Burning Bio News

An alliance of industry, academic and government organizations, formed to commercialize technologies that will utilize concentrated solar energy to convert waste CO2 into diesel fuel. The solar reforming technology platform will be colocated next to industrial facilities that have waste CO2 streams such as coal power plants, natural gas processing facilities, ethanol plants, cement production facilities and other stationary sources of CO2. A solar reforming system is currently being demonstrated in Sacramento, CA, and demonstrations will continue both at Sandia’s facilities in New Mexico and at a power plant project site in Bakersfield, CA.

Rutgers University professor Clinton Andrews and colleagues ran the numbers on land required to implement a renewable energy strategy. They identified clear limits on some technologies, notably biofuels, but concluded that the bigger challenges to renewable energy and land relate to siting energy facilities, particularly transmission lines. –mj: This report contains some interesting information, but the extension of supplying 100 of world energy by individual technologies is puzzling. Presenting extraneous information just because it can be calculated clouds the discussion.

Funding is available from four USDA Rural Development renewable energy programs authorized by the Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Farm Bill). USDA is accepting applications for grants and loan guarantees in the Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) until June 30, 2010. In fiscal year 2009, this program helped fund 1,485 REAP projects in 50 states, the commonwealth of Puerto Rico and the Western Pacific Islands.

USDA will begin conducting the first national On-Farm Energy Production Survey this week. The most recent agriculture census counted more than 20,000 farms and ranches that were producing renewable energy via solar panels, wind turbines and methane digesters. USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) is mailing the survey forms to farm and ranch operators nationwide who indicated on the 2007 Census of Agriculture that they were generating renewable energy.

The New York State Energy Research and Development Authority (NYSERDA) announced the award of $11.3 million to help develop and commercialize 25 innovative renewable energy and energy storage projects. The money will be allocated as $4.7 million for demonstration projects (5), $4.1 million for new product development (7), and $2.6 million for feasibility studies (13). These resources will leverage $11 million of private sector investment to bring total funding for these projects to $22 million.

Powers Energy hopes to power its planned $250 million bioethanol plant in Schneider, IN, using a solar panel system, company President Earl Powers. The Evansville-based company has been in talks with Northern Indiana Public Service Co. regarding the energy producing system, which Powers said would be placed on the roof of the plant’s 23-acre processing building. Powers said the plant would use only 50 percent of the energy it creates, and would sell the rest back to NIPSCO. The plant will be one of the first in the world to use a patented anaerobic fermentation process to produce ethanol from garbage on a large scale.

Greentechmedia.com produced a list of top ten green energy investment errors in 2009. Some of the events on the list occurred in other countries and are not easy to list in bullet form. This is an interesting list of energy ventures that did not work — at least as they were intended.

Governor David A. Paterson announced the award of $3 million to fund energy projects throughout New York. The funds will strengthen and support the growth of New York’s clean energy economy by helping 18 Empire State companies commercialize clean energy technologies.

Mark Z. Jacobson, Stanford professor and Mark Delucchi, University of California-Davis have estimated what technology shifts it would take to produce 100 percent of US energy from renewable energy by 2030. By shifting to wind , water, and solar power, the shift away from less efficient conventional technologies would lower the actual energy required by 68 percent.

The Putney School, a college preparatory boarding high school in southern Vermont, cut the ribbon Saturday on its 16,800 square foot net-zero energy field house that will produce as much energy as it uses over the course of a year. The Putney School Field House is the nation’s first net-zero energy secondary school building and Vermont’s first commercial net-zero energy building. Part of the ‘net’ energy balance is drawing from the grid during the winter months and feeding the grid during the summer months.

Midwestern governors ratified agreements designed to move the region to embrace energy efficiency and renewable energy, with the aim of creating and retaining jobs in the Midwest at a time of aggressive investment around the world in the clean-tech sector. WI Governor, Jim Doyle said key elements of the agreement ratified Wednesday were an agreement that the states need to work together on upgrading the region’s infrastructure to facilitate more green power. That includes improvements to transmission lines to bring renewable energy to population centers from the windiest areas of the Midwest, in Iowa and Minnesota.

Wind power, biomass, and other sources of renewable energy will bring significant job creation, economic investment and new tax revenues to Indiana’s struggling rural communities, according to a new report released today by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC). The report is titled “A Clean Energy Economy for Indiana: Analysis of the Rural Economic Development Potential of Renewable Resources.”

This article in a recent Wall Street Journal highlights the land use issue of dedicated energy production (or energy spraw). Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar recently announced plans to cover 1,000 square miles of land in Nevada, Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico and Utah with solar collectors to generate electricity. He’s also talking about generating 20% of our electricity from wind. This would require building about 186,000 50-story wind turbines that would cover an area the size of West Virginia—not to mention 19,000 new miles of high-voltage transmission lines. – mj: The premise is based on a Nature Conservancy report on “Energy Sprawl or Energy Effiiciency.” The EISA legislation does not want use to expand the shrinking farmland acres. Maybe new uses for land for solar collectors and wind turbines is acceptable? Using land, however, is not an evil.

Governor Edward G. Rendell today announced Pennsylvania is investing more than $5.3 million in 12 innovative clean energy projects, which will generate energy, save money, create jobs and improve the environment. These innovative projects under the commonwealth’s Energy Harvest Program are funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. The selected projects will leverage more than $11.6 million in private investments, create or retain more than 200 jobs, generate enough energy to power 900 homes, save more than $1.7 million in energy costs and reduce air emissions by more than 54 million pounds annually.

North Carolina awarded $950,000 in “Green Business Fund” grants to 14 companies Friday as Gov. Bev Perdue signed legislation that moved the State Energy Office to the Department of Commerce from the Department of Administration.

Colorado State University this fall will install a 2 MW solar power plant on the university’s Foothills Campus as part of Xcel Energy Solar*Rewards program. This is enough solar power to meet more than 10 percent of the university’s electric energy needs on the Foothills Campus.

Massachusetts announces $55 million in Renewable Energy and power projects. An additional $100 million for private sector Renewable Energy projects that are shovel ready within 120 days was also announced. The Massachusetts State Energy Program plan calls for investing in public solar power and energy efficiency projects that will create thousands of new jobs while reducing fossil fuel use and Greenhouse Gases.

Through EPA’s Green Power Partnership, a number of industry, university and municipality green power generators and users are coordinated. Organizations can meet EPA purchase requirements using any combination of three different product options (1) Renewable Energy Certificates, (2) On-site generation, and (3) Utility green power products. The link here will take you to EPA’s Green Power, Top 20 On-site Generators. While this list is impressive, I do not think it is everyone. If you are not registered in the program, they are not aware of the contribution. The top entities on this list are the cities of Los Angeles and San Jose, CA who are both supplying over 50% of their power from green sources. It is interesting to click around on the other categories on this site (more than just the on-site generators).

UC San Diego is getting $11 million in incentives from California’s Self-Generation Incentive Program for the installation of an innovative fuel cell energy generation and storage system on the La Jolla campus. The school says the money is the largest amount ever awarded by the California Public Utilities Commission for a renewable energy project and is the nation’s first advanced energy storage project to receive state incentive funds.

The WI Focus on Energy Program Awards $2.6 million in grants. $1,640,397 goes to for anaerobic digester projects (3 dairies and 1 municipality). $367,057 goes to a biomass steam plant for a hospital. $250,000 goes for a wind project and $420,000 goes to two solar projects.