Transit Use Boom, but in Some Surprising Cities ');
document.write(' Transit use boomed from 2006-2008, but not in traditionally transit-friendly areas. This shows hope for more transit use in traditionally car-oriented places in the US in the future.
An analysis of the most recent transit use data from the U.S. Census Bureau shows that transit use grew by up to 47% in major metropolitan areas in the U.S. from 2006-2008, with several metro regions in the South and West growing by more than 10%. The South and West, being more dominated by automobile-oriented development and auto use, have historically struggled to get significant transit ridership. However, the top ten cities with the highest recent increase in ridership include several metro areas in the South and West, including Charlotte, NC (47%), Riverside-San Bernardino-Ontario, CA (26.7%), Pheonix-Mesa-Scottsdale, AZ (23.6%), San Antonio, TX (15.1%) and others. This seems to shine a light of hope on increased transit use in the southern and western U.S. in the future. First, however, why are we seeing a boom in these places? Read more of this story »
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Catching Up ');
document.write('Back home now, just trying to catch up on the energy news of note. Four stories that I want to highlight. First was POET\'s announcement on their progress on cellulosic ethanol:Poet hits \'long shot,\' cuts cellulosic ethanol costsWASHINGTON - The head of the world\'s largest ethanol producer, Sioux Falls-based Poet, said Wednesday that his company has drastically cut its cellulosic ethanol production costs.It is a breakthrough that will allow cellulosic ethanol to compete with gasoline within two years.Jeff Broin, Poet chief executive, told reporters during a roundtable discussion that the company has reduced its cellulosic ethanol production cost during the past year from $4.13 a gallon to $2.35 a gallon.Andrew Leonard of Salon asked me for some comments, which he included in a story on the news:Who cares about peak oil when you have corn cobs?In addition to what made it into the story (and those comments were specifically about the kinds of risk factors POET faces), I said that I thought the guys at POET had done a nice job on this (that comment did make it into the follow-up story at Salon). One thing that isn\'t clear to me is whether the production cost includes any capital recovery. If not, then they still have some distance to go to get that $2.35 into an economic range with ethanol presently trading at about $2.00 a gallon. Another question I would have is how their version of the process performs with other sources of biomass.One other thing I said to Andrew (that didn\'t make it into the story) is the really big challenge is in getting those ethanol titers up. Low titers mean lots of energy is spent in getting the water out. This is why I have always favored gasification technologies over hydrolysis technologies: You don\'t have water to deal with, and thus the BTU efficiency is potentially going to be higher. (Probably your capital costs as well will be higher for gasification - depending on what you are producing from the syngas). If biomass costs rise in the future - as I expect them to - then there will be added incentive for maximizing BTU efficiency.The second story was sent by a reader. In light of the amount of corn we produce, this could have significant ramifications:Amaizing: Corn Genome DecodedA team of scientists led by The Genome Center at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published the completed corn genome in the Nov. 20 journal Science, an accomplishment that will speed efforts to develop better crop varieties to meet the world\'s growing demands for food, livestock feed and fuel.The United States is the world\'s top corn grower, producing 44 percent of the global crop. In 2009, U.S. farmers are expected to produce nearly 13 billion bushels of corn, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.The next story is about a trend that I think will continue. In my presentation in Orlando, one of the trends that I pointed out is that more refineries are being built closer to the source of the oil. Saudi produces crude, but would like to capture more of that value chain by refining it as well. There are a number of very large refinery projects underway - especially in Asia and the Middle East - and in a world with stagnant oil production that means some refineries are going to shut down. In the U.S., our refining capacity is more than three times greater than our oil production rates. I see a dismal outlook for refining in the U.S., with a lot of refiners going out of business in the U.S. Valero just announced another refinery closing:Valero refinery in Delaware City to close permanentlyDELAWARE CITY, Del. — Valero Energy said this morning it plans to permanently close its Delaware City Refinery, eliminating hundreds of high-paying jobs, because of weak economic conditions, high local costs and chronic troubles at the 210,000 barrel-per-day complex.Company spokesman Bill Day said that a plantwide maintenance shutdown, announced late last month, was already under way, and will convert to a final closing. Plant employees will continue on the payroll for 60 days under federal rules for large-scale layoffs.Day said the plant — which produces about 70 percent of the gasoline sold on the Delmarva Peninsula— has lost $1 million a day since the start of 2009.About 550 full time workers will be put out of work by the decision. Valero (VLO) also has notified companies that work closely with the refinery, Day said, but effects on those operations were not immediately available. People forget that refining is a very tough business. They remember when refiners make money - as they were doing a couple of years ago - but forget that most of the time they aren\'t making money. Plus, when they do make money they are subjected to accusations of gouging and calls from politicians to tax their windfall.Finally, readers know that I have consistently avoided wading into the debate over global warming. It takes enough of my time just trying to keep up with the latest energy news, and I decided long ago to sit out the debate on climate change. It is far too politicized and people get too emotional over the issue. However, I do think it is important that the debate takes place, and I don\'t like to see people trying to shut it down. Attaching labels like \"denier\" to people who question the science is an attempt to shut down debate, and I don\'t care how right you think you are - in my view the debate needs to go on.A couple of days ago it was announced that some e-mails from a climate research outfit in England had been hacked:Global Warming Research Exposed After HackI have to say that some of the e-mails I have seen posted are troubling. Whatever history ultimately shows, some of those e-mails appear to be agenda-driven and not science-driven. There is no place for that.Let the debate carry on, and let science - not agendas - determine the outcome.
Sometimes slight modifications in existing machines do wonders for fuel saving. A simple attachment of a tapering protrusion at the back of a truck can save up to 7.5% in fuel consumption. This is a significant amount of fuel saving with a simple alteration. This fuel saving is possible due to dramatically-improved aerodynamics. It [...]Posted in: Industry, Inventions, Transportation
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EU Paper Industry Has Cut Carbon Pollution by 42% - Exceeded Kyoto Goals ');
document.write(' The US paper industry is one of the three non-fossil-energy industries that will be affected under the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act; the climate bill being attempted in the Senate; to regulate the industries that emit over 25,000 tons/yr of carbon dioxide. Cement-making and steel production are the other two. So it would be instructive to see how the European paper industry has fared under the Kyoto-triggered EU Emissions Trading System; providing a real world test-case. If faced with the same carbon constraints as European counterparts; how might our paper industry in the US adapt and evolve ? If the European experience is anything to go by; they\'ll do fine, it seems. Read more of this story »
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Solid-State Rechargeable Lithium-Air Battery Reduces Risk of Explosion ');
document.write('Binod Kumar, a research engineer and leader of UDRI’s electrochemical power group said that the university is looking for partners that could license the “breakthrough” technology for manufacturing the batteries.
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Wave Energy Looking for Breakthrough — Using Aerospace Design ');
document.write(' The oceans seem like a great potential source for clean energy. The force of the waves, the constancy, the size of the oceans — it all seems like something that could produce energy for humans without much harm. (I still have some concerns, though it seems like one of the best options these days). Some of the major problems with utilizing the force of the oceans, however, have been how to survive storms, the need to be anchored to the see floor, and efficiency.
Researchers from the US Air Force Academy have a new, outside-the-box idea for dealing with these problems — use an aerospace approach. This is yet to be developed to full-scale and tested in that form, but early computer and model-scale tests are showing higher efficiencies than wind turbines, according to the National Science Foundation (NSF). Read more of this story »
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Scientists Developing Swarms of Miniature Drifting Robots to Patrol the Ocean ');
document.write('The National Science Foundation has just awarded researchers at UC San Diego a $1million grant to develop small robotic devices that will drift with the ocean currents to study the mechanisms that support plankton and other tiny marine creatures. Swarms of the autonomous underwater explorers (AUE\'s) could provide a window into the underlying factors that drive broader ocean processes, by more precisely focusing on localized data on currents, temperature, salinity, pressure, and other properties.
The robots could also some day patrol and monitor protected marine areas, provide early warnings of potential hazards such as algae blooms and oil spills, and even scout out plane crashes and other ocean-going emergencies. Depending on how the devices are powered, the robot swarms could also provide a more sustainable means of accomplishing oceanic research compared to the use of ships and other fossil fuel-powered equipment. Read more of this story »
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Metabolix, ADM to open new bioplastics factory ');
document.write('A new U.S. plant is expected to open next month that uses technology out of MIT to produce bioplastics from corn that degrade in seawater or soil.
Two Israeli wastewater firms to locate in Michigan ');
document.write('A Green Jobs for Blue Waters initiative is working to make the U.S. state a North American leader in water technology, attracting interest from EPC and Emefcy.