QUICK NEWS, 6-3: PRES TO FIGHT FOR ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL; GE & JAPAN ITOCHU, NEW ENERGY PARTNERS; SOLAR POWER PLANT PROGRESS; HYBRID HEAVY TRANSPORT

PRES TO FIGHT FOR ENERGY/CLIMATE BILL
Obama Says He’ll Push for Clean Energy Bill
Helene Cooper, June 2, 2010 (NY Times)

"President Obama…vowed to push for quick action on climate change legislation despite almost unanimous opposition from Republicans and continued skepticism from some Democrats…Seeking to harness the deepening anger over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico to the advantage of his legislative agenda, Mr. Obama promised to find the lagging votes…[for the Senate bill] which tries to address global warming by putting a price on greenhouse gas pollution and provides incentives for alternative clean energy sources."

[President Obama:] “If we refuse to take into account the full cost of our fossil fuel addiction — if we don’t factor in the environmental costs and national security costs and true economic costs — we will have missed our best chance to seize a clean energy future…The votes may not be there right now, but I intend to find them in the coming months.”

Cartoonist Mike Luckovich via Climate Progress

"…[Mr. Obama reiterated] his call to roll back Bush administration tax breaks for oil companies and to make a broader case for his administration’s accomplishments heading into an election season…[He defended] his vision of active but restrained government against a conservative limited-government philosophy that he said had proved a failure under President George W. Bush, and he criticized Republicans in Congress as obstructionists…

"Many clean-energy advocates have argued that Mr. Obama should try to take advantage of the national anger over the gulf oil spill to challenge Republicans on the climate change bill, saying that his best chance to get such a bill passed is now…Apparently eager to seize an opportunity to take the offensive after weeks of playing defense on the oil spill, Mr. Obama suggested that he was happy to engage in a major battle for the legislation in the coming months."

Time to reach for something better. )click to enlarge)

[President Obama:] “[We risk] drilling four miles beneath the surface of the earth…[because of dependence on oil]…We consume more than 20 percent of the world’s oil, but have less than 2 percent of the world’s oil reserves…Without a major change in our energy policy, our dependence on oil means that we will continue to send billions of dollars of our hard-earned wealth to other countries every month, including countries in dangerous and unstable regions… [The] time has come, once and for all, for this nation to fully embrace a clean energy future…”

"The White House has been trying to stop the environmental disaster in the gulf, now in its seventh week, from consuming the second year of his presidency…A day after disclosing that the federal government is conducting criminal and civil investigations of BP and other companies in connection with the spill, Mr. Obama did not directly criticize BP or the oil industry generally. Instead, he framed his agenda in positive terms…[and commited to getting the private sector on board]…"


GE & JAPAN ITOCHU, NEW ENERGY PARTNERS
GE, Itochu tie in wind projects; Itochu stock up
Yuko Inoue (w/Edwina Gibbs), June 3, 2010 (Reuters)

"General Electric will form an alliance with Japanese trading house Itochu Corp to strengthen their wind and other renewable energy businesses, boosting Itochu's stock price nearly 5 percent.

"GE, the largest U.S. conglomerate and a top maker of wind power generators, will bring Itochu into a wind power project in Oklahoma that GE is currently pursuing at a total cost of roughly 30 billion yen ($326 million)…The two firms also plan to cooperate in another large wind energy project in the United States…The agreement also covers geothermal and biomass power generation and is scheduled to initially last five years."

Plenty of wind in Oklahoma for GE and Itochu. (click to enlarge)

"The U.S. wind industry has grown nearly 40 percent on average each of the past five years on new state demands for renewable energy sources, strong support from the federal government and the looming threat of carbon restrictions.

"It has been a fast-growing business for GE, but Chief Executive Jeff Immelt has said he expects it to slow…GE is currently involved in patent disputes over wind turbine technology with Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industry Co, which is also keen to tap U.S. demand…Itochu has a large global business network and is strong in the Chinese market."


SOLAR POWER PLANT PROGRESS
BrightSource Energy: Ivanpah project powers ahead
Rikki Stancich, 27 May 2010 (CSP Today)

"BrightSource Energy, Inc., developer of utility-scale solar thermal power plants, recently raised an additional US$150 million in equity financing, bringing…[its total] to more than US$300 million…[It] will be used to support BrightSource's 2,610 megawatts in contracts with Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) and Southern California Edison to build 14 solar power plants in the US southwest by 2016…

"...[Brightsource Energy’s] current project, the Ivanpah Solar Electric Generating Facility, consists of three separate solar thermal plants, which will employ BrightSource Energy’s Luz Power Tower 550 technology (LPT 550)…being [successfully] demonstrated at the Solar Energy Development Center (SEDC) in Israel’s Negev Desert…"

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"The Ivanpah project was recently granted US$1.37 billion in [DOE] loan guarantees…[and was] given “fast-track” priority by the U.S. Department of Interior for obtaining federal stimulus benefits…[A recent permitting process necessitated] reduction of the projects footprint by 12 percent, reducing the number of heliostats by 40,000 and reducing the total gross capacity of the Ivanpah project from 440 megawatts to 392 megawatts…The Ivanpah project is scheduled to begin construction in the second half of 2010…"

[Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications, Brightsource Energy:]
"…We're going to need tens of thousands of gigawatts to meet global demand for carbon-free energy…Like wind energy, power produced from CSP must be done at scale…Our ability to produce at scale enables us to compete directly with today's new natural gas peaker plants…"

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[Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications, Brightsource Energy:]"We will use dry-cooling technology at our Ivanpah plant to conserve valuable water resources in the arid climate…[It reduces]water usage by more than 90%… 25 times less water than a wet-cooled parabolic trough plant…One of the advantages of the power tower design…[is] that we're more efficient…[which] allows us to dry-cool with a significantly less efficiency loss and more cost effectively…"

[Keely Wachs, senior director of corporate communications, Brightsource Energy:] "Ivanpah will deliver three of the fourteen plants under contract with PG&E and SCE. We currently have more than 14 gigawatts of sites under control and are actively developing 4.2 gigawatts worth of sites…distributed between BLM, state and private lands throughout the US southwest."


HYBRID HEAVY TRANSPORT
Hybrid Trucks and Buses; Medium and Heavy Duty Commercial Truck Markets for Hybrid, Plug-in Hybrid, and Battery Electric Drives
Dave Hurst and Clint Wheelock, 2Q 2010 (Pike Research)

"Trucks are classified based on the gross vehicle weight (GVW) of their chassis. In the United States, these weights are separated into classes 1 through 8, from light duty to heavy duty. Medium-duty (MD) trucks fall into classes 2b to 6 (8,501 to 26,000 pounds GVW)…Heavy-duty (HD) trucks are classes 7 and 8 (26,000 pounds or more)…Within each class, original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) build trucks of several different formats…Once OEMs manufacture the chassis, other companies fit van bodies or additional equipment on the structure, thereby creating step vans, refuse trucks, shuttle buses, ambulances, or specialized power take-off (PTO) equipment trucks…

"There are essentially five types of hybrid systems that can be implemented on board MD and HD vehicles…[1] Hybrid electric vehicles (HEVs) generate all their power on board…[2] Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle (PHEV) systems get some of their power… from an off-vehicle source…[3] Battery electric vehicle (BEV) systems get all of their power from off-vehicle sources, and they store the power on the vehicle. Therefore, these vehicles require large batteries and recharging time, but they have zero emissions…[4] Mild electric power take-off (EPTO) hybrids… do not provide any power to the wheels from electricity…[but] power all PTO equipment via battery…[5] Hydraulic hybrid… systems generate power on board the vehicle by utilizing hydraulic pressure accumulated during braking…"

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"MD delivery vehicles are currently one of the biggest markets for hybrid trucks…Within the delivery vehicle market, Federal Express and UPS both have fleets of more than 200 MD hybrid vans…Utility trucks, such as diggers or aerial lifts, equipped with EPTO hybrid technology, can save substantial fuel because they do not need to idle the engine while crews work at a jobsite…Systems like these tend to save between 1,000 and 1,500 gallons of diesel per year..

"…HD transit buses have typically been test beds for hybrid systems…As a result, Pike Research forecasts that there will be 9,052 hybrid buses operating in the U.S. in 2010…hybrid HD trucks recover the majority of their battery energy through
regenerative braking. Because over-the-road (OTR) trucks do a lot of freeway driving, they do not have the chance to recapture that energy via braking and rely on the engine to recharge the batteries. Therefore HD OTR trucks, such as semi trucks, are often considered inappropriate candidates for hybrid systems…Peterbilt is the only manufacturer in the U.S…"

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"Demand for hybrid MD and HD trucks is dependent on multiple factors…Package delivery has been a key focus for hybrid truck designs…HEV and plug-in electric transit bus builders have been focusing on the U.S. market…Overall, the demand for hybrid MD and HD trucks will be strong in Asia Pacific and North America. China and the U.S. will be the main sources of the demand; though by 2015, demand for MD hybrids in China is likely to outpace demand in the U.S. (CAGR of 107% and 37%, respectively).

"Within the HD truck market, the plug-in hybrid is not likely to see strong growth as BEV and HEV numbers grow…Pike Research anticipates that the HD plug-in hybrid truck market will grow to 2,213 vehicles globally in 2015, but this market will be dwarfed by the HEV HD truck market, which will see its numbers grow to 13,938 vehicles, and by BEV trucks, which will reach 4,354 vehicles in 2015…Worldwide, the market for hybrid and plug-in MD and HD vehicles is expected to grow to 103,940 vehicles by 2015."