NewEnergyNews: TODAY’S STUDY: NEW ENERGY INNOVATION, PATENTS RISING

NewEnergyNews

Gleanings from the web and the world, condensed for convenience, illustrated for enlightenment, arranged for impact...

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YESTERDAY

  • Holiday Weekend Reading: NEW ENERGY IN CHINA

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    GET THE DAILY HEADLINES EMAIL: CLICK HERE TO SUBMIT YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS OR SEND YOUR EMAIL ADDRESS TO: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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    THE DAY BEFORE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: INTEGRATING NEW ENERGY
  • QUICK NEWS, May 24: SO AFRICA TO BUILD A GIGAWATT OF WIND; LUCKY CORRIDOR FOR NEW MEXICO NEW ENERGY; MEGAWATT TEST OF CIGS THIN FILM

    • THE DAY BEFORE THE DAY BEFORE

  • TODAY’S STUDY: THE BENEFITS OF WIND AND SOLAR TOGETHER
  • QUICK NEWS, May 23: AN ‘UNPRECEDENTED’ MOVE TO NEW ENERGY; BRAINTRUST GOES AFTER SOLAR PRICE; INTERIOR APPROVES WIND ON INDIAN LAND

    • THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: EUROPE’S PV TO 2016
  • QUICK NEWS, May 22: APPLE TURNS TO SUN; EU WIND CAN LEAD ECONOMIC RECOVERY; CHINA’S NEW GRID MAY ONLY MEET OLD NEEDS

    • AND THE DAY BEFORE THAT

  • TODAY’S STUDY: BANKS ON COAL
  • QUICK NEWS, May 21: A FIGHT FOR SUN IN TEXAS; NRG LAYOFFS HERALD FADING PTC HOPES; WHAT WORRIES GRID OPERATORS MOST

    • THE LAST DAY UP HERE

  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- CHINA STARTS WORLD’S BIGGEST TRANSMISSION
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- SOLAR’S IMPACT ON GERMAN OCEAN WIND
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- INDIA WIND GETS A GOLDMAN SACHS BILLION
  • SUNDAY WORLD HEADLINE- HOW KOREA IS LIKE DENMARK

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    Anne B. Butterfield of Daily Camera and Huffington Post, is a biweekly contributor to NewEnergyNews

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Anne Butterfield (Huffington Post via New EnergyNews)

    Eventually those local moratoriums against fracking will expire in Boulder, Longmont and Erie. And residents will worry anew about toxic fracking operations inching up on schools and neighborhoods in pursuit of a product that goes "poof" the instant it's used. Nice value ~ not.

    And it's timely that the University of Colorado at Denver School of Public Health just announced a study which finds that air pollution within a half mile of frack-ops have toxic emissions five times over federal safety standards, causing elevated life time cancer risks and respiratory and neurological effects for nearby residents. Rep. Diana DeGette is now urging the Environmental Protection Agency to consider Colorado's study as they finalize air standards for fracking.

    It has also just come out that fracking is inching up on agriculture to compete for Colorado's water. Taking only .08 of a percent per year, it's a smidge for sure, but that water gets so polluted it must be disposed in a way that removes it from the hydrologic cycle. And that's not pretty when we're looking down the craw of a new drought kicked off with an historic climate change induced heat wave plus a horrifying wildfire this season.

    Permanently voiding precious Colorado water out of the hydrologic cycle feels even worse in view the fact such water can be lost for naught when the depletion rate on fracking wells is 63-85 percent in the first year, according to Dave Hughes of the Geological Survey of Canada. This can mean fruitless water waste when drilling down the slippery slope of diminishing marginal returns.

    But Colorado will need all the more gas, as the Clean Air Clean Jobs Act requires Xcel Eenrgy in Colorado to soon retire 900 megawatts of coal burning capacity. The act also requires that the natural gas used for recouping that coal-fired capacity comes from in state (see page 18 here). That puts upward pressure on fracking all over the state. This means more tangles between fracking and populated areas, and more permanent loss of precious Colorado water. It seems like Colorado may have backed itself into a box canyon, where residents are cornered with fracking risks to land, air, water and health.

    But there's an elegant pathway to reducing Colorado's need for natural gas -- by using the sun in a familiar technology that is at least two times more efficient than solar photovoltaics. It's good old fashioned solar thermal - those rooftop panels that heat water.

    Colorado could amend the CACJA to promote solar thermal as a jobs intensive domestic energy supply that works with natural gas to heat homes, buildings, water and industrial processes. This could free drilling companies to sell excess Colorado gas out of state for much higher prices (see page 8 here), possibly gaining crucial industry support for this intrusion of renewables into their market. Higher profitability, less contentious drilling and more renewable energy jobs is the hope.

    In all of North American, Colorado is "ground zero" for the best conditions for producing huge benefits from solar thermal. It's the sunshine, cold ground water, high heating loads, renewables-savvy population and existing industry that can, if the state takes on robust targets, lead the nation in an industry that swaps jobs and skills in place of burning money. And burning money is what we do when we burn costly fuels that go poof the instant they're used.

    A robust Colorado plan for solar thermal could put the clean air and clean jobs back into the so-called, gas-friendly Clean Air Clean Jobs Act.

    And in case anyone has forgotten ~ there are huge economic risks with shale gas, a.k.a. the fracking boom, as the resource is almost certainly not as profitable, resourceful or as clean as hyped by industry. On deeper review, it's promising to be an economic bubble.

    Fracking is supposedly going to make our nation 100 years of cheap gas, as, amnesiac members of Congress and the President are wont to say. But various geological experts such as the Potential Gas Committe have poured cold water all over that flaming hype, detailing how the supply could be as little as 21 or even 11 years. And Arthur Berman, a widely regarded petro-geologist has commented that the industry reminds him of the sub prime mortgage mess and wrote, "U.S. shale plays share many characteristics with the gold rushes.... Both phenomena result from extreme promotion. Anyone can join. Every participant believes that they will get rich. Great amounts of capital are destroyed as entrants try to get a position. The bonanza is exhausted sooner than most expected and few profit in the end."

    So if you are one of the thousands of Coloradans who are waking up to the nightmare of fracking in your community - go online and read the Colorado Solar Thermal Roadmap. Then find every political leader you can to talk about it. Colorado would be wise to use its natural solar resources to hedge against an over-reliance on gas, one that shall expand as the CACJA requires. And coal with its rising prices is on the wane nationwide as well, which means the demand for gas will be a pressure cooker loaded with risk for our energy security, economy, and environment.

    Author's note: Want to support my work? Please "fan" me at Huffpost Denver, here (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/anne-butterfield). Thanks.

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    Anne's previous NewEnergyNews columns:

  • Colorado's Elegant Solution to Fracking (April 23, 2012)
  • Shale Gas: From Geologic Bubble to Economic Bubble (March 15, 2012)
  • Taken for granted no more (February 5, 2012)
  • The Republican clown car circus (January 6, 2012)
  • Twenty-Somethings of Colorado With Skin in the Game (November 22, 2011)
  • Occupy, Xcel, and the Mother of All Cliffs (October 31, 2011)
  • Boulder Can Own Its Power With Distributed Generation (June 7, 2011)
  • The Plunging Cost of Renewables and Boulder's Energy Future (April 19, 2011)
  • Paddling Down the River Denial (January 12, 2011)
  • The Fox (News) That Jumped the Shark (December 16, 2010)
  • Click here for an archive of Butterfield columns

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    Some details about NewEnergyNews and the man behind the curtain: Herman K. Trabish, Agua Dulce, CA., Doctor with my hands, Writer with my head, Student of New Energy and Human Experience with my heart

    email: herman@NewEnergyNews.net

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    Your intrepid reporter

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      A tip of the NewEnergyNews cap to Phillip Garcia for crucial assistance in the design implementation of this site. Thanks, Phillip.

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    Pay a visit to the HARRY BOYKOFF page at Basketball Reference, sponsored by NewEnergyNews and Oil In Their Blood.

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    • Wednesday, December 21, 2011

    TODAY’S STUDY: NEW ENERGY INNOVATION, PATENTS RISING

    Clean Energy Patent Growth Index 3rd Quarter 2011
    December 8, 2011 (Cleantech Group- Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C.)

    The Clean Energy Patent Growth Index (CEPGI), published quarterly by the Cleantech Group at Heslin Rothenberg Farley & Mesiti P.C. provides an indication of the trend of innovative activity in the Clean Energy sector from 2002 to the present. Results from the third quarter of 2011 reveal the CEPGI to have a value of 599 granted U.S. patents which is the highest quarterly total since tracking of the CEPGI began, topping the previous record set in the 4th quarter of 2010 by 24 granted patents, along with being up 62 over the second quarter of this year and up 109 over the third quarter of last year.

    click to enlarge

    The granting of patents by the United States Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) is often cited as a measure of the inventive activity and evidence of the effectiveness of research & development investments. Patents are considered to be such an indicator, because to be awarded a patent, it requires not only the efforts of inventors to develop new and non-obvious innovations but also successful handling by patent counsel to shepherd a patent application through the PTO. Thus, the granting of a patent is an indicator that efforts at innovation have been successful and that an innovation had enough perceived value to justify the time and expense in procuring the patent.

    click to enlarge

    The CEPGI (shown below quarterly) tracks the granting of U.S. patents for the following sub-components: Solar, Wind, Hybrid/electric vehicles, Fuel Cells, Hydroelectric, Tidal/wave, Geothermal, Biomass/biofuels and other clean renewable energy.

    click to enlarge

    The components breakdown of the CEPGI shows solar patents, wind patents and hybrid/electric vehicle patents to be at quarterly records. Fuel cells were up 41 relative to the 2d quarter at 246 granted patents and down 7 relative to the year before. Granted solar patents at 138 topped the remaining components of the CEPGI, tieing the first quarter and being up 16 over the second while being up 50 from the year before…

    click to enlarge

    Wind lagged solar by 25 while tieing the second quarter at 113 granted clean energy patents and up 42 compared to the third quarter of 2010. Hybrid/electric vehicle patents (58) were at an all time quarterly high, up 11 over the second quarter and up 12 over the same period in 2010. Biofuel patents (26) were down one from the second quarter and up 10 relative to the 3d quarter of 2010. There were 4 granted hydroelectric patents tieing the second quarter and down 8 from the previous year. Tidal patents were up 5 at 20 from the 2d quarter and up 10 over the year before.

    click to enlarge

    General Electric repeated as quarterly champ, taking the quarterly Clean Energy Patent crown with 52 granted clean energy patents in the third quarter of 2011, topping 2010 annual champion General Motors by 20 patents. GE’s wind patents (39) alone were more than the total of any of the other contenders, but GE also added fuel cell (2), hybrid electric vehicle (4), solar (6) and biomass/biofuel (1) patents. GM rose two places to second compared to the second quarter on the strength of its fuel cell (28) and hybrid electric vehicle patents (3), and a biomass/biofuel patent…

    click to enlarge

    Toyota dropped a spot to third place with 30 granted clean energy patents due to its strong showing in fuel cells (23), hybrid/electric vehicles (6) and solar (1) patents. Samsung trailed Toyota by one with 29 patents mostly in fuel cells (27) with two in solar patents. Honda was in fifth place with 19 fuel cell and 2 hybrid electric vehicle patents while had Panasonic mirrored Honda with 11 and 2 patents, respectively, in the same categories. Vestas had 12 patents - all in wind. Nissan followed the auto company model with 7 fuel cell and 4 hybrid electric vehicle patents. Siemens, not seen among the leaders since 2003, had a fuel cell and 7 wind patents. Hyundai rounded out the top ten this quarter with fuel cell (5) and hybrid electric vehicle (4) patents.

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    As depicted below in the geographic charts, Japan was again the leader in the third quarter among non-U.S. holders of U.S. clean energy patents and the individual U.S. states with 126, up 12 from the second quarter and up 2 from the year prior. New York reached a new high in granted clean energy patents for the second consecutive quarter ever, passing California to move into second place - and first among US states. New York was up 9 from the second quarter and up a remarkable 30 over the third quarter of 2010…

    click to enlarge

    California fell to third place with 58 clean energy patents down 7 from the previous quarter and up thirteen from the year before. Michigan and Korea tied for fourth place with 46 patents. Michigan was up 8 from the second quarter and down the same number compared to the third quarter of last year. Korea was up 5 clean energy patents from the second quarter and 11 from the same period a year before. Germany had 39 clean energy patents in the third quarter which was 10 more than the quarter before and 11 more compared to the year before…

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    Taiwan placed seventh at 22 granted clean energy patents up 11 from the second quarter and an impressive 14 from the same quarter in 2010. France and Denmark followed with 17 and 13 patents, respectively, with France increasing by 6 and up 8 compared to the second quarter of this and the prior year. Denmark dropped by half from last quarter while jumping up by 8 relative to the same period from the year before. Connecticut had 13 granted clean energy patents, up 6 from last quarter and 5 from a year prior. Massachusetts had 11 granted clean energy patents, Canada, Pennsylvania and Oregon had 10 granted clean energy patents while Illinois had 9 and Washington had 8…

    The CEPGI is updated quarterly and is occasionally supplemented with related articles posted on www.cleanenergypatentgrowt hindex.com or http://www.cepgi.com/

    posted by Herman K. Trabish @ 5:46 AM

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