U.S. Congress introduces Federal RPS legislation

Up to now, much of the responsibility for buying renewable energy to replace existing sources is being placed by state legislatures squarely on the back of their electric utilities. Progressive states have been enacting renewable portfolio standards (RPS) which place a set MW quantity or percentage number to be achieved by a specific date (click on chart below to enlarge). According to a recent issue in The Wall Street Journal the utilities used to be highly resistant but some are now realizing that the standards are not as difficult to comply with as they feared.

After several false starts, the federal government is considering similar legislation:

A bill about to be introduced in the Senate would push utilities to generate drastically more of their power -- 15%, compared with the current 2% -- from sources such as wind or the sun by 2020.

The good news is that entrepreneurs and developers who have long held out for capitalization of their innovative technologies, are suddenly finding a ready market to sell to, at a reasonable price.

Obviously, such requirements would have to be filled with different forms of renewable energy depending on which part of the country is involved. Some, like Rick Boucher of Virginia (Democratic chairman of the Energy and Commerce subcommittee) would like coal to be included as long as the carbon emissions are successfully sequestered. Expect this largely unproven technology to receive priority treatment as the voting nears.

Those states that have fewer renewable resources could purchase green tags, aka "Renewable Energy Credits" (RECs), from those states that produce surpluses.

Here are some excerpts from the article published May 25th...

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Senate Pushes Utilities on 'Green' Sources
Proposal to Require Significant Increase Has Broad Support
by John J. Fialka

The Senate proposal, authored by Sen. Jeff Bingaman, the New Mexico Democrat who is chairman of the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources, defines renewable energy sources as wind, solar, geothermal, wood chips and other biofuels, as well as various ways to make energy from tides and ocean waves.

So far, state laws, which cover 40% of the U.S. population, haven't made a big difference. The percentage of renewable fuels used in the U.S. has hovered from 2% to 2.5% in recent years and will reach only 5.5% by 2020, when most of the state standards are fully phased in. Dr. Wiser estimates state laws have raised the average consumer's utility bill by 38 cents a month. "Clearly, if you want to expand renewable fuels, something has to be done beyond this," he says.

Backers of the Bingaman legislation think the bill could do the trick.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, bioenergy, RECs, sequestration

California's electricity - Phasing out coal

In its headlong rush to take the front line in the fight against Global Warming (California's AB32) the California Energy Commission has approved regulations that limit the purchase of electricity from power plants that fail to meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards. That has to be considered bad news for neighboring states which have built coal plant facilities specifically to service the insatiable electricity demands of Californians. According to the Los Angeles Times, 47% of the electricity purchased by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power comes from giant coal-fired plants in Arizona and Utah.

The benchmark number that new contracts must meet is 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt hour. A 2000 study by the U.S. Department of Energy, Carbon Dioxide Emissions from the Generation of Electric Power in the United States, shows that the standard means electricity coming from plants that are cleaner than the average natural gas plants of 1999 (1,321 versus coal's whopping average of 2,095 pounds of CO2 per megawatt hour).

There is no discrimination between carbon positive (fossil fuels) vs. carbon neutral sources of energy. There should be because co-firing carbon neutral biostock could ease the blow to existing coal plant operations.

It is important to note that California periodically suffers brown-outs during the summer months and was the victim of the deregulation electricity nightmare of 2000 and 2001. As Wikipedia recounts the tail:

The California electricity crisis (also known as the Western Energy Crisis) of 2000 and 2001 resulted from the gaming of a partially deregulated California energy system by energy companies such as Enron and Reliant Energy. The energy crisis was characterized by a combination of extremely high prices and rolling blackouts. Price instability and spikes lasted from May 2000 to September 2001. Rolling blackouts began in June 2000 and recurred several times in the following 12 months.

That is not to suggest that current legislation is a "result of gaming". However, it is important that compensating power generators be contracted relatively quickly with a clearcut guarantees that the current benchmark does not suffer downward creep that would raise the risks for investors. As we learned in 2001, it is the public that will suffer the possible consequences and pay the ultimate tab of mis-steps of our energy decisionmakers.

Here is a reprint of the press release made May 23, 2007 by the California Energy Commission...

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New Regulations Restrict Purchase of Electricity From Power Plants That Exceed Greenhouse Gas Emission Limits
New Performance Standard to Regulate Power Plants

The California Energy Commission today approved regulations that limit the purchase of electricity from power plants that fail to meet strict greenhouse gas emissions standards. New regulations, as part of SB 1368 (Perata), prohibit the state's publicly owned utilities from entering into long-term financial commitments with plants that exceed 1,100 pounds of carbon dioxide (CO2) per megawatt hour.

"Working with the Legislature, the Governor has demonstrated a clear vision with this first-in-the-nation legislation to reduce emissions," said Energy Commission Chairman Jackalyne Pfannenstiel. "His bold leadership is helping to reduce California's carbon footprint by ensuring a clean supply of electricity," continued Pfannenstiel.

The implementation of SB 1368 is part of the Energy Commission's further implementation of AB 32 (Nunez), a landmark bill signed by Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger that calls for California to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases by 25 percent by 2020.

To reduce greenhouse gas emissions, SB 1368 directed the Energy Commission, in collaboration with the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) and the California Air Resources Board, to establish a greenhouse gas emission performance standard for power plants.

This standard was reached by evaluating existing combined-cycle natural gas baseload power plants across the west and is the same CO2 measurement approved by the CPUC.

Created by the Legislature in 1974, the California Energy Commission is the state's primary energy policy and planning agency. The Energy Commission has five major responsibilities: forecasting future energy needs and keeping historical energy data; licensing thermal power plants 50 megawatts or larger; promoting energy efficiency through appliance and building standards; developing energy technologies and supporting renewable energy; and planning for and directing state response to energy emergency.

technorati BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, legislation

Good News from the DOE about Carbon Sequestration

According to a new Department of Energy study U.S. and Canadian power plants are sitting on a 900 year storage capacity for their carbon sequestration. Getting the CO2 underground into the subterranean storage formations is not a process currently practiced in the United States (as it is in Europe) but it is good to know that we have the capacity to use as part of an overall carbon mitigation program.

DOE’s Carbon Sequestration Program involves two key elements for technology development: (1) Core R&D and (2) Demonstration and Deployment. The Core R&D element contains five focal areas for carbon sequestration technology development: (1) CO2 Capture, (2) Carbon Storage, (3) Monitoring, Mitigation, and Verification, (4) Non-CO2 Greenhouse Gas Control, and (5) Breakthrough Concepts. Core R&D is driven by industry’s technology needs and is accomplished through laboratory and pilot-scale research aimed at developing new technologies and new systems for GHG mitigation.

As shown in this Atlas, CCS holds great promise as part of a portfolio of technologies that enables the U.S. and the rest of the world to address climate change while meeting the energy demands of an ever increasing global population. The Atlas includes the most current and best available estimates of potential carbon dioxide (CO2) sequestration capacities determined by a methodology applied consistently across all of the Regional Carbon Sequestration Partnerships (RCSP). All data were collected before December 2006. In the course of developing these CO2 sequestration capacity estimates, it became clear that some areas had yielded more and better quality data than others. Therefore, it is acknowledged that these data sets are not comprehensive; it is, however, anticipated that CO2 sequestration capacity estimates as well as geologic formation maps will be updated annually as new data are acquired and methodologies for CO2 sequestration capacity estimates improve.

technorati BIOblog, BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, biofuels, waste, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

Using fungi to produce ethanol & biodegradeable material

Biopact has run a story about a Swedish science team whose research into Zygomycetes (an order of more than 100 different fungi) has discovered a saprophyte that grows easily in waste and drainage that converts it into ethanol and can be used to extract an unbelieveably useful super-absorbent and antibacterial cell-wall material that is biodegradeable!

Is it April 1st yet? You might want to look at the source article that appeared in the European Research website. As they report "The bottom line is that this discovery will benefit not only nature, but the paper industry and manufacturers of diapers and feminine hygiene products as well."

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Scientists discover fungus to convert biomass into ethanol, and into biodegradable antibacterial and super-absorbent material

A research team at University College of Borås in Sweden, headed by Professor Mohammad Taherzadeh, in collaboration with scientists from Göteborg University has made a unique discovery. It consists of a fungus that converts biomass waste into ethanol in a highly efficient manner. Moreover, from the residual biomass resulting from the ethanol production the researchers were able to extract a powerful antibacterial and super-absorbent material that can be used in the hygiene industry (medical and sanitary napkins, etc...). The material is biodegradable, and promises to solve a significant waste problem.

Being able to convert sulfite lye for the production of ethanol is good news, in both economic and environmental terms. Sulfite lye, which is a byproduct of the production of paper and viscose pulp, is difficult for factories to dispose of since it contains chemicals that must not be casually released in nature. From being a highly undesirable byproduct for the paper industry, sulfite lye will now be an attractive raw material for the extraction of ethanol:

"Today baker's yeast is used for the production of ethanol, but we have found a fungus that is more effective than baker's yeast," says Mohammad Taherzadeh, professor of biotechnology at the School of Engineering, University College of Borås, and one of the world's leading ethanol researchers.

Zygomycetes are not only highly effective in producing ethanol; the research team also found that the biomass that is left over in the production of ethanol can be used to extract a cell-wall material that is super-absorbent and antibacterial. What's more, it's a biological material that can be composted and recycled:

This discovery opens an entirely new dimension for research on the fungi, according to Mohammad Taherzadeh, whose project "Production of antimicrobial super-absorbent from sulfite lye using zygomycetes" was recently awarded more than 800,000 Swedish Crowns (€85,000/US$ 114,000) from the Knowledge Foundation to continue its research into this cell-wall material.


technorati BIOblog, BIOoutput, biofuels, waste, bioenergy, bioproducts

The IPCC Report solution? Renewable Energy.

As they say, timing is everything. Right before holding their annual Power-Gen Renewable Energy & Fuels conference March 5-8 in Las Vegas the American Council On Renewable Energy (ACORE) is served up an alarming report furthering speculation about the effects of global warming on climate change. The report is the work of an intergovernmental body called the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Bureau. Who is the IPCC Bureau?

The World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the IPCC in 1988. It is open to all members of the United Nations and WMO. The Panel’s role is to assess on a comprehensive, objective, open and transparent basis the best available scientific, technical and socio-economic information on climate change from around the world. The assessments are based on information contained in peer-reviewed literature and, where appropriately documented, in industry literature and traditional practices. They draw on the work of hundreds of experts from all regions of the world. IPCC reports seek to ensure a balanced reporting of existing viewpoints and to be policy-relevant but not policy-prescriptive. Since its establishment the IPCC has produced a series of publications.

ACORE is "focused on accelerating the adoption of renewable energy technologies into the mainstream of American society through work in convening, information publishing and communications." At their meeting in Las Vegas next month renewable energy solutions (including wind, solar, biomass and fuels, hydro and geothermal) will be presented and technical, strategic, regulatory, structural and economic issues discussed.

Last year's conference was scholarly and instructive with the focus on who is doing what and what needs to be done. I highly recommend attendence to anyone involved in engineering design, systems, and management. I also recommend it to policy makers and their staffs in government and utilities. For more information on the event, visit the ACORE POWER-GEN Renewable Energy & Fuels (PGRE&F) webpage where there is a broader description of the event, a list of exhibitors and speakers, and archive of past events.

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ACORE Answers IPCC Report - Renewable Energy is "the Major Solution" in Mitigating Climate Change

Responding to the alarming conclusions released today in the new assessment report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) several leaders from ACORE, the American Council On Renewable Energy point out the role of wind, solar, geothermal, and other renewables in reversing the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The report determined with near certainty that these heat-trapping gasses are the main contributors to global warming. To quote from the document, “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic (human caused) greenhouse gas concentrations.”

“The IPCC has again underscored the seriousness of the climate challenge and the likely consequences of failing to address this global threat,” says Roger Ballentine ACORE board member. “Fortunately, we have the tools we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and stabilize our climate – if we have the will to use them….there is no bigger and better tool in our toolbox than renewable energy.”

“When the world agrees that climate change is real, as we are doing here today, and we turn to the search for solutions, renewable energy will be seen as the major solution to climate change along with far greater levels of energy efficiency,” says Mike Eckhart, President of ACORE, speaking from Paris.

The IPCC report is the broadest and most respected scientific assessment of the impact of human activity on the world’s climate. It reflects a growing consensus among the more than 2000 scientists who wrote and reviewed each of the 4 reports issued by the IPCC since 1990 that we are set on a trajectory of accelerated climate warming, changing weather patterns and rising sea levels unless the world dramatically reduces the burning of fossil fuels and greatly expands the use of renewable energy.

technorati BIOblog, BIOoutput, emissions, electricity, biofuels, waste, vehicles, bioenergy, bioproducts

From Food to Fuel to Fashion

Well, it's not exactly up to the level inspired by George Washington Carver yet, but take it as an indication that one of the benefits of a paradigm shift to renewable biofuels will be stimulation of new byproduct and side-stream chemical industries. Aside from further weaning us from petroleum waste conversion, bioproducts are good "carbon sinks" and, more often than not, biodegradable.

Here was a little fun at the BIO 2006 conference:

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From Food to Fuel to Fashion
BIO 2006 Features Consumer Products Made With Industrial Biotechnology
by Paul Winters at BIO

On Monday, April 10, during the BIO 2006 International Conference, BIO hosted a media brunch, "From Food to Fuel to Fashion: Industrial Biotech Does It All." The brunch provided reporters an opportunity to taste, use, and see products produced through industrial and environmental biotechnology, as well as learn how these technologies can enable energy security.

The highlight of the brunch was a fashion show with models wearing everyday clothing and designer clothes made from polylactic acid (PLA), a compostable biopolymer made from dextrose corn sugar. There were also exhibits of products made from PLA and polyhydroxyalkanoate (PHA), including bedding products, packaging materials, and baby products.

The menu featured foods made with the help of enzymes or flavorings manufactured through industrial biotechnology, including yogurts, breads and rolls, meats, and juices. All foods and beverages were served on bioplastic plates, cups and utensils made from agricultural feedstocks, instead of oil.

(Sue Cischke, Vice President, Environment and Safety Engineering at Ford) outlined Ford's interest in biotechnology, reminding the audience, "Henry Ford maintained a keen interest in materials that could be grown on the farm and built into automobiles." Ford, she said, is looking to form a coalition of industries - including automobiles, fuel distributors, and innovators - to work toward the goal of replacing petroleum-based products in industry.

Brent Erickson, executive vice president of BIO's Industrial and Environmental Biotechnology Section, hosted the event.

Erickson predicted that 2006 would be the tipping point in the creation of a biobased economy in the United States, with renewable products replacing petroleum-based products in countless industries.


technorati BIOblog, BIOoutput, carbon sinks, biofuels, bioenergy, bioproducts

U.S. D.O.E.: Strategies for Reducing Greenhouse Gases

On September 21st the U.S. Department of Energy released their Climate Change Technology Program (CCTP) Strategic Plan which describes broadscope measures that the D.O.E. should pursue to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The publication of the study confirms that the U.S. Department of Energy considers "climate change" to be a pressing issue:

As a party to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), the United States shares with many other countries the UNFCCC’s ultimate objective, that is, the “…stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in Earth’s atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system . . . within a time-frame sufficient to allow ecosystems to adapt naturally to climate change, to ensure that food production is not threatened, and to enable economic development to proceed in a sustainable manner.” Meeting this objective will require a sustained, long-term commitment by all nations over many generations.

Technologies emphasized for development are hydrogen extraction, biorefining, renewable power generation, clean coal and carbon sequestration, nuclear fission and fusion. Of these, biomass conversion is applicable to all but nuclear fission and fusion.

To read the rest of the article on the BIOconversion Blog, press HERE.


technorati bioenergy, strategy, DOE, syngas, government, biofuels, greenhouse, global warming, ethanol

Impact of Global Growth on Carbon Emissions

"Business as usual" could could have serious long-term consequences for global energy consumption and carbon emissions. According to a report released by PriceWaterhouse-Coopers (PwC) last month, global carbon emissions from fossil fuels are going to more than double by the year 2050 unless a number of significant policy changes are enacted soon to deploy technological emission reduction measures.

In March 2006, PwC published a report, The World in 2050: How big will the emerging market economies get and how can the OECD compete?, on the rapid growth of the "E7" emerging economies (China, India, Brazil, Russia, Mexico, India, and Turkey). They project the combined economies of these countries could be 25-75% greater than the G7 countries (U.S., Japan, Germany, UK, France, Italy, Canada) by 2050.

The questions unaddressed by that report - what consequences on global climate will that growth cause? What is the need for change?

These questions are covered in a follow-up study, The World in 2050: implications of global growth for carbon emissions and climate change policy released in September. In it, the author provided a baseline estimate of carbon emissions with the current rate of energy efficiency. He then developed five different scenarios incorporating more successively aggressive measures.

To read more of this article on the BIOconversion Blog, press HERE.


technorati greenhouse, emissions, policy, global warming, bioenergy, environment, carbon, sequestration

Terra Preta: Black is the New Green

In August I cited an article on Terra Preta that focused on an organic method of sequestering carbon in the soil.

On the World Changing website, I recently ran across an article and a conversion technology animation involving pyrolysis and the generation of charcoal for the production of a high carbon fertilizer. Such a process would not only add to the sustainability of soil for the cultivation of healthy crops, but also provide a carbon sink alternative to geosequestration methods.

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Terra Preta: Black is the New Green
by David Zaks and Chad Monfreda
Worldchanging

Carbon sequestration faces some major hurdles. Technical geosequestration methods could pump large amounts of CO2 deep underground but are still under development. On the other hand, natural methods that store carbon in living ecosystems may be possible in the short term but require huge swathes of land and are only as stable the ecosystems themselves. An ideal solution, however, would combine the quick fix of biological methods with the absolute potential of technical ones. Terra preta may do just that, as a recent article in the journal Nature reveals.

The difference between terra preta and ordinary soils is immense. A hectare of meter-deep terra preta can contain 250 tonnes of carbon, as opposed to 100 tonnes in unimproved soils from similar parent material, according to Bruno Glaser, of the University of Bayreuth, Germany. To understand what this means, the difference in the carbon between these soils matches all of the vegetation on top of them. Furthermore, there is no clear limit to just how much biochar can be added to the soil.

Claims for biochar's capacity to capture carbon sound almost audacious. Johannes Lehmann, soil scientist and author of Amazonian Dark Earths: Origin, Properties, Management, believes that a strategy combining biochar with biofuels could ultimately offset 9.5 billion tons of carbon per year-an amount equal to the total current fossil fuel emissions!

Biofuels are touted as 'carbon neutral', but biofuels and biochar together promise to be 'carbon negative'. Danny Day, the founder of a company called Eprida is already putting these concepts into motion with systems that turn farm waste into hydrogen, biofuel, and biochar.

The Eprida technology uses agricultural waste biomass to produce hydrogen-rich bio-fuels and a new restorative high-carbon fertilizer (ECOSS) ...In tropical or depleted soils ECOSS fertilizer sustainably improves soil fertility, water holding and plant yield far beyond what is possible with nitrogen fertilizers alone. The hydrogen produced from biomass can be used to make ethanol, or a Fischer-Tropsch gas-to-liquids diesel (BTL diesel), as well as the ammonia used to enrich the carbon to make ECOSS fertilizer.

Terra preta's full beauty appears in this closed loop. Unlike traditional sequestration rates that follow diminishing marginal returns-aquifers fill up, forests mature-practices based on terra preta see increasing returns. Terra preta doubles or even triples crop yields. More growth means more terra preta, begetting a virtuous cycle. While a global rollout of terra preta is still a ways away, it heralds yet another transformation of waste into resources.


technorati Biopact, soil, Africa, terra preta, carbon, sequestration, greenhouse gases, biofuels