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Solar Roadways Giving More Details About Their Road-Embedded Solar Cells Technology
Voltea Completes $4.6 Million Funding Round for Water Desalination Technology
Old Tugboats Slowly Make Way for Cleaner, Energy Efficient Hybrid Tugboats
Conventional diesel tugboats are significant sources of pollution in the world's seaports, but that is on the verge of change. The Foss Maritime Company is adding a second energy efficient hybrid tugboat to its Southern California fleet. Its first hybrid vessel, the Carolyn Dorothy, was launched in 2009 and at the time it was believed to be the first and only tugboat of its kind in the world.
The new vessel is actually a retrofit of an existing tugboat, for which the California Air Resources Board chipped in a grant of $1 million. It's just a small part of a major EPA program to reduce pollution in seaport areas all along the U.S. coastlines, which also includes efforts to cut emissions from trucks at seaports.
(more…)Range Fuels Produces Something
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I began to hear rumors about a week ago that Range Fuels had started to produce some methanol from their plant in Soperton, Georgia. This week they announced that they have indeed begun to make some product:
Range Fuels Finally Gets its Cellulosic Plant Running
Georgia — After a two year delay, Range Fuels is producing methanol fuel from its commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol facility in Georgia. The company initially said the plant in Georgia would be producing up to 20 million gallons of fuel in 2008. Then it got pushed back to 2009. It is now finally operating in the second quarter of 2010.
The delay is not out of the ordinary for cellulosic ethanol producers. Because of the technical and financial problems companies have been facing, the Environmental Protection Agency scaled back its 2010 mandate for cellulosic fuels from 100 million gallons to 6.5 million gallons.
Let me first extend my congratulations to Range, and let's hope that the start-up proceeds smoothly. Generally when trying to start up something for which there are not a lot of existing facilities, the learning curve can be bumpy because you have to figure it out as you go along. So do not be surprised to see that they are up and down a lot as they work out the kinks (not that those sorts of things make the news).
Oddly enough, a few people have e-mailed me with this news to claim that this vindicates Range from the criticisms I set forth in Broken Promises from Range Fuels. I don't want to use this post to rain on their parade, but given these misconceptions let's have a look at what I have said.
First, nobody ever doubted that Range could take biomass, gasify it, and produce methanol. That technology has literally existed in some form since 1923. And nobody doubts that they can make some ethanol in the same way. Again, very old technology, just not cost-effective. Range has their own particular version of the technology, but nevertheless there is nothing fundamentally new in their approach.
So that's the first point that should be clear. My criticism was not that they can't produce some alcohols, therefore production of alcohol doesn't invalidate the criticism. My criticisms were based on historical claims that Range made and failed to deliver upon. These aren't issues where the jury is still out; they are history. Range claimed they would build a 100 million gallon per year ethanol plant for $150 million and start producing in 2008. First production of methanol in mid-2010 after taking in more than double the money they claimed they would need for an ethanol plant does not invalidate my criticisms in any way.
People knowledgeable in this field knew when they started hyping this back in 2006 that they could not possibly deliver “cellulosic ethanol” via this process at the cost and on the schedule they were claiming. So when costs started to escalate, schedules started to slip, and they ended up switching to methanol, they were certainly open to criticism given how vocal they had been about hyping themselves.
Imagine if Walmart started to hype $100 Dell laptops — this week only. I go to Walmart to get one, and find that they don't actually have any for sale. If I criticize them for the false advertising, my criticism isn't invalidated if you go there a month later and buy a $300 VCR. Yes, Walmart would have delivered something – but that wasn't what they said they would deliver.
As I have said before, people are accountable for what they write and say. That includes me. So my criticisms of Range are certainly fair game for discussion. Just make sure you understand what those criticisms are before you write to tell me the criticisms were wrong. Keep in mind that the criticisms revolve around costs and time delays that are historical. And contrary to what some people seem to think, I do not wish to see Range fail. If I criticize President Obama, that doesn't mean that I hope he fails as a president.
Regarding their production of methanol instead of ethanol, a story at earth2tech missed the mark by suggesting this was the nature of my criticism. To the contrary, I favor gasification approaches to methanol (or ethanol, mixed alcohols, diesel, jet fuel, etc.) I like those processes because they don't rely on a lot of fossil fuel inputs and can result in a higher efficiency to fuels than other approaches.
However, at present the gasification of biomass to methanol has to contend with the much cheaper method of gasification of natural gas to methanol. The latter presently sells for about $1/gallon, and Range's methanol will struggle to compete with that. So their business plan will be to sell their methanol to the biodiesel industry, which reacts it with a vegetable oil or animal fat to produce biodiesel. Range will rely on a $1/gallon tax credit when they sell their methanol (again, only worth $1/gallon at market prices), and then the biodiesel industry will turn around and collect another $1/gallon tax credit when they sell the biodiesel (presuming this credit is extended as expected).
The path forward for Range is pretty clear. They have to get through this start-up phase and demonstrate that they can run their process consistently. We won't know that until they have a year or so of operation behind them; any corrosion issues and such will take a while before they are obvious. Range will reportedly try to move production to ethanol next year, and that will present its own challenges. Given that they recently requested more DOE funding (which they did not receive), it is clear that the capital requirements for their process are high. So ultimately they must also show that they can run the process cost-effectively.
First production of methanol is a noteworthy achievement, but there is a long road ahead. Just ask Changing World Technologies, who also once started up a plant and began to produce some fuel. But instead of being remembered as an innovative biofuel company, CWT went bankrupt and is the poster child for the “over-promise and under-deliver” strategy. Let's all hope for a better outcome for Range Fuels.
Lobbying Group Poses as Consumer Group to Attack Environmental Group over Sunscreens
Now that the age of newspeak is firmly upon us, it's not suprising that an organization with a seemingly straightforward name like “Center for Consumer Freedom” is not a consumer protection group. CCF is a lobbying group that has, among other things, worked for the tobacco industry to thwart smoking bans. Its latest target is the Environmental Working Group, and the subject is EWG's recent report involving the use of vitamin A in sunscreens.
According to SourceWatch, CCF' usually positions itself as an authority on an issue and then undermines the credibility of scientific research on that topic. They've used this approach to attack research on issues ranging from obesity and mercury poisoning to pharmaceuticals and pesticides, and the vitamin A issue looks like a textbook case of their methodology.
Lobbying Group Poses as Consumer Group to Attack Environmental Group over Sunscreens
Now that the age of newspeak is firmly upon us, it's not suprising that an organization with a seemingly straightforward name like “Center for Consumer Freedom” is not a consumer protection group. CCF is a lobbying group that has, among other things, worked for the tobacco industry to thwart smoking bans. Its latest target is the Environmental Working Group, and the subject is EWG's recent report involving the use of vitamin A in sunscreens.
According to SourceWatch, CCF' usually positions itself as an authority on an issue and then undermines the credibility of scientific research on that topic. They've used this approach to attack research on issues ranging from obesity and mercury poisoning to pharmaceuticals and pesticides, and the vitamin A issue looks like a textbook case of their methodology.
Unfulfilled Promises on Clean Energy Technology?
There's been some change over at WhiteHouse.gov's energy and environment page, but probably not the kind we had in mind when we heard President Obama's oft-repeated campaign slogan, "Change You Can Believe In."
A number of (as yet unfulfilled) energy and environmental policy pledges have been removed from the WhiteHouse.gov page in recent weeks (I'm just noticing this now, so I'm not totally sure how recent the change occurred).
Chief among them: President Obama's pledge to "invest $150 billion over ten years in energy research and development to transition to a clean energy economy," once a central plank in Obama's presidential campaign, and a feature of his first national budget proposal (in FY2009).
You can see a screen-shot of the old WhiteHouse.gov energy and environment page below, taken in May 2009. The old page was live with this pledge featured prominently as recently as a month or so ago, to the best of my knowledge.
Click to enlarge
The new page features a short (rhetorical) introduction, followed by a list of White House accomplishments in the realm of energy and environment, and no longer features any forward-looking pledges.
That includes any clear pledge to reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by any particular amount by any particular date, or to establish a cap and trade program to achieve those objectives, other signatures of Obama's earlier policy pledges in the area. Cap and trade legislation is now widely considered dead in the U.S. Senate, after failing to secure anything close to the sixty-vote super-majority needed to clear the chamber.
One could read the changes at WhiteHouse.gov as a simple reflection of where Obama now is in his presidency, with almost two years under his belt and a list of accomplishments to his name to replace a set of campaign-style promises. Equally notable, however, is the list of what has indeed been accomplished, and what, for now, remains an entirely unfulfilled promise.
As of yet, despite strong expert consensus, a clear economic imperative, and the fervent appeals of 34 Nobel laureate scientists, a national ten-year mission to catalyze both public and private sector innovators by investing $150 billion in clean energy R&D remains solidly in that latter category...
Massachusetts Cap and Trade Helps Carlson Orchards Go Solar
One of the largest orchards in Massachusetts has just cut its utility bill 80% with a $1.1 million 220 KW solar power plant. The state of Massachusetts helped Carlson Orchards with grants totaling $595,000 to help in the installation of the 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels.
Massachusetts earns money to invest in renewable energy with cap and trade auctions as a participating member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
RGGI is a 10-state cap and trade program that caps emissions from 233 power plants from Maine to Maryland. It has generated $433 million for renewable investments in the 10 participating states.
RGGI earnings help Massachusetts reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by taking big energy users like the orchard off the dirty fossil grid. So far Massachusetts has earned $106 million in RGGI auctions.
But getting the grant wasn't easy. It took a professional “green” project manager eight months of researching and fulfilling the arduous grant application process required. (more…)
Massachusetts Cap and Trade Helps Carlson Orchards Go Solar
One of the largest orchards in Massachusetts has just cut its utility bill 80% with a $1.1 million 220 KW solar power plant. The state of Massachusetts helped Carlson Orchards with grants totaling $595,000 to help in the installation of the 1,050 solar photovoltaic panels.
Massachusetts earns money to invest in renewable energy with cap and trade auctions as a participating member of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI).
RGGI is a 10-state cap and trade program that caps emissions from 233 power plants from Maine to Maryland. It has generated $433 million for renewable investments in the 10 participating states.
RGGI earnings help Massachusetts reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by taking big energy users like the orchard off the dirty fossil grid. So far Massachusetts has earned $106 million in RGGI auctions.
But getting the grant wasn't easy. It took a professional “green” project manager eight months of researching and fulfilling the arduous grant application process required. (more…)
