Hawaii – One aspect of these paradise islands that takes away some of the glimmer is their reliance on fossil fuels, all of which is imported. The Hawaiians have resolved to not only shift this state of affairs by transitioning to renewables, but they’re going for all the gusto: They’re shooting for 70% of their energy from renewables by 2030! See Governor Linda Lingle’s webpage on energy: Energy for Tomorrow.
With an emphasis, as the “Honolulu Advertiser” reports, on windpower and electric cars, it’s all perfectly feasible. Here’s another geographically appropriate technology , using cold water from the ocean for air conditioning. See this article from the “Star Bulletin.” (See also this from the “Christian Science Monitor” on a very similar system in Toronto.)
If Hawaii can aim for 70% renewables by 2030, then why can’t we have a modest federally mandated Renewable Portfolio Standard of 20% or 25%. Well, the politics have militated against it. See this from “US News & World Report” from last December. I think the next Congress is going to be a lot different. I think the next Congress is going to take us much farther along the path to clean energy and energy efficiency than some of us would’ve dreamed was possible , at least politically.
Drill, Baby, Drill 2.0 – Geothermal is what I’m talking about here! 5½ GW by 2015 of potential just on the federal lands being released. Interior Department to Open 190 Million Acres to Geothermal Power is the headline from DOE’s excellent weekly newsletter “EERE Network News.” (EERE = Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, an entity that has been doing superb work in spite of the political winds often blowing against their mission.) I wrote about Enhanced Geothermal Systems (EGS) here recently. There is nothing but upside.
Solar Thermal – A modest 5 MW plant opening in the California desert is very much a harbinger of more to come. Ausra Opens its First Concentrating Solar Power Plant in California is another story from EERE. I wrote about Ausra here last March. I said then “Ausra’s website has some terrific graphics, well worth seeing, and some fun speculation: “Solar Thermal Power Could Supply Over 90 percent of U.S. Grid Plus Auto Fleet.'” Talk about bullish on CSP!
DFC-ERGA – A fuel cell manufacturer and a Canadian gas distribution company have come up with a good match. In this Direct Fuel-Cell Energy Recovery Generation, they are creating a high-efficiency, ultra-clean method for distributed generation of power. See this for a good look at the technologies involved that can power 1,700 homes in Ontario. The companies behind this project are Enbridge and FuelCell Energy. While the first 2.2 MW is going to be sited in Canada, another 18 MW is slated for Connecticut, FuelCell Energy’s home. These sorts of smart DG projects are changing the world.
“Flexible” Carbon-To-Liquid Fuel Process – According to researchers at Purdue University, we could be producing “alternative fuels, hydrogen and electricity from municipal solid wastes, agricultural wastes, forest residues and sewage sludge that could supply up to 20 percent of transportation fuels in the United States annually.” See this from “CarbonFree” and this from Purdue.
These sorts of pyrolysis or gasification plants have extraordinary potential. (I envisioned them once in the context of a comprehensive proposal for New York City’s modest 25,000 tons a day of municipal solid waste and called the plan, Urban Gold. The heart of the strategy is to co-locate a materials recovery facility [MRF] and other waste disposal facilities, such as pyrolysis or gasification plants, with industries that would use the recycled materials as feedstock for their manufacturing.)
The folks at Purdue and many others have a similar rationale: Why should we have waste? We can avoid creating many wastes in the first place, we can recycle or reuse many, and we can put a great amount of material that would otherwise be handled as waste to good use as fuelstock for processes like these. It is, after all, nature’s way, isn’t it?
China – I wrote here in August, and also here in July, about some of China’s extraordinary progress on renewables. I missed a great article at the time from “Scientific American” , China’s Big Push for Renewable Energy. We learn, among other things, that “There are 158 wind farms in China, according to the Chinese Wind Energy Association (CWEA), and the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC)‚ the government ministry charged with economic development‚ has called for the installation of 10 gigawatts‚ up from 6 gigawatts at present‚ by 2010.”
As I think I may have said before, without China, folks, getting a handle on global warming ain’t going nowhere. Seems to me like they’re very much in the game. Check out the article for more good news.
