Green Tech

A sampling of green-tech news with quick commentary.

• RWE NPower tests carbon capture in the U.K.--SmartPlanet.com
  Carbon storage next to coal plant plan moving ahead in the U.K. A report suggests this could be done at large scale by 2030.
• Hydrogen as automotive fuel--NYTimes.com
  Another reality check on hydrogen transportation. Worth noting that during a panel at EmTech on green transportation Wednesday, the word "hydrogen" was never said.

Iberdrola takes the plunge with wave power.
(Credit: Iberdrola)
• First U.S. carbon auction results to come out Monday--Reuters
  The U.S dips its toes into carbon emissions trading with the Northeast RGGI regime.
• Pelamis starts Portugal wave-power farm--Cleantech Group
  A Pelamis wave-power machine, if you recall, was part of Google's floating data center patent.
• Top 10 green-tech venture fundings of 2008 (so far)--Greentech Media
  Amazing--the deals are big numbers and almost all solar related, covering multiple technologies.
• Dell driving transition to energy-efficient LED displays--press release
  Dell gets its green on, some more: these LEDs use less electricity and are more easily recycled.
• Solar panels are vanishing, only to reappear on the Internet--NYTimes.com
  An installer looked at me funny last year when I asked about thievery. Now it seems this is a serious problem. Best solution appears to be cameras and alarms.
• OPT deploys PowerBuoy for first commercial wave power project with Iberdrola--press release
  Spanish renewable energy heavyweight Iberdrola will install a wave power turbine able to pump over 1 megawatt into the Spanish grid.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Tesla Motors has received many accolades for producing an all-electric luxury sports car. But its long-term plans may hold its most challenging task: making a mass-market electric car.

The company intends to make a "family car" that it hopes will lead to the sale of millions of all-electric vehicles, JB Straubel, Tesla's chief technology officer, said Wednesday. He spoke earlier on a panel on "green transportation" at the EmTech 2008 conference here.

Tesla Roadster

(Credit: Tesla Motors)

Code-named Bluestar, the car has been part of Tesla's plans for a few years. Tesla Chairman Elon Musk earlier this month was quoted as saying that the goal is to produce a car priced in the $20,000 to $30,000 range, possibly in partnership with other automakers.

Next out of Tesla's factories will be the Model S, a luxury sports sedan with a price tag of about $60,000 due out at the end of 2010.

From the same technology base, Tesla intends to develop a series of vehicles including a minivan, coupe, and light pick-up truck which could be used in fleets, Straubel said.

Technology from that Model S line may also make its way into the follow-on Bluestar line, he said.

"It could use the same or similar architecture, and we may partner with an existing OEM (original equipment manufacturer) to leverage their scale," Straubel said. "(But) lower cost is the target."

The goal is to be able to produce hundreds of thousands of these cars per year, he said. Leveraging existing technologies, such as its battery pack and powertrain, would help speed development.

"With Bluestar, we're looking at cost and lowering the overall expense to the user. If it's not cost-competitive (with oil), you are going to have a hard time scaling to a high level," Straubel said.

China and other fast-growing economies could be good markets for the Bluestar, he said.

Straubel said Tesla welcomes more electric car variants to the market, such as the Chevy Volt and Chrysler's recently announced line. The introduction of these cars and the release of the Tesla Roadster have helped changed the image of electric vehicles as "golf carts."

But he said that Tesla's all-electric technology, as opposed to a plug-in hybrid with a battery and internal combustion engine, gives it certain advantages.

The smaller battery in plug-in hybrids translates into more charging cycles, which means that they will need to be replaced sooner.

"You lower the wear and tear as you make batteries bigger. Also, you're pushing the envelope with bigger batteries and taking a bigger technology leap," he said.

Straubel said there are different motivations for interest in electric cars but energy security--a desire to reduce imported oil--seems to be the biggest driver, ahead of environmental concerns.

"Our goal is to change the transportation energy mix. To do that, you need a meaningful volume of cars," he said. "A family car is one market that means scale."

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--The route to a less polluting car looks more like a multipoint intersection than a single superhighway, a panel of experts said on Wednesday.

The auto and fuels industries are in the midst of dramatic technological change, but it's still not clear how quickly which new technologies will be adopted.

Also unknown is whether consumers are willing to switch from traditional car ownership to the "transportation as a service" model where people share a fleet of clean cars dispersed around a city.

The EmTech 2008 conference, held at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, put together a panel to discuss green transportation with Tesla Motors Chief Technology Officer JB Straubel, BP chief scientist Steven Koonin, and Ryan Chin, a student at the MIT Media Lab involved in the City Car and RoboScooter projects.

All of them agreed that there's a need to shift from today's fossil fuel-based transportation industry because of concerns over energy security and climate change. But it's unlikely that one single technology will displace the gas-powered internal combustion engine.

"You have to ask whether change will be revolutionary or evolutionary. If I had to bet, I'd say it will be evolutionary," said BP chief scientist Steven Koonin. "The most likely scenario is a plug-in hybrid with a very efficient engine powered by biofuels--with plausible technologies."

This post was updated at 8:30 a.m. PDT with additional material from Khosla's speech on Wednesday and photo from the event.

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Famed investor Vinod Khosla is one of the clean-tech industry's most vocal cheerleaders. But most of today's clean technologies fall short of his 1-billion-car test.

"If it doesn't scale, it doesn't matter," says Khosla. "Most of what we talk about today--hybrid, biodiesel, ethanol, solar photovoltaics, geothermal--I believe are irrelevant to the scale of the problem" of climate change.

Vinod Khosla speaking at the EmTech conference at MIT.

(Credit: Martin LaMonica/CNET Networks)

Khosla delivered the keynote speech at the EmTech08 conference (formerly called the Emerging Technology Conference) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology on Wednesday, where he talked about energy, policy, and investment.

On Monday, he spoke to MIT student energy fellows covering many of the same topics.

On the whole, Khosla is highly optimistic about the potential for technology to address climate change and other environmental problems. He challenges people to imagine cars and cement factories that actually remove, rather than add, carbon dioxide from the air.

But he views climate change as a global problem that requires an overhaul to today's energy infrastructure. That means displacing oil and coal in a world where consumers from Asia and other fast-growing regions will be adopting a more energy-intensive lifestyle similar to that in the West.

"We will ship a billion cars on this planet in the next 15 years or so. Unless a low-carbon technology gets into 80 percent of those 1 billion cars and over time causes an 80 percent reduction of carbon per mile driven, it's not going to be a solution. Everything else is just a toy," he said Monday.

He places wind and solar photovoltaics in the "toy" category because, without storage, they will remain a small fraction of electricity production, only 5 percent to 15 percent.

That's because, without a breakthrough in storage technology, solar and wind power cannot replace "baseload" electricity during peak times because of their intermittent nature.

BMW's 7-series concept uses a mild hybrid powertrain.

(Credit: BMW)

Following on the recent announcement by Mercedes-Benz of its mild hybrid sedan with lithium ion batteries, BMW announced its own mild hybrid sedan with lithium ion batteries.

Although it may sound like cutthroat competition, it's more conspiracy, as Daimler and BMW co-developed their hybrid components. And where Mercedes-Benz announced a production car, BMW is still at the concept stage with its Concept 7-series ActiveHybrid. But in keeping with its sport aspirations, the BMW shows no compromise in power, using a twin-turbo V-8 assisted by the mild hybrid system. The twin-turbo V-8 delivers 407 horsepower and 442 pound-feet of torque, while the hybrid system's electric motor, integrated into the transmission, adds 20 horsepower and 155 pound-feet of torque.

The hybrid system was co-developed by Daimler and BMW.

(Credit: BMW)

As a mild hybrid, the Concept 7-series ActiveHybrid can't run under electric power alone--the electric motor merely adds thrust when needed and is an essential part of the idle-stop system. At a traffic light, the engine shuts down to save gas, with the electric motor cranking it back up when the driver hits the gas, and adding its power to make up for the initial shortcoming of the engine. BMW claims a 15 percent improvement in fuel economy.

The lithium ion battery pack sits over the rear axle, and gets recharged through regenerative braking. Along with providing electricity for the motor, this battery pack works as a 120 volt power source for the car's onboard electronics.

BMW has previously shown the X6 ActiveHybrid concept, an SUV using a full hybrid system based on technology co-developed by BMW, Daimler, and GM. We first saw a version of that hybrid system in the GMC Yukon Hybrid. BMW promises two cars using some form of its hybrid technology will reach production in 2009. The company might want to hurry up, as Lexus already dominates the segment for powerful luxury hybrid sedans with the LS 600h.

The electric motor is integrated with the transmission.

(Credit: BMW)

Hopes for renewable energy may not be a pipe dream after all.

After nearly a year of squabbling, the U.S. Senate voted Tuesday to extend solar tax credits for the next eight years and also remove the $2,000 cap on residential projects.

(Credit: CNET News)

What with all the political bickering, I was betting this wouldn't ever get done before the November elections. But the hired help in Washington provided a pleasant surprise for a change. The bill, which includes an allowance for utilities to make use of the commercial credit, now goes to the House of Representatives for approval before everyone clears out of town next week. The current tax credit was set to expire at year's end.

Doubtless there will be some ready to dun the agreement as yet another handout to an interest group. On the surface, that's true. But after the government's recent series of bailouts including--drum roll, please--Bear Stearns, Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae, AIG, and the $700 billion or so the Treasury Department wants to buy illiquid mortgage-linked securities--this one should mollify the critics, according to Barry Cinnamon, CEO of Akeena Solar.

"I don't think anybody is going to look at $17 billion over 10 years going to renewable energy as a handout when you put it in the perspective of $1 trillion going to failed banks in a one-year period," said Cinnamon. He added that while he did hear the handout argument a couple of years ago, he's not encountering that line of argument, what with crude oil prices hovering north of $100 a barrel.

Cinnamon and other solar industry executives have argued that the industry is still too young and too fragile to be weaned off the investment tax credit (ITC) just yet. Solar energy lobbyists released a study by Navigant Consulting claiming that 440,000 permanent jobs and $232 billion in investment would be supported by 2016 with an eight-year extension of the ITC.

However, that argument wasn't persuading enough Senators to pledge their support to the investment tax extension. In fact, when Congress passed the 2007 energy bill, the solar industry got shut out. The ongoing debate had a lot to do with accounting. While Democrats wanted to pay for them by taking away tax credits from the oil industry, the Republicans held firm.

A couple of recent developments helped break the logjam. One was the willingness of congressional Democrats to go along with an offshore-drilling proposal. The other was a statement from the White House that it would not oppose extending the tax credits.

"The great thing about this bill is that it's going to allow people throughout the country to benefit," said Cinnamon. "It will be as much for people in Peoria as it will be for people living in Pleasanton."

Smart-grid outfit GridPoint on Tuesday, flush with an additional $120 million in equity funding, said it has acquired V2Green, a start-up with software to charge electric cars en masse.

GridPoint said that it has raised $100 million mainly from existing investors, which include Goldman Sachs, New Enterprise Associates, Robeco, Susquehanna International Group, and Quercus Trust. An additional $20 million is expected later.

The company makes software for utilities to better integrate distributed generation units, such as solar panels, and home devices, such as Internet-connected thermostats, into the power grid. It also makes a home energy storage unit and software for consumers to track their energy usage.

By purchasing V2Green, GridPoint intends to add the capability for utilities to manage an anticipated wave of electric cars being plugged into the electricity grid.

Some researchers have estimated that plugging large numbers of electric cars to charge batteries during peak times, such as the early evening, would tax the grid, making it necessary to build more power plants. But bringing new power plants online is expensive and opposed in many areas because of environmental reasons.

V2Green's software lets utilities manage the process so that charging can take place at night at off-peak times.

The company's software also lets utilities draw power from many electric cars' batteries--another potential method for easing the load on the grid during peak times. The Seattle-based company is staffed with some former Microsoft employees.

"Our combined capabilities will enable utilities to mitigate the impact of plug-in electric vehicles on the grid while reducing carbon emissions and providing their customers with reduced rates for off-peak charging," said V2Green CEO John Clark in a statement.

GridPoint earlier this year started a "smart charging" trial with Duke Energy.

With the additional $120 million, GridPoint has raised over $200 million to date, making it one of the most capitalized private smart-grid companies.

The extended-range electric Chrysler mini van.

(Credit: Chrysler)

Updated 10:30 a.m. PDT: Added photos and a link to Chrysler's electric car site.

Struggling automaker Chrysler on Tuesday unveiled a line of electric cars scheduled to start shipping at the end of 2010.

The surprise announcement brings Chrysler in direct competition with General Motors, which last week showed off the Chevy Volt, an extended-range electric car also due in late 2010.

Chrysler's plans call for two electric cars, using the same concept as the Volt and two other all-electric cars.

The extended-range electric Jeep Wrangler.

(Credit: Chrysler)

Chrysler's top executives showed off an extended-range electric Jeep Wrangler and a mini-van to CNBC on Tuesday.

As with the Volt, lithium-ion batteries will power the car for the first 40 miles and a small, one-liter, internal combustion engine will charge the battery for longer rides. A consumer will be able to charge the batteries in eight hours from a U.S. 110-volt outlet or four hours from a 220-volt outlet.

"The range is about 400 miles on eight or nine gallons of gas," Chrysler Vice Chairman Tom LaSorda told CNBC. Chrysler also unveiled a prototype of an all-electric sports car, called the Dodge EV, which can go 150 or 200 miles on a charge and accelerate from 0 to 60 miles per hour in under five seconds.

A prototype of the Dodge EV, an all-electric sports car.

(Credit: Chrysler)

Finally, CEO Bob Nardelli said that Chrysler intends to make an all-electric city car based on its Peapod, a small electric car that runs on batteries only.

The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday reported that Chrysler will partner with battery maker A123 Systems. GM may choose A123 Systems' batteries for the Volt.

On Tuesday, Chrysler released technical specifications for all of the four cars it unveiled.

The Peapod, the basis for a planned all-electric city car.

(Credit: Chrysler)

CAMBRIDGE, Mass.--Everyone from politicians, investors, and consumers tout the potential of solar and wind technologies.

But even BP, a company that changed its tagline to "Beyond Petroleum," sees renewable energy as a very small piece of the global energy picture--a situation that's not likely to change in the coming decades, according to BP's chief scientist, Steven Koonin.

Koonin spoke here on Monday to Massachusetts Institute of Technologies' energy student fellows, part of a campuswide initiative to promote technology innovation in energy.

BP is perhaps the most high-profile oil and gas company to take alternative energy seriously.

But Koonin said that changing from BP's core oil and gas exploration business is a slow process, given that demand for liquid fuels continues to go up.

"We're trying (but) it's not easy to change things...You can't cut off the present," he said. "Deployment of energy innovations (in the oil and gas industry overall) is very hard because of entrenched interests."

He said that climate regulations that put a price on emitting carbon dioxide would incent energy companies to invest in low-carbon energy sources.

"The only way you're going to get a shift off of this is through a price on carbon," Koonin said. A carbon tax or cap-and-trade system would act the same way that a rise in gasoline prices has prompted many people to conserve, he said.

"The question is whether it will be high enough...It needs to be high enough to hurt to get people to do something different," Koonin said.

He noted that Europe already has climate regulations in place, and the U.S. is likely to adopt its own. At the same time, he said "it was hard to imagine" the fast-growing economies of China and India having costly limits on carbon emissions.

In his talk, Koonin listed a number of technologies that BP is exploring or funding research in, including biofuels, underground carbon storage, and various means of improved oil and gas exploration.

BP researchers are exploring under-ice drilling in the Arctic, building more robust drilling platforms, more environmentally benign methods to extract oil from tar sands, and hydrogen production.

"Technically, there are lots of opportunities in conventional fossil fuels," he said.

At the same time, BP is investing a billion dollars to establish a biofuels business and is pushing into wind power. It has also done a handful of tests in carbon capture and sequestration, where large amounts of carbon dioxide are stored underground.

Carbon storage is a technology that could be an important option for reducing greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere, but it also faces a number of technical challenges, such as safe storage, Koonin said.

BP is also researching energy storage for renewable energy and advanced photovoltaics, although Koonin predicted it would be decades before they would make a major impact on worldwide energy use.

One of the most promising research paths is the intersection of biology and energy. BP, for example, is looking at how enzymes in cows and other ruminants can sequester carbon, he said.

"Beyond Petroleum was once an advertising slogan when I came in (in 2004). We're trying to do something about it now," he said.

LEBANON, N.H.--Mascoma is a biotech firm engineering its way into the energy business.

At its core is a staff of brainy Phds with expertise in microbial technology and cellulosic ethanol. But rather than design pharmaceuticals or crop seeds, Mascoma scientists are researching ways to make a cheaper fuel.

Its part of an industry-wide race to make ethanol from non-food sources, such as wood chips and grasses, at commercial scale.

Click on the image to see a photo gallery of Mascoma's lab. This image shows how a micro-organism is attracted to cellulose. Mascoma is genetically engineering an organism to metabolize cellulose and make ethanol.

(Credit: Mascoma)

If done right, cellulosic ethanol promises to be far better than the current feedstock--corn--from a commercial and environmental standpoint.

There are many techniques for making cellulosic ethanol, including gasification or multi-step processes that use enzymes and yeasts. But Mascoma is among only a handful pursuing its particular microbial technology path, its scientists say.

Mascoma's goal is to streamline the process by genetically engineering a microorganism that can metabolize cellulose and produce ethanol in a single step. That will cut out the need for adding costly enzymes, its scientists say.

Scientists scour the earth for naturally occurring bacteria and other microorganisms and bring them to their lab. There, Mascoma employees try to isolate certain characteristics, such as rapidly metabolizing cellulose.

Then they genetically combine those traits in a single microorganism to convert pretreated plant matter into ethanol.

The company has a pilot plant that uses wood chips to make ethanol in Rome, New York. Five to 20 metric tons of wood chips or other feedstock yield 100,000 to 500,000 gallons of ethanol per year.

A commercial-scale plant in Michigan using wood chips as a feedstock is scheduled to be operating in 2012. Eventually, it hopes to make ethanol at $1.50 a gallon, according to company executives.

Making of a supermicrobe
On Friday, Mascoma, which was founded by Dartmouth College professors, hosted a tour of its labs, housed in the Dartmouth Regional Technology Center (up the road from Mascoma Lake).

It also announced that investor General Motors' director of Global Energy Systems, Andreas M. Lippert, has joined Mascoma's scientific board. GM invested in Mascoma's $61 million series C round in May of this year, along with refiner Marathon Oil.

Lippert says that its investment in Mascoma and another ethanol company Coskata are meant to accelerate development of cost-effective cellulosic ethanol.

He said Mascoma's consolidated bioprocessing technology is an attempt at a breakthrough, compared to other processes. But it's not purely theoretical.

"This is within sight. We know how to do the genetic engineering--they are actively working towards that now. So there is some technical development that's needed but it's not a miracle we're waiting for," Lippert said.

Lippert said GM expects that industrial-scale cellulosic ethanol will begin flowing around 2011. Government mandates are set so that corn ethanol will level off around 2015 to be replaced by "advanced" biofuels, such as cellulosic ethanol.

Ethanol being produced now is blended with gasoline at 10 percent concentration. But for cellulosic ethanol to make a bigger impact on gasoline consumption, there needs to be a build-out of fueling stations for E85, a blend of 85 percent ethanol, Lippert said.

There are about 1,700 E85 stations in the U.S. right now, only about 1 percent of the total. To absorb that anticipated boost in ethanol, Mascoma and GM are assuming that there will be construction of more E85 stations and flex-fuel vehicles that can run on gas or E85.

"There are big hills and little hills," said Lee Lynd, Mascoma's co-founder and chief science officer. "In the scheme of things, this is a little hill."

Lynd said the company does not expect problems to arise from its genetically modified organisms. He said that any effects could be tested and that it will be used in a controlled environment.