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1. Rhode Island Could Get North America's First Offshore Wind Farm
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2. Ethanol Deathwatch: Pacific Ethanol Suspends Madera Plant
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3. Watchdog Group Bashes International Energy Agency on Renewables
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4. Daily Sprout
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5. Verenium Cranks Up Demo Plant — What Next?
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6. How Realistic is Obama's Goal to Double Clean Energy by 2012?
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7. "Strange Light" Destroys Wind Turbine: UFO?!
Rhode Island Could Get North America's First Offshore Wind Farm
David Ehrlich - Big Green
The governor of Rhode Island signed a final agreement yesterday with Deepwater Wind for a big offshore wind farm for the tiny state, announcing that construction is expected to start in late 2010. That puts the $1.5 billion, 400 MW project in line to be the first offshore wind farm constructed in North America, according to Gov. Donald Carcieri.
Although there are numerous offshore wind farms in Europe, offshore projects have met with repeated resistance in the U.S., either due to cost, or, in the case of Cape Wind in Massachusetts, vocal opposition to turbines from prominent residents, who fear that such development could ruin their ocean view.
Carcieri first announced a deal with Deepwater Wind back in September after putting out a request for proposals earlier in the year. Deepwater Wind, backed by First Wind, DE Shaw & Co. and Ospraie Management, has since made another deal for a big offshore wind project in New Jersey.
The Rhode Island project is likely to be a little late in meeting the governor’s original target of generating enough power to cover 15 percent of the state’s electricity needs by 2012. Phase One of the project, to go in state waters, is expected to be complete in late June 2012 and generate 20 MW of power. A timeline for Phase Two, which will go in federal waters, has yet to be released. Deepwater Wind will first need approval from the Minerals Management Service, part of the Department of the Interior, for a lease of submerged federal lands to build the larger wind farm.
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Ethanol Deathwatch: Pacific Ethanol Suspends Madera Plant
Katie Fehrenbacher - Biofuels
Pacific Ethanol cited “extended unfavorable market conditions for producing ethanol” as the reason for halting production at the plant. While corn-based ethanol makers are pulling back on production and struggling to keep operations going, the next-generation cellulosic ethanol producers are delaying plant construction plans and moving slower than most had predicted in 2008. In December 2007, Pacific Ethanol also suspended construction plans for a 50-million-gallon-per-year plant near Calipatria, Calif. We added Pacific Ethanol’s Madera plant to our map.
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Watchdog Group Bashes International Energy Agency on Renewables
David Ehrlich - Big Green
It’s hard to ignore the massive growth of the wind industry over the past decade, but a German watchdog group says that’s just what the International Energy Agency has been doing. The IEA is an intergovernmental organization that acts as an energy policy adviser to most major governments around the world.
In a report released today, the Energy Watch Group, backed by the nonprofit Ludwig Bölkow Foundation, accuses the IEA of showing “ignorance and contempt” toward wind power — and renewables in general — and said the IEA has consistently under-estimated the growth of renewable energy.
The IEA releases a yearly World Energy Outlook report covering energy demand and supply projections. Back in 1998, IEA’s outlook predicted cumulative installations of 47.4 gigawatts of wind power by 2020, but the Energy Watch Group said that prediction was exceeded in December 2004. In its 2002 outlook, the IEA upped its prediction to 104 GW of wind power by 2020, but that number was surpassed just this past summer, according to the watchdog group.
“The worst forecasts on wind regularly came and still do come from the International Energy Agency,” said the Energy Watch Group in its report. “Renewables tend to look ever expensive and close to irrelevant while oil, coal and nuclear look irreplaceable in the IEA World Energy Outlook reference scenarios.”
But why are IEA’s reports so far off the mark? Rudolf Rechsteiner, the author of the Energy Watch Group report, and a member of the Swiss Parliament who sits on its energy and environment committee, told the Guardian that the IEA has close ties to the traditional energy market, and that it routinely fills its senior staff with recruits from the fossil-fuel industry.
“The oil business is very skillful in keeping its energy access exclusive,” he told the Guardian.
The Energy Watch Group makes its own bold predictions in today’s report, with one scenario forecasting that wind capacity could reach 7,500 GW by 2025, with wind and solar accounting for half of all new power projects. Under that scenario, which predicts high power consumption and high wind power growth, the group said non-renewable power generation will peak in 2018 and could be phased out completely by 2037.
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Daily Sprout
Josie Garthwaite - Misc
Hybrid Hacking 101: A delay with the battery pack has made Toyota pull its plug-in Prius from the Detroit Auto Show. Hybrid hackers needn’t wait for battery perfection. — The Economist
X Prize Baits Big 3 to Create 100 MPG Cars: Organizers of the Progressive Automotive X Prize are creating a special division for major automakers, although winners won’t qualify for the $10 million bounty.– The Detroit News
Toyota Asks Workers to Take Pay Cuts: Toyota Motor Corp. has entered negotiations with workers in Japan to slash salaries as it slows production in response to slumping global demand. — Associated Press
The Other Green Jobs: President-elect Barack Obama wants to boost the efficiency of 200 two million homes as part of an economic stimulus package. You can picture manufacturing jobs for solar panels and wind turbines, but what kinds of jobs might be generated by the drive for increased home energy efficiency? — NYT’s Green Inc.
Park It Right There: The London borough of Richmond plans to slap an extra parking fee on drivers of gas-guzzlers. Vehicles with the most carbon emissions will pay about $2.89 an hour for street parking. — Wired’s Autopia
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Verenium Cranks Up Demo Plant — What Next?
Katie Fehrenbacher - Biofuels
Remember cellulosic ethanol startup Verenium? Last we heard the company had started the commissioning phase of its cellulosic ethanol demo plant in May 2008, and it had big plans to start construction of a 30-million-gallon-per-year commercial plant in the middle of 2009. Well, a glowing story on the company came out in USA Today this week, which says the company just this week “cranked up” the demo plant. Verenium spokesperson Morgen Grandjean provided a few more details to us in an email and said the commissioning phase of the demo plant is 75 percent completed. The plant is currently producing small amounts of cellulosic ethanol at this time, but “the plant has not been running continuously.”
The USA Today article makes no mention of plans for a commercial scale plant. Instead, the story says Range Fuels’ commercial plant is expected to be the first in the U.S. later this year. Verenium’s Grandjean told us in an email that the company is “still slated to break ground on our first commercial facility in the second half of this year.” So, either the company failed to tell the USA Today reporter that information, or the reporter failed to include it. We would guess that, if the company does start construction of a commercial plant in the “second half of this year,” it will be more towards the end of 2009.
The USA Today story also doesn’t mention some financial hurdles facing Verenium: In December, the company put out an announcement that said it wasn’t in compliance with NASDAQ rules for maintaining a minimum market capitalization. The company had until this week to regain compliance; if it was unable to meet that deadline it could appeal or apply for transfer to the Nasdaq Capital Markets. We’re not sure what the company’s moves were.
The company has been spending very heavily. That’s not surprising given that Verenium is just turning on its demo plant and hasn’t started any considerable production yet, but for just the three months ending Sept. 30, 2008, the company reported a net loss of $133.24 million. And that loss was way up from the same period for 2007, in which the company reported a loss of $20.50 million. At this point the company has little revenue coming in; for the quarter ending Sept. 30, the company reported revenues of $16.38 million.
One thing Verenium does have in its corner is the promise of more funding from its partnership with biofuels bigwig BP. The deal with BP provides Verenium with $45 million in payments over the first 12 months of the agreement, and $2.5 million per month over an 18-month period. The deal created a special purpose entity called Galaxy Biofuels, which will have access to Verenium’s technology and will be jointly owned by BP and Verenium.
Verenium is actually better off than many companies trying to pioneer cellulosic ethanol in this difficult economic climate. BlueFire Ethanol told Reuters recently that it is delaying groundbreaking on its cellulosic ethanol plant in Lancaster, Calif., for several months.
Verenium’s coverage in the USA Today article positions cellulosic ethanol as a solution that is just around the corner. The article says: “Simply put, the nation will soon be running its cars, at least partly, on debris,” and also emphasizes that while corn-based ethanol makers are struggling, cellulosic ethanol makers are laying the groundwork for the next revolution. The cellulosic ethanol companies are struggling with many of the same things that the corn guys are facing in 2009 — especially access to capital. And even if those challenges are conquered, cellulosic ethanol won’t make much of a dent in the fuel supply for many years to come.
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How Realistic is Obama's Goal to Double Clean Energy by 2012?
Josie Garthwaite - Big Green
Laying out his plan for economic stimulus yesterday afternoon, President-elect Barack Obama called for the U.S. to double renewable energy production within three years. That’s a hefty challenge for a country playing catch-up on clean power (renewables now make up less than 10 percent of U.S. energy generation) while beset with a trillion-dollar deficit. Some Senate Democrats have called energy-related spending and tax incentives “way under-represented” in Obama’s plan. So even with a president pledging to create 5 million green jobs and invest $150 billion in clean energy and advanced vehicle technology, how feasible is it for the U.S. to get to around 19 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2012?
An Obama aide provided details on how the President-elect intends to meet the target in an email to the Wall Street Journal, which it published this morning. The incoming administration estimates that the U.S. currently produces 24,000 MW of wind, solar and geothermal power, and the optimistic email noted that wind generation would play a key role in doubling that figure, accounting for an additional 20,000 MW. Solar and geothermal are expected to fill in the rest. But not everyone has such a rosy projection of how quickly renewable energy generation can grow.
Last year, the Energy Information Administration projected that renewable sources would fuel only 12.5 percent of total U.S. electricity generation in 2030, up from 8.4 percent in 2007. Last month, the EIA set its forecast for 2009 renewable fuel consumption growth at 3.3 percent. That was before anyone was talking (as Obama did yesterday) about a finance-sapping recession lingering for years — and still the pace was forecast at far less than double in more than two decades. However, with the Obama administration offering support for renewable energy, some industry players are optimistic.
The solar sector, now a relatively small player on the national grid, hopes to pull more than its share. According to Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) spokesperson Monique Hanis, doubling output to a total of about 7 gigawatts in three years is not unrealistic. “We’ve already seen that kind of growth in the last three years,” Hanis said, “and I think we can definitely increase our contribution to the overall picture.”
Government PV installations, which SEIA called for last month, would be one way for solar to ramp up. But for the kind of growth targeted for 2012, utility-scale solar systems (like the more than 30 plants we’ve mapped out here) and wind farms generating 1 megawatt or more will play a role.
Wind power, as the email cited in the WSJ notes, has a head start, with installed capacity increasing by 45 percent in 2007 alone. Wind’s installed generating capacity for electricity exceeded geothermal for the first time that year. And, the email notes, “Before the financial crisis brought the renewable industry to a halt, the wind industry publicly announced the expectation to install at least 7500 MW in 2008.” According to the American Wind Energy Association, there’s potential for wind to generate twice the current U.S. electricity supply. The Obama team says it will provide “significant loan guarantees” to the industry to help meet its targets, followed by a national renewable portfolio standard.
Gigawatts could become the new megawatts if governments globally grease the wheels for Godzilla-sized power plants. The incoming president knows at least one thing about what needs to happen to reach his goal: “This plan must begin today.”
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"Strange Light" Destroys Wind Turbine: UFO?!
Josie Garthwaite - Energy
Or not. Wind turbines, like Janet Jackson’s wardrobe, do occasionally malfunction. A Vestas Wind Systems’ turbine self-destructed just over a year ago in Denmark (we have the video here), and the Industrial Wind Action Group has documented at least 35 instances of wind turbine failures in the last few years. Make that 36.
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"With the oceans covering over 70% of the earth’s surface, they are the world’s largest collector and retainer of the sun’s vast energy – and the largest powerhouse in the world. Jacques Cousteau said it was equivalent to 16,000 nuclear plants. This energy is continually renewed and is available 24/7.Just a small portion of the energy conveniently stored in the oceans could power the world" ... these type of comments are posted by the experts who work with JustMeans... if you are an expert related to CSR, Green Jobs, Ethical Consumption, Clean Technology, Energy, Environment etc then please do share your thoughts, ideas and equally you can learn from others only at http://www.justmeans.com
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