Some Ideas About Where Federal Energy Research Money Should Go

April 28, 2009 12:47 PM PDT
Where federal energy research money should go
by Martin LaMonica

The U.S Department of Energy on Monday launched a $400 million program to fund development of disruptive energy technologies in a program modeled after the Department of Defense program that spawned space exploration and the Internet.

Called Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E), the mission is to fund research and development on "transformational energy technologies" to cut the country's reliance on fossil fuels. The Energy Department's ARPA-E office will start taking applications next month for research projects, which will be accepted based on their technical feasibility and potential commercial impact.

Only bold, high-risk ideas need apply, according to the Energy Department, and President Obama has even likened this research to the space race of the 1960s--only it will be harder. "Only truly transformational technologies that can contribute greatly to the ARPA-E's Mission Areas have any chance of funding. We are not looking for incremental progress on current technologies," according to the Energy Department's solicitation document.

So where should this money go? While it's impossible to say what specific programs could land a slice of the ARPA-E funding, there are significant categories that don't generate many headlines but bear watching beyond more established green technologies:

Making solar power cheap

Using the sun to power our world makes sense because it is a massive and free source of energy. But how do you capture it cheaply?

There are thousands of people working on this very problem in myriad ways. For a breakthrough, many scientists have said we need solar power to be as cheap as applying a coat of paint. Some are actually trying to do this. New Scientist reports on researchers in the U.K. who are doing this using dye-based solar cells sprinkled into paint.

The key here, as in so many energy-related endeavors, is the material. Right now, solar cells are made from silicon, which is abundant but expensive, or other chemical combinations. But there's a field of research and development around organic solar cells made from relatively cheap polymers. IBM and Harvard, for example, last year launched a project to pinpoint which are the chemical compounds with the most potential for converting sunlight into electricity. (If silicone is so abundant, why is it so expensive?)

Biohydrocarbons
Some researchers have found ways to turn plants into the stuff in our fuel tanks--gasoline, diesel fuel, and jet fuel--without having to wait millions of years, of course. There are different techniques but the end goal of researchers and a few companies, including Virent Energy and Sapphire Energy, is to take biomass, such as sugarcane and algae, and convert it into a fuel that's chemically equivalent to what's pumped through our pipelines today. (I have hears that sugar cane has eight times the energy than corn, true?)

For biofuels to be a healthy part of the energy mix, the product needs to be produced sustainably and to reduce the greenhouse gas emissions compared to petro-fuels. Determining what's sustainable requires a complicated lifecycle analysis, but so-called green gasoline has the advantage of fitting into the existing fuels infrastructure. And in theory, a plant-based hydrocarbon can use a replenishable feedstock that takes carbon out of the air as it grows.

The perfect battery

If there was ever an area that needs a technology breakthrough, it's energy storage. Better storage would make electric vehicles less expensive and make it easier to use more wind and solar power on the grid. It's difficult to say if there is a preferred method or chemistry. But what seems vital is to design a storage system around a material that is abundant, environmentally benign, and recyclable.

Battery company executives brush off the importance of lithium supply, but the lithium-ion battery boom has raised awareness of lithium supply, which is mostly found in South America and China. As we see different green technologies develop, minerals and metals other than lithium are likely to see a spike in demand.

Thermoelectricity

There are some thermoelectric materials that can generate an electrical current when heat is applied and vice versa. This technology isn't anything revolutionary--thermoelectric modules are what heat and cool car seats today. But what is intriguing is the potential for generating electricity--any form of usable energy, really--from waste heat. Imagine if you could convert all the heat going up the smokestacks of power plants and home furnaces into usable electricity. That would be efficient.

The challenge is similar to cheap solar cells in that the efficiency right now is too low for this technology to be deployed broadly. There are a handful of companies, including GMZ Energy, which is trying to come up with more efficient materials. Auto companies are also trying to outfit cars with thermoelectric chips so that an exhaust pipe, for example, could generate enough juice to make a more fuel-efficient ride.

Microbial fuel cells

What if you could make electricity by plugging an LED light into the ground? Or take waste water or sewage and turn it into usable energy? There are companies and researchers working on these problems using microbial fuels cells, which use an electrochemical energy conversion to make electricity. (Villages in India burn cow dung now for energy. How efficient is it?)

One Harvard researcher is pursuing this technology as a way to deliver cheap electricity to developing countries that need off-grid power sources, and the potential market is huge. Others companies, including Emefcy in Israel, see it as a way to treat waste water while generating electricity from a renewable source: waste.

Clearly, these are just the tip of the iceberg in terms of the technologies needed to better preserve our natural resources. One could easily list 100 more--hydrogen storage, water purification, marine power, enhanced geothermal, making methanol with carbon dioxide, or for a real home-run swing, cold fusion. What's your moonshot?

I have often wondered why the natural gas that is burned off on an oil rig cant be stored, or pumped right along with the oil thru the pipes? It also seems pretty obvious to me that if we could improve the performance of our internal combustion engines 10% our fuel efficiency would be significantly enhanced. I have heard about turbocharging and fuel injection as ways to get better combustion, but are there other possibilities? Also, there was a pretty cool idea at MIT, where solar power was used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen, store the hydrogen, and use it at night in fuel cells to make power. In addition, I also like switchgrass as a feed stock for biofuels- requires no fertizing, grows wild on lands that probably wont be cultivated anyway, and doesnt compete with the food crops. Wonder what the energy component is?

Biomass

Dear EarthTalk: There’s a lot of talk today about solar and wind power, but what about biomass? How big a role might this renewable energy source play in our future? Couldn’t everyday people burn their own lawn and leaf clippings to generate power?
-- Deborah Welch, Niagara Falls, N.Y.

The oldest and most prevalent source of renewable energy known to man, biomass is already a mainstay of energy production in the United States and elsewhere. Since such a wide variety of biomass resources is available—from trees and grasses to forestry, agricultural and urban wastes—biomass promises to play a continuing role in providing power and heat for millions of people around the world.

According to the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), biomass is not only a renewable energy source but a carbon neutral one as well, because the energy it contains comes from the sun. When plant matter is burned, it releases the sun’s energy originally captured through photosynthesis. “In this way, biomass functions as a sort of natural battery for storing solar energy,” reports UCS. As long as biomass is produced sustainably—with only as much grown as is used—the “battery” lasts indefinitely.

While biomass is most commonly used, especially in developing countries, as a source of heat so families can stay warm and cook meals, it can also be utilized as a source of electricity. Steam captured from huge biomass processing facilities is used to turn turbines to generate electricity. Of course, biomass is also a “feedstock” for several increasingly popular carbon-neutral fuels, including ethanol and biodiesel.

According to the federal Energy Information Administration, biomass has been the leading U.S. non-hydroelectric renewable energy source for several years running through 2007, accounting for between 0.5 and 0.9 percent of the nation’s total electricity supply. In 2008—although the numbers aren’t all in yet—wind power likely took over first place due to extensive development of wind farms across the country.

According to the USA Biomass Power Producers Alliance, generating power from biomass helps Americans avoid some 11 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions that burning the equivalent amount of fossil fuels would create each year. It also helps avoid annual emissions of some two million tons of methane—which is 20-plus times stronger a “greenhouse” gas than carbon dioxide—per year.

The largest biomass power plant in the country is South Bay, Florida’s New Hope Power Partnership. The 140 megawatt facility generates electricity by burning sugar cane fiber (bagasse) and recycled urban wood, powering some 60,000 homes as well as the company’s own extensive milling and refining operations. Besides preserving precious landfill space by recycling sugar cane and wood waste, the facility’s electricity output obviates the need for about a million barrels of oil per year.

Some homeowners are making their own heat via biomass-fed backyard boiler systems, which burn yard waste and other debris, or sometimes prefabricated pellets, channeling the heat indoors to keep occupants warm. Such systems may save homeowners money, but they also generate a lot of local pollution. So, really, the way to get the most out of biomass is to encourage local utilities to use it—perhaps even from yard waste put out on the curb every week for pick-up—and sell it back to us as electricity.

CONTACTS: UCS, www.ucsusa.org; USA Biomass Power Producers Alliance, www.usabiomass.org

Herald story- page 1

COVER STORY
Biomass to the rescue?
•Interview with executive director of Southern Alliance for Clean Energy Stephen Smith
By JOHN DORSCHNER
dorschner@MiamiHerald.com
for Biomass Gas & Electric, which has deals
to build three plants in Florida

Nobody loves biomass. When talk turns to global warming and the green movement, it's hardly ever mentioned. Biomass can be garbage (literally) or wood chips or sugar-cane remnants or grass.

Still, among energy experts, biomass has some strong supporters, and for good reason: Right now, virtually all the renewable-energy power in Florida comes from biomass, including three plants in Miami-Dade and Broward.

What's more, it's cheap -- cheaper in some instances even than coal, which is generally considered the nation's least expensive way of producing electricity but is also the biggest producer of greenhouse gases that scientists say are heating up the globe.

''We're very strong supporters of biomass,'' says Stephen Smith, head of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy. ''In the short run, it will be a real workhorse.'' But he adds: ``There are various shades of green in biomass. Some is better than others.''

As policymakers search for alternatives to fossil fuels that threaten to submerge South Florida under the sea, biomass has emerged as a leading possibility, much more plausible than wind in the state, but it comes with strong pluses and minuses.

Big business has gotten involved. Leading biomass producers -- including the multimillionaire Fanjul family with an electric plant burning sugar-cane leftovers -- have joined the push to require utilities to use more renewables and pay proper rates for them, which would mean the businesses could get decent revenue by expanding operations.

Still, many have concerns. ''Not all biomass is created equal,'' says Gerald Karnas of the Environmental Defense Fund.

Some environmentalists believe garbage is not as green as, say, wood chips. Others worry that arundo donax, a towering grass proposed by some as a biomass fuel, might spread unintentionally to many areas, including the Everglades, as have other non-native plants.

What's more, major companies in North Florida that use wood products are concerned that state subsidies for renewable energy could drive up the prices of timber that are used for everything from paper to fat-free ice cream.

Even so, research prepared for the Public Service Commission is showing that biomass and solar are the two top practical renewables in Florida.

''The bottom line is that Florida is well positioned for growth in biomass,'' says Sean Stafford, a lobbyist for Florida Crystals, the Fanjul company. He points out that biomass does not have the ''volatile price structure'' associated with natural gas, the No. 1 energy source of Florida Power & Light.

What follows is a primer on biomass.

ITS QUALITIES:

CARBON NEUTRAL?

Some biomass -- sugar-cane waste, wood chips -- is generally considered carbon neutral. As cane and trees grow, they soak up carbon dioxide, the major greenhouse gas. That gas is released when the biomass is burned, meaning they produce energy without contributing to climate change.

Garbage is another story. ''In Florida, biomass has a a very broad definition, according to the state legislature,'' says Karnas. ``In some states, power from municipal solid waste wouldn't be considered a renewable.''

The reason: Experts dispute how carbon neutral garbage is. ''It depends what's in it,'' says Smith of the Southern Alliance. ``If it's mostly yard clippings and paper, that could mean very little carbon. If there's a lot of plastic, that's made by a fossil fuel, meaning it's releasing quite a bit of carbon.''