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EERE NETWORK NEWS -- April 30, 2003
A weekly newsletter from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE)
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE).
<http://www.eere.energy.gov/>
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Featuring:
*News and Events
DOE to Fund Eight Tribes to Develop Renewable Energy
DOE Office Facility in Maryland Earns the Energy Star Label
Architect Group Names the Top Ten Green Projects for 2003
Large Solar Power Systems Online in New Jersey, California
Shell Hydrogen Opens Hydrogen Fueling Station in Iceland
California Air Board Allows Fuel-Cell Focus in New ZEV Rules
*Site News
European Commission End-Use Energy Efficiency Activities
*Energy Connections
Sandia's "Z Machine" Reveals New Approach to Fusion Energy
*About this Newsletter
Editor's Note: We've renamed our former "Energy Facts and Tips"
section as "Energy Connections" to better reflect the purpose of that
section, which provides a broad view of the U.S. and world energy
situation and outlook. The content remains unchanged.
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NEWS AND EVENTS
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DOE to Fund Eight Tribes to Develop Renewable Energy
DOE announced on April 24th its award of $1.3 million to eight Native
American tribes to develop renewable energy projects on their lands.
The funds will go toward feasibility studies on tribal lands located
in Alaska, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, South Dakota,
Washington and Wisconsin. Although four of the tribes will investigate
renewable energy resources in general, the other four tribes will
explore the potential of specific renewable energy technologies,
including biofuel for power production, biogas generation from manure
and other biomass sources, wind power, and a hybrid power system using
both wind power and hydropower. See the DOE press release at:
<http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases03/aprpr/pr03077.htm>.
DOE's Tribal Energy Program promotes tribal self-sufficiency and
fosters employment and economic development on tribal lands by
providing technical and financial assistance to tribes that want to
develop the renewable energy resources on their lands. See the Tribal
Energy Program Web site at:
<http://www.eere.energy.gov/power/tech_access/tribalenergy/>.
DOE Office Facility in Maryland Earns the Energy Star Label
DOE's office facility in Germantown, Maryland, earned the Energy Star
designation for energy efficiency on April 23th. On an energy
consumption scale of 0 to 100, the Germantown facility earned a score
of 83. To earn an Energy Star label, a building must score 75 points
or more. The Germantown facility is the fifth DOE building to earn an
Energy Star label, following the lead established by Building 69 at
the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Buildings 117 and 132 at
the Nevada Test Site, and the Buildings Technology Center Headquarters
building at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. See the DOE press release
at: <http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases03/aprpr/pr03083.htm>.
Architect Group Names the Top Ten Green Projects for 2003
On Earth Day, April 22nd, the American Institute of Architects (AIA)
announced its selection of the top ten examples of buildings that
protect and enhance the environment. The 2003 AIA Top Ten Green
Projects span a wide variety of buildings, including a home, a five-
story housing project, and a forensics laboratory. Despite such
diversity in buildings, all of them combine energy efficiency with
appropriate uses of solar energy to meet the buildings' energy needs.
The top ten projects implemented such design approaches as passive
solar heating and cooling, natural ventilation, daylighting, earth-
sheltered construction, and straw-bale construction. The projects
include such technologies as high-efficiency lighting, solar electric
systems, solar hot water systems, geothermal heat pumps, a natural-gas
cogeneration system, a microturbine, and high-efficiency windows and
appliances.
AIA's Committee on the Environment (COTE) developed the sixth annual
Top Ten Green Projects initiative in partnership with DOE and
Environmental Building News magazine. The top ten projects will be
honored on May 1st at the National Building Museum, then again on May
9th at the AIA National Convention and Design Expo in San Diego,
California. The AIA press release for the Top Ten Green Projects links
each winning entry to a High-Performance Building Case Study on the
EERE Web site. See the AIA press release at:
<http://www.aia.org/media/news/030422.asp>.
Large Solar Power Systems Online in New Jersey, California
The number of large solar power installations in the United States
continued to grow in recent weeks, including two new projects in the
half-megawatt range in California and New Jersey.
New Jersey was actually graced with two new solar power installations:
a 500-kilowatt system, installed on the roof of Janssen Pharmaceutica
in Titusville, and a 275-kilowatt system installed by BP in Paulsboro.
The BP installation is located on the site of a former petroleum and
specialty chemicals storage facility, and was supported by the New
Jersey Clean Energy Program and the Virginia Alliance for Solar
Energy. PowerLight Corporation installed the larger Titusville system.
See the press releases from the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities
and BP at: <http://www.bpu.state.nj.us/home/news.shtml?18-03NC>
and <http://www.bp.com/centres/press/p_r_detail.asp?id=977>.
PowerLight was also responsible for a 536-kilowatt solar electric
system installed at the headquarters of Toyota Motor Sales U.S.A.,
Inc. in Torrance, California. The 624,000-square-foot building complex
opened to the public on Earth Day, April 22nd. It is the largest
facility yet to earn the Gold Level Certification from the U.S. Green
Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design
(LEED) green building rating system. It incorporates direct-indirect
lighting, high efficiency insulation and thermally insulated glass,
exceeding California's energy efficiency targets by more than
20 percent. The Torrance facility also houses Toyota's hydrogen
fueling and service station. See the Toyota press release and
accompanying photos on the Toyota/Lexus Pressroom Web site at:
<http://pressroom.toyota.com/>.
PowerLight has been busy lately: The company also installed a
21.6-kilowatt system in Boston and a 120-kilowatt system at a
California winery. See the PowerLight press releases for 2003 at:
<http://www.powerlight.com/company/co_innews.cfm>.
With so many solar power systems being installed in the United States,
it's hard to keep track -- which is one reason why the Solar Electric
Power Association (SEPA) is building a database of commercial solar
power installations. SEPA is just beginning to build its database, so
if your company's project isn't listed, the association encourages you
to submit it. See the SEPA Commercial Solar Electric Installation
Inventory at:
<http://www.solarelectricpower.org/installation_inventory/>.
Shell Hydrogen Opens Hydrogen Fueling Station in Iceland
Shell Hydrogen announced last week the opening of its first hydrogen
fueling station at a Shell retail site in Reykjavik, Iceland. The
station will initially refuel three DaimlerChrysler fuel-cell buses
operated by a local bus company. It also has all the permits needed to
operate commercially, and could easily become the world's first retail
hydrogen fueling station. The station generates hydrogen from water
using electrolysis, and since all of Iceland's electricity is
generated from hydroelectric and geothermal sources, it represents
Iceland's first step toward a hydrogen economy fueled by renewable
energy. See the Shell Hydrogen press release at:
<http://www.shell.com/home/Framework?siteId=hydrogen-en>.
Photos of the hydrogen fueling station are posted on the Athygli
Public Relations Web site at: <http://www.athygli.is/myndir.html>.
Recognizing that a number of countries are interested in developing a
hydrogen economy, Secretary of Energy Spencer Abraham called on Monday
for international collaboration in advanced research and development
to develop hydrogen energy technologies. Secretary Abraham proposed
the "International Partnership for the Hydrogen Economy" during a
presentation to the International Energy Agency Ministerial meeting.
See the DOE press release at:
<http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases03/aprpr/pr03089.htm>.
Closer to home, the non-profit Institute of Ecolonomics is promoting a
hydrogen economy by driving a convoy of alternative-fueled and hybrid-
electric vehicles across the United States, starting in Los Angeles on
May 1st and ending in Washington, D.C., on May 14th. Although the
institute's founder, Dennis Weaver, is better known for riding a horse
in the television series "Gunsmoke" and, occasionally, on the streets
of New York City in "McCloud," his current effort, called "Drive to
Survive 2003," aims to encourage the use of fuel-cell vehicles. See
the Route and Itinerary section of the Drive to Survive Web site at:
<http://www.drivetosurvive.info/>.
California Air Board Allows Fuel-Cell Focus in New ZEV Rules
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) approved modifications to
the state's Zero Emission Vehicle (ZEV) Program last week, giving
automakers greater flexibility in meeting their requirements.
Automakers can still meet their requirements by producing a mix of
vehicles of which 2 percent are battery-driven electric vehicles
(ZEVs), 2 percent are very clean hybrid-electric or natural-gas
vehicles (called advanced technology partial ZEVs, or AT PZEVs), and
6 percent are extremely clean conventional vehicles, called partial
ZEVs or PZEVs.
Alternately, automakers can produce a mix of vehicles of which
4 percent are AT PZEVs and 6 percent are PZEVs, if they also produce
their share of fuel cell vehicles. Under this alternative rule,
automakers will be required to provide their market-weighted share of
fuel cell vehicles, which (for all automakers combined) must total 250
by 2008, 2,500 by 2011, 25,000 by 2014, and 50,000 by 2017. Automakers
can substitute battery electric vehicles to meet half of their
fuel-cell-vehicle requirements.
With the ZEV requirements currently on hold because of automaker
lawsuits, the new requirements will not go into effect until 2005. See
the CARB press release and ZEV Program Web site at:
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/newsrel/nr042403.htm> and
<http://www.arb.ca.gov/msprog/zevprog/2003rule/2003rule.htm>.
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SITE NEWS
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European Commission End-Use Energy Efficiency Activities
<http://energyefficiency.jrc.cec.eu.int/>
The Institute for Environment & Sustainability of the European
Commission Joint Research Centre advises the Commission on the design
and implementation of energy efficiency policies and programs. Its Web
site serves as a portal site to information on the Commission's energy
efficiency activities. Activities include the GreenLight Programme,
Lights of the Future Competition, Energy Star Programme, electric
motor programs, and building programs.
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ENERGY CONNECTIONS
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Sandia's "Z Machine" Reveals New Approach to Fusion Energy
As renewable energy assumes a growing role in the world energy mix,
will nuclear fusion be next? Physicists and engineers have been
working for decades to recreate the sun's energy source in a
controlled reaction that could be used as a source of energy here on
Earth. They have traditionally touted one of two approaches: magnetic
confinement, in which a hot plasma is held in a magnetic "bottle," and
inertial confinement, in which a high-energy beam (usually a laser)
implodes a pea-sized target, causing its nuclei to fuse. But in early
April, researchers at DOE's Sandia National Laboratories showed that
they have a third way.
The Sandia researchers started with a pea-sized target of deuterium,
much like in an inertial confinement machine, but placed that inside a
foam cylinder surrounded by hair-thin tungsten wires. By running huge,
precisely timed pulses of electricity into that tungsten-wire cage,
they created intense magnetic fields that crushed the tungsten wires
into the foam cylinder, generating X-rays. Those X-rays, in turn,
produced a shock wave that imploded the target, much like the laser
beams do in an inertial confinement machine.
Sandia researchers had their first suggestion that they had achieved
fusion in the Z machine when they measured neutron pulses coming from
implosions last summer. In April, they announced that they had,
indeed, produced nuclear fusion. See the April 7th press release from
Sandia National Laboratories at:
<http://www.sandia.gov/news-center/news-releases/index.html>.
Unfortunately, the path from creating fusion to building a practical
fusion energy source is a long and difficult one. Although magnetic
confinement has been studied for decades, DOE announced in January
that it was joining an international effort to advance that
technology, a project that is not expected to start operating until
2014. DOE expects the project to yield fusion research findings for up
to 20 years. See the DOE press release at:
<http://www.energy.gov/HQPress/releases03/janpr/pr03026.htm>.
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ABOUT THIS NEWSLETTER
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