Green Energy News | July 15, 2001

July 15, 2001 – Vol.6 No.16

ENERGIES... week of July 15, 2001

MISSED OPPORTUNITY? The frustrating George W. Bush has once again backed away from the Kyoto Protocol claiming it would do damage to the U.S. economy. This may be, but doesn’t have to be true. However, he may find that NOT getting involved with Kyoto will create problems for the U.S. economy too.

Certainly U.S. companies that sell energy efficient or renewable energy technologies will find markets abroad for their products. But companies that sell outdated, inefficient technologies may find themselves eventually squeezed out of foreign markets doing their best to abide by Kyoto. Further as green technologies developed abroad become fully commercialized - and established in their market segments - U.S. companies may find it increasingly difficult to enter those markets in the future if they choose to do so. Consumers abroad too may begin to shun American branded products as a way to retaliate against our apparent disinterest in tackling global warming.

So, Mr. Bush may feel he is protecting many U.S. industries today, but in a few years those industries may be feeling the pain of lost markets they should have, and could have, had a secure foothold in.

Other nation’s at the G-8 Summit in Genoa, Italy said they will forge ahead with Kyoto without the U.S.

A BETTER LIGHT BULB? The Holy Grail in the quest for energy efficient lighting is a light bulb that casts the soft yellow light of an incandescent, uses a fraction of that bulb’s energy, yet sells for pennies in the marketplace. We could be one step closer in that search.

Advanced Lighting Technologies of Ohio has been developing a process to apply a complex multi-layer reflective coating to quartz halogen bulbs ordinarily used in commercial applications. That coating converts infrared energy (heat) into usable light. The result? A cooler operating, more efficient bulb that could then be used for residential applications.

According to Advanced Lighting, bulbs coated with its MicroDyn coating process use approximately 50 percent less energy than typical incandescent bulbs with the same light output. If, in the U.S for example, all 2 billion incandescent light bulbs sold each year were quartz halogen bulbs coated with the MicroDyn process, 75,000 megawatts of power would be saved - up to $10 billion in energy bills.

At least one major light bulb manufacturer has taken notice. OSRAM SYLVANIA has purchased MicroDyn coating equipment valued at $2.4 million from Advanced Lighting. The equipment can produce millions of coated quartz halogen bulbs each year. OSRAM is a fully owned subsidiary of Siemens AG of Germany. Visit Advanced Lighting at http://www.adlt.com/ .

TWENTY MULES. This editor should get a kick from a mule for the following statement in last week’s ENERGIES -- For hydrogen to be a truly zero-emission fuel it must be extracted from water using a zero-emission source of energy --. This editor apologizes to Millennium Cell for ignoring the company’s proprietary Hydrogen on Demand (tm) technology.

Hydrogen on Demand uses sodium borohydride in the presence of a catalyst to produce hydrogen or electricity. Hydrogen could be produced as needed to power a fuel cell or an internal combustion engine without the need for storage. Sodium borohydride is a derivative of borax.

In the next step to commercialize Hydrogen on Demand, Millennium Cell has signed a joint agreement with U.S. Borax to accelerate the development of a process to convert sodium borates into sodium borohydride. U.S Borax has been in business for 130 years and ships nearly one-million tons of refined borates to customers worldwide each year. The company is often remembered for its Twenty Mule Team wagons which at one time hauled Borax products out of Death Valley, California. At least one of those mules has its eye on this editor. Visit Millennium Cell at http://www.millenniumcell.com/ .

NEW YOUTH FOR OLD HYDRO. To help meet its renewables obligation, the UK Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) has announced it will take measures to boost hydroelectric power generation capacity by refurbishing 30 older hydro projects. By adding new state-of-the-art hydro equipment, such as generators and turbines, efficiency can be increased by 10 percent adding from 10-20 megawatts capacity to each facility.

The UK’s self-imposed renewable obligation is a national goal to have 10 percent of the nation’s power come from renewables by 2010.

WORLD WIND WATCH. Brazil is taking two initial steps to expand wind energy in the nation. The first is the publication of the Wind Atlas of Brazil which, like the previously published Wind Atlas of Northeast Brazil (WANEB), will serve as a guideline for wind developers seeking to find the most productive breezes. Developed by the Brazilian Wind Energy Center (CBEE) the new Wind Atlas should be available soon via the Internet.

The second, more profound step, is anticipated government legislation that will require power distributors and utility companies to purchase the equivalent of 10 percent of their energy from new renewables during the next 20 years. Since wind power has the best cost/price ratio of renewables in Brazil, it would be the most likely choice for purchase. Visit CBEE at http://www.eolica.com.br for WANEB and soon the Wind Atlas of Brazil.

In the U.S., American Electric Power (AEP) and TXU Corp have agreed to expand the capacity of the Trent Mesa Project by 15 percent. Trent Mesa, now under construction in West Texas by AEP, will have 20 megawatts added to its original capacity of 130 megawatts with the addition of 13 turbines to the 87 already being installed. Trent Mesa should begin operating this fall and when complete will supply enough power for the equivalent of 35,000 homes. TXU will buy all of the power from Trent Mesa. Visit Trent at a special website at http://www.trentmesa.com and watch its construction.