The Washington Post published an article by Robert Bryce relating to myths about green energy. Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, and has published a book “Power Hungry: The Myths of ‘Green’ Energy’ and the Real Fuels of the Future.” The book was published in the USA on April 27 2010.

Bryce’s point, although he overdoes it, is that renewable and alternative energy technologies have great emotional and political appeal, but don’t reduce CO2 by much, don’t reduce dependence on imported oil, nor create many new jobs, and so the list goes on and on.

It is true that the hype about renewable/ and alternative energy can be overdone, they are also costly in subsidies, and the reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is currently minute.

Bryce makes an important point that in the case of hybrids and electric vehicles, the electric motor consumption of rare earth elements is unduly dependent on the only abundant global supplier, which just happens to be China, which by 2012 is expected to be the dominant supplier of hybrids and electric vehicles for domestic and international sales. Consequently, there may not be any surplus of rare earth elements available for export.

Bryce says that solar and wind energies “require huge amounts of land to deliver relatively small amounts of energy, disrupting natural habitats. Even an ageing natural gas well producing 60,000 cubic feet per day generate more than 20 times the watts per square metre of a wind turbine. A nuclear power plant cranks out about 56 watts per square metre, eight times as much as is derived from solar photovoltaic installations.”

All true, but so what. As I have said repeatedly, renewable (and alternative) energy industries, which are still in their infancy will ultimately become the giant industries of the future. These industries are still to reach their peak efficiency levels and become fully competitive with industries relying on coal and oil. But there are no alternatives on offer.

In was not until 1982, before the first motor vehicle was assembled in China. And it took a further 10 years before one million vehicles were sold in any one year. But over the last 18 years, an astonishingly giant industry has been created to become in 2009 the largest auto market in the world.

And having come this far, it is inevitable that like the steel industry, where the Chinese produce about 50 per cent of global supply, the same trends are emerging in motor vehicles.

In hybrids and fully electric cars, China with its still current 200 auto manufacturers will dominate this space, with the government goal for 2011 of 500,000 electric vehicles seen as a modest beginning.

All the major international auto companies, with hopes of marketing success in the hybrid and electric vehicle space, with affiliates in China are extremely busy right now.

Indeed, all of the majors, whether joint ventures with foreign auto companies, state owned, municipal owned, or private owned are currently working two and three shifts throughout the week, with an almost endless supply of customers.

Passenger car sales rose 63 per cent to 1.26 million vehicles in March 2010, and commercial vehicles rose even more strongly to 470,000 units over the same month, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM).

In 2009, vehicle sales totalled 13.6 million units, a gain over the previous year of 45 per cent. CAAM expects the domestic auto market to grow 15 per cent this year suggesting a total market of 15-16 million. Another auto trade association, Shanghai based China Passenger Car Association is even more confident, suggesting that China’s vehicle sales will surpass 17 million units in 2010.

In 2008, the Ministry of Science and Technology mandated that 10 per cent of Chinese cars will run on alternative fuels by 2012 and called for research subsidies. The Ministry of Finance announced a new commitment to promote new energy vehicles in the country’s 13 largest cities- Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing, Zhangchun, Dalian, Hangzhou, Jinan, Wuhan, Shenzhen, Hefei, Kunming and Nanchang.

The mandate called for public services to begin buying alternative fuel vehicles in these cities and provide subsidies for their production and purchasing. The subsidies included 50,000 yuan for hybrids and 60,000 yuan for pure electric cars.

A revised subsidy scheme is eagerly expected for new energy vehicles. China Daily (April 9 2010) reported that electric cars qualifying for subsidies are those that have received the government’s production license and are assembled in China, regardless whether they come from domestic or joint venture firms.

Zero emission pure electric cars is now the preferred technology path for new energy cars in China, which will be reflected in the new stimulus plan. Where hybrids and hydrogen fuel cell vehicles fit in is not clear, as they were targeted as the priority for new energy vehicle development in China’s 11th Five Year Plan (2005-2010).

Zhang Jinhua, vice secretary general of the Chinese Society of Automotive Engineers, who is also an official for the national 863 research program on energy saving and new energy vehicles says that China’s roadmap for new energy cars has shifted in “giving priority to pure electric cars and taking hybrid cars as complement.”

As part of China’s new12th Five Year Plan, the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), China’s major planning body has highlighted nuclear energy, wind energy and new energy vehicles as priorities.

Frank Liao, chief engineer of Chery, now China’s fifth largest automaker, says that the first round of competition for the electric car market share would mainly be between medium and small sized domestic private automakers, and the large state owned domestic automakers ,which had acted “sluggishly” in electric car research and development.

There has since been an element of change, with even the highly profitable state and municipal owned SAIC, the No 1 auto company in China, too content in its cosy joint ventures, finally getting the message that the government wants the industry to accelerate change. SAIC is releasing a hybrid model this year, and a pure electric car in 2012.

A number of pure electric cars are about to enter the market. BYD, the 7.5 per cent affiliate of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway was first in with its own hybrid F3DM introduced in 2009. BYD for “Build Your Dreams” started in 1995 in auto batteries, and it is only in recent years that it entered the vehicle market.

For many years, a notorious reverse engineering outfit, which never paid for foreign technology,was openly exposed as such in a prominent online piece by Caexon Online. BYD sold 430,000 vehicles in 2009, and is building a new plant to double that output. It now wants to do its own research and development, and is prominent in the export market.

Chery started in 1997, and became the fifth Chinese automaker to reach a production goal of two million vehicles, the first one million was in 2007, and the second in 2009. At the beginning of 2010, Chery began a $350 million R&D program to develop traditional automotive technologies and new energy technologies at the same time.

The aim is to continue a strong program of technical improvements spending around 4.6 per cent of yearly sales on R&D. Chery, which launched its S18 electric car in March 2009, the first of its S series of fully electric cars, has been concentrating on “high efficiency, energy saving, easy operation, continuous variable transmission and quietness.”

The largest of the private auto companies Geely, which nreleased its EK-1 fully electric car, has just concluded a deal with Ford to buy Volvo, the Swedish motor firm for $1.8 billlion. Whether the Chinese company can meet the full purchase price at this stage is up in the air, but they retain first right of refusal advantage to purchase the prestige marque.

To make the 500,000 electric car target by 2011, there are generous production subsidies, and there is a scramble among large state owned enterprises to set up charging stations to enable the new car revolution to take place.

Preliminary figures of PV growth in calendar year 2009 by the European Photovoltaic Industry Association (EPIA) suggest that about 6.4 GW was installed worldwide last year reaching a total capacity of over 20GW (20,000 MW).

The growth, says EPIA, is particularly impressive given the weak level of demand at the height of the recession in the March quarter. A sizzling increase in global cumulative installed PV capacity is expected in 2010 by at least 40 per cent, with an annual growth expected to increase by more than 15 per cent.

The PV market survey firm Solarbuzz expects the first quarter 2010 to show global module production rising by 7 per cent, with a further 19 per cent in the second quarter. Thin film production is expected to account for 17 per cent of global shipments in the first half of 2010.

One word of caution is introduced with Germany, the largest PV market, which increased installations by about 3 GW in 2009 to a cumulative installed capacity of almost 9 GW will at some stage reduce the size of its gross-feed-in-tariff.

Italy is the second largest European market, with an expected 700 MW in 2009. Czech Republic also showed strong growth with 411 MW installed in 2009. Belgium, France, Portugal and UK showed positive growth. The 2008 leader Spain languished, as a result of the cap imposed by the government in 2008.

In other regions, USA achieved around 475 MW in installations in 2009, while Japan did even better with new installations of 485 MW. Promising markets in Canada, Australia, Brazil, Mexico, Morocco and South Africa are expected in future years.

The most exciting solar PV producer continues to be First Solar, now the largest PV module producer in the world, with Shyam Metha of Greentech Media (March 29 2009) demonstrating the profit potential of the solar market. First Solar is the dominant player in the thin film market specialising in (CdT) cadmium telluride.

Add these ingredients – high throughput (1,011 MW in 2009), competitive efficiency of 11 per cent, and industry leading cost. This is currently a sensational 83 cents per watt. A lot of the applied genius is due to investor/ entrepreneur Harold McMaster, who concluded in the early 1980s, that the “essential cost element of large area solar arrays was glass, and (he) could treat the actual solar cell as simply a different kind of coating on glass.”

Metha explains: “In other word, thin film PV represented a technology that could be manufactured using glass’ high throughput coating process instead of the slow, cumbersome batch process of traditional crystalline silicon wafer-based PV – an approach that had one hundredth the feedstock requirement.”

I have written on algae three times before. It is back in the news.

This time, the emphasis is not on Sapphire Energy, but on Solzayme, the South San Francisco start up. With an additional $ 22 million from the US Department of Energy for financing demonstration scale facilities preparatory to scaling up to a commercial plant. The company now has a capital base of $100 million. This should be sufficient for it make a faster breakout than its peers to become a real supplier of diesel and aviation fuel. And not just in token amounts.

The problem so far has been the great  difficulties biofuel companies, outside the highly subsidised corn ethanol producers, are having in getting costs down to a point, where they can ever compete with conventional hydrocarbons.

I must confess that there is something appealing to me in algae, the humble pond scum, turning into a highly valuable commodity. And for good measure, you can make very tasty goodies out of it as well. Solazyme is gaining valuable cash flow in a sideline, which is quickly taking off.

Bryan Walsh writing in Time magazine (March 17 2010) says “the vanilla drink is the colour of butter and tastes almost as good- creamy and sweet, like a liquid pudding. Next I try a pair of golden cookies, lightly touched with sugar- they’re soft, chewy and filling. Last is a mustard dipping sauce, tangy, that coats a handful of pretzels with a pleasant honeyed zing.”

And to top it off for the health conscious, “the vanilla drink has 20 per cent fewer calories and 75 per cent less saturated fat than regular milk, while the dipping sauce has 74 per cent less calories and 85 less overall fat than average honey mustard dip.”

Unlike, Sapphire Energy, which grows algae by feeding it on carbon dioxide in sunlight in ponds, this is the process of photosynthesis to make the fuel, Solazyme feeds algae sugar fermenting it in a dark kind of beer brewing kettle.

The economics of production in the two systems are very different.

The open ponds and photo-bioreactor (PBR) techniques are infinitely more expensive. Says Joshua Kagan, who has researched algae in detail, Greentech Media(April 3 2010 “an algae strain must be identified and optimised for maximum growth. The correct location must be found, and as the algae grows, they need a constant supply of nutrients, C02, heat and light, which requires the consistent movement of water.

“Once the algae grows to a sufficient mass, it must be harvested, dewatered and dried before extracts of the oil can commence. These steps are energy and capital intensive. Once the oil is extracted, it is relatively simple to upgrade the fuel into jet fuel or diesel using traditional refinery techniques, but still costs an additional $0.25-0.40/gal. Taken together, algae grown in open ponds or PBRs are estimated to cost $8-$30/gal.”

The comparison to Solazyme’s methods of production could not be any greater, and it is also far more cost effective. By growing the algae in the dark, the energy costs of artificial light is avoided, and the fermentation process requires a fraction of the water usage. Another positive is that the strains of algae don’t require CO2, which depending on the location can be a big cost. Finally, removing the water isn’t an issue when grown in dark vessels.

Although Solazyme uses a lot of sugar to feed the algae, the company has a supply agreement with second generation sugar producer, BlueFire Energy to obtain sugars derived from non food sources.

The big advantage algae has is that it can double in size daily and account for approximately 60 per cent of the oxygen production on earth. By comparison with corn ethanol, harvesting yields the equivalence of 270 gallons per acre per year, compared with algae’s 1500-1800 gallons per acre per year.

Let’s hope that Solazyme’s dark vessel production method is as cost effective as they say, and commercial production is only around the corner.

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I have often said that clean energy technologies will be among the very top investment drivers in the 21st century, just as the electrical, electronic  and telecommunications technologies have been to the 20th century.

The countries leading the new revolution in energy will dominate economic activity in coming decades. Evidence is mounting that United States is losing its economic leadership in clean energy, and the inheritor of this mantle is China.

And that worries me, because as the Stern Hu bribery and industrial espionage case demonstrates only too plainly how despotic the Chinese authorities are in treating industrial espionage, as theft of state secrets over an issue as low level, as bargaining over iron ore pricing.

Let me spell out three warning signs of the coming Chinese hegemony.

Keith Brasher, a long time New York Times correspondent in China (January 20 2010) said that China has vaulted past competitors in Denmark, Germany, Spain and United States to become world’s largest manufacturer of wind turbines, and in 2010 is poised to expand that lead.

Brasher also said that China has leapfrogged its competitors to become world largest manufacturer of solar panels.

The second warning sign comes from the Obama Administration energy secretary, Steven Chu, nobel prize laureate for physics, who in March 2010 told Stanford University students, a college where he had taught physics for 20 years, (E&ETV newsletter group March 9 2010), that other countries, mostly China, were outstripping US investments by a factor of 10.

“Our market share is 10 per cent on clean technology,” he said ticking off fuel efficiency, general auto technology, energy transmission equipment, energy transmission equipment and nuclear reactors as specific sectors, where the United States is severely lacking.”

“What’s China doing?” he asked. “Spending over $9 billion a month cleaning up and improving their energy efficiency. The (Chinese) state grid is spending $44 billion by 2012 and $88 billion by 2020 on transmission.”

The third warning sign comes from the report Who’s winning the clean energy race? by the Pew Charitable Trusts, with their partner Bloomberg New Energy Finance March 2010. 

The report  said that “for the first time in 2009, China took the top spot for overall clean energy finance and investment, pushing the US into second place. Having built a strong manufacturing base and export markets, China is working now to meet domestic demand by installing substantial new clean energy-generating capacity to meet ambitious renewable energy targets.”

In 2009, $162 billion was invested in clean energy globally. Of this, China invested $34.6 billion, almost double that of the US $18.6 billion, and more than four times the combined total of UK $11.2 billion, Spain $10.4 billion, Brazil $ 7.4 billion and Germany $4.3 billion.

The top 10 in investment intensity shows up United States in a less attractive light. Spain emerges as No1 on 0.74 % ; UK O.51%; China 0. 39%; Brail 0.37%; Canada 0.25%; Germany 0.15 %; Italy O.14 ; US O.13%.

“Relative to the size of its economy, the United States clean energy finance and investments lag behind many of its G-20 partners. For example, in relative terms, Spain invested five times more than the US last year, and China, Brazil and UK more than three times.”

My faith in climate scientists is restored. That is with the exception of the people at the Climatic Research Centre, University of East Anglia, who manipulated some data and exaggerated other data.

By comparison with those frauds, the heads of two highly respected Australian scientific bodies, Australian Bureau of Meteorology and CSIRO came together to express confidence in climate science.  Megan Clark, head of the CSIRO said: “We are seeing significant evidence of a changing climate. All of Australia has experienced warming over the last 50 years.”

“We are warming in every part of the country during every season and as each decade goes by, the records are being broken. Our records of the ‘70 were broken in the ‘80s, broken in the ‘90s and are also seeing fewer cold days. So we are seeing some very significant long term trends in Australia’s climate.”

“We are also seeing consistency. I think we can certainly look at the long term trends, what we are seeing in our rainfall, what we are seeing in the increase of carbon dioxide and methane in our atmosphere and of course, what we are seeing in our oceans.”

“So it is not just one measurement that is telling us. It is our observations and science that we are seeing in many areas being consistent.”

Bureau of Meteorology director Greg Ayres said the reality of climate change was clearly evident in Australia. “Australia holds one of the best national climate records in the world. The bureau’s been responsible for keeping that record for more than 100 years, and it’s there for anyone and everyone to see and analyse.”

So, there you are climate deniers. Eat your heart out.

It’s becoming readily accepted in the community that energy efficiency is important. But it isn’t really understood that the No1 priority on the road to a low carbon economy is achieving energy savings.

Investment in energy savings in buildings, industry and transportation ranks above investment in new energy sources including wind, solar, biomass and biofuels. The International Energy Agency (IEA), in its World Energy Outlook November 2009, says that end-use efficiency is the biggest contributor to the cutting back of CO2 emissions.

The agency also said that energy efficiency investment has a short payback period in fuel cost savings. Expressed as a fuel source in its own right, the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE), says in its report on the cost of saved energy September 2009, that energy efficiency would cost the equivalent of 1.6 cents/kilowatt hour (kWh) to 3.3 cents per kilowatt hour kWh, averaging 2.5 cents/kWh.

This compared with pulverised coal at 7 cents/kWh to 14 cents/kWh, combined cycle natural gas 7 cents/ kWh to 10 cents/kWh, and wind energy 4 cents/kWh to 9 cents/kWh.

This led the authors of the ACEEE report to say that “energy efficiency is by far the least cost resource option. They went on: “it appears to be a resource that continues to renew itself- the more energy efficiency opportunities we look for, the more we find.”

The biggest area for energy savings is in buildings, adding together industrial, commercial and residential, which collectively amounts to 38 per cent of energy use.

This is one and half times energy use in transportation. The figures are derived from a four year international survey by the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD.

Energy codes and standards are largely ineffective, and safety standards are not much better. So how do you bring about change? A price on carbon, with appropriate tax incentives helps. There is a big role for research and development. But no matter how much is achieved in R & D, both with new technology and incremental change, the biggest problem remaining is the overwhelming tendency of inertia, clinging to traditional ways of doing things.

George David, chairman of the privately funded Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington (September 2009) said that “higher carbon costs and improved efficiency technologies will increase the attractiveness of investments and lessen the economic drag of otherwise lower returns. But we still need the stimulus of regulation to get us started”

Two ways of achieving energy savings provide a transformational way of approach.

The first example comes from George David. He quoted the example of newer elevators, which recapture and make available for re-use the energy on descent that was expended on ascent. Reducing energy consumption by 75 per cent for the same speed and load, compared to older models, with non-regenerative elevators.

The other example comes from Green Inc, the environmental blog of the New York Times. It involves the installation of a stationary fuel cell in a 69,000 sq ft supermarket in upstate New York, which has largely supplanted the electricity grid supply for the store’s lighting, heating and cooling requirements.

As the fuel cell supplier, UTC Power says fuel cells don’t have the energy waste of traditional power generation, where more than half of the energy goes up the stack as greenhouse gas. By contrast, fuel cell systems convert heat exhaust into cooling and heating, turning potential waste into usable energy, with an energy conversion efficiency exceeding 85 per cent.

by Ray Block

When Arthur J Goldman, the founder of Luz abandoned the parabolic trough for his new start up BrightSource Energy, the dominant feature is a 143-metre central power tower.

On top of the tower, 1600 double tracking heliostats (small mirrors) reflect sunlight on to a boiler to produce high temperature steam.

The company has contracts with the two largest utilities in California- PGE and SCE to deliver 2.6 GW of solar power from 2013 onward. It will start with a 100 MW unit at Ivanpah, with construction commencing in 2010. A new company Ivanpah Solar, bringing in the large specialist construction group Bechtel, as an equity partner will later be expanded to 440 MW, with the addition of three further solar plants.

BrightSource also intends to install 900 MW of solar power at Coyote Springs, Nevada, largely to fulfil contract agreements with the Californian utilities. Other expansion plans are for solar plants in Arizona and New Mexico.

With a much smaller area of land and less water usage, the power tower has cost advantages over the solar trough, and the energy efficiency can be as high as 34 per cent. But there is one major difficulty still to be overcome. The Andasol plants in Spain are fitted with thermal storage capability of 7.5 hours, which allows the operators of the power grid to rely on the solar plant to deliver power for at least two hours, irrespective of the cloud cover. BrightSource doesn’t have thermal storage capability at this stage.

Another company using the power tower concept is eSolar. Little more than two years old, founder Bill Gross, an entrepreneur in computer software has moved very quickly into CSP, with a power tower concept and thousands of small flat mirrors similar to BrightSource. A man in a hurry, Gross’ company already opened a demonstration plant in August 2009 with capacity of 5 MW in Lancaster, CA to prove that the technology produces cost effective electricity, and can be replicated.

The main cost of the plant is the steel and the actuator for controlling the small flat modular mirrors. The steel holds the mirror in shape without distorting, to stay in a perfect parabola. “Because we use a one square meter mirror, we use half the steel of a solar trough,” says Gross.

The eSolar system has computer controlled 24,000 individual mirrors, all pointing in slightly different directions to project on one spot, with each mirror having its own microprocessor to control movement. Software is made up of 50 people in a company of 135 staff. Bill Gross estimates that the build and install cost of a modular 46 MW plant will be between $2.50 and $3 per watt.

eSollar has inked in contracts for 245 MW with SCE in Southern California and one of 92 MW with El Paso Electric in New Mexico. This is quite modest compared to the latest step announced in January 20l0.

A deal with China Shandong Penglai Electric, brings eSolar into the big time. Involved is an almost certain technology transfer involving 2 GW of solar power in a $5 billion deal. The project will start off with 92 MW, with development starting in 2010.The magnitude of the whole contract is exceptional, given that the eSolar basic plant design is for 46 MW of generating capacity.

The Irish renewable energy investment company, NTR, which bought control of SES Systems and its sister company Tessera Solar in 2008 for $100 million has moved forward quickly, with an initial 1.5 MW plant in Peoria Arizona, and a 27 MW plant in San Antonio Texas, involving a 20 year power purchase agreement with CPS Energy.

SES, formerly Stirling Energy Systems, with a then struggling capital base had saddled itself in 2005 with big Californian contracts. These comprise the 900 MW Imperial Valley 1 and 2, and the 850 MW Calico 1 and 2 purchase power agreement in Southern California, with San Diego Gas & Electric and SCE. There have been difficulties with environmental lobby groups holding up regulatory approvals.

It is ironic that the SES technology is the most economic of all CSP systems in the amount of land utilised and in water usage. Yet the Calico project in the Mojave Desert, if it were to gain regulatory approval would still require 34,000 solar dishes, each 40ft high and 38ft wide on 8,230 acres.

The SES CSP system doesn’t have a parabolic trough, or a power tower. But the SunCatcher solar power collection dishes, which has been re-designed with the research of Sandia National Labs’ National Solar Test Facility is now ready for commercial production. Although, there is no capability for thermal storage, it may become a winner in some markets.

The modular SunCatcher uses precision mirrors attached to a parabolic dish to focus the sun’s rays onto a receiver, which transmits the heat to a Stirling engine. The engine is a sealed system filled with hydrogen. As the gas heats and cools, its pressure rises and falls. The change in pressure drives the piston inside the engine, producing mechanical power, which in turn drives a generator to make electricity.

The new SunCatcher is much lighter than the original model, it is round instead of rectangular to allow for more efficient use of steel, has improved optics, there are 60 per cent fewer engine parts, and fewer mirrors- 40 instead of 80. Automobile manufacturing techniques have been used. To reduce costs, the reflective mirrors are formed into a parabolic shape using stamped sheet metal.

Sandia National Labs test measurement of solar to grid conversion efficiency of the SES system made in February 2008 was 31.25 per cent.

The accepted view is that wind energy electricity per kWh is almost competitive with natural gas and coal, but solar energy is much more expensive. In turn, concentrating solar (CSP) in utility scale plants, is cheaper than solar PV

However, there is a concerted effort among CSP producers to bring down costs to more competitive levels. The then largest CSP developer in the world, the Israeli company Luz International, founded in 1980 designed and constructed for Southern California Edison (SCE), nine parabolic trough solar systems in the Mojave Desert.  The technology  consists of rows of curved mirrors focussing heat onto a tube filled with oil, which boils water to make steam for the turbine.

 Known as SEGS 1-9, California for the first time had concentrating solar generating capacity of 349 MW, the two final units each of 80 MW being installed in 1990. Although Luz planned more CSP plants, the company was bankrupted mainly because of dwindling levels of subsidies for this pioneering company.

 Considerable improvements in design enabled Luz to bring down electricity costs per kilowatt hour (kWh). The first two plants produced electricity at an uneconomic 24cents per kWh. The next five installed plants had reduced electricity costs to 12c per kWh, and the final two plants achieved an electricity cost down to 8c per kWh.

 The company aimed to enable new plants to generate electricity at 6c per kWh, which based on the first two plants would have allowed for a 75 per cent cost reduction. Each of the SEGS plants were configured as hybrids to use natural gas on cloudy days, or after dark.

 A great deal of ground has been made up in the last two years. At December 2009, there were 25 CSP projects under development in the US. These involved contracts for 6.2 GW, made up of 21 in California, two in Nevada, and one each in Arizona, Florida, New Mexico, and Hawaii.                           

 Today, parabolic trough systems are the most numerous in the CSP market, with the dominant suppliers Solar Millennium of Germany and Abengoa and Acciona of Spain. Solar Millennium’s three 50 MW plants in Andalusia, Spain (the third plant to be completed in 2011) is to be followed by a fourth 50 MW plant in the Spanish Extremadura region.

According to the suppliers, energy efficiency for each of the identical plants peaks at 28 per cent, with an average efficiency of 15 per cent. Each of the plants requires a ground area, equal to 70 soccer playing fields (195 hectares), and uses an immense amount of ground water. Given that CSP is most suitable in arid and desert conditions with large sun cover, the excessive water usage often leads to hostility among local landowners.

 Each of the Andasol plants has 209,664 large curved mirrors, each mirror being anchored at four points to a steel structure, with a laser scan checking each mirror’s curve at 1,000 measuring point per mirror. The parabolic trough system is about twice as expensive as other technology platforms on the market.

 Solar Millennium’s latest development is a contract of up to 726 MW with SCE in Southern California, with at least two solar trough plants each of 242 MW beginning construction in 2010. A third plant is also contemplated in the future.

 A likely solution to the cost of the traditional parabolic trough design comes from SkyFuel of New Mexico. With the collaboration of the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL),. Skyfuel is demonstrating its SkyTrough, where the traditional glass mirrors are replaced with lightweight glass-free highly reflective polymer mirror film reflectors. This is to be tested out at the site of Luz’s original SEGS 1 and 11 near Daggett, Southern California. Sunray Energy, a division of Cogentrix Energy  operates the SEGS plants supplying 43 MW of solar power to SCE. 

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By all accounts, geothermal resources in the world are immense. The Union of Concerned Scientists says that within 10 km (about 33,000 feet) of the Earth’s surface, the amount of heat contains 50,000 times more energy than all the known oil and natural gas reserves in the world.

Greater effort is now being made to exploit these resources, as the need to create low carbon economies becomes more urgent. Although there is a small volume of greenhouse gases involved, geothermal energy is available 24 hours a day, providing base load power at a price almost competitive with coal.

At September 2009, United States with the largest known geothermal resources in the world, is generating geothermal electric power in eight western states. California is the long time leader, with more than 40 geothermal plants providing nearly 5 per cent of the state’s electricity.

The state’s renewable energy requirement of 33 per cent by 2020 will spur more development. Nevada, the second largest geothermal producer has a 25 per cent renewable energy target by 2020, and this will also facilitate increased production. Soon another five states will also be generating electricity.

Total US installed geothermal capacity is currently 3.1 GW. Although representing less than 1 per cent of total US electricity capacity today, the aim is to reach at least 5 per cent of US power needs by 2020, and 10 per cent by 2030. The US Geothermal Energy Association says that 144 projects are now under development in 24 states, which could provide additional electricity capacity of 7 GW.

Up to $338 million in Recovery Act funding was allotted by the Obama Administration in 2009 for the exploration and development of new geothermal fields and research into advanced geothermal technologies. These grants matched on a one-for-one basis with private and non-federal cost share funds will support 123 projects in 39 states.

Conventional US geothermal resources on private and accessible public lands has a mean estimate of 33 GW, while the latest study by the US Geological Survey of geothermal resources in hot rock technology suggest an additional mean estimate of 518 GW available.

While the capacity factor in conventional geothermal production, (the amount of electricity produced) is at least 73 per cent, and may be only 30 per cent in hot rock technology, the overall resources are so large, that one day they may be able to supply much of the country’s electricity needs.

European geothermal resources are mainly in heating and cooling, directly exploiting the aquifers (Paris leads in low and medium energy resources), where the temperature ranges between 30 degrees C. and 150 degrees C. The second way is to produce heat using geothermal ground source heat pumps. The major European producers are Sweden, Italy, France, Hungary, Germany, Denmark.

The EU-27 country geothermal electricity target for 2020 is 6 GW, and for geothermal heating installed 39 GW. Outside the EU, Iceland with about 300,000 people is the geothermal standout,with 17 per cent of its electricity and 87 per cent of its direct heating from geothermal energy.

Everywhere on Earth, the deeper you go, the hotter it gets. Some of the regions are within the “Ring of Fire,” characterised by volcanoes, hot springs and fumaroles, (vents emitting hot gases), where the heat is close to the surface. These areas are around the rim of the Pacific Coast on the US and Canadian west coast – California, Nevada, Alaska, Hawaii, and down the Asian coast to include Japan, China, Philippines and Indonesia.

There is also the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain stretching from Iceland and the Azores to Antarctica, the East African Rift Valley mainly around Kenya, the East Pacific Rise paralleling the west coast of South America, the Rio Grande Rift running up through New Mexico and Colorado and the Juan de Fuca Ridge (tectonic spreading centre off the coast of Washington state and the adjoining province of British Columbia.)

There are two additional levels of geothermal resources. One of these is a steady supply of milder heat available for direct space heating, at depths down to 200 metres or so, which is available in parts of Europe and North America.

There is also the very large resource at depths of 3 km to 10 km (about 2 to 10 miles), where enhanced geothermal systems (EGS), also known as hot rock technology, has opened up a virtual Pandora box of energy treasures. In addition to the US, Australia, France, Germany and Japan have R&D programs to make EGS commercially viable.

In the EGS process, a fractured reservoir is created at a depth where the rock is hot. Water is continuously injected down a well into the engineered fractures, where the water heats as it flows through. The water is then brought to the surface via production wells, and its heat is extracted to generate electricity in power plants. Finally, the water depleted of its heat, is re-injected to be heated again.

Susan Petty, President of AltaRock Energy, whose company is exploiting an EGS project in Oregon gave evidence to the US Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources in 2007.She discussed the economics of the cost of geothermal electricity at depths of 3 km, and temperature of 300 degree C.

Her experience is that EGS at current technology could be generated for a cost of about US$74 MWh. This price includes financing costs and amortising the capital investment of the well field, but before profit. With incremental technology improvement, the cost of power could be cut in half