Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:May 3, 2006

News and Events

News and Events

U.S. Geothermal Prepares to Build a 10-Megawatt Plant in Idaho

U.S. Geothermal, Inc. told its contractor last week to proceed with the engineering, procurement, and construction of a 10-megawatt geothermal power plant in central Idaho, the first geothermal power plant in the state. The Raft River Geothermal Project will be located about 10 miles north of the Utah border and will sell its power to the Idaho Power Company. Ormat Nevada, Inc. is supplying the power plant, which will use the geothermal heat to vaporize an organic fluid. The organic vapor will spin a turbine that drives a generator to make electricity, and then the vapor will be condensed and reused, in what is called a binary cycle power plant. U.S. Geothermal is currently negotiating long-term financing for the plant and expects to have it in place by June 1st. The company plans to begin operating the power plant in mid to late 2007 and is also preparing plans for a second 20-megawatt plant at the site. See the press release (PDF 39 KB) and the project description on the U.S. Geothermal Web site.

Ormat Nevada is also supplying a 10-megawatt power plant as an add-on to an existing 23-megawatt geothermal plant in central Utah. The Blundell geothermal plant, owned by PacifiCorp Energy, uses “single-flash” technology, in which the hot, pressurized geothermal fluid is piped into a tank where much of it instantaneously boils, or “flashes,” into steam, while the rest of it forms a hot brine. The new Ormat power plant will use the hot brine to generate more power before pumping it back into the underground geothermal reservoir. See the press releases from PacifiCorp and Ormat.

Ormat has been busy lately, as it also supplied a binary cycle power plant for a one-megawatt solar trough project in Arizona that was dedicated in April. In addition, the company has been applying its technology to recover heat from gas turbines at natural gas compressor stations. As of January, the company had 27 megawatts of such “Recovered Energy Generation Systems” under construction. See the Ormat press releases on the solar plant and recovered energy systems.

Florida Pursues Power from Grass, While Others Pitch Manure

Progress Energy Florida announced on Monday that it has signed a 25-year contract to buy power from a plant fueled with grassy biomass. Biomass Investment Group, Inc. (BIG) plans to build a 130-megawatt power plant in Central Florida fueled with a crop it calls E-Grass, described as a fast-growing, high-yield perennial that is a member of the grass family. The company will grow the E-Grass as a dedicated energy crop and then convert it to biogas in its power plant, where the gas will be used to fuel a gas turbine. Once constructed, it will be the world’s first commercial-scale “closed-loop” biomass power plant fueled with crops grown on site. Closed-loop biomass power plants are eligible for federal tax credits of 1.9 cents per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced for the first 10 years of power production. See the Progress Energy press release and the BIG Web site.

While BIG develops its grass-fueled power plant in Florida, a partnership of 28 electric membership corporations (EMCs) in Georgia plans to draw some of its electricity from poultry litter. Green Power EMC has agreed to buy 20 megawatts of power from Earth Resources, Inc., which plans to build a poultry-litter gasification system near Carnesville, Georgia, about 70 miles northeast of Atlanta. The facility should start operating next summer. Earth Resources has already demonstrated its technology at a prototype facility that was funded with a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. See the Green Power EMC press release.

A number of other companies are deriving energy from cow manure. Microgy, Inc., a supplier of anaerobic digesters, recently signed an agreement to supply a multi-digester biogas production and gas conditioning facility at the Mission Dairy in Hereford, Texas. The facility will convert the manure from 10,000 cows into one billion cubic feet of biogas per year, supplying the methane to a nearby natural gas pipeline. The company, a subsidiary of Environmental Power Corporation, has also signed a Letter of Intent to provide a similar system at Swift & Company’s beef processing plant in Grand Island, Nebraska. Central Vermont Public Service (CVPS) knows all about such systems: the CVPS Cow Power program sells green power produced from manure at the state’s dairy farms. CVPS recently awarded $666,000 in grants to four farms that are expected to generate a total of 8.4 million kilowatt-hours per year. See the Environmental Power press releases about the Texas and Nebraska plants, as well as the CVPS press release (PDF 18 KB).

California Sets Goals to Boost In-State Biofuels Production

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger signed an executive order last week that sets goals for the in-state production of ethanol and other biofuels. California currently burns more than 900 million gallons of ethanol fuel each year, or nearly a quarter of all the ethanol produced in the United States, but only 5 percent of the ethanol fuel consumed in the state is produced there. California’s new goals are to produce 20 percent of the state’s biofuels within the state by 2010, increasing to 40 percent by 2020 and 75 percent by 2050. The order also calls for biomass to provide 20 percent of the electricity generated to meet the state’s renewable power requirements and enlists the help of state agencies in meeting these goals. The governor’s actions follow the recommendations of a Bioenergy Action Plan for California, an interagency report released by the California Energy Commission (CEC) in early April. See the governor’s press release and executive order, as well as the CEC press release and the Bioenergy Action Plan.

While biofuels production is concentrated in the Corn Belt, a number of new production plants are cropping up throughout the United States. On Monday, for instance, an energy company and an agribusiness announced their plans to build the largest ethanol plant in the Southeast. Ergon Ethanol, Inc. and Bunge North America, Inc. are planning to build an ethanol plant in Mississippi that will produce at least 60 million gallons of ethanol per year. See the Ergon Ethanol press release.

New Near-Zero Energy Homes Open in California and New Jersey

New energy-efficient solar homes that use nearly zero net energy over the course of a year opened in California and New Jersey last week. In California, Clarum Homes offered preview tours of four demonstration homes in Borrego Springs, a desert location about 85 miles northeast of San Diego. The homes are designed to use 90 percent less energy than conventional homes and employ a variety of highly insulating wall systems and high-efficiency cooling systems. All of the homes feature 3.2-kilowatt solar power systems, instantaneous water heaters, and exterior shade screens, and three of the homes are equipped with under-floor radiant heating. The project was developed through a partnership with the DOE’s Building America Program, ConSol, and the Davis Energy Group. The homes will be tested for energy efficiency continuously over the next year and the information will be shared with other builders, manufacturers, and municipalities throughout the country. See the Clarum press release (PDF 68 KB) and the Clarum – Borrego Springs Zero Energy Homes Web site.

In New Jersey, BASF Corporation hosted a ribbon-cutting ceremony to dedicate its new Near-Zero Energy Home in Paterson. The demonstration home is 80 percent more energy efficient than conventionally built homes and is a prototype for the U.S. Green Building Council’s newly launched rating system for homes. The home combines energy efficient design and radiant floor heating with 2.5 kilowatts of Ovonic Solar photovoltaic laminates that are bonded to the roof and a 4-kilowatt solar thermal system installed underneath the south roof. As the world’s largest chemical company, BASF contributed many products to the demonstration home, including foam insulation and a heat-reflective coating for the home’s metal roof. See the BASF press release, and for more information on the home, see BASF’s Better Home, Better Planet Web site.

Although Zero Energy Homes are a rarity today, a recent report from the National Association of Home Builders Research Center (NAHBRC) says that the concept could diffuse into the U.S. home market as early as 2012, and could cut U.S. energy use 17 percent by 2050. The report, “The Potential Impact of Zero Energy Homes,” was prepared in collaboration with DOE and DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory. See the NAHBRC press release or download the study from the Zero Energy Home section of NAHBRC’s ToolBase Web site.

Energy Connections

Forecasters Predict an Active and Dangerous Hurricane Season

The Atlantic hurricane season is only a month away, and forecasters are predicting an active season. Hurricane forecasters at Colorado State University (CSU), employing a statistical system based on past trends, are predicting a “very active” season with landfall probabilities “well above their long-period averages.” Their updated forecast, released in April, projects 17 named storms, of which 9 will become hurricanes. Five of those hurricanes are expected to become intense, and the probability of a major hurricane landfall in the United States is estimated to be about 55 percent higher than the long-term average. The forecasters report that the Atlantic Ocean “remains anomalously warm.” See the CSU press release and forecast.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) confirmed the warming of the Atlantic Ocean on Monday, noting that the region where hurricanes originate has warmed several tenths of a degree Celsius over the 20th century. According to NOAA, new climate models suggest that “human activity, such as increasing greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, may contribute significantly to thi
s warming.” With hurricane season approaching soon, NOAA is on a five-day hurricane preparedness tour along the Gulf Coast and Florida this week. See the NOAA press releases on the ocean warming and the hurricane preparedness tour.

Meanwhile, the Minerals Management Service (MMS) has boosted its estimate of the damage to oil and gas infrastructure from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The MMS raised the number of damaged pipelines from 183 to 457 and raised the number of large pipelines that were damaged from 64 to 101. Of the large pipelines, only 32 have returned to service. On the positive side, of four major platforms that were damaged, three will return to service soon, and the fourth will return to service late this year. See the MMS press release.

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