The Energy Blog

Theories as to the causes of global warming are abundant.  An article on the Inquirer.net reports on how methane released from wetlands turned the Earth into a hothouse 55 million years ago, according to research released Wednesday that could shed light on a worrying aspect of today's climate-change crisis.

The study has relevance because of the gigatons of methane locked in the Siberian permafrost today.

Co-author Andrew Scott of Royal Holloway University of London is cautious about making parallels.

A study published last April in the US journal Science attributed the methane to a tectonic rather than biological source -- massive volcanic eruptions in Greenland and the British Islands.

Interesting reading for those concerned.

From the Inquirer.net via Peak Oil News and Message Boards.

Peak-oil - The Turning Point

Peak Oil - The Turning Point, a poster, is available as a pdf download from the Department of Energy.  It is an interesting commentary on peak oil, including a very brief explanation of Hubbert's theory and the various predictions of when the peak might occur. They also have several other posters available, here, that trace the origin of oil and gas, the means to get it to market, the U.S. and global disposition of oil and gas, as well as unconventional sources of oil.

Thanks to vox mundi on Peak oil and Message Boards

The latest on the Volt

A September 29 article in the Wall Street Journal reported that the Chevrolet Volt, General Motors Corp.'s electric-plug-in concept car, will be built at the Detroit-Hamtramck assembly plant, begining production in 2010, according to a tentative contract agreement reached between GM and the United Auto Workers union.

This is the most definitive report I have seen on a production schedule for the Volt.

Miasolé Raises $50 million, Has Started Production

Thin-film solar-cell maker Miasole, the Santa Clara, CA, USA start-up which makes CIGS (Copper Indium Gallium Selenium) solar cells, has raised $50 million more in venture capital in a fourth round of financing.

According to Venture Beat, the company says it has started shipping its cells to its first two customers, . . . both in China. The company assembles its solar modules in Shanghai.

Another Venture Beat article reported:

Miasolé is one of a handful of players producing solar technology based on CIGS materials. These companies, which include Nanosolar, HelioVolt and Konarka (and Honda) are all racing to be first to market. Nanosolar made waves in June, when it announced that it would build the world's largest solar cell factory.

In an interview with VentureWire in May, [Chief Executive David] Pearce said Miasolé was in the process of building a production facility with 50 megawatts of capacity….So far, Miasolé has raised at least $58 million from investors including Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, VantagePoint Venture Partners, Firelake Strategic Technology Fund, Garage Technology Ventures and Nippon Kouatsu Electric Co. Pearce would not comment on new investors in the round.

In March DOE announced that it had funded Miasole, subject to negotiations. DOE funding for the first year of the project is expected to be $5,800,000, with approximately $20,000,000 available over three years if the team meets its goals. With the addition of the most recent $50 million this brings the total raised by Miasole to over $100 million, I don't know whether this is included in the $58 million total above.

FPL, PG&E and Ausra Commit to Develop 1,500 MW of Solar Power

Thursday, in association with leading utilities FPL Group, Inc.(NYSE: FPL) and PG&E Corp. (NYSE: PCG), Ausra, Inc., a solar thermal power technology company, presented a formal commitment at the Clinton Global Initiative Annual Meeting for a clean energy future through the development of 1,500 megawatts of solar thermal power plants which they claim will produce electricity at a price comparable with conventional fossil-fuel power plants.

As part of this announcement, PG&E Corp. committed to purchasing an additional 1,000 megawatts of solar thermal power over the next five years. Separately, FPL Group committed to develop 500 megawatts of solar thermal power plants. Collectively these commitments will generate about as much electric power as all the photovoltaic solar panels installed worldwide in 2006.

Solar thermal power plants generate electricity by driving steam turbines with sunshine. Solar concentrators boil water with focused sunlight, generating high-pressure steam which drives conventional turbine generators. Energy storage systems can store heat from the sun to allow solar electric power to be generated on demand, day and night.

One of the major differences between Ausra's system and other solar thermal power plants is that they use low cost flat mirrors rather than solar troughs. A previous post on Ausra gives further details about how their system differs from others resulting in a lower cost of electricity.

"FPL Group has evaluated Ausra’s new solar thermal technology, and we view this breakthrough technology as a promising option to make solar energy an economically sound addition to our power generation going forward.” said Lewis Hay, chairman and CEO of FPL Group, parent company of Florida Power & Light.

FPL Group is the nation’s leader in wind and solar energy today. 

EnerDel Lithium-ion Battery for Plug-ins will cost $1,500

According to Michael Kanellos of cnet NEWS.com:

EnerDel says it will come out with a lithium-ion battery for plug-in hybrids that will cost $1,500, a development that could go a long way to making these cars palatable in terms of price.

The Indianapolis-based company, which recently received a $6.5 million grant from the United States Advanced Battery Consortium (USABC), hopes to deliver the battery to car manufacturers for their 2010 lineups, according to Charles Gassenheimer, vice chairman of the company. The 2010 model cars will start coming out in September 2009, he said. ...

Competitor Altair Nanotechnologies uses a similar chemistry.

EnerDel, a subsidiary of Ener1, Inc. (OTCBB: ENEI) was one of five battery companies that received awards from The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). They received a $2.5 million contract over two years for plug-in hybrid vehicle (PHEV) research. The award is for the development of cells for 10- and 40-mile range PHEVs using nano-phase lithium titanate coupled with a high voltage Nickel-Manganese cathode material. The total DOE/industry cost share will be $2.5 million and the DOE will fund its share of $1.25 million.

This comes on top of a 18-month contract, valued at $6.5 million, that was awarded on September 18, that was the second of a three-phase USABC program and requires a 50 percent cost share. EnerDel successfully completed Phase I in June. EnerDel's Phase II contract involves development focused on scaling up to a production caliber cell, extensive lifetime testing and evaluation, as well as demonstrating the technology in battery modules.

Poet Becomes Largest Ethanol Producer in World, May be first to Produce Cellulosic Ethanol

On September 14 POET Biorefining, formerly the Broin Companies, opened their 21st ethanol production facility, a 65 million gallon per year plant that brings Poet's total capacity to 1.1 billion gallons per year of corn ethanol, making POET the largest producer of ethanol in the world.

The facility, the 27th (including administrative facilites) constructed by POET since they were founded 20 years ago, is equipped with technology that decreases its environmental footprint. That technology includes POET’s patent-pending BPX™ process that eliminates the need for heat in the cooking process of producing ethanol, reducing energy usage by 8-15 percent in comparison with conventional plants. It will also be outfitted with a regenerative thermal oxidizer that eliminates up to 99.9 percent of air emissions.

The BPX process is a patent-pending raw starch hydrolysis process that converts starch to sugar, which then ferments to ethanol without heat. The process not only reduces energy costs, but also releases additional starch content for conversion to ethanol, increases protein content and quality of co-products, increases co-product flowability, potentially increases plant throughput and significantly decreases plant emissions.

POET Biorefining - Portland, IN will utilize 22 million bushels of corn from the area to produce 65 million gallons of ethanol and 178,000 tons of Dakota Gold Enhanced Nutrition Distillers Products™ per year. The $105 million facility will provide around 40 jobs with an annual payroll of about $2 million.

NRG to Build First Nuclear Plants in Thirty Years

On Monday NRG Energy, Inc. (NYSE:NRG) and South Texas Project Nuclear Operating Company (STPNOC) filed the first application for a Combined Construction and Operating License (COLA) with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC)in nearly 30 years. NRG proposes to build and operate two new nuclear units at the South Texas Project (STP) nuclear power station site. The total rated capacity of the new units, STP 3 and 4, will equal or exceed 2,700 megawatts (MWs).

NRG has chosen Advanced Boiling Water Reactor (ABWR) technology for the new units to be built at the STP site. The 12,220-acre site and 7,000-acre cooling reservoir were originally designed for four units. The two new units will be built adjacent to the currently operating STP units 1 and 2. ABWR technology is certified by the NRC and has an impressive construction and operational track record. This includes setting world records for construction time and bringing the units in on budget.

Four ABWR units have been successfully commissioned in Japan, with another three units under construction in Taiwan and Japan. The Tokyo Electric Power Company, Inc. has more than a decade of experience in ABWR operations and has provided their expertise to supporting STP’s planned two-unit expansion.

Note

Sorry for not posting the last week.  I could not acess either my blogging software or my email and I have been busier than usual on other projects.  The issues are now resolved, I still don't know what was causing the problem.

So I will start posting again later today.  Some of the news related items, that I think are important, may be a little old, but I hope they are of interest to you as they are to me, after all, this blog is a way for me to keep informed on what is going on in The Energy Revolution.

Evergreen Solar Breaks Ground on Manufacturing Plant in Massachusetts

Evergreen Solar, Inc. (Nasdaq: ESLR), the Marlborro, MA manufacturer of String Ribbon(TM) solar power products announced on September 13 that it had broken ground for its new $165 million, 70 Megawatt (MW), facility in Devens, MA where it will expand production its solar products. This will bring their worldwide production capacity to 170 MW with plans to increase it to 300 MW by 2010.

Its press release states:

The new manufacturing plant will increase Evergreen Solar's production capacity in Massachusetts to 75 MW including 5 MW at it headquarters. In addition it has 90 MW of production capacity at EverQ in Germany, an equal partnership of Evergreen, Q-Cells AG (XETRA: QCE.DE) ( the worlds second largest producer of solar cells in 2005) and Renewable Energy Corporation ASA (OSEAX: REC.OL) (REC) (Q-cells has a long term silicon supply agreement with REC). The Devens facility keeps Evergreen on schedule to increase its production to 300 MW by 2010

Richard M. Feldt, Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer, noted that the new factory will use the Company's revolutionary Quad furnace technology with its state of the art automated ribbon cutting feature. This innovative wafer production process provides substantial opportunity to further increase yield, cell efficiency and labor productivity as well as to reduce the Company's already industry-leading silicon consumption.