Alan Shaw, president of Codexis—a developer of biocatalytic chemical processes used to reduce manufacturing costs across a broad range of industries—concluded his defense of biofuels with the following:

The most compelling aspect of advanced biofuels is that they meet the future need for clean, alternative transportation fuel and offer a realistic strategy to get there. Electric-battery vehicles require a costly and radical conversion of our entire automotive systems and fuelling processes. Biofuels strategically bridge existing infrastructure, ubiquitous automotive mechanics, economic pragmatism and environmental sustainability. Indeed, biofuels, not electricity, will power the car of the future.

On the other side of the debate was Sidney Goodman, the Vice President of Automotive Alliances, a group that oversees the automobile manufacturing industry. He concluded with:

As the leaders of many major carmakers have said, electrification of the automobile is inevitable and, while it will not happen overnight, the transition already has begun in earnest. The science and technology exist today to make mass-market electric cars a reality. Hybrid-electric vehicles are an interim step towards this not too distant future. There is a reason why the majority of devices are powered by electricity today: the electric motor is one of the most efficient machines on the planet. Because electrons are more efficient, we rarely see molecules used as a driver outside the transportation realm.

In the end, 68% of the debate participants voted that electricity is the future of transportation (only 32% voted for the biofuel solution).

In late 2008, with impetus from FESC, Florida State University (FSU) created the Institute for Energy Systems, Economics and Sustainability (IESES) to conduct research and analyses on the engineering, science, infrastructure and socio-economic aspects of a sustainable energy economy.  IESES is a collection of scholars across eighteen disciplines, with a goal of broadening and strengthening interdisciplinary collaboration between FSU, FESC associates, governmental agencies, business and industry.

One key research component of IESES is the Center for Marine Bioenergy Research, which focuses on the development of bioenergy products from marine algae. Marine algae represent an unexploited biomass source that could provide a cheap, clean, and renewable fuel source that is ideally suited for production in Florida. In fact, marine algae are arguably the most promising non-food source of biofuels, producing a yield that is higher than land crops, and using the ocean would mean farmland that could grow food would not be a part of the biofuel equation.  The US Department of Energy estimates that for algae biofuel to replace all the petroleum fuel in the U.S., only 15,000 square miles of intense algal cultivation would be needed, roughly the size of the state of Maryland.  However, a recent state of the industry report cited several major impediments to progress in algal biofuels development, including; 1) secrecy amongst companies in the field that leads to a lack of information sharing between affiliated scientists, 2) lack of rigorous assessments of the entire algal biofuel value chain (i.e., from production to distribution), and 3) lack of trained workforce.

With one of the largest coastlines in the U.S., Florida is positioned to develop a significant supply of biomass from its surrounding oceans to support biofuel production. FSU researchers are developing a state-of-the-art algal cultivation operation at a site on the North Florida coast, which includes an off-grid, zero emissions facility that utilizes recycled CO2 (from the processing of algal biomass) and nutrients (from local wastewater sources) to support algal growth.  Since this unique operation will be run by an academic institution, a major goal will be to work towards overcoming problems noted in the aforementioned state of the industry report.  Scientific findings will be made available in a timely manner to the public and scientists in the field; IESES economists and social scientists will help to quantify the economic, energetic and environmental impacts of the facility and provide guidance on future efficiency improvements; and the facility will serve as a training ground for the next generation of algal biofuel/biotechnology workers.

Now, though, ARPA-E is back on track. Funding in the amount of $400 million was explicitly set aside in the recent stimulus bill (the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act), and on April 27, President Obama annuonced at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C.:

My administration will pursue, as well, comprehensive legislation to place a market-based cap on carbon emissions. We will make renewable energy the profitable kind of energy.  We will put in place the resources so that scientists can focus on this critical area.  And I am confident that we will find a wellspring of creativity just waiting to be tapped by researchers in this room and entrepreneurs across our country.  We can solve this problem.

In addition to funding new research, the President promised to further science education: "...my administration has set a goal that will greatly enhance our ability to compete for the high-wage, high-tech jobs of the future... we've provided tax credits and grants to make a college education more affordable." He also announced that the new budget triples the number of National Science Foundation graduate research fellowships.

As Obama has done so in the past, he ended with an allusion to the Apollo Project for which John F. Kennedy spurred funding and motivated a generation to strive for; quoting Kennedy: "The challenge, in short, may be our salvation."

Click here for a full transcript of President Obama's NAS speech.

His two year old clean-energy company, Better Place, seeks contracts with various renewable energy sites (solar power arrays in Israel, wind farms in Denmark) and connects these to a global network of battery charging spots, the electric equivalent of a gas station.

Despite their advantage of little or no CO₂ production, electric cars have suffered from an issue of refueling. The longest-driving electric car on the market, the Tesla Roadster, can run for 250 miles before needing to recharge. Unfortunately, to recharge this battery, it takes about two hours. Not many people are going to want a vehicle that has 2 hours downtime for every 100 miles driven (it's preferable to recharge before you run out of fuel entirely). Agassi's revolutionary step was to remove the battery from the car altogether.

Why should a battery be a permanent component of a car? Shai Agassi believes that electric cars should be as cheap and as easy to use as their gasoline-powered peers. Agassi's Better Place infrastructure enables people to drive up to a charging station where a robot would slip the battery out from below the car and replace it with a fully charged one. Payment works in much the same ways as a cell phone plan - you pay for the miles (the charge) that you use. Drivers can be in and out of the charge station in less than two minutes. The down time, waiting for the robot to switch out the batteries, is 45 seconds. It's just as fast, if not faster than topping up a tank of gas.

Better Place already has charge stations throughout Israel, the first nation to adopt this infrastructure. The US could see them appearing as soon as 2012 in the Bay Area, with Hawaii shortly after. It's an exciting concept: affordable, practical electric cars. Renault has put 1.5 billion dollars into building 9 different types of electric cars that will coordinate with the Better Place charge stations and swap sites.

Agassi's talk at the 2009 TED conference gives a fantastic treatment of the numbers for refueling occurrences. If you have charge stations everywhere and if you have swap stations everywhere, if turns out that you would swap your battery fewer times than you would stop at a gas station. According to Agassi, electric cars will be on the roads soon, greatly lessening our dependence on oil and driving a market for sustainable energy.

San Francisco
13-17 April 2009

MRS meetings attract researchers from a broad range of fields—bringing with them their unique perspectives into one place. There is always a significant interest in materials related to sustainable energy, though, and this year's Spring meeting was no exception.

Everybody wanted to know more about the journal—even researchers not working in the related fields have an interest in this area. Energy is suddenly on everyone's mind. It seems to be on department heads' minds as well, as many people were interested in learning about the journal because they're either in—or planning on being in—a department that has a research group in renewable energy. As a bonus, JRSE's co-editors, John Turner and P. Craig Taylor, were at the booth to talk directly to potential authors, reviewers, and future editors.

In addition to the business of science, there was some fun: a bamboo bike (or a "Bambucicleta") and a local caricature artist in the exhibit hall.

The exhibit hall entrance (left) and a quiet moment at the JRSE booth.

In addition to the crowds of researchers stopping by, JRSE also had a few mentions on the web. Check out the MRS blog for a very positive review of the journal and a flattering shoutout to our editors. Also in the social networking world, don't forget to fan the JRSE and MRS facebook pages, and keep your eyes open for tweets about JRSE from AIP's twitter feed (hash tag: #AIP_JRSE).

Like many other European countries, Japan has increased government subsidies given to power companies and other retailers that encourage them to switch to a more efficient form of energy production. The wind energy target for the next two years is to expand the output to 3 million kilowatts—calling for a virtual doubling of the over 1,400 wind turbines already in place.

Think about how Japan has changed their outlook since the "Lost Decade" of the 90s—they have consistently shown world leadership in promoting renewable energy, which has, so far, brought further good fortune to their economy.

Surprisingly, not all of these turbines are run by regional governments or corporations. In September 2001, Hokkaido Green Fund (HGF), a nonprofit organization (NPO) in Hokkaido, northern Japan, built Japan's first citizen-funded wind power plant: Sapporo Station, nicknamed "Hamakaze-chan" or "beach wind."

Other interesting and productive wind farms around Japan:

• Panoramic view of Seto Wind Hill Park in Ikata. and some high resolution images.
• The Nunobiki plateau Wind Farm, which generates enough electricity to power 35,000 homes.
• The Hibikinada Wind Farm is a15,000 kilowatt facility on the coast of Hibikinada, Japan. It supplies power to Kyushu Electric Power Co. using ten 1,500 kW wind turbines from GE Wind Energy. The turbines are expected to generate 35 million kWh annually, enough to supply 10,000 average Japanese homes.

The Japan National Tourism Organization seems just as excited about wind energy as its government—offering up the following summaries for tourists about wind farms across the country:

• Cape Soya Wind Farm in Wakkanai City: Located in the far northern part of Hokkaido with a view of Sakhalin, are 57 wind turbines, some reaching as high as 40 m. Total output is 57,000 kW—equivalent to approx. 60% of the consumption of Wakkanai City.
• In Horonobe Town: Otonrui Wind Power Station comprised of 28 wind turbines, some as high as 99 m, lined up over a distance of 3 km.
• In Tomamae: 3 wind power stations facing the Japan Sea: Yuhigaoka Power Plant, Tomamae Green Hill Wind Park Power Plant and Tomamae Winvilla Power Plant—all contributing to an output of more than 20,000 kW.
• The northern Japanese town of Hokkaido, which is the first offshore wind-for-power system outside of Europe, has been harnessing the ocean wind since 2003. It has two 600-kilowatt turbines located inside a breakwater less than one kilometer off the coast, which is enough to power an average of 1,000 homes per year.

If the NIF fusion project succeeds, it will be a phenomenal breakthrough in sustainable energy research. Fusion's allure is in its ability to convert seawater into clean energy, with no greenhouse emissions. The kind of energy produced can couple easily to the current energy grid, adding to the attractiveness of the project.

But even with the grid in place and ready for more energy, there are still many pragmatic issues to address. At the moment, the NIF can only fire full-strength on a weekly basis, to avoid burning the optics. A self-sustaining reactor, however, would need to fire ten times per second. No optics currently exist that can withstand that kind of energy. The gold targets, of which several hundred are needed per year, would need to be made more affordable, and the space constraints of such a facility (three football fields across and 10 stories high) severely restrict the number of feasible locations.

Still, the press releases from NIF remain optimistic. Moses sketches a timeline of 2020 for the first prototype fusion-fission reactor and 2030 for the first commercial one: he sees the current limitations as surmountable. From the sidelines, it is hard to know whether this current system will be the one of groundbreaking successes and many records or whether sustainable fusion reactions are still on the edge of the burn.

• $5 billion for energy efficient homes

Otherwise known as the "Weatherization Assistance Program," these funds will enable low-income families the oppurtunity to increase their home's efficiency with technologies such as energy-efficient appliances and lighting, among others.

• $4.5 billion for greening federal buildings

These funds will go to repairs and increasing efficiency to federal buildings, such as the NIH and USDA facilities, as well as to the repair, improvement, and construction of ports of entry into the US.

• $2.5 billion for renewable energy projects

Funds that will go directly to applied energy research, development, and demonstration and deployment activities. There will also be a review to increase industry standards for energy efficiency and technology through the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

• $4.5 billion for Smart Grid technology and transmission infrastructure

The Smart Grid appropriation will create several new programs for communications and energy transmission. This particular funding will have the following impact: to create about $9 billion in projects and matching-fund eligible expense.

• $3.4 billion for clean fossil energy technology

For research and development aimed at CO₂ capture and storage technologies.

• $800 million for next generation biofuels

These funds are allocated for biomass applied energy research, with a explicity focus on the sustainability of these technologies (including producing feedstock for biofuel production, minimizing the amount of water and nutrients used for production, among others).

• $1.6 billion for science and basic research in the energy technologies of the future

These funds will go to the DOE's Office of Science, which funds research on climate science, high-energy physics, nuclear physics, and fusion energy sciences (includes those not listed above).

• $2 billion for battery research and advanced vehicle technologies

Aimed at creating a more efficient and advanced transportation grid based on cleaner burning fuels and enegy efficient automobiles.

• $400 million for Advanced Research Project Agency-Energy (ARPA-E)

ARPA-E is part of the America COMPETES Act, and supports transformational energy technology research projects with the goal of enhancing the nation's economic and energy security.

• $6 billion for cleanup of nuclear legacy

Funds will redouble the ongoing efforts to clean up radioactive waste from Cold War nuclear project sites, creating jobs and reclaiming lands for communities across the country.

For state by state breakdown of the distribution of these funds, check out the DOE's interactive map and for more information on all stimulus funds go to Recovery.gov.

Downtown Chicago, the Wrigley Building, and the Chicago River

Adding to that theme were a few presenters concerned with the direction of renewable energy research. Kicking things off on Friday morning, Nate Lewis from Caltech spoke about the immense potential of solar, proclaiming that "he that cannot store will not have power after 4," adding that Johnnie Cochran would be proud of this rhyming proclamation.

Lewis' efforts are guided by the intricacies of photosynthesis. In fact, his team has achieved the production of hydrogen (H₂) at an efficiency greater than any plant in nature has. The problem, Lewis notes, is that the production is too expensive—one needs to be able to use cheaper and more readily available materials to create a viable product. Lewis warned that despite the promising results, we still have a long way to go to match what nature does. Lewis ended his talk by saying "We need to change the paradigm by which we can use and exploit sunlight."

Next up at the same session, Paul Alivisatos gave a presentation. After Steven Chu left the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to become the 12th United States Secretary of Energy, he was replaced by Alivisatos, who is now the Deputy Director of the Laboratory. Alivisatos spoke briefly about the need for more renewable energy research at what he calls "an unprecedented scale of production.

Alivisatos went on to describe his own team's research using arrays of nanoparticles as solar materials. He showed that by reducing the size of the grain boundary to less than about 5 nanometers, electrons begin to travel in a more quantum fashion, that is, tunneling through these boundaries. This effectively creates an extremely "non-perfect" crystal, but because of how the electrons are now travelling through the crystal, conduction actually becomes more efficient.

Of all the lectures at AAAS focused on energy technology and research, Daniel Nocera's keynote lecture on "Harnessing the Sun and Oceans To Meet the World's Energy Demands" was a big highlight. Nocera, from MIT, made the case for solar energy, showing that only energy from the sun can come close to fulfilling our planet's energy needs, which Nocera estimates will approach 35 terawatts by 2050.

Nocera then showed video for the audience his team's breakthrough experiment from last summer, where he used a cobalt catalyst that produces oxygen gas from water; and another platinum catalyst that produces valuable hydrogen gas. Combined, the system duplicates the water splitting reaction that occurs during photosynthesis.

Nocera's talk concluded with his design of "personalized energy," wherein each household would collect and store their own energy needs, theoretically doing away with the need for an energy grid.

The event's most well known speaker was without a doubt former vice president Al Gore.

One other notable speaker was Amory Lovins, Rocky Mountain Institute Cofounder, Chairman, and Chief Scientist. Lovins insisted that America move away from foreign fuels, all the while brimming with optimism that we have good ideas and great opportunities in research—we only need to convince the public that we need to focus on creating a more efficient society. Lovins added, "We are plotting the nonviolent overthrow of bad engineering."

The 2009 AAAS meeting was jam-packed with meetings. In addition to the energy-related talks mentioned above, other speakers of interest included AAAS President James J. McCarthy, Astronomer and President of the Royal Society Lord Martin Rees, Physicist and occasional New York Times guest columnist Lawrence Krauss, and Nobel-prize winner Leon Lederman, among many others.

As a final note, here, from AIP is (L to R) Yvonne Reyes, Brandon Miller, and Catherine O'Riordan at the JRSE-branded booth at the AAPT/AAAS exhibition.

The meeting was organized by AERTC, which is made up of Brookhaven National Laboratory and Stony Brook University, as well as National Grid and LIPA.

The conference was extremely crowded, with over 1,000 attendees according to one organizer, and included "leading researchers in alternative fuels, top government officials, legislators, energy policy-makers, environmentalists, and leaders from the worlds of business, academia, and the not-for-profit sector."

The exhibition was busy and included about 50 booths. AIP garnered a good amount of attention and gave away all of the bags (~50) and flyers (nearly 100) that we brought. There were some researchers to talk to at the display table, but mainly business-oriented people were in the exhibit area--either business owners or financers.

The symposia featured a series of internationally recognized speakers who shared energy research, energy technologies and applied energy technologies with global application. However, it was apparent that the goal was to move Long Island (and to a lesser extent New York state) towards a "greener" economy.

Keynote speeches were allotted two hours each days and the speakers included: Congressman Steve Israel (U. S Congress), Bruce Herman (NYS Department of Labor), Dr. Shirley Strum Kenny (Stony Brook University), Bob Catell (National Grid), Paul DeCotis (Energy-NYS), Tom DiNapoli (Comptroller - NYS), Senator Ken LaValle, Kevin Law (LIPA), Dr. Yacov Shamash (Stony Brook University), Senator John J. Flanagan, Steve Levy (Suffolk County Executive), Dr. Doon Gibbs (Brookhaven National Laboratory), and Senator Carl Marcellino.

The organizers did an excellent job organizing the sessions in 5 parallel thematic tracks - Advancing Energy Options, Renewables, Networks of the Future, Conservation & Efficiency, and Innovation. Speakers came from IBM, Stony Brook University, Cornell University, Brookhaven National Lab, Columbia University, SUNY Farmingdale, New York Institute of Technology, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Pacific Northwest National Lab, Northrop Grumman, Queensborough Community College and several other service organizations.

Check out a few pictures here.

Chu is currently the director of the DOE's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, and has been an influential voice in physics—and more recently, climate change science.

Here are a few interesting Steven Chu-related links from AIP:

Lecture at AIP's 75th Anniversary, May 3, 2006

The Science of Photons to Fuel
AIP Conf. Proc. 1044, 266 (2008)

Energy and The Second Law
AIP Conf. Proc. 1033, 111 (2008)

A random walk in science
AIP Conf. Proc. 596 21 (2001)

Laser cooling: Beyond optical molasses and beyond closed transitions
AIP Conf. Proc. 551 356 (2001)

Laser cooling and trapping of atoms
(Nobel Prize winning research)AIP Conf. Proc. 160 319 (1987)

]]> http://blogs.aip.org/CLEAN/2008/12/nobel_prize_winner_steven_chu.html http://blogs.aip.org/CLEAN/2008/12/nobel_prize_winner_steven_chu.html Policy AIP climate change DOE nobel NPR policy Thu, 11 Dec 2008 10:49:58 -0500 Journal of Renewable and Sustainable Energy's (JRSE's) editor, P. Craig Taylor, was interviewed on NPR's Science Friday with Ira Flatow (listen to the entire broadcast. Dr. Taylor discussed the basic research covered by the journal and in particular discussed one of the first articles that appeared; one of which describes tiny solar cells--each one about a quarter the size of a lowercase "o" in a standard 12-point font--that can be used as a power source for running microscopic sensors (known as MEMs) for detecting dangerous chemicals and toxins. Dr. Taylor is the Associate Director of the Colorado Energy Research Instutute (CERI) and Professor at the Colorado School of Mines in Golden, CO. AIP is delighted to see such a positive media response for JRSE, and hopes that the journal will grow with the diverse and rapidly expanding renewable and sustainable energy research community. In addition, the article was covered by Reuters, Scientific American, and Wired.com, among others.]]> http://blogs.aip.org/CLEAN/2008/11/jrse_on_nprs_science_friday.html http://blogs.aip.org/CLEAN/2008/11/jrse_on_nprs_science_friday.html AIP Craig Taylor JRSE MEMS NPR SciAm.com solar cells wired.com Mon, 10 Nov 2008 12:05:06 -0500