Located near Arlington, Ore., the project consists of 300-plus wind turbines staggered over 30 square miles in the eastern part of the state. Construction of the Shepherds Flat wind farm began in 2009, and despite controversy over funding and a delay by the Air Force, progressed fairly quickly for a project of such size. The installation has a 20-year power purchase agreements with Southern California Edison, and was one of the first to use the U.S. Department of Energy’s loan guarantee program.

Besides producing an estimated 2 billion kWh each year, Shepherds Flat is expected to have an annual economic impact of $37 million for the state. Sustainable Business Oregon reports that New York-based Caithness Energy employed more than 400 people to develop and will employ another 45 full-time workers.

In 2007, the state legislature created a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that requires the largest utilities in Oregon to provide 25 percent of their retail sales of electricity from newer, clean, renewable sources of energy by 2025. In addition to wind and solar energy, a recent survey shows that Oregonians strongly favor the development of tidal power resources as well. Ocean Power Technologies plans to deploy at 150-kilowatt “PowerBuoy” off the coast near Reedsport.

Photo credit: Loco Steve/Flickr

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Renewable energy systems produce electrical power. One of the most frequent objections to the use of these systems is that they don’t always produce power when it is needed.

“Solar power arrays can’t produce power at night.” “Wind power only generates electricity when the wind is blowing.” — These, and other complaints, highlight what is one of the key benefits of fossil fuel, namely that it is stored energy.

A sail ship can move only when the wind is blowing, but a steam ship could move as long as it had coal to fire its boilers. Stored energy systems allowed the directed application of energy to whatever purpose it was needed for at the time and place of the user’s choosing.

Modern life has made us accustomed to this convenience. In the developed world, the supply of gas and electricity to our buildings are utilities, basic services so ubiquitous that they are provided to all.

But a number of systems are under development or are already in place to allow the clean energy generated from wind, solar, and other renewable sources to be effectively stored until needed.

One of the oldest and most widely used systems for storing power is pumped hydro. The first pumped hydro installations were built in the 1890s in the Swiss Alps and Italy, where narrow valleys could be easily dammed to create the higher reservoirs needed for a pumped hydro installation.

Pumped hydro uses flowing water to turn turbines that generate electricity. But where conventional hydropower uses a flowing watercourse like a river to run its turbines, pumped hydro uses a lake or other reservoir to collect and store the water until electricity is needed. Using simple physics, potential energy is stored by pumping water to a higher elevation and storing it until power is needed. Then the water is allowed to flow out through the turbines to produce the needed electricity.

The generating turbines at a pumped hydro facility are usually also used to pump water up into the storage pond, which helps lower capital equipment requirements.

Diagram of a pumped hydro system

Pumped storage facilities are fairly economical to build and to operate because they do not require hazardous chemicals or especially complex industrial systems for their operation. When natural geography provides the proper conditions, a pumped hydro facility can be built without a great deal of additional infrastructure. They do well when located next to natural bodies of water, which can serve as lower ponds.

Because pumped storage facilities require a large area of land (the storage pond at the Ludington, Mich., facility covers 1.3 square miles, or 3.4 square kilometers), they are not well suited for proximity to urban centers, so they require access to high capacity electrical transmission. However, this proximity also makes it possible for them to be used to store excess power from whatever source is producing excess electricity.

Some of the largest pumped hydro facilities are able to supply thousands of megawatts of power for several hours, if needed. The largest pumped storage facility in the world is the Bath County Pumped Storage Station in northern Virginia, which has a maximum capacity of 3 gigawatts (3,000 megawatts). Because they can begin generating additional power very quickly, pumped hydro facilities are a very good option instead of gas-fired peaker plants for responding to changing power demand.

Ocean shore pumped hydro systems are possible, particularly in locations with high cliffs which permit the storage pond to be higher above sea level (and thereby creating a greater potential difference for the stored water). A potential drawback to these systems is that salt water is more corrosive and typically requires more maintenance for the equipment than freshwater systems. However, seashore locations are particularly good for wind farms, and there is a good synergy to be had from the pairing of a coastal wind farm with a pumped storage facility. One proposed alternative energy system, called Searaser would use a fleet of offshore ocean buoys equipped with pistons to pump water up to an onshore storage pond

As with every mode of energy conversion, there are losses from using pumped hydro to store energy. Pumped hydro has an average system efficiency in the range of 70-80 percent. Pumped hydro can also suffer from evaporative losses during a period of drought (though it also gains “free” energy from rainfall and other runoff that feeds into the storage pond).

Image credits: Ludington MI Pumped Storage Consumers Power; diagram funjoker23/Wikimedia Commons

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Known as thermoelectric generators, the material generates an electric charge from temperature variations across its two ends. So, for instance, the heat from the hot exhaust gases from your car could be used to generate electricity before escaping from the end of your tailpipe, making your car more efficient. But waste heat is everywhere and scientists envision many potential applications for thermoelectric materials.

As with much of today’s technology, from Tang to heat-absorbing sportswear, thermoelectric generators have a head start in space-based applications. The Mars Curiosity is powered by heat harvested from the radioactive isotope plutonium-238 dioxide. For as long as the isotope produces radioactive heat, Curiosity will have electricity. Of course, that’s fine for a robot explorer on Mars, but what of our more Earthly needs?

The first hurdle for the general application of thermodynamic material is efficiency. Until now, generators have typically retained only 10 percent of the energy from heat. The new design reported in Nature uses an optimized form of lead telluride that effectively doubles the efficiency of the thermoelectric generator, making them easier to mass-produce as well. The problem with lead telluride is its toxicity, making it unsuitable for commercial applications.

Nonetheless, this week’s revelation in thermodynamic generator technology is a big step forward. One day your tailpipe, if you still have one, could be a source of energy.

Of course, entropy and the second law of thermodynamics dictates there will always be some waste heat. There’s no free lunch, but we can certainly make the cost much more efficient.

Main photo credit: Arthur Caranta/Flickr

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Called ebuggy, this battery concept looks and works very much like the RideKick bike trailer featured on Revmodo a few months ago. The ebuggy is designed to be towed behind electric cars, like the RideKick is towed behind bikes. Designers envision a series of ebuggy stations located on the outskirts of major cities. EV drivers would pick up and connect the trailer on their way out of town, connecting it to their car’s existing electrical power system in a matter of minutes. When they arrive at their destination, the ebuggy trailer could be returned for recharging at another conveniently located station.

EV drivers could join this battery exchange program and pay a certain fee via an ebuggy card each time they utilize a trailer. An ebuggy kit would have to be installed on the car, including a standard trailer hitch, a power socket and a dashboard user interface. Fees would be automatically calculated and billed, and according to the company, would “always be lower than driving a gas or diesel car.”

Although it sounds unique, the battery swap concept proposed by ebuggy isn’t that groundbreaking. Silicon Valley-based Better Place has been developing a network of battery exchange and recharging stations for a number of years, with operational networks in Israel and Denmark, and Australia and China slated to come on board soon. Still, the Better Place concept requires the use of a specific EV: the Renault Fluence Z.E. With the ebuggy, just about any car could be retrofitted with the equipment necessary to use the backup battery service.

“ebuggy allows the automotive industry to build reasonably priced electric vehicles with a smaller battery, because ebuggy is available for longer distances,” said ebuggy Managing Director Dr. Manfred Baumgärtner. “As a result, electric cars will become cheaper than vehicles with a combustion engine and e-mobility will be able to assert itself rapidly and dynamically.”

Main photo credit: ebuggy

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Right now, homeowners wanting to get solar power on their rooftop can take the federal solar tax credit. When tax time rolls around, you can claim up to 30 percent of the cost of your solar system on your taxes. If your tax liability isn’t that high, the extra credit will roll over to the next year. The tax incentive has been an important part of helping solar power quickly grow; wind and solar have grown six-fold even in the middle of a deep recession. But the new report, from the Climate Policy Initiative, says that a cash incentive could work as well for much less money.

According to the study, a 14 percent cash incentive would provide the same benefit as the tax credit, while costing government 57 percent less. By providing up-front investment, the government could help homeowners reduce the need to get outside financing, which would help reduce the overall cost of the project. The other benefit of the cash incentive is that it can help anyone, regardless of their tax liability. The report recommends that the government offer homeowners options for both the incentive and the tax credit.

The study also found that a cash incentive could improve wind policy. By extending the current wind production tax credit, but delivering it as a cash incentive, the government could help wind project owners get the same benefit while reducing government costs by nearly half.

Main photo credit: isak55/Shutterstock

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The EPA’s new rules are enforceable under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) which established the second phase of the Renewable Fuel Standards program. The EISA already specifies a one billion gallon minimum volume requirement for the biomass-based diesel category for 2012 and beyond, so the EPA’s slight requirement increase shouldn’t come as that much of a surprise to the diesel industry.

Biodiesel is a non-petroleum fuel typically made from fats or oils such as soybean oil, but it can also be derived from waste vegetable oils. According to the National Biodiesel Board, it can be blended at any level with petroleum diesel to create a biodiesel blend, and can be used in existing vehicles with diesel engines with little or no modifications.

The move is good news for states like Iowa that depend on the biodiesel industry to buy up their soybean crops. Currently Iowa is the country’s largest producer of biodisel with 13 dedicated facilities and the capacity to produce 320 million gallons on its own every year. Yet, some are still doubtful that using food crops for fuel production is a good use of America’s agricultural capabilities, and there have been questions about whether or not biodiesel is really a cleaner-burning fuel. And, of course, the petroleum industry is unhappy, having previously claimed that the EPA’s mandate makes it more expensive to produce diesel, a cost that’s ultimately passed on to the consumer.

Still, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack seems optimistic that the move will be good for the economy: ”Over the past three years, we have doubled generation from renewable energy and [this] announcement by the EPA will ensure that we are continuing to utilize biodiesel to help meet our energy needs, create jobs and strengthen the rural economy,” he said.

Photo credit: Frontpage/Shutterstock

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Now, Reuters reports that two of nuclear’s biggest supporters, France and Japan, have essentially switched sides in the debate. In the wake of last year’s Fukushima disaster, Japan is phasing out its nuclear plants and increasing spending on renewable energy, while France plans to reduce its dependence on nuclear.

By the 2030s, Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda says the island nation — which produced more than 10 percent of the world’s nuclear power in pre-Fukushima years — will be out of the nuclear industry. At the same time, it plans to triple the share of renewable resources so they contribute 30 percent of its energy needs.

French president Francois Hollande promises to cut the share of nuclear power in the country from a whopping 75 percent today to 50 percent by 2025. Hollande also called for a 40 percent cut in the European Union’s carbon dioxide emissions by 2030 and a 60 percent cut by 2040.

Weighing in on the other side of the debate, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned that it may be impossible to fill the gap left by nuclear power entirely with renewables and said the nations will inevitably end up using more fossil fuels. (Incidentally, the website of the journal Nature has an interesting set of charts showing IEA projections on fuel mix through 2035, as well as some other useful data.)

Luis Uriza of Bain & Co. told Reuters that natural gas is the most likely fuel to fill the void, which Japan already imports as a major energy source.

Germany, one of the most aggressive pursuers of alternative power, has backed away from nuclear since Fukushima, but it is still gets a large share of its power from fossil fuels.

Photo of nuclear power plant in Cattenom, France, courtesy of Stefan Kühn/Wikimedia

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Evatran, makers of the Plugless Power EV charging system, recently announced the addition of two big ticket testers for their prototype device. Google and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP) recently joined Evatran’s Apollo Program, the first program to test and demonstrate wireless EV charging capability for passenger vehicles. So far, it looks to be a success.

Unsure about how it’s possible to charge an entire car without a cord? Think about your other wireless electronics. Cordless devices (think home phones and electric toothbrushes) use inductive power transfer to transmit power without a cord. The Plugless Power system works in a similar way: A parking pad is installed on the floor of your garage (or in a parking spot) so it’s automatically underneath your EV when you park. Magnetic fields transfer energy from the transmitting coil in the parking pad and convert it into an electrical current by the receiving coil in the vehicle adapter. When your car is fully charged, the system turns off. And if you need to leave before charging is complete, simply back up and the charging stops.

There’s no need to worry about electrical waves burning your brain every time you enter the garage, since only the compatible coils can make this energy transfer possible — ensuring total safety for anything that comes into contact with the system.

The main purpose of the Apollo Program is to get real-world feedback on the wireless charging system from a variety of commercial clients. Besides the LADWP and Google, which recently added on to its initial first-gen installation, testing partners include the Hertz Corporation, Duke Energy and the Clemson University International Center for Automotive Research (CU-ICAR) in Greenville, S.C. So far, the system has only been trialed in the Nissan LEAF and Chevrolet Volt, but Evatran says retrofits for other electric vehicle makes and models are coming soon.

“We’ve received invaluable and candid feedback from our partners, and armed with that feedback, we have now set our sights on releasing an upgraded and refined production product as early as January 2013,” said Rebecca Hough, Evatran’s Chief Operating Officer. The company is now accepting partners for the second phase of the Apollo Program set to launch in the next four months.

Photo credits: Plugless Power

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Applied Exergy has developed a new technology they call Thermal Approach to Grid Energy Storage, or TAGES (pronounced “tags”) for short. By utilizing a new kind of microchannel heat exchanger technology developed at Oregon State University, energy generated from renewable sources is used to cool water down into an icy slurry, in effect “storing” the energy in the ice. When the stored power is needed, waste heat from almost any source can be used to melt the mixture back into liquid form so it can flow through the turbine blades of a generator, producing electricity that can then be sent out to the grid. The melted water is then returned into the tank to be re-frozen and used again.

“It’s essentially an air-conditioning unit combined with a steam power plant,” said Chief engineer Kevin Harada. “The efficiency of the plant is based on temperature differences.”

While there has been plenty of research done on using ice to store energy, Applied Exergy says that the slurry works better than a solid chunk of ice because it melts down much faster.

“The advantage of the ice slurry is it’s very tiny little ice cubes, so water will flow through it,” said Harada.

Seems Mr. Harada and company aren’t alone in believing in the strength of their technology, as the company has secured a $150,000 grant from the Oregon Built Environment & Sustainable Technologies Center to build a demo model and over $500,000 in grants and private investments. Local utility company Portland General Electric is evaluating the technology for future use, and Applied Exergy is currently seeking an additional $15 million in financing for its manufacturing and infrastructure plans.

According to the company, the TAGES system should cost less than $1,000 per kilowatt-hour of generating capacity to install, built to be moveable and stackable, and easily integrate into current HVAC systems. Could the future of energy storage take the form of that age-old childhood favorite, the Slushie?

[via Corvallis Gazette-Times]

Image Credit: K E L S E Y . R

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So why not kill both birds with one stone?

That’s the idea behind poop power. Yes, get your giggles out now: I said ‘poop power’. The idea is to transform our dirty, smelly excrement, into clean, occasionally-also-smelly (but sustainable) energy.

Though it may elicit laughs, the potential of poop-to-power technology is actually serious business. Not only does the technology have the ability to supplement our energy needs, but by using human waste as an input, it also does away with a major pollutant. Really, it’s the quintessential model of sustainability.

A number of companies, cities and countries are already seeing sewage as a power source rather than as a waste problem. Here are 8 major ways that power is being generated from poop:

Photo Credit: Jonutis/Shutterstock

City Sewage

Perhaps the most clearcut way to transform your poop into power is to convert it into biogas via anaerobic digestion. Basically, when sewage is fed to anaerobic bacteria, they eat it up and belch out a waste product of their own: biogas. This can then be funneled directly into the already-existing natural gas distribution system, transformed into electricity, or burned off immediately for energy.

A number of North American cities have already installed biogas digesters into their waste treatment facilities. For example, the Lions Gate Wastewater Treatment plant in Vancouver, British Columbia, has launched a biogas project designed to supplement the city’s natural gas supply.

Another city employing such an approach is Brooklyn, NY, at the Newtown Creek Wastewater Treatment Plant. The facility recently got an overhaul so fewer smells escape into nearby neighborhoods. Which is a real win for locals, but a major loss for pets who will now bear all the blame for unclaimed flatulence.

Photo Credit: fotoJoost/Shutterstock

Manure Mania

If you think human waste is a problem, just imagine the amount of waste that comes from our farm animals. Poop from the big three– cows, pigs and poultry– represents a monumental waste problem of its own. Manure has long been used as fertilizer, but there is vast untapped energy potential here too. In fact, it has been estimated that transforming cow poop to biogas could meet 3 percent of North America’s energy needs. Projects launched in California and Ontario, Canada are already ahead of the curve, to name just a few.

Pigs are another major source of poo… er, power. China is investing heavily in transforming poop from their estimated 700 million pigs into energy. Even Google is making an investment in pig plops as part of their effort to make the company carbon neutral.

And don’t forget poultry. China is on top of this one too, already with a chicken-manure biogas plant up and running near Beijing.

Photo Credit: TOTO

Toot Engines

Poop isn’t only useful for generating electricity; it can also fuel your vehicle. Who knew that it would one day be your exhaust that was coming out of your car?

In fact, Volkswagen has debuted a version of its iconic Bug that runs on processed sewage. Its converted 2.0-liter, four-cylinder motor can generate speeds up to 114 miles per hour.

The city of Oslo, Norway, is also fueling its buses with flatulence, so to speak. Sewage from about 250,000 Oslo residents is enough to operate 80 buses for around 62,000 miles each.

Perhaps the most bizarre poop-powered vehicle, though, is this motorcycle with a built in toilet (pictured above). Or is it a toilet with a built-in motorcycle? Designed by Japanese toilet manufacturer Toto, the bike ensures that you’ll never have to stop to use the rest room, or a gas station, ever again.

Photo Credit: Kuzmin Andrey/Shutterstock

Diaper Power

Toilets are handy receptacles for capturing and pumping our poop to centralized treatment plants. But what about the waste that doesn’t make it to the toilet? No, I’m not talking about peeing in the shower. I’m talking about when your baby poops (before it was potty trained, that is).

Of course, that’s what diapers are for. But why let all of that waste to go to, ahem, waste? That’s what Canadian company AMEC-PLC was asking. So they built a facility capable of turning billions of poopy diapers into energy.

While collecting all of those diapers is still an arduous and, let’s face it– dirty, task, it certainly beats having the diapers end up in landfills.

Photo Credit: Matt Ragen/Shutterstock

Prisoner Poop

Generating power to cook for around 10,000 inmates isn’t cheap for Cyangugu prison in Rwanda: they used to spend about $44,000 dollars annually just for firewood (that’s a lot of money in Rwanda). It also means a lot of trees being cut down.

That was before a 150 cubic meter biogas digester was donated by the Kigali Institute of Science and Technology’s Center for Innovations and Technology Transfer. Now poop collected from 1,500 of the prison’s inmates is being used to power the kitchens, cutting the energy bill in half.

It certainly gives a whole new meaning to the idea of a ‘gas-powered stove.’

Photo Credit: Mat Hayward/Shutterstock

Pooper-Scoopers

Aside from those of you who have trained your pets to use the toilet, dogs and cats represent another fountainhead of poop that has been under-utilized as a power source. But a methane digester might be coming soon to a dog park near you.

A plan, originally imagined by artist Matthew Mazzotta, to turn dog waste into power for lamps at a dog park in Cambridge, MA, has caught the world by storm. The idea is pretty simple: instead of tossing your pets’ poops in a trashcan, you toss it into an on-site 500-gallon biogas digester. The digester then generates enough power for the park’s lamps.

Dog parks as far away as Gilbert, Arizona and Melbourne, Australia, have already begun employing their own pet-poop power stations too.

Photo Credit: David Gallaher/Shutterstock

Zoo Poo

We’ve covered human sewage, farm animal waste, dog droppings, and even baby poop. What’s left?

Zoos are another place with major poop problems, and I don’t just mean from the patrons. All of those animals generate a lot of waste, and keeping zoo facilities powered up can be expensive. Zoos therefore make perfect places for utilizing poop power.

The Munich Zoo in Germany is the first zoo in the world to take full advantage. They’ve installed three large digesters for generating biogas, which are filled up weekly with the poop from all of the park’s vegetarian animals. (The elephants make the most significant contributions). The energy generated then goes toward heating the enclosures of various warm-weather critters.

Photo Credit: Nanyang Technological University

Toilet Tech

If we’re going to take poop power seriously, then we’ll need to begin thinking differently about toilet technology too. Luckily, researchers are already on it.

Scientists at Nanyang Technological University have invented a new toilet system that not only makes the distribution of our poop more efficient, but it saves a ton on water too.

The system saves on water by working a lot like the vacuum toilets that exist in airplane lavatories. Perhaps most impressive, though, is the way it separates liquid from solid waste. Liquid waste can then be streamlined straight to a facility that specializes in creating fertilizer. Meanwhile, solid waste gets flushed to a biogas plant to be transformed into electricity or fuel.

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