Research in Alternative fuel technology

Manhattan Scientifics

MHTX Receives Micro Fuel Cell Patent in Korea 9/22/2005 10:27:46 AM

LOS ALAMOS, N.M., Sept 22, 2005 /PRNewswire-FirstCall via COMTEX/ -- Manhattan Scientifics, Inc. (MHTX), a fuel cell alternative energy company, announced today that it has been issued a key patent in Korea. The patent, No. 0509573 "Surface Replica Fuel Cell For Micro Fuel Cell Electrical Power Pack," addresses key aspects of the company's micro fuel cell invention designed to power portable electronics such as cellular telephones.


The patent covers the placement of a flat planar fuel cell in a thin, scalable format to power portable devices such as cellular phones. This technology is unlike conventional fuel cells, which are stacked arrays. The patented design will enable economic use of thin, flexible layered materials when compared with the rigid, bolted, thick stack structure of conventional fuel cells.

Marvin Maslow, CEO of Manhattan Scientifics, said, "Though our micro fuel cell is not yet commercially feasible, we continue our effort toward commercialization and future revenue as a result of our ownership of protective patents. The patent is a result of work by micro fuel cell scientist Robert G. Hockaday."

Maslow continued, "We continue to pursue commercialization of our lightweight NovArs hydrogen fuel cell engine, which could be used to drive electric scooters. Our focus is China and other Asian markets where there is a well-defined need. We believe the long-awaited hydrogen energy fuel cell revolution will begin with two-wheeled vehicles in Asia rather than with automobiles in the West. Our efforts have focused on developing a lightweight, small-footprint hydrogen engine to drive personal transportation targeting the 2 billion people on the globe who do not have modern roadways. There are more bicycles in use in China than there are people in the U.S. The Chinese electric bikes (eBike) use heavy lead-acid batteries like those in cars. That market continues to grow, and styles are shifting more toward scooter-style vehicles. Estimates of eBikes for 2005 top 10 million units in China. We believe that our fuel cell engine has significant advantages when compared to eBikes -- far less weight and longer drive range, with almost instant refueling. eBikes require overnight recharging."

Manhattan Scientifics has non-exclusively licensed the NovArs hydrogen fuel cell engine to Ballard Power Systems of Canada and to a Singapore-based fuel cell company operating in Shanghai. These licenses have not yet produced significant revenue for Manhattan Scientifics.

The company is attempting to shift its business model from technology developer/licensor to fuel cell engine manufacturer in Asia and is reviewing opportunities to commercialize and accelerate product-to-market of its proprietary fuel cell engine technology. As part of this effort, management has entered into early stage M&A discussions with other companies in the alternative energy industry. The company's goal is find a joint-venture partner to manufacture and distribute its NovArs fuel cell engine to the large and expanding Chinese market for electric bicycles and scooters
 

Manhattan Scientifics, Inc., http://www.mhtx.com , is a technology development company working in the fields of alternative energy, fuel cell technologies and computer haptics technology. The company's facilities are in Los Alamos, Albuquerque and New York City.

Astris Energi

ASRNF VP Marketing To Present At F-Cell 2005 Conference
9/22/2005 3:41:19 PM


MISSISSAUGA, ONTARIO, Sep 22, 2005 (CCNMatthews via COMTEX) -- Peter K. Nor, P. Eng, MBA, Vice President Marketing and Corporate Development of Astris Energi Inc. ("Astris")(OTCBB:ASRNF), the world's leading alkaline fuel cell (AFC) technology company, is presenting a paper titled "Applications of Low-Cost Alkaline Fuel Cells and Alkaline Fuel Cell Systems" to the f-Cell 2005 conference being held September 26-28 in Stuttgart, Germany.


Mr. Nor's presentation draws on both Astris' progress in AFC as well as on recently published information supporting the specific advantages of this technology and dispelling out-of-date misconceptions. Mr. Nor notes that AFCs are reliable performers that can be built inexpensively in modest volumes and are less expensive to operate than comparable low-temperature fuel cells. The presentation will also explore a number of near term markets in which low temperature fuel cells are starting to gain traction and how the specific benefits of the AFC provide much potential for this technology. Further information will be published on the Astris website at www.astris.ca after the conclusion of the conference.

More than 500 international experts and managers from the fuel cell and hybrid sector were guests at last year's conference, including participants from the USA and Canada. The majority of the participants were from outside of the fuel cell industry - an indication of the strong practical orientation of the f-cell congress. More information on the conference can be found at http://www.f-cell.de/english.
 

STREAMLINED: New reactors would simplify controls at nuclear power plants, but other safety challenges remain.

Ohio's Davis-Besse plant (left) shut down after inspectors found a hole in the housing containing the reactor.
DANIEL MILLER/AP

Simpler - and safer

In its comeback bid, US nuclear industry eyes a new generation of reactors. Will they ease Americans' worries?

By Peter N. Spotts | Staff writer of CSM

It's a simple proposition: Make electricity by boiling water and letting the steam drive turbines to crank the generators. But when the heat needed to boil water comes from splitting atoms, the technology is anything but simple.

Now, in its bid to make a comeback in the United States a generation after the Three Mile Island accident, the nuclear-power industry is addressing two of its major bugaboos - safety and cost - through technology. Its answer: a new generation of reactors that are simpler to operate and maintain than today's models.

The move is already under way.

Over the past two months, one major US utility and a separate consortium of utilities have signed agreements with the US Department of Energy (DOE) to split the cost of testing a streamlined federal program for licensing the construction and operation of new nuclear plants. The goal is to begin installing these new reactors by 2010.

Over the longer term, 11 nations including the US are working on so-called fourth-generation reactor designs that proponents say have the potential to be safer, cheaper, and more reliable than older models. At one end of the size scale, some alternative designs aim to produce electricity for major utilities along with the hydrogen needed for President Bush's "hydrogen economy." At the other end of the scale, some designs are being tailored to power and heat small rural communities. Last December, for example, the tiny Alaskan town of Galena accepted an offer from Toshiba to build and install a small reactor some have dubbed a nuclear "battery." It would supply the town with electricity and heat. The town now is in the early stages of seeking approval from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to install the reactor.

The twin drivers behind these efforts are projections of increasing demand for electricity and rising concerns about greenhouse gases - something that nuclear power doesn't produce.

In the US alone, utilities will need to build 281 gigawatts of new generating capacity by 2025 as demand rises and older coal- and oil-fired plants are closed, the DOE estimates.

Climate scientists trace warming temperatures largely to greenhouse gases added to the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels such as coal, oil, or natural gas. The nuclear industry has long argued that nuclear energy must remain an option to reduce those emissions. But it's been a tough sell. Accidents at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania in 1979 and Chernobyl in the Ukraine in 1986 still echo in public discussions. These memories are kept fresh by many environmental groups who see nuclear energy as too dangerous and too expensive. They push instead for greater energy efficiency and increased reliance on renewable energy sources.

Yet faced with global warming, some groups, such as the Pew Center on Global Climate Change and Environmental Defense, appear willing to give nuclear energy a reluctant second look.

Support for new reactors also appears in a bill introduced last Thursday in Congress. Sens. Joseph Lieberman (D) of Connecticut and John McCain (R) of Arizona offered the Climate Stewardship and Innovation Act of 2005. It would require the Environmental Protection Agency to set limits on emissions of greenhouse gases and set targets for achieving them. The duo has introduced similar bills in the past. But the latest measure outlines a mechanism to fund the development of new technologies to help achieve those targets. Among those technologies: three unspecified new nuclear-reactor designs.

"Nuclear has a lot of problems, and only if it can solve its problems should it be part of the mix," says Judith Greenwald, director of innovative solutions for the Pew Center. The list she cites includes cost, public concerns over safety, nuclear-waste disposal, and nuclear proliferation.

But, she adds, the industry's emerging reactor designs appear to address some issues. In addition, the industry "seems to be coalescing around a small number of standard designs," compared with its current collection of 104 essentially custom reactors. Such standardization could make it cheaper to build them and easier to train people to operate them.

NUCLEAR UPGRADE: France's state-run utility has chosen this nuclear-power plant in Normandy to house the first of a new generation of simpler and safer reactors.
EDF/AP

The latest designs likely to hit the grid come from US manufacturers Westinghouse and General Electric, as well as foreign companies such as Areva in France.

These designs make extensive use of natural processes, such as convection and gravity, in their emergency cooling systems instead of the mammoth pumps and series of valves found in older reactors, which are prone to failure or operator error, says Per Peterson, who chairs the nuclear engineering department at the University of California at Berkeley. Only a small number of battery-operated valves need to open for the emergency cooling systems to kick in. The combination not only reduces the amount of internal plumbing at the plant, he says, it also reduces the need for diesel generators that keep the cooling system operating in case the plant is shut down for maintenance or an emergency.

Overall, "the new, simplified designs eliminate an enormous amount of equipment inside the reactor building," he says. That reduction leads to plants that are much cheaper to build and maintain, he adds. These designs first emerged about four years ago as "third-generation" designs. They have evolved into what many are calling third-generation-plus designs.

In January, the US signed a cooperative agreement with Japan, Canada, France, and Britain to begin development of fourth-generation designs that use a variety of exotic materials - liquid sodium, molten salt, lead, or helium gas - as coolants. Fuel for some of these designs comes in the form of assemblies filled with coated uranium pellets, each about half a millimeter across. Coatings would be designed to withstand high temperatures in case a reactor loses coolant, thus providing a first line of defense against leaks.

As part of this effort, the US is working on a high-temperature reactor using a helium coolant, says Kathryn McCarthy at the Idaho National Laboratory near Idaho Falls. The reactor would use the pellet-like fuel and materials that turn the laws of physics into an automatic shutdown mechanism if the reactor loses its coolant.

The design, which aims to sustain sufficiently high temperatures to produce hydrogen as well, will push the envelope on new materials that can withstand the harsh environment, she acknowledges. From the range of reactor concepts being examined by the international group, which also includes Argentina, Brazil, the European Union, South Africa, South Korea, and Switzerland, the DOE hopes to narrow the choices by 2012, then settle on one or two standard designs.

Many remain skeptical that new reactors will solve many of nuclear energy's current conundrums. For one thing, many of these designs could be run as breeder reactors, generating plutonium as a byproduct and thus raising nuclear-weapons proliferation concerns.

Moreover, reliance on passive systems could undermine the multilayer, defense-in-depth approach to radiation containment, says Edwin Lyman, a scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "We're still learning about how stainless steel degrades" in current reactors.

In 2002, workers at the Davis-Besse plant in Ohio discovered a football-size hole in the top of the steel housing containing the reactor. The corrosion was traced to dry boric acid that had collected atop the reactor vessel. A study later conducted by the Oak Ridge National Laboratory concluded that had the condition - overlooked for six years - gone unnoticed much longer, the hole would have opened wide enough to trigger a loss of coolant worse than Three Mile Island.

Fuel Cell Article from WIRED magazine

By all accounts, the latest reactors, generation III+, are a big improvement. They're fuel-efficient. They employ passive safety technologies, such as gravity-fed emergency cooling rather than pumps. Thanks to standardized construction, they may even be cost-competitive to build - $1,200 per kilowatt-hour of generating capacity versus more than $1,300 for the latest low-emission (which is not to say low-carbon) coal plants. But there's no way to know for sure until someone actually builds one. And even then, the first few will almost certainly cost more. Prodded by the Cheney report, the US Department of Energy agreed in 2002 to pick up the tab of the first hurdle - getting from engineering design to working blueprints. Three groups of utility companies and reactor makers have stepped up for the program, optimistically dubbed Nuclear Power 2010. The government's bill to taxpayers for this stage of development could top $500 million, but at least we'll get working reactors rather than "promising technologies."

But newer, better designs don't free the industry from the intense public oversight that has been nuclear power's special burden from the start. Believe it or not, Three Mile Island wasn't the ultimate nightmare; that would be Shoreham, the Long Island power plant shuttered in 1994 after a nine-year legal battle, without ever having sold a single electron. Construction was already complete when opponents challenged the plant's application for an operating license. Wall Street won't invest billions in new plants ($5.5 billion in Shoreham's case) without a clear path through the maze of judges and regulators.

Shoreham didn't die completely in vain. The 1992 Energy Policy Act aims to forestall such debacles by authorizing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to issue combined construction and operating licenses. It also allows the NRC to pre-certify specific reactor models and the energy companies to bank preapproved sites. Utility executives fret that no one has ever road-tested the new process, which still requires public hearings and shelves of supporting documents. An idle reactor site at Browns Ferry, Alabama, could be an early test case; the Tennessee Valley Authority is exploring options to refurbish it rather than start from scratch.

Meanwhile, Congress looks ready to provide a boost to the nuclear energy industry. Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico), chair of the Senate's energy committee and the patron saint of nuclear power in Washington, has vowed to revive last year's energy bill, which died in the Senate. Earlier versions included a 1.85 cent per-kilowatt-hour production tax credit for the first half-dozen nuke plants to come online. That could add up to as much as $8 billion in federal outlays and should go a long way toward luring Wall Street back into the fray. As pork goes, the provision is easy to defend. Nuclear power's extraordinary startup costs and safety risks make it a special case for government intervention. And the amount is precisely the same bounty Washington spends annually in tax credits for wind, biomass, and other zero-emission kilowattage.

Safer plants, more sensible regulation, and even a helping hand from Congress - all are on the way. What's still missing is a place to put radioactive waste. By law, US companies that generate nuclear power pay the Feds a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour to dispose of their spent fuel. The fund - currently $24 billion and counting - is supposed to finance a permanent waste repository, the ill-fated Yucca Mountain in Nevada. Two decades ago when the payments started, opening day was scheduled for January 31, 1998. But the Nevada facility remains embroiled in hearings, debates, and studies, and waste is piling up at 30-odd sites around the country. Nobody will build a nuke plant until Washington offers a better answer than "keep piling."

At Yucca Mountain, perfection has been the enemy of adequacy. It's fun to discuss what the design life of an underground nuclear waste facility ought to be. One hundred years? Two hundred years? How about 100,000? A quarter of a million? Science fiction meets the US government budgeting process. In court!

But throwing waste into a black hole at Yucca Mountain isn't such a great idea anyway. For one thing, in coming decades we might devise better disposal methods, such as corrosion-proof containers that can withstand millennia of heat and moisture. For another, used nuclear fuel can be recycled as a source for the production of more energy. Either way, it's clear that the whole waste disposal problem has been misconstrued. We don't need a million-year solution. A hundred years will do just fine - long enough to let the stuff cool down and allow us to decide what to do with it.

The name for this approach is interim storage: Find a few patches of isolated real estate - we're not talking about taking it over for eternity - and pour nice big concrete pads; add floodlights, motion detectors, and razor wire; truck in nuclear waste in bombproof 20-foot-high concrete casks. Voilà: safe storage while you wait for either Yucca Mountain or plan B.

Two dozen reactor sites around the country already have their own interim facilities; a private company has applied with the NRC to open one on the Goshute Indian reservation in Skull Valley, Utah. Establishing a half- dozen federally managed sites is closer to the right idea. Domenici says he'll introduce legislation this year for a national interim storage system.

A handful of new US plants will be a fine start, but the real goal has to be dethroning King Coal and - until something better comes along - pushing nuclear power out front as the world's default energy source. Kicking carbon cold turkey won't be easy, but it can be done. Four crucial steps can help increase the momentum: Regulate carbon emissions, revamp the fuel cycle, rekindle innovation in nuclear technology, and, finally, replace gasoline with hydrogen.

• Regulate carbon emissions. Nuclear plants have to account for every radioactive atom of waste. Meanwhile, coal-fired plants dump tons of deadly refuse into the atmosphere at zero cost. It's time for that free ride to end, but only the government can make it happen.

The industry seems ready to pay up. Andy White, CEO of GE Energy's nuclear division, recently asked a roomful of US utility executives what they thought about the possibility of regulating carbon emissions. The idea didn't faze them. "The only question any of them had," he says, "was when and how much."

A flat-out carbon tax is almost certainly a nonstarter in Washington. But an arrangement in which all energy producers are allowed a limited number of carbon pollution credits to use or sell could pass muster; after all, this kind of cap-and-trade scheme is already a fact of life for US utilities with a variety of other pollutants. Senators John McCain and Joe Lieberman have been pushing legislation such a system. This would send a clear message to utility executives that fossil energy's free pass is over.

• Recycle nuclear fuel. Here's a fun fact: Spent nuclear fuel - the stuff intended for permanent disposal at Yucca Mountain - retains 95 percent of its energy content. Imagine what Toyota could do for fuel efficiency if 95 percent of the average car's gasoline passed through the engine and out the tailpipe. In France, Japan, and Britain, nuclear engineers do the sensible thing: recycle. Alone among the nuclear powers, the US doesn't, for reasons that have nothing to do with nuclear power.

Recycling spent fuel - the technical word is reprocessing - is one way to make the key ingredient of a nuclear bomb, enriched uranium. In 1977, Jimmy Carter, the only nuclear engineer ever to occupy the White House, banned reprocessing in the US in favor of a so-called once-through fuel cycle. Four decades later, more than a dozen countries reprocess or enrich uranium, including North Korea and Iran. At this point, hanging onto spent fuel from US reactors does little good abroad and real mischief at home.

The Bush administration has reopened the door with modest funding to resume research into the nuclear fuel cycle. The president himself has floated a proposal to provide all comers with a guaranteed supply of reactor fuel in exchange for a promise not to reprocess spent fuel themselves. Other proposals would create a global nuclear fuel company, possibly under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency. This company would collect, reprocess, and distribute fuel to every nation in the world, thus keeping potential bomb fixings out of circulation.

In the short term, reprocessing would maximize resources and minimize the problem of how to dispose of radioactive waste. In fact, it would eliminate most of the waste from nuclear power production. Over decades, it could also ease pressure on uranium supplies. The world's existing reserves are generally reckoned sufficient to withstand 50 years of rapid nuclear expansion without a significant price increase. In a pinch, there's always the ocean, whose 4.5 billion tons of dissolved uranium can be extracted today at 5 to 10 times the cost of conventional mining.

Uranium is so cheap today that reprocessing is more about reducing waste than stretching the fuel supply. But advanced breeder reactors, which create more fuel as they generate power, could well be the economically competitive choice - and renewable as well.

• Rekindle innovation. Although nuclear technology has come a long way since Three Mile Island, the field is hardly a hotbed of innovation. Government-funded research - such as the DOE's Next Generation Nuclear Plant program - is aimed at designing advanced reactors, including high temperature, gas-cooled plants of the kind being built in China and South Africa and fast-breeder reactors that will use uranium 60 times more efficiently than today's reactors. Still, the nuclear industry suffers from its legacy of having been born under a mushroom cloud and raised by your local electric company. A tight leash on nuclear R&D may be good, even necessary. But there's nothing like a little competition to spur creativity. That's reason enough to want to see US companies squarely back on the nuclear power field - research is great, but more and smarter buyers ultimately drive quality up and prices down.

In fact, the possibility of a nuclear gold rush - not just a modest rebirth - depends on economics as much as technology. The generation IV pebble-bed reactors being developed in China and South Africa get attention for their meltdown-proof designs. (See "Let a Thousand Reactors Bloom," issue 12.09.) But it's their low capital cost and potential for fast, modular construction that could blow the game open, as surely as the PC did for computing. As long as investments come in $2 billion increments, purchase orders will be few and far between. At $300 million a pop for safe, clean energy, watch the floodgates open around the world.

• Replace gasoline with hydrogen. If a single change could truly ignite nuclear power, it's the grab bag of technologies and wishful schemes traveling under the rubric of the hydrogen economy. Leaving behind petroleum is as important to the planet's future as eliminating coal. The hitch is that it takes energy to extract hydrogen from substances like methane and water. Where will it come from?

Today, the most common energy source for producing hydrogen is natural gas, followed by oil. It's conceivable that renewables could do it in limited quantities. By the luck of physics, though, two things nuclear reactors do best - generate both electricity and very high temperatures - are exactly what it takes to produce hydrogen most efficiently. Last November, the DOE's Idaho National Engineering and Environmental Laboratory showed how a single next-gen nuke could produce the hydrogen equivalent of 400,000 gallons of gasoline every day. Nuclear energy's potential for freeing us not only from coal but also oil holds the promise of a bright green future for the US and the world at large.

The more seriously you take the idea of global warming, the more seriously you have to take nuclear power. Clean coal, solar-powered roof tiles, wind farms in North Dakota - they're all pie in the emissions-free sky. Sure, give them a shot. But zero-carbon reactors are here and now. We know we can build them. Their price tag is no mystery. They fit into the existing electric grid without a hitch. Flannel-shirted environmentalists who fight these realities run the risk of ending up with as much soot on their hands as the slickest coal-mining CEO.

America's voracious energy appetite doesn't have to be a bug - it can be a feature. Shanghai, Seoul, and São Paolo are more likely to look to Los Angeles or Houston as a model than to some solar-powered idyll. Energy technology is no different than any other; innovation can change all the rules. But if the best we can offer the developing world is bromides about energy independence, we'll deserve the carbon-choked nightmare of a planet we get.

Nuclear energy is the big bang still reverberating. It's the power to light a city in a lump the size of a soda can. Peter Huber and Mark Mills have written an iconoclastic new book on energy, The Bottomless Well. They see nuclear power as merely the latest in a series of technologies that will gradually eliminate our need to carve up huge swaths of the planet. "Energy isn't the problem. Energy is the solution," they write. "Energy begets more energy. The more of it we capture and put to use, the more readily we will capture still more."

The best way to avoid running out of fossil fuels is to switch to something better. The Stone Age famously did not end for lack of stones, and neither should we wait for the last chunk of anthracite to flicker out before we kiss hydrocarbons good-bye. Especially not when something cleaner, safer, more efficient, and more abundant is ready to roll. It's time to get real.

The environmental movement, once staunchly antinuclear, is facing resistance from within.

by Amanda Griscom Little

From Greenpeace to the Green Party, some of the most prominent environmental groups today made their reputations in the 1970s as opponents of nuclear power. So it was no wonder that greens were vexed last summer when prime minister Tony Blair proposed a new generation of nuclear power plants for Britain to confront the problem of climate change. But what galled them even more was the response to Blair from Hugh Montefiore, a former Anglican bishop and longtime trustee of Friends of the Earth. Writing in the British journal The Tablet in October, Montefiore committed what colleagues viewed as the ultimate betrayal: "I have now come to the conclusion that the solution [to global warming] is to make more use of nuclear energy." When Montefiore told fellow trustees that he planned to speak out, they made him resign his post.

Montefiore isn't the only dyed-in-the-wool green who has been exiled for advocating nuclear power. Greenpeace cofounder Patrick Moore left the organization after embracing atomic energy. British biologist James Lovelock, whose Gaia theory was an environmental watchword before he turned pro-nuke, is now persona non grata within the movement. "There are members of my former organization who would agree with me but have not gone public about the matter," Montefiore laments. "If only we had a few more people who would stick their necks out, it would help."

Maybe not. Consider the green reaction to the National Commission on Energy Policy, whose board of directors includes a Harvard professor emeritus of environmental policy and a senior attorney at the Natural Resources Defense Council. In December, the commission released a 150-page report that proposed reinvigorating the nuclear industry with billions in subsidies. The US must seek "a substantial expansion" of atomic power to counter climate change, the report said. Environmental groups bristled. The NRDC rejected the report's nuclear section as "old-style thinking." Members of Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Union of Concerned Scientists heaved their own brickbats.

So what would it take for environmentalists to accept nukes? Although green opinions vary, sources in the movement say much of the resistance would soften if the industry dealt with four persistent issues.

The top priority for many environmentalists is to counter proliferation of nuclear weapons. To stem the creation of weapons-grade materials, they want to prohibit plants from recycling fuel and install robust security at reactor fuel production facilities. Second, to diminish the risk of Chernobyl-style accidents, they'd like to see aging plants updated, safety protocols strengthened, and oversight tightened. Third, greens want a secure place to put waste. Yucca Mountain in Nevada, they say, needs to be proven capable of holding radioactive refuse for the hundreds of thousands of years it will take to decay; alternatively, a national system of short-term interim storage might be acceptable. Fourth, environmentalists insist that uranium mines, which are notorious polluters, employ cleaner extraction methods and submit to tougher environmental regulations.

"If our concerns were thoroughly addressed, there could be a greater role for commercial nuclear power that we would support," says Geoffrey Fettus, senior project attorney at the NRDC. "But the devil is in the details, and the industry hasn't acknowledged that the problems even exist."

While none of the leading environmental groups are going to lead the nuclear charge, insiders say the Union of Concerned Scientists has a growing pro-nuke faction. But don't look for a trend. "I want to drive a stake through the heart of the nuclear industry," says Greenpeace senior nuclear policy analyst Jim Ricchio. "I don't expect that to change."

Amanda Griscom Little (amanda@grist.org) writes about the environment for Salon.

Energy Bill Passes Senate, Opening Doors for Renewable Energy Initiatives and Alternative Energy Market Growth.

Senate’s passing of Energy bill bodes well for the Future of Renewable Energy Technologies and the Alternative Energy Industry.

By: Ann-Marie Fleming
July 2005 

On June 28^th, 2005 the Senate approved the energy bill with an overwhelming 85-12 vote in favor of the legislation. The energy plan omitted two controversial issues that were present in the bill passed by the House, which dealt with drilling in the National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska and leniency towards those firms that make a water polluting fuel additive. The legislation does include measures aimed at increasing ethanol use and contained approximately $18 billion in energy tax breaks. 

The Senate passed plan has many in the renewable energy industry cheering for the inclusion of a provision that requires that 10% of electricity sold by utilities to consumers must come from clean energy resources, such power produced by wind, geothermal and solar technologies. “The passage of U.S. Senate Bill H.R. 6 is a tipping point in U.S. energy policy trends aimed at establishing energy security and independence for the balance of this century.” stated Tom Djokovich, CEO of XsunX. “Some of the key aspects to the bill are its support for the adoption of solar energy production technologies in the form of residential and commercial tax credits not seen since 1982, and the adoption of the first-ever national renewable energy requirement, which stipulates that investor-owned electric utilities must generate 10% of their power out-put from renewable sources by the year 2020.These types of incentives should prove to be a watershed for growth opportunities for manufacturers, developers, and distributors of renewable energy technologies.” 

The potential impact of the energy bill on the renewable energy industry has become a focal point for this sector, which hopes that this legislation will help to validate and grow alternative energy technologies as the industry works towards mainstream acceptance. Brad Frazee, Vice President, Biofuels at Intrepid Technology and Resources (ITR), believes that “fundamentally the renewable energy portion of the bill is going to help take the entire renewable energy industry from something that has really been viewed as a novelty, into something that now becomes an economically significant portion of our energy production and transmission within the United States. We need to get away from very small insignificant sources of renewable energy, and move into a network that truly helps the bottom line across the country.” ITR believes that overcoming America’s mindset is a significant industry challenge that the energy bill has the potential to achieve, convincing consumers and power producers that renewable energy needs to become a permanent set of resources within our energy infrastructure. 

Fuel cell developers such as FuelCell Energy and Ballard Power Systems see key benefits from the bill. According to Steven Eschbach, FuelCell Energy’s Director of Investor Relations and Communications, “The Senate bill has two provisions that are truly helpful for our technology. There are two financial tax incentives, one is called the Investment Tax Credit which is a 30% investment tax credit up to $1000 per kilowatt and the second is a production tax credit which is a 1 ½ cent per kilowatt benefit for fuel cells, which are ideal for our scope of technology.” The energy bill has the potential for industry acceleration across the renewable energy landscape. As Michelle Cormack, Ballard Power Systems explains, "Should the energy bill be enacted and funded, Ballard and its industry and government partners will be able to accelerate the arrival of the hydrogen economy and the commercialization of fuel cell technology, quickening the pace of necessary research and development, putting more vehicles on the road through demonstrations, and beginning an earlier and more robust transition to market."    

For technologies such as geothermal, the bill is believed to have a significant impact. According to Daniel Kunz, CEO of US Geothermal, “Geothermal energy is really poised for significant expansion and this legislation could almost double geothermal’s power contribution over the next few years from its current base, which would have very major impact on what we are trying to do in this area.” 

Adding to the overall benefits of the bill are its extensive tax based incentives to developers, owners, and operators of commercial buildings.  As Tom Djokovich explains, “This bill adds the important ingredient of government sponsored incentives of up to as much as a 100% tax deduction for the cost of increasing energy efficiencies in buildings by 50%, and a 30% tax credit for the purchase of solar equipment. These types of economic incentives for adopting solar technologies into building designs may soon spur an increase in the growth of building integrated photovoltaics or “BIPV”."   

Interdependence Day
Commentary: Climate changing for alternative fuel companies

By Kenneth Reid, Spear's Security Industry Analyst
Last Update: 1:46 PM ET June 30, 2005  

 SANTA FE N.M. (SSIA) -- As we prepare to celebrate 229 years of political independence, the world is becoming ever more interdependent. Take energy, for example.

Given that the U.S. imports more than 50% of its petroleum, energy independence is an outmoded rhetorical fantasy that few politicians dare to utter anymore, but energy interdependence is a difficult path that we have yet to walk gracefully.

Considering the U.S. has only about 2% of the world's proved oil reserves, and domestic oil production has declined for thirty years, we should be celebrating the fact that we have ready access to the global oil market. But with approximately 72% of the world's reserves located in predominantly Islamic nations, we have a very mixed blessing on our hands, given the charged geopolitical milieu. The trajectories of energy concerns and national security have been converging agendas for a decade, and in places such as Iraq, they have already plotted a collision course. It is more likely that the next war, and the one after that, will be about energy than about sovereignty or ideology.

Indeed, our national security, as traditionally defined, is the biggest casualty of an energy interdependent world. National security was formerly built around concepts such as nuclear deterrence, backed up by a compelling power differential in the size and destructive potential of our vast armamentarium. That worked when we knew precisely who and where the enemy was. Since 9/11, however, conventional notions of deterrence and geopolitical power have become obsolete in the face of dispersed sub-national entities whose soldiers are perfectly willing to come to our shores and die for the cause.

Is al Qaeda still a potent factor in the global energy equation? No one knows for sure. According to bin Laden himself, however, the idea for bombing the WTC came to him in 1982. Eleven years later he made the first attempt with a 1500 lb truck bomb. Eight and a half years later he used two 300,000 lb jets to finish the job. We have to assume that a pattern of carefully planned escalation by a very patient man is at work here and the passage of four quiet years since 9/11 means absolutely nothing.

If there is an escalation, we are most likely looking at a nuclear scenario of some kind, with material acquired from Russia. The old Russia is in meltdown, and little has been done to shore up the totalitarian control structures that once safe guarded their powerful arsenal. Consequently, a cache of more than 30,000 nuclear weapons and 600 tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium spread across 53 sites is becoming more accessible to blackmarket proliferation. The greatest danger, however, may not come from al Qaeda, but from Iran.

Al Qaeda lacks a nation state that will formally host its activities. Iran, however, already has a thousand acre nuclear site at Natanz, with enormous underground halls. Iran has pledged to 'vaporize' Israel, while Israeli F-15 fighter pilots and commandos are reported to have well-rehearsed tactics for the destruction of the Natanz facility. But the plot thickens.

According to testimony before the Senate subcommittee on Terrorism, Technology and Homeland Security, we could lose the War on Terror in one swift pre-emptive strike caused by a single mid-sized nuclear tipped missile launched from an offshore freighter and exploded about 100 miles above mid-continent U.S. The blast could cripple the entire nation by frying much of the electrical circuitry in America in just a few seconds with a powerful electromagnetic pulse (EMP). That's cars, hard drives, rail switches, traffic lights, refrigerators, telephones, ATMs. It would be Y2K for real. Our antiquated power grid would blackout for months or longer. While the military is very familiar with the threat and has built some protection for its assets, the civilian infrastructure is wide open to an EMP attack.

Iran has reportedly been practicing launching missiles from freighters in the Caspian Sea, blowing them up in mid-air. A meaningless coincidence? Perhaps. Granted, an EMP attack is a nightmare scenario that is both unlikely and disturbing to contemplate. However, our national vulnerability to that threat simply underscores how in the Age of Interdependence, our very strengths create corresponding weaknesses that are fairly easily exploited. Whether we lose power suddenly from a nuclear attack or more slowly from the sabotage of foreign oil fields, America's susceptibility to energy blackmail will only increase each year. Ultimately, the Grid, as we know it, must go.

The Senate passed an Energy Bill on Tuesday that would grant about 40% of the billions in tax breaks and loan guarantees for conservation, renewable energy and programs promoting alternative fuels. The bill is a baby step in the right direction, as it will begin to seed a broad mix of diversified and decentralized energy sources. Of course, investing in alternative energy companies has been a losing proposition for a decade, but that is about to change. Fuel Cell Energy (FCEL: news, chart, profile) is a reasonable proxy for the nascent industry, as are Distributed Energy Systems (DESC: news, chart, profile) and Energy Conversion Devices (ENER: news, chart, profile) . These companies are pure plays on a new wave of thinking that takes us outside the box.

Albert Einstein once said that the significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking we used to create them. Only when we move outside that conventional mindset will be able to master the problem of interdependence and create a truly safer global community.

FuelCell Energy and Enbridge Inc. Enter into Development and Distribution Agreement for New 'Ultra-Clean' Hybrid Power Plant
7/11/2005 9:03:23 AM

CALGARY, Alberta & DANBURY, Conn., Jul 11, 2005 (CCNMatthews via COMTEX) -- FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqNM:FCEL)

-- Direct FuelCell Energy Recovery Generation(TM) (DFC-ERG(TM)) megawatt-class product targeted for natural gas pipeline applications for the U.S. and Canada

-- Distribution Agreement for DFC Products Expanded to Include the U.S. and Canada

Enbridge Inc. (ENB)(CA:ENB), a leader in energy transportation and distribution in North America and internationally, and FuelCell Energy, Inc. (NasdaqNM:FCEL), a leading manufacturer of ultra-clean electric power generation plants for commercial and industrial customers, announced they have entered into an exclusive product development and distribution agreement for a new multi-megawatt product, the Direct FuelCell - Energy Recovery Generation(TM) (DFC-ERG(TM)), specifically designed for natural gas pipeline applications in the U.S. and Canada.

The DFC-ERG power plant is a combined cycle generation system that combines a Direct FuelCell(R) (DFC(R)) power plant and an unfired expansion gas turbine for natural gas pipeline letdown stations where pressure reductions are required for local delivery. The DFC-ERG provides the heat necessary to prevent freezing that results in the pressure reduction process at these locations, eliminating the combustion-based system that is presently used today. There are hundreds of these type stations across North America, which are typically in areas with large commercial and industrial customers and/or in large cities.

This new product is a way to recover energy from pipeline operations that normally is not currently recovered and to improve on the DFC power plants' already unmatched efficiencies and emission reduction benefits. Because it is a combined cycle power plant, the electrical efficiency of the DFC-ERG is approximately 60 percent. The companies are planning a megawatt (MW) demonstration as part of a commercialization program for products sized from one to 10 MW. Out of several short-listed U.S. and Canadian locations for the demonstration plant, the final location is being finalized as part of negotiations with governments and new component suppliers for this new hybrid plant. Within its own operating system, Enbridge has identified the potential for over 40 MW of DFC-ERG power plants in the province of Ontario. The companies will initially target this market, as well as the six U.S. states - California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Maine, New York and Pennsylvania - that qualify fuel cell power plants on natural gas as an eligible technology under their Renewal Portfolio Standards (RPS) programs. According to a recent Primen/EPRI Solutions report, the RPS potential in these six states that currently qualify fuel cell power plants on natural gas as renewable is expected to be more than 10,000 MW by 2010.

"We are enthusiastic about this new hybrid product that offers best-in-class efficiencies and generates power without combustion and therefore substantially reduces emissions," said Stephen J. J. Letwin, Enbridge Inc. Group Vice President, Gas Strategy & Corporate Development. "This is consistent with our strategy to invest in clean energy technologies and gives us another product offering that complies with the developing renewable and low impact energy mandates in the U.S. and Canada."

"Our multi-megawatt DFC-ERG with Enbridge provides us with a highly efficient product for developing repeatable business in a new vertical market for our 'ultra-clean' DFC products," said Jerry D. Leitman, Chairman and CEO of FuelCell Energy, Inc. "This further demonstrates the acceptance of our technology in larger sizes and that our products can be an integral part of meeting requirements for clean, efficient and reliable power."

Additionally, Enbridge's non-exclusive distribution agreement for FuelCell Energy's standard DFC products (DFC300MA, DFC1500 and DFC3000 with introductory ratings of 250-kilowatts, one MW and two MW, respectively) entered into in November 2003 has been expanded to include the United States as well as Canada.

In connection with this transaction, FuelCell Energy, pursuant to a new warrant agreement, granted Enbridge warrants to purchase up to 1 million shares of FuelCell Energy common stock with order commitments of 40 MW of DFC products, including the new DFC-ERG power plant. The exercise prices of the warrants range from $9.89 to $11.87 and the warrants will expire in June 2010. FuelCell Energy's previous warrant agreement with Enbridge has been canceled.

About Direct FuelCells

Direct FuelCell(R) (DFC(R)) power plants from FuelCell Energy generate electricity without combustion. Their highly efficient electrochemical reactions are thousands of times cleaner than plants burning fossil fuels, are significantly quieter and are up to twice as efficient as conventional power plants. These characteristics make fuel cells appropriate for generating base load electricity where customers face cost, reliability, security or environmental issues with their existing electric power sources. DFC power plant emissions are so minimal that California, with the most stringent air pollution standards in the U.S., characterizes them as an "ultra-clean" distributed generation technology, similar to wind and solar energy.

About Enbridge Inc.

Enbridge Inc. is a leader in energy transportation and distribution in North America and internationally. As a transporter of energy, Enbridge operates, in Canada and the U.S., the world's longest crude oil and liquids transportation system. Enbridge also has international operations and a growing involvement in the natural gas transmission and midstream businesses. As a distributor of energy, Enbridge owns and operates Canada's largest natural gas distribution company, and provides distribution services in Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and New York State. Enbridge employs approximately 4,000 people, primarily in Canada, the U.S. and South America. Enbridge's common shares trade on the Toronto Stock Exchange in Canada and on the New York Stock Exchange in the U.S. under the symbol ENB. Information about Enbridge is available on its web site at http://www.enbridge.com.

About FuelCell Energy

FuelCell Energy, Inc., based in Danbury, Conn., is a world leader in the development and manufacture of high temperature fuel cells for clean electric power generation. FuelCell Energy has developed commercial distribution alliances for its carbonate Direct FuelCell products with world class companies such as PPL Energy Plus, Caterpillar, Alliance Power, Chevron Energy Solutions and LOGANEnergy in the U.S.; Marubeni Corporation in Asia; MTU CFC Solutions in Europe; and Enbridge Inc. in Canada. FuelCell Energy developed its patented Direct FuelCell technology for stationary power plants with the U.S. Department of Energy through its Office of Fossil Energy's National Energy Technology Laboratory.

The sub-megawatt DFC fuel cell power plant is a collaborative effort using Direct FuelCell(R) technology of FuelCell Energy and the Hot Module(R) balance of plant design of MTU CFC Solutions, GmbH, a subsidiary of DaimlerChrysler. FuelCell Energy is also developing next generation high temperature fuel cell products, such as a diesel fueled marine Ship Service Fuel Cell, a combined-cycle DFC/Turbine(R) power plant, and, through its investment in and partnership with Versa Power Systems, solid oxide fuel cells for applications up to 100 kilowatts. More information about FuelCell Energy is available on its web site at http://www.fuelcellenergy.com.

2005 Fuel Cell Seminar   -   Palm Springs, California

 November 14–18, 2005

Over 2,200 participants—representing over 36 different countries—attend the annual Fuel Cell Seminar, making it the largest fuel cell meeting in the world! Participants include technical leaders, scientists, educators, researchers, developers, investors, students and manufacturers of fuel cell products.

The Fuel Cell Seminar offers the largest number of technical papers, the most exhibits and the best coverage of the latest technical advances in the field. The simultaneous technical sessions discuss progress in four main areas: utility, residential, vehicle and portable, and discusses challenges in costs, fuels, storage, reliability, lifetime and adoptability. Fuel Cell Seminar exhibitors and sponsors represent the latest in leading research and development—both domestically and abroad.

Join us for the 2005 Fuel Cell Seminar, to be held November 14–18, 2005 in Palm Springs, California.