Tag Archives: cleantech

American Water: How energy shifting earns profits for a water utility | Corporate Knights

If they ever think of water works, most people imagine pipes and pumps – more Victorian age than high tech. After all, in most cities, the big facilities that filter our drinking water and process our waste are out of sight, out of mind. But ask Ron Dizy, president and chief executive of Enbala Power Networks, about North America’s thousands of water works, and he’ll tell you they represent an enormous reservoir of untapped, low-cost energy services potential.

Connected to Enbala’s smart-grid systems, water works is just the first category of big energy consumers that, by rapidly shifting when and how they use electricity, have the ability to help smooth out micro-fluctuations in the grid’s energy flows, displacing the fossil-fuelled generators that now perform this service. What’s more, Enbala’s software could boost renewable energy, too. It provides the kind of grid stabilization needed to help manage the variability of solar and wind energy as these sources make up more of the power mix.

Dizy’s vision is taking shape at a pumping station in Shire Oaks, south of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. That’s where American Water, the largest publicly-traded water and wastewater utility in the United States, is collaborating with Toronto-based Enbala. American Water has connected the pumps and compressors at its facility to Enbala’s smart-grid software, which can remotely turn the machines up or down to help keep supply and demand of electricity on the regional grid in constant balance. In the industry, this is called frequency regulation.

“Think of frequency regulation as a cruise control for the electric system,” explains Scott Baker, an analyst at PJM Interconnection, which manages a section of the U.S. grid spanning 13 states, plus the nation’s capital. To go a steady 60 mph, your cruise control imperceptibly adjusts gas and brakes to keep your speed constant. “Regulation services do the same thing, adding or reducing power on the grid to keep its frequency in balance,” says Baker. And like cruise control, which adds only spurts of gas or taps the brakes to control speed, regulation services require relatively small adjustments to do their job, with tiny doses of power added or consumed to stabilize frequency.

Conventionally, grid operators such as PJM have paid specialized generators to provide these balancing services. Because frequency regulation must be supplied in real time, all the time, these plants must be designed to be extra rugged, able to ramp up or down very quickly.

To be clear, regulation services are different from the so-called demand response. “You might call them distant cousins,” says Dizy. Demand response works when big energy consumers agree to switch off big users of power, with advance notice, for a few hours, a few times a year, when demand on the grid is greatest. On the other hand, regulation services are delivered on smaller scales, but are required 24 hours a day, every day, for minutes rather than hours, he explains.

Enbala’s solution turns the conventional approach on its head. Its software eliminates the need to generate electricity to balance the grid. It performs the same trick by managing electricity demand in real time. As such, the process can behave like a battery, Dizy notes. Rather than store energy in chemical form, as in a battery, Enbala describes its approach as “process storage,” where mechanical processes – such as filtering water – can be banked in advance of their use.

When, for instance, PJM needs a tiny increase in power use, Enbala requests that the pumps at American Water’s facility boost the flow of water into a holding tank by a few per cent. Or, if PJM needs power use to fall by a fraction, massive air pumps at the facility used to aerate wastewater treatment can be turned down. The adjustments are small – a few per cent up or down, for only a few minutes.

Enbala’s remote tweaking is designed to have no net effect on the water works’ processes. “At the end of the day, we’re just shifting when we use the power,” says Paul Gagliardo, manager of innovation development at American Water. Yet both companies earn a steady stream of payments from PJM for supplying the frequency regulation service.

The benefits for American Water have tallied up quickly. After less than a year working with Enbala, the water company reports that its total energy bill at the facility has fallen by two to three per cent. Happy with the outcome, it is now rolling out the system to 20 or so of its facilities.

Dizy’s company has identified many other industries that can provide regulation services by turning their processes up or down on the fly. “We’re just beginning to scratch the surface,” PJM’s Baker says.

See the original story here: http://www.corporateknights.com/article/american-water?page=show

Despite naysayers, green energy keeps growing | GreenBiz

Despite naysayers, green energy keeps growing Clean-energy programs find themselves squarely in the cross hairs of the GOP this election season. After pillorying the White House over Solyndra’s collapse, the House has been griping about everything from military spending on renewables to Obama’s failure to lower gasoline prices. So it may not be the best of times to crow about green energy success.

Or maybe it is. After all, while the past year may be remembered for cleantech’s struggles, green-energy companies turned in another banner year in the humdrum businesses of generating renewable electric power and biofuels.

All together, solar PV, wind and biofuel markets expanded by 31 percent last year to $246 billion globally, according to Clean Edge’s 11th annual edition of Clean Energy Trends 2011, a wrapup of key green-energy indicators. The expansion caps a five-year run during which these markets have grown by roughly a third each year.

To be sure, the market issues facing solar PV manufacturers, wind turbine makers and biofuel producers are very different, so I want to be cautious about generalizing. But the three share similarities. All are gaining sales in established markets dominated by fossil fuels. All have matured beyond startup stages and are, accordingly, seeing the emergence of sophisticated, large-scale players.

And, of course, all three have faced souring public support in the past year. Solar subsidies retreated in Europe. And in the U.S., tax benefits were eliminated for corn ethanol, while the wind industry is once again fighting for the renewal of its production tax credits.

Last year, “the industry became a modern-day whipping boy,” Ron Pernick, Clean Edge co-founder and managing director, said in a press statement. “The attacks… overlooked the fact that many clean-energy technologies are becoming increasingly cost-competitive, central to the expansion of energy markets in places like China, Japan and Germany, and a critical hedge against more volatile forms of traditional energy.”

Despite these headwinds, Clean Edge expects the markets to grow steadily — albeit more slowly — in the decade to come. It projects the clean-energy market will expand by 4.6% per year (compounded) to $385 billion by 2021. In all three technologies, falling prices will spur further growth.

Solar photovoltaic: Sales of PV panels globally surged to $91.6 billion in 2011 from $71.2 billion in 2010. The surge is all the more remarkable because it comes amid fast falling unit prices for solar panels. Put another way, dollar sales rose by 29 percent, while the volume of watts installed soared by 69 percent to more than 26 gigawatts worldwide last year from 15.6 gigawatts in 2010. Clean Edge projects that the cost to install solar PV systems will fall from an average of $3.47 per watt globally last year to $1.28 per watt in the next decade. The falling price will make solar PV cheaper than the grid average price in about a dozen U.S. states in that period.

Wind power: The volume of new turbines coming on line also hit a record last year, with 41.6 GW of wind capacity installed. Assuming, as a rule of thumb, that windmills produce about a third of their rated capacity, that’s the equivalent of more than a dozen nuclear reactors. The total spent to build that new capacity hit a record: $71.5 billion, up 18 percent from $60.5 billion in 2010.

Biofuels markets also established a new high in 2011, with $83 billion in global sales, up from $56.4 billion the prior year. Unlike the markets for solar and wind technology — where falling prices were the rule – per-gallon prices for ethanol and biodiesel rose through the year, reflecting the higher costs of feedstocks such as corn and plant oils, as well as higher fossil-fuel prices.

Venture capital. U.S.-based venture-capital investments in cleantech grew by 30 percent to $6.6 billion in 2011, from $5.1 billion in 2010, according to data provided by Cleantech Group. Clean Edge analysis found that cleantech deals accounted for a record 23 percent of the total U.S. venture-capital investments last year.

Just in time for GreenBiz’s VERGE meeting in Washington, Clean Edge’s report also focuses on several key trends highlighting the way that energy technologies, efficiency and infotech are converging to transform business and government practices. These include the potential for “deep” retrofits in commercial buildings; the growth of waste-to-resource business plays; the promise of energy storage on the grid; the U.S. military’s growing emphasis on clean technology and efficiency; and Japan moving into its post-nuclear future.

Check out the Clean Edge’s full report at http://cleanedge.com/reports/charts-and-tables-from-clean-energy-trends-2012 (click on “Download full report” on the left).

Photo courtesy of Vaclav Volrab  via Shutterstock.

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View the original article here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/03/14/despite-naysayers-green-energy-keeps-growing

Venture capital investment in cleantech shrank by 4.5% in 2011 | GreenBiz

Why Sinking Cleantech Investment Data Aren't the End of the World

In cleantech, as in most realms of emerging technology, venture capital acts as a sort of incubator for the youngest, most promising technologies. That’s why it’s a cause for concern when venture capital investment slows or shrinks.That’s just what happened last year. In 2011, venture capital investment in early-stage cleantech companies fell by 4.5 percent, to $4.9 billion, compared with the 2010 tally, according to a round-up of full-year data by Ernst & Young published Feb. 1, based on data from Dow Jones VentureSource.Whether this downtick is cause for concern is open to argument. The question links to hot-button issues being debated in Congress, on the campaign trail, and in the media. I, for one, believe that given the headwinds facing cleantech, the numbers are cause for optimism. They’re good news, but I wish they were better.figure 1To make my half-full case, note that cleantech venture capital investment has been resilient despite both economic and political headwinds. Last year’s funding remains 29 percent higher than its 2009 total, when overall venture flows crashed in the wake of the global financial crisis.

What’s more, cleantech is nurtured by other streams of capital. As I reported last month, global investment in mature renewable energy technologies — new wind farms, solar panels, and the like — expanded by 5 percent, to $260 billion last year. That rise helped put total investment in renewable energy, efficiency, smart grid and related technologies over the trillion dollar mark last year.

Still, I’m a worrier. And there are reasons to furrow my brow at these numbers.

However promising cleantech may be, venture capitalists are finding more alluring options in other sectors. Cleantech’s decline comes despite a 10 percent rise of overall venture capital investment. Globally, for the year, investors placed $32.6 billion into 3,209 venture deals, according to Dow Jones Venture Source.

So while cleantech retreated, investment in healthcare and IT startups remained roughly steady. The big winner? Consumer information services — think Twitter, LivingSocial and Zynga — pulled in $5.2 billion, up 23 percent from the prior year.

But before I complain any further that clean technology shouldn’t be losing out to Twitter, let alone Facebook, here’s a bit more on what went down in cleantech over the past year.

• Battery technology is hot. Energy storage continues to attract interest, and growing flows of money. Venture investment in batteries rocketed up by 253 percent. And this is bound to accelerate. Growing volumes of electric vehicles, plus the graduation of wind and solar from emerging-tech status to mature technology, are all driving demand for energy storage, in a dizzying array of niches.

And while some segments of battery manufacturing are mature — increasingly subject to the sorts of commodity price dynamics driving down prices of solar PV — there is arguably bigger potential for scientific discovery to upend today’s batteries.

• Investment is tilting towards more mature plays. Cleantech companies already generating revenue garnered 69 percent of the funding, up from 50 percent in 2010.

• M&A exits dominate. Given the parlous state of IPO offerings, mergers & acquisitions continue to be the main path to maturity for cleantech players. In 2011, a total of $2.9 billion in M&A deals involved cleantech startups, some 79 deals, according to Ernst & Young’s analysis.

• IPO drought lingers. Just five companies IPO’d in 2011, not many more than the three that listed a year prior. Biofuels dominated last year’s public debuts, with Solazyme, Gevo, and KiOR. Intermolecular, a semiconductor R&D company focused on cleantech listed in the final quarter, as did Rentech, a clean energy solutions provider. The five raised a total of $688 million.

The low count of IPOs for cleantech is an indicator of a growing backlog and is one reason why new cleantech investment may be slowing. Without a clear line to exit, venture funders will steer their money to sectors where it’s easier to cash out.

Thus, Facebook. Good things may yet come of Facebook’s super-hyped IPO. Perhaps it will improve the atmospherics around cleantech IPOs?

But on balance I find the din disheartening. The very big IPOs by Twitter et al. smack of hype. To emphasize my point: Facebook’s pending IPO is likely to raise around $5 billion, more than was invested by VCs in the entire cleantech sector last year. Indeed, Facebook’s valuation is verging on speculation, maybe even magical thinking. The offering is slated to value the total company at $100 billion.

Compared with the foaming enthusiasm for all-things-Facebook, it can feel like cleantech has drifted into a period of backlash, however undeserved. Investment continues apace to be sure, but the narrative around cleantech is growing more polarized.

Long-time cleantech investor Ira Ehrenpreis put it this way, as quoted in GreentechMedia.com: “While I’ve never been more bearish on U.S. cleantech, I’ve never been more bullish about global cleantech.”

Blame domestic politics for the widening gap in cleantech prospects here compared with global markets. Leading the negative push—recklessly so—are House Republicans, who seem intent on vilifying federal support of renewable energy, using Solyndra’s failure as a political bludgeon against President Obama. Likewise, the GOP presidential aspirants have retreated on cleantech: far-right opposition of climate change is so dogmatic, even discussions of cleantech have become off limits despite the fact that practically all the Republican candidates have championed renewable investment in the past.

Meanwhile, media find it hard to resist the counter-intuitive appeal of the “cleantech is failing” tale, and are amplifying the meme. Picking up on the GOP’s talking points, the tally of stories of Solyndra’s failure far outpaces coverage of the fact that it’s been a record year for solar capacity growth in the U.S. Or that plummeting solar prices are a windfall for buyers of the technology, enabling even energy-poor regions such as India to light up.

Witness Wired magazine’s February story “Why the Clean Tech Boom Went Bust.” While its author, Washington Post’s Juliet Eilperin, actually offers a reasonably measured take on the impact of cheap natural gas and the Solyndra scandal, you’d have a hard time figuring that out from the headline or the explosive artwork illustrating the story (at right, by Dan Forbes).

Lurid pictures of exploding wind mills, fiery biodiesel canisters, and a shattering PV panel left me thinking that John Doerr must be on the verge of switching back coal heat for his mansion. Meanwhile, elsewhere on Wired.com, the breathless all-technology-is-pretty-much-cool coverage of green developments continues apace.

Wired’s schizophrenic take on cleantech is not unique, but it deserves special attention because the magazine has been such a vocal, effective champion for innovation as a driver of economic growth. The editors’ tabloid take on cleantech is sure to gather clicks: scores of contrary comments and irate tweets suggest the story has generated a lot of attention.

But in gunning for controversy, Wired goes off target, loosing sight of the bigger, better idea that cleantech is a near-ideal innovation catalyst for U.S. economic growth. That’s why we should keep our fingers crossed that venture capitalists will keep steering more money into the sector too.

See the original story here: http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2012/02/06/why-sinking-cleantech-investment-data-arent-end-world

Are We Entering Cleantech’s Dark Ages? | GreenBiz

The budget brinksmanship that, amazingly, lasted all the way into the first days of August pushed me over the edge. Whether a willful choice, or some kind of subliminal denial, I opted for a partial mental vacation in recent weeks, trying to tune out from the mostly dismal news about elections, energy and environment.

But all vacations must end, and as distasteful as the political process has been for the last few weeks, the late-summer news cycle holds potentially big impacts for the world of cleantech.

From policies enacted and planned to electoral and financial developments, all signs suggest we’re moving from relative boom times for cleantech into what will almost certainly be dark days.

Cleantech’s “Age of Austerity”

Let’s start with the fallout from budget deal, known officially as the Budget Control Act (BCA) of 2011. Scanning a few weeks’ worth of news releases from Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF), the prospects for cleantech finance are nothing short of grim.

“For the clean energy sector, the Act heralds an era of austerity in which current subsidy programmes may not be extended beyond their current funding,” wrote Stephen Munro, a policy analyst at BNEF, in a research note on Aug 5 titled “An age of austerity for clean energy?”

The BCA agreement requires cuts of $917 billion in discretionary spending. Clean energy programs aren’t named specifically, but they fall under the discretionary spending portion of the budget, Munro points out.

Programs are likely to become vulnerable as they come up for renewal. First up is the Treasury Department’s “1603” cash grant program for early-stage project investment, which expires at the end of this year.

For solar and wind developers formerly dependent on tax equity finance — which evaporated as a result of the mortgage-backed security crisis — these 1063 grants, which can cover 30 percent of a project’s upfront costs, have been a lifesaver. Last December, the Solar Energy Industry Association estimated that the grant program had made possible more than 1,100 solar projects in 42 states, with a total investment value $18 billion.

Similarly, the 100 percent bonus depreciation incentive for new equipment and property purchased for renewable energy projects sunsets soon. Known by the unwieldy acronym MACRS (short for Modified Accelerated Cost-Recovery System), the federal program allows businesses to accelerate deductions for the capital investments to five years, or just one, for certain bonus projects.

Renewal looks “unlikely” for either of these programs.

There’s some stirring that the tax-equity market — which the 1603 cash grants were established to replace — will rise again. ClimateWire’s Joel Kirkland recently wrote that a return to tax equity financing may be nigh (via the NYT). Given that corporate America is sitting on mountains of cash, it follows that they’ll seek higher returns than are available through Treasury bills.

Kirkland’s central example is Google, which has made seven green energy investments totaling $700 million over the past few years. Although it would be encouraging if those investments marked the start of a rush to market, that’s not the sense I’m getting from my review.

Further out, the bipartisan committee of 12 created as part of the BCA boondoggle is required to come up with another $1.5 trillion in cuts over the next decade. For wind, solar and geothermal projects, tax credits end as early next year, and deadlines continue through 2016.

What’s more, the fisticuffs aren’t over. The Act doesn’t make adjustments to the overall budgets for the Energy Dept. or Environmental Protection Agency or any of their sub-programs, such as ARPA-E. Yet these budgets, Munro points out, will be among the first to be addressed when lawmakers return from their summer recess on Sept. 5. Given the bludgeoning GOP presidential aspirants have lately been administering to the EPA, it’s likely the EPA and DOE budgets could be especially tortured in the next couple of weeks.

“The debt agreement, which is focused on cuts only and not revenue increases, makes it more likely that this infant sector gets strangled before it matures,” said Daniel Weiss, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, a Washington policy group that advises Democrats, in an interview with Bloomberg Government.

Subsidies for renewable energy are expected to decline beginning this year, and will fall 77 percent by 2016 from their peak in 2010, according to Bloomberg News, citing data from the White House Office of Management and Budget.

Cleantech VC Investment Ebbs

Well maybe the private sector will step up and fill the gap — maybe Google’s investments are a sign of things to come, right? Probably not.

Second-quarter venture investment in early-stage cleantech startups decelerated, according to the Cleantech Group’s preliminary data for the quarter, released in early June.

Global funding hit $1.83 billion, a 33 percent retreat from the prior quarter ($2.75 billion) and 10 percent down on 2010 ($2.03 billion). Quarter to quarter VC numbers are notoriously volatile, but behind these numbers are other signals that the U.S. cleantech ecosystem is not generating a lot of new companies: Most of the deals — 66 percent by deal number, and 87 percent by value — were B-series or later stages. Funding retreated more sharply in the U.S. than Europe or Asia-Pacific.

A Dearth of IPOs

A close cousin of cleantech venture capital funding is the rate of initial public offerings of shares by young, fast growing companies. By this measure too, the climate in the U.S. is growing more anemic by the week, just when it should be offering a vigorous exit path for smart, small companies.

While the Cleantech Group data reflected a “robust” global IPO market through June, the bulk of the listings have come in China. Here in the U.S., the swooning stock market is reinforcing a sense that much-anticipated listings are likely to hold back. At GigaOm.com, Ucilia Wang captured this snapshot:

“…companies that have filed papers for IPOs (but not yet traded) include solar equipment developer Enphase Energy, smart grid tech companySilver Spring Networks, biodiesel producer Renewable Energy Group, and solar power plant developer BrightSource Energy. VentureWire reported that electric car company Fisker Automotive, and biofuel company Genomatica had also hired bankers to investigate the IPO process. But it’s seemed apparent to some of these companies that the IPO window has been slowly closing.”

Oil Prices Falling

With the economy teetering between neutral and reverse, oil prices are falling. West Texas Intermediate (WTI, the U.S. benchmark) fell to around $80 per barrel early in the month, presaging a fall of 40 cents per gallon at the pumps, if the price signal follows through.

Lower fuel prices are salve to an ailing economy, of course. But they’re trouble for companies looking to sell innovative transportation technologies, whether they’re century old automakers pushing advanced EVs or algal biofuel startups targeting their production price for $100 oil. More broadly, low energy prices dilute public urgency on energy efficiency and alternative energy.

In its Aug. 8 research note, Bank of America’s Global Energy Weekly pointed to threat of a double dip recession. By its models, a mild recession would draw Brent Crude (Europe’s North Sea reference blend) to $80 per barrel, and (more importantly to U.S. buyers), WTI to $50-60 per barrel.

While these two blends typically trade within a dollar of one another, in recent weeks their prices have diverged to record levels, with Brent trading at over $25 per barrel more than WTI. The gap reflects unprecedented levels of uncertainty with Europe’s fiscal outlook and worries the U.S. is about to tip back into recession.

Is It Darkest Before the Dawn?

If all these harbingers from the political and economic arenas weren’t enough, we’ve also had one of the most extreme and disaster-filled weather years ever — with 2011 already bringing more billion-dollar catastrophes than in any other year, according to NOAA.

And to top it all off comes news from the Energy Information Administration that U.S. carbon emissions rebounded by more than 3.9 percent last year, the sharpest uptick in more than 20 years, as industrial activity, power generation and travel volumes returned to norms depressed by the Great Recession.

It’s enough to make anyone want to go back on vacation, at least until Labor Day, or maybe Groundhog Day, or … anytime after November 6, 2012.

But perhaps I’m overly pessimistic — I’d love to know if you’re seeing anything out there in the world that offers some hope for a resurgence of cleantech’s potential?

Photo CC-licensed by Samuel Stocker.


Review: Revenge of the Electric Car | OnEarth

Chris Paine’s 2006 documentary Who Killed the Electric Car? arrived with perfect timing, capturing the country’s collective frustration with sky-high energy prices as well as our growing disenchantment with the automotive alternatives on offer. Let’s hope his sequel, Revenge of the Electric Car, previewed last week in New York and set for wide release this October, proves equally as prescient. The film, which captures what may turn out to be the first stages of the auto industry’s evolution away from oil, cruises smoothly over the finish line where its predecessor ultimately stalled short.

For Revenge, Paine scored fly-on-the-wall access to three of the most charismatic leaders in the auto industry. And he did so at a key moment — just as each was in the midst of executing a high-risk, multi-billion-dollar bet on battery-powered cars. Add in the fact that Paine’s crew was filming during the 2008 economic crisis and implosion of GM, and the result is more than just a snapshot of the gamesmanship behind the creation of mass-market vehicles. Revenge offers a look inside the minds of business leaders struggling through one of the most troubled periods of recent economic history.

As the documentary opens, U.S. automakers face an environment that’s radically different from the cheap-oil days that ruled when GM developed its first electric vehicle, EV1. Now oil prices are running at historic highs, and governments around the world have begun to put some real muscle behind the idea of the electric car.

Here’s Bob Lutz, GM’s American-born vice chairman and a veteran of the Big Three (Chrysler, Ford, and GM), becoming the unlikely champion of the Chevy Volt, and opening a door to GM’s salvation after the company’s downfall. Known in Detroit as “Mr. Horsepower,” Lutz personifies the about-face that the industry as a whole went through in the time that passed between the making of the two films. Once a deep skeptic of EVs, he now artfully tilts GM’s monolithic culture toward his goal of developing the Volt.

Facing off against GM is the enigmatic Carlos Gohn, the Brazilian-Lebanese CEO of Nissan/Renault, which is building the all-electric Leaf. Gohn’s orderly execution of the Leaf offers a welcome perspective on EVs from beyond American borders. After all, battery-powered cars are likely to flourish on the roads of Paris, Shanghai, and Tokyo before they do here, for the same reasons that small cars did.

Playing counterpoint to the corporate titans is Paypal-founder Elon Musk, a charismatic South African-Canadian struggling to steer the scrappy Tesla from startup mode to full-scale manufacturing. With confidence bordering on hubris, the then 38-year-old is at once inspiring and pain-inducing, as he underestimates the complexity of manufacturing and struggles to produce a stream of fault-free $100,000-plus electric sportsters. (This while also navigating his way through a painful divorce and playing doting dad to his five sons.) There’s real drama in watching Musk’s brave face flicker as he inspects an armada of faulty cars and in watching him awkwardly deliver the news to early depositors that the price of their vehicles will have to rise yet again.

One of the film’s delightful subplots involves the struggles of Greg “Gadget” Abbott, a goateed indie tinkerer who made a brief appearance in Who Killed and who excels at retrofitting classic cars with batteries and electric motors. With an infectious, mischievous air, Gadget offers a reminder of the gear-head roots of EVs’ most devoted fans.

Unlike with his first film, where Paine came to the topic too late to build a “how-it-happened” tale and leaned instead on activists and half-baked acolytes, Revenge captures rich natural tension as it unfolds. Who Killed, for example, featured a parade of Hollywood A-listers (Tom Hanks) and B-listers (Phyillis Diller), many of them sore about having lost their exotic cars and whining about GM’s decision to kill the EV1. Revenge gives us mercilessly few Hollywood prima dons — though Danny Devito does get downright giddy test-driving the Volt.

It won’t be giving anything away to tell you that the end of Revenge is a happy one. Of course, it’s far from the end of the story. Should Paine opt to complete what seems like a natural triptych, the final installment will no doubt prove more global in scope. Beijing has set national EV goals that dwarf those of Washington, for example, and the Chinese have much deeper capital resources. They also have a strong knack for building things like smart grids, which will be necessary for the wide-scale adaptation of EVs. And the race to build a better battery is heating up elsewhere overseas, with labs in dozens of countries working to build batteries capable of matching the range of your average gas tank.

With the gee-whiz stage of EV creation now complete, GM, Nissan, and Tesla also face the tougher slog of turning these enormous bets into reliable, mass-market machines that can actually make some money. Sales of EVs and hybrids are so far running far below the ambitious targets set by national governments, including our own.

Lurking farther out is the persistent threat of volatile oil prices. Many, myself among them, would argue that the real killer of the electric car was cheap oil. In the late 1990s, prices hit a post-’60s low, in inflation-adjusted terms, at the very moment that GM’s EV1 was being rolled out. That wouldn’t make it easy for any $1.25-million prototype to get off the ground, I don’t care how many starlets tell you it’s a great idea. Sub-$2-a-gallon gasoline may seem unimaginable to us today, but a double-dip recession — a real possibility given the anemic economic growth and sovereign debt woes on both sides of the Atlantic — could send energy demand crashing, rendering the EV once again an intolerably uneconomic prospect.

Revenge closes with a scene featuring the Los Angeles Times reporter Dan Neil. The sole automotive writer ever to win a Pulitzer, Neil is cynical about the industry’s abysmal record on eco-cars. At the same time, reflecting on a lifelong affair with gas-guzzlers, he admits that in recent years even he has begun to “let go” of the idea of the traditional car, and to acknowledge that it may finally be rolling toward the sunset.

Original URL: http://www.onearth.org/article/revenge-of-the-electric-car

How the ARPA-E ‘Incubator’ Helps Hatch Next-Gen Energy Projects | GreenBiz

How the ARPA-E 'Incubator' Helps Hatch Next-Gen Energy Projects
Short for Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy, ARPA-E is modeled after the more familiar DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). Famously, DARPA invented and incubated the proto-Internet nearly 50 (!) years ago and stands out as a success story, repeated by the left and right alike, of government investment in basic technologies.

ARPA-E shares more than just the familiar — if awkward — acronym from its predecessor. (I guess EARPA just sounded a little silly.) Like DARPA’s approach, ARPA-E is curating very early stage technologies, picking and cultivating those that could, it hopes, deliver Internet-scale disruptive benefits to the energy economy.

Even in the best of times, such an audacious goal is a serious challenge. But as Arun Majumdar, ARPA-E’s director, told the attendees at the State of Green Business Forum last week in Washington, D.C., the energy innovation incubator also faces tough budgetary realities, despite promising early successes.State of Green Business

“Our goal by statute is to look for technologies that don’t exist in the energy markets today … These are disruptive, not incremental, technologies,” Majumdar said.

Like his boss Steven Chu, Majumdar has a science pedigree from the West Coast’s energy-technology-policy hothouse at University California at Berkeley and nearby Lawrence Livermore National Lab.

And like his boss, Majumdar arrived in D.C. to find strong support for energy research. The agency’s first year budget, at $400 million, was divvied up and deployed into about 400 projects across six research areas (more on those below) in short order.

But now, with that foundation laid, ARPA-E’s funding for both fiscal year 2011 ($300 million requested) and 2012 ($550 million requested) is stalled in the fight over the budget. With its extant funds committed and despite bipartisan support, “we’re in a holding pattern,” said Majumdar.

Last month, the agency announced that six of projects it had funded generated private investment. The half dozen projects that originally received a total of $23.6 million in seed funding from ARPA-E attracted another nearly $100 million in outside private capital investment, Majumdar said.

About one-third of first year funding went to university projects, 40 percent to small businesses, another 5 percent or so to national labs, and the remainder to corporate R&D projects. For the smaller projects, “this is a huge boost … These scientists cannot go to the bank or to venture capitalist because the projects are often pre-prototype,” Majumdar explained…

Continue reading here: greenbiz.com

7 Technologies Where China Has the U.S. Beat | GreenBiz

7 Technologies Where China Has the U.S. Beat
I’ve been watching China’s ascent in cleantech for a couple of years. In that time China’s potential to leapfrog the U.S. has gone from talk to substantive examples of leadership. Even so, I’ve been surprised by the increasing frequency with which China is pushing ahead in new fronts of cleantech development.

Earlier this week, the latest surprise came from energy secretary Steven Chu, who’s been talking up China’s green progress in an effort to boost Washington’s resolve on clean tech policy.

In a talk at the National Press Club, with characteristic forceful clarity (PDF of slides), Chu illuminated the growing list of sectors where China’s emerging leadership threatens U.S. players, and added leadership in supercomputing as the most recent Sino-superlative. China’s success in these technologies represents a “Sputnik Moment” for the United States, Chu said.

“When it comes to innovation, Americans don’t take a back seat to anyone — and we certainly won’t start now,” said Secretary Chu at the event. “From wind power to nuclear reactors to high-speed rail, China and other countries are moving aggressively to capture the lead. Given that challenge, and given the enormous economic opportunities in clean energy, it’s time for America to do what we do best: innovate.”

China’s ascent to the top of the list for supercomputing speed reveals a new front in this race. Last month China’s Tianhe-1A, developed by Chinese defense researchers, became the world’s fastest supercomputer, with a performance level of 2.57 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second, for all the geeks in our audience, based on a standard test), substantially eclipsing the U.S. DOE’s Cray XT5 “Jaguar” system at Oak Ridge national labs in Tennessee, which runs at 1.75 petaflop/s. Third place is also held by a Chinese computer.

Supercomputers may seem long way from grid-competitive solar panels, long-range electric car batteries, or other cleantech gizmos, but advanced computational simulation is the keystone of most leading-edge scientific research, including nuclear energy, nanotech and materials science, proteomics and other advanced biotech applications. Basically, any very advanced science these days needs big computing horsepower. Leadership on the fastest-computer league tables has been traded off many times, between U.S., Japanese and European computing centers. China is a relative newcomer to the race, but is clearly the new elite.

Chu highlighted several crucial technologies — mostly in the areas of power generation and  transportation — where China is already outpacing U.S. efforts, adding the U.S. must innovate or risk falling far behind. The following is from the DOE:

High Voltage Transmission. China has deployed the world’s first Ultra High Voltage AC and DC lines — including one capable of delivering 6.4 gigawatts to Shanghai from a hydroelectric plant nearly 1300 miles away in southwestern China. These lines are more efficient and carry much more power over longer distances than those in the United States.

High-Speed Rail. In the span of six years, China has gone from importing this technology to exporting it, with the world’s fastest train and the world’s largest high-speed rail network, which will become larger than the rest of the world combined by the end of the decade. Some short distance plane routes have already been cancelled, and train travel from Beijing to Shanghai (roughly equivalent to New York to Chicago) has been cut from 11 hours to 4 hours.

Advanced Coal Technologies. China is rapidly deploying supercritical and ultra-supercritical coal combustion plants, which have fewer emissions and are more efficient than conventional coal plants because they burn coal at much higher temperatures and pressures. Last month, Secretary Chu toured an ultra-supercritical plant in Shanghai which claims to be 45 to 48 percent efficient. The most efficient U.S. plants are about 40 percent efficient. China is also moving quickly to design and deploy technologies for Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) plants as well as Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS).

Nuclear Power. China has more than 30 nuclear power plants under construction, more than any other country in the world, and is actively researching fourth generation nuclear power technologies.

Alternative Energy Vehicles. China has developed a draft plan to invest $17 billion in central government funds in fuel economy, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, electric and fuel cell vehicles, with the goal of producing 5 million new energy vehicles and 15 million fuel-efficient conventional vehicles by 2020.

Renewable Energy. China is installing wind power at a faster rate than any nation in the world, and manufactures 40 percent of the world’s solar photovoltaic (PV) systems. It is home to three of the world’s top ten wind turbine manufacturers and five of the top ten silicon-based PV manufacturers in the world.

Supercomputing. Last month, the Tianhe-1A, developed by China’s National University of Defense Technology, became the world’s fastest supercomputer. While the United States — and the Department of Energy in particular — still has unrivalled expertise in the useful application of high performance computers to advance scientific research and develop technology, America must continue to improve the speed and capacity of our advanced supercomputers.

Next page: Two research areas where the U.S. still leads

Investing in Clean Energy: A Sputnik moment for America? | The Fiscal Times

In balmy Cancun, at a U.N. conference on climate change, China and the U.S. remain the elephants-in-the-room of all discussions. Both are more focused on the commercial potential of climate-related technology than on any environmental goals that could impair economic growth. Such a focus should sell better in Washington, but it’s an area where the U.S. is lagging, and China’s lead is growing.

U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu, speaking at the National Press Club earlier last week called China’s mounting successes in clean energy a “Sputnik moment” for the U.S.

In 1957, a refrigerator-sized sphere transmitting a steady radio signal was lofted into orbit by the Soviet Union, sparking a generation of U.S. technical and scientific discovery. But it took decades for satellite technology to become a commercial market.

Now, in clean technologies, China is racing into well-established, fast-growing markets U.S. players are eyeing hungrily. Chu named the most vulnerable areas, where the U.S. must innovate quickly, or risk falling behind…

China’s Rare-Earth Monopoly | Technology Review

An attractive material: Neodymium (shown here) is one of the rare-earth elements that are key to making very strong magnets for compact electric motors.
Credit: Hi-Res Images of Chemical Elements  

 

Energy —  China’s Rare-Earth Monopoly

The rest of the world is trying to find alternatives to these crucial materials.

  • By Adam Aston | Friday, October 15, 2010

For three weeks, China has blocked shipments of rare-earth minerals to Japan, a move that has boosted the urgency of efforts to break Beijing’s control of these minerals. China now produces nearly all of the world’s supply of rare earths, which are crucial for a wide range of technologies, including hard drives, solar panels, and motors for hybrid vehicles.

In response to China’s dominance in production, researchers are developing new materials that could either replace rare-earth minerals or decrease the need for them. But materials and technologies are likely to take years to develop, and existing alternatives come with trade-offs.

China apparently blocked the Japan shipments in response to a territorial squabble in the South China Sea. Beijing has denied the embargo, yet the lack of supply may soon disrupt manufacturing in Japan, trade and industry minister Akihiro Ohata told reporters Tuesday.

Rare earths include 17 elements, such as terbium, which is used to make green phosphors for flat-panel TVs, lasers, and high-efficiency fluorescent lamps. Another of these elements, neodymium, is key to the permanent magnets used to make high-efficiency electric motors. Although well over 90 percent of the minerals are produced in China, they are found in many places around the world, and, in spite of their name, are actually abundant in the earth’s crust (the name is a hold-over from a 19th-century convention). In recent years, low-cost Chinese production and environmental concerns have caused suppliers outside of China to shut down operations.

Alternatives to rare earths exist for some technologies. One example is the induction motor used by Tesla Motors in its all-electric Roadster. It uses electromagnets rather than permanent rare-earth magnets. But such motors are larger and heavier than ones that use rare-earth magnets. As a rule of thumb, in small- and mid-sized motors, an electromagnetic coil can be replaced with a rare-earth permanent magnet of just 10 percent the size, which has helped make permanent magnet motors the preferred option for Toyota and other hybrid vehicle makers. In Tesla’s case, the induction motor technology was worth the trade-off, giving the car higher maximum power in more conditions, a top priority for a vehicle that can rocket from zero to 60 mph in 3.7 seconds. “The cost volatility going into the rare-earth permanent magnets was a concern,” says JB Straubel, Tesla’s chief technology officer. “We couldn’t have predicted the geopolitical tensions.”

More manufacturers are following Tesla’s lead to shun the rare-earth materials, although the move means sacrificing space and adding weight to vehicles. A week after the China dust-up began, a research team in Japan announced that it had made a hybrid-vehicle motor free of rare-earth materials, and Hitachi has announced similar efforts. BMW’s Mini E electric vehicle uses induction motors, and Tesla is supplying its drive trains to Toyota’s upcoming electric RAV 4. Given the volatility of rare-earth supplies, and the advantages induction motors offer in high performance applications, “It makes sense for car companies to give serious thought to using induction motors,” says Wally Rippel, senior scientist at AC Propulsion. Rippel previously worked on induction motor designs at Tesla and GM, where he helped to develop the seminal EV1…  Continue reading at technologyreview.com

 

Clean Energy Funding Issues May Attract Investment from China | The Fiscal Times

President Obama is touting alternatives to foreign oil, research funds are flowing into renewable energy and venture capital is again surging into the clean technology sector. But the shift to clean energy is still a long way off. As established startups move towards building their first commercial facilities, some are struggling to find the funding to scale up. They’ve exhausted much of their venture capital and can’t yet satisfy the strict risk terms of traditional lenders.

The struggle to find funds to commercialize innovative clean technologies is turning into what industry insiders call the “valley of death,” delaying implementation of wind, solar power, low-carbon fuels, and systems that make energy use more efficient. To build their first full-scale facilities, clean technology startups can require up to 100 times more capital than new software or biotech companies. “Instead of dying for lack of $5 million, clean tech startups can stall and die for the lack of $50 million or $500 million,” says Greg Neichin, vice president of Cleantech Group, which tracks market trends. It may be easier to invent green technologies than to finance their commercial production.

Consider GreatPoint Energy. The Cambridge, Mass., company has raised $150 million in venture capital and strategic investor funding since 2005 to develop a process that converts coal into cleaner burning natural gas and that can capture and store its carbon dioxide emissions. Big companies, including AES Corp., Dow Chemical, Peabody Energy and Suncor Energy, lined up early to invest and team up with GreatPoint. Now that the process has been proven on a pilot scale, GreatPoint needs another $200 million to $400 million to build a plant big enough to prove the technology will work at commercial scale. That’s more than many venture capitalists are willing to risk. And because the technology is still evolving and GreatPoint’s business model is untested, project financiers and private equity investors lack the experience to assess the project’s risks…

More here: http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/Articles/2010/08/02/Clean-Energy-Funding-Issues-May-Attract-China-Investment.aspx