AvailableGreenEnergy

Posts Tagged ‘british’

Establishing that solar power isn’t solely for hotter climates, the British have decked out Manchester’s biggest building , the CIS Tower, with solar panels. In 2005 it began pumping energy into their national energy grid. – Solar energy can play a huge role … 7-part Mini-Course yet? Discover the Hidden 125 Secrets – How To Save Money By Going Green ! Learn how to Go Green and. Make A MASSIVE Difference Sign up today – It’s FREE! go green – save green . diy solar panels …

It’s unfortunate that AltaRock is having such a tough time with its enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) project in northern California. The company has suspended drilling on its first well, citing “geological anomolies,” and it plans to regroup and figure out next steps. Nobody said EGS projects would be easy, and all of this is a learning experience for AltaRock. Meanwhile, I’m encouraged to see interest in tapping geothermal energy as a byproduct of oil and gas production in the Canadian west. A British Columbia-based company called Free Energy International has signed a deal with an undisclosed oil and gas exploration and production company in Alberta, in an area known as Swan Hills. Free Energy will build two 1-megawatt geothermal plants that take hot water — a co-product of oil and natural gas during the pumping process —  and extract the heat from it to generate electricity. The $7 million project will tap wells that are around 9,000 feet deep, and temperatures of the fluids can easily reach 170 degrees F in high volumes. After the heat is extracted from the water using heat exchangers, it is used to run an Organic Rankine Cycle (ORC) power plant. The water is later pumped back into the ground. Free Energy will build, own and operate this binary cycle plant and the oil company has agreed to buy all the electricity produced for the same rate it was paying to a previous supplier. I’m hoping this new approach will catch on in Canada’s oil patch, the same way it’s being tried out in Texas . Indeed, a new Calgary-based company has recently been formed called Borealis Geopower , which was recently awarded $2.6 million from the Alberta Energy Research Institute to develop a similar project in the province. “Hot water resource is readily available through the existence of numerous deep, end-of-life oil and gas wells in the Canadian Foothills and the use of hot water resource for electricity production has the potential to increase energy efficiency and offer carbon offsets for the oil and gas companies,” Borealis states on its Web site. These are the kinds of geothermal projects that could really take off, particularly if companies such as Borealis and Free Energy can prove them to be economical for oil companies trying desperately to reduce their carbon footprints as cap-and-trade approaches. If they can demonstrate this works, it will also capture the attention of the Alberta and Canadian governments. Having 100MW-plus geothermal plants built in Canada would be nice, too, but this kind of distributed geothermal energy generation makes oodles of sense and should be pursued with vigour.

A major move in the wind power industry this week shows international confidence in wind power in the US. A multi-million dollar acquisition by a British investment firm demonstrates that large financial players are seeing the US as a good place to invest in wind power. Read more of this story »

Canadian government programs that offer rebates to hybrid vehicle buyers are failing to produce environmental benefits commensurate with the cost, according to a study by researchers at the University of British Columbia (UBC). The study finds that the rebates had a large and positive effect on the market share of hybrid vehicles, largely at the expense of intermediate cars, intermediate SUVs and some high performance compact cars. However, only 26% of the hybrid vehicles sold during the rebate programs can be attributed to the rebate; in other words, the rebates primarily subsidize people who would have bought hybrids or fuel efficient cars in any case. The study was written by Ambarish Chandra, a professor at UBC’s Sauder School of Business; Sumeet Gulati, assistant professor in UBC’s Dept. of Food and Resource Economics; and Milind Kandlikar of UBC’s Liu Institute for Global Issues and Institute of Asian Research. If the intention of rebate programs is to replace gas guzzlers with hybrids, they are failing. People are choosing hybrids over similarly priced small- and medium-sized conventional cars, which are not far behind hybrids for fuel efficiency and emissions. The reductions in carbon emissions are therefore not great. Our estimates indicate that two-thirds of people who buy hybrids were going to buy them anyway. So for the majority, rebates are not changing behavior—they are subsidizing planned purchases. —Ambarish Chandra According to the study, the inefficiency of rebate programs rises disproportionately when governments increase rebate levels. “ When BC’s rebate jumped from $1,000 to $2,000 in 2005, the actual cost of reducing carbon emissions more than doubled ,” Chandra says, noting that Ontario recently increased its rebate to a maximum of $10,000 per hybrid vehicle. The study finds that Canadian provinces that offer rebates have spent an average of $195 per tonne of carbon saved or, equivalently, C$0.43 for every liter (US$1.50/gallon) of gasoline that a vehicle consumes over its 15 year average life expectancy. Chandra says that governments could garner greater environmental benefits by purchasing carbon offsets (currently priced between $3 and $40 per tonne on carbon markets) or investing in green jobs and technologies. In summary, the results in our paper indicate that hybrid tax incentives structured as they are in Canada may not be the most effective way to encourage people to switch away from fuel inefficient vehicles like large SUVs or luxury sport passenger cars, at least in the short or medium run. In order to effectively shift people away from fuel inefficient vehicles, the government might need to explore alternative policy options. —Chandra et al. 2009 While hybrid rebates help governments to appear environmentally progressive, Chandra suggests that some programs may serve as de facto bailouts for the North American auto industry. Hybrid rebate programs are currently offered by the governments of the US and 13 states, and five Canadian provinces, including BC, Ontario, Quebec, PEI and Manitoba. The Canadian government offered hybrid rebates during 2007-2008. Researchers used Canadian vehicle sales data over a 17-year period from 1989 to 2006. Results are believed to extend to the US market, given the similarities between auto industries, in terms of vehicle buying patterns, pricing structures and car models. Resources Ambarish Chandra, Sumeet Gulati, and Milind Kandlikary (2009) Green Drivers or Free Riders? An Analysis of Tax Rebates for Hybrid Vehicles.

The Obama administration’s titanic $60 billion spending plan for the U.S. clean energy sector is luring investors away from green businesses in Canada, threatening the industry’s growth here. VANCOUVER, British Columbia, Canada; …

VANCOUVER, British Columbia (Reuters) – The Obama administration’s titanic $60 billion spending plan for the U.S. clean energy sector is luring investors away from “ green ” businesses in Canada, threatening the industry’s growth here. …

Originally posted at The Breakthrough Institute Here’s the current climate stalemate: While US and EU negotiators keep pushing for an international treaty based on cutting emissions, developing nations like China and India keep refusing to adopt hard emissions caps. But according to a new report by the Center for Clean Air Policy, those emission caps are too hard to measure and monitor in developing nations, anyway. Instead, the report concludes, developing countries should adopt a new approach to increase efficiency in their most energy-intensive industries by setting measurable clean energy technology targets. Dan Klein of CCAP, a co-author of the report, explained: “To be able to say we’re going to improve our emissions intensity by 5 percent, that’s a nice concept. But to be able to actually do that means … you have the ability to measure industrywide what you’re doing now and what you’re doing after.” On the other hand, “It’s not such a difficult thing to count the number of plants that have a certain technology,” Klein said. In a close examination of China’s cement, iron and steel industries, Klein and his colleagues–including collaborators from China’s Tshinghua University–found that adopting targets for the deployment of more efficient technologies in the cement industry alone could reduce emissions in that sector by 10-20%. Not only would a technology-based approach reduce emissions more quickly and effectively than setting a hard cap, it would also make developing nations more likely to get on-board for an international climate treaty. Haibing Ma, another co-author of the report, said: “This kind of approach will have more buying power. [China has] shown a greater level of interest in this type of approach” than in energy-intensity or hard emissions cap approaches. A technology-based approach also follows logically from the rapid deployment actions China is already taking. The nation has set ambitious targets for clean energy technologies including wind , solar , and nuclear . The Chinese government has implemented a wide range of subsidies and incentives to facilitate the deployment of these clean energy technologies. And it will continue to foster clean technology deployment with a massive $440-660 billion clean energy investment plan, set to be released this year. As Breakthrough and others have reported, it’s not emissions caps but targeted technology deployment policies– underwritten by substantial and stable government support–that have put China on track to surpass the US in the race to dominate the burgeoning clean energy industry. Last week’s CCAP report isn’t the first to call for direct decarbonization of global industries. It falls in line with a recent paper coordinated by British professor and researcher Gwin Pryns, who recommends a strategy called the “Direct Kaya Approach” to reduce the carbon intensity of an economy by increasing energy efficiency and deploying low-carbon technologies. Such a framework could replace the failed, emissions-centric Kyoto model and provide the backbone for a new international climate agreement like the one Breakthrough has advocated. The sooner climate negotiators heed the call of experts like Klein and Prins, the better. Pledges to slash emissions may make for rosy-sounding headlines, but without a plan to reach these goals, an international climate deal will amount to nothing but empty promises. The world has a far ways to go in order to avert catastrophic climate change–and a framework based on clear, measurable technology targets provides a roadmap for how both developed and developing countries will get there.

MIT Technology Review has a story , written by moi, about the $9.5 million in DOE funding that went to Toxco Ltd. , the California-based battery recycler that is pretty much the only major game in town when it comes to recycling a full range of lithium-based batteries, at least in North America. The company’s lithium-ion recycling facility is based in Trail, British Columbia, but Toxco plans to use the DOE funding to establish a lithium recycling capability at its existing Ohio plant. When complete, it will be the first facility in the United States capable of recycling plug-in hybrid and all-electric car batteries. But here’s the tricky part: plug-in vehicles that use lithium-ion chemistries are just now beginning to enter the market, and slowly. We’re not likely to see any kind of meaningful volume until about 2012. And then there’s a 10-year wait before most of these batteries get to a point where they need to be recycled. This long delay makes it difficult for a startup to enter the recycling business, so Toxco has an edge because it can simply scale up as volume builds. Now, there’s a big debate in the industry about whether we’ll have enough lithium carbonate to supply what’s expected to be a massive market over the next decade. If you believe we’ll run into supply problems, then recycling is a pretty good thing to have as a way to reduce dependence on foreign lithium suppliers, such as Russia, China, and Bolivia. But even if there’s plentyof lithium to supply the market for the next few decades (after all, the amount of lithium used in an electric car battery is quite small), we still need to recycle the batteries if we truly want these cars to be “green.” So Toxco is in a very good position.