Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:April 30, 2003

*News and Events

DOE to Fund Eight Tribes to Develop Renewable Energy
DOE Office Facility in Maryland Earns the Energy Star Label
Architect Group Names the Top Ten Green Projects for 2003
Large Solar Power Systems Online in New Jersey, California
Shell Hydrogen Opens Hydrogen Fueling Station in Iceland
California Air Board Allows Fuel-Cell Focus in New ZEV Rules

*Site News

European Commission End-Use Energy Efficiency Activities

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NEWS AND EVENTS

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DOE to Fund Eight Tribes to Develop Renewable Energy

DOE announced on April 24th its award of $1.3 million to eight Native American tribes to develop renewable energy projects on their lands. The funds will go toward feasibility studies on tribal lands located in Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Washington and Wisconsin. Although four of the tribes will investigate renewable energy resources in general, the other four tribes will explore the potential of specific renewable energy technologies, including biofuel for power production, biogas generation from manure and other biomass sources, wind power, and a hybrid power system using both wind power and hydropower. See the DOE press release at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

DOE’s Tribal Energy Program promotes tribal self-sufficiency and fosters employment and economic development on tribal lands by providing technical and financial assistance to tribes that want to develop the renewable energy resources on their lands. See the Tribal Energy Program Web site at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

DOE Office Facility in Maryland Earns the Energy Star Label

DOE’s office facility in Germantown, Maryland, earned the Energy Star designation for energy efficiency on April 23th. On an energy consumption scale of 0 to 100, the Germantown facility earned a score of 83. To earn an Energy Star label, a building must score 75 points or more. The Germantown facility is the fifth DOE building to earn an Energy Star label, following the lead established by Building 69 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Buildings 117 and 132 at the Nevada Test Site, and the Buildings Technology Center Headquarters building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. See the DOE press release at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]

Architect Group Names the Top Ten Green Projects for 2003

On Earth Day, April 22nd, the American Institute of Architects (AIA) announced its selection of the top ten examples of buildings that protect and enhance the environment. The 2003 AIA Top Ten Green Projects span a wide variety of buildings, including a home, a five- story housing project, and a forensics laboratory. Despite such diversity in buildings, all of them combine energy efficiency with appropriate uses of solar energy to meet the buildings’ energy needs. The top ten projects implemented such design approaches as passive solar heating and cooling, natural ventilation, daylighting, earth-sheltered construction, and straw-bale construction. The projects include such technologies as high-efficiency lighting, solar electric systems, solar hot water systems, geothermal heat pumps, a natural-gas cogeneration system, a microturbine, and high-efficiency windows and appliances.

AIA’s Committee on the Environment (COTE) developed the sixth annual Top Ten Green Projects initiative in partnership with DOE and Environmental Building News magazine. The top ten projects will be honored on May 1st at the National Building Museum, then again on May 9th at the AIA National Convention and Design Expo in San Diego, California. The AIA press release for the Top Ten Green Projects links each winning entry to a High-Performance Building Case Study on the EERE Web site. See the AIA press release at: http://www.aia.org/media/news/030422.asp

Large Solar Power Systems Online in New Jersey, California

The number of large solar power installations in the United States continued to grow in recent weeks, including two new projects in the half-megawatt range in California and New Jersey. New Jersey was actually graced with two new solar power installations: a 500-kilowatt system, installed on the roof of Janssen Pharmaceutica in Titusville, and a 275-kilowatt system installed by BP in Paulsboro. The BP installation is located on the site of a former petroleum and specialty chemicals storage facility, and was supported by the New Jersey Clean Energy Program and the Virginia Alliance for Solar Energy. PowerLight Corporation installed the larger Titusville system. See the press releases from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities and BP at: [sorry this link is no longer available]
[sorry this link is no longer available]

PowerLight was also responsible for a 536-kilowatt solar electric system installed at the headquarters of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A., Inc. in Torrance, California. The 624,000-square-foot building complex opened to the public on Earth Day, April 22nd. It is the largest facility yet to earn the Gold Level Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) green building rating system. It incorporates direct-indirect lighting, high efficiency insulation and thermally insulated glass, exceeding California’s energy efficiency targets by more than 20 percent. The Torrance facility also houses Toyota’s hydrogen fueling and service sta
tion. See the Toyota press release and accompanying photos on the Toyota/Lexus Pressroom Web site at:
http://pressroom.toyota.com/

PowerLight has been busy lately: The company also installed a 21.6-kilowatt system in Boston and a 120-kilowatt system at a California winery. See the PowerLight press releases for 2003 at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

With so many solar power systems being installed in the United States, it’s hard to keep track — which is one reason why the Solar Electric Power Association (SEPA) is building a database of commercial solar power installations. SEPA is just beginning to build its database, so if your company’s project isn’t listed, the association encourages you to submit it. See the SEPA Commercial Solar Electric Installation Inventory at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Shell Hydrogen Opens Hydrogen Fueling Station in Iceland

Shell Hydrogen announced last week the opening of its first hydrogen fueling station at a Shell retail site in Reykjavik, Iceland. The station will initially refuel three DaimlerChrysler fuel-cell buses operated by a local bus company. It also has all the permits needed to operate commercially, and could easily become the world’s first retail hydrogen fueling station. The station generates hydrogen from water using electrolysis, and since all of Iceland’s electricity is generated from hydroelectric and geothermal sources, it represents Iceland’s first step toward a hydrogen economy fueled by renewable energy. See the Shell Hydrogen press release at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Photos of the hydrogen fueling station are posted on the Athygli Public Relations Web site at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Recognizing that a number of countries are interested in developing a hydrogen economy, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham called on Monday for international collaboration in advanced research and development to develop hydrogen energy technologies. Secretary Abraham proposed the “International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy” during a presentation to the International Energy Agency Ministerial meeting. See the DOE press release at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

Closer to home, the non-profit Institute of Ecolonomics is promoting a hydrogen economy by driving a convoy of alternative-fueled and hybrid-electric vehicles across the United States, starting in Los Angeles on May 1st and ending in Washington, D.C., on May 14th. Although the institute’s founder, Dennis Weaver, is better known for riding a horse in the television series “Gunsmoke” and, occasionally, on the streets of New York City in “McCloud,” his current effort, called “Drive to Survive 2003,” aims to encourage the use of fuel-cell vehicles. See the Route and Itinerary section of the Drive to Survive Web site at: http://www.drivetosurvive.info/

California Air Board Allows Fuel-Cell Focus in New ZEV Rules

The California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved modifications to the state’s Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program last week, giving automakers greater flexibility in meeting their requirements. Automakers can still meet their requirements by producing a mix of vehicles of which 2 percent are battery-driven electric vehicles (ZEVs), 2 percent are very clean hybrid-electric or natural-gas vehicles (called advanced technology partial ZEVs, or AT PZEVs), and 6 percent are extremely clean conventional vehicles, called partial ZEVs or PZEVs.

Alternately, automakers can produce a mix of vehicles of which 4 percent are AT PZEVs and 6 percent are PZEVs, if they also produce their share of fuel cell vehicles. Under this alternative rule, automakers will be required to provide their market-weighted share of fuel cell vehicles, which (for all automakers combined) must total 250 by 2008, 2,500 by 2011, 25,000 by 2014, and 50,000 by 2017. Automakers can substitute battery electric vehicles to meet half of their fuel-cell-vehicle requirements.

With the ZEV requirements currently on hold because of automaker lawsuits, the new requirements will not go into effect until 2005. See the CARB press release and ZEV Program Web site at: http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr042403.htm
http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/2003rule/2003rule.htm

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SITE NEWS

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European Commission End-Use Energy Efficiency Activities

[sorry this link is no longer available]

The Institute for Environment & Sustainability of the European Commission Joint Research Centre advises the Commission on the design and implementation of energy efficiency policies and programs. Its Web site serves as a portal site to information on the Commission’s energy efficiency activities. Activities include the GreenLight programme, Lights of the Future Competition, Energy Star Programme, electric motor programs, and building programs.

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ENERGY CONNECTIONS

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Sandia’s “Z Machine” Reveals New Approach to Fusion Energy

As renewable energy assumes a growing role in the world energy mix, will nuclear fusion be next? Physicists and engineers have been working for decades to recreate the sun’s energy source in a controlled reaction that could be used as a source of energy here on Earth. They have traditionally touted one of two approaches: magnetic confinement, in which a hot plasma is held in a magnetic “bottle,” and inertial confinement, in which a high-energy beam (usually a laser) implodes a pea-sized target, causing its nuclei to fuse. But in early April, researchers at DOE’s San
dia National Laboratories showed that they have a third way.

The Sandia researchers started with a pea-sized target of deuterium, much like in an inertial confinement machine, but placed that inside a foam cylinder surrounded by hair-thin tungsten wires. By running huge, precisely timed pulses of electricity into that tungsten-wire cage, they created intense magnetic fields that crushed the tungsten wires into the foam cylinder, generating X-rays. Those X-rays, in turn, produced a shock wave that imploded the target, much like the laser beams do in an inertial confinement machine.

Sandia researchers had their first suggestion that they had achieved fusion in the Z machine when they measured neutron pulses coming from implosions last summer. In April, they announced that they had, indeed, produced nuclear fusion. See the April 7th press release from Sandia National Laboratories at:
[sorry this link is no longer available]

Unfortunately, the path from creating fusion to building a practical fusion energy source is a long and difficult one. Although magnetic confinement has been studied for decades, DOE announced in January that it was joining an international effort to advance that technology, a project that is not expected to start operating until 2014. DOE expects the project to yield fusion research findings for up to 20 years. See the DOE press release at: [sorry this link is no longer available]

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