NREL Seeks Leaders

NREL Seeks Leaders for National Executive Academy Monday, February 13, 2012 Applications are currently being accepted for the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory's (NREL) 2012 Executive Energy Leadership Academy (Energy Execs). Energy Execs is a leadership program focused on educating business, community, and government leaders about clean energy solutions through energy efficiency and renewable energy technologies. The two Energy Execs learning opportunities are the Leadership Program and the Leadership Institute. Both programs are designed to provide executive decision-makers with information and tools to guide their organizations and communities in energy-related planning. "NREL plays an important role in engaging a cross-section of industry and community leaders in transforming our energy systems," NREL Director Dan Arvizu said. "It's a critical time in the United States and globally to accelerate understanding about the opportunities and challenges of market-viable energy solutions for secure, clean electricity, and fuel." Representatives from 120 industry, government, and non-profit organizations have completed the program since 2007. Participants are selected from a national pool of candidates. Apply online for the 2012Leadership ProgramandLeadership Instituteor via fax or mail. The application deadline is March 30, 2012. NREL is the U.S. Department of Energy's primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research and development. NREL is operated for DOE by the Alliance for Sustainable Energy, LLC. ### Visit NREL online at www.nrel.gov

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Houston Joins Better Buildings Challenge

U.S. Dept. of Energy News Release:

City of Houston Joins Better Buildings Challenge, Partners with Energy Department to Reduce Energy Waste and Boost Efficiency

January 26, 2012 

Washington, D.C. — Building on President Obama’s call in the State of the Union address earlier this week for a new era for American energy, U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu joined with Houston Mayor Annise Parker today to announce that Houston, Texas is joining the Better Buildings Challenge.  Houston is the latest community to join the Challenge, a public-private partnership that seeks to improve energy efficiency 20 percent by 2020 in commercial, government, and school buildings across the country. As the newest Challenge community partner, the City of Houston is committing to improve energy efficiency across 30 million square feet of public and private buildings throughout the city.

“As President Obama made clear in this week’s State of the Union address, one of the easiest ways for businesses to save money and improve their competitiveness is to reduce energy waste in their buildings and factories,” said Secretary Chu.  “Through the Better Buildings Challenge, the city of Houston is helping to boost manufacturing, create U.S. jobs, reduce pollution, and build an American economy that lasts.”

“I am committed to sustainability,” said Mayor Parker.  “It’s not only helps our environment, it also saves taxpayer dollars.  The city and its local corporate partners in the BBC have already taken numerous steps to make buildings and other facilities more energy efficient and more efficiencies will follow.  We are leading by example.”

Through its participation in the Better Buildings Challenge, the City of Houston works with local partners to implement initiatives that reduce emissions, protect air quality and save taxpayers money. The city becomes the most recent community partner to join the Challenge since President Obama announced last month nearly $4 billion in combined federal and private sector funding for building energy upgrades over the next two years. To date, more than 60 companies, cities, universities, hospitals, and other partners throughout the U.S. have committed to upgrading more than 1.6 billion square feet of building space nationwide.

About the Better Buildings Challenge

The Better Buildings Challenge is a national leadership initiative that calls on corporate chief executive officers, university presidents and state and local leaders to make a significant commitment to energy efficiency. These leaders are recognized for the innovative work they are doing, the results they are achieving and the leadership role they provide for other organizations to follow. The goal of the Better Buildings Challenge is to create jobs, eliminate waste, and save money by making the nation’s commercial and industrial buildings 20 percent more efficient by 2020. The Challenge is managed by the U.S. Department of Energy.

EV Technology Accelerates in Colorado

From U.S. Dept. of Energy blog:

EV Technology Accelerates in Colorado

January 13, 2012 

  

Arun Majumdar speaks at Idaho National Lab (INL) during a visit to the site earlier this week. | Photo courtesy of INL.

April Saylor

New Media Specialist, Office of Public Affairs

What does this mean for me?

• One of 48 advanced battery and electric drive projects across the country funded by Recovery Act.
• U.S. will have increased capacity to produce electric-drive vehicles batteries from virtually zero in 2008 up to 500,000 per year in 2015.

While the North American International Auto Show began this week in Detroit, ARPA-E Director Arun Majumadar is visiting another town on the cutting edge of vehicle R&D – Longmont, Colorado, home of UQM Technologies.

Beginning with their first all-composite, battery-electric passenger vehicle in the 1970s, the company has been in the electrification business for 35 years, and is no stranger to the benefits of government-industry partnerships.

Over the years, both the Energy Department and the federal government at large have successfully collaborated with UQM – which has received Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) awards from the Defense Department as far back as 1983 and received SBIR funding from Energy for eight different projects in electric motors and machines. In 2006, UQM received funding from EERE’s Vehicle Technologies Program via the FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership to design an advanced permanent magnet motor for use in electric drive vehicles.

In 2009, following the success of the FreedomCAR project, UQM was awarded $45 million in Recovery Act funding to support the development of two types of Electric Vehicle (EV) systems: a propulsion/generator system for battery electric, hybrid, and plug-in hybrid passenger vehicles, and power assist motor/generators for parallel hybrid trucks and buses. As a result of this funding, UQM was able to build the Longmont, CO facility that Dr. Majumdar is visiting today. This site alone has the capacity to produce systems for 120,000 electric drive vehicles a year.

In keeping with emerging EV technologies, last year the Vehicles Technology Program also awarded $3 million to UQM to develop a non-rare-earth permanent magnet motor architecture, which will enable the use of low energy magnet technology. Engineering teams at several national labs will work with UQM’s engineers to develop the technology, which will support more affordable and efficient EV technologies and eliminate the need to utilize rare earth metals in these advanced engines.

It’s partnerships like this that are powering the commercialization of emerging EV technology. In fact, UQM’s recent agreement with Electric Vehicles International (EVI) and UPS to produce systems for 100 all-electric delivery vans is not only a great business success, but will be the largest deployment of a zero-tailpipe delivery fleet in California. As a National Clean Fleets Partner, UPS is a leader in reducing oil use in their fleet, and estimates that the use of these vehicles will displace 126,000 gallons of fuel a year that would have been burned running diesel trucks.

Partnerships like these across the private and public sectors are the kind of investments that are helping America win the clean energy race. Including UQM, the Recovery Act provided $2.4 billion in funding to 48 advanced battery and electric drive projects across the country, funding 30 new manufacturing plants like the one Dr. Majumdar is visiting today. Because of these investments, the U.S. will have increased our capacity to produce electric-drive vehicles batteries from virtually zero in 2008 up to 500,000 per year in 2015.

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

The following was gleaned from a January 10 New York Times article with the above title.

Companies Face Fines for Not Using Unavailable Biofuel

WASHINGTON — When the companies that supply motor fuel close the books on 2011, they will pay about $6.8 million in penalties to the Treasury because they failed to mix a special type of biofuel into their gasoline and diesel as required by law.

But there was none to be had. Outside a handful of laboratories and workshops, the ingredient, cellulosic biofuel, does not exist.

In 2012, the oil companies expect to pay even higher penalties for failing to blend in the fuel, which is made from wood chips or the inedible parts of plants like corncobs. Refiners were required to blend 6.6 million gallons into gasoline and diesel in 2011 and face a quota of 8.65 million gallons this year.

The 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act, aimed at reducing the nation’s greenhouse gas emissions, its reliance on oil imported from hostile places and the export of dollars to pay for it, includes provisions to increase the efficiency of vehicles as well as incorporate renewable energy sources into gasoline and diesel.

It requires the use of three alternative fuels: car and truck fuel made from cellulose, diesel fuel made from biomass and fuel made from biological materials but with a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gases. Only the cellulosic fuel is commercially unavailable. As for meeting the quotas in the other categories, the refiners will not close their books until February and are not sure what will happen.

The goal set by the law for vehicle fuel from cellulose was 250 million gallons for 2011 and 500 million gallons for 2012.  Even advocates of renewable fuel acknowledge that the refiners are at least partly correct in complaining about the penalties.

The standards for cellulosic fuel are part of an overall goal of having 36 billion gallons of biofuels incorporated annually by 2022. But substantial technical progress would be needed to meet that — and lately it has been hard to come by.

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Wanted or Not: Alternative-Fuel Cars Flood Auto Show

The following is an excerpt from a January 10 New York Times article with the above title.  It highlights a real problem as the U.S. tries to cope with GHG emissions through greater vehicle efficiency.  That problem is that Americans love their big cars.  Muscle cars from the '60s and '70s are still considered glamorous.  Try picking up chicks in a Smart car or hybrid and see how far you get.

The New York Times

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Wanted or Not: Alternative-Fuel Cars Flood Auto Show

By NICK BUNKLEY

DETROIT — In the race to claim ever-higher fuel-economy numbers and keep up with government regulations, automakers are rolling out hybrids and electric cars aplenty at this week’s Detroit auto show.

If only buyers were arriving as fast as the cars.

Hybrid sales waned as gasoline prices ebbed in 2011, declining to 2.2 percent of the market from 2.4 percent a year earlier, according to the research firm LMC Automotive. Meanwhile, sales of the Nissan Leaf electric car and the Chevrolet Volt plug-in each fell short of expectations.

Analysts do not expect the segment to grow significantly this year: the combination of gas prices below $4 a gallon and higher upfront costs for the cars is not attracting consumers.

 But that is not deterring Toyota, Honda, Ford Motor and several European carmakers from introducing new hybrid and plug-in models.

“The market is going in one direction and fuel-economy regulations are going the other direction,” said Jeremy Anwyl, vice chairman of the automotive information Web site Edmunds.com. “Just because people start building more of something doesn’t mean the segment grows.”

Regardless, the automakers have little choice but to develop and try to push more hybrids as they prepare for fuel-efficiency requirements that call for significant increases later this decade. Advances such as Ford’s EcoBoost technology have increased mileage for gas-powered engines — the new Fusion midsize sedan it unveiled Monday can get 37 miles to the gallon, Ford said — but bigger gains are needed.

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After Three Decades, Federal Tax Credit for Ethanol Expires

The following was gleaned from a January 2 New York Times article with the above title.

The New York Times

Monday, January 02, 2012

After Three Decades, Federal Tax Credit for Ethanol Expires

WASHINGTON — A federal tax credit for ethanol expired on Saturday, ending an era in which the federal government provided more than $20 billion in subsidies for use of the product.

The tax break, created more than 30 years ago, had long seemed untouchable. But in the last year, during which Congress was preoccupied with deficits and debt, it became a symbol of corporate welfare. Fiscal conservatives joined liberal environmentalists to kill it, with help from a diverse coalition of outside groups.

In the United States, most ethanol is produced from corn.

Nearly 40 percent of the United States corn crop goes to ethanol and byproducts, including animal feed.

The tax credit, which cost the government nearly $6 billion in 2011, went to gasoline refiners that mixed ethanol with gasoline.

Senator Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, said the ethanol industry had enjoyed “a trifecta, a triple crown” of federal support. Federal law requires that certain minimum amounts of renewable fuels like ethanol be blended into gasoline. Refiners received the tax credit for doing so. And the government imposed a tariff on imported ethanol, protecting the domestic industry.

The tariff, like the tax credit, expired Saturday. But the requirement to use increasing amounts of ethanol in gasoline continues.

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