Fuel Cells, where and when
Originally created on January 03 2008
Predictions abound, one by one the hurdles holding back the hydrogen era appear to be overcome but just as many seem to appear ranging from the extraordinary diversity of technological approaches to the frenzy of a market driven quests to define and impose the next leading clean energy. I believe if fair to say that no single solution will win at the end of the day, new energies will be tailored to specific needs, in the same way as new fuel cell technologies will be chosen for specific application areas like light mobility (consumer electronics), transport and static approaches. Already we see companies like Honda planning to mass produce within less than two years its FCX Clarity hydrogen vehicle of which 500 units are currently being leased to California residents this year, while already equipping over five hundred homes in Japan with static chp fuel cells.
The extraordinary effervescence to lead the way to these new technologies in the Southeastern US region alone is illustrated in the MIT Technology Review of January 3rd I am reposting below.
Heady year for alternative energy and cleantech
January 2, 2008
Researchers are extracting fuel from trees, corn, sweet potatoes, used cooking oils and even pond scum
By Dale Mason
It’s been a heady year for the alternative energy field. The government and venture funds are pumping money into alternative energy and a biofuel research and production. Even mighty Google, with its billions in available cash, says it will invest hundreds of millions of dollars into alternative energy research next year, possibly rivaling government expendtures.
CleanTech investments by US venture capital firms reached a record-breaking $2.6 billion from 168 deals in the first three quarters of 2007, according to data from Thomson Financial and the National Venture Capital Association.
NVCA president, Mark Heesen expressed a cautious optimism regarding the CleanTech space, saying, “There are major opportunities for venture capitalists to totally reshape the energy market throughout the world as governments, consumers, and companies are demanding innovation in this space.”
Alternative energy could jump-start the economy
Earlier this year at the first Southeast Venture Conference, former Virginia Senator Mark Warner said that among the areas in which he sees great opportunities for entrepreneurial success, “There continue to be opportunities in the broadband wireless space and in security.” But the one in which he sees the greatest opportunity is alternative energy.
“It’s in the intersection between energy, global warming and jobs,” he said. “It could be as big a driver of the economy as telecom and IT have been. You could argue those jump-started our economy during the 1990s. We’re at the same point in time in alternative energy.”
In March, keynote speakers said at BIO’s World Congress in Orlando said the biofuels industry stands poised for exceptional growth and ethanol is the most promising over the long term.
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla of Khosla Ventures-one of the major investors in cleantech in recent years-and industry consultant Dr. Jens Riese of McKinsey & Co., pointed to ethanol from cellulose, derived from corn, wood, or other renewable sources, as the best alternative fuel option. Khosla said that biofuels could completely replace petroleum.
Energy from sweet potatoes and pond scum
University research on alternative energy proceeds rapidly. The biofuel ethanol can be derived not only from corn, the current standard, but also trees, sweet potatoes, citrus peels and even pond scum. Used cooking oils may supply biodiesel.
Money and research also flow into technologies such as enhanced solar cells, wind farms, thermal, and clean coal technologies. Much of the action takes place throughout the Southeast and Potomac regions.
Georgia Tech’s Strategic Energy Initiative is a research group devoted to testing both the scientific and economic feasibility of innovative technologies. The North Carolina Solar Center at North Carolina State University conducts research on solar energy and provides programs to distribute alternative energy such as NC HealthyBuilt Homes, the Coastal Wind Initiative, and the Landfill gas to energy project.
North Carolina is among several states investing significant amounts of money in research into turning cellulose from a variety of sources such as wood chips into biofuel. The state revealed a strategic plan in April suggesting it should spend $32 million to create a “new industry sector in biofuels.”
Southeastern state energy projects
Other Southeastern states are spending significant amounts to develop their biofuels capabilities as well. Georgia is spending $76 million; Florida more than $100 million; and Tennessee $73 million.
The Southern Research Institute says it plans to open a fuel research facility in in the Research Triangle, NC.
This energy and transportation fuel research facility will aid the commercial acceptance of technologies that convert non-petroleum carbon resources into high value products such as clean diesel fuel, jet fuel, methanol, ethanol and electric power. The center will serve as an independent research facility for technology developers and project engineers to implement, test and refine pilot-scale technology designs in a cost-effective manner.
Gate Petroleum Co. plans to build a $90 million liquid biofuels terminal in Jacksonville.
The 55-million gallon terminal will be the first in the state to receive and ship ethanol and biodiesel and provide storage for these fuels. The company wants to break ground next fall and open the terminal in 2010.
Tennessee, Florida, Georgia projects
The Florida Legislature established the Farm to Fuel Grants Program to provide matching grants for demonstration, commercialization, research and development projects relating to bioenergy. As part of this program, the Legislature appropriated $25 million in matching grants.
The program intends to stimulate investment in energy projects that produce bioenergy from Florida-grown crops or biomass.
Tennessee kicked off a campaign to promote using biofuels. The BioTENN campaign is designed to help consumers identify biofuels via stickers placed on biodiesel and ethanol pumps throughout the state.
The state currently has 32 retail biofuels operations.
South Carolina
has strengthened its foothold on possibly becoming a key player in the nation’s future energy needs by opening a new $9 million hydrogen research hub. “I would argue that the hydrogen footprint in South Carolina, for research and development of a hydrogen economy, is probably as advanced as anywhere in the country,” said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C.
“Change is coming. Those who deny it are the ones who are going to get left behind. South Carolina realizes change is coming
Some scientists think hydrogen fuel cells could replace electricity as a more cost effective energy source, and hydrogen has been eyed as a replacement for oil and other fossil fuels.
Range Fuels Inc., the Broomfield, Colorado company building the nation’s first cellulosic ethanol plant in Treulen County, GA, near Soperton, signed a $76 million Technology Investment Agreement with the U.S. Department of Energy.
Range Fuels’ Soperton Plant will use wood and wood waste from Georgia’s pine forests and mills as its feedstock and will have the capacity to produce over one hundred million gallons of ethanol per year. Construction of the first 20 million-gallon-per-year phase is expected to be completed in 2008.
University Research
A team of University of Georgia researchers has developed a new biofuel derived from wood chips. Unlike previous fuels derived from wood, the new and still unnamed fuel can be blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel to power conventional engines.
“The exciting thing about our method is that it is very easy to do,” said Tom Adams, director of the UGA Faculty of Engineering outreach service. “We expect to reduce the price of producing fuels from biomass dramatically with this technique.”
Adams, whose findings are detailed in the early online edition of the American Chemical Society journal Energy and Fuels, explained that scientists have long been able to derive oils from wood, but they had been unable to process it effectively or inexpensively so that it can be used in conventional engines.
The researchers have developed a new chemical process, which they are working to patent, that inexpensively treats the oil so that it can be used in unmodified diesel engines or blended with biodiesel and petroleum diesel.
Scientists at the University of Virginia discovered a new class of hydrogen storage materials that could make the storage and transportation of energy much more efficient – and affordable – through higher-performing hydrogen fuel cells. In the quest for alternative fuels, U.Va.’s new materials potentially could provide a highly affordable solution to energy storage and transportation problems with a wide variety of applications.
They absorb a much higher percentage of hydrogen than predecessor materials while exhibiting faster kinetics at room temperature and much lower pressures, and are inexpensive and simple to produce.
Sweet Potato fuel
Sweet potatoes, a staple on holiday dinner tables, are being re-engineered by North Carolina State University scientists as source of ethanol to help the U.S. reduce its dependence on imported oil — and ease the biofuel industry’s troublesome reliance on corn.
This industrial sweet potato doesn’t look, or taste, much like the Southern classic, but can produce twice the starch content of corn — the leading source of ethanol.
More starch means more sugars that can be fermented into biofuel.
“These are not your grandmother’s sweet potatoes,” says Craig Yencho, an N.C. State associate professor of Horticultural Science. He points out that it’s edible, but not as sweet or palatable as the table version.
North Carolina produces about 40 percent of the U.S. sweet potato crop. The industrial sweet potato could help diversify the state’s farm income.
The biggest challenge is lowering production costs to take advantage of that higher starch content. Sweet potatoes traditionally are planted by hand using transplants. “But if we could plant them the same way you plant an Irish potato — by planting cut ‘seed’ pieces and mechanically planting them into the ground, we could cut planting costs in half,” Yencho says.
While the best of conventional breeding techniques have been used to develop N.C. State’s industrial sweet potato, Yencho is also teaming with colleague Bryon Sosinski on an unconventional approach to further boost sugar — and thus ethanol — yield. By using bacteria from deep-sea thermal vents they are creating an industrial sweet potato that practically processes itself into ethanol.
“Our ultimate goal is to develop a self-processing sweet potato,” says Dr. Yencho, noting that the special genes could reduce the cost of enzymes that are used by biofuel processors to break down the starch in corn to sugars which are then converted into alcohol by fermentation.
Sosinski hopes to move into greenhouse trials next year.
Ultimately, N.C. State scientists believe the industrial sweet potato can compete with corn — now much cheaper to produce — as a viable alternative source of ethanol. Corn is by far the leading source of ethanol.
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
