Before I Forget…

The US is set to overtake Germany as the world’s biggest wind market in 2009 on the back of an investment boom which saw wind power generating capacity jump 45% last year…..Not only is there demand among the public for more environmentally friendly fuels, but the wide open US plains are enticing given far more expensive offshore options to expand in Europe.  Last month Royal Dutch Shell sold its stake in what would have been the world’s biggest offshore wind farm, the London Array, saying that Europe had been “built out” and wind’s future was in North America.  US wind plants are expected to generate just over 1% of US electricity supply this year, but a study from the US department of energy last month said this could rise to 20% by 2030 - even if electricity demand grows by 39% from 2005 to 2030, as estimated by the US Energy Information Agency.  No technological breakthroughs are needed to reach the objective, and the price of wind power has already come down with improvements in technology that have made wind more reliable.  Ten years ago, says Vic Abate, vice-president for renewables at GE Energy, North America’s largest wind turbine manufacturer, it would be normal to see two out of three turbines not spinning in California’s wind farms.  Reliability now is at 97%.  “We believe wind power is becoming a mainstream power source,” he says. 

Unsubsidised wind energy costs 8-10 cents a kilowatt hour, he says; solar is more than 30 cents/kWh, while coal, gas and nuclear are in the 5 cents to 10 cents range.  But the US government notes that big challenges remain.  In particular, there is uncertainty over the production tax credit, the primary federal incentive for wind power, which expires at the end of the year…..But Kenneth Westrick, chief executive of 3TIER, a provider of global renewable energy assessment and forecasting, says that given the US presidential candidates’ dedication to alternative energy, he expects the new administration may be able to offer more political commitment to wind power.  “We put a man on the moon - we can do this,” Mr Westrick says.  The rise in the oil price to almost $140 a barrel in recent days will only increase that incentive.  “I can tell you what the fuel cost for wind will be in 20 years:  It’s going to be zero.  That’s a guarantee.”

Reference : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/32cab738-3ccf-11dd-b958-0000779fd2ac.html

The good news in the International Energy Agency’s report on the future of energy technologies is that there is enough oil left on the planet to allow a huge increase in consumption over the next few decades.  The bad news is that the consequences for the climate of burning that much oil would be alarming.  The IEA, the rich countries’ energy watchdog, is urging the world to start weaning itself off oil, not because supplies are running out but to avoid “significant change in all aspects of life and irreversible change in the natural environment” as a result of global warming.  In the IEA’s business as usual “baseline” scenario, oil demand rises from its present level of 87m barrels a day to 135m b/d by 2050.  The projection is a robust rejection of the argument, increasingly prevalent as the price of oil has soared, that global oil production is at or near its peak.  The IEA accepts that meeting this sharply increased demand would require massive investment, especially in the Middle East, and “conventional” oil would provide at most about 92m b/d.  The rest would come from “unconventional” sources such as oil sands, shale oil and Arctic oil, and liquid fuels made from coal and natural gas. Biofuels would also make some “limited” contribution.  However, if there is a “global energy technology revolution”, the IEA believes, global oil demand could be cut sharply, dropping 27% from present levels.  Greater fuel efficiency in motor vehicles, greater production of biofuels, and some use of electric and hydrogen-fuelled transport would all contribute to curbing oil demand.  In that scenario, the world’s carbon dioxide emissions could be halved from 2005 levels by 2050, and oil-consuming countries’ dependence on potentially unstable oil-producing regions would be diminished.  The problem is that it is very hard to replace oil as a transport fuel.  Electricity generation can be made low-carbon relatively easily, with nuclear power and wind farms, which are in use today, and carbon capture and storage at fossil fuel power plants, which can be done by integrating currently available technologies.  The flexibility of oil-derived fuels for road and air transport is much more difficult to replace.

Cutting emissions from power generation and taking other relatively low-cost measures could mean global carbon dioxide emissions peaking during 2020-30, then falling back to current levels by 2050, the IEA believes.  That could be achieved with a price for emissions of about $50 (£25, €32) per tonne of carbon dioxide, not far out of line with today’s levels in the European Union.  To go further, however, and cut emissions by 50% by 2050 means using much more expensive technologies, including electric and hydrogen-fuelled cars.  “Those extra bits of carbon dioxide are so expensive to squeeze out,” says Cecilia Tam of the IEA, one of the report’s authors.  “When you look at transport, you need new technologies that are really not available today.”  To make those technologies cost-effective, the IEA suggests, emissions would need to be priced at $500 a tonne of carbon dioxide, a huge increase from today’s levels.  Even with technological improvements, the price might need to be $200 a tonne.  Nobuo Tanaka, the IEA’s executive director, said in Tokyo yesterday that the energy technology revolution was “both necessary and achievable”, but accepted it would be a “tough challenge”.  Persuading consumers and voters to accept emissions prices in the hundreds of dollars will be one of the most daunting aspects of that challenge.

Reference : http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fd0eeb98-342a-11dd-869b-0000779fd2ac.html

Awesome graphic -

(click thumbnail for larger image)

PHOTOVOLTAIC, WIND, & HYDRO POWER

Outside the white-walled town of Moura in the rolling plans of southern Portugal, more than 240,000 solar panels covering an area equivalent to 150 football pitches are slowly being manoeuvred into position in what will be the world’s biggest photovoltaic power plant.  A few kilometres away, at Alqueva, the Guadiana river has been dammed to create the largest reservoir in western Europe and one of 18 hydroelectric power projects under way in Portugal’s river valleys.  In the north-west Alto Minho region, one of the world’s biggest wind farms is under construction.  Off the coast, south of Porto, wave energy converters are being moored to the seabed in readiness for the start-up of the world’s first commercial wave-driven power plant.  These projects reflect an ambitious government policy to produce up to 60% of the country’s electricity from wind, sun, wave and other renewable sources by 2020.  Success will make Portugal a world leader in the move to replace oil, gas and coal with clean energy.  “The cost of doing nothing is very high,” says Manuel Pinho, the economy minister.  “We have to turn the challenge of higher fuel prices and climate change into an opportunity to create jobs, promote new industries and encourage innovation.”  Portugal is already well ahead of the field.  Last year, renewable sources accounted for 40.7% of total electricity production.  This compares with about 5% in the UK, for example.  Having already passed the 39% target that the European Union has set for Portugal for 2010, the government has voluntarily lifted its clean energy goal to 45 per cent of total power generation by that year, and Mr Pinho believes 55 to 60% by 2020 is “perfectly feasible”.  In 2005 and 2006, Portugal’s wind power capacity increased fourfold, faster than in any other EU country, to more than 2,000 megawatts, making it one of the world’s top 10 producers of wind energy in absolute terms.  Three of the world’s biggest solar power stations are being built in Portugal and €2.6bn ($4.1bn) is being invested in 18 hydro-power projects with a total capacity of 2,830 MW.  Portugal is embracing renewable energy partly because it has no fossil fuel resources of its own.  It depends on imports for up to 85% of its primary energy needs.  A doubling in oil prices since the government took office three years ago has underlined the country’s exposure to volatile international energy markets.  Portugal’s geographic location, climate, long coastline and abundance of rivers help provide ideal conditions for wind, solar and wave energy…..The new plan is aimed at lifting total hydro capacity to 7,000MW by 2020, representing 70% of the country’s total estimated hydro potential, up from a current level of about 46%.  More hydro capacity is needed partly to realise the full potential of wind farms.  Excess wind energy generated at night will be used to pump water to the top of dams, ready to produce power when the wind drops…..

WAVE ENERGY

A string of three red steel tubes, each the size of a railway carriage, lies low in the water off the northern coast of Portugal.  As the snub-nosed apparatus rises and dips in the Atlantic waves, it becomes immediately clear why this pioneering energy technology is called Pelamis after a mythical giant sea snake.  Later this year, these wave energy converters, developed over many years of testing by Edinburgh-based Pelamis Wave Power, will be pumping electricity into Portugal’s national grid, making it the first country in the world to harness wave energy on a commercial basis.  “Portugal has the opportunity to do for wave power what Denmark has done for wind energy,” says Ian Sharpe of Australia’s Babcock & Brown, the leading partner in the project through Enersis, its Portuguese renewable energy company.  In two years, 23 of these converters, moored to the seabed about seven kilometres off the coast south of Porto, should be in operation, with a total capacity of 22.5MW.  But Enersis has its sights on a more ambitious project involving an investment of up to €1.5bn ($2.3bn) in Portuguese wave energy farms with a total capacity of 500MW, enough to power 450,000 homes.  “Scale is essential to reduce manufacturing and operational costs,” says Mr Sharpe, a member of Babcock & Brown’s European infrastructure team.  “At 500MW, we envisage wave energy will begin to converge with wind power in terms of cost per kilowatt-hour.”  The Lisbon government’s decision to embrace wave power is partly aimed at creating an industry “cluster”, including a manufacturing base for wave energy converters and related equipment.  In this way, it hopes to gain first mover’s advantage in establishing the country as an international centre of know-how for an emerging technology.  Part of Portugal’s attraction for Babcock & Brown is its policy of paying renewable energy producers feed-in tariffs, an incentive that guarantees the sale of all the power they produce at stable prices above the rates paid for electricity produced from fossil fuels.  “This is a much better approach that the systems used in many other countries, including the US and the UK,” says Mr Sharpe.  Portugal has also designated a special maritime zone for pilot wave power projects and will ensure transmission capacity on the national grid.  The measures are designed as extra incentives in addition to the country’s natural advantages for tapping wave energy.  Besides the huge energy potential of the waves that crash into Europe’s western-most shore, all Portugal’s big population centres are located along the coast, reducing the cost of transmitting electricity from offshore wave farms to end users.  Officials estimate wave power could eventually supply 20% of the country’s electricity needs…..In the Pelamis system, energy is created as waves cause the hinged joints of the semi-submerged steel cylinders to move, pumping high-pressure oil through hydraulic motors that drive electricity generators.  Power from these joints is fed down a single “umbilical cord” to a junction on the seabed.  Several devices can be linked together and connected to the shore through a single cable.  “Wave as an energy resource is similar to wind, but we think it will be more stable,” says Mr Sharpe.  Some renewable energy specialists believe wave farms in Portugal could yield up to three times as much power as wind farms for the same investment cost.

 
Restricted Access Resource
(personal archive)

References :
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/6fee8612-02be-11dd-9388-000077b07658,s01=1.html
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/740ef3f8-02be-11dd-9388-000077b07658,s01=1.html

The Chinese, Indian and Indonesian economies are growing at a very fast rate, fueling growth for the overall Asia Pacific region, which also includes Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam and other countries, Koomey said in a phone interview.  Worldwide electricity use doubled to 123 billion kWh by the end of the five years studied, including servers and associated cooling and equipment.  Total data center electricity costs reached US$7.2 billion annually, and further increases projected for 2010 would require the creation of 10 new 1,000-megawatt power plants, according to Koomey.  The huge increase points to a global problem exacerbated by data center managers not following best practices, such as using hot and cold aisles to optimize cooling and airflow, Koomey says.  “Most data centers are not operating at peak efficiency,” he says.  “What we find is that this is no fault of the people running them. They’re embedded in a system that has incentives that are a bit misplaced.”  For example, IT and facilities budgets are usually separate, so there’s no incentive for IT to spend an additional dollar to improve efficiency, even if that dollar results in five-dollar savings in the facilities budget, he says.  Plus, data center space is usually paid for by the square foot, even though most of the costs are for power and cooling rather than floor space.  “If you’re not showing people the cost of their actions, they’re not going to behave in a way that’s cost-efficient,” Koomey says…..In 2000, the United States accounted for 40% of all server electricity use, while Western Europe accounted for more than 25% and Japan a little more than 10%.  The United States share will decrease to 34% by 2010, while the Asia Pacific region’s share will become 16%, up from one-tenth in 2000, Koomey predicts.  Koomey calculated electricity use based on IDC’s data for server shipments and installed base.  Predictions are based on current trends, taking into account improved efficiency due to server virtualization and other factors.

Reference : http://www.nytimes.com/idg/IDG_002570DE0074
0E18002573B0000152E7.html