I am back home in Hawaii, and over the next few days hope my schedule settles down to normal. I am aware of some lingering technical issues that need to be resolved on the blog (e.g., some of the comments have not been successfully imported from the old blog – but they will be).

I imagine that a fair number of new readers linking in here over the next week or so will be doing so in response to a report on electric cars that was released while I was in New Zealand. I am listed as an advisor on that report. So I want to discuss my role, and ultimately how this exercise has influenced my views on electric cars.

I became acquainted with the author of the report (Clive Matthew-Wilson, editor of the car buyers’ Dog & Lemon Guide) a year ago when he wrote and asked me a few questions. As this report began to develop, I helped with certain aspects of the well to wheels efficiency of the petroleum supply chain, and I went through some of the calculations to check for errors. There are aspects of the report that I really can’t comment on, because I don’t know enough about that particular aspect. For instance, I can’t comment on efficiency losses of electric transmission, or in the drive train of an automobile.

Regular readers know that I have long been enthusiastic about the potential of electric cars. In my view as fossil fuels deplete it is going to be difficult to maintain anywhere close to the level of mobility we enjoy today. There simply is not, in my opinion, a renewable liquid fuel option that can scale up and replace a large fraction of the fossil fuels we use today.

However, renewable liquid fuels for the most part are just captured sunshine (as is oil, natural gas, and coal for that matter), and there are a lot more efficient ways of capturing sunshine than photosynthesis (biomass, however, has the advantage of a built-in storage system). Solar panels offer a way – in principle – to produce as much energy as we use today in the form of oil. (See my essay Replacing Gasoline with Solar Power). So I have always viewed electric cars as our best hope for approaching today’s level of mobility as petroleum supplies decline.

In fact, the summary by the author of the report on the potential benefits of electric cars would look very much like my own:

“1. Electric cars improve the security of vehicle energy supply by avoiding liquid fuels that are often imported from hostile or politically volatile countries and are being discovered at a slower rate than they are being depleted.

2. Electric cars offer much improved air quality in cities.

3. Electric cars offer drastically reduced traffic noise.

4. Electric cars offer less CO2 emissions if the electricity comes from nuclear, hydro, solar, wind or perhaps biomass.

5. Electric cars are sometimes more efficient than petrol or diesel cars.”

However, the report then highlights issues regarding electricity production around the world. For instance:

“1. Globally, most electricity is produced using highly environmentally damaging sources, and much of it is produced from fossil fuels. There is unlikely to be a significant change in the way this majority of electricity is produced in the foreseeable future.

2. Although there are alternative forms of electricity production that cause less harm to the environment than conventional forms, these forms are invariably far more expensive, and are therefore unlikely to be adopted en masse in the near future. Thus, the central premise behind the electric car movement – that electric cars will be powered primarily from ‘green’ sources – is essentially wishful thinking. The car driver generally has no control over how and where the electricity that powers his car is generated. Electric cars do not stop environmental damage: rather, they tend to merely move it out of sight, from the highways to the power plants.”

I think we can broadly agree that a large fraction of our electricity is produced from fossil fuels. The 2^nd point will be more contentious. After all, it is the very assumption that electricity will be much greener in the future that leads to the conclusion that the future of transportation could be green and electric.

The Tesla/Lotus Elise comparison is very interesting. The author examined the way electricity is produced today in various countries, and concluded that in 4 of 5 countries, the Tesla would actually be dirtier than the internal combustion Elise because of the amount of electricity for the Tesla that would originate from coal. New Zealand was the one exception in which the Tesla was found to be greener:

“In four of the five countries we surveyed, the Tesla electric car was less efficient and more polluting than its petrol sibling. Only in New Zealand – where the majority of electricity is produced by hydroelectric generation – was the Tesla ‘greener’ than the Elise. However, a New Zealand scientist recently predicted that if the New Zealand car fleet was replaced with electric cars, the country would probably need to build coal power stations to meet the increased demand.”

– but this shows that IF a significant fraction of electricity production is shifted to greener sources, the electric car can be greener than the internal combustion engine.

Ultimately, I think this report provides a good reality check of many assumptions on the future of the electric car. I still think it is true that there is great potential, but you can’t ignore the fact that it is very likely in at least the short term that incremental electricity will not come from renewable sources.

Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.) introduced a bill Friday that would pay for 109,500 electric vehicles, though the cost of that program isn’t known yet. “This, to me, would be a very productive thing and . . . likely to produce jobs and revitalize an industry,” Connolly said.

In December, Rep. José E. Serrano (D-N.Y.) announced an “e-Drive” bill that would give $2 billion to the Energy Department and Postal Service to convert 20,000 mail trucks into electric vehicles.

I have always liked the idea of electric cars. I have written a number of essays around that theme, primarily because electric vehicles could in theory be adequate replacements for internal combustion engines as supplies of fossil fuels deplete. Imagine that our electric grid eventually moves more toward renewable energy, and electric vehicles could be a much greener solution than the majority of the vehicles we have on the road today.

But note that I use words like “theory” and “imagine” to describe this idealistic future. I firmly believe that we need to have a look at the data from time to time to make sure that our idealism isn’t in direct contrast to reality. Unfortunately, in this case it might be.

Study: Electric cars not as green as you think

The environmental benefits of electric cars are being questioned in Germany by a surprising actor: the green movement. But those risks don’t apply in the U.S., the American electric-car lobby asserts.

Today, the German plants that deliver marginal electricity are fueled by coal. That is the main problem, according to the study. The research adds that to produce the same amount of energy, coal emits more carbon dioxide than even gasoline.

“The irony is that you don’t need a lot more electricity for electric cars,” Raddatz, said. “But the problem is that if they cause these peaks, we would have to have power plants that would be ready to start (as) the massive charging starts.”

An electric car with a lithium ion battery powered by electricity from an old coal power plant could emit more than 200g of carbon dioxide per km, compared with current average gasoline car of 160g of carbon dioxide per km in Europe, according to the study. The European Union goal for 2020 is 95g of carbon dioxide per km.

I have been thinking about this a lot, as I have recently seen some electric car/combustion engine comparisons in a report that is about to come out. I won’t divulge much about the report, but when it comes out I will link to it. But I will provide a quote from the soon-to-be-released report:

New Zealand energy consultant Steve Goldthorpe estimates that if the entire New Zealand vehicle fleet were replaced with electric cars, the amount of electricity New Zealand needed to generate to power this fleet would be increased by about 60%. Only a small percentage of this electricity could be produced sustainably; the balance would probably have to be generated by burning coal.

I think this is where idealism clashes with reality. As I pointed out in The Nuclear Comeback, over the previous 10 years electricity demand increased by an average of 66 million megawatt hours per year. That is without adding electric cars to the mix. The growth rate for renewable energy over the past 5 years or so has only been about 10 million megawatt hours (although last year saw an impressive 20 million). Still, this is a far cry from just keeping up with normal demand growth.

So the idealistic side of me sees renewable electricity continuing to grow, and powering a fleet of green electric cars. The side of me that looks at the data says that in reality, a rapid ramp-up of electric cars will have to be driven by non-renewables because renewable energy growth won’t be able to keep up. I wouldn’t personally have a problem with a nuclear-driven electric fleet, but I don’t think that’s the vision many have for future electric vehicles.

I am not factoring in the possibility that conservation of electricity can help close that gap. On that I remain hopeful, but our history is one of ever increasing consumption.

Last year I saw a presentation that projected very strong growth in wood pellet shipments from Canada and the U.S. into Europe. My first thought was “That doesn’t sound very efficient. Why don’t we just use those here in North America?”

It didn’t take very long for me to find out the answer to that. It is because wood pellets are much more expensive than natural gas in North America. On top of that it takes more effort to use wood for energy than it does natural gas. That combination means that wood has a tough time competing with natural gas in North America.

When I was looking into that issue, I compiled a list of the price for various energy types on an energy equivalent basis. The price is as current as possible unless noted. I have converted everything into $/million BTU (MMBTU), and the sources are listed below.

My preference is to use EIA data over NYMEX data because the former is an archived, fixed number. I have included energy for heating and for various transportation options. For comparison I also included the cost of electricity and the cost of the ethanol subsidy/MMBTU of ethanol produced.

Current Energy Prices per Million BTU

Powder River Basin Coal – $0.56
Northern Appalachia Coal – $2.08
Natural gas – $5.67
Ethanol subsidy – $5.92
Petroleum – $13.56
Propane – $13.92
#2 Heating Oil – $15.33
Jet fuel – $16.01
Diesel – $16.21
Gasoline – $18.16
Wood pellets – $18.57
Ethanol – $24.74
Electricity – $34.03

Observations

It isn’t difficult then to see why wood pellets have a difficult market in the U.S. For people with access to natural gas, they are going to prefer the lower price and convenience of natural gas over wood. For Europe, their natural gas supplies aren’t nearly as secure, so they have more incentive to favor wood as an option.

The cost of the ethanol subsidy is interesting. We pay more for the ethanol subsidy than natural gas costs. However, if you consider that we are paying a subsidy on a per gallon basis – and a large fraction of that gallon of ethanol is fossil fuel-derived, the subsidy for the renewable component is really high.

For instance, if we consider a generous energy return on ethanol of 1.5 BTUs out per BTU in, that means the renewable component per gallon is only 1/3rd of a gallon. (An energy return of 1.5 indicates that it took 1 BTU of fossil fuel to produce 1.5 BTU of ethanol; hence the renewable component in that case is 1/3rd). That means that the subsidy on simply the renewable component is actually three times as high – $17.76/MMBTU. Bear in mind that this is only the subsidy; the consumer then has to pay $24.74/MMBTU for the ethanol itself.

Sources for Data

Petroleum – $13.56 (EIA World Average Price for 1/08/2010)
Northern Appalachia Coal – $2.08 (EIA Average Weekly Spot for 1/08/10)
Powder River Basin Coal – $0.56 (EIA Average Weekly Spot for 1/08/10)
Propane – $13.92 (EIA Mont Belvieu, TX Spot Price for 1/12/2010)
Natural gas – $5.67 (NYMEX contract for February 2010)
#2 Heating Oil – $15.33 (EIA New York Harbor Price for 1/12/2010)
Gasoline – $18.16 (EIA New York Harbor Price for 1/12/2010)
Diesel – $16.21 (EIA #2 Low Sulfur New York Harbor for 1/08/2010)
Jet fuel – (EIA New York Harbor for 1/12/2010)
Ethanol – $24.74 (NYMEX Spot for February 2010)
Wood pellets – $18.57 (Typical Wood Pellet Price for 1/12/2010)
Electricity – $34.03 (EIA Average Retail Price to Consumers for 2009)

Conversion factors

Petroleum – 138,000 BTU/gal
Gasoline – 115,000 BTU/gal
Diesel – 131,000 BTU/gal
Ethanol – 76,000 BTU/gal
Heating oil 138,000 BTU/gal
Jet fuel – 135,000 BTU/gal
Propane – 91,500 BTU/gal
Northern Appalachia Coal – 13,000 BTU/lb
Powder River Basin Coal – 8,800 BTU/lb
Wood pellets – 7,000 BTU/lb
Electricity – 3,412 BTU/kWh

On the long plane ride back to Hawaii, I read Power of the People: America’s New Electricity Choices. I picked this book up at the 2009 Solar Tour – Pikes Peak Region, which I visited on my trip to Colorado. My new job has me getting more involved in the electricity sector, and I thought this would be a book that would help push me up the learning curve. A short description of the book:

America is as addicted to electricity as it is to oil. Our electricity usage increases every year, yet we still use the same transmission grid that was constructed in the middle of the last century. The grid is stretched to the limit, creating the potential of future black-outs like the one that brought the Northeast to its knees in 2003. Meanwhile, some of our most abundant and affordable generating fuels have become major culprits in global warming.

Power of the People explores in a nontechnical, conversational way some of the clean, green, 21st-century technologies that are available and how and why we should plug them into our national grid. This important essay explores our failure as a country to adopt these “no regrets” technologies and policies as swiftly as the rest of the world, and why it matters for the future of every American.

The author, Carol Sue Tombari, works for the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL). Despite trying, I can’t find out what her exact position or qualifications are. Here biography says:

Carol Sue Tombari has specialized in energy and environmental policy and programs for more than 25 years. She directed the State of Texas’s energy efficiency and renewable energy programs, served as natural resources advisor to the lieutenant governor, and helped found the National Association of State Energy Officials.

In addition, she was appointed to federal advisory posts by two Federal Secretaries of Energy, chairing a Congressional advisory committee on the subject of renewable energy joint ventures and serving on the U.S. Department of Energy’s (USDOE) State Energy Advisory Board. Tombari is employed at the USDOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, where she works on local and rural economic development. Ultimately, it is her love for the next generation that continues to drive her work to protect the future of our planet and the lives of those yet to come.

While I found myself learning more about the sector, many things she said left me puzzled. For instance, she claimed that the U.S. uses more energy per GDP than anyone else in the world. This is exactly the opposite of Jeff Rubin’s claim in Why Your World Is About to Get a Whole Lot Smaller. Rubin claimed that countries like China use a lot more energy per GDP, which was the basis of his argument that carbon tariffs could work in favor of countries like the U.S., who are more energy efficient at producing GDP. In fact, if you look at the EIA data on energy usage per dollar of GDP, you can see that the U.S. is on the low end of the scale. According to the EIA data, China, compared to the U.S., uses about four times the amount of energy per dollar of GDP. (Thanks to reader Clee for that reference).

The book is pretty anti-nuclear, and makes the claim that renewables are “considerably more affordable” than nuclear power. She seems to rely on Amory Lovins and Tom Friedman for these sorts of claims. The book is pretty realistic about coal, however, concluding that we will be relying on coal for a good many years. She did claim, though, that there have been no major technological innovations in coal-fired central station power plants since the 1950’s. I don’t consider that accurate, as Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) seems like a dramatic improvement in the efficiency of the usage of coal for power production. Several of these IGCC plants will be coming online in the U.S. over the next decade, and a number have already been built in China. (You can see some of the plants that have been completed or are in progress around the world here).

There were some things I found annoying about the book. For instance, it had no graphs. However, on a number of occasions the author said “picture a graph in which the Y axis represents one variable, and the X axis another variable.” Why not just show a graph? Or if for some reason you are limited to no graphics, find another way to make the point.

There were some calculations that just didn’t make sense to me. For instance, she once calculated the required size of a PV system to run a household in Phoenix “if PV cells were 100% efficient.” Why not just do the actual calculation with typical PV efficiencies? She also commented that NREL had done a calculation in which they concluded that “100 square miles that constitute the Nevada Test Site” covered in PV arrays could meet the needs of the entire U.S. (without addressing storage). I did a similar calculation in which I tentatively came up with an area of about 100 miles by 100 miles. So I wonder if she didn’t mean that the NREL calculation concluded that a 100 mile square (10,000 square miles) would suffice.

She also spent a good deal of time talking about how a terrorist could bring down the transportation system or the electrical grid. I don’t think those are the kinds of ideas we want to plant in people’s heads.

One thing that isn’t clear to me is just how utilities benefit from efficiency improvements of their customers. She spent some time discussing various utility programs to improve the efficiency of the end user so they don’t have to construct new power plants. But utilities make their money selling electricity, don’t they? If customers improve efficiency, they just means they are selling less electricity to that customer. But there is apparently something to this model that I don’t fully understand, because I know that utilities are always pushing for – and even subsidizing – these sorts of programs. In Hawaii, the utility will pay for part of a solar hot water installation. So how do they benefit? Perhaps the utilities are compensated by various governments for pushing these efficiency programs. Otherwise, it seems that as consumers become more efficient, the utilities would have to charge more money for the electricity.

One other thing that was discussed – but that has always puzzled me – is the economic multiplier theory. She gave one example about how the benefits of a local Midwestern project ended up contributing three times the income generation to the local economy. Now I can see how a multiplier should work in theory. Pay a guy $100 in salary, and then he pays his taxes and turns around and spends that $100 in the local economy. That merchant then pays his taxes and spends some of it in the local economy, such that the initial $100 supports more than $100 in taxes and spending. In practice, it seems like if it really worked that way, we would subsidize everything. Why would we want to get any autos from Japan? Subsidize U.S. consumers for 50% of the cost of a domestic car, and then let the local multiplier give back 3-4 times that amount to the local community. But in reality, I don’t quite think it works out that way.

In summary, while it seems like I found a lot to nit-pick in the book, I did find a lot of useful information in there. Even the things I found puzzling caused me to think and to do additional research, which was helpful. The author spends a lot of time laying out the present situation with respect to electricity, and talking about the changes that need to happen. The author is peak oil aware, citing Matt Simmons and Tom Whipple (among others) with respect to a projected future energy crunch. I think the anti-nuclear stance was misguided, and I think she overestimates the ability of renewables to fill in for growing demand and the phase-out of older coal-fired power plants. In my view, it is hard to imagine how we are going to get by without building more nukes in the next few decades.

In the interim – and because I haven’t posted anything new in a few days – I thought I would call attention to a story in the New York Times from a couple of days ago:

Energy Efficiency: Fact or Fiction?

You have to be registered to read it (although the Tehran Times has reprinted the first page of the article) but I will paraphrase/excerpt it. The article covers a number of facts and myths around energy efficiency:

COMPUTERS AND ELECTRONICS

1. Screen savers save energy

FICTION — With screen savers, electricity is still pumping to keep your computer and monitor running. In fact, screen savers may even use more energy than a basic blank screen.

2. Your computer stops using energy when in sleep mode

FICTION — Computers still use energy when in sleep mode, but about 70% less.

3. You waste more energy restarting a computer repeatedly than letting it run all day

FICTION — Even though a small surge of energy is required to start up a computer, this amount is less than the energy consumed when a computer runs for long periods of time.

MAJOR APPLIANCES

4. No energy is used after you turn appliances and electronics off

FICTION — Many appliances still draw a small amount of electricity when turned off. Solve this by plugging into a power strip that you can turn off.

5. It’s more efficient to keep your refrigerator full than half full

FACT — The larger the mass of cold items in a refrigerator or freezer, the less work is required to maintain the appliance’s chilly temperature. (Of course the more work it then takes to get the appliance to its chilly temperature).

6. Hand-washing dishes is more energy efficient than a dishwasher

FICTION — Dish washing by hand actually consumes more water and energy. People typically leave the hot water running, using up to 14 gallons of water on average. GE Appliances’ Paul Riley says to get the most out of an energy-efficient dishwasher, make sure it is fully loaded with food scraped off the plates.

7. Wash clothing with hot water for a truly effective wash.

FICTION — Heating the water for laundry makes up about 90 percent of the energy used in a conventional top-load washer. Using warm and cold water can be just as effective and can slash your energy use in half or more.

CARS AND FUEL

8. It’s better to fill your gas tank halfway because a full tank adds weight and is therefore less fuel efficient

FACT — The lighter your car, the better the fuel economy.

9. If you live in a warm climate, buy a light-colored car.

FACT — The lighter colors reflect the heat, whereas dark vehicles absorb heat and require more air conditioning to cool down.

AROUND THE HOUSE

10. If you live in a warm climate, paint your house a light color

FICTION — A light-colored roof helps dial back the temperature in a home’s attic by reflecting sunlight, but insulation is the key factor when it comes to energy savings. To really cool down your house, focus on proper insulation and plant foliage to block the sun’s rays.

11. Shut the door and vents in unused rooms

FACT — This works only if you close the doors and vents in multiple rooms.

12. Leave the heating or cooling system on all day. If you shut it down when you’re away, the system needs a surge of energy to reach the desired temperature.

FICTION — Switching the thermostat off when you go to sleep or leave for the day will boost energy savings. It will take more energy to bring your house back to the set temperature, but less energy is used during the down times. You can also realize substantial savings by changing the temperature settings. It is estimated that you will realize a 2 percent savings on your energy bill for every degree you cut back.

State officials in Vermont made an announcement on Thursday that the state’s utilities and regulatory agencies are prepared to go ahead with establishing a ’smart grid’, with or without federal funding. Of course, without the extra $66 million, the project will take far longer to get up and running.

Setting up a ’smart grid’ is a daunting task, which requires the installation of specialized electric meters in homes, running fiber optic connections to them, and setting up systems for gathering data from the meters. The idea behind the system is to use the data that is gathered to help reduce both the cost and use of electricity.

One of the potential issues with the new ’smart grid’ is the use of electricity to heat water in homes and provide heating and cooling. These issues have been problematic when formulating a plan to slow the usage of electricity in homes around the state. With emerging technologies, the smart grid would allow homeowners to use power for these things while both reducing carbon dioxide emissions in the generation process and without increasing demand during peak usage times.

The project, which is projected to cost around $133 million, would be completed in approximately three years with the help of federal funding. About half of the cost would be shouldered by the utility companies, with the other half coming from stimulus funds.

According to Mary Powell of Green Mountain Power, customers in Vermont are already up to speed on the savings that they will see from the smart grid. By using the smart meters and tracking usage, a homeowner would be able to adjust their power usage to off-peak times.

Another advantage of the smart grid is that a company can easily integrate renewable power sources into the system and activate them when necessary, unlike nuclear or fossil fuel sources, which run constantly.

Bill Gross’s Solar Breakthrough

“We are producing the lowest cost solar electrons in the history of the world,” Bill Gross is telling me. “Nobody’s ever done it. Nobody’s close.”

“We have a cost-effective, no-subsidy solar power solution and it’s for sale, anywhere around the world,” he says.

The article was intriguing, and inevitably led me back to eSolar’s website to get a better idea of whether the claims appear to have merit. There, I watched the slide show on the technology, and caught this bit: A single unit generates 46 MW of clean electricity on a footprint of 160 acres.

While this doesn’t help me figure out whether they can deliver on the hype, it does enable me to update a couple of essays that I have written before:

A Solar Thought Experiment

Replacing Gasoline with Solar Power

In the first, I made an attempt to calculate the area that would be required to equal the entire installed electric capacity of the U.S. – using only solar power. (Yes, I understand that this number falls to zero at night). The numbers quoted above from eSolar – combined with the latest data on installed electrical generating capacity – enabled me to update that calculation.

Per the EIA, total installed electrical generating capacity in the U.S. is approximately 1 million megawatts. If we scale up eSolar’s claim of a required footprint of 160 acres to produce 46 MW of electricity, then it would require 5,435 square miles of eSolar technology to equal current U.S. electrical capacity. This is a square of 73.7 miles by 73.7 miles. This is greater than the 2,531 square miles calculated in the previous essay, but that essay only considered the area for solar panels. The present calculation encompasses the footprint of the plant.

Looking back at the gasoline calculation, I came up with 1,300 square miles required in my previous essay to replace the energy gasoline provides. Using the current eSolar numbers changes that number to 2,413 square miles, or a square of 49 miles on each side.

Of course all of the normal caveats apply as spelled out in the previous essays. The key point is not to read these sorts of thought experiments too literally. I tend to do them to get my head around the scale of certain problems. Complaints of “the cost is too great” or “the power is intermittent” – addressed by caveats in the previous essays – completely miss the point of the essay. It is sort of like trying to figure out how much biomass would be required to power the world. If the calculation is 10 times the current annual output of biomass, then that’s not going to work. If it is 1/100th the current annual output of biomass, then that might work (again, pending lots of other things working out).

In this case, I find this eSolar thought experiment encouraging insofar as the required land area isn’t a clear knockout.

Geothermal energy is one of the most promising renewable energy technologies. There are a number of commercial geothermal plants already in operation (the U.S. is the world leader in geothermal energy), and the economics are much more favorable than some of the other choices. Geothermal electricity makes a much larger contribution to the electricity mix than does solar power, and does not suffer from the intermittency issue. A 2006 report from NREL (PDF warning) concluded that the potential for domestic geothermal energy at a depth of 2 miles (3 kilometers) is 30,000 times all current annual U.S. energy usage.

But while the current plants in operation utilize geothermal energy that is close to the surface, tapping deeper into the earth would hugely increase the geothermal potential. The only problem is that this sort of deep drilling can cause earthquakes. From the New York Times:

Deep in Bedrock, Clean Energy and Quake Fears

BASEL, Switzerland — Markus O. Häring, a former oilman, was a hero in this city of medieval cathedrals and intense environmental passion three years ago, all because he had drilled a hole three miles deep near the corner of Neuhaus Street and Shafer Lane. He was prospecting for a vast source of clean, renewable energy that seemed straight out of a Jules Verne novel: the heat simmering within the earth’s bedrock.

All seemed to be going well — until Dec. 8, 2006, when the project set off an earthquake, shaking and damaging buildings and terrifying many in a city that, as every schoolchild here learns, had been devastated exactly 650 years before by a quake that sent two steeples of the Münster Cathedral tumbling into the Rhine.

Hastily shut down, Mr. Häring’s project was soon forgotten by nearly everyone outside Switzerland. As early as this week, though, an American start-up company, AltaRock Energy*, will begin using nearly the same method to drill deep into ground laced with fault lines in an area two hours’ drive north of San Francisco.

The New York Times article goes into a lot of detail about why the deeper geothermal techniques cause earthquakes, but it also gives a good overview of the geothermal potential. I think the solution to this – if they can’t come up with techniques that don’t spawn earthquakes – is to only tap geothermal in relatively uninhabited locations. There are lots of places in the Western United States that have very low population densities, but very high geothermal potential.

Regardless, geothermal is one of those options that I think is around for the long haul, and won’t require endless subsidies in order to be competitive.

* As a footnote, AltaRock Energy is a company that Vinod Khosla has invested in. AltaRock also has some information at their site about how geothermal works.

Plant making gas from wood opens in Austria

GUESSING, Austria (AFP) – A new plant that produces gas from wood was opened in Austria on Wednesday, paving the way towards new possibilities in renewable energy.

According to its backers, the gas produced at the plant can be used in urban heating systems, for gas-powered cars or by power stations that work on gas.

“The gas produced has the same quality as natural gas,” said Richard Zweiler, from the European Centre for Renewable Energy (EEE), which is behind the project.

A plant able to produce between 20 and 25 megawatts of power — about 25 times bigger than the Guessing project — is already in the works in Goteborg, Sweden.

Readers may know that I am a big fan of gasification over the long haul. Whether the approach described here turns out to be the right one or not, I think gasification makes far more sense than some of the renewable paths we have headed down. I believe 20 years from now we will be doing commercial biomass gasification for heat and power. I don’t believe we will be making commercial quantities of cellulosic ethanol or algal biofuels.

Solar energy innovations have been brewing across the board the past couple of decades; but it’s recently been made known this week that solar technology company, SolarEn, has struck an agreement with California’s Pacific Gas and Electric company to achieve something new and dynamic within the renewable energy industry. SolarEn has come up the zealous goal of launching solar panel laden satellites into orbit that will then capture the rawest forms of solar radiation from more than 22,000 miles above the Earth.

Transporting the solar technology itself into space can be done utilizing existing rocket technologies, but it’s transferring the energy back into power grids on earth that really seems like the most intriguing part of all of this.

SolarEn expects to start beaming down electricity to earth by 2016.

The company plans to convert the captured solar energy into radio frequencies that would then be sent back to earth. This sounds like the kind of stuff we’d see in the science-fiction world, but this fantasy is steadily turning into a reality. Marking the first real attempt at tapping into the ceaseless potential energy stream in space that the sun provides, SolarEn plans to initially provide 200MW of electricity to Pacific Gas and Electric utilizing their new method.

Although not exactly a new concept, sending solar energy technology into space this time around has a lot more promise. Plans by the US Government to achieve the same thing have been undertaken by NASA and the Pentagon as early as the 1960’s. Critics cite the costly nature of sending the satellites into space; but SolarEn ensures that their technology is commercially viable unlike any previous endeavors trying to achieve the same thing.

Here's a diagram that illustrates the basic concept of the proposed space based solar array. SolarEn also cites the higher energy potential of the raw solar energy available in space, noted by the color intensity of the orange.

Another top concern that SolarEn must engage in is the perception that the RF signals transferring the solar energy could interfere or adversely affect things here on the surface. SolarEn’s founder, Gary Spirnak, explained that the technology they’re going to use has been developed and implemented through other communication satellites. The near constant stream of energy traveling back to Earth by way of RF signal won’t present any cause for worry, Spirnak assured. Spirnak went on to explain that humans won’t be affected and that planes could fly through the signals without a hitch.

The sheer energy generation potential that lies in space could very well be where solar energy needs to make its future.

It’s estimated that the raw, unfiltered solar radiation from the sun provides nearly ten times the energy compared to the sun’s rays that current technologies capture. SolarEn’s agreement with the PG&E is currently pending review by regulators from the California State Government; it’s likely this proposal’s purported technological feasibility is a reason that it might actually stick.

But, as with any daunting renewable energy project, it all comes down to funding. The average renewable energy project of this magnitude would ordinarily cost somewhere around $200m, but because of the technology, Solaren expects that it would need funding within the range of a few billion to get this project off of the ground.