A glaring headline in Colorado newspapers just one day after the election spotlights one of many reasons I hope it really won’t be business as usual.

Wind energy is just one of many alternative and renewable energies available to reduce fossil fuel consumption. Credit: Imagefusionstudio

Vestas to lay off another 3,000 by next year
-The Denver Post

Vestas is the Danish wind-turbine producer with operations around the globe. The company opened four manufacturing plants and a research office in Colorado. Vestas was drawn by former Gov. Bill Ritter’s promotion of “a new energy economy” and the state’s renewable energy standard, approved by voters in 2004 and later strengthened by legislators.Lately, Colorado’s new energy fortunes have undergone a reversal. Vestas has reduced its workforce from 1,700 to about 1,200 this year and will close its research office. More reductions in its global workforce are on the way.
The biggest reason, says Vestas, is the uncertain fate of the U.S. wind energy tax production credit. The tax credit, set to expire Dec. 31, is mired in the dysfunction of D.C.

“Even if the PTC should be extended now, I don’t think we’re going to see a normalized U.S. market next year because we are so late into this year,” Vestas CEO Ditlev Engel told The (Greeley) Tribune.

We’ve seen this kind of backtracking before. The Solar Energy Research Institute, now the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, opened in Golden, Colo., in 1977 while Jimmy Carter was president. Renewable energy was on a roll. Denis Hayes, organizer of the first Earth Day, headed the lab. Scientists were optimistic that renewable energy could supply more than a quarter of the country’s power by 2000 with some help from incentives enjoyed by other forms of energy.

Then, Ronald Reagan defeated Carter and wasted little time in changing course. The renewable energy lab’s budget plummeted from$124 million in 1980 to $59 million in 1982. The staff was cut from 950 to 350. Solar tax credits were phased out. And in 1986, Reagan had the solar-thermal panels installed by Carter removed from the White House roof.

Oil shale test project in northwestern Colorado. Photo by David Ellenberger

Will History Repeat Itself?

We’ll never know if this country would be the world’s No. 1 wind-turbine maker today if Washington hadn’t pulled the plug on renewable energy. How much cleaner would our air be? What about climate change? Would we be making headway rather than reeling from destructive storms that are growing worse as the world grows warmer? Would we be marveling at the latest technological, environmentally- and wildlife-friendly breakthroughs rather than trying to figure out how wildlife and plants will survive hotter, drier climates?

Those willing to let the production tax credits die rail against government picking winners and losers when it comes to energy. Yet some of these same people ignore science and logic by trying to make a winner out of something like oil shale, still just an idea despite a century of trying to squeeze kerogen (a precursor to oil) out of rock deposits in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah. They’d be happy to make big chunks of our public lands—much of it prime fish and wildlife habitat—available to companies before the technology is proven and the impacts are known

Energy, especially in a global economy, is complicated. A glut of natural gas has driven down prices, widening the gap between the cost of gas-fueled and wind-fueled power. But gas prices are historically volatile and if people are serious about an all-of-the-above energy strategy, solar and wind power must be in the portfolio.

Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper is among a bipartisan group of governors urging Congress to extend the wind-power tax credit. Colorado Sens. Mark Udall (petition here) and Michael Bennet (petition here) are among the members of Congress working for extension of the wind tax credit and urging public support.

You can support clean energy and help wildlife that are threatened by climate-fueled mega-fires by speaking up for clean energy tax credits .

Wind turbine blades. Photo by Flickr user vaxomatic.

One example of an incredibly important piece of legislation that is languishing in the punch and counter-punch atmosphere of this Congress is the Production Tax Credit for Renewable Energy (PTC). The PTC is a 2.2 cent per kilowatt tax credit for the production of electricity from utility scale wind turbines for the first ten years of production.  It has been on the books for twenty years, and has been an important incentive in getting the wind industry up and running.  Unfortunately, the PTC is set to expire in December of 2012, and the chances of renewing it are getting smaller and smaller every day.

A high-functioning, well developed wind energy industry is important for so many reasons.  Let’s look at a few:

1. The wind energy sector supports American job growth. With the PTC in place, our wind energy sector has been an important component for job growth in America, employing an estimated 75,000 people.  It’s projected that if Congress fails to extend the PTC 30,000of these jobs could be lost within a year.  The same study shows that renewing the PTC would likely add 17,000 new jobs.  That’s nearly 50,000 American jobs at stake if Congress fails to act.  For this reason, many major labor unions are strongly endorsing PTC extension, including the United Steelworkers, the Service Employees International Union, the Utility Workers of America, and many others.
2. To remain a world leader, we must invest in our future. Without a PTC in place, the prospect of the United States ceding the world-wide, burgeoning wind power industry to China, Denmark, Spain and other countries is very real. Whether it’s due to dwindling global supplies of fossil fuels or an international push to address the changing climate, renewable energy supplies are undoubtedly going to be an increasing portion of the world’s energy supply.  Wind power will likely lead the way.  If the United States is going to be a leader in this industry, we need to invest in it.  The Production Tax Credit is such an investment.
3. Wind energy is smart and responsible. The PTC and its role in transitioning us away from fossil fuels towards renewable sources of energy is also keenly important for reducing the emissions of carbon and addressing global warming, the planet’s most pressing environmental problem.  Climate change is real.  This summer’s weather is an indication of what we are in store for if we don’t start ratcheting back carbon emissions drastically. This July was the single hottest month recorded since measurements began in the 1890s.  Two-thirds of the country experienced drought this summer, much of it labels “severe.”  More than 113 million people in the United States lived in areas under extreme heat advisories, and wildfires burned more than 7 million acres and the fire season isn’t even finished yet.

It is imperative that Congress bridge their partisan divide and renew the PTC this session.  Early last month, a small sign showed that this may be possible.  The Senate Finance Committee voted 19-5 to renew it, with several Republicans— Sens. Chuck Grassley (Iowa), John Thune (South Dakota), Orrin Hatch (Utah), Olympia Snowe (Maine), Mike Crapo (Idaho) and Pat Roberts (Kansas)— joining Democrats to support extending the credit for one more year.

The bi-partisan nature of this vote is refreshing. This isn’t a left or right issue. It’s a jobs issue, it’s a global economic competitiveness issue, and it’s an environmental issue. It is too important to sacrifice on the altar of partisan politics.  The full Senate needs to move to pass it, and the House needs to get going before it is too late.

Earth Tomorrow Student Leaders with GA Governor Nathan Deal

While at the Capitol, the teen leaders attended an environmental policy workshop conducted by Atlanta-based NWF Fair Climate Leaders Imran Battla and James King to learn about the most urgent environmental and public health issues currently being debated in the Georgia Legislature. Then, the young leaders brushed up on their communications skills as they prepared to meet with Georgia Governor, Nathan Deal and legislators from their home and school districts about their most pressing environmental, public health, and education concerns.

The Earth Tomorrow leaders posed many tough questions to their legislators about alternative energy, the licensing of new nuclear and biomass plants in Georgia, the need for funding of the GA Solid Waste Trust Fund, water conservation, and the HOPE Scholarship. In addition to asking questions about the legislators’ viewpoints on these issues, the teen leaders challenged their lawmakers to act on solutions that will not only protect and improve our environment, but the health and welfare of all Georgians.

The Earth Tomorrow Day at the State Capitol and Georgia Legislative Field Study affords teen leaders the opportunity to interact with their elected officials and become more acquainted with the legislative process. The field experience also provides a forum for the students to voice their concerns about state and local environmental and public health issues and propose possible solutions to address those challenges.

Earth Tomorrow student leaders talk to State Representative Horacena Tate about lack of enforcement of illegal dumping laws in northwest Atlanta neighborhoods.

Earth Tomorrow leaders left the state capitol hopeful and inspired because they were able to realize a forum through which they can raise their voice even before they are of voting age. In the words of one participant, “This was a great experience because we got a chance to speak to our legislators about things that we care about, and they listened. I realize now that the youth of today have the power to make our voices heard and make a difference for our environment and our communities.”

………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

The Atlanta Earth Tomorrow Program is a high school and community club-based program that creates opportunities for teens (ages 14-18) to become environmental stewards through a year-long cycle of leadership training, issues exploration, civic engagement, career development, community outreach and education, and student-led community action projects.  NWF works with select high schools in the Atlanta Metropolitan Area, but is expanding the Earth Tomorrow Program to additional schools. For more information about the program or getting one started in your neighborhood school, please contact the program manager, Na’Taki Osborne Jelks at Osborne@nwf.org or 404-876-8733.

Karen Ward, HSBC senior global economist, discusses in the video below the impacts of the increasing international demand and dwindling supply for fossil fuels.

NWF is a strong supporter of clean and renewable energy sources that will mitigate the impact of global climate change. Click here to see what we do to advocate  for clean energy solutions.

About 250 residents in one of those proposed pipeline states, Montana, turned out last week to voice their concern that the pipeline will bring too much risk of a rupture. In videos below, watch resident Robby Levin talk about why he’s concerned about the pipeline. Then Marty Cobenais discusses some of the specifics of how Keystone XL is especially risky because of the proposed use of thinner pipe materials pumping at higher than normal pressures.

Why the rush and the risk to build this pipeline as they struggle to cap the Gulf gusher?

As we noted in an earlier post, tar sands are already killing wildlife. In 2008, 1,600 ducks drowned in toxic tailing ponds created to produce dirty tar sands oil. That will just be the start unless the pipeline is stopped. You can help. The State Department is currently taking public comments and they need to hear from you.

Visit NWF’s action page and tell the State Department that enough wildlife has been harmed and it’s time for safer energy alternatives.

]]> http://blog.nwf.org/2010/06/video-tar-sands-pipeline-too-risky-for-montana/feed/ 0 http://blog.nwf.org/2008/10/isu-degree-tackles-the-many-faces-of-climate-change/ http://blog.nwf.org/2008/10/isu-degree-tackles-the-many-faces-of-climate-change/#comments Tue, 14 Oct 2008 17:48:15 +0000 NWF http://blog.nwf.org/campusecology/?p=2394 Read more >]]>  

In May of 2007, Illinois State University’s Board of Trustees approved a new bachelor’s degree program in renewable energy. ISU is not the first school  to bring this sort of program into its academic catalog; Canton College of Technology in New York launched a similar program in fall of 2006, as did the Oregon Institute of Technology in 2005. Other schools such as Butte College in California, winner of NWF’s 2008 Chill Out competition, offer associate degrees and certification programs in alternative energy.

However, most of the programs already in place focus solely on the scientific side of renewable and alternative energy studies. By contrast, Illinois State’s new degree program, implemented to combat the many faces of climate change, offers courses that address social, economic, and technical issues of the renewable energy industry, offering a choice between a technology track or one focusing on public policy.

Most renewable and alternative energy programs at institutions of higher learning have traditionally been run out of the chemistry or engineering departments, but a multi-disciplinary approach is increasingly common. ISU’s renewable energy program is based in the university’s technology department, but includes a broad range of courses such as Principles of Economics, Renewable Energy and Agriculture, Politics and Public Policy, and Social Psychology.

One of the great challenges of the rising renewable energy industry has been to find qualified workers to fill increasing gaps in technical training. White-collar workers able to grasp sustainability politics are also needed. Demand is already surpassing supply and a serious shortage of qualified professionals is expected in the near future.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, in 2006 12 percent of jobs in the utilities and energy industries were managerial, business, or financially oriented, requiring little technical training, and 41 percent were in production or installation, maintenance, and repair occupations. It also reports that about half of the industry’s current workforce is expected to retire in the next ten years. Those that come to fill their shoes must be trained to deal with current environmental realities.

Research done by by Roger Bezdek for the American Solar Energy Society claims the renewable energy and energy efficiency industries created a total of 8.5 million jobs in 2006 alone; about 450,000 and 8 million, respectively.  By contrast, only a few dozen colleges and universities offer a degree or certification program in renewable and alternative energy, and even fewer take an interdisciplinary approach. 

“These growing industries will demand qualified personnel who simply cannot come from within the existing industry workforces – they are simply too small,” claims one of the many resource sites on green job creation, GreenJobs.com. “The training and education of a new cadre of clean energy specialists is essential to underpin the projected growth.”

Rick Boser, chairman of the ISU Technology Department, says the renewable energy major is up to the challenge. “This program helps get the technology on the ground that we can use,” he explains, “which means engineers and technicians and scientists, as well as policy people.”

 Funding for the program came from a $1 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy, which was awarded by an interdisciplinary committee with members in fields ranging from agriculture to solar and wind technology. Boser says, “This grant helped set up a center for renewable studies based at the university and start the major program with an interdisciplinary focus.“ 

Until recently, a student’s best option for obtaining a specified “green” degree was to attend institutions outside of the U.S., typically studying with international leaders in environmental studies in countries such as Denmark and Germany. It is for this reason that ISU’s new multi-disciplinary program attracts attention.

“To our knowledge,” Boser enthuses, “we are the only school to try this combined technological, economic and political route.”

See More:

Renewable Energy Education Proliferates: Architect

Green Graduate, Seeking Job: Campus Ecology Blog

Riding the Green Job Wave: MSN Encarta

Reviewing Van Jones’ The Green-Collar Economy: AASHE Blog

Oregon Institute of Technology

The campus sits atop a large reservoir of scalding groundwater. Details are still being worked out, but if all goes as planned, a 130-foot-high drill rig will bore into the ground in the coming months. The idea is to reach 300-degree water about 6,000 feet down. The water would be piped to a small power plant, where the heat would be extracted and used to spin a turbine that would create 100 percent of the school’s electricity. The $6.5 million project would make the school one of the first entirely green-powered campuses in the world.

“It’s pretty exciting,” says John Lund, director of the college’s Geo-Heat Center which researches and promotes the use of geothermal energy. The school already has years of geothermal experience. Since the 1960s, hot groundwater has been piped through campus buildings to provide heat, saving about $1 million in annual heating bills. Hundreds of geothermal wells in Klamath Falls provide heat for homes, municipal buildings and even a microbrewery.

The power plant would be the first of its kind on a college campus. “We hope to be producing electricity by late next year,” Lund says. The project is moving forward just as a mini-boom in geothermal power production, research and exploration takes place in the West. Universities, the federal government, Google, electric utilities and even oil and gas companies are backing geothermal projects.

“Geothermal energy is hot as hell right now,” says Karl Gawell, director of the Geothermal Energy Association, an industry trade group. More than 100 geothermal power projects are underway or being considered in 13 states, according to Gawell. The reason: rising fossil fuel prices, concerns about climate change, new technologies and state laws known as renewable portfolio standards that require utilities to produce more green energy.

The boom is evident in Nevada, where plans are underway to double the state’s geothermal electricity in the next few years. The largest-ever lease sale of public lands for geothermal exploration took place here in August, when the rights to drill on 105,000 acres in Nevada were auctioned off for $28 million. The University of Nevada’s Great Basin Center for Geothermal Energy is a key player. The center’s experts and graduate students conduct research that helps companies locate geothermal resources thousands of feet underground. “We help companies improve their drilling success,” says center director Lisa Shevenell. “Drilling is the big up-front cost.” And while the school has no plans to build its own power plant like at OIT, the university is negotiating with a geothermal power company to buy enough electricity to power the school’s Reno campus and two others. “This is a great source of domestic power,” Shevenell says.

The first geothermal electricity was generated in Italy in 1904, and today about 7,000 megawatts are produced in more than 20 countries including Iceland, New Zealand, Indonesia, the Philippines and other volcanic regions. Geothermal plants large and small are operating in Hawaii, Idaho, California, Alaska, Utah and Nevada, with drilling taking place in Oregon, New Mexico and elsewhere. California is the leading geothermal power producer in the world. “California is the epicenter of geothermal electricity,” says Marilyn Nemzer of the nonprofit Geothermal Education Office. About five percent of the state’s electricity is geothermal, and the largest U.S. geothermal electric plant—the Geysers—opened in the 1960s.

Geothermal electric plants have several designs. Some use steam to power turbines. Others, such as the facility planned for the Oregon Institute of Technology, pump the hot water through a heat exchanger where it vaporizes a low-boiling-point fluid, typically a hydrocarbon. This vapor then creates the thrust to power a turbine. Geothermal plants such as these have two closed-loop systems that keep the water and hydrocarbons separate, allowing the clean groundwater to be pumped back down to replenish the reservoir. It’s expensive to build a power plant and drill wells, but “once the infrastructure is in you’ve got almost free energy,” Lund says. “It runs when the sun doesn’t shine and where the wind doesn’t blow.” In other words, geothermal energy is available 24/7, 365—unlike wind and solar.

Experts refer to this around-the-clock electric generation as base-load power. Proponents of nuclear energy often cite their industry as a reliable source of base-load power that emits no greenhouse gasses. Geothermal electricity, however, produces no nasty wastes. “Geothermal can play a major role but it tends to be ignored because people can’t see it,” Lund says. “You can see wind turbines and solar panels, but geothermal is out of sight.”

Another problem is that most of the geothermal reservoirs are in the West. Now, cutting-edge technology raises hope that geothermal energy could be produced in areas without hot groundwater. Enhanced geothermal systems, or EGS, would create geothermal reservoirs by pumping water down 10,000 feet or more to hot, dry rocks. Once heated, the injected water would be pumped to the surface and used to generate electricity as in a traditional geothermal power plant. A 2007 study by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology says EGS could provide 100,000 megawatts of electricity by 2050, enough to satisfy 10 percent of the nation’s energy needs. After zeroing out its budget for geothermal energy in 2007, the U.S. Department of Energy has pledged $10 million in 2008 to research EGS.

For now, all eyes are on a pioneering EGS research project in the Nevada desert. Funded by federal agencies and Ormat Technologies, a leading geothermal company with projects underway from Nevada to Turkey, the project’s goal is to enhance the geothermal reservoir already being tapped by the Desert Peak power plant. “EGS is promising because it allows you to increase the size of your geothermal reservoir,” says University of Utah professor Joe Moore, a researcher with the school’s Energy and Geoscience Institute and a participant in the Desert Peak project.

Moore is conducting so-called tracer research, which traces the flow of injected water through the ground. This is done by adding a nontoxic chemical marker to the water. “We monitor the water coming up from the production well to find the tracer,” Moore says. This determines how quickly water circulates through the fractured hot rocks. “It’s not just about getting water down into the fractures,” Moore says. “You want to make sure you can get it to come back up.”

Oregon Institute of Technology

Google is a big supporter of EGS. The company’s nonprofit, Google.org, announced in August that it will invest $10 million in enhanced geothermal systems research. Nearly $500,000 of that money will go to Southern Methodist University’s Geothermal Laboratory, which will update the nation’s geothermal map to pinpoint the location and depth of available heat. Geothermal resources of the western United States are well-mapped, but data is lacking for other parts of the country. SMU students and faculty will gather and analyze data from deep wells drilled by oil and gas companies, mines and municipal water utilities. “We expect to find areas that have resources where they weren’t believed to exist,” says Maria Richards, coordinator of the SMU lab.

All of this has suddenly made geothermal a hot career. “It used to be that students looking for high-paying jobs would all go into oil and gas,” Richards says. “That’s no longer the case.” One SMU grad student recently switched his master’s degree from oil and gas research to geothermal due to abundant jobs in the sector. “This industry is growing fast and needs workers, and the student population isn’t keeping up,” says Shevenell at the University of Nevada. “Things have exploded in the past year. I’m getting calls from investors, financiers–people who know nothing about the science but who want to get involved with geothermal.”

Even the oil and gas industry is interested. The dirty little secret of oil and gas wells is that they waste vast quantities of hot groundwater. This “wastewater” is often pumped up and dumped on the ground to make it easier to extract oil and gas. If used, this water could generate 5,000 megawatts of electricity, according to the Department of Energy. “This is a big untapped source of energy,” says University of North Dakota professor Will Gosnold, who is working with oil and gas companies on geothermal initiatives.

All of this is cause for celebration among the longtime supporters of geothermal energy. “The geothermal industry has been hibernating for lack of attention,” says Curt Robinson, executive director of the Geothermal Research Council. “There is heat beneath our feet, and it is ready for us to use. This is a grand opportunity to diversify our nation’s energy portfolio.”

This story is the first of a three-part series that will explore various types of ground heat mining, and their campus applications. Look for parts two and three in the coming months! –Ed.

See More:

The Great Forgotten Clean Energy Source: Geothermal— Discover

Geothermal Laboratory— Southern Methodist University

“The way we approach environmental education could really use a makeover,” said Zack Waickman, a former student of STEP who became the assistant manager of the biodiesel lab after graduating last year. Before enrolling in STEP, Waickman was pursuing a career in broadcast media, but his experience in the class ignited his passion for a greener career. “The sustainability movement is open to everyone from every background. We don’t all need to be environmental scientists or engineers to solve these problems—why not tap into that? This class really inspired me to change directions in my life.” Zach is not alone—the eyes of every student and faculty member we interviewed light up when they talk about the experience.

Loyola University

Gina Lettiere, the coordinator for Loyola’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Policy (CUERP), says the goals of STEP are “to raise awareness of students, to give them hands-on experiences and skills so when they graduate they become civically engaged stewards and carry on a sustainable way of living.” The first STEP class was taught in the fall of 2007 and explored the potential of biodiesel to provide a clean, renewable alternative to petroleum.

STEP fits well with the Jesuit education’s emphasis on social justice and empowering what Loyola’s President Father Michael Garazini calls “the whole person…their imaginations, their insights, their ethics.” According to a campus sustainability analysis conducted by Dr. Marshall Eames, one of the professors of STEP, Loyola offers an impressive 104 courses that address sustainability at some level. By graduation, the average Loyola student has taken three of these courses, and 90% have taken at least one.

In its first semester, STEP attracted twenty-two students from communications, business, education, political science, sociology, chemistry, biology and environmental studies, each with their own reasons for signing up to study biodiesel. “Students were given a great deal of latitude to identify problems they wanted to investigate,” Dr. Eames explained. Thirteen faculty and CUERP staff volunteered time above their university contracts to participate in this interdisciplinary, cutting-edge course. The course design also appealed to the EPA, which awarded a $10,000 People, Prosperity, and the Planet (P3) Phase I grant to set up the lab.

Professors set the bar high for the three-credit course, and students were required to exhibit their results through forums, panels, documentaries, or other forms of public outreach. With faculty and staff serving as mentors, teams of one to six students researched how to extract lipids from algae, analyzed the costs of running a biodiesel facility, developed business and marketing plans, and created instructional and promotional videos.

Despite the demands of the course, students rose to the challenge. “The quality of the research has really been a surprise,” Dr. Eames remarked, “as was the quality of the documentary that was made by students of some of these projects.” Eames attributes this partly to “mentoring from strong faculty, but mostly to the dedication and professionalism of the students.” The EPA awarded the class an additional $75,000 “Phase 2” P3 grant to educate high school students about biodiesel production.

In the spring of 2008, 18 of the original semester’s 22 students continued to work on their projects through an advanced, second semester of STEP, and a number have enrolled in a third this fall. The freedom to see projects to completion has been a cornerstone of STEP’s success, and returning veterans agree to mentor newly enrolled students. Fall 2008 will be the final semester addressing biodiesel, after which STEP will shift its focus to food sustainability for the next three semesters.

One year into the program, the biodiesel lab is running smoothly and converting waste veggie oil from the dining halls into 25 gallons of biodiesel per week, which Waickman hopes to scale up as they refine the process and ensure the purity of the biodiesel.

Loyola University

Reflecting on the course, Lettiere and Dr. Eames believe it exceeded expectations in many ways, and they have identified a few minor improvements to further enrich the learning experience. “We have to front-load, even pre-load so they’re engaged right away,” said Dr. Eames. Students will be required to write a solid research plan and proposal before the semester begins and will spend more time in the first few weeks finalizing their projects with mentors.

Challenging as it can be to develop curricula that emphasize sustainability and climate stewardship, Loyola’s STEP course offers proof that liberal arts colleges and universities can empower their students to contribute to a clean energy future. In one of the documentaries students made about STEP, CUERP director Nancy Tuchman emphasizes the importance of providing hands-on opportunities for students to explore their role in creating a low-carbon world, whatever their field. “This is where it goes way beyond our university community…that’s what makes universities important in effecting change in the whole global climate crisis.”

See More:

UI Students Convert Vegetable Oil Into Biodiesel— DailyIllini.com

College of the Atlantic Aims for the Triple Bottom Line — ClimateEdu

Cogeneration is the use of a single plant or station to generate electricity and heat simultaneously. The nature of producing electricity alone means that some thermal energy is generated as a byproduct, but where most plants simply release that heat, a cogeneration plant captures this thermal “waste” and uses it as manufactured heating.

Sean Casten, President of Recycled Energy Development, testified in 2007 before the Energy, Natural Resources, and Infrastructure Subcommittee of the Senate that most thermal power plants the majority of which run on fossil fuels or natural gas—waste a significant percentage of available energy, up to 60 percent or more, as excess heat. By using this energy instead of discarding it, CHP is able to double the energy output of a comparatively sized non-cogenerative plant while creating less pollution, losing less energy in transference from production to consumption, and bypassing the purchasing fee from an outside utilities plant.

Completed in early 2008, Rowan’s CHP facility is a good example of both the efficiency and financial benefits of such a program. Earlier in 2008, John Imperatore, Director of Facilities and Resource Management, stated that the plant should contribute to energy savings by $1 million a year, but already it is exceeding expectations.

According to Rowan University’s newspaper, Rowan Today, the university has balanced its budget for 2009 and has allocated a $2 million increase for utilities, stating that without the cogeneration plant the total would have been $4 million. Part of the savings comes from increased efficiency, as excess heat from the plant is directed towards supplying heating, air conditioning, and hot water to the entire campus. Finally, the plant can be run on either natural gas or #2 heating oil, allowing the university to choose the most cost effective fuel for its budget.

The CHP facility originally cost $12 million to build, $1 million of which was provided by a rebate from the state board of utilities. This means that if the plant meets its efficiency goals, it will have earned back its construction fee in savings in less than a decade.

In addition to the financial savings, the plant has allowed Rowan to cut its emissions by 8,000 tons per year. The output of the new plant is 4.7 megawatts, up from 1.7 MW, which provides approximately 80 percent of Rowan’s electricity. Generating so much clean power onsite brings the university a reported 30 percent closer to its emissions neutrality goal.

And Rowan isn’t done. The university’s recent decision to buy 25 percent of the remaining electricity from wind power sources is another step forward, as is its goal to have a plan for total climate neutrality in place by 2009.

See More:

Cogeneration Plant Tests Sustainable Biodiesel Fue— Princeton News

Biomass Cogeneration:— Mt. Wachusett Community College

Cogeneration Plant Uses Landfill Gas on UNH Campus — The New Hampshire

One researcher in particular, Jonathan Meuser, a doctoral candidate at the Colorado School of Mines, is working on improving hydrogen production from algae, a technology that is still in development but is often lauded for its enormous potential. Not only does the algae use a photobiological process to turn water directly into oxygen and hydrogen-which can be burned or used to make electricity via a fuel cell-but the algae biomass could then also be used for other biofuels, carbon-neutral materials, or organic fertilizer.

credit: Jonathan Meuser

Meuser has worked on several aspects of algae-based biofuel, including the adaptation of technology developed at the National Renewable Energy Lab to make algae hydrogen testing kits for mass distribution, known as the “Lunchbox Laboratory”, and a DIY algae bioreactor. Currently, his primary research interest is the natural biodiversity of the many useful products that algae can produce, like oils and hydrogen. While researching this unexplored biodiversity, his major goal is the development or discovery of an alga able to produce hydrogen without disruption by oxygen, a likely requirement for the commercialization of photosynthesis-powered hydrogen production. He graciously offered to answer a few of our questions.

XH: So tell me what you’re working on.

Meuser: The great thing about algae is that there’s just so much we still don’t know. It is estimated that about 300,000 distinct species exist, but we’re not sure even of that. Many of these have ancient well-specialized traits resulting from millions of years of adaptation, yet we know little more about many of them than what they look like. Is hydrogen production restricted to some or scattered throughout all green algae? Which strains produce the most and how are they different? We now know the proteins required to make the hydrogen, while the regulation of genes involved and the flow of energy are only two of many unknowns. Oxygen inactivates all known hydrogen-producing proteins in green algae so far. The Holy Grail would be to find an unknown alga that makes hydrogen in the presence of oxygen, and there’s no reason to think there isn’t one out there.

XH: How are you going to test that many varieties?

Meuser: Physically, I can’t — not without the development of some high throughput technology. That’s why Futurefarmers created the Lunchbox Laboratory — to get students all over the country engaged in real experiments, while directing researchers to algae with desirable traits. My advisors at NREL developed a chemochromic sensor that turns blue when exposed to hydrogen. I adapted this technology by coating the sensor material onto a glass stopper which can detect the hydrogen produced from algae grown in a test tube. Back in San Francisco, the rest of the Futurefarmers team custom built the box which can vary light and darkness for testing the algae. Ideally students would order several algae from culture collections to test, figure out if any produce hydrogen, and then report the results online. Really, there are enough strains out there to allow anyone to get involved. Our project was a prototype, but we’re still hoping someone comes along who’d like to fund it and get students working on it. (Ed. Note: These labs have been displayed at the Museum of Modern Art-an online version of the show is here.

XH: Tell me about the specific strain of algae you’re using right now.

Meuser: Chlamydomonas is the green algae that I and others study the most. It’s a good variety to study because its metabolism is so flexible. It adapts quickly to the change from photosynthesis to fermentation and its entire genome has been sequenced and is available online. Usually we research by a process called reverse-genetics: these aren’t machines we can take apart, so instead we make random genetic disruptions, or mutations, and study the effect. Because we have the genome available, we can easily find what we’ve disrupted and try to infer why it caused the effect. The chemochromic sensors are useful in finding mutants specifically affected in hydrogen production.

 XH: Why does oxygen disrupt hydrogen production?

Meuser: Hydrogen production comes from photosynthesis, but the challenge is that photosynthesis also stops hydrogen formation, because it produces oxygen, and the hydrogenase enzyme that that makes hydrogen can’t function in the presence of oxygen. The oxygen essentially rusts the iron in the center of the protein, breaking it. So the algae make hydrogen only for a short period. However, some bacteria make hydrogen with proteins that use nickel and iron, and some of these can handle much more oxygen.  So far, these nickel-iron hydrogenases have not been found in green algae.

XH: Why is it that the algae can’t currently produce hydrogen in large quantities?

Meuser: Dr. Melis at UC-Berkeley published a study in 2000 in collaboration with NREL researchers showing that depriving Chlamydomonas of sulfur can allow the algae to sustain hydrogen production in the light. Basically, it hampers photosynthesis just enough that the algae produces less oxygen than it consumes in the light, allowing it to make hydrogen for days at a time. However, this works because photosynthesis has been minimized and the yields are still about 3-4 times less than is estimated we need for commercialization. This is still very encouraging because many of the plants we use for food naturally produced ten times less in usable foodstuffs before we figured out intensive breeding, artificial selection, and advanced farming techniques.

XH: I’ve read that algae can also accumulate oils that be converted to biodiesel or other types of biofuel.

Meuser: Yes, it’s very exciting, this idea of the direct conversion of solar light to fuel, in both oil and hydrogen form. With corn grain ethanol, the crop grows all season only to yield a few ears of seeds, and so much is lost in unused biomass. This doesn’t happen with algae. Every single cell produces the product you want.  The second thing is that algae grow at an extraordinary rate. It’s like a 2 foot corn plant on Monday growing fast enough to reach 32 feet tall by the weekend.

XH: Wouldn’t that be a very water-intensive process? Especially considering how these organisms need sunlight, and places with the most sunlight tend to have the lowest amounts of fresh water.

credit: Jonathan Meuser

Meuser:  It is important that biofuels don’t continue to take resources away from food production or destroy natural habitat, especially rainforest. We imagine that the water and nutrients used to grow the algae may be recovered and reused in closed reactor systems. Many researchers, including those in our lab, have also begun to study algae from saline environments. If saltwater could be used, fuel production could be linked to desalination to get a net pure water result. I am also interested in using algae cultivation to preserve ecosystems by sequestering nutrients in agricultural runoff that currently contributes to ocean dead zones. Algae do consume some water to make the hydrogen, but this water is created again when the hydrogen is used as fuel.

XH: Anything else you’d like to add?

Meuser:  The potential of algae to turn carbon in the air and waste water sources into valuable products is enormous.  However, we are in the infancy of this undertaking.  The technical hurdles are immensely multidisciplinary. I believe the breakthroughs will come from incredible teams, rather than incredible individuals. We are very fortunate that funding is available again for this type of work.  The most important thing for everyone to understand as we move towards a future of clean energy is that there is plenty of renewable energy available to provide for human need, even with available technology (like wind and solar). But if we don’t invest in the infrastructure to capture this energy before fossil fuels are depleted, we will all be left in the dark!