Biofuel Research Taking Center Stage

I sit in the middle of the San Joaquin Valley, a bountiful region that has been referred to as the world's salad bowl - and for good reason.

Farmers here produce $20 billion worth of food and fiber annually that is shipped worldwide. Growers in Central California are efficient, productive, technologically advanced and raise a myriad of crops. Which leads me to wonder: could they become leaders in biofuel development too?

The United States and Brazil dominate biofuel production, led by ethanol. In 2009, the U.S. produced half of the world's supply of ethanol, most of it from corn, according to this report that UC Berkeley helped develop.

More production is likely as research into biofuel continues. Algae - pond scum and easily grown - shows promising potential. UC Merced, 60 miles from my desk in Fresno, is conducting cutting-edge research into algae, and a water-treatment company has inked a deal to distribute algae-extraction systems to its customers.

Algae research already is creating jobs, according to the study that UC Berkeley participated in. Solazyme, a biotech firm near San Francisco, has been hiring algae researchers at the rate of one per week. But other types of fuel are being tested as well. Among them are jatropha, switchgrass , sorghum (which is being tested in Hanford), canola and Miscanthus.

President Obama, trying to wean the nation off oil, is offering $30 million over the next three or four years for biofuel research, and the Berkeley study talks about growth in the industry.

"As start-ups mature and commercialize their technologies, the industry will bring on workers for a full range of production needs. That diverse workforce will range from farmers to....molecular engineers."

Farmers will be needed to grow the fuel sources, whatever they may be. The Southeast and Midwest are promising centers of biofuel, but some of the research is occurring in California, according to this report out of Parlier.

I wonder if the Valley's farmers - who are among the most entrepreneurial in the world - can perhaps help create a new cash crop.

Image by Solar1.org

Algae fuel and solar could use a little entrepreneurial True Grit

Recent developments in solar and biofuels lead me to believe that the sunny San Joaquin Valley could indeed become a leader in the emerging clean energy industry.

My co-worker Sandy Nax has called the Valley a Petri dish for alternative energy development because it has so many of the necessary attributes: available land, scorching sun and/or clear days a majority of the year, wind in the mountains and scads of agricultural resources for biofuel or biogas.

This morning, Sandy leaned over from his computer and said, "Clean energy could be a game changer." He was referring to the economy.

Sandy and I discuss the attributes of the sorry state of economic affairs that have devastated the region's real estate, toppled government tax revenues and put many of our neighbors out of work.

We used to work in the newspaper business, which hasn't fared well these past several years. As part of our jobs writing and editing business stories, we spent years analyzing trends and making sense of them.

This clean energy trend has been fascinating to watch. I still have no idea where it's going and what particular component will be the first to fuel jobs, but indicators have been extremely positive.

Just in the small amount of time I've been affiliated with the San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization, great strides have been made in industrial solar, offshore wind and biofuel. And that's just on top of the energy efficiency measures being taken by government, business and consumers.

While power from pond scum, or algae, intrigues me beyond all measure, commercializing the extraction of usable fuel at a decent price could be years away. Fellow reporter Jeff St. John reminded me after one post of algae's shortcomings.

Concentrated solar is another realm of massive possibility. The trick with solar is to increase efficiency and lower cost to make it reach or surpass "parity" with fossil fuels. The advancements in concentrated solar now in use were hinted at when I covered a San Jose start-up back in the mid 1980s.

I remember thinking, "That would be cool."

My optimism is bolstered by statements like this from John Denniston, a partner at greentech investor Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield and Byers, as reported by Andrew Nusca at smartplanet.com: "Some geographies are at (solar) grid parity: in Italy, in some parts of California."

Denniston made the comment at the 2011 Cleantech Forum in San Francisco. He said the industry is poised for a very big take-off, and he was talking about solar as a whole, not just the concentrated variety, which remains relatively rare.

A column by Christian Wolan on forbes.com caught my eye when oilgae.com's aggregator service sent it my way. Here's good old stalwart Forbes, albeit the electronic version, writing about pond scum. That's got to be a development in credibility, right?

To close out his review of the state of the technology, Wolan uses a quote from Riggs Eckelberry, president and CEO of OriginOil, a Los Angeles-based company that says it's "developing a breakthrough technology that will transform algae, the most promising source of renewable oil, into a true competitor to petroleum."

Wolan wrote that "referring to the algae biofuel programs of ExxonMobile, BP, Chevron and Valero, Eckelberry said, 'This final factor alone is driving the funding of algae projects.'"

I may as well quote myself here. Being raised in Interior Alaska, I'm very familiar with the power of oil companies. I watched when the first overland truck and cat train forged north up ice roads to Prudhoe Bay to develop the oil fields. Then grew to high-school age amongst the massive piles of pipe that either went overland or underground 800 miles to Valdez.

Many of us believed those companies could do anything. Perhaps it's that wildcatter streak that infuses much of the industry, the "Git Er Done" mentality, that turns a dream into job-creating reality.

I missed the pipeline boom of the mid 1970s, but I did get a job in Valdez in 1978 building foundations and basement and driveway slabs in a nicely designed subdivision -- Mineral Creek if I remember correctly. Huge mobile cranes dropped the manufactured homes onto the foundations when we finished. The boxy three-bedroom two-bath homes had been used to house the thousands of workers who built the terminal across the bay from the tiny city.

It would be nice to see a fraction of that kind of ingenuity, grit or tenacity -- from whatever source -- funneled into clean energy. Jobs would follow.

Timing, of course, is everything. I hope sooner than later. Right Sandy?

Photo courtesy alyeska-pipe.com

Biofuel & batteries bolster Golden State

Manufacturers of sorghum biofuel, electric trucks and lithium-ion battery packs are among eight to receive about $9.6 million in grants from California, reportedly producing a potential 2,500 jobs.

The money comes from the California Energy Commission's Alternative and Renewable Fuel and Vehicle Transportation program and is reported to be beefed up with $11,969,855 in private funds.

Energy Commissioner Anthony Eggert said in statement the idea is to tap partnerships to rebuild California's manufacturing base. The projects, he said, "will improve California's economy and its environment by fostering green, clean advancements in transportation."

The projects include:

Great Valley Energy LLC gets about $2 million to test sweet sorghum as a biofuel crop. The salt-tolerant crop needs one-third less water than cotton or corn and can yield as much ethanol per bushel as corn. Match funding of about $2 million will help install a pilot sorghum separation and testing facility in Hanford. "If the testing is successful, the team will consider building smaller-scale ethanol plants distributed across the Valley to be close to the sorghum fields to lower transportation costs," officials said. Each of the commercial refineries could create an additional 20 jobs. By 2020, Great Valley Energy estimates it could have 15 small dispersed plants. Total annual production would be more than 47 million gallons.

TransPower, based in Escondido, Calif., gets $1 million to study the feasibility of manufacturing large electric-drive trucks in or near San Pedro by 2013. "By combining several processes and companies under one roof, the (facility) would combine the building of components like advanced converters or battery modules with their assembly into electric drive systems. These would then be installed on-site into mass-produced truck bodies made elsewhere," officials said. The private match is another million, with a goal of 2,500 trucks by 2020, creating 1,500 high-paying jobs.

San Francisco-based Mission Motor Co. gets $505,381 to help produce prototype electric vehicle components for commercial production of electric motorcycles, scooters, cars, buses and even outdoor power equipment. Match funding is $623,581. The money will help create an assembly facility in downtown San Francisco that should be capable of producing 30,000 battery packs and motor control systems each year by 2015 and creating as many as 100 jobs.

Alameda County-based Electric Leyden Energy Inc. gets $2.96 million to help it "create a production line capable assembling its lithium ion cells into 10 battery packs per month for its partner in the project, electric vehicle manufacturer Green Vehicles of Salinas," officials said. The two companies will match the funding. The project will create 11 jobs immediately, with another 500 anticipated.

The San Diego Metropolitan Transit System gets $500,000 to help speed refueling its growing fleet of compressed natural gas-powered buses with larger, higher capacity fueling compressors. The Federal Transit Administration will provide about $1.2 million.

The City of San Jose gets $1.9 million to build a new system that turns trash into natural gas for transportation fuel. Match is $4,214,624 to create a facility to produce methane at the San Jose/Santa Clara Water Pollution Control Plant. The fuel could save the city $450,000 a year by using natural gas in its vehicles. The project would create about 15 construction jobs and an undetermined number of workers needed to operate the plant.

East Bay Municipal Utility District gets $1 million to make an estimated 300,000 gallons of biodiesel each year at its wastewater treatment plant in Oakland. "The process will utilize waste fats, oils and grease, a feedstock that reduces greenhouse gas emissions by 88 percent compared to regular diesel," officials said. Match is $1,575,000.

Western States Oil Co. gets $69,233 to the to convert an 8,000-gallon retail gasoline tank into one that can dispense wholesale biodiesel. "Because the tank is immediately adjacent to the Kinder Morgan Pipeline Terminal in San Jose, delivery trucks leaving the terminal will be able to easily access the biofuel," officials said.

Photo: International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics Sorghum field.

Biggest Solar Plant Approved in California

The approval of a solar thermal plant by the California Energy Commission is the latest in a string of similar proposals that, if developed, could deliver more than 1,500 megawatts of electricity - enough to power 1.5 million homes.

Energy commissioners just licensed the Blythe Solar Power Project a concentrated solar thermal electric-generating facility with four adjacent and identical solar plants of 250 megawatt each that could produce up to 1,000 megawatts.

Todd Woody, in this New York Times blog, calls it the world's largest solar thermal plant.

The project, which still awaits major financing, would use arrays of parabolic mirrors, similar to those in the photo, collect heat energy from the sun to create steam and then energy. The site is about two miles north of U.S. Interstate-10 and eight miles west of the City of Blythe in an unincorporated area of Riverside County.

The total area that will be disturbed by project construction and operation will be about 7,030 acres. The area inside the project's security fence, within which all project facilities will be located, will occupy approximately 5,950 acres.

That's big. And Woody noted that an additional 2,829 megawatts of solar power is on the drawing boards and facing at Dec. 31 approval deadline. We've written about some of that here.

Renewables win 2, lose 1

Renewable energy in California took some punches to the gut and scored some victories some this week and last.

On the upside, the California Public Utilities Commission appears poised to launch an incentive program meant to boost renewable energy projects and San Luis Obispo County moved the 250 megawatt California Valley Solar Ranch a big step forward by issuing a draft environmental impact report.

On the downside, the California Legislature failed to pass a renewable energy bill and the industry still faces the potential passage of Prop. 23, which would roll back 2006 climate change laws.

The proposed CPUC decision issued this week would require California utilities to purchase power from solar and other renewables that produce from one megawatt to 20 megawatts. A megawatt is about the amount consumed by 1,000 homes.

The measure would establish what is known in the industry as a feed-in tariff, which essentially gives renewable energy generators about what it costs to produce power.

Adam Browning, executive director of Vote Solar, hailed the CPUC decision. He said in a statement that the proposed measure would assist mid-sized solar projects, helping them secure support similar to the state's "robust policies for developing large, utility-scale solar power plants and for putting smaller systems on homes and businesses."

Browning said his organization looks forward to working with the CPUC to finalize details of the measure.

The "CPUC proposal is designed to unlock that missing piece, providing an additional opportunity for solar market and job growth and for quickly bringing massive new amounts of clean energy to the state,” he said.

The San Luis solar project is bound for 1,900 acres in the Carrizo Plains, an environmentally sensitive region known for endangered wildlife. Eric Wesoff of greentechmedia.com wrote that the environmental impact report, or EIR, involved 60 biologists and 30 biological surveys.

The EIR goes through a public comment period before heading back to county government for possible passage. Wesoff said trucks commissioned by developer San Jose-based SunPower could begin rolling by next summer.

The renewable energy bill ran out of time in the senate by the midnight deadline Tuesday. SB 722 would have turned an executive order signed by Gov. Schwarzenegger last year requiring that 33 percent of California's energy come from renewable sources by 2020 into law.

The failure disappointed supporters. Lauren Sommer of kqed.org quoted Laura Wisland, a clean energy analyst with the Union of Concerned Scientists, as saying, "We think not establishing a 33 percent renewable portfolio standard this year is a huge loss to California's environment and economy."

Solar costs to drop by half in five years?

Quite a bit has been said about the price of solar. Even I was turned off by the up-front costs of between $20,000 and $26,000 to add panels to the roof of my house.

However, new data show the price of electricity generated by the sun could soon could cost no more or less than electricity from the grid, according to a report touting Recovery Act spending released by Vice President Joe Biden this week.

"The cost of solar is forecast to reach grid parity over the next five years in many parts of the country," the report said, citing information from the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Technologies Program. "This means homeowners, who pay an average retail cost of about 10 cents per kilowatt hour, or kWh, for electricity from the grid, and utility companies, which have average wholesale power costs closer to 5 cents/kWh, can use solar power without paying a premium over fossil-based electricity."

Much depends on development of solar thin-film technology, which comes in two main varieties: cadmium telluride, or Cd-Te, and copper indium gallium selenide, or CIGS. The report, "The Recovery Act: Transforming the American Economy Through Innovation," said this would cut existing prices for solar power in half.

Further price reductions are expected, they could take years.

"If breakthroughs in technology can bring costs down to $0.06/kWh by 2030, solar power will be cheaper than retail electricity from the grid, even without government incentives," the report said. "At that cost, an average household with rooftop solar panels could save more than $400 each year in electricity bills."

By 2030, I'll be 70. Wonder if I'll still care? Probably.

Stephanie Powers of investopedia.com takes on the topic in a recent post. Her conclusion: It's still too expensive. Citing a U.S. Energy Information Administration report, she wrote, "The average cost of solar power is almost four times as much as traditional coal burning electric generation. The costs are difficult to compare due to the widely disparate nature of individual technologies but the net result is that startup costs are steep."

Many consider coal a viable option with about 30 new electricity-producing plants planned. It's dirtier, but cheaper and at this point obviously makes economic sense to those putting up the cash.

We burned coal in Fairbanks, Alaska (city motto: "We're way cooler than Fresno") our first winter in 1969, and it left a layer of gray dust on everything. We moved from the rented two-car garage into a new log cabin we had built with thick walls, doubled-up multi-paned windows and wood heat. Much cleaner.

Wood was a little more expensive, but spruce and birch smelled better than the sub-bituminous coal from the Usibelli Mine just up from Mount McKinley Park.

The same analogy could be used on solar: a little more costly but it doesn't dust you up with guilt.

But solar's making headway. While the U.S. Energy Information Administration's latest figures released this month show that just 0.6 percent of California's power comes from solar -- and 3.7 percent from wind -- a post by my colleague Sandy Nax says a bunch of new projects could obliterate that number in the state.

And Katy Rank Lev of Mother Nature Network wrote earlier this month about a study by researchers at Duke University in North Carolina that says solar power has become cheaper than nuclear power. She writes, the researchers "found that the cost of 'producing photovoltaic cells has been dropping for years ... at the same time, estimated costs for building new nuclear power plants have ballooned.' Thus, it's cheaper to put solar panels on houses than to build a new nuclear power plant to service them."

So, while solar is about twice the price now of electricity from the grid, it is expected to drop. But it needs people to buy in. Demand drives innovation and all that. And I'm not even bringing up the not-so-hidden environmental cost of fossil fuels.

We'll be watching.

Farmers, Rural Businesses Eligible for Energy Grants

Farmers and businesses in rural communities interested in installing renewable energy systems are eligible for grants of up to $50,000 through The Rural Energy for America Program.

U.S. Department of Agriculture officials expect to approve 110 awards totaling $3 million. The filing deadline is Oct. 5.

"This grant is an excellent opportunity for rural businesses and farmers to take advantage of federal funding to reduce costs and upgrade their energy infrastructure. The California Partnership for the San Joaquin Valley is very support of such measures of sustainability and growth for our rural partners," said Mike Dozier, director of the Office of Community and Economic Development at Fresno State University.

Eligible applicants are agriculture producers and rural small businesses. The farm companies have to generate at least 50% of their income from agriculture operations. The grants are to be used for feasibility studies for renewable-energy systems.

The Rural Energy for America Program is designed to help farm companies and rural small businesses reduce energy consumption and costs, and to help meet the nation's critical energy needs.

For more information, here's the link to the Federal Register.