- IRS Allocates $406 Million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds
- GM Unveils the Sierra Hybrid Pickup at the Chicago Auto Show
- New Energy Star Requirements Cut Energy Use in Operating TVs
- EPA Boosts Renewable Fuel Requirement by 66% for 2008
- Wave Energy Project Proposed for Maui
- Europe Falling Short of Renewable Energy Goals for 2010
IRS Allocates $406 Million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds
The U.S. Internal Revenue Service (IRS) announced last week that it has allocated $406 million in Clean Renewable Energy Bonds (CREBs) for a total of 312 renewable energy projects to be located throughout the United States. Unlike normal bonds that pay interest, CREBs are known as "tax-credit" bonds, and they pay the bondholders by providing a credit against their federal income tax.
In effect, the CREBs will provide interest-free financing for certain renewable energy projects. And because the federal government essentially pays the interest via tax credits, the IRS needs to allocate such credits in advance to the lending authorities, which can be state or local governments or electrical cooperatives. The IRS allocates the CREBs under a program established by the Energy Policy Act of 2005. See Internal Revenue Bulletin 2006-10.
The new bond allocations range from $15,000 to $30 million and are set aside for 139 solar energy facilities, 102 wind power installations, 45 landfill gas facilities, 18 hydropower plants, 5 biomass power plants, and 3 trash combustion facilities. Three of the biomass plants are intended to be "closed loop" facilities, that is, they will have dedicated sources of biomass crops to supply them.
Of course, each of these projects may require other forms of financing and will probably need approval from permitting authorities, so it is unlikely that all 312 projects will actually be built. In fact, the IRS notes that some of the bond allocations were relinquished after its first round of allocations back in November 2006, when $800 million in bonds were allocated for 610 projects.
The IRS had to select the projects from among 342 applications for 395 projects, for which the lending authorities requested a total of $898 million in bond allocations. And although the IRS couldn’t release information on the projects in 2006, this time around the agency received permission to publish the information for 310 of the 312 projects.
Most of the projects are located in California and Minnesota, with the remainder located in Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Kentucky, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Texas, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming. See the IRS press release and the list of 310 projects (PDF 29 KB).
GM Unveils the Sierra Hybrid Pickup at the Chicago Auto Show
General Motors Corporation (GM) unveiled the 2009 GMC Sierra Hybrid pickup last week at the Chicago Auto Show. The new hybrid pickup, which goes on sale near the end of this year, will achieve a 40% improvement in fuel economy during city driving and a 25% improvement in fuel economy overall. The vehicle will pair GM’s two-mode hybrid system with a six-liter V-8 engine that features cylinder deactivation technology, relying on only four cylinders under light loads.
It also employs what GM calls late intake valve closing technology, a fuel-saving measure that allows the engine to more easily suck air into its cylinders (this is often referred to as an "Atkinson-cycle engine"). The Sierra Hybrid is further indication that GM intends to include the two-mode hybrid system on most if not all of its heavier vehicles, having already released the Chevrolet Tahoe Hybrid and GMC Yukon Hybrid, with plans to start selling the Cadillac Escalade Hybrid, the Chevrolet Silverado Hybrid, the Saturn Vue Green Line 2 Mode hybrid, and now the GMC Sierra Hybrid later this year.
GM also unveiled the Denali XT hybrid concept vehicle at the Chicago Auto Show. The muscular sport-utility truck combines GM’s smaller 4.9-liter V-8 engine with the two-mode hybrid system, yielding a 50% increase in fuel economy compared to other small pickup trucks. The engine is also able to run on E85, a blend of 85% ethanol and 15% gasoline. In addition, GM announced that Chevrolet’s small sport utility vehicle, the HHR, will be available in a flex-fuel version for the 2009 model year. The 2009 Chevrolet HHR will be GM’s first four-cylinder model that can run on either gasoline or E85. See the GM press releases on the GMC Denali XT Hybrid, the GMC Sierra Hybrid, and the Chevrolet HHR.
Meanwhile, Hyundai unveiled its latest fuel cell vehicle at the Chicago Auto Show. The i-Blue Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle features Hyundai’s third-generation fuel cell stack in a housing under the floor, with a 100-kilowatt motor up front and a compressed hydrogen tank in the rear. The i-Blue is Hyundai’s first fuel cell vehicle designed from the ground up, an important step in the company’s plan to commercialize fuel cell technology in the next decade. The Chicago Auto Show opened to the public on February 8 and continues through February 17. See the Hyundai press release and photos, and for more information about the show, see the Chicago Auto Show Web site.
New Energy Star Requirements Cut Energy Use in Operating TVs
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) finalized new Energy Star specifications for televisions last week, expanding the requirements to address the energy used while operating. Energy Star is a joint program of EPA and DOE, and the current requirements for Energy Star-labeled TVs focus on the energy used while the unit is turned off, requiring most units to consume less than a watt of power, but allowing units with illuminated displays to consume up to two watts of power. The requirement is looser for digital-cable-ready TVs, allowing them to use up to three watts without a cable card installed or up to 15 watts with the cable card installed.
The new specifications, which take effect on November 1, involve complicated formulas to set the maximum power allowed when operating, accounting for the size and resolution of the television. The requirements are less complicated for standby modes, setting the maximum power consumption at one watt (for digital-cable-ready TVs, the requirement applies for units without a cable card installed). The net result is that Energy Star-labeled TVs will consume 30% less power than conventional TVs. That’s important, as there are now 275 million TVs in use in the United States, consuming more than 50 billion kilowatt-hours of electricity per year.
According to the EPA, the new standards should save about $1 billion annually in energy costs, while avoiding the greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of one million cars. The EPA is already planning ahead, intending to tighten its requirements in 2010, but the agency has not yet set those future specifications. See the EPA press release and the current specifications and new specifications on the Energy Star Web site.
EPA Boosts Renewable Fuel Requirement by 66% for 2008
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced last week that it is raising the renewable fuel standard (RFS) for 2008 to comply with the Energy Independence and Security Act, which President Bush signed in December 2007. The RFS applies to refiners, importers, and non-oxygenate blenders of gasoline and sets a minimum percentage of the fuel that must be displaced with renewable fuels, such as ethanol.
The EPA is raising that minimum percentage from 4.66% to 7.76%, a 66% increase, in order to meet the new energy act’s requirement to consume 9 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2008. The requirement will continue to ratchet up each year until it reaches 36 billion gallons in 2022. See the EPA press release and the RFS Program Web site.
Meanwhile, companies are increasing their efforts to produce ethanol from cellulosic biomass, such as grasses, wood wastes, or agricultural wastes. In October 2007, Abengoa Bioenergy opened a pilot plant in York, Nebraska, that will process nearly 800 tons of biomass each day, producing about 11.6 million gallons per year (mgpy) of ethanol. The facility was partly funded by DOE.
In November 2007, SunOpta Inc. announced its plans to build a facility in Little Falls, Minnesota, that will produce 10 mgpy of ethanol from wood chips. In late January, KL Process Design Group began operating a facility in Upton, Wyoming, to convert waste wood into ethanol, and last week, Coskata, Inc. announced plans to build and operate a commercial facility by 2010.
All of the current and planned facilities appear to be using enzymes to break down the biomass, allowing it to be fermented into ethanol. The new energy act requires cellulosic biofuels to contribute 100 million gallons to the nation’s fuel supply in 2010, accelerating to 10 billion gallons in 2020 and 16 billion gallons in 2022. See the press releases from Abengoa Bioenergy, SunOpta, KL and Coskata.
Wave Energy Project Proposed for Maui
Oceanlinx Limited announced last week that it plans to install a 2.7-megawatt wave energy project off the northeast coast of Maui. Oceanlinx, an Australian company that was previously called "Energetech," signed a memorandum of understanding on the project with Renewable Hawaii, Inc., a subsidiary of Hawaiian Electric Company, Inc. (HECO).
The $20 million project will include three wave platforms and could be operating by the end of 2009. Each platform will employ oscillating water column technology, in which a cylinder is suspended in the ocean with its open end facing down, trapping air in the top. As waves pass the cylinder, the trapped air is compressed and forced out through a turbine, and in the trough of the wave, air is sucked back through the turbine and into the cylinder. Oceanlinx takes a unique approach to this technology by using a turbine with variable-pitch blades, a variable-speed generator, and a complex control system. See the Oceanlinx Web site.
Oceanlinx recently completed a successful full-scale trial of its technology at its pilot installation in Port Kembla, Australia, giving credence to its plans for Maui. And the wave energy project is well-timed, as Hawaii recently signed an agreement with DOE to establish the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative, which aims to meet 70% of the state’s energy needs with renewable energy by 2030. See the HECO press release, the Oceanlinx press release (PDF 314 KB), and the DOE Web page on the Hawaii Clean Energy Initiative.
Europe Falling Short of Renewable Energy Goals for 2010
Renewable energy seems to growing at break-neck pace throughout the world, and particularly in Europe, but a new report shows the European Union (EU) falling far short of its goal to use renewable energy for 12% of its energy needs by the end of 2010.
As of the end of 2006, the EU is at 6.92% renewable energy, having posted an impressive 0.46% gain relative to 2005, but similar gains in the coming years would only get the EU to about 9% renewable energy. The report estimates that at best, the EU could reach 10% renewable energy by 2010. Meanwhile, the EU has set an additional goal of achieving 20% renewable energy by 2020.
One reason for the shortfall is that the growth in renewable energy is struggling to compete with a growth in energy demand: while EU renewable energy use grew by the energy equivalent of 8.5 million metric tons of oil (Mtoe), EU energy consumption grew by 5.5 Mtoe. That represents a very respectable 7.5% growth in renewable energy in one year, countered by a 0.3% growth in total energy use.
That led Jean-Louis Bal, EU’s director of Renewable Energies and Energy Networks and Markets, to declare that "the efforts being made for (renewable energy) development … are not accompanied by any real effort to conserve energy."
Renewable energy growth is also very uneven across the EU, with Germany providing 43% of the growth in 2006. The EU is also struggling with below-normal hydropower production because of drought. All of which suggests that the United States has plenty in common with its European cousins. See pages 71-76 (PDF pages 73-78) of the report, which is published in both English and French (PDF 866 KB).
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Kevin Eber is the Editor of EREE Network News, a weekly publication of the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
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