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Archive for July, 2011

A new article in the journal Energy Policy supports the notion that local ownership is key to overcoming local resistance to renewable energy.  The article summarizes a survey conducted of two towns in Germany, both with local wind projects, but only one that was locally owned.  The results are summarized in this chart:

Guess which town has the locally owned project?

If you guessed Zschadraß, you win.  With local ownership of the wind project, 45% of residents had a positive view toward more wind energy.  In the town with an absentee-owned project (Nossen), only 16% of residents had a positive view of expanding wind power; a majority had a negative view.

Ownership matters, an important consideration given the increasing local resistance to wind power projects and the way in which U.S. renewable energy policy typically makes local ownership more difficult.  For more on the value of ownership, see How Community Ownership Can Save Wind Power.

This post originally appeared on Energy Self-Reliant States, a resource of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s New Rules Project.

Some top clean transportation stories from the past week or so (other than what we’ve already covered):

Cars

1. New Prius Models Will Offer AC Outlets for Home Appliances [Gas2]
2. Video: Chevy Volt Owner Averages 3,108 MPG [Gas2]
3. Driving in Eco-Style [Feelgood Style]
4. Washington State Taps AeroVironment to Install Charging Stations Along “Green Highway” [Gas2]
5. French Highways to be Installed with EV Charging Stations [Gas2]
6. Mia Electric Delivers Affordable EV Urban Delivery Van [Gas2]
7. MUTE Budget EV is Coming to Frankfurt [Gas2]
8. DuPont Cultivating India’s EV Culture [Gas2]
9. Boston to get 150 EV charging stations [cnet]
10. Students Win Ferrari Design Contest with Hydrogen-Hybrid “Eternita” [Gas2]
11. Toyota Awards Tesla $100 Million Contract for RAV4 EV [Gas2]

Other

1. Car and Driver Magazine: “We Must Consider Alternative Transportation” [Streetsblog]
2. Three Vehicles Made from Recycled Materials [Gas2]
3. New Competition: Volvo Sustainable Mobility Award [TheCityFix]
4. Columbus’s Hide-the-Poor Transit Strategy Is, Predictably, Bad for Transit [Streetsblog]
5. Another Major Step Forward for DesertXpress — Nevada High-Speed Train Line [US Senator Harry Reid]

Updated: Silicon Valley’s fuel cell maker Bloom Energy continues to add customers looking to power part of their data center operations with distributed, cleaner power in California. On Thursday, the U.S. division of Japanese telecom giant NTT, NTT America, said it will install five Bloom fuel cells at one of its data center facilities in San Jose, Calif.

Nine-year-old Bloom Energy sells an industrial-sized fuel cell (which looks like a large refrigerator) that uses a chemical reaction to produce electricity. The Bloom Boxes suck up oxygen on one side and fuel (usually natural gas or biogas) on the other side, and produce power on-site for companies in a more efficient and less carbon-intensive manner than using the grid (depending on what fuel the company uses).

NTT America says it will use biogas (gas generated by decomposing organic material) produced at a California dairy farm as fuel for the Bloom fuel cells. That means NTT’s fuel cells won’t emit as much carbon as many of the Bloom fuel cells that are being powered by natural gas. Updated: NTT America has corrected the source of the biogas to two landfills in Pennsylvania.

Five Bloom fuel cells have a capacity of 500 kilowatts, which is the equivalent power for about 500 houses or five large office buildings. Each Bloom fuel cell costs around $700,000 to $800,000 before subsidies, so NTT is spending a couple million dollars on the installation.

Data center operators are looking for ways to make their facilities more energy-efficient and greener as a way to cut growing energy bills and also to highlight company sustainability. While fuel cells are still not commonly used to power data centers, Bloom has been slowly growing its customer list of telcos and Internet companies that want to use the Bloom boxes for part of their data center operations.

Earlier this month, AT&T said it plans to install a whopping 7.5 MW worth of Bloom fuel cells (that’s 75 fuel cells) at 11 AT&T offices in California. AT&T said it would use the fuel cell power for data centers as well as administration offices and facilities that house network equipment.

Fuel cells likely won’t be used as a main, or stand alone, power source for a data center. As we pointed out on GigaOM Pro (subscription required) last year, data centers need a power source that is so-called “five nines” (99.999 percent). Google has said the Bloom Box it was using on its campus had an availability rating of 98 percent, which translates into around seven days of downtime a year: no good for a stand alone power source for a data center running web sites that can’t go down.

Bloom has also found success with data center operators in California because state subsidies make the Bloom boxes a lot more economical in California. Customers in the state include Google, eBay and Adobe .

Top image is NTT’s installation, and the bottom is the installation at Adobe.

Related research and analysis from GigaOM Pro:
Subscriber content. Sign up for a free trial.

• Bloom Energy and Data Centers – Perfect Together?
• For Truly Green IT, We Need Truly Clean Data Centers
• Green IT Q1: Cleantech Breaking Out — and Bracing for Hard Times

It has recently been announced that the powers that be at Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) have tapped BMW subsidiary, DesignworksUSA, to create a new fleet of train cars to replace those that have been diligently serving the Bay Area since 1972.  A $3 billion long-term project, the “Fleet of the Future” will be introduced by 2017 and will be taking over for what are the oldest train cars currently operating in the USA.  The new trains “are expected to be the lightest and most energy-efficient for their performance in the world.”

BART has been soliciting input from riders in an attempt to address issues that current users have with the system.  So far, feedback has indicated a preference for wider aisles, but more seats (a true feat of engineering, if they can make it happen).  People also seem to have a great distaste for the carpeted floors and seats, preferring hard surfaces that are easier to clean and maintain without looking shabby.  Bicyclists, 4% of BART riders, are also keen to make sure that there is enough room for plenty of bikes, and BART is trying to make that happen without disturbing the comfort of other passengers.  It is considering adding on-board bicycle stands as one way to serve riders.

According to the BART website, the public will truly play a significant role in the design process.  ”Once a contract is awarded, the supplier will provide a full-size train car interior mock-up, so the public can walk inside, sit on the seats,  look at the new information screens – in essence ‘kick the tires’ and get a sense of what the final car interiors will look and feel like. Then, feedback from the mock-up will be incorporated into the final designs.”  No date has yet been given for when the public can expect to see a mock-up from DesignworksUSA now that they have been awarded the contract.

For further information about the project and how you can contribute your input, check out the BART website here.

Related Stories:

1. Spaniards Give Up Cars for Lifetime Transit Passes
2. Public Transportation and Road Repair Investments Create More Jobs/$ than New Road Construction
3. Save $9,330 a Year by Riding Transit

Photo via  Andrionni Ribo

New technical specifications for Formula 1 racing state:

“5.19 Electric mode : 

The car must be run in electric mode (no ignition and no fuel supply to the engine) at all times when being driven in the pit lane.”

Electric is gaining popularity at the race tracks.

Two companies, Drayson Racing Technologies and HaloIPT are working together to offer completely electric vehicles. The cars may have some batteries but they would be substantially smaller than expected. The power to propel the vehicles would instead come from transmitters buried in the track! Electricity would be transmitted to the vehicles wirelessly.

This is a similar technology to what you might find in a battery-powered electric toothbrush with its wireless charging station. Recent advancements have allowed more efficiency — a greater distance between transmitter and receiver, with more misalignment.

HaloIPT has a vision of future wireless vehicles that would permit electric cars to have unlimited range and no waiting for a vehicle to charge. Similar systems have been tested in several countries for buses already. In the US, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) has a study that suggests that electrified roadways are the cheapest path forward for EV adoption. Many technologies are tested on the racetrack before they become mainstream — this may be one of them.

Source: Electric Vehicle News

Additional Reading:

1. Eco Buses or Trains Magnetically Getting Energy from the Road Launched in South Korea
2. The “Charge As You Drive” Electric Car
3. Is Wireless Power Closer Than We Think?

Photo via diskychick