| President Bush on Monday directed DOE, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the U.S. Department of Transportation to take the first steps toward regulations that would cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from motor vehicles. The President issued an executive order setting a new policy for the three agencies to work together to protect the environment from GHGs emitted by engines and to do so in a manner consistent with sound science, public safety, economic growth, and an analysis of costs and benefits. The order directs the three federal agencies to prepare regulations for motor vehicles, non-road vehicles, and non-road engines that achieve this policy to the maximum extent permitted by law and considered practical by the three agencies. The order also directs the agencies to consult with the Secretary of Agriculture whenever a regulatory action will have a significant effect on crops related to the production of renewable fuels, such as ethanol or biodiesel. See the executive order. In announcing the new policy, President Bush said it was spurred by a Supreme Court ruling that the EPA must take action under the Clean Air Act to regulate GHG emissions from motor vehicles. In a meeting with leaders from the four agencies, the President asked the agencies to start with his "20-in-10" goal of reducing gasoline use by 20 percent over the next 10 years. President Bush set the end of 2008 as a deadline for the new regulations, and also called on Congress to support the regulations with appropriate legislation. See the President's statement and a related fact sheet. DOE announced on Tuesday its selection of 13 projects to be awarded $11.2 million for research in hydrogen production, storage, and conversion technologies. Seven of the projects will focus on novel materials for hydrogen storage, including complex metal hydrides and nanostructured materials, which have structural features on the scale of a billionth of a meter, or nanometer. The remaining six projects are aimed at developing nanoscale catalysts for hydrogen storage; hydrogen production from water, biomass, or coal; and the conversion of hydrogen to electricity in fuel cells. The awardees include nine universities and four of DOE's national laboratories: Argonne, Brookhaven, Oak Ridge, and Pacific Northwest. DOE's Office of Science selected the new projects through a merit-reviewed, competitive solicitation process and plans to fund additional projects in fiscal year 2008. See the DOE press release and the DOE Hydrogen Program Web site. DOE issued proposed rules last week for its Loan Guarantee program, which will help spur investment in projects that employ new, clean energy technologies. By providing the full faith and credit of the U.S. government, loan guarantees will enable DOE to share some of the financial risks of projects that employ new technologies and that avoid, reduce, or sequester air pollutants and greenhouse gases. Projects must employ new or significantly improved technologies as compared to commercial technologies in service in the United States at the time the loan guarantee agreement is executed. Under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2007 Continuing Resolution, Congress provided DOE with authority to issue guarantees for up to $4 billion in loans. DOE seeks a broad portfolio of large and small projects from a wide variety of technologies. DOE requested guarantees for up to $9 billion in loans in its FY 2008 budget request, including $4 billion in loans for projects that promote biofuels and clean transportation fuels and $1 billion in loans for projects using new technologies for electric transmission facilities or renewable power generation systems. Projects seeking loan guarantees will undergo the disciplined and rigorous reviews necessary to take proper account of the potential risks of a project. Ultimately, the issuance of the loan guarantees will depend on the merits and benefits of particular project proposals and their compliance with statutory and regulatory requirements. The DOE's Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NOPR) will be open to public comment for 45 days once it is published in the Federal Register. See the DOE press release and the NOPR (PDF 1.8 MB). Download Adobe Reader. IBM announced last week that it is redirecting $1 billion per year across its businesses in an effort to dramatically increase the level of energy efficiency in information technologies. Big Blue's "Project Big Green" targets corporate data centers and includes a global "green team" of more than 850 architects of energy efficiency from across the company. According to IBM, an average 25,000-square-foot data center should be able to achieve a 42 percent energy savings. IBM currently runs data centers on six continents that encompass more than eight million square feet of floor space. Within the next three years, IBM expects to double the computing capacity of its data centers without increasing their power consumption. See the IBM press release. IBM also presented a dramatic example of what it can achieve in a company's data centers. The company is working with the Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) to consolidate nearly 300 Unix servers onto 6 IBM servers, cutting energy use by 80 percent while boosting the utilization of the servers by a factor of eight. PG&E will install water cooling systems on the servers to reduce the need for air conditioning in the data centers. IBM is offering financing to help data center owners make such a transition and is also offering to help dispose of old servers. See the IBM press releases on the PG&E effort and IBM's data center upgrading services. While aiming to cut energy use at large-scale data centers, IBM is also working to improve energy efficiency at the much smaller scale of computer chips. In early May, the company announced the first-ever application of self-assembling nanotechnology to the manufacture of computer chips. The technique surrounds the chip's copper wires with insulating pockets of vacuum just 20 nanometers, or billionths of a meter, in diameter. The manufacturing process involves pouring a mix of chemicals onto a silicon wafer with the wired chip pattern on it, baking it, and then removing the carbon silicate glass to leave behind the nanoscale vacuum pockets. The vacuum insulation allows the chips to consume 15 percent less energy than conventional computer chips. IBM has pioneered the process at its manufacturing line in East Fishkill, New York, and plans to fully incorporate it in IBM's chips in 2009. See the IBM press release. New Hampshire Governor John Lynch signed the Renewable Energy Act into law last week, thereby establishing a minimum requirement for new renewable power generation in the state. The new law requires electric utilities to draw on solar power for 0.3 percent of their electricity needs by 2014 and to draw on other new renewable energy facilities for 6 percent of their electricity needs in 2015, increasing to 16 percent of their power needs by 2025. To meet the requirement, the utilities can buy renewable energy credits from facilities using wind power, geothermal power, ocean energy, biomass, methane gas, and any solar power in excess of the 0.3 percent solar power requirement. Incremental capacity additions to or significant refurbishments of existing hydropower and biomass facilities can also be included, as can offsets from the use of solar water heating to displace electric water heating. The law also requires utilities to draw on existing renewable facilities for 7.5 percent of their electrical supply, but the state already generates 20 percent of its retail electricity supply from hydropower, landfill gas, and biomass power plants. See the governor's press release and the full text of the act. A number of other states are also taking action relating to clean energy. On April 9th, New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson signed a bill requiring 5 percent biodiesel in all diesel fuel sold in the state by 2012, as well as a bill creating a number of clean energy tax credits. In mid-April, Colorado Governor Bill Ritter issued an executive order to cut energy consumption by 20 percent in state facilities by 2012, while also renaming the Office of Energy Management and Conservation as the Governor's Energy Office. In late April, North Dakota Governor John Hoeven signed a number of bills that completed his $42 million renewable energy plan, which emphasizes biomass and biofuels but also includes incentives for wind, solar, and geothermal energy technologies and grants for a wide range of energy technologies. On May 3rd, Washington Governor Christine Gregoire signed a bill to cut the state's greenhouse gas emissions and signed several bills to encourage the use of biofuels. On May 4th, Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels signed an ethanol production tax credit bill, House Enrolled Act 1722, while Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signed an omnibus bill that includes $1.4 million for biofuels and biomass research. See the press releases from Governor Richardson (PDF 26 KB), Governor Ritter, Governor Hoeven, Governor Gregoire, and Governor Pawlenty, as well as Indiana Act 1722. Download Adobe Reader. The installed wind power capacity in the United States is on track to increase by more than 3,000 megawatts (MW) this year, with two-thirds of that growth occurring in Texas, according to the American Wind Energy Association (AWEA). The trade group's first-quarter market report, released last week, notes that new wind projects in Hawaii, Maine, Oklahoma, and Texas have already added more than 100 MW of new wind power thus far this year. More than 1,000 MW of new wind capacity are under construction in Texas, including a 240.8-MW addition to the Sweetwater wind plant, a 232.5-MW addition to the Buffalo Gap wind plant, and the 200-MW Lone Star wind plant. Each megawatt of wind capacity will produce enough electricity over the course of a year to equal the power needs of 250 to 300 average U.S. homes. See the AWEA press release. |
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