Category: Energy

Andrey translates the TajikVoice’s post, which tells about the officials of Tajikistan, who are forcing citizens to buy stocks in a dam project and donate money for its construction.

Elina Galperin reports that Russia and Turkmenistan signed an agreement to expand bilateral “strategic” energy cooperation, including resumption of Turkmen gas supplies to Russia.

Energy Program at UIUC Funded by Federal Recovery Dollars

Gov. Pat Quinn today announced that the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) is the first recipient of a Large Customer Energy Efficiency Grant to help large energy users reduce the amount of energy they expend.

The program is one component of Illinois’ Energy Plan, the most comprehensive effort to date to address the state’s energy production.

UIUC will receive more than $848,000 for a campus-wide energy efficiency initiative that will save $1 million per year in energy costs.

“Green energy projects like this one on the U of I campus are one of the wisest ways we can invest our capital funding,” said Gov. Quinn.

“Not only are we lowering our energy costs and reducing our dependence on foreign oil, we are putting people to work in the green economy.”

UIUC’s project will generate savings totaling more than $1 million. These savings are approximate to the amount of electricity, coal and gas energy used by over 1,000 homes annually.

In addition to the energy efficiency savings, officials estimate the project will create 18 construction and installation jobs and will help retain 36 jobs based on the annual savings.

The university will implement a number of energy-saving measures, including energy wheels in several new and renovated buildings, thermal pipe insulation, Variable Air Volume hoods and controls for the Chemical Life Services Building A, Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning Controls in the Krannert Center for Performing Center’s Mezzanine, exhaust controls in the Levis Facility, and geothermal systems for several buildings at the Allerton Park and Retreat Center.

“The ARRA-funded State Energy Program will help organizations, businesses and consumers become better stewards of the earth and help put money back into the economy through green job creation,” said DCEO Director Warren Ribley.

The Large Customer Energy Efficiency Grant Program is funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act and administered by the Illinois Energy Office in the Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity.

For additional information about the State Energy Program, please visit illinoisenergy.org

Eco Factor: Concept lights convert waste noise into electricity.

Airports are one of the noisiest places in any city and they do consume a lot of energy as well. Industrial designer Hung-Uei Jou has come up with a concept product that can make good use of all that expended energy and reduce an airport’s energy requirements.

(more…)

A new agreement between the U.S. Navy and the Department of Agriculture may offer a boost to developers of fuels derived from plants, and other greentech firms vying for military contracts. The two departments have agreed to work together — and with private partners — to “encourage the development of advanced biofuels and other renewable […]

2010Jan22: 25% of the total U.S. grain crop in 2009 (about 107 million tons of grain) ended up as ethanol to fuel cars. “The grain grown to produce fuel in the US [in 2009] was enough to feed 330 million people for one year at average world consumption levels,” said Lester Brown, the director of the Earth Policy Institute, a thinktank that conducted the analysis of US Department of Agriculture data (Guardian.co.uk).

Reference: Guardian.co.uk http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/jan/22/quarter-us-grain-biofuels-food

Read the Earth Policy Institute’s press release – Data Highlights: U.S. Feeds One Quarter of its Grain to Cars While Hunger is on the Rise http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/2010_datarelease6/

Image Description: (top) U.S. Grain Used for Ethanol, 1980-2009. Source: USDA. (middle) Number of Undernourished People in the World 1969-2009. Source: FAO. (bottom) Number of People Who Could be Fed by the U.S. Grain Used to Produce Ethanol. Source: EPI, UN, USDA. Images Credit: Earth Policy Institute. Images Location: Earth Policy Institute http://www.earth-policy.org/index.php?/press_room/C68/2010_datarelease6/ Image Permission: This work is copyrighted and unlicensed. However, it is believed that the use of this work to illustrate the subject in question, Where no free equivalent is available or could be created that would adequately give the same information, on Interlinked Challenges, hosted on servers in the United States by Michigan State University, qualifies as fair use under United States copyright law.

Norway already boasts the world’s first floating wind turbine, and is apparently the windiest coastline in Europe, making it perfect for even more turbines. Or a turbine city, like On Office‘s proposal which shows a stunning vision of the future.

The Turbine City concept from the architectural firm not only harnesses all that valuable wind, it also shows a smart tourism scheme housing a hotel, spa and museum. The offshore wind turbines would be connected together like an archipelago of islands, and would provide a base for passing sailors and holidaymakers. If this is the future, I’ve got to find myself a cryogenic freezer. [On Office via Designboom]

An advanced peek at a new assessment

Californians have improved their efficiency of water use over the past 25 years. The state’s economy and population have grown. But total water use has not grown, and per person, each Californian uses far less today. This improvement in efficiency has saved the state’s collective rear end. So far.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Dr. Peter Gleick is president of the Pacific Institute, an internationally recognized water expert and a MacArthur Fellow.

Read his full bio…

But plenty of water problems still remain, despite the welcome rains of the past week. Current water use is still too wasteful, as I’ve discussed many times in this column. Here are just two examples: Even today, after California’s conservation efforts, over 60 percent of all toilet flushes are done by toilets whose flows are well above national standards, suggesting that many old inefficient fixtures remain in homes. More than 75 percent of all crops in California are still grown with inefficient flood or sprinkler irrigation systems.

The Pacific Institute has completed a series of independent reports on urban and agricultural water efficiency that provide a comprehensive statewide analysis. (See “Waste Not, Want Not: The Potential for Urban Water Conservation in California” and “Sustaining California Agriculture in an Uncertain Future.”) Our findings have been adopted by the California Department of Water Resources in the California Water Plan. These studies show that existing, cost-effective technologies and policies can readily reduce current state demand for water by 6 to 8 million acre-feet per year, or around 20 percent. Governor Schwarzenegger’s recent call for a 20 percent reduction in water use by 2020 is thus based on sound science and economics, even if the policies to achieve such savings are not yet in place. The recent water bill takes weak steps toward an urban savings of 20 percent, and it lets the agricultural sector completely off the hook.

Water Number: One million acre-feet of water. In a few weeks, the Pacific Institute will release a new assessment of how to save one million acre-feet of water, split 60/40 among agricultural and urban users, quickly and cost effectively. Here is an advanced look at some of our findings:

– 400,000 acre-feet of water per year can be quickly conserved by urban users by replacing only some of the many remaining inefficient toilets, showerheads, commercial spray-rinse nozzles, and washing machines. These savings would require an investment of under $2 billion. And over the life of these fixtures the energy, water, and wastewater savings will far exceed that initial investment. Just for comparison, the proposed Temperance Flat Dam will cost an estimated $3.3 billion dollars and produce well under 200,000 acre-feet of water annually. [Some analysts think it will produce less than 100,000 acre-feet and cost far more than $3.3 billion.]

– Another 600,000 acre-feet of water per year can be saved by applying smart irrigation scheduling to 30 percent of the state’s vegetable and orchard acreage, practicing regulated deficit irrigation on 20 percent of current almond and pistachio acreage in the Sacramento Valley, and converting 20 percent of Central Valley vegetables and 10 percent of orchards and vineyards to drip and sprinklers. These changes would save water at a cost of around $100 per acre-foot.

These savings are just the tip of the iceberg: far more water could be saved at far less cost than any proposed new supply option.

California’s total water use in 2020 could be 20% below current levels while still satisfying a growing population, maintaining a healthy agricultural sector, and supporting a vibrant economy. Some of the water saved could be rededicated to agricultural production elsewhere in the state; support new urban and industrial activities and jobs; and restore California’s stressed rivers, groundwater aquifers, and wetlands — including the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta, where fisheries and farmers are under pressure.

Water conservation and efficiency have the additional benefit of producing significant energy savings. Capturing, treating, transporting, and using water requires a tremendous amount of energy. This is particularly true in Southern California, where water supplies and population centers are separated by hundreds of miles, requiring a tremendous amount of infrastructure to move water from where it is available to where it is needed. Improving water-use efficiency thus saves more than water: it saves energy and reduces greenhouse gas emissions.

Finally, a quick comment to Senator Boxer and Senator Feinstein on the recent political attempts to overturn or eliminate the requirement that the Federal government protect endangered and threatened species. This is an outrage. Species extinction is not a sustainable water policy. And the collapsing ecosystem is not the cause of our water problems, it is a symptom. If the problem is falsely and ideologically defined as “people versus fish,” our water policy will have failed. We must ensure that both people and fish can thrive with the water we have.

Peter Gleick

Dr. Gleick’s blog posts are provided in cooperation with the SFGate. Previous posts can be found here.

Glucose-powered bio-batteries aren’t a brand new idea, but Japanese toymaker Takara may be among the first to attempt to use them in their products. They’ve made some prototype remote controlled toy cars which run on our favorite sweet drinks.

Apparently those cars are powered by energy “generated by using enzymes to break down glucose found in sugary drinks” such as sodas, energy drinks, or fruit juice. One 8cc dose of such a liquid will keep a toy car running for 60 minutes and the higher the sugar content, the faster the cars will run.

This leaves two questions: When can I play with one of these and which soda will make it go the fastest? [CrunchGear]

Picture by Paxton Holley

By Barbara Kessler
Green Right Now

Robert Caffro found a solar solution for his home, then acquired a problem that’s cast a cloud on his plan.

The front of Bob Caffro's house; solar panels would be on the rear roof.

Caffro’s homeowners association in his neighborhood in Chester County west of Philadelphia denied his request to install the low-profile rooftop solar panels that he’d arranged to buy at Home Depot.

The governing group sent him a letter on Jan. 5 citing this clause in the neighborhood’s rules:

“Any addition, enclosure, garage, appurtenant building, fence, wall, planting or other improvement or modification erected, placed or maintained within a Unit shall be harmonious in design with the single family residential dwelling within the Unit.”

Which left Caffro, 45, scratching his head over the meaning of the word “harmonious.”

He thought the black rooftop solar panels he had selected were harmonious with the traditional homes in the Brook Crossing subdivision where he bought his four-bedroom home about five years ago. The 34-panel array by BP Solar was to be affixed to the back-facing slope of the roof of his two-story home, rising less than four inches above the shingles, and following the same grade of the roof, he said. It would be architecturally unobtrusive.

His neighbors to the rear of the house would see “essentially a black roof” that would blend in, he said. Caffro also reasoned that such a home improvement would add value to his house, a positive for the neighborhood, and the earth. It would have powered his entire house, virtually eliminating his reliance on fossil fuels and greatly diminishing monthly electricity bills.

“Who stops someone from doing something that’s good for the planet, lowers your costs for energy and helps you survive?” he asks.

In this case, the “who” appears to be two members of the HOA: President Thomas Madonna, and the vice president, Marc Marucci. Both are named on the denial letter to Caffro, which is signed by Marucci, who did not return an email asking for more information on the denial issued to Caffro. Madonna also did not respond.

Solar panels that would be similar to Caffro's, on a nearby house. Caffro's would be framed in black. (Photo: Bob Caffro)

Whatever Marucci and Madonna were thinking, they are not the only ones who view solar panels with trepidation. Across the U.S., there have been countless neighborhood skirmishes over solar panels, sometimes leaving embittered homeowners with no choice but to move away from their carefully controlled housing developments to places where they can exercise their on-site energy plans. Perhaps more often, homeowners likely just gave up on the idea.

But discouraging homeowners from becoming solar consumers is less in fashion than it might have been at another time. With federal and state incentives aimed at helping property owners make the leap to renewable energy projects, states are passing additional laws to shore up homeowners’ rights — and homeowners’ associations are finding that they don’t always have the authority to intercede.

The state of Arizona has a law dating to the 1970s that protects homeowners’ private property rights, allowing them “solar access” that supersedes any conflicting language in their deed restrictions. The law survived a legal challenge in Maricopa County in 2000, when a Superior Court judge ruled against an association trying to force homeowners to take down their rooftop panels.

A recent Arizona law clarified matters, stating that homeowners’ groups cannot deny a resident’s right to add solar energy devices, but can adopt “reasonable rules” about their placement. While the law returns some authority to the neighborhood associations, it also confirms the rights of homeowners, stating that the rules around solar devices should not  “prevent the installation of devices” or impair their performance.

California went through a similar process, with legislation in 2005 expanding upon the coverage of a 1978 “solar access” law.

In fact, more than half of states have laws pertaining to residential solar installations, according to the Database of State Incentives for Renewables and Efficiency (DSIRE). Many of them are “access” laws that directly help protect a homeowner’s right to install solar power generation equipment. Many others, however, deal with mainly with easements for solar and wind installations. These easement laws also aid “access” by making it legal for governmental entities to create buffer zones and set up other provisions for wind and solar installations. These laws pave the way so that industrial, commercial or residential buildings can position  solar arrays to get adequate sunlight (or place wind turbines to catch the wind) and local authorities can permit such projects.

But many easement laws are silent on the dilemma of homeowners whose HOAs have issued ambiguous wording or outright restrictions against solar or wind projects.

So far, Pennsylvania currently has neither a solar easement nor access law, though neighboring Rhode Island and New Jersey have easement legislation.

Pennsylvania State Rep. Tom Houghton (D-Chester) proposed legislation earlier this month to remove obstacles for homeowners who want to install renewable energy. “As we continue to wage a battle between over-reliance on fossil fuel and rising energy costs, we must provide support to homeowners and consumers who wish to utilize alternative energy sources,” he said in a news release.

Caffro, a former safety director for a transportation company who was left with disabilities after being hit by a car a few years ago, lives partly on disability assistance. He said he checked the homeowner’s covenants when he moved in five years ago, and did not find any mention of solar panels. He assumed that meant they would be allowed.

The letter from Caffro’s homeowner’s association does not elaborate on any potential harm from the solar panels, but notes that the two officers of the HOA, after consulting an attorney, determined that  “… solar panel arrays are not harmonious in design with the design of your unit or that of others in the community.”

Copyright © 2010 Green Right Now | Distributed by GRN Network

Gregory T. Huang wrote:

“The easy answer is, ‘Of course it will,’” said panel moderator Jesse Berst, the head of Redmond, WA-based research and consulting firm GlobalSmartEnergy. He was referring to the title of last night’s event in downtown Seattle organized by the MIT Enterprise Forum: “Will Green Return the Green?”

It’s a reasonable question, especially here in Washington state, where things have been fairly quiet on the cleantech and energy front as of late. Despite the presence of such companies as EnerG2, Verdiem, Optimum Energy, Powerit, Bio Architecture Lab, Areva T&D, Avista, and Imperium Renewables, much has been made of the region’s lack of competitiveness with other parts of the country like Silicon Valley and New England—not to mention global competitors like China. (I’m using a broad definition of “green” tech here to include both alternative energy and sustainability.)

To discuss business and policy leaders’ concerns around financing opportunities, regulations, resources, and hot areas in the green sector, the MIT Enterprise Forum (together with a team of volunteers led by Seattle law firm Graham & Dunn) convened a distinguished panel:

—Berst (the moderator), a global authority on smart grid technologies and economics, and an Xconomist.

—Patricia Irving, CEO and founder of Richland, WA-based InnovaTek, which develops technologies for sustainable energy and environmental safety.

—Rogers Weed, director of the Department of Commerce, Washington state (and a former Microsoft vice president).

—Roger Woodworth, vice president for sustainable energy solutions at Avista, the Spokane, WA-based energy and utilities company.

—Bradley Zenger, managing director at Pivotal Investments, an early-stage cleantech venture investing firm in Portland, OR.

(By the way, all of the panelists are involved with the Cleantech Open, which is gearing up for its 2010 business plan competition.)

Berst kicked things off by saying that dozens of smart grid companies around the world have been raising $50-100 million or more, and many will be going public in the next 12 to 18 months. In terms of Washington state, he said, “We’ve got some real challenges here around creating a real cleantech cluster. The one thing you can’t fake is proximity. We have a lot of islands of innovation scattered 150 miles apart.” He also talked about the entrepreneurial culture of the region: “We don’t have a lot of people with the urgent desire to crush” competitors in Silicon Valley, Boston, New York, and so forth, he said.

Irving, whose company makes fuel cells and other technologies for partners like Boeing, summed up the mindset of consumers in the Northwest. “We love to be green, but we’re not willing to take the risk that’s necessary to shift our paradigms,” she said. “Part of the challenge is we haven’t been willing to stand up. Sacrifices need to be made.”

Weed, who has been on the job for 10 months since being appointed by Gov. Christine Gregoire, said cleantech is one of Washington’s top three opportunities for growth. But the state faces two key challenges, he said. One is the budget situation. “The state is struggling to make …Next Page »

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I’m usually quick to point out the limitations of technology for reducing environmental and other problems. But that doesn’t mean it’s not important. Yesterday I took a tour that hilighted how big the opportunities can be when technology and slight lifestyle changes team up. The tour was of CalEPA’s LEED platinum skyscraper – evidently the first of its kind, but now a few years old. Interestingly, it was initially designed as an ordinary building, and design changes were introduced late in the game, which gives hope that most of the same innovations could be implemented as retrofits on older buildings.

When you walk up to the building, there’s no indication that there’s anything unusual about it. If anything, it’s massive (salvaged) stone decorative features lead one to think it could easily be an extravagant energy hog. That impression continues on the inside, with elegant and tasteful lighting and finishes. No hairy unwashed treehuggers freezing in the dark here.

Yet, the building uses a third the energy (per sq ft) of its peers nearby, even with a big datacenter on one floor that consumes a third of the energy in the 25-story structure. The big heroes are an efficient skin, with low-e windows and detailing to reduce solar gain on the south and west sides, coupled with an advanced HVAC system. Climate control combines 10,000 sensors with three different sizes of chiller unit and variable-speed motor controls. That way, equipment always operates near its optimum load. Soon, a retrofit will use groundwater (which has to be pumped out anyway) to aid cooling. Heating and cooling costs are lower, yet comfort is improved by the advanced controls.

The occupants certainly contribute a lot to efficiency. Over 80% use bikes or transit to commute, aided by a beautiful bicycle parking garage in the basement (complete with air compressor and lockers). Most prefer motion-sensitive task lights, so area lighting stays off. They adopted double-side network printers to reduce paper waste, and recycle assiduously. Worm-bin composting is a popular office activity. As a result the building managers have to haul trash only twice a month instead of the typical twice a week. Because staff don’t have to spend as much time with regular garbage, they have more energy to figure out how to recycle used computers and other unusual materials.

Sometimes the benefits are unexpected. To reduce nighttime lighting loads, most of the leaning in the building happens during the day. Side effects include greatly reduced reports of theft and workers’ comp claims, better cooperation on cleaning and recycling (aided by the low waste flow), and greater occupant satisfaction. It turns out that it’s easier to like someone you see on a daily basis. Materials have side benefits too. Zero-VOC paints mean that occasional repairs don’t stink up the place and needn’t be confined to weekends. Low-volatile, recyclable carpet tiles turn out to be extremely durable and repairable, and permit creative design.

The amazing thing is that most of the features paid for themselves in under two years, with correspondingly huge ROIs. None takes a radical change in workstyle, but there’s lots of synergy among them. It wasn’t easy to pull this off, in the sense that it took a lot of thinking, but if you think thinking is fun, then you wouldn’t call it hard either.

Wade Roush wrote:

Little more than a month after announcing a $10 million round of venture financing, nanotech lighting startup QD Vision of Watertown, MA, said today that it has raised an additional $3 million from DTE Energy Ventures, a subsidiary of Detroit, MI-based power company Detroit Edison.“QD Vision’s Quantum Light platform will help lighting and display manufacturers reduce the carbon footprint of their products even as they continue delivering higher quality, better efficiency and lower costs for customers,” DTE Energy Ventures president Knut Simonsen said in a statement. QD Vision, a 2004 MIT spinoff also funded by North Bridge Venture Partners, Highland Capital Partners, and In-Q-Tel, has now raised $33 million altogether.

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Every year, the average U.S. resident spends 100 hours commuting to and from work. As the Census Bureau notes, that’s more than the typical amount of vacation time we get each year (about 2 weeks).

In certain areas, average commutes are much longer — made worse by congestion and delays that bring traffic to a standstill.

The Daily Beast has a list of the 75 worst driving commutes in the country, based on travel time data. They also go a step further and identify the worst parts of these congested metro areas to find out where commutes get bogged down the most.

The top of the list includes many the usual suspects: Hollywood Freeway in Los Angeles (#1), the Capitol Beltway around D.C. (#3), the Cross Bronx Expressway in New York (#6).

It’s a testament to the South’s recent pattern of explosive urban growth that 27 of the 75, or 36%, of the metro areas on the list are in Southern states — a reality with important implications for energy and transportation policy.

Here’s a list of the Southern cities with the worst commutes and their national rank:

#4 – I-35 IN AUSTIN, TX
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 460
A bit of a surprise that this would lead the South. “It’s the most traveled stretch of roadway of Austin and in the state,”
says Joe Taylor, traffic reporter for News 8 Austin. “It’s quirky. It
was designed for a small town, and we’ve grown into a very large city.”

#10 – AIRPORT EXPRESSWAY IN MIAMI
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 183

#12 – LOOP 610 AROUND HOUSTON
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 189

#13 – BATON ROUGE
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 93

#15 – LOOP 820 AROUND DALLAS-FORT WORTH
Weekly hours of bottleneck congestion: 172

Some other notables on the list:

* #22 – I-75 IN ATLANTA
A pretty low ranking for a city infamous for its traffic growing pains. But as one commenter wrote on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution website last November, “I wish they would make a ‘Grand Theft Auto: Atlanta’ so I could blow
up the video game version of Interstate 75. It would be good therapy.”

* #27 – I-10 NEW ORLEANS
Despite post-Katrina depopulation, the major Interstate through the city still suffers from 93 weekly hours of congestion with bottlenecks up to 1.27 miles.

* FLORIDA AND TEXAS
Given their rapid growth, it’s no surprise that Florida and Texas both had five metro areas on the list. However, North Carolina and Georgia — which are in the same league in terms of population increases — only had three areas between them: Atlanta, Charlotte (#35) and Raleigh (#50). Is that because, in NC and GA, population increases have been more concentrated in a few cities, or that in general they’ve been better able to manage growth?

Although known for its advanced power plant technologies, GE’s nuclear business also has more than five decades of experience working with radioisotopes for medical and industrial applications. Now GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy — the global nuclear alliance created by the two companies in 2007 — and Exelon Generation Company have entered into a landmark partnership that will help meet growing global demand for the critical radioisotope cobalt-60, which is used in millions of cancer treatments each year.

In demand: “Without key isotopes like cobalt-60, potentially life-threatening diseases could go untreated,” said Dr. Robert Atcher, former president of the Society of Nuclear Medicine. The just-announced collaborative venture comes at a time of heightened concerns about the domestic availability of cobalt-60, which is used as a radiation source in cancer therapy. In the photo above, an employee at Global Nuclear Fuel, which is described in detail in the second half of this story, inspects a fuel pellet at the company’s Wilmington, North Carolina facility.

In the U.S., the radioisotope is only produced in small amounts in national labs, rather than on a large, commercial scale. However, the International Irradiation Association estimates that 15 million cancer treatments are carried out using cobalt-60 each year in hospitals and clinics in over 80 countries. More than 500,000 brain cancer treatments have been performed using cobalt-60. In addition to cancer treatment, cobalt-60 is used to preserve food, decontaminate packaging materials, sanitize cosmetics and purify pharmaceuticals. More than 40 percent of U.S.-manufactured medical devices, including syringes and bandages, are cleaned and/or sterilized using cobalt-60.

Regulators have approved the use of GEH technology at Exelon Nuclear’s Clinton Power Station in Dewitt County, Ill. By using Exelon’s existing power-generating reactors, it eliminates the need and costs associated with building new research reactors. Learn more about the cancer treatment isotope.

Elsewhere in the nuclear arena, Global Nuclear Fuel — which is a GE-led joint venture with Hitachi and Toshiba — just marked its 10^th anniversary this week as a supplier of nuclear fuel and services for the power industry. GNF has fabricated 1.5 billion nuclear fuel pellets since the joint venture was created in 2000 — enough to power the equivalent of 300 million typical U.S. homes.

Each year, GNF makes more than 1 million uranium pellets the size of pencil erasers. The pellets are packed in assemblies of long, zirconium-alloy tubes, and these fuel assemblies are shipped around the world to nuclear power plants. There, they are installed in the reactor core to create steam that engages a turbine generator to produce electricity. A single pellet contains as much energy as 17,000 cubic feet of natural gas, 1,780 pounds of coal or 149 gallons of oil, according to the Nuclear Energy Institute. Learn more about the 10-year anniversary.

Also this week, GE signed a multi-year services and maintenance agreement worth up to $146 million with Nuclearelectrica, Romania’s state-owned nuclear utility. The new eight-year agreement covers full maintenance and repair services for the GE steam turbine-generators and auxiliary equipment at Cernavoda Units 1 and 2, which produce more than 1,400 megawatts of power for Romania’s electricity grid. GE’s agreement replaces and expands upon a previous four-year contract with Nuclearelectrica for Unit 1 that recently expired. The service agreement follows several other recent GE projects in Romania, including the supply of equipment for the Fantanele and Cogelac wind farms and the Petrom Combined-Cycle Power Plant. Learn more about the servicing deal in Romania.

* Read “GE moving forward with production of radioactive isotope for medicine”
* Read “New GE Hitachi deal could help fight cancer”
* Read “Clinton nuclear plant chosen for radioisotope pilot project”
* Read “Up and atom: GE’s nuclear design hits key milestone” on GE Reports
* Read “Three coal, nuclear, & wind experts walk into a room…” on GE Reports
* Learn more about GE’s nuclear business
* Read about our latest line of reactor technology

Wade Roush wrote:

On Tuesday, FloDesign Wind Turbine of Wilbraham, MA, announced that it has raised $35 million in Series B funding from a list of marquee venture capital firms and hired a new CEO to go along with the new money. Both moves are aimed at setting the company on the path to commercialization of its unusual wind-turbine design, which resembles a jet engine on a stick much more than a conventional windmill.

Yesterday, I caught up by phone with Lars Andersen, who’s spent all of two weeks in FloDesign’s CEO chair. (Andersen replaces company founder Stanley Kowalski, who has become a vice president.) If the startup was searching for a wind industry veteran, it couldn’t have found one with more experience than Andersen, who’s been in the energy generation and wind business for 20 years, and has spent the last five building up the Chinese division of Vestas, the Danish wind company that manufactures nearly 30 percent of the world’s wind turbines.

Below is a compressed version of our conversation. As you’ll see, Andersen was evasive about the details of FloDesign’s technology, but he says the approach is a “disrupting” one that could change the way the world looks at wind energy.

Xconomy: Tell me a bit about how you connected with FloDesign, and why you decided to leave Vestas to lead a much smaller company.

Lars Andersen: I think, first of all, that the time with Vestas has been a fantastic time. I’ve had many good opportunities, not least during the last five years, which I spent building the business of the company in China. It’s been a good an exciting journey.

I connected with FloDesign through a series of interviews. I was approached, first of all, by a headhunter, and went through a series of due-diligence studies of my own, and interviews with the investors and the company and the founders and the team that is there today. And I got very excited about the technology and also the team they have there that has done all the research and the innovation.

From a high-level perspective, this is a very good opportunity in the wind industry. There has been a lot of innovation in the industry, but it has been very stepwise innovation, with gradual improvements here and there. Here is a totally different and disrupting technology that could make a breakthrough in the industry and in the way we look at wind energy today. That’s really what got me interested—being part of that development and that journey.

X: What excites you so much about the technology? For example, does it offer a realistic way around the Betz Limit [a physical cap on the efficiency of open-fan wind turbines]?

LA: Well, I hope you understand that there are a lot of things about the technology that I can’t talk about. And I’ve only spent two weeks on the job, so …Next Page »

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While the U.S. Postal Service bleeds red with billions of dollars in financial loses ($3.8 billion in 2008), they keep earning environmental accolades for their green roofs and energy conserving initiatives. Today, some post offices are even LEED certified by the US Green Building Council. As I wrote about last week, the US Postal Service has always been on the leading edge with respect to experimenting with fuel efficient vehicles – even if they’ve been unsuccessful in garnering the widespread adoption of these alternatively fueled vehicles outside their test markets.

So what gives? How could the US Postal Service be in such dire straits with all their green initiatives and their “fleet of feet” making deliveries door-to-door on foot?

Failing to Adapt to Change

This shouldn’t be new news: For years, Americans have been moving away from hard copy to electronic forms of communication. Many of us have gotten fed up with the piles of unwanted mail solicitations and catalogs by the pound by getting our names and addresses on “Do Not Solicit” lists with the Direct Marketing Association. We’ve opted out of banks’ direct marketing schemes for credit cards and insurance. We’ve signed up for electronic bill pay. So, I would have thought that US Postmaster John Potter would have recognized these changes, having grown up with the US Postal Service and having been at the helm since 2001.

Read more of this story »

This generator looks like it’s a great idea. Plop it down in a windy spot—like anywhere in the Bay Area right now—and it’ll give you energy enough to power small devices.

It’s a good design in that it looks neat and folds up nice and compact, but did they really think this though? The feet don’t look very stable since they don’t dig into the ground, and a strong gust of wind will easily blow it over, since it’s made out of aluminum and carbon fiber to keep it lightweight. No problem, right? It’s not like you’ll use this in a windy area or…oh wait. [Ecofriend via Likecool]

The Department of Energy announced $12 million in funding Wednesday for the development of cutting-edge, low-cost photovoltaic technology — and in the process pulled back the curtain a bit on the secretive solar startup Alta Devices. The stealth-mode company, which has funding from venture firms including Kleiner Perkins and Technology Partners, snagged a grant for up to […]