Energy articles from June 2005

Energy archives from June 2005

Katrina: what can we learn?(EDITORIAL)(Editorial)
June 22, 2005... Looking for the vaunted Weapons of Mass Destruction? You need look no further than the eye wall of Hurricane Katrina. The U.S. Gulf coast, including the "city" of Louisiana (as Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff put it on "Meet the...

Petrodollar warfare: dollars, euros and the upcoming Iranian oil bourse.(ECONOMICS)
June 22, 2005... Contemporary warfare has traditionally involved underlying conflicts regarding economics and resources. Today these intertwined conflicts also involve international currencies, and thus increased complexity. Current geopolitical tensions...

Ernst Cohn, 1920-2004.
June 22, 2005... This issue of ENERGY marks the first time in 30 years that we will not have Ernst M. Cohn's regular commentary. Ernst died the last day of 2004 and we ran his last column in the Spring 2005 issue. Ernst was formerly Manager of Coal Research at...

Oil shockwave: a cabinet level task force examines the consequences of American oil dependence.(PETROLEUM)
June 22, 2005... On June 23, 2005, SAFE (Website: www.secureenergy. org), in partnership with the National Commission on Energy Policy, conducted a high profile Cabinet Level Oil Crisis Simulation called Oil ShockWave, which explored the extent and acuteness of...

Rationing is inevitable: sooner or later pressure will grow for formal allocation.(PETROLEUM)
June 22, 2005... It has to come sooner or later. As oil becomes scarcer and scarcer and price rises higher and higher, pressures will grow for a formal allocation system. Rationing will come, if only to calm the havoc at the gas lines and the social upheavals...

Plug Power issues progress report.(IN THE NEWS: FUEL CELLS)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Plug Power (Roger Saillant, President/CEO, 968 Albany-Shaker Road, Latham, NY 12110; Tel: 518/782-7700; www.plugpower.com) itemized its progress toward meeting corporate goals for calendar year 2005. The company has received orders for 179...

Consortium formed in Japan.(IN THE NEWS: FUEL CELLS)
June 22, 2005... Six Japanese companies have formed an R&D consortium that is undertaking a 5-year program to build a mass-producible fuel cell that operates under a wide variety of environmental and operational conditions. The six companies are Tokyo Gas,...

Surplus capacity: prior to Katrina, a study predicts that capacity will outstrip demand through 2010.(PETROLEUM)
June 22, 2005... Despite current fears that oil will soon "run out," global oil production capacity is actually set to increase dramatically over the rest of this decade, according to a new report by Cambridge Energy Research Associates (CERA). As a result,...

More Caribbean gas: Trinidad and Tobago continues to add capacity.(LNG)
June 22, 2005... Trinidad and Tobago is the largest supplier of LNG to the United States and one of the largest LNG exporters in the world. The Atlantic LNG Company, a consortium led by BP, BG, and Repsol-YPF, operates three LNG trains at Point Fortin, on the...

Corning to expand diesel exhaust products.(Coming Inc.)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... Coming Inc. announced that its board of directors has approved an additional capital expenditure of approximately $100 million for expanded capabilities at its new clean-diesel products manufacturing facility in Erwin, N.Y. This investment is...

Fuels of the future: technology intelligence for gas to liquids strategies.(NATURAL GAS)
June 22, 2005... The growing importance of natural gas imports from remote locations to the world's modern and emerging economies will force new thinking about energy supply and energy security. Natural gas is rapidly becoming a strategic energy source of...

Hydrogen FuelCell Energy, Air Products build integrated system.(In the News)
June 22, 2005... Air Products (Greg Keenan, Business Development Manager-Future Energy Solutions, 7201 Hamilton Blvd, Allentown, PA 18195-1501; Tel: 610/481-4911; www. airproducts.com) has subcontracted with FuelCell Energy (Dr. Hansraj C. Maru, CTO, 3 Great...

Air Products Supplies Mobile Stations to Toyota.(In the News)
June 22, 2005... Air Products (Mark Bye, Group VP--Gases and Equipment, 7201 Hamilton Blvd, Allentown, PA 18195-1501; Tel: 610/481-4911; www.airproducts.com) has provided a Series 100 H2 fueling station for the Toyota Technology Seminar in Grundau, Germany. Air...

Carbon dioxide emissions increase by 1.7 percent.(OUTLOOK)
June 22, 2005... U.S. carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels increased by 1.7 percent in 2004, from 5,796 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (MMTCO2) in 2003 to 5,896 MMTCO2 in 2004, according to preliminary estimates of the Energy Information...

Texas House boosts renewables goal.(OUTLOOK)
June 22, 2005... In July, the Texas House of Representatives voted 91 to 14 to adopt Senate Bill 20, which was passed unanimously by the Senate. The legislation will double the goal for the amount of wind power, solar power and other forms of renewable energy...

Energy bill provides solar credits.(OUTLOOK)
June 22, 2005... Based on the just-passed Energy Bill, for the first time since 1982, homeowners will receive a federal tax credit to install solar energy systems. The Senate bill would give homeowners that purchase solar electric or water heating systems a...

Sandia completes depleted uranium study.(NUCLEAR MATERIALS)
June 22, 2005... Sandia National Laboratories has completed a two-year study (An Analysis of Uranium Dispersal and Health Effects Using a Gulf War Case Study; see www.sandia.gov/news-center/ news-releases/2005/def-nonprolifsec/snl-dusand.pdf) of the potential...

Continuous-run fuel cell systems.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... Plug Power, Inc. received a $943,000 contract extension from the Department of Defense as part of the Common Core Power Production Program. This new funding will enable Plug Power to begin field testing the company's next-generation...

Solar dishes producing electricity at Sandia.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... Six large solar dishes--each nearly four stories tall and synchronized to turn with the movement of the sun--are now producing electricity from the heat of the sun at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque, New Mexico. The model power...

Loans available for renewable energy.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... According to USDA Rural Development an estimated $200 million in guaranteed loan funds are now available for investments in renewable energy systems and energy efficiency improvements by agriculture producers and rural small businesses. The...

$195 million to develop energy-efficient vehicles.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... The U.S. DOE and the U.S. Council for Automotive Research (USCAR) have reached an agreement to invest as much as $125 million over five years to develop advanced high-performance batteries for electric, hybrid electric and fuel cell vehicle...

Electricity from photovoltaics called 'imminent'.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... Solar concentrators using highly efficient photovoltaic solar cells will reduce the cost of electricity from sunlight to competitive levels soon, attendees were told at a recent international conference on the subject. Herb Hayden of Arizona...

Quantum awarded Phase 2 of H2 storage program.(Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide Inc. )(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... According to Quantum Fuel Systems Technologies Worldwide, Inc., the U.S. Department of Energy has awarded the company Phase 2 of its $2.6 million program for the development and advancement of next generation hydrogen storage technologies....

Bacteria in wastewater harnessed for electricity.(TECHNOLOGY)
June 22, 2005... An environmental engineer has found a way not only to cleanse contaminated wastewater with its own bacteria but to generate electricity from the funky flow. Lars Angenent, an assistant professor of chemical engineering at Washington University...

Grants for University-based clean-coal research projects.(COAL)
June 22, 2005... The Ohio Air Quality Development Authority (OAQDA), through its Ohio Coal Development Office (OCDO), has approved $1,269,428 in funding for 15 clean-coal research projects at six Ohio universities for the 2005-2006 academic year. The funded...

Rebuild of biodiesel plant nearly complete.(COAL)
June 22, 2005... The main projects for a recent workday were computer programming and more work on the methanol distillation tower. But the list of projects needed to finish a $500,000 remake of the 7-year-old biodiesel pilot plant at the Iowa Energy Center's...

SPX launches solution for natural gas industry.(ENERGY EFFICIENCY)
June 22, 2005... According to SPX Corp, (Website: www.spx.com), their Cooling Technologies business has received its first order, valued at over $8 million, for a heating tower that utilizes its new patent-pending heat transfer design. Developed for use in...

Increasing efficiency in commercial buildings.(ENERGY EFFICIENCY)
June 22, 2005... The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) recently launched a multi-year campaign to increase energy efficiency at 9 billion square feet of commercial properties. The association started the energy efficiency program on June 28 at its...

Battery recycling rates up 9 percent.(ENERGY EFFICIENCY)
June 22, 2005... The nonprofit Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corp. (RBRC), 1000 Parkwood Circle, Suite 450, Atlanta, GA 30339; Tel: 212/780-1900) reports that for the first six months of 2005, a total of 2,259,635 pounds of rechargeable batteries was collected...

Big three contracts NextEnergy for codes.(ENERGY EFFICIENCY)(Brief Article)
June 22, 2005... NextEnergy (James Croce, CEO, 461 Burroughs, Detroit, MI 48202; Tel: 313/833-0100; www.nextenergy.org) has signed agreements with Daimler-Chrysler, Ford, and GM to undertake a comprehensive Codes and Standards Project that will support the...

Oil and gas facilities will cut air toxics.(ENVIRONMENT)
June 22, 2005... Expanding upon a 1998 proposal, EPA is proposing a second option to reduce air toxics emissions from an estimated 2,200 facilities that produce oil and natural gas. This option would reduce emissions of air toxics by 16,400 tons per year and...

BP: 'carbon-free' electricity from hydrogen.(ENVIRONMENT)
June 22, 2005... BP, ConocoPhillips, Shell and Scottish and Southern Energy (SSE), are commencing engineering design of the world's first industrial scale project to generate "carbon-free" electricity from hydrogen. The project would represent a significant new...

Salmon survival, cleaner hydropower.(ENVIRONMENT)
June 22, 2005... Depending on weather patterns, hydroelectric power accounts for between 7 percent and 12 percent of the electricity generated in the United States, but it plays a far bigger role along the Pacific Coast. There, it accounts for more than 50...

Honeywell to implement peak load management program.(ELECTRIC UTILITIES)
June 22, 2005... Hawaiian Electric Co. (www.heco.com), a utility that serves 250,000 residential customers on the Island of Oahu, has signed a $3.9 million contract with Honeywell (www.honeywell.com/ buildingsolutions) to implement a peakload management...

Distributed technologies and energy services in rural areas.(ELECTRIC UTILITIES)
June 22, 2005... A team of energy experts led by Navigant Consulting, Inc. (www. navigantconsulting.com) and Soluz, Inc. (www.SoluzUSA.com) is undertaking a multi-client study on the state of rural energy delivery and the role for distributed energy...

Organic photovoltaics have broad potential.(ELECTRIC UTILITIES)
June 22, 2005... Konarka and KURZ, a global manufacturer of printed polymer electronics technology have formed a partnership to take Konarka's organic photovoltaic technology out of the lab. The multi-year, multi-phase collaboration will focus on research and...

$15.1 billion in consumer savings.(ENERGY POLICY/ECONOMICS)
June 22, 2005... Global Energy Decisions, Inc., recently released a study, "Putting Competitive Power Markets to the Test," (see www.globalenergy.com/ competitivepower.pdf) which clearly demonstrates how customers benefit from wholesale electric competition....

Energy trading to grow by 30 percent.(ENERGY POLICY/ECONOMICS)
June 22, 2005... High commodity prices and volatility are driving growth in energy trading as producers try to maximize their market share and profitability and buyers attempt to control their energy costs and risks. This was revealed in a new study published...

When is a battery, a battery?(COMMENTARY)
June 22, 2005... When battery analysts get together and talk, they tend to discuss the "big issues" like the future of EVs, the hydrogen economy, and the correct punctuation for electrode couples. And eventually, they get around to the critical question: when...

Coal's future: the Energy Bill reinforces coal's role in the nation's energy economy.(COAL)
June 22, 2005... In late July, mining industry saw a five-year quest for congressional passage of comprehensive national energy legislation come to fruition when both the House and Senate passed the historic "Domenici-Barton Energy Policy Act of 2005." The...

Corn is king: on Capitol Hill, ethanol still has clout.(ALTERNATIVES)
June 22, 2005... Four years in the making and 1,700-pages long, the energy bill Congress recently presented might well be called the "No Energy Lobbyist Left Behind Act." An energy bill worthy of the name would remove political barriers to the production...

New York City will test biofuels.(ALTERNATIVES)
June 22, 2005... Two biofuel projects coordinated by Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) with support from the Northeast SUN Grant Center for Excellence at Cornell University will begin this summer in New York City. The goal is a real-world assessment of the...

Green trading: RECs, ERCs, SEPs, negawatts, and LEEDs points, are all real. But what are they worth?(ALTERNATIVES)
June 22, 2005... RECs, ERCs, SEPs, negawatts, and LEEDs points, they're all real, or mostly real, and they're worth money. How much money, for whom, and are they convertible amongst each other remain questions to be answered are the general themes that ran...

Fusion finding: Purdue data supports earlier fusion experiments.(RESEARCH)
June 22, 2005... Researchers at Purdue University have new evidence supporting earlier findings by other scientists who designed an inexpensive "tabletop" device that uses sound waves to produce nuclear fusion reactions. The technology, in theory, could...

Calendar.
June 22, 2005... September 22-23, 2005, Nuclear Fuel Strategies, Four Points Sheraton, Washington, DC. Contact: Platt's; Tel: 866/355-2930; E-mail: registration@ platts.com; Website: www.platts.com/ Events/PB539/index.html. September 25-27, 2005, National...

We need a hydrogen policy: federal policy must be shaped by the best current knowledge; future policy by objective research.(COMMENTARY)
June 22, 2005... Due to the long transition time associated with vehicle turnover and fuel infrastructure introduction, near-term business and policy decisions will affect the transportation and energy sector for many years to come. In particular, it is...

Not much promise in the Energy Bill: the Energy Bill now before Congress displays an abject failure of leadership.(COMMENTARY)
June 22, 2005... Our current energy path is unsustainable. Gas prices are up. Demand for oil is up. Americans are dying in Iraq, and dependence on Persian Gulf oil is up. Even the president agrees that catastrophic climate change is a real and present danger....