Hybrid Living

A Virginia company called Evatran has debuted their prototype for an EV charger that works without plugs, cables or a flow of electricity between the vehicle and the charger.

This new charging system doesn’t work by magic, but by induction.  To recharge an EV with this system, the vehicle pulls up to the charging station and parks over a floor-mounted parking block.  An adapter fitted to the vehicle and the parking block both contain metal coils that become aligned by magnetic sensors.  The control tower for the charging station converts electricity into the right frequency for the charger and when the coils are aligned, the electricity creates a strong magnetic field in the parking block’s coils that induces a flow of electricity in the coils in the vehicle’s adapter, which charges the battery.

Induction is what’s used in electrical transformers and has been used for charging smaller devices like cell phones and electric toothbrushes, so it was only a matter of time before we saw it used in EV charging.

The company is running a pilot program throughout the year and hopes to commercially release the system next April.  So far, Evatran has been able to achieve an 80 percent efficiency with the induction charging, but hopes to hit 90 percent by the time production units are released.

via PhysOrg

New York has big plans for solar thermal heating.  A new program paves the way for the installation of one million systems by 2020, amounting to a 2 GW capacity.

In New York, where winters get mighty frosty, 60 percent of energy consumed in buildings goes to heating and hot water, so this new plan could have a major impact.  The state could see annual savings of 6 million gallons of oil, 9.5 million cubic feet of natural gas and 320 GWh of electricity.  The financial savings would amount to $175 million each year.

These systems would be spread among residential and commercial buildings throughout the state, making hot water and creating steam for heating systems, with residential buildings making up a much larger chunk at 70 percent of the systems installed.

The plan, which was drafted by the state’s Solar Thermal Consortium, includes incentives for installing the technology, education and training for installers, research and development for better technology and improvements in the permitting process.  It sounds amazing; let’s hope the state government implements it.

via Renewable Energy World

Users of Microsoft’s Hohm energy management software can now access real-time meter readings from anywhere with a wireless signal.  The company has partnered up with Blue Line Innovations, which will provide a wireless sensor that links your meter to your Hohm account.

While the online Hohm service has been free, the Blue Line upgrade will cost extra.  It’s $250 for the package, which includes the sensor that mounts to the meter, a wireless in-home energy monitoring device and a WiFi gateway.  But the benefits include being able to see energy usage data in real-time and make adjustments, like turning off lights or electronics, if needed.

Before now, users could monitor their energy use only through analyzing past data provided by their utilities or by manually entering information from energy bills.  This upgrade will likely show the true value of energy management software:  the ability to instantly see the impact of your energy use, at any time, any where.

The only downer is that while Hohm has been accessible by any browser or operating system, the upgrade will only work with a Windows machine.

via TechFlash

A huge 3-GW wind project planned for outside of Los Angeles has received a boost in funding and is now on track to be operational by next year.  The Alta Wind Energy Center will be the largest wind project in the country, capable of powering 600,000 Southern California homes.

Terra-Gen Power LLC, the company building the project consisting of five separate wind farms, just secured $1.2 billion in funding, which has kicked construction into high gear.  The project just broke ground today in the Mojave Desert foothills, just 75 miles north of Los Angeles.  The first phase, which will produce about 570 MW, should be up and running by next year, while the full project will be completed in about a decade.

Southern California Edison has already committed to 1,550 MW of electricity produced by the project over 25 years.  Just that slice of energy is twice the capacity of the largest existing wind farm, a 735-MW one in Texas.

via LA Times

The unusual electric car concept that we started following a few years ago is now close to arriving at auto dealerships as the 2011 Chevy Volt. And today, Chevrolet announced the manufacturer’s suggested retail price for the Volt will be $41,000. With the full $7,500 federal tax credit, the price comes down to $33,500, and even lower with additional state incentives.

Nissan has tried to position itself as the competitor to GM with its all-electric Leaf, and that is playing out in a number of ways. While the list price of the Volt is several thousand dollars more than the Nissan Leaf, both vehicles will be available for lease at almost identical cost: $350/month for the Volt or $349/month for the Leaf.

Furthermore, on the same day that GM announced the pricing for the Volt, Nissan fired back with an announcement that it, too, would offer a warranty similar to the eight year, 100,000 mile warranty GM has announced for the Volt’s battery systems.

The initial markets selected by each company are also interesting to compare: Nissan plans to roll out the Leaf in Texas and Hawaii in January of 2011, then in North Carolina, Florida, Georgia, Virginia, Maryland, South Carolina, Alabama and Washington, D.C., in April 2011 and eventually nationwide by the end of that year. None of these are particularly cold-weather states. The Volt will initially be available in California, New York, Washington, D.C., Texas, Michigan, Connecticut and New Jersey in late 2010, and will be expanded into nationwide availability (as well as to Canada) in the following 12 – 18 months.

This will be interesting to follow as both companies (as well both existing manufacturers and new startups with other electric vehicles and hybrids) push the industry further along in developing alternatives to simple internal combustion drive vehicles.

UPS has set a new efficiency goal for its ground delivery fleet.  The company is aiming for a 20 percent increase in overall miles per gallon from the years 2000 to 2020.

The company has already hit a 10 percent improvement for its ground vehicles from 2000 to 2009, which has saved 3.2 million gallons of fuel.  The increase in mpg came from improved vehicle technology and maintenance, and fuel conservation efforts like better routing and minimizing idling.  The addition of hybrid and alternative fuel trucks to the fleet has also boosted overall fuel efficiency.

UPS’s goals also include reducing CO2 emissions from its airline by 20 percent by 2020, which would lead to a total reduction of CO2 emissions of 42 percent per package shipped since 1990.

via Treehugger

Although the technology seems settled, new wind power designs are still being developed, especially as engineers try to extend the generating capacity of turbines. The Aerogenerator X is a new 10 MW wind turbine designed for off-shore use combining the best of horizontal axis and vertical axis designs. The engineering firm Arup and architects Grimshaw developed the design (based on an earlier Grimshaw design from a couple years ago) on behalf of the British company Wind Power Limited.

The familiar, three-bladed, horizontal axis turbine is a well established design, but increased stresses as the size of these turbines increases makes it difficult to enlarge them further. Because of the square-cube law, larger wind turbines produce exponentially more power, so there is an incentive to build larger and larger turbines. This led to the innovative design, inspired by the sycamore leaf.

Aerogenerator X has a very large swept area, like a horizontal axis turbine. The span of the turbine is 275 meters (over 900 feet). But the Aerogenerator X is also only half the height of an equivalent horizontal axis turbine. And like a vertical axis turbine, the generator and equipment are located at the base. Stresses on the blades are reduced in this configuration, making it easier to design and build something of this size. This also makes maintenance much easier, especially for an offshore turbine.

Project partners also include Rolls-Royce, Shell, BP, EDF, EON, Caterpillar, and the UK government. The first full-scale versions of this turbine are expected to be completed by 2013 or 2014.

Hat tip to @MelStarrs and BAKOKO!

Concentrated solar energy is most commonly used for electrical power generation. However, a Colorado company, Sundrop Fuels, has a unique approach to the production of biofuel by that marries the mirrors and tower of concentrated solar power with their process for the production of bio-based fuels.

Instead of burning biomass for the energy needed to create biofuel, Sundrop uses concentrated solar as their energy source to gasify a range of feedstocks including agricultural waste, energy crops, and wood waste. The Sundrop process can produce a range of fuels including gasoline, diesel, and aviation fuel. Many other biofuel processes produce ethanol which has a lower energy density than other fuels, meaning that more of it must be used for an equal amount of work. (Flex-fuel cars get fewer miles per gallon from ethanol than from gasoline, but the ethanol fuel costs less per gallon, and the ethanol is not derived from petroleum.)

Sundrop uses the high temperatures from the concentrated solar array to vaporize the biomass feedstock and form syngas, a mixture of carbon monoxide and hydrogen. As with other biofuel processess, the syngas is the basic building block which is turned into useful fuel.

Sundrop’s process has other efficiencies that provide additional benefits. By using solar energy, the process yields 100 to 125 gallons of fuel per ton of biomass, which is more than twice what other biofuel producers obtain. The process also requires far less water, needing only a half gallon of water per gallon of fuel produced, versus 6 or 7 gallons required in other systems. The process also creates electrical power from the waste heat generated in the reaction tower.

One of the only significant drawbacks that the Sundrop process faces is the distance between areas with excellent solar access (and few cloudy days) and ready sources of biomass.

The Sundrop process is expected to be able to create gasoline, without subsidies, for less than $2 per gallon. The company is constructing a pilot plant and aims to have a full, commercial-scale plant with a capacity of 100 million gallons by 2015.

via: Portfolio.com

Related on EcoGeek: More On Coskata’s $1 per Gallon Ethanol

NASA has created new maps showing the grim reality of marine dead zones.  These areas of deep water where oxygen levels are too low for marine life to survive have grown at a staggering pace since the middle of the 20th century.

The dead zones are created when fertilizer run off from crops makes it into the ocean, creating massive algae blooms.  When the algae dies, it sinks to the bottom where microbes decompose the matter, which consumes oxygen and creates a suffocating environment for marine life.

NASA was able to located the areas where this was occurring by using satellites that detect high concentrations of particulate organic matter.  Those high concentrations are a signal of extra fertile areas that lead to dead zones.

The dead zones are mainly located along the coasts of large population centers, with the east coast of the U.S. and the coasts of Northern Europe having the largest numbers of these zones.

Since the 1960′s, the creation of dead zones has snowballed, with the total amount of area occupied by dead zones now equaling 152,000 square miles and 400 different ecosystems being affected.

via Yale e360

Although the adoption of biomass power is on the rise in Europe, the same case is not true in the United States where renewable power generating facilities are increasingly coming under attack. Plans for a proposed biomass plant in northern Michigan were recently shelved due to public opposition, and the utility board has decided to reconsider a natural gas plant instead. Proposed facilities in other states are also facing opposition.

Biomass has been eagerly pursued by utility companies with a renewable power mandate because they are a quick and inexpensive way to meet renewable energy portfolio targets. Biomass is a local fuel that is well suited to agricultural areas. Although opponents suggest that biomass facilities will contribute to ongoing deforestation, biomass fueled plants tend to focus on using waste materials, including agricultural field waste and branches and leaves generated from logging, rather than competing for valuable lumber or other crop material. In the best cases, waste material that otherwise represents a problem that needs to be disposed of serves as the feedstock for the power plant. The dual efficiency of eliminating a waste problem and providing power generation at the same time is a positive synergy that these plants offer.

In the case of the Traverse City (MI) Light & Power utility, there is both a state mandate of 10 percent generation from renewable sources by 2015 as well as the utility’s own goal of generating 30 percent of its electrical power from renewable sources by 2020. With the shelving of the biomass plant plan, it is unlikely that the utility will meet either of their goals.

Biomass is no more a silver bullet for energy generation than any other technology. Each system has its own benefits and drawbacks, and biomass is no different. The wind energy industry faced this for many years, and still encounters irrational opposition, although its acceptance is continuing to grow. Biomass energy is likely facing a similar point in its development.

Links: NY Times and Traverse City Record Eagle

Image via: Wikimedia Commons