By Alexis Madrigal December 2, 2009 | 10:42 am | Categories: Energy
SAN FRANCISCO — Google will become directly involved in deploying energy technologies, the company’s director of climate initiatives said Monday.
The company has long supported and invested in renewable energy but kept its participation to greening its campus and funding several solar, wind and geothermal companies. In September, Google announced it was internally developing a new mirror for solar thermal plants. Now, the company may wade even further into the energy sector.
“We’ll make a step soon into energy projects,” Dan Reicher, director of climate change and energy initiatives at Google, told a group of energy experts assembled in the cafeteria at the company’s swanky San Francisco office.
That could mean Google starts directly financing power plants. Throughout the energy innovation event, which also featured energy leaders from Stanford, MIT and UC Berkeley, Reicher stressed the importance of going beyond just research and development to deploying innovative energy technologies.
“Energy innovation to me means a real pipeline that goes from basic research to applied research to demonstration projects to the scale up and from there to full commercial deployment,” Reicher said. “It’s a long pipeline and to be honest we don’t do a very good job of moving technologies through this pipeline.”
Reicher said the Googlers have even coined a clever phrase to describe their vision of energy policy: “from light bulb to light bulb.” They want to help move new technologies from the idea (the first light bulb) to the product (the second light bulb).
He championed an idea bouncing around Congress to create a Clean Energy Deployment Administration, which would help green tech companies get large power plants built.
But with a ballooning federal deficit and rough economy, it’s hard to know where the money will come from. Reicher and the other panelists agreed that energy R&D funding should be around $15 billion a year.
MIT physicist Ernie Moniz warned several times that the current increase in energy research came courtesy of the stimulus bill, which won’t be around forever.
“We’re going to have to see what happens after these next two years because what we need is not a drop but a further increase in RD&D funding commensurate with the task at hand,” Moniz said.
One idea for raising funds is to shift it from other places within government through standard appropriations, but Moniz suggested a different kind of funding base. A small charge could be added to electricity usage, which would add up to a very large sum — the Office Space funding model.
Charging about four-tenths of a cent per kilowatt on the 3,669,919 million kilowatt hours of electricity used in the United States would yield the $15 billion dollars the energy researchers want. That would essentially be a 5 percent tax on the average cost of a kilowatt hour.
Moniz said the idea had worked before. A successful program taxed natural gas transmission across state lines to fund the non-profit Gas Research Institute, beginning in 1976.
Image: A mirror being placed at Brightsource’s Israeli demonstration facility. Google has invested in Brightsource and other solar thermal players like eSolar.
See Also:
•Google Smart Meter App Not Ready for Finals
•Google’s Super Satellite Captures First Image
•Google.Org Doubles Down on Solar Thermal Power
•Biggest Solar Deal Ever Announced — We’re Talking Gigawatts
•Utilities Jumping into the Solar Game
WiSci 2.0: Alexis Madrigal’s Twitter, Google Reader feed, and green tech history research site; Wired Science on Twitter and Facebook.
Close Posted by: 3N1GMA | 12/2/09 | 1:54 pm |
Solar thermal is the way to go. Props to Google. Now if they’d only release free-energy magnetic motors…
Posted by: driverguy7 | 12/2/09 | 2:02 pm |
They’ll probably make radioactive plankton batteries that never run out of power….
Posted by: Arkyll | 12/2/09 | 2:24 pm |
I HEART GOOGLE
Posted by: onlyhuman | 12/2/09 | 2:42 pm |
being green is good
but
wanting consumers to pay a little extra or add a tax for research is nothing but corporate socialism
Posted by: h311c477 | 12/2/09 | 2:44 pm |
3N1GMA:
No such thing as free energy bud. 1st law, 2nd law cannot be broken. There have been many attempts and zero successes. And please don’t go off about some gov’t conspiracy.
Posted by: svanneck | 12/2/09 | 3:47 pm |
With all those mirrors going online, I’m buying stock in Windex.
Posted by: Gifftor | 12/2/09 | 3:58 pm |
@onlyhuman
Corporate socialism?
-
That’s the mating call of oxymorons.
-
Posted by: sethdayal | 12/2/09 | 3:58 pm |
Not so “renewable” costs are at minimum ten times the cost of mass produced nuclear power.
Germany has already wasted 10 years and $100 billion on solar/wind and has not reduced its greenhouse emissions one iota. To help with its new found addiction to Russian gas, it is planning a massive build of dirty coal plants to meet its baseload power requirements.
Nuclear power is the only possible answer to a maybe ten years away civilization ending peak oil/climate crisis.
A worldwide build of 10000 reactors would be paid for by and would end fossil fuel use using only a small fraction of our industrial capacity with investments returns in a three year payback period. With mass production, nuclear power costs drop from the current Asian $1.5 to under $1 billion a gigawatt cheaper than coal and 10% the least cost not so “renewable”.
Tthe US needs 2500 new reactors but is crippled by inefficient private power companies, a biased Nuclear Rejection Commission and corrupt and litigious political and legal systems, quadrupling nuclear costs and time frames. Rather than wasting money on not so “renewables” the US should be fixing the issues that make a US designed AP-1000 reactor cost 4 times as much and take twice as long to build as the same reactor in China. Labour is a small percentage of nuclear construction costs.
A nuclear conversion saves us a ton of money, eliminates air pollution and the associated death and suffering of thousands of Canadians, arrests our slide over the climate/peak oil precipice, creates a huge employment boosting domestic and export industry, and makes our economy far more competitive than Europe’s run with converts to the not so “renewable” religion. Even the deniers here would go for it.
Goggle steven kirsch for lessons in how to git ‘er done.
Posted by: joelapp | 12/2/09 | 4:24 pm |
Google is completely STUPID. If I were a stockholder, I would be screaming “DO YOUR JOB!” You’re not a stinkin’ power company, you’re an IT company. Quickest way to kill a company: get off mission.
Posted by: TikoBroje | 12/2/09 | 4:57 pm |
If Google was really interested in providing society with a “greater good” they would provide financial assistance to outfit individual buildings (both commercial and residential) with solar panels or wind turbines. Solar ‘plants’ are still centralized power which people have to pay into and requires reliance on the inefficient power grid.
Posted by: damasterwc | 12/2/09 | 5:16 pm |
i agree with sethdayal…
if google is interested in energy, it should develop lead cooled reactors or help revive the LFTR or other thorium reactors, etc. advanced design nuke reactors are the solution. it’s just so crappy that media led fear mongering allowed the government to cut off research in the 70s… plus clinton caved in as well and shut down the fast breeder in the 90s. all of this would have been solved by now… btw, for those of you who don’t know about these types of reactors and might be concerned about “nuclear waste” (which is in reality 97% fuel), these advanced reactor designs “burn” about 99% of the fuel greatly reducing the waste. in fact, the LFTR (liquid floride thorium reactor) is mineable after 300 years, and would be loaded full of precious metals like platinum.
Posted by: mccuerc | 12/2/09 | 5:16 pm |
@human you are incorrect. A tax to fund a public good like open research is not corporate socialism. While badly defined corporate socialism seems to be a way to keep failing businesses open so as to avoid unemployment or as a way of paying off the contributors to a political campaign. By definition corporate socialism is restricted in disbursement to coproprate entities who employ legal means to avoid redistributing any benefit from the input. A public research institution must publish information to all. Similar to the theory behind the patent system it is a way of creating and distriubuting new technology. The patent system grants a private monopoly and right of exploitation for a number of years: the protected private profit is a “tax” as it is coercively enforced by the government on the initial users. The pay off is that the knowledge is disseminated. Research institutes are similar to universities in that the dissemination of the knowledge is the end product. Neither is provably superior to the other in terms of distributing knowledge. They actually seem to work together much better than they work separately. Research institutes and universities tend to work on the basics, areas usually with a low pay off, and then individuals cut corners and costs to get a commercial process, something with an immediate pay off if you can keep the monopoly.
Posted by: treq | 12/2/09 | 6:52 pm |
@ sethdayal: “Germany has already wasted 10 years and $100 billion on solar/wind and has not reduced its greenhouse emissions one iota.”
[citation needed]
Also, I note that you completely forget to discuss the fact that the raw materials used in manufacturing fuel for nuclear plants are 1) finite. 2) mined. 3) linked with unstable political climates as much as oil 4) has no proven, safe disposal method other than building a giant concrete garbage pit to dump it in and forget about (i.e. leave it to our grandchildren to worry about). Nuclear does have advantages, but also just as many disadvantages, as does every other source of energy. I’d rather have a bunch of solar panels in my back yard than a power plant or nuclear waste disposal facility – and if you think that stashing them in the middle of nowhere solves the problem, it just means that you need to get out of the city more often and face the open spaces that you’ll be irretrievably ruining and making unusable for future generations. Remember, landspace is finite, but radioactivity is as good as infinite to the average species.
@ joelapp:
It’s called strategy. It’s called energy independence. The easiest way that Google can increase their profits is to lower operating costs. They invest an insane amount of R&D in high efficiency cooling and low power data centers. Getting them off the grid and as autonomous as possible is an ideal long term strategy when facing nothing but increasing energy costs.
Posted by: mystixa | 12/2/09 | 8:15 pm |
They may not currently be a power producing company in general, but they are a massive power user. They own the largest data centers in the world. Those and others like them currently use 1% of the worlds total power output. They are essentially in the business of turning electrical power into information.
This is such a central calculation for them that it even dictates their choice of processor. They choose processors not based on clock speed, but calculations per watt. If they were able to generate their own low cost power it would go a long ways towads increasing their overall profits. ..any side benefits for CO2 emissions is just gravy.
Posted by: benc | 12/2/09 | 8:26 pm |
Geothermal is the best way to go. Why? Well when the sun doesnt shine, geothermal still works. Many people also think you need to be near hot springs to harness geothermal,….you dont. You can drill into the earth nearly anywhere and harness the heat that the well will produce. Just drill deep enough and you will find plenty of heat. Solar is only good for boosting power during the day.
Posted by: sethdayal | 12/3/09 | 12:14 am |
Treq might try googling the following for Germany’s green energy results germanys-green-energy-gap and my steven kirsch reference would update him on what will be done about nuclear waste/fuel issues.
Damastrewc’s comment should also help. For some reason Treq chose not to read it before commenting.
Posted by: sethdayal | 12/3/09 | 12:19 am |
Mass large scale gigawatt level geothermal energy requires drilling deep into the earth injecting water and pumping with not yet invented 400 deg C pumps supercritical steam to the surface driving generators but also causing earthquakes.
Aside from the low hanging fruit already plucked and geothermal enhanced home heat pumps (powered with nuclear power) geothermal at this point is an extremely expensive pipe dream.
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Sunday, July 11, 2010
San Francisco to Los Angeles: An Electric (Car) Avenue
Andrew Price on September 23, 2009 at 5:08 pm PDT
Want to take your fancy Tesla Roadster down California's beautiful Highway 101 but don't know where to charge it up along the way? You're in luck. We're starting to build that electric vehicle infrastructure. Five EV charging stations are being installed between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
From Wired.com:
SolarCity and Rabobank claim the 240-volt, 70-ampere stations unveiled today at five locations along Highway 101 provide the fastest recharge time available in a public setting, allowing EV drivers to charge up in one to three hours. The stations are located in retail areas, and Rabobank is letting people plug in and charge up at no cost.
There are lots of encouraging details buried in this story. First, while the stations are just designed for Teslas at the moment, they'll soon use a universal plug so they can charge any electric car. Second, one of the recharging stations (in Santa Maria) gets its electricity from a solar plant. Combining solar with EVs makes for virtually zero-impact driving. This proves that's an achievable goal. And as the technology advances, more and more charging stations can move to solar. And finally, according to Wired.com these stations cost $7,000 to $12,000 to install. Compare that to $500,000 for a Better Place battery exchange station or considerably more for a conventional gas station.
The obvious concern, of course, is that it still takes three hours to refuel your car. But that doesn't need to be the case forever. If the folks at MIT can make their super fast-charging batteries work all of a sudden you have a viable, convenient replacement for gas.
UPDATE: The price of electric cars themselves is also an issue. On that point, Fisker Automotive just snatched up half a billion dollars in government loans, most of which will go towards their $39,000 EV project.
Kickstarter Roundup: Selling Pies,... Series home:
Glenn Beck Kills a Frog (Maybe) Tags: Energy, california, Transportation, electric vehicles, Tesla Motors
Not Your Parents' 9-Volt Battery
Houston Embraces the Leaf
Infrastructure Électrique: France Spends $2.2 Billion on Charging Stations
ExxonMobil (Yes, that ExxonMobil) Is Making an Electric Car
What do you think?
Brick Rucker 9 months ago
The very informative dissertation on addressing the range of EV vehicles is great. But it seemingly lacks the human quotient... Not everyone is motivated by fuel prices, not everyone is motivated by efficiency, not everyone is motivated by 'saving' the planet. Most people are motivated by the path of least resistance and ease of action. Make it easy. I'm not saying this is right, or great, or something I admire, I'm just saying this is the masses work. I want to see this succeed, but start selling the skeptical me, on how much easier an EV vehicle will be and how cool i'll look driving it around. Don't tell me I have to run an extension cord out to my car and wait all night to go somewhere. Lie to me a little if you have to. What if you park on the street yards and yards away from your home, like millions of city-dwellers? What if you make your living as a cargo truck driver... will there me a network built for them? do they even make EV(Haulers)?The more I think about it this a bag of square pegs and one round hole. I'm hoping to be proven wrong, but EV feels like a deadend for the time being. I think we can collectively see a very noble goal, but time and technology hasn't revealed all the puzzle peices we need yet.
anonymous 9 months ago
[...] Soon you might be able to drive that electrical vehicle from Los Angeles to San Francisco. [...]
sangr han 10 months ago
Theme : Addressing Range Anxieties.
1. The range of noticeable EVs are sufficient to meet the daily driving needs of more than 95% of drivers ((The vast majority of people (95%) drive less than 100/km a day, 82% of the respondents said they drive 40 miles or less a day, with an average daily driving distance of 27 miles.)).
As for long trip needs, all but Americans and many of developed nations have existing automobiles, in this regard, EVs are best suited to their daily use until the infrastructure comes into wide use. And people are already doing that.
2. The on-board IT system shows the driving radius on a maximum range display under the current state of charge and calculates if the vehicle is within range of a pre-set destination. And the navigation system points out the latest information on available charging stations within the current driving range.
3. In 21st century, home, workplace, or stores etc also serve as a charge station as electricity is everywhere. With a long extension code inside, just in case, riders can get help from almost anyplace, not to mention the stores to provide charge service, and many of EVs are equipped with a quick charger.
4. Unlike fuel price, as time goes by, the price of battery is expected to drop dramatically in the foreseeable future as with computer components, in that case, mounting additional battery might be not a problem. And the EVs that come in a range of 200 to 300 miles between charges are on fast-tract toward mass-market, as Batteries become more efficient.
5. Indian EV maker Reva said it has also set about addressing anxieties about e-car range, this fantastic wireless electricity/ "instant remote recharge" will be widely available down the line.
6. The vehicle-to-grid communication technology is helping the battery serve as a storage to prevent the costly blackout standing at about $90 to 100bn per year. That means utilities are shedding cost for additional storage facilities and ratepayers are selling electricity during peak demand so that EVs can make more economic sense, as we know.
It is also in the best interest of electricity utilities that EVs are going mainstream, thereby they need to put in charge stands where needed around highways, major roads with card readers or cell phone tech.
7. I'm hopeful that the charge network will extend the select districts to nation-wide scale throughout the world, and this environment can usher in active private investings in EVs. And I remain confident that investing in charge stands could give rise to multiple times as much investing effect, so to speak, some billions of investing, this simple deployment, could call into the most-sought energy independence and solid recovery around the world.
Thank You !
Brick Rucker 10 months ago
Square peg, round hole... Good luck with this one
Want to take your fancy Tesla Roadster down California's beautiful Highway 101 but don't know where to charge it up along the way? You're in luck. We're starting to build that electric vehicle infrastructure. Five EV charging stations are being installed between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
From Wired.com:
SolarCity and Rabobank claim the 240-volt, 70-ampere stations unveiled today at five locations along Highway 101 provide the fastest recharge time available in a public setting, allowing EV drivers to charge up in one to three hours. The stations are located in retail areas, and Rabobank is letting people plug in and charge up at no cost.
There are lots of encouraging details buried in this story. First, while the stations are just designed for Teslas at the moment, they'll soon use a universal plug so they can charge any electric car. Second, one of the recharging stations (in Santa Maria) gets its electricity from a solar plant. Combining solar with EVs makes for virtually zero-impact driving. This proves that's an achievable goal. And as the technology advances, more and more charging stations can move to solar. And finally, according to Wired.com these stations cost $7,000 to $12,000 to install. Compare that to $500,000 for a Better Place battery exchange station or considerably more for a conventional gas station.
The obvious concern, of course, is that it still takes three hours to refuel your car. But that doesn't need to be the case forever. If the folks at MIT can make their super fast-charging batteries work all of a sudden you have a viable, convenient replacement for gas.
UPDATE: The price of electric cars themselves is also an issue. On that point, Fisker Automotive just snatched up half a billion dollars in government loans, most of which will go towards their $39,000 EV project.
Kickstarter Roundup: Selling Pies,... Series home:
Glenn Beck Kills a Frog (Maybe) Tags: Energy, california, Transportation, electric vehicles, Tesla Motors
Not Your Parents' 9-Volt Battery
Houston Embraces the Leaf
Infrastructure Électrique: France Spends $2.2 Billion on Charging Stations
ExxonMobil (Yes, that ExxonMobil) Is Making an Electric Car
What do you think?
Brick Rucker 9 months ago
The very informative dissertation on addressing the range of EV vehicles is great. But it seemingly lacks the human quotient... Not everyone is motivated by fuel prices, not everyone is motivated by efficiency, not everyone is motivated by 'saving' the planet. Most people are motivated by the path of least resistance and ease of action. Make it easy. I'm not saying this is right, or great, or something I admire, I'm just saying this is the masses work. I want to see this succeed, but start selling the skeptical me, on how much easier an EV vehicle will be and how cool i'll look driving it around. Don't tell me I have to run an extension cord out to my car and wait all night to go somewhere. Lie to me a little if you have to. What if you park on the street yards and yards away from your home, like millions of city-dwellers? What if you make your living as a cargo truck driver... will there me a network built for them? do they even make EV(Haulers)?The more I think about it this a bag of square pegs and one round hole. I'm hoping to be proven wrong, but EV feels like a deadend for the time being. I think we can collectively see a very noble goal, but time and technology hasn't revealed all the puzzle peices we need yet.
anonymous 9 months ago
[...] Soon you might be able to drive that electrical vehicle from Los Angeles to San Francisco. [...]
sangr han 10 months ago
Theme : Addressing Range Anxieties.
1. The range of noticeable EVs are sufficient to meet the daily driving needs of more than 95% of drivers ((The vast majority of people (95%) drive less than 100/km a day, 82% of the respondents said they drive 40 miles or less a day, with an average daily driving distance of 27 miles.)).
As for long trip needs, all but Americans and many of developed nations have existing automobiles, in this regard, EVs are best suited to their daily use until the infrastructure comes into wide use. And people are already doing that.
2. The on-board IT system shows the driving radius on a maximum range display under the current state of charge and calculates if the vehicle is within range of a pre-set destination. And the navigation system points out the latest information on available charging stations within the current driving range.
3. In 21st century, home, workplace, or stores etc also serve as a charge station as electricity is everywhere. With a long extension code inside, just in case, riders can get help from almost anyplace, not to mention the stores to provide charge service, and many of EVs are equipped with a quick charger.
4. Unlike fuel price, as time goes by, the price of battery is expected to drop dramatically in the foreseeable future as with computer components, in that case, mounting additional battery might be not a problem. And the EVs that come in a range of 200 to 300 miles between charges are on fast-tract toward mass-market, as Batteries become more efficient.
5. Indian EV maker Reva said it has also set about addressing anxieties about e-car range, this fantastic wireless electricity/ "instant remote recharge" will be widely available down the line.
6. The vehicle-to-grid communication technology is helping the battery serve as a storage to prevent the costly blackout standing at about $90 to 100bn per year. That means utilities are shedding cost for additional storage facilities and ratepayers are selling electricity during peak demand so that EVs can make more economic sense, as we know.
It is also in the best interest of electricity utilities that EVs are going mainstream, thereby they need to put in charge stands where needed around highways, major roads with card readers or cell phone tech.
7. I'm hopeful that the charge network will extend the select districts to nation-wide scale throughout the world, and this environment can usher in active private investings in EVs. And I remain confident that investing in charge stands could give rise to multiple times as much investing effect, so to speak, some billions of investing, this simple deployment, could call into the most-sought energy independence and solid recovery around the world.
Thank You !
Brick Rucker 10 months ago
Square peg, round hole... Good luck with this one
Infrastructure Électrique: France Spends $2.2 Billion on Charging Stations
Andrew Price on October 5, 2009 at 2:58 pm PDT
While San Francisco and Portland race to build America's first city-wide electric car infrastructure, France (which already beat us to bike sharing) may have just lapped them both in an electric Citroen. The French government just announced it will spend $2.2 billion on a network of electric car charging stations:
The government will make the installation of charging sockets obligatory in office parking lots by 2015, and new apartment blocks with parking lots will have to include charging stations starting in 2012.
The plan is being coordinated with various fleet operators and electric car manufacturers so that there's actually a demand for the stations as they get installed. Peugeot-Citroen says it'll have “four small electric vehicles ready for sale in 2010, including two small city cars.” They won't even need our Teslas. 2 responses|
World War II Propaganda Posters for... Series home:
Companies Part Ways with Chamber of... Tags: Mobility, Energy, Cities, France, electric vehicles, EVs
Pull in and Plug in: What Will EV Charging Stations Look Like?
San Francisco to Los Angeles: An Electric (Car) Avenue
Early Volt Buyers Get Free Charging Stations
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What do you think?
Mark it good Write a comment ↓ Everyone's Responses
Ed Stenger 8 months ago
Interesting and very nice post.I would like to point out that the other French car maker - Renault - plans to sell not one but four electric car models for all kinds of public.You can check them out there : http://www.renault-ze.com/uk/#/uk/home.htmlMeanwhile, Nissan - which is associated to Renault - plans to sell the LEAF, another electric cars.I agree with
jrdx we need electric cars ASAP as they can really help us - with the help of bikes and buses - get around in cities without polluting our beautiful planet.Keep up the GOOD work, I just joined yesterday. ;)
jrdx 9 months ago
Clearly this is good since electric cars are better than fossil fuel cars in almost every way. However, this is only attacking a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is the fact that we are even using cars so much in the first place, regardless of whether or not they are electric, gas, diesel, bio-diesel, etc. The real breakthrough will be when we stop using personal motorized transit (the car) for our day-to-day lives and instead rely on walking, biking, and public transit. Cars should be for special occasions, just like airplanes are. It drives me nuts that some of the biggest problems with cars (in addition to their environmental destruction since they are a very inefficient way to travel (thousands of pounds are needed to move ~200 pounds of "cargo")) are almost always overlooked, those problems being 1) they are a huge part of the reason we are obese since we use them to get everywhere rather than getting off our butts and walking, biking, etc., and 2) they dehumanize urban interaction since everybody is self-contained in a little shell and treats everyone else as an inanimate annoyance (in other words, cars turn you inwards and make you more self-centered than does being "exposed" for everyone to see like when you are walking, biking, and even taking public transit). We need to stop designing our urban areas around the car and design them around people
While San Francisco and Portland race to build America's first city-wide electric car infrastructure, France (which already beat us to bike sharing) may have just lapped them both in an electric Citroen. The French government just announced it will spend $2.2 billion on a network of electric car charging stations:
The government will make the installation of charging sockets obligatory in office parking lots by 2015, and new apartment blocks with parking lots will have to include charging stations starting in 2012.
The plan is being coordinated with various fleet operators and electric car manufacturers so that there's actually a demand for the stations as they get installed. Peugeot-Citroen says it'll have “four small electric vehicles ready for sale in 2010, including two small city cars.” They won't even need our Teslas. 2 responses|
World War II Propaganda Posters for... Series home:
Companies Part Ways with Chamber of... Tags: Mobility, Energy, Cities, France, electric vehicles, EVs
Pull in and Plug in: What Will EV Charging Stations Look Like?
San Francisco to Los Angeles: An Electric (Car) Avenue
Early Volt Buyers Get Free Charging Stations
You Want Electric Cars? You Can't Handle Electric Cars
What do you think?
Mark it good Write a comment ↓ Everyone's Responses
Ed Stenger 8 months ago
Interesting and very nice post.I would like to point out that the other French car maker - Renault - plans to sell not one but four electric car models for all kinds of public.You can check them out there : http://www.renault-ze.com/uk/#/uk/home.htmlMeanwhile, Nissan - which is associated to Renault - plans to sell the LEAF, another electric cars.I agree with
jrdx we need electric cars ASAP as they can really help us - with the help of bikes and buses - get around in cities without polluting our beautiful planet.Keep up the GOOD work, I just joined yesterday. ;)
jrdx 9 months ago
Clearly this is good since electric cars are better than fossil fuel cars in almost every way. However, this is only attacking a small part of the problem. The bigger problem is the fact that we are even using cars so much in the first place, regardless of whether or not they are electric, gas, diesel, bio-diesel, etc. The real breakthrough will be when we stop using personal motorized transit (the car) for our day-to-day lives and instead rely on walking, biking, and public transit. Cars should be for special occasions, just like airplanes are. It drives me nuts that some of the biggest problems with cars (in addition to their environmental destruction since they are a very inefficient way to travel (thousands of pounds are needed to move ~200 pounds of "cargo")) are almost always overlooked, those problems being 1) they are a huge part of the reason we are obese since we use them to get everywhere rather than getting off our butts and walking, biking, etc., and 2) they dehumanize urban interaction since everybody is self-contained in a little shell and treats everyone else as an inanimate annoyance (in other words, cars turn you inwards and make you more self-centered than does being "exposed" for everyone to see like when you are walking, biking, and even taking public transit). We need to stop designing our urban areas around the car and design them around people
Washington Gets America's First Electric Highway
Andrew Price on July 2, 2010 at 2:00 pm PDT
With the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf on the way, a new crop of electric cars is just about ready for America. But is America ready for them? We'll need places to charge them, right?
Well, residents of the Pacific Northwest will be in good shape. Washington state is planning to line a long stretch of Interstate 5 with seven-to-ten Level-3 fast-charging stations, which can juice up a Leaf in as little as 15 minutes. Early adopters will be able to travel from the Canadian border to the Oregon state line without depleting their batteries. It's being touted as America's first "electric highway."
Washignton's plan is just one part of the $230-million EV Project, which will install 15,000 charge stations in Washington, California, Arizona, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.
Image: Map of Stage I and II, from WSDOT
The Case for Pay-as-You-Drive Car Insurance Series home:
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Nissan Leaf EV to Hit Market in Late 2010
Infrastructure Électrique: France Spends $2.2 Billion on Charging Stations
Houston Embraces the Leaf
Not Your Parents' 9-Volt Battery
What do you think?
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roadrunner0 9 hours ago
100 years ago we had electric cars.. Henry Ford and others stopped making them in favor of gasoline engines because the development costs were lower and the oil company kickbacks were better for the company’s bottom line.. Just imagine where we would be if he had hooked up with Nich Tesla back then.. Point is, sometimes the most profitable path is not the most responsible path..
Using taxpayers money to open markets for corporate America is wrong but we do need to be enticed to move to a new level of technology some times.. As battery technology research evolves these charging stations may prove to be a waste of money but time will tell..
The DiLithium crystals are at maximum Capitan
truebalnz 14 hours ago
First The initial funding is from a Federal grant. Second the private sector will be a major MONEY source for this project, Third the USERs will pay for the power they use, forth Electricity in the Pacific Northwest comes from hydro sources – not fossil fuels and the CARS do NOT come from fossil fuels, fifth- TESLA Motors makes a car with a longer range, enviro-friendly battery and will be introducing a NEW MODEL next fall that gets 300 miles to a charge.
Finally atomic power IS clean, and safe, and plentiful, and reliable. SO are wind and solar power and tidal surge. However these are going to take DECADES to become economically viable and ETHANOL is a joke – I’m sorry but I live in the part of the country that is the major source of supply and I can tell you from experience that one bad season and ethanol is going to be more pricey then gold.
Three years ago a fellow in Florida invented a way to use WATER to fuel his 1980’s FORD TAURUS – YouTube look up or google WATER FUEL for welding – zero by-products, environmentally safe and FREE. What happened to that technology? The big 3 automakers “helped” him you figure the rest.
Washington’s move is good for the environment, good for commuters and travelers, good for local businesses and sound practise.
billyp51skegee 24 hours ago
Lonnie Johnson,inventor/engineer,has a battery he is developing that will carry a car for 1000 miles on one single charge!! HIS BATTERY CAPABILITIES IS FAR MORE SUPERIOR THAN WHAT OTHERS ARE DEVELOPING.PLUS HE HAS INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES ON SOLAR ENERGY THAT CAN CHANGE THAT ENERGY TO ELECTRICITY…GOOGLE THIS BRILLIANT SCIENTIST,AND YOU MIGHT KNOW WHO HE IS…IT WILL GIVE YOU A BLAST!!!!
Mark Chamberlain 1 day ago
This is a good start from my old state. Washington gets it power from Grand Coulee and Bonneville, both hydroelectric. Washington is a good place for this type of technology. I cannot say the same for other states where coal is the primary source of electricity though.
algoar 1 day ago
when you say electric?
you are talking about a battery car?
they are not the same!!
so far there is no company that has produced a CAR that run
on electricity,plenty of buses but no cars.
junk1 1 day ago
A couple of quick addendums:
Seriously purchase/checkout “Physics for Future Presidents” by Richard A. Muller. Hey, he’s a teacher at Berkeley… and I think can shed some much needed light on this an many subjects (especially the actual, minimal, dangers of nuclear technology). Seriously, give it a read. And really read up on Chernobyl. And read how hard the Brits worked to TRY to make a plant fail deep in the bowels of Scotland, I believe… and still couldn’t make it happen. Designed properly… bullet proof. And don’t even get me started on what “half-life” really means. READ THIS BOOK. It could change your life.
As for those claiming that most of the power is from hydro… what happens when this “takes off” and you’ve altered the balance of power delivery? Do you think the grid will use less electricity because you’ve stopped using Gas? So are you prepared to build more dams? Sounds more likely that you’d advocate for solar farms (which also won’t happen – remember the turtles and rats). So you’re back to Coal… or Natural gas (if Alaska can get that pipeline built).
junk1 1 day ago
Are these missionary EV warriors going to be charged to “fill-up” their cars? If so, how much does it cost? And if there is a charge… is it also subsidized by the tax payers?
And if there is no charge (completely paid by the tax payers), then I’m starting my new EV Trucking company right away. As I’d much rather have all of you paying for or at least subsidizing my fuel costs.
And for sure, my fleet of Golf Carts in service at my golf course will be getting charged up each night at these stations (well, why not?). Oh, not for commercial services you say? Well, that’s even more dandy. So as a tax payer and business owner I now have to pay for the unemployed or those on vacation to save the world by tooling around in their shiny new EVs. I think that I could make a pretty good argument that getting to and from your place of work is commercial. Otherwise, why would you be there… just sight-seeing each day before and after work? Regardless… why should I be paying for you to get to your job?
Pretty cool. I’m fired up about this plan (and so are all the coal plants that will supply the juice for this farce). Wind will NEVER be the big answer (and they kill the birds and bats – oh, but wouldn’t that could increase the incidence of Malaria?). And speaking of bats… have you ever spoken to someone who actually lives near a wind farm – they go batty from the noise and shadows those behemoths produce. Solar is almost as flakey as wind (at least it might work during the day – clouds permitting), but you same folks waving your hands for EV’s won’t even let them install solar farms (for the sake of some poor turtle or rat that “could” be affected). And how’s that solar farm outside of Seattle looking (seen the sun lately)? Wake up folks. You’re being fed a fake solution to a fake problem.
If you REALLY want a solution… install nuclear plants (Fission) now and everywhere, AND simultaneously invest heavily in Fusion research. “Nuclear! OMG!!!”… if you actually educate yourself on the issue and quit quaking from your remembrance of the BS 70’s (when you were probably high as a kite) and that wonderful piece of fiction “China Syndrome”… then you might actually come to understand how incredibly safe nuclear power is and has been. And of course in from the unintended consequences department… if the Enviro do-gooders would have stayed out of it (No Nukes!)… then it would be even safer. Why? Because we would actually be reprocessing the spent rods and reusing them instead of planting them in ground. But that’s another story.
Arguably, with adequate Fusion research we could see, within 20-30 years, fusion based reactors powering the entire country with a few gallons of seawater with NO waste to sequester. THEN you can drive the little wheels off your EVs without actually making things worse in the process.
But what do I know? Good luck (don’t expect me to pay for your “experiment”).
LaceyVanderVeen 1 day ago
Living in Washington I thought most of our electricity comes from our many dams. A simple google search confirmed this, so these cars will mostly be recharged with hydro power not coal. It also looks like the EV Project is sponsored by many organizations, so the funding is not just coming from Washington State. It will be interesting to see this plan put into action and if it affects our I-5 drive at all.
LouAlcantar 1 day ago
The lithium batteries that EV use do not have acid in them. They are not toxic. Look it up. They are considered hazardous only because they hold a charge for so long. Properly discharged they could be put in a landfill. Due to their recycle value not likely As for electricity been produced by fossil fuel, true but only partly. Even today renewable are helping to power the grid and more is planed for the near future. Not to mention for every 150 cars or so that use electricity is on less tanker truck on the road and that benefits everyone.
trent0008 1 day ago
I would actually have to say that ethanol would have to be the best choice. electric cars come from fossil fuels, and although they are still better because they use less, it still isn’t the solution. And i am 100 % against any form of nuclear power because of the harsh implications for our planet. maybe it dosn’t generate co2 but what do u do with all the waste and byproduct of nuclear reactors? and don’t forget Chernobyl, the city where the nuclear power plant had a melt down. please spare us from nuclear power it is NOT the solution. Ethanol IS. We should follow the example of Brazil. our government should expand it’s budget and invest in ethanol. Here’s a video explaining everything. it is the solution:GO TO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5dSrWrLQeM
GOODMarkLouAlcantar thinks this is GOODGOODMarktrent0008 thinks this is GOOD
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
Andrew,
Sounds good. But as the saying goes; "No good deed goes unpunished."
Batteries are full of acid and generally require special care when being tossed out b/c of the harmful fumes that come from them.
Wind and solar are decades away from being useful. Spain has started to abandon their solar plans b/c it costs too much for to little.
Nuclear is the best option for quickly replacing coal and oil. It can fill the gap that wind and solar will need to become functional on a large scale.
Andrew Price 5 days ago
Hey, two thumbs, you're right that the electricity comes from coal right now, but electric cars will get progressively cleaner as we start producing more electricity from wind or solar. Gas-powered cars are dirty no matter what.
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
@Facbook user,
Sorry but you're kidding yourself or you don't know.
Those charging stations are operated by fossil fuel. Most electricity is.
My only actual issue is the state doing what private companies should be doing, or encouraged to do.
GOODMarkFacebook User thinks this is GOOD
Facebook User 5 days ago
@Two Thumbs: even those who don't purchase an electric car will see the benefits of less pollution and less demand for oil.
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
The 'state' is doing this? This doesn't seem right. They are making people that don't want or can't afford new cars to pay to have this built then pay so that other people can use.
A private company should be doing this, not any government.
With the Chevy Volt and the Nissan Leaf on the way, a new crop of electric cars is just about ready for America. But is America ready for them? We'll need places to charge them, right?
Well, residents of the Pacific Northwest will be in good shape. Washington state is planning to line a long stretch of Interstate 5 with seven-to-ten Level-3 fast-charging stations, which can juice up a Leaf in as little as 15 minutes. Early adopters will be able to travel from the Canadian border to the Oregon state line without depleting their batteries. It's being touted as America's first "electric highway."
Washignton's plan is just one part of the $230-million EV Project, which will install 15,000 charge stations in Washington, California, Arizona, Tennessee, and Washington, D.C.
Image: Map of Stage I and II, from WSDOT
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Nissan Leaf EV to Hit Market in Late 2010
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Not Your Parents' 9-Volt Battery
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roadrunner0 9 hours ago
100 years ago we had electric cars.. Henry Ford and others stopped making them in favor of gasoline engines because the development costs were lower and the oil company kickbacks were better for the company’s bottom line.. Just imagine where we would be if he had hooked up with Nich Tesla back then.. Point is, sometimes the most profitable path is not the most responsible path..
Using taxpayers money to open markets for corporate America is wrong but we do need to be enticed to move to a new level of technology some times.. As battery technology research evolves these charging stations may prove to be a waste of money but time will tell..
The DiLithium crystals are at maximum Capitan
truebalnz 14 hours ago
First The initial funding is from a Federal grant. Second the private sector will be a major MONEY source for this project, Third the USERs will pay for the power they use, forth Electricity in the Pacific Northwest comes from hydro sources – not fossil fuels and the CARS do NOT come from fossil fuels, fifth- TESLA Motors makes a car with a longer range, enviro-friendly battery and will be introducing a NEW MODEL next fall that gets 300 miles to a charge.
Finally atomic power IS clean, and safe, and plentiful, and reliable. SO are wind and solar power and tidal surge. However these are going to take DECADES to become economically viable and ETHANOL is a joke – I’m sorry but I live in the part of the country that is the major source of supply and I can tell you from experience that one bad season and ethanol is going to be more pricey then gold.
Three years ago a fellow in Florida invented a way to use WATER to fuel his 1980’s FORD TAURUS – YouTube look up or google WATER FUEL for welding – zero by-products, environmentally safe and FREE. What happened to that technology? The big 3 automakers “helped” him you figure the rest.
Washington’s move is good for the environment, good for commuters and travelers, good for local businesses and sound practise.
billyp51skegee 24 hours ago
Lonnie Johnson,inventor/engineer,has a battery he is developing that will carry a car for 1000 miles on one single charge!! HIS BATTERY CAPABILITIES IS FAR MORE SUPERIOR THAN WHAT OTHERS ARE DEVELOPING.PLUS HE HAS INNOVATIVE TECHNIQUES ON SOLAR ENERGY THAT CAN CHANGE THAT ENERGY TO ELECTRICITY…GOOGLE THIS BRILLIANT SCIENTIST,AND YOU MIGHT KNOW WHO HE IS…IT WILL GIVE YOU A BLAST!!!!
Mark Chamberlain 1 day ago
This is a good start from my old state. Washington gets it power from Grand Coulee and Bonneville, both hydroelectric. Washington is a good place for this type of technology. I cannot say the same for other states where coal is the primary source of electricity though.
algoar 1 day ago
when you say electric?
you are talking about a battery car?
they are not the same!!
so far there is no company that has produced a CAR that run
on electricity,plenty of buses but no cars.
junk1 1 day ago
A couple of quick addendums:
Seriously purchase/checkout “Physics for Future Presidents” by Richard A. Muller. Hey, he’s a teacher at Berkeley… and I think can shed some much needed light on this an many subjects (especially the actual, minimal, dangers of nuclear technology). Seriously, give it a read. And really read up on Chernobyl. And read how hard the Brits worked to TRY to make a plant fail deep in the bowels of Scotland, I believe… and still couldn’t make it happen. Designed properly… bullet proof. And don’t even get me started on what “half-life” really means. READ THIS BOOK. It could change your life.
As for those claiming that most of the power is from hydro… what happens when this “takes off” and you’ve altered the balance of power delivery? Do you think the grid will use less electricity because you’ve stopped using Gas? So are you prepared to build more dams? Sounds more likely that you’d advocate for solar farms (which also won’t happen – remember the turtles and rats). So you’re back to Coal… or Natural gas (if Alaska can get that pipeline built).
junk1 1 day ago
Are these missionary EV warriors going to be charged to “fill-up” their cars? If so, how much does it cost? And if there is a charge… is it also subsidized by the tax payers?
And if there is no charge (completely paid by the tax payers), then I’m starting my new EV Trucking company right away. As I’d much rather have all of you paying for or at least subsidizing my fuel costs.
And for sure, my fleet of Golf Carts in service at my golf course will be getting charged up each night at these stations (well, why not?). Oh, not for commercial services you say? Well, that’s even more dandy. So as a tax payer and business owner I now have to pay for the unemployed or those on vacation to save the world by tooling around in their shiny new EVs. I think that I could make a pretty good argument that getting to and from your place of work is commercial. Otherwise, why would you be there… just sight-seeing each day before and after work? Regardless… why should I be paying for you to get to your job?
Pretty cool. I’m fired up about this plan (and so are all the coal plants that will supply the juice for this farce). Wind will NEVER be the big answer (and they kill the birds and bats – oh, but wouldn’t that could increase the incidence of Malaria?). And speaking of bats… have you ever spoken to someone who actually lives near a wind farm – they go batty from the noise and shadows those behemoths produce. Solar is almost as flakey as wind (at least it might work during the day – clouds permitting), but you same folks waving your hands for EV’s won’t even let them install solar farms (for the sake of some poor turtle or rat that “could” be affected). And how’s that solar farm outside of Seattle looking (seen the sun lately)? Wake up folks. You’re being fed a fake solution to a fake problem.
If you REALLY want a solution… install nuclear plants (Fission) now and everywhere, AND simultaneously invest heavily in Fusion research. “Nuclear! OMG!!!”… if you actually educate yourself on the issue and quit quaking from your remembrance of the BS 70’s (when you were probably high as a kite) and that wonderful piece of fiction “China Syndrome”… then you might actually come to understand how incredibly safe nuclear power is and has been. And of course in from the unintended consequences department… if the Enviro do-gooders would have stayed out of it (No Nukes!)… then it would be even safer. Why? Because we would actually be reprocessing the spent rods and reusing them instead of planting them in ground. But that’s another story.
Arguably, with adequate Fusion research we could see, within 20-30 years, fusion based reactors powering the entire country with a few gallons of seawater with NO waste to sequester. THEN you can drive the little wheels off your EVs without actually making things worse in the process.
But what do I know? Good luck (don’t expect me to pay for your “experiment”).
LaceyVanderVeen 1 day ago
Living in Washington I thought most of our electricity comes from our many dams. A simple google search confirmed this, so these cars will mostly be recharged with hydro power not coal. It also looks like the EV Project is sponsored by many organizations, so the funding is not just coming from Washington State. It will be interesting to see this plan put into action and if it affects our I-5 drive at all.
LouAlcantar 1 day ago
The lithium batteries that EV use do not have acid in them. They are not toxic. Look it up. They are considered hazardous only because they hold a charge for so long. Properly discharged they could be put in a landfill. Due to their recycle value not likely As for electricity been produced by fossil fuel, true but only partly. Even today renewable are helping to power the grid and more is planed for the near future. Not to mention for every 150 cars or so that use electricity is on less tanker truck on the road and that benefits everyone.
trent0008 1 day ago
I would actually have to say that ethanol would have to be the best choice. electric cars come from fossil fuels, and although they are still better because they use less, it still isn’t the solution. And i am 100 % against any form of nuclear power because of the harsh implications for our planet. maybe it dosn’t generate co2 but what do u do with all the waste and byproduct of nuclear reactors? and don’t forget Chernobyl, the city where the nuclear power plant had a melt down. please spare us from nuclear power it is NOT the solution. Ethanol IS. We should follow the example of Brazil. our government should expand it’s budget and invest in ethanol. Here’s a video explaining everything. it is the solution:GO TO: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y5dSrWrLQeM
GOODMarkLouAlcantar thinks this is GOODGOODMarktrent0008 thinks this is GOOD
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
Andrew,
Sounds good. But as the saying goes; "No good deed goes unpunished."
Batteries are full of acid and generally require special care when being tossed out b/c of the harmful fumes that come from them.
Wind and solar are decades away from being useful. Spain has started to abandon their solar plans b/c it costs too much for to little.
Nuclear is the best option for quickly replacing coal and oil. It can fill the gap that wind and solar will need to become functional on a large scale.
Andrew Price 5 days ago
Hey, two thumbs, you're right that the electricity comes from coal right now, but electric cars will get progressively cleaner as we start producing more electricity from wind or solar. Gas-powered cars are dirty no matter what.
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
@Facbook user,
Sorry but you're kidding yourself or you don't know.
Those charging stations are operated by fossil fuel. Most electricity is.
My only actual issue is the state doing what private companies should be doing, or encouraged to do.
GOODMarkFacebook User thinks this is GOOD
Facebook User 5 days ago
@Two Thumbs: even those who don't purchase an electric car will see the benefits of less pollution and less demand for oil.
Two Thumbs 5 days ago
The 'state' is doing this? This doesn't seem right. They are making people that don't want or can't afford new cars to pay to have this built then pay so that other people can use.
A private company should be doing this, not any government.
Wednesday, July 7, 2010
When Wind Works, There's Lots of Work in Wind
Posted on July 1, 2010 NewEnergyNews
Wind energy is not only the most mature and capable of the New Energies right now, it is also the leading voice of the New Energy industries.
That is why it is so interesting to see that, in response to the U.S. New Energy industries’ currently slowing momentum, wind is reaching out, forming alliances and pushing harder than ever for the federal policies that will matter.
Late in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the other New Energy industries reached out to the natural gas industry in an attempt to find common ground in the nation's fight against coal dependence and the fight against greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs).
Early in June, 2010, AWEA and the United Steelworkers Union (USW) formed a Partnership for Progress and called for a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES). Shortly after that, AWEA joined the Alliance to Save Energy, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the Biomass Power Association, Growth Energy, the Energy Recovery Council, the Geothermal Energy Association, the National Hydropower Association, and the Solar Energy Industries Association to declare THE TIME IS NOW for a national RES.
Now AWEA has joined the USW and its labor union and environmentalist partners in the Blue-Green Alliance to release "Winds of Change: A Manufacturing Blueprint for the Wind Industry. The Blueprint calls for an RES requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025.
Wind, the ultimate American can-do energy industry, can and is doing what it has to. That it created a boom from 2004 to 2008, rose to a pinnacle of accomplishment and took over international leadership in wind energy production despite shoddy and inconsistent federal policy support means nothing now. That it went from 2,500 U.S. jobs in 2004 to 18,500 jobs in 2009 means nothing now. That it quadrupled its yearly capacity additions to 10 gigawatts in 2009 and finished the year with a world-leading 35+ gigawatts of cumulative U.S. capacity means nothing now.
What matters now is that the New Energies – and their new allies – be heard.
Political leaders in Washington, D.C., will – when they finish eulogizing Senator Byrd and tormenting Ms. Kagan – go to work on legislation in response to the April coal mine cave-in disaster that killed 29 miners and the even worse Gulf oil spill that killed 11 offshore oil platform workers and resulted in an environmental and economic atrocity for the region.
What matters now is that those political leaders get the message that fossil fuel-perpetrated devastations will only come to an end when the nation turns with all its might to New Energy.
What matters now is that those political leaders come to understand there is a choice in the kind of energy they subsidize and there are real and devastating consequences when they subsidize dirty and dangerous energies.
What matters now is that those political leaders also come to understand there is a huge opportunity for the nation in New Energy. It is an opportunity to staunch the flow of U.S. treasure to profoundly troubled places and people, to enhance the nation’s energy security, to invest in domestic sources of power generation in a way that will rehabilitate its economy and to get the nation on the world’s side in the fight against climate change and killer air pollution.
So the wind industry is speaking out. It is calling for federal policies that will give it a level playing field against its Old Energy competitors. Industries like nuclear energy, natural gas and coal have long had support in the form of federal subsidies, guarantees and incentives. The Old Energies, in fact, could not exist without such support. Wind and the other New Energies aske only that the rules be fair. Either take away their competitors’ advantages or give them long term policies like:
(1) A national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025,
(2) An extension of the Recovery Act's 1603 convertible tax credit,
(3) A cap and price on greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) with protections for vulnerable domestic industries,
(4) Legislation to facilitate extensive development of new transmission infrastructure,
(5) Expanded funding for the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit to subsidize the building and renovation of manufacturing capacity,
(6) Further loan guarantees for new and renovated New Energy manufacturing capacity,
(7) Enactment and funding of the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) and Renewable Energy Market Access Program (REMAP) Acts to grow the domestic manufacturing supply chain,
(8) Funding for the Green Jobs Act to insure a trained job force, and
(9) Support for states to further develop similar subsidies, guarantees and incentives.
During the press conference held to announce the release of Winds Of Change, one of the speakers intended to say that not backing U.S. turbine makers with strong policies could result in the “cessation” of manufacturing activity and the wealth of economic benefits that come with it. He inadvertently said “secession” instead. But his malapropism was closer to the truth.
Turbine manufacturing will not cease. It will secede from the U.S. and move to other countries, countries like Turkey and China and India where they are backing their New Energy industries because they see what the fossil fuel addicts in U.S. political power centers refuse to see. They see that New Energy is the future and no matter how hard they try to stop it, it is coming. It is coming and it is bringing enormous opportunities for those countries smart enough to seize them. The time is now. NOW.
This post is based on New Report Provides Blueprint for Building Domestic Wind Energy Component Supply Chain; BlueGreen Alliance, American Wind Energy Association, and USW Provide “Manufacturing Blueprint” to Build Out Domestic Wind Energy Supply Chain and Create U.S. Manufacturing Jobs (June 28, 2010, American Wind Energy Association.
Wind energy is not only the most mature and capable of the New Energies right now, it is also the leading voice of the New Energy industries.
That is why it is so interesting to see that, in response to the U.S. New Energy industries’ currently slowing momentum, wind is reaching out, forming alliances and pushing harder than ever for the federal policies that will matter.
Late in 2009, the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA) and the other New Energy industries reached out to the natural gas industry in an attempt to find common ground in the nation's fight against coal dependence and the fight against greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs).
Early in June, 2010, AWEA and the United Steelworkers Union (USW) formed a Partnership for Progress and called for a national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES). Shortly after that, AWEA joined the Alliance to Save Energy, the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, the Biomass Power Association, Growth Energy, the Energy Recovery Council, the Geothermal Energy Association, the National Hydropower Association, and the Solar Energy Industries Association to declare THE TIME IS NOW for a national RES.
Now AWEA has joined the USW and its labor union and environmentalist partners in the Blue-Green Alliance to release "Winds of Change: A Manufacturing Blueprint for the Wind Industry. The Blueprint calls for an RES requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025.
Wind, the ultimate American can-do energy industry, can and is doing what it has to. That it created a boom from 2004 to 2008, rose to a pinnacle of accomplishment and took over international leadership in wind energy production despite shoddy and inconsistent federal policy support means nothing now. That it went from 2,500 U.S. jobs in 2004 to 18,500 jobs in 2009 means nothing now. That it quadrupled its yearly capacity additions to 10 gigawatts in 2009 and finished the year with a world-leading 35+ gigawatts of cumulative U.S. capacity means nothing now.
What matters now is that the New Energies – and their new allies – be heard.
Political leaders in Washington, D.C., will – when they finish eulogizing Senator Byrd and tormenting Ms. Kagan – go to work on legislation in response to the April coal mine cave-in disaster that killed 29 miners and the even worse Gulf oil spill that killed 11 offshore oil platform workers and resulted in an environmental and economic atrocity for the region.
What matters now is that those political leaders get the message that fossil fuel-perpetrated devastations will only come to an end when the nation turns with all its might to New Energy.
What matters now is that those political leaders come to understand there is a choice in the kind of energy they subsidize and there are real and devastating consequences when they subsidize dirty and dangerous energies.
What matters now is that those political leaders also come to understand there is a huge opportunity for the nation in New Energy. It is an opportunity to staunch the flow of U.S. treasure to profoundly troubled places and people, to enhance the nation’s energy security, to invest in domestic sources of power generation in a way that will rehabilitate its economy and to get the nation on the world’s side in the fight against climate change and killer air pollution.
So the wind industry is speaking out. It is calling for federal policies that will give it a level playing field against its Old Energy competitors. Industries like nuclear energy, natural gas and coal have long had support in the form of federal subsidies, guarantees and incentives. The Old Energies, in fact, could not exist without such support. Wind and the other New Energies aske only that the rules be fair. Either take away their competitors’ advantages or give them long term policies like:
(1) A national Renewable Electricity Standard (RES) requiring U.S. utilities to obtain 25% of their power from New Energy sources by 2025,
(2) An extension of the Recovery Act's 1603 convertible tax credit,
(3) A cap and price on greenhouse gas emissions (GhGs) with protections for vulnerable domestic industries,
(4) Legislation to facilitate extensive development of new transmission infrastructure,
(5) Expanded funding for the Advanced Energy Manufacturing Tax Credit to subsidize the building and renovation of manufacturing capacity,
(6) Further loan guarantees for new and renovated New Energy manufacturing capacity,
(7) Enactment and funding of the Investments for Manufacturing Progress and Clean Technology (IMPACT) and Renewable Energy Market Access Program (REMAP) Acts to grow the domestic manufacturing supply chain,
(8) Funding for the Green Jobs Act to insure a trained job force, and
(9) Support for states to further develop similar subsidies, guarantees and incentives.
During the press conference held to announce the release of Winds Of Change, one of the speakers intended to say that not backing U.S. turbine makers with strong policies could result in the “cessation” of manufacturing activity and the wealth of economic benefits that come with it. He inadvertently said “secession” instead. But his malapropism was closer to the truth.
Turbine manufacturing will not cease. It will secede from the U.S. and move to other countries, countries like Turkey and China and India where they are backing their New Energy industries because they see what the fossil fuel addicts in U.S. political power centers refuse to see. They see that New Energy is the future and no matter how hard they try to stop it, it is coming. It is coming and it is bringing enormous opportunities for those countries smart enough to seize them. The time is now. NOW.
This post is based on New Report Provides Blueprint for Building Domestic Wind Energy Component Supply Chain; BlueGreen Alliance, American Wind Energy Association, and USW Provide “Manufacturing Blueprint” to Build Out Domestic Wind Energy Supply Chain and Create U.S. Manufacturing Jobs (June 28, 2010, American Wind Energy Association.
Investors: Renewables Growth is Slower but Steady
by Stephen Lacey, Podcast Producer
Published: July 5, 2010
New York, New York
In just one year, the story line for the renewable energy industry has been flipped on its head. Last summer, as investors tried to figure out the stimulus package, there was a lack of capital and a pent up demand for projects. This summer, there are far fewer projects being developed, but more willingness to lend from financiers.
Because the sluggish economy has made some renewables less competitive, there's a “flight to quality” in the space, according to investors at this year's Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York City.
“The capital is there..but having a project that can be financed is difficult. I think the developers are struggling. So we have not been as busy as we've been in the past,” said Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services.
The combination of low fossil energy prices and lower demand for power has stymied growth in some sectors, particularly wind. In the U.S., wind installations are expected to fall by 40% this year. In Europe, installations will likely fall flat.
Solar PV will be the fastest growing industry, as it is less capital intensive, is faster to build out and does not face many of the same regulatory challenges as wind, geothermal and concentrating solar power. GE, which has been heavily involved in the wind space, is now looking to invest in large scale solar PV plants.
“We really like what we see in solar right now. That's going to be a greater focus for us as well,” said Walsh.
Over the last 18 months, companies like GE have changed up their investment strategies. In 2008, tax equity was the project financing option of choice. Those were the days when tax equity players owed enough money in taxes to take advantage of the credits. Then the financial crisis hit, reducing the tax appetite of investors. The problem was particularly bad in the wind industry. Today, because of the grant program created by the stimulus package, the tool of choice is debt.
Last year, over $5 billion was invested in wind energy projects in the U.S. Only $1.8 billion of that was in the form of tax equity.
Many developers are borrowing against the cash grant to raise money for construction, then handing the payment over to the construction lender when the project is completed. The program has already helped bring about 4,200 MW of projects online.
Unfortunately, fewer developers are now able to take advantage of the grant program because there is less demand for their energy. Even so, it's been a lifeline for the industry in the last 12 months.
Keith Martin, an attorney with Chadbourne and Parke, said that investors are very comfortable with the grant program. The big unknown is what will happen when the grant program expires at the end of this year. Most people in the industry are calling for an extension of the program until 2012, saying that the industry will shrink without it.
“The levers of public policy in Washington are broken. I just don't know if something will happen this year,” said Martin. “[investors] have to be savvy about this. You have to look at parts of the market that can stand on their own...without the support of public policy.”
That's pretty much every technology.
According to figures from the International Energy Agency released earlier this month, fossil energies got about $550 billion in subsidies in 2008, compared to $50 billion for renewables. With such heavy support for fossil energies, renewables will continue to be dependent on public policy.
Investors are watching the (seemingly always) uncertain policy debate in Washington, wondering how it will impact their current strategies. Without the grant program, a national target or a price on carbon, renewables may look less attractive to investors. The large shale gas finds in the U.S. – which will likely keep natural gas prices low for many years to come – are also going to impact the economics of renewable energy projects.
Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that these are all factors that the industry must deal with. They are creating the “New Normal,” where renewables grow at a more subdued and sustainable pace.
“We're neither in the depth of a trough, nor are we in an overheated stage. So this is a kind of normal year in the development of an industry,” Liebreich said.
For a comprehensive overview of the financial health of the industry, take a listen to this week's podcast, linked above. We've got interviews with Kevin Walsh of GE; Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Fintan Whelan of Mainstream Renewable Power; Keith Martin of Chadbourne and Parke; and Ken Westrick of 3TIER.
Comment
1 of 15 windation July 5, 2010
The Grants must not expire
if the ration to renewable is about 11x less than fossil fuels how can it ever become the major source of energy ?
Comment
2 of 15 cessgene July 5, 2010
But now the europe market is crazy. After October , I think the solar market will have great change !
Nanjing Cessgene Group Limited
Rick Kim
www.cessgene.com
sales@cessgene.com
Comment
3 of 15 Anonymous July 5, 2010
In a particularly erroneous comment the author writes: "According to figures from the International Energy Agency released earlier this month, fossil energies get about $550 billion in subsidies each year world-wide, compared to $50 billion for renewables. With such heavy support for fossil energies, renewables will continue to be dependent on public policy."
To begin, the report does not use the word EACH; indeed, it states that CONSUMPTION (a critical modifier the author left out) subsidies increased from $342 billion in 2007 to $557 billion in 2008 according to their methodology. A consumption subsidy occurs when a nation keeps the price of a fossil fuel artificially low to allow its population to meet basis needs, such as when gasoline prices in oil producing nations are kept artificially low within their own borders. Iran leads the list this year at over $100 billion, followed by Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and India. Values for the US and the European Union are both 0 in this category. In short, these are not the usual subsidies people like to rant about as preventing entry of renewables into the market.
The IEA also estimates the more usual types of subsides (tax code, R&D, etc.) for various energy generation schemes, but their methodology is pretty weak; for renewables they merely use a figure of 5 cents per kWh of non-hydro renewable generation. On a per kWh basis subsidies for renewables dwarf those for fossil fuels--even without estimating the value of RPS requirements, 20 year guaranteed pricing FITs, etc. Of course, the issue is largely moot as changing the subsidy environment is no substitute for technological innovation leading to competitive prices.
Steven
Comment
4 of 15 StephenLacey July 6, 2010
Steven -- thanks for the correction on the "each" word choice. It was $342 billion the previous year. I appreciate the correction.
On your comment about consumption subsidies -- Earlier this month, the IEA's Chief Economist said that ending such subsidies would be critical to making an energy transition. The phase out of consumption subsidies could cut oil use by about 6 million barrels a day:
"This is the only single policy item that could make such a major change in the global energy and climate-change game," he said.
While these may not directly compete with the type of subsidies we usually think of, last year's report requested by Congress shows that about $120 billion in external costs are not factored into the price of energy. Surely that is a type of consumption subsidy keeping energy artificially low.
With that said, I think the call is getting stronger to factor in the external costs of fossil energies, strip away other subsidies and let fossils and renewables compete head to head.
As one of my favorite journalists, Vijay Vaitheeswaran of the Economist says:
"Free trade beats state aid."
Comment
5 of 15 Anonymous July 6, 2010
Stephen,
I agree--a cut in consumption subsidies would dramatically reduce oil consumption and improve economic activity, but this is unlikely to occur. Totalitarian regimes use state control of the economy and inefficient subsidies to the poor as a way of maintaining their control. Even if, Iran, for instance, eliminated its fuel consumption subsidies they would not likely spend any money on biofuels. We should not be holding out hope of major innovations in the energy sector coming out of OPEC or much of the rest of the third world economies.
The problem with arguments pointing to massive "savings" from reduced external costs is that such savings don't readily translate into improved economic activity. Better air quality, reduced asthma rates and other health benefits, less damage to the environment, etc., are going to be seen as modest benefits in the developing world compared to the advantages of electricity and heat in the winter.
As for your statement that: "I think the call is getting stronger to factor in the external costs of fossil energies, strip away other subsidies and let fossils and renewables compete head to head," I think the situation is quite the reverse. RPS policies and other government mandates--if they prove to be enforceable--will force much of the new energy facilities constructed in the US and Europe to be from renewable technologies and may even lead to idling extant production facilities before their rated lifetimes are exceeded. Sum such shift may be required by climate change concerns, but this certainly isn't head-to-head competition.
Steven
Comment
6 of 15 StephenLacey July 6, 2010
Steven --
Well, I suppose you are right that such benefits in the developing world might not be as attractive in the short term as a robust supply of electricity and fuel. Unfortunately, one need only to look at China's air and water quality to realize that such "benefits" have serious consequences.
In many areas of the developing world, distributed renewables can be deployed faster and more reliably than a large scale build-out of infrastructure. While the external environmental and health consequences are incredibly important, the simple efficiency of deploying distributed energy is a very compelling selling point.
On the external costs issue, I also agree -- I think the trend is toward more subsidies, not less. But I also hear many more calls among people in the energy community to simply strip away subsidies for both energies. Whether or not it has traction, that's another story.
Comment
7 of 15 rod-adams-151678 July 7, 2010
Steven:
I would be all for head to head competition between all energy sources. Of course, in your article and in the comments that follow, there appears to be a rather large competitor left out of the discussion - nuclear fission.
China is mentioned as having experienced the air quality issues and other environmental challenges associated with rapid economic development based on coal, but no one in this conversation has mentioned that the solution that the country is implementing with due haste is a massive build out of new nuclear power plants. Sure, you can find lots of articles about their large renewables energy business, but about 95% of their wind and solar production is aimed at the export market where there are massive government subsidies to be captured.
In contrast, China only has one small export market for its growing nuclear component manufacturing base (Pakistan). It is keeping all of the rest of that production at home with a goal of building about 120 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2020. They might miss that target by a year or two, but that nuclear capacity will be quite a bit different from renewables capacity of the same magnitude because it will run at full power about 80-90% of the time and produce massive quantities of cheap, emission free electricity.
Having a nation like China with cheap, clean electricity will make it very difficult for the rest of the world to compete for any industrial production at all, especially when you recognize that South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam are planning to follow the same path.
Here are the facts from the US about the production cost of electricity from various sources using 2009 numbers (cents per kilowatt-hour) based on FERC 1 form filings from utilities and models from non regulated power producers:
Nuclear - 2.03
Coal - 2.97
Natural Gas - 5.00
Petroleum - 12.37
Nuclear has most of the benefits of emission free renewables with one incredible advantage - it is reliable.
Comment
8 of 15 Anonymous July 7, 2010
In this article following is mentioned:
'Last year, over $5 billion was invested in renewable energy projects in the U.S. Only $1.8 billion of that was in the form of tax equity.'
But i've read many other reports which say that approx USD 18.6 Bn was invested in renewable energy projects in US in 2009 as against an investment of approx USD 35 Bn by China.
Comment
9 of 15 a-b-24958 July 7, 2010
" On a per kWh basis subsidies for renewables dwarf those for fossil fuels--even without estimating the value of RPS requirements, 20 year guaranteed pricing FITs, etc. "
Well in the USA, on a per dollar spent basis, fossil fuels subsidies dwarfs renewables. Enough said about this country's priorities, I guess . . .
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/10/fossil-fuels-subsidies-more-than-doubles-those-for-renewables
Fossil Fuel Subsidies More Than Double Those for Renewables. More than half the subsidies for renewables—$16.8 billion—are attributable to corn-based ethanol. Of the fossil fuel subsidies, $70.2 billion went to traditional sources—such as coal and oil—and $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage.
*******
When one includes the very long list of externalized costs attributable to coal, nuclear and oil based consumer culture, including endless war, investment choices become clear. I add here that present day accounting principles are entirely appropriate for a culture that has learned to become sustainable by internalizing profits and externalizing costs. And concerning china as an alternative to this example, well nothing quite props up the bottom line like slave labor and no pollution/health/safety/quality controls...
Comment
10 of 15 a-b-24958 July 7, 2010
" Here are the facts from the US about the production cost of electricity from various sources using 2009 numbers (cents per kilowatt-hour) based on FERC 1 form filings from utilities and models from non regulated power producers:
Nuclear - 2.03 / Coal - 2.97 / Natural Gas - 5.00 / Petroleum - 12.37
"
Old already built NPP's in the USA are already written off, meaning their 20 years investment payback time is now expired, and they therefore can produce electricity at cheap rates, because the fuel is basically free.
Hereunder another example of prices for new built NPP's in Europe or the USA, lowest price is 9 cent per kWh in Europe, and 13 cents per kWh in the USA. And this are FACTS.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-21-is-a-utility-only-cap-and-trade-bill-worth-passing/
From Sean Casten :
It is good to start examining the huge spread of prices paid for 'clean energy'. For everyone's edification, not one of the 260 energy recycling projects built by companies I have led have ever received more than 6.5 cents per kWh in external power sales. All of the approaches that use energy twice including Biomass CHP, gas fired CHP and recycling of industrial waste energy pencil at under the 9.9 cents per kWh.
Re nuclear, we repeat the assertion that all new nuclear will raise the current rates. Amortize $5,800 per kW over 25 years at 11% all in costs, assume the plant operates 8,000 full load hours per year, and you need 8.6 cents per kWh just for capital. Add labor, O&M, fuel, and reserves for decommissioning and spent fuel disposal and the owner will need 12 to 13 cents per kWh for the investment to pencil. I am not aware of any evidence that the $10,300 per kW estimate is high, and it is in the middle of the Vogtle Georgia NPP estimates.
Comment
11 of 15 rod-adams-151678 July 7, 2010
@a-b-24958
Wow, lots of commentary and data there. Please tell me how the high capital cost of nuclear is that much different from the high capital cost of renewables on a per unit energy produced basis?
The large projects that you are focusing on can certainly produce some scary numbers, but take a close look at the financing assumptions that you use. How many rooftop solar systems would be installed if the purchaser had to assume an interest rate of 11%? You only allow for a 25 year payment period, yet fully 60% of the nuclear plants operating in the US are already licensed to operate for 60 years and most of the rest will also receive license extensions. The NRC and DOE are already doing the materials research needed to evaluate if they can be licensed for safe operation beyond that 60 year period.
In contrast, how many of the wind turbines that were built during the 1970s boom period are still producing competitively priced electricity?
Finally, though I support the development of large nuclear installations where they make sense, I am far more excited by the potential uses of smaller nuclear facilities that can be built in modular fashion or deployed in a distributed fashion. These smaller facilities are also suitable for industrial cogeneration, desalination, or district heating to make use of the waste heat.
As I said in my initial comment - I would welcome the ability for nuclear energy to compete on a reasonably level playing field and do not ask for any subsidies - as long as the other sources of energy are willing to give up their subsidies, mandates, set-asides, and FITs.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
Comment
12 of 15 StephenLacey July 7, 2010
Anonymous -- that 5 billion figure is for wind projects only, not all renewable energy projects.
Comment
13 of 15 phil-manke-79191 July 7, 2010
Steven, you said; "Solar PV will be the fastest growing industry, as it is less capital intensive, is faster to build out and does not face many of the same regulatory challenges as wind, geothermal and concentrating solar power."
This may be so in the utility or purchased power segment, but distributed solar thermal is far and away the most cost effective solar alternative energy. It is certainly less capital intensive than PV. The PV industry grows largely because of massive capitol investments of large industry and governments. The overall benefit to the economy would be in distributed solar thermal that anyone and everyone could tap into at lower costs up front. The financial institutions are also drawn to the large investments required by PV projects. This does not make them more efficient, only more workable on large scales. The facts remain that distributed solar thermal can produce more power at lower costs for the infrastructure without the massive link with the banks. But, it seems that no one (Solar Industry Advocate Org) in this country is willing to get solidly behind a beneficial public movement unless it can tow the parasitic wall street financieers along with it.
Comment
14 of 15 Anonymous July 7, 2010
In comment #9 a-b-24958 writes: "Well in the USA, on a per dollar spent basis, fossil fuels subsidies dwarfs renewables. Enough said about this country's priorities, I guess . . ."
This is a result of selective counting. Exxon Mobile paid no Federal taxes recently because their profits were taxed offshore and that is considered a tax subsidy yet when GE (a major wind turbine maker) also pays no Federal taxes using similar tax regulations no one counts that as a subsidy. The value of RPS requirements is huge for the renewable industry, but is usually not accounted for in renewable subsidy totals. The benefit of net metering is critical to household-scale PV but no one bothers to count that as a renewable subsidy. I could go on for pages.... Government intervention (at least in the US and the EU) into the market place overwhelmingly favors the renewables sector and the obvious metric for understanding how this affects market share is the dollar amount per unit of energy. Overall amounts--even when properly counted--are not good indicators of market trends.
Steven
Comment
15 of 15 StephenLacey July 7, 2010
Phil, you bring up an excellent point. In a lot of markets, the LCOE for solar hot water is around 6-8 cents. As Dell Jones of Regenesis Power likes to say, "utilities are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies."
But the growth in Solar PV can't be ignored. The growth of "wholesale distributed power" -- 5-20 MW projects -- is really pushing the cost curve for PV downward
Published: July 5, 2010
New York, New York
In just one year, the story line for the renewable energy industry has been flipped on its head. Last summer, as investors tried to figure out the stimulus package, there was a lack of capital and a pent up demand for projects. This summer, there are far fewer projects being developed, but more willingness to lend from financiers.
Because the sluggish economy has made some renewables less competitive, there's a “flight to quality” in the space, according to investors at this year's Renewable Energy Finance Forum in New York City.
“The capital is there..but having a project that can be financed is difficult. I think the developers are struggling. So we have not been as busy as we've been in the past,” said Kevin Walsh, managing director of renewable energy at GE Energy Financial Services.
The combination of low fossil energy prices and lower demand for power has stymied growth in some sectors, particularly wind. In the U.S., wind installations are expected to fall by 40% this year. In Europe, installations will likely fall flat.
Solar PV will be the fastest growing industry, as it is less capital intensive, is faster to build out and does not face many of the same regulatory challenges as wind, geothermal and concentrating solar power. GE, which has been heavily involved in the wind space, is now looking to invest in large scale solar PV plants.
“We really like what we see in solar right now. That's going to be a greater focus for us as well,” said Walsh.
Over the last 18 months, companies like GE have changed up their investment strategies. In 2008, tax equity was the project financing option of choice. Those were the days when tax equity players owed enough money in taxes to take advantage of the credits. Then the financial crisis hit, reducing the tax appetite of investors. The problem was particularly bad in the wind industry. Today, because of the grant program created by the stimulus package, the tool of choice is debt.
Last year, over $5 billion was invested in wind energy projects in the U.S. Only $1.8 billion of that was in the form of tax equity.
Many developers are borrowing against the cash grant to raise money for construction, then handing the payment over to the construction lender when the project is completed. The program has already helped bring about 4,200 MW of projects online.
Unfortunately, fewer developers are now able to take advantage of the grant program because there is less demand for their energy. Even so, it's been a lifeline for the industry in the last 12 months.
Keith Martin, an attorney with Chadbourne and Parke, said that investors are very comfortable with the grant program. The big unknown is what will happen when the grant program expires at the end of this year. Most people in the industry are calling for an extension of the program until 2012, saying that the industry will shrink without it.
“The levers of public policy in Washington are broken. I just don't know if something will happen this year,” said Martin. “[investors] have to be savvy about this. You have to look at parts of the market that can stand on their own...without the support of public policy.”
That's pretty much every technology.
According to figures from the International Energy Agency released earlier this month, fossil energies got about $550 billion in subsidies in 2008, compared to $50 billion for renewables. With such heavy support for fossil energies, renewables will continue to be dependent on public policy.
Investors are watching the (seemingly always) uncertain policy debate in Washington, wondering how it will impact their current strategies. Without the grant program, a national target or a price on carbon, renewables may look less attractive to investors. The large shale gas finds in the U.S. – which will likely keep natural gas prices low for many years to come – are also going to impact the economics of renewable energy projects.
Michael Liebreich, CEO of Bloomberg New Energy Finance, said that these are all factors that the industry must deal with. They are creating the “New Normal,” where renewables grow at a more subdued and sustainable pace.
“We're neither in the depth of a trough, nor are we in an overheated stage. So this is a kind of normal year in the development of an industry,” Liebreich said.
For a comprehensive overview of the financial health of the industry, take a listen to this week's podcast, linked above. We've got interviews with Kevin Walsh of GE; Michael Liebreich of Bloomberg New Energy Finance; Fintan Whelan of Mainstream Renewable Power; Keith Martin of Chadbourne and Parke; and Ken Westrick of 3TIER.
Comment
1 of 15 windation July 5, 2010
The Grants must not expire
if the ration to renewable is about 11x less than fossil fuels how can it ever become the major source of energy ?
Comment
2 of 15 cessgene July 5, 2010
But now the europe market is crazy. After October , I think the solar market will have great change !
Nanjing Cessgene Group Limited
Rick Kim
www.cessgene.com
sales@cessgene.com
Comment
3 of 15 Anonymous July 5, 2010
In a particularly erroneous comment the author writes: "According to figures from the International Energy Agency released earlier this month, fossil energies get about $550 billion in subsidies each year world-wide, compared to $50 billion for renewables. With such heavy support for fossil energies, renewables will continue to be dependent on public policy."
To begin, the report does not use the word EACH; indeed, it states that CONSUMPTION (a critical modifier the author left out) subsidies increased from $342 billion in 2007 to $557 billion in 2008 according to their methodology. A consumption subsidy occurs when a nation keeps the price of a fossil fuel artificially low to allow its population to meet basis needs, such as when gasoline prices in oil producing nations are kept artificially low within their own borders. Iran leads the list this year at over $100 billion, followed by Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and India. Values for the US and the European Union are both 0 in this category. In short, these are not the usual subsidies people like to rant about as preventing entry of renewables into the market.
The IEA also estimates the more usual types of subsides (tax code, R&D, etc.) for various energy generation schemes, but their methodology is pretty weak; for renewables they merely use a figure of 5 cents per kWh of non-hydro renewable generation. On a per kWh basis subsidies for renewables dwarf those for fossil fuels--even without estimating the value of RPS requirements, 20 year guaranteed pricing FITs, etc. Of course, the issue is largely moot as changing the subsidy environment is no substitute for technological innovation leading to competitive prices.
Steven
Comment
4 of 15 StephenLacey July 6, 2010
Steven -- thanks for the correction on the "each" word choice. It was $342 billion the previous year. I appreciate the correction.
On your comment about consumption subsidies -- Earlier this month, the IEA's Chief Economist said that ending such subsidies would be critical to making an energy transition. The phase out of consumption subsidies could cut oil use by about 6 million barrels a day:
"This is the only single policy item that could make such a major change in the global energy and climate-change game," he said.
While these may not directly compete with the type of subsidies we usually think of, last year's report requested by Congress shows that about $120 billion in external costs are not factored into the price of energy. Surely that is a type of consumption subsidy keeping energy artificially low.
With that said, I think the call is getting stronger to factor in the external costs of fossil energies, strip away other subsidies and let fossils and renewables compete head to head.
As one of my favorite journalists, Vijay Vaitheeswaran of the Economist says:
"Free trade beats state aid."
Comment
5 of 15 Anonymous July 6, 2010
Stephen,
I agree--a cut in consumption subsidies would dramatically reduce oil consumption and improve economic activity, but this is unlikely to occur. Totalitarian regimes use state control of the economy and inefficient subsidies to the poor as a way of maintaining their control. Even if, Iran, for instance, eliminated its fuel consumption subsidies they would not likely spend any money on biofuels. We should not be holding out hope of major innovations in the energy sector coming out of OPEC or much of the rest of the third world economies.
The problem with arguments pointing to massive "savings" from reduced external costs is that such savings don't readily translate into improved economic activity. Better air quality, reduced asthma rates and other health benefits, less damage to the environment, etc., are going to be seen as modest benefits in the developing world compared to the advantages of electricity and heat in the winter.
As for your statement that: "I think the call is getting stronger to factor in the external costs of fossil energies, strip away other subsidies and let fossils and renewables compete head to head," I think the situation is quite the reverse. RPS policies and other government mandates--if they prove to be enforceable--will force much of the new energy facilities constructed in the US and Europe to be from renewable technologies and may even lead to idling extant production facilities before their rated lifetimes are exceeded. Sum such shift may be required by climate change concerns, but this certainly isn't head-to-head competition.
Steven
Comment
6 of 15 StephenLacey July 6, 2010
Steven --
Well, I suppose you are right that such benefits in the developing world might not be as attractive in the short term as a robust supply of electricity and fuel. Unfortunately, one need only to look at China's air and water quality to realize that such "benefits" have serious consequences.
In many areas of the developing world, distributed renewables can be deployed faster and more reliably than a large scale build-out of infrastructure. While the external environmental and health consequences are incredibly important, the simple efficiency of deploying distributed energy is a very compelling selling point.
On the external costs issue, I also agree -- I think the trend is toward more subsidies, not less. But I also hear many more calls among people in the energy community to simply strip away subsidies for both energies. Whether or not it has traction, that's another story.
Comment
7 of 15 rod-adams-151678 July 7, 2010
Steven:
I would be all for head to head competition between all energy sources. Of course, in your article and in the comments that follow, there appears to be a rather large competitor left out of the discussion - nuclear fission.
China is mentioned as having experienced the air quality issues and other environmental challenges associated with rapid economic development based on coal, but no one in this conversation has mentioned that the solution that the country is implementing with due haste is a massive build out of new nuclear power plants. Sure, you can find lots of articles about their large renewables energy business, but about 95% of their wind and solar production is aimed at the export market where there are massive government subsidies to be captured.
In contrast, China only has one small export market for its growing nuclear component manufacturing base (Pakistan). It is keeping all of the rest of that production at home with a goal of building about 120 GWe of nuclear capacity by 2020. They might miss that target by a year or two, but that nuclear capacity will be quite a bit different from renewables capacity of the same magnitude because it will run at full power about 80-90% of the time and produce massive quantities of cheap, emission free electricity.
Having a nation like China with cheap, clean electricity will make it very difficult for the rest of the world to compete for any industrial production at all, especially when you recognize that South Korea, Japan, and Vietnam are planning to follow the same path.
Here are the facts from the US about the production cost of electricity from various sources using 2009 numbers (cents per kilowatt-hour) based on FERC 1 form filings from utilities and models from non regulated power producers:
Nuclear - 2.03
Coal - 2.97
Natural Gas - 5.00
Petroleum - 12.37
Nuclear has most of the benefits of emission free renewables with one incredible advantage - it is reliable.
Comment
8 of 15 Anonymous July 7, 2010
In this article following is mentioned:
'Last year, over $5 billion was invested in renewable energy projects in the U.S. Only $1.8 billion of that was in the form of tax equity.'
But i've read many other reports which say that approx USD 18.6 Bn was invested in renewable energy projects in US in 2009 as against an investment of approx USD 35 Bn by China.
Comment
9 of 15 a-b-24958 July 7, 2010
" On a per kWh basis subsidies for renewables dwarf those for fossil fuels--even without estimating the value of RPS requirements, 20 year guaranteed pricing FITs, etc. "
Well in the USA, on a per dollar spent basis, fossil fuels subsidies dwarfs renewables. Enough said about this country's priorities, I guess . . .
http://www.renewableenergyworld.com/rea/news/article/2009/10/fossil-fuels-subsidies-more-than-doubles-those-for-renewables
Fossil Fuel Subsidies More Than Double Those for Renewables. More than half the subsidies for renewables—$16.8 billion—are attributable to corn-based ethanol. Of the fossil fuel subsidies, $70.2 billion went to traditional sources—such as coal and oil—and $2.3 billion went to carbon capture and storage.
*******
When one includes the very long list of externalized costs attributable to coal, nuclear and oil based consumer culture, including endless war, investment choices become clear. I add here that present day accounting principles are entirely appropriate for a culture that has learned to become sustainable by internalizing profits and externalizing costs. And concerning china as an alternative to this example, well nothing quite props up the bottom line like slave labor and no pollution/health/safety/quality controls...
Comment
10 of 15 a-b-24958 July 7, 2010
" Here are the facts from the US about the production cost of electricity from various sources using 2009 numbers (cents per kilowatt-hour) based on FERC 1 form filings from utilities and models from non regulated power producers:
Nuclear - 2.03 / Coal - 2.97 / Natural Gas - 5.00 / Petroleum - 12.37
"
Old already built NPP's in the USA are already written off, meaning their 20 years investment payback time is now expired, and they therefore can produce electricity at cheap rates, because the fuel is basically free.
Hereunder another example of prices for new built NPP's in Europe or the USA, lowest price is 9 cent per kWh in Europe, and 13 cents per kWh in the USA. And this are FACTS.
http://www.grist.org/article/2010-06-21-is-a-utility-only-cap-and-trade-bill-worth-passing/
From Sean Casten :
It is good to start examining the huge spread of prices paid for 'clean energy'. For everyone's edification, not one of the 260 energy recycling projects built by companies I have led have ever received more than 6.5 cents per kWh in external power sales. All of the approaches that use energy twice including Biomass CHP, gas fired CHP and recycling of industrial waste energy pencil at under the 9.9 cents per kWh.
Re nuclear, we repeat the assertion that all new nuclear will raise the current rates. Amortize $5,800 per kW over 25 years at 11% all in costs, assume the plant operates 8,000 full load hours per year, and you need 8.6 cents per kWh just for capital. Add labor, O&M, fuel, and reserves for decommissioning and spent fuel disposal and the owner will need 12 to 13 cents per kWh for the investment to pencil. I am not aware of any evidence that the $10,300 per kW estimate is high, and it is in the middle of the Vogtle Georgia NPP estimates.
Comment
11 of 15 rod-adams-151678 July 7, 2010
@a-b-24958
Wow, lots of commentary and data there. Please tell me how the high capital cost of nuclear is that much different from the high capital cost of renewables on a per unit energy produced basis?
The large projects that you are focusing on can certainly produce some scary numbers, but take a close look at the financing assumptions that you use. How many rooftop solar systems would be installed if the purchaser had to assume an interest rate of 11%? You only allow for a 25 year payment period, yet fully 60% of the nuclear plants operating in the US are already licensed to operate for 60 years and most of the rest will also receive license extensions. The NRC and DOE are already doing the materials research needed to evaluate if they can be licensed for safe operation beyond that 60 year period.
In contrast, how many of the wind turbines that were built during the 1970s boom period are still producing competitively priced electricity?
Finally, though I support the development of large nuclear installations where they make sense, I am far more excited by the potential uses of smaller nuclear facilities that can be built in modular fashion or deployed in a distributed fashion. These smaller facilities are also suitable for industrial cogeneration, desalination, or district heating to make use of the waste heat.
As I said in my initial comment - I would welcome the ability for nuclear energy to compete on a reasonably level playing field and do not ask for any subsidies - as long as the other sources of energy are willing to give up their subsidies, mandates, set-asides, and FITs.
Rod Adams
Publisher, Atomic Insights
Host and producer, The Atomic Show Podcast
Founder, Adams Atomic Engines, Inc.
Comment
12 of 15 StephenLacey July 7, 2010
Anonymous -- that 5 billion figure is for wind projects only, not all renewable energy projects.
Comment
13 of 15 phil-manke-79191 July 7, 2010
Steven, you said; "Solar PV will be the fastest growing industry, as it is less capital intensive, is faster to build out and does not face many of the same regulatory challenges as wind, geothermal and concentrating solar power."
This may be so in the utility or purchased power segment, but distributed solar thermal is far and away the most cost effective solar alternative energy. It is certainly less capital intensive than PV. The PV industry grows largely because of massive capitol investments of large industry and governments. The overall benefit to the economy would be in distributed solar thermal that anyone and everyone could tap into at lower costs up front. The financial institutions are also drawn to the large investments required by PV projects. This does not make them more efficient, only more workable on large scales. The facts remain that distributed solar thermal can produce more power at lower costs for the infrastructure without the massive link with the banks. But, it seems that no one (Solar Industry Advocate Org) in this country is willing to get solidly behind a beneficial public movement unless it can tow the parasitic wall street financieers along with it.
Comment
14 of 15 Anonymous July 7, 2010
In comment #9 a-b-24958 writes: "Well in the USA, on a per dollar spent basis, fossil fuels subsidies dwarfs renewables. Enough said about this country's priorities, I guess . . ."
This is a result of selective counting. Exxon Mobile paid no Federal taxes recently because their profits were taxed offshore and that is considered a tax subsidy yet when GE (a major wind turbine maker) also pays no Federal taxes using similar tax regulations no one counts that as a subsidy. The value of RPS requirements is huge for the renewable industry, but is usually not accounted for in renewable subsidy totals. The benefit of net metering is critical to household-scale PV but no one bothers to count that as a renewable subsidy. I could go on for pages.... Government intervention (at least in the US and the EU) into the market place overwhelmingly favors the renewables sector and the obvious metric for understanding how this affects market share is the dollar amount per unit of energy. Overall amounts--even when properly counted--are not good indicators of market trends.
Steven
Comment
15 of 15 StephenLacey July 7, 2010
Phil, you bring up an excellent point. In a lot of markets, the LCOE for solar hot water is around 6-8 cents. As Dell Jones of Regenesis Power likes to say, "utilities are stepping over dollars to pick up pennies."
But the growth in Solar PV can't be ignored. The growth of "wholesale distributed power" -- 5-20 MW projects -- is really pushing the cost curve for PV downward
Saturday, July 3, 2010
A Whale Comes To Gulf Spill
by Mike Brunker
Projects Team editor
msnbc.com
updated 7/2/2010 3:01:04 AM
The fancifully named A Whale, a seagoing behemoth converted into what its owners are calling the world’s biggest oil skimmer, is being billed as a cleanup hitter in the effort to prevent millions of gallons of oil spewing from BP’s ruptured well from ever reaching shore.
TMT, the Taiwanese company that owns the massive ship, estimates that it can suck as much as 500,000 barrels of oily water a day through its “jaws” — six ports cut into each side near its bow — and remove much of the crude through a “decanting” process using internal separation tanks.
“In the final stage, the filtered water can be returned to the ocean while the heavy oil residue is transferred to tankers for storage and final disposition,” TMT says in promotional materials outlining what it calls “the best solution to the Gulf of Mexico spill crisis.”
It will float across the Gulf “like a lawnmower cutting the grass,” effectively doubling the skimming capability of the oil response effort, CEO Nobu Su told reporters last week in Norfolk, Va., during a stopover at which company officials revealed what they hope will be the A Whale’s new mission.
But before the 1,115-foot-long ship with the big blue whale on funnel has even undergone testing, some experts are questioning whether it can fulfill those lofty expectations.
“I don’t think the concept is that bad, but I don’t see how in this situation it’s going to be a significant player,” said Dennis Bryant, a former Coast Guard officer who worked on implementing regulations required by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 before retiring and starting a maritime consulting business in Gainesville, Fla.
“In a case like the Exxon Valdez spill, where you had a lot of oil on the surface in a confined area, a vessel like this could have gone in and sucked up a whole lot,” he said. “But in the Gulf, where the oil is pretty well dispersed over a vast area, I don’t see how it’s going to make a large dent.”
No commitment from BP
Whether the A Whale, a Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-flagged ship, will even join the cleanup is unclear. TMT converted the oil/bulk ore carrier at a Portuguese shipyard over 10 days in early June without first obtaining a commitment from BP, which would need to sign the contract to enlist the ship in the spill response. Nor did it check with the U.S. government to ensure that the skimming operation would meet U.S. environmental and maritime standards.
Also, while the company says it conducted a successful test of the A Whale’s ability to draw in oily water using fire foam, the concept has not undergone outside review. And Bob Grantham, a spokesman for the TMT Offshore Group, said Thursday that it’s not yet clear how much oil can be removed from the water.
“Until we test the vessel in the oil spill environment, it is impossible to predict precisely how well it will perform,” he said in a written response to questions from msnbc.com.
The Coast Guard plans to witness a demonstration of the A Whale’s skimming capabilities as soon as high seas caused by Hurricane Alex subside. In the meantime, the ship remains anchored near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Grantham said that the company is engaged in a “constructive dialogue” with BP and the Coast Guard.
“We look forward to continuing to work in close cooperation with all parties to reach an agreement in order to get to work on the oil spill cleanup effort,” he said.
A Whale at a glance
•Class: VLOO (very large ore/oil carrier)
•Length: 340 meters (about 1,115 feet)
•Beam: 60 meters (about 198 feet)
•Depth: 31 meters (about 102 feet)
•Storage: 10 oil wing tanks and 5 center oil/ore tanks
•Capacity: 2 million barrels/318,700 metric tons
Source: TMT Offshore Group
.Shrewd or risky?
Shipping industry observers appear divided on whether TMT’s gamble is a shrewd business move or a reckless gamble.
Bryant, the former Coast Guard official, said his research suggests that TMT had difficulty lining up business for the A Whale — the first of eight hybrid oil/ore carriers it has ordered from South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries — since it was delivered early this year.
“If the ship were gainfully employed, would the owner have gone through this conversion?” he said. “If it’s making a profit, you don’t take it out of service to convert it on a whim like that.”
And Michelle Wiese Bockmann, markets editor for the seafaring chronicle Lloyd’s List, speculated that TMT CEO Su, who owns 51 percent of the privately held company, may be using the attention focused on the BP disaster to publicize his new vessel.
“He likes to have an air of mystery and be seen as very influential,” she said. “And when he wants publicity, he’s very good at getting it.”
But Grantham, the TMT spokesman, said Su acted decisively because of the severity of the spill and because he felt the A Whale was the right tool for the job.
.“Mr. Su recognized at the onset of the spill that a large-scale solution was necessary to deal with such a large scale problem and moved quickly to retrofit the vessel,” he said. “The effort was pursued as a highest priority in consultation with teams of engineers working day and night to make sure that solutions could be enacted as quickly as possible.”
'Savvy ship investor'
Scott Burk, a maritime transportation analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., said that with rates for shipping oil and dry bulk goods at the low end of their ranges, Su is more likely pursuing a solid profit play.
“He’s been a pretty savvy ship investor through the cycles,” Burk said, speculating that because of the specialized nature of the cleanup work, TMT could charge BP a day rate almost double the going price for hauling oil or ore. “I would suspect he saw an opportunity to make a really good rate fighting the oil spill.”
The conversion of the vessel from oil/bulk ore carrier, or OBO in industry parlance, to skimmer also represents a small risk for TMT, which currently has a 71-vessel fleet of oil tankers and bulk goods carriers, Burk said.
“This one ship makes up only 3 percent of their fleet,” he said. “In terms of taking away revenue opportunities, it’s not too big a risk.
Click here for related content Tiny wins, big unknowns loom in BP 'war room'
Churches, nonprofits fight for survival amid spill
Millions of birds set to fly into Gulf oil mess
NYT: Katrina trailers revived for Gulf oil disaster
Red tape keeps La. marsh cleanup on hold
..Su has overseen strong growth of TMT, originally the Taiwan Maritime Transportation Co., now rebranded as Today Makes Tomorrow.
A Lloyd’s List article in February 2008 quoted a report by the British shipbroker Galbraith’s as saying that Su had “parked” — or idled — chartered oil tankers to push up low freight rates.
“He’s waiting to get the rates that the market justifies, so he’s being very brave and very adventurous, and it is helping the market,” it quoted the firm’s weekly tanker report as saying. “It is one of the reasons why the market has been a little bit better than expected.”
A profile in the British newspaper Financial Times in June 2008 described Su as being “an adroit player of the volatile, relatively new paper market in freight futures.” It quoted a rival in the shipping industry as saying the 52-year-old businessman possessed an "enormous appetite for risk."
'White elephant?'
TMT’s Gulf gambit with the A Whale appears to fit that profile.
It is not clear whether Su and other TMT executives envisioned using the ship as an oil skimmer before BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, unleashing a torrent of oil at the bottom of the Gulf.
But Su told reporters last week that the decision was made quickly after it became apparent that the oil spill would require extraordinary measures.
Story continues below More below
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.Even given the speed of the decision, Bryant said, the lack of planning before sending the ship to the Gulf is confounding.
“They apparently made the conversion to the ship prior to talking to the Coast Guard or EPA or BP,” he said. “They just sailed over and said, ‘Here we are.’”
He also wonders what TMT will do with the ship if it is not able to join the cleanup or after it ends its work for BP.
“Converting a large ship like that is not inexpensive, and now that it’s done, are they stuck with a white elephant?” he asked. “Do they have a ship that is designed for one mission that, thankfully, doesn’t occur very often?”
Grantham, the TMT spokesman, suggests the company may have a long-term mission in mind for the A Whale.
“Our focus is on contributing to the oil spill mitigation effort, which will no doubt require a longer-term commitment,” he said. “Beyond that, we look forward to helping establish an effective global response capability for oil spills.”
TMT officials declined to say how much it cost to convert the A Whale from to a skimmer at the Lisnave shipyard in Portugal, but Alan Thorpe, editor of the Ship Repair Journal in London, said that the 10-day job probably cost less than $1 million because the work was done without putting the ship in dry dock.
And he believes the ship will revert to cargo-carrying duties when its skimming days are behind it.
“If it only took 10 days to do the conversion, it would only take 10 days to undo it,” he said
Projects Team editor
msnbc.com
updated 7/2/2010 3:01:04 AM
The fancifully named A Whale, a seagoing behemoth converted into what its owners are calling the world’s biggest oil skimmer, is being billed as a cleanup hitter in the effort to prevent millions of gallons of oil spewing from BP’s ruptured well from ever reaching shore.
TMT, the Taiwanese company that owns the massive ship, estimates that it can suck as much as 500,000 barrels of oily water a day through its “jaws” — six ports cut into each side near its bow — and remove much of the crude through a “decanting” process using internal separation tanks.
“In the final stage, the filtered water can be returned to the ocean while the heavy oil residue is transferred to tankers for storage and final disposition,” TMT says in promotional materials outlining what it calls “the best solution to the Gulf of Mexico spill crisis.”
It will float across the Gulf “like a lawnmower cutting the grass,” effectively doubling the skimming capability of the oil response effort, CEO Nobu Su told reporters last week in Norfolk, Va., during a stopover at which company officials revealed what they hope will be the A Whale’s new mission.
But before the 1,115-foot-long ship with the big blue whale on funnel has even undergone testing, some experts are questioning whether it can fulfill those lofty expectations.
“I don’t think the concept is that bad, but I don’t see how in this situation it’s going to be a significant player,” said Dennis Bryant, a former Coast Guard officer who worked on implementing regulations required by the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 before retiring and starting a maritime consulting business in Gainesville, Fla.
“In a case like the Exxon Valdez spill, where you had a lot of oil on the surface in a confined area, a vessel like this could have gone in and sucked up a whole lot,” he said. “But in the Gulf, where the oil is pretty well dispersed over a vast area, I don’t see how it’s going to make a large dent.”
No commitment from BP
Whether the A Whale, a Taiwanese-owned, Liberian-flagged ship, will even join the cleanup is unclear. TMT converted the oil/bulk ore carrier at a Portuguese shipyard over 10 days in early June without first obtaining a commitment from BP, which would need to sign the contract to enlist the ship in the spill response. Nor did it check with the U.S. government to ensure that the skimming operation would meet U.S. environmental and maritime standards.
Also, while the company says it conducted a successful test of the A Whale’s ability to draw in oily water using fire foam, the concept has not undergone outside review. And Bob Grantham, a spokesman for the TMT Offshore Group, said Thursday that it’s not yet clear how much oil can be removed from the water.
“Until we test the vessel in the oil spill environment, it is impossible to predict precisely how well it will perform,” he said in a written response to questions from msnbc.com.
The Coast Guard plans to witness a demonstration of the A Whale’s skimming capabilities as soon as high seas caused by Hurricane Alex subside. In the meantime, the ship remains anchored near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Grantham said that the company is engaged in a “constructive dialogue” with BP and the Coast Guard.
“We look forward to continuing to work in close cooperation with all parties to reach an agreement in order to get to work on the oil spill cleanup effort,” he said.
A Whale at a glance
•Class: VLOO (very large ore/oil carrier)
•Length: 340 meters (about 1,115 feet)
•Beam: 60 meters (about 198 feet)
•Depth: 31 meters (about 102 feet)
•Storage: 10 oil wing tanks and 5 center oil/ore tanks
•Capacity: 2 million barrels/318,700 metric tons
Source: TMT Offshore Group
.Shrewd or risky?
Shipping industry observers appear divided on whether TMT’s gamble is a shrewd business move or a reckless gamble.
Bryant, the former Coast Guard official, said his research suggests that TMT had difficulty lining up business for the A Whale — the first of eight hybrid oil/ore carriers it has ordered from South Korean shipbuilder Hyundai Heavy Industries — since it was delivered early this year.
“If the ship were gainfully employed, would the owner have gone through this conversion?” he said. “If it’s making a profit, you don’t take it out of service to convert it on a whim like that.”
And Michelle Wiese Bockmann, markets editor for the seafaring chronicle Lloyd’s List, speculated that TMT CEO Su, who owns 51 percent of the privately held company, may be using the attention focused on the BP disaster to publicize his new vessel.
“He likes to have an air of mystery and be seen as very influential,” she said. “And when he wants publicity, he’s very good at getting it.”
But Grantham, the TMT spokesman, said Su acted decisively because of the severity of the spill and because he felt the A Whale was the right tool for the job.
.“Mr. Su recognized at the onset of the spill that a large-scale solution was necessary to deal with such a large scale problem and moved quickly to retrofit the vessel,” he said. “The effort was pursued as a highest priority in consultation with teams of engineers working day and night to make sure that solutions could be enacted as quickly as possible.”
'Savvy ship investor'
Scott Burk, a maritime transportation analyst with Oppenheimer & Co., said that with rates for shipping oil and dry bulk goods at the low end of their ranges, Su is more likely pursuing a solid profit play.
“He’s been a pretty savvy ship investor through the cycles,” Burk said, speculating that because of the specialized nature of the cleanup work, TMT could charge BP a day rate almost double the going price for hauling oil or ore. “I would suspect he saw an opportunity to make a really good rate fighting the oil spill.”
The conversion of the vessel from oil/bulk ore carrier, or OBO in industry parlance, to skimmer also represents a small risk for TMT, which currently has a 71-vessel fleet of oil tankers and bulk goods carriers, Burk said.
“This one ship makes up only 3 percent of their fleet,” he said. “In terms of taking away revenue opportunities, it’s not too big a risk.
Click here for related content Tiny wins, big unknowns loom in BP 'war room'
Churches, nonprofits fight for survival amid spill
Millions of birds set to fly into Gulf oil mess
NYT: Katrina trailers revived for Gulf oil disaster
Red tape keeps La. marsh cleanup on hold
..Su has overseen strong growth of TMT, originally the Taiwan Maritime Transportation Co., now rebranded as Today Makes Tomorrow.
A Lloyd’s List article in February 2008 quoted a report by the British shipbroker Galbraith’s as saying that Su had “parked” — or idled — chartered oil tankers to push up low freight rates.
“He’s waiting to get the rates that the market justifies, so he’s being very brave and very adventurous, and it is helping the market,” it quoted the firm’s weekly tanker report as saying. “It is one of the reasons why the market has been a little bit better than expected.”
A profile in the British newspaper Financial Times in June 2008 described Su as being “an adroit player of the volatile, relatively new paper market in freight futures.” It quoted a rival in the shipping industry as saying the 52-year-old businessman possessed an "enormous appetite for risk."
'White elephant?'
TMT’s Gulf gambit with the A Whale appears to fit that profile.
It is not clear whether Su and other TMT executives envisioned using the ship as an oil skimmer before BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, unleashing a torrent of oil at the bottom of the Gulf.
But Su told reporters last week that the decision was made quickly after it became apparent that the oil spill would require extraordinary measures.
Story continues below More below
Advertisement | ad info
Sponsored links
Marketplace
.Even given the speed of the decision, Bryant said, the lack of planning before sending the ship to the Gulf is confounding.
“They apparently made the conversion to the ship prior to talking to the Coast Guard or EPA or BP,” he said. “They just sailed over and said, ‘Here we are.’”
He also wonders what TMT will do with the ship if it is not able to join the cleanup or after it ends its work for BP.
“Converting a large ship like that is not inexpensive, and now that it’s done, are they stuck with a white elephant?” he asked. “Do they have a ship that is designed for one mission that, thankfully, doesn’t occur very often?”
Grantham, the TMT spokesman, suggests the company may have a long-term mission in mind for the A Whale.
“Our focus is on contributing to the oil spill mitigation effort, which will no doubt require a longer-term commitment,” he said. “Beyond that, we look forward to helping establish an effective global response capability for oil spills.”
TMT officials declined to say how much it cost to convert the A Whale from to a skimmer at the Lisnave shipyard in Portugal, but Alan Thorpe, editor of the Ship Repair Journal in London, said that the 10-day job probably cost less than $1 million because the work was done without putting the ship in dry dock.
And he believes the ship will revert to cargo-carrying duties when its skimming days are behind it.
“If it only took 10 days to do the conversion, it would only take 10 days to undo it,” he said
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