Hybrid vehicle development in Canada has received a huge jolt of propulsion this week. Professor Ali Emadi, a leading U.S. developer of electric powertrain technology, has been appointed Canada Excellence Research Chair in Hybrid Powertrain and will relocate to McMaster University. The appointment will see the construction of a new 15,000 square-foot hybrid vehicle research facility at McMaster Innovation Park.

The appointment was announced on May 17th by federal Minister of Industry Tony Clement and federal Minister of State for Science and Technology Gary Goodyear. It is one of 19 new Canada Excellence Research Chair (CERC) appointments at 13 universities. Each appointment receives up to $10 million in federal funding over seven years.

“Canada has just been elevated another notch as a global leader in developing hybrid vehicle technology,” said Peter George, president and vice-chancellor, McMaster University. “The appointment reinforces McMaster’s leadership in automotive research and places us at the forefront of hybrid vehicle research in this country.”

"The Government of Canada recognizes the importance of supporting leading-edge research and world-class researchers," said The Honourable Tony Clement, Minister of Industry. "The CERC program confirms Canada's standing as a global centre of excellence in research and higher learning. This program supports our government's commitment to ensuring Canada's future economic growth by investing in innovation and research capacity in priority areas."

Prof. Emadi is currently the Harris Perlstein Endowed Chair Professor of Engineering and director of the Electric Power and Power Electronics Centre at the Illinois Institute of Technology in Chicago. He is also the founder and president of Hybrid Electric Vehicle Technologies, Inc., a spin-off company of the Institute.

“The government’s commitment to research through the CERC program and McMaster’s vision for leadership in sustainable automotive research were too strong to resist,” said Prof. Emadi. “I am looking forward to joining the strong network of automotive researchers in Canada and helping to advance the development of hybrid vehicles.”

Prof. Emadi’s hybrid vehicle research facility will be part of a new 50,000 square-foot automotive resource centre being planned for McMaster Innovation Park.  The Centre is to be located within the current Careport building and bring together private and public sector organizations to develop new technologies such as hybrid engines, batteries and lightweight materials.

“Dr. Emadi’s appointment adds to the critical mass of expertise being assembled at McMaster for developing the next generation of lightweight, energy-efficient vehicles,” said Mo Elbestawi, vice president research and international affairs. “He will help attract more like-minded researchers and entrepreneurs, and his experience in spinning off start-up companies will be invaluable to the community.”

Prof. Emadi’s research encompasses the development of advanced electric drive vehicles, power electronics and motor drives, vehicle-to-grid interface of plug-in vehicles with Smart Grid, hybrid battery/super-capacitor energy storage systems, and adaptive vehicle control and power management systems.

“One of Dr. Emadi’s strengths is systems integration,” said David Wilkinson, dean of the Faculty of Engineering. “He has the insight and the knowledge of advanced technologies to shift hybrid vehicle research and development to another level in Canada. He can move research closer to implementation.”

Prof. Emadi is co-author of what is considered the world's leading introductory textbook on hybrid vehicles: Modern Electric, Hybrid Electric and Fuel Cell Vehicles: Fundamentals, Theory and Design. The second edition was published in September 2009.

As part of his appointment, Prof. Emadi will also become director of the McMaster Institute for Automotive Research and Technology, known as MacAUTO, the coordinating body for automotive research and education at the university.  It encompasses some 75 researchers in engineering, science, business and other faculties involved in initiatives valued at over $100 million in programs and infrastructure.

“His appointment is part of a strategy to introduce new programs and train engineers in the area of power engineering and electronics, control systems, Smart Grid, and related technologies,” said Wilkinson. “McMaster will have the greatest concentration of powertrain research anywhere in the country.”

The CERC program was announced in Budget 2008 as part of the federal government's Science and Technology Strategy to help build expertise in strategic areas. Research conducted by the chairholders will focus on the areas of environmental sciences and technologies, natural resources and energy, health and related life sciences and technologies, and information and communications technologies.

The CERC program is administered jointly by Canada's three research granting agencies: the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. 

www.cerc.gc.ca

Whether you operate a large fabrication shop, a maintenance department or a garage, clean parts are an important component to making a business run efficiently, and standard solvent cleaners can be harsh on a work environment and employees. Until recently, however, there weren’t many alternatives. Now, a Canadian company is trying to change that. And gradually, they are winning over new business.

Bio-Circle, an alternative to traditional solvent cleaners, is a product of the J. Walter Company, a company with head offices in Pointe-Claire, Que. The basic product is a self-contained cleaning unit that houses a microbe-filled liquid. The microbes in the liquid, when heated to a certain temperature, essentially digest grease and oil. The liquid then renews itself when it goes down the drain of the system and is reused when the system is used again. Thus, the machine is a closed-loop system – nothing gets lost, except through evaporation and lifting wet parts out of the sink.

“The owner of Walter has always been interested in the environment,” says Chester Collier, Senior Vice President with Walter. “The idea for this was actually hatched after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Microbes were used to clean that up. What Walter Technologies did was work with scientists at Bielefeldt University in Germany to clone these microbes and came up with one that is harmless to humans.” 

This has been an ongoing process for Walter. Once they had the basic product on the market, they have refined it ever since.

“Clients have come to us with new ideas,” says Collier. “For instance, originally, the solution we use didn’t work well on synthetic grease or bearing grease. We’ve improved the microbe to make it possible to clean parts that use this grease.” The company has since also created products that can be used in high pressure cleaning and for large pieces of equipment.

Pointe-Claire’s Pompaction is one of Walter’s Bio-Circle clients. The company has served as a water and cement pump distributor in Quebec for 30 years and has offices in the U.S. as well. The company has a large rental fleet and offers services pertaining to pumping and construction. As Ron Comeau of Pompaction notes, his company took an interest in the Bio-Circle product because of changing health regulations.

“Laws are changing with respect to cleaning basins and those that use chemical solutions for cleaning,” says Comeau. “To continue using solvents, we would have had to install duct work, new venting systems and more stringent management practices to comply with new health regulations. In the end, it was going to be cheaper to go with this new solution than installing new venting systems.”

Beyond the payback, however, Comeau is quick to note the health values of the product as well.

“Our technicians are happier,” he notes. “I’ve been surrounded by mechanics all my life and they all have very big problems using all these solutions – myself included. I started having some form of allergic reaction a number of years ago. My hands got so sensitive that the wind on them would hurt. Now, using this technology, it’s nothing. It’s like soapy water.”

Like all new technologies, of course, it has taken some getting used to using the new system at Pompaction.

“The transition from the old solvent machines to this one is one that needs to be managed,” Comeau points out. “In the old days, guys used to come in, scrub a part, wash it, walk away and just let it drip on the floor without too much concern. That was how the industry worked. With this machine here, there’s a little more education that needs to happen due to the fact that this liquid is like gold.”

It was also necessary to adapt the technology slightly to the Pompaction environment. For instance, although Comeau hasn’t had much concern with the new equipment, he did have to change the type of filter used on the machine.

“We work in a very particular domain where you could be washing anything from automotive parts to parts that are saturated with everything from grease to rust to general abrasives – depends on what you’re working on any given day,” Comeau explains. “When we first got the machine, we had problems with a filter that would block. Since we’ve introduced a heavy-duty filter that is washable instead of changeable, the system has worked without a hitch.”

Bio-Circle’s business model is designed such that, if you buy a 205 litre barrel of the liquid, they give you the machine and service it quarterly. “They’ll swap out the liquid if necessary, which I have yet to have to do,” says Comeau. “I’ve had to add more liquid but I never have to flush it and simply add what I need – and to be honest, it hasn’t required as much as I expected I’d have to add.”

The Bio-Circle product is continuously improved by the relationship Walter is creating with its clients.

“We walk through the machine to explain to the client how it operates, and we train them how to use it,” notes Collier. “Through that and our quarterly visits, we get many ideas on how to improve the product. For instance, one client suggested we create a version on casters so that the machine can be taken to where it is needed most at any one particular time.”

Another example of an adaptation of the technology is managing the evaporation of the liquid. Because it is heated, the liquid can evaporate and dissipate through the drain, so two concepts have been added to stop that from becoming a more substantial problem – the use of a sponge in the drain itself, and adding a flap to stop the evaporation.

Over the last few years, the product has been catching on, with roughly 100-150 machines being deployed a month. And there’s still huge potential for growth. Happy customers are helping to make that a possibility. Ron Comeau is just one.

“We are now looking at installing the same system in our St. Foy, Que., operation.”

www.biocircle.com

Canada might hold much of the world's oil supply, but that isn't stopping its entrepreneurial companies from being world leaders in second-generation bioenergy technologies. Over 100 companies are in the race to prove their technology can replace fossil fuels with affordable and planet-friendly biofuels to heat homes and schools and rev up industrial and transportation engines.
 
Despite decades of work the majority of the next generation biofuels (which are made from materials that do not compete with food production) are still at the R&D stage. But a few Canadian companies are among the dozen that are commercial or near commercial—and each has the potential to change the way the world fuels up.

Enerkem: speeding to market
From a small research laboratory in Sherbrooke University in 1999 to a large commercial facility that will see Enerkem’s gasifier turn Edmonton’s garbage solid into 36 million litres of bioethanol a year, this Quebec company is pursuing aggressive growth. When the facility is operational in mid-2011, it will be the first commercial operation in the world to take municipal solid waste (about 100,000 tonnes annually) and turn it into a renewable ethanol that can be pumped into our gas tanks. 

And that’s just the beginning. The privately held company claims its 25-year contract with the City of Edmonton is the only long-term feedstock supply agreement between a fuels and chemicals producer and a large municipality anywhere in the world. Enerkem is modelling its future developments on this partnership.
  
Speaking at the Canadian Bioenergy Association’s annual conference last October, Denis Arguin, VP Engineering and Project Implementation at Enerkem outlined a similar $250 million deal with a waste management company in Pontotoc, Mississippi for a 20 million gallon/year bioethanol from MSW plant, twice the capacity of the Edmonton facility.

Vincent Chornet, President and CEO of Enerkem, says Enerkem’s aggressive path to commercialization is one of the cornerstones of its success. With 3,500 hours of testing using over 20 different types of feedstock since 2000—first in a pilot then a  demonstration plant—Enerkem quickly proved its technology works, lowering investor risk.

In this market, timing is critical. A recent report by Accenture, Betting on Science, Disruptive Technologies in Transport Fuels, identified 12 key technologies, from electric cars to algae, that could transform the way we gas up. But the report warns, “all of the technologies are “in play” now, and there is a race to commercialization. The success of one technology will impact the potential market of the others.”

Still new technology companies can risk everything by trying to commercialize too early. Chornet warns other emerging renewable energy companies “not to skip any steps.  Having the long but necessary pilot step is an absolute need before your first industrial scale-up. Don’t try to rush into it, you’ll pay the price after.”

Chornet also urges new companies to be creative. For new companies, finding financing is always the barrier—and Enerkem’s ablity to court a mix of financial partners shows creative thinking. It’s money comes from equity funding, government support and long-term partnerships with industry or municipalities. 

One final piece of advice Chornet has for emerging companies?  Clear communication. “Make sure your business plan and technology development path are well articulated and that results are well explained to your shareholders.”

Confidence also goes a long way when you’re shopping around a revolutionary idea. Asked what he would have done differently on Enerkem’s route to commercialization, Chornet answered, “nothing.”

Ensyn: the joiner
This Ottawa company came up with its fast pyrolysis technology 25 years ago when oil prices were still in their teens. Ensyn stuck to its promising technology, which turns biomass like wood waste into a thick “pyrolysis oil” (or bio-oil), despite a tough energy market. Pyrolysis’ oil’s natural barbeque flavouring proved lucrative in 1989 when Ensyn commercialized its first application of its technology—for the food flavouring industry with Wisconsin-based Red Arrow.

Today its pyrolysis oil produces 30 different products. The company’s philosophy, to perfect its process and find the best partners possible to get its technology and liquid to market, never wavered. In 2005, it inked a $100 million deal to to licence the fossil fuel upgrading application of their technology to Ivanhoe Energy, which uses it to refine heavy oil from the tarsands. Ensyn’s portfolio also includes bio-based chemicals used in the construction materials manufacturing industry. 

Ensyn’s pyrolysis oil is currently replacing fossil-fuels in heating and electricity applications, especially in the forest products sector where a ready supply of wood waste can seriously offset process power costs.

But what has most tongues wagging is using pyrolysis oil to produce renewable “drop-in” transportation fuels and thanks to a deal with UOP, a subsidiary of manufacturing giant, Honeywell, Ensyn just got a lot closer to the finish line. The idea here is to refine the pyrolysis oil to a state where it can be slotted into the existing oil refinery infrastructure and produce green gasoline, diesel and jel fuels. 

Senior vice president, Randall Goodfellow, says Ensyn could have taken its technology to market itself but “it’s a super humongous task and there are already people who have those connections.” By sticking to its philosophy of hooking up with credible partners, Ensyn made a deal with UOP (the world’s major technology supplier to the oil refining sector), and a subsidiary of manufacturing giant, Honeywell. The two companies formed Envergent Technologies in October 2008 to increase the pace of the global deployment of Ensyn’s fast pyrolysis technology to produce pyrolysis oil for thermal and electrical applications, as well as, to commercialize the equipment to upgrade pyrolysis oil in to renewable liquid transport fuel.

Ensyn’s joint venture with UOP has gained Ensyn a worldwide sales force and a Honeywell backed guarantee on the performance of their technology.
Goodfellow says that the equipment to upgrade pyrolysis oil into green transportation fuel will be ready to be slotted into the existing fossil oil refining infrastructure by 2012.

Dynamotive: Adapting to a changing market
Another promising bio-oil producer is Vancouver’s Dynamotive Energy. Its inventive approach was recognized this summer when it received the 2009 Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization Innovation Award. Using leftover wood like construction waste, Dynamotive has been turning wood to bio-oil for years at its 130 tonnes per day West Lorne plant, fueling a 2.5 MW turbine to make power for the Ontario grid, and selling the oil to a U.S. customer for the heat market. 

The economic downturn sparked a fresh approach from management.  Instead of playing project developer, Dynamotive too, is seeking solid partners. In a conference call discussing the company’s fourth quarter results for 2009, CEO Andrew Kingston said the market is taking a “significant departure,” now large energy and oil companies want to develop projects themselves, “so it’s a question of a decision of whether the technology meets their requirements, rather than us having to raise the capital and put the project together.” 

Dynamotive has a number of potential plants and deals ready, in China, Argentina, Australia and Europe. In 2010 it is concentrating on those that are at the financing stage and it’s focusing on third party licensing, said Kingston.

Like Ensyn, Dynamotive’s big goal is to perfect a process to upgrade its heavy bio-oil into a middle distillate that can be inserted into existing oil refineries to produce renewable transportation fuel, and like Ensyn, it’s racing to be the first.

Want to know how to court a corporate giant? Do your due diligence and make sure your technology is flawless. “Do what you do really well, understand what it is you do, and then connect with other parties in value chain that will get you to the market,” says Goodfellow.

Nexterra: Seeing the forest through the trees
This West Coast company initially developed their small gasification units for large pulp and paper or lumber facilities to take leftover wood and make heat and/or power to replace fossil fuel used in the plant or sell electricity to the grid. But when the forest industry took another turn for the worse, Nexterra turned to urban markets. It has sold its gasification systems not only to pulp and plywood mills but to environmentally-minded universities, communities, and municipalities that want to provide clean, low-cost renewable energy to their constituents. Soon Nexterra’s technology will heat and power the centre of energy research in America, the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee.

The $89 million project is being led by Nexterra’s partner Johnson Controls — the two formed a “strategic alliance” to develop biomass gasification projects after working together on a similar project at the University of South Carolina.

By tapping into new markets Nexterra has been able to continually win new rounds of investment by Calgary private equity firm ARC Financial, which holds a majority stake in the company, to pursue an aggressive development path. What’s the next step for Nexterra? Using its gasification systems to generate heat and power from small-scale plants (2-10 MWe) by direct firing syngas into high efficiency gas engines.

Douglas Bradley, president of the Canadian Bioenergy Association, says Canada’s advanced bioenergy technologies are still unknown in some sectors—and that needs to  change. If these companies want to win the race, they need to find strong investment or form strategic partnerships like Ensyn’s deal with Honeywell, he says. And with more promising advanced biofuel technologies from Canadian companies like Lignol and Iogen nearing commercialization, the Canadian Bioenergy Association is focusing on promoting these technologies to potential investors worldwide.

Partner with Canadian biofuel and biomass leaders
This year CanBio is leading a series of trade missions and study tours to promote Canada as an innovative leader in advanced biofuel, and as an ideal site to implement biomass heat, power and pellet technologies. CanBio is planning a Financing & Technology Mission to China in collaboration with Australia and the World Bioenergy Association from May 25-27, 2010 and a Bioenergy Study Tour to Italy and Austria from May 10-14, 2010. 

To network with the Canadian bioenergy industry, don’t miss the industry's Annual Conference in Vancouver this September. Visit canbio.ca for details.

Crystal Luxmore is a Toronto-based freelance writer and the public relations manager for the Canadian Bioenergy Association. 

More Ontario homes and businesses will soon be powered by green energy with the awarding of contract offers for almost 2,500 megawatts of renewable energy announced by Ontario's Minister of Energy and Infrastructure, Brad Duguid on April 8th. These projects, approved under the province's landmark Feed-in Tariff (FIT), are part of the largest green energy investment of its kind in Canadian history.

These projects are in addition to the 510 renewable energy contract offers totalling 112 megawatts (MW) approved last month.

"These projects are the latest accomplishments of the Green Energy Act which is making Ontario a place of destination for green energy development, manufacturing, and expertise." said Minister Duguid. "The investments generated by FIT will not only create green jobs, but will also build a coal-free legacy for future generations."

The 184 projects announced in early April will generate enough energy to power 600,000 homes. Located in communities across the province, the total 694 Feed-in Tariff (FIT) contract offers announced to date will create 20,000 direct and indirect green jobs and attract about $9 billion in private sector investment, as well as investment in new Ontario-based manufacturing.

"In six short months the Feed-in Tariff program has delivered strong results and has more than exceeded our expectations," said Ontario Power Authority CEO Colin Andersen.

Enabling community and aboriginal participation in renewable energy development is a key objective of the province's Green Energy Act. Thirty-six community and aboriginal projects will receive a first round FIT contract. These projects are located in communities throughout the province.

"I'm pleased to see aboriginal and local communities across Ontario as active participants in the green energy movement. Their leadership enhances Ontario's efforts to establish itself as a North American leader in renewable energy," said Minister Duguid.

Seventy-six of the approved projects are ground-mounted solar photovoltaic, 47 are on-shore wind and 46 are waterpower projects. There are also seven biogas, two biomass, four landfill gas, one roof top solar and one off-shore wind projects. Detailed information about the projects, including their locations, is available on the Ontario Power Authority's website at www.powerauthority.on.ca.

Significantly expanding the amount of renewable generation is a key part of the provincial government's strategy to address climate change by eliminating dirty coal-fired generation by the end of 2014. The FIT program's mandatory requirements for "made in Ontario" technologies and services also makes renewable generation a key part of the strategy to make the province North America's leader in green jobs and manufacturing.

Future transmission system expansion will open up capacity to accommodate more renewable projects. Projects that did not receive a first round FIT contract offer will now be put through what is called an Economic Connection Test (ECT) to identify transmission or distribution system expansion projects that support renewable generation and meet economic requirements. The first test will start in August/September. Renewable energy projects enabled by these expansions projects will be eligible for a FIT contract once work begins on the projects.

The Ontario Power Authority is responsible for ensuring a reliable, sustainable supply of electricity for Ontario. Its four key areas of focus are: planning the power system for the long term, leading and co-ordinating conservation initiatives across the province, ensuring development of needed generation resources, and supporting the continued evolution of the electricity sector.

Bloom Energy Corporation announced the availability of the much-hyped Bloom Energy Server on February 24th. The patented solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC) technology is being touted by the company as a cleaner, more reliable, and more affordable alternative to both today’s electric grid as well as traditional renewable energy sources. But does the “Bloom Box,” as it has been known in the media, really deliver?

The answer is both yes and no. The Bloom Energy Server provides distributed power generation, allowing customers to efficiently create their own electricity onsite, but how – and at what price – is still an issue.

The Bloom Box has a definite advantage over hydrogen-based fuel cell technologies, in that it is built using lower cost, affordable materials. It also can run on a variety of fuels – both renewable and traditional. This is a positive and a negative – although it’s cheaper to build, it’s only as reliable as the chosen source of fuel. Thus, the claim that it can “provide renewable power 24/7” is a bit misleading.

Each Bloom Energy Server provides 100 kilowatts (kW) of power in roughly the footprint of a parking space, according to the company. Each system generates enough power to meet the needs of approximately 100 average U.S. homes or a small office building. For more power, customers simply deploy multiple Energy Servers side by side. The modular architecture allows customers to start small and “pay as they grow”.
 
The price tag for that 100 kW system, however, still isn’t cheap – in the range of US$700,000-$800,000. The company is aiming to create a 1kW system for the home that would cost about $3,000. However, would that truly be enough for households, particularly in winter? This is questionable.

On the positive side, although it’s not a carbon-emission free energy solution, it will certainly cut emissions – generally by at least 40 per cent. Thus, there is definitely a marked increase in energy efficiency.

The company officially unveiled the technology at an event hosted at eBay Inc. headquarters along with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, General Colin Powell, and several of its early customers, which include Coca-Cola, Bank of America, eBay, Google and FedEx.
 
Customers who purchase Bloom’s systems can expect a 3-5 year payback on their capital investment from the energy cost savings, suggests the company. Depending on whether they are using a fossil or renewable fuel, they can also achieve a 40-100% reduction in their carbon footprint as compared with the U.S. grid.
 
Since the first commercial customer installation in July 2008, Bloom’s Energy Servers have collectively produced more than 11 million kilowatt hours (kWh) of electricity, according to the company, with CO2 reductions estimated at 14 million pounds – the equivalent of powering approximately 1,000 American homes for a year and planting one million trees.
 
“Bloom Energy is dedicated to making clean, reliable energy affordable for everyone in the world,” said Dr. KR Sridhar, principal co-founder and CEO of Bloom Energy. 
 
The Bloom Energy Server converts air and nearly any fuel source – ranging from natural gas to a wide range of biogases – into electricity via a clean electrochemical process, rather than combustion. Even running on a fossil fuel, the systems are approximately 67 per cent cleaner than a typical coal-fired power plant. When powered by a renewable fuel, they can be 100% cleaner. Each Energy Server consists of thousands of Bloom's fuel cells – flat, solid ceramic squares made from a common sand-like "powder." 

This is certainly a technology with a lot of promise, and seemingly a good fit right now for larger campuses. But there are stil questions. Firstly, how long can the systems expect to last? And can we expect to see systems, relatively soon, at a better price point? The common questions raised regarding so many clean technologies are still an issue here.

For more information, visit BloomEnergy.com.

Two new speakers have been announced for this year’s ENEX Energy Excellence conference. One of the newest additions to the event is David Arkell, President and CEO of 360 Energy. Arkell appeared at the last ENEX event and was one of our highest-rated speakers. 360 Energy is a leading energy services firm that has developed some very innovative programs for the North American market, including its Sustainable Energy Planning, The Energy Coach, and the Certification in Energy Excellence. The certification in energy excellence is of particular interest, as it’s the only certification program of its kind for industrial facilities that certified an industrial facility’s processes, not its products.

At this year’s ENEX event, Arkell will be joined by Jim Storey, Electrical Maintenance Manager for St. Marys Cement, Bowmanville, one of 360 Energy’s clients, for a panel discussion on cost, consumption and conservation – improving your energy management plan. Read more about what the St. Marys team has done to save energy so far here. Storey will share more about his experiences at the show.

Also on the panel will be Peter Rowles of Energy Advantage, one of our regular columnists here at Energy Management.

Check out the conference schedule at www.energyexcellence.ca for more updates in the coming weeks, and be sure to join us May 11-12 in Hamilton, Ontario.

A community biomass gasification CHP project in Alaska aims to break new ground.

Among the potential forms of renewable energy from biomass, CHP (Combined Heat and Power) is emerging as one of the most viable options. With its one-two punch of thermal and electric energy, CHP is generating a lot of interest.

Many North American pulp, paper and lumber mills have been using biomass CHP systems since the 1980s, burning residues to produce process steam as well as electricity to run their own operations or sell to the grid. New technologies such as biomass gasification are propelling CHP into the renewable energy mainstream.

Opinions vary on the specifics — size, location, feedstock, etc. — but experts generally agree that CHP projects offer better efficiency than stand-alone biomass power generation. 

Thomas Deerfield, founder and CEO of Alaska-based Dalson Energy, is convinced that biomass CHP could be a key component of Alaska’s energy supply. In his presentation at the recent Pacific West Biomass Conference in Sacramento, California, Deerfield laid out the fundamentals of a project he is working on to bring a biomass gasification CHP plant to Tok, Alaska and its surrounding communities.

North to Alaska
The first U.S. demonstration of biomass gasification to internal combustion engine, the project is a collaboration among various partners. Dalson Energy is working with Alaska Power & Telephone (AP&T), Nexterra Systems, GE Energy, the community of Tok, the State of Alaska, and the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on the project.

The proposed project combines Nexterra’s proprietary gasification technology and syngas conditioning system with GE Energy’s expertise in high-efficiency IC (internal combustion) engines. Nexterra uses a fixed-bed updraft gasification system which has been commercially proven for converting biomass into synthesis gas or syngas, a clean-burning combustible gas that can be used like natural gas to generate electrical power and heat.

The proposed system in Tok will combine Nexterra’s technology and a GE Jenbacher gas engine. The combination will create a modular biomass combined heat and power (CHP) plant, enabling the community of Tok to economically self-generate renewable heat and power.

The installation will be an "island grid", not connected to the greater grid, which will provide electricity to Tok and four surrounding communities. It’s a concept that has wide application potential - rural communities, light industry, campus sites and more.

The proposed system at Tok will produce 2 MW of electricity and have relatively low feedstock requirements.  Deerfield sees it as a “stackable system” that can be scaled up by adding 2MW units to a total of ten.

Feedstock will be woody biomass from the State of Alaska forest land leased to AP&T through a 25-year, 27,000-acre sustained yield harvest plan. The system will convert approximately 12,500 tons of biomass per year to heat and power that will use approximately 625 acres/year at 20 tons/acre, or a total of 12,500 acres over 20 years. This amounts to less than half the biomass available from the leased parcel of state forest land.

The project is currently waiting for $10 million in DOE funding and potential funding from the government of Alaska.

Work in progress
In his conference presentation, Deerfield noted that some of the familiar CHP issues still need work – tars, scalability, commercial availability, capital costs and diverse feedstocks.

“Tars are the most difficult CHP issue in many cases,” he said. “Building a gasifier is relatively easy but making clean gas is tougher.” Scalability is also a big issue because large systems are old technology. “There’s a huge need for technology that breaks down to the community or village scale, 2 MW down to 1,000, even 100, KW. Commercial availability is another issue – there are few if any order forms or price sheets for community or village scale CHP systems.”

He also referred to “overblown issues” which may be keeping viable CHP projects from going forward more quickly.  To the prevailing question of how to make renewable biomass energy cheaper than conventional fuel so it can compete, Deerfield’s answer is “forget it – it won’t happen in the lower 48 states, at least not until oil prices escalate.”

But, says Deerfield, in Alaska it’s a different story. “Eight, nine, ten dollars a gallon for diesel fuel to run generators results in up to a dollar per kwh retail price for delivered electricity to villages in Alaska - now that's a viable market” for CHP.

With this in mind, Deerfield says he searched for the last 10 years to find a medium scale biomass CHP gasification system ready for prime time. Several companies came close.  He finally chose Vancouver, B.C.-based Nexterra Energy. He feels their technology is closest to commercial viability – “version 1.0” is in operation in Victoria, B.C. at the Dockside Green development.

“The price is still high because it’s an early stage system,” says Deerfield, “but because energy costs are so high in Alaska, there’s less than 10-year payback on a $20 million, 2 MW system.”  Deerfield adds, “The ‘secret sauce’ to the Nexterra system is tar cracking” which mitigates that sticky issue. 

Since the CHP installation will use high efficiency GE Energy IC engines, Deerfield notes that GE Jenbacher commissioned a study to look worldwide for a gasifier developer and manufacturer that can produce gas to run in Jenbacher technology. They also chose Nexterra.

Local action
Community scale CHP systems such as this may not be THE answer, says Deerfield, but they are an answer, especially for Alaska. “Localization of systems provides local economic benefits, local control, greater redundancy, less targets for vandals and terrorists,” notes Deerfield. “The renewable energy industry has been focused on large-scale solutions. We need more small and community-scale systems, even more than the big ones. I'd rather see a thousand 2 MW systems go in the next couple of years than one 2000 MW system. It would be better to have hundreds of 300 kWh systems replacing diesel generators than importing the diesel to run those generators.”

There are many more reasons to deploy at a community scale, he adds. “The systems are more likely to be locally serviced and maintained and they increase local awareness and buy-in, which is really important to convince communities to allow systems.”

But what about the efficiency of new technologies and systems like the one he’s proposing? “We talk more about efficiency than we need to,” says Deerfield. “Efficiency is important but why are we so worried at this point? Let's start with getting some systems on the ground and then start tweaking toward efficiency.”

As far as operations and maintenance costs are concerned, “renewable energy O&M costs can be a net gain for local economies in taking wages for local workers.”

In short, Deerfield’s message is that the time has come to get past the issues and act. “Forces are conspiring,” he says, citing realities like escalating fossil fuel costs, aging infrastructure and growing energy demand.

“Let’s make some new mistakes,” he suggests, “not the old ones over and over.”

www.dalsonenergy.com
www.nexterra.ca

NewEarth Renewable Energy is setting out to spark a biomass energy revolution with its proprietary ECO-pyrolysis torrefaction (EPT) process. 

“Our process would actually revolutionize the future of the woody biomass industry,” says Ahava Amen, president of Seattle-based NewEarth Renewable Energy. “It would offer maximum revenue potential because our technology takes biomass, converts it and then separates it into its different components.”

Amen was a panelist at the recent Pacific West Biomass Conference in Sacramento, California and spoke to a very engaged and attentive audience. Revolutions are few and far between in the biomass industry. Many of the products and even the technology have been around for a long time and are being resurrected and refined to meet today’s renewable energy needs.

“If people are just taking raw biomass, at 40 or 50 dollars a ton, and selling it, they're not recovering all the value of what's actually in the biomass,” Amen explains. “If they use that raw biomass as a fuel, everything else in there is lost. Our technology offers people in the woody biomass industry a way to optimize their income to the highest degree.”

NewEarth’s ECO-pyrolysis torrefaction (EPT) process involves thermochemical conversion of biomass with medium range pyrolysis (not flash pyrolysis). Pyrolysis and torrefaction are not new processes as such but they are generating renewed interest for  renewable energy production. In the EPT process, both are combined to convert and upgrade biomass into very energy dense fuels. NewEarth’s two main products are carbon-negative alternatives to fossil fuel: biochar (E-Coal), and bio crude oil (E-Oil).

NewEarth characterizes it products as “drop-in” alternatives to fossil fuels that can be used in existing power plants. E-Coal is a “pound-for-pound energy equivalent replacement for fossil coal” available at a competitive price.

EPT transforms the molecular structure of the biomass into a more refined fuel, similar to the energy nature of coal, but without any pollution side effects because all pollutants have been removed in the process, explains the company brochure. After processing, only the energy component remains in the biomass. The natural smoke-forming volatiles have been removed and the moisture and ash content is reduced to less than 1%. The ECO-Densification process achieves a higher heating value/energy content. E-Coal is then pelletized for transportation.

While producing E-Coal, the process simultaneously generates E-Oil, an energy alternative for petroleum. E-Oil can be used for electric power generation, and when refined it can be made into green diesel, green jet fuel and green gasoline for passenger vehicles.

In the EPT process, “the carbon is condensed into a solid form, the hydrocarbons into a liquid form, and then we recover chemicals,” Amen explains.

Another product is E-Char, a soil amending biochar that can be used to increase crop yields as much as 200 percent, says the company. It’s also effective at sequestering carbon and helping to prevent soil erosion.

“When you take a ton of biomass and you just burn it, all those components are lost,” Amen notes. “We take that biomass and the technology breaks it up into its most usable form, its most dense form. Those compounds are very valuable commodities, so the value of the biomass is increased. As an example, for every 3 tons of biomass that go into our process we can create over a thousand dollars of revenue.”

NewEarth has an existing pilot plant that can produce about 25,000 tons/year of solid and liquid fuels in the Saguenay region of Quebec. The region has been hard hit by the forest industry downturn but is rich in woody biomass.

“We are in the process of recommissioning our plant now,” says Amen. “That's one of the reasons we're here at the biomass conference. The markets are terrible right now so we're looking for financing to help us with our recommissioning effort.”

Unlike basic torrefied wood, NewEarth’s EPT technology is feedstock-universal and can use over 300 different types of biomass feedstock including woody biomass.

NewEarth's EPT technology, says the company, has the most efficient heat transfer system in the world and creates a totally self-sustaining production process with a zero need for external power once the EPT process is in full swing.

Many forest products companies are looking for ways to diversify their product mix to protect themselves from market downturns. Can the EPT process be integrated into an existing operation that has residual woody biomass? “We've been talking to a few companies about co-locating and it's very possible,” says Amen. “It makes sense to do something like that.”

New Earth was voted one of the Top 100 Clean Energy Technologies by the New Energy Congress for its completely sustainable, feedstock-universal, advanced EPT technology. Since 2008, NewEarth has secured numerous contracts from global coal-fired electric power utilities, steel companies and petrochemical companies seeking to reduce their GHG emissions.

www.newearth1.net

Medicine Hat, Alberta, dubbed "The Gas City" because of its huge natural gas reserves, is looking to the sun for some of its own energy needs.

Unique for a Canadian municipality, Medicine Hat is in the gas production business. A vertically integrated energy utility, the city has approximately 4,000 natural gas wells in its area and neighbouring southwestern Saskatchewan, distributes natural gas in the region and also uses natural gas to run its municipal power plant.

“Basically, we’re energy self-sufficient,” says Russell Smith, Medicine Hat’s environment manager. “Of course, at this point in time the challenge is that natural gas is not renewable. That’s why we’re looking at other options available to allow us to be more sustainable as a community.”

Medicine Hat has set a target to provide 25 percent of its residential energy from renewable sources by 2025. The city of about 61,000 people gets more sunlight hours than almost anywhere else in Canada, which translates into some of the highest solar radiation. That’s the basis for developing a solar thermal power pilot project.

“We’re trying to understand, given the solar radiation we get in this area, how much we can rely on the sun’s energy for our heating, cooling and electricity needs,” Smith explains. “We know solar is going to be part of our solution but we’re just not sure how big a part and the first step is to understand how this technology will work at this latitude.”

North of 50
“The technology the project will use is proven but not in a northern climate,” says Smith. “In California and Nevada they’ve run technology like this for the last 15 years. We’re proposing a 1 MW project and that would be about enough electricity for about 175 homes.”

The HAT Smart Solar Steam project consists of a 1000 square meter field with rows of concave solar mirrors that bounce the sun up to a transfer tube running across the top of the mirrors. The transfer tube is filled with high-temperature oil. The sun bouncing off the mirrors heats the oil to about 700 F and the oil circulates back to the steam generator to create steam. That steam is sent through pipes to the power plant and is tied into a steam cycle, which runs a turbine to generate electricity.

In Medicine Hat’s existing combined cycle power plant, natural gas is used to run a gas turbine to make electricity. Excess heat is generated from the burning of the natural gas and the turbine’s rotation and that heat is captured and used to boil water and create steam. The steam is used in a second stage steam turbine to produce more electricity. The solar steam project would come in at that second stage and replace any extra natural gas fed into the process.

In addition to generating electricity, solar steam technology could also be used a renewable energy steam generator for food processing or other industrial processes, Smith notes. “It could be used to heat a subdivision or to replace natural gas hot water in a variety of ways.”

Economics
The solar steam project will cost $9 million CDN. The city of Medicine Hat has approved one-third of that amount and is looking for funding for the remainder from provincial and federal sources.

“We’re hoping to cost share in this project and provide lots of learning, not just locally but provincially and federally, to understand the use of this technology,” Smith notes.

Part of the learning curve will be the economic comparison with natural gas.

“This technology tends not to make pure economic sense until we’re dealing with substantially higher natural gas prices,” says Smith. “But the second and equally important part of the puzzle is the cost of carbon. At some point there is likely going to be a burden that’s going to fall on those who are burning fossil fuels, a level for every MW of electricity you produce. With natural gas you produce about ½ ton.”

“The other thing happening over time is that renewable technology is being refined and prices are coming down as more people install it. If there were a graph of rising natural gas prices and decreasing capital costs for renewable energy, at some point those lines will cross. When they do we want to be in a position to be able to install the technology and supply our citizens with more sustainable energy sources.”

A solution with many parts
The city is also looking at wind power as part of its renewable energy portfolio, with an 18 MW wind project now in the application for permission stage. It would use eight large 2 MW windmills and cost about $40 million.

But renewable energy technology is only part of the long term solution.  Smith talks about “our fossil fuel addictions” as a society and stresses that “the hardest thing is to get hold of our per capita energy consumption.” Public information and programs and incentives to reduce consumption are a critical part of the solution, in his community and elsewhere.

Happily, the citizens of Medicine Hat have responded, with participation rates in federal energy saving programs that are double the Alberta-wide rates.

“We like to think we’re on the right track but it’s a long process,” says Smith. “Society has to be interested in changing as well.”


10 top solar thermal energy projects worldwide

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.
Megawatts: 500 MW, with plans to expand to 900 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: BrightSource Energy and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Status: Will begin operating as early as 2011.

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.
Megawatts: 500 MW, with possible expansion to 850 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Stirling Energy Systems and San Diego Gas & Electric.
Status: Will begin operating in 2011.

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.
Megawatts: 553 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Solel and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Status: Will begin operating in 2011.

Location: California, USA.
Megawatts: 400 MW.
Solar Company: Solar Partners
Status: Scheduled to begin operating in 2012.

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.
Megawatts: 310 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Florida Power & Light and Southern California Edison.
Status: Operating.

Location: Seville, Spain.
Megawatts: 11 MW currently, planned increase to 300 MW.
Solar Company and Electric Utility: Mirrors by Abengoa and power tower by ALTAC.
Status: Operating. Scheduled 300 MW production by 2013.

Location: Florida, USA
Megawatts: 300 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Florida Power & Light.
Status: Scheduled to begin operating in 2011.

Location: Arizona, USA.
Megawatts: 280 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Abengoa Solar and Arizona Public Service Co.
Status: Scheduled to begin operating in 2011.

Location: Mojave Desert, USA.
Megawatts: 250 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Florida Power & Light.
Status: Scheduled to begin operating in 2011.

Location: California, USA.
Megawatts: 177 MW.
Solar Company & Electric Utility: Ausra and Pacific Gas & Electric.
Status: Scheduled to begin operating in 2010.

Source: ecoworldly.com

An international renewable energy contingency was in Ottawa recently for the Ocean Renewable Energy Group’s (OREG) 2009 Fall Symposium. Prior to the event, which assembles Canada's ocean energy industry leadership and international associates who see the resource and economic opportunities our oceans and massive river systems offer, Scottish Development International hosted a workshop to highlight Scotland’s achievements in the areas of tidal, current and wave energy and how those are able to be translated to other parts of the world.
 
Green Business had a chance to talk to Paul O’Brien, head of Scottish Development International’s Renewable Energy Sector, about Scotland’s success so far and plans for the future.

Green Business: What are your renewable energy goals for Scotland?
Paul O’Brien: We are looking to hit 50% of electricity from renewables by 2020. Our interim target is 31% by 2011. At the minute we’re on track to hit that. We’re just waiting for the official figures for 2008, but we believe we’re somewhere in the region of about 25% at the moment. So that’s quite a significant portion of electricity being derived from renewables. It’s split between hydro and wind right now. We’ve got 1.6 GW of hydro and we’re now up at 1.85 GW of wind. We’ll be adding some larger wind projects next year as well that will increase that. We’re looking at potentially within the next 10 years adding about 10 GW of offshore wind as well to the system. That will become a significant generator for the UK, not just Scotland.

GB: How did Scotland become a leader in wave and tidal power research?
O’Brien: We have a long history of marine (energy research) going back to the ‘70s and the last oil crisis when money was poured into wave development by both the Scottish and UK governments. Our research, particularly out of the University of Edinburgh, again, is regarded as world leading. They head up the UK’s flagship research program, which is called SuperGen Marine Energy Research Consortium. So it’s not just a Scottish lead, the UK as a whole is a leading light within the marine energy field. But Scotland, particularly because of the European Marine Energy Centre (EMEC) being based here — we were lucky enough to have had the vision to build that when we did. Pelamis Wave Power was the first machine on site the day the EMEC opened, but it’s taken a while for the industry to get to a point where they could use EMEC.

What we’re now seeing is that there will be a rapid increase in the number of devices being tested at the site. Aquamarine Power, for instance, have just launched their device — a wave machine — at EMEC.

GB: What makes Scotland such an ideal testing ground for this technology?
O’Brien: EMEC is based in the Orkney Isles, which is an archipelago of islands off the north mainland. It’s got one of the best wave resources in the world and it’s also on the Pentland Firth, which is one of the best tidal resources as well, so within the same group of islands you’ve got the Atlantic rollers on the west coast where the EMEC test site is, and then between the islands you have a tremendous tidal resource, because at that point you have the Atlantic on one side, and the north sea on the other, and of course the two of them are forcing waves through the island archipelago on a twice daily basis, so that is a fantastic place for testing, and actually quite an extreme environment. A lot of companies, given a choice, would probably not have chosen quite such an energetic environment, but if they can prove it there they can actually prove it anywhere.

GB: I understand there are a number of different devices being tested at EMEC.
O’Brien: Yes. Aquamarine Power have deployed their Oyster device, for one. It is a nearshore device. It sits very close in and uses the waves (to generate power) as they move into shallower waters.

Rolls Royce Marine in Dunfermline have been trialing their device up at EMEC. They’re planning early next year to deploy the device and run it almost continually over the summer. Tidal Generation Ltd is the company that actually developed the technology, and Rolls Royce have stepped in and bought up almost half the company. Because of that, their marine division in Dunfermline, Scotland, were involved in the construction of the device.

GB: Has there been manufacturing growth with the development of the industry?
O’Brien: Well, if we just look at the deployments that have actually happened. Pelamis Wave Power built their first machine here, and they’ve built three machines that were deployed in Portugal here, and they have now built their second generation device, which will be deployed at EMEC in the spring of next year. It was built in Leith, near Edinburgh, in their new facility, and they are planning to build more, and the bulk of those devices will be built here in Scotland. Some of the materials were built here, and quite a bit of the supply chain that supplied the materials inside the machine came from Scotland, but wider than that, we also have a supply chain that extends into England and across into continental Europe. Not all of the device could be supplied out of Scotland, but the bulk of it and almost 70% of the overall cost remained in Scotland.

GB: Are there rules requiring a certain quantity of local content?
O’Brien: Not exact legislation, no. What we’re really relying on is that the scale of these devices will mean that it doesn’t make sense to ship them around the world. What we’re thinking is that if the industry develops, that the devices will be – particularly the hulls, the outer shell and so forth (made of either steel or composite) – will be made locally. Ocean Power Technologies’s device is a good example of that.  The power train is being developed in New York and shipped to Scotland and has been integrated into our 150 kW device, which will be manufactured in Scotland by a local Scottish company, and they will integrate the whole thing here.

The supply chain companies will come to this quite naturally because, initially, if you are Aquamarine Power, you don’t want to be lugging an enormous machine across the Atlantic from Scotland to Canada, you will look for a local supply chain in Canada that can duplicate what has been done in the development in Scotland. Scottish companies should be partnering up with Canadian companies to basically show them, ‘this is how we did it, you don’t have to go back to the drawing board, the mistakes that we’ve made in the past, we know what they are, you can avoid them,’ and that’s a way to lower costs. And we’re beginning to see companies thinking along these lines. They don’t want to have to start from scratch when they enter a new market.

GB: How are you approaching the development of tidal and wave power today? How quickly do you see it maturing.
O’Brien: We’ve developed a road map. We created our initial roadmap in 2004, but the problem in 2004 was we didn’t know how difficult this was. Nobody had tried to deploy full-scale devices in fairly rough conditions at that point. We’ve now had experience trying to put devices in the water, and we now know how difficult that is.

But we’ve also seen in that five years a transition in the market. We’ve moved away from venture capital money being the only money available to now seeing utilities, and very large companies such as France’s Alstom and Rolls Royce step into the market, and they’re enabling the development of devices much, much quicker.

If we step back and look at the development of the wind industry from the 1980s, how long it took them to get to the 1 MW machine – it was a considerable amount of time, almost 12 years. Now we’re seeing within a much shorter time frame that the marine industry is coming forward with 1 MW machines as almost the first machine they’re putting in the water, full-scale, so the time has been compressed because of the involvement of the large utilities, and to a certain extent that is now being paralleled in Canada as well. It’s the utilities that are going to enable the industry to develop very much quicker.

GB: You have an ambitious goal of potentially developing 2 gigawatts of wind and tidal power in the next 10 years.
O’Brien: At the end of last year, Crown Estate came forward and announced that they would begin to look at the leasing of sites in the Pentland Firth and in the Orkney Isles for the development of marine projects – both wave and tidal. The aim was to have a number of 10-20 MW projects, particularly on the tidal side coming forward. What we’re seeing is that there are a number of companies that have done that, but there are also companies that believe they can develop sites of a larger scale, particularly the wave sites. The idea of this Pentland Firth development was to, over the next 10 years, develop up to 700 MW with the site licences that will be announced in the new year. We think there is a potential to develop up to a gigawatt of projects in the same time scale on these sites. In parallel to that we are now looking to do wave development sites in the western isles, and the potential to do further wave and tidal in Argyll waters, and in the Shetland Isles. If we can bring these all on in parallel, we think we could get the 2 GW (in operation). If we enabled enough sites to be made available, then the industry would fill the vacuum. Our job is to make sure that, if they want to do it, the grid comes to them and enables them to do it.

GB: This must pose infrastructure challenges.
O’Brien: Infrastructure, at the moment, represents quite an investment. Recently Ofgem, the regulators for the electricity market (they control to a certain extent how much money can be invested in the grid), announced that they would allow the transmission companies to invest a billion pounds over the next two years to enable grid improvement and expansion. They also announced that of that billion pounds to be spent in the UK, 70% of it would be spent in Scotland. So we’re seeing the lion’s share of that allowed development.

What we have to do with it now is to plan it in such a way that we maximize the value to all of the renewables industry, and that’s why we’re trying to encourage both the wind industry and the marine energy industry to talk to each other, and to talk about how they can share infrastructure. Shetland has plans to build a 550 MW wind farm, and we are having to look at a 600 MW line running up to Shetland, subsea, from the Aberdeenshire coast, about 330 km up to Shetland. It’s a significant investment of 450 million pounds.

What we’re saying to the developers and to Shetland Trust, which is the owner of the potential wind farm, is you wouldn’t want to leave it like that because half the time you’ll be using only half the capacity of that line. Your wind farm will only every produce, even when it’s running at full tilt, 550 MW going down the line. But if you average it over the year, you’ll only use half the line most of the time. Even if you get that 50% capacity factor, you are still missing a trick by not adding something else in there that could use the other capacity. We’re beginning to suggest to them that wave and tidal should be part and parcel of the wind development as well. That also raises the issue of energy storage.

GB: It seems like it’s going to create an interesting market dynamic in the next few years.
O’Brien: As the number of renewables increases, we’re having to come up with smarter ways of controlling the grid, managing the grid, managing the generation of the demand and balancing it, and we believe that’s given us an edge because we’ve been looking at such a high penetration of renewables on the system that we will develop these new technologies that will become a part of the smart grid systems, and that will also give us an advantage when we look to do this elsewhere. Not only will the marine companies come along, and offshore wind, but the smart grid companies that have developed these products in Scotland will come with them. And we see that as a future market that will be a large market. The problem is we have to do all of this in parallel – not just generation for generation’s sake but using it all in the best and smartest way possible. That’s going to be part and parcel of the development of green energy as well.

We parallel Canada in the fact that we have enormous resources offshore and far away from the demand centres – in our case, in continental Europe.

GB: Do you see the industry for tidal and wave power expanding?
O’Brien: Nobody has come up with the device that’s going to take over the market. There’s plenty of room for companies that want to step in with their own ideas, but we need to make sure the market actually happens to encourage the involvement of the Rolls Royce’s and the Alstom’s.