Block’s Indicator of Sustainable Growth

by Ray Block

 A Global Wind Energy Council report (February 2 2009) shows substantial progress in wind energy installations during calendar year 2008.

 

United States has now accelerated over 40 per cent a year in the last three years to reach a new record of 8.358 GW (8358 MW) new installations in 2008 to become top dog in global terms, sprinting ahead of Germany with growth of 1.665 GW (1,665 MW).

 

1 GW (gigawatt) equal 1000 MW (megawatts).

 

In wind energy installed capacity terms, United States has 25.17 GW, an increase of 50 per cent over the previous year, compared to Germany with 23.903 GW.

 

A major reason for the US growth is generous tax credits, with the February 2009 stimulus package the most generous of all. Renewable energy developers are now able to choose between two very different kinds of tax breaks, or opt for outright cash grants from the Department of Energy.

 

“Specifically, the new US stimulus plan now offers all kinds of renewable energy projects a choice. This is between getting an upfront one-time tax break on their investment, o r a 10 year tax break on their electricity production. Previously, wind energy projects could only opt for the production credit.” (Environmental blog Wall Street Journal March 20 2009)

 

The American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) reported that US$17 billion was invested in wind energy during 2008, and represented 42 per cent of newly installed power generation capacity. 35,000 new jobs were  created 35,000 jobs last year.

 

However, the combination of recession and credit crunch has seen that “financing for new projects and orders for turbine components slowed to a trickle and layoffs began to hit the wind turbine sector.”(AWEA January 27 2009)

 

The Department of Energy believes that the US “possesses sufficient and affordable wind resources to obtain at least 20 per cent of its electricity from wind. This objective is behind the national renewable standard of achieving a 25 per cent renewable electricity target by 2025. The renewable energy target for 2012 is 10 per cent.

 

Total European new wind energy installations in calendar 2008 totalled 8.877 GW, of which the 27 member countries in the European Union reached 8.484 GW, and total installed wind energy capacity in the EU at December 2008 was 64.948 GW.

 

The European Wind Energy Association (EWEA) reported that new wind power installed in the EU in 2008 represented 43 per cent of all new electricity generating capacity, exceeding all other technologies – including gas, coal and nuclear power.

EWEA projects wind energy capacity of “180 GW in 2020 and 300 GW in 2030. This will result in power generation in the same order of magnitude as the individual contributions from conventional technologies developed over the past century.” It would represent 12 per cent of electricity generated in 2020 and 22 per cent in 2030.

 

The most exciting development in wind energy is the growth of installing turbines offshore. By December 2008, a total of almost 1.471 GW of  offshore wind farms were in operation, in the coastal waters of Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Sweden, United Kingdom, Germany, Belgium and Finland. This represents around 2 per cent of the cumulative installed wind capacity in the EU.

 

Over the past two years, individual projects have increased in size to more than 50 MW. The largest was the December 2003 installation of the 166 MW Nysted wind farm off the southern coast of Denmark. 2008 saw the installation of180 MW capacity in two UK wind farms with a total wind energy capacity of 180 MW.

 

An even larger capacity wind farm Horns Rev-2 has 91 turbines and a combined wind energy capacity of 209 MW. The wind farm will cover an area of just under 35 square Km, situated 30-40 km off the west coast of Denmark.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted under Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

 The US Department of Energy is proactive in encouraging energy efficiency and renewable energy. It is a model in action for governments around the world, which not only want to preach about the need to reduce greenhouse gases, but also achieve something positive about it in a practical way.

 

My attention was drawn to two recent examples:

Ø      Adding solar energy to coal fired power plants.

Ø      Encouraging research and development in solar air conditioning. 

 

Adding solar energy to coal fired power plants

 

While carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a great goal to reduce greenhouse gases from electric power stations, it is highly unlikely that the research will have been commercialised before 2015-2020. As the energy efficiency and renewable energy service of the US Department of Energy says: CCS “will probably have limited value for coal fired power plants that are operating today.”

 

R&D by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) is studying the potential to add solar power to existing power plants. An electric utility operating in Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico and Wyoming, along with a utility headquartered in North Carolina is evaluating the potential to add solar thermal energy systems to the utilities’ power plants in Prewitt, New Mexico and Roxboro, North Carolina.

 

EPRI is also studying the potential to add solar thermal energy systems to natural gas fired power plants in Kingman, Arizona and Las Vegas, Nevada.

 

Solar thermal is a US technology involving building fields of mirrors adjacent to a power plant, to focus the sun’s heat and boil water into steam, which is integrated into the steam cycle of the coal fired power plant. The aim is to either reduce the coal usage or to increase the electric power production. The net balance is to reduce the carbon intensity of the power produced at the plant.

 

Encouraging research and development in solar air conditioning

 

The US Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 created funding through 2008 to 2012 for a new solar air conditioning R&D program, the aim being to develop and demonstrate multiple new innovations and mass production economies of scale. “Solar air conditioning will play an increasing role in zero energy and energy-plus building design.”

 

Multifunctional solar devises (all in one solar panels and solar thermal) harvest both light and heat from the sun.  Traditional solar PV (photovoltaics) cells “only harvest light and are only around 23 per cent efficient in converting PV to electric power. Solar thermal systems collect heat and are about 48 per cent efficient at best.” 

 

The quote comes from a solar thermal start up Chromasun, which will market itself as a specialist in air conditioning. It was co-founded by Peter Le Lievre, a former CEO of solar thermal specialist, the Australian start up Ausra, which migrated to California.

 

Cleantech Media (March 16 2009) reports that Chromasun’s prototype device claims a 75 per cent efficiency. Mass production is expected to be in the March quarter 2010.

 

The solar air conditioner contained in a sealed box unit is operated with mirrors, measuring 0.3mm thick. It is essentially a utility scale solar thermal plant, the mirrors tilting with the sun, along with receivers and a concentrator. At the same time, it is a solar PV plant in miniature.  The unit has a US cost payback of two to four years.

 

Geographically, the unit is more suitable for dry heat regions, as in the US south west, Southern Europe, North Africa and Middle East, South and West Australia. By comparison, the unit is less efficient in humid heat conditions.

 

In Californian peak energy cost terms, the Chromasun unit is very competitive, compared with electrical and natural gas air conditioners.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Posted under Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

 At a time when the world recession is increasingly looking more like a depression than simply a big recession, there is not much optimism about, with traditional industries and economies going backwards. It is for that reason that I keep getting excited, when I see new inventions morphing into major innovations that can change our future.

 

Readers of this blog will see the almost constant reference to renewable energy developments, and why I am so enthused. As an economics student so many years ago, I was brought up on Keynes and Schumpeter. But it was to Schumpeter’s Business Cycles, that I became keen on economic history and Kondratieff.

 

Schumpeter didn’t create the term “creative destruction.” But he certainly popularised it to describe the process of transformation, that accompanies radical innovation, leading to new industries destroying the value of established companies. Instances are the web destroying the value of traditional newspapers, and dynamic changes in progress to motor vehicles and energy.

 

Technology Review, published by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) reported only a few days ago (March 11 2009) about research by the materials science department at MIT that may revolutionise a lithium-ion battery to allow it to recharge quickly, that is in seconds rather than hours.

 

If you apply this to the potential for rapid development of the electric motor vehicle, which is going to be a big thing in the next decade or two to replace the internal combustion engine and its dependence on gasoline, rapid discharging and recharging of the preferred lithium-ion battery could be the answer to our prayers.

 

The work led by Professor Gerbrand Ceder, along with graduate student, Byoungwoo Kang puzzled at the way the best high power lithium-ion batteries have very high energy densities to enable them to store large amounts of charge. But they also have relatively slow power rates –being sluggish at gaining and discharging that energy.

 

Ceder’s research extended over the last five years. By changing the way the battery is made, a new surface structure was created allowing the lithium ions to move quickly around the outside of the material.

 

The researchers modified an electrode material lithium iron phosphate, which directed the lithium ions towards particular faces of crystals within the material. They also included extra lithium and phosphorus. “This helps form a layer of diphosphate, a material known for its high lithium-ion conductivity.”  

 

A new small battery was devised, allowing it to be “fully charged or discharged in 10 to 20 seconds.” Ceder believes the battery could be marketed within two to three years.

 

Just imagine in the near future, you could drive your electric car into a service re-charging station and charge your battery in less minutes than it would take to drink a cup of coffee.

 

 

 

 

Posted under Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

With the global financial crisis pushing the Australian economy into an inevitable recession, the Australian Government’s carbon pollution reduction  scheme (CPRS), based on the European emissions trading cap-and-trade scheme, will not be implemented in its present legislative form. The scheme was to come into operation in 2010.

That is at least clear, with the political divisions in the Australian Parliament. The Rudd Labor Government has a clear majority in the House of Representatives, but is in a minority of seven in the Senate. 

The government’s policy of a carbon abatement scheme would require a puny 5 per cent reduction in greenhouse gases from the 2000 level by 2020 (GHG).  But this would increase to 15 per cent, if the major AsIan carbon polluters (mainly China and India) were to join in a post-Kyoto internationally accepted plan for reducing greenhouse gases. 

As China and India are not coming on board at this stage, the 15 per cent emissions cut by 2020 is purely window dressing.

The government has already put into place a mandated 20 per cent increase in renewable energy by 2020.

But  it has not yet mandated the renewable energy target for each of the years from 2010 through to 2020. This is essential if the renewable energy companies are going to commit to new investments in wind energy, solar PV, solar thermal, geothermal, biomass, second generation biofuels etc.

This lack of imperative to get the renewable energy industry excited about the opportunities ahead in Australia shows a curious lack of energy for a government committed to grow local industries, and is very disappointing. The Spanish style of feed-in tariffs to encourage a larger domestic demand for solar panels would be extremely positive, if it was accepted in Australia.

To make real progress, so that the government walks-the-walk, rather than merely talks-the-talk, it now  needs to recast its carbon abatement scheme to widen the definition of carbon reduction and storage to include soil carbon and biochar, along with the already accepted CO2 from power stations.

Soil carbon is a name for fostering deep-rooted plant species in degraded soils, while biochar consists of pellets of very stable carbon made from burning biomass, without oxygen, in a controlled process.

The new timing for the emissions trading scheme could be set for  July 2011, when world economic and trading conditions are likely to begin a slow growth stage. The Australian carbon reduction scheme could then be set at a more respectable 5 per cent to 10 per cent from the 2000 level by 2020. The Europeans will still claim this is too low. 

Butif you look closely at the country by country targets for the European Union, 10 per cent is a reasonable target for a country, where coal is the dominant form of electric power generation.

Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy, Renewable Energies

by Ray Block

President Obama met the UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon at the White House (March 9 2009), on the potential for stepped up cooperation between the UN and United States on climate change. During their talks, the two leaders underscored the importance of reaching an international agreement on climate change, to both save the planet and promote sustainable economic recovery.

Meanwhile, the US Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed a comprehensive system for a US-wide mandated reporting on emissions of carbon dioxide (C02) and other greenhouse gases (GHG). This is a step closer to a national cap-and-trade emissions scheme.

The new reporting requirements replace the previous voluntary self reporting standards under the Bush EPA. The new rules would apply to suppliers of fossil fuels and industrial chemicals, manufacturers of mobile sources, such as motor vehicles and engines, as well as large direct emitters of GHG, with emissions equal to or greater than a threshold of 25,000 metric tons per year.

Approximately 13,000 facilities, accounting for about 85 to 90 per cent of GHG emitted in the US, would be covered under the proposal. The first annual report would be submitted to the EPA for calendar 2010, except for vehicles and engine manufacturers, which would begin reporting for model year 2011.

The manufacturers will need to report both on the emissions from their production facilities, as well as provide GHG emissions data on engines and vehicles.

The first cap-and-trade scheme in the US started on January 1 2009, with the beginning of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), in which the 10 north eastern and mid-Atlantic states agreed to a cap-and-trade scheme limited solely to carbon dioxide emissions from electric power stations generated in their combined area.

TGwo quarterly RGGI auctions of emissions permits, or allowances as they are called, have been put up for sale through the Climate Futures Exchange,  prior to the commencement of the scheme. This was in September and December 2008. As Environmental News Service (www.ens-newwire.com March 9 2009) pointed out: “for the first time anywhere in the world, the RGGI put allowances up for sale at auction, rather than distributing them for free to power plants.”

The third set of allowances will be auctioned off later in March 2009, again through the Climate Futures Exchange. But Governor Davis Paterson of New York State, the largest region in RGGI is reconsidering the rules (New York Times March 6 2009), which would reopen state regulations ro allow power plamts leeway to release greater amounts of emissions at no additional cost.

The Governor is concerned the rule might unfairly burden the energy sector at a time of deep recession. The environment movement is up in arms. If New York changes the rules, this might lead to a partial breakup of the RGGI scheme.

This accentuates the need to have a US-wide scheme, rather than a grouping od states, where the rules can be changed by one or two powerful states to suit the political occasion.

The other regional state initiative to plan for a cap-and-trade scheme involves the Western Climate Initiative, where a grouping of seven US states and four Canadian provinces, led by California will commence their carbon emissions scheme in 2012. The current aim is to have the states and provinces start to monitor emissions in 2010 and reporting them in 2011, prior to the commencement of the scheme.

Posted under Carbon Abatement Scheme, Climate Change, Global Warming, Low Carbon Economy