery Systems Co., as the joint venture is called, will be the preferential supplier of battery systems for hybrid-electric and electric vehicles made by SAIC, A123 said. SAIC is planning to develop a hybrid Roewe 750 sedan and a plug-in hybrid version of the Roewe 550. It also plans to launch electric vehicles in 2012.

Also Thursday, Zhejiang Geely Holding Group Co. said it signed a wide-ranging global cooperation agreement with Milwaukee-based Johnson Controls Inc., an indication the Chinese auto maker is getting more serious about developing its own clean-energy vehicles.

The partnership will cover auto parts, including vehicle seats, and new energy, Geely said. It didn't give financial details of the deal. A person familiar with the matter said the cooperation will definitely involve batteries but details are still being discussed. JCI has a partnership with France's Saft Groupe SA to make lithium-ion batteries for hybrid, plug-in and electric vehicles.

Last month, Zhejiang Geely's listed unit, Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd., signed a deal to buy electric vehicles from Taiwan's Yulon Motor Co. The electric cars will be based on Geely's small Panda gasoline-powered car. Yulon Motor will be responsible for research and development and converting the Panda into an electric car powered by lithium-ion batteries. The car will be sold in both Taiwan and China, with shipments to China starting in 2011.

In addition to the deal with Yulon, Zhejiang Geely will continue to develop its own electric cars, the company has said. Geely, the preferred bidder for Ford Motor Co.'s Volvo unit, and SAIC join global car makers in ratcheting up their electric-car efforts.

Nissan Motor Co. plans to test-market its Leaf electric vehicle in China in 2011 by making it available to government agencies and other fleet customers in the city of Wuhan. General Motors Co. intends to mass-market the plug-in hybrid-electric Chevrolet Volt in China starting in 2011. The Volt is powered by lithium-ion batteries and is supplemented by a gasoline engine.

Toyota Motor Corp. has also said it will likely test-market a plug-in hybrid in China, and Daimler AG will introduce its electric Smart minicar in selected Chinese cities next year.

Chinese auto manufacturers such as BYD Co., which is partly owned by Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy Holdings Co., have also developed their own battery technology.

The Wall Street Journal