Jim Gardner’s Energy Tech Talk

Solar power has made great advances since it was developed as a power source for NASA’s space program.  I remember seeing one of the first video simulations of these large arrays of photovoltaic panels unfolding from the earth orbiting satellites.  These huge photo arrays converted the sun’s light energy into electricity while the satellite was in direct sunlight. The electrical power was stored in the satellite’s rechargeable capacitors for 24/7 operations.  We were told that owning a device powered by a photo cell would be commonplace in 20 to 30 years.  That was more than 40 years ago.

We “recycled” our battery-powered calculators several years ago when we got our first solar-powered calculator. A couple of days ago my wife was balancing her checkbook, and  I had to laugh when I observed her holding a flashlight just inches from her photo cell-powered calculator.  The indirect sunlight in our living room was not sufficient to power the calculator, so she was using a battery-powered light to make her calculator work.  I guess that means we still have a “battery-powered” calculator.

One of the shortcomings of using solar power as an alternative energy source has been we only get cost-effective electric power from direct sunlight.  Power on a 24/7 basis is not available from this renewable energy source unless there is a method for storing the energy.

Scientists world wide have been working on cost-effective technologies to store electrical energy produced by solar cells.  Lead acid and metal halide batteries work but are not considered cost effective.  A recent discovery by researchers at Harvard University is to convert the electrical energy produced by photovoltaic panels into chemical energy by using photosynthesis—without using a living plant.  Indications are that this process is considerably more efficient than the biological process.

Development of a super-efficient energy storage technology by a former subsidiary of Coors Brewing Company has just been announced.  This $2,000 battery uses an ultra-thin ceramic membrane to separate metallic sodium from a strong mineral acid.  This new generation of battery was developed by Ceramatec, a subsidiary of CoorsTek (formerly part of Coors, now private). The battery can store 40 kWh of power with eight hours of sunlight in a package the size of a refrigerator. The average American household uses 33 kWh per day.  In short, it’s a battery big enough to power your home operating at a peak temperature of 90 degrees.  Unfortunately, power converters cost $10,000 and up based on the technology used.

Additionally, the Ceramtec battery can be recharged through 3,650 cycles — or once a day — for 10 years. Deep-cycling lead acid batteries often last less than two to three years with daily use.  The implications of such a battery may not be readily apparent to many, but the larger reality is these batteries make “the great disconnect” a real possibility as more and more homes go off grid using wind and/or solar power.

When I was hired to design, train operators and provide start-up support for the first commercial biodiesel plant in the U. S., I had no idea how fast the renewable fuel industry would grow. WOW! What a rush seeing jobs created and farmers finding another profitable outlet for their crops.

In the past 17 years, more than 300 biofuel refineries have been built in the U. S. supplying ethanol and biodiesel to supplement our “mobile” fuel supply. The Renewable Fuels Association (RFA) is calling the decade of the 2000’s “the era when biofuels came of age.”

Now that the renewable fuel industry is “of age,” we have seen public opinion shift from “freedom from foreign oil” to “renewable fuels are increasing the price of our food.” In December 2009, Congress failed to renew the $1.00/gal. federal subsidy for renewable fuels to help renewable fuel prices stay competitive with the fossil fuel giants. The consequence of these changes has been a slowdown of the U. S. ethanol and biodiesel industries. Construction has stopped on new plants, and some producing plants have shut down due to the loss of profits and/or market.

Contractor Ron Fagen, the CEO of Fagen Inc., put Granite Falls, Minnosata, on the national map by building 47 ethanol projects across the U.S. between 2006 and 2008. But Ron now says, “The U.S. ethanol building boom is over.” Yet despite the job cuts and slowing sales, Fagen remains an unabashed believer in ethanol and renewable energy.

The company will finish one more ethanol plant in Pennsylvania, but Fagen’s attention already has turned to other forms of renewable energy—biomass and wind. Going forward, Fagen said he thinks his business mix will be about 60 percent biomass projects, 25 percent wind energy and the remaining share from building other types of industrial facilities.

His company recently landed a job in Texas to construct the largest biomass power plant in the country. The Minneapolis office of Zachry Engineering is the design engineer on the project. The 100-megawatt plant will serve customers in the Austin, Texas, area.

“East Texas has more trees than northern Minnesota,” Fagen said, but trees won’t be harvested for the new facility. Instead, chips, bark and other wood waste from wood processing plants will be used to fuel the biomass facility.

“We are making use of forestry residue wood to produce electricity, rather than using coal,” said Alison Cochrane, a vice president with Zachry Engineering. Work crews will start pouring concrete on the Texas site this month.

Tom Erickson, associate director for research at the Energy and Environmental Research Center in Grand Forks, said, “We definitely see the use of biomass as a significantly growing area.” Erickson added that the demand for biomass will likely intensify if politicians approve a carbon tax or place a cap on emissions.

“You can combust [biomass] in a boiler to produce electricity or heat. Or you can gasify it, in which you can produce a syngas, which is similar to natural gas,” Erickson said.

Business leaders in the Ozarks have the opportunity to take a similar path as Ron Fagen. We have large quantities of biomass that can be converted into usable energy. We need to promote the use of renewable fuels, and we need to continue to invest in new technologies that can efficiently use the available biomass in the Ozarks.

You can help by contacting your elected officials to promote legislation that will offer incentives to use local biomass to produce useable forms of renewable energy that reduces our dependency of fossil fuels.

It can be done if you and I do our jobs as responsible, “tree hugging” citizens.

Jim Gardner

The renewable carbon energy industry is almost 20 years old…if you did not know about Rudolf Diesel.  Rudolf Diesel was born in Paris in 1858.  His parents were Bavarian immigrants.  Rudolf Diesel was educated at Munich Polytechnic.  After graduation, he was employed as a refrigerator engineer.  However, his true love lay in engine design.

Rudolf Diesel designed many heat engines, including a solar-powered air engine. In 1893, he published a paper describing an engine with combustion within a cylinder, the internal combustion engine. In 1894, he filed for a patent for his new invention, dubbed the diesel engine.  Rudolf Diesel was almost killed by his engine when it exploded.  However, his engine was the first that proved that fuel could be ignited without a spark. He operated his first successful engine in 1897.  His fuel was peanut oil.

We forgot about his renewable fuel for almost a century. We are back, and we are using renewable carbon sources for fueling internal combustion engines and turbines for mobility and electric power generation.

The current industry was stimulated in corn, rapeseed and soybean fields by farmers wanting to develop their own fuels from their crops and reduce their country’s dependence on foreign sourced fossil fuels.

Negative world opinion about using food crops to produce fuel has forced GREEN Tree Huggers to research other renewable forms of renewable carbon sources to produce fuels.  Governments, research institutions, colleges and universities are leading the way to reduce the use of food stocks to produce energy.

A group of farmers in the Ozarks is taking the lead by stepping back in time to replace their fescue fields with the native grass of the Ozarks, called switchgrass.  Polk County farmer and cattleman Ed Cahoj gathered some of his associates, and together they have formed the National Biomass Growers Association, Inc., a not-for-profit corporation focused on using switchgrass as an alternative energy source.  Check out www.biomass-producer.org.  Talk about a “grass-roots” organization!!

Ed is on the board of directors for Ozarks New Energy and is currently serving as the board’s vice president.

Jim Gardner

Many bloggers are too young to know much about the world before it was OK to be Green Tree Huggers. Throughout human history, mankind has been using “green” energy. Early Europeans used wind-powered mills to grind their grains into powers. Ancient sailors traveled across large bodies of water using wind-powered sail boats. Early loggers would use flowing water to float their log harvest to a buyers’ market. Our ancestors learned that if they built dams across flowing streams and rivers, they could use the weight of falling buckets of water (water wheel) to turn a shaft and that shaft could do powerful work. The list could go on for pages.

Humans discovered that when heating water, the water becomes a vapor called steam. They found that by confining steam in a strong vessel and releasing it in a controlled manner, steam could do even more work. The machine age really got a boost when farmers discovered some gooey black stuff in their fields that burned better than wood or coal. Now we’re in the age of high mobility when our machines are powered by refined oils, and they can take us anywhere we want to go. Science keeps finding newer and better ways to use more energy and as consumers; most of mankind demands it.

Being the smart, lazy humans we are, we used the cheapest and easy access fuels to serve our greed for toys and equipment do work and play faster, cheaper and harder than was ever known to man. Land owners and governments now build wind and later electric pumps to pull water out of aquifers below the surface to water their crops, their livestock and their communities.

As we continue to learn more about our world and its history, we are beginning to understand the negative impact we humans are having on our now limited land space, clean water supplies, air we breathe and food we choose to eat.

Green Tree Hugging people are taking the lead to change how we do things. We are now producing electricity from wind, waves, sun, the earth’s core, renewable carbon sources and more….all considered to be renewable energy. We are replacing fossil-based carbon sources with renewable carbon sources, and we are learning how to store energy in more efficient ways.

On this Web site, Ozarks New Energy writers, contributors and bloggers will dialogue about the world of developing renewable energy sources and how individuals can utilize this exciting new way to live. I love being a GREEN Tree Hugger!

Jim Gardner