NEWEST NEW ENERGIES

If these ideas, this article concludes, are “…far-fetched solutions to a national energy crisis, it wasn't so long ago that corn was mostly for dinner.” Well, corn ethanol is STILL a pretty far-fetched solution to anybody’s energy problems. And so are most of these ideas. But there are one or two keepers. For those who haven’t read it here before, wave-tide-current energies are the Sleeping Giants of New Energy.

Energy from Unusual Sources; A slew of entrepreneurs are looking well beyond sunlight and wind. Think: tornadoes, algae, giant kites and lightning
Olga Kharif, September 10, 2007 (Business Week)

WHO
Louis Michaud, retired petrochemical engineer; Clean Edge (Ron Pernik, co-founder); LiveFuels; Finavera Renewables (Jason Bak, CEO); Prometheus Energy; KiteShip (Dave Culp, president); Steve LeRoy, inventor.

A schematic of Michaud's tornado-in-a-sports-arena idea. Hmmm...

WHAT
- Michaud has a plan to create manageable tornados in sports arena-sized pools to generate electricity.
- LiveFuels wants to grow algae in pools and produce biofuels.
- Finavera’s AquaBuOY 2.0 turns ocean wave motion into electricity.
- Prometheus Energy will produce LNG from landfill methane fumes.
- Kiteship will deploy giant kites to add power to ocean-going freighters and commercial ships.
- LeRoy wants to generate lightning and turn it into electricity.

WHEN
- Sales of energy generated from alternative sources rose 37.5% in 2006.
- New Energy Finance estimates New Energy venture capital/private equity investments will grow 17%/year (compounded) through 2013.
- The North American Electric Reliability Council predicts energy shortfalls by 2015.
- Finavera expects to commercialize ocean wave energy by 2010.

A schematic of a Finavera wave energy farm. This idea has real merit. (click to enlarge)

WHERE
- Prometheus Energy is build a waste-to-LNG plant in Sacramento, CA.
- Finavera’s AquaBuOY 2.0 has been deployed off the coast of Orgeon.
- Inventor LeRoy is working up his lightning in DeKalb, Ill.

WHY
- Michaud’s tornado would be 9 miles high and generate as much electricity as a nuclear power plant.
- LiveFuels’ algae in pools would produce biofuels much more efficiently than plant crops because algae grows so much faster.
- Prometheus Energy is using a $600,000 2006 DOE grant to build a waste-to-LNG plant in Sacramento that will produce 9,000 gallons of natural gas a day.
- Finavera’s buoys would cost $2 million, occupy half the space of a wind farm and match the output without intermittency.
- The KiteShip kite would cost $2 million, be 13,000 square feet and cut shipping fuel costs 10% to 20%.
- LeRoy was inspired by ideas of the legendary physicist Nikolai Tesla. His coiled transformer prototype releases enough electricity to power a 60-watt light bulb for 20 minutes but he is trying to match the power of a Midwestern thunderstorm.
- The article also mentions a plan by MIT graduate students to recover the energy of people walking over a surface and some kind of mysterious biobattery made from sugar.

The KiteShip kite. As strange as it seems, it already works for yachts and very likely will be the way of ocean shipping in the foreseeable future.

QUOTES
- Pernik, Clean Edge: "We are moving from a mono culture [reliant on just a few traditional fuels like oil and coal] to a diverse range of energy sources…There's room for new players."
- Bak, Finavera: "We are on target to generate a whole new industry…"
- Culp, KiteShip: "The economic viability wasn't there until recently…Fuel was very cheap."
- LeRoy: "If you've ever seen a tree hit by lightning, [you know] it's energy for the taking…"