Cleantech Update

Associated Press Halliburton confirms well contamination in Okla. Associated Press, 07.08.11, 11:20 AM EDT DUNCAN, Okla. -- Halliburton Co. has found contamination in 18 water wells in Duncan, Okla. and said it's taking steps to correct the problem. In testing the wells, Halliburton ( HAL - news - people ) detected perchlorate, which it described as a colorless salt that could - in high enough concentrations - cause adverse health effects, particularly with the thyroid gland, the company said Thursday. Halliburton said perchlorate is not a carcinogen. Article Controls The wells are located on Duncan's north side, where Halliburton used to perform government contract work involving removing and burning spent missile fuel contained in missile casings. It's been 20 years since Halliburton conducted operations at the site but the company thinks the work probably contributed to the groundwater contamination. The company collected the water samples from the wells to...

International Automated Systems You Tube Notes It is progressing steadily. The first plant is in production in Needles, California. California has a lot of red tape that slows down the process. From what I understand though, the company is advancing on many fronts and hopefully we will see competetively priced solar power sooner than later. JCSSeadog 6 months ago Yes. The system uses zinc batteries to store energy overnight. JCSSeadog 1 year ago IAS has just announced the construction of their first solar energy plant to be constructed in Needles, California. You can read the news story by searching the stock symbol IAUS and reading the news bulliten. Good news for the company, the economy, and for the environment. JCSSeadog 2 years ago The first full scale working prototype should be up and running in the next couple of months. Each tower will produce 50 Kilowatts. Approximately 20 towers can be erected on 1 acre of land. Roughly 1 Megawatt can be produced for every ...

As a noxious greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide seems an unlikely candidate for generating renewable energy. But a new, U.S. Department of Energy-backed project on the New Mexico-Arizona border soon could put CO2 to use to extract heat from subterranean rock formations to power geothermal electric plants. GreenFire Energy of Utah won a $2 million DOE grant last fall to launch the project, which will tap underground CO2 deposits at St. John’s Field, a 235,000-acre area along the border in New Mexico’s Catron County and Apache County in Arizona. GreenFire plans to build a 3- to-5-megawatt electric plant at Springerville, Ariz., about 18 miles west of New Mexico, to prove the technology. If successful, the company would start constructing 50-megawatt modular units on both sides of the border, said Randy Balik, GreenFire’s vice president of business development. “If we succeed, we’ll be the first ones to produce electric power on a utility scale using CO2,” Balik said. “The technology i...

On Monday, September 27 th , President Obama signed into law the bill known as HR 5297, or the Small Business Jobs and Credit Ac

"Algae Will Be Local": OriginOil CEO to Speak at Algae World Summit in San Diego - Riggs Eckelberry will speak on decentralization of energy production through algae - Los Angeles, CA March 9, 2010 – OriginOil, Inc. (OOIL), the developer of a breakthrough technology to transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum, has announced that the company’s president and CEO, Riggs Eckelberry, will join a distinguished panel of speakers to kick off the Algae World Summit in San Diego, California, on May 18, 2010. In keeping with the industry’s push to achieve commercial scale, this year’s Summit will focus on the critical phase “From Lab to Scale Up” and will push for collaboration between the many players in algae at all levels. In the discussion, Eckelberry will build on his theme “Algae Will Be Local”. His argument is that industrialized algae requires industrial quantities of CO2. Because CO2 is too expensive to transport...

TXU and Solar City's press release mark an exciting change for Texas. TXU residential users can now lease solar (photo Voltaic or PV) pannels for home reneweable energy generation. TXU's website is either not up yet or inundated at the moment,but here is the press release.... -Editor Affordable Solar Power Arrives in Texas TXU Energy Partners with SolarCity to Introduce North Texas' Most Affordable Solar Power Option DALLAS, Feb 24, 2010 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- For less than the monthly cost of most cell phone plans, many North Texans can now use renewable solar energy to help power their homes. TXU Energy's new solar program, in cooperation with SolarCity, a national leader in solar financing, design, installation, monitoring and related services, will provide North Texas homeowners with solar power systems that can allow them to save money on energy costs from day one. The program will include a solar lease option that includes installation, monitoring, repair...

Texas Renewable Energy Portolfio  is a Texas law that requires that Power generators produce increasing amouts of renewable energy. In effect, electricity providers (competitive retailers, municipal electric utilities, and electric cooperatives) must collectively generate 2,000 megawatts (MW) of additional renewable energy by 2009. The 2005 Texas Legislature increased the state's total renewable-energy mandate to 5,880 MW by 2015 and a target of 10,000 MW in 2025. Each provider is required to obtain new renewable energy capacity based on the their market share of energy sales times the renewable capacity goal. For example, a competitive retailer with 10 percent of the Texas retail electricity sales in 2009 would be required to obtain 200 megawatts of renewable energy capacity. Texas is the nation's leader in wind energy thanks to our long-term commitment to bolstering renewable energy sources and diversifying the state's energy portfolio. Rick Perry, Texas Governor A Re...

Light-emitting wallpaper may begin to replace light bulbs from 2012, according to a government body that supports low-carbon technology. A chemical coating on the walls will illuminate all parts of the room with an even glow, which mimics sunlight and avoids the shadows and glare of conventional bulbs. Although an electrical current will be used to stimulate the chemicals to produce light, the voltage will be very low and the walls will be safe to touch. Dimmer switches will control brightness, as with traditional lighting. The Carbon Trust has awarded a £454,000 grant to Lomox , a Welsh company that is developing the organic light-emitting diode technology. The trust said it would be two and a half times more efficient than energysaving bulbs and could make a big contribution to meeting Britain’s target of cutting carbon emissions by 34 per cent by 2020. Indoor lighting accounts for a sixth of total electricity use. Related Links Britain’s green rich list Are energy efficien...

CHP Industry and Interested Stakeholders: At the upcoming Clean Energy Roadmap Workshop, the GC RAC seeks input from the CHP, waste heat recovery, and district energy industries and key stakeholders regarding market development strategies and RAC service offerings in Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma. A vital part of the workshop preparation is a survey of the CHP industry and interested stakeholders. Your input is needed now to help develop a successful workshop. Whether or not you plan to attend, please TAKE THE CH P SURVEY NOW Please forward the survey link to anyone you know that might have an interest in taking part. http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=P59WnTuFDAM1jHWu3JZn1A_3d_3d If you are interested in attending the Workshop, come prepared to roll up your sleeves and share your ideas to help grow the CHP market in the Gulf Coast region. This event will be a major opportunity for interested stakeholders to provide strategic input to the GC RAC regarding its education and...

Can an open source data management system do for the smart grid what Google’s open mobile operating system Android is doing for cell phones — spawn innovation and low cost development? Execs at the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), the largest public power provider in the U.S., seem to think so. TVA analyst Josh Patterson says Google’s Android is a good analogy for openPDC, an open source version of a platform that aggregates and processes data about the health of the power grid , and which TVA has helped create. Like Android has done for the mobile industry, openPDC will enable utilities and the power industry to develop their own versions of data management services with more flexibility and at a lower cost than proprietary systems, Patterson points out. The comparison might be a tad abstract, but I think it holds water. OpenPDC could be as key to the deployment of the smart grid as Android has been for the recent sea-change in the mobile industry (see GigaOM Pro’s report o...

Companies marketing green products and, in particular, promoting their green energy initiatives are using words like “energy conservation” and “green energy,” but what effect has this had on consumers? Do they care? Do they even understand what these terms mean? EcoAlign, a strategic marketing agency focused on energy and the environment, decided to find out. In September, it conducted 1,000 interviews, comparing against a similar survey conducted in September 2007. The sample was balanced to match the U.S. population by age, gender, region and ethnicity. The results? Green Align found that consumers generally have positive associations with the terms “energy efficiency,” “energy conservation” and “clean energy,” but their understanding of what these terms mean has remained the same or decreased since 2007. They also have low or negative understanding about technical terms such as “demand response” (resulting in the recommendation that such terminology not be used in external mar...

In mid-October, President Obama moved to raise the amount of credit extended to small businesses. If Congress approves his plan, the measures would enable community banks to borrow at low rates from the Treasury Department's Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). It would also raise loan caps on some Small Business Administration (SBA) programs. To qualify, the banks would have to show how they would increase lending to small enterprises. The relief could not come a moment too soon. The job-creation engine known as small business has been slammed, not only because of falling demand but also because the normal flow of financing has slowed to a trickle. Small enterprises have created two-thirds of all new jobs since 1994 and they employ more than half of all private-sector employees. (The SBA's definition of a small enterprise is "an independent business having fewer than 500 employees.") In September, for the second straight month, they laid off more workers th...

Green-energy provider Lichtblick and German automaker Volkswagen are joining forces and promising to stir up the energy market with an unusual plan. Instead of relying on massive energy facilities, the average consumer may soon have a miniature power station in their basement. Chief executives of Germany's major energy suppliers usually don't have much time for their junior counterpart, Lichtblick. The Hamburg-based green-electricity provider's half a million customers may be "impressive," they say, but Lichtblick works in a niche market and is no competition for the larger companies in the industry. But things may be about to change. In the next couple of days, the relatively small company is due to reveal a new business model that could shake up the energy market quite a bit -- and not only in Germany. So, despite the fact that they currently have large power plants and considerable power over the market, things may soon turn a little less comfortable for e...

20-year fixed interest rate on SBA 504 loan projects has hit a new record low, and this is the fourth time it's happened in the last six months. I feel a bit like a broken record. Every time I turn around I'm blogging about this, emailing someone about it, or talking to another financial news outlet about it . This really is a HUGE deal. This is the first time the 20-year fixed interest rate on SBA 504 loans has dropped below 5.00% to 4.86%. The Rest @ Blue MauMau These loans can be used for comercial property purchases, including energy efficiency refinanaces. -Editor

Clean Edge Did a Cleantech Job Status Report.  Here is a summary -Editor 1 San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose, CA 2 Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County, CA 3 New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-CT-PA 4 Boston-Worcester-Lawrence-Lowell-Brockton, MA-NH 5 Washington-Baltimore, D.C.-MD-VA-WV 6 Denver-Boulder-Greeley, CO 7 Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton, WA 8 Portland-Salem, OR 9 Chicago-Gary-Kenosha, IL-IN-WI 10 Sacramento-Yolo County, CA 11 San Diego, CA 12 Austin-San Marcos, TX 13 Phoenix, AZ 14 Detroit-Ann Arbor, MI 15 Houston-Galveston-Brazoria, TX Solar Biofuels and Biomaterials Conservation and Efficiency Smart Grid Wind Power In Clean Edge's report, they considered the following sectors: Renewable Energy (e.g., Solar, Wind) Energy Storage Energy Conservation and Efficiency Smart Grid Devices and Networks Electric Transmission and Grid Infrastructure Biomass and Sustainable Biofuels Energy-Efficient Desalination UV Filtration Reverse ...

From the Interatinal Statesman WHAT was the greatest engineering achievement of the 20th century? The motor car, perhaps, or the computer? In 2000 America’s National Academy of Engineering gave a different answer: “the vast networks of electrification”. These, the academy concluded, made most of the century’s other advances possible. But whereas cars, computers and so forth have become ever more sophisticated, power grids have remained, in essence, sets of dumb wires. Thomas Edison, a pioneer of electrification in the 1880s, would be able to run them. Power is fed into the grid from power stations in the hope that it will arrive in factories, offices and homes. To this day most utilities rely on consumers to tell them that the power is out—and may then have to put in a lot of detective work to discover the cause. This may be changing at last. A global movement is afoot to make grids “smart”. This means adding all kinds of information technology, such as sensors, digital meters an...

Thanks to Texzon Energy for puting  me onto this new program... Funding for the Energy Efficiency and Conservation Block Grant (EECBG) Program under the Recovery Act totals $3.2 billion. Of this amount, approximately $2.7 billion will be awarded through formula grants. This Program was only approved three weeks ago on 9/14/09   SECO will receive approximately $45 million under the EECBG to administer to cities and counties not receiving direct EECBG allocations from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). See if your city or county received a direct EECBG allocation.   Federal Amount Available: $3.2 billion, nationally   Direct Allocations to "entitlement" Cities and Counties in Texas: $163,121,800 (Cities over 35,000/Counties over 200,000)   State Energy Conservation Office (SECO) Allocated: $45,638,100 (Cities under 35,000/Counties under 200,000)       Use of Funds   Grants can be used for energy efficiency and conservatio...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- Our economy sure could use the Next Big Thing. Something on the scale of railroads, automobiles or the Internet - the kind of breakthrough that emerges every so often and builds industries, generates jobs and mints fortunes. Silicon Valley investors are pointing to something called cleantech - alternative energy, more efficient power distribution and new ways to store electricity, all with minimal impact to the environment - as a candidate for the next boom. And while no two booms are exactly alike, some hallmarks are already showing up. Despite last fall's financial meltdown, public and private investments are pouring in, fueling startups and reinvigorating established companies. The political and social climates are favorable. If it takes off, cleantech could seep into every part of the economy and our lives. Some of the biggest booms first blossomed during recessions. The telephone and phonograph were developed during the depression of the 1870s. T...