Cleantech Blog

Low Cost Desalination - Saltworks Breakthrough

2009-11-03T08:15:00.000-08:00

Canadian firm, Saltworks Technologies, just came out of stealth in relation to their desalination technology, which they claim reduce the electrical energy required for desalination by over 70%. They report they can produce 1m3 of water with 1kW hour of electrical energy, compared to the 3.7kWhr per m3, which is what is currently achievable using reverse osmosis with the use of energy recovery devices.

So how to they do it? Well its novel. It appears to be a new approach. And novel and new are two things scarce as hens teeth in relation to desalination technologies.

They use solar heat (or waste heat) to evaporate water and concentrate salt water. They are converting solar energy into osmotic energy by doing this. They then use this osmotic energy to desalinate water.
They then expose the concentrated salt water to two separate solutions of regular salt water via two different ‘bridges’, one which is porous to chloride ions, the second which is porous to sodium ions.

The sodium and chloride ions migrate across the respective bridges into the salt water solutions to equalise the difference in ion concentration between the solutions.
This creates two charged solutions, one enriched with sodium ions (positively charged), the second enriched with chloride ions (negatively charged).
These two solutions are then exposed across two similar bridges to the water to be desalinated. This draws sodium ions into the chloride enriched solution and draws chloride ions into the sodium enriched solution: Net result desalination. Doing this they reckon they can produce 1m3 of water using 1kWh of electrical energy, which is used to pump fluids around the pipework.
Because the system is not under pressure, they can use plastic pipes instead of steel pipes, potentially reducing capital costs also.

I met with Saltworks about six months ago in Vancouver and I was impressed by the methodical way they have been going about technology commercialisation. Despite winning a technology innovation award in British Columbia in May 2009, they have kept this remarkably quiet. An article in the Economist provides a good review of this.

Paul O'Callaghan is CEO of Technology Assessment Group, O2 Environmental Inc and author of Water Technology Markets.

Plugging Electric Vehicles

2009-11-02T04:33:00.000-08:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

Much has been written about the planned release by General Motors (NYSE: GM) of the Chevy Volt, a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle. When GM launches the vehicle, now slated for late 2010, it plans to sell tens of thousands of them.

As profiled in an article in the August 24 issue of Forbes, the bigger mover in the electric drive vehicles game looks to be Nissan (NASD: NSANY), which is investing several billion dollars to ramp up for producing 300,000-400,000 electric vehicles within a few years. Its entry model is the Leaf, a five-passenger hatchback that it aims to sell in the U.S. by late 2010, at a price point of about $30,000.

A key aspect of Nissan’s surge into electric vehicles is its joint venture with NEC, for their lithium-ion (Li-ion) batteries. The NEC battery design employs a laminated structure that improves cooling performance, which has been a major stumbling point for the use of Li-ion batteries. Indeed, Nissan plans to sell these batteries to other automakers.

Nissan’s CEO, Carlos Ghosn, is by his own words “extremely bullish on zero-emission vehicles.” He is bold enough to predict that 10% of world auto sales will be all-electric within 10 years.

An excellent overview of the electric vehicle realm, entitled "The Electric-Fuel-Trade Acid Test", was published in the September 5 issue of The Economist. In this article, not only were several of the new electric vehicle makers (e.g., Tesla Motors, Venturi, BYD Auto, SAIC Motors) and battery developers (A123 Systems, Boston Power) put into context, but some all-new technologies and business models enabled by vehicle electrification were highlighted.

For instance, consider the case of Better Place. This California-based firm is launching a business to serve local auto markets with a network of stations that will swap out depleted batteries with fully-charged ones within seconds, and charge the spent batteries for reuse in other vehicles, thereby offering customers a quick recharge akin to a refill at a gas station. Pricing will be akin to “rental” on the battery, until it is returned to a station to be replaced by a fresh one, which will also be “rented”. Each stop at a station thus implies a customer outlay on the same order of magnitude as a tank of gasoline or diesel.

Then there is the case of Michelin, which is developing something called the Active Wheel. Beyond just the tire, Michelin is aiming to embed motors, brakes, suspension and associated systems into wheels, thereby distributing physical control to each wheel and allowing heavy items such as springs and transmissions to be entirely eliminated from the vehicle. Not only will this (theoretically, at least) improve auto performance, but it will reduce weight to increase energy efficiency and possibly lower capital and operating costs of vehicles.

The possibilities for an entirely new industry to emerge in providing and supporting electric vehicle markets are becoming clearer. Earlier this year, a study (accessible here) commissioned by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) – funded by The Cleveland Foundation, the Greater Cleveland Partnership and First Energy (NYSE: FE) – assessed the potential for Northeast Ohio to become a major player in the electric drive vehicle industry. The study makes indicates that many thousands of jobs are at stake for the Cleveland region – but only if (1) the U.S. takes actions to accelerate the penetration of electric vehicles in the transportation sector, and at least as importantly (2) Northeast Ohio organizes itself to more earnestly pursue the business and technology opportunities associated with electric drive vehicles.

This economic potential is not just for Northeast Ohio. Clearly in response to the downturn of the American auto industry, the Obama Administration has made the state of Michigan a major recipient of its largesse, allocating half of a recent $2.4 billion in grants to stimulate electric vehicle and battery production. As reported in the Forbes article, Nissan’s U.S. battery manufacturing will occur in Tennessee, supported by a $1.6 billion loan from the U.S. Department of Energy. A123 and Boston Power are both based in Massachusetts. Along with Tesla, Fisker Automotive – both supported by the Silicon Valley mega venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins – are based in California.

Of course, not everyone is enamored with electric vehicles. In the same issue in which it profiles Nissan’s electric vehicle strategy, Forbes’ editor William Baldwin writes a skeptical opinion about the cost-effectiveness of electric vehicles in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

When considered solely as an approach for reducing emissions, perhaps electric vehicles aren’t the absolute best solution. However, when one also considers the economic revitalization possibilities, as well as the imperative for reducing reliance on oil (from unstable and unfriendly sources around the globe), electric vehicles seem far more worthy of plugging.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Ford Electric Car for 2011

2009-10-27T07:29:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (originally published in Clean Fleet Report 10/26/09).

My test drive of the new Ford electric car for 2011 demonstrated that Ford (NYSE:F) is building an electric car that millions will want. The Ford Focus EV prototype provided a quiet and smooth drive for a prototype. One Ford engineer indicated that he was going beyond a 60-mile daily range in Michigan without nearing battery depletion.

The Focus EV looks and drives like the popular gasoline powered Ford Focus four-door sedan. It comfortably seated four adults, but good luck if you want three people in the back – it will help if the one in the middle is a child. This BEV will appeal to mainstream drivers that want a sedan that looks and drives like a regular car. Instead of ever visiting a gas station, they will charge in their home garage and/or at work.

This prototype was a converted Focus. It did not include the SmartGauge™ with EcoGuide display available in Ford Fusion and Mercury Milan Hybrids, nor did it include a navigation system with smart charge display user interface expected in the 2011 BEV. The final version is expected to have friendly yet sophisticated display options and some of Ford’s newly introduced telematics.

It drives with quicker acceleration than its gasoline cousin. The prototype, like the final version, had a Magna (MGA) electric drive system. Unlike the final version of the Focus EV, the prototype had a Magna Steyr battery pack taking part of the trunk space. One Ford rep believed that the battery cells were EnerDel (HEV) lithium titanate. Ford will make its own packs for the 2011 commercial version and would not state who will make the cells. Volvo is part of Ford Motor Company. The concept Volvo C30 Battery Electric Vehicle will use EnerDel batteries. Volvo will use A123 (AONE) cells in heavy vehicles integrating a Magna Steyr battery system. Ford has expressed a past preference for the cells to be made in the United States, which would include a number of candidates such as EnerDel and A123.

During my recent tour of a Johnson-Controls (JCI) Saft (SGPEF) joint venture design and manufacturing plant, I was shown a lithium-ion 13 kWh battery with cylindrical cells for the 2012 Ford PHEV. Johnson-Controls gave no indication that it was in the running for the 2011 Ford Focus EV.

No pricing has been announced for the Ford Focus EV. If it comes in at under $40,000 with a $7,500 tax credit, I would be interested in buying one. However, if Nissan or BYD beats Ford to the U.S. BEV market with better delivery and better price or lease rates, then they are likely to get my business over Ford.

In its drive for market share, volume, and improved profit margins, 2012 will be a big year for Ford when the company will have a common C-segment platform for a number of vehicles including the Focus, Focus C-Max, and Escape. As future gasoline price volatility causes shifts in consumer demand, Ford can quickly change its mix of what is manufactured on a common platform. For example if gasoline prices jump, Ford could increase production of vehicles with fuel efficient eco-boost and make less with conventional. Ford could also quickly increase production of electric cars.

The Focus EV will be made in America – Warren, Michigan. Ford is investing $550 million to transform its Michigan Assembly Plant into a lean, green and flexible manufacturing complex that will build Ford’s next-generation Focus global small car along with a new battery-electric version of the Focus for the North American market.

Clean Fleet Report predicts that in 2012, Ford will offer a new global Focus available with several drive systems: conventional engine, 2 liter eco-boost, electric vehicle, both hybrid and plug-in hybrid. By 2012, Ford may be using lithium-ion even for its hybrids. The vehicle will have better range because it will be lighter as Ford executes a strategy of removing 250 to 750 pounds per vehicle. Ford will be well on the way to a 35 percent fuel economy improvement over its 2005 fleet.

The new 2.0-liter, 4-cylinder EcoBoost engine will go on sale in the 2010 calendar year.
It is the first EcoBoost engine to include Twin-Independent Variable Cam Timing
(Ti-VCT) and will deliver a 10 to 20 percent fuel economy improvement versus larger-displacement V-6 engines. By 2012, the company plans to produce 750,000 EcoBoost units annually in the U.S. and 1.3 million globally. By 2013, Ford will offer EcoBoost engines in 90 percent of its product lineup. 2010 Focus Homepage

I get questions (or rather lectures that start with a questions), “Why would someone pay more for an electric vehicle, when you can’t even cost justify a hybrid?” First, some people make money with hybrids over comparable non-hybrids. When I bought my 2002 Prius for $20,000, I paid about $4,000 more than for a non-hybrid with similar features. Over seven years, the car saved my wife and me over $5,000 in gasoline, and then I sold it about $4,000 more than a similar non-hybrid.

While I was test driving the Focus EV in San Francisco, I saw many taxis that were Ford Escape Hybrids, Toyota Priuses, Toyota Camry Hybrids, and even a Ford Fusion Hybrid Taxi. These taxis put on 90,000 miles per year. Hybrids make the owners money by saving a fortune in fuel. New York has over 2,000 Ford hybrids in its taxi fleet.

The fact is that hybrids make money for some owners and not for others. It depends on how the cars are used and how often. In the past 12 months of severe economic downturn, Ford has increased its hybrid sales 73 percent.

Early adopters will not shell out $40,000 for an EV to save money over a sedan for less than half that cost. For mass market success, auto makers and battery makers must drive cost down the learning curve over a few years. Competition is growing for battery electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid car leadership. By 2020, these vehicles could represent up to 25 percent of Ford’s production – that’s 2 million cars annually with electric drive systems and advanced battery packs.

By John Addison. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers. (disclosure: author owns stock in Ener1, parent company of EnerDel)

H2O to H2 w/o C

2009-10-26T05:08:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

Although much of the ink these days about innovative vehicles relates to plug-in hybrids, work continues to explore the potential for hydrogen-based fuel cells to play a key role in the transportation sector -- particularly in light of the recent decision by Congress to reauthorize funding for hydrogen autos.

Admittedly, as hydrogen critics and skeptics are quick to point out, the vision for personal automobiles running on hydrogen is very long-term and thus quite murky due to a number of factors, perhaps most notably the lack of a ubiquitous hydrogen refueling infrastructure. The challenges facing hydrogen vehicles are real, but for fleet vehicles with limited service radii, the lack of refueling infrastructure is less of a problem, as one dedicated refueling system can fit the bill. As a result, fleet vehicles – especially inner-city buses – are the primary focus of current testing activities for hydrogen fuel cells in transportation.

Of course, to achieve the full environmental benefits of the hydrogen economy vision the hydrogen will need to be derived by electrolyzing water via renewably-sourced electricity (e.g., from the sun or the wind) to power the electrolyzer.

Although conceptually straightforward, renewably powering electrolyzers turns out to be a non-trivial challenge. This is mainly because solar and wind electricity voltage and current are highly variable, and the electronics of the control systems in electrolyzers tend not to like fluctuations in input power.

To address this challenge, a team here in Cleveland is spearheading a project to install a solar/wind-powered electrolyzer to generate hydrogen from Lake Erie water, with the hydrogen to supply a refueling station that will power a fuel cell bus serving Cleveland-area riders.

With seed funding from the Cleveland Foundation, the project is being managed by the Ohio Aerospace Institute, and the team includes NASA’s Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Cleveland’s Regional Transit Authority (RTA), the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland, Cleveland-based Parker Hannifin (NYSE: PH), and United Technologies (NYSE: UTX). The Great Lakes Science Center is already home to a 225 kw wind turbine and a 32 kw photovoltaics installation, and will be home to the electrolyzer-fed fueling station. RTA will run the fuel cell bus on the recently-renovated Euclid Corridor. United Technologies will be providing the fuel cell bus, and Parker Hannifin is providing key control systems for the fueling station. If all goes well – meaning, primarily, raising an additional $1 million or so to fully complete the project – the hydrogen fueling station and fuel cell bus will operate on a demonstration basis in a couple of years.

Of particular note, NASA is providing the intellectual expertise in developing the algorithms for controlling the electrolyzer to match the variable input power from the solar and wind generating systems. This expertise comes from considerable mission experience, in which photovoltaics systems generate electricity from the sun to power the spacecraft, and energy storage and charge control systems must accommodate power supply interruptions as planetary bodies transit in front of the sun.

To the team’s knowledge, because managing the intermittency of electricity supply in electrolyzer operation is non-trivial, there is only very limited experience with renewable electrolysis for hydrogen production, and virtually none involving more than a little bit of hydrogen production daily. So, this Cleveland project could be an important step along the path to developing truly carbon-free hydrogen-fueled transportation solutions.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Cleantech Blog Readers - Unite! Let's Color the Volt

2009-10-22T08:08:00.001-07:00

Ok, I couldn't resist.

GM is running a contest to name the silver green color for the Volt. Winner gets to go to the LA auto show and drive a pre-production Volt.

So if any of you have a few minutes to amuse yourself, add your color name idea in the comments to this post, or email it to me, and we'll take the best ones (we'll run a poll if time allows) and submit them as the Cleantech Blog submissions. (Or just submit straight to GM if you want to try yourself).

For the record, if we win, we'll auction off the right to represent Cleantech Blog at the LA autoshow and give the proceeds to a green non profit.

Regards,

Neal Dikeman

Duke Energy’s Electric Vehicle Future

2009-10-20T07:35:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (Originally Posted 10/19/09 at Clean Fleet Report).

Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK) committed to an electric vehicle future when it committed with the FPL Group (NYSE: FPL) to buy 10,000 electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids in the coming decade, as they upgrade their fleets. The energy storage in these vehicles could eliminate the need for peaking plants and enable the expanded use of renewable energy. Duke Energy’s electric vehicle future may save billions in future power plant investments.

On October 10, Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers shared a few minutes discussing electric vehicles and future strategy with me before he spoke at the Society for Environmental Journalist Conference. At first his commitments to electric vehicles, energy efficiency, and renewable energy seem surprising, given that he is CEO of the nation’s third largest emitter of greenhouse gases. The emissions are largely the result of being the nation’s third biggest consumer of coal. He does not hide Duke’s emissions, instead he puts the issue right up front and talks about the future where Duke will replace all power plants between now and 2050.

First, let’s look at the commitment to 10,000 electric vehicles made with FPL at the latest Clinton Global Initiative (CGI). The $600 million investment over 10 years has more to do with good business than PR. Vehicle operations impact the earnings of any utility. Hybrid trouble trucks are already cutting fuel cost in half, as they use hybrid batteries to run lifts and auxiliaries for hours. Clean Fleet Report of PG&E. Plug-in hybrids would cut fuel more. Mr. Rogers stated, “We need to wean our country from dependency on oil.”

“A 10-year commitment gives us time to adopt, test and integrate new technology into fleets as a wider range of vehicles are developed,” said Jim Rogers at the CGI. “Currently, the only near-term options for available PEV supply are sedans, minivans, vans and a few bucket trucks. Over a 10-year horizon, it is expected that options will be available for most utility service categories.”

Electric vehicles including plug-in hybrids can be charged at night when there is excess electricity available. That electricity costs far less than gasoline and diesel. Duke Energy has 634 megawatts (MW) of land-based wind energy in Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming and another 99 MW under construction. An additional 251 MW of wind projects scheduled to begin operation in 2010. Siemens (SI) is one beneficiary of Duke’s renewable expansion. Duke even plans to lead in a pilot of offshore wind in North Carolina. Offshore wind has benefited Denmark, providing electricity for longer hours than land-based and more renewable energy during peak demand hours. This December, global leaders will see the wind towers in Copenhagen Harbor as the leaders discuss climate solutions.

In a 1993 annual report, Mr. Rogers was ahead of other utility leaders in stating, “We must turn our attention to carbon.” Jim Rogers has been active in climate meetings leading up to Copenhagen including co-founding US-CAP, chairing the Edison Institute who supported Waxman-Markey, and as a Copenhagen climate counselor. Rogers sees it as unlikely that Congress will deliver a bill before Copenhagen, yet Duke’s CEO feels that business leaders can achieve significant progress. His progress in diversifying Duke away from coal and oil dependency is one example. Working with China is another.

“What I admire about China is the mindset of can-do,” said Duke Energy CEO Jim Rogers, who at CGI announced a joint technology development deal with Chinese energy giant ENN Group encompassing solar, biofuels, smart grid, efficiency, carbon-capturing algae and other areas. “They’re not looking for excuses as to why we can’t do something.” Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) Quotations from Clint Wilder’s report at Clean Edge

The recession has given utility executives some breathing room by reducing electricity demand. Electricity consumption in the U.S. fell reports the EIA. Coal usage dropped 13 percent in one year. Nuclear is off 2 percent. Net generation from wind sources was 18 percent higher and was the second largest absolute increase after natural gas. New drilling techniques make natural gas cheap and plentiful.

Duke wants coal power with carbon capture and sequestration (CSS) to be a big part of its future generation. After 20 years of experiments, “clean coal” is still largely non-existent. No doubt that coal can be captured. It can even be sequestered, at least for years. There is no evidence, however, that coal with carbon sequestering can economically compete with natural gas plants. “Clean coal” takes significant extra coal, capital expenditure, pipelining of CO2 and finding a willing oil company or cavern owner to store the greenhouse gas. Coal mining causes environmental damage and release of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more destructive than CO2. Duke wants to bet on coal, yet it may find difficulty getting taxpayer or rate payer support for the added billions for CSS. For baseload power, natural gas would be cheaper, but natural gas prices have fluctuated wildly in the past years.

Utility executives want predictable pricing to make the best decisions about investing in power plants that may run for 40 years. Predicable pricing is one reason that Duke supports cap-and-trade. Rogers does not see cap-and-trade as hurting Duke or the U.S. economy. Rogers states, “We run our business as if COP-15 is in the rearview mirror.” A price for carbon is assumed in all Duke decision making.

Most promising for Duke, may be energy efficiency and renewable energy. Duke, like many utilities, has experimented with supporting electric vehicles. In partnership with Progress Energy, Duke is piloting drawing energy from vehicles during peak hours (V2G) using GridPoint technology. The key is to shape charging demand off-peak. Rogers feels that “variable pricing to shape demand is quite doable.” If successful, V2G could lower Duke’s investment in frequency management, spinning reserves, and peak generation.

It will be a smart grid that manages efficiency, demand management, critically needed distributed generation, and electric vehicles. Echelon (ELON), Cisco (CSCO), and GridPoint, are some of the suppliers for smart grid hardware and software for Duke. Renewables include wind, solar, woody biomass

“Water is going to be the next oil.” stated Rogers. Global warming is already correlated with draughts, loss of water storage in snow, and agricultural losses in Duke’s North Carolina headquarters state and in its multi-state service area. Although coal, nuclear, and natural gas are water intensive, wind and solar are not.

Jim Rogers is looking to the future, “We are in most transformative period in history of power industry.” He recognizes that challenges and opportunities are different in this 21st Century. Duke Annual Report Summary

By John Addison. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

On Energy Subsidies

2009-10-19T07:38:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

as posted to Huffington Post

To an economist, subsidies are powerful and dangerous things. They are powerful because they work. They are dangerous because they encourage economic actors to take actions that have direct impacts that are often unanticipated and wanted, and at the expense of other positive actions that could otherwise be taken but aren’t due to resource constraints.

In the case of energy, subsidies are legion, though hard to identify. A recent report by the Environmental Law Institute (ELI), “Estimating U.S. Government Subsidies to Energy Sources”, attempts to do just that.

The ELI report estimates that the U.S. government subsidized energy with $101 billion during the period 2002-2008, with $72 billion to fossil fuels and $29 billion to renewable energy.

$29 billion to renewable energy sounds fairly impressive, particularly when renewable energy represents only about 10% of overall U.S. energy supply. However, underlying these statistics are three important observations:

The fossil fuel industry is over a hundred years old and is still receiving sizable subsidies even though enormously profitable, whereas the renewable energy sector is young, developing and (by most accounts) worthy of encouragement by public support to make more financially attractive to market participants.

Most of the subsidies for fossil fuels are permanently embedded in the tax code, whereas the renewable subsidies tend to have finite durations that undercut their effectiveness in providing clear incentives for long-term investment or behavioral decisions.

About half of the renewable subsidies are for corn-based ethanol, prompted by support from the agricultural community, but at questionable cost-effectiveness and impact on greenhouse gas emissions.

So, the amount of funding support received by renewable energy is less impressive than initial impressions would suggest.

The forces supporting the preservation of fossil fuel energy subsidies are unbelievably strong, so the topic of energy subsidies is a potent political boogeyman that few have dared to touch. However, that may be changing.

In a September 10 statement to the Senate Subcommittee on Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure by Alan Krueger (Assistant Secretary for Economic Policy and Chief Economist) of the U.S. Department of Treasury , the Obama Administration is clearly aiming to unwind several provisions of beneficial tax treatment that the U.S. oil and gas industry receives.

As Krueger concludes, current tax subsidies for the oil and gas industry “divert resources from other, potentially more efficient investments and they are inconsistent with the Obama Administration’s goals to reduce [greenhouse gas emissions] and build a new, clean energy economy….Removing these subsidies will have a very small effect on the price of oil and gas, the production of oil and gas, and domestic jobs. In fact, removing these subsidies could actually make our economy more efficient by reducing distortions in the tax code.”

On a global basis, as widely reported from the recent G-20 meeting in Pittsburgh (see Washington Post article), world leaders pledged to phase out fossil fuel subsidies in the “medium term”. As bad as the situation in the U.S. is, energy subsidies in developing economies are arguably much worse: according to estimates by the International Energy Agency (IEA), $310 billion per year is spent on subsidizing energy, mainly transportation fuels.

Of course, these subsidies are implemented in the name of aiding the poor citizens in these countries, but they cause massive distortions in public sector budgets, national trade balances, private sector investments and behavior, global security, and environmental protection. And, frankly, the main beneficiaries of the subsidies are urban upper- and middle-income citizens, as the poor are much too poor to afford cars anyway.

Removing subsidies on fossil fuels will not, in itself, drive the world economy to full implementation of desirable energy efficiency and renewable energy options. But, it will definitely help: a step in the right direction. Let’s hope that our leaders can summon and sustain the political will to overcome the inevitable opposition and phase these fossil energy subsidies down and out, so we can get on with building the clean energy economy in a more efficient manner.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Al Gore Prioritizes Energy Innovation

2009-10-13T07:20:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (10/12/09). Vice President Al Gore is optimistic about a meaningful agreement in Copenhagen that includes the United States and China. During his keynote speech at the Society of Environmental Journalists Conference (SEJ) in Madison, Wisconsin, he acknowledged that negotiations are going slowly, because climate change is complex and involves consensus of almost all nations, but that a new agreement is likely.

The need for a global agreement is urgent as the burning of coal and oil heat the earth. Melting glaciers and depleted aquifers make healthy water scarce for more Americans and unavailable for a billion people. Draughts are causing damage to many states. Lack of water affects the ability to grow food. Interrelated eco-systems are showing their stress and the problems are starting to get visible on Main Street. Mr. Gore observed, “Never before in human history has a single generation been asked to make such difficult and consequential decisions.”

Mr. Gore stated, “We’re borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that’s got to change.”

At SEJ, I asked Vice President Gore about the most promising innovations to reduce our dependency on fossil fuels such as coal and oil. Mr. Gore identified a number of areas where Americans are innovating.

Energy efficiency tops his list for innovation that is making an immediate impact. Many new buildings have a fraction of the greenhouse gas emissions of the buildings they replace due to innovative design, materials, windows, and water management. Older buildings are made more energy efficient with better insulation.

Mr. Gore identified wasted heat as an underestimated opportunity. He sees room for significant innovation in combined heat and power and in the reduction of wasted heat.

Super Grid will Spur Innovation

He sees the super grid as an opportunity for a high level of efficiency. The super grid envisions a national network of high capacity electricity transmission. It would include energy storage, high reliability, and smart grid intelligence. High voltage lines have far less energy loss than lower capacity. A super grid could deliver much of America’s needed energy from untapped wind that blows in middle states from the Dakotas to Texas. Super Grid Wikipedia Description

Mr. Gore feels that a super grid could bring a transformation comparable to the Internet. The super grid and smart grid technology is already attracting major investments from firms like KPCB where Al Gore devotes part of his time as a partner. KPCB Greentech Portfolio He pointed to energy storage and demand response as major super grid areas of opportunity.

A portfolio of renewable energy solutions can power the nation according to Mr. Gore. Wind supplied 40 percent of the incremental energy added in the United States in 2008. Concentrating solar power is another renewable that is promising where up to 15 hours of energy storage, such as molten salt, can be used. Vice President Gore sees the greatest innovation in solar photovoltaics as a “distributed distribution architecture” is put in place.

Enhanced geothermal at one to two kilometers underground has the potential to meet our need for baseload grid power. Gore said, “There is an estimated 35,000 year supply of enhanced geothermal to meet U.S. energy needs.” This industry will benefit from the drilling and drill bit innovation existing in the oil and gas industries.

Historic Transformation of Automobile

In the future the need for getting baseload power from coal will be diminished by grid energy storage innovation. Gore said, “There will be a historic transformation of automobile fleets to and plug-in hybrids and all-electric vehicles. That vehicle fleet will serve as a massively distributed battery.” Electric Vehicle Reports

He continued, “Innovation of battery storage is likely to be extremely significant.”
Video of Vice President Gore’s discussion of energy solutions.

New Climate Agreement in Copenhagen

“We have all the tools to solve three or four climate crises.” Vice-President Gore expressed a level of optimism that surprised a number of the 500 journalists in attendance. He is optimistic that the Senate will approve some form of the Boxer-Kerry legislation and that it will be Conference Committee pending when Copenhagen convenes. It will have compromises that will discourage some environmentalists and some business interests. Gore said, “The large number of defections from the National Chamber of Commerce is a sign that business leaders want to be part of the solution.”

He reminded those concerned about a climate crisis that in 1987 the Montreal Protocol was also criticized as too weak. In Montreal, Canada, on September 16, 1987, the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer was signed into agreement by 24 major countries of the world, including the United States. These countries recognized that it was critical to be leaders, rather than wait years for all nations to agree. The agreement was ratified and then signed by President Ronald Reagan.

A process for nations to phase-out production of dangerous CFCs and halons was established. Developing countries were giving extra years to comply. Years later the agreement was strengthened in Copenhagen. Now 191 nations have agreed to the Montreal Protocol and are phasing-out the destructive gases from China to Chile and from India to Indonesia.

The Montreal Protocol is proof that the major nations of the world can agree to stop destroying our atmospheric shield.

A new climate agreement in Copenhagen would accelerate innovation and growing commercial success of efficient buildings, fuel efficient transportation, a transformative super gird, and renewable energy.

Mr. Gore’s new book – Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis – will be available November 3. It will include the important role of innovation in reducing our dependency on fossil fuel.

The complete audio recording of the speech can be heard on the Society of Environmental Journalists.

By John Addison, author of the book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

Energy Efficiency: How NOT To Do It

2009-10-12T04:53:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

On October 5, First Energy (NYSE: FE) announced a planned energy efficiency program, involving the delivery of two compact fluorescent lightbulbs (CFLs) to each of its residential and small commercial customers in Ohio. This was to be a part of First Energy’s revived energy efficiency programs, stimulated in large part by the 2008 passage of Ohio SB 221, which stipulates that utilities must reduce their customers’ energy consumption by 22.5% by 2025.

Approved in a case by the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio (PUCO) without comment on September 23, the plan would have had each customer pay $21.60 on bill surcharges over 36 months for this package of two CFLs – whether they were used or not, or even wanted or not.

The story accompanying the roll-out of this program in the Plain-Dealer went into considerable detail about its economics. The $21.60 in extra charges not only covered the cost to First Energy of acquiring and delivering the two CFLs, but also would reimburse First Energy for the reduction in revenue associated with the use of these more efficient CFLs in lieu of traditional incandescent bulbs.

Although seemingly shocking to Ohio readers, the provisions of SB 221 do in fact allow for utilities to recover lost revenues associated with energy efficiency implementation, in recognition of some basic utility economic realities.

In traditional regulatory approaches, utilities earn more profits by selling more electricity. As is the case with most businesses, the company succeeds by selling higher volumes of its product. Thus, if we agree that we want to encourage less electricity consumption, we have to eliminate the financial motivations that utilities have against that desirable goal. In other words, we have to make it equally attractive for utilities to promote saving energy instead of consuming energy; we have to "decouple" electricity volumes from utility profitability.

Recovery of lost revenues from energy efficiency is by no means a novel concept. Indeed, California pioneered such "decoupling" ratemaking treatment all the way back in 1982 with the adoption of its Electric Revenue Adjustment Mechanism. But, in Ohio, it is very new – only now being adopted in the wake of SB 221. And, neither First Energy nor the PUCO made significant effort to educate the public that ratemaking practices of this type have been employed for decades, and are being increasingly employed around the country, for very sensible reasons.

At least equally concerning, First Energy claimed that each bulb was costing the company $3.50, for a total of $7.00 for the package of two. However, a little snooping around area stores revealed that a five-pack of CFLs could be bought at Ace Hardware (hardly the lowest-cost source) for $13.99, or about 20% lower on a per-bulb basis than what First Energy was proposing to charge customers for similar products sourced elsewhere – at presumably higher volumes and more favorable pricing.

In the wake of the initial article, reader reaction was overwhelmingly negative. People didn’t want to pay for light bulbs they didn’t request, and may not use. They didn’t want to get gouged on the cost of the bulbs. And, they didn’t want to pay First Energy for kilowatt-hours that weren’t being sold.

Not only did readers call the Plain-Dealer in complaint, they called their elected officials as well – including all the way to Governor Ted Strickland, who asked the PUCO to stop the program. Within a couple of days, the resulting political pressure prompted the PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber to ask First Energy to withdraw this proposed energy efficiency program. And so, in compliance with the PUCO order, First Energy postponed the program.

As reported in a follow-up Plain-Dealer article, John Paganie of First Energy admitted that “we didn’t do a good enough job in helping customers understand the purpose, the reason for [the program] and the impact.” Yep: First Energy didn’t sufficiently communicate to customers – or engage with trusted advocates such as the Ohio Consumers Counsel in working out the details of the program so they could offer their support – before the program roll-out appeared in newspaper ink.

In the same article, PUCO Chairman Alan Schriber noted that "although the PUCO allowed FirstEnergy to implement its program, we did not approve the charge that will appear on monthly bills as a result." In other words, PUCO gave First Energy the go-ahead to do the program, but PUCO didn’t consent to how First Energy would be compensated. Huh?

So, the net result of this program announcement was a lose-lose-lose: First Energy came off as being greedy, the PUCO came off as being inattentive to program details, and promoters of energy efficiency came off as imposing unwanted economic burdens on customers. Certainly, Thomas Suddes' editorial in the Plain-Dealer makes everyone look bad.

I thus submit this little vignette as a classic case study of how NOT to implement energy efficiency.

In my humble opinion, this would not have been such a public relations debacle if First Energy and the PUCO had both accumulated a greater store of citizen goodwill over the preceding decades. Unfortunately, this hasn’t been the case. And, resulting from this bungling by distrusted players, the generally-favorable cause of energy efficiency gets a public black eye in Ohio.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Delivery and Service Vans Plug-in

2009-10-05T12:39:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (10/5/09). A growing number are eager to buy plug-in hybrids from Toyota, Chevy, Ford, Fisker, and others that are completing new manufacturing for 2010 orders and serious competition in 2011. Oil prices have doubled from their low this year. People are planning to save on fuel for years, by using more inexpensive electricity and less gasoline.

Fuel costs millions for the delivery and service fleets that bring us our mail and goods and keep our cities running. About one million new vans are purchased annually in North America.

For years, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has piloted electric vehicles in its fleet of over 200,000 delivery vehicles. Azure created custom electric vehicles for the post office. Encouraged, the USPS has ordered 165 of the new plug-in hybrid Chrysler Town & Country Minivans for delivery use. Next year, these Chrysler vans will be available for commercial sale by everyone from small businesses to active soccer families.

Ford is starting to take orders from municipalities and other government agencies that will use the new Transit Connect light-duty van in a variety of applications from city maintenance to on-demand transit. Deliveries of these electric vehicles, made for Ford by Smith Electric Vehicles, will start in 2010. Transit Connect may also do well with small businesses and local delivery fleets. Clean Fleet Ford Report

South Coast Air Quality Management District has helped fleets achieve significant mileage gains with Sprinter Vans converted to be plug-in hybrid.

The electric utilities that will help power these plug-ins often have thousands of vehicles in their fleet. Utilities have turned to companies like Eaton to double the mileage of their trouble trucks with hybrid and plug-in hybrid drive systems. Ford F550s were first converted into hybrids and now into plug-in hybrid trouble trucks. In addition to using less diesel fuel, these trucks can run all their accessories electrically. Previously, they had to idle the truck engine for hours to host a repair technician into the air, to run repair equipment, and all auxiliaries. Clean Fleet PG&E Report

The Eaton hybrid-electric drive system will be used in 138 FedEx delivery vans. In New York alone, FedEx deployed 48 E700 Eaton hybrids. Clean Fleet FedEx Report Local delivery vans can particularly benefit in fuel savings by capturing braking energy with frequent stops, by establishing a central charging infrastructure, and by having mid-day opportunities for recharging in between morning pick-ups and afternoon deliveries.

Eaton Corporation’s truck and electrical businesses will support a $45.4 million grant to develop a fully integrated plug-in hybrid systems for Class 2 to 5 vehicles, weighing up to 19,500 pounds. A demonstration fleet of 378 plug-in hybrid trucks and shuttle buses will be put into use. Green Car Congress

Plug-in vans and trucks can have a major impact on U.S. oil dependency. Federal, state, and local fleets own 4 million vehicles. Corporations have bigger total fleets. There is great interest in extending the electric-range of vehicles. Most attention has been placed on battery improvements. A more practical way to extend range is to make vehicles more aerodynamic and lighter.

Bright Automotive wants to make 50,000 plug-in hybrid vans per year that are built from the ground-up to deliver 100 mpg in a van that can carry 180 cubic feet of cargo. A typical van carrying such load might achieve 15 mpg. This spin-off of the Rocky Mountain Institute has major strategic partners including Alcoa, Johnson-Controls, and Google. The Bright IDEA van weighs only 3,200 pounds, less than a Prius, and can go 30 miles on battery power alone. It will be stronger than steel, yet built with light-weight aluminum and composite material like the Tesla. With a sub-.3 drag coefficient, the van only needs a 10 kWh lithium battery pack. In demanding delivery applications, each Bright IDEA could save $6,000 per year in fuel.

Bright is currently doing a project for the U.S. Department of Defense that involves converting a VW Transporter to be a plug-in hybrid. Bright hopes to secure a federal loan to build a manufacturing plant in Indiana to build the new light aerodynamic vans in volume.

Fleets are taking the lead in energy security and reduced emissions with fleets of hybrids, plug-in hybrids, and electric vehicles.

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

Fight Stupidity Now!

2009-10-05T07:49:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

As a big sports fan, I’ve become an enthusiastic listener of Mad Dog Radio on Sirius, enjoying the rantings and ravings of both hosts and callers alike. It’s quite an eyehole (or earhole) into an interesting segment of Americana.

Unfortunately, one disconcerting aspect about this segment is reflected by the advertisers that choose to send their messages to this audience. Advertisers include such products and services of dubious veracity as the Hollywood Cookie Diet, the California Psychic Hotline, and water vapor cigarettes.

Clearly, the demographic of the Mad Dog Radio listening audience is such that discriminating intelligence is not its hallmark characteristic.

To this apparently intellectually-challenged audience, an organization called the Institute of Policy Innovation has begun to run a 30-second soundbite called "Is the Earth Actually Cooling?", narrated by Dr. Merrill Matthews. Dr. Matthews, whose stated credentials are in health care policy (in contrast to climatology, a more useful background for someone who's going to opine on this topic), alleges – without substantiation, other than the offhand comment that unnamed “Russian scientists” are increasingly convinced – that the evidence is now suggesting that the earth is "on the verge of a mini-Ice Age", rather than warming. He closes with the following cheap shot:

“ But at least all those global warming scolds may leave the rest of us alone allowing them to fly around in their private jets openly and guilt free.”

This dreck I find very annoying and insulting. By affiliation with its fellow advertisers, I put the Institute of Policy Innovation right alongside the California Psychic Hotline in terms of credibility. However, to an audience inclined to believe that psychics can provide good personal advice, no doubt Dr. Matthews' asinine and unsupportable message is compelling to many.

This is not to say that cleantech advocates don't also offer up their share of absurdities. As an example, I can't tell you how fatigued I've become with "green job" mantras, almost implying that such jobs can be created by whim or fiat. No, they can't: jobs (at least, good long-term non-governmental ones) are created only after economic opportunities for profit- and wealth-creation emerge. Instead of focusing on creating green jobs, the debate should be about creating a healthy market environment within which employers can/will hire people to pursue those economic opportunities.

I don’t know about you, but for me, I want people in key positions affecting my life – such as my doctors, for example – to be both smart and educated in their disciplines. Why don’t more of us insist that those who are debating our political and social futures, on key issues such as climate change and the future green economy, also be among the most intelligent and well-informed?

More of us need to take a stand: fight stupidity now!

Our future increasingly depends on wise choices in a complex world. We cannot abide those who pollute airwaves with misleading or erroneous statements on critical civic topics -- especially to listeners whose judgment on matters more important than sports is probably not highly refined, but who nevertheless vote and otherwise make their voices heard in the political arena.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Public Transportation uses more Renewable Energy

2009-09-30T07:16:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (9/30/09). More Americans ride on public transit than any time in the past 50 years as more live in cities and most watch their transportation costs. Remarkably, transit operators are moving more people, yet reducing our dependency on oil and generating less carbon emissions. Increased use of solar, other renewables, vehicle electrification, and low-carbon fuels are all part of solution.

New Jersey Transit is preparing for a future where parked cars can be charged with sunlight while people use public transportation. New Jersey Transit is installing 402 kW solar canopies on the rooftops of two large parking garages at the Trenton Amtrak Transit center.

These parking structures are also equipped with 110v charging stations for electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Participating in the opening ceremony was the Mid-Atlantic Grid Interactive Cars (MAGIC) consortium, which includes the University of Delaware, Pepco Holdings, PJM Interconnect, Comverge, AC Propulsion, and the Atlantic County Utilities Authority, created to further develop, test, and demonstrate vehicle-to-grid technology.

A few years ago, Los Angeles Metro invested $5 million to install 2MW of solar power as part of a three-year plan to install solar panels on every Metro Bus and Rail facility within its Los Angeles County service area. For example, the solar panels installed on Metro Bus Division 18’s maintenance building rooftop and shading parking structures consist of about 1,600 solar panels that generate 417 kilowatts of electricity, enough power pay for itself in 10 to 11 years.
Now LA Metro will receive $4,466,000 to make its rail system more energy efficient. Red Line Westlake Rail Wayside Energy Storage System: Install wayside energy storage substation (WESS) at Westlake passenger station is at-grade level on the high-speed heavy rail subway Red Line. The nearby traction power substation will be switched off when the WESS is operating. The WESS flywheel technology captures regenerative braking energy when trains slow or stop and transfer back to same train or another train when it starts or accelerates, reducing energy demand and peak power requirements.

This month, the federal administration announced $100 million in Economic Recovery Act funding for 43 transit agencies that are pursuing cutting-edge renewable energy and efficiency technologies to help reduce global warming, lessen America’s dependence on oil, and create green jobs. The 43 winning proposals were submitted by transit agencies from across the country as part of a nationwide competition for $100 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA) funds. Selection criteria included a project’s ability to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions and also to provide a return on the investment. The Federal Transit Administration reviewed more than $2 billion in applications for these funds.

AC Transit in Oakland, California, is awarded $6,400,000 to increase photovoltaic capacity to generate “green” hydrogen: Install multiple PV modules at its Central Maintenance Facility in Hayward. Combined with AC Transit’s already-installed solar capacity, this solar installation will produce the renewable electricity equivalent to what will be required to produce 180 kg/day of “green” hydrogen for 12 buses carrying up to 5,000 riders daily, for the current 3 zero-emission buses that carry about 1,000 riders daily.

VIA Metropolitan Transit, San Antonio, Texas, was awarded $5,000,000 to replace conventional diesel transit buses with 35-ft composite body electric transit buses. The project includes quick-charging stations at this terminal layover in route to recharge bus batteries. Grid sourced electrical energy used to recharge the bus batteries will be augmented with solar energy collected with panels procured and installed under this project.

The nation is becoming less dependent on oil as record numbers escape solo driving in gridlock and increasingly use public transit. Electrification of light-rail and buses coupled with renewable energy makes this transportation greener.

Clean Fleet Report Summary of RE Projects

John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

Money Walks, Fossil Fuel Talks

2009-09-28T02:00:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

as posted to Huffington Post

Earlier in September, a group of investors from around the world with over $13 trillion under management issued a statement calling on governments to agree at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen this December to require greenhouse gas emission reductions of 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020.

$13 trillion. That's a lot of money. It's the kind of money that makes decision-makers sit up and take note.

This money is telling world leaders that maintaining the status quo -- of essentially doing nothing substantive to mitigate the prospects for human-induced climate change -- will be expensive and risky relative to undertaking prudent and prompt action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Since investors are the engine of the global economy, without which productive growth cannot occur, you'd think that industries seeking to be major players in world markets for decades to come would want to be arm-in-arm with the big sources of capital.

In few industries is access to capital as critical as the conventional energy industry. It takes billions of dollars to make a major oil discovery or build a new baseload powerplant. Energy requires massive amounts of capital, no two ways about it. And, in a world where energy demand growth has resumed and is likely to continue unabated to satisfy the increasing appetites of China, India and other developing economies, many trillions of dollars will need to be obtained by energy industry players from the world's capital markets in the decades to come.

Yet, many of the main purveyors of fossil fuels -- the bedrock of the energy sector -- are fundamentally at odds with the growing ranks of investors clamoring for global government action on climate change.

For instance, here in the U.S., an "astroturf" (i.e., false grassroots) organization called Energy Citizens, backed (according to this recent article in The Economist) by the American Petroleum Institute and other oil/gas interests, is sponsoring rallies around the country denouncing the American Clean Energy and Security Act that passed the House a few months ago -- a bill that would lead to substantially less emission reductions than the aforementioned investors wants to see.

Now, it must be said that the fossil fuel industry -- oil, gas and coal -- represents one of the strongest aggregations of political muscle on the planet. And, although maybe not as much as the financial centers of the planet, the energy companies have plenty of financial resources to throw at an opposing "call to inaction". After all, consumers worldwide spend roughly $5 trillion per year on energy, putting lots of dough in the coffers of the energy suppliers.

So, over the coming months running up to Copenhagen, it will be interesting to see which side can amass more force: finance or fossil fuels.

In the U.S., it is doubtful that any climate change bill will become law this year, with Congress being mired in the ongoing health care debate. Without a U.S. climate bill passed in Congress, representatives in Copenhagen will be challenged to achieve anything meaningful. Thus, the fossil fuel folks may well win this round of the battle.

But the energy companies must remember that they will need to go to the capital markets, hat-in-hand, many times in the coming decades if they want continued successful growth. And, investors are going to be less and less willing to fund management teams for business growth if the same management teams are stifling progress on something that represents a bigger wealth-destroying factor for their overall portfolios.

Energy companies like to say that they fuel the economy. That may be true, but capital fuels the economy at least as much -- and fuels the energy companies to boot.

In the long-run, I'd put my bets on the money managers making change happen, than on the energy industry preventing change from happening. Because when money walks away from them, all that fossil fuel interests will have are declining resource extraction businesses starving for capital. All they will have left, is talk. And talk is cheap.

Offshore Wind: Europe Now, U.S. When?

2009-09-21T06:08:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

Every two years, the European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) holds a major conference on offshore wind energy.

The last time EWEA convened its offshore event, in December 2007 in Berlin, the mood was relatively somber. Several major offshore wind projects had been completed, but had run into unforeseen technical and economic challenges. European policies and regulations for the next phase of offshore wind energy were in flux. Although everyone was convinced that offshore wind was going to be a significant growth sector in the European energy mix, there were real doubts as to when such opportunities would actually come to fruition.

Last week, EWEA held their 2009 offshore event in Stockholm, where 4,750 attendees (up from about 2,000 in Berlin two years ago) congregated to celebrate what is now clearly emerging: a boom in offshore wind in Europe over the next decade. EWEA projects 50 gigawatts of offshore wind installed by 2020. With 20 gigawatts of projected installation, the United Kingdom is making a play to steal (or at least share) German leadership in offshore wind manufacturing and deployment.

Wind manufacturers are clearly bullish. Recently, Siemens (XETRA: SIE) has established a separate business unit for offshore wind, with well over 100 employees -- and still hiring. Also, General Electric (NYSE: GE) acquired ScanWind, a Scandanavian turbine manufacturer, to gain a product specifically designed for offshore application, thereby getting back in the offshore game after retrenching in the wake of its initial foray in Arklow Ireland a few years ago. At the exhibition, Vestas (NASDAQ OMS Copenhagen: VMS) unveiled a new model, the V112-3.0, for the offshore market.

So, the offshore wind industry seems to be really taking off – in Europe. Here in the U.S., as is the case with so many things on the energy front, we’re years behind.

In its industry roadmap, projecting how the U.S. could achieve the aspiration (set by both the Bush and Obama Administrations) in which 20% of the nation’s electricity supply would come from wind energy by 2030, analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy indicates that about 50 gigawatts would probably need to come from offshore wind. This is not because there’s insufficient onshore wind resource in the U.S., but rather, that most of this resource is too far removed from demand centers in the East and access to transmission would be problematic.

Developers are increasingly exploring opportunities in U.S. offshore wind, mainly along the North Atlantic, due to favorable policies and market conditions in states like New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, and Rhode Island. In the Great Lakes -- likely to be a separate market from the Atlantic for geographic and logistics reasons -- the Cleveland area is pursuing offshore wind, and so are parties in New York, Michigan and Wisconsin.

While the private sector is most eager (and naturally so) to find lucrative profit opportunities, civic leaders in each of these areas are taking steps to encourage offshore wind from a job-creation perspective, aiming to attract manufacturing activity and all of the logistics services – shipping, engineering, installation, maintenance – that come with significant development of offshore windfarms.

The good news is that many of these jobs for offshore wind pretty much have to be done locally. The bad news is that, at least when it comes to technological leadership in offshore wind, the U.S. has pretty much absent from that game, with the massive 10 MW Brittania design by Clipper Windpower (AIM: CWP) being the only American exception -- although, it should be noted, its initial deployment is planned for the U.K.

The worse news is that offshore wind is not on a track to becoming a significant activity in the U.S. for at least 5 and probably more like 10 years. In the above-noted DOE study, offshore wind penetration only begins in the late 20-teens. This is because there’s nowhere near the degree of policy commitment to offshore wind in the U.S. as is seen in Europe. In turn, this is because Europe has less developable land, greater renewable energy and environmental aspirations, and higher electricity prices than the U.S.

So, akin to Thomas Friedman’s “Have A Nice Day” op-ed piece in the New York Times last week, the U.S. has clearly abdicated leadership in offshore wind to other countries.

Until the profit prospects become significant, developers will find it challenging to explore offshore wind energy opportunities in the U.S. For the U.S. market to really bloom, this puts the burden on the suppliers of offshore windfarms – not just the turbine manufacturers, but also those who are working on foundation, erection and shipping designs – to drive the costs of offshore wind down to competitive levels in a timely fashion (10 years?).

The private sector is likely to need a “carrot”, in the form of some supportive public policy, to make the investments in technological advancement for offshore wind energy that ultimately produce a self-sustaining growth industry.

As the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, Richard T. Stuebi is on loan to NorTech as a founding Principal in its advanced energy initiative. He is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners, and is the founder of NextWave Energy.

Cash is King in Renewable Energy Development

2009-09-18T08:03:00.000-07:00

It is a buyer’s market for those developing large wind, solar, bioenergy, biofuel, and other renewable energy projects. In 2009, land is less expensive , equipment cost less, deliveries are faster, and warranties longer. It is a buyer’s market if you have cash, yet it continues to be a difficult time to secure debt financing. This message was consistent from the majority attending the FRA Renewable Energy Finance and Investment Summit this week. I chaired the renewable fuels track and had a chance to talk with a number of developers and financers of renewable energy and fuels.

Demand for renewable energy is at a record high as U.S. utilities in about 30 states struggle to meet RPS (renewable Portfolio Standards). These utilities want to sign PPA (Power Purchase Agreements) for 5 to 20 years of wind power, solar, bioenergy, geothermal, and other renewable production. In the future, to meet targets these utilities may need to directly develop, own, and operate these RE plants. Many would need PUC (public utility commission) approval to make this part of their business model.

RE has been a historic opportunity for developers who would take projects through 3 to five years of analysis, regulatory approvals, securing equity and debt financing, buying equipment, program management, and operating the plant. Now, few investors and lenders have the appetite for risk, as projects such as ethanol plants have gone bankrupt.
Credit worthiness of developers, utilities and end users are scrutinized. For example, major public real estate owners of buildings, hotels, and shopping centers that want MW of solar cannot get the RE because their corporation or REIT has a sub-prime debt rating.

Risk is intensified as redundant regulation and NIMBY (not in my backyard) opposition can delay installation of high-voltage lines for 7 to 10 years from wind or solar farm to major cities that need more electricity. Even billionaire Boone Pickens was unwilling to tie-up money for that period of time.

New high-voltage lines can be done. Prairie Wind went from zero to a transmitting 345kV line in less than 3 years. It is now optimistic about completing a 110 mile 765kV transmission system in Kansas. Prairie Wind Transmission is a joint venture of Westar Energy and Electric Transmission America — a joint venture of American Electric Power and MidAmerican Energy Holdings Company. ITC Great Plains (ITC) and Prairie Wind Transmission are authorized to build different segments of the Kansas V-Plan.

Although large-scale RE development in 2009 is beyond the financing capabilities of most entrepreneurs, it is an opportunity for major public companies with investment-grade bond ratings such as FPL Energy (FPL), GE Energy (GE), Iberdrola Renovables (IBR.MC), and EDF Energy Nouvelles (EEN.PA). Wall Street analysts are forecasting record 2009 and 2010 earnings for Iberdrola and EDF.

Smaller wind and solar developers find that new developments are possible, though more difficult. Utilities are standardizing RFPs and making conditions more reasonable. Private equity money is available if investors can be convinced of high returns and low risk. David Perlman, Managing Director with investment banker Fieldstone Private Capital Group, reports that, “Liquidity is returning, but with fewer banks than before economic crisis, smaller lending commitments, shorter maturities, and club deals rather than syndications. Bankers might offer construction terms and an operating loan of no more than five years for developments that show little risk.

The ARRA (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) has helped and hurt. More federal bureaucracy and slower release of money is reported. New wind and solar deals are more likely to use ITC than PTC. The cash flow for an ITC is sooner and more predictable. For many projects, the new Treasury Department Grant is even more favorable than ITC. Tax-exempt bonds are another avenue for financing RE projects reported John M. May, Managing Director of investment banker Stern Brothers. He identifies bioenergy and biofuel from solid waste are good targets for tax-exempt bonds.

Wind and solar developments are difficult. Biofuel debt financing is next to impossible according to conference participants. Bankrupt corn ethanol plants are being sold for pennies on the dollar, with Valero’s (VLO) purchase of VeraSun assets being a prime example. Clean Fleet Ethanol Report. Cellulosic plants and algal fuel pilots are moving forward for those who have received equity investments in the tens and hundreds of millions, and do not require bank financing, including Abengoa, Enerkem, Mascoma, Poet, Sapphire, and Synthetic Genomics to name a few.

The demand is growing for renewable energy and fuels. The rewards are significant for the patient investor who can moderate risk with a portfolio of RE projects at various stages of approval. In 2009, the year of the Great Recession, cash is king.

John Addison speaks at cleantech and renewable energy conferences. He publishes the Clean Fleet Report. Disclosure: he owns stock in Iberdrola Renovables, EDF Energy Nouvelles and some wind and solar manufacturers.

Northeast Ohio's Place in the Advanced Energy Universe

2009-09-14T01:14:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

On September 1, the Fund for Our Economic Future – a collaboration of philanthropic organizations in Northeast Ohio – approved a $1.7 million grant to launch a new advanced energy initiative at NorTech, whose mission is technology-based economic development for the region.

This new initiative (stay tuned for a sexy name, to be announced soon!) will become the “center of gravity” or “focal point” for all things advanced energy in the 21 counties of Northeast Ohio. It will also play meaningful roles in coordinating or leading large-scale multi-constituency projects that offer the potential for transformational economic impact in the region.

Representing the Cleveland Foundation, I have worked with NorTech leadership for nearly a year to develop the plan for the initiative, and will be lent to NorTech by the Foundation to serve as a Principal for the initiative.

Although I am pleased with the successes achieved since I joined the Foundation to lead its advanced energy work in March 2006, I am joining this new initiative with enthusiasm, as I am optimistic that the broad reach, resources and support afforded by NorTech will enable an even greater degree of impact.

Given limited resources, we will be unable to pursue an unbounded agenda. Rather, we must remain focused, building on our strengths (which are substantial), and avoiding “me-too” strategies just because other areas are gaining good traction in attractive sectors.

We know we’re joining an already active game: to illustrate, look at the organizations emplaced in Michigan (NextEnergy) and New York (STEP: Saratoga Technology + Energy Park) to pursue similar missions for regional economic development via advanced energy technologies. Indeed, instead of viewing the others as competitors to whom we might "lose", we must view our colleagues elsewhere as potential collaborators, employing a "win-win" mentality, because we're all on the same planet together.

I am more confident than ever that Cleveland and Northeast Ohio can be a major player in the advanced energy economy of the future. Even now, we are already a globally-significant factor in fuel cell R&D, wind energy manufacturing, and efficient lighting technologies. Not only can we extend and deepen these clusters, but we have already-extant seeds and shoots in other sectors – such as waste-to-energy, energy storage, alternative fuels, advanced nuclear designs, and power “informatics” (sensors, controls and intelligence) – that can serve as the nuclei for new clusters.

I thank the Fund for Our Economic Future for its significant grant to launch this important new initiative, NorTech for its recognition that advanced energy must become one of the key technological legs for the revitalization of the Northeast Ohio economy, and the Cleveland Foundation for its overall leadership in putting advanced energy on the region’s map of consciousness. All of us in Northeast Ohio – and elsewhere – should give similar thanks.

Northeast Ohio may not, yet, be a world-leader in advanced energy. But at least we’ve got a growing number of oars in the water, paddling with increasing effectiveness in the same direction as the leaders, with whom we eagerly seek to partner.

Richard T. Stuebi is the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at the Cleveland Foundation, and is also a Managing Director at Early Stage Partners.

A Smart Grid Requires Smart Utilities

2009-09-07T01:26:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

In my more cynical moments, I might quip that the phrase “smart utility” is oxymoronic.

For sure, most utilities remain captive to technologies that are decades old. And, unquestionably, some utilities are managed by people and within cultures that seem to be stuck in the middle 20th Century (or even more obsolete).

But, some utilities are clearly more advanced than others. In an article published in the July/August edition of Intelligent Utility, Rick Nicholson and H. Christine Richards of IDC Energy Insights provide their assessment of which utilities are leading the pack towards a “smart grid”.

A clear pattern emerges: the first six utilities at the top of the list – Sempra Energy (NYSE: SRE), Austin Energy, Edison International (NYSE: EIX), Oncor, PG&E Corporation (NYSE: PCG) and CenterPoint Energy (NYSE: CNP) – are all based in either California or Texas.

In these two states, the combination of retail energy competition and policies to support renewable energy and energy efficiency has spurred these utilities to be ahead of the pack relative to their peers elsewhere in the country. In turn, this should serve them well as they build new business models for the electricity business in the 21st Century.

There are probably many observers that would claim that the significant electricity policy changes over the past 10 years have harmed Texas and California more than they have helped. Perhaps. However, longer-term, legislators and regulators in Texas and California have arguably done their citizens and their utilities a great favor by pushing the policy envelope, because it is likely that customers in these states that will soonest benefit from the adoption of smart grid technologies.

Smart utilities are the future. Those utilities that didn't show up on this list are at risk of being left out in the dark as the electric industry transforms itself in the coming decades.

Richard T. Stuebi is the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also Managing Director of Early Stage Partners.

Ener1 Takes Stake in Electric Vehicle Maker Think Global

2009-09-03T08:44:00.000-07:00

Ener1 (HEV) took the lead among a group of investors that plans to inject $47 million of equity funding into Think Global AS, the Norwegian electric vehicle producer. Ener1 effectively expands its existing 10 percent stake to a 31 percent stake in Think. Ener1 is the parent company of EnerDel, a leading manufacturer of advanced lithium-ion automotive battery systems and an existing supplier to Think.

Ener1 Chairman and CEO Charles Gassenheimer stated, “Ener1 and Think have collaborated for years on systems development, and today possess a unique ability to bring together category-leading technologies in a fully integrated platform, to suit a wide variety of vehicle applications.” Ener1 appears to be pursuing a business model similar to Bosch Automotive and Magna (MGA). Gassenheimer added, “As a key battery supplier and now partner in the production and marketing of electric drivetrain solutions for a range of next-generation vehicles, Ener1 looks forward to a strong future relationship with this industry leader.”

EnerDel and Think have also agreed to enter into a new long-term battery supply agreement as part of the transaction. EnerDel will receive certain exclusivity rights for the supply of lithium manganese titanate batteries for Think’s current and upcoming new vehicle models.

“This investment cements our partnership with one of the leading advanced battery manufacturers in the world,” said Think CEO Richard Canny. “In addition to ensuring supply of high-performance battery systems, the new deal will enable us to more fully capitalize on our advantage in the marketplace with the only ‘plug-and-play’ electric vehicle drive system with prismatic lithium-ion technology.”

Ener1 develops and manufactures compact, high performance lithium-ion batteries to power the next generation of hybrid, plug-in hybrid and pure electric vehicles. In addition to the automobile market, applications for Ener1 lithium-ion battery technology include the military, grid storage and other growing markets.

Ener1 also develops commercial fuel cell products through its EnerFuel subsidiary and nanotechnology-based materials and manufacturing processes for batteries and other applications through its NanoEner subsidiary.

Think is a pioneer in electric vehicles, and a leader in electric vehicle technology, developed and proven over 19 years. Think is also a leader in electric drive-system technology, and was the first to market a ‘plug and play’ mobility solution in the business-to-business sector.

The equity funding allows financially struggling Think to exit court protection and resume normal operations with the production of the ready-to-market TH!NK City.
Also participating in Think’s restructuring is Valmet Automotive, a provider of automotive engineering and manufacturing services of premium cars. In 40 years the company has produced over 1,100,000 high-quality vehicles in Finland. Valmet Automotive manufactures Porsche Boxster and Porsche Cayman for Porsche AG. The manufacturing of Fisker Karma hybrid vehicle starts in 2009. The company is a part of Metso.

Diversifying into system integration around a technology platform is an intelligent strategy for Ener 1 who faces tough competition from battery giants who have joint ventures and strategic relationships with major auto makers. Competition includes Panasonic, Hitachi, NEC, LG Chem, and Johnson Controls-Saft.

By John Addison. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

Reclaiming Carbon Offsets

2009-09-02T10:51:00.000-07:00

by Molly Aeck

While channel surfing a few months ago, I came across a Law & Order episode, in which the murder victim had been running a carbon credit scam… seriously. It’s no wonder that when people ask me what I do, I never tell them that I work for a “carbon credit” company or an “offset provider”. I awkwardly explain around these words like a game of $100,000 Pyramid, but am much less likely to trigger someone’s word-recall of a media story that dismissed offsets as a conspiracy. When I buy myself time to talk about my experience hunting down emission reductions, prior to introducing the buzzwords, the listener is usually more receptive to the logic behind using a market to uncover least-cost abatement opportunities.

It seems to me that in the three+ years I’ve worked for EcoSecurities public impressions of carbon offsetting have wavered dramatically. In 2005, the Clean Development Mechanism was the newest shiny tool for channeling investment from industrial countries to assist developing countries in leapfrogging dirty development. In 2007, a different company was going “carbon neutral” every day. But shortly thereafter came websites like CheatNeutral and reports dismissing the CDM as failed before we even had a chance to learn by doing. Now, US policy makers are designing cap and trade legislation as though the last decade of emissions trading never happened.

I would no sooner get into an argument about the superiority of a carbon market to a carbon tax than I would a debate about scientific evidence of global warming. Someone else can make the arguments with data and graphs. However, when I’m not busy avoiding the subject entirely, I am at times compelled to defend the CDM and the value of offsets from a purely experiential stand point.

My adventures in carbon trading began when I received a Fulbright scholarship to spend a year in the Philippines researching project financing for renewable energy. At that time, a 33 MW wind plant in Ilocos Norte was the first and only project to have obtained CERs in the country, but I visited with dozens of companies pursuing CER revenue to finance technologies ranging from bagasse co-gen at sugar mills to large-scale geothermal. It was on one such site visit that I was introduced to EcoSecurities, which owned anaerobic digester projects at 16 different piggeries.

I joined EcoSecurities as their local project manager in the Philippines and sought out to secure “host-nation approval” for these projects. Getting things in order was no easy task. I won’t get into details, but it involved calibrating biogas meters, hosting stakeholder meetings in rural barangay halls, training local “pollution control officers”, and navigating the nebulous world of environmental permitting in a developing country. I didn’t need a verification report to tell me that the emissions reductions from these projects were real - I took part every day in creating their additionality. I also experienced the desired co-benefits firsthand; the water was dramatically cleaner, the air smelled better, clean local electricity replaced dirty diesel trucked in by dirty diesel.

Today there are over 4,000 projects in the CDM pipeline and the World Bank estimates that by the end of 2008 the CDM had leveraged over $140 billion in clean energy investment to the developing world. In light of this, why at times is the concept of "offsetting" still dismissed as a distraction from real infrastructure change or an undeserved license for someone else pollute? Certainly there will always be examples of bad projects that slipped through the cracks, but what’s important is that the CDM motivated us to do something. It motivated us to put on our rain boots and tramp through pig sh*t. So to all of you out there who’s time and effort became part of a project’s additionality- when you use buzzwords like “carbon credits” and “offsets” to describe what you do, back them up with darn good explanation of what that means on the ground, so that someday soon these words can be attributed the tangible connotation they deserve. Until then, I hope there's not another Law & Order episode where the crime drama involves carbon trading - I don't think I could take it.

Molly Aeck is a Senior Client Manager for EcoSecurities based in San Francisco. She encourages you to check out EcoSecurities’ ProjectNet which brings the Philippine piggery and other offset projects to life through photographs, diary blogs, video footage, testimonials, location maps and project design documents (PDDs).

A Quick Take on Joule Biotechnologies

2009-08-31T10:36:00.000-07:00

by Gypsy Achong

Joule Biotechnologiesʼ recent press release has stimulated a bit of excitement and speculation on their technology, including by our own blogger Paul O'Callaghan.

A quick look at Joule Biotechnologiesʼ patent filing suggests that they are engineering a fast growing bacterium - Escherichia coli - capable of converting light and carbon dioxide into fuel. The advantages of using E. coli over algae are clear:

E. coli is significantly easier to genetically engineer than algae. Thus, Jouleʼs culture will allow greater flexibility in output of fuels / chemicals as policies and product prices change
E. coli grows ~10x faster than algae. As long as the metabolic load of photosynthesis does not slow down growth, Jouleʼs culture has potential to capture light at a greater rate than algae
Also, algae grow slower if light intensity gets too high. Jouleʼs plan to use a solar concentrator suggests that their engineered organism is less susceptible to light intensity.

In addition, use of a solar concentrator presents an opportunity for increasing light capture efficiency of a reactor. The benefits of Jouleʼs approach have potential to be game-changing, and they have assembled an A-team to deliver. Resumes of the inventors, Eric Devroe, Dan Robertson, Frank Skraly and Christian Ridley, include a whoʼs who of prestigious research labs and synthetic biology companies including Diversa (now Verenium), Metabolix and Codon Devices. George Church, a Harvard professor of genetics and serial entrepreneur, is an advisor (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Church).

Still, development risks are high. Creating a photosynthetic organism from scratch is not facile - photosynthesis is one of the most complicated metabolic pathways that exist in nature, and includes membrane proteins - typically the hardest proteins to move between organisms. But perhaps Joule is a company to keep on the radar.

Gypsy Achong is a guest blogger on CleantechBlog.com. She was most recently a management consultant at the Boston Consulting Group, focusing on energy and biotechnology. She has a Ph.D. in environmental microbiology from Stanford University.

A Tale of Two Cities

2009-08-31T01:39:00.000-07:00

by Richard T. Stuebi

as posted to Huffington Post

It is the best of times; it is the worst of times. The climate isn’t changing; we must move to a sustainable way of life.

Earlier in August, a meeting called "Debunking Climate Change Myths" was held in Springfield, Missouri, bringing together about 150 figures and sympathizers of the climate skeptic community. The meeting was organized by Ron Boyer, a member of the Missouri Air Conservation Commission who also founded a group called Scientists for Truth. I didn’t attend their meeting, so I don’t know firsthand what this event was aiming to accomplish, but here is a breathless report on how the meeting transpired.

Apparently, Mr. Boyer convened the meeting because he wanted to increase the public platform for climate skeptics to tell their story, which essentially boils down to this:

“We can’t be sure that human-induced climate change is really happening, so therefore we shouldn’t bend over backwards to do anything different until we’re absolutely sure that human-induced climate change is really happening. And, in fact, we’re absolutely sure that human-induced climate change is NOT really happening.”

Put another way, the story being told in these self-referential (and self-reverential) circles is effectively:

“We like the way things are, thank you very much, and we don’t want to change the way we produce or use energy. We’re very pleased to be spewing lots of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and we’re seduced by the allure of consuming lots of resources in doing so, and we simply can’t be bothered to entertain any other different way of life, liberty or pursuit of happiness.”

It seems as if the skeptics’ story is gaining currency among a fearful, confused and angry public: a Gallup poll from earlier in 2009 reports an increase in the number of respondents doubtful about climate change, so the tactics of the climate skeptic storytellers seem to be effective in the current environment. As a result, I would guess that you’ll be hearing their story told more frequently and loudly as the debates about the Waxman-Markey climate legislation to be considered in the Senate intensify: expect the disciples of the Springfield skeptic crowd to participate in Tea Party protests against any action, coming to a local auditorium near you.

While the climate skeptics congregated in Springfield, several hundred miles northeast in Cleveland, I joined about 700 other people in attending a city-wide sustainability summit entitled Sustainable Cleveland 2019. Convened by Cleveland Mayor Frank Jackson, the summit was designed to have a broad cross-section of interests begin charting a course for the region’s future, premised on a concerted move to a green economy as an engine for overall revitalization.

After a rousing introductory keynote speech by Van Jones, the Special Adviser for Green Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation at the White House Council on Environmental Quality in the Obama Administration, the attendees spent three days assessing the region’s strengths and opportunities to surface priorities for action in the coming decade, to provide something worth celebrating in 2019 – commemorating 50 years since the infamous Cuyahoga River fire, which awakened the U.S. environmental movement.

As profiled extensively in reporting by John Funk of The Plain-Dealer, Sustainable Cleveland 2019 was an exuberant gathering. In contrast to the “just say no” story being told among the climate skeptics in Springfield, the story being written in Cleveland is one of optimism and constructive engagement. The story goes something like this:

“We the people of Cleveland want to reinvent our city and region. Because of forces far larger than us, we know we must fundamentally change the way we live and work. We understand the situation we face, and we will not resist or complain. In fact, making the necessary changes provides us the opportunity to create something much better than we have now – and even better than we ever had.”

A number of voices in the blogosphere pooh-poohed the Sustainable Cleveland 2019. To be sure, the summit was far from perfect: it was too long, and at times entailed too much hyperbole and rah-rah for my tastes, sometimes lapsing into unrealistic naivete. However, these faults are worth tolerating, if it means greater traction among a broader constituency so as to improve our chances for achieving wide-scale beneficial change. If I were to criticize anyone, it would be the cynical bloggers for sitting on the sidelines and throwing rocks at passers-by with their unhelpful comments.

Cleveland, Springfield: there’s no doubt in my mind which city was hosting the more interesting and significant gathering – the one offering any path forward worth pursuing.

In his provocative remarks to the Cleveland audience, Peter Senge, Senior Lecturer at MIT's Sloan School of Management, observed that most segments of the world population were increasingly coming to the recognition that “the future has no future”.

For those minds that convened in Springfield, this fear of the future has the skeptics running like lemmings back to the unrecapturable past. Here in Cleveland, a big chunk of our population sees that the present (much less the past) is truly unsustainable and is taking responsibility to invent a new and improved world for themselves: a future that indeed has a future.

Richard T. Stuebi is the Fellow for Energy and Environmental Advancement at The Cleveland Foundation, and is also the Founder and President of NextWave Energy, Inc. Effective September 1, he will also become Managing Director of Early Stage Partners.

Ford Plans both Electric Vehicles and Plug-in Hybrids

2009-08-26T06:18:00.000-07:00

By John Addison (8/24/09). Ford (F) is now taking orders for electric vehicles. By 2011, the Ford Motor Company will start taking orders for the new Ford Focus EV. Beyond 2011, Ford will offer the popular Focus in a variety of affordable options including hybrid-electric (HEV), plug-in hybrid (PHEV), and battery electric-vehicle (EV).

Although Nissan (NSANY) will take an early lead with EVs, and GM will beat Ford to market with a plug-in hybrid Chevy Volt, Ford will be fighting for market leadership with both electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids.

The Ford EV roadmap in this article is based on my interviews with Susan Cischke, Ford Group Vice President, Mike Tinskey, Plug-in 2009 Conference presentations, and my discussions with some of Ford’s utility partners.

2010 orders are likely to come from municipalities and other government agencies that will use the new Transit Connect light-duty van in a variety of applications from city maintenance to on-demand transit. Deliveries of these electric vehicles, made for Ford by Smith Electric Vehicles (TAN.L), will start in 2010. Transit Connect may also do well with small businesses and local delivery fleets.

It is the Ford Focus EV that captures the imagination of mainstream Americans eager to secure a zero-emission vehicle that they can take on freeways and travel up to 100 miles between charges. The new Ford Focus EV will be a 4-door sedan that seats five.

The Focus EV will be made in America. The lithium battery maker and specs are to be announced. Ford has expressed a preference for a battery whose cells that are made in America. Ford’s final battery decision may be influenced by federal funding.

Ford's additional PHEV Plans in Clean Fleet Report.

Ford is investing $550 million to transform its Michigan Assembly Plant into a lean, green and flexible manufacturing complex that will build Ford’s next-generation Focus global small car along with a new battery-electric version of the Focus for the North American market. Both will be based on a new global C platform. The EV is being developed in partnership with Magna International (MGA).

Ford has been actively testing the plug-in hybrid Ford Escape with a number of utilities and partners. These tests have helped establish the standards necessary for electric vehicle success, such as the J1772 electrical connection that will be standard on Ford EVs.

Thanks to a new DOE award of $30 million, 50/50 matched, a total of $60 million will go into expanded deployment of Ford plug-in hybrids, electric vehicles, and infrastructure. Early pilots of the Ford Focus EV are likely to be part of this.

The new electric vehicles are smart EVs. Customers will be provided with charging options to save money. Drivers will be connected with traffic and location services and assisted with electronics that make driving safer. Passengers will have more information and entertainment options than ever. Like the new smartphones from Apple, Blackberry, Palm and others, the value of a full value of a smart car is in the networks. Just as smartphones can be purchased at a discount with network subscriptions, we may see similar offerings from car makers and their partners.

Subscription models are being explored where vehicles like the Ford Focus EV could be purchased, with the lithium battery and charging being offered as a subscription. Ford, Nissan, and other automakers are discussing such possibilities with electric utilities, financial institutions and others. Should a utility or JV own the batteries, then it would be easier to repurpose lithium batteries into less demanding stationary power back-up applications after the batteries decline in charge after several years of use.

Possibilities include 50/50 joint ventures and long-term secure financing. Because utilities are regulated, public utility commissions will be involved in approving new business models. If everyone gets there act together, which is certainly an “if,” the customer could be a big winner with an affordable EV and subscription offerings that cost less than monthly gasoline costs.

Under the leadership of CEO Alan Mulally, Ford has shown a new flexibility in partnering with suppliers, vehicle integrators, battery JV, electric utilities, financial institutions, and even information technology firms like Microsoft (MSFT). With global platforms, smarter cars, richer partnerships, and greater speed to market, customers will see some interesting new offerings in the next two years.

By John Addison. John Addison publishes the Clean Fleet Report and speaks at conferences. He is the author of the new book - Save Gas, Save the Planet - now selling at Amazon and other booksellers.

Irrigation Scheduling for Agricultural Crops: It's Not Just a Flip of a Switch!

2009-08-25T17:50:00.000-07:00

For this second post in the "Sustainable Agriculture on Cleantech Blog" series, I decided to invite Dave Doll, UC Cooperative Extension Farm Advisor, and fellow blogger at Almond Doctor Blog, to share his expert knowledge about irrigation management for agricultural crops.

Agricultural use of water within California use has been a media magnet these days. With the reductions of pumping into the California Aqueduct from the Delta, California in its third straight year of a drought, and an increasing population that is putting strain on an aging infrastructure, it is not much of a surprise to find that water is on many people’s mind. In a normal year, 48% of the water is used for environmental reasons, 41% for agricultural purposes, and 11% for urban uses. In drought years, these percentages change, usually with reductions facing both the environmental and agricultural uses. Most water “rights” discrepancies come in terms of river restoration and/or protection of native species, which usually reduce water to local growers who then rely more heavily on groundwater to maintain agricultural production. One can see that battles between growers and environmentalist are common and fierce. An example of these can be found with court rulings of the Delta Smelt and the restoration of the San Joaquin River.

Being with water in high demand, are there ways that the water used for agriculture be used more efficiently? The answer is “Yes.” Agricultural water use efficiency can be improved by delivering water to the right place, at the right amount, and at the right time. The “Three Rs” is not a new concept: the most primitive irrigation systems established over 5000 years ago were reliant upon these same principles. Growers would water when the plants showed some sign of water stress (i.e. wilting), and water would be delivered to the root zone at an amount that appeared to wet the soil to the appropriate level. Thankfully, through the use of certain technologies, we can increase the efficiency of our irrigations through tools to that help refine the three Rs.

If the “Three Rs” have worked for 5000 years, why change now?

The current face of agriculture is changing. Water costs are increasing. In drought years, water prices may be over $500 an acre foot in some production areas of the West side of the San Joaquin valley. Increased rates are not just due to droughts; rates throughout California are increasing as urban and environmental water demand increases while supply has not increased. Secondly, the costs involved to apply the water are also high. Fuel and electricity for pumps, cost of irrigation filters and lines, and irrigation maintenance are not cheap and require hours of labor to install and repair. Furthermore, especially within the San Joaquin Valley, water must be properly applied to prevent run-off, prevent plant diseases, ensure adequate soil penetration, encourage leaching and prevent accumulation of salts, reduce evaporation, and produce maximum profits/yields. Knowing all of this, it is easy to understand why wasting of water is unacceptable as well as the reduction of yields caused by under irrigating.

So, how do we do maximize yield but reduce water waste?

Proper irrigation is achievable through monitoring the plant-soil-environment complex. The amount of water within the soil and its ability to be accessed by the plants roots can be measured/estimated through a variety of technologies. These include the low cost feel method, to the more accurate neutron probe. For most irrigation water management systems, one of the several electrical resistance or tensiometers systems are used. These are connected to data-loggers and can be transmitted wirelessly to computer software programs to help growers monitor soil moisture. Soil moisture readings are often used by themselves to schedule irrigations, but they are most valuable when used with data that takes in consideration the water demands influenced by the environment and plant.

Plant water use varies by the stage of growth of the plant. Typically, water use is the highest when the plant is fully leafed out, with maximized leaf surface. This is because the more leaf surface transpiring, the more water is lost through the opening of the stomates. As stomates open and close, water vapor, which is at a high concentration within the plant, is released into the low moisture environment through diffusion. This is also why plant water use is the highest on days with high temperatures and low humidity. To simplify the plant-environment water interaction, the term evapotranspiration is often used. This term encompasses the loss of water by both the evaporation off of the surface of the plant and soil, and the water lost through transpiration. This value is determined by weather stations and multiplied by the respective crop and crop growth stage to determine the water use. Throughout California, these values are recorded and calculated from over 100 weather stations and made available through the California Irrigation Management Information Systems.

Outlined above were brief explanations of the tools available to calculate how much water is in the soil, and how much water is used by the plant and environment. Knowing this information, how can we use the “Three Rs” to reduce water use by increasing irrigation efficiency? By viewing the soil profile as a reservoir for the plant’s water, and calculating the daily water needs of the plant, we can determine how long the plant can survive off the water available within the soil profile. When the soil profile is close to depletion, a timed irrigation of the proper amount can refill the profile, restarting the cycle. This is the premise of basic irrigation scheduling. As one can see, proper crop irrigation encompasses more than “just a flip of the switch.”

Complexities within soil texture and soil water holding capacity, variance in efficiencies of different irrigation systems, plant water potential, and regulated deficit irrigation are all topics

that increase irrigation efficiency and will be discussed in later articles.

Marguerite Manteau-Rao is VP Marketing for Terraqualo, a new venture in precision irrigation for growers of specialty crops. Marguerite is the creator of La Marguerite, a popular environmental blog, and has written extensively for a number of other blogs, including Huffington Post Green. She has a multidisciplinary background as an engineer, marketer, and social worker.

The Cleantech LP Conundrum

2009-08-25T12:21:00.001-07:00

Cleantech limited partners have a big conundrum. It's called unrealized gains.

After years of struggling, cleantech investors are now quietly but optimistically beginning to talk about impressive gains in their funds. Unfortunately, the elephant behind them that LPs are beginning to talk about is the prevalence of massive unrealized gains from the behemoth solar, biofuels and automotive startups in the portfolios.

The question is simple, and much debated. Are the unrealized gains real, or unreal?

The naysayer argument runs something like this:

Many of the companies are pre-revenue, certainly pre-profit, and tons of them are scary early stage when it comes to actually proving the technology OR the business at scale.
There's still not much in the way of IPO market or M&A market backing up the levels of these valuations (one vicious example is the massive downround valuation smash A123 took in its last round, once you dig into the the prospectus).
The energy business doesn't tend to pay huge tech multiples for exits, and even business successes may get crushed (think Aventine and Verasun at the end of the day).
The amount of capital many of the key companies in the portfolios will still need, and the limited GP funds raised in the last couple of quarters, may put a lot of downward pressure on price for the more capital intensive deals.
There is a sneaking suspicion among some LPs that if you looked at it from a concentration risk perspective, a quite small web of large deals has been bid up among venture capitalists, causing a bit of a valuation bubble in the portfolios.

The cleantech is finally coming into its own argument, runs like this:

The combo of policies around the world is now a heavyweight, from Stimulus to FIT to Climate Change to PTC et al, and those dollars are starting to tell.
The consumer and business shift to things green, and the rebounce in oil prices (though not gas or electricity) is underpinning the future growth to justify the valuations.
The valuations are based off of big successes like First Solar's IPO, and are legitimately derived.
Some of the early big deals in key areas like thin film solar and automotive are finally beginning to deliver production, and will walk the walk, deserving the kinds of multiples that First Solar got, and underpinning valuations in an IPO market.
GPs are increasingly raising later stage funds, and that money has got to go somewhere.

Which argument you buy on the subject may frankly make or break you as an investor. If you believe the naysayers, and a couple of these deals realize out and make half a dozen or a dozen funds, you may be on the short end of the fundraising / returns bragging rights stick for years. If they don't come through, anyone not in the "Big Bad Bets" (taking that "Bad" either as a pejorative or as BadA**, depending on your perspective), may look like a braniac. And regardless, if some of these big returns do realize, LPs will have plenty to debate about the "quality" of those earnings. Were they good, or just lucky? And how do you tell?

Neal Dikeman is a partner at Jane Capital Partners, and has cofounded, run, invested in, or served as a director of multiple startups in cleantech and technology, and has advised a number of large energy companies on venture investing. He is Chairman of Carbonflow and Cleantech.org, and a Texas Aggie.

Our First Cleantech.org Carbon Webinar Series with DNV - this Thursday

2009-08-24T13:45:00.000-07:00

We are really excited to present our first Professional Education Webinar, part of a Webinar Series with DNV, called Carbon Projects 101, How Carbon Offset Projects Work.

Details are below, but we have a special promotion running, our friends at NetSuite.org have sponsored a 100 attendees to receive a discounted price of $95, a$200 savings. There are still a few left!

The Details:

DNV is the largest verifier in the carbon world, verified the 1st CDM project in carbon, and the 1,000th, and literally wrote the book on what counts in carbon.

Carbon offsets are one of the largest parts of the global cap and trade market and the fight against climate change – billions of dollars a year now. And carbon trading is arguably the largest cleantech market. So Cleantech.org partnered with the biggest verifier in the Kyoto, Det Norske Veritas, to bring you the “how to” and “skinny” on carbon offset projects.

- Do you work in an energy company or technology company looking to monetize carbon reductions?

- Are you interested in buying or trading carbon, and want to understand what’s underneath?

- Have you been buying RECs and want to understand the difference?

- Are you an investor trying to sort through the carbon chaff?

- Are you a policy analyst, attorney, or consultant and have clients or bosses asking questions on how it works?

Then you should register for Cleantech.org Professional Education Online.

Vol I, Carbon Projects 101: How Carbon Offset Projects Work

CDM, JI, Voluntary Carbon and the coming US Market

August 27th, 11 am PST online webinar - 3 hours, Dr. Mark Trexler

After registering and paying, you will receive a registration confirmation and a Go To Meeting web address to login. Email info@cleantech.org with any questions. Large group discounts are available.

The Instructor: Dr. Mark Trexler - A leading authority on the carbon markets and policies, Dr. Trexler is Director, Climate Strategies and Markets at DNV. He was President of Trexler Climate + Energy Services, acquired by leading carbon project developer and asset manager EcoSecurities in 2007. Prior to that Dr. Trexler was a research associate at World Resources Institute. He holds a PhD in International Environmental Policy and MPP at UC-Berkeley.

About DNV - DNV (Det Norske Veritas) is an independent foundation founded in 1864 whose purpose is the safeguarding of life, property, and the environment. With global headquarters in Oslo, Norway, DNV has approximately 300 offices in 100 countries with 9,000 employees. DNV's core competence is helping organizations to identify, assess, and manage risk. DNV's various business units - ranging from healthcare to energy to aerospace - all focus on safely and responsibly improving business performance for their customers. For more information visit. www.DNV.com