http://www.conservfuel.com/news/comments/ en info+zeeavi@oniracom.com (Zee Avi) Copyright 2009 2009-12-14T06:10:35+00:00 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/venture_capitol_new_vc_force/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/venture_capitol_new_vc_force/ When tiny Fisker Automotive Inc. hit a financing glitch last year, threatening its plan to build a fancy gasoline-electric hybrid car in Finland, it turned to the U.S. Department of Energy. By NEIL KING JR. The DOE had a bolder idea. Why not also step up the company’s plans to develop a less-expensive model, and assemble it in a closed U.S. auto plant? Within months, Vice President Joe Biden, the former senator from Delaware, was helping lure the embryonic car company to a shuttered General Motors Co. factory four miles from his house in Wilmington, right across the tracks from Biden Park. Soon, Fisker Automotive, a two-year-old business that has yet to sell a car, won loans from the federal government totaling $528 million. Fisker had joined a flock of other businesses seeking cash from the biggest venture capitalist of all, the U.S. government. The DOE hopes to lend or give out more than $40 billion to businesses working on “clean technology,” everything from electric cars and novel batteries to wind turbines and solar panels. In the first nine months of 2009, the DOE doled out $13 billion in loans and grants to such firms. By contrast, venture-capital firms—which have long been the chief funders of fledgling tech firms, taking equity stakes in the start-ups that will pay off if they go public—poured just $2.68 billion into the sector in that time, according to data tracker Cleantech Group. Thus, while much attention has been focused on the federal government’s involvement in banking, Washington also is gaining sway in another swath of the economy. By financing clean-tech ventures on a large scale, the government has become a kingmaker in one of technology’s hottest sectors. Some young companies are tailoring their business plans to win DOE cash. Private investors, meanwhile, are often pulling back, waiting to see which projects the government blesses. Success in winning federal funds can attract a flood of private capital, companies say, while conversely, bad luck in Washington can sour their chances with private investors. The result is an intertwining of public and private-sector interests in an arena where politics is never far from the surface. In Delaware, “We had five individuals beating the band—the three members of the [congressional] delegation, the governor and the vice president,” said the state’s chief of economic development, Alan Levin. “We had in the vice president a secret weapon, except there is nothing secret about Joe Biden.” A spokeswoman for Mr. Biden said he made no direct appeals to DOE on Fisker’s behalf before the loan was approved, though he did talk to the company several times afterward to put in a plug for his home state. At the DOE, Matthew Rogers, who helps oversee the department’s loans, said proposals are vetted by “deal teams” insulated as much as possible from outside pressure. “Lots of people can call the [energy] secretary, but that doesn’t mean that any of that necessarily flows down to the deal-team level,” he said. More than 40 auto-related companies have sought government money to build parts or vehicles, ranging from hybrid roadsters and delivery vans to all-electric three-wheelers that could go 120 miles on a charge. They are chasing $25 billion in federal low-interest loans for a sector that has attracted less than a tenth that much in venture capital over the past five years, according to Cleantech. “The existence of an 800-pound gorilla putting massive capital behind select start-ups is sucking the air away from the rest of the venture-capital ecosystem,” said Darryl Siry, former head of marketing at Tesla Motors Inc., a San Carlos, Calif., company that got a $365 million DOE loan in June to build high-end electric cars. “Being anointed by DOE has become everything for companies looking to move ahead.” Bright Automotive Inc. is still seeking anointment. Based in a small warren of offices outside Indianapolis, Bright looked set to take off in September 2008. Investors were poised to give it more than $100 million to move ahead on a lightweight hybrid delivery van, and it had lined up major corporations as potential customers. When the financial crisis hit in that same month, investors bowed out. Though a few have since tiptoed back, enabling Bright to build a prototype, its principal hope for now lies in the DOE, from which it is seeking a large loan to get under way. “We are caught in this blender of historically new forces, somewhere between the public and private worlds,” said Bright’s chief executive, John Waters. Without a government loan, private investors are reluctant to jump in, he says, while the DOE loan team is wary of backing ventures that haven’t already won significant support in the private sector. The DOE acknowledges it looks to back companies that already have substantial private funding, with the hope that federal money will in turn attract more private investment. Fisker, based in Irvine, Calif., got rolling two years ago with seed money from two of Silicon Valley’s largest venture-capital firms, Palo Alto Investors LLC and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. They and some smaller investors put up nearly $160 million to move Fisker’s first car, called the Karma, off the design table and into early production. But to fine-tune the engineering and put it into full production, Fisker needed at least $200 million more. In December 2008, Fisker turned to the DOE’s $25 billion Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing loan program, which Congress had funded to launch new, high-efficiency vehicles. Fisker applied for about $170 million to get the Karma rolling. It also put in a second application, hoping eventually to win financing to build a cheaper model, code-named the Kx, which the company didn’t envision bringing to market until around 2015. DOE officials and their advisers expressed strong interest in the Karma proposal, say people involved in the talks, but they were wary of the Kx. Its engineering remained vague, and Fisker was far from having a prototype. By late spring, DOE was pushing ahead briskly on the Karma loan, say people involved in the deal. But the Karma presented a political challenge: It was already being assembled, under contract, at a plant in Finland. Though it used mainly U.S.-made components, so a federal loan would help U.S. parts makers, the boost for U.S. workers would be limited. DOE then came to Fisker with a surprising proposal: Find a U.S. site to build the Kx, and DOE would agree to fund both projects together. Fisker could then start gearing up to make the Kx even before the Karma hit the market. Close advisers to Fisker said the issue of job creation had become key to officials within the administration. “The government’s interest sped it all up,” said David Anderson, a partner at the Palo Alto Investors venture-capital firm, who followed the DOE process closely. “The government basically said, ‘Let’s make this happen sooner rather than later.’” On June 1, GM said it was closing 14 plants, including the one in Delaware. This gave fresh urgency to the DOE’s quest for Fisker, say officials involved in the loan discussions. GM’s Delaware factory, called the Boxwood Road plant and dating from 1947, once employed 5,000. It was the last auto assembly plant in the Northeast. State officials and politicians were determined to keep it alive. In the middle of August, they learned the plant had drawn interest from Fisker. CEO Henrik Fisker came to see it and dropped by the office of a Delaware senator, Tom Carper, a Democrat. The visit unleashed a flurry of activity. Gov. Jack Markell, also a Democrat, quickly called an old friend at Kleiner Perkins to check on Fisker. “Basically, we wanted to know, ‘Are they for real?’” said Mr. Levin. Kleiner Perkins itself has political roots. A leading partner, John Doerr, sits on President Barack Obama’s economic advisory board, and another partner is former Vice President Al Gore. The DOE, in August, hadn’t yet ruled on Fisker’s loan request. Delaware’s governor and congressional delegation began peppering U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu with calls on Fisker’s behalf. They also had repeated discussions with Vice President Biden and his staff, according to Mr. Levin and several others. In early September, Gov. Markell told Fisker that if it occupied the shuttered GM plant it would get an array of state incentives worth up to $22 million, including $9 million in cash for utilities. He promised to buy the first car off the line. On Sept. 17, he ran into Mr. Chu at an event in Pennsylvania. “I know, I know—Fisker,” Mr. Chu said as soon as he saw him, according to the governor, who said Mr. Chu told him he was “hearing from everyone in Delaware.” Five days later, Mr. Chu announced the government had signed a provisional agreement to lend Fisker nearly $170 million to complete engineering of the Karma, as well as $360 million to develop the less-expensive model Kx, which the company then began to call the Nina. Fisker still plans to assemble the Karma in Finland but will make the Nina in Delaware. Mr. Chu said the DOE funding would help reduce dependence on foreign oil as well as create “thousands of new American jobs.” People familiar with the loan say the government based the amount partly on its assessment that the Nina, which will sell for about $40,000 after government tax rebates, could draw world-wide annual sales of around 130,000—nearly twice Fisker’s own projection. Mr. Fisker, a former designer of sleek sports cars for BMW and Aston Martin, said he is sure his company would have won DOE funding without the Delaware politicians’ support but credits it with speeding the approval. He added that Fisker picked the Delaware plant because it made economic sense. Though its first model, the Karma, won’t be available for test drives for months, Fisker says more than 1,500 potential buyers have put down refundable deposits on the car, expected to sell for $88,000. On Oct. 27, about a month after the DOE approved loans to Fisker, its executives and Delaware politicians gathered in Wilmington for an announcement. In the morning, Mr. Biden played host to United Auto Workers brass for breakfast at his house near the Boxwood Road plant. Then they joined hundreds of auto workers and local dignitaries at the factory. Gov. Markell announced Fisker was buying it from the post-Chapter 11 remnant of GM called Motor Liquidation Co. for just $18 million. The deal includes a high-end paint facility and other equipment that industry experts say would cost more than $300 million to replace. In a rousing speech, Mr. Biden recalled how every election year, including his first in 1972, “I would stand here at this gate and shake hands at every shift.” He told of many “long talks” he said he had had with Mr. Fisker. He called the project “a metaphor for the rebirth of the country.” Afterward, Mr. Fisker escorted the dignitaries behind a curtain for their first look at a mock-up of the planned second model, the Nina. It was a sporty car body, bright red, but with no drivetrain or engine. Gov. Markell, though, was impressed. “It was just a beautiful car,” he said. Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:10:35 -0800 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/study_shifting_the_world_to_100_clean_renewable_energy_by_2030_here_are_the/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/study_shifting_the_world_to_100_clean_renewable_energy_by_2030_here_are_the/ Wind, water and solar energy resources are sufficiently available to provide all the world’s energy. Converting to electricity and hydrogen powered by these sources would reduce world power demand by 30 percent, thereby avoiding 13,000 coal power plants. Materials and costs are not limitations to these conversions, but politics may be, say Stanford and UC researchers who have mapped out a blueprint for powering the world. BY LOUIS BERGERON Most of the technology needed to shift the world from fossil fuel to clean, renewable energy already exists. Implementing that technology requires overcoming obstacles in planning and politics, but doing so could result in a 30 percent decrease in global power demand, say Stanford civil and environmental engineering Professor Mark Z. Jacobson and University of California-Davis researcher Mark Delucchi. To make clear the extent of those hurdles – and how they could be overcome – they have written an article that is the cover story in the November issue of Scientific American. In it, they present new research mapping out and evaluating a quantitative plan for powering the entire world on wind, water and solar energy, including an assessment of the materials needed and costs. And it will ultimately be cheaper than sticking with fossil fuel or going nuclear, they say. The key is turning to wind, water and solar energy to generate electrical power – making a massive commitment to them – and eliminating combustion as a way to generate power for vehicles as well as for normal electricity use. The problem lies in the use of fossil fuels and biomass combustion, which are notoriously inefficient at producing usable energy. For example, when gasoline is used to power a vehicle, at least 80 percent of the energy produced is wasted as heat. With vehicles that run on electricity, it’s the opposite. Roughly 80 percent of the energy supplied to the vehicle is converted into motion, with only 20 percent lost as heat. Other combustion devices can similarly be replaced with electricity or with hydrogen produced by electricity. Data from U.S. Energy Information Administration Jacobson and Delucchi used data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration to project that if the world’s current mix of energy sources is maintained, global energy demand at any given moment in 2030 would be 16.9 terawatts, or 16.9 million megawatts. They then calculated that if no combustion of fossil fuel or biomass were used to generate energy, and virtually everything was powered by electricity – either for direct use or hydrogen production – the demand would be only 11.5 terawatts. That’s only two-thirds of the energy that would be needed if fossil fuels were still in the mix. In order to convert to wind, water and solar, the world would have to build wind turbines; solar photovoltaic and concentrated solar arrays; and geothermal, tidal, wave and hydroelectric power sources to generate the electricity, as well as transmission lines to carry it to the users, but the long-run net savings would more than equal the costs, according to Jacobson and Delucchi’s analysis. “If you make this transition to renewables and electricity, then you eliminate the need for 13,000 new or existing coal plants,” Jacobson said. “Just by changing our infrastructure we have less power demand.” Jacobson and Delucchi chose to use wind, water and solar energy options based on a quantitative evaluation Jacobson did last year of about a dozen of the different alternative energy options that were getting the most attention in public and political discussions and in the media. He compared their potential for producing energy, how secure an energy source each was, and their impacts on human health and the environment. Best overall energy sources He determined that the best overall energy sources were wind, water and solar options. His results were published in Energy and Environmental Science. The Scientific American article provides a quantification of global solar and wind resources based on new research by Jacobson and Delucchi. Analyzing only on-land locations with a high potential for producing power, they found that even if wind were the only method used to generate power, the potential for wind energy production is 5 to 15 times greater than what is needed to power the entire world. For solar energy, the comparable calculation found that solar could produce about 30 times the amount needed. If the world built just enough wind and solar installations to meet the projected demand for the scenario outlined in the article, an area smaller than the borough of Manhattan would be sufficient for the wind turbines themselves. Allowing for the required amount of space between the turbines boosts the needed acreage up to 1 percent of Earth’s land area, but the spaces between could be used for crops or grazing. The various non-rooftop solar power installations would need about a third of 1 percent of the world’s land, so altogether about 1.3 percent of the land surface would suffice. The study further provides examples of how a combination of renewable energy sources could be used to meet hour-by-hour power demand, addressing the commonly asked question, given the inherent variability of wind speed and sunshine, can these sources consistently produce enough power? The answer is yes. Expanding the transmission grid would be critical for the shift to the sustainable energy sources that Jacobson and Delucchi propose. New transmission lines would have to be laid to carry power from new wind farms and solar power plants to users, and more transmission lines will be needed to handle the overall increase in the quantity of electric power being generated. The researchers also determined that the availability of certain materials that are needed for some of the current technologies, such as lithium for lithium-ion batteries, or platinum for fuel cells, are not currently barriers to building a large-scale renewable infrastructure. But efforts will be needed to ensure that such materials are recycled and potential alternative materials are explored. Finally, they conclude that perhaps the most significant barrier to the implementation of their plan is the competing energy industries that currently dominate political lobbying for available financial resources. But the technologies being promoted by the dominant energy industries are not renewable and even the cleanest of them emit significantly more carbon and air pollution than wind, water and sun resources, say Jacobson and Delucchi. If the world allows carbon- and air pollution-emitting energy sources to play a substantial role in the future energy mix, Jacobson said, global temperatures and health problems will only continue to increase. Tue, 01 Dec 2009 16:58:47 -0800 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/discord_over_regulation_of_car_charging/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/discord_over_regulation_of_car_charging/ With electric cars set to hit the mass market next year, a skirmish is breaking out in California over who will control the state’s electric vehicle infrastructure. The California Public Utilities Commission will write the rules of the electric road and is just starting to grapple with the complex regulatory issues surrounding the integration of battery-powered cars into the state’s electrical grid. One of the biggest questions is whether to regulate Better Place, Coulomb Technologies and other companies that plan to sell electricity to drivers through a network of battery-charging stations. California’s three big investor-owned utilities have split over the issue. “The commission should establish its authority to regulate third-party providers of electricity for electric vehicles,” Christopher Warner, an attorney for Pacific Gas & Electric, wrote in a filing with the utilities commission. “Managing the increased electricity consumption and load attributable to electric vehicles in order to avoid adverse impacts on the safety and reliability of the electric grid may be one of the most difficult management challenges that electric utilities will face.” Southern California Edison, meanwhile, urged the commission to move cautiously, calibrating any regulation to the specific business models of the companies. San Diego Gas & Electric said the commission did not have the right to regulate companies like Better Place. Not surprisingly, Better Place, based in Palo Alt, Calif., echoed that view, arguing that a heavy regulatory hand could stifle innovation and scare off investors. “At the early stages of this industry, we encourage the commission to set rules that do not foreclose new business models,” Jason Wolf, a Better Place executive, wrote in a filing with the commission. A coalition of environmental groups that includes the Natural Resources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth wrote that the commission had authority over companies like Better Pace but should “avoid stifling this emerging market with inapplicable or burdensome requirements.” The utilities commission does not regulate municipal-owned utilities, which will set their own rules for private electric car-charging networks. One of California’s biggest public utilities, the Sacramento Municipal Utility District, has asserted that it has “exclusive jurisdiction over third-party electric vehicle service providers within its service territory” and that there is no “commercial space” for companies like Better Place to sell electricity at retail rates. Better Place and other electric car start-ups will also have to do battle with long-entrenched consumer advocacy groups that are often at odds with utilities and the commission. The Utility Reform Network, for instance, has pushed the commission to go slow, allowing only the installation of 110-volt charging stations, rather than higher-voltage equipment that would charge electric car batteries much more quickly. Mon, 12 Oct 2009 19:26:59 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/european_carmakers_rev_up_the_electro-diesel_concept/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/european_carmakers_rev_up_the_electro-diesel_concept/ Reporting from Frankfurt, Germany If you think all hybrid cars are like the Toyota Prius—mirthless, ugly hair shirts of green conscience—BMW would like you to meet its Vision: a stealth submarine of a car, lower than a boxing foul, all folded geometry and LED tracer lights. The signature BMW grille glows blue like a reactor cooling pond. The transparent doors open like dragonfly wings. The all-wheel-drive Vision sport coupe is the Usain Bolt of hybrid cars: zero to 60 mph in under 4.8 seconds, top speed of 155 mph, 356 horsepower, and handling and braking comparable to the company’s brain-melting M3 coupe. Fuel economy: 75 miles per gallon. And you can plug it in. Santa Monica might never be the same. The Vision is one of several so-called electro-diesels at the Frankfurt Motor Show that put a typically European spin on Japan’s signature eco-tech of hybrids. By combining electric motors and batteries with the huge torque and efficiency of direct-injection turbo- diesels, the European automakers are breeding a species of car that delivers V-8 performance with the fuel economy of mopeds. Behind the menacing grille of the Vision, there’s a small, 1.5-liter, 163-horsepower three-cylinder turbo-diesel engine and a big electric traction motor; arrayed like a capital “I” running down the spine of the car are rows of lithium-polymer batteries. At the rear axle is another electric motor, which gives the car essentially all-wheel drive. Together these components produce a whopping 590 pound-feet of torque, considerably more than your average Lamborghini. The Vision, which uses batteries developed for Apache attack helicopters, is only an experimental vehicle for now. But “all the components are very realistic,” said Philip Koehn, BMW’s director of concept vehicle development. The batteries, the diesel components and electric motors are “off the shelf,” he said. Too flashy for you? At the other end of the performance spectrum is Volkswagen’s L1 concept, a hyperlight, tandem-seat oil-burner, like a bobsled for the road. Getting its world premiere in Frankfurt, the L1 is powered by a small, two-cylinder turbocharged direct-injection (TDI) diesel engine and a small electric motor. The L1’s marquee number: 170 mpg, or about four times that of a Honda Insight hybrid. If it comes to market as planned in 2013, the VW L1 could claim the title of most fuel efficient passenger car on the road. It would also be one of the cleanest. On a carbon-gram-per-mile basis—that’s the emissions metric that Europeans are most concerned with—electro-diesels can outperform the thriftiest gas hybrids on the planet. In the case of the Vision, BMW says the car produces 99 grams of carbon per kilometer on its own; plug it in and that number drops to 50 g/km. To compare, a Toyota Prius has carbon emissions of 89 g/km in the European emission test cycle. Depending on what you call a hybrid, electro-diesels have already arrived. Audi sells two diesel cars that are equipped with small starter/generators and battery packs to give them stop/start capability (the engine shuts down when the car is put in neutral). However, Americans think of hybrids as cars with powerful electric motors that can move at low speed on battery power alone. The first such diesel car to come to market will be the Peugeot 3008 HYbrid4. Arriving in spring 2011, this mid-size sport-utility vehicle is expected to get about 62 mpg and produce 99 g/km of carbon. A HYbrid4 version of the company’s RCZ sports coupe is all but certain. For years European automakers, who are the acknowledged masters of turbo-diesel technology, have quietly stewed as Asian companies reaped the green-image benefits of hybrid technology. On a cost and emissions basis, German automakers argued, turbo-diesel engines are more efficient. One reason is that diesel fuel itself has a higher energy content than gasoline. Still, hybrids offer some advantages. They recover kinetic energy as they brake or coast and use it to charge the batteries. They also save fuel by shutting down the internal-combustion engine when the vehicle comes to a stop. And they can move on electric power alone at low speeds, where internal combustion engines are less efficient. So why not combine the best of both technologies? Cost, mostly. “Normal turbo-diesels are already so powerful and efficient [on the order of 30% more efficient than gasoline engines] that it was a challenge to improve on that and very expensive,” said Volker Mornhinweg, the head of Mercedes-Benz’s high-performance AMG division. Then there’s the inherent incompatibility of diesels and electric power sources. Both produce torque at low revolutions per minute. Gasoline engines, in contrast, product most of their torque at higher speeds. So in a gasoline hybrid, the engine torque ramps up just as the electric motor torque is falling off. That creates a seamless yin and yang, a complementary blending of mechanical forces that’s missing in the diesel-electric union. But thanks to some advances in the field, including software necessary to smoothly integrate diesel and electric power, the hybrid diesel equation has become more promising. It’s still difficult. And expensive. But the eye-popping gas mileage of this marriage is what keeps the Europeans pushing. “It’s better in terms of total fuel efficiency to make a diesel hybrid,” said Christophe Chateau, technology spokesman for French automaking giant Peugeot. It can also be better marketing. Chateau pointed out that because Peugeot’s hybrid system situates electric motors on the rear axle (like some Lexus gas hybrids) the cars are in effect all-wheel drive. Buyers who might not pay the extra price for an electro-diesel might be willing to pay a premium for AWD. “We will get much more sales for this big amount,” Chateau said. Peugeot and other manufacturers see battery-electric powertrains as the most likely technology for small urban cars of the future. Because of the cost factor, electro-turbo-diesel will probably remain an up-market option. “We will not find this combination in too low-cost cars,” BMW’s Koehn said. But there’s an unknown out there: the increasing cost to rein in diesel emissions. In Europe, diesel cars command about 60% of the market; however, Europe has less-strict rules regarding diesel emissions of particulates and nitrous oxides. “If the [European Union] moves to the emissions standards of the U.S.,” said Koehn, “diesel will become more expensive and the relative cost-benefit of hybrid and diesels will change.” As Europe and the U.S. get closer in emissions regulations, the cost to homologate (legally certify) cars for both markets will drop. So one day, the hybrid that blows your doors off might itself have transparent doors. dan.neil@latimes.com Thu, 17 Sep 2009 22:05:00 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/volkswagens_diesel-hybrid_l1_concept_gets_170_mpg_available_by_2013/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/volkswagens_diesel-hybrid_l1_concept_gets_170_mpg_available_by_2013/ Volkswagen will display an updated version of its 1-Liter concept this week at the 2009 Frankfurt Motor Show. The diesel-hybrid car which only weighs around 800 lbs gets an jaw-dropping 170 MPG. So who wants one? It was seven years ago when VW first announced the idea. Dr. Ferdinand Piëch–currently the Chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Volkswagen Group–drove a prototype of the car from Wolfsburg to Hamburg. It was the world’s first car to travel 100 kilometers on just a single liter of fuel. But the concept wasn’t ready for production as the body’s carbon-fibre reinforced plastic (CFRP) was too costly for consideration.   “It is an enormous challenge to control costs in producing the monocoque out of CFRP,” says Dr. Ulrich Hackenberg, member of the Board of Management for the Volkswagen Brand with responsibility for development. Aerodynamics was a huge part of the L1 concept. The idea behind it was the form of a glider–one seat behind the other. It has a special chasi of aluminum components to take advantage of the CFRP body. The two-cylinder rail-injected TDI, the E-motor and the 7-speed Direct Shift Gearbox are all rear located. The combo not only delivers a high fuel consumption but it only emits 36 g/km of C02. The hybrid module has been integrated into the housing of the 7-speed DSG and consists of a 10 kW / 14 PS electric motor and a clutch. During general acceleration the electric motor can supply 40-percent additional torque and even propel the L1 over a short distance by itself. It also operates as a generator to charge the lithium-ion battery by recovering braking energy. Full details on the car can be found at VWVortex. On display with the L1 concept, Vdub will also be showing off their Up! concept. I suspect we will be seeing a lot of these roll out under VW’s new BlueMotionTechnologies brand. Source: VWVortex Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:47:57 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/a_new_way_to_turn_plastic_into_fuel/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/a_new_way_to_turn_plastic_into_fuel/ Entrepreneurs have been trying for years to turn low-value wastes into high-value products. Waste plastic is among the lowest in value, and gasoline or diesel fuel the highest, but machines to do that conversion usually consume a lot of energy and get gummed-up by leftover material that they cannot convert. Now a company in Washington, D.C., is trying out a new way — heating the plastic to a very carefully controlled temperature range, with infra-red energy. The company, Envion, is expected to cut the ribbon on Wednesday morning on a $5 million plant that it says will annually convert 6,000 tons of plastic into nearly a million barrels of something resembling oil. The product can be blended with other components and sold as gasoline or diesel. “We are the world’s largest oil consumer and the world’s biggest producer of waste,’’ said Michael Han, chairman and chief executive of the company. This process will convert one to the other for about $10 a barrel, he said. Montgomery County, just north of Washington, D.C., apparently agrees, at least to the extent that it is giving Mr. Han a free supply of plastic and a spot at its waste transfer station to set up shop. Gov. Martin O’Malley of Maryland was scheduled to speak at a ceremonial opening on Wednesday. A day earlier, Mr. Han pointed out bales of plastics waiting to be shredded and fed into his machine, including planters, McDonald’s large-sized beverage cups, margarine containers and other materials typical of what suburban residents put out in blue bins once a week for pick-up. His machine can digest the blue bins, too, he said. Indeed, the machine will take everything except PET (the bottle with the “1’’ on the bottom) because those have a higher value on the recycling market, he said. He will process the caps, though. (Nationwide, 50 million tons of plastic waste are generated annually, according ot the company.) The finished product looks like a slightly murky lemonade and smells somewhere between gasoline and diesel fuel. One company has already agreed to buy the material for blending into motor fuel, and Mr. Han said he in discussion with others. Envion would like to license its technology for use around the world. Mr. Han and other company officials were a little vague on some details, which they said were proprietary, but the plant essentially consists of a two-story-high chemical reactor festooned with internal agitators (for mixing up the soup) and heating elements that give off infra-red energy. Another trick is to limit the amount of oxygen. Because the process is driven by electricity and not with an open flame, the temperature can be tightly controlled, so most of the material — about 82 percent, according to the company — becomes liquid fuel. Company executives ppredicted that they would have to shut down to clean out leftover sludge two to four times a year (conventional processes get clogged much faster). The sludge can be burned for energy too, but it has much lower value. Production depends on the plastic used as feedstock, but each ton of waste will produce 3 to 5 barrels of product, according to Envion. Producing a barrel consumes between 59 and 98 kilowatt-hours — two or three days’ worth of electricity for a typical house. The price of electricity per gallon comes to 7 to 12 cents, the company says. Todd Makurath, the director of global brand management at the company, said that because it was all electric, it could be monitored over the Web, with just two employees on site, one to use a front-end loader to dump shredded plastic into the intake hopper and another to “watch for red lights” on the alarm system. “This could be transformational in how we handle plastics,’’ Mr Makurath said. Wed, 16 Sep 2009 08:29:51 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/click_here_to_find_out_more_fulcrum_bioenergy_squeezes_fuel_from_garbage/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/click_here_to_find_out_more_fulcrum_bioenergy_squeezes_fuel_from_garbage/ Fulcrum BioEnergy claims it can derive commercial-scale ethanol from municipal waste — and it just ran the first demo that proves it, the Pleasanton, Calif. company says. Already, it’s moving on its planned Sierra BioFuels Plant, a facility that could turn 90,000 tons of garbage into 10.5 million gallons of ethanol every year, and one of the first of its kind. To give you some context on the size of the plant — slated to be built 20 miles outside of Reno, Nev. — 90,000 tons of waste is the amount produced by a city with 165,000 residents. If you extrapolate the technology out to a national level, it could one day produce more than 1 billion gallons of ethanol annually. And the company, already benefiting from its other ethanol business using different feedstocks, says the price of the fuel produced could be as low as 50 cents a gallon. Fulcrum uses an engineered catalyst to convert synthesis gas into ethanol suitable for running cars. It says that its demo facility, called the TurningPoint Ethanol Demonstration Plant, produced the same results consistently over hundreds of hours of testing. The company now plans to use the plant to fine-tune its processes, hopefully upping efficiency and yield. Interestingly, it licensed the technology for its entire process. It took the gassification half from InEnTec, a company that raised $150 million last year. And it took the catalytic half from the Nipawin Biomass New Generation Cooperative and Saskatchewan Research Council, which still owns half of the technology. Fulcrum simply put it together, tested it, and had the resources to bring it to market. To support these efforts and the estimated $120 million Sierra BioFuels Plant, Fulcrum says it will raise a round of equity and debt over the next six months, reports the Cleantech Group. The plant should be up and running by 2011. While the company will certainly be one of the first to make waste conversion a commercial reality, it has some pretty tough competition in Coskata and Rentech — the latter of which just signed a deal to provide 1.5 million gallons of synthetic diesel fuel made from sewer sludge to power ground equipment for eight airlines at LAX. Terrabon, another waste-to-fuel enterprise, is backed by Valero Energy and Waste Management. Fulcrum says its municipal waste process could also be used to make synthetic diesel, butanol or electricity, but that it decided to focus on ethanol because it’s the most lucrative segment. The company is backed by US Renewables Group, one of the country’s largest equity firms focused exclusively on renewable sources of energy, and Rustic Canyon Partners. Mon, 07 Sep 2009 11:59:58 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/click_here_to_find_out_more_govt_gives_out_300m_for_advanced_vehicles_clean/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/click_here_to_find_out_more_govt_gives_out_300m_for_advanced_vehicles_clean/ The U.S. Department of Energy just announced that it will provide $300 million in stimulus funds to 25 projects aimed at putting 9,000 more alternative-fuel vehicles on America’s roads, and building the infrastructure needed to power them, including 542 fueling and charging stations across the country. All told, these projects — now under the banner of the DOE’s long-standing “Clean Cities” program — could cut petroleum use by up to 38 million gallons a year — that’s nearly 1 million barrels of oil. The bulk of the funding will be used to accelerate adoption of hybrids, electric vehicles and plug-in electric hybrids, as well as natural gas and biofuel-powered vehicles. The refueling stations included in the plan will be designed to power cars running on natural gas, propane, biodiesel, ethanol and, of course, electricity. In order to receive the money, each of the projects named had to raise twice the matching funds, allowing for more capital-intensive projects. Instead of awarding money to companies tackling these areas, the DOE is funding local government organizations charged with greening transportation in their jurisdictions. It is also encouraging recipients to introduce fleets of advanced vehicles with industry partners in order to spur eventual commercial adoption. For example, the San Bernadino Associated Governments‘ were awarded $9.95 million to add 262 natural gas-powered heavy-duty trucks with the help of transportation vendor J.B. Hunt. The Maryland Energy Administration received $5.9 million to fund the purchase of 150 hybrid-electric trucks for use by Nestle and UPS among others. And the City of Chicago’s Department of Environment will add 554 alternative fuel and hybrid electric vehicles to the city with nearly $15 million from the DOE. You can see a full list of the funded projects here (the majority of them rely on natural gas). The strategy empowers local governments to support the projects that make the most sense for the region — a fairly novel concept. Municipalities are also among the largest owners of fleet vehicles, which, once converted, would allow the technology to spread faster than it might otherwise. So far, the stimulus money earmarked for the cleantech sector has been handed out directly to businesses, including the $2.4 billion it distributed to 48 advanced battery and transportation companies less than a month ago. The Clean Cities program is not a creation of the stimulus package. Kicked off 15 years ago, its goal has always been to cut the country’s petroleum consumption in transportation. It actually spawned the creation of several of the local government groups receiving the recent financing, including the Utah Clean Cities Coaltion and the New Jersey Clean Cities Coalition. There are more than 90 groups total, achieving various levels of activity throughout the years. Vice president Joe Biden originally announced the $300 million initiative for advanced vehicles back in April. Thu, 27 Aug 2009 21:05:56 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/london_to_launch_uks_first_hydrogen_highway/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/london_to_launch_uks_first_hydrogen_highway/ London Mayor Boris Johnson has announced plans to create Britain’s first “hydrogen highway” by building a network of hydrogen filling stations throughout the capital. As part of the scheme, a pilot fleet of around 150 hydrogen cars, five buses and 20 black taxis will be assembled in the run-up to the 2012 London Olympics. The flamboyant mayor has gone on record as saying that he wants Britain to become a world leader in fuel cell technology and his team have made the ambitious claim that, within twenty years, up to one in three of the 31m cars in Britain could be fuelled by hydrogen. The plan draws inspiration from a similar scheme introduced in California by Arnold Schwarzenegger, the state’s governor, and will be rolled out in tandem with a scheme to introduce 25,000 electric car ‘charge points’ throughout the capital. Speaking about the scheme, Johnson told reporters, “Harnessing low-carbon technology is key to solving the pressing issues of energy security, cutting climate change emissions and improving air quality. With electric vehicles gearing up to become a mainstream choice in a few years’ time, we are creating the right conditions for them to flourish.” Deputy London mayor and chairman of the London Hydrogen Board Kit Malthouse said, “We think it’s going to be pretty big. We plan an initial network of six or so hydrogen fuelling stations around the capital. We would then be able to fuel the next generation of vehicles.” Given the ambitious claims for the large-scale adoption of hydrogen transport by 2029, it will be interesting to observe whether this momentum towards sustainable transport will be sustained once the mass publicity surrounding the 2012 olympics has subsided. Tue, 25 Aug 2009 08:55:18 -0700 http://www.conservfuel.com/news/who_needs_gasoline_if_you_have_old_beer/ http://www.conservfuel.com/news/who_needs_gasoline_if_you_have_old_beer/ The MicroFueler makes ethanol out of organic waste in minutes. It can be installed at individual homes, and companies are eager to supply owners with garbage. It sounds too good to be true: A residential system that allows people to make fuel from old beer, leftover wine and other waste products and use it to run their vehicles. That’s what inventors of the E-Fuel MicroFueler claim, and there’s support for the idea in government, industry and pop culture. MicroFueler buyers are eligible for a $5,000 tax credit. Former L.A. Laker Shaquille O’Neal is an investor in the system’s distributor. The $10,000 E-Fuel MicroFueler consists of a 250-gallon tank for organic feedstock, such as waste wine and beer, and a still that converts it to pure ethanol, or E-Fuel. The still doubles as a fuel pump, which works similarly to those at gas stations. The only waste product is distilled water. “If we give everybody the ability to make their own fuel, you break the oil infrastructure,” said MicroFueler inventor Tom Quinn, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur who also developed the motion-control system for the Nintendo Wii gaming system, a version of which is used in his new micro-refinery. “Three years ago, I looked at where the world was going, and energy caught my eye,” said Quinn, chief executive of E-Fuel Corp. in Los Gatos. “As a world, we had no replacement fuel for gasoline, and that led me to alternative fuels such as ethanol.” The problem with ethanol, Quinn said, was energy inefficiency—not only in the carbon cost of growing, harvesting and transporting the corn that was used to make it, but also in the distillation process that turned it into usable fuel. Many environmentalists are critical of corn-based ethanol, saying it is an inefficient fuel that uses valuable cropland and increases food prices. “In the U.S. alone, more than 100 billion gallons of organic fuel is thrown out,” said Quinn, who reached out to ethanol scientist Floyd Butterfield to see if they could collaborate on a system that could make ethanol in a manner that was cost effective and better for the environment. The idea was to use organic waste rather than corn to make a product known as cellulosic ethanol. Although Quinn’s MicroFueler is most effective with wastes that are high in alcohol, ethanol “can be made out of any waste—lawn clippings, dairy products, old chemicals, cardboard, paper, bruised and discarded apples from the grocery store. It can be fermented and turned into fuel in minutes,” Quinn said. So far, only one MicroFueler is up and running. It was installed in late June at the Pacific Palisades home of Chris Ursitti, CEO of GreenHouse International Inc., the San Diego firm that is distributing the units and supplying feedstock to those who install MicroFuelers at their homes. “You just open up the hatch and pour in some waste and it turns it into fuel for the car,” said Ursitti, who’s been using homemade ethanol to run his flex-fuel-converted Lexus hybrid SUV. GreenHouse has contracts with Karl Strauss Brewing Co., Gordon Biersch Brewing Co. and Sunny Delight Beverages Co. to convert 29,000 tons of their liquid waste using MicroFuelers. Though Ursitti is the only one now using the system, the plan is for a tanker truck to pick up the companies’ waste and deliver it to home-based MicroFuelers, which convert it to ethanol on site. MicroFueler owners are charged $2 a gallon once they pump out the fuel. “What they need, we have. What we need, they have,” said Karl Strauss CEO Chris Cramer, referring to his San Diego company’s symbiotic relationship with GreenHouse, for which no money is changing hands. Before entering the feedstock pilot program with GreenHouse, Karl Strauss took care of all its beer-brewing waste products by paying outside companies to destroy beer that had passed its freshness date and farmers who fed the spent brewing grains to their pigs. Now GreenHouse is using expired beer. “Because we’re a fairly large craft brewer, there’s a lot of yeast, a lot of beer going around,” Cramer said. “Any drops of beer that don’t go into a bottle, we’d like to make ethanol and fuel vehicles.” Converting expired beer and other liquid wastes into cellulosic ethanol takes minutes and uses three kilowatt-hours of electricity to produce one gallon of fuel. In addition to powering vehicles, the fuel could run a “gridbuster,” or home generator, which produces 23 kilowatt-hours of electricity per gallon, GreenHouse said. Factoring in the $5,000 federal tax credit, an annual household fuel consumption of 2,080 gallons and a $2 charge a gallon, GreenHouse estimates the average consumer payback time is about two years. Ethanol has less fuel value than gasoline, meaning a car will travel fewer miles on a gallon of ethanol than on a gallon of gasoline. But it also creates 38% less carbon dioxide than gasoline when burned, according to Quinn. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “has not been called upon to analyze the environmental impacts of [organic ethanol] in comparison to gasoline,” EPA spokeswoman Cathy Milbourn said. However, she said, “using waste products derived from renewable sources . . . would likely lead to an overall smaller carbon footprint in comparison to a food-based feedstock” such as corn. It’s legal to make up to 10,000 gallons a year of alcohol fuel, such as ethanol, on one’s own property as long as it isn’t sold to others. An alcohol fuel producer’s permit from the U.S. Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau is required. Sat, 22 Aug 2009 07:47:06 -0700