Money Troubles Stall BioTown USA Project

REYNOLDS, Ind. (AP) — This one-stoplight farming hamlet had big dreams in 2005 when it was christened BioTown USA.

Its goal: to become the first U.S. community to meet all electricity and gas needs through renewable energy by using everything from farm waste to sewage.

Industry and government officials led the early charge. BP installed a gas pump offering an ethanol fuel blend, and South Dakota-based VeraSun Energy Corp. started building an ethanol production plant near town.

Former U.S. agriculture secretary Mike Johanns stopped by in support, as did the band Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Visitors also included a group of Chilean corn farmers who were touring the Midwest and interested in learning more about biofuels.

But the visitors are long gone, and many say the excitement is too. Money problems, leadership changes and other obstacles have sparked skepticism that Reynolds will ever succeed at moving the state, much less the nation, toward homegrown energy and away from foreign oil.

"I'm not happy about the whole situation, and a lot of people in town aren't either," said farmer Tonie Snyder. He helped provide thousands of bales of corn stover last fall that were supposed to be burned using technology that now may never be built.

From the outset, the vision for BioTown was ambitious. Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels and the state Department of Agriculture wanted to create a model for energy self-sufficiency. No other U.S. community produces all its own energy, and a German village that runs on renewable energy took eight years to develop.

But project officials believed they could turn this community of about 550 people, surrounded by silos and stubbly corn fields, into something special.

"We are taking challenges and turning them into opportunities by developing homegrown, local energy production to become independent from foreign sources," Daniels said in announcing the project.

The timetable was aggressive. State officials hoped to break ground in November 2006 on a $10 million facility that would house the core equipment needed to turn manure and other biomass material into energy, and start generating electricity for the town by July 2007.

The groundbreaking happened, and General Motors offered deals on flex fuel vehicles to people living in the Reynolds ZIP code. But there has been little other progress, and now BioTown leaders acknowledge they have adjusted their vision. But they insist the project will happen.

"What we try to remind folks all the time is that this project, there's no manual that you pull out and say, 'How do you do a BioTown?'" Indiana Agriculture Director Andy Miller said. "We're kind of inventing it as we go."

BioTown seemed like a "shot in the arm" to Fred Buschman, a lifelong resident of this community about 80 miles northwest of downtown Indianapolis.

"It was like something you dreamed of but never really believed could happen," the 77-year-old town council member said.

A couple of restaurants, car dealerships and a gas station make up most of Reynolds proper. But steady streams of truck traffic flow through town each day on state route 43 and U.S. 24, and railroads crisscross the community. State leaders said the infrastructure and surrounding farms made Reynolds an ideal location for BioTown.

"They were going to make this a showtown for the whole world to come in and look at, and I thought it was the greatest thing that ever could happen to the town of Reynolds," Snyder said.

State officials said private funding would drive the project. The startup firm Rose Energy Discovery Inc. would install an anaerobic digester, a device that converts manure methane into electricity, and a gassifier would be built to create a gas that can be burned for heat or put in a boiler to make steam.

But Rose Energy dropped out last summer after failing to line up enough private investment. In October, VeraSun suspended construction on its ethanol plant due to a steep drop in ethanol prices, which combined with high corn prices has slowed factory construction around the country.

Work has not begun on the Reynolds digester.

Last fall, Snyder and his fellow farmers readied about 5,000 bales of mostly corn stover that was supposed to feed the gassifier. Months later, thousands of the unused bales collect snow and rain as they sit in a field just outside town.

The farmers finally received full payment for the bales earlier this month, Snyder said.

The new technology developer, Energy Systems Group, hasn't decided whether to install the gassifier, so state officials say the bales will become animal bedding.

BioTown proponents say there's still plenty going on.

Energy Systems Group, a Vectren Corp. subsidiary, will spend about $10 million on the digester and is still lining up financing for it. President Jim Adams said he hopes to start building within the next month or so and wants to produce power by the end of this year.

"The whole process has gone a little slower than we anticipated, securing the fuel and a power purchase agreement for some of the output," he said. "But that's all coming together."

Most of what they produce will likely be sold to a power company. BioTown leaders learned early that it would be nearly impossible to take Reynolds off an established electricity grid so it could supply its own power.

Miller said the cost to build a grid just for Reynolds would be prohibitive, and the community would still need backup help to prevent service interruptions.

BioTown Development Authority President John Heimlich preaches patience as the project sputters on. Last year, he and other BioTown leaders visited the German village of Juehnde, which runs on renewable energy.

"I think what we see now, maybe as our vision, is kind of an evolving project, so maybe there isn't a final look so to speak," he said.

Despite the setbacks, BioTown is attacking global energy problems with local solutions, and that's the best approach, said Brooke Coleman, director of the Boston-based New Fuels Alliance, a renewable energy advocacy group.

He said the project takes on some steep obstacles like removing a community from an established power grid. Renewable energy developers have tried to do this for years and have long met resistance from power companies.

Aside from that, the slumping economy and falling dollar make investors cautious about renewable energy technology.

"This town is tackling some of the most challenging issues facing the move toward energy independence," he said.


Source - The Associated Press
AP Photo/Tom Strickland

White House takes air out of new EPA regulations

THIS MARCH, the Environmental Protection Agency was about to take a major step forward in curbing pollutants that cause smog - until it got word from the White House to make it a baby step instead. The weakened rule will result in several thousand preventable deaths annually. Environmental groups and public health organizations should take the EPA to court for letting last-minute interference by the president and the White House's Office of Management and Budget dictate a less stringent standard.

Thanks to improved pollution controls on cars, power plants, and other industries, Americans breathe much cleaner air than they did a generation ago. But smog is still severe enough in many areas to cause respiratory and heart problems and shorten lives.

The rule regulates acceptable levels of ozone, the main component of smog. Ozone forms when the sun heats up vehicle exhaust, smokestack pollution, and emissions from gasoline and many other substances.

Even under the old standard, set in 1997, most of Massachusetts, with the exception of Bristol County and Nantucket, was in violation, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. The new standard will place the entire state out of compliance. Fixing that will require a continuation of the vehicle-inspection and maintenance programs now under way, in addition to efforts to reduce emissions from solvents and paints. New measures, such as encouraging greater energy efficiency to reduce pollution by power generators, likely will be needed as well, according to DEP.

It's well worth the trouble and expense to gain improvements in respiratory health. Nationally, the EPA estimates that its new rule will prevent 1,300 to 3,500 premature deaths a year. A stricter rule favored by its Clean Air Scientific Advisory Committee would save as many as 9,200 lives a year.

Under current law, EPA can consider the cost of complying with a clean-air standard in setting a timeline of compliance, but not in deciding how stringent the rule should be. Memos leaked last week indicate that input from the bean counters in the budget office did affect the standard, although EPA administrator Stephen Johnson denies it.

Johnson did call recently for amending the Clean Air Act to allow the agency to weigh compliance costs in setting an antipollution rule. Congress should not give this proposal the time of day, and should instead call Johnson before it to explain just what role the White House played in his decision to allow higher smog levels than his own scientific advisers recommended.

Source - boston.com

The 'Peak Oil' Theory: Will Oil Reserves Run Dry?

Oil's recent slide and the slackening demand that an economic slowdown's expected to bring have stimulated hopes that crude could soon safely stabilize below the $100 range.

But beneath seesawing supply and demand lies the deeper question of just how much oil the planet has in the first place — and how much it will have in the future.

The answer to that question supports — or undermines — the theory that we are in the midst of an ever-tightening supply that will lock prices into a permanent, rising arc. That, in nutshell, is what's meant by the term "peak oil".

It’s an issue that matters, especially to major energy players who are in a race to disprove the theory and trying to bring on-stream more oil fields than are currently being depleted.

John Hofmeister, president of Royal Dutch Shell's US operations, shared his thoughts on the supply issue on CNBC’s Squawk Box on Thursday. He took aim at the peak oil theory as popularized by Matthew Simmons, the author of "Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy." (See the Hofmeister interview at left.)

“The peak oil theory has really swamped the world — God bless Matt Simmons,” Hofmeister told CNBC.

Simmons is mistaken, said Hofmeister, because he is overly focused on a single country: Saudi Arabia, the world's largest exporter and OPEC swing producer.

Although Saudi Arabia is a dominant player, the Shell executive said focusing solely on Saudi Arabia leaves out the all other places around the globe where Big Oil and national oil companies are busy exploring for untapped oil reservoirs.

Those reservoirs could include the vast — but currently restricted — reserves of the US Outer Continental Shelf, which holds an estimated 100 billion barrels of oil and natural gas. Tapping into such a large supply would slash the $500 billion US sends overseas for each year for oil imports.

As things stands, however, only 15 percent of those reserves are currently exploitable, a good part of that off the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi and Texas.

Simmons is also off the mark, Hofmeister contends, because he excludes unconventional sources of oil such as the oil sands of Canada, where Shell is already active.

The Canadian oil sands — a natural combination of sand, water and oil found largely in Alberta — is believed to contain 1 trillion barrels of oil. Another 1 trillion barrels are also trapped in rocks in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming.

Given all that, we asked Simmons, who is chairman of Simmons & Co. International, a specialized energy investment-banking firm based in Houston, to respond to Hofmeister's comments and explain how his peak oil scenario can be avoided.

CNBC: What's your response to critics like Hofmeister?

Simmons: There is a kind of schizophrenia within the likes of Shell where the chairman basically says, "We think by 2012 global demand will exceed conventional supply" and yet Hofmeister basically says the idea that we are ever going to have peak oil is ridiculous.

CNBC: But he's suggesting you are leaving out unconventional sources of energy in your calculations.

Simmons: They make the distinction [between conventional and unconventional], but they don’t seem to make the connection about the vast difference of flow. They are so hung up on the total estimated volume. Once they start in a project they say, "Well, the reserves last forever so we can book a million barrels of reserves."The energy that is consumed to get oil out of the oil sands of Canada — in massive amounts of potable water and natural gas — is so vast you are really turning gold into lead. What you get out is a very low quality amount of oil that has to be upgraded and diluted with high quality oil to get synthetic crude. What I can’t figure out is why the executives of these oil companies don’t understand that.

CNBC: And what about the reserves on the Outer Continental Shelf?

Simmons: That’s sort of irrelevant because we have such an unbelievable shortage of deep-water rigs. We are totally out of deep-water drilling rigs. There are about 100 that are struggling to get built. Four will ready by the end of next year.

And none of that deep-water stuff they are talking about has been properly tested to know if it is even commercial. It’s in such remote areas that we just don’t have the tool kit to realistically bring it on stream before maybe ten years from now — maybe 6-7 years from now.

CNBC: What about other major finds such as the major off-shore discovery Brazil has made that is estimated could be the third largest oil field in the world?

Simmons: There have only been five wildcat wells drilled there. That’s like me saying I have drilled a well in Kansas, and another in Colorado and in New Mexico and in the panhandle of Texas and if they are all part of one giant oilfield, it is the biggest oil field ever in the Western Hemisphere. That’s an enormous "if."

You can claim that, but the proof of that would only be after you drill about 100 wells and flow test them all. And what we know is that 99 percent of those types of reservoirs never connect.

CNBC: You still think there are production difficulties in Saudi Arabia, but what do you expect will be the impact on production worldwide?

Simmons: Yes, and it’s why we have such a hard time growing production any more, and unfortunately demand doesn’t understand that. We are basically having to run faster and faster to stay in place as too many areas go into steady and steep decline. You look at the North Sea … the last 7-8 years, Norway and the UK have been declining a rate of about 17-18 percent per year. And once you get a field down to its last 10 percent, then it levels out and goes into a long steady state of gentle decline — that is the state of Prudhoe Bay today.

CNBC: So, what is your prognosis for prices?

Simmons: I think prices have to go way higher. The sooner people get used to the fact that we are still living in a fool’s paradise, the better ... you just can not argue that $100 a barrel is expensive when you realize it is 15 cents a cup — do you know anything other than crude oil that sells for 15 cents a cup? I know wine doesn’t, bottled water doesn’t.

Source - CNBC

Picture - Mike Eliason

Google Will Finance Enhanced Geothermal

Expect Google.org to make investments in the next couple of months in enhanced geothermal energy, says Dan Reicher, the Internet giant's director of climate change and energy initiatives.

Google's philanthropic arm is in talks with universities on funding basic research into tapping into the vast stores of energy underground, Reicher said at a two-day energy summit sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences. He said it also expects to finance companies that are working toward advances in this form of renewable energy.

A description of enhanced geothermal, graphics that show how it works, and a map of its potential can be found with this story in U.S. News.
Google announced its "renewable energy cheaper than coal" initiative late last year, but this is the clearest signal yet that the company is poised to add enhanced geothermal to its investment portfolio.

So far, Google's program has made $10 million investments in two companies that seek to produce renewable energy cheaper than coal: eSolar, a concentrating solar thermal power firm, and Makani Power, which seeks to develop ultra-high-altitude wind power. Reicher said tapping into wind power at 3,000 or even 10,000 feet up is "admittedly very high risk" but fits in well with Google's game plan on renewable energy investments.

"We don't have the constraints of venture capital firms, with the usual three-to-six-year exit strategy and need for return," Reicher says. "We're looking for higher-risk, higher-payoff investments." He also said Google.org is likely to invest in commercialization of cellulosic ethanol—another example of a promising technology that has a hard time getting out of the so-called Valley of Death, development of risky, first-of-a-kind plants.

Reicher also addressed why Google is engaged in the issue of renewable energy. As a large user of electricity, Google has aimed to purchase green resources and has often found them not available or prohibitively expensive.

"There's a great deal of optimism about renewable energy, great engagement of the public, and interest of the investment community," Reicher says. "There needs to be a fundamental change in the cost structure of renewables if we expect them to compete. And let's talk about the competitive landscape—first and foremost about coal. The aim has to be to make renewable energy competitive with coal and to do it in years, not decades."

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Synthetic Fuel Concept to Steal CO2 From Air

LOS ALAMOS, N.M. -- Green Freedom™ for carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuel and chemical production

Los Alamos National Laboratory has developed a low-risk, transformational concept, called Green Freedom™, for large-scale production of carbon-neutral, sulfur-free fuels and organic chemicals from air and water.

Currently, the principal market for the Green Freedom production concept is fuel for vehicles and aircraft.

At the heart of the technology is a new process for extracting carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and making it available for fuel production using a new form of electrochemical separation. By integrating this electrochemical process with existing technology, researchers have developed a new, practical approach to producing fuels and organic chemicals that permits continued use of existing industrial and transportation infrastructure. Fuel production is driven by carbon-neutral power.

"Our concept enhances U.S. energy and material security by reducing dependence on imported oil. Initial system and economic analyses indicate that the prices of Green Freedom commodities would be either comparable to the current market or competitive with those of other carbon-neutral, alternative technologies currently being considered," said F. Jeffrey Martin of the Laboratory's Decisions Applications Division, principal investigator on the project.

Martin will be presenting a talk on the subject at the Alternative Energy NOW conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, February 20, 2008.

In addition to the new electrochemical separation process, the Green Freedom system can use existing cooling towers, such as those of nuclear power plants, with carbon-capture equipment that eliminates the need for additional structures to process large volumes of air. The primary environmental impact of the production facility is limited to the footprint of the plant. It uses non-hazardous materials for its feed and operation and has a small waste stream volume. In addition, unlike large-scale biofuel concepts, the Green Freedom system does not add pressure to agricultural capacity or use large tracts of land or farming resources for production.

The concept's viability has been reviewed and verified by both industrial and semi-independent Los Alamos National Laboratory technical reviews. The next phase will demonstrate the new electrochemical process to prove the ability of the system to both capture carbon dioxide and pull it back out of solution. An industrial partnership consortium will be formed to commercialize the Green Freedom concept.

by Nancy Ambrosiano, nwa@lanl.gov

Photo credit - Desktop Engineering

Speechless Conversations

A new device translates your thoughts into speech so that you can have a cell-phone conversation without uttering a word.

Ambient Corporation, a company based in Champaign, IL, that develops communications technologies for people with speaking disabilities, is calling its latest system "voiceless communication" with good reason. The company has engineered a neckband that translates a wearer's thoughts into speech so that, without saying a word, he or she can have a cell-phone conversation or query search engines in public.

Don't fret: the device, called Audeo, can't read minds, so it won't capture your secret thoughts. It picks up the neurological signals from the brain that are being sent to the vocal cords--a person must specifically think about voicing words--and then wirelessly transmits them to a computer, which translates them into synthesized speech. At the moment, the device has a limited vocabulary: 150 words and phrases.

The video below shows Michael Callahan, a cofounder of Ambient and a developer of the device, demonstrating the technology at the Texas Instruments Developers Conference, which was held in Dallas from March 3 through 5. In his speech, he says that by the end of the year, the device will be ready for use by people with Lou Gehrig's disease, a progressive neurodegenerative disease that can cause sufferers to become completely paralyzed. He also says that in the future, if a person is walking down the street thinking about where a bus station is located, the device will automatically wirelessly query a search engine to find one.

Credit: Texas Instruments

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Clean Diesel Possible With New Diesel Particulate Filter Technology

ScienceDaily (Mar. 14, 2008) — Most diggers and construction machines discharge unfiltered exhaust fumes into the air. This is because special vehicles are made in small batches, and each requires a different filter geometry. Diesel soot filters of varying shapes can now be produced at competitive prices.

Modern diesel cars are not only quieter than their predecessors but also release considerably fewer exhaust fumes into the atmosphere. The filters for heavy-duty, construction and off-road vehicles are not yet state-of-the-art. A new diesel particulate filter technology will soon teach even these vehicles to give up smoking.

Conventional diesel soot filters usually consist of cylindrical ceramic blocks crisscrossed by numerous channels. A block of this kind cannot be made in one piece. Instead, individual quadratic honeycomb segments are bonded together to form a large block. The bonds act as expansion joints that offset the temperature stresses during operation. This is vital, for a solid ceramic block would break apart. The drawback of these square honeycombs is that the angular bonded block has to be ground into a cylindrical shape at the end of production, thus wasting valuable material. What is more, this smooth finishing takes time and requires expensive machinery.

Together with filter manufacturer CleanDieselCeramics CDC and sponsored by Saxony’s economics ministry, developers at the Fraunhofer Institute for Ceramic Technologies and Systems IKTS in Dresden have developed a honeycomb structure with a different geometry. Rather than being rectangular, it takes an irregular four-cornered shape. This allows a wide variety of filter geometries to be created – even close-to-cylindrical ones. Grinding is no longer necessary.

An added advantage of this development is the altered geometry of the channels. Usually, the gas flows into the filter through four-sided channels. The Dresden researchers have opted for a smaller, triangular cross-section. This enlarges the filter surface in the tiny channels. The triangular shape is also more stable, and the filter is less sensitive to lateral pressure.

The partners in this venture have tested and optimized the production method on a pilot production line at the IKTS – and also tested the third innovation, a silicon carbide ceramic developed at the IKTS. The advantage of this latter innovation is that the researchers can easily and precisely adjust the size of the pores for optimum filtration of the soot particles. “As far as the performance and quality of our new development is concerned, we can hold our own against anything on the market,” says IKTS project manager Jörg Adler. The up-and-coming firm CDC is currently building its first plant near Dresden. From spring of this year, about 40,000 filters will be produced there annually and installed in construction machinery as an upgrade kit.


Adapted from materials provided by Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.
(Credit: Image courtesy of Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft)