Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:July 6, 2006

News and Events

• DOE Offers $170 Million for Solar Technology Research
• Public Comments Requested for Offshore Wind Power Projects
• Drill Problems Halt Australian Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Project
• “Big Three” Automakers to Produce More Renewable-Fuel Vehicles
• DaimlerChrysler to Bring Smart Cars to the United States
• IT Companies and Organizations Tackle Data Center Energy Use

Energy Connections

• Slumping Energy Use Holds U.S. Carbon Emissions Steady in 2005

News and Events

DOE Offers $170 Million for Solar Technology Research

DOE released a solicitation last week for cost-shared, public-private partnerships to advance solar energy technology. The solicitation focuses on development, testing, demonstration, validation, and deployment of new solar photovoltaic (PV) components, systems, and manufacturing equipment. DOE plans to award $170 million over three years to industry-led groups that may include one or more companies, universities, national laboratories, or non-governmental organizations. The teams must match their awards dollar for dollar, bringing the total investment to $340 million. Applications are due on October 2nd. See the solicitation on the Grants.gov Web site.

The new solar energy funds are part of President Bush’s Solar America Initiative, which aims to bring down the cost of solar energy systems to make them competitive with conventional electricity sources by 2015. The goal of the projects funded by the solicitation will be to reduce the cost of electricity from solar PV systems from today’s 13-22 cents per kilowatt-hour to 9-18 cents per kilowatt-hour by 2010. See the DOE press release and the Solar America Initiative Web site.

Public Comments Requested for Offshore Wind Power Projects

The Minerals Management Service (MMS), a part of the U.S. Department of Interior, is making progress on preparing the Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) for two proposed offshore wind power plants. MMS will hold two public scoping meetings for the Long Island Offshore Wind Project on July 10th and 11th in the New York towns of West Babylon and Massapequa. The agency is also accepting comments online and by mail through August 21st. In addition, the MMS announced in late May that it plans to prepare an EIS for the proposed Cape Wind Energy Project in Nantucket Sound, Massachusetts. The agency is accepting public comments through July 14th. The Energy Policy Act of 2005, signed last August, granted authority to the Interior Department to manage renewable energy projects on the Outer Continental Shelf and gave the MMS primary responsibility for the environmental analysis and regulatory oversight of such projects. See the MMS press releases on the Long Island and Cape Wind projects.

Meanwhile, wind power developments on land are zooming ahead in the United States, judging by recent sales agreements for wind turbines. Airtricity, an Irish wind developer, has agreed to buy more than 500 megawatts (MW) of wind turbines from GE Energy. Airtricity will buy more than 300 1.5-MW wind turbines for more than $550 million in order to meet its plans for the United States in 2008. The company is currently planning to develop 4,500 MW of wind power in Colorado, New Mexico, New York, Pennsylvania, and Texas. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Ltd. is also in the game, selling 443 of its 1-MW wind turbines to Babcock & Brown for installation in 2006 and 2007. The wind turbines will go to a 38-MW project in northern California, a 90-MW project in New Mexico, a 135-MW project in Texas, and a 180-MW project in Colorado. Other dealmakers include Gamesa, which is selling 132 of its 2-megawatt wind turbines to Shell WindEnergy for use in 2007, and the Vestas Group, which is selling 107 MW of wind turbines to John Deere Credit. John Deere plans to use the wind turbines in community-based wind projects in the Midwest in 2007. See the John Deere Web site and the press releases from Airtricity (MS Word 65 KB), Mitsubishi, Gamesa, and Vestas.

Drill Problems Halt Australian Hot Dry Rock Geothermal Project

An Australian effort to build the world’s first commercial geothermal plant using hot dry rock (HDR) technology has temporarily come to a halt because of drilling problems. Today’s geothermal power plants tap into existing underground reservoirs consisting of hot, fractured rock permeated by water or steam. Wells tapped into these reservoirs bring the hot fluid to the surface and convert its energy into electricity. However, the geothermal power industry could be greatly expanded by tapping a much larger resource of hot underground rock that is not permeated with water, or in other words, hot dry rock. To do so requires drilling a well into the hot dry rock, fracturing the rock with hydraulic pressure by pumping water down the well, then drilling a second well to intersect the new geothermal reservoir. A power plant employing this resource would draw hot water out of one well, convert its energy into electricity, then pump the cooler water down the seco
nd well, establishing a flow of water through the underground reservoir. The HDR technology, originated at DOE’s Los Alamos National Laboratory, has been hampered by the need to drill two to three miles deep through hard, high-temperature granite.

Since 2003, Geodynamics Limited has been trying to establish an HDR geothermal plant in the Cooper Basin in South Australia. Drilling of its first well, Habanero #1, went smoothly, reaching a depth of 2.75 miles in September 2003, and the reservoir was hydraulically fractured in November and December 2003. The second well, Habanero #2, successfully reached a depth of 2.6 miles by October 2004, but soon after the drill string broke, leaving a length of drill pipe in the hole. While drilling a “sidetrack”?a parallel hole to avoid the stuck drill pipe?a plug got stuck in the well. Efforts to retrieve the plug in March 2005 caused it to drop to the bottom of the well. A subsequent flow test in April 2005 found some potential for power production, but concluded that the dropped plug was restricting the connection to the geothermal reservoir. The company’s attempt to drill another sidetrack had one problem after another, concluding last month when the drill pipe became stuck. The company tried to free the drill pipe, but had to sever it, leaving a quarter-mile of drill pipe in the borehole.

Geodynamics has been using “snub drilling,” a technology that essentially pushes the drill string into the ground. Although this method is effective at overcoming the high pressures that exist at the bottom of the well, the company decided last week to switch to a conventional drilling rig, which will not be available until the end of this year. At that time, Geodynamics will drill yet another sidetrack, starting at a depth of about 2.3 miles. Despite the many delays and difficulties, the company emphasizes that the drilling problems will be overcome and the project is still viable. See the project history and recent news on the Geodynamics Web site.

“Big Three” Automakers to Produce More Renewable-Fuel Vehicles

DaimlerChrysler, Ford Motor Company, and General Motors Corporation announced last week their plans to double the production of vehicles capable of running on ethanol or blends of biodiesel with diesel fuel. By 2010, the companies plan to produce 2 million vehicles that will run on either E85?a blend containing 85 percent ethanol?or biodiesel blends. For example, DaimlerChrysler has committed to produce 500,000 flex-fuel vehicles, which can run on E85, by the end of model year 2008 and has endorsed the use of B20 (a blend of 20 percent biodiesel and 80 percent diesel) in Dodge diesel trucks used in fleets. The leaders of Chrysler, Ford, and GM made their pledge in a letter that was sent to all members of the U.S. Congress. See the Ford press release and the letter to Congress (PDF 41 KB).

Ford and VeraSun Energy, an ethanol producer, also announced plans to add 14 new E85 fuel pumps at retail locations along I-55, which runs through Illinois from Chicago to East Saint Louis. The announcement is part of a commitment to E85 that the two companies made in November 2005. In addition, Ford has launched a new advertising campaign to promote alternative fuels. See the press releases from VeraSun and Ford.

DaimlerChrysler to Bring Smart Cars to the United States

DaimlerChrysler announced last week that the fuel-efficient smart car will be imported to the United States starting in 2008. The company is developing a successor to its popular smart fortwo, a two-seater vehicle, and it will be available in three models. The company says the move is motivated by increasing demand for affordable and fuel-efficient cars in the United States. DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes Car Group plans to unveil the new version of the smart fortwo in mid-2007. The exclusive distributor of the smart fortwo in the United States will be UnitedAuto Group, Inc., which owns and operates 172 dealer franchises in the United States. Meanwhile, DaimlerChrysler signed an agreement with Mitsubishi Motors Corporation (MMC) to halt production of the four-seat smart car, the smart forfour. MMC had been producing the vehicle at its plant in the Netherlands. See the “smart goes USA” Web site and accompanying press release (PDF 61 KB) as well as the MMC press release.

The DaimlerChrysler decision may be bad news for ZAP, a company that has been importing the smart fortwo, modifying it to meet U.S. standards, and selling it as the “Smart Car Americanized for ZAP.” The company has sold 200 of the vehicles, which have provided a significant boost to ZAP’s revenues. Fortunately, the company has other big import products in the works, including the Xebra?an all-electric three-wheeled car from China?and the Obvio, an ethanol-fueled micro-car from Brazil. See the ZAP press release and the Xebra and Obvio Web pages.

IT Companies and Organizations Tackle Data Center Energy Use

Many of the leading information technology (IT) companies have recently teamed up with federal agencies and non-profit organizations with the goal of reducing energy use in data centers. Data centers are the workhorses of the Internet, delivering information (such as this story) through Web and email servers to users of personal computers around the world. Data centers can also consume about 100 times more electricity than standard office buildings. To help address the problem, AMD, HP, Sun Microsystems, and IBM have founded The Green Grid, a global organization to reduce data center energy use by defining best practices in data center design, construction, and operation. The companies will work closely with the Alliance to
Save Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to advance the new organization’s goals. See the Green Grid press release (PDF 44 KB) and Web site.

In late June, DOE’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) announced a separate partnership with Sun Microsystems, Intel, Cisco, and others to power data centers using direct current (DC) instead of the traditional alternating current (AC). While power companies deliver AC power to our homes and businesses, DC power is more commonly associated with batteries. But many electronic components actually run on DC power, which means that they require transformers to convert the AC power to DC, a process that uses energy and creates heat. With funding from the California Energy Commission, LBNL and the IT companies have built a demonstration facility in Newark, California, that runs entirely on DC power. The participants hope to confirm an energy savings of 10 to 20 percent and improved reliability compared to today’s AC-powered data centers. See the LBNL press release.

Carnegie Mellon University is taking a unique approach to the study of data center energy efficiency. The university has built a new facility that will be a functioning data center while also serving as a test bed for automation and energy efficiency. The 2,000-square-foot Data Center Observatory has the ability to support 40 racks of computers, which could consume up to 774 kilowatts of power. See the Carnegie Mellon press release.

Energy Connections

Slumping Energy Use Holds U.S. Carbon Emissions Steady in 2005

Energy-related emissions of carbon dioxide in the United States increased only 0.1 percent in 2005, according to DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA). Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are strongly dominated by the carbon dioxide emissions from energy use. As a result, trends in energy-related carbon dioxide emissions are a good indicator of overall greenhouse gas emissions trends for the United States.

According to EIA’s preliminary estimates, released last week, U.S. energy demand dropped by 0.5 percent in 2005, with growth in residential and commercial energy use offset by a 3.3 percent drop in industrial energy use. Meanwhile, the use of energy for transportation stayed nearly constant, with a decrease in gasoline use balanced by increases in the consumption of diesel fuel and jet fuel. Despite the overall drop in energy use, utilities produced more of their electricity from coal, causing energy-related carbon dioxide emissions to increase slightly. And although energy demand fell, the U.S. economy grew by 3.5 percent in 2005, which indicates that the country is using energy with greater efficiency. See the EIA press release.

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