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Category: Energy Matters

  • New Labs to Concentrate on Solar Thermal Energy

     

    NREL is studying new thermal storage materials and technologies that will allow CSP plants to work at higher temperatures and greater efficiencies, while lowering the cost of energy produced by these systems.

    DOE’s goal is to make CSP cost-competitive by 2015 and provide a sizeable amount of clean energy to the grid by 2020.

    Rapid Growth Expected

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    Mark Mehos, manager of the concentrating solar power program, says much of the ARRA funding for the CPS program will be spent on new facilities to improve thermal storage and other CSP technologies.
    Credit: Pat Corkery

    CSP plants are generating about 600 megawatts of electricity today, mostly in the United States and Spain. An additional 1,000 megawatts are under construction by utilities in sunny regions such as the desert Southwest.

    In the U.S., an additional 8 gigawatts of CSP are being planned. Internationally, a similar level of CPS development is underway.

    NREL maintains an online database of CSP projects and technologies with SolarPACES, an international cooperative organization, to track CPS development worldwide.

    NREL and Sandia National Laboratories are funded by DOE to develop CSP technologies.

    “The CSP industry is growing rapidly and needs DOE’s help to evaluate technologies that will make projects more financeable,” said CSP program manager Mark Mehos.

    “The industry needs performance and durability data in everything from materials to systems,” he said. “And on the R&D side, these new facilities will help us develop the next generation of materials and systems.”

    Two of the NREL facilities — the Advanced Thermal Storage Process and Components Integration Laboratory and the Optical Components Characterization Laboratory — will be located in NREL’s new Energy Systems Integration Facility (ESIF), which is scheduled to be completed in late 2011.

    Department of Energy funding will be used in four important areas:

    1. Advanced Thermal Storage Process and Components Integration Laboratory, $660,000.

    Economically storing thermal energy for generating electricity during peak utility load periods is vital if CSP is going to help meet clean energy demand. Mehos said this new facility would include two test units — one 15 kilowatt and the other 100 kilowatt — to evaluate advanced CSP heat transfer fluids and thermal energy storage methods. The lab will test concepts being developed through grants awarded to industry and universities for developing advanced fluids and storage concepts.

    2. Advanced Optical Materials and Optical Components Characterization and Integration Laboratories, $1.36 million.

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    Florian Sutter, a visiting German researcher, uses a specular refractometer in the Advanced Optical Materials Laboratory that will be improved with new federal funding.
    Credit: Pat Corkery

    NREL’s existing advanced optical materials laboratories develop and test new lower-cost, durable optics and coatings for mirrors and receivers. Weatherization chambers currently expose a large number of advanced reflector materials under accelerated conditions of ultraviolet light, temperature and humidity. An advanced deposition chamber is being used to develop advanced reflector and absorber coatings. A diverse set of optical characterization equipment is used to evaluate the optical properties of advanced materials. Currently NREL has three laboratories located in the Field Test Laboratory Building doing versions of this work. A portion of the funding will be used to expand the capabilities within each of these laboratories.

    NREL researchers already have worked with one CSP company, Sky Fuel of Albuquerque, N.M., to develop a film-based optical coating on an aluminum parabolic shaped substrate to replace heavier, breakable glass mirrors. That development won a 2009 R&D 100 award. “Sky Fuel’s material is the furthest along,” Mehos said. “But other companies — 3M, Alcoa, Abengoa — also are looking at new materials.”

    Some equipment for the ARRA-funded improvements is being installed now at NREL’s Advanced Optical Materials Laboratory, including four new WeatherOmeters to test mirrors and other CSP components. At $120,000 to $160,000 apiece, these advanced chambers use xenon arc lamps and other systems to concentrate sunlight at about seven times typical outdoor exposure. They also simulate the freeze-thaw cycle and other conditions.

    “We can’t wait 30 years to find out if the new mirrors for CSP systems will actually last for 30 years,” said NREL senior scientist Cheryl Kennedy who leads the advanced materials team developing and testing reflector and absorber materials. “We do acceleration tests in these chambers that will be working 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”

    NREL also supports optical characterization of industry-furnished collectors and mirror facets at an indoor laboratory located at NREL’s Joyce Street facility. Currently, the only practical orientation for indoor and field testing of complete parabolic trough modules has been an arrangement in which the collector axis points to the horizon.

    However, rarely – if ever – does the CSP collector point toward the horizon during normal operation. Mehos said it is important to test these collectors under standard operating conditions where effects like gravity can impact optical performance. With this in mind, the funding will allow researchers to develop an overhead test configuration that will accommodate full parabolic trough module testing in the vertical position to more closely simulate real-world operations.

    3. Nanomaterials for Thermal Energy Storage in CSP Plants, $1 million.

    This project will develop new nanomaterials and encapsulation strategies that could lead to significant improvements in the thermal energy storage density for CSP systems. The nanostructure research leverages NREL’s existing fundamental materials research program.

    4. Advanced Thermal Energy Storage Test and Evaluation Facility, $2.4 million.

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    SolarTAC, as it appears in this artist’s illustration, will be a unique test site for photovoltaic and concentrating solar power technologies. Ultilities and roadways are being installed now at the 80-acre site near Denver International Airport.
    Courtesy of SolarTAC

    This pilot-scale facility will be built 30 miles east of the Laboratory in Aurora, Colo., at the new SolarTAC. The SolarTAC site near Denver International Airport is being privately developed as a test site for industry with NREL’s participation, both for large-scale photovoltaic and CSP trials. Being able to test advanced thermal energy storage systems for CSP at scale is essential to developing and deploying these new concepts commercially. The proposed pilot-scale storage facility will provide a general-purpose test bed available specifically to support DOE laboratory, industry, and university test and evaluation activities.

    NREL’s plans were endorsed in letters to DOE by more than two dozen corporate and university leaders in solar research.

    “One of the key advantages is that it will be possible to get direct comparisons of competing thermal energy storage concepts,” said Henry Price, vice president of technology development at Abengoa Solar Inc. “More cost-effective forms of thermal energy storage need to be developed.”

    Joseph B. Verrengia writes for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado.

    This article originally appeared as a National Renewable Energy Laboratory feature article and was reprinted with permission.

  • Revealed: the electric BMW

     

    BMW says the lithium-ion battery packs – one is positioned under the bonnet, the other under the car – don’t restrict the coupe’s four-seat interior room, though the electric motor almost halves boot space, to 200 litres.

    The ActiveE also weighs about 400kg more than a regular 1-Series Coupe, though BMW claims the car can accelerate from 0-100km/h in less than nine seconds and reach an electronically governed top speed of 145km/h.

    According to BMW, a driver can also extend the ActiveE’s range by up to 20 per cent by lifting off the accelerator pedal rather than pressing the brake pedal to slow the car.

    This is made possible by the electric motor switching its function from propulsion unit to generator that tops up the battery pack after converting the kinetic energy into supplementary electric power.

    BMW says its electric car’s recharging time can be as fast as three hours using a fast-charging system, though owners can also use conventional electrical sockets.

    BMW has incorporated the electric motor into the rear axle to ensure the ActiveE adheres to the company’s preference for rear-wheel drive. The motor generates 125kW of power, as well as an instantaneous 200Nm of torque.

    The positioning of the battery packs is said to further aid the car’s handling by lowering the centre of gravity and contributing to a near-50/50 weight balance.

    Special alloy wheels (designed to reduce drag), the absence of exhaust pipes at the rear, and electrical-circuit graphics ensure the ActiveE concept won’t be confused with a regular 1-Series Coupe.

    The interior is near-identical, though the ActiveE’s dash features instruments specific to the electric-drive system.

    The Concept ActiveE will join the Mini E in real-world field trials, leased to both private and fleet customers for daily use.

    BMW will use the feedback from these customers to help develop its future city cars, including the Megacity Vehicle that will become part of a new sub-brand.

  • Copenhagen hands Kevin Rudd an emissions trading scheme dilemma

    Copenhagen hands Kevin Rudd an emissions trading scheme dilemma

    • Lenore Taylor and Sid Maher
    • From: The Australian
    • December 21, 2009 12:00AM

    THE Rudd government faces a dramatically more difficult task in selling its emissions trading scheme as a result of the weak result from the Copenhagen conference, which has delayed critical decisions on national targets and international timelines.

    The government has now conceded it will not be able to set its own emissions-reduction target until February at the earliest.

    That complicates its attack on Tony Abbott’s “direct action” climate plan, which is based on trying to prove that it would be a more expensive, less efficient way to meet the national target.

    The failure of Copenhagen to set clear timetables or targets will strengthen the Opposition Leader’s claim that Copenhagen was always a false deadline for the passage of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme.

    Mr Abbott yesterday described the final outcome of the talks as an “unmitigated disaster” for Kevin Rudd and a vindication of the opposition’s anti-ETS position.

    “Kevin Rudd was very unwise to try to rush Australia into prematurely adopting a commitment in the absence of similar commitments from the rest of the world,” the Opposition Leader said.

    Climate Change Minister Penny Wong accused Mr Abbott of “willing the talks to fail”.

    She said the government remained committed to reintroducing into parliament in February the CPRS negotiated with the Malcolm Turnbull-led Coalition, prior to his axing as opposition leader.

    The government will, in the meantime, be forced to decide its final emissions-reduction goal in private talks with other countries.

    These bilateral talks are necessary because of the Copenhagen summit’s failure to set targets or timetables to cut greenhouse gases.

    The so-called Copenhagen Accord, which continues to be bitterly opposed by some countries and was finally only “noted” by the UN meeting, sets out the range of emissions-reduction promises that developed and developing countries have already made – in Australia’s case, cuts of between 5 and 25 per cent by 2020.

    Senator Wong said major economies, many of which, like Australia, had made promises dependent on what others would do, would now have to talk privately about what final target each would take.

    The talks would occur after all countries had submitted their pledges by a deadline of February 1.

    “We will have to work with other nations to make clear what people are prepared to put forward under the Copenhagen Accord . . . these are discussions that will continue between the countries who back this agreement, which include the majority of the world’s nations and the majority of the world’s economies,” Senator Wong said as she prepared to leave the Danish capital.

    While the CPRS retains support from some key business groups and the powerful Australian Workers Union – the AI Group and AWU boss Paul Howes both yesterday continued to back the amended CPRS deal – the failure of Copenhagen has emboldened opponents of the scheme.

    The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry and the Australian Coal Association yesterday called for a rethink of the government’s plans in the wake of the Copenhagen summit.

    ACCI chief executive Peter Anderson said: “We now have the green light from the global community to undertake a cost-benefit analysis of what Australian industry is already doing, of the government’s Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme versus the direct action ideas the Abbott-led Coalition might come up with, and versus other options or policy mixes comparable nations might develop.”

    Australian Coal Association chief executive Ralph Hillman said the coal industry’s treatment under the CPRS should be rethought as Copenhagen had left the issue of burden-sharing of emissions cuts among countries “ambiguous”.

    Mr Hillman said any ambitions for Australia to lift its emissions reduction towards 15 per cent from its current unconditional 5 per cent should be “put on the backburner” pending the signing of binding agreements.

    The weak and non-binding accord, muscled through by US President Barack Obama after a day of desperate bargaining to salvage something from the much-hyped meeting, aims to stop global temperatures from rising by more than 2C, but does not specify the cuts needed to get there, and allows developing countries to monitor their own emission reductions and report them to the UN every two years.

    The deal promises to deliver $US30 billion in aid over the next three years to combat global warming in the poorest countries.

    One of the Australian government’s preconditions for cuts of more than 5 per cent is that developed and developing nations must make their emission reduction promises part of an “international agreement”.

    So how the UN picks up the pieces after Copenhagen’s divided and confusing conclusion is likely to be critical to what Australia ultimately decides.

    An extraordinary game of brinkmanship between the world’s superpowers and biggest greenhouse gas emitters – the US and China – saw Mr Obama finally clinch a deal with China, India, South Africa and Brazil for a watered-down agreement brokered earlier with more than 20 countries, including Australia.

    Mr Obama then unilaterally announced the deal at a private news conference for US journalists, and flew out of Copenhagen late on Friday night.

    Developing countries – outraged at the process and the weak content of the deal – threatened to block it when it was presented to the meeting for approval.

    Angry debate continued through the night until the accord was finally “noted” late on Saturday morning, Copenhagen time.

    Sudan, Venezuela, Bolvia, Nicaragua and Tuvalu blocked the accord from being adopted by the meeting.

    The Australian-based negotiator for Tuvalu, Ian Fry, said the money being offered from a proposed climate change fund for poor countries was not enough to make up for the effect on the small island of rising seas.

    “In biblical terms it looks like we are being offered 30 pieces of silver to betray our future and our people – our future is not for sale,” Mr Fry said.

    In a statement, Sudanese negotiator Lumumba Di-Aping said it was “a solution based on the very same values, in our opinion, that channelled six million people in Europe into furnaces”.

    And a Venezuelan negotiator cut her own hand, asking if she had to bleed to be able to speak.

    The accord does little to advance moves to try to get legally binding treaties covering developed and developing nations, which was the summit’s main aim, but according to leaders it avoids the “disaster scenario” of negotiations for binding treaties being closed down.

    Developed nations now hope that a binding deal can be sealed at next November’s conference in Mexico.

    Mr Rudd conceded that, at times during the chaotic negotiations, disaster had been close.

    “There was a very strong parallel push to see this thing not produce anything, and to collapse the negotiations,” the Prime Minister said.

    “We prevailed. Some will be disappointed by the amount of progress. The alternative was, frankly, catastrophic collapse of these negotiations.”

     

  • Rich and poor countries blame each other for failure of Copenhagen deal

     

    “Today’s events are the worst development for climate change in history,” said a spokesperson.

     

    Pablo Solon, Bolivian ambassador to the UN, blamed the Danish hosts for convening only a small group of countries to prepare a text to put before world leaders. “This is completely unacceptable. How can it be that 25 to 30 nations cook up an agreement that excludes the majority of the 190 nations.”

     

    But rich countries said that developing countries had wasted too much time on “process” rather than the substance of the talks. An epic stand-off over whether to ditch the Kyoto protocol‘s legal distinctions between developed and developing countries and their obligations to cut their emissions caused a huge delay to the negotiations.

     

    But Martin Khor, director of the South Centre, an intergovernmental think tank for developing countries said, “Developing countries are very disappointed because they’ve invested a lot of time in the documents they’re negotiating here.”

     

    Politicians from all corners of the world were blamed widely for not setting ambitious enough targets to counter climate change. “They refused to lead and instead sought to bribe and bully developing nations to sign up to the equivalent of a death warrant. The best outcome now is no deal,” said Tim Jones, climate policy officer from the World Development Movement.

     

    China’s prime minister, Wen Jiabao, blamed a lack of trust between countries: “To meet the climate change challenge, the international community must strengthen confidence, build consensus, make vigorous efforts and enhance co-operation.”

     

    But indigenous Bolivian president Evo Morales blamed capitalism and the US. “The meeting has failed. It’s unfortunate for the planet. The fault is with the lack of political will by a small group of countries led by the US,” he said.

     

    Even veterans of previous environmental negotiations were disappointed. “Given where we started and the expectations for this conference, anything less than a legally binding and agreed outcome falls far short of the mark,” said John Ashe, chair of the Kyoto protocol talks.

  • Climate justice: should the unborn have ltgal rights

    Climate justice: should the unborn have legal rights?

    Andrew Hickman

    8th December, 2009

    The biggest victims of climate change have no voice – in fact they are not even born yet – but the argument for giving them legal rights is not so far fetched

    In 1990, a young lawyer in the Philippines launched an audacious legal action.

    Incensed by the rapid depletion of his country’s natural resources, Antonio Oposa sued the environment minister, Fulgencio Factoran, demanding the cancellation of logging concessions which threatened the 4 per cent of the country’s virgin forest which remained. 

    He named the plaintiffs as 44 children, including three of his own, and the ‘unborn generations’ of the Philippines.

    When the case was rejected, Oposa appealed to the Supreme Court.

    He sent the judges the work of Edith Brown Weiss – an American law professor who pioneered the concept of ‘intergenerational equity’. After long deliberations, the Supreme Court ruled that the case should be heard.

    Before a decision was reached, the Philippine government issued an order prohibiting future logging. But ‘Oposa v Factoran’ remains one of the few cases dealing with the rights of future generations.

    Is intergenerational justice making a comeback?

    20 years after the Oposa case the concept of intergenerational justice seems to be enjoying a quiet resurgence. 

    Last week, UNICEF released a report in which they called for the ‘intergenerational aspect’ to be placed at the heart of climate change discussions.

    Similarly, in a speech at the UN, the Pope’s representative, Archbishop Celestino Mighore, called for ‘intergenerational justice’ to address the way the ‘energy consumption pattern of today impacts future generations’.

    And Ed Miliband, the UK’s Energy and Climate Change Minister, used a speech at the London School of Economics (LSE) last week to call for the rights of future generations to be ‘institutionalised.’

    Legal actions for the unborn

    According to Patrick Hegner of the German NGO Foundation for the Rights of Future Generations (FRFG), we are unlikely to see a spate of legal actions on behalf of the unborn. 

    ‘Even children do not have a full legal standing yet and the fight for women’s rights also took decades,’ he says.

    Instead Hegner believes intergenerational justice may eventually form part of national constitutions. He said MPs in Germany were already pushing for an amendment to the constitution requiring the rights of future generations to be considered before laws are passed.

    Elsewhere, Hungary has taken the unusual step of appointing a Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations.

    The Commissioner Dr Sandor Fulop calls himself the ‘guardian of future generations’ and sees his role as critical because ‘governments elected for a certain period of time often overlook long term interests for overriding short term benefits’.

    What will they want?

    One of the challenges of Fulop’s job is that judgements have to be made about the interests of people who don’t yet exist.

    ‘For example, they might prefer development over nature preservation if it provides them with local jobs and therefore the ability to stay in their hometown,’ says Dr Fulop.

    But according to Clark Wolf, Director of Bioethics and Professor of Philosophy at Iowa State University, intergenerational justice has more to do with our obligation not to harm people rather than guessing what future generations will value.

    ‘We have an obligation to leave them a world capable of supporting their needs and providing opportunities for them to build good lives for themselves. When we do things that undermine this opportunity, we are responsible for harming them and unjustifiably putting their welfare at risk.’

    How old will you be in 2050?

    Guy Shrubsole, a 24 year-old member of the UK Youth Delegation travelling to the Copenhagen Climate Talks agrees.

    ‘We are travelling to Copenhagen to make the case for future generations and this current generation. One of our slogans is ‘how old will you be in 2050?’ Most of the negotiators will be very old or dead. I will be 64 and hopefully about to retire in a low-carbon Britain,’ he said.

    The 23-strong delegation, which will be joined by other youth groups from around the world, wants to see ‘safeguarding the rights of future generations’ at the centre of any agreement that comes out of Copenhagen.

    ‘We have shown how concerned we are as a society about economic debt. Now we need to consider the even greater ecological debt that we are passing on to the next generation,’ said Shrubsole. 

    Intergenerational vs. Intragenerational justice

    Yet it may be intragenerational justice that takes centre stage at negotiations in Copenhagen. 

    At a meeting in Ethiopia last month, 10 African nations called for ‘Africa to be compensated for climate related social and economic losses’.

    The Ethiopian Prime Minister, Meles Zenawi, said Africa would be hit first and hardest by climate change. 

    For Professor Charles Okidi, Director of Centre for Advanced Studies in Environmental Law and Policy at the University of Nairobi, the two types of justice go hand in hand. 

    ‘When we talk about intergenerational justice, we are also talking about intragenerational justice. We cannot consider the needs of future generations without implicitly considering the interests of today’s.’

    Building higher walls

    However Hegner does see a tension between the two notions of climate justice.

    ‘Take New Orleans as a simplified example. People living there today can protect themselves against floods, like in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, with higher and better dams. With enough money at hand they can adapt to environmental changes.’

    ‘But if we decide today that we will follow cheaper adaptation strategies instead of mitigation strategies, future generations will pay the bill when climate change consequences reach a threshold at which adaptation becomes impossible,’ he said.

  • A 480 Pound train ticket to Copenhagen makes it hard to care about the climate

     

    There are two issues here: the expense of the train journey and the cheapness of the flight. In combination they force most people to do the wrong thing, even when they want to do the right one. You have to be either very determined or stark raving mad (you can draw your own conclusions) to take the train, not the plane.

    Continental trains are mostly very good, and quite a bit cheaper than the UK’s, but they are still twice as expensive as they ought to be. If EU governments are as serious as they claim to be about tackling climate change, they would be cancelling their budgets for upgrading roads and putting the money into subsidising train journeys instead. According to UK government figures, a passenger’s journey by car produces seven times as much carbon dioxide as the same journey by train.

    But as well as making train travel easier, governments should also be making flying harder. The only measure which is likely to work is a restriction on the number of available landing slots. This would put an overall cap on aviation emissions. It would also mean that flights became more expensive.

    This is portrayed by people who don’t want any action taken to prevent climate breakdown as an attack on the poor, but the reality is very different. According to the comprehensive analysis conducted by Oxford University’s Environmental Change Institute, 46% of people in “higher managerial or professional” occupations fly at least three times a year, while 74% of the long-term unemployed don’t fly at all. Sixty-four per cent of all flights from the five busiest UK airports were made by people whose income in 2004 was £28,750 or more. That’s well above the average income for that year. In global terms it places the majority of passengers in a very small elite.

    Cheap flights allow executives, second home owners and those who can afford to take several foreign holidays a year (often the same people) to pursue their extravagant lifestyles at very little cost to themselves, but at a great cost to the rest of the world.

    The market alone won’t sort this out. The new report by the Committee on Climate Change points out that even with a carbon price of £200 per tonne, flights would grow by 115% between now and 2050, blowing many of the savings the government makes in other sectors. Only a cap on landing slots will do. Otherwise even the environmentalists gathering to discuss this problem will continue to be encouraged to contribute to it.

    monbiot.com