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.

Report links national security to energy independence

A report released today links national security to energy independence and says the U.S. Department of Defense stands the best chance of guiding development of alternative sources of power and defusing the growing threat caused by relying on other countries for fuel.

"America's current energy posture undermines our economic security and constitutes a serious and urgent threat to our national security," said officials of CNA, a not-for-profit research and analysis firm based in Alexandria, Va. that released the report.

The Defense Department is uniquely positioned to spur clean energy innovation "because of its size, the considerable amount of energy it consumes and its extensive experience in technological innovation," says the report, issued by CNA's Military Advisory Board. "DoD is in a position to help drive this change -- for itself and the nation as a whole."

CNA says the board is made up of 15 top-ranking admirals and generals.

The report, Powering America's Economy: Energy Innovation at the Crossroads of National Security, says that without a strong economy, the United States has neither a strong defense, nor effective international influence.

"We need to remain competitive in the world as we move toward a future of green, sustainable energy," said Gen. Charles F. "Chuck" Wald, USAF (Ret.), in a statement. "The biggest motivation to do it is national security."

The report draws similarities of the race to get a man into space back in the 1960s between the U.S. and USSR. It lists China, Spain, Germany and even the United Arab Emirates as pushing forward with greater gusto and success than the United States in the realm of green energy innovation. Failure to develop its own technology would again require the U.S. to depend on foreign nations to meet future energy needs, the report says.

U.S. military might could eliminate that concern. "Numerous widely adopted technologies, including the jet engine, gas turbines, solid-state electronics, and the Internet were pioneered by the United States military," the report said.

The report also said the Defense Department should partner with the U.S. Department of Energy for that agency's "robust research and development capability for energy technologies and vast knowledge base."

Gen. Gordon Sullivan (Ret.), chairman of CNA's Military Advisory Board, said, "The DoD-DoE partnership, which has been successful in the past, could be instrumental in the move away from fossil fuels if there is a willingness to empower this team to seek clean, renewable, and economical sources of power for domestic use."

The report said the U.S. government "should take bold and aggressive action to support clean energy technology innovation and significantly decrease the nation's dependence on fossil fuels."

The CNA Military Advisory Board also produced the 2007 report "National Security and the Threat of Climate Change" and the 2009 report "Powering America's Defense: Energy and the Risks to National Security." Its roster includes retired 2-, 3- and 4-star flag and general officers from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, National Guard and Reserve. The board includes a former Army Chief of Staff, commanders of U.S. forces in global regions, and leaders in logistics, procurement, research and development, engineering, nuclear energy and ocean management.

The San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization is a nonprofit dedicated to improving our region's quality of life by increasing its production and use of clean and alternative energy. The SJVCEO works with cities and counties and public and private organizations to demonstrate the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the eight-county region of the San Joaquin Valley.

Fuels from sunlight? Energy Department says, 'Make it so'

A California team won an award of up to $122 million to produce fuels from the sun, the U.S. Department of Energy said today.

The key appears simple in concept but Star Trek complex in execution. The mission will be making it commercially viable.

"Finding a cost-effective way to produce fuels as plants do -- combining sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide -- would be a game changer, reducing our dependence on oil and enhancing energy security," said U.S. Deputy Secretary of Energy Daniel Poneman, in a statement.

The award is over five years. It went to the California Institute of Technology, which is partnering with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and other California institutions, and will establish the Joint Center for Artificial Photosynthesis.

"With this award, some of California's top scientists will continue to lead the way forward by working together to create 'artificial photosynthesis,' a process that can emulate the inner workings of plant life to produce a useful transportation fuel we can put right into our cars without further processing," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., in the DOE statement.

"If successful, this concept -- to combine sunlight, water and carbon dioxide to produce a clean fuel -- would revolutionize the energy sector. It would help scrub the atmosphere of excessive carbon dioxide, help eliminate our dependence on oil, and generate an innovative industry in the heart of California. This is very exciting."

The operation is one of three that will receive money from DOE this year. The agency announced in May that a team led by Oak Ridge National Laboratory will pursue research on modeling and simulation for nuclear reactors. The final selection has yet to be announced.

DOE officials explained cracking the sunlight-to-fuel process this way: "Research will be directed at the discovery of the functional components necessary to assemble a complete artificial photosynthetic system: light absorbers, catalysts, molecular linkers, and separation membranes. The Hub will then integrate those components into an operational solar fuel system and develop scale-up strategies to move from the laboratory toward commercial viability."

Clear as mud?

The San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization is a nonprofit dedicated to improving our region's quality of life by increasing its production and use of clean and alternative energy. The SJVCEO works with cities and counties and public and private organizations to demonstrate the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the eight-county region of the San Joaquin Valley.

Algae and wastewater mix to make power results

A University of Merced graduate student hates "waste" in wastewater, and is looking for ways to use it to create algae, a biofuel.

Patrick Wiley's interest in wastewater began in his home state of Maine, and then expanded into his study of renewable fuel sources, according to this story out of UC Merced. Algae grows naturally in wastewater and, through photosynthesis can be used for biofuel.

Wiley's studies led him to the master's program at Humboldt State University and then to UC Merced, where he is teaming up with Professor Elliott Campbell, who shares his interest in biofuels.

This is what Elliott told us: "The synergistic opportunity that is most apparent to me for the Valley is between wastewater and algae biofuels. Finding cost effective ways to produce algae biofuels is a real challenge. The San Joaquin Valley may be a good place to think about economic solutions where existing algae wastewater ponds can be combined with algae biofuels production."

Wiley will work in Santa Cruz cultivating algae in ocean-floating bags and with a UC Berkeley group that is developing ways to generate power with algae.

We are so fortunate to have UC Merced in our Valley, and look forward to hearing more from Wiley and other students at the university. Thanks to them, the San Joaquin Valley, which has low incomes, high power bills and is ideally suited to benefit from and develop clean energy, could someday be the standard-bearer for clean and alternative energy.

The San Joaquin Valley Clean Energy Organization is a nonprofit dedicated to improving our region's quality of life by increasing its production and use of clean and alternative energy. The SJVCEO works with cities and counties and public and private organizations to demonstrate the benefits of energy efficiency and renewable energy throughout the eight-county region of the San Joaquin Valley.