Sustainable Affairs

BLLOGGERS: Yes, Zenni on FOX news

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 09:28:00 +0000

Zenni Optical was on FOX news! Yes, Zenni on FOX news for it offers a wide range of stylish prescription glasses online starting from $8.00 with a Great Eyeglasses For Less.

The Secret to Zenni’s Low Prices with a fashionable and stylish with New Frames Have Arrived At Zenni Optical and Variable Dimension Frames From Zenni.

Source: ZenniOptical By Staff Writer

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ECOFRIENDLY The BlueTEC from Mercedes Benz

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 01:46:00 +0000

Mercedes-Benz is ahead of the game, because its new ecofriendly vehicle is marvelous, that is called the Blue TEC is a kind of clean-diesel SUVs. There are some ad TV from Mercedes-Benz TV that I watched recently.

The BlueTEC from Mercedes-Benz, reduces nitrogen oxides by up to 80 per 100. This is the only engine that meets the strict exhaust emission standards of the future. This BlueTEC technology allows Mercedes SUVs to keep their horsepower but can get better fuel economy than some hybrids. Mercedes prides its new re-invention on the fact that this new diesel engine has less noise, odor, and harmful emissions.

Mercedes also claims that by adding a solution called AdBlue into the exhaust, BlueTEC can reduce smog. With its strong focus on sustainability and conserving resources, Mercedes-Benz in mapping out the future of environmentally compatible automotive engineering. The urea is stored in liquid form a tank on board the vehicle and slowly injected into the exhaust stream where it forms ammonia that reacts with the NOx and converts it to water and nitrogen. The tank is sized so that the vehicle should be able to go close to 15,000 miles without replenishment.

It seems like the word “diesel” and the phrase “eco-friendly” should not be in the same sentence but now it can be. If you want to change the world, need to be a green citizen. Try with Mercedes-Benz BlueTEC.

Source Mercedes Benz

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BLOGGERS: Eyeglasses from Zenni Optical

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 02:51:00 +0000

Maybe you have watch it in FOX News, yes Zenni Optical was on FOX news! For the next Christmas you have the opportinity for update your glasses With ZenniOptical. It is very simple, because you just need to select your favorite glasses frame. Incredible Stylish New Frames From Zenni. With them You have an opportunity of wearing quality eye gears at lowest cost.

Wth this people you have several prices from Zenni Optical $ 8 Rx Eyeglasses, until products around $20 in plastic or acetate, maybe you need something more sophisticated product like some glases with Titanium, relatively a new material to come to the eyeglass frame market. It is an extremely light, strong and flexible material that makes for a superior if somewhat expensive eyeglass frame. Just ask for your personal order.

Source: Zenni Optical

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[BIOENERGY] Ethanol passes key transportation test

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 04:48:00 +0000

Houston pipeline operator Kinder Morgan Energy Partners signaled progress Wednesday in addressing a key hurdle to widespread distribution of renewable fuels in the U.S. The company said it completed a test in Florida that moved ethanol safely through an existing gasoline pipeline and is performing similar tests with biodiesel fuel blends.

The tests could be important for a U.S. biofuels industry that now transports fuel only by truck, rail car and barge, and will require more efficient transportation options as it grows.

Kinder Morgan and other pipeline companies are still in the early stages of testing. Huge investments will be needed if the companies decide to ready more assets to handle biofuels, and upgrades could take years.

Yet Kinder Morgan's moves suggest a willingness to explore the idea further.

Pipeline operators have been reluctant to run ethanol in pipelines because it absorbs debris, rust and water, can damage components and taint petroleum fuels that share the lines. They have balked at biodiesel because of uneven quality and a residue that can damage jet fuel if it follows biodiesel through a pipeline.

Kinder Morgan spent 18 months on the ethanol pipeline test in Florida and made more than $10 million in upgrades to a segment that connects Tampa and Orlando, said Jim Lelio, director of business development and national biofuels manager for the pipeline firm.

The segment was ideal for the study because it was fairly new, situated on flat land and carried only one product, gasoline, Lelio said. But upgrading it wasn't simple.

First, the company had to replace a number of parts, including seals, gaskets and other components. Then, it cleaned the pipeline with a device called a "pig" that ran through the line and scoured the interior with brushes and chemicals.

Finally, Kinder Morgan ran a 5,000-barrel batch of ethanol through the pipeline earlier this month with good results, Lelio said.

The company is still modifying the pipeline but expects to be transporting ethanol for customers by mid-November.

Lelio said the company will consider upgrades to other pipelines in its portfolio, depending upon customer demand and the ability to maintain the operational integrity of the pipelines.

New energy legislation calls for blending 36 billion gallons of biofuels a year into the nation's fuel supply by 2022, five times the current level, to help reduce dependence on oil.

While most of that will be ethanol, the law also requires blending of 500 million gallons of biodiesel a year by 2009.

Biodiesel is chiefly made from vegetable oil in the United States and is often blended at low levels with petroleum diesel. U.S. ethanol, usually made from corn, typically is blended with gasoline to stretch fuel supplies and help curb tailpipe emissions in cities with the dirtiest air, including Houston.

Critics have charged that production of biofuels has strained food supplies globally, hurt the environment and received excessive government subsidies.

But the ethanol industry's leading trade group, the Renewable Fuels Association, praised Kinder Morgan on Wednesday for demonstrating that "any technical challenges that may exist with the transport of ethanol through pipelines can be overcome."

As the ethanol industry grows, it may need to ship ethanol via pipelines, group spokesman Matt Hartwig said, and "Kinder Morgan's success goes a long way in proving that can be done."

Elsewhere, Kinder Morgan is testing biodiesel transportation in its Plantation pipeline from Collins, Miss., to Spartanburg, S.C. It is preparing for tests in Oregon, where a new biodiesel mandate will take effect soon.

Steve Howell, technical director for the National Biodiesel Board, an industry trade group, said it is no coincidence the tests were announced after national fuel standards were released this month for certain biodiesel blends.

"That was one of the key factors in a lot of the pipeline companies' reluctance before," he said.

While there are other technical factors to work out, he said, his group is assisting with other upcoming tests.

"We don't see it as necessary to be viable," Howell said of transporting biodiesel by pipeline. "But we think we can be more viable with it."

Source: Houston Chronicle| By BRETT CLANTON

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BLOGGERS: The best oriental rugs

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Fri, 19 Sep 2008 18:49:00 +0000

Marvelous Persian rugs could be purchased in a big kind of variety of colors and patterns, and will add prettiness and stylishness to your office or home décor. You could have beautify interior design for your home with oriental rugs if you give some careful thought to the colors and designs that will work best with your style preferences.

If you decide to decorate a room, consider choosing one or more of these exciting and durable area rugs as a cornerstone for your color and design choices. The rugs that are matching with the color of the walls produce a great look to rooms. For your next buy you should consider to SuperiorRugs (http://www.superiorrugs.com)., they are located at New Jersey, since 1997 and providing high quality rugs at low prices. Their Persian and Oriental area rugs are designed beautifully. They have been manufacturing high quality area rugs for over twenty years and stand behind every area rug that they are selling. In SuperiorRugs (http://www.superiorrugs.com), you going to find in its online store a big collection of rugs in a variety of sizes and shapes, you will have several rug recommendations, between anothers. Like: silk rugs, high quality synthetic rugs and other quality rugs, wool rugs modern, accent rugs, bathroom rugs, kids rugs, shag rugs, round rugs, braided rugs, flokati rugs, floor rugs, hooked rugs, oriental rugs, persian rugs, etc. The regular patterns are traditional floral or garden motifs, often with a central medallion, or a geometric or curvilinear design, or central scenes that look like paintings. When choosing an appropriate design, consider how you are going to use the rug. If the colors are compatible with other colors in the room, even a modern home can be enhanced by the popular traditional designs in oriental rugs.

You going to have in SuperiorRugs (http://www.superiorrugs.com), a easy way to ask your cheap rugs for your new interior design for your home or office. Remember this website and check its area rugs.

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[TECH] eTec to Evaluate PHEV Fast-Charging and Smart Grid Interactions for the U.S. Department of Energy

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Mon, 15 Sep 2008 23:06:00 +0000

Electric Transportation Engineering Corporation (eTec), a wholly owned subsidiary of ECOtality, Inc. (OTCBB: ETLY), a leader in clean electric transportation and storage technologies, today announced it has launched a Plug-in Hybrid Electric Vehicles (PHEVs) Grid Interaction Project to demonstrate and evaluate bi-directional fast-charging operations for PHEVs in conjunction with smart grid technologies for facility energy management. Funded by the USDOE through Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and supported by project partner V2Green, the project will demonstrate eTec’s ability to fast-charge a PHEV in 10 minutes and will analyze the benefits and costs of using the energy storage capability of PHEVs to provide energy back to a smart metered electric grid system.

“By evaluating the benefits and costs of bi-directional fast-charging for PHEV owners, recharging facilities and electric utilities, this project lays the foundation for the development of a public fast-charging infrastructure for on-road electric vehicles,” said Don Karner, President and CEO, eTec. “Not only does this project demonstrate the ability to fast-charge a PHEV in 10 minutes, but it also highlights the additional benefit of fast-charging systems for managing facility energy consumption.”

Pairing the eTec Minit-Charger fast-charge system with utility smart meter interconnections, the PHEV Grid Interaction Project will demonstrate and evaluate a bi-directional fast-charge system capable of both fast-charging a PHEV in 10 minutes and supplying the stored energy of a PHEV back to a smart grid. The project will utilize V2Green’s smart grid technology to enable charging facilities (home or business) to communicate and adaptively control the flow of energy between the fast-charged PHEVs and the grid. Better energy consumption management results from vehicles recharging during off-peak periods and providing stored energy back to the grid during periods of peak-demand. The project will also evaluate the impact of bi-directional fast-charging on PHEV battery life and performance as PHEVs involved in the project will be subject to strenuous charge-discharge cycles as each vehicle will be operated for a total of 5,440 miles.

“This project combines leading fast-charge and smart grid technologies to quantify the public value and benefit of intelligently controlled, bi-directional fast-charging,” said John Clark, president and CEO, V2Green. “In addition to reducing consumer energy costs by allowing more efficient energy consumption, fast, smart charging capabilities can reduce our oil dependence and allow us to diversify our energy portfolio with more renewable and sustainable energy sources.”

eTec, a wholly owned subsidiary of ECOtality, is a recognized leader in the research, development and testing of advanced transportation energy systems and infrastructures. Committed to commercially advancing clean electric technologies with clear market advantages, eTec manufactures and provides battery fast charge systems and fueling stations for electric and hydrogen powered vehicles. For more information about eTec, please visit www.etecevs.com.

Source: ECOtality

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BLOGGERS: Looking extramoney, EZ Unsecured!

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Tue, 09 Sep 2008 04:14:00 +0000

If you are people who need extra Money like a business loan, you can get an online loan with , EZ UNSECURED (http://www.ezunsecured.com/) this site is a great financial website to find your loan for your next project.

You could Toll-Free: 800-201-0001 or send an eMail to CS@EZUnsecured.com and ask about its business loans services.

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[TECHNOLOGY] submarino que funciona íntegramente con energía solar

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 05:34:00 +0000

La Exposición Internacional de Zaragoza fue ayer el escenario de la presentación del primer submarino solar del mundo.

Goldfish, así se llama el proyecto de origen suizo, se mueve gracias a una plataforma solar flotante y móvil que tiene forma de nenúfar. Dicha plataforma está equipada con una central solar y una estación de recarga y es adaptable a múltiples aplicaciones industriales, turísticas o de transportes.

Sus creadores, los ingenieros Martin Pfisterer y Matthias Zelweger, explicaron ayer en el pabellón de Suiza el funcionamiento y las ventajas que ofrece el proyecto, desarrollado por la empresa eléctrica BKW-FMB Energie, y la compañía de transportes BLS SA, ambas ubicadas en el cantón de Berna.

El estudio de viabilidad del proyecto concluyó el pasado mes de junio con el resultado de que «es realizable desde el punto de vista técnico y puede obtener los permisos de explotación necesarios». Los costes para materializar la iniciativa se elevan a 10 millones de francos suizos y la primera inmersión del submarino está prevista para el segundo semestre de 2011.

El primer lugar donde se utilizará la plataforma será el lago Thun, en los Alpes suizos, donde flota como «una isla en medio del lago», según una de las responsables de la dirección del proyecto, Marie-Anne Kiener.

La plataforma hará también las funciones de embarcadero y alimentará tanto el submarino, como el trasbordador solar que trasladará a los visitantes desde tierra firma.

La plataforma cuenta con cinco satélites laterales donde se encuentran las placas fotovoltaicas que se direccionan maximizando el aporte de energía.

En total son 300 metros cuadrados de células fotovoltaicas, que cuentan con una potencia de 30 kilovatios. La movilidad de la isla se consigue a partir de de los motores subacuáticos que otorgan a la plataforma una capacidad de giro de 360 grados.

Tanto la plataforma como los diferentes elementos que desarrolla consiguen energía de una manera totalmente limpia. La planta almacena la energía generada en baterías, y carga los objetos dependientes de él mediante un cable.

El proyecto está pensado para sitios con poco espacio, debido a la densidad de edificios; en aguas con poco oleaje y en regiones con suficiente irradiación solar, según los responsables.

Asimismo, la plataforma se puede instalar en ríos, lagos o puertos. La plataforma flotante está equipada con una central solar y una estación de recarga.

«La energía que produce esta central solar debe ser suficiente para las inmersiones del submarino y para asegurar el funcionamiento de la plataforma. Esta se puede acomodar automáticamente en todo momento con una capacidad para 60 personas y es el atracadero para el submarino y el transportador solar», según los creadores del proyecto.

El submarino solar se construirá sobre la base de un submarino convencional de uso comercial que se adaptará de forma conveniente. Según los autores del proyecto, tanto la plataforma como los diferentes elementos que desarrolla consiguen energía de una manera totalmente limpia. Las dimensiones del vehículo subacuático pueden oscilar de los 20 a 30 metros de longitud, y podrá albergar de 20 a 30 pasajeros.

El submarino será capaz de sumergirse hasta 200 metros en 10 minutos, y su consumo diario es de 100 kilovatios hora, lo que permite cuatro inmersiones diarias. Además, contará con ojos de buey de 60 a 70 centímetros de diámetro para una visión de gran ángulo, reflectantes potentes para ver en la oscuridad de las aguas profundas, y podrá funcionar los 365 días del año.

Source: El Mundo

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[RUSSIA] Investors Bet Millions on the Sun

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 22:41:00 +0000

The image of Russia as a dark northern country that lives off its fossil fuels might be well-founded. But companies that rely on global demand for solar energy and Russia's scientific base have investors convinced.

The next step: convincing their own government.

Nitol Solar, a private company in the east Siberian town of Usolye-Sibirskoye, has raised $600 million in investment since opening five years ago, including $190 million from Alfa Bank on Aug. 12 and $75 million from the World Bank's International Finance Corporation in late July.

The latest investment agreements were signed after Nitol Solar produced its first batch of polysilicon, an energy-intensive raw material that is the main component of solar cells.

Nitol Solar's production of polysilicon was big news in the solar power market, which currently provides about 1 percent of global energy consumption and has been growing rapidly in the past couple of years, fueled by rising energy costs and environmental awareness. The main reason the market is not expanding more quickly is a shortage of polysilicon, which absorbs the sun's photons in order to generate an electric current.

Nitol Solar, based in a restructured Soviet chemical plant in the Irkutsk region, plans to produce 3,700 tons of polysilicon per year, or about 9 percent of last year's global supply, by the end of 2009.

These plans have attracted big players like Chinese solar power holding Suntech Power, the world's third-biggest producer of solar cells with a market capitalization of $6.3 billion. Suntech has signed a seven-year supply agreement with Nitol and has agreed to purchase $100 million worth of newly issued ordinary shares in the Russian company.

In addition to China, Nitol Solar supplies raw materials for solar cell production to several European countries, the United States, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, with total contracts worth of $1.5 billion through 2015, said executive director Dmitry Kotenko.

The company currently has no long-term contracts with Russian solar panel manufacturers. But industry players and investors expect that to change.

Kotenko is optimistic that a government drive to promote innovative technologies will jump-start the solar power industry. "The photovoltaic industry is technologically and scientifically intensive. In this regard, Russia can take advantage of its general scientific potential while developing such innovative industry sector," he said.

Alfa Bank vice president Veniamin Gutnikov echoed Kotenko's hopes. "We expect the solar power market to develop in Russia in the next four years and anticipate an introduction of subsidies and reduced taxes for companies in the sector," he said.

Solar manufacturers in Europe and the United States enjoy similar perks already.

President Dmitry Medvedev signed a decree in early June that ordered the government to "consider supporting and stimulating renewable energy projects" from the federal budget starting in 2009.

Energy Ministry spokesman Pavel Rodionov could not immediately say Thursday whether any legislation to support alternative energy initiatives was in the works.

Only 0.7 percent of energy production in Russia comes from renewable resources, and the domestic market is expected to grow. Some parts of Siberia and regions in the south of the country get as many as 300 sunny days a year, which is comparable to the amount of sun in southern Europe, where solar panels are increasingly popular, Gutnikov said.

Russia has several solar panel manufacturers, most of which are experiencing shortages of polysilicon. Krasnodar-based Solar Wind, which produces solar modules for Spain, Germany and Greece, has the capacity to produce four times more than it is actually producing because of the raw-material shortage, said company spokesman Timofei Serov. "Demand is so high that we hardly have any storage space -- clients purchase our product immediately," he said.

While solar power in Europe is increasingly replacing conventional power production in urban areas, in Russia solar cells are primarily installed in remote areas to power antennas for cellular phones and security systems, Serov said. In recent years, the share of Solar Wind's Russian clients has grown from 5 to 20 percent, he said.

Using alternative energy such as solar cells makes economic sense in regions that spend a lot of money to ship in energy, said Igor Podgorny, head of Greenpeace's energy efficiency program. Last year, the northern republic of Sakha paid 1.2 billion rubles to transport fossil fuel, according to Greenpeace data.

"It's hard for new players to come into Russia's energy sector," Podgorny said.

Equipping a dacha with solar panels is still relatively costly, while companies have shown little interest in using innovative alternative technology for industrial facilities and power plants, he said.

As a result, conventional energy production is chosen even when it may not make economic sense. When it was decided to replace the polluting diesel-powered electric station on Olkhon Island in Lake Baikal, the authorities chose a complex system of power lines and underwater cables that stretched to the island from the shore. "That project was so complex that it will only pay for itself in 70 years, which is extremely high for the energy industry," Podgorny said.

Cheaper alternatives based on solar and wind power were proposed, but they did not get approved, he said.

Worldwide, solar power is taking off. Last year, the amount of energy produced by solar cells shot up 51 percent to 3,733 megawatts, while installations of solar cells have increased fivefold in the past five years, according to the Worldwatch Institute. The solar cell industry raised $10 billion and generated $17.2 billion in global revenues in 2007, according to an industry report by Solarbuzz.

The International Energy Agency has predicted that solar power production will grow 60-fold worldwide between 2004 and 2030.

Kotenko of Nitol Solar said tax breaks and other perks could help Russia's solar power sector, but he expressed optimism that the industry breakthrough would eventually come because of market forces. "Market conditions will make solar power competitive with traditional energy because prices for traditional energy are growing while improving photovoltaic technology is lowering prices for solar," he said.

"The solar power sector is growing exponentially. It's one of the most dynamic industries worldwide," he added.

Solar Wind also has ambitious expansion plans. "The polysilicon shortage is a resolvable issue, so we plan to increase our capacity from 8 peak kilowatt per year to 150 peak kilowatt per year in 2012," Serov said. "We already have an investor, and work is under way."

Source: The Moscow Times|By Maria Antonova

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BLOGGERS: The CUSTOM-ESSAY help

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 21:45:00 +0000

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[WIND ENERGY] FCC of Spain buys into wind energy

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 17:10:00 +0000

Fomento de Construcciones y Contratas, or FCC, one of the largest Spanish builders, agreed to pay €190 million for Babcock & Brown Wind Partners' wind energy assets in Spain.

FCC will assume €590 million, or about $880 million, in debt as part of the deal, the company, which is based in Barcelona, said in a filing to regulators. The assets include 14 wind parks with capacity of 421 megawatts.

The purchase marks FCC's first investment in energy as it embarks on a €4 billion drive announced in May to diversify its business as the Spanish building market slumps. The sale of the assets will yield a profit of about 266 million Australian dollars, or $234 million, for Babcock & Brown Wind Partners, the company said in a statement to Australian regulators.

"The size of the total portfolio is substantial and will allow FCC to become the sixth-largest wind-energy operator in Spain," Alejandra Cosio, an analyst at Ahorro Corporación Financiera, wrote in a note.

Buying the Spanish wind parks gives FCC assets with capacity to produce energy for a city of 200,000 people, FCC said. The transaction includes an additional 45 megawatts of capacity still under development, FCC said.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners said in February that it might sell assets in Europe to benefit from increased valuations from projects that were not reflected in its own market value.

The price for the Spanish assets "produces a large gain on sale for BBW and, importantly, is materially higher on a per megawatt basis than the current market implied value of BBW's total portfolio," said Miles George, chief executive Babcock & Brown Wind Partners.

FCC fell 7 cents, or 0.2 percent, to €33.10 in Madrid trading. Babcock Wind fell 16 cents, or 12 percent, to 1.15 dollars in Sydney. The Spanish assets represent about 17 percent of its total wind portfolio.

Babcock & Brown Wind Partners decided not to sell its assets in Germany, after reviewing offers it received for the ventures. A divestment process for projects in Portugal and France has been extended and any sale would be agreed in the fourth quarter, it said.

Source: Reuters

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[SOUTH AMERICA] Brasil participa en proyecto internacional para investigar energía oscura

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 19:53:00 +0000

El Observatorio Nacional (ON) de Brasil es uno de los participantes de la iniciativa astronómica internacional Dark Energy Survey, destinada a recoger informaciones sobre la energía oscura,como es llamada la fuerza desconocida que supuestamente domina el Universo y que es responsable por la aceleración de su expansión. En el proyecto participan centros de astronomía de EEUU, Inglaterra, España y Brasil, dijo el astrofísico Luiz Nicolaci da Costa, investigador del ON, en declaraciones publicadas hoy por la agencia de noticias de la Fundación de Amparo a la Pesquisa en el Estado de Sao Paulo.

"Tras años de investigación concluimos que casi el 95 por ciento del Universo es compuesto por cosas que no conocemos, llámese energía oscura o materia oscura, y de las que nadie consiguió probar su existencia.Simplemente no sabemos lo que es. Es eso lo que estamos estudiando", explicóDa Costa.

El astrónomo dijo que los científicos de todo el mundo coincidieron, tras la observación directa en 1998 de algunas supernuevas (cuerpos celestes surgidos tras la explosión de estrellas), que la expansión del Universo se había acelerado y que eso apenas podía explicarse por alguna nueva fuerza. Dicha fuerza de la que se tienen ideas teóricas pero no comprobación física es conocida como la energía oscura.

Según Da Costa, además del Observatorio Nacional, otras instituciones brasileñas que participan en el Dark Energy Survey son la Universidad Federal de Río Grande do Sul y el Centro Brasileño de Pesquisas Físicas.

El especialista explicó que el estudio se encuadra en la nueva tendencia de la astronomía, que prevé la colaboración de varias instituciones para elaborar mapas detallados de extensas regiones del Universo para crear muestras estadísticas que permitan estudiar galaxias o sistemas planetarios.

El Dark Energy Survey, por ejemplo, prevé la elaboración de un estudio fotométrico de 5 grados cuadrados del cielo en siete diferentes filtros para poder investigar las características y propiedades de la energía oscura. El objetivo es intentar comprobar empíricamente y por observación la influencia de la energía oscura en la expansión del Universo.

"La idea es que esos datos puedan ser usados para confrontar teorías físicas. Al final, es la física la que va a tener que explicar la expansión del Universo", según Da Costa.

El astrofísico afirmó que el Observatorio Nacional también estágestionando su participación en el Sloan Digital Sky Survey 3 (SDSS-III), un estudio espectroscópico que, también mediante la colaboración de varias instituciones mundiales, pretende recoger informaciones sobre la estructura de la Vía Láctea.

"Apenas trabajando en conjunto, las diferentes instituciones brasileñas podremos exigir apoyo gubernamental y hacer viable nuestra participación en este tipo de proyectos de carácter mundial, que pueden ayudar a formar la próxima generación de astrónomos del país", afirmó.

El SDSS-III es una ambiciosa red de colaboración internacional que estásiendo montada para recoger muestras estadísticas que sirvan para estudios en diferentes áreas de la astronomía, como cosmología, estructura de la galaxia y sistemas planetarios.

Tales muestras serán resultados de diferentes imágenes y estudios espectroscópicos de extensas regiones del Universo hechas por los participantes desde diversos lugares del mundo. En sus primeras ediciones, la red de cooperación internacional montó uno de los mapas galácticos más detallados existentes hasta hoy.

Source: Xinhuanet

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[NUCLEAR RENAISSANCE] FORATOM, afirma que la solución energética para España es la construcción de centrales

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:58:00 +0000

El director general de la Asociación de Industrias Nucleares Europeas (FORATOM), Santiago San Antonio, señaló hoy que para que España solucione su problema energético, la clave se encuentra en la construcción de nuevas centrales, ya que ahora tiene que importar grandes cantidades de energía de otros países.

Así, San Antonio indicó que España se encuentra 'retrasada energéticamente', mientras que en Europa se están apoyando en ello, y apostó por alcanzar una producción de energía nuclear equivalente a la media europea, que actualmente supone un 30 por ciento del mix energético.

Por otro lado, señaló que en España se ha dado un giro 'satisfactorio' en las políticas energéticas, tras la decisión del presidente del Gobierno, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, de actuar de acuerdo a las normativas europeas, y además señaló que el desfase energético español influirá negativamente en el déficit económico, para lo que 'habrá que definir el futuro energético en un plan a largo plazo (20 ó 30 años)'.

DECISIONES POLÍTICAS.
En la misma línea, este experto destacó que es necesario 'sacar del debate político el abastacemiento nuclear', porque el problema que tiene España es que las decisiones energéticas 'se sitúan en los votos', e hizo referencia a la buena situación tecnológica española para la producción de reactores de 'IV Generación'. 'Es la solución del futuro que dará paso a una energía sostenible, ya que las renovables, no son sustitutivas de la energía nuclear', dijo.

En cuanto a Europa, San Antonio señaló la voluntad política de muchos países de la UE, como Suecia, 'país que mayor conocimiento y apoyo concede a la energía nuclear'. Por el contrario, advirtió de que España se sitúa entre los países que 'menos conocimiento tiene sobre energía nuclear' y donde 'los riesgos cuentan más que las ventajas'.

Respecto a la política energética europea aprobada en 2007, recordó que esta prevista una reducción de las emisiones de CO2 de un 20 por ciento para el año 2020, junto con un incremento de hasta el 20 por ciento en el uso de energías renovables, y un aumento del 20 por ciento en ahorro energético.

Source: Terra

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[TECHNOLOGY] Futuros dispositivos de Apple podrían utilizar energía solar

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:09:00 +0000

Empleados de Apple han solicitado una patente para integrar celdas solares dentro de los dispositivos portátiles colocándolos bajo las capas de la pantalla sensible al tacto, de acuerdo con la solicitud. La energía solar le ayudaría a hacer dispositivos verdaderamente portátiles, liberándose de la necesidad de cables para conectarlos a la fuente de energía.

Cuando se genera electricidad con paneles solares, cuanto más grande sea el panel mejor, pero la patente advierte “de paneles solares en dispositivos portátiles”, luego de permitir espacio para los botones, pantalla y una manera de alojar el dispositivo, solo un a pequeña área se deja en la mayoría de los dispositivos para las celdas solares.

Una de las maneras sugirió que la patente es para colocar una capa sensible al tacto, una pantalla y un panel solar uno encima del otro. Esto haría del iPhone y el iPod Touch de Apple buenos candidatos para dichas fuentes de energía, ya que la pantalla ocupa casi toda la carátula de estos aparatos.

El uso de carga con energía solar en aparatos portátiles está comenzando a tomar más atención para uso más inmediato de consumidores.

Cuando Vodafone anunció su plan en abril para reducir las emisiones del gas invernadero CO2 en un 50 por ciento para el 2020, también anunció planes para cargadores de teléfono alimentados por luz solar y cargadores universales para teléfonos de los aparatos de marca Vodafone.

En la reciente conferencia ITU Telecom Africa 2008, el ministro ugandés de comunicaciones y tecnologías de información y comunicación, Ham-Mukasa Mulira habló sobre los acuerdos de uso de carga con energía solar, que había prometido.

Source: PC World|By Mikael Ricknäs (IDG News Service)

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CLIMATE CHANGE: China and India called keys in climate change battle

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Thu, 08 May 2008 16:23:00 +0000

If the world is going to truly combat greenhouse gas emissions, China and India have to be part of the fight, the chief economist for the Paris-based International Energy Agency said Tuesday. Fatih Birol told oil and gas executives at the Offshore Technology Conference in Houston that the economies of China and India are growing at such a pace that they'll keep needing more energy, much of it from coal. Even if Europe cuts emissions by 20 percent in the next dozen years as pledged, it won't be enough to overcome emissions anticipated to increase in the developing giants, he said.

But don't blame China, the bigger of the two, he said.

China's growth is "simply imitating" what developed countries have already done. Americans love their cars, and increasingly the Chinese do as well, driving most of the increase in that country's demand.

The nation is expected to overtake the U.S. in terms of car ownership in seven to eight years. And by 2030, 14 percent of Chinese will have cars, as opposed to 2 percent today.

By 2015, Birol said three countries will be key to denting climate change: China, India and the United States. Together they'll release half of the world's emissions, and without cooperation among them, he said, "we have no chance to make" a difference.

High oil prices no longer can be expected to shrink demand as it did during spikes in the past, when a vast majority of usage occurred in developed countries, Birol said. Growth in China, India and the Middle East more than offsets flat or shrinking demand in the U.S.

As prices have risen since 2004, global demand has risen alongside them. "Oil demand is much less responsive to high crude prices than in the past," he said.

Changing energy security
Amy Myers Jaffe, an energy analyst with Rice University's James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, said the run-up in oil prices has changed the nature of energy security, which once focused on protection against oil shocks.

After the 9/11 attacks, the term began referring more to dependence on oil regimes whose interests aren't necessarily U.S.-friendly. And government-run oil producers are flexing more muscle in terms of controlling their own resources in the high price environment.

Jaffe said she expected the world to increasingly rely on the Persian Gulf and unconventional oil, such as heavy bitumen from Canada's oil sands. Other unconventional sources include coal or natural gas turned to liquid, and oil found in shale.

However, while high oil prices make unconventional sources more economical to tap, they're also carbon-intensive to produce, Jaffe said.

"So climate security and energy security are not always two sides of the same coin," she said.

More coastal access
Randall Luthi, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which oversees offshore U.S. production, said the security picture needs to include more access to U.S. areas currently off-limits — such as off the West and East coasts and the eastern Gulf of Mexico.

"We're so dependent on adequate, affordable energy," he said, noting that the federal government predicted in January that the average price for a gallon of regular unleaded gasoline would climb to $3.50 by this month. It reached $3.60 last week and now is expected to top $3.70 nationally by June.

Fossil fuel reliance
Despite growth in alternative and renewable fuels, the federal government and the International Energy Agency predict the vast majority of energy use to stem from fossil fuels through 2050. With that in mind, Luthi said, the only way to lower dependence on imports is to raise U.S. production.

In February the MMS opened the Chukchi Sea off Alaska's north coast for a lease sale. The agency received 667 bids on 488 tracts, and 292 leases have been issued. Companies that bought leases include ConocoPhillips, Italy's Eni, Spain's Repsol, Shell, and Norway's StatoilHydro.

"But the Gulf of Mexico remains the workhorse" of offshore U.S. production, and 85 percent of the nation's coastlines remain unavailable to the industry, he said.

Source: The Houston Chronicle|By KRISTEN HAYS

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BRASIL: The brazilian government rejects biofuels criticism

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:58:00 +0000

The Brazilian president has rejected criticism that his country's production of biofuels has forced a surge in global food prices and harms the environment. Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva accused critics of being driven by economic and political interests, and failing to highlight soaring oil prices and increased demand as a factor in pushing up food production costs.

"Don't tell me, for the love of God, that food is expensive because of biodiesel," he told reporters.

"Food is expensive because the world wasn't prepared to see millions of Chinese, Indians, Africans, Brazilians and Latin Americans eat. We want to discuss this not with passion but rationality and not from the European point of view."

Lula made his comments following a week of protests in Brazil and Europe against the fuels made from food crops and their supposed environmental and social consequences.

This week, the EU's environmental chief, Stavros Dimas, said that biofuels, which Brazil hopes to export to the EU, must now meet social and environmental conditions, and that "the issue of sustainabilty criteria is of crucial importance."

Scientists from the European Environment Agency urged the 27-nation bloc to drop its 10% biofuel target for road transport fuels.

Lula rebuffed accusations by Jean Ziegler, the UN's special rapporteur for the right to food, that biofuels were a "crime against humanity".

"The real crime against humanity is to discredit biofuels a priori and condemn food-starved and energy-starved countries to dependence and insecurity," Lula said.

Some of Brazil's neighbours, led by oil-rich Venezuela, warned this week that biofuels could increase malnutrition in Latin America. Lula said he was "shocked" that biofuel critics failed to mention the impact that high oil prices had on food production costs.

"It's always easier to hide economic and political interests behind supposed social and environmental interests," he said.

The growing criticism has placed Brasil at the centre of the global biofuels debate. The country has enjoyed an agricultural export boom, and has become the world's largest exporter of ethanol, which is derived from sugar cane. Critics say the increased production of crops for ethanol and biodiesel, which is derived from oil seeds, competes for land with food crops, and is pushing cattle ranchers and farmers further north in Brasil, contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest.

But the Brazilian government has argued that it has plenty of unused land to plant crops for biofuels and that current production was still too small to affect food prices.

Source: The Guardian| by Anil Dawar

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ENERGY CRISIS: Food shortages and incredible arguments

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:52:00 +0000

I find this talk of genetically modified food being necessary to feed the world's population incredible ('As the world begins to starve it's time to take GM seriously', Comment, last week). Yes, it would get us out of a scrape in the short term, but we have to realise that we cannot carry on expanding the population and consuming resources without consequences. If the population continues to grow, we will reach a situation where even GM cannot feed everyone, never mind competing for space, water, a clean environment and the chance for other species to exist. Overpopulation is the biggest single cause of our environmental woes and we cannot make significant improvements without addressing this.
Ryan Taylor, London SW9

Crop yields need to increase by 1.6 per cent per year (compounded) to avoid mass starvation. From the mid-Sixties to the mid-Nineties, soybean, canola, maize, wheat and rice did just that, but in the last 10 to 15 years, wheat and rice have fallen badly below this threshold.

The difference? Wheat and rice are not yet 'biotech' crops whereas breeding tools have been successfully applied to the others. Robin McKie's timely article highlights that this important new breeding tool is not only safe and effective but also desperately needed.

We simply cannot afford to throw GM out if we are to double crop production in the next 40 years in a sustainable fashion. Ironically, pressure from some NGOs has engendered overly restrictive regulations that price out GM breakthroughs from small companies and publicly funded research institutes. Such breakthroughs could make major contributions to enhancing yield.
Professor Chris Lamb, John Innes Centre, Norwich

Your article trots out the old line that GM crops can give the world higher-yielding crops using fewer pesticides. On what evidence? A report last week from the United Nations World Food Programme said GM was not a quick fix to feed the world's poor. The authors saw little role for it in feeding the poor.
Roger Mainwood, Wivenhoe, Essex

Robin McKie addresses the criticism of the biotechnology industry, based on assumptions that it is driven by 'international conglomerates', which is not always the case.

For Hawaiian farmers whose papaya crop was ravaged by the ringspot virus in the Nineties, GM technology was a saving grace. Not through big business, but scientists at Cornell University who used GM technology to create a crop resistant to ringspot virus that saved the Hawaiian papaya industry from collapse. One would hope that if a similar event were to occur on our shores, environmental campaigners would support British farmers' access to such beneficial technology.
Julian Little , chair, Agricultural Biotechnology Council, London WC1

Robin McKie presents a stimulating but flawed solution to feeding a rising population at a time of climate change. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's fourth assessment report: 'Globally, the potential for food production is projected to increase with increases in local average temperature over a range of 1 to 3 degrees C, but above this it is projected to decrease', so it is possible that global food production may actually increase, making the case for GM hardly compelling.

We should beware the siren calls from GM conglomerates.
Mike Frost, Bristol

Julius Nyerere once said: 'When people go hungry, it is not food that is short, but justice.' Until that is corrected, no amount of new technologies will be enough.
Frank Jackson, Harlow, Essex

Source: The Observer

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UNITED KINGDOM: Ethical bank offers wind of change for green consumers

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 07 May 2008 18:45:00 +0000

You are keen to play your part in tackling climate change and have a bit of money to invest. You are distrustful of some of the big financial institutions but would like to earn a decent return on your cash if possible.

If that sounds like you, then you may be interested to hear that Tuesday sees the launch of a public share issue aimed at raising £8.5m to invest in wind farms and other renewable energy projects across the country. Ethical bank Triodos is offering people the chance to become shareholders in Triodos Renewables, a public limited company which came into being 13 years ago as the Wind Fund. This is its fourth share issue - the last was in 2005.

Triodos Renewables invests mainly in small and medium-sized wind farms, hydroelectric schemes and emerging renewable energy technology companies in the UK. It owns and operates two wind farms, Caton Moor in Lancashire and Haverigg II in Cumbria, and two single turbines, Gulliver in Lowestoft, Suffolk, (recently out of action for a few months following lightning strikes) and Sigurd in the Orkney Islands. It also owns the Beochlich hydroelectric project in Argyll, Scotland, and it has a stake in Marine Current Turbines, a tidal energy company whose first commercial turbine will begin operating off the coast of Northern Ireland later this year, and is a partner in Connective Energy, which is developing ways to capture and re-use waste heat from industry.

Triodos Renewables plans to use the money raised by the new share issue to more than double the amount of green electricity it produces in the next two to three years. It is issuing up to 5.5m new shares at £1.65 per share.

A spokesman says an investment in the company's last share issue in 2005 would have returned 22.9%. It adds: "The directors believe the company can reasonably be expected to achieve or exceed this performance in the coming years."

But you need to be aware that this is a long-term investment in a single share, with all the risks that entails. You may not get back the full amount invested, and it may be hard to sell the shares, though Triodos runs a service to match sellers with buyers.

The minimum investment is £825 (500 shares). The spokesman says an investment of £2,970 "will produce renewable energy output equivalent to the average person's annual carbon footprint".
Triodos Renewables is managed by Bristol-based Triodos Bank, which is headquartered in the Netherlands and has more than 20,000 customers here.

Whatever you think about wind farms, we are probably going to see a lot more turbines springing up if Britain is to stand any chance of meeting its targets for renewable energy. But with all the variables at play - the unpredictability of planning decisions, rising steel prices and so on - investing in them may not be suitable for the faint-hearted. A less risky bet may be an ethical fund investing in lots of different companies.

Source: The Guardian| by Rupert Jones

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UNITED KINGDOM: El Reino Unido instala la mayor turbina de energía generada a partir de las mareas. Abastecera a mas de 1000 hogares

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Mon, 05 May 2008 06:56:00 +0000

A finales de marzo, en Londres, los grupos ecologistas asistían con preocupación al acuerdo en materia de energía al que habían llegado Nicolas Sarkozy y el primer ministro británico, Gordon Brown: ambos países, según acordaron los mandatarios, colaborarán estrechamente en el lanzamiento de una nueva generación de centrales nucleares.

Pocos días después de que Nicolas Sarkozy y Gordon Brown culminasen su ‘entente nuclear’, sin embargo, un carguero, el Rambiz, zarpaba de los astilleros de Belfast (Irlanda del Norte) con una carga esperanzadora para quienes desean que la respuesta al cambio climático no sea la energía nuclear: el SeaGen, una inmensa turbina destinada a aprovechar la fuerza de las mareas para producir energía limpia.

Ese mismo día, el 30 de marzo, el Rambiz llegaba a su destino: las aguas cerca de la costa de Strangford Lough, un 'lago' –entiéndase fiordo- que se extiende en la orilla más oriental de Irlanda del Norte. Desde entonces, los ingenieros han trabajado a fondo para ‘anclar’ el SeaGen, la primera turbina comercial de este tipo, al lecho marino, perforándolo unos nueve metros para enterrar sus cuatro ‘patas’. Salvo sorpresas de última hora, esta fase final de la instalación culminará hoy.

Aún quedan otras 12 semanas de pruebas, pero hacia julio, si todo marcha como está previsto, sus dos rotores (16 metros de diámetro) trabajarán a pleno rendimiento, unas 20 horas al día. Proporcionarán entonces 1,2 MW, energía suficiente para alimentar a más de 1.000 hogares. Según cálculos de la compañía que está detrás de SeaGen, Marine Current Turbines, este tipo de ingenios pueden proporcionar en una década el 10% de la energía de todo el país.

Con un peso de 1.000 toneladas, y una anchura de 43 metros de punta a punta, la turbina funciona como un gigantesco molino de viento sumergido. Con una ventaja importante, según ha destacado Martin Wright, director general de la firma: las mareas son, a diferencia del viento, predecibles, lo que permite calcular y sacar el máximo rendimiento de la energía que generan.

En este sentido, el emplazamiento de SeaGen es uno de los mejores de Europa: las mareas en esta zona cercana a Belfast, que se abren paso entre la deshilachada costa norirlandesa, son poderosas (desplazan hasta 350 millones de m3 cada una) y veloces (unos 4 metros por segundo). De hecho, en un monasterio situado en una de las muchas islas que jalonan Strangford Lough, la de Mahee, reposan los restos de un molino de agua –uno de los más antiguos de los que se tiene noticia- con el que los lugareños aprovechaban, ya en el siglo VIII, la potencia de este recurso natural.

Impacto ambiental
Como se ve, la idea de sacar partido de la marea no es, ni mucho menos, nueva. En los últimos años, sin embargo, al hilo de la creciente preocupación por el cambio climático, los expertos están volviendo su mirada hacia los océanos. Ahí está el proyecto del Severn Barrage, también en el Reino Unido, que estudia crear una gigantesca presa en el Bristol Channel, entre Gales e Inglaterra, o la construcción, ya en marcha, de una ‘central flotante’ que aprovechará la energía de las olas en Portugal (proyecto Pelamis).

La cuestión que aún queda por resolver sobre algunos de ellos es si son tan verdes como aparentan. En el caso del SeaGen, su problema puede ser el mismo, bajo el agua, que tienen sobre ella los molinos de viento: mientras éstos suponen un peligro para las aves, que pueden chocar contra sus aspas, el SeaGen todavía tiene que demostrar que es compatible con la riquísima vida marítima que habita las aguas de Strangford Lough.

Para ello, la propia compañía ha invertido dos millones de libras en la vigilancia del impacto ambiental de la turbina, lo que incluye la presencia permanente de un observador de mamíferos marinos (en la zona abundan las focas) durante la fase de puesta en marcha de SeaGen, así como la instalación de un sistema de sónar que controlará la St. Andrew’s University.

Aunque el movimiento de sus aspas no es excesivamente rápido (14 revoluciones por minuto), el a veces polémico precedente de la energía eólica invita a ser precavido: «Estoy convencido de que esta tecnología va a funcionar, pero lo que aún no sabemos es qué impacto tendrá en el medio ambiente», ha recalcado David Irwin, uno de los conservacionistas locales, encargado de uno de los equipos encargados de la supervisión del proyecto.

Si el SeaGen da buenos resultados, Marine Current Turbines piensa instalar una ‘granja’ de turbinas en la costa de Anglesey (Gales), con una capacidad de 10,5 MW, que esperan comience a funcionar hacia 2011, y otras empresas han anunciado planes similares. Serán las primeras de toda una flota llamada, quizá -si la política lo permite y la tecnología lo hace posible-, a constituir una alternativa a lo nuclear.

Source: El Mundo|Ana Goñi

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JAPAN: Tony Blair Urges `Revolutionary' Carbon Emission Cuts

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 21:21:00 +0000

Former U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair urged the U.S., Japan and European nations to make ``revolutionary'' cuts to greenhouse gases responsible for global warming.

``Since poorer nations will see their emissions rise as they industrialize, and since the world population may well grow from 6 to 9 billion, emissions in the richer nations will have to fall close to zero,'' Blair said at energy and environmental talks in Chiba City near Tokyo.

Ministers of the Group of Eight industrialized nations and representatives from 12 other countries discussed how to finance technological efforts to tackle climate change, and the basis for a successor to the Kyoto Protocol that expires in 2012.

U.S. emissions of greenhouse gases total 20 tons a year per person, twice as much as in Europe and Japan, Blair said. The world's average emission level may need to fall to as low as 2 tons per person to halve global output of the harmful gases by 2050, he said.

``If the average person in the U.S. is to emit, per capita, one-10th of what they do today and those in the U.K. or Japan by one-fifth, we're not talking adjustment, we're talking about a revolution,'' Blair said.

Green Technology

Japan will propose developing 21 emission-fighting technologies by 2030 at the three-day meeting, dubbed the ``G-8 Gleneagles Dialogue on Climate Change, Clean Energy and Sustainable Development.''

The technologies include coal- and gas-fired power plants that emit almost no carbon dioxide, steelmaking processes using hydrogen, and a system to store carbon underground.

The conference serves as a prelude to another climate change summit this July, on Japan's northern island of Hokkaido.

The Kyoto Protocol requires 37 nations to cut emissions by a combined 5.2 percent from 1990 levels by 2012. The accord was never designed to solve global warming, and a new treaty must set targets to restrict temperature gains, Robert Watson, former chairman of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said March 11 at the Oceanology International conference in London.

The 1997 treaty limiting emissions for developed countries expires in 2012. The U.S. never ratified the accord. A new treaty is expected to be signed in Copenhagen next year.

Global Fund

The U.S., the largest emitter of greenhouse gases among industrialized nations, will seek to increase a proposed $10 billion clean technology fund, Daniel Price, an international economic affairs adviser to President George W. Bush, said yesterday.

The size of the fund, to be raised by the U.S., U.K., Japan and the World Bank, ``is insufficient to address the cost of the challenge,'' Price said. ``We are focused now on expanding the universe of donors for this fund.''

Price attended a meeting on energy security and climate change in Chiba before the G-20 ministerial talks.

China, the world's second-biggest emitter of carbon dioxide, said on March 5 developed nations should provide financial support of 0.5 percent of their annual gross domestic product to help it and other developing nations remedy the effects of climate change.

China's Plea
The Chinese proposal was among 26 submissions published on the Web site of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which aims to craft a successor agreement to the Kyoto Protocol.

``The incentives will be there to make environmental technology a massive new industrial opportunity, equivalent to the Industrial Revolution of the 19th Century,'' Blair said. ``The call to action is loud and clear.''

Source: Bloomberg| by Shigeru Sato & Yuji Okada

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UNITED STATES: Assessing The Feasability Of A Dedicated Ethanol Pipeline

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Magellan Midstream Partners and Buckeye Partners have announced they have begun a joint assessment to determine the feasibility of constructing a dedicated ethanol pipeline. The proposed ethanol pipeline system would safely and efficiently deliver renewable fuel ethanol from the Midwest to distribution terminals in the northeastern United States.

The proposed pipeline could have the capacity to supply more than 10 million gallons of ethanol per day, enough to meet the needs of millions of northeastern motorists who purchase 10% ethanol blended gasoline or higher ethanol blends such as E85.

The pipeline would gather ethanol from production facilities in Iowa, Illinois, Minnesota and South Dakota to serve terminals in major markets such as Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and the New York harbor. The project, which preliminarily has been estimated to cost in excess of $3 billion, would span approximately 1,700 miles and would take several years to complete.

"The most promising liquid fuel alternative to conventional gasoline today is ethanol. But without an efficient means to transport ethanol from the Midwest to other markets, its benefits are limited," said Senator Tom Harkin (D-IA), Chairman of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry and a leader in promoting ethanol pipelines.

"Having a dedicated ethanol pipeline running from the Midwest to the eastern markets will help bridge the gap between the Midwest and the East, aiding America's energy security. So I applaud these two companies' efforts and I look forward to working in Congress to support the development of such pipelines."

"We believe the proposed pipeline is a unique and innovative solution to meeting the growing need for renewable fuels in the Northeast," said Don Wellendorf, Magellan's President and Chief Executive Officer. "Pipelines have consistently been chosen over the years as the safest, most reliable and cost effective method for moving liquid fuels. The potential project would be a major step in bringing ethanol into the traditional petroleum infrastructure system."

"Buckeye and Magellan are leaders in the pipeline industry and can play an important role in developing the infrastructure needed to efficiently meet the renewable fuels requirements of the recently enacted Energy Bill," said Eric Gustafson, Buckeye's Senior Vice President and Chief Operating Officer.

"This feasibility study will evaluate the possible use of existing right-of-ways and workforces as well as other synergies and resources that our companies have. Our goal is to develop a cost effective project that could deliver ethanol from the production hubs in the Midwest to the high demand areas in the Northeast."

The feasibility of this project is dependent upon the successful outcome of ongoing studies addressing technical and economic issues associated with the transportation of ethanol via pipeline. Congressional support and assistance is necessary for a project of this nature given the changing federal policies associated with renewable fuels.

In addition to assessing governmental support, financing and technical issues, Magellan and Buckeye stated that the feasibility study would also review construction requirements, construction costs, project economics, regulatory issues and other matters. The technical and feasibility studies could be complete in the latter half of 2008.

However, the necessary governmental support, the timing of which is unknown at this time, is critical for the partnerships to make a decision on proceeding with construction of the proposed ethanol pipeline. Pursuit of the proposed project also is conditioned on changes to federal tax laws to ensure that transportation of ethanol by pipeline will be treated the same as the transportation of natural resources, such as refined petroleum products, by pipeline.

Although there are many hurdles to overcome to make this ethanol pipeline project a reality, the two partnerships are hopeful that the obvious need for a pipeline to deliver ethanol from the Midwest to distribution terminals in the northeastern United States will lead to a viable and successful project.

Both companies have extensive experience handling ethanol at their respective terminal locations. Magellan already blends ethanol at 36 of its petroleum products terminals and is currently investing in six new ethanol blending systems at its terminals in the Midwest and southeastern states. Buckeye currently has 24 terminals with ethanol blending capabilities and is in the process of investing in two new ethanol blending systems at its terminals in the Northeast.

Source: SPX

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UNITED STATES: Coal Gasification and CO2

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 14:14:00 +0000

There is a growing consensus that increased demand for electricity will cement coal's place in the energy portfolio for years to come. In fact, more than half of the electricity produced in the United States comes from coal. With demand for electricity expected to double by 2050 and renewable resources still years away from offsetting increased demand, it is clear -- coal is here to stay.

But can 'dirty' coal be used cleanly?" The answer may be a resounding yes if gasification becomes common place, researchers said today at the 2008 Annual Meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Boston.

"Coal gasification offers one of the most versatile and clean ways to convert coal into electricity, hydrogen and other valuable energy products," said George Muntean, staff scientist at the Deparent of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, during his presentation at the AAAS symposium entitled "Coal Gasification, Myths, Challenges and Opportunities."

PNNL scientists organized the symposium to provide an overview of how coal gasification can help meet the growing demand for clean energy.

"Gasification provides significant economic and environmental benefits to conventional coal power plants," Muntean said. Rather than burning coal directly, gasification breaks down coal into its basic chemical constituents using high temperature and pressure. Because of this, carbon dioxide can be captured from a gas stream far more easily than from the smokestacks of a conventional coal plant.

"If we plan to use our domestic supply of coal to produce energy, and do so in a way that does not intensify aospheric CO2 concentrations, gasification is critical," Muntean said. "It has the potential to enable carbon capture and sequestration technologies and play an important role in securing domestic sources of transportation fuels."

Many experts predict that coal gasification will be at the heart of clean coal technology if current lifespan and economic challenges are addressed. One significant challenge is the historically short lifespan of refractories, which are used to line and protect the inside of a gasifier. Currently, refractories have a lifespan of 12 to 16 months. The relining of a gasifier costs approximately $1 million and requires three to six weeks of downtime.

"Gasification happens in an extreme environment so the lifespan of refractories is historically low," said S.K. Sundaram, PNNL staff scientist. "Refractory lifespan must be increased before we can realize the promise of clean coal."

During the symposium, S.K Sundaram highlighted two advanced gasifier models developed at PNNL that provide a scientific understanding on when and why refractories fail at such high rates. The data collected from these models could enable advanced or alternative gasification technologies to be produced. Use of these models could extend refractory lifespans by 3 years.

"Advances in modeling will help us better understand some of the key challenges associated with coal gasification - refractory durability and lifespan," Sundaram said. "This will help reduce the capital costs of operating a coal gasifier."

During the symposium, researchers at PNNL also highlighted advances in millimeter wave technology that could be used for real-time measurement of critical parameters (temperature, slag viscosity, refractory corrosion) inside a gasifier. The millimeter wave technology, developed at PNNL, has been used for a number of different applications, from airport security to custom fit clothing.

Although in the early stages of development for this application, the technology shows promise to increase the efficiency and safety of coal gasifiers.

"Advances in gasification will help us meet demand for clean energy worldwide," Sundaram said. "Science and technology are paving the way for cleaner coal for future generations."

Source: SPX

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UNITED STATES: Solar Cell Directly Splits Water For Hydrogen

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:59:00 +0000

Plants, trees and algae do it. Even some bacteria and moss do it, but scientists have had a difficult time developing methods to turn sunlight into useful fuel. Now, Penn State researchers have a proof-of-concept device that can split water and produce recoverable hydrogen.

"This is a proof-of-concept system that is very inefficient. But ultimately, catalytic systems with 10 to 15 percent solar conversion efficiency might be achievable," says Thomas E. Mallouk, the DuPont Professor of Materials Chemistry and Physics. "If this could be realized, water photolysis would provide a clean source of hydrogen fuel from water and sunlight."

Although solar cells can now produce electricity from visible light at efficiencies of greater than 10 percent, solar hydrogen cells - like those developed by Craig Grimes, professor of electrical engineering at Penn State - have been limited by the poor spectral response of the semiconductors used.

In principle, molecular light absorbers can use more of the visible spectrum in a process that is mimetic of natural photosynthesis. Photosynthesis uses chlorophyll and other dye molecules to absorb visible light.

So far, experiments with natural and synthetic dye molecules have produced either hydrogen or oxygen-using chemicals consumed in the process, but have not yet created an ongoing, continuous process. Those processes also generally would cost more than splitting water with electricity. One reason for the difficulty is that once produced, hydrogen and oxygen easily recombine. The catalysts that have been used to study the oxygen and hydrogen half-reactions are also good catalysts for the recombination reaction.

Mallouk and W. Justin Youngblood, postdoctoral fellow in chemistry, together with collaborators at Arizona State University, developed a catalyst system that, combined with a dye, can mimic the electron transfer and water oxidation processes that occur in plants during photosynthesis.

The key to their process is a tiny complex of molecules with a center catalyst of iridium oxide molecules surrounded by orange-red dye molecules. These clusters are about 2 nanometers in diameter with the catalyst and dye components approximately the same size. The researchers chose orange-red dye because it absorbs sunlight in the blue range, which has the most energy. The dye used has also been thoroughly studied in previous artificial photosynthesis experiments.

They space the dye molecules around the center core leaving surface area on the catalyst for the reaction. When visible light strikes the dye, the energy excites electrons in the dye, which, with the help of the catalyst, can split the water molecule, creating free oxygen.

"Each surface iridium atom can cycle through the water oxidation reaction about 50 times per second," says Mallouk. "That is about three orders of magnitude faster than the next best synthetic catalysts, and comparable to the turnover rate of Photosystem II in green plant photosynthesis." Photosystem II is the protein complex in plants that oxidizes water and starts the photosynthetic process.

The researchers impregnated a titanium dioxide electrode with the catalyst complex for the anode and used a platinum cathode. They immersed the electrodes in a salt solution, but separated them from each other to avoid the problem of the hydrogen and oxygen recombining. Light need only shine on the dye-sensitized titanium dioxide anode for the system to work.

This type of cell is similar to those that produce electricity, but the addition of the catalyst allows the reaction to split the water into its component gases.

The water splitting requires 1.23 volts, and the current experimental configuration cannot quite achieve that level so the researchers add about 0.3 volts from an outside source. Their current system achieves an efficiency of about 0.3 percent.

"Nature is only 1 to 3 percent efficient with photosynthesis," says Mallouk. "Which is why you can not expect the clippings from your lawn to power your house and your car. We would like not to have to use all the land area that is used for agriculture to get the energy we need from solar cells."

The researchers have a variety of approaches to improve the process. They plan to investigate improving the efficiency of the dye, improving the catalyst and adjusting the general geometry of the system. Rather than spherical dye catalyst complexes, a different geometry that keeps more of the reacting area available to the sun and the reactants might be better. Improvements to the overall geometry may also help.

"At every branch in the process, there is a choice," says Mallouk. "The question is how to get the electrons to stay in the proper path and not, for example, release their energy and go down to ground state without doing any work."

The distance between molecules is important in controlling the rate of electron transfer and getting the electrons where they need to go. By shortening some of the distances and making others longer, more of the electrons would take the proper path and put their energy to work splitting water and producing hydrogen.

Source: SPX

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UNITED STATES: The Future Of Biofuels

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Wed, 12 Mar 2008 13:54:00 +0000

High oil prices, energy security considerations and fears about global warming have helped revive interest in renewable energy sources like biofuels, which burn cleanly and can be produced from plants.

But there are a few catches, particularly regarding biofuels like corn-based ethanol: the more corn is used in ethanol production, the less is available for food-a reality that partly accounts for the recent run-up in world food prices. Moreover, most of the 6 billion gallons of ethanol produced annually in the United States comes from corn, but there's not enough corn available to make it a viable long-term source.

MIT Professor Gregory Stephanopoulos lead a discussion of the various ways scientists and energy policymakers are seeking to overcome these limitations and make biofuels from renewable biomass feedstocks a significant part of the U.S. energy supply during a symposium.

The symposium, "Biomass to Biofuels Conversion: Technical and Policy Perspectives," explored two aspects of biofuels: The first half covered biofuels policy and the second focussed on technical issues in converting biomass to fuel.

Stephanopoulos, the Willard Henry Dow Professor of Chemical Engineering, discussed his own research, which involves bioengineering yeast. He and colleagues have developed a new way to engineer the genome of yeast to produce desirable traits-specifically, the ability to tolerate high levels of ethanol, which is normally toxic to yeast. The technique holds promise for the development of other traits that would make yeast more-efficient ethanol producers.

He also touched on other lines of biofuel research, including using plant materials to produce ethanol. To replace corn, scientists are turning to cellulose found in grasses and agricultural wastes.

"The technology to produce cellulosic ethanol is not there yet," Stephanopoulos said. However, he estimates that large-scale, economically feasible production of ethanol from cellulose could happen within 10 years.

Source: SPX| by Anne Trafton

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BIOFUEL: Thailand worries over food shortages amid palm oil debate

noreply@blogger.com (Staff Writer) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 23:37:00 +0000

Thailand has started requiring that all its diesel fuel include a component made from palm oil, a move that could reduce costly energy imports but is driving up prices for the commodity, experts say. From February 1, the kingdom began requiring that diesel vehicles run on a blend that includes two percent biodiesel, and is considering raising that to five percent within five years. The switch has sent prices for palm oil soaring, leading to shortages of the commodity that is widely used for domestic cooking and in the food industry.

Palm oil is among the products for which prices are controlled by the government, but as prices have risen globally, traders stopped selling to stores or began ignoring the fixed price.

That sounded alarm bells for producers and consumers, who urged the government to ban exports of palm oil and to adjust its price controls. Instead, the Commerce Ministry allowed a one-time import of 30,000 tonnes of palm oil to boost supplies until March, when production enters its peak season.

It also allowed a four-baht increase in cooking oil prices, to 47.60 baht (1.44 dollars) per litre.

Wannaporn Martkasem, chairman of the Palm Oil Refinery Association, said floating palm oil prices would help prevent a shortage in stores, but warned the government would have to find a better way to balance the competing demands for food and fuel.

"Palm oil prices are increasingly affected on the market because of the rising demands of palm oil for biofuel and consumer consumption," Wannaporn said.

Prices for crude palm oil have nearly doubled over the last year, jumping to 35.98 baht per kilo last month, up from 18.63 baht one year earlier.

A litre of cooking oil cost 36.32 baht in December 2007, up from 28.05 one year earlier.

Apichart Jongskul, head of the government's office of agricultural economics, said Thailand is already planning a 16 percent increase this year in land used to cultivate palm oil, expanding plantations to cover 1.4 million acres (566,000 heactares).

By 2012, that will grow to 2.2 million acres (890,000 hectares), he added.

The expansion would nearly double the amount of crude palm oil produced in Thailand, to 2.2 million tonnes, Apichart said.

"We prioritise palm oil for the food industry first. Energy and exports come second in our policy," Apichart said.

The increased production will be enough to meet the demand for both cooking and fuel as the two percent requirement kicks in, he said.

But Apichart warned Thailand would have to grow even more palm oil to have all diesel vehicles meet the five percent requirement.

Biofuel production is on the rise around the world as it is seen as a clean form of energy in an era of soaring oil prices and growing worries about carbon emissions blamed for climate change.

For Thailand, which imports most of its energy, biofuels also represent a way to cut its import bill while reducing reliance on overseas producers. But critics say biofuel is jacking up prices of basic food products by intensifying demand for agricultural produce. Environmentalists are also alarmed at the dramatic expansion of farmland to produce crops for biofuels, which they say may actually contribute to global warming because of the destruction of forests where trees store carbon dioxide.

Global palm oil prices have also soared because of its popularity as an ingredient in processed foods as a substitute for trans fats, which health experts believe encourage obesity and other ailments.

But Apichart said he believed prices had stabilised and would not rise much more.

"If palm oil prices rise too high, energy producers are more likely to prefer other energy sources with lower costs," he said.

Thailand's outgoing Commerce Minister Krirk-krai Jirapaet recently told reporters that he would coordinate with the agriculture and energy ministries to try to balance the competing demands for palm oil.

"The commerce ministry will look after issues concerning consumers," Krirk-krai said.

Source: Agence France Pressee

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