Alternative-Alternative Energies: What’s Next?

From Technewsworld.com

Gone are the days when “fringe technologies” meant things like solar energy and wind power.

Those and other alternative energy approaches have all gone mainstream, to one degree or another, and they’re gaining more steam each year.

However, the fringe is still out there, and so-called alternative-alternative energy technologies are in development.

Some are closer to application than others; some depend on geographical factors for practical use.

“We start paying attention once they reach the point of showing some promise,” Gartner (NYSE: IT) More about Gartner analyst Zarko Sumic told TechNewsWorld. ”

Emerging energy technology is now known as “operational technology,” said Sumic, who works with Gartner’s energy and technology advisory services, a group that explores the potential effects of emerging energy technologies on the IT sector.

“All the renewables, and climate and energy independence, have received significant attention,” Sumic said.

Thermal solar energy is getting a lot of research time, he noted. “There are different formats of it. It uses concentrated solar energy in order to create steam and ultimately generate electricity through traditional movement of the steam and heat medium.”

Thermal solar energy is probably generating enough attention to be moving away from the category of “fringe” technology, said Sumic. “It’s kind of coming,” he said.

So-called fringe technologies have taken hold in bastions of early technology adoption like California, said Charles King, principal with Pund-IT More about Pund-IT.

“Energy on the fringe is a fairly common topic here in California,” he told TechNewsWorld. “I’d include everything from do-it-yourself projects [such as] home solar and wind turbine energy production [and] electrical car kits to cutting-edge research in areas such as thin-film solar, next-gen batteries, cellulosic ethanol, algal fuel, ocean/tidal energy and natural gas conversion.

Thin film solar has gotten quite a bit of attention — and research dollars, King said, “but is still some ways out. On the plus side, it’s far cheaper and, literally, more flexible than traditional silicon-based solar power technologies. On the down side, it currently costs way more and is significantly less efficient. Lots of work being done here.”
Tidal Power

There’s also a set of tidal-power technologies, Gartner’s Sumic said.

“They have been used for a number of years in river estuaries and capturing the water in high tide and releasing it through hydro turbines,” he noted.

“Now, there are some different metals being explored to use some of the latest research in looking at using slow-moving water,” Sumic continued. “There is some research that is looking at using the different levels of waters — peaks and lows — and using that to push the water through the turbines.”

Indirectly, it can be categorized as an extension of wind power, through intermediaries, he added.

A third category of ocean energy involves trying to take advantage of the turbine energy in deep water, Sumic said.

“It’s a whole class of oceanic, or water-related, technology: the tidal, veil and the thermal,” he said.

Tidal energy, derived from turbines driven by the motion of the tides or river or ocean currents, shows “incredible” potential, commented Pund-IT’s King.

“A company called Verdant Power has been running a research project on the East River since 2006,” he said, “and SeaGen, in Northern Ireland — the first commercial unit installed anywhere — began generating at full power last month.”

Water power presents a number of options, noted Gartner’s Sumic. “We have that reversible hydro power plant: You can pump water back in the reservoir and reverse the flow during the peak.”

However, hydro power is limited by geography, observed Rob Enderle, principal with the Enderle Group More about Enderle Group.

“You’ve got to have a stream in close proximity to make that work,” he said.

Hydrogen power also belongs more in the realm of potential than practical energy sources, said Gartner’s Sumic, noting that the category has received attention primarily due to its possible use as an automotive fuel.

“To have an infrastructure Linux MPS Pro Focus on Your Business — Not Your IT Infrastructure. — to find a way to store and produce it effectively — is where a lot of research is,” he said.
Down Side of Geothermal?

Geothermal energy isn’t practical, at least at the moment, said Enderle.

“Doing an earth-core tap will cost a million bucks,” he told TechNewsWorld.

Gas sources are also questionable and limited to certain areas, Enderle pointed out, although “the methane stuff is being considered for farms because you’ve got a lot of it.”

Natural gas conversion uses catalytic processes to convert carbon-based materials — including coal and feed stocks — into pipeline-quality natural gas, noted Pund-IT’s King.

“T. Boone Pickens is pressing hard in this area,” he said, “and bankrolled an initiative in California last November to promote the use of natural gas in automobiles. Converting cars to use natural gas is fairly simple and the technologies are readily available, but many consumers are reluctant to drive the Detroit equivalent of the Hindenburg.”

Technologies that help to use energy more efficiently, rather than power generation, are the focus of Sumic’s group at Gartner.

“The one that is definitely critical or has a huge promise is super conductivity — high temperature,” he said. “It’s not used as a means to generate; it’s a technology that can reduce losses. So, indirectly, it increases the availability of the energy.”

There also are storage technologies that aren’t used directly to generate power but can be used predictably with wind and solar and renewables, Sumic said.

“Some technologies are lithium batteries, where there’s a lot of research because of electric vehicles,” he said. “There’s a whole set of other storage technologies — some of them using magnetic fields. Some are using traditional capacitors. Some flywheels and things like that.”

Some of those fringe technologies have made more progress toward practical use than others, noted Sumic.

“High-temperature superconductivity has been around for a number of years but hasn’t moved from the very early stage,” he said. “[Regarding hydrogen], there’s a lot of technology there, but it faces challenges in how to produce economically efficient hydrogen. At this point, you spend more energy than you get.”

Storage also represents a significant hurdle that “research hasn’t passed,” he said.

Still, next-generation batteries are showing promise, maintained Pund-IT’s King.

“It’s another area of great focus — especially in Asia — that will eventually provide power storage for everything from fuel cells for mobile computers and cell phones to next-generation lithium ion batteries for electric autos,” King said. “There’s some interesting stuff being done, but viable commercial products are some years away.”

Even with renewable energy sources, storage remains an issue, Sumic emphasized, and it has attracted a “significant amount of investment. … “The reason for that in the utility industry is because of the increased percentage of renewables. You need to find a way to couple them with storage technology. You store it and release it when it’s needed.”
Biofuels Progress

On the biofuels front, there is plenty of research into cellulosic ethanol as a less labor- or chemically intensive energy source than corn- and grain-based ethanol, King said.

“Switch grass is one of the sources most people are discussing here, but ethanol can also be brewed with everything from wood chips to corn stalks and leaves,” he explained. “It’s interesting technology that is more environmentally friendly than corn ethanol, but volume production is a long way down the road.”
Alternative-Alternative Energies: What’s Next?
Algal fuel or algae-based biofuel holds “great promise,” due to its energy potential,” King said, adding that algae contains up to 30 times more fuel than equivalent amounts of other biofuel sources and can be grown almost anywhere.

Still, he acknowledged, “for now, it’s far too expensive to produce commercially.”

Where all the research goes depends largely on funding. The U.S. government spends less in inflation-adjusted dollars on alternative-energy research than it did in the 1970s, particularly in the area of geothermal technology.

“While it is true that we have structural — tax and regulatory — benefits for renewal and nonpolluting energy sources, that is not the same as research dollars,” Jonah Stein, founder of ItsTheROI.com, told TechNewsWorld.

There is more to discover on the edges, he noted.

“I suppose the fringe elements are things like high altitude wind generation, tide- and wave-based ocean generation, and biological solar capture,” said Stein.

“Really fringe? How about passive nuclear energy — [a] technology that converts radiation from nuclear waste into electricity from micro-generation, instead of building highly complex and potentially disastrous reactors that require the nuclear chain reaction to be on the borderline of going critical? Given the half-life of some of these radiation sources,” he speculated, “we could build 10,000-year generators.”

Solar thermal comes out of the shadows

By Douglas Fischer, Daily Climate

There is energy to be harvested in deserts of Southern California, Arizona, Spain and Africa: Sunlight focused so intensely it can melt salt, vaporize water and run air conditioners from Phoenix to Seville long after the sun has set.

This is concentrating solar power, and it represents the best hope for utility-scale power from renewable energy and the surest way to get energy-sucking Sun Belt cities off carbon.

It’s also a technology you’ve likely never heard of, given the attention and credits lavished on rooftop photovoltaic kits.

Concentrating solar power, or solar thermal, is a world apart from photovoltaic solar, the world’s fastest-growing energy technology. Rather than use silicon-based panels to chemically convert sunlight to electricity, solar thermal uses mirrors to focus the sun’s rays on pipes carrying oil or other heat-absorbing fluid. Sunlight heats the oil to 500° C or more; hot oil flashes water to steam; steam spins a turbine; the turbine makes juice.

Simple? That’s the attraction.

This is big-time electricity. Utilities have inked power purchase agreements for almost 5,000 megawatts from developers building solar thermal plants. Sixty plants worldwide are on the drawing board or being built. The price of power from these plants is competitive with the gas-fired peaker plants keeping the electric grid afloat as demand skyrockets on hot afternoons.

And hot afternoons are precisely when solar thermal plants do their best work.

“This is just so obvious it’s going to be huge,” said Terry Collins, Thomas Lord Professor of Chemistry at Carnegie Mellon and director of the university’s Institute for Green Science. “It’s going to completely change the country.”

There are caveats, however.

Wind is much further ahead, in both price and technology.

Within the solar family, solar thermal remains the laggard. The United States has 418 megawatts of installed solar thermal capacity, compared to 750 megawatts of PV and the thermal equivalent of 2,250 megawatts of solar water heating systems, according to the association. All that together equals less than one percent of the nation’s energy mix.

The recent extension of Congress’ solar tax credit rid the domestic market of a lot of anxiety and promises to spur growth, said Monique Hanis, spokeswoman for the Solar Energy Industries Association. But the United States will be playing catch-up: Germany is installing eight times the solar capacity as the United States.

The U.S. electric grid doesn’t connect the best solar spots – in the unpopulated Southwest deserts – with the nation’s cities. Partly because of that, many utilities are turning first to multiple rooftop-mounted PV panels to create distributed power networks. Southern California Edison, which in August inked a contract for 900 megawatts of wind power, plans to install 3.5 million rooftop PV systems in urban areas over the next five years, generating 250 megawatts of juice.

The promise of solar thermal is, so far, just that: Promise. Beyond a 64 megawatt power plant in Nevada, the United States hasn’t build a major solar thermal plant since 1978.

Yet there are signs solar thermal is about to claim its moment in the sun.

First, prices are converging. A modern solar thermal plant produces power in the 12- to 18-cents-per-kilowatt-hour range. By comparison a photovoltaic system generates juice for about 40 cents a kilowatt-hour, a baseload coal plant churns out power for three to five cents per kilowatt-hour, and wind enjoys a 2.1 cent tax credit on every kilowatt-hour produced, bringing it into coal’s upper range. Natural gas runs between 12 and 20 cents a kilowatt-hour.

But solar won’t ever be baseload, utilities say – what if it rains for a week? – and wind, though cheap, is often most plentiful at night when demand is lowest.

That leaves natural gas, which, conveniently enough, is the fossil fuel solar thermal is best suited to replace. Gas-fired peaker plants are designed to quickly bring juice online as demand spikes throughout the day.

“You essentially take the pressure off the grid system,” said Collins, the Carnegie Mellon professor. “We already have much more expensive peak-time electricity…. And that’s smack in the middle of when these things are doing their best work.”

There’s also solar thermal’s trump card: Storage.

The ability to store power for later use is a holy grail of sorts for renewable energy developers. Wind and photovoltaic plants force utilities to use the power on the spot or dump the load. Various batteries and capacitors are in the works for those technologies, but none so far match the smooth efficiency or low cost of solar thermal’s ability to hoard sunlight.

A plant designed with storage can shunt the hot oil from the mirrors to a giant insulated heat sink – a vat of molten sand, say, or a chunk of concrete or pig iron. Then after the sun sets but while demand remains high, that heat can be tapped to generate steam.

Or if a cloud rolls over a plant’s mirrors, or an afternoon thunderstorm stalls overhead, hundreds of megawatts of juice won’t suddenly drop off the grid. Utility operators can simply tap the tank.

“We’ve sort of stumbled on this thing with storage,” said Tom R. Mancini, program manager for concentrating solar power technologies at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “The round-trip efficiency is 90 percent…. Solar thermal is made for this.”

Arizona Public Service is building a plant that can keep the sun’s power for six hours past sunset, allowing managers to meet evening demand spikes with midafternoon sun. A utility in Spain hopes to develop a plant that can keep heat for seven. Engineers figure 14 hours or more is feasible.

See-sawing fuel prices and a carbon tax’s uncertainties further stack the deck in solar’s favor, said Steven Gotfried, renewable energies spokesman for Arizona Public Service. “You take those two dynamics, and then you start to look at the fact it has storage capacity, and you see that not only is (concentrating solar power) a clean, renewable source of energy – it makes smart business sense,” he said.

The realization that all this carbon-neutral renewable energy can be harvested from the desert has sparked a bit of a global rush:

Nevada has a 64 megawatt plant up and running; Arizona is building a 280 megawatt plant; in California, Ausra Inc. opened a 5 megawatt test plant in Bakersfield this fall, while the Bay Area’s Pacific Gas & Electric Co. this summer inked five contracts for 900 megawatts worth of solar thermal.

Israel is eying a 250 MW plant, and Seville, in Spain, hopes to have 300 MW of solar thermal powering all 180,000 of its homes by 2015.

All told some 60 plants are either under construction or under contract worldwide – with most in either Spain or the United States – for a total capacity just north of 5,700 megawatts.

“We’re going to see a lot more of these,” said Hanis, the solar association spokeswoman.

Concentrating solar thermal won’t work everywhere – plants need clear skies and dry air, which explains why Germany, with the cloud cover of Alaska, is pushing photovoltaic panels instead of solar thermal.

That said, the sun drops an enormous abundance of untapped energy daily into deserts worldwide. “You can do long-line, direct-current cables from North Africa to Europe,” said Reid Detchon, director of the Energy Future Coalition. “It’s certainly cheaper than doing PV in Germany.”

“Whether it’s going to be the solution 30 years from now, I’m much less confident,” he added. “But it’s a good next step.”