Our weekly compilation of renewable energy news and information from around the Web.
American Bar Association Renewable Energy Committee
The Public Utility Section of the American Bar Association announced the formation of a new renewable energy committee that will pull together lawyers to study the renewable energy industry. The ABA’s Public Utility Section is one of the oldest in the ABA and includes among its members the in-house attorneys and outside counsel for many of the country’s major electric utilities.
Coskata Opens for Business
Coskata unveiled its new nearly-commercial-scale cellulosic ethanol plant in Madison, Pa. this past week. According to the company:
We are proud that we have successfully scaled our technology to this significant level,” said Bill Roe, president and CEO of Coskata. “This facility is demonstrating that our efficient, affordable and flexible conversion technology is ready for commercialization. The next step is to build full-scale facilities and begin licensing our technology to project developers, project financiers and strategic partners.”
Unlike other technologies and facilities that may rely on one primary source of feedstock, Coskata’s flex ethanol facility will be producing ethanol from numerous feedstocks, including wood biomass, agricultural waste, sustainable energy crops, and construction waste. This flexible approach at the Madison facility is enabled by Westinghouse Plasma Corporation (WPC), a wholly owned subsidiary of Alter NRG, and their plasma gasification technology. The feedstock flexible nature of the Coskata approach also allows for true geographic flexibility, meaning facilities can be built anywhere a feedstock can be sourced or delivered.
Coskata’s technology, as demonstrated through Project Lighthouse, will be able to reduce greenhouse gasses by as much as 96% over conventional gasoline, while using less than half the water that it takes to get a gallon of gasoline. In addition, the company’s ability to produce non grain-based ethanol that is as much as 7 times as energy positive as the fossil fuel used in the process, addresses many concerns related to traditional processes, including energy efficiency and the use of grain.
“The integrated biorefinery – utilizing Westinghouse Plasma Gasification on the front end and Coskata’s syngas-to-biofuels conversion process on the back end – serves as an excellent example of two leading companies working together to deliver a viable process to the biofuel market,” said Mark Montemurro, President and CEO of Alter NRG. “We’re excited to be delivering the feedstock flexibility to Coskata’s efficient and affordable process.”
The facility is a demonstration of “minimum scale engineering”, an industry standard term which means it is the smallest size that will still allow the company to scale directly to 50 million and 100 million gallon Coskata facilities. Some of the ethanol that is being produced at the facility has been delivered to the General Motors Milford Proving Grounds for early testing, as well as to another major strategic partner.
“We invested in Coskata so that we could enable the rapid deployment of commercially viable and environmentally sustainable ethanol globally,” said Bob Babik, GM Vehicle Emissions Director. “We’re proud to say that we have already accepted some of Coskata’s ethanol at our Milford facility.”
Globally, General Motors has produced more than 5 million flex-fuel vehicles to date. In the U.S. alone, there are more than 3.5 million GM flex-fuel cars and trucks on the road. For the 2010 model year, 17 E85-capable flex-fuel vehicles from the Chevrolet, Cadillac, Buick and GMC brands.
GM claims to be on track to make more than half of its vehicle production flex-fuel capable by 2012.
New Biomass Facility in South Georgia
Wiregrass Power announced that it would break ground in 2010 on a $100 million biomass facility in Valdosta in southern Georgia. The plant will process wood waste and wastewater sludge that is currently being deposited in a landfill.
Momentum for Biofuels
We covered the increasing number of biofuels projects in the works, wondering aloud whether biofuels were gaining momentum.
Environmental Issues Slow Big Solar Projects
The LA Times covered the problem of delays at large solar projects in California due to environmental permitting delays.
The development of solar-power facilities in the desert has been a top priority of the Obama administration as it seeks to ease the nation’s dependence on fossil fuels and curb global warming. In addition, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has urged that the state meet one-third of its electricity needs from renewable sources by 2020.
Companies are racing to finalize their permits and break ground by the end of next year, which would qualify them to obtain some of the $15 billion in federal stimulus funds designated for renewable energy projects. At stake is the creation of 48,000 jobs and more than 5,300 megawatts of new energy, enough to power almost 1.8 million homes, according to federal land managers.
But the presence of sensitive habitat, rare plants and imperiled creatures such as desert tortoises, bighorn sheep and flat-tailed horned lizards threatens to stall or derail some of the projects closest to securing permits.
The article describes the utter chaos that ensues when multiple state and federal agencies are empowered to review and approve (or not) plans to locate energy facilities. While the Obama administration has clearly made the installation of additional solar capacity a priority, other state and federal agencies will deny permission over any perceived environmental risk. The end result is to increase the cost of initiating new facilities, to decrease the number of new facilities and ultimately to drive up the cost of power itself.