WCI #5: Wind power from the stratosphere

The fifth installment of new ideas from Scientific American:

"According to a Stanford University study released in July, the high-altitude winds that constantly blow tens of thousands of feet above the earth hold enough energy to supply all of human civilization 100 times over. California's Sky WindPower has proposed harvesting this energy by building fleets of airborne, ground-tethered windmills (below), while Italy's Kite Gen proposes to accomplish the same feat using kites."


One would hope they are taking flight plans into account.

Some limitations

Heat Wave Demonstrates Limitations to Wind Power

The Pacific Northwest just finished four days of triple digit temperatures, which put the heat on renewable energy sources to keep up with demand. Just as records were being set for power consumption, wind power generation slowed due to the calm air from the locked-in high pressure system.

The extreme weather highlights the reality that wind -- and to a lesser extent hydropower -- may not be a panacea for power production.

Southern Washington and the Portland metro area had a record breaking streak of warmth that pushed energy demand to record highs, but the high pressure system also featured calm breezes. The local utility Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) had to quickly balance the reduction in wind power with increases in hydropower.

To make matters worse, during long hot and dry spells the water levels in the rivers that produce power can also drop, further reducing the ability for renewables to meet peak demand.

Granted, this is an extreme example of both weather and a utility that has a strong (and growing stronger) portfolio of renewable power. Despite the Northwest's infamous frequent cloud cover, BPA might consider installing concentrated solar farms on the sunnier (east) side of the Cascades if it wants to avoid adding more fossil fuel production.

BPA has been dealing with wild fluctuations in wind for some time, as reported by the Seattle Post Intelligencer. The utility has been making wind power producers pay for its cost in balancing wind with other resources, and recently spiked fees by "only" 90 percent after considering quadrupling the cost.

Per the paper: "By 2011, the agency estimates the system will run out of the capacity to adjust enough to accommodate for the variations of wind power.

As a result, the BPA, a nonprofit federal power-marketing agency, is accelerating plans for change, including: building more capacity, flexibility and quicker response times; implementing better forecasting tools; and sharing the responsibility for moving power within and outside the region."

While wind is approaching grid parity for cost, it can't be equally dispatchable without energy storage or being augmenting by other more manageable resource. This reality check shouldn't detract from wind investments; it merely suggests a more balanced approach for utilities.

John Gartner is Editor in Chief of Matter Network and an Industry Analyst for Pike Research.

Director of New Energy Institute Named At The University of Texas at Austin

Maybe this will get the ball truly rolling on alternative energy research and ways to reduce Texas' carbon footprint.

From the University of Texas website:

July 14, 2009

AUSTIN, Texas — Dr. Raymond Lee Orbach, the U.S. Department of Energy's first undersecretary for science, has been appointed director of The University of Texas at Austin's Energy Institute, a multi-disciplinary institute that combines the strengths of the university's schools and colleges to advance solutions to today's energy-related challenges.

Dr. Raymond Lee Orbach

The Energy Institute is developing multi-disciplinary research programs and educational materials to overcome the scientific and technological barriers to a secure and sustainable energy future, while helping policy leaders make the informed decisions required to reach this goal.

Orbach, whose appointment begins Aug. 1, also will have joint appointments as a professor with tenure in the Department of Mechanical Engineering, Cockrell School of Engineering; the Department of Physics, the College of Natural Sciences; and the Jackson School of Geosciences.

The Energy Institute will integrate the most advanced expertise from across the university's schools and colleges, including the Cockrell School of Engineering, Jackson School of Geosciences, College of Natural Sciences, McCombs School of Business, School of Law, LBJ School of Public Affairs, School of Architecture and the College of Liberal Arts, as well as expertise from the private sector.

"I am delighted that Ray Orbach has agreed to serve as the director of our Energy Institute at The University of Texas at Austin," said Steven Leslie, provost of the university. "He is a world leader of energy research and policy and he will be instrumental in organizing research efforts of our faculty in areas of critical importance to our state's and nation's energy needs."

"It is with great enthusiasm that I look forward to becoming a part of The University of Texas at Austin," said Orbach. "The superb quality of the faculty and students, its supportive relationship with the State of Texas, and its national and international renown make this an opportunity of enormous promise. I am delighted to be a part of the university's faculty, and I look forward to working with the campus, the city of Austin, the Texas legislature and our nation's leaders to solve the technical and policy issues facing our planet's energy future."

Orbach said he sees the Energy Institute as a unifying collaborator to help The University of Texas at Austin mobilize its faculty and academic resources, as well as talent from other universities in The University of Texas System, to make "transformational changes in energy production and usage" of fossil fuel, renewable and nuclear energy resources. He said these changes would address threats to the economic future of Texas, the nation and the world.

Orbach said the energy resource issues to be addressed initially would include:

• Fossil fuel production and use operating in a carbon-constrained environment. The lack of economical technology, combined with an absence of a legal and policy framework, could put Texas' energy resources at risk.
• New concepts and technologies in wind and solar energy for the development of electrical energy storage for these resources.
• Recycling spent fuel from carbon-free nuclear energy. The university has the opportunity to recreate a robust radio-chemistry program to extract the energy contained in spent fuel and to substantially reduce its toxicity and heat load for subsequent storage.

"These three areas combine to form the nexus of the future of energy production and use in the State of Texas requiring game-changing transformational research and development," said Orbach. "With success in this endeavor, our state will enjoy an economy and quality of life in the future comparable to that which it has enjoyed in the past."

Orbach was sworn in as the Department of Energy's first undersecretary for science in June 2006. He was the chief scientist of the Department of Energy, and adviser to Secretary Samuel W. Bodman on science policy as well as all scientific aspects of the Department of Energy, including basic and applied research ranging from nuclear energy, to environmental cleanup of Cold War legacy sites, to defense programs. Orbach was responsible for planning, coordinating and overseeing the Energy Department's research and development programs and its 17 national laboratories, as well as the department's scientific and engineering education activities.

Orbach also was responsible for the department's implementation of the president's American Competitiveness Initiative, designed to help drive continued U.S. economic growth. He led the department's efforts to transfer technologies from Department of Energy national laboratories and facilities to the global marketplace.

From the time of his Senate confirmation in 2002, Orbach also was the 14th director of the Office of Science at the Department of Energy. He managed an organization that was the third largest federal sponsor of basic research in the United States, the primary supporter of the physical sciences in the country and one of the premier science organizations in the world.

From 1982 to 1992, Orbach was the provost of the College of Letters and Science at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and from 1992 to 2002, he was chancellor of the University of California (UC), Riverside. Under his leadership, UC Riverside doubled in size, achieved national and international recognition in research and led the University of California in diversity and educational opportunity. In addition to his administrative duties at UC Riverside, Orbach sustained a research program, worked with postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students in his laboratory and taught the freshman physics course each year.

Orbach received his bachelor of science degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology in 1956. He received his Ph.D. degree in physics from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1960 and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. He began his academic career as a postdoctoral fellow at Oxford University in 1960 and became an assistant professor of applied physics at Harvard University in 1961. He joined the faculty of UCLA two years later as an associate professor and became a professor in 1966.

Orbach's research in theoretical and experimental physics has resulted in the publication of more than 240 scientific articles. He has received numerous honors as a scholar, including two Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowships, a National Science Foundation Senior Postdoctoral Fellowship at Oxford University, a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship at Tel Aviv University, the Joliot Curie Professorship at the Ecole Superieure de Physique et Chimie Industrielle de la Ville de Paris, the Lorentz Professorship at the University of Leiden in the Netherlands, the 1991-1992 Andrew Lawson Memorial Lecturer at University of California, Riverside, the 2004 Arnold O. Beckman Lecturer in Science and Innovation at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and the Outstanding Alumni Award from the California Institute of Technology in 2005.

Orbach is a fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He has held numerous visiting professorships at universities around the world and is a member of 20 scientific, professional and civic boards.

For more information, contact: Robert D. Meckel, Office of Public Affairs, 512-475-7847.

Thomas Friedman on E.T. China

On Independence Day, Thomas Friedman explained why the U.S. needs to up research into E.T. (that's energy technology, not the cute little guy that phoned home).

In his column, he states, "this energy thing isn't just about global warming. In a world that is adding one billion people every 15 years or so — more and more of whom will be able to live high-energy-consuming lifestyles — the demands for energy and natural resources are going to go through the roof. Therefore, E.T. — energy technologies that produce clean power and energy efficiency — is going to be the next great global industry, and China needs to be on board. Well, China has gotten on board — big-time. Now I am worried that China will, dare I say, “clean our clock” in E.T."

Although China was once (and in many ways, still is) one of the dirtiest countries in the world environmentally speaking, "[it] is increasingly finding that it has to go green out of necessity because in too many places, its people can’t breathe, fish, swim, drive or even see because of pollution and climate change."

In preparation for the 2008 Olympics, Beijing required an enormous overhaul because the air was worse then L.A. on a bad smog day and countries were worried about the health of their athletes and the long-term effects the atmosphere of the city may have had on them.

But China is working it and working it hard. In a list compiled by the investment bank Lazard, China is third in alternative energy manufacturing and production behind #1 Japan and #2 Europe. The U.S. places fourth.

So what, one might say. Obama has put the energy bill on the back burner and focused most the administration's energy on health care. While this is an important subject and one that has been a major issue in elections and administrations throughout this century and the last, Friedman says that the energy bill needs more attention and needs it now.

"If we do not impose on ourselves the necessity to drive innovation in clean-technology — by imposing the right prices on carbon emissions and the right regulations to promote energy efficiency — we will be laggards in the next great global industry," he states.

But he is not poo-pooing the need for health care reform.

He puts it in no uncertain terms:

"Health care and the energy/climate bill go together. We need both now. Imagine how poor we would be today if U.S. firms did not dominate the top 10 Internet companies. Well, if we don’t dominate the top 10 E.T. rankings, there is no way we are going to be able to afford decent health care for every American. No way."

Makes sense, no?

T. Boone Pickens on Meet the Press

Be there.

UT makes breakthrough in storage of solar power

Building on the idea that "there's plenty of room at the bottom," UT Austin researchers have come up with a way to store solar and wind generated energy for times when the air is still and the sun isn't shining.

Using graphenes - carbon atoms linked in a honeycomb shape - solar panels and wind generators can channel power and store it on their surface. But in most current tech, these honeycombs are stacked on top of each other, limiting their storage capacity.

By spreading the graphenes out, the surface area is multiplied, thereby increasing the energy storage capacity where it can be used when needed, like a battery. But Nanoscience and Technology Professor Rod Ruoff says that these cells will operate as an "ultracapacitor" which can provide higher amounts of energy over longer periods of time than a regular battery. This makes the idea of long-distance driving in electric cars closer and more feasible, not to mention possibly marking the end of emission-heavy electrical plants.

Easy breathing and lower traffic noise, here we come.

T. Boone Pickens: "A Surprising Environmentalist"

The Republican Party should listen more carefully to one of their own.

T. Boone Pickens, long-time oil baron and author of the entrepreneurial treatise The First Billion is the Hardest has become one of America's leading proponents of alternate energy. He is calling for government vehicles to run on natural gas, replacing natural gas powered electric plants with wind power and encourages off-shore oil drilling to end our dependence on foreign oil once and for all.

He calls it the PickensPlan and the website offers any visitors a chance to sign a petition or pledge their support.

And although some environmentalists have problems with off-shore oil drilling, such as the Committee Against Oil Exploration (CAOE - pronounced "K-O") due to the possibility of oil spills and the environmental impact inherent in fossil fuels, some of his other ideas are sound, safe and ecologically sensitive.

For example, Pickens recently invested billions in a West Texas wind farm that could conceivably power 1.3 billions homes with almost no emissions of any sort.

Perhaps some of his fellow oil-rich right wingers will finally see the light and follow suit.