A landmark 2009 study, conducted by researchers at Iowa State’s Center for Agricultural and Rural Development, and updated this week for impacts through 2011, found that US ethanol production reduced wholesale gasoline prices by an average of $1.09 per gallon, in 2011.

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ARA’s ReadiJet Alternative Fuel Initiative has a new member: Chevron Lummus Global (CLG) a 50-50 joint venture between Chevron Products Company and Lummus Technology. The goal of the project is to create drop-in diesel and jet kero biofuels. The two companies will work together to combine ARA’s CH PROCESS technology with CLG’s ISOCONVERSION process technology to create drop-in biofuels for jet and diesel engines.

“The integrated ARA/CLG process provides a pathway for fulfilling the military and civilian markets’ requirements for alternative fuels at parity with petroleum while spurring opportunities for America’s farmers without subsidies,” said Rob Sues, ARA’s President and CEO.

ReadiJet fuel is currently being produced in anticipation for a number of upcoming activities including ground engine testing at OEM facilities, a test flight planned for June 2012 and generation of fit-for-purpose data necessary for ASTM certification.

According to Ed Coppola, ARA fuels principal engineer, the CH Process uses water to reduce hydrogen and catalyst consumption as well as carbon emissions when compared to other conversion processes.  Once the project proves successful and construction is complete on commercial scale biorefineries, CLG will provide licensing and engineering services, reactor engineering, catalyst supply, and start-up assistance.

“With the combination of ARA’s CH PROCESS and CLG’s ISOCONVERSION process technology, we can now produce fungible distillate fuels that meet full ASTM quality requirements and can be blended into refiners’ distillate fuel pools without the density and blending quality issues associated with other biodiesel processes on the market,” said CLG’s Co-Managing Director, Leon DeBruyn.

He added, “We’re also excited that our process works just as well with any other fatty acid bio-derived oils, plant seed oils, and algal oil, which will provide long lasting value for our customers by giving them flexibility to process what is available in the market.”

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The Aberdeen, Scotland City Council is offering a Hyundai Tucson ix35 hydrogen fuel cell vehicle to their car-sharing club members to test drive. This is believed to be the first time in the world that a car-sharing club has been given this opportunity.

ITM Power has offered their H-Fuel mobile hydrogen refueling station to refuel the vehicles with on-demand hydrogen. Refueling with compressed hydrogen gas takes about 4 minutes and gives the Hyundai a range of over 300 miles.

According to Chief Executive of the Aberdeen City Council Valerie Watts, “This is a major coup for Aberdeen and testament to the efforts of the enterprise, planning and infrastructure officers involved …

“…It is really encouraging that Hyundai recognises the city’s ambitious determination to develop expertise in this area and is working with us to promote it as a fuel of the future and fuel celled vehicles as the way forward in transport in the long term.”

I’ve talked many times about how Scotland is high on hydrogen and other forms of alternative and renewable energy such as wind turbine technology. Aberdeen is also planning to roll out a fleet of hydrogen buses in the near future. With this kind of commitment to hydrogen vehicles, Scotland is becoming another bright spot on the map of leading edge clean technology.

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Scientists at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies and Iowa State University discovered a family of plant proteins that play a role in the production of seed oils, substances important for animal and human nutrition, biorenewable chemicals and biofuels.

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This is the executive summary from a report issue by NREL.

Historically, federal incentives for renewable energy development in the U.S. largely consisted of the investment and production tax credits (ITC and PTC), the accelerated depreciation benefit for renewable energy property [the Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS), and the bonus depreciation]. The ITC and PTC provide financial incentives for development of renewable energy projects in the form of tax credits that can be used to offset taxes paid on company profits. Given that many renewable energy companies are relatively nascent and small, their tax liability is often less than the value of the tax credits received; therefore, some project developers are unable to immediately recoup the value of these tax credits directly. Typically, these developers have relied on third-party tax equity investors to monetize the value of the main federal incentives for renewable energy project development.

However, in the wake of the 2008/2009 financial crisis, the pool of tax equity investors significantly decreased, limiting the ability of renewable energy project developers to recoup the value of these tax credits. To minimize stagnation in the renewable energy industry as a result of the weakened tax equity market, the Congress created the §1603 Treasury grant program under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the stimulus program). This program offers renewable energy project developers a one-time cash payment—in lieu of the ITC and PTC and equal in value to the ITC (30% of total eligible costs of a project for most types of energy property)—thereby reducing the need for project developers to secure tax equity partners.

Although the primary intent of the §1603 program was to minimize the impact of the weakened tax-equity market on renewable project development, as part of the Recovery Act, the program also had “the near term goal of creating and retaining jobs” in the renewable energy sector.

In some cases, says NREL, totals may not equal the sum of components do to independent rounding and preservation of significant figures.

This analysis responds to a request from the Department of Energy Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (DOE-EERE) to the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to estimate the direct and indirect jobs and economic impacts of projects supported by the §1603 Treasury grant program. The analysis employs the Jobs and Economic Development Impacts (JEDI) models to estimate the gross jobs, earnings, and economic output supported by the construction and operation of solar photovoltaic (PV) and large wind (greater than 1 MW) projects funded by the §1603 grant program. As a gross analysis, this analysis does not include impacts from displaced energy or associated jobs, earnings
Through November 10, 2011, the §1603 grant program has provided about $9.0 billion in funds to over 23,000 photovoltaic (PV) and large wind projects, comprising 13.5 GW of electric generating capacity. This represents roughly 50% of total non-hydropower renewable capacity additions in 2009 to 2011.

The estimated gross jobs, earnings, and economic output supported by the PV and large wind projects that received §1603 funds are summarized below and in
Table ES-1:

• Construction- and installation-related expenditures are estimated to have supported an average of 52,000 to 75,000 direct and indirect jobs per year over the program’s operational period (2009 to 2011). This represents a total of 150,000 to 220,000 job-years. These expenditures are also estimated to have supported $9 billion to $14 billion in total earnings and $26 billion to $44 billion in economic output over this period. This represents an average of $3.2 billion to $4.9 billion per year in total earnings and $9 billion to $15 billion per year in output.

• Indirect jobs, or jobs in the manufacturing and associated supply-chain sectors, account for a significantly larger share of the estimated jobs (43,000 to 66,000 jobs/year) than those directly supporting the design, development, and construction/installation of systems (9,400/year).

• The annual operation and maintenance (O&M) of these PV and wind systems are estimated to support between 5,100 and 5,500 direct and indirect jobs per year on an ongoing basis over the 20 to 30-year estimated life of the systems.

Similar to the construction phase, the number of jobs directly supporting the O&M of the systems is significantly less than the number of jobs supporting manufacturing and associated supply chains (910 and 4,200 to 4,600 jobs per year, respectively).

The estimated ranges reported reflect uncertainty in the domestic content of a system and its components—the portion of total project expenditures spent on U.S.-manufactured equipment and materials such as turbines, towers, modules, or inverters. Based on a review of a number of studies specifically addressing domestic content for these types of systems, and recognizing the complexity and changing nature of solar and wind supply chains, a range for domestic content was applied in the analysis. This included a low of 30% to a high of 70% for both solar and wind systems, spanning the ranges observed in the literature. The lower end of the impact estimates noted above reflects the 30% domestic content assumption while the higher end reflects the 70% assumption. While this range reflects the implications of uncertainty in one key input to the economic impact estimates, it should not be construed as fully bounding uncertainty in the ultimate estimates of the economic impacts. Total investment in these projects, which includes capital investments from all private, regional, state, and federal sources (including §1603 funds), is estimated to exceed $30 billion. These PV and large wind projects account for about 94% of the total generation capacity of projects funded under the §1603 program and represent 92% of total payments.

The results presented in this report cannot be attributed to the §1603 grant program alone. Some projects supported by a §1603 award may have progressed without the award, while others may have progressed only as a direct result of the program; therefore, the jobs and economic impact estimates can only be attributed to the total investment in the projects.

In addition, this effort represents a preliminary analysis of the gross impacts of the PV and large wind projects supported under the §1603 grant program rather than precise forecasts of the national economic and job-related impacts from these projects. Understanding the net employment and economic impacts of these projects would require a more detailed analysis of the types of jobs supported as a result of changes in the use of existing power plants and associated fuels, electric utility revenues, and household and business energy expenditures. Similarly, estimating jobs associated with possible alternative spending of federal funds used to support §1603 projects would require additional analysis.

Lastly, this analysis solely focuses on the jobs, earnings, and economic output supported by projects funded by the §1603 program. For a discussion of the impacts of the §1603 program on installed renewable generation capacity, project financing, and tax-equity markets, see Brown and Sherlock and Bolinger et al. The full report is here: http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy12osti/52739.pdf

NREL
NREL.gov

Windpower Engineering & Development

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The Eco Wisper mount on a hinged tower that has been lowered to access the 20-kW turbine. The 30 blades are said to rotate almost without noise.

Renewable Energy Solutions Australia (RESA) is the owner of what it calls the world’s most advanced silent wind turbine for mid-sized applications, about 20kW. The turbine features a 30-blade design that is almost silent and up to 30% more efficient than traditional 3-bladed designs. The Eco Whisper Turbine stands 21.1-m high and can produce high energy in low or high winds with a footprint of only 21 m². In comparison, the same output from solar panels would require 250 m².

Following two years of development and testing in Australia, the turbine is ready. It’s first commercial installation is in Tullamarine. The turbine was a finalist in the 2011 Australian Cleantech Awards and was recently awarded a $250,000 commercialisation grant from the Australian government.

The Eco Whisper Turbine can offset medium to large energy requirements. It is suited to commercial, manufacturing, and industrial sites and other applications. It also works on and off grid application with a particular focus on remote communities and diesel replacement.

Other plusses are that it collects wind more efficiently and there are no turn away losses, it delivers more energy from more common wind speeds than three bladed designs, and it performs well in all wind conditions (lower start up speed compared to competitors)

Eco Wisper Turbines

Windpower Engineering & Development

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I’ve talked about the artificial leaf many times before as a novel idea in which significant amounts of hydrogen could be produced. In fact, in March of 2011, I had talked about a researcher named Daniel Nocera, Ph.D. who had created such an artificial leaf and was putting the polishing touches on it.

Today, however that leaf is polished and ready for the spotlight. Nocera and his team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have created an artificial leaf using cheap and common metals plus sunlight to split water into hydrogen and oxygen.

According to ACS.org, “The key to this breakthrough is Nocera’s recent discovery of several powerful new, inexpensive catalysts, made of nickel and cobalt, that are capable of efficiently splitting water into its two components, hydrogen and oxygen, under simple conditions. Right now, Nocera’s leaf is about 10 times more efficient at carrying out photosynthesis than a natural leaf. However, he is optimistic that he can boost the efficiency of the artificial leaf much higher in the future.”

Nocera’s idea was to use his artificial leaves in developing nations where homes are not tied to the national grid. Every home could be its own power plant. And while this is a good idea, another good idea is to use his artificial leaves in general to create hydrogen for cars, homes, fueling stations, home fueling stations and industry.

The sky’s the limit with Nocera’s artificial leaf. And when reaching for the sky, sometimes the sky reaches back.

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No form of energy really emits zero emissions, and that’s a point that’s both missed by casual advocates and overstated by strident critics.

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Yesterday I had talked about how a senior chemist, Radoslav Adzic, at the Brookhaven National Laboratory (run by the DOE) had won the 2012 Inventor of the Year Award for his work with reducing the amount of platinum needed in fuel cells.

Well, today the Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL) has some more big news this time in regard to developing platinum-free hydrogen production (similar to a fuel cell run in reverse). Another lab chemist, Kotaro Sasaki and his team (pictured above) have developed a robust electrocatalyst that splits water into hydrogen and oxygen and uses no platinum in the process.

Instead the electrocatalyst uses nickel, molybdenum and nitrogen to create a nanosheet structure with high surface area and high durability. According to BNL, “Water provides an ideal source of pure hydrogen – abundant and free of harmful greenhouse gas byproducts. The electrolysis of water, or splitting water (H2O) into oxygen (O2) and hydrogen (H2), requires external electricity and an efficient catalyst to break chemical bonds while shifting around protons and electrons. To justify the effort, the amount of energy put into the reaction must be as small as possible while still exceeding the minimum required by thermodynamics, a figure associated with what is called overpotential …

“…the principal metals in the new compound developed by the Brookhaven team are both abundant and cheap: $20 per kilogram for nickel and $32 per kilogram for molybdenum. Combined, that’s 1000 times less expensive than platinum.”

The researchers say that the new nanosheet performs almost as good as platinum in splitting water into hydrogen and oxygen plus it is durable and scalable as well. This means that commercialization of this electrocatalyst is viable and we can expect to see it making its way out of the lab sometime in the near future.

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Construction has begun on what will become Chile’s largest wind farm, a 115-megawatt development in the Antofagasta region in the northern part of the country.

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