Weekly Clean Energy Roundup:June 15, 2005

News and Events

News and Events

18 Student Teams to Participate in DOE’s Second Solar Decathlon

DOE announced last week that 18 teams from colleges and universities in the United States, Canada, and Spain will participate in the second Solar Decathlon competition in Washington, D.C. The event runs from October 7th through the 16th and requires each Solar Decathlon team to build and operate an energy-efficient solar-powered home on the National Mall, forming a temporary “solar village.” As the name suggests, each Solar Decathlon team will compete in 10 contests that will judge architecture, livability, comfort, and power generation for heating and cooling, water heating, and powering lights and appliances, including an electric car. The event, which is open to the public, will feature cutting-edge architecture, engineering, and technology that could be applied in homes today, allowing them to generate their own energy, not simply consume it.

For the past two years, the 18 teams have worked on the design, research, and testing necessary to construct and power these homes. Fifteen teams are representing colleges and universities in 13 states: California, Colorado, Florida, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Virginia, and Washington. The remaining three teams are from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico; Montreal, Quebec; and Madrid, Spain. Because of time constraints, the teams partially build their entries on or near their campuses and then ship the entries to Washington, D.C.?a necessity that creates special challenges for the teams from the West, Puerto Rico, and Spain. See the DOE press release.

The DOE Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy is sponsoring the Solar Decathlon, along with DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the American Institute of Architects, the National Association of Home Builders, BP, the DIY Network, and Sprint. The first-ever Solar Decathlon in 2002 featured examples of ingenuity such as homes with translucent walls that provided light and insulation, solar-heated fluid that flowed under floors to provide warmth, and fiber optic cables that transmitted light from solar collectors into a home. This year’s competition will once again employ a wide-range of innovative technologies to demonstrate the tremendous possibility of solar power and other renewable energy sources. To learn more about the teams, the 10 contests, and the event in general, see the Solar Decathlon Web site.

Energy Secretary Bodman Visits “Net-Zero Energy Home” Near Denver

Secretary of Energy Samuel W. Bodman visited Habitat for Humanity’s first “true net-zero energy home” in a suburb of Denver, Colorado, on Monday. The home, which is currently under construction, will be super-insulated, very tightly constructed, and designed for passive solar gain to reduce heating loads. In addition, a heat-recovery ventilation system will assure indoor air quality while recovering ventilation air thermal energy. To meet its energy needs, the home will be equipped with a solar water heating system and a grid-connected 4-kilowatt solar power system, sized to produce excess energy in the summer to balance out winter consumption, leading to net zero annual energy consumption.

“The Habitat for Humanity Zero Energy Home is a glimpse into the future of home construction in America,” said Secretary Bodman. “Inefficient buildings and homes waste a tremendous amount of energy. Home energy efficiency can save families money by reducing energy consumption.”

Habitat for Humanity is building the “true net-zero energy” home with technical assistance from DOE’s Building America Program and National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Habitat plans to adopt many of the techniques used in this home into its standard construction practices. See the DOE press release and the Building America Web site.

USDA awards $4.4 Million for Woody Biomass Projects

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced in early June that it has selected 20 small enterprises to receive a total of $4.4 million to develop innovative uses of woody biomass as a source of biomass energy and new products. The projects will draw on tree parts and scrub removed from national forests as part of forest thinning activities for ecological restoration and hazardous fuel reduction. The projects will be carried out in nine western states, as well as Louisiana, Minnesota, and South Carolina. See the USDA press release.

New Tax Credit Sparks First Biodiesel Plant in Oklahoma

Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry signed into law last week a bill that will provide tax credits for the production of biodiesel within the state, creating an incentive that has already spurred construction of the state’s first biodiesel facility. House Bill 1398 will provide a tax credit of 20 cents per gallon of biodiesel for the first five years of production, up to $5 million per year. It applies to new and expanded facilities producing at lea
st 25 percent of their capacity. Biodiesel plants placed into production after 2012 will earn a smaller tax credit: 7.5 cents per gallon for the first three years of production, capped at $750,000 per year. The bill’s passage in the legislature led Apollo Resources Inc. to announce that its subsidiary, Earth Biofuels, had completed the purchase of four acres of land in Durant for construction of a biodiesel refinery that will produce 10 million gallons of biodiesel per year. Construction will begin immediately, and the plant could start producing biodiesel in October. See Apollo Resources press release and House Bill 1398 (PDF 698 KB).

Biodiesel is already firmly rooted in Iowa, but the state will gain another biodiesel plant if Cargill’s newly announced plans come to fruition. The company plans to build a plant in Iowa Falls capable of producing 37.5 million gallons of biodiesel per year. The plant will initially draw on soybean oil but could eventually accept animal fat or waste grease as its biodiesel source. If approved, construction will begin this summer, and biodiesel production will start in April 2006. See the Cargill press release.

According to the National Biodiesel Board (NBB), U.S. biodiesel plants can currently produce 110 million gallons of biodiesel per year, but idled chemical industry facilities could potentially double U.S. biodiesel production; these facilities are increasingly contributing to U.S. biodiesel supplies. Meanwhile, the NBB estimates that dedicated biodiesel production capacity could double within the next year. See the NBB Fact Sheet, “U.S. Biodiesel Production Capacity” (PDF 68 KB).

University of Waterloo Wins First Year of Challenge X

The University of Waterloo is the winner of the first-year competition for “Challenge X: Crossover to Sustainability,” a three-year contest to reengineer a Chevrolet Equinox with the goal of improving fuel economy and reducing emissions while maintaining performance and safety. Challenge X closely mirrors real-world automotive engineering processes, so the first year of the competition, which concluded last week, emphasized vehicle simulation, powertrain testing, and the engineering trade-offs that occur in the early stages of vehicle design. The Waterloo team’s winning propulsion system design combines a fuel cell with a nickel-metal hydride battery. The University of Akron took second place with a parallel hybrid design that pairs an electric motor with a biodiesel-fueled Volkswagen diesel engine, and Ohio State University came in third with a similar design based on a Fiat diesel engine.

DOE and the General Motors Corporation (GM) are the lead sponsors for Challenge X, in which 17 teams of North American engineering students are participating. Because all of the teams met the minimum requirements for last week’s design competition, each team was handed the keys to a new 2005 Chevrolet Equinox. The teams will spend the next two years converting the vehicles to match their design plans. See the GM press release and see the complete first-year results on the Challenge X Web site.

Report on Bat Mortality at Wind Plants Yields New Insights

The Bat and Wind Energy Cooperative (BWEC) released its 2004 report on bat interactions with wind turbines last week. The peer-reviewed study involved daily and weekly searches for bat carcasses at wind power sites in Pennsylvania and West Virginia from July 31st to September 13th of 2004. In addition, thermal imaging cameras were used to study bat, bird, and insect activity at the West Virginia site for most of August.

The study found a total of 765 dead bats at the two sites, but estimated the total number of bat fatalities at between 1,764 and 2,900 for the six-week period. None of the bat species found are listed as threatened or endangered. The study found that most of the bats were killed on low-wind nights, when power production was minimal but the blades were turning near their maximum speed. Bat fatalities increased just before and after the passage of storm fronts, and bat activity was highest in the first two hours after sunset. The presence or absence of aircraft warning beacons on the wind turbines did not affect the results. The researchers recommended that future studies be conducted over the entire season of bat movement and activity, namely April through October, to further study these correlations and to help determine “high-risk” times that may be used to mitigate the impacts of wind turbines on bat populations.

BWEC was formed in late 2003 by the American Wind Energy Association, Bat Conservation International, DOE’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Based on the 2004 findings, the BWEC scientists recommended studying the effects of “feathering” wind turbines during low winds to cut their speeds, but no wind project owner has been willing to conduct such experiments. The BWEC also plans to test the reliability of acoustic detectors at wind power sites and to evaluate the potential for using alerting or deterring devices at wind power sites. See the full report, a summary of findings from the report, and a joint BWEC statement on the report on the BWEC Web site.

Site News

DOE Launches New State Portal for Efficiency and Renewable Energy

DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) has opened a new portal to Web-based state information. Called “EERE State Activities & Partnerships,” the new Web site organizes links to hundreds of state-specific Web pages published by EERE and its technology development programs, including such information as DOE grants to the states, resource maps, project databases, and contacts. The new portal also includes the latest state energy news, publications, and statistics. See the new EERE State Activities & Partnerships Web site.

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