Wounded Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords is a renewable energy champion

I hope all of you were able to join the president in a moment of silence to offer respect and condolences for those that were injured and/or died at the shooting in Arizona this past weekend.

We in the renewable energy industry may not realize how important Congresswoman Giffords is to our industry. I offer you this article as reported on Renewable Energy Magazine:

During her two terms Giffords was an important proponent of the eight-year extension of the solar investment tax credit and the one-year extension of the Treasury Grant Program. She also sponsored the Solar Technology Roadmap Act in 2009, which committed over $2 billion to new research partnerships and demonstration projects for solar energy technologies, and a key role in securing a $1.45 billion loan guarantee from the US government for a 280 MW photovoltaic facility in her home state.


Giffords, who is married to space shuttle astronaut Mark Kelly, often compared the push to develop domestic sources of renewable energy to the American space program, and yet she also sought to demystify solar power and make it part of her constituents’ every day life.

Among her initiatives toward this end, were Solar Power 101, which the Congresswomen launched in 2007, and sought to teach Arizonans about solar power and the opportunities inherent in developing the renewables sector, and the Solar Schools Act, which provided funding to help public schools install solar panels.

She also maintains a solar energy page on her official web site which offers constituents the opportunity to sign up for her solar energy newsletter.

In the wake of the shooting, Rhone Resch, President and CEO of the Solar Energy Industries Association said, “In her short time in Congress, Gabby has realized a number of accomplishments covering a wide range of issues.

“For our industry, she has constantly positioned herself as one of the go-to champions for solar in the House of Representatives. In two terms, Congresswoman Giffords was a key supporter in the House as SEIA pushed for the 8-year extension of the solar investment tax credit and the recent one-year extension of the Treasury Grant Program,” he said.

In addition, Giffords introduced the Solar Technology Roadmap Act, which would dedicate over $2 billion to new research partnerships and demonstration projects for solar energy technologies.

She has also sought to lead by example, having installed a 2 kW photovoltaic system on her Tucson home last year.

To see the rest of the story visit renewableenergymagazine.com

Governor Rendell Opens 2011 Pennsylvania Farm Show

I normally do not find farm shows as being relevant to the Renewable Energy Industry, but listening to Governor Edward G. Rendell as he kicked off the 2011 Pennsylvania Farm Show and welcoming visitors to celebrate the time-honored tradition and its thousands of exhibitors and volunteers, I was pleased to hear him speak passionately about renewable energy. Read on.


"In the past eight years, we have accomplished a great deal to ensure this vital sector of our economy remains vibrant and is well-positioned for growth in the future," Governor Rendell said. "I applaud the work done to make this industry what it is today, and with continued support, I'm confident agriculture will continue to play an important role in keeping Pennsylvania growing."

The Governor was joined by Agriculture Secretary Russell C. Redding, who introduced the new "Parade of Agriculture" that highlighted each of the show's departments. Representatives from Penn State Cooperative Extension, youth participants, and exhibitors displayed livestock and dairy animals, commodities and entries from the Family Living Department during the ceremony.

Governor Rendell also highlighted some of the many accomplishments of agriculture during his eight years in office, including:

•Investing nearly $150 million in 655 projects through PAgrows, an initiative launched in 2005 to ensure Pennsylvania's agriculture industry has the financial resources it needs to grow. The state investments have been matched by about $340 million in private funding.

•Preserving nearly 196,000 acres of prime farmland on 2,000 farms bringing the total to 4,096 farms and 444,647 acres preserved in the program's 22-year history, ensuring that the land will remain viable to feed America and the world for generations to come.

•Launching the PA Preferred program which brands products made in Pennsylvania so shoppers can easily choose goods that will keep money and jobs in their communities. To date, the program is helping 2,000 companies and 3,000 member locations prominently highlight Pennsylvania goods.

•Bringing balance between long-standing farm operations and expanding residential communities. The Agriculture, Communities and Rural Environmental Act, or ACRE, has successfully resolved more than 60 local issues to allow farmers to keep operating.

•Injecting new life into Pennsylvania's once-struggling equine industry by introducing new gaming opportunities to the state's horse racing tracks which has added nearly 17,000 jobs and has generated $800 million for the Race Horse Development Fund.

•Enacting one of the state's most uncompromising dog laws to improve living conditions for man's best friend.

•Establishing the Centers for Farm Transitions, which has helped producers complete nearly 250 succession plans that will keep more than 87,000 acres in farming. The Centers for Dairy and Beef Excellence also play a critical role in helping producers run their farms more efficiently and increase profit margins.

•Leading the way in the production of renewable energy with Pennsylvania farmers growing crops being transformed into homegrown fuels like ethanol and biodiesel. The state is now producing 150 million gallons of these fuels each year.

The 95th Pennsylvania Farm Show runs through Jan. 15 and features 6,000 animals, 10,000 competitive exhibits and 300 commercial exhibitors. For more information or a complete schedule, visit http://www.farmshow.state.pa.us/. 

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General Motors, US DOE collaborate on lithium-ion batteries



Argonne National Laboratory

Exiting News from the world of Energy Storage, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

General Motors (GM) and the US Department of Energy's (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory have signed a licensing agreement to use Argonne's patented composite cathode material to develop advanced lithium-ion batteries that last longer between charges and can charge at higher voltages.


Steven Chu

 

The cathode material licensed to GM is to be part of a diverse suite of lithium-ion battery inventions and patents developed at Argonne with DOE funding.

GM anticipates that use of the cathode material will yield advanced batteries that are high-performing, long-lasting and safe when compared to the existing technology.


US Energy secretary Steven Chu said that this agreement gives GM the ability to use cutting-edge battery technology throughout its supply chain.


GM's Mickey Bly

 GM executive director Micky Bly said that engineers and researchers at GM are working on next-generation battery systems that will reduce cost while providing improved performance, expanding the practicality and affordability of electric vehicles in the future.

According to the Chicago Tribune and reported by Ted Gregory:

It's nothing more than a piece of a battery that powers electric cars, but the technology developed at Argonne National Laboratory may be a turning point on the road to more efficient electric cars, experts say.

The reason: The material may enable them to travel twice as far as they do now before recharging by boosting the voltage of batteries, lightening their weight and extending their lives.

GM Volt

 It's a patented composite cathode material Argonne scientists have been refining since inventing it in 2001. About a year ago, General Motors and LG Chem Ltd., a Korean battery-maker with a subsidiary in Michigan, approached Argonne and started negotiating licensing agreements that were announced last week at a teleconference.

"""This is the beginning of what would be a transformation of our transportation system,""" Argonne director Eric Isaacs said. """And that's huge. … The dawn of a new era."""

The reason for the enthusiasm is what Argonne calls the """unique combination of lithium- and manganese-rich mixed-metal oxides""" in the cathode, which is where current flows.

Compared with materials in widespread use in batteries now, the new composite material is less expensive and can be contained in the smallest, lightest package.

By allowing batteries to be charged at higher voltages, it can increase energy storage — called energy density — by as much as 100 percent over conventional cathode material, Isaacs and others said.

Read the rest or the story here.

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Governor O’Malley Appoints Leading Educator, Solar Innovator to Board of Maryland Clean Energy Center

Gov. Martin O’Malley

Gov. Martin O’Malley has appointed a prominent academic researcher and a solar industry finance expert to fill two vacancies on the Board of Directors of the Maryland Clean Energy Center.

Eric Wachsman, PhD, Director of the University of Maryland’s Energy Research Center, will serve through June 2015.

 

George Ashton, co-Founder and Chief Financial Officer of Sol Systems, Inc., a national leader in aggregating solar renewable energy credits, is fulfilling a term that runs through September 2012.



Eric Wachsman, PhD



Wachsman and Ashton join existing members of the Center’s Board of Directors who oversee its mission of helping consumers, supporting businesses and advising lawmakers in Maryland as the state scales up its clean energy industries and energy efficiency initiatives. Other Board members include Jeremy Butz, Carol Collins, Ken Connolly, Jeff Eckel – who serves as the current Board Chairman – and Malcolm Woolf, Director of the Maryland Energy Administration.

“I am so proud to announce the appointment of two very talented individuals to the Board of the Maryland Clean Energy Center,” said Governor O’Malley. “As Maryland continues to emerge as a national leader in clean energy, their leadership will help us move toward a better and more sustainable future for our children. I’d like to thank them for their willingness to step up and serve the people of our State as we work to find innovative ways to reach our clean energy goals in the toughest of times.”

I. Katherine Magruder

“We are privileged to have two such high-caliber and forceful clean energy advocates join us as we move into our second year of operation,” said I. Katherine Magruder, Executive Director of the Maryland Clean Energy Center. “They will help facilitate the adoption and generation of clean energy along with the new jobs, consumer savings and reduction of greenhouse gas emissions that come with it.”

George Ashton

In addition to his leadership of UM Energy Research Center, Wachsman holds the William L. Crentz Centennial Chair in Energy Research at the University of Maryland, College Park. Previously, Wachsman was Director of the Florida Institute for Sustainable Energy and a professor of materials science and engineer at the University of Florida in Gainesville. He has authored dozens of research papers since beginning his career as an engineer for chip-maker Intel. He earned his PhD and Masters of Science from Stanford University. Wachsman is filling out the remainder of the Board term served by Dan Goodman.

Ashton has been instrumental in growing Sol Systems into one of the country’s leading aggregators of solar renewable energy credits, or SRECs. Solar system owners earn 1 SREC for every 1,000 kilowatt hours of electricity their systems generate each year. Before Sol Systems, Ashton was a Senior Account Executive at Fannie Mae, a government-sponsored enterprise chartered by Congress chartered to provide liquidity and stability to the U.S. housing and mortgage markets. Ashton earned his MBA from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University Maryland in College Park.

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Funding will create jobs through the construction and completion of advanced commercial facility in Florida

Today INEOS Bio and its joint venture partner, New Planet Energy, announced they have received a conditional commitment for a $75 million loan guarantee from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's (USDA) 9003 Biorefinery Assistance Program. Funds will be used for the construction of the world's first INEOS BioEnergy Center to be situated near Vero Beach, Florida. The BioEnergy Center will produce eight million gallons (24,000 tonnes) of advanced biofuel per year together with six megawatts (gross) of renewable power from biomass including yard, vegetative and wood wastes and municipal solid waste. Financing from the USDA program is provided to advance the next generation bioenergy technologies into the commercial sector.


"We are encouraged by the continued confidence and commitment the U.S. Government has shown in assisting with the commercial development of this new bioenergy technology," said Peter Williams, CEO of INEOS Bio and Chairman of INEOS New Planet BioEnergy. "These programs are providing the funds needed to enable the U.S. to achieve a leading position in the bioenergy sector through projects such as ours. As well as directly assisting construction of the INEOS New Planet BioEnergy commercial plant, the loan guarantee also represents an important step along the road to replication of this exciting new technology through INEOS Bio's licensing program."

The USDA 9003 program provides guaranteed loans for the development and construction of commercial-scale biorefineries or for the retrofitting of existing facilities using eligible technology for the development of advanced biofuels.

Site preparation and construction are underway at the BioEnergy Center, which has created 55 new jobs to date. The BioEnergy Center, slated to begin production in 2012, is anticipated to provide 175 jobs during construction and 50 full-time jobs once the facility is completed.

The heart of the INEOS Bio technology is a patented anaerobic fermentation step, through which naturally occurring bacteria convert gases derived directly from biomass into ethanol. Unlike other technologies that rely on one primary source of feedstock, the INEOS Bio process can produce ethanol and renewable energy from numerous feedstocks, including construction waste, municipal solid waste and forestry and agricultural waste, while breaking the link between food crops and ethanol production. This flexibility allows facilities, like the Florida BioEnergy Center, to be built anywhere in the world, wherever there is biomass waste, providing jobs and locally sourced renewable energy for urban and rural communities

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Rentricity Supports Pennsylvania American Water Clean Energy Recovery Project

I've been covering renewable energy for sometime now and I am still amazed at all the ways that we are saving energy in this country and around the world once we put our mind to it. Rentricity Inc., the renewable energy recovery company located in New York City, has been selected for Pennsylvania American Water’s first energy recovery project in Butler, PA.


Pennsylvania American Water was recently granted funds in support of the project from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s PEDA program and represents the water company’s first such project in the Commonwealth. Rentricity will be implementing its Flow-to-Wire system to capture excess flow and pressure at the Pennsylvania American Water Oneida Valley Water Treatment Plant to generate ‘green’ electricity.

“Pennsylvania American Water is committed developing clean energy alternatives to offset the rising cost of electricity anticipated in the region,” says Daniel J. Hufton, senior director of production for Pennsylvania American Water. “The energy recovery system will generate clean electricity from gravity flows at our water treatment facility and will be used for power in the plant.”

Rentricity and Pennsylvania American expect the energy recovery installation to be completed and generating clean electricity for Pennsylvania American Water in the latter part of 2011. “The project is another example of water systems stepping up to take advantage of existing untapped pressures and flows within their distribution system to create efficiency and support the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’s renewable portfolio standards, says Frank Bursic, Regional Director of Rentricity.

Rentricity has identified 6,500 PRV sites in the US that have the potential to 520 mWs of clean energy from $1.5 billion of installed capital cost, according to the company.

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Global Wind Energy Installed Capacity to reach 707,570 MW by 2015

As global economies grapple with skyrocketing oil imports and burgeoning energy bills, the transition towards a renewable source-based energy economy is a slow, yet inevitable reality. The uncertainty and unrest in the energy sector, rapidly depleting natural resources, together with the political pressures and environmental issues, are shedding light on the rapidly evolving role of clean technologies such as wind power, solar energy, fuel-cell power automobiles, and other bio-based materials. As the investment climate for clean technologies clears, the clean energy market is expected to witness a barrage of investments, with energy companies vying for a stake in clean technologies. Wind and solar power constitute the most widespread cost-competitive solutions for the global energy crisis.

Wind power is poised to gain from the tumult in the energy sector. Although the market is expected to face several competitive and structural challenges, apart from the meltdown in the global economy, wind energy is capable of surviving the uncertainties plaguing the overall energy market. Countries around the world have set a target of meeting 12% of the world's electricity needs from the winds by the year 2020. Strategic developments in the wind industry, vibrant new power project undertakings and upgradation activities, cumulative increment in new capacity installations in the recent past, and the transforming governmental energy plans, offer buoyant market forecasts. Although cost of wind energy has drastically declined over the last few years, a further reduction of 30% to 50% is required if wind energy is to compete on par with conventional energies. Appropriate funding and co-ordination of R&D activities could very well help in achieving a cost reduction of 40%. Rising concerns about dramatic environmental changes, attributed to unabated use of fossil fuels, is another driving force for renewable energy market.

The market is expected to produce over 2000 TWh of electricity, and meet about 20% of global power demand and result in carbon dioxide savings of more than 1,500 million tonnes in 2020. More than 1/3rd of the increased global capacity was driven by growth in China where newly added wind power capacity reached 14 GW in 2009. China has emerged the largest producer of wind power surpassing the US, which was in the leading position until mid-2010. Asian countries constitute the fastest growing regions, particularly China and India, which are characterized by high pollution and rising electricity demand. Lured by attractive growth prospects, several wind energy companies have expanded their presence in these regions. The US, India and China are focused on employing onshore wind, while Northwest Europe as well as the UK focus on developing offshore wind power across the North Sea. Offshore wind farms production is expected to outpace land-based wind turbines production by 2015, as countries across the globe increasingly employ renewable energy produced through offshore wind.

The renewable energy market remained largely unfazed by the global economic slowdown that surfaced during the later half of 2008. Investments and capacity additions in the sector continued to rise during the slowdown period. The biomass and wind sectors witnessed a 15% increase in investment in 2009. The economic slowdown also contributed to a significant reduction in the cost of a number of renewable technologies. The constancy in the level of investment despite the economic slowdown is indicative of long-term growth trend in the market.

Europe, spurred by demand from Germany, Spain, France, Italy, Portugal and other Eastern European countries dominate as the single largest market for wind energy, as stated by the new market research report on Wind Energy. Asia-Pacific and the US constitute the other important wind power installation and generation countries worldwide. Asia-Pacific also leads in terms of fastest growth potential, and is projected to expand over the years at the highest CAGR of about 50% through 2015. The region is also likely to race ahead of the pack with the maximum market share and growth rate in new capacity additions over the analysis period.

Key market participants profiled in the report include American Electric Power, AES Corporation, Cielo Wind Power, Enel SpA, Enercon GmbH, NextEra Energy Resources, Green Mountain Energy Company, GE Energy, Shell WindEnergy Inc., Suzlon Energy Limited, TransAlta Wind and Vestas Wind Systems A/S.

The research report titled "Wind Energy: A Global Strategic Business Report" announced by Global Industry Analysts, Inc., provides a comprehensive review of industry overview, technology overview, market trends, growth drivers, product innovations, recent industry activity and profiles of market players worldwide. Analysis and overview is provided for major geographic markets such as US, Canada, Japan, Europe (Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, UK, Spain, The Netherlands, Portugal, and Rest of Europe), Asia-Pacific (China, India, Australia and Rest of Asia-Pacific), Middle East & Africa and Latin America. Market analytics are provided in terms of Megawatts (MW) for installed wind energy capacity as well as annual capacity additions. The study provides analytics for the period 2007-2015, while historic review offers an insight into market evolution over the period 2000-2006.

For more details about this comprehensive market research report, please visit -
www.strategyr.com/Wind_Energy_Market_Report.asp

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