Once Upon A Time In Middle-Class America
About all that’s good about the current financial maelstrom is that it will help create a true ownership society.
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Archive for October, 2008
Boo!
Happy Halloween from the folks at SunRun! (and a preview of our new, soon-to-be-revealed logo)
Here are a few goofy folks dressed up in our San Francisco office:
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World’s First Chlorophyll Organic Battery Runs on Any Liquid
Professor Chungpin Hovering Liao of National Formosa University in Taiwan has created the world’s first chlorophyll organic battery. The battery can use any liquid—even urine—to power up. It doesn’t take much time to start juicing the battery, either. Within 10 seconds of being doused with liquid, the battery starts providing power.
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MG&E adds wind power, expands Green Power Tomorrow program
From a media release issued by MG&E:
Madison, Wis., Oct. 31, 2008—Madison Gas and Electric (MGE) increased wind power capacity by more than 12 times in 2008 as four new wind farms in Wisconsin and Iowa began production. The most recent addition to MGE’s renewable energy portfolio is a 10-year agreement with Osceola Wind Power II, LLC, a subsidiary of FPL Energy, to purchase 50 megawatts of wind energy.
“With strong customer support, MGE increased wind capacity from 11 to 137 megawatts this year alone,” said Gary J. Wolter, MGE chairman, president and CEO. “This exceeds the goal in our Energy 2015 plan, which set out to increase renewable energy up to ten fold.”
The latest green power comes from FPL Energy’s Endeavor II Wind Energy Center in northwest Iowa (Osceola and Dickinson counties), an area with some of the most robust wind resources in the Midwest. The new facility started operation this week.
Renewable energy is expected to account for more than 12% of MGE’s total energy supply in 2009, up from 1.6% in 2007. The additional wind energy allows continued expansion of MGE’s Green Power Tomorrow program. About 10% of MGE’s residential customers participate in the program, the highest rate of all investor-owned utilities in the United States.
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Hurricane Debris to Power Biomass Plant
The debris from Hurricane Ike, a depleted oil field and some biomass power expertise could soon start delivering clean power to the city of Houston, which is still recovering from the third-most destructive hurricane to hit the U.S. Biofuels Power Corp. signed an agreement today to create a biomass plant that will use wood chips and debris from the ongoing Hurricane Ike cleanup to produce 4 megawatts of clean energy and then sequester the carbon emissions in a depleted oil field.
Under the terms of the agreement, six acres of land will be leased from DSMC of Humble, Texas, a waste wood storage facility operator which has been the primary collector of debris for the City of Houston’s Hurricane Ike cleanup effort, and which will also supply the fodder for the plant. The land includes a number of abandoned oil wells that will be retrofitted for exhaust gas sequestration by Texoga Technologies Corp.. The end result will be a pilot-scale power plant that burns the city’s waste debris to produce power while safely storing the emissions underground. “We don’t expect our carbon sequestration activities to result in significant oil production, but surprising things can happen in old oil fields,” Fred O’Connor, president and CEO of Biofuels Power, said in a statement.
Biofuels Power will manage the project and contribute a 2.5-megawatt steam turbine, a 1.5-megawatt diesel electric generator and transformer and grid interconnect equipment. Based in The Woodlands, Texas, Biofuels Power currently operates two grid-connected biodiesel-powered plants and a biodiesel refinery.
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Democrats and Big Oil
Yesterday I participated in a blogger conference call with the American Petroleum Institute. The topic was Industry Earnings and Recent Oil Prices, and the audio and transcript may be found here.
My question was a political question regarding the seemingly permanent hostile relationship between oil companies and Democrats. My question, and comments that followed:
24:15 MR. RAPIER: Okay. One more question from me, a political question: If you look at political contributions, the contributions from oil companies to Republicans are – tend to outweigh those of Democrats and, subsequently, Democrats have a pretty hostile view toward oil companies. And I’m wondering how we improve that relationship. This is one thing that’s always frustrated me, was that there just seems to be this incredible distaste from Democrats and I never understood why we don’t open up a better relationship here with them, the Democratic leadership.
I think we’re about to have a Democrat in the White House who’s threatening windfall profits and all kinds of things and I can’t understand why we don‟t sit down and open up a better dialogue with the Democratic leadership.
25:01 MR. PUGLIARESI: You know, I have a little story to tell you about that. I happen to have been in a little meeting with Bennett Johnston, the former, as you know, the former senator from Louisiana. And he‟s a Democrat. And he said, you know, he was talking about – I sort of asked him a similar question. You know, why is the Democratic Party at war with the oil industry? I mean, in 2006, it was a cash cow. It generated like $130 billion of revenue to the government. I mean, compare that to the problems they’re having with GM. You know, they should be doing award dinners for these guys. And he said, you know, when we had Democrats from oil-producing states, we didn’t have these problems, because then, the party was afraid – (chuckles) – to overdo it. So you may be – we may be ending up in that direction in the next year if the polls turn out the way they seem to be.
26:53 CINDY KILKENNY: This is Cindy Kilkenny from Fairly Conservative. And I trained as a political scientist and I have to say it’s definitely a wedge issue and it’s very insightful. And I grew up in Oklahoma. My family – my brother is still in the oil patch and he’s been, so I see both sides of this and I know how it’s being used and it‟s just about what it redeems for whoever wants it at that point.
I don’t expect this relationship to get any better with a new administration, but I would certainly like to see it improve. As I have said before, I am probably a little left of center (although I have little in common with the far left or far right), but I think the Democratic party has the more naive view of energy policy. I get the impression that the leadership thinks that if they could just drive the oil companies out of business, we would all live happily ever after on clean, renewable energy.
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Duke, Progress to Test Smart-Charging Electric Cars
Duke Energy Carolinas and Progress Energy, two major utilities in the Southeast, have partnered to test a fleet of smart-charging plug-in electric Priuses in what they say will be the country’s first interstate electric car-charging scheme involving multiple utilities. Each of the Priuses will be equipped with a V2Green Connectivity Module while Advanced Energy, a non-profit focused on energy and transportation solutions, will design and implement the trial.
V2Green, which was bought by smart grid company GridPoint earlier this year, will also provide server-side software to manage the flow of electricity to and from the cars as the needs of the vehicles and grid dictate. The smart-charging system will maximize renewable energy resources when available and delay charging during peak demand hours.
The participation of both Duke and Progress will allow the trial to test the billing and operational challenges with running a “roaming” electric car charging system where vehicles will travel between adjoining utility service areas. This will be an important test for plug-in electrics as a viable plug-in electric vehicle program in the U.S. will have to have some element of inter-utility communication.
Duke and Progress are the latest additions to V2Green’s growing list of utility partners. The Seattle, Wash.-based startup is working with XCel Energy in Denver to test six PHEV-converted Ford Escapes. Meanwhile, down in Texas V2Green partnered with Austin Energy earlier this year to test two plug-in-prepped Priuses. Duke has been looking into plug-in electrics for a while too and earlier this year announced it would be collaborating with Coca-Cola to add plugs to some of their Priuses.
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The Ups and Downs of Wave Energy Technology
In January 2008, I had talked about how Pacific Gas & Electric (PG&E) in Northern California was working with Finavera to deploy an offshore wave farm. The AquaBuoys were to be placed out to sea a little north of San Francisco in Humboldt County.
Well, now the California Public Utilities Commission (PUC) has stricken this deal saying that wave energy was still in its experimental stages. The PUC also says that PG&E would be paying too much for the electricity generated by wave power.
Unfortunately for PG&E, they were hoping that this wave farm would help towards achieving California’s mandate that 20-percent of the electricity produced within the state by 2010 with renewable energy.
On the upside of the wave farm news this week is that the most recent wave energy prototype engineered by Columbia Power Technologies and Oregon State University has proven successful. The direct drive buoy, tested in collaborated with the U. S. Navy off the cost of Newport, Oregon, exceeded expectations.
The way the buoys are constructed they eliminate the necessity of a hydraulic systems and are in fact more robust in rugged ocean situations. As with any new renewable energy technologies there will be plenty of ups and downs when it comes to wave energy.
But, the biggest upside is clean, green, renewable energy on a massive scale that vastly available.
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Got a (LED) light?
by Cristina Foung
My favorite green product of the week: the GeoBulb LED Light Bulb from C. Crane
What is it?
The GeoBulb is an LED light bulb that uses less than 8 watts of electricity to produce 14% more light than the average 60 watt incandescent bulb. It’s roughly the same size and shape as an incandescent bulb and serves as a direct replacement for any indoor fixtures.
Why is it better?
First of all, the energy savings of using LED light bulbs over incandescent bulbs or even compact fluorescent bulbs. Not to mention, the bulb has a life span of 30,000 hours (which at continuous use, that would work out to be about 3 years; even using the bulb 8 hours a day, you’d still get 10 years out of it).
The reason the GeoBulb is a great option is because the quality of light and the brightness is in fact similar to an incandescent. I got a chance to check out some bulbs at West Coast Green. I was amazed at how bright they were, how cool to the touch they were, and how they didn’t buzz at all.
Where can you find it?
The GeoBulb does have a steep up-front cost of $119.95. You can order it through the C. Crane website (but it appears to be out of stock until December).
Besides her green products column on Cleantech Blog, Cristina is a passionate advocate for green living at the Green Home Huddle at Huddler.com, which focuses on electric cars, organic personal care, and other green products.
Content provided by and all rights reserved to CleantechBlog.com. Also check out http://www.cleantech.org
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Cash Strapped Tesla Looks To Raise $20M Internal Round
A little over a week after Tesla CEO and Chairman Elon Musk said that the company had pulled back from raising a $100 million round because of the credit crunch, Musk tells Reuters (and Tesla confirmed with us this morning) that the electric car maker plans to raise over $20 million from existing investors.
Tesla Senior Communications Manager Rachel Konrad said that will be enough to support the company until it is cashflow positive, and she notes that turning to existing investors means Tesla won’t have to face the daunting task of pitching new investors in the midst of a global liquidity crisis.
Musk’s interview with Reuters was a speedy response to a post in Valleywag last night that said Tesla has $9 million in the bank and may not deliver Roadsters that customers have already paid for. Valleywag posted a note reportedly from a disgruntled employee after an all-hands meeting on the company’s financial state.
Well, the $9 million cash balance part is true, and is shockingly little given that the company has raised at least $145 million from investors. But Musk is adamant that Tesla will deliver all of its Roadster orders, and tells Reuters that he will “personally ensure” that Tesla has enough money to complete that goal. Musk has already supplied $55 million of Tesla’s funds, and he seems willing to dole out even more.
We don’t doubt that Musk and existing investors will be able to keep Tesla going in the near term and ensure Roadster orders get delivered, but of bigger concern is Tesla’s larger plans for its Model S and eventually its even cheaper (potentially $20,000) electric car for the mass market. Tesla’s Konrad says the first Model S sedans are still expected to roll off the assembly line in the second half of 2011 — six to nine months later than originally anticipated. But there have been a lot of timelines set and not met at Tesla. If the financial turmoil continues, it could spell real trouble for Tesla and its plans to disrupt Detroit.
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