Perspective: Clean energy is a marathon, not a sprint

Somewhere along the road to $75 barrels of oil, investor interest in clean energy technologies accelerated. What's green is good these days.

In general, that's great news. But with every breathless article about the wonders of ethanol, hydrogen, solar and wind energy, I get a bit concerned.

Clean energy should not just be the trendy technology investment idea du jour. Changing the energy infrastructure of the global economy takes decades. That means sustained commitment from businesses in all industries, as well as government policies that aggressively promote alternatives to fossil fuels.

After all, getting beyond oil means a (hopefully gradual) conversion of the world economy's fuel infrastructure--not just a bunch of start-ups commercializing cool research ideas.

There's no question that entrepreneurs are finding green (as in money) in green (as in clean tech--a term that refers to a broad swath of technologies focused on using natural resources more efficiently). According to Cleantech Venture Network, investments in clean tech have climbed rapidly in the last two years, from less than $300 million in the second quarter of 2004 to more than $840 million in the second quarter of this year.

It's wonderful to see the best and brightest focus their attention on clean energy. But the froth of interest has caused more than one person to utter the dreaded "bubble" word about this hot investment area.

Clean energy is not immune to dot-com-like bombs. Investment in clean tech skyrocketed in 1999, only to crash in late 2000, according to Cleantech Venture.

The long view
High fossil-fuel prices are making alternative energy sources more financially viable today compared to only a few years ago. Solar-electricity companies, for example, compare their cost per watt with the currently predominant method of generating power from fossil fuels.

But even if oil and natural gas prices drop back to 1990s levels, alternative energies should remain on the front burner. There are political, economic and environmental reasons to pursue a green energy future.

The perennial volatility of the oil-rich Middle East brings risk to dependent countries' economies. As a result, most countries would rather have home-grown energy industries--whether biodiesel, wind or solar--rather than depend on foreign sources of fuel.

Beyond the political and economic catalysts, global warming demands a change in our energy infrastructure. Concerns over climate change attributed to global warming have become so mainstream that the issue has become an investment thesis of its own for insurers and money managers alike.

Coupled with investments in technology development is the need for supportive government policies. Financial trading systems for greenhouse gases are taking baby steps in Europe and Chicago, and many people believe that the United States will see a federally mandated carbon cap-and-trade exchange in a few years.

Another good piece of news is that energy consumers--individuals and businesses--are seeing the value in being green, motivated by cost or environmental reasons. That helps create markets for the wide range of "eco-innovations" needed, from hybrid cars to solar panels.

Will the entrepreneurial zeal and feel-good glow last? Let's hope so. Driving up to any filling station to dispense cleanly produced hydrogen is a compelling vision and, I hope, a reality for our kids. Huge scientific leaps and massive conversions to our fuel infrastructure don't happen overnight.

Biography
Martin LaMonica is a CNET News.com senior staff writer who covers business software, software development and green tech.

More Perspectives

[electrogush]

No more hydrogen talk!

I'm tired of the autopian dream of hydrogen cars when the
technology is always ten years off. It is a proven fact that you
have to put more energy to produce it that you get, it is
dangerous, and the gas stations infrastructure does not exist. It
is hard enough gettng ethanol in the stations.

The real doable technology exists in plug-in hybrids as a
stepping stone to purely electric cars once the batteries get
there - and they are getting there. That is where the
government should be putting it's money. The other area is
photovoltaic.

[H Voyager]

Fuels will change for the same reason they always have

Because it's cheaper and easier to use the new fuel. That's why we went from wood to animal oils, from animal oils to coals, from coals to petroleums. The next generation of fuels will be more available, easier, and safer to operate than gasoline, simply because that is the only thing that will convince people to upgrade.

It's already happening. I attended a Houston area IEEE meeting, where an A&M proffessor gave an interesting talk on a new cross compatable energy economy they are working on.

They've developed a process for refining the entire plant into a higher alcohol fuel (rather than just the kernals, as with corn alcohols), that runs in regular gasoline engines, and can be used on a wide array of plant-matter, cheaply, a variety of sugar cane that grows absurdly fast, and it suitable for farming in rice patty type farmland, and they're developing a highly compact multifuel hybrid, based off of the jet turbine thermal system, except using gear pumps, instead of fan pumps for the compressor/expander stages, with a nearly flat power/torque curve, for 10% ofthe parts in a recip.

It's beautiful the way it all works together, and it's all cross-compatable with the current infrastruction. If something doesn't work, the others can still plug into the current system without issue.

Some links,
A recent article on issues facing the fuel/refinery aspect (they're trying to build a pilot refinery right now):
http://www.southeasttexaslive.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=16920998&BRD=2287&PAG=461&dept_id=512504&rfi=6

The site for the new engine (and how it works):
http://www.starrotor.com/

They're currently working on the materials they need to make the expander stage. It started out as an airconditioner pump, so this is somewhat untested ground for them, but it's nothing new to turbines, and we're talking about a significantly lower RPM range, so we aren't dealing with the same degree of deformation issues a fan blade sees.

The future is coming, and its a whole lot brighter than sack-cloth and ashes.

[tedpk]

We are playing mind games

TThere is only one viable ?alternative fuel? for personal transportation, in the near term -- either electricity utilized directly or hydrogen used as a energy transport medium {derived from electrolysis of water.}

The real challenge is -- where does the electricity come from.

Solar, wind, wood chips, etc., just aren't economically viable as baseload generation. They either depend on unpredictable sources (solar, wind) or there is a questionable supply of the source of the woodchips, switch grass, rubber plants, sugar cane, etc.

A commercially viable process to mimic photosynthesis and extract hydrogen directly from water using sunlight would allow use of the existing natural gas infrastructure combined with fuel cells to distribute generation with the load. Unless / until this happens -- we are faced with the need to have centralized baseload generation and if we want to reduce fossil fuel use -- this means nuclear

Therefore, let's keep doing exotic research -- but let's put a premium on developing a new generation of "factory built and packaged" nuclear power plant power modules consisting of reactor, turbo-alternator switching, controls, safety systems. Such packaged modules could initially be derived from the very reliable Naval Nuclear technology that powers our submarines and aircraft carriers. In the longer term, we can introduce some of the 2nd generation reactor technologies that are ?inherently safe? and more efficient. With standardized designs, siting templates and industrial production of the components and modules, the industry can start delivering power within the next decade.

[aabcdefghij987654321]

Multi-fuel

Car manufacturers should be making multi-fuel vehicles (ie: vehicles which can use a variety of different fuels, not just gasoline, alcohol or gasahol blends). The more fuels a car can burn the more likely it will be able to be used in the future.

The biggest problem we have now is that we allowed outselves to create and perpetuate a single fuel market making us highly dependant on the supply of that single fuel.

[tedpk]

Nuclear is Clean and Green

Let's admit it -- we really blew it big-time in abandoning nuclear power

However, perhaps we can learn from our past errors and re-introduce nuclear power based on newer, standardized designs and uniformity of siting requirements.

None of the other proposed sources of electricity are as realizable, reliable or as environmentally friendly as nuclear power

Certainly, there are places in the desert where solar is nice to have. There a probably some places where the wind is reasonably strong and constantly present. However, these are exceptions as we can not depend on solar and / or wind without a highly effective electricity storage medium.

Perhaps, high temperature superconductors or nanomaterial flywheels will deliver in the future.

Some have suggested that hydrogen obtained from electrolysis of water can serve as an energy storage medium. However, while electrical energy can be stored as chemical energy in the extracted hydrogen -- undoing the electrolysis with fuel cells imposes a substantial loss of useful energy.

Hydrogen can be viable as an energy transport medium for automobiles and other vehicles where the weight penalty of batteries is significant.

Thus we are forced to admit that while we have some ?free time? we?d better start devoting our considerable technical, industrial and organizational skills to the ?New Liberty Ship Project.? The production of Liberty Ships in WWII converted the hand-built craft of shipbuilding into industrial manufacturing and similarly manufactured housing has revolutionized the building of houses. Thus we must develop an industry to produce economical, reliable, safe and easily installed ?Nuclear Power Modules? that can be manufactured and delivered ready-to-run to the installation site.

These sites can initially be the existing reactor sites that were already permitted for 2 reactors {e.g Pilgrim in Plymouth MA, Seabrook in NH, etc} or sites housing reactors that have already been decommissioned {e.g. Yankee Atomic in Rower, MA}.

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what about nuclear waste? nt

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