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...

Posted by Roger Valdez 09/03/2009 03:00 PM During Washington’s last legislative session, I wrote glowingly about a bill introduced by Representative Hans Dunshee that would have sold $3 billion in bonds for energy efficiency retrofits in public schools across the state. It didn’t pass. But what appealed to me was that this idea is a 3 for 1 deal. A win, win, win. It could reduce climate changing emissions, create much-needed green jobs in local communities (reviving a flagging economy), and save money on energy bills. In fact, it could create enough savings to pay back the bonds. I called it Green Increment Financing. Maybe this kind of far-thinking, money-saving, job-creating, innovative policy will pass next time around. Meanwhile, I have found out that this kind of financing is already happening in the Northwest—albeit on a much smaller scale—hundreds of thousands of dollars versus the hundreds of millions it would take to retrofit all schools. It’s called Energy Service Perfor...

In August of last year I wrote an article titled “Grid-based Energy Storage: Birth of a Giant.” Over the last 12 months I’ve written a series of follow-on articles that discuss the principal classes of manufactured energy storage devices and the companies that are making or planning to make products for smart grid energy storage applications. My entire archive of articles on the energy storage sector is available here. One of the biggest problems I’ve encountered over the last year has been a dearth of reliable third party information that can help investors understand the breadth and depth of the business opportunity, and sift through the frequently contradictory claims of energy storage device manufacturers that plan to target the smart grid as a principal market. Since energy storage investors are generally well-informed and frequently opinionated, most of my articles have lengthy comment streams that round out my perspective and are usually more interesting than the articles...

A carbon project refers to a business initiative that receives funding because of the cut the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs) that will result. To prove that the project will result in real, permanent, verifiable reductions in Greenhouse Gases, proof must be provided in the form of a project design document and activity reports validated by an approved third party in the case of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) or Joint Implementation (JI) projects. Carbon projects are developed for reasons of voluntary environmental stewardship , as well as legal compliance under a Greenhouse Gas Cap & Trade program. Voluntary carbon (GHG) reducers may wish to monetize reductions in their carbon footprint by trading the reductions in exchange for monetary compensation. The transfer of environmental stewardship rights would then allow another entity to make an environmental stewardship claim. There are several developing voluntary reduction standards that projects can use as guides for d...

New report suggests the United States could save $1.2 trillion by investing $50 billion a year through 2020. Management consulting firm McKinsey & Co. released a report today suggesting the U.S. could reduce its non-transportation related energy consumption by as much as 23 percent by 2020 if it invests enough political and financial capital. The report indicates that reducing energy consumption by 23 percent by 2020 could eliminate more than $1.2 trillion in waste (at a rate of $130 billion annually), which would dramatically exceed the $520 billion investment required, i.e. $50 billion each a year over the next decade, plus program costs that would be required to put such energy efficiencies in place. “If we do nothing we will waste $1.2 trillion of energy,” said Ken Ostrowski, a senior partner from McKinsey’s Atlanta office, in a briefing at the U.S. National Press Club in Washington, D.C. But the report’s authors caution that these energy savings can only be realized if the Uni...

OGE ( An Oklahoma Power Utility) has a very useful Energy use calculator for commercial buildings . A clean tech Engineer I know uses it for a very quick load demand estimation at the begining of an energy audit. -Editor.

Negawatt power is the idea of creating incentives to reduce demand for electricity to ease the load at peak times or alleviate the need to build more generation plants. In theory, these negawatts can be aggregated and an arbitrage market could be created to trade these. The term was coined by Amory Lovins , who saw a typo — "negawatt" instead of "megawatt" — in a Colorado Public Utilities Commission report. He adopted the term to describe electricity that wasn't created due to energy efficiency. [1] An electricity supplier that needs more electricity can invite suppliers to bid to supply it and invite customers to bid to reduce demand. The electricity supplier can then compare these quotations to establish the most economic alternative. This comparison can refer to peak load management - how much per additional kW to get the power company through the peak load due to air conditioning on an unusually hot day - or may refer to longer-term investments - comparing...

FYK is a Norwegian sports car designed to run on a blend of hydrogen and natural gas. It was developed by a Norwegian company named Aetek and received backing from Statoil, the largest petroleum company in the Nordic countries and Norway's largest company in all categories. FYK was launched in 2006 as a technology demonstrator and there are currently no plans on putting it into series production. FYK was launched in august 2006, at the same time as Statoil opened up the first filling station in Norway for hydrogen, Natural Hy and natural gas. This filling station can be found in Forus, Stavanger. F YK is powered on NaturalHy (HCNG), a blend consisting of 8-20% hydrogen and 92-80% compressed natural gas. The car is built almost entirely in aluminium in order to reduce weight and the car is fitted with cutting edge wireless communications solutions from Norway. Not only body and chassis, but suspension, motor, wheels and the entire has been made from recyclable aluminium and exterio...

July 9, 2009 The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), which was enacted in February, permits an applicant to receive a grant from Treasury in lieu of claiming investment tax credits (ITCs) or production tax credits (PTCs ). Today the U.S. Treasury Department issued much-anticipated guidance concerning applications to receive cash grants in lieu of claiming income tax credits for certain renewable energy projects. Although the guidance includes a sample application form, the U.S. Treasury has stated that it will not accept applications until August 1. Click here to read the full analysis on this guidance including grant details, eligibility and the application process at www.stoel.com . The Rest @ Stoel Rives

JERUSALEM, July 9 (Reuters) - It may take a little bit of colour to create cheaper solar energy. Israeli start-up 3GSolar says it has developed the world's first commercial-size solar energy system that uses coloured dyes to turn sunlight into electricity. The technology emerged from a relatively new field in solar energy that uses simple organic dyes instead of rare or costly materials, like silicon, which scare many consumers away from solar power. Energy companies have been struggling for years to make dye-sensitised solar cells (DSC) large enough to be used in commercial-size systems. Such next generation cells could be used in cutting-edge applications, like windows that turn passing sun rays into electricity. Japanese electronics conglomerate Sony Corp ( 6758.T ) said last year it had developed dye-sensitised cells with an energy conversion efficiency of 10 percent, a level seen necessary for commercial use, but that its technology was still in the research and development s...

I pulled this from a Alfagy's website: They are developing wood mass gassification in a high heat low oxegen invironment, the burining the clean gas. Very interesting... -CTE Editor The range of fully automated Wood Gasified Heat and Power Plants are as follows: The ENERCARB wood gas technology offers customers a turn-key automated solution for heat and power generation from wood. We can provide a complete solution covering the full value chain from wood preparation to power generation in the 250 kW to 1,000 kW range. This is a gap in the market where the company believes there is a potential £725m market worldwide.A full scale 500 kW wood gasification plant was built for a client and has been operating since April 2009. Over the next 3 years sales of wood gasification plants are expected growing rapidly with the introduction of new support structures. Biomass accounts for around 5 per cent of total energy consumption in Europe. In countries such as Finland, Sweden and Austria it...

Nano wires are essential for the increase in efficiency of Photo Voltaic Technology. Since the PV effect can occur on wires one 1000 th of the diameter of a human hair. The ability to build a mesh of nano wires within a PV cell or PV material is important toward increasing PV Materials. Now a Company has created a mapping machine that can find a sugar cube in 25 square kilometer of three dimensional space.... Read this article to fin out more. -Editor Nano Measurement In The 3rd Dimension ScienceDaily (July 6, 2009) — From the motion sensor to the computer chip - in many products of daily life components are used whose functioning is based on smallest structures of the size of thousandths - or even millionths - of millimetres. These micro and nano structures must be manufactured and assembled with the highest precision so that in the end, the overall system will function smoothly. See also: Because of this, details are important. Scientists at the Physikalisch - Technische...

HELMSFORD, N.Y. -- Coca Cola Enterprises signed a 10-year contract with UTC Power that will bring two fuel cells to its southern New York bottling plant. The UTC Power fuel cells will produce heat and energy that can satisfy nearly a third of demand at Coca Cola’s bottling plant in Elmsford, N.Y. The project received $2 million in funds from the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority . South Windsor, Conn.-based UTC Power will retain ownership of the fuel cells, in addition to operating and maintaining them. The company began offering the 10-year energy services agreement a few years ago, according to company spokeswoman Peg Hashem.“It’s helpful for those who don’t want to spend the capital upfront,” she said. Fuel cells produce electricity, heat and water by combining hydrogen and oxygen in an electrochemical process. The PureCell 400 fuel cells to be deployed at Coca Cola’s bottling plant are more than twice as energy efficient as traditional power sources and can ea...

(June 5, 2009) Campbell, CA - Real Goods Solar (NASDAQ: RSOL) announced today it has signed a contract to design and install solar electric systems totaling 3.65 megawatts for the Fremont Union High School District in Sunnyvale, Cupertino and west San Jose, California. The new solar systems will be constructed as carports at all five high schools in the District and are expected to save District taxpayers over $12 million in the total cost of electricity over the next 25 years. The five systems will contribute enough electricity to cover about 45% of the power usage of each school. This solar program, exceeding $30 million, is believed to be the largest direct purchase by a secondary school system in North America, financed by a portion of a $198M school bond approved by the District’s voters in June 2008. The District researched many alternative energy options before choosing Real Goods Solar for these installations across school campuses. The system monitoring that Real Goods Solar ...

When the intelligent grid gets built, will anyone notice?" Don Von Dollen, EPRI's IntelliGrid program manager, is only partly joking when he asks this question. Of course utilities will notice the benefits that come from greater intelligence in the power-distribution network--better diagnostics, & The Smart Grid Provides Smart Grid Technologies Reliability Efficiency Utilization Energy Efficiency for Utilities Smart Operations, Networks & Meters http://googleads.g.doubleclick.net/aclk?sa=l&ai=BGA6ldxhJSpPlLIjEmwaOocXmA8K3yYgBnNqHhgzAjbcBsNxZEAIYAiDO45ECKAM4AFCH_5uQ_v____8BYMmm7ozkpMATsgETd3d3LmFsbGJ1c2luZXNzLmNvbcgBAdoBPWh0dHA6Ly93d3cuYWxsYnVzaW5lc3MuY29tL3V0aWxpdGllcy91dGlsaXRpZXMvNDA1NjQ0MC0xLmh0bWyoAwHoA5IF6APpAegDsgPoA8kC9QMCBAAE&num=2&sig=AGiWqtxYNsBXf0NXdfFTQY1J_E4E0UJojQ&client=ca-pub-2905054723170537&adurl=http://www.telvent.com/sites/telvent/en/areasnegocio/energia/electricidad/descripcion/ Guardian Water & Power Submetering Products an...

Charlottesville to be First City in Dominion Virginia Power's 'Smart Grid' Network Innovative program opens doors to wide range of energy conservation options Press Release June 18, 2009 CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. -- Charlottesville has been selected as the first city in Virginia and one of the first in the nation to benefit from "smart grid" technology that will make the delivery of electricity more efficient and less costly while improving customer service. Smart grid capabilities also will promote energy conservation and environmental responsibility. Dominion Virginia Power executives joined Gov. Timothy M. Kaine, University of Virginia President John Casteen, state and local officials, and private industry partners today to unveil SmartGrid Charlottesville. The $20 million program begins with the installation of about 46,500 "smart meters" in the city of Charlottesville and Albermarle County. More than half of the meters have been installed, with completi...

The Administration is trying to publicize funding for Geothermal and Solar Recovery Act Funding projects: So far, it is putting the funds in the hands of government , not business, and these institutions are inceted to make the programs last as long as possible, not to be profitbale. When I Read these Funding Opportunities , it seems to me that 16 of the 18 opportunities are for research and development or demonstrations of technology we already know works. Yes, we will learn new things Yes, contractors who put up the demonstrations will earn money for the one project; maybe they will even get more contracts. Yes Solar manufacturing plants, even thinfilm plants will be built It is a hit near the target, but sorry sir, no cigar. Geothermal A Geothermal mapping program is a good idea, but lets generate some economy NOW by granting energy companies money to build plants in the places we already know they will work, like they Texas Gulf Coast, Northern California. Make them pay the money...

MERCED, Calif. -- A new study suggests converting biomass to electricity rather than ethanol for transportation produces fewer greenhouse gas emissions and offers more “miles per acre.” Researchers from Stanford University and the University of California, Merced, studied the lifecycle of plant-based electricity, or “ bioelectricity ,” and ethanol technologies to determine which delivered more miles of transportation with fewer environmental impacts. They concluded battery-powered vehicles that used electricity derived from biomass provided an average of 80 percent more miles of transportation per crop acre than internal combustion engine vehicles running on ethanol made from corn or switchgrass . " The internal combustion engine just isn't very efficient, especially when compared to electric vehicles," Co-author Eliott Campbell of U.C. Merced said in a statement last week. " Even the best ethanol-producing technologies with hybrid vehicles aren't enough to ove...