Weekly Clean Energy Roundup: Dec. 11, 2002

*News and Events

*Site News

BetterBricks

*Energy Facts and Tips

IEA Documents Renewable Energy History, Looks Ahead to 2030

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NEWS AND EVENTS

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GE Wind Energy Tests Prototype of 3.6-Megawatt Wind Turbine

GE Wind Energy, the largest wind turbine company in the United States, announced yesterday that it is now testing a prototype 3.6-megawatt wind turbine, which will be the world’s largest commercial wind turbine. The wind machine was installed in Spain in May, connected to the electrical grid in September, and reached its nominal power output in October. Designed specifically for offshore wind installations, the wind turbine has a hub height of 75 meters (246 feet) and a rotor diameter of 104 meters (341 feet). The prototype, however, was installed on a farm, so it is mounted at a hub height of 100 meters (328 feet) to account for the higher wind turbulence over land. The massive turbine is equipped with an optional internal 40-ton crane that will allow for the exchange of the rotor blades, gearbox, and generator without using a separate, external crane. It can also be fitted with a helicopter-hoisting platform to allow the use of helicopters when working on the turbine. GE Wind Energy will manufacture the wind turbines in Germany and the United States once the test period is complete.
See the December 10th press release from GE Wind Energy at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Large Wind Power Projects Slated for California, Minnesota

California and Minnesota will gain a total of 200 megawatts of new wind power capacity, thanks to plans now underway by several firms.

In southwestern Minnesota, PacifiCorp Power Marketing, Inc. (PPM) will build the 50-megawatt Moraine Wind Power Project using 34 wind turbines from GE Wind Energy. GE’s 1.5-megawatt wind turbines, manufactured in California, are the largest made in the United States. Xcel Energy will buy all of the power from the wind facility, which will begin commercial operation in fall 2003. The project will produce enough electricity to meet the annual needs of 19,000 average U.S. homes. See the GE Wind Energy press release, in PDF format only, at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Minnesota has significant wind energy resources, but they are concentrated in the southwest corner of the state. See the high-resolution wind resource maps on the Minnesota State Energy Office Web site at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

PPM, the developer of the Minnesota project, will also buy the entire output from the 150-megawatt High Winds wind power project, to be built in northern California by FPL Energy. Vestas Wind Systems A/S announced on Monday that the project, to be located in Solano County, will use the company’s 1.8-megawatt wind turbines, the largest wind turbines sold in North America. The High Winds project is expected to begin operating in summer 2003. See the press releases from PPM and Vestas at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]
[sorry this link is no longer available]

A number of smaller wind projects are now underway across the country: the Southern Minnesota Municipal Power Agency (SMMPA) is installing two 950-kilowatt wind turbines near Rochester (in southeast Minnesota); the Palmdale Water District in southern California, just north of Los Angeles, is planning to install a one-megawatt wind turbine near Lake Palmdale, with assistance from Black & Veatch Corporation; and Xcel Energy and Cielo Wind Power, LLC are planning to add two 660-kilowatt wind turbines to the Llano Estacado Wind Ranch in eastern Curry County, New Mexico. Among recently completed projects, Basin Electric Power Cooperative helped dedicate two new 1.3-megawatt wind turbines near Minot, North Dakota, and Oncor, the energy delivery unit of TXU, completed two transmission lines that will help deliver West Texas wind power to customers in North Texas. See the December 3rd press release from SMMPA at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

See also the press releases from Black & Veatch, Xcel Energy, Basin Electric, and TXU, respectively, [sorry this link is no longer available]
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DOE Grant Supports Development of New Products from Corn

DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) announced on Monday its receipt of a $2.4 million research grant from DOE for the development of new products made from corn fiber. PNNL will work with the National Corn Growers Association and Archer Daniels Midland Company for the next two and half years, aiming to economically derive high-value chemicals and oils from corn fiber. The researchers will start by purifying and characterizing trace chemicals within the corn fiber, but hope to progress to designing and constructing a pilot production plant by the
end of the project.

See the PNNL press release: [sorry this link is no longer available]

DOE supports the development of such “biobased” products — products made from plants or other organic material — because they often replace materials made from petrochemicals. In the case of corn fiber, developing a new biobased product market also improves the economics of using the rest of the corn to produce ethanol. Archer Daniels Midland, a partner in the project, is a leading producer of ethanol fuels from corn. For more information, see the Biomass Research & Development Initiative Web site at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]

One company is already producing a biobased product from corn — in this case, corn starch. Cargill Dow LLC started making commercial-grade polylactide (PLA), a polymer, from corn starch at a large-scale manufacturing plant in April. In November, Cargill Dow teamed with Fountain Set Limited and Amprica S.p.A. to advance the use of the material in clothing and for packaging foods. See the Cargill Dow press releases at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

DOE Project to Create New Life Form for Hydrogen Production

Producing hydrogen from non-petroleum sources is a difficult, energy-consuming task. Electrolysis — the process of applying an electrical current to separate water into hydrogen and oxygen — is usually costly and energy-inefficient. In recent years, researchers have coaxed algae and even spinach extracts into using sunlight to produce hydrogen, but these processes still have far to go before they achieve commercial success. Researchers at DOE’s National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) even managed to use bacteria to produce a small but constant amount of hydrogen in recent experiments — see the NETL announcement at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]

Despite these advancements, researchers have yet to develop a natural process that efficiently and cheaply produces a large quantity of hydrogen for use as a fuel source. Those researchers using algae, bacteria, and other natural organisms must sometimes think that nature itself is falling short. And that’s exactly the assumption taken by a new DOE project, which aims to make nature just a little bit better. Under the new project, announced in late November, DOE is providing a three-year, $3 million grant to the Institute of Biological Energy Alternatives (IBEA), which will develop a synthetic chromosome as the first step in developing cost-effective and efficient biological sources of energy. The institute aims to engineer organisms that could generate hydrogen or serve other purposes, such as carbon sequestration.

The research builds on previous work at The Institute for Genetic Research, which found a bacterium with a very small number of genes — only 517, compared to roughly 30,000 in the human genome. The institute’s research team estimated that the smallest number of genes needed to sustain the bacterium could be as low as 265. That led the team to consider creating artificial chromosomes, which in turn led to the formation of the IBEA. See the IBEA press release: [sorry this link is no longer available]

For other recent examples of attempts to use organisms to produce hydrogen, see the February 23, 2000, and August 29, 2001, editions of EREN Network News at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]
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Two Solar Cell Companies Cut Costs by Making More from Less

Two manufacturers of solar cells recently announced advancements that will yield lower-cost solar cells by squeezing more solar cell production out of existing equipment and materials.

Evergreen Solar, Inc. found a way to produce two ribbons of silicon simultaneously in one crystal-growth furnace, potentially doubling the company’s production capacity. Evergreen Solar uses a proprietary process that avoids sawing silicon blocks, instead melting the silicon and drawing it out between two strings at high temperatures to form a ribbon between the strings. The company has already boosted productivity by making the ribbons 45 percent wider and increasing the growth rate by 40 percent. The company now hopes to introduce “double ribbon” production into its furnaces by late 2003. See the December 4th press release by selecting “News” on the Evergreen Solar home page at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

A different approach to the same problem is being pursued by Origin Energy, an Australian company, which is aiming to make inexpensive solar cells by using less silicon. The company apparently produces its new “Sliver Cell” by using micromachining technology, rather than saws, to slice extremely thin slivers of silicon from a block of silicon. The resulting product is flexible, translucent, and, according to the company, uses about one-thirtieth the amount of silicon used in standard crystalline-silicon solar cells. See the November 28th press release from Origin Energy at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

“Micromachining” usually refers to various methods of etching silicon and other materials to create extremely small structures. Such methods were recently used to produce a motor that could only be seen under a microscope. However, Oxford Lasers, Inc. uses the term to refer to laser cutting of silicon and other materials, a process that appears more applicable to the process of producing solar cells. See the Oxford Laser fact sheet on laser micromachining of silicon, available in PDF format only, at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Two Groups to Install Superconductive Utility Cables in 2005

Two company partnerships recently announced plans to perform separate tests of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) cables at two U.S. utilities. Such HTS cables have high current-carrying capacity and could potentially transmit electricity with higher energy efficiency. HTS cable could increase the capacity of existing utility transmission and distribution systems, particularly in confined urban locations. DOE is contributing to bo
th demonstration projects.

Intermagnetics General Corporation (IGC) announced in mid-November that it plans to install a 34.5-kilovolt, three-phase, 350-meter length of HTS cable in Niagara Mohawk’s distribution system in Albany, New York, in 2005. An IGC subsidiary, SuperPower, Inc., will collaborate with Japan’s Sumitomo Electric Industries, Ltd. on the installation. The project will originally use cables made with so-called first generation HTS wire, which is now commercially available, then replace part of it with higher-efficiency second- generation HTS wire. SuperPower, Inc. has been manufacturing second- generation HTS wire at a pilot facility since January 2002. See the November 12th press release from IGC at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Southwire Company followed up last week, announcing that it has teamed with nkt cables to form a new company named ULTERA. The new company will install a 300-meter length of cable in American Electric Power’s electricity distribution system in Columbus, Ohio, also in 2005. Both the SuperPower and ULTERA cables promise cost savings and ease of operation and maintenance by combining all three phases into one power cable. See the Southwire press release at: http://www.southwire.com/news/120602.htm

Another leader in HTS technology, American Superconductor Corporation, completed the manufacture and testing of the rotor for the first HTS ship propulsion motor in November. U.K.-based ALSTOM is building the motor, which will be delivered to the U.S. Navy in July 2003. The 5-megawatt (or 6,500-horsepower) motor will be just one-half the size and weight of a conventional motor of the same power. See the American Superconductor press release: [sorry this link is no longer available]

GE Power Systems and the GE Global Research Center are also entering the HTS fray by working on a new DOE program to develop an HTS generator for the power industry. The GE groups will work with the National Energy Group, American Electric Power, the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority, and DOE’s Oak Ridge and Los Alamos national laboratories to develop the generator. The $12.3-million, 3.5-year program is expected to move HTS generator technology toward full commercialization. See the GE Power Systems press release: [sorry this link is no longer available]

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SITE NEWS

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BetterBricks
[sorry this link is no longer available]

BetterBricks, an initiative of the Northwest Energy Efficiency Alliance, was established to help commercial building professionals use energy efficiency as a design tool and financial strategy. Its Web site features articles on energy effective design and better building management, as well as success stories, news, and events.

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ENERGY FACTS AND TIPS

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IEA Documents Renewable Energy History, Looks Ahead to 2030

The International Energy Agency (IEA) recently published two documents on renewable energy — one documenting the past, and the other looking ahead to the future.

IEA’s new “Renewable Energy 2002” is IEA’s first comprehensive report on the progress of renewable energy markets in developed countries. The report examines renewable energy use from 1990 to 2000, and finds that despite a growing use of renewable energy, the share of energy provided by renewable energy sources stayed fairlysteady over the ten-year span. Overall, renewable energy use increased by 1.8 percent per year in developed countries, but with growing energy use, the percentage of total energy produced from renewable energy sources only increased from 5.9 percent to 6.0 percent. Wind and solar power are growing faster than all other renewable energy sources, at annual rates of 22.4 percent and 28.9 percent, respectively. Extensive details are provided in the full 166-page report, which the IEA is making available for free. See the IEA Web site at: http://www.iea.org/stats/files/renewables.htm

IEA also published a much shorter 12-page booklet in November, presenting the outlook for renewable energy sources through 2030. The booklet draws on the IEA’s “World Energy Outlook 2002” to conclude that renewable energy’s contribution to energy use throughout the world will drop from 13.8 percent in 2000 to 12.5 percent in 2030.This is misleading, however, since much of that energy is traditional uses of biomass (such as wood) for heating and cooking in developing countries. In developed countries, renewable energy’s contribution is expected to increase to 8 percent of total energy use by 2030.

See the IEA fact sheet, in PDF format only, at:
http://www.iea.org/leaflet.pdf

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