Dept. Of Energy Wants Cut In Fossil Fuel Research

Source: AJC


The current administration will propose making a big cut to fossil fuel research and closing two facilities. Energy Secretary Steven Chu outlined those cuts, as well as a big increase for clean energy, in a blog post Friday.


Chu says that the budget would cut the Office of Fossil Energy by 45 percent, or $418 million. The budget would also save $70 million by reducing funding for the hydrogen technology program in the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy.


The administration would end operations at the Tevatron facility at Fermi National Laboratory, saving $35 million, and close the Holifield Radioactive Ion Beam Facility at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory, saving $10.3 million dollars.

Pioneer Sees Shift To Electric Cars

Source: AJC

Electric car pioneer Shai Agassi is a man with a startling prediction: Before 2020, he says, more people everywhere will be buying electric cars than those powered by gasoline.

"It doesn't mean that oil is not necessary, but we're starting the way out," said Agassi, a former top executive for information giant SAP AG who launched his Better Place venture several years ago.

Existing electric cars have a limited range, after which owners have to stop and wait for hours while their car's battery recharges. Owners of Agassi's cars would be able to remove the used battery and replace it with a fully charged one, allowing them to get back on the road almost immediately. The first country slated to go live with a network of "battery-switching" stations run by Better Place is his native Israel, where he plans a launch — with 56 stations and an expected 5,000 cars — before the end of 2011. In 2012, Denmark and Australia are expected to join, along with trials in Hawaii and in the San Francisco Bay area.

Brimming with infectious optimism, Agassi has been a regular at the World Economic Forum, where he was interviewed by The Associated Press. Agassi said he has raised about $700 billion and spent about a third of it, mostly on setting up the stations. That leaves enough cash to absorb losses while he builds up to break-even, which Agassi asserts will not take long. "In Israel, in 2016, plus or minus a year, more electric cars will be sold than gasoline cars.

When that happens in Country One, within two years you will see it in every country," he said. That claim may seem preposterous for the car-crazy United States — but not for Israel. The country's electric company also expects electric cars to achieve a significant market share in the near future and is preparing its grid to meet the demand, according to the Haaretz newspaper.



Former U.S. President Bill Clinton has emerged a believer as well. "Israel will become the first country in the world to put 100,000 all-electric cars on the road," he said Thursday. "Not the US. Not China. Not countries much bigger — Israel!" Agassi has found a niche created by a widespread sense that the world is not doing half enough to deal with the eventual end of oil — a prospect hastened by the explosive recent growth in the developing world. "From 2000 to 2010, China added 120 million cars on the road (and) next year, 25 to 30 million," Agassi said. "It's no longer the U.S. that sets the price (of oil). Now it's a question of how many cars were added in China, how many were added in Brazil, how many were added in India." He admits that the market for gas is somewhat inelastic, meaning that despite rising costs at the pump, people grumble and drive on. But they save elsewhere, he says, harming the economy in cascading ways. Agassi plans to sell cars being developed by Renault SA and equipped with removable batteries — which are currently quite heavy and have a range of 100 miles (160 kilometers). Drivers would be promised four battery swapping stations along any route the length of the range.

Although prices have not yet been set, Agassi said the idea would be that the consumer would not pay more to drive a given distance than its current cost using oil. Like any venture that could threaten a mammoth industry, Better Place has generated its share of critics. Some charge the company is trying to establish a new type of monopoly, while environmental groups objected to the laying of new power cables. It is also not clear that Israel's electricity grid can sustain the heightened demand posed by the electric cars. Some say battery-swapping is impractical and customers will prefer a fixed-battery car.

In Davos, Nissan Motor Co. was demonstrating its new Leaf, a fixed-battery electric car that you can charge at home. Agassi is not worried. He says over time, batteries will grow smaller and their ranges will grow longer, making the swap less odious. He is most animated as he refutes criticism that the electricity needed to charge the battery has its own carbon footprint and the net result might be worse for the environment than the internal combustion engine.

The electricity could come from coal but also from natural gas or wind or other sources, he said, adding that the Israeli government has approved a 600-megawatt solar project in the country's southern desert that can power a half-million cars a year.

Is the main thing idealism or profit? Agassi's message combines the two. "The end of the oil era will not come because we ran out of oil — it will come become we don't want to use oil any more to drive," he said. "I can guarantee you that we will finish the need for oil as an energy source for cars before we run out of oil in the ground."

Interior Dept OKs Nevada Solar Project

Source: AJC

A solar energy project that will generate enough electricity for 75,000 homes in Nevada has been approved by the federal government. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar says the Crescent Dunes Solar Energy Project in Nye County is the ninth large-scale solar facility approved by the Obama administration in an effort to encourage renewable energy development on public lands in the West. Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says construction of the 110-megawatt plant will create up to 500 jobs. Once finished, it will employ 50 in operations and management positions. The project 13 miles northwest of Tonopah was proposed by Solar Reserve's Tonopah Solar Energy of Santa Monica, California. It will encompass about 2,200 acres on land administered by the Bureau of Land Management.

This is a win for alternative energy proponents as well as the people of Nevada and the federal government.

White House To Go Solar (again)

Source: NYTimes.com

Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced plans to install solar panels on the White House roof today, kicking off a three-day federal symposium focused on targeting sustainability efforts throughout the federal government.

"Around the world, the White House is a symbol of freedom and democracy," Chu told an audience of federal employees. "It should also be a symbol of America's commitment to a clean energy future."

The Department of Energy aims to install solar panels and a solar hot water heater by the end of next spring as part of a demonstration project showcasing the availability and reliability of the country's solar technologies. In a press release, DOE officials emphasized the growing industry and the availability of tax credits for those who install panels.

The news comes less than a month after environmentalist Bill McKibben led a rally demanding that President Obama install solar panels and presenting White House officials with a solar panel from former President Carter's White House.

At the time, White House officials seemed to rebuff McKibben's pleas, releasing a vague statement about Obama's commitment to renewable energy. But today McKibben and other environmentalists praised federal officials for taking the symbolic step.

"The White House did the right thing, and for the right reasons: They listened to the Americans who asked for solar on their roof, and they listened to the scientists and engineers who told them this is the path to the future," said McKibben, the co-founder of the nonprofit 350.org. "If it has anything like the effect of the White House garden, it could be a trigger for a wave of solar installations across the country and around the world."

The planned panels will convert sunlight directly to electricity, while the solar hot water heater will have a "solar collector" to heat water for the White House residence, according to the DOE press release. The department will immediately begin the competitive bidding process to select a company for the installations.

Nancy Sutley -- chairwoman of the White House Council of Environmental Quality -- joined Chu in making the announcement at the GreenGov Symposium. The news is "in keeping with our commitment to lead by example," she said.

Indeed, that was the stated purpose of the three-day symposium, which will feature panels and lectures on topics relating to clean water, sustainable buildings, climate and a half-dozen other government priorities. Lecture titles range from "Measuring Your Water Footprint" to "Case Studies in Greening the Supply Chain."

"Regardless of whether your job is every day to worry about sustainability in your agency ... the federal community at large cares about sustainability," Sutley said. "This symposium is about turning a vision into practice and engaging minds from inside and outside the federal community."

'Race to develop clean energy technologies'

The symposium marked the one-year anniversary of Obama's Executive Order 13514, which directed the federal government to lead by example and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Sutley, Chu, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack and biomimicry expert Janine Benyus kicked off the event with speeches today at the Lisner Auditorium at George Washington University.

Chu's speech served as a primer on global warming and DOE's efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions. Armed with a PowerPoint presentation, he led the audience through the statistics showing rising sea levels and warming temperatures.

DOE has implemented several programs aimed at slowing that trend, he said -- from encouraging energy-efficient white roofs to decreasing the energy used for the government's data centers.

"We are in a race to develop clean energy technologies around the world," he said, citing China's efforts to pursue clean energy. "So the question is: As these countries move aggressively into this space to develop these new technologies ... will we be a leader in this race or will we be importing technologies from these other counties five to 10 years from now?"

Vilsack also focused on his agency's progress over the past year, highlighting a program that reconnects people with their food supply through community gardens. USDA, he said, aims to help the country adopt a new American culture that values consuming wisely, innovating widely and exporting more.

"I think you need to understand what is happening in this country," Vilsack said, "and that is that we are in the process -- in my opinion -- of redefining the American experience."

Benyus also struck an optimistic cord, expressing hope that sustainability goes "from being a checklist to becoming a culture."

"We as a people in the United States are capable of grand, sweeping, bold, mature ideas," Benyus said, showing the audience a photo of a protected wilderness. "I think that we can do the same sort of thing around sustainability."

Two Solar Arrays Get OK To Build On Federal Land

Source: AJC

For the first time, federal land managers are allowing construction of two solar installations on public land to power hundreds of thousands of homes with renewable energy. U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzeneger announced the projects Tuesday. One includes a square mile of solar panels near Victorville in inland Southern California, and the other covers about 10 square miles east of San Diego.