Dear Loyal Readers,
I have made a painful decision. Beginning in April ENERGIES will no
longer be a free publication. It's been 6 years now and income
possibilities from the newsletter and web site have been elusive... to
say the least. There are more services I would like to provide with
Green Energy News and all of them will take time and money. The good
news is that subscriptions will be only $26 per year. That's 50 cents
per weekly issue.
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All paid subscriptions received this month will begin with the new
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you to subscribe early, those who sign up this month will have
subscriptions extended by 3 months - until the end of June 2003. A free,
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I am looking forward to continuing this project, this publication,
for many years. Until April ENERGIES and the Green Energy News web site
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site to subscribe today.
Best Regards,
Bruce Mulliken
Editor and Publisher
Green Energy News Inc.
http://www.nrglink.com
ENERGIES... week of February 24, 2002
WHERE'S DME? Clearly, fossil fuel companies want to continue to be
the energy suppliers to the world. They - like any business - will
resist any major change until they can find a way to profit from it.
Business is business after all.
What if a new fuel were developed that would be environmentally
friendly, renewable, satisfied many and angered few? Maybe dimethyl
ether (DME) should be looked at.
DME has properties similar to LPG (propane). Gaseous at room
temperature and liquid when chilled, it is handled like propane and can
use the same storage and fueling equipment. If it handles like propane
it should also be as easy. Quantum, a division of IMPCO, has said that a
propane refueling infrastructure can be developed that will ensure that
filling-up (with propane) is as easy as it is with gasoline. The same
should be true for DME.
DME can be made from a number of sources: methane from sewage and
animal wastes, used plastic, natural gas and coal. Yes, coal.
DME can be used for power generation. And for cars and trucks it has
been used successfully in diesel engines (which auto companies know how
to make) where it burns soot-free. It has little if any SOx emissions,
and NOx emissions are reduced by 20-30 percent. When used in a kitchen
stove it burns a nice blue just like propane or natural gas. It can also
be a good source of hydrogen for fuel cells.
NKK Corporation, Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company and others in Japan
are developing mass production techniques for DME. India has its own DME
project in which BP is involved. The International Energy Agency (IEA)
has said that it expects DME to become an alternative to conventional
fuels.
Now Kawasaki Heavy Industries has developed a fuel injection system
for gas turbines (for power generation) that keeps the fuel liquid at
room temperature by cooling the fuel supply pipe by using the DME's
vaporization heat.
Kawasaki is planning to begin selling its DME fueled turbines in
2006, the same year that mass production of the fuel is planned for
Japan. Visit the NKK DME page at
http://www.nkk.co.jp/en/environment/dme/main.html or the India DME
program at http://www.dmeforpower.net/ .
HYBRID PACKAGE DELIVERY TRUCKS. When BAE SYSTEMS bought portions of
Lockheed Martin it also received Lockheed's HybriDrive (tm) system in
the deal.
Now being used in 10 city buses in New York, and with 325 on order,
BAE will develop a prototype HybriDrive hybrid electric truck for FedEX
Express.
The prototype, to be delivered in September of this year, is part of
a FedEX program to determine the next standard configuration for its
delivery trucks. That standard that will be to cut fuel consumption by
50 percent and reduce toxic emissions up to 90 percent. Visit BAE
SYSTEMS at http://www.lmcontrolsystems.com/ .
MORE BORAX FUEL CELLS. Millennium Cell, which has been developing
hydrogen storage systems using sodium borohydride (a cousin of Borax)
now has a competitor in the technology, Hydrogenics.
Hydrogenics has demonstrated a 500 watt HyPORT C (tm) fuel cell
generator to U.S. and Canadian armed forces. Hydrogen is supplied to a
proton exchange membrane (PEM) fuel cell from a sodium borohydride
tablet dissolved in water.
The company is considering building larger output fuel cells using
the technology. Visit Hydrogenics at http://www.hydrogenics.com/ ,
Millennium Cell at http://www.millenniumcell.com/ .
HOT CARS. Yes, it's true. Running the air conditioner your car
gobbles up fuel. Air conditioners cooling cars in the summer, and drying
the air for more effective defrosting in the cooler months, can reduce
fuel efficiency from 20 percent up to 50 percent in high-efficiency
cars, according to the U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).
In North America 80 percent of cars use air conditioners, with some
drivers keeping it switched on 70 percent of the time.
One way to reduce the demand on the air conditioner is to keep the
interior of a car from getting hot. Guardian Industries is now offering
its SilverGuard (tm) infrared reflective auto glass that keeps more than
50 percent of solar energy from entering the car. The glass also blocks
95 percent of ultraviolet radiation which can damage skin as well as the
interior of your car. Visit Guardian at http://www.guardian.com/ .
AIRPORT SOLAR. With big hanger, terminal and support facility roofs,
and little problem with shade trees, airports can make good places to
put solar arrays.
A grid-connected 20-kilowatt array has been installed at the San
Francisco International Airport to supply a portion of the power needs
for a support building. The building's integrated array uses UNI-SOLAR
PV laminates that were bonded to metal roofing pans and installed in
modular units. The flexible PV laminates are a product of Bekaert ECD
Solar Systems, a sometimes confusing partnership with United Solar and
Energy Conversion Devices (ECD) Visit them at
http://ovonic.com/uni-solar/ .
WORLD WIND WATCH. If approvals are obtained, financing is arranged
and technical feasibility studies agree, North America's largest wind
farm announced to date will be built off the west coast of Canada. The
proposed 700 megawatt Nai Kun Wind Park, with up to 350 turbines, would
be built west of the Queen Charlotte Islands in the province of British
Columbia near the border of Alaska.
The joint project of ABB and Canadian raw materials company Uniterre
Resources would generate up to 2 billion kilowatt hours of electricity
each year. The first of the 80 meter (262 foot) turbine towers would be
sunk into the seabed in the spring of 2004. The entire project would be
complete by 2007. Visit ABB at http://www.abb.com/ .
NEG-Micon has been chosen by Pacific Hydro Limited of Australia as
the preferred supplier of turbines for wind farms such as their Portland
Wind Energy Project. NEG-Micon could initially supply up to 120 turbines
of 1.5 megawatts capacity, but up to 400 turbines could be supplied in
the next five years. Visit NEG-Micon at http://www.neg-micon.com/ .
Just a little-out-of-the-norm Mass Megawatts Wind Power will be
building three of its MATS 25 kilowatt wind generation systems in
Iceland. According to the company, MATS, or Multi-Axis Turbosystems,
are designed for high wind speeds. In 19 mile per hour wind the system
can produce electricity at less than 2.4 cents per kilowatt hour,
according to the company. In windy Iceland that figure could fall below
2 cents.
The company is also working with GE Plastics to research the
possibility of manufacturing the small turbine blades from injection
molded plastic. Currently the blades are made of metal. Visit Mass
Megawatts at http://www.massmegawatts.com/ .
NEW! NEW! NEW! ... NewsLinks ...
--- Chorus Motors plc Announces Chorus Motor PWM Patent
http://www.borealis.com/ (2/25/02)
--- Delphi to Present Future of Automotive Technology at SAE 2002 World
Congress http://www.delphiauto.com/vpr (click Press Releases) (2/25/02)
--- Proton Energy Systems Signs Joint Development Agreement With
Sumitomo Corporation http://www.protonenergy.com/ (click Company Info,
News, Press Releases) (2/25/02)
--- BC Hydro Offers to Purchase Power From Canadian Hydro
http://www.canhydro.com/ (click Investor Information, News Releases)
(2/26/02)
--- Farm Crops Studied as Clean Fuel Source http://www.iogen.ca (click
Press Releases) (2/26/02)
--- MotivePower Inc. Awarded $14 Million Contract to Build Locomotives
for Caltrain http://www.wabtec.com/ (2/27/02)
--- Timken (R) Fuel Efficient Bearings Reduce Power Consumption, Improve
Fuel Economy http://www.timken.com/ (click News Room) (3/1/02)
Send ENERGIES to a friend or colleague. Visit Green Energy News on
the web at http://www.nrglink.com/ . For ENERGIES paid and free trial
subscriptions please visit the web site. Copyright Green Energy News
Inc. 3/2/02 vol.6 no.48
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