Now that John McCain has been officially enthroned as the Republican party's choice for the window seat in the Oval Office, it's time to look at his proposals for how to deal with this country's seemingly insatiable thirst for energy. As expected, the focus of McCain's plan is to let the market decide what the best and most efficient means are to reduce America's dependence on imported petroleum and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. A cap and trade system that would allow polluters to buy emissions offsets lies at the heart of the plan. Part of the system would involve auctioning off of emissions permits, presumably the way the FCC has done with spectrum auctions for wireless providers. Some of the proceeds from these auctions would be used to help support prize programs for the development of advanced technologies, such as McCain's $300 million battery prize. Some of the money would also be used to help low income people move to more efficient technologies.

McCain also wants to eliminate both subsidies for corn ethanol and tariffs on imported biofuels like sugar cane ethanol from Brazil. While McCain supports the development of next-generation biofuels and wants automakers to accelerate getting more flex-fuel vehicles on the market, he makes no mention whatever of distribution. While Brazil has encouraged ethanol and flex-fuel, the country has also mandated that fuel stations have to include ethanol pumps. The candidate also supports tax credits of up to $5,000 for purchasing plug-in vehicles and bigger fines for manufacturers that miss CAFE targets. To help reduce carbon emissions further and help support the use plug-ins, McCain wants to build 45 new nuclear plants over the next two decades. Offsetting this, McCain also wants to spend $2 billion a year for the next fifteen years on clean coal technology. Even if they can carbon capture on a large scale, McCain makes no mention of the environmental impact of current mining techniques like mountain top removal. Check out more at GFF.

[Source: Green Fuels Forecast]

It has been said numerous times that German automakers are upset with European proposals which would limit CO₂ output to around 120 grams per kilometer. Perhaps we shouldn't be lumping Volkswagen or its subsidiaries into that category. Martin Winterkorn, CEO of VW, has admitted that the VW brands, including luxury carmaker Audi, can achieve those low carbon standards. In fact, Winterkorn believes that the standards are achievable today, not by 2015 as proposals would require. Technologies which would allow the low carbon output are already being used. Direct injection and turbocharging are quickly becoming a staple of automakers like Volkswagen and Audi since those technologies allow the production of more power and the reduction of fuel consumption.

Another interesting tidbit from Winterkorn is that he believes that plug-in electric vehicles will become the fuel-saving technology of choice in the coming years. As you may be aware, Germany gets the vast majority of its power from coal, which is an extremely dirty process. For this reason, the VeeDub leader suggests that the country take a look at nuclear for its power needs.

[Source: Automotive News Europe - sub. req'd.]

Despite the drubbing some of us are taking this winter there are still the same CO₂-induced global warming predictions being made and so reducing the amount of carbon that's emitted to our skies appears to remain necessary. One of the ways that has been touted as the most promising has been carbon capture and sequestration. While there have been many papers written and plans made for this technology, not a lot has actually been accomplished and so, as with every scheme that takes a substantial period of time between ideation to implementation, skepticism is bound to arise.

And risen it has. The Energy Tribune, a publication that bills itself as, "Leading the debate. Beating the streets," has a particular abundance of articles on the subject including one entitled, "Carbon Capture in the U.S. Faces Hard Realities" that focuses on the American experience with particular attention paid to the de-funding of the FutureGen project which was to be, through carbon capture and sequestration, the world's first zero-CO₂ emissions coal-fired power plant.

And it's not just The Energy Tribune that is cooling to the future prospects of this tech. Germany's Spiegel Online has just published an article that asks, "Is Carbon Capture a False Hope for Coal Power?" It seems people are coming to the realization that making sequestration work is going to be very expensive.

As I read these articles I can't help but ponder the question, why do we have to spend billions and billions of dollars chasing technology that, even when perfected, is not nearly as perfect as the renewable trifecta (wind, solar, geothermal) in creating energy that gives us the added benefit of saving our environment and, indeed, our lives.

[Source: The Energy Tribune]

Today's USA Today has an article that talks about two studies on plug-in hybrids, both published last year, that "have yet to trigger alarms." The studies, one by the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) and the other by the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency, found plug-in hybrids and electric cars might increase certain types of air pollution in specific areas.

The NRDC study says that in regions heavily dependent on energy from coal, "there is a possibility for significant increases of soot and mercury" given an increase in PHEVs. The NRDC study also says that when charged with electricity produced by a coal plant, PHEVs have "higher global warming pollution compared to a non-pluggable hybrid electric vehicle." The Minnesota Pollution Control Agency study found that "a PHEV has marginally lower emissions for all emittants, except CO₂ and SO₂." The increase in SO₂ emissions is 182 percent "due to the high sulfur content of the coal combusted to generate electricity."

When will the alarms trigger? Are PHEVs headed for the same U-turn of support from the green community that biofuels ran into?

[Source: USA Today]

American news outlets are certainly full of updates from the voting in New Hampshire today, where the second first presidential primary in the 2008 U.S. election is taking place (UPDATE courtesy of J Jones: Iowa had a caucus, not a primary). Out in Vancouver, British Columbia, Silverado Green Fuel thought that today would be a good time to remind everyone about where the candidates stand on coal-to-liquid fuel (CTL). The company has released a collection of pro-CTL quotes from four presidential candidates (Barrack Obama, Mike Huckabee, Hillary Clinton, Mitt Romney) and Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller. You can find those quotes in full after the jump.

It's not just some of the leading candidates for president who like CTL. The 2007 Energy Bill that passed in December includes $2.2 billion in tax incentives for clean coal technology applications, something that Silverado's President and CEO Garry Anselmo says means Silverado "is in the right place, and at the right time. [...] Silverado Green Fuel uses low rank coal. America has centuries of domestic supply of low rank coal, an underutilized energy resource." American politicians might be in favor, but China has had second thoughts about CTL.

Related:

• Think coal gasification and coal-to-liquid is the same? Not even close
• Huckabee tells us God is green
• New method to obtain cheap natural gas from coal
• More coal to liquid fuels research from Penn State
• China may abandon liquified coal projects

[Source: Silverado Green Fuel Inc.]

Penn State University has really been on a green roll these last few days, getting three stories featured on our site. One had to do with a novel way to extract hydrogen from water using nanotechnology and sunlight and the second had to do with using coal and papermaking waste to make a liquid fuel. This third story again has to do with coal-based liquid fuels. Instead of looking at paper mills as potential sources for products to add to coal, they are looking to existing fuel refineries. They believe that many different fuels, including jet fuel, gasoline substitutes and diesel substitutes, can be made from coal if you add the correct refinery by-products. Penn State researchers have been working on this idea for a while now, first focusing solely on jet fuel. But, they found that while making the jet fuel they also ended up with certain amounts of fuel oil, diesel fuel and gasoline as co-products.

The refinery by-products of coal tar, refinery solvent and decant oil are being mixed with coal in different fractions. Fuel-grade coke, which is a fuel used in the steel industry, has also been used. Penn State should be familiar with the steel industry being that Pennsylvania is known as the steel capital of the U.S. (and hence the Pittsburgh Steelers football team). No mention was made of the emissions of these various fuels, so we are not suggesting that these are green fuels in any way. In fact, they are almost assuredly not green in any way. None of that means that the fuels will not be used, of course. Hopefully, the nation and the world will be on to bigger and better things by then!

[Source: Penn State]

Sometimes, people just need to make the best with what they have got to work with. This is what paper mills are trying to do by burning the "black liquor" waste which is a leftover remnant of chemicals and the lignin. As part of the Kraft process (.pdf link), the leftovers are burned to create steam which turns large generators, which in turn provide electricity for the plant. In fact, enough electricity is generated that they can feed some back into the grid. This Kraft process is used for about 80% of all paper made. But what if there was a better way to generate power than by burning the black liquor for steam generators?

According to Andre Boehman, professor of fuel science at Penn State, "Black liquor is routinely burned in a recovery boiler, but it has more energy value as a synthesis gas which is then used to create other fuels." The researchers are suggesting that the black liquor instead be turned into a syngas and then into DME or dimethyl ether.

Diesel engines can be configured to run on DME, and Penn State actually has a staff shuttle which runs on the fuel. The researchers found that by adding a coal slurry to the black liquor and processing it into the DME, as opposed to using the Fischer Tropsch method, is the right way to use the waste. The researchers further say that DME is close to gasoline in efficiency, but not quite there. But, the black liquor/coal slurry process that they are suggesting would reduce greenhouse gas emissions much more than if only coal were used to make DME. Since the U.S. has so much coal available, until the country is truly weaned off our current power sources, we should clean them up as much as possible. As much as we would all love to see that coal stay in the ground, realistically we know how unlikely that is to happen. For now, let's use it as cleanly as possible.

[Source: Penn State]

This story goes to show that the debate on global warming is still raging. Crucial to the debate in many people's minds is not whether the earth is warming, but whether or not man is causing it. That is the notion that four Australian governing party lawmakers are rejecting. Also up for debate is whether or not the lawmakers opinions are molded by the fact that Australia is the world's largest exporter of coal, and that the nation is rather dependent on coal as a natural resource. With the abundance of sunlight, wind and the possibility of tapping into the ocean's waves as potential power sources is not lost on all of Australia's inhabitants. The topic of climate change and coal power is expected to play a role in the upcoming elections.

Specifically, the lawmakers are against the idea of setting up "at least one" carbon sequestration systems at one of their coal-fired power plants. Not even just one? Sheesh.

[Source: Physorg]

The headlines for this story indicate that a team from LSU, Oak Ridge National Lab, Clemson, Conoco-Phillips and the Department of Energy are trying to make ethanol a more efficient fuel. I don't know that this is the case, as it seems that what they are trying to do is manufacture ethanol from the U.S. supplies of coal. They appear to be doing this by generating syngas from the coal and then converting the gas to ethanol. The same syngas could potentially be a source for hydrogen as well, but as the story points out, liquid fuels are easier to transport and can fuel vehicles that are already on the roads.

There are many different processes being studied to turn coal into syngas and then into some sort of fuel. This one has plenty of funding, so perhaps people in the know see potential in it. The idea of using the huge amounts of coal here in the U.S. in a way which is cleaner than what we are doing now (and what isn't) has plenty of merit. Using it to move our current fleet of E85 capable vehicles is not a bad start, but hopefully researchers find a good way to use it to generate electricity for our electric cars too.

[Source: LSU]

Time and time again, from expert after expert, we hear that the nations of the planet must start turning to clean sources of energy, and fast. Vinod Khosla recently suggested that we use solar thermal sources, and he also mentioned that nuclear may be an option for the future. Solar arrays seem to be popping up, many times by individual companies looking to save on their own energy costs. Wind farms have been making the news as of late as well, sometimes we hear more from the people against them, but we hear about them anyway. When was the last time you heard about a new coal fired power plant being built? How about today?

That may just be a reality in the U.K., as Greenpeace reports. It seems that a company by the name of Eon has proposed a few new coal plants, ones that are only able to achieve 45 percent efficiency at that! In case you were wondering, the last new coal plant built in the U.K. 33 years ago. Progress? More like on step forward, two steps back!

[Source: Greenpeace via Hugg]

I have got to tell you that the article linked to here is very long and takes a good while to get through. Then, after you have read the whole thing, you still need time to meditate on all of the points. But, after doing that, feel free to comment on some of the ideas that Vinod Khosla outlines and the points that he makes. I believe that some of what he has to say is true and has merit, but can't quite agree with everything. Here is a good point: "every coal-fired power plant is a ticking slow bomb. Knowing this, we need solutions that work - now." Another: "Finally, I am a big believer in a very diverse set of technology bets." But, is clean coal, nuclear energy and solar thermal power really the best answer for the long-term good of the world, as he appears to suggest? I think that what he is trying to say is that they make the most sense economically at this time, and that we need to focus on what the economy of the world is capable of... and he suggests that what works in Germany and America won't necessarily work in India and China. Makes sense, right? But, what are the chances that nuclear power or clean coal will be what India or China ends up with? Not real high, right? And, what works there is not necessarily what is going to work in America either. Do I have a better solution? Ummm... no, not just one. As he said, we need many. But, I can't see the collective world's governments all agreeing on one technology for the future, either. Oh, yeah, I'm not holding my breath for cold fusion, either.

Wind power where that's plentiful, solar where there is lots of sun, wave power where there is lots of water, biodiesel where there is good soil, the list goes on. Anybody else have any comments?

[Source: Huffington Post]

In a lengthy, two-part editorial, David Roberts, a staff writer at Grist, presents his position on unifying the green lobby around the flag of URGE²: Use Renewably Generated Electricity, Efficiently. He is expecting bumper stickers and t-shirts - here's why.

Mine negawatts: The cheapest source of new energy is not using it - increase efficiency and you can slash the growth in energy demand. See part two of the interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI for his related comments on how people don't want extra kilowatts, they want hot showers and cold beers.

A good example of where to find negawatts is right above you - replacing standard incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs as is being proposed here in Australia. Similarly, make a car lighter and you can make it more efficient, or faster, or both.

Electrify: It's easier to find clean, renewable sources of electricity than it is to find clean, renewable liquid fuels which leads to an obvious conclusion - shift almost all energy use to electricity. That's not to say that there isn't a lot of room for renewable fuels like ethanol and biodiesel in the mean time, but long term, the electricity grid is just more efficient.

Kill coal: "Coal is the enemy of the human race." Coal fired power stations are responsible for a huge percentage of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions. Coal also causes environmental damage where it is mined and air pollution where is burning. Cleaning up coal is likely to make it financially non-viable in comparison to green technologies such as wind.

Upgrade the grid: Focus on energy storage and decentralisation through renewable sources like wind, solar, geothermal, hydrokinetic, cogeneration and biomethane. Developing good power storage technology is important to even out the supply intermittency of renewable energy sources. Examples of storage Roberts mentions include battery technology (both lithium and nano), hydrogen fuel cells, pumped storage, molten-salt storage and ultracapacitors.

Analysis: As Michael Brylawski said, "if the ultimate efficiency is, say, 10 percent of turning coal into refrigeration for your beer, every unit of energy saved at the fridge saves ten times that in coal." I especially like the concept of mining negawatts - you can start today by using compact fluorescent light bulbs.

Related:

• GridWise sets aside four days in April to work on U.S. smart grid
• Wind and solar powered streetlights... I hope there're no solar red-light-photo cameras!
• Interview with Michael Brylawski of RMI part two - Hypercars and cold beers

[Source: David Roberts / TomPaine.com]

There is a movement in Washington that promotes coal-to-liquid fuel as an alternative fuel that would be grouped along with ethanol and biodiesel. If this were the case, U.S. incentives for ethanol production and coal-to-liquid would be split between the farmers and the coal miners. One might think that this is a good thing, as competition in the marketplace is usually good for the consumer. However, if you thought that ethanol was not a good replacement for gasoline, you should probably not check out diesel derived from coal. The energy that is used in the production of coal-to-liquid is pretty high, comparatively, and produces hazardous materials as a by-product. Thus, the production of diesel from coal is of interest to those concerned with the environment.

Therefore, Treehugger gives six of their own suggestions to perform a "proper and balanced risk management review", one of which is to always compare it with other alternative fuels and produce matching bills for each of them. I think, personally, that diesel engines are a good alternative to gasoline engines. However, when one messes that up by undoing the environmental benefits of having a diesel engine in the first place, why bother?

Click here for all articles from ABG that deal with coal-to-liquid.

Related:

• EcoGeek Hates Liquid Coal
• New Congress sets energy strategy; will address issues with piecemeal approach

[Source: Treehugger, Blue Climate and U.S. Senate]

I am not a resource investor, by any account I am not much of an investor at all, unfortunately. But, there are investors out there who concentrate on our earth's resources. An advisor on the site Resource Investor gave his viewpoints on the technologies and resources required to make the President's talking points a reality. Here they are in condensed form:

• Coal fired power plant technology and materials
• Processes for extracting metals from coal ash
• Processes for producing ethanol from non food agricultural products
• Thorium mining
• Thorium fueled nuclear power plants
• Technology to safely switch existing uranium fuelled nuclear power plants to thorium fuelled operation
• Lithium extraction, mining and production
• Large scale Lithium ion battery technology
• Fuel cell technology that substitutes basic metals for platinum group metals
• Hydrogen production and distribution technology

The writer, Jack Lifton, gives his reasons for the above at this link, and seems to make some sense. At least, he seems to know what he is talking about on the resources he speaks of, I make no judgments on any opinions of the State of the Union or the President's speach.

I can say, though, that I would like to see other forms of battery technology in addition to lithium-based technology investigated as well. Just because that is what seems best here and now does not mean that it will seem like the best in five years. Think back five years and you'll remember nickel-metal-hydride technology as being the new best choice from nickel-cadmium, and before that, lead-acid was much more common. What's next? Ultracapacitors? Hybrid chemical batteries and ultracaps? Dunno... hope to find out soon, though!

[Source: Jack Lifton / Resource Investor]

It is no secret that the "hydrogen economy," as proposed, requires very large amounts of hydrogen if it will ever come to reality. One reason proponents of hydrogen as fuel wish to pursue their ideas is because hydrogen is in no short supply, being that it is a part of water, helping to make it the most abundant chemical element in the universe. However, it is rather expensive to separate the hydrogen from the water, and right now it's more attractive to extract it from natural gas.

The Ohio State University was just chosen out of twenty applicants to receive an award of $1.6 million to research and develop a method of capturing hydrogen using coal. Their process would separate hydrogen, carbon dioxide and chlorides, as well as sulfur from coal made into a synthetic gas, and then into pure hydrogen via a process known as chemical looping.

According to this article, "Once the coal has been transformed, the syngas is then put through a reactor where it encounters steam. Fan said at a certain temperature and pressure a reaction will turn the syngas into hydrogen, without using any catalyst."

"It is a very efficient, economical and technology-viable way to generate hydrogen," according to Dan Ciccero, technology manager for hydrogen and syngas for the National Energy Technology Laboratory, a branch of the Department of Energy.

A single stage chemical looping reactor will be built at the University to make this research possible.

Related:

• "The Hydrogen economy is a bad idea - a really, really bad idea"
• Terry Tamminen gets passionate about hydrogen
• America's hydrogen and fuel cell projects pinpointed in new DOE online database
• Does a hydrogen economy make sense? Ulf Bossel says no

[Source: The Lantern]